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Title: The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, Complete
6 volumes
Author: Edward Gibbon
Commentator: Rev. H. H. Milman
Release Date: June 7, 2008 [eBook #25717]
[Most recently updated: September 27, 2023]
Language: English
Produced by: David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE ***
History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
Edward Gibbon, Esq.
With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman
Complete Contents
1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)
There are two Project Gutenberg sets produced by David Reed of the
complete “History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire” by
Edward Gibbon: the 1996 edition (PG #731-736) has the advantage of
including all the foonotes by Gibbon and others; the 1997 edition (PG
#890-895) was provided at that time only in html format and footnotes
were not included in the first five volumes of this set.
Project Gutenberg files #731-736 in the utf-8 charset are the basis of
the present complete edition, #25717.
David Reed’s note in the original Project Gutenberg 1997 edition:
I want to make this the best etext edition possible for both
scholars and the general public and would like to thank those who
have helped in making this text better. Especially Dale R.
Fredrickson who has hand entered the Greek characters in the
footnotes and who has suggested retaining the conjoined ae
character in the text.
A set in my library of the first original First American Edition of
1836 was used as a reference for the many questions which came up
during the re-proofing and renovation of the 1996 and 1997 Project
Gutenberg editions. Images of spines, front-leaf, frontispiece, and the
titlepage of the 1836 set are inserted below along with the two large
fold out maps.
_DAVID WIDGER_
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MAPS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Western Empire
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Eastern Empire
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1996 Project Gutenberg Edition
Table of Contents for Ebooks 731-736
VOLUME ONE
Introduction
Preface By The Editor.
Preface Of The Author.
Preface To The First Volume.
Preface To The Fourth Volume Of The Original Quarto Edition.
Chapter I: The Extent Of The Empire In The Age Of The Antonines—Part
I.
The Extent And Military Force Of The Empire In The Age Of The
Antonines.
Chapter I: The Extent Of The Empire In The Age Of The Antonines.—Part
II.
Chapter I: The Extent Of The Empire In The Age Of The Antonines.—Part
III.
Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The Antonines.—Part
I.
Of The Union And Internal Prosperity Of The Roman Empire, In The Age Of
The Antonines.
Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The Antonines.—Part
II.
Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The Antonines.—Part
III.
Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The Antonines. Part
IV.
Chapter III: The Constitution In The Age Of The Antonines.—Part I.
Of The Constitution Of The Roman Empire, In The Age Of The Antonines.
Chapter III: The Constitution In The Age Of The Antonines.—Part II.
Chapter IV: The Cruelty, Follies And Murder Of Commodus.—Part I.
The Cruelty, Follies, And Murder Of Commodus—Election Of Pertinax—His
Attempts To Reform The State—His Assassination By The Prætorian Guards.
Chapter IV: The Cruelty, Follies And Murder Of Commodus.—Part II.
Chapter V: Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus.—Part I.
Public Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus By The Prætorian
Guards—Clodius Albinus In Britain, Pescennius Niger In Syria, And
Septimius Severus In Pannonia, Declare Against The Murderers Of
Pertinax—Civil Wars And Victory Of Severus Over His Three
Rivals—Relaxation Of Discipline—New Maxims Of Government.
Chapter V: Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus.—Part II.
Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
Macrinus.—Part I.
The Death Of Severus.—Tyranny Of Caracalla.—Usurpation Of
Macrinus.—Follies Of Elagabalus.—Virtues Of Alexander
Severus.—Licentiousness Of The Army.—General State Of The Roman
Finances.
Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
Macrinus.—Part II.
Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
Macrinus.—Part III.
Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
Macrinus.—Part IV.
Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death Of
Maximin.—Part I.
The Elevation And Tyranny Of Maximin.—Rebellion In Africa And Italy,
Under The Authority Of The Senate.—Civil Wars And Seditions.—Violent
Deaths Of Maximin And His Son, Of Maximus And Balbinus, And Of The
Three Gordians.— Usurpation And Secular Games Of Philip.
Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death Of
Maximin.—Part II.
Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death Of
Maximin.—Part III.
Chapter VIII: State Of Persion And Restoration Of The Monarchy.—Part
I.
Of The State Of Persia After The Restoration Of The Monarchy By
Artaxerxes.
Chapter VIII: State Of Persion And Restoration Of The Monarchy.—Part
II.
Chapter IX: State Of Germany Until The Barbarians.—Part I.
The State Of Germany Till The Invasion Of The Barbarians In The Time Of
The Emperor Decius.
Chapter IX: State Of Germany Until The Barbarians.—Part II.
Chapter IX: State Of Germany Until The Barbarians.—Part III.
Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And
Gallienus—Part I.
The Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian, And Gallienus.—The
General Irruption Of The Barbarians.—The Thirty Tyrants.
Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And
Gallienus.—Part II.
Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And
Gallienus.—Part III.
Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And
Gallienus.—Part IV.
Chapter XI: Reign Of Claudius, Defeat Of The Goths.—Part I.
Reign Of Claudius.—Defeat Of The Goths.—Victories, Triumph, And Death
Of Aurelian.
Chapter XI: Reign Of Claudius, Defeat Of The Goths.—Part II.
Chapter XI: Reign Of Claudius, Defeat Of The Goths.—Part III.
Chapter XII: Reigns Of Tacitus, Probus, Carus And His Sons.—Part I.
Conduct Of The Army And Senate After The Death Of Aurelian. —Reigns Of
Tacitus, Probus, Carus, And His Sons.
Chapter XII: Reigns Of Tacitus, Probus, Carus And His Sons.—Part II.
Chapter XII: Reigns Of Tacitus, Probus, Carus And His Sons.—Part III.
Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates.—Part I.
The Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates, Maximian, Galerius,
And Constantius.—General Reestablishment Of Order And Tranquillity.—The
Persian War, Victory, And Triumph.—The New Form Of
Administration.—Abdication And Retirement Of Diocletian And Maximian.
Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates.—Part II.
Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates.—Part III.
Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates.—Part IV.
Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The
Empire.—Part I.
Troubles After The Abdication Of Diocletian.—Death Of
Constantius.—Elevation Of Constantine And Maxentius.— Six Emperors At
The Same Time.—Death Of Maximian And Galerius.—Victories Of Constantine
Over Maxentius And Licinus.—Reunion Of The Empire Under The Authority
Of Constantine.
Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The
Empire.—Part II.
Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The
Empire.—Part III.
Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The
Empire.—Part IV.
Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part I.
The Progress Of The Christian Religion, And The Sentiments, Manners,
Numbers, And Condition Of The Primitive Christians.
Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part II.
Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part III.
Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part IV.
Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part V.
Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part VI.
Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part VII
Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part VIII.
Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part IX.
VOLUME TWO
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.—Part I.
The Conduct Of The Roman Government Towards The Christians, From The
Reign Of Nero To That Of Constantine.
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.—Part II.
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.—Part III.
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.—Part IV.
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.—Part V.
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.—Part VI.
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.—Part VII.
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.—Part VIII.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part I.
Foundation Of Constantinople.—Political System Constantine, And His
Successors.—Military Discipline.—The Palace.—The Finances.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part II.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part III.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part IV.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part V.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part VI.
Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.—Part I.
Character Of Constantine.—Gothic War.—Death Of Constantine.—Division Of
The Empire Among His Three Sons.— Persian War.—Tragic Deaths Of
Constantine The Younger And Constans.—Usurpation Of Magnentius.—Civil
War.—Victory Of Constantius.
Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.—Part II.
Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.—Part III.
Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.—Part IV.
Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part I.
Constantius Sole Emperor.—Elevation And Death Of Gallus.— Danger And
Elevation Of Julian.—Sarmatian And Persian Wars.—Victories Of Julian In
Gaul.
Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part II.
Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part III.
Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part IV.
Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part I.
The Motives, Progress, And Effects Of The Conversion Of
Constantine.—Legal Establishment And Constitution Of The Christian Or
Catholic Church.
Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part II.
Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part III.
Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part IV.
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part I.
Persecution Of Heresy.—The Schism Of The Donatists.—The Arian
Controversy.—Athanasius.—Distracted State Of The Church And Empire
Under Constantine And His Sons.— Toleration Of Paganism.
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part II.
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part III.
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part IV.
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part V.
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part VI.
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part VII.
Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part I.
Julian Is Declared Emperor By The Legions Of Gaul.—His March And
Success.—The Death Of Constantius.—Civil Administration Of Julian.
Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part II.
Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part III.
Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part IV.
Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part I.
The Religion Of Julian.—Universal Toleration.—He Attempts To Restore
And Reform The Pagan Worship—To Rebuild The Temple Of Jerusalem—His
Artful Persecution Of The Christians.—Mutual Zeal And Injustice.
Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part II.
Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part III.
Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part IV.
Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part V.
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part I.
Residence Of Julian At Antioch.—His Successful Expedition Against The
Persians.—Passage Of The Tigris—The Retreat And Death Of
Julian.—Election Of Jovian.—He Saves The Roman Army By A Disgraceful
Treaty.
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part II.
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part III.
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part IV.
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part V.
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.—Part I.
The Government And Death Of Jovian.—Election Of Valentinian, Who
Associates His Brother Valens, And Makes The Final Division Of The
Eastern And Western Empires.— Revolt Of Procopius.—Civil And
Ecclesiastical Administration.—Germany.—Britain.—Africa.—The East.— The
Danube.—Death Of Valentinian.—His Two Sons, Gratian And Valentinian
II., Succeed To The Western Empire.
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.—Part II.
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.—Part III.
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.—Part IV.
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.—Part V.
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.—Part VI.
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.—Part VII.
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part I.
Manners Of The Pastoral Nations.—Progress Of The Huns, From China To
Europe.—Flight Of The Goths.—They Pass The Danube.—Gothic War.—Defeat
And Death Of Valens.—Gratian Invests Theodosius With The Eastern
Empire.—His Character And Success.—Peace And Settlement Of The Goths.
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part II.
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part III.
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part IV.
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part V.
VOLUME THREE
Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part I.
Death Of Gratian.—Ruin Of Arianism.—St. Ambrose.—First Civil War,
Against Maximus.—Character, Administration, And Penance Of
Theodosius.—Death Of Valentinian II.—Second Civil War, Against
Eugenius.—Death Of Theodosius.
Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part II.
Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part III.
Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part IV.
Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part V.
Chapter XXVIII: Destruction Of Paganism.—Part I.
Final Destruction Of Paganism.—Introduction Of The Worship Of Saints,
And Relics, Among The Christians.
Chapter XXVIII: Destruction Of Paganism.—Part II.
Chapter XXVIII: Destruction Of Paganism.—Part III.
Chapter XXIX: Division Of Roman Empire Between Sons Of Theodosius.—Part
I.
Final Division Of The Roman Empire Between The Sons Of
Theodosius.—Reign Of Arcadius And Honorius—Administration Of Rufinus
And Stilicho.—Revolt And Defeat Of Gildo In Africa.
Chapter XXIX: Division Of Roman Empire Between Sons Of Theodosius.—Part
II.
Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part I.
Revolt Of The Goths.—They Plunder Greece.—Two Great Invasions Of Italy
By Alaric And Radagaisus.—They Are Repulsed By Stilicho.—The Germans
Overrun Gaul.—Usurpation Of Constantine In The West.—Disgrace And Death
Of Stilicho.
Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part II.
Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part III.
Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part IV.
Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part V.
Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By
Barbarians.—Part I.
Invasion Of Italy By Alaric.—Manners Of The Roman Senate And
People.—Rome Is Thrice Besieged, And At Length Pillaged, By The
Goths.—Death Of Alaric.—The Goths Evacuate Italy.—Fall Of
Constantine.—Gaul And Spain Are Occupied By The Barbarians.
—Independence Of Britain.
Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By
Barbarians.—Part II.
Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By
Barbarians.—Part III.
Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By
Barbarians.—Part IV.
Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By
Barbarians.—Part V.
Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By
Barbarians.—Part VI.
Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By
Barbarians.—Part VII.
Chapter XXXII: Emperors Arcadius, Eutropius, Theodosius II.—Part I.
Arcadius Emperor Of The East.—Administration And Disgrace Of
Eutropius.—Revolt Of Gainas.—Persecution Of St. John
Chrysostom.—Theodosius II. Emperor Of The East.—His Sister
Pulcheria.—His Wife Eudocia.—The Persian War, And Division Of Armenia.
Chapter XXXII: Emperors Arcadius, Eutropius, Theodosius II.—Part II.
Chapter XXXII: Emperors Arcadius, Eutropius, Theodosius II.—Part III.
Chapter XXXIII: Conquest Of Africa By The Vandals.—Part I.
Death Of Honorius.—Valentinian III.—Emperor Of The East.
—Administration Of His Mother Placidia—Aetius And Boniface.—Conquest Of
Africa By The Vandals.
Chapter XXXIII: Conquest Of Africa By The Vandals.—Part II.
Chapter XXXIV: Attila.—Part I.
The Character, Conquests, And Court Of Attila, King Of The Huns.—Death
Of Theodosius The Younger.—Elevation Of Marcian To The Empire Of The
East.
Chapter XXXIV: Attila.—Part II.
Chapter XXXIV: Attila.—Part III.
Chapter XXXV: Invasion By Attila.—Part I.
Invasion Of Gaul By Attila.—He Is Repulsed By Aetius And The
Visigoths.—Attila Invades And Evacuates Italy.—The Deaths Of Attila,
Aetius, And Valentinian The Third.
Chapter XXXV: Invasion By Attila.—Part II.
Chapter XXXV: Invasion By Attila.—Part III.
Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Part I.
Sack Of Rome By Genseric, King Of The Vandals.—His Naval
Depredations.—Succession Of The Last Emperors Of The West, Maximus,
Avitus, Majorian, Severus, Anthemius, Olybrius, Glycerius, Nepos,
Augustulus.—Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Reign Of Odoacer,
The First Barbarian King Of Italy.
Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Part II.
Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Part III.
Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Part IV.
Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Part V.
Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity.—Part I.
Origin Progress, And Effects Of The Monastic Life.— Conversion Of The
Barbarians To Christianity And Arianism.— Persecution Of The Vandals In
Africa.—Extinction Of Arianism Among The Barbarians.
Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity.—Part II.
Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity.—Part III.
Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity.—Part IV.
Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part I.
Reign And Conversion Of Clovis.—His Victories Over The Alemanni,
Burgundians, And Visigoths.—Establishment Of The French Monarchy In
Gaul.—Laws Of The Barbarians.—State Of The Romans.—The Visigoths Of
Spain.—Conquest Of Britain By The Saxons.
Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part II.
Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part III.
Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part IV.
Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part V.
Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part VI.
VOLUME FOUR
Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—Part I.
Zeno And Anastasius, Emperors Of The East.—Birth, Education, And First
Exploits Of Theodoric The Ostrogoth.— His Invasion And Conquest Of
Italy.—The Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—State Of The West.—Military And
Civil Government.— The Senator Boethius.—Last Acts And Death Of
Theodoric.
Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—Part II.
Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—Part III.
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part I.
Elevation Of Justin The Elder.—Reign Of Justinian.—I. The Empress
Theodora.—II. Factions Of The Circus, And Sedition Of
Constantinople.—III. Trade And Manufacture Of Silk.— IV. Finances And
Taxes.—V. Edifices Of Justinian.—Church Of St. Sophia.—Fortifications
And Frontiers Of The Eastern Empire.—Abolition Of The Schools Of
Athens, And The Consulship Of Rome.
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part II.
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part III.
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part IV.
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part V.
Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Character Of Balisarius.—Part I.
Conquests Of Justinian In The West.—Character And First Campaigns Of
Belisarius—He Invades And Subdues The Vandal Kingdom Of Africa—His
Triumph.—The Gothic War.—He Recovers Sicily, Naples, And Rome.—Siege Of
Rome By The Goths.—Their Retreat And Losses.—Surrender Of Ravenna.—
Glory Of Belisarius.—His Domestic Shame And Misfortunes.
Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Character Of Balisarius.—Part II.
Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Character Of Balisarius.—Part III.
Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Character Of Balisarius.—Part IV.
Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Character Of Balisarius.—Part V.
Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part I.
State Of The Barbaric World.—Establishment Of The Lombards On the
Danube.—Tribes And Inroads Of The Sclavonians.— Origin, Empire, And
Embassies Of The Turks.—The Flight Of The Avars.—Chosroes I, Or
Nushirvan, King Of Persia.—His Prosperous Reign And Wars With The
Romans.—The Colchian Or Lazic War.—The Æthiopians.
Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part II.
Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part III.
Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part IV.
Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death Of
Justinian.—Part I.
Rebellions Of Africa.—Restoration Of The Gothic Kingdom By Totila.—Loss
And Recovery Of Rome.—Final Conquest Of Italy By Narses.—Extinction Of
The Ostrogoths.—Defeat Of The Franks And Alemanni.—Last Victory,
Disgrace, And Death Of Belisarius.—Death And Character Of
Justinian.—Comet, Earthquakes, And Plague.
Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death OF
Justinian.—Part II.
Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death Of
Justinian.—Part III.
Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death Of
Justinian.—Part IV.
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part I.
Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—The Laws Of The Kings—The Twelve Of
The Decemvirs.—The Laws Of The People.—The Decrees Of The Senate.—The
Edicts Of The Magistrates And Emperors—Authority Of The
Civilians.—Code, Pandects, Novels, And Institutes Of Justinian:—I.
Rights Of Persons.—II. Rights Of Things.—III. Private Injuries And
Actions.—IV. Crimes And Punishments.
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part II.
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part III.
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part IV.
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part V.
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part VI.
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part VII.
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part VIII.
Chapter XLV: State Of Italy Under The Lombards.—Part I.
Reign Of The Younger Justin.—Embassy Of The Avars.—Their Settlement On
The Danube.—Conquest Of Italy By The Lombards.—Adoption And Reign Of
Tiberius.—Of Maurice.— State Of Italy Under The Lombards And The
Exarchs.—Of Ravenna.—Distress Of Rome.—Character And Pontificate Of
Gregory The First.
Chapter XLV: State Of Italy Under The Lombards.—Part II.
Chapter XLV: State Of Italy Under The Lombards.—Part III.
Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part I.
Revolutions On Persia After The Death Of Chosroes On Nushirvan.—His Son
Hormouz, A Tyrant, Is Deposed.— Usurpation Of Baharam.—Flight And
Restoration Of Chosroes II.—His Gratitude To The Romans.—The Chagan Of
The Avars.— Revolt Of The Army Against Maurice.—His Death.—Tyranny Of
Phocas.—Elevation Of Heraclius.—The Persian War.—Chosroes Subdues
Syria, Egypt, And Asia Minor.—Siege Of Constantinople By The Persians
And Avars.—Persian Expeditions.—Victories And Triumph Of Heraclius.
Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part II.
Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part III.
Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part IV.
Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part I.
Theological History Of The Doctrine Of The Incarnation.—The Human And
Divine Nature Of Christ.—Enmity Of The Patriarchs Of Alexandria And
Constantinople.—St. Cyril And Nestorius. —Third General Council Of
Ephesus.—Heresy Of Eutyches.— Fourth General Council Of
Chalcedon.—Civil And Ecclesiastical Discord.—Intolerance Of
Justinian.—The Three Chapters.—The Monothelite Controversy.—State Of
The Oriental Sects:—I. The Nestorians.—II. The Jacobites.— III. The
Maronites.—IV. The Armenians.—V. The Copts And Abyssinians.
Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part II.
Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part III.
Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part IV.
Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part V.
Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part VI.
Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part
I.
Plan Of The Two Last Volumes.—Succession And Characters Of The Greek
Emperors Of Constantinople, From The Time Of Heraclius To The Latin
Conquest.
Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part
II.
Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part
III.
Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part
IV.
Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part
V.
VOLUME FIVE
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part I.
Introduction, Worship, And Persecution Of Images.—Revolt Of Italy And
Rome.—Temporal Dominion Of The Popes.—Conquest Of Italy By The
Franks.—Establishment Of Images.—Character And Coronation Of
Charlemagne.—Restoration And Decay Of The Roman Empire In The
West.—Independence Of Italy.— Constitution Of The Germanic Body.
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part II.
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part III.
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part IV.
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part V.
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part VI.
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part I.
Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Birth, Character, And
Doctrine Of Mahomet.—He Preaches At Mecca.— Flies To Medina.—Propagates
His Religion By The Sword.— Voluntary Or Reluctant Submission Of The
Arabs.—His Death And Successors.—The Claims And Fortunes Of Ali And His
Descendants.
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part II.
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part III.
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part IV.
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part V.
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part VI.
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part VII.
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part VIII.
Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part I.
The Conquest Of Persia, Syria, Egypt, Africa, And Spain, By The Arabs
Or Saracens.—Empire Of The Caliphs, Or Successors Of Mahomet.—State Of
The Christians, &c., Under Their Government.
Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part II.
Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part III.
Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part IV.
Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part V.
Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part VI.
Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part VII.
Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part I.
The Two Sieges Of Constantinople By The Arabs.—Their Invasion Of
France, And Defeat By Charles Martel.—Civil War Of The Ommiades And
Abbassides.—Learning Of The Arabs.— Luxury Of The Caliphs.—Naval
Enterprises On Crete, Sicily, And Rome.—Decay And Division Of The
Empire Of The Caliphs. —Defeats And Victories Of The Greek Emperors.
Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part II.
Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part III.
Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part IV.
Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part V.
Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part I.
Fate Of The Eastern Empire In The Tenth Century.—Extent And
Division.—Wealth And Revenue.—Palace Of Constantinople.— Titles And
Offices.—Pride And Power Of The Emperors.— Tactics Of The Greeks,
Arabs, And Franks.—Loss Of The Latin Tongue.—Studies And Solitude Of
The Greeks.
Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part II.
Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part III.
Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part IV.
Chapter LIV: Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.—Part I.
Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.—Their Persecution By The Greek
Emperors.—Revolt In Armenia &c.—Transplantation Into
Thrace.—Propagation In The West.—The Seeds, Character, And Consequences
Of The Reformation.
Chapter LIV: Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.—Part II.
Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part I.
The Bulgarians.—Origin, Migrations, And Settlement Of The
Hungarians.—Their Inroads In The East And West.—The Monarchy Of
Russia.—Geography And Trade.—Wars Of The Russians Against The Greek
Empire.—Conversion Of The Barbarians.
Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part II.
Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part III.
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part I.
The Saracens, Franks, And Greeks, In Italy.—First Adventures And
Settlement Of The Normans.—Character And Conquest Of Robert Guiscard,
Duke Of Apulia—Deliverance Of Sicily By His Brother Roger.—Victories Of
Robert Over The Emperors Of The East And West.—Roger, King Of Sicily,
Invades Africa And Greece.—The Emperor Manuel Comnenus.— Wars Of The
Greeks And Normans.—Extinction Of The Normans.
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part II.
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part III.
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part IV.
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part V.
Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part I.
The Turks Of The House Of Seljuk.—Their Revolt Against Mahmud Conqueror
Of Hindostan.—Togrul Subdues Persia, And Protects The Caliphs.—Defeat
And Captivity Of The Emperor Romanus Diogenes By Alp Arslan.—Power And
Magnificence Of Malek Shah.—Conquest Of Asia Minor And Syria.—State And
Oppression Of Jerusalem.—Pilgrimages To The Holy Sepulchre.
Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part II.
Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part III.
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part I.
Origin And Numbers Of The First Crusade.—Characters Of The Latin
Princes.—Their March To Constantinople.—Policy Of The Greek Emperor
Alexius.—Conquest Of Nice, Antioch, And Jerusalem, By The
Franks.—Deliverance Of The Holy Sepulchre.— Godfrey Of Bouillon, First
King Of Jerusalem.—Institutions Of The French Or Latin Kingdom.
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part II.
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part III.
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part IV.
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part V.
VOLUME SIX
Chapter LIX: The Crusades.—Part I.
Chapter LIX: The Crusades.—Part II.
Chapter LIX: The Crusades.—Part III.
Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.—Part I.
Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.—Part II.
Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.—Part III.
Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians.—Part
I.
Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians.—Part
II.
Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians.—Part
III.
Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians.—Part
IV.
Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.—Part I.
Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.—Part II.
Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.—Part III.
Chapter LXIII: Civil Wars And The Ruin Of The Greek Empire.—Part I.
Chapter LXIII: Civil Wars And The Ruin Of The Greek Empire.—Part II.
Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.—Part I.
Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.—Part II.
Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.—Part III.
Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.—Part IV.
Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His Death.—Part I.
Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His Death.—Part II.
Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His Death.—Part III.
Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.—Part I.
Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.—Part II.
Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.—Part III.
Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.—Part IV.
Chapter LXVII: Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.—Part I.
Chapter LXVII: Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.—Part II.
Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of Eastern
Empire.—Part I.
Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of Eastern
Empire.—Part II.
Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of Eastern
Empire.—Part III.
Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of Eastern
Empire.—Part IV.
Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.—Part I.
Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.—Part II.
Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.—Part III.
Chapter LXIX: State Of Rome From The Twelfth Century.—Part IV.
Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.—Part I.
Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.—Part II.
Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.—Part III.
Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State.—Part IV.
Chapter LXXI: Prospect Of The Ruins Of Rome In The Fifteenth
Century.—Part I.
Chapter LXXI: Prospect Of The Ruins Of Rome In The Fifteenth
Century.—Part II.
HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Edward Gibbon, Esq.
With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman
Vol. 1
1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)
Introduction
Preface By The Editor.
The great work of Gibbon is indispensable to the student of
history. The literature of Europe offers no substitute for “The
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” It has obtained undisputed
possession, as rightful occupant, of the vast period which it
comprehends. However some subjects, which it embraces, may have
undergone more complete investigation, on the general view of the
whole period, this history is the sole undisputed authority to
which all defer, and from which few appeal to the original
writers, or to more modern compilers. The inherent interest of
the subject, the inexhaustible labor employed upon it; the
immense condensation of matter; the luminous arrangement; the
general accuracy; the style, which, however monotonous from its
uniform stateliness, and sometimes wearisome from its elaborate
ar., is throughout vigorous, animated, often picturesque, always
commands attention, always conveys its meaning with emphatic
energy, describes with singular breadth and fidelity, and
generalizes with unrivalled felicity of expression; all these
high qualifications have secured, and seem likely to secure, its
permanent place in historic literature.
This vast design of Gibbon, the magnificent whole into which he
has cast the decay and ruin of the ancient civilization, the
formation and birth of the new order of things, will of itself,
independent of the laborious execution of his immense plan,
render “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” an
unapproachable subject to the future historian: 101 in the
eloquent language of his recent French editor, M. Guizot:—
101 (return) [ A considerable portion of this preface has already
appeared before us public in the Quarterly Review.]
“The gradual decline of the most extraordinary dominion which has
ever invaded and oppressed the world; the fall of that immense
empire, erected on the ruins of so many kingdoms, republics, and
states both barbarous and civilized; and forming in its turn, by
its dismemberment, a multitude of states, republics, and
kingdoms; the annihilation of the religion of Greece and Rome;
the birth and the progress of the two new religions which have
shared the most beautiful regions of the earth; the decrepitude
of the ancient world, the spectacle of its expiring glory and
degenerate manners; the infancy of the modern world, the picture
of its first progress, of the new direction given to the mind and
character of man—such a subject must necessarily fix the
attention and excite the interest of men, who cannot behold with
indifference those memorable epochs, during which, in the fine
language of Corneille—
‘Un grand destin commence, un grand destin s’achève.’”
This extent and harmony of design is unquestionably that which
distinguishes the work of Gibbon from all other great historical
compositions. He has first bridged the abyss between ancient and
modern times, and connected together the two great worlds of
history. The great advantage which the classical historians
possess over those of modern times is in unity of plan, of course
greatly facilitated by the narrower sphere to which their
researches were confined. Except Herodotus, the great historians
of Greece—we exclude the more modern compilers, like Diodorus
Siculus—limited themselves to a single period, or at ‘east to the
contracted sphere of Grecian affairs. As far as the Barbarians
trespassed within the Grecian boundary, or were necessarily
mingled up with Grecian politics, they were admitted into the
pale of Grecian history; but to Thucydides and to Xenophon,
excepting in the Persian inroad of the latter, Greece was the
world. Natural unity confined their narrative almost to
chronological order, the episodes were of rare occurrence and
extremely brief. To the Roman historians the course was equally
clear and defined. Rome was their centre of unity; and the
uniformity with which the circle of the Roman dominion spread
around, the regularity with which their civil polity expanded,
forced, as it were, upon the Roman historian that plan which
Polybius announces as the subject of his history, the means and
the manner by which the whole world became subject to the Roman
sway. How different the complicated politics of the European
kingdoms! Every national history, to be complete, must, in a
certain sense, be the history of Europe; there is no knowing to
how remote a quarter it may be necessary to trace our most
domestic events; from a country, how apparently disconnected, may
originate the impulse which gives its direction to the whole
course of affairs.
In imitation of his classical models, Gibbon places _Rome_ as the
cardinal point from which his inquiries diverge, and to which
they bear constant reference; yet how immeasurable the space over
which those inquiries range! how complicated, how confused, how
apparently inextricable the causes which tend to the decline of
the Roman empire! how countless the nations which swarm forth, in
mingling and indistinct hordes, constantly changing the
geographical limits—incessantly confounding the natural
boundaries! At first sight, the whole period, the whole state of
the world, seems to offer no more secure footing to an historical
adventurer than the chaos of Milton—to be in a state of
irreclaimable disorder, best described in the language of the
poet:—
—“A dark
Illimitable ocean, without bound,
Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height,
And time, and place, are lost: where eldest Night
And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold
Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise
Of endless wars, and by confusion stand.”
We feel that the unity and harmony of narrative, which shall
comprehend this period of social disorganization, must be
ascribed entirely to the skill and luminous disposition of the
historian. It is in this sublime Gothic architecture of his work,
in which the boundless range, the infinite variety, the, at first
sight, incongruous gorgeousness of the separate parts,
nevertheless are all subordinate to one main and predominant
idea, that Gibbon is unrivalled. We cannot but admire the manner
in which he masses his materials, and arranges his facts in
successive groups, not according to chronological order, but to
their moral or political connection; the distinctness with which
he marks his periods of gradually increasing decay; and the skill
with which, though advancing on separate parallels of history, he
shows the common tendency of the slower or more rapid religious
or civil innovations. However these principles of composition may
demand more than ordinary attention on the part of the reader,
they can alone impress upon the memory the real course, and the
relative importance of the events. Whoever would justly
appreciate the superiority of Gibbon’s lucid arrangement, should
attempt to make his way through the regular but wearisome annals
of Tillemont, or even the less ponderous volumes of Le Beau. Both
these writers adhere, almost entirely, to chronological order;
the consequence is, that we are twenty times called upon to break
off, and resume the thread of six or eight wars in different
parts of the empire; to suspend the operations of a military
expedition for a court intrigue; to hurry away from a siege to a
council; and the same page places us in the middle of a campaign
against the barbarians, and in the depths of the Monophysite
controversy. In Gibbon it is not always easy to bear in mind the
exact dates but the course of events is ever clear and distinct;
like a skilful general, though his troops advance from the most
remote and opposite quarters, they are constantly bearing down
and concentrating themselves on one point—that which is still
occupied by the name, and by the waning power of Rome. Whether he
traces the progress of hostile religions, or leads from the
shores of the Baltic, or the verge of the Chinese empire, the
successive hosts of barbarians—though one wave has hardly burst
and discharged itself, before another swells up and
approaches—all is made to flow in the same direction, and the
impression which each makes upon the tottering fabric of the
Roman greatness, connects their distant movements, and measures
the relative importance assigned to them in the panoramic
history. The more peaceful and didactic episodes on the
development of the Roman law, or even on the details of
ecclesiastical history, interpose themselves as resting-places or
divisions between the periods of barbaric invasion. In short,
though distracted first by the two capitals, and afterwards by
the formal partition of the empire, the extraordinary felicity of
arrangement maintains an order and a regular progression. As our
horizon expands to reveal to us the gathering tempests which are
forming far beyond the boundaries of the civilized world—as we
follow their successive approach to the trembling frontier—the
compressed and receding line is still distinctly visible; though
gradually dismembered and the broken fragments assuming the form
of regular states and kingdoms, the real relation of those
kingdoms to the empire is maintained and defined; and even when
the Roman dominion has shrunk into little more than the province
of Thrace—when the name of Rome, confined, in Italy, to the walls
of the city—yet it is still the memory, the shade of the Roman
greatness, which extends over the wide sphere into which the
historian expands his later narrative; the whole blends into the
unity, and is manifestly essential to the double catastrophe of
his tragic drama.
But the amplitude, the magnificence, or the harmony of design,
are, though imposing, yet unworthy claims on our admiration,
unless the details are filled up with correctness and accuracy.
No writer has been more severely tried on this point than Gibbon.
He has undergone the triple scrutiny of theological zeal
quickened by just resentment, of literary emulation, and of that
mean and invidious vanity which delights in detecting errors in
writers of established fame. On the result of the trial, we may
be permitted to summon competent witnesses before we deliver our
own judgment.
M. Guizot, in his preface, after stating that in France and
Germany, as well as in England, in the most enlightened countries
of Europe, Gibbon is constantly cited as an authority, thus
proceeds:—
“I have had occasion, during my labors, to consult the writings
of philosophers, who have treated on the finances of the Roman
empire; of scholars, who have investigated the chronology; of
theologians, who have searched the depths of ecclesiastical
history; of writers on law, who have studied with care the Roman
jurisprudence; of Orientalists, who have occupied themselves with
the Arabians and the Koran; of modern historians, who have
entered upon extensive researches touching the crusades and their
influence; each of these writers has remarked and pointed out, in
the ‘History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,’ some
negligences, some false or imperfect views, some omissions, which
it is impossible not to suppose voluntary; they have rectified
some facts, combated with advantage some assertions; but in
general they have taken the researches and the ideas of Gibbon,
as points of departure, or as proofs of the researches or of the
new opinions which they have advanced.”
M. Guizot goes on to state his own impressions on reading
Gibbon’s history, and no authority will have greater weight with
those to whom the extent and accuracy of his historical
researches are known:—
“After a first rapid perusal, which allowed me to feel nothing
but the interest of a narrative, always animated, and,
notwithstanding its extent and the variety of objects which it
makes to pass before the view, always perspicuous, I entered upon
a minute examination of the details of which it was composed; and
the opinion which I then formed was, I confess, singularly
severe. I discovered, in certain chapters, errors which appeared
to me sufficiently important and numerous to make me believe that
they had been written with extreme negligence; in others, I was
struck with a certain tinge of partiality and prejudice, which
imparted to the exposition of the facts that want of truth and
justice, which the English express by their happy term
_misrepresentation_. Some imperfect (_tronquées_) quotations;
some passages, omitted unintentionally or designedly cast a
suspicion on the honesty (_bonne foi_) of the author; and his
violation of the first law of history—increased to my eye by the
prolonged attention with which I occupied myself with every
phrase, every note, every reflection—caused me to form upon the
whole work, a judgment far too rigorous. After having finished my
labors, I allowed some time to elapse before I reviewed the
whole. A second attentive and regular perusal of the entire work,
of the notes of the author, and of those which I had thought it
right to subjoin, showed me how much I had exaggerated the
importance of the reproaches which Gibbon really deserved; I was
struck with the same errors, the same partiality on certain
subjects; but I had been far from doing adequate justice to the
immensity of his researches, the variety of his knowledge, and
above all, to that truly philosophical discrimination (_justesse
d’esprit_) which judges the past as it would judge the present;
which does not permit itself to be blinded by the clouds which
time gathers around the dead, and which prevent us from seeing
that, under the toga, as under the modern dress, in the senate as
in our councils, men were what they still are, and that events
took place eighteen centuries ago, as they take place in our
days. I then felt that his book, in spite of its faults, will
always be a noble work—and that we may correct his errors and
combat his prejudices, without ceasing to admit that few men have
combined, if we are not to say in so high a degree, at least in a
manner so complete, and so well regulated, the necessary
qualifications for a writer of history.”
The present editor has followed the track of Gibbon through many
parts of his work; he has read his authorities with constant
reference to his pages, and must pronounce his deliberate
judgment, in terms of the highest admiration as to his general
accuracy. Many of his seeming errors are almost inevitable from
the close condensation of his matter. From the immense range of
his history, it was sometimes necessary to compress into a single
sentence, a whole vague and diffuse page of a Byzantine
chronicler. Perhaps something of importance may have thus
escaped, and his expressions may not quite contain the whole
substance of the passage from which they are taken. His limits,
at times, compel him to sketch; where that is the case, it is not
fair to expect the full details of the finished picture. At times
he can only deal with important results; and in his account of a
war, it sometimes requires great attention to discover that the
events which seem to be comprehended in a single campaign, occupy
several years. But this admirable skill in selecting and giving
prominence to the points which are of real weight and
importance—this distribution of light and shade—though perhaps it
may occasionally betray him into vague and imperfect statements,
is one of the highest excellencies of Gibbon’s historic manner.
It is the more striking, when we pass from the works of his chief
authorities, where, after laboring through long, minute, and
wearisome descriptions of the accessary and subordinate
circumstances, a single unmarked and undistinguished sentence,
which we may overlook from the inattention of fatigue, contains
the great moral and political result.
Gibbon’s method of arrangement, though on the whole most
favorable to the clear comprehension of the events, leads
likewise to apparent inaccuracy. That which we expect to find in
one part is reserved for another. The estimate which we are to
form, depends on the accurate balance of statements in remote
parts of the work; and we have sometimes to correct and modify
opinions, formed from one chapter by those of another. Yet, on
the other hand, it is astonishing how rarely we detect
contradiction; the mind of the author has already harmonized the
whole result to truth and probability; the general impression is
almost invariably the same. The quotations of Gibbon have
likewise been called in question;—I have, _in general_, been more
inclined to admire their exactitude, than to complain of their
indistinctness, or incompleteness. Where they are imperfect, it
is commonly from the study of brevity, and rather from the desire
of compressing the substance of his notes into pointed and
emphatic sentences, than from dishonesty, or uncandid suppression
of truth.
These observations apply more particularly to the accuracy and
fidelity of the historian as to his facts; his inferences, of
course, are more liable to exception. It is almost impossible to
trace the line between unfairness and unfaithfulness; between
intentional misrepresentation and undesigned false coloring. The
relative magnitude and importance of events must, in some
respect, depend upon the mind before which they are presented;
the estimate of character, on the habits and feelings of the
reader. Christians, like M. Guizot and ourselves, will see some
things, and some persons, in a different light from the historian
of the Decline and Fall. We may deplore the bias of his mind; we
may ourselves be on our guard against the danger of being misled,
and be anxious to warn less wary readers against the same perils;
but we must not confound this secret and unconscious departure
from truth, with the deliberate violation of that veracity which
is the only title of an historian to our confidence. Gibbon, it
may be fearlessly asserted, is rarely chargeable even with the
suppression of any material fact, which bears upon individual
character; he may, with apparently invidious hostility, enhance
the errors and crimes, and disparage the virtues of certain
persons; yet, in general, he leaves us the materials for forming
a fairer judgment; and if he is not exempt from his own
prejudices, perhaps we might write _passions_, yet it must be
candidly acknowledged, that his philosophical bigotry is not more
unjust than the theological partialities of those ecclesiastical
writers who were before in undisputed possession of this province
of history.
We are thus naturally led to that great misrepresentation which
pervades his history—his false estimate of the nature and
influence of Christianity.
But on this subject some preliminary caution is necessary, lest
that should be expected from a new edition, which it is
impossible that it should completely accomplish. We must first be
prepared with the only sound preservative against the false
impression likely to be produced by the perusal of Gibbon; and we
must see clearly the real cause of that false impression. The
former of these cautions will be briefly suggested in its proper
place, but it may be as well to state it, here, somewhat more at
length. The art of Gibbon, or at least the unfair impression
produced by his two memorable chapters, consists in his
confounding together, in one indistinguishable mass, the _origin_
and _apostolic_ propagation of the new religion, with its _later_
progress. No argument for the divine authority of Christianity
has been urged with greater force, or traced with higher
eloquence, than that deduced from its primary development,
explicable on no other hypothesis than a heavenly origin, and
from its rapid extension through great part of the Roman empire.
But this argument—one, when confined within reasonable limits, of
unanswerable force—becomes more feeble and disputable in
proportion as it recedes from the birthplace, as it were, of the
religion. The further Christianity advanced, the more causes
purely human were enlisted in its favor; nor can it be doubted
that those developed with such artful exclusiveness by Gibbon did
concur most essentially to its establishment. It is in the
Christian dispensation, as in the material world. In both it is
as the great First Cause, that the Deity is most undeniably
manifest. When once launched in regular motion upon the bosom of
space, and endowed with all their properties and relations of
weight and mutual attraction, the heavenly bodies appear to
pursue their courses according to secondary laws, which account
for all their sublime regularity. So Christianity proclaims its
Divine Author chiefly in its first origin and development. When
it had once received its impulse from above—when it had once been
infused into the minds of its first teachers—when it had gained
full possession of the reason and affections of the favored
few—it _might be_—and to the Protestant, the rationa Christian,
it is impossible to define _when_ it really _was_—left to make
its way by its native force, under the ordinary secret agencies
of all-ruling Providence. The main question, the _divine origin
of the religion_, was dexterously eluded, or speciously conceded
by Gibbon; his plan enabled him to commence his account, in most
parts, _below the apostolic times;_ and it was only by the
strength of the dark coloring with which he brought out the
failings and the follies of the succeeding ages, that a shadow of
doubt and suspicion was thrown back upon the primitive period of
Christianity.
“The theologian,” says Gibbon, “may indulge the pleasing task of
describing religion as she descended from heaven, arrayed in her
native purity; a more melancholy duty is imposed upon the
historian:—he must discover the inevitable mixture of error and
corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon earth
among a weak and degenerate race of beings.” Divest this passage
of the latent sarcasm betrayed by the subsequent tone of the
whole disquisition, and it might commence a Christian history
written in the most Christian spirit of candor. But as the
historian, by seeming to respect, yet by dexterously confounding
the limits of the sacred land, contrived to insinuate that it was
an Utopia which had no existence but in the imagination of the
theologian—as he _suggested_ rather than affirmed that the days
of Christian purity were a kind of poetic golden age;—so the
theologian, by venturing too far into the domain of the
historian, has been perpetually obliged to contest points on
which he had little chance of victory—to deny facts established
on unshaken evidence—and thence, to retire, if not with the shame
of defeat, yet with but doubtful and imperfect success. Paley,
with his intuitive sagacity, saw through the difficulty of
answering Gibbon by the ordinary arts of controversy; his
emphatic sentence, “Who can refute a sneer?” contains as much
truth as point. But full and pregnant as this phrase is, it is
not quite the whole truth; it is the tone in which the progress
of Christianity is traced, in _comparison_ with the rest of the
splendid and prodigally ornamented work, which is the radical
defect in the “Decline and Fall.” Christianity alone receives no
embellishment from the magic of Gibbon’s language; his
imagination is dead to its moral dignity; it is kept down by a
general zone of jealous disparagement, or neutralized by a
painfully elaborate exposition of its darker and degenerate
periods. There are occasions, indeed, when its pure and exalted
humanity, when its manifestly beneficial influence, can compel
even him, as it were, to fairness, and kindle his unguarded
eloquence to its usual fervor; but, in general, he soon relapses
into a frigid apathy; _affects_ an ostentatiously severe
impartiality; notes all the faults of Christians in every age
with bitter and almost malignant sarcasm; reluctantly, and with
exception and reservation, admits their claim to admiration. This
inextricable bias appears even to influence his manner of
composition. While all the other assailants of the Roman empire,
whether warlike or religious, the Goth, the Hun, the Arab, the
Tartar, Alaric and Attila, Mahomet, and Zengis, and Tamerlane,
are each introduced upon the scene almost with dramatic
animation—their progress related in a full, complete, and
unbroken narrative—the triumph of Christianity alone takes the
form of a cold and critical disquisition. The successes of
barbarous energy and brute force call forth all the consummate
skill of composition; while the moral triumphs of Christian
benevolence—the tranquil heroism of endurance, the blameless
purity, the contempt of guilty fame and of honors destructive to
the human race, which, had they assumed the proud name of
philosophy, would have been blazoned in his brightest words,
because they own religion as their principle—sink into narrow
asceticism. The _glories_ of Christianity, in short, touch on no
chord in the heart of the writer; his imagination remains
unkindled; his words, though they maintain their stately and
measured march, have become cool, argumentative, and inanimate.
Who would obscure one hue of that gorgeous coloring in which
Gibbon has invested the dying forms of Paganism, or darken one
paragraph in his splendid view of the rise and progress of
Mahometanism? But who would not have wished that the same equal
justice had been done to Christianity; that its real character
and deeply penetrating influence had been traced with the same
philosophical sagacity, and represented with more sober, as would
become its quiet course, and perhaps less picturesque, but still
with lively and attractive, descriptiveness? He might have thrown
aside, with the same scorn, the mass of ecclesiastical fiction
which envelops the early history of the church, stripped off the
legendary romance, and brought out the facts in their primitive
nakedness and simplicity—if he had but allowed those facts the
benefit of the glowing eloquence which he denied to them alone.
He might have annihilated the whole fabric of post-apostolic
miracles, if he had left uninjured by sarcastic insinuation those
of the New Testament; he might have cashiered, with Dodwell, the
whole host of martyrs, which owe their existence to the prodigal
invention of later days, had he but bestowed fair room, and dwelt
with his ordinary energy on the sufferings of the genuine
witnesses to the truth of Christianity, the Polycarps, or the
martyrs of Vienne. And indeed, if, after all, the view of the
early progress of Christianity be melancholy and humiliating we
must beware lest we charge the whole of this on the infidelity of
the historian. It is idle, it is disingenuous, to deny or to
dissemble the early depravations of Christianity, its gradual but
rapid departure from its primitive simplicity and purity, still
more, from its spirit of universal love. It may be no unsalutary
lesson to the Christian world, that this silent, this
unavoidable, perhaps, yet fatal change shall have been drawn by
an impartial, or even an hostile hand. The Christianity of every
age may take warning, lest by its own narrow views, its want of
wisdom, and its want of charity, it give the same advantage to
the future unfriendly historian, and disparage the cause of true
religion.
The design of the present edition is partly corrective, partly
supplementary: corrective, by notes, which point out (it is
hoped, in a perfectly candid and dispassionate spirit with no
desire but to establish the truth) such inaccuracies or
misstatements as may have been detected, particularly with regard
to Christianity; and which thus, with the previous caution, may
counteract to a considerable extent the unfair and unfavorable
impression created against rational religion: supplementary, by
adding such additional information as the editor’s reading may
have been able to furnish, from original documents or books, not
accessible at the time when Gibbon wrote.
The work originated in the editor’s habit of noting on the margin
of his copy of Gibbon references to such authors as had
discovered errors, or thrown new light on the subjects treated by
Gibbon. These had grown to some extent, and seemed to him likely
to be of use to others. The annotations of M. Guizot also
appeared to him worthy of being better known to the English
public than they were likely to be, as appended to the French
translation.
The chief works from which the editor has derived his materials
are, I. The French translation, with notes by M. Guizot; 2d
edition, Paris, 1828. The editor has translated almost all the
notes of M. Guizot. Where he has not altogether agreed with him,
his respect for the learning and judgment of that writer has, in
general, induced him to retain the statement from which he has
ventured to differ, with the grounds on which he formed his own
opinion. In the notes on Christianity, he has retained all those
of M. Guizot, with his own, from the conviction, that on such a
subject, to many, the authority of a French statesman, a
Protestant, and a rational and sincere Christian, would appear
more independent and unbiassed, and therefore be more commanding,
than that of an English clergyman.
The editor has not scrupled to transfer the notes of M. Guizot to
the present work. The well-known zeal for knowledge, displayed in
all the writings of that distinguished historian, has led to the
natural inference, that he would not be displeased at the attempt
to make them of use to the English readers of Gibbon. The notes
of M. Guizot are signed with the letter G.
II. The German translation, with the notes of Wenck.
Unfortunately this learned translator died, after having
completed only the first volume; the rest of the work was
executed by a very inferior hand.
The notes of Wenck are extremely valuable; many of them have been
adopted by M. Guizot; they are distinguished by the letter W. 102
102 (return) [ The editor regrets that he has not been able to
find the Italian translation, mentioned by Gibbon himself with
some respect. It is not in our great libraries, the Museum or the
Bodleian; and he has never found any bookseller in London who has
seen it.]
III. The new edition of Le Beau’s “Histoire du Bas Empire, with
notes by M. St. Martin, and M. Brosset.” That distinguished
Armenian scholar, M. St. Martin (now, unhappily, deceased) had
added much information from Oriental writers, particularly from
those of Armenia, as well as from more general sources. Many of
his observations have been found as applicable to the work of
Gibbon as to that of Le Beau.
IV. The editor has consulted the various answers made to Gibbon
on the first appearance of his work; he must confess, with little
profit. They were, in general, hastily compiled by inferior and
now forgotten writers, with the exception of Bishop Watson, whose
able apology is rather a general argument, than an examination of
misstatements. The name of Milner stands higher with a certain
class of readers, but will not carry much weight with the severe
investigator of history.
V. Some few classical works and fragments have come to light,
since the appearance of Gibbon’s History, and have been noticed
in their respective places; and much use has been made, in the
latter volumes particularly, of the increase to our stores of
Oriental literature. The editor cannot, indeed, pretend to have
followed his author, in these gleanings, over the whole vast
field of his inquiries; he may have overlooked or may not have
been able to command some works, which might have thrown still
further light on these subjects; but he trusts that what he has
adduced will be of use to the student of historic truth.
The editor would further observe, that with regard to some other
objectionable passages, which do not involve misstatement or
inaccuracy, he has intentionally abstained from directing
particular attention towards them by any special protest.
The editor’s notes are marked M.
A considerable part of the quotations (some of which in the later
editions had fallen into great confusion) have been verified, and
have been corrected by the latest and best editions of the
authors.
June, 1845.
In this new edition, the text and the notes have been carefully
revised, the latter by the editor.
Some additional notes have been subjoined, distinguished by the
signature M. 1845.
Preface Of The Author.
It is not my intention to detain the reader by expatiating on the
variety or the importance of the subject, which I have undertaken
to treat; since the merit of the choice would serve to render the
weakness of the execution still more apparent, and still less
excusable. But as I have presumed to lay before the public a
_first_ volume only 1 of the History of the Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire, it will, perhaps, be expected that I should
explain, in a few words, the nature and limits of my general
plan.
1 (return) [ The first volume of the quarto, which contained the
sixteen first chapters.]
The memorable series of revolutions, which in the course of about
thirteen centuries gradually undermined, and at length destroyed,
the solid fabric of human greatness, may, with some propriety, be
divided into the three following periods:
I. The first of these periods may be traced from the age of
Trajan and the Antonines, when the Roman monarchy, having
attained its full strength and maturity, began to verge towards
its decline; and will extend to the subversion of the Western
Empire, by the barbarians of Germany and Scythia, the rude
ancestors of the most polished nations of modern Europe. This
extraordinary revolution, which subjected Rome to the power of a
Gothic conqueror, was completed about the beginning of the sixth
century.
II. The second period of the Decline and Fall of Rome may be
supposed to commence with the reign of Justinian, who, by his
laws, as well as by his victories, restored a transient splendor
to the Eastern Empire. It will comprehend the invasion of Italy
by the Lombards; the conquest of the Asiatic and African
provinces by the Arabs, who embraced the religion of Mahomet; the
revolt of the Roman people against the feeble princes of
Constantinople; and the elevation of Charlemagne, who, in the
year eight hundred, established the second, or German Empire of
the West.
III. The last and longest of these periods includes about six
centuries and a half; from the revival of the Western Empire,
till the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, and the
extinction of a degenerate race of princes, who continued to
assume the titles of Cæsar and Augustus, after their dominions
were contracted to the limits of a single city; in which the
language, as well as manners, of the ancient Romans, had been
long since forgotten. The writer who should undertake to relate
the events of this period, would find himself obliged to enter
into the general history of the Crusades, as far as they
contributed to the ruin of the Greek Empire; and he would
scarcely be able to restrain his curiosity from making some
inquiry into the state of the city of Rome, during the darkness
and confusion of the middle ages.
As I have ventured, perhaps too hastily, to commit to the press a
work which in every sense of the word, deserves the epithet of
imperfect. I consider myself as contracting an engagement to
finish, most probably in a second volume, 2a the first of these
memorable periods; and to deliver to the Public the complete
History of the Decline and Fall of Rome, from the age of the
Antonines to the subversion of the Western Empire. With regard to
the subsequent periods, though I may entertain some hopes, I dare
not presume to give any assurances. The execution of the
extensive plan which I have described, would connect the ancient
and modern history of the world; but it would require many years
of health, of leisure, and of perseverance.
2a (return) [ The Author, as it frequently happens, took an
inadequate measure of his growing work. The remainder of the
first period has filled _two_ volumes in quarto, being the third,
fourth, fifth, and sixth volumes of the octavo edition.]
BENTINCK STREET, _February_ 1, 1776.
P. S. The entire History, which is now published, of the Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire in the West, abundantly discharges
my engagements with the Public. Perhaps their favorable opinion
may encourage me to prosecute a work, which, however laborious it
may seem, is the most agreeable occupation of my leisure hours.
BENTINCK STREET, _March_ 1, 1781.
An Author easily persuades himself that the public opinion is
still favorable to his labors; and I have now embraced the
serious resolution of proceeding to the last period of my
original design, and of the Roman Empire, the taking of
Constantinople by the Turks, in the year one thousand four
hundred and fifty-three. The most patient Reader, who computes
that three ponderous 3 volumes have been already employed on the
events of four centuries, may, perhaps, be alarmed at the long
prospect of nine hundred years. But it is not my intention to
expatiate with the same minuteness on the whole series of the
Byzantine history. At our entrance into this period, the reign of
Justinian, and the conquests of the Mahometans, will deserve and
detain our attention, and the last age of Constantinople (the
Crusades and the Turks) is connected with the revolutions of
Modern Europe. From the seventh to the eleventh century, the
obscure interval will be supplied by a concise narrative of such
facts as may still appear either interesting or important.
BENTINCK STREET, _March_ 1, 1782.
3 (return) [ The first six volumes of the octavo edition.]
Preface To The First Volume.
Diligence and accuracy are the only merits which an historical
writer may ascribe to himself; if any merit, indeed, can be
assumed from the performance of an indispensable duty. I may
therefore be allowed to say, that I have carefully examined all
the original materials that could illustrate the subject which I
had undertaken to treat. Should I ever complete the extensive
design which has been sketched out in the Preface, I might
perhaps conclude it with a critical account of the authors
consulted during the progress of the whole work; and however such
an attempt might incur the censure of ostentation, I am persuaded
that it would be susceptible of entertainment, as well as
information.
At present I shall content myself with a single observation.
The biographers, who, under the reigns of Diocletian and
Constantine, composed, or rather compiled, the lives of the
Emperors, from Hadrian to the sons of Carus, are usually
mentioned under the names of Ælius Spartianus, Julius
Capitolinus, Ælius Lampridius, Vulcatius Gallicanus, Trebellius
Pollio and Flavius Vopiscus. But there is so much perplexity in
the titles of the MSS., and so many disputes have arisen among
the critics (see Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin. l. iii. c. 6)
concerning their number, their names, and their respective
property, that for the most part I have quoted them without
distinction, under the general and well-known title of the
_Augustan History_.
Preface To The Fourth Volume Of The Original Quarto Edition.
I now discharge my promise, and complete my design, of writing
the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, both in
the West and the East. The whole period extends from the age of
Trajan and the Antonines, to the taking of Constantinople by
Mahomet the Second; and includes a review of the Crusades, and
the state of Rome during the middle ages. Since the publication
of the first volume, twelve years have elapsed; twelve years,
according to my wish, “of health, of leisure, and of
perseverance.” I may now congratulate my deliverance from a long
and laborious service, and my satisfaction will be pure and
perfect, if the public favor should be extended to the conclusion
of my work.
It was my first intention to have collected, under one view, the
numerous authors, of every age and language, from whom I have
derived the materials of this history; and I am still convinced
that the apparent ostentation would be more than compensated by
real use. If I have renounced this idea, if I have declined an
undertaking which had obtained the approbation of a
master-artist,4 my excuse may be found in the extreme difficulty
of assigning a proper measure to such a catalogue. A naked list
of names and editions would not be satisfactory either to myself
or my readers: the characters of the principal Authors of the
Roman and Byzantine History have been occasionally connected with
the events which they describe; a more copious and critical
inquiry might indeed deserve, but it would demand, an elaborate
volume, which might swell by degrees into a general library of
historical writers. For the present, I shall content myself with
renewing my serious protestation, that I have always endeavored
to draw from the fountain-head; that my curiosity, as well as a
sense of duty, has always urged me to study the originals; and
that, if they have sometimes eluded my search, I have carefully
marked the secondary evidence, on whose faith a passage or a fact
were reduced to depend.
4 (return) [ See Dr. Robertson’s Preface to his History of
America.]
I shall soon revisit the banks of the Lake of Lausanne, a country
which I have known and loved from my early youth. Under a mild
government, amidst a beauteous landscape, in a life of leisure
and independence, and among a people of easy and elegant manners,
I have enjoyed, and may again hope to enjoy, the varied pleasures
of retirement and society. But I shall ever glory in the name and
character of an Englishman: I am proud of my birth in a free and
enlightened country; and the approbation of that country is the
best and most honorable reward of my labors. Were I ambitious of
any other Patron than the Public, I would inscribe this work to a
Statesman, who, in a long, a stormy, and at length an unfortunate
administration, had many political opponents, almost without a
personal enemy; who has retained, in his fall from power, many
faithful and disinterested friends; and who, under the pressure
of severe infirmity, enjoys the lively vigor of his mind, and the
felicity of his incomparable temper. Lord North will permit me to
express the feelings of friendship in the language of truth: but
even truth and friendship should be silent, if he still dispensed
the favors of the crown.
In a remote solitude, vanity may still whisper in my ear, that my
readers, perhaps, may inquire whether, in the conclusion of the
present work, I am now taking an everlasting farewell. They shall
hear all that I know myself, and all that I could reveal to the
most intimate friend. The motives of action or silence are now
equally balanced; nor can I pronounce, in my most secret
thoughts, on which side the scale will preponderate. I cannot
dissemble that six quartos must have tried, and may have
exhausted, the indulgence of the Public; that, in the repetition
of similar attempts, a successful Author has much more to lose
than he can hope to gain; that I am now descending into the vale
of years; and that the most respectable of my countrymen, the men
whom I aspire to imitate, have resigned the pen of history about
the same period of their lives. Yet I consider that the annals of
ancient and modern times may afford many rich and interesting
subjects; that I am still possessed of health and leisure; that
by the practice of writing, some skill and facility must be
acquired; and that, in the ardent pursuit of truth and knowledge,
I am not conscious of decay. To an active mind, indolence is more
painful than labor; and the first months of my liberty will be
occupied and amused in the excursions of curiosity and taste. By
such temptations, I have been sometimes seduced from the rigid
duty even of a pleasing and voluntary task: but my time will now
be my own; and in the use or abuse of independence, I shall no
longer fear my own reproaches or those of my friends. I am fairly
entitled to a year of jubilee: next summer and the following
winter will rapidly pass away; and experience only can determine
whether I shall still prefer the freedom and variety of study to
the design and composition of a regular work, which animates,
while it confines, the daily application of the Author.
Caprice and accident may influence my choice; but the dexterity
of self-love will contrive to applaud either active industry or
philosophic repose.
DOWNING STREET, _May_ 1, 1788.
P. S. I shall embrace this opportunity of introducing two
_verbal_ remarks, which have not conveniently offered themselves
to my notice. 1. As often as I use the definitions of _beyond_
the Alps, the Rhine, the Danube, &c., I generally suppose myself
at Rome, and afterwards at Constantinople; without observing
whether this relative geography may agree with the local, but
variable, situation of the reader, or the historian. 2. In proper
names of foreign, and especially of Oriental origin, it should be
always our aim to express, in our English version, a faithful
copy of the original. But this rule, which is founded on a just
regard to uniformity and truth, must often be relaxed; and the
exceptions will be limited or enlarged by the custom of the
language and the taste of the interpreter. Our alphabets may be
often defective; a harsh sound, an uncouth spelling, might offend
the ear or the eye of our countrymen; and some words, notoriously
corrupt, are fixed, and, as it were, naturalized in the vulgar
tongue. The prophet _Mohammed_ can no longer be stripped of the
famous, though improper, appellation of Mahomet: the well-known
cities of Aleppo, Damascus, and Cairo, would almost be lost in
the strange descriptions of _Haleb, Demashk_, and _Al Cahira:_
the titles and offices of the Ottoman empire are fashioned by the
practice of three hundred years; and we are pleased to blend the
three Chinese monosyllables, _Con-fû-tzee_, in the respectable
name of Confucius, or even to adopt the Portuguese corruption of
Mandarin. But I would vary the use of Zoroaster and _Zerdusht_,
as I drew my information from Greece or Persia: since our
connection with India, the genuine _Timour_ is restored to the
throne of Tamerlane: our most correct writers have retrenched the
_Al_, the superfluous article, from the Koran; and we escape an
ambiguous termination, by adopting _Moslem_ instead of Musulman,
in the plural number. In these, and in a thousand examples, the
shades of distinction are often minute; and I can feel, where I
cannot explain, the motives of my choice.
Chapter I: The Extent Of The Empire In The Age Of The
Antonines—Part I.
Introduction.
The Extent And Military Force Of The Empire In The Age Of The
Antonines.
In the second century of the Christian Æra, the empire of Rome
comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most
civilized portion of mankind. The frontiers of that extensive
monarchy were guarded by ancient renown and disciplined valor.
The gentle but powerful influence of laws and manners had
gradually cemented the union of the provinces. Their peaceful
inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth and
luxury. The image of a free constitution was preserved with
decent reverence: the Roman senate appeared to possess the
sovereign authority, and devolved on the emperors all the
executive powers of government. During a happy period of more
than fourscore years, the public administration was conducted by
the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two
Antonines. It is the design of this, and of the two succeeding
chapters, to describe the prosperous condition of their empire;
and afterwards, from the death of Marcus Antoninus, to deduce the
most important circumstances of its decline and fall; a
revolution which will ever be remembered, and is still felt by
the nations of the earth.
The principal conquests of the Romans were achieved under the
republic; and the emperors, for the most part, were satisfied
with preserving those dominions which had been acquired by the
policy of the senate, the active emulations of the consuls, and
the martial enthusiasm of the people. The seven first centuries
were filled with a rapid succession of triumphs; but it was
reserved for Augustus to relinquish the ambitious design of
subduing the whole earth, and to introduce a spirit of moderation
into the public councils. Inclined to peace by his temper and
situation, it was easy for him to discover that Rome, in her
present exalted situation, had much less to hope than to fear
from the chance of arms; and that, in the prosecution of remote
wars, the undertaking became every day more difficult, the event
more doubtful, and the possession more precarious, and less
beneficial. The experience of Augustus added weight to these
salutary reflections, and effectually convinced him that, by the
prudent vigor of his counsels, it would be easy to secure every
concession which the safety or the dignity of Rome might require
from the most formidable barbarians. Instead of exposing his
person and his legions to the arrows of the Parthians, he
obtained, by an honorable treaty, the restitution of the
standards and prisoners which had been taken in the defeat of
Crassus. 1a
1 (return) [ Dion Cassius, (l. liv. p. 736,) with the annotations
of Reimar, who has collected all that Roman vanity has left upon
the subject. The marble of Ancyra, on which Augustus recorded his
own exploits, asserted that _he compelled_ the Parthians to
restore the ensigns of Crassus.]
His generals, in the early part of his reign, attempted the
reduction of Ethiopia and Arabia Felix. They marched near a
thousand miles to the south of the tropic; but the heat of the
climate soon repelled the invaders, and protected the un-warlike
natives of those sequestered regions. 2c The northern countries
of Europe scarcely deserved the expense and labor of conquest.
The forests and morasses of Germany were filled with a hardy race
of barbarians, who despised life when it was separated from
freedom; and though, on the first attack, they seemed to yield to
the weight of the Roman power, they soon, by a signal act of
despair, regained their independence, and reminded Augustus of
the vicissitude of fortune. 3a On the death of that emperor, his
testament was publicly read in the senate. He bequeathed, as a
valuable legacy to his successors, the advice of confining the
empire within those limits which nature seemed to have placed as
its permanent bulwarks and boundaries: on the west, the Atlantic
Ocean; the Rhine and Danube on the north; the Euphrates on the
east; and towards the south, the sandy deserts of Arabia and
Africa. 4a
2c (return) [ Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 780,) Pliny the elder, (Hist.
Natur. l. vi. c. 32, 35, [28, 29,]) and Dion Cassius, (l. liii.
p. 723, and l. liv. p. 734,) have left us very curious details
concerning these wars. The Romans made themselves masters of
Mariaba, or Merab, a city of Arabia Felix, well known to the
Orientals. (See Abulfeda and the Nubian geography, p. 52) They
were arrived within three days’ journey of the spice country, the
rich object of their invasion.
Note: It is this city of Merab that the Arabs say was the
residence of Belkis, queen of Saba, who desired to see Solomon. A
dam, by which the waters collected in its neighborhood were kept
back, having been swept away, the sudden inundation destroyed
this city, of which, nevertheless, vestiges remain. It bordered
on a country called Adramout, where a particular aromatic plant
grows: it is for this reason that we real in the history of the
Roman expedition, that they were arrived within three days’
journey of the spice country.—G. Compare _Malte-Brun, Geogr_.
Eng. trans. vol. ii. p. 215. The period of this flood has been
copiously discussed by Reiske, (_Program. de vetustâ Epochâ
Arabum, rupturâ cataractæ Merabensis_.) Add. Johannsen, _Hist.
Yemanæ_, p. 282. Bonn, 1828; and see Gibbon, note 16. to Chap.
L.—M.
Note: Two, according to Strabo. The detailed account of Strabo
makes the invaders fail before Marsuabæ this cannot be the same
place as Mariaba. Ukert observes, that Ælius Gallus would not
have failed for want of water before Mariaba. (See M. Guizot’s
note above.) “Either, therefore, they were different places, or
Strabo is mistaken.” (Ukert, _Geographie der Griechen und Römer_,
vol. i. p. 181.) Strabo, indeed, mentions Mariaba distinct from
Marsuabæ. Gibbon has followed Pliny in reckoning Mariaba among
the conquests of Gallus. There can be little doubt that he is
wrong, as Gallus did not approach the capital of Sabæa. Compare
the note of the Oxford editor of Strabo.—M.]
3a (return) [ By the slaughter of Varus and his three legions.
See the first book of the Annals of Tacitus. Sueton. in August.
c. 23, and Velleius Paterculus, l. ii. c. 117, &c. Augustus did
not receive the melancholy news with all the temper and firmness
that might have been expected from his character.]
4a (return) [ Tacit. Annal. l. ii. Dion Cassius, l. lvi. p. 833,
and the speech of Augustus himself, in Julian’s Cæsars. It
receives great light from the learned notes of his French
translator, M. Spanheim.]
Happily for the repose of mankind, the moderate system
recommended by the wisdom of Augustus, was adopted by the fears
and vices of his immediate successors. Engaged in the pursuit of
pleasure, or in the exercise of tyranny, the first Cæsars seldom
showed themselves to the armies, or to the provinces; nor were
they disposed to suffer, that those triumphs which _their_
indolence neglected, should be usurped by the conduct and valor
of their lieutenants. The military fame of a subject was
considered as an insolent invasion of the Imperial prerogative;
and it became the duty, as well as interest, of every Roman
general, to guard the frontiers intrusted to his care, without
aspiring to conquests which might have proved no less fatal to
himself than to the vanquished barbarians. 5
5 (return) [ Germanicus, Suetonius Paulinus, and Agricola were
checked and recalled in the course of their victories. Corbulo
was put to death. Military merit, as it is admirably expressed by
Tacitus, was, in the strictest sense of the word, _imperatoria
virtus_.]
The only accession which the Roman empire received, during the
first century of the Christian Æra, was the province of Britain.
In this single instance, the successors of Cæsar and Augustus
were persuaded to follow the example of the former, rather than
the precept of the latter. The proximity of its situation to the
coast of Gaul seemed to invite their arms; the pleasing though
doubtful intelligence of a pearl fishery attracted their avarice;
6 and as Britain was viewed in the light of a distinct and
insulated world, the conquest scarcely formed any exception to
the general system of continental measures. After a war of about
forty years, undertaken by the most stupid, 7 maintained by the
most dissolute, and terminated by the most timid of all the
emperors, the far greater part of the island submitted to the
Roman yoke. 8 The various tribes of Britain possessed valor
without conduct, and the love of freedom without the spirit of
union. They took up arms with savage fierceness; they laid them
down, or turned them against each other, with wild inconsistency;
and while they fought singly, they were successively subdued.
Neither the fortitude of Caractacus, nor the despair of Boadicea,
nor the fanaticism of the Druids, could avert the slavery of
their country, or resist the steady progress of the Imperial
generals, who maintained the national glory, when the throne was
disgraced by the weakest, or the most vicious of mankind. At the
very time when Domitian, confined to his palace, felt the terrors
which he inspired, his legions, under the command of the virtuous
Agricola, defeated the collected force of the Caledonians, at the
foot of the Grampian Hills; and his fleets, venturing to explore
an unknown and dangerous navigation, displayed the Roman arms
round every part of the island. The conquest of Britain was
considered as already achieved; and it was the design of Agricola
to complete and insure his success, by the easy reduction of
Ireland, for which, in his opinion, one legion and a few
auxiliaries were sufficient. 9 The western isle might be improved
into a valuable possession, and the Britons would wear their
chains with the less reluctance, if the prospect and example of
freedom were on every side removed from before their eyes.
6 (return) [ Cæsar himself conceals that ignoble motive; but it
is mentioned by Suetonius, c. 47. The British pearls proved,
however, of little value, on account of their dark and livid
color. Tacitus observes, with reason, (in Agricola, c. 12,) that
it was an inherent defect. “Ego facilius crediderim, naturam
margaritis deesse quam nobis avaritiam.”]
7 (return) [ Claudius, Nero, and Domitian. A hope is expressed by
Pomponius Mela, l. iii. c. 6, (he wrote under Claudius,) that, by
the success of the Roman arms, the island and its savage
inhabitants would soon be better known. It is amusing enough to
peruse such passages in the midst of London.]
8 (return) [ See the admirable abridgment given by Tacitus, in
the life of Agricola, and copiously, though perhaps not
completely, illustrated by our own antiquarians, Camden and
Horsley.]
9 (return) [ The Irish writers, jealous of their national honor,
are extremely provoked on this occasion, both with Tacitus and
with Agricola.]
But the superior merit of Agricola soon occasioned his removal
from the government of Britain; and forever disappointed this
rational, though extensive scheme of conquest. Before his
departure, the prudent general had provided for security as well
as for dominion. He had observed, that the island is almost
divided into two unequal parts by the opposite gulfs, or, as they
are now called, the Friths of Scotland. Across the narrow
interval of about forty miles, he had drawn a line of military
stations, which was afterwards fortified, in the reign of
Antoninus Pius, by a turf rampart, erected on foundations of
stone. 10 This wall of Antoninus, at a small distance beyond the
modern cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, was fixed as the limit of
the Roman province. The native Caledonians preserved, in the
northern extremity of the island, their wild independence, for
which they were not less indebted to their poverty than to their
valor. Their incursions were frequently repelled and chastised;
but their country was never subdued. 11 The masters of the
fairest and most wealthy climates of the globe turned with
contempt from gloomy hills, assailed by the winter tempest, from
lakes concealed in a blue mist, and from cold and lonely heaths,
over which the deer of the forest were chased by a troop of naked
barbarians. 12
10 (return) [ See Horsley’s Britannia Romana, l. i. c. 10. Note:
Agricola fortified the line from Dumbarton to Edinburgh,
consequently within Scotland. The emperor Hadrian, during his
residence in Britain, about the year 121, caused a rampart of
earth to be raised between Newcastle and Carlisle. Antoninus
Pius, having gained new victories over the Caledonians, by the
ability of his general, Lollius, Urbicus, caused a new rampart of
earth to be constructed between Edinburgh and Dumbarton. Lastly,
Septimius Severus caused a wall of stone to be built parallel to
the rampart of Hadrian, and on the same locality. See John
Warburton’s Vallum Romanum, or the History and Antiquities of the
Roman Wall. London, 1754, 4to.—W. See likewise a good note on the
Roman wall in Lingard’s History of England, vol. i. p. 40, 4to
edit—M.]
11 (return) [ The poet Buchanan celebrates with elegance and
spirit (see his Sylvæ, v.) the unviolated independence of his
native country. But, if the single testimony of Richard of
Cirencester was sufficient to create a Roman province of
Vespasiana to the north of the wall, that independence would be
reduced within very narrow limits.]
12 (return) [ See Appian (in Proœm.) and the uniform imagery of
Ossian’s Poems, which, according to every hypothesis, were
composed by a native Caledonian.]
Such was the state of the Roman frontiers, and such the maxims of
Imperial policy, from the death of Augustus to the accession of
Trajan. That virtuous and active prince had received the
education of a soldier, and possessed the talents of a general.
13 The peaceful system of his predecessors was interrupted by
scenes of war and conquest; and the legions, after a long
interval, beheld a military emperor at their head. The first
exploits of Trajan were against the Dacians, the most warlike of
men, who dwelt beyond the Danube, and who, during the reign of
Domitian, had insulted, with impunity, the Majesty of Rome. 14 To
the strength and fierceness of barbarians they added a contempt
for life, which was derived from a warm persuasion of the
immortality and transmigration of the soul. 15 Decebalus, the
Dacian king, approved himself a rival not unworthy of Trajan; nor
did he despair of his own and the public fortune, till, by the
confession of his enemies, he had exhausted every resource both
of valor and policy. 16 This memorable war, with a very short
suspension of hostilities, lasted five years; and as the emperor
could exert, without control, the whole force of the state, it
was terminated by an absolute submission of the barbarians. 17
The new province of Dacia, which formed a second exception to the
precept of Augustus, was about thirteen hundred miles in
circumference. Its natural boundaries were the Niester, the Teyss
or Tibiscus, the Lower Danube, and the Euxine Sea. The vestiges
of a military road may still be traced from the banks of the
Danube to the neighborhood of Bender, a place famous in modern
history, and the actual frontier of the Turkish and Russian
empires. 18
13 (return) [ See Pliny’s Panegyric, which seems founded on
facts.]
14 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxvii.]
15 (return) [ Herodotus, l. iv. c. 94. Julian in the Cæsars, with
Spanheims observations.]
16 (return) [ Plin. Epist. viii. 9.]
17 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxviii. p. 1123, 1131. Julian in
Cæsaribus Eutropius, viii. 2, 6. Aurelius Victor in Epitome.]
18 (return) [ See a Memoir of M. d’Anville, on the Province of
Dacia, in the Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p.
444—468.]
Trajan was ambitious of fame; and as long as mankind shall
continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than
on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be
the vice of the most exalted characters. The praises of
Alexander, transmitted by a succession of poets and historians,
had kindled a dangerous emulation in the mind of Trajan. Like
him, the Roman emperor undertook an expedition against the
nations of the East; but he lamented with a sigh, that his
advanced age scarcely left him any hopes of equalling the renown
of the son of Philip. 19 Yet the success of Trajan, however
transient, was rapid and specious. The degenerate Parthians,
broken by intestine discord, fled before his arms. He descended
the River Tigris in triumph, from the mountains of Armenia to the
Persian Gulf. He enjoyed the honor of being the first, as he was
the last, of the Roman generals, who ever navigated that remote
sea. His fleets ravaged the coast of Arabia; and Trajan vainly
flattered himself that he was approaching towards the confines of
India. 20 Every day the astonished senate received the
intelligence of new names and new nations, that acknowledged his
sway. They were informed that the kings of Bosphorus, Colchos,
Iberia, Albania, Osrhoene, and even the Parthian monarch himself,
had accepted their diadems from the hands of the emperor; that
the independent tribes of the Median and Carduchian hills had
implored his protection; and that the rich countries of Armenia,
Mesopotamia, and Assyria, were reduced into the state of
provinces. 21 But the death of Trajan soon clouded the splendid
prospect; and it was justly to be dreaded, that so many distant
nations would throw off the unaccustomed yoke, when they were no
longer restrained by the powerful hand which had imposed it.
19 (return) [ Trajan’s sentiments are represented in a very just
and lively manner in the Cæsars of Julian.]
20 (return) [ Eutropius and Sextus Rufus have endeavored to
perpetuate the illusion. See a very sensible dissertation of M.
Freret in the Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxi. p. 55.]
21 (return) [Dion Cassius, l. lxviii.; and the Abbreviators.]
Chapter I: The Extent Of The Empire In The Age Of The
Antonines.—Part II.
It was an ancient tradition, that when the Capitol was founded by
one of the Roman kings, the god Terminus (who presided over
boundaries, and was represented, according to the fashion of that
age, by a large stone) alone, among all the inferior deities,
refused to yield his place to Jupiter himself. A favorable
inference was drawn from his obstinacy, which was interpreted by
the augurs as a sure presage that the boundaries of the Roman
power would never recede. 22 During many ages, the prediction, as
it is usual, contributed to its own accomplishment. But though
Terminus had resisted the Majesty of Jupiter, he submitted to the
authority of the emperor Hadrian. 23 The resignation of all the
eastern conquests of Trajan was the first measure of his reign.
He restored to the Parthians the election of an independent
sovereign; withdrew the Roman garrisons from the provinces of
Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria; and, in compliance with the
precept of Augustus, once more established the Euphrates as the
frontier of the empire. 24 Censure, which arraigns the public
actions and the private motives of princes, has ascribed to envy,
a conduct which might be attributed to the prudence and
moderation of Hadrian. The various character of that emperor,
capable, by turns, of the meanest and the most generous
sentiments, may afford some color to the suspicion. It was,
however, scarcely in his power to place the superiority of his
predecessor in a more conspicuous light, than by thus confessing
himself unequal to the task of defending the conquests of Trajan.
22 (return) [ Ovid. Fast. l. ii. ver. 667. See Livy, and
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, under the reign of Tarquin.]
23 (return) [ St. Augustin is highly delighted with the proof of
the weakness of Terminus, and the vanity of the Augurs. See De
Civitate Dei, iv. 29. * Note: The turn of Gibbon’s sentence is
Augustin’s: “Plus Hadrianum regem hominum, quam regem Deorum
timuisse videatur.”—M]
24 (return) [ See the Augustan History, p. 5, Jerome’s Chronicle,
and all the Epitomizers. It is somewhat surprising, that this
memorable event should be omitted by Dion, or rather by
Xiphilin.]
The martial and ambitious spirit of Trajan formed a very singular
contrast with the moderation of his successor. The restless
activity of Hadrian was not less remarkable when compared with
the gentle repose of Antoninus Pius. The life of the former was
almost a perpetual journey; and as he possessed the various
talents of the soldier, the statesman, and the scholar, he
gratified his curiosity in the discharge of his duty.
Careless of the difference of seasons and of climates, he marched
on foot, and bare-headed, over the snows of Caledonia, and the
sultry plains of the Upper Egypt; nor was there a province of the
empire which, in the course of his reign, was not honored with
the presence of the monarch. 25 But the tranquil life of
Antoninus Pius was spent in the bosom of Italy, and, during the
twenty-three years that he directed the public administration,
the longest journeys of that amiable prince extended no farther
than from his palace in Rome to the retirement of his Lanuvian
villa. 26
25 (return) [ Dion, l. lxix. p. 1158. Hist. August. p. 5, 8. If
all our historians were lost, medals, inscriptions, and other
monuments, would be sufficient to record the travels of Hadrian.
Note: The journeys of Hadrian are traced in a note on Solvet’s
translation of Hegewisch, Essai sur l’Epoque de Histoire Romaine
la plus heureuse pour Genre Humain Paris, 1834, p. 123.—M.]
26 (return) [ See the Augustan History and the Epitomes.]
Notwithstanding this difference in their personal conduct, the
general system of Augustus was equally adopted and uniformly
pursued by Hadrian and by the two Antonines. They persisted in
the design of maintaining the dignity of the empire, without
attempting to enlarge its limits. By every honorable expedient
they invited the friendship of the barbarians; and endeavored to
convince mankind that the Roman power, raised above the
temptation of conquest, was actuated only by the love of order
and justice. During a long period of forty-three years, their
virtuous labors were crowned with success; and if we except a few
slight hostilities, that served to exercise the legions of the
frontier, the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius offer the fair
prospect of universal peace. 27 The Roman name was revered among
the most remote nations of the earth. The fiercest barbarians
frequently submitted their differences to the arbitration of the
emperor; and we are informed by a contemporary historian that he
had seen ambassadors who were refused the honor which they came
to solicit of being admitted into the rank of subjects. 28
27 (return) [ We must, however, remember, that in the time of
Hadrian, a rebellion of the Jews raged with religious fury,
though only in a single province. Pausanias (l. viii. c. 43)
mentions two necessary and successful wars, conducted by the
generals of Pius: 1st. Against the wandering Moors, who were
driven into the solitudes of Atlas. 2d. Against the Brigantes of
Britain, who had invaded the Roman province. Both these wars
(with several other hostilities) are mentioned in the Augustan
History, p. 19.]
28 (return) [ Appian of Alexandria, in the preface to his History
of the Roman Wars.]
The terror of the Roman arms added weight and dignity to the
moderation of the emperors. They preserved peace by a constant
preparation for war; and while justice regulated their conduct,
they announced to the nations on their confines, that they were
as little disposed to endure, as to offer an injury. The military
strength, which it had been sufficient for Hadrian and the elder
Antoninus to display, was exerted against the Parthians and the
Germans by the emperor Marcus. The hostilities of the barbarians
provoked the resentment of that philosophic monarch, and, in the
prosecution of a just defence, Marcus and his generals obtained
many signal victories, both on the Euphrates and on the Danube.
29 The military establishment of the Roman empire, which thus
assured either its tranquillity or success, will now become the
proper and important object of our attention.
29 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxi. Hist. August. in Marco. The Parthian
victories gave birth to a crowd of contemptible historians, whose
memory has been rescued from oblivion and exposed to ridicule, in
a very lively piece of criticism of Lucian.]
In the purer ages of the commonwealth, the use of arms was
reserved for those ranks of citizens who had a country to love, a
property to defend, and some share in enacting those laws, which
it was their interest as well as duty to maintain. But in
proportion as the public freedom was lost in extent of conquest,
war was gradually improved into an art, and degraded into a
trade. 30 The legions themselves, even at the time when they were
recruited in the most distant provinces, were supposed to consist
of Roman citizens. That distinction was generally considered,
either as a legal qualification or as a proper recompense for the
soldier; but a more serious regard was paid to the essential
merit of age, strength, and military stature. 31 In all levies, a
just preference was given to the climates of the North over those
of the South: the race of men born to the exercise of arms was
sought for in the country rather than in cities; and it was very
reasonably presumed, that the hardy occupations of smiths,
carpenters, and huntsmen, would supply more vigor and resolution
than the sedentary trades which are employed in the service of
luxury. 32 After every qualification of property had been laid
aside, the armies of the Roman emperors were still commanded, for
the most part, by officers of liberal birth and education; but
the common soldiers, like the mercenary troops of modern Europe,
were drawn from the meanest, and very frequently from the most
profligate, of mankind.
30 (return) [ The poorest rank of soldiers possessed above forty
pounds sterling, (Dionys. Halicarn. iv. 17,) a very high
qualification at a time when money was so scarce, that an ounce
of silver was equivalent to seventy pounds weight of brass. The
populace, excluded by the ancient constitution, were
indiscriminately admitted by Marius. See Sallust. de Bell.
Jugurth. c. 91. * Note: On the uncertainty of all these
estimates, and the difficulty of fixing the relative value of
brass and silver, compare Niebuhr, vol. i. p. 473, &c. Eng.
trans. p. 452. According to Niebuhr, the relative disproportion
in value, between the two metals, arose, in a great degree from
the abundance of brass or copper.—M. Compare also Dureau ‘de la
Malle Economie Politique des Romains especially L. l. c. ix.—M.
1845.]
31 (return) [ Cæsar formed his legion Alauda of Gauls and
strangers; but it was during the license of civil war; and after
the victory, he gave them the freedom of the city for their
reward.]
32 (return) [ See Vegetius, de Re Militari, l. i. c. 2—7.]
That public virtue, which among the ancients was denominated
patriotism, is derived from a strong sense of our own interest in
the preservation and prosperity of the free government of which
we are members. Such a sentiment, which had rendered the legions
of the republic almost invincible, could make but a very feeble
impression on the mercenary servants of a despotic prince; and it
became necessary to supply that defect by other motives, of a
different, but not less forcible nature—honor and religion. The
peasant, or mechanic, imbibed the useful prejudice that he was
advanced to the more dignified profession of arms, in which his
rank and reputation would depend on his own valor; and that,
although the prowess of a private soldier must often escape the
notice of fame, his own behavior might sometimes confer glory or
disgrace on the company, the legion, or even the army, to whose
honors he was associated. On his first entrance into the service,
an oath was administered to him with every circumstance of
solemnity. He promised never to desert his standard, to submit
his own will to the commands of his leaders, and to sacrifice his
life for the safety of the emperor and the empire. 33 The
attachment of the Roman troops to their standards was inspired by
the united influence of religion and of honor. The golden eagle,
which glittered in the front of the legion, was the object of
their fondest devotion; nor was it esteemed less impious than it
was ignominious, to abandon that sacred ensign in the hour of
danger. 34 These motives, which derived their strength from the
imagination, were enforced by fears and hopes of a more
substantial kind. Regular pay, occasional donatives, and a stated
recompense, after the appointed time of service, alleviated the
hardships of the military life, 35 whilst, on the other hand, it
was impossible for cowardice or disobedience to escape the
severest punishment. The centurions were authorized to chastise
with blows, the generals had a right to punish with death; and it
was an inflexible maxim of Roman discipline, that a good soldier
should dread his officers far more than the enemy. From such
laudable arts did the valor of the Imperial troops receive a
degree of firmness and docility unattainable by the impetuous and
irregular passions of barbarians.
33 (return) [ The oath of service and fidelity to the emperor was
annually renewed by the troops on the first of January.]
34 (return) [ Tacitus calls the Roman eagles, Bellorum Deos. They
were placed in a chapel in the camp, and with the other deities
received the religious worship of the troops. * Note: See also
Dio. Cass. xl. c. 18. —M.]
35 (return) [ See Gronovius de Pecunia vetere, l. iii. p. 120,
&c. The emperor Domitian raised the annual stipend of the
legionaries to twelve pieces of gold, which, in his time, was
equivalent to about ten of our guineas. This pay, somewhat higher
than our own, had been, and was afterwards, gradually increased,
according to the progress of wealth and military government.
After twenty years’ service, the veteran received three thousand
denarii, (about one hundred pounds sterling,) or a proportionable
allowance of land. The pay and advantages of the guards were, in
general, about double those of the legions.]
And yet so sensible were the Romans of the imperfection of valor
without skill and practice, that, in their language, the name of
an army was borrowed from the word which signified exercise. 36
Military exercises were the important and unremitted object of
their discipline. The recruits and young soldiers were constantly
trained, both in the morning and in the evening, nor was age or
knowledge allowed to excuse the veterans from the daily
repetition of what they had completely learnt. Large sheds were
erected in the winter-quarters of the troops, that their useful
labors might not receive any interruption from the most
tempestuous weather; and it was carefully observed, that the arms
destined to this imitation of war, should be of double the weight
which was required in real action. 37 It is not the purpose of
this work to enter into any minute description of the Roman
exercises. We shall only remark, that they comprehended whatever
could add strength to the body, activity to the limbs, or grace
to the motions. The soldiers were diligently instructed to march,
to run, to leap, to swim, to carry heavy burdens, to handle every
species of arms that was used either for offence or for defence,
either in distant engagement or in a closer onset; to form a
variety of evolutions; and to move to the sound of flutes in the
Pyrrhic or martial dance. 38 In the midst of peace, the Roman
troops familiarized themselves with the practice of war; and it
is prettily remarked by an ancient historian who had fought
against them, that the effusion of blood was the only
circumstance which distinguished a field of battle from a field
of exercise. 39 It was the policy of the ablest generals, and
even of the emperors themselves, to encourage these military
studies by their presence and example; and we are informed that
Hadrian, as well as Trajan, frequently condescended to instruct
the unexperienced soldiers, to reward the diligent, and sometimes
to dispute with them the prize of superior strength or dexterity.
40 Under the reigns of those princes, the science of tactics was
cultivated with success; and as long as the empire retained any
vigor, their military instructions were respected as the most
perfect model of Roman discipline.
36 (return) [ _Exercitus ab exercitando_, Varro de Lingua Latina,
l. iv. Cicero in Tusculan. l. ii. 37. 15. There is room for a
very interesting work, which should lay open the connection
between the languages and manners of nations. * Note I am not
aware of the existence, at present, of such a work; but the
profound observations of the late William von Humboldt, in the
introduction to his posthumously published Essay on the Language
of the Island of Java, (uber die Kawi-sprache, Berlin, 1836,) may
cause regret that this task was not completed by that
accomplished and universal scholar.—M.]
37 (return) [ Vegatius, l. ii. and the rest of his first book.]
38 (return) [ The Pyrrhic dance is extremely well illustrated by
M. le Beau, in the Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxxv. p. 262,
&c. That learned academician, in a series of memoirs, has
collected all the passages of the ancients that relate to the
Roman legion.]
39 (return) [ Joseph. de Bell. Judaico, l. iii. c. 5. We are
indebted to this Jew for some very curious details of Roman
discipline.]
40 (return) [ Plin. Panegyr. c. 13. Life of Hadrian, in the
Augustan History.]
Nine centuries of war had gradually introduced into the service
many alterations and improvements. The legions, as they are
described by Polybius, 41 in the time of the Punic wars, differed
very materially from those which achieved the victories of Cæsar,
or defended the monarchy of Hadrian and the Antonines. The
constitution of the Imperial legion may be described in a few
words. 42 The heavy-armed infantry, which composed its principal
strength, 43 was divided into ten cohorts, and fifty-five
companies, under the orders of a correspondent number of tribunes
and centurions. The first cohort, which always claimed the post
of honor and the custody of the eagle, was formed of eleven
hundred and five soldiers, the most approved for valor and
fidelity. The remaining nine cohorts consisted each of five
hundred and fifty-five; and the whole body of legionary infantry
amounted to six thousand one hundred men. Their arms were
uniform, and admirably adapted to the nature of their service: an
open helmet, with a lofty crest; a breastplate, or coat of mail;
greaves on their legs, and an ample buckler on their left arm.
The buckler was of an oblong and concave figure, four feet in
length, and two and a half in breadth, framed of a light wood,
covered with a bull’s hide, and strongly guarded with plates of
brass. Besides a lighter spear, the legionary soldier grasped in
his right hand the formidable _pilum_, a ponderous javelin, whose
utmost length was about six feet, and which was terminated by a
massy triangular point of steel of eighteen inches. 44 This
instrument was indeed much inferior to our modern fire-arms;
since it was exhausted by a single discharge, at the distance of
only ten or twelve paces. Yet when it was launched by a firm and
skilful hand, there was not any cavalry that durst venture within
its reach, nor any shield or corselet that could sustain the
impetuosity of its weight. As soon as the Roman had darted his
_pilum_, he drew his sword, and rushed forwards to close with the
enemy. His sword was a short well-tempered Spanish blade, that
carried a double edge, and was alike suited to the purpose of
striking or of pushing; but the soldier was always instructed to
prefer the latter use of his weapon, as his own body remained
less exposed, whilst he inflicted a more dangerous wound on his
adversary. 45 The legion was usually drawn up eight deep; and the
regular distance of three feet was left between the files as well
as ranks. 46 A body of troops, habituated to preserve this open
order, in a long front and a rapid charge, found themselves
prepared to execute every disposition which the circumstances of
war, or the skill of their leader, might suggest. The soldier
possessed a free space for his arms and motions, and sufficient
intervals were allowed, through which seasonable reinforcements
might be introduced to the relief of the exhausted combatants. 47
The tactics of the Greeks and Macedonians were formed on very
different principles. The strength of the phalanx depended on
sixteen ranks of long pikes, wedged together in the closest
array. 48 But it was soon discovered by reflection, as well as by
the event, that the strength of the phalanx was unable to contend
with the activity of the legion. 49
41 (return) [ See an admirable digression on the Roman
discipline, in the sixth book of his History.]
42 (return) [ Vegetius de Re Militari, l. ii. c. 4, &c.
Considerable part of his very perplexed abridgment was taken from
the regulations of Trajan and Hadrian; and the legion, as he
describes it, cannot suit any other age of the Roman empire.]
43 (return) [Vegetius de Re Militari, l. ii. c. 1. In the purer
age of Cæsar and Cicero, the word miles was almost confined to
the infantry. Under the lower empire, and the times of chivalry,
it was appropriated almost as exclusively to the men at arms, who
fought on horseback.]
44 (return) [ In the time of Polybius and Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, (l. v. c. 45,) the steel point of the pilum seems
to have been much longer. In the time of Vegetius, it was reduced
to a foot, or even nine inches. I have chosen a medium.]
45 (return) [ For the legionary arms, see Lipsius de Militia
Romana, l. iii. c. 2—7.]
46 (return) [ See the beautiful comparison of Virgil, Georgic ii.
v. 279.]
47 (return) [ M. Guichard, Memoires Militaires, tom. i. c. 4, and
Nouveaux Memoires, tom. i. p. 293—311, has treated the subject
like a scholar and an officer.]
48 (return) [ See Arrian’s Tactics. With the true partiality of a
Greek, Arrian rather chose to describe the phalanx, of which he
had read, than the legions which he had commanded.]
49 (return) [ Polyb. l. xvii. (xviii. 9.)]
The cavalry, without which the force of the legion would have
remained imperfect, was divided into ten troops or squadrons; the
first, as the companion of the first cohort, consisted of a
hundred and thirty-two men; whilst each of the other nine
amounted only to sixty-six. The entire establishment formed a
regiment, if we may use the modern expression, of seven hundred
and twenty-six horse, naturally connected with its respective
legion, but occasionally separated to act in the line, and to
compose a part of the wings of the army. 50 The cavalry of the
emperors was no longer composed, like that of the ancient
republic, of the noblest youths of Rome and Italy, who, by
performing their military service on horseback, prepared
themselves for the offices of senator and consul; and solicited,
by deeds of valor, the future suffrages of their countrymen. 51
Since the alteration of manners and government, the most wealthy
of the equestrian order were engaged in the administration of
justice, and of the revenue; 52 and whenever they embraced the
profession of arms, they were immediately intrusted with a troop
of horse, or a cohort of foot. 53 Trajan and Hadrian formed their
cavalry from the same provinces, and the same class of their
subjects, which recruited the ranks of the legion. The horses
were bred, for the most part, in Spain or Cappadocia. The Roman
troopers despised the complete armor with which the cavalry of
the East was encumbered. _Their_ more useful arms consisted in a
helmet, an oblong shield, light boots, and a coat of mail. A
javelin, and a long broad sword, were their principal weapons of
offence. The use of lances and of iron maces they seem to have
borrowed from the barbarians. 54
50 (return) [ Veget. de Re Militari, l. ii. c. 6. His positive
testimony, which might be supported by circumstantial evidence,
ought surely to silence those critics who refuse the Imperial
legion its proper body of cavalry. Note: See also Joseph. B. J.
iii. vi. 2.—M.]
51 (return) [ See Livy almost throughout, particularly xlii. 61.]
52 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 2. The true sense of
that very curious passage was first discovered and illustrated by
M. de Beaufort, Republique Romaine, l. ii. c. 2.]
53 (return) [ As in the instance of Horace and Agricola. This
appears to have been a defect in the Roman discipline; which
Hadrian endeavored to remedy by ascertaining the legal age of a
tribune. * Note: These details are not altogether accurate.
Although, in the latter days of the republic, and under the first
emperors, the young Roman nobles obtained the command of a
squadron or a cohort with greater facility than in the former
times, they never obtained it without passing through a tolerably
long military service. Usually they served first in the prætorian
cohort, which was intrusted with the guard of the general: they
were received into the companionship (contubernium) of some
superior officer, and were there formed for duty. Thus Julius
Cæsar, though sprung from a great family, served first as
contubernalis under the prætor, M. Thermus, and later under
Servilius the Isaurian. (Suet. Jul. 2, 5. Plut. in Par. p. 516.
Ed. Froben.) The example of Horace, which Gibbon adduces to prove
that young knights were made tribunes immediately on entering the
service, proves nothing. In the first place, Horace was not a
knight; he was the son of a freedman of Venusia, in Apulia, who
exercised the humble office of coactor exauctionum, (collector of
payments at auctions.) (Sat. i. vi. 45, or 86.) Moreover, when
the poet was made tribune, Brutus, whose army was nearly entirely
composed of Orientals, gave this title to all the Romans of
consideration who joined him. The emperors were still less
difficult in their choice; the number of tribunes was augmented;
the title and honors were conferred on persons whom they wished
to attack to the court. Augustus conferred on the sons of
senators, sometimes the tribunate, sometimes the command of a
squadron. Claudius gave to the knights who entered into the
service, first the command of a cohort of auxiliaries, later that
of a squadron, and at length, for the first time, the tribunate.
(Suet in Claud. with the notes of Ernesti.) The abuses that arose
caused by the edict of Hadrian, which fixed the age at which that
honor could be attained. (Spart. in Had. &c.) This edict was
subsequently obeyed; for the emperor Valerian, in a letter
addressed to Mulvius Gallinnus, prætorian præfect, excuses
himself for having violated it in favor of the young Probus
afterwards emperor, on whom he had conferred the tribunate at an
earlier age on account of his rare talents. (Vopisc. in Prob.
iv.)—W. and G. Agricola, though already invested with the title
of tribune, was contubernalis in Britain with Suetonius Paulinus.
Tac. Agr. v.—M.]
54 (return) [ See Arrian’s Tactics.]
The safety and honor of the empire was principally intrusted to
the legions, but the policy of Rome condescended to adopt every
useful instrument of war. Considerable levies were regularly made
among the provincials, who had not yet deserved the honorable
distinction of Romans. Many dependent princes and communities,
dispersed round the frontiers, were permitted, for a while, to
hold their freedom and security by the tenure of military
service. 55 Even select troops of hostile barbarians were
frequently compelled or persuaded to consume their dangerous
valor in remote climates, and for the benefit of the state. 56
All these were included under the general name of auxiliaries;
and howsoever they might vary according to the difference of
times and circumstances, their numbers were seldom much inferior
to those of the legions themselves. 57 Among the auxiliaries, the
bravest and most faithful bands were placed under the command of
præfects and centurions, and severely trained in the arts of
Roman discipline; but the far greater part retained those arms,
to which the nature of their country, or their early habits of
life, more peculiarly adapted them. By this institution, each
legion, to whom a certain proportion of auxiliaries was allotted,
contained within itself every species of lighter troops, and of
missile weapons; and was capable of encountering every nation,
with the advantages of its respective arms and discipline. 58 Nor
was the legion destitute of what, in modern language, would be
styled a train of artillery. It consisted in ten military engines
of the largest, and fifty-five of a smaller size; but all of
which, either in an oblique or horizontal manner, discharged
stones and darts with irresistible violence. 59
55 (return) [ Such, in particular, was the state of the
Batavians. Tacit. Germania, c. 29.]
56 (return) [ Marcus Antoninus obliged the vanquished Quadi and
Marcomanni to supply him with a large body of troops, which he
immediately sent into Britain. Dion Cassius, l. lxxi. (c. 16.)]
57 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. iv. 5. Those who fix a regular
proportion of as many foot, and twice as many horse, confound the
auxiliaries of the emperors with the Italian allies of the
republic.]
58 (return) [ Vegetius, ii. 2. Arrian, in his order of march and
battle against the Alani.]
59 (return) [ The subject of the ancient machines is treated with
great knowledge and ingenuity by the Chevalier Folard, (Polybe,
tom. ii. p. 233-290.) He prefers them in many respects to our
modern cannon and mortars. We may observe, that the use of them
in the field gradually became more prevalent, in proportion as
personal valor and military skill declined with the Roman empire.
When men were no longer found, their place was supplied by
machines. See Vegetius, ii. 25. Arrian.]
Chapter I: The Extent Of The Empire In The Age Of The
Antonines.—Part III.
The camp of a Roman legion presented the appearance of a
fortified city. 60 As soon as the space was marked out, the
pioneers carefully levelled the ground, and removed every
impediment that might interrupt its perfect regularity. Its form
was an exact quadrangle; and we may calculate, that a square of
about seven hundred yards was sufficient for the encampment of
twenty thousand Romans; though a similar number of our own troops
would expose to the enemy a front of more than treble that
extent. In the midst of the camp, the prætorium, or general’s
quarters, rose above the others; the cavalry, the infantry, and
the auxiliaries occupied their respective stations; the streets
were broad and perfectly straight, and a vacant space of two
hundred feet was left on all sides between the tents and the
rampart. The rampart itself was usually twelve feet high, armed
with a line of strong and intricate palisades, and defended by a
ditch of twelve feet in depth as well as in breadth. This
important labor was performed by the hands of the legionaries
themselves; to whom the use of the spade and the pickaxe was no
less familiar than that of the sword or _pilum_. Active valor may
often be the present of nature; but such patient diligence can be
the fruit only of habit and discipline. 61
60 (return) [ Vegetius finishes his second book, and the
description of the legion, with the following emphatic
words:—“Universa quæ in quoque belli genere necessaria esse
creduntur, secum legio debet ubique portare, ut in quovis loco
fixerit castra, armatam faciat civitatem.”]
61 (return) [ For the Roman Castrametation, see Polybius, l. vi.
with Lipsius de Militia Romana, Joseph. de Bell. Jud. l. iii. c.
5. Vegetius, i. 21—25, iii. 9, and Memoires de Guichard, tom. i.
c. 1.]
Whenever the trumpet gave the signal of departure, the camp was
almost instantly broke up, and the troops fell into their ranks
without delay or confusion. Besides their arms, which the
legionaries scarcely considered as an encumbrance, they were
laden with their kitchen furniture, the instruments of
fortification, and the provision of many days. 62 Under this
weight, which would oppress the delicacy of a modern soldier,
they were trained by a regular step to advance, in about six
hours, near twenty miles. 63 On the appearance of an enemy, they
threw aside their baggage, and by easy and rapid evolutions
converted the column of march into an order of battle. 64 The
slingers and archers skirmished in the front; the auxiliaries
formed the first line, and were seconded or sustained by the
strength of the legions; the cavalry covered the flanks, and the
military engines were placed in the rear.
62 (return) [ Cicero in Tusculan. ii. 37, [15.]—Joseph. de Bell.
Jud. l. iii. 5, Frontinus, iv. 1.]
63 (return) [ Vegetius, i. 9. See Memoires de l’Academie des
Inscriptions, tom. xxv. p. 187.]
64 (return) [ See those evolutions admirably well explained by M.
Guichard Nouveaux Memoires, tom. i. p. 141—234.]
Such were the arts of war, by which the Roman emperors defended
their extensive conquests, and preserved a military spirit, at a
time when every other virtue was oppressed by luxury and
despotism. If, in the consideration of their armies, we pass from
their discipline to their numbers, we shall not find it easy to
define them with any tolerable accuracy. We may compute, however,
that the legion, which was itself a body of six thousand eight
hundred and thirty-one Romans, might, with its attendant
auxiliaries, amount to about twelve thousand five hundred men.
The peace establishment of Hadrian and his successors was
composed of no less than thirty of these formidable brigades; and
most probably formed a standing force of three hundred and
seventy-five thousand men. Instead of being confined within the
walls of fortified cities, which the Romans considered as the
refuge of weakness or pusillanimity, the legions were encamped on
the banks of the great rivers, and along the frontiers of the
barbarians. As their stations, for the most part, remained fixed
and permanent, we may venture to describe the distribution of the
troops. Three legions were sufficient for Britain. The principal
strength lay upon the Rhine and Danube, and consisted of sixteen
legions, in the following proportions: two in the Lower, and
three in the Upper Germany; one in Rhætia, one in Noricum, four
in Pannonia, three in Mæsia, and two in Dacia. The defence of the
Euphrates was intrusted to eight legions, six of whom were
planted in Syria, and the other two in Cappadocia. With regard to
Egypt, Africa, and Spain, as they were far removed from any
important scene of war, a single legion maintained the domestic
tranquillity of each of those great provinces. Even Italy was not
left destitute of a military force. Above twenty thousand chosen
soldiers, distinguished by the titles of City Cohorts and
Prætorian Guards, watched over the safety of the monarch and the
capital. As the authors of almost every revolution that
distracted the empire, the Prætorians will, very soon, and very
loudly, demand our attention; but, in their arms and
institutions, we cannot find any circumstance which discriminated
them from the legions, unless it were a more splendid appearance,
and a less rigid discipline. 65
65 (return) [ Tacitus (Annal. iv. 5) has given us a state of the
legions under Tiberius; and Dion Cassius (l. lv. p. 794) under
Alexander Severus. I have endeavored to fix on the proper medium
between these two periods. See likewise Lipsius de Magnitudine
Romana, l. i. c. 4, 5.]
The navy maintained by the emperors might seem inadequate to
their greatness; but it was fully sufficient for every useful
purpose of government. The ambition of the Romans was confined to
the land; nor was that warlike people ever actuated by the
enterprising spirit which had prompted the navigators of Tyre, of
Carthage, and even of Marseilles, to enlarge the bounds of the
world, and to explore the most remote coasts of the ocean. To the
Romans the ocean remained an object of terror rather than of
curiosity; 66 the whole extent of the Mediterranean, after the
destruction of Carthage, and the extirpation of the pirates, was
included within their provinces. The policy of the emperors was
directed only to preserve the peaceful dominion of that sea, and
to protect the commerce of their subjects. With these moderate
views, Augustus stationed two permanent fleets in the most
convenient ports of Italy, the one at Ravenna, on the Adriatic,
the other at Misenum, in the Bay of Naples. Experience seems at
length to have convinced the ancients, that as soon as their
galleys exceeded two, or at the most three ranks of oars, they
were suited rather for vain pomp than for real service. Augustus
himself, in the victory of Actium, had seen the superiority of
his own light frigates (they were called Liburnians) over the
lofty but unwieldy castles of his rival. 67 Of these Liburnians
he composed the two fleets of Ravenna and Misenum, destined to
command, the one the eastern, the other the western division of
the Mediterranean; and to each of the squadrons he attached a
body of several thousand marines. Besides these two ports, which
may be considered as the principal seats of the Roman navy, a
very considerable force was stationed at Frejus, on the coast of
Provence, and the Euxine was guarded by forty ships, and three
thousand soldiers. To all these we add the fleet which preserved
the communication between Gaul and Britain, and a great number of
vessels constantly maintained on the Rhine and Danube, to harass
the country, or to intercept the passage of the barbarians. 68 If
we review this general state of the Imperial forces; of the
cavalry as well as infantry; of the legions, the auxiliaries, the
guards, and the navy; the most liberal computation will not allow
us to fix the entire establishment by sea and by land at more
than four hundred and fifty thousand men: a military power,
which, however formidable it may seem, was equalled by a monarch
of the last century, whose kingdom was confined within a single
province of the Roman empire. 69
66 (return) [ The Romans tried to disguise, by the pretence of
religious awe their ignorance and terror. See Tacit. Germania, c.
34.]
67 (return) [ Plutarch, in Marc. Anton. [c. 67.] And yet, if we
may credit Orosius, these monstrous castles were no more than ten
feet above the water, vi. 19.]
68 (return) [ See Lipsius, de Magnitud. Rom. l. i. c. 5. The
sixteen last chapters of Vegetius relate to naval affairs.]
69 (return) [ Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV. c. 29. It must,
however, be remembered, that France still feels that
extraordinary effort.]
We have attempted to explain the spirit which moderated, and the
strength which supported, the power of Hadrian and the Antonines.
We shall now endeavor, with clearness and precision, to describe
the provinces once united under their sway, but, at present,
divided into so many independent and hostile states. Spain, the
western extremity of the empire, of Europe, and of the ancient
world, has, in every age, invariably preserved the same natural
limits; the Pyrenæan Mountains, the Mediterranean, and the
Atlantic Ocean. That great peninsula, at present so unequally
divided between two sovereigns, was distributed by Augustus into
three provinces, Lusitania, Bætica, and Tarraconensis. The
kingdom of Portugal now fills the place of the warlike country of
the Lusitanians; and the loss sustained by the former on the side
of the East, is compensated by an accession of territory towards
the North. The confines of Grenada and Andalusia correspond with
those of ancient Bætica. The remainder of Spain, Gallicia, and
the Asturias, Biscay, and Navarre, Leon, and the two Castiles,
Murcia, Valencia, Catalonia, and Arragon, all contributed to form
the third and most considerable of the Roman governments, which,
from the name of its capital, was styled the province of
Tarragona. 70 Of the native barbarians, the Celtiberians were the
most powerful, as the Cantabrians and Asturians proved the most
obstinate. Confident in the strength of their mountains, they
were the last who submitted to the arms of Rome, and the first
who threw off the yoke of the Arabs.
70 (return) [ See Strabo, l. ii. It is natural enough to suppose,
that Arragon is derived from Tarraconensis, and several moderns
who have written in Latin use those words as synonymous. It is,
however, certain, that the Arragon, a little stream which falls
from the Pyrenees into the Ebro, first gave its name to a
country, and gradually to a kingdom. See d’Anville, Geographie du
Moyen Age, p. 181.]
Ancient Gaul, as it contained the whole country between the
Pyrenees, the Alps, the Rhine, and the Ocean, was of greater
extent than modern France. To the dominions of that powerful
monarchy, with its recent acquisitions of Alsace and Lorraine, we
must add the duchy of Savoy, the cantons of Switzerland, the four
electorates of the Rhine, and the territories of Liege,
Luxemburgh, Hainault, Flanders, and Brabant. When Augustus gave
laws to the conquests of his father, he introduced a division of
Gaul, equally adapted to the progress of the legions, to the
course of the rivers, and to the principal national distinctions,
which had comprehended above a hundred independent states. 71 The
sea-coast of the Mediterranean, Languedoc, Provence, and
Dauphiné, received their provincial appellation from the colony
of Narbonne. The government of Aquitaine was extended from the
Pyrenees to the Loire. The country between the Loire and the
Seine was styled the Celtic Gaul, and soon borrowed a new
denomination from the celebrated colony of Lugdunum, or Lyons.
The Belgic lay beyond the Seine, and in more ancient times had
been bounded only by the Rhine; but a little before the age of
Cæsar, the Germans, abusing their superiority of valor, had
occupied a considerable portion of the Belgic territory. The
Roman conquerors very eagerly embraced so flattering a
circumstance, and the Gallic frontier of the Rhine, from Basil to
Leyden, received the pompous names of the Upper and the Lower
Germany. 72 Such, under the reign of the Antonines, were the six
provinces of Gaul; the Narbonnese, Aquitaine, the Celtic, or
Lyonnese, the Belgic, and the two Germanies.
71 (return) [ One hundred and fifteen _cities_ appear in the
Notitia of Gaul; and it is well known that this appellation was
applied not only to the capital town, but to the whole territory
of each state. But Plutarch and Appian increase the number of
tribes to three or four hundred.]
72 (return) [ D’Anville. Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule.]
We have already had occasion to mention the conquest of Britain,
and to fix the boundary of the Roman Province in this island. It
comprehended all England, Wales, and the Lowlands of Scotland, as
far as the Friths of Dumbarton and Edinburgh. Before Britain lost
her freedom, the country was irregularly divided between thirty
tribes of barbarians, of whom the most considerable were the
Belgæ in the West, the Brigantes in the North, the Silures in
South Wales, and the Iceni in Norfolk and Suffolk. 73 As far as
we can either trace or credit the resemblance of manners and
language, Spain, Gaul, and Britain were peopled by the same hardy
race of savages. Before they yielded to the Roman arms, they
often disputed the field, and often renewed the contest. After
their submission, they constituted the western division of the
European provinces, which extended from the columns of Hercules
to the wall of Antoninus, and from the mouth of the Tagus to the
sources of the Rhine and Danube.
73 (return) [ Whittaker’s History of Manchester, vol. i. c. 3.]
Before the Roman conquest, the country which is now called
Lombardy, was not considered as a part of Italy. It had been
occupied by a powerful colony of Gauls, who, settling themselves
along the banks of the Po, from Piedmont to Romagna, carried
their arms and diffused their name from the Alps to the Apennine.
The Ligurians dwelt on the rocky coast which now forms the
republic of Genoa. Venice was yet unborn; but the territories of
that state, which lie to the east of the Adige, were inhabited by
the Venetians. 74 The middle part of the peninsula, that now
composes the duchy of Tuscany and the ecclesiastical state, was
the ancient seat of the Etruscans and Umbrians; to the former of
whom Italy was indebted for the first rudiments of civilized
life. 75 The Tyber rolled at the foot of the seven hills of Rome,
and the country of the Sabines, the Latins, and the Volsci, from
that river to the frontiers of Naples, was the theatre of her
infant victories. On that celebrated ground the first consuls
deserved triumphs, their successors adorned villas, and _their_
posterity have erected convents. 76 Capua and Campania possessed
the immediate territory of Naples; the rest of the kingdom was
inhabited by many warlike nations, the Marsi, the Samnites, the
Apulians, and the Lucanians; and the sea-coasts had been covered
by the flourishing colonies of the Greeks. We may remark, that
when Augustus divided Italy into eleven regions, the little
province of Istria was annexed to that seat of Roman sovereignty.
77
74 (return) [ The Italian Veneti, though often confounded with
the Gauls, were more probably of Illyrian origin. See M. Freret,
Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xviii. * Note: Or
Liburnian, according to Niebuhr. Vol. i. p. 172.—M.]
75 (return) [ See Maffei Verona illustrata, l. i. * Note: Add
Niebuhr, vol. i., and Otfried Müller, _die Etrusker_, which
contains much that is known, and much that is conjectured, about
this remarkable people. Also Micali, Storia degli antichi popoli
Italiani. Florence, 1832—M.]
76 (return) [ The first contrast was observed by the ancients.
See Florus, i. 11. The second must strike every modern
traveller.]
77 (return) [ Pliny (Hist. Natur. l. iii.) follows the division
of Italy by Augustus.]
The European provinces of Rome were protected by the course of
the Rhine and the Danube. The latter of those mighty streams,
which rises at the distance of only thirty miles from the former,
flows above thirteen hundred miles, for the most part to the
south-east, collects the tribute of sixty navigable rivers, and
is, at length, through six mouths, received into the Euxine,
which appears scarcely equal to such an accession of waters. 78
The provinces of the Danube soon acquired the general appellation
of Illyricum, or the Illyrian frontier, 79 and were esteemed the
most warlike of the empire; but they deserve to be more
particularly considered under the names of Rhætia, Noricum,
Pannonia, Dalmatia, Dacia, Mæsia, Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece.
78 (return) [ Tournefort, Voyages en Grece et Asie Mineure,
lettre xviii.]
79 (return) [ The name of Illyricum originally belonged to the
sea-coast of the Adriatic, and was gradually extended by the
Romans from the Alps to the Euxine Sea. See Severini Pannonia, l.
i. c. 3.]
The province of Rhætia, which soon extinguished the name of the
Vindelicians, extended from the summit of the Alps to the banks
of the Danube; from its source, as far as its conflux with the
Inn. The greatest part of the flat country is subject to the
elector of Bavaria; the city of Augsburg is protected by the
constitution of the German empire; the Grisons are safe in their
mountains, and the country of Tirol is ranked among the numerous
provinces of the house of Austria.
The wide extent of territory which is included between the Inn,
the Danube, and the Save,—Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola,
the Lower Hungary, and Sclavonia,—was known to the ancients under
the names of Noricum and Pannonia. In their original state of
independence, their fierce inhabitants were intimately connected.
Under the Roman government they were frequently united, and they
still remain the patrimony of a single family. They now contain
the residence of a German prince, who styles himself Emperor of
the Romans, and form the centre, as well as strength, of the
Austrian power. It may not be improper to observe, that if we
except Bohemia, Moravia, the northern skirts of Austria, and a
part of Hungary between the Teyss and the Danube, all the other
dominions of the House of Austria were comprised within the
limits of the Roman Empire.
Dalmatia, to which the name of Illyricum more properly belonged,
was a long, but narrow tract, between the Save and the Adriatic.
The best part of the sea-coast, which still retains its ancient
appellation, is a province of the Venetian state, and the seat of
the little republic of Ragusa. The inland parts have assumed the
Sclavonian names of Croatia and Bosnia; the former obeys an
Austrian governor, the latter a Turkish pacha; but the whole
country is still infested by tribes of barbarians, whose savage
independence irregularly marks the doubtful limit of the
Christian and Mahometan power. 80
80 (return) [ A Venetian traveller, the Abbate Fortis, has lately
given us some account of those very obscure countries. But the
geography and antiquities of the western Illyricum can be
expected only from the munificence of the emperor, its
sovereign.]
After the Danube had received the waters of the Teyss and the
Save, it acquired, at least among the Greeks, the name of Ister.
81 It formerly divided Mæsia and Dacia, the latter of which, as
we have already seen, was a conquest of Trajan, and the only
province beyond the river. If we inquire into the present state
of those countries, we shall find that, on the left hand of the
Danube, Temeswar and Transylvania have been annexed, after many
revolutions, to the crown of Hungary; whilst the principalities
of Moldavia and Wallachia acknowledge the supremacy of the
Ottoman Porte. On the right hand of the Danube, Mæsia, which,
during the middle ages, was broken into the barbarian kingdoms of
Servia and Bulgaria, is again united in Turkish slavery.
81 (return) [ The Save rises near the confines of _Istria_, and
was considered by the more early Greeks as the principal stream
of the Danube.]
The appellation of Roumelia, which is still bestowed by the Turks
on the extensive countries of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece,
preserves the memory of their ancient state under the Roman
empire. In the time of the Antonines, the martial regions of
Thrace, from the mountains of Hæmus and Rhodope, to the Bosphorus
and the Hellespont, had assumed the form of a province.
Notwithstanding the change of masters and of religion, the new
city of Rome, founded by Constantine on the banks of the
Bosphorus, has ever since remained the capital of a great
monarchy. The kingdom of Macedonia, which, under the reign of
Alexander, gave laws to Asia, derived more solid advantages from
the policy of the two Philips; and with its dependencies of
Epirus and Thessaly, extended from the Ægean to the Ionian Sea.
When we reflect on the fame of Thebes and Argos, of Sparta and
Athens, we can scarcely persuade ourselves, that so many immortal
republics of ancient Greece were lost in a single province of the
Roman empire, which, from the superior influence of the Achæan
league, was usually denominated the province of Achaia.
Such was the state of Europe under the Roman emperors. The
provinces of Asia, without excepting the transient conquests of
Trajan, are all comprehended within the limits of the Turkish
power. But, instead of following the arbitrary divisions of
despotism and ignorance, it will be safer for us, as well as more
agreeable, to observe the indelible characters of nature. The
name of Asia Minor is attributed with some propriety to the
peninsula, which, confined betwixt the Euxine and the
Mediterranean, advances from the Euphrates towards Europe. The
most extensive and flourishing district, westward of Mount Taurus
and the River Halys, was dignified by the Romans with the
exclusive title of Asia. The jurisdiction of that province
extended over the ancient monarchies of Troy, Lydia, and Phrygia,
the maritime countries of the Pamphylians, Lycians, and Carians,
and the Grecian colonies of Ionia, which equalled in arts, though
not in arms, the glory of their parent. The kingdoms of Bithynia
and Pontus possessed the northern side of the peninsula from
Constantinople to Trebizond. On the opposite side, the province
of Cilicia was terminated by the mountains of Syria: the inland
country, separated from the Roman Asia by the River Halys, and
from Armenia by the Euphrates, had once formed the independent
kingdom of Cappadocia. In this place we may observe, that the
northern shores of the Euxine, beyond Trebizond in Asia, and
beyond the Danube in Europe, acknowledged the sovereignty of the
emperors, and received at their hands either tributary princes or
Roman garrisons. Budzak, Crim Tartary, Circassia, and Mingrelia,
are the modern appellations of those savage countries. 82
82 (return) [ See the Periplus of Arrian. He examined the coasts
of the Euxine, when he was governor of Cappadocia.]
Under the successors of Alexander, Syria was the seat of the
Seleucidæ, who reigned over Upper Asia, till the successful
revolt of the Parthians confined their dominions between the
Euphrates and the Mediterranean. When Syria became subject to the
Romans, it formed the eastern frontier of their empire: nor did
that province, in its utmost latitude, know any other bounds than
the mountains of Cappadocia to the north, and towards the south,
the confines of Egypt, and the Red Sea. Phœnicia and Palestine
were sometimes annexed to, and sometimes separated from, the
jurisdiction of Syria. The former of these was a narrow and rocky
coast; the latter was a territory scarcely superior to Wales,
either in fertility or extent. 821 Yet Phœnicia and Palestine
will forever live in the memory of mankind; since America, as
well as Europe, has received letters from the one, and religion
from the other. 83 A sandy desert, alike destitute of wood and
water, skirts along the doubtful confine of Syria, from the
Euphrates to the Red Sea. The wandering life of the Arabs was
inseparably connected with their independence; and wherever, on
some spots less barren than the rest, they ventured to for many
settled habitations, they soon became subjects to the Roman
empire. 84
821 (return) [ This comparison is exaggerated, with the
intention, no doubt, of attacking the authority of the Bible,
which boasts of the fertility of Palestine. Gibbon’s only
authorities were that of Strabo (l. xvi. 1104) and the present
state of the country. But Strabo only speaks of the neighborhood
of Jerusalem, which he calls barren and arid to the extent of
sixty stadia round the city: in other parts he gives a favorable
testimony to the fertility of many parts of Palestine: thus he
says, “Near Jericho there is a grove of palms, and a country of a
hundred stadia, full of springs, and well peopled.” Moreover,
Strabo had never seen Palestine; he spoke only after reports,
which may be as inaccurate as those according to which he has
composed that description of Germany, in which Gluverius has
detected so many errors. (Gluv. Germ. iii. 1.) Finally, his
testimony is contradicted and refuted by that of other ancient
authors, and by medals. Tacitus says, in speaking of Palestine,
“The inhabitants are healthy and robust; the rains moderate; the
soil fertile.” (Hist. v. 6.) Ammianus Macellinus says also, “The
last of the Syrias is Palestine, a country of considerable
extent, abounding in clean and well-cultivated land, and
containing some fine cities, none of which yields to the other;
but, as it were, being on a parallel, are rivals.”—xiv. 8. See
also the historian Josephus, Hist. vi. 1. Procopius of Cæserea,
who lived in the sixth century, says that Chosroes, king of
Persia, had a great desire to make himself master of Palestine,
_on account of its_ extraordinary fertility, its opulence, and
the great number of its inhabitants. The Saracens thought the
same, and were afraid that Omar. when he went to Jerusalem,
charmed with the fertility of the soil and the purity of the air,
would never return to Medina. (Ockley, Hist. of Sarac. i. 232.)
The importance attached by the Romans to the conquest of
Palestine, and the obstacles they encountered, prove also the
richness and population of the country. Vespasian and Titus
caused medals to be struck with trophies, in which Palestine is
represented by a female under a palm-tree, to signify the
richness of he country, with this legend: _Judæa capta_. Other
medals also indicate this fertility; for instance, that of Herod
holding a bunch of grapes, and that of the young Agrippa
displaying fruit. As to the present state of he country, one
perceives that it is not fair to draw any inference against its
ancient fertility: the disasters through which it has passed, the
government to which it is subject, the disposition of the
inhabitants, explain sufficiently the wild and uncultivated
appearance of the land, where, nevertheless, fertile and
cultivated districts are still found, according to the testimony
of travellers; among others, of Shaw, Maundrel, La Rocque, &c.—G.
The Abbé Guénée, in his _Lettres de quelques Juifs à Mons. de
Voltaire_, has exhausted the subject of the fertility of
Palestine; for Voltaire had likewise indulged in sarcasm on this
subject. Gibbon was assailed on this point, not, indeed, by Mr.
Davis, who, he slyly insinuates, was prevented by his patriotism
as a Welshman from resenting the comparison with Wales, but by
other writers. In his Vindication, he first established the
correctness of his measurement of Palestine, which he estimates
as 7600 square English miles, while Wales is about 7011. As to
fertility, he proceeds in the following dexterously composed and
splendid passage: “The emperor Frederick II., the enemy and the
victim of the clergy, is accused of saying, after his return from
his crusade, that the God of the Jews would have despised his
promised land, if he had once seen the fruitful realms of Sicily
and Naples.” (See Giannone, Istor. Civ. del R. di Napoli, ii.
245.) This raillery, which malice has, perhaps, falsely imputed
to Frederick, is inconsistent with truth and piety; yet it must
be confessed that the soil of Palestine does not contain that
inexhaustible, and, as it were, spontaneous principle of
fertility, which, under the most unfavorable circumstances, has
covered with rich harvests the banks of the Nile, the fields of
Sicily, or the plains of Poland. The Jordan is the only navigable
river of Palestine: a considerable part of the narrow space is
occupied, or rather lost, in the _Dead Sea_ whose horrid aspect
inspires every sensation of disgust, and countenances every tale
of horror. The districts which border on Arabia partake of the
sandy quality of the adjacent desert. The face of the country,
except the sea-coast, and the valley of the Jordan, is covered
with mountains, which appear, for the most part, as naked and
barren rocks; and in the neighborhood of Jerusalem, there is a
real scarcity of the two elements of earth and water. (See
Maundrel’s Travels, p. 65, and Reland’s Palestin. i. 238, 395.)
These disadvantages, which now operate in their fullest extent,
were formerly corrected by the labors of a numerous people, and
the active protection of a wise government. The hills were
clothed with rich beds of artificial mould, the rain was
collected in vast cisterns, a supply of fresh water was conveyed
by pipes and aqueducts to the dry lands. The breed of cattle was
encouraged in those parts which were not adapted for tillage, and
almost every spot was compelled to yield some production for the
use of the inhabitants.
Pater ispe colendi Haud facilem esse viam voluit, primusque par
artem Movit agros; curis acuens mortalia corda, Nec torpere gravi
passus sua Regna veterno. Gibbon, Misc. Works, iv. 540.
But Gibbon has here eluded the question about the land “flowing
with milk and honey.” He is describing Judæa only, without
comprehending Galilee, or the rich pastures beyond the Jordan,
even now proverbial for their flocks and herds. (See Burckhardt’s
Travels, and Hist of Jews, i. 178.) The following is believed to
be a fair statement: “The extraordinary fertility of the whole
country must be taken into the account. No part was waste; very
little was occupied by unprofitable wood; the more fertile hills
were cultivated in artificial terraces, others were hung with
orchards of fruit trees the more rocky and barren districts were
covered with vineyards.” Even in the present day, the wars and
misgovernment of ages have not exhausted the natural richness of
the soil. “Galilee,” says Malte Brun, “would be a paradise were
it inhabited by an industrious people under an enlightened
government. No land could be less dependent on foreign
importation; it bore within itself every thing that could be
necessary for the subsistence and comfort of a simple
agricultural people. The climate was healthy, the seasons
regular; the former rains, which fell about October, after the
vintage, prepared the ground for the seed; that latter, which
prevailed during March and the beginning of April, made it grow
rapidly. Directly the rains ceased, the grain ripened with still
greater rapidity, and was gathered in before the end of May. The
summer months were dry and very hot, but the nights cool and
refreshed by copious dews. In September, the vintage was
gathered. Grain of all kinds, wheat, barley, millet, zea, and
other sorts, grew in abundance; the wheat commonly yielded thirty
for one. Besides the vine and the olive, the almond, the date,
figs of many kinds, the orange, the pomegranate, and many other
fruit trees, flourished in the greatest luxuriance. Great
quantity of honey was collected. The balm-tree, which produced
the opobalsamum, a great object of trade, was probably introduced
from Arabia, in the time of Solomon. It flourished about Jericho
and in Gilead.”—Milman’s Hist. of Jews. i. 177.—M.]
83 (return) [ The progress of religion is well known. The use of
letter was introduced among the savages of Europe about fifteen
hundred years before Christ; and the Europeans carried them to
America about fifteen centuries after the Christian Æra. But in a
period of three thousand years, the Phœnician alphabet received
considerable alterations, as it passed through the hands of the
Greeks and Romans.]
84 (return) [ Dion Cassius, lib. lxviii. p. 1131.]
The geographers of antiquity have frequently hesitated to what
portion of the globe they should ascribe Egypt. 85 By its
situation that celebrated kingdom is included within the immense
peninsula of Africa; but it is accessible only on the side of
Asia, whose revolutions, in almost every period of history, Egypt
has humbly obeyed. A Roman præfect was seated on the splendid
throne of the Ptolemies; and the iron sceptre of the Mamelukes is
now in the hands of a Turkish pacha. The Nile flows down the
country, above five hundred miles from the tropic of Cancer to
the Mediterranean, and marks on either side the extent of
fertility by the measure of its inundations. Cyrene, situate
towards the west, and along the sea-coast, was first a Greek
colony, afterwards a province of Egypt, and is now lost in the
desert of Barca. 851
85 (return) [ Ptolemy and Strabo, with the modern geographers,
fix the Isthmus of Suez as the boundary of Asia and Africa.
Dionysius, Mela, Pliny, Sallust, Hirtius, and Solinus, have
preferred for that purpose the western branch of the Nile, or
even the great Catabathmus, or descent, which last would assign
to Asia, not only Egypt, but part of Libya.]
851 (return) [ The French editor has a long and unnecessary note
on the History of Cyrene. For the present state of that coast and
country, the volume of Captain Beechey is full of interesting
details. Egypt, now an independent and improving kingdom,
appears, under the enterprising rule of Mahommed Ali, likely to
revenge its former oppression upon the decrepit power of the
Turkish empire.—M.—This note was written in 1838. The future
destiny of Egypt is an important problem, only to be solved by
time. This observation will also apply to the new French colony
in Algiers.—M. 1845.]
From Cyrene to the ocean, the coast of Africa extends above
fifteen hundred miles; yet so closely is it pressed between the
Mediterranean and the Sahara, or sandy desert, that its breadth
seldom exceeds fourscore or a hundred miles. The eastern division
was considered by the Romans as the more peculiar and proper
province of Africa. Till the arrival of the Phœnician colonies,
that fertile country was inhabited by the Libyans, the most
savage of mankind. Under the immediate jurisdiction of Carthage,
it became the centre of commerce and empire; but the republic of
Carthage is now degenerated into the feeble and disorderly states
of Tripoli and Tunis. The military government of Algiers
oppresses the wide extent of Numidia, as it was once united under
Massinissa and Jugurtha; but in the time of Augustus, the limits
of Numidia were contracted; and, at least, two thirds of the
country acquiesced in the name of Mauritania, with the epithet of
Cæsariensis. The genuine Mauritania, or country of the Moors,
which, from the ancient city of Tingi, or Tangier, was
distinguished by the appellation of Tingitana, is represented by
the modern kingdom of Fez. Salle, on the Ocean, so infamous at
present for its piratical depredations, was noticed by the
Romans, as the extreme object of their power, and almost of their
geography. A city of their foundation may still be discovered
near Mequinez, the residence of the barbarian whom we condescend
to style the Emperor of Morocco; but it does not appear, that his
more southern dominions, Morocco itself, and Segelmessa, were
ever comprehended within the Roman province. The western parts of
Africa are intersected by the branches of Mount Atlas, a name so
idly celebrated by the fancy of poets; 86 but which is now
diffused over the immense ocean that rolls between the ancient
and the new continent. 87
86 (return) [ The long range, moderate height, and gentle
declivity of Mount Atlas, (see Shaw’s Travels, p. 5,) are very
unlike a solitary mountain which rears its head into the clouds,
and seems to support the heavens. The peak of Teneriff, on the
contrary, rises a league and a half above the surface of the sea;
and, as it was frequently visited by the Phœnicians, might engage
the notice of the Greek poets. See Buffon, Histoire Naturelle,
tom. i. p. 312. Histoire des Voyages, tom. ii.]
87 (return) [ M. de Voltaire, tom. xiv. p. 297, unsupported by
either fact or probability, has generously bestowed the Canary
Islands on the Roman empire.]
Having now finished the circuit of the Roman empire, we may
observe, that Africa is divided from Spain by a narrow strait of
about twelve miles, through which the Atlantic flows into the
Mediterranean. The columns of Hercules, so famous among the
ancients, were two mountains which seemed to have been torn
asunder by some convulsion of the elements; and at the foot of
the European mountain, the fortress of Gibraltar is now seated.
The whole extent of the Mediterranean Sea, its coasts and its
islands, were comprised within the Roman dominion. Of the larger
islands, the two Baleares, which derive their name of Majorca and
Minorca from their respective size, are subject at present, the
former to Spain, the latter to Great Britain. 871 It is easier to
deplore the fate, than to describe the actual condition, of
Corsica. 872 Two Italian sovereigns assume a regal title from
Sardinia and Sicily. Crete, or Candia, with Cyprus, and most of
the smaller islands of Greece and Asia, have been subdued by the
Turkish arms, whilst the little rock of Malta defies their power,
and has emerged, under the government of its military Order, into
fame and opulence. 873
871 (return) [ Minorca was lost to Great Britain in 1782. Ann.
Register for that year.—M.]
872 (return) [ The gallant struggles of the Corsicans for their
independence, under Paoli, were brought to a close in the year
1769. This volume was published in 1776. See Botta, Storia
d’Italia, vol. xiv.—M.]
873 (return) [ Malta, it need scarcely be said, is now in the
possession of the English. We have not, however, thought it
necessary to notice every change in the political state of the
world, since the time of Gibbon.—M]
This long enumeration of provinces, whose broken fragments have
formed so many powerful kingdoms, might almost induce us to
forgive the vanity or ignorance of the ancients. Dazzled with the
extensive sway, the irresistible strength, and the real or
affected moderation of the emperors, they permitted themselves to
despise, and sometimes to forget, the outlying countries which
had been left in the enjoyment of a barbarous independence; and
they gradually usurped the license of confounding the Roman
monarchy with the globe of the earth. 88 But the temper, as well
as knowledge, of a modern historian, require a more sober and
accurate language. He may impress a juster image of the greatness
of Rome, by observing that the empire was above two thousand
miles in breadth, from the wall of Antoninus and the northern
limits of Dacia, to Mount Atlas and the tropic of Cancer; that it
extended in length more than three thousand miles from the
Western Ocean to the Euphrates; that it was situated in the
finest part of the Temperate Zone, between the twenty-fourth and
fifty-sixth degrees of northern latitude; and that it was
supposed to contain above sixteen hundred thousand square miles,
for the most part of fertile and well-cultivated land. 89
88 (return) [ Bergier, Hist. des Grands Chemins, l. iii. c. 1, 2,
3, 4, a very useful collection.]
89 (return) [ See Templeman’s Survey of the Globe; but I distrust
both the Doctor’s learning and his maps.]
Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The
Antonines.—Part I.
Of The Union And Internal Prosperity Of The Roman Empire, In The Age Of
The Antonines.
It is not alone by the rapidity, or extent of conquest, that we
should estimate the greatness of Rome. The sovereign of the
Russian deserts commands a larger portion of the globe. In the
seventh summer after his passage of the Hellespont, Alexander
erected the Macedonian trophies on the banks of the Hyphasis. 1
Within less than a century, the irresistible Zingis, and the
Mogul princes of his race, spread their cruel devastations and
transient empire from the Sea of China, to the confines of Egypt
and Germany. 2 But the firm edifice of Roman power was raised and
preserved by the wisdom of ages. The obedient provinces of Trajan
and the Antonines were united by laws, and adorned by arts. They
might occasionally suffer from the partial abuse of delegated
authority; but the general principle of government was wise,
simple, and beneficent. They enjoyed the religion of their
ancestors, whilst in civil honors and advantages they were
exalted, by just degrees, to an equality with their conquerors.
1 (return) [ They were erected about the midway between Lahor and
Delhi. The conquests of Alexander in Hindostan were confined to
the Punjab, a country watered by the five great streams of the
Indus. * Note: The Hyphasis is one of the five rivers which join
the Indus or the Sind, after having traversed the province of the
Pendj-ab—a name which in Persian, signifies _five rivers_. * * *
G. The five rivers were, 1. The Hydaspes, now the Chelum, Behni,
or Bedusta, (_Sanscrit_, Vitashà, Arrow-swift.) 2. The Acesines,
the Chenab, (_Sanscrit_, Chandrabhágâ, Moon-gift.) 3. Hydraotes,
the Ravey, or Iraoty, (_Sanscrit_, Irâvatî.) 4. Hyphasis, the
Beyah, (_Sanscrit_, Vepâsà, Fetterless.) 5. The Satadru,
(_Sanscrit_, the Hundred Streamed,) the Sutledj, known first to
the Greeks in the time of Ptolemy. Rennel. Vincent, Commerce of
Anc. book 2. Lassen, Pentapotam. Ind. Wilson’s Sanscrit Dict.,
and the valuable memoir of Lieut. Burnes, Journal of London
Geogr. Society, vol. iii. p. 2, with the travels of that very
able writer. Compare Gibbon’s own note, c. lxv. note 25.—M
substit. for G.]
2 (return) [ See M. de Guignes, Histoire des Huns, l. xv. xvi.
and xvii.]
I. The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it
concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of
the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of
their subjects. The various modes of worship, which prevailed in
the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally
true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the
magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not
only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.
The superstition of the people was not imbittered by any mixture
of theological rancor; nor was it confined by the chains of any
speculative system. The devout polytheist, though fondly attached
to his national rites, admitted with implicit faith the different
religions of the earth. 3 Fear, gratitude, and curiosity, a dream
or an omen, a singular disorder, or a distant journey,
perpetually disposed him to multiply the articles of his belief,
and to enlarge the list of his protectors. The thin texture of
the Pagan mythology was interwoven with various but not
discordant materials. As soon as it was allowed that sages and
heroes, who had lived or who had died for the benefit of their
country, were exalted to a state of power and immortality, it was
universally confessed, that they deserved, if not the adoration,
at least the reverence, of all mankind. The deities of a thousand
groves and a thousand streams possessed, in peace, their local
and respective influence; nor could the Romans who deprecated the
wrath of the Tiber, deride the Egyptian who presented his
offering to the beneficent genius of the Nile. The visible powers
of nature, the planets, and the elements were the same throughout
the universe. The invisible governors of the moral world were
inevitably cast in a similar mould of fiction and allegory. Every
virtue, and even vice, acquired its divine representative; every
art and profession its patron, whose attributes, in the most
distant ages and countries, were uniformly derived from the
character of their peculiar votaries. A republic of gods of such
opposite tempers and interests required, in every system, the
moderating hand of a supreme magistrate, who, by the progress of
knowledge and flattery, was gradually invested with the sublime
perfections of an Eternal Parent, and an Omnipotent Monarch. 4
Such was the mild spirit of antiquity, that the nations were less
attentive to the difference, than to the resemblance, of their
religious worship. The Greek, the Roman, and the Barbarian, as
they met before their respective altars, easily persuaded
themselves, that under various names, and with various
ceremonies, they adored the same deities. 5 The elegant mythology
of Homer gave a beautiful, and almost a regular form, to the
polytheism of the ancient world.
3 (return) [ There is not any writer who describes in so lively a
manner as Herodotus the true genius of polytheism. The best
commentary may be found in Mr. Hume’s Natural History of
Religion; and the best contrast in Bossuet’s Universal History.
Some obscure traces of an intolerant spirit appear in the conduct
of the Egyptians, (see Juvenal, Sat. xv.;) and the Christians, as
well as Jews, who lived under the Roman empire, formed a very
important exception; so important indeed, that the discussion
will require a distinct chapter of this work. * Note: M.
Constant, in his very learned and eloquent work, “Sur la
Religion,” with the two additional volumes, “Du Polytheisme
Romain,” has considered the whole history of polytheism in a tone
of philosophy, which, without subscribing to all his opinions, we
may be permitted to admire. “The boasted tolerance of polytheism
did not rest upon the respect due from society to the freedom of
individual opinion. The polytheistic nations, tolerant as they
were towards each other, as separate states, were not the less
ignorant of the eternal principle, the only basis of enlightened
toleration, that every one has a right to worship God in the
manner which seems to him the best. Citizens, on the contrary,
were bound to conform to the religion of the state; they had not
the liberty to adopt a foreign religion, though that religion
might be legally recognized in their own city, for the strangers
who were its votaries.” —Sur la Religion, v. 184. Du. Polyth.
Rom. ii. 308. At this time, the growing religious indifference,
and the general administration of the empire by Romans, who,
being strangers, would do no more than protect, not enlist
themselves in the cause of the local superstitions, had
introduced great laxity. But intolerance was clearly the theory
both of the Greek and Roman law. The subject is more fully
considered in another place.—M.]
4 (return) [ The rights, powers, and pretensions of the sovereign
of Olympus are very clearly described in the xvth book of the
Iliad; in the Greek original, I mean; for Mr. Pope, without
perceiving it, has improved the theology of Homer. * Note: There
is a curious coincidence between Gibbon’s expressions and those
of the newly-recovered “De Republica” of Cicero, though the
argument is rather the converse, lib. i. c. 36. “Sive hæc ad
utilitatem vitæ constitute sint a principibus rerum publicarum,
ut rex putaretur unus esse in cœlo, qui nutu, ut ait Homerus,
totum Olympum converteret, idemque et rex et patos haberetur
omnium.”—M.]
5 (return) [ See, for instance, Cæsar de Bell. Gall. vi. 17.
Within a century or two, the Gauls themselves applied to their
gods the names of Mercury, Mars, Apollo, &c.]
The philosophers of Greece deduced their morals from the nature
of man, rather than from that of God. They meditated, however, on
the Divine Nature, as a very curious and important speculation;
and in the profound inquiry, they displayed the strength and
weakness of the human understanding. 6 Of the four most
celebrated schools, the Stoics and the Platonists endeavored to
reconcile the jaring interests of reason and piety. They have
left us the most sublime proofs of the existence and perfections
of the first cause; but, as it was impossible for them to
conceive the creation of matter, the workman in the Stoic
philosophy was not sufficiently distinguished from the work;
whilst, on the contrary, the spiritual God of Plato and his
disciples resembled an idea, rather than a substance. The
opinions of the Academics and Epicureans were of a less religious
cast; but whilst the modest science of the former induced them to
doubt, the positive ignorance of the latter urged them to deny,
the providence of a Supreme Ruler. The spirit of inquiry,
prompted by emulation, and supported by freedom, had divided the
public teachers of philosophy into a variety of contending sects;
but the ingenious youth, who, from every part, resorted to
Athens, and the other seats of learning in the Roman empire, were
alike instructed in every school to reject and to despise the
religion of the multitude. How, indeed, was it possible that a
philosopher should accept, as divine truths, the idle tales of
the poets, and the incoherent traditions of antiquity; or that he
should adore, as gods, those imperfect beings whom he must have
despised, as men? Against such unworthy adversaries, Cicero
condescended to employ the arms of reason and eloquence; but the
satire of Lucian was a much more adequate, as well as more
efficacious, weapon. We may be well assured, that a writer,
conversant with the world, would never have ventured to expose
the gods of his country to public ridicule, had they not already
been the objects of secret contempt among the polished and
enlightened orders of society. 7
6 (return) [ The admirable work of Cicero de Natura Deorum is the
best clew we have to guide us through the dark and profound
abyss. He represents with candor, and confutes with subtlety, the
opinions of the philosophers.]
7 (return) [ I do not pretend to assert, that, in this
irreligious age, the natural terrors of superstition, dreams,
omens, apparitions, &c., had lost their efficacy.]
Notwithstanding the fashionable irreligion which prevailed in the
age of the Antonines, both the interest of the priests and the
credulity of the people were sufficiently respected. In their
writings and conversation, the philosophers of antiquity asserted
the independent dignity of reason; but they resigned their
actions to the commands of law and of custom. Viewing, with a
smile of pity and indulgence, the various errors of the vulgar,
they diligently practised the ceremonies of their fathers,
devoutly frequented the temples of the gods; and sometimes
condescending to act a part on the theatre of superstition, they
concealed the sentiments of an atheist under the sacerdotal
robes. Reasoners of such a temper were scarcely inclined to
wrangle about their respective modes of faith, or of worship. It
was indifferent to them what shape the folly of the multitude
might choose to assume; and they approached with the same inward
contempt, and the same external reverence, the altars of the
Libyan, the Olympian, or the Capitoline Jupiter. 8
8 (return) [ Socrates, Epicurus, Cicero, and Plutarch always
inculcated a decent reverence for the religion of their own
country, and of mankind. The devotion of Epicurus was assiduous
and exemplary. Diogen. Lært. x. 10.]
It is not easy to conceive from what motives a spirit of
persecution could introduce itself into the Roman councils. The
magistrates could not be actuated by a blind, though honest
bigotry, since the magistrates were themselves philosophers; and
the schools of Athens had given laws to the senate. They could
not be impelled by ambition or avarice, as the temporal and
ecclesiastical powers were united in the same hands. The pontiffs
were chosen among the most illustrious of the senators; and the
office of Supreme Pontiff was constantly exercised by the
emperors themselves. They knew and valued the advantages of
religion, as it is connected with civil government. They
encouraged the public festivals which humanize the manners of the
people. They managed the arts of divination as a convenient
instrument of policy; and they respected, as the firmest bond of
society, the useful persuasion, that, either in this or in a
future life, the crime of perjury is most assuredly punished by
the avenging gods. 9 But whilst they acknowledged the general
advantages of religion, they were convinced that the various
modes of worship contributed alike to the same salutary purposes;
and that, in every country, the form of superstition, which had
received the sanction of time and experience, was the best
adapted to the climate, and to its inhabitants. Avarice and taste
very frequently despoiled the vanquished nations of the elegant
statues of their gods, and the rich ornaments of their temples;
10 but, in the exercise of the religion which they derived from
their ancestors, they uniformly experienced the indulgence, and
even protection, of the Roman conquerors. The province of Gaul
seems, and indeed only seems, an exception to this universal
toleration. Under the specious pretext of abolishing human
sacrifices, the emperors Tiberius and Claudius suppressed the
dangerous power of the Druids: 11 but the priests themselves,
their gods and their altars, subsisted in peaceful obscurity till
the final destruction of Paganism. 12
9 (return) [ Polybius, l. vi. c. 53, 54. Juvenal, Sat. xiii.
laments that in his time this apprehension had lost much of its
effect.]
10 (return) [ See the fate of Syracuse, Tarentum, Ambracia,
Corinth, &c., the conduct of Verres, in Cicero, (Actio ii. Orat.
4,) and the usual practice of governors, in the viiith Satire of
Juvenal.]
11 (return) [ Seuton. in Claud.—Plin. Hist. Nat. xxx. 1.]
12 (return) [ Pelloutier, Histoire des Celtes, tom. vi. p.
230—252.]
Rome, the capital of a great monarchy, was incessantly filled
with subjects and strangers from every part of the world, 13 who
all introduced and enjoyed the favorite superstitions of their
native country. 14 Every city in the empire was justified in
maintaining the purity of its ancient ceremonies; and the Roman
senate, using the common privilege, sometimes interposed, to
check this inundation of foreign rites. 141 The Egyptian
superstition, of all the most contemptible and abject, was
frequently prohibited: the temples of Serapis and Isis
demolished, and their worshippers banished from Rome and Italy.
15 But the zeal of fanaticism prevailed over the cold and feeble
efforts of policy. The exiles returned, the proselytes
multiplied, the temples were restored with increasing splendor,
and Isis and Serapis at length assumed their place among the
Roman Deities. 151 16 Nor was this indulgence a departure from
the old maxims of government. In the purest ages of the
commonwealth, Cybele and Æsculapius had been invited by solemn
embassies; 17 and it was customary to tempt the protectors of
besieged cities, by the promise of more distinguished honors than
they possessed in their native country. 18 Rome gradually became
the common temple of her subjects; and the freedom of the city
was bestowed on all the gods of mankind. 19
13 (return) [ Seneca, Consolat. ad Helviam, p. 74. Edit., Lips.]
14 (return) [ Dionysius Halicarn. Antiquitat. Roman. l. ii. (vol.
i. p. 275, edit. Reiske.)]
141 (return) [ Yet the worship of foreign gods at Rome was only
guarantied to the natives of those countries from whence they
came. The Romans administered the priestly offices only to the
gods of their fathers. Gibbon, throughout the whole preceding
sketch of the opinions of the Romans and their subjects, has
shown through what causes they were free from religious hatred
and its consequences. But, on the other hand the internal state
of these religions, the infidelity and hypocrisy of the upper
orders, the indifference towards all religion, in even the better
part of the common people, during the last days of the republic,
and under the Cæsars, and the corrupting principles of the
philosophers, had exercised a very pernicious influence on the
manners, and even on the constitution.—W.]
15 (return) [ In the year of Rome 701, the temple of Isis and
Serapis was demolished by the order of the Senate, (Dion Cassius,
l. xl. p. 252,) and even by the hands of the consul, (Valerius
Maximus, l. 3.) After the death of Cæsar it was restored at the
public expense, (Dion. l. xlvii. p. 501.) When Augustus was in
Egypt, he revered the majesty of Serapis, (Dion, l. li. p. 647;)
but in the Pomærium of Rome, and a mile round it, he prohibited
the worship of the Egyptian gods, (Dion, l. liii. p. 679; l. liv.
p. 735.) They remained, however, very fashionable under his reign
(Ovid. de Art. Amand. l. i.) and that of his successor, till the
justice of Tiberius was provoked to some acts of severity. (See
Tacit. Annal. ii. 85. Joseph. Antiquit. l. xviii. c. 3.) * Note:
See, in the pictures from the walls of Pompeii, the
representation of an Isiac temple and worship. Vestiges of
Egyptian worship have been traced in Gaul, and, I am informed,
recently in Britain, in excavations at York.— M.]
151 (return) [ Gibbon here blends into one, two events, distant a
hundred and sixty-six years from each other. It was in the year
of Rome 535, that the senate having ordered the destruction of
the temples of Isis and Serapis, the workman would lend his hand;
and the consul, L. Paulus himself (Valer. Max. 1, 3) seized the
axe, to give the first blow. Gibbon attribute this circumstance
to the second demolition, which took place in the year 701 and
which he considers as the first.—W.]
16 (return) [ Tertullian in Apologetic. c. 6, p. 74. Edit.
Havercamp. I am inclined to attribute their establishment to the
devotion of the Flavian family.]
17 (return) [ See Livy, l. xi. [Suppl.] and xxix.]
18 (return) [ Macrob. Saturnalia, l. iii. c. 9. He gives us a
form of evocation.]
19 (return) [ Minutius Fælix in Octavio, p. 54. Arnobius, l. vi.
p. 115.]
II. The narrow policy of preserving, without any foreign mixture,
the pure blood of the ancient citizens, had checked the fortune,
and hastened the ruin, of Athens and Sparta. The aspiring genius
of Rome sacrificed vanity to ambition, and deemed it more
prudent, as well as honorable, to adopt virtue and merit for her
own wheresoever they were found, among slaves or strangers,
enemies or barbarians. 20 During the most flourishing æra of the
Athenian commonwealth, the number of citizens gradually decreased
from about thirty 21 to twenty-one thousand. 22 If, on the
contrary, we study the growth of the Roman republic, we may
discover, that, notwithstanding the incessant demands of wars and
colonies, the citizens, who, in the first census of Servius
Tullius, amounted to no more than eighty-three thousand, were
multiplied, before the commencement of the social war, to the
number of four hundred and sixty-three thousand men, able to bear
arms in the service of their country. 23 When the allies of Rome
claimed an equal share of honors and privileges, the senate
indeed preferred the chance of arms to an ignominious concession.
The Samnites and the Lucanians paid the severe penalty of their
rashness; but the rest of the Italian states, as they
successively returned to their duty, were admitted into the bosom
of the republic, 24 and soon contributed to the ruin of public
freedom. Under a democratical government, the citizens exercise
the powers of sovereignty; and those powers will be first abused,
and afterwards lost, if they are committed to an unwieldy
multitude. But when the popular assemblies had been suppressed by
the administration of the emperors, the conquerors were
distinguished from the vanquished nations, only as the first and
most honorable order of subjects; and their increase, however
rapid, was no longer exposed to the same dangers. Yet the wisest
princes, who adopted the maxims of Augustus, guarded with the
strictest care the dignity of the Roman name, and diffused the
freedom of the city with a prudent liberality. 25
20 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xi. 24. The Orbis Romanus of the
learned Spanheim is a complete history of the progressive
admission of Latium, Italy, and the provinces, to the freedom of
Rome. * Note: Democratic states, observes Denina, (delle Revoluz.
d’ Italia, l. ii. c. l.), are most jealous of communication the
privileges of citizenship; monarchies or oligarchies willingly
multiply the numbers of their free subjects. The most remarkable
accessions to the strength of Rome, by the aggregation of
conquered and foreign nations, took place under the regal and
patrician—we may add, the Imperial government.—M.]
21 (return) [ Herodotus, v. 97. It should seem, however, that he
followed a large and popular estimation.]
22 (return) [ Athenæus, Deipnosophist. l. vi. p. 272. Edit.
Casaubon. Meursius de Fortunâ Atticâ, c. 4. * Note: On the number
of citizens in Athens, compare Bœckh, Public Economy of Athens,
(English Tr.,) p. 45, et seq. Fynes Clinton, Essay in Fasti Hel
lenici, vol. i. 381.—M.]
23 (return) [ See a very accurate collection of the numbers of
each Lustrum in M. de Beaufort, Republique Romaine, l. iv. c. 4.
Note: All these questions are placed in an entirely new point of
view by Niebuhr, (Römische Geschichte, vol. i. p. 464.) He
rejects the census of Servius fullius as unhistoric, (vol. ii. p.
78, et seq.,) and he establishes the principle that the census
comprehended all the confederate cities which had the right of
Isopolity.—M.]
24 (return) [ Appian. de Bell. Civil. l. i. Velleius Paterculus,
l. ii. c. 15, 16, 17.]
25 (return) [ Mæcenas had advised him to declare, by one edict,
all his subjects citizens. But we may justly suspect that the
historian Dion was the author of a counsel so much adapted to the
practice of his own age, and so little to that of Augustus.]
Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The
Antonines.—Part II.
Till the privileges of Romans had been progressively extended to
all the inhabitants of the empire, an important distinction was
preserved between Italy and the provinces. The former was
esteemed the centre of public unity, and the firm basis of the
constitution. Italy claimed the birth, or at least the residence,
of the emperors and the senate. 26 The estates of the Italians
were exempt from taxes, their persons from the arbitrary
jurisdiction of governors. Their municipal corporations, formed
after the perfect model of the capital, 261 were intrusted, under
the immediate eye of the supreme power, with the execution of the
laws. From the foot of the Alps to the extremity of Calabria, all
the natives of Italy were born citizens of Rome. Their partial
distinctions were obliterated, and they insensibly coalesced into
one great nation, united by language, manners, and civil
institutions, and equal to the weight of a powerful empire. The
republic gloried in her generous policy, and was frequently
rewarded by the merit and services of her adopted sons. Had she
always confined the distinction of Romans to the ancient families
within the walls of the city, that immortal name would have been
deprived of some of its noblest ornaments. Virgil was a native of
Mantua; Horace was inclined to doubt whether he should call
himself an Apulian or a Lucanian; it was in Padua that an
historian was found worthy to record the majestic series of Roman
victories. The patriot family of the Catos emerged from Tusculum;
and the little town of Arpinum claimed the double honor of
producing Marius and Cicero, the former of whom deserved, after
Romulus and Camillus, to be styled the Third Founder of Rome; and
the latter, after saving his country from the designs of
Catiline, enabled her to contend with Athens for the palm of
eloquence. 27
26 (return) [ The senators were obliged to have one third of
their own landed property in Italy. See Plin. l. vi. ep. 19. The
qualification was reduced by Marcus to one fourth. Since the
reign of Trajan, Italy had sunk nearer to the level of the
provinces.]
261 (return) [ It may be doubted whether the municipal government
of the cities was not the old Italian constitution rather than a
transcript from that of Rome. The free government of the cities,
observes Savigny, was the leading characteristic of Italy.
Geschichte des Römischen Rechts, i. p. G.—M.]
27 (return) [ The first part of the Verona Illustrata of the
Marquis Maffei gives the clearest and most comprehensive view of
the state of Italy under the Cæsars. * Note: Compare Denina,
Revol. d’ Italia, l. ii. c. 6, p. 100, 4 to edit.]
The provinces of the empire (as they have been described in the
preceding chapter) were destitute of any public force, or
constitutional freedom. In Etruria, in Greece, 28 and in Gaul, 29
it was the first care of the senate to dissolve those dangerous
confederacies, which taught mankind that, as the Roman arms
prevailed by division, they might be resisted by union. Those
princes, whom the ostentation of gratitude or generosity
permitted for a while to hold a precarious sceptre, were
dismissed from their thrones, as soon as they had performed their
appointed task of fashioning to the yoke the vanquished nations.
The free states and cities which had embraced the cause of Rome
were rewarded with a nominal alliance, and insensibly sunk into
real servitude. The public authority was everywhere exercised by
the ministers of the senate and of the emperors, and that
authority was absolute, and without control. 291 But the same
salutary maxims of government, which had secured the peace and
obedience of Italy were extended to the most distant conquests. A
nation of Romans was gradually formed in the provinces, by the
double expedient of introducing colonies, and of admitting the
most faithful and deserving of the provincials to the freedom of
Rome.
28 (return) [ See Pausanias, l. vii. The Romans condescended to
restore the names of those assemblies, when they could no longer
be dangerous.]
29 (return) [ They are frequently mentioned by Cæsar. The Abbé
Dubos attempts, with very little success, to prove that the
assemblies of Gaul were continued under the emperors. Histoire de
l’Etablissement de la Monarchie Francoise, l. i. c. 4.]
291 (return) [ This is, perhaps, rather overstated. Most cities
retained the choice of their municipal officers: some retained
valuable privileges; Athens, for instance, in form was still a
confederate city. (Tac. Ann. ii. 53.) These privileges, indeed,
depended entirely on the arbitrary will of the emperor, who
revoked or restored them according to his caprice. See Walther
Geschichte des Römischen Rechts, i. 324—an admirable summary of
the Roman constitutional history.—M.]
“Wheresoever the Roman conquers, he inhabits,” is a very just
observation of Seneca, 30 confirmed by history and experience.
The natives of Italy, allured by pleasure or by interest,
hastened to enjoy the advantages of victory; and we may remark,
that, about forty years after the reduction of Asia, eighty
thousand Romans were massacred in one day, by the cruel orders of
Mithridates. 31 These voluntary exiles were engaged, for the most
part, in the occupations of commerce, agriculture, and the farm
of the revenue. But after the legions were rendered permanent by
the emperors, the provinces were peopled by a race of soldiers;
and the veterans, whether they received the reward of their
service in land or in money, usually settled with their families
in the country, where they had honorably spent their youth.
Throughout the empire, but more particularly in the western
parts, the most fertile districts, and the most convenient
situations, were reserved for the establishment of colonies; some
of which were of a civil, and others of a military nature. In
their manners and internal policy, the colonies formed a perfect
representation of their great parent; and they were soon endeared
to the natives by the ties of friendship and alliance, they
effectually diffused a reverence for the Roman name, and a
desire, which was seldom disappointed, of sharing, in due time,
its honors and advantages. 32 The municipal cities insensibly
equalled the rank and splendor of the colonies; and in the reign
of Hadrian, it was disputed which was the preferable condition,
of those societies which had issued from, or those which had been
received into, the bosom of Rome. 33 The right of Latium, as it
was called, 331 conferred on the cities to which it had been
granted, a more partial favor. The magistrates only, at the
expiration of their office, assumed the quality of Roman
citizens; but as those offices were annual, in a few years they
circulated round the principal families. 34 Those of the
provincials who were permitted to bear arms in the legions; 35
those who exercised any civil employment; all, in a word, who
performed any public service, or displayed any personal talents,
were rewarded with a present, whose value was continually
diminished by the increasing liberality of the emperors. Yet
even, in the age of the Antonines, when the freedom of the city
had been bestowed on the greater number of their subjects, it was
still accompanied with very solid advantages. The bulk of the
people acquired, with that title, the benefit of the Roman laws,
particularly in the interesting articles of marriage, testaments,
and inheritances; and the road of fortune was open to those whose
pretensions were seconded by favor or merit. The grandsons of the
Gauls, who had besieged Julius Cæsar in Alesia, commanded
legions, governed provinces, and were admitted into the senate of
Rome. 36 Their ambition, instead of disturbing the tranquillity
of the state, was intimately connected with its safety and
greatness.
30 (return) [ Seneca in Consolat. ad Helviam, c. 6.]
31 (return) [ Memnon apud Photium, (c. 33,) [c. 224, p. 231, ed
Bekker.] Valer. Maxim. ix. 2. Plutarch and Dion Cassius swell the
massacre to 150,000 citizens; but I should esteem the smaller
number to be more than sufficient.]
32 (return) [ Twenty-five colonies were settled in Spain, (see
Plin. Hist. Nat. iii. 3, 4; iv. 35;) and nine in Britain, of
which London, Colchester, Lincoln, Chester, Gloucester, and Bath
still remain considerable cities. (See Richard of Cirencester, p.
36, and Whittaker’s History of Manchester, l. i. c. 3.)]
33 (return) [ Aul. Gel. Noctes Atticæ, xvi 13. The Emperor
Hadrian expressed his surprise, that the cities of Utica, Gades,
and Italica, which already enjoyed the rights of _Municipia_,
should solicit the title of _colonies_. Their example, however,
became fashionable, and the empire was filled with honorary
colonies. See Spanheim, de Usu Numismatum Dissertat. xiii.]
331 (return) [ The right of Latium conferred an exemption from
the government of the Roman præfect. Strabo states this
distinctly, l. iv. p. 295, edit. Cæsar’s. See also Walther, p.
233.—M]
34 (return) [ Spanheim, Orbis Roman. c. 8, p. 62.]
35 (return) [ Aristid. in Romæ Encomio. tom. i. p. 218, edit.
Jebb.]
36 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xi. 23, 24. Hist. iv. 74.]
So sensible were the Romans of the influence of language over
national manners, that it was their most serious care to extend,
with the progress of their arms, the use of the Latin tongue. 37
The ancient dialects of Italy, the Sabine, the Etruscan, and the
Venetian, sunk into oblivion; but in the provinces, the east was
less docile than the west to the voice of its victorious
preceptors. This obvious difference marked the two portions of
the empire with a distinction of colors, which, though it was in
some degree concealed during the meridian splendor of prosperity,
became gradually more visible, as the shades of night descended
upon the Roman world. The western countries were civilized by the
same hands which subdued them. As soon as the barbarians were
reconciled to obedience, their minds were open to any new
impressions of knowledge and politeness. The language of Virgil
and Cicero, though with some inevitable mixture of corruption,
was so universally adopted in Africa, Spain, Gaul, Britain, and
Pannonia, 38 that the faint traces of the Punic or Celtic idioms
were preserved only in the mountains, or among the peasants. 39
Education and study insensibly inspired the natives of those
countries with the sentiments of Romans; and Italy gave fashions,
as well as laws, to her Latin provincials. They solicited with
more ardor, and obtained with more facility, the freedom and
honors of the state; supported the national dignity in letters 40
and in arms; and at length, in the person of Trajan, produced an
emperor whom the Scipios would not have disowned for their
countryman. The situation of the Greeks was very different from
that of the barbarians. The former had been long since civilized
and corrupted. They had too much taste to relinquish their
language, and too much vanity to adopt any foreign institutions.
Still preserving the prejudices, after they had lost the virtues,
of their ancestors, they affected to despise the unpolished
manners of the Roman conquerors, whilst they were compelled to
respect their superior wisdom and power. 41 Nor was the influence
of the Grecian language and sentiments confined to the narrow
limits of that once celebrated country. Their empire, by the
progress of colonies and conquest, had been diffused from the
Adriatic to the Euphrates and the Nile. Asia was covered with
Greek cities, and the long reign of the Macedonian kings had
introduced a silent revolution into Syria and Egypt. In their
pompous courts, those princes united the elegance of Athens with
the luxury of the East, and the example of the court was
imitated, at an humble distance, by the higher ranks of their
subjects. Such was the general division of the Roman empire into
the Latin and Greek languages. To these we may add a third
distinction for the body of the natives in Syria, and especially
in Egypt, the use of their ancient dialects, by secluding them
from the commerce of mankind, checked the improvements of those
barbarians. 42 The slothful effeminacy of the former exposed them
to the contempt, the sullen ferociousness of the latter excited
the aversion, of the conquerors. 43 Those nations had submitted
to the Roman power, but they seldom desired or deserved the
freedom of the city: and it was remarked, that more than two
hundred and thirty years elapsed after the ruin of the Ptolemies,
before an Egyptian was admitted into the senate of Rome. 44
37 (return) [ See Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 5. Augustin. de
Civitate Dei, xix 7 Lipsius de Pronunciatione Linguæ Latinæ, c.
3.]
38 (return) [ Apuleius and Augustin will answer for Africa;
Strabo for Spain and Gaul; Tacitus, in the life of Agricola, for
Britain; and Velleius Paterculus, for Pannonia. To them we may
add the language of the Inscriptions. * Note: Mr. Hallam contests
this assertion as regards Britain. “Nor did the Romans ever
establish their language—I know not whether they wished to do
so—in this island, as we perceive by that stubborn British tongue
which has survived two conquests.” In his note, Mr. Hallam
examines the passage from Tacitus (Agric. xxi.) to which Gibbon
refers. It merely asserts the progress of Latin studies among the
higher orders. (Midd. Ages, iii. 314.) Probably it was a kind of
court language, and that of public affairs and prevailed in the
Roman colonies.—M.]
39 (return) [ The Celtic was preserved in the mountains of Wales,
Cornwall, and Armorica. We may observe, that Apuleius reproaches
an African youth, who lived among the populace, with the use of
the Punic; whilst he had almost forgot Greek, and neither could
nor would speak Latin, (Apolog. p. 596.) The greater part of St.
Austin’s congregations were strangers to the Punic.]
40 (return) [ Spain alone produced Columella, the Senecas, Lucan,
Martial, and Quintilian.]
41 (return) [ There is not, I believe, from Dionysius to Libanus,
a single Greek critic who mentions Virgil or Horace. They seem
ignorant that the Romans had any good writers.]
42 (return) [ The curious reader may see in Dupin, (Bibliotheque
Ecclesiastique, tom. xix. p. 1, c. 8,) how much the use of the
Syriac and Egyptian languages was still preserved.]
43 (return) [ See Juvenal, Sat. iii. and xv. Ammian. Marcellin.
xxii. 16.]
44 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxxvii. p. 1275. The first
instance happened under the reign of Septimius Severus.]
It is a just though trite observation, that victorious Rome was
herself subdued by the arts of Greece. Those immortal writers who
still command the admiration of modern Europe, soon became the
favorite object of study and imitation in Italy and the western
provinces. But the elegant amusements of the Romans were not
suffered to interfere with their sound maxims of policy. Whilst
they acknowledged the charms of the Greek, they asserted the
dignity of the Latin tongue, and the exclusive use of the latter
was inflexibly maintained in the administration of civil as well
as military government. 45 The two languages exercised at the
same time their separate jurisdiction throughout the empire: the
former, as the natural idiom of science; the latter, as the legal
dialect of public transactions. Those who united letters with
business were equally conversant with both; and it was almost
impossible, in any province, to find a Roman subject, of a
liberal education, who was at once a stranger to the Greek and to
the Latin language.
45 (return) [ See Valerius Maximus, l. ii. c. 2, n. 2. The
emperor Claudius disfranchised an eminent Grecian for not
understanding Latin. He was probably in some public office.
Suetonius in Claud. c. 16. * Note: Causes seem to have been
pleaded, even in the senate, in both languages. Val. Max. _loc.
cit_. Dion. l. lvii. c. 15.—M]
It was by such institutions that the nations of the empire
insensibly melted away into the Roman name and people. But there
still remained, in the centre of every province and of every
family, an unhappy condition of men who endured the weight,
without sharing the benefits, of society. In the free states of
antiquity, the domestic slaves were exposed to the wanton rigor
of despotism. The perfect settlement of the Roman empire was
preceded by ages of violence and rapine. The slaves consisted,
for the most part, of barbarian captives, 451 taken in thousands
by the chance of war, purchased at a vile price, 46 accustomed to
a life of independence, and impatient to break and to revenge
their fetters. Against such internal enemies, whose desperate
insurrections had more than once reduced the republic to the
brink of destruction, 47 the most severe 471 regulations, 48 and
the most cruel treatment, seemed almost justified by the great
law of self-preservation. But when the principal nations of
Europe, Asia, and Africa were united under the laws of one
sovereign, the source of foreign supplies flowed with much less
abundance, and the Romans were reduced to the milder but more
tedious method of propagation. 481 In their numerous families,
and particularly in their country estates, they encouraged the
marriage of their slaves. 482 The sentiments of nature, the
habits of education, and the possession of a dependent species of
property, contributed to alleviate the hardships of servitude. 49
The existence of a slave became an object of greater value, and
though his happiness still depended on the temper and
circumstances of the master, the humanity of the latter, instead
of being restrained by fear, was encouraged by the sense of his
own interest. The progress of manners was accelerated by the
virtue or policy of the emperors; and by the edicts of Hadrian
and the Antonines, the protection of the laws was extended to the
most abject part of mankind. The jurisdiction of life and death
over the slaves, a power long exercised and often abused, was
taken out of private hands, and reserved to the magistrates
alone. The subterraneous prisons were abolished; and, upon a just
complaint of intolerable treatment, the injured slave obtained
either his deliverance, or a less cruel master. 50
451 (return) [ It was this which rendered the wars so sanguinary,
and the battles so obstinate. The immortal Robertson, in an
excellent discourse on the state of the world at the period of
the establishment of Christianity, has traced a picture of the
melancholy effects of slavery, in which we find all the depth of
his views and the strength of his mind. I shall oppose
successively some passages to the reflections of Gibbon. The
reader will see, not without interest, the truths which Gibbon
appears to have mistaken or voluntarily neglected, developed by
one of the best of modern historians. It is important to call
them to mind here, in order to establish the facts and their
consequences with accuracy. I shall more than once have occasion
to employ, for this purpose, the discourse of Robertson.
“Captives taken in war were, in all probability, the first
persons subjected to perpetual servitude; and, when the
necessities or luxury of mankind increased the demand for slaves,
every new war recruited their number, by reducing the vanquished
to that wretched condition. Hence proceeded the fierce and
desperate spirit with which wars were carried on among ancient
nations. While chains and slavery were the certain lot of the
conquered, battles were fought, and towns defended with a rage
and obstinacy which nothing but horror at such a fate could have
inspired; but, putting an end to the cruel institution of
slavery, Christianity extended its mild influences to the
practice of war, and that barbarous art, softened by its humane
spirit, ceased to be so destructive. Secure, in every event, of
personal liberty, the resistance of the vanquished became less
obstinate, and the triumph of the victor less cruel. Thus
humanity was introduced into the exercise of war, with which it
appears to be almost incompatible; and it is to the merciful
maxims of Christianity, much more than to any other cause, that
we must ascribe the little ferocity and bloodshed which accompany
modern victories.”—G.]
46 (return) [ In the camp of Lucullus, an ox sold for a drachma,
and a slave for four drachmæ, or about three shillings. Plutarch.
in Lucull. p. 580. * Note: Above 100,000 prisoners were taken in
the Jewish war.—G. Hist. of Jews, iii. 71. According to a
tradition preserved by S. Jerom, after the insurrection in the
time of Hadrian, they were sold as cheap as horse. Ibid. 124.
Compare Blair on Roman Slavery, p. 19.—M., and Dureau de la
blalle, Economie Politique des Romains, l. i. c. 15. But I cannot
think that this writer has made out his case as to the common
price of an agricultural slave being from 2000 to 2500 francs,
(80l. to 100l.) He has overlooked the passages which show the
ordinary prices, (i. e. Hor. Sat. ii. vii. 45,) and argued from
extraordinary and exceptional cases.—M. 1845.]
47 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus in Eclog. Hist. l. xxxiv. and
xxxvi. Florus, iii. 19, 20.]
471 (return) [ The following is the example: we shall see whether
the word “severe” is here in its place. “At the time in which L.
Domitius was prætor in Sicily, a slave killed a wild boar of
extraordinary size. The prætor, struck by the dexterity and
courage of the man, desired to see him. The poor wretch, highly
gratified with the distinction, came to present himself before
the prætor, in hopes, no doubt, of praise and reward; but
Domitius, on learning that he had only a javelin to attack and
kill the boar, ordered him to be instantly crucified, under the
barbarous pretext that the law prohibited the use of this weapon,
as of all others, to slaves.” Perhaps the cruelty of Domitius is
less astonishing than the indifference with which the Roman
orator relates this circumstance, which affects him so little
that he thus expresses himself: “Durum hoc fortasse videatur,
neque ego in ullam partem disputo.” “This may appear harsh, nor
do I give any opinion on the subject.” And it is the same orator
who exclaims in the same oration, “Facinus est cruciare civem
Romanum; scelus verberare; prope parricidium necare: quid dicam
in crucem tollere?” “It is a crime to imprison a Roman citizen;
wickedness to scourge; next to parricide to put to death, what
shall I call it to crucify?”
In general, this passage of Gibbon on slavery, is full, not only
of blamable indifference, but of an exaggeration of impartiality
which resembles dishonesty. He endeavors to extenuate all that is
appalling in the condition and treatment of the slaves; he would
make us consider those cruelties as possibly “justified by
necessity.” He then describes, with minute accuracy, the
slightest mitigations of their deplorable condition; he
attributes to the virtue or the policy of the emperors the
progressive amelioration in the lot of the slaves; and he passes
over in silence the most influential cause, that which, after
rendering the slaves less miserable, has contributed at length
entirely to enfranchise them from their sufferings and their
chains,—Christianity. It would be easy to accumulate the most
frightful, the most agonizing details, of the manner in which the
Romans treated their slaves; whole works have been devoted to the
description. I content myself with referring to them. Some
reflections of Robertson, taken from the discourse already
quoted, will make us feel that Gibbon, in tracing the mitigation
of the condition of the slaves, up to a period little later than
that which witnessed the establishment of Christianity in the
world, could not have avoided the acknowledgment of the influence
of that beneficent cause, if he had not already determined not to
speak of it.
“Upon establishing despotic government in the Roman empire,
domestic tyranny rose, in a short time, to an astonishing height.
In that rank soil, every vice, which power nourishes in the
great, or oppression engenders in the mean, thrived and grew up
apace. * * * It is not the authority of any single detached
precept in the gospel, but the spirit and genius of the Christian
religion, more powerful than any particular command, which hath
abolished the practice of slavery throughout the world. The
temper which Christianity inspired was mild and gentle; and the
doctrines it taught added such dignity and lustre to human
nature, as rescued it from the dishonorable servitude into which
it was sunk.”
It is in vain, then, that Gibbon pretends to attribute solely to
the desire of keeping up the number of slaves, the milder conduct
which the Romans began to adopt in their favor at the time of the
emperors. This cause had hitherto acted in an opposite direction;
how came it on a sudden to have a different influence? “The
masters,” he says, “encouraged the marriage of their slaves; * *
* the sentiments of nature, the habits of education, contributed
to alleviate the hardships of servitude.” The children of slaves
were the property of their master, who could dispose of or
alienate them like the rest of his property. Is it in such a
situation, with such notions, that the sentiments of nature
unfold themselves, or habits of education become mild and
peaceful? We must not attribute to causes inadequate or
altogether without force, effects which require to explain them a
reference to more influential causes; and even if these slighter
causes had in effect a manifest influence, we must not forget
that they are themselves the effect of a primary, a higher, and
more extensive cause, which, in giving to the mind and to the
character a more disinterested and more humane bias, disposed men
to second or themselves to advance, by their conduct, and by the
change of manners, the happy results which it tended to
produce.—G.
I have retained the whole of M. Guizot’s note, though, in his
zeal for the invaluable blessings of freedom and Christianity, he
has done Gibbon injustice. The condition of the slaves was
undoubtedly improved under the emperors. What a great authority
has said, “The condition of a slave is better under an arbitrary
than under a free government,” (Smith’s Wealth of Nations, iv.
7,) is, I believe, supported by the history of all ages and
nations. The protecting edicts of Hadrian and the Antonines are
historical facts, and can as little be attributed to the
influence of Christianity, as the milder language of heathen
writers, of Seneca, (particularly Ep. 47,) of Pliny, and of
Plutarch. The latter influence of Christianity is admitted by
Gibbon himself. The subject of Roman slavery has recently been
investigated with great diligence in a very modest but valuable
volume, by Wm. Blair, Esq., Edin. 1833. May we be permitted,
while on the subject, to refer to the most splendid passage
extant of Mr. Pitt’s eloquence, the description of the Roman
slave-dealer. on the shores of Britain, condemning the island to
irreclaimable barbarism, as a perpetual and prolific nursery of
slaves? Speeches, vol. ii. p. 80.
Gibbon, it should be added, was one of the first and most
consistent opponents of the African slave-trade. (See Hist. ch.
xxv. and Letters to Lor Sheffield, Misc. Works)—M.]
48 (return) [ See a remarkable instance of severity in Cicero in
Verrem, v. 3.]
481 (return) [ An active slave-trade, which was carried on in
many quarters, particularly the Euxine, the eastern provinces,
the coast of Africa, and British must be taken into the account.
Blair, 23—32.—M.]
482 (return) [ The Romans, as well in the first ages of the
republic as later, allowed to their slaves a kind of marriage,
(contubernium: ) notwithstanding this, luxury made a greater
number of slaves in demand. The increase in their population was
not sufficient, and recourse was had to the purchase of slaves,
which was made even in the provinces of the East subject to the
Romans. It is, moreover, known that slavery is a state little
favorable to population. (See Hume’s Essay, and Malthus on
population, i. 334.—G.) The testimony of Appian (B.C. l. i. c. 7)
is decisive in favor of the rapid multiplication of the
agricultural slaves; it is confirmed by the numbers engaged in
the servile wars. Compare also Blair, p. 119; likewise Columella
l. viii.—M.]
49 (return) [ See in Gruter, and the other collectors, a great
number of inscriptions addressed by slaves to their wives,
children, fellow-servants, masters, &c. They are all most
probably of the Imperial age.]
50 (return) [ See the Augustan History, and a Dissertation of M.
de Burigny, in the xxxvth volume of the Academy of Inscriptions,
upon the Roman slaves.]
Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition, was not denied
to the Roman slave; and if he had any opportunity of rendering
himself either useful or agreeable, he might very naturally
expect that the diligence and fidelity of a few years would be
rewarded with the inestimable gift of freedom. The benevolence of
the master was so frequently prompted by the meaner suggestions
of vanity and avarice, that the laws found it more necessary to
restrain than to encourage a profuse and undistinguishing
liberality, which might degenerate into a very dangerous abuse.
51 It was a maxim of ancient jurisprudence, that a slave had not
any country of his own; he acquired with his liberty an admission
into the political society of which his patron was a member. The
consequences of this maxim would have prostituted the privileges
of the Roman city to a mean and promiscuous multitude. Some
seasonable exceptions were therefore provided; and the honorable
distinction was confined to such slaves only as, for just causes,
and with the approbation of the magistrate, should receive a
solemn and legal manumission. Even these chosen freedmen obtained
no more than the private rights of citizens, and were rigorously
excluded from civil or military honors. Whatever might be the
merit or fortune of their sons, _they_ likewise were esteemed
unworthy of a seat in the senate; nor were the traces of a
servile origin allowed to be completely obliterated till the
third or fourth generation. 52 Without destroying the distinction
of ranks, a distant prospect of freedom and honors was presented,
even to those whom pride and prejudice almost disdained to number
among the human species.
51 (return) [ See another Dissertation of M. de Burigny, in the
xxxviith volume, on the Roman freedmen.]
52 (return) [ Spanheim, Orbis Roman. l. i. c. 16, p. 124, &c.] It
was once proposed to discriminate the slaves by a peculiar habit;
but it was justly apprehended that there might be some danger in
acquainting them with their own numbers. 53 Without interpreting,
in their utmost strictness, the liberal appellations of legions
and myriads, 54 we may venture to pronounce, that the proportion
of slaves, who were valued as property, was more considerable
than that of servants, who can be computed only as an expense. 55
The youths of a promising genius were instructed in the arts and
sciences, and their price was ascertained by the degree of their
skill and talents. 56 Almost every profession, either liberal 57
or mechanical, might be found in the household of an opulent
senator. The ministers of pomp and sensuality were multiplied
beyond the conception of modern luxury. 58 It was more for the
interest of the merchant or manufacturer to purchase, than to
hire his workmen; and in the country, slaves were employed as the
cheapest and most laborious instruments of agriculture. To
confirm the general observation, and to display the multitude of
slaves, we might allege a variety of particular instances. It was
discovered, on a very melancholy occasion, that four hundred
slaves were maintained in a single palace of Rome. 59 The same
number of four hundred belonged to an estate which an African
widow, of a very private condition, resigned to her son, whilst
she reserved for herself a much larger share of her property. 60
A freedman, under the name of Augustus, though his fortune had
suffered great losses in the civil wars, left behind him three
thousand six hundred yoke of oxen, two hundred and fifty thousand
head of smaller cattle, and what was almost included in the
description of cattle, four thousand one hundred and sixteen
slaves. 61
53 (return) [ Seneca de Clementia, l. i. c. 24. The original is
much stronger, “Quantum periculum immineret si servi nostri
numerare nos cœpissent.”]
54 (return) [ See Pliny (Hist. Natur. l. xxxiii.) and Athenæus
(Deipnosophist. l. vi. p. 272.) The latter boldly asserts, that
he knew very many Romans who possessed, not for use, but
ostentation, ten and even twenty thousand slaves.]
55 (return) [ In Paris there are not more than 43,000 domestics
of every sort, and not a twelfth part of the inhabitants.
Messange, Recherches sui la Population, p. 186.]
56 (return) [ A learned slave sold for many hundred pounds
sterling: Atticus always bred and taught them himself. Cornel.
Nepos in Vit. c. 13, [on the prices of slaves. Blair, 149.]—M.]
57 (return) [ Many of the Roman physicians were slaves. See Dr.
Middleton’s Dissertation and Defence.]
58 (return) [ Their ranks and offices are very copiously
enumerated by Pignorius de Servis.]
59 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xiv. 43. They were all executed for
not preventing their master’s murder. * Note: The remarkable
speech of Cassius shows the proud feelings of the Roman
aristocracy on this subject.—M]
60 (return) [ Apuleius in Apolog. p. 548. edit. Delphin]
61 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xxxiii. 47.]
The number of subjects who acknowledged the laws of Rome, of
citizens, of provincials, and of slaves, cannot now be fixed with
such a degree of accuracy, as the importance of the object would
deserve. We are informed, that when the Emperor Claudius
exercised the office of censor, he took an account of six
millions nine hundred and forty-five thousand Roman citizens,
who, with the proportion of women and children, must have
amounted to about twenty millions of souls. The multitude of
subjects of an inferior rank was uncertain and fluctuating. But,
after weighing with attention every circumstance which could
influence the balance, it seems probable that there existed, in
the time of Claudius, about twice as many provincials as there
were citizens, of either sex, and of every age; and that the
slaves were at least equal in number to the free inhabitants of
the Roman world.611 The total amount of this imperfect
calculation would rise to about one hundred and twenty millions
of persons; a degree of population which possibly exceeds that of
modern Europe, 62 and forms the most numerous society that has
ever been united under the same system of government.
611] ( return)
[ According to Robertson, there were twice as many slaves as free
citizens.—G. Mr. Blair (p. 15) estimates three slaves to one
freeman, between the conquest of Greece, B.C. 146, and the reign
of Alexander Severus, A. D. 222, 235. The proportion was probably
larger in Italy than in the provinces.—M. On the other hand,
Zumpt, in his Dissertation quoted below, (p. 86,) asserts it to
be a gross error in Gibbon to reckon the number of slaves equal
to that of the free population. The luxury and magnificence of
the great, (he observes,) at the commencement of the empire, must
not be taken as the groundwork of calculations for the whole
Roman world. “The agricultural laborer, and the artisan, in
Spain, Gaul, Britain, Syria, and Egypt, maintained himself, as in
the present day, by his own labor and that of his household,
without possessing a single slave.” The latter part of my note
was intended to suggest this consideration. Yet so completely was
slavery rooted in the social system, both in the east and the
west, that in the great diffusion of wealth at this time, every
one, I doubt not, who could afford a domestic slave, kept one;
and generally, the number of slaves was in proportion to the
wealth. I do not believe that the cultivation of the soil by
slaves was confined to Italy; the holders of large estates in the
provinces would probably, either from choice or necessity, adopt
the same mode of cultivation. The latifundia, says Pliny, had
ruined Italy, and had begun to ruin the provinces. Slaves were no
doubt employed in agricultural labor to a great extent in Sicily,
and were the estates of those six enormous landholders who were
said to have possessed the whole province of Africa, cultivated
altogether by free coloni? Whatever may have been the case in the
rural districts, in the towns and cities the household duties
were almost entirely discharged by slaves, and vast numbers
belonged to the public establishments. I do not, however, differ
so far from Zumpt, and from M. Dureau de la Malle, as to adopt
the higher and bolder estimate of Robertson and Mr. Blair, rather
than the more cautious suggestions of Gibbon. I would reduce
rather than increase the proportion of the slave population. The
very ingenious and elaborate calculations of the French writer,
by which he deduces the amount of the population from the produce
and consumption of corn in Italy, appear to me neither precise
nor satisfactory bases for such complicated political arithmetic.
I am least satisfied with his views as to the population of the
city of Rome; but this point will be more fitly reserved for a
note on the thirty-first chapter of Gibbon. The work, however, of
M. Dureau de la Malle is very curious and full on some of the
minuter points of Roman statistics.—M. 1845.]
62 (return) [ Compute twenty millions in France, twenty-two in
Germany, four in Hungary, ten in Italy with its islands, eight in
Great Britain and Ireland, eight in Spain and Portugal, ten or
twelve in the European Russia, six in Poland, six in Greece and
Turkey, four in Sweden, three in Denmark and Norway, four in the
Low Countries. The whole would amount to one hundred and five, or
one hundred and seven millions. See Voltaire, de l’Histoire
Generale. * Note: The present population of Europe is estimated
at 227,700,000. Malts Bran, Geogr. Trans edit. 1832 See details
in the different volumes Another authority, (Almanach de Gotha,)
quoted in a recent English publication, gives the following
details:—
France, 32,897,521 Germany, (including Hungary, Prussian and
Austrian Poland,) 56,136,213 Italy, 20,548,616 Great Britain and
Ireland, 24,062,947 Spain and Portugal, 13,953,959. 3,144,000
Russia, including Poland, 44,220,600 Cracow, 128,480 Turkey,
(including Pachalic of Dschesair,) 9,545,300 Greece, 637,700
Ionian Islands, 208,100 Sweden and Norway, 3,914,963 Denmark,
2,012,998 Belgium, 3,533,538 Holland, 2,444,550 Switzerland,
985,000. Total, 219,344,116
Since the publication of my first annotated edition of Gibbon,
the subject of the population of the Roman empire has been
investigated by two writers of great industry and learning; Mons.
Dureau de la Malle, in his Economie Politique des Romains, liv.
ii. c. 1. to 8, and M. Zumpt, in a dissertation printed in the
Transactions of the Berlin Academy, 1840. M. Dureau de la Malle
confines his inquiry almost entirely to the city of Rome, and
Roman Italy. Zumpt examines at greater length the axiom, which he
supposes to have been assumed by Gibbon as unquestionable, “that
Italy and the Roman world was never so populous as in the time of
the Antonines.” Though this probably was Gibbon’s opinion, he has
not stated it so peremptorily as asserted by Mr. Zumpt. It had
before been expressly laid down by Hume, and his statement was
controverted by Wallace and by Malthus. Gibbon says (p. 84) that
there is no reason to believe the country (of Italy) less
populous in the age of the Antonines, than in that of Romulus;
and Zumpt acknowledges that we have no satisfactory knowledge of
the state of Italy at that early age. Zumpt, in my opinion with
some reason, takes the period just before the first Punic war, as
that in which Roman Italy (all south of the Rubicon) was most
populous. From that time, the numbers began to diminish, at first
from the enormous waste of life out of the free population in the
foreign, and afterwards in the civil wars; from the cultivation
of the soil by slaves; towards the close of the republic, from
the repugnance to marriage, which resisted alike the dread of
legal punishment and the offer of legal immunity and privilege;
and from the depravity of manners, which interfered with the
procreation, the birth, and the rearing of children. The
arguments and the authorities of Zumpt are equally conclusive as
to the decline of population in Greece. Still the details, which
he himself adduces as to the prosperity and populousness of Asia
Minor, and the whole of the Roman East, with the advancement of
the European provinces, especially Gaul, Spain, and Britain, in
civilization, and therefore in populousness, (for I have no
confidence in the vast numbers sometimes assigned to the
barbarous inhabitants of these countries,) may, I think, fairly
compensate for any deduction to be made from Gibbon’s general
estimate on account of Greece and Italy. Gibbon himself
acknowledges his own estimate to be vague and conjectural; and I
may venture to recommend the dissertation of Zumpt as deserving
respectful consideration.—M 1815.]
Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The
Antonines.—Part III.
Domestic peace and union were the natural consequences of the
moderate and comprehensive policy embraced by the Romans. If we
turn our eyes towards the monarchies of Asia, we shall behold
despotism in the centre, and weakness in the extremities; the
collection of the revenue, or the administration of justice,
enforced by the presence of an army; hostile barbarians
established in the heart of the country, hereditary satraps
usurping the dominion of the provinces, and subjects inclined to
rebellion, though incapable of freedom. But the obedience of the
Roman world was uniform, voluntary, and permanent. The vanquished
nations, blended into one great people, resigned the hope, nay,
even the wish, of resuming their independence, and scarcely
considered their own existence as distinct from the existence of
Rome. The established authority of the emperors pervaded without
an effort the wide extent of their dominions, and was exercised
with the same facility on the banks of the Thames, or of the
Nile, as on those of the Tyber. The legions were destined to
serve against the public enemy, and the civil magistrate seldom
required the aid of a military force. 63 In this state of general
security, the leisure, as well as opulence, both of the prince
and people, were devoted to improve and to adorn the Roman
empire.
63 (return) [ Joseph. de Bell. Judaico, l. ii. c. 16. The oration
of Agrippa, or rather of the historian, is a fine picture of the
Roman empire.]
Among the innumerable monuments of architecture constructed by
the Romans, how many have escaped the notice of history, how few
have resisted the ravages of time and barbarism! And yet, even
the majestic ruins that are still scattered over Italy and the
provinces, would be sufficient to prove that those countries were
once the seat of a polite and powerful empire. Their greatness
alone, or their beauty, might deserve our attention: but they are
rendered more interesting, by two important circumstances, which
connect the agreeable history of the arts with the more useful
history of human manners. Many of those works were erected at
private expense, and almost all were intended for public benefit.
It is natural to suppose that the greatest number, as well as the
most considerable of the Roman edifices, were raised by the
emperors, who possessed so unbounded a command both of men and
money. Augustus was accustomed to boast that he had found his
capital of brick, and that he had left it of marble. 64 The
strict economy of Vespasian was the source of his magnificence.
The works of Trajan bear the stamp of his genius. The public
monuments with which Hadrian adorned every province of the
empire, were executed not only by his orders, but under his
immediate inspection. He was himself an artist; and he loved the
arts, as they conduced to the glory of the monarch. They were
encouraged by the Antonines, as they contributed to the happiness
of the people. But if the emperors were the first, they were not
the only architects of their dominions. Their example was
universally imitated by their principal subjects, who were not
afraid of declaring to the world that they had spirit to
conceive, and wealth to accomplish, the noblest undertakings.
Scarcely had the proud structure of the Coliseum been dedicated
at Rome, before the edifices, of a smaller scale indeed, but of
the same design and materials, were erected for the use, and at
the expense, of the cities of Capua and Verona. 65 The
inscription of the stupendous bridge of Alcantara attests that it
was thrown over the Tagus by the contribution of a few Lusitanian
communities. When Pliny was intrusted with the government of
Bithynia and Pontus, provinces by no means the richest or most
considerable of the empire, he found the cities within his
jurisdiction striving with each other in every useful and
ornamental work, that might deserve the curiosity of strangers,
or the gratitude of their citizens. It was the duty of the
proconsul to supply their deficiencies, to direct their taste,
and sometimes to moderate their emulation. 66 The opulent
senators of Rome and the provinces esteemed it an honor, and
almost an obligation, to adorn the splendor of their age and
country; and the influence of fashion very frequently supplied
the want of taste or generosity. Among a crowd of these private
benefactors, we may select Herodes Atticus, an Athenian citizen,
who lived in the age of the Antonines. Whatever might be the
motive of his conduct, his magnificence would have been worthy of
the greatest kings.
64 (return) [ Sueton. in August. c. 28. Augustus built in Rome
the temple and forum of Mars the Avenger; the temple of Jupiter
Tonans in the Capitol; that of Apollo Palatine, with public
libraries; the portico and basilica of Caius and Lucius; the
porticos of Livia and Octavia; and the theatre of Marcellus. The
example of the sovereign was imitated by his ministers and
generals; and his friend Agrippa left behind him the immortal
monument of the Pantheon.]
65 (return) [ See Maffei, Veroni Illustrata, l. iv. p. 68.]
66 (return) [Footnote 66: See the xth book of Pliny’s Epistles.
He mentions the following works carried on at the expense of the
cities. At Nicomedia, a new forum, an aqueduct, and a canal, left
unfinished by a king; at Nice, a gymnasium, and a theatre, which
had already cost near ninety thousand pounds; baths at Prusa and
Claudiopolis, and an aqueduct of sixteen miles in length for the
use of Sinope.]
The family of Herod, at least after it had been favored by
fortune, was lineally descended from Cimon and Miltiades, Theseus
and Cecrops, Æacus and Jupiter. But the posterity of so many gods
and heroes was fallen into the most abject state. His grandfather
had suffered by the hands of justice, and Julius Atticus, his
father, must have ended his life in poverty and contempt, had he
not discovered an immense treasure buried under an old house, the
last remains of his patrimony. According to the rigor of the law,
the emperor might have asserted his claim, and the prudent
Atticus prevented, by a frank confession, the officiousness of
informers. But the equitable Nerva, who then filled the throne,
refused to accept any part of it, and commanded him to use,
without scruple, the present of fortune. The cautious Athenian
still insisted, that the treasure was too considerable for a
subject, and that he knew not how to _use it. Abuse it then_,
replied the monarch, with a good-natured peevishness; for it is
your own. 67 Many will be of opinion, that Atticus literally
obeyed the emperor’s last instructions; since he expended the
greatest part of his fortune, which was much increased by an
advantageous marriage, in the service of the public. He had
obtained for his son Herod the prefecture of the free cities of
Asia; and the young magistrate, observing that the town of Troas
was indifferently supplied with water, obtained from the
munificence of Hadrian three hundred myriads of drachms, (about a
hundred thousand pounds,) for the construction of a new aqueduct.
But in the execution of the work, the charge amounted to more
than double the estimate, and the officers of the revenue began
to murmur, till the generous Atticus silenced their complaints,
by requesting that he might be permitted to take upon himself the
whole additional expense. 68
67 (return) [ Hadrian afterwards made a very equitable
regulation, which divided all treasure-trove between the right of
property and that of discovery. Hist. August. p. 9.]
68 (return) [ Philostrat. in Vit. Sophist. l. ii. p. 548.]
The ablest preceptors of Greece and Asia had been invited by
liberal rewards to direct the education of young Herod. Their
pupil soon became a celebrated orator, according to the useless
rhetoric of that age, which, confining itself to the schools,
disdained to visit either the Forum or the Senate.
He was honored with the consulship at Rome: but the greatest part
of his life was spent in a philosophic retirement at Athens, and
his adjacent villas; perpetually surrounded by sophists, who
acknowledged, without reluctance, the superiority of a rich and
generous rival. 69 The monuments of his genius have perished;
some considerable ruins still preserve the fame of his taste and
munificence: modern travellers have measured the remains of the
stadium which he constructed at Athens. It was six hundred feet
in length, built entirely of white marble, capable of admitting
the whole body of the people, and finished in four years, whilst
Herod was president of the Athenian games. To the memory of his
wife Regilla he dedicated a theatre, scarcely to be paralleled in
the empire: no wood except cedar, very curiously carved, was
employed in any part of the building. The Odeum, 691 designed by
Pericles for musical performances, and the rehearsal of new
tragedies, had been a trophy of the victory of the arts over
barbaric greatness; as the timbers employed in the construction
consisted chiefly of the masts of the Persian vessels.
Notwithstanding the repairs bestowed on that ancient edifice by a
king of Cappadocia, it was again fallen to decay. Herod restored
its ancient beauty and magnificence. Nor was the liberality of
that illustrious citizen confined to the walls of Athens. The
most splendid ornaments bestowed on the temple of Neptune in the
Isthmus, a theatre at Corinth, a stadium at Delphi, a bath at
Thermopylæ, and an aqueduct at Canusium in Italy, were
insufficient to exhaust his treasures. The people of Epirus,
Thessaly, Eubœa, Bœotia, and Peloponnesus, experienced his
favors; and many inscriptions of the cities of Greece and Asia
gratefully style Herodes Atticus their patron and benefactor. 70
69 (return) [ Aulus Gellius, in Noct. Attic. i. 2, ix. 2, xviii.
10, xix. 12. Phil ostrat. p. 564.]
691 (return) [ The Odeum served for the rehearsal of new comedies
as well as tragedies; they were read or repeated, before
representation, without music or decorations, &c. No piece could
be represented in the theatre if it had not been previously
approved by judges for this purpose. The king of Cappadocia who
restored the Odeum, which had been burnt by Sylla, was
Araobarzanes. See Martini, Dissertation on the Odeons of the
Ancients, Leipsic. 1767, p. 10—91.—W.]
70 (return) [ See Philostrat. l. ii. p. 548, 560. Pausanias, l.
i. and vii. 10. The life of Herodes, in the xxxth volume of the
Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions.]
In the commonwealths of Athens and Rome, the modest simplicity of
private houses announced the equal condition of freedom; whilst
the sovereignty of the people was represented in the majestic
edifices designed to the public use; 71 nor was this republican
spirit totally extinguished by the introduction of wealth and
monarchy. It was in works of national honor and benefit, that the
most virtuous of the emperors affected to display their
magnificence. The golden palace of Nero excited a just
indignation, but the vast extent of ground which had been usurped
by his selfish luxury was more nobly filled under the succeeding
reigns by the Coliseum, the baths of Titus, the Claudian portico,
and the temples dedicated to the goddess of Peace, and to the
genius of Rome. 72 These monuments of architecture, the property
of the Roman people, were adorned with the most beautiful
productions of Grecian painting and sculpture; and in the temple
of Peace, a very curious library was open to the curiosity of the
learned. 721 At a small distance from thence was situated the
Forum of Trajan. It was surrounded by a lofty portico, in the
form of a quadrangle, into which four triumphal arches opened a
noble and spacious entrance: in the centre arose a column of
marble, whose height, of one hundred and ten feet, denoted the
elevation of the hill that had been cut away. This column, which
still subsists in its ancient beauty, exhibited an exact
representation of the Dacian victories of its founder. The
veteran soldier contemplated the story of his own campaigns, and
by an easy illusion of national vanity, the peaceful citizen
associated himself to the honors of the triumph. All the other
quarters of the capital, and all the provinces of the empire,
were embellished by the same liberal spirit of public
magnificence, and were filled with amphitheatres, theatres,
temples, porticoes, triumphal arches, baths and aqueducts, all
variously conducive to the health, the devotion, and the
pleasures of the meanest citizen. The last mentioned of those
edifices deserve our peculiar attention. The boldness of the
enterprise, the solidity of the execution, and the uses to which
they were subservient, rank the aqueducts among the noblest
monuments of Roman genius and power. The aqueducts of the capital
claim a just preeminence; but the curious traveller, who, without
the light of history, should examine those of Spoleto, of Metz,
or of Segovia, would very naturally conclude that those
provincial towns had formerly been the residence of some potent
monarch. The solitudes of Asia and Africa were once covered with
flourishing cities, whose populousness, and even whose existence,
was derived from such artificial supplies of a perennial stream
of fresh water. 73
71 (return) [ It is particularly remarked of Athens by
Dicæarchus, de Statu Græciæ, p. 8, inter Geographos Minores,
edit. Hudson.]
72 (return) [ Donatus de Roma Vetere, l. iii. c. 4, 5, 6. Nardini
Roma Antica, l. iii. 11, 12, 13, and a Ms. description of ancient
Rome, by Bernardus Oricellarius, or Rucellai, of which I obtained
a copy from the library of the Canon Ricardi at Florence. Two
celebrated pictures of Timanthes and of Protogenes are mentioned
by Pliny, as in the Temple of Peace; and the Laocoon was found in
the baths of Titus.]
721 (return) [ The Emperor Vespasian, who had caused the Temple
of Peace to be built, transported to it the greatest part of the
pictures, statues, and other works of art which had escaped the
civil tumults. It was there that every day the artists and the
learned of Rome assembled; and it is on the site of this temple
that a multitude of antiques have been dug up. See notes of
Reimar on Dion Cassius, lxvi. c. 15, p. 1083.—W.]
73 (return) [ Montfaucon l’Antiquite Expliquee, tom. iv. p. 2, l.
i. c. 9. Fabretti has composed a very learned treatise on the
aqueducts of Rome.]
We have computed the inhabitants, and contemplated the public
works, of the Roman empire. The observation of the number and
greatness of its cities will serve to confirm the former, and to
multiply the latter. It may not be unpleasing to collect a few
scattered instances relative to that subject without forgetting,
however, that from the vanity of nations and the poverty of
language, the vague appellation of city has been indifferently
bestowed on Rome and upon Laurentum.
I. _Ancient_ Italy is said to have contained eleven hundred and
ninety-seven cities; and for whatsoever æra of antiquity the
expression might be intended, 74 there is not any reason to
believe the country less populous in the age of the Antonines,
than in that of Romulus. The petty states of Latium were
contained within the metropolis of the empire, by whose superior
influence they had been attracted. 741 Those parts of Italy which
have so long languished under the lazy tyranny of priests and
viceroys, had been afflicted only by the more tolerable
calamities of war; and the first symptoms of decay which _they_
experienced, were amply compensated by the rapid improvements of
the Cisalpine Gaul. The splendor of Verona may be traced in its
remains: yet Verona was less celebrated than Aquileia or Padua,
Milan or Ravenna. II. The spirit of improvement had passed the
Alps, and been felt even in the woods of Britain, which were
gradually cleared away to open a free space for convenient and
elegant habitations. York was the seat of government; London was
already enriched by commerce; and Bath was celebrated for the
salutary effects of its medicinal waters. Gaul could boast of her
twelve hundred cities; 75 and though, in the northern parts, many
of them, without excepting Paris itself, were little more than
the rude and imperfect townships of a rising people, the southern
provinces imitated the wealth and elegance of Italy. 76 Many were
the cities of Gaul, Marseilles, Arles, Nismes, Narbonne,
Thoulouse, Bourdeaux, Autun, Vienna, Lyons, Langres, and Treves,
whose ancient condition might sustain an equal, and perhaps
advantageous comparison with their present state. With regard to
Spain, that country flourished as a province, and has declined as
a kingdom. Exhausted by the abuse of her strength, by America,
and by superstition, her pride might possibly be confounded, if
we required such a list of three hundred and sixty cities, as
Pliny has exhibited under the reign of Vespasian. 77 III. Three
hundred African cities had once acknowledged the authority of
Carthage, 78 nor is it likely that their numbers diminished under
the administration of the emperors: Carthage itself rose with new
splendor from its ashes; and that capital, as well as Capua and
Corinth, soon recovered all the advantages which can be separated
from independent sovereignty. IV. The provinces of the East
present the contrast of Roman magnificence with Turkish
barbarism. The ruins of antiquity scattered over uncultivated
fields, and ascribed, by ignorance, to the power of magic,
scarcely afford a shelter to the oppressed peasant or wandering
Arab. Under the reign of the Cæsars, the proper Asia alone
contained five hundred populous cities, 79 enriched with all the
gifts of nature, and adorned with all the refinements of art.
Eleven cities of Asia had once disputed the honor of dedicating a
temple of Tiberius, and their respective merits were examined by
the senate. 80 Four of them were immediately rejected as unequal
to the burden; and among these was Laodicea, whose splendor is
still displayed in its ruins. 81 Laodicea collected a very
considerable revenue from its flocks of sheep, celebrated for the
fineness of their wool, and had received, a little before the
contest, a legacy of above four hundred thousand pounds by the
testament of a generous citizen. 82 If such was the poverty of
Laodicea, what must have been the wealth of those cities, whose
claim appeared preferable, and particularly of Pergamus, of
Smyrna, and of Ephesus, who so long disputed with each other the
titular primacy of Asia? 83 The capitals of Syria and Egypt held
a still superior rank in the empire; Antioch and Alexandria
looked down with disdain on a crowd of dependent cities, 84 and
yielded, with reluctance, to the majesty of Rome itself.
74 (return) [ Ælian. Hist. Var. lib. ix. c. 16. He lived in the
time of Alexander Severus. See Fabricius, Biblioth. Græca, l. iv.
c. 21.]
741 (return) [ This may in some degree account for the difficulty
started by Livy, as to the incredibly numerous armies raised by
the small states around Rome where, in his time, a scanty stock
of free soldiers among a larger population of Roman slaves broke
the solitude. Vix seminario exiguo militum relicto servitia
Romana ab solitudine vindicant, Liv. vi. vii. Compare Appian Bel
Civ. i. 7.—M. subst. for G.]
75 (return) [ Joseph. de Bell. Jud. ii. 16. The number, however,
is mentioned, and should be received with a degree of latitude.
Note: Without doubt no reliance can be placed on this passage of
Josephus. The historian makes Agrippa give advice to the Jews, as
to the power of the Romans; and the speech is full of declamation
which can furnish no conclusions to history. While enumerating
the nations subject to the Romans, he speaks of the Gauls as
submitting to 1200 soldiers, (which is false, as there were eight
legions in Gaul, Tac. iv. 5,) while there are nearly twelve
hundred cities.—G. Josephus (infra) places these eight legions on
the Rhine, as Tacitus does.—M.]
76 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 5.]
77 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 3, 4, iv. 35. The list
seems authentic and accurate; the division of the provinces, and
the different condition of the cities, are minutely
distinguished.]
78 (return) [ Strabon. Geograph. l. xvii. p. 1189.]
79 (return) [ Joseph. de Bell. Jud. ii. 16. Philostrat. in Vit.
Sophist. l. ii. p. 548, edit. Olear.]
80 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. iv. 55. I have taken some pains in
consulting and comparing modern travellers, with regard to the
fate of those eleven cities of Asia. Seven or eight are totally
destroyed: Hypæpe, Tralles, Laodicea, Hium, Halicarnassus,
Miletus, Ephesus, and we may add Sardes. Of the remaining three,
Pergamus is a straggling village of two or three thousand
inhabitants; Magnesia, under the name of Guzelhissar, a town of
some consequence; and Smyrna, a great city, peopled by a hundred
thousand souls. But even at Smyrna, while the Franks have
maintained a commerce, the Turks have ruined the arts.]
81 (return) [ See a very exact and pleasing description of the
ruins of Laodicea, in Chandler’s Travels through Asia Minor, p.
225, &c.]
82 (return) [ Strabo, l. xii. p. 866. He had studied at Tralles.]
83 (return) [ See a Dissertation of M. de Boze, Mem. de
l’Academie, tom. xviii. Aristides pronounced an oration, which is
still extant, to recommend concord to the rival cities.]
84 (return) [ The inhabitants of Egypt, exclusive of Alexandria,
amounted to seven millions and a half, (Joseph. de Bell. Jud. ii.
16.) Under the military government of the Mamelukes, Syria was
supposed to contain sixty thousand villages, (Histoire de Timur
Bec, l. v. c. 20.)]
Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The Antonines.
Part IV.
All these cities were connected with each other, and with the
capital, by the public highways, which, issuing from the Forum of
Rome, traversed Italy, pervaded the provinces, and were
terminated only by the frontiers of the empire. If we carefully
trace the distance from the wall of Antoninus to Rome, and from
thence to Jerusalem, it will be found that the great chain of
communication, from the north-west to the south-east point of the
empire, was drawn out to the length of four thousand and eighty
Roman miles. 85 The public roads were accurately divided by
mile-stones, and ran in a direct line from one city to another,
with very little respect for the obstacles either of nature or
private property. Mountains were perforated, and bold arches
thrown over the broadest and most rapid streams. 86 The middle
part of the road was raised into a terrace which commanded the
adjacent country, consisted of several strata of sand, gravel,
and cement, and was paved with large stones, or, in some places
near the capital, with granite. 87 Such was the solid
construction of the Roman highways, whose firmness has not
entirely yielded to the effort of fifteen centuries. They united
the subjects of the most distant provinces by an easy and
familiar intercourse; but their primary object had been to
facilitate the marches of the legions; nor was any country
considered as completely subdued, till it had been rendered, in
all its parts, pervious to the arms and authority of the
conqueror. The advantage of receiving the earliest intelligence,
and of conveying their orders with celerity, induced the emperors
to establish, throughout their extensive dominions, the regular
institution of posts. 88 Houses were everywhere erected at the
distance only of five or six miles; each of them was constantly
provided with forty horses, and by the help of these relays, it
was easy to travel a hundred miles in a day along the Roman
roads. 89 891 The use of posts was allowed to those who claimed
it by an Imperial mandate; but though originally intended for the
public service, it was sometimes indulged to the business or
conveniency of private citizens. 90 Nor was the communication of
the Roman empire less free and open by sea than it was by land.
The provinces surrounded and enclosed the Mediterranean: and
Italy, in the shape of an immense promontory, advanced into the
midst of that great lake. The coasts of Italy are, in general,
destitute of safe harbors; but human industry had corrected the
deficiencies of nature; and the artificial port of Ostia, in
particular, situate at the mouth of the Tyber, and formed by the
emperor Claudius, was a useful monument of Roman greatness. 91
From this port, which was only sixteen miles from the capital, a
favorable breeze frequently carried vessels in seven days to the
columns of Hercules, and in nine or ten, to Alexandria in Egypt.
92
85 (return) [ The following Itinerary may serve to convey some
idea of the direction of the road, and of the distance between
the principal towns. I. From the wall of Antoninus to York, 222
Roman miles. II. London, 227. III. Rhutupiæ or Sandwich, 67. IV.
The navigation to Boulogne, 45. V. Rheims, 174. VI. Lyons, 330.
VII. Milan, 324. VIII. Rome, 426. IX. Brundusium, 360. X. The
navigation to Dyrrachium, 40. XI. Byzantium, 711. XII. Ancyra,
283. XIII. Tarsus, 301. XIV. Antioch, 141. XV. Tyre, 252. XVI.
Jerusalem, 168. In all 4080 Roman, or 3740 English miles. See the
Itineraries published by Wesseling, his annotations; Gale and
Stukeley for Britain, and M. d’Anville for Gaul and Italy.]
86 (return) [ Montfaucon, l’Antiquite Expliquee, (tom. 4, p. 2,
l. i. c. 5,) has described the bridges of Narni, Alcantara,
Nismes, &c.]
87 (return) [ Bergier, Histoire des grands Chemins de l’Empire
Romain, l. ii. c. l. l—28.]
88 (return) [ Procopius in Hist. Arcana, c. 30. Bergier, Hist.
des grands Chemins, l. iv. Codex Theodosian. l. viii. tit. v.
vol. ii. p. 506—563 with Godefroy’s learned commentary.]
89 (return) [ In the time of Theodosius, Cæsarius, a magistrate
of high rank, went post from Antioch to Constantinople. He began
his journey at night, was in Cappadocia (165 miles from Antioch)
the ensuing evening, and arrived at Constantinople the sixth day
about noon. The whole distance was 725 Roman, or 665 English
miles. See Libanius, Orat. xxii., and the Itineria, p. 572—581.
Note: A courier is mentioned in Walpole’s Travels, ii. 335, who
was to travel from Aleppo to Constantinople, more than 700 miles,
in eight days, an unusually short journey.—M.]
891 (return) [ Posts for the conveyance of intelligence were
established by Augustus. Suet. Aug. 49. The couriers travelled
with amazing speed. Blair on Roman Slavery, note, p. 261. It is
probable that the posts, from the time of Augustus, were confined
to the public service, and supplied by impressment Nerva, as it
appears from a coin of his reign, made an important change; “he
established posts upon all the public roads of Italy, and made
the service chargeable upon his own exchequer. Hadrian,
perceiving the advantage of this improvement, extended it to all
the provinces of the empire.” Cardwell on Coins, p. 220.—M.]
90 (return) [ Pliny, though a favorite and a minister, made an
apology for granting post-horses to his wife on the most urgent
business. Epist. x. 121, 122.]
91 (return) [ Bergier, Hist. des grands Chemins, l. iv. c. 49.]
92 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. xix. i. [In Proœm.] * Note:
Pliny says Puteoli, which seems to have been the usual landing
place from the East. See the voyages of St. Paul, Acts xxviii.
13, and of Josephus, Vita, c. 3—M.]
Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to
extensive empire, the power of Rome was attended with some
beneficial consequences to mankind; and the same freedom of
intercourse which extended the vices, diffused likewise the
improvements, of social life. In the more remote ages of
antiquity, the world was unequally divided. The East was in the
immemorial possession of arts and luxury; whilst the West was
inhabited by rude and warlike barbarians, who either disdained
agriculture, or to whom it was totally unknown. Under the
protection of an established government, the productions of
happier climates, and the industry of more civilized nations,
were gradually introduced into the western countries of Europe;
and the natives were encouraged, by an open and profitable
commerce, to multiply the former, as well as to improve the
latter. It would be almost impossible to enumerate all the
articles, either of the animal or the vegetable reign, which were
successively imported into Europe from Asia and Egypt: 93 but it
will not be unworthy of the dignity, and much less of the
utility, of an historical work, slightly to touch on a few of the
principal heads. 1. Almost all the flowers, the herbs, and the
fruits, that grow in our European gardens, are of foreign
extraction, which, in many cases, is betrayed even by their
names: the apple was a native of Italy, and when the Romans had
tasted the richer flavor of the apricot, the peach, the
pomegranate, the citron, and the orange, they contented
themselves with applying to all these new fruits the common
denomination of apple, discriminating them from each other by the
additional epithet of their country. 2. In the time of Homer, the
vine grew wild in the island of Sicily, and most probably in the
adjacent continent; but it was not improved by the skill, nor did
it afford a liquor grateful to the taste, of the savage
inhabitants. 94 A thousand years afterwards, Italy could boast,
that of the fourscore most generous and celebrated wines, more
than two thirds were produced from her soil. 95 The blessing was
soon communicated to the Narbonnese province of Gaul; but so
intense was the cold to the north of the Cevennes, that, in the
time of Strabo, it was thought impossible to ripen the grapes in
those parts of Gaul. 96 This difficulty, however, was gradually
vanquished; and there is some reason to believe, that the
vineyards of Burgundy are as old as the age of the Antonines. 97
3. The olive, in the western world, followed the progress of
peace, of which it was considered as the symbol. Two centuries
after the foundation of Rome, both Italy and Africa were
strangers to that useful plant: it was naturalized in those
countries; and at length carried into the heart of Spain and
Gaul. The timid errors of the ancients, that it required a
certain degree of heat, and could only flourish in the
neighborhood of the sea, were insensibly exploded by industry and
experience. 4. The cultivation of flax was transported from Egypt
to Gaul, and enriched the whole country, however it might
impoverish the particular lands on which it was sown. 99 5. The
use of artificial grasses became familiar to the farmers both of
Italy and the provinces, particularly the Lucerne, which derived
its name and origin from Media. 100 The assured supply of
wholesome and plentiful food for the cattle during winter,
multiplied the number of the docks and herds, which in their turn
contributed to the fertility of the soil. To all these
improvements may be added an assiduous attention to mines and
fisheries, which, by employing a multitude of laborious hands,
serve to increase the pleasures of the rich and the subsistence
of the poor. The elegant treatise of Columella describes the
advanced state of the Spanish husbandry under the reign of
Tiberius; and it may be observed, that those famines, which so
frequently afflicted the infant republic, were seldom or never
experienced by the extensive empire of Rome. The accidental
scarcity, in any single province, was immediately relieved by the
plenty of its more fortunate neighbors.
93 (return) [ It is not improbable that the Greeks and Phœnicians
introduced some new arts and productions into the neighborhood of
Marseilles and Gades.]
94 (return) [ See Homer, Odyss. l. ix. v. 358.]
95 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xiv.]
96 (return) [ Strab. Geograph. l. iv. p. 269. The intense cold of
a Gallic winter was almost proverbial among the ancients. * Note:
Strabo only says that the grape does not ripen. Attempts had been
made in the time of Augustus to naturalize the vine in the north
of Gaul; but the cold was too great. Diod. Sic. edit. Rhodom. p.
304.—W. Diodorus (lib. v. 26) gives a curious picture of the
Italian traders bartering, with the savages of Gaul, a cask of
wine for a slave.—M. —It appears from the newly discovered
treatise of Cicero de Republica, that there was a law of the
republic prohibiting the culture of the vine and olive beyond the
Alps, in order to keep up the value of those in Italy. Nos
justissimi homines, qui transalpinas gentes oleam et vitem serere
non sinimus, quo pluris sint nostra oliveta nostræque vineæ. Lib.
iii. 9. The restrictive law of Domitian was veiled under the
decent pretext of encouraging the cultivation of grain. Suet.
Dom. vii. It was repealed by Probus Vopis Strobus, 18.—M.]
97 (return) [ In the beginning of the fourth century, the orator
Eumenius (Panegyr. Veter. viii. 6, edit. Delphin.) speaks of the
vines in the territory of Autun, which were decayed through age,
and the first plantation of which was totally unknown. The Pagus
Arebrignus is supposed by M. d’Anville to be the district of
Beaune, celebrated, even at present for one of the first growths
of Burgundy. * Note: This is proved by a passage of Pliny the
Elder, where he speaks of a certain kind of grape (vitis picata.
vinum picatum) which grows naturally to the district of Vienne,
and had recently been transplanted into the country of the
Arverni, (Auvergne,) of the Helvii, (the Vivarias.) and the
Burgundy and Franche Compte. Pliny wrote A.D. 77. Hist. Nat. xiv.
1.— W.]
99 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xix.]
100 (return) [ See the agreeable Essays on Agriculture by Mr.
Harte, in which he has collected all that the ancients and
moderns have said of Lucerne.]
Agriculture is the foundation of manufactures; since the
productions of nature are the materials of art. Under the Roman
empire, the labor of an industrious and ingenious people was
variously, but incessantly, employed in the service of the rich.
In their dress, their table, their houses, and their furniture,
the favorites of fortune united every refinement of conveniency,
of elegance, and of splendor, whatever could soothe their pride
or gratify their sensuality. Such refinements, under the odious
name of luxury, have been severely arraigned by the moralists of
every age; and it might perhaps be more conducive to the virtue,
as well as happiness, of mankind, if all possessed the
necessaries, and none the superfluities, of life. But in the
present imperfect condition of society, luxury, though it may
proceed from vice or folly, seems to be the only means that can
correct the unequal distribution of property. The diligent
mechanic, and the skilful artist, who have obtained no share in
the division of the earth, receive a voluntary tax from the
possessors of land; and the latter are prompted, by a sense of
interest, to improve those estates, with whose produce they may
purchase additional pleasures. This operation, the particular
effects of which are felt in every society, acted with much more
diffusive energy in the Roman world. The provinces would soon
have been exhausted of their wealth, if the manufactures and
commerce of luxury had not insensibly restored to the industrious
subjects the sums which were exacted from them by the arms and
authority of Rome. As long as the circulation was confined within
the bounds of the empire, it impressed the political machine with
a new degree of activity, and its consequences, sometimes
beneficial, could never become pernicious.
But it is no easy task to confine luxury within the limits of an
empire. The most remote countries of the ancient world were
ransacked to supply the pomp and delicacy of Rome. The forests of
Scythia afforded some valuable furs. Amber was brought over land
from the shores of the Baltic to the Danube; and the barbarians
were astonished at the price which they received in exchange for
so useless a commodity. 101 There was a considerable demand for
Babylonian carpets, and other manufactures of the East; but the
most important and unpopular branch of foreign trade was carried
on with Arabia and India. Every year, about the time of the
summer solstice, a fleet of a hundred and twenty vessels sailed
from Myos-hormos, a port of Egypt, on the Red Sea. By the
periodical assistance of the monsoons, they traversed the ocean
in about forty days. The coast of Malabar, or the island of
Ceylon, 102 was the usual term of their navigation, and it was in
those markets that the merchants from the more remote countries
of Asia expected their arrival. The return of the fleet of Egypt
was fixed to the months of December or January; and as soon as
their rich cargo had been transported on the backs of camels,
from the Red Sea to the Nile, and had descended that river as far
as Alexandria, it was poured, without delay, into the capital of
the empire. 103 The objects of oriental traffic were splendid and
trifling; silk, a pound of which was esteemed not inferior in
value to a pound of gold; 104 precious stones, among which the
pearl claimed the first rank after the diamond; 105 and a variety
of aromatics, that were consumed in religious worship and the
pomp of funerals. The labor and risk of the voyage was rewarded
with almost incredible profit; but the profit was made upon Roman
subjects, and a few individuals were enriched at the expense of
the public. As the natives of Arabia and India were contented
with the productions and manufactures of their own country,
silver, on the side of the Romans, was the principal, if not the
only 1051 instrument of commerce. It was a complaint worthy of
the gravity of the senate, that, in the purchase of female
ornaments, the wealth of the state was irrecoverably given away
to foreign and hostile nations. 106 The annual loss is computed,
by a writer of an inquisitive but censorious temper, at upwards
of eight hundred thousand pounds sterling. 107 Such was the style
of discontent, brooding over the dark prospect of approaching
poverty. And yet, if we compare the proportion between gold and
silver, as it stood in the time of Pliny, and as it was fixed in
the reign of Constantine, we shall discover within that period a
very considerable increase. 108 There is not the least reason to
suppose that gold was become more scarce; it is therefore evident
that silver was grown more common; that whatever might be the
amount of the Indian and Arabian exports, they were far from
exhausting the wealth of the Roman world; and that the produce of
the mines abundantly supplied the demands of commerce.
101 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 45. Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxvii.
13. The latter observed, with some humor, that even fashion had
not yet found out the use of amber. Nero sent a Roman knight to
purchase great quantities on the spot where it was produced, the
coast of modern Prussia.]
102 (return) [ Called Taprobana by the Romans, and Serindib by
the Arabs. It was discovered under the reign of Claudius, and
gradually became the principal mart of the East.]
103 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. l. vi. Strabo, l. xvii.]
104 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 224. A silk garment was
considered as an ornament to a woman, but as a disgrace to a
man.]
105 (return) [ The two great pearl fisheries were the same as at
present, Ormuz and Cape Comorin. As well as we can compare
ancient with modern geography, Rome was supplied with diamonds
from the mine of Jumelpur, in Bengal, which is described in the
Voyages de Tavernier, tom. ii. p. 281.]
1051 (return) [ Certainly not the only one. The Indians were not
so contented with regard to foreign productions. Arrian has a
long list of European wares, which they received in exchange for
their own; Italian and other wines, brass, tin, lead, coral,
chrysolith, storax, glass, dresses of one or many colors, zones,
&c. See Periplus Maris Erythræi in Hudson, Geogr. Min. i. p.
27.—W. The German translator observes that Gibbon has confined
the use of aromatics to religious worship and funerals. His error
seems the omission of other spices, of which the Romans must have
consumed great quantities in their cookery. Wenck, however,
admits that silver was the chief article of exchange.—M. In 1787,
a peasant (near Nellore in the Carnatic) struck, in digging, on
the remains of a Hindu temple; he found, also, a pot which
contained Roman coins and medals of the second century, mostly
Trajans, Adrians, and Faustinas, all of gold, many of them fresh
and beautiful, others defaced or perforated, as if they had been
worn as ornaments. (Asiatic Researches, ii. 19.)—M.]
106 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. iii. 53. In a speech of Tiberius.]
107 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. xii. 18. In another place he
computes half that sum; Quingenties H. S. for India exclusive of
Arabia.]
108 (return) [ The proportion, which was 1 to 10, and 12 1/2,
rose to 14 2/5, the legal regulation of Constantine. See
Arbuthnot’s Tables of ancient Coins, c. 5.]
Notwithstanding the propensity of mankind to exalt the past, and
to depreciate the present, the tranquil and prosperous state of
the empire was warmly felt, and honestly confessed, by the
provincials as well as Romans. “They acknowledged that the true
principles of social life, laws, agriculture, and science, which
had been first invented by the wisdom of Athens, were now firmly
established by the power of Rome, under whose auspicious
influence the fiercest barbarians were united by an equal
government and common language. They affirm, that with the
improvement of arts, the human species were visibly multiplied.
They celebrate the increasing splendor of the cities, the
beautiful face of the country, cultivated and adorned like an
immense garden; and the long festival of peace which was enjoyed
by so many nations, forgetful of the ancient animosities, and
delivered from the apprehension of future danger.” 109 Whatever
suspicions may be suggested by the air of rhetoric and
declamation, which seems to prevail in these passages, the
substance of them is perfectly agreeable to historic truth.
109 (return) [ Among many other passages, see Pliny, (Hist.
Natur. iii. 5.) Aristides, (de Urbe Roma,) and Tertullian, (de
Anima, c. 30.)]
It was scarcely possible that the eyes of contemporaries should
discover in the public felicity the latent causes of decay and
corruption. This long peace, and the uniform government of the
Romans, introduced a slow and secret poison into the vitals of
the empire. The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same
level, the fire of genius was extinguished, and even the military
spirit evaporated. The natives of Europe were brave and robust.
Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Illyricum supplied the legions with
excellent soldiers, and constituted the real strength of the
monarchy. Their personal valor remained, but they no longer
possessed that public courage which is nourished by the love of
independence, the sense of national honor, the presence of
danger, and the habit of command. They received laws and
governors from the will of their sovereign, and trusted for their
defence to a mercenary army. The posterity of their boldest
leaders was contented with the rank of citizens and subjects. The
most aspiring spirits resorted to the court or standard of the
emperors; and the deserted provinces, deprived of political
strength or union, insensibly sunk into the languid indifference
of private life.
The love of letters, almost inseparable from peace and
refinement, was fashionable among the subjects of Hadrian and the
Antonines, who were themselves men of learning and curiosity. It
was diffused over the whole extent of their empire; the most
northern tribes of Britons had acquired a taste for rhetoric;
Homer as well as Virgil were transcribed and studied on the banks
of the Rhine and Danube; and the most liberal rewards sought out
the faintest glimmerings of literary merit. 110 The sciences of
physic and astronomy were successfully cultivated by the Greeks;
the observations of Ptolemy and the writings of Galen are studied
by those who have improved their discoveries and corrected their
errors; but if we except the inimitable Lucian, this age of
indolence passed away without having produced a single writer of
original genius, or who excelled in the arts of elegant
composition.1101 The authority of Plato and Aristotle, of Zeno
and Epicurus, still reigned in the schools; and their systems,
transmitted with blind deference from one generation of disciples
to another, precluded every generous attempt to exercise the
powers, or enlarge the limits, of the human mind. The beauties of
the poets and orators, instead of kindling a fire like their own,
inspired only cold and servile imitations: or if any ventured to
deviate from those models, they deviated at the same time from
good sense and propriety. On the revival of letters, the youthful
vigor of the imagination, after a long repose, national
emulation, a new religion, new languages, and a new world, called
forth the genius of Europe. But the provincials of Rome, trained
by a uniform artificial foreign education, were engaged in a very
unequal competition with those bold ancients, who, by expressing
their genuine feelings in their native tongue, had already
occupied every place of honor. The name of Poet was almost
forgotten; that of Orator was usurped by the sophists. A cloud of
critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of
learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the
corruption of taste.
110 (return) [ Herodes Atticus gave the sophist Polemo above
eight thousand pounds for three declamations. See Philostrat. l.
i. p. 538. The Antonines founded a school at Athens, in which
professors of grammar, rhetoric, politics, and the four great
sects of philosophy were maintained at the public expense for the
instruction of youth. The salary of a philosopher was ten
thousand drachmæ, between three and four hundred pounds a year.
Similar establishments were formed in the other great cities of
the empire. See Lucian in Eunuch. tom. ii. p. 352, edit. Reitz.
Philostrat. l. ii. p. 566. Hist. August. p. 21. Dion Cassius, l.
lxxi. p. 1195. Juvenal himself, in a morose satire, which in
every line betrays his own disappointment and envy, is obliged,
however, to say,—“—O Juvenes, circumspicit et stimulat vos.
Materiamque sibi Ducis indulgentia quærit.”—Satir. vii. 20. Note:
Vespasian first gave a salary to professors: he assigned to each
professor of rhetoric, Greek and Roman, centena sestertia.
(Sueton. in Vesp. 18). Hadrian and the Antonines, though still
liberal, were less profuse.—G. from W. Suetonius wrote annua
centena L. 807, 5, 10.—M.]
1101 (return) [ This judgment is rather severe: besides the
physicians, astronomers, and grammarians, among whom there were
some very distinguished men, there were still, under Hadrian,
Suetonius, Florus, Plutarch; under the Antonines, Arrian,
Pausanias, Appian, Marcus Aurelius himself, Sextus Empiricus, &c.
Jurisprudence gained much by the labors of Salvius Julianus,
Julius Celsus, Sex. Pomponius, Caius, and others.—G. from W. Yet
where, among these, is the writer of original genius, unless,
perhaps Plutarch? or even of a style really elegant?— M.]
The sublime Longinus, who, in somewhat a later period, and in the
court of a Syrian queen, preserved the spirit of ancient Athens,
observes and laments this degeneracy of his contemporaries, which
debased their sentiments, enervated their courage, and depressed
their talents. “In the same manner,” says he, “as some children
always remain pygmies, whose infant limbs have been too closely
confined, thus our tender minds, fettered by the prejudices and
habits of a just servitude, are unable to expand themselves, or
to attain that well-proportioned greatness which we admire in the
ancients; who, living under a popular government, wrote with the
same freedom as they acted.” 111 This diminutive stature of
mankind, if we pursue the metaphor, was daily sinking below the
old standard, and the Roman world was indeed peopled by a race of
pygmies; when the fierce giants of the north broke in, and mended
the puny breed. They restored a manly spirit of freedom; and
after the revolution of ten centuries, freedom became the happy
parent of taste and science.
111 (return) [ Longin. de Sublim. c. 44, p. 229, edit. Toll.
Here, too, we may say of Longinus, “his own example strengthens
all his laws.” Instead of proposing his sentiments with a manly
boldness, he insinuates them with the most guarded caution; puts
them into the mouth of a friend, and as far as we can collect
from a corrupted text, makes a show of refuting them himself.]
Chapter III: The Constitution In The Age Of The Antonines.—Part
I.
Of The Constitution Of The Roman Empire, In The Age Of The Antonines.
The obvious definition of a monarchy seems to be that of a state,
in which a single person, by whatsoever name he may be
distinguished, is intrusted with the execution of the laws, the
management of the revenue, and the command of the army. But,
unless public liberty is protected by intrepid and vigilant
guardians, the authority of so formidable a magistrate will soon
degenerate into despotism. The influence of the clergy, in an age
of superstition, might be usefully employed to assert the rights
of mankind; but so intimate is the connection between the throne
and the altar, that the banner of the church has very seldom been
seen on the side of the people. 101 A martial nobility and
stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and
collected into constitutional assemblies, form the only balance
capable of preserving a free constitution against enterprises of
an aspiring prince.
101 (return) [ Often enough in the ages of superstition, but not
in the interest of the people or the state, but in that of the
church to which all others were subordinate. Yet the power of the
pope has often been of great service in repressing the excesses
of sovereigns, and in softening manners.—W. The history of the
Italian republics proves the error of Gibbon, and the justice of
his German translator’s comment.—M.]
Every barrier of the Roman constitution had been levelled by the
vast ambition of the dictator; every fence had been extirpated by
the cruel hand of the triumvir. After the victory of Actium, the
fate of the Roman world depended on the will of Octavianus,
surnamed Cæsar, by his uncle’s adoption, and afterwards Augustus,
by the flattery of the senate. The conqueror was at the head of
forty-four veteran legions, 1 conscious of their own strength,
and of the weakness of the constitution, habituated, during
twenty years’ civil war, to every act of blood and violence, and
passionately devoted to the house of Cæsar, from whence alone
they had received, and expected the most lavish rewards. The
provinces, long oppressed by the ministers of the republic,
sighed for the government of a single person, who would be the
master, not the accomplice, of those petty tyrants. The people of
Rome, viewing, with a secret pleasure, the humiliation of the
aristocracy, demanded only bread and public shows; and were
supplied with both by the liberal hand of Augustus. The rich and
polite Italians, who had almost universally embraced the
philosophy of Epicurus, enjoyed the present blessings of ease and
tranquillity, and suffered not the pleasing dream to be
interrupted by the memory of their old tumultuous freedom. With
its power, the senate had lost its dignity; many of the most
noble families were extinct. The republicans of spirit and
ability had perished in the field of battle, or in the
proscription. The door of the assembly had been designedly left
open, for a mixed multitude of more than a thousand persons, who
reflected disgrace upon their rank, instead of deriving honor
from it. 2
1 (return) [ Orosius, vi. 18. * Note: Dion says twenty-five, (or
three,) (lv. 23.) The united triumvirs had but forty-three.
(Appian. Bell. Civ. iv. 3.) The testimony of Orosius is of little
value when more certain may be had.—W. But all the legions,
doubtless, submitted to Augustus after the battle of Actium.—M.]
2 (return) [ Julius Cæsar introduced soldiers, strangers, and
half-barbarians into the senate (Sueton. in Cæsar. c. 77, 80.)
The abuse became still more scandalous after his death.]
The reformation of the senate was one of the first steps in which
Augustus laid aside the tyrant, and professed himself the father
of his country. He was elected censor; and, in concert with his
faithful Agrippa, he examined the list of the senators, expelled
a few members, 201 whose vices or whose obstinacy required a
public example, persuaded near two hundred to prevent the shame
of an expulsion by a voluntary retreat, raised the qualification
of a senator to about ten thousand pounds, created a sufficient
number of patrician families, and accepted for himself the
honorable title of Prince of the Senate, 202 which had always
been bestowed, by the censors, on the citizen the most eminent
for his honors and services. 3 But whilst he thus restored the
dignity, he destroyed the independence, of the senate. The
principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when
the legislative power is nominated by the executive.
201 (return) [ Of these Dion and Suetonius knew nothing.—W. Dion
says the contrary.—M.]
202 (return) [ But Augustus, then Octavius, was censor, and in
virtue of that office, even according to the constitution of the
free republic, could reform the senate, expel unworthy members,
name the Princeps Senatus, &c. That was called, as is well known,
Senatum legere. It was customary, during the free republic, for
the censor to be named Princeps Senatus, (S. Liv. l. xxvii. c.
11, l. xl. c. 51;) and Dion expressly says, that this was done
according to ancient usage. He was empowered by a decree of the
senate to admit a number of families among the patricians.
Finally, the senate was not the legislative power.—W]
3 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. liii. p. 693. Suetonius in August.
c. 35.]
Before an assembly thus modelled and prepared, Augustus
pronounced a studied oration, which displayed his patriotism, and
disguised his ambition. “He lamented, yet excused, his past
conduct. Filial piety had required at his hands the revenge of
his father’s murder; the humanity of his own nature had sometimes
given way to the stern laws of necessity, and to a forced
connection with two unworthy colleagues: as long as Antony lived,
the republic forbade him to abandon her to a degenerate Roman,
and a barbarian queen. He was now at liberty to satisfy his duty
and his inclination. He solemnly restored the senate and people
to all their ancient rights; and wished only to mingle with the
crowd of his fellow-citizens, and to share the blessings which he
had obtained for his country.” 4
4 (return) [ Dion (l. liii. p. 698) gives us a prolix and bombast
speech on this great occasion. I have borrowed from Suetonius and
Tacitus the general language of Augustus.]
It would require the pen of Tacitus (if Tacitus had assisted at
this assembly) to describe the various emotions of the senate,
those that were suppressed, and those that were affected. It was
dangerous to trust the sincerity of Augustus; to seem to distrust
it was still more dangerous. The respective advantages of
monarchy and a republic have often divided speculative inquirers;
the present greatness of the Roman state, the corruption of
manners, and the license of the soldiers, supplied new arguments
to the advocates of monarchy; and these general views of
government were again warped by the hopes and fears of each
individual. Amidst this confusion of sentiments, the answer of
the senate was unanimous and decisive. They refused to accept the
resignation of Augustus; they conjured him not to desert the
republic, which he had saved. After a decent resistance, the
crafty tyrant submitted to the orders of the senate; and
consented to receive the government of the provinces, and the
general command of the Roman armies, under the well-known names
of PROCONSUL and IMPERATOR. 5 But he would receive them only for
ten years. Even before the expiration of that period, he hope
that the wounds of civil discord would be completely healed, and
that the republic, restored to its pristine health and vigor,
would no longer require the dangerous interposition of so
extraordinary a magistrate. The memory of this comedy, repeated
several times during the life of Augustus, was preserved to the
last ages of the empire, by the peculiar pomp with which the
perpetual monarchs of Rome always solemnized the tenth years of
their reign. 6
5 (return) [ Imperator (from which we have derived Emperor)
signified under her republic no more than general, and was
emphatically bestowed by the soldiers, when on the field of
battle they proclaimed their victorious leader worthy of that
title. When the Roman emperors assumed it in that sense, they
placed it after their name, and marked how often they had taken
it.]
6 (return) [ Dion. l. liii. p. 703, &c.]
Without any violation of the principles of the constitution, the
general of the Roman armies might receive and exercise an
authority almost despotic over the soldiers, the enemies, and the
subjects of the republic. With regard to the soldiers, the
jealousy of freedom had, even from the earliest ages of Rome,
given way to the hopes of conquest, and a just sense of military
discipline. The dictator, or consul, had a right to command the
service of the Roman youth; and to punish an obstinate or
cowardly disobedience by the most severe and ignominious
penalties, by striking the offender out of the list of citizens,
by confiscating his property, and by selling his person into
slavery. 7 The most sacred rights of freedom, confirmed by the
Porcian and Sempronian laws, were suspended by the military
engagement. In his camp the general exercised an absolute power
of life and death; his jurisdiction was not confined by any forms
of trial, or rules of proceeding, and the execution of the
sentence was immediate and without appeal. 8 The choice of the
enemies of Rome was regularly decided by the legislative
authority. The most important resolutions of peace and war were
seriously debated in the senate, and solemnly ratified by the
people. But when the arms of the legions were carried to a great
distance from Italy, the general assumed the liberty of directing
them against whatever people, and in whatever manner, they judged
most advantageous for the public service. It was from the
success, not from the justice, of their enterprises, that they
expected the honors of a triumph. In the use of victory,
especially after they were no longer controlled by the
commissioners of the senate, they exercised the most unbounded
despotism. When Pompey commanded in the East, he rewarded his
soldiers and allies, dethroned princes, divided kingdoms, founded
colonies, and distributed the treasures of Mithridates. On his
return to Rome, he obtained, by a single act of the senate and
people, the universal ratification of all his proceedings. 9 Such
was the power over the soldiers, and over the enemies of Rome,
which was either granted to, or assumed by, the generals of the
republic. They were, at the same time, the governors, or rather
monarchs, of the conquered provinces, united the civil with the
military character, administered justice as well as the finances,
and exercised both the executive and legislative power of the
state.
7 (return) [ Livy Epitom. l. xiv. [c. 27.] Valer. Maxim. vi. 3.]
8 (return) [ See, in the viiith book of Livy, the conduct of
Manlius Torquatus and Papirius Cursor. They violated the laws of
nature and humanity, but they asserted those of military
discipline; and the people, who abhorred the action, was obliged
to respect the principle.]
9 (return) [ By the lavish but unconstrained suffrages of the
people, Pompey had obtained a military command scarcely inferior
to that of Augustus. Among the extraordinary acts of power
executed by the former we may remark the foundation of
twenty-nine cities, and the distribution of three or four
millions sterling to his troops. The ratification of his acts met
with some opposition and delays in the senate See Plutarch,
Appian, Dion Cassius, and the first book of the epistles to
Atticus.]
From what has already been observed in the first chapter of this
work, some notion may be formed of the armies and provinces thus
intrusted to the ruling hand of Augustus. But as it was
impossible that he could personally command the regions of so
many distant frontiers, he was indulged by the senate, as Pompey
had already been, in the permission of devolving the execution of
his great office on a sufficient number of lieutenants. In rank
and authority these officers seemed not inferior to the ancient
proconsuls; but their station was dependent and precarious. They
received and held their commissions at the will of a superior, to
whose auspicious influence the merit of their action was legally
attributed. 10 They were the representatives of the emperor. The
emperor alone was the general of the republic, and his
jurisdiction, civil as well as military, extended over all the
conquests of Rome. It was some satisfaction, however, to the
senate, that he always delegated his power to the members of
their body. The imperial lieutenants were of consular or
prætorian dignity; the legions were commanded by senators, and
the præfecture of Egypt was the only important trust committed to
a Roman knight.
10 (return) [ Under the commonwealth, a triumph could only be
claimed by the general, who was authorized to take the Auspices
in the name of the people. By an exact consequence, drawn from
this principle of policy and religion, the triumph was reserved
to the emperor; and his most successful lieutenants were
satisfied with some marks of distinction, which, under the name
of triumphal honors, were invented in their favor.]
Within six days after Augustus had been compelled to accept so
very liberal a grant, he resolved to gratify the pride of the
senate by an easy sacrifice. He represented to them, that they
had enlarged his powers, even beyond that degree which might be
required by the melancholy condition of the times. They had not
permitted him to refuse the laborious command of the armies and
the frontiers; but he must insist on being allowed to restore the
more peaceful and secure provinces to the mild administration of
the civil magistrate. In the division of the provinces, Augustus
provided for his own power and for the dignity of the republic.
The proconsuls of the senate, particularly those of Asia, Greece,
and Africa, enjoyed a more honorable character than the
lieutenants of the emperor, who commanded in Gaul or Syria. The
former were attended by lictors, the latter by soldiers. 105 A
law was passed, that wherever the emperor was present, his
extraordinary commission should supersede the ordinary
jurisdiction of the governor; a custom was introduced, that the
new conquests belonged to the imperial portion; and it was soon
discovered that the authority of the _Prince_, the favorite
epithet of Augustus, was the same in every part of the empire.
105 (return) [ This distinction is without foundation. The
lieutenants of the emperor, who were called Proprætors, whether
they had been prætors or consuls, were attended by six lictors;
those who had the right of the sword, (of life and death over the
soldiers.—M.) bore the military habit (paludamentum) and the
sword. The provincial governors commissioned by the senate, who,
whether they had been consuls or not, were called Pronconsuls,
had twelve lictors when they had been consuls, and six only when
they had but been prætors. The provinces of Africa and Asia were
only given to ex-consuls. See, on the Organization of the
Provinces, Dion, liii. 12, 16 Strabo, xvii 840.—W]
In return for this imaginary concession, Augustus obtained an
important privilege, which rendered him master of Rome and Italy.
By a dangerous exception to the ancient maxims, he was authorized
to preserve his military command, supported by a numerous body of
guards, even in time of peace, and in the heart of the capital.
His command, indeed, was confined to those citizens who were
engaged in the service by the military oath; but such was the
propensity of the Romans to servitude, that the oath was
voluntarily taken by the magistrates, the senators, and the
equestrian order, till the homage of flattery was insensibly
converted into an annual and solemn protestation of fidelity.
Although Augustus considered a military force as the firmest
foundation, he wisely rejected it, as a very odious instrument of
government. It was more agreeable to his temper, as well as to
his policy, to reign under the venerable names of ancient
magistracy, and artfully to collect, in his own person, all the
scattered rays of civil jurisdiction. With this view, he
permitted the senate to confer upon him, for his life, the powers
of the consular 11 and tribunitian offices, 12 which were, in the
same manner, continued to all his successors. The consuls had
succeeded to the kings of Rome, and represented the dignity of
the state. They superintended the ceremonies of religion, levied
and commanded the legions, gave audience to foreign ambassadors,
and presided in the assemblies both of the senate and people. The
general control of the finances was intrusted to their care; and
though they seldom had leisure to administer justice in person,
they were considered as the supreme guardians of law, equity, and
the public peace. Such was their ordinary jurisdiction; but
whenever the senate empowered the first magistrate to consult the
safety of the commonwealth, he was raised by that decree above
the laws, and exercised, in the defence of liberty, a temporary
despotism. 13 The character of the tribunes was, in every
respect, different from that of the consuls. The appearance of
the former was modest and humble; but their persons were sacred
and inviolable. Their force was suited rather for opposition than
for action. They were instituted to defend the oppressed, to
pardon offences, to arraign the enemies of the people, and, when
they judged it necessary, to stop, by a single word, the whole
machine of government. As long as the republic subsisted, the
dangerous influence, which either the consul or the tribune might
derive from their respective jurisdiction, was diminished by
several important restrictions. Their authority expired with the
year in which they were elected; the former office was divided
between two, the latter among ten persons; and, as both in their
private and public interest they were averse to each other, their
mutual conflicts contributed, for the most part, to strengthen
rather than to destroy the balance of the constitution. 131 But
when the consular and tribunitian powers were united, when they
were vested for life in a single person, when the general of the
army was, at the same time, the minister of the senate and the
representative of the Roman people, it was impossible to resist
the exercise, nor was it easy to define the limits, of his
imperial prerogative.
11 (return) [ Cicero (de Legibus, iii. 3) gives the consular
office the name of egia potestas; and Polybius (l. vi. c. 3)
observes three powers in the Roman constitution. The monarchical
was represented and exercised by the consuls.]
12 (return) [ As the tribunitian power (distinct from the annual
office) was first invented by the dictator Cæsar, (Dion, l. xliv.
p. 384,) we may easily conceive, that it was given as a reward
for having so nobly asserted, by arms, the sacred rights of the
tribunes and people. See his own Commentaries, de Bell. Civil. l.
i.]
13 (return) [ Augustus exercised nine annual consulships without
interruption. He then most artfully refused the magistracy, as
well as the dictatorship, absented himself from Rome, and waited
till the fatal effects of tumult and faction forced the senate to
invest him with a perpetual consulship. Augustus, as well as his
successors, affected, however, to conceal so invidious a title.]
131 (return) [ The note of M. Guizot on the tribunitian power
applies to the French translation rather than to the original.
The former has, maintenir la balance toujours egale, which
implies much more than Gibbon’s general expression. The note
belongs rather to the history of the Republic than that of the
Empire.—M]
To these accumulated honors, the policy of Augustus soon added
the splendid as well as important dignities of supreme pontiff,
and of censor. By the former he acquired the management of the
religion, and by the latter a legal inspection over the manners
and fortunes, of the Roman people. If so many distinct and
independent powers did not exactly unite with each other, the
complaisance of the senate was prepared to supply every
deficiency by the most ample and extraordinary concessions. The
emperors, as the first ministers of the republic, were exempted
from the obligation and penalty of many inconvenient laws: they
were authorized to convoke the senate, to make several motions in
the same day, to recommend candidates for the honors of the
state, to enlarge the bounds of the city, to employ the revenue
at their discretion, to declare peace and war, to ratify
treaties; and by a most comprehensive clause, they were empowered
to execute whatsoever they should judge advantageous to the
empire, and agreeable to the majesty of things private or public,
human of divine. 14
14 (return) [ See a fragment of a Decree of the Senate,
conferring on the emperor Vespasian all the powers granted to his
predecessors, Augustus, Tiberius, and Claudius. This curious and
important monument is published in Gruter’s Inscriptions, No.
ccxlii. * Note: It is also in the editions of Tacitus by Ryck,
(Annal. p. 420, 421,) and Ernesti, (Excurs. ad lib. iv. 6;) but
this fragment contains so many inconsistencies, both in matter
and form, that its authenticity may be doubted—W.]
When all the various powers of executive government were
committed to the _Imperial magistrate_, the ordinary magistrates
of the commonwealth languished in obscurity, without vigor, and
almost without business. The names and forms of the ancient
administration were preserved by Augustus with the most anxious
care. The usual number of consuls, prætors, and tribunes, 15 were
annually invested with their respective ensigns of office, and
continued to discharge some of their least important functions.
Those honors still attracted the vain ambition of the Romans; and
the emperors themselves, though invested for life with the powers
of the consulship, frequently aspired to the title of that annual
dignity, which they condescended to share with the most
illustrious of their fellow-citizens. 16 In the election of these
magistrates, the people, during the reign of Augustus, were
permitted to expose all the inconveniences of a wild democracy.
That artful prince, instead of discovering the least symptom of
impatience, humbly solicited their suffrages for himself or his
friends, and scrupulously practised all the duties of an ordinary
candidate. 17 But we may venture to ascribe to his councils the
first measure of the succeeding reign, by which the elections
were transferred to the senate. 18 The assemblies of the people
were forever abolished, and the emperors were delivered from a
dangerous multitude, who, without restoring liberty, might have
disturbed, and perhaps endangered, the established government.
15 (return) [ Two consuls were created on the Calends of January;
but in the course of the year others were substituted in their
places, till the annual number seems to have amounted to no less
than twelve. The prætors were usually sixteen or eighteen,
(Lipsius in Excurs. D. ad Tacit. Annal. l. i.) I have not
mentioned the Ædiles or Quæstors Officers of the police or
revenue easily adapt themselves to any form of government. In the
time of Nero, the tribunes legally possessed the right of
intercession, though it might be dangerous to exercise it (Tacit.
Annal. xvi. 26.) In the time of Trajan, it was doubtful whether
the tribuneship was an office or a name, (Plin. Epist. i. 23.)]
16 (return) [ The tyrants themselves were ambitious of the
consulship. The virtuous princes were moderate in the pursuit,
and exact in the discharge of it. Trajan revived the ancient
oath, and swore before the consul’s tribunal that he would
observe the laws, (Plin. Panegyric c. 64.)]
17 (return) [ Quoties Magistratuum Comitiis interesset. Tribus
cum candidatis suis circunbat: supplicabatque more solemni.
Ferebat et ipse suffragium in tribubus, ut unus e populo.
Suetonius in August c. 56.]
18 (return) [ Tum primum Comitia e campo ad patres translata
sunt. Tacit. Annal. i. 15. The word primum seems to allude to
some faint and unsuccessful efforts which were made towards
restoring them to the people. Note: The emperor Caligula made the
attempt: he rest red the Comitia to the people, but, in a short
time, took them away again. Suet. in Caio. c. 16. Dion. lix. 9,
20. Nevertheless, at the time of Dion, they preserved still the
form of the Comitia. Dion. lviii. 20.—W.]
By declaring themselves the protectors of the people, Marius and
Cæsar had subverted the constitution of their country. But as
soon as the senate had been humbled and disarmed, such an
assembly, consisting of five or six hundred persons, was found a
much more tractable and useful instrument of dominion. It was on
the dignity of the senate that Augustus and his successors
founded their new empire; and they affected, on every occasion,
to adopt the language and principles of Patricians. In the
administration of their own powers, they frequently consulted the
great national council, and _seemed_ to refer to its decision the
most important concerns of peace and war. Rome, Italy, and the
internal provinces, were subject to the immediate jurisdiction of
the senate. With regard to civil objects, it was the supreme
court of appeal; with regard to criminal matters, a tribunal,
constituted for the trial of all offences that were committed by
men in any public station, or that affected the peace and majesty
of the Roman people. The exercise of the judicial power became
the most frequent and serious occupation of the senate; and the
important causes that were pleaded before them afforded a last
refuge to the spirit of ancient eloquence. As a council of state,
and as a court of justice, the senate possessed very considerable
prerogatives; but in its legislative capacity, in which it was
supposed virtually to represent the people, the rights of
sovereignty were acknowledged to reside in that assembly. Every
power was derived from their authority, every law was ratified by
their sanction. Their regular meetings were held on three stated
days in every month, the Calends, the Nones, and the Ides. The
debates were conducted with decent freedom; and the emperors
themselves, who gloried in the name of senators, sat, voted, and
divided with their equals. To resume, in a few words, the system
of the Imperial government; as it was instituted by Augustus, and
maintained by those princes who understood their own interest and
that of the people, it may be defined an absolute monarchy
disguised by the forms of a commonwealth. The masters of the
Roman world surrounded their throne with darkness, concealed
their irresistible strength, and humbly professed themselves the
accountable ministers of the senate, whose supreme decrees they
dictated and obeyed. 19
19 (return) [Dion Cassius (l. liii. p. 703—714) has given a very
loose and partial sketch of the Imperial system. To illustrate
and often to correct him, I have meditated Tacitus, examined
Suetonius, and consulted the following moderns: the Abbé de la
Bleterie, in the Memoires de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom.
xix. xxi. xxiv. xxv. xxvii. Beaufort Republique Romaine, tom. i.
p. 255—275. The Dissertations of Noodt and Gronovius de lege
Regia, printed at Leyden, in the year 1731 Gravina de Imperio
Romano, p. 479—544 of his Opuscula. Maffei, Verona Illustrata, p.
i. p. 245, &c.]
The face of the court corresponded with the forms of the
administration. The emperors, if we except those tyrants whose
capricious folly violated every law of nature and decency,
disdained that pomp and ceremony which might offend their
countrymen, but could add nothing to their real power. In all the
offices of life, they affected to confound themselves with their
subjects, and maintained with them an equal intercourse of visits
and entertainments. Their habit, their palace, their table, were
suited only to the rank of an opulent senator. Their family,
however numerous or splendid, was composed entirely of their
domestic slaves and freedmen. 20 Augustus or Trajan would have
blushed at employing the meanest of the Romans in those menial
offices, which, in the household and bedchamber of a limited
monarch, are so eagerly solicited by the proudest nobles of
Britain.
20 (return) [ A weak prince will always be governed by his
domestics. The power of slaves aggravated the shame of the
Romans; and the senate paid court to a Pallas or a Narcissus.
There is a chance that a modern favorite may be a gentleman.]
The deification of the emperors 21 is the only instance in which
they departed from their accustomed prudence and modesty. The
Asiatic Greeks were the first inventors, the successors of
Alexander the first objects, of this servile and impious mode of
adulation. 211 It was easily transferred from the kings to the
governors of Asia; and the Roman magistrates very frequently were
adored as provincial deities, with the pomp of altars and
temples, of festivals and sacrifices. 22 It was natural that the
emperors should not refuse what the proconsuls had accepted; and
the divine honors which both the one and the other received from
the provinces, attested rather the despotism than the servitude
of Rome. But the conquerors soon imitated the vanquished nations
in the arts of flattery; and the imperious spirit of the first
Cæsar too easily consented to assume, during his lifetime, a
place among the tutelar deities of Rome. The milder temper of his
successor declined so dangerous an ambition, which was never
afterwards revived, except by the madness of Caligula and
Domitian. Augustus permitted indeed some of the provincial cities
to erect temples to his honor, on condition that they should
associate the worship of Rome with that of the sovereign; he
tolerated private superstition, of which he might be the object;
23 but he contented himself with being revered by the senate and
the people in his human character, and wisely left to his
successor the care of his public deification. A regular custom
was introduced, that on the decease of every emperor who had
neither lived nor died like a tyrant, the senate by a solemn
decree should place him in the number of the gods: and the
ceremonies of his apotheosis were blended with those of his
funeral. 231 This legal, and, as it should seem, injudicious
profanation, so abhorrent to our stricter principles, was
received with a very faint murmur, 24 by the easy nature of
Polytheism; but it was received as an institution, not of
religion, but of policy. We should disgrace the virtues of the
Antonines by comparing them with the vices of Hercules or
Jupiter. Even the characters of Cæsar or Augustus were far
superior to those of the popular deities. But it was the
misfortune of the former to live in an enlightened age, and their
actions were too faithfully recorded to admit of such a mixture
of fable and mystery, as the devotion of the vulgar requires. As
soon as their divinity was established by law, it sunk into
oblivion, without contributing either to their own fame, or to
the dignity of succeeding princes.
21 (return) [ See a treatise of Vandale de Consecratione
Principium. It would be easier for me to copy, than it has been
to verify, the quotations of that learned Dutchman.]
211 (return) [ This is inaccurate. The successors of Alexander
were not the first deified sovereigns; the Egyptians had deified
and worshipped many of their kings; the Olympus of the Greeks was
peopled with divinities who had reigned on earth; finally,
Romulus himself had received the honors of an apotheosis (Tit.
Liv. i. 16) a long time before Alexander and his successors. It
is also an inaccuracy to confound the honors offered in the
provinces to the Roman governors, by temples and altars, with the
true apotheosis of the emperors; it was not a religious worship,
for it had neither priests nor sacrifices. Augustus was severely
blamed for having permitted himself to be worshipped as a god in
the provinces, (Tac. Ann. i. 10: ) he would not have incurred
that blame if he had only done what the governors were accustomed
to do.—G. from W. M. Guizot has been guilty of a still greater
inaccuracy in confounding the deification of the living with the
apotheosis of the dead emperors. The nature of the king-worship
of Egypt is still very obscure; the hero-worship of the Greeks
very different from the adoration of the “præsens numen” in the
reigning sovereign.—M.]
22 (return) [ See a dissertation of the Abbé Mongault in the
first volume of the Academy of Inscriptions.]
23 (return) [ Jurandasque tuum per nomen ponimus aras, says
Horace to the emperor himself, and Horace was well acquainted
with the court of Augustus. Note: The good princes were not those
who alone obtained the honors of an apotheosis: it was conferred
on many tyrants. See an excellent treatise of Schæpflin, de
Consecratione Imperatorum Romanorum, in his Commentationes
historicæ et criticæ. Bale, 1741, p. 184.—W.]
231 (return) [ The curious satire in the works of Seneca, is the
strongest remonstrance of profaned religion.—M.]
24 (return) [ See Cicero in Philippic. i. 6. Julian in Cæsaribus.
Inque Deum templis jurabit Roma per umbras, is the indignant
expression of Lucan; but it is a patriotic rather than a devout
indignation.]
In the consideration of the Imperial government, we have
frequently mentioned the artful founder, under his well-known
title of Augustus, which was not, however, conferred upon him
till the edifice was almost completed. The obscure name of
Octavianus he derived from a mean family, in the little town of
Aricia. 241 It was stained with the blood of the proscription;
and he was desirous, had it been possible, to erase all memory of
his former life. The illustrious surname of Cæsar he had assumed,
as the adopted son of the dictator: but he had too much good
sense, either to hope to be confounded, or to wish to be compared
with that extraordinary man. It was proposed in the senate to
dignify their minister with a new appellation; and after a
serious discussion, that of Augustus was chosen, among several
others, as being the most expressive of the character of peace
and sanctity, which he uniformly affected. 25 _Augustus_ was
therefore a personal, _Cæsar_ a family distinction. The former
should naturally have expired with the prince on whom it was
bestowed; and however the latter was diffused by adoption and
female alliance, Nero was the last prince who could allege any
hereditary claim to the honors of the Julian line. But, at the
time of his death, the practice of a century had inseparably
connected those appellations with the Imperial dignity, and they
have been preserved by a long succession of emperors, Romans,
Greeks, Franks, and Germans, from the fall of the republic to the
present time. A distinction was, however, soon introduced. The
sacred title of Augustus was always reserved for the monarch,
whilst the name of Cæsar was more freely communicated to his
relations; and, from the reign of Hadrian, at least, was
appropriated to the second person in the state, who was
considered as the presumptive heir of the empire. 251
241 (return) [ Octavius was not of an obscure family, but of a
considerable one of the equestrian order. His father, C.
Octavius, who possessed great property, had been prætor, governor
of Macedonia, adorned with the title of Imperator, and was on the
point of becoming consul when he died. His mother Attia, was
daughter of M. Attius Balbus, who had also been prætor. M.
Anthony reproached Octavius with having been born in Aricia,
which, nevertheless, was a considerable municipal city: he was
vigorously refuted by Cicero. Philip. iii. c. 6.—W. Gibbon
probably meant that the family had but recently emerged into
notice.—M.]
25 (return) [ Dion. Cassius, l. liii. p. 710, with the curious
Annotations of Reimar.]
251 (return) [ The princes who by their birth or their adoption
belonged to the family of the Cæsars, took the name of Cæsar.
After the death of Nero, this name designated the Imperial
dignity itself, and afterwards the appointed successor. The time
at which it was employed in the latter sense, cannot be fixed
with certainty. Bach (Hist. Jurisprud. Rom. 304) affirms from
Tacitus, H. i. 15, and Suetonius, Galba, 17, that Galba conferred
on Piso Lucinianus the title of Cæsar, and from that time the
term had this meaning: but these two historians simply say that
he appointed Piso his successor, and do not mention the word
Cæsar. Aurelius Victor (in Traj. 348, ed. Artzen) says that
Hadrian first received this title on his adoption; but as the
adoption of Hadrian is still doubtful, and besides this, as
Trajan, on his death-bed, was not likely to have created a new
title for his successor, it is more probable that Ælius Verus was
the first who was called Cæsar when adopted by Hadrian. Spart. in
Ælio Vero, 102.—W.]
Chapter III: The Constitution In The Age Of The Antonines.—Part
II.
The tender respect of Augustus for a free constitution which he
had destroyed, can only be explained by an attentive
consideration of the character of that subtle tyrant. A cool
head, an unfeeling heart, and a cowardly disposition, prompted
him at the age of nineteen to assume the mask of hypocrisy, which
he never afterwards laid aside. With the same hand, and probably
with the same temper, he signed the proscription of Cicero, and
the pardon of Cinna. His virtues, and even his vices, were
artificial; and according to the various dictates of his
interest, he was at first the enemy, and at last the father, of
the Roman world. 26 When he framed the artful system of the
Imperial authority, his moderation was inspired by his fears. He
wished to deceive the people by an image of civil liberty, and
the armies by an image of civil government.
26 (return) [ As Octavianus advanced to the banquet of the
Cæsars, his color changed like that of the chameleon; pale at
first, then red, afterwards black, he at last assumed the mild
livery of Venus and the Graces, (Cæsars, p. 309.) This image,
employed by Julian in his ingenious fiction, is just and elegant;
but when he considers this change of character as real and
ascribes it to the power of philosophy, he does too much honor to
philosophy and to Octavianus.]
I. The death of Cæsar was ever before his eyes. He had lavished
wealth and honors on his adherents; but the most favored friends
of his uncle were in the number of the conspirators. The fidelity
of the legions might defend his authority against open rebellion;
but their vigilance could not secure his person from the dagger
of a determined republican; and the Romans, who revered the
memory of Brutus, 27 would applaud the imitation of his virtue.
Cæsar had provoked his fate, as much as by the ostentation of his
power, as by his power itself. The consul or the tribune might
have reigned in peace. The title of king had armed the Romans
against his life. Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed
by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate
and people would submit to slavery, provided they were
respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient
freedom. A feeble senate and enervated people cheerfully
acquiesced in the pleasing illusion, as long as it was supported
by the virtue, or even by the prudence, of the successors of
Augustus. It was a motive of self-preservation, not a principle
of liberty, that animated the conspirators against Caligula,
Nero, and Domitian. They attacked the person of the tyrant,
without aiming their blow at the authority of the emperor.
27 (return) [ Two centuries after the establishment of monarchy,
the emperor Marcus Antoninus recommends the character of Brutus
as a perfect model of Roman virtue. * Note: In a very ingenious
essay, Gibbon has ventured to call in question the preeminent
virtue of Brutus. Misc Works, iv. 95.—M.]
There appears, indeed, _one_ memorable occasion, in which the
senate, after seventy years of patience, made an ineffectual
attempt to re-assume its long-forgotten rights. When the throne
was vacant by the murder of Caligula, the consuls convoked that
assembly in the Capitol, condemned the memory of the Cæsars, gave
the watchword _liberty_ to the few cohorts who faintly adhered to
their standard, and during eight-and-forty hours acted as the
independent chiefs of a free commonwealth. But while they
deliberated, the prætorian guards had resolved. The stupid
Claudius, brother of Germanicus, was already in their camp,
invested with the Imperial purple, and prepared to support his
election by arms. The dream of liberty was at an end; and the
senate awoke to all the horrors of inevitable servitude. Deserted
by the people, and threatened by a military force, that feeble
assembly was compelled to ratify the choice of the prætorians,
and to embrace the benefit of an amnesty, which Claudius had the
prudence to offer, and the generosity to observe. 28
28 (return) [ It is much to be regretted that we have lost the
part of Tacitus which treated of that transaction. We are forced
to content ourselves with the popular rumors of Josephus, and the
imperfect hints of Dion and Suetonius.]
II. The insolence of the armies inspired Augustus with fears of a
still more alarming nature. The despair of the citizens could
only attempt, what the power of the soldiers was, at any time,
able to execute. How precarious was his own authority over men
whom he had taught to violate every social duty! He had heard
their seditious clamors; he dreaded their calmer moments of
reflection. One revolution had been purchased by immense rewards;
but a second revolution might double those rewards. The troops
professed the fondest attachment to the house of Cæsar; but the
attachments of the multitude are capricious and inconstant.
Augustus summoned to his aid whatever remained in those fierce
minds of Roman prejudices; enforced the rigor of discipline by
the sanction of law; and, interposing the majesty of the senate
between the emperor and the army, boldly claimed their
allegiance, as the first magistrate of the republic.
During a long period of two hundred and twenty years from the
establishment of this artful system to the death of Commodus, the
dangers inherent to a military government were, in a great
measure, suspended. The soldiers were seldom roused to that fatal
sense of their own strength, and of the weakness of the civil
authority, which was, before and afterwards, productive of such
dreadful calamities. Caligula and Domitian were assassinated in
their palace by their own domestics: 281 the convulsions which
agitated Rome on the death of the former, were confined to the
walls of the city. But Nero involved the whole empire in his
ruin. In the space of eighteen months, four princes perished by
the sword; and the Roman world was shaken by the fury of the
contending armies. Excepting only this short, though violent
eruption of military license, the two centuries from Augustus 29
to Commodus passed away unstained with civil blood, and
undisturbed by revolutions. The emperor was elected by _the
authority of the senate_, and _the consent of the soldiers_. 30
The legions respected their oath of fidelity; and it requires a
minute inspection of the Roman annals to discover three
inconsiderable rebellions, which were all suppressed in a few
months, and without even the hazard of a battle. 31
281 (return) [ Caligula perished by a conspiracy formed by the
officers of the prætorian troops, and Domitian would not,
perhaps, have been assassinated without the participation of the
two chiefs of that guard in his death.—W.]
29 (return) [ Augustus restored the ancient severity of
discipline. After the civil wars, he dropped the endearing name
of Fellow-Soldiers, and called them only Soldiers, (Sueton. in
August. c. 25.) See the use Tiberius made of the Senate in the
mutiny of the Pannonian legions, (Tacit. Annal. i.)]
30 (return) [ These words seem to have been the constitutional
language. See Tacit. Annal. xiii. 4. * Note: This panegyric on
the soldiery is rather too liberal. Claudius was obliged to
purchase their consent to his coronation: the presents which he
made, and those which the prætorians received on other occasions,
considerably embarrassed the finances. Moreover, this formidable
guard favored, in general, the cruelties of the tyrants. The
distant revolts were more frequent than Gibbon thinks: already,
under Tiberius, the legions of Germany would have seditiously
constrained Germanicus to assume the Imperial purple. On the
revolt of Claudius Civilis, under Vespasian, the legions of Gaul
murdered their general, and offered their assistance to the Gauls
who were in insurrection. Julius Sabinus made himself be
proclaimed emperor, &c. The wars, the merit, and the severe
discipline of Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines,
established, for some time, a greater degree of subordination.—W]
31 (return) [ The first was Camillus Scribonianus, who took up
arms in Dalmatia against Claudius, and was deserted by his own
troops in five days, the second, L. Antonius, in Germany, who
rebelled against Domitian; and the third, Avidius Cassius, in the
reign of M. Antoninus. The two last reigned but a few months, and
were cut off by their own adherents. We may observe, that both
Camillus and Cassius colored their ambition with the design of
restoring the republic; a task, said Cassius peculiarly reserved
for his name and family.]
In elective monarchies, the vacancy of the throne is a moment big
with danger and mischief. The Roman emperors, desirous to spare
the legions that interval of suspense, and the temptation of an
irregular choice, invested their designed successor with so large
a share of present power, as should enable him, after their
decease, to assume the remainder, without suffering the empire to
perceive the change of masters. Thus Augustus, after all his
fairer prospects had been snatched from him by untimely deaths,
rested his last hopes on Tiberius, obtained for his adopted son
the censorial and tribunitian powers, and dictated a law, by
which the future prince was invested with an authority equal to
his own, over the provinces and the armies. 32 Thus Vespasian
subdued the generous mind of his eldest son. Titus was adored by
the eastern legions, which, under his command, had recently
achieved the conquest of Judæa. His power was dreaded, and, as
his virtues were clouded by the intemperance of youth, his
designs were suspected. Instead of listening to such unworthy
suspicions, the prudent monarch associated Titus to the full
powers of the Imperial dignity; and the grateful son ever
approved himself the humble and faithful minister of so indulgent
a father. 33
32 (return) [ Velleius Paterculus, l. ii. c. 121. Sueton. in
Tiber. c. 26.]
33 (return) [ Sueton. in Tit. c. 6. Plin. in Præfat. Hist.
Natur.]
The good sense of Vespasian engaged him indeed to embrace every
measure that might confirm his recent and precarious elevation.
The military oath, and the fidelity of the troops, had been
consecrated, by the habits of a hundred years, to the name and
family of the Cæsars; and although that family had been continued
only by the fictitious rite of adoption, the Romans still
revered, in the person of Nero, the grandson of Germanicus, and
the lineal successor of Augustus. It was not without reluctance
and remorse, that the prætorian guards had been persuaded to
abandon the cause of the tyrant. 34 The rapid downfall of Galba,
Otho, and Vitellus, taught the armies to consider the emperors as
the creatures of _their_ will, and the instruments of _their_
license. The birth of Vespasian was mean: his grandfather had
been a private soldier, his father a petty officer of the
revenue; 35 his own merit had raised him, in an advanced age, to
the empire; but his merit was rather useful than shining, and his
virtues were disgraced by a strict and even sordid parsimony.
Such a prince consulted his true interest by the association of a
son, whose more splendid and amiable character might turn the
public attention from the obscure origin, to the future glories,
of the Flavian house. Under the mild administration of Titus, the
Roman world enjoyed a transient felicity, and his beloved memory
served to protect, above fifteen years, the vices of his brother
Domitian.
34 (return) [ This idea is frequently and strongly inculcated by
Tacitus. See Hist. i. 5, 16, ii. 76.]
35 (return) [ The emperor Vespasian, with his usual good sense,
laughed at the genealogists, who deduced his family from Flavius,
the founder of Reate, (his native country,) and one of the
companions of Hercules Suet in Vespasian, c. 12.]
Nerva had scarcely accepted the purple from the assassins of
Domitian, before he discovered that his feeble age was unable to
stem the torrent of public disorders, which had multiplied under
the long tyranny of his predecessor. His mild disposition was
respected by the good; but the degenerate Romans required a more
vigorous character, whose justice should strike terror into the
guilty. Though he had several relations, he fixed his choice on a
stranger. He adopted Trajan, then about forty years of age, and
who commanded a powerful army in the Lower Germany; and
immediately, by a decree of the senate, declared him his
colleague and successor in the empire. 36 It is sincerely to be
lamented, that whilst we are fatigued with the disgustful
relation of Nero’s crimes and follies, we are reduced to collect
the actions of Trajan from the glimmerings of an abridgment, or
the doubtful light of a panegyric. There remains, however, one
panegyric far removed beyond the suspicion of flattery. Above two
hundred and fifty years after the death of Trajan, the senate, in
pouring out the customary acclamations on the accession of a new
emperor, wished that he might surpass the felicity of Augustus,
and the virtue of Trajan. 37
36 (return) [ Dion, l. lxviii. p. 1121. Plin. Secund. in
Panegyric.]
37 (return) [ Felicior Augusto, Melior Trajano. Eutrop. viii. 5.]
We may readily believe, that the father of his country hesitated
whether he ought to intrust the various and doubtful character of
his kinsman Hadrian with sovereign power. In his last moments the
arts of the empress Plotina either fixed the irresolution of
Trajan, or boldly supposed a fictitious adoption; 38 the truth of
which could not be safely disputed, and Hadrian was peaceably
acknowledged as his lawful successor. Under his reign, as has
been already mentioned, the empire flourished in peace and
prosperity. He encouraged the arts, reformed the laws, asserted
military discipline, and visited all his provinces in person. His
vast and active genius was equally suited to the most enlarged
views, and the minute details of civil policy. But the ruling
passions of his soul were curiosity and vanity. As they
prevailed, and as they were attracted by different objects,
Hadrian was, by turns, an excellent prince, a ridiculous sophist,
and a jealous tyrant. The general tenor of his conduct deserved
praise for its equity and moderation. Yet in the first days of
his reign, he put to death four consular senators, his personal
enemies, and men who had been judged worthy of empire; and the
tediousness of a painful illness rendered him, at last, peevish
and cruel. The senate doubted whether they should pronounce him a
god or a tyrant; and the honors decreed to his memory were
granted to the prayers of the pious Antoninus. 39
38 (return) [ Dion (l. lxix. p. 1249) affirms the whole to have
been a fiction, on the authority of his father, who, being
governor of the province where Trajan died, had very good
opportunities of sifting this mysterious transaction. Yet Dodwell
(Prælect. Camden. xvii.) has maintained that Hadrian was called
to the certain hope of the empire, during the lifetime of
Trajan.]
39 (return) [ Dion, (l. lxx. p. 1171.) Aurel. Victor.]
The caprice of Hadrian influenced his choice of a successor.
After revolving in his mind several men of distinguished merit,
whom he esteemed and hated, he adopted Ælius Verus a gay and
voluptuous nobleman, recommended by uncommon beauty to the lover
of Antinous. 40 But whilst Hadrian was delighting himself with
his own applause, and the acclamations of the soldiers, whose
consent had been secured by an immense donative, the new Cæsar 41
was ravished from his embraces by an untimely death. He left only
one son. Hadrian commended the boy to the gratitude of the
Antonines. He was adopted by Pius; and, on the accession of
Marcus, was invested with an equal share of sovereign power.
Among the many vices of this younger Verus, he possessed one
virtue; a dutiful reverence for his wiser colleague, to whom he
willingly abandoned the ruder cares of empire. The philosophic
emperor dissembled his follies, lamented his early death, and
cast a decent veil over his memory.
40 (return) [ The deification of Antinous, his medals, his
statues, temples, city, oracles, and constellation, are well
known, and still dishonor the memory of Hadrian. Yet we may
remark, that of the first fifteen emperors, Claudius was the only
one whose taste in love was entirely correct. For the honors of
Antinous, see Spanheim, Commentaire sui les Cæsars de Julien, p.
80.]
41 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 13. Aurelius Victor in Epitom.]
As soon as Hadrian’s passion was either gratified or
disappointed, he resolved to deserve the thanks of posterity, by
placing the most exalted merit on the Roman throne. His
discerning eye easily discovered a senator about fifty years of
age, blameless in all the offices of life; and a youth of about
seventeen, whose riper years opened a fair prospect of every
virtue: the elder of these was declared the son and successor of
Hadrian, on condition, however, that he himself should
immediately adopt the younger. The two Antonines (for it is of
them that we are now speaking,) governed the Roman world
forty-two years, with the same invariable spirit of wisdom and
virtue. Although Pius had two sons, 42 he preferred the welfare
of Rome to the interest of his family, gave his daughter
Faustina, in marriage to young Marcus, obtained from the senate
the tribunitian and proconsular powers, and, with a noble
disdain, or rather ignorance of jealousy, associated him to all
the labors of government. Marcus, on the other hand, revered the
character of his benefactor, loved him as a parent, obeyed him as
his sovereign, 43 and, after he was no more, regulated his own
administration by the example and maxims of his predecessor.
Their united reigns are possibly the only period of history in
which the happiness of a great people was the sole object of
government.
42 (return) [ Without the help of medals and inscriptions, we
should be ignorant of this fact, so honorable to the memory of
Pius. Note: Gibbon attributes to Antoninus Pius a merit which he
either did not possess, or was not in a situation to display.
1. He was adopted only on the condition that he would adopt, in
his turn, Marcus Aurelius and L. Verus.
2. His two sons died children, and one of them, M. Galerius,
alone, appears to have survived, for a few years, his father’s
coronation. Gibbon is also mistaken when he says (note 42) that
“without the help of medals and inscriptions, we should be
ignorant that Antoninus had two sons.” Capitolinus says
expressly, (c. 1,) Filii mares duo, duæ-fœminæ; we only owe their
names to the medals. Pagi. Cont. Baron, i. 33, edit Paris.—W.]
43 (return) [ During the twenty-three years of Pius’s reign,
Marcus was only two nights absent from the palace, and even those
were at different times. Hist. August. p. 25.]
Titus Antoninus Pius has been justly denominated a second Numa.
The same love of religion, justice, and peace, was the
distinguishing characteristic of both princes. But the situation
of the latter opened a much larger field for the exercise of
those virtues. Numa could only prevent a few neighboring villages
from plundering each other’s harvests. Antoninus diffused order
and tranquillity over the greatest part of the earth. His reign
is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials
for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of
the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. In private life,
he was an amiable, as well as a good man. The native simplicity
of his virtue was a stranger to vanity or affectation. He enjoyed
with moderation the conveniences of his fortune, and the innocent
pleasures of society; 44 and the benevolence of his soul
displayed itself in a cheerful serenity of temper.
44 (return) [ He was fond of the theatre, and not insensible to
the charms of the fair sex. Marcus Antoninus, i. 16. Hist.
August. p. 20, 21. Julian in Cæsar.]
The virtue of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was of severer and more
laborious kind. 45 It was the well-earned harvest of many a
learned conference, of many a patient lecture, and many a
midnight lucubration. At the age of twelve years he embraced the
rigid system of the Stoics, which taught him to submit his body
to his mind, his passions to his reason; to consider virtue as
the only good, vice as the only evil, all things external as
things indifferent. 46 His meditations, composed in the tumult of
the camp, are still extant; and he even condescended to give
lessons of philosophy, in a more public manner than was perhaps
consistent with the modesty of sage, or the dignity of an
emperor. 47 But his life was the noblest commentary on the
precepts of Zeno. He was severe to himself, indulgent to the
imperfections of others, just and beneficent to all mankind. He
regretted that Avidius Cassius, who excited a rebellion in Syria,
had disappointed him, by a voluntary death, 471 of the pleasure
of converting an enemy into a friend;; and he justified the
sincerity of that sentiment, by moderating the zeal of the senate
against the adherents of the traitor. 48 War he detested, as the
disgrace and calamity of human nature; 481 but when the necessity
of a just defence called upon him to take up arms, he readily
exposed his person to eight winter campaigns, on the frozen banks
of the Danube, the severity of which was at last fatal to the
weakness of his constitution. His memory was revered by a
grateful posterity, and above a century after his death, many
persons preserved the image of Marcus Antoninus among those of
their household gods. 49
45 (return) [ The enemies of Marcus charged him with hypocrisy,
and with a want of that simplicity which distinguished Pius and
even Verus. (Hist. August. 6, 34.) This suspicions, unjust as it
was, may serve to account for the superior applause bestowed upon
personal qualifications, in preference to the social virtues.
Even Marcus Antoninus has been called a hypocrite; but the
wildest scepticism never insinuated that Cæsar might probably be
a coward, or Tully a fool. Wit and valor are qualifications more
easily ascertained than humanity or the love of justice.]
46 (return) [ Tacitus has characterized, in a few words, the
principles of the portico: Doctores sapientiæ secutus est, qui
sola bona quæ honesta, main tantum quæ turpia; potentiam,
nobilitatem, æteraque extra... bonis neque malis adnumerant.
Tacit. Hist. iv. 5.]
47 (return) [ Before he went on the second expedition against the
Germans, he read lectures of philosophy to the Roman people,
during three days. He had already done the same in the cities of
Greece and Asia. Hist. August. in Cassio, c. 3.]
471 (return) [ Cassius was murdered by his own partisans. Vulcat.
Gallic. in Cassio, c. 7. Dion, lxxi. c. 27.—W.]
48 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxi. p. 1190. Hist. August. in Avid.
Cassio. Note: See one of the newly discovered passages of Dion
Cassius. Marcus wrote to the senate, who urged the execution of
the partisans of Cassius, in these words: “I entreat and beseech
you to preserve my reign unstained by senatorial blood. None of
your order must perish either by your desire or mine.” Mai.
Fragm. Vatican. ii. p. 224.—M.]
481 (return) [ Marcus would not accept the services of any of the
barbarian allies who crowded to his standard in the war against
Avidius Cassius. “Barbarians,” he said, with wise but vain
sagacity, “must not become acquainted with the dissensions of the
Roman people.” Mai. Fragm Vatican l. 224.—M.]
49 (return) [ Hist. August. in Marc. Antonin. c. 18.]
If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the
world, during which the condition of the human race was most
happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that
which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of
Commodus. The vast extent of the Roman empire was governed by
absolute power, under the guidance of virtue and wisdom. The
armies were restrained by the firm but gentle hand of four
successive emperors, whose characters and authority commanded
involuntary respect. The forms of the civil administration were
carefully preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines,
who delighted in the image of liberty, and were pleased with
considering themselves as the accountable ministers of the laws.
Such princes deserved the honor of restoring the republic, had
the Romans of their days been capable of enjoying a rational
freedom.
The labors of these monarchs were overpaid by the immense reward
that inseparably waited on their success; by the honest pride of
virtue, and by the exquisite delight of beholding the general
happiness of which they were the authors. A just but melancholy
reflection imbittered, however, the noblest of human enjoyments.
They must often have recollected the instability of a happiness
which depended on the character of single man. The fatal moment
was perhaps approaching, when some licentious youth, or some
jealous tyrant, would abuse, to the destruction, that absolute
power, which they had exerted for the benefit of their people.
The ideal restraints of the senate and the laws might serve to
display the virtues, but could never correct the vices, of the
emperor. The military force was a blind and irresistible
instrument of oppression; and the corruption of Roman manners
would always supply flatterers eager to applaud, and ministers
prepared to serve, the fear or the avarice, the lust or the
cruelty, of their master. These gloomy apprehensions had been
already justified by the experience of the Romans. The annals of
the emperors exhibit a strong and various picture of human
nature, which we should vainly seek among the mixed and doubtful
characters of modern history. In the conduct of those monarchs we
may trace the utmost lines of vice and virtue; the most exalted
perfection, and the meanest degeneracy of our own species. The
golden age of Trajan and the Antonines had been preceded by an
age of iron. It is almost superfluous to enumerate the unworthy
successors of Augustus. Their unparalleled vices, and the
splendid theatre on which they were acted, have saved them from
oblivion. The dark, unrelenting Tiberius, the furious Caligula,
the feeble Claudius, the profligate and cruel Nero, the beastly
Vitellius, 50 and the timid, inhuman Domitian, are condemned to
everlasting infamy. During fourscore years (excepting only the
short and doubtful respite of Vespasian’s reign) 51 Rome groaned
beneath an unremitting tyranny, which exterminated the ancient
families of the republic, and was fatal to almost every virtue
and every talent that arose in that unhappy period.
50 (return) [ Vitellius consumed in mere eating at least six
millions of our money in about seven months. It is not easy to
express his vices with dignity, or even decency. Tacitus fairly
calls him a hog, but it is by substituting for a coarse word a
very fine image. “At Vitellius, umbraculis hortorum abditus, ut
ignava animalia, quibus si cibum suggeras, jacent torpentque,
præterita, instantia, futura, pari oblivione dimiserat. Atque
illum nemore Aricino desidem et marcentum,” &c. Tacit. Hist. iii.
36, ii. 95. Sueton. in Vitell. c. 13. Dion. Cassius, l xv. p.
1062.]
51 (return) [ The execution of Helvidius Priscus, and of the
virtuous Eponina, disgraced the reign of Vespasian.]
Under the reign of these monsters, the slavery of the Romans was
accompanied with two peculiar circumstances, the one occasioned
by their former liberty, the other by their extensive conquests,
which rendered their condition more completely wretched than that
of the victims of tyranny in any other age or country. From these
causes were derived, 1. The exquisite sensibility of the
sufferers; and, 2. The impossibility of escaping from the hand of
the oppressor.
I. When Persia was governed by the descendants of Sefi, a race of
princes whose wanton cruelty often stained their divan, their
table, and their bed, with the blood of their favorites, there is
a saying recorded of a young nobleman, that he never departed
from the sultan’s presence, without satisfying himself whether
his head was still on his shoulders. The experience of every day
might almost justify the scepticism of Rustan. 52 Yet the fatal
sword, suspended above him by a single thread, seems not to have
disturbed the slumbers, or interrupted the tranquillity, of the
Persian. The monarch’s frown, he well knew, could level him with
the dust; but the stroke of lightning or apoplexy might be
equally fatal; and it was the part of a wise man to forget the
inevitable calamities of human life in the enjoyment of the
fleeting hour. He was dignified with the appellation of the
king’s slave; had, perhaps, been purchased from obscure parents,
in a country which he had never known; and was trained up from
his infancy in the severe discipline of the seraglio. 53 His
name, his wealth, his honors, were the gift of a master, who
might, without injustice, resume what he had bestowed. Rustan’s
knowledge, if he possessed any, could only serve to confirm his
habits by prejudices. His language afforded not words for any
form of government, except absolute monarchy. The history of the
East informed him, that such had ever been the condition of
mankind. 54 The Koran, and the interpreters of that divine book,
inculcated to him, that the sultan was the descendant of the
prophet, and the vicegerent of heaven; that patience was the
first virtue of a Mussulman, and unlimited obedience the great
duty of a subject.
52 (return) [ Voyage de Chardin en Perse, vol. iii. p. 293.]
53 (return) [ The practice of raising slaves to the great offices
of state is still more common among the Turks than among the
Persians. The miserable countries of Georgia and Circassia supply
rulers to the greatest part of the East.]
54 (return) [ Chardin says, that European travellers have
diffused among the Persians some ideas of the freedom and
mildness of our governments. They have done them a very ill
office.]
The minds of the Romans were very differently prepared for
slavery. Oppressed beneath the weight of their own corruption and
of military violence, they for a long while preserved the
sentiments, or at least the ideas, of their free-born ancestors.
The education of Helvidius and Thrasea, of Tacitus and Pliny, was
the same as that of Cato and Cicero. From Grecian philosophy,
they had imbibed the justest and most liberal notions of the
dignity of human nature, and the origin of civil society. The
history of their own country had taught them to revere a free, a
virtuous, and a victorious commonwealth; to abhor the successful
crimes of Cæsar and Augustus; and inwardly to despise those
tyrants whom they adored with the most abject flattery. As
magistrates and senators they were admitted into the great
council, which had once dictated laws to the earth, whose
authority was so often prostituted to the vilest purposes of
tyranny. Tiberius, and those emperors who adopted his maxims,
attempted to disguise their murders by the formalities of
justice, and perhaps enjoyed a secret pleasure in rendering the
senate their accomplice as well as their victim. By this
assembly, the last of the Romans were condemned for imaginary
crimes and real virtues. Their infamous accusers assumed the
language of independent patriots, who arraigned a dangerous
citizen before the tribunal of his country; and the public
service was rewarded by riches and honors. 55 The servile judges
professed to assert the majesty of the commonwealth, violated in
the person of its first magistrate, 56 whose clemency they most
applauded when they trembled the most at his inexorable and
impending cruelty. 57 The tyrant beheld their baseness with just
contempt, and encountered their secret sentiments of detestation
with sincere and avowed hatred for the whole body of the senate.
55 (return) [ They alleged the example of Scipio and Cato,
(Tacit. Annal. iii. 66.) Marcellus Epirus and Crispus Vibius had
acquired two millions and a half under Nero. Their wealth, which
aggravated their crimes, protected them under Vespasian. See
Tacit. Hist. iv. 43. Dialog. de Orator. c. 8. For one accusation,
Regulus, the just object of Pliny’s satire, received from the
senate the consular ornaments, and a present of sixty thousand
pounds.]
56 (return) [ The crime of majesty was formerly a treasonable
offence against the Roman people. As tribunes of the people,
Augustus and Tiberius applied tit to their own persons, and
extended it to an infinite latitude. Note: It was Tiberius, not
Augustus, who first took in this sense the words crimen læsæ
majestatis. Bachii Trajanus, 27. —W.]
57 (return) [ After the virtuous and unfortunate widow of
Germanicus had been put to death, Tiberius received the thanks of
the senate for his clemency. she had not been publicly strangled;
nor was the body drawn with a hook to the Gemoniæ, where those of
common male factors were exposed. See Tacit. Annal. vi. 25.
Sueton. in Tiberio c. 53.]
II. The division of Europe into a number of independent states,
connected, however, with each other by the general resemblance of
religion, language, and manners, is productive of the most
beneficial consequences to the liberty of mankind. A modern
tyrant, who should find no resistance either in his own breast,
or in his people, would soon experience a gentle restraint from
the example of his equals, the dread of present censure, the
advice of his allies, and the apprehension of his enemies. The
object of his displeasure, escaping from the narrow limits of his
dominions, would easily obtain, in a happier climate, a secure
refuge, a new fortune adequate to his merit, the freedom of
complaint, and perhaps the means of revenge. But the empire of
the Romans filled the world, and when the empire fell into the
hands of a single person, the world became a safe and dreary
prison for his enemies. The slave of Imperial despotism, whether
he was condemned to drag his gilded chain in rome and the senate,
or to were out a life of exile on the barren rock of Seriphus, or
the frozen bank of the Danube, expected his fate in silent
despair. 58 To resist was fatal, and it was impossible to fly. On
every side he was encompassed with a vast extent of sea and land,
which he could never hope to traverse without being discovered,
seized, and restored to his irritated master. Beyond the
frontiers, his anxious view could discover nothing, except the
ocean, inhospitable deserts, hostile tribes of barbarians, of
fierce manners and unknown language, or dependent kings, who
would gladly purchase the emperor’s protection by the sacrifice
of an obnoxious fugitive. 59 “Wherever you are,” said Cicero to
the exiled Marcellus, “remember that you are equally within the
power of the conqueror.” 60
58 (return) [ Seriphus was a small rocky island in the Ægean Sea,
the inhabitants of which were despised for their ignorance and
obscurity. The place of Ovid’s exile is well known, by his just,
but unmanly lamentations. It should seem, that he only received
an order to leave rome in so many days, and to transport himself
to Tomi. Guards and jailers were unnecessary.]
59 (return) [ Under Tiberius, a Roman knight attempted to fly to
the Parthians. He was stopped in the straits of Sicily; but so
little danger did there appear in the example, that the most
jealous of tyrants disdained to punish it. Tacit. Annal. vi. 14.]
60 (return) [ Cicero ad Familiares, iv. 7.]
Chapter IV: The Cruelty, Follies And Murder Of Commodus.—Part I.
The Cruelty, Follies, And Murder Of Commodus—Election Of Pertinax—His
Attempts To Reform The State—His Assassination By The Prætorian Guards.
The mildness of Marcus, which the rigid discipline of the Stoics
was unable to eradicate, formed, at the same time, the most
amiable, and the only defective part of his character. His
excellent understanding was often deceived by the unsuspecting
goodness of his heart. Artful men, who study the passions of
princes, and conceal their own, approached his person in the
disguise of philosophic sanctity, and acquired riches and honors
by affecting to despise them. 1 His excessive indulgence to his
brother, 105 his wife, and his son, exceeded the bounds of
private virtue, and became a public injury, by the example and
consequences of their vices.
1 (return) [ See the complaints of Avidius Cassius, Hist. August.
p. 45. These are, it is true, the complaints of faction; but even
faction exaggerates, rather than invents.]
105 (return) [ His brother by adoption, and his colleague, L.
Verus. Marcus Aurelius had no other brother.—W.]
Faustina, the daughter of Pius and the wife of Marcus, has been
as much celebrated for her gallantries as for her beauty. The
grave simplicity of the philosopher was ill calculated to engage
her wanton levity, or to fix that unbounded passion for variety,
which often discovered personal merit in the meanest of mankind.
2 The Cupid of the ancients was, in general, a very sensual
deity; and the amours of an empress, as they exact on her side
the plainest advances, are seldom susceptible of much sentimental
delicacy. Marcus was the only man in the empire who seemed
ignorant or insensible of the irregularities of Faustina; which,
according to the prejudices of every age, reflected some disgrace
on the injured husband. He promoted several of her lovers to
posts of honor and profit, 3 and during a connection of thirty
years, invariably gave her proofs of the most tender confidence,
and of a respect which ended not with her life. In his
Meditations, he thanks the gods, who had bestowed on him a wife
so faithful, so gentle, and of such a wonderful simplicity of
manners. 4 The obsequious senate, at his earnest request,
declared her a goddess. She was represented in her temples, with
the attributes of Juno, Venus, and Ceres; and it was decreed,
that, on the day of their nuptials, the youth of either sex
should pay their vows before the altar of their chaste patroness.
5
2 (return) [ Faustinam satis constat apud Cajetam conditiones
sibi et nauticas et gladiatorias, elegisse. Hist. August. p. 30.
Lampridius explains the sort of merit which Faustina chose, and
the conditions which she exacted. Hist. August. p. 102.]
3 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 34.]
4 (return) [ Meditat. l. i. The world has laughed at the
credulity of Marcus but Madam Dacier assures us, (and we may
credit a lady,) that the husband will always be deceived, if the
wife condescends to dissemble.]
5 (return) [Footnote 5: Dion Cassius, l. lxxi. [c. 31,] p. 1195.
Hist. August. p. 33. Commentaire de Spanheim sur les Cæsars de
Julien, p. 289. The deification of Faustina is the only defect
which Julian’s criticism is able to discover in the
all-accomplished character of Marcus.]
The monstrous vices of the son have cast a shade on the purity of
the father’s virtues. It has been objected to Marcus, that he
sacrificed the happiness of millions to a fond partiality for a
worthless boy; and that he chose a successor in his own family,
rather than in the republic. Nothing however, was neglected by
the anxious father, and by the men of virtue and learning whom he
summoned to his assistance, to expand the narrow mind of young
Commodus, to correct his growing vices, and to render him worthy
of the throne for which he was designed. But the power of
instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy
dispositions where it is almost superfluous. The distasteful
lesson of a grave philosopher was, in a moment, obliterated by
the whisper of a profligate favorite; and Marcus himself blasted
the fruits of this labored education, by admitting his son, at
the age of fourteen or fifteen, to a full participation of the
Imperial power. He lived but four years afterwards: but he lived
long enough to repent a rash measure, which raised the impetuous
youth above the restraint of reason and authority.
Most of the crimes which disturb the internal peace of society,
are produced by the restraints which the necessary but unequal
laws of property have imposed on the appetites of mankind, by
confining to a few the possession of those objects that are
coveted by many. Of all our passions and appetites, the love of
power is of the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the
pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude. In the
tumult of civil discord, the laws of society lose their force,
and their place is seldom supplied by those of humanity. The
ardor of contention, the pride of victory, the despair of
success, the memory of past injuries, and the fear of future
dangers, all contribute to inflame the mind, and to silence the
voice of pity. From such motives almost every page of history has
been stained with civil blood; but these motives will not account
for the unprovoked cruelties of Commodus, who had nothing to wish
and every thing to enjoy. The beloved son of Marcus succeeded to
his father, amidst the acclamations of the senate and armies; 6
and when he ascended the throne, the happy youth saw round him
neither competitor to remove, nor enemies to punish. In this
calm, elevated station, it was surely natural that he should
prefer the love of mankind to their detestation, the mild glories
of his five predecessors to the ignominious fate of Nero and
Domitian.
6 (return) [ Commodus was the first _Porphyrogenitus_, (born
since his father’s accession to the throne.) By a new strain of
flattery, the Egyptian medals date by the years of his life; as
if they were synonymous to those of his reign. Tillemont, Hist.
des Empereurs, tom. ii. p. 752.]
Yet Commodus was not, as he has been represented, a tiger born
with an insatiate thirst of human blood, and capable, from his
infancy, of the most inhuman actions. 7 Nature had formed him of
a weak rather than a wicked disposition. His simplicity and
timidity rendered him the slave of his attendants, who gradually
corrupted his mind. His cruelty, which at first obeyed the
dictates of others, degenerated into habit, and at length became
the ruling passion of his soul. 8
7 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 46.]
8 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxxii. p. 1203.]
Upon the death of his father, Commodus found himself embarrassed
with the command of a great army, and the conduct of a difficult
war against the Quadi and Marcomanni. 9 The servile and
profligate youths whom Marcus had banished, soon regained their
station and influence about the new emperor. They exaggerated the
hardships and dangers of a campaign in the wild countries beyond
the Danube; and they assured the indolent prince that the terror
of his name, and the arms of his lieutenants, would be sufficient
to complete the conquest of the dismayed barbarians, or to impose
such conditions as were more advantageous than any conquest. By a
dexterous application to his sensual appetites, they compared the
tranquillity, the splendor, the refined pleasures of Rome, with
the tumult of a Pannonian camp, which afforded neither leisure
nor materials for luxury. 10 Commodus listened to the pleasing
advice; but whilst he hesitated between his own inclination and
the awe which he still retained for his father’s counsellors, the
summer insensibly elapsed, and his triumphal entry into the
capital was deferred till the autumn. His graceful person, 11
popular address, and imagined virtues, attracted the public
favor; the honorable peace which he had recently granted to the
barbarians, diffused a universal joy; 12 his impatience to
revisit Rome was fondly ascribed to the love of his country; and
his dissolute course of amusements was faintly condemned in a
prince of nineteen years of age.
9 (return) [ According to Tertullian, (Apolog. c. 25,) he died at
Sirmium. But the situation of Vindobona, or Vienna, where both
the Victors place his death, is better adapted to the operations
of the war against the Marcomanni and Quadi.]
10 (return) [ Herodian, l. i. p. 12.]
11 (return) [ Herodian, l. i. p. 16.]
12 (return) [ This universal joy is well described (from the
medals as well as historians) by Mr. Wotton, Hist. of Rome, p.
192, 193.] During the three first years of his reign, the forms,
and even the spirit, of the old administration, were maintained
by those faithful counsellors, to whom Marcus had recommended his
son, and for whose wisdom and integrity Commodus still
entertained a reluctant esteem. The young prince and his
profligate favorites revelled in all the license of sovereign
power; but his hands were yet unstained with blood; and he had
even displayed a generosity of sentiment, which might perhaps
have ripened into solid virtue. 13 A fatal incident decided his
fluctuating character.
13 (return) [ Manilius, the confidential secretary of Avidius
Cassius, was discovered after he had lain concealed several
years. The emperor nobly relieved the public anxiety by refusing
to see him, and burning his papers without opening them. Dion
Cassius, l. lxxii. p. 1209.]
One evening, as the emperor was returning to the palace, through
a dark and narrow portico in the amphitheatre, 14 an assassin,
who waited his passage, rushed upon him with a drawn sword,
loudly exclaiming, “_The senate sends you this_.” The menace
prevented the deed; the assassin was seized by the guards, and
immediately revealed the authors of the conspiracy. It had been
formed, not in the state, but within the walls of the palace.
Lucilla, the emperor’s sister, and widow of Lucius Verus,
impatient of the second rank, and jealous of the reigning
empress, had armed the murderer against her brother’s life. She
had not ventured to communicate the black design to her second
husband, Claudius Pompeiarus, a senator of distinguished merit
and unshaken loyalty; but among the crowd of her lovers (for she
imitated the manners of Faustina) she found men of desperate
fortunes and wild ambition, who were prepared to serve her more
violent, as well as her tender passions. The conspirators
experienced the rigor of justice, and the abandoned princess was
punished, first with exile, and afterwards with death. 15
14 (return) [See Maffei degli Amphitheatri, p. 126.]
15 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxi. p. 1205 Herodian, l. i. p. 16 Hist.
August p. 46.]
But the words of the assassin sunk deep into the mind of
Commodus, and left an indelible impression of fear and hatred
against the whole body of the senate. 151 Those whom he had
dreaded as importunate ministers, he now suspected as secret
enemies. The Delators, a race of men discouraged, and almost
extinguished, under the former reigns, again became formidable,
as soon as they discovered that the emperor was desirous of
finding disaffection and treason in the senate. That assembly,
whom Marcus had ever considered as the great council of the
nation, was composed of the most distinguished of the Romans; and
distinction of every kind soon became criminal. The possession of
wealth stimulated the diligence of the informers; rigid virtue
implied a tacit censure of the irregularities of Commodus;
important services implied a dangerous superiority of merit; and
the friendship of the father always insured the aversion of the
son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof; trial to condemnation.
The execution of a considerable senator was attended with the
death of all who might lament or revenge his fate; and when
Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity
or remorse.
151 (return) [ The conspirators were senators, even the assassin
himself. Herod. 81.—G.]
Of these innocent victims of tyranny, none died more lamented
than the two brothers of the Quintilian family, Maximus and
Condianus; whose fraternal love has saved their names from
oblivion, and endeared their memory to posterity. Their studies
and their occupations, their pursuits and their pleasures, were
still the same. In the enjoyment of a great estate, they never
admitted the idea of a separate interest: some fragments are now
extant of a treatise which they composed in common; 152 and in
every action of life it was observed that their two bodies were
animated by one soul. The Antonines, who valued their virtues,
and delighted in their union, raised them, in the same year, to
the consulship; and Marcus afterwards intrusted to their joint
care the civil administration of Greece, and a great military
command, in which they obtained a signal victory over the
Germans. The kind cruelty of Commodus united them in death. 16
152 (return) [ This work was on agriculture, and is often quoted
by later writers. See P. Needham, Proleg. ad Geoponic. Camb.
1704.—W.]
16 (return) [ In a note upon the Augustan History, Casaubon has
collected a number of particulars concerning these celebrated
brothers. See p. 96 of his learned commentary.]
The tyrant’s rage, after having shed the noblest blood of the
senate, at length recoiled on the principal instrument of his
cruelty. Whilst Commodus was immersed in blood and luxury, he
devolved the detail of the public business on Perennis, a servile
and ambitious minister, who had obtained his post by the murder
of his predecessor, but who possessed a considerable share of
vigor and ability. By acts of extortion, and the forfeited
estates of the nobles sacrificed to his avarice, he had
accumulated an immense treasure. The Prætorian guards were under
his immediate command; and his son, who already discovered a
military genius, was at the head of the Illyrian legions.
Perennis aspired to the empire; or what, in the eyes of Commodus,
amounted to the same crime, he was capable of aspiring to it, had
he not been prevented, surprised, and put to death. The fall of a
minister is a very trifling incident in the general history of
the empire; but it was hastened by an extraordinary circumstance,
which proved how much the nerves of discipline were already
relaxed. The legions of Britain, discontented with the
administration of Perennis, formed a deputation of fifteen
hundred select men, with instructions to march to Rome, and lay
their complaints before the emperor. These military petitioners,
by their own determined behaviour, by inflaming the divisions of
the guards, by exaggerating the strength of the British army, and
by alarming the fears of Commodus, exacted and obtained the
minister’s death, as the only redress of their grievances. 17
This presumption of a distant army, and their discovery of the
weakness of government, was a sure presage of the most dreadful
convulsions.
17 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1210. Herodian, l. i. p. 22.
Hist. August. p. 48. Dion gives a much less odious character of
Perennis, than the other historians. His moderation is almost a
pledge of his veracity. Note: Gibbon praises Dion for the
moderation with which he speaks of Perennis: he follows,
nevertheless, in his own narrative, Herodian and Lampridius. Dion
speaks of Perennis not only with moderation, but with admiration;
he represents him as a great man, virtuous in his life, and
blameless in his death: perhaps he may be suspected of
partiality; but it is singular that Gibbon, having adopted, from
Herodian and Lampridius, their judgment on this minister, follows
Dion’s improbable account of his death. What likelihood, in fact,
that fifteen hundred men should have traversed Gaul and Italy,
and have arrived at Rome without any understanding with the
Prætorians, or without detection or opposition from Perennis, the
Prætorian præfect? Gibbon, foreseeing, perhaps, this difficulty,
has added, that the military deputation inflamed the divisions of
the guards; but Dion says expressly that they did not reach Rome,
but that the emperor went out to meet them: he even reproaches
him for not having opposed them with the guards, who were
superior in number. Herodian relates that Commodus, having
learned, from a soldier, the ambitious designs of Perennis and
his son, caused them to be attacked and massacred by night.—G.
from W. Dion’s narrative is remarkably circumstantial, and his
authority higher than either of the other writers. He hints that
Cleander, a new favorite, had already undermined the influence of
Perennis.—M.]
The negligence of the public administration was betrayed, soon
afterwards, by a new disorder, which arose from the smallest
beginnings. A spirit of desertion began to prevail among the
troops: and the deserters, instead of seeking their safety in
flight or concealment, infested the highways. Maternus, a private
soldier, of a daring boldness above his station, collected these
bands of robbers into a little army, set open the prisons,
invited the slaves to assert their freedom, and plundered with
impunity the rich and defenceless cities of Gaul and Spain. The
governors of the provinces, who had long been the spectators, and
perhaps the partners, of his depredations, were, at length,
roused from their supine indolence by the threatening commands of
the emperor. Maternus found that he was encompassed, and foresaw
that he must be overpowered. A great effort of despair was his
last resource. He ordered his followers to disperse, to pass the
Alps in small parties and various disguises, and to assemble at
Rome, during the licentious tumult of the festival of Cybele. 18
To murder Commodus, and to ascend the vacant throne, was the
ambition of no vulgar robber. His measures were so ably concerted
that his concealed troops already filled the streets of Rome. The
envy of an accomplice discovered and ruined this singular
enterprise, in a moment when it was ripe for execution. 19
18 (return) [ During the second Punic war, the Romans imported
from Asia the worship of the mother of the gods. Her festival,
the Megalesia, began on the fourth of April, and lasted six days.
The streets were crowded with mad processions, the theatres with
spectators, and the public tables with unbidden guests. Order and
police were suspended, and pleasure was the only serious business
of the city. See Ovid. de Fastis, l. iv. 189, &c.]
19 (return) [ Herodian, l. i. p. 23, 23.]
Suspicious princes often promote the last of mankind, from a vain
persuasion, that those who have no dependence, except on their
favor, will have no attachment, except to the person of their
benefactor. Cleander, the successor of Perennis, was a Phrygian
by birth; of a nation over whose stubborn, but servile temper,
blows only could prevail. 20 He had been sent from his native
country to Rome, in the capacity of a slave. As a slave he
entered the Imperial palace, rendered himself useful to his
master’s passions, and rapidly ascended to the most exalted
station which a subject could enjoy. His influence over the mind
of Commodus was much greater than that of his predecessor; for
Cleander was devoid of any ability or virtue which could inspire
the emperor with envy or distrust. Avarice was the reigning
passion of his soul, and the great principle of his
administration. The rank of Consul, of Patrician, of Senator, was
exposed to public sale; and it would have been considered as
disaffection, if any one had refused to purchase these empty and
disgraceful honors with the greatest part of his fortune. 21 In
the lucrative provincial employments, the minister shared with
the governor the spoils of the people. The execution of the laws
was penal and arbitrary. A wealthy criminal might obtain, not
only the reversal of the sentence by which he was justly
condemned, but might likewise inflict whatever punishment he
pleased on the accuser, the witnesses, and the judge.
20 (return) [ Cicero pro Flacco, c. 27.]
21 (return) [ One of these dear-bought promotions occasioned a
current... that Julius Solon was banished into the senate.]
By these means, Cleander, in the space of three years, had
accumulated more wealth than had ever yet been possessed by any
freedman. 22 Commodus was perfectly satisfied with the
magnificent presents which the artful courtier laid at his feet
in the most seasonable moments. To divert the public envy,
Cleander, under the emperor’s name, erected baths, porticos, and
places of exercise, for the use of the people. 23 He flattered
himself that the Romans, dazzled and amused by this apparent
liberality, would be less affected by the bloody scenes which
were daily exhibited; that they would forget the death of
Byrrhus, a senator to whose superior merit the late emperor had
granted one of his daughters; and that they would forgive the
execution of Arrius Antoninus, the last representative of the
name and virtues of the Antonines. The former, with more
integrity than prudence, had attempted to disclose, to his
brother-in-law, the true character of Cleander. An equitable
sentence pronounced by the latter, when proconsul of Asia,
against a worthless creature of the favorite, proved fatal to
him. 24 After the fall of Perennis, the terrors of Commodus had,
for a short time, assumed the appearance of a return to virtue.
He repealed the most odious of his acts; loaded his memory with
the public execration, and ascribed to the pernicious counsels of
that wicked minister all the errors of his inexperienced youth.
But his repentance lasted only thirty days; and, under Cleander’s
tyranny, the administration of Perennis was often regretted.
22 (return) [ Dion (l. lxxii. p. 12, 13) observes, that no
freedman had possessed riches equal to those of Cleander. The
fortune of Pallas amounted, however, to upwards of five and
twenty hundred thousand pounds; Ter millies.]
23 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxii. p. 12, 13. Herodian, l. i. p. 29.
Hist. August. p. 52. These baths were situated near the Porta
Capena. See Nardini Roma Antica, p. 79.]
24 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 79.]
Chapter IV: The Cruelty, Follies And Murder Of Commodus.—Part II.
Pestilence and famine contributed to fill up the measure of the
calamities of Rome. 25 The first could be only imputed to the
just indignation of the gods; but a monopoly of corn, supported
by the riches and power of the minister, was considered as the
immediate cause of the second. The popular discontent, after it
had long circulated in whispers, broke out in the assembled
circus. The people quitted their favorite amusements for the more
delicious pleasure of revenge, rushed in crowds towards a palace
in the suburbs, one of the emperor’s retirements, and demanded,
with angry clamors, the head of the public enemy. Cleander, who
commanded the Prætorian guards, 26 ordered a body of cavalry to
sally forth, and disperse the seditious multitude. The multitude
fled with precipitation towards the city; several were slain, and
many more were trampled to death; but when the cavalry entered
the streets, their pursuit was checked by a shower of stones and
darts from the roofs and windows of the houses. The foot guards,
27 who had been long jealous of the prerogatives and insolence of
the Prætorian cavalry, embraced the party of the people. The
tumult became a regular engagement, and threatened a general
massacre. The Prætorians, at length, gave way, oppressed with
numbers; and the tide of popular fury returned with redoubled
violence against the gates of the palace, where Commodus lay,
dissolved in luxury, and alone unconscious of the civil war. It
was death to approach his person with the unwelcome news. He
would have perished in this supine security, had not two women,
his eldest sister Fadilla, and Marcia, the most favored of his
concubines, ventured to break into his presence. Bathed in tears,
and with dishevelled hair, they threw themselves at his feet; and
with all the pressing eloquence of fear, discovered to the
affrighted emperor the crimes of the minister, the rage of the
people, and the impending ruin, which, in a few minutes, would
burst over his palace and person. Commodus started from his dream
of pleasure, and commanded that the head of Cleander should be
thrown out to the people. The desired spectacle instantly
appeased the tumult; and the son of Marcus might even yet have
regained the affection and confidence of his subjects. 28
25 (return) [ Herodian, l. i. p. 28. Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1215. The
latter says that two thousand persons died every day at Rome,
during a considerable length of time.]
26 (return) [ Tuneque primum tres præfecti prætorio fuere: inter
quos libertinus. From some remains of modesty, Cleander declined
the title, whilst he assumed the powers, of Prætorian præfect. As
the other freedmen were styled, from their several departments, a
rationibus, ab epistolis, Cleander called himself a pugione, as
intrusted with the defence of his master’s person. Salmasius and
Casaubon seem to have talked very idly upon this passage. * Note:
M. Guizot denies that Lampridius means Cleander as præfect a
pugione. The Libertinus seems to me to mean him.—M.]
27 (return) [ Herodian, l. i. p. 31. It is doubtful whether he
means the Prætorian infantry, or the cohortes urbanæ, a body of
six thousand men, but whose rank and discipline were not equal to
their numbers. Neither Tillemont nor Wotton choose to decide this
question.]
28 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxxii. p. 1215. Herodian, l. i. p.
32. Hist. August. p. 48.]
But every sentiment of virtue and humanity was extinct in the
mind of Commodus. Whilst he thus abandoned the reins of empire to
these unworthy favorites, he valued nothing in sovereign power,
except the unbounded license of indulging his sensual appetites.
His hours were spent in a seraglio of three hundred beautiful
women, and as many boys, of every rank, and of every province;
and, wherever the arts of seduction proved ineffectual, the
brutal lover had recourse to violence. The ancient historians 29
have expatiated on these abandoned scenes of prostitution, which
scorned every restraint of nature or modesty; but it would not be
easy to translate their too faithful descriptions into the
decency of modern language. The intervals of lust were filled up
with the basest amusements. The influence of a polite age, and
the labor of an attentive education, had never been able to
infuse into his rude and brutish mind the least tincture of
learning; and he was the first of the Roman emperors totally
devoid of taste for the pleasures of the understanding. Nero
himself excelled, or affected to excel, in the elegant arts of
music and poetry: nor should we despise his pursuits, had he not
converted the pleasing relaxation of a leisure hour into the
serious business and ambition of his life. But Commodus, from his
earliest infancy, discovered an aversion to whatever was rational
or liberal, and a fond attachment to the amusements of the
populace; the sports of the circus and amphitheatre, the combats
of gladiators, and the hunting of wild beasts. The masters in
every branch of learning, whom Marcus provided for his son, were
heard with inattention and disgust; whilst the Moors and
Parthians, who taught him to dart the javelin and to shoot with
the bow, found a disciple who delighted in his application, and
soon equalled the most skilful of his instructors in the
steadiness of the eye and the dexterity of the hand.
29 (return) [ Sororibus suis constupratis. Ipsas concubinas suas
sub oculis...stuprari jubebat. Nec irruentium in se juvenum
carebat infamia, omni parte corporis atque ore in sexum utrumque
pollutus. Hist. Aug. p. 47.]
The servile crowd, whose fortune depended on their master’s
vices, applauded these ignoble pursuits. The perfidious voice of
flattery reminded him, that by exploits of the same nature, by
the defeat of the Nemæan lion, and the slaughter of the wild boar
of Erymanthus, the Grecian Hercules had acquired a place among
the gods, and an immortal memory among men. They only forgot to
observe, that, in the first ages of society, when the fiercer
animals often dispute with man the possession of an unsettled
country, a successful war against those savages is one of the
most innocent and beneficial labors of heroism. In the civilized
state of the Roman empire, the wild beasts had long since retired
from the face of man, and the neighborhood of populous cities. To
surprise them in their solitary haunts, and to transport them to
Rome, that they might be slain in pomp by the hand of an emperor,
was an enterprise equally ridiculous for the prince and
oppressive for the people. 30 Ignorant of these distinctions,
Commodus eagerly embraced the glorious resemblance, and styled
himself (as we still read on his medals31) the _Roman Hercules_.
311 The club and the lion’s hide were placed by the side of the
throne, amongst the ensigns of sovereignty; and statues were
erected, in which Commodus was represented in the character, and
with the attributes, of the god, whose valor and dexterity he
endeavored to emulate in the daily course of his ferocious
amusements. 32
30 (return) [ The African lions, when pressed by hunger, infested
the open villages and cultivated country; and they infested them
with impunity. The royal beast was reserved for the pleasures of
the emperor and the capital; and the unfortunate peasant who
killed one of them though in his own defence, incurred a very
heavy penalty. This extraordinary game-law was mitigated by
Honorius, and finally repealed by Justinian. Codex Theodos. tom.
v. p. 92, et Comment Gothofred.]
31 (return) [ Spanheim de Numismat. Dissertat. xii. tom. ii. p.
493.]
311 (return) [ Commodus placed his own head on the colossal
statue of Hercules with the inscription, Lucius Commodus
Hercules. The wits of Rome, according to a new fragment of Dion,
published an epigram, of which, like many other ancient jests,
the point is not very clear. It seems to be a protest of the god
against being confounded with the emperor. Mai Fragm. Vatican.
ii. 225.—M.]
32 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1216. Hist. August. p. 49.]
Elated with these praises, which gradually extinguished the
innate sense of shame, Commodus resolved to exhibit before the
eyes of the Roman people those exercises, which till then he had
decently confined within the walls of his palace, and to the
presence of a few favorites. On the appointed day, the various
motives of flattery, fear, and curiosity, attracted to the
amphitheatre an innumerable multitude of spectators; and some
degree of applause was deservedly bestowed on the uncommon skill
of the Imperial performer. Whether he aimed at the head or heart
of the animal, the wound was alike certain and mortal. With
arrows whose point was shaped into the form of crescent, Commodus
often intercepted the rapid career, and cut asunder the long,
bony neck of the ostrich. 33 A panther was let loose; and the
archer waited till he had leaped upon a trembling malefactor. In
the same instant the shaft flew, the beast dropped dead, and the
man remained unhurt. The dens of the amphitheatre disgorged at
once a hundred lions: a hundred darts from the unerring hand of
Commodus laid them dead as they run raging round the _Arena_.
Neither the huge bulk of the elephant, nor the scaly hide of the
rhinoceros, could defend them from his stroke. Æthiopia and India
yielded their most extraordinary productions; and several animals
were slain in the amphitheatre, which had been seen only in the
representations of art, or perhaps of fancy. 34 In all these
exhibitions, the securest precautions were used to protect the
person of the Roman Hercules from the desperate spring of any
savage, who might possibly disregard the dignity of the emperor
and the sanctity of the god. 35
33 (return) [ The ostrich’s neck is three feet long, and composed
of seventeen vertebræ. See Buffon, Hist. Naturelle.]
34 (return) [ Commodus killed a camelopardalis or Giraffe, (Dion,
l. lxxii. p. 1211,) the tallest, the most gentle, and the most
useless of the large quadrupeds. This singular animal, a native
only of the interior parts of Africa, has not been seen in Europe
since the revival of letters; and though M. de Buffon (Hist.
Naturelle, tom. xiii.) has endeavored to describe, he has not
ventured to delineate, the Giraffe. * Note: The naturalists of
our days have been more fortunate. London probably now contains
more specimens of this animal than have been seen in Europe since
the fall of the Roman empire, unless in the pleasure gardens of
the emperor Frederic II., in Sicily, which possessed several.
Frederic’s collections of wild beasts were exhibited, for the
popular amusement, in many parts of Italy. Raumer, Geschichte der
Hohenstaufen, v. iii. p. 571. Gibbon, moreover, is mistaken; as a
giraffe was presented to Lorenzo de Medici, either by the sultan
of Egypt or the king of Tunis. Contemporary authorities are
quoted in the old work, Gesner de Quadrupedibum p. 162.—M.]
35 (return) [ Herodian, l. i. p. 37. Hist. August. p. 50.]
But the meanest of the populace were affected with shame and
indignation when they beheld their sovereign enter the lists as a
gladiator, and glory in a profession which the laws and manners
of the Romans had branded with the justest note of infamy. 36 He
chose the habit and arms of the _Secutor_, whose combat with the
_Retiarius_ formed one of the most lively scenes in the bloody
sports of the amphitheatre. The _Secutor_ was armed with a
helmet, sword, and buckler; his naked antagonist had only a large
net and a trident; with the one he endeavored to entangle, with
the other to despatch his enemy. If he missed the first throw, he
was obliged to fly from the pursuit of the _Secutor_, till he had
prepared his net for a second cast. 37 The emperor fought in this
character seven hundred and thirty-five several times. These
glorious achievements were carefully recorded in the public acts
of the empire; and that he might omit no circumstance of infamy,
he received from the common fund of gladiators a stipend so
exorbitant that it became a new and most ignominious tax upon the
Roman people. 38 It may be easily supposed, that in these
engagements the master of the world was always successful; in the
amphitheatre, his victories were not often sanguinary; but when
he exercised his skill in the school of gladiators, or his own
palace, his wretched antagonists were frequently honored with a
mortal wound from the hand of Commodus, and obliged to seal their
flattery with their blood. 39 He now disdained the appellation of
Hercules. The name of Paulus, a celebrated Secutor, was the only
one which delighted his ear. It was inscribed on his colossal
statues, and repeated in the redoubled acclamations 40 of the
mournful and applauding senate. 41 Claudius Pompeianus, the
virtuous husband of Lucilla, was the only senator who asserted
the honor of his rank. As a father, he permitted his sons to
consult their safety by attending the amphitheatre. As a Roman,
he declared, that his own life was in the emperor’s hands, but
that he would never behold the son of Marcus prostituting his
person and dignity. Notwithstanding his manly resolution
Pompeianus escaped the resentment of the tyrant, and, with his
honor, had the good fortune to preserve his life. 42
36 (return) [ The virtuous and even the wise princes forbade the
senators and knights to embrace this scandalous profession, under
pain of infamy, or, what was more dreaded by those profligate
wretches, of exile. The tyrants allured them to dishonor by
threats and rewards. Nero once produced in the arena forty
senators and sixty knights. See Lipsius, Saturnalia, l. ii. c. 2.
He has happily corrected a passage of Suetonius in Nerone, c.
12.]
37 (return) [ Lipsius, l. ii. c. 7, 8. Juvenal, in the eighth
satire, gives a picturesque description of this combat.]
38 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 50. Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1220. He
received, for each time, decies, about 8000l. sterling.]
39 (return) [ Victor tells us, that Commodus only allowed his
antagonists a...weapon, dreading most probably the consequences
of their despair.]
40 (return) [Footnote 40: They were obliged to repeat, six
hundred and twenty-six times, Paolus first of the Secutors, &c.]
41 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1221. He speaks of his own
baseness and danger.]
42 (return) [ He mixed, however, some prudence with his courage,
and passed the greatest part of his time in a country retirement;
alleging his advanced age, and the weakness of his eyes. “I never
saw him in the senate,” says Dion, “except during the short reign
of Pertinax.” All his infirmities had suddenly left him, and they
returned as suddenly upon the murder of that excellent prince.
Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1227.]
Commodus had now attained the summit of vice and infamy. Amidst
the acclamations of a flattering court, he was unable to disguise
from himself, that he had deserved the contempt and hatred of
every man of sense and virtue in his empire. His ferocious spirit
was irritated by the consciousness of that hatred, by the envy of
every kind of merit, by the just apprehension of danger, and by
the habit of slaughter, which he contracted in his daily
amusements. History has preserved a long list of consular
senators sacrificed to his wanton suspicion, which sought out,
with peculiar anxiety, those unfortunate persons connected,
however remotely, with the family of the Antonines, without
sparing even the ministers of his crimes or pleasures. 43 His
cruelty proved at last fatal to himself. He had shed with
impunity the noblest blood of Rome: he perished as soon as he was
dreaded by his own domestics. Marcia, his favorite concubine,
Eclectus, his chamberlain, and Lætus, his Prætorian præfect,
alarmed by the fate of their companions and predecessors,
resolved to prevent the destruction which every hour hung over
their heads, either from the mad caprice of the tyrant, 431 or
the sudden indignation of the people. Marcia seized the occasion
of presenting a draught of wine to her lover, after he had
fatigued himself with hunting some wild beasts. Commodus retired
to sleep; but whilst he was laboring with the effects of poison
and drunkenness, a robust youth, by profession a wrestler,
entered his chamber, and strangled him without resistance. The
body was secretly conveyed out of the palace, before the least
suspicion was entertained in the city, or even in the court, of
the emperor’s death. Such was the fate of the son of Marcus, and
so easy was it to destroy a hated tyrant, who, by the artificial
powers of government, had oppressed, during thirteen years, so
many millions of subjects, each of whom was equal to their master
in personal strength and personal abilities. 44
43 (return) [ The prefects were changed almost hourly or daily;
and the caprice of Commodus was often fatal to his most favored
chamberlains. Hist. August. p. 46, 51.]
431 (return) [ Commodus had already resolved to massacre them the
following night they determined o anticipate his design. Herod.
i. 17.—W.]
44 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1222. Herodian, l. i. p. 43.
Hist. August. p. 52.]
The measures of the conspirators were conducted with the
deliberate coolness and celerity which the greatness of the
occasion required. They resolved instantly to fill the vacant
throne with an emperor whose character would justify and maintain
the action that had been committed. They fixed on Pertinax,
præfect of the city, an ancient senator of consular rank, whose
conspicuous merit had broke through the obscurity of his birth,
and raised him to the first honors of the state. He had
successively governed most of the provinces of the empire; and in
all his great employments, military as well as civil, he had
uniformly distinguished himself by the firmness, the prudence,
and the integrity of his conduct. 45 He now remained almost alone
of the friends and ministers of Marcus; and when, at a late hour
of the night, he was awakened with the news, that the chamberlain
and the præfect were at his door, he received them with intrepid
resignation, and desired they would execute their master’s
orders. Instead of death, they offered him the throne of the
Roman world. During some moments he distrusted their intentions
and assurances. Convinced at length of the death of Commodus, he
accepted the purple with a sincere reluctance, the natural effect
of his knowledge both of the duties and of the dangers of the
supreme rank. 46
45 (return) [ Pertinax was a native of Alba Pompeia, in Piedmont,
and son of a timber merchant. The order of his employments (it is
marked by Capitolinus) well deserves to be set down, as
expressive of the form of government and manners of the age. 1.
He was a centurion. 2. Præfect of a cohort in Syria, in the
Parthian war, and in Britain. 3. He obtained an Ala, or squadron
of horse, in Mæsia. 4. He was commissary of provisions on the
Æmilian way. 5. He commanded the fleet upon the Rhine. 6. He was
procurator of Dacia, with a salary of about 1600l. a year. 7. He
commanded the veterans of a legion. 8. He obtained the rank of
senator. 9. Of prætor. 10. With the command of the first legion
in Rhætia and Noricum. 11. He was consul about the year 175. 12.
He attended Marcus into the East. 13. He commanded an army on the
Danube. 14. He was consular legate of Mæsia. 15. Of Dacia. 16. Of
Syria. 17. Of Britain. 18. He had the care of the public
provisions at Rome. 19. He was proconsul of Africa. 20. Præfect
of the city. Herodian (l. i. p. 48) does justice to his
disinterested spirit; but Capitolinus, who collected every
popular rumor, charges him with a great fortune acquired by
bribery and corruption.]
46 (return) [ Julian, in the Cæsars, taxes him with being
accessory to the death of Commodus.]
Lætus conducted without delay his new emperor to the camp of the
Prætorians, diffusing at the same time through the city a
seasonable report that Commodus died suddenly of an apoplexy; and
that the virtuous Pertinax had _already_ succeeded to the throne.
The guards were rather surprised than pleased with the suspicious
death of a prince, whose indulgence and liberality they alone had
experienced; but the emergency of the occasion, the authority of
their præfect, the reputation of Pertinax, and the clamors of the
people, obliged them to stifle their secret discontents, to
accept the donative promised by the new emperor, to swear
allegiance to him, and with joyful acclamations and laurels in
their hands to conduct him to the senate house, that the military
consent might be ratified by the civil authority. This important
night was now far spent; with the dawn of day, and the
commencement of the new year, the senators expected a summons to
attend an ignominious ceremony. 461 In spite of all
remonstrances, even of those of his creatures who yet preserved
any regard for prudence or decency, Commodus had resolved to pass
the night in the gladiators’ school, and from thence to take
possession of the consulship, in the habit and with the
attendance of that infamous crew. On a sudden, before the break
of day, the senate was called together in the temple of Concord,
to meet the guards, and to ratify the election of a new emperor.
For a few minutes they sat in silent suspense, doubtful of their
unexpected deliverance, and suspicious of the cruel artifices of
Commodus: but when at length they were assured that the tyrant
was no more, they resigned themselves to all the transports of
joy and indignation. Pertinax, who modestly represented the
meanness of his extraction, and pointed out several noble
senators more deserving than himself of the empire, was
constrained by their dutiful violence to ascend the throne, and
received all the titles of Imperial power, confirmed by the most
sincere vows of fidelity. The memory of Commodus was branded with
eternal infamy. The names of tyrant, of gladiator, of public
enemy resounded in every corner of the house. They decreed in
tumultuous votes, 462 that his honors should be reversed, his
titles erased from the public monuments, his statues thrown down,
his body dragged with a hook into the stripping room of the
gladiators, to satiate the public fury; and they expressed some
indignation against those officious servants who had already
presumed to screen his remains from the justice of the senate.
But Pertinax could not refuse those last rites to the memory of
Marcus, and the tears of his first protector Claudius Pompeianus,
who lamented the cruel fate of his brother-in-law, and lamented
still more that he had deserved it. 47
461 (return) [ The senate always assembled at the beginning of
the year, on the night of the 1st January, (see Savaron on Sid.
Apoll. viii. 6,) and this happened the present year, as usual,
without any particular order.—G from W.]
462 (return) [ What Gibbon improperly calls, both here and in the
note, tumultuous decrees, were no more than the applauses and
acclamations which recur so often in the history of the emperors.
The custom passed from the theatre to the forum, from the forum
to the senate. Applauses on the adoption of the Imperial decrees
were first introduced under Trajan. (Plin. jun. Panegyr. 75.) One
senator read the form of the decree, and all the rest answered by
acclamations, accompanied with a kind of chant or rhythm. These
were some of the acclamations addressed to Pertinax, and against
the memory of Commodus. Hosti patriæ honores detrahantur.
Parricidæ honores detrahantur. Ut salvi simus, Jupiter, optime,
maxime, serva nobis Pertinacem. This custom prevailed not only in
the councils of state, but in all the meetings of the senate.
However inconsistent it may appear with the solemnity of a
religious assembly, the early Christians adopted and introduced
it into their synods, notwithstanding the opposition of some of
the Fathers, particularly of St. Chrysostom. See the Coll. of
Franc. Bern. Ferrarius de veterum acclamatione in Grævii Thesaur.
Antiq. Rom. i. 6.—W. This note is rather hypercritical, as
regards Gibbon, but appears to be worthy of preservation.—M.]
47 (return) [ Capitolinus gives us the particulars of these
tumultuary votes, which were moved by one senator, and repeated,
or rather chanted by the whole body. Hist. August. p. 52.]
These effusions of impotent rage against a dead emperor, whom the
senate had flattered when alive with the most abject servility,
betrayed a just but ungenerous spirit of revenge.
The legality of these decrees was, however, supported by the
principles of the Imperial constitution. To censure, to depose,
or to punish with death, the first magistrate of the republic,
who had abused his delegated trust, was the ancient and undoubted
prerogative of the Roman senate; 48 but the feeble assembly was
obliged to content itself with inflicting on a fallen tyrant that
public justice, from which, during his life and reign, he had
been shielded by the strong arm of military despotism. 481
48 (return) [ The senate condemned Nero to be put to death more
majorum. Sueton. c. 49.]
481 (return) [ No particular law assigned this right to the
senate: it was deduced from the ancient principles of the
republic. Gibbon appears to infer, from the passage of Suetonius,
that the senate, according to its ancient right, punished Nero
with death. The words, however, more majerum refer not to the
decree of the senate, but to the kind of death, which was taken
from an old law of Romulus. (See Victor. Epit. Ed. Artzen p. 484,
n. 7.)—W.]
Pertinax found a nobler way of condemning his predecessor’s
memory; by the contrast of his own virtues with the vices of
Commodus. On the day of his accession, he resigned over to his
wife and son his whole private fortune; that they might have no
pretence to solicit favors at the expense of the state. He
refused to flatter the vanity of the former with the title of
Augusta; or to corrupt the inexperienced youth of the latter by
the rank of Cæsar. Accurately distinguishing between the duties
of a parent and those of a sovereign, he educated his son with a
severe simplicity, which, while it gave him no assured prospect
of the throne, might in time have rendered him worthy of it. In
public, the behavior of Pertinax was grave and affable. He lived
with the virtuous part of the senate, (and, in a private station,
he had been acquainted with the true character of each
individual,) without either pride or jealousy; considered them as
friends and companions, with whom he had shared the danger of the
tyranny, and with whom he wished to enjoy the security of the
present time. He very frequently invited them to familiar
entertainments, the frugality of which was ridiculed by those who
remembered and regretted the luxurious prodigality of Commodus.
49
49 (return) [ Dion (l. lxxiii. p. 1223) speaks of these
entertainments, as a senator who had supped with the emperor;
Capitolinus, (Hist. August. p. 58,) like a slave, who had
received his intelligence from one the scullions.]
To heal, as far as it was possible, the wounds inflicted by the
hand of tyranny, was the pleasing, but melancholy, task of
Pertinax. The innocent victims, who yet survived, were recalled
from exile, released from prison, and restored to the full
possession of their honors and fortunes. The unburied bodies of
murdered senators (for the cruelty of Commodus endeavored to
extend itself beyond death) were deposited in the sepulchres of
their ancestors; their memory was justified and every consolation
was bestowed on their ruined and afflicted families. Among these
consolations, one of the most grateful was the punishment of the
Delators; the common enemies of their master, of virtue, and of
their country. Yet even in the inquisition of these legal
assassins, Pertinax proceeded with a steady temper, which gave
every thing to justice, and nothing to popular prejudice and
resentment.
The finances of the state demanded the most vigilant care of the
emperor. Though every measure of injustice and extortion had been
adopted, which could collect the property of the subject into the
coffers of the prince, the rapaciousness of Commodus had been so
very inadequate to his extravagance, that, upon his death, no
more than eight thousand pounds were found in the exhausted
treasury, 50 to defray the current expenses of government, and to
discharge the pressing demand of a liberal donative, which the
new emperor had been obliged to promise to the Prætorian guards.
Yet under these distressed circumstances, Pertinax had the
generous firmness to remit all the oppressive taxes invented by
Commodus, and to cancel all the unjust claims of the treasury;
declaring, in a decree of the senate, “that he was better
satisfied to administer a poor republic with innocence, than to
acquire riches by the ways of tyranny and dishonor.” Economy and
industry he considered as the pure and genuine sources of wealth;
and from them he soon derived a copious supply for the public
necessities. The expense of the household was immediately reduced
to one half. All the instruments of luxury Pertinax exposed to
public auction, 51 gold and silver plate, chariots of a singular
construction, a superfluous wardrobe of silk and embroidery, and
a great number of beautiful slaves of both sexes; excepting only,
with attentive humanity, those who were born in a state of
freedom, and had been ravished from the arms of their weeping
parents. At the same time that he obliged the worthless favorites
of the tyrant to resign a part of their ill-gotten wealth, he
satisfied the just creditors of the state, and unexpectedly
discharged the long arrears of honest services. He removed the
oppressive restrictions which had been laid upon commerce, and
granted all the uncultivated lands in Italy and the provinces to
those who would improve them; with an exemption from tribute
during the term of ten years. 52
50 (return) [ Decies. The blameless economy of Pius left his
successors a treasure of vicies septies millies, above two and
twenty millions sterling. Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1231.]
51 (return) [ Besides the design of converting these useless
ornaments into money, Dion (l. lxxiii. p. 1229) assigns two
secret motives of Pertinax. He wished to expose the vices of
Commodus, and to discover by the purchasers those who most
resembled him.]
52 (return) [ Though Capitolinus has picked up many idle tales of
the private life of Pertinax, he joins with Dion and Herodian in
admiring his public conduct.]
Such a uniform conduct had already secured to Pertinax the
noblest reward of a sovereign, the love and esteem of his people.
Those who remembered the virtues of Marcus were happy to
contemplate in their new emperor the features of that bright
original; and flattered themselves, that they should long enjoy
the benign influence of his administration. A hasty zeal to
reform the corrupted state, accompanied with less prudence than
might have been expected from the years and experience of
Pertinax, proved fatal to himself and to his country. His honest
indiscretion united against him the servile crowd, who found
their private benefit in the public disorders, and who preferred
the favor of a tyrant to the inexorable equality of the laws. 53
53 (return) [ Leges, rem surdam, inexorabilem esse. T. Liv. ii.
3.]
Amidst the general joy, the sullen and angry countenance of the
Prætorian guards betrayed their inward dissatisfaction. They had
reluctantly submitted to Pertinax; they dreaded the strictness of
the ancient discipline, which he was preparing to restore; and
they regretted the license of the former reign. Their discontents
were secretly fomented by Lætus, their præfect, who found, when
it was too late, that his new emperor would reward a servant, but
would not be ruled by a favorite. On the third day of his reign,
the soldiers seized on a noble senator, with a design to carry
him to the camp, and to invest him with the Imperial purple.
Instead of being dazzled by the dangerous honor, the affrighted
victim escaped from their violence, and took refuge at the feet
of Pertinax. A short time afterwards, Sosius Falco, one of the
consuls of the year, a rash youth, 54 but of an ancient and
opulent family, listened to the voice of ambition; and a
conspiracy was formed during a short absence of Pertinax, which
was crushed by his sudden return to Rome, and his resolute
behavior. Falco was on the point of being justly condemned to
death as a public enemy had he not been saved by the earnest and
sincere entreaties of the injured emperor, who conjured the
senate, that the purity of his reign might not be stained by the
blood even of a guilty senator.
54 (return) [ If we credit Capitolinus, (which is rather
difficult,) Falco behaved with the most petulant indecency to
Pertinax, on the day of his accession. The wise emperor only
admonished him of his youth and in experience. Hist. August. p.
55.]
These disappointments served only to irritate the rage of the
Prætorian guards. On the twenty-eighth of March, eighty-six days
only after the death of Commodus, a general sedition broke out in
the camp, which the officers wanted either power or inclination
to suppress. Two or three hundred of the most desperate soldiers
marched at noonday, with arms in their hands and fury in their
looks, towards the Imperial palace. The gates were thrown open by
their companions upon guard, and by the domestics of the old
court, who had already formed a secret conspiracy against the
life of the too virtuous emperor. On the news of their approach,
Pertinax, disdaining either flight or concealment, advanced to
meet his assassins; and recalled to their minds his own
innocence, and the sanctity of their recent oath. For a few
moments they stood in silent suspense, ashamed of their atrocious
design, and awed by the venerable aspect and majestic firmness of
their sovereign, till at length, the despair of pardon reviving
their fury, a barbarian of the country of Tongress 55 levelled
the first blow against Pertinax, who was instantly despatched
with a multitude of wounds. His head, separated from his body,
and placed on a lance, was carried in triumph to the Prætorian
camp, in the sight of a mournful and indignant people, who
lamented the unworthy fate of that excellent prince, and the
transient blessings of a reign, the memory of which could serve
only to aggravate their approaching misfortunes. 56
55 (return) [ The modern bishopric of Liege. This soldier
probably belonged to the Batavian horse-guards, who were mostly
raised in the duchy of Gueldres and the neighborhood, and were
distinguished by their valor, and by the boldness with which they
swam their horses across the broadest and most rapid rivers.
Tacit. Hist. iv. 12 Dion, l. lv p. 797 Lipsius de magnitudine
Romana, l. i. c. 4.]
56 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1232. Herodian, l. ii. p. 60.
Hist. August. p. 58. Victor in Epitom. et in Cæsarib. Eutropius,
viii. 16.]
Chapter V: Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus.—Part I.
Public Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus By The Prætorian
Guards—Clodius Albinus In Britain, Pescennius Niger In Syria, And
Septimius Severus In Pannonia, Declare Against The Murderers Of
Pertinax—Civil Wars And Victory Of Severus Over His Three
Rivals—Relaxation Of Discipline—New Maxims Of Government.
The power of the sword is more sensibly felt in an extensive
monarchy, than in a small community. It has been calculated by
the ablest politicians, that no state, without being soon
exhausted, can maintain above the hundredth part of its members
in arms and idleness. But although this relative proportion may
be uniform, the influence of the army over the rest of the
society will vary according to the degree of its positive
strength. The advantages of military science and discipline
cannot be exerted, unless a proper number of soldiers are united
into one body, and actuated by one soul. With a handful of men,
such a union would be ineffectual; with an unwieldy host, it
would be impracticable; and the powers of the machine would be
alike destroyed by the extreme minuteness or the excessive weight
of its springs. To illustrate this observation, we need only
reflect, that there is no superiority of natural strength,
artificial weapons, or acquired skill, which could enable one man
to keep in constant subjection one hundred of his
fellow-creatures: the tyrant of a single town, or a small
district, would soon discover that a hundred armed followers were
a weak defence against ten thousand peasants or citizens; but a
hundred thousand well-disciplined soldiers will command, with
despotic sway, ten millions of subjects; and a body of ten or
fifteen thousand guards will strike terror into the most numerous
populace that ever crowded the streets of an immense capital.
The Prætorian bands, whose licentious fury was the first symptom
and cause of the decline of the Roman empire, scarcely amounted
to the last-mentioned number. 1 They derived their institution
from Augustus. That crafty tyrant, sensible that laws might
color, but that arms alone could maintain, his usurped dominion,
had gradually formed this powerful body of guards, in constant
readiness to protect his person, to awe the senate, and either to
prevent or to crush the first motions of rebellion. He
distinguished these favored troops by a double pay and superior
privileges; but, as their formidable aspect would at once have
alarmed and irritated the Roman people, three cohorts only were
stationed in the capital, whilst the remainder was dispersed in
the adjacent towns of Italy. 2 But after fifty years of peace and
servitude, Tiberius ventured on a decisive measure, which forever
rivetted the fetters of his country. Under the fair pretences of
relieving Italy from the heavy burden of military quarters, and
of introducing a stricter discipline among the guards, he
assembled them at Rome, in a permanent camp, 3 which was
fortified with skilful care, 4 and placed on a commanding
situation. 5
1 (return) [ They were originally nine or ten thousand men, (for
Tacitus and son are not agreed upon the subject,) divided into as
many cohorts. Vitellius increased them to sixteen thousand, and
as far as we can learn from inscriptions, they never afterwards
sunk much below that number. See Lipsius de magnitudine Romana,
i. 4.]
2 (return) [ Sueton. in August. c. 49.]
3 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. iv. 2. Sueton. in Tiber. c. 37. Dion
Cassius, l. lvii. p. 867.]
4 (return) [ In the civil war between Vitellius and Vespasian,
the Prætorian camp was attacked and defended with all the
machines used in the siege of the best fortified cities. Tacit.
Hist. iii. 84.]
5 (return) [ Close to the walls of the city, on the broad summit
of the Quirinal and Viminal hills. See Nardini Roma Antica, p.
174. Donatus de Roma Antiqua, p. 46. * Note: Not on both these
hills: neither Donatus nor Nardini justify this position.
(Whitaker’s Review. p. 13.) At the northern extremity of this
hill (the Viminal) are some considerable remains of a walled
enclosure which bears all the appearance of a Roman camp, and
therefore is generally thought to correspond with the Castra
Prætoria. Cramer’s Italy 390.—M.]
Such formidable servants are always necessary, but often fatal to
the throne of despotism. By thus introducing the Prætorian guards
as it were into the palace and the senate, the emperors taught
them to perceive their own strength, and the weakness of the
civil government; to view the vices of their masters with
familiar contempt, and to lay aside that reverential awe, which
distance only, and mystery, can preserve towards an imaginary
power. In the luxurious idleness of an opulent city, their pride
was nourished by the sense of their irresistible weight; nor was
it possible to conceal from them, that the person of the
sovereign, the authority of the senate, the public treasure, and
the seat of empire, were all in their hands. To divert the
Prætorian bands from these dangerous reflections, the firmest and
best established princes were obliged to mix blandishments with
commands, rewards with punishments, to flatter their pride,
indulge their pleasures, connive at their irregularities, and to
purchase their precarious faith by a liberal donative; which,
since the elevation of Claudius, was enacted as a legal claim, on
the accession of every new emperor. 6
6 (return) [ Claudius, raised by the soldiers to the empire, was
the first who gave a donative. He gave quina dena, 120l. (Sueton.
in Claud. c. 10: ) when Marcus, with his colleague Lucius Versus,
took quiet possession of the throne, he gave vicena, 160l. to
each of the guards. Hist. August. p. 25, (Dion, l. lxxiii. p.
1231.) We may form some idea of the amount of these sums, by
Hadrian’s complaint that the promotion of a Cæsar had cost him
ter millies, two millions and a half sterling.]
The advocate of the guards endeavored to justify by arguments the
power which they asserted by arms; and to maintain that,
according to the purest principles of the constitution, _their_
consent was essentially necessary in the appointment of an
emperor. The election of consuls, of generals, and of
magistrates, however it had been recently usurped by the senate,
was the ancient and undoubted right of the Roman people. 7 But
where was the Roman people to be found? Not surely amongst the
mixed multitude of slaves and strangers that filled the streets
of Rome; a servile populace, as devoid of spirit as destitute of
property. The defenders of the state, selected from the flower of
the Italian youth, 8 and trained in the exercise of arms and
virtue, were the genuine representatives of the people, and the
best entitled to elect the military chief of the republic. These
assertions, however defective in reason, became unanswerable when
the fierce Prætorians increased their weight, by throwing, like
the barbarian conqueror of Rome, their swords into the scale. 9
7 (return) [ Cicero de Legibus, iii. 3. The first book of Livy,
and the second of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, show the authority
of the people, even in the election of the kings.]
8 (return) [ They were originally recruited in Latium, Etruria,
and the old colonies, (Tacit. Annal. iv. 5.) The emperor Otho
compliments their vanity with the flattering titles of Italiæ,
Alumni, Romana were juventus. Tacit. Hist. i. 84.]
9 (return) [ In the siege of Rome by the Gauls. See Livy, v. 48.
Plutarch. in Camill. p. 143.]
The Prætorians had violated the sanctity of the throne by the
atrocious murder of Pertinax; they dishonored the majesty of it
by their subsequent conduct. The camp was without a leader, for
even the præfect Lætus, who had excited the tempest, prudently
declined the public indignation. Amidst the wild disorder,
Sulpicianus, the emperor’s father-in-law, and governor of the
city, who had been sent to the camp on the first alarm of mutiny,
was endeavoring to calm the fury of the multitude, when he was
silenced by the clamorous return of the murderers, bearing on a
lance the head of Pertinax. Though history has accustomed us to
observe every principle and every passion yielding to the
imperious dictates of ambition, it is scarcely credible that, in
these moments of horror, Sulpicianus should have aspired to
ascend a throne polluted with the recent blood of so near a
relation and so excellent a prince. He had already begun to use
the only effectual argument, and to treat for the Imperial
dignity; but the more prudent of the Prætorians, apprehensive
that, in this private contract, they should not obtain a just
price for so valuable a commodity, ran out upon the ramparts;
and, with a loud voice, proclaimed that the Roman world was to be
disposed of to the best bidder by public auction. 10
10 (return) [ Dion, L. lxxiii. p. 1234. Herodian, l. ii. p. 63.
Hist. August p. 60. Though the three historians agree that it was
in fact an auction, Herodian alone affirms that it was proclaimed
as such by the soldiers.]
This infamous offer, the most insolent excess of military
license, diffused a universal grief, shame, and indignation
throughout the city. It reached at length the ears of Didius
Julianus, a wealthy senator, who, regardless of the public
calamities, was indulging himself in the luxury of the table. 11
His wife and his daughter, his freedmen and his parasites, easily
convinced him that he deserved the throne, and earnestly conjured
him to embrace so fortunate an opportunity. The vain old man
hastened to the Prætorian camp, where Sulpicianus was still in
treaty with the guards, and began to bid against him from the
foot of the rampart. The unworthy negotiation was transacted by
faithful emissaries, who passed alternately from one candidate to
the other, and acquainted each of them with the offers of his
rival. Sulpicianus had already promised a donative of five
thousand drachms (above one hundred and sixty pounds) to each
soldier; when Julian, eager for the prize, rose at once to the
sum of six thousand two hundred and fifty drachms, or upwards of
two hundred pounds sterling. The gates of the camp were instantly
thrown open to the purchaser; he was declared emperor, and
received an oath of allegiance from the soldiers, who retained
humanity enough to stipulate that he should pardon and forget the
competition of Sulpicianus. 111
11 (return) [ Spartianus softens the most odious parts of the
character and elevation of Julian.]
111 (return) [ One of the principal causes of the preference of
Julianus by the soldiers, was the dexterty dexterity with which
he reminded them that Sulpicianus would not fail to revenge on
them the death of his son-in-law. (See Dion, p. 1234, 1234. c.
11. Herod. ii. 6.)—W.]
It was now incumbent on the Prætorians to fulfil the conditions
of the sale. They placed their new sovereign, whom they served
and despised, in the centre of their ranks, surrounded him on
every side with their shields, and conducted him in close order
of battle through the deserted streets of the city. The senate
was commanded to assemble; and those who had been the
distinguished friends of Pertinax, or the personal enemies of
Julian, found it necessary to affect a more than common share of
satisfaction at this happy revolution. 12 After Julian had filled
the senate house with armed soldiers, he expatiated on the
freedom of his election, his own eminent virtues, and his full
assurance of the affections of the senate. The obsequious
assembly congratulated their own and the public felicity; engaged
their allegiance, and conferred on him all the several branches
of the Imperial power. 13 From the senate Julian was conducted,
by the same military procession, to take possession of the
palace. The first objects that struck his eyes, were the
abandoned trunk of Pertinax, and the frugal entertainment
prepared for his supper. The one he viewed with indifference, the
other with contempt. A magnificent feast was prepared by his
order, and he amused himself, till a very late hour, with dice,
and the performances of Pylades, a celebrated dancer. Yet it was
observed, that after the crowd of flatterers dispersed, and left
him to darkness, solitude, and terrible reflection, he passed a
sleepless night; revolving most probably in his mind his own rash
folly, the fate of his virtuous predecessor, and the doubtful and
dangerous tenure of an empire which had not been acquired by
merit, but purchased by money. 14
12 (return) [ Dion Cassius, at that time prætor, had been a
personal enemy to Julian, i. lxxiii. p. 1235.]
13 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 61. We learn from thence one
curious circumstance, that the new emperor, whatever had been his
birth, was immediately aggregated to the number of patrician
families. Note: A new fragment of Dion shows some shrewdness in
the character of Julian. When the senate voted him a golden
statue, he preferred one of brass, as more lasting. He “had
always observed,” he said, “that the statues of former emperors
were soon destroyed. Those of brass alone remained.” The
indignant historian adds that he was wrong. The virtue of
sovereigns alone preserves their images: the brazen statue of
Julian was broken to pieces at his death. Mai. Fragm. Vatican. p.
226.—M.]
14 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1235. Hist. August. p. 61. I
have endeavored to blend into one consistent story the seeming
contradictions of the two writers. * Note: The contradiction as
M. Guizot observed, is irreconcilable. He quotes both passages:
in one Julianus is represented as a miser, in the other as a
voluptuary. In the one he refuses to eat till the body of
Pertinax has been buried; in the other he gluts himself with
every luxury almost in the sight of his headless remains.—M.]
He had reason to tremble. On the throne of the world he found
himself without a friend, and even without an adherent. The
guards themselves were ashamed of the prince whom their avarice
had persuaded them to accept; nor was there a citizen who did not
consider his elevation with horror, as the last insult on the
Roman name. The nobility, whose conspicuous station, and ample
possessions, exacted the strictest caution, dissembled their
sentiments, and met the affected civility of the emperor with
smiles of complacency and professions of duty. But the people,
secure in their numbers and obscurity, gave a free vent to their
passions. The streets and public places of Rome resounded with
clamors and imprecations. The enraged multitude affronted the
person of Julian, rejected his liberality, and, conscious of the
impotence of their own resentment, they called aloud on the
legions of the frontiers to assert the violated majesty of the
Roman empire. The public discontent was soon diffused from the
centre to the frontiers of the empire. The armies of Britain, of
Syria, and of Illyricum, lamented the death of Pertinax, in whose
company, or under whose command, they had so often fought and
conquered. They received with surprise, with indignation, and
perhaps with envy, the extraordinary intelligence, that the
Prætorians had disposed of the empire by public auction; and they
sternly refused to ratify the ignominious bargain. Their
immediate and unanimous revolt was fatal to Julian, but it was
fatal at the same time to the public peace, as the generals of
the respective armies, Clodius Albinus, Pescennius Niger, and
Septimius Severus, were still more anxious to succeed than to
revenge the murdered Pertinax. Their forces were exactly
balanced. Each of them was at the head of three legions, 15 with
a numerous train of auxiliaries; and however different in their
characters, they were all soldiers of experience and capacity.
15 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1235.]
Clodius Albinus, governor of Britain, surpassed both his
competitors in the nobility of his extraction, which he derived
from some of the most illustrious names of the old republic. 16
But the branch from which he claimed his descent was sunk into
mean circumstances, and transplanted into a remote province. It
is difficult to form a just idea of his true character. Under the
philosophic cloak of austerity, he stands accused of concealing
most of the vices which degrade human nature. 17 But his accusers
are those venal writers who adored the fortune of Severus, and
trampled on the ashes of an unsuccessful rival. Virtue, or the
appearances of virtue, recommended Albinus to the confidence and
good opinion of Marcus; and his preserving with the son the same
interest which he had acquired with the father, is a proof at
least that he was possessed of a very flexible disposition. The
favor of a tyrant does not always suppose a want of merit in the
object of it; he may, without intending it, reward a man of worth
and ability, or he may find such a man useful to his own service.
It does not appear that Albinus served the son of Marcus, either
as the minister of his cruelties, or even as the associate of his
pleasures. He was employed in a distant honorable command, when
he received a confidential letter from the emperor, acquainting
him of the treasonable designs of some discontented generals, and
authorizing him to declare himself the guardian and successor of
the throne, by assuming the title and ensigns of Cæsar. 18 The
governor of Britain wisely declined the dangerous honor, which
would have marked him for the jealousy, or involved him in the
approaching ruin, of Commodus. He courted power by nobler, or, at
least, by more specious arts. On a premature report of the death
of the emperor, he assembled his troops; and, in an eloquent
discourse, deplored the inevitable mischiefs of despotism,
described the happiness and glory which their ancestors had
enjoyed under the consular government, and declared his firm
resolution to reinstate the senate and people in their legal
authority. This popular harangue was answered by the loud
acclamations of the British legions, and received at Rome with a
secret murmur of applause. Safe in the possession of his little
world, and in the command of an army less distinguished indeed
for discipline than for numbers and valor, 19 Albinus braved the
menaces of Commodus, maintained towards Pertinax a stately
ambiguous reserve, and instantly declared against the usurpation
of Julian. The convulsions of the capital added new weight to his
sentiments, or rather to his professions of patriotism. A regard
to decency induced him to decline the lofty titles of Augustus
and Emperor; and he imitated perhaps the example of Galba, who,
on a similar occasion, had styled himself the Lieutenant of the
senate and people. 20
16 (return) [ The Posthumian and the Ce’onian; the former of whom
was raised to the consulship in the fifth year after its
institution.]
17 (return) [ Spartianus, in his undigested collections, mixes up
all the virtues and all the vices that enter into the human
composition, and bestows them on the same object. Such, indeed
are many of the characters in the Augustan History.]
18 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 80, 84.]
19 (return) [ Pertinax, who governed Britain a few years before,
had been left for dead, in a mutiny of the soldiers. Hist.
August. p 54. Yet they loved and regretted him; admirantibus eam
virtutem cui irascebantur.]
20 (return) [ Sueton. in Galb. c. 10.]
Personal merit alone had raised Pescennius Niger, from an obscure
birth and station, to the government of Syria; a lucrative and
important command, which in times of civil confusion gave him a
near prospect of the throne. Yet his parts seem to have been
better suited to the second than to the first rank; he was an
unequal rival, though he might have approved himself an excellent
lieutenant, to Severus, who afterwards displayed the greatness of
his mind by adopting several useful institutions from a
vanquished enemy. 21 In his government Niger acquired the esteem
of the soldiers and the love of the provincials. His rigid
discipline fortified the valor and confirmed the obedience of the
former, whilst the voluptuous Syrians were less delighted with
the mild firmness of his administration, than with the affability
of his manners, and the apparent pleasure with which he attended
their frequent and pompous festivals. 22 As soon as the
intelligence of the atrocious murder of Pertinax had reached
Antioch, the wishes of Asia invited Niger to assume the Imperial
purple and revenge his death. The legions of the eastern frontier
embraced his cause; the opulent but unarmed provinces, from the
frontiers of Æthiopia 23 to the Hadriatic, cheerfully submitted
to his power; and the kings beyond the Tigris and the Euphrates
congratulated his election, and offered him their homage and
services. The mind of Niger was not capable of receiving this
sudden tide of fortune: he flattered himself that his accession
would be undisturbed by competition and unstained by civil blood;
and whilst he enjoyed the vain pomp of triumph, he neglected to
secure the means of victory. Instead of entering into an
effectual negotiation with the powerful armies of the West, whose
resolution might decide, or at least must balance, the mighty
contest; instead of advancing without delay towards Rome and
Italy, where his presence was impatiently expected, 24 Niger
trifled away in the luxury of Antioch those irretrievable moments
which were diligently improved by the decisive activity of
Severus. 25
21 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 76.]
22 (return) [ Herod. l. ii. p. 68. The Chronicle of John Malala,
of Antioch, shows the zealous attachment of his countrymen to
these festivals, which at once gratified their superstition, and
their love of pleasure.]
23 (return) [ A king of Thebes, in Egypt, is mentioned, in the
Augustan History, as an ally, and, indeed, as a personal friend
of Niger. If Spartianus is not, as I strongly suspect, mistaken,
he has brought to light a dynasty of tributary princes totally
unknown to history.]
24 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1238. Herod. l. ii. p. 67. A
verse in every one’s mouth at that time, seems to express the
general opinion of the three rivals; Optimus est _Niger_,
[_Fuscus_, which preserves the quantity.—M.] bonus _Afer_,
pessimus _Albus_. Hist. August. p. 75.]
25 (return) [ Herodian, l. ii. p. 71.]
The country of Pannonia and Dalmatia, which occupied the space
between the Danube and the Hadriatic, was one of the last and
most difficult conquests of the Romans. In the defence of
national freedom, two hundred thousand of these barbarians had
once appeared in the field, alarmed the declining age of
Augustus, and exercised the vigilant prudence of Tiberius at the
head of the collected force of the empire. 26 The Pannonians
yielded at length to the arms and institutions of Rome. Their
recent subjection, however, the neighborhood, and even the
mixture, of the unconquered tribes, and perhaps the climate,
adapted, as it has been observed, to the production of great
bodies and slow minds, 27 all contributed to preserve some
remains of their original ferocity, and under the tame and
uniform countenance of Roman provincials, the hardy features of
the natives were still to be discerned. Their warlike youth
afforded an inexhaustible supply of recruits to the legions
stationed on the banks of the Danube, and which, from a perpetual
warfare against the Germans and Sarmazans, were deservedly
esteemed the best troops in the service.
26 (return) [ See an account of that memorable war in Velleius
Paterculus, is 110, &c., who served in the army of Tiberius.]
27 (return) [ Such is the reflection of Herodian, l. ii. p. 74.
Will the modern Austrians allow the influence?]
The Pannonian army was at this time commanded by Septimius
Severus, a native of Africa, who, in the gradual ascent of
private honors, had concealed his daring ambition, which was
never diverted from its steady course by the allurements of
pleasure, the apprehension of danger, or the feelings of
humanity. 28 On the first news of the murder of Pertinax, he
assembled his troops, painted in the most lively colors the
crime, the insolence, and the weakness of the Prætorian guards,
and animated the legions to arms and to revenge. He concluded
(and the peroration was thought extremely eloquent) with
promising every soldier about four hundred pounds; an honorable
donative, double in value to the infamous bribe with which Julian
had purchased the empire. 29 The acclamations of the army
immediately saluted Severus with the names of Augustus, Pertinax,
and Emperor; and he thus attained the lofty station to which he
was invited, by conscious merit and a long train of dreams and
omens, the fruitful offsprings either of his superstition or
policy. 30
28 (return) [ In the letter to Albinus, already mentioned,
Commodus accuses Severus, as one of the ambitious generals who
censured his conduct, and wished to occupy his place. Hist.
August. p. 80.]
29 (return) [ Pannonia was too poor to supply such a sum. It was
probably promised in the camp, and paid at Rome, after the
victory. In fixing the sum, I have adopted the conjecture of
Casaubon. See Hist. August. p. 66. Comment. p. 115.]
30 (return) [ Herodian, l. ii. p. 78. Severus was declared
emperor on the banks of the Danube, either at Carnuntum,
according to Spartianus, (Hist. August. p. 65,) or else at
Sabaria, according to Victor. Mr. Hume, in supposing that the
birth and dignity of Severus were too much inferior to the
Imperial crown, and that he marched into Italy as general only,
has not considered this transaction with his usual accuracy,
(Essay on the original contract.) * Note: Carnuntum, opposite to
the mouth of the Morava: its position is doubtful, either
Petronel or Haimburg. A little intermediate village seems to
indicate by its name (Altenburg) the site of an old town.
D’Anville Geogr. Anc. Sabaria, now Sarvar.—G. Compare note
37.—M.]
The new candidate for empire saw and improved the peculiar
advantage of his situation. His province extended to the Julian
Alps, which gave an easy access into Italy; and he remembered the
saying of Augustus, that a Pannonian army might in ten days
appear in sight of Rome. 31 By a celerity proportioned to the
greatness of the occasion, he might reasonably hope to revenge
Pertinax, punish Julian, and receive the homage of the senate and
people, as their lawful emperor, before his competitors,
separated from Italy by an immense tract of sea and land, were
apprised of his success, or even of his election. During the
whole expedition, he scarcely allowed himself any moments for
sleep or food; marching on foot, and in complete armor, at the
head of his columns, he insinuated himself into the confidence
and affection of his troops, pressed their diligence, revived
their spirits, animated their hopes, and was well satisfied to
share the hardships of the meanest soldier, whilst he kept in
view the infinite superiority of his reward.
31 (return) [ Velleius Paterculus, l. ii. c. 3. We must reckon
the march from the nearest verge of Pannonia, and extend the
sight of the city as far as two hundred miles.]
The wretched Julian had expected, and thought himself prepared,
to dispute the empire with the governor of Syria; but in the
invincible and rapid approach of the Pannonian legions, he saw
his inevitable ruin. The hasty arrival of every messenger
increased his just apprehensions. He was successively informed,
that Severus had passed the Alps; that the Italian cities,
unwilling or unable to oppose his progress, had received him with
the warmest professions of joy and duty; that the important place
of Ravenna had surrendered without resistance, and that the
Hadriatic fleet was in the hands of the conqueror. The enemy was
now within two hundred and fifty miles of Rome; and every moment
diminished the narrow span of life and empire allotted to Julian.
He attempted, however, to prevent, or at least to protract, his
ruin. He implored the venal faith of the Prætorians, filled the
city with unavailing preparations for war, drew lines round the
suburbs, and even strengthened the fortifications of the palace;
as if those last intrenchments could be defended, without hope of
relief, against a victorious invader. Fear and shame prevented
the guards from deserting his standard; but they trembled at the
name of the Pannonian legions, commanded by an experienced
general, and accustomed to vanquish the barbarians on the frozen
Danube. 32 They quitted, with a sigh, the pleasures of the baths
and theatres, to put on arms, whose use they had almost
forgotten, and beneath the weight of which they were oppressed.
The unpractised elephants, whose uncouth appearance, it was
hoped, would strike terror into the army of the north, threw
their unskilful riders; and the awkward evolutions of the
marines, drawn from the fleet of Misenum, were an object of
ridicule to the populace; whilst the senate enjoyed, with secret
pleasure, the distress and weakness of the usurper. 33
32 (return) [ This is not a puerile figure of rhetoric, but an
allusion to a real fact recorded by Dion, l. lxxi. p. 1181. It
probably happened more than once.]
33 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1233. Herodian, l. ii. p. 81.
There is no surer proof of the military skill of the Romans, than
their first surmounting the idle terror, and afterwards
disdaining the dangerous use, of elephants in war. Note: These
elephants were kept for processions, perhaps for the games. Se
Herod. in loc.—M.]
Every motion of Julian betrayed his trembling perplexity. He
insisted that Severus should be declared a public enemy by the
senate. He entreated that the Pannonian general might be
associated to the empire. He sent public ambassadors of consular
rank to negotiate with his rival; he despatched private assassins
to take away his life. He designed that the Vestal virgins, and
all the colleges of priests, in their sacerdotal habits, and
bearing before them the sacred pledges of the Roman religion,
should advance in solemn procession to meet the Pannonian
legions; and, at the same time, he vainly tried to interrogate,
or to appease, the fates, by magic ceremonies and unlawful
sacrifices. 34
34 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 62, 63. * Note: Quæ ad speculum
dicunt fieri in quo pueri præligatis oculis, incantate...,
respicere dicuntur. * * * Tuncque puer vidisse dicitur et
adventun Severi et Juliani decessionem. This seems to have been a
practice somewhat similar to that of which our recent Egyptian
travellers relate such extraordinary circumstances. See also
Apulius, Orat. de Magia.—M.]
Chapter V: Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus.—Part II.
Severus, who dreaded neither his arms nor his enchantments,
guarded himself from the only danger of secret conspiracy, by the
faithful attendance of six hundred chosen men, who never quitted
his person or their cuirasses, either by night or by day, during
the whole march. Advancing with a steady and rapid course, he
passed, without difficulty, the defiles of the Apennine, received
into his party the troops and ambassadors sent to retard his
progress, and made a short halt at Interamnia, about seventy
miles from Rome. His victory was already secure, but the despair
of the Prætorians might have rendered it bloody; and Severus had
the laudable ambition of ascending the throne without drawing the
sword. 35 His emissaries, dispersed in the capital, assured the
guards, that provided they would abandon their worthless prince,
and the perpetrators of the murder of Pertinax, to the justice of
the conqueror, he would no longer consider that melancholy event
as the act of the whole body. The faithless Prætorians, whose
resistance was supported only by sullen obstinacy, gladly
complied with the easy conditions, seized the greatest part of
the assassins, and signified to the senate, that they no longer
defended the cause of Julian. That assembly, convoked by the
consul, unanimously acknowledged Severus as lawful emperor,
decreed divine honors to Pertinax, and pronounced a sentence of
deposition and death against his unfortunate successor. Julian
was conducted into a private apartment of the baths of the
palace, and beheaded as a common criminal, after having
purchased, with an immense treasure, an anxious and precarious
reign of only sixty-six days. 36 The almost incredible expedition
of Severus, who, in so short a space of time, conducted a
numerous army from the banks of the Danube to those of the Tyber,
proves at once the plenty of provisions produced by agriculture
and commerce, the goodness of the roads, the discipline of the
legions, and the indolent, subdued temper of the provinces. 37
35 (return) [ Victor and Eutropius, viii. 17, mention a combat
near the Milvian bridge, the Ponte Molle, unknown to the better
and more ancient writers.]
36 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1240. Herodian, l. ii. p. 83.
Hist. August. p. 63.]
37 (return) [ From these sixty-six days, we must first deduct
sixteen, as Pertinax was murdered on the 28th of March, and
Severus most probably elected on the 13th of April, (see Hist.
August. p. 65, and Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iii. p.
393, note 7.) We cannot allow less than ten days after his
election, to put a numerous army in motion. Forty days remain for
this rapid march; and as we may compute about eight hundred miles
from Rome to the neighborhood of Vienna, the army of Severus
marched twenty miles every day, without halt or intermission.]
The first cares of Severus were bestowed on two measures, the one
dictated by policy, the other by decency; the revenge, and the
honors, due to the memory of Pertinax. Before the new emperor
entered Rome, he issued his commands to the Prætorian guards,
directing them to wait his arrival on a large plain near the
city, without arms, but in the habits of ceremony, in which they
were accustomed to attend their sovereign. He was obeyed by those
haughty troops, whose contrition was the effect of their just
terrors. A chosen part of the Illyrian army encompassed them with
levelled spears. Incapable of flight or resistance, they expected
their fate in silent consternation. Severus mounted the tribunal,
sternly reproached them with perfidy and cowardice, dismissed
them with ignominy from the trust which they had betrayed,
despoiled them of their splendid ornaments, and banished them, on
pain of death, to the distance of a hundred miles from the
capital. During the transaction, another detachment had been sent
to seize their arms, occupy their camp, and prevent the hasty
consequences of their despair. 38
38 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiv. p. 1241. Herodian, l. ii. p. 84.]
The funeral and consecration of Pertinax was next solemnized with
every circumstance of sad magnificence. 39 The senate, with a
melancholy pleasure, performed the last rites to that excellent
prince, whom they had loved, and still regretted. The concern of
his successor was probably less sincere; he esteemed the virtues
of Pertinax, but those virtues would forever have confined his
ambition to a private station. Severus pronounced his funeral
oration with studied eloquence, inward satisfaction, and
well-acted sorrow; and by this pious regard to his memory,
convinced the credulous multitude, that _he alone_ was worthy to
supply his place. Sensible, however, that arms, not ceremonies,
must assert his claim to the empire, he left Rome at the end of
thirty days, and without suffering himself to be elated by this
easy victory, prepared to encounter his more formidable rivals.
39 (return) [ Dion, (l. lxxiv. p. 1244,) who assisted at the
ceremony as a senator, gives a most pompous description of it.]
The uncommon abilities and fortune of Severus have induced an
elegant historian to compare him with the first and greatest of
the Cæsars. 40 The parallel is, at least, imperfect. Where shall
we find, in the character of Severus, the commanding superiority
of soul, the generous clemency, and the various genius, which
could reconcile and unite the love of pleasure, the thirst of
knowledge, and the fire of ambition? 41 In one instance only,
they may be compared, with some degree of propriety, in the
celerity of their motions, and their civil victories. In less
than four years, 42 Severus subdued the riches of the East, and
the valor of the West. He vanquished two competitors of
reputation and ability, and defeated numerous armies, provided
with weapons and discipline equal to his own. In that age, the
art of fortification, and the principles of tactics, were well
understood by all the Roman generals; and the constant
superiority of Severus was that of an artist, who uses the same
instruments with more skill and industry than his rivals. I shall
not, however, enter into a minute narrative of these military
operations; but as the two civil wars against Niger and against
Albinus were almost the same in their conduct, event, and
consequences, I shall collect into one point of view the most
striking circumstances, tending to develop the character of the
conqueror and the state of the empire.
40 (return) [ Herodian, l. iii. p. 112]
41 (return) [ Though it is not, most assuredly, the intention of
Lucan to exalt the character of Cæsar, yet the idea he gives of
that hero, in the tenth book of the Pharsalia, where he describes
him, at the same time, making love to Cleopatra, sustaining a
siege against the power of Egypt, and conversing with the sages
of the country, is, in reality, the noblest panegyric. * Note:
Lord Byron wrote, no doubt, from a reminiscence of that
passage—“It is possible to be a very great man, and to be still
very inferior to Julius Cæsar, the most complete character, so
Lord Bacon thought, of all antiquity. Nature seems incapable of
such extraordinary combinations as composed his versatile
capacity, which was the wonder even of the Romans themselves. The
first general; the only triumphant politician; inferior to none
in point of eloquence; comparable to any in the attainments of
wisdom, in an age made up of the greatest commanders, statesmen,
orators, and philosophers, that ever appeared in the world; an
author who composed a perfect specimen of military annals in his
travelling carriage; at one time in a controversy with Cato, at
another writing a treatise on punuing, and collecting a set of
good sayings; fighting and making love at the same moment, and
willing to abandon both his empire and his mistress for a sight
of the fountains of the Nile. Such did Julius Cæsar appear to his
contemporaries, and to those of the subsequent ages who were the
most inclined to deplore and execrate his fatal genius.” Note 47
to Canto iv. of Childe Harold.—M.]
42 (return) [ Reckoning from his election, April 13, 193, to the
death of Albinus, February 19, 197. See Tillemont’s Chronology.]
Falsehood and insincerity, unsuitable as they seem to the dignity
of public transactions, offend us with a less degrading idea of
meanness, than when they are found in the intercourse of private
life. In the latter, they discover a want of courage; in the
other, only a defect of power: and, as it is impossible for the
most able statesmen to subdue millions of followers and enemies
by their own personal strength, the world, under the name of
policy, seems to have granted them a very liberal indulgence of
craft and dissimulation. Yet the arts of Severus cannot be
justified by the most ample privileges of state reason. He
promised only to betray, he flattered only to ruin; and however
he might occasionally bind himself by oaths and treaties, his
conscience, obsequious to his interest, always released him from
the inconvenient obligation. 43
43 (return) [ Herodian, l. ii. p. 85.]
If his two competitors, reconciled by their common danger, had
advanced upon him without delay, perhaps Severus would have sunk
under their united effort. Had they even attacked him, at the
same time, with separate views and separate armies, the contest
might have been long and doubtful. But they fell, singly and
successively, an easy prey to the arts as well as arms of their
subtle enemy, lulled into security by the moderation of his
professions, and overwhelmed by the rapidity of his action. He
first marched against Niger, whose reputation and power he the
most dreaded: but he declined any hostile declarations,
suppressed the name of his antagonist, and only signified to the
senate and people his intention of regulating the eastern
provinces. In private, he spoke of Niger, his old friend and
intended successor, 44 with the most affectionate regard, and
highly applauded his generous design of revenging the murder of
Pertinax. To punish the vile usurper of the throne, was the duty
of every Roman general. To persevere in arms, and to resist a
lawful emperor, acknowledged by the senate, would alone render
him criminal. 45 The sons of Niger had fallen into his hands
among the children of the provincial governors, detained at Rome
as pledges for the loyalty of their parents. 46 As long as the
power of Niger inspired terror, or even respect, they were
educated with the most tender care, with the children of Severus
himself; but they were soon involved in their father’s ruin, and
removed first by exile, and afterwards by death, from the eye of
public compassion. 47
44 (return) [ Whilst Severus was very dangerously ill, it was
industriously given out, that he intended to appoint Niger and
Albinus his successors. As he could not be sincere with respect
to both, he might not be so with regard to either. Yet Severus
carried his hypocrisy so far, as to profess that intention in the
memoirs of his own life.]
45 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 65.]
46 (return) [ This practice, invented by Commodus, proved very
useful to Severus. He found at Rome the children of many of the
principal adherents of his rivals; and he employed them more than
once to intimidate, or seduce, the parents.]
47 (return) [ Herodian, l. iii. p. 95. Hist. August. p. 67, 68.]
Whilst Severus was engaged in his eastern war, he had reason to
apprehend that the governor of Britain might pass the sea and the
Alps, occupy the vacant seat of empire, and oppose his return
with the authority of the senate and the forces of the West. The
ambiguous conduct of Albinus, in not assuming the Imperial title,
left room for negotiation. Forgetting, at once, his professions
of patriotism, and the jealousy of sovereign power, he accepted
the precarious rank of Cæsar, as a reward for his fatal
neutrality. Till the first contest was decided, Severus treated
the man, whom he had doomed to destruction, with every mark of
esteem and regard. Even in the letter, in which he announced his
victory over Niger, he styles Albinus the brother of his soul and
empire, sends him the affectionate salutations of his wife Julia,
and his young family, and entreats him to preserve the armies and
the republic faithful to their common interest. The messengers
charged with this letter were instructed to accost the Cæsar with
respect, to desire a private audience, and to plunge their
daggers into his heart. 48 The conspiracy was discovered, and the
too credulous Albinus, at length, passed over to the continent,
and prepared for an unequal contest with his rival, who rushed
upon him at the head of a veteran and victorious army.
48 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 84. Spartianus has inserted this
curious letter at full length.]
The military labors of Severus seem inadequate to the importance
of his conquests. Two engagements, 481 the one near the
Hellespont, the other in the narrow defiles of Cilicia, decided
the fate of his Syrian competitor; and the troops of Europe
asserted their usual ascendant over the effeminate natives of
Asia. 49 The battle of Lyons, where one hundred and fifty
thousand Romans 50 were engaged, was equally fatal to Albinus.
The valor of the British army maintained, indeed, a sharp and
doubtful contest, with the hardy discipline of the Illyrian
legions. The fame and person of Severus appeared, during a few
moments, irrecoverably lost, till that warlike prince rallied his
fainting troops, and led them on to a decisive victory. 51 The
war was finished by that memorable day. 511
481 (return) [ There were three actions; one near Cyzicus, on the
Hellespont, one near Nice, in Bithynia, the third near the Issus,
in Cilicia, where Alexander conquered Darius. (Dion, lxiv. c. 6.
Herodian, iii. 2, 4.)—W Herodian represents the second battle as
of less importance than Dion—M.]
49 (return) [ Consult the third book of Herodian, and the
seventy-fourth book of Dion Cassius.]
50 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxv. p. 1260.]
51 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxv. p. 1261. Herodian, l. iii. p. 110.
Hist. August. p. 68. The battle was fought in the plain of
Trevoux, three or four leagues from Lyons. See Tillemont, tom.
iii. p. 406, note 18.]
511 (return) [ According to Herodian, it was his lieutenant Lætus
who led back the troops to the battle, and gained the day, which
Severus had almost lost. Dion also attributes to Lætus a great
share in the victory. Severus afterwards put him to death, either
from fear or jealousy.—W. and G. Wenck and M. Guizot have not
given the real statement of Herodian or of Dion. According to the
former, Lætus appeared with his own army entire, which he was
suspected of having designedly kept disengaged when the battle
was still doudtful, or rather after the rout of severus. Dion
says that he did not move till Severus had won the victory.—M.]
The civil wars of modern Europe have been distinguished, not only
by the fierce animosity, but likewise by the obstinate
perseverance, of the contending factions. They have generally
been justified by some principle, or, at least, colored by some
pretext, of religion, freedom, or loyalty. The leaders were
nobles of independent property and hereditary influence. The
troops fought like men interested in the decision of the quarrel;
and as military spirit and party zeal were strongly diffused
throughout the whole community, a vanquished chief was
immediately supplied with new adherents, eager to shed their
blood in the same cause. But the Romans, after the fall of the
republic, combated only for the choice of masters. Under the
standard of a popular candidate for empire, a few enlisted from
affection, some from fear, many from interest, none from
principle. The legions, uninflamed by party zeal, were allured
into civil war by liberal donatives, and still more liberal
promises. A defeat, by disabling the chief from the performance
of his engagements, dissolved the mercenary allegiance of his
followers, and left them to consult their own safety by a timely
desertion of an unsuccessful cause. It was of little moment to
the provinces, under whose name they were oppressed or governed;
they were driven by the impulsion of the present power, and as
soon as that power yielded to a superior force, they hastened to
implore the clemency of the conqueror, who, as he had an immense
debt to discharge, was obliged to sacrifice the most guilty
countries to the avarice of his soldiers. In the vast extent of
the Roman empire, there were few fortified cities capable of
protecting a routed army; nor was there any person, or family, or
order of men, whose natural interest, unsupported by the powers
of government, was capable of restoring the cause of a sinking
party. 52
52 (return) [ Montesquieu, Considerations sur la Grandeur et la
Decadence des Romains, c. xiii.]
Yet, in the contest between Niger and Severus, a single city
deserves an honorable exception. As Byzantium was one of the
greatest passages from Europe into Asia, it had been provided
with a strong garrison, and a fleet of five hundred vessels was
anchored in the harbor. 53 The impetuosity of Severus
disappointed this prudent scheme of defence; he left to his
generals the siege of Byzantium, forced the less guarded passage
of the Hellespont, and, impatient of a meaner enemy, pressed
forward to encounter his rival. Byzantium, attacked by a numerous
and increasing army, and afterwards by the whole naval power of
the empire, sustained a siege of three years, and remained
faithful to the name and memory of Niger. The citizens and
soldiers (we know not from what cause) were animated with equal
fury; several of the principal officers of Niger, who despaired
of, or who disdained, a pardon, had thrown themselves into this
last refuge: the fortifications were esteemed impregnable, and,
in the defence of the place, a celebrated engineer displayed all
the mechanic powers known to the ancients. 54 Byzantium, at
length, surrendered to famine. The magistrates and soldiers were
put to the sword, the walls demolished, the privileges
suppressed, and the destined capital of the East subsisted only
as an open village, subject to the insulting jurisdiction of
Perinthus. The historian Dion, who had admired the flourishing,
and lamented the desolate, state of Byzantium, accused the
revenge of Severus, for depriving the Roman people of the
strongest bulwark against the barbarians of Pontus and Asia 55
The truth of this observation was but too well justified in the
succeeding age, when the Gothic fleets covered the Euxine, and
passed through the undefined Bosphorus into the centre of the
Mediterranean.
53 (return) [ Most of these, as may be supposed, were small open
vessels; some, however, were galleys of two, and a few of three
ranks of oars.]
54 (return) [The engineer’s name was Priscus. His skill saved his
life, and he was taken into the service of the conqueror. For the
particular facts of the siege, consult Dion Cassius (l. lxxv. p.
1251) and Herodian, (l. iii. p. 95;) for the theory of it, the
fanciful chevalier de Folard may be looked into. See Polybe, tom.
i. p. 76.]
55 (return) [ Notwithstanding the authority of Spartianus, and
some modern Greeks, we may be assured, from Dion and Herodian,
that Byzantium, many years after the death of Severus, lay in
ruins. There is no contradiction between the relation of Dion and
that of Spartianus and the modern Greeks. Dion does not say that
Severus destroyed Byzantium, but that he deprived it of its
franchises and privileges, stripped the inhabitants of their
property, razed the fortifications, and subjected the city to the
jurisdiction of Perinthus. Therefore, when Spartian, Suidas,
Cedrenus, say that Severus and his son Antoninus restored to
Byzantium its rights and franchises, ordered temples to be built,
&c., this is easily reconciled with the relation of Dion. Perhaps
the latter mentioned it in some of the fragments of his history
which have been lost. As to Herodian, his expressions are
evidently exaggerated, and he has been guilty of so many
inaccuracies in the history of Severus, that we have a right to
suppose one in this passage.—G. from W Wenck and M. Guizot have
omitted to cite Zosimus, who mentions a particular portico built
by Severus, and called, apparently, by his name. Zosim. Hist. ii.
c. xxx. p. 151, 153, edit Heyne.—M.]
Both Niger and Albinus were discovered and put to death in their
flight from the field of battle. Their fate excited neither
surprise nor compassion. They had staked their lives against the
chance of empire, and suffered what they would have inflicted;
nor did Severus claim the arrogant superiority of suffering his
rivals to live in a private station. But his unforgiving temper,
stimulated by avarice, indulged a spirit of revenge, where there
was no room for apprehension. The most considerable of the
provincials, who, without any dislike to the fortunate candidate,
had obeyed the governor under whose authority they were
accidentally placed, were punished by death, exile, and
especially by the confiscation of their estates. Many cities of
the East were stripped of their ancient honors, and obliged to
pay, into the treasury of Severus, four times the amount of the
sums contributed by them for the service of Niger. 56
56 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiv. p. 1250.]
Till the final decision of the war, the cruelty of Severus was,
in some measure, restrained by the uncertainty of the event, and
his pretended reverence for the senate. The head of Albinus,
accompanied with a menacing letter, announced to the Romans that
he was resolved to spare none of the adherents of his unfortunate
competitors. He was irritated by the just auspicion that he had
never possessed the affections of the senate, and he concealed
his old malevolence under the recent discovery of some
treasonable correspondences. Thirty-five senators, however,
accused of having favored the party of Albinus, he freely
pardoned, and, by his subsequent behavior, endeavored to convince
them, that he had forgotten, as well as forgiven, their supposed
offences. But, at the same time, he condemned forty-one 57 other
senators, whose names history has recorded; their wives,
children, and clients attended them in death, 571 and the noblest
provincials of Spain and Gaul were involved in the same ruin. 572
Such rigid justice—for so he termed it—was, in the opinion of
Severus, the only conduct capable of insuring peace to the people
or stability to the prince; and he condescended slightly to
lament, that to be mild, it was necessary that he should first be
cruel. 58
57 (return) [ Dion, (l. lxxv. p. 1264;) only twenty-nine senators
are mentioned by him, but forty-one are named in the Augustan
History, p. 69, among whom were six of the name of Pescennius.
Herodian (l. iii. p. 115) speaks in general of the cruelties of
Severus.]
571 (return) [ Wenck denies that there is any authority for this
massacre of the wives of the senators. He adds, that only the
children and relatives of Niger and Albinus were put to death.
This is true of the family of Albinus, whose bodies were thrown
into the Rhone; those of Niger, according to Lampridius, were
sent into exile, but afterwards put to death. Among the partisans
of Albinus who were put to death were many women of rank, multæ
fœminæ illustres. Lamprid. in Sever.—M.]
572 (return) [ A new fragment of Dion describes the state of Rome
during this contest. All pretended to be on the side of Severus;
but their secret sentiments were often betrayed by a change of
countenance on the arrival of some sudden report. Some were
detected by overacting their loyalty, Mai. Fragm. Vatican. p. 227
Severus told the senate he would rather have their hearts than
their votes.—Ibid.—M.]
58 (return) [ Aurelius Victor.]
The true interest of an absolute monarch generally coincides with
that of his people. Their numbers, their wealth, their order, and
their security, are the best and only foundations of his real
greatness; and were he totally devoid of virtue, prudence might
supply its place, and would dictate the same rule of conduct.
Severus considered the Roman empire as his property, and had no
sooner secured the possession, than he bestowed his care on the
cultivation and improvement of so valuable an acquisition.
Salutary laws, executed with inflexible firmness, soon corrected
most of the abuses with which, since the death of Marcus, every
part of the government had been infected. In the administration
of justice, the judgments of the emperor were characterized by
attention, discernment, and impartiality; and whenever he
deviated from the strict line of equity, it was generally in
favor of the poor and oppressed; not so much indeed from any
sense of humanity, as from the natural propensity of a despot to
humble the pride of greatness, and to sink all his subjects to
the same common level of absolute dependence. His expensive taste
for building, magnificent shows, and above all a constant and
liberal distribution of corn and provisions, were the surest
means of captivating the affection of the Roman people. 59 The
misfortunes of civil discord were obliterated. The calm of peace
and prosperity was once more experienced in the provinces; and
many cities, restored by the munificence of Severus, assumed the
title of his colonies, and attested by public monuments their
gratitude and felicity. 60 The fame of the Roman arms was revived
by that warlike and successful emperor, 61 and he boasted, with a
just pride, that, having received the empire oppressed with
foreign and domestic wars, he left it established in profound,
universal, and honorable peace. 62
59 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1272. Hist. August. p. 67.
Severus celebrated the secular games with extraordinary
magnificence, and he left in the public granaries a provision of
corn for seven years, at the rate of 75,000 modii, or about 2500
quarters per day. I am persuaded that the granaries of Severus
were supplied for a long term, but I am not less persuaded, that
policy on one hand, and admiration on the other, magnified the
hoard far beyond its true contents.]
60 (return) [ See Spanheim’s treatise of ancient medals, the
inscriptions, and our learned travellers Spon and Wheeler, Shaw,
Pocock, &c, who, in Africa, Greece, and Asia, have found more
monuments of Severus than of any other Roman emperor whatsoever.]
61 (return) [ He carried his victorious arms to Seleucia and
Ctesiphon, the capitals of the Parthian monarchy. I shall have
occasion to mention this war in its proper place.]
62 (return) [ Etiam in Britannis, was his own just and emphatic
expression Hist. August. 73.]
Although the wounds of civil war appeared completely healed, its
mortal poison still lurked in the vitals of the constitution.
Severus possessed a considerable share of vigor and ability; but
the daring soul of the first Cæsar, or the deep policy of
Augustus, were scarcely equal to the task of curbing the
insolence of the victorious legions. By gratitude, by misguided
policy, by seeming necessity, Severus was reduced to relax the
nerves of discipline. 63 The vanity of his soldiers was flattered
with the honor of wearing gold rings; their ease was indulged in
the permission of living with their wives in the idleness of
quarters. He increased their pay beyond the example of former
times, and taught them to expect, and soon to claim,
extraordinary donatives on every public occasion of danger or
festivity. Elated by success, enervated by luxury, and raised
above the level of subjects by their dangerous privileges, 64
they soon became incapable of military fatigue, oppressive to the
country, and impatient of a just subordination. Their officers
asserted the superiority of rank by a more profuse and elegant
luxury. There is still extant a letter of Severus, lamenting the
licentious stage of the army, 641 and exhorting one of his
generals to begin the necessary reformation from the tribunes
themselves; since, as he justly observes, the officer who has
forfeited the esteem, will never command the obedience, of his
soldiers. 65 Had the emperor pursued the train of reflection, he
would have discovered, that the primary cause of this general
corruption might be ascribed, not indeed to the example, but to
the pernicious indulgence, however, of the commander-in-chief.
63 (return) [ Herodian, l. iii. p. 115. Hist. August. p. 68.]
64 (return) [ Upon the insolence and privileges of the soldier,
the 16th satire, falsely ascribed to Juvenal, may be consulted;
the style and circumstances of it would induce me to believe,
that it was composed under the reign of Severus, or that of his
son.]
641 (return) [ Not of the army, but of the troops in Gaul. The
contents of this letter seem to prove that Severus was really
anxious to restore discipline Herodian is the only historian who
accuses him of being the first cause of its relaxation.—G. from W
Spartian mentions his increase of the pays.—M.]
65 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 73.]
The Prætorians, who murdered their emperor and sold the empire,
had received the just punishment of their treason; but the
necessary, though dangerous, institution of guards was soon
restored on a new model by Severus, and increased to four times
the ancient number. 66 Formerly these troops had been recruited
in Italy; and as the adjacent provinces gradually imbibed the
softer manners of Rome, the levies were extended to Macedonia,
Noricum, and Spain. In the room of these elegant troops, better
adapted to the pomp of courts than to the uses of war, it was
established by Severus, that from all the legions of the
frontiers, the soldiers most distinguished for strength, valor,
and fidelity, should be occasionally draughted; and promoted, as
an honor and reward, into the more eligible service of the
guards. 67 By this new institution, the Italian youth were
diverted from the exercise of arms, and the capital was terrified
by the strange aspect and manners of a multitude of barbarians.
But Severus flattered himself, that the legions would consider
these chosen Prætorians as the representatives of the whole
military order; and that the present aid of fifty thousand men,
superior in arms and appointments to any force that could be
brought into the field against them, would forever crush the
hopes of rebellion, and secure the empire to himself and his
posterity.
66 (return) [ Herodian, l. iii. p. 131.]
67 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiv. p. 1243.]
The command of these favored and formidable troops soon became
the first office of the empire. As the government degenerated
into military despotism, the Prætorian Præfect, who in his origin
had been a simple captain of the guards, 671 was placed not only
at the head of the army, but of the finances, and even of the
law. In every department of administration, he represented the
person, and exercised the authority, of the emperor. The first
præfect who enjoyed and abused this immense power was Plautianus,
the favorite minister of Severus. His reign lasted above ten
years, till the marriage of his daughter with the eldest son of
the emperor, which seemed to assure his fortune, proved the
occasion of his ruin. 68 The animosities of the palace, by
irritating the ambition and alarming the fears of Plautianus, 681
threatened to produce a revolution, and obliged the emperor, who
still loved him, to consent with reluctance to his death. 69
After the fall of Plautianus, an eminent lawyer, the celebrated
Papinian, was appointed to execute the motley office of Prætorian
Præfect.
671 (return) [ The Prætorian Præfect had never been a simple
captain of the guards; from the first creation of this office,
under Augustus, it possessed great power. That emperor,
therefore, decreed that there should be always two Prætorian
Præfects, who could only be taken from the equestrian order
Tiberius first departed from the former clause of this edict;
Alexander Severus violated the second by naming senators
præfects. It appears that it was under Commodus that the
Prætorian Præfects obtained the province of civil jurisdiction.
It extended only to Italy, with the exception of Rome and its
district, which was governed by the Præfectus urbi. As to the
control of the finances, and the levying of taxes, it was not
intrusted to them till after the great change that Constantine I.
made in the organization of the empire at least, I know no
passage which assigns it to them before that time; and
Drakenborch, who has treated this question in his Dissertation de
official præfectorum prætorio, vi., does not quote one.—W.]
68 (return) [ One of his most daring and wanton acts of power,
was the castration of a hundred free Romans, some of them married
men, and even fathers of families; merely that his daughter, on
her marriage with the young emperor, might be attended by a train
of eunuchs worthy of an eastern queen. Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1271.]
681 (return) [ Plautianus was compatriot, relative, and the old
friend, of Severus; he had so completely shut up all access to
the emperor, that the latter was ignorant how far he abused his
powers: at length, being informed of it, he began to limit his
authority. The marriage of Plautilla with Caracalla was
unfortunate; and the prince who had been forced to consent to it,
menaced the father and the daughter with death when he should
come to the throne. It was feared, after that, that Plautianus
would avail himself of the power which he still possessed,
against the Imperial family; and Severus caused him to be
assassinated in his presence, upon the pretext of a conspiracy,
which Dion considers fictitious.—W. This note is not, perhaps,
very necessary and does not contain the whole facts. Dion
considers the conspiracy the invention of Caracalla, by whose
command, almost by whose hand, Plautianus was slain in the
presence of Severus.—M.]
69 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1274. Herodian, l. iii. p. 122,
129. The grammarian of Alexander seems, as is not unusual, much
better acquainted with this mysterious transaction, and more
assured of the guilt of Plautianus than the Roman senator
ventures to be.]
Till the reign of Severus, the virtue and even the good sense of
the emperors had been distinguished by their zeal or affected
reverence for the senate, and by a tender regard to the nice
frame of civil policy instituted by Augustus. But the youth of
Severus had been trained in the implicit obedience of camps, and
his riper years spent in the despotism of military command. His
haughty and inflexible spirit could not discover, or would not
acknowledge, the advantage of preserving an intermediate power,
however imaginary, between the emperor and the army. He disdained
to profess himself the servant of an assembly that detested his
person and trembled at his frown; he issued his commands, where
his requests would have proved as effectual; assumed the conduct
and style of a sovereign and a conqueror, and exercised, without
disguise, the whole legislative, as well as the executive power.
The victory over the senate was easy and inglorious. Every eye
and every passion were directed to the supreme magistrate, who
possessed the arms and treasure of the state; whilst the senate,
neither elected by the people, nor guarded by military force, nor
animated by public spirit, rested its declining authority on the
frail and crumbling basis of ancient opinion. The fine theory of
a republic insensibly vanished, and made way for the more natural
and substantial feelings of monarchy. As the freedom and honors
of Rome were successively communicated to the provinces, in which
the old government had been either unknown, or was remembered
with abhorrence, the tradition of republican maxims was gradually
obliterated. The Greek historians of the age of the Antonines 70
observe, with a malicious pleasure, that although the sovereign
of Rome, in compliance with an obsolete prejudice, abstained from
the name of king, he possessed the full measure of regal power.
In the reign of Severus, the senate was filled with polished and
eloquent slaves from the eastern provinces, who justified
personal flattery by speculative principles of servitude. These
new advocates of prerogative were heard with pleasure by the
court, and with patience by the people, when they inculcated the
duty of passive obedience, and descanted on the inevitable
mischiefs of freedom. The lawyers and historians concurred in
teaching, that the Imperial authority was held, not by the
delegated commission, but by the irrevocable resignation of the
senate; that the emperor was freed from the restraint of civil
laws, could command by his arbitrary will the lives and fortunes
of his subjects, and might dispose of the empire as of his
private patrimony. 71 The most eminent of the civil lawyers, and
particularly Papinian, Paulus, and Ulpian, flourished under the
house of Severus; and the Roman jurisprudence, having closely
united itself with the system of monarchy, was supposed to have
attained its full majority and perfection.
70 (return) [ Appian in Proœm.]
71 (return) [ Dion Cassius seems to have written with no other
view than to form these opinions into an historical system. The
Pandea’s will how how assiduously the lawyers, on their side,
laboree in the cause of prerogative.]
The contemporaries of Severus in the enjoyment of the peace and
glory of his reign, forgave the cruelties by which it had been
introduced. Posterity, who experienced the fatal effects of his
maxims and example, justly considered him as the principal author
of the decline of the Roman empire.
Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
Marcinus.—Part I.
The Death Of Severus.—Tyranny Of Caracalla.—Usurpation Of
Macrinus.—Follies Of Elagabalus.—Virtues Of Alexander
Severus.—Licentiousness Of The Army.—General State Of The Roman
Finances.
The ascent to greatness, however steep and dangerous, may
entertain an active spirit with the consciousness and exercise of
its own powers: but the possession of a throne could never yet
afford a lasting satisfaction to an ambitious mind. This
melancholy truth was felt and acknowledged by Severus. Fortune
and merit had, from an humble station, elevated him to the first
place among mankind. “He had been all things,” as he said
himself, “and all was of little value.” 1 Distracted with the
care, not of acquiring, but of preserving an empire, oppressed
with age and infirmities, careless of fame, 2 and satiated with
power, all his prospects of life were closed. The desire of
perpetuating the greatness of his family was the only remaining
wish of his ambition and paternal tenderness.
1 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 71. “Omnia fui, et nihil expedit.”]
2 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxxvi. p. 1284.]
Like most of the Africans, Severus was passionately addicted to
the vain studies of magic and divination, deeply versed in the
interpretation of dreams and omens, and perfectly acquainted with
the science of judicial astrology; which, in almost every age
except the present, has maintained its dominion over the mind of
man. He had lost his first wife, while he was governor of the
Lionnese Gaul. 3 In the choice of a second, he sought only to
connect himself with some favorite of fortune; and as soon as he
had discovered that the young lady of Emesa in Syria had _a royal
nativity_, he solicited and obtained her hand. 4 Julia Domna (for
that was her name) deserved all that the stars could promise her.
She possessed, even in advanced age, the attractions of beauty, 5
and united to a lively imagination a firmness of mind, and
strength of judgment, seldom bestowed on her sex. Her amiable
qualities never made any deep impression on the dark and jealous
temper of her husband; but in her son’s reign, she administered
the principal affairs of the empire, with a prudence that
supported his authority, and with a moderation that sometimes
corrected his wild extravagancies. 6 Julia applied herself to
letters and philosophy, with some success, and with the most
splendid reputation. She was the patroness of every art, and the
friend of every man of genius. 7 The grateful flattery of the
learned has celebrated her virtues; but, if we may credit the
scandal of ancient history, chastity was very far from being the
most conspicuous virtue of the empress Julia. 8
3 (return) [ About the year 186. M. de Tillemont is miserably
embarrassed with a passage of Dion, in which the empress
Faustina, who died in the year 175, is introduced as having
contributed to the marriage of Severus and Julia, (l. lxxiv. p.
1243.) The learned compiler forgot that Dion is relating not a
real fact, but a dream of Severus; and dreams are circumscribed
to no limits of time or space. Did M. de Tillemont imagine that
marriages were consummated in the temple of Venus at Rome? Hist.
des Empereurs, tom. iii. p. 389. Note 6.]
4 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 65.]
5 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 5.]
6 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxxvii. p. 1304, 1314.]
7 (return) [ See a dissertation of Menage, at the end of his
edition of Diogenes Lærtius, de Fœminis Philosophis.]
8 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1285. Aurelius Victor.]
Two sons, Caracalla 9 and Geta, were the fruit of this marriage,
and the destined heirs of the empire. The fond hopes of the
father, and of the Roman world, were soon disappointed by these
vain youths, who displayed the indolent security of hereditary
princes; and a presumption that fortune would supply the place of
merit and application. Without any emulation of virtue or
talents, they discovered, almost from their infancy, a fixed and
implacable antipathy for each other.
9 (return) [ Bassianus was his first name, as it had been that of
his maternal grandfather. During his reign, he assumed the
appellation of Antoninus, which is employed by lawyers and
ancient historians. After his death, the public indignation
loaded him with the nicknames of Tarantus and Caracalla. The
first was borrowed from a celebrated Gladiator, the second from a
long Gallic gown which he distributed to the people of Rome.]
Their aversion, confirmed by years, and fomented by the arts of
their interested favorites, broke out in childish, and gradually
in more serious competitions; and, at length, divided the
theatre, the circus, and the court, into two factions, actuated
by the hopes and fears of their respective leaders. The prudent
emperor endeavored, by every expedient of advice and authority,
to allay this growing animosity. The unhappy discord of his sons
clouded all his prospects, and threatened to overturn a throne
raised with so much labor, cemented with so much blood, and
guarded with every defence of arms and treasure. With an
impartial hand he maintained between them an exact balance of
favor, conferred on both the rank of Augustus, with the revered
name of Antoninus; and for the first time the Roman world beheld
three emperors. 10 Yet even this equal conduct served only to
inflame the contest, whilst the fierce Caracalla asserted the
right of primogeniture, and the milder Geta courted the
affections of the people and the soldiers. In the anguish of a
disappointed father, Severus foretold that the weaker of his sons
would fall a sacrifice to the stronger; who, in his turn, would
be ruined by his own vices. 11
10 (return) [ The elevation of Caracalla is fixed by the accurate
M. de Tillemont to the year 198; the association of Geta to the
year 208.]
11 (return) [ Herodian, l. iii. p. 130. The lives of Caracalla
and Geta, in the Augustan History.]
In these circumstances the intelligence of a war in Britain, and
of an invasion of the province by the barbarians of the North,
was received with pleasure by Severus. Though the vigilance of
his lieutenants might have been sufficient to repel the distant
enemy, he resolved to embrace the honorable pretext of
withdrawing his sons from the luxury of Rome, which enervated
their minds and irritated their passions; and of inuring their
youth to the toils of war and government. Notwithstanding his
advanced age, (for he was above threescore,) and his gout, which
obliged him to be carried in a litter, he transported himself in
person into that remote island, attended by his two sons, his
whole court, and a formidable army. He immediately passed the
walls of Hadrian and Antoninus, and entered the enemy’s country,
with a design of completing the long attempted conquest of
Britain. He penetrated to the northern extremity of the island,
without meeting an enemy. But the concealed ambuscades of the
Caledonians, who hung unseen on the rear and flanks of his army,
the coldness of the climate and the severity of a winter march
across the hills and morasses of Scotland, are reported to have
cost the Romans above fifty thousand men. The Caledonians at
length yielded to the powerful and obstinate attack, sued for
peace, and surrendered a part of their arms, and a large tract of
territory. But their apparent submission lasted no longer than
the present terror. As soon as the Roman legions had retired,
they resumed their hostile independence. Their restless spirit
provoked Severus to send a new army into Caledonia, with the most
bloody orders, not to subdue, but to extirpate the natives. They
were saved by the death of their haughty enemy. 12
12 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1280, &c. Herodian, l. iii. p.
132, &c.]
This Caledonian war, neither marked by decisive events, nor
attended with any important consequences, would ill deserve our
attention; but it is supposed, not without a considerable degree
of probability, that the invasion of Severus is connected with
the most shining period of the British history or fable. Fingal,
whose fame, with that of his heroes and bards, has been revived
in our language by a recent publication, is said to have
commanded the Caledonians in that memorable juncture, to have
eluded the power of Severus, and to have obtained a signal
victory on the banks of the Carun, in which the son of _the King
of the World_, Caracul, fled from his arms along the fields of
his pride. 13 Something of a doubtful mist still hangs over these
Highland traditions; nor can it be entirely dispelled by the most
ingenious researches of modern criticism; 14 but if we could,
with safety, indulge the pleasing supposition, that Fingal lived,
and that Ossian sung, the striking contrast of the situation and
manners of the contending nations might amuse a philosophic mind.
The parallel would be little to the advantage of the more
civilized people, if we compared the unrelenting revenge of
Severus with the generous clemency of Fingal; the timid and
brutal cruelty of Caracalla with the bravery, the tenderness, the
elegant genius of Ossian; the mercenary chiefs, who, from motives
of fear or interest, served under the imperial standard, with the
free-born warriors who started to arms at the voice of the king
of Morven; if, in a word, we contemplated the untutored
Caledonians, glowing with the warm virtues of nature, and the
degenerate Romans, polluted with the mean vices of wealth and
slavery.
13 (return) [ Ossian’s Poems, vol. i. p. 175.]
14 (return) [ That the Caracul of Ossian is the Caracalla of the
Roman History, is, perhaps, the only point of British antiquity
in which Mr. Macpherson and Mr. Whitaker are of the same opinion;
and yet the opinion is not without difficulty. In the Caledonian
war, the son of Severus was known only by the appellation of
Antoninus, and it may seem strange that the Highland bard should
describe him by a nickname, invented four years afterwards,
scarcely used by the Romans till after the death of that emperor,
and seldom employed by the most ancient historians. See Dion, l.
lxxvii. p. 1317. Hist. August. p. 89 Aurel. Victor. Euseb. in
Chron. ad ann. 214. Note: The historical authority of
Macpherson’s Ossian has not increased since Gibbon wrote. We may,
indeed, consider it exploded. Mr. Whitaker, in a letter to Gibbon
(Misc. Works, vol. ii. p. 100,) attempts, not very successfully,
to weaken this objection of the historian.—M.]
The declining health and last illness of Severus inflamed the
wild ambition and black passions of Caracalla’s soul. Impatient
of any delay or division of empire, he attempted, more than once,
to shorten the small remainder of his father’s days, and
endeavored, but without success, to excite a mutiny among the
troops. 15 The old emperor had often censured the misguided
lenity of Marcus, who, by a single act of justice, might have
saved the Romans from the tyranny of his worthless son. Placed in
the same situation, he experienced how easily the rigor of a
judge dissolves away in the tenderness of a parent. He
deliberated, he threatened, but he could not punish; and this
last and only instance of mercy was more fatal to the empire than
a long series of cruelty. 16 The disorder of his mind irritated
the pains of his body; he wished impatiently for death, and
hastened the instant of it by his impatience. He expired at York
in the sixty-fifth year of his life, and in the eighteenth of a
glorious and successful reign. In his last moments he recommended
concord to his sons, and his sons to the army. The salutary
advice never reached the heart, or even the understanding, of the
impetuous youths; but the more obedient troops, mindful of their
oath of allegiance, and of the authority of their deceased
master, resisted the solicitations of Caracalla, and proclaimed
both brothers emperors of Rome. The new princes soon left the
Caledonians in peace, returned to the capital, celebrated their
father’s funeral with divine honors, and were cheerfully
acknowledged as lawful sovereigns, by the senate, the people, and
the provinces. Some preeminence of rank seems to have been
allowed to the elder brother; but they both administered the
empire with equal and independent power. 17
15 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1282. Hist. August. p. 71.
Aurel. Victor.]
16 (return) [Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1283. Hist. August. p. 89]
17 (return) [Footnote 17: Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1284. Herodian, l.
iii. p. 135.]
Such a divided form of government would have proved a source of
discord between the most affectionate brothers. It was impossible
that it could long subsist between two implacable enemies, who
neither desired nor could trust a reconciliation. It was visible
that one only could reign, and that the other must fall; and each
of them, judging of his rival’s designs by his own, guarded his
life with the most jealous vigilance from the repeated attacks of
poison or the sword. Their rapid journey through Gaul and Italy,
during which they never ate at the same table, or slept in the
same house, displayed to the provinces the odious spectacle of
fraternal discord. On their arrival at Rome, they immediately
divided the vast extent of the imperial palace. 18 No
communication was allowed between their apartments; the doors and
passages were diligently fortified, and guards posted and
relieved with the same strictness as in a besieged place. The
emperors met only in public, in the presence of their afflicted
mother; and each surrounded by a numerous train of armed
followers. Even on these occasions of ceremony, the dissimulation
of courts could ill disguise the rancor of their hearts. 19
18 (return) [ Mr. Hume is justly surprised at a passage of
Herodian, (l. iv. p. 139,) who, on this occasion, represents the
Imperial palace as equal in extent to the rest of Rome. The whole
region of the Palatine Mount, on which it was built, occupied, at
most, a circumference of eleven or twelve thousand feet, (see the
Notitia and Victor, in Nardini’s Roma Antica.) But we should
recollect that the opulent senators had almost surrounded the
city with their extensive gardens and suburb palaces, the
greatest part of which had been gradually confiscated by the
emperors. If Geta resided in the gardens that bore his name on
the Janiculum, and if Caracalla inhabited the gardens of Mæcenas
on the Esquiline, the rival brothers were separated from each
other by the distance of several miles; and yet the intermediate
space was filled by the Imperial gardens of Sallust, of Lucullus,
of Agrippa, of Domitian, of Caius, &c., all skirting round the
city, and all connected with each other, and with the palace, by
bridges thrown over the Tiber and the streets. But this
explanation of Herodian would require, though it ill deserves, a
particular dissertation, illustrated by a map of ancient Rome.
(Hume, Essay on Populousness of Ancient Nations.—M.)]
19 (return) [ Herodian, l. iv. p. 139]
This latent civil war already distracted the whole government,
when a scheme was suggested that seemed of mutual benefit to the
hostile brothers. It was proposed, that since it was impossible
to reconcile their minds, they should separate their interest,
and divide the empire between them. The conditions of the treaty
were already drawn with some accuracy. It was agreed that
Caracalla, as the elder brother should remain in possession of
Europe and the western Africa; and that he should relinquish the
sovereignty of Asia and Egypt to Geta, who might fix his
residence at Alexandria or Antioch, cities little inferior to
Rome itself in wealth and greatness; that numerous armies should
be constantly encamped on either side of the Thracian Bosphorus,
to guard the frontiers of the rival monarchies; and that the
senators of European extraction should acknowledge the sovereign
of Rome, whilst the natives of Asia followed the emperor of the
East. The tears of the empress Julia interrupted the negotiation,
the first idea of which had filled every Roman breast with
surprise and indignation. The mighty mass of conquest was so
intimately united by the hand of time and policy, that it
required the most forcible violence to rend it asunder. The
Romans had reason to dread, that the disjointed members would
soon be reduced by a civil war under the dominion of one master;
but if the separation was permanent, the division of the
provinces must terminate in the dissolution of an empire whose
unity had hitherto remained inviolate. 20
20 (return) [ Herodian, l. iv. p. 144.]
Had the treaty been carried into execution, the sovereign of
Europe might soon have been the conqueror of Asia; but Caracalla
obtained an easier, though a more guilty, victory. He artfully
listened to his mother’s entreaties, and consented to meet his
brother in her apartment, on terms of peace and reconciliation.
In the midst of their conversation, some centurions, who had
contrived to conceal themselves, rushed with drawn swords upon
the unfortunate Geta. His distracted mother strove to protect him
in her arms; but, in the unavailing struggle, she was wounded in
the hand, and covered with the blood of her younger son, while
she saw the elder animating and assisting 21 the fury of the
assassins. As soon as the deed was perpetrated, Caracalla, with
hasty steps, and horror in his countenance, ran towards the
Prætorian camp, as his only refuge, and threw himself on the
ground before the statues of the tutelar deities. 22 The soldiers
attempted to raise and comfort him. In broken and disordered
words he informed them of his imminent danger, and fortunate
escape; insinuating that he had prevented the designs of his
enemy, and declared his resolution to live and die with his
faithful troops. Geta had been the favorite of the soldiers; but
complaint was useless, revenge was dangerous, and they still
reverenced the son of Severus. Their discontent died away in idle
murmurs, and Caracalla soon convinced them of the justice of his
cause, by distributing in one lavish donative the accumulated
treasures of his father’s reign. 23 The real _sentiments_ of the
soldiers alone were of importance to his power or safety. Their
declaration in his favor commanded the dutiful _professions_ of
the senate. The obsequious assembly was always prepared to ratify
the decision of fortune; 231 but as Caracalla wished to assuage
the first emotions of public indignation, the name of Geta was
mentioned with decency, and he received the funeral honors of a
Roman emperor. 24 Posterity, in pity to his misfortune, has cast
a veil over his vices. We consider that young prince as the
innocent victim of his brother’s ambition, without recollecting
that he himself wanted power, rather than inclination, to
consummate the same attempts of revenge and murder. 241
21 (return) [ Caracalla consecrated, in the temple of Serapis,
the sword with which, as he boasted, he had slain his brother
Geta. Dion, l. lxxvii p. 1307.]
22 (return) [ Herodian, l. iv. p. 147. In every Roman camp there
was a small chapel near the head-quarters, in which the statues
of the tutelar deities were preserved and adored; and we may
remark that the eagles, and other military ensigns, were in the
first rank of these deities; an excellent institution, which
confirmed discipline by the sanction of religion. See Lipsius de
Militia Romana, iv. 5, v. 2.]
23 (return) [ Herodian, l. iv. p. 148. Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1289.]
231 (return) [ The account of this transaction, in a new passage
of Dion, varies in some degree from this statement. It adds that
the next morning, in the senate, Antoninus requested their
indulgence, not because he had killed his brother, but because he
was hoarse, and could not address them. Mai. Fragm. p. 228.—M.]
24 (return) [ Geta was placed among the gods. Sit divus, dum non
sit vivus said his brother. Hist. August. p. 91. Some marks of
Geta’s consecration are still found upon medals.]
241 (return) [ The favorable judgment which history has given of
Geta is not founded solely on a feeling of pity; it is supported
by the testimony of contemporary historians: he was too fond of
the pleasures of the table, and showed great mistrust of his
brother; but he was humane, well instructed; he often endeavored
to mitigate the rigorous decrees of Severus and Caracalla. Herod
iv. 3. Spartian in Geta.—W.]
The crime went not unpunished. Neither business, nor pleasure,
nor flattery, could defend Caracalla from the stings of a guilty
conscience; and he confessed, in the anguish of a tortured mind,
that his disordered fancy often beheld the angry forms of his
father and his brother rising into life, to threaten and upbraid
him. 25 The consciousness of his crime should have induced him to
convince mankind, by the virtues of his reign, that the bloody
deed had been the involuntary effect of fatal necessity. But the
repentance of Caracalla only prompted him to remove from the
world whatever could remind him of his guilt, or recall the
memory of his murdered brother. On his return from the senate to
the palace, he found his mother in the company of several noble
matrons, weeping over the untimely fate of her younger son. The
jealous emperor threatened them with instant death; the sentence
was executed against Fadilla, the last remaining daughter of the
emperor Marcus; 251 and even the afflicted Julia was obliged to
silence her lamentations, to suppress her sighs, and to receive
the assassin with smiles of joy and approbation. It was computed
that, under the vague appellation of the friends of Geta, above
twenty thousand persons of both sexes suffered death. His guards
and freedmen, the ministers of his serious business, and the
companions of his looser hours, those who by his interest had
been promoted to any commands in the army or provinces, with the
long connected chain of their dependants, were included in the
proscription; which endeavored to reach every one who had
maintained the smallest correspondence with Geta, who lamented
his death, or who even mentioned his name. 26 Helvius Pertinax,
son to the prince of that name, lost his life by an unseasonable
witticism. 27 It was a sufficient crime of Thrasea Priscus to be
descended from a family in which the love of liberty seemed an
hereditary quality. 28 The particular causes of calumny and
suspicion were at length exhausted; and when a senator was
accused of being a secret enemy to the government, the emperor
was satisfied with the general proof that he was a man of
property and virtue. From this well-grounded principle he
frequently drew the most bloody inferences. 281
25 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1307]
251 (return) [ The most valuable paragraph of dion, which the
industry of M. Manas recovered, relates to this daughter of
Marcus, executed by Caracalla. Her name, as appears from Fronto,
as well as from Dion, was Cornificia. When commanded to choose
the kind of death she was to suffer, she burst into womanish
tears; but remembering her father Marcus, she thus spoke:—“O my
hapless soul, (... animula,) now imprisoned in the body, burst
forth! be free! show them, however reluctant to believe it, that
thou art the daughter of Marcus.” She then laid aside all her
ornaments, and preparing herself for death, ordered her veins to
be opened. Mai. Fragm. Vatican ii p. 220.—M.]
26 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1290. Herodian, l. iv. p. 150.
Dion (p. 2298) says, that the comic poets no longer durst employ
the name of Geta in their plays, and that the estates of those
who mentioned it in their testaments were confiscated.]
27 (return) [ Caracalla had assumed the names of several
conquered nations; Pertinax observed, that the name of Geticus
(he had obtained some advantage over the Goths, or Getæ) would be
a proper addition to Parthieus, Alemannicus, &c. Hist. August. p.
89.]
28 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1291. He was probably descended
from Helvidius Priscus, and Thrasea Pætus, those patriots, whose
firm, but useless and unseasonable, virtue has been immortalized
by Tacitus. Note: M. Guizot is indignant at this “cold”
observation of Gibbon on the noble character of Thrasea; but he
admits that his virtue was useless to the public, and
unseasonable amidst the vices of his age.—M.]
281 (return) [ Caracalla reproached all those who demanded no
favors of him. “It is clear that if you make me no requests, you
do not trust me; if you do not trust me, you suspect me; if you
suspect me, you fear me; if you fear me, you hate me.” And
forthwith he condemned them as conspirators, a good specimen of
the sorites in a tyrant’s logic. See Fragm. Vatican p.—M.]
Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
Marcinus.—Part II.
The execution of so many innocent citizens was bewailed by the
secret tears of their friends and families. The death of
Papinian, the Prætorian Præfect, was lamented as a public
calamity. 282 During the last seven years of Severus, he had
exercised the most important offices of the state, and, by his
salutary influence, guided the emperor’s steps in the paths of
justice and moderation. In full assurance of his virtue and
abilities, Severus, on his death-bed, had conjured him to watch
over the prosperity and union of the Imperial family. 29 The
honest labors of Papinian served only to inflame the hatred which
Caracalla had already conceived against his father’s minister.
After the murder of Geta, the Præfect was commanded to exert the
powers of his skill and eloquence in a studied apology for that
atrocious deed. The philosophic Seneca had condescended to
compose a similar epistle to the senate, in the name of the son
and assassin of Agrippina. 30 “That it was easier to commit than
to justify a parricide,” was the glorious reply of Papinian; 31
who did not hesitate between the loss of life and that of honor.
Such intrepid virtue, which had escaped pure and unsullied from
the intrigues of courts, the habits of business, and the arts of
his profession, reflects more lustre on the memory of Papinian,
than all his great employments, his numerous writings, and the
superior reputation as a lawyer, which he has preserved through
every age of the Roman jurisprudence. 32
282 (return) [ Papinian was no longer Prætorian Præfect.
Caracalla had deprived him of that office immediately after the
death of Severus. Such is the statement of Dion; and the
testimony of Spartian, who gives Papinian the Prætorian
præfecture till his death, is of little weight opposed to that of
a senator then living at Rome.—W.]
29 (return) [ It is said that Papinian was himself a relation of
the empress Julia.]
30 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xiv. 2.]
31 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 88.]
32 (return) [ With regard to Papinian, see Heineccius’s Historia
Juris Roma ni, l. 330, &c.]
It had hitherto been the peculiar felicity of the Romans, and in
the worst of times the consolation, that the virtue of the
emperors was active, and their vice indolent. Augustus, Trajan,
Hadrian, and Marcus visited their extensive dominions in person,
and their progress was marked by acts of wisdom and beneficence.
The tyranny of Tiberius, Nero, and Domitian, who resided almost
constantly at Rome, or in the adjacent was confined to the
senatorial and equestrian orders. 33 But Caracalla was the common
enemy of mankind. He left the capital (and he never returned to
it) about a year after the murder of Geta. The rest of his reign
was spent in the several provinces of the empire, particularly
those of the East, and every province was by turns the scene of
his rapine and cruelty. The senators, compelled by fear to attend
his capricious motions, were obliged to provide daily
entertainments at an immense expense, which he abandoned with
contempt to his guards; and to erect, in every city, magnificent
palaces and theatres, which he either disdained to visit, or
ordered immediately thrown down. The most wealthy families were
ruined by partial fines and confiscations, and the great body of
his subjects oppressed by ingenious and aggravated taxes. 34 In
the midst of peace, and upon the slightest provocation, he issued
his commands, at Alexandria, in Egypt for a general massacre.
From a secure post in the temple of Serapis, he viewed and
directed the slaughter of many thousand citizens, as well as
strangers, without distinguishing the number or the crime of the
sufferers; since as he coolly informed the senate, _all_ the
Alexandrians, those who had perished, and those who had escaped,
were alike guilty. 35
33 (return) [ Tiberius and Domitian never moved from the
neighborhood of Rome. Nero made a short journey into Greece. “Et
laudatorum Principum usus ex æquo, quamvis procul agentibus. Sævi
proximis ingruunt.” Tacit. Hist. iv. 74.]
34 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1294.]
35 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1307. Herodian, l. iv. p. 158.
The former represents it as a cruel massacre, the latter as a
perfidious one too. It seems probable that the Alexandrians has
irritated the tyrant by their railleries, and perhaps by their
tumults. * Note: After these massacres, Caracalla also deprived
the Alexandrians of their spectacles and public feasts; he
divided the city into two parts by a wall with towers at
intervals, to prevent the peaceful communications of the
citizens. Thus was treated the unhappy Alexandria, says Dion, by
the savage beast of Ausonia. This, in fact, was the epithet which
the oracle had applied to him; it is said, indeed, that he was
much pleased with the name and often boasted of it. Dion, lxxvii.
p. 1307.—G.]
The wise instructions of Severus never made any lasting
impression on the mind of his son, who, although not destitute of
imagination and eloquence, was equally devoid of judgment and
humanity. 36 One dangerous maxim, worthy of a tyrant, was
remembered and abused by Caracalla. “To secure the affections of
the army, and to esteem the rest of his subjects as of little
moment.” 37 But the liberality of the father had been restrained
by prudence, and his indulgence to the troops was tempered by
firmness and authority. The careless profusion of the son was the
policy of one reign, and the inevitable ruin both of the army and
of the empire. The vigor of the soldiers, instead of being
confirmed by the severe discipline of camps, melted away in the
luxury of cities. The excessive increase of their pay and
donatives 38 exhausted the state to enrich the military order,
whose modesty in peace, and service in war, is best secured by an
honorable poverty. The demeanor of Caracalla was haughty and full
of pride; but with the troops he forgot even the proper dignity
of his rank, encouraged their insolent familiarity, and,
neglecting the essential duties of a general, affected to imitate
the dress and manners of a common soldier.
36 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1296.]
37 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1284. Mr. Wotton (Hist. of Rome,
p. 330) suspects that this maxim was invented by Caracalla
himself, and attributed to his father.]
38 (return) [ Dion (l. lxxviii. p. 1343) informs us that the
extraordinary gifts of Caracalla to the army amounted annually to
seventy millions of drachmæ (about two millions three hundred and
fifty thousand pounds.) There is another passage in Dion,
concerning the military pay, infinitely curious, were it not
obscure, imperfect, and probably corrupt. The best sense seems to
be, that the Prætorian guards received twelve hundred and fifty
drachmæ, (forty pounds a year,) (Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1307.) Under
the reign of Augustus, they were paid at the rate of two drachmæ,
or denarii, per day, 720 a year, (Tacit. Annal. i. 17.) Domitian,
who increased the soldiers’ pay one fourth, must have raised the
Prætorians to 960 drachmæ, (Gronoviue de Pecunia Veteri, l. iii.
c. 2.) These successive augmentations ruined the empire; for,
with the soldiers’ pay, their numbers too were increased. We have
seen the Prætorians alone increased from 10,000 to 50,000 men.
Note: Valois and Reimar have explained in a very simple and
probable manner this passage of Dion, which Gibbon seems to me
not to have understood. He ordered that the soldiers should
receive, as the reward of their services the Prætorians 1250
drachms, the other 5000 drachms. Valois thinks that the numbers
have been transposed, and that Caracalla added 5000 drachms to
the donations made to the Prætorians, 1250 to those of the
legionaries. The Prætorians, in fact, always received more than
the others. The error of Gibbon arose from his considering that
this referred to the annual pay of the soldiers, while it relates
to the sum they received as a reward for their services on their
discharge: donatives means recompense for service. Augustus had
settled that the Prætorians, after sixteen campaigns, should
receive 5000 drachms: the legionaries received only 3000 after
twenty years. Caracalla added 5000 drachms to the donative of the
Prætorians, 1250 to that of the legionaries. Gibbon appears to
have been mistaken both in confounding this donative on discharge
with the annual pay, and in not paying attention to the remark of
Valois on the transposition of the numbers in the text.—G]
It was impossible that such a character, and such conduct as that
of Caracalla, could inspire either love or esteem; but as long as
his vices were beneficial to the armies, he was secure from the
danger of rebellion. A secret conspiracy, provoked by his own
jealousy, was fatal to the tyrant. The Prætorian præfecture was
divided between two ministers. The military department was
intrusted to Adventus, an experienced rather than able soldier;
and the civil affairs were transacted by Opilius Macrinus, who,
by his dexterity in business, had raised himself, with a fair
character, to that high office. But his favor varied with the
caprice of the emperor, and his life might depend on the
slightest suspicion, or the most casual circumstance. Malice or
fanaticism had suggested to an African, deeply skilled in the
knowledge of futurity, a very dangerous prediction, that Macrinus
and his son were destined to reign over the empire. The report
was soon diffused through the province; and when the man was sent
in chains to Rome, he still asserted, in the presence of the
præfect of the city, the faith of his prophecy. That magistrate,
who had received the most pressing instructions to inform himself
of the _successors_ of Caracalla, immediately communicated the
examination of the African to the Imperial court, which at that
time resided in Syria. But, notwithstanding the diligence of the
public messengers, a friend of Macrinus found means to apprise
him of the approaching danger. The emperor received the letters
from Rome; and as he was then engaged in the conduct of a chariot
race, he delivered them unopened to the Prætorian Præfect,
directing him to despatch the ordinary affairs, and to report the
more important business that might be contained in them. Macrinus
read his fate, and resolved to prevent it. He inflamed the
discontents of some inferior officers, and employed the hand of
Martialis, a desperate soldier, who had been refused the rank of
centurion. The devotion of Caracalla prompted him to make a
pilgrimage from Edessa to the celebrated temple of the Moon at
Carrhæ. 381 He was attended by a body of cavalry: but having
stopped on the road for some necessary occasion, his guards
preserved a respectful distance, and Martialis, approaching his
person under a presence of duty, stabbed him with a dagger. The
bold assassin was instantly killed by a Scythian archer of the
Imperial guard. Such was the end of a monster whose life
disgraced human nature, and whose reign accused the patience of
the Romans. 39 The grateful soldiers forgot his vices, remembered
only his partial liberality, and obliged the senate to prostitute
their own dignity and that of religion, by granting him a place
among the gods. Whilst he was upon earth, Alexander the Great was
the only hero whom this god deemed worthy his admiration. He
assumed the name and ensigns of Alexander, formed a Macedonian
phalanx of guards, persecuted the disciples of Aristotle, and
displayed, with a puerile enthusiasm, the only sentiment by which
he discovered any regard for virtue or glory. We can easily
conceive, that after the battle of Narva, and the conquest of
Poland, Charles XII. (though he still wanted the more elegant
accomplishments of the son of Philip) might boast of having
rivalled his valor and magnanimity; but in no one action of his
life did Caracalla express the faintest resemblance of the
Macedonian hero, except in the murder of a great number of his
own and of his father’s friends. 40
381 (return) [ Carrhæ, now Harran, between Edessan and Nisibis,
famous for the defeat of Crassus—the Haran from whence Abraham
set out for the land of Canaan. This city has always been
remarkable for its attachment to Sabaism—G]
39 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxviii. p. 1312. Herodian, l. iv. p.
168.]
40 (return) [ The fondness of Caracalla for the name and ensigns
of Alexander is still preserved on the medals of that emperor.
See Spanheim, de Usu Numismatum, Dissertat. xii. Herodian (l. iv.
p. 154) had seen very ridiculous pictures, in which a figure was
drawn with one side of the face like Alexander, and the other
like Caracalla.]
After the extinction of the house of Severus, the Roman world
remained three days without a master. The choice of the army (for
the authority of a distant and feeble senate was little regarded)
hung in anxious suspense, as no candidate presented himself whose
distinguished birth and merit could engage their attachment and
unite their suffrages. The decisive weight of the Prætorian
guards elevated the hopes of their præfects, and these powerful
ministers began to assert their _legal_ claim to fill the vacancy
of the Imperial throne. Adventus, however, the senior præfect,
conscious of his age and infirmities, of his small reputation,
and his smaller abilities, resigned the dangerous honor to the
crafty ambition of his colleague Macrinus, whose well-dissembled
grief removed all suspicion of his being accessary to his
master’s death. 41 The troops neither loved nor esteemed his
character. They cast their eyes around in search of a competitor,
and at last yielded with reluctance to his promises of unbounded
liberality and indulgence. A short time after his accession, he
conferred on his son Diadumenianus, at the age of only ten years,
the Imperial title, and the popular name of Antoninus. The
beautiful figure of the youth, assisted by an additional
donative, for which the ceremony furnished a pretext, might
attract, it was hoped, the favor of the army, and secure the
doubtful throne of Macrinus.
41 (return) [ Herodian, l. iv. p. 169. Hist. August. p. 94.]
The authority of the new sovereign had been ratified by the
cheerful submission of the senate and provinces. They exulted in
their unexpected deliverance from a hated tyrant, and it seemed
of little consequence to examine into the virtues of the
successor of Caracalla. But as soon as the first transports of
joy and surprise had subsided, they began to scrutinize the
merits of Macrinus with a critical severity, and to arraign the
nasty choice of the army. It had hitherto been considered as a
fundamental maxim of the constitution, that the emperor must be
always chosen in the senate, and the sovereign power, no longer
exercised by the whole body, was always delegated to one of its
members. But Macrinus was not a senator. 42 The sudden elevation
of the Prætorian præfects betrayed the meanness of their origin;
and the equestrian order was still in possession of that great
office, which commanded with arbitrary sway the lives and
fortunes of the senate. A murmur of indignation was heard, that a
man, whose obscure 43 extraction had never been illustrated by
any signal service, should dare to invest himself with the
purple, instead of bestowing it on some distinguished senator,
equal in birth and dignity to the splendor of the Imperial
station. As soon as the character of Macrinus was surveyed by the
sharp eye of discontent, some vices, and many defects, were
easily discovered. The choice of his ministers was in many
instances justly censured, and the dissatisfied people, with
their usual candor, accused at once his indolent tameness and his
excessive severity. 44
42 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxxviii. p. 1350. Elagabalus reproached
his predecessor with daring to seat himself on the throne;
though, as Prætorian præfect, he could not have been admitted
into the senate after the voice of the crier had cleared the
house. The personal favor of Plautianus and Sejanus had broke
through the established rule. They rose, indeed, from the
equestrian order; but they preserved the præfecture, with the
rank of senator and even with the annulship.]
43 (return) [ He was a native of Cæsarea, in Numidia, and began
his fortune by serving in the household of Plautian, from whose
ruin he narrowly escaped. His enemies asserted that he was born a
slave, and had exercised, among other infamous professions, that
of Gladiator. The fashion of aspersing the birth and condition of
an adversary seems to have lasted from the time of the Greek
orators to the learned grammarians of the last age.]
44 (return) [ Both Dion and Herodian speak of the virtues and
vices of Macrinus with candor and impartiality; but the author of
his life, in the Augustan History, seems to have implicitly
copied some of the venal writers, employed by Elagabalus, to
blacken the memory of his predecessor.]
His rash ambition had climbed a height where it was difficult to
stand with firmness, and impossible to fall without instant
destruction. Trained in the arts of courts and the forms of civil
business, he trembled in the presence of the fierce and
undisciplined multitude, over whom he had assumed the command;
his military talents were despised, and his personal courage
suspected; a whisper that circulated in the camp, disclosed the
fatal secret of the conspiracy against the late emperor,
aggravated the guilt of murder by the baseness of hypocrisy, and
heightened contempt by detestation. To alienate the soldiers, and
to provoke inevitable ruin, the character of a reformer was only
wanting; and such was the peculiar hardship of his fate, that
Macrinus was compelled to exercise that invidious office. The
prodigality of Caracalla had left behind it a long train of ruin
and disorder; and if that worthless tyrant had been capable of
reflecting on the sure consequences of his own conduct, he would
perhaps have enjoyed the dark prospect of the distress and
calamities which he bequeathed to his successors.
In the management of this necessary reformation, Macrinus
proceeded with a cautious prudence, which would have restored
health and vigor to the Roman army in an easy and almost
imperceptible manner. To the soldiers already engaged in the
service, he was constrained to leave the dangerous privileges and
extravagant pay given by Caracalla; but the new recruits were
received on the more moderate though liberal establishment of
Severus, and gradually formed to modesty and obedience. 45 One
fatal error destroyed the salutary effects of this judicious
plan. The numerous army, assembled in the East by the late
emperor, instead of being immediately dispersed by Macrinus
through the several provinces, was suffered to remain united in
Syria, during the winter that followed his elevation. In the
luxurious idleness of their quarters, the troops viewed their
strength and numbers, communicated their complaints, and revolved
in their minds the advantages of another revolution. The
veterans, instead of being flattered by the advantageous
distinction, were alarmed by the first steps of the emperor,
which they considered as the presage of his future intentions.
The recruits, with sullen reluctance, entered on a service, whose
labors were increased while its rewards were diminished by a
covetous and unwarlike sovereign. The murmurs of the army swelled
with impunity into seditious clamors; and the partial mutinies
betrayed a spirit of discontent and disaffection that waited only
for the slightest occasion to break out on every side into a
general rebellion. To minds thus disposed, the occasion soon
presented itself.
45 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxxiii. p. 1336. The sense of the author
is as the intention of the emperor; but Mr. Wotton has mistaken
both, by understanding the distinction, not of veterans and
recruits, but of old and new legions. History of Rome, p. 347.]
The empress Julia had experienced all the vicissitudes of
fortune. From an humble station she had been raised to greatness,
only to taste the superior bitterness of an exalted rank. She was
doomed to weep over the death of one of her sons, and over the
life of the other. The cruel fate of Caracalla, though her good
sense must have long taught her to expect it, awakened the
feelings of a mother and of an empress. Notwithstanding the
respectful civility expressed by the usurper towards the widow of
Severus, she descended with a painful struggle into the condition
of a subject, and soon withdrew herself, by a voluntary death,
from the anxious and humiliating dependence. 46 461 Julia Mæsa,
her sister, was ordered to leave the court and Antioch. She
retired to Emesa with an immense fortune, the fruit of twenty
years’ favor accompanied by her two daughters, Soæmias and Mamæ,
each of whom was a widow, and each had an only son. Bassianus,
462 for that was the name of the son of Soæmias, was consecrated
to the honorable ministry of high priest of the Sun; and this
holy vocation, embraced either from prudence or superstition,
contributed to raise the Syrian youth to the empire of Rome. A
numerous body of troops was stationed at Emesa; and as the severe
discipline of Macrinus had constrained them to pass the winter
encamped, they were eager to revenge the cruelty of such
unaccustomed hardships. The soldiers, who resorted in crowds to
the temple of the Sun, beheld with veneration and delight the
elegant dress and figure of the young pontiff; they recognized,
or they thought that they recognized, the features of Caracalla,
whose memory they now adored. The artful Mæsa saw and cherished
their rising partiality, and readily sacrificing her daughter’s
reputation to the fortune of her grandson, she insinuated that
Bassianus was the natural son of their murdered sovereign. The
sums distributed by her emissaries with a lavish hand silenced
every objection, and the profusion sufficiently proved the
affinity, or at least the resemblance, of Bassianus with the
great original. The young Antoninus (for he had assumed and
polluted that respectable name) was declared emperor by the
troops of Emesa, asserted his hereditary right, and called aloud
on the armies to follow the standard of a young and liberal
prince, who had taken up arms to revenge his father’s death and
the oppression of the military order. 47
46 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxviii. p. 1330. The abridgment of
Xiphilin, though less particular, is in this place clearer than
the original.]
461 (return) [ As soon as this princess heard of the death of
Caracalla, she wished to starve herself to death: the respect
shown to her by Macrinus, in making no change in her attendants
or her court, induced her to prolong her life. But it appears, as
far as the mutilated text of Dion and the imperfect epitome of
Xiphilin permit us to judge, that she conceived projects of
ambition, and endeavored to raise herself to the empire. She
wished to tread in the steps of Semiramis and Nitocris, whose
country bordered on her own. Macrinus sent her an order
immediately to leave Antioch, and to retire wherever she chose.
She returned to her former purpose, and starved herself to
death.—G.]
462 (return) [ He inherited this name from his great-grandfather
of the mother’s side, Bassianus, father of Julia Mæsa, his
grandmother, and of Julia Domna, wife of Severus. Victor (in his
epitome) is perhaps the only historian who has given the key to
this genealogy, when speaking of Caracalla. His Bassianus ex avi
materni nomine dictus. Caracalla, Elagabalus, and Alexander
Seyerus, bore successively this name.—G.]
47 (return) [ According to Lampridius, (Hist. August. p. 135,)
Alexander Severus lived twenty-nine years three months and seven
days. As he was killed March 19, 235, he was born December 12,
205 and was consequently about this time thirteen years old, as
his elder cousin might be about seventeen. This computation suits
much better the history of the young princes than that of
Herodian, (l. v. p. 181,) who represents them as three years
younger; whilst, by an opposite error of chronology, he lengthens
the reign of Elagabalus two years beyond its real duration. For
the particulars of the conspiracy, see Dion, l. lxxviii. p. 1339.
Herodian, l. v. p. 184.]
Whilst a conspiracy of women and eunuchs was concerted with
prudence, and conducted with rapid vigor, Macrinus, who, by a
decisive motion, might have crushed his infant enemy, floated
between the opposite extremes of terror and security, which alike
fixed him inactive at Antioch. A spirit of rebellion diffused
itself through all the camps and garrisons of Syria, successive
detachments murdered their officers, 48 and joined the party of
the rebels; and the tardy restitution of military pay and
privileges was imputed to the acknowledged weakness of Macrinus.
At length he marched out of Antioch, to meet the increasing and
zealous army of the young pretender. His own troops seemed to
take the field with faintness and reluctance; but, in the heat of
the battle, 49 the Prætorian guards, almost by an involuntary
impulse, asserted the superiority of their valor and discipline.
The rebel ranks were broken; when the mother and grandmother of
the Syrian prince, who, according to their eastern custom, had
attended the army, threw themselves from their covered chariots,
and, by exciting the compassion of the soldiers, endeavored to
animate their drooping courage. Antoninus himself, who, in the
rest of his life, never acted like a man, in this important
crisis of his fate, approved himself a hero, mounted his horse,
and, at the head of his rallied troops, charged sword in hand
among the thickest of the enemy; whilst the eunuch Gannys, 491
whose occupations had been confined to female cares and the soft
luxury of Asia, displayed the talents of an able and experienced
general. The battle still raged with doubtful violence, and
Macrinus might have obtained the victory, had he not betrayed his
own cause by a shameful and precipitate flight. His cowardice
served only to protract his life a few days, and to stamp
deserved ignominy on his misfortunes. It is scarcely necessary to
add, that his son Diadumenianus was involved in the same fate.
As soon as the stubborn Prætorians could be convinced that they
fought for a prince who had basely deserted them, they
surrendered to the conqueror: the contending parties of the Roman
army, mingling tears of joy and tenderness, united under the
banners of the imagined son of Caracalla, and the East
acknowledged with pleasure the first emperor of Asiatic
extraction.
48 (return) [ By a most dangerous proclamation of the pretended
Antoninus, every soldier who brought in his officer’s head became
entitled to his private estate, as well as to his military
commission.]
49 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxviii. p. 1345. Herodian, l. v. p. 186.
The battle was fought near the village of Immæ, about
two-and-twenty miles from Antioch.]
491 (return) [ Gannys was not a eunuch. Dion, p. 1355.—W]
The letters of Macrinus had condescended to inform the senate of
the slight disturbance occasioned by an impostor in Syria, and a
decree immediately passed, declaring the rebel and his family
public enemies; with a promise of pardon, however, to such of his
deluded adherents as should merit it by an immediate return to
their duty. During the twenty days that elapsed from the
declaration of the victory of Antoninus (for in so short an
interval was the fate of the Roman world decided,) the capital
and the provinces, more especially those of the East, were
distracted with hopes and fears, agitated with tumult, and
stained with a useless effusion of civil blood, since whosoever
of the rivals prevailed in Syria must reign over the empire. The
specious letters in which the young conqueror announced his
victory to the obedient senate were filled with professions of
virtue and moderation; the shining examples of Marcus and
Augustus, he should ever consider as the great rule of his
administration; and he affected to dwell with pride on the
striking resemblance of his own age and fortunes with those of
Augustus, who in the earliest youth had revenged, by a successful
war, the murder of his father. By adopting the style of Marcus
Aurelius Antoninus, son of Antoninus and grandson of Severus, he
tacitly asserted his hereditary claim to the empire; but, by
assuming the tribunitian and proconsular powers before they had
been conferred on him by a decree of the senate, he offended the
delicacy of Roman prejudice. This new and injudicious violation
of the constitution was probably dictated either by the ignorance
of his Syrian courtiers, or the fierce disdain of his military
followers. 50
50 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1353.]
As the attention of the new emperor was diverted by the most
trifling amusements, he wasted many months in his luxurious
progress from Syria to Italy, passed at Nicomedia his first
winter after his victory, and deferred till the ensuing summer
his triumphal entry into the capital. A faithful picture,
however, which preceded his arrival, and was placed by his
immediate order over the altar of Victory in the senate house,
conveyed to the Romans the just but unworthy resemblance of his
person and manners. He was drawn in his sacerdotal robes of silk
and gold, after the loose flowing fashion of the Medes and
Phœnicians; his head was covered with a lofty tiara, his numerous
collars and bracelets were adorned with gems of an inestimable
value. His eyebrows were tinged with black, and his cheeks
painted with an artificial red and white. 51 The grave senators
confessed with a sigh, that, after having long experienced the
stern tyranny of their own countrymen, Rome was at length humbled
beneath the effeminate luxury of Oriental despotism.
51 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1363. Herodian, l. v. p. 189.]
The Sun was worshipped at Emesa, under the name of Elagabalus, 52
and under the form of a black conical stone, which, as it was
universally believed, had fallen from heaven on that sacred
place. To this protecting deity, Antoninus, not without some
reason, ascribed his elevation to the throne. The display of
superstitious gratitude was the only serious business of his
reign. The triumph of the god of Emesa over all the religions of
the earth, was the great object of his zeal and vanity; and the
appellation of Elagabalus (for he presumed as pontiff and
favorite to adopt that sacred name) was dearer to him than all
the titles of Imperial greatness. In a solemn procession through
the streets of Rome, the way was strewed with gold dust; the
black stone, set in precious gems, was placed on a chariot drawn
by six milk-white horses richly caparisoned. The pious emperor
held the reins, and, supported by his ministers, moved slowly
backwards, that he might perpetually enjoy the felicity of the
divine presence. In a magnificent temple raised on the Palatine
Mount, the sacrifices of the god Elagabalus were celebrated with
every circumstance of cost and solemnity. The richest wines, the
most extraordinary victims, and the rarest aromatics, were
profusely consumed on his altar. Around the altar, a chorus of
Syrian damsels performed their lascivious dances to the sound of
barbarian music, whilst the gravest personages of the state and
army, clothed in long Phœnician tunics, officiated in the meanest
functions, with affected zeal and secret indignation. 53
52 (return) [ This name is derived by the learned from two Syrian
words, Ela a God, and Gabal, to form, the forming or plastic god,
a proper, and even happy epithet for the sun. Wotton’s History of
Rome, p. 378 Note: The name of Elagabalus has been disfigured in
various ways. Herodian calls him; Lampridius, and the more modern
writers, make him Heliogabalus. Dion calls him Elegabalus; but
Elegabalus was the true name, as it appears on the medals.
(Eckhel. de Doct. num. vet. t. vii. p. 250.) As to its etymology,
that which Gibbon adduces is given by Bochart, Chan. ii. 5; but
Salmasius, on better grounds. (not. in Lamprid. in Elagab.,)
derives the name of Elagabalus from the idol of that god,
represented by Herodian and the medals in the form of a mountain,
(gibel in Hebrew,) or great stone cut to a point, with marks
which represent the sun. As it was not permitted, at Hierapolis,
in Syria, to make statues of the sun and moon, because, it was
said, they are themselves sufficiently visible, the sun was
represented at Emesa in the form of a great stone, which, as it
appeared, had fallen from heaven. Spanheim, Cæsar. notes, p.
46.—G. The name of Elagabalus, in “nummis rarius legetur.”
Rasche, Lex. Univ. Ref. Numm. Rasche quotes two.—M]
53 (return) [ Herodian, l. v. p. 190.]
Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
Marcinus.—Part III.
To this temple, as to the common centre of religious worship, the
Imperial fanatic attempted to remove the Ancilia, the Palladium,
54 and all the sacred pledges of the faith of Numa. A crowd of
inferior deities attended in various stations the majesty of the
god of Emesa; but his court was still imperfect, till a female of
distinguished rank was admitted to his bed. Pallas had been first
chosen for his consort; but as it was dreaded lest her warlike
terrors might affright the soft delicacy of a Syrian deity, the
Moon, adored by the Africans under the name of Astarte, was
deemed a more suitable companion for the Sun. Her image, with the
rich offerings of her temple as a marriage portion, was
transported with solemn pomp from Carthage to Rome, and the day
of these mystic nuptials was a general festival in the capital
and throughout the empire. 55
54 (return) [ He broke into the sanctuary of Vesta, and carried
away a statue, which he supposed to be the palladium; but the
vestals boasted that, by a pious fraud, they had imposed a
counterfeit image on the profane intruder. Hist. August., p.
103.]
55 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1360. Herodian, l. v. p. 193.
The subjects of the empire were obliged to make liberal presents
to the new married couple; and whatever they had promised during
the life of Elagabalus was carefully exacted under the
administration of Mamæa.]
A rational voluptuary adheres with invariable respect to the
temperate dictates of nature, and improves the gratifications of
sense by social intercourse, endearing connections, and the soft
coloring of taste and the imagination. But Elagabalus, (I speak
of the emperor of that name,) corrupted by his youth, his
country, and his fortune, abandoned himself to the grossest
pleasures with ungoverned fury, and soon found disgust and
satiety in the midst of his enjoyments. The inflammatory powers
of art were summoned to his aid: the confused multitude of women,
of wines, and of dishes, and the studied variety of attitude and
sauces, served to revive his languid appetites. New terms and new
inventions in these sciences, the only ones cultivated and
patronized by the monarch, 56 signalized his reign, and
transmitted his infamy to succeeding times. A capricious
prodigality supplied the want of taste and elegance; and whilst
Elagabalus lavished away the treasures of his people in the
wildest extravagance, his own voice and that of his flatterers
applauded a spirit of magnificence unknown to the tameness of his
predecessors. To confound the order of seasons and climates, 57
to sport with the passions and prejudices of his subjects, and to
subvert every law of nature and decency, were in the number of
his most delicious amusements. A long train of concubines, and a
rapid succession of wives, among whom was a vestal virgin,
ravished by force from her sacred asylum, 58 were insufficient to
satisfy the impotence of his passions. The master of the Roman
world affected to copy the dress and manners of the female sex,
preferred the distaff to the sceptre, and dishonored the
principal dignities of the empire by distributing them among his
numerous lovers; one of whom was publicly invested with the title
and authority of the emperor’s, or, as he more properly styled
himself, of the empress’s husband. 59
56 (return) [ The invention of a new sauce was liberally
rewarded; but if it was not relished, the inventor was confined
to eat of nothing else till he had discovered another more
agreeable to the Imperial palate Hist. August. p. 111.]
57 (return) [ He never would eat sea-fish except at a great
distance from the sea; he then would distribute vast quantities
of the rarest sorts, brought at an immense expense, to the
peasants of the inland country. Hist. August. p. 109.]
58 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1358. Herodian, l. v. p. 192.]
59 (return) [ Hierocles enjoyed that honor; but he would have
been supplanted by one Zoticus, had he not contrived, by a
potion, to enervate the powers of his rival, who, being found on
trial unequal to his reputation, was driven with ignominy from
the palace. Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1363, 1364. A dancer was made
præfect of the city, a charioteer præfect of the watch, a barber
præfect of the provisions. These three ministers, with many
inferior officers, were all recommended enormitate membrorum.
Hist. August. p. 105.]
It may seem probable, the vices and follies of Elagabalus have
been adorned by fancy, and blackened by prejudice. 60 Yet,
confining ourselves to the public scenes displayed before the
Roman people, and attested by grave and contemporary historians,
their inexpressible infamy surpasses that of any other age or
country. The license of an eastern monarch is secluded from the
eye of curiosity by the inaccessible walls of his seraglio. The
sentiments of honor and gallantry have introduced a refinement of
pleasure, a regard for decency, and a respect for the public
opinion, into the modern courts of Europe; 601 but the corrupt
and opulent nobles of Rome gratified every vice that could be
collected from the mighty conflux of nations and manners. Secure
of impunity, careless of censure, they lived without restraint in
the patient and humble society of their slaves and parasites. The
emperor, in his turn, viewing every rank of his subjects with the
same contemptuous indifference, asserted without control his
sovereign privilege of lust and luxury.
60 (return) [ Even the credulous compiler of his life, in the
Augustan History (p. 111) is inclined to suspect that his vices
may have been exaggerated.]
601 (return) [ Wenck has justly observed that Gibbon should have
reckoned the influence of Christianity in this great change. In
the most savage times, and the most corrupt courts, since the
introduction of Christianity there have been no Neros or
Domitians, no Commodus or Elagabalus.—M.]
The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others
the same disorders which they allow in themselves; and can
readily discover some nice difference of age, character, or
station, to justify the partial distinction. The licentious
soldiers, who had raised to the throne the dissolute son of
Caracalla, blushed at their ignominious choice, and turned with
disgust from that monster, to contemplate with pleasure the
opening virtues of his cousin Alexander, the son of Mamæa. The
crafty Mæsa, sensible that her grandson Elagabalus must
inevitably destroy himself by his own vices, had provided another
and surer support of her family. Embracing a favorable moment of
fondness and devotion, she had persuaded the young emperor to
adopt Alexander, and to invest him with the title of Cæsar, that
his own divine occupations might be no longer interrupted by the
care of the earth. In the second rank that amiable prince soon
acquired the affections of the public, and excited the tyrant’s
jealousy, who resolved to terminate the dangerous competition,
either by corrupting the manners, or by taking away the life, of
his rival. His arts proved unsuccessful; his vain designs were
constantly discovered by his own loquacious folly, and
disappointed by those virtuous and faithful servants whom the
prudence of Mamæa had placed about the person of her son. In a
hasty sally of passion, Elagabalus resolved to execute by force
what he had been unable to compass by fraud, and by a despotic
sentence degraded his cousin from the rank and honors of Cæsar.
The message was received in the senate with silence, and in the
camp with fury. The Prætorian guards swore to protect Alexander,
and to revenge the dishonored majesty of the throne. The tears
and promises of the trembling Elagabalus, who only begged them to
spare his life, and to leave him in the possession of his beloved
Hierocles, diverted their just indignation; and they contented
themselves with empowering their præfects to watch over the
safety of Alexander, and the conduct of the emperor. 61
61 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1365. Herodian, l. v. p.
195—201. Hist. August. p. 105. The last of the three historians
seems to have followed the best authors in his account of the
revolution.]
It was impossible that such a reconciliation should last, or that
even the mean soul of Elagabalus could hold an empire on such
humiliating terms of dependence. He soon attempted, by a
dangerous experiment, to try the temper of the soldiers. The
report of the death of Alexander, and the natural suspicion that
he had been murdered, inflamed their passions into fury, and the
tempest of the camp could only be appeased by the presence and
authority of the popular youth. Provoked at this new instance of
their affection for his cousin, and their contempt for his
person, the emperor ventured to punish some of the leaders of the
mutiny. His unseasonable severity proved instantly fatal to his
minions, his mother, and himself. Elagabalus was massacred by the
indignant Prætorians, his mutilated corpse dragged through the
streets of the city, and thrown into the Tiber. His memory was
branded with eternal infamy by the senate; the justice of whose
decree has been ratified by posterity. 62
62 (return) [ The æra of the death of Elagabalus, and of the
accession of Alexander, has employed the learning and ingenuity
of Pagi, Tillemont, Valsecchi, Vignoli, and Torre, bishop of
Adria. The question is most assuredly intricate; but I still
adhere to the authority of Dion, the truth of whose calculations
is undeniable, and the purity of whose text is justified by the
agreement of Xiphilin, Zonaras, and Cedrenus. Elagabalus reigned
three years nine months and four days, from his victory over
Macrinus, and was killed March 10, 222. But what shall we reply
to the medals, undoubtedly genuine, which reckon the fifth year
of his tribunitian power? We shall reply, with the learned
Valsecchi, that the usurpation of Macrinus was annihilated, and
that the son of Caracalla dated his reign from his father’s
death? After resolving this great difficulty, the smaller knots
of this question may be easily untied, or cut asunder. Note: This
opinion of Valsecchi has been triumphantly contested by Eckhel,
who has shown the impossibility of reconciling it with the medals
of Elagabalus, and has given the most satisfactory explanation of
the five tribunates of that emperor. He ascended the throne and
received the tribunitian power the 16th of May, in the year of
Rome 971; and on the 1st January of the next year, 972, he began
a new tribunate, according to the custom established by preceding
emperors. During the years 972, 973, 974, he enjoyed the
tribunate, and commenced his fifth in the year 975, during which
he was killed on the 10th March. Eckhel de Doct. Num. viii. 430
&c.—G.]
In the room of Elagabalus, his cousin Alexander was raised to the
throne by the Prætorian guards. His relation to the family of
Severus, whose name he assumed, was the same as that of his
predecessor; his virtue and his danger had already endeared him
to the Romans, and the eager liberality of the senate conferred
upon him, in one day, the various titles and powers of the
Imperial dignity. 63 But as Alexander was a modest and dutiful
youth, of only seventeen years of age, the reins of government
were in the hands of two women, of his mother, Mamæa, and of
Mæsa, his grandmother. After the death of the latter, who
survived but a short time the elevation of Alexander, Mamæa
remained the sole regent of her son and of the empire.
63 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 114. By this unusual
precipitation, the senate meant to confound the hopes of
pretenders, and prevent the factions of the armies.]
In every age and country, the wiser, or at least the stronger, of
the two sexes, has usurped the powers of the state, and confined
the other to the cares and pleasures of domestic life. In
hereditary monarchies, however, and especially in those of modern
Europe, the gallant spirit of chivalry, and the law of
succession, have accustomed us to allow a singular exception; and
a woman is often acknowledged the absolute sovereign of a great
kingdom, in which she would be deemed incapable of exercising the
smallest employment, civil or military. But as the Roman emperors
were still considered as the generals and magistrates of the
republic, their wives and mothers, although distinguished by the
name of Augusta, were never associated to their personal honors;
and a female reign would have appeared an inexpiable prodigy in
the eyes of those primitive Romans, who married without love, or
loved without delicacy and respect. 64 The haughty Agrippina
aspired, indeed, to share the honors of the empire which she had
conferred on her son; but her mad ambition, detested by every
citizen who felt for the dignity of Rome, was disappointed by the
artful firmness of Seneca and Burrhus. 65 The good sense, or the
indifference, of succeeding princes, restrained them from
offending the prejudices of their subjects; and it was reserved
for the profligate Elagabalus to discharge the acts of the senate
with the name of his mother Soæmias, who was placed by the side
of the consuls, and subscribed, as a regular member, the decrees
of the legislative assembly. Her more prudent sister, Mamæa,
declined the useless and odious prerogative, and a solemn law was
enacted, excluding women forever from the senate, and devoting to
the infernal gods the head of the wretch by whom this sanction
should be violated. 66 The substance, not the pageantry, of power
was the object of Mamæa’s manly ambition. She maintained an
absolute and lasting empire over the mind of her son, and in his
affection the mother could not brook a rival. Alexander, with her
consent, married the daughter of a patrician; but his respect for
his father-in-law, and love for the empress, were inconsistent
with the tenderness of interest of Mamæa. The patrician was
executed on the ready accusation of treason, and the wife of
Alexander driven with ignominy from the palace, and banished into
Africa. 67
64 (return) [ Metellus Numidicus, the censor, acknowledged to the
Roman people, in a public oration, that had kind nature allowed
us to exist without the help of women, we should be delivered
from a very troublesome companion; and he could recommend
matrimony only as the sacrifice of private pleasure to public
duty. Aulus Gellius, i. 6.]
65 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xiii. 5.]
66 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 102, 107.]
67 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxx. p. 1369. Herodian, l. vi. p. 206.
Hist. August. p. 131. Herodian represents the patrician as
innocent. The Augustian History, on the authority of Dexippus,
condemns him, as guilty of a conspiracy against the life of
Alexander. It is impossible to pronounce between them; but Dion
is an irreproachable witness of the jealousy and cruelty of Mamæa
towards the young empress, whose hard fate Alexander lamented,
but durst not oppose.]
Notwithstanding this act of jealous cruelty, as well as some
instances of avarice, with which Mamæa is charged, the general
tenor of her administration was equally for the benefit of her
son and of the empire. With the approbation of the senate, she
chose sixteen of the wisest and most virtuous senators as a
perpetual council of state, before whom every public business of
moment was debated and determined. The celebrated Ulpian, equally
distinguished by his knowledge of, and his respect for, the laws
of Rome, was at their head; and the prudent firmness of this
aristocracy restored order and authority to the government. As
soon as they had purged the city from foreign superstition and
luxury, the remains of the capricious tyranny of Elagabalus, they
applied themselves to remove his worthless creatures from every
department of the public administration, and to supply their
places with men of virtue and ability. Learning, and the love of
justice, became the only recommendations for civil offices;
valor, and the love of discipline, the only qualifications for
military employments. 68
68 (return) [ Herodian, l. vi. p. 203. Hist. August. p. 119. The
latter insinuates, that when any law was to be passed, the
council was assisted by a number of able lawyers and experienced
senators, whose opinions were separately given, and taken down in
writing.]
But the most important care of Mamæa and her wise counsellors,
was to form the character of the young emperor, on whose personal
qualities the happiness or misery of the Roman world must
ultimately depend. The fortunate soil assisted, and even
prevented, the hand of cultivation. An excellent understanding
soon convinced Alexander of the advantages of virtue, the
pleasure of knowledge, and the necessity of labor. A natural
mildness and moderation of temper preserved him from the assaults
of passion, and the allurements of vice. His unalterable regard
for his mother, and his esteem for the wise Ulpian, guarded his
unexperienced youth from the poison of flattery. 581
581 (return) [ Alexander received into his chapel all the
religions which prevailed in the empire; he admitted Jesus
Christ, Abraham, Orpheus, Apollonius of Tyana, &c. It was almost
certain that his mother Mamæa had instructed him in the morality
of Christianity. Historians in general agree in calling her a
Christian; there is reason to believe that she had begun to have
a taste for the principles of Christianity. (See Tillemont,
Alexander Severus) Gibbon has not noticed this circumstance; he
appears to have wished to lower the character of this empress; he
has throughout followed the narrative of Herodian, who, by the
acknowledgment of Capitolinus himself, detested Alexander.
Without believing the exaggerated praises of Lampridius, he ought
not to have followed the unjust severity of Herodian, and, above
all, not to have forgotten to say that the virtuous Alexander
Severus had insured to the Jews the preservation of their
privileges, and permitted the exercise of Christianity. Hist.
Aug. p. 121. The Christians had established their worship in a
public place, of which the victuallers (cauponarii) claimed, not
the property, but possession by custom. Alexander answered, that
it was better that the place should be used for the service of
God, in any form, than for victuallers.—G. I have scrupled to
omit this note, as it contains some points worthy of notice; but
it is very unjust to Gibbon, who mentions almost all the
circumstances, which he is accused of omitting, in another, and,
according to his plan, a better place, and, perhaps, in stronger
terms than M. Guizot. See Chap. xvi.— M.]
The simple journal of his ordinary occupations exhibits a
pleasing picture of an accomplished emperor, 69 and, with some
allowance for the difference of manners, might well deserve the
imitation of modern princes. Alexander rose early: the first
moments of the day were consecrated to private devotion, and his
domestic chapel was filled with the images of those heroes, who,
by improving or reforming human life, had deserved the grateful
reverence of posterity. But as he deemed the service of mankind
the most acceptable worship of the gods, the greatest part of his
morning hours was employed in his council, where he discussed
public affairs, and determined private causes, with a patience
and discretion above his years. The dryness of business was
relieved by the charms of literature; and a portion of time was
always set apart for his favorite studies of poetry, history, and
philosophy. The works of Virgil and Horace, the republics of
Plato and Cicero, formed his taste, enlarged his understanding,
and gave him the noblest ideas of man and government. The
exercises of the body succeeded to those of the mind; and
Alexander, who was tall, active, and robust, surpassed most of
his equals in the gymnastic arts. Refreshed by the use of the
bath and a slight dinner, he resumed, with new vigor, the
business of the day; and, till the hour of supper, the principal
meal of the Romans, he was attended by his secretaries, with whom
he read and answered the multitude of letters, memorials, and
petitions, that must have been addressed to the master of the
greatest part of the world. His table was served with the most
frugal simplicity, and whenever he was at liberty to consult his
own inclination, the company consisted of a few select friends,
men of learning and virtue, amongst whom Ulpian was constantly
invited. Their conversation was familiar and instructive; and the
pauses were occasionally enlivened by the recital of some
pleasing composition, which supplied the place of the dancers,
comedians, and even gladiators, so frequently summoned to the
tables of the rich and luxurious Romans. 70 The dress of
Alexander was plain and modest, his demeanor courteous and
affable: at the proper hours his palace was open to all his
subjects, but the voice of a crier was heard, as in the
Eleusinian mysteries, pronouncing the same salutary admonition:
“Let none enter these holy walls, unless he is conscious of a
pure and innocent mind.” 71
69 (return) [ See his life in the Augustan History. The
undistinguishing compiler has buried these interesting anecdotes
under a load of trivial unmeaning circumstances.]
70 (return) [ See the 13th Satire of Juvenal.]
71 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 119.]
Such a uniform tenor of life, which left not a moment for vice or
folly, is a better proof of the wisdom and justice of Alexander’s
government, than all the trifling details preserved in the
compilation of Lampridius. Since the accession of Commodus, the
Roman world had experienced, during the term of forty years, the
successive and various vices of four tyrants. From the death of
Elagabalus, it enjoyed an auspicious calm of thirteen years. 711
The provinces, relieved from the oppressive taxes invented by
Caracalla and his pretended son, flourished in peace and
prosperity, under the administration of magistrates who were
convinced by experience that to deserve the love of the subjects
was their best and only method of obtaining the favor of their
sovereign. While some gentle restraints were imposed on the
innocent luxury of the Roman people, the price of provisions and
the interest of money, were reduced by the paternal care of
Alexander, whose prudent liberality, without distressing the
industrious, supplied the wants and amusements of the populace.
The dignity, the freedom, the authority of the senate was
restored; and every virtuous senator might approach the person of
the emperor without a fear and without a blush.
711 (return) [ Wenck observes that Gibbon, enchanted with the
virtue of Alexander has heightened, particularly in this
sentence, its effect on the state of the world. His own account,
which follows, of the insurrections and foreign wars, is not in
harmony with this beautiful picture.—M.]
The name of Antoninus, ennobled by the virtues of Pius and
Marcus, had been communicated by adoption to the dissolute Verus,
and by descent to the cruel Commodus. It became the honorable
appellation of the sons of Severus, was bestowed on young
Diadumenianus, and at length prostituted to the infamy of the
high priest of Emesa. Alexander, though pressed by the studied,
and, perhaps, sincere importunity of the senate, nobly refused
the borrowed lustre of a name; whilst in his whole conduct he
labored to restore the glories and felicity of the age of the
genuine Antonines. 72
72 (return) [ See, in the Hist. August. p. 116, 117, the whole
contest between Alexander and the senate, extracted from the
journals of that assembly. It happened on the sixth of March,
probably of the year 223, when the Romans had enjoyed, almost a
twelvemonth, the blessings of his reign. Before the appellation
of Antoninus was offered him as a title of honor, the senate
waited to see whether Alexander would not assume it as a family
name.]
In the civil administration of Alexander, wisdom was enforced by
power, and the people, sensible of the public felicity, repaid
their benefactor with their love and gratitude. There still
remained a greater, a more necessary, but a more difficult
enterprise; the reformation of the military order, whose interest
and temper, confirmed by long impunity, rendered them impatient
of the restraints of discipline, and careless of the blessings of
public tranquillity. In the execution of his design, the emperor
affected to display his love, and to conceal his fear of the
army. The most rigid economy in every other branch of the
administration supplied a fund of gold and silver for the
ordinary pay and the extraordinary rewards of the troops. In
their marches he relaxed the severe obligation of carrying
seventeen days’ provision on their shoulders. Ample magazines
were formed along the public roads, and as soon as they entered
the enemy’s country, a numerous train of mules and camels waited
on their haughty laziness. As Alexander despaired of correcting
the luxury of his soldiers, he attempted, at least, to direct it
to objects of martial pomp and ornament, fine horses, splendid
armor, and shields enriched with silver and gold. He shared
whatever fatigues he was obliged to impose, visited, in person,
the sick and wounded, preserved an exact register of their
services and his own gratitude, and expressed on every occasion,
the warmest regard for a body of men, whose welfare, as he
affected to declare, was so closely connected with that of the
state. 73 By the most gentle arts he labored to inspire the
fierce multitude with a sense of duty, and to restore at least a
faint image of that discipline to which the Romans owed their
empire over so many other nations, as warlike and more powerful
than themselves. But his prudence was vain, his courage fatal,
and the attempt towards a reformation served only to inflame the
ills it was meant to cure.
73 (return) [ It was a favorite saying of the emperor’s Se
milites magis servare, quam seipsum, quod salus publica in his
esset. Hist. Aug. p. 130.]
The Prætorian guards were attached to the youth of Alexander.
They loved him as a tender pupil, whom they had saved from a
tyrant’s fury, and placed on the Imperial throne. That amiable
prince was sensible of the obligation; but as his gratitude was
restrained within the limits of reason and justice, they soon
were more dissatisfied with the virtues of Alexander, than they
had ever been with the vices of Elagabalus. Their præfect, the
wise Ulpian, was the friend of the laws and of the people; he was
considered as the enemy of the soldiers, and to his pernicious
counsels every scheme of reformation was imputed. Some trifling
accident blew up their discontent into a furious mutiny; and the
civil war raged, during three days, in Rome, whilst the life of
that excellent minister was defended by the grateful people.
Terrified, at length, by the sight of some houses in flames, and
by the threats of a general conflagration, the people yielded
with a sigh, and left the virtuous but unfortunate Ulpian to his
fate. He was pursued into the Imperial palace, and massacred at
the feet of his master, who vainly strove to cover him with the
purple, and to obtain his pardon from the inexorable soldiers.
731 Such was the deplorable weakness of government, that the
emperor was unable to revenge his murdered friend and his
insulted dignity, without stooping to the arts of patience and
dissimulation. Epagathus, the principal leader of the mutiny, was
removed from Rome, by the honorable employment of præfect of
Egypt: from that high rank he was gently degraded to the
government of Crete; and when at length, his popularity among the
guards was effaced by time and absence, Alexander ventured to
inflict the tardy but deserved punishment of his crimes. 74 Under
the reign of a just and virtuous prince, the tyranny of the army
threatened with instant death his most faithful ministers, who
were suspected of an intention to correct their intolerable
disorders. The historian Dion Cassius had commanded the Pannonian
legions with the spirit of ancient discipline. Their brethren of
Rome, embracing the common cause of military license, demanded
the head of the reformer. Alexander, however, instead of yielding
to their seditious clamors, showed a just sense of his merit and
services, by appointing him his colleague in the consulship, and
defraying from his own treasury the expense of that vain dignity:
but as was justly apprehended, that if the soldiers beheld him
with the ensigns of his office, they would revenge the insult in
his blood, the nominal first magistrate of the state retired, by
the emperor’s advice, from the city, and spent the greatest part
of his consulship at his villas in Campania. 75 751
731 (return) [ Gibbon has confounded two events altogether
different— the quarrel of the people with the Prætorians, which
lasted three days, and the assassination of Ulpian by the latter.
Dion relates first the death of Ulpian, afterwards, reverting
back according to a manner which is usual with him, he says that
during the life of Ulpian, there had been a war of three days
between the Prætorians and the people. But Ulpian was not the
cause. Dion says, on the contrary, that it was occasioned by some
unimportant circumstance; whilst he assigns a weighty reason for
the murder of Ulpian, the judgment by which that Prætorian
præfect had condemned his predecessors, Chrestus and Flavian, to
death, whom the soldiers wished to revenge. Zosimus (l. 1, c.
xi.) attributes this sentence to Mamæra; but, even then, the
troops might have imputed it to Ulpian, who had reaped all the
advantage and was otherwise odious to them.—W.]
74 (return) [ Though the author of the life of Alexander (Hist.
August. p. 182) mentions the sedition raised against Ulpian by
the soldiers, he conceals the catastrophe, as it might discover a
weakness in the administration of his hero. From this designed
omission, we may judge of the weight and candor of that author.]
75 (return) [ For an account of Ulpian’s fate and his own danger,
see the mutilated conclusion of Dion’s History, l. lxxx. p.
1371.]
751 (return) [ Dion possessed no estates in Campania, and was not
rich. He only says that the emperor advised him to reside, during
his consulate, in some place out of Rome; that he returned to
Rome after the end of his consulate, and had an interview with
the emperor in Campania. He asked and obtained leave to pass the
rest of his life in his native city, (Nice, in Bithynia: ) it was
there that he finished his history, which closes with his second
consulship.—W.]
Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
Marcinus.—Part IV.
The lenity of the emperor confirmed the insolence of the troops;
the legions imitated the example of the guards, and defended
their prerogative of licentiousness with the same furious
obstinacy. The administration of Alexander was an unavailing
struggle against the corruption of his age. In llyricum, in
Mauritania, in Armenia, in Mesopotamia, in Germany, fresh
mutinies perpetually broke out; his officers were murdered, his
authority was insulted, and his life at last sacrificed to the
fierce discontents of the army. 76 One particular fact well
deserves to be recorded, as it illustrates the manners of the
troops, and exhibits a singular instance of their return to a
sense of duty and obedience. Whilst the emperor lay at Antioch,
in his Persian expedition, the particulars of which we shall
hereafter relate, the punishment of some soldiers, who had been
discovered in the baths of women, excited a sedition in the
legion to which they belonged. Alexander ascended his tribunal,
and with a modest firmness represented to the armed multitude the
absolute necessity, as well as his inflexible resolution, of
correcting the vices introduced by his impure predecessor, and of
maintaining the discipline, which could not be relaxed without
the ruin of the Roman name and empire. Their clamors interrupted
his mild expostulation. “Reserve your shout,” said the undaunted
emperor, “till you take the field against the Persians, the
Germans, and the Sarmatians. Be silent in the presence of your
sovereign and benefactor, who bestows upon you the corn, the
clothing, and the money of the provinces. Be silent, or I shall
no longer style you solders, but _citizens_, 77 if those indeed
who disclaim the laws of Rome deserve to be ranked among the
meanest of the people.” His menaces inflamed the fury of the
legion, and their brandished arms already threatened his person.
“Your courage,” resumed the intrepid Alexander, “would be more
nobly displayed in the field of battle; _me_ you may destroy, you
cannot intimidate; and the severe justice of the republic would
punish your crime and revenge my death.” The legion still
persisted in clamorous sedition, when the emperor pronounced,
with a loud voice, the decisive sentence, “_Citizens!_ lay down
your arms, and depart in peace to your respective habitations.”
The tempest was instantly appeased: the soldiers, filled with
grief and shame, silently confessed the justice of their
punishment, and the power of discipline, yielded up their arms
and military ensigns, and retired in confusion, not to their
camp, but to the several inns of the city. Alexander enjoyed,
during thirty days, the edifying spectacle of their repentance;
nor did he restore them to their former rank in the army, till he
had punished with death those tribunes whose connivance had
occasioned the mutiny. The grateful legion served the emperor
whilst living, and revenged him when dead. 78
76 (return) [ Annot. Reimar. ad Dion Cassius, l. lxxx. p. 1369.]
77 (return) [ Julius Cæsar had appeased a sedition with the same
word, Quirites; which, thus opposed to soldiers, was used in a
sense of contempt, and reduced the offenders to the less
honorable condition of mere citizens. Tacit. Annal. i. 43.]
78 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 132.]
The resolutions of the multitude generally depend on a moment;
and the caprice of passion might equally determine the seditious
legion to lay down their arms at the emperor’s feet, or to plunge
them into his breast. Perhaps, if this singular transaction had
been investigated by the penetration of a philosopher, we should
discover the secret causes which on that occasion authorized the
boldness of the prince, and commanded the obedience of the
troops; and perhaps, if it had been related by a judicious
historian, we should find this action, worthy of Cæsar himself,
reduced nearer to the level of probability and the common
standard of the character of Alexander Severus. The abilities of
that amiable prince seem to have been inadequate to the
difficulties of his situation, the firmness of his conduct
inferior to the purity of his intentions. His virtues, as well as
the vices of Elagabalus, contracted a tincture of weakness and
effeminacy from the soft climate of Syria, of which he was a
native; though he blushed at his foreign origin, and listened
with a vain complacency to the flattering genealogists, who
derived his race from the ancient stock of Roman nobility. 79 The
pride and avarice of his mother cast a shade on the glories of
his reign; and by exacting from his riper years the same dutiful
obedience which she had justly claimed from his unexperienced
youth, Mamæa exposed to public ridicule both her son’s character
and her own. 80 The fatigues of the Persian war irritated the
military discontent; the unsuccessful event 801 degraded the
reputation of the emperor as a general, and even as a soldier.
Every cause prepared, and every circumstance hastened, a
revolution, which distracted the Roman empire with a long series
of intestine calamities.
79 (return) [ From the Metelli. Hist. August. p. 119. The choice
was judicious. In one short period of twelve years, the Metelli
could reckon seven consulships and five triumphs. See Velleius
Paterculus, ii. 11, and the Fasti.]
80 (return) [ The life of Alexander, in the Augustan History, is
the mere idea of a perfect prince, an awkward imitation of the
Cyropædia. The account of his reign, as given by Herodian, is
rational and moderate, consistent with the general history of the
age; and, in some of the most invidious particulars, confirmed by
the decisive fragments of Dion. Yet from a very paltry prejudice,
the greater number of our modern writers abuse Herodian, and copy
the Augustan History. See Mess de Tillemont and Wotton. From the
opposite prejudice, the emperor Julian (in Cæsarib. p. 315)
dwells with a visible satisfaction on the effeminate weakness of
the Syrian, and the ridiculous avarice of his mother.]
801 (return) [ Historians are divided as to the success of the
campaign against the Persians; Herodian alone speaks of defeat.
Lampridius, Eutropius, Victor, and others, say that it was very
glorious to Alexander; that he beat Artaxerxes in a great battle,
and repelled him from the frontiers of the empire. This much is
certain, that Alexander, on his return to Rome, (Lamp. Hist. Aug.
c. 56, 133, 134,) received the honors of a triumph, and that he
said, in his oration to the people. Quirites, vicimus Persas,
milites divites reduximus, vobis congiarium pollicemur, cras
ludos circenses Persicos donabimus. Alexander, says Eckhel, had
too much modesty and wisdom to permit himself to receive honors
which ought only to be the reward of victory, if he had not
deserved them; he would have contented himself with dissembling
his losses. Eckhel, Doct. Num. vet. vii. 276. The medals
represent him as in triumph; one, among others, displays him
crowned by Victory between two rivers, the Euphrates and the
Tigris. P. M. TR. P. xii. Cos. iii. PP. Imperator paludatus D.
hastam. S. parazonium, stat inter duos fluvios humi jacentes, et
ab accedente retro Victoria coronatur. Æ. max. mod. (Mus. Reg.
Gall.) Although Gibbon treats this question more in detail when
he speaks of the Persian monarchy, I have thought fit to place
here what contradicts his opinion.—G]
The dissolute tyranny of Commodus, the civil wars occasioned by
his death, and the new maxims of policy introduced by the house
of Severus, had all contributed to increase the dangerous power
of the army, and to obliterate the faint image of laws and
liberty that was still impressed on the minds of the Romans. The
internal change, which undermined the foundations of the empire,
we have endeavored to explain with some degree of order and
perspicuity. The personal characters of the emperors, their
victories, laws, follies, and fortunes, can interest us no
farther than as they are connected with the general history of
the Decline and Fall of the monarchy. Our constant attention to
that great object will not suffer us to overlook a most important
edict of Antoninus Caracalla, which communicated to all the free
inhabitants of the empire the name and privileges of Roman
citizens. His unbounded liberality flowed not, however, from the
sentiments of a generous mind; it was the sordid result of
avarice, and will naturally be illustrated by some observations
on the finances of that state, from the victorious ages of the
commonwealth to the reign of Alexander Severus.
The siege of Veii in Tuscany, the first considerable enterprise
of the Romans, was protracted to the tenth year, much less by the
strength of the place than by the unskilfulness of the besiegers.
The unaccustomed hardships of so many winter campaigns, at the
distance of near twenty miles from home, 81 required more than
common encouragements; and the senate wisely prevented the
clamors of the people, by the institution of a regular pay for
the soldiers, which was levied by a general tribute, assessed
according to an equitable proportion on the property of the
citizens. 82 During more than two hundred years after the
conquest of Veii, the victories of the republic added less to the
wealth than to the power of Rome. The states of Italy paid their
tribute in military service only, and the vast force, both by sea
and land, which was exerted in the Punic wars, was maintained at
the expense of the Romans themselves. That high-spirited people
(such is often the generous enthusiasm of freedom) cheerfully
submitted to the most excessive but voluntary burdens, in the
just confidence that they should speedily enjoy the rich harvest
of their labors. Their expectations were not disappointed. In the
course of a few years, the riches of Syracuse, of Carthage, of
Macedonia, and of Asia, were brought in triumph to Rome. The
treasures of Perseus alone amounted to near two millions
sterling, and the Roman people, the sovereign of so many nations,
was forever delivered from the weight of taxes. 83 The increasing
revenue of the provinces was found sufficient to defray the
ordinary establishment of war and government, and the superfluous
mass of gold and silver was deposited in the temple of Saturn,
and reserved for any unforeseen emergency of the state. 84
81 (return) [ According to the more accurate Dionysius, the city
itself was only a hundred stadia, or twelve miles and a half,
from Rome, though some out-posts might be advanced farther on the
side of Etruria. Nardini, in a professed treatise, has combated
the popular opinion and the authority of two popes, and has
removed Veii from Civita Castellana, to a little spot called
Isola, in the midway between Rome and the Lake Bracianno. * Note:
See the interesting account of the site and ruins of Veii in Sir
W Gell’s topography of Rome and its Vicinity. v. ii. p. 303.—M.]
82 (return) [ See the 4th and 5th books of Livy. In the Roman
census, property, power, and taxation were commensurate with each
other.]
83 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xxxiii. c. 3. Cicero de
Offic. ii. 22. Plutarch, P. Æmil. p. 275.]
84 (return) [ See a fine description of this accumulated wealth
of ages in Phars. l. iii. v. 155, &c.]
History has never, perhaps, suffered a greater or more
irreparable injury than in the loss of the curious register 841
bequeathed by Augustus to the senate, in which that experienced
prince so accurately balanced the revenues and expenses of the
Roman empire. 85 Deprived of this clear and comprehensive
estimate, we are reduced to collect a few imperfect hints from
such of the ancients as have accidentally turned aside from the
splendid to the more useful parts of history. We are informed
that, by the conquests of Pompey, the tributes of Asia were
raised from fifty to one hundred and thirty-five millions of
drachms; or about four millions and a half sterling. 86 861 Under
the last and most indolent of the Ptolemies, the revenue of Egypt
is said to have amounted to twelve thousand five hundred talents;
a sum equivalent to more than two millions and a half of our
money, but which was afterwards considerably improved by the more
exact economy of the Romans, and the increase of the trade of
Æthiopia and India. 87 Gaul was enriched by rapine, as Egypt was
by commerce, and the tributes of those two great provinces have
been compared as nearly equal to each other in value. 88 The ten
thousand Euboic or Phœnician talents, about four millions
sterling, 89 which vanquished Carthage was condemned to pay
within the term of fifty years, were a slight acknowledgment of
the superiority of Rome, 90 and cannot bear the least proportion
with the taxes afterwards raised both on the lands and on the
persons of the inhabitants, when the fertile coast of Africa was
reduced into a province. 91
841 (return) [ See Rationarium imperii. Compare besides Tacitus,
Suet. Aug. c. ult. Dion, p. 832. Other emperors kept and
published similar registers. See a dissertation of Dr. Wolle, de
Rationario imperii Rom. Leipsig, 1773. The last book of Appian
also contained the statistics of the Roman empire, but it is
lost.—W.]
85 (return) [ Tacit. in Annal. i. ll. It seems to have existed in
the time of Appian.]
86 (return) [ Plutarch, in Pompeio, p. 642.]
861 (return) [ Wenck contests the accuracy of Gibbon’s version of
Plutarch, and supposes that Pompey only raised the revenue from
50,000,000 to 85,000,000 of drachms; but the text of Plutarch
seems clearly to mean that his conquests added 85,000,000 to the
ordinary revenue. Wenck adds, “Plutarch says in another part,
that Antony made Asia pay, at one time, 200,000 talents, that is
to say, 38,875,000 L. sterling.” But Appian explains this by
saying that it was the revenue of ten years, which brings the
annual revenue, at the time of Antony, to 3,875,000 L.
sterling.—M.]
87 (return) [ Strabo, l. xvii. p. 798.]
88 (return) [ Velleius Paterculus, l. ii. c. 39. He seems to give
the preference to the revenue of Gaul.]
89 (return) [ The Euboic, the Phœnician, and the Alexandrian
talents were double in weight to the Attic. See Hooper on ancient
weights and measures, p. iv. c. 5. It is very probable that the
same talent was carried from Tyre to Carthage.]
90 (return) [ Polyb. l. xv. c. 2.]
91 (return) [ Appian in Punicis, p. 84.]
Spain, by a very singular fatality, was the Peru and Mexico of
the old world. The discovery of the rich western continent by the
Phœnicians, and the oppression of the simple natives, who were
compelled to labor in their own mines for the benefit of
strangers, form an exact type of the more recent history of
Spanish America. 92 The Phœnicians were acquainted only with the
sea-coast of Spain; avarice, as well as ambition, carried the
arms of Rome and Carthage into the heart of the country, and
almost every part of the soil was found pregnant with copper,
silver, and gold. 921 Mention is made of a mine near Carthagena
which yielded every day twenty-five thousand drachmns of silver,
or about three hundred thousand pounds a year. 93 Twenty thousand
pound weight of gold was annually received from the provinces of
Asturia, Gallicia, and Lusitania. 94
92 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus, l. 5. Oadiz was built by the
Phœnicians a little more than a thousand years before Christ. See
Vell. Pa ter. i.2.]
921 (return) [ Compare Heeren’s Researches vol. i. part ii. p.]
93 (return) [ Strabo, l. iii. p. 148.]
94 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xxxiii. c. 3. He mentions
likewise a silver mine in Dalmatia, that yielded every day fifty
pounds to the state.] We want both leisure and materials to
pursue this curious inquiry through the many potent states that
were annihilated in the Roman empire. Some notion, however, may
be formed of the revenue of the provinces where considerable
wealth had been deposited by nature, or collected by man, if we
observe the severe attention that was directed to the abodes of
solitude and sterility. Augustus once received a petition from
the inhabitants of Gyarus, humbly praying that they might be
relieved from one third of their excessive impositions. Their
whole tax amounted indeed to no more than one hundred and fifty
drachms, or about five pounds: but Gyarus was a little island, or
rather a rock, of the Ægean Sea, destitute of fresh water and
every necessary of life, and inhabited only by a few wretched
fishermen. 95
95 (return) [ Strabo, l. x. p. 485. Tacit. Annal. iu. 69, and iv.
30. See Tournefort (Voyages au Levant, Lettre viii.) a very
lively picture of the actual misery of Gyarus.]
From the faint glimmerings of such doubtful and scattered lights,
we should be inclined to believe, 1st, That (with every fair
allowance for the differences of times and circumstances) the
general income of the Roman provinces could seldom amount to less
than fifteen or twenty millions of our money; 96 and, 2dly, That
so ample a revenue must have been fully adequate to all the
expenses of the moderate government instituted by Augustus, whose
court was the modest family of a private senator, and whose
military establishment was calculated for the defence of the
frontiers, without any aspiring views of conquest, or any serious
apprehension of a foreign invasion.
96 (return) [ Lipsius de magnitudine Romana (l. ii. c. 3)
computes the revenue at one hundred and fifty millions of gold
crowns; but his whole book, though learned and ingenious, betrays
a very heated imagination. Note: If Justus Lipsius has
exaggerated the revenue of the Roman empire Gibbon, on the other
hand, has underrated it. He fixes it at fifteen or twenty
millions of our money. But if we take only, on a moderate
calculation, the taxes in the provinces which he has already
cited, they will amount, considering the augmentations made by
Augustus, to nearly that sum. There remain also the provinces of
Italy, of Rhætia, of Noricum, Pannonia, and Greece, &c., &c. Let
us pay attention, besides, to the prodigious expenditure of some
emperors, (Suet. Vesp. 16;) we shall see that such a revenue
could not be sufficient. The authors of the Universal History,
part xii., assign forty millions sterling as the sum to about
which the public revenue might amount.—G. from W.]
Notwithstanding the seeming probability of both these
conclusions, the latter of them at least is positively disowned
by the language and conduct of Augustus. It is not easy to
determine whether, on this occasion, he acted as the common
father of the Roman world, or as the oppressor of liberty;
whether he wished to relieve the provinces, or to impoverish the
senate and the equestrian order. But no sooner had he assumed the
reins of government, than he frequently intimated the
insufficiency of the tributes, and the necessity of throwing an
equitable proportion of the public burden upon Rome and Italy.
961 In the prosecution of this unpopular design, he advanced,
however, by cautious and well-weighed steps. The introduction of
customs was followed by the establishment of an excise, and the
scheme of taxation was completed by an artful assessment on the
real and personal property of the Roman citizens, who had been
exempted from any kind of contribution above a century and a
half.
961 (return) [ It is not astonishing that Augustus held this
language. The senate declared also under Nero, that the state
could not exist without the imposts as well augmented as founded
by Augustus. Tac. Ann. xiii. 50. After the abolition of the
different tributes paid by Italy, an abolition which took place
A. U. 646, 694, and 695, the state derived no revenues from that
great country, but the twentieth part of the manumissions,
(vicesima manumissionum,) and Ciero laments this in many places,
particularly in his epistles to ii. 15.—G. from W.]
I. In a great empire like that of Rome, a natural balance of
money must have gradually established itself. It has been already
observed, that as the wealth of the provinces was attracted to
the capital by the strong hand of conquest and power, so a
considerable part of it was restored to the industrious provinces
by the gentle influence of commerce and arts. In the reign of
Augustus and his successors, duties were imposed on every kind of
merchandise, which through a thousand channels flowed to the
great centre of opulence and luxury; and in whatsoever manner the
law was expressed, it was the Roman purchaser, and not the
provincial merchant, who paid the tax. 97 The rate of the customs
varied from the eighth to the fortieth part of the value of the
commodity; and we have a right to suppose that the variation was
directed by the unalterable maxims of policy; that a higher duty
was fixed on the articles of luxury than on those of necessity,
and that the productions raised or manufactured by the labor of
the subjects of the empire were treated with more indulgence than
was shown to the pernicious, or at least the unpopular, commerce
of Arabia and India. 98 There is still extant a long but
imperfect catalogue of eastern commodities, which about the time
of Alexander Severus were subject to the payment of duties;
cinnamon, myrrh, pepper, ginger, and the whole tribe of
aromatics; a great variety of precious stones, among which the
diamond was the most remarkable for its price, and the emerald
for its beauty; 99 Parthian and Babylonian leather, cottons,
silks, both raw and manufactured, ebony ivory, and eunuchs. 100
We may observe that the use and value of those effeminate slaves
gradually rose with the decline of the empire.
97 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xiii. 31. * Note: The customs
(portoria) existed in the times of the ancient kings of Rome.
They were suppressed in Italy, A. U. 694, by the Prætor, Cecilius
Matellus Nepos. Augustus only reestablished them. See note
above.—W.]
98 (return) [See Pliny, (Hist. Natur. l. vi. c. 23, lxii. c. 18.)
His observation that the Indian commodities were sold at Rome at
a hundred times their original price, may give us some notion of
the produce of the customs, since that original price amounted to
more than eight hundred thousand pounds.]
99 (return) [ The ancients were unacquainted with the art of
cutting diamonds.]
100 (return) [ M. Bouchaud, in his treatise de l’Impot chez les
Romains, has transcribed this catalogue from the Digest, and
attempts to illustrate it by a very prolix commentary. * Note: In
the Pandects, l. 39, t. 14, de Publican. Compare Cicero in
Verrem. c. 72—74.—W.]
II. The excise, introduced by Augustus after the civil wars, was
extremely moderate, but it was general. It seldom exceeded one
_per cent_.; but it comprehended whatever was sold in the markets
or by public auction, from the most considerable purchases of
lands and houses, to those minute objects which can only derive a
value from their infinite multitude and daily consumption. Such a
tax, as it affects the body of the people, has ever been the
occasion of clamor and discontent. An emperor well acquainted
with the wants and resources of the state was obliged to declare,
by a public edict, that the support of the army depended in a
great measure on the produce of the excise. 101
101 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. i. 78. Two years afterwards, the
reduction of the poor kingdom of Cappadocia gave Tiberius a
pretence for diminishing the excise of one half, but the relief
was of very short duration.]
III. When Augustus resolved to establish a permanent military
force for the defence of his government against foreign and
domestic enemies, he instituted a peculiar treasury for the pay
of the soldiers, the rewards of the veterans, and the
extra-ordinary expenses of war. The ample revenue of the excise,
though peculiarly appropriated to those uses, was found
inadequate. To supply the deficiency, the emperor suggested a new
tax of five per cent. on all legacies and inheritances. But the
nobles of Rome were more tenacious of property than of freedom.
Their indignant murmurs were received by Augustus with his usual
temper. He candidly referred the whole business to the senate,
and exhorted them to provide for the public service by some other
expedient of a less odious nature. They were divided and
perplexed. He insinuated to them, that their obstinacy would
oblige him to _propose_ a general land tax and capitation. They
acquiesced in silence. 102 The new imposition on legacies and
inheritances was, however, mitigated by some restrictions. It did
not take place unless the object was of a certain value, most
probably of fifty or a hundred pieces of gold; 103 nor could it
be exacted from the nearest of kin on the father’s side. 104 When
the rights of nature and poverty were thus secured, it seemed
reasonable, that a stranger, or a distant relation, who acquired
an unexpected accession of fortune, should cheerfully resign a
twentieth part of it, for the benefit of the state. 105
102 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lv. p. 794, l. lvi. p. 825. Note:
Dion neither mentions this proposition nor the capitation. He
only says that the emperor imposed a tax upon landed property,
and sent every where men employed to make a survey, without
fixing how much, and for how much each was to pay. The senators
then preferred giving the tax on legacies and inheritances.—W.]
103 (return) [ The sum is only fixed by conjecture.]
104 (return) [ As the Roman law subsisted for many ages, the
Cognati, or relations on the mother’s side, were not called to
the succession. This harsh institution was gradually undermined
by humanity, and finally abolished by Justinian.]
105 (return) [ Plin. Panegyric. c. 37.]
Such a tax, plentiful as it must prove in every wealthy
community, was most happily suited to the situation of the
Romans, who could frame their arbitrary wills, according to the
dictates of reason or caprice, without any restraint from the
modern fetters of entails and settlements. From various causes,
the partiality of paternal affection often lost its influence
over the stern patriots of the commonwealth, and the dissolute
nobles of the empire; and if the father bequeathed to his son the
fourth part of his estate, he removed all ground of legal
complaint. 106 But a rich childish old man was a domestic tyrant,
and his power increased with his years and infirmities. A servile
crowd, in which he frequently reckoned prætors and consuls,
courted his smiles, pampered his avarice, applauded his follies,
served his passions, and waited with impatience for his death.
The arts of attendance and flattery were formed into a most
lucrative science; those who professed it acquired a peculiar
appellation; and the whole city, according to the lively
descriptions of satire, was divided between two parties, the
hunters and their game. 107 Yet, while so many unjust and
extravagant wills were every day dictated by cunning and
subscribed by folly, a few were the result of rational esteem and
virtuous gratitude. Cicero, who had so often defended the lives
and fortunes of his fellow-citizens, was rewarded with legacies
to the amount of a hundred and seventy thousand pounds; 108 nor
do the friends of the younger Pliny seem to have been less
generous to that amiable orator. 109 Whatever was the motive of
the testator, the treasury claimed, without distinction, the
twentieth part of his estate: and in the course of two or three
generations, the whole property of the subject must have
gradually passed through the coffers of the state.
106 (return) [ See Heineccius in the Antiquit. Juris Romani, l.
ii.]
107 (return) [ Horat. l. ii. Sat. v. Potron. c. 116, &c. Plin. l.
ii. Epist. 20.]
108 (return) [ Cicero in Philip. ii. c. 16.]
109 (return) [ See his epistles. Every such will gave him an
occasion of displaying his reverence to the dead, and his justice
to the living. He reconciled both in his behavior to a son who
had been disinherited by his mother, (v.l.)]
In the first and golden years of the reign of Nero, that prince,
from a desire of popularity, and perhaps from a blind impulse of
benevolence, conceived a wish of abolishing the oppression of the
customs and excise. The wisest senators applauded his
magnanimity: but they diverted him from the execution of a design
which would have dissolved the strength and resources of the
republic. 110 Had it indeed been possible to realize this dream
of fancy, such princes as Trajan and the Antonines would surely
have embraced with ardor the glorious opportunity of conferring
so signal an obligation on mankind. Satisfied, however, with
alleviating the public burden, they attempted not to remove it.
The mildness and precision of their laws ascertained the rule and
measure of taxation, and protected the subject of every rank
against arbitrary interpretations, antiquated claims, and the
insolent vexation of the farmers of the revenue. 111 For it is
somewhat singular, that, in every age, the best and wisest of the
Roman governors persevered in this pernicious method of
collecting the principal branches at least of the excise and
customs. 112
110 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xiii. 50. Esprit des Loix, l. xii.
c. 19.]
111 (return) [ See Pliny’s Panegyric, the Augustan History, and
Burman de Vectigal. passim.]
112 (return) [ The tributes (properly so called) were not farmed;
since the good princes often remitted many millions of arrears.]
The sentiments, and, indeed, the situation, of Caracalla were
very different from those of the Antonines. Inattentive, or
rather averse, to the welfare of his people, he found himself
under the necessity of gratifying the insatiate avarice which he
had excited in the army. Of the several impositions introduced by
Augustus, the twentieth on inheritances and legacies was the most
fruitful, as well as the most comprehensive. As its influence was
not confined to Rome or Italy, the produce continually increased
with the gradual extension of the Roman City. The new citizens,
though charged, on equal terms, 113 with the payment of new
taxes, which had not affected them as subjects, derived an ample
compensation from the rank they obtained, the privileges they
acquired, and the fair prospect of honors and fortune that was
thrown open to their ambition. But the favor which implied a
distinction was lost in the prodigality of Caracalla, and the
reluctant provincials were compelled to assume the vain title,
and the real obligations, of Roman citizens. 1131 Nor was the
rapacious son of Severus contented with such a measure of
taxation as had appeared sufficient to his moderate predecessors.
Instead of a twentieth, he exacted a tenth of all legacies and
inheritances; and during his reign (for the ancient proportion
was restored after his death) he crushed alike every part of the
empire under the weight of his iron sceptre. 114
113 (return) [ The situation of the new citizens is minutely
described by Pliny, (Panegyric, c. 37, 38, 39). Trajan published
a law very much in their favor.]
1131 (return) [ Gibbon has adopted the opinion of Spanheim and of
Burman, which attributes to Caracalla this edict, which gave the
right of the city to all the inhabitants of the provinces. This
opinion may be disputed. Several passages of Spartianus, of
Aurelius Victor, and of Aristides, attribute this edict to Marc.
Aurelius. See a learned essay, entitled Joh. P. Mahneri Comm. de
Marc. Aur. Antonino Constitutionis de Civitate Universo Orbi
Romano data auctore. Halæ, 1772, 8vo. It appears that Marc.
Aurelius made some modifications of this edict, which released
the provincials from some of the charges imposed by the right of
the city, and deprived them of some of the advantages which it
conferred. Caracalla annulled these modifications.—W.]
114 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1295.]
When all the provincials became liable to the peculiar
impositions of Roman citizens, they seemed to acquire a legal
exemption from the tributes which they had paid in their former
condition of subjects. Such were not the maxims of government
adopted by Caracalla and his pretended son. The old as well as
the new taxes were, at the same time, levied in the provinces. It
was reserved for the virtue of Alexander to relieve them in a
great measure from this intolerable grievance, by reducing the
tributes to a thirteenth part of the sum exacted at the time of
his accession. 115 It is impossible to conjecture the motive that
engaged him to spare so trifling a remnant of the public evil;
but the noxious weed, which had not been totally eradicated,
again sprang up with the most luxuriant growth, and in the
succeeding age darkened the Roman world with its deadly shade. In
the course of this history, we shall be too often summoned to
explain the land tax, the capitation, and the heavy contributions
of corn, wine, oil, and meat, which were exacted from the
provinces for the use of the court, the army, and the capital.
115 (return) [ He who paid ten aurei, the usual tribute, was
charged with no more than the third part of an aureus, and
proportional pieces of gold were coined by Alexander’s order.
Hist. August. p. 127, with the commentary of Salmasius.]
As long as Rome and Italy were respected as the centre of
government, a national spirit was preserved by the ancient, and
insensibly imbibed by the adopted, citizens. The principal
commands of the army were filled by men who had received a
liberal education, were well instructed in the advantages of laws
and letters, and who had risen, by equal steps, through the
regular succession of civil and military honors. 116 To their
influence and example we may partly ascribe the modest obedience
of the legions during the two first centuries of the Imperial
history.
116 (return) [ See the lives of Agricola, Vespasian, Trajan,
Severus, and his three competitors; and indeed of all the eminent
men of those times.]
But when the last enclosure of the Roman constitution was
trampled down by Caracalla, the separation of professions
gradually succeeded to the distinction of ranks. The more
polished citizens of the internal provinces were alone qualified
to act as lawyers and magistrates. The rougher trade of arms was
abandoned to the peasants and barbarians of the frontiers, who
knew no country but their camp, no science but that of war, no
civil laws, and scarcely those of military discipline. With
bloody hands, savage manners, and desperate resolutions, they
sometimes guarded, but much oftener subverted, the throne of the
emperors.
Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death Of
Maximin.—Part I.
The Elevation And Tyranny Of Maximin.—Rebellion In Africa And Italy,
Under The Authority Of The Senate.—Civil Wars And Seditions.—Violent
Deaths Of Maximin And His Son, Of Maximus And Balbinus, And Of The
Three Gordians.— Usurpation And Secular Games Of Philip.
Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the
world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope
for ridicule. Is it possible to relate without an indignant
smile, that, on the father’s decease, the property of a nation,
like that of a drove of oxen, descends to his infant son, as yet
unknown to mankind and to himself; and that the bravest warriors
and the wisest statesmen, relinquishing their natural right to
empire, approach the royal cradle with bended knees and
protestations of inviolable fidelity? Satire and declamation may
paint these obvious topics in the most dazzling colors, but our
more serious thoughts will respect a useful prejudice, that
establishes a rule of succession, independent of the passions of
mankind; and we shall cheerfully acquiesce in any expedient which
deprives the multitude of the dangerous, and indeed the ideal,
power of giving themselves a master.
In the cool shade of retirement, we may easily devise imaginary
forms of government, in which the sceptre shall be constantly
bestowed on the most worthy, by the free and incorrupt suffrage
of the whole community. Experience overturns these airy fabrics,
and teaches us, that in a large society, the election of a
monarch can never devolve to the wisest, or to the most numerous
part of the people. The army is the only order of men
sufficiently united to concur in the same sentiments, and
powerful enough to impose them on the rest of their
fellow-citizens; but the temper of soldiers, habituated at once
to violence and to slavery, renders them very unfit guardians of
a legal, or even a civil constitution. Justice, humanity, or
political wisdom, are qualities they are too little acquainted
with in themselves, to appreciate them in others. Valor will
acquire their esteem, and liberality will purchase their
suffrage; but the first of these merits is often lodged in the
most savage breasts; the latter can only exert itself at the
expense of the public; and both may be turned against the
possessor of the throne, by the ambition of a daring rival.
The superior prerogative of birth, when it has obtained the
sanction of time and popular opinion, is the plainest and least
invidious of all distinctions among mankind. The acknowledged
right extinguishes the hopes of faction, and the conscious
security disarms the cruelty of the monarch. To the firm
establishment of this idea we owe the peaceful succession and
mild administration of European monarchies. To the defect of it
we must attribute the frequent civil wars, through which an
Asiatic despot is obliged to cut his way to the throne of his
fathers. Yet, even in the East, the sphere of contention is
usually limited to the princes of the reigning house, and as soon
as the more fortunate competitor has removed his brethren by the
sword and the bowstring, he no longer entertains any jealousy of
his meaner subjects. But the Roman empire, after the authority of
the senate had sunk into contempt, was a vast scene of confusion.
The royal, and even noble, families of the provinces had long
since been led in triumph before the car of the haughty
republicans. The ancient families of Rome had successively fallen
beneath the tyranny of the Cæsars; and whilst those princes were
shackled by the forms of a commonwealth, and disappointed by the
repeated failure of their posterity, 1 it was impossible that any
idea of hereditary succession should have taken root in the minds
of their subjects. The right to the throne, which none could
claim from birth, every one assumed from merit. The daring hopes
of ambition were set loose from the salutary restraints of law
and prejudice; and the meanest of mankind might, without folly,
entertain a hope of being raised by valor and fortune to a rank
in the army, in which a single crime would enable him to wrest
the sceptre of the world from his feeble and unpopular master.
After the murder of Alexander Severus, and the elevation of
Maximin, no emperor could think himself safe upon the throne, and
every barbarian peasant of the frontier might aspire to that
august, but dangerous station.
1 (return) [ There had been no example of three successive
generations on the throne; only three instances of sons who
succeeded their fathers. The marriages of the Cæsars
(notwithstanding the permission, and the frequent practice of
divorces) were generally unfruitful.]
About thirty-two years before that event, the emperor Severus,
returning from an eastern expedition, halted in Thrace, to
celebrate, with military games, the birthday of his younger son,
Geta. The country flocked in crowds to behold their sovereign,
and a young barbarian of gigantic stature earnestly solicited, in
his rude dialect, that he might be allowed to contend for the
prize of wrestling. As the pride of discipline would have been
disgraced in the overthrow of a Roman soldier by a Thracian
peasant, he was matched with the stoutest followers of the camp,
sixteen of whom he successively laid on the ground. His victory
was rewarded by some trifling gifts, and a permission to enlist
in the troops. The next day, the happy barbarian was
distinguished above a crowd of recruits, dancing and exulting
after the fashion of his country. As soon as he perceived that he
had attracted the emperor’s notice, he instantly ran up to his
horse, and followed him on foot, without the least appearance of
fatigue, in a long and rapid career. “Thracian,” said Severus
with astonishment, “art thou disposed to wrestle after thy race?”
“Most willingly, sir,” replied the unwearied youth; and, almost
in a breath, overthrew seven of the strongest soldiers in the
army. A gold collar was the prize of his matchless vigor and
activity, and he was immediately appointed to serve in the
horseguards who always attended on the person of the sovereign. 2
2 (return) [ Hist. August p. 138.]
Maximin, for that was his name, though born on the territories of
the empire, descended from a mixed race of barbarians. His father
was a Goth, and his mother of the nation of the Alani. He
displayed on every occasion a valor equal to his strength; and
his native fierceness was soon tempered or disguised by the
knowledge of the world. Under the reign of Severus and his son,
he obtained the rank of centurion, with the favor and esteem of
both those princes, the former of whom was an excellent judge of
merit. Gratitude forbade Maximin to serve under the assassin of
Caracalla. Honor taught him to decline the effeminate insults of
Elagabalus. On the accession of Alexander he returned to court,
and was placed by that prince in a station useful to the service,
and honorable to himself. The fourth legion, to which he was
appointed tribune, soon became, under his care, the best
disciplined of the whole army. With the general applause of the
soldiers, who bestowed on their favorite hero the names of Ajax
and Hercules, he was successively promoted to the first military
command; 3 and had not he still retained too much of his savage
origin, the emperor might perhaps have given his own sister in
marriage to the son of Maximin. 4
3 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 140. Herodian, l. vi. p. 223.
Aurelius Victor. By comparing these authors, it should seem that
Maximin had the particular command of the Tribellian horse, with
the general commission of disciplining the recruits of the whole
army. His biographer ought to have marked, with more care, his
exploits, and the successive steps of his military promotions.]
4 (return) [ See the original letter of Alexander Severus, Hist.
August. p. 149.]
Instead of securing his fidelity, these favors served only to
inflame the ambition of the Thracian peasant, who deemed his
fortune inadequate to his merit, as long as he was constrained to
acknowledge a superior. Though a stranger to real wisdom, he was
not devoid of a selfish cunning, which showed him that the
emperor had lost the affection of the army, and taught him to
improve their discontent to his own advantage. It is easy for
faction and calumny to shed their poison on the administration of
the best of princes, and to accuse even their virtues by artfully
confounding them with those vices to which they bear the nearest
affinity. The troops listened with pleasure to the emissaries of
Maximin. They blushed at their own ignominious patience, which,
during thirteen years, had supported the vexatious discipline
imposed by an effeminate Syrian, the timid slave of his mother
and of the senate. It was time, they cried, to cast away that
useless phantom of the civil power, and to elect for their prince
and general a real soldier, educated in camps, exercised in war,
who would assert the glory, and distribute among his companions
the treasures, of the empire. A great army was at that time
assembled on the banks of the Rhine, under the command of the
emperor himself, who, almost immediately after his return from
the Persian war, had been obliged to march against the barbarians
of Germany. The important care of training and reviewing the new
levies was intrusted to Maximin. One day, as he entered the field
of exercise, the troops, either from a sudden impulse, or a
formed conspiracy, saluted him emperor, silenced by their loud
acclamations his obstinate refusal, and hastened to consummate
their rebellion by the murder of Alexander Severus.
The circumstances of his death are variously related. The
writers, who suppose that he died in ignorance of the ingratitude
and ambition of Maximin affirm that, after taking a frugal repast
in the sight of the army, he retired to sleep, and that, about
the seventh hour of the day, a part of his own guards broke into
the imperial tent, and, with many wounds, assassinated their
virtuous and unsuspecting prince. 5 If we credit another, and
indeed a more probable account, Maximin was invested with the
purple by a numerous detachment, at the distance of several miles
from the head-quarters; and he trusted for success rather to the
secret wishes than to the public declarations of the great army.
Alexander had sufficient time to awaken a faint sense of loyalty
among the troops; but their reluctant professions of fidelity
quickly vanished on the appearance of Maximin, who declared
himself the friend and advocate of the military order, and was
unanimously acknowledged emperor of the Romans by the applauding
legions. The son of Mamæa, betrayed and deserted, withdrew into
his tent, desirous at least to conceal his approaching fate from
the insults of the multitude. He was soon followed by a tribune
and some centurions, the ministers of death; but instead of
receiving with manly resolution the inevitable stroke, his
unavailing cries and entreaties disgraced the last moments of his
life, and converted into contempt some portion of the just pity
which his innocence and misfortunes must inspire. His mother,
Mamæa, whose pride and avarice he loudly accused as the cause of
his ruin, perished with her son. The most faithful of his friends
were sacrificed to the first fury of the soldiers. Others were
reserved for the more deliberate cruelty of the usurper; and
those who experienced the mildest treatment, were stripped of
their employments, and ignominiously driven from the court and
army. 6
5 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 135. I have softened some of the
most improbable circumstances of this wretched biographer. From
his ill-worded narration, it should seem that the prince’s
buffoon having accidentally entered the tent, and awakened the
slumbering monarch, the fear of punishment urged him to persuade
the disaffected soldiers to commit the murder.]
6 (return) [ Herodian, l. vi. 223-227.]
The former tyrants, Caligula and Nero, Commodus, and Caracalla,
were all dissolute and unexperienced youths, 7 educated in the
purple, and corrupted by the pride of empire, the luxury of Rome,
and the perfidious voice of flattery. The cruelty of Maximin was
derived from a different source, the fear of contempt. Though he
depended on the attachment of the soldiers, who loved him for
virtues like their own, he was conscious that his mean and
barbarian origin, his savage appearance, and his total ignorance
of the arts and institutions of civil life, 8 formed a very
unfavorable contrast with the amiable manners of the unhappy
Alexander. He remembered, that, in his humbler fortune, he had
often waited before the door of the haughty nobles of Rome, and
had been denied admittance by the insolence of their slaves. He
recollected too the friendship of a few who had relieved his
poverty, and assisted his rising hopes. But those who had
spurned, and those who had protected, the Thracian, were guilty
of the same crime, the knowledge of his original obscurity. For
this crime many were put to death; and by the execution of
several of his benefactors, Maximin published, in characters of
blood, the indelible history of his baseness and ingratitude. 9
7 (return) [ Caligula, the eldest of the four, was only
twenty-five years of age when he ascended the throne; Caracalla
was twenty-three, Commodus nineteen, and Nero no more than
seventeen.]
8 (return) [ It appears that he was totally ignorant of the Greek
language; which, from its universal use in conversation and
letters, was an essential part of every liberal education.]
9 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 141. Herodian, l. vii. p. 237. The
latter of these historians has been most unjustly censured for
sparing the vices of Maximin.]
The dark and sanguinary soul of the tyrant was open to every
suspicion against those among his subjects who were the most
distinguished by their birth or merit. Whenever he was alarmed
with the sound of treason, his cruelty was unbounded and
unrelenting. A conspiracy against his life was either discovered
or imagined, and Magnus, a consular senator, was named as the
principal author of it. Without a witness, without a trial, and
without an opportunity of defence, Magnus, with four thousand of
his supposed accomplices, was put to death. Italy and the whole
empire were infested with innumerable spies and informers. On the
slightest accusation, the first of the Roman nobles, who had
governed provinces, commanded armies, and been adorned with the
consular and triumphal ornaments, were chained on the public
carriages, and hurried away to the emperor’s presence.
Confiscation, exile, or simple death, were esteemed uncommon
instances of his lenity. Some of the unfortunate sufferers he
ordered to be sewed up in the hides of slaughtered animals,
others to be exposed to wild beasts, others again to be beaten to
death with clubs. During the three years of his reign, he
disdained to visit either Rome or Italy. His camp, occasionally
removed from the banks of the Rhine to those of the Danube, was
the seat of his stern despotism, which trampled on every
principle of law and justice, and was supported by the avowed
power of the sword. 10 No man of noble birth, elegant
accomplishments, or knowledge of civil business, was suffered
near his person; and the court of a Roman emperor revived the
idea of those ancient chiefs of slaves and gladiators, whose
savage power had left a deep impression of terror and
detestation. 11
10 (return) [ The wife of Maximin, by insinuating wise counsels
with female gentleness, sometimes brought back the tyrant to the
way of truth and humanity. See Ammianus Marcellinus, l. xiv. c.
l, where he alludes to the fact which he had more fully related
under the reign of the Gordians. We may collect from the medals,
that Paullina was the name of this benevolent empress; and from
the title of Diva, that she died before Maximin. (Valesius ad
loc. cit. Ammian.) Spanheim de U. et P. N. tom. ii. p. 300. Note:
If we may believe Syrcellus and Zonaras, in was Maximin himself
who ordered her death—G]
11 (return) [ He was compared to Spartacus and Athenio. Hist.
August p. 141.]
As long as the cruelty of Maximin was confined to the illustrious
senators, or even to the bold adventurers, who in the court or
army expose themselves to the caprice of fortune, the body of the
people viewed their sufferings with indifference, or perhaps with
pleasure. But the tyrant’s avarice, stimulated by the insatiate
desires of the soldiers, at length attacked the public property.
Every city of the empire was possessed of an independent revenue,
destined to purchase corn for the multitude, and to supply the
expenses of the games and entertainments. By a single act of
authority, the whole mass of wealth was at once confiscated for
the use of the Imperial treasury. The temples were stripped of
their most valuable offerings of gold and silver, and the statues
of gods, heroes, and emperors, were melted down and coined into
money. These impious orders could not be executed without tumults
and massacres, as in many places the people chose rather to die
in the defence of their altars, than to behold in the midst of
peace their cities exposed to the rapine and cruelty of war. The
soldiers themselves, among whom this sacrilegious plunder was
distributed, received it with a blush; and hardened as they were
in acts of violence, they dreaded the just reproaches of their
friends and relations. Throughout the Roman world a general cry
of indignation was heard, imploring vengeance on the common enemy
of human kind; and at length, by an act of private oppression, a
peaceful and unarmed province was driven into rebellion against
him. 12
12 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 238. Zosim. l. i. p. 15.]
The procurator of Africa was a servant worthy of such a master,
who considered the fines and confiscations of the rich as one of
the most fruitful branches of the Imperial revenue. An iniquitous
sentence had been pronounced against some opulent youths of that
country, the execution of which would have stripped them of far
the greater part of their patrimony. In this extremity, a
resolution that must either complete or prevent their ruin, was
dictated by despair. A respite of three days, obtained with
difficulty from the rapacious treasurer, was employed in
collecting from their estates a great number of slaves and
peasants blindly devoted to the commands of their lords, and
armed with the rustic weapons of clubs and axes. The leaders of
the conspiracy, as they were admitted to the audience of the
procurator, stabbed him with the daggers concealed under their
garments, and, by the assistance of their tumultuary train,
seized on the little town of Thysdrus, 13 and erected the
standard of rebellion against the sovereign of the Roman empire.
They rested their hopes on the hatred of mankind against Maximin,
and they judiciously resolved to oppose to that detested tyrant
an emperor whose mild virtues had already acquired the love and
esteem of the Romans, and whose authority over the province would
give weight and stability to the enterprise. Gordianus, their
proconsul, and the object of their choice, refused, with
unfeigned reluctance, the dangerous honor, and begged with tears,
that they would suffer him to terminate in peace a long and
innocent life, without staining his feeble age with civil blood.
Their menaces compelled him to accept the Imperial purple, his
only refuge, indeed, against the jealous cruelty of Maximin;
since, according to the reasoning of tyrants, those who have been
esteemed worthy of the throne deserve death, and those who
deliberate have already rebelled. 14
13 (return) [ In the fertile territory of Byzacium, one hundred
and fifty miles to the south of Carthage. This city was
decorated, probably by the Gordians, with the title of colony,
and with a fine amphitheatre, which is still in a very perfect
state. See Intinerar. Wesseling, p. 59; and Shaw’s Travels, p.
117.]
14 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 239. Hist. August. p. 153.]
The family of Gordianus was one of the most illustrious of the
Roman senate. On the father’s side he was descended from the
Gracchi; on his mother’s, from the emperor Trajan. A great estate
enabled him to support the dignity of his birth, and in the
enjoyment of it, he displayed an elegant taste and beneficent
disposition. The palace in Rome, formerly inhabited by the great
Pompey, had been, during several generations, in the possession
of Gordian’s family. 15 It was distinguished by ancient trophies
of naval victories, and decorated with the works of modern
painting. His villa on the road to Præneste was celebrated for
baths of singular beauty and extent, for three stately rooms of a
hundred feet in length, and for a magnificent portico, supported
by two hundred columns of the four most curious and costly sorts
of marble. 16 The public shows exhibited at his expense, and in
which the people were entertained with many hundreds of wild
beasts and gladiators, 17 seem to surpass the fortune of a
subject; and whilst the liberality of other magistrates was
confined to a few solemn festivals at Rome, the magnificence of
Gordian was repeated, when he was ædile, every month in the year,
and extended, during his consulship, to the principal cities of
Italy. He was twice elevated to the last-mentioned dignity, by
Caracalla and by Alexander; for he possessed the uncommon talent
of acquiring the esteem of virtuous princes, without alarming the
jealousy of tyrants. His long life was innocently spent in the
study of letters and the peaceful honors of Rome; and, till he
was named proconsul of Africa by the voice of the senate and the
approbation of Alexander, 18 he appears prudently to have
declined the command of armies and the government of provinces.
181 As long as that emperor lived, Africa was happy under the
administration of his worthy representative: after the barbarous
Maximin had usurped the throne, Gordianus alleviated the miseries
which he was unable to prevent. When he reluctantly accepted the
purple, he was above fourscore years old; a last and valuable
remains of the happy age of the Antonines, whose virtues he
revived in his own conduct, and celebrated in an elegant poem of
thirty books. With the venerable proconsul, his son, who had
accompanied him into Africa as his lieutenant, was likewise
declared emperor. His manners were less pure, but his character
was equally amiable with that of his father. Twenty-two
acknowledged concubines, and a library of sixty-two thousand
volumes, attested the variety of his inclinations; and from the
productions which he left behind him, it appears that the former
as well as the latter were designed for use rather than for
ostentation. 19 The Roman people acknowledged in the features of
the younger Gordian the resemblance of Scipio Africanus, 191
recollected with pleasure that his mother was the granddaughter
of Antoninus Pius, and rested the public hope on those latent
virtues which had hitherto, as they fondly imagined, lain
concealed in the luxurious indolence of private life.
15 (return) [ Hist. Aug. p. 152. The celebrated house of Pompey
in carinis was usurped by Marc Antony, and consequently became,
after the Triumvir’s death, a part of the Imperial domain. The
emperor Trajan allowed, and even encouraged, the rich senators to
purchase those magnificent and useless places, (Plin. Panegyric.
c. 50;) and it may seem probable, that, on this occasion,
Pompey’s house came into the possession of Gordian’s
great-grandfather.]
16 (return) [ The Claudian, the Numidian, the Carystian, and the
Synnadian. The colors of Roman marbles have been faintly
described and imperfectly distinguished. It appears, however,
that the Carystian was a sea-green, and that the marble of
Synnada was white mixed with oval spots of purple. See Salmasius
ad Hist. August. p. 164.]
17 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 151, 152. He sometimes gave five
hundred pair of gladiators, never less than one hundred and
fifty. He once gave for the use of the circus one hundred
Sicilian, and as many Cappæcian Cappadecian horses. The animals
designed for hunting were chiefly bears, boars, bulls, stags,
elks, wild asses, &c. Elephants and lions seem to have been
appropriated to Imperial magnificence.]
18 (return) [ See the original letter, in the Augustan History,
p. 152, which at once shows Alexander’s respect for the authority
of the senate, and his esteem for the proconsul appointed by that
assembly.]
181 (return) [ Herodian expressly says that he had administered
many provinces, lib. vii. 10.—W.]
19 (return) [ By each of his concubines, the younger Gordian left
three or four children. His literary productions, though less
numerous, were by no means contemptible.]
191 (return) [ Not the personal likeness, but the family descent
from the Scipiod.—W.]
As soon as the Gordians had appeased the first tumult of a
popular election, they removed their court to Carthage. They were
received with the acclamations of the Africans, who honored their
virtues, and who, since the visit of Hadrian, had never beheld
the majesty of a Roman emperor. But these vain acclamations
neither strengthened nor confirmed the title of the Gordians.
They were induced by principle, as well as interest, to solicit
the approbation of the senate; and a deputation of the noblest
provincials was sent, without delay, to Rome, to relate and
justify the conduct of their countrymen, who, having long
suffered with patience, were at length resolved to act with
vigor. The letters of the new princes were modest and respectful,
excusing the necessity which had obliged them to accept the
Imperial title; but submitting their election and their fate to
the supreme judgment of the senate. 20
20 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 243. Hist. August. p. 144.]
The inclinations of the senate were neither doubtful nor divided.
The birth and noble alliances of the Gordians had intimately
connected them with the most illustrious houses of Rome. Their
fortune had created many dependants in that assembly, their merit
had acquired many friends. Their mild administration opened the
flattering prospect of the restoration, not only of the civil but
even of the republican government. The terror of military
violence, which had first obliged the senate to forget the murder
of Alexander, and to ratify the election of a barbarian peasant,
21 now produced a contrary effect, and provoked them to assert
the injured rights of freedom and humanity. The hatred of Maximin
towards the senate was declared and implacable; the tamest
submission had not appeased his fury, the most cautious innocence
would not remove his suspicions; and even the care of their own
safety urged them to share the fortune of an enterprise, of which
(if unsuccessful) they were sure to be the first victims. These
considerations, and perhaps others of a more private nature, were
debated in a previous conference of the consuls and the
magistrates. As soon as their resolution was decided, they
convoked in the temple of Castor the whole body of the senate,
according to an ancient form of secrecy, 22 calculated to awaken
their attention, and to conceal their decrees. “Conscript
fathers,” said the consul Syllanus, “the two Gordians, both of
consular dignity, the one your proconsul, the other your
lieutenant, have been declared emperors by the general consent of
Africa. Let us return thanks,” he boldly continued, “to the youth
of Thysdrus; let us return thanks to the faithful people of
Carthage, our generous deliverers from a horrid monster—Why do
you hear me thus coolly, thus timidly? Why do you cast those
anxious looks on each other? Why hesitate? Maximin is a public
enemy! may his enmity soon expire with him, and may we long enjoy
the prudence and felicity of Gordian the father, the valor and
constancy of Gordian the son!” 23 The noble ardor of the consul
revived the languid spirit of the senate. By a unanimous decree,
the election of the Gordians was ratified, Maximin, his son, and
his adherents, were pronounced enemies of their country, and
liberal rewards were offered to whomsoever had the courage and
good fortune to destroy them.
21 (return) [ Quod. tamen patres dum periculosum existimant;
inermes armato esistere approbaverunt.—Aurelius Victor.]
22 (return) [ Even the servants of the house, the scribes, &c.,
were excluded, and their office was filled by the senators
themselves. We are obliged to the Augustan History. p. 159, for
preserving this curious example of the old discipline of the
commonwealth.]
23 (return) [ This spirited speech, translated from the Augustan
historian, p. 156, seems transcribed by him from the origina
registers of the senate]
During the emperor’s absence, a detachment of the Prætorian
guards remained at Rome, to protect, or rather to command, the
capital. The præfect Vitalianus had signalized his fidelity to
Maximin, by the alacrity with which he had obeyed, and even
prevented the cruel mandates of the tyrant. His death alone could
rescue the authority of the senate, and the lives of the senators
from a state of danger and suspense. Before their resolves had
transpired, a quæstor and some tribunes were commissioned to take
his devoted life. They executed the order with equal boldness and
success; and, with their bloody daggers in their hands, ran
through the streets, proclaiming to the people and the soldiers
the news of the happy revolution. The enthusiasm of liberty was
seconded by the promise of a large donative, in lands and money;
the statues of Maximin were thrown down; the capital of the
empire acknowledged, with transport, the authority of the two
Gordians and the senate; 24 and the example of Rome was followed
by the rest of Italy.
24 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 244]
A new spirit had arisen in that assembly, whose long patience had
been insulted by wanton despotism and military license. The
senate assumed the reins of government, and, with a calm
intrepidity, prepared to vindicate by arms the cause of freedom.
Among the consular senators recommended by their merit and
services to the favor of the emperor Alexander, it was easy to
select twenty, not unequal to the command of an army, and the
conduct of a war. To these was the defence of Italy intrusted.
Each was appointed to act in his respective department,
authorized to enroll and discipline the Italian youth; and
instructed to fortify the ports and highways, against the
impending invasion of Maximin. A number of deputies, chosen from
the most illustrious of the senatorian and equestrian orders,
were despatched at the same time to the governors of the several
provinces, earnestly conjuring them to fly to the assistance of
their country, and to remind the nations of their ancient ties of
friendship with the Roman senate and people. The general respect
with which these deputies were received, and the zeal of Italy
and the provinces in favor of the senate, sufficiently prove that
the subjects of Maximin were reduced to that uncommon distress,
in which the body of the people has more to fear from oppression
than from resistance. The consciousness of that melancholy truth,
inspires a degree of persevering fury, seldom to be found in
those civil wars which are artificially supported for the benefit
of a few factious and designing leaders. 25
25 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 247, l. viii. p. 277. Hist.
August. p 156-158.]
For while the cause of the Gordians was embraced with such
diffusive ardor, the Gordians themselves were no more. The feeble
court of Carthage was alarmed by the rapid approach of
Capelianus, governor of Mauritania, who, with a small band of
veterans, and a fierce host of barbarians, attacked a faithful,
but unwarlike province. The younger Gordian sallied out to meet
the enemy at the head of a few guards, and a numerous
undisciplined multitude, educated in the peaceful luxury of
Carthage. His useless valor served only to procure him an
honorable death on the field of battle. His aged father, whose
reign had not exceeded thirty-six days, put an end to his life on
the first news of the defeat. Carthage, destitute of defence,
opened her gates to the conqueror, and Africa was exposed to the
rapacious cruelty of a slave, obliged to satisfy his unrelenting
master with a large account of blood and treasure. 26
26 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 254. Hist. August. p. 150-160.
We may observe, that one month and six days, for the reign of
Gordian, is a just correction of Casaubon and Panvinius, instead
of the absurd reading of one year and six months. See Commentar.
p. 193. Zosimus relates, l. i. p. 17, that the two Gordians
perished by a tempest in the midst of their navigation. A strange
ignorance of history, or a strange abuse of metaphors!]
The fate of the Gordians filled Rome with just but unexpected
terror. The senate, convoked in the temple of Concord, affected
to transact the common business of the day; and seemed to
decline, with trembling anxiety, the consideration of their own
and the public danger. A silent consternation prevailed in the
assembly, till a senator, of the name and family of Trajan,
awakened his brethren from their fatal lethargy. He represented
to them that the choice of cautious, dilatory measures had been
long since out of their power; that Maximin, implacable by
nature, and exasperated by injuries, was advancing towards Italy,
at the head of the military force of the empire; and that their
only remaining alternative was either to meet him bravely in the
field, or tamely to expect the tortures and ignominious death
reserved for unsuccessful rebellion. “We have lost,” continued
he, “two excellent princes; but unless we desert ourselves, the
hopes of the republic have not perished with the Gordians. Many
are the senators whose virtues have deserved, and whose abilities
would sustain, the Imperial dignity. Let us elect two emperors,
one of whom may conduct the war against the public enemy, whilst
his colleague remains at Rome to direct the civil administration.
I cheerfully expose myself to the danger and envy of the
nomination, and give my vote in favor of Maximus and Balbinus.
Ratify my choice, conscript fathers, or appoint in their place,
others more worthy of the empire.” The general apprehension
silenced the whispers of jealousy; the merit of the candidates
was universally acknowledged; and the house resounded with the
sincere acclamations of “Long life and victory to the emperors
Maximus and Balbinus. You are happy in the judgment of the
senate; may the republic be happy under your administration!” 27
27 (return) [ See the Augustan History, p. 166, from the
registers of the senate; the date is confessedly faulty but the
coincidence of the Apollinatian games enables us to correct it.]
Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death Of
Maximin.—Part II.
The virtues and the reputation of the new emperors justified the
most sanguine hopes of the Romans. The various nature of their
talents seemed to appropriate to each his peculiar department of
peace and war, without leaving room for jealous emulation.
Balbinus was an admired orator, a poet of distinguished fame, and
a wise magistrate, who had exercised with innocence and applause
the civil jurisdiction in almost all the interior provinces of
the empire. His birth was noble, 28 his fortune affluent, his
manners liberal and affable. In him the love of pleasure was
corrected by a sense of dignity, nor had the habits of ease
deprived him of a capacity for business. The mind of Maximus was
formed in a rougher mould. By his valor and abilities he had
raised himself from the meanest origin to the first employments
of the state and army. His victories over the Sarmatians and the
Germans, the austerity of his life, and the rigid impartiality of
his justice, while he was a Præfect of the city, commanded the
esteem of a people whose affections were engaged in favor of the
more amiable Balbinus. The two colleagues had both been consuls,
(Balbinus had twice enjoyed that honorable office,) both had been
named among the twenty lieutenants of the senate; and since the
one was sixty and the other seventy-four years old, 29 they had
both attained the full maturity of age and experience.
28 (return) [ He was descended from Cornelius Balbus, a noble
Spaniard, and the adopted son of Theophanes, the Greek historian.
Balbus obtained the freedom of Rome by the favor of Pompey, and
preserved it by the eloquence of Cicero. (See Orat. pro Cornel.
Balbo.) The friendship of Cæsar, (to whom he rendered the most
important secret services in the civil war) raised him to the
consulship and the pontificate, honors never yet possessed by a
stranger. The nephew of this Balbus triumphed over the
Garamantes. See Dictionnaire de Bayle, au mot Balbus, where he
distinguishes the several persons of that name, and rectifies,
with his usual accuracy, the mistakes of former writers
concerning them.]
29 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 622. But little dependence is
to be had on the authority of a modern Greek, so grossly ignorant
of the history of the third century, that he creates several
imaginary emperors, and confounds those who really existed.]
After the senate had conferred on Maximus and Balbinus an equal
portion of the consular and tribunitian powers, the title of
Fathers of their country, and the joint office of Supreme
Pontiff, they ascended to the Capitol to return thanks to the
gods, protectors of Rome. 30 The solemn rites of sacrifice were
disturbed by a sedition of the people. The licentious multitude
neither loved the rigid Maximus, nor did they sufficiently fear
the mild and humane Balbinus. Their increasing numbers surrounded
the temple of Jupiter; with obstinate clamors they asserted their
inherent right of consenting to the election of their sovereign;
and demanded, with an apparent moderation, that, besides the two
emperors, chosen by the senate, a third should be added of the
family of the Gordians, as a just return of gratitude to those
princes who had sacrificed their lives for the republic. At the
head of the city-guards, and the youth of the equestrian order,
Maximus and Balbinus attempted to cut their way through the
seditious multitude. The multitude, armed with sticks and stones,
drove them back into the Capitol. It is prudent to yield when the
contest, whatever may be the issue of it, must be fatal to both
parties. A boy, only thirteen years of age, the grandson of the
elder, and nephew 301 of the younger Gordian, was produced to the
people, invested with the ornaments and title of Cæsar. The
tumult was appeased by this easy condescension; and the two
emperors, as soon as they had been peaceably acknowledged in
Rome, prepared to defend Italy against the common enemy.
30 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 256, supposes that the senate
was at first convoked in the Capitol, and is very eloquent on the
occasion. The Augustar History p. 116, seems much more
authentic.]
301 (return) [ According to some, the son.—G.]
Whilst in Rome and Africa, revolutions succeeded each other with
such amazing rapidity, that the mind of Maximin was agitated by
the most furious passions. He is said to have received the news
of the rebellion of the Gordians, and of the decree of the senate
against him, not with the temper of a man, but the rage of a wild
beast; which, as it could not discharge itself on the distant
senate, threatened the life of his son, of his friends, and of
all who ventured to approach his person. The grateful
intelligence of the death of the Gordians was quickly followed by
the assurance that the senate, laying aside all hopes of pardon
or accommodation, had substituted in their room two emperors,
with whose merit he could not be unacquainted. Revenge was the
only consolation left to Maximin, and revenge could only be
obtained by arms. The strength of the legions had been assembled
by Alexander from all parts of the empire. Three successful
campaigns against the Germans and the Sarmatians, had raised
their fame, confirmed their discipline, and even increased their
numbers, by filling the ranks with the flower of the barbarian
youth. The life of Maximin had been spent in war, and the candid
severity of history cannot refuse him the valor of a soldier, or
even the abilities of an experienced general. 31 It might
naturally be expected, that a prince of such a character, instead
of suffering the rebellion to gain stability by delay, should
immediately have marched from the banks of the Danube to those of
the Tyber, and that his victorious army, instigated by contempt
for the senate, and eager to gather the spoils of Italy, should
have burned with impatience to finish the easy and lucrative
conquest. Yet as far as we can trust to the obscure chronology of
that period, 32 it appears that the operations of some foreign
war deferred the Italian expedition till the ensuing spring. From
the prudent conduct of Maximin, we may learn that the savage
features of his character have been exaggerated by the pencil of
party, that his passions, however impetuous, submitted to the
force of reason, and that the barbarian possessed something of
the generous spirit of Sylla, who subdued the enemies of Rome
before he suffered himself to revenge his private injuries. 33
31 (return) [ In Herodian, l. vii. p. 249, and in the Augustan
History, we have three several orations of Maximin to his army,
on the rebellion of Africa and Rome: M. de Tillemont has very
justly observed that they neither agree with each other nor with
truth. Histoire des Empereurs, tom. iii. p. 799.]
32 (return) [ The carelessness of the writers of that age, leaves
us in a singular perplexity. 1. We know that Maximus and Balbinus
were killed during the Capitoline games. Herodian, l. viii. p.
285. The authority of Censorinus (de Die Natali, c. 18) enables
us to fix those games with certainty to the year 238, but leaves
us in ignorance of the month or day. 2. The election of Gordian
by the senate is fixed with equal certainty to the 27th of May;
but we are at a loss to discover whether it was in the same or
the preceding year. Tillemont and Muratori, who maintain the two
opposite opinions, bring into the field a desultory troop of
authorities, conjectures and probabilities. The one seems to draw
out, the other to contract the series of events between those
periods, more than can be well reconciled to reason and history.
Yet it is necessary to choose between them. Note: Eckhel has more
recently treated these chronological questions with a perspicuity
which gives great probability to his conclusions. Setting aside
all the historians, whose contradictions are irreconcilable, he
has only consulted the medals, and has arranged the events before
us in the following order:— Maximin, A. U. 990, after having
conquered the Germans, reenters Pannonia, establishes his winter
quarters at Sirmium, and prepares himself to make war against the
people of the North. In the year 991, in the cal ends of January,
commences his fourth tribunate. The Gordians are chosen emperors
in Africa, probably at the beginning of the month of March. The
senate confirms this election with joy, and declares Maximin the
enemy of Rome. Five days after he had heard of this revolt,
Maximin sets out from Sirmium on his march to Italy. These events
took place about the beginning of April; a little after, the
Gordians are slain in Africa by Capellianus, procurator of
Mauritania. The senate, in its alarm, names as emperors Balbus
and Maximus Pupianus, and intrusts the latter with the war
against Maximin. Maximin is stopped on his road near Aquileia, by
the want of provisions, and by the melting of the snows: he
begins the siege of Aquileia at the end of April. Pupianus
assembles his army at Ravenna. Maximin and his son are
assassinated by the soldiers enraged at the resistance of
Aquileia: and this was probably in the middle of May. Pupianus
returns to Rome, and assumes the government with Balbinus; they
are assassinated towards the end of July Gordian the younger
ascends the throne. Eckhel de Doct. Vol vii 295.—G.]
33 (return) [ Velleius Paterculus, l. ii. c. 24. The president de
Montesquieu (in his dialogue between Sylla and Eucrates)
expresses the sentiments of the dictator in a spirited, and even
a sublime manner.]
When the troops of Maximin, advancing in excellent order, arrived
at the foot of the Julian Alps, they were terrified by the
silence and desolation that reigned on the frontiers of Italy.
The villages and open towns had been abandoned on their approach
by the inhabitants, the cattle was driven away, the provisions
removed or destroyed, the bridges broken down, nor was any thing
left which could afford either shelter or subsistence to an
invader. Such had been the wise orders of the generals of the
senate: whose design was to protract the war, to ruin the army of
Maximin by the slow operation of famine, and to consume his
strength in the sieges of the principal cities of Italy, which
they had plentifully stored with men and provisions from the
deserted country. Aquileia received and withstood the first shock
of the invasion. The streams that issue from the head of the
Hadriatic Gulf, swelled by the melting of the winter snows, 34
opposed an unexpected obstacle to the arms of Maximin. At length,
on a singular bridge, constructed with art and difficulty, of
large hogsheads, he transported his army to the opposite bank,
rooted up the beautiful vineyards in the neighborhood of
Aquileia, demolished the suburbs, and employed the timber of the
buildings in the engines and towers, with which on every side he
attacked the city. The walls, fallen to decay during the security
of a long peace, had been hastily repaired on this sudden
emergency: but the firmest defence of Aquileia consisted in the
constancy of the citizens; all ranks of whom, instead of being
dismayed, were animated by the extreme danger, and their
knowledge of the tyrant’s unrelenting temper. Their courage was
supported and directed by Crispinus and Menophilus, two of the
twenty lieutenants of the senate, who, with a small body of
regular troops, had thrown themselves into the besieged place.
The army of Maximin was repulsed in repeated attacks, his
machines destroyed by showers of artificial fire; and the
generous enthusiasm of the Aquileians was exalted into a
confidence of success, by the opinion that Belenus, their tutelar
deity, combated in person in the defence of his distressed
worshippers. 35
34 (return) [ Muratori (Annali d’ Italia, tom. ii. p. 294) thinks
the melting of the snows suits better with the months of June or
July, than with those of February. The opinion of a man who
passed his life between the Alps and the Apennines, is
undoubtedly of great weight; yet I observe, 1. That the long
winter, of which Muratori takes advantage, is to be found only in
the Latin version, and not in the Greek text of Herodian. 2. That
the vicissitudes of suns and rains, to which the soldiers of
Maximin were exposed, (Herodian, l. viii. p. 277,) denote the
spring rather than the summer. We may observe, likewise, that
these several streams, as they melted into one, composed the
Timavus, so poetically (in every sense of the word) described by
Virgil. They are about twelve miles to the east of Aquileia. See
Cluver. Italia Antiqua, tom. i. p. 189, &c.]
35 (return) [ Herodian, l. viii. p. 272. The Celtic deity was
supposed to be Apollo, and received under that name the thanks of
the senate. A temple was likewise built to Venus the Bald, in
honor of the women of Aquileia, who had given up their hair to
make ropes for the military engines.]
The emperor Maximus, who had advanced as far as Ravenna, to
secure that important place, and to hasten the military
preparations, beheld the event of the war in the more faithful
mirror of reason and policy. He was too sensible, that a single
town could not resist the persevering efforts of a great army;
and he dreaded, lest the enemy, tired with the obstinate
resistance of Aquileia, should on a sudden relinquish the
fruitless siege, and march directly towards Rome. The fate of the
empire and the cause of freedom must then be committed to the
chance of a battle; and what arms could he oppose to the veteran
legions of the Rhine and Danube? Some troops newly levied among
the generous but enervated youth of Italy; and a body of German
auxiliaries, on whose firmness, in the hour of trial, it was
dangerous to depend. In the midst of these just alarms, the
stroke of domestic conspiracy punished the crimes of Maximin, and
delivered Rome and the senate from the calamities that would
surely have attended the victory of an enraged barbarian.
The people of Aquileia had scarcely experienced any of the common
miseries of a siege; their magazines were plentifully supplied,
and several fountains within the walls assured them of an
inexhaustible resource of fresh water. The soldiers of Maximin
were, on the contrary, exposed to the inclemency of the season,
the contagion of disease, and the horrors of famine. The open
country was ruined, the rivers filled with the slain, and
polluted with blood. A spirit of despair and disaffection began
to diffuse itself among the troops; and as they were cut off from
all intelligence, they easily believed that the whole empire had
embraced the cause of the senate, and that they were left as
devoted victims to perish under the impregnable walls of
Aquileia. The fierce temper of the tyrant was exasperated by
disappointments, which he imputed to the cowardice of his army;
and his wanton and ill-timed cruelty, instead of striking terror,
inspired hatred, and a just desire of revenge. A party of
Prætorian guards, who trembled for their wives and children in
the camp of Alba, near Rome, executed the sentence of the senate.
Maximin, abandoned by his guards, was slain in his tent, with his
son (whom he had associated to the honors of the purple),
Anulinus the præfect, and the principal ministers of his tyranny.
36 The sight of their heads, borne on the point of spears,
convinced the citizens of Aquileia that the siege was at an end;
the gates of the city were thrown open, a liberal market was
provided for the hungry troops of Maximin, and the whole army
joined in solemn protestations of fidelity to the senate and the
people of Rome, and to their lawful emperors Maximus and
Balbinus. Such was the deserved fate of a brutal savage,
destitute, as he has generally been represented, of every
sentiment that distinguishes a civilized, or even a human being.
The body was suited to the soul. The stature of Maximin exceeded
the measure of eight feet, and circumstances almost incredible
are related of his matchless strength and appetite. 37 Had he
lived in a less enlightened age, tradition and poetry might well
have described him as one of those monstrous giants, whose
supernatural power was constantly exerted for the destruction of
mankind.
36 (return) [ Herodian, l. viii. p. 279. Hist. August. p. 146.
The duration of Maximin’s reign has not been defined with much
accuracy, except by Eutropius, who allows him three years and a
few days, (l. ix. 1;) we may depend on the integrity of the text,
as the Latin original is checked by the Greek version of
Pæanius.]
37 (return) [ Eight Roman feet and one third, which are equal to
above eight English feet, as the two measures are to each other
in the proportion of 967 to 1000. See Graves’s discourse on the
Roman foot. We are told that Maximin could drink in a day an
amphora (or about seven gallons) of wine, and eat thirty or forty
pounds of meat. He could move a loaded wagon, break a horse’s leg
with his fist, crumble stones in his hand, and tear up small
trees by the roots. See his life in the Augustan History.]
It is easier to conceive than to describe the universal joy of
the Roman world on the fall of the tyrant, the news of which is
said to have been carried in four days from Aquileia to Rome. The
return of Maximus was a triumphal procession; his colleague and
young Gordian went out to meet him, and the three princes made
their entry into the capital, attended by the ambassadors of
almost all the cities of Italy, saluted with the splendid
offerings of gratitude and superstition, and received with the
unfeigned acclamations of the senate and people, who persuaded
themselves that a golden age would succeed to an age of iron. 38
The conduct of the two emperors corresponded with these
expectations. They administered justice in person; and the rigor
of the one was tempered by the other’s clemency. The oppressive
taxes with which Maximin had loaded the rights of inheritance and
succession, were repealed, or at least moderated. Discipline was
revived, and with the advice of the senate many wise laws were
enacted by their imperial ministers, who endeavored to restore a
civil constitution on the ruins of military tyranny. “What reward
may we expect for delivering Rome from a monster?” was the
question asked by Maximus, in a moment of freedom and confidence.
Balbinus answered it without hesitation—“The love of the senate,
of the people, and of all mankind.” “Alas!” replied his more
penetrating colleague—“alas! I dread the hatred of the soldiers,
and the fatal effects of their resentment.” 39 His apprehensions
were but too well justified by the event.
38 (return) [ See the congratulatory letter of Claudius Julianus,
the consul to the two emperors, in the Augustan History.]
39 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 171.]
Whilst Maximus was preparing to defend Italy against the common
foe, Balbinus, who remained at Rome, had been engaged in scenes
of blood and intestine discord. Distrust and jealousy reigned in
the senate; and even in the temples where they assembled, every
senator carried either open or concealed arms. In the midst of
their deliberations, two veterans of the guards, actuated either
by curiosity or a sinister motive, audaciously thrust themselves
into the house, and advanced by degrees beyond the altar of
Victory. Gallicanus, a consular, and Mæcenas, a Prætorian
senator, viewed with indignation their insolent intrusion:
drawing their daggers, they laid the spies (for such they deemed
them) dead at the foot of the altar, and then, advancing to the
door of the senate, imprudently exhorted the multitude to
massacre the Prætorians, as the secret adherents of the tyrant.
Those who escaped the first fury of the tumult took refuge in the
camp, which they defended with superior advantage against the
reiterated attacks of the people, assisted by the numerous bands
of gladiators, the property of opulent nobles. The civil war
lasted many days, with infinite loss and confusion on both sides.
When the pipes were broken that supplied the camp with water, the
Prætorians were reduced to intolerable distress; but in their
turn they made desperate sallies into the city, set fire to a
great number of houses, and filled the streets with the blood of
the inhabitants. The emperor Balbinus attempted, by ineffectual
edicts and precarious truces, to reconcile the factions at Rome.
But their animosity, though smothered for a while, burnt with
redoubled violence. The soldiers, detesting the senate and the
people, despised the weakness of a prince, who wanted either the
spirit or the power to command the obedience of his subjects. 40
40 (return) [ Herodian, l. viii. p. 258.]
After the tyrant’s death, his formidable army had acknowledged,
from necessity rather than from choice, the authority of Maximus,
who transported himself without delay to the camp before
Aquileia. As soon as he had received their oath of fidelity, he
addressed them in terms full of mildness and moderation;
lamented, rather than arraigned the wild disorders of the times,
and assured the soldiers, that of all their past conduct the
senate would remember only their generous desertion of the
tyrant, and their voluntary return to their duty. Maximus
enforced his exhortations by a liberal donative, purified the
camp by a solemn sacrifice of expiation, and then dismissed the
legions to their several provinces, impressed, as he hoped, with
a lively sense of gratitude and obedience. 41 But nothing could
reconcile the haughty spirit of the Prætorians. They attended the
emperors on the memorable day of their public entry into Rome;
but amidst the general acclamations, the sullen, dejected
countenance of the guards sufficiently declared that they
considered themselves as the object, rather than the partners, of
the triumph. When the whole body was united in their camp, those
who had served under Maximin, and those who had remained at Rome,
insensibly communicated to each other their complaints and
apprehensions. The emperors chosen by the army had perished with
ignominy; those elected by the senate were seated on the throne.
42 The long discord between the civil and military powers was
decided by a war, in which the former had obtained a complete
victory. The soldiers must now learn a new doctrine of submission
to the senate; and whatever clemency was affected by that politic
assembly, they dreaded a slow revenge, colored by the name of
discipline, and justified by fair pretences of the public good.
But their fate was still in their own hands; and if they had
courage to despise the vain terrors of an impotent republic, it
was easy to convince the world, that those who were masters of
the arms, were masters of the authority, of the state.
41 (return) [ Herodian, l. viii. p. 213.]
42 (return) [ The observation had been made imprudently enough in
the acclamations of the senate, and with regard to the soldiers
it carried the appearance of a wanton insult. Hist. August. p.
170.]
When the senate elected two princes, it is probable that, besides
the declared reason of providing for the various emergencies of
peace and war, they were actuated by the secret desire of
weakening by division the despotism of the supreme magistrate.
Their policy was effectual, but it proved fatal both to their
emperors and to themselves. The jealousy of power was soon
exasperated by the difference of character. Maximus despised
Balbinus as a luxurious noble, and was in his turn disdained by
his colleague as an obscure soldier. Their silent discord was
understood rather than seen; 43 but the mutual consciousness
prevented them from uniting in any vigorous measures of defence
against their common enemies of the Prætorian camp. The whole
city was employed in the Capitoline games, and the emperors were
left almost alone in the palace. On a sudden, they were alarmed
by the approach of a troop of desperate assassins. Ignorant of
each other’s situation or designs (for they already occupied very
distant apartments), afraid to give or to receive assistance,
they wasted the important moments in idle debates and fruitless
recriminations. The arrival of the guards put an end to the vain
strife. They seized on these emperors of the senate, for such
they called them with malicious contempt, stripped them of their
garments, and dragged them in insolent triumph through the
streets of Rome, with the design of inflicting a slow and cruel
death on these unfortunate princes. The fear of a rescue from the
faithful Germans of the Imperial guards shortened their tortures;
and their bodies, mangled with a thousand wounds, were left
exposed to the insults or to the pity of the populace. 44
43 (return) [ Discordiæ tacitæ, et quæ intelligerentur potius
quam viderentur. _Hist. August_. p. 170. This well-chosen
expression is probably stolen from some better writer.]
44 (return) [ Herodian, l. viii. p. 287, 288.]
In the space of a few months, six princes had been cut off by the
sword. Gordian, who had already received the title of Cæsar, was
the only person that occurred to the soldiers as proper to fill
the vacant throne. 45 They carried him to the camp, and
unanimously saluted him Augustus and Emperor. His name was dear
to the senate and people; his tender age promised a long impunity
of military license; and the submission of Rome and the provinces
to the choice of the Prætorian guards saved the republic, at the
expense indeed of its freedom and dignity, from the horrors of a
new civil war in the heart of the capital. 46
45 (return) [ Quia non alius erat in præsenti, is the expression
of the Augustan History.]
46 (return) [ Quintus Curtius (l. x. c. 9,) pays an elegant
compliment to the emperor of the day, for having, by his happy
accession, extinguished so many firebrands, sheathed so many
swords, and put an end to the evils of a divided government.
After weighing with attention every word of the passage, I am of
opinion, that it suits better with the elevation of Gordian, than
with any other period of the Roman history. In that case, it may
serve to decide the age of Quintus Curtius. Those who place him
under the first Cæsars, argue from the purity of his style but
are embarrassed by the silence of Quintilian, in his accurate
list of Roman historians. * Note: This conjecture of Gibbon is
without foundation. Many passages in the work of Quintus Curtius
clearly place him at an earlier period. Thus, in speaking of the
Parthians, he says, Hinc in Parthicum perventum est, tunc
ignobilem gentem: nunc caput omnium qui post Euphratem et Tigrim
amnes siti Rubro mari terminantur. The Parthian empire had this
extent only in the first age of the vulgar æra: to that age,
therefore, must be assigned the date of Quintus Curtius. Although
the critics (says M. de Sainte Croix) have multiplied conjectures
on this subject, most of them have ended by adopting the opinion
which places Quintus Curtius under the reign of Claudius. See
Just. Lips. ad Ann. Tac. ii. 20. Michel le Tellier Præf. in Curt.
Tillemont Hist. des Emp. i. p. 251. Du Bos Reflections sur la
Poesie, 2d Partie. Tiraboschi Storia della, Lett. Ital. ii. 149.
Examen. crit. des Historiens d’Alexandre, 2d ed. p. 104, 849,
850.—G. ——This interminable question seems as much perplexed as
ever. The first argument of M. Guizot is a strong one, except
that Parthian is often used by later writers for Persian.
Cunzius, in his preface to an edition published at Helmstadt,
(1802,) maintains the opinion of Bagnolo, which assigns Q.
Curtius to the time of Constantine the Great. Schmieder, in his
edit. Gotting. 1803, sums up in this sentence, ætatem Curtii
ignorari pala mest.—M.]
As the third Gordian was only nineteen years of age at the time
of his death, the history of his life, were it known to us with
greater accuracy than it really is, would contain little more
than the account of his education, and the conduct of the
ministers, who by turns abused or guided the simplicity of his
unexperienced youth. Immediately after his accession, he fell
into the hands of his mother’s eunuchs, that pernicious vermin of
the East, who, since the days of Elagabalus, had infested the
Roman palace. By the artful conspiracy of these wretches, an
impenetrable veil was drawn between an innocent prince and his
oppressed subjects, the virtuous disposition of Gordian was
deceived, and the honors of the empire sold without his
knowledge, though in a very public manner, to the most worthless
of mankind. We are ignorant by what fortunate accident the
emperor escaped from this ignominious slavery, and devolved his
confidence on a minister, whose wise counsels had no object
except the glory of his sovereign and the happiness of the
people. It should seem that love and learning introduced
Misitheus to the favor of Gordian. The young prince married the
daughter of his master of rhetoric, and promoted his
father-in-law to the first offices of the empire. Two admirable
letters that passed between them are still extant. The minister,
with the conscious dignity of virtue, congratulates Gordian that
he is delivered from the tyranny of the eunuchs, 47 and still
more that he is sensible of his deliverance. The emperor
acknowledges, with an amiable confusion, the errors of his past
conduct; and laments, with singular propriety, the misfortune of
a monarch from whom a venal tribe of courtiers perpetually labor
to conceal the truth. 48
47 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 161. From some hints in the two
letters, I should expect that the eunuchs were not expelled the
palace without some degree of gentle violence, and that the young
Gordian rather approved of, than consented to, their disgrace.]
48 (return) [ Duxit uxorem filiam Misithei, quem causa eloquentiæ
dignum parentela sua putavit; et præfectum statim fecit; post
quod, non puerile jam et contemptibile videbatur imperium.]
The life of Misitheus had been spent in the profession of
letters, not of arms; yet such was the versatile genius of that
great man, that, when he was appointed Prætorian Præfect, he
discharged the military duties of his place with vigor and
ability. The Persians had invaded Mesopotamia, and threatened
Antioch. By the persuasion of his father-in-law, the young
emperor quitted the luxury of Rome, opened, for the last time
recorded in history, the temple of Janus, and marched in person
into the East. On his approach, with a great army, the Persians
withdrew their garrisons from the cities which they had already
taken, and retired from the Euphrates to the Tigris. Gordian
enjoyed the pleasure of announcing to the senate the first
success of his arms, which he ascribed, with a becoming modesty
and gratitude, to the wisdom of his father and Præfect. During
the whole expedition, Misitheus watched over the safety and
discipline of the army; whilst he prevented their dangerous
murmurs by maintaining a regular plenty in the camp, and by
establishing ample magazines of vinegar, bacon, straw, barley,
and wheat in all the cities of the frontier. 49 But the
prosperity of Gordian expired with Misitheus, who died of a flux,
not without very strong suspicions of poison. Philip, his
successor in the præfecture, was an Arab by birth, and
consequently, in the earlier part of his life, a robber by
profession. His rise from so obscure a station to the first
dignities of the empire, seems to prove that he was a bold and
able leader. But his boldness prompted him to aspire to the
throne, and his abilities were employed to supplant, not to
serve, his indulgent master. The minds of the soldiers were
irritated by an artificial scarcity, created by his contrivance
in the camp; and the distress of the army was attributed to the
youth and incapacity of the prince. It is not in our power to
trace the successive steps of the secret conspiracy and open
sedition, which were at length fatal to Gordian. A sepulchral
monument was erected to his memory on the spot 50 where he was
killed, near the conflux of the Euphrates with the little river
Aboras. 51 The fortunate Philip, raised to the empire by the
votes of the soldiers, found a ready obedience from the senate
and the provinces. 52
49 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 162. Aurelius Victor. Porphyrius
in Vit Plotin. ap. Fabricium, Biblioth. Græc. l. iv. c. 36. The
philosopher Plotinus accompanied the army, prompted by the love
of knowledge, and by the hope of penetrating as far as India.]
50 (return) [ About twenty miles from the little town of
Circesium, on the frontier of the two empires. * Note: Now
Kerkesia; placed in the angle formed by the juncture of the
Chaboras, or al Khabour, with the Euphrates. This situation
appeared advantageous to Diocletian, that he raised
fortifications to make it the but wark of the empire on the side
of Mesopotamia. D’Anville. Geog. Anc. ii. 196.—G. It is the
Carchemish of the Old Testament, 2 Chron. xxxv. 20. ler. xlvi.
2.—M.]
51 (return) [ The inscription (which contained a very singular
pun) was erased by the order of Licinius, who claimed some degree
of relationship to Philip, (Hist. August. p. 166;) but the
tumulus, or mound of earth which formed the sepulchre, still
subsisted in the time of Julian. See Ammian Marcellin. xxiii. 5.]
52 (return) [ Aurelius Victor. Eutrop. ix. 2. Orosius, vii. 20.
Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 5. Zosimus, l. i. p. 19. Philip, who
was a native of Bostra, was about forty years of age. * Note: Now
Bosra. It was once the metropolis of a province named Arabia, and
the chief city of Auranitis, of which the name is preserved in
Beled Hauran, the limits of which meet the desert. D’Anville.
Geog. Anc. ii. 188. According to Victor, (in Cæsar.,) Philip was
a native of Tracbonitis another province of Arabia.—G.]
We cannot forbear transcribing the ingenious, though somewhat
fanciful description, which a celebrated writer of our own times
has traced of the military government of the Roman empire. What
in that age was called the Roman empire, was only an irregular
republic, not unlike the aristocracy 53 of Algiers, 54 where the
militia, possessed of the sovereignty, creates and deposes a
magistrate, who is styled a Dey. Perhaps, indeed, it may be laid
down as a general rule, that a military government is, in some
respects, more republican than monarchical. Nor can it be said
that the soldiers only partook of the government by their
disobedience and rebellions. The speeches made to them by the
emperors, were they not at length of the same nature as those
formerly pronounced to the people by the consuls and the
tribunes? And although the armies had no regular place or forms
of assembly; though their debates were short, their action
sudden, and their resolves seldom the result of cool reflection,
did they not dispose, with absolute sway, of the public fortune?
What was the emperor, except the minister of a violent
government, elected for the private benefit of the soldiers?
53 (return) [ Can the epithet of Aristocracy be applied, with any
propriety, to the government of Algiers? Every military
government floats between two extremes of absolute monarchy and
wild democracy.]
54 (return) [ The military republic of the Mamelukes in Egypt
would have afforded M. de Montesquieu (see Considerations sur la
Grandeur et la Decadence des Romains, c. 16) a juster and more
noble parallel.]
“When the army had elected Philip, who was Prætorian præfect to
the third Gordian, the latter demanded that he might remain sole
emperor; he was unable to obtain it. He requested that the power
might be equally divided between them; the army would not listen
to his speech. He consented to be degraded to the rank of Cæsar;
the favor was refused him. He desired, at least, he might be
appointed Prætorian præfect; his prayer was rejected. Finally, he
pleaded for his life. The army, in these several judgments,
exercised the supreme magistracy.” According to the historian,
whose doubtful narrative the President De Montesquieu has
adopted, Philip, who, during the whole transaction, had preserved
a sullen silence, was inclined to spare the innocent life of his
benefactor; till, recollecting that his innocence might excite a
dangerous compassion in the Roman world, he commanded, without
regard to his suppliant cries, that he should be seized,
stripped, and led away to instant death. After a moment’s pause,
the inhuman sentence was executed. 55
55 (return) [ The Augustan History (p. 163, 164) cannot, in this
instance, be reconciled with itself or with probability. How
could Philip condemn his predecessor, and yet consecrate his
memory? How could he order his public execution, and yet, in his
letters to the senate, exculpate himself from the guilt of his
death? Philip, though an ambitious usurper, was by no means a mad
tyrant. Some chronological difficulties have likewise been
discovered by the nice eyes of Tillemont and Muratori, in this
supposed association of Philip to the empire. * Note: Wenck
endeavors to reconcile these discrepancies. He supposes that
Gordian was led away, and died a natural death in prison. This is
directly contrary to the statement of Capitolinus and of Zosimus,
whom he adduces in support of his theory. He is more successful
in his precedents of usurpers deifying the victims of their
ambition. Sit divus, dummodo non sit vivus.—M.]
Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death Of
Maximin.—Part III.
On his return from the East to Rome, Philip, desirous of
obliterating the memory of his crimes, and of captivating the
affections of the people, solemnized the secular games with
infinite pomp and magnificence. Since their institution or
revival by Augustus, 56 they had been celebrated by Claudius, by
Domitian, and by Severus, and were now renewed the fifth time, on
the accomplishment of the full period of a thousand years from
the foundation of Rome. Every circumstance of the secular games
was skillfully adapted to inspire the superstitious mind with
deep and solemn reverence. The long interval between them 57
exceeded the term of human life; and as none of the spectators
had already seen them, none could flatter themselves with the
expectation of beholding them a second time. The mystic
sacrifices were performed, during three nights, on the banks of
the Tyber; and the Campus Martius resounded with music and
dances, and was illuminated with innumerable lamps and torches.
Slaves and strangers were excluded from any participation in
these national ceremonies. A chorus of twenty-seven youths, and
as many virgins, of noble families, and whose parents were both
alive, implored the propitious gods in favor of the present, and
for the hope of the rising generation; requesting, in religious
hymns, that according to the faith of their ancient oracles, they
would still maintain the virtue, the felicity, and the empire of
the Roman people. The magnificence of Philip’s shows and
entertainments dazzled the eyes of the multitude. The devout were
employed in the rites of superstition, whilst the reflecting few
revolved in their anxious minds the past history and the future
fate of the empire.58
56 (return) [ The account of the last supposed celebration,
though in an enlightened period of history, was so very doubtful
and obscure, that the alternative seems not doubtful. When the
popish jubilees, the copy of the secular games, were invented by
Boniface VII., the crafty pope pretended that he only revived an
ancient institution. See M. le Chais, Lettres sur les Jubiles.]
57 (return) [ Either of a hundred or a hundred and ten years.
Varro and Livy adopted the former opinion, but the infallible
authority of the Sybil consecrated the latter, (Censorinus de Die
Natal. c. 17.) The emperors Claudius and Philip, however, did not
treat the oracle with implicit respect.]
58 (return) [ The idea of the secular games is best understood
from the poem of Horace, and the description of Zosimus, 1. l.
ii. p. 167, &c.] Since Romulus, with a small band of shepherds
and outlaws, fortified himself on the hills near the Tyber, ten
centuries had already elapsed. 59 During the four first ages, the
Romans, in the laborious school of poverty, had acquired the
virtues of war and government: by the vigorous exertion of those
virtues, and by the assistance of fortune, they had obtained, in
the course of the three succeeding centuries, an absolute empire
over many countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The last three
hundred years had been consumed in apparent prosperity and
internal decline. The nation of soldiers, magistrates, and
legislators, who composed the thirty-five tribes of the Roman
people, were dissolved into the common mass of mankind, and
confounded with the millions of servile provincials, who had
received the name, without adopting the spirit, of Romans. A
mercenary army, levied among the subjects and barbarians of the
frontier, was the only order of men who preserved and abused
their independence. By their tumultuary election, a Syrian, a
Goth, or an Arab, was exalted to the throne of Rome, and invested
with despotic power over the conquests and over the country of
the Scipios.
59 (return) [The received calculation of Varro assigns to the
foundation of Rome an æra that corresponds with the 754th year
before Christ. But so little is the chronology of Rome to be
depended on, in the more early ages, that Sir Isaac Newton has
brought the same event as low as the year 627 (Compare Niebuhr
vol. i. p. 271.—M.)]
The limits of the Roman empire still extended from the Western
Ocean to the Tigris, and from Mount Atlas to the Rhine and the
Danube. To the undiscerning eye of the vulgar, Philip appeared a
monarch no less powerful than Hadrian or Augustus had formerly
been. The form was still the same, but the animating health and
vigor were fled. The industry of the people was discouraged and
exhausted by a long series of oppression. The discipline of the
legions, which alone, after the extinction of every other virtue,
had propped the greatness of the state, was corrupted by the
ambition, or relaxed by the weakness, of the emperors. The
strength of the frontiers, which had always consisted in arms
rather than in fortifications, was insensibly undermined; and the
fairest provinces were left exposed to the rapaciousness or
ambition of the barbarians, who soon discovered the decline of
the Roman empire.
Chapter VIII: State Of Persia And Restoration Of The
Monarchy.—Part I.
Of The State Of Persia After The Restoration Of The Monarchy By
Artaxerxes.
Whenever Tacitus indulges himself in those beautiful episodes, in
which he relates some domestic transaction of the Germans or of
the Parthians, his principal object is to relieve the attention
of the reader from a uniform scene of vice and misery. From the
reign of Augustus to the time of Alexander Severus, the enemies
of Rome were in her bosom—the tyrants and the soldiers; and her
prosperity had a very distant and feeble interest in the
revolutions that might happen beyond the Rhine and the Euphrates.
But when the military order had levelled, in wild anarchy, the
power of the prince, the laws of the senate, and even the
discipline of the camp, the barbarians of the North and of the
East, who had long hovered on the frontier, boldly attacked the
provinces of a declining monarchy. Their vexatious inroads were
changed into formidable irruptions, and, after a long vicissitude
of mutual calamities, many tribes of the victorious invaders
established themselves in the provinces of the Roman Empire. To
obtain a clearer knowledge of these great events, we shall
endeavor to form a previous idea of the character, forces, and
designs of those nations who avenged the cause of Hannibal and
Mithridates.
In the more early ages of the world, whilst the forest that
covered Europe afforded a retreat to a few wandering savages, the
inhabitants of Asia were already collected into populous cities,
and reduced under extensive empires the seat of the arts, of
luxury, and of despotism. The Assyrians reigned over the East, 1
till the sceptre of Ninus and Semiramis dropped from the hands of
their enervated successors. The Medes and the Babylonians divided
their power, and were themselves swallowed up in the monarchy of
the Persians, whose arms could not be confined within the narrow
limits of Asia. Followed, as it is said, by two millions of
_men_, Xerxes, the descendant of Cyrus, invaded Greece.
Thirty thousand _soldiers_, under the command of Alexander, the
son of Philip, who was intrusted by the Greeks with their glory
and revenge, were sufficient to subdue Persia. The princes of the
house of Seleucus usurped and lost the Macedonian command over
the East. About the same time, that, by an ignominious treaty,
they resigned to the Romans the country on this side Mount Tarus,
they were driven by the Parthians, 1001 an obscure horde of
Scythian origin, from all the provinces of Upper Asia. The
formidable power of the Parthians, which spread from India to the
frontiers of Syria, was in its turn subverted by Ardshir, or
Artaxerxes; the founder of a new dynasty, which, under the name
of Sassanides, governed Persia till the invasion of the Arabs.
This great revolution, whose fatal influence was soon experienced
by the Romans, happened in the fourth year of Alexander Severus,
two hundred and twenty-six years after the Christian era. 2 201
1 (return) [ An ancient chronologist, quoted by Valleius
Paterculus, (l. i. c. 6,) observes, that the Assyrians, the
Medes, the Persians, and the Macedonians, reigned over Asia one
thousand nine hundred and ninety-five years, from the accession
of Ninus to the defeat of Antiochus by the Romans. As the latter
of these great events happened 289 years before Christ, the
former may be placed 2184 years before the same æra. The
Astronomical Observations, found at Babylon, by Alexander, went
fifty years higher.]
1001 (return) [ The Parthians were a tribe of the Indo-Germanic
branch which dwelt on the south-east of the Caspian, and belonged
to the same race as the Getæ, the Massagetæ, and other nations,
confounded by the ancients under the vague denomination of
Scythians. Klaproth, Tableaux Hist. d l’Asie, p. 40. Strabo (p.
747) calls the Parthians Carduchi, i.e., the inhabitants of
Curdistan.—M.]
2 (return) [ In the five hundred and thirty-eighth year of the
æra of Seleucus. See Agathias, l. ii. p. 63. This great event
(such is the carelessness of the Orientals) is placed by
Eutychius as high as the tenth year of Commodus, and by Moses of
Chorene as low as the reign of Philip. Ammianus Marcellinus has
so servilely copied (xxiii. 6) his ancient materials, which are
indeed very good, that he describes the family of the Arsacides
as still seated on the Persian throne in the middle of the fourth
century.]
201 (return) [ The Persian History, if the poetry of the Shah
Nameh, the Book of Kings, may deserve that name mentions four
dynasties from the earliest ages to the invasion of the Saracens.
The Shah Nameh was composed with the view of perpetuating the
remains of the original Persian records or traditions which had
survived the Saracenic invasion. The task was undertaken by the
poet Dukiki, and afterwards, under the patronage of Mahmood of
Ghazni, completed by Ferdusi. The first of these dynasties is
that of Kaiomors, as Sir W. Jones observes, the dark and fabulous
period; the second, that of the Kaianian, the heroic and
poetical, in which the earned have discovered some curious, and
imagined some fanciful, analogies with the Jewish, the Greek, and
the Roman accounts of the eastern world. See, on the Shah Nameh,
Translation by Goerres, with Von Hammer’s Review, Vienna Jahrbuch
von Lit. 17, 75, 77. Malcolm’s Persia, 8vo. ed. i. 503. Macan’s
Preface to his Critical Edition of the Shah Nameh. On the early
Persian History, a very sensible abstract of various opinions in
Malcolm’s Hist. of Persian.—M.]
Artaxerxes had served with great reputation in the armies of
Artaban, the last king of the Parthians, and it appears that he
was driven into exile and rebellion by royal ingratitude, the
customary reward for superior merit. His birth was obscure, and
the obscurity equally gave room to the aspersions of his enemies,
and the flattery of his adherents. If we credit the scandal of
the former, Artaxerxes sprang from the illegitimate commerce of a
tanner’s wife with a common soldier. 3 The latter represent him
as descended from a branch of the ancient kings of Persian,
though time and misfortune had gradually reduced his ancestors to
the humble station of private citizens. 4 As the lineal heir of
the monarchy, he asserted his right to the throne, and challenged
the noble task of delivering the Persians from the oppression
under which they groaned above five centuries since the death of
Darius. The Parthians were defeated in three great battles. 401
In the last of these their king Artaban was slain, and the spirit
of the nation was forever broken. 5 The authority of Artaxerxes
was solemnly acknowledged in a great assembly held at Balch in
Khorasan. 501 Two younger branches of the royal house of Arsaces
were confounded among the prostrate satraps. A third, more
mindful of ancient grandeur than of present necessity, attempted
to retire, with a numerous train of vessels, towards their
kinsman, the king of Armenia; but this little army of deserters
was intercepted, and cut off, by the vigilance of the conqueror,
6 who boldly assumed the double diadem, and the title of King of
Kings, which had been enjoyed by his predecessor. But these
pompous titles, instead of gratifying the vanity of the Persian,
served only to admonish him of his duty, and to inflame in his
soul the ambition of restoring in their full splendor, the
religion and empire of Cyrus.
3 (return) [ The tanner’s name was Babec; the soldier’s, Sassan:
from the former Artaxerxes obtained the surname of Babegan, from
the latter all his descendants have been styled Sassanides.]
4 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, Ardshir.]
401 (return) [ In the plain of Hoormuz, the son of Babek was
hailed in the field with the proud title of Shahan Shah, king of
kings—a name ever since assumed by the sovereigns of Persia.
Malcolm, i. 71.—M.]
5 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxxx. Herodian, l. vi. p. 207.
Abulpharagins Dynast. p. 80.]
501 (return) [ See the Persian account of the rise of Ardeschir
Babegan in Malcolm l 69.—M.]
6 (return) [ See Moses Chorenensis, l. ii. c. 65—71.]
I. During the long servitude of Persia under the Macedonian and
the Parthian yoke, the nations of Europe and Asia had mutually
adopted and corrupted each other’s superstitions. The Arsacides,
indeed, practised the worship of the Magi; but they disgraced and
polluted it with a various mixture of foreign idolatry. 601 The
memory of Zoroaster, the ancient prophet and philosopher of the
Persians, 7 was still revered in the East; but the obsolete and
mysterious language, in which the Zendavesta was composed, 8
opened a field of dispute to seventy sects, who variously
explained the fundamental doctrines of their religion, and were
all indifferently devided by a crowd of infidels, who rejected
the divine mission and miracles of the prophet. To suppress the
idolaters, reunite the schismatics, and confute the unbelievers,
by the infallible decision of a general council, the pious
Artaxerxes summoned the Magi from all parts of his dominions.
These priests, who had so long sighed in contempt and obscurity
obeyed the welcome summons; and, on the appointed day, appeared,
to the number of about eighty thousand. But as the debates of so
tumultuous an assembly could not have been directed by the
authority of reason, or influenced by the art of policy, the
Persian synod was reduced, by successive operations, to forty
thousand, to four thousand, to four hundred, to forty, and at
last to seven Magi, the most respected for their learning and
piety. One of these, Erdaviraph, a young but holy prelate,
received from the hands of his brethren three cups of
soporiferous wine. He drank them off, and instantly fell into a
long and profound sleep. As soon as he waked, he related to the
king and to the believing multitude, his journey to heaven, and
his intimate conferences with the Deity. Every doubt was silenced
by this supernatural evidence; and the articles of the faith of
Zoroaster were fixed with equal authority and precision. 9 A
short delineation of that celebrated system will be found useful,
not only to display the character of the Persian nation, but to
illustrate many of their most important transactions, both in
peace and war, with the Roman empire. 10
601 (return) [ Silvestre de Sacy (Antiquites de la Perse) had
proved the neglect of the Zoroastrian religion under the Parthian
kings.—M.]
7 (return) [ Hyde and Prideaux, working up the Persian legends
and their own conjectures into a very agreeable story, represent
Zoroaster as a contemporary of Darius Hystaspes. But it is
sufficient to observe, that the Greek writers, who lived almost
in the age of Darius, agree in placing the æra of Zoroaster many
hundred, or even thousand, years before their own time. The
judicious criticisms of Mr. Moyle perceived, and maintained
against his uncle, Dr. Prideaux, the antiquity of the Persian
prophet. See his work, vol. ii. * Note: There are three leading
theories concerning the age of Zoroaster: 1. That which assigns
him to an age of great and almost indefinite antiquity—it is that
of Moyle, adopted by Gibbon, Volney, Recherches sur l’Histoire,
ii. 2. Rhode, also, (die Heilige Sage, &c.,) in a very ingenious
and ably-developed theory, throws the Bactrian prophet far back
into antiquity 2. Foucher, (Mem. de l’Acad. xxvii. 253,) Tychsen,
(in Com. Soc. Gott. ii. 112), Heeren, (ldeen. i. 459,) and
recently Holty, identify the Gushtasp of the Persian mythological
history with Cyaxares the First, the king of the Medes, and
consider the religion to be Median in its origin. M. Guizot
considers this opinion most probable, note in loc. 3. Hyde,
Prideaux, Anquetil du Perron, Kleuker, Herder, Goerres,
(Mythen-Geschichte,) Von Hammer. (Wien. Jahrbuch, vol. ix.,)
Malcolm, (i. 528,) De Guigniaut, (Relig. de l’Antiq. 2d part,
vol. iii.,) Klaproth, (Tableaux de l’Asie, p. 21,) make Gushtasp
Darius Hystaspes, and Zoroaster his contemporary. The silence of
Herodotus appears the great objection to this theory. Some
writers, as M. Foucher (resting, as M. Guizot observes, on the
doubtful authority of Pliny,) make more than one Zoroaster, and
so attempt to reconcile the conflicting theories.— M.]
8 (return) [ That ancient idiom was called the Zend. The language
of the commentary, the Pehlvi, though much more modern, has
ceased many ages ago to be a living tongue. This fact alone (if
it is allowed as authentic) sufficiently warrants the antiquity
of those writings which M d’Anquetil has brought into Europe, and
translated into French. * Note: Zend signifies life, living. The
word means, either the collection of the canonical books of the
followers of Zoroaster, or the language itself in which they are
written. They are the books that contain the word of life whether
the language was originally called Zend, or whether it was so
called from the contents of the books. Avesta means word, oracle,
revelation: this term is not the title of a particular work, but
of the collection of the books of Zoroaster, as the revelation of
Ormuzd. This collection is sometimes called Zendavesta, sometimes
briefly Zend. The Zend was the ancient language of Media, as is
proved by its affinity with the dialects of Armenia and Georgia;
it was already a dead language under the Arsacides in the country
which was the scene of the events recorded in the Zendavesta.
Some critics, among others Richardson and Sir W. Jones, have
called in question the antiquity of these books. The former
pretended that Zend had never been a written or spoken language,
but had been invented in the later times by the Magi, for the
purposes of their art; but Kleuker, in the dissertations which he
added to those of Anquetil and the Abbé Foucher, has proved that
the Zend was a living and spoken language.—G. Sir W. Jones
appears to have abandoned his doubts, on discovering the affinity
between the Zend and the Sanskrit. Since the time of Kleuker,
this question has been investigated by many learned scholars. Sir
W. Jones, Leyden, (Asiat. Research. x. 283,) and Mr. Erskine,
(Bombay Trans. ii. 299,) consider it a derivative from the
Sanskrit. The antiquity of the Zendavesta has likewise been
asserted by Rask, the great Danish linguist, who, according to
Malcolm, brought back from the East fresh transcripts and
additions to those published by Anquetil. According to Rask, the
Zend and Sanskrit are sister dialects; the one the parent of the
Persian, the other of the Indian family of languages.—G. and
M.——But the subject is more satisfactorily illustrated in Bopp’s
comparative Grammar of the Sanscrit, Zend, Greek, Latin,
Lithuanian, Gothic, and German languages. Berlin. 1833-5.
According to Bopp, the Zend is, in some respects, of a more
remarkable structure than the Sanskrit. Parts of the Zendavesta
have been published in the original, by M. Bournouf, at Paris,
and M. Ol. shausen, in Hamburg.—M.——The Pehlvi was the language
of the countries bordering on Assyria, and probably of Assyria
itself. Pehlvi signifies valor, heroism; the Pehlvi, therefore,
was the language of the ancient heroes and kings of Persia, the
valiant. (Mr. Erskine prefers the derivation from Pehla, a
border.—M.) It contains a number of Aramaic roots. Anquetil
considered it formed from the Zend. Kleuker does not adopt this
opinion. The Pehlvi, he says, is much more flowing, and less
overcharged with vowels, than the Zend. The books of Zoroaster,
first written in Zend, were afterwards translated into Pehlvi and
Parsi. The Pehlvi had fallen into disuse under the dynasty of the
Sassanides, but the learned still wrote it. The Parsi, the
dialect of Pars or Farristan, was then prevailing dialect.
Kleuker, Anhang zum Zend Avesta, 2, ii. part i. p. 158, part ii.
31.—G.——Mr. Erskine (Bombay Transactions) considers the existing
Zendavesta to have been compiled in the time of Ardeschir
Babegan.—M.]
9 (return) [ Hyde de Religione veterum Pers. c. 21.]
10 (return) [ I have principally drawn this account from the
Zendavesta of M. d’Anquetil, and the Sadder, subjoined to Dr.
Hyde’s treatise. It must, however, be confessed, that the studied
obscurity of a prophet, the figurative style of the East, and the
deceitful medium of a French or Latin version may have betrayed
us into error and heresy, in this abridgment of Persian theology.
* Note: It is to be regretted that Gibbon followed the
post-Mahometan Sadder of Hyde.—M.]
The great and fundamental article of the system was the
celebrated doctrine of the two principles; a bold and injudicious
attempt of Eastern philosophy to reconcile the existence of moral
and physical evil with the attributes of a beneficent Creator and
Governor of the world. The first and original Being, in whom, or
by whom, the universe exists, is denominated in the writings of
Zoroaster, _Time without bounds_; 1001a but it must be confessed,
that this infinite substance seems rather a metaphysical
abstraction of the mind than a real object endowed with
self-consciousness, or possessed of moral perfections. From
either the blind or the intelligent operation of this infinite
Time, which bears but too near an affinity with the chaos of the
Greeks, the two secondary but active principles of the universe
were from all eternity produced, Ormusd and Ahriman, each of them
possessed of the powers of creation, but each disposed, by his
invariable nature, to exercise them with different designs. 1002
The principle of good is eternally aborbed in light; the
principle of evil eternally buried in darkness. The wise
benevolence of Ormusd formed man capable of virtue, and
abundantly provided his fair habitation with the materials of
happiness. By his vigilant providence, the motion of the planets,
the order of the seasons, and the temperate mixture of the
elements, are preserved. But the malice of Ahriman has long since
pierced _Ormusd’s egg;_ or, in other words, has violated the
harmony of his works. Since that fatal eruption, the most minute
articles of good and evil are intimately intermingled and
agitated together; the rankest poisons spring up amidst the most
salutary plants; deluges, earthquakes, and conflagrations attest
the conflict of Nature, and the little world of man is
perpetually shaken by vice and misfortune. Whilst the rest of
human kind are led away captives in the chains of their infernal
enemy, the faithful Persian alone reserves his religious
adoration for his friend and protector Ormusd, and fights under
his banner of light, in the full confidence that he shall, in the
last day, share the glory of his triumph. At that decisive
period, the enlightened wisdom of goodness will render the power
of Ormusd superior to the furious malice of his rival. Ahriman
and his followers, disarmed and subdued, will sink into their
native darkness; and virtue will maintain the eternal peace and
harmony of the universe. 11 1101
1001a (return) [ Zeruane Akerene, so translated by Anquetil and
Kleuker. There is a dissertation of Foucher on this subject, Mem.
de l’Acad. des Inscr. t. xxix. According to Bohlen (das alte
Indien) it is the Sanskrit Sarvan Akaranam, the Uncreated Whole;
or, according to Fred. Schlegel, Sarvan Akharyam the Uncreate
Indivisible.—M.]
1002 (return) [ This is an error. Ahriman was not forced by his
invariable nature to do evil; the Zendavesta expressly recognizes
(see the Izeschne) that he was born good, that in his origin he
was light; envy rendered him evil; he became jealous of the power
and attributes of Ormuzd; then light was changed into darkness,
and Ahriman was precipitated into the abyss. See the Abridgment
of the Doctrine of the Ancient Persians, by Anquetil, c. ii
Section 2.—G.]
11 (return) [ The modern Parsees (and in some degree the Sadder)
exalt Ormusd into the first and omnipotent cause, whilst they
degrade Ahriman into an inferior but rebellious spirit. Their
desire of pleasing the Mahometans may have contributed to refine
their theological systems.]
1101 (return) [ According to the Zendavesta, Ahriman will not be
annihilated or precipitated forever into darkness: at the
resurrection of the dead he will be entirely defeated by Ormuzd,
his power will be destroyed, his kingdom overthrown to its
foundations, he will himself be purified in torrents of melting
metal; he will change his heart and his will, become holy,
heavenly establish in his dominions the law and word of Ormuzd,
unite himself with him in everlasting friendship, and both will
sing hymns in honor of the Great Eternal. See Anquetil’s
Abridgment. Kleuker, Anhang part iii. p 85, 36; and the Izeschne,
one of the books of the Zendavesta. According to the Sadder
Bun-Dehesch, a more modern work, Ahriman is to be annihilated:
but this is contrary to the text itself of the Zendavesta, and to
the idea its author gives of the kingdom of Eternity, after the
twelve thousand years assigned to the contest between Good and
Evil.—G.]
Chapter VIII: State Of Persia And Restoration Of The
Monarchy.—Part II.
The theology of Zoroaster was darkly comprehended by foreigners,
and even by the far greater number of his disciples; but the most
careless observers were struck with the philosophic simplicity of
the Persian worship. “That people,” said Herodotus, 12 “rejects
the use of temples, of altars, and of statues, and smiles at the
folly of those nations who imagine that the gods are sprung from,
or bear any affinity with, the human nature. The tops of the
highest mountains are the places chosen for sacrifices. Hymns and
prayers are the principal worship; the Supreme God, who fills the
wide circle of heaven, is the object to whom they are addressed.”
Yet, at the same time, in the true spirit of a polytheist, he
accuseth them of adoring Earth, Water, Fire, the Winds, and the
Sun and Moon. But the Persians of every age have denied the
charge, and explained the equivocal conduct, which might appear
to give a color to it. The elements, and more particularly Fire,
Light, and the Sun, whom they called Mithra, 1201 were the
objects of their religious reverence because they considered them
as the purest symbols, the noblest productions, and the most
powerful agents of the Divine Power and Nature. 13
12 (return) [ Herodotus, l. i. c. 131. But Dr. Prideaux thinks,
with reason, that the use of temples was afterwards permitted in
the Magian religion. Note: The Pyræa, or fire temples of the
Zoroastrians, (observes Kleuker, Persica, p. 16,) were only to be
found in Media or Aderbidjan, provinces into which Herodotus did
not penetrate.—M.]
1201 (return) [ Among the Persians Mithra is not the Sun:
Anquetil has contested and triumphantly refuted the opinion of
those who confound them, and it is evidently contrary to the text
of the Zendavesta. Mithra is the first of the genii, or jzeds,
created by Ormuzd; it is he who watches over all nature. Hence
arose the misapprehension of some of the Greeks, who have said
that Mithra was the summus deus of the Persians: he has a
thousand ears and ten thousand eyes. The Chaldeans appear to have
assigned him a higher rank than the Persians. It is he who
bestows upon the earth the light of the sun. The sun. named Khor,
(brightness,) is thus an inferior genius, who, with many other
genii, bears a part in the functions of Mithra. These assistant
genii to another genius are called his kamkars; but in the
Zendavesta they are never confounded. On the days sacred to a
particular genius, the Persian ought to recite, not only the
prayers addressed to him, but those also which are addressed to
his kamkars; thus the hymn or iescht of Mithra is recited on the
day of the sun, (Khor,) and vice versa. It is probably this which
has sometimes caused them to be confounded; but Anquetil had
himself exposed this error, which Kleuker, and all who have
studied the Zendavesta, have noticed. See viii. Diss. of
Anquetil. Kleuker’s Anhang, part iii. p. 132.—G. M. Guizot is
unquestionably right, according to the pure and original doctrine
of the Zend. The Mithriac worship, which was so extensively
propagated in the West, and in which Mithra and the sun were
perpetually confounded, seems to have been formed from a fusion
of Zoroastrianism and Chaldaism, or the Syrian worship of the
sun. An excellent abstract of the question, with references to
the works of the chief modern writers on his curious subject, De
Sacy, Kleuker, Von Hammer, &c., may be found in De Guigniaut’s
translation of Kreuzer. Relig. d’Antiquite, notes viii. ix. to
book ii. vol. i. 2d part, page 728.—M.]
13 (return) [ Hyde de Relig. Pers. c. 8. Notwithstanding all
their distinctions and protestations, which seem sincere enough,
their tyrants, the Mahometans, have constantly stigmatized them
as idolatrous worshippers of the fire.]
Every mode of religion, to make a deep and lasting impression on
the human mind, must exercise our obedience, by enjoining
practices of devotion, for which we can assign no reason; and
must acquire our esteem, by inculcating moral duties analogous to
the dictates of our own hearts. The religion of Zoroaster was
abundantly provided with the former and possessed a sufficient
portion of the latter. At the age of puberty, the faithful
Persian was invested with a mysterious girdle, the badge of the
divine protection; and from that moment all the actions of his
life, even the most indifferent, or the most necessary, were
sanctified by their peculiar prayers, ejaculations, or
genuflections; the omission of which, under any circumstances,
was a grievous sin, not inferior in guilt to the violation of the
moral duties. The moral duties, however, of justice, mercy,
liberality, &c., were in their turn required of the disciple of
Zoroaster, who wished to escape the persecution of Ahriman, and
to live with Ormusd in a blissful eternity, where the degree of
felicity will be exactly proportioned to the degree of virtue and
piety. 14
14 (return) [ See the Sadder, the smallest part of which consists
of moral precepts. The ceremonies enjoined are infinite and
trifling. Fifteen genuflections, prayers, &c., were required
whenever the devout Persian cut his nails or made water; or as
often as he put on the sacred girdle Sadder, Art. 14, 50, 60. *
Note: Zoroaster exacted much less ceremonial observance, than at
a later period, the priests of his doctrines. This is the
progress of all religions the worship, simple in its origin, is
gradually overloaded with minute superstitions. The maxim of the
Zendavesta, on the relative merit of sowing the earth and of
prayers, quoted below by Gibbon, proves that Zoroaster did not
attach too much importance to these observances. Thus it is not
from the Zendavesta that Gibbon derives the proof of his
allegation, but from the Sadder, a much later work.—G]
But there are some remarkable instances in which Zoroaster lays
aside the prophet, assumes the legislator, and discovers a
liberal concern for private and public happiness, seldom to be
found among the grovelling or visionary schemes of superstition.
Fasting and celibacy, the common means of purchasing the divine
favor, he condemns with abhorrence as a criminal rejection of the
best gifts of Providence. The saint, in the Magian religion, is
obliged to beget children, to plant useful trees, to destroy
noxious animals, to convey water to the dry lands of Persia, and
to work out his salvation by pursuing all the labors of
agriculture. 1401 We may quote from the Zendavesta a wise and
benevolent maxim, which compensates for many an absurdity. “He
who sows the ground with care and diligence acquires a greater
stock of religious merit than he could gain by the repetition of
ten thousand prayers.” 15 In the spring of every year a festival
was celebrated, destined to represent the primitive equality, and
the present connection, of mankind. The stately kings of Persia,
exchanging their vain pomp for more genuine greatness, freely
mingled with the humblest but most useful of their subjects. On
that day the husbandmen were admitted, without distinction, to
the table of the king and his satraps. The monarch accepted their
petitions, inquired into their grievances, and conversed with
them on the most equal terms. “From your labors,” was he
accustomed to say, (and to say with truth, if not with
sincerity,) “from your labors we receive our subsistence; you
derive your tranquillity from our vigilance: since, therefore, we
are mutually necessary to each other, let us live together like
brothers in concord and love.” 16 Such a festival must indeed
have degenerated, in a wealthy and despotic empire, into a
theatrical representation; but it was at least a comedy well
worthy of a royal audience, and which might sometimes imprint a
salutary lesson on the mind of a young prince.
1401 (return) [ See, on Zoroaster’s encouragement of agriculture,
the ingenious remarks of Heeren, Ideen, vol. i. p. 449, &c., and
Rhode, Heilige Sage, p. 517—M.]
15 (return) [ Zendavesta, tom. i. p. 224, and Precis du Systeme
de Zoroastre, tom. iii.]
16 (return) [ Hyde de Religione Persarum, c. 19.]
Had Zoroaster, in all his institutions, invariably supported this
exalted character, his name would deserve a place with those of
Numa and Confucius, and his system would be justly entitled to
all the applause, which it has pleased some of our divines, and
even some of our philosophers, to bestow on it. But in that
motley composition, dictated by reason and passion, by enthusiasm
and by selfish motives, some useful and sublime truths were
disgraced by a mixture of the most abject and dangerous
superstition. The Magi, or sacerdotal order, were extremely
numerous, since, as we have already seen, fourscore thousand of
them were convened in a general council. Their forces were
multiplied by discipline. A regular hierarchy was diffused
through all the provinces of Persia; and the Archimagus, who
resided at Balch, was respected as the visible head of the
church, and the lawful successor of Zoroaster. 17 The property of
the Magi was very considerable. Besides the less invidious
possession of a large tract of the most fertile lands of Media,
18 they levied a general tax on the fortunes and the industry of
the Persians. 19 “Though your good works,” says the interested
prophet, “exceed in number the leaves of the trees, the drops of
rain, the stars in the heaven, or the sands on the sea-shore,
they will all be unprofitable to you, unless they are accepted by
the _destour_, or priest. To obtain the acceptation of this guide
to salvation, you must faithfully pay him _tithes_ of all you
possess, of your goods, of your lands, and of your money. If the
destour be satisfied, your soul will escape hell tortures; you
will secure praise in this world and happiness in the next. For
the destours are the teachers of religion; they know all things,
and they deliver all men.” 20 201a
17 (return) [ Hyde de Religione Persarum, c. 28. Both Hyde and
Prideaux affect to apply to the Magian the terms consecrated to
the Christian hierarchy.]
18 (return) [ Ammian. Marcellin. xxiii. 6. He informs us (as far
as we may credit him) of two curious particulars: 1. That the
Magi derived some of their most secret doctrines from the Indian
Brachmans; and 2. That they were a tribe, or family, as well as
order.]
19 (return) [ The divine institution of tithes exhibits a
singular instance of conformity between the law of Zoroaster and
that of Moses. Those who cannot otherwise account for it, may
suppose, if they please that the Magi of the latter times
inserted so useful an interpolation into the writings of their
prophet.]
20 (return) [ Sadder, Art. viii.]
201a (return) [ The passage quoted by Gibbon is not taken from
the writings of Zoroaster, but from the Sadder, a work, as has
been before said, much later than the books which form the
Zendavesta. and written by a Magus for popular use; what it
contains, therefore, cannot be attributed to Zoroaster. It is
remarkable that Gibbon should fall into this error, for Hyde
himself does not ascribe the Sadder to Zoroaster; he remarks that
it is written inverse, while Zoroaster always wrote in prose.
Hyde, i. p. 27. Whatever may be the case as to the latter
assertion, for which there appears little foundation, it is
unquestionable that the Sadder is of much later date. The Abbé
Foucher does not even believe it to be an extract from the works
of Zoroaster. See his Diss. before quoted. Mem. de l’Acad. des
Ins. t. xxvii.—G. Perhaps it is rash to speak of any part of the
Zendavesta as the writing of Zoroaster, though it may be a
genuine representation of his. As to the Sadder, Hyde (in Præf.)
considered it not above 200 years old. It is manifestly
post-Mahometan. See Art. xxv. on fasting.—M.]
These convenient maxims of reverence and implicit faith were
doubtless imprinted with care on the tender minds of youth; since
the Magi were the masters of education in Persia, and to their
hands the children even of the royal family were intrusted. 21
The Persian priests, who were of a speculative genius, preserved
and investigated the secrets of Oriental philosophy; and
acquired, either by superior knowledge, or superior art, the
reputation of being well versed in some occult sciences, which
have derived their appellation from the Magi. 22 Those of more
active dispositions mixed with the world in courts and cities;
and it is observed, that the administration of Artaxerxes was in
a great measure directed by the counsels of the sacerdotal order,
whose dignity, either from policy or devotion, that prince
restored to its ancient splendor. 23
21 (return) [ Plato in Alcibiad.]
22 (return) [ Pliny (Hist. Natur. l. xxx. c. 1) observes, that
magic held mankind by the triple chain of religion, of physic,
and of astronomy.]
23 (return) [ Agathias, l. iv. p. 134.]
The first counsel of the Magi was agreeable to the unsociable
genius of their faith, 24 to the practice of ancient kings, 25
and even to the example of their legislator, who had fallen a
victim to a religious war, excited by his own intolerant zeal. 26
By an edict of Artaxerxes, the exercise of every worship, except
that of Zoroaster, was severely prohibited. The temples of the
Parthians, and the statues of their deified monarchs, were thrown
down with ignominy. 27 The sword of Aristotle (such was the name
given by the Orientals to the polytheism and philosophy of the
Greeks) was easily broken; 28 the flames of persecution soon
reached the more stubborn Jews and Christians; 29 nor did they
spare the heretics of their own nation and religion. The majesty
of Ormusd, who was jealous of a rival, was seconded by the
despotism of Artaxerxes, who could not suffer a rebel; and the
schismatics within his vast empire were soon reduced to the
inconsiderable number of eighty thousand. 30 301 This spirit of
persecution reflects dishonor on the religion of Zoroaster; but
as it was not productive of any civil commotion, it served to
strengthen the new monarchy, by uniting all the various
inhabitants of Persia in the bands of religious zeal. 302
24 (return) [ Mr. Hume, in the Natural History of Religion,
sagaciously remarks, that the most refined and philosophic sects
are constantly the most intolerant. * Note: Hume’s comparison is
rather between theism and polytheism. In India, in Greece, and in
modern Europe, philosophic religion has looked down with
contemptuous toleration on the superstitions of the vulgar.—M.]
25 (return) [ Cicero de Legibus, ii. 10. Xerxes, by the advice of
the Magi, destroyed the temples of Greece.]
26 (return) [ Hyde de Relig. Persar. c. 23, 24. D’Herbelot,
Bibliotheque Orientale, Zurdusht. Life of Zoroaster in tom. ii.
of the Zendavesta.]
27 (return) [ Compare Moses of Chorene, l. ii. c. 74, with
Ammian. Marcel lin. xxiii. 6. Hereafter I shall make use of these
passages.]
28 (return) [ Rabbi Abraham, in the Tarikh Schickard, p. 108,
109.]
29 (return) [ Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. viii. c. 3.
Sozomen, l. ii. c. 1 Manes, who suffered an ignominious death,
may be deemed a Magian as well as a Christian heretic.]
30 (return) [ Hyde de Religione Persar. c. 21.]
301 (return) [ It is incorrect to attribute these persecutions to
Artaxerxes. The Jews were held in honor by him, and their schools
flourished during his reign. Compare Jost, Geschichte der
Isræliter, b. xv. 5, with Basnage. Sapor was forced by the people
to temporary severities; but their real persecution did not begin
till the reigns of Yezdigerd and Kobad. Hist. of Jews, iii. 236.
According to Sozomen, i. viii., Sapor first persecuted the
Christians. Manes was put to death by Varanes the First, A. D.
277. Beausobre, Hist. de Man. i. 209.—M.]
302 (return) [ In the testament of Ardischer in Ferdusi, the poet
assigns these sentiments to the dying king, as he addresses his
son: Never forget that as a king, you are at once the protector
of religion and of your country. Consider the altar and the
throne as inseparable; they must always sustain each other.
Malcolm’s Persia. i. 74—M]
II. Artaxerxes, by his valor and conduct, had wrested the sceptre
of the East from the ancient royal family of Parthia. There still
remained the more difficult task of establishing, throughout the
vast extent of Persia, a uniform and vigorous administration. The
weak indulgence of the Arsacides had resigned to their sons and
brothers the principal provinces, and the greatest offices of the
kingdom in the nature of hereditary possessions. The _vitaxæ_, or
eighteen most powerful satraps, were permitted to assume the
regal title; and the vain pride of the monarch was delighted with
a nominal dominion over so many vassal kings. Even tribes of
barbarians in their mountains, and the Greek cities of Upper
Asia, 31 within their walls, scarcely acknowledged, or seldom
obeyed. any superior; and the Parthian empire exhibited, under
other names, a lively image of the feudal system 32 which has
since prevailed in Europe. But the active victor, at the head of
a numerous and disciplined army, visited in person every province
of Persia. The defeat of the boldest rebels, and the reduction of
the strongest fortifications, 33 diffused the terror of his arms,
and prepared the way for the peaceful reception of his authority.
An obstinate resistance was fatal to the chiefs; but their
followers were treated with lenity. 34 A cheerful submission was
rewarded with honors and riches, but the prudent Artaxerxes,
suffering no person except himself to assume the title of king,
abolished every intermediate power between the throne and the
people. His kingdom, nearly equal in extent to modern Persia,
was, on every side, bounded by the sea, or by great rivers; by
the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Araxes, the Oxus, and the Indus,
by the Caspian Sea, and the Gulf of Persia. 35 That country was
computed to contain, in the last century, five hundred and
fifty-four cities, sixty thousand villages, and about forty
millions of souls. 36 If we compare the administration of the
house of Sassan with that of the house of Sefi, the political
influence of the Magian with that of the Mahometan religion, we
shall probably infer, that the kingdom of Artaxerxes contained at
least as great a number of cities, villages, and inhabitants. But
it must likewise be confessed, that in every age the want of
harbors on the sea-coast, and the scarcity of fresh water in the
inland provinces, have been very unfavorable to the commerce and
agriculture of the Persians; who, in the calculation of their
numbers, seem to have indulged one of the meanest, though most
common, artifices of national vanity.
31 (return) [ These colonies were extremely numerous. Seleucus
Nicator founded thirty-nine cities, all named from himself, or
some of his relations, (see Appian in Syriac. p. 124.) The æra of
Seleucus (still in use among the eastern Christians) appears as
late as the year 508, of Christ 196, on the medals of the Greek
cities within the Parthian empire. See Moyle’s works, vol. i. p.
273, &c., and M. Freret, Mem. de l’Academie, tom. xix.]
32 (return) [ The modern Persians distinguish that period as the
dynasty of the kings of the nations. See Plin. Hist. Nat. vi.
25.]
33 (return) [ Eutychius (tom. i. p. 367, 371, 375) relates the
siege of the island of Mesene in the Tigris, with some
circumstances not unlike the story of Nysus and Scylla.]
34 (return) [ Agathias, ii. 64, [and iv. p. 260.] The princes of
Segestan de fended their independence during many years. As
romances generally transport to an ancient period the events of
their own time, it is not impossible that the fabulous exploits
of Rustan, Prince of Segestan, many have been grafted on this
real history.]
35 (return) [ We can scarcely attribute to the Persian monarchy
the sea-coast of Gedrosia or Macran, which extends along the
Indian Ocean from Cape Jask (the promontory Capella) to Cape
Goadel. In the time of Alexander, and probably many ages
afterwards, it was thinly inhabited by a savage people of
Icthyophagi, or Fishermen, who knew no arts, who acknowledged no
master, and who were divided by in-hospitable deserts from the
rest of the world. (See Arrian de Reb. Indicis.) In the twelfth
century, the little town of Taiz (supposed by M. d’Anville to be
the Teza of Ptolemy) was peopled and enriched by the resort of
the Arabian merchants. (See Geographia Nubiens, p. 58, and
d’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 283.) In the last
age, the whole country was divided between three princes, one
Mahometan and two Idolaters, who maintained their independence
against the successors of Shah Abbas. (Voyages de Tavernier, part
i. l. v. p. 635.)]
36 (return) [ Chardin, tom. iii c 1 2, 3.]
As soon as the ambitious mind of Artaxerxes had triumphed ever
the resistance of his vassals, he began to threaten the
neighboring states, who, during the long slumber of his
predecessors, had insulted Persia with impunity. He obtained some
easy victories over the wild Scythians and the effeminate
Indians; but the Romans were an enemy, who, by their past
injuries and present power, deserved the utmost efforts of his
arms. A forty years’ tranquillity, the fruit of valor and
moderation, had succeeded the victories of Trajan. During the
period that elapsed from the accession of Marcus to the reign of
Alexander, the Roman and the Parthian empires were twice engaged
in war; and although the whole strength of the Arsacides
contended with a part only of the forces of Rome, the event was
most commonly in favor of the latter. Macrinus, indeed, prompted
by his precarious situation and pusillanimous temper, purchased a
peace at the expense of near two millions of our money; 37 but
the generals of Marcus, the emperor Severus, and his son, erected
many trophies in Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria. Among their
exploits, the imperfect relation of which would have unseasonably
interrupted the more important series of domestic revolutions, we
shall only mention the repeated calamities of the two great
cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon.
37 (return) [ Dion, l. xxviii. p. 1335.]
Seleucia, on the western bank of the Tigris, about forty-five
miles to the north of ancient Babylon, was the capital of the
Macedonian conquests in Upper Asia. 38 Many ages after the fall
of their empire, Seleucia retained the genuine characters of a
Grecian colony, arts, military virtue, and the love of freedom.
The independent republic was governed by a senate of three
hundred nobles; the people consisted of six hundred thousand
citizens; the walls were strong, and as long as concord prevailed
among the several orders of the state, they viewed with contempt
the power of the Parthian: but the madness of faction was
sometimes provoked to implore the dangerous aid of the common
enemy, who was posted almost at the gates of the colony. 39 The
Parthian monarchs, like the Mogul sovereigns of Hindostan,
delighted in the pastoral life of their Scythian ancestors; and
the Imperial camp was frequently pitched in the plain of
Ctesiphon, on the eastern bank of the Tigris, at the distance of
only three miles from Seleucia. 40 The innumerable attendants on
luxury and despotism resorted to the court, and the little
village of Ctesiphon insensibly swelled into a great city. 41
Under the reign of Marcus, the Roman generals penetrated as far
as Ctesiphon and Seleucia. They were received as friends by the
Greek colony; they attacked as enemies the seat of the Parthian
kings; yet both cities experienced the same treatment. The sack
and conflagration of Seleucia, with the massacre of three hundred
thousand of the inhabitants, tarnished the glory of the Roman
triumph. 42 Seleucia, already exhausted by the neighborhood of a
too powerful rival, sunk under the fatal blow; but Ctesiphon, in
about thirty-three years, had sufficiently recovered its strength
to maintain an obstinate siege against the emperor Severus. The
city was, however, taken by assault; the king, who defended it in
person, escaped with precipitation; a hundred thousand captives,
and a rich booty, rewarded the fatigues of the Roman soldiers. 43
Notwithstanding these misfortunes, Ctesiphon succeeded to Babylon
and to Seleucia, as one of the great capitals of the East. In
summer, the monarch of Persia enjoyed at Ecbatana the cool
breezes of the mountains of Media; but the mildness of the
climate engaged him to prefer Ctesiphon for his winter residence.
38 (return) [ For the precise situation of Babylon, Seleucia,
Ctesiphon, Moiain, and Bagdad, cities often confounded with each
other, see an excellent Geographical Tract of M. d’Anville, in
Mem. de l’Academie, tom. xxx.]
39 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xi. 42. Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 26.]
40 (return) [ This may be inferred from Strabo, l. xvi. p. 743.]
41 (return) [ That most curious traveller, Bernier, who followed
the camp of Aurengzebe from Delhi to Cashmir, describes with
great accuracy the immense moving city. The guard of cavalry
consisted of 35,000 men, that of infantry of 10,000. It was
computed that the camp contained 150,000 horses, mules, and
elephants; 50,000 camels, 50,000 oxen, and between 300,000 and
400,000 persons. Almost all Delhi followed the court, whose
magnificence supported its industry.]
42 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxi. p. 1178. Hist. August. p. 38.
Eutrop. viii. 10 Euseb. in Chronic. Quadratus (quoted in the
Augustan History) attempted to vindicate the Romans by alleging
that the citizens of Seleucia had first violated their faith.]
43 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxv. p. 1263. Herodian, l. iii. p. 120.
Hist. August. p. 70.]
From these successful inroads the Romans derived no real or
lasting benefit; nor did they attempt to preserve such distant
conquests, separated from the provinces of the empire by a large
tract of intermediate desert. The reduction of the kingdom of
Osrhoene was an acquisition of less splendor indeed, but of a far
more solid advantage. That little state occupied the northern and
most fertile part of Mesopotamia, between the Euphrates and the
Tigris. Edessa, its capital, was situated about twenty miles
beyond the former of those rivers; and the inhabitants, since the
time of Alexander, were a mixed race of Greeks, Arabs, Syrians,
and Armenians. 44 The feeble sovereigns of Osrhoene, placed on
the dangerous verge of two contending empires, were attached from
inclination to the Parthian cause; but the superior power of Rome
exacted from them a reluctant homage, which is still attested by
their medals. After the conclusion of the Parthian war under
Marcus, it was judged prudent to secure some substantial pledges
of their doubtful fidelity. Forts were constructed in several
parts of the country, and a Roman garrison was fixed in the
strong town of Nisibis. During the troubles that followed the
death of Commodus, the princes of Osrhoene attempted to shake off
the yoke; but the stern policy of Severus confirmed their
dependence, 45 and the perfidy of Caracalla completed the easy
conquest. Abgarus, the last king of Edessa, was sent in chains to
Rome, his dominions reduced into a province, and his capital
dignified with the rank of colony; and thus the Romans, about ten
years before the fall of the Parthian monarchy, obtained a firm
and permanent establishment beyond the Euphrates. 46
44 (return) [ The polished citizens of Antioch called those of
Edessa mixed barbarians. It was, however, some praise, that of
the three dialects of the Syriac, the purest and most elegant
(the Aramæan) was spoken at Edessa. This remark M. Bayer (Hist.
Edess. p 5) has borrowed from George of Malatia, a Syrian
writer.]
45 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxv. p. 1248, 1249, 1250. M. Bayer has
neglected to use this most important passage.]
46 (return) [ This kingdom, from Osrhoes, who gave a new name to
the country, to the last Abgarus, had lasted 353 years. See the
learned work of M. Bayer, Historia Osrhoena et Edessena.]
Prudence as well as glory might have justified a war on the side
of Artaxerxes, had his views been confined to the defence or
acquisition of a useful frontier. but the ambitious Persian
openly avowed a far more extensive design of conquest; and he
thought himself able to support his lofty pretensions by the arms
of reason as well as by those of power. Cyrus, he alleged, had
first subdued, and his successors had for a long time possessed,
the whole extent of Asia, as far as the Propontis and the Ægean
Sea; the provinces of Caria and Ionia, under their empire, had
been governed by Persian satraps, and all Egypt, to the confines
of Æthiopia, had acknowledged their sovereignty. 47 Their rights
had been suspended, but not destroyed, by a long usurpation; and
as soon as he received the Persian diadem, which birth and
successful valor had placed upon his head, the first great duty
of his station called upon him to restore the ancient limits and
splendor of the monarchy. The Great King, therefore, (such was
the haughty style of his embassies to the emperor Alexander,)
commanded the Romans instantly to depart from all the provinces
of his ancestors, and, yielding to the Persians the empire of
Asia, to content themselves with the undisturbed possession of
Europe. This haughty mandate was delivered by four hundred of the
tallest and most beautiful of the Persians; who, by their fine
horses, splendid arms, and rich apparel, displayed the pride and
greatness of their master. 48 Such an embassy was much less an
offer of negotiation than a declaration of war. Both Alexander
Severus and Artaxerxes, collecting the military force of the
Roman and Persian monarchies, resolved in this important contest
to lead their armies in person.
47 (return) [ Xenophon, in the preface to the Cyropædia, gives a
clear and magnificent idea of the extent of the empire of Cyrus.
Herodotus (l. iii. c. 79, &c.) enters into a curious and
particular description of the twenty great Satrapies into which
the Persian empire was divided by Darius Hystaspes.]
48 (return) [ Herodian, vi. 209, 212.]
If we credit what should seem the most authentic of all records,
an oration, still extant, and delivered by the emperor himself to
the senate, we must allow that the victory of Alexander Severus
was not inferior to any of those formerly obtained over the
Persians by the son of Philip. The army of the Great King
consisted of one hundred and twenty thousand horse, clothed in
complete armor of steel; of seven hundred elephants, with towers
filled with archers on their backs, and of eighteen hundred
chariots armed with scythes. This formidable host, the like of
which is not to be found in eastern history, and has scarcely
been imagined in eastern romance, 49 was discomfited in a great
battle, in which the Roman Alexander proved himself an intrepid
soldier and a skilful general. The Great King fled before his
valor; an immense booty, and the conquest of Mesopotamia, were
the immediate fruits of this signal victory. Such are the
circumstances of this ostentatious and improbable relation,
dictated, as it too plainly appears, by the vanity of the
monarch, adorned by the unblushing servility of his flatterers,
and received without contradiction by a distant and obsequious
senate. 50 Far from being inclined to believe that the arms of
Alexander obtained any memorable advantage over the Persians, we
are induced to suspect that all this blaze of imaginary glory was
designed to conceal some real disgrace.
49 (return) [ There were two hundred scythed chariots at the
battle of Arbela, in the host of Darius. In the vast army of
Tigranes, which was vanquished by Lucullus, seventeen thousand
horse only were completely armed. Antiochus brought fifty-four
elephants into the field against the Romans: by his frequent wars
and negotiations with the princes of India, he had once collected
a hundred and fifty of those great animals; but it may be
questioned whether the most powerful monarch of Hindostan evci
formed a line of battle of seven hundred elephants. Instead of
three or four thousand elephants, which the Great Mogul was
supposed to possess, Tavernier (Voyages, part ii. l. i. p. 198)
discovered, by a more accurate inquiry, that he had only five
hundred for his baggage, and eighty or ninety for the service of
war. The Greeks have varied with regard to the number which Porus
brought into the field; but Quintus Curtius, (viii. 13,) in this
instance judicious and moderate, is contented with eighty-five
elephants, distinguished by their size and strength. In Siam,
where these animals are the most numerous and the most esteemed,
eighteen elephants are allowed as a sufficient proportion for
each of the nine brigades into which a just army is divided. The
whole number, of one hundred and sixty-two elephants of war, may
sometimes be doubled. Hist. des Voyages, tom. ix. p. 260. * Note:
Compare Gibbon’s note 10 to ch. lvii—M.]
50 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 133. * Note: See M. Guizot’s note,
p. 267. According to the Persian authorities Ardeschir extended
his conquests to the Euphrates. Malcolm i. 71.—M.]
Our suspicions are confirmed by the authority of a contemporary
historian, who mentions the virtues of Alexander with respect,
and his faults with candor. He describes the judicious plan which
had been formed for the conduct of the war. Three Roman armies
were destined to invade Persia at the same time, and by different
roads. But the operations of the campaign, though wisely
concerted, were not executed either with ability or success. The
first of these armies, as soon as it had entered the marshy
plains of Babylon, towards the artificial conflux of the
Euphrates and the Tigris, 51 was encompassed by the superior
numbers, and destroyed by the arrows of the enemy. The alliance
of Chosroes, king of Armenia, 52 and the long tract of
mountainous country, in which the Persian cavalry was of little
service, opened a secure entrance into the heart of Media, to the
second of the Roman armies. These brave troops laid waste the
adjacent provinces, and by several successful actions against
Artaxerxes, gave a faint color to the emperor’s vanity. But the
retreat of this victorious army was imprudent, or at least
unfortunate. In repassing the mountains, great numbers of
soldiers perished by the badness of the roads, and the severity
of the winter season. It had been resolved, that whilst these two
great detachments penetrated into the opposite extremes of the
Persian dominions, the main body, under the command of Alexander
himself, should support their attack, by invading the centre of
the kingdom. But the unexperienced youth, influenced by his
mother’s counsels, and perhaps by his own fears, deserted the
bravest troops, and the fairest prospect of victory; and after
consuming in Mesopotamia an inactive and inglorious summer, he
led back to Antioch an army diminished by sickness, and provoked
by disappointment. The behavior of Artaxerxes had been very
different. Flying with rapidity from the hills of Media to the
marshes of the Euphrates, he had everywhere opposed the invaders
in person; and in either fortune had united with the ablest
conduct the most undaunted resolution. But in several obstinate
engagements against the veteran legions of Rome, the Persian
monarch had lost the flower of his troops. Even his victories had
weakened his power. The favorable opportunities of the absence of
Alexander, and of the confusions that followed that emperor’s
death, presented themselves in vain to his ambition. Instead of
expelling the Romans, as he pretended, from the continent of
Asia, he found himself unable to wrest from their hands the
little province of Mesopotamia. 53
51 (return) [ M. de Tillemont has already observed, that
Herodian’s geography is somewhat confused.]
52 (return) [ Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 71)
illustrates this invasion of Media, by asserting that Chosroes,
king of Armenia, defeated Artaxerxes, and pursued him to the
confines of India. The exploits of Chosroes have been magnified;
and he acted as a dependent ally to the Romans.]
53 (return) [ For the account of this war, see Herodian, l. vi.
p. 209, 212. The old abbreviators and modern compilers have
blindly followed the Augustan History.]
The reign of Artaxerxes, which, from the last defeat of the
Parthians, lasted only fourteen years, forms a memorable æra in
the history of the East, and even in that of Rome. His character
seems to have been marked by those bold and commanding features,
that generally distinguish the princes who conquer, from those
who inherit, an empire. Till the last period of the Persian
monarchy, his code of laws was respected as the groundwork of
their civil and religious policy. 54 Several of his sayings are
preserved. One of them in particular discovers a deep insight
into the constitution of government. “The authority of the
prince,” said Artaxerxes, “must be defended by a military force;
that force can only be maintained by taxes; all taxes must, at
last, fall upon agriculture; and agriculture can never flourish
except under the protection of justice and moderation.” 55
Artaxerxes bequeathed his new empire, and his ambitious designs
against the Romans, to Sapor, a son not unworthy of his great
father; but those designs were too extensive for the power of
Persia, and served only to involve both nations in a long series
of destructive wars and reciprocal calamities.
54 (return) [Eutychius, tom. ii. p. 180, vers. Pocock. The great
Chosroes Noushirwan sent the code of Artaxerxes to all his
satraps, as the invariable rule of their conduct.]
55 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, au mot Ardshir.
We may observe, that after an ancient period of fables, and a
long interval of darkness, the modern histories of Persia begin
to assume an air of truth with the dynasty of Sassanides. Compare
Malcolm, i. 79.—M.]
The Persians, long since civilized and corrupted, were very far
from possessing the martial independence, and the intrepid
hardiness, both of mind and body, which have rendered the
northern barbarians masters of the world. The science of war,
that constituted the more rational force of Greece and Rome, as
it now does of Europe, never made any considerable progress in
the East. Those disciplined evolutions which harmonize and
animate a confused multitude, were unknown to the Persians. They
were equally unskilled in the arts of constructing, besieging, or
defending regular fortifications. They trusted more to their
numbers than to their courage; more to their courage than to
their discipline. The infantry was a half-armed, spiritless crowd
of peasants, levied in haste by the allurements of plunder, and
as easily dispersed by a victory as by a defeat. The monarch and
his nobles transported into the camp the pride and luxury of the
seraglio. Their military operations were impeded by a useless
train of women, eunuchs, horses, and camels; and in the midst of
a successful campaign, the Persian host was often separated or
destroyed by an unexpected famine. 56
56 (return) [ Herodian, l. vi. p. 214. Ammianus Marcellinus, l.
xxiii. c. 6. Some differences may be observed between the two
historians, the natural effects of the changes produced by a
century and a half.]
But the nobles of Persia, in the bosom of luxury and despotism,
preserved a strong sense of personal gallantry and national
honor. From the age of seven years they were taught to speak
truth, to shoot with the bow, and to ride; and it was universally
confessed that in the two last of these arts they had made a more
than common proficiency. 57 The most distinguished youth were
educated under the monarch’s eye, practised their exercises in
the gate of his palace, and were severely trained up to the
habits of temperance and obedience, in their long and laborious
parties of hunting. In every province, the satrap maintained a
like school of military virtue. The Persian nobles (so natural is
the idea of feudal tenures) received from the king’s bounty lands
and houses, on the condition of their service in war. They were
ready on the first summons to mount on horseback, with a martial
and splendid train of followers, and to join the numerous bodies
of guards, who were carefully selected from among the most robust
slaves, and the bravest adventurers of Asia. These armies, both
of light and of heavy cavalry, equally formidable by the
impetuosity of their charge and the rapidity of their motions,
threatened, as an impending cloud, the eastern provinces of the
declining empire of Rome. 58
57 (return) [ The Persians are still the most skilful horsemen,
and their horses the finest in the East.]
58 (return) [ From Herodotus, Xenophon, Herodian, Ammianus,
Chardin, &c., I have extracted such probable accounts of the
Persian nobility, as seem either common to every age, or
particular to that of the Sassanides.]
Chapter IX: State Of Germany Until The Barbarians.—Part I.
The State Of Germany Till The Invasion Of The Barbarians In The Time Of
The Emperor Decius.
The government and religion of Persia have deserved some notice,
from their connection with the decline and fall of the Roman
empire. We shall occasionally mention the Scythian or Sarmatian
tribes, 1001 which, with their arms and horses, their flocks and
herds, their wives and families, wandered over the immense plains
which spread themselves from the Caspian Sea to the Vistula, from
the confines of Persia to those of Germany. But the warlike
Germans, who first resisted, then invaded, and at length
overturned the Western monarchy of Rome, will occupy a much more
important place in this history, and possess a stronger, and, if
we may use the expression, a more domestic, claim to our
attention and regard. The most civilized nations of modern Europe
issued from the woods of Germany; and in the rude institutions of
those barbarians we may still distinguish the original principles
of our present laws and manners. In their primitive state of
simplicity and independence, the Germans were surveyed by the
discerning eye, and delineated by the masterly pencil, of
Tacitus, 1002 the first of historians who applied the science of
philosophy to the study of facts. The expressive conciseness of
his descriptions has served to exercise the diligence of
innumerable antiquarians, and to excite the genius and
penetration of the philosophic historians of our own times. The
subject, however various and important, has already been so
frequently, so ably, and so successfully discussed, that it is
now grown familiar to the reader, and difficult to the writer. We
shall therefore content ourselves with observing, and indeed with
repeating, some of the most important circumstances of climate,
of manners, and of institutions, which rendered the wild
barbarians of Germany such formidable enemies to the Roman power.
1001 (return) [ The Scythians, even according to the ancients,
are not Sarmatians. It may be doubted whether Gibbon intended to
confound them.—M. ——The Greeks, after having divided the world
into Greeks and barbarians. divided the barbarians into four
great classes, the Celts, the Scythians, the Indians, and the
Ethiopians. They called Celts all the inhabitants of Gaul.
Scythia extended from the Baltic Sea to the Lake Aral: the people
enclosed in the angle to the north-east, between Celtica and
Scythia, were called Celto-Scythians, and the Sarmatians were
placed in the southern part of that angle. But these names of
Celts, of Scythians, of Celto-Scythians, and Sarmatians, were
invented, says Schlozer, by the profound cosmographical ignorance
of the Greeks, and have no real ground; they are purely
geographical divisions, without any relation to the true
affiliation of the different races. Thus all the inhabitants of
Gaul are called Celts by most of the ancient writers; yet Gaul
contained three totally distinct nations, the Belgæ, the
Aquitani, and the Gauls, properly so called. Hi omnes lingua
institutis, legibusque inter se differunt. Cæsar. Com. c. i. It
is thus the Turks call all Europeans Franks. Schlozer, Allgemeine
Nordische Geschichte, p. 289. 1771. Bayer (de Origine et priscis
Sedibus Scytharum, in Opusc. p. 64) says, Primus eorum, de quibus
constat, Ephorus, in quarto historiarum libro, orbem terrarum
inter Scythas, Indos, Æthiopas et Celtas divisit. Fragmentum ejus
loci Cosmas Indicopleustes in topographia Christiana, f. 148,
conservavit. Video igitur Ephorum, cum locorum positus per certa
capita distribuere et explicare constitueret, insigniorum nomina
gentium vastioribus spatiis adhibuisse, nulla mala fraude et
successu infelici. Nam Ephoro quoquomodo dicta pro exploratis
habebant Græci plerique et Romani: ita gliscebat error
posteritate. Igitur tot tamque diversæ stirpis gentes non modo
intra communem quandam regionem definitæ, unum omnes Scytharum
nomen his auctoribus subierunt, sed etiam ab illa regionis
adpellatione in eandem nationem sunt conflatæ. Sic Cimmeriorum
res cum Scythicis, Scytharum cum Sarmaticis, Russicis, Hunnicis,
Tataricis commiscentur.—G.]
1002 (return) [ The Germania of Tacitus has been a fruitful
source of hypothesis to the ingenuity of modern writers, who have
endeavored to account for the form of the work and the views of
the author. According to Luden, (Geschichte des T. V. i. 432, and
note,) it contains the unfinished and disarranged for a larger
work. An anonymous writer, supposed by Luden to be M. Becker,
conceives that it was intended as an episode in his larger
history. According to M. Guizot, “Tacite a peint les Germains
comme Montaigne et Rousseau les sauvages, dans un acces d’humeur
contre sa patrie: son livre est une satire des mœurs Romaines,
l’eloquente boutade d’un patriote philosophe qui veut voir la
vertu la, ou il ne rencontre pas la mollesse honteuse et la
depravation savante d’une vielle societe.” Hist. de la
Civilisation Moderne, i. 258.—M.]
Ancient Germany, excluding from its independent limits the
province westward of the Rhine, which had submitted to the Roman
yoke, extended itself over a third part of Europe. 1 Almost the
whole of modern Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland,
Livonia, Prussia, and the greater part of Poland, were peopled by
the various tribes of one great nation, whose complexion,
manners, and language denoted a common origin, and preserved a
striking resemblance. On the west, ancient Germany was divided by
the Rhine from the Gallic, and on the south, by the Danube, from
the Illyrian, provinces of the empire. A ridge of hills, rising
from the Danube, and called the Carpathian Mountains, covered
Germany on the side of Dacia or Hungary. The eastern frontier was
faintly marked by the mutual fears of the Germans and the
Sarmatians, and was often confounded by the mixture of warring
and confederating tribes of the two nations. In the remote
darkness of the north, the ancients imperfectly descried a frozen
ocean that lay beyond the Baltic Sea, and beyond the Peninsula,
or islands 1001a of Scandinavia.
1 (return) [ Germany was not of such vast extent. It is from
Cæsar, and more particularly from Ptolemy, (says Gatterer,) that
we can know what was the state of ancient Germany before the wars
with the Romans had changed the positions of the tribes. Germany,
as changed by these wars, has been described by Strabo, Pliny,
and Tacitus. Germany, properly so called, was bounded on the west
by the Rhine, on the east by the Vistula, on the north by the
southern point of Norway, by Sweden, and Esthonia. On the south,
the Maine and the mountains to the north of Bohemia formed the
limits. Before the time of Cæsar, the country between the Maine
and the Danube was partly occupied by the Helvetians and other
Gauls, partly by the Hercynian forest but, from the time of Cæsar
to the great migration, these boundaries were advanced as far as
the Danube, or, what is the same thing, to the Suabian Alps,
although the Hercynian forest still occupied, from north to
south, a space of nine days’ journey on both banks of the Danube.
“Gatterer, Versuch einer all-gemeinen Welt-Geschichte,” p. 424,
edit. de 1792. This vast country was far from being inhabited by
a single nation divided into different tribes of the same origin.
We may reckon three principal races, very distinct in their
language, their origin, and their customs. 1. To the east, the
Slaves or Vandals. 2. To the west, the Cimmerians or Cimbri. 3.
Between the Slaves and Cimbrians, the Germans, properly so
called, the Suevi of Tacitus. The South was inhabited, before
Julius Cæsar, by nations of Gaulish origin, afterwards by the
Suevi.—G. On the position of these nations, the German
antiquaries differ. I. The Slaves, or Sclavonians, or Wendish
tribes, according to Schlozer, were originally settled in parts
of Germany unknown to the Romans, Mecklenburgh, Pomerania,
Brandenburgh, Upper Saxony; and Lusatia. According to Gatterer,
they remained to the east of the Theiss, the Niemen, and the
Vistula, till the third century. The Slaves, according to
Procopius and Jornandes, formed three great divisions. 1. The
Venedi or Vandals, who took the latter name, (the Wenden,) having
expelled the Vandals, properly so called, (a Suevian race, the
conquerors of Africa,) from the country between the Memel and the
Vistula. 2. The Antes, who inhabited between the Dneister and the
Dnieper. 3. The Sclavonians, properly so called, in the north of
Dacia. During the great migration, these races advanced into
Germany as far as the Saal and the Elbe. The Sclavonian language
is the stem from which have issued the Russian, the Polish, the
Bohemian, and the dialects of Lusatia, of some parts of the duchy
of Luneburgh, of Carniola, Carinthia, and Styria, &c.; those of
Croatia, Bosnia, and Bulgaria. Schlozer, Nordische Geschichte, p.
323, 335. II. The Cimbric race. Adelung calls by this name all
who were not Suevi. This race had passed the Rhine, before the
time of Cæsar, occupied Belgium, and are the Belgæ of Cæsar and
Pliny. The Cimbrians also occupied the Isle of Jutland. The Cymri
of Wales and of Britain are of this race. Many tribes on the
right bank of the Rhine, the Guthini in Jutland, the Usipeti in
Westphalia, the Sigambri in the duchy of Berg, were German
Cimbrians. III. The Suevi, known in very early times by the
Romans, for they are mentioned by L. Corn. Sisenna, who lived 123
years before Christ, (Nonius v. Lancea.) This race, the real
Germans, extended to the Vistula, and from the Baltic to the
Hercynian forest. The name of Suevi was sometimes confined to a
single tribe, as by Cæsar to the Catti. The name of the Suevi has
been preserved in Suabia. These three were the principal races
which inhabited Germany; they moved from east to west, and are
the parent stem of the modern natives. But northern Europe,
according to Schlozer, was not peopled by them alone; other
races, of different origin, and speaking different languages,
have inhabited and left descendants in these countries. The
German tribes called themselves, from very remote times, by the
generic name of Teutons, (Teuten, Deutschen,) which Tacitus
derives from that of one of their gods, Tuisco. It appears more
probable that it means merely men, people. Many savage nations
have given themselves no other name. Thus the Laplanders call
themselves Almag, people; the Samoiedes Nilletz, Nissetsch, men,
&c. As to the name of Germans, (Germani,) Cæsar found it in use
in Gaul, and adopted it as a word already known to the Romans.
Many of the learned (from a passage of Tacitus, de Mor Germ. c.
2) have supposed that it was only applied to the Teutons after
Cæsar’s time; but Adelung has triumphantly refuted this opinion.
The name of Germans is found in the Fasti Capitolini. See Gruter,
Iscrip. 2899, in which the consul Marcellus, in the year of Rome
531, is said to have defeated the Gauls, the Insubrians, and the
Germans, commanded by Virdomar. See Adelung, Ælt. Geschichte der
Deutsch, p. 102.—Compressed from G.]
1001a (return) [ The modern philosophers of Sweden seem agreed
that the waters of the Baltic gradually sink in a regular
proportion, which they have ventured to estimate at half an inch
every year. Twenty centuries ago the flat country of Scandinavia
must have been covered by the sea; while the high lands rose
above the waters, as so many islands of various forms and
dimensions. Such, indeed, is the notion given us by Mela, Pliny,
and Tacitus, of the vast countries round the Baltic. See in the
Bibliotheque Raisonnee, tom. xl. and xlv. a large abstract of
Dalin’s History of Sweden, composed in the Swedish language. *
Note: Modern geologists have rejected this theory of the
depression of the Baltic, as inconsistent with recent
observation. The considerable changes which have taken place on
its shores, Mr. Lyell, from actual observation now decidedly
attributes to the regular and uniform elevation of the
land.—Lyell’s Geology, b. ii. c. 17—M.]
Some ingenious writers 2 have suspected that Europe was much
colder formerly than it is at present; and the most ancient
descriptions of the climate of Germany tend exceedingly to
confirm their theory. The general complaints of intense frost and
eternal winter are perhaps little to be regarded, since we have
no method of reducing to the accurate standard of the
thermometer, the feelings, or the expressions, of an orator born
in the happier regions of Greece or Asia. But I shall select two
remarkable circumstances of a less equivocal nature. 1. The great
rivers which covered the Roman provinces, the Rhine and the
Danube, were frequently frozen over, and capable of supporting
the most enormous weights. The barbarians, who often chose that
severe season for their inroads, transported, without
apprehension or danger, their numerous armies, their cavalry, and
their heavy wagons, over a vast and solid bridge of ice. 3 Modern
ages have not presented an instance of a like phenomenon. 2. The
reindeer, that useful animal, from whom the savage of the North
derives the best comforts of his dreary life, is of a
constitution that supports, and even requires, the most intense
cold. He is found on the rock of Spitzberg, within ten degrees of
the Pole; he seems to delight in the snows of Lapland and
Siberia: but at present he cannot subsist, much less multiply, in
any country to the south of the Baltic. 4 In the time of Cæsar
the reindeer, as well as the elk and the wild bull, was a native
of the Hercynian forest, which then overshadowed a great part of
Germany and Poland. 5 The modern improvements sufficiently
explain the causes of the diminution of the cold. These immense
woods have been gradually cleared, which intercepted from the
earth the rays of the sun. 6 The morasses have been drained, and,
in proportion as the soil has been cultivated, the air has become
more temperate. Canada, at this day, is an exact picture of
ancient Germany. Although situated in the same parallel with the
finest provinces of France and England, that country experiences
the most rigorous cold. The reindeer are very numerous, the
ground is covered with deep and lasting snow, and the great river
of St. Lawrence is regularly frozen, in a season when the waters
of the Seine and the Thames are usually free from ice. 7
2 (return) [ In particular, Mr. Hume, the Abbé du Bos, and M.
Pelloutier. Hist. des Celtes, tom. i.]
3 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus, l. v. p. 340, edit. Wessel.
Herodian, l. vi. p. 221. Jornandes, c. 55. On the banks of the
Danube, the wine, when brought to table, was frequently frozen
into great lumps, frusta vini. Ovid. Epist. ex Ponto, l. iv. 7,
9, 10. Virgil. Georgic. l. iii. 355. The fact is confirmed by a
soldier and a philosopher, who had experienced the intense cold
of Thrace. See Xenophon, Anabasis, l. vii. p. 560, edit.
Hutchinson. Note: The Danube is constantly frozen over. At Pesth
the bridge is usually taken up, and the traffic and communication
between the two banks carried on over the ice. The Rhine is
likewise in many parts passable at least two years out of five.
Winter campaigns are so unusual, in modern warfare, that I
recollect but one instance of an army crossing either river on
the ice. In the thirty years’ war, (1635,) Jan van Werth, an
Imperialist partisan, crossed the Rhine from Heidelberg on the
ice with 5000 men, and surprised Spiers. Pichegru’s memorable
campaign, (1794-5,) when the freezing of the Meuse and Waal
opened Holland to his conquests, and his cavalry and artillery
attacked the ships frozen in, on the Zuyder Zee, was in a winter
of unprecedented severity.—M. 1845.]
4 (return) [ Buffon, Histoire Naturelle, tom. xii. p. 79, 116.]
5 (return) [ Cæsar de Bell. Gallic. vi. 23, &c. The most
inquisitive of the Germans were ignorant of its utmost limits,
although some of them had travelled in it more than sixty days’
journey. * Note: The passage of Cæsar, “parvis renonum tegumentis
utuntur,” is obscure, observes Luden, (Geschichte des Teutschen
Volkes,) and insufficient to prove the reindeer to have existed
in Germany. It is supported however, by a fragment of Sallust.
Germani intectum rhenonibus corpus tegunt.—M. It has been
suggested to me that Cæsar (as old Gesner supposed) meant the
reindeer in the following description. Est bos cervi figura cujus
a media fronte inter aures unum cornu existit, excelsius magisque
directum (divaricatum, qu?) his quæ nobis nota sunt cornibus. At
ejus summo, sicut palmæ, rami quam late diffunduntur. Bell.
vi.—M. 1845.]
6 (return) [ Cluverius (Germania Antiqua, l. iii. c. 47)
investigates the small and scattered remains of the Hercynian
wood.]
7 (return) [ Charlevoix, Histoire du Canada.]
It is difficult to ascertain, and easy to exaggerate, the
influence of the climate of ancient Germany over the minds and
bodies of the natives. Many writers have supposed, and most have
allowed, though, as it should seem, without any adequate proof,
that the rigorous cold of the North was favorable to long life
and generative vigor, that the women were more fruitful, and the
human species more prolific, than in warmer or more temperate
climates. 8 We may assert, with greater confidence, that the keen
air of Germany formed the large and masculine limbs of the
natives, who were, in general, of a more lofty stature than the
people of the South, 9 gave them a kind of strength better
adapted to violent exertions than to patient labor, and inspired
them with constitutional bravery, which is the result of nerves
and spirits. The severity of a winter campaign, that chilled the
courage of the Roman troops, was scarcely felt by these hardy
children of the North, 10 who, in their turn, were unable to
resist the summer heats, and dissolved away in languor and
sickness under the beams of an Italian sun. 11
8 (return) [ Olaus Rudbeck asserts that the Swedish women often
bear ten or twelve children, and not uncommonly twenty or thirty;
but the authority of Rudbeck is much to be suspected.]
9 (return) [ In hos artus, in hæc corpora, quæ miramur,
excrescunt. Tæit Germania, 3, 20. Cluver. l. i. c. 14.]
10 (return) [ Plutarch. in Mario. The Cimbri, by way of
amusement, often did down mountains of snow on their broad
shields.]
11 (return) [ The Romans made war in all climates, and by their
excellent discipline were in a great measure preserved in health
and vigor. It may be remarked, that man is the only animal which
can live and multiply in every country from the equator to the
poles. The hog seems to approach the nearest to our species in
that privilege.]
Chapter IX: State Of Germany Until The Barbarians.—Part II.
There is not anywhere upon the globe a large tract of country,
which we have discovered destitute of inhabitants, or whose first
population can be fixed with any degree of historical certainty.
And yet, as the most philosophic minds can seldom refrain from
investigating the infancy of great nations, our curiosity
consumes itself in toilsome and disappointed efforts. When
Tacitus considered the purity of the German blood, and the
forbidding aspect of the country, he was disposed to pronounce
those barbarians _Indigenæ_, or natives of the soil. We may allow
with safety, and perhaps with truth, that ancient Germany was not
originally peopled by any foreign colonies already formed into a
political society; 12 but that the name and nation received their
existence from the gradual union of some wandering savages of the
Hercynian woods. To assert those savages to have been the
spontaneous production of the earth which they inhabited would be
a rash inference, condemned by religion, and unwarranted by
reason.
12 (return) [ Facit. Germ. c. 3. The emigration of the Gauls
followed the course of the Danube, and discharged itself on
Greece and Asia. Tacitus could discover only one inconsiderable
tribe that retained any traces of a Gallic origin. * Note: The
Gothini, who must not be confounded with the Gothi, a Suevian
tribe. In the time of Cæsar many other tribes of Gaulish origin
dwelt along the course of the Danube, who could not long resist
the attacks of the Suevi. The Helvetians, who dwelt on the
borders of the Black Forest, between the Maine and the Danube,
had been expelled long before the time of Cæsar. He mentions also
the Volci Tectosagi, who came from Languedoc and settled round
the Black Forest. The Boii, who had penetrated into that forest,
and also have left traces of their name in Bohemia, were subdued
in the first century by the Marcomanni. The Boii settled in
Noricum, were mingled afterwards with the Lombards, and received
the name of Boio Arii (Bavaria) or Boiovarii: var, in some German
dialects, appearing to mean remains, descendants. Compare Malte
B-m, Geography, vol. i. p. 410, edit 1832—M.]
Such rational doubt is but ill suited with the genius of popular
vanity. Among the nations who have adopted the Mosaic history of
the world, the ark of Noah has been of the same use, as was
formerly to the Greeks and Romans the siege of Troy. On a narrow
basis of acknowledged truth, an immense but rude superstructure
of fable has been erected; and the wild Irishman, 13 as well as
the wild Tartar, 14 could point out the individual son of Japhet,
from whose loins his ancestors were lineally descended. The last
century abounded with antiquarians of profound learning and easy
faith, who, by the dim light of legends and traditions, of
conjectures and etymologies, conducted the great grandchildren of
Noah from the Tower of Babel to the extremities of the globe. Of
these judicious critics, one of the most entertaining was Olaus
Rudbeck, professor in the university of Upsal. 15 Whatever is
celebrated either in history or fable this zealous patriot
ascribes to his country. From Sweden (which formed so
considerable a part of ancient Germany) the Greeks themselves
derived their alphabetical characters, their astronomy, and their
religion. Of that delightful region (for such it appeared to the
eyes of a native) the Atlantis of Plato, the country of the
Hyperboreans, the gardens of the Hesperides, the Fortunate
Islands, and even the Elysian Fields, were all but faint and
imperfect transcripts. A clime so profusely favored by Nature
could not long remain desert after the flood. The learned Rudbeck
allows the family of Noah a few years to multiply from eight to
about twenty thousand persons. He then disperses them into small
colonies to replenish the earth, and to propagate the human
species. The German or Swedish detachment (which marched, if I am
not mistaken, under the command of Askenaz, the son of Gomer, the
son of Japhet) distinguished itself by a more than common
diligence in the prosecution of this great work. The northern
hive cast its swarms over the greatest part of Europe, Africa,
and Asia; and (to use the author’s metaphor) the blood circulated
from the extremities to the heart.
13 (return) [ According to Dr. Keating, (History of Ireland, p.
13, 14,) the giant Portholanus, who was the son of Seara, the son
of Esra, the son of Sru, the son of Framant, the son of
Fathaclan, the son of Magog, the son of Japhet, the son of Noah,
landed on the coast of Munster the 14th day of May, in the year
of the world one thousand nine hundred and seventy-eight. Though
he succeeded in his great enterprise, the loose behavior of his
wife rendered his domestic life very unhappy, and provoked him to
such a degree, that he killed—her favorite greyhound. This, as
the learned historian very properly observes, was the first
instance of female falsehood and infidelity ever known in
Ireland.]
14 (return) [ Genealogical History of the Tartars, by Abulghazi
Bahadur Khan.]
15 (return) [ His work, entitled Atlantica, is uncommonly scarce.
Bayle has given two most curious extracts from it. Republique des
Lettres Janvier et Fevrier, 1685.]
But all this well-labored system of German antiquities is
annihilated by a single fact, too well attested to admit of any
doubt, and of too decisive a nature to leave room for any reply.
The Germans, in the age of Tacitus, were unacquainted with the
use of letters; 16 and the use of letters is the principal
circumstance that distinguishes a civilized people from a herd of
savages incapable of knowledge or reflection. Without that
artificial help, the human memory soon dissipates or corrupts the
ideas intrusted to her charge; and the nobler faculties of the
mind, no longer supplied with models or with materials, gradually
forget their powers; the judgment becomes feeble and lethargic,
the imagination languid or irregular. Fully to apprehend this
important truth, let us attempt, in an improved society, to
calculate the immense distance between the man of learning and
the _illiterate_ peasant. The former, by reading and reflection,
multiplies his own experience, and lives in distant ages and
remote countries; whilst the latter, rooted to a single spot, and
confined to a few years of existence, surpasses but very little
his fellow-laborer, the ox, in the exercise of his mental
faculties. The same, and even a greater, difference will be found
between nations than between individuals; and we may safely
pronounce, that without some species of writing, no people has
ever preserved the faithful annals of their history, ever made
any considerable progress in the abstract sciences, or ever
possessed, in any tolerable degree of perfection, the useful and
agreeable arts of life.
16 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. ii. 19. Literarum secreta viri pariter
ac fœminæ ignorant. We may rest contented with this decisive
authority, without entering into the obscure disputes concerning
the antiquity of the Runic characters. The learned Celsius, a
Swede, a scholar, and a philosopher, was of opinion, that they
were nothing more than the Roman letters, with the curves changed
into straight lines for the ease of engraving. See Pelloutier,
Histoire des Celtes, l. ii. c. 11. Dictionnaire Diplomatique,
tom. i. p. 223. We may add, that the oldest Runic inscriptions
are supposed to be of the third century, and the most ancient
writer who mentions the Runic characters is Venan tius
Frotunatus, (Carm. vii. 18,) who lived towards the end of the
sixth century. Barbara fraxineis pingatur Runa tabellis. * Note:
The obscure subject of the Runic characters has exercised the
industry and ingenuity of the modern scholars of the north. There
are three distinct theories; one, maintained by Schlozer,
(Nordische Geschichte, p. 481, &c.,) who considers their sixteen
letters to be a corruption of the Roman alphabet, post-Christian
in their date, and Schlozer would attribute their introduction
into the north to the Alemanni. The second, that of Frederick
Schlegel, (Vorlesungen uber alte und neue Literatur,) supposes
that these characters were left on the coasts of the
Mediterranean and Northern Seas by the Phœnicians, preserved by
the priestly castes, and employed for purposes of magic. Their
common origin from the Phœnician would account for heir
similarity to the Roman letters. The last, to which we incline,
claims much higher and more venerable antiquity for the Runic,
and supposes them to have been the original characters of the
Indo-Teutonic tribes, brought from the East, and preserved among
the different races of that stock. See Ueber Deutsche Runen von
W. C. Grimm, 1821. A Memoir by Dr. Legis. Fundgruben des alten
Nordens. Foreign Quarterly Review vol. ix. p. 438.—M.]
Of these arts, the ancient Germans were wretchedly destitute.
1601 They passed their lives in a state of ignorance and poverty,
which it has pleased some declaimers to dignify with the
appellation of virtuous simplicity. Modern Germany is said to
contain about two thousand three hundred walled towns. 17 In a
much wider extent of country, the geographer Ptolemy could
discover no more than ninety places which he decorates with the
name of cities; 18 though, according to our ideas, they would but
ill deserve that splendid title. We can only suppose them to have
been rude fortifications, constructed in the centre of the woods,
and designed to secure the women, children, and cattle, whilst
the warriors of the tribe marched out to repel a sudden invasion.
19 But Tacitus asserts, as a well-known fact, that the Germans,
in his time, had _no_ cities; 20 and that they affected to
despise the works of Roman industry, as places of confinement
rather than of security. 21 Their edifices were not even
contiguous, or formed into regular villas; 22 each barbarian
fixed his independent dwelling on the spot to which a plain, a
wood, or a stream of fresh water, had induced him to give the
preference. Neither stone, nor brick, nor tiles, were employed in
these slight habitations. 23 They were indeed no more than low
huts, of a circular figure, built of rough timber, thatched with
straw, and pierced at the top to leave a free passage for the
smoke. In the most inclement winter, the hardy German was
satisfied with a scanty garment made of the skin of some animal.
The nations who dwelt towards the North clothed themselves in
furs; and the women manufactured for their own use a coarse kind
of linen. 24 The game of various sorts, with which the forests of
Germany were plentifully stocked, supplied its inhabitants with
food and exercise. 25 Their monstrous herds of cattle, less
remarkable indeed for their beauty than for their utility, 26
formed the principal object of their wealth. A small quantity of
corn was the only produce exacted from the earth; the use of
orchards or artificial meadows was unknown to the Germans; nor
can we expect any improvements in agriculture from a people,
whose prosperity every year experienced a general change by a new
division of the arable lands, and who, in that strange operation,
avoided disputes, by suffering a great part of their territory to
lie waste and without tillage. 27
1601 (return) [ Luden (the author of the Geschichte des Teutschen
Volkes) has surpassed most writers in his patriotic enthusiasm
for the virtues and noble manners of his ancestors. Even the cold
of the climate, and the want of vines and fruit trees, as well as
the barbarism of the inhabitants, are calumnies of the luxurious
Italians. M. Guizot, on the other side, (in his Histoire de la
Civilisation, vol. i. p. 272, &c.,) has drawn a curious parallel
between the Germans of Tacitus and the North American
Indians.—M.]
17 (return) [ Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains, tom.
iii. p. 228. The author of that very curious work is, if I am not
misinformed, a German by birth. (De Pauw.)]
18 (return) [ The Alexandrian Geographer is often criticized by
the accurate Cluverius.]
19 (return) [ See Cæsar, and the learned Mr. Whitaker in his
History of Manchester, vol. i.]
20 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 15.]
21 (return) [ When the Germans commanded the Ubii of Cologne to
cast off the Roman yoke, and with their new freedom to resume
their ancient manners, they insisted on the immediate demolition
of the walls of the colony. “Postulamus a vobis, muros coloniæ,
munimenta servitii, detrahatis; etiam fera animalia, si clausa
teneas, virtutis obliviscuntur.” Tacit. Hist. iv. 64.]
22 (return) [ The straggling villages of Silesia are several
miles in length. See Cluver. l. i. c. 13.]
23 (return) [ One hundred and forty years after Tacitus, a few
more regular structures were erected near the Rhine and Danube.
Herodian, l. vii. p. 234.]
24 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 17.]
25 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 5.]
26 (return) [ Cæsar de Bell. Gall. vi. 21.]
27 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 26. Cæsar, vi. 22.]
Gold, silver, and iron, were extremely scarce in Germany. Its
barbarous inhabitants wanted both skill and patience to
investigate those rich veins of silver, which have so liberally
rewarded the attention of the princes of Brunswick and Saxony.
Sweden, which now supplies Europe with iron, was equally ignorant
of its own riches; and the appearance of the arms of the Germans
furnished a sufficient proof how little iron they were able to
bestow on what they must have deemed the noblest use of that
metal. The various transactions of peace and war had introduced
some Roman coins (chiefly silver) among the borderers of the
Rhine and Danube; but the more distant tribes were absolutely
unacquainted with the use of money, carried on their confined
traffic by the exchange of commodities, and prized their rude
earthen vessels as of equal value with the silver vases, the
presents of Rome to their princes and ambassadors. 28 To a mind
capable of reflection, such leading facts convey more
instruction, than a tedious detail of subordinate circumstances.
The value of money has been settled by general consent to express
our wants and our property, as letters were invented to express
our ideas; and both these institutions, by giving a more active
energy to the powers and passions of human nature, have
contributed to multiply the objects they were designed to
represent. The use of gold and silver is in a great measure
factitious; but it would be impossible to enumerate the important
and various services which agriculture, and all the arts, have
received from iron, when tempered and fashioned by the operation
of fire and the dexterous hand of man. Money, in a word, is the
most universal incitement, iron the most powerful instrument, of
human industry; and it is very difficult to conceive by what
means a people, neither actuated by the one, nor seconded by the
other, could emerge from the grossest barbarism. 29
28 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 6.]
29 (return) [ It is said that the Mexicans and Peruvians, without
the use of either money or iron, had made a very great progress
in the arts. Those arts, and the monuments they produced, have
been strangely magnified. See Recherches sur les Americains, tom.
ii. p. 153, &c]
If we contemplate a savage nation in any part of the globe, a
supine indolence and a carelessness of futurity will be found to
constitute their general character. In a civilized state every
faculty of man is expanded and exercised; and the great chain of
mutual dependence connects and embraces the several members of
society. The most numerous portion of it is employed in constant
and useful labor. The select few, placed by fortune above that
necessity, can, however, fill up their time by the pursuits of
interest or glory, by the improvement of their estate or of their
understanding, by the duties, the pleasures, and even the follies
of social life. The Germans were not possessed of these varied
resources. The care of the house and family, the management of
the land and cattle, were delegated to the old and the infirm, to
women and slaves. The lazy warrior, destitute of every art that
might employ his leisure hours, consumed his days and nights in
the animal gratifications of sleep and food. And yet, by a
wonderful diversity of nature, (according to the remark of a
writer who had pierced into its darkest recesses,) the same
barbarians are by turns the most indolent and the most restless
of mankind. They delight in sloth, they detest tranquility. 30
The languid soul, oppressed with its own weight, anxiously
required some new and powerful sensation; and war and danger were
the only amusements adequate to its fierce temper. The sound that
summoned the German to arms was grateful to his ear. It roused
him from his uncomfortable lethargy, gave him an active pursuit,
and, by strong exercise of the body, and violent emotions of the
mind, restored him to a more lively sense of his existence. In
the dull intervals of peace, these barbarians were immoderately
addicted to deep gaming and excessive drinking; both of which, by
different means, the one by inflaming their passions, the other
by extinguishing their reason, alike relieved them from the pain
of thinking. They gloried in passing whole days and nights at
table; and the blood of friends and relations often stained their
numerous and drunken assemblies. 31 Their debts of honor (for in
that light they have transmitted to us those of play) they
discharged with the most romantic fidelity. The desperate
gamester, who had staked his person and liberty on a last throw
of the dice, patiently submitted to the decision of fortune, and
suffered himself to be bound, chastised, and sold into remote
slavery, by his weaker but more lucky antagonist. 32
30 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 15.]
31 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 22, 23.]
32 (return) [ Id. 24. The Germans might borrow the arts of play
from the Romans, but the passion is wonderfully inherent in the
human species.]
Strong beer, a liquor extracted with very little art from wheat
or barley, and _corrupted_ (as it is strongly expressed by
Tacitus) into a certain semblance of wine, was sufficient for the
gross purposes of German debauchery. But those who had tasted the
rich wines of Italy, and afterwards of Gaul, sighed for that more
delicious species of intoxication. They attempted not, however,
(as has since been executed with so much success,) to naturalize
the vine on the banks of the Rhine and Danube; nor did they
endeavor to procure by industry the materials of an advantageous
commerce. To solicit by labor what might be ravished by arms, was
esteemed unworthy of the German spirit. 33 The intemperate thirst
of strong liquors often urged the barbarians to invade the
provinces on which art or nature had bestowed those much envied
presents. The Tuscan who betrayed his country to the Celtic
nations, attracted them into Italy by the prospect of the rich
fruits and delicious wines, the productions of a happier climate.
34 And in the same manner the German auxiliaries, invited into
France during the civil wars of the sixteenth century, were
allured by the promise of plenteous quarters in the provinces of
Champaigne and Burgundy. 35 Drunkenness, the most illiberal, but
not the most dangerous of _our_ vices, was sometimes capable, in
a less civilized state of mankind, of occasioning a battle, a
war, or a revolution.
33 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 14.]
34 (return) [ Plutarch. in Camillo. T. Liv. v. 33.]
35 (return) [ Dubos. Hist. de la Monarchie Francoise, tom. i. p.
193.]
The climate of ancient Germany has been modified, and the soil
fertilized, by the labor of ten centuries from the time of
Charlemagne. The same extent of ground which at present
maintains, in ease and plenty, a million of husbandmen and
artificers, was unable to supply a hundred thousand lazy warriors
with the simple necessaries of life. 36 The Germans abandoned
their immense forests to the exercise of hunting, employed in
pasturage the most considerable part of their lands, bestowed on
the small remainder a rude and careless cultivation, and then
accused the scantiness and sterility of a country that refused to
maintain the multitude of its inhabitants. When the return of
famine severely admonished them of the importance of the arts,
the national distress was sometimes alleviated by the emigration
of a third, perhaps, or a fourth part of their youth. 37 The
possession and the enjoyment of property are the pledges which
bind a civilized people to an improved country. But the Germans,
who carried with them what they most valued, their arms, their
cattle, and their women, cheerfully abandoned the vast silence of
their woods for the unbounded hopes of plunder and conquest. The
innumerable swarms that issued, or seemed to issue, from the
great storehouse of nations, were multiplied by the fears of the
vanquished, and by the credulity of succeeding ages. And from
facts thus exaggerated, an opinion was gradually established, and
has been supported by writers of distinguished reputation, that,
in the age of Cæsar and Tacitus, the inhabitants of the North
were far more numerous than they are in our days. 38 A more
serious inquiry into the causes of population seems to have
convinced modern philosophers of the falsehood, and indeed the
impossibility, of the supposition. To the names of Mariana and of
Machiavel, 39 we can oppose the equal names of Robertson and
Hume. 40
36 (return) [ The Helvetian nation, which issued from a country
called Switzerland, contained, of every age and sex, 368,000
persons, (Cæsar de Bell. Gal. i. 29.) At present, the number of
people in the Pays de Vaud (a small district on the banks of the
Leman Lake, much more distinguished for politeness than for
industry) amounts to 112,591. See an excellent tract of M. Muret,
in the Memoires de la Societe de Born.]
37 (return) [ Paul Diaconus, c. 1, 2, 3. Machiavel, Davila, and
the rest of Paul’s followers, represent these emigrations too
much as regular and concerted measures.]
38 (return) [ Sir William Temple and Montesquieu have indulged,
on this subject, the usual liveliness of their fancy.]
39 (return) [ Machiavel, Hist. di Firenze, l. i. Mariana, Hist.
Hispan. l. v. c. 1]
40 (return) [ Robertson’s Charles V. Hume’s Political Essays.
Note: It is a wise observation of Malthus, that these nations
“were not populous in proportion to the land they occupied, but
to the food they produced.” They were prolific from their pure
morals and constitutions, but their institutions were not
calculated to produce food for those whom they brought into
being.—M—1845.]
A warlike nation like the Germans, without either cities,
letters, arts, or money, found some compensation for this savage
state in the enjoyment of liberty. Their poverty secured their
freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest
fetters of despotism. “Among the Suiones (says Tacitus) riches
are held in honor. They are _therefore_ subject to an absolute
monarch, who, instead of intrusting his people with the free use
of arms, as is practised in the rest of Germany, commits them to
the safe custody, not of a citizen, or even of a freedman, but of
a slave. The neighbors of the Suiones, the Sitones, are sunk even
below servitude; they obey a woman.” 41 In the mention of these
exceptions, the great historian sufficiently acknowledges the
general theory of government. We are only at a loss to conceive
by what means riches and despotism could penetrate into a remote
corner of the North, and extinguish the generous flame that
blazed with such fierceness on the frontier of the Roman
provinces, or how the ancestors of those Danes and Norwegians, so
distinguished in latter ages by their unconquered spirit, could
thus tamely resign the great character of German liberty. 42 Some
tribes, however, on the coast of the Baltic, acknowledged the
authority of kings, though without relinquishing the rights of
men, 43 but in the far greater part of Germany, the form of
government was a democracy, tempered, indeed, and controlled, not
so much by general and positive laws, as by the occasional
ascendant of birth or valor, of eloquence or superstition. 44
41 (return) [ Tacit. German. 44, 45. Freinshemius (who dedicated
his supplement to Livy to Christina of Sweden) thinks proper to
be very angry with the Roman who expressed so very little
reverence for Northern queens. Note: The Suiones and the Sitones
are the ancient inhabitants of Scandinavia, their name may be
traced in that of Sweden; they did not belong to the race of the
Suevi, but that of the non-Suevi or Cimbri, whom the Suevi, in
very remote times, drove back part to the west, part to the
north; they were afterwards mingled with Suevian tribes, among
others the Goths, who have traces of their name and power in the
isle of Gothland.—G]
42 (return) [May we not suspect that superstition was the parent
of despotism? The descendants of Odin, (whose race was not
extinct till the year 1060) are said to have reigned in Sweden
above a thousand years. The temple of Upsal was the ancient seat
of religion and empire. In the year 1153 I find a singular law,
prohibiting the use and profession of arms to any except the
king’s guards. Is it not probable that it was colored by the
pretence of reviving an old institution? See Dalin’s History of
Sweden in the Bibliotheque Raisonneo tom. xl. and xlv.]
43 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. c. 43.]
44 (return) [ Id. c. 11, 12, 13, & c.]
Civil governments, in their first institution, are voluntary
associations for mutual defence. To obtain the desired end, it is
absolutely necessary that each individual should conceive himself
obliged to submit his private opinions and actions to the
judgment of the greater number of his associates. The German
tribes were contented with this rude but liberal outline of
political society. As soon as a youth, born of free parents, had
attained the age of manhood, he was introduced into the general
council of his countrymen, solemnly invested with a shield and
spear, and adopted as an equal and worthy member of the military
commonwealth. The assembly of the warriors of the tribe was
convened at stated seasons, or on sudden emergencies. The trial
of public offences, the election of magistrates, and the great
business of peace and war, were determined by its independent
voice. Sometimes indeed, these important questions were
previously considered and prepared in a more select council of
the principal chieftains. 45 The magistrates might deliberate and
persuade, the people only could resolve and execute; and the
resolutions of the Germans were for the most part hasty and
violent. Barbarians accustomed to place their freedom in
gratifying the present passion, and their courage in overlooking
all future consequences, turned away with indignant contempt from
the remonstrances of justice and policy, and it was the practice
to signify by a hollow murmur their dislike of such timid
counsels. But whenever a more popular orator proposed to
vindicate the meanest citizen from either foreign or domestic
injury, whenever he called upon his fellow-countrymen to assert
the national honor, or to pursue some enterprise full of danger
and glory, a loud clashing of shields and spears expressed the
eager applause of the assembly. For the Germans always met in
arms, and it was constantly to be dreaded, lest an irregular
multitude, inflamed with faction and strong liquors, should use
those arms to enforce, as well as to declare, their furious
resolves. We may recollect how often the diets of Poland have
been polluted with blood, and the more numerous party has been
compelled to yield to the more violent and seditious. 46
45 (return) [ Grotius changes an expression of Tacitus,
pertractantur into Prætractantur. The correction is equally just
and ingenious.]
46 (return) [ Even in our ancient parliament, the barons often
carried a question, not so much by the number of votes, as by
that of their armed followers.]
A general of the tribe was elected on occasions of danger; and,
if the danger was pressing and extensive, several tribes
concurred in the choice of the same general. The bravest warrior
was named to lead his countrymen into the field, by his example
rather than by his commands. But this power, however limited, was
still invidious. It expired with the war, and in time of peace
the German tribes acknowledged not any supreme chief. 47
_Princes_ were, however, appointed, in the general assembly, to
administer justice, or rather to compose differences, 48 in their
respective districts. In the choice of these magistrates, as much
regard was shown to birth as to merit. 49 To each was assigned,
by the public, a guard, and a council of a hundred persons, and
the first of the princes appears to have enjoyed a preeminence of
rank and honor which sometimes tempted the Romans to compliment
him with the regal title. 50
47 (return) [ Cæsar de Bell. Gal. vi. 23.]
48 (return) [ Minuunt controversias, is a very happy expression
of Cæsar’s.]
49 (return) [ Reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute sumunt. Tacit
Germ. 7]
50 (return) [ Cluver. Germ. Ant. l. i. c. 38.]
The comparative view of the powers of the magistrates, in two
remarkable instances, is alone sufficient to represent the whole
system of German manners. The disposal of the landed property
within their district was absolutely vested in their hands, and
they distributed it every year according to a new division. 51 At
the same time they were not authorized to punish with death, to
imprison, or even to strike a private citizen. 52 A people thus
jealous of their persons, and careless of their possessions, must
have been totally destitute of industry and the arts, but
animated with a high sense of honor and independence.
51 (return) [ Cæsar, vi. 22. Tacit Germ. 26.]
52 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 7.]
Chapter IX: State Of Germany Until The Barbarians.—Part III.
The Germans respected only those duties which they imposed on
themselves. The most obscure soldier resisted with disdain the
authority of the magistrates. “The noblest youths blushed not to
be numbered among the faithful companions of some renowned chief,
to whom they devoted their arms and service. A noble emulation
prevailed among the companions to obtain the first place in the
esteem of their chief; amongst the chiefs, to acquire the
greatest number of valiant companions. To be ever surrounded by a
band of select youths was the pride and strength of the chiefs,
their ornament in peace, their defence in war. The glory of such
distinguished heroes diffused itself beyond the narrow limits of
their own tribe. Presents and embassies solicited their
friendship, and the fame of their arms often insured victory to
the party which they espoused. In the hour of danger it was
shameful for the chief to be surpassed in valor by his
companions; shameful for the companions not to equal the valor of
their chief. To survive his fall in battle was indelible infamy.
To protect his person, and to adorn his glory with the trophies
of their own exploits, were the most sacred of their duties. The
chiefs combated for victory, the companions for the chief. The
noblest warriors, whenever their native country was sunk into the
laziness of peace, maintained their numerous bands in some
distant scene of action, to exercise their restless spirit, and
to acquire renown by voluntary dangers. Gifts worthy of
soldiers—the warlike steed, the bloody and ever victorious
lance—were the rewards which the companions claimed from the
liberality of their chief. The rude plenty of his hospitable
board was the only pay that _he_ could bestow, or _they_ would
accept. War, rapine, and the free-will offerings of his friends,
supplied the materials of this munificence.” 53 This institution,
however it might accidentally weaken the several republics,
invigorated the general character of the Germans, and even
ripened amongst them all the virtues of which barbarians are
susceptible; the faith and valor, the hospitality and the
courtesy, so conspicuous long afterwards in the ages of chivalry.
The honorable gifts, bestowed by the chief on his brave
companions, have been supposed, by an ingenious writer, to
contain the first rudiments of the fiefs, distributed after the
conquest of the Roman provinces, by the barbarian lords among
their vassals, with a similar duty of homage and military
service. 54 These conditions are, however, very repugnant to the
maxims of the ancient Germans, who delighted in mutual presents,
but without either imposing, or accepting, the weight of
obligations. 55
53 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 13, 14.]
54 (return) [ Esprit des Loix, l. xxx. c. 3. The brilliant
imagination of Montesquieu is corrected, however, by the dry,
cold reason of the Abbé de Mably. Observations sur l’Histoire de
France, tom. i. p. 356.]
55 (return) [ Gaudent muneribus, sed nec data imputant, nec
acceptis obligautur. Tacit. Germ. c. 21.]
“In the days of chivalry, or more properly of romance, all the
men were brave and all the women were chaste;” and
notwithstanding the latter of these virtues is acquired and
preserved with much more difficulty than the former, it is
ascribed, almost without exception, to the wives of the ancient
Germans. Polygamy was not in use, except among the princes, and
among them only for the sake of multiplying their alliances.
Divorces were prohibited by manners rather than by laws.
Adulteries were punished as rare and inexpiable crimes; nor was
seduction justified by example and fashion. 56 We may easily
discover that Tacitus indulges an honest pleasure in the contrast
of barbarian virtue with the dissolute conduct of the Roman
ladies; yet there are some striking circumstances that give an
air of truth, or at least probability, to the conjugal faith and
chastity of the Germans.
56 (return) [ The adulteress was whipped through the village.
Neither wealth nor beauty could inspire compassion, or procure
her a second husband. 18, 19.]
Although the progress of civilization has undoubtedly contributed
to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have
been less favorable to the virtue of chastity, whose most
dangerous enemy is the softness of the mind. The refinements of
life corrupt while they polish the intercourse of the sexes. The
gross appetite of love becomes most dangerous when it is
elevated, or rather, indeed, disguised by sentimental passion.
The elegance of dress, of motion, and of manners, gives a lustre
to beauty, and inflames the senses through the imagination.
Luxurious entertainments, midnight dances, and licentious
spectacles, present at once temptation and opportunity to female
frailty. 57 From such dangers the unpolished wives of the
barbarians were secured by poverty, solitude, and the painful
cares of a domestic life. The German huts, open, on every side,
to the eye of indiscretion or jealousy, were a better safeguard
of conjugal fidelity than the walls, the bolts, and the eunuchs
of a Persian harem. To this reason another may be added of a more
honorable nature. The Germans treated their women with esteem and
confidence, consulted them on every occasion of importance, and
fondly believed, that in their breasts resided a sanctity and
wisdom more than human. Some of the interpreters of fate, such as
Velleda, in the Batavian war, governed, in the name of the deity,
the fiercest nations of Germany. 58 The rest of the sex, without
being adored as goddesses, were respected as the free and equal
companions of soldiers; associated even by the marriage ceremony
to a life of toil, of danger, and of glory. 59 In their great
invasions, the camps of the barbarians were filled with a
multitude of women, who remained firm and undaunted amidst the
sound of arms, the various forms of destruction, and the
honorable wounds of their sons and husbands. 60 Fainting armies
of Germans have, more than once, been driven back upon the enemy
by the generous despair of the women, who dreaded death much less
than servitude. If the day was irrecoverably lost, they well knew
how to deliver themselves and their children, with their own
hands, from an insulting victor. 61 Heroines of such a cast may
claim our admiration; but they were most assuredly neither lovely
nor very susceptible of love. Whilst they affected to emulate the
stern virtues of _man_, they must have resigned that attractive
softness in which principally consist the charm and weakness of
_woman_. Conscious pride taught the German females to suppress
every tender emotion that stood in competition with honor, and
the first honor of the sex has ever been that of chastity. The
sentiments and conduct of these high-spirited matrons may, at
once, be considered as a cause, as an effect, and as a proof of
the general character of the nation. Female courage, however it
may be raised by fanaticism, or confirmed by habit, can be only a
faint and imperfect imitation of the manly valor that
distinguishes the age or country in which it may be found.
57 (return) [ Ovid employs two hundred lines in the research of
places the most favorable to love. Above all, he considers the
theatre as the best adapted to collect the beauties of Rome, and
to melt them into tenderness and sensuality,]
58 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. iv. 61, 65.]
59 (return) [ The marriage present was a yoke of oxen, horses,
and arms. See Germ. c. 18. Tacitus is somewhat too florid on the
subject.]
60 (return) [ The change of exigere into exugere is a most
excellent correction.]
61 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. c. 7. Plutarch in Mario. Before the
wives of the Teutones destroyed themselves and their children,
they had offered to surrender, on condition that they should be
received as the slaves of the vestal virgins.]
The religious system of the Germans (if the wild opinions of
savages can deserve that name) was dictated by their wants, their
fears, and their ignorance. 62 They adored the great visible
objects and agents of nature, the Sun and the Moon, the Fire and
the Earth; together with those imaginary deities, who were
supposed to preside over the most important occupations of human
life. They were persuaded, that, by some ridiculous arts of
divination, they could discover the will of the superior beings,
and that human sacrifices were the most precious and acceptable
offering to their altars. Some applause has been hastily bestowed
on the sublime notion, entertained by that people, of the Deity,
whom they neither confined within the walls of the temple, nor
represented by any human figure; but when we recollect, that the
Germans were unskilled in architecture, and totally unacquainted
with the art of sculpture, we shall readily assign the true
reason of a scruple, which arose not so much from a superiority
of reason, as from a want of ingenuity. The only temples in
Germany were dark and ancient groves, consecrated by the
reverence of succeeding generations. Their secret gloom, the
imagined residence of an invisible power, by presenting no
distinct object of fear or worship, impressed the mind with a
still deeper sense of religious horror; 63 and the priests, rude
and illiterate as they were, had been taught by experience the
use of every artifice that could preserve and fortify impressions
so well suited to their own interest.
62 (return) [ Tacitus has employed a few lines, and Cluverius one
hundred and twenty-four pages, on this obscure subject. The
former discovers in Germany the gods of Greece and Rome. The
latter is positive, that, under the emblems of the sun, the moon,
and the fire, his pious ancestors worshipped the Trinity in
unity]
63 (return) [ The sacred wood, described with such sublime horror
by Lucan, was in the neighborhood of Marseilles; but there were
many of the same kind in Germany. * Note: The ancient Germans had
shapeless idols, and, when they began to build more settled
habitations, they raised also temples, such as that to the
goddess Teufana, who presided over divination. See Adelung, Hist.
of Ane Germans, p 296—G]
The same ignorance, which renders barbarians incapable of
conceiving or embracing the useful restraints of laws, exposes
them naked and unarmed to the blind terrors of superstition. The
German priests, improving this favorable temper of their
countrymen, had assumed a jurisdiction even in temporal concerns,
which the magistrate could not venture to exercise; and the
haughty warrior patiently submitted to the lash of correction,
when it was inflicted, not by any human power, but by the
immediate order of the god of war. 64 The defects of civil policy
were sometimes supplied by the interposition of ecclesiastical
authority. The latter was constantly exerted to maintain silence
and decency in the popular assemblies; and was sometimes extended
to a more enlarged concern for the national welfare. A solemn
procession was occasionally celebrated in the present countries
of Mecklenburgh and Pomerania. The unknown symbol of the _Earth_,
covered with a thick veil, was placed on a carriage drawn by
cows; and in this manner the goddess, whose common residence was
in the Isles of Rugen, visited several adjacent tribes of her
worshippers. During her progress the sound of war was hushed,
quarrels were suspended, arms laid aside, and the restless
Germans had an opportunity of tasting the blessings of peace and
harmony. 65 The _truce of God_, so often and so ineffectually
proclaimed by the clergy of the eleventh century, was an obvious
imitation of this ancient custom. 66
64 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 7.]
65 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 40.]
66 (return) [ See Dr. Robertson’s History of Charles V. vol. i.
note 10.]
But the influence of religion was far more powerful to inflame,
than to moderate, the fierce passions of the Germans. Interest
and fanaticism often prompted its ministers to sanctify the most
daring and the most unjust enterprises, by the approbation of
Heaven, and full assurances of success. The consecrated
standards, long revered in the groves of superstition, were
placed in the front of the battle; 67 and the hostile army was
devoted with dire execrations to the gods of war and of thunder.
68 In the faith of soldiers (and such were the Germans) cowardice
is the most unpardonable of sins. A brave man was the worthy
favorite of their martial deities; the wretch who had lost his
shield was alike banished from the religious and civil assemblies
of his countrymen. Some tribes of the north seem to have embraced
the doctrine of transmigration, 69 others imagined a gross
paradise of immortal drunkenness. 70 All agreed that a life spent
in arms, and a glorious death in battle, were the best
preparations for a happy futurity, either in this or in another
world.
67 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 7. These standards were only
the heads of wild beasts.]
68 (return) [ See an instance of this custom, Tacit. Annal. xiii.
57.]
69 (return) [ Cæsar Diodorus, and Lucan, seem to ascribe this
doctrine to the Gauls, but M. Pelloutier (Histoire des Celtes, l.
iii. c. 18) labors to reduce their expressions to a more orthodox
sense.]
70 (return) [ Concerning this gross but alluring doctrine of the
Edda, see Fable xx. in the curious version of that book,
published by M. Mallet, in his Introduction to the History of
Denmark.]
The immortality so vainly promised by the priests, was, in some
degree, conferred by the bards. That singular order of men has
most deservedly attracted the notice of all who have attempted to
investigate the antiquities of the Celts, the Scandinavians, and
the Germans. Their genius and character, as well as the reverence
paid to that important office, have been sufficiently
illustrated. But we cannot so easily express, or even conceive,
the enthusiasm of arms and glory which they kindled in the breast
of their audience. Among a polished people a taste for poetry is
rather an amusement of the fancy than a passion of the soul. And
yet, when in calm retirement we peruse the combats described by
Homer or Tasso, we are insensibly seduced by the fiction, and
feel a momentary glow of martial ardor. But how faint, how cold
is the sensation which a peaceful mind can receive from solitary
study! It was in the hour of battle, or in the feast of victory,
that the bards celebrated the glory of the heroes of ancient
days, the ancestors of those warlike chieftains, who listened
with transport to their artless but animated strains. The view of
arms and of danger heightened the effect of the military song;
and the passions which it tended to excite, the desire of fame,
and the contempt of death, were the habitual sentiments of a
German mind. 71 711
71 (return) [ See Tacit. Germ. c. 3. Diod. Sicul. l. v. Strabo,
l. iv. p. 197. The classical reader may remember the rank of
Demodocus in the Phæacian court, and the ardor infused by Tyrtæus
into the fainting Spartans. Yet there is little probability that
the Greeks and the Germans were the same people. Much learned
trifling might be spared, if our antiquarians would condescend to
reflect, that similar manners will naturally be produced by
similar situations.]
711 (return) [ Besides these battle songs, the Germans sang at
their festival banquets, (Tac. Ann. i. 65,) and around the bodies
of their slain heroes. King Theodoric, of the tribe of the Goths,
killed in a battle against Attila, was honored by songs while he
was borne from the field of battle. Jornandes, c. 41. The same
honor was paid to the remains of Attila. Ibid. c. 49. According
to some historians, the Germans had songs also at their weddings;
but this appears to me inconsistent with their customs, in which
marriage was no more than the purchase of a wife. Besides, there
is but one instance of this, that of the Gothic king, Ataulph,
who sang himself the nuptial hymn when he espoused Placidia,
sister of the emperors Arcadius and Honorius, (Olympiodor. p. 8.)
But this marriage was celebrated according to the Roman rites, of
which the nuptial songs formed a part. Adelung, p. 382.—G.
Charlemagne is said to have collected the national songs of the
ancient Germans. Eginhard, Vit. Car. Mag.—M.]
Such was the situation, and such were the manners of the ancient
Germans. Their climate, their want of learning, of arts, and of
laws, their notions of honor, of gallantry, and of religion,
their sense of freedom, impatience of peace, and thirst of
enterprise, all contributed to form a people of military heroes.
And yet we find, that during more than two hundred and fifty
years that elapsed from the defeat of Varus to the reign of
Decius, these formidable barbarians made few considerable
attempts, and not any material impression on the luxurious, and
enslaved provinces of the empire. Their progress was checked by
their want of arms and discipline, and their fury was diverted by
the intestine divisions of ancient Germany. I. It has been
observed, with ingenuity, and not without truth, that the command
of iron soon gives a nation the command of gold. But the rude
tribes of Germany, alike destitute of both those valuable metals,
were reduced slowly to acquire, by their unassisted strength, the
possession of the one as well as the other. The face of a German
army displayed their poverty of iron. Swords, and the longer kind
of lances, they could seldom use. Their _frameæ_ (as they called
them in their own language) were long spears headed with a sharp
but narrow iron point, and which, as occasion required, they
either darted from a distance, or pushed in close onset. With
this spear, and with a shield, their cavalry was contented. A
multitude of darts, scattered 72 with incredible force, were an
additional resource of the infantry. Their military dress, when
they wore any, was nothing more than a loose mantle. A variety of
colors was the only ornament of their wooden or osier shields.
Few of the chiefs were distinguished by cuirasses, scarcely any
by helmets. Though the horses of Germany were neither beautiful,
swift, nor practised in the skilful evolutions of the Roman
manege, several of the nations obtained renown by their cavalry;
but, in general, the principal strength of the Germans consisted
in their infantry, 73 which was drawn up in several deep columns,
according to the distinction of tribes and families. Impatient of
fatigue and delay, these half-armed warriors rushed to battle
with dissonant shouts and disordered ranks; and sometimes, by the
effort of native valor, prevailed over the constrained and more
artificial bravery of the Roman mercenaries. But as the
barbarians poured forth their whole souls on the first onset,
they knew not how to rally or to retire. A repulse was a sure
defeat; and a defeat was most commonly total destruction. When we
recollect the complete armor of the Roman soldiers, their
discipline, exercises, evolutions, fortified camps, and military
engines, it appears a just matter of surprise, how the naked and
unassisted valor of the barbarians could dare to encounter, in
the field, the strength of the legions, and the various troops of
the auxiliaries, which seconded their operations. The contest was
too unequal, till the introduction of luxury had enervated the
vigor, and a spirit of disobedience and sedition had relaxed the
discipline, of the Roman armies. The introduction of barbarian
auxiliaries into those armies, was a measure attended with very
obvious dangers, as it might gradually instruct the Germans in
the arts of war and of policy. Although they were admitted in
small numbers and with the strictest precaution, the example of
Civilis was proper to convince the Romans, that the danger was
not imaginary, and that their precautions were not always
sufficient. 74 During the civil wars that followed the death of
Nero, that artful and intrepid Batavian, whom his enemies
condescended to compare with Hannibal and Sertorius, 75 formed a
great design of freedom and ambition. Eight Batavian cohorts
renowned in the wars of Britain and Italy, repaired to his
standard. He introduced an army of Germans into Gaul, prevailed
on the powerful cities of Treves and Langres to embrace his
cause, defeated the legions, destroyed their fortified camps, and
employed against the Romans the military knowledge which he had
acquired in their service. When at length, after an obstinate
struggle, he yielded to the power of the empire, Civilis secured
himself and his country by an honorable treaty. The Batavians
still continued to occupy the islands of the Rhine, 76 the
allies, not the servants, of the Roman monarchy.
72 (return) [ Missilia spargunt, Tacit. Germ. c. 6. Either that
historian used a vague expression, or he meant that they were
thrown at random.]
73 (return) [ It was their principal distinction from the
Sarmatians, who generally fought on horseback.]
74 (return) [ The relation of this enterprise occupies a great
part of the fourth and fifth books of the History of Tacitus, and
is more remarkable for its eloquence than perspicuity. Sir Henry
Saville has observed several inaccuracies.]
75 (return) [ Tacit. Hist. iv. 13. Like them he had lost an eye.]
76 (return) [ It was contained between the two branches of the
old Rhine, as they subsisted before the face of the country was
changed by art and nature. See Cluver German. Antiq. l. iii. c.
30, 37.]
II. The strength of ancient Germany appears formidable, when we
consider the effects that might have been produced by its united
effort. The wide extent of country might very possibly contain a
million of warriors, as all who were of age to bear arms were of
a temper to use them. But this fierce multitude, incapable of
concerting or executing any plan of national greatness, was
agitated by various and often hostile intentions. Germany was
divided into more than forty independent states; and, even in
each state, the union of the several tribes was extremely loose
and precarious. The barbarians were easily provoked; they knew
not how to forgive an injury, much less an insult; their
resentments were bloody and implacable. The casual disputes that
so frequently happened in their tumultuous parties of hunting or
drinking were sufficient to inflame the minds of whole nations;
the private feuds of any considerable chieftains diffused itself
among their followers and allies. To chastise the insolent, or to
plunder the defenceless, were alike causes of war. The most
formidable states of Germany affected to encompass their
territories with a wide frontier of solitude and devastation. The
awful distance preserved by their neighbors attested the terror
of their arms, and in some measure defended them from the danger
of unexpected incursions. 77
77 (return) [ Cæsar de Bell. Gal. l. vi. 23.]
“The Bructeri 771 (it is Tacitus who now speaks) were totally
exterminated by the neighboring tribes, 78 provoked by their
insolence, allured by the hopes of spoil, and perhaps inspired by
the tutelar deities of the empire. Above sixty thousand
barbarians were destroyed; not by the Roman arms, but in our
sight, and for our entertainment. May the nations, enemies of
Rome, ever preserve this enmity to each other! We have now
attained the utmost verge of prosperity, 79 and have nothing left
to demand of fortune, except the discord of the barbarians.”
80—These sentiments, less worthy of the humanity than of the
patriotism of Tacitus, express the invariable maxims of the
policy of his countrymen. They deemed it a much safer expedient
to divide than to combat the barbarians, from whose defeat they
could derive neither honor nor advantage. The money and
negotiations of Rome insinuated themselves into the heart of
Germany; and every art of seduction was used with dignity, to
conciliate those nations whom their proximity to the Rhine or
Danube might render the most useful friends as well as the most
troublesome enemies. Chiefs of renown and power were flattered by
the most trifling presents, which they received either as marks
of distinction, or as the instruments of luxury. In civil
dissensions the weaker faction endeavored to strengthen its
interest by entering into secret connections with the governors
of the frontier provinces. Every quarrel among the Germans was
fomented by the intrigues of Rome; and every plan of union and
public good was defeated by the stronger bias of private jealousy
and interest. 81
771 (return) [ The Bructeri were a non-Suevian tribe, who dwelt
below the duchies of Oldenburgh, and Lauenburgh, on the borders
of the Lippe, and in the Hartz Mountains. It was among them that
the priestess Velleda obtained her renown.—G.]
78 (return) [ They are mentioned, however, in the ivth and vth
centuries by Nazarius, Ammianus, Claudian, &c., as a tribe of
Franks. See Cluver. Germ. Antiq. l. iii. c. 13.]
79 (return) [ Urgentibus is the common reading; but good sense,
Lipsius, and some Mss. declare for Vergentibus.]
80 (return) [ Tacit Germania, c. 33. The pious Abbé de la
Bleterie is very angry with Tacitus, talks of the devil, who was
a murderer from the beginning, &c., &c.]
81 (return) [ Many traces of this policy may be discovered in
Tacitus and Dion: and many more may be inferred from the
principles of human nature.]
The general conspiracy which terrified the Romans under the reign
of Marcus Antoninus, comprehended almost all the nations of
Germany, and even Sarmatia, from the mouth of the Rhine to that
of the Danube. 82 It is impossible for us to determine whether
this hasty confederation was formed by necessity, by reason, or
by passion; but we may rest assured, that the barbarians were
neither allured by the indolence, nor provoked by the ambition,
of the Roman monarch. This dangerous invasion required all the
firmness and vigilance of Marcus. He fixed generals of ability in
the several stations of attack, and assumed in person the conduct
of the most important province on the Upper Danube. After a long
and doubtful conflict, the spirit of the barbarians was subdued.
The Quadi and the Marcomanni, 83 who had taken the lead in the
war, were the most severely punished in its catastrophe. They
were commanded to retire five miles 84 from their own banks of
the Danube, and to deliver up the flower of the youth, who were
immediately sent into Britain, a remote island, where they might
be secure as hostages, and useful as soldiers. 85 On the frequent
rebellions of the Quadi and Marcomanni, the irritated emperor
resolved to reduce their country into the form of a province. His
designs were disappointed by death. This formidable league,
however, the only one that appears in the two first centuries of
the Imperial history, was entirely dissipated, without leaving
any traces behind in Germany.
82 (return) [ Hist. Aug. p. 31. Ammian. Marcellin. l. xxxi. c. 5.
Aurel. Victor. The emperor Marcus was reduced to sell the rich
furniture of the palace, and to enlist slaves and robbers.]
83 (return) [ The Marcomanni, a colony, who, from the banks of
the Rhine occupied Bohemia and Moravia, had once erected a great
and formidable monarchy under their king Maroboduus. See Strabo,
l. vii. [p. 290.] Vell. Pat. ii. 108. Tacit. Annal. ii. 63. *
Note: The Mark-manæn, the March-men or borderers. There seems
little doubt that this was an appellation, rather than a proper
name of a part of the great Suevian or Teutonic race.—M.]
84 (return) [ Mr. Wotton (History of Rome, p. 166) increases the
prohibition to ten times the distance. His reasoning is specious,
but not conclusive. Five miles were sufficient for a fortified
barrier.]
85 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxi. and lxxii.]
In the course of this introductory chapter, we have confined
ourselves to the general outlines of the manners of Germany,
without attempting to describe or to distinguish the various
tribes which filled that great country in the time of Cæsar, of
Tacitus, or of Ptolemy. As the ancient, or as new tribes
successively present themselves in the series of this history, we
shall concisely mention their origin, their situation, and their
particular character. Modern nations are fixed and permanent
societies, connected among themselves by laws and government,
bound to their native soil by art and agriculture. The German
tribes were voluntary and fluctuating associations of soldiers,
almost of savages. The same territory often changed its
inhabitants in the tide of conquest and emigration. The same
communities, uniting in a plan of defence or invasion, bestowed a
new title on their new confederacy. The dissolution of an ancient
confederacy restored to the independent tribes their peculiar but
long-forgotten appellation. A victorious state often communicated
its own name to a vanquished people. Sometimes crowds of
volunteers flocked from all parts to the standard of a favorite
leader; his camp became their country, and some circumstance of
the enterprise soon gave a common denomination to the mixed
multitude. The distinctions of the ferocious invaders were
perpetually varied by themselves, and confounded by the
astonished subjects of the Roman empire. 86
86 (return) [ See an excellent dissertation on the origin and
migrations of nations, in the Memoires de l’Academie des
Inscriptions, tom. xviii. p. 48—71. It is seldom that the
antiquarian and the philosopher are so happily blended.]
Wars, and the administration of public affairs, are the principal
subjects of history; but the number of persons interested in
these busy scenes is very different, according to the different
condition of mankind. In great monarchies, millions of obedient
subjects pursue their useful occupations in peace and obscurity.
The attention of the writer, as well as of the reader, is solely
confined to a court, a capital, a regular army, and the districts
which happen to be the occasional scene of military operations.
But a state of freedom and barbarism, the season of civil
commotions, or the situation of petty republics, 87 raises almost
every member of the community into action, and consequently into
notice. The irregular divisions, and the restless motions, of the
people of Germany, dazzle our imagination, and seem to multiply
their numbers. The profuse enumeration of kings, of warriors, of
armies and nations, inclines us to forget that the same objects
are continually repeated under a variety of appellations, and
that the most splendid appellations have been frequently lavished
on the most inconsiderable objects.
87 (return) [ Should we suspect that Athens contained only 21,000
citizens, and Sparta no more than 39,000? See Hume and Wallace on
the number of mankind in ancient and modern times. * Note: This
number, though too positively stated, is probably not far wrong,
as an average estimate. On the subject of Athenian population,
see St. Croix, Acad. des Inscrip. xlviii. Bœckh, Public Economy
of Athens, i. 47. Eng Trans, Fynes Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, vol.
i. p. 381. The latter author estimates the citizens of Sparta at
33,000—M.]
Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And
Gallienus—Part I.
The Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian, And Gallienus.—The
General Irruption Of The Barbari Ans.—The Thirty Tyrants.
From the great secular games celebrated by Philip, to the death
of the emperor Gallienus, there elapsed twenty years of shame and
misfortune. During that calamitous period, every instant of time
was marked, every province of the Roman world was afflicted, by
barbarous invaders, and military tyrants, and the ruined empire
seemed to approach the last and fatal moment of its dissolution.
The confusion of the times, and the scarcity of authentic
memorials, oppose equal difficulties to the historian, who
attempts to preserve a clear and unbroken thread of narration.
Surrounded with imperfect fragments, always concise, often
obscure, and sometimes contradictory, he is reduced to collect,
to compare, and to conjecture: and though he ought never to place
his conjectures in the rank of facts, yet the knowledge of human
nature, and of the sure operation of its fierce and unrestrained
passions, might, on some occasions, supply the want of historical
materials.
There is not, for instance, any difficulty in conceiving, that
the successive murders of so many emperors had loosened all the
ties of allegiance between the prince and people; that all the
generals of Philip were disposed to imitate the example of their
master; and that the caprice of armies, long since habituated to
frequent and violent revolutions, might every day raise to the
throne the most obscure of their fellow-soldiers. History can
only add, that the rebellion against the emperor Philip broke out
in the summer of the year two hundred and forty-nine, among the
legions of Mæsia; and that a subaltern officer, 1 named Marinus,
was the object of their seditious choice. Philip was alarmed. He
dreaded lest the treason of the Mæsian army should prove the
first spark of a general conflagration. Distracted with the
consciousness of his guilt and of his danger, he communicated the
intelligence to the senate. A gloomy silence prevailed, the
effect of fear, and perhaps of disaffection; till at length
Decius, one of the assembly, assuming a spirit worthy of his
noble extraction, ventured to discover more intrepidity than the
emperor seemed to possess. He treated the whole business with
contempt, as a hasty and inconsiderate tumult, and Philip’s rival
as a phantom of royalty, who in a very few days would be
destroyed by the same inconstancy that had created him. The
speedy completion of the prophecy inspired Philip with a just
esteem for so able a counsellor; and Decius appeared to him the
only person capable of restoring peace and discipline to an army
whose tumultuous spirit did not immediately subside after the
murder of Marinus. Decius, 2 who long resisted his own
nomination, seems to have insinuated the danger of presenting a
leader of merit to the angry and apprehensive minds of the
soldiers; and his prediction was again confirmed by the event.
The legions of Mæsia forced their judge to become their
accomplice. They left him only the alternative of death or the
purple. His subsequent conduct, after that decisive measure, was
unavoidable. He conducted, or followed, his army to the confines
of Italy, whither Philip, collecting all his force to repel the
formidable competitor whom he had raised up, advanced to meet
him. The Imperial troops were superior in number; but the rebels
formed an army of veterans, commanded by an able and experienced
leader. Philip was either killed in the battle, or put to death a
few days afterwards at Verona. His son and associate in the
empire was massacred at Rome by the Prætorian guards; and the
victorious Decius, with more favorable circumstances than the
ambition of that age can usually plead, was universally
acknowledged by the senate and provinces. It is reported, that,
immediately after his reluctant acceptance of the title of
Augustus, he had assured Philip, by a private message, of his
innocence and loyalty, solemnly protesting, that, on his arrival
on Italy, he would resign the Imperial ornaments, and return to
the condition of an obedient subject. His professions might be
sincere; but in the situation where fortune had placed him, it
was scarcely possible that he could either forgive or be
forgiven. 3
1 (return) [ The expression used by Zosimus and Zonaras may
signify that Marinus commanded a century, a cohort, or a legion.]
2 (return) [ His birth at Bubalia, a little village in Pannonia,
(Eutrop. ix. Victor. in Cæsarib. et Epitom.,) seems to
contradict, unless it was merely accidental, his supposed descent
from the Decii. Six hundred years had bestowed nobility on the
Decii: but at the commencement of that period, they were only
plebeians of merit, and among the first who shared the consulship
with the haughty patricians. Plebeine Deciorum animæ, &c.
Juvenal, Sat. viii. 254. See the spirited speech of Decius, in
Livy. x. 9, 10.]
3 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 20, c. 22. Zonaras, l. xii. p.
624, edit. Louvre.]
The emperor Decius had employed a few months in the works of
peace and the administration of justice, when he was summoned to
the banks of the Danube by the invasion of the Goths. This is the
first considerable occasion in which history mentions that great
people, who afterwards broke the Roman power, sacked the Capitol,
and reigned in Gaul, Spain, and Italy. So memorable was the part
which they acted in the subversion of the Western empire, that
the name of Goths is frequently but improperly used as a general
appellation of rude and warlike barbarism.
In the beginning of the sixth century, and after the conquest of
Italy, the Goths, in possession of present greatness, very
naturally indulged themselves in the prospect of past and of
future glory. They wished to preserve the memory of their
ancestors, and to transmit to posterity their own achievements.
The principal minister of the court of Ravenna, the learned
Cassiodorus, gratified the inclination of the conquerors in a
Gothic history, which consisted of twelve books, now reduced to
the imperfect abridgment of Jornandes. 4 These writers passed
with the most artful conciseness over the misfortunes of the
nation, celebrated its successful valor, and adorned the triumph
with many Asiatic trophies, that more properly belonged to the
people of Scythia. On the faith of ancient songs, the uncertain,
but the only memorials of barbarians, they deduced the first
origin of the Goths from the vast island, or peninsula, of
Scandinavia. 5 501 That extreme country of the North was not
unknown to the conquerors of Italy: the ties of ancient
consanguinity had been strengthened by recent offices of
friendship; and a Scandinavian king had cheerfully abdicated his
savage greatness, that he might pass the remainder of his days in
the peaceful and polished court of Ravenna. 6 Many vestiges,
which cannot be ascribed to the arts of popular vanity, attest
the ancient residence of the Goths in the countries beyond the
Rhine. From the time of the geographer Ptolemy, the southern part
of Sweden seems to have continued in the possession of the less
enterprising remnant of the nation, and a large territory is even
at present divided into east and west Gothland. During the middle
ages, (from the ninth to the twelfth century,) whilst
Christianity was advancing with a slow progress into the North,
the Goths and the Swedes composed two distinct and sometimes
hostile members of the same monarchy. 7 The latter of these two
names has prevailed without extinguishing the former. The Swedes,
who might well be satisfied with their own fame in arms, have, in
every age, claimed the kindred glory of the Goths. In a moment of
discontent against the court of Rome, Charles the Twelfth
insinuated, that his victorious troops were not degenerated from
their brave ancestors, who had already subdued the mistress of
the world. 8
4 (return) [ See the prefaces of Cassiodorus and Jornandes; it is
surprising that the latter should be omitted in the excellent
edition, published by Grotius, of the Gothic writers.]
5 (return) [ On the authority of Ablavius, Jornandes quotes some
old Gothic chronicles in verse. De Reb. Geticis, c. 4.]
501 (return) [ The Goths have inhabited Scandinavia, but it was
not their original habitation. This great nation was anciently of
the Suevian race; it occupied, in the time of Tacitus, and long
before, Mecklenburgh, Pomerania Southern Prussia and the
north-west of Poland. A little before the birth of J. C., and in
the first years of that century, they belonged to the kingdom of
Marbod, king of the Marcomanni: but Cotwalda, a young Gothic
prince, delivered them from that tyranny, and established his own
power over the kingdom of the Marcomanni, already much weakened
by the victories of Tiberius. The power of the Goths at that time
must have been great: it was probably from them that the Sinus
Codanus (the Baltic) took this name, as it was afterwards called
Mare Suevicum, and Mare Venedicum, during the superiority of the
proper Suevi and the Venedi. The epoch in which the Goths passed
into Scandinavia is unknown. See Adelung, Hist. of Anc. Germany,
p. 200. Gatterer, Hist. Univ. 458.—G. ——M. St. Martin observes,
that the Scandinavian descent of the Goths rests on the authority
of Jornandes, who professed to derive it from the traditions of
the Goths. He is supported by Procopius and Paulus Diaconus. Yet
the Goths are unquestionably the same with the Getæ of the
earlier historians. St. Martin, note on Le Beau, Hist. du bas
Empire, iii. 324. The identity of the Getæ and Goths is by no
means generally admitted. On the whole, they seem to be one vast
branch of the Indo-Teutonic race, who spread irregularly towards
the north of Europe, and at different periods, and in different
regions, came in contact with the more civilized nations of the
south. At this period, there seems to have been a reflux of these
Gothic tribes from the North. Malte Brun considers that there are
strong grounds for receiving the Islandic traditions commented by
the Danish Varro, M. Suhm. From these, and the voyage of Pytheas,
which Malte Brun considers genuine, the Goths were in possession
of Scandinavia, Ey-Gothland, 250 years before J. C., and of a
tract on the continent (Reid-Gothland) between the mouths of the
Vistula and the Oder. In their southern migration, they followed
the course of the Vistula; afterwards, of the Dnieper. Malte
Brun, Geogr. i. p. 387, edit. 1832. Geijer, the historian of
Sweden, ably maintains the Scandinavian origin of the Goths. The
Gothic language, according to Bopp, is the link between the
Sanscrit and the modern Teutonic dialects: “I think that I am
reading Sanscrit when I am reading Olphilas.” Bopp, Conjugations
System der Sanscrit Sprache, preface, p. x—M.]
6 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 3.]
7 (return) [ See in the Prolegomena of Grotius some large
extracts from Adam of Bremen, and Saxo-Grammaticus. The former
wrote in the year 1077, the latter flourished about the year
1200.]
8 (return) [ Voltaire, Histoire de Charles XII. l. iii. When the
Austrians desired the aid of the court of Rome against Gustavus
Adolphus, they always represented that conqueror as the lineal
successor of Alaric. Harte’s History of Gustavus, vol. ii. p.
123.]
Till the end of the eleventh century, a celebrated temple
subsisted at Upsal, the most considerable town of the Swedes and
Goths. It was enriched with the gold which the Scandinavians had
acquired in their piratical adventures, and sanctified by the
uncouth representations of the three principal deities, the god
of war, the goddess of generation, and the god of thunder. In the
general festival, that was solemnized every ninth year, nine
animals of every species (without excepting the human) were
sacrificed, and their bleeding bodies suspended in the sacred
grove adjacent to the temple. 9 The only traces that now subsist
of this barbaric superstition are contained in the Edda, 901 a
system of mythology, compiled in Iceland about the thirteenth
century, and studied by the learned of Denmark and Sweden, as the
most valuable remains of their ancient traditions.
9 (return) [ See Adam of Bremen in Grotii Prolegomenis, p. 105.
The temple of Upsal was destroyed by Ingo, king of Sweden, who
began his reign in the year 1075, and about fourscore years
afterwards, a Christian cathedral was erected on its ruins. See
Dalin’s History of Sweden, in the Bibliotheque Raisonee.]
901 (return) [ The Eddas have at length been made accessible to
European scholars by the completion of the publication of the
Sæmundine Edda by the Arna Magnæan Commission, in 3 vols. 4to.,
with a copious lexicon of northern mythology.—M.]
Notwithstanding the mysterious obscurity of the Edda, we can
easily distinguish two persons confounded under the name of Odin;
the god of war, and the great legislator of Scandinavia. The
latter, the Mahomet of the North, instituted a religion adapted
to the climate and to the people. Numerous tribes on either side
of the Baltic were subdued by the invincible valor of Odin, by
his persuasive eloquence, and by the fame which he acquired of a
most skilful magician. The faith that he had propagated, during a
long and prosperous life, he confirmed by a voluntary death.
Apprehensive of the ignominious approach of disease and
infirmity, he resolved to expire as became a warrior. In a solemn
assembly of the Swedes and Goths, he wounded himself in nine
mortal places, hastening away (as he asserted with his dying
voice) to prepare the feast of heroes in the palace of the God of
war. 10
10 (return) [ Mallet, Introduction a l’Histoire du Dannemarc.]
The native and proper habitation of Odin is distinguished by the
appellation of As-gard. The happy resemblance of that name with
As-burg, or As-of, 11 words of a similar signification, has given
rise to an historical system of so pleasing a contexture, that we
could almost wish to persuade ourselves of its truth. It is
supposed that Odin was the chief of a tribe of barbarians which
dwelt on the banks of the Lake Mæotis, till the fall of
Mithridates and the arms of Pompey menaced the North with
servitude. That Odin, yielding with indignant fury to a power he
was unable to resist, conducted his tribe from the frontiers of
the Asiatic Sarmatia into Sweden, with the great design of
forming, in that inaccessible retreat of freedom, a religion and
a people which, in some remote age, might be subservient to his
immortal revenge; when his invincible Goths, armed with martial
fanaticism, should issue in numerous swarms from the neighborhood
of the Polar circle, to chastise the oppressors of mankind. 12
11 (return) [ Mallet, c. iv. p. 55, has collected from Strabo,
Pliny, Ptolemy, and Stephanus Byzantinus, the vestiges of such a
city and people.]
12 (return) [ This wonderful expedition of Odin, which, by
deducting the enmity of the Goths and Romans from so memorable a
cause, might supply the noble groundwork of an epic poem, cannot
safely be received as authentic history. According to the obvious
sense of the Edda, and the interpretation of the most skilful
critics, As-gard, instead of denoting a real city of the Asiatic
Sarmatia, is the fictitious appellation of the mystic abode of
the gods, the Olympus of Scandinavia; from whence the prophet was
supposed to descend, when he announced his new religion to the
Gothic nations, who were already seated in the southern parts of
Sweden. * Note: A curious letter may be consulted on this subject
from the Swede, Ihre counsellor in the Chancery of Upsal, printed
at Upsal by Edman, in 1772 and translated into German by M.
Schlozer. Gottingen, printed for Dietericht, 1779.—G. ——Gibbon,
at a later period of his work, recanted his opinion of the truth
of this expedition of Odin. The Asiatic origin of the Goths is
almost certain from the affinity of their language to the
Sanscrit and Persian; but their northern writers, when all
mythology was reduced to hero worship.—M.]
If so many successive generations of Goths were capable of
preserving a faint tradition of their Scandinavian origin, we
must not expect, from such unlettered barbarians, any distinct
account of the time and circumstances of their emigration. To
cross the Baltic was an easy and natural attempt. The inhabitants
of Sweden were masters of a sufficient number of large vessels,
with oars, 13 and the distance is little more than one hundred
miles from Carlscroon to the nearest ports of Pomerania and
Prussia. Here, at length, we land on firm and historic ground. At
least as early as the Christian æra, 14 and as late as the age of
the Antonines, 15 the Goths were established towards the mouth of
the Vistula, and in that fertile province where the commercial
cities of Thorn, Elbing, Köningsberg, and Dantzick, were long
afterwards founded. 16 Westward of the Goths, the numerous tribes
of the Vandals were spread along the banks of the Oder, and the
sea-coast of Pomerania and Mecklenburgh. A striking resemblance
of manners, complexion, religion, and language, seemed to
indicate that the Vandals and the Goths were originally one great
people. 17 The latter appear to have been subdivided into
Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Gepidæ. 18 The distinction among the
Vandals was more strongly marked by the independent names of
Heruli, Burgundians, Lombards, and a variety of other petty
states, many of which, in a future age, expanded themselves into
powerful monarchies. 181
13 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 44.]
14 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. ii. 62. If we could yield a firm
assent to the navigations of Pytheas of Marseilles, we must allow
that the Goths had passed the Baltic at least three hundred years
before Christ.]
15 (return) [ Ptolemy, l. ii.]
16 (return) [ By the German colonies who followed the arms of the
Teutonic knights. The conquest and conversion of Prussia were
completed by those adventurers in the thirteenth century.]
17 (return) [ Pliny (Hist. Natur. iv. 14) and Procopius (in Bell.
Vandal. l. i. c. l) agree in this opinion. They lived in distant
ages, and possessed different means of investigating the truth.]
18 (return) [ The Ostro and Visi, the eastern and western Goths,
obtained those denominations from their original seats in
Scandinavia. In all their future marches and settlements they
preserved, with their names, the same relative situation. When
they first departed from Sweden, the infant colony was contained
in three vessels. The third, being a heavy sailer, lagged behind,
and the crew, which afterwards swelled into a nation, received
from that circumstance the appellation of Gepidæ or Loiterers.
Jornandes, c. 17. * Note: It was not in Scandinavia that the
Goths were divided into Ostrogoths and Visigoths; that division
took place after their irruption into Dacia in the third century:
those who came from Mecklenburgh and Pomerania were called
Visigoths; those who came from the south of Prussia, and the
northwest of Poland, called themselves Ostrogoths. Adelung, Hist.
All. p. 202 Gatterer, Hist. Univ. 431.—G.]
181 (return) [ This opinion is by no means probable. The Vandals
and the Goths equally belonged to the great division of the
Suevi, but the two tribes were very different. Those who have
treated on this part of history, appear to me to have neglected
to remark that the ancients almost always gave the name of the
dominant and conquering people to all the weaker and conquered
races. So Pliny calls Vindeli, Vandals, all the people of the
north-east of Europe, because at that epoch the Vandals were
doubtless the conquering tribe. Cæsar, on the contrary, ranges
under the name of Suevi, many of the tribes whom Pliny reckons as
Vandals, because the Suevi, properly so called, were then the
most powerful tribe in Germany. When the Goths, become in their
turn conquerors, had subjugated the nations whom they encountered
on their way, these nations lost their name with their liberty,
and became of Gothic origin. The Vandals themselves were then
considered as Goths; the Heruli, the Gepidæ, &c., suffered the
same fate. A common origin was thus attributed to tribes who had
only been united by the conquests of some dominant nation, and
this confusion has given rise to a number of historical
errors.—G. ——M. St. Martin has a learned note (to Le Beau, v.
261) on the origin of the Vandals. The difficulty appears to be
in rejecting the close analogy of the name with the Vend or
Wendish race, who were of Sclavonian, not of Suevian or German,
origin. M. St. Martin supposes that the different races spread
from the head of the Adriatic to the Baltic, and even the Veneti,
on the shores of the Adriatic, the Vindelici, the tribes which
gave their name to Vindobena, Vindoduna, Vindonissa, were
branches of the same stock with the Sclavonian Venedi, who at one
time gave their name to the Baltic; that they all spoke dialects
of the Wendish language, which still prevails in Carinthia,
Carniola, part of Bohemia, and Lusatia, and is hardly extinct in
Mecklenburgh and Pomerania. The Vandal race, once so fearfully
celebrated in the annals of mankind, has so utterly perished from
the face of the earth, that we are not aware that any vestiges of
their language can be traced, so as to throw light on the
disputed question of their German, their Sclavonian, or
independent origin. The weight of ancient authority seems against
M. St. Martin’s opinion. Compare, on the Vandals, Malte Brun.
394. Also Gibbon’s note, c. xli. n. 38.—M.]
In the age of the Antonines, the Goths were still seated in
Prussia. About the reign of Alexander Severus, the Roman province
of Dacia had already experienced their proximity by frequent and
destructive inroads. 19 In this interval, therefore, of about
seventy years we must place the second migration of the Goths
from the Baltic to the Euxine; but the cause that produced it
lies concealed among the various motives which actuate the
conduct of unsettled barbarians. Either a pestilence or a famine,
a victory or a defeat, an oracle of the gods or the eloquence of
a daring leader, were sufficient to impel the Gothic arms on the
milder climates of the south. Besides the influence of a martial
religion, the numbers and spirit of the Goths were equal to the
most dangerous adventures. The use of round bucklers and short
swords rendered them formidable in a close engagement; the manly
obedience which they yielded to hereditary kings, gave uncommon
union and stability to their councils; 20 and the renowned Amala,
the hero of that age, and the tenth ancestor of Theodoric, king
of Italy, enforced, by the ascendant of personal merit, the
prerogative of his birth, which he derived from the _Anses_, or
demigods of the Gothic nation. 21
19 (return) [ See a fragment of Peter Patricius in the Excerpta
Legationum and with regard to its probable date, see Tillemont,
Hist, des Empereurs, tom. iii. p. 346.]
20 (return) [ Omnium harum gentium insigne, rotunda scuta, breves
gladii, et erga rages obsequium. Tacit. Germania, c. 43. The
Goths probably acquired their iron by the commerce of amber.]
21 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 13, 14.]
The fame of a great enterprise excited the bravest warriors from
all the Vandalic states of Germany, many of whom are seen a few
years afterwards combating under the common standard of the
Goths. 22 The first motions of the emigrants carried them to the
banks of the Prypec, a river universally conceived by the
ancients to be the southern branch of the Borysthenes. 23 The
windings of that great stream through the plains of Poland and
Russia gave a direction to their line of march, and a constant
supply of fresh water and pasturage to their numerous herds of
cattle. They followed the unknown course of the river, confident
in their valor, and careless of whatever power might oppose their
progress. The Bastarnæ and the Venedi were the first who
presented themselves; and the flower of their youth, either from
choice or compulsion, increased the Gothic army. The Bastarnæ
dwelt on the northern side of the Carpathian Mountains: the
immense tract of land that separated the Bastarnæ from the
savages of Finland was possessed, or rather wasted, by the
Venedi; 24 we have some reason to believe that the first of these
nations, which distinguished itself in the Macedonian war, 25 and
was afterwards divided into the formidable tribes of the Peucini,
the Borani, the Carpi, &c., derived its origin from the Germans.
251 With better authority, a Sarmatian extraction may be assigned
to the Venedi, who rendered themselves so famous in the middle
ages. 26 But the confusion of blood and manners on that doubtful
frontier often perplexed the most accurate observers. 27 As the
Goths advanced near the Euxine Sea, they encountered a purer race
of Sarmatians, the Jazyges, the Alani, 271 and the Roxolani; and
they were probably the first Germans who saw the mouths of the
Borysthenes, and of the Tanais. If we inquire into the
characteristic marks of the people of Germany and of Sarmatia, we
shall discover that those two great portions of human kind were
principally distinguished by fixed huts or movable tents, by a
close dress or flowing garments, by the marriage of one or of
several wives, by a military force, consisting, for the most
part, either of infantry or cavalry; and above all, by the use of
the Teutonic, or of the Sclavonian language; the last of which
has been diffused by conquest, from the confines of Italy to the
neighborhood of Japan.
22 (return) [ The Heruli, and the Uregundi or Burgundi, are
particularly mentioned. See Mascou’s History of the Germans, l.
v. A passage in the Augustan History, p. 28, seems to allude to
this great emigration. The Marcomannic war was partly occasioned
by the pressure of barbarous tribes, who fled before the arms of
more northern barbarians.]
23 (return) [ D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, and the third part
of his incomparable map of Europe.]
24 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 46.]
25 (return) [ Cluver. Germ. Antiqua, l. iii. c. 43.]
251 (return) [ The Bastarnæ cannot be considered original
inhabitants of Germany Strabo and Tacitus appear to doubt it;
Pliny alone calls them Germans: Ptolemy and Dion treat them as
Scythians, a vague appellation at this period of history; Livy,
Plutarch, and Diodorus Siculus, call them Gauls, and this is the
most probable opinion. They descended from the Gauls who entered
Germany under Signoesus. They are always found associated with
other Gaulish tribes, such as the Boll, the Taurisci, &c., and
not to the German tribes. The names of their chiefs or princes,
Chlonix, Chlondicus. Deldon, are not German names. Those who were
settled in the island of Peuce in the Danube, took the name of
Peucini. The Carpi appear in 237 as a Suevian tribe who had made
an irruption into Mæsia. Afterwards they reappear under the
Ostrogoths, with whom they were probably blended. Adelung, p.
236, 278.—G.]
26 (return) [ The Venedi, the Slavi, and the Antes, were the
three great tribes of the same people. Jornandes, 24. * Note
Dagger: They formed the great Sclavonian nation.—G.]
27 (return) [ Tacitus most assuredly deserves that title, and
even his cautious suspense is a proof of his diligent inquiries.]
271 (return) [ Jac. Reineggs supposed that he had found, in the
mountains of Caucasus, some descendants of the Alani. The Tartars
call them Edeki-Alan: they speak a peculiar dialect of the
ancient language of the Tartars of Caucasus. See J. Reineggs’
Descr. of Caucasus, p. 11, 13.—G. According to Klaproth, they are
the Ossetes of the present day in Mount Caucasus and were the
same with the Albanians of antiquity. Klaproth, Hist. de l’Asie,
p. 180.—M.]
Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And
Gallienus.—Part II.
The Goths were now in possession of the Ukraine, a country of
considerable extent and uncommon fertility, intersected with
navigable rivers, which, from either side, discharge themselves
into the Borysthenes; and interspersed with large and lofty
forests of oaks. The plenty of game and fish, the innumerable
bee-hives deposited in the hollow of old trees, and in the
cavities of rocks, and forming, even in that rude age, a valuable
branch of commerce, the size of the cattle, the temperature of
the air, the aptness of the soil for every species of grain, and
the luxuriancy of the vegetation, all displayed the liberality of
Nature, and tempted the industry of man. 28 But the Goths
withstood all these temptations, and still adhered to a life of
idleness, of poverty, and of rapine.
28 (return) [ Genealogical History of the Tartars, p. 593. Mr.
Bell (vol. ii. p 379) traversed the Ukraine, in his journey from
Petersburgh to Constantinople. The modern face of the country is
a just representation of the ancient, since, in the hands of the
Cossacks, it still remains in a state of nature.]
The Scythian hordes, which, towards the east, bordered on the new
settlements of the Goths, presented nothing to their arms, except
the doubtful chance of an unprofitable victory. But the prospect
of the Roman territories was far more alluring; and the fields of
Dacia were covered with rich harvests, sown by the hands of an
industrious, and exposed to be gathered by those of a warlike,
people. It is probable that the conquests of Trajan, maintained
by his successors, less for any real advantage than for ideal
dignity, had contributed to weaken the empire on that side. The
new and unsettled province of Dacia was neither strong enough to
resist, nor rich enough to satiate, the rapaciousness of the
barbarians. As long as the remote banks of the Niester were
considered as the boundary of the Roman power, the fortifications
of the Lower Danube were more carelessly guarded, and the
inhabitants of Mæsia lived in supine security, fondly conceiving
themselves at an inaccessible distance from any barbarian
invaders. The irruptions of the Goths, under the reign of Philip,
fatally convinced them of their mistake. The king, or leader, of
that fierce nation, traversed with contempt the province of
Dacia, and passed both the Niester and the Danube without
encountering any opposition capable of retarding his progress.
The relaxed discipline of the Roman troops betrayed the most
important posts, where they were stationed, and the fear of
deserved punishment induced great numbers of them to enlist under
the Gothic standard. The various multitude of barbarians
appeared, at length, under the walls of Marcianopolis, a city
built by Trajan in honor of his sister, and at that time the
capital of the second Mæsia. 29 The inhabitants consented to
ransom their lives and property by the payment of a large sum of
money, and the invaders retreated back into their deserts,
animated, rather than satisfied, with the first success of their
arms against an opulent but feeble country. Intelligence was soon
transmitted to the emperor Decius, that Cniva, king of the Goths,
had passed the Danube a second time, with more considerable
forces; that his numerous detachments scattered devastation over
the province of Mæsia, whilst the main body of the army,
consisting of seventy thousand Germans and Sarmatians, a force
equal to the most daring achievements, required the presence of
the Roman monarch, and the exertion of his military power.
29 (return) [ In the sixteenth chapter of Jornandes, instead of
secundo Mæsiam we may venture to substitute secundam, the second
Mæsia, of which Marcianopolis was certainly the capital. (See
Hierocles de Provinciis, and Wesseling ad locum, p. 636.
Itinerar.) It is surprising how this palpable error of the scribe
should escape the judicious correction of Grotius. Note: Luden
has observed that Jornandes mentions two passages over the
Danube; this relates to the second irruption into Mæsia.
Geschichte des T V. ii. p. 448.—M.]
Decius found the Goths engaged before Nicopolis, one of the many
monuments of Trajan’s victories. 30 On his approach they raised
the siege, but with a design only of marching away to a conquest
of greater importance, the siege of Philippopolis, a city of
Thrace, founded by the father of Alexander, near the foot of
Mount Hæmus. 31 Decius followed them through a difficult country,
and by forced marches; but when he imagined himself at a
considerable distance from the rear of the Goths, Cniva turned
with rapid fury on his pursuers. The camp of the Romans was
surprised and pillaged, and, for the first time, their emperor
fled in disorder before a troop of half-armed barbarians. After a
long resistance, Philoppopolis, destitute of succor, was taken by
storm. A hundred thousand persons are reported to have been
massacred in the sack of that great city. 32 Many prisoners of
consequence became a valuable accession to the spoil; and
Priscus, a brother of the late emperor Philip, blushed not to
assume the purple, under the protection of the barbarous enemies
of Rome. 33 The time, however, consumed in that tedious siege,
enabled Decius to revive the courage, restore the discipline, and
recruit the numbers of his troops. He intercepted several parties
of Carpi, and other Germans, who were hastening to share the
victory of their countrymen, 34 intrusted the passes of the
mountains to officers of approved valor and fidelity, 35 repaired
and strengthened the fortifications of the Danube, and exerted
his utmost vigilance to oppose either the progress or the retreat
of the Goths. Encouraged by the return of fortune, he anxiously
waited for an opportunity to retrieve, by a great and decisive
blow, his own glory, and that of the Roman arms. 36
30 (return) [ The place is still called Nicop. D’Anville,
Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 307. The little stream, on whose
banks it stood, falls into the Danube.]
31 (return) [ Stephan. Byzant. de Urbibus, p. 740. Wesseling,
Itinerar. p. 136. Zonaras, by an odd mistake, ascribes the
foundation of Philippopolis to the immediate predecessor of
Decius. * Note: Now Philippopolis or Philiba; its situation among
the hills caused it to be also called Trimontium. D’Anville,
Geog. Anc. i. 295.—G.]
32 (return) [ Ammian. xxxi. 5.]
33 (return) [ Aurel. Victor. c. 29.]
34 (return) [ Victoriæ Carpicæ, on some medals of Decius,
insinuate these advantages.]
35 (return) [ Claudius (who afterwards reigned with so much
glory) was posted in the pass of Thermopylæ with 200 Dardanians,
100 heavy and 160 light horse, 60 Cretan archers, and 1000
well-armed recruits. See an original letter from the emperor to
his officer, in the Augustan History, p. 200.]
36 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 16—18. Zosimus, l. i. p. 22. In the
general account of this war, it is easy to discover the opposite
prejudices of the Gothic and the Grecian writer. In carelessness
alone they are alike.]
At the same time when Decius was struggling with the violence of
the tempest, his mind, calm and deliberate amidst the tumult of
war, investigated the more general causes that, since the age of
the Antonines, had so impetuously urged the decline of the Roman
greatness. He soon discovered that it was impossible to replace
that greatness on a permanent basis without restoring public
virtue, ancient principles and manners, and the oppressed majesty
of the laws. To execute this noble but arduous design, he first
resolved to revive the obsolete office of censor; an office
which, as long as it had subsisted in its pristine integrity, had
so much contributed to the perpetuity of the state, 37 till it
was usurped and gradually neglected by the Cæsars. 38 Conscious
that the favor of the sovereign may confer power, but that the
esteem of the people can alone bestow authority, he submitted the
choice of the censor to the unbiased voice of the senate. By
their unanimous votes, or rather acclamations, Valerian, who was
afterwards emperor, and who then served with distinction in the
army of Decius, was declared the most worthy of that exalted
honor. As soon as the decree of the senate was transmitted to the
emperor, he assembled a great council in his camp, and before the
investiture of the censor elect, he apprised him of the
difficulty and importance of his great office. “Happy Valerian,”
said the prince to his distinguished subject, “happy in the
general approbation of the senate and of the Roman republic!
Accept the censorship of mankind; and judge of our manners. You
will select those who deserve to continue members of the senate;
you will restore the equestrian order to its ancient splendor;
you will improve the revenue, yet moderate the public burdens.
You will distinguish into regular classes the various and
infinite multitude of citizens, and accurately view the military
strength, the wealth, the virtue, and the resources of Rome. Your
decisions shall obtain the force of laws. The army, the palace,
the ministers of justice, and the great officers of the empire,
are all subject to your tribunal. None are exempted, excepting
only the ordinary consuls, 39 the præfect of the city, the king
of the sacrifices, and (as long as she preserves her chastity
inviolate) the eldest of the vestal virgins. Even these few, who
may not dread the severity, will anxiously solicit the esteem, of
the Roman censor.” 40
37 (return) [ Montesquieu, Grandeur et Decadence des Romains, c.
viii. He illustrates the nature and use of the censorship with
his usual ingenuity, and with uncommon precision.]
38 (return) [ Vespasian and Titus were the last censors, (Pliny,
Hist. Natur vii. 49. Censorinus de Die Natali.) The modesty of
Trajan refused an honor which he deserved, and his example became
a law to the Antonines. See Pliny’s Panegyric, c. 45 and 60.]
39 (return) [ Yet in spite of his exemption, Pompey appeared
before that tribunal during his consulship. The occasion, indeed,
was equally singular and honorable. Plutarch in Pomp. p. 630.]
40 (return) [ See the original speech in the Augustan Hist. p.
173-174.]
A magistrate, invested with such extensive powers, would have
appeared not so much the minister, as the colleague of his
sovereign. 41 Valerian justly dreaded an elevation so full of
envy and of suspicion. He modestly argued the alarming greatness
of the trust, his own insufficiency, and the incurable corruption
of the times. He artfully insinuated, that the office of censor
was inseparable from the Imperial dignity, and that the feeble
hands of a subject were unequal to the support of such an immense
weight of cares and of power. 42 The approaching event of war
soon put an end to the prosecution of a project so specious, but
so impracticable; and whilst it preserved Valerian from the
danger, saved the emperor Decius from the disappointment, which
would most probably have attended it. A censor may maintain, he
can never restore, the morals of a state. It is impossible for
such a magistrate to exert his authority with benefit, or even
with effect, unless he is supported by a quick sense of honor and
virtue in the minds of the people, by a decent reverence for the
public opinion, and by a train of useful prejudices combating on
the side of national manners. In a period when these principles
are annihilated, the censorial jurisdiction must either sink into
empty pageantry, or be converted into a partial instrument of
vexatious oppression. 43 It was easier to vanquish the Goths than
to eradicate the public vices; yet even in the first of these
enterprises, Decius lost his army and his life.
41 (return) [ This transaction might deceive Zonaras, who
supposes that Valerian was actually declared the colleague of
Decius, l. xii. p. 625.]
42 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 174. The emperor’s reply is
omitted.]
43 (return) [ Such as the attempts of Augustus towards a
reformation of manness. Tacit. Annal. iii. 24.]
The Goths were now, on every side, surrounded and pursued by the
Roman arms. The flower of their troops had perished in the long
siege of Philippopolis, and the exhausted country could no longer
afford subsistence for the remaining multitude of licentious
barbarians. Reduced to this extremity, the Goths would gladly
have purchased, by the surrender of all their booty and
prisoners, the permission of an undisturbed retreat. But the
emperor, confident of victory, and resolving, by the chastisement
of these invaders, to strike a salutary terror into the nations
of the North, refused to listen to any terms of accommodation.
The high-spirited barbarians preferred death to slavery. An
obscure town of Mæsia, called Forum Terebronii, 44 was the scene
of the battle. The Gothic army was drawn up in three lines, and
either from choice or accident, the front of the third line was
covered by a morass. In the beginning of the action, the son of
Decius, a youth of the fairest hopes, and already associated to
the honors of the purple, was slain by an arrow, in the sight of
his afflicted father; who, summoning all his fortitude,
admonished the dismayed troops, that the loss of a single soldier
was of little importance to the republic. 45 The conflict was
terrible; it was the combat of despair against grief and rage.
The first line of the Goths at length gave way in disorder; the
second, advancing to sustain it, shared its fate; and the third
only remained entire, prepared to dispute the passage of the
morass, which was imprudently attempted by the presumption of the
enemy. “Here the fortune of the day turned, and all things became
adverse to the Romans; the place deep with ooze, sinking under
those who stood, slippery to such as advanced; their armor heavy,
the waters deep; nor could they wield, in that uneasy situation,
their weighty javelins. The barbarians, on the contrary, were
inured to encounter in the bogs, their persons tall, their spears
long, such as could wound at a distance.” 46 In this morass the
Roman army, after an ineffectual struggle, was irrecoverably
lost; nor could the body of the emperor ever be found. 47 Such
was the fate of Decius, in the fiftieth year of his age; an
accomplished prince, active in war and affable in peace; 48 who,
together with his son, has deserved to be compared, both in life
and death, with the brightest examples of ancient virtue. 49
44 (return) [ Tillemont, Histoire des Empereurs, tom. iii. p.
598. As Zosimus and some of his followers mistake the Danube for
the Tanais, they place the field of battle in the plains of
Scythia.]
45 (return) [ Aurelius Victor allows two distinct actions for the
deaths of the two Decii; but I have preferred the account of
Jornandes.]
46 (return) [ I have ventured to copy from Tacitus (Annal. i. 64)
the picture of a similar engagement between a Roman army and a
German tribe.]
47 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 18. Zosimus, l. i. p. 22, [c. 23.]
Zonaras, l. xii. p. 627. Aurelius Victor.]
48 (return) [ The Decii were killed before the end of the year
two hundred and fifty-one, since the new princes took possession
of the consulship on the ensuing calends of January.]
49 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 223, gives them a very honorable
place among the small number of good emperors who reigned between
Augustus and Diocletian.]
This fatal blow humbled, for a very little time, the insolence of
the legions. They appeared to have patiently expected, and
submissively obeyed, the decree of the senate which regulated the
succession to the throne. From a just regard for the memory of
Decius, the Imperial title was conferred on Hostilianus, his only
surviving son; but an equal rank, with more effectual power, was
granted to Gallus, whose experience and ability seemed equal to
the great trust of guardian to the young prince and the
distressed empire. 50 The first care of the new emperor was to
deliver the Illyrian provinces from the intolerable weight of the
victorious Goths. He consented to leave in their hands the rich
fruits of their invasion, an immense booty, and what was still
more disgraceful, a great number of prisoners of the highest
merit and quality. He plentifully supplied their camp with every
conveniency that could assuage their angry spirits or facilitate
their so much wished-for departure; and he even promised to pay
them annually a large sum of gold, on condition they should never
afterwards infest the Roman territories by their incursions. 51
50 (return) [ Hæc ubi Patres comperere.. .. decernunt. Victor in
Cæsaribus.]
51 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 628.]
In the age of the Scipios, the most opulent kings of the earth,
who courted the protection of the victorious commonwealth, were
gratified with such trifling presents as could only derive a
value from the hand that bestowed them; an ivory chair, a coarse
garment of purple, an inconsiderable piece of plate, or a
quantity of copper coin. 52 After the wealth of nations had
centred in Rome, the emperors displayed their greatness, and even
their policy, by the regular exercise of a steady and moderate
liberality towards the allies of the state. They relieved the
poverty of the barbarians, honored their merit, and recompensed
their fidelity. These voluntary marks of bounty were understood
to flow, not from the fears, but merely from the generosity or
the gratitude of the Romans; and whilst presents and subsidies
were liberally distributed among friends and suppliants, they
were sternly refused to such as claimed them as a debt. 53 But
this stipulation, of an annual payment to a victorious enemy,
appeared without disguise in the light of an ignominious tribute;
the minds of the Romans were not yet accustomed to accept such
unequal laws from a tribe of barbarians; and the prince, who by a
necessary concession had probably saved his country, became the
object of the general contempt and aversion. The death of
Hostiliamus, though it happened in the midst of a raging
pestilence, was interpreted as the personal crime of Gallus; 54
and even the defeat of the later emperor was ascribed by the
voice of suspicion to the perfidious counsels of his hated
successor. 55 The tranquillity which the empire enjoyed during
the first year of his administration, 56 served rather to inflame
than to appease the public discontent; and as soon as the
apprehensions of war were removed, the infamy of the peace was
more deeply and more sensibly felt.
52 (return) [ A _Sella_, a _Toga_, and a golden _Patera_ of five
pounds weight, were accepted with joy and gratitude by the
wealthy king of Egypt. (Livy, xxvii. 4.) _Quina millia Æris_, a
weight of copper, in value about eighteen pounds sterling, was
the usual present made to foreign are ambassadors. (Livy, xxxi.
9.)]
53 (return) [ See the firmness of a Roman general so late as the
time of Alexander Severus, in the Excerpta Legationum, p. 25,
edit. Louvre.]
54 (return) [ For the plague, see Jornandes, c. 19, and Victor in
Cæsaribus.]
55 (return) [ These improbable accusations are alleged by
Zosimus, l. i. p. 28, 24.]
56 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 19. The Gothic writer at least
observed the peace which his victorious countrymen had sworn to
Gallus.]
But the Romans were irritated to a still higher degree, when they
discovered that they had not even secured their repose, though at
the expense of their honor. The dangerous secret of the wealth
and weakness of the empire had been revealed to the world. New
swarms of barbarians, encouraged by the success, and not
conceiving themselves bound by the obligation of their brethren,
spread devastation though the Illyrian provinces, and terror as
far as the gates of Rome. The defence of the monarchy, which
seemed abandoned by the pusillanimous emperor, was assumed by
Æmilianus, governor of Pannonia and Mæsia; who rallied the
scattered forces, and revived the fainting spirits of the troops.
The barbarians were unexpectedly attacked, routed, chased, and
pursued beyond the Danube. The victorious leader distributed as a
donative the money collected for the tribute, and the
acclamations of the soldiers proclaimed him emperor on the field
of battle. 57 Gallus, who, careless of the general welfare,
indulged himself in the pleasures of Italy, was almost in the
same instant informed of the success, of the revolt, and of the
rapid approach of his aspiring lieutenant. He advanced to meet
him as far as the plains of Spoleto. When the armies came in
sight of each other, the soldiers of Gallus compared the
ignominious conduct of their sovereign with the glory of his
rival. They admired the valor of Æmilianus; they were attracted
by his liberality, for he offered a considerable increase of pay
to all deserters. 58 The murder of Gallus, and of his son
Volusianus, put an end to the civil war; and the senate gave a
legal sanction to the rights of conquest. The letters of
Æmilianus to that assembly displayed a mixture of moderation and
vanity. He assured them, that he should resign to their wisdom
the civil administration; and, contenting himself with the
quality of their general, would in a short time assert the glory
of Rome, and deliver the empire from all the barbarians both of
the North and of the East. 59 His pride was flattered by the
applause of the senate; and medals are still extant, representing
him with the name and attributes of Hercules the Victor, and Mars
the Avenger. 60
57 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 25, 26.]
58 (return) [ Victor in Cæsaribus.]
59 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 628.]
60 (return) [ Banduri Numismata, p. 94.]
If the new monarch possessed the abilities, he wanted the time,
necessary to fulfil these splendid promises. Less than four
months intervened between his victory and his fall. 61 He had
vanquished Gallus: he sunk under the weight of a competitor more
formidable than Gallus. That unfortunate prince had sent
Valerian, already distinguished by the honorable title of censor,
to bring the legions of Gaul and Germany 62 to his aid. Valerian
executed that commission with zeal and fidelity; and as he
arrived too late to save his sovereign, he resolved to revenge
him. The troops of Æmilianus, who still lay encamped in the
plains of Spoleto, were awed by the sanctity of his character,
but much more by the superior strength of his army; and as they
were now become as incapable of personal attachment as they had
always been of constitutional principle, they readily imbrued
their hands in the blood of a prince who so lately had been the
object of their partial choice. The guilt was theirs, 621 but the
advantage of it was Valerian’s; who obtained the possession of
the throne by the means indeed of a civil war, but with a degree
of innocence singular in that age of revolutions; since he owed
neither gratitude nor allegiance to his predecessor, whom he
dethroned.
61 (return) [ Eutropius, l. ix. c. 6, says tertio mense. Eusebio
this emperor.]
62 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 28. Eutropius and Victor station
Valerian’s army in Rhætia.]
621 (return) [ Aurelius Victor says that Æmilianus died of a
natural disorder. Tropius, in speaking of his death, does not say
that he was assassinated—G.]
Valerian was about sixty years of age 63 when he was invested
with the purple, not by the caprice of the populace, or the
clamors of the army, but by the unanimous voice of the Roman
world. In his gradual ascent through the honors of the state, he
had deserved the favor of virtuous princes, and had declared
himself the enemy of tyrants. 64 His noble birth, his mild but
unblemished manners, his learning, prudence, and experience, were
revered by the senate and people; and if mankind (according to
the observation of an ancient writer) had been left at liberty to
choose a master, their choice would most assuredly have fallen on
Valerian. 65 Perhaps the merit of this emperor was inadequate to
his reputation; perhaps his abilities, or at least his spirit,
were affected by the languor and coldness of old age. The
consciousness of his decline engaged him to share the throne with
a younger and more active associate; 66 the emergency of the
times demanded a general no less than a prince; and the
experience of the Roman censor might have directed him where to
bestow the Imperial purple, as the reward of military merit. But
instead of making a judicious choice, which would have confirmed
his reign and endeared his memory, Valerian, consulting only the
dictates of affection or vanity, immediately invested with the
supreme honors his son Gallienus, a youth whose effeminate vices
had been hitherto concealed by the obscurity of a private
station. The joint government of the father and the son subsisted
about seven, and the sole administration of Gallienus continued
about eight, years. But the whole period was one uninterrupted
series of confusion and calamity. As the Roman empire was at the
same time, and on every side, attacked by the blind fury of
foreign invaders, and the wild ambition of domestic usurpers, we
shall consult order and perspicuity, by pursuing, not so much the
doubtful arrangement of dates, as the more natural distribution
of subjects. The most dangerous enemies of Rome, during the
reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, were, 1. The Franks; 2. The
Alemanni; 3. The Goths; and, 4. The Persians. Under these general
appellations, we may comprehend the adventures of less
considerable tribes, whose obscure and uncouth names would only
serve to oppress the memory and perplex the attention of the
reader.
63 (return) [ He was about seventy at the time of his accession,
or, as it is more probable, of his death. Hist. August. p. 173.
Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iii. p. 893, note 1.]
64 (return) [ Inimicus tyrannorum. Hist. August. p. 173. In the
glorious struggle of the senate against Maximin, Valerian acted a
very spirited part. Hist. August. p. 156.]
65 (return) [ According to the distinction of Victor, he seems to
have received the title of Imperator from the army, and that of
Augustus from the senate.]
66 (return) [ From Victor and from the medals, Tillemont (tom.
iii. p. 710) very justly infers, that Gallienus was associated to
the empire about the month of August of the year 253.]
I. As the posterity of the Franks compose one of the greatest and
most enlightened nations of Europe, the powers of learning and
ingenuity have been exhausted in the discovery of their
unlettered ancestors. To the tales of credulity have succeeded
the systems of fancy. Every passage has been sifted, every spot
has been surveyed, that might possibly reveal some faint traces
of their origin. It has been supposed that Pannonia, 67 that
Gaul, that the northern parts of Germany, 68 gave birth to that
celebrated colony of warriors. At length the most rational
critics, rejecting the fictitious emigrations of ideal
conquerors, have acquiesced in a sentiment whose simplicity
persuades us of its truth. 69 They suppose, that about the year
two hundred and forty, 70 a new confederacy was formed under the
name of Franks, by the old inhabitants of the Lower Rhine and the
Weser. 701 The present circle of Westphalia, the Landgraviate of
Hesse, and the duchies of Brunswick and Luneburg, were the
ancient seat of the Chauci who, in their inaccessible morasses,
defied the Roman arms; 71 of the Cherusci, proud of the fame of
Arminius; of the Catti, formidable by their firm and intrepid
infantry; and of several other tribes of inferior power and
renown. 72 The love of liberty was the ruling passion of these
Germans; the enjoyment of it their best treasure; the word that
expressed that enjoyment the most pleasing to their ear. They
deserved, they assumed, they maintained the honorable epithet of
Franks, or Freemen; which concealed, though it did not
extinguish, the peculiar names of the several states of the
confederacy. 73 Tacit consent, and mutual advantage, dictated the
first laws of the union; it was gradually cemented by habit and
experience. The league of the Franks may admit of some comparison
with the Helvetic body; in which every canton, retaining its
independent sovereignty, consults with its brethren in the common
cause, without acknowledging the authority of any supreme head or
representative assembly. 74 But the principle of the two
confederacies was extremely different. A peace of two hundred
years has rewarded the wise and honest policy of the Swiss. An
inconstant spirit, the thirst of rapine, and a disregard to the
most solemn treaties, disgraced the character of the Franks.
67 (return) [ Various systems have been formed to explain a
difficult passage in Gregory of Tours, l. ii. c. 9.]
68 (return) [ The Geographer of Ravenna, i. 11, by mentioning
Mauringania, on the confines of Denmark, as the ancient seat of
the Franks, gave birth to an ingenious system of Leibritz.]
69 (return) [ See Cluver. Germania Antiqua, l. iii. c. 20. M.
Freret, in the Memoires de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom.
xviii.]
70 (return) [ Most probably under the reign of Gordian, from an
accidental circumstance fully canvassed by Tillemont, tom. iii.
p. 710, 1181.]
701 (return) [ The confederation of the Franks appears to have
been formed, 1. Of the Chauci. 2. Of the Sicambri, the
inhabitants of the duchy of Berg. 3. Of the Attuarii, to the
north of the Sicambri, in the principality of Waldeck, between
the Dimel and the Eder. 4. Of the Bructeri, on the banks of the
Lippe, and in the Hartz. 5. Of the Chamavii, the Gambrivii of
Tacitua, who were established, at the time of the Frankish
confederation, in the country of the Bructeri. 6. Of the Catti,
in Hessia.—G. The Salii and Cherasci are added. Greenwood’s Hist.
of Germans, i 193.—M.]
71 (return) [Plin. Hist. Natur. xvi. l. The Panegyrists
frequently allude to the morasses of the Franks.]
72 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 30, 37.]
73 (return) [ In a subsequent period, most of those old names are
occasionally mentioned. See some vestiges of them in Cluver.
Germ. Antiq. l. iii.]
74 (return) [ Simler de Republica Helvet. cum notis Fuselin.]
Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And
Gallienus.—Part III.
The Romans had long experienced the daring valor of the people of
Lower Germany. The union of their strength threatened Gaul with a
more formidable invasion, and required the presence of Gallienus,
the heir and colleague of Imperial power. 75 Whilst that prince,
and his infant son Salonius, displayed, in the court of Treves,
the majesty of the empire, its armies were ably conducted by
their general, Posthumus, who, though he afterwards betrayed the
family of Valerian, was ever faithful to the great interests of
the monarchy. The treacherous language of panegyrics and medals
darkly announces a long series of victories. Trophies and titles
attest (if such evidence can attest) the fame of Posthumus, who
is repeatedly styled the Conqueror of the Germans, and the Savior
of Gaul. 76
75 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 27.]
76 (return) [ M. de Brequigny (in the Memoires de l’Academie,
tom. xxx.) has given us a very curious life of Posthumus. A
series of the Augustan History from Medals and Inscriptions has
been more than once planned, and is still much wanted. * Note: M.
Eckhel, Keeper of the Cabinet of Medals, and Professor of
Antiquities at Vienna, lately deceased, has supplied this want by
his excellent work, Doctrina veterum Nummorum, conscripta a Jos.
Eckhel, 8 vol. in 4to Vindobona, 1797.—G. Captain Smyth has
likewise printed (privately) a valuable Descriptive Catologue of
a series of Large Brass Medals of this period Bedford, 1834.—M.
1845.]
But a single fact, the only one indeed of which we have any
distinct knowledge, erases, in a great measure, these monuments
of vanity and adulation. The Rhine, though dignified with the
title of Safeguard of the provinces, was an imperfect barrier
against the daring spirit of enterprise with which the Franks
were actuated. Their rapid devastations stretched from the river
to the foot of the Pyrenees; nor were they stopped by those
mountains. Spain, which had never dreaded, was unable to resist,
the inroads of the Germans. During twelve years, the greatest
part of the reign of Gallienus, that opulent country was the
theatre of unequal and destructive hostilities. Tarragona, the
flourishing capital of a peaceful province, was sacked and almost
destroyed; 77 and so late as the days of Orosius, who wrote in
the fifth century, wretched cottages, scattered amidst the ruins
of magnificent cities, still recorded the rage of the barbarians.
78 When the exhausted country no longer supplied a variety of
plunder, the Franks seized on some vessels in the ports of Spain,
79 and transported themselves into Mauritania. The distant
province was astonished with the fury of these barbarians, who
seemed to fall from a new world, as their name, manners, and
complexion, were equally unknown on the coast of Africa. 80
77 (return) [ Aurel. Victor, c. 33. Instead of Pœne direpto, both
the sense and the expression require deleto; though indeed, for
different reasons, it is alike difficult to correct the text of
the best, and of the worst, writers.]
78 (return) [ In the time of Ausonius (the end of the fourth
century) Ilerda or Lerida was in a very ruinous state, (Auson.
Epist. xxv. 58,) which probably was the consequence of this
invasion.]
79 (return) [ Valesius is therefore mistaken in supposing that
the Franks had invaded Spain by sea.]
80 (return) [ Aurel. Victor. Eutrop. ix. 6.]
II. In that part of Upper Saxony, beyond the Elbe, which is at
present called the Marquisate of Lusace, there existed, in
ancient times, a sacred wood, the awful seat of the superstition
of the Suevi. None were permitted to enter the holy precincts,
without confessing, by their servile bonds and suppliant posture,
the immediate presence of the sovereign Deity. 81 Patriotism
contributed, as well as devotion, to consecrate the Sonnenwald,
or wood of the Semnones. 82 It was universally believed, that the
nation had received its first existence on that sacred spot. At
stated periods, the numerous tribes who gloried in the Suevic
blood, resorted thither by their ambassadors; and the memory of
their common extraction was perpetrated by barbaric rites and
human sacrifices. The wide-extended name of Suevi filled the
interior countries of Germany, from the banks of the Oder to
those of the Danube. They were distinguished from the other
Germans by their peculiar mode of dressing their long hair, which
they gathered into a rude knot on the crown of the head; and they
delighted in an ornament that showed their ranks more lofty and
terrible in the eyes of the enemy. 83 Jealous as the Germans were
of military renown, they all confessed the superior valor of the
Suevi; and the tribes of the Usipetes and Tencteri, who, with a
vast army, encountered the dictator Cæsar, declared that they
esteemed it not a disgrace to have fled before a people to whose
arms the immortal gods themselves were unequal. 84
81 (return) [ Tacit.Germania, 38.]
82 (return) [ Cluver. Germ. Antiq. iii. 25.]
83 (return) [ Sic Suevi a ceteris Germanis, sic Suerorum ingenui
a servis separantur. A proud separation!]
84 (return) [ Cæsar in Bello Gallico, iv. 7.]
In the reign of the emperor Caracalla, an innumerable swarm of
Suevi appeared on the banks of the Main, and in the neighborhood
of the Roman provinces, in quest either of food, of plunder, or
of glory. 85 The hasty army of volunteers gradually coalesced
into a great and permanent nation, and, as it was composed from
so many different tribes, assumed the name of Alemanni, 851 or
_Allmen_, to denote at once their various lineage and their
common bravery. 86 The latter was soon felt by the Romans in many
a hostile inroad. The Alemanni fought chiefly on horseback; but
their cavalry was rendered still more formidable by a mixture of
light infantry, selected from the bravest and most active of the
youth, whom frequent exercise had inured to accompany the
horsemen in the longest march, the most rapid charge, or the most
precipitate retreat. 87
85 (return) [ Victor in Caracal. Dion Cassius, lxvii. p. 1350.]
851 (return) [ The nation of the Alemanni was not originally
formed by the Suavi properly so called; these have always
preserved their own name. Shortly afterwards they made (A. D.
357) an irruption into Rhætia, and it was not long after that
they were reunited with the Alemanni. Still they have always been
a distinct people; at the present day, the people who inhabit the
north-west of the Black Forest call themselves Schwaben,
Suabians, Sueves, while those who inhabit near the Rhine, in
Ortenau, the Brisgaw, the Margraviate of Baden, do not consider
themselves Suabians, and are by origin Alemanni. The Teucteri and
the Usipetæ, inhabitants of the interior and of the north of
Westphalia, formed, says Gatterer, the nucleus of the Alemannic
nation; they occupied the country where the name of the Alemanni
first appears, as conquered in 213, by Caracalla. They were well
trained to fight on horseback, (according to Tacitus, Germ. c.
32;) and Aurelius Victor gives the same praise to the Alemanni:
finally, they never made part of the Frankish league. The
Alemanni became subsequently a centre round which gathered a
multitude of German tribes, See Eumen. Panegyr. c. 2. Amm. Marc.
xviii. 2, xxix. 4.—G. ——The question whether the Suevi was a
generic name comprehending the clans which peopled central
Germany, is rather hastily decided by M. Guizot Mr. Greenwood,
who has studied the modern German writers on their own origin,
supposes the Suevi, Alemanni, and Marcomanni, one people, under
different appellations. History of Germany, vol i.—M.]
86 (return) [ This etymology (far different from those which
amuse the fancy of the learned) is preserved by Asinius
Quadratus, an original historian, quoted by Agathias, i. c. 5.]
87 (return) [ The Suevi engaged Cæsar in this manner, and the
manœuvre deserved the approbation of the conqueror, (in Bello
Gallico, i. 48.)]
This warlike people of Germans had been astonished by the immense
preparations of Alexander Severus; they were dismayed by the arms
of his successor, a barbarian equal in valor and fierceness to
themselves. But still hovering on the frontiers of the empire,
they increased the general disorder that ensued after the death
of Decius. They inflicted severe wounds on the rich provinces of
Gaul; they were the first who removed the veil that covered the
feeble majesty of Italy. A numerous body of the Alemanni
penetrated across the Danube and through the Rhætian Alps into
the plains of Lombardy, advanced as far as Ravenna, and displayed
the victorious banners of barbarians almost in sight of Rome. 88
88 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 215, 216. Dexippus in the
Excerpts. Legationam, p. 8. Hieronym. Chron. Orosius, vii. 22.]
The insult and the danger rekindled in the senate some sparks of
their ancient virtue. Both the emperors were engaged in far
distant wars, Valerian in the East, and Gallienus on the Rhine.
All the hopes and resources of the Romans were in themselves. In
this emergency, the senators resumed the defence of the republic,
drew out the Prætorian guards, who had been left to garrison the
capital, and filled up their numbers, by enlisting into the
public service the stoutest and most willing of the Plebeians.
The Alemanni, astonished with the sudden appearance of an army
more numerous than their own, retired into Germany, laden with
spoil; and their retreat was esteemed as a victory by the
unwarlike Romans. 89
89 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 34.]
When Gallienus received the intelligence that his capital was
delivered from the barbarians, he was much less delighted than
alarmed with the courage of the senate, since it might one day
prompt them to rescue the public from domestic tyranny as well as
from foreign invasion. His timid ingratitude was published to his
subjects, in an edict which prohibited the senators from
exercising any military employment, and even from approaching the
camps of the legions. But his fears were groundless. The rich and
luxurious nobles, sinking into their natural character, accepted,
as a favor, this disgraceful exemption from military service; and
as long as they were indulged in the enjoyment of their baths,
their theatres, and their villas, they cheerfully resigned the
more dangerous cares of empire to the rough hands of peasants and
soldiers. 90
90 (return) [ Aurel. Victor, in Gallieno et Probo. His complaints
breathe as uncommon spirit of freedom.]
Another invasion of the Alemanni, of a more formidable aspect,
but more glorious event, is mentioned by a writer of the lower
empire. Three hundred thousand are said to have been vanquished,
in a battle near Milan, by Gallienus in person, at the head of
only ten thousand Romans. 91 We may, however, with great
probability, ascribe this incredible victory either to the
credulity of the historian, or to some exaggerated exploits of
one of the emperor’s lieutenants. It was by arms of a very
different nature, that Gallienus endeavored to protect Italy from
the fury of the Germans. He espoused Pipa, the daughter of a king
of the Marcomanni, a Suevic tribe, which was often confounded
with the Alemanni in their wars and conquests. 92 To the father,
as the price of his alliance, he granted an ample settlement in
Pannonia. The native charms of unpolished beauty seem to have
fixed the daughter in the affections of the inconstant emperor,
and the bands of policy were more firmly connected by those of
love. But the haughty prejudice of Rome still refused the name of
marriage to the profane mixture of a citizen and a barbarian; and
has stigmatized the German princess with the opprobrious title of
concubine of Gallienus. 93
91 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 631.]
92 (return) [ One of the Victors calls him king of the
Marcomanni; the other of the Germans.]
93 (return) [ See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iii. p.
398, &c.]
III. We have already traced the emigration of the Goths from
Scandinavia, or at least from Prussia, to the mouth of the
Borysthenes, and have followed their victorious arms from the
Borysthenes to the Danube. Under the reigns of Valerian and
Gallienus, the frontier of the last-mentioned river was
perpetually infested by the inroads of Germans and Sarmatians;
but it was defended by the Romans with more than usual firmness
and success. The provinces that were the seat of war, recruited
the armies of Rome with an inexhaustible supply of hardy
soldiers; and more than one of these Illyrian peasants attained
the station, and displayed the abilities, of a general. Though
flying parties of the barbarians, who incessantly hovered on the
banks of the Danube, penetrated sometimes to the confines of
Italy and Macedonia, their progress was commonly checked, or
their return intercepted, by the Imperial lieutenants. 94 But the
great stream of the Gothic hostilities was diverted into a very
different channel. The Goths, in their new settlement of the
Ukraine, soon became masters of the northern coast of the Euxine:
to the south of that inland sea were situated the soft and
wealthy provinces of Asia Minor, which possessed all that could
attract, and nothing that could resist, a barbarian conqueror.
94 (return) [ See the lives of Claudius, Aurelian, and Probus, in
the Augustan History.]
The banks of the Borysthenes are only sixty miles distant from
the narrow entrance 95 of the peninsula of Crim Tartary, known to
the ancients under the name of Chersonesus Taurica. 96 On that
inhospitable shore, Euripides, embellishing with exquisite art
the tales of antiquity, has placed the scene of one of his most
affecting tragedies. 97 The bloody sacrifices of Diana, the
arrival of Orestes and Pylades, and the triumph of virtue and
religion over savage fierceness, serve to represent an historical
truth, that the Tauri, the original inhabitants of the peninsula,
were, in some degree, reclaimed from their brutal manners by a
gradual intercourse with the Grecian colonies, which settled
along the maritime coast. The little kingdom of Bosphorus, whose
capital was situated on the Straits, through which the Mæotis
communicates itself to the Euxine, was composed of degenerate
Greeks and half-civilized barbarians. It subsisted, as an
independent state, from the time of the Peloponnesian war, 98 was
at last swallowed up by the ambition of Mithridates, 99 and, with
the rest of his dominions, sunk under the weight of the Roman
arms. From the reign of Augustus, 100 the kings of Bosphorus were
the humble, but not useless, allies of the empire. By presents,
by arms, and by a slight fortification drawn across the Isthmus,
they effectually guarded, against the roving plunderers of
Sarmatia, the access of a country which, from its peculiar
situation and convenient harbors, commanded the Euxine Sea and
Asia Minor. 101 As long as the sceptre was possessed by a lineal
succession of kings, they acquitted themselves of their important
charge with vigilance and success. Domestic factions, and the
fears, or private interest, of obscure usurpers, who seized on
the vacant throne, admitted the Goths into the heart of
Bosphorus. With the acquisition of a superfluous waste of fertile
soil, the conquerors obtained the command of a naval force,
sufficient to transport their armies to the coast of Asia. 102
These ships used in the navigation of the Euxine were of a very
singular construction. They were slight flat-bottomed barks
framed of timber only, without the least mixture of iron, and
occasionally covered with a shelving roof, on the appearance of a
tempest. 103 In these floating houses, the Goths carelessly
trusted themselves to the mercy of an unknown sea, under the
conduct of sailors pressed into the service, and whose skill and
fidelity were equally suspicious. But the hopes of plunder had
banished every idea of danger, and a natural fearlessness of
temper supplied in their minds the more rational confidence,
which is the just result of knowledge and experience. Warriors of
such a daring spirit must have often murmured against the
cowardice of their guides, who required the strongest assurances
of a settled calm before they would venture to embark; and would
scarcely ever be tempted to lose sight of the land. Such, at
least, is the practice of the modern Turks; 104 and they are
probably not inferior, in the art of navigation, to the ancient
inhabitants of Bosphorus.
95 (return) [ It is about half a league in breadth. Genealogical
History of the Tartars, p 598.]
96 (return) [ M. de Peyssonel, who had been French Consul at
Caffa, in his Observations sur les Peuples Barbares, que ont
habite les bords du Danube]
97 (return) [ Eeripides in Iphigenia in Taurid.]
98 (return) [ Strabo, l. vii. p. 309. The first kings of
Bosphorus were the allies of Athens.]
99 (return) [ Appian in Mithridat.]
100 (return) [ It was reduced by the arms of Agrippa. Orosius,
vi. 21. Eu tropius, vii. 9. The Romans once advanced within three
days’ march of the Tanais. Tacit. Annal. xii. 17.]
101 (return) [ See the Toxaris of Lucian, if we credit the
sincerity and the virtues of the Scythian, who relates a great
war of his nation against the kings of Bosphorus.]
102 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 28.]
103 (return) [ Strabo, l. xi. Tacit. Hist. iii. 47. They were
called Camarœ.]
104 (return) [ See a very natural picture of the Euxine
navigation, in the xvith letter of Tournefort.]
The fleet of the Goths, leaving the coast of Circassia on the
left hand, first appeared before Pityus, 105 the utmost limits of
the Roman provinces; a city provided with a convenient port, and
fortified with a strong wall. Here they met with a resistance
more obstinate than they had reason to expect from the feeble
garrison of a distant fortress. They were repulsed; and their
disappointment seemed to diminish the terror of the Gothic name.
As long as Successianus, an officer of superior rank and merit,
defended that frontier, all their efforts were ineffectual; but
as soon as he was removed by Valerian to a more honorable but
less important station, they resumed the attack of Pityus; and by
the destruction of that city, obliterated the memory of their
former disgrace. 106
105 (return) [ Arrian places the frontier garrison at Dioscurias,
or Sebastopolis, forty-four miles to the east of Pityus. The
garrison of Phasis consisted in his time of only four hundred
foot. See the Periplus of the Euxine. * Note: Pityus is
Pitchinda, according to D’Anville, ii. 115.—G. Rather Boukoun.—M.
Dioscurias is Iskuriah.—G.]
106 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 30.]
Circling round the eastern extremity of the Euxine Sea, the
navigation from Pityus to Trebizond is about three hundred miles.
107 The course of the Goths carried them in sight of the country
of Colchis, so famous by the expedition of the Argonauts; and
they even attempted, though without success, to pillage a rich
temple at the mouth of the River Phasis. Trebizond, celebrated in
the retreat of the ten thousand as an ancient colony of Greeks,
108 derived its wealth and splendor from the magnificence of the
emperor Hadrian, who had constructed an artificial port on a
coast left destitute by nature of secure harbors. 109 The city
was large and populous; a double enclosure of walls seemed to
defy the fury of the Goths, and the usual garrison had been
strengthened by a reënforcement of ten thousand men. But there
are not any advantages capable of supplying the absence of
discipline and vigilance. The numerous garrison of Trebizond,
dissolved in riot and luxury, disdained to guard their
impregnable fortifications. The Goths soon discovered the supine
negligence of the besieged, erected a lofty pile of fascines,
ascended the walls in the silence of the night, and entered the
defenceless city sword in hand. A general massacre of the people
ensued, whilst the affrighted soldiers escaped through the
opposite gates of the town. The most holy temples, and the most
splendid edifices, were involved in a common destruction. The
booty that fell into the hands of the Goths was immense: the
wealth of the adjacent countries had been deposited in Trebizond,
as in a secure place of refuge. The number of captives was
incredible, as the victorious barbarians ranged without
opposition through the extensive province of Pontus. 110 The rich
spoils of Trebizond filled a great fleet of ships that had been
found in the port. The robust youth of the sea-coast were chained
to the oar; and the Goths, satisfied with the success of their
first naval expedition, returned in triumph to their new
establishment in the kingdom of Bosphorus. 111
107 (return) [ Arrian (in Periplo Maris Euxine, p. 130) calls the
distance 2610 stadia.]
108 (return) [ Xenophon, Anabasis, l. iv. p. 348, edit.
Hutchinson. Note: Fallmerayer (Geschichte des Kaiserthums von
Trapezunt, p. 6, &c) assigns a very ancient date to the first
(Pelasgic) foundation of Trapezun (Trebizond)—M.]
109 (return) [ Arrian, p. 129. The general observation is
Tournefort’s.]
110 (return) [ See an epistle of Gregory Thaumaturgus, bishop of
Neo-Cæoarea, quoted by Mascou, v. 37.]
111 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 32, 33.]
The second expedition of the Goths was undertaken with greater
powers of men and ships; but they steered a different course,
and, disdaining the exhausted provinces of Pontus, followed the
western coast of the Euxine, passed before the wide mouths of the
Borysthenes, the Niester, and the Danube, and increasing their
fleet by the capture of a great number of fishing barks, they
approached the narrow outlet through which the Euxine Sea pours
its waters into the Mediterranean, and divides the continents of
Europe and Asia. The garrison of Chalcedon was encamped near the
temple of Jupiter Urius, on a promontory that commanded the
entrance of the Strait; and so inconsiderable were the dreaded
invasions of the barbarians that this body of troops surpassed in
number the Gothic army. But it was in numbers alone that they
surpassed it. They deserted with precipitation their advantageous
post, and abandoned the town of Chalcedon, most plentifully
stored with arms and money, to the discretion of the conquerors.
Whilst they hesitated whether they should prefer the sea or land,
Europe or Asia, for the scene of their hostilities, a perfidious
fugitive pointed out Nicomedia, 1111 once the capital of the
kings of Bithynia, as a rich and easy conquest. He guided the
march, which was only sixty miles from the camp of Chalcedon, 112
directed the resistless attack, and partook of the booty; for the
Goths had learned sufficient policy to reward the traitor whom
they detested. Nice, Prusa, Apamæa, Cius, 1121 cities that had
sometimes rivalled, or imitated, the splendor of Nicomedia, were
involved in the same calamity, which, in a few weeks, raged
without control through the whole province of Bithynia. Three
hundred years of peace, enjoyed by the soft inhabitants of Asia,
had abolished the exercise of arms, and removed the apprehension
of danger. The ancient walls were suffered to moulder away, and
all the revenue of the most opulent cities was reserved for the
construction of baths, temples, and theatres. 113
1111 (return) [ It has preserved its name, joined to the
preposition of place in that of Nikmid. D’Anv. Geog. Anc. ii.
28.—G.]
112 (return) [ Itiner. Hierosolym. p. 572. Wesseling.]
1121 (return) [ Now Isnik, Bursa, Mondania Ghio or Kemlik D’Anv.
ii. 23.—G.]
113 (return) [ Zosimus, l.. p. 32, 33.]
When the city of Cyzicus withstood the utmost effort of
Mithridates, 114 it was distinguished by wise laws, a naval power
of two hundred galleys, and three arsenals, of arms, of military
engines, and of corn. 115 It was still the seat of wealth and
luxury; but of its ancient strength, nothing remained except the
situation, in a little island of the Propontis, connected with
the continent of Asia only by two bridges. From the recent sack
of Prusa, the Goths advanced within eighteen miles 116 of the
city, which they had devoted to destruction; but the ruin of
Cyzicus was delayed by a fortunate accident. The season was
rainy, and the Lake Apolloniates, the reservoir of all the
springs of Mount Olympus, rose to an uncommon height. The little
river of Rhyndacus, which issues from the lake, swelled into a
broad and rapid stream, and stopped the progress of the Goths.
Their retreat to the maritime city of Heraclea, where the fleet
had probably been stationed, was attended by a long train of
wagons, laden with the spoils of Bithynia, and was marked by the
flames of Nico and Nicomedia, which they wantonly burnt. 117 Some
obscure hints are mentioned of a doubtful combat that secured
their retreat. 118 But even a complete victory would have been of
little moment, as the approach of the autumnal equinox summoned
them to hasten their return. To navigate the Euxine before the
month of May, or after that of September, is esteemed by the
modern Turks the most unquestionable instance of rashness and
folly. 119
114 (return) [ He besieged the place with 400 galleys, 150,000
foot, and a numerous cavalry. See Plutarch in Lucul. Appian in
Mithridat Cicero pro Lege Manilia, c. 8.]
115 (return) [ Strabo, l. xii. p. 573.]
116 (return) [ Pocock’s Description of the East, l. ii. c. 23,
24.]
117 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 33.]
118 (return) [ Syncellus tells an unintelligible story of Prince
Odenathus, who defeated the Goths, and who was killed by Prince
Odenathus.]
119 (return) [Footnote 119: Voyages de Chardin, tom. i. p. 45. He
sailed with the Turks from Constantinople to Caffa.]
When we are informed that the third fleet, equipped by the Goths
in the ports of Bosphorus, consisted of five hundred sails of
ships, 120 our ready imagination instantly computes and
multiplies the formidable armament; but, as we are assured by the
judicious Strabo, 121 that the piratical vessels used by the
barbarians of Pontus and the Lesser Scythia, were not capable of
containing more than twenty-five or thirty men we may safely
affirm, that fifteen thousand warriors, at the most, embarked in
this great expedition. Impatient of the limits of the Euxine,
they steered their destructive course from the Cimmerian to the
Thracian Bosphorus. When they had almost gained the middle of the
Straits, they were suddenly driven back to the entrance of them;
till a favorable wind, springing up the next day, carried them in
a few hours into the placid sea, or rather lake, of the
Propontis. Their landing on the little island of Cyzicus was
attended with the ruin of that ancient and noble city. From
thence issuing again through the narrow passage of the
Hellespont, they pursued their winding navigation amidst the
numerous islands scattered over the Archipelago, or the Ægean
Sea. The assistance of captives and deserters must have been very
necessary to pilot their vessels, and to direct their various
incursions, as well on the coast of Greece as on that of Asia. At
length the Gothic fleet anchored in the port of Piræus, five
miles distant from Athens, 122 which had attempted to make some
preparations for a vigorous defence. Cleodamus, one of the
engineers employed by the emperor’s orders to fortify the
maritime cities against the Goths, had already begun to repair
the ancient walls, fallen to decay since the time of Scylla. The
efforts of his skill were ineffectual, and the barbarians became
masters of the native seat of the muses and the arts. But while
the conquerors abandoned themselves to the license of plunder and
intemperance, their fleet, that lay with a slender guard in the
harbor of Piræus, was unexpectedly attacked by the brave
Dexippus, who, flying with the engineer Cleodamus from the sack
of Athens, collected a hasty band of volunteers, peasants as well
as soldiers, and in some measure avenged the calamities of his
country. 123
120 (return) [ Syncellus (p. 382) speaks of this expedition, as
undertaken by the Heruli.]
121 (return) [ Strabo, l. xi. p. 495.]
122 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 7.]
123 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 181. Victor, c. 33. Orosius, vii.
42. Zosimus, l. i. p. 35. Zonaras, l. xii. 635. Syncellus, p.
382. It is not without some attention, that we can explain and
conciliate their imperfect hints. We can still discover some
traces of the partiality of Dexippus, in the relation of his own
and his countrymen’s exploits. * Note: According to a new
fragment of Dexippus, published by Mai, the 2000 men took up a
strong position in a mountainous and woods district, and kept up
a harassing warfare. He expresses a hope of being speedily joined
by the Imperial fleet. Dexippus in rov. Byzantinorum Collect a
Niebuhr, p. 26, 8—M.]
But this exploit, whatever lustre it might shed on the declining
age of Athens, served rather to irritate than to subdue the
undaunted spirit of the northern invaders. A general
conflagration blazed out at the same time in every district of
Greece. Thebes and Argos, Corinth and Sparta, which had formerly
waged such memorable wars against each other, were now unable to
bring an army into the field, or even to defend their ruined
fortifications. The rage of war, both by land and by sea, spread
from the eastern point of Sunium to the western coast of Epirus.
The Goths had already advanced within sight of Italy, when the
approach of such imminent danger awakened the indolent Gallienus
from his dream of pleasure. The emperor appeared in arms; and his
presence seems to have checked the ardor, and to have divided the
strength, of the enemy. Naulobatus, a chief of the Heruli,
accepted an honorable capitulation, entered with a large body of
his countrymen into the service of Rome, and was invested with
the ornaments of the consular dignity, which had never before
been profaned by the hands of a barbarian. 124 Great numbers of
the Goths, disgusted with the perils and hardships of a tedious
voyage, broke into Mæsia, with a design of forcing their way over
the Danube to their settlements in the Ukraine. The wild attempt
would have proved inevitable destruction, if the discord of the
Roman generals had not opened to the barbarians the means of an
escape. 125 The small remainder of this destroying host returned
on board their vessels; and measuring back their way through the
Hellespont and the Bosphorus, ravaged in their passage the shores
of Troy, whose fame, immortalized by Homer, will probably survive
the memory of the Gothic conquests. As soon as they found
themselves in safety within the basin of the Euxine, they landed
at Anchialus in Thrace, near the foot of Mount Hæmus; and, after
all their toils, indulged themselves in the use of those pleasant
and salutary hot baths. What remained of the voyage was a short
and easy navigation. 126 Such was the various fate of this third
and greatest of their naval enterprises. It may seem difficult to
conceive how the original body of fifteen thousand warriors could
sustain the losses and divisions of so bold an adventure. But as
their numbers were gradually wasted by the sword, by shipwrecks,
and by the influence of a warm climate, they were perpetually
renewed by troops of banditti and deserters, who flocked to the
standard of plunder, and by a crowd of fugitive slaves, often of
German or Sarmatian extraction, who eagerly seized the glorious
opportunity of freedom and revenge. In these expeditions, the
Gothic nation claimed a superior share of honor and danger; but
the tribes that fought under the Gothic banners are sometimes
distinguished and sometimes confounded in the imperfect histories
of that age; and as the barbarian fleets seemed to issue from the
mouth of the Tanais, the vague but familiar appellation of
Scythians was frequently bestowed on the mixed multitude. 127
124 (return) [Syncellus, p. 382. This body of Heruli was for a
long time faithful and famous.]
125 (return) [ Claudius, who commanded on the Danube, thought
with propriety and acted with spirit. His colleague was jealous
of his fame Hist. August. p. 181.]
126 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 20.]
127 (return) [ Zosimus and the Greeks (as the author of the
Philopatris) give the name of Scythians to those whom Jornandes,
and the Latin writers, constantly represent as Goths.]
Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And
Gallienus.—Part IV.
In the general calamities of mankind, the death of an individual,
however exalted, the ruin of an edifice, however famous, are
passed over with careless inattention. Yet we cannot forget that
the temple of Diana at Ephesus, after having risen with
increasing splendor from seven repeated misfortunes, 128 was
finally burnt by the Goths in their third naval invasion. The
arts of Greece, and the wealth of Asia, had conspired to erect
that sacred and magnificent structure. It was supported by a
hundred and twenty-seven marble columns of the Ionic order. They
were the gifts of devout monarchs, and each was sixty feet high.
The altar was adorned with the masterly sculptures of Praxiteles,
who had, perhaps, selected from the favorite legends of the place
the birth of the divine children of Latona, the concealment of
Apollo after the slaughter of the Cyclops, and the clemency of
Bacchus to the vanquished Amazons. 129 Yet the length of the
temple of Ephesus was only four hundred and twenty-five feet,
about two thirds of the measure of the church of St. Peter’s at
Rome. 130 In the other dimensions, it was still more inferior to
that sublime production of modern architecture. The spreading
arms of a Christian cross require a much greater breadth than the
oblong temples of the Pagans; and the boldest artists of
antiquity would have been startled at the proposal of raising in
the air a dome of the size and proportions of the Pantheon. The
temple of Diana was, however, admired as one of the wonders of
the world. Successive empires, the Persian, the Macedonian, and
the Roman, had revered its sanctity and enriched its splendor.
131 But the rude savages of the Baltic were destitute of a taste
for the elegant arts, and they despised the ideal terrors of a
foreign superstition. 132
128 (return) [ Hist. Aug. p. 178. Jornandes, c. 20.]
129 (return) [ Strabo, l. xiv. p. 640. Vitruvius, l. i. c. i.
præfat l vii. Tacit Annal. iii. 61. Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxvi. 14.]
130 (return) [ The length of St. Peter’s is 840 Roman palms; each
palm is very little short of nine English inches. See Greaves’s
Miscellanies vol. i. p. 233; on the Roman Foot. * Note: St.
Paul’s Cathedral is 500 feet. Dallaway on Architecture—M.]
131 (return) [ The policy, however, of the Romans induced them to
abridge the extent of the sanctuary or asylum, which by
successive privileges had spread itself two stadia round the
temple. Strabo, l. xiv. p. 641. Tacit. Annal. iii. 60, &c.]
132 (return) [ They offered no sacrifices to the Grecian gods.
See Epistol Gregor. Thaumat.]
Another circumstance is related of these invasions, which might
deserve our notice, were it not justly to be suspected as the
fanciful conceit of a recent sophist. We are told that in the
sack of Athens the Goths had collected all the libraries, and
were on the point of setting fire to this funeral pile of Grecian
learning, had not one of their chiefs, of more refined policy
than his brethren, dissuaded them from the design; by the
profound observation, that as long as the Greeks were addicted to
the study of books, they would never apply themselves to the
exercise of arms. 133 The sagacious counsellor (should the truth
of the fact be admitted) reasoned like an ignorant barbarian. In
the most polite and powerful nations, genius of every kind has
displayed itself about the same period; and the age of science
has generally been the age of military virtue and success.
133 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 635. Such an anecdote was
perfectly suited to the taste of Montaigne. He makes use of it in
his agreeable Essay on Pedantry, l. i. c. 24.]
IV. The new sovereign of Persia, Artaxerxes and his son Sapor,
had triumphed (as we have already seen) over the house of
Arsaces. Of the many princes of that ancient race. Chosroes, king
of Armenia, had alone preserved both his life and his
independence. He defended himself by the natural strength of his
country; by the perpetual resort of fugitives and malecontents;
by the alliance of the Romans, and above all, by his own courage.
Invincible in arms, during a thirty years’ war, he was at length
assassinated by the emissaries of Sapor, king of Persia. The
patriotic satraps of Armenia, who asserted the freedom and
dignity of the crown, implored the protection of Rome in favor of
Tiridates, the lawful heir. But the son of Chosroes was an
infant, the allies were at a distance, and the Persian monarch
advanced towards the frontier at the head of an irresistible
force. Young Tiridates, the future hope of his country, was saved
by the fidelity of a servant, and Armenia continued above
twenty-seven years a reluctant province of the great monarchy of
Persia. 134 Elated with this easy conquest, and presuming on the
distresses or the degeneracy of the Romans, Sapor obliged the
strong garrisons of Carrhæ and Nisibis 1341 to surrender, and
spread devastation and terror on either side of the Euphrates.
134 (return) [ Moses Chorenensis, l. ii. c. 71, 73, 74. Zonaras,
l. xii. p. 628. The anthentic relation of the Armenian historian
serves to rectify the confused account of the Greek. The latter
talks of the children of Tiridates, who at that time was himself
an infant. (Compare St Martin Memoires sur l’Armenie, i. p.
301.—M.)]
1341 (return) [ Nisibis, according to Persian authors, was taken
by a miracle, the wall fell, in compliance with the prayers of
the army. Malcolm’s Persia, l. 76.—M]
The loss of an important frontier, the ruin of a faithful and
natural ally, and the rapid success of Sapor’s ambition, affected
Rome with a deep sense of the insult as well as of the danger.
Valerian flattered himself, that the vigilance of his lieutenants
would sufficiently provide for the safety of the Rhine and of the
Danube; but he resolved, notwithstanding his advanced age, to
march in person to the defence of the Euphrates.
During his progress through Asia Minor, the naval enterprises of
the Goths were suspended, and the afflicted province enjoyed a
transient and fallacious calm. He passed the Euphrates,
encountered the Persian monarch near the walls of Edessa, was
vanquished, and taken prisoner by Sapor. The particulars of this
great event are darkly and imperfectly represented; yet, by the
glimmering light which is afforded us, we may discover a long
series of imprudence, of error, and of deserved misfortunes on
the side of the Roman emperor. He reposed an implicit confidence
in Macrianus, his Prætorian præfect. 135 That worthless minister
rendered his master formidable only to the oppressed subjects,
and contemptible to the enemies of Rome. 136 By his weak or
wicked counsels, the Imperial army was betrayed into a situation
where valor and military skill were equally unavailing. 137 The
vigorous attempt of the Romans to cut their way through the
Persian host was repulsed with great slaughter; 138 and Sapor,
who encompassed the camp with superior numbers, patiently waited
till the increasing rage of famine and pestilence had insured his
victory. The licentious murmurs of the legions soon accused
Valerian as the cause of their calamities; their seditious
clamors demanded an instant capitulation. An immense sum of gold
was offered to purchase the permission of a disgraceful retreat.
But the Persian, conscious of his superiority, refused the money
with disdain; and detaining the deputies, advanced in order of
battle to the foot of the Roman rampart, and insisted on a
personal conference with the emperor. Valerian was reduced to the
necessity of intrusting his life and dignity to the faith of an
enemy. The interview ended as it was natural to expect. The
emperor was made a prisoner, and his astonished troops laid down
their arms. 139 In such a moment of triumph, the pride and policy
of Sapor prompted him to fill the vacant throne with a successor
entirely dependent on his pleasure. Cyriades, an obscure fugitive
of Antioch, stained with every vice, was chosen to dishonor the
Roman purple; and the will of the Persian victor could not fail
of being ratified by the acclamations, however reluctant, of the
captive army. 140
135 (return) [ Hist. Aug. p. 191. As Macrianus was an enemy to
the Christians, they charged him with being a magician.]
136 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 33.]
137 (return) [ Hist. Aug. p. 174.]
138 (return) [ Victor in Cæsar. Eutropius, ix. 7.]
139 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 33. Zonaras, l. xii. p. 630.
Peter Patricius, in the Excerpta Legat. p. 29.]
140 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 185. The reign of Cyriades
appears in that collection prior to the death of Valerian; but I
have preferred a probable series of events to the doubtful
chronology of a most inaccurate writer]
The Imperial slave was eager to secure the favor of his master by
an act of treason to his native country. He conducted Sapor over
the Euphrates, and, by the way of Chalcis, to the metropolis of
the East. So rapid were the motions of the Persian cavalry, that,
if we may credit a very judicious historian, 141 the city of
Antioch was surprised when the idle multitude was fondly gazing
on the amusements of the theatre. The splendid buildings of
Antioch, private as well as public, were either pillaged or
destroyed; and the numerous inhabitants were put to the sword, or
led away into captivity. 142 The tide of devastation was stopped
for a moment by the resolution of the high priest of Emesa.
Arrayed in his sacerdotal robes, he appeared at the head of a
great body of fanatic peasants, armed only with slings, and
defended his god and his property from the sacrilegious hands of
the followers of Zoroaster. 143 But the ruin of Tarsus, and of
many other cities, furnishes a melancholy proof that, except in
this singular instance, the conquest of Syria and Cilicia
scarcely interrupted the progress of the Persian arms. The
advantages of the narrow passes of Mount Taurus were abandoned,
in which an invader, whose principal force consisted in his
cavalry, would have been engaged in a very unequal combat: and
Sapor was permitted to form the siege of Cæsarea, the capital of
Cappadocia; a city, though of the second rank, which was supposed
to contain four hundred thousand inhabitants. Demosthenes
commanded in the place, not so much by the commission of the
emperor, as in the voluntary defence of his country. For a long
time he deferred its fate; and when at last Cæsarea was betrayed
by the perfidy of a physician, he cut his way through the
Persians, who had been ordered to exert their utmost diligence to
take him alive. This heroic chief escaped the power of a foe who
might either have honored or punished his obstinate valor; but
many thousands of his fellow-citizens were involved in a general
massacre, and Sapor is accused of treating his prisoners with
wanton and unrelenting cruelty. 144 Much should undoubtedly be
allowed for national animosity, much for humbled pride and
impotent revenge; yet, upon the whole, it is certain, that the
same prince, who, in Armenia, had displayed the mild aspect of a
legislator, showed himself to the Romans under the stern features
of a conqueror. He despaired of making any permanent
establishment in the empire, and sought only to leave behind him
a wasted desert, whilst he transported into Persia the people and
the treasures of the provinces. 145
141 (return) [ The sack of Antioch, anticipated by some
historians, is assigned, by the decisive testimony of Ammianus
Marcellinus, to the reign of Gallienus, xxiii. 5. * Note: Heyne,
in his note on Zosimus, contests this opinion of Gibbon and
observes, that the testimony of Ammianus is in fact by no means
clear, decisive. Gallienus and Valerian reigned together.
Zosimus, in a passage, l. iiii. 32, 8, distinctly places this
event before the capture of Valerian.—M.]
142 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 35.]
143 (return) [ John Malala, tom. i. p. 391. He corrupts this
probable event by some fabulous circumstances.]
144 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 630. Deep valleys were filled
up with the slain. Crowds of prisoners were driven to water like
beasts, and many perished for want of food.]
145 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 25 asserts, that Sapor, had he
not preferred spoil to conquest, might have remained master of
Asia.]
At the time when the East trembled at the name of Sapor, he
received a present not unworthy of the greatest kings; a long
train of camels, laden with the most rare and valuable
merchandises. The rich offering was accompanied with an epistle,
respectful, but not servile, from Odenathus, one of the noblest
and most opulent senators of Palmyra. “Who is this Odenathus,”
(said the haughty victor, and he commanded that the present
should be cast into the Euphrates,) “that he thus insolently
presumes to write to his lord? If he entertains a hope of
mitigating his punishment, let him fall prostrate before the foot
of our throne, with his hands bound behind his back. Should he
hesitate, swift destruction shall be poured on his head, on his
whole race, and on his country.” 146 The desperate extremity to
which the Palmyrenian was reduced, called into action all the
latent powers of his soul. He met Sapor; but he met him in arms.
Infusing his own spirit into a little army collected from the
villages of Syria 147 and the tents of the desert, 148 he hovered
round the Persian host, harassed their retreat, carried off part
of the treasure, and, what was dearer than any treasure, several
of the women of the great king; who was at last obliged to repass
the Euphrates with some marks of haste and confusion. 149 By this
exploit, Odenathus laid the foundations of his future fame and
fortunes. The majesty of Rome, oppressed by a Persian, was
protected by a Syrian or Arab of Palmyra.
146 (return) [ Peter Patricius in Excerpt. Leg. p. 29.]
147 (return) [ Syrorum agrestium manu. Sextus Rufus, c. 23. Rufus
Victor the Augustan History, (p. 192,) and several inscriptions,
agree in making Odenathus a citizen of Palmyra.]
148 (return) [ He possessed so powerful an interest among the
wandering tribes, that Procopius (Bell. Persic. l. ii. c. 5) and
John Malala, (tom. i. p. 391) style him Prince of the Saracens.]
149 (return) [ Peter Patricius, p. 25.]
The voice of history, which is often little more than the organ
of hatred or flattery, reproaches Sapor with a proud abuse of the
rights of conquest. We are told that Valerian, in chains, but
invested with the Imperial purple, was exposed to the multitude,
a constant spectacle of fallen greatness; and that whenever the
Persian monarch mounted on horseback, he placed his foot on the
neck of a Roman emperor. Notwithstanding all the remonstrances of
his allies, who repeatedly advised him to remember the
vicissitudes of fortune, to dread the returning power of Rome,
and to make his illustrious captive the pledge of peace, not the
object of insult, Sapor still remained inflexible. When Valerian
sunk under the weight of shame and grief, his skin, stuffed with
straw, and formed into the likeness of a human figure, was
preserved for ages in the most celebrated temple of Persia; a
more real monument of triumph, than the fancied trophies of brass
and marble so often erected by Roman vanity. 150 The tale is
moral and pathetic, but the truth 1501 of it may very fairly be
called in question. The letters still extant from the princes of
the East to Sapor are manifest forgeries; 151 nor is it natural
to suppose that a jealous monarch should, even in the person of a
rival, thus publicly degrade the majesty of kings. Whatever
treatment the unfortunate Valerian might experience in Persia, it
is at least certain that the only emperor of Rome who had ever
fallen into the hands of the enemy, languished away his life in
hopeless captivity.
150 (return) [ The Pagan writers lament, the Christian insult,
the misfortunes of Valerian. Their various testimonies are
accurately collected by Tillemont, tom. iii. p. 739, &c. So
little has been preserved of eastern history before Mahomet, that
the modern Persians are totally ignorant of the victory Sapor, an
event so glorious to their nation. See Bibliotheque Orientale. *
Note: Malcolm appears to write from Persian authorities, i.
76.—M.]
1501 (return) [ Yet Gibbon himself records a speech of the
emperor Galerius, which alludes to the cruelties exercised
against the living, and the indignities to which they exposed the
dead Valerian, vol. ii. ch. 13. Respect for the kingly character
would by no means prevent an eastern monarch from ratifying his
pride and his vengeance on a fallen foe.—M.]
151 (return) [ One of these epistles is from Artavasdes, king of
Armenia; since Armenia was then a province of Persia, the king,
the kingdom, and the epistle must be fictitious.]
The emperor Gallienus, who had long supported with impatience the
censorial severity of his father and colleague, received the
intelligence of his misfortunes with secret pleasure and avowed
indifference. “I knew that my father was a mortal,” said he; “and
since he has acted as it becomes a brave man, I am satisfied.”
Whilst Rome lamented the fate of her sovereign, the savage
coldness of his son was extolled by the servile courtiers as the
perfect firmness of a hero and a stoic. 152 It is difficult to
paint the light, the various, the inconstant character of
Gallienus, which he displayed without constraint, as soon as he
became sole possessor of the empire. In every art that he
attempted, his lively genius enabled him to succeed; and as his
genius was destitute of judgment, he attempted every art, except
the important ones of war and government. He was a master of
several curious, but useless sciences, a ready orator, an elegant
poet, 153 a skilful gardener, an excellent cook, and most
contemptible prince. When the great emergencies of the state
required his presence and attention, he was engaged in
conversation with the philosopher Plotinus, 154 wasting his time
in trifling or licentious pleasures, preparing his initiation to
the Grecian mysteries, or soliciting a place in the Areopagus of
Athens. His profuse magnificence insulted the general poverty;
the solemn ridicule of his triumphs impressed a deeper sense of
the public disgrace. 155 The repeated intelligence of invasions,
defeats, and rebellions, he received with a careless smile; and
singling out, with affected contempt, some particular production
of the lost province, he carelessly asked, whether Rome must be
ruined, unless it was supplied with linen from Egypt, and arras
cloth from Gaul. There were, however, a few short moments in the
life of Gallienus, when, exasperated by some recent injury, he
suddenly appeared the intrepid soldier and the cruel tyrant;
till, satiated with blood, or fatigued by resistance, he
insensibly sunk into the natural mildness and indolence of his
character. 156
152 (return) [ See his life in the Augustan History.]
153 (return) [ There is still extant a very pretty Epithalamium,
composed by Gallienus for the nuptials of his nephews:—“Ite ait,
O juvenes, pariter sudate medullis Omnibus, inter vos: non
murmura vestra columbæ, Brachia non hederæ, non vincant oscula
conchæ.”]
154 (return) [ He was on the point of giving Plotinus a ruined
city of Campania to try the experiment of realizing Plato’s
Republic. See the Life of Plotinus, by Porphyry, in Fabricius’s
Biblioth. Græc. l. iv.]
155 (return) [A medal which bears the head of Gallienus has
perplexed the antiquarians by its legend and reverse; the former
Gallienæ Augustæ, the latter Ubique Pax. M. Spanheim supposes
that the coin was struck by some of the enemies of Gallienus, and
was designed as a severe satire on that effeminate prince. But as
the use of irony may seem unworthy of the gravity of the Roman
mint, M. de Vallemont has deduced from a passage of Trebellius
Pollio (Hist. Aug. p. 198) an ingenious and natural solution.
Galliena was first cousin to the emperor. By delivering Africa
from the usurper Celsus, she deserved the title of Augusta. On a
medal in the French king’s collection, we read a similar
inscription of Faustina Augusta round the head of Marcus
Aurelius. With regard to the Ubique Pax, it is easily explained
by the vanity of Gallienus, who seized, perhaps, the occasion of
some momentary calm. See Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres,
Janvier, 1700, p. 21—34.]
156 (return) [ This singular character has, I believe, been
fairly transmitted to us. The reign of his immediate successor
was short and busy; and the historians who wrote before the
elevation of the family of Constantine could not have the most
remote interest to misrepresent the character of Gallienus.]
At the time when the reins of government were held with so loose
a hand, it is not surprising that a crowd of usurpers should
start up in every province of the empire against the son of
Valerian. It was probably some ingenious fancy, of comparing the
thirty tyrants of Rome with the thirty tyrants of Athens, that
induced the writers of the Augustan History to select that
celebrated number, which has been gradually received into a
popular appellation. 157 But in every light the parallel is idle
and defective. What resemblance can we discover between a council
of thirty persons, the united oppressors of a single city, and an
uncertain list of independent rivals, who rose and fell in
irregular succession through the extent of a vast empire? Nor can
the number of thirty be completed, unless we include in the
account the women and children who were honored with the Imperial
title. The reign of Gallienus, distracted as it was, produced
only nineteen pretenders to the throne: Cyriades, Macrianus,
Balista, Odenathus, and Zenobia, in the East; in Gaul, and the
western provinces, Posthumus, Lollianus, Victorinus, and his
mother Victoria, Marius, and Tetricus; in Illyricum and the
confines of the Danube, Ingenuus, Regillianus, and Aureolus; in
Pontus, 158 Saturninus; in Isauria, Trebellianus; Piso in
Thessaly; Valens in Achaia; Æmilianus in Egypt; and Celsus in
Africa. 1581 To illustrate the obscure monuments of the life and
death of each individual, would prove a laborious task, alike
barren of instruction and of amusement. We may content ourselves
with investigating some general characters, that most strongly
mark the condition of the times, and the manners of the men,
their pretensions, their motives, their fate, and the destructive
consequences of their usurpation. 159
157 (return) [ Pollio expresses the most minute anxiety to
complete the number. * Note: Compare a dissertation of Manso on
the thirty tyrants at the end of his Leben Constantius des
Grossen. Breslau, 1817.—M.]
158 (return) [ The place of his reign is somewhat doubtful; but
there was a tyrant in Pontus, and we are acquainted with the seat
of all the others.]
1581 (return) [ Captain Smyth, in his “Catalogue of Medals,” p.
307, substitutes two new names to make up the number of nineteen,
for those of Odenathus and Zenobia. He subjoins this list:—1. 2.
3. Of those whose coins Those whose coins Those of whom no are
undoubtedly true. are suspected. coins are known. Posthumus.
Cyriades. Valens. Lælianus, (Lollianus, G.) Ingenuus. Balista
Victorinus Celsus. Saturninus. Marius. Piso Frugi. Trebellianus.
Tetricus. —M. 1815 Macrianus. Quietus. Regalianus (Regillianus,
G.) Alex. Æmilianus. Aureolus. Sulpicius Antoninus]
159 (return) [ Tillemont, tom. iii. p. 1163, reckons them
somewhat differently.]
It is sufficiently known, that the odious appellation of _Tyrant_
was often employed by the ancients to express the illegal seizure
of supreme power, without any reference to the abuse of it.
Several of the pretenders, who raised the standard of rebellion
against the emperor Gallienus, were shining models of virtue, and
almost all possessed a considerable share of vigor and ability.
Their merit had recommended them to the favor of Valerian, and
gradually promoted them to the most important commands of the
empire. The generals, who assumed the title of Augustus, were
either respected by their troops for their able conduct and
severe discipline, or admired for valor and success in war, or
beloved for frankness and generosity. The field of victory was
often the scene of their election; and even the armorer Marius,
the most contemptible of all the candidates for the purple, was
distinguished, however, by intrepid courage, matchless strength,
and blunt honesty. 160 His mean and recent trade cast, indeed, an
air of ridicule on his elevation; 1601 but his birth could not be
more obscure than was that of the greater part of his rivals, who
were born of peasants, and enlisted in the army as private
soldiers. In times of confusion every active genius finds the
place assigned him by nature: in a general state of war military
merit is the road to glory and to greatness. Of the nineteen
tyrants Tetricus only was a senator; Piso alone was a noble. The
blood of Numa, through twenty-eight successive generations, ran
in the veins of Calphurnius Piso, 161 who, by female alliances,
claimed a right of exhibiting, in his house, the images of
Crassus and of the great Pompey. 162 His ancestors had been
repeatedly dignified with all the honors which the commonwealth
could bestow; and of all the ancient families of Rome, the
Calphurnian alone had survived the tyranny of the Cæsars. The
personal qualities of Piso added new lustre to his race. The
usurper Valens, by whose order he was killed, confessed, with
deep remorse, that even an enemy ought to have respected the
sanctity of Piso; and although he died in arms against Gallienus,
the senate, with the emperor’s generous permission, decreed the
triumphal ornaments to the memory of so virtuous a rebel. 163
160 (return) [ See the speech of Marius in the Augustan History,
p. 197. The accidental identity of names was the only
circumstance that could tempt Pollio to imitate Sallust.]
1601 (return) [ Marius was killed by a soldier, who had formerly
served as a workman in his shop, and who exclaimed, as he struck,
“Behold the sword which thyself hast forged.” Trob vita.—G.]
161 (return) [ “Vos, O Pompilius sanguis!” is Horace’s address to
the Pisos See Art. Poet. v. 292, with Dacier’s and Sanadon’s
notes.]
162 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xv. 48. Hist. i. 15. In the former
of these passages we may venture to change paterna into materna.
In every generation from Augustus to Alexander Severus, one or
more Pisos appear as consuls. A Piso was deemed worthy of the
throne by Augustus, (Tacit. Annal. i. 13;) a second headed a
formidable conspiracy against Nero; and a third was adopted, and
declared Cæsar, by Galba.]
163 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 195. The senate, in a moment of
enthusiasm, seems to have presumed on the approbation of
Gallienus.]
The lieutenants of Valerian were grateful to the father, whom
they esteemed. They disdained to serve the luxurious indolence of
his unworthy son. The throne of the Roman world was unsupported
by any principle of loyalty; and treason against such a prince
might easily be considered as patriotism to the state. Yet if we
examine with candor the conduct of these usurpers, it will
appear, that they were much oftener driven into rebellion by
their fears, than urged to it by their ambition. They dreaded the
cruel suspicions of Gallienus; they equally dreaded the
capricious violence of their troops. If the dangerous favor of
the army had imprudently declared them deserving of the purple,
they were marked for sure destruction; and even prudence would
counsel them to secure a short enjoyment of empire, and rather to
try the fortune of war than to expect the hand of an executioner.
When the clamor of the soldiers invested the reluctant victims
with the ensigns of sovereign authority, they sometimes mourned
in secret their approaching fate. “You have lost,” said
Saturninus, on the day of his elevation, “you have lost a useful
commander, and you have made a very wretched emperor.” 164
164 (return) [ Hist. August p. 196.]
The apprehensions of Saturninus were justified by the repeated
experience of revolutions. Of the nineteen tyrants who started up
under the reign of Gallienus, there was not one who enjoyed a
life of peace, or a natural death. As soon as they were invested
with the bloody purple, they inspired their adherents with the
same fears and ambition which had occasioned their own revolt.
Encompassed with domestic conspiracy, military sedition, and
civil war, they trembled on the edge of precipices, in which,
after a longer or shorter term of anxiety, they were inevitably
lost. These precarious monarchs received, however, such honors as
the flattery of their respective armies and provinces could
bestow; but their claim, founded on rebellion, could never obtain
the sanction of law or history. Italy, Rome, and the senate,
constantly adhered to the cause of Gallienus, and he alone was
considered as the sovereign of the empire. That prince
condescended, indeed, to acknowledge the victorious arms of
Odenathus, who deserved the honorable distinction, by the
respectful conduct which he always maintained towards the son of
Valerian. With the general applause of the Romans, and the
consent of Gallienus, the senate conferred the title of Augustus
on the brave Palmyrenian; and seemed to intrust him with the
government of the East, which he already possessed, in so
independent a manner, that, like a private succession, he
bequeathed it to his illustrious widow, Zenobia. 165
165 (return) [ The association of the brave Palmyrenian was the
most popular act of the whole reign of Gallienus. Hist. August.
p. 180.]
The rapid and perpetual transitions from the cottage to the
throne, and from the throne to the grave, might have amused an
indifferent philosopher; were it possible for a philosopher to
remain indifferent amidst the general calamities of human kind.
The election of these precarious emperors, their power and their
death, were equally destructive to their subjects and adherents.
The price of their fatal elevation was instantly discharged to
the troops by an immense donative, drawn from the bowels of the
exhausted people. However virtuous was their character, however
pure their intentions, they found themselves reduced to the hard
necessity of supporting their usurpation by frequent acts of
rapine and cruelty. When they fell, they involved armies and
provinces in their fall. There is still extant a most savage
mandate from Gallienus to one of his ministers, after the
suppression of Ingenuus, who had assumed the purple in Illyricum.
“It is not enough,” says that soft but inhuman prince, “that you
exterminate such as have appeared in arms; the chance of battle
might have served me as effectually. The male sex of every age
must be extirpated; provided that, in the execution of the
children and old men, you can contrive means to save our
reputation. Let every one die who has dropped an expression, who
has entertained a thought against me, against _me_, the son of
Valerian, the father and brother of so many princes. 166 Remember
that Ingenuus was made emperor: tear, kill, hew in pieces. I
write to you with my own hand, and would inspire you with my own
feelings.” 167 Whilst the public forces of the state were
dissipated in private quarrels, the defenceless provinces lay
exposed to every invader. The bravest usurpers were compelled, by
the perplexity of their situation, to conclude ignominious
treaties with the common enemy, to purchase with oppressive
tributes the neutrality or services of the Barbarians, and to
introduce hostile and independent nations into the heart of the
Roman monarchy. 168
166 (return) [ Gallienus had given the titles of Cæsar and
Augustus to his son Saloninus, slain at Cologne by the usurper
Posthumus. A second son of Gallienus succeeded to the name and
rank of his elder brother Valerian, the brother of Gallienus, was
also associated to the empire: several other brothers, sisters,
nephews, and nieces of the emperor formed a very numerous royal
family. See Tillemont, tom iii, and M. de Brequigny in the
Memoires de l’Academie, tom xxxii p. 262.]
167 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 188.]
168 (return) [ Regillianus had some bands of Roxolani in his
service; Posthumus a body of Franks. It was, perhaps, in the
character of auxiliaries that the latter introduced themselves
into Spain.]
Such were the barbarians, and such the tyrants, who, under the
reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, dismembered the provinces, and
reduced the empire to the lowest pitch of disgrace and ruin, from
whence it seemed impossible that it should ever emerge. As far as
the barrenness of materials would permit, we have attempted to
trace, with order and perspicuity, the general events of that
calamitous period. There still remain some particular facts; I.
The disorders of Sicily; II. The tumults of Alexandria; and, III.
The rebellion of the Isaurians, which may serve to reflect a
strong light on the horrid picture.
I. Whenever numerous troops of banditti, multiplied by success
and impunity, publicly defy, instead of eluding, the justice of
their country, we may safely infer that the excessive weakness of
the country is felt and abused by the lowest ranks of the
community. The situation of Sicily preserved it from the
Barbarians; nor could the disarmed province have supported a
usurper. The sufferings of that once flourishing and still
fertile island were inflicted by baser hands. A licentious crowd
of slaves and peasants reigned for a while over the plundered
country, and renewed the memory of the servile wars of more
ancient times. 169 Devastations, of which the husbandman was
either the victim or the accomplice, must have ruined the
agriculture of Sicily; and as the principal estates were the
property of the opulent senators of Rome, who often enclosed
within a farm the territory of an old republic, it is not
improbable, that this private injury might affect the capital
more deeply, than all the conquests of the Goths or the Persians.
169 (return) [ The Augustan History, p. 177. See Diodor. Sicul.
l. xxxiv.]
II. The foundation of Alexandria was a noble design, at once
conceived and executed by the son of Philip. The beautiful and
regular form of that great city, second only to Rome itself,
comprehended a circumference of fifteen miles; 170 it was peopled
by three hundred thousand free inhabitants, besides at least an
equal number of slaves. 171 The lucrative trade of Arabia and
India flowed through the port of Alexandria, to the capital and
provinces of the empire. 1711 Idleness was unknown. Some were
employed in blowing of glass, others in weaving of linen, others
again manufacturing the papyrus. Either sex, and every age, was
engaged in the pursuits of industry, nor did even the blind or
the lame want occupations suited to their condition. 172 But the
people of Alexandria, a various mixture of nations, united the
vanity and inconstancy of the Greeks with the superstition and
obstinacy of the Egyptians. The most trifling occasion, a
transient scarcity of flesh or lentils, the neglect of an
accustomed salutation, a mistake of precedency in the public
baths, or even a religious dispute, 173 were at any time
sufficient to kindle a sedition among that vast multitude, whose
resentments were furious and implacable. 174 After the captivity
of Valerian and the insolence of his son had relaxed the
authority of the laws, the Alexandrians abandoned themselves to
the ungoverned rage of their passions, and their unhappy country
was the theatre of a civil war, which continued (with a few short
and suspicious truces) above twelve years. 175 All intercourse
was cut off between the several quarters of the afflicted city,
every street was polluted with blood, every building of strength
converted into a citadel; nor did the tumults subside till a
considerable part of Alexandria was irretrievably ruined. The
spacious and magnificent district of Bruchion, 1751 with its
palaces and musæum, the residence of the kings and philosophers
of Egypt, is described above a century afterwards, as already
reduced to its present state of dreary solitude. 176
170 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. v. 10.]
171 (return) [ Diodor. Sicul. l. xvii. p. 590, edit. Wesseling.]
1711 (return) [ Berenice, or Myos-Hormos, on the Red Sea,
received the eastern commodities. From thence they were
transported to the Nile, and down the Nile to Alexandria.—M.]
172 (return) [ See a very curious letter of Hadrian, in the
Augustan History, p. 245.]
173 (return) [ Such as the sacrilegious murder of a divine cat.
See Diodor. Sicul. l. i. * Note: The hostility between the Jewish
and Grecian part of the population afterwards between the two
former and the Christian, were unfailing causes of tumult,
sedition, and massacre. In no place were the religious disputes,
after the establishment of Christianity, more frequent or more
sanguinary. See Philo. de Legat. Hist. of Jews, ii. 171, iii.
111, 198. Gibbon, iii c. xxi. viii. c. xlvii.—M.]
174 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 195. This long and terrible
sedition was first occasioned by a dispute between a soldier and
a townsman about a pair of shoes.]
175 (return) [ Dionysius apud. Euses. Hist. Eccles. vii. p. 21.
Ammian xxii. 16.]
1751 (return) [ The Bruchion was a quarter of Alexandria which
extended along the largest of the two ports, and contained many
palaces, inhabited by the Ptolemies. D’Anv. Geogr. Anc. iii.
10.—G.]
176 (return) [ Scaliger. Animadver. ad Euseb. Chron. p. 258.
Three dissertations of M. Bonamy, in the Mem. de l’Academie, tom.
ix.]
III. The obscure rebellion of Trebellianus, who assumed the purple in
Isauria, a petty province of Asia Minor, was attended with strange and
memorable consequences. The pageant of royalty was soon destroyed by an
officer of Gallienus; but his followers, despairing of mercy, resolved
to shake off their allegiance, not only to the emperor, but to the
empire, and suddenly returned to the savage manners from which they had
never perfectly been reclaimed. Their craggy rocks, a branch of the
wide-extended Taurus, protected their inaccessible retreat. The tillage
of some fertile valleys 177 supplied them with necessaries, and a habit
of rapine with the luxuries of life. In the heart of the Roman
monarchy, the Isaurians long continued a nation of wild barbarians.
Succeeding princes, unable to reduce them to obedience, either by arms
or policy, were compelled to acknowledge their weakness, by surrounding
the hostile and independent spot with a strong chain of fortifications,
178 which often proved insufficient to restrain the incursions of these
domestic foes. The Isaurians, gradually extending their territory to
the sea-coast, subdued the western and mountainous part of Cilicia,
formerly the nest of those daring pirates, against whom the republic
had once been obliged to exert its utmost force, under the conduct of
the great Pompey. 179
177 (return) [ Strabo, l. xiii. p. 569.]
178 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 197.]
179 (return) [ See Cellarius, Geogr Antiq. tom. ii. p. 137, upon
the limits of Isauria.]
Our habits of thinking so fondly connect the order of the
universe with the fate of man, that this gloomy period of history
has been decorated with inundations, earthquakes, uncommon
meteors, preternatural darkness, and a crowd of prodigies
fictitious or exaggerated. 180 But a long and general famine was
a calamity of a more serious kind. It was the inevitable
consequence of rapine and oppression, which extirpated the
produce of the present and the hope of future harvests. Famine is
almost always followed by epidemical diseases, the effect of
scanty and unwholesome food. Other causes must, however, have
contributed to the furious plague, which, from the year two
hundred and fifty to the year two hundred and sixty-five, raged
without interruption in every province, every city, and almost
every family, of the Roman empire. During some time five thousand
persons died daily in Rome; and many towns, that had escaped the
hands of the Barbarians, were entirely depopulated. 181b
180 (return) [ Hist August p 177.]
181b (return) [ Hist. August. p. 177. Zosimus, l. i. p. 24.
Zonaras, l. xii. p. 623. Euseb. Chronicon. Victor in Epitom.
Victor in Cæsar. Eutropius, ix. 5. Orosius, vii. 21.]
We have the knowledge of a very curious circumstance, of some use
perhaps in the melancholy calculation of human calamities. An
exact register was kept at Alexandria of all the citizens
entitled to receive the distribution of corn. It was found, that
the ancient number of those comprised between the ages of forty
and seventy, had been equal to the whole sum of claimants, from
fourteen to fourscore years of age, who remained alive after the
reign of Gallienus. 182 Applying this authentic fact to the most
correct tables of mortality, it evidently proves, that above half
the people of Alexandria had perished; and could we venture to
extend the analogy to the other provinces, we might suspect, that
war, pestilence, and famine, had consumed, in a few years, the
moiety of the human species. 183
182 (return) [ Euseb. Hist. Eccles. vii. 21. The fact is taken
from the Letters of Dionysius, who, in the time of those
troubles, was bishop of Alexandria.]
183 (return) [ In a great number of parishes, 11,000 persons were
found between fourteen and eighty; 5365 between forty and
seventy. See Buffon, Histoire Naturelle, tom. ii. p. 590.]
Chapter XI: Reign Of Claudius, Defeat Of The Goths.—Part I.
Reign Of Claudius.—Defeat Of The Goths.—Victories, Triumph, And Death
Of Aurelian.
Under the deplorable reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, the empire
was oppressed and almost destroyed by the soldiers, the tyrants,
and the barbarians. It was saved by a series of great princes,
who derived their obscure origin from the martial provinces of
Illyricum. Within a period of about thirty years, Claudius,
Aurelian, Probus, Diocletian and his colleagues, triumphed over
the foreign and domestic enemies of the state, reëstablished,
with the military discipline, the strength of the frontiers, and
deserved the glorious title of Restorers of the Roman world.
The removal of an effeminate tyrant made way for a succession of
heroes. The indignation of the people imputed all their
calamities to Gallienus, and the far greater part were, indeed,
the consequence of his dissolute manners and careless
administration. He was even destitute of a sense of honor, which
so frequently supplies the absence of public virtue; and as long
as he was permitted to enjoy the possession of Italy, a victory
of the barbarians, the loss of a province, or the rebellion of a
general, seldom disturbed the tranquil course of his pleasures.
At length, a considerable army, stationed on the Upper Danube,
invested with the Imperial purple their leader Aureolus; who,
disdaining a confined and barren reign over the mountains of
Rhætia, passed the Alps, occupied Milan, threatened Rome, and
challenged Gallienus to dispute in the field the sovereignty of
Italy. The emperor, provoked by the insult, and alarmed by the
instant danger, suddenly exerted that latent vigor which
sometimes broke through the indolence of his temper. Forcing
himself from the luxury of the palace, he appeared in arms at the
head of his legions, and advanced beyond the Po to encounter his
competitor. The corrupted name of Pontirolo 1 still preserves the
memory of a bridge over the Adda, which, during the action, must
have proved an object of the utmost importance to both armies.
The Rhætian usurper, after receiving a total defeat and a
dangerous wound, retired into Milan. The siege of that great city
was immediately formed; the walls were battered with every engine
in use among the ancients; and Aureolus, doubtful of his internal
strength, and hopeless of foreign succors already anticipated the
fatal consequences of unsuccessful rebellion.
1 (return) [ Pons Aureoli, thirteen miles from Bergamo, and
thirty-two from Milan. See Cluver. Italia, Antiq. tom. i. p. 245.
Near this place, in the year 1703, the obstinate battle of
Cassano was fought between the French and Austrians. The
excellent relation of the Chevalier de Folard, who was present,
gives a very distinct idea of the ground. See Polybe de Folard,
tom. iii. p. 233-248.]
His last resource was an attempt to seduce the loyalty of the
besiegers. He scattered libels through the camp, inviting the
troops to desert an unworthy master, who sacrificed the public
happiness to his luxury, and the lives of his most valuable
subjects to the slightest suspicions. The arts of Aureolus
diffused fears and discontent among the principal officers of his
rival. A conspiracy was formed by Heraclianus, the Prætorian
præfect, by Marcian, a general of rank and reputation, and by
Cecrops, who commanded a numerous body of Dalmatian guards. The
death of Gallienus was resolved; and notwithstanding their desire
of first terminating the siege of Milan, the extreme danger which
accompanied every moment’s delay obliged them to hasten the
execution of their daring purpose. At a late hour of the night,
but while the emperor still protracted the pleasures of the
table, an alarm was suddenly given, that Aureolus, at the head of
all his forces, had made a desperate sally from the town;
Gallienus, who was never deficient in personal bravery, started
from his silken couch, and without allowing himself time either
to put on his armor, or to assemble his guards, he mounted on
horseback, and rode full speed towards the supposed place of the
attack. Encompassed by his declared or concealed enemies, he
soon, amidst the nocturnal tumult, received a mortal dart from an
uncertain hand. Before he expired, a patriotic sentiment rising
in the mind of Gallienus, induced him to name a deserving
successor; and it was his last request, that the Imperial
ornaments should be delivered to Claudius, who then commanded a
detached army in the neighborhood of Pavia. The report at least
was diligently propagated, and the order cheerfully obeyed by the
conspirators, who had already agreed to place Claudius on the
throne. On the first news of the emperor’s death, the troops
expressed some suspicion and resentment, till the one was
removed, and the other assuaged, by a donative of twenty pieces
of gold to each soldier. They then ratified the election, and
acknowledged the merit of their new sovereign. 2
2 (return) [ On the death of Gallienus, see Trebellius Pollio in
Hist. August. p. 181. Zosimus, l. i. p. 37. Zonaras, l. xii. p.
634. Eutrop. ix. ll. Aurelius Victor in Epitom. Victor in Cæsar.
I have compared and blended them all, but have chiefly followed
Aurelius Victor, who seems to have had the best memoirs.]
The obscurity which covered the origin of Claudius, though it was
afterwards embellished by some flattering fictions, 3
sufficiently betrays the meanness of his birth. We can only
discover that he was a native of one of the provinces bordering
on the Danube; that his youth was spent in arms, and that his
modest valor attracted the favor and confidence of Decius. The
senate and people already considered him as an excellent officer,
equal to the most important trusts; and censured the inattention
of Valerian, who suffered him to remain in the subordinate
station of a tribune. But it was not long before that emperor
distinguished the merit of Claudius, by declaring him general and
chief of the Illyrian frontier, with the command of all the
troops in Thrace, Mæsia, Dacia, Pannonia, and Dalmatia, the
appointments of the præfect of Egypt, the establishment of the
proconsul of Africa, and the sure prospect of the consulship. By
his victories over the Goths, he deserved from the senate the
honor of a statue, and excited the jealous apprehensions of
Gallienus. It was impossible that a soldier could esteem so
dissolute a sovereign, nor is it easy to conceal a just contempt.
Some unguarded expressions which dropped from Claudius were
officiously transmitted to the royal ear. The emperor’s answer to
an officer of confidence describes in very lively colors his own
character, and that of the times. “There is not any thing capable
of giving me more serious concern, than the intelligence
contained in your last despatch; 4 that some malicious
suggestions have indisposed towards us the mind of our friend and
_parent_ Claudius. As you regard your allegiance, use every means
to appease his resentment, but conduct your negotiation with
secrecy; let it not reach the knowledge of the Dacian troops;
they are already provoked, and it might inflame their fury. I
myself have sent him some presents: be it your care that he
accept them with pleasure. Above all, let him not suspect that I
am made acquainted with his imprudence. The fear of my anger
might urge him to desperate counsels.” 5 The presents which
accompanied this humble epistle, in which the monarch solicited a
reconciliation with his discontented subject, consisted of a
considerable sum of money, a splendid wardrobe, and a valuable
service of silver and gold plate. By such arts Gallienus softened
the indignation and dispelled the fears of his Illyrian general;
and during the remainder of that reign, the formidable sword of
Claudius was always drawn in the cause of a master whom he
despised. At last, indeed, he received from the conspirators the
bloody purple of Gallienus: but he had been absent from their
camp and counsels; and however he might applaud the deed, we may
candidly presume that he was innocent of the knowledge of it. 6
When Claudius ascended the throne, he was about fifty-four years
of age.
3 (return) [ Some supposed him, oddly enough, to be a bastard of
the younger Gordian. Others took advantage of the province of
Dardania, to deduce his origin from Dardanus, and the ancient
kings of Troy.]
4 (return) [ Notoria, a periodical and official despatch which
the emperor received from the frumentarii, or agents dispersed
through the provinces. Of these we may speak hereafter.]
5 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 208. Gallienus describes the plate,
vestments, etc., like a man who loved and understood those
splendid trifles.]
6 (return) [ Julian (Orat. i. p. 6) affirms that Claudius
acquired the empire in a just and even holy manner. But we may
distrust the partiality of a kinsman.]
The siege of Milan was still continued, and Aureolus soon
discovered that the success of his artifices had only raised up a
more determined adversary. He attempted to negotiate with
Claudius a treaty of alliance and partition. “Tell him,” replied
the intrepid emperor, “that such proposals should have been made
to Gallienus; _he_, perhaps, might have listened to them with
patience, and accepted a colleague as despicable as himself.” 7
This stern refusal, and a last unsuccessful effort, obliged
Aureolus to yield the city and himself to the discretion of the
conqueror. The judgment of the army pronounced him worthy of
death; and Claudius, after a feeble resistance, consented to the
execution of the sentence. Nor was the zeal of the senate less
ardent in the cause of their new sovereign. They ratified,
perhaps with a sincere transport of zeal, the election of
Claudius; and, as his predecessor had shown himself the personal
enemy of their order, they exercised, under the name of justice,
a severe revenge against his friends and family. The senate was
permitted to discharge the ungrateful office of punishment, and
the emperor reserved for himself the pleasure and merit of
obtaining by his intercession a general act of indemnity. 8
7 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 203. There are some trifling
differences concerning the circumstances of the last defeat and
death of Aureolus]
8 (return) [ Aurelius Victor in Gallien. The people loudly prayed
for the damnation of Gallienus. The senate decreed that his
relations and servants should be thrown down headlong from the
Gemonian stairs. An obnoxious officer of the revenue had his eyes
torn out whilst under examination. Note: The expression is
curious, “terram matrem deosque inferos impias uti Gallieno
darent.”—M.]
Such ostentatious clemency discovers less of the real character
of Claudius, than a trifling circumstance in which he seems to
have consulted only the dictates of his heart. The frequent
rebellions of the provinces had involved almost every person in
the guilt of treason, almost every estate in the case of
confiscation; and Gallienus often displayed his liberality by
distributing among his officers the property of his subjects. On
the accession of Claudius, an old woman threw herself at his
feet, and complained that a general of the late emperor had
obtained an arbitrary grant of her patrimony. This general was
Claudius himself, who had not entirely escaped the contagion of
the times. The emperor blushed at the reproach, but deserved the
confidence which she had reposed in his equity. The confession of
his fault was accompanied with immediate and ample restitution. 9
9 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 137.]
In the arduous task which Claudius had undertaken, of restoring
the empire to its ancient splendor, it was first necessary to
revive among his troops a sense of order and obedience. With the
authority of a veteran commander, he represented to them that the
relaxation of discipline had introduced a long train of
disorders, the effects of which were at length experienced by the
soldiers themselves; that a people ruined by oppression, and
indolent from despair, could no longer supply a numerous army
with the means of luxury, or even of subsistence; that the danger
of each individual had increased with the despotism of the
military order, since princes who tremble on the throne will
guard their safety by the instant sacrifice of every obnoxious
subject. The emperor expiated on the mischiefs of a lawless
caprice, which the soldiers could only gratify at the expense of
their own blood; as their seditious elections had so frequently
been followed by civil wars, which consumed the flower of the
legions either in the field of battle, or in the cruel abuse of
victory. He painted in the most lively colors the exhausted state
of the treasury, the desolation of the provinces, the disgrace of
the Roman name, and the insolent triumph of rapacious barbarians.
It was against those barbarians, he declared, that he intended to
point the first effort of their arms. Tetricus might reign for a
while over the West, and even Zenobia might preserve the dominion
of the East. 10 These usurpers were his personal adversaries; nor
could he think of indulging any private resentment till he had
saved an empire, whose impending ruin would, unless it was timely
prevented, crush both the army and the people.
10 (return) [ Zonaras on this occasion mentions Posthumus but the
registers of the senate (Hist. August. p. 203) prove that
Tetricus was already emperor of the western provinces.]
The various nations of Germany and Sarmatia, who fought under the
Gothic standard, had already collected an armament more
formidable than any which had yet issued from the Euxine. On the
banks of the Niester, one of the great rivers that discharge
themselves into that sea, they constructed a fleet of two
thousand, or even of six thousand vessels; 11 numbers which,
however incredible they may seem, would have been insufficient to
transport their pretended army of three hundred and twenty
thousand barbarians. Whatever might be the real strength of the
Goths, the vigor and success of the expedition were not adequate
to the greatness of the preparations. In their passage through
the Bosphorus, the unskilful pilots were overpowered by the
violence of the current; and while the multitude of their ships
were crowded in a narrow channel, many were dashed against each
other, or against the shore. The barbarians made several descents
on the coasts both of Europe and Asia; but the open country was
already plundered, and they were repulsed with shame and loss
from the fortified cities which they assaulted. A spirit of
discouragement and division arose in the fleet, and some of their
chiefs sailed away towards the islands of Crete and Cyprus; but
the main body, pursuing a more steady course, anchored at length
near the foot of Mount Athos, and assaulted the city of
Thessalonica, the wealthy capital of all the Macedonian
provinces. Their attacks, in which they displayed a fierce but
artless bravery, were soon interrupted by the rapid approach of
Claudius, hastening to a scene of action that deserved the
presence of a warlike prince at the head of the remaining powers
of the empire. Impatient for battle, the Goths immediately broke
up their camp, relinquished the siege of Thessalonica, left their
navy at the foot of Mount Athos, traversed the hills of
Macedonia, and pressed forwards to engage the last defence of
Italy.
11 (return) [ The Augustan History mentions the smaller, Zonaras
the larger number; the lively fancy of Montesquieu induced him to
prefer the latter.]
We still posses an original letter addressed by Claudius to the
senate and people on this memorable occasion. “Conscript
fathers,” says the emperor, “know that three hundred and twenty
thousand Goths have invaded the Roman territory. If I vanquish
them, your gratitude will reward my services. Should I fall,
remember that I am the successor of Gallienus. The whole republic
is fatigued and exhausted. We shall fight after Valerian, after
Ingenuus, Regillianus, Lollianus, Posthumus, Celsus, and a
thousand others, whom a just contempt for Gallienus provoked into
rebellion. We are in want of darts, of spears, and of shields.
The strength of the empire, Gaul, and Spain, are usurped by
Tetricus, and we blush to acknowledge that the archers of the
East serve under the banners of Zenobia. Whatever we shall
perform will be sufficiently great.” 12 The melancholy firmness
of this epistle announces a hero careless of his fate, conscious
of his danger, but still deriving a well-grounded hope from the
resources of his own mind.
12 (return) [ Trebell. Pollio in Hist. August. p. 204.]
The event surpassed his own expectations and those of the world.
By the most signal victories he delivered the empire from this
host of barbarians, and was distinguished by posterity under the
glorious appellation of the Gothic Claudius. The imperfect
historians of an irregular war 13 do not enable us to describe
the order and circumstances of his exploits; but, if we could be
indulged in the allusion, we might distribute into three acts
this memorable tragedy. I. The decisive battle was fought near
Naissus, a city of Dardania. The legions at first gave way,
oppressed by numbers, and dismayed by misfortunes. Their ruin was
inevitable, had not the abilities of their emperor prepared a
seasonable relief. A large detachment, rising out of the secret
and difficult passes of the mountains, which, by his order, they
had occupied, suddenly assailed the rear of the victorious Goths.
The favorable instant was improved by the activity of Claudius.
He revived the courage of his troops, restored their ranks, and
pressed the barbarians on every side. Fifty thousand men are
reported to have been slain in the battle of Naissus. Several
large bodies of barbarians, covering their retreat with a movable
fortification of wagons, retired, or rather escaped, from the
field of slaughter.
II. We may presume that some insurmountable difficulty, the
fatigue, perhaps, or the disobedience, of the conquerors,
prevented Claudius from completing in one day the destruction of
the Goths. The war was diffused over the province of Mæsia,
Thrace, and Macedonia, and its operations drawn out into a
variety of marches, surprises, and tumultuary engagements, as
well by sea as by land. When the Romans suffered any loss, it was
commonly occasioned by their own cowardice or rashness; but the
superior talents of the emperor, his perfect knowledge of the
country, and his judicious choice of measures as well as
officers, assured on most occasions the success of his arms. The
immense booty, the fruit of so many victories, consisted for the
greater part of cattle and slaves. A select body of the Gothic
youth was received among the Imperial troops; the remainder was
sold into servitude; and so considerable was the number of female
captives that every soldier obtained to his share two or three
women. A circumstance from which we may conclude, that the
invaders entertained some designs of settlement as well as of
plunder; since even in a naval expedition, they were accompanied
by their families.
III. The loss of their fleet, which was either taken or sunk, had
intercepted the retreat of the Goths. A vast circle of Roman
posts, distributed with skill, supported with firmness, and
gradually closing towards a common centre, forced the barbarians
into the most inaccessible parts of Mount Hæmus, where they found
a safe refuge, but a very scanty subsistence. During the course
of a rigorous winter in which they were besieged by the emperor’s
troops, famine and pestilence, desertion and the sword,
continually diminished the imprisoned multitude. On the return of
spring, nothing appeared in arms except a hardy and desperate
band, the remnant of that mighty host which had embarked at the
mouth of the Niester.
13 (return) [ Hist. August. in Claud. Aurelian. et Prob. Zosimus,
l. i. p. 38-42. Zonaras, l. xii. p. 638. Aurel. Victor in Epitom.
Victor Junior in Cæsar. Eutrop. ix ll. Euseb. in Chron.]
The pestilence which swept away such numbers of the barbarians,
at length proved fatal to their conqueror. After a short but
glorious reign of two years, Claudius expired at Sirmium, amidst
the tears and acclamations of his subjects. In his last illness,
he convened the principal officers of the state and army, and in
their presence recommended Aurelian, 14 one of his generals, as
the most deserving of the throne, and the best qualified to
execute the great design which he himself had been permitted only
to undertake. The virtues of Claudius, his valor, affability,
justice, and temperance, his love of fame and of his country,
place him in that short list of emperors who added lustre to the
Roman purple. Those virtues, however, were celebrated with
peculiar zeal and complacency by the courtly writers of the age
of Constantine, who was the great-grandson of Crispus, the elder
brother of Claudius. The voice of flattery was soon taught to
repeat, that gods, who so hastily had snatched Claudius from the
earth, rewarded his merit and piety by the perpetual
establishment of the empire in his family. 15
14 (return) [ According to Zonaras, (l. xii. p. 638,) Claudius,
before his death, invested him with the purple; but this singular
fact is rather contradicted than confirmed by other writers.]
15 (return) [ See the Life of Claudius by Pollio, and the
Orations of Mamertinus, Eumenius, and Julian. See likewise the
Cæsars of Julian p. 318. In Julian it was not adulation, but
superstition and vanity.]
Notwithstanding these oracles, the greatness of the Flavian
family (a name which it had pleased them to assume) was deferred
above twenty years, and the elevation of Claudius occasioned the
immediate ruin of his brother Quintilius, who possessed not
sufficient moderation or courage to descend into the private
station to which the patriotism of the late emperor had condemned
him. Without delay or reflection, he assumed the purple at
Aquileia, where he commanded a considerable force; and though his
reign lasted only seventeen days, 151 he had time to obtain the
sanction of the senate, and to experience a mutiny of the troops.
As soon as he was informed that the great army of the Danube had
invested the well-known valor of Aurelian with Imperial power, he
sunk under the fame and merit of his rival; and ordering his
veins to be opened, prudently withdrew himself from the unequal
contest. 16
151 (return) [ Such is the narrative of the greater part of the
older historians; but the number and the variety of his medals
seem to require more time, and give probability to the report of
Zosimus, who makes him reign some months.—G.]
16 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 42. Pollio (Hist. August. p. 107)
allows him virtues, and says, that, like Pertinax, he was killed
by the licentious soldiers. According to Dexippus, he died of a
disease.]
The general design of this work will not permit us minutely to
relate the actions of every emperor after he ascended the throne,
much less to deduce the various fortunes of his private life. We
shall only observe, that the father of Aurelian was a peasant of
the territory of Sirmium, who occupied a small farm, the property
of Aurelius, a rich senator. His warlike son enlisted in the
troops as a common soldier, successively rose to the rank of a
centurion, a tribune, the præfect of a legion, the inspector of
the camp, the general, or, as it was then called, the duke, of a
frontier; and at length, during the Gothic war, exercised the
important office of commander-in-chief of the cavalry. In every
station he distinguished himself by matchless valor, 17 rigid
discipline, and successful conduct. He was invested with the
consulship by the emperor Valerian, who styles him, in the
pompous language of that age, the deliverer of Illyricum, the
restorer of Gaul, and the rival of the Scipios. At the
recommendation of Valerian, a senator of the highest rank and
merit, Ulpius Crinitus, whose blood was derived from the same
source as that of Trajan, adopted the Pannonian peasant, gave him
his daughter in marriage, and relieved with his ample fortune the
honorable poverty which Aurelian had preserved inviolate. 18
17 (return) [ Theoclius (as quoted in the Augustan History, p.
211) affirms that in one day he killed with his own hand
forty-eight Sarmatians, and in several subsequent engagements
nine hundred and fifty. This heroic valor was admired by the
soldiers, and celebrated in their rude songs, the burden of which
was, mille, mile, mille, occidit.]
18 (return) [ Acholius (ap. Hist. August. p. 213) describes the
ceremony of the adoption, as it was performed at Byzantium, in
the presence of the emperor and his great officers.]
The reign of Aurelian lasted only four years and about nine
months; but every instant of that short period was filled by some
memorable achievement. He put an end to the Gothic war, chastised
the Germans who invaded Italy, recovered Gaul, Spain, and Britain
out of the hands of Tetricus, and destroyed the proud monarchy
which Zenobia had erected in the East on the ruins of the
afflicted empire.
It was the rigid attention of Aurelian, even to the minutest
articles of discipline, which bestowed such uninterrupted success
on his arms. His military regulations are contained in a very
concise epistle to one of his inferior officers, who is commanded
to enforce them, as he wishes to become a tribune, or as he is
desirous to live. Gaming, drinking, and the arts of divination,
were severely prohibited. Aurelian expected that his soldiers
should be modest, frugal, and laborious; that their armor should
be constantly kept bright, their weapons sharp, their clothing
and horses ready for immediate service; that they should live in
their quarters with chastity and sobriety, without damaging the
cornfields, without stealing even a sheep, a fowl, or a bunch of
grapes, without exacting from their landlords either salt, or
oil, or wood. “The public allowance,” continues the emperor, “is
sufficient for their support; their wealth should be collected
from the spoils of the enemy, not from the tears of the
provincials.” 19 A single instance will serve to display the
rigor, and even cruelty, of Aurelian. One of the soldiers had
seduced the wife of his host. The guilty wretch was fastened to
two trees forcibly drawn towards each other, and his limbs were
torn asunder by their sudden separation. A few such examples
impressed a salutary consternation. The punishments of Aurelian
were terrible; but he had seldom occasion to punish more than
once the same offence. His own conduct gave a sanction to his
laws, and the seditious legions dreaded a chief who had learned
to obey, and who was worthy to command.
19 (return) [ Hist. August, p. 211 This laconic epistle is truly
the work of a soldier; it abounds with military phrases and
words, some of which cannot be understood without difficulty.
Ferramenta samiata is well explained by Salmasius. The former of
the words means all weapons of offence, and is contrasted with
Arma, defensive armor The latter signifies keen and well
sharpened.]
Chapter XI: Reign Of Claudius, Defeat Of The Goths.—Part II.
The death of Claudius had revived the fainting spirit of the
Goths. The troops which guarded the passes of Mount Hæmus, and
the banks of the Danube, had been drawn away by the apprehension
of a civil war; and it seems probable that the remaining body of
the Gothic and Vandalic tribes embraced the favorable
opportunity, abandoned their settlements of the Ukraine,
traversed the rivers, and swelled with new multitudes the
destroying host of their countrymen. Their united numbers were at
length encountered by Aurelian, and the bloody and doubtful
conflict ended only with the approach of night. 20 Exhausted by
so many calamities, which they had mutually endured and inflicted
during a twenty years’ war, the Goths and the Romans consented to
a lasting and beneficial treaty. It was earnestly solicited by
the barbarians, and cheerfully ratified by the legions, to whose
suffrage the prudence of Aurelian referred the decision of that
important question. The Gothic nation engaged to supply the
armies of Rome with a body of two thousand auxiliaries,
consisting entirely of cavalry, and stipulated in return an
undisturbed retreat, with a regular market as far as the Danube,
provided by the emperor’s care, but at their own expense. The
treaty was observed with such religious fidelity, that when a
party of five hundred men straggled from the camp in quest of
plunder, the king or general of the barbarians commanded that the
guilty leader should be apprehended and shot to death with darts,
as a victim devoted to the sanctity of their engagements. 201 It
is, however, not unlikely, that the precaution of Aurelian, who
had exacted as hostages the sons and daughters of the Gothic
chiefs, contributed something to this pacific temper. The youths
he trained in the exercise of arms, and near his own person: to
the damsels he gave a liberal and Roman education, and by
bestowing them in marriage on some of his principal officers,
gradually introduced between the two nations the closest and most
endearing connections. 21
20 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 45.]
201 (return) [ The five hundred stragglers were all slain.—M.]
21 (return) [ Dexipphus (ap. Excerpta Legat. p. 12) relates the
whole transaction under the name of Vandals. Aurelian married one
of the Gothic ladies to his general Bonosus, who was able to
drink with the Goths and discover their secrets. Hist. August. p.
247.]
But the most important condition of peace was understood rather
than expressed in the treaty. Aurelian withdrew the Roman forces
from Dacia, and tacitly relinquished that great province to the
Goths and Vandals. 22 His manly judgment convinced him of the
solid advantages, and taught him to despise the seeming disgrace,
of thus contracting the frontiers of the monarchy. The Dacian
subjects, removed from those distant possessions which they were
unable to cultivate or defend, added strength and populousness to
the southern side of the Danube. A fertile territory, which the
repetition of barbarous inroads had changed into a desert, was
yielded to their industry, and a new province of Dacia still
preserved the memory of Trajan’s conquests. The old country of
that name detained, however, a considerable number of its
inhabitants, who dreaded exile more than a Gothic master. 23
These degenerate Romans continued to serve the empire, whose
allegiance they had renounced, by introducing among their
conquerors the first notions of agriculture, the useful arts, and
the conveniences of civilized life. An intercourse of commerce
and language was gradually established between the opposite banks
of the Danube; and after Dacia became an independent state, it
often proved the firmest barrier of the empire against the
invasions of the savages of the North. A sense of interest
attached these more settled barbarians to the alliance of Rome,
and a permanent interest very frequently ripens into sincere and
useful friendship. This various colony, which filled the ancient
province, and was insensibly blended into one great people, still
acknowledged the superior renown and authority of the Gothic
tribe, and claimed the fancied honor of a Scandinavian origin. At
the same time, the lucky though accidental resemblance of the
name of Getæ, 231 infused among the credulous Goths a vain
persuasion, that in a remote age, their own ancestors, already
seated in the Dacian provinces, had received the instructions of
Zamolxis, and checked the victorious arms of Sesostris and
Darius. 24
22 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 222. Eutrop. ix. 15. Sextus Rufus,
c. 9. de Mortibus Persecutorum, c. 9.]
23 (return) [ The Walachians still preserve many traces of the
Latin language and have boasted, in every age, of their Roman
descent. They are surrounded by, but not mixed with, the
barbarians. See a Memoir of M. d’Anville on ancient Dacia, in the
Academy of Inscriptions, tom. xxx.]
231 (return) [ The connection between the Getæ and the Goths is
still in my opinion incorrectly maintained by some learned
writers—M.]
24 (return) [See the first chapter of Jornandes. The Vandals,
however, (c. 22,) maintained a short independence between the
Rivers Marisia and Crissia, (Maros and Keres,) which fell into
the Teiss.]
While the vigorous and moderate conduct of Aurelian restored the
Illyrian frontier, the nation of the Alemanni 25 violated the
conditions of peace, which either Gallienus had purchased, or
Claudius had imposed, and, inflamed by their impatient youth,
suddenly flew to arms. Forty thousand horse appeared in the
field, 26 and the numbers of the infantry doubled those of the
cavalry. 27 The first objects of their avarice were a few cities
of the Rhætian frontier; but their hopes soon rising with
success, the rapid march of the Alemanni traced a line of
devastation from the Danube to the Po. 28
25 (return) [ Dexippus, p. 7—12. Zosimus, l. i. p. 43. Vopiscus
in Aurelian in Hist. August. However these historians differ in
names, (Alemanni Juthungi, and Marcomanni,) it is evident that
they mean the same people, and the same war; but it requires some
care to conciliate and explain them.]
26 (return) [ Cantoclarus, with his usual accuracy, chooses to
translate three hundred thousand: his version is equally
repugnant to sense and to grammar.]
27 (return) [ We may remark, as an instance of bad taste, that
Dexippus applies to the light infantry of the Alemanni the
technical terms proper only to the Grecian phalanx.]
28 (return) [ In Dexippus, we at present read Rhodanus: M. de
Valois very judiciously alters the word to Eridanus.]
The emperor was almost at the same time informed of the
irruption, and of the retreat, of the barbarians. Collecting an
active body of troops, he marched with silence and celerity along
the skirts of the Hercynian forest; and the Alemanni, laden with
the spoils of Italy, arrived at the Danube, without suspecting,
that on the opposite bank, and in an advantageous post, a Roman
army lay concealed and prepared to intercept their return.
Aurelian indulged the fatal security of the barbarians, and
permitted about half their forces to pass the river without
disturbance and without precaution. Their situation and
astonishment gave him an easy victory; his skilful conduct
improved the advantage. Disposing the legions in a semicircular
form, he advanced the two horns of the crescent across the
Danube, and wheeling them on a sudden towards the centre,
enclosed the rear of the German host. The dismayed barbarians, on
whatsoever side they cast their eyes, beheld, with despair, a
wasted country, a deep and rapid stream, a victorious and
implacable enemy.
Reduced to this distressed condition, the Alemanni no longer
disdained to sue for peace. Aurelian received their ambassadors
at the head of his camp, and with every circumstance of martial
pomp that could display the greatness and discipline of Rome. The
legions stood to their arms in well-ordered ranks and awful
silence. The principal commanders, distinguished by the ensigns
of their rank, appeared on horseback on either side of the
Imperial throne. Behind the throne the consecrated images of the
emperor, and his predecessors, 29 the golden eagles, and the
various titles of the legions, engraved in letters of gold, were
exalted in the air on lofty pikes covered with silver. When
Aurelian assumed his seat, his manly grace and majestic figure 30
taught the barbarians to revere the person as well as the purple
of their conqueror. The ambassadors fell prostrate on the ground
in silence. They were commanded to rise, and permitted to speak.
By the assistance of interpreters they extenuated their perfidy,
magnified their exploits, expatiated on the vicissitudes of
fortune and the advantages of peace, and, with an ill-timed
confidence, demanded a large subsidy, as the price of the
alliance which they offered to the Romans. The answer of the
emperor was stern and imperious. He treated their offer with
contempt, and their demand with indignation, reproached the
barbarians, that they were as ignorant of the arts of war as of
the laws of peace, and finally dismissed them with the choice
only of submitting to this unconditional mercy, or awaiting the
utmost severity of his resentment. 31 Aurelian had resigned a
distant province to the Goths; but it was dangerous to trust or
to pardon these perfidious barbarians, whose formidable power
kept Italy itself in perpetual alarms.
29 (return) [ The emperor Claudius was certainly of the number;
but we are ignorant how far this mark of respect was extended; if
to Cæsar and Augustus, it must have produced a very awful
spectacle; a long line of the masters of the world.]
30 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 210.]
31 (return) [ Dexippus gives them a subtle and prolix oration,
worthy of a Grecian sophist.]
Immediately after this conference, it should seem that some
unexpected emergency required the emperor’s presence in Pannonia.
He devolved on his lieutenants the care of finishing the
destruction of the Alemanni, either by the sword, or by the surer
operation of famine. But an active despair has often triumphed
over the indolent assurance of success. The barbarians, finding
it impossible to traverse the Danube and the Roman camp, broke
through the posts in their rear, which were more feebly or less
carefully guarded; and with incredible diligence, but by a
different road, returned towards the mountains of Italy. 32
Aurelian, who considered the war as totally extinguished,
received the mortifying intelligence of the escape of the
Alemanni, and of the ravage which they already committed in the
territory of Milan. The legions were commanded to follow, with as
much expedition as those heavy bodies were capable of exerting,
the rapid flight of an enemy whose infantry and cavalry moved
with almost equal swiftness. A few days afterwards, the emperor
himself marched to the relief of Italy, at the head of a chosen
body of auxiliaries, (among whom were the hostages and cavalry of
the Vandals,) and of all the Prætorian guards who had served in
the wars on the Danube. 33
32 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 215.]
33 (return) [ Dexippus, p. 12.]
As the light troops of the Alemanni had spread themselves from
the Alps to the Apennine, the incessant vigilance of Aurelian and
his officers was exercised in the discovery, the attack, and the
pursuit of the numerous detachments. Notwithstanding this
desultory war, three considerable battles are mentioned, in which
the principal force of both armies was obstinately engaged. 34
The success was various. In the first, fought near Placentia, the
Romans received so severe a blow, that, according to the
expression of a writer extremely partial to Aurelian, the
immediate dissolution of the empire was apprehended. 35 The
crafty barbarians, who had lined the woods, suddenly attacked the
legions in the dusk of the evening, and, it is most probable,
after the fatigue and disorder of a long march.
The fury of their charge was irresistible; but, at length, after
a dreadful slaughter, the patient firmness of the emperor rallied
his troops, and restored, in some degree, the honor of his arms.
The second battle was fought near Fano in Umbria; on the spot
which, five hundred years before, had been fatal to the brother
of Hannibal. 36 Thus far the successful Germans had advanced
along the Æmilian and Flaminian way, with a design of sacking the
defenceless mistress of the world. But Aurelian, who, watchful
for the safety of Rome, still hung on their rear, found in this
place the decisive moment of giving them a total and
irretrievable defeat. 37 The flying remnant of their host was
exterminated in a third and last battle near Pavia; and Italy was
delivered from the inroads of the Alemanni.
34 (return) [ Victor Junior in Aurelian.]
35 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 216.]
36 (return) [ The little river, or rather torrent, of, Metaurus,
near Fano, has been immortalized, by finding such an historian as
Livy, and such a poet as Horace.]
37 (return) [ It is recorded by an inscription found at Pesaro.
See Gruter cclxxvi. 3.]
Fear has been the original parent of superstition, and every new
calamity urges trembling mortals to deprecate the wrath of their
invisible enemies. Though the best hope of the republic was in
the valor and conduct of Aurelian, yet such was the public
consternation, when the barbarians were hourly expected at the
gates of Rome, that, by a decree of the senate the Sibylline
books were consulted. Even the emperor himself, from a motive
either of religion or of policy, recommended this salutary
measure, chided the tardiness of the senate, 38 and offered to
supply whatever expense, whatever animals, whatever captives of
any nation, the gods should require. Notwithstanding this liberal
offer, it does not appear, that any human victims expiated with
their blood the sins of the Roman people. The Sibylline books
enjoined ceremonies of a more harmless nature, processions of
priests in white robes, attended by a chorus of youths and
virgins; lustrations of the city and adjacent country; and
sacrifices, whose powerful influence disabled the barbarians from
passing the mystic ground on which they had been celebrated.
However puerile in themselves, these superstitious arts were
subservient to the success of the war; and if, in the decisive
battle of Fano, the Alemanni fancied they saw an army of spectres
combating on the side of Aurelian, he received a real and
effectual aid from this imaginary reënforcement. 39
38 (return) [ One should imagine, he said, that you were
assembled in a Christian church, not in the temple of all the
gods.]
39 (return) [ Vopiscus, in Hist. August. p. 215, 216, gives a
long account of these ceremonies from the Registers of the
senate.]
But whatever confidence might be placed in ideal ramparts, the
experience of the past, and the dread of the future, induced the
Romans to construct fortifications of a grosser and more
substantial kind. The seven hills of Rome had been surrounded by
the successors of Romulus with an ancient wall of more than
thirteen miles. 40 The vast enclosure may seem disproportioned to
the strength and numbers of the infant-state. But it was
necessary to secure an ample extent of pasture and arable land
against the frequent and sudden incursions of the tribes of
Latium, the perpetual enemies of the republic. With the progress
of Roman greatness, the city and its inhabitants gradually
increased, filled up the vacant space, pierced through the
useless walls, covered the field of Mars, and, on every side,
followed the public highways in long and beautiful suburbs. 41
The extent of the new walls, erected by Aurelian, and finished in
the reign of Probus, was magnified by popular estimation to near
fifty, 42 but is reduced by accurate measurement to about
twenty-one miles. 43 It was a great but a melancholy labor, since
the defence of the capital betrayed the decline of monarchy. The
Romans of a more prosperous age, who trusted to the arms of the
legions the safety of the frontier camps, 44 were very far from
entertaining a suspicion that it would ever become necessary to
fortify the seat of empire against the inroads of the barbarians.
45
40 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 5. To confirm our idea, we
may observe, that for a long time Mount Cælius was a grove of
oaks, and Mount Viminal was overrun with osiers; that, in the
fourth century, the Aventine was a vacant and solitary
retirement; that, till the time of Augustus, the Esquiline was an
unwholesome burying-ground; and that the numerous inequalities,
remarked by the ancients in the Quirinal, sufficiently prove that
it was not covered with buildings. Of the seven hills, the
Capitoline and Palatine only, with the adjacent valleys, were the
primitive habitations of the Roman people. But this subject would
require a dissertation.]
41 (return) [ Exspatiantia tecta multas addidere urbes, is the
expression of Pliny.]
42 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 222. Both Lipsius and Isaac
Vossius have eagerly embraced this measure.]
43 (return) [ See Nardini, Roman Antica, l. i. c. 8. * Note: But
compare Gibbon, ch. xli. note 77.—M.]
44 (return) [ Tacit. Hist. iv. 23.]
45 (return) [ For Aurelian’s walls, see Vopiscus in Hist. August.
p. 216, 222. Zosimus, l. i. p. 43. Eutropius, ix. 15. Aurel.
Victor in Aurelian Victor Junior in Aurelian. Euseb. Hieronym. et
Idatius in Chronic]
The victory of Claudius over the Goths, and the success of
Aurelian against the Alemanni, had already restored to the arms
of Rome their ancient superiority over the barbarous nations of
the North. To chastise domestic tyrants, and to reunite the
dismembered parts of the empire, was a task reserved for the
second of those warlike emperors. Though he was acknowledged by
the senate and people, the frontiers of Italy, Africa, Illyricum,
and Thrace, confined the limits of his reign. Gaul, Spain, and
Britain, Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor, were still possessed by
two rebels, who alone, out of so numerous a list, had hitherto
escaped the dangers of their situation; and to complete the
ignominy of Rome, these rival thrones had been usurped by women.
A rapid succession of monarchs had arisen and fallen in the
provinces of Gaul. The rigid virtues of Posthumus served only to
hasten his destruction. After suppressing a competitor, who had
assumed the purple at Mentz, he refused to gratify his troops
with the plunder of the rebellious city; and in the seventh year
of his reign, became the victim of their disappointed avarice. 46
The death of Victorinus, his friend and associate, was occasioned
by a less worthy cause. The shining accomplishments 47 of that
prince were stained by a licentious passion, which he indulged in
acts of violence, with too little regard to the laws of society,
or even to those of love. 48 He was slain at Cologne, by a
conspiracy of jealous husbands, whose revenge would have appeared
more justifiable, had they spared the innocence of his son. After
the murder of so many valiant princes, it is somewhat remarkable,
that a female for a long time controlled the fierce legions of
Gaul, and still more singular, that she was the mother of the
unfortunate Victorinus. The arts and treasures of Victoria
enabled her successively to place Marius and Tetricus on the
throne, and to reign with a manly vigor under the name of those
dependent emperors. Money of copper, of silver, and of gold, was
coined in her name; she assumed the titles of Augusta and Mother
of the Camps: her power ended only with her life; but her life
was perhaps shortened by the ingratitude of Tetricus. 49
46 (return) [ His competitor was Lollianus, or Ælianus, if,
indeed, these names mean the same person. See Tillemont, tom.
iii. p. 1177. Note: The medals which bear the name of Lollianus
are considered forgeries except one in the museum of the Prince
of Waldeck there are many extent bearing the name of Lælianus,
which appears to have been that of the competitor of Posthumus.
Eckhel. Doct. Num. t. vi. 149—G.]
47 (return) [ The character of this prince by Julius Aterianus
(ap. Hist. August. p. 187) is worth transcribing, as it seems
fair and impartial Victorino qui Post Junium Posthumium Gallias
rexit neminem existemo præferendum; non in virtute Trajanum; non
Antoninum in clementia; non in gravitate Nervam; non in
gubernando ærario Vespasianum; non in Censura totius vitæ ac
severitate militari Pertinacem vel Severum. Sed omnia hæc libido
et cupiditas voluptatis mulierriæ sic perdidit, ut nemo audeat
virtutes ejus in literas mittere quem constat omnium judicio
meruisse puniri.]
48 (return) [ He ravished the wife of Attitianus, an actuary, or
army agent, Hist. August. p. 186. Aurel. Victor in Aurelian.]
49 (return) [ Pollio assigns her an article among the thirty
tyrants. Hist. August. p. 200.]
When, at the instigation of his ambitious patroness, Tetricus
assumed the ensigns of royalty, he was governor of the peaceful
province of Aquitaine, an employment suited to his character and
education. He reigned four or five years over Gaul, Spain, and
Britain, the slave and sovereign of a licentious army, whom he
dreaded, and by whom he was despised. The valor and fortune of
Aurelian at length opened the prospect of a deliverance. He
ventured to disclose his melancholy situation, and conjured the
emperor to hasten to the relief of his unhappy rival. Had this
secret correspondence reached the ears of the soldiers, it would
most probably have cost Tetricus his life; nor could he resign
the sceptre of the West without committing an act of treason
against himself. He affected the appearances of a civil war, led
his forces into the field, against Aurelian, posted them in the
most disadvantageous manner, betrayed his own counsels to his
enemy, and with a few chosen friends deserted in the beginning of
the action. The rebel legions, though disordered and dismayed by
the unexpected treachery of their chief, defended themselves with
desperate valor, till they were cut in pieces almost to a man, in
this bloody and memorable battle, which was fought near Chalons
in Champagne. 50 The retreat of the irregular auxiliaries, Franks
and Batavians, 51 whom the conqueror soon compelled or persuaded
to repass the Rhine, restored the general tranquillity, and the
power of Aurelian was acknowledged from the wall of Antoninus to
the columns of Hercules.
50 (return) [ Pollio in Hist. August. p. 196. Vopiscus in Hist.
August. p. 220. The two Victors, in the lives of Gallienus and
Aurelian. Eutrop. ix. 13. Euseb. in Chron. Of all these writers,
only the two last (but with strong probability) place the fall of
Tetricus before that of Zenobia. M. de Boze (in the Academy of
Inscriptions, tom. xxx.) does not wish, and Tillemont (tom. iii.
p. 1189) does not dare to follow them. I have been fairer than
the one, and bolder than the other.]
51 (return) [ Victor Junior in Aurelian. Eumenius mentions
Batavicœ; some critics, without any reason, would fain alter the
word to Bagandicœ.] As early as the reign of Claudius, the city
of Autun, alone and unassisted, had ventured to declare against
the legions of Gaul. After a siege of seven months, they stormed
and plundered that unfortunate city, already wasted by famine. 52
Lyons, on the contrary, had resisted with obstinate disaffection
the arms of Aurelian. We read of the punishment of Lyons, 53 but
there is not any mention of the rewards of Autun. Such, indeed,
is the policy of civil war: severely to remember injuries, and to
forget the most important services. Revenge is profitable,
gratitude is expensive.
52 (return) [ Eumen. in Vet. Panegyr. iv. 8.]
53 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 246. Autun was not
restored till the reign of Diocletian. See Eumenius de
restaurandis scholis.]
Aurelian had no sooner secured the person and provinces of
Tetricus, than he turned his arms against Zenobia, the celebrated
queen of Palmyra and the East. Modern Europe has produced several
illustrious women who have sustained with glory the weight of
empire; nor is our own age destitute of such distinguished
characters. But if we except the doubtful achievements of
Semiramis, Zenobia is perhaps the only female whose superior
genius broke through the servile indolence imposed on her sex by
the climate and manners of Asia. 54 She claimed her descent from
the Macedonian kings of Egypt, 541 equalled in beauty her
ancestor Cleopatra, and far surpassed that princess in chastity
55 and valor. Zenobia was esteemed the most lovely as well as the
most heroic of her sex. She was of a dark complexion (for in
speaking of a lady these trifles become important). Her teeth
were of a pearly whiteness, and her large black eyes sparkled
with uncommon fire, tempered by the most attractive sweetness.
Her voice was strong and harmonious. Her manly understanding was
strengthened and adorned by study. She was not ignorant of the
Latin tongue, but possessed in equal perfection the Greek, the
Syriac, and the Egyptian languages. She had drawn up for her own
use an epitome of oriental history, and familiarly compared the
beauties of Homer and Plato under the tuition of the sublime
Longinus.
54 (return) [ Almost everything that is said of the manners of
Odenathus and Zenobia is taken from their lives in the Augustan
History, by Trebeljus Pollio; see p. 192, 198.]
541 (return) [ According to some Christian writers, Zenobia was a
Jewess. (Jost Geschichte der Israel. iv. 16. Hist. of Jews, iii.
175.)—M.]
55 (return) [ She never admitted her husband’s embraces but for
the sake of posterity. If her hopes were baffled, in the ensuing
month she reiterated the experiment.]
This accomplished woman gave her hand to Odenathus, 551 who, from
a private station, raised himself to the dominion of the East.
She soon became the friend and companion of a hero. In the
intervals of war, Odenathus passionately delighted in the
exercise of hunting; he pursued with ardor the wild beasts of the
desert, lions, panthers, and bears; and the ardor of Zenobia in
that dangerous amusement was not inferior to his own. She had
inured her constitution to fatigue, disdained the use of a
covered carriage, generally appeared on horseback in a military
habit, and sometimes marched several miles on foot at the head of
the troops. The success of Odenathus was in a great measure
ascribed to her incomparable prudence and fortitude. Their
splendid victories over the Great King, whom they twice pursued
as far as the gates of Ctesiphon, laid the foundations of their
united fame and power. The armies which they commanded, and the
provinces which they had saved, acknowledged not any other
sovereigns than their invincible chiefs. The senate and people of
Rome revered a stranger who had avenged their captive emperor,
and even the insensible son of Valerian accepted Odenathus for
his legitimate colleague.
551 (return) [ According to Zosimus, Odenathus was of a noble
family in Palmyra and according to Procopius, he was prince of
the Saracens, who inhabit the ranks of the Euphrates. Echhel.
Doct. Num. vii. 489.—G.]
Chapter XI: Reign Of Claudius, Defeat Of The Goths.—Part III.
After a successful expedition against the Gothic plunderers of
Asia, the Palmyrenian prince returned to the city of Emesa in
Syria. Invincible in war, he was there cut off by domestic
treason, and his favorite amusement of hunting was the cause, or
at least the occasion, of his death. 56 His nephew Mæonius
presumed to dart his javelin before that of his uncle; and though
admonished of his error, repeated the same insolence. As a
monarch, and as a sportsman, Odenathus was provoked, took away
his horse, a mark of ignominy among the barbarians, and chastised
the rash youth by a short confinement. The offence was soon
forgot, but the punishment was remembered; and Mæonius, with a
few daring associates, assassinated his uncle in the midst of a
great entertainment. Herod, the son of Odenathus, though not of
Zenobia, a young man of a soft and effeminate temper, 57 was
killed with his father. But Mæonius obtained only the pleasure of
revenge by this bloody deed. He had scarcely time to assume the
title of Augustus, before he was sacrificed by Zenobia to the
memory of her husband. 58
56 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 192, 193. Zosimus, l. i. p. 36.
Zonaras, l. xii p. 633. The last is clear and probable, the
others confused and inconsistent. The text of Syncellus, if not
corrupt, is absolute nonsense.]
57 (return) [ Odenathus and Zenobia often sent him, from the
spoils of the enemy, presents of gems and toys, which he received
with infinite delight.]
58 (return) [ Some very unjust suspicions have been cast on
Zenobia, as if she was accessory to her husband’s death.]
With the assistance of his most faithful friends, she immediately
filled the vacant throne, and governed with manly counsels
Palmyra, Syria, and the East, above five years. By the death of
Odenathus, that authority was at an end which the senate had
granted him only as a personal distinction; but his martial
widow, disdaining both the senate and Gallienus, obliged one of
the Roman generals, who was sent against her, to retreat into
Europe, with the loss of his army and his reputation. 59 Instead
of the little passions which so frequently perplex a female
reign, the steady administration of Zenobia was guided by the
most judicious maxims of policy. If it was expedient to pardon,
she could calm her resentment; if it was necessary to punish, she
could impose silence on the voice of pity. Her strict economy was
accused of avarice; yet on every proper occasion she appeared
magnificent and liberal. The neighboring states of Arabia,
Armenia, and Persia, dreaded her enmity, and solicited her
alliance. To the dominions of Odenathus, which extended from the
Euphrates to the frontiers of Bithynia, his widow added the
inheritance of her ancestors, the populous and fertile kingdom of
Egypt. 60 The emperor Claudius acknowledged her merit, and was
content, that, while _he_ pursued the Gothic war, _she_ should
assert the dignity of the empire in the East. The conduct,
however, of Zenobia was attended with some ambiguity; not is it
unlikely that she had conceived the design of erecting an
independent and hostile monarchy. She blended with the popular
manners of Roman princes the stately pomp of the courts of Asia,
and exacted from her subjects the same adoration that was paid to
the successor of Cyrus. She bestowed on her three sons 61 a Latin
education, and often showed them to the troops adorned with the
Imperial purple. For herself she reserved the diadem, with the
splendid but doubtful title of Queen of the East.
59 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 180, 181.]
60 (return) [ See, in Hist. August. p. 198, Aurelian’s testimony
to her merit; and for the conquest of Egypt, Zosimus, l. i. p.
39, 40.] This seems very doubtful. Claudius, during all his
reign, is represented as emperor on the medals of Alexandria,
which are very numerous. If Zenobia possessed any power in Egypt,
it could only have been at the beginning of the reign of
Aurelian. The same circumstance throws great improbability on her
conquests in Galatia. Perhaps Zenobia administered Egypt in the
name of Claudius, and emboldened by the death of that prince,
subjected it to her own power.—G.]
61 (return) [ Timolaus, Herennianus, and Vaballathus. It is
supposed that the two former were already dead before the war. On
the last, Aurelian bestowed a small province of Armenia, with the
title of King; several of his medals are still extant. See
Tillemont, tom. 3, p. 1190.]
When Aurelian passed over into Asia, against an adversary whose
sex alone could render her an object of contempt, his presence
restored obedience to the province of Bithynia, already shaken by
the arms and intrigues of Zenobia. 62 Advancing at the head of
his legions, he accepted the submission of Ancyra, and was
admitted into Tyana, after an obstinate siege, by the help of a
perfidious citizen. The generous though fierce temper of Aurelian
abandoned the traitor to the rage of the soldiers; a
superstitious reverence induced him to treat with lenity the
countrymen of Apollonius the philosopher. 63 Antioch was deserted
on his approach, till the emperor, by his salutary edicts,
recalled the fugitives, and granted a general pardon to all who,
from necessity rather than choice, had been engaged in the
service of the Palmyrenian Queen. The unexpected mildness of such
a conduct reconciled the minds of the Syrians, and as far as the
gates of Emesa, the wishes of the people seconded the terror of
his arms. 64
62 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 44.]
63 (return) [ Vopiscus (in Hist. August. p. 217) gives us an
authentic letter and a doubtful vision, of Aurelian. Apollonius
of Tyana was born about the same time as Jesus Christ. His life
(that of the former) is related in so fabulous a manner by his
disciples, that we are at a loss to discover whether he was a
sage, an impostor, or a fanatic.]
64 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 46.]
Zenobia would have ill deserved her reputation, had she
indolently permitted the emperor of the West to approach within a
hundred miles of her capital. The fate of the East was decided in
two great battles; so similar in almost every circumstance, that
we can scarcely distinguish them from each other, except by
observing that the first was fought near Antioch, 65 and the
second near Emesa. 66 In both the queen of Palmyra animated the
armies by her presence, and devolved the execution of her orders
on Zabdas, who had already signalized his military talents by the
conquest of Egypt. The numerous forces of Zenobia consisted for
the most part of light archers, and of heavy cavalry clothed in
complete steel. The Moorish and Illyrian horse of Aurelian were
unable to sustain the ponderous charge of their antagonists. They
fled in real or affected disorder, engaged the Palmyrenians in a
laborious pursuit, harassed them by a desultory combat, and at
length discomfited this impenetrable but unwieldy body of
cavalry. The light infantry, in the mean time, when they had
exhausted their quivers, remaining without protection against a
closer onset, exposed their naked sides to the swords of the
legions. Aurelian had chosen these veteran troops, who were
usually stationed on the Upper Danube, and whose valor had been
severely tried in the Alemannic war. 67 After the defeat of
Emesa, Zenobia found it impossible to collect a third army. As
far as the frontier of Egypt, the nations subject to her empire
had joined the standard of the conqueror, who detached Probus,
the bravest of his generals, to possess himself of the Egyptian
provinces. Palmyra was the last resource of the widow of
Odenathus. She retired within the walls of her capital, made
every preparation for a vigorous resistance, and declared, with
the intrepidity of a heroine, that the last moment of her reign
and of her life should be the same.
65 (return) [ At a place called Immæ. Eutropius, Sextus Rufus,
and Jerome, mention only this first battle.]
66 (return) [ Vopiscus (in Hist. August. p. 217) mentions only
the second.]
67 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 44—48. His account of the two
battles is clear and circumstantial.]
Amid the barren deserts of Arabia, a few cultivated spots rise
like islands out of the sandy ocean. Even the name of Tadmor, or
Palmyra, by its signification in the Syriac as well as in the
Latin language, denoted the multitude of palm-trees which
afforded shade and verdure to that temperate region. The air was
pure, and the soil, watered by some invaluable springs, was
capable of producing fruits as well as corn. A place possessed of
such singular advantages, and situated at a convenient distance
68 between the Gulf of Persia and the Mediterranean, was soon
frequented by the caravans which conveyed to the nations of
Europe a considerable part of the rich commodities of India.
Palmyra insensibly increased into an opulent and independent
city, and connecting the Roman and the Parthian monarchies by the
mutual benefits of commerce, was suffered to observe an humble
neutrality, till at length, after the victories of Trajan, the
little republic sunk into the bosom of Rome, and flourished more
than one hundred and fifty years in the subordinate though
honorable rank of a colony. It was during that peaceful period,
if we may judge from a few remaining inscriptions, that the
wealthy Palmyrenians constructed those temples, palaces, and
porticos of Grecian architecture, whose ruins, scattered over an
extent of several miles, have deserved the curiosity of our
travellers. The elevation of Odenathus and Zenobia appeared to
reflect new splendor on their country, and Palmyra, for a while,
stood forth the rival of Rome: but the competition was fatal, and
ages of prosperity were sacrificed to a moment of glory. 69
68 (return) [ It was five hundred and thirty-seven miles from
Seleucia, and two hundred and three from the nearest coast of
Syria, according to the reckoning of Pliny, who, in a few words,
(Hist. Natur. v. 21,) gives an excellent description of Palmyra.
* Note: Talmor, or Palmyra, was probably at a very early period
the connecting link between the commerce of Tyre and Babylon.
Heeren, Ideen, v. i. p. ii. p. 125. Tadmor was probably built by
Solomon as a commercial station. Hist. of Jews, v. p. 271—M.]
69 (return) [ Some English travellers from Aleppo discovered the
ruins of Palmyra about the end of the last century. Our curiosity
has since been gratified in a more splendid manner by Messieurs
Wood and Dawkins. For the history of Palmyra, we may consult the
masterly dissertation of Dr. Halley in the Philosophical
Transactions: Lowthorp’s Abridgment, vol. iii. p. 518.]
In his march over the sandy desert between Emesa and Palmyra, the
emperor Aurelian was perpetually harassed by the Arabs; nor could
he always defend his army, and especially his baggage, from those
flying troops of active and daring robbers, who watched the
moment of surprise, and eluded the slow pursuit of the legions.
The siege of Palmyra was an object far more difficult and
important, and the emperor, who, with incessant vigor, pressed
the attacks in person, was himself wounded with a dart. “The
Roman people,” says Aurelian, in an original letter, “speak with
contempt of the war which I am waging against a woman. They are
ignorant both of the character and of the power of Zenobia. It is
impossible to enumerate her warlike preparations, of stones, of
arrows, and of every species of missile weapons. Every part of
the walls is provided with two or three _balistæ_ and artificial
fires are thrown from her military engines. The fear of
punishment has armed her with a desperate courage. Yet still I
trust in the protecting deities of Rome, who have hitherto been
favorable to all my undertakings.” 70 Doubtful, however, of the
protection of the gods, and of the event of the siege, Aurelian
judged it more prudent to offer terms of an advantageous
capitulation; to the queen, a splendid retreat; to the citizens,
their ancient privileges. His proposals were obstinately
rejected, and the refusal was accompanied with insult.
70 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 218.]
The firmness of Zenobia was supported by the hope, that in a very
short time famine would compel the Roman army to repass the
desert; and by the reasonable expectation that the kings of the
East, and particularly the Persian monarch, would arm in the
defence of their most natural ally. But fortune, and the
perseverance of Aurelian, overcame every obstacle. The death of
Sapor, which happened about this time, 71 distracted the councils
of Persia, and the inconsiderable succors that attempted to
relieve Palmyra were easily intercepted either by the arms or the
liberality of the emperor. From every part of Syria, a regular
succession of convoys safely arrived in the camp, which was
increased by the return of Probus with his victorious troops from
the conquest of Egypt. It was then that Zenobia resolved to fly.
She mounted the fleetest of her dromedaries, 72 and had already
reached the banks of the Euphrates, about sixty miles from
Palmyra, when she was overtaken by the pursuit of Aurelian’s
light horse, seized, and brought back a captive to the feet of
the emperor. Her capital soon afterwards surrendered, and was
treated with unexpected lenity. The arms, horses, and camels,
with an immense treasure of gold, silver, silk, and precious
stones, were all delivered to the conqueror, who, leaving only a
garrison of six hundred archers, returned to Emesa, and employed
some time in the distribution of rewards and punishments at the
end of so memorable a war, which restored to the obedience of
Rome those provinces that had renounced their allegiance since
the captivity of Valerian.
71 (return) [ From a very doubtful chronology I have endeavored
to extract the most probable date.]
72 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 218. Zosimus, l. i. p. 50. Though
the camel is a heavy beast of burden, the dromedary, which is
either of the same or of a kindred species, is used by the
natives of Asia and Africa on all occasions which require
celerity. The Arabs affirm, that he will run over as much ground
in one day as their fleetest horses can perform in eight or ten.
See Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. xi. p. 222, and Shaw’s Travels
p. 167]
When the Syrian queen was brought into the presence of Aurelian,
he sternly asked her, How she had presumed to rise in arms
against the emperors of Rome! The answer of Zenobia was a prudent
mixture of respect and firmness. “Because I disdained to consider
as Roman emperors an Aureolus or a Gallienus. You alone I
acknowledge as my conqueror and my sovereign.” 73 But as female
fortitude is commonly artificial, so it is seldom steady or
consistent. The courage of Zenobia deserted her in the hour of
trial; she trembled at the angry clamors of the soldiers, who
called aloud for her immediate execution, forgot the generous
despair of Cleopatra, which she had proposed as her model, and
ignominiously purchased life by the sacrifice of her fame and her
friends. It was to their counsels, which governed the weakness of
her sex, that she imputed the guilt of her obstinate resistance;
it was on their heads that she directed the vengeance of the
cruel Aurelian. The fame of Longinus, who was included among the
numerous and perhaps innocent victims of her fear, will survive
that of the queen who betrayed, or the tyrant who condemned him.
Genius and learning were incapable of moving a fierce unlettered
soldier, but they had served to elevate and harmonize the soul of
Longinus. Without uttering a complaint, he calmly followed the
executioner, pitying his unhappy mistress, and bestowing comfort
on his afflicted friends. 74
73 (return) [ Pollio in Hist. August. p. 199.]
74 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 219. Zosimus, l. i. p.
51.]
Returning from the conquest of the East, Aurelian had already
crossed the Straits which divided Europe from Asia, when he was
provoked by the intelligence that the Palmyrenians had massacred
the governor and garrison which he had left among them, and again
erected the standard of revolt. Without a moment’s deliberation,
he once more turned his face towards Syria. Antioch was alarmed
by his rapid approach, and the helpless city of Palmyra felt the
irresistible weight of his resentment. We have a letter of
Aurelian himself, in which he acknowledges, 75 that old men,
women, children, and peasants, had been involved in that dreadful
execution, which should have been confined to armed rebellion;
and although his principal concern seems directed to the
reëstablishment of a temple of the Sun, he discovers some pity
for the remnant of the Palmyrenians, to whom he grants the
permission of rebuilding and inhabiting their city. But it is
easier to destroy than to restore. The seat of commerce, of arts,
and of Zenobia, gradually sunk into an obscure town, a trifling
fortress, and at length a miserable village. The present citizens
of Palmyra, consisting of thirty or forty families, have erected
their mud cottages within the spacious court of a magnificent
temple.
75 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 219.]
Another and a last labor still awaited the indefatigable
Aurelian; to suppress a dangerous though obscure rebel, who,
during the revolt of Palmyra, had arisen on the banks of the
Nile. Firmus, the friend and ally, as he proudly styled himself,
of Odenathus and Zenobia, was no more than a wealthy merchant of
Egypt. In the course of his trade to India, he had formed very
intimate connections with the Saracens and the Blemmyes, whose
situation on either coast of the Red Sea gave them an easy
introduction into the Upper Egypt. The Egyptians he inflamed with
the hope of freedom, and, at the head of their furious multitude,
broke into the city of Alexandria, where he assumed the Imperial
purple, coined money, published edicts, and raised an army,
which, as he vainly boasted, he was capable of maintaining from
the sole profits of his paper trade. Such troops were a feeble
defence against the approach of Aurelian; and it seems almost
unnecessary to relate, that Firmus was routed, taken, tortured,
and put to death. 76 Aurelian might now congratulate the senate,
the people, and himself, that in little more than three years, he
had restored universal peace and order to the Roman world.
76 (return) [ See Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 220, 242. As an
instance of luxury, it is observed, that he had glass windows. He
was remarkable for his strength and appetite, his courage and
dexterity. From the letter of Aurelian, we may justly infer, that
Firmus was the last of the rebels, and consequently that Tetricus
was already suppressed.]
Since the foundation of Rome, no general had more nobly deserved
a triumph than Aurelian; nor was a triumph ever celebrated with
superior pride and magnificence. 77 The pomp was opened by twenty
elephants, four royal tigers, and above two hundred of the most
curious animals from every climate of the North, the East, and
the South. They were followed by sixteen hundred gladiators,
devoted to the cruel amusement of the amphitheatre. The wealth of
Asia, the arms and ensigns of so many conquered nations, and the
magnificent plate and wardrobe of the Syrian queen, were disposed
in exact symmetry or artful disorder. The ambassadors of the most
remote parts of the earth, of Æthiopia, Arabia, Persia,
Bactriana, India, and China, all remarkable by their rich or
singular dresses, displayed the fame and power of the Roman
emperor, who exposed likewise to the public view the presents
that he had received, and particularly a great number of crowns
of gold, the offerings of grateful cities.
The victories of Aurelian were attested by the long train of
captives who reluctantly attended his triumph, Goths, Vandals,
Sarmatians, Alemanni, Franks, Gauls, Syrians, and Egyptians. Each
people was distinguished by its peculiar inscription, and the
title of Amazons was bestowed on ten martial heroines of the
Gothic nation who had been taken in arms. 78 But every eye,
disregarding the crowd of captives, was fixed on the emperor
Tetricus and the queen of the East. The former, as well as his
son, whom he had created Augustus, was dressed in Gallic
trousers, 79 a saffron tunic, and a robe of purple. The beauteous
figure of Zenobia was confined by fetters of gold; a slave
supported the gold chain which encircled her neck, and she almost
fainted under the intolerable weight of jewels. She preceded on
foot the magnificent chariot, in which she once hoped to enter
the gates of Rome. It was followed by two other chariots, still
more sumptuous, of Odenathus and of the Persian monarch. The
triumphal car of Aurelian (it had formerly been used by a Gothic
king) was drawn, on this memorable occasion, either by four stags
or by four elephants. 80 The most illustrious of the senate, the
people, and the army, closed the solemn procession. Unfeigned
joy, wonder, and gratitude, swelled the acclamations of the
multitude; but the satisfaction of the senate was clouded by the
appearance of Tetricus; nor could they suppress a rising murmur,
that the haughty emperor should thus expose to public ignominy
the person of a Roman and a magistrate. 81
77 (return) [ See the triumph of Aurelian, described by Vopiscus.
He relates the particulars with his usual minuteness; and, on
this occasion, they happen to be interesting. Hist. August. p.
220.]
78 (return) [ Among barbarous nations, women have often combated
by the side of their husbands. But it is almost impossible that a
society of Amazons should ever have existed either in the old or
new world. * Note: Klaproth’s theory on the origin of such
traditions is at least recommended by its ingenuity. The males of
a tribe having gone out on a marauding expedition, and having
been cut off to a man, the females may have endeavored, for a
time, to maintain their independence in their camp village, till
their children grew up. Travels, ch. xxx. Eng. Trans—M.]
79 (return) [ The use of braccœ, breeches, or trousers, was still
considered in Italy as a Gallic and barbarian fashion. The
Romans, however, had made great advances towards it. To encircle
the legs and thighs with fasciœ, or bands, was understood, in the
time of Pompey and Horace, to be a proof of ill health or
effeminacy. In the age of Trajan, the custom was confined to the
rich and luxurious. It gradually was adopted by the meanest of
the people. See a very curious note of Casaubon, ad Sueton. in
August. c. 82.]
80 (return) [ Most probably the former; the latter seen on the
medals of Aurelian, only denote (according to the learned
Cardinal Norris) an oriental victory.]
81 (return) [ The expression of Calphurnius, (Eclog. i. 50)
Nullos decet captiva triumphos, as applied to Rome, contains a
very manifest allusion and censure.]
But however, in the treatment of his unfortunate rivals, Aurelian
might indulge his pride, he behaved towards them with a generous
clemency, which was seldom exercised by the ancient conquerors.
Princes who, without success, had defended their throne or
freedom, were frequently strangled in prison, as soon as the
triumphal pomp ascended the Capitol. These usurpers, whom their
defeat had convicted of the crime of treason, were permitted to
spend their lives in affluence and honorable repose.
The emperor presented Zenobia with an elegant villa at Tibur, or
Tivoli, about twenty miles from the capital; the Syrian queen
insensibly sunk into a Roman matron, her daughters married into
noble families, and her race was not yet extinct in the fifth
century. 82 Tetricus and his son were reinstated in their rank
and fortunes. They erected on the Cælian hill a magnificent
palace, and as soon as it was finished, invited Aurelian to
supper. On his entrance, he was agreeably surprised with a
picture which represented their singular history. They were
delineated offering to the emperor a civic crown and the sceptre
of Gaul, and again receiving at his hands the ornaments of the
senatorial dignity. The father was afterwards invested with the
government of Lucania, 83 and Aurelian, who soon admitted the
abdicated monarch to his friendship and conversation, familiarly
asked him, Whether it were not more desirable to administer a
province of Italy, than to reign beyond the Alps. The son long
continued a respectable member of the senate; nor was there any
one of the Roman nobility more esteemed by Aurelian, as well as
by his successors. 84
82 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 199. Hieronym. in
Chron. Prosper in Chron. Baronius supposes that Zenobius, bishop
of Florence in the time of St. Ambrose, was of her family.]
83 (return) [ Vopisc. in Hist. August. p. 222. Eutropius, ix. 13.
Victor Junior. But Pollio, in Hist. August. p. 196, says, that
Tetricus was made corrector of all Italy.]
84 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 197.]
So long and so various was the pomp of Aurelian’s triumph, that
although it opened with the dawn of day, the slow majesty of the
procession ascended not the Capitol before the ninth hour; and it
was already dark when the emperor returned to the palace. The
festival was protracted by theatrical representations, the games
of the circus, the hunting of wild beasts, combats of gladiators,
and naval engagements. Liberal donatives were distributed to the
army and people, and several institutions, agreeable or
beneficial to the city, contributed to perpetuate the glory of
Aurelian. A considerable portion of his oriental spoils was
consecrated to the gods of Rome; the Capitol, and every other
temple, glittered with the offerings of his ostentatious piety;
and the temple of the Sun alone received above fifteen thousand
pounds of gold. 85 This last was a magnificent structure, erected
by the emperor on the side of the Quirinal hill, and dedicated,
soon after the triumph, to that deity whom Aurelian adored as the
parent of his life and fortunes. His mother had been an inferior
priestess in a chapel of the Sun; a peculiar devotion to the god
of Light was a sentiment which the fortunate peasant imbibed in
his infancy; and every step of his elevation, every victory of
his reign, fortified superstition by gratitude. 86
85 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. 222. Zosimus, l. i. p.
56. He placed in it the images of Belus and of the Sun, which he
had brought from Palmyra. It was dedicated in the fourth year of
his reign, (Euseb in Chron.,) but was most assuredly begun
immediately on his accession.]
86 (return) [ See, in the Augustan History, p. 210, the omens of
his fortune. His devotion to the Sun appears in his letters, on
his medals, and is mentioned in the Cæsars of Julian. Commentaire
de Spanheim, p. 109.]
The arms of Aurelian had vanquished the foreign and domestic foes
of the republic. We are assured, that, by his salutary rigor,
crimes and factions, mischievous arts and pernicious connivance,
the luxurious growth of a feeble and oppressive government, were
eradicated throughout the Roman world. 87 But if we attentively
reflect how much swifter is the progress of corruption than its
cure, and if we remember that the years abandoned to public
disorders exceeded the months allotted to the martial reign of
Aurelian, we must confess that a few short intervals of peace
were insufficient for the arduous work of reformation. Even his
attempt to restore the integrity of the coin was opposed by a
formidable insurrection. The emperor’s vexation breaks out in one
of his private letters. “Surely,” says he, “the gods have decreed
that my life should be a perpetual warfare. A sedition within the
walls has just now given birth to a very serious civil war. The
workmen of the mint, at the instigation of Felicissimus, a slave
to whom I had intrusted an employment in the finances, have risen
in rebellion. They are at length suppressed; but seven thousand
of my soldiers have been slain in the contest, of those troops
whose ordinary station is in Dacia, and the camps along the
Danube.” 88 Other writers, who confirm the same fact, add
likewise, that it happened soon after Aurelian’s triumph; that
the decisive engagement was fought on the Cælian hill; that the
workmen of the mint had adulterated the coin; and that the
emperor restored the public credit, by delivering out good money
in exchange for the bad, which the people was commanded to bring
into the treasury. 89
87 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 221.]
88 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 222. Aurelian calls these soldiers
Hiberi Riporiences Castriani, and Dacisci.]
89 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 56. Eutropius, ix. 14. Aurel
Victor.]
We might content ourselves with relating this extraordinary
transaction, but we cannot dissemble how much in its present form
it appears to us inconsistent and incredible. The debasement of
the coin is indeed well suited to the administration of
Gallienus; nor is it unlikely that the instruments of the
corruption might dread the inflexible justice of Aurelian. But
the guilt, as well as the profit, must have been confined to a
very few; nor is it easy to conceive by what arts they could arm
a people whom they had injured, against a monarch whom they had
betrayed. We might naturally expect that such miscreants should
have shared the public detestation with the informers and the
other ministers of oppression; and that the reformation of the
coin should have been an action equally popular with the
destruction of those obsolete accounts, which by the emperor’s
order were burnt in the forum of Trajan. 90 In an age when the
principles of commerce were so imperfectly understood, the most
desirable end might perhaps be effected by harsh and injudicious
means; but a temporary grievance of such a nature can scarcely
excite and support a serious civil war. The repetition of
intolerable taxes, imposed either on the land or on the
necessaries of life, may at last provoke those who will not, or
who cannot, relinquish their country. But the case is far
otherwise in every operation which, by whatsoever expedients,
restores the just value of money. The transient evil is soon
obliterated by the permanent benefit, the loss is divided among
multitudes; and if a few wealthy individuals experience a
sensible diminution of treasure, with their riches, they at the
same time lose the degree of weight and importance which they
derived from the possession of them. However Aurelian might
choose to disguise the real cause of the insurrection, his
reformation of the coin could furnish only a faint pretence to a
party already powerful and discontented. Rome, though deprived of
freedom, was distracted by faction. The people, towards whom the
emperor, himself a plebeian, always expressed a peculiar
fondness, lived in perpetual dissension with the senate, the
equestrian order, and the Prætorian guards. 91 Nothing less than
the firm though secret conspiracy of those orders, of the
authority of the first, the wealth of the second, and the arms of
the third, could have displayed a strength capable of contending
in battle with the veteran legions of the Danube, which, under
the conduct of a martial sovereign, had achieved the conquest of
the West and of the East.
90 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 222. Aurel Victor.]
91 (return) [ It already raged before Aurelian’s return from
Egypt. See Vipiscus, who quotes an original letter. Hist. August.
p. 244.]
Whatever was the cause or the object of this rebellion, imputed
with so little probability to the workmen of the mint, Aurelian
used his victory with unrelenting rigor. 92 He was naturally of a
severe disposition. A peasant and a soldier, his nerves yielded
not easily to the impressions of sympathy, and he could sustain
without emotion the sight of tortures and death. Trained from his
earliest youth in the exercise of arms, he set too small a value
on the life of a citizen, chastised by military execution the
slightest offences, and transferred the stern discipline of the
camp into the civil administration of the laws. His love of
justice often became a blind and furious passion; and whenever he
deemed his own or the public safety endangered, he disregarded
the rules of evidence, and the proportion of punishments. The
unprovoked rebellion with which the Romans rewarded his services,
exasperated his haughty spirit. The noblest families of the
capital were involved in the guilt or suspicion of this dark
conspiracy. A nasty spirit of revenge urged the bloody
prosecution, and it proved fatal to one of the nephews of the
emperor. The executioners (if we may use the expression of a
contemporary poet) were fatigued, the prisons were crowded, and
the unhappy senate lamented the death or absence of its most
illustrious members. 93 Nor was the pride of Aurelian less
offensive to that assembly than his cruelty. Ignorant or
impatient of the restraints of civil institutions, he disdained
to hold his power by any other title than that of the sword, and
governed by right of conquest an empire which he had saved and
subdued. 94
92 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August p. 222. The two Victors.
Eutropius ix. 14. Zosimus (l. i. p. 43) mentions only three
senators, and placed their death before the eastern war.]
93 (return) [ Nulla catenati feralis pompa senatus Carnificum
lassabit opus; nec carcere pleno Infelix raros numerabit curia
Patres. Calphurn. Eclog. i. 60.]
94 (return) [ According to the younger Victor, he sometimes wore
the diadem, Deus and Dominus appear on his medals.]
It was observed by one of the most sagacious of the Roman
princes, that the talents of his predecessor Aurelian were better
suited to the command of an army, than to the government of an
empire. 95 Conscious of the character in which nature and
experience had enabled him to excel, he again took the field a
few months after his triumph. It was expedient to exercise the
restless temper of the legions in some foreign war, and the
Persian monarch, exulting in the shame of Valerian, still braved
with impunity the offended majesty of Rome. At the head of an
army, less formidable by its numbers than by its discipline and
valor, the emperor advanced as far as the Straits which divide
Europe from Asia. He there experienced that the most absolute
power is a weak defence against the effects of despair. He had
threatened one of his secretaries who was accused of extortion;
and it was known that he seldom threatened in vain. The last hope
which remained for the criminal was to involve some of the
principal officers of the army in his danger, or at least in his
fears. Artfully counterfeiting his master’s hand, he showed them,
in a long and bloody list, their own names devoted to death.
Without suspecting or examining the fraud, they resolved to
secure their lives by the murder of the emperor. On his march,
between Byzantium and Heraclea, Aurelian was suddenly attacked by
the conspirators, whose stations gave them a right to surround
his person, and after a short resistance, fell by the hand of
Mucapor, a general whom he had always loved and trusted. He died
regretted by the army, detested by the senate, but universally
acknowledged as a warlike and fortunate prince, the useful,
though severe reformer of a degenerate state. 96
95 (return) [ It was the observation of Dioclatian. See Vopiscus
in Hist. August. p. 224.]
96 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 221. Zosimus, l. i. p.
57. Eutrop ix. 15. The two Victors.]
Chapter XII: Reigns Of Tacitus, Probus, Carus And His Sons.—Part
I.
Conduct Of The Army And Senate After The Death Of Aurelian.—Reigns Of
Tacitus, Probus, Carus, And His Sons.
Such was the unhappy condition of the Roman emperors, that,
whatever might be their conduct, their fate was commonly the
same. A life of pleasure or virtue, of severity or mildness, of
indolence or glory, alike led to an untimely grave; and almost
every reign is closed by the same disgusting repetition of
treason and murder. The death of Aurelian, however, is remarkable
by its extraordinary consequences. The legions admired, lamented,
and revenged their victorious chief. The artifice of his
perfidious secretary was discovered and punished.
The deluded conspirators attended the funeral of their injured
sovereign, with sincere or well-feigned contrition, and submitted
to the unanimous resolution of the military order, which was
signified by the following epistle: “The brave and fortunate
armies to the senate and people of Rome.—The crime of one man,
and the error of many, have deprived us of the late emperor
Aurelian. May it please you, venerable lords and fathers! to
place him in the number of the gods, and to appoint a successor
whom your judgment shall declare worthy of the Imperial purple!
None of those whose guilt or misfortune have contributed to our
loss, shall ever reign over us.” 1 The Roman senators heard,
without surprise, that another emperor had been assassinated in
his camp; they secretly rejoiced in the fall of Aurelian; but the
modest and dutiful address of the legions, when it was
communicated in full assembly by the consul, diffused the most
pleasing astonishment. Such honors as fear and perhaps esteem
could extort, they liberally poured forth on the memory of their
deceased sovereign. Such acknowledgments as gratitude could
inspire, they returned to the faithful armies of the republic,
who entertained so just a sense of the legal authority of the
senate in the choice of an emperor. Yet, notwithstanding this
flattering appeal, the most prudent of the assembly declined
exposing their safety and dignity to the caprice of an armed
multitude. The strength of the legions was, indeed, a pledge of
their sincerity, since those who may command are seldom reduced
to the necessity of dissembling; but could it naturally be
expected, that a hasty repentance would correct the inveterate
habits of fourscore years? Should the soldiers relapse into their
accustomed seditions, their insolence might disgrace the majesty
of the senate, and prove fatal to the object of its choice.
Motives like these dictated a decree, by which the election of a
new emperor was referred to the suffrage of the military order.
1 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 222. Aurelius Victor
mentions a formal deputation from the troops to the senate.]
The contention that ensued is one of the best attested, but most
improbable events in the history of mankind. 2 The troops, as if
satiated with the exercise of power, again conjured the senate to
invest one of its own body with the Imperial purple. The senate
still persisted in its refusal; the army in its request. The
reciprocal offer was pressed and rejected at least three times,
and, whilst the obstinate modesty of either party was resolved to
receive a master from the hands of the other, eight months
insensibly elapsed; an amazing period of tranquil anarchy, during
which the Roman world remained without a sovereign, without a
usurper, and without a sedition. 201 The generals and magistrates
appointed by Aurelian continued to execute their ordinary
functions; and it is observed, that a proconsul of Asia was the
only considerable person removed from his office in the whole
course of the interregnum.
2 (return) [ Vopiscus, our principal authority, wrote at Rome,
sixteen years only after the death of Aurelian; and, besides the
recent notoriety of the facts, constantly draws his materials
from the Journals of the Senate, and the original papers of the
Ulpian library. Zosimus and Zonaras appear as ignorant of this
transaction as they were in general of the Roman constitution.]
201 (return) [ The interregnum could not be more than seven
months; Aurelian was assassinated in the middle of March, the
year of Rome 1028. Tacitus was elected the 25th September in the
same year.—G.]
An event somewhat similar, but much less authentic, is supposed
to have happened after the death of Romulus, who, in his life and
character, bore some affinity with Aurelian. The throne was
vacant during twelve months, till the election of a Sabine
philosopher, and the public peace was guarded in the same manner,
by the union of the several orders of the state. But, in the time
of Numa and Romulus, the arms of the people were controlled by
the authority of the Patricians; and the balance of freedom was
easily preserved in a small and virtuous community. 3 The decline
of the Roman state, far different from its infancy, was attended
with every circumstance that could banish from an interregnum the
prospect of obedience and harmony: an immense and tumultuous
capital, a wide extent of empire, the servile equality of
despotism, an army of four hundred thousand mercenaries, and the
experience of frequent revolutions. Yet, notwithstanding all
these temptations, the discipline and memory of Aurelian still
restrained the seditious temper of the troops, as well as the
fatal ambition of their leaders. The flower of the legions
maintained their stations on the banks of the Bosphorus, and the
Imperial standard awed the less powerful camps of Rome and of the
provinces. A generous though transient enthusiasm seemed to
animate the military order; and we may hope that a few real
patriots cultivated the returning friendship of the army and the
senate as the only expedient capable of restoring the republic to
its ancient beauty and vigor.
3 (return) [ Liv. i. 17 Dionys. Halicarn. l. ii. p. 115. Plutarch
in Numa, p. 60. The first of these writers relates the story like
an orator, the second like a lawyer, and the third like a
moralist, and none of them probably without some intermixture of
fable.]
On the twenty-fifth of September, near eight months after the
murder of Aurelian, the consul convoked an assembly of the
senate, and reported the doubtful and dangerous situation of the
empire. He slightly insinuated, that the precarious loyalty of
the soldiers depended on the chance of every hour, and of every
accident; but he represented, with the most convincing eloquence,
the various dangers that might attend any further delay in the
choice of an emperor. Intelligence, he said, was already
received, that the Germans had passed the Rhine, and occupied
some of the strongest and most opulent cities of Gaul. The
ambition of the Persian king kept the East in perpetual alarms;
Egypt, Africa, and Illyricum, were exposed to foreign and
domestic arms, and the levity of Syria would prefer even a female
sceptre to the sanctity of the Roman laws. The consul, then
addressing himself to Tacitus, the first of the senators, 4
required his opinion on the important subject of a proper
candidate for the vacant throne.
4 (return) [ Vopiscus (in Hist. August p. 227) calls him “primæ
sententia consularis;” and soon afterwards Princeps senatus. It
is natural to suppose, that the monarchs of Rome, disdaining that
humble title, resigned it to the most ancient of the senators.]
If we can prefer personal merit to accidental greatness, we shall
esteem the birth of Tacitus more truly noble than that of kings.
He claimed his descent from the philosophic historian whose
writings will instruct the last generations of mankind. 5 The
senator Tacitus was then seventy-five years of age. 6 The long
period of his innocent life was adorned with wealth and honors.
He had twice been invested with the consular dignity, 7 and
enjoyed with elegance and sobriety his ample patrimony of between
two and three millions sterling. 8 The experience of so many
princes, whom he had esteemed or endured, from the vain follies
of Elagabalus to the useful rigor of Aurelian, taught him to form
a just estimate of the duties, the dangers, and the temptations
of their sublime station. From the assiduous study of his
immortal ancestor, he derived the knowledge of the Roman
constitution, and of human nature. 9 The voice of the people had
already named Tacitus as the citizen the most worthy of empire.
The ungrateful rumor reached his ears, and induced him to seek
the retirement of one of his villas in Campania. He had passed
two months in the delightful privacy of Baiæ, when he reluctantly
obeyed the summons of the consul to resume his honorable place in
the senate, and to assist the republic with his counsels on this
important occasion.
5 (return) [ The only objection to this genealogy is, that the
historian was named Cornelius, the emperor, Claudius. But under
the lower empire, surnames were extremely various and uncertain.]
6 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 637. The Alexandrian Chronicle,
by an obvious mistake, transfers that age to Aurelian.]
7 (return) [ In the year 273, he was ordinary consul. But he must
have been Suffectus many years before, and most probably under
Valerian.]
8 (return) [ Bis millies octingenties. Vopiscus in Hist. August
p. 229. This sum, according to the old standard, was equivalent
to eight hundred and forty thousand Roman pounds of silver, each
of the value of three pounds sterling. But in the age of Tacitus,
the coin had lost much of its weight and purity.]
9 (return) [ After his accession, he gave orders that ten copies
of the historian should be annually transcribed and placed in the
public libraries. The Roman libraries have long since perished,
and the most valuable part of Tacitus was preserved in a single
Ms., and discovered in a monastery of Westphalia. See Bayle,
Dictionnaire, Art. Tacite, and Lipsius ad Annal. ii. 9.]
He arose to speak, when from every quarter of the house, he was
saluted with the names of Augustus and emperor. “Tacitus
Augustus, the gods preserve thee! we choose thee for our
sovereign; to thy care we intrust the republic and the world.
Accept the empire from the authority of the senate. It is due to
thy rank, to thy conduct, to thy manners.” As soon as the tumult
of acclamations subsided, Tacitus attempted to decline the
dangerous honor, and to express his wonder, that they should
elect his age and infirmities to succeed the martial vigor of
Aurelian. “Are these limbs, conscript fathers! fitted to sustain
the weight of armor, or to practise the exercises of the camp?
The variety of climates, and the hardships of a military life,
would soon oppress a feeble constitution, which subsists only by
the most tender management. My exhausted strength scarcely
enables me to discharge the duty of a senator; how insufficient
would it prove to the arduous labors of war and government! Can
you hope, that the legions will respect a weak old man, whose
days have been spent in the shade of peace and retirement? Can
you desire that I should ever find reason to regret the favorable
opinion of the senate?” 10
10 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 227.]
The reluctance of Tacitus (and it might possibly be sincere) was
encountered by the affectionate obstinacy of the senate. Five
hundred voices repeated at once, in eloquent confusion, that the
greatest of the Roman princes, Numa, Trajan, Hadrian, and the
Antonines, had ascended the throne in a very advanced season of
life; that the mind, not the body, a sovereign, not a soldier,
was the object of their choice; and that they expected from him
no more than to guide by his wisdom the valor of the legions.
These pressing though tumultuary instances were seconded by a
more regular oration of Metius Falconius, the next on the
consular bench to Tacitus himself. He reminded the assembly of
the evils which Rome had endured from the vices of headstrong and
capricious youths, congratulated them on the election of a
virtuous and experienced senator, and, with a manly, though
perhaps a selfish, freedom, exhorted Tacitus to remember the
reasons of his elevation, and to seek a successor, not in his own
family, but in the republic. The speech of Falconius was enforced
by a general acclamation. The emperor elect submitted to the
authority of his country, and received the voluntary homage of
his equals. The judgment of the senate was confirmed by the
consent of the Roman people and of the Prætorian guards. 11
11 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 228. Tacitus addressed the
Prætorians by the appellation of sanctissimi milites, and the
people by that of sacratissim. Quirites.]
The administration of Tacitus was not unworthy of his life and
principles. A grateful servant of the senate, he considered that
national council as the author, and himself as the subject, of
the laws. 12 He studied to heal the wounds which Imperial pride,
civil discord, and military violence, had inflicted on the
constitution, and to restore, at least, the image of the ancient
republic, as it had been preserved by the policy of Augustus, and
the virtues of Trajan and the Antonines. It may not be useless to
recapitulate some of the most important prerogatives which the
senate appeared to have regained by the election of Tacitus. 13
1. To invest one of their body, under the title of emperor, with
the general command of the armies, and the government of the
frontier provinces. 2. To determine the list, or, as it was then
styled, the College of Consuls. They were twelve in number, who,
in successive pairs, each, during the space of two months, filled
the year, and represented the dignity of that ancient office. The
authority of the senate, in the nomination of the consuls, was
exercised with such independent freedom, that no regard was paid
to an irregular request of the emperor in favor of his brother
Florianus. “The senate,” exclaimed Tacitus, with the honest
transport of a patriot, “understand the character of a prince
whom they have chosen.” 3. To appoint the proconsuls and
presidents of the provinces, and to confer on all the magistrates
their civil jurisdiction. 4. To receive appeals through the
intermediate office of the præfect of the city from all the
tribunals of the empire. 5. To give force and validity, by their
decrees, to such as they should approve of the emperor’s edicts.
6. To these several branches of authority we may add some
inspection over the finances, since, even in the stern reign of
Aurelian, it was in their power to divert a part of the revenue
from the public service. 14
12 (return) [ In his manumissions he never exceeded the number of
a hundred, as limited by the Caninian law, which was enacted
under Augustus, and at length repealed by Justinian. See Casaubon
ad locum Vopisci.]
13 (return) [ See the lives of Tacitus, Florianus, and Probus, in
the Augustan History; we may be well assured, that whatever the
soldier gave the senator had already given.]
14 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 216. The passage is
perfectly clear, both Casaubon and Salmasius wish to correct it.]
Circular epistles were sent, without delay, to all the principal
cities of the empire, Treves, Milan, Aquileia, Thessalonica,
Corinth, Athens, Antioch, Alexandria, and Carthage, to claim
their obedience, and to inform them of the happy revolution,
which had restored the Roman senate to its ancient dignity. Two
of these epistles are still extant. We likewise possess two very
singular fragments of the private correspondence of the senators
on this occasion. They discover the most excessive joy, and the
most unbounded hopes. “Cast away your indolence,” it is thus that
one of the senators addresses his friend, “emerge from your
retirements of Baiæ and Puteoli. Give yourself to the city, to
the senate. Rome flourishes, the whole republic flourishes.
Thanks to the Roman army, to an army truly Roman; at length we
have recovered our just authority, the end of all our desires. We
hear appeals, we appoint proconsuls, we create emperors; perhaps
too we may restrain them—to the wise a word is sufficient.” 15
These lofty expectations were, however, soon disappointed; nor,
indeed, was it possible that the armies and the provinces should
long obey the luxurious and unwarlike nobles of Rome. On the
slightest touch, the unsupported fabric of their pride and power
fell to the ground. The expiring senate displayed a sudden
lustre, blazed for a moment, and was extinguished forever.
15 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 230, 232, 233. The
senators celebrated the happy restoration with hecatombs and
public rejoicings.]
All that had yet passed at Rome was no more than a theatrical
representation, unless it was ratified by the more substantial
power of the legions. Leaving the senators to enjoy their dream
of freedom and ambition, Tacitus proceeded to the Thracian camp,
and was there, by the Prætorian præfect, presented to the
assembled troops, as the prince whom they themselves had
demanded, and whom the senate had bestowed. As soon as the
præfect was silent, the emperor addressed himself to the soldiers
with eloquence and propriety. He gratified their avarice by a
liberal distribution of treasure, under the names of pay and
donative. He engaged their esteem by a spirited declaration, that
although his age might disable him from the performance of
military exploits, his counsels should never be unworthy of a
Roman general, the successor of the brave Aurelian. 16
16 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 228.]
Whilst the deceased emperor was making preparations for a second
expedition into the East, he had negotiated with the Alani, 161 a
Scythian people, who pitched their tents in the neighborhood of
the Lake Mæotis. Those barbarians, allured by presents and
subsidies, had promised to invade Persia with a numerous body of
light cavalry. They were faithful to their engagements; but when
they arrived on the Roman frontier, Aurelian was already dead,
the design of the Persian war was at least suspended, and the
generals, who, during the interregnum, exercised a doubtful
authority, were unprepared either to receive or to oppose them.
Provoked by such treatment, which they considered as trifling and
perfidious, the Alani had recourse to their own valor for their
payment and revenge; and as they moved with the usual swiftness
of Tartars, they had soon spread themselves over the provinces of
Pontus, Cappadocia, Cilicia, and Galatia. The legions, who from
the opposite shores of the Bosphorus could almost distinguish the
flames of the cities and villages, impatiently urged their
general to lead them against the invaders. The conduct of Tacitus
was suitable to his age and station. He convinced the barbarians
of the faith, as well as the power, of the empire. Great numbers
of the Alani, appeased by the punctual discharge of the
engagements which Aurelian had contracted with them, relinquished
their booty and captives, and quietly retreated to their own
deserts, beyond the Phasis. Against the remainder, who refused
peace, the Roman emperor waged, in person, a successful war.
Seconded by an army of brave and experienced veterans, in a few
weeks he delivered the provinces of Asia from the terror of the
Scythian invasion. 17
161 (return) [ On the Alani, see ch. xxvi. note 55.—M.]
17 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 230. Zosimus, l. i. p.
57. Zonaras, l. xii. p. 637. Two passages in the life of Probus
(p. 236, 238) convince me, that these Scythian invaders of Pontus
were Alani. If we may believe Zosimus, (l. i. p. 58,) Florianus
pursued them as far as the Cimmerian Bosphorus. But he had
scarcely time for so long and difficult an expedition.]
But the glory and life of Tacitus were of short duration.
Transported, in the depth of winter, from the soft retirement of
Campania to the foot of Mount Caucasus, he sunk under the
unaccustomed hardships of a military life. The fatigues of the
body were aggravated by the cares of the mind. For a while, the
angry and selfish passions of the soldiers had been suspended by
the enthusiasm of public virtue. They soon broke out with
redoubled violence, and raged in the camp, and even in the tent
of the aged emperor. His mild and amiable character served only
to inspire contempt, and he was incessantly tormented with
factions which he could not assuage, and by demands which it was
impossible to satisfy. Whatever flattering expectations he had
conceived of reconciling the public disorders, Tacitus soon was
convinced that the licentiousness of the army disdained the
feeble restraint of laws, and his last hour was hastened by
anguish and disappointment. It may be doubtful whether the
soldiers imbrued their hands in the blood of this innocent
prince. 18 It is certain that their insolence was the cause of
his death. He expired at Tyana in Cappadocia, after a reign of
only six months and about twenty days. 19
18 (return) [ Eutropius and Aurelius Victor only say that he
died; Victor Junior adds, that it was of a fever. Zosimus and
Zonaras affirm, that he was killed by the soldiers. Vopiscus
mentions both accounts, and seems to hesitate. Yet surely these
jarring opinions are easily reconciled.]
19 (return) [ According to the two Victors, he reigned exactly
two hundred days.]
The eyes of Tacitus were scarcely closed, before his brother
Florianus showed himself unworthy to reign, by the hasty
usurpation of the purple, without expecting the approbation of
the senate. The reverence for the Roman constitution, which yet
influenced the camp and the provinces, was sufficiently strong to
dispose them to censure, but not to provoke them to oppose, the
precipitate ambition of Florianus. The discontent would have
evaporated in idle murmurs, had not the general of the East, the
heroic Probus, boldly declared himself the avenger of the senate.
The contest, however, was still unequal; nor could the most able
leader, at the head of the effeminate troops of Egypt and Syria,
encounter, with any hopes of victory, the legions of Europe,
whose irresistible strength appeared to support the brother of
Tacitus. But the fortune and activity of Probus triumphed over
every obstacle. The hardy veterans of his rival, accustomed to
cold climates, sickened and consumed away in the sultry heats of
Cilicia, where the summer proved remarkably unwholesome. Their
numbers were diminished by frequent desertion; the passes of the
mountains were feebly defended; Tarsus opened its gates; and the
soldiers of Florianus, when they had permitted him to enjoy the
Imperial title about three months, delivered the empire from
civil war by the easy sacrifice of a prince whom they despised.
20
20 (return) [ Hist. August, p. 231. Zosimus, l. i. p. 58, 59.
Zonaras, l. xii. p. 637. Aurelius Victor says, that Probus
assumed the empire in Illyricum; an opinion which (though adopted
by a very learned man) would throw that period of history into
inextricable confusion.]
The perpetual revolutions of the throne had so perfectly erased
every notion of hereditary title, that the family of an
unfortunate emperor was incapable of exciting the jealousy of his
successors. The children of Tacitus and Florianus were permitted
to descend into a private station, and to mingle with the general
mass of the people. Their poverty indeed became an additional
safeguard to their innocence. When Tacitus was elected by the
senate, he resigned his ample patrimony to the public service; 21
an act of generosity specious in appearance, but which evidently
disclosed his intention of transmitting the empire to his
descendants. The only consolation of their fallen state was the
remembrance of transient greatness, and a distant hope, the child
of a flattering prophecy, that at the end of a thousand years, a
monarch of the race of Tacitus should arise, the protector of the
senate, the restorer of Rome, and the conqueror of the whole
earth. 22
21 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 229]
22 (return) [ He was to send judges to the Parthians, Persians,
and Sarmatians, a president to Taprobani, and a proconsul to the
Roman island, (supposed by Casaubon and Salmasius to mean
Britain.) Such a history as mine (says Vopiscus with proper
modesty) will not subsist a thousand years, to expose or justify
the prediction.]
The peasants of Illyricum, who had already given Claudius and
Aurelian to the sinking empire, had an equal right to glory in
the elevation of Probus. 23 Above twenty years before, the
emperor Valerian, with his usual penetration, had discovered the
rising merit of the young soldier, on whom he conferred the rank
of tribune, long before the age prescribed by the military
regulations. The tribune soon justified his choice, by a victory
over a great body of Sarmatians, in which he saved the life of a
near relation of Valerian; and deserved to receive from the
emperor’s hand the collars, bracelets, spears, and banners, the
mural and the civic crown, and all the honorable rewards reserved
by ancient Rome for successful valor. The third, and afterwards
the tenth, legion were intrusted to the command of Probus, who,
in every step of his promotion, showed himself superior to the
station which he filled. Africa and Pontus, the Rhine, the
Danube, the Euphrates, and the Nile, by turns afforded him the
most splendid occasions of displaying his personal prowess and
his conduct in war. Aurelian was indebted for the honest courage
with which he often checked the cruelty of his master. Tacitus,
who desired by the abilities of his generals to supply his own
deficiency of military talents, named him commander-in-chief of
all the eastern provinces, with five times the usual salary, the
promise of the consulship, and the hope of a triumph. When Probus
ascended the Imperial throne, he was about forty-four years of
age; 24 in the full possession of his fame, of the love of the
army, and of a mature vigor of mind and body.
23 (return) [ For the private life of Probus, see Vopiscus in
Hist. August p. 234—237]
24 (return) [ According to the Alexandrian chronicle, he was
fifty at the time of his death.]
His acknowledged merit, and the success of his arms against
Florianus, left him without an enemy or a competitor. Yet, if we
may credit his own professions, very far from being desirous of
the empire, he had accepted it with the most sincere reluctance.
“But it is no longer in my power,” says Probus, in a private
letter, “to lay down a title so full of envy and of danger. I
must continue to personate the character which the soldiers have
imposed upon me.” 25 His dutiful address to the senate displayed
the sentiments, or at least the language, of a Roman patriot:
“When you elected one of your order, conscript fathers! to
succeed the emperor Aurelian, you acted in a manner suitable to
your justice and wisdom. For you are the legal sovereigns of the
world, and the power which you derive from your ancestors will
descend to your posterity. Happy would it have been, if
Florianus, instead of usurping the purple of his brother, like a
private inheritance, had expected what your majesty might
determine, either in his favor, or in that of any other person.
The prudent soldiers have punished his rashness. To me they have
offered the title of Augustus. But I submit to your clemency my
pretensions and my merits.” 26 When this respectful epistle was
read by the consul, the senators were unable to disguise their
satisfaction, that Probus should condescend thus numbly to
solicit a sceptre which he already possessed. They celebrated
with the warmest gratitude his virtues, his exploits, and above
all his moderation. A decree immediately passed, without a
dissenting voice, to ratify the election of the eastern armies,
and to confer on their chief all the several branches of the
Imperial dignity: the names of Cæsar and Augustus, the title of
Father of his country, the right of making in the same day three
motions in the senate, 27 the office of Pontifex Maximus, the
tribunitian power, and the proconsular command; a mode of
investiture, which, though it seemed to multiply the authority of
the emperor, expressed the constitution of the ancient republic.
The reign of Probus corresponded with this fair beginning. The
senate was permitted to direct the civil administration of the
empire. Their faithful general asserted the honor of the Roman
arms, and often laid at their feet crowns of gold and barbaric
trophies, the fruits of his numerous victories. 28 Yet, whilst he
gratified their vanity, he must secretly have despised their
indolence and weakness. Though it was every moment in their power
to repeal the disgraceful edict of Gallienus, the proud
successors of the Scipios patiently acquiesced in their exclusion
from all military employments. They soon experienced, that those
who refuse the sword must renounce the sceptre.
25 (return) [ This letter was addressed to the Prætorian præfect,
whom (on condition of his good behavior) he promised to continue
in his great office. See Hist. August. p. 237.]
26 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 237. The date of the
letter is assuredly faulty. Instead of Nen. Februar. we may read
Non August.]
27 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 238. It is odd that the senate
should treat Probus less favorably than Marcus Antoninus. That
prince had received, even before the death of Pius, Jus quintoe
relationis. See Capitolin. in Hist. August. p. 24.]
28 (return) [ See the dutiful letter of Probus to the senate,
after his German victories. Hist. August. p. 239.]
Chapter XII: Reigns Of Tacitus, Probus, Carus And His Sons.—Part
II.
The strength of Aurelian had crushed on every side the enemies of
Rome. After his death they seemed to revive with an increase of
fury and of numbers. They were again vanquished by the active
vigor of Probus, who, in a short reign of about six years, 29
equalled the fame of ancient heroes, and restored peace and order
to every province of the Roman world. The dangerous frontier of
Rhætia he so firmly secured, that he left it without the
suspicion of an enemy. He broke the wandering power of the
Sarmatian tribes, and by the terror of his arms compelled those
barbarians to relinquish their spoil. The Gothic nation courted
the alliance of so warlike an emperor. 30 He attacked the
Isaurians in their mountains, besieged and took several of their
strongest castles, 31 and flattered himself that he had forever
suppressed a domestic foe, whose independence so deeply wounded
the majesty of the empire. The troubles excited by the usurper
Firmus in the Upper Egypt had never been perfectly appeased, and
the cities of Ptolemais and Coptos, fortified by the alliance of
the Blemmyes, still maintained an obscure rebellion. The
chastisement of those cities, and of their auxiliaries the
savages of the South, is said to have alarmed the court of
Persia, 32 and the Great King sued in vain for the friendship of
Probus. Most of the exploits which distinguished his reign were
achieved by the personal valor and conduct of the emperor,
insomuch that the writer of his life expresses some amazement
how, in so short a time, a single man could be present in so many
distant wars. The remaining actions he intrusted to the care of
his lieutenants, the judicious choice of whom forms no
inconsiderable part of his glory. Carus, Diocletian, Maximian,
Constantius, Galerius, Asclepiodatus, Annibalianus, and a crowd
of other chiefs, who afterwards ascended or supported the throne,
were trained to arms in the severe school of Aurelian and Probus.
33
29 (return) [ The date and duration of the reign of Probus are
very correctly ascertained by Cardinal Noris in his learned work,
De Epochis Syro-Macedonum, p. 96—105. A passage of Eusebius
connects the second year of Probus with the æras of several of
the Syrian cities.]
30 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 239.]
31 (return) [ Zosimus (l. i. p. 62—65) tells us a very long and
trifling story of Lycius, the Isaurian robber.]
32 (return) [ Zosim. l. i. p. 65. Vopiscus in Hist. August. p.
239, 240. But it seems incredible that the defeat of the savages
of Æthiopia could affect the Persian monarch.]
33 (return) [ Besides these well-known chiefs, several others are
named by Vopiscus, (Hist. August. p. 241,) whose actions have not
reached knowledge.]
But the most important service which Probus rendered to the
republic was the deliverance of Gaul, and the recovery of seventy
flourishing cities oppressed by the barbarians of Germany, who,
since the death of Aurelian, had ravaged that great province with
impunity. 34 Among the various multitude of those fierce invaders
we may distinguish, with some degree of clearness, three great
armies, or rather nations, successively vanquished by the valor
of Probus. He drove back the Franks into their morasses; a
descriptive circumstance from whence we may infer, that the
confederacy known by the manly appellation of _Free_, already
occupied the flat maritime country, intersected and almost
overflown by the stagnating waters of the Rhine, and that several
tribes of the Frisians and Batavians had acceded to their
alliance. He vanquished the Burgundians, a considerable people of
the Vandalic race. 341 They had wandered in quest of booty from
the banks of the Oder to those of the Seine. They esteemed
themselves sufficiently fortunate to purchase, by the restitution
of all their booty, the permission of an undisturbed retreat.
They attempted to elude that article of the treaty. Their
punishment was immediate and terrible. 35 But of all the invaders
of Gaul, the most formidable were the Lygians, a distant people,
who reigned over a wide domain on the frontiers of Poland and
Silesia. 36 In the Lygian nation, the Arii held the first rank by
their numbers and fierceness. “The Arii” (it is thus that they
are described by the energy of Tacitus) “study to improve by art
and circumstances the innate terrors of their barbarism. Their
shields are black, their bodies are painted black. They choose
for the combat the darkest hour of the night. Their host
advances, covered as it were with a funeral shade; 37 nor do they
often find an enemy capable of sustaining so strange and infernal
an aspect. Of all our senses, the eyes are the first vanquished
in battle.” 38 Yet the arms and discipline of the Romans easily
discomfited these horrid phantoms. The Lygii were defeated in a
general engagement, and Semno, the most renowned of their chiefs,
fell alive into the hands of Probus. That prudent emperor,
unwilling to reduce a brave people to despair, granted them an
honorable capitulation, and permitted them to return in safety to
their native country. But the losses which they suffered in the
march, the battle, and the retreat, broke the power of the
nation: nor is the Lygian name ever repeated in the history
either of Germany or of the empire. The deliverance of Gaul is
reported to have cost the lives of four hundred thousand of the
invaders; a work of labor to the Romans, and of expense to the
emperor, who gave a piece of gold for the head of every
barbarian. 39 But as the fame of warriors is built on the
destruction of human kind, we may naturally suspect that the
sanguinary account was multiplied by the avarice of the soldiers,
and accepted without any very severe examination by the liberal
vanity of Probus.
34 (return) [ See the Cæsars of Julian, and Hist. August. p. 238,
240, 241.]
341 (return) [ It was only under the emperors Diocletian and
Maximian, that the Burgundians, in concert with the Alemanni,
invaded the interior of Gaul; under the reign of Probus, they did
no more than pass the river which separated them from the Roman
Empire: they were repelled. Gatterer presumes that this river was
the Danube; a passage in Zosimus appears to me rather to indicate
the Rhine. Zos. l. i. p. 37, edit H. Etienne, 1581.—G. On the
origin of the Burgundians may be consulted Malte Brun, Geogr vi.
p. 396, (edit. 1831,) who observes that all the remains of the
Burgundian language indicate that they spoke a Gothic
dialect.—M.]
35 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 62. Hist. August. p. 240. But the
latter supposes the punishment inflicted with the consent of
their kings: if so, it was partial, like the offence.]
36 (return) [ See Cluver. Germania Antiqua, l. iii. Ptolemy
places in their country the city of Calisia, probably Calish in
Silesia. * Note: Luden (vol ii. 501) supposes that these have
been erroneously identified with the Lygii of Tacitus. Perhaps
one fertile source of mistakes has been, that the Romans have
turned appellations into national names. Malte Brun observes of
the Lygii, “that their name appears Sclavonian, and signifies
‘inhabitants of plains;’ they are probably the Lieches of the
middle ages, and the ancestors of the Poles. We find among the
Arii the worship of the two twin gods known in the Sclavian
mythology.” Malte Brun, vol. i. p. 278, (edit. 1831.)—M. But
compare Schafarik, Slawische Alterthumer, 1, p. 406. They were of
German or Keltish descent, occupying the Wendish (or Slavian)
district, Luhy.—M. 1845.]
37 (return) [ Feralis umbra, is the expression of Tacitus: it is
surely a very bold one.]
38 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, (c. 43.)]
39 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 238]
Since the expedition of Maximin, the Roman generals had confined
their ambition to a defensive war against the nations of Germany,
who perpetually pressed on the frontiers of the empire. The more
daring Probus pursued his Gallic victories, passed the Rhine, and
displayed his invincible eagles on the banks of the Elbe and the
Neckar. He was fully convinced that nothing could reconcile the
minds of the barbarians to peace, unless they experienced, in
their own country, the calamities of war. Germany, exhausted by
the ill success of the last emigration, was astonished by his
presence. Nine of the most considerable princes repaired to his
camp, and fell prostrate at his feet. Such a treaty was humbly
received by the Germans, as it pleased the conqueror to dictate.
He exacted a strict restitution of the effects and captives which
they had carried away from the provinces; and obliged their own
magistrates to punish the more obstinate robbers who presumed to
detain any part of the spoil. A considerable tribute of corn,
cattle, and horses, the only wealth of barbarians, was reserved
for the use of the garrisons which Probus established on the
limits of their territory. He even entertained some thoughts of
compelling the Germans to relinquish the exercise of arms, and to
trust their differences to the justice, their safety to the
power, of Rome. To accomplish these salutary ends, the constant
residence of an Imperial governor, supported by a numerous army,
was indispensably requisite. Probus therefore judged it more
expedient to defer the execution of so great a design; which was
indeed rather of specious than solid utility. 40 Had Germany been
reduced into the state of a province, the Romans, with immense
labor and expense, would have acquired only a more extensive
boundary to defend against the fiercer and more active barbarians
of Scythia.
40 (return) [ Hist. August. 238, 239. Vopiscus quotes a letter
from the emperor to the senate, in which he mentions his design
of reducing Germany into a province.]
Instead of reducing the warlike natives of Germany to the
condition of subjects, Probus contented himself with the humble
expedient of raising a bulwark against their inroads. The country
which now forms the circle of Swabia had been left desert in the
age of Augustus by the emigration of its ancient inhabitants. 41
The fertility of the soil soon attracted a new colony from the
adjacent provinces of Gaul. Crowds of adventurers, of a roving
temper and of desperate fortunes, occupied the doubtful
possession, and acknowledged, by the payment of tithes, the
majesty of the empire. 42 To protect these new subjects, a line
of frontier garrisons was gradually extended from the Rhine to
the Danube. About the reign of Hadrian, when that mode of defence
began to be practised, these garrisons were connected and covered
by a strong intrenchment of trees and palisades. In the place of
so rude a bulwark, the emperor Probus constructed a stone wall of
a considerable height, and strengthened it by towers at
convenient distances. From the neighborhood of Neustadt and
Ratisbon on the Danube, it stretched across hills, valleys,
rivers, and morasses, as far as Wimpfen on the Neckar, and at
length terminated on the banks of the Rhine, after a winding
course of near two hundred miles. 43 This important barrier,
uniting the two mighty streams that protected the provinces of
Europe, seemed to fill up the vacant space through which the
barbarians, and particularly the Alemanni, could penetrate with
the greatest facility into the heart of the empire. But the
experience of the world, from China to Britain, has exposed the
vain attempt of fortifying any extensive tract of country. 44 An
active enemy, who can select and vary his points of attack, must,
in the end, discover some feeble spot, or some unguarded moment.
The strength, as well as the attention, of the defenders is
divided; and such are the blind effects of terror on the firmest
troops, that a line broken in a single place is almost instantly
deserted. The fate of the wall which Probus erected may confirm
the general observation. Within a few years after his death, it
was overthrown by the Alemanni. Its scattered ruins, universally
ascribed to the power of the Dæmon, now serve only to excite the
wonder of the Swabian peasant.
41 (return) [ Strabo, l. vii. According to Valleius Paterculus,
(ii. 108,) Maroboduus led his Marcomanni into Bohemia; Cluverius
(German. Antiq. iii. 8) proves that it was from Swabia.]
42 (return) [ These settlers, from the payment of tithes, were
denominated Decunates. Tacit. Germania, c. 29]
43 (return) [ See notes de l’Abbé de la Bleterie a la Germanie de
Tacite, p. 183. His account of the wall is chiefly borrowed (as
he says himself) from the Alsatia Illustrata of Schoepflin.]
44 (return) [ See Recherches sur les Chinois et les Egyptiens,
tom. ii. p. 81—102. The anonymous author is well acquainted with
the globe in general, and with Germany in particular: with regard
to the latter, he quotes a work of M. Hanselman; but he seems to
confound the wall of Probus, designed against the Alemanni, with
the fortification of the Mattiaci, constructed in the
neighborhood of Frankfort against the Catti. * Note: De Pauw is
well known to have been the author of this work, as of the
Recherches sur les Americains before quoted. The judgment of M.
Remusat on this writer is in a very different, I fear a juster
tone. Quand au lieu de rechercher, d’examiner, d’etudier, on se
borne, comme cet ecrivain, a juger a prononcer, a decider, sans
connoitre ni l’histoire. ni les langues, sans recourir aux
sources, sans meme se douter de leur existence, on peut en
imposer pendant quelque temps a des lecteurs prevenus ou peu
instruits; mais le mepris qui ne manque guere de succeder a cet
engouement fait bientot justice de ces assertions hazardees, et
elles retombent dans l’oubli d’autant plus promptement, qu’elles
ont ete posees avec plus de confiance. Sur les l angues Tartares,
p. 231.—M.]
Among the useful conditions of peace imposed by Probus on the
vanquished nations of Germany, was the obligation of supplying
the Roman army with sixteen thousand recruits, the bravest and
most robust of their youth. The emperor dispersed them through
all the provinces, and distributed this dangerous reënforcement,
in small bands of fifty or sixty each, among the national troops;
judiciously observing, that the aid which the republic derived
from the barbarians should be felt but not seen. 45 Their aid was
now become necessary. The feeble elegance of Italy and the
internal provinces could no longer support the weight of arms.
The hardy frontiers of the Rhine and Danube still produced minds
and bodies equal to the labors of the camp; but a perpetual
series of wars had gradually diminished their numbers. The
infrequency of marriage, and the ruin of agriculture, affected
the principles of population, and not only destroyed the strength
of the present, but intercepted the hope of future, generations.
The wisdom of Probus embraced a great and beneficial plan of
replenishing the exhausted frontiers, by new colonies of captive
or fugitive barbarians, on whom he bestowed lands, cattle,
instruments of husbandry, and every encouragement that might
engage them to educate a race of soldiers for the service of the
republic. Into Britain, and most probably into Cambridgeshire, 46
he transported a considerable body of Vandals. The impossibility
of an escape reconciled them to their situation, and in the
subsequent troubles of that island, they approved themselves the
most faithful servants of the state. 47 Great numbers of Franks
and Gepidæ were settled on the banks of the Danube and the Rhine.
A hundred thousand Bastarnæ, expelled from their own country,
cheerfully accepted an establishment in Thrace, and soon imbibed
the manners and sentiments of Roman subjects. 48 But the
expectations of Probus were too often disappointed. The
impatience and idleness of the barbarians could ill brook the
slow labors of agriculture. Their unconquerable love of freedom,
rising against despotism, provoked them into hasty rebellions,
alike fatal to themselves and to the provinces; 49 nor could
these artificial supplies, however repeated by succeeding
emperors, restore the important limit of Gaul and Illyricum to
its ancient and native vigor.
45 (return) [ He distributed about fifty or sixty barbarians to a
Numerus, as it was then called, a corps with whose established
number we are not exactly acquainted.]
46 (return) [ Camden’s Britannia, Introduction, p. 136; but he
speaks from a very doubtful conjecture.]
47 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 62. According to Vopiscus,
another body of Vandals was less faithful.]
48 (return) [Footnote 48: Hist. August. p. 240. They were
probably expelled by the Goths. Zosim. l. i. p. 66.]
49 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 240.]
Of all the barbarians who abandoned their new settlements, and
disturbed the public tranquillity, a very small number returned
to their own country. For a short season they might wander in
arms through the empire; but in the end they were surely
destroyed by the power of a warlike emperor. The successful
rashness of a party of Franks was attended, however, with such
memorable consequences, that it ought not to be passed unnoticed.
They had been established by Probus, on the sea-coast of Pontus,
with a view of strengthening the frontier against the inroads of
the Alani. A fleet stationed in one of the harbors of the Euxine
fell into the hands of the Franks; and they resolved, through
unknown seas, to explore their way from the mouth of the Phasis
to that of the Rhine. They easily escaped through the Bosphorus
and the Hellespont, and cruising along the Mediterranean,
indulged their appetite for revenge and plunder by frequent
descents on the unsuspecting shores of Asia, Greece, and Africa.
The opulent city of Syracuse, in whose port the navies of Athens
and Carthage had formerly been sunk, was sacked by a handful of
barbarians, who massacred the greatest part of the trembling
inhabitants. From the island of Sicily the Franks proceeded to
the columns of Hercules, trusted themselves to the ocean, coasted
round Spain and Gaul, and steering their triumphant course
through the British Channel, at length finished their surprising
voyage, by landing in safety on the Batavian or Frisian shores.
50 The example of their success, instructing their countrymen to
conceive the advantages and to despise the dangers of the sea,
pointed out to their enterprising spirit a new road to wealth and
glory.
50 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet. v. 18. Zosimus, l. i. p. 66.]
Notwithstanding the vigilance and activity of Probus, it was
almost impossible that he could at once contain in obedience
every part of his wide-extended dominions. The barbarians, who
broke their chains, had seized the favorable opportunity of a
domestic war. When the emperor marched to the relief of Gaul, he
devolved the command of the East on Saturninus. That general, a
man of merit and experience, was driven into rebellion by the
absence of his sovereign, the levity of the Alexandrian people,
the pressing instances of his friends, and his own fears; but
from the moment of his elevation, he never entertained a hope of
empire, or even of life. “Alas!” he said, “the republic has lost
a useful servant, and the rashness of an hour has destroyed the
services of many years. You know not,” continued he, “the misery
of sovereign power; a sword is perpetually suspended over our
head. We dread our very guards, we distrust our companions. The
choice of action or of repose is no longer in our disposition,
nor is there any age, or character, or conduct, that can protect
us from the censure of envy. In thus exalting me to the throne,
you have doomed me to a life of cares, and to an untimely fate.
The only consolation which remains is the assurance that I shall
not fall alone.” 51 But as the former part of his prediction was
verified by the victory, so the latter was disappointed by the
clemency, of Probus. That amiable prince attempted even to save
the unhappy Saturninus from the fury of the soldiers. He had more
than once solicited the usurper himself to place some confidence
in the mercy of a sovereign who so highly esteemed his character,
that he had punished, as a malicious informer, the first who
related the improbable news of his disaffection. 52 Saturninus
might, perhaps, have embraced the generous offer, had he not been
restrained by the obstinate distrust of his adherents. Their
guilt was deeper, and their hopes more sanguine, than those of
their experienced leader.
51 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 245, 246. The
unfortunate orator had studied rhetoric at Carthage; and was
therefore more probably a Moor (Zosim. l. i. p. 60) than a Gaul,
as Vopiscus calls him.]
52 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 638.]
The revolt of Saturninus was scarcely extinguished in the East,
before new troubles were excited in the West, by the rebellion of
Bonosus and Proculus, in Gaul. The most distinguished merit of
those two officers was their respective prowess, of the one in
the combats of Bacchus, of the other in those of Venus, 53 yet
neither of them was destitute of courage and capacity, and both
sustained, with honor, the august character which the fear of
punishment had engaged them to assume, till they sunk at length
beneath the superior genius of Probus. He used the victory with
his accustomed moderation, and spared the fortune, as well as the
lives of their innocent families. 54
53 (return) [ A very surprising instance is recorded of the
prowess of Proculus. He had taken one hundred Sarmatian virgins.
The rest of the story he must relate in his own language: “Ex his
una necte decem inivi; omnes tamen, quod in me erat, mulieres
intra dies quindecim reddidi.” Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 246.]
54 (return) [ Proculus, who was a native of Albengue, on the
Genoese coast armed two thousand of his own slaves. His riches
were great, but they were acquired by robbery. It was afterwards
a saying of his family, sibi non placere esse vel principes vel
latrones. Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 247.]
The arms of Probus had now suppressed all the foreign and
domestic enemies of the state. His mild but steady administration
confirmed the re-ëstablishment of the public tranquillity; nor
was there left in the provinces a hostile barbarian, a tyrant, or
even a robber, to revive the memory of past disorders. It was
time that the emperor should revisit Rome, and celebrate his own
glory and the general happiness. The triumph due to the valor of
Probus was conducted with a magnificence suitable to his fortune,
and the people, who had so lately admired the trophies of
Aurelian, gazed with equal pleasure on those of his heroic
successor. 55 We cannot, on this occasion, forget the desperate
courage of about fourscore gladiators, reserved, with near six
hundred others, for the inhuman sports of the amphitheatre.
Disdaining to shed their blood for the amusement of the populace,
they killed their keepers, broke from the place of their
confinement, and filled the streets of Rome with blood and
confusion. After an obstinate resistance, they were overpowered
and cut in pieces by the regular forces; but they obtained at
least an honorable death, and the satisfaction of a just revenge.
56
55 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 240.]
56 (return) [ Zosim. l. i. p. 66.]
The military discipline which reigned in the camps of Probus was
less cruel than that of Aurelian, but it was equally rigid and
exact. The latter had punished the irregularities of the soldiers
with unrelenting severity, the former prevented them by employing
the legions in constant and useful labors. When Probus commanded
in Egypt, he executed many considerable works for the splendor
and benefit of that rich country. The navigation of the Nile, so
important to Rome itself, was improved; and temples, buildings,
porticos, and palaces, were constructed by the hands of the
soldiers, who acted by turns as architects, as engineers, and as
husbandmen. 57 It was reported of Hannibal, that, in order to
preserve his troops from the dangerous temptations of idleness,
he had obliged them to form large plantations of olive-trees
along the coast of Africa. 58 From a similar principle, Probus
exercised his legions in covering with rich vineyards the hills
of Gaul and Pannonia, and two considerable spots are described,
which were entirely dug and planted by military labor. 59 One of
these, known under the name of Mount Almo, was situated near
Sirmium, the country where Probus was born, for which he ever
retained a partial affection, and whose gratitude he endeavored
to secure, by converting into tillage a large and unhealthy tract
of marshy ground. An army thus employed constituted perhaps the
most useful, as well as the bravest, portion of Roman subjects.
57 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 236.]
58 (return) [ Aurel. Victor. in Prob. But the policy of Hannibal,
unnoticed by any more ancient writer, is irreconcilable with the
history of his life. He left Africa when he was nine years old,
returned to it when he was forty-five, and immediately lost his
army in the decisive battle of Zama. Livilus, xxx. 37.]
59 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 240. Eutrop. ix. 17. Aurel.
Victor. in Prob. Victor Junior. He revoked the prohibition of
Domitian, and granted a general permission of planting vines to
the Gauls, the Britons, and the Pannonians.]
But in the prosecution of a favorite scheme, the best of men,
satisfied with the rectitude of their intentions, are subject to
forget the bounds of moderation; nor did Probus himself
sufficiently consult the patience and disposition of his fierce
legionaries. 60 The dangers of the military profession seem only
to be compensated by a life of pleasure and idleness; but if the
duties of the soldier are incessantly aggravated by the labors of
the peasant, he will at last sink under the intolerable burden,
or shake it off with indignation. The imprudence of Probus is
said to have inflamed the discontent of his troops. More
attentive to the interests of mankind than to those of the army,
he expressed the vain hope, that, by the establishment of
universal peace, he should soon abolish the necessity of a
standing and mercenary force. 61 The unguarded expression proved
fatal to him. In one of the hottest days of summer, as he
severely urged the unwholesome labor of draining the marshes of
Sirmium, the soldiers, impatient of fatigue, on a sudden threw
down their tools, grasped their arms, and broke out into a
furious mutiny. The emperor, conscious of his danger, took refuge
in a lofty tower, constructed for the purpose of surveying the
progress of the work. 62 The tower was instantly forced, and a
thousand swords were plunged at once into the bosom of the
unfortunate Probus. The rage of the troops subsided as soon as it
had been gratified. They then lamented their fatal rashness,
forgot the severity of the emperor whom they had massacred, and
hastened to perpetuate, by an honorable monument, the memory of
his virtues and victories. 63
60 (return) [ Julian bestows a severe, and indeed excessive,
censure on the rigor of Probus, who, as he thinks, almost
deserved his fate.]
61 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 241. He lavishes on
this idle hope a large stock of very foolish eloquence.]
62 (return) [ Turris ferrata. It seems to have been a movable
tower, and cased with iron.]
63 (return) [ Probus, et vere probus situs est; Victor omnium
gentium Barbararum; victor etiam tyrannorum.]
When the legions had indulged their grief and repentance for the
death of Probus, their unanimous consent declared Carus, his
Prætorian præfect, the most deserving of the Imperial throne.
Every circumstance that relates to this prince appears of a mixed
and doubtful nature. He gloried in the title of Roman Citizen;
and affected to compare the purity of _his_ blood with the
foreign and even barbarous origin of the preceding emperors; yet
the most inquisitive of his contemporaries, very far from
admitting his claim, have variously deduced his own birth, or
that of his parents, from Illyricum, from Gaul, or from Africa.
64 Though a soldier, he had received a learned education; though
a senator, he was invested with the first dignity of the army;
and in an age when the civil and military professions began to be
irrecoverably separated from each other, they were united in the
person of Carus. Notwithstanding the severe justice which he
exercised against the assassins of Probus, to whose favor and
esteem he was highly indebted, he could not escape the suspicion
of being accessory to a deed from whence he derived the principal
advantage. He enjoyed, at least before his elevation, an
acknowledged character of virtue and abilities; 65 but his
austere temper insensibly degenerated into moroseness and
cruelty; and the imperfect writers of his life almost hesitate
whether they shall not rank him in the number of Roman tyrants.
66 When Carus assumed the purple, he was about sixty years of
age, and his two sons, Carinus and Numerian had already attained
the season of manhood. 67
64 (return) [ Yet all this may be conciliated. He was born at
Narbonne in Illyricum, confounded by Eutropius with the more
famous city of that name in Gaul. His father might be an African,
and his mother a noble Roman. Carus himself was educated in the
capital. See Scaliger Animadversion. ad Euseb. Chron. p. 241.]
65 (return) [ Probus had requested of the senate an equestrian
statue and a marble palace, at the public expense, as a just
recompense of the singular merit of Carus. Vopiscus in Hist.
August. p. 249.]
66 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 242, 249. Julian
excludes the emperor Carus and both his sons from the banquet of
the Cæsars.]
67 (return) [ John Malala, tom. i. p. 401. But the authority of
that ignorant Greek is very slight. He ridiculously derives from
Carus the city of Carrhæ, and the province of Caria, the latter
of which is mentioned by Homer.]
The authority of the senate expired with Probus; nor was the
repentance of the soldiers displayed by the same dutiful regard
for the civil power, which they had testified after the
unfortunate death of Aurelian. The election of Carus was decided
without expecting the approbation of the senate, and the new
emperor contented himself with announcing, in a cold and stately
epistle, that he had ascended the vacant throne. 68 A behavior so
very opposite to that of his amiable predecessor afforded no
favorable presage of the new reign: and the Romans, deprived of
power and freedom, asserted their privilege of licentious
murmurs. 69 The voice of congratulation and flattery was not,
however, silent; and we may still peruse, with pleasure and
contempt, an eclogue, which was composed on the accession of the
emperor Carus. Two shepherds, avoiding the noontide heat, retire
into the cave of Faunus. On a spreading beech they discover some
recent characters. The rural deity had described, in prophetic
verses, the felicity promised to the empire under the reign of so
great a prince. Faunus hails the approach of that hero, who,
receiving on his shoulders the sinking weight of the Roman world,
shall extinguish war and faction, and once again restore the
innocence and security of the golden age. 70
68 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 249. Carus congratulated the
senate, that one of their own order was made emperor.]
69 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 242.]
70 (return) [ See the first eclogue of Calphurnius. The design of
it is preferes by Fontenelle to that of Virgil’s Pollio. See tom.
iii. p. 148.]
It is more than probable, that these elegant trifles never
reached the ears of a veteran general, who, with the consent of
the legions, was preparing to execute the long-suspended design
of the Persian war. Before his departure for this distant
expedition, Carus conferred on his two sons, Carinus and
Numerian, the title of Cæsar, and investing the former with
almost an equal share of the Imperial power, directed the young
prince first to suppress some troubles which had arisen in Gaul,
and afterwards to fix the seat of his residence at Rome, and to
assume the government of the Western provinces. 71 The safety of
Illyricum was confirmed by a memorable defeat of the Sarmatians;
sixteen thousand of those barbarians remained on the field of
battle, and the number of captives amounted to twenty thousand.
The old emperor, animated with the fame and prospect of victory,
pursued his march, in the midst of winter, through the countries
of Thrace and Asia Minor, and at length, with his younger son,
Numerian, arrived on the confines of the Persian monarchy. There,
encamping on the summit of a lofty mountain, he pointed out to
his troops the opulence and luxury of the enemy whom they were
about to invade.
71 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 353. Eutropius, ix. 18. Pagi.
Annal.]
The successor of Artaxerxes, 711 Varanes, or Bahram, though he
had subdued the Segestans, one of the most warlike nations of
Upper Asia, 72 was alarmed at the approach of the Romans, and
endeavored to retard their progress by a negotiation of peace.
721
His ambassadors entered the camp about sunset, at the time when
the troops were satisfying their hunger with a frugal repast. The
Persians expressed their desire of being introduced to the
presence of the Roman emperor. They were at length conducted to a
soldier, who was seated on the grass. A piece of stale bacon and
a few hard peas composed his supper. A coarse woollen garment of
purple was the only circumstance that announced his dignity. The
conference was conducted with the same disregard of courtly
elegance. Carus, taking off a cap which he wore to conceal his
baldness, assured the ambassadors, that, unless their master
acknowledged the superiority of Rome, he would speedily render
Persia as naked of trees as his own head was destitute of hair.
73 Notwithstanding some traces of art and preparation, we may
discover in this scene the manners of Carus, and the severe
simplicity which the martial princes, who succeeded Gallienus,
had already restored in the Roman camps. The ministers of the
Great King trembled and retired.
711 (return) [ Three monarchs had intervened, Sapor, (Shahpour,)
Hormisdas, (Hormooz,) Varanes; Baharam the First.—M.]
72 (return) [ Agathias, l. iv. p. 135. We find one of his sayings
in the Bibliotheque Orientale of M. d’Herbelot. “The definition
of humanity includes all other virtues.”]
721 (return) [ The manner in which his life was saved by the
Chief Pontiff from a conspiracy of his nobles, is as remarkable
as his saying. “By the advice (of the Pontiff) all the nobles
absented themselves from court. The king wandered through his
palace alone. He saw no one; all was silence around. He became
alarmed and distressed. At last the Chief Pontiff appeared, and
bowed his head in apparent misery, but spoke not a word. The king
entreated him to declare what had happened. The virtuous man
boldly related all that had passed, and conjured Bahram, in the
name of his glorious ancestors, to change his conduct and save
himself from destruction. The king was much moved, professed
himself most penitent, and said he was resolved his future life
should prove his sincerity. The overjoyed High Priest, delighted
at this success, made a signal, at which all the nobles and
attendants were in an instant, as if by magic, in their usual
places. The monarch now perceived that only one opinion prevailed
on his past conduct. He repeated therefore to his nobles all he
had said to the Chief Pontiff, and his future reign was unstained
by cruelty or oppression.” Malcolm’s Persia,—M.]
73 (return) [ Synesius tells this story of Carinus; and it is
much more natural to understand it of Carus, than (as Petavius
and Tillemont choose to do) of Probus.]
The threats of Carus were not without effect. He ravaged
Mesopotamia, cut in pieces whatever opposed his passage, made
himself master of the great cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon,
(which seemed to have surrendered without resistance,) and
carried his victorious arms beyond the Tigris. 74 He had seized
the favorable moment for an invasion. The Persian councils were
distracted by domestic factions, and the greater part of their
forces were detained on the frontiers of India. Rome and the East
received with transport the news of such important advantages.
Flattery and hope painted, in the most lively colors, the fall of
Persia, the conquest of Arabia, the submission of Egypt, and a
lasting deliverance from the inroads of the Scythian nations. 75
But the reign of Carus was destined to expose the vanity of
predictions. They were scarcely uttered before they were
contradicted by his death; an event attended with such ambiguous
circumstances, that it may be related in a letter from his own
secretary to the præfect of the city. “Carus,” says he, “our
dearest emperor, was confined by sickness to his bed, when a
furious tempest arose in the camp. The darkness which overspread
the sky was so thick, that we could no longer distinguish each
other; and the incessant flashes of lightning took from us the
knowledge of all that passed in the general confusion.
Immediately after the most violent clap of thunder, we heard a
sudden cry that the emperor was dead; and it soon appeared, that
his chamberlains, in a rage of grief, had set fire to the royal
pavilion; a circumstance which gave rise to the report that Carus
was killed by lightning. But, as far as we have been able to
investigate the truth, his death was the natural effect of his
disorder.” 76
74 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 250. Eutropius, ix.
18. The two Victors.]
75 (return) [ To the Persian victory of Carus I refer the
dialogue of the Philopatris, which has so long been an object of
dispute among the learned. But to explain and justify my opinion,
would require a dissertation. Note: Niebuhr, in the new edition
of the Byzantine Historians, (vol. x.) has boldly assigned the
Philopatris to the tenth century, and to the reign of Nicephorus
Phocas. An opinion so decisively pronounced by Niebuhr and
favorably received by Hase, the learned editor of Leo Diaconus,
commands respectful consideration. But the whole tone of the work
appears to me altogether inconsistent with any period in which
philosophy did not stand, as it were, on some ground of equality
with Christianity. The doctrine of the Trinity is sarcastically
introduced rather as the strange doctrine of a new religion, than
the established tenet of a faith universally prevalent. The
argument, adopted from Solanus, concerning the formula of the
procession of the Holy Ghost, is utterly worthless, as it is a
mere quotation in the words of the Gospel of St. John, xv. 26.
The only argument of any value is the historic one, from the
allusion to the recent violation of many virgins in the Island of
Crete. But neither is the language of Niebuhr quite accurate, nor
his reference to the Acroases of Theodosius satisfactory. When,
then, could this occurrence take place? Why not in the
devastation of the island by the Gothic pirates, during the reign
of Claudius. Hist. Aug. in Claud. p. 814. edit. Var. Lugd. Bat
1661.—M.]
76 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 250. Yet Eutropius, Festus, Rufus,
the two Victors, Jerome, Sidonius Apollinaris, Syncellus, and
Zonaras, all ascribe the death of Carus to lightning.]
Chapter XII: Reigns Of Tacitus, Probus, Carus And His Sons.—Part
III.
The vacancy of the throne was not productive of any disturbance.
The ambition of the aspiring generals was checked by their
natural fears, and young Numerian, with his absent brother
Carinus, were unanimously acknowledged as Roman emperors.
The public expected that the successor of Carus would pursue his
father’s footsteps, and, without allowing the Persians to recover
from their consternation, would advance sword in hand to the
palaces of Susa and Ecbatana. 77 But the legions, however strong
in numbers and discipline, were dismayed by the most abject
superstition. Notwithstanding all the arts that were practised to
disguise the manner of the late emperor’s death, it was found
impossible to remove the opinion of the multitude, and the power
of opinion is irresistible. Places or persons struck with
lightning were considered by the ancients with pious horror, as
singularly devoted to the wrath of Heaven. 78 An oracle was
remembered, which marked the River Tigris as the fatal boundary
of the Roman arms. The troops, terrified with the fate of Carus
and with their own danger, called aloud on young Numerian to obey
the will of the gods, and to lead them away from this
inauspicious scene of war. The feeble emperor was unable to
subdue their obstinate prejudice, and the Persians wondered at
the unexpected retreat of a victorious enemy. 79
77 (return) [ See Nemesian. Cynegeticon, v. 71, &c.]
78 (return) [ See Festus and his commentators on the word
Scribonianum. Places struck by lightning were surrounded with a
wall; things were buried with mysterious ceremony.]
79 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 250. Aurelius Victor
seems to believe the prediction, and to approve the retreat.]
The intelligence of the mysterious fate of the late emperor was
soon carried from the frontiers of Persia to Rome; and the
senate, as well as the provinces, congratulated the accession of
the sons of Carus. These fortunate youths were strangers,
however, to that conscious superiority, either of birth or of
merit, which can alone render the possession of a throne easy,
and, as it were, natural. Born and educated in a private station,
the election of their father raised them at once to the rank of
princes; and his death, which happened about sixteen months
afterwards, left them the unexpected legacy of a vast empire. To
sustain with temper this rapid elevation, an uncommon share of
virtue and prudence was requisite; and Carinus, the elder of the
brothers, was more than commonly deficient in those qualities. In
the Gallic war he discovered some degree of personal courage; 80
but from the moment of his arrival at Rome, he abandoned himself
to the luxury of the capital, and to the abuse of his fortune. He
was soft, yet cruel; devoted to pleasure, but destitute of taste;
and though exquisitely susceptible of vanity, indifferent to the
public esteem. In the course of a few months, he successively
married and divorced nine wives, most of whom he left pregnant;
and notwithstanding this legal inconstancy, found time to indulge
such a variety of irregular appetites, as brought dishonor on
himself and on the noblest houses of Rome. He beheld with
inveterate hatred all those who might remember his former
obscurity, or censure his present conduct. He banished, or put to
death, the friends and counsellors whom his father had placed
about him, to guide his inexperienced youth; and he persecuted
with the meanest revenge his school-fellows and companions who
had not sufficiently respected the latent majesty of the emperor.
With the senators, Carinus affected a lofty and regal demeanor,
frequently declaring, that he designed to distribute their
estates among the populace of Rome. From the dregs of that
populace he selected his favorites, and even his ministers. The
palace, and even the Imperial table, were filled with singers,
dancers, prostitutes, and all the various retinue of vice and
folly. One of his doorkeepers 81 he intrusted with the government
of the city. In the room of the Prætorian præfect, whom he put to
death, Carinus substituted one of the ministers of his looser
pleasures. Another, who possessed the same, or even a more
infamous, title to favor, was invested with the consulship. A
confidential secretary, who had acquired uncommon skill in the
art of forgery, delivered the indolent emperor, with his own
consent from the irksome duty of signing his name.
80 (return) [ Nemesian. Cynegeticon, v 69. He was a contemporary,
but a poet.]
81 (return) [ Cancellarius. This word, so humble in its origin,
has, by a singular fortune, risen into the title of the first
great office of state in the monarchies of Europe. See Casaubon
and Salmasius, ad Hist. August, p. 253.]
When the emperor Carus undertook the Persian war, he was induced,
by motives of affection as well as policy, to secure the fortunes
of his family, by leaving in the hands of his eldest son the
armies and provinces of the West. The intelligence which he soon
received of the conduct of Carinus filled him with shame and
regret; nor had he concealed his resolution of satisfying the
republic by a severe act of justice, and of adopting, in the
place of an unworthy son, the brave and virtuous Constantius, who
at that time was governor of Dalmatia. But the elevation of
Constantius was for a while deferred; and as soon as the father’s
death had released Carinus from the control of fear or decency,
he displayed to the Romans the extravagancies of Elagabalus,
aggravated by the cruelty of Domitian. 82
82 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 253, 254. Eutropius,
x. 19. Vic to Junior. The reign of Diocletian indeed was so long
and prosperous, that it must have been very unfavorable to the
reputation of Carinus.]
The only merit of the administration of Carinus that history
could record, or poetry celebrate, was the uncommon splendor with
which, in his own and his brother’s name, he exhibited the Roman
games of the theatre, the circus, and the amphitheatre. More than
twenty years afterwards, when the courtiers of Diocletian
represented to their frugal sovereign the fame and popularity of
his munificent predecessor, he acknowledged that the reign of
Carinus had indeed been a reign of pleasure. 83 But this vain
prodigality, which the prudence of Diocletian might justly
despise, was enjoyed with surprise and transport by the Roman
people. The oldest of the citizens, recollecting the spectacles
of former days, the triumphal pomp of Probus or Aurelian, and the
secular games of the emperor Philip, acknowledged that they were
all surpassed by the superior magnificence of Carinus. 84
83 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 254. He calls him
Carus, but the sense is sufficiently obvious, and the words were
often confounded.]
84 (return) [ See Calphurnius, Eclog. vii. 43. We may observe,
that the spectacles of Probus were still recent, and that the
poet is seconded by the historian.]
The spectacles of Carinus may therefore be best illustrated by
the observation of some particulars, which history has
condescended to relate concerning those of his predecessors. If
we confine ourselves solely to the hunting of wild beasts,
however we may censure the vanity of the design or the cruelty of
the execution, we are obliged to confess that neither before nor
since the time of the Romans so much art and expense have ever
been lavished for the amusement of the people. 85 By the order of
Probus, a great quantity of large trees, torn up by the roots,
were transplanted into the midst of the circus. The spacious and
shady forest was immediately filled with a thousand ostriches, a
thousand stags, a thousand fallow deer, and a thousand wild
boars; and all this variety of game was abandoned to the riotous
impetuosity of the multitude. The tragedy of the succeeding day
consisted in the massacre of a hundred lions, an equal number of
lionesses, two hundred leopards, and three hundred bears. 86 The
collection prepared by the younger Gordian for his triumph, and
which his successor exhibited in the secular games, was less
remarkable by the number than by the singularity of the animals.
Twenty zebras displayed their elegant forms and variegated beauty
to the eyes of the Roman people. 87 Ten elks, and as many
camelopards, the loftiest and most harmless creatures that wander
over the plains of Sarmatia and Æthiopia, were contrasted with
thirty African hyænas and ten Indian tigers, the most implacable
savages of the torrid zone. The unoffending strength with which
Nature has endowed the greater quadrupeds was admired in the
rhinoceros, the hippopotamus of the Nile, 88 and a majestic troop
of thirty-two elephants. 89 While the populace gazed with stupid
wonder on the splendid show, the naturalist might indeed observe
the figure and properties of so many different species,
transported from every part of the ancient world into the
amphitheatre of Rome. But this accidental benefit, which science
might derive from folly, is surely insufficient to justify such a
wanton abuse of the public riches. There occurs, however, a
single instance in the first Punic war, in which the senate
wisely connected this amusement of the multitude with the
interest of the state. A considerable number of elephants, taken
in the defeat of the Carthaginian army, were driven through the
circus by a few slaves, armed only with blunt javelins. 90 The
useful spectacle served to impress the Roman soldier with a just
contempt for those unwieldy animals; and he no longer dreaded to
encounter them in the ranks of war.
85 (return) [ The philosopher Montaigne (Essais, l. iii. 6) gives
a very just and lively view of Roman magnificence in these
spectacles.]
86 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 240.]
87 (return) [ They are called Onagri; but the number is too
inconsiderable for mere wild asses. Cuper (de Elephantis
Exercitat. ii. 7) has proved from Oppian, Dion, and an anonymous
Greek, that zebras had been seen at Rome. They were brought from
some island of the ocean, perhaps Madagascar.]
88 (return) [Carinus gave a hippopotamus, (see Calphurn. Eclog.
vi. 66.) In the latter spectacles, I do not recollect any
crocodiles, of which Augustus once exhibited thirty-six. Dion
Cassius, l. lv. p. 781.]
89 (return) [ Capitolin. in Hist. August. p. 164, 165. We are not
acquainted with the animals which he calls archeleontes; some
read argoleontes others agrioleontes: both corrections are very
nugatory]
90 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. viii. 6, from the annals of
Piso.]
The hunting or exhibition of wild beasts was conducted with a
magnificence suitable to a people who styled themselves the
masters of the world; nor was the edifice appropriated to that
entertainment less expressive of Roman greatness. Posterity
admires, and will long admire, the awful remains of the
amphitheatre of Titus, which so well deserved the epithet of
Colossal. 91 It was a building of an elliptic figure, five
hundred and sixty-four feet in length, and four hundred and
sixty-seven in breadth, founded on fourscore arches, and rising,
with four successive orders of architecture, to the height of one
hundred and forty feet. 92 The outside of the edifice was
encrusted with marble, and decorated with statues. The slopes of
the vast concave, which formed the inside, were filled and
surrounded with sixty or eighty rows of seats of marble likewise,
covered with cushions, and capable of receiving with ease about
fourscore thousand spectators. 93 Sixty-four _vomitories_ (for by
that name the doors were very aptly distinguished) poured forth
the immense multitude; and the entrances, passages, and
staircases were contrived with such exquisite skill, that each
person, whether of the senatorial, the equestrian, or the
plebeian order, arrived at his destined place without trouble or
confusion. 94 Nothing was omitted, which, in any respect, could
be subservient to the convenience and pleasure of the spectators.
They were protected from the sun and rain by an ample canopy,
occasionally drawn over their heads. The air was continally
refreshed by the playing of fountains, and profusely impregnated
by the grateful scent of aromatics. In the centre of the edifice,
the _arena_, or stage, was strewed with the finest sand, and
successively assumed the most different forms. At one moment it
seemed to rise out of the earth, like the garden of the
Hesperides, and was afterwards broken into the rocks and caverns
of Thrace. The subterraneous pipes conveyed an inexhaustible
supply of water; and what had just before appeared a level plain,
might be suddenly converted into a wide lake, covered with armed
vessels, and replenished with the monsters of the deep. 95 In the
decoration of these scenes, the Roman emperors displayed their
wealth and liberality; and we read on various occasions that the
whole furniture of the amphitheatre consisted either of silver,
or of gold, or of amber. 96 The poet who describes the games of
Carinus, in the character of a shepherd, attracted to the capital
by the fame of their magnificence, affirms that the nets designed
as a defence against the wild beasts were of gold wire; that the
porticos were gilded; and that the _belt_ or circle which divided
the several ranks of spectators from each other was studded with
a precious mosaic of beautiful stones. 97
91 (return) [ See Maffei, Verona Illustrata, p. iv. l. i. c. 2.]
92 (return) [ Maffei, l. ii. c. 2. The height was very much
exaggerated by the ancients. It reached almost to the heavens,
according to Calphurnius, (Eclog. vii. 23,) and surpassed the ken
of human sight, according to Ammianus Marcellinus (xvi. 10.) Yet
how trifling to the great pyramid of Egypt, which rises 500 feet
perpendicular]
93 (return) [ According to different copies of Victor, we read
77,000, or 87,000 spectators; but Maffei (l. ii. c. 12) finds
room on the open seats for no more than 34,000. The remainder
were contained in the upper covered galleries.]
94 (return) [ See Maffei, l. ii. c. 5—12. He treats the very
difficult subject with all possible clearness, and like an
architect, as well as an antiquarian.]
95 (return) [ Calphurn. Eclog vii. 64, 73. These lines are
curious, and the whole eclogue has been of infinite use to
Maffei. Calphurnius, as well as Martial, (see his first book,)
was a poet; but when they described the amphitheatre, they both
wrote from their own senses, and to those of the Romans.]
96 (return) [ Consult Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 16, xxxvii. 11.]
97 (return) [ Balteus en gemmis, en inlita porticus auro Certatim
radiant, &c. Calphurn. vii.]
In the midst of this glittering pageantry, the emperor Carinus,
secure of his fortune, enjoyed the acclamations of the people,
the flattery of his courtiers, and the songs of the poets, who,
for want of a more essential merit, were reduced to celebrate the
divine graces of his person. 98 In the same hour, but at the
distance of nine hundred miles from Rome, his brother expired;
and a sudden revolution transferred into the hands of a stranger
the sceptre of the house of Carus. 99
98 (return) [ Et Martis vultus et Apollinis esse putavi, says
Calphurnius; but John Malala, who had perhaps seen pictures of
Carinus, describes him as thick, short, and white, tom. i. p.
403.]
99 (return) [ With regard to the time when these Roman games were
celebrated, Scaliger, Salmasius, and Cuper have given themselves
a great deal of trouble to perplex a very clear subject.]
The sons of Carus never saw each other after their father’s
death. The arrangements which their new situation required were
probably deferred till the return of the younger brother to Rome,
where a triumph was decreed to the young emperors for the
glorious success of the Persian war. 100 It is uncertain whether
they intended to divide between them the administration, or the
provinces, of the empire; but it is very unlikely that their
union would have proved of any long duration. The jealousy of
power must have been inflamed by the opposition of characters. In
the most corrupt of times, Carinus was unworthy to live: Numerian
deserved to reign in a happier period. His affable manners and
gentle virtues secured him, as soon as they became known, the
regard and affections of the public. He possessed the elegant
accomplishments of a poet and orator, which dignify as well as
adorn the humblest and the most exalted station. His eloquence,
however it was applauded by the senate, was formed not so much on
the model of Cicero, as on that of the modern declaimers; but in
an age very far from being destitute of poetical merit, he
contended for the prize with the most celebrated of his
contemporaries, and still remained the friend of his rivals; a
circumstance which evinces either the goodness of his heart, or
the superiority of his genius. 101 But the talents of Numerian
were rather of the contemplative than of the active kind. When
his father’s elevation reluctantly forced him from the shade of
retirement, neither his temper nor his pursuits had qualified him
for the command of armies. His constitution was destroyed by the
hardships of the Persian war; and he had contracted, from the
heat of the climate, 102 such a weakness in his eyes, as obliged
him, in the course of a long retreat, to confine himself to the
solitude and darkness of a tent or litter.
The administration of all affairs, civil as well as military, was
devolved on Arrius Aper, the Prætorian præfect, who to the power
of his important office added the honor of being father-in-law to
Numerian. The Imperial pavilion was strictly guarded by his most
trusty adherents; and during many days, Aper delivered to the
army the supposed mandates of their invisible sovereign. 103
100 (return) [ Nemesianus (in the Cynegeticon) seems to
anticipate in his fancy that auspicious day.]
101 (return) [ He won all the crowns from Nemesianus, with whom
he vied in didactic poetry. The senate erected a statue to the
son of Carus, with a very ambiguous inscription, “To the most
powerful of orators.” See Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 251.]
102 (return) [ A more natural cause, at least, than that assigned
by Vopiscus, (Hist. August. p. 251,) incessantly weeping for his
father’s death.]
103 (return) [ In the Persian war, Aper was suspected of a design
to betray Carus. Hist. August. p. 250.]
It was not till eight months after the death of Carus, that the
Roman army, returning by slow marches from the banks of the
Tigris, arrived on those of the Thracian Bosphorus. The legions
halted at Chalcedon in Asia, while the court passed over to
Heraclea, on the European side of the Propontis. 104 But a report
soon circulated through the camp, at first in secret whispers,
and at length in loud clamors, of the emperor’s death, and of the
presumption of his ambitious minister, who still exercised the
sovereign power in the name of a prince who was no more. The
impatience of the soldiers could not long support a state of
suspense. With rude curiosity they broke into the Imperial tent,
and discovered only the corpse of Numerian. 105 The gradual
decline of his health might have induced them to believe that his
death was natural; but the concealment was interpreted as an
evidence of guilt, and the measures which Aper had taken to
secure his election became the immediate occasion of his ruin.
Yet, even in the transport of their rage and grief, the troops
observed a regular proceeding, which proves how firmly discipline
had been reëstablished by the martial successors of Gallienus. A
general assembly of the army was appointed to be held at
Chalcedon, whither Aper was transported in chains, as a prisoner
and a criminal. A vacant tribunal was erected in the midst of the
camp, and the generals and tribunes formed a great military
council. They soon announced to the multitude that their choice
had fallen on Diocletian, commander of the domestics or
body-guards, as the person the most capable of revenging and
succeeding their beloved emperor. The future fortunes of the
candidate depended on the chance or conduct of the present hour.
Conscious that the station which he had filled exposed him to
some suspicions, Diocletian ascended the tribunal, and raising
his eyes towards the Sun, made a solemn profession of his own
innocence, in the presence of that all-seeing Deity. 106 Then,
assuming the tone of a sovereign and a judge, he commanded that
Aper should be brought in chains to the foot of the tribunal.
“This man,” said he, “is the murderer of Numerian;” and without
giving him time to enter on a dangerous justification, drew his
sword, and buried it in the breast of the unfortunate præfect. A
charge supported by such decisive proof was admitted without
contradiction, and the legions, with repeated acclamations,
acknowledged the justice and authority of the emperor Diocletian.
107
104 (return) [ We are obliged to the Alexandrian Chronicle, p.
274, for the knowledge of the time and place where Diocletian was
elected emperor.]
105 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 251. Eutrop. ix. 88. Hieronym. in
Chron. According to these judicious writers, the death of
Numerian was discovered by the stench of his dead body. Could no
aromatics be found in the Imperial household?]
106 (return) [ Aurel. Victor. Eutropius, ix. 20. Hieronym. in
Chron.]
107 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 252. The reason why
Diocletian killed Aper, (a wild boar,) was founded on a prophecy
and a pun, as foolish as they are well known.]
Before we enter upon the memorable reign of that prince, it will
be proper to punish and dismiss the unworthy brother of Numerian.
Carinus possessed arms and treasures sufficient to support his
legal title to the empire. But his personal vices overbalanced
every advantage of birth and situation. The most faithful
servants of the father despised the incapacity, and dreaded the
cruel arrogance, of the son. The hearts of the people were
engaged in favor of his rival, and even the senate was inclined
to prefer a usurper to a tyrant. The arts of Diocletian inflamed
the general discontent; and the winter was employed in secret
intrigues, and open preparations for a civil war. In the spring,
the forces of the East and of the West encountered each other in
the plains of Margus, a small city of Mæsia, in the neighborhood
of the Danube. 108 The troops, so lately returned from the
Persian war, had acquired their glory at the expense of health
and numbers; nor were they in a condition to contend with the
unexhausted strength of the legions of Europe. Their ranks were
broken, and, for a moment, Diocletian despaired of the purple and
of life. But the advantage which Carinus had obtained by the
valor of his soldiers, he quickly lost by the infidelity of his
officers. A tribune, whose wife he had seduced, seized the
opportunity of revenge, and, by a single blow, extinguished civil
discord in the blood of the adulterer. 109
108 (return) [ Eutropius marks its situation very accurately; it
was between the Mons Aureus and Viminiacum. M. d’Anville
(Geographic Ancienne, tom. i. p. 304) places Margus at Kastolatz
in Servia, a little below Belgrade and Semendria. * Note:
Kullieza—Eton Atlas—M.]
109 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 254. Eutropius, ix. 20. Aurelius
Victor et Epitome]
Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates.—Part
I.
The Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates, Maximian, Galerius,
And Constantius.—General Reestablishment Of Order And Tranquillity.—The
Persian War, Victory, And Triumph.—The New Form Of
Administration.—Abdication And Retirement Of Diocletian And Maximian.
As the reign of Diocletian was more illustrious than that of any
of his predecessors, so was his birth more abject and obscure.
The strong claims of merit and of violence had frequently
superseded the ideal prerogatives of nobility; but a distinct
line of separation was hitherto preserved between the free and
the servile part of mankind. The parents of Diocletian had been
slaves in the house of Anulinus, a Roman senator; nor was he
himself distinguished by any other name than that which he
derived from a small town in Dalmatia, from whence his mother
deduced her origin. 1 It is, however, probable that his father
obtained the freedom of the family, and that he soon acquired an
office of scribe, which was commonly exercised by persons of his
condition. 2 Favorable oracles, or rather the consciousness of
superior merit, prompted his aspiring son to pursue the
profession of arms and the hopes of fortune; and it would be
extremely curious to observe the gradation of arts and accidents
which enabled him in the end to fulfil those oracles, and to
display that merit to the world. Diocletian was successively
promoted to the government of Mæsia, the honors of the
consulship, and the important command of the guards of the
palace. He distinguished his abilities in the Persian war; and
after the death of Numerian, the slave, by the confession and
judgment of his rivals, was declared the most worthy of the
Imperial throne. The malice of religious zeal, whilst it arraigns
the savage fierceness of his colleague Maximian, has affected to
cast suspicions on the personal courage of the emperor
Diocletian. 3 It would not be easy to persuade us of the
cowardice of a soldier of fortune, who acquired and preserved the
esteem of the legions as well as the favor of so many warlike
princes. Yet even calumny is sagacious enough to discover and to
attack the most vulnerable part. The valor of Diocletian was
never found inadequate to his duty, or to the occasion; but he
appears not to have possessed the daring and generous spirit of a
hero, who courts danger and fame, disdains artifice, and boldly
challenges the allegiance of his equals. His abilities were
useful rather than splendid; a vigorous mind, improved by the
experience and study of mankind; dexterity and application in
business; a judicious mixture of liberality and economy, of
mildness and rigor; profound dissimulation, under the disguise of
military frankness; steadiness to pursue his ends; flexibility to
vary his means; and, above all, the great art of submitting his
own passions, as well as those of others, to the interest of his
ambition, and of coloring his ambition with the most specious
pretences of justice and public utility. Like Augustus,
Diocletian may be considered as the founder of a new empire. Like
the adopted son of Cæsar, he was distinguished as a statesman
rather than as a warrior; nor did either of those princes employ
force, whenever their purpose could be effected by policy.
1 (return) [ Eutrop. ix. 19. Victor in Epitome. The town seems to
have been properly called Doclia, from a small tribe of
Illyrians, (see Cellarius, Geograph. Antiqua, tom. i. p. 393;)
and the original name of the fortunate slave was probably Docles;
he first lengthened it to the Grecian harmony of Diocles, and at
length to the Roman majesty of Diocletianus. He likewise assumed
the Patrician name of Valerius and it is usually given him by
Aurelius Victor.]
2 (return) [ See Dacier on the sixth satire of the second book of
Horace Cornel. Nepos, ’n Vit. Eumen. c. l.]
3 (return) [ Lactantius (or whoever was the author of the little
treatise De Mortibus Persecutorum) accuses Diocletian of timidity
in two places, c. 7. 8. In chap. 9 he says of him, “erat in omni
tumultu meticulosu et animi disjectus.”]
The victory of Diocletian was remarkable for its singular
mildness. A people accustomed to applaud the clemency of the
conqueror, if the usual punishments of death, exile, and
confiscation, were inflicted with any degree of temper and
equity, beheld, with the most pleasing astonishment, a civil war,
the flames of which were extinguished in the field of battle.
Diocletian received into his confidence Aristobulus, the
principal minister of the house of Carus, respected the lives,
the fortunes, and the dignity, of his adversaries, and even
continued in their respective stations the greater number of the
servants of Carinus. 4 It is not improbable that motives of
prudence might assist the humanity of the artful Dalmatian; of
these servants, many had purchased his favor by secret treachery;
in others, he esteemed their grateful fidelity to an unfortunate
master. The discerning judgment of Aurelian, of Probus, and of
Carus, had filled the several departments of the state and army
with officers of approved merit, whose removal would have injured
the public service, without promoting the interest of his
successor. Such a conduct, however, displayed to the Roman world
the fairest prospect of the new reign, and the emperor affected
to confirm this favorable prepossession, by declaring, that,
among all the virtues of his predecessors, he was the most
ambitious of imitating the humane philosophy of Marcus Antoninus.
5
4 (return) [ In this encomium, Aurelius Victor seems to convey a
just, though indirect, censure of the cruelty of Constantius. It
appears from the Fasti, that Aristobulus remained præfect of the
city, and that he ended with Diocletian the consulship which he
had commenced with Carinus.]
5 (return) [ Aurelius Victor styles Diocletian, “Parentum potius
quam Dominum.” See Hist. August. p. 30.]
The first considerable action of his reign seemed to evince his
sincerity as well as his moderation. After the example of Marcus,
he gave himself a colleague in the person of Maximian, on whom he
bestowed at first the title of Cæsar, and afterwards that of
Augustus. 6 But the motives of his conduct, as well as the object
of his choice, were of a very different nature from those of his
admired predecessor. By investing a luxurious youth with the
honors of the purple, Marcus had discharged a debt of private
gratitude, at the expense, indeed, of the happiness of the state.
By associating a friend and a fellow-soldier to the labors of
government, Diocletian, in a time of public danger, provided for
the defence both of the East and of the West. Maximian was born a
peasant, and, like Aurelian, in the territory of Sirmium.
Ignorant of letters, 7 careless of laws, the rusticity of his
appearance and manners still betrayed in the most elevated
fortune the meanness of his extraction. War was the only art
which he professed. In a long course of service he had
distinguished himself on every frontier of the empire; and though
his military talents were formed to obey rather than to command,
though, perhaps, he never attained the skill of a consummate
general, he was capable, by his valor, constancy, and experience,
of executing the most arduous undertakings. Nor were the vices of
Maximian less useful to his benefactor. Insensible to pity, and
fearless of consequences, he was the ready instrument of every
act of cruelty which the policy of that artful prince might at
once suggest and disclaim. As soon as a bloody sacrifice had been
offered to prudence or to revenge, Diocletian, by his seasonable
intercession, saved the remaining few whom he had never designed
to punish, gently censured the severity of his stern colleague,
and enjoyed the comparison of a golden and an iron age, which was
universally applied to their opposite maxims of government.
Notwithstanding the difference of their characters, the two
emperors maintained, on the throne, that friendship which they
had contracted in a private station. The haughty, turbulent
spirit of Maximian, so fatal, afterwards, to himself and to the
public peace, was accustomed to respect the genius of Diocletian,
and confessed the ascendant of reason over brutal violence. 8
From a motive either of pride or superstition, the two emperors
assumed the titles, the one of Jovius, the other of Herculius.
Whilst the motion of the world (such was the language of their
venal orators) was maintained by the all-seeing wisdom of
Jupiter, the invincible arm of Hercules purged the earth from
monsters and tyrants. 9
6 (return) [ The question of the time when Maximian received the
honors of Cæsar and Augustus has divided modern critics, and
given occasion to a great deal of learned wrangling. I have
followed M. de Tillemont, (Histoire des Empereurs, tom. iv. p.
500-505,) who has weighed the several reasons and difficulties
with his scrupulous accuracy. * Note: Eckbel concurs in this
view, viii p. 15.—M.]
7 (return) [ In an oration delivered before him, (Panegyr. Vet.
ii. 8,) Mamertinus expresses a doubt, whether his hero, in
imitating the conduct of Hannibal and Scipio, had ever heard of
their names. From thence we may fairly infer, that Maximian was
more desirous of being considered as a soldier than as a man of
letters; and it is in this manner that we can often translate the
language of flattery into that of truth.]
8 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 8. Aurelius Victor. As among
the Panegyrics, we find orations pronounced in praise of
Maximian, and others which flatter his adversaries at his
expense, we derive some knowledge from the contrast.]
9 (return) [ See the second and third Panegyrics, particularly
iii. 3, 10, 14 but it would be tedious to copy the diffuse and
affected expressions of their false eloquence. With regard to the
titles, consult Aurel. Victor Lactantius de M. P. c. 52. Spanheim
de Usu Numismatum, &c. xii 8.]
But even the omnipotence of Jovius and Herculius was insufficient
to sustain the weight of the public administration. The prudence
of Diocletian discovered that the empire, assailed on every side
by the barbarians, required on every side the presence of a great
army, and of an emperor. With this view, he resolved once more to
divide his unwieldy power, and with the inferior title of
_Cæsars_, 901 to confer on two generals of approved merit an
unequal share of the sovereign authority. 10 Galerius, surnamed
Armentarius, from his original profession of a herdsman, and
Constantius, who from his pale complexion had acquired the
denomination of Chlorus, 11 were the two persons invested with
the second honors of the Imperial purple. In describing the
country, extraction, and manners of Herculius, we have already
delineated those of Galerius, who was often, and not improperly,
styled the younger Maximian, though, in many instances both of
virtue and ability, he appears to have possessed a manifest
superiority over the elder. The birth of Constantius was less
obscure than that of his colleagues. Eutropius, his father, was
one of the most considerable nobles of Dardania, and his mother
was the niece of the emperor Claudius. 12 Although the youth of
Constantius had been spent in arms, he was endowed with a mild
and amiable disposition, and the popular voice had long since
acknowledged him worthy of the rank which he at last attained. To
strengthen the bonds of political, by those of domestic, union,
each of the emperors assumed the character of a father to one of
the Cæsars, Diocletian to Galerius, and Maximian to Constantius;
and each, obliging them to repudiate their former wives, bestowed
his daughter in marriage or his adopted son. 13 These four
princes distributed among themselves the wide extent of the Roman
empire. The defence of Gaul, Spain, 14 and Britain, was intrusted
to Constantius: Galerius was stationed on the banks of the
Danube, as the safeguard of the Illyrian provinces. Italy and
Africa were considered as the department of Maximian; and for his
peculiar portion, Diocletian reserved Thrace, Egypt, and the rich
countries of Asia. Every one was sovereign with his own
jurisdiction; but their united authority extended over the whole
monarchy, and each of them was prepared to assist his colleagues
with his counsels or presence. The Cæsars, in their exalted rank,
revered the majesty of the emperors, and the three younger
princes invariably acknowledged, by their gratitude and
obedience, the common parent of their fortunes. The suspicious
jealousy of power found not any place among them; and the
singular happiness of their union has been compared to a chorus
of music, whose harmony was regulated and maintained by the
skilful hand of the first artist. 15
901 (return) [ On the relative power of the Augusti and the
Cæsars, consult a dissertation at the end of Manso’s Leben
Constantius des Grossen—M.]
10 (return) [ Aurelius Victor. Victor in Epitome. Eutrop. ix. 22.
Lactant de M. P. c. 8. Hieronym. in Chron.]
11 (return) [ It is only among the modern Greeks that Tillemont
can discover his appellation of Chlorus. Any remarkable degree of
paleness seems inconsistent with the rubor mentioned in
Panegyric, v. 19.]
12 (return) [ Julian, the grandson of Constantius, boasts that
his family was derived from the warlike Mæsians. Misopogon, p.
348. The Dardanians dwelt on the edge of Mæsia.]
13 (return) [ Galerius married Valeria, the daughter of
Diocletian; if we speak with strictness, Theodora, the wife of
Constantius, was daughter only to the wife of Maximian. Spanheim,
Dissertat, xi. 2.]
14 (return) [ This division agrees with that of the four
præfectures; yet there is some reason to doubt whether Spain was
not a province of Maximian. See Tillemont, tom. iv. p. 517. *
Note: According to Aurelius Victor and other authorities, Thrace
belonged to the division of Galerius. See Tillemont, iv. 36. But
the laws of Diocletian are in general dated in Illyria or
Thrace.—M.]
15 (return) [ Julian in Cæsarib. p. 315. Spanheim’s notes to the
French translation, p. 122.]
This important measure was not carried into execution till about
six years after the association of Maximian, and that interval of
time had not been destitute of memorable incidents. But we have
preferred, for the sake of perspicuity, first to describe the
more perfect form of Diocletian’s government, and afterwards to
relate the actions of his reign, following rather the natural
order of the events, than the dates of a very doubtful
chronology.
The first exploit of Maximian, though it is mentioned in a few
words by our imperfect writers, deserves, from its singularity,
to be recorded in a history of human manners. He suppressed the
peasants of Gaul, who, under the appellation of Bagaudæ, 16 had
risen in a general insurrection; very similar to those which in
the fourteenth century successively afflicted both France and
England. 17 It should seem that very many of those institutions,
referred by an easy solution to the feudal system, are derived
from the Celtic barbarians. When Cæsar subdued the Gauls, that
great nation was already divided into three orders of men; the
clergy, the nobility, and the common people. The first governed
by superstition, the second by arms, but the third and last was
not of any weight or account in their public councils. It was
very natural for the plebeians, oppressed by debt, or
apprehensive of injuries, to implore the protection of some
powerful chief, who acquired over their persons and property the
same absolute right as, among the Greeks and Romans, a master
exercised over his slaves. 18 The greatest part of the nation was
gradually reduced into a state of servitude; compelled to
perpetual labor on the estates of the Gallic nobles, and confined
to the soil, either by the real weight of fetters, or by the no
less cruel and forcible restraints of the laws. During the long
series of troubles which agitated Gaul, from the reign of
Gallienus to that of Diocletian, the condition of these servile
peasants was peculiarly miserable; and they experienced at once
the complicated tyranny of their masters, of the barbarians, of
the soldiers, and of the officers of the revenue. 19
16 (return) [ The general name of Bagaudæ (in the signification
of rebels) continued till the fifth century in Gaul. Some critics
derive it from a Celtic word Bagad, a tumultuous assembly.
Scaliger ad Euseb. Du Cange Glossar. (Compare S. Turner,
Anglo-Sax. History, i. 214.—M.)]
17 (return) [ Chronique de Froissart, vol. i. c. 182, ii. 73, 79.
The naivete of his story is lost in our best modern writers.]
18 (return) [ Cæsar de Bell. Gallic. vi. 13. Orgetorix, the
Helvetian, could arm for his defence a body of ten thousand
slaves.]
19 (return) [ Their oppression and misery are acknowledged by
Eumenius (Panegyr. vi. 8,) Gallias efferatas injuriis.]
Their patience was at last provoked into despair. On every side
they rose in multitudes, armed with rustic weapons, and with
irresistible fury. The ploughman became a foot soldier, the
shepherd mounted on horseback, the deserted villages and open
towns were abandoned to the flames, and the ravages of the
peasants equalled those of the fiercest barbarians. 20 They
asserted the natural rights of men, but they asserted those
rights with the most savage cruelty. The Gallic nobles, justly
dreading their revenge, either took refuge in the fortified
cities, or fled from the wild scene of anarchy. The peasants
reigned without control; and two of their most daring leaders had
the folly and rashness to assume the Imperial ornaments. 21 Their
power soon expired at the approach of the legions. The strength
of union and discipline obtained an easy victory over a
licentious and divided multitude. 22 A severe retaliation was
inflicted on the peasants who were found in arms; the affrighted
remnant returned to their respective habitations, and their
unsuccessful effort for freedom served only to confirm their
slavery. So strong and uniform is the current of popular
passions, that we might almost venture, from very scanty
materials, to relate the particulars of this war; but we are not
disposed to believe that the principal leaders, Ælianus and
Amandus, were Christians, 23 or to insinuate, that the rebellion,
as it happened in the time of Luther, was occasioned by the abuse
of those benevolent principles of Christianity, which inculcate
the natural freedom of mankind.
20 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet. ii. 4. Aurelius Victor.]
21 (return) [ Ælianus and Amandus. We have medals coined by them
Goltzius in Thes. R. A. p. 117, 121.]
22 (return) [ Levibus proeliis domuit. Eutrop. ix. 20.]
23 (return) [ The fact rests indeed on very slight authority, a
life of St. Babolinus, which is probably of the seventh century.
See Duchesne Scriptores Rer. Francicar. tom. i. p. 662.]
Maximian had no sooner recovered Gaul from the hands of the
peasants, than he lost Britain by the usurpation of Carausius.
Ever since the rash but successful enterprise of the Franks under
the reign of Probus, their daring countrymen had constructed
squadrons of light brigantines, in which they incessantly ravaged
the provinces adjacent to the ocean. 24 To repel their desultory
incursions, it was found necessary to create a naval power; and
the judicious measure was prosecuted with prudence and vigor.
Gessoriacum, or Boulogne, in the straits of the British Channel,
was chosen by the emperor for the station of the Roman fleet; and
the command of it was intrusted to Carausius, a Menapian of the
meanest origin, 25 but who had long signalized his skill as a
pilot, and his valor as a soldier. The integrity of the new
admiral corresponded not with his abilities. When the German
pirates sailed from their own harbors, he connived at their
passage, but he diligently intercepted their return, and
appropriated to his own use an ample share of the spoil which
they had acquired. The wealth of Carausius was, on this occasion,
very justly considered as an evidence of his guilt; and Maximian
had already given orders for his death. But the crafty Menapian
foresaw and prevented the severity of the emperor. By his
liberality he had attached to his fortunes the fleet which he
commanded, and secured the barbarians in his interest. From the
port of Boulogne he sailed over to Britain, persuaded the legion,
and the auxiliaries which guarded that island, to embrace his
party, and boldly assuming, with the Imperial purple, the title
of Augustus, defied the justice and the arms of his injured
sovereign. 26
24 (return) [ Aurelius Victor calls them Germans. Eutropius (ix.
21) gives them the name of Saxons. But Eutropius lived in the
ensuing century, and seems to use the language of his own times.]
25 (return) [ The three expressions of Eutropius, Aurelius
Victor, and Eumenius, “vilissime natus,” “Bataviæ alumnus,” and
“Menapiæ civis,” give us a very doubtful account of the birth of
Carausius. Dr. Stukely, however, (Hist. of Carausius, p. 62,)
chooses to make him a native of St. David’s and a prince of the
blood royal of Britain. The former idea he had found in Richard
of Cirencester, p. 44. * Note: The Menapians were settled between
the Scheldt and the Meuse, is the northern part of Brabant.
D’Anville, Geogr. Anc. i. 93.—G.]
26 (return) [ Panegyr. v. 12. Britain at this time was secure,
and slightly guarded.]
When Britain was thus dismembered from the empire, its importance
was sensibly felt, and its loss sincerely lamented. The Romans
celebrated, and perhaps magnified, the extent of that noble
island, provided on every side with convenient harbors; the
temperature of the climate, and the fertility of the soil, alike
adapted for the production of corn or of vines; the valuable
minerals with which it abounded; its rich pastures covered with
innumerable flocks, and its woods free from wild beasts or
venomous serpents. Above all, they regretted the large amount of
the revenue of Britain, whilst they confessed, that such a
province well deserved to become the seat of an independent
monarchy. 27 During the space of seven years it was possessed by
Carausius; and fortune continued propitious to a rebellion
supported with courage and ability. The British emperor defended
the frontiers of his dominions against the Caledonians of the
North, invited, from the continent, a great number of skilful
artists, and displayed, on a variety of coins that are still
extant, his taste and opulence. Born on the confines of the
Franks, he courted the friendship of that formidable people, by
the flattering imitation of their dress and manners. The bravest
of their youth he enlisted among his land or sea forces; and, in
return for their useful alliance, he communicated to the
barbarians the dangerous knowledge of military and naval arts.
Carausius still preserved the possession of Boulogne and the
adjacent country. His fleets rode triumphant in the channel,
commanded the mouths of the Seine and of the Rhine, ravaged the
coasts of the ocean, and diffused beyond the columns of Hercules
the terror of his name. Under his command, Britain, destined in a
future age to obtain the empire of the sea, already assumed its
natural and respectable station of a maritime power. 28
27 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet v 11, vii. 9. The orator Eumenius
wished to exalt the glory of the hero (Constantius) with the
importance of the conquest. Notwithstanding our laudable
partiality for our native country, it is difficult to conceive,
that, in the beginning of the fourth century England deserved all
these commendations. A century and a half before, it hardly paid
its own establishment.]
28 (return) [ As a great number of medals of Carausius are still
preserved, he is become a very favorite object of antiquarian
curiosity, and every circumstance of his life and actions has
been investigated with sagacious accuracy. Dr. Stukely, in
particular, has devoted a large volume to the British emperor. I
have used his materials, and rejected most of his fanciful
conjectures.]
By seizing the fleet of Boulogne, Carausius had deprived his
master of the means of pursuit and revenge. And when, after a
vast expense of time and labor, a new armament was launched into
the water, 29 the Imperial troops, unaccustomed to that element,
were easily baffled and defeated by the veteran sailors of the
usurper. This disappointed effort was soon productive of a treaty
of peace. Diocletian and his colleague, who justly dreaded the
enterprising spirit of Carausius, resigned to him the sovereignty
of Britain, and reluctantly admitted their perfidious servant to
a participation of the Imperial honors. 30 But the adoption of
the two Cæsars restored new vigor to the Romans arms; and while
the Rhine was guarded by the presence of Maximian, his brave
associate Constantius assumed the conduct of the British war. His
first enterprise was against the important place of Boulogne. A
stupendous mole, raised across the entrance of the harbor,
intercepted all hopes of relief. The town surrendered after an
obstinate defence; and a considerable part of the naval strength
of Carausius fell into the hands of the besiegers. During the
three years which Constantius employed in preparing a fleet
adequate to the conquest of Britain, he secured the coast of
Gaul, invaded the country of the Franks, and deprived the usurper
of the assistance of those powerful allies.
29 (return) [ When Mamertinus pronounced his first panegyric, the
naval preparations of Maximian were completed; and the orator
presaged an assured victory. His silence in the second panegyric
might alone inform us that the expedition had not succeeded.]
30 (return) [ Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, and the medals, (Pax
Augg.) inform us of this temporary reconciliation; though I will
not presume (as Dr. Stukely has done, Medallic History of
Carausius, p. 86, &c) to insert the identical articles of the
treaty.]
Before the preparations were finished, Constantius received the
intelligence of the tyrant’s death, and it was considered as a
sure presage of the approaching victory. The servants of
Carausius imitated the example of treason which he had given. He
was murdered by his first minister, Allectus, and the assassin
succeeded to his power and to his danger. But he possessed not
equal abilities either to exercise the one or to repel the other.
He beheld, with anxious terror, the opposite shores of the
continent already filled with arms, with troops, and with
vessels; for Constantius had very prudently divided his forces,
that he might likewise divide the attention and resistance of the
enemy. The attack was at length made by the principal squadron,
which, under the command of the præfect Asclepiodatus, an officer
of distinguished merit, had been assembled in the north of the
Seine. So imperfect in those times was the art of navigation,
that orators have celebrated the daring courage of the Romans,
who ventured to set sail with a side-wind, and on a stormy day.
The weather proved favorable to their enterprise. Under the cover
of a thick fog, they escaped the fleet of Allectus, which had
been stationed off the Isle of Wight to receive them, landed in
safety on some part of the western coast, and convinced the
Britons, that a superiority of naval strength will not always
protect their country from a foreign invasion. Asclepiodatus had
no sooner disembarked the imperial troops, then he set fire to
his ships; and, as the expedition proved fortunate, his heroic
conduct was universally admired. The usurper had posted himself
near London, to expect the formidable attack of Constantius, who
commanded in person the fleet of Boulogne; but the descent of a
new enemy required his immediate presence in the West. He
performed this long march in so precipitate a manner, that he
encountered the whole force of the præfect with a small body of
harassed and disheartened troops. The engagement was soon
terminated by the total defeat and death of Allectus; a single
battle, as it has often happened, decided the fate of this great
island; and when Constantius landed on the shores of Kent, he
found them covered with obedient subjects. Their acclamations
were loud and unanimous; and the virtues of the conqueror may
induce us to believe, that they sincerely rejoiced in a
revolution, which, after a separation of ten years, restored
Britain to the body of the Roman empire. 31
31 (return) [ With regard to the recovery of Britain, we obtain a
few hints from Aurelius Victor and Eutropius.]
Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates.—Part
II.
Britain had none but domestic enemies to dread; and as long as
the governors preserved their fidelity, and the troops their
discipline, the incursions of the naked savages of Scotland or
Ireland could never materially affect the safety of the province.
The peace of the continent, and the defence of the principal
rivers which bounded the empire, were objects of far greater
difficulty and importance. The policy of Diocletian, which
inspired the councils of his associates, provided for the public
tranquility, by encouraging a spirit of dissension among the
barbarians, and by strengthening the fortifications of the Roman
limit. In the East he fixed a line of camps from Egypt to the
Persian dominions, and for every camp, he instituted an adequate
number of stationary troops, commanded by their respective
officers, and supplied with every kind of arms, from the new
arsenals which he had formed at Antioch, Emesa, and Damascus. 32
Nor was the precaution of the emperor less watchful against the
well-known valor of the barbarians of Europe. From the mouth of
the Rhine to that of the Danube, the ancient camps, towns, and
citidels, were diligently reëstablished, and, in the most exposed
places, new ones were skilfully constructed: the strictest
vigilance was introduced among the garrisons of the frontier, and
every expedient was practised that could render the long chain of
fortifications firm and impenetrable. 33 A barrier so respectable
was seldom violated, and the barbarians often turned against each
other their disappointed rage. The Goths, the Vandals, the
Gepidæ, the Burgundians, the Alemanni, wasted each other’s
strength by destructive hostilities: and whosoever vanquished,
they vanquished the enemies of Rome. The subjects of Diocletian
enjoyed the bloody spectacle, and congratulated each other, that
the mischiefs of civil war were now experienced only by the
barbarians. 34
32 (return) [ John Malala, in Chron, Antiochen. tom. i. p. 408,
409.]
33 (return) [ Zosim. l. i. p. 3. That partial historian seems to
celebrate the vigilance of Diocletian with a design of exposing
the negligence of Constantine; we may, however, listen to an
orator: “Nam quid ego alarum et cohortium castra percenseam, toto
Rheni et Istri et Euphraus limite restituta.” Panegyr. Vet. iv.
18.]
34 (return) [ Ruunt omnes in sanguinem suum populi, quibus ron
contigilesse Romanis, obstinatæque feritatis poenas nunc sponte
persolvunt. Panegyr. Vet. iii. 16. Mamertinus illustrates the
fact by the example of almost all the nations in the world.]
Notwithstanding the policy of Diocletian, it was impossible to
maintain an equal and undisturbed tranquillity during a reign of
twenty years, and along a frontier of many hundred miles.
Sometimes the barbarians suspended their domestic animosities,
and the relaxed vigilance of the garrisons sometimes gave a
passage to their strength or dexterity. Whenever the provinces
were invaded, Diocletian conducted himself with that calm dignity
which he always affected or possessed; reserved his presence for
such occasions as were worthy of his interposition, never exposed
his person or reputation to any unnecessary danger, insured his
success by every means that prudence could suggest, and
displayed, with ostentation, the consequences of his victory. In
wars of a more difficult nature, and more doubtful event, he
employed the rough valor of Maximian; and that faithful soldier
was content to ascribe his own victories to the wise counsels and
auspicious influence of his benefactor. But after the adoption of
the two Cæsars, the emperors themselves, retiring to a less
laborious scene of action, devolved on their adopted sons the
defence of the Danube and of the Rhine. The vigilant Galerius was
never reduced to the necessity of vanquishing an army of
barbarians on the Roman territory. 35 The brave and active
Constantius delivered Gaul from a very furious inroad of the
Alemanni; and his victories of Langres and Vindonissa appear to
have been actions of considerable danger and merit. As he
traversed the open country with a feeble guard, he was
encompassed on a sudden by the superior multitude of the enemy.
He retreated with difficulty towards Langres; but, in the general
consternation, the citizens refused to open their gates, and the
wounded prince was drawn up the wall by the means of a rope. But,
on the news of his distress, the Roman troops hastened from all
sides to his relief, and before the evening he had satisfied his
honor and revenge by the slaughter of six thousand Alemanni. 36
From the monuments of those times, the obscure traces of several
other victories over the barbarians of Sarmatia and Germany might
possibly be collected; but the tedious search would not be
rewarded either with amusement or with instruction.
35 (return) [ He complained, though not with the strictest truth,
“Jam fluxisse annos quindecim in quibus, in Illyrico, ad ripam
Danubii relegatus cum gentibus barbaris luctaret.” Lactant. de M.
P. c. 18.]
36 (return) [ In the Greek text of Eusebius, we read six
thousand, a number which I have preferred to the sixty thousand
of Jerome, Orosius Eutropius, and his Greek translator Pæanius.]
The conduct which the emperor Probus had adopted in the disposal
of the vanquished was imitated by Diocletian and his associates.
The captive barbarians, exchanging death for slavery, were
distributed among the provincials, and assigned to those
districts (in Gaul, the territories of Amiens, Beauvais, Cambray,
Treves, Langres, and Troyes, are particularly specified) 37 which
had been depopulated by the calamities of war. They were usefully
employed as shepherds and husbandmen, but were denied the
exercise of arms, except when it was found expedient to enroll
them in the military service. Nor did the emperors refuse the
property of lands, with a less servile tenure, to such of the
barbarians as solicited the protection of Rome. They granted a
settlement to several colonies of the Carpi, the Bastarnæ, and
the Sarmatians; and, by a dangerous indulgence, permitted them in
some measure to retain their national manners and independence.
38 Among the provincials, it was a subject of flattering
exultation, that the barbarian, so lately an object of terror,
now cultivated their lands, drove their cattle to the neighboring
fair, and contributed by his labor to the public plenty. They
congratulated their masters on the powerful accession of subjects
and soldiers; but they forgot to observe, that multitudes of
secret enemies, insolent from favor, or desperate from
oppression, were introduced into the heart of the empire. 39
37 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet. vii. 21.]
38 (return) [ There was a settlement of the Sarmatians in the
neighborhood of Treves, which seems to have been deserted by
those lazy barbarians. Ausonius speaks of them in his Mosella:——
“Unde iter ingrediens nemorosa per avia solum, Et nulla humani
spectans vestigia cultus; ........ Arvaque Sauromatum nuper
metata colonis.”]
39 (return) [ There was a town of the Carpi in the Lower Mæsia.
See the rhetorical exultation of Eumenius.]
While the Cæsars exercised their valor on the banks of the Rhine
and Danube, the presence of the emperors was required on the
southern confines of the Roman world. From the Nile to Mount
Atlas, Africa was in arms. A confederacy of five Moorish nations
issued from their deserts to invade the peaceful provinces. 40
Julian had assumed the purple at Carthage. 41 Achilleus at
Alexandria, and even the Blemmyes, renewed, or rather continued,
their incursions into the Upper Egypt. Scarcely any circumstances
have been preserved of the exploits of Maximian in the western
parts of Africa; but it appears, by the event, that the progress
of his arms was rapid and decisive, that he vanquished the
fiercest barbarians of Mauritania, and that he removed them from
the mountains, whose inaccessible strength had inspired their
inhabitants with a lawless confidence, and habituated them to a
life of rapine and violence. 42 Diocletian, on his side, opened
the campaign in Egypt by the siege of Alexandria, cut off the
aqueducts which conveyed the waters of the Nile into every
quarter of that immense city, 43 and rendering his camp
impregnable to the sallies of the besieged multitude, he pushed
his reiterated attacks with caution and vigor. After a siege of
eight months, Alexandria, wasted by the sword and by fire,
implored the clemency of the conqueror, but it experienced the
full extent of his severity. Many thousands of the citizens
perished in a promiscuous slaughter, and there were few obnoxious
persons in Egypt who escaped a sentence either of death or at
least of exile. 44 The fate of Busiris and of Coptos was still
more melancholy than that of Alexandria: those proud cities, the
former distinguished by its antiquity, the latter enriched by the
passage of the Indian trade, were utterly destroyed by the arms
and by the severe order of Diocletian. 45 The character of the
Egyptian nation, insensible to kindness, but extremely
susceptible of fear, could alone justify this excessive rigor.
The seditions of Alexandria had often affected the tranquillity
and subsistence of Rome itself. Since the usurpation of Firmus,
the province of Upper Egypt, incessantly relapsing into
rebellion, had embraced the alliance of the savages of Æthiopia.
The number of the Blemmyes, scattered between the Island of Meroe
and the Red Sea, was very inconsiderable, their disposition was
unwarlike, their weapons rude and inoffensive. 46 Yet in the
public disorders, these barbarians, whom antiquity, shocked with
the deformity of their figure, had almost excluded from the human
species, presumed to rank themselves among the enemies of Rome.
47 Such had been the unworthy allies of the Egyptians; and while
the attention of the state was engaged in more serious wars,
their vexations inroads might again harass the repose of the
province. With a view of opposing to the Blemmyes a suitable
adversary, Diocletian persuaded the Nobatæ, or people of Nubia,
to remove from their ancient habitations in the deserts of Libya,
and resigned to them an extensive but unprofitable territory
above Syene and the cataracts of the Nile, with the stipulation,
that they should ever respect and guard the frontier of the
empire. The treaty long subsisted; and till the establishment of
Christianity introduced stricter notions of religious worship, it
was annually ratified by a solemn sacrifice in the isle of
Elephantine, in which the Romans, as well as the barbarians,
adored the same visible or invisible powers of the universe. 48
40 (return) [ Scaliger (Animadvers. ad Euseb. p. 243) decides, in
his usual manner, that the Quinque gentiani, or five African
nations, were the five great cities, the Pentapolis of the
inoffensive province of Cyrene.]
41 (return) [ After his defeat, Julian stabbed himself with a
dagger, and immediately leaped into the flames. Victor in
Epitome.]
42 (return) [ Tu ferocissimos Mauritaniæ populos inaccessis
montium jugis et naturali munitione fidentes, expugnasti,
recepisti, transtulisti. Panegyr Vet. vi. 8.]
43 (return) [ See the description of Alexandria, in Hirtius de
Bel. Alexandrin c. 5.]
44 (return) [ Eutrop. ix. 24. Orosius, vii. 25. John Malala in
Chron. Antioch. p. 409, 410. Yet Eumenius assures us, that Egypt
was pacified by the clemency of Diocletian.]
45 (return) [ Eusebius (in Chron.) places their destruction
several years sooner and at a time when Egypt itself was in a
state of rebellion against the Romans.]
46 (return) [ Strabo, l. xvii. p. 172. Pomponius Mela, l. i. c.
4. His words are curious: “Intra, si credere libet vix, homines
magisque semiferi Ægipanes, et Blemmyes, et Satyri.”]
47 (return) [ Ausus sese inserere fortunæ et provocare arma
Romana.]
48 (return) [ See Procopius de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 19. Note:
Compare, on the epoch of the final extirpation of the rites of
Paganism from the Isle of Philæ, (Elephantine,) which subsisted
till the edict of Theodosius, in the sixth century, a
dissertation of M. Letronne, on certain Greek inscriptions. The
dissertation contains some very interesting observations on the
conduct and policy of Diocletian in Egypt. Mater pour l’Hist. du
Christianisme en Egypte, Nubie et Abyssinie, Paris 1817—M.]
At the same time that Diocletian chastised the past crimes of the
Egyptians, he provided for their future safety and happiness by
many wise regulations, which were confirmed and enforced under
the succeeding reigns. 49 One very remarkable edict which he
published, instead of being condemned as the effect of jealous
tyranny, deserves to be applauded as an act of prudence and
humanity. He caused a diligent inquiry to be made “for all the
ancient books which treated of the admirable art of making gold
and silver, and without pity, committed them to the flames;
apprehensive, as we are assumed, lest the opulence of the
Egyptians should inspire them with confidence to rebel against
the empire.” 50 But if Diocletian had been convinced of the
reality of that valuable art, far from extinguishing the memory,
he would have converted the operation of it to the benefit of the
public revenue. It is much more likely, that his good sense
discovered to him the folly of such magnificent pretensions, and
that he was desirous of preserving the reason and fortunes of his
subjects from the mischievous pursuit. It may be remarked, that
these ancient books, so liberally ascribed to Pythagoras, to
Solomon, or to Hermes, were the pious frauds of more recent
adepts. The Greeks were inattentive either to the use or to the
abuse of chemistry. In that immense register, where Pliny has
deposited the discoveries, the arts, and the errors of mankind,
there is not the least mention of the transmutation of metals;
and the persecution of Diocletian is the first authentic event in
the history of alchemy. The conquest of Egypt by the Arabs
diffused that vain science over the globe. Congenial to the
avarice of the human heart, it was studied in China as in Europe,
with equal eagerness, and with equal success. The darkness of the
middle ages insured a favorable reception to every tale of
wonder, and the revival of learning gave new vigor to hope, and
suggested more specious arts of deception. Philosophy, with the
aid of experience, has at length banished the study of alchemy;
and the present age, however desirous of riches, is content to
seek them by the humbler means of commerce and industry. 51
49 (return) [ He fixed the public allowance of corn, for the
people of Alexandria, at two millions of medimni; about four
hundred thousand quarters. Chron. Paschal. p. 276 Procop. Hist.
Arcan. c. 26.]
50 (return) [ John Antioch, in Excerp. Valesian. p. 834. Suidas
in Diocletian.]
51 (return) [ See a short history and confutation of Alchemy, in
the works of that philosophical compiler, La Mothe le Vayer, tom.
i. p. 32—353.]
The reduction of Egypt was immediately followed by the Persian
war. It was reserved for the reign of Diocletian to vanquish that
powerful nation, and to extort a confession from the successors
of Artaxerxes, of the superior majesty of the Roman empire.
We have observed, under the reign of Valerian, that Armenia was
subdued by the perfidy and the arms of the Persians, and that,
after the assassination of Chosroes, his son Tiridates, the
infant heir of the monarchy, was saved by the fidelity of his
friends, and educated under the protection of the emperors.
Tiridates derived from his exile such advantages as he could
never have obtained on the throne of Armenia; the early knowledge
of adversity, of mankind, and of the Roman discipline. He
signalized his youth by deeds of valor, and displayed a matchless
dexterity, as well as strength, in every martial exercise, and
even in the less honorable contests of the Olympian games. 52
Those qualities were more nobly exerted in the defence of his
benefactor Licinius. 53 That officer, in the sedition which
occasioned the death of Probus, was exposed to the most imminent
danger, and the enraged soldiers were forcing their way into his
tent, when they were checked by the single arm of the Armenian
prince. The gratitude of Tiridates contributed soon afterwards to
his restoration. Licinius was in every station the friend and
companion of Galerius, and the merit of Galerius, long before he
was raised to the dignity of Cæsar, had been known and esteemed
by Diocletian. In the third year of that emperor’s reign
Tiridates was invested with the kingdom of Armenia. The justice
of the measure was not less evident than its expediency. It was
time to rescue from the usurpation of the Persian monarch an
important territory, which, since the reign of Nero, had been
always granted under the protection of the empire to a younger
branch of the house of Arsaces. 54
52 (return) [ See the education and strength of Tiridates in the
Armenian history of Moses of Chorene, l. ii. c. 76. He could
seize two wild bulls by the horns, and break them off with his
hands.]
53 (return) [ If we give credit to the younger Victor, who
supposes that in the year 323 Licinius was only sixty years of
age, he could scarcely be the same person as the patron of
Tiridates; but we know from much better authority, (Euseb. Hist.
Ecclesiast. l. x. c. 8,) that Licinius was at that time in the
last period of old age: sixteen years before, he is represented
with gray hairs, and as the contemporary of Galerius. See
Lactant. c. 32. Licinius was probably born about the year 250.]
54 (return) [ See the sixty-second and sixty-third books of Dion
Cassius.]
When Tiridates appeared on the frontiers of Armenia, he was
received with an unfeigned transport of joy and loyalty. During
twenty-six years, the country had experienced the real and
imaginary hardships of a foreign yoke. The Persian monarchs
adorned their new conquest with magnificent buildings; but those
monuments had been erected at the expense of the people, and were
abhorred as badges of slavery. The apprehension of a revolt had
inspired the most rigorous precautions: oppression had been
aggravated by insult, and the consciousness of the public hatred
had been productive of every measure that could render it still
more implacable. We have already remarked the intolerant spirit
of the Magian religion. The statues of the deified kings of
Armenia, and the sacred images of the sun and moon, were broke in
pieces by the zeal of the conqueror; and the perpetual fire of
Ormuzd was kindled and preserved upon an altar erected on the
summit of Mount Bagavan. 55 It was natural, that a people
exasperated by so many injuries, should arm with zeal in the
cause of their independence, their religion, and their hereditary
sovereign. The torrent bore down every obstacle, and the Persian
garrisons retreated before its fury. The nobles of Armenia flew
to the standard of Tiridates, all alleging their past merit,
offering their future service, and soliciting from the new king
those honors and rewards from which they had been excluded with
disdain under the foreign government. 56 The command of the army
was bestowed on Artavasdes, whose father had saved the infancy of
Tiridates, and whose family had been massacred for that generous
action. The brother of Artavasdes obtained the government of a
province. One of the first military dignities was conferred on
the satrap Otas, a man of singular temperance and fortitude, who
presented to the king his sister 57 and a considerable treasure,
both of which, in a sequestered fortress, Otas had preserved from
violation. Among the Armenian nobles appeared an ally, whose
fortunes are too remarkable to pass unnoticed. His name was
Mamgo, 571 his origin was Scythian, and the horde which
acknowledge his authority had encamped a very few years before on
the skirts of the Chinese empire, 58 which at that time extended
as far as the neighborhood of Sogdiana. 59 Having incurred the
displeasure of his master, Mamgo, with his followers, retired to
the banks of the Oxus, and implored the protection of Sapor. The
emperor of China claimed the fugitive, and alleged the rights of
sovereignty. The Persian monarch pleaded the laws of hospitality,
and with some difficulty avoided a war, by the promise that he
would banish Mamgo to the uttermost parts of the West, a
punishment, as he described it, not less dreadful than death
itself. Armenia was chosen for the place of exile, and a large
district was assigned to the Scythian horde, on which they might
feed their flocks and herds, and remove their encampment from one
place to another, according to the different seasons of the year.
They were employed to repel the invasion of Tiridates; but their
leader, after weighing the obligations and injuries which he had
received from the Persian monarch, resolved to abandon his party.
The Armenian prince, who was well acquainted with the merit as
well as power of Mamgo, treated him with distinguished respect;
and, by admitting him into his confidence, acquired a brave and
faithful servant, who contributed very effectually to his
restoration. 60
55 (return) [ Moses of Chorene. Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 74. The
statues had been erected by Valarsaces, who reigned in Armenia
about 130 years before Christ, and was the first king of the
family of Arsaces, (see Moses, Hist. Armen. l. ii. 2, 3.) The
deification of the Arsacides is mentioned by Justin, (xli. 5,)
and by Ammianus Marcellinus, (xxiii. 6.)]
56 (return) [ The Armenian nobility was numerous and powerful.
Moses mentions many families which were distinguished under the
reign of Valarsaces, (l. ii. 7,) and which still subsisted in his
own time, about the middle of the fifth century. See the preface
of his Editors.]
57 (return) [ She was named Chosroiduchta, and had not the os
patulum like other women. (Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 79.) I do not
understand the expression. * Note: Os patulum signifies merely a
large and widely opening mouth. Ovid (Metam. xv. 513) says,
speaking of the monster who attacked Hippolytus, patulo partem
maris evomit ore. Probably a wide mouth was a common defect among
the Armenian women.—G.]
571 (return) [ Mamgo (according to M. St. Martin, note to Le
Beau. ii. 213) belonged to the imperial race of Hon, who had
filled the throne of China for four hundred years. Dethroned by
the usurping race of Wei, Mamgo found a hospitable reception in
Persia in the reign of Ardeschir. The emperor of china having
demanded the surrender of the fugitive and his partisans, Sapor,
then king, threatened with war both by Rome and China, counselled
Mamgo to retire into Armenia. “I have expelled him from my
dominions, (he answered the Chinese ambassador;) I have banished
him to the extremity of the earth, where the sun sets; I have
dismissed him to certain death.” Compare Mem. sur l’Armenie, ii.
25.—M.]
58 (return) [ In the Armenian history, (l. ii. 78,) as well as in
the Geography, (p. 367,) China is called Zenia, or Zenastan. It
is characterized by the production of silk, by the opulence of
the natives, and by their love of peace, above all the other
nations of the earth. * Note: See St. Martin, Mem. sur l’Armenie,
i. 304.]
59 (return) [ Vou-ti, the first emperor of the seventh dynasty,
who then reigned in China, had political transactions with
Fergana, a province of Sogdiana, and is said to have received a
Roman embassy, (Histoire des Huns, tom. i. p. 38.) In those ages
the Chinese kept a garrison at Kashgar, and one of their
generals, about the time of Trajan, marched as far as the Caspian
Sea. With regard to the intercourse between China and the Western
countries, a curious memoir of M. de Guignes may be consulted, in
the Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxii. p. 355. * Note: The
Chinese Annals mention, under the ninth year of Yan-hi, which
corresponds with the year 166 J. C., an embassy which arrived
from Tathsin, and was sent by a prince called An-thun, who can be
no other than Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who then ruled over the
Romans. St. Martin, Mem. sur l’Armænic. ii. 30. See also
Klaproth, Tableaux Historiques de l’Asie, p. 69. The embassy came
by Jy-nan, Tonquin.—M.]
60 (return) [ See Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 81.]
For a while, fortune appeared to favor the enterprising valor of
Tiridates. He not only expelled the enemies of his family and
country from the whole extent of Armenia, but in the prosecution
of his revenge he carried his arms, or at least his incursions,
into the heart of Assyria. The historian, who has preserved the
name of Tiridates from oblivion, celebrates, with a degree of
national enthusiasm, his personal prowess: and, in the true
spirit of eastern romance, describes the giants and the elephants
that fell beneath his invincible arm. It is from other
information that we discover the distracted state of the Persian
monarchy, to which the king of Armenia was indebted for some part
of his advantages. The throne was disputed by the ambition of
contending brothers; and Hormuz, after exerting without success
the strength of his own party, had recourse to the dangerous
assistance of the barbarians who inhabited the banks of the
Caspian Sea. 61 The civil war was, however, soon terminated,
either by a victor or by a reconciliation; and Narses, who was
universally acknowledged as king of Persia, directed his whole
force against the foreign enemy. The contest then became too
unequal; nor was the valor of the hero able to withstand the
power of the monarch. Tiridates, a second time expelled from the
throne of Armenia, once more took refuge in the court of the
emperors. 611 Narses soon reëstablished his authority over the
revolted province; and loudly complaining of the protection
afforded by the Romans to rebels and fugitives, aspired to the
conquest of the East. 62
61 (return) [ Ipsos Persas ipsumque Regem ascitis Saccis, et
Russis, et Gellis, petit frater Ormies. Panegyric. Vet. iii. 1.
The Saccæ were a nation of wandering Scythians, who encamped
towards the sources of the Oxus and the Jaxartes. The Gelli where
the inhabitants of Ghilan, along the Caspian Sea, and who so
long, under the name of Dilemines, infested the Persian monarchy.
See d’Herbelot, Bibliotheque]
611 (return) [ M St. Martin represents this differently. Le roi
de Perse * * * profits d’un voyage que Tiridate avoit fait a Rome
pour attaquer ce royaume. This reads like the evasion of the
national historians to disguise the fact discreditable to their
hero. See Mem. sur l’Armenie, i. 304.—M.]
62 (return) [ Moses of Chorene takes no notice of this second
revolution, which I have been obliged to collect from a passage
of Ammianus Marcellinus, (l. xxiii. c. 5.) Lactantius speaks of
the ambition of Narses: “Concitatus domesticis exemplis avi sui
Saporis ad occupandum orientem magnis copiis inhiabat.” De Mort.
Persecut. c. 9.]
Neither prudence nor honor could permit the emperors to forsake
the cause of the Armenian king, and it was resolved to exert the
force of the empire in the Persian war. Diocletian, with the calm
dignity which he constantly assumed, fixed his own station in the
city of Antioch, from whence he prepared and directed the
military operations. 63 The conduct of the legions was intrusted
to the intrepid valor of Galerius, who, for that important
purpose, was removed from the banks of the Danube to those of the
Euphrates. The armies soon encountered each other in the plains
of Mesopotamia, and two battles were fought with various and
doubtful success; but the third engagement was of a more decisive
nature; and the Roman army received a total overthrow, which is
attributed to the rashness of Galerius, who, with an
inconsiderable body of troops, attacked the innumerable host of
the Persians. 64 But the consideration of the country that was
the scene of action, may suggest another reason for his defeat.
The same ground on which Galerius was vanquished, had been
rendered memorable by the death of Crassus, and the slaughter of
ten legions. It was a plain of more than sixty miles, which
extended from the hills of Carrhæ to the Euphrates; a smooth and
barren surface of sandy desert, without a hillock, without a
tree, and without a spring of fresh water. 65 The steady infantry
of the Romans, fainting with heat and thirst, could neither hope
for victory if they preserved their ranks, nor break their ranks
without exposing themselves to the most imminent danger. In this
situation they were gradually encompassed by the superior
numbers, harassed by the rapid evolutions, and destroyed by the
arrows of the barbarian cavalry.
The king of Armenia had signalized his valor in the battle, and
acquired personal glory by the public misfortune. He was pursued
as far as the Euphrates; his horse was wounded, and it appeared
impossible for him to escape the victorious enemy. In this
extremity Tiridates embraced the only refuge which appeared
before him: he dismounted and plunged into the stream. His armor
was heavy, the river very deep, and at those parts at least half
a mile in breadth; 66 yet such was his strength and dexterity,
that he reached in safety the opposite bank. 67 With regard to
the Roman general, we are ignorant of the circumstances of his
escape; but when he returned to Antioch, Diocletian received him,
not with the tenderness of a friend and colleague, but with the
indignation of an offended sovereign. The haughtiest of men,
clothed in his purple, but humbled by the sense of his fault and
misfortune, was obliged to follow the emperor’s chariot above a
mile on foot, and to exhibit, before the whole court, the
spectacle of his disgrace. 68
63 (return) [ We may readily believe, that Lactantius ascribes to
cowardice the conduct of Diocletian. Julian, in his oration,
says, that he remained with all the forces of the empire; a very
hyperbolical expression.]
64 (return) [ Our five abbreviators, Eutropius, Festus, the two
Victors, and Orosius, all relate the last and great battle; but
Orosius is the only one who speaks of the two former.]
65 (return) [ The nature of the country is finely described by
Plutarch, in the life of Crassus; and by Xenophon, in the first
book of the Anabasis]
66 (return) [ See Foster’s Dissertation in the second volume of
the translation of the Anabasis by Spelman; which I will venture
to recommend as one of the best versions extant.]
67 (return) [ Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 76. I have transferred this
exploit of Tiridates from an imaginary defeat to the real one of
Galerius.]
68 (return) [ Ammian. Marcellin. l. xiv. The mile, in the hands
of Eutropoius, (ix. 24,) of Festus (c. 25,) and of Orosius, (vii
25), easily increased to several miles]
As soon as Diocletian had indulged his private resentment, and
asserted the majesty of supreme power, he yielded to the
submissive entreaties of the Cæsar, and permitted him to retrieve
his own honor, as well as that of the Roman arms. In the room of
the unwarlike troops of Asia, which had most probably served in
the first expedition, a second army was drawn from the veterans
and new levies of the Illyrian frontier, and a considerable body
of Gothic auxiliaries were taken into the Imperial pay. 69 At the
head of a chosen army of twenty-five thousand men, Galerius again
passed the Euphrates; but, instead of exposing his legions in the
open plains of Mesopotamia he advanced through the mountains of
Armenia, where he found the inhabitants devoted to his cause, and
the country as favorable to the operations of infantry as it was
inconvenient for the motions of cavalry. 70 Adversity had
confirmed the Roman discipline, while the barbarians, elated by
success, were become so negligent and remiss, that in the moment
when they least expected it, they were surprised by the active
conduct of Galerius, who, attended only by two horsemen, had with
his own eyes secretly examined the state and position of their
camp. A surprise, especially in the night time, was for the most
part fatal to a Persian army. “Their horses were tied, and
generally shackled, to prevent their running away; and if an
alarm happened, a Persian had his housing to fix, his horse to
bridle, and his corselet to put on, before he could mount.” 71 On
this occasion, the impetuous attack of Galerius spread disorder
and dismay over the camp of the barbarians. A slight resistance
was followed by a dreadful carnage, and, in the general
confusion, the wounded monarch (for Narses commanded his armies
in person) fled towards the deserts of Media. His sumptuous
tents, and those of his satraps, afforded an immense booty to the
conqueror; and an incident is mentioned, which proves the rustic
but martial ignorance of the legions in the elegant superfluities
of life. A bag of shining leather, filled with pearls, fell into
the hands of a private soldier; he carefully preserved the bag,
but he threw away its contents, judging that whatever was of no
use could not possibly be of any value. 72 The principal loss of
Narses was of a much more affecting nature. Several of his wives,
his sisters, and children, who had attended the army, were made
captives in the defeat. But though the character of Galerius had
in general very little affinity with that of Alexander, he
imitated, after his victory, the amiable behavior of the
Macedonian towards the family of Darius. The wives and children
of Narses were protected from violence and rapine, conveyed to a
place of safety, and treated with every mark of respect and
tenderness, that was due from a generous enemy to their age,
their sex, and their royal dignity. 73
69 (return) [ Aurelius Victor. Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c.
21.]
70 (return) [ Aurelius Victor says, “Per Armeniam in hostes
contendit, quæ fermo sola, seu facilior vincendi via est.” He
followed the conduct of Trajan, and the idea of Julius Cæsar.]
71 (return) [ Xenophon’s Anabasis, l. iii. For that reason the
Persian cavalry encamped sixty stadia from the enemy.]
72 (return) [ The story is told by Ammianus, l. xxii. Instead of
saccum, some read scutum.]
73 (return) [ The Persians confessed the Roman superiority in
morals as well as in arms. Eutrop. ix. 24. But this respect and
gratitude of enemies is very seldom to be found in their own
accounts.]
Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates.—Part
III.
While the East anxiously expected the decision of this great
contest, the emperor Diocletian, having assembled in Syria a
strong army of observation, displayed from a distance the
resources of the Roman power, and reserved himself for any future
emergency of the war. On the intelligence of the victory he
condescended to advance towards the frontier, with a view of
moderating, by his presence and counsels, the pride of Galerius.
The interview of the Roman princes at Nisibis was accompanied
with every expression of respect on one side, and of esteem on
the other. It was in that city that they soon afterwards gave
audience to the ambassador of the Great King. 74 The power, or at
least the spirit, of Narses, had been broken by his last defeat;
and he considered an immediate peace as the only means that could
stop the progress of the Roman arms. He despatched Apharban, a
servant who possessed his favor and confidence, with a commission
to negotiate a treaty, or rather to receive whatever conditions
the conqueror should impose. Apharban opened the conference by
expressing his master’s gratitude for the generous treatment of
his family, and by soliciting the liberty of those illustrious
captives. He celebrated the valor of Galerius, without degrading
the reputation of Narses, and thought it no dishonor to confess
the superiority of the victorious Cæsar, over a monarch who had
surpassed in glory all the princes of his race. Notwithstanding
the justice of the Persian cause, he was empowered to submit the
present differences to the decision of the emperors themselves;
convinced as he was, that, in the midst of prosperity, they would
not be unmindful of the vicissitudes of fortune. Apharban
concluded his discourse in the style of eastern allegory, by
observing that the Roman and Persian monarchies were the two eyes
of the world, which would remain imperfect and mutilated if
either of them should be put out.
74 (return) [ The account of the negotiation is taken from the
fragments of Peter the Patrician, in the Excerpta Legationum,
published in the Byzantine Collection. Peter lived under
Justinian; but it is very evident, by the nature of his
materials, that they are drawn from the most authentic and
respectable writers.]
“It well becomes the Persians,” replied Galerius, with a
transport of fury, which seemed to convulse his whole frame, “it
well becomes the Persians to expatiate on the vicissitudes of
fortune, and calmly to read us lectures on the virtues of
moderation. Let them remember their own _moderation_ towards the
unhappy Valerian. They vanquished him by fraud, they treated him
with indignity. They detained him till the last moment of his
life in shameful captivity, and after his death they exposed his
body to perpetual ignominy.” Softening, however, his tone,
Galerius insinuated to the ambassador, that it had never been the
practice of the Romans to trample on a prostrate enemy; and that,
on this occasion, they should consult their own dignity rather
than the Persian merit. He dismissed Apharban with a hope that
Narses would soon be informed on what conditions he might obtain,
from the clemency of the emperors, a lasting peace, and the
restoration of his wives and children. In this conference we may
discover the fierce passions of Galerius, as well as his
deference to the superior wisdom and authority of Diocletian. The
ambition of the former grasped at the conquest of the East, and
had proposed to reduce Persia into the state of a province. The
prudence of the latter, who adhered to the moderate policy of
Augustus and the Antonines, embraced the favorable opportunity of
terminating a successful war by an honorable and advantageous
peace. 75
75 (return) [ Adeo victor (says Aurelius) ut ni Valerius, cujus
nutu omnis gerebantur, abnuisset, Romani fasces in provinciam
novam ferrentur Verum pars terrarum tamen nobis utilior quæsita.]
In pursuance of their promise, the emperors soon afterwards
appointed Sicorius Probus, one of their secretaries, to acquaint
the Persian court with their final resolution. As the minister of
peace, he was received with every mark of politeness and
friendship; but, under the pretence of allowing him the necessary
repose after so long a journey, the audience of Probus was
deferred from day to day; and he attended the slow motions of the
king, till at length he was admitted to his presence, near the
River Asprudus in Media. The secret motive of Narses, in this
delay, had been to collect such a military force as might enable
him, though sincerely desirous of peace, to negotiate with the
greater weight and dignity. Three persons only assisted at this
important conference, the minister Apharban, the præfect of the
guards, and an officer who had commanded on the Armenian
frontier. 76 The first condition proposed by the ambassador is
not at present of a very intelligible nature; that the city of
Nisibis might be established for the place of mutual exchange,
or, as we should formerly have termed it, for the staple of
trade, between the two empires. There is no difficulty in
conceiving the intention of the Roman princes to improve their
revenue by some restraints upon commerce; but as Nisibis was
situated within their own dominions, and as they were masters
both of the imports and exports, it should seem that such
restraints were the objects of an internal law, rather than of a
foreign treaty. To render them more effectual, some stipulations
were probably required on the side of the king of Persia, which
appeared so very repugnant either to his interest or to his
dignity, that Narses could not be persuaded to subscribe them. As
this was the only article to which he refused his consent, it was
no longer insisted on; and the emperors either suffered the trade
to flow in its natural channels, or contented themselves with
such restrictions, as it depended on their own authority to
establish.
76 (return) [ He had been governor of Sumium, (Pot. Patricius in
Excerpt. Legat. p. 30.) This province seems to be mentioned by
Moses of Chorene, (Geograph. p. 360,) and lay to the east of
Mount Ararat. * Note: The Siounikh of the Armenian writers St.
Martin i. 142.—M.]
As soon as this difficulty was removed, a solemn peace was
concluded and ratified between the two nations. The conditions of
a treaty so glorious to the empire, and so necessary to Persia,
may deserve a more peculiar attention, as the history of Rome
presents very few transactions of a similar nature; most of her
wars having either been terminated by absolute conquest, or waged
against barbarians ignorant of the use of letters. I. The Aboras,
or, as it is called by Xenophon, the Araxes, was fixed as the
boundary between the two monarchies. 77 That river, which rose
near the Tigris, was increased, a few miles below Nisibis, by the
little stream of the Mygdonius, passed under the walls of
Singara, and fell into the Euphrates at Circesium, a frontier
town, which, by the care of Diocletian, was very strongly
fortified. 78 Mesopotomia, the object of so many wars, was ceded
to the empire; and the Persians, by this treaty, renounced all
pretensions to that great province. II. They relinquished to the
Romans five provinces beyond the Tigris. 79 Their situation
formed a very useful barrier, and their natural strength was soon
improved by art and military skill. Four of these, to the north
of the river, were districts of obscure fame and inconsiderable
extent; Intiline, Zabdicene, Arzanene, and Moxoene; 791 but on
the east of the Tigris, the empire acquired the large and
mountainous territory of Carduene, the ancient seat of the
Carduchians, who preserved for many ages their manly freedom in
the heart of the despotic monarchies of Asia. The ten thousand
Greeks traversed their country, after a painful march, or rather
engagement, of seven days; and it is confessed by their leader,
in his incomparable relation of the retreat, that they suffered
more from the arrows of the Carduchians, than from the power of
the Great King. 80 Their posterity, the Curds, with very little
alteration either of name or manners, 801 acknowledged the
nominal sovereignty of the Turkish sultan. III. It is almost
needless to observe, that Tiridates, the faithful ally of Rome,
was restored to the throne of his fathers, and that the rights of
the Imperial supremacy were fully asserted and secured. The
limits of Armenia were extended as far as the fortress of Sintha
in Media, and this increase of dominion was not so much an act of
liberality as of justice. Of the provinces already mentioned
beyond the Tigris, the four first had been dismembered by the
Parthians from the crown of Armenia; 81 and when the Romans
acquired the possession of them, they stipulated, at the expense
of the usurpers, an ample compensation, which invested their ally
with the extensive and fertile country of Atropatene. Its
principal city, in the same situation perhaps as the modern
Tauris, was frequently honored by the residence of Tiridates; and
as it sometimes bore the name of Ecbatana, he imitated, in the
buildings and fortifications, the splendid capital of the Medes.
82 IV. The country of Iberia was barren, its inhabitants rude and
savage. But they were accustomed to the use of arms, and they
separated from the empire barbarians much fiercer and more
formidable than themselves. The narrow defiles of Mount Caucasus
were in their hands, and it was in their choice, either to admit
or to exclude the wandering tribes of Sarmatia, whenever a
rapacious spirit urged them to penetrate into the richer climes
of the South. 83 The nomination of the kings of Iberia, which was
resigned by the Persian monarch to the emperors, contributed to
the strength and security of the Roman power in Asia. 84 The East
enjoyed a profound tranquillity during forty years; and the
treaty between the rival monarchies was strictly observed till
the death of Tiridates; when a new generation, animated with
different views and different passions, succeeded to the
government of the world; and the grandson of Narses undertook a
long and memorable war against the princes of the house of
Constantine.
77 (return) [ By an error of the geographer Ptolemy, the position
of Singara is removed from the Aboras to the Tigris, which may
have produced the mistake of Peter, in assigning the latter river
for the boundary, instead of the former. The line of the Roman
frontier traversed, but never followed, the course of the Tigris.
* Note: There are here several errors. Gibbon has confounded the
streams, and the towns which they pass. The Aboras, or rather the
Chaboras, the Araxes of Xenophon, has its source above Ras-Ain or
Re-Saina, (Theodosiopolis,) about twenty-seven leagues from the
Tigris; it receives the waters of the Mygdonius, or Saocoras,
about thirty-three leagues below Nisibis. at a town now called Al
Nahraim; it does not pass under the walls of Singara; it is the
Saocoras that washes the walls of that town: the latter river has
its source near Nisibis. at five leagues from the Tigris. See
D’Anv. l’Euphrate et le Tigre, 46, 49, 50, and the map.—— To the
east of the Tigris is another less considerable river, named also
the Chaboras, which D’Anville calls the Centrites, Khabour,
Nicephorius, without quoting the authorities on which he gives
those names. Gibbon did not mean to speak of this river, which
does not pass by Singara, and does not fall into the Euphrates.
See Michaelis, Supp. ad Lex. Hebraica. 3d part, p. 664, 665.—G.]
78 (return) [ Procopius de Edificiis, l. ii. c. 6.]
79 (return) [ Three of the provinces, Zabdicene, Arzanene, and
Carduene, are allowed on all sides. But instead of the other two,
Peter (in Excerpt. Leg. p. 30) inserts Rehimene and Sophene. I
have preferred Ammianus, (l. xxv. 7,) because it might be proved
that Sophene was never in the hands of the Persians, either
before the reign of Diocletian, or after that of Jovian. For want
of correct maps, like those of M. d’Anville, almost all the
moderns, with Tillemont and Valesius at their head, have
imagined, that it was in respect to Persia, and not to Rome, that
the five provinces were situate beyond the Tigris.]
791 (return) [ See St. Martin, note on Le Beau, i. 380. He would
read, for Intiline, Ingeleme, the name of a small province of
Armenia, near the sources of the Tigris, mentioned by St.
Epiphanius, (Hæres, 60;) for the unknown name Arzacene, with
Gibbon, Arzanene. These provinces do not appear to have made an
integral part of the Roman empire; Roman garrisons replaced those
of Persia, but the sovereignty remained in the hands of the
feudatory princes of Armenia. A prince of Carduene, ally or
dependent on the empire, with the Roman name of Jovianus, occurs
in the reign of Julian.—M.]
80 (return) [ Xenophon’s Anabasis, l. iv. Their bows were three
cubits in length, their arrows two; they rolled down stones that
were each a wagon load. The Greeks found a great many villages in
that rude country.]
801 (return) [ I travelled through this country in 1810, and
should judge, from what I have read and seen of its inhabitants,
that they have remained unchanged in their appearance and
character for more than twenty centuries Malcolm, note to Hist.
of Persia, vol. i. p. 82.—M.]
81 (return) [ According to Eutropius, (vi. 9, as the text is
represented by the best Mss.,) the city of Tigranocerta was in
Arzanene. The names and situation of the other three may be
faintly traced.]
82 (return) [ Compare Herodotus, l. i. c. 97, with Moses
Choronens. Hist Armen. l. ii. c. 84, and the map of Armenia given
by his editors.]
83 (return) [ Hiberi, locorum potentes, Caspia via Sarmatam in
Armenios raptim effundunt. Tacit. Annal. vi. 34. See Strabon.
Geograph. l. xi. p. 764, edit. Casaub.]
84 (return) [ Peter Patricius (in Excerpt. Leg. p. 30) is the
only writer who mentions the Iberian article of the treaty.]
The arduous work of rescuing the distressed empire from tyrants
and barbarians had now been completely achieved by a succession
of Illyrian peasants. As soon as Diocletian entered into the
twentieth year of his reign, he celebrated that memorable æra, as
well as the success of his arms, by the pomp of a Roman triumph.
85 Maximian, the equal partner of his power, was his only
companion in the glory of that day. The two Cæsars had fought and
conquered, but the merit of their exploits was ascribed,
according to the rigor of ancient maxims, to the auspicious
influence of their fathers and emperors. 86 The triumph of
Diocletian and Maximian was less magnificent, perhaps, than those
of Aurelian and Probus, but it was dignified by several
circumstances of superior fame and good fortune. Africa and
Britain, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Nile, furnished their
respective trophies; but the most distinguished ornament was of a
more singular nature, a Persian victory followed by an important
conquest. The representations of rivers, mountains, and
provinces, were carried before the Imperial car. The images of
the captive wives, the sisters, and the children of the Great
King, afforded a new and grateful spectacle to the vanity of the
people. 87 In the eyes of posterity, this triumph is remarkable,
by a distinction of a less honorable kind. It was the last that
Rome ever beheld. Soon after this period, the emperors ceased to
vanquish, and Rome ceased to be the capital of the empire.
85 (return) [ Euseb. in Chron. Pagi ad annum. Till the discovery
of the treatise De Mortibus Persecutorum, it was not certain that
the triumph and the Vicennalia was celebrated at the same time.]
86 (return) [ At the time of the Vicennalia, Galerius seems to
have kept station on the Danube. See Lactant. de M. P. c. 38.]
87 (return) [ Eutropius (ix. 27) mentions them as a part of the
triumph. As the persons had been restored to Narses, nothing more
than their images could be exhibited.]
The spot on which Rome was founded had been consecrated by
ancient ceremonies and imaginary miracles. The presence of some
god, or the memory of some hero, seemed to animate every part of
the city, and the empire of the world had been promised to the
Capitol. 88 The native Romans felt and confessed the power of
this agreeable illusion. It was derived from their ancestors, had
grown up with their earliest habits of life, and was protected,
in some measure, by the opinion of political utility. The form
and the seat of government were intimately blended together, nor
was it esteemed possible to transport the one without destroying
the other. 89 But the sovereignty of the capital was gradually
annihilated in the extent of conquest; the provinces rose to the
same level, and the vanquished nations acquired the name and
privileges, without imbibing the partial affections, of Romans.
During a long period, however, the remains of the ancient
constitution, and the influence of custom, preserved the dignity
of Rome. The emperors, though perhaps of African or Illyrian
extraction, respected their adopted country, as the seat of their
power, and the centre of their extensive dominions. The
emergencies of war very frequently required their presence on the
frontiers; but Diocletian and Maximian were the first Roman
princes who fixed, in time of peace, their ordinary residence in
the provinces; and their conduct, however it might be suggested
by private motives, was justified by very specious considerations
of policy. The court of the emperor of the West was, for the most
part, established at Milan, whose situation, at the foot of the
Alps, appeared far more convenient than that of Rome, for the
important purpose of watching the motions of the barbarians of
Germany. Milan soon assumed the splendor of an Imperial city. The
houses are described as numerous and well built; the manners of
the people as polished and liberal. A circus, a theatre, a mint,
a palace, baths, which bore the name of their founder Maximian;
porticos adorned with statues, and a double circumference of
walls, contributed to the beauty of the new capital; nor did it
seem oppressed even by the proximity of Rome. 90 To rival the
majesty of Rome was the ambition likewise of Diocletian, who
employed his leisure, and the wealth of the East, in the
embellishment of Nicomedia, a city placed on the verge of Europe
and Asia, almost at an equal distance between the Danube and the
Euphrates. By the taste of the monarch, and at the expense of the
people, Nicomedia acquired, in the space of a few years, a degree
of magnificence which might appear to have required the labor of
ages, and became inferior only to Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch,
in extent of populousness. 91 The life of Diocletian and Maximian
was a life of action, and a considerable portion of it was spent
in camps, or in the long and frequent marches; but whenever the
public business allowed them any relaxation, they seemed to have
retired with pleasure to their favorite residences of Nicomedia
and Milan. Till Diocletian, in the twentieth year of his reign,
celebrated his Roman triumph, it is extremely doubtful whether he
ever visited the ancient capital of the empire. Even on that
memorable occasion his stay did not exceed two months. Disgusted
with the licentious familiarity of the people, he quitted Rome
with precipitation thirteen days before it was expected that he
should have appeared in the senate, invested with the ensigns of
the consular dignity. 92
88 (return) [ Livy gives us a speech of Camillus on that subject,
(v. 51—55,) full of eloquence and sensibility, in opposition to a
design of removing the seat of government from Rome to the
neighboring city of Veii.]
89 (return) [ Julius Cæsar was reproached with the intention of
removing the empire to Ilium or Alexandria. See Sueton. in Cæsar.
c. 79. According to the ingenious conjecture of Le Fevre and
Dacier, the ode of the third book of Horace was intended to
divert from the execution of a similar design.]
90 (return) [ See Aurelius Victor, who likewise mentions the
buildings erected by Maximian at Carthage, probably during the
Moorish war. We shall insert some verses of Ausonius de Clar.
Urb. v.—— Et Mediolani miræomnia: copia rerum; Innumeræ cultæque
domus; facunda virorum Ingenia, et mores læti: tum duplice muro
Amplificata loci species; populique voluptas Circus; et inclusi
moles cuneata Theatri; Templa, Palatinæque arces, opulensque
Moneta, Et regio Herculei celebris sub honore lavacri. Cunctaque
marmoreis ornata Peristyla signis; Moeniaque in valli formam
circumdata labro, Omnia quæ magnis operum velut æmula formis
Excellunt: nec juncta premit vicinia Romæ.]
91 (return) [ Lactant. de M. P. c. 17. Libanius, Orat. viii. p.
203.]
92 (return) [ Lactant. de M. P. c. 17. On a similar occasion,
Ammianus mentions the dicacitas plebis, as not very agreeable to
an Imperial ear. (See l. xvi. c. 10.)]
The dislike expressed by Diocletian towards Rome and Roman
freedom was not the effect of momentary caprice, but the result
of the most artful policy. That crafty prince had framed a new
system of Imperial government, which was afterwards completed by
the family of Constantine; and as the image of the old
constitution was religiously preserved in the senate, he resolved
to deprive that order of its small remains of power and
consideration. We may recollect, about eight years before the
elevation of Diocletian, the transient greatness, and the
ambitious hopes, of the Roman senate. As long as that enthusiasm
prevailed, many of the nobles imprudently displayed their zeal in
the cause of freedom; and after the successes of Probus had
withdrawn their countenance from the republican party, the
senators were unable to disguise their impotent resentment.
As the sovereign of Italy, Maximian was intrusted with the care
of extinguishing this troublesome, rather than dangerous spirit,
and the task was perfectly suited to his cruel temper. The most
illustrious members of the senate, whom Diocletian always
affected to esteem, were involved, by his colleague, in the
accusation of imaginary plots; and the possession of an elegant
villa, or a well-cultivated estate, was interpreted as a
convincing evidence of guilt. 93 The camp of the Prætorians,
which had so long oppressed, began to protect, the majesty of
Rome; and as those haughty troops were conscious of the decline
of their power, they were naturally disposed to unite their
strength with the authority of the senate. By the prudent
measures of Diocletian, the numbers of the Prætorians were
insensibly reduced, their privileges abolished, 94 and their
place supplied by two faithful legions of Illyricum, who, under
the new titles of Jovians and Herculians, were appointed to
perform the service of the Imperial guards. 95 But the most fatal
though secret wound, which the senate received from the hands of
Diocletian and Maximian, was inflicted by the inevitable
operation of their absence. As long as the emperors resided at
Rome, that assembly might be oppressed, but it could scarcely be
neglected. The successors of Augustus exercised the power of
dictating whatever laws their wisdom or caprice might suggest;
but those laws were ratified by the sanction of the senate. The
model of ancient freedom was preserved in its deliberations and
decrees; and wise princes, who respected the prejudices of the
Roman people, were in some measure obliged to assume the language
and behavior suitable to the general and first magistrate of the
republic. In the armies and in the provinces, they displayed the
dignity of monarchs; and when they fixed their residence at a
distance from the capital, they forever laid aside the
dissimulation which Augustus had recommended to his successors.
In the exercise of the legislative as well as the executive
power, the sovereign advised with his ministers, instead of
consulting the great council of the nation. The name of the
senate was mentioned with honor till the last period of the
empire; the vanity of its members was still flattered with
honorary distinctions; 96 but the assembly which had so long been
the source, and so long the instrument of power, was respectfully
suffered to sink into oblivion. The senate of Rome, losing all
connection with the Imperial court and the actual constitution,
was left a venerable but useless monument of antiquity on the
Capitoline hill.
93 (return) [ Lactantius accuses Maximian of destroying fictis
criminationibus lumina senatus, (De M. P. c. 8.) Aurelius Victor
speaks very doubtfully of the faith of Diocletian towards his
friends.]
94 (return) [ Truncatæ vires urbis, imminuto prætoriarum
cohortium atque in armis vulgi numero. Aurelius Victor.
Lactantius attributes to Galerius the prosecution of the same
plan, (c. 26.)]
95 (return) [ They were old corps stationed in Illyricum; and
according to the ancient establishment, they each consisted of
six thousand men. They had acquired much reputation by the use of
the plumbatæ, or darts loaded with lead. Each soldier carried
five of these, which he darted from a considerable distance, with
great strength and dexterity. See Vegetius, i. 17.]
96 (return) [ See the Theodosian Code, l. vi. tit. ii. with
Godefroy’s commentary.]
Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates.—Part
IV.
When the Roman princes had lost sight of the senate and of their
ancient capital, they easily forgot the origin and nature of
their legal power. The civil offices of consul, of proconsul, of
censor, and of tribune, by the union of which it had been formed,
betrayed to the people its republican extraction. Those modest
titles were laid aside; 97 and if they still distinguished their
high station by the appellation of Emperor, or Imperator, that
word was understood in a new and more dignified sense, and no
longer denoted the general of the Roman armies, but the sovereign
of the Roman world. The name of Emperor, which was at first of a
military nature, was associated with another of a more servile
kind. The epithet of Dominus, or Lord, in its primitive
signification, was expressive not of the authority of a prince
over his subjects, or of a commander over his soldiers, but of
the despotic power of a master over his domestic slaves. 98
Viewing it in that odious light, it had been rejected with
abhorrence by the first Cæsars. Their resistance insensibly
became more feeble, and the name less odious; till at length the
style of _our Lord and Emperor_ was not only bestowed by
flattery, but was regularly admitted into the laws and public
monuments. Such lofty epithets were sufficient to elate and
satisfy the most excessive vanity; and if the successors of
Diocletian still declined the title of King, it seems to have
been the effect not so much of their moderation as of their
delicacy. Wherever the Latin tongue was in use, (and it was the
language of government throughout the empire,) the Imperial
title, as it was peculiar to themselves, conveyed a more
respectable idea than the name of king, which they must have
shared with a hundred barbarian chieftains; or which, at the
best, they could derive only from Romulus, or from Tarquin. But
the sentiments of the East were very different from those of the
West. From the earliest period of history, the sovereigns of Asia
had been celebrated in the Greek language by the title of
Basileus, or King; and since it was considered as the first
distinction among men, it was soon employed by the servile
provincials of the East, in their humble addresses to the Roman
throne. 99 Even the attributes, or at least the titles, of the
DIVINITY, were usurped by Diocletian and Maximian, who
transmitted them to a succession of Christian emperors. 100 Such
extravagant compliments, however, soon lose their impiety by
losing their meaning; and when the ear is once accustomed to the
sound, they are heard with indifference, as vague though
excessive professions of respect.
97 (return) [ See the 12th dissertation in Spanheim’s excellent
work de Usu Numismatum. From medals, inscriptions, and
historians, he examines every title separately, and traces it
from Augustus to the moment of its disappearing.]
98 (return) [ Pliny (in Panegyr. c. 3, 55, &c.) speaks of Dominus
with execration, as synonymous to Tyrant, and opposite to Prince.
And the same Pliny regularly gives that title (in the tenth book
of the epistles) to his friend rather than master, the virtuous
Trajan. This strange contradiction puzzles the commentators, who
think, and the translators, who can write.]
99 (return) [ Synesius de Regno, edit. Petav. p. 15. I am
indebted for this quotation to the Abbé de la Bleterie.]
100 (return) [ Soe Vandale de Consecratione, p. 354, &c. It was
customary for the emperors to mention (in the preamble of laws)
their numen, sacreo majesty, divine oracles, &c. According to
Tillemont, Gregory Nazianzen complains most bitterly of the
profanation, especially when it was practised by an Arian
emperor. * Note: In the time of the republic, says Hegewisch,
when the consuls, the prætors, and the other magistrates appeared
in public, to perform the functions of their office, their
dignity was announced both by the symbols which use had
consecrated, and the brilliant cortege by which they were
accompanied. But this dignity belonged to the office, not to the
individual; this pomp belonged to the magistrate, not to the man.
* * The consul, followed, in the comitia, by all the senate, the
prætors, the quæstors, the ædiles, the lictors, the apparitors,
and the heralds, on reentering his house, was served only by
freedmen and by his slaves. The first emperors went no further.
Tiberius had, for his personal attendance, only a moderate number
of slaves, and a few freedmen. (Tacit. Ann. iv. 7.) But in
proportion as the republican forms disappeared, one after
another, the inclination of the emperors to environ themselves
with personal pomp, displayed itself more and more. ** The
magnificence and the ceremonial of the East were entirely
introduced by Diocletian, and were consecrated by Constantine to
the Imperial use. Thenceforth the palace, the court, the table,
all the personal attendance, distinguished the emperor from his
subjects, still more than his superior dignity. The organization
which Diocletian gave to his new court, attached less honor and
distinction to rank than to services performed towards the
members of the Imperial family. Hegewisch, Essai, Hist. sur les
Finances Romains. Few historians have characterized, in a more
philosophic manner, the influence of a new institution.—G.——It is
singular that the son of a slave reduced the haughty aristocracy
of Home to the offices of servitude.—M.]
From the time of Augustus to that of Diocletian, the Roman
princes, conversing in a familiar manner among their
fellow-citizens, were saluted only with the same respect that was
usually paid to senators and magistrates. Their principal
distinction was the Imperial or military robe of purple; whilst
the senatorial garment was marked by a broad, and the equestrian
by a narrow, band or stripe of the same honorable color. The
pride, or rather the policy, of Diocletian engaged that artful
prince to introduce the stately magnificence of the court of
Persia. 101 He ventured to assume the diadem, an ornament
detested by the Romans as the odious ensign of royalty, and the
use of which had been considered as the most desperate act of the
madness of Caligula. It was no more than a broad white fillet set
with pearls, which encircled the emperor’s head. The sumptuous
robes of Diocletian and his successors were of silk and gold; and
it is remarked with indignation that even their shoes were
studded with the most precious gems. The access to their sacred
person was every day rendered more difficult by the institution
of new forms and ceremonies. The avenues of the palace were
strictly guarded by the various schools, as they began to be
called, of domestic officers. The interior apartments were
intrusted to the jealous vigilance of the eunuchs, the increase
of whose numbers and influence was the most infallible symptom of
the progress of despotism. When a subject was at length admitted
to the Imperial presence, he was obliged, whatever might be his
rank, to fall prostrate on the ground, and to adore, according to
the eastern fashion, the divinity of his lord and master. 102
Diocletian was a man of sense, who, in the course of private as
well as public life, had formed a just estimate both of himself
and of mankind; nor is it easy to conceive that in substituting
the manners of Persia to those of Rome he was seriously actuated
by so mean a principle as that of vanity. He flattered himself
that an ostentation of splendor and luxury would subdue the
imagination of the multitude; that the monarch would be less
exposed to the rude license of the people and the soldiers, as
his person was secluded from the public view; and that habits of
submission would insensibly be productive of sentiments of
veneration. Like the modesty affected by Augustus, the state
maintained by Diocletian was a theatrical representation; but it
must be confessed, that of the two comedies, the former was of a
much more liberal and manly character than the latter. It was the
aim of the one to disguise, and the object of the other to
display, the unbounded power which the emperors possessed over
the Roman world.
101 (return) [ See Spanheim de Usu Numismat. Dissert. xii.]
102 (return) [ Aurelius Victor. Eutropius, ix. 26. It appears by
the Panegyrists, that the Romans were soon reconciled to the name
and ceremony of adoration.]
Ostentation was the first principle of the new system instituted
by Diocletian. The second was division. He divided the empire,
the provinces, and every branch of the civil as well as military
administration. He multiplied the wheels of the machine of
government, and rendered its operations less rapid, but more
secure. Whatever advantages and whatever defects might attend
these innovations, they must be ascribed in a very great degree
to the first inventor; but as the new frame of policy was
gradually improved and completed by succeeding princes, it will
be more satisfactory to delay the consideration of it till the
season of its full maturity and perfection. 103 Reserving,
therefore, for the reign of Constantine a more exact picture of
the new empire, we shall content ourselves with describing the
principal and decisive outline, as it was traced by the hand of
Diocletian. He had associated three colleagues in the exercise of
the supreme power; and as he was convinced that the abilities of
a single man were inadequate to the public defence, he considered
the joint administration of four princes not as a temporary
expedient, but as a fundamental law of the constitution. It was
his intention that the two elder princes should be distinguished
by the use of the diadem, and the title of _Augusti;_ that, as
affection or esteem might direct their choice, they should
regularly call to their assistance two subordinate colleagues;
and that the _Cæsars_, rising in their turn to the first rank,
should supply an uninterrupted succession of emperors. The empire
was divided into four parts. The East and Italy were the most
honorable, the Danube and the Rhine the most laborious stations.
The former claimed the presence of the _Augusti_, the latter were
intrusted to the administration of the _Cæsars_. The strength of
the legions was in the hands of the four partners of sovereignty,
and the despair of successively vanquishing four formidable
rivals might intimidate the ambition of an aspiring general. In
their civil government the emperors were supposed to exercise the
undivided power of the monarch, and their edicts, inscribed with
their joint names, were received in all the provinces, as
promulgated by their mutual councils and authority.
Notwithstanding these precautions, the political union of the
Roman world was gradually dissolved, and a principle of division
was introduced, which, in the course of a few years, occasioned
the perpetual separation of the Eastern and Western Empires.
103 (return) [ The innovations introduced by Diocletian are
chiefly deduced, 1st, from some very strong passages in
Lactantius; and, 2dly, from the new and various offices which, in
the Theodosian code, appear already established in the beginning
of the reign of Constantine.]
The system of Diocletian was accompanied with another very
material disadvantage, which cannot even at present be totally
overlooked; a more expensive establishment, and consequently an
increase of taxes, and the oppression of the people. Instead of a
modest family of slaves and freedmen, such as had contented the
simple greatness of Augustus and Trajan, three or four
magnificent courts were established in the various parts of the
empire, and as many Roman _kings_ contended with each other and
with the Persian monarch for the vain superiority of pomp and
luxury. The number of ministers, of magistrates, of officers, and
of servants, who filled the different departments of the state,
was multiplied beyond the example of former times; and (if we may
borrow the warm expression of a contemporary) “when the
proportion of those who received exceeded the proportion of those
who contributed, the provinces were oppressed by the weight of
tributes.” 104 From this period to the extinction of the empire,
it would be easy to deduce an uninterrupted series of clamors and
complaints. According to his religion and situation, each writer
chooses either Diocletian, or Constantine, or Valens, or
Theodosius, for the object of his invectives; but they
unanimously agree in representing the burden of the public
impositions, and particularly the land tax and capitation, as the
intolerable and increasing grievance of their own times. From
such a concurrence, an impartial historian, who is obliged to
extract truth from satire, as well as from panegyric, will be
inclined to divide the blame among the princes whom they accuse,
and to ascribe their exactions much less to their personal vices,
than to the uniform system of their administration. 1041 The
emperor Diocletian was indeed the author of that system; but
during his reign, the growing evil was confined within the bounds
of modesty and discretion, and he deserves the reproach of
establishing pernicious precedents, rather than of exercising
actual oppression. 105 It may be added, that his revenues were
managed with prudent economy; and that after all the current
expenses were discharged, there still remained in the Imperial
treasury an ample provision either for judicious liberality or
for any emergency of the state.
104 (return) [ Lactant. de M. P. c. 7.]
1041 (return) [ The most curious document which has come to light
since the publication of Gibbon’s History, is the edict of
Diocletian, published from an inscription found at Eskihissar,
(Stratoniccia,) by Col. Leake. This inscription was first copied
by Sherard, afterwards much more completely by Mr. Bankes. It is
confirmed and illustrated by a more imperfect copy of the same
edict, found in the Levant by a gentleman of Aix, and brought to
this country by M. Vescovali. This edict was issued in the name
of the four Cæsars, Diocletian, Maximian, Constantius, and
Galerius. It fixed a maximum of prices throughout the empire, for
all the necessaries and commodities of life. The preamble
insists, with great vehemence on the extortion and inhumanity of
the venders and merchants. Quis enim adeo obtunisi (obtusi)
pectores (is) et a sensu inhumanitatis extorris est qui ignorare
potest immo non senserit in venalibus rebus quævel in mercimoniis
aguntur vel diurna urbium conversatione tractantur, in tantum se
licen liam defusisse, ut effrænata libido rapien—rum copia nec
annorum ubertatibus mitigaretur. The edict, as Col. Leake clearly
shows, was issued A. C. 303. Among the articles of which the
maximum value is assessed, are oil, salt, honey, butchers’ meat,
poultry, game, fish, vegetables, fruit the wages of laborers and
artisans, schoolmasters and skins, boots and shoes, harness,
timber, corn, wine, and beer, (zythus.) The depreciation in the
value of money, or the rise in the price of commodities, had been
so great during the past century, that butchers’ meat, which, in
the second century of the empire, was in Rome about two denaril
the pound, was now fixed at a maximum of eight. Col. Leake
supposes the average price could not be less than four: at the
same time the maximum of the wages of the agricultural laborers
was twenty-five. The whole edict is, perhaps, the most gigantic
effort of a blind though well-intentioned despotism, to control
that which is, and ought to be, beyond the regulation of the
government. See an Edict of Diocletian, by Col. Leake, London,
1826. Col. Leake has not observed that this Edict is expressly
named in the treatise de Mort. Persecut. ch. vii. Idem cum variis
iniquitatibus immensam faceret caritatem, legem pretiis rerum
venalium statuere conatus.—M]
105 (return) [ Indicta lex nova quæ sane illorum temporum
modestia tolerabilis, in perniciem processit. Aurel. Victor., who
has treated the character of Diocletian with good sense, though
in bad Latin.]
It was in the twenty first year of his reign that Diocletian
executed his memorable resolution of abdicating the empire; an
action more naturally to have been expected from the elder or the
younger Antoninus, than from a prince who had never practised the
lessons of philosophy either in the attainment or in the use of
supreme power. Diocletian acquired the glory of giving to the
world the first example of a resignation, 106 which has not been
very frequently imitated by succeeding monarchs. The parallel of
Charles the Fifth, however, will naturally offer itself to our
mind, not only since the eloquence of a modern historian has
rendered that name so familiar to an English reader, but from the
very striking resemblance between the characters of the two
emperors, whose political abilities were superior to their
military genius, and whose specious virtues were much less the
effect of nature than of art. The abdication of Charles appears
to have been hastened by the vicissitudes of fortune; and the
disappointment of his favorite schemes urged him to relinquish a
power which he found inadequate to his ambition. But the reign of
Diocletian had flowed with a tide of uninterrupted success; nor
was it till after he had vanquished all his enemies, and
accomplished all his designs, that he seems to have entertained
any serious thoughts of resigning the empire. Neither Charles nor
Diocletian were arrived at a very advanced period of life; since
the one was only fifty-five, and the other was no more than
fifty-nine years of age; but the active life of those princes,
their wars and journeys, the cares of royalty, and their
application to business, had already impaired their constitution,
and brought on the infirmities of a premature old age. 107
106 (return) [ Solus omnium post conditum Romanum Imperium, qui
extanto fastigio sponte ad privatæ vitæ statum civilitatemque
remearet, Eutrop. ix. 28.]
107 (return) [ The particulars of the journey and illness are
taken from Laclantius, c. 17, who may sometimes be admitted as an
evidence of public facts, though very seldom of private
anecdotes.]
Notwithstanding the severity of a very cold and rainy winter,
Diocletian left Italy soon after the ceremony of his triumph, and
began his progress towards the East round the circuit of the
Illyrian provinces. From the inclemency of the weather, and the
fatigue of the journey, he soon contracted a slow illness; and
though he made easy marches, and was generally carried in a close
litter, his disorder, before he arrived at Nicomedia, about the
end of the summer, was become very serious and alarming. During
the whole winter he was confined to his palace: his danger
inspired a general and unaffected concern; but the people could
only judge of the various alterations of his health, from the joy
or consternation which they discovered in the countenances and
behavior of his attendants. The rumor of his death was for some
time universally believed, and it was supposed to be concealed
with a view to prevent the troubles that might have happened
during the absence of the Cæsar Galerius. At length, however, on
the first of March, Diocletian once more appeared in public, but
so pale and emaciated, that he could scarcely have been
recognized by those to whom his person was the most familiar. It
was time to put an end to the painful struggle, which he had
sustained during more than a year, between the care of his health
and that of his dignity. The former required indulgence and
relaxation, the latter compelled him to direct, from the bed of
sickness, the administration of a great empire. He resolved to
pass the remainder of his days in honorable repose, to place his
glory beyond the reach of fortune, and to relinquish the theatre
of the world to his younger and more active associates. 108
108 (return) [ Aurelius Victor ascribes the abdication, which had
been so variously accounted for, to two causes: 1st, Diocletian’s
contempt of ambition; and 2dly, His apprehension of impending
troubles. One of the panegyrists (vi. 9) mentions the age and
infirmities of Diocletian as a very natural reason for his
retirement. * Note: Constantine (Orat. ad Sanct. c. 401) more
than insinuated that derangement of mind, connected with the
conflagration of the palace at Nicomedia by lightning, was the
cause of his abdication. But Heinichen. in a very sensible note
on this passage in Eusebius, while he admits that his long
illness might produce a temporary depression of spirits,
triumphantly appeals to the philosophical conduct of Diocletian
in his retreat, and the influence which he still retained on
public affairs.—M.]
The ceremony of his abdication was performed in a spacious plain,
about three miles from Nicomedia. The emperor ascended a lofty
throne, and in a speech, full of reason and dignity, declared his
intention, both to the people and to the soldiers who were
assembled on this extraordinary occasion. As soon as he had
divested himself of his purple, he withdrew from the gazing
multitude; and traversing the city in a covered chariot,
proceeded, without delay, to the favorite retirement which he had
chosen in his native country of Dalmatia. On the same day, which
was the first of May, 109 Maximian, as it had been previously
concerted, made his resignation of the Imperial dignity at Milan.
Even in the splendor of the Roman triumph, Diocletian had
meditated his design of abdicating the government. As he wished
to secure the obedience of Maximian, he exacted from him either a
general assurance that he would submit his actions to the
authority of his benefactor, or a particular promise that he
would descend from the throne, whenever he should receive the
advice and the example. This engagement, though it was confirmed
by the solemnity of an oath before the altar of the Capitoline
Jupiter, 110 would have proved a feeble restraint on the fierce
temper of Maximian, whose passion was the love of power, and who
neither desired present tranquility nor future reputation. But he
yielded, however reluctantly, to the ascendant which his wiser
colleague had acquired over him, and retired, immediately after
his abdication, to a villa in Lucania, where it was almost
impossible that such an impatient spirit could find any lasting
tranquility.
109 (return) [ The difficulties as well as mistakes attending the
dates both of the year and of the day of Diocletian’s abdication
are perfectly cleared up by Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
iv. p 525, note 19, and by Pagi ad annum.]
110 (return) [ See Panegyr. Veter. vi. 9. The oration was
pronounced after Maximian had resumed the purple.]
Diocletian, who, from a servile origin, had raised himself to the
throne, passed the nine last years of his life in a private
condition. Reason had dictated, and content seems to have
accompanied, his retreat, in which he enjoyed, for a long time,
the respect of those princes to whom he had resigned the
possession of the world. 111 It is seldom that minds long
exercised in business have formed any habits of conversing with
themselves, and in the loss of power they principally regret the
want of occupation. The amusements of letters and of devotion,
which afford so many resources in solitude, were incapable of
fixing the attention of Diocletian; but he had preserved, or at
least he soon recovered, a taste for the most innocent as well as
natural pleasures, and his leisure hours were sufficiently
employed in building, planting, and gardening. His answer to
Maximian is deservedly celebrated. He was solicited by that
restless old man to reassume the reins of government, and the
Imperial purple. He rejected the temptation with a smile of pity,
calmly observing, that if he could show Maximian the cabbages
which he had planted with his own hands at Salona, he should no
longer be urged to relinquish the enjoyment of happiness for the
pursuit of power. 112 In his conversations with his friends, he
frequently acknowledged, that of all arts, the most difficult was
the art of reigning; and he expressed himself on that favorite
topic with a degree of warmth which could be the result only of
experience. “How often,” was he accustomed to say, “is it the
interest of four or five ministers to combine together to deceive
their sovereign! Secluded from mankind by his exalted dignity,
the truth is concealed from his knowledge; he can see only with
their eyes, he hears nothing but their misrepresentations. He
confers the most important offices upon vice and weakness, and
disgraces the most virtuous and deserving among his subjects. By
such infamous arts,” added Diocletian, “the best and wisest
princes are sold to the venal corruption of their courtiers.” 113
A just estimate of greatness, and the assurance of immortal fame,
improve our relish for the pleasures of retirement; but the Roman
emperor had filled too important a character in the world, to
enjoy without alloy the comforts and security of a private
condition. It was impossible that he could remain ignorant of the
troubles which afflicted the empire after his abdication. It was
impossible that he could be indifferent to their consequences.
Fear, sorrow, and discontent, sometimes pursued him into the
solitude of Salona. His tenderness, or at least his pride, was
deeply wounded by the misfortunes of his wife and daughter; and
the last moments of Diocletian were imbittered by some affronts,
which Licinius and Constantine might have spared the father of so
many emperors, and the first author of their own fortune. A
report, though of a very doubtful nature, has reached our times,
that he prudently withdrew himself from their power by a
voluntary death. 114
111 (return) [ Eumenius pays him a very fine compliment: “At enim
divinum illum virum, qui primus imperium et participavit et
posuit, consilii et fact isui non poenitet; nec amisisse se putat
quod sponte transcripsit. Felix beatusque vere quem vestra,
tantorum principum, colunt privatum.” Panegyr. Vet. vii. 15.]
112 (return) [ We are obliged to the younger Victor for this
celebrated item. Eutropius mentions the thing in a more general
manner.]
113 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 223, 224. Vopiscus had learned
this conversation from his father.]
114 (return) [ The younger Victor slightly mentions the report.
But as Diocletian had disobliged a powerful and successful party,
his memory has been loaded with every crime and misfortune. It
has been affirmed that he died raving mad, that he was condemned
as a criminal by the Roman senate, &c.]
Before we dismiss the consideration of the life and character of
Diocletian, we may, for a moment, direct our view to the place of
his retirement. Salona, a principal city of his native province
of Dalmatia, was near two hundred Roman miles (according to the
measurement of the public highways) from Aquileia and the
confines of Italy, and about two hundred and seventy from
Sirmium, the usual residence of the emperors whenever they
visited the Illyrian frontier. 115 A miserable village still
preserves the name of Salona; but so late as the sixteenth
century, the remains of a theatre, and a confused prospect of
broken arches and marble columns, continued to attest its ancient
splendor. 116 About six or seven miles from the city Diocletian
constructed a magnificent palace, and we may infer, from the
greatness of the work, how long he had meditated his design of
abdicating the empire. The choice of a spot which united all that
could contribute either to health or to luxury did not require
the partiality of a native. “The soil was dry and fertile, the
air is pure and wholesome, and, though extremely hot during the
summer months, this country seldom feels those sultry and noxious
winds to which the coasts of Istria and some parts of Italy are
exposed. The views from the palace are no less beautiful than the
soil and climate were inviting. Towards the west lies the fertile
shore that stretches along the Adriatic, in which a number of
small islands are scattered in such a manner as to give this part
of the sea the appearance of a great lake. On the north side lies
the bay, which led to the ancient city of Salona; and the country
beyond it, appearing in sight, forms a proper contrast to that
more extensive prospect of water, which the Adriatic presents
both to the south and to the east. Towards the north, the view is
terminated by high and irregular mountains, situated at a proper
distance, and in many places covered with villages, woods, and
vineyards.” 117
115 (return) [ See the Itiner. p. 269, 272, edit. Wessel.]
116 (return) [ The Abate Fortis, in his Viaggio in Dalmazia, p.
43, (printed at Venice in the year 1774, in two small volumes in
quarto,) quotes a Ms account of the antiquities of Salona,
composed by Giambattista Giustiniani about the middle of the
xvith century.]
117 (return) [ Adam’s Antiquities of Diocletian’s Palace at
Spalatro, p. 6. We may add a circumstance or two from the Abate
Fortis: the little stream of the Hyader, mentioned by Lucan,
produces most exquisite trout, which a sagacious writer, perhaps
a monk, supposes to have been one of the principal reasons that
determined Diocletian in the choice of his retirement. Fortis, p.
45. The same author (p. 38) observes, that a taste for
agriculture is reviving at Spalatro; and that an experimental
farm has lately been established near the city, by a society of
gentlemen.]
Though Constantine, from a very obvious prejudice, affects to
mention the palace of Diocletian with contempt, 118 yet one of
their successors, who could only see it in a neglected and
mutilated state, celebrates its magnificence in terms of the
highest admiration. 119 It covered an extent of ground consisting
of between nine and ten English acres. The form was quadrangular,
flanked with sixteen towers. Two of the sides were near six
hundred, and the other two near seven hundred feet in length. The
whole was constructed of a beautiful freestone, extracted from
the neighboring quarries of Trau, or Tragutium, and very little
inferior to marble itself. Four streets, intersecting each other
at right angles, divided the several parts of this great edifice,
and the approach to the principal apartment was from a very
stately entrance, which is still denominated the Golden Gate. The
approach was terminated by a _peristylium_ of granite columns, on
one side of which we discover the square temple of Æsculapius, on
the other the octagon temple of Jupiter. The latter of those
deities Diocletian revered as the patron of his fortunes, the
former as the protector of his health. By comparing the present
remains with the precepts of Vitruvius, the several parts of the
building, the baths, bedchamber, the _atrium_, the _basilica_,
and the Cyzicene, Corinthian, and Egyptian halls have been
described with some degree of precision, or at least of
probability. Their forms were various, their proportions just;
but they all were attended with two imperfections, very repugnant
to our modern notions of taste and conveniency. These stately
rooms had neither windows nor chimneys. They were lighted from
the top, (for the building seems to have consisted of no more
than one story,) and they received their heat by the help of
pipes that were conveyed along the walls. The range of principal
apartments was protected towards the south-west by a portico five
hundred and seventeen feet long, which must have formed a very
noble and delightful walk, when the beauties of painting and
sculpture were added to those of the prospect.
118 (return) [ Constantin. Orat. ad Coetum Sanct. c. 25. In this
sermon, the emperor, or the bishop who composed it for him,
affects to relate the miserable end of all the persecutors of the
church.]
119 (return) [ Constantin. Porphyr. de Statu Imper. p. 86.]
Had this magnificent edifice remained in a solitary country, it
would have been exposed to the ravages of time; but it might,
perhaps, have escaped the rapacious industry of man. The village
of Aspalathus, 120 and, long afterwards, the provincial town of
Spalatro, have grown out of its ruins. The Golden Gate now opens
into the market-place. St. John the Baptist has usurped the
honors of Æsculapius; and the temple of Jupiter, under the
protection of the Virgin, is converted into the cathedral church.
For this account of Diocletian’s palace we are principally
indebted to an ingenious artist of our own time and country, whom
a very liberal curiosity carried into the heart of Dalmatia. 121
But there is room to suspect that the elegance of his designs and
engraving has somewhat flattered the objects which it was their
purpose to represent. We are informed by a more recent and very
judicious traveller, that the awful ruins of Spalatro are not
less expressive of the decline of the art than of the greatness
of the Roman empire in the time of Diocletian. 122 If such was
indeed the state of architecture, we must naturally believe that
painting and sculpture had experienced a still more sensible
decay. The practice of architecture is directed by a few general
and even mechanical rules. But sculpture, and, above all,
painting, propose to themselves the imitation not only of the
forms of nature, but of the characters and passions of the human
soul. In those sublime arts the dexterity of the hand is of
little avail, unless it is animated by fancy, and guided by the
most correct taste and observation.
120 (return) [ D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 162.]
121 (return) [ Messieurs Adam and Clerisseau, attended by two
draughtsmen visited Spalatro in the month of July, 1757. The
magnificent work which their journey produced was published in
London seven years afterwards.]
122 (return) [ I shall quote the words of the Abate Fortis.
“E’bastevolmente agli amatori dell’ Architettura, e dell’
Antichita, l’opera del Signor Adams, che a donato molto a que’
superbi vestigi coll’abituale eleganza del suo toccalapis e del
bulino. In generale la rozzezza del scalpello, e’l cattivo gusto
del secolo vi gareggiano colla magnificenz del fabricato.” See
Viaggio in Dalmazia, p. 40.]
It is almost unnecessary to remark, that the civil distractions
of the empire, the license of the soldiers, the inroads of the
barbarians, and the progress of despotism, had proved very
unfavorable to genius, and even to learning. The succession of
Illyrian princes restored the empire without restoring the
sciences. Their military education was not calculated to inspire
them with the love of letters; and even the mind of Diocletian,
however active and capacious in business, was totally uninformed
by study or speculation. The professions of law and physic are of
such common use and certain profit that they will always secure a
sufficient number of practitioners endowed with a reasonable
degree of abilities and knowledge; but it does not appear that
the students in those two faculties appeal to any celebrated
masters who have flourished within that period. The voice of
poetry was silent. History was reduced to dry and confused
abridgments, alike destitute of amusement and instruction. A
languid and affected eloquence was still retained in the pay and
service of the emperors, who encouraged not any arts except those
which contributed to the gratification of their pride, or the
defence of their power. 123
123 (return) [ The orator Eumenius was secretary to the emperors
Maximian and Constantius, and Professor of Rhetoric in the
college of Autun. His salary was six hundred thousand sesterces,
which, according to the lowest computation of that age, must have
exceeded three thousand pounds a year. He generously requested
the permission of employing it in rebuilding the college. See his
Oration De Restaurandis Scholis; which, though not exempt from
vanity, may atone for his panegyrics.]
The declining age of learning and of mankind is marked, however,
by the rise and rapid progress of the new Platonists. The school
of Alexandria silenced those of Athens; and the ancient sects
enrolled themselves under the banners of the more fashionable
teachers, who recommended their system by the novelty of their
method, and the austerity of their manners. Several of these
masters, Ammonius, Plotinus, Amelius, and Porphyry, 124 were men
of profound thought and intense application; but by mistaking the
true object of philosophy, their labors contributed much less to
improve than to corrupt the human understanding. The knowledge
that is suited to our situation and powers, the whole compass of
moral, natural, and mathematical science, was neglected by the
new Platonists; whilst they exhausted their strength in the
verbal disputes of metaphysics, attempted to explore the secrets
of the invisible world, and studied to reconcile Aristotle with
Plato, on subjects of which both these philosophers were as
ignorant as the rest of mankind. Consuming their reason in these
deep but unsubstantial meditations, their minds were exposed to
illusions of fancy. They flattered themselves that they possessed
the secret of disengaging the soul from its corporal prison;
claimed a familiar intercourse with demons and spirits; and, by a
very singular revolution, converted the study of philosophy into
that of magic. The ancient sages had derided the popular
superstition; after disguising its extravagance by the thin
pretence of allegory, the disciples of Plotinus and Porphyry
became its most zealous defenders. As they agreed with the
Christians in a few mysterious points of faith, they attacked the
remainder of their theological system with all the fury of civil
war. The new Platonists would scarcely deserve a place in the
history of science, but in that of the church the mention of them
will very frequently occur.
124 (return) [Porphyry died about the time of Diocletian’s
abdication. The life of his master Plotinus, which he composed,
will give us the most complete idea of the genius of the sect,
and the manners of its professors. This very curious piece is
inserted in Fabricius Bibliotheca Græca tom. iv. p. 88—148.]
Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The
Empire.—Part I.
Troubles After The Abdication Of Diocletian.—Death Of
Constantius.—Elevation Of Constantine And Maxen Tius.—Six Emperors At
The Same Time.—Death Of Maximian And Galerius.—Victories Of Constantine
Over Maxentius And Licinus.—Reunion Of The Empire Under The Authority
Of Constantine.
The balance of power established by Diocletian subsisted no
longer than while it was sustained by the firm and dexterous hand
of the founder. It required such a fortunate mixture of different
tempers and abilities as could scarcely be found or even expected
a second time; two emperors without jealousy, two Cæsars without
ambition, and the same general interest invariably pursued by
four independent princes. The abdication of Diocletian and
Maximian was succeeded by eighteen years of discord and
confusion. The empire was afflicted by five civil wars; and the
remainder of the time was not so much a state of tranquillity as
a suspension of arms between several hostile monarchs, who,
viewing each other with an eye of fear and hatred, strove to
increase their respective forces at the expense of their
subjects.
As soon as Diocletian and Maximian had resigned the purple, their
station, according to the rules of the new constitution, was
filled by the two Cæsars, Constantius and Galerius, who
immediately assumed the title of Augustus. 1
1 (return) [ M. de Montesquieu (Considerations sur la Grandeur et
La Decadence des Romains, c. 17) supposes, on the authority of
Orosius and Eusebius, that, on this occasion, the empire, for the
first time, was really divided into two parts. It is difficult,
however, to discover in what respect the plan of Galerius
differed from that of Diocletian.]
The honors of seniority and precedence were allowed to the former
of those princes, and he continued under a new appellation to
administer his ancient department of Gaul, Spain, and Britain.
The government of those ample provinces was sufficient to
exercise his talents and to satisfy his ambition. Clemency,
temperance, and moderation, distinguished the amiable character
of Constantius, and his fortunate subjects had frequently
occasion to compare the virtues of their sovereign with the
passions of Maximian, and even with the arts of Diocletian. 2
Instead of imitating their eastern pride and magnificence,
Constantius preserved the modesty of a Roman prince. He declared,
with unaffected sincerity, that his most valued treasure was in
the hearts of his people, and that, whenever the dignity of the
throne, or the danger of the state, required any extraordinary
supply, he could depend with confidence on their gratitude and
liberality. 3 The provincials of Gaul, Spain, and Britain,
sensible of his worth, and of their own happiness, reflected with
anxiety on the declining health of the emperor Constantius, and
the tender age of his numerous family, the issue of his second
marriage with the daughter of Maximian.
2 (return) [ Hic non modo amabilis, sed etiam venerabilis Gallis
fuit; præcipuc quod Diocletiani suspectam prudentiam, et
Maximiani sanguinariam violentiam imperio ejus evaserant. Eutrop.
Breviar. x. i.]
3 (return) [ Divitiis Provincialium (mel. provinciarum) ac
privatorum studens, fisci commoda non admodum affectans;
ducensque melius publicas opes a privatis haberi, quam intra unum
claustrum reservari. Id. ibid. He carried this maxim so far, that
whenever he gave an entertainment, he was obliged to borrow a
service of plate.]
The stern temper of Galerius was cast in a very different mould;
and while he commanded the esteem of his subjects, he seldom
condescended to solicit their affections. His fame in arms, and,
above all, the success of the Persian war, had elated his haughty
mind, which was naturally impatient of a superior, or even of an
equal. If it were possible to rely on the partial testimony of an
injudicious writer, we might ascribe the abdication of Diocletian
to the menaces of Galerius, and relate the particulars of a
_private_ conversation between the two princes, in which the
former discovered as much pusillanimity as the latter displayed
ingratitude and arrogance. 4 But these obscure anecdotes are
sufficiently refuted by an impartial view of the character and
conduct of Diocletian. Whatever might otherwise have been his
intentions, if he had apprehended any danger from the violence of
Galerius, his good sense would have instructed him to prevent the
ignominious contest; and as he had held the sceptre with glory,
he would have resigned it without disgrace.
4 (return) [ Lactantius de Mort. Persecutor. c. 18. Were the
particulars of this conference more consistent with truth and
decency, we might still ask how they came to the knowledge of an
obscure rhetorician. But there are many historians who put us in
mind of the admirable saying of the great Conde to Cardinal de
Retz: “Ces coquins nous font parlor et agir, comme ils auroient
fait eux-memes a notre place.” * Note: This attack upon
Lactantius is unfounded. Lactantius was so far from having been
an obscure rhetorician, that he had taught rhetoric publicly, and
with the greatest success, first in Africa, and afterwards in
Nicomedia. His reputation obtained him the esteem of Constantine,
who invited him to his court, and intrusted to him the education
of his son Crispus. The facts which he relates took place during
his own time; he cannot be accused of dishonesty or imposture.
Satis me vixisse arbitrabor et officium hominis implesse si labor
meus aliquos homines, ab erroribus iberatos, ad iter coeleste
direxerit. De Opif. Dei, cap. 20. The eloquence of Lactantius has
caused him to be called the Christian Cicero. Annon Gent.—G.
——Yet no unprejudiced person can read this coarse and particular
private conversation of the two emperors, without assenting to
the justice of Gibbon’s severe sentence. But the authorship of
the treatise is by no means certain. The fame of Lactantius for
eloquence as well as for truth, would suffer no loss if it should
be adjudged to some more “obscure rhetorician.” Manso, in his
Leben Constantins des Grossen, concurs on this point with Gibbon
Beylage, iv. —M.]
After the elevation of Constantius and Galerius to the rank of
_Augusti_, two new _Cæsars_ were required to supply their place,
and to complete the system of the Imperial government. Diocletian
was sincerely desirous of withdrawing himself from the world; he
considered Galerius, who had married his daughter, as the firmest
support of his family and of the empire; and he consented,
without reluctance, that his successor should assume the merit as
well as the envy of the important nomination. It was fixed
without consulting the interest or inclination of the princes of
the West. Each of them had a son who was arrived at the age of
manhood, and who might have been deemed the most natural
candidates for the vacant honor. But the impotent resentment of
Maximian was no longer to be dreaded; and the moderate
Constantius, though he might despise the dangers, was humanely
apprehensive of the calamities, of civil war. The two persons
whom Galerius promoted to the rank of Cæsar were much better
suited to serve the views of his ambition; and their principal
recommendation seems to have consisted in the want of merit or
personal consequence. The first of these was Daza, or, as he was
afterwards called, Maximin, whose mother was the sister of
Galerius. The unexperienced youth still betrayed, by his manners
and language, his rustic education, when, to his own
astonishment, as well as that of the world, he was invested by
Diocletian with the purple, exalted to the dignity of Cæsar, and
intrusted with the sovereign command of Egypt and Syria. 5 At the
same time, Severus, a faithful servant, addicted to pleasure, but
not incapable of business, was sent to Milan, to receive, from
the reluctant hands of Maximian, the Cæsarian ornaments, and the
possession of Italy and Africa. According to the forms of the
constitution, Severus acknowledged the supremacy of the western
emperor; but he was absolutely devoted to the commands of his
benefactor Galerius, who, reserving to himself the intermediate
countries from the confines of Italy to those of Syria, firmly
established his power over three fourths of the monarchy. In the
full confidence that the approaching death of Constantius would
leave him sole master of the Roman world, we are assured that he
had arranged in his mind a long succession of future princes, and
that he meditated his own retreat from public life, after he
should have accomplished a glorious reign of about twenty years.
6 7
5 (return) [ Sublatus nuper a pecoribus et silvis (says
Lactantius de M. P. c. 19) statim Scutarius, continuo Protector,
mox Tribunus, postridie Cæsar, accepit Orientem. Aurelius Victor
is too liberal in giving him the whole portion of Diocletian.]
6 (return) [ His diligence and fidelity are acknowledged even by
Lactantius, de M. P. c. 18.]
7 (return) [ These schemes, however, rest only on the very
doubtful authority of Lactantius de M. P. c. 20.]
But within less than eighteen months, two unexpected revolutions
overturned the ambitious schemes of Galerius. The hopes of
uniting the western provinces to his empire were disappointed by
the elevation of Constantine, whilst Italy and Africa were lost
by the successful revolt of Maxentius.
I. The fame of Constantine has rendered posterity attentive to
the most minute circumstances of his life and actions. The place
of his birth, as well as the condition of his mother Helena, have
been the subject, not only of literary, but of national disputes.
Notwithstanding the recent tradition, which assigns for her
father a British king, 8 we are obliged to confess, that Helena
was the daughter of an innkeeper; but at the same time, we may
defend the legality of her marriage, against those who have
represented her as the concubine of Constantius. 9 The great
Constantine was most probably born at Naissus, in Dacia; 10 and
it is not surprising that, in a family and province distinguished
only by the profession of arms, the youth should discover very
little inclination to improve his mind by the acquisition of
knowledge. 11 He was about eighteen years of age when his father
was promoted to the rank of Cæsar; but that fortunate event was
attended with his mother’s divorce; and the splendor of an
Imperial alliance reduced the son of Helena to a state of
disgrace and humiliation. Instead of following Constantius in the
West, he remained in the service of Diocletian, signalized his
valor in the wars of Egypt and Persia, and gradually rose to the
honorable station of a tribune of the first order. The figure of
Constantine was tall and majestic; he was dexterous in all his
exercises, intrepid in war, affable in peace; in his whole
conduct, the active spirit of youth was tempered by habitual
prudence; and while his mind was engrossed by ambition, he
appeared cold and insensible to the allurements of pleasure. The
favor of the people and soldiers, who had named him as a worthy
candidate for the rank of Cæsar, served only to exasperate the
jealousy of Galerius; and though prudence might restrain him from
exercising any open violence, an absolute monarch is seldom at a
loss how to execute a sure and secret revenge. 12 Every hour
increased the danger of Constantine, and the anxiety of his
father, who, by repeated letters, expressed the warmest desire of
embracing his son. For some time the policy of Galerius supplied
him with delays and excuses; but it was impossible long to refuse
so natural a request of his associate, without maintaining his
refusal by arms. The permission of the journey was reluctantly
granted, and whatever precautions the emperor might have taken to
intercept a return, the consequences of which he, with so much
reason, apprehended, they were effectually disappointed by the
incredible diligence of Constantine. 13 Leaving the palace of
Nicomedia in the night, he travelled post through Bithynia,
Thrace, Dacia, Pannonia, Italy, and Gaul, and, amidst the joyful
acclamations of the people, reached the port of Boulogne in the
very moment when his father was preparing to embark for Britain.
14
8 (return) [ This tradition, unknown to the contemporaries of
Constantine was invented in the darkness of monestaries, was
embellished by Jeffrey of Monmouth, and the writers of the xiith
century, has been defended by our antiquarians of the last age,
and is seriously related in the ponderous History of England,
compiled by Mr. Carte, (vol. i. p. 147.) He transports, however,
the kingdom of Coil, the imaginary father of Helena, from Essex
to the wall of Antoninus.]
9 (return) [ Eutropius (x. 2) expresses, in a few words, the real
truth, and the occasion of the error “ex obscuriori matrimonio
ejus filius.” Zosimus (l. ii. p. 78) eagerly seized the most
unfavorable report, and is followed by Orosius, (vii. 25,) whose
authority is oddly enough overlooked by the indefatigable, but
partial Tillemont. By insisting on the divorce of Helena,
Diocletian acknowledged her marriage.]
10 (return) [ There are three opinions with regard to the place
of Constantine’s birth. 1. Our English antiquarians were used to
dwell with rapture on the words of his panegyrist, “Britannias
illic oriendo nobiles fecisti.” But this celebrated passage may
be referred with as much propriety to the accession, as to the
nativity of Constantine. 2. Some of the modern Greeks have
ascribed the honor of his birth to Drepanum, a town on the Gulf
of Nicomedia, (Cellarius, tom. ii. p. 174,) which Constantine
dignified with the name of Helenopolis, and Justinian adorned
with many splendid buildings, (Procop. de Edificiis, v. 2.) It is
indeed probable enough, that Helena’s father kept an inn at
Drepanum, and that Constantius might lodge there when he returned
from a Persian embassy, in the reign of Aurelian. But in the
wandering life of a soldier, the place of his marriage, and the
places where his children are born, have very little connection
with each other. 3. The claim of Naissus is supported by the
anonymous writer, published at the end of Ammianus, p. 710, and
who in general copied very good materials; and it is confirmed by
Julius Firmicus, (de Astrologia, l. i. c. 4,) who flourished
under the reign of Constantine himself. Some objections have been
raised against the integrity of the text, and the application of
the passage of Firmicus but the former is established by the best
Mss., and the latter is very ably defended by Lipsius de
Magnitudine Romana, l. iv. c. 11, et Supplement.]
11 (return) [ Literis minus instructus. Anonym. ad Ammian. p.
710.]
12 (return) [ Galerius, or perhaps his own courage, exposed him
to single combat with a Sarmatian, (Anonym. p. 710,) and with a
monstrous lion. See Praxagoras apud Photium, p. 63. Praxagoras,
an Athenian philosopher, had written a life of Constantine in two
books, which are now lost. He was a contemporary.]
13 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 78, 79. Lactantius de M. P. c.
24. The former tells a very foolish story, that Constantine
caused all the post-horses which he had used to be hamstrung.
Such a bloody execution, without preventing a pursuit, would have
scattered suspicions, and might have stopped his journey. * Note:
Zosimus is not the only writer who tells this story. The younger
Victor confirms it. Ad frustrandos insequentes, publica jumenta,
quaqua iter ageret, interficiens. Aurelius Victor de Cæsar says
the same thing, G. as also the Anonymus Valesii.— M. ——Manso,
(Leben Constantins,) p. 18, observes that the story has been
exaggerated; he took this precaution during the first stage of
his journey.—M.]
14 (return) [ Anonym. p. 710. Panegyr. Veter. vii. 4. But
Zosimus, l. ii. p. 79, Eusebius de Vit. Constant. l. i. c. 21,
and Lactantius de M. P. c. 24. suppose, with less accuracy, that
he found his father on his death-bed.]
The British expedition, and an easy victory over the barbarians
of Caledonia, were the last exploits of the reign of Constantius.
He ended his life in the Imperial palace of York, fifteen months
after he had received the title of Augustus, and almost fourteen
years and a half after he had been promoted to the rank of Cæsar.
His death was immediately succeeded by the elevation of
Constantine. The ideas of inheritance and succession are so very
familiar, that the generality of mankind consider them as founded
not only in reason but in nature itself. Our imagination readily
transfers the same principles from private property to public
dominion: and whenever a virtuous father leaves behind him a son
whose merit seems to justify the esteem, or even the hopes, of
the people, the joint influence of prejudice and of affection
operates with irresistible weight. The flower of the western
armies had followed Constantius into Britain, and the national
troops were reënforced by a numerous body of Alemanni, who obeyed
the orders of Crocus, one of their hereditary chieftains. 15 The
opinion of their own importance, and the assurance that Britain,
Gaul, and Spain would acquiesce in their nomination, were
diligently inculcated to the legions by the adherents of
Constantine. The soldiers were asked, whether they could hesitate
a moment between the honor of placing at their head the worthy
son of their beloved emperor, and the ignominy of tamely
expecting the arrival of some obscure stranger, on whom it might
please the sovereign of Asia to bestow the armies and provinces
of the West. It was insinuated to them, that gratitude and
liberality held a distinguished place among the virtues of
Constantine; nor did that artful prince show himself to the
troops, till they were prepared to salute him with the names of
Augustus and Emperor. The throne was the object of his desires;
and had he been less actuated by ambition, it was his only means
of safety. He was well acquainted with the character and
sentiments of Galerius, and sufficiently apprised, that if he
wished to live he must determine to reign. The decent and even
obstinate resistance which he chose to affect, 16 was contrived
to justify his usurpation; nor did he yield to the acclamations
of the army, till he had provided the proper materials for a
letter, which he immediately despatched to the emperor of the
East. Constantine informed him of the melancholy event of his
father’s death, modestly asserted his natural claim to the
succession, and respectfully lamented, that the affectionate
violence of his troops had not permitted him to solicit the
Imperial purple in the regular and constitutional manner. The
first emotions of Galerius were those of surprise,
disappointment, and rage; and as he could seldom restrain his
passions, he loudly threatened, that he would commit to the
flames both the letter and the messenger. But his resentment
insensibly subsided; and when he recollected the doubtful chance
of war, when he had weighed the character and strength of his
adversary, he consented to embrace the honorable accommodation
which the prudence of Constantine had left open to him. Without
either condemning or ratifying the choice of the British army,
Galerius accepted the son of his deceased colleague as the
sovereign of the provinces beyond the Alps; but he gave him only
the title of Cæsar, and the fourth rank among the Roman princes,
whilst he conferred the vacant place of Augustus on his favorite
Severus. The apparent harmony of the empire was still preserved,
and Constantine, who already possessed the substance, expected,
without impatience, an opportunity of obtaining the honors, of
supreme power. 17
15 (return) [ Cunctis qui aderant, annitentibus, sed præcipue
Croco (alii Eroco) [Erich?] Alamannorum Rege, auxilii gratia
Constantium comitato, imperium capit. Victor Junior, c. 41. This
is perhaps the first instance of a barbarian king, who assisted
the Roman arms with an independent body of his own subjects. The
practice grew familiar and at last became fatal.]
16 (return) [ His panegyrist Eumenius (vii. 8) ventures to affirm
in the presence of Constantine, that he put spurs to his horse,
and tried, but in vain, to escape from the hands of his
soldiers.]
17 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 25. Eumenius (vii. 8.) gives
a rhetorical turn to the whole transaction.]
The children of Constantius by his second marriage were six in
number, three of either sex, and whose Imperial descent might
have solicited a preference over the meaner extraction of the son
of Helena. But Constantine was in the thirty-second year of his
age, in the full vigor both of mind and body, at the time when
the eldest of his brothers could not possibly be more than
thirteen years old. His claim of superior merit had been allowed
and ratified by the dying emperor. 18 In his last moments
Constantius bequeathed to his eldest son the care of the safety
as well as greatness of the family; conjuring him to assume both
the authority and the sentiments of a father with regard to the
children of Theodora. Their liberal education, advantageous
marriages, the secure dignity of their lives, and the first
honors of the state with which they were invested, attest the
fraternal affection of Constantine; and as those princes
possessed a mild and grateful disposition, they submitted without
reluctance to the superiority of his genius and fortune. 19
18 (return) [ The choice of Constantine, by his dying father,
which is warranted by reason, and insinuated by Eumenius, seems
to be confirmed by the most unexceptionable authority, the
concurring evidence of Lactantius (de M. P. c. 24) and of
Libanius, (Oratio i.,) of Eusebius (in Vit. Constantin. l. i. c.
18, 21) and of Julian, (Oratio i)]
19 (return) [ Of the three sisters of Constantine, Constantia
married the emperor Licinius, Anastasia the Cæsar Bassianus, and
Eutropia the consul Nepotianus. The three brothers were,
Dalmatius, Julius Constantius, and Annibalianus, of whom we shall
have occasion to speak hereafter.]
II. The ambitious spirit of Galerius was scarcely reconciled to
the disappointment of his views upon the Gallic provinces, before
the unexpected loss of Italy wounded his pride as well as power
in a still more sensible part. The long absence of the emperors
had filled Rome with discontent and indignation; and the people
gradually discovered, that the preference given to Nicomedia and
Milan was not to be ascribed to the particular inclination of
Diocletian, but to the permanent form of government which he had
instituted. It was in vain that, a few months after his
abdication, his successors dedicated, under his name, those
magnificent baths, whose ruins still supply the ground as well as
the materials for so many churches and convents. 20 The
tranquility of those elegant recesses of ease and luxury was
disturbed by the impatient murmurs of the Romans, and a report
was insensibly circulated, that the sums expended in erecting
those buildings would soon be required at their hands. About that
time the avarice of Galerius, or perhaps the exigencies of the
state, had induced him to make a very strict and rigorous
inquisition into the property of his subjects, for the purpose of
a general taxation, both on their lands and on their persons. A
very minute survey appears to have been taken of their real
estates; and wherever there was the slightest suspicion of
concealment, torture was very freely employed to obtain a sincere
declaration of their personal wealth. 21 The privileges which had
exalted Italy above the rank of the provinces were no longer
regarded: 211 and the officers of the revenue already began to
number the Roman people, and to settle the proportion of the new
taxes. Even when the spirit of freedom had been utterly
extinguished, the tamest subjects have sometimes ventured to
resist an unprecedented invasion of their property; but on this
occasion the injury was aggravated by the insult, and the sense
of private interest was quickened by that of national honor. The
conquest of Macedonia, as we have already observed, had delivered
the Roman people from the weight of personal taxes.
Though they had experienced every form of despotism, they had now
enjoyed that exemption near five hundred years; nor could they
patiently brook the insolence of an Illyrian peasant, who, from
his distant residence in Asia, presumed to number Rome among the
tributary cities of his empire. The rising fury of the people was
encouraged by the authority, or at least the connivance, of the
senate; and the feeble remains of the Prætorian guards, who had
reason to apprehend their own dissolution, embraced so honorable
a pretence, and declared their readiness to draw their swords in
the service of their oppressed country. It was the wish, and it
soon became the hope, of every citizen, that after expelling from
Italy their foreign tyrants, they should elect a prince who, by
the place of his residence, and by his maxims of government,
might once more deserve the title of Roman emperor. The name, as
well as the situation, of Maxentius determined in his favor the
popular enthusiasm.
20 (return) [ See Gruter. Inscrip. p. 178. The six princes are
all mentioned, Diocletian and Maximian as the senior Augusti, and
fathers of the emperors. They jointly dedicate, for the use of
their own Romans, this magnificent edifice. The architects have
delineated the ruins of these Thermoe, and the antiquarians,
particularly Donatus and Nardini, have ascertained the ground
which they covered. One of the great rooms is now the Carthusian
church; and even one of the porter’s lodges is sufficient to form
another church, which belongs to the Feuillans.]
21 (return) [ See Lactantius de M. P. c. 26, 31. ]
211 (return) [ Saviguy, in his memoir on Roman taxation, (Mem.
Berl. Academ. 1822, 1823, p. 5,) dates from this period the
abolition of the Jus Italicum. He quotes a remarkable passage of
Aurelius Victor. Hinc denique parti Italiæ invec tum tributorum
ingens malum. Aur. Vict. c. 39. It was a necessary consequence of
the division of the empire: it became impossible to maintain a
second court and executive, and leave so large and fruitful a
part of the territory exempt from contribution.—M.]
Maxentius was the son of the emperor Maximian, and he had married
the daughter of Galerius. His birth and alliance seemed to offer
him the fairest promise of succeeding to the empire; but his
vices and incapacity procured him the same exclusion from the
dignity of Cæsar, which Constantine had deserved by a dangerous
superiority of merit. The policy of Galerius preferred such
associates as would never disgrace the choice, nor dispute the
commands, of their benefactor. An obscure stranger was therefore
raised to the throne of Italy, and the son of the late emperor of
the West was left to enjoy the luxury of a private fortune in a
villa a few miles distant from the capital. The gloomy passions
of his soul, shame, vexation, and rage, were inflamed by envy on
the news of Constantine’s success; but the hopes of Maxentius
revived with the public discontent, and he was easily persuaded
to unite his personal injury and pretensions with the cause of
the Roman people. Two Prætorian tribunes and a commissary of
provisions undertook the management of the conspiracy; and as
every order of men was actuated by the same spirit, the immediate
event was neither doubtful nor difficult. The præfect of the
city, and a few magistrates, who maintained their fidelity to
Severus, were massacred by the guards; and Maxentius, invested
with the Imperial ornaments, was acknowledged by the applauding
senate and people as the protector of the Roman freedom and
dignity. It is uncertain whether Maximian was previously
acquainted with the conspiracy; but as soon as the standard of
rebellion was erected at Rome, the old emperor broke from the
retirement where the authority of Diocletian had condemned him to
pass a life of melancholy and solitude, and concealed his
returning ambition under the disguise of paternal tenderness. At
the request of his son and of the senate, he condescended to
reassume the purple. His ancient dignity, his experience, and his
fame in arms, added strength as well as reputation to the party
of Maxentius. 22
22 (return) [ The sixth Panegyric represents the conduct of
Maximian in the most favorable light, and the ambiguous
expression of Aurelius Victor, “retractante diu,” may signify
either that he contrived, or that he opposed, the conspiracy. See
Zosimus, l. ii. p. 79, and Lactantius de M. P. c. 26.]
According to the advice, or rather the orders, of his colleague,
the emperor Severus immediately hastened to Rome, in the full
confidence, that, by his unexpected celerity, he should easily
suppress the tumult of an unwarlike populace, commanded by a
licentious youth. But he found on his arrival the gates of the
city shut against him, the walls filled with men and arms, an
experienced general at the head of the rebels, and his own troops
without spirit or affection. A large body of Moors deserted to
the enemy, allured by the promise of a large donative; and, if it
be true that they had been levied by Maximian in his African war,
preferring the natural feelings of gratitude to the artificial
ties of allegiance. Anulinus, the Prætorian præfect, declared
himself in favor of Maxentius, and drew after him the most
considerable part of the troops, accustomed to obey his commands.
Rome, according to the expression of an orator, recalled her
armies; and the unfortunate Severus, destitute of force and of
counsel, retired, or rather fled, with precipitation, to Ravenna.
Here he might for some time have been safe. The fortifications of
Ravenna were able to resist the attempts, and the morasses that
surrounded the town were sufficient to prevent the approach, of
the Italian army. The sea, which Severus commanded with a
powerful fleet, secured him an inexhaustible supply of
provisions, and gave a free entrance to the legions, which, on
the return of spring, would advance to his assistance from
Illyricum and the East. Maximian, who conducted the siege in
person, was soon convinced that he might waste his time and his
army in the fruitless enterprise, and that he had nothing to hope
either from force or famine. With an art more suitable to the
character of Diocletian than to his own, he directed his attack,
not so much against the walls of Ravenna, as against the mind of
Severus. The treachery which he had experienced disposed that
unhappy prince to distrust the most sincere of his friends and
adherents. The emissaries of Maximian easily persuaded his
credulity, that a conspiracy was formed to betray the town, and
prevailed upon his fears not to expose himself to the discretion
of an irritated conqueror, but to accept the faith of an
honorable capitulation. He was at first received with humanity
and treated with respect. Maximian conducted the captive emperor
to Rome, and gave him the most solemn assurances that he had
secured his life by the resignation of the purple. But Severus
could obtain only an easy death and an Imperial funeral. When the
sentence was signified to him, the manner of executing it was
left to his own choice; he preferred the favorite mode of the
ancients, that of opening his veins; and as soon as he expired,
his body was carried to the sepulchre which had been constructed
for the family of Gallienus. 23
23 (return) [ The circumstances of this war, and the death of
Severus, are very doubtfully and variously told in our ancient
fragments, (see Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. part i.
p. 555.) I have endeavored to extract from them a consistent and
probable narration. * Note: Manso justly observes that two
totally different narratives might be formed, almost upon equal
authority. Beylage, iv.—M.]
Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The
Empire.—Part II.
Though the characters of Constantine and Maxentius had very
little affinity with each other, their situation and interest
were the same; and prudence seemed to require that they should
unite their forces against the common enemy. Notwithstanding the
superiority of his age and dignity, the indefatigable Maximian
passed the Alps, and, courting a personal interview with the
sovereign of Gaul, carried with him his daughter Fausta as the
pledge of the new alliance. The marriage was celebrated at Arles
with every circumstance of magnificence; and the ancient
colleague of Diocletian, who again asserted his claim to the
Western empire, conferred on his son-in-law and ally the title of
Augustus. By consenting to receive that honor from Maximian,
Constantine seemed to embrace the cause of Rome and of the
senate; but his professions were ambiguous, and his assistance
slow and ineffectual. He considered with attention the
approaching contest between the masters of Italy and the emperor
of the East, and was prepared to consult his own safety or
ambition in the event of the war. 24
24 (return) [ The sixth Panegyric was pronounced to celebrate the
elevation of Constantine; but the prudent orator avoids the
mention either of Galerius or of Maxentius. He introduces only
one slight allusion to the actual troubles, and to the majesty of
Rome. * Note: Compare Manso, Beylage, iv. p. 302. Gibbon’s
account is at least as probable as that of his critic.—M.]
The importance of the occasion called for the presence and
abilities of Galerius. At the head of a powerful army, collected
from Illyricum and the East, he entered Italy, resolved to
revenge the death of Severus, and to chastise the rebellious
Romans; or, as he expressed his intentions, in the furious
language of a barbarian, to extirpate the senate, and to destroy
the people by the sword. But the skill of Maximian had concerted
a prudent system of defence. The invader found every place
hostile, fortified, and inaccessible; and though he forced his
way as far as Narni, within sixty miles of Rome, his dominion in
Italy was confined to the narrow limits of his camp. Sensible of
the increasing difficulties of his enterprise, the haughty
Galerius made the first advances towards a reconciliation, and
despatched two of his most considerable officers to tempt the
Roman princes by the offer of a conference, and the declaration
of his paternal regard for Maxentius, who might obtain much more
from his liberality than he could hope from the doubtful chance
of war. 25 The offers of Galerius were rejected with firmness,
his perfidious friendship refused with contempt, and it was not
long before he discovered, that, unless he provided for his
safety by a timely retreat, he had some reason to apprehend the
fate of Severus. The wealth which the Romans defended against his
rapacious tyranny, they freely contributed for his destruction.
The name of Maximian, the popular arts of his son, the secret
distribution of large sums, and the promise of still more liberal
rewards, checked the ardor and corrupted the fidelity of the
Illyrian legions; and when Galerius at length gave the signal of
the retreat, it was with some difficulty that he could prevail on
his veterans not to desert a banner which had so often conducted
them to victory and honor. A contemporary writer assigns two
other causes for the failure of the expedition; but they are both
of such a nature, that a cautious historian will scarcely venture
to adopt them. We are told that Galerius, who had formed a very
imperfect notion of the greatness of Rome by the cities of the
East with which he was acquainted, found his forces inadequate to
the siege of that immense capital.
But the extent of a city serves only to render it more accessible
to the enemy: Rome had long since been accustomed to submit on
the approach of a conqueror; nor could the temporary enthusiasm
of the people have long contended against the discipline and
valor of the legions. We are likewise informed that the legions
themselves were struck with horror and remorse, and that those
pious sons of the republic refused to violate the sanctity of
their venerable parent. 26 But when we recollect with how much
ease, in the more ancient civil wars, the zeal of party and the
habits of military obedience had converted the native citizens of
Rome into her most implacable enemies, we shall be inclined to
distrust this extreme delicacy of strangers and barbarians, who
had never beheld Italy till they entered it in a hostile manner.
Had they not been restrained by motives of a more interested
nature, they would probably have answered Galerius in the words
of Cæsar’s veterans: “If our general wishes to lead us to the
banks of the Tyber, we are prepared to trace out his camp.
Whatsoever walls he has determined to level with the ground, our
hands are ready to work the engines: nor shall we hesitate,
should the name of the devoted city be Rome itself.” These are
indeed the expressions of a poet; but of a poet who has been
distinguished, and even censured, for his strict adherence to the
truth of history. 27
25 (return) [ With regard to this negotiation, see the fragments
of an anonymous historian, published by Valesius at the end of
his edition of Ammianus Marcellinus, p. 711. These fragments have
furnished with several curious, and, as it should seem, authentic
anecdotes.]
26 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 28. The former of these
reasons is probably taken from Virgil’s Shepherd: “Illam * * *
ego huic notra similem, Meliboee, putavi,” &c. Lactantius
delights in these poetical illusions.]
27 (return)
[ Castra super Tusci si ponere Tybridis undas; (_jubeas_)
Hesperios audax veniam metator in agros.
Tu quoscunque voles in planum effundere muros,
His aries actus disperget saxa lacertis;
Illa licet penitus tolli quam jusseris urbem
Roma sit.
Lucan. Pharsal. i. 381.]
The legions of Galerius exhibited a very melancholy proof of
their disposition, by the ravages which they committed in their
retreat. They murdered, they ravished, they plundered, they drove
away the flocks and herds of the Italians; they burnt the
villages through which they passed, and they endeavored to
destroy the country which it had not been in their power to
subdue. During the whole march, Maxentius hung on their rear, but
he very prudently declined a general engagement with those brave
and desperate veterans. His father had undertaken a second
journey into Gaul, with the hope of persuading Constantine, who
had assembled an army on the frontier, to join in the pursuit,
and to complete the victory. But the actions of Constantine were
guided by reason, and not by resentment. He persisted in the wise
resolution of maintaining a balance of power in the divided
empire, and he no longer hated Galerius, when that aspiring
prince had ceased to be an object of terror. 28
28 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 27. Zosim. l. ii. p. 82. The
latter, that Constantine, in his interview with Maximian, had
promised to declare war against Galerius.]
The mind of Galerius was the most susceptible of the sterner
passions, but it was not, however, incapable of a sincere and
lasting friendship. Licinius, whose manners as well as character
were not unlike his own, seems to have engaged both his affection
and esteem. Their intimacy had commenced in the happier period
perhaps of their youth and obscurity. It had been cemented by the
freedom and dangers of a military life; they had advanced almost
by equal steps through the successive honors of the service; and
as soon as Galerius was invested with the Imperial dignity, he
seems to have conceived the design of raising his companion to
the same rank with himself. During the short period of his
prosperity, he considered the rank of Cæsar as unworthy of the
age and merit of Licinius, and rather chose to reserve for him
the place of Constantius, and the empire of the West. While the
emperor was employed in the Italian war, he intrusted his friend
with the defence of the Danube; and immediately after his return
from that unfortunate expedition, he invested Licinius with the
vacant purple of Severus, resigning to his immediate command the
provinces of Illyricum. 29 The news of his promotion was no
sooner carried into the East, than Maximin, who governed, or
rather oppressed, the countries of Egypt and Syria, betrayed his
envy and discontent, disdained the inferior name of Cæsar, and,
notwithstanding the prayers as well as arguments of Galerius,
exacted, almost by violence, the equal title of Augustus. 30 For
the first, and indeed for the last time, the Roman world was
administered by six emperors. In the West, Constantine and
Maxentius affected to reverence their father Maximian. In the
East, Licinius and Maximin honored with more real consideration
their benefactor Galerius. The opposition of interest, and the
memory of a recent war, divided the empire into two great hostile
powers; but their mutual fears produced an apparent tranquillity,
and even a feigned reconciliation, till the death of the elder
princes, of Maximian, and more particularly of Galerius, gave a
new direction to the views and passions of their surviving
associates.
29 (return) [ M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. part
i. p. 559) has proved that Licinius, without passing through the
intermediate rank of Cæsar, was declared Augustus, the 11th of
November, A. D. 307, after the return of Galerius from Italy.]
30 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 32. When Galerius declared
Licinius Augustus with himself, he tried to satisfy his younger
associates, by inventing for Constantine and Maximin (not
Maxentius; see Baluze, p. 81) the new title of sons of the
Augusti. But when Maximin acquainted him that he had been saluted
Augustus by the army, Galerius was obliged to acknowledge him as
well as Constantine, as equal associates in the Imperial
dignity.]
When Maximian had reluctantly abdicated the empire, the venal
orators of the times applauded his philosophic moderation. When
his ambition excited, or at least encouraged, a civil war, they
returned thanks to his generous patriotism, and gently censured
that love of ease and retirement which had withdrawn him from the
public service. 31 But it was impossible that minds like those of
Maximian and his son could long possess in harmony an undivided
power. Maxentius considered himself as the legal sovereign of
Italy, elected by the Roman senate and people; nor would he
endure the control of his father, who arrogantly declared that by
_his_ name and abilities the rash youth had been established on
the throne. The cause was solemnly pleaded before the Prætorian
guards; and those troops, who dreaded the severity of the old
emperor, espoused the party of Maxentius. 32 The life and freedom
of Maximian were, however, respected, and he retired from Italy
into Illyricum, affecting to lament his past conduct, and
secretly contriving new mischiefs. But Galerius, who was well
acquainted with his character, soon obliged him to leave his
dominions, and the last refuge of the disappointed Maximian was
the court of his son-in-law Constantine. 33 He was received with
respect by that artful prince, and with the appearance of filial
tenderness by the empress Fausta. That he might remove every
suspicion, he resigned the Imperial purple a second time, 34
professing himself at length convinced of the vanity of greatness
and ambition. Had he persevered in this resolution, he might have
ended his life with less dignity, indeed, than in his first
retirement, yet, however, with comfort and reputation. But the
near prospect of a throne brought back to his remembrance the
state from whence he was fallen, and he resolved, by a desperate
effort, either to reign or to perish. An incursion of the Franks
had summoned Constantine, with a part of his army, to the banks
of the Rhine; the remainder of the troops were stationed in the
southern provinces of Gaul, which lay exposed to the enterprises
of the Italian emperor, and a considerable treasure was deposited
in the city of Arles. Maximian either craftily invented, or
easily credited, a vain report of the death of Constantine.
Without hesitation he ascended the throne, seized the treasure,
and scattering it with his accustomed profusion among the
soldiers, endeavored to awake in their minds the memory of his
ancient dignity and exploits. Before he could establish his
authority, or finish the negotiation which he appears to have
entered into with his son Maxentius, the celerity of Constantine
defeated all his hopes. On the first news of his perfidy and
ingratitude, that prince returned by rapid marches from the Rhine
to the Saone, embarked on the last-mentioned river at Chalons,
and, at Lyons trusting himself to the rapidity of the Rhone,
arrived at the gates of Arles with a military force which it was
impossible for Maximian to resist, and which scarcely permitted
him to take refuge in the neighboring city of Marseilles. The
narrow neck of land which joined that place to the continent was
fortified against the besiegers, whilst the sea was open, either
for the escape of Maximian, or for the succor of Maxentius, if
the latter should choose to disguise his invasion of Gaul under
the honorable pretence of defending a distressed, or, as he might
allege, an injured father. Apprehensive of the fatal consequences
of delay, Constantine gave orders for an immediate assault; but
the scaling-ladders were found too short for the height of the
walls, and Marseilles might have sustained as long a siege as it
formerly did against the arms of Cæsar, if the garrison,
conscious either of their fault or of their danger, had not
purchased their pardon by delivering up the city and the person
of Maximian. A secret but irrevocable sentence of death was
pronounced against the usurper; he obtained only the same favor
which he had indulged to Severus, and it was published to the
world, that, oppressed by the remorse of his repeated crimes, he
strangled himself with his own hands. After he had lost the
assistance, and disdained the moderate counsels, of Diocletian,
the second period of his active life was a series of public
calamities and personal mortifications, which were terminated, in
about three years, by an ignominious death. He deserved his fate;
but we should find more reason to applaud the humanity of
Constantine, if he had spared an old man, the benefactor of his
father, and the father of his wife. During the whole of this
melancholy transaction, it appears that Fausta sacrificed the
sentiments of nature to her conjugal duties. 35
31 (return) [ See Panegyr. Vet. vi. 9. Audi doloris nostri
liberam vocem, &c. The whole passage is imagined with artful
flattery, and expressed with an easy flow of eloquence.]
32 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 28. Zosim. l. ii. p. 82. A
report was spread, that Maxentius was the son of some obscure
Syrian, and had been substituted by the wife of Maximian as her
own child. See Aurelius Victor, Anonym. Valesian, and Panegyr.
Vet. ix. 3, 4.]
33 (return) [ Ab urbe pulsum, ab Italia fugatum, ab Illyrico
repudiatum, provinciis, tuis copiis, tuo palatio recepisti.
Eumen. in Panegyr Vet. vii. 14.]
34 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 29. Yet, after the
resignation of the purple, Constantine still continued to
Maximian the pomp and honors of the Imperial dignity; and on all
public occasions gave the right hand place to his father-in-law.
Panegyr. Vet. viii. 15.]
35 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. p. 82. Eumenius in Panegyr. Vet. vii.
16—21. The latter of these has undoubtedly represented the whole
affair in the most favorable light for his sovereign. Yet even
from this partial narrative we may conclude, that the repeated
clemency of Constantine, and the reiterated treasons of Maximian,
as they are described by Lactantius, (de M. P. c. 29, 30,) and
copied by the moderns, are destitute of any historical
foundation. Note: Yet some pagan authors relate and confirm them.
Aurelius Victor speaking of Maximin, says, cumque specie officii,
dolis compositis, Constantinum generum tentaret acerbe, jure
tamen interierat. Aur. Vict. de Cæsar l. p. 623. Eutropius also
says, inde ad Gallias profectus est (Maximianus) composito
tamquam a filio esset expulsus, ut Constantino genero jun
geretur: moliens tamen Constantinum, reperta occasione,
interficere, dedit justissimo exitu. Eutrop. x. p. 661. (Anon.
Gent.)—G. —— These writers hardly confirm more than Gibbon
admits; he denies the repeated clemency of Constantine, and the
reiterated treasons of Maximian Compare Manso, p. 302.—M.]
The last years of Galerius were less shameful and unfortunate;
and though he had filled with more glory the subordinate station
of Cæsar than the superior rank of Augustus, he preserved, till
the moment of his death, the first place among the princes of the
Roman world. He survived his retreat from Italy about four years;
and wisely relinquishing his views of universal empire, he
devoted the remainder of his life to the enjoyment of pleasure,
and to the execution of some works of public utility, among which
we may distinguish the discharging into the Danube the
superfluous waters of the Lake Pelso, and the cutting down the
immense forests that encompassed it; an operation worthy of a
monarch, since it gave an extensive country to the agriculture of
his Pannonian subjects. 36 His death was occasioned by a very
painful and lingering disorder. His body, swelled by an
intemperate course of life to an unwieldy corpulence, was covered
with ulcers, and devoured by innumerable swarms of those insects
which have given their name to a most loathsome disease; 37 but
as Galerius had offended a very zealous and powerful party among
his subjects, his sufferings, instead of exciting their
compassion, have been celebrated as the visible effects of divine
justice. 38 He had no sooner expired in his palace of Nicomedia,
than the two emperors who were indebted for their purple to his
favors, began to collect their forces, with the intention either
of disputing, or of dividing, the dominions which he had left
without a master. They were persuaded, however, to desist from
the former design, and to agree in the latter. The provinces of
Asia fell to the share of Maximin, and those of Europe augmented
the portion of Licinius. The Hellespont and the Thracian
Bosphorus formed their mutual boundary, and the banks of those
narrow seas, which flowed in the midst of the Roman world, were
covered with soldiers, with arms, and with fortifications. The
deaths of Maximian and of Galerius reduced the number of emperors
to four. The sense of their true interest soon connected Licinius
and Constantine; a secret alliance was concluded between Maximin
and Maxentius, and their unhappy subjects expected with terror
the bloody consequences of their inevitable dissensions, which
were no longer restrained by the fear or the respect which they
had entertained for Galerius. 39
36 (return) [ Aurelius Victor, c. 40. But that lake was situated
on the upper Pannonia, near the borders of Noricum; and the
province of Valeria (a name which the wife of Galerius gave to
the drained country) undoubtedly lay between the Drave and the
Danube, (Sextus Rufus, c. 9.) I should therefore suspect that
Victor has confounded the Lake Pelso with the Volocean marshes,
or, as they are now called, the Lake Sabaton. It is placed in the
heart of Valeria, and its present extent is not less than twelve
Hungarian miles (about seventy English) in length, and two in
breadth. See Severini Pannonia, l. i. c. 9.]
37 (return) [ Lactantius (de M. P. c. 33) and Eusebius (l. viii.
c. 16) describe the symptoms and progress of his disorder with
singular accuracy and apparent pleasure.]
38 (return) [ If any (like the late Dr. Jortin, Remarks on
Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 307—356) still delight in
recording the wonderful deaths of the persecutors, I would
recommend to their perusal an admirable passage of Grotius (Hist.
l. vii. p. 332) concerning the last illness of Philip II. of
Spain.]
39 (return) [ See Eusebius, l. ix. 6, 10. Lactantius de M. P. c.
36. Zosimus is less exact, and evidently confounds Maximian with
Maximin.]
Among so many crimes and misfortunes, occasioned by the passions
of the Roman princes, there is some pleasure in discovering a
single action which may be ascribed to their virtue. In the sixth
year of his reign, Constantine visited the city of Autun, and
generously remitted the arrears of tribute, reducing at the same
time the proportion of their assessment from twenty-five to
eighteen thousand heads, subject to the real and personal
capitation. 40 Yet even this indulgence affords the most
unquestionable proof of the public misery. This tax was so
extremely oppressive, either in itself or in the mode of
collecting it, that whilst the revenue was increased by
extortion, it was diminished by despair: a considerable part of
the territory of Autun was left uncultivated; and great numbers
of the provincials rather chose to live as exiles and outlaws,
than to support the weight of civil society. It is but too
probable, that the bountiful emperor relieved, by a partial act
of liberality, one among the many evils which he had caused by
his general maxims of administration. But even those maxims were
less the effect of choice than of necessity. And if we except the
death of Maximian, the reign of Constantine in Gaul seems to have
been the most innocent and even virtuous period of his life.
The provinces were protected by his presence from the inroads of
the barbarians, who either dreaded or experienced his active
valor. After a signal victory over the Franks and Alemanni,
several of their princes were exposed by his order to the wild
beasts in the amphitheatre of Treves, and the people seem to have
enjoyed the spectacle, without discovering, in such a treatment
of royal captives, any thing that was repugnant to the laws of
nations or of humanity. 41
40 (return) [ See the viiith Panegyr., in which Eumenius
displays, in the presence of Constantine, the misery and the
gratitude of the city of Autun.]
41 (return) [Eutropius, x. 3. Panegyr. Veter. vii. 10, 11, 12. A
great number of the French youth were likewise exposed to the
same cruel and ignominious death Yet the panegyric assumes
something of an apologetic tone. Te vero Constantine,
quantumlibet oderint hoses, dum perhorrescant. Hæc est enim vera
virtus, ut non ament et quiescant. The orator appeals to the
ancient ideal of the republic.—M.]
The virtues of Constantine were rendered more illustrious by the
vices of Maxentius. Whilst the Gallic provinces enjoyed as much
happiness as the condition of the times was capable of receiving,
Italy and Africa groaned under the dominion of a tyrant, as
contemptible as he was odious. The zeal of flattery and faction
has indeed too frequently sacrificed the reputation of the
vanquished to the glory of their successful rivals; but even
those writers who have revealed, with the most freedom and
pleasure, the faults of Constantine, unanimously confess that
Maxentius was cruel, rapacious, and profligate. 42 He had the
good fortune to suppress a slight rebellion in Africa. The
governor and a few adherents had been guilty; the province
suffered for their crime. The flourishing cities of Cirtha and
Carthage, and the whole extent of that fertile country, were
wasted by fire and sword. The abuse of victory was followed by
the abuse of law and justice. A formidable army of sycophants and
delators invaded Africa; the rich and the noble were easily
convicted of a connection with the rebels; and those among them
who experienced the emperor’s clemency, were only punished by the
confiscation of their estates. 43 So signal a victory was
celebrated by a magnificent triumph, and Maxentius exposed to the
eyes of the people the spoils and captives of a Roman province.
The state of the capital was no less deserving of compassion than
that of Africa. The wealth of Rome supplied an inexhaustible fund
for his vain and prodigal expenses, and the ministers of his
revenue were skilled in the arts of rapine. It was under his
reign that the method of exacting a _free gift_ from the senators
was first invented; and as the sum was insensibly increased, the
pretences of levying it, a victory, a birth, a marriage, or an
imperial consulship, were proportionably multiplied. 44 Maxentius
had imbibed the same implacable aversion to the senate, which had
characterized most of the former tyrants of Rome; nor was it
possible for his ungrateful temper to forgive the generous
fidelity which had raised him to the throne, and supported him
against all his enemies. The lives of the senators were exposed
to his jealous suspicions, the dishonor of their wives and
daughters heightened the gratification of his sensual passions.
45 It may be presumed that an Imperial lover was seldom reduced
to sigh in vain; but whenever persuasion proved ineffectual, he
had recourse to violence; and there remains _one_ memorable
example of a noble matron, who preserved her chastity by a
voluntary death. The soldiers were the only order of men whom he
appeared to respect, or studied to please. He filled Rome and
Italy with armed troops, connived at their tumults, suffered them
with impunity to plunder, and even to massacre, the defenceless
people; 46 and indulging them in the same licentiousness which
their emperor enjoyed, Maxentius often bestowed on his military
favorites the splendid villa, or the beautiful wife, of a
senator. A prince of such a character, alike incapable of
governing, either in peace or in war, might purchase the support,
but he could never obtain the esteem, of the army. Yet his pride
was equal to his other vices. Whilst he passed his indolent life
either within the walls of his palace, or in the neighboring
gardens of Sallust, he was repeatedly heard to declare, that _he
alone_ was emperor, and that the other princes were no more than
his lieutenants, on whom he had devolved the defence of the
frontier provinces, that he might enjoy without interruption the
elegant luxury of the capital. Rome, which had so long regretted
the absence, lamented, during the six years of his reign, the
presence of her sovereign. 47
42 (return) [ Julian excludes Maxentius from the banquet of the
Cæsars with abhorrence and contempt; and Zosimus (l. ii. p. 85)
accuses him of every kind of cruelty and profligacy.]
43 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 83—85. Aurelius Victor.]
44 (return) [ The passage of Aurelius Victor should be read in
the following manner: Primus instituto pessimo, munerum specie,
Patres Oratores que pecuniam conferre prodigenti sibi cogeret.]
45 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet. ix. 3. Euseb. Hist Eccles. viii. 14,
et in Vit. Constant i. 33, 34. Rufinus, c. 17. The virtuous
matron who stabbed herself to escape the violence of Maxentius,
was a Christian, wife to the præfect of the city, and her name
was Sophronia. It still remains a question among the casuists,
whether, on such occasions, suicide is justifiable.]
46 (return) [ Prætorianis cædem vulgi quondam annueret, is the
vague expression of Aurelius Victor. See more particular, though
somewhat different, accounts of a tumult and massacre which
happened at Rome, in Eusebius, (l. viii. c. 14,) and in Zosimus,
(l. ii. p. 84.)]
47 (return) [ See, in the Panegyrics, (ix. 14,) a lively
description of the indolence and vain pride of Maxentius. In
another place the orator observes that the riches which Rome had
accumulated in a period of 1060 years, were lavished by the
tyrant on his mercenary bands; redemptis ad civile latrocinium
manibus in gesserat.]
Though Constantine might view the conduct of Maxentius with
abhorrence, and the situation of the Romans with compassion, we
have no reason to presume that he would have taken up arms to
punish the one or to relieve the other. But the tyrant of Italy
rashly ventured to provoke a formidable enemy, whose ambition had
been hitherto restrained by considerations of prudence, rather
than by principles of justice. 48 After the death of Maximian,
his titles, according to the established custom, had been erased,
and his statues thrown down with ignominy. His son, who had
persecuted and deserted him when alive, effected to display the
most pious regard for his memory, and gave orders that a similar
treatment should be immediately inflicted on all the statues that
had been erected in Italy and Africa to the honor of Constantine.
That wise prince, who sincerely wished to decline a war, with the
difficulty and importance of which he was sufficiently
acquainted, at first dissembled the insult, and sought for
redress by the milder expedient of negotiation, till he was
convinced that the hostile and ambitious designs of the Italian
emperor made it necessary for him to arm in his own defence.
Maxentius, who openly avowed his pretensions to the whole
monarchy of the West, had already prepared a very considerable
force to invade the Gallic provinces on the side of Rhætia; and
though he could not expect any assistance from Licinius, he was
flattered with the hope that the legions of Illyricum, allured by
his presents and promises, would desert the standard of that
prince, and unanimously declare themselves his soldiers and
subjects. 49 Constantine no longer hesitated. He had deliberated
with caution, he acted with vigor. He gave a private audience to
the ambassadors, who, in the name of the senate and people,
conjured him to deliver Rome from a detested tyrant; and without
regarding the timid remonstrances of his council, he resolved to
prevent the enemy, and to carry the war into the heart of Italy.
50
48 (return) [ After the victory of Constantine, it was
universally allowed, that the motive of delivering the republic
from a detested tyrant, would, at any time, have justified his
expedition into Italy. Euseb in Vi’. Constantin. l. i. c. 26.
Panegyr. Vet. ix. 2.]
49 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 84, 85. Nazarius in Panegyr. x.
7—13.]
50 (return) [ See Panegyr. Vet. ix. 2. Omnibus fere tuis
Comitibus et Ducibus non solum tacite mussantibus, sed etiam
aperte timentibus; contra consilia hominum, contra Haruspicum
monita, ipse per temet liberandæ arbis tempus venisse sentires.
The embassy of the Romans is mentioned only by Zonaras, (l.
xiii.,) and by Cedrenus, (in Compend. Hist. p. 370;) but those
modern Greeks had the opportunity of consulting many writers
which have since been lost, among which we may reckon the life of
Constantine by Praxagoras. Photius (p. 63) has made a short
extract from that historical work.]
The enterprise was as full of danger as of glory; and the
unsuccessful event of two former invasions was sufficient to
inspire the most serious apprehensions. The veteran troops, who
revered the name of Maximian, had embraced in both those wars the
party of his son, and were now restrained by a sense of honor, as
well as of interest, from entertaining an idea of a second
desertion. Maxentius, who considered the Prætorian guards as the
firmest defence of his throne, had increased them to their
ancient establishment; and they composed, including the rest of
the Italians who were enlisted into his service, a formidable
body of fourscore thousand men. Forty thousand Moors and
Carthaginians had been raised since the reduction of Africa. Even
Sicily furnished its proportion of troops; and the armies of
Maxentius amounted to one hundred and seventy thousand foot and
eighteen thousand horse. The wealth of Italy supplied the
expenses of the war; and the adjacent provinces were exhausted,
to form immense magazines of corn and every other kind of
provisions.
The whole force of Constantine consisted of ninety thousand foot
and eight thousand horse; 51 and as the defence of the Rhine
required an extraordinary attention during the absence of the
emperor, it was not in his power to employ above half his troops
in the Italian expedition, unless he sacrificed the public safety
to his private quarrel. 52 At the head of about forty thousand
soldiers he marched to encounter an enemy whose numbers were at
least four times superior to his own. But the armies of Rome,
placed at a secure distance from danger, were enervated by
indulgence and luxury. Habituated to the baths and theatres of
Rome, they took the field with reluctance, and were chiefly
composed of veterans who had almost forgotten, or of new levies
who had never acquired, the use of arms and the practice of war.
The hardy legions of Gaul had long defended the frontiers of the
empire against the barbarians of the North; and in the
performance of that laborious service, their valor was exercised
and their discipline confirmed. There appeared the same
difference between the leaders as between the armies. Caprice or
flattery had tempted Maxentius with the hopes of conquest; but
these aspiring hopes soon gave way to the habits of pleasure and
the consciousness of his inexperience. The intrepid mind of
Constantine had been trained from his earliest youth to war, to
action, and to military command.
51 (return) [ Zosimus (l. ii. p. 86) has given us this curious
account of the forces on both sides. He makes no mention of any
naval armaments, though we are assured (Panegyr. Vet. ix. 25)
that the war was carried on by sea as well as by land; and that
the fleet of Constantine took possession of Sardinia, Corsica,
and the ports of Italy.]
52 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet. ix. 3. It is not surprising that the
orator should diminish the numbers with which his sovereign
achieved the conquest of Italy; but it appears somewhat singular
that he should esteem the tyrant’s army at no more than 100,000
men.]
Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The
Empire.—Part III.
When Hannibal marched from Gaul into Italy, he was obliged, first
to discover, and then to open, a way over mountains, and through
savage nations, that had never yielded a passage to a regular
army. 53 The Alps were then guarded by nature, they are now
fortified by art. Citadels, constructed with no less skill than
labor and expense, command every avenue into the plain, and on
that side render Italy almost inaccessible to the enemies of the
king of Sardinia. 54 But in the course of the intermediate
period, the generals, who have attempted the passage, have seldom
experienced any difficulty or resistance. In the age of
Constantine, the peasants of the mountains were civilized and
obedient subjects; the country was plentifully stocked with
provisions, and the stupendous highways, which the Romans had
carried over the Alps, opened several communications between Gaul
and Italy. 55 Constantine preferred the road of the Cottian Alps,
or, as it is now called, of Mount Cenis, and led his troops with
such active diligence, that he descended into the plain of
Piedmont before the court of Maxentius had received any certain
intelligence of his departure from the banks of the Rhine. The
city of Susa, however, which is situated at the foot of Mount
Cenis, was surrounded with walls, and provided with a garrison
sufficiently numerous to check the progress of an invader; but
the impatience of Constantine’s troops disdained the tedious
forms of a siege. The same day that they appeared before Susa,
they applied fire to the gates, and ladders to the walls; and
mounting to the assault amidst a shower of stones and arrows,
they entered the place sword in hand, and cut in pieces the
greatest part of the garrison. The flames were extinguished by
the care of Constantine, and the remains of Susa preserved from
total destruction. About forty miles from thence, a more severe
contest awaited him. A numerous army of Italians was assembled
under the lieutenants of Maxentius, in the plains of Turin. Its
principal strength consisted in a species of heavy cavalry, which
the Romans, since the decline of their discipline, had borrowed
from the nations of the East. The horses, as well as the men,
were clothed in complete armor, the joints of which were artfully
adapted to the motions of their bodies. The aspect of this
cavalry was formidable, their weight almost irresistible; and as,
on this occasion, their generals had drawn them up in a compact
column or wedge, with a sharp point, and with spreading flanks,
they flattered themselves that they could easily break and
trample down the army of Constantine. They might, perhaps, have
succeeded in their design, had not their experienced adversary
embraced the same method of defence, which in similar
circumstances had been practised by Aurelian. The skilful
evolutions of Constantine divided and baffled this massy column
of cavalry. The troops of Maxentius fled in confusion towards
Turin; and as the gates of the city were shut against them, very
few escaped the sword of the victorious pursuers. By this
important service, Turin deserved to experience the clemency and
even favor of the conqueror. He made his entry into the Imperial
palace of Milan, and almost all the cities of Italy between the
Alps and the Po not only acknowledged the power, but embraced
with zeal the party, of Constantine. 56
53 (return) [ The three principal passages of the Alps between
Gaul and Italy, are those of Mount St. Bernard, Mount Cenis, and
Mount Genevre. Tradition, and a resemblance of names, (Alpes
Penninoe,) had assigned the first of these for the march of
Hannibal, (see Simler de Alpibus.) The Chevalier de Folard
(Polyp. tom. iv.) and M. d’Anville have led him over Mount
Genevre. But notwithstanding the authority of an experienced
officer and a learned geographer, the pretensions of Mount Cenis
are supported in a specious, not to say a convincing, manner, by
M. Grosley. Observations sur l’Italie, tom. i. p. 40, &c. ——The
dissertation of Messrs. Cramer and Wickham has clearly shown that
the Little St. Bernard must claim the honor of Hannibal’s
passage. Mr. Long (London, 1831) has added some sensible
corrections re Hannibal’s march to the Alps.—M]
54 (return) [ La Brunette near Suse, Demont, Exiles,
Fenestrelles, Coni, &c.]
55 (return) [ See Ammian. Marcellin. xv. 10. His description of
the roads over the Alps is clear, lively, and accurate.]
56 (return) [ Zosimus as well as Eusebius hasten from the passage
of the Alps to the decisive action near Rome. We must apply to
the two Panegyrics for the intermediate actions of Constantine.]
From Milan to Rome, the Æmilian and Flaminian highways offered an
easy march of about four hundred miles; but though Constantine
was impatient to encounter the tyrant, he prudently directed his
operations against another army of Italians, who, by their
strength and position, might either oppose his progress, or, in
case of a misfortune, might intercept his retreat. Ruricius
Pompeianus, a general distinguished by his valor and ability, had
under his command the city of Verona, and all the troops that
were stationed in the province of Venetia. As soon as he was
informed that Constantine was advancing towards him, he detached
a large body of cavalry, which was defeated in an engagement near
Brescia, and pursued by the Gallic legions as far as the gates of
Verona. The necessity, the importance, and the difficulties of
the siege of Verona, immediately presented themselves to the
sagacious mind of Constantine. 57 The city was accessible only by
a narrow peninsula towards the west, as the other three sides
were surrounded by the Adige, a rapid river, which covered the
province of Venetia, from whence the besieged derived an
inexhaustible supply of men and provisions. It was not without
great difficulty, and after several fruitless attempts, that
Constantine found means to pass the river at some distance above
the city, and in a place where the torrent was less violent. He
then encompassed Verona with strong lines, pushed his attacks
with prudent vigor, and repelled a desperate sally of Pompeianus.
That intrepid general, when he had used every means of defence
that the strength of the place or that of the garrison could
afford, secretly escaped from Verona, anxious not for his own,
but for the public safety. With indefatigable diligence he soon
collected an army sufficient either to meet Constantine in the
field, or to attack him if he obstinately remained within his
lines. The emperor, attentive to the motions, and informed of the
approach of so formidable an enemy, left a part of his legions to
continue the operations of the siege, whilst, at the head of
those troops on whose valor and fidelity he more particularly
depended, he advanced in person to engage the general of
Maxentius. The army of Gaul was drawn up in two lines, according
to the usual practice of war; but their experienced leader,
perceiving that the numbers of the Italians far exceeded his own,
suddenly changed his disposition, and, reducing the second,
extended the front of his first line to a just proportion with
that of the enemy. Such evolutions, which only veteran troops can
execute without confusion in a moment of danger, commonly prove
decisive; but as this engagement began towards the close of the
day, and was contested with great obstinacy during the whole
night, there was less room for the conduct of the generals than
for the courage of the soldiers. The return of light displayed
the victory of Constantine, and a field of carnage covered with
many thousands of the vanquished Italians. Their general,
Pompeianus, was found among the slain; Verona immediately
surrendered at discretion, and the garrison was made prisoners of
war. 58 When the officers of the victorious army congratulated
their master on this important success, they ventured to add some
respectful complaints, of such a nature, however, as the most
jealous monarchs will listen to without displeasure. They
represented to Constantine, that, not contented with all the
duties of a commander, he had exposed his own person with an
excess of valor which almost degenerated into rashness; and they
conjured him for the future to pay more regard to the
preservation of a life in which the safety of Rome and of the
empire was involved. 59
57 (return) [ The Marquis Maffei has examined the siege and
battle of Verona with that degree of attention and accuracy which
was due to a memorable action that happened in his native
country. The fortifications of that city, constructed by
Gallienus, were less extensive than the modern walls, and the
amphitheatre was not included within their circumference. See
Verona Illustrata, part i. p. 142 150.]
58 (return) [ They wanted chains for so great a multitude of
captives; and the whole council was at a loss; but the sagacious
conqueror imagined the happy expedient of converting into fetters
the swords of the vanquished. Panegyr. Vet. ix. 11.]
59 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet. ix. 11.]
While Constantine signalized his conduct and valor in the field,
the sovereign of Italy appeared insensible of the calamities and
danger of a civil war which reigned in the heart of his
dominions. Pleasure was still the only business of Maxentius.
Concealing, or at least attempting to conceal, from the public
knowledge the misfortunes of his arms, 60 he indulged himself in
a vain confidence which deferred the remedies of the approaching
evil, without deferring the evil itself. 61 The rapid progress of
Constantine 62 was scarcely sufficient to awaken him from his
fatal security; he flattered himself, that his well-known
liberality, and the majesty of the Roman name, which had already
delivered him from two invasions, would dissipate with the same
facility the rebellious army of Gaul. The officers of experience
and ability, who had served under the banners of Maximian, were
at length compelled to inform his effeminate son of the imminent
danger to which he was reduced; and, with a freedom that at once
surprised and convinced him, to urge the necessity of preventing
his ruin by a vigorous exertion of his remaining power. The
resources of Maxentius, both of men and money, were still
considerable. The Prætorian guards felt how strongly their own
interest and safety were connected with his cause; and a third
army was soon collected, more numerous than those which had been
lost in the battles of Turin and Verona. It was far from the
intention of the emperor to lead his troops in person. A stranger
to the exercises of war, he trembled at the apprehension of so
dangerous a contest; and as fear is commonly superstitious, he
listened with melancholy attention to the rumors of omens and
presages which seemed to menace his life and empire. Shame at
length supplied the place of courage, and forced him to take the
field. He was unable to sustain the contempt of the Roman people.
The circus resounded with their indignant clamors, and they
tumultuously besieged the gates of the palace, reproaching the
pusillanimity of their indolent sovereign, and celebrating the
heroic spirit of Constantine. 63 Before Maxentius left Rome, he
consulted the Sibylline books. The guardians of these ancient
oracles were as well versed in the arts of this world as they
were ignorant of the secrets of fate; and they returned him a
very prudent answer, which might adapt itself to the event, and
secure their reputation, whatever should be the chance of arms.
64
60 (return) [ Literas calamitatum suarum indices supprimebat.
Panegyr Vet. ix. 15.]
61 (return) [ Remedia malorum potius quam mala differebat, is the
fine censure which Tacitus passes on the supine indolence of
Vitellius.]
62 (return) [ The Marquis Maffei has made it extremely probable
that Constantine was still at Verona, the 1st of September, A.D.
312, and that the memorable æra of the indications was dated from
his conquest of the Cisalpine Gaul.]
63 (return) [ See Panegyr. Vet. xi. 16. Lactantius de M. P. c.
44.]
64 (return) [ Illo die hostem Romanorum esse periturum. The
vanquished became of course the enemy of Rome.]
The celerity of Constantine’s march has been compared to the
rapid conquest of Italy by the first of the Cæsars; nor is the
flattering parallel repugnant to the truth of history, since no
more than fifty-eight days elapsed between the surrender of
Verona and the final decision of the war. Constantine had always
apprehended that the tyrant would consult the dictates of fear,
and perhaps of prudence; and that, instead of risking his last
hopes in a general engagement, he would shut himself up within
the walls of Rome. His ample magazines secured him against the
danger of famine; and as the situation of Constantine admitted
not of delay, he might have been reduced to the sad necessity of
destroying with fire and sword the Imperial city, the noblest
reward of his victory, and the deliverance of which had been the
motive, or rather indeed the pretence, of the civil war. 65 It
was with equal surprise and pleasure, that on his arrival at a
place called Saxa Rubra, about nine miles from Rome, 66 he
discovered the army of Maxentius prepared to give him battle. 67
Their long front filled a very spacious plain, and their deep
array reached to the banks of the Tyber, which covered their
rear, and forbade their retreat. We are informed, and we may
believe, that Constantine disposed his troops with consummate
skill, and that he chose for himself the post of honor and
danger. Distinguished by the splendor of his arms, he charged in
person the cavalry of his rival; and his irresistible attack
determined the fortune of the day. The cavalry of Maxentius was
principally composed either of unwieldy cuirassiers, or of light
Moors and Numidians. They yielded to the vigor of the Gallic
horse, which possessed more activity than the one, more firmness
than the other. The defeat of the two wings left the infantry
without any protection on its flanks, and the undisciplined
Italians fled without reluctance from the standard of a tyrant
whom they had always hated, and whom they no longer feared. The
Prætorians, conscious that their offences were beyond the reach
of mercy, were animated by revenge and despair. Notwithstanding
their repeated efforts, those brave veterans were unable to
recover the victory: they obtained, however, an honorable death;
and it was observed that their bodies covered the same ground
which had been occupied by their ranks. 68 The confusion then
became general, and the dismayed troops of Maxentius, pursued by
an implacable enemy, rushed by thousands into the deep and rapid
stream of the Tyber. The emperor himself attempted to escape back
into the city over the Milvian bridge; but the crowds which
pressed together through that narrow passage forced him into the
river, where he was immediately drowned by the weight of his
armor. 69 His body, which had sunk very deep into the mud, was
found with some difficulty the next day. The sight of his head,
when it was exposed to the eyes of the people, convinced them of
their deliverance, and admonished them to receive with
acclamations of loyalty and gratitude the fortunate Constantine,
who thus achieved by his valor and ability the most splendid
enterprise of his life. 70
65 (return) [ See Panegyr. Vet. ix. 16, x. 27. The former of
these orators magnifies the hoards of corn, which Maxentius had
collected from Africa and the Islands. And yet, if there is any
truth in the scarcity mentioned by Eusebius, (in Vit. Constantin.
l. i. c. 36,) the Imperial granaries must have been open only to
the soldiers.]
66 (return) [ Maxentius... tandem urbe in Saxa Rubra, millia
ferme novem ægerrime progressus. Aurelius Victor. See Cellarius
Geograph. Antiq. tom. i. p. 463. Saxa Rubra was in the
neighborhood of the Cremera, a trifling rivulet, illustrated by
the valor and glorious death of the three hundred Fabii.]
67 (return) [ The post which Maxentius had taken, with the Tyber
in his rear is very clearly described by the two Panegyrists, ix.
16, x. 28.]
68 (return) [ Exceptis latrocinii illius primis auctoribus, qui
desperata venia ocum quem pugnæ sumpserant texere corporibus.
Panegyr. Vet 17.]
69 (return) [ A very idle rumor soon prevailed, that Maxentius,
who had not taken any precaution for his own retreat, had
contrived a very artful snare to destroy the army of the
pursuers; but that the wooden bridge, which was to have been
loosened on the approach of Constantine, unluckily broke down
under the weight of the flying Italians. M. de Tillemont (Hist.
des Empereurs, tom. iv. part i. p. 576) very seriously examines
whether, in contradiction to common sense, the testimony of
Eusebius and Zosimus ought to prevail over the silence of
Lactantius, Nazarius, and the anonymous, but contemporary orator,
who composed the ninth Panegyric. * Note: Manso (Beylage, vi.)
examines the question, and adduces two manifest allusions to the
bridge, from the Life of Constantine by Praxagoras, and from
Libanius. Is it not very probable that such a bridge was thrown
over the river to facilitate the advance, and to secure the
retreat, of the army of Maxentius? In case of defeat, orders were
given for destroying it, in order to check the pursuit: it broke
down accidentally, or in the confusion was destroyed, as has not
unfrequently been the case, before the proper time.—M.]
70 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 86-88, and the two Panegyrics,
the former of which was pronounced a few months afterwards,
afford the clearest notion of this great battle. Lactantius,
Eusebius, and even the Epitomes, supply several useful hints.]
In the use of victory, Constantine neither deserved the praise of
clemency, nor incurred the censure of immoderate rigor. 71 He
inflicted the same treatment to which a defeat would have exposed
his own person and family, put to death the two sons of the
tyrant, and carefully extirpated his whole race. The most
distinguished adherents of Maxentius must have expected to share
his fate, as they had shared his prosperity and his crimes; but
when the Roman people loudly demanded a greater number of
victims, the conqueror resisted, with firmness and humanity,
those servile clamors, which were dictated by flattery as well as
by resentment. Informers were punished and discouraged; the
innocent, who had suffered under the late tyranny, were recalled
from exile, and restored to their estates. A general act of
oblivion quieted the minds and settled the property of the
people, both in Italy and in Africa. 72 The first time that
Constantine honored the senate with his presence, he
recapitulated his own services and exploits in a modest oration,
assured that illustrious order of his sincere regard, and
promised to reëstablish its ancient dignity and privileges. The
grateful senate repaid these unmeaning professions by the empty
titles of honor, which it was yet in their power to bestow; and
without presuming to ratify the authority of Constantine, they
passed a decree to assign him the first rank among the three
_Augusti_ who governed the Roman world. 73 Games and festivals
were instituted to preserve the fame of his victory, and several
edifices, raised at the expense of Maxentius, were dedicated to
the honor of his successful rival. The triumphal arch of
Constantine still remains a melancholy proof of the decline of
the arts, and a singular testimony of the meanest vanity. As it
was not possible to find in the capital of the empire a sculptor
who was capable of adorning that public monument, the arch of
Trajan, without any respect either for his memory or for the
rules of propriety, was stripped of its most elegant figures. The
difference of times and persons, of actions and characters, was
totally disregarded. The Parthian captives appear prostrate at
the feet of a prince who never carried his arms beyond the
Euphrates; and curious antiquarians can still discover the head
of Trajan on the trophies of Constantine. The new ornaments which
it was necessary to introduce between the vacancies of ancient
sculpture are executed in the rudest and most unskilful manner.
74
71 (return) [ Zosimus, the enemy of Constantine, allows (l. ii.
p. 88) that only a few of the friends of Maxentius were put to
death; but we may remark the expressive passage of Nazarius,
(Panegyr. Vet. x. 6.) Omnibus qui labefactari statum ejus
poterant cum stirpe deletis. The other orator (Panegyr. Vet. ix.
20, 21) contents himself with observing, that Constantine, when
he entered Rome, did not imitate the cruel massacres of Cinna, of
Marius, or of Sylla. * Note: This may refer to the son or sons of
Maxentius.—M.]
72 (return) [ See the two Panegyrics, and the laws of this and
the ensuing year, in the Theodosian Code.]
73 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet. ix. 20. Lactantius de M. P. c. 44.
Maximin, who was confessedly the eldest Cæsar, claimed, with some
show of reason, the first rank among the Augusti.]
74 (return) [ Adhuc cuncta opera quæ magnifice construxerat,
urbis fanum atque basilicam, Flavii meritis patres sacravere.
Aurelius Victor. With regard to the theft of Trajan’s trophies,
consult Flaminius Vacca, apud Montfaucon, Diarium Italicum, p.
250, and l’Antiquite Expliquee of the latter, tom. iv. p. 171.]
The final abolition of the Prætorian guards was a measure of
prudence as well as of revenge. Those haughty troops, whose
numbers and privileges had been restored, and even augmented, by
Maxentius, were forever suppressed by Constantine. Their
fortified camp was destroyed, and the few Prætorians who had
escaped the fury of the sword were dispersed among the legions,
and banished to the frontiers of the empire, where they might be
serviceable without again becoming dangerous. 75 By suppressing
the troops which were usually stationed in Rome, Constantine gave
the fatal blow to the dignity of the senate and people, and the
disarmed capital was exposed without protection to the insults or
neglect of its distant master. We may observe, that in this last
effort to preserve their expiring freedom, the Romans, from the
apprehension of a tribute, had raised Maxentius to the throne. He
exacted that tribute from the senate under the name of a free
gift. They implored the assistance of Constantine. He vanquished
the tyrant, and converted the free gift into a perpetual tax. The
senators, according to the declaration which was required of
their property, were divided into several classes. The most
opulent paid annually eight pounds of gold, the next class paid
four, the last two, and those whose poverty might have claimed an
exemption, were assessed, however, at seven pieces of gold.
Besides the regular members of the senate, their sons, their
descendants, and even their relations, enjoyed the vain
privileges, and supported the heavy burdens, of the senatorial
order; nor will it any longer excite our surprise, that
Constantine should be attentive to increase the number of persons
who were included under so useful a description. 76 After the
defeat of Maxentius, the victorious emperor passed no more than
two or three months in Rome, which he visited twice during the
remainder of his life, to celebrate the solemn festivals of the
tenth and of the twentieth years of his reign. Constantine was
almost perpetually in motion, to exercise the legions, or to
inspect the state of the provinces. Treves, Milan, Aquileia,
Sirmium, Naissus, and Thessalonica, were the occasional places of
his residence, till he founded a new Rome on the confines of
Europe and Asia. 77
75 (return) [ Prætoriæ legiones ac subsidia factionibus aptiora
quam urbi Romæ, sublata penitus; simul arma atque usus indumenti
militaris Aurelius Victor. Zosimus (l. ii. p. 89) mentions this
fact as an historian, and it is very pompously celebrated in the
ninth Panegyric.]
76 (return) [ Ex omnibus provinciis optimates viros Curiæ tuæ
pigneraveris ut Senatus dignitas.... ex totius Orbis flore
consisteret. Nazarius in Panegyr. Vet x. 35. The word
pigneraveris might almost seem maliciously chosen. Concerning the
senatorial tax, see Zosimus, l. ii. p. 115, the second title of
the sixth book of the Theodosian Code, with Godefroy’s
Commentary, and Memoires de l’Academic des Inscriptions, tom.
xxviii. p. 726.]
77 (return) [ From the Theodosian Code, we may now begin to trace
the motions of the emperors; but the dates both of time and place
have frequently been altered by the carelessness of
transcribers.]
Before Constantine marched into Italy, he had secured the
friendship, or at least the neutrality, of Licinius, the Illyrian
emperor. He had promised his sister Constantia in marriage to
that prince; but the celebration of the nuptials was deferred
till after the conclusion of the war, and the interview of the
two emperors at Milan, which was appointed for that purpose,
appeared to cement the union of their families and interests. 78
In the midst of the public festivity they were suddenly obliged
to take leave of each other. An inroad of the Franks summoned
Constantine to the Rhine, and the hostile approach of the
sovereign of Asia demanded the immediate presence of Licinius.
Maximin had been the secret ally of Maxentius, and without being
discouraged by his fate, he resolved to try the fortune of a
civil war. He moved out of Syria, towards the frontiers of
Bithynia, in the depth of winter. The season was severe and
tempestuous; great numbers of men as well as horses perished in
the snow; and as the roads were broken up by incessant rains, he
was obliged to leave behind him a considerable part of the heavy
baggage, which was unable to follow the rapidity of his forced
marches. By this extraordinary effort of diligence, he arrived
with a harassed but formidable army, on the banks of the Thracian
Bosphorus before the lieutenants of Licinius were apprised of his
hostile intentions. Byzantium surrendered to the power of
Maximin, after a siege of eleven days. He was detained some days
under the walls of Heraclea; and he had no sooner taken
possession of that city than he was alarmed by the intelligence
that Licinius had pitched his camp at the distance of only
eighteen miles. After a fruitless negotiation, in which the two
princes attempted to seduce the fidelity of each other’s
adherents, they had recourse to arms. The emperor of the East
commanded a disciplined and veteran army of above seventy
thousand men; and Licinius, who had collected about thirty
thousand Illyrians, was at first oppressed by the superiority of
numbers. His military skill, and the firmness of his troops,
restored the day, and obtained a decisive victory. The incredible
speed which Maximin exerted in his flight is much more celebrated
than his prowess in the battle. Twenty-four hours afterwards he
was seen, pale, trembling, and without his Imperial ornaments, at
Nicomedia, one hundred and sixty miles from the place of his
defeat. The wealth of Asia was yet unexhausted; and though the
flower of his veterans had fallen in the late action, he had
still power, if he could obtain time, to draw very numerous
levies from Syria and Egypt. But he survived his misfortune only
three or four months. His death, which happened at Tarsus, was
variously ascribed to despair, to poison, and to the divine
justice. As Maximin was alike destitute of abilities and of
virtue, he was lamented neither by the people nor by the
soldiers. The provinces of the East, delivered from the terrors
of civil war, cheerfully acknowledged the authority of Licinius.
79
78 (return) [ Zosimus (l. ii. p. 89) observes, that before the
war the sister of Constantine had been betrothed to Licinius.
According to the younger Victor, Diocletian was invited to the
nuptials; but having ventured to plead his age and infirmities,
he received a second letter, filled with reproaches for his
supposed partiality to the cause of Maxentius and Maximin.]
79 (return) [ Zosimus mentions the defeat and death of Maximin as
ordinary events; but Lactantius expatiates on them, (de M. P. c.
45-50,) ascribing them to the miraculous interposition of Heaven.
Licinius at that time was one of the protectors of the church.]
The vanquished emperor left behind him two children, a boy of
about eight, and a girl of about seven, years old. Their
inoffensive age might have excited compassion; but the compassion
of Licinius was a very feeble resource, nor did it restrain him
from _extinguishing_ the name and memory of his adversary. The
death of Severianus will admit of less excuse, as it was dictated
neither by revenge nor by policy. The conqueror had never
received any injury from the father of that unhappy youth, and
the short and obscure reign of Severus, in a distant part of the
empire, was already forgotten. But the execution of Candidianus
was an act of the blackest cruelty and ingratitude. He was the
natural son of Galerius, the friend and benefactor of Licinius.
The prudent father had judged him too young to sustain the weight
of a diadem; but he hoped that, under the protection of princes
who were indebted to his favor for the Imperial purple,
Candidianus might pass a secure and honorable life. He was now
advancing towards the twentieth year of his age, and the royalty
of his birth, though unsupported either by merit or ambition, was
sufficient to exasperate the jealous mind of Licinius. 80 To
these innocent and illustrious victims of his tyranny, we must
add the wife and daughter of the emperor Diocletian. When that
prince conferred on Galerius the title of Cæsar, he had given him
in marriage his daughter Valeria, whose melancholy adventures
might furnish a very singular subject for tragedy. She had
fulfilled and even surpassed the duties of a wife. As she had not
any children herself, she condescended to adopt the illegitimate
son of her husband, and invariably displayed towards the unhappy
Candidianus the tenderness and anxiety of a real mother. After
the death of Galerius, her ample possessions provoked the
avarice, and her personal attractions excited the desires, of his
successor, Maximin. 81 He had a wife still alive; but divorce was
permitted by the Roman law, and the fierce passions of the tyrant
demanded an immediate gratification. The answer of Valeria was
such as became the daughter and widow of emperors; but it was
tempered by the prudence which her defenceless condition
compelled her to observe. She represented to the persons whom
Maximin had employed on this occasion, “that even if honor could
permit a woman of her character and dignity to entertain a
thought of second nuptials, decency at least must forbid her to
listen to his addresses at a time when the ashes of her husband
and his benefactor were still warm, and while the sorrows of her
mind were still expressed by her mourning garments. She ventured
to declare, that she could place very little confidence in the
professions of a man whose cruel inconstancy was capable of
repudiating a faithful and affectionate wife.” 82 On this
repulse, the love of Maximin was converted into fury; and as
witnesses and judges were always at his disposal, it was easy for
him to cover his fury with an appearance of legal proceedings,
and to assault the reputation as well as the happiness of
Valeria. Her estates were confiscated, her eunuchs and domestics
devoted to the most inhuman tortures; and several innocent and
respectable matrons, who were honored with her friendship,
suffered death, on a false accusation of adultery. The empress
herself, together with her mother Prisca, was condemned to exile;
and as they were ignominiously hurried from place to place before
they were confined to a sequestered village in the deserts of
Syria, they exposed their shame and distress to the provinces of
the East, which, during thirty years, had respected their august
dignity. Diocletian made several ineffectual efforts to alleviate
the misfortunes of his daughter; and, as the last return that he
expected for the Imperial purple, which he had conferred upon
Maximin, he entreated that Valeria might be permitted to share
his retirement of Salona, and to close the eyes of her afflicted
father. 83 He entreated; but as he could no longer threaten, his
prayers were received with coldness and disdain; and the pride of
Maximin was gratified, in treating Diocletian as a suppliant, and
his daughter as a criminal. The death of Maximin seemed to assure
the empresses of a favorable alteration in their fortune. The
public disorders relaxed the vigilance of their guard, and they
easily found means to escape from the place of their exile, and
to repair, though with some precaution, and in disguise, to the
court of Licinius. His behavior, in the first days of his reign,
and the honorable reception which he gave to young Candidianus,
inspired Valeria with a secret satisfaction, both on her own
account and on that of her adopted son. But these grateful
prospects were soon succeeded by horror and astonishment; and the
bloody executions which stained the palace of Nicomedia
sufficiently convinced her that the throne of Maximin was filled
by a tyrant more inhuman than himself. Valeria consulted her
safety by a hasty flight, and, still accompanied by her mother
Prisca, they wandered above fifteen months 84 through the
provinces, concealed in the disguise of plebeian habits. They
were at length discovered at Thessalonica; and as the sentence of
their death was already pronounced, they were immediately
beheaded, and their bodies thrown into the sea. The people gazed
on the melancholy spectacle; but their grief and indignation were
suppressed by the terrors of a military guard. Such was the
unworthy fate of the wife and daughter of Diocletian. We lament
their misfortunes, we cannot discover their crimes; and whatever
idea we may justly entertain of the cruelty of Licinius, it
remains a matter of surprise that he was not contented with some
more secret and decent method of revenge. 85
80 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 50. Aurelius Victor touches
on the different conduct of Licinius, and of Constantine, in the
use of victory.]
81 (return) [ The sensual appetites of Maximin were gratified at
the expense of his subjects. His eunuchs, who forced away wives
and virgins, examined their naked charms with anxious curiosity,
lest any part of their body should be found unworthy of the royal
embraces. Coyness and disdain were considered as treason, and the
obstinate fair one was condemned to be drowned. A custom was
gradually introduced, that no person should marry a wife without
the permission of the emperor, “ut ipse in omnibus nuptiis
prægustator esset.” Lactantius de M. P. c. 38.]
82 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 39.]
83 (return) [ Diocletian at last sent cognatum suum, quendam
militarem æ potentem virum, to intercede in favor of his
daughter, (Lactantius de M. P. c. 41.) We are not sufficiently
acquainted with the history of these times to point out the
person who was employed.]
84 (return) [ Valeria quoque per varias provincias quindecim
mensibus plebeio cultu pervagata. Lactantius de M. P. c. 51.
There is some doubt whether we should compute the fifteen months
from the moment of her exile, or from that of her escape. The
expression of parvagata seems to denote the latter; but in that
case we must suppose that the treatise of Lactantius was written
after the first civil war between Licinius and Constantine. See
Cuper, p. 254.]
85 (return) [ Ita illis pudicitia et conditio exitio fuit.
Lactantius de M. P. c. 51. He relates the misfortunes of the
innocent wife and daughter of Discletian with a very natural
mixture of pity and exultation.]
The Roman world was now divided between Constantine and Licinius,
the former of whom was master of the West, and the latter of the
East. It might perhaps have been expected that the conquerors,
fatigued with civil war, and connected by a private as well as
public alliance, would have renounced, or at least would have
suspended, any further designs of ambition. And yet a year had
scarcely elapsed after the death of Maximin, before the
victorious emperors turned their arms against each other. The
genius, the success, and the aspiring temper of Constantine, may
seem to mark him out as the aggressor; but the perfidious
character of Licinius justifies the most unfavorable suspicions,
and by the faint light which history reflects on this
transaction, 86 we may discover a conspiracy fomented by his arts
against the authority of his colleague. Constantine had lately
given his sister Anastasia in marriage to Bassianus, a man of a
considerable family and fortune, and had elevated his new kinsman
to the rank of Cæsar. According to the system of government
instituted by Diocletian, Italy, and perhaps Africa, were
designed for his department in the empire. But the performance of
the promised favor was either attended with so much delay, or
accompanied with so many unequal conditions, that the fidelity of
Bassianus was alienated rather than secured by the honorable
distinction which he had obtained. His nomination had been
ratified by the consent of Licinius; and that artful prince, by
the means of his emissaries, soon contrived to enter into a
secret and dangerous correspondence with the new Cæsar, to
irritate his discontents, and to urge him to the rash enterprise
of extorting by violence what he might in vain solicit from the
justice of Constantine. But the vigilant emperor discovered the
conspiracy before it was ripe for execution; and after solemnly
renouncing the alliance of Bassianus, despoiled him of the
purple, and inflicted the deserved punishment on his treason and
ingratitude. The haughty refusal of Licinius, when he was
required to deliver up the criminals who had taken refuge in his
dominions, confirmed the suspicions already entertained of his
perfidy; and the indignities offered at Æmona, on the frontiers
of Italy, to the statues of Constantine, became the signal of
discord between the two princes. 87
86 (return) [ The curious reader, who consults the Valesian
fragment, p. 713, will probably accuse me of giving a bold and
licentious paraphrase; but if he considers it with attention, he
will acknowledge that my interpretation is probable and
consistent.]
87 (return) [ The situation of Æmona, or, as it is now called,
Laybach, in Carniola, (D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p.
187,) may suggest a conjecture. As it lay to the north-east of
the Julian Alps, that important territory became a natural object
of dispute between the sovereigns of Italy and of Illyricum.]
The first battle was fought near Cibalis, a city of Pannonia,
situated on the River Save, about fifty miles above Sirmium. 88
From the inconsiderable forces which in this important contest
two such powerful monarchs brought into the field, it may be
inferred that the one was suddenly provoked, and that the other
was unexpectedly surprised. The emperor of the West had only
twenty thousand, and the sovereign of the East no more than five
and thirty thousand, men. The inferiority of number was, however,
compensated by the advantage of the ground. Constantine had taken
post in a defile about half a mile in breadth, between a steep
hill and a deep morass, and in that situation he steadily
expected and repulsed the first attack of the enemy. He pursued
his success, and advanced into the plain. But the veteran legions
of Illyricum rallied under the standard of a leader who had been
trained to arms in the school of Probus and Diocletian. The
missile weapons on both sides were soon exhausted; the two
armies, with equal valor, rushed to a closer engagement of swords
and spears, and the doubtful contest had already lasted from the
dawn of the day to a late hour of the evening, when the right
wing, which Constantine led in person, made a vigorous and
decisive charge. The judicious retreat of Licinius saved the
remainder of his troops from a total defeat; but when he computed
his loss, which amounted to more than twenty thousand men, he
thought it unsafe to pass the night in the presence of an active
and victorious enemy. Abandoning his camp and magazines, he
marched away with secrecy and diligence at the head of the
greatest part of his cavalry, and was soon removed beyond the
danger of a pursuit. His diligence preserved his wife, his son,
and his treasures, which he had deposited at Sirmium. Licinius
passed through that city, and breaking down the bridge on the
Save, hastened to collect a new army in Dacia and Thrace. In his
flight he bestowed the precarious title of Cæsar on Valens, his
general of the Illyrian frontier. 89
88 (return) [ Cibalis or Cibalæ (whose name is still preserved in
the obscure ruins of Swilei) was situated about fifty miles from
Sirmium, the capital of Illyricum, and about one hundred from
Taurunum, or Belgrade, and the conflux of the Danube and the
Save. The Roman garrisons and cities on those rivers are finely
illustrated by M. d’Anville in a memoir inserted in l’Academie
des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii.]
89 (return) [ Zosimus (l. ii. p. 90, 91) gives a very particular
account of this battle; but the descriptions of Zosimus are
rhetorical rather than military]
Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The
Empire.—Part IV.
The plain of Mardia in Thrace was the theatre of a second battle
no less obstinate and bloody than the former. The troops on both
sides displayed the same valor and discipline; and the victory
was once more decided by the superior abilities of Constantine,
who directed a body of five thousand men to gain an advantageous
height, from whence, during the heat of the action, they attacked
the rear of the enemy, and made a very considerable slaughter.
The troops of Licinius, however, presenting a double front, still
maintained their ground, till the approach of night put an end to
the combat, and secured their retreat towards the mountains of
Macedonia. 90 The loss of two battles, and of his bravest
veterans, reduced the fierce spirit of Licinius to sue for peace.
His ambassador Mistrianus was admitted to the audience of
Constantine: he expatiated on the common topics of moderation and
humanity, which are so familiar to the eloquence of the
vanquished; represented in the most insinuating language, that
the event of the war was still doubtful, whilst its inevitable
calamities were alike pernicious to both the contending parties;
and declared that he was authorized to propose a lasting and
honorable peace in the name of the _two_ emperors his masters.
Constantine received the mention of Valens with indignation and
contempt. “It was not for such a purpose,” he sternly replied,
“that we have advanced from the shores of the western ocean in an
uninterrupted course of combats and victories, that, after
rejecting an ungrateful kinsman, we should accept for our
colleague a contemptible slave. The abdication of Valens is the
first article of the treaty.” 91 It was necessary to accept this
humiliating condition; and the unhappy Valens, after a reign of a
few days, was deprived of the purple and of his life. As soon as
this obstacle was removed, the tranquillity of the Roman world
was easily restored. The successive defeats of Licinius had
ruined his forces, but they had displayed his courage and
abilities. His situation was almost desperate, but the efforts of
despair are sometimes formidable, and the good sense of
Constantine preferred a great and certain advantage to a third
trial of the chance of arms. He consented to leave his rival, or,
as he again styled Licinius, his friend and brother, in the
possession of Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt; but the
provinces of Pannonia, Dalmatia, Dacia, Macedonia, and Greece,
were yielded to the Western empire, and the dominions of
Constantine now extended from the confines of Caledonia to the
extremity of Peloponnesus. It was stipulated by the same treaty,
that three royal youths, the sons of emperors, should be called
to the hopes of the succession. Crispus and the young Constantine
were soon afterwards declared Cæsars in the West, while the
younger Licinius was invested with the same dignity in the East.
In this double proportion of honors, the conqueror asserted the
superiority of his arms and power. 92
90 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 92, 93. Anonym. Valesian. p.
713. The Epitomes furnish some circumstances; but they frequently
confound the two wars between Licinius and Constantine.]
91 (return) [ Petrus Patricius in Excerpt. Legat. p. 27. If it
should be thought that signifies more properly a son-in-law, we
might conjecture that Constantine, assuming the name as well as
the duties of a father, had adopted his younger brothers and
sisters, the children of Theodora. But in the best authors
sometimes signifies a husband, sometimes a father-in-law, and
sometimes a kinsman in general. See Spanheim, Observat. ad
Julian. Orat. i. p. 72.]
92 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 93. Anonym. Valesian. p. 713.
Eutropius, x. v. Aurelius Victor, Euseb. in Chron. Sozomen, l. i.
c. 2. Four of these writers affirm that the promotion of the
Cæsars was an article of the treaty. It is, however, certain,
that the younger Constantine and Licinius were not yet born; and
it is highly probable that the promotion was made the 1st of
March, A. D. 317. The treaty had probably stipulated that the two
Cæsars might be created by the western, and one only by the
eastern emperor; but each of them reserved to himself the choice
of the persons.]
The reconciliation of Constantine and Licinius, though it was
imbittered by resentment and jealousy, by the remembrance of
recent injuries, and by the apprehension of future dangers,
maintained, however, above eight years, the tranquility of the
Roman world. As a very regular series of the Imperial laws
commences about this period, it would not be difficult to
transcribe the civil regulations which employed the leisure of
Constantine. But the most important of his institutions are
intimately connected with the new system of policy and religion,
which was not perfectly established till the last and peaceful
years of his reign. There are many of his laws, which, as far as
they concern the rights and property of individuals, and the
practice of the bar, are more properly referred to the private
than to the public jurisprudence of the empire; and he published
many edicts of so local and temporary a nature, that they would
ill deserve the notice of a general history. Two laws, however,
may be selected from the crowd; the one for its importance, the
other for its singularity; the former for its remarkable
benevolence, the latter for its excessive severity. 1. The horrid
practice, so familiar to the ancients, of exposing or murdering
their new-born infants, was become every day more frequent in the
provinces, and especially in Italy. It was the effect of
distress; and the distress was principally occasioned by the
intolerant burden of taxes, and by the vexatious as well as cruel
prosecutions of the officers of the revenue against their
insolvent debtors. The less opulent or less industrious part of
mankind, instead of rejoicing in an increase of family, deemed it
an act of paternal tenderness to release their children from the
impending miseries of a life which they themselves were unable to
support. The humanity of Constantine, moved, perhaps, by some
recent and extraordinary instances of despair, engaged him to
address an edict to all the cities of Italy, and afterwards of
Africa, directing immediate and sufficient relief to be given to
those parents who should produce before the magistrates the
children whom their own poverty would not allow them to educate.
But the promise was too liberal, and the provision too vague, to
effect any general or permanent benefit. 93 The law, though it
may merit some praise, served rather to display than to alleviate
the public distress. It still remains an authentic monument to
contradict and confound those venal orators, who were too well
satisfied with their own situation to discover either vice or
misery under the government of a generous sovereign. 94 2. The
laws of Constantine against rapes were dictated with very little
indulgence for the most amiable weaknesses of human nature; since
the description of that crime was applied not only to the brutal
violence which compelled, but even to the gentle seduction which
might persuade, an unmarried woman, under the age of twenty-five,
to leave the house of her parents. “The successful ravisher was
punished with death;” and as if simple death was inadequate to
the enormity of his guilt, he was either burnt alive, or torn in
pieces by wild beasts in the amphitheatre. The virgin’s
declaration, that she had been carried away with her own consent,
instead of saving her lover, exposed her to share his fate. The
duty of a public prosecution was intrusted to the parents of the
guilty or unfortunate maid; and if the sentiments of nature
prevailed on them to dissemble the injury, and to repair by a
subsequent marriage the honor of their family, they were
themselves punished by exile and confiscation. The slaves,
whether male or female, who were convicted of having been
accessory to rape or seduction, were burnt alive, or put to death
by the ingenious torture of pouring down their throats a quantity
of melted lead. As the crime was of a public kind, the accusation
was permitted even to strangers.9401
9401 (return) [ This explanation appears to me little probable.
Godefroy has made a much more happy conjecture, supported by all
the historical circumstances which relate to this edict. It was
published the 12th of May, A. D. 315. at Naissus in Pannonia, the
birthplace of Constantine. The 8th of October, in that year,
Constantine gained the victory of Cibalis over Licinius. He was
yet uncertain as to the fate of the war: the Christians, no
doubt, whom he favored, had prophesied his victory. Lactantius,
then preceptor of Crispus, had just written his work upon
Christianity, (his Divine Institutes;) he had dedicated it to
Constantine. In this book he had inveighed with great force
against infanticide, and the exposure of infants, (l. vi. c. 20.)
Is it not probable that Constantine had read this work, that he
had conversed on the subject with Lactantius, that he was moved,
among other things, by the passage to which I have referred, and
in the first transport of his enthusiasm, he published the edict
in question? The whole of the edict bears the character of
precipitation, of excitement, (entrainement,) rather than of
deliberate reflection—the extent of the promises, the
indefiniteness of the means, of the conditions, and of the time
during which the parents might have a right to the succor of the
state. Is there not reason to believe that the humanity of
Constantine was excited by the influence of Lactantius, by that
of the principles of Christianity, and of the Christians
themselves, already in high esteem with the emperor, rather than
by some “extraordinary instances of despair”? * * * See
Hegewisch, Essai Hist. sur les Finances Romaines. The edict for
Africa was not published till 322: of that we may say in truth
that its origin was in the misery of the times. Africa had
suffered much from the cruelty of Maxentius. Constantine says
expressly, that he had learned that parents, under the pressure
of distress, were there selling their children. This decree is
more distinct, more maturely deliberated than the former; the
succor which was to be given to the parents, and the source from
which it was to be derived, are determined. (Code Theod. l. xi.
tit. 27, c 2.) If the direct utility of these laws may not have
been very extensive, they had at least the great and happy effect
of establishing a decisive opposition between the principles of
the government and those which, at this time, had prevailed among
the subjects of the empire.—G.]
The commencement of the action was not limited to any term of
years, and the consequences of the sentence were extended to the
innocent offspring of such an irregular union. 95 But whenever
the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigor
of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of
mankind. The most odious parts of this edict were softened or
repealed in the subsequent reigns; 96 and even Constantine
himself very frequently alleviated, by partial acts of mercy, the
stern temper of his general institutions. Such, indeed, was the
singular humor of that emperor, who showed himself as indulgent,
and even remiss, in the execution of his laws, as he was severe,
and even cruel, in the enacting of them. It is scarcely possible
to observe a more decisive symptom of weakness, either in the
character of the prince, or in the constitution of the
government. 97
93 (return) [ Codex Theodosian. l. xi. tit. 27, tom. iv. p. 188,
with Godefroy’s observations. See likewise l. v. tit. 7, 8.]
94 (return) [ Omnia foris placita, domi prospera, annonæ
ubertate, fructuum copia, &c. Panegyr. Vet. x. 38. This oration
of Nazarius was pronounced on the day of the Quinquennalia of the
Cæsars, the 1st of March, A. D. 321.]
95 (return) [ See the edict of Constantine, addressed to the
Roman people, in the Theodosian Code, l. ix. tit. 24, tom. iii.
p. 189.]
96 (return) [ His son very fairly assigns the true reason of the
repeal: “Na sub specie atrocioris judicii aliqua in ulciscendo
crimine dilatio næ ceretur.” Cod. Theod. tom. iii. p. 193]
97 (return) [ Eusebius (in Vita Constant. l. iii. c. 1) chooses
to affirm, that in the reign of this hero, the sword of justice
hung idle in the hands of the magistrates. Eusebius himself, (l.
iv. c. 29, 54,) and the Theodosian Code, will inform us that this
excessive lenity was not owing to the want either of atrocious
criminals or of penal laws.]
The civil administration was sometimes interrupted by the
military defence of the empire. Crispus, a youth of the most
amiable character, who had received with the title of Cæsar the
command of the Rhine, distinguished his conduct, as well as
valor, in several victories over the Franks and Alemanni, and
taught the barbarians of that frontier to dread the eldest son of
Constantine, and the grandson of Constantius. 98 The emperor
himself had assumed the more difficult and important province of
the Danube. The Goths, who in the time of Claudius and Aurelian
had felt the weight of the Roman arms, respected the power of the
empire, even in the midst of its intestine divisions. But the
strength of that warlike nation was now restored by a peace of
near fifty years; a new generation had arisen, who no longer
remembered the misfortunes of ancient days; the Sarmatians of the
Lake Mæotis followed the Gothic standard either as subjects or as
allies, and their united force was poured upon the countries of
Illyricum. Campona, Margus, and Benonia, 982 appear to have been
the scenes of several memorable sieges and battles; 99 and though
Constantine encountered a very obstinate resistance, he prevailed
at length in the contest, and the Goths were compelled to
purchased an ignominious retreat, by restoring the booty and
prisoners which they had taken. Nor was this advantage sufficient
to satisfy the indignation of the emperor. He resolved to
chastise as well as to repulse the insolent barbarians who had
dared to invade the territories of Rome. At the head of his
legions he passed the Danube, after repairing the bridge which
had been constructed by Trajan, penetrated into the strongest
recesses of Dacia, 100 and when he had inflicted a severe
revenge, condescended to give peace to the suppliant Goths, on
condition that, as often as they were required, they should
supply his armies with a body of forty thousand soldiers. 101
Exploits like these were no doubt honorable to Constantine, and
beneficial to the state; but it may surely be questioned, whether
they can justify the exaggerated assertion of Eusebius, that ALL
SCYTHIA, as far as the extremity of the North, divided as it was
into so many names and nations of the most various and savage
manners, had been added by his victorious arms to the Roman
empire. 102
98 (return) [ Nazarius in Panegyr. Vet. x. The victory of Crispus
over the Alemanni is expressed on some medals. * Note: Other
medals are extant, the legends of which commemorate the success
of Constantine over the Sarmatians and other barbarous nations,
Sarmatia Devicta. Victoria Gothica. Debellatori Gentium
Barbarorum. Exuperator Omnium Gentium. St. Martin, note on Le
Beau, i. 148.—M.]
982 (return) [ Campona, Old Buda in Hungary; Margus, Benonia,
Widdin, in Mæsia—G and M.]
99 (return) [ See Zosimus, l. ii. p. 93, 94; though the narrative
of that historian is neither clear nor consistent. The Panegyric
of Optatianus (c. 23) mentions the alliance of the Sarmatians
with the Carpi and Getæ, and points out the several fields of
battle. It is supposed that the Sarmatian games, celebrated in
the month of November, derived their origin from the success of
this war.]
100 (return) [ In the Cæsars of Julian, (p. 329. Commentaire de
Spanheim, p. 252.) Constantine boasts, that he had recovered the
province (Dacia) which Trajan had subdued. But it is insinuated
by Silenus, that the conquests of Constantine were like the
gardens of Adonis, which fade and wither almost the moment they
appear.]
101 (return) [ Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c. 21. I know not
whether we may entirely depend on his authority. Such an alliance
has a very recent air, and scarcely is suited to the maxims of
the beginning of the fourth century.]
102 (return) [ Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. i. c. 8. This
passage, however, is taken from a general declamation on the
greatness of Constantine, and not from any particular account of
the Gothic war.]
In this exalted state of glory, it was impossible that
Constantine should any longer endure a partner in the empire.
Confiding in the superiority of his genius and military power, he
determined, without any previous injury, to exert them for the
destruction of Licinius, whose advanced age and unpopular vices
seemed to offer a very easy conquest. 103 But the old emperor,
awakened by the approaching danger, deceived the expectations of
his friends, as well as of his enemies. Calling forth that spirit
and those abilities by which he had deserved the friendship of
Galerius and the Imperial purple, he prepared himself for the
contest, collected the forces of the East, and soon filled the
plains of Hadrianople with his troops, and the straits of the
Hellespont with his fleet. The army consisted of one hundred and
fifty thousand foot, and fifteen thousand horse; and as the
cavalry was drawn, for the most part, from Phrygia and
Cappadocia, we may conceive a more favorable opinion of the
beauty of the horses, than of the courage and dexterity of their
riders. The fleet was composed of three hundred and fifty galleys
of three ranks of oars. A hundred and thirty of these were
furnished by Egypt and the adjacent coast of Africa. A hundred
and ten sailed from the ports of Phœnicia and the isle of Cyprus;
and the maritime countries of Bithynia, Ionia, and Caria were
likewise obliged to provide a hundred and ten galleys. The troops
of Constantine were ordered to a rendezvous at Thessalonica; they
amounted to above a hundred and twenty thousand horse and foot.
104 Their emperor was satisfied with their martial appearance,
and his army contained more soldiers, though fewer men, than that
of his eastern competitor. The legions of Constantine were levied
in the warlike provinces of Europe; action had confirmed their
discipline, victory had elevated their hopes, and there were
among them a great number of veterans, who, after seventeen
glorious campaigns under the same leader, prepared themselves to
deserve an honorable dismission by a last effort of their valor.
105 But the naval preparations of Constantine were in every
respect much inferior to those of Licinius. The maritime cities
of Greece sent their respective quotas of men and ships to the
celebrated harbor of Piræus, and their united forces consisted of
no more than two hundred small vessels—a very feeble armament, if
it is compared with those formidable fleets which were equipped
and maintained by the republic of Athens during the Peloponnesian
war. 106 Since Italy was no longer the seat of government, the
naval establishments of Misenum and Ravenna had been gradually
neglected; and as the shipping and mariners of the empire were
supported by commerce rather than by war, it was natural that
they should the most abound in the industrious provinces of Egypt
and Asia. It is only surprising that the eastern emperor, who
possessed so great a superiority at sea, should have neglected
the opportunity of carrying an offensive war into the centre of
his rival’s dominions.
103 (return) [ Constantinus tamen, vir ingens, et omnia efficere
nitens quæ animo præparasset, simul principatum totius urbis
affectans, Licinio bellum intulit. Eutropius, x. 5. Zosimus, l.
ii. p 89. The reasons which they have assigned for the first
civil war, may, with more propriety, be applied to the second.]
104 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 94, 95.]
105 (return) [ Constantine was very attentive to the privileges
and comforts of his fellow-veterans, (Conveterani,) as he now
began to style them. See the Theodosian Code, l. vii. tit. 10,
tom. ii. p. 419, 429.]
106 (return) [ Whilst the Athenians maintained the empire of the
sea, their fleet consisted of three, and afterwards of four,
hundred galleys of three ranks of oars, all completely equipped
and ready for immediate service. The arsenal in the port of
Piræus had cost the republic a thousand talents, about two
hundred and sixteen thousand pounds. See Thucydides de Bel.
Pelopon. l. ii. c. 13, and Meursius de Fortuna Attica, c. 19.]
Instead of embracing such an active resolution, which might have
changed the whole face of the war, the prudent Licinius expected
the approach of his rival in a camp near Hadrianople, which he
had fortified with an anxious care that betrayed his apprehension
of the event. Constantine directed his march from Thessalonica
towards that part of Thrace, till he found himself stopped by the
broad and rapid stream of the Hebrus, and discovered the numerous
army of Licinius, which filled the steep ascent of the hill, from
the river to the city of Hadrianople. Many days were spent in
doubtful and distant skirmishes; but at length the obstacles of
the passage and of the attack were removed by the intrepid
conduct of Constantine. In this place we might relate a wonderful
exploit of Constantine, which, though it can scarcely be
paralleled either in poetry or romance, is celebrated, not by a
venal orator devoted to his fortune, but by an historian, the
partial enemy of his fame. We are assured that the valiant
emperor threw himself into the River Hebrus, accompanied only by
_twelve_ horsemen, and that by the effort or terror of his
invincible arm, he broke, slaughtered, and put to flight a host
of a hundred and fifty thousand men. The credulity of Zosimus
prevailed so strongly over his passion, that among the events of
the memorable battle of Hadrianople, he seems to have selected
and embellished, not the most important, but the most marvellous.
The valor and danger of Constantine are attested by a slight
wound which he received in the thigh; but it may be discovered
even from an imperfect narration, and perhaps a corrupted text,
that the victory was obtained no less by the conduct of the
general than by the courage of the hero; that a body of five
thousand archers marched round to occupy a thick wood in the rear
of the enemy, whose attention was diverted by the construction of
a bridge, and that Licinius, perplexed by so many artful
evolutions, was reluctantly drawn from his advantageous post to
combat on equal ground on the plain. The contest was no longer
equal. His confused multitude of new levies was easily vanquished
by the experienced veterans of the West. Thirty-four thousand men
are reported to have been slain. The fortified camp of Licinius
was taken by assault the evening of the battle; the greater part
of the fugitives, who had retired to the mountains, surrendered
themselves the next day to the discretion of the conqueror; and
his rival, who could no longer keep the field, confined himself
within the walls of Byzantium. 107
107 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 95, 96. This great battle is
described in the Valesian fragment, (p. 714,) in a clear though
concise manner. “Licinius vero circum Hadrianopolin maximo
exercitu latera ardui montis impleverat; illuc toto agmine
Constantinus inflexit. Cum bellum terra marique traheretur,
quamvis per arduum suis nitentibus, attamen disciplina militari
et felicitate, Constantinus Licinu confusum et sine ordine
agentem vicit exercitum; leviter femore sau ciatus.”]
The siege of Byzantium, which was immediately undertaken by
Constantine, was attended with great labor and uncertainty. In
the late civil wars, the fortifications of that place, so justly
considered as the key of Europe and Asia, had been repaired and
strengthened; and as long as Licinius remained master of the sea,
the garrison was much less exposed to the danger of famine than
the army of the besiegers. The naval commanders of Constantine
were summoned to his camp, and received his positive orders to
force the passage of the Hellespont, as the fleet of Licinius,
instead of seeking and destroying their feeble enemy, continued
inactive in those narrow straits, where its superiority of
numbers was of little use or advantage. Crispus, the emperor’s
eldest son, was intrusted with the execution of this daring
enterprise, which he performed with so much courage and success,
that he deserved the esteem, and most probably excited the
jealousy, of his father. The engagement lasted two days; and in
the evening of the first, the contending fleets, after a
considerable and mutual loss, retired into their respective
harbors of Europe and Asia. The second day, about noon, a strong
south wind 108 sprang up, which carried the vessels of Crispus
against the enemy; and as the casual advantage was improved by
his skilful intrepidity, he soon obtained a complete victory. A
hundred and thirty vessels were destroyed, five thousand men were
slain, and Amandus, the admiral of the Asiatic fleet, escaped
with the utmost difficulty to the shores of Chalcedon. As soon as
the Hellespont was open, a plentiful convoy of provisions flowed
into the camp of Constantine, who had already advanced the
operations of the siege. He constructed artificial mounds of
earth of an equal height with the ramparts of Byzantium. The
lofty towers which were erected on that foundation galled the
besieged with large stones and darts from the military engines,
and the battering rams had shaken the walls in several places. If
Licinius persisted much longer in the defence, he exposed himself
to be involved in the ruin of the place. Before he was
surrounded, he prudently removed his person and treasures to
Chalcedon in Asia; and as he was always desirous of associating
companions to the hopes and dangers of his fortune, he now
bestowed the title of Cæsar on Martinianus, who exercised one of
the most important offices of the empire. 109
108 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 97, 98. The current always sets
out of the Hellespont; and when it is assisted by a north wind,
no vessel can attempt the passage. A south wind renders the force
of the current almost imperceptible. See Tournefort’s Voyage au
Levant, Let. xi.]
109 (return) [ Aurelius Victor. Zosimus, l. ii. p. 93. According
to the latter, Martinianus was Magister Officiorum, (he uses the
Latin appellation in Greek.) Some medals seem to intimate, that
during his short reign he received the title of Augustus.]
Such were still the resources, and such the abilities, of
Licinius, that, after so many successive defeats, he collected in
Bithynia a new army of fifty or sixty thousand men, while the
activity of Constantine was employed in the siege of Byzantium.
The vigilant emperor did not, however, neglect the last struggles
of his antagonist. A considerable part of his victorious army was
transported over the Bosphorus in small vessels, and the decisive
engagement was fought soon after their landing on the heights of
Chrysopolis, or, as it is now called, of Scutari. The troops of
Licinius, though they were lately raised, ill armed, and worse
disciplined, made head against their conquerors with fruitless
but desperate valor, till a total defeat, and a slaughter of five
and twenty thousand men, irretrievably determined the fate of
their leader. 110 He retired to Nicomedia, rather with the view
of gaining some time for negotiation, than with the hope of any
effectual defence. Constantia, his wife, and the sister of
Constantine, interceded with her brother in favor of her husband,
and obtained from his policy, rather than from his compassion, a
solemn promise, confirmed by an oath, that after the sacrifice of
Martinianus, and the resignation of the purple, Licinius himself
should be permitted to pass the remainder of this life in peace
and affluence. The behavior of Constantia, and her relation to
the contending parties, naturally recalls the remembrance of that
virtuous matron who was the sister of Augustus, and the wife of
Antony. But the temper of mankind was altered, and it was no
longer esteemed infamous for a Roman to survive his honor and
independence. Licinius solicited and accepted the pardon of his
offences, laid himself and his purple at the feet of his _lord_
and _master_, was raised from the ground with insulting pity, was
admitted the same day to the Imperial banquet, and soon
afterwards was sent away to Thessalonica, which had been chosen
for the place of his confinement. 111 His confinement was soon
terminated by death, and it is doubtful whether a tumult of the
soldiers, or a decree of the senate, was suggested as the motive
for his execution. According to the rules of tyranny, he was
accused of forming a conspiracy, and of holding a treasonable
correspondence with the barbarians; but as he was never
convicted, either by his own conduct or by any legal evidence, we
may perhaps be allowed, from his weakness, to presume his
innocence. 112 The memory of Licinius was branded with infamy,
his statues were thrown down, and by a hasty edict, of such
mischievous tendency that it was almost immediately corrected,
all his laws, and all the judicial proceedings of his reign, were
at once abolished. 113 By this victory of Constantine, the Roman
world was again united under the authority of one emperor,
thirty-seven years after Diocletian had divided his power and
provinces with his associate Maximian.
110 (return) [ Eusebius (in Vita Constantin. I. ii. c. 16, 17)
ascribes this decisive victory to the pious prayers of the
emperor. The Valesian fragment (p. 714) mentions a body of Gothic
auxiliaries, under their chief Aliquaca, who adhered to the party
of Licinius.]
111 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 102. Victor Junior in Epitome.
Anonym. Valesian. p. 714.]
112 (return) [ Contra religionem sacramenti Thessalonicæ privatus
occisus est. Eutropius, x. 6; and his evidence is confirmed by
Jerome (in Chronic.) as well as by Zosimus, l. ii. p. 102. The
Valesian writer is the only one who mentions the soldiers, and it
is Zonaras alone who calls in the assistance of the senate.
Eusebius prudently slides over this delicate transaction. But
Sozomen, a century afterwards, ventures to assert the treasonable
practices of Licinius.]
113 (return) [ See the Theodosian Code, l. xv. tit. 15, tom. v. p
404, 405. These edicts of Constantine betray a degree of passion
and precipitation very unbecoming the character of a lawgiver.]
The successive steps of the elevation of Constantine, from his
first assuming the purple at York, to the resignation of
Licinius, at Nicomedia, have been related with some minuteness
and precision, not only as the events are in themselves both
interesting and important, but still more, as they contributed to
the decline of the empire by the expense of blood and treasure,
and by the perpetual increase, as well of the taxes, as of the
military establishment. The foundation of Constantinople, and the
establishment of the Christian religion, were the immediate and
memorable consequences of this revolution.
Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part I.
The Progress Of The Christian Religion, And The Sentiments, Manners,
Numbers, And Condition Of The Primitive Christians.101
101 (return) [ In spite of my resolution, Lardner led me to look
through the famous fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of Gibbon. I
could not lay them down without finishing them. The causes
assigned, in the fifteenth chapter, for the diffusion of
Christianity, must, no doubt, have contributed to it materially;
but I doubt whether he saw them all. Perhaps those which he
enumerates are among the most obvious. They might all be safely
adopted by a Christian writer, with some change in the language
and manner. Mackintosh see Life, i. p. 244.—M.]
A candid but rational inquiry into the progress and establishment
of Christianity may be considered as a very essential part of the
history of the Roman empire. While that great body was invaded by
open violence, or undermined by slow decay, a pure and humble
religion gently insinuated itself into the minds of men, grew up
in silence and obscurity, derived new vigor from opposition, and
finally erected the triumphant banner of the Cross on the ruins
of the Capitol. Nor was the influence of Christianity confined to
the period or to the limits of the Roman empire. After a
revolution of thirteen or fourteen centuries, that religion is
still professed by the nations of Europe, the most distinguished
portion of human kind in arts and learning as well as in arms. By
the industry and zeal of the Europeans, it has been widely
diffused to the most distant shores of Asia and Africa; and by
the means of their colonies has been firmly established from
Canada to Chili, in a world unknown to the ancients.
But this inquiry, however useful or entertaining, is attended
with two peculiar difficulties. The scanty and suspicious
materials of ecclesiastical history seldom enable us to dispel
the dark cloud that hangs over the first age of the church. The
great law of impartiality too often obliges us to reveal the
imperfections of the uninspired teachers and believers of the
gospel; and, to a careless observer, _their_ faults may seem to
cast a shade on the faith which they professed. But the scandal
of the pious Christian, and the fallacious triumph of the
Infidel, should cease as soon as they recollect not only _by
whom_, but likewise _to whom_, the Divine Revelation was given.
The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing
Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native
purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He
must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption,
which she contracted in a long residence upon earth, among a weak
and degenerate race of beings. 102
102 (return) [ The art of Gibbon, or at least the unfair
impression produced by these two memorable chapters, consists in
confounding together, in one undistinguishable mass, the origin
and apostolic propagation of the Christian religion with its
later progress. The main question, the divine origin of the
religion, is dexterously eluded or speciously conceded; his plan
enables him to commence his account, in most parts, below the
apostolic times; and it is only by the strength of the dark
coloring with which he has brought out the failings and the
follies of succeeding ages, that a shadow of doubt and suspicion
is thrown back on the primitive period of Christianity. Divest
this whole passage of the latent sarcasm betrayed by the
subsequent one of the whole disquisition, and it might commence a
Christian history, written in the most Christian spirit of
candor.—M.]
Our curiosity is naturally prompted to inquire by what means the
Christian faith obtained so remarkable a victory over the
established religions of the earth. To this inquiry, an obvious
but satisfactory answer may be returned; that it was owing to the
convincing evidence of the doctrine itself, and to the ruling
providence of its great Author. But as truth and reason seldom
find so favorable a reception in the world, and as the wisdom of
Providence frequently condescends to use the passions of the
human heart, and the general circumstances of mankind, as
instruments to execute its purpose, we may still be permitted,
though with becoming submission, to ask, not indeed what were the
first, but what were the secondary causes of the rapid growth of
the Christian church. It will, perhaps, appear, that it was most
effectually favored and assisted by the five following causes:
I. The inflexible, and if we may use the expression, the
intolerant zeal of the Christians, derived, it is true, from the
Jewish religion, but purified from the narrow and unsocial
spirit, which, instead of inviting, had deterred the Gentiles
from embracing the law of Moses.1023
II. The doctrine of a future life, improved by every additional
circumstance which could give weight and efficacy to that
important truth. III. The miraculous powers ascribed to the
primitive church. IV. The pure and austere morals of the
Christians.
V. The union and discipline of the Christian republic, which
gradually formed an independent and increasing state in the heart
of the Roman empire.
1023 (return) [Though we are thus far agreed with respect to the
inflexibility and intolerance of Christian zeal, yet as to the
principle from which it was derived, we are, toto cœlo, divided
in opinion. You deduce it from the Jewish religion; I would refer
it to a more adequate and a more obvious source, a full
persuasion of the truth of Christianity. Watson. Letters Gibbon,
i. 9.—M.]
I. We have already described the religious harmony of the ancient
world, and the facility with which the most different and even
hostile nations embraced, or at least respected, each other’s
superstitions. A single people refused to join in the common
intercourse of mankind. The Jews, who, under the Assyrian and
Persian monarchies, had languished for many ages the most
despised portion of their slaves, 1 emerged from obscurity under
the successors of Alexander; and as they multiplied to a
surprising degree in the East, and afterwards in the West, they
soon excited the curiosity and wonder of other nations. 2 The
sullen obstinacy with which they maintained their peculiar rites
and unsocial manners seemed to mark them out as a distinct
species of men, who boldly professed, or who faintly disguised,
their implacable habits to the rest of human kind. 3 Neither the
violence of Antiochus, nor the arts of Herod, nor the example of
the circumjacent nations, could ever persuade the Jews to
associate with the institutions of Moses the elegant mythology of
the Greeks. 4 According to the maxims of universal toleration,
the Romans protected a superstition which they despised. 5 The
polite Augustus condescended to give orders, that sacrifices
should be offered for his prosperity in the temple of Jerusalem;
6 whilst the meanest of the posterity of Abraham, who should have
paid the same homage to the Jupiter of the Capitol, would have
been an object of abhorrence to himself and to his brethren.
But the moderation of the conquerors was insufficient to appease
the jealous prejudices of their subjects, who were alarmed and
scandalized at the ensigns of paganism, which necessarily
introduced themselves into a Roman province. 7 The mad attempt of
Caligula to place his own statue in the temple of Jerusalem was
defeated by the unanimous resolution of a people who dreaded
death much less than such an idolatrous profanation. 8 Their
attachment to the law of Moses was equal to their detestation of
foreign religions. The current of zeal and devotion, as it was
contracted into a narrow channel, ran with the strength, and
sometimes with the fury, of a torrent. This facility has not
always prevented intolerance, which seems inherent in the
religious spirit, when armed with authority. The separation of
the ecclesiastical and civil power, appears to be the only means
of at once maintaining religion and tolerance: but this is a very
modern notion. The passions, which mingle themselves with
opinions, made the Pagans very often intolerant and persecutors;
witness the Persians, the Egyptians even the Greeks and Romans.
1st. The Persians.—Cambyses, conqueror of the Egyptians,
condemned to death the magistrates of Memphis, because they had
offered divine honors to their god. Apis: he caused the god to be
brought before him, struck him with his dagger, commanded the
priests to be scourged, and ordered a general massacre of all the
Egyptians who should be found celebrating the festival of the
statues of the gods to be burnt. Not content with this
intolerance, he sent an army to reduce the Ammonians to slavery,
and to set on fire the temple in which Jupiter delivered his
oracles. See Herod. iii. 25—29, 37. Xerxes, during his invasion
of Greece, acted on the same principles: l c destroyed all the
temples of Greece and Ionia, except that of Ephesus. See Paus. l.
vii. p. 533, and x. p. 887.
Strabo, l. xiv. b. 941. 2d. The Egyptians.—They thought
themselves defiled when they had drunk from the same cup or eaten
at the same table with a man of a different belief from their
own. “He who has voluntarily killed any sacred animal is punished
with death; but if any one, even involuntarily, has killed a cat
or an ibis, he cannot escape the extreme penalty: the people drag
him away, treat him in the most cruel manner, sometimes without
waiting for a judicial sentence. * * * Even at the time when King
Ptolemy was not yet the acknowledged friend of the Roman people,
while the multitude were paying court with all possible attention
to the strangers who came from Italy * * a Roman having killed a
cat, the people rushed to his house, and neither the entreaties
of the nobles, whom the king sent to them, nor the terror of the
Roman name, were sufficiently powerful to rescue the man from
punishment, though he had committed the crime involuntarily.”
Diod. Sic. i 83. Juvenal, in his 13th Satire, describes the
sanguinary conflict between the inhabitants of Ombos and of
Tentyra, from religious animosity. The fury was carried so far,
that the conquerors tore and devoured the quivering limbs of the
conquered.
Ardet adhuc Ombos et Tentyra, summus utrinque Inde furor vulgo,
quod numina vicinorum Odit uterque locus; quum solos credat
habendos Esse Deos quos ipse colit. Sat. xv. v. 85.
3d. The Greeks.—“Let us not here,” says the Abbé Guénée, “refer
to the cities of Peloponnesus and their severity against atheism;
the Ephesians prosecuting Heraclitus for impiety; the Greeks
armed one against the other by religious zeal, in the
Amphictyonic war. Let us say nothing either of the frightful
cruelties inflicted by three successors of Alexander upon the
Jews, to force them to abandon their religion, nor of Antiochus
expelling the philosophers from his states. Let us not seek our
proofs of intolerance so far off. Athens, the polite and learned
Athens, will supply us with sufficient examples. Every citizen
made a public and solemn vow to conform to the religion of his
country, to defend it, and to cause it to be respected. An
express law severely punished all discourses against the gods,
and a rigid decree ordered the denunciation of all who should
deny their existence. * * * The practice was in unison with the
severity of the law. The proceedings commenced against
Protagoras; a price set upon the head of Diagoras; the danger of
Alcibiades; Aristotle obliged to fly; Stilpo banished; Anaxagoras
hardly escaping death; Pericles himself, after all his services
to his country, and all the glory he had acquired, compelled to
appear before the tribunals and make his defence; * * a priestess
executed for having introduced strange gods; Socrates condemned
and drinking the hemlock, because he was accused of not
recognizing those of his country, &c.; these facts attest too
loudly, to be called in question, the religious intolerance of
the most humane and enlightened people in Greece.” Lettres de
quelques Juifs a Mons. Voltaire, i. p. 221. (Compare Bentley on
Freethinking, from which much of this is derived.)—M.
4th. The Romans.—The laws of Rome were not less express and
severe. The intolerance of foreign religions reaches, with the
Romans, as high as the laws of the twelve tables; the
prohibitions were afterwards renewed at different times.
Intolerance did not discontinue under the emperors; witness the
counsel of Mæcenas to Augustus. This counsel is so remarkable,
that I think it right to insert it entire. “Honor the gods
yourself,” says Mæcenas to Augustus, “in every way according to
the usage of your ancestors, and compel others to worship them.
Hate and punish those who introduce strange gods, not only for
the sake of the gods, (he who despises them will respect no one,)
but because those who introduce new gods engage a multitude of
persons in foreign laws and customs. From hence arise unions
bound by oaths and confederacies, and associations, things
dangerous to a monarchy.” Dion Cass. l. ii. c. 36. (But, though
some may differ from it, see Gibbon’s just observation on this
passage in Dion Cassius, ch. xvi. note 117; impugned, indeed, by
M. Guizot, note in loc.)—M.
Even the laws which the philosophers of Athens and of Rome wrote
for their imaginary republics are intolerant. Plato does not
leave to his citizens freedom of religious worship; and Cicero
expressly prohibits them from having other gods than those of the
state. Lettres de quelques Juifs a Mons. Voltaire, i. p. 226.—G.
According to M. Guizot’s just remarks, religious intolerance will
always ally itself with the passions of man, however different
those passions may be. In the instances quoted above, with the
Persians it was the pride of despotism; to conquer the gods of a
country was the last mark of subjugation. With the Egyptians, it
was the gross Fetichism of the superstitious populace, and the
local jealousy of neighboring towns. In Greece, persecution was
in general connected with political party; in Rome, with the
stern supremacy of the law and the interests of the state. Gibbon
has been mistaken in attributing to the tolerant spirit of
Paganism that which arose out of the peculiar circumstances of
the times. 1st. The decay of the old Polytheism, through the
progress of reason and intelligence, and the prevalence of
philosophical opinions among the higher orders.
2d. The Roman character, in which the political always
predominated over the religious party. The Romans were contented
with having bowed the world to a uniformity of subjection to
their power, and cared not for establishing the (to them) less
important uniformity of religion.—M.
1 (return) [ Dum Assyrios penes, Medosque, et Persas Oriens fuit,
despectissima pars servientium. Tacit. Hist. v. 8. Herodotus, who
visited Asia whilst it obeyed the last of those empires, slightly
mentions the Syrians of Palestine, who, according to their own
confession, had received from Egypt the rite of circumcision. See
l. ii. c. 104.]
2 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus, l. xl. Dion Cassius, l. xxxvii. p.
121. Tacit Hist. v. 1—9. Justin xxxvi. 2, 3.]
3 (return) [ Tradidit arcano quæcunque volumine Moses, Non
monstrare vias cadem nisi sacra colenti, Quæsitum ad fontem solos
deducere verpas. The letter of this law is not to be found in the
present volume of Moses. But the wise, the humane Maimonides
openly teaches that if an idolater fall into the water, a Jew
ought not to save him from instant death. See Basnage, Histoire
des Juifs, l. vi. c. 28. * Note: It is diametrically opposed to
its spirit and to its letter, see, among other passages, Deut. v.
18. 19, (God) “loveth the stranger in giving him food and
raiment. Love ye, therefore, the stranger: for ye were strangers
in the land of Egypt.” Comp. Lev. xxiii. 25. Juvenal is a
satirist, whose strong expressions can hardly be received as
historic evidence; and he wrote after the horrible cruelties of
the Romans, which, during and after the war, might give some
cause for the complete isolation of the Jew from the rest of the
world. The Jew was a bigot, but his religion was not the only
source of his bigotry. After how many centuries of mutual wrong
and hatred, which had still further estranged the Jew from
mankind, did Maimonides write?—M.]
4 (return) [ A Jewish sect, which indulged themselves in a sort
of occasional conformity, derived from Herod, by whose example
and authority they had been seduced, the name of Herodians. But
their numbers were so inconsiderable, and their duration so
short, that Josephus has not thought them worthy of his notice.
See Prideaux’s Connection, vol. ii. p. 285. * Note: The Herodians
were probably more of a political party than a religious sect,
though Gibbon is most likely right as to their occasional
conformity. See Hist. of the Jews, ii. 108.—M.]
5 (return) [ Cicero pro Flacco, c. 28. * Note: The edicts of
Julius Cæsar, and of some of the cities in Asia Minor (Krebs.
Decret. pro Judæis,) in favor of the nation in general, or of the
Asiatic Jews, speak a different language.—M.]
6 (return) [ Philo de Legatione. Augustus left a foundation for a
perpetual sacrifice. Yet he approved of the neglect which his
grandson Caius expressed towards the temple of Jerusalem. See
Sueton. in August. c. 93, and Casaubon’s notes on that passage.]
7 (return) [ See, in particular, Joseph. Antiquitat. xvii. 6,
xviii. 3; and de Bell. Judiac. i. 33, and ii. 9, edit. Havercamp.
* Note: This was during the government of Pontius Pilate. (Hist.
of Jews, ii. 156.) Probably in part to avoid this collision, the
Roman governor, in general, resided at Cæsarea.—M.]
8 (return) [ Jussi a Caio Cæsare, effigiem ejus in templo locare,
arma potius sumpsere. Tacit. Hist. v. 9. Philo and Josephus gave
a very circumstantial, but a very rhetorical, account of this
transaction, which exceedingly perplexed the governor of Syria.
At the first mention of this idolatrous proposal, King Agrippa
fainted away; and did not recover his senses until the third day.
(Hist. of Jews, ii. 181, &c.)]
This inflexible perseverance, which appeared so odious or so
ridiculous to the ancient world, assumes a more awful character,
since Providence has deigned to reveal to us the mysterious
history of the chosen people. But the devout and even scrupulous
attachment to the Mosaic religion, so conspicuous among the Jews
who lived under the second temple, becomes still more surprising,
if it is compared with the stubborn incredulity of their
forefathers. When the law was given in thunder from Mount Sinai,
when the tides of the ocean and the course of the planets were
suspended for the convenience of the Israelites, and when
temporal rewards and punishments were the immediate consequences
of their piety or disobedience, they perpetually relapsed into
rebellion against the visible majesty of their Divine King,
placed the idols of the nations in the sanctuary of Jehovah, and
imitated every fantastic ceremony that was practised in the tents
of the Arabs, or in the cities of Phœnicia. 9 As the protection
of Heaven was deservedly withdrawn from the ungrateful race,
their faith acquired a proportionable degree of vigor and purity.
The contemporaries of Moses and Joshua had beheld with careless
indifference the most amazing miracles. Under the pressure of
every calamity, the belief of those miracles has preserved the
Jews of a later period from the universal contagion of idolatry;
and in contradiction to every known principle of the human mind,
that singular people seems to have yielded a stronger and more
ready assent to the traditions of their remote ancestors, than to
the evidence of their own senses. 10
9 (return) [ For the enumeration of the Syrian and Arabian
deities, it may be observed, that Milton has comprised in one
hundred and thirty very beautiful lines the two large and learned
syntagmas which Selden had composed on that abstruse subject.]
10 (return) [ “How long will this people provoke me? and how long
will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have
shown among them?” (Numbers xiv. 11.) It would be easy, but it
would be unbecoming, to justify the complaint of the Deity from
the whole tenor of the Mosaic history. Note: Among a rude and
barbarous people, religious impressions are easily made, and are
as soon effaced. The ignorance which multiplies imaginary
wonders, would weaken and destroy the effect of real miracle. At
the period of the Jewish history, referred to in the passage from
Numbers, their fears predominated over their faith,—the fears of
an unwarlike people, just rescued from debasing slavery, and
commanded to attack a fierce, a well-armed, a gigantic, and a far
more numerous race, the inhabitants of Canaan. As to the frequent
apostasy of the Jews, their religion was beyond their state of
civilization. Nor is it uncommon for a people to cling with
passionate attachment to that of which, at first, they could not
appreciate the value. Patriotism and national pride will contend,
even to death, for political rights which have been forced upon a
reluctant people. The Christian may at least retort, with
justice, that the great sign of his religion, the resurrection of
Jesus, was most ardently believed, and most resolutely asserted,
by the eye witnesses of the fact.—M.]
The Jewish religion was admirably fitted for defence, but it was
never designed for conquest; and it seems probable that the
number of proselytes was never much superior to that of
apostates. The divine promises were originally made, and the
distinguishing rite of circumcision was enjoined, to a single
family. When the posterity of Abraham had multiplied like the
sands of the sea, the Deity, from whose mouth they received a
system of laws and ceremonies, declared himself the proper and as
it were the national God of Israel; and with the most jealous
care separated his favorite people from the rest of mankind. The
conquest of the land of Canaan was accompanied with so many
wonderful and with so many bloody circumstances, that the
victorious Jews were left in a state of irreconcilable hostility
with all their neighbors. They had been commanded to extirpate
some of the most idolatrous tribes, and the execution of the
divine will had seldom been retarded by the weakness of humanity.
With the other nations they were forbidden to contract any
marriages or alliances; and the prohibition of receiving them
into the congregation, which in some cases was perpetual, almost
always extended to the third, to the seventh, or even to the
tenth generation. The obligation of preaching to the Gentiles the
faith of Moses had never been inculcated as a precept of the law,
nor were the Jews inclined to impose it on themselves as a
voluntary duty.
In the admission of new citizens that unsocial people was
actuated by the selfish vanity of the Greeks, rather than by the
generous policy of Rome. The descendants of Abraham were
flattered by the opinion that they alone were the heirs of the
covenant, and they were apprehensive of diminishing the value of
their inheritance by sharing it too easily with the strangers of
the earth. A larger acquaintance with mankind extended their
knowledge without correcting their prejudices; and whenever the
God of Israel acquired any new votaries, he was much more
indebted to the inconstant humor of polytheism than to the active
zeal of his own missionaries. 11 The religion of Moses seems to
be instituted for a particular country as well as for a single
nation; and if a strict obedience had been paid to the order,
that every male, three times in the year, should present himself
before the Lord Jehovah, it would have been impossible that the
Jews could ever have spread themselves beyond the narrow limits
of the promised land. 12 That obstacle was indeed removed by the
destruction of the temple of Jerusalem; but the most considerable
part of the Jewish religion was involved in its destruction; and
the Pagans, who had long wondered at the strange report of an
empty sanctuary, 13 were at a loss to discover what could be the
object, or what could be the instruments, of a worship which was
destitute of temples and of altars, of priests and of sacrifices.
Yet even in their fallen state, the Jews, still asserting their
lofty and exclusive privileges, shunned, instead of courting, the
society of strangers. They still insisted with inflexible rigor
on those parts of the law which it was in their power to
practise. Their peculiar distinctions of days, of meats, and a
variety of trivial though burdensome observances, were so many
objects of disgust and aversion for the other nations, to whose
habits and prejudices they were diametrically opposite. The
painful and even dangerous rite of circumcision was alone capable
of repelling a willing proselyte from the door of the synagogue.
14
11 (return) [ All that relates to the Jewish proselytes has been
very ably by Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, l. vi. c. 6, 7.]
12 (return) [ See Exod. xxiv. 23, Deut. xvi. 16, the
commentators, and a very sensible note in the Universal History,
vol. i. p. 603, edit. fol.]
13 (return) [ When Pompey, using or abusing the right of
conquest, entered into the Holy of Holies, it was observed with
amazement, “Nulli intus Deum effigie, vacuam sedem et inania
arcana.” Tacit. Hist. v. 9. It was a popular saying, with regard
to the Jews, “Nil præter nubes et coeli numen adorant.”]
14 (return) [ A second kind of circumcision was inflicted on a
Samaritan or Egyptian proselyte. The sullen indifference of the
Talmudists, with respect to the conversion of strangers, may be
seen in Basnage Histoire des Juifs, l. xi. c. 6.]
Under these circumstances, Christianity offered itself to the
world, armed with the strength of the Mosaic law, and delivered
from the weight of its fetters. An exclusive zeal for the truth
of religion, and the unity of God, was as carefully inculcated in
the new as in the ancient system; and whatever was now revealed
to mankind concerning the nature and designs of the Supreme Being
was fitted to increase their reverence for that mysterious
doctrine. The divine authority of Moses and the prophets was
admitted, and even established, as the firmest basis of
Christianity. From the beginning of the world, an uninterrupted
series of predictions had announced and prepared the
long-expected coming of the Messiah, who, in compliance with the
gross apprehensions of the Jews, had been more frequently
represented under the character of a King and Conqueror, than
under that of a Prophet, a Martyr, and the Son of God. By his
expiatory sacrifice, the imperfect sacrifices of the temple were
at once consummated and abolished. The ceremonial law, which
consisted only of types and figures, was succeeded by a pure and
spiritual worship equally adapted to all climates, as well as to
every condition of mankind; and to the initiation of blood was
substituted a more harmless initiation of water. The promise of
divine favor, instead of being partially confined to the
posterity of Abraham, was universally proposed to the freeman and
the slave, to the Greek and to the barbarian, to the Jew and to
the Gentile. Every privilege that could raise the proselyte from
earth to heaven, that could exalt his devotion, secure his
happiness, or even gratify that secret pride which, under the
semblance of devotion, insinuates itself into the human heart,
was still reserved for the members of the Christian church; but
at the same time all mankind was permitted, and even solicited,
to accept the glorious distinction, which was not only proffered
as a favor, but imposed as an obligation. It became the most
sacred duty of a new convert to diffuse among his friends and
relations the inestimable blessing which he had received, and to
warn them against a refusal that would be severely punished as a
criminal disobedience to the will of a benevolent but
all-powerful Deity.
Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part II.
The enfranchisement of the church from the bonds of the synagogue
was a work, however, of some time and of some difficulty. The
Jewish converts, who acknowledged Jesus in the character of the
Messiah foretold by their ancient oracles, respected him as a
prophetic teacher of virtue and religion; but they obstinately
adhered to the ceremonies of their ancestors, and were desirous
of imposing them on the Gentiles, who continually augmented the
number of believers. These Judaizing Christians seem to have
argued with some degree of plausibility from the divine origin of
the Mosaic law, and from the immutable perfections of its great
Author. They affirmed, that if the Being, who is the same through
all eternity, had designed to abolish those sacred rites which
had served to distinguish his chosen people, the repeal of them
would have been no less clear and solemn than their first
promulgation: _that_, instead of those frequent declarations,
which either suppose or assert the perpetuity of the Mosaic
religion, it would have been represented as a provisionary scheme
intended to last only to the coming of the Messiah, who should
instruct mankind in a more perfect mode of faith and of worship:
15 _that_ the Messiah himself, and his disciples who conversed
with him on earth, instead of authorizing by their example the
most minute observances of the Mosaic law, 16 would have
published to the world the abolition of those useless and
obsolete ceremonies, without suffering Christianity to remain
during so many years obscurely confounded among the sects of the
Jewish church. Arguments like these appear to have been used in
the defence of the expiring cause of the Mosaic law; but the
industry of our learned divines has abundantly explained the
ambiguous language of the Old Testament, and the ambiguous
conduct of the apostolic teachers. It was proper gradually to
unfold the system of the gospel, and to pronounce, with the
utmost caution and tenderness, a sentence of condemnation so
repugnant to the inclination and prejudices of the believing
Jews.
15 (return) [ These arguments were urged with great ingenuity by
the Jew Orobio, and refuted with equal ingenuity and candor by
the Christian Limborch. See the Amica Collatio, (it well deserves
that name,) or account of the dispute between them.]
16 (return) [ Jesus... circumcisus erat; cibis utebatur Judaicis;
vestitu simili; purgatos scabie mittebat ad sacerdotes; Paschata
et alios dies festos religiose observabat: Si quos sanavit
sabbatho, ostendit non tantum ex lege, sed et exceptis
sententiis, talia opera sabbatho non interdicta. Grotius de
Veritate Religionis Christianæ, l. v. c. 7. A little afterwards,
(c. 12,) he expatiates on the condescension of the apostles.]
The history of the church of Jerusalem affords a lively proof of
the necessity of those precautions, and of the deep impression
which the Jewish religion had made on the minds of its sectaries.
The first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were all circumcised Jews;
and the congregation over which they presided united the law of
Moses with the doctrine of Christ. 17 It was natural that the
primitive tradition of a church which was founded only forty days
after the death of Christ, and was governed almost as many years
under the immediate inspection of his apostle, should be received
as the standard of orthodoxy. The distant churches very
frequently appealed to the authority of their venerable Parent,
and relieved her distresses by a liberal contribution of alms.
But when numerous and opulent societies were established in the
great cities of the empire, in Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus,
Corinth, and Rome, the reverence which Jerusalem had inspired to
all the Christian colonies insensibly diminished. 18b The Jewish
converts, or, as they were afterwards called, the Nazarenes, who
had laid the foundations of the church, soon found themselves
overwhelmed by the increasing multitudes, that from all the
various religions of polytheism enlisted under the banner of
Christ: and the Gentiles, who, with the approbation of their
peculiar apostle, had rejected the intolerable weight of the
Mosaic ceremonies, at length refused to their more scrupulous
brethren the same toleration which at first they had humbly
solicited for their own practice. The ruin of the temple of the
city, and of the public religion of the Jews, was severely felt
by the Nazarenes; as in their manners, though not in their faith,
they maintained so intimate a connection with their impious
countrymen, whose misfortunes were attributed by the Pagans to
the contempt, and more justly ascribed by the Christians to the
wrath, of the Supreme Deity. The Nazarenes retired from the ruins
of Jerusalem 18 to the little town of Pella beyond the Jordan,
where that ancient church languished above sixty years in
solitude and obscurity. 19 They still enjoyed the comfort of
making frequent and devout visits to the _Holy City_, and the
hope of being one day restored to those seats which both nature
and religion taught them to love as well as to revere. But at
length, under the reign of Hadrian, the desperate fanaticism of
the Jews filled up the measure of their calamities; and the
Romans, exasperated by their repeated rebellions, exercised the
rights of victory with unusual rigor. The emperor founded, under
the name of Ælia Capitolina, a new city on Mount Sion, 20 to
which he gave the privileges of a colony; and denouncing the
severest penalties against any of the Jewish people who should
dare to approach its precincts, he fixed a vigilant garrison of a
Roman cohort to enforce the execution of his orders. The
Nazarenes had only one way left to escape the common
proscription, and the force of truth was on this occasion
assisted by the influence of temporal advantages. They elected
Marcus for their bishop, a prelate of the race of the Gentiles,
and most probably a native either of Italy or of some of the
Latin provinces. At his persuasion, the most considerable part of
the congregation renounced the Mosaic law, in the practice of
which they had persevered above a century. By this sacrifice of
their habits and prejudices, they purchased a free admission into
the colony of Hadrian, and more firmly cemented their union with
the Catholic church. 21
17 (return) [ Pæne omnes Christum Deum sub legis observatione
credebant Sulpicius Severus, ii. 31. See Eusebius, Hist.
Ecclesiast. l. iv. c. 5.]
18b (return) [Footnote 18b: Mosheim de Rebus Christianis ante
Constantinum Magnum, page 153. In this masterly performance,
which I shall often have occasion to quote he enters much more
fully into the state of the primitive church than he has an
opportunity of doing in his General History.]
18 (return) [ This is incorrect: all the traditions concur in
placing the abandonment of the city by the Christians, not only
before it was in ruins, but before the seige had commenced.
Euseb. loc. cit., and Le Clerc.—M.]
19 (return) [ Eusebius, l. iii. c. 5. Le Clerc, Hist. Ecclesiast.
p. 605. During this occasional absence, the bishop and church of
Pella still retained the title of Jerusalem. In the same manner,
the Roman pontiffs resided seventy years at Avignon; and the
patriarchs of Alexandria have long since transferred their
episcopal seat to Cairo.]
20 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxix. The exile of the Jewish
nation from Jerusalem is attested by Aristo of Pella, (apud
Euseb. l. iv. c. 6,) and is mentioned by several ecclesiastical
writers; though some of them too hastily extend this interdiction
to the whole country of Palestine.]
21 (return) [ Eusebius, l. iv. c. 6. Sulpicius Severus, ii. 31.
By comparing their unsatisfactory accounts, Mosheim (p. 327, &c.)
has drawn out a very distinct representation of the circumstances
and motives of this revolution.]
When the name and honors of the church of Jerusalem had been
restored to Mount Sion, the crimes of heresy and schism were
imputed to the obscure remnant of the Nazarenes, which refused to
accompany their Latin bishop. They still preserved their former
habitation of Pella, spread themselves into the villages adjacent
to Damascus, and formed an inconsiderable church in the city of
Berœa, or, as it is now called, of Aleppo, in Syria. 22 The name
of Nazarenes was deemed too honorable for those Christian Jews,
and they soon received, from the supposed poverty of their
understanding, as well as of their condition, the contemptuous
epithet of Ebionites. 23 In a few years after the return of the
church of Jerusalem, it became a matter of doubt and controversy,
whether a man who sincerely acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah,
but who still continued to observe the law of Moses, could
possibly hope for salvation. The humane temper of Justin Martyr
inclined him to answer this question in the affirmative; and
though he expressed himself with the most guarded diffidence, he
ventured to determine in favor of such an imperfect Christian, if
he were content to practise the Mosaic ceremonies, without
pretending to assert their general use or necessity. But when
Justin was pressed to declare the sentiment of the church, he
confessed that there were very many among the orthodox
Christians, who not only excluded their Judaizing brethren from
the hope of salvation, but who declined any intercourse with them
in the common offices of friendship, hospitality, and social
life. 24 The more rigorous opinion prevailed, as it was natural
to expect, over the milder; and an eternal bar of separation was
fixed between the disciples of Moses and those of Christ. The
unfortunate Ebionites, rejected from one religion as apostates,
and from the other as heretics, found themselves compelled to
assume a more decided character; and although some traces of that
obsolete sect may be discovered as late as the fourth century,
they insensibly melted away, either into the church or the
synagogue. 25
22 (return) [ Le Clerc (Hist. Ecclesiast. p. 477, 535) seems to
have collected from Eusebius, Jerome, Epiphanius, and other
writers, all the principal circumstances that relate to the
Nazarenes or Ebionites. The nature of their opinions soon divided
them into a stricter and a milder sect; and there is some reason
to conjecture, that the family of Jesus Christ remained members,
at least, of the latter and more moderate party.]
23 (return) [ Some writers have been pleased to create an Ebion,
the imaginary author of their sect and name. But we can more
safely rely on the learned Eusebius than on the vehement
Tertullian, or the credulous Epiphanius. According to Le Clerc,
the Hebrew word Ebjonim may be translated into Latin by that of
Pauperes. See Hist. Ecclesiast. p. 477. * Note: The opinion of Le
Clerc is generally admitted; but Neander has suggested some good
reasons for supposing that this term only applied to poverty of
condition. The obscure history of their tenets and divisions, is
clearly and rationally traced in his History of the Church, vol.
i. part ii. p. 612, &c., Germ. edit.—M.]
24 (return) [ See the very curious Dialogue of Justin Martyr with
the Jew Tryphon. The conference between them was held at Ephesus,
in the reign of Antoninus Pius, and about twenty years after the
return of the church of Pella to Jerusalem. For this date consult
the accurate note of Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom.
ii. p. 511. * Note: Justin Martyr makes an important distinction,
which Gibbon has neglected to notice. * * * There were some who
were not content with observing the Mosaic law themselves, but
enforced the same observance, as necessary to salvation, upon the
heathen converts, and refused all social intercourse with them if
they did not conform to the law. Justin Martyr himself freely
admits those who kept the law themselves to Christian communion,
though he acknowledges that some, not the Church, thought
otherwise; of the other party, he himself thought less favorably.
The former by some are considered the Nazarenes the atter the
Ebionites—G and M.]
25 (return) [ Of all the systems of Christianity, that of
Abyssinia is the only one which still adheres to the Mosaic
rites. (Geddes’s Church History of Æthiopia, and Dissertations de
La Grand sur la Relation du P. Lobo.) The eunuch of the queen
Candace might suggest some suspicious; but as we are assured
(Socrates, i. 19. Sozomen, ii. 24. Ludolphus, p. 281) that the
Æthiopians were not converted till the fourth century, it is more
reasonable to believe that they respected the sabbath, and
distinguished the forbidden meats, in imitation of the Jews, who,
in a very early period, were seated on both sides of the Red Sea.
Circumcision had been practised by the most ancient Æthiopians,
from motives of health and cleanliness, which seem to be
explained in the Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains,
tom. ii. p. 117.]
While the orthodox church preserved a just medium between
excessive veneration and improper contempt for the law of Moses,
the various heretics deviated into equal but opposite extremes of
error and extravagance. From the acknowledged truth of the Jewish
religion, the Ebionites had concluded that it could never be
abolished. From its supposed imperfections, the Gnostics as
hastily inferred that it never was instituted by the wisdom of
the Deity. There are some objections against the authority of
Moses and the prophets, which too readily present themselves to
the sceptical mind; though they can only be derived from our
ignorance of remote antiquity, and from our incapacity to form an
adequate judgment of the divine economy. These objections were
eagerly embraced and as petulantly urged by the vain science of
the Gnostics. 26 As those heretics were, for the most part,
averse to the pleasures of sense, they morosely arraigned the
polygamy of the patriarchs, the gallantries of David, and the
seraglio of Solomon. The conquest of the land of Canaan, and the
extirpation of the unsuspecting natives, they were at a loss how
to reconcile with the common notions of humanity and justice. 261
But when they recollected the sanguinary list of murders, of
executions, and of massacres, which stain almost every page of
the Jewish annals, they acknowledged that the barbarians of
Palestine had exercised as much compassion towards their
idolatrous enemies, as they had ever shown to their friends or
countrymen. 27 Passing from the sectaries of the law to the law
itself, they asserted that it was impossible that a religion
which consisted only of bloody sacrifices and trifling
ceremonies, and whose rewards as well as punishments were all of
a carnal and temporal nature, could inspire the love of virtue,
or restrain the impetuosity of passion. The Mosaic account of the
creation and fall of man was treated with profane derision by the
Gnostics, who would not listen with patience to the repose of the
Deity after six days’ labor, to the rib of Adam, the garden of
Eden, the trees of life and of knowledge, the speaking serpent,
the forbidden fruit, and the condemnation pronounced against
human kind for the venial offence of their first progenitors. 28
The God of Israel was impiously represented by the Gnostics as a
being liable to passion and to error, capricious in his favor,
implacable in his resentment, meanly jealous of his superstitious
worship, and confining his partial providence to a single people,
and to this transitory life. In such a character they could
discover none of the features of the wise and omnipotent Father
of the universe. 29 They allowed that the religion of the Jews
was somewhat less criminal than the idolatry of the Gentiles; but
it was their fundamental doctrine that the Christ whom they
adored as the first and brightest emanation of the Deity appeared
upon earth to rescue mankind from their various errors, and to
reveal a new system of truth and perfection. The most learned of
the fathers, by a very singular condescension, have imprudently
admitted the sophistry of the Gnostics. 291 Acknowledging that
the literal sense is repugnant to every principle of faith as
well as reason, they deem themselves secure and invulnerable
behind the ample veil of allegory, which they carefully spread
over every tender part of the Mosaic dispensation. 30
26 (return) [ Beausobre, Histoire du Manicheisme, l. i. c. 3, has
stated their objections, particularly those of Faustus, the
adversary of Augustin, with the most learned impartiality.]
261 (return) [ On the “war law” of the Jews, see Hist. of Jews,
i. 137.—M.]
27 (return) [ Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in
promptu: adversus amnes alios hostile odium. Tacit. Hist. v. 4.
Surely Tacitus had seen the Jews with too favorable an eye. The
perusal of Josephus must have destroyed the antithesis. * Note:
Few writers have suspected Tacitus of partiality towards the
Jews. The whole later history of the Jews illustrates as well
their strong feelings of humanity to their brethren, as their
hostility to the rest of mankind. The character and the position
of Josephus with the Roman authorities, must be kept in mind
during the perusal of his History. Perhaps he has not exaggerated
the ferocity and fanaticism of the Jews at that time; but
insurrectionary warfare is not the best school for the humaner
virtues, and much must be allowed for the grinding tyranny of the
later Roman governors. See Hist. of Jews, ii. 254.—M.]
28 (return) [ Dr. Burnet (Archæologia, l. ii. c. 7) has discussed
the first chapters of Genesis with too much wit and freedom. *
Note: Dr. Burnet apologized for the levity with which he had
conducted some of his arguments, by the excuse that he wrote in a
learned language for scholars alone, not for the vulgar. Whatever
may be thought of his success in tracing an Eastern allegory in
the first chapters of Genesis, his other works prove him to have
been a man of great genius, and of sincere piety.—M]
29 (return) [ The milder Gnostics considered Jehovah, the
Creator, as a Being of a mixed nature between God and the Dæmon.
Others confounded him with an evil principle. Consult the second
century of the general history of Mosheim, which gives a very
distinct, though concise, account of their strange opinions on
this subject.]
291 (return) [ The Gnostics, and the historian who has stated
these plausible objections with so much force as almost to make
them his own, would have shown a more considerate and not less
reasonable philosophy, if they had considered the religion of
Moses with reference to the age in which it was promulgated; if
they had done justice to its sublime as well as its more
imperfect views of the divine nature; the humane and civilizing
provisions of the Hebrew law, as well as those adapted for an
infant and barbarous people. See Hist of Jews, i. 36, 37, &c.—M.]
30 (return) [ See Beausobre, Hist. du Manicheisme, l. i. c. 4.
Origen and St. Augustin were among the allegorists.]
It has been remarked with more ingenuity than truth, that the
virgin purity of the church was never violated by schism or
heresy before the reign of Trajan or Hadrian, about one hundred
years after the death of Christ. 31 We may observe with much more
propriety, that, during that period, the disciples of the Messiah
were indulged in a freer latitude, both of faith and practice,
than has ever been allowed in succeeding ages. As the terms of
communion were insensibly narrowed, and the spiritual authority
of the prevailing party was exercised with increasing severity,
many of its most respectable adherents, who were called upon to
renounce, were provoked to assert their private opinions, to
pursue the consequences of their mistaken principles, and openly
to erect the standard of rebellion against the unity of the
church. The Gnostics were distinguished as the most polite, the
most learned, and the most wealthy of the Christian name; and
that general appellation, which expressed a superiority of
knowledge, was either assumed by their own pride, or ironically
bestowed by the envy of their adversaries. They were almost
without exception of the race of the Gentiles, and their
principal founders seem to have been natives of Syria or Egypt,
where the warmth of the climate disposes both the mind and the
body to indolent and contemplative devotion. The Gnostics blended
with the faith of Christ many sublime but obscure tenets, which
they derived from oriental philosophy, and even from the religion
of Zoroaster, concerning the eternity of matter, the existence of
two principles, and the mysterious hierarchy of the invisible
world. 32 As soon as they launched out into that vast abyss, they
delivered themselves to the guidance of a disordered imagination;
and as the paths of error are various and infinite, the Gnostics
were imperceptibly divided into more than fifty particular sects,
33 of whom the most celebrated appear to have been the
Basilidians, the Valentinians, the Marcionites, and, in a still
later period, the Manichæans. Each of these sects could boast of
its bishops and congregations, of its doctors and martyrs; 34
and, instead of the Four Gospels adopted by the church, 341 the
heretics produced a multitude of histories, in which the actions
and discourses of Christ and of his apostles were adapted to
their respective tenets. 35 The success of the Gnostics was rapid
and extensive. 36 They covered Asia and Egypt, established
themselves in Rome, and sometimes penetrated into the provinces
of the West. For the most part they arose in the second century,
flourished during the third, and were suppressed in the fourth or
fifth, by the prevalence of more fashionable controversies, and
by the superior ascendant of the reigning power. Though they
constantly disturbed the peace, and frequently disgraced the
name, of religion, they contributed to assist rather than to
retard the progress of Christianity. The Gentile converts, whose
strongest objections and prejudices were directed against the law
of Moses, could find admission into many Christian societies,
which required not from their untutored mind any belief of an
antecedent revelation. Their faith was insensibly fortified and
enlarged, and the church was ultimately benefited by the
conquests of its most inveterate enemies. 37
31 (return) [ Hegesippus, ap. Euseb. l. iii. 32, iv. 22. Clemens
Alexandrin Stromat. vii. 17. * Note: The assertion of Hegesippus
is not so positive: it is sufficient to read the whole passage in
Eusebius, to see that the former part is modified by the matter.
Hegesippus adds, that up to this period the church had remained
pure and immaculate as a virgin. Those who labored to corrupt the
doctrines of the gospel worked as yet in obscurity—G]
32 (return) [ In the account of the Gnostics of the second and
third centuries, Mosheim is ingenious and candid; Le Clerc dull,
but exact; Beausobre almost always an apologist; and it is much
to be feared that the primitive fathers are very frequently
calumniators. * Note The Histoire du Gnosticisme of M. Matter is
at once the fairest and most complete account of these sects.—M.]
33 (return) [ See the catalogues of Irenæus and Epiphanius. It
must indeed be allowed, that those writers were inclined to
multiply the number of sects which opposed the unity of the
church.]
34 (return) [ Eusebius, l. iv. c. 15. Sozomen, l. ii. c. 32. See
in Bayle, in the article of Marcion, a curious detail of a
dispute on that subject. It should seem that some of the Gnostics
(the Basilidians) declined, and even refused the honor of
Martyrdom. Their reasons were singular and abstruse. See Mosheim,
p. 539.]
341 (return) [ M. Hahn has restored the Marcionite Gospel with
great ingenuity. His work is reprinted in Thilo. Codex. Apoc.
Nov. Test. vol. i.—M.]
35 (return) [ See a very remarkable passage of Origen, (Proem. ad
Lucam.) That indefatigable writer, who had consumed his life in
the study of the Scriptures, relies for their authenticity on the
inspired authority of the church. It was impossible that the
Gnostics could receive our present Gospels, many parts of which
(particularly in the resurrection of Christ) are directly, and as
it might seem designedly, pointed against their favorite tenets.
It is therefore somewhat singular that Ignatius (Epist. ad Smyrn.
Patr. Apostol. tom. ii. p. 34) should choose to employ a vague
and doubtful tradition, instead of quoting the certain testimony
of the evangelists. Note: Bishop Pearson has attempted very
happily to explain this singularity.’ The first Christians were
acquainted with a number of sayings of Jesus Christ, which are
not related in our Gospels, and indeed have never been written.
Why might not St. Ignatius, who had lived with the apostles or
their disciples, repeat in other words that which St. Luke has
related, particularly at a time when, being in prison, he could
have the Gospels at hand? Pearson, Vind Ign. pp. 2, 9 p. 396 in
tom. ii. Patres Apost. ed. Coteler—G.]
36 (return) [ Faciunt favos et vespæ; faciunt ecclesias et
Marcionitæ, is the strong expression of Tertullian, which I am
obliged to quote from memory. In the time of Epiphanius (advers.
Hæreses, p. 302) the Marcionites were very numerous in Italy,
Syria, Egypt, Arabia, and Persia.]
37 (return) [ Augustin is a memorable instance of this gradual
progress from reason to faith. He was, during several years,
engaged in the Manichæar sect.]
But whatever difference of opinion might subsist between the
Orthodox, the Ebionites, and the Gnostics, concerning the
divinity or the obligation of the Mosaic law, they were all
equally animated by the same exclusive zeal, and by the same
abhorrence for idolatry, which had distinguished the Jews from
the other nations of the ancient world. The philosopher, who
considered the system of polytheism as a composition of human
fraud and error, could disguise a smile of contempt under the
mask of devotion, without apprehending that either the mockery,
or the compliance, would expose him to the resentment of any
invisible, or, as he conceived them, imaginary powers. But the
established religions of Paganism were seen by the primitive
Christians in a much more odious and formidable light. It was the
universal sentiment both of the church and of heretics, that the
dæmons were the authors, the patrons, and the objects of
idolatry. 38 Those rebellious spirits who had been degraded from
the rank of angels, and cast down into the infernal pit, were
still permitted to roam upon earth, to torment the bodies, and to
seduce the minds, of sinful men. The dæmons soon discovered and
abused the natural propensity of the human heart towards
devotion, and artfully withdrawing the adoration of mankind from
their Creator, they usurped the place and honors of the Supreme
Deity. By the success of their malicious contrivances, they at
once gratified their own vanity and revenge, and obtained the
only comfort of which they were yet susceptible, the hope of
involving the human species in the participation of their guilt
and misery. It was confessed, or at least it was imagined, that
they had distributed among themselves the most important
characters of polytheism, one dæmon assuming the name and
attributes of Jupiter, another of Æsculapius, a third of Venus,
and a fourth perhaps of Apollo; 39 and that, by the advantage of
their long experience and ærial nature, they were enabled to
execute, with sufficient skill and dignity, the parts which they
had undertaken. They lurked in the temples, instituted festivals
and sacrifices, invented fables, pronounced oracles, and were
frequently allowed to perform miracles. The Christians, who, by
the interposition of evil spirits, could so readily explain every
præternatural appearance, were disposed and even desirous to
admit the most extravagant fictions of the Pagan mythology. But
the belief of the Christian was accompanied with horror. The most
trifling mark of respect to the national worship he considered as
a direct homage yielded to the dæmon, and as an act of rebellion
against the majesty of God.
38 (return) [ The unanimous sentiment of the primitive church is
very clearly explained by Justin Martyr, Apolog. Major, by
Athenagoras, Legat. c. 22. &c., and by Lactantius, Institut.
Divin. ii. 14—19.]
39 (return) [ Tertullian (Apolog. c. 23) alleges the confession
of the dæmons themselves as often as they were tormented by the
Christian exorcists]
Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part III.
In consequence of this opinion, it was the first but arduous duty
of a Christian to preserve himself pure and undefiled by the
practice of idolatry. The religion of the nations was not merely
a speculative doctrine professed in the schools or preached in
the temples. The innumerable deities and rites of polytheism were
closely interwoven with every circumstance of business or
pleasure, of public or of private life, and it seemed impossible
to escape the observance of them, without, at the same time,
renouncing the commerce of mankind, and all the offices and
amusements of society. 40 The important transactions of peace and
war were prepared or concluded by solemn sacrifices, in which the
magistrate, the senator, and the soldier, were obliged to preside
or to participate. 41 The public spectacles were an essential
part of the cheerful devotion of the Pagans, and the gods were
supposed to accept, as the most grateful offering, the games that
the prince and people celebrated in honor of their peculiar
festivals. 42 The Christians, who with pious horror avoided the
abomination of the circus or the theatre, found himself
encompassed with infernal snares in every convivial
entertainment, as often as his friends, invoking the hospitable
deities, poured out libations to each other’s happiness. 43 When
the bride, struggling with well-affected reluctance, was forced
in hymenæal pomp over the threshold of her new habitation, 44 or
when the sad procession of the dead slowly moved towards the
funeral pile, 45 the Christian, on these interesting occasions,
was compelled to desert the persons who were the dearest to him,
rather than contract the guilt inherent to those impious
ceremonies. Every art and every trade that was in the least
concerned in the framing or adorning of idols was polluted by the
stain of idolatry; 46 a severe sentence, since it devoted to
eternal misery the far greater part of the community, which is
employed in the exercise of liberal or mechanic professions. If
we cast our eyes over the numerous remains of antiquity, we shall
perceive, that besides the immediate representations of the gods,
and the holy instruments of their worship, the elegant forms and
agreeable fictions consecrated by the imagination of the Greeks,
were introduced as the richest ornaments of the houses, the
dress, and the furniture of the Pagans. 47 Even the arts of music
and painting, of eloquence and poetry, flowed from the same
impure origin. In the style of the fathers, Apollo and the Muses
were the organs of the infernal spirit; Homer and Virgil were the
most eminent of his servants; and the beautiful mythology which
pervades and animates the compositions of their genius, is
destined to celebrate the glory of the dæmons. Even the common
language of Greece and Rome abounded with familiar but impious
expressions, which the imprudent Christian might too carelessly
utter, or too patiently hear. 48
40 (return) [ Tertullian has written a most severe treatise
against idolatry, to caution his brethren against the hourly
danger of incurring that guilt. Recogita sylvam, et quantæ
latitant spinæ. De Corona Militis, c. 10.]
41 (return) [ The Roman senate was always held in a temple or
consecrated place. (Aulus Gellius, xiv. 7.) Before they entered
on business, every senator dropped some wine and frankincense on
the altar. Sueton. in August. c. 35.]
42 (return) [ See Tertullian, De Spectaculis. This severe
reformer shows no more indulgence to a tragedy of Euripides, than
to a combat of gladiators. The dress of the actors particularly
offends him. By the use of the lofty buskin, they impiously
strive to add a cubit to their stature. c. 23.]
43 (return) [ The ancient practice of concluding the
entertainment with libations, may be found in every classic.
Socrates and Seneca, in their last moments, made a noble
application of this custom. Postquam stagnum, calidæ aquæ
introiit, respergens proximos servorum, addita voce, libare se
liquorem illum Jovi Liberatori. Tacit. Annal. xv. 64.]
44 (return) [ See the elegant but idolatrous hymn of Catullus, on
the nuptials of Manlius and Julia. O Hymen, Hymenæe Io! Quis huic
Deo compararier ausit?]
45 (return) [ The ancient funerals (in those of Misenus and
Pallas) are no less accurately described by Virgil, than they are
illustrated by his commentator Servius. The pile itself was an
altar, the flames were fed with the blood of victims, and all the
assistants were sprinkled with lustral water.]
46 (return) [ Tertullian de Idololatria, c. 11. * Note: The
exaggerated and declamatory opinions of Tertullian ought not to
be taken as the general sentiment of the early Christians. Gibbon
has too often allowed himself to consider the peculiar notions of
certain Fathers of the Church as inherent in Christianity. This
is not accurate.—G.]
47 (return) [ See every part of Montfaucon’s Antiquities. Even
the reverses of the Greek and Roman coins were frequently of an
idolatrous nature. Here indeed the scruples of the Christian were
suspended by a stronger passion. Note: All this scrupulous nicety
is at variance with the decision of St. Paul about meat offered
to idols, 1, Cor. x. 21— 32.—M.]
48 (return) [ Tertullian de Idololatria, c. 20, 21, 22. If a
Pagan friend (on the occasion perhaps of sneezing) used the
familiar expression of “Jupiter bless you,” the Christian was
obliged to protest against the divinity of Jupiter.]
The dangerous temptations which on every side lurked in ambush to
surprise the unguarded believer, assailed him with redoubled
violence on the days of solemn festivals. So artfully were they
framed and disposed throughout the year, that superstition always
wore the appearance of pleasure, and often of virtue. Some of the
most sacred festivals in the Roman ritual were destined to salute
the new calends of January with vows of public and private
felicity; to indulge the pious remembrance of the dead and
living; to ascertain the inviolable bounds of property; to hail,
on the return of spring, the genial powers of fecundity; to
perpetuate the two memorable æras of Rome, the foundation of the
city and that of the republic; and to restore, during the humane
license of the Saturnalia, the primitive equality of mankind.
Some idea may be conceived of the abhorrence of the Christians
for such impious ceremonies, by the scrupulous delicacy which
they displayed on a much less alarming occasion. On days of
general festivity it was the custom of the ancients to adorn
their doors with lamps and with branches of laurel, and to crown
their heads with a garland of flowers. This innocent and elegant
practice might perhaps have been tolerated as a mere civil
institution. But it most unluckily happened that the doors were
under the protection of the household gods, that the laurel was
sacred to the lover of Daphne, and that garlands of flowers,
though frequently worn as a symbol either of joy or mourning, had
been dedicated in their first origin to the service of
superstition. The trembling Christians, who were persuaded in
this instance to comply with the fashion of their country, and
the commands of the magistrate, labored under the most gloomy
apprehensions, from the reproaches of his own conscience, the
censures of the church, and the denunciations of divine
vengeance. 49 50
49 (return) [ Consult the most labored work of Ovid, his
imperfect Fasti. He finished no more than the first six months of
the year. The compilation of Macrobius is called the Saturnalia,
but it is only a small part of the first book that bears any
relation to the title.]
50 (return) [ Tertullian has composed a defence, or rather
panegyric, of the rash action of a Christian soldier, who, by
throwing away his crown of laurel, had exposed himself and his
brethren to the most imminent danger. By the mention of the
emperors, (Severus and Caracalla,) it is evident, notwithstanding
the wishes of M. de Tillemont, that Tertullian composed his
treatise De Corona long before he was engaged in the errors of
the Montanists. See Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. iii. p. 384.
Note: The soldier did not tear off his crown to throw it down
with contempt; he did not even throw it away; he held it in his
hand, while others were it on their heads. Solus libero capite,
ornamento in manu otioso.—G Note: Tertullian does not expressly
name the two emperors, Severus and Caracalla: he speaks only of
two emperors, and of a long peace which the church had enjoyed.
It is generally agreed that Tertullian became a Montanist about
the year 200: his work, de Corona Militis, appears to have been
written, at the earliest about the year 202 before the
persecution of Severus: it may be maintained, then, that it is
subsequent to the Montanism of the author. See Mosheim, Diss. de
Apol. Tertull. p. 53. Biblioth. Amsterd. tom. x. part ii. p. 292.
Cave’s Hist. Lit. p. 92, 93.—G. ——The state of Tertullian’s
opinions at the particular period is almost an idle question.
“The fiery African” is not at any time to be considered a fair
representative of Christianity.—M.]
Such was the anxious diligence which was required to guard the
chastity of the gospel from the infectious breath of idolatry.
The superstitious observances of public or private rites were
carelessly practised, from education and habit, by the followers
of the established religion. But as often as they occurred, they
afforded the Christians an opportunity of declaring and
confirming their zealous opposition. By these frequent
protestations their attachment to the faith was continually
fortified; and in proportion to the increase of zeal, they
combated with the more ardor and success in the holy war, which
they had undertaken against the empire of the demons.
II. The writings of Cicero 51 represent in the most lively colors
the ignorance, the errors, and the uncertainty of the ancient
philosophers with regard to the immortality of the soul. When
they are desirous of arming their disciples against the fear of
death, they inculcate, as an obvious though melancholy position,
that the fatal stroke of our dissolution releases us from the
calamities of life; and that those can no longer suffer, who no
longer exist. Yet there were a few sages of Greece and Rome who
had conceived a more exalted, and, in some respects, a juster
idea of human nature, though it must be confessed, that in the
sublime inquiry, their reason had been often guided by their
imagination, and that their imagination had been prompted by
their vanity. When they viewed with complacency the extent of
their own mental powers, when they exercised the various
faculties of memory, of fancy, and of judgment, in the most
profound speculations, or the most important labors, and when
they reflected on the desire of fame, which transported them into
future ages, far beyond the bounds of death and of the grave,
they were unwilling to confound themselves with the beasts of the
field, or to suppose that a being, for whose dignity they
entertained the most sincere admiration, could be limited to a
spot of earth, and to a few years of duration. With this
favorable prepossession they summoned to their aid the science,
or rather the language, of Metaphysics. They soon discovered,
that as none of the properties of matter will apply to the
operations of the mind, the human soul must consequently be a
substance distinct from the body, pure, simple, and spiritual,
incapable of dissolution, and susceptible of a much higher degree
of virtue and happiness after the release from its corporeal
prison. From these specious and noble principles, the
philosophers who trod in the footsteps of Plato deduced a very
unjustifiable conclusion, since they asserted, not only the
future immortality, but the past eternity, of the human soul,
which they were too apt to consider as a portion of the infinite
and self-existing spirit, which pervades and sustains the
universe. 52 A doctrine thus removed beyond the senses and the
experience of mankind might serve to amuse the leisure of a
philosophic mind; or, in the silence of solitude, it might
sometimes impart a ray of comfort to desponding virtue; but the
faint impression which had been received in the schools was soon
obliterated by the commerce and business of active life. We are
sufficiently acquainted with the eminent persons who flourished
in the age of Cicero and of the first Cæsars, with their actions,
their characters, and their motives, to be assured that their
conduct in this life was never regulated by any serious
conviction of the rewards or punishments of a future state. At
the bar and in the senate of Rome the ablest orators were not
apprehensive of giving offence to their hearers by exposing that
doctrine as an idle and extravagant opinion, which was rejected
with contempt by every man of a liberal education and
understanding. 53
51 (return) [ In particular, the first book of the Tusculan
Questions, and the treatise De Senectute, and the Somnium
Scipionis, contain, in the most beautiful language, every thing
that Grecian philosophy, on Roman good sense, could possibly
suggest on this dark but important object.]
52 (return) [ The preexistence of human souls, so far at least as
that doctrine is compatible with religion, was adopted by many of
the Greek and Latin fathers. See Beausobre, Hist. du Manicheisme,
l. vi. c. 4.]
53 (return) [ See Cicero pro Cluent. c. 61. Cæsar ap. Sallust. de
Bell. Catilis n 50. Juvenal. Satir. ii. 149. ——Esse aliquid
manes, et subterranea regna, —————Nec pueri credunt, nisi qui
nondum æree lavantæ.]
Since therefore the most sublime efforts of philosophy can extend
no further than feebly to point out the desire, the hope, or, at
most, the probability, of a future state, there is nothing,
except a divine revelation, that can ascertain the existence and
describe the condition, of the invisible country which is
destined to receive the souls of men after their separation from
the body. But we may perceive several defects inherent to the
popular religions of Greece and Rome, which rendered them very
unequal to so arduous a task. 1. The general system of their
mythology was unsupported by any solid proofs; and the wisest
among the Pagans had already disclaimed its usurped authority. 2.
The description of the infernal regions had been abandoned to the
fancy of painters and of poets, who peopled them with so many
phantoms and monsters, who dispensed their rewards and
punishments with so little equity, that a solemn truth, the most
congenial to the human heart, was oppressed and disgraced by the
absurd mixture of the wildest fictions. 54 3. The doctrine of a
future state was scarcely considered among the devout polytheists
of Greece and Rome as a fundamental article of faith. The
providence of the gods, as it related to public communities
rather than to private individuals, was principally displayed on
the visible theatre of the present world. The petitions which
were offered on the altars of Jupiter or Apollo expressed the
anxiety of their worshippers for temporal happiness, and their
ignorance or indifference concerning a future life. 55 The
important truth of the immortality of the soul was inculcated
with more diligence, as well as success, in India, in Assyria, in
Egypt, and in Gaul; and since we cannot attribute such a
difference to the superior knowledge of the barbarians, we must
ascribe it to the influence of an established priesthood, which
employed the motives of virtue as the instrument of ambition. 56
54 (return) [ The xith book of the Odyssey gives a very dreary
and incoherent account of the infernal shades. Pindar and Virgil
have embellished the picture; but even those poets, though more
correct than their great model, are guilty of very strange
inconsistencies. See Bayle, Responses aux Questions d’un
Provincial, part iii. c. 22.]
55 (return) [ See xvith epistle of the first book of Horace, the
xiiith Satire of Juvenal, and the iid Satire of Persius: these
popular discourses express the sentiment and language of the
multitude.]
56 (return) [ If we confine ourselves to the Gauls, we may
observe, that they intrusted, not only their lives, but even
their money, to the security of another world. Vetus ille mos
Gallorum occurrit (says Valerius Maximus, l. ii. c. 6, p. 10)
quos, memoria proditum est pecunias montuas, quæ his apud inferos
redderentur, dare solitos. The same custom is more darkly
insinuated by Mela, l. iii. c. 2. It is almost needless to add,
that the profits of trade hold a just proportion to the credit of
the merchant, and that the Druids derived from their holy
profession a character of responsibility, which could scarcely be
claimed by any other order of men.]
We might naturally expect that a principle so essential to
religion, would have been revealed in the clearest terms to the
chosen people of Palestine, and that it might safely have been
intrusted to the hereditary priesthood of Aaron. It is incumbent
on us to adore the mysterious dispensations of Providence, 57
when we discover that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul
is omitted in the law of Moses; it is darkly insinuated by the
prophets; and during the long period which elapsed between the
Egyptian and the Babylonian servitudes, the hopes as well as
fears of the Jews appear to have been confined within the narrow
compass of the present life. 58 After Cyrus had permitted the
exiled nation to return into the promised land, and after Ezra
had restored the ancient records of their religion, two
celebrated sects, the Sadducees and the Pharisees, insensibly
arose at Jerusalem. 59 The former, selected from the more opulent
and distinguished ranks of society, were strictly attached to the
literal sense of the Mosaic law, and they piously rejected the
immortality of the soul, as an opinion that received no
countenance from the divine book, which they revered as the only
rule of their faith. To the authority of Scripture the Pharisees
added that of tradition, and they accepted, under the name of
traditions, several speculative tenets from the philosophy or
religion of the eastern nations. The doctrines of fate or
predestination, of angels and spirits, and of a future state of
rewards and punishments, were in the number of these new articles
of belief; and as the Pharisees, by the austerity of their
manners, had drawn into their party the body of the Jewish
people, the immortality of the soul became the prevailing
sentiment of the synagogue, under the reign of the Asmonæan
princes and pontiffs. The temper of the Jews was incapable of
contenting itself with such a cold and languid assent as might
satisfy the mind of a Polytheist; and as soon as they admitted
the idea of a future state, they embraced it with the zeal which
has always formed the characteristic of the nation. Their zeal,
however, added nothing to its evidence, or even probability: and
it was still necessary that the doctrine of life and immortality,
which had been dictated by nature, approved by reason, and
received by superstition, should obtain the sanction of divine
truth from the authority and example of Christ.
57 (return) [ The right reverend author of the Divine Legation of
Moses as signs a very curious reason for the omission, and most
ingeniously retorts it on the unbelievers. * Note: The hypothesis
of Warburton concerning this remarkable fact, which, as far as
the Law of Moses, is unquestionable, made few disciples; and it
is difficult to suppose that it could be intended by the author
himself for more than a display of intellectual strength. Modern
writers have accounted in various ways for the silence of the
Hebrew legislator on the immortality of the soul. According to
Michaelis, “Moses wrote as an historian and as a lawgiver; he
regulated the ecclesiastical discipline, rather than the
religious belief of his people; and the sanctions of the law
being temporal, he had no occasion, and as a civil legislator
could not with propriety, threaten punishments in another world.”
See Michaelis, Laws of Moses, art. 272, vol. iv. p. 209, Eng.
Trans.; and Syntagma Commentationum, p. 80, quoted by Guizot. M.
Guizot adds, the “ingenious conjecture of a philosophic
theologian,” which approximates to an opinion long entertained by
the Editor. That writer believes, that in the state of
civilization at the time of the legislator, this doctrine, become
popular among the Jews, would necessarily have given birth to a
multitude of idolatrous superstitions which he wished to prevent.
His primary object was to establish a firm theocracy, to make his
people the conservators of the doctrine of the Divine Unity, the
basis upon which Christianity was hereafter to rest. He carefully
excluded everything which could obscure or weaken that doctrine.
Other nations had strangely abused their notions on the
immortality of the soul; Moses wished to prevent this abuse:
hence he forbade the Jews from consulting necromancers, (those
who evoke the spirits of the dead.) Deut. xviii. 11. Those who
reflect on the state of the Pagans and the Jews, and on the
facility with which idolatry crept in on every side, will not be
astonished that Moses has not developed a doctrine of which the
influence might be more pernicious than useful to his people.
Orat. Fest. de Vitæ Immort. Spe., &c., auct. Ph. Alb. Stapfer, p.
12 13, 20. Berne, 1787. ——Moses, as well from the intimations
scattered in his writings, the passage relating to the
translation of Enoch, (Gen. v. 24,) the prohibition of
necromancy, (Michaelis believes him to be the author of the Book
of Job though this opinion is in general rejected; other learned
writers consider this Book to be coeval with and known to Moses,)
as from his long residence in Egypt, and his acquaintance with
Egyptian wisdom, could not be ignorant of the doctrine of the
immortality of the soul. But this doctrine if popularly known
among the Jews, must have been purely Egyptian, and as so,
intimately connected with the whole religious system of that
country. It was no doubt moulded up with the tenet of the
transmigration of the soul, perhaps with notions analogous to the
emanation system of India in which the human soul was an efflux
from or indeed a part of, the Deity. The Mosaic religion drew a
wide and impassable interval between the Creator and created
human beings: in this it differed from the Egyptian and all the
Eastern religions. As then the immortality of the soul was thus
inseparably blended with those foreign religions which were
altogether to be effaced from the minds of the people, and by no
means necessary for the establishment of the theocracy, Moses
maintained silence on this point and a purer notion of it was
left to be developed at a more favorable period in the history of
man.—M.]
58 (return) [ See Le Clerc (Prolegomena ad Hist. Ecclesiast.
sect. 1, c. 8) His authority seems to carry the greater weight,
as he has written a learned and judicious commentary on the books
of the Old Testament.]
59 (return) [ Joseph. Antiquitat. l. xiii. c. 10. De Bell. Jud.
ii. 8. According to the most natural interpretation of his words,
the Sadducees admitted only the Pentateuch; but it has pleased
some modern critics to add the Prophets to their creed, and to
suppose that they contented themselves with rejecting the
traditions of the Pharisees. Dr. Jortin has argued that point in
his Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 103.]
When the promise of eternal happiness was proposed to mankind on
condition of adopting the faith, and of observing the precepts,
of the gospel, it is no wonder that so advantageous an offer
should have been accepted by great numbers of every religion, of
every rank, and of every province in the Roman empire. The
ancient Christians were animated by a contempt for their present
existence, and by a just confidence of immortality, of which the
doubtful and imperfect faith of modern ages cannot give us any
adequate notion. In the primitive church, the influence of truth
was very powerfully strengthened by an opinion, which, however it
may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, has not
been found agreeable to experience. It was universally believed,
that the end of the world, and the kingdom of heaven, were at
hand. 591 The near approach of this wonderful event had been
predicted by the apostles; the tradition of it was preserved by
their earliest disciples, and those who understood in their
literal senses the discourse of Christ himself, were obliged to
expect the second and glorious coming of the Son of Man in the
clouds, before that generation was totally extinguished, which
had beheld his humble condition upon earth, and which might still
be witness of the calamities of the Jews under Vespasian or
Hadrian. The revolution of seventeen centuries has instructed us
not to press too closely the mysterious language of prophecy and
revelation; but as long as, for wise purposes, this error was
permitted to subsist in the church, it was productive of the most
salutary effects on the faith and practice of Christians, who
lived in the awful expectation of that moment, when the globe
itself, and all the various race of mankind, should tremble at
the appearance of their divine Judge. 60
591 (return) [ This was, in fact, an integral part of the Jewish
notion of the Messiah, from which the minds of the apostles
themselves were but gradually detached. See Bertholdt,
Christologia Judæorum, concluding chapters—M.]
60 (return) [ This expectation was countenanced by the
twenty-fourth chapter of St. Matthew, and by the first epistle of
St. Paul to the Thessalonians. Erasmus removes the difficulty by
the help of allegory and metaphor; and the learned Grotius
ventures to insinuate, that, for wise purposes, the pious
deception was permitted to take place. * Note: Some modern
theologians explain it without discovering either allegory or
deception. They say, that Jesus Christ, after having proclaimed
the ruin of Jerusalem and of the Temple, speaks of his second
coming and the sings which were to precede it; but those who
believed that the moment was near deceived themselves as to the
sense of two words, an error which still subsists in our versions
of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, xxiv. 29, 34. In verse
29, we read, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days
shall the sun be darkened,” &c. The Greek word signifies all at
once, suddenly, not immediately; so that it signifies only the
sudden appearance of the signs which Jesus Christ announces not
the shortness of the interval which was to separate them from the
“days of tribulation,” of which he was speaking. The verse 34 is
this “Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass till
all these things shall be fulfilled.” Jesus, speaking to his
disciples, uses these words, which the translators have rendered
by this generation, but which means the race, the filiation of my
disciples; that is, he speaks of a class of men, not of a
generation. The true sense then, according to these learned men,
is, In truth I tell you that this race of men, of which you are
the commencement, shall not pass away till this shall take place;
that is to say, the succession of Christians shall not cease till
his coming. See Commentary of M. Paulus on the New Test., edit.
1802, tom. iii. p. 445,—446.—G. ——Others, as Rosenmuller and
Kuinoel, in loc., confine this passage to a highly figurative
description of the ruins of the Jewish city and polity.—M.]
Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part IV.
The ancient and popular doctrine of the Millennium was intimately
connected with the second coming of Christ. As the works of the
creation had been finished in six days, their duration in their
present state, according to a tradition which was attributed to
the prophet Elijah, was fixed to six thousand years. 61 By the
same analogy it was inferred, that this long period of labor and
contention, which was now almost elapsed, 62 would be succeeded
by a joyful Sabbath of a thousand years; and that Christ, with
the triumphant band of the saints and the elect who had escaped
death, or who had been miraculously revived, would reign upon
earth till the time appointed for the last and general
resurrection. So pleasing was this hope to the mind of believers,
that the _New Jerusalem_, the seat of this blissful kingdom, was
quickly adorned with all the gayest colors of the imagination. A
felicity consisting only of pure and spiritual pleasure would
have appeared too refined for its inhabitants, who were still
supposed to possess their human nature and senses. A garden of
Eden, with the amusements of the pastoral life, was no longer
suited to the advanced state of society which prevailed under the
Roman empire. A city was therefore erected of gold and precious
stones, and a supernatural plenty of corn and wine was bestowed
on the adjacent territory; in the free enjoyment of whose
spontaneous productions the happy and benevolent people was never
to be restrained by any jealous laws of exclusive property. 63
The assurance of such a Millennium was carefully inculcated by a
succession of fathers from Justin Martyr, 64 and Irenæus, who
conversed with the immediate disciples of the apostles, down to
Lactantius, who was preceptor to the son of Constantine. 65
Though it might not be universally received, it appears to have
been the reigning sentiment of the orthodox believers; and it
seems so well adapted to the desires and apprehensions of
mankind, that it must have contributed in a very considerable
degree to the progress of the Christian faith. But when the
edifice of the church was almost completed, the temporary support
was laid aside. The doctrine of Christ’s reign upon earth was at
first treated as a profound allegory, was considered by degrees
as a doubtful and useless opinion, and was at length rejected as
the absurd invention of heresy and fanaticism. 66 A mysterious
prophecy, which still forms a part of the sacred canon, but which
was thought to favor the exploded sentiment, has very narrowly
escaped the proscription of the church. 67
61 (return) [ See Burnet’s Sacred Theory, part iii. c. 5. This
tradition may be traced as high as the the author of Epistle of
Barnabas, who wrote in the first century, and who seems to have
been half a Jew. * Note: In fact it is purely Jewish. See
Mosheim, De Reb. Christ. ii. 8. Lightfoot’s Works, 8vo. edit.
vol. iii. p. 37. Bertholdt, Christologia Judæorum ch. 38.—M.]
62 (return) [ The primitive church of Antioch computed almost
6000 years from the creation of the world to the birth of Christ.
Africanus, Lactantius, and the Greek church, have reduced that
number to 5500, and Eusebius has contented himself with 5200
years. These calculations were formed on the Septuagint, which
was universally received during the six first centuries. The
authority of the vulgate and of the Hebrew text has determined
the moderns, Protestants as well as Catholics, to prefer a period
of about 4000 years; though, in the study of profane antiquity,
they often find themselves straitened by those narrow limits. *
Note: Most of the more learned modern English Protestants, Dr.
Hales, Mr. Faber, Dr. Russel, as well as the Continental writers,
adopt the larger chronology. There is little doubt that the
narrower system was framed by the Jews of Tiberias; it was
clearly neither that of St. Paul, nor of Josephus, nor of the
Samaritan Text. It is greatly to be regretted that the chronology
of the earlier Scriptures should ever have been made a religious
question—M.]
63 (return) [ Most of these pictures were borrowed from a
misrepresentation of Isaiah, Daniel, and the Apocalypse. One of
the grossest images may be found in Irenæus, (l. v. p. 455,) the
disciple of Papias, who had seen the apostle St. John.]
64 (return) [ See the second dialogue of Justin with Triphon, and
the seventh book of Lactantius. It is unnecessary to allege all
the intermediate fathers, as the fact is not disputed. Yet the
curious reader may consult Daille de Uus Patrum, l. ii. c. 4.]
65 (return) [ The testimony of Justin of his own faith and that
of his orthodox brethren, in the doctrine of a Millennium, is
delivered in the clearest and most solemn manner, (Dialog. cum
Tryphonte Jud. p. 177, 178, edit. Benedictin.) If in the
beginning of this important passage there is any thing like an
inconsistency, we may impute it, as we think proper, either to
the author or to his transcribers. * Note: The Millenium is
described in what once stood as the XLIst Article of the English
Church (see Collier, Eccles. Hist., for Articles of Edw. VI.) as
“a fable of Jewish dotage.” The whole of these gross and earthly
images may be traced in the works which treat on the Jewish
traditions, in Lightfoot, Schoetgen, and Eisenmenger; “Das
enthdeckte Judenthum” t. ii 809; and briefly in Bertholdt, i. c.
38, 39.—M.]
66 (return) [ Dupin, Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom. i. p. 223,
tom. ii. p. 366, and Mosheim, p. 720; though the latter of these
learned divines is not altogether candid on this occasion.]
67 (return) [ In the council of Laodicea, (about the year 360,)
the Apocalypse was tacitly excluded from the sacred canon, by the
same churches of Asia to which it is addressed; and we may learn
from the complaint of Sulpicius Severus, that their sentence had
been ratified by the greater number of Christians of his time.
From what causes then is the Apocalypse at present so generally
received by the Greek, the Roman, and the Protestant churches?
The following ones may be assigned. 1. The Greeks were subdued by
the authority of an impostor, who, in the sixth century, assumed
the character of Dionysius the Areopagite. 2. A just apprehension
that the grammarians might become more important than the
theologians, engaged the council of Trent to fix the seal of
their infallibility on all the books of Scripture contained in
the Latin Vulgate, in the number of which the Apocalypse was
fortunately included. (Fr. Paolo, Istoria del Concilio
Tridentino, l. ii.) 3. The advantage of turning those mysterious
prophecies against the See of Rome, inspired the Protestants with
uncommon veneration for so useful an ally. See the ingenious and
elegant discourses of the present bishop of Litchfield on that
unpromising subject. * Note: The exclusion of the Apocalypse is
not improbably assigned to its obvious unfitness to be read in
churches. It is to be feared that a history of the interpretation
of the Apocalypse would not give a very favorable view either of
the wisdom or the charity of the successive ages of Christianity.
Wetstein’s interpretation, differently modified, is adopted by
most Continental scholars.—M.]
Whilst the happiness and glory of a temporal reign were promised
to the disciples of Christ, the most dreadful calamities were
denounced against an unbelieving world. The edification of a new
Jerusalem was to advance by equal steps with the destruction of
the mystic Babylon; and as long as the emperors who reigned
before Constantine persisted in the profession of idolatry, the
epithet of Babylon was applied to the city and to the empire of
Rome. A regular series was prepared of all the moral and physical
evils which can afflict a flourishing nation; intestine discord,
and the invasion of the fiercest barbarians from the unknown
regions of the North; pestilence and famine, comets and eclipses,
earthquakes and inundations. 68 All these were only so many
preparatory and alarming signs of the great catastrophe of Rome,
when the country of the Scipios and Cæsars should be consumed by
a flame from Heaven, and the city of the seven hills, with her
palaces, her temples, and her triumphal arches, should be buried
in a vast lake of fire and brimstone. It might, however, afford
some consolation to Roman vanity, that the period of their empire
would be that of the world itself; which, as it had once perished
by the element of water, was destined to experience a second and
a speedy destruction from the element of fire. In the opinion of
a general conflagration, the faith of the Christian very happily
coincided with the tradition of the East, the philosophy of the
Stoics, and the analogy of Nature; and even the country, which,
from religious motives, had been chosen for the origin and
principal scene of the conflagration, was the best adapted for
that purpose by natural and physical causes; by its deep caverns,
beds of sulphur, and numerous volcanoes, of which those of Ætna,
of Vesuvius, and of Lipari, exhibit a very imperfect
representation. The calmest and most intrepid sceptic could not
refuse to acknowledge that the destruction of the present system
of the world by fire was in itself extremely probable. The
Christian, who founded his belief much less on the fallacious
arguments of reason than on the authority of tradition and the
interpretation of Scripture, expected it with terror and
confidence as a certain and approaching event; and as his mind
was perpetually filled with the solemn idea, he considered every
disaster that happened to the empire as an infallible symptom of
an expiring world. 69
68 (return) [ Lactantius (Institut. Divin. vii. 15, &c.) relates
the dismal talk of futurity with great spirit and eloquence. *
Note: Lactantius had a notion of a great Asiatic empire, which
was previously to rise on the ruins of the Roman: quod Romanum
nomen animus dicere, sed dicam. quia futurum est tolletur de
terra, et impere. Asiam revertetur.—M.]
69 (return) [ On this subject every reader of taste will be
entertained with the third part of Burnet’s Sacred Theory. He
blends philosophy, Scripture, and tradition, into one magnificent
system; in the description of which he displays a strength of
fancy not inferior to that of Milton himself.]
The condemnation of the wisest and most virtuous of the Pagans,
on account of their ignorance or disbelief of the divine truth,
seems to offend the reason and the humanity of the present age.
70 But the primitive church, whose faith was of a much firmer
consistence, delivered over, without hesitation, to eternal
torture, the far greater part of the human species. A charitable
hope might perhaps be indulged in favor of Socrates, or some
other sages of antiquity, who had consulted the light of reason
before that of the gospel had arisen. 71 But it was unanimously
affirmed, that those who, since the birth or the death of Christ,
had obstinately persisted in the worship of the dæmons, neither
deserved nor could expect a pardon from the irritated justice of
the Deity. These rigid sentiments, which had been unknown to the
ancient world, appear to have infused a spirit of bitterness into
a system of love and harmony. The ties of blood and friendship
were frequently torn asunder by the difference of religious
faith; and the Christians, who, in this world, found themselves
oppressed by the power of the Pagans, were sometimes seduced by
resentment and spiritual pride to delight in the prospect of
their future triumph. “You are fond of spectacles,” exclaims the
stern Tertullian; “expect the greatest of all spectacles, the
last and eternal judgment of the universe. 71b How shall I
admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many
proud monarchs, so many fancied gods, groaning in the lowest
abyss of darkness; so many magistrates, who persecuted the name
of the Lord, liquefying in fiercer fires than they ever kindled
against the Christians; so many sage philosophers blushing in
red-hot flames with their deluded scholars; so many celebrated
poets trembling before the tribunal, not of Minos, but of Christ;
so many tragedians, more tuneful in the expression of their own
sufferings; so many dancers.”
711 But the humanity of the reader will permit me to draw a veil
over the rest of this infernal description, which the zealous
African pursues in a long variety of affected and unfeeling
witticisms. 72
70 (return) [ And yet whatever may be the language of
individuals, it is still the public doctrine of all the Christian
churches; nor can even our own refuse to admit the conclusions
which must be drawn from the viiith and the xviiith of her
Articles. The Jansenists, who have so diligently studied the
works of the fathers, maintain this sentiment with distinguished
zeal; and the learned M. de Tillemont never dismisses a virtuous
emperor without pronouncing his damnation. Zuinglius is perhaps
the only leader of a party who has ever adopted the milder
sentiment, and he gave no less offence to the Lutherans than to
the Catholics. See Bossuet, Histoire des Variations des Eglises
Protestantes, l. ii. c. 19—22.]
71 (return) [ Justin and Clemens of Alexandria allow that some of
the philosophers were instructed by the Logos; confounding its
double signification of the human reason, and of the Divine
Word.]
711 (return) [ This translation is not exact: the first sentence
is imperfect. Tertullian says, Ille dies nationibus insperatus,
ille derisus, cum tanta sacculi vetustas et tot ejus nativitates
uno igne haurientur. The text does not authorize the exaggerated
expressions, so many magistrates, so many sago philosophers, so
many poets, &c.; but simply magistrates, philosophers, poets.—G.
—It is not clear that Gibbon’s version or paraphrase is
incorrect: Tertullian writes, tot tantosque reges item præsides,
&c.—M.]
71b (return) [Tertullian, de Spectaculis, c. 30. In order to
ascertain the degree of authority which the zealous African had
acquired it may be sufficient to allege the testimony of Cyprian,
the doctor and guide of all the western churches. (See Prudent.
Hym. xiii. 100.) As often as he applied himself to his daily
study of the writings of Tertullian, he was accustomed to say,
“Da mihi magistrum, Give me my master.” (Hieronym. de Viris
Illustribus, tom. i. p. 284.)]
72 (return) [ The object of Tertullian’s vehemence in his
Treatise, was to keep the Christians away from the secular games
celebrated by the Emperor Severus: It has not prevented him from
showing himself in other places full of benevolence and charity
towards unbelievers: the spirit of the gospel has sometimes
prevailed over the violence of human passions: Qui ergo putaveris
nihil nos de salute Cæsaris curare (he says in his Apology)
inspice Dei voces, literas nostras. Scitote ex illis præceptum
esse nobis ad redudantionem, benignitates etiam pro inimicis Deum
orare, et pro persecutoribus cona precari. Sed etiam nominatim
atque manifeste orate inquit (Christus) pro regibus et pro
principibus et potestatibus ut omnia sint tranquilla vobis Tert.
Apol. c. 31.—G. ——It would be wiser for Christianity, retreating
upon its genuine records in the New Testament, to disclaim this
fierce African, than to identify itself with his furious
invectives by unsatisfactory apologies for their unchristian
fanaticism.—M.]
Doubtless there were many among the primitive Christians of a
temper more suitable to the meekness and charity of their
profession. There were many who felt a sincere compassion for the
danger of their friends and countrymen, and who exerted the most
benevolent zeal to save them from the impending destruction.
The careless Polytheist, assailed by new and unexpected terrors,
against which neither his priests nor his philosophers could
afford him any certain protection, was very frequently terrified
and subdued by the menace of eternal tortures. His fears might
assist the progress of his faith and reason; and if he could once
persuade himself to suspect that the Christian religion might
possibly be true, it became an easy task to convince him that it
was the safest and most prudent party that he could possibly
embrace.
III. The supernatural gifts, which even in this life were
ascribed to the Christians above the rest of mankind, must have
conduced to their own comfort, and very frequently to the
conviction of infidels. Besides the occasional prodigies, which
might sometimes be effected by the immediate interposition of the
Deity when he suspended the laws of Nature for the service of
religion, the Christian church, from the time of the apostles and
their first disciples, 73 has claimed an uninterrupted succession
of miraculous powers, the gift of tongues, of vision, and of
prophecy, the power of expelling dæmons, of healing the sick, and
of raising the dead. The knowledge of foreign languages was
frequently communicated to the contemporaries of Irenæus, though
Irenæus himself was left to struggle with the difficulties of a
barbarous dialect, whilst he preached the gospel to the natives
of Gaul. 74 The divine inspiration, whether it was conveyed in
the form of a waking or of a sleeping vision, is described as a
favor very liberally bestowed on all ranks of the faithful, on
women as on elders, on boys as well as upon bishops. When their
devout minds were sufficiently prepared by a course of prayer, of
fasting, and of vigils, to receive the extraordinary impulse,
they were transported out of their senses, and delivered in
ecstasy what was inspired, being mere organs of the Holy Spirit,
just as a pipe or flute is of him who blows into it. 75 We may
add, that the design of these visions was, for the most part,
either to disclose the future history, or to guide the present
administration, of the church. The expulsion of the dæmons from
the bodies of those unhappy persons whom they had been permitted
to torment, was considered as a signal though ordinary triumph of
religion, and is repeatedly alleged by the ancient apoligists, as
the most convincing evidence of the truth of Christianity. The
awful ceremony was usually performed in a public manner, and in
the presence of a great number of spectators; the patient was
relieved by the power or skill of the exorcist, and the
vanquished dæmon was heard to confess that he was one of the
fabled gods of antiquity, who had impiously usurped the adoration
of mankind. 76 But the miraculous cure of diseases of the most
inveterate or even preternatural kind can no longer occasion any
surprise, when we recollect, that in the days of Irenæus, about
the end of the second century, the resurrection of the dead was
very far from being esteemed an uncommon event; that the miracle
was frequently performed on necessary occasions, by great fasting
and the joint supplication of the church of the place, and that
the persons thus restored to their prayers had lived afterwards
among them many years. 77 At such a period, when faith could
boast of so many wonderful victories over death, it seems
difficult to account for the scepticism of those philosophers,
who still rejected and derided the doctrine of the resurrection.
A noble Grecian had rested on this important ground the whole
controversy, and promised Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, that if
he could be gratified with the sight of a single person who had
been actually raised from the dead, he would immediately embrace
the Christian religion. It is somewhat remarkable, that the
prelate of the first eastern church, however anxious for the
conversion of his friend, thought proper to decline this fair and
reasonable challenge. 78
73 (return) [ Notwithstanding the evasions of Dr. Middleton, it
is impossible to overlook the clear traces of visions and
inspiration, which may be found in the apostolic fathers. * Note:
Gibbon should have noticed the distinct and remarkable passage
from Chrysostom, quoted by Middleton, (Works, vol. i. p. 105,) in
which he affirms the long discontinuance of miracles as a
notorious fact.—M.]
74 (return) [ Irenæus adv. Hæres. Proem. p.3 Dr. Middleton (Free
Inquiry, p. 96, &c.) observes, that as this pretension of all
others was the most difficult to support by art, it was the
soonest given up. The observation suits his hypothesis. * Note:
This passage of Irenæus contains no allusion to the gift of
tongues; it is merely an apology for a rude and unpolished Greek
style, which could not be expected from one who passed his life
in a remote and barbarous province, and was continually obliged
to speak the Celtic language.—M. Note: Except in the life of
Pachomius, an Egyptian monk of the fourth century. (see Jortin,
Ecc. Hist. i. p. 368, edit. 1805,) and the latter (not earlier)
lives of Xavier, there is no claim laid to the gift of tongues
since the time of Irenæus; and of this claim, Xavier’s own
letters are profoundly silent. See Douglas’s Criterion, p. 76
edit. 1807.—M.]
75 (return) [ Athenagoras in Legatione. Justin Martyr, Cohort. ad
Gentes Tertullian advers. Marcionit. l. iv. These descriptions
are not very unlike the prophetic fury, for which Cicero (de
Divinat.ii. 54) expresses so little reverence.]
76 (return) [ Tertullian (Apolog. c. 23) throws out a bold
defiance to the Pagan magistrates. Of the primitive miracles, the
power of exorcising is the only one which has been assumed by
Protestants. * Note: But by Protestants neither of the most
enlightened ages nor most reasoning minds.—M.]
77 (return) [ Irenæus adv. Hæreses, l. ii. 56, 57, l. v. c. 6.
Mr. Dodwell (Dissertat. ad Irenæum, ii. 42) concludes, that the
second century was still more fertile in miracles than the first.
* Note: It is difficult to answer Middleton’s objection to this
statement of Irenæus: “It is very strange, that from the time of
the apostles there is not a single instance of this miracle to be
found in the three first centuries; except a single case,
slightly intimated in Eusebius, from the Works of Papias; which
he seems to rank among the other fabulous stories delivered by
that weak man.” Middleton, Works, vol. i. p. 59. Bp. Douglas
(Criterion, p 389) would consider Irenæus to speak of what had
“been performed formerly.” not in his own time.—M.]
78 (return) [ Theophilus ad Autolycum, l. i. p. 345. Edit.
Benedictin. Paris, 1742. * Note: A candid sceptic might discern
some impropriety in the Bishop being called upon to perform a
miracle on demand.—M.]
The miracles of the primitive church, after obtaining the
sanction of ages, have been lately attacked in a very free and
ingenious inquiry, 79 which, though it has met with the most
favorable reception from the public, appears to have excited a
general scandal among the divines of our own as well as of the
other Protestant churches of Europe. 80 Our different sentiments
on this subject will be much less influenced by any particular
arguments, than by our habits of study and reflection; and, above
all, by the degree of evidence which we have accustomed ourselves
to require for the proof of a miraculous event. The duty of an
historian does not call upon him to interpose his private
judgment in this nice and important controversy; but he ought not
to dissemble the difficulty of adopting such a theory as may
reconcile the interest of religion with that of reason, of making
a proper application of that theory, and of defining with
precision the limits of that happy period, exempt from error and
from deceit, to which we might be disposed to extend the gift of
supernatural powers. From the first of the fathers to the last of
the popes, a succession of bishops, of saints, of martyrs, and of
miracles, is continued without interruption; and the progress of
superstition was so gradual, and almost imperceptible, that we
know not in what particular link we should break the chain of
tradition. Every age bears testimony to the wonderful events by
which it was distinguished, and its testimony appears no less
weighty and respectable than that of the preceding generation,
till we are insensibly led on to accuse our own inconsistency, if
in the eighth or in the twelfth century we deny to the venerable
Bede, or to the holy Bernard, the same degree of confidence
which, in the second century, we had so liberally granted to
Justin or to Irenæus. 81 If the truth of any of those miracles is
appreciated by their apparent use and propriety, every age had
unbelievers to convince, heretics to confute, and idolatrous
nations to convert; and sufficient motives might always be
produced to justify the interposition of Heaven. And yet, since
every friend to revelation is persuaded of the reality, and every
reasonable man is convinced of the cessation, of miraculous
powers, it is evident that there must have been _some period_ in
which they were either suddenly or gradually withdrawn from the
Christian church. Whatever æra is chosen for that purpose, the
death of the apostles, the conversion of the Roman empire, or the
extinction of the Arian heresy, 82 the insensibility of the
Christians who lived at that time will equally afford a just
matter of surprise. They still supported their pretensions after
they had lost their power. Credulity performed the office of
faith; fanaticism was permitted to assume the language of
inspiration, and the effects of accident or contrivance were
ascribed to supernatural causes. The recent experience of genuine
miracles should have instructed the Christian world in the ways
of Providence, and habituated their eye (if we may use a very
inadequate expression) to the style of the divine artist. Should
the most skilful painter of modern Italy presume to decorate his
feeble imitations with the name of Raphæl or of Correggio, the
insolent fraud would be soon discovered, and indignantly
rejected.
79 (return) [ Dr. Middleton sent out his Introduction in the year
1747, published his Free Inquiry in 1749, and before his death,
which happened in 1750, he had prepared a vindication of it
against his numerous adversaries.]
80 (return) [ The university of Oxford conferred degrees on his
opponents. From the indignation of Mosheim, (p. 221,) we may
discover the sentiments of the Lutheran divines. * Note: Yet many
Protestant divines will now without reluctance confine miracles
to the time of the apostles, or at least to the first century.—M]
81 (return) [It may seem somewhat remarkable, that Bernard of
Clairvaux, who records so many miracles of his friend St.
Malachi, never takes any notice of his own, which, in their turn,
however, are carefully related by his companions and disciples.
In the long series of ecclesiastical history, does there exist a
single instance of a saint asserting that he himself possessed
the gift of miracles?]
82 (return) [ The conversion of Constantine is the æra which is
most usually fixed by Protestants. The more rational divines are
unwilling to admit the miracles of the ivth, whilst the more
credulous are unwilling to reject those of the vth century. *
Note: All this appears to proceed on the principle that any
distinct line can be drawn in an unphilosophic age between
wonders and miracles, or between what piety, from their
unexpected and extraordinary nature, the marvellous concurrence
of secondary causes to some remarkable end, may consider
providential interpositions, and miracles strictly so called, in
which the laws of nature are suspended or violated. It is
impossible to assign, on one side, limits to human credulity, on
the other, to the influence of the imagination on the bodily
frame; but some of the miracles recorded in the Gospels are such
palpable impossibilities, according to the known laws and
operations of nature, that if recorded on sufficient evidence,
and the evidence we believe to be that of eye-witnesses, we
cannot reject them, without either asserting, with Hume, that no
evidence can prove a miracle, or that the Author of Nature has no
power of suspending its ordinary laws. But which of the
post-apostolic miracles will bear this test?—M.]
Whatever opinion may be entertained of the miracles of the
primitive church since the time of the apostles, this unresisting
softness of temper, so conspicuous among the believers of the
second and third centuries, proved of some accidental benefit to
the cause of truth and religion. In modern times, a latent and
even involuntary scepticism adheres to the most pious
dispositions. Their admission of supernatural truths is much less
an active consent than a cold and passive acquiescence.
Accustomed long since to observe and to respect the invariable
order of Nature, our reason, or at least our imagination, is not
sufficiently prepared to sustain the visible action of the Deity.
But, in the first ages of Christianity, the situation of mankind
was extremely different. The most curious, or the most credulous,
among the Pagans, were often persuaded to enter into a society
which asserted an actual claim of miraculous powers. The
primitive Christians perpetually trod on mystic ground, and their
minds were exercised by the habits of believing the most
extraordinary events. They felt, or they fancied, that on every
side they were incessantly assaulted by dæmons, comforted by
visions, instructed by prophecy, and surprisingly delivered from
danger, sickness, and from death itself, by the supplications of
the church. The real or imaginary prodigies, of which they so
frequently conceived themselves to be the objects, the
instruments, or the spectators, very happily disposed them to
adopt with the same ease, but with far greater justice, the
authentic wonders of the evangelic history; and thus miracles
that exceeded not the measure of their own experience, inspired
them with the most lively assurance of mysteries which were
acknowledged to surpass the limits of their understanding. It is
this deep impression of supernatural truths which has been so
much celebrated under the name of faith; a state of mind
described as the surest pledge of the divine favor and of future
felicity, and recommended as the first, or perhaps the only merit
of a Christian. According to the more rigid doctors, the moral
virtues, which may be equally practised by infidels, are
destitute of any value or efficacy in the work of our
justification.
Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part V.
IV. But the primitive Christian demonstrated his faith by his
virtues; and it was very justly supposed that the divine
persuasion, which enlightened or subdued the understanding, must,
at the same time, purify the heart, and direct the actions, of
the believer. The first apologists of Christianity who justify
the innocence of their brethren, and the writers of a later
period who celebrate the sanctity of their ancestors, display, in
the most lively colors, the reformation of manners which was
introduced into the world by the preaching of the gospel. As it
is my intention to remark only such human causes as were
permitted to second the influence of revelation, I shall slightly
mention two motives which might naturally render the lives of the
primitive Christians much purer and more austere than those of
their Pagan contemporaries, or their degenerate successors;
repentance for their past sins, and the laudable desire of
supporting the reputation of the society in which they were
engaged. 83
83 (return) [ These, in the opinion of the editor, are the most
uncandid paragraphs in Gibbon’s History. He ought either, with
manly courage, to have denied the moral reformation introduced by
Christianity, or fairly to have investigated all its motives; not
to have confined himself to an insidious and sarcastic
description of the less pure and generous elements of the
Christian character as it appeared even at that early time.—M.]
It is a very ancient reproach, suggested by the ignorance or the
malice of infidelity, that the Christians allured into their
party the most atrocious criminals, who, as soon as they were
touched by a sense of remorse, were easily persuaded to wash
away, in the water of baptism, the guilt of their past conduct,
for which the temples of the gods refused to grant them any
expiation. But this reproach, when it is cleared from
misrepresentation, contributes as much to the honor as it did to
the increase of the church. The friends of Christianity may
acknowledge without a blush that many of the most eminent saints
had been before their baptism the most abandoned sinners. Those
persons, who in the world had followed, though in an imperfect
manner, the dictates of benevolence and propriety, derived such a
calm satisfaction from the opinion of their own rectitude, as
rendered them much less susceptible of the sudden emotions of
shame, of grief, and of terror, which have given birth to so many
wonderful conversions. After the example of their divine Master,
the missionaries of the gospel disdained not the society of men,
and especially of women, oppressed by the consciousness, and very
often by the effects, of their vices. As they emerged from sin
and superstition to the glorious hope of immortality, they
resolved to devote themselves to a life, not only of virtue, but
of penitence. The desire of perfection became the ruling passion
of their soul; and it is well known that, while reason embraces a
cold mediocrity, our passions hurry us, with rapid violence, over
the space which lies between the most opposite extremes. 83b
83b (return) [The imputations of Celsus and Julian, with the
defence of the fathers, are very fairly stated by Spanheim,
Commentaire sur les Cesars de Julian, p. 468.]
When the new converts had been enrolled in the number of the
faithful, and were admitted to the sacraments of the church, they
found themselves restrained from relapsing into their past
disorders by another consideration of a less spiritual, but of a
very innocent and respectable nature. Any particular society that
has departed from the great body of the nation, or the religion
to which it belonged, immediately becomes the object of universal
as well as invidious observation. In proportion to the smallness
of its numbers, the character of the society may be affected by
the virtues and vices of the persons who compose it; and every
member is engaged to watch with the most vigilant attention over
his own behavior, and over that of his brethren, since, as he
must expect to incur a part of the common disgrace, he may hope
to enjoy a share of the common reputation. When the Christians of
Bithynia were brought before the tribunal of the younger Pliny,
they assured the proconsul, that, far from being engaged in any
unlawful conspiracy, they were bound by a solemn obligation to
abstain from the commission of those crimes which disturb the
private or public peace of society, from theft, robbery,
adultery, perjury, and fraud. 84 841 Near a century afterwards,
Tertullian, with an honest pride, could boast, that very few
Christians had suffered by the hand of the executioner, except on
account of their religion. 85 Their serious and sequestered life,
averse to the gay luxury of the age, inured them to chastity,
temperance, economy, and all the sober and domestic virtues. As
the greater number were of some trade or profession, it was
incumbent on them, by the strictest integrity and the fairest
dealing, to remove the suspicions which the profane are too apt
to conceive against the appearances of sanctity. The contempt of
the world exercised them in the habits of humility, meekness, and
patience. The more they were persecuted, the more closely they
adhered to each other. Their mutual charity and unsuspecting
confidence has been remarked by infidels, and was too often
abused by perfidious friends. 86
84 (return) [ Plin. Epist. x. 97. * Note: Is not the sense of
Tertullian rather, if guilty of any other offence, he had thereby
ceased to be a Christian?—M.]
841 (return) [ And this blamelessness was fully admitted by the
candid and enlightened Roman.—M.]
85 (return) [ Tertullian, Apolog. c. 44. He adds, however, with
some degree of hesitation, “Aut si aliud, jam non Christianus.” *
Note: Tertullian says positively no Christian, nemo illic
Christianus; for the rest, the limitation which he himself
subjoins, and which Gibbon quotes in the foregoing note,
diminishes the force of this assertion, and appears to prove that
at least he knew none such.—G.]
86 (return) [ The philosopher Peregrinus (of whose life and death
Lucian has left us so entertaining an account) imposed, for a
long time, on the credulous simplicity of the Christians of
Asia.]
It is a very honorable circumstance for the morals of the
primitive Christians, that even their faults, or rather errors,
were derived from an excess of virtue. The bishops and doctors of
the church, whose evidence attests, and whose authority might
influence, the professions, the principles, and even the practice
of their contemporaries, had studied the Scriptures with less
skill than devotion; and they often received, in the most literal
sense, those rigid precepts of Christ and the apostles, to which
the prudence of succeeding commentators has applied a looser and
more figurative mode of interpretation. Ambitious to exalt the
perfection of the gospel above the wisdom of philosophy, the
zealous fathers have carried the duties of self-mortification, of
purity, and of patience, to a height which it is scarcely
possible to attain, and much less to preserve, in our present
state of weakness and corruption. A doctrine so extraordinary and
so sublime must inevitably command the veneration of the people;
but it was ill calculated to obtain the suffrage of those worldly
philosophers who, in the conduct of this transitory life, consult
only the feelings of nature and the interest of society. 87
87 (return) [ See a very judicious treatise of Barbeyrac sur la
Morale des Peres.]
There are two very natural propensities which we may distinguish
in the most virtuous and liberal dispositions, the love of
pleasure and the love of action. If the former is refined by art
and learning, improved by the charms of social intercourse, and
corrected by a just regard to economy, to health, and to
reputation, it is productive of the greatest part of the
happiness of private life. The love of action is a principle of a
much stronger and more doubtful nature. It often leads to anger,
to ambition, and to revenge; but when it is guided by the sense
of propriety and benevolence, it becomes the parent of every
virtue, and if those virtues are accompanied with equal
abilities, a family, a state, or an empire may be indebted for
their safety and prosperity to the undaunted courage of a single
man. To the love of pleasure we may therefore ascribe most of the
agreeable, to the love of action we may attribute most of the
useful and respectable, qualifications. The character in which
both the one and the other should be united and harmonized would
seem to constitute the most perfect idea of human nature. The
insensible and inactive disposition, which should be supposed
alike destitute of both, would be rejected, by the common consent
of mankind, as utterly incapable of procuring any happiness to
the individual, or any public benefit to the world. But it was
not in _this_ world that the primitive Christians were desirous
of making themselves either agreeable or useful. 871
871 (return) [ El que me fait cette homelie semi-stoicienne,
semi-epicurienne? t’on jamais regarde l’amour du plaisir comme
l’un des principes de la perfection morale? Et de quel droit
faites vous de l’amour de l’action, et de l’amour du plaisir, les
seuls elemens de l’etre humain? Est ce que vous faites
abstraction de la verite en elle-meme, de la conscience et du
sentiment du devoir? Est ce que vous ne sentez point, par
exemple, que le sacrifice du moi a la justice et a la verite, est
aussi dans le coeur de l’homme: que tout n’est pas pour lui
action ou plaisir, et que dans le bien ce n’est pas le mouvement,
mais la verite, qu’il cherche? Et puis * * Thucy dide et Tacite.
ces maitres de l’histoire, ont ils jamais introduits dans leur
recits un fragment de dissertation sur le plaisir et sur
l’action. Villemain Cours de Lit. Franc part ii. Lecon v.—M.]
The acquisition of knowledge, the exercise of our reason or
fancy, and the cheerful flow of unguarded conversation, may
employ the leisure of a liberal mind. Such amusements, however,
were rejected with abhorrence, or admitted with the utmost
caution, by the severity of the fathers, who despised all
knowledge that was not useful to salvation, and who considered
all levity of discours as a criminal abuse of the gift of speech.
In our present state of existence the body is so inseparably
connected with the soul, that it seems to be our interest to
taste, with innocence and moderation, the enjoyments of which
that faithful companion is susceptible. Very different was the
reasoning of our devout predecessors; vainly aspiring to imitate
the perfection of angels, they disdained, or they affected to
disdain, every earthly and corporeal delight. 88 Some of our
senses indeed are necessary for our preservation, others for our
subsistence, and others again for our information; and thus far
it was impossible to reject the use of them. The first sensation
of pleasure was marked as the first moment of their abuse. The
unfeeling candidate for heaven was instructed, not only to resist
the grosser allurements of the taste or smell, but even to shut
his ears against the profane harmony of sounds, and to view with
indifference the most finished productions of human art. Gay
apparel, magnificent houses, and elegant furniture, were supposed
to unite the double guilt of pride and of sensuality; a simple
and mortified appearance was more suitable to the Christian who
was certain of his sins and doubtful of his salvation. In their
censures of luxury the fathers are extremely minute and
circumstantial; 89 and among the various articles which excite
their pious indignation we may enumerate false hair, garments of
any color except white, instruments of music, vases of gold or
silver, downy pillows, (as Jacob reposed his head on a stone,)
white bread, foreign wines, public salutations, the use of warm
baths, and the practice of shaving the beard, which, according to
the expression of Tertullian, is a lie against our own faces, and
an impious attempt to improve the works of the Creator. 90 When
Christianity was introduced among the rich and the polite, the
observation of these singular laws was left, as it would be at
present, to the few who were ambitious of superior sanctity. But
it is always easy, as well as agreeable, for the inferior ranks
of mankind to claim a merit from the contempt of that pomp and
pleasure which fortune has placed beyond their reach. The virtue
of the primitive Christians, like that of the first Romans, was
very frequently guarded by poverty and ignorance.
88 (return) [ Lactant. Institut. Divin. l. vi. c. 20, 21, 22.]
89 (return) [ Consult a work of Clemens of Alexandria, entitled
The Pædagogue, which contains the rudiments of ethics, as they
were taught in the most celebrated of the Christian schools.]
90 (return) [ Tertullian, de Spectaculis, c. 23. Clemens
Alexandrin. Pædagog. l. iii. c. 8.]
The chaste severity of the fathers, in whatever related to the
commerce of the two sexes, flowed from the same principle; their
abhorrence of every enjoyment which might gratify the sensual,
and degrade the spiritual nature of man. It was their favorite
opinion, that if Adam had preserved his obedience to the Creator,
he would have lived forever in a state of virgin purity, and that
some harmless mode of vegetation might have peopled paradise with
a race of innocent and immortal beings. 91 The use of marriage
was permitted only to his fallen posterity, as a necessary
expedient to continue the human species, and as a restraint,
however imperfect, on the natural licentiousness of desire. The
hesitation of the orthodox casuists on this interesting subject,
betrays the perplexity of men, unwilling to approve an
institution which they were compelled to tolerate. 92 The
enumeration of the very whimsical laws, which they most
circumstantially imposed on the marriage-bed, would force a smile
from the young and a blush from the fair. It was their unanimous
sentiment that a first marriage was adequate to all the purposes
of nature and of society. The sensual connection was refined into
a resemblance of the mystic union of Christ with his church, and
was pronounced to be indissoluble either by divorce or by death.
The practice of second nuptials was branded with the name of a
legal adultery; and the persons who were guilty of so scandalous
an offence against Christian purity, were soon excluded from the
honors, and even from the alms, of the church. 93 Since desire
was imputed as a crime, and marriage was tolerated as a defect,
it was consistent with the same principles to consider a state of
celibacy as the nearest approach to the divine perfection. It was
with the utmost difficulty that ancient Rome could support the
institution of six vestals; 94 but the primitive church was
filled with a number of persons of either sex, who had devoted
themselves to the profession of perpetual chastity. 95 A few of
these, among whom we may reckon the learned Origen, judged it the
most prudent to disarm the tempter. 96 Some were insensible and
some were invincible against the assaults of the flesh.
Disdaining an ignominious flight, the virgins of the warm climate
of Africa encountered the enemy in the closest engagement; they
permitted priests and deacons to share their bed, and gloried
amidst the flames in their unsullied purity. But insulted Nature
sometimes vindicated her rights, and this new species of
martyrdom served only to introduce a new scandal into the church.
97 Among the Christian ascetics, however, (a name which they soon
acquired from their painful exercise,) many, as they were less
presumptuous, were probably more successful. The loss of sensual
pleasure was supplied and compensated by spiritual pride. Even
the multitude of Pagans were inclined to estimate the merit of
the sacrifice by its apparent difficulty; and it was in the
praise of these chaste spouses of Christ that the fathers have
poured forth the troubled stream of their eloquence. 98 Such are
the early traces of monastic principles and institutions, which,
in a subsequent age, have counterbalanced all the temporal
advantages of Christianity. 99
91 (return) [ Beausobro, Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, l. vii.
c. 3. Justin, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustin, &c., strongly incline
to this opinion. Note: But these were Gnostic or Manichean
opinions. Beausobre distinctly describes Autustine’s bias to his
recent escape from Manicheism; and adds that he afterwards
changed his views.—M.]
92 (return) [ Some of the Gnostic heretics were more consistent;
they rejected the use of marriage.]
93 (return) [ See a chain of tradition, from Justin Martyr to
Jerome, in the Morale des Peres, c. iv. 6—26.]
94 (return) [ See a very curious Dissertation on the Vestals, in
the Memoires de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. iv. p. 161—227.
Notwithstanding the honors and rewards which were bestowed on
those virgins, it was difficult to procure a sufficient number;
nor could the dread of the most horrible death always restrain
their incontinence.]
95 (return) [ Cupiditatem procreandi aut unam scimus aut nullam.
Minutius Fælix, c. 31. Justin. Apolog. Major. Athenagoras in
Legat. c 28. Tertullian de Cultu Foemin. l. ii.]
96 (return) [ Eusebius, l. vi. 8. Before the fame of Origen had
excited envy and persecution, this extraordinary action was
rather admired than censured. As it was his general practice to
allegorize Scripture, it seems unfortunate that in this instance
only, he should have adopted the literal sense.]
97 (return) [ Cyprian. Epist. 4, and Dodwell, Dissertat.
Cyprianic. iii. Something like this rash attempt was long
afterwards imputed to the founder of the order of Fontevrault.
Bayle has amused himself and his readers on that very delicate
subject.]
98 (return) [ Dupin (Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom. i. p. 195)
gives a particular account of the dialogue of the ten virgins, as
it was composed by Methodius, Bishop of Tyre. The praises of
virginity are excessive.]
99 (return) [ The Ascetics (as early as the second century) made
a public profession of mortifying their bodies, and of abstaining
from the use of flesh and wine. Mosheim, p. 310.]
The Christians were not less averse to the business than to the
pleasures of this world. The defence of our persons and property
they knew not how to reconcile with the patient doctrine which
enjoined an unlimited forgiveness of past injuries, and commanded
them to invite the repetition of fresh insults. Their simplicity
was offended by the use of oaths, by the pomp of magistracy, and
by the active contention of public life; nor could their humane
ignorance be convinced that it was lawful on any occasion to shed
the blood of our fellow-creatures, either by the sword of
justice, or by that of war; even though their criminal or hostile
attempts should threaten the peace and safety of the whole
community. 100 It was acknowledged that, under a less perfect
law, the powers of the Jewish constitution had been exercised,
with the approbation of heaven, by inspired prophets and by
anointed kings. The Christians felt and confessed that such
institutions might be necessary for the present system of the
world, and they cheerfully submitted to the authority of their
Pagan governors. But while they inculcated the maxims of passive
obedience, they refused to take any active part in the civil
administration or the military defence of the empire. Some
indulgence might, perhaps, be allowed to those persons who,
before their conversion, were already engaged in such violent and
sanguinary occupations; 101a but it was impossible that the
Christians, without renouncing a more sacred duty, could assume
the character of soldiers, of magistrates, or of princes. 102b
This indolent, or even criminal disregard to the public welfare,
exposed them to the contempt and reproaches of the Pagans, who
very frequently asked, what must be the fate of the empire,
attacked on every side by the barbarians, if all mankind should
adopt the pusillanimous sentiments of the new sect. 103 To this
insulting question the Christian apologists returned obscure and
ambiguous answers, as they were unwilling to reveal the secret
cause of their security; the expectation that, before the
conversion of mankind was accomplished, war, government, the
Roman empire, and the world itself, would be no more. It may be
observed, that, in this instance likewise, the situation of the
first Christians coincided very happily with their religious
scruples, and that their aversion to an active life contributed
rather to excuse them from the service, than to exclude them from
the honors, of the state and army.
100 (return) [ See the Morale des Peres. The same patient
principles have been revived since the Reformation by the
Socinians, the modern Anabaptists, and the Quakers. Barclay, the
Apologist of the Quakers, has protected his brethren by the
authority of the primitive Christian; p. 542-549]
101a (return) [ Tertullian, Apolog. c. 21. De Idololatria, c. 17,
18. Origen contra Celsum, l. v. p. 253, l. vii. p. 348, l. viii.
p. 423-428.]
102b (return) [ Tertullian (de Corona Militis, c. 11) suggested
to them the expedient of deserting; a counsel which, if it had
been generally known, was not very proper to conciliate the favor
of the emperors towards the Christian sect. * Note: There is
nothing which ought to astonish us in the refusal of the
primitive Christians to take part in public affairs; it was the
natural consequence of the contrariety of their principles to the
customs, laws, and active life of the Pagan world. As Christians,
they could not enter into the senate, which, according to Gibbon
himself, always assembled in a temple or consecrated place, and
where each senator, before he took his seat, made a libation of a
few drops of wine, and burnt incense on the altar; as Christians,
they could not assist at festivals and banquets, which always
terminated with libations, &c.; finally, as “the innumerable
deities and rites of polytheism were closely interwoven with
every circumstance of public and private life,” the Christians
could not participate in them without incurring, according to
their principles, the guilt of impiety. It was then much less by
an effect of their doctrine, than by the consequence of their
situation, that they stood aloof from public business. Whenever
this situation offered no impediment, they showed as much
activity as the Pagans. Proinde, says Justin Martyr, (Apol. c.
17,) nos solum Deum adoramus, et vobis in rebus aliis læti
inservimus.—G. ——-This latter passage, M. Guizot quotes in Latin;
if he had consulted the original, he would have found it to be
altogether irrelevant: it merely relates to the payment of
taxes.—M. — —Tertullian does not suggest to the soldiers the
expedient of deserting; he says that they ought to be constantly
on their guard to do nothing during their service contrary to the
law of God, and to resolve to suffer martyrdom rather than submit
to a base compliance, or openly to renounce the service. (De Cor.
Mil. ii. p. 127.) He does not positively decide that the military
service is not permitted to Christians; he ends, indeed, by
saying, Puta denique licere militiam usque ad causam coronæ.—G.
——M. Guizot is. I think, again unfortunate in his defence of
Tertullian. That father says, that many Christian soldiers had
deserted, aut deserendum statim sit, ut a multis actum. The
latter sentence, Puta, &c, &c., is a concession for the sake of
argument: wha follows is more to the purpose.—M. Many other
passages of Tertullian prove that the army was full of
Christians, Hesterni sumus et vestra omnia implevimus, urbes,
insulas, castella, municipia, conciliabula, castra ipsa. (Apol.
c. 37.) Navigamus et not vobiscum et militamus. (c. 42.) Origen,
in truth, appears to have maintained a more rigid opinion, (Cont.
Cels. l. viii.;) but he has often renounced this exaggerated
severity, perhaps necessary to produce great results, and he
speaks of the profession of arms as an honorable one. (l. iv. c.
218.)— G. ——On these points Christian opinion, it should seem,
was much divided Tertullian, when he wrote the De Cor. Mil., was
evidently inclining to more ascetic opinions, and Origen was of
the same class. See Neander, vol. l part ii. p. 305, edit.
1828.—M.]
103 (return) [ As well as we can judge from the mutilated
representation of Origen, (1. viii. p. 423,) his adversary,
Celsus, had urged his objection with great force and candor.]
Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part VI.
V. But the human character, however it may be exalted or
depressed by a temporary enthusiasm, will return by degrees to
its proper and natural level, and will resume those passions that
seem the most adapted to its present condition. The primitive
Christians were dead to the business and pleasures of the world;
but their love of action, which could never be entirely
extinguished, soon revived, and found a new occupation in the
government of the church. A separate society, which attacked the
established religion of the empire, was obliged to adopt some
form of internal policy, and to appoint a sufficient number of
ministers, intrusted not only with the spiritual functions, but
even with the temporal direction of the Christian commonwealth.
The safety of that society, its honor, its aggrandizement, were
productive, even in the most pious minds, of a spirit of
patriotism, such as the first of the Romans had felt for the
republic, and sometimes of a similar indifference, in the use of
whatever means might probably conduce to so desirable an end. The
ambition of raising themselves or their friends to the honors and
offices of the church, was disguised by the laudable intention of
devoting to the public benefit the power and consideration,
which, for that purpose only, it became their duty to solicit. In
the exercise of their functions, they were frequently called upon
to detect the errors of heresy or the arts of faction, to oppose
the designs of perfidious brethren, to stigmatize their
characters with deserved infamy, and to expel them from the bosom
of a society whose peace and happiness they had attempted to
disturb. The ecclesiastical governors of the Christians were
taught to unite the wisdom of the serpent with the innocence of
the dove; but as the former was refined, so the latter was
insensibly corrupted, by the habits of government. In the church
as well as in the world, the persons who were placed in any
public station rendered themselves considerable by their
eloquence and firmness, by their knowledge of mankind, and by
their dexterity in business; and while they concealed from
others, and perhaps from themselves, the secret motives of their
conduct, they too frequently relapsed into all the turbulent
passions of active life, which were tinctured with an additional
degree of bitterness and obstinacy from the infusion of spiritual
zeal.
The government of the church has often been the subject, as well
as the prize, of religious contention. The hostile disputants of
Rome, of Paris, of Oxford, and of Geneva, have alike struggled to
reduce the primitive and apostolic model 1041 to the respective
standards of their own policy. The few who have pursued this
inquiry with more candor and impartiality, are of opinion, 105
that the apostles declined the office of legislation, and rather
chose to endure some partial scandals and divisions, than to
exclude the Christians of a future age from the liberty of
varying their forms of ecclesiastical government according to the
changes of times and circumstances. The scheme of policy, which,
under their approbation, was adopted for the use of the first
century, may be discovered from the practice of Jerusalem, of
Ephesus, or of Corinth. The societies which were instituted in
the cities of the Roman empire were united only by the ties of
faith and charity. Independence and equality formed the basis of
their internal constitution. The want of discipline and human
learning was supplied by the occasional assistance of the
_prophets_, 106 who were called to that function without
distinction of age, of sex, 1061 or of natural abilities, and
who, as often as they felt the divine impulse, poured forth the
effusions of the Spirit in the assembly of the faithful. But
these extraordinary gifts were frequently abused or misapplied by
the prophetic teachers. They displayed them at an improper
season, presumptuously disturbed the service of the assembly,
and, by their pride or mistaken zeal, they introduced,
particularly into the apostolic church of Corinth, a long and
melancholy train of disorders. 107 As the institution of prophets
became useless, and even pernicious, their powers were withdrawn,
and their office abolished. The public functions of religion were
solely intrusted to the established ministers of the church, the
_bishops_ and the _presbyters;_ two appellations which, in their
first origin, appear to have distinguished the same office and
the same order of persons. The name of Presbyter was expressive
of their age, or rather of their gravity and wisdom. The title of
Bishop denoted their inspection over the faith and manners of the
Christians who were committed to their pastoral care. In
proportion to the respective numbers of the faithful, a larger or
smaller number of these _episcopal presbyters_ guided each infant
congregation with equal authority and with united counsels. 108
1041 (return) [ The aristocratical party in France, as well as in
England, has strenuously maintained the divine origin of bishops.
But the Calvinistical presbyters were impatient of a superior;
and the Roman Pontiff refused to acknowledge an equal. See Fra
Paolo.]
105 (return) [ In the history of the Christian hierarchy, I have,
for the most part, followed the learned and candid Mosheim.]
106 (return) [ For the prophets of the primitive church, see
Mosheim, Dissertationes ad Hist. Eccles. pertinentes, tom. ii. p.
132—208.]
1061 (return) [ St. Paul distinctly reproves the intrusion of
females into the prophets office. 1 Cor. xiv. 34, 35. 1 Tim. ii.
11.—M.]
107 (return) [ See the epistles of St. Paul, and of Clemens, to
the Corinthians. * Note: The first ministers established in the
church were the deacons, appointed at Jerusalem, seven in number;
they were charged with the distribution of the alms; even females
had a share in this employment. After the deacons came the elders
or priests, charged with the maintenance of order and decorum in
the community, and to act every where in its name. The bishops
were afterwards charged to watch over the faith and the
instruction of the disciples: the apostles themselves appointed
several bishops. Tertullian, (adv. Marium, c. v.,) Clement of
Alexandria, and many fathers of the second and third century, do
not permit us to doubt this fact. The equality of rank between
these different functionaries did not prevent their functions
being, even in their origin, distinct; they became subsequently
still more so. See Plank, Geschichte der Christ. Kirch.
Verfassung., vol. i. p. 24.—G. On this extremely obscure subject,
which has been so much perplexed by passion and interest, it is
impossible to justify any opinion without entering into long and
controversial details.——It must be admitted, in opposition to
Plank, that in the New Testament, several words are sometimes
indiscriminately used. (Acts xx. v. 17, comp. with 28 Tit. i. 5
and 7. Philip. i. 1.) But it is as clear, that as soon as we can
discern the form of church government, at a period closely
bordering upon, if not within, the apostolic age, it appears with
a bishop at the head of each community, holding some superiority
over the presbyters. Whether he was, as Gibbon from Mosheim
supposes, merely an elective head of the College of Presbyters,
(for this we have, in fact, no valid authority,) or whether his
distinct functions were established on apostolic authority, is
still contested. The universal submission to this episcopacy, in
every part of the Christian world appears to me strongly to favor
the latter view.—M.]
108 (return) [ Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity, l. vii.]
But the most perfect equality of freedom requires the directing
hand of a superior magistrate: and the order of public
deliberations soon introduces the office of a president, invested
at least with the authority of collecting the sentiments, and of
executing the resolutions, of the assembly. A regard for the
public tranquillity, which would so frequently have been
interrupted by annual or by occasional elections, induced the
primitive Christians to constitute an honorable and perpetual
magistracy, and to choose one of the wisest and most holy among
their presbyters to execute, during his life, the duties of their
ecclesiastical governor. It was under these circumstances that
the lofty title of Bishop began to raise itself above the humble
appellation of Presbyter; and while the latter remained the most
natural distinction for the members of every Christian senate,
the former was appropriated to the dignity of its new president.
109 The advantages of this episcopal form of government, which
appears to have been introduced before the end of the first
century, 110 were so obvious, and so important for the future
greatness, as well as the present peace, of Christianity, that it
was adopted without delay by all the societies which were already
scattered over the empire, had acquired in a very early period
the sanction of antiquity, 111 and is still revered by the most
powerful churches, both of the East and of the West, as a
primitive and even as a divine establishment. 112 It is needless
to observe, that the pious and humble presbyters, who were first
dignified with the episcopal title, could not possess, and would
probably have rejected, the power and pomp which now encircles
the tiara of the Roman pontiff, or the mitre of a German prelate.
But we may define, in a few words, the narrow limits of their
original jurisdiction, which was chiefly of a spiritual, though
in some instances of a temporal nature. 113 It consisted in the
administration of the sacraments and discipline of the church,
the superintendency of religious ceremonies, which imperceptibly
increased in number and variety, the consecration of
ecclesiastical ministers, to whom the bishop assigned their
respective functions, the management of the public fund, and the
determination of all such differences as the faithful were
unwilling to expose before the tribunal of an idolatrous judge.
These powers, during a short period, were exercised according to
the advice of the presbyteral college, and with the consent and
approbation of the assembly of Christians. The primitive bishops
were considered only as the first of their equals, and the
honorable servants of a free people. Whenever the episcopal chair
became vacant by death, a new president was chosen among the
presbyters by the suffrage of the whole congregation, every
member of which supposed himself invested with a sacred and
sacerdotal character. 114
109 (return) [ See Jerome and Titum, c. i. and Epistol. 85, (in
the Benedictine edition, 101,) and the elaborate apology of
Blondel, pro sententia Hieronymi. The ancient state, as it is
described by Jerome, of the bishop and presbyters of Alexandria,
receives a remarkable confirmation from the patriarch Eutychius,
(Annal. tom. i. p. 330, Vers Pocock;) whose testimony I know not
how to reject, in spite of all the objections of the learned
Pearson in his Vindiciæ Ignatianæ, part i. c. 11.]
110 (return) [ See the introduction to the Apocalypse. Bishops,
under the name of angels, were already instituted in the seven
cities of Asia. And yet the epistle of Clemens (which is probably
of as ancient a date) does not lead us to discover any traces of
episcopacy either at Corinth or Rome.]
111 (return) [ Nulla Ecclesia sine Episcopo, has been a fact as
well as a maxim since the time of Tertullian and Irenæus.]
112 (return) [ After we have passed the difficulties of the first
century, we find the episcopal government universally
established, till it was interrupted by the republican genius of
the Swiss and German reformers.]
113 (return) [ See Mosheim in the first and second centuries.
Ignatius (ad Smyrnæos, c. 3, &c.) is fond of exalting the
episcopal dignity. Le Clerc (Hist. Eccles. p. 569) very bluntly
censures his conduct, Mosheim, with a more critical judgment, (p.
161,) suspects the purity even of the smaller epistles.]
114 (return) [ Nonne et Laici sacerdotes sumus? Tertullian,
Exhort. ad Castitat. c. 7. As the human heart is still the same,
several of the observations which Mr. Hume has made on
Enthusiasm, (Essays, vol. i. p. 76, quarto edit.) may be applied
even to real inspiration. * Note: This expression was employed by
the earlier Christian writers in the sense used by St. Peter, 1
Ep ii. 9. It was the sanctity and virtue not the power of
priesthood, in which all Christians were to be equally
distinguished.—M.]
Such was the mild and equal constitution by which the Christians
were governed more than a hundred years after the death of the
apostles. Every society formed within itself a separate and
independent republic; and although the most distant of these
little states maintained a mutual as well as friendly intercourse
of letters and deputations, the Christian world was not yet
connected by any supreme authority or legislative assembly. As
the numbers of the faithful were gradually multiplied, they
discovered the advantages that might result from a closer union
of their interest and designs. Towards the end of the second
century, the churches of Greece and Asia adopted the useful
institutions of provincial synods, 1141 and they may justly be
supposed to have borrowed the model of a representative council
from the celebrated examples of their own country, the
Amphictyons, the Achæan league, or the assemblies of the Ionian
cities. It was soon established as a custom and as a law, that
the bishops of the independent churches should meet in the
capital of the province at the stated periods of spring and
autumn. Their deliberations were assisted by the advice of a few
distinguished presbyters, and moderated by the presence of a
listening multitude. 115 Their decrees, which were styled Canons,
regulated every important controversy of faith and discipline;
and it was natural to believe that a liberal effusion of the Holy
Spirit would be poured on the united assembly of the delegates of
the Christian people. The institution of synods was so well
suited to private ambition, and to public interest, that in the
space of a few years it was received throughout the whole empire.
A regular correspondence was established between the provincial
councils, which mutually communicated and approved their
respective proceedings; and the catholic church soon assumed the
form, and acquired the strength, of a great fœderative republic.
116
1141 (return) [ The synods were not the first means taken by the
insulated churches to enter into communion and to assume a
corporate character. The dioceses were first formed by the union
of several country churches with a church in a city: many
churches in one city uniting among themselves, or joining a more
considerable church, became metropolitan. The dioceses were not
formed before the beginning of the second century: before that
time the Christians had not established sufficient churches in
the country to stand in need of that union. It is towards the
middle of the same century that we discover the first traces of
the metropolitan constitution. (Probably the country churches
were founded in general by missionaries from those in the city,
and would preserve a natural connection with the parent
church.)—M. ——The provincial synods did not commence till towards
the middle of the third century, and were not the first synods.
History gives us distinct notions of the synods, held towards the
end of the second century, at Ephesus at Jerusalem, at Pontus,
and at Rome, to put an end to the disputes which had arisen
between the Latin and Asiatic churches about the celebration of
Easter. But these synods were not subject to any regular form or
periodical return; this regularity was first established with the
provincial synods, which were formed by a union of the bishops of
a district, subject to a metropolitan. Plank, p. 90. Geschichte
der Christ. Kirch. Verfassung—G]
115 (return) [ Acta Concil. Carthag. apud Cyprian. edit. Fell, p.
158. This council was composed of eighty-seven bishops from the
provinces of Mauritania, Numidia, and Africa; some presbyters and
deacons assisted at the assembly; præsente plebis maxima parte.]
116 (return) [ Aguntur præterea per Græcias illas, certis in
locis concilia, &c Tertullian de Jejuniis, c. 13. The African
mentions it as a recent and foreign institution. The coalition of
the Christian churches is very ably explained by Mosheim, p. 164
170.]
As the legislative authority of the particular churches was
insensibly superseded by the use of councils, the bishops
obtained by their alliance a much larger share of executive and
arbitrary power; and as soon as they were connected by a sense of
their common interest, they were enabled to attack, with united
vigor, the original rights of their clergy and people. The
prelates of the third century imperceptibly changed the language
of exhortation into that of command, scattered the seeds of
future usurpations, and supplied, by scripture allegories and
declamatory rhetoric, their deficiency of force and of reason.
They exalted the unity and power of the church, as it was
represented in the episcopal office, of which every bishop
enjoyed an equal and undivided portion. 117 Princes and
magistrates, it was often repeated, might boast an earthly claim
to a transitory dominion; it was the episcopal authority alone
which was derived from the Deity, and extended itself over this
and over another world. The bishops were the vicegerents of
Christ, the successors of the apostles, and the mystic
substitutes of the high priest of the Mosaic law. Their exclusive
privilege of conferring the sacerdotal character invaded the
freedom both of clerical and of popular elections; and if, in the
administration of the church, they still consulted the judgment
of the presbyters, or the inclination of the people, they most
carefully inculcated the merit of such a voluntary condescension.
The bishops acknowledged the supreme authority which resided in
the assembly of their brethren; but in the government of his
peculiar diocese, each of them exacted from his _flock_ the same
implicit obedience as if that favorite metaphor had been
literally just, and as if the shepherd had been of a more exalted
nature than that of his sheep. 118 This obedience, however, was
not imposed without some efforts on one side, and some resistance
on the other. The democratical part of the constitution was, in
many places, very warmly supported by the zealous or interested
opposition of the inferior clergy. But their patriotism received
the ignominious epithets of faction and schism; and the episcopal
cause was indebted for its rapid progress to the labors of many
active prelates, who, like Cyprian of Carthage, could reconcile
the arts of the most ambitious statesman with the Christian
virtues which seem adapted to the character of a saint and
martyr. 119
117 (return) [ Cyprian, in his admired treatise De Unitate
Ecclesiæ. p. 75—86]
118 (return) [ We may appeal to the whole tenor of Cyprian’s
conduct, of his doctrine, and of his epistles. Le Clerc, in a
short life of Cyprian, (Bibliotheque Universelle, tom. xii. p.
207—378,) has laid him open with great freedom and accuracy.]
119 (return) [ If Novatus, Felicissimus, &c., whom the Bishop of
Carthage expelled from his church, and from Africa, were not the
most detestable monsters of wickedness, the zeal of Cyprian must
occasionally have prevailed over his veracity. For a very just
account of these obscure quarrels, see Mosheim, p. 497—512.]
The same causes which at first had destroyed the equality of the
presbyters introduced among the bishops a preeminence of rank,
and from thence a superiority of jurisdiction. As often as in the
spring and autumn they met in provincial synod, the difference of
personal merit and reputation was very sensibly felt among the
members of the assembly, and the multitude was governed by the
wisdom and eloquence of the few. But the order of public
proceedings required a more regular and less invidious
distinction; the office of perpetual presidents in the councils
of each province was conferred on the bishops of the principal
city; and these aspiring prelates, who soon acquired the lofty
titles of Metropolitans and Primates, secretly prepared
themselves to usurp over their episcopal brethren the same
authority which the bishops had so lately assumed above the
college of presbyters. 120 Nor was it long before an emulation of
preeminence and power prevailed among the Metropolitans
themselves, each of them affecting to display, in the most
pompous terms, the temporal honors and advantages of the city
over which he presided; the numbers and opulence of the
Christians who were subject to their pastoral care; the saints
and martyrs who had arisen among them; and the purity with which
they preserved the tradition of the faith, as it had been
transmitted through a series of orthodox bishops from the apostle
or the apostolic disciple, to whom the foundation of their church
was ascribed. 121 From every cause, either of a civil or of an
ecclesiastical nature, it was easy to foresee that Rome must
enjoy the respect, and would soon claim the obedience, of the
provinces. The society of the faithful bore a just proportion to
the capital of the empire; and the Roman church was the greatest,
the most numerous, and, in regard to the West, the most ancient
of all the Christian establishments, many of which had received
their religion from the pious labors of her missionaries. Instead
of one apostolic founder, the utmost boast of Antioch, of
Ephesus, or of Corinth, the banks of the Tyber were supposed to
have been honored with the preaching and martyrdom of the two
most eminent among the apostles; 122 and the bishops of Rome very
prudently claimed the inheritance of whatsoever prerogatives were
attributed either to the person or to the office of St. Peter.
123 The bishops of Italy and of the provinces were disposed to
allow them a primacy of order and association (such was their
very accurate expression) in the Christian aristocracy. 124 But
the power of a monarch was rejected with abhorrence, and the
aspiring genius of Rome experienced from the nations of Asia and
Africa a more vigorous resistance to her spiritual, than she had
formerly done to her temporal, dominion. The patriotic Cyprian,
who ruled with the most absolute sway the church of Carthage and
the provincial synods, opposed with resolution and success the
ambition of the Roman pontiff, artfully connected his own cause
with that of the eastern bishops, and, like Hannibal, sought out
new allies in the heart of Asia. 125 If this Punic war was
carried on without any effusion of blood, it was owing much less
to the moderation than to the weakness of the contending
prelates. Invectives and excommunications were _their_ only
weapons; and these, during the progress of the whole controversy,
they hurled against each other with equal fury and devotion. The
hard necessity of censuring either a pope, or a saint and martyr,
distresses the modern Catholics whenever they are obliged to
relate the particulars of a dispute in which the champions of
religion indulged such passions as seem much more adapted to the
senate or to the camp. 126
120 (return) [ Mosheim, p. 269, 574. Dupin, Antiquæ Eccles.
Disciplin. p. 19, 20.]
121 (return) [ Tertullian, in a distinct treatise, has pleaded
against the heretics the right of prescription, as it was held by
the apostolic churches.]
122 (return) [ The journey of St. Peter to Rome is mentioned by
most of the ancients, (see Eusebius, ii. 25,) maintained by all
the Catholics, allowed by some Protestants, (see Pearson and
Dodwell de Success. Episcop. Roman,) but has been vigorously
attacked by Spanheim, (Miscellanes Sacra, iii. 3.) According to
Father Hardouin, the monks of the thirteenth century, who
composed the Æneid, represented St. Peter under the allegorical
character of the Trojan hero. * Note: It is quite clear that,
strictly speaking, the church of Rome was not founded by either
of these apostles. St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans proves
undeniably the flourishing state of the church before his visit
to the city; and many Roman Catholic writers have given up the
impracticable task of reconciling with chronology any visit of
St. Peter to Rome before the end of the reign of Claudius, or the
beginning of that of Nero.—M.]
123 (return) [ It is in French only that the famous allusion to
St. Peter’s name is exact. Tu es Pierre, et sur cette pierre.—The
same is imperfect in Greek, Latin, Italian, &c., and totally
unintelligible in our Tentonic languages. * Note: It is exact in
Syro-Chaldaic, the language in which it was spoken by Jesus
Christ. (St. Matt. xvi. 17.) Peter was called Cephas; and cepha
signifies base, foundation, rock—G.]
124 (return) [ Irenæus adv. Hæreses, iii. 3. Tertullian de
Præscription. c. 36, and Cyprian, Epistol. 27, 55, 71, 75. Le
Clere (Hist. Eccles. p. 764) and Mosheim (p. 258, 578) labor in
the interpretation of these passages. But the loose and
rhetorical style of the fathers often appears favorable to the
pretensions of Rome.]
125 (return) [ See the sharp epistle from Firmilianus, bishop of
Cæsarea, to Stephen, bishop of Rome, ap. Cyprian, Epistol. 75.]
126 (return) [ Concerning this dispute of the rebaptism of
heretics, see the epistles of Cyprian, and the seventh book of
Eusebius.]
The progress of the ecclesiastical authority gave birth to the
memorable distinction of the laity and of the clergy, which had
been unknown to the Greeks and Romans. 127 The former of these
appellations comprehended the body of the Christian people; the
latter, according to the signification of the word, was
appropriated to the chosen portion that had been set apart for
the service of religion; a celebrated order of men, which has
furnished the most important, though not always the most
edifying, subjects for modern history. Their mutual hostilities
sometimes disturbed the peace of the infant church, but their
zeal and activity were united in the common cause, and the love
of power, which (under the most artful disguises) could insinuate
itself into the breasts of bishops and martyrs, animated them to
increase the number of their subjects, and to enlarge the limits
of the Christian empire. They were destitute of any temporal
force, and they were for a long time discouraged and oppressed,
rather than assisted, by the civil magistrate; but they had
acquired, and they employed within their own society, the two
most efficacious instruments of government, rewards and
punishments; the former derived from the pious liberality, the
latter from the devout apprehensions, of the faithful.
127 (return) [ For the origin of these words, see Mosheim, p.
141. Spanheim, Hist. Ecclesiast. p. 633. The distinction of
Clerus and Iaicus was established before the time of Tertullian.]
Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part VII
I. The community of goods, which had so agreeably amused the
imagination of Plato, 128 and which subsisted in some degree
among the austere sect of the Essenians, 129 was adopted for a
short time in the primitive church. The fervor of the first
proselytes prompted them to sell those worldly possessions, which
they despised, to lay the price of them at the feet of the
apostles, and to content themselves with receiving an equal share
out of the general distribution. 130 The progress of the
Christian religion relaxed, and gradually abolished, this
generous institution, which, in hands less pure than those of the
apostles, would too soon have been corrupted and abused by the
returning selfishness of human nature; and the converts who
embraced the new religion were permitted to retain the possession
of their patrimony, to receive legacies and inheritances, and to
increase their separate property by all the lawful means of trade
and industry. Instead of an absolute sacrifice, a moderate
proportion was accepted by the ministers of the gospel; and in
their weekly or monthly assemblies, every believer, according to
the exigency of the occasion, and the measure of his wealth and
piety, presented his voluntary offering for the use of the common
fund. 131 Nothing, however inconsiderable, was refused; but it
was diligently inculcated that, in the article of Tithes, the
Mosaic law was still of divine obligation; and that since the
Jews, under a less perfect discipline, had been commanded to pay
a tenth part of all that they possessed, it would become the
disciples of Christ to distinguish themselves by a superior
degree of liberality, 132 and to acquire some merit by resigning
a superfluous treasure, which must so soon be annihilated with
the world itself. 133 It is almost unnecessary to observe, that
the revenue of each particular church, which was of so uncertain
and fluctuating a nature, must have varied with the poverty or
the opulence of the faithful, as they were dispersed in obscure
villages, or collected in the great cities of the empire. In the
time of the emperor Decius, it was the opinion of the
magistrates, that the Christians of Rome were possessed of very
considerable wealth; that vessels of gold and silver were used in
their religious worship, and that many among their proselytes had
sold their lands and houses to increase the public riches of the
sect, at the expense, indeed, of their unfortunate children, who
found themselves beggars, because their parents had been saints.
134 We should listen with distrust to the suspicions of strangers
and enemies: on this occasion, however, they receive a very
specious and probable color from the two following circumstances,
the only ones that have reached our knowledge, which define any
precise sums, or convey any distinct idea. Almost at the same
period, the bishop of Carthage, from a society less opulent than
that of Rome, collected a hundred thousand sesterces, (above
eight hundred and fifty pounds sterling,) on a sudden call of
charity to redeem the brethren of Numidia, who had been carried
away captives by the barbarians of the desert. 135 About a
hundred years before the reign of Decius, the Roman church had
received, in a single donation, the sum of two hundred thousand
sesterces from a stranger of Pontus, who proposed to fix his
residence in the capital. 136 These oblations, for the most part,
were made in money; nor was the society of Christians either
desirous or capable of acquiring, to any considerable degree, the
encumbrance of landed property. It had been provided by several
laws, which were enacted with the same design as our statutes of
mortmain, that no real estates should be given or bequeathed to
any corporate body, without either a special privilege or a
particular dispensation from the emperor or from the senate; 137
who were seldom disposed to grant them in favor of a sect, at
first the object of their contempt, and at last of their fears
and jealousy. A transaction, however, is related under the reign
of Alexander Severus, which discovers that the restraint was
sometimes eluded or suspended, and that the Christians were
permitted to claim and to possess lands within the limits of Rome
itself. 138 The progress of Christianity, and the civil confusion
of the empire, contributed to relax the severity of the laws; and
before the close of the third century many considerable estates
were bestowed on the opulent churches of Rome, Milan, Carthage,
Antioch, Alexandria, and the other great cities of Italy and the
provinces.
128 (return) [ The community instituted by Plato is more perfect
than that which Sir Thomas More had imagined for his Utopia. The
community of women, and that of temporal goods, may be considered
as inseparable parts of the same system.]
129 (return) [ Joseph. Antiquitat. xviii. 2. Philo, de Vit.
Contemplativ.]
130 (return) [ See the Acts of the Apostles, c. 2, 4, 5, with
Grotius’s Commentary. Mosheim, in a particular dissertation,
attacks the common opinion with very inconclusive arguments. *
Note: This is not the general judgment on Mosheim’s learned
dissertation. There is no trace in the latter part of the New
Testament of this community of goods, and many distinct proofs of
the contrary. All exhortations to almsgiving would have been
unmeaning if property had been in common—M.]
131 (return) [ Justin Martyr, Apolog. Major, c. 89. Tertullian,
Apolog. c. 39.]
132 (return) [ Irenæus ad Hæres. l. iv. c. 27, 34. Origen in Num.
Hom. ii Cyprian de Unitat. Eccles. Constitut. Apostol. l. ii. c.
34, 35, with the notes of Cotelerius. The Constitutions introduce
this divine precept, by declaring that priests are as much above
kings as the soul is above the body. Among the tithable articles,
they enumerate corn, wine, oil, and wool. On this interesting
subject, consult Prideaux’s History of Tithes, and Fra Paolo
delle Materie Beneficiarie; two writers of a very different
character.]
133 (return) [ The same opinion which prevailed about the year
one thousand, was productive of the same effects. Most of the
Donations express their motive, “appropinquante mundi fine.” See
Mosheim’s General History of the Church, vol. i. p. 457.]
134 (return) [ Tum summa cura est fratribus (Ut sermo testatur
loquax.) Offerre, fundis venditis Sestertiorum millia. Addicta
avorum prædia Foedis sub auctionibus, Successor exheres gemit
Sanctis egens Parentibus. Hæc occuluntur abditis Ecclesiarum in
angulis. Et summa pietas creditur Nudare dulces
liberos.——Prudent. Hymn 2. The subsequent conduct of the deacon
Laurence only proves how proper a use was made of the wealth of
the Roman church; it was undoubtedly very considerable; but Fra
Paolo (c. 3) appears to exaggerate, when he supposes that the
successors of Commodus were urged to persecute the Christians by
their own avarice, or that of their Prætorian præfects.]
135 (return) [ Cyprian, Epistol. 62.]
136 (return) [ Tertullian de Præscriptione, c. 30.]
137 (return) [ Diocletian gave a rescript, which is only a
declaration of the old law; “Collegium, si nullo speciali
privilegio subnixum sit, hæreditatem capere non posse, dubium non
est.” Fra Paolo (c. 4) thinks that these regulations had been
much neglected since the reign of Valerian.]
138 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 131. The ground had been public;
and was row disputed between the society of Christians and that
of butchers. Note *: Carponarii, rather victuallers.—M.]
The bishop was the natural steward of the church; the public
stock was intrusted to his care without account or control; the
presbyters were confined to their spiritual functions, and the
more dependent order of the deacons was solely employed in the
management and distribution of the ecclesiastical revenue. 139 If
we may give credit to the vehement declamations of Cyprian, there
were too many among his African brethren, who, in the execution
of their charge, violated every precept, not only of evangelical
perfection, but even of moral virtue. By some of these unfaithful
stewards the riches of the church were lavished in sensual
pleasures; by others they were perverted to the purposes of
private gain, of fraudulent purchases, and of rapacious usury.
140 But as long as the contributions of the Christian people were
free and unconstrained, the abuse of their confidence could not
be very frequent, and the general uses to which their liberality
was applied reflected honor on the religious society. A decent
portion was reserved for the maintenance of the bishop and his
clergy; a sufficient sum was allotted for the expenses of the
public worship, of which the feasts of love, the _agapæ_, as they
were called, constituted a very pleasing part. The whole
remainder was the sacred patrimony of the poor. According to the
discretion of the bishop, it was distributed to support widows
and orphans, the lame, the sick, and the aged of the community;
to comfort strangers and pilgrims, and to alleviate the
misfortunes of prisoners and captives, more especially when their
sufferings had been occasioned by their firm attachment to the
cause of religion. 141 A generous intercourse of charity united
the most distant provinces, and the smaller congregations were
cheerfully assisted by the alms of their more opulent brethren.
142 Such an institution, which paid less regard to the merit than
to the distress of the object, very materially conduced to the
progress of Christianity. The Pagans, who were actuated by a
sense of humanity, while they derided the doctrines, acknowledged
the benevolence, of the new sect. 143 The prospect of immediate
relief and of future protection allured into its hospitable bosom
many of those unhappy persons whom the neglect of the world would
have abandoned to the miseries of want, of sickness, and of old
age. There is some reason likewise to believe that great numbers
of infants, who, according to the inhuman practice of the times,
had been exposed by their parents, were frequently rescued from
death, baptized, educated, and maintained by the piety of the
Christians, and at the expense of the public treasure. 144
139 (return) [ Constitut. Apostol. ii. 35.]
140 (return) [ Cyprian de Lapsis, p. 89. Epistol. 65. The charge
is confirmed by the 19th and 20th canon of the council of
Illiberis.]
141 (return) [ See the apologies of Justin, Tertullian, &c.]
142 (return) [ The wealth and liberality of the Romans to their
most distant brethren is gratefully celebrated by Dionysius of
Corinth, ap. Euseb. l. iv. c. 23.]
143 (return) [ See Lucian iu Peregrin. Julian (Epist. 49) seems
mortified that the Christian charity maintains not only their
own, but likewise the heathen poor.]
144 (return) [ Such, at least, has been the laudable conduct of
more modern missionaries, under the same circumstances. Above
three thousand new-born infants are annually exposed in the
streets of Pekin. See Le Comte, Memoires sur la Chine, and the
Recherches sur les Chinois et les Egyptians, tom. i. p. 61.]
II. It is the undoubted right of every society to exclude from
its communion and benefits such among its members as reject or
violate those regulations which have been established by general
consent. In the exercise of this power, the censures of the
Christian church were chiefly directed against scandalous
sinners, and particularly those who were guilty of murder, of
fraud, or of incontinence; against the authors or the followers
of any heretical opinions which had been condemned by the
judgment of the episcopal order; and against those unhappy
persons, who, whether from choice or compulsion, had polluted
themselves after their baptism by any act of idolatrous worship.
The consequences of excommunication were of a temporal as well as
a spiritual nature. The Christian against whom it was pronounced
was deprived of any part in the oblations of the faithful. The
ties both of religious and of private friendship were dissolved:
he found himself a profane object of abhorrence to the persons
whom he the most esteemed, or by whom he had been the most
tenderly beloved; and as far as an expulsion from a respectable
society could imprint on his character a mark of disgrace, he was
shunned or suspected by the generality of mankind. The situation
of these unfortunate exiles was in itself very painful and
melancholy; but, as it usually happens, their apprehensions far
exceeded their sufferings. The benefits of the Christian
communion were those of eternal life; nor could they erase from
their minds the awful opinion, that to those ecclesiastical
governors by whom they were condemned, the Deity had committed
the keys of Hell and of Paradise. The heretics, indeed, who might
be supported by the consciousness of their intentions, and by the
flattering hope that they alone had discovered the true path of
salvation, endeavored to regain, in their separate assemblies,
those comforts, temporal as well as spiritual, which they no
longer derived from the great society of Christians. But almost
all those who had reluctantly yielded to the power of vice or
idolatry were sensible of their fallen condition, and anxiously
desirous of being restored to the benefits of the Christian
communion.
With regard to the treatment of these penitents, two opposite
opinions, the one of justice, the other of mercy, divided the
primitive church. The more rigid and inflexible casuists refused
them forever, and without exception, the meanest place in the
holy community, which they had disgraced or deserted; and leaving
them to the remorse of a guilty conscience, indulged them only
with a faint ray of hope that the contrition of their life and
death might possibly be accepted by the Supreme Being. 145 A
milder sentiment was embraced, in practice as well as in theory,
by the purest and most respectable of the Christian churches. 146
The gates of reconciliation and of heaven were seldom shut
against the returning penitent; but a severe and solemn form of
discipline was instituted, which, while it served to expiate his
crime, might powerfully deter the spectators from the imitation
of his example. Humbled by a public confession, emaciated by
fasting and clothed in sackcloth, the penitent lay prostrate at
the door of the assembly, imploring with tears the pardon of his
offences, and soliciting the prayers of the faithful. 147 If the
fault was of a very heinous nature, whole years of penance were
esteemed an inadequate satisfaction to the divine justice; and it
was always by slow and painful gradations that the sinner, the
heretic, or the apostate, was readmitted into the bosom of the
church. A sentence of perpetual excommunication was, however,
reserved for some crimes of an extraordinary magnitude, and
particularly for the inexcusable relapses of those penitents who
had already experienced and abused the clemency of their
ecclesiastical superiors. According to the circumstances or the
number of the guilty, the exercise of the Christian discipline
was varied by the discretion of the bishops. The councils of
Ancyra and Illiberis were held about the same time, the one in
Galatia, the other in Spain; but their respective canons, which
are still extant, seem to breathe a very different spirit. The
Galatian, who after his baptism had repeatedly sacrificed to
idols, might obtain his pardon by a penance of seven years; and
if he had seduced others to imitate his example, only three years
more were added to the term of his exile. But the unhappy
Spaniard, who had committed the same offence, was deprived of the
hope of reconciliation, even in the article of death; and his
idolatry was placed at the head of a list of seventeen other
crimes, against which a sentence no less terrible was pronounced.
Among these we may distinguish the inexpiable guilt of
calumniating a bishop, a presbyter, or even a deacon. 148
145 (return) [ The Montanists and the Novatians, who adhered to
this opinion with the greatest rigor and obstinacy, found
themselves at last in the number of excommunicated heretics. See
the learned and copious Mosheim, Secul. ii. and iii.]
146 (return) [ Dionysius ap. Euseb. iv. 23. Cyprian, de Lapsis.]
147 (return) [ Cave’s Primitive Christianity, part iii. c. 5. The
admirers of antiquity regret the loss of this public penance.]
148 (return) [ See in Dupin, Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom.
ii. p. 304—313, a short but rational exposition of the canons of
those councils, which were assembled in the first moments of
tranquillity, after the persecution of Diocletian. This
persecution had been much less severely felt in Spain than in
Galatia; a difference which may, in some measure account for the
contrast of their regulations.]
The well-tempered mixture of liberality and rigor, the judicious
dispensation of rewards and punishments, according to the maxims
of policy as well as justice, constituted the _human_ strength of
the church. The Bishops, whose paternal care extended itself to
the government of both worlds, were sensible of the importance of
these prerogatives; and covering their ambition with the fair
pretence of the love of order, they were jealous of any rival in
the exercise of a discipline so necessary to prevent the
desertion of those troops which had enlisted themselves under the
banner of the cross, and whose numbers every day became more
considerable. From the imperious declamations of Cyprian, we
should naturally conclude that the doctrines of excommunication
and penance formed the most essential part of religion; and that
it was much less dangerous for the disciples of Christ to neglect
the observance of the moral duties, than to despise the censures
and authority of their bishops. Sometimes we might imagine that
we were listening to the voice of Moses, when he commanded the
earth to open, and to swallow up, in consuming flames, the
rebellious race which refused obedience to the priesthood of
Aaron; and we should sometimes suppose that we heard a Roman
consul asserting the majesty of the republic, and declaring his
inflexible resolution to enforce the rigor of the laws. “If such
irregularities are suffered with impunity,” (it is thus that the
bishop of Carthage chides the lenity of his colleague,) “if such
irregularities are suffered, there is an end of EPISCOPAL VIGOR;
149 an end of the sublime and divine power of governing the
Church, an end of Christianity itself.” Cyprian had renounced
those temporal honors which it is probable he would never have
obtained; but the acquisition of such absolute command over the
consciences and understanding of a congregation, however obscure
or despised by the world, is more truly grateful to the pride of
the human heart than the possession of the most despotic power,
imposed by arms and conquest on a reluctant people.
[ Gibbon has been accused of injustice to the character of
Cyprian, as exalting the “censures and authority of the church
above the observance of the moral duties.” Felicissimus had been
condemned by a synod of bishops, (non tantum mea, sed plurimorum
coepiscorum, sententia condemnatum,) on the charge not only of
schism, but of embezzlement of public money, the debauching of
virgins, and frequent acts of adultery. His violent menaces had
extorted his readmission into the church, against which Cyprian
protests with much vehemence: ne pecuniæ commissæ sibi fraudator,
ne stuprator virginum, ne matrimoniorum multorum depopulator et
corruptor, ultra adhuc sponsam Christi incorruptam præsentiæ suæ
dedecore, et impudica atque incesta contagione, violaret. See
Chelsum’s Remarks, p. 134. If these charges against Felicissimus
were true, they were something more than “irregularities,” A
Roman censor would have been a fairer subject of comparison than
a consul. On the other hand, it must be admitted that the charge
of adultery deepens very rapidly as the controversy becomes more
violent. It is first represented as a single act, recently
detected, and which men of character were prepared to
substantiate: adulterii etiam crimen accedit. quod patres nostri
graves viri deprehendisse se nuntiaverunt, et probaturos se
asseverarunt. Epist. xxxviii. The heretic has now darkened into a
man of notorious and general profligacy. Nor can it be denied
that of the whole long epistle, very far the larger and the more
passionate part dwells on the breach of ecclesiastical unity
rather than on the violation of Christian holiness.—M.]
149 (return) [ Cyprian Epist. 69.]
[ This supposition appears unfounded: the birth and the talents of
Cyprian might make us presume the contrary. Thascius Cæcilius
Cyprianus, Carthaginensis, artis oratoriæ professione clarus,
magnam sibi gloriam, opes, honores acquisivit, epularibus cænis et
largis dapibus assuetus, pretiosa veste conspicuus, auro atque
purpura fulgens, fascibus oblectatus et honoribus, stipatus
clientium cuneis, frequentiore comitatu officii agminis honestatus,
ut ipse de se loquitur in Epistola ad Donatum. See De Cave, Hist.
Liter. b. i. p. 87.—G. Cave has rather embellished Cyprian’s
language.—M.]
In the course of this important, though perhaps tedious inquiry,
I have attempted to display the secondary causes which so
efficaciously assisted the truth of the Christian religion. If
among these causes we have discovered any artificial ornaments,
any accidental circumstances, or any mixture of error and
passion, it cannot appear surprising that mankind should be the
most sensibly affected by such motives as were suited to their
imperfect nature. It was by the aid of these causes, exclusive
zeal, the immediate expectation of another world, the claim of
miracles, the practice of rigid virtue, and the constitution of
the primitive church, that Christianity spread itself with so
much success in the Roman empire. To the first of these the
Christians were indebted for their invincible valor, which
disdained to capitulate with the enemy whom they were resolved to
vanquish. The three succeeding causes supplied their valor with
the most formidable arms. The last of these causes united their
courage, directed their arms, and gave their efforts that
irresistible weight, which even a small band of well-trained and
intrepid volunteers has so often possessed over an undisciplined
multitude, ignorant of the subject and careless of the event of
the war. In the various religions of Polytheism, some wandering
fanatics of Egypt and Syria, who addressed themselves to the
credulous superstition of the populace, were perhaps the only
order of priests 150 that derived their whole support and credit
from their sacerdotal profession, and were very deeply affected
by a personal concern for the safety or prosperity of their
tutelar deities. The ministers of Polytheism, both in Rome and in
the provinces, were, for the most part, men of a noble birth, and
of an affluent fortune, who received, as an honorable
distinction, the care of a celebrated temple, or of a public
sacrifice, exhibited, very frequently at their own expense, the
sacred games, 151 and with cold indifference performed the
ancient rites, according to the laws and fashion of their
country. As they were engaged in the ordinary occupations of
life, their zeal and devotion were seldom animated by a sense of
interest, or by the habits of an ecclesiastical character.
Confined to their respective temples and cities, they remained
without any connection of discipline or government; and whilst
they acknowledged the supreme jurisdiction of the senate, of the
college of pontiffs, and of the emperor, those civil magistrates
contented themselves with the easy task of maintaining in peace
and dignity the general worship of mankind. We have already seen
how various, how loose, and how uncertain were the religious
sentiments of Polytheists. They were abandoned, almost without
control, to the natural workings of a superstitious fancy. The
accidental circumstances of their life and situation determined
the object as well as the degree of their devotion; and as long
as their adoration was successively prostituted to a thousand
deities, it was scarcely possible that their hearts could be
susceptible of a very sincere or lively passion for any of them.
150 (return) [ The arts, the manners, and the vices of the
priests of the Syrian goddess are very humorously described by
Apuleius, in the eighth book of his Metamorphosis.]
151 (return) [ The office of Asiarch was of this nature, and it
is frequently mentioned in Aristides, the Inscriptions, &c. It
was annual and elective. None but the vainest citizens could
desire the honor; none but the most wealthy could support the
expense. See, in the Patres Apostol. tom. ii. p. 200, with how
much indifference Philip the Asiarch conducted himself in the
martyrdom of Polycarp. There were likewise Bithyniarchs,
Lyciarchs, &c.]
When Christianity appeared in the world, even these faint and
imperfect impressions had lost much of their original power.
Human reason, which by its unassisted strength is incapable of
perceiving the mysteries of faith, had already obtained an easy
triumph over the folly of Paganism; and when Tertullian or
Lactantius employ their labors in exposing its falsehood and
extravagance, they are obliged to transcribe the eloquence of
Cicero or the wit of Lucian. The contagion of these sceptical
writings had been diffused far beyond the number of their
readers. The fashion of incredulity was communicated from the
philosopher to the man of pleasure or business, from the noble to
the plebeian, and from the master to the menial slave who waited
at his table, and who eagerly listened to the freedom of his
conversation. On public occasions the philosophic part of mankind
affected to treat with respect and decency the religious
institutions of their country; but their secret contempt
penetrated through the thin and awkward disguise; and even the
people, when they discovered that their deities were rejected and
derided by those whose rank or understanding they were accustomed
to reverence, were filled with doubts and apprehensions
concerning the truth of those doctrines, to which they had
yielded the most implicit belief. The decline of ancient
prejudice exposed a very numerous portion of human kind to the
danger of a painful and comfortless situation. A state of
scepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But
the practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude,
that if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of
their pleasing vision. Their love of the marvellous and
supernatural, their curiosity with regard to future events, and
their strong propensity to extend their hopes and fears beyond
the limits of the visible world, were the principal causes which
favored the establishment of Polytheism. So urgent on the vulgar
is the necessity of believing, that the fall of any system of
mythology will most probably be succeeded by the introduction of
some other mode of superstition. Some deities of a more recent
and fashionable cast might soon have occupied the deserted
temples of Jupiter and Apollo, if, in the decisive moment, the
wisdom of Providence had not interposed a genuine revelation,
fitted to inspire the most rational esteem and conviction,
whilst, at the same time, it was adorned with all that could
attract the curiosity, the wonder, and the veneration of the
people. In their actual disposition, as many were almost
disengaged from their artificial prejudices, but equally
susceptible and desirous of a devout attachment; an object much
less deserving would have been sufficient to fill the vacant
place in their hearts, and to gratify the uncertain eagerness of
their passions. Those who are inclined to pursue this reflection,
instead of viewing with astonishment the rapid progress of
Christianity, will perhaps be surprised that its success was not
still more rapid and still more universal. It has been observed,
with truth as well as propriety, that the conquests of Rome
prepared and facilitated those of Christianity. In the second
chapter of this work we have attempted to explain in what manner
the most civilized provinces of Europe, Asia, and Africa were
united under the dominion of one sovereign, and gradually
connected by the most intimate ties of laws, of manners, and of
language. The Jews of Palestine, who had fondly expected a
temporal deliverer, gave so cold a reception to the miracles of
the divine prophet, that it was found unnecessary to publish, or
at least to preserve, any Hebrew gospel. 152 The authentic
histories of the actions of Christ were composed in the Greek
language, at a considerable distance from Jerusalem, and after
the Gentile converts were grown extremely numerous. 153 As soon
as those histories were translated into the Latin tongue, they
were perfectly intelligible to all the subjects of Rome,
excepting only to the peasants of Syria and Egypt, for whose
benefit particular versions were afterwards made. The public
highways, which had been constructed for the use of the legions,
opened an easy passage for the Christian missionaries from
Damascus to Corinth, and from Italy to the extremity of Spain or
Britain; nor did those spiritual conquerors encounter any of the
obstacles which usually retard or prevent the introduction of a
foreign religion into a distant country. There is the strongest
reason to believe, that before the reigns of Diocletian and
Constantine, the faith of Christ had been preached in every
province, and in all the great cities of the empire; but the
foundation of the several congregations, the numbers of the
faithful who composed them, and their proportion to the
unbelieving multitude, are now buried in obscurity, or disguised
by fiction and declamation. Such imperfect circumstances,
however, as have reached our knowledge concerning the increase of
the Christian name in Asia and Greece, in Egypt, in Italy, and in
the West, we shall now proceed to relate, without neglecting the
real or imaginary acquisitions which lay beyond the frontiers of
the Roman empire.
152 (return) [ The modern critics are not disposed to believe
what the fathers almost unanimously assert, that St. Matthew
composed a Hebrew gospel, of which only the Greek translation is
extant. It seems, however, dangerous to reject their testimony. *
Note: Strong reasons appear to confirm this testimony. Papias,
contemporary of the Apostle St. John, says positively that
Matthew had written the discourses of Jesus Christ in Hebrew, and
that each interpreted them as he could. This Hebrew was the
Syro-Chaldaic dialect, then in use at Jerusalem: Origen, Irenæus,
Eusebius, Jerome, Epiphanius, confirm this statement. Jesus
Christ preached himself in Syro-Chaldaic, as is proved by many
words which he used, and which the Evangelists have taken the
pains to translate. St. Paul, addressing the Jews, used the same
language: Acts xxi. 40, xxii. 2, xxvi. 14. The opinions of some
critics prove nothing against such undeniable testimonies.
Moreover, their principal objection is, that St. Matthew quotes
the Old Testament according to the Greek version of the LXX.,
which is inaccurate; for of ten quotations, found in his Gospel,
seven are evidently taken from the Hebrew text; the threo others
offer little that differ: moreover, the latter are not literal
quotations. St. Jerome says positively, that, according to a copy
which he had seen in the library of Cæsarea, the quotations were
made in Hebrew (in Catal.) More modern critics, among others
Michaelis, do not entertain a doubt on the subject. The Greek
version appears to have been made in the time of the apostles, as
St. Jerome and St. Augustus affirm, perhaps by one of them.—G.
——Among modern critics, Dr. Hug has asserted the Greek original
of St. Matthew, but the general opinion of the most learned
biblical writer, supports the view of M. Guizot.—M.]
153 (return) [ Under the reigns of Nero and Domitian, and in the
cities of Alexandria, Antioch, Rome, and Ephesus. See Mill.
Prolegomena ad Nov. Testament, and Dr. Lardner’s fair and
extensive collection, vol. xv. Note: This question has, it is
well known, been most elaborately discussed since the time of
Gibbon. The Preface to the Translation of Schleier Macher’s
Version of St. Luke contains a very able summary of the various
theories.—M.]
Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part VIII.
The rich provinces that extend from the Euphrates to the Ionian
Sea were the principal theatre on which the apostle of the
Gentiles displayed his zeal and piety. The seeds of the gospel,
which he had scattered in a fertile soil, were diligently
cultivated by his disciples; and it should seem that, during the
two first centuries, the most considerable body of Christians was
contained within those limits. Among the societies which were
instituted in Syria, none were more ancient or more illustrious
than those of Damascus, of Berea or Aleppo, and of Antioch. The
prophetic introduction of the Apocalypse has described and
immortalized the seven churches of Asia; Ephesus, Smyrna,
Pergamus, Thyatira, 154 Sardes, Laodicea, and Philadelphia; and
their colonies were soon diffused over that populous country. In
a very early period, the islands of Cyprus and Crete, the
provinces of Thrace and Macedonia, gave a favorable reception to
the new religion; and Christian republics were soon founded in
the cities of Corinth, of Sparta, and of Athens. 155 The
antiquity of the Greek and Asiatic churches allowed a sufficient
space of time for their increase and multiplication; and even the
swarms of Gnostics and other heretics serve to display the
flourishing condition of the orthodox church, since the
appellation of heretics has always been applied to the less
numerous party. To these domestic testimonies we may add the
confession, the complaints, and the apprehensions of the Gentiles
themselves. From the writings of Lucian, a philosopher who had
studied mankind, and who describes their manners in the most
lively colors, we may learn that, under the reign of Commodus,
his native country of Pontus was filled with Epicureans and
_Christians_. 156 Within fourscore years after the death of
Christ, 157 the humane Pliny laments the magnitude of the evil
which he vainly attempted to eradicate. In his very curious
epistle to the emperor Trajan, he affirms that the temples were
almost deserted, that the sacred victims scarcely found any
purchasers, and that the superstition had not only infected the
cities, but had even spread itself into the villages and the open
country of Pontus and Bithynia. 158
154 (return) [ The Alogians (Epiphanius de Hæres. 51) disputed
the genuineness of the Apocalypse, because the church of Thyatira
was not yet founded. Epiphanius, who allows the fact, extricates
himself from the difficulty by ingeniously supposing that St.
John wrote in the spirit of prophecy. See Abauzit, Discours sur
l’Apocalypse.]
155 (return) [ The epistles of Ignatius and Dionysius (ap. Euseb.
iv. 23) point out many churches in Asia and Greece. That of
Athens seems to have been one of the least flourishing.]
156 (return) [ Lucian in Alexandro, c. 25. Christianity however,
must have been very unequally diffused over Pontus; since, in the
middle of the third century, there was no more than seventeen
believers in the extensive diocese of Neo-Cæsarea. See M. de
Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiast. tom. iv. p. 675, from Basil and
Gregory of Nyssa, who were themselves natives of Cappadocia.
Note: Gibbon forgot the conclusion of this story, that Gregory
left only seventeen heathens in his diocese. The antithesis is
suspicious, and both numbers may have been chosen to magnify the
spiritual fame of the wonder-worker.—M.]
157 (return) [ According to the ancients, Jesus Christ suffered
under the consulship of the two Gemini, in the year 29 of our
present æra. Pliny was sent into Bithynia (according to Pagi) in
the year 110.]
158 (return) [ Plin. Epist. x. 97.]
Without descending into a minute scrutiny of the expressions or
of the motives of those writers who either celebrate or lament
the progress of Christianity in the East, it may in general be
observed that none of them have left us any grounds from whence a
just estimate might be formed of the real numbers of the faithful
in those provinces. One circumstance, however, has been
fortunately preserved, which seems to cast a more distinct light
on this obscure but interesting subject. Under the reign of
Theodosius, after Christianity had enjoyed, during more than
sixty years, the sunshine of Imperial favor, the ancient and
illustrious church of Antioch consisted of one hundred thousand
persons, three thousand of whom were supported out of the public
oblations. 159 The splendor and dignity of the queen of the East,
the acknowledged populousness of Cæsarea, Seleucia, and
Alexandria, and the destruction of two hundred and fifty thousand
souls in the earthquake which afflicted Antioch under the elder
Justin, 160 are so many convincing proofs that the whole number
of its inhabitants was not less than half a million, and that the
Christians, however multiplied by zeal and power, did not exceed
a fifth part of that great city. How different a proportion must
we adopt when we compare the persecuted with the triumphant
church, the West with the East, remote villages with populous
towns, and countries recently converted to the faith with the
place where the believers first received the appellation of
Christians! It must not, however, be dissembled, that, in another
passage, Chrysostom, to whom we are indebted for this useful
information, computes the multitude of the faithful as even
superior to that of the Jews and Pagans. 161 But the solution of
this apparent difficulty is easy and obvious. The eloquent
preacher draws a parallel between the civil and the
ecclesiastical constitution of Antioch; between the list of
Christians who had acquired heaven by baptism, and the list of
citizens who had a right to share the public liberality. Slaves,
strangers, and infants were comprised in the former; they were
excluded from the latter.
159 (return) [ Chrysostom. Opera, tom. vii. p. 658, 810, (edit.
Savil. ii. 422, 329.)]
160 (return) [ John Malala, tom. ii. p. 144. He draws the same
conclusion with regard to the populousness of antioch.]
161 (return) [ Chrysostom. tom. i. p. 592. I am indebted for
these passages, though not for my inference, to the learned Dr.
Lardner. Credibility of the Gospel of History, vol. xii. p. 370.
* Note: The statements of Chrysostom with regard to the
population of Antioch, whatever may be their accuracy, are
perfectly consistent. In one passage he reckons the population at
200,000. In a second the Christians at 100,000. In a third he
states that the Christians formed more than half the population.
Gibbon has neglected to notice the first passage, and has drawn
by estimate of the population of Antioch from other sources. The
8000 maintained by alms were widows and virgins alone—M.]
The extensive commerce of Alexandria, and its proximity to
Palestine, gave an easy entrance to the new religion. It was at
first embraced by great numbers of the Theraputæ, or Essenians,
of the Lake Mareotis, a Jewish sect which had abated much of its
reverence for the Mosaic ceremonies. The austere life of the
Essenians, their fasts and excommunications, the community of
goods, the love of celibacy, their zeal for martyrdom, and the
warmth though not the purity of their faith, already offered a
very lively image of the primitive discipline. 162 It was in the
school of Alexandria that the Christian theology appears to have
assumed a regular and scientific form; and when Hadrian visited
Egypt, he found a church composed of Jews and of Greeks,
sufficiently important to attract the notice of that inquisitive
prince. 163 But the progress of Christianity was for a long time
confined within the limits of a single city, which was itself a
foreign colony, and till the close of the second century the
predecessors of Demetrius were the only prelates of the Egyptian
church. Three bishops were consecrated by the hands of Demetrius,
and the number was increased to twenty by his successor Heraclas.
164 The body of the natives, a people distinguished by a sullen
inflexibility of temper, 165 entertained the new doctrine with
coldness and reluctance; and even in the time of Origen, it was
rare to meet with an Egyptian who had surmounted his early
prejudices in favor of the sacred animals of his country. 166 As
soon, indeed, as Christianity ascended the throne, the zeal of
those barbarians obeyed the prevailing impulsion; the cities of
Egypt were filled with bishops, and the deserts of Thebais
swarmed with hermits.
162 (return) [ Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. 2, c. 20, 21, 22,
23, has examined with the most critical accuracy the curious
treatise of Philo, which describes the Therapeutæ. By proving
that it was composed as early as the time of Augustus, Basnage
has demonstrated, in spite of Eusebius (l. ii. c. 17) and a crowd
of modern Catholics, that the Therapeutæ were neither Christians
nor monks. It still remains probable that they changed their
name, preserved their manners, adopted some new articles of
faith, and gradually became the fathers of the Egyptian
Ascetics.]
163 (return) [ See a letter of Hadrian in the Augustan History,
p. 245.]
164 (return) [ For the succession of Alexandrian bishops, consult
Renaudot’s History, p. 24, &c. This curious fact is preserved by
the patriarch Eutychius, (Annal. tom. i. p. 334, Vers. Pocock,)
and its internal evidence would alone be a sufficient answer to
all the objections which Bishop Pearson has urged in the Vindiciæ
Ignatianæ.]
165 (return) [ Ammian. Marcellin. xxii. 16.]
166 (return) [ Origen contra Celsum, l. i. p. 40.]
A perpetual stream of strangers and provincials flowed into the
capacious bosom of Rome. Whatever was strange or odious, whoever
was guilty or suspected, might hope, in the obscurity of that
immense capital, to elude the vigilance of the law. In such a
various conflux of nations, every teacher, either of truth or
falsehood, every founder, whether of a virtuous or a criminal
association, might easily multiply his disciples or accomplices.
The Christians of Rome, at the time of the accidental persecution
of Nero, are represented by Tacitus as already amounting to a
very great multitude, 167 and the language of that great
historian is almost similar to the style employed by Livy, when
he relates the introduction and the suppression of the rites of
Bacchus. After the Bacchanals had awakened the severity of the
senate, it was likewise apprehended that a very great multitude,
as it were _another people_, had been initiated into those
abhorred mysteries. A more careful inquiry soon demonstrated that
the offenders did not exceed seven thousand; a number indeed
sufficiently alarming, when considered as the object of public
justice. 168 It is with the same candid allowance that we should
interpret the vague expressions of Tacitus, and in a former
instance of Pliny, when they exaggerate the crowds of deluded
fanatics who had forsaken the established worship of the gods.
The church of Rome was undoubtedly the first and most populous of
the empire; and we are possessed of an authentic record which
attests the state of religion in that city about the middle of
the third century, and after a peace of thirty-eight years. The
clergy, at that time, consisted of a bishop, forty-six
presbyters, seven deacons, as many sub-deacons, forty-two
acolytes, and fifty readers, exorcists, and porters. The number
of widows, of the infirm, and of the poor, who were maintained by
the oblations of the faithful, amounted to fifteen hundred. 169
From reason, as well as from the analogy of Antioch, we may
venture to estimate the Christians of Rome at about fifty
thousand. The populousness of that great capital cannot perhaps
be exactly ascertained; but the most modest calculation will not
surely reduce it lower than a million of inhabitants, of whom the
Christians might constitute at the most a twentieth part. 170
167 (return) [ Ingens multitudo is the expression of Tacitus, xv.
44.]
168 (return) [ T. Liv. xxxix. 13, 15, 16, 17. Nothing could
exceed the horror and consternation of the senate on the
discovery of the Bacchanalians, whose depravity is described, and
perhaps exaggerated, by Livy.]
169 (return) [ Eusebius, l. vi. c. 43. The Latin translator (M.
de Valois) has thought proper to reduce the number of presbyters
to forty-four.]
170 (return) [ This proportion of the presbyters and of the poor,
to the rest of the people, was originally fixed by Burnet,
(Travels into Italy, p. 168,) and is approved by Moyle, (vol. ii.
p. 151.) They were both unacquainted with the passage of
Chrysostom, which converts their conjecture almost into a fact.]
The western provincials appeared to have derived the knowledge of
Christianity from the same source which had diffused among them
the language, the sentiments, and the manners of Rome.
In this more important circumstance, Africa, as well as Gaul was
gradually fashioned to the imitation of the capital. Yet
notwithstanding the many favorable occasions which might invite
the Roman missionaries to visit their Latin provinces, it was
late before they passed either the sea or the Alps; 171 nor can
we discover in those great countries any assured traces either of
faith or of persecution that ascend higher than the reign of the
Antonines. 172 The slow progress of the gospel in the cold
climate of Gaul, was extremely different from the eagerness with
which it seems to have been received on the burning sands of
Africa. The African Christians soon formed one of the principal
members of the primitive church. The practice introduced into
that province of appointing bishops to the most inconsiderable
towns, and very frequently to the most obscure villages,
contributed to multiply the splendor and importance of their
religious societies, which during the course of the third century
were animated by the zeal of Tertullian, directed by the
abilities of Cyprian, and adorned by the eloquence of Lactantius.
But if, on the contrary, we turn our eyes towards Gaul, we must
content ourselves with discovering, in the time of Marcus
Antoninus, the feeble and united congregations of Lyons and
Vienna; and even as late as the reign of Decius we are assured,
that in a few cities only, Arles, Narbonne, Thoulouse, Limoges,
Clermont, Tours, and Paris, some scattered churches were
supported by the devotion of a small number of Christians. 173
Silence is indeed very consistent with devotion; but as it is
seldom compatible with zeal, we may perceive and lament the
languid state of Christianity in those provinces which had
exchanged the Celtic for the Latin tongue, since they did not,
during the three first centuries, give birth to a single
ecclesiastical writer. From Gaul, which claimed a just
preeminence of learning and authority over all the countries on
this side of the Alps, the light of the gospel was more faintly
reflected on the remote provinces of Spain and Britain; and if we
may credit the vehement assertions of Tertullian, they had
already received the first rays of the faith, when he addressed
his apology to the magistrates of the emperor Severus. 174 But
the obscure and imperfect origin of the western churches of
Europe has been so negligently recorded, that if we would relate
the time and manner of their foundation, we must supply the
silence of antiquity by those legends which avarice or
superstition long afterwards dictated to the monks in the lazy
gloom of their convents. 175 Of these holy romances, that of the
apostle St. James can alone, by its singular extravagance,
deserve to be mentioned. From a peaceful fisherman of the Lake of
Gennesareth, he was transformed into a valorous knight, who
charged at the head of the Spanish chivalry in their battles
against the Moors. The gravest historians have celebrated his
exploits; the miraculous shrine of Compostella displayed his
power; and the sword of a military order, assisted by the terrors
of the Inquisition, was sufficient to remove every objection of
profane criticism. 176
171 (return) [ Serius trans Alpes, religione Dei suscepta.
Sulpicius Severus, l. ii. With regard to Africa, see Tertullian
ad Scapulam, c. 3. It is imagined that the Scyllitan martyrs were
the first, (Acta Sincera Rumart. p. 34.) One of the adversaries
of Apuleius seems to have been a Christian. Apolog. p. 496, 497,
edit. Delphin.]
172 (return) [ Tum primum intra Gallias martyria visa. Sulp.
Severus, l. ii. These were the celebrated martyrs of Lyons. See
Eusebius, v. i. Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiast. tom. ii. p. 316.
According to the Donatists, whose assertion is confirmed by the
tacit acknowledgment of Augustin, Africa was the last of the
provinces which received the gospel. Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiast.
tom. i. p. 754.]
173 (return) [ Raræ in aliquibus civitatibus ecclesiæ, paucorum
Christianorum devotione, resurgerent. Acta Sincera, p. 130.
Gregory of Tours, l i. c. 28. Mosheim, p. 207, 449. There is some
reason to believe that in the beginning of the fourth century,
the extensive dioceses of Liege, of Treves, and of Cologne,
composed a single bishopric, which had been very recently
founded. See Memoires de Tillemont, tom vi. part i. p. 43, 411.]
174 (return) [ The date of Tertullian’s Apology is fixed, in a
dissertation of Mosheim, to the year 198.]
175 (return) [ In the fifteenth century, there were few who had
either inclination or courage to question, whether Joseph of
Arimathea founded the monastery of Glastonbury, and whether
Dionysius the Areopagite preferred the residence of Paris to that
of Athens.]
176 (return) [ The stupendous metamorphosis was performed in the
ninth century. See Mariana, (Hist. Hispan. l. vii. c. 13, tom. i.
p. 285, edit. Hag. Com. 1733,) who, in every sense, imitates
Livy, and the honest detection of the legend of St. James by Dr.
Geddes, Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 221.]
The progress of Christianity was not confined to the Roman
empire; and according to the primitive fathers, who interpret
facts by prophecy, the new religion, within a century after the
death of its divine Author, had already visited every part of the
globe. “There exists not,” says Justin Martyr, “a people, whether
Greek or Barbarian, or any other race of men, by whatsoever
appellation or manners they may be distinguished, however
ignorant of arts or agriculture, whether they dwell under tents,
or wander about in covered wagons, among whom prayers are not
offered up in the name of a crucified Jesus to the Father and
Creator of all things.” 177 But this splendid exaggeration, which
even at present it would be extremely difficult to reconcile with
the real state of mankind, can be considered only as the rash
sally of a devout but careless writer, the measure of whose
belief was regulated by that of his wishes. But neither the
belief nor the wishes of the fathers can alter the truth of
history. It will still remain an undoubted fact, that the
barbarians of Scythia and Germany, who afterwards subverted the
Roman monarchy, were involved in the darkness of paganism; and
that even the conversion of Iberia, of Armenia, or of Æthiopia,
was not attempted with any degree of success till the sceptre was
in the hands of an orthodox emperor. 178 Before that time, the
various accidents of war and commerce might indeed diffuse an
imperfect knowledge of the gospel among the tribes of Caledonia,
179 and among the borderers of the Rhine, the Danube, and the
Euphrates. 180 Beyond the last-mentioned river, Edessa was
distinguished by a firm and early adherence to the faith. 181
From Edessa the principles of Christianity were easily introduced
into the Greek and Syrian cities which obeyed the successors of
Artaxerxes; but they do not appear to have made any deep
impression on the minds of the Persians, whose religious system,
by the labors of a well-disciplined order of priests, had been
constructed with much more art and solidity than the uncertain
mythology of Greece and Rome. 182
177 (return) [ Justin Martyr, Dialog. cum Tryphon. p. 341.
Irenæus adv. Hæres. l. i. c. 10. Tertullian adv. Jud. c. 7. See
Mosheim, p. 203.]
178 (return) [ See the fourth century of Mosheim’s History of the
Church. Many, though very confused circumstances, that relate to
the conversion of Iberia and Armenia, may be found in Moses of
Chorene, l. ii. c. 78—89. Note: Mons. St. Martin has shown that
Armenia was the first nation that embraced Christianity. Memoires
sur l’Armenie, vol. i. p. 306, and notes to Le Beæ. Gibbon,
indeed had expressed his intention of withdrawing the words “of
Armenia” from the text of future editions. (Vindication, Works,
iv. 577.) He was bitterly taunted by Person for neglecting or
declining to fulfil his promise. Preface to Letters to
Travis.—M.]
179 (return) [ According to Tertullian, the Christian faith had
penetrated into parts of Britain inaccessible to the Roman arms.
About a century afterwards, Ossian, the son of Fingal, is said to
have disputed, in his extreme old age, with one of the foreign
missionaries, and the dispute is still extant, in verse, and in
the Erse language. See Mr. Macpher son’s Dissertation on the
Antiquity of Ossian’s Poems, p. 10.]
180 (return) [ The Goths, who ravaged Asia in the reign of
Gallienus, carried away great numbers of captives; some of whom
were Christians, and became missionaries. See Tillemont, Memoires
Ecclesiast. tom. iv. p. 44.]
181 (return) [ The legends of Abgarus, fabulous as it is, affords
a decisive proof, that many years before Eusebius wrote his
history, the greatest part of the inhabitants of Edessa had
embraced Christianity. Their rivals, the citizens of Carrhæ,
adhered, on the contrary, to the cause of Paganism, as late as
the sixth century.]
182 (return) [ According to Bardesanes (ap. Euseb. Præpar.
Evangel.) there were some Christians in Persia before the end of
the second century. In the time of Constantine (see his epistle
to Sapor, Vit. l. iv. c. 13) they composed a flourishing church.
Consult Beausobre, Hist. Cristique du Manicheisme, tom. i. p.
180, and the Bibliotheca Orietalis of Assemani.]
Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part IX.
From this impartial though imperfect survey of the progress of
Christianity, it may perhaps seem probable, that the number of
its proselytes has been excessively magnified by fear on the one
side, and by devotion on the other. According to the
irreproachable testimony of Origen, 183 the proportion of the
faithful was very inconsiderable, when compared with the
multitude of an unbelieving world; but, as we are left without
any distinct information, it is impossible to determine, and it
is difficult even to conjecture, the real numbers of the
primitive Christians. The most favorable calculation, however,
that can be deduced from the examples of Antioch and of Rome,
will not permit us to imagine that more than a twentieth part of
the subjects of the empire had enlisted themselves under the
banner of the cross before the important conversion of
Constantine. But their habits of faith, of zeal, and of union,
seemed to multiply their numbers; and the same causes which
contributed to their future increase, served to render their
actual strength more apparent and more formidable.
183 (return) [Origen contra Celsum, l. viii. p. 424.]
Such is the constitution of civil society, that, whilst a few
persons are distinguished by riches, by honors, and by knowledge,
the body of the people is condemned to obscurity, ignorance and
poverty. The Christian religion, which addressed itself to the
whole human race, must consequently collect a far greater number
of proselytes from the lower than from the superior ranks of
life. This innocent and natural circumstance has been improved
into a very odious imputation, which seems to be less strenuously
denied by the apologists, than it is urged by the adversaries, of
the faith; that the new sect of Christians was almost entirely
composed of the dregs of the populace, of peasants and mechanics,
of boys and women, of beggars and slaves, the last of whom might
sometimes introduce the missionaries into the rich and noble
families to which they belonged. These obscure teachers (such was
the charge of malice and infidelity) are as mute in public as
they are loquacious and dogmatical in private. Whilst they
cautiously avoid the dangerous encounter of philosophers, they
mingle with the rude and illiterate crowd, and insinuate
themselves into those minds whom their age, their sex, or their
education, has the best disposed to receive the impression of
superstitious terrors. 184
184 (return) [ Minucius Felix, c. 8, with Wowerus’s notes. Celsus
ap. Origen, l. iii. p. 138, 142. Julian ap. Cyril. l. vi. p. 206,
edit. Spanheim.]
This unfavorable picture, though not devoid of a faint
resemblance, betrays, by its dark coloring and distorted
features, the pencil of an enemy. As the humble faith of Christ
diffused itself through the world, it was embraced by several
persons who derived some consequence from the advantages of
nature or fortune. Aristides, who presented an eloquent apology
to the emperor Hadrian, was an Athenian philosopher. 185 Justin
Martyr had sought divine knowledge in the schools of Zeno, of
Aristotle, of Pythagoras, and of Plato, before he fortunately was
accosted by the old man, or rather the angel, who turned his
attention to the study of the Jewish prophets. 186 Clemens of
Alexandria had acquired much various reading in the Greek, and
Tertullian in the Latin, language. Julius Africanus and Origen
possessed a very considerable share of the learning of their
times; and although the style of Cyprian is very different from
that of Lactantius, we might almost discover that both those
writers had been public teachers of rhetoric. Even the study of
philosophy was at length introduced among the Christians, but it
was not always productive of the most salutary effects; knowledge
was as often the parent of heresy as of devotion, and the
description which was designed for the followers of Artemon, may,
with equal propriety, be applied to the various sects that
resisted the successors of the apostles. “They presume to alter
the Holy Scriptures, to abandon the ancient rule of faith, and to
form their opinions according to the subtile precepts of logic.
The science of the church is neglected for the study of geometry,
and they lose sight of heaven while they are employed in
measuring the earth. Euclid is perpetually in their hands.
Aristotle and Theophrastus are the objects of their admiration;
and they express an uncommon reverence for the works of Galen.
Their errors are derived from the abuse of the arts and sciences
of the infidels, and they corrupt the simplicity of the gospel by
the refinements of human reason.” 187
185 (return) [ Euseb. Hist. Eccles. iv. 3. Hieronym. Epist. 83.]
186 (return) [ The story is prettily told in Justin’s Dialogues.
Tillemont, (Mem Ecclesiast. tom. ii. p. 384,) who relates it
after him is sure that the old man was a disguised angel.]
187 (return) [ Eusebius, v. 28. It may be hoped, that none,
except the heretics, gave occasion to the complaint of Celsus,
(ap. Origen, l. ii. p. 77,) that the Christians were perpetually
correcting and altering their Gospels. * Note: Origen states in
reply, that he knows of none who had altered the Gospels except
the Marcionites, the Valentinians, and perhaps some followers of
Lucanus.—M.]
Nor can it be affirmed with truth, that the advantages of birth
and fortune were always separated from the profession of
Christianity. Several Roman citizens were brought before the
tribunal of Pliny, and he soon discovered, that a great number of
persons of _every order_ of men in Bithynia had deserted the
religion of their ancestors. 188 His unsuspected testimony may,
in this instance, obtain more credit than the bold challenge of
Tertullian, when he addresses himself to the fears as well as the
humanity of the proconsul of Africa, by assuring him, that if he
persists in his cruel intentions, he must decimate Carthage, and
that he will find among the guilty many persons of his own rank,
senators and matrons of noblest extraction, and the friends or
relations of his most intimate friends. 189 It appears, however,
that about forty years afterwards the emperor Valerian was
persuaded of the truth of this assertion, since in one of his
rescripts he evidently supposes that senators, Roman knights, and
ladies of quality, were engaged in the Christian sect. 190 The
church still continued to increase its outward splendor as it
lost its internal purity; and, in the reign of Diocletian, the
palace, the courts of justice, and even the army, concealed a
multitude of Christians, who endeavored to reconcile the
interests of the present with those of a future life.
188 (return) [ Plin. Epist. x. 97. Fuerunt alii similis amentiæ,
cives Romani—-Multi enim omnis ætatis, omnis ordinis, utriusque
sexus, etiam vocuntur in periculum et vocabuntur.]
189 (return) [ Tertullian ad Scapulum. Yet even his rhetoric
rises no higher than to claim a tenth part of Carthage.]
190 (return) [ Cyprian. Epist. 70.]
And yet these exceptions are either too few in number, or too
recent in time, entirely to remove the imputation of ignorance
and obscurity which has been so arrogantly cast on the first
proselytes of Christianity. 1901 Instead of employing in our
defence the fictions of later ages, it will be more prudent to
convert the occasion of scandal into a subject of edification.
Our serious thoughts will suggest to us, that the apostles
themselves were chosen by Providence among the fishermen of
Galilee, and that the lower we depress the temporal condition of
the first Christians, the more reason we shall find to admire
their merit and success. It is incumbent on us diligently to
remember, that the kingdom of heaven was promised to the poor in
spirit, and that minds afflicted by calamity and the contempt of
mankind, cheerfully listen to the divine promise of future
happiness; while, on the contrary, the fortunate are satisfied
with the possession of this world; and the wise abuse in doubt
and dispute their vain superiority of reason and knowledge.
1901 (return) [ This incomplete enumeration ought to be increased
by the names of several Pagans converted at the dawn of
Christianity, and whose conversion weakens the reproach which the
historian appears to support. Such are, the Proconsul Sergius
Paulus, converted at Paphos, (Acts xiii. 7—12.) Dionysius, member
of the Areopagus, converted with several others, al Athens, (Acts
xvii. 34;) several persons at the court of Nero, (Philip. iv 22;)
Erastus, receiver at Corinth, (Rom. xvi.23;) some Asiarchs, (Acts
xix. 31) As to the philosophers, we may add Tatian, Athenagoras,
Theophilus of Antioch, Hegesippus, Melito, Miltiades, Pantænus,
Ammenius, all distinguished for their genius and learning.—G.]
We stand in need of such reflections to comfort us for the loss
of some illustrious characters, which in our eyes might have
seemed the most worthy of the heavenly present. The names of
Seneca, of the elder and the younger Pliny, of Tacitus, of
Plutarch, of Galen, of the slave Epictetus, and of the emperor
Marcus Antoninus, adorn the age in which they flourished, and
exalt the dignity of human nature. They filled with glory their
respective stations, either in active or contemplative life;
their excellent understandings were improved by study; Philosophy
had purified their minds from the prejudices of the popular
superstitions; and their days were spent in the pursuit of truth
and the practice of virtue. Yet all these sages (it is no less an
object of surprise than of concern) overlooked or rejected the
perfection of the Christian system. Their language or their
silence equally discover their contempt for the growing sect,
which in their time had diffused itself over the Roman empire.
Those among them who condescended to mention the Christians,
consider them only as obstinate and perverse enthusiasts, who
exacted an implicit submission to their mysterious doctrines,
without being able to produce a single argument that could engage
the attention of men of sense and learning. 191
191 (return) [ Dr. Lardner, in his first and second volumes of
Jewish and Christian testimonies, collects and illustrates those
of Pliny the younger, of Tacitus, of Galen, of Marcus Antoninus,
and perhaps of Epictetus, (for it is doubtful whether that
philosopher means to speak of the Christians.) The new sect is
totally unnoticed by Seneca, the elder Pliny, and Plutarch.]
It is at least doubtful whether any of these philosophers perused
the apologies 1911 which the primitive Christians repeatedly
published in behalf of themselves and of their religion; but it
is much to be lamented that such a cause was not defended by
abler advocates. They expose with superfluous wit and eloquence
the extravagance of Polytheism. They interest our compassion by
displaying the innocence and sufferings of their injured
brethren. But when they would demonstrate the divine origin of
Christianity, they insist much more strongly on the predictions
which announced, than on the miracles which accompanied, the
appearance of the Messiah. Their favorite argument might serve to
edify a Christian or to convert a Jew, since both the one and the
other acknowledge the authority of those prophecies, and both are
obliged, with devout reverence, to search for their sense and
their accomplishment. But this mode of persuasion loses much of
its weight and influence, when it is addressed to those who
neither understand nor respect the Mosaic dispensation and the
prophetic style. 192 In the unskilful hands of Justin and of the
succeeding apologists, the sublime meaning of the Hebrew oracles
evaporates in distant types, affected conceits, and cold
allegories; and even their authenticity was rendered suspicious
to an unenlightened Gentile, by the mixture of pious forgeries,
which, under the names of Orpheus, Hermes, and the Sibyls, 193
were obtruded on him as of equal value with the genuine
inspirations of Heaven. The adoption of fraud and sophistry in
the defence of revelation too often reminds us of the injudicious
conduct of those poets who load their _invulnerable_ heroes with
a useless weight of cumbersome and brittle armor.
1911 (return) [ The emperors Hadrian, Antoninus &c., read with
astonishment the apologies of Justin Martyr, of Aristides, of
Melito, &c. (See St. Hieron. ad mag. orat. Orosius, lviii. c.
13.) Eusebius says expressly, that the cause of Christianity was
defended before the senate, in a very elegant discourse, by
Apollonius the Martyr.—G. ——Gibbon, in his severer spirit of
criticism, may have questioned the authority of Jerome and
Eusebius. There are some difficulties about Apollonius, which
Heinichen (note in loc. Eusebii) would solve, by suppose lag him
to have been, as Jerome states, a senator.—M.]
192 (return) [ If the famous prophecy of the Seventy Weeks had
been alleged to a Roman philosopher, would he not have replied in
the words of Cicero, “Quæ tandem ista auguratio est, annorum
potius quam aut rænsium aut dierum?” De Divinatione, ii. 30.
Observe with what irreverence Lucian, (in Alexandro, c. 13.) and
his friend Celsus ap. Origen, (l. vii. p. 327,) express
themselves concerning the Hebrew prophets.]
193 (return) [ The philosophers who derided the more ancient
predictions of the Sibyls, would easily have detected the Jewish
and Christian forgeries, which have been so triumphantly quoted
by the fathers, from Justin Martyr to Lactantius. When the
Sibylline verses had performed their appointed task, they, like
the system of the millennium, were quietly laid aside. The
Christian Sybil had unluckily fixed the ruin of Rome for the year
195, A. U. C. 948.]
But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan and
philosophic world, to those evidences which were represented by
the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their
senses? During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and of their
first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed
by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the
sick were healed, the dead were raised, dæmons were expelled, and
the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of
the church. But the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from
the awful spectacle, and, pursuing the ordinary occupations of
life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations in the
moral or physical government of the world. Under the reign of
Tiberius, the whole earth, 194 or at least a celebrated province
of the Roman empire, 195 was involved in a preternatural darkness
of three hours. Even this miraculous event, which ought to have
excited the wonder, the curiosity, and the devotion of mankind,
passed without notice in an age of science and history. 196 It
happened during the lifetime of Seneca and the elder Pliny, who
must have experienced the immediate effects, or received the
earliest intelligence, of the prodigy. Each of these
philosophers, in a laborious work, has recorded all the great
phenomena of Nature, earthquakes, meteors, comets, and eclipses,
which his indefatigable curiosity could collect. 197 Both the one
and the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to
which the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the
globe. A distinct chapter of Pliny 198 is designed for eclipses
of an extraordinary nature and unusual duration; but he contents
himself with describing the singular defect of light which
followed the murder of Cæsar, when, during the greatest part of a
year, the orb of the sun appeared pale and without splendor. The
season of obscurity, which cannot surely be compared with the
preternatural darkness of the Passion, had been already
celebrated by most of the poets 199 and historians of that
memorable age. 200
194 (return) [ The fathers, as they are drawn out in battle array
by Dom Calmet, (Dissertations sur la Bible, tom. iii. p.
295—308,) seem to cover the whole earth with darkness, in which
they are followed by most of the moderns.]
195 (return) [ Origen ad Matth. c. 27, and a few modern critics,
Beza, Le Clerc, Lardner, &c., are desirous of confining it to the
land of Judea.]
196 (return) [ The celebrated passage of Phlegon is now wisely
abandoned. When Tertullian assures the Pagans that the mention of
the prodigy is found in Arcanis (not Archivis) vestris, (see his
Apology, c. 21,) he probably appeals to the Sibylline verses,
which relate it exactly in the words of the Gospel. * Note:
According to some learned theologians a misunderstanding of the
text in the Gospel has given rise to this mistake, which has
employed and wearied so many laborious commentators, though
Origen had already taken the pains to preinform them. The
expression does not mean, they assert, an eclipse, but any kind
of obscurity occasioned in the atmosphere, whether by clouds or
any other cause. As this obscuration of the sun rarely took place
in Palestine, where in the middle of April the sky was usually
clear, it assumed, in the eyes of the Jews and Christians, an
importance conformable to the received notion, that the sun
concealed at midday was a sinister presage. See Amos viii. 9, 10.
The word is often taken in this sense by contemporary writers;
the Apocalypse says the sun was concealed, when speaking of an
obscuration caused by smoke and dust. (Revel. ix. 2.) Moreover,
the Hebrew word ophal, which in the LXX. answers to the Greek,
signifies any darkness; and the Evangelists, who have modelled
the sense of their expressions by those of the LXX., must have
taken it in the same latitude. This darkening of the sky usually
precedes earthquakes. (Matt. xxvii. 51.) The Heathen authors
furnish us a number of examples, of which a miraculous
explanation was given at the time. See Ovid. ii. v. 33, l. xv. v.
785. Pliny, Hist. Nat. l. ii. c 30. Wetstein has collected all
these examples in his edition of the New Testament. We need not,
then, be astonished at the silence of the Pagan authors
concerning a phenomenon which did not extend beyond Jerusalem,
and which might have nothing contrary to the laws of nature;
although the Christians and the Jews may have regarded it as a
sinister presage. See Michaelis Notes on New Testament, v. i. p.
290. Paulus, Commentary on New Testament, iii. p. 760.—G.]
197 (return) [ Seneca, Quæst. Natur. l. i. 15, vi. l. vii. 17.
Plin. Hist. Natur. l. ii.]
198 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. ii. 30.]
199 (return) [ Virgil. Georgic. i. 466. Tibullus, l. i. Eleg. v.
ver. 75. Ovid Metamorph. xv. 782. Lucan. Pharsal. i. 540. The
last of these poets places this prodigy before the civil war.]
200 (return) [ See a public epistle of M. Antony in Joseph.
Antiquit. xiv. 12. Plutarch in Cæsar. p. 471. Appian. Bell.
Civil. l. iv. Dion Cassius, l. xlv. p. 431. Julius Obsequens, c.
128. His little treatise is an abstract of Livy’s prodigies.]
VOLUME TWO
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.—Part I.
The Conduct Of The Roman Government Towards The Christians, From
The Reign Of Nero To That Of Constantine. 1111
1111 (return) [ The sixteenth chapter I cannot help considering
as a very ingenious and specious, but very disgraceful
extenuation of the cruelties perpetrated by the Roman magistrates
against the Christians. It is written in the most contemptibly
factious spirit of prejudice against the sufferers; it is
unworthy of a philosopher and of humanity. Let the narrative of
Cyprian’s death be examined. He had to relate the murder of an
innocent man of advanced age, and in a station deemed venerable
by a considerable body of the provincials of Africa, put to death
because he refused to sacrifice to Jupiter. Instead of pointing
the indignation of posterity against such an atrocious act of
tyranny, he dwells, with visible art, on the small circumstances
of decorum and politeness which attended this murder, and which
he relates with as much parade as if they were the most important
particulars of the event. Dr. Robertson has been the subject of
much blame for his real or supposed lenity towards the Spanish
murderers and tyrants in America. That the sixteenth chapter of
Mr. G. did not excite the same or greater disapprobation, is a
proof of the unphilosophical and indeed fanatical animosity
against Christianity, which was so prevalent during the latter
part of the eighteenth century.—_Mackintosh:_ see Life, i. p.
244, 245.]
If we seriously consider the purity of the Christian religion,
the sanctity of its moral precepts, and the innocent as well as
austere lives of the greater number of those who during the first
ages embraced the faith of the gospel, we should naturally
suppose, that so benevolent a doctrine would have been received
with due reverence, even by the unbelieving world; that the
learned and the polite, however they may deride the miracles,
would have esteemed the virtues, of the new sect; and that the
magistrates, instead of persecuting, would have protected an
order of men who yielded the most passive obedience to the laws,
though they declined the active cares of war and government. If,
on the other hand, we recollect the universal toleration of
Polytheism, as it was invariably maintained by the faith of the
people, the incredulity of philosophers, and the policy of the
Roman senate and emperors, we are at a loss to discover what new
offence the Christians had committed, what new provocation could
exasperate the mild indifference of antiquity, and what new
motives could urge the Roman princes, who beheld without concern
a thousand forms of religion subsisting in peace under their
gentle sway, to inflict a severe punishment on any part of their
subjects, who had chosen for themselves a singular but an
inoffensive mode of faith and worship.
The religious policy of the ancient world seems to have assumed a
more stern and intolerant character, to oppose the progress of
Christianity. About fourscore years after the death of Christ,
his innocent disciples were punished with death by the sentence
of a proconsul of the most amiable and philosophic character, and
according to the laws of an emperor distinguished by the wisdom
and justice of his general administration. The apologies which
were repeatedly addressed to the successors of Trajan are filled
with the most pathetic complaints, that the Christians, who
obeyed the dictates, and solicited the liberty, of conscience,
were alone, among all the subjects of the Roman empire, excluded
from the common benefits of their auspicious government. The
deaths of a few eminent martyrs have been recorded with care; and
from the time that Christianity was invested with the supreme
power, the governors of the church have been no less diligently
employed in displaying the cruelty, than in imitating the
conduct, of their Pagan adversaries. To separate (if it be
possible) a few authentic as well as interesting facts from an
undigested mass of fiction and error, and to relate, in a clear
and rational manner, the causes, the extent, the duration, and
the most important circumstances of the persecutions to which the
first Christians were exposed, is the design of the present
chapter. 1222
1222 (return) [ The history of the first age of Christianity is
only found in the Acts of the Apostles, and in order to speak of
the first persecutions experienced by the Christians, that book
should naturally have been consulted; those persecutions, then
limited to individuals and to a narrow sphere, interested only
the persecuted, and have been related by them alone. Gibbon
making the persecutions ascend no higher than Nero, has entirely
omitted those which preceded this epoch, and of which St. Luke
has preserved the memory. The only way to justify this omission
was, to attack the authenticity of the Acts of the Apostles; for,
if authentic, they must necessarily be consulted and quoted. Now,
antiquity has left very few works of which the authenticity is so
well established as that of the Acts of the Apostles. (See
Lardner’s Cred. of Gospel Hist. part iii.) It is therefore,
without sufficient reason, that Gibbon has maintained silence
concerning the narrative of St. Luke, and this omission is not
without importance.—G.]
The sectaries of a persecuted religion, depressed by fear
animated with resentment, and perhaps heated by enthusiasm, are
seldom in a proper temper of mind calmly to investigate, or
candidly to appreciate, the motives of their enemies, which often
escape the impartial and discerning view even of those who are
placed at a secure distance from the flames of persecution. A
reason has been assigned for the conduct of the emperors towards
the primitive Christians, which may appear the more specious and
probable as it is drawn from the acknowledged genius of
Polytheism. It has already been observed, that the religious
concord of the world was principally supported by the implicit
assent and reverence which the nations of antiquity expressed for
their respective traditions and ceremonies. It might therefore be
expected, that they would unite with indignation against any sect
or people which should separate itself from the communion of
mankind, and claiming the exclusive possession of divine
knowledge, should disdain every form of worship, except its own,
as impious and idolatrous. The rights of toleration were held by
mutual indulgence: they were justly forfeited by a refusal of the
accustomed tribute. As the payment of this tribute was inflexibly
refused by the Jews, and by them alone, the consideration of the
treatment which they experienced from the Roman magistrates, will
serve to explain how far these speculations are justified by
facts, and will lead us to discover the true causes of the
persecution of Christianity.
Without repeating what has already been mentioned of the
reverence of the Roman princes and governors for the temple of
Jerusalem, we shall only observe, that the destruction of the
temple and city was accompanied and followed by every
circumstance that could exasperate the minds of the conquerors,
and authorize religious persecution by the most specious
arguments of political justice and the public safety. From the
reign of Nero to that of Antoninus Pius, the Jews discovered a
fierce impatience of the dominion of Rome, which repeatedly broke
out in the most furious massacres and insurrections. Humanity is
shocked at the recital of the horrid cruelties which they
committed in the cities of Egypt, of Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where
they dwelt in treacherous friendship with the unsuspecting
natives; 1 and we are tempted to applaud the severe retaliation
which was exercised by the arms of the legions against a race of
fanatics, whose dire and credulous superstition seemed to render
them the implacable enemies not only of the Roman government, but
of human kind. 2 The enthusiasm of the Jews was supported by the
opinion, that it was unlawful for them to pay taxes to an
idolatrous master; and by the flattering promise which they
derived from their ancient oracles, that a conquering Messiah
would soon arise, destined to break their fetters, and to invest
the favorites of heaven with the empire of the earth. It was by
announcing himself as their long-expected deliverer, and by
calling on all the descendants of Abraham to assert the hope of
Israel, that the famous Barchochebas collected a formidable army,
with which he resisted during two years the power of the emperor
Hadrian. 3
1 (return) [ In Cyrene, they massacred 220,000 Greeks; in Cyprus,
240,000; in Egypt, a very great multitude. Many of these unhappy
victims were sawn asunder, according to a precedent to which
David had given the sanction of his example. The victorious Jews
devoured the flesh, licked up the blood, and twisted the entrails
like a girdle round their bodies. See Dion Cassius, l. lxviii. p.
1145. * Note: Some commentators, among them Reimar, in his notes
on Dion Cassius think that the hatred of the Romans against the
Jews has led the historian to exaggerate the cruelties committed
by the latter. Don. Cass. lxviii. p. 1146.—G.]
2 (return) [ Without repeating the well-known narratives of
Josephus, we may learn from Dion, (l. lxix. p. 1162,) that in
Hadrian’s war 580,000 Jews were cut off by the sword, besides an
infinite number which perished by famine, by disease, and by
fire.]
3 (return) [ For the sect of the Zealots, see Basnage, Histoire
des Juifs, l. i. c. 17; for the characters of the Messiah,
according to the Rabbis, l. v. c. 11, 12, 13; for the actions of
Barchochebas, l. vii. c. 12. (Hist. of Jews iii. 115, &c.)—M.]
Notwithstanding these repeated provocations, the resentment of
the Roman princes expired after the victory; nor were their
apprehensions continued beyond the period of war and danger. By
the general indulgence of polytheism, and by the mild temper of
Antoninus Pius, the Jews were restored to their ancient
privileges, and once more obtained the permission of circumcising
their children, with the easy restraint, that they should never
confer on any foreign proselyte that distinguishing mark of the
Hebrew race. 4 The numerous remains of that people, though they
were still excluded from the precincts of Jerusalem, were
permitted to form and to maintain considerable establishments
both in Italy and in the provinces, to acquire the freedom of
Rome, to enjoy municipal honors, and to obtain at the same time
an exemption from the burdensome and expensive offices of
society. The moderation or the contempt of the Romans gave a
legal sanction to the form of ecclesiastical police which was
instituted by the vanquished sect. The patriarch, who had fixed
his residence at Tiberias, was empowered to appoint his
subordinate ministers and apostles, to exercise a domestic
jurisdiction, and to receive from his dispersed brethren an
annual contribution. 5 New synagogues were frequently erected in
the principal cities of the empire; and the sabbaths, the fasts,
and the festivals, which were either commanded by the Mosaic law,
or enjoined by the traditions of the Rabbis, were celebrated in
the most solemn and public manner. 6 Such gentle treatment
insensibly assuaged the stern temper of the Jews. Awakened from
their dream of prophecy and conquest, they assumed the behavior
of peaceable and industrious subjects. Their irreconcilable
hatred of mankind, instead of flaming out in acts of blood and
violence, evaporated in less dangerous gratifications. They
embraced every opportunity of overreaching the idolaters in
trade; and they pronounced secret and ambiguous imprecations
against the haughty kingdom of Edom. 7
4 (return) [ It is to Modestinus, a Roman lawyer (l. vi.
regular.) that we are indebted for a distinct knowledge of the
Edict of Antoninus. See Casaubon ad Hist. August. p. 27.]
5 (return) [ See Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. iii. c. 2, 3.
The office of Patriarch was suppressed by Theodosius the
younger.]
6 (return) [ We need only mention the Purim, or deliverance of
the Jews from he rage of Haman, which, till the reign of
Theodosius, was celebrated with insolent triumph and riotous
intemperance. Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, l. vi. c. 17, l. viii. c.
6.]
7 (return) [ According to the false Josephus, Tsepho, the
grandson of Esau, conducted into Italy the army of Eneas, king of
Carthage. Another colony of Idumæans, flying from the sword of
David, took refuge in the dominions of Romulus. For these, or for
other reasons of equal weight, the name of Edom was applied by
the Jews to the Roman empire. * Note: The false Josephus is a
romancer of very modern date, though some of these legends are
probably more ancient. It may be worth considering whether many
of the stories in the Talmud are not history in a figurative
disguise, adopted from prudence. The Jews might dare to say many
things of Rome, under the significant appellation of Edom, which
they feared to utter publicly. Later and more ignorant ages took
literally, and perhaps embellished, what was intelligible among
the generation to which it was addressed. Hist. of Jews, iii.
131. ——The false Josephus has the inauguration of the emperor,
with the seven electors and apparently the pope assisting at the
coronation! Pref. page xxvi.—M.]
Since the Jews, who rejected with abhorrence the deities adored
by their sovereign and by their fellow-subjects, enjoyed,
however, the free exercise of their unsocial religion, there must
have existed some other cause, which exposed the disciples of
Christ to those severities from which the posterity of Abraham
was exempt. The difference between them is simple and obvious;
but, according to the sentiments of antiquity, it was of the
highest importance. The Jews were a _nation;_ the Christians were
a _sect:_ and if it was natural for every community to respect
the sacred institutions of their neighbors, it was incumbent on
them to persevere in those of their ancestors. The voice of
oracles, the precepts of philosophers, and the authority of the
laws, unanimously enforced this national obligation. By their
lofty claim of superior sanctity the Jews might provoke the
Polytheists to consider them as an odious and impure race. By
disdaining the intercourse of other nations, they might deserve
their contempt. The laws of Moses might be for the most part
frivolous or absurd; yet, since they had been received during
many ages by a large society, his followers were justified by the
example of mankind; and it was universally acknowledged, that
they had a right to practise what it would have been criminal in
them to neglect. But this principle, which protected the Jewish
synagogue, afforded not any favor or security to the primitive
church. By embracing the faith of the gospel, the Christians
incurred the supposed guilt of an unnatural and unpardonable
offence. They dissolved the sacred ties of custom and education,
violated the religious institutions of their country, and
presumptuously despised whatever their fathers had believed as
true, or had reverenced as sacred. Nor was this apostasy (if we
may use the expression) merely of a partial or local kind; since
the pious deserter who withdrew himself from the temples of Egypt
or Syria, would equally disdain to seek an asylum in those of
Athens or Carthage. Every Christian rejected with contempt the
superstitions of his family, his city, and his province. The
whole body of Christians unanimously refused to hold any
communion with the gods of Rome, of the empire, and of mankind.
It was in vain that the oppressed believer asserted the
inalienable rights of conscience and private judgment. Though his
situation might excite the pity, his arguments could never reach
the understanding, either of the philosophic or of the believing
part of the Pagan world. To their apprehensions, it was no less a
matter of surprise, that any individuals should entertain
scruples against complying with the established mode of worship,
than if they had conceived a sudden abhorrence to the manners,
the dress, 8111 or the language of their native country. 8
8 (return) [ From the arguments of Celsus, as they are
represented and refuted by Origen, (l. v. p. 247—259,) we may
clearly discover the distinction that was made between the Jewish
_people_ and the Christian _sect_. See, in the Dialogue of
Minucius Felix, (c. 5, 6,) a fair and not inelegant description
of the popular sentiments, with regard to the desertion of the
established worship.]
8111 (return) [ In all this there is doubtless much truth; yet
does not the more important difference lie on the surface? The
Christians made many converts the Jews but few. Had the Jewish
been equally a proselyting religion would it not have encountered
as violent persecution?—M.]
The surprise of the Pagans was soon succeeded by resentment; and
the most pious of men were exposed to the unjust but dangerous
imputation of impiety. Malice and prejudice concurred in
representing the Christians as a society of atheists, who, by the
most daring attack on the religious constitution of the empire,
had merited the severest animadversion of the civil magistrate.
They had separated themselves (they gloried in the confession)
from every mode of superstition which was received in any part of
the globe by the various temper of polytheism: but it was not
altogether so evident what deity, or what form of worship, they
had substituted to the gods and temples of antiquity. The pure
and sublime idea which they entertained of the Supreme Being
escaped the gross conception of the Pagan multitude, who were at
a loss to discover a spiritual and solitary God, that was neither
represented under any corporeal figure or visible symbol, nor was
adored with the accustomed pomp of libations and festivals, of
altars and sacrifices. 9 The sages of Greece and Rome, who had
elevated their minds to the contemplation of the existence and
attributes of the First Cause, were induced by reason or by
vanity to reserve for themselves and their chosen disciples the
privilege of this philosophical devotion. 10 They were far from
admitting the prejudices of mankind as the standard of truth, but
they considered them as flowing from the original disposition of
human nature; and they supposed that any popular mode of faith
and worship which presumed to disclaim the assistance of the
senses, would, in proportion as it receded from superstition,
find itself incapable of restraining the wanderings of the fancy,
and the visions of fanaticism. The careless glance which men of
wit and learning condescended to cast on the Christian
revelation, served only to confirm their hasty opinion, and to
persuade them that the principle, which they might have revered,
of the Divine Unity, was defaced by the wild enthusiasm, and
annihilated by the airy speculations, of the new sectaries. The
author of a celebrated dialogue, which has been attributed to
Lucian, whilst he affects to treat the mysterious subject of the
Trinity in a style of ridicule and contempt, betrays his own
ignorance of the weakness of human reason, and of the inscrutable
nature of the divine perfections. 11
9 (return) [ Cur nullas aras habent? templa nulla? nulla nota
simulacra!—Unde autem, vel quis ille, aut ubi, Deus unicus,
solitarius, desti tutus? Minucius Felix, c. 10. The Pagan
interlocutor goes on to make a distinction in favor of the Jews,
who had once a temple, altars, victims, &c.]
10 (return) [ It is difficult (says Plato) to attain, and
dangerous to publish, the knowledge of the true God. See the
Theologie des Philosophes, in the Abbé d’Olivet’s French
translation of Tully de Naturâ Deorum, tom. i. p. 275.]
11 (return) [ The author of the Philopatris perpetually treats
the Christians as a company of dreaming enthusiasts, &c.; and in
one place he manifestly alludes to the vision in which St. Paul
was transported to the third heaven. In another place, Triephon,
who personates a Christian, after deriding the gods of Paganism,
proposes a mysterious oath.]
It might appear less surprising, that the founder of Christianity
should not only be revered by his disciples as a sage and a
prophet, but that he should be adored as a God. The Polytheists
were disposed to adopt every article of faith, which seemed to
offer any resemblance, however distant or imperfect, with the
popular mythology; and the legends of Bacchus, of Hercules, and
of Æsculapius, had, in some measure, prepared their imagination
for the appearance of the Son of God under a human form. 12 But
they were astonished that the Christians should abandon the
temples of those ancient heroes, who, in the infancy of the
world, had invented arts, instituted laws, and vanquished the
tyrants or monsters who infested the earth, in order to choose
for the exclusive object of their religious worship an obscure
teacher, who, in a recent age, and among a barbarous people, had
fallen a sacrifice either to the malice of his own countrymen, or
to the jealousy of the Roman government. The Pagan multitude,
reserving their gratitude for temporal benefits alone, rejected
the inestimable present of life and immortality, which was
offered to mankind by Jesus of Nazareth. His mild constancy in
the midst of cruel and voluntary sufferings, his universal
benevolence, and the sublime simplicity of his actions and
character, were insufficient, in the opinion of those carnal men,
to compensate for the want of fame, of empire, and of success;
and whilst they refused to acknowledge his stupendous triumph
over the powers of darkness and of the grave, they
misrepresented, or they insulted, the equivocal birth, wandering
life, and ignominious death, of the divine Author of
Christianity. 13
12 (return) [ According to Justin Martyr, (Apolog. Major, c.
70-85,) the dæmon who had gained some imperfect knowledge of the
prophecies, purposely contrived this resemblance, which might
deter, though by different means, both the people and the
philosophers from embracing the faith of Christ.]
13 (return) [ In the first and second books of Origen, Celsus
treats the birth and character of our Savior with the most
impious contempt. The orator Libanius praises Porphyry and Julian
for confuting the folly of a sect., which styles a dead man of
Palestine, God, and the Son of God. Socrates, Hist. Ecclesiast.
iii. 23.]
The personal guilt which every Christian had contracted, in thus
preferring his private sentiment to the national religion, was
aggravated in a very high degree by the number and union of the
criminals. It is well known, and has been already observed, that
Roman policy viewed with the utmost jealousy and distrust any
association among its subjects; and that the privileges of
private corporations, though formed for the most harmless or
beneficial purposes, were bestowed with a very sparing hand. 14
The religious assemblies of the Christians who had separated
themselves from the public worship, appeared of a much less
innocent nature; they were illegal in their principle, and in
their consequences might become dangerous; nor were the emperors
conscious that they violated the laws of justice, when, for the
peace of society, they prohibited those secret and sometimes
nocturnal meetings. 15 The pious disobedience of the Christians
made their conduct, or perhaps their designs, appear in a much
more serious and criminal light; and the Roman princes, who might
perhaps have suffered themselves to be disarmed by a ready
submission, deeming their honor concerned in the execution of
their commands, sometimes attempted, by rigorous punishments, to
subdue this independent spirit, which boldly acknowledged an
authority superior to that of the magistrate. The extent and
duration of this spiritual conspiracy seemed to render it
everyday more deserving of his animadversion. We have already
seen that the active and successful zeal of the Christians had
insensibly diffused them through every province and almost every
city of the empire. The new converts seemed to renounce their
family and country, that they might connect themselves in an
indissoluble band of union with a peculiar society, which every
where assumed a different character from the rest of mankind.
Their gloomy and austere aspect, their abhorrence of the common
business and pleasures of life, and their frequent predictions of
impending calamities, 16 inspired the Pagans with the
apprehension of some danger, which would arise from the new sect,
the more alarming as it was the more obscure. “Whatever,” says
Pliny, “may be the principle of their conduct, their inflexible
obstinacy appeared deserving of punishment.” 17
14 (return) [ The emperor Trajan refused to incorporate a company
of 150 firemen, for the use of the city of Nicomedia. He disliked
all associations. See Plin. Epist. x. 42, 43.]
15 (return) [ The proconsul Pliny had published a general edict
against unlawful meetings. The prudence of the Christians
suspended their Agapæ; but it was impossible for them to omit the
exercise of public worship.]
16 (return) [ As the prophecies of the Antichrist, approaching
conflagration, &c., provoked those Pagans whom they did not
convert, they were mentioned with caution and reserve; and the
Montanists were censured for disclosing too freely the dangerous
secret. See Mosheim, 413.]
17 (return) [ Neque enim dubitabam, quodcunque esset quod
faterentur, (such are the words of Pliny,) pervicacian certe et
inflexibilem obstinationem lebere puniri.]
The precautions with which the disciples of Christ performed the
offices of religion were at first dictated by fear and necessity;
but they were continued from choice. By imitating the awful
secrecy which reigned in the Eleusinian mysteries, the Christians
had flattered themselves that they should render their sacred
institutions more respectable in the eyes of the Pagan world. 18
But the event, as it often happens to the operations of subtile
policy, deceived their wishes and their expectations. It was
concluded, that they only concealed what they would have blushed
to disclose. Their mistaken prudence afforded an opportunity for
malice to invent, and for suspicious credulity to believe, the
horrid tales which described the Christians as the most wicked of
human kind, who practised in their dark recesses every
abomination that a depraved fancy could suggest, and who
solicited the favor of their unknown God by the sacrifice of
every moral virtue. There were many who pretended to confess or
to relate the ceremonies of this abhorred society. It was
asserted, “that a new-born infant, entirely covered over with
flour, was presented, like some mystic symbol of initiation, to
the knife of the proselyte, who unknowingly inflicted many a
secret and mortal wound on the innocent victim of his error; that
as soon as the cruel deed was perpetrated, the sectaries drank up
the blood, greedily tore asunder the quivering members, and
pledged themselves to eternal secrecy, by a mutual consciousness
of guilt. It was as confidently affirmed, that this inhuman
sacrifice was succeeded by a suitable entertainment, in which
intemperance served as a provocative to brutal lust; till, at the
appointed moment, the lights were suddenly extinguished, shame
was banished, nature was forgotten; and, as accident might
direct, the darkness of the night was polluted by the incestuous
commerce of sisters and brothers, of sons and of mothers.” 19
18 (return) [ See Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p.
101, and Spanheim, Remarques sur les Cæsars de Julien, p. 468,
&c.]
19 (return) [ See Justin Martyr, Apolog. i. 35, ii. 14.
Athenagoras, in Legation, c. 27. Tertullian, Apolog. c. 7, 8, 9.
Minucius Felix, c. 9, 10, 80, 31. The last of these writers
relates the accusation in the most elegant and circumstantial
manner. The answer of Tertullian is the boldest and most
vigorous.]
But the perusal of the ancient apologies was sufficient to remove
even the slightest suspicion from the mind of a candid adversary.
The Christians, with the intrepid security of innocence, appeal
from the voice of rumor to the equity of the magistrates. They
acknowledge, that if any proof can be produced of the crimes
which calumny has imputed to them, they are worthy of the most
severe punishment. They provoke the punishment, and they
challenge the proof. At the same time they urge, with equal truth
and propriety, that the charge is not less devoid of probability,
than it is destitute of evidence; they ask, whether any one can
seriously believe that the pure and holy precepts of the gospel,
which so frequently restrain the use of the most lawful
enjoyments, should inculcate the practice of the most abominable
crimes; that a large society should resolve to dishonor itself in
the eyes of its own members; and that a great number of persons
of either sex, and every age and character, insensible to the
fear of death or infamy, should consent to violate those
principles which nature and education had imprinted most deeply
in their minds. 20 Nothing, it should seem, could weaken the
force or destroy the effect of so unanswerable a justification,
unless it were the injudicious conduct of the apologists
themselves, who betrayed the common cause of religion, to gratify
their devout hatred to the domestic enemies of the church. It was
sometimes faintly insinuated, and sometimes boldly asserted, that
the same bloody sacrifices, and the same incestuous festivals,
which were so falsely ascribed to the orthodox believers, were in
reality celebrated by the Marcionites, by the Carpocratians, and
by several other sects of the Gnostics, who, notwithstanding they
might deviate into the paths of heresy, were still actuated by
the sentiments of men, and still governed by the precepts of
Christianity. 21 Accusations of a similar kind were retorted upon
the church by the schismatics who had departed from its
communion, 22 and it was confessed on all sides, that the most
scandalous licentiousness of manners prevailed among great
numbers of those who affected the name of Christians. A Pagan
magistrate, who possessed neither leisure nor abilities to
discern the almost imperceptible line which divides the orthodox
faith from heretical pravity, might easily have imagined that
their mutual animosity had extorted the discovery of their common
guilt. It was fortunate for the repose, or at least for the
reputation, of the first Christians, that the magistrates
sometimes proceeded with more temper and moderation than is
usually consistent with religious zeal, and that they reported,
as the impartial result of their judicial inquiry, that the
sectaries, who had deserted the established worship, appeared to
them sincere in their professions, and blameless in their
manners; however they might incur, by their absurd and excessive
superstition, the censure of the laws. 23
20 (return) [ In the persecution of Lyons, some Gentile slaves
were compelled, by the fear of tortures, to accuse their
Christian master. The church of Lyons, writing to their brethren
of Asia, treat the horrid charge with proper indignation and
contempt. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. v. i.]
21 (return) [ See Justin Martyr, Apolog. i. 35. Irenæus adv.
Hæres. i. 24. Clemens. Alexandrin. Stromat. l. iii. p. 438.
Euseb. iv. 8. It would be tedious and disgusting to relate all
that the succeeding writers have imagined, all that Epiphanius
has received, and all that Tillemont has copied. M. de Beausobre
(Hist. du Manicheisme, l. ix. c. 8, 9) has exposed, with great
spirit, the disingenuous arts of Augustin and Pope Leo I.]
22 (return) [ When Tertullian became a Montanist, he aspersed the
morals of the church which he had so resolutely defended. “Sed
majoris est Agape, quia per hanc adolescentes tui cum sororibus
dormiunt, appendices scilicet gulæ lascivia et luxuria.” De
Jejuniis c. 17. The 85th canon of the council of Illiberis
provides against the scandals which too often polluted the vigils
of the church, and disgraced the Christian name in the eyes of
unbelievers.]
23 (return) [ Tertullian (Apolog. c. 2) expatiates on the fair
and honorable testimony of Pliny, with much reason and some
declamation.]
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.—Part II.
History, which undertakes to record the transactions of the past,
for the instruction of future ages, would ill deserve that
honorable office, if she condescended to plead the cause of
tyrants, or to justify the maxims of persecution. It must,
however, be acknowledged, that the conduct of the emperors who
appeared the least favorable to the primitive church, is by no
means so criminal as that of modern sovereigns, who have employed
the arm of violence and terror against the religious opinions of
any part of their subjects. From their reflections, or even from
their own feelings, a Charles V. or a Lewis XIV. might have
acquired a just knowledge of the rights of conscience, of the
obligation of faith, and of the innocence of error. But the
princes and magistrates of ancient Rome were strangers to those
principles which inspired and authorized the inflexible obstinacy
of the Christians in the cause of truth, nor could they
themselves discover in their own breasts any motive which would
have prompted them to refuse a legal, and as it were a natural,
submission to the sacred institutions of their country. The same
reason which contributes to alleviate the guilt, must have tended
to abate the vigor, of their persecutions. As they were actuated,
not by the furious zeal of bigots, but by the temperate policy of
legislators, contempt must often have relaxed, and humanity must
frequently have suspended, the execution of those laws which they
enacted against the humble and obscure followers of Christ. From
the general view of their character and motives we might
naturally conclude: I. That a considerable time elapsed before
they considered the new sectaries as an object deserving of the
attention of government. II. That in the conviction of any of
their subjects who were accused of so very singular a crime, they
proceeded with caution and reluctance. III. That they were
moderate in the use of punishments; and, IV. That the afflicted
church enjoyed many intervals of peace and tranquility.
Notwithstanding the careless indifference which the most copious
and the most minute of the Pagan writers have shown to the
affairs of the Christians, 24 it may still be in our power to
confirm each of these probable suppositions, by the evidence of
authentic facts.
24 (return) [ In the various compilation of the Augustan History,
(a part of which was composed under the reign of Constantine,)
there are not six lines which relate to the Christians; nor has
the diligence of Xiphilin discovered their name in the large
history of Dion Cassius. * Note: The greater part of the Augustan
History is dedicated to Diocletian. This may account for the
silence of its authors concerning Christianity. The notices that
occur are almost all in the lives composed under the reign of
Constantine. It may fairly be concluded, from the language which
he had into the mouth of Mæcenas, that Dion was an enemy to all
innovations in religion. (See Gibbon, _infra_, note 105.) In
fact, when the silence of Pagan historians is noticed, it should
be remembered how meagre and mutilated are all the extant
histories of the period—M.]
1. By the wise dispensation of Providence, a mysterious veil was
cast over the infancy of the church, which, till the faith of the
Christians was matured, and their numbers were multiplied, served
to protect them not only from the malice but even from the
knowledge of the Pagan world. The slow and gradual abolition of
the Mosaic ceremonies afforded a safe and innocent disguise to
the more early proselytes of the gospel. As they were, for the
greater part, of the race of Abraham, they were distinguished by
the peculiar mark of circumcision, offered up their devotions in
the Temple of Jerusalem till its final destruction, and received
both the Law and the Prophets as the genuine inspirations of the
Deity. The Gentile converts, who by a spiritual adoption had been
associated to the hope of Israel, were likewise confounded under
the garb and appearance of Jews, 25 and as the Polytheists paid
less regard to articles of faith than to the external worship,
the new sect, which carefully concealed, or faintly announced,
its future greatness and ambition, was permitted to shelter
itself under the general toleration which was granted to an
ancient and celebrated people in the Roman empire. It was not
long, perhaps, before the Jews themselves, animated with a
fiercer zeal and a more jealous faith, perceived the gradual
separation of their Nazarene brethren from the doctrine of the
synagogue; and they would gladly have extinguished the dangerous
heresy in the blood of its adherents. But the decrees of Heaven
had already disarmed their malice; and though they might
sometimes exert the licentious privilege of sedition, they no
longer possessed the administration of criminal justice; nor did
they find it easy to infuse into the calm breast of a Roman
magistrate the rancor of their own zeal and prejudice. The
provincial governors declared themselves ready to listen to any
accusation that might affect the public safety; but as soon as
they were informed that it was a question not of facts but of
words, a dispute relating only to the interpretation of the
Jewish laws and prophecies, they deemed it unworthy of the
majesty of Rome seriously to discuss the obscure differences
which might arise among a barbarous and superstitious people. The
innocence of the first Christians was protected by ignorance and
contempt; and the tribunal of the Pagan magistrate often proved
their most assured refuge against the fury of the synagogue. 26
If indeed we were disposed to adopt the traditions of a too
credulous antiquity, we might relate the distant peregrinations,
the wonderful achievements, and the various deaths of the twelve
apostles: but a more accurate inquiry will induce us to doubt,
whether any of those persons who had been witnesses to the
miracles of Christ were permitted, beyond the limits of
Palestine, to seal with their blood the truth of their testimony.
27 From the ordinary term of human life, it may very naturally be
presumed that most of them were deceased before the discontent of
the Jews broke out into that furious war, which was terminated
only by the ruin of Jerusalem. During a long period, from the
death of Christ to that memorable rebellion, we cannot discover
any traces of Roman intolerance, unless they are to be found in
the sudden, the transient, but the cruel persecution, which was
exercised by Nero against the Christians of the capital,
thirty-five years after the former, and only two years before the
latter, of those great events. The character of the philosophic
historian, to whom we are principally indebted for the knowledge
of this singular transaction, would alone be sufficient to
recommend it to our most attentive consideration.
25 (return) [ An obscure passage of Suetonius (in Claud. c. 25)
may seem to offer a proof how strangely the Jews and Christians
of Rome were confounded with each other.]
26 (return) [ See, in the xviiith and xxvth chapters of the Acts
of the Apostles, the behavior of Gallio, proconsul of Achaia, and
of Festus, procurator of Judea.]
27 (return) [ In the time of Tertullian and Clemens of
Alexandria, the glory of martyrdom was confined to St. Peter, St.
Paul, and St. James. It was gradually bestowed on the rest of the
apostles, by the more recent Greeks, who prudently selected for
the theatre of their preaching and sufferings some remote country
beyond the limits of the Roman empire. See Mosheim, p. 81; and
Tillemont, Mémoires Ecclésiastiques, tom. i. part iii.]
In the tenth year of the reign of Nero, the capital of the empire
was afflicted by a fire which raged beyond the memory or example
of former ages. 28 The monuments of Grecian art and of Roman
virtue, the trophies of the Punic and Gallic wars, the most holy
temples, and the most splendid palaces, were involved in one
common destruction. Of the fourteen regions or quarters into
which Rome was divided, four only subsisted entire, three were
levelled with the ground, and the remaining seven, which had
experienced the fury of the flames, displayed a melancholy
prospect of ruin and desolation. The vigilance of government
appears not to have neglected any of the precautions which might
alleviate the sense of so dreadful a calamity. The Imperial
gardens were thrown open to the distressed multitude, temporary
buildings were erected for their accommodation, and a plentiful
supply of corn and provisions was distributed at a very moderate
price. 29 The most generous policy seemed to have dictated the
edicts which regulated the disposition of the streets and the
construction of private houses; and as it usually happens, in an
age of prosperity, the conflagration of Rome, in the course of a
few years, produced a new city, more regular and more beautiful
than the former. But all the prudence and humanity affected by
Nero on this occasion were insufficient to preserve him from the
popular suspicion. Every crime might be imputed to the assassin
of his wife and mother; nor could the prince who prostituted his
person and dignity on the theatre be deemed incapable of the most
extravagant folly. The voice of rumor accused the emperor as the
incendiary of his own capital; and as the most incredible stories
are the best adapted to the genius of an enraged people, it was
gravely reported, and firmly believed, that Nero, enjoying the
calamity which he had occasioned, amused himself with singing to
his lyre the destruction of ancient Troy. 30 To divert a
suspicion, which the power of despotism was unable to suppress,
the emperor resolved to substitute in his own place some
fictitious criminals. “With this view,” continues Tacitus, “he
inflicted the most exquisite tortures on those men, who, under
the vulgar appellation of Christians, were already branded with
deserved infamy. They derived their name and origin from Christ,
who in the reign of Tiberius had suffered death by the sentence
of the procurator Pontius Pilate. 31 For a while this dire
superstition was checked; but it again burst forth; 3111 and not
only spread itself over Judæa, the first seat of this mischievous
sect, but was even introduced into Rome, the common asylum which
receives and protects whatever is impure, whatever is atrocious.
The confessions of those who were seized discovered a great
multitude of their accomplices, and they were all convicted, not
so much for the crime of setting fire to the city, as for their
hatred of human kind. 32 They died in torments, and their
torments were imbittered by insult and derision. Some were nailed
on crosses; others sewn up in the skins of wild beasts, and
exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared over with
combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the
darkness of the night. The gardens of Nero were destined for the
melancholy spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse-race and
honored with the presence of the emperor, who mingled with the
populace in the dress and attitude of a charioteer. The guilt of
the Christians deserved indeed the most exemplary punishment, but
the public abhorrence was changed into commiseration, from the
opinion that those unhappy wretches were sacrificed, not so much
to the public welfare, as to the cruelty of a jealous tyrant.” 33
Those who survey with a curious eye the revolutions of mankind,
may observe, that the gardens and circus of Nero on the Vatican,
which were polluted with the blood of the first Christians, have
been rendered still more famous by the triumph and by the abuse
of the persecuted religion. On the same spot, 34 a temple, which
far surpasses the ancient glories of the Capitol, has been since
erected by the Christian Pontiffs, who, deriving their claim of
universal dominion from an humble fisherman of Galilee, have
succeeded to the throne of the Cæsars, given laws to the
barbarian conquerors of Rome, and extended their spiritual
jurisdiction from the coast of the Baltic to the shores of the
Pacific Ocean.
28 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xv. 38—44. Sueton in Neron. c. 38.
Dion Cassius, l. lxii. p. 1014. Orosius, vii. 7.]
29 (return) [ The price of wheat (probably of the _modius_,) was
reduced as low as _terni Nummi;_ which would be equivalent to
about fifteen shillings the English quarter.]
30 (return) [ We may observe, that the rumor is mentioned by
Tacitus with a very becoming distrust and hesitation, whilst it
is greedily transcribed by Suetonius, and solemnly confirmed by
Dion.]
31 (return) [ This testimony is alone sufficient to expose the
anachronism of the Jews, who place the birth of Christ near a
century sooner. (Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. v. c. 14, 15.)
We may learn from Josephus, (Antiquitat. xviii. 3,) that the
procuratorship of Pilate corresponded with the last ten years of
Tiberius, A. D. 27—37. As to the particular time of the death of
Christ, a very early tradition fixed it to the 25th of March, A.
D. 29, under the consulship of the two Gemini. (Tertullian adv.
Judæos, c. 8.) This date, which is adopted by Pagi, Cardinal
Norris, and Le Clerc, seems at least as probable as the vulgar
æra, which is placed (I know not from what conjectures) four
years later.]
3111 (return) [ This single phrase, Repressa in præsens
exitiabilis superstitio rursus erumpebat, proves that the
Christians had already attracted the attention of the government;
and that Nero was not the first to persecute them. I am surprised
that more stress has not been laid on the confirmation which the
Acts of the Apostles derive from these words of Tacitus, Repressa
in præsens, and rursus erumpebat.—G. ——I have been unwilling to
suppress this note, but surely the expression of Tacitus refers
to the expected extirpation of the religion by the death of its
founder, Christ.—M.]
32 (return) [ _Odio humani generis convicti_. These words may
either signify the hatred of mankind towards the Christians, or
the hatred of the Christians towards mankind. I have preferred
the latter sense, as the most agreeable to the style of Tacitus,
and to the popular error, of which a precept of the gospel (see
Luke xiv. 26) had been, perhaps, the innocent occasion. My
interpretation is justified by the authority of Lipsius; of the
Italian, the French, and the English translators of Tacitus; of
Mosheim, (p. 102,) of Le Clerc, (Historia Ecclesiast. p. 427,) of
Dr. Lardner, (Testimonies, vol. i. p. 345,) and of the Bishop of
Gloucester, (Divine Legation, vol. iii. p. 38.) But as the word
_convicti_ does not unite very happily with the rest of the
sentence, James Gronovius has preferred the reading of
_conjuncti_, which is authorized by the valuable MS. of
Florence.]
33 (return) [ Tacit. Annal xv. 44.]
34 (return) [ Nardini Roma Antica, p. 487. Donatus de Roma
Antiqua, l. iii. p. 449.]
But it would be improper to dismiss this account of Nero’s
persecution, till we have made some observations that may serve
to remove the difficulties with which it is perplexed, and to
throw some light on the subsequent history of the church.
1. The most sceptical criticism is obliged to respect the truth
of this extraordinary fact, and the integrity of this celebrated
passage of Tacitus. The former is confirmed by the diligent and
accurate Suetonius, who mentions the punishment which Nero
inflicted on the Christians, a sect of men who had embraced a new
and criminal superstition. 35 The latter may be proved by the
consent of the most ancient manuscripts; by the inimitable
character of the style of Tacitus by his reputation, which
guarded his text from the interpolations of pious fraud; and by
the purport of his narration, which accused the first Christians
of the most atrocious crimes, without insinuating that they
possessed any miraculous or even magical powers above the rest of
mankind. 36 2. Notwithstanding it is probable that Tacitus was
born some years before the fire of Rome, 37 he could derive only
from reading and conversation the knowledge of an event which
happened during his infancy. Before he gave himself to the
public, he calmly waited till his genius had attained its full
maturity, and he was more than forty years of age, when a
grateful regard for the memory of the virtuous Agricola extorted
from him the most early of those historical compositions which
will delight and instruct the most distant posterity. After
making a trial of his strength in the life of Agricola and the
description of Germany, he conceived, and at length executed, a
more arduous work; the history of Rome, in thirty books, from the
fall of Nero to the accession of Nerva. The administration of
Nerva introduced an age of justice and propriety, which Tacitus
had destined for the occupation of his old age; 38 but when he
took a nearer view of his subject, judging, perhaps, that it was
a more honorable or a less invidious office to record the vices
of past tyrants, than to celebrate the virtues of a reigning
monarch, he chose rather to relate, under the form of annals, the
actions of the four immediate successors of Augustus. To collect,
to dispose, and to adorn a series of fourscore years, in an
immortal work, every sentence of which is pregnant with the
deepest observations and the most lively images, was an
undertaking sufficient to exercise the genius of Tacitus himself
during the greatest part of his life. In the last years of the
reign of Trajan, whilst the victorious monarch extended the power
of Rome beyond its ancient limits, the historian was describing,
in the second and fourth books of his annals, the tyranny of
Tiberius; 39 and the emperor Hadrian must have succeeded to the
throne, before Tacitus, in the regular prosecution of his work,
could relate the fire of the capital, and the cruelty of Nero
towards the unfortunate Christians. At the distance of sixty
years, it was the duty of the annalist to adopt the narratives of
contemporaries; but it was natural for the philosopher to indulge
himself in the description of the origin, the progress, and the
character of the new sect, not so much according to the knowledge
or prejudices of the age of Nero, as according to those of the
time of Hadrian. 3 Tacitus very frequently trusts to the
curiosity or reflection of his readers to supply those
intermediate circumstances and ideas, which, in his extreme
conciseness, he has thought proper to suppress. We may therefore
presume to imagine some probable cause which could direct the
cruelty of Nero against the Christians of Rome, whose obscurity,
as well as innocence, should have shielded them from his
indignation, and even from his notice. The Jews, who were
numerous in the capital, and oppressed in their own country, were
a much fitter object for the suspicions of the emperor and of the
people: nor did it seem unlikely that a vanquished nation, who
already discovered their abhorrence of the Roman yoke, might have
recourse to the most atrocious means of gratifying their
implacable revenge. But the Jews possessed very powerful
advocates in the palace, and even in the heart of the tyrant; his
wife and mistress, the beautiful Poppæa, and a favorite player of
the race of Abraham, who had already employed their intercession
in behalf of the obnoxious people. 40 In their room it was
necessary to offer some other victims, and it might easily be
suggested that, although the genuine followers of Moses were
innocent of the fire of Rome, there had arisen among them a new
and pernicious sect of Galilæans, which was capable of the most
horrid crimes. Under the appellation of Galilæans, two
distinctions of men were confounded, the most opposite to each
other in their manners and principles; the disciples who had
embraced the faith of Jesus of Nazareth, 41 and the zealots who
had followed the standard of Judas the Gaulonite. 42 The former
were the friends, the latter were the enemies, of human kind; and
the only resemblance between them consisted in the same
inflexible constancy, which, in the defence of their cause,
rendered them insensible of death and tortures. The followers of
Judas, who impelled their countrymen into rebellion, were soon
buried under the ruins of Jerusalem; whilst those of Jesus, known
by the more celebrated name of Christians, diffused themselves
over the Roman empire. How natural was it for Tacitus, in the
time of Hadrian, to appropriate to the Christians the guilt and
the sufferings, 4211 which he might, with far greater truth and
justice, have attributed to a sect whose odious memory was almost
extinguished! 4. Whatever opinion may be entertained of this
conjecture, (for it is no more than a conjecture,) it is evident
that the effect, as well as the cause, of Nero’s persecution, was
confined to the walls of Rome, 43 that the religious tenets of
the Galilæans or Christians, 431 were never made a subject of
punishment, or even of inquiry; and that, as the idea of their
sufferings was for a long time connected with the idea of cruelty
and injustice, the moderation of succeeding princes inclined them
to spare a sect, oppressed by a tyrant, whose rage had been
usually directed against virtue and innocence.
35 (return) [ Sueton. in Nerone, c. 16. The epithet of
_malefica_, which some sagacious commentators have translated
magical, is considered by the more rational Mosheim as only
synonymous to the _exitiabilis_ of Tacitus.]
36 (return) [ The passage concerning Jesus Christ, which was
inserted into the text of Josephus, between the time of Origen
and that of Eusebius, may furnish an example of no vulgar
forgery. The accomplishment of the prophecies, the virtues,
miracles, and resurrection of Jesus, are distinctly related.
Josephus acknowledges that he was the Messiah, and hesitates
whether he should call him a man. If any doubt can still remain
concerning this celebrated passage, the reader may examine the
pointed objections of Le Fevre, (Havercamp. Joseph. tom. ii. p.
267-273), the labored answers of Daubuz, (p. 187-232, and the
masterly reply (Bibliothèque Ancienne et Moderne, tom. vii. p.
237-288) of an anonymous critic, whom I believe to have been the
learned Abbé de Longuerue. * Note: The modern editor of Eusebius,
Heinichen, has adopted, and ably supported, a notion, which had
before suggested itself to the editor, that this passage is not
altogether a forgery, but interpolated with many additional
clauses. Heinichen has endeavored to disengage the original text
from the foreign and more recent matter.—M.]
37 (return) [ See the lives of Tacitus by Lipsius and the Abbé de
la Bleterie, Dictionnaire de Bayle a l’article Particle Tacite,
and Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin tem. Latin. tom. ii. p. 386, edit.
Ernest. Ernst.]
38 (return) [ Principatum Divi Nervæ, et imperium Trajani,
uberiorem, securioremque materiam senectuti seposui. Tacit. Hist.
i.]
39 (return) [ See Tacit. Annal. ii. 61, iv. 4. * Note: The
perusal of this passage of Tacitus alone is sufficient, as I have
already said, to show that the Christian sect was not so obscure
as not already to have been repressed, (repressa,) and that it
did not pass for innocent in the eyes of the Romans.—G.]
40 (return) [ The player’s name was Aliturus. Through the same
channel, Josephus, (de vitâ suâ, c. 2,) about two years before,
had obtained the pardon and release of some Jewish priests, who
were prisoners at Rome.]
41 (return) [ The learned Dr. Lardner (Jewish and Heathen
Testimonies, vol ii. p. 102, 103) has proved that the name of
Galilæans was a very ancient, and perhaps the primitive
appellation of the Christians.]
42 (return) [ Joseph. Antiquitat. xviii. 1, 2. Tillemont, Ruine
des Juifs, p. 742 The sons of Judas were crucified in the time of
Claudius. His grandson Eleazar, after Jerusalem was taken,
defended a strong fortress with 960 of his most desperate
followers. When the battering ram had made a breach, they turned
their swords against their wives their children, and at length
against their own breasts. They dies to the last man.]
4211 (return) [ This conjecture is entirely devoid, not merely of
verisimilitude, but even of possibility. Tacitus could not be
deceived in appropriating to the Christians of Rome the guilt and
the sufferings which he might have attributed with far greater
truth to the followers of Judas the Gaulonite, for the latter
never went to Rome. Their revolt, their attempts, their opinions,
their wars, their punishment, had no other theatre but Judæa
(Basn. Hist. des. Juifs, t. i. p. 491.) Moreover the name of
Christians had long been given in Rome to the disciples of Jesus;
and Tacitus affirms too positively, refers too distinctly to its
etymology, to allow us to suspect any mistake on his part.—G.
——M. Guizot’s expressions are not in the least too strong against
this strange imagination of Gibbon; it may be doubted whether the
followers of Judas were known as a sect under the name of
Galilæans.—M.]
43 (return) [ See Dodwell. Paucitat. Mart. l. xiii. The Spanish
Inscription in Gruter. p. 238, No. 9, is a manifest and
acknowledged forgery contrived by that noted imposter. Cyriacus
of Ancona, to flatter the pride and prejudices of the Spaniards.
See Ferreras, Histoire D’Espagne, tom. i. p. 192.]
431 (return) [ M. Guizot, on the authority of Sulpicius Severus,
ii. 37, and of Orosius, viii. 5, inclines to the opinion of those
who extend the persecution to the provinces. Mosheim rather leans
to that side on this much disputed question, (c. xxxv.) Neander
takes the view of Gibbon, which is in general that of the most
learned writers. There is indeed no evidence, which I can
discover, of its reaching the provinces; and the apparent
security, at least as regards his life, with which St. Paul
pursued his travels during this period, affords at least a strong
inference against a rigid and general inquisition against the
Christians in other parts of the empire.—M.]
It is somewhat remarkable that the flames of war consumed, almost
at the same time, the temple of Jerusalem and the Capitol of
Rome; 44 and it appears no less singular, that the tribute which
devotion had destined to the former, should have been converted
by the power of an assaulting victor to restore and adorn the
splendor of the latter. 45 The emperors levied a general
capitation tax on the Jewish people; and although the sum
assessed on the head of each individual was inconsiderable, the
use for which it was designed, and the severity with which it was
exacted, were considered as an intolerable grievance. 46 Since
the officers of the revenue extended their unjust claim to many
persons who were strangers to the blood or religion of the Jews,
it was impossible that the Christians, who had so often sheltered
themselves under the shade of the synagogue, should now escape
this rapacious persecution. Anxious as they were to avoid the
slightest infection of idolatry, their conscience forbade them to
contribute to the honor of that dæmon who had assumed the
character of the Capitoline Jupiter. As a very numerous though
declining party among the Christians still adhered to the law of
Moses, their efforts to dissemble their Jewish origin were
detected by the decisive test of circumcision; 47 nor were the
Roman magistrates at leisure to inquire into the difference of
their religious tenets. Among the Christians who were brought
before the tribunal of the emperor, or, as it seems more
probable, before that of the procurator of Judæa, two persons are
said to have appeared, distinguished by their extraction, which
was more truly noble than that of the greatest monarchs. These
were the grandsons of St. Jude the apostle, who himself was the
brother of Jesus Christ. 48 Their natural pretensions to the
throne of David might perhaps attract the respect of the people,
and excite the jealousy of the governor; but the meanness of
their garb, and the simplicity of their answers, soon convinced
him that they were neither desirous nor capable of disturbing the
peace of the Roman empire. They frankly confessed their royal
origin, and their near relation to the Messiah; but they
disclaimed any temporal views, and professed that his kingdom,
which they devoutly expected, was purely of a spiritual and
angelic nature. When they were examined concerning their fortune
and occupation, they showed their hands, hardened with daily
labor, and declared that they derived their whole subsistence
from the cultivation of a farm near the village of Cocaba, of the
extent of about twenty-four English acres, 49 and of the value of
nine thousand drachms, or three hundred pounds sterling. The
grandsons of St. Jude were dismissed with compassion and
contempt. 50
44 (return) [ The Capitol was burnt during the civil war between
Vitellius and Vespasian, the 19th of December, A. D. 69. On the
10th of August, A. D. 70, the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed
by the hands of the Jews themselves, rather than by those of the
Romans.]
45 (return) [ The new Capitol was dedicated by Domitian. Sueton.
in Domitian. c. 5. Plutarch in Poplicola, tom. i. p. 230, edit.
Bryant. The gilding alone cost 12,000 talents (above two millions
and a half.) It was the opinion of Martial, (l. ix. Epigram 3,)
that if the emperor had called in his debts, Jupiter himself,
even though he had made a general auction of Olympus, would have
been unable to pay two shillings in the pound.]
46 (return) [ With regard to the tribute, see Dion Cassius, l.
lxvi. p. 1082, with Reimarus’s notes. Spanheim, de Usu
Numismatum, tom. ii. p. 571; and Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l.
vii. c. 2.]
47 (return) [ Suetonius (in Domitian. c. 12) had seen an old man
of ninety publicly examined before the procurator’s tribunal.
This is what Martial calls, Mentula tributis damnata.]
48 (return) [ This appellation was at first understood in the
most obvious sense, and it was supposed, that the brothers of
Jesus were the lawful issue of Joseph and Mary. A devout respect
for the virginity of the mother of God suggested to the Gnostics,
and afterwards to the orthodox Greeks, the expedient of bestowing
a second wife on Joseph. The Latins (from the time of Jerome)
improved on that hint, asserted the perpetual celibacy of Joseph,
and justified by many similar examples the new interpretation
that Jude, as well as Simon and James, who were styled the
brothers of Jesus Christ, were only his first cousins. See
Tillemont, Mém. Ecclesiast. tom. i. part iii.: and Beausobre,
Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, l. ii. c. 2.]
49 (return) [ Thirty-nine, squares of a hundred feet each, which,
if strictly computed, would scarcely amount to nine acres.]
50 (return) [ Eusebius, iii. 20. The story is taken from
Hegesippus.]
But although the obscurity of the house of David might protect
them from the suspicions of a tyrant, the present greatness of
his own family alarmed the pusillanimous temper of Domitian,
which could only be appeased by the blood of those Romans whom he
either feared, or hated, or esteemed. Of the two sons of his
uncle Flavius Sabinus, 51 the elder was soon convicted of
treasonable intentions, and the younger, who bore the name of
Flavius Clemens, was indebted for his safety to his want of
courage and ability. 52 The emperor for a long time,
distinguished so harmless a kinsman by his favor and protection,
bestowed on him his own niece Domitilla, adopted the children of
that marriage to the hope of the succession, and invested their
father with the honors of the consulship.
51 (return) [ See the death and character of Sabinus in Tacitus,
(Hist. iii. 74 ) Sabinus was the elder brother, and, till the
accession of Vespasian, had been considered as the principal
support of the Flavium family]
52 (return) [ Flavium Clementem patruelem suum _contemptissimæ
inertiæ_.. ex tenuissimâ suspicione interemit. Sueton. in
Domitian. c. 15.]
But he had scarcely finished the term of his annual magistracy,
when, on a slight pretence, he was condemned and executed;
Domitilla was banished to a desolate island on the coast of
Campania; 53 and sentences either of death or of confiscation
were pronounced against a great number of who were involved in
the same accusation. The guilt imputed to their charge was that
of _Atheism_ and _Jewish manners;_ 54 a singular association of
ideas, which cannot with any propriety be applied except to the
Christians, as they were obscurely and imperfectly viewed by the
magistrates and by the writers of that period. On the strength of
so probable an interpretation, and too eagerly admitting the
suspicions of a tyrant as an evidence of their honorable crime,
the church has placed both Clemens and Domitilla among its first
martyrs, and has branded the cruelty of Domitian with the name of
the second persecution. But this persecution (if it deserves that
epithet) was of no long duration. A few months after the death of
Clemens, and the banishment of Domitilla, Stephen, a freedman
belonging to the latter, who had enjoyed the favor, but who had
not surely embraced the faith, of his mistress, 5411 assassinated
the emperor in his palace. 55 The memory of Domitian was
condemned by the senate; his acts were rescinded; his exiles
recalled; and under the gentle administration of Nerva, while the
innocent were restored to their rank and fortunes, even the most
guilty either obtained pardon or escaped punishment. 56
53 (return) [ The Isle of Pandataria, according to Dion. Bruttius
Præsens (apud Euseb. iii. 18) banishes her to that of Pontia,
which was not far distant from the other. That difference, and a
mistake, either of Eusebius or of his transcribers, have given
occasion to suppose two Domitillas, the wife and the niece of
Clemens. See Tillemont, Mémoires Ecclésiastiques, tom. ii. p.
224.]
54 (return) [ Dion. l. lxvii. p. 1112. If the Bruttius Præsens,
from whom it is probable that he collected this account, was the
correspondent of Pliny, (Epistol. vii. 3,) we may consider him as
a contemporary writer.]
5411 (return) [ This is an uncandid sarcasm. There is nothing to
connect Stephen with the religion of Domitilla. He was a knave
detected in the malversation of money—interceptarum pecuniaram
reus.—M.]
55 (return) [ Suet. in Domit. c. 17. Philostratus in Vit.
Apollon. l. viii.]
56 (return) [ Dion. l. lxviii. p. 1118. Plin. Epistol. iv. 22.]
II. About ten years afterwards, under the reign of Trajan, the
younger Pliny was intrusted by his friend and master with the
government of Bithynia and Pontus. He soon found himself at a
loss to determine by what rule of justice or of law he should
direct his conduct in the execution of an office the most
repugnant to his humanity. Pliny had never assisted at any
judicial proceedings against the Christians, with whose name
alone he seems to be acquainted; and he was totally uninformed
with regard to the nature of their guilt, the method of their
conviction, and the degree of their punishment. In this
perplexity he had recourse to his usual expedient, of submitting
to the wisdom of Trajan an impartial, and, in some respects, a
favorable account of the new superstition, requesting the
emperor, that he would condescend to resolve his doubts, and to
instruct his ignorance. 57 The life of Pliny had been employed in
the acquisition of learning, and in the business of the world.
Since the age of nineteen he had pleaded with distinction in the
tribunals of Rome, 58 filled a place in the senate, had been
invested with the honors of the consulship, and had formed very
numerous connections with every order of men, both in Italy and
in the provinces. From _his_ ignorance therefore we may derive
some useful information. We may assure ourselves, that when he
accepted the government of Bithynia, there were no general laws
or decrees of the senate in force against the Christians; that
neither Trajan nor any of his virtuous predecessors, whose edicts
were received into the civil and criminal jurisprudence, had
publicly declared their intentions concerning the new sect; and
that whatever proceedings had been carried on against the
Christians, there were none of sufficient weight and authority to
establish a precedent for the conduct of a Roman magistrate.
57 (return) [ Plin. Epistol. x. 97. The learned Mosheim expresses
himself (p. 147, 232) with the highest approbation of Pliny’s
moderate and candid temper. Notwithstanding Dr. Lardner’s
suspicions (see Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. ii. p. 46,)
I am unable to discover any bigotry in his language or
proceedings. * Note: Yet the humane Pliny put two female
attendants, probably deaconesses to the torture, in order to
ascertain the real nature of these suspicious meetings:
necessarium credidi, ex duabus ancillis, quæ ministræ dicebantor
quid asset veri et _per tormenta_ quærere.—M.]
58 (return) [ Plin. Epist. v. 8. He pleaded his first cause A. D.
81; the year after the famous eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, in
which his uncle lost his life.]
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.—Part III.
The answer of Trajan, to which the Christians of the succeeding
age have frequently appealed, discovers as much regard for
justice and humanity as could be reconciled with his mistaken
notions of religious policy. 59 Instead of displaying the
implacable zeal of an inquisitor, anxious to discover the most
minute particles of heresy, and exulting in the number of his
victims, the emperor expresses much more solicitude to protect
the security of the innocent, than to prevent the escape of the
guilty. He acknowledged the difficulty of fixing any general
plan; but he lays down two salutary rules, which often afforded
relief and support to the distressed Christians. Though he
directs the magistrates to punish such persons as are legally
convicted, he prohibits them, with a very humane inconsistency,
from making any inquiries concerning the supposed criminals. Nor
was the magistrate allowed to proceed on every kind of
information. Anonymous charges the emperor rejects, as too
repugnant to the equity of his government; and he strictly
requires, for the conviction of those to whom the guilt of
Christianity is imputed, the positive evidence of a fair and open
accuser. It is likewise probable, that the persons who assumed so
invidiuous an office, were obliged to declare the grounds of
their suspicions, to specify (both in respect to time and place)
the secret assemblies, which their Christian adversary had
frequented, and to disclose a great number of circumstances,
which were concealed with the most vigilant jealousy from the eye
of the profane. If they succeeded in their prosecution, they were
exposed to the resentment of a considerable and active party, to
the censure of the more liberal portion of mankind, and to the
ignominy which, in every age and country, has attended the
character of an informer. If, on the contrary, they failed in
their proofs, they incurred the severe and perhaps capital
penalty, which, according to a law published by the emperor
Hadrian, was inflicted on those who falsely attributed to their
fellow-citizens the crime of Christianity. The violence of
personal or superstitious animosity might sometimes prevail over
the most natural apprehensions of disgrace and danger but it
cannot surely be imagined, 60 that accusations of so unpromising
an appearance were either lightly or frequently undertaken by the
Pagan subjects of the Roman empire. 6011
59 (return) [ Plin. Epist. x. 98. Tertullian (Apolog. c. 5)
considers this rescript as a relaxation of the ancient penal
laws, “quas Trajanus exparte frustratus est:” and yet Tertullian,
in another part of his Apology, exposes the inconsistency of
prohibiting inquiries, and enjoining punishments.]
60 (return) [ Eusebius (Hist. Ecclesiast. l. iv. c. 9) has
preserved the edict of Hadrian. He has likewise (c. 13) given us
one still more favorable, under the name of Antoninus; the
authenticity of which is not so universally allowed. The second
Apology of Justin contains some curious particulars relative to
the accusations of Christians. * Note: Professor Hegelmayer has
proved the authenticity of the edict of Antoninus, in his Comm.
Hist. Theol. in Edict. Imp. Antonini. Tubing. 1777, in 4to.—G.
——Neander doubts its authenticity, (vol. i. p. 152.) In my
opinion, the internal evidence is decisive against it.—M]
6011 (return) [ The enactment of this law affords strong
presumption, that accusations of the “crime of Christianity,”
were by no means so uncommon, nor received with so much mistrust
and caution by the ruling authorities, as Gibbon would insinuate.
—M.]
The expedient which was employed to elude the prudence of the
laws, affords a sufficient proof how effectually they
disappointed the mischievous designs of private malice or
superstitious zeal. In a large and tumultuous assembly, the
restraints of fear and shame, so forcible on the minds of
individuals, are deprived of the greatest part of their
influence. The pious Christian, as he was desirous to obtain, or
to escape, the glory of martyrdom, expected, either with
impatience or with terror, the stated returns of the public games
and festivals. On those occasions the inhabitants of the great
cities of the empire were collected in the circus or the theatre,
where every circumstance of the place, as well as of the
ceremony, contributed to kindle their devotion, and to extinguish
their humanity. Whilst the numerous spectators, crowned with
garlands, perfumed with incense, purified with the blood of
victims, and surrounded with the altars and statues of their
tutelar deities, resigned themselves to the enjoyment of
pleasures, which they considered as an essential part of their
religious worship, they recollected, that the Christians alone
abhorred the gods of mankind, and by their absence and melancholy
on these solemn festivals, seemed to insult or to lament the
public felicity. If the empire had been afflicted by any recent
calamity, by a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war; if the
Tyber had, or if the Nile had not, risen beyond its banks; if the
earth had shaken, or if the temperate order of the seasons had
been interrupted, the superstitious Pagans were convinced that
the crimes and the impiety of the Christians, who were spared by
the excessive lenity of the government, had at length provoked
the divine justice. It was not among a licentious and exasperated
populace, that the forms of legal proceedings could be observed;
it was not in an amphitheatre, stained with the blood of wild
beasts and gladiators, that the voice of compassion could be
heard. The impatient clamors of the multitude denounced the
Christians as the enemies of gods and men, doomed them to the
severest tortures, and venturing to accuse by name some of the
most distinguished of the new sectaries, required with
irresistible vehemence that they should be instantly apprehended
and cast to the lions. 61 The provincial governors and
magistrates who presided in the public spectacles were usually
inclined to gratify the inclinations, and to appease the rage, of
the people, by the sacrifice of a few obnoxious victims. But the
wisdom of the emperors protected the church from the danger of
these tumultuous clamors and irregular accusations, which they
justly censured as repugnant both to the firmness and to the
equity of their administration. The edicts of Hadrian and of
Antoninus Pius expressly declared, that the voice of the
multitude should never be admitted as legal evidence to convict
or to punish those unfortunate persons who had embraced the
enthusiasm of the Christians. 62
61 (return) [ See Tertullian, (Apolog. c. 40.) The acts of the
martyrdom of Polycarp exhibit a lively picture of these tumults,
which were usually fomented by the malice of the Jews.]
62 (return) [ These regulations are inserted in the above
mentioned document of Hadrian and Pius. See the apology of
Melito, (apud Euseb. l iv 26)]
III. Punishment was not the inevitable consequence of conviction,
and the Christians, whose guilt was the most clearly proved by
the testimony of witnesses, or even by their voluntary
confession, still retained in their own power the alternative of
life or death. It was not so much the past offence, as the actual
resistance, which excited the indignation of the magistrate. He
was persuaded that he offered them an easy pardon, since, if they
consented to cast a few grains of incense upon the altar, they
were dismissed from the tribunal in safety and with applause. It
was esteemed the duty of a humane judge to endeavor to reclaim,
rather than to punish, those deluded enthusiasts. Varying his
tone according to the age, the sex, or the situation of the
prisoners, he frequently condescended to set before their eyes
every circumstance which could render life more pleasing, or
death more terrible; and to solicit, nay, to entreat, them, that
they would show some compassion to themselves, to their families,
and to their friends. 63 If threats and persuasions proved
ineffectual, he had often recourse to violence; the scourge and
the rack were called in to supply the deficiency of argument, and
every art of cruelty was employed to subdue such inflexible, and,
as it appeared to the Pagans, such criminal, obstinacy. The
ancient apologists of Christianity have censured, with equal
truth and severity, the irregular conduct of their persecutors
who, contrary to every principle of judicial proceeding, admitted
the use of torture, in order to obtain, not a confession, but a
denial, of the crime which was the object of their inquiry. 64
The monks of succeeding ages, who, in their peaceful solitudes,
entertained themselves with diversifying the deaths and
sufferings of the primitive martyrs, have frequently invented
torments of a much more refined and ingenious nature. In
particular, it has pleased them to suppose, that the zeal of the
Roman magistrates, disdaining every consideration of moral virtue
or public decency, endeavored to seduce those whom they were
unable to vanquish, and that by their orders the most brutal
violence was offered to those whom they found it impossible to
seduce. It is related, that females, who were prepared to despise
death, were sometimes condemned to a more severe trial, 6411 and
called upon to determine whether they set a higher value on their
religion or on their chastity. The youths to whose licentious
embraces they were abandoned, received a solemn exhortation from
the judge, to exert their most strenuous efforts to maintain the
honor of Venus against the impious virgin who refused to burn
incense on her altars. Their violence, however, was commonly
disappointed, and the seasonable interposition of some miraculous
power preserved the chaste spouses of Christ from the dishonor
even of an involuntary defeat. We should not indeed neglect to
remark, that the more ancient as well as authentic memorials of
the church are seldom polluted with these extravagant and
indecent fictions. 65
63 (return) [ See the rescript of Trajan, and the conduct of
Pliny. The most authentic acts of the martyrs abound in these
exhortations. Note: Pliny’s test was the worship of the gods,
offerings to the statue of the emperor, and blaspheming
Christ—præterea maledicerent Christo.—M.]
64 (return) [ In particular, see Tertullian, (Apolog. c. 2, 3,)
and Lactantius, (Institut. Divin. v. 9.) Their reasonings are
almost the same; but we may discover, that one of these
apologists had been a lawyer, and the other a rhetorician.]
6411 (return) [ The more ancient as well as authentic memorials
of the church, relate many examples of the fact, (of these
_severe trials_,) which there is nothing to contradict.
Tertullian, among others, says, Nam proxime ad lenonem damnando
Christianam, potius quam ad leonem, confessi estis labem
pudicitiæ apud nos atrociorem omni pœna et omni morte reputari,
Apol. cap. ult. Eusebius likewise says, “Other virgins, dragged
to brothels, have lost their life rather than defile their
virtue.” Euseb. Hist. Ecc. viii. 14.—G. The miraculous
interpositions were the offspring of the coarse imaginations of
the monks.—M.]
65 (return) [ See two instances of this kind of torture in the
Acta Sincere Martyrum, published by Ruinart, p. 160, 399. Jerome,
in his Legend of Paul the Hermit, tells a strange story of a
young man, who was chained naked on a bed of flowers, and
assaulted by a beautiful and wanton courtesan. He quelled the
rising temptation by biting off his tongue.]
The total disregard of truth and probability in the
representation of these primitive martyrdoms was occasioned by a
very natural mistake. The ecclesiastical writers of the fourth or
fifth centuries ascribed to the magistrates of Rome the same
degree of implacable and unrelenting zeal which filled their own
breasts against the heretics or the idolaters of their own times.
It is not improbable that some of those persons who were raised
to the dignities of the empire, might have imbibed the prejudices
of the populace, and that the cruel disposition of others might
occasionally be stimulated by motives of avarice or of personal
resentment. 66 But it is certain, and we may appeal to the
grateful confessions of the first Christians, that the greatest
part of those magistrates who exercised in the provinces the
authority of the emperor, or of the senate, and to whose hands
alone the jurisdiction of life and death was intrusted, behaved
like men of polished manners and liberal education, who respected
the rules of justice, and who were conversant with the precepts
of philosophy. They frequently declined the odious task of
persecution, dismissed the charge with contempt, or suggested to
the accused Christian some legal evasion, by which he might elude
the severity of the laws. 67 Whenever they were invested with a
discretionary power, 68 they used it much less for the
oppression, than for the relief and benefit of the afflicted
church. They were far from condemning all the Christians who were
accused before their tribunal, and very far from punishing with
death all those who were convicted of an obstinate adherence to
the new superstition. Contenting themselves, for the most part,
with the milder chastisements of imprisonment, exile, or slavery
in the mines, 69 they left the unhappy victims of their justice
some reason to hope, that a prosperous event, the accession, the
marriage, or the triumph of an emperor, might speedily restore
them, by a general pardon, to their former state. The martyrs,
devoted to immediate execution by the Roman magistrates, appear
to have been selected from the most opposite extremes. They were
either bishops and presbyters, the persons the most distinguished
among the Christians by their rank and influence, and whose
example might strike terror into the whole sect; 70 or else they
were the meanest and most abject among them, particularly those
of the servile condition, whose lives were esteemed of little
value, and whose sufferings were viewed by the ancients with too
careless an indifference. 71 The learned Origen, who, from his
experience as well as reading, was intimately acquainted with the
history of the Christians, declares, in the most express terms,
that the number of martyrs was very inconsiderable. 72 His
authority would alone be sufficient to annihilate that formidable
army of martyrs, whose relics, drawn for the most part from the
catacombs of Rome, have replenished so many churches, 73 and
whose marvellous achievements have been the subject of so many
volumes of Holy Romance. 74 But the general assertion of Origen
may be explained and confirmed by the particular testimony of his
friend Dionysius, who, in the immense city of Alexandria, and
under the rigorous persecution of Decius, reckons only ten men
and seven women who suffered for the profession of the Christian
name. 75
66 (return) [ The conversion of his wife provoked Claudius
Herminianus, governor of Cappadocia, to treat the Christians with
uncommon severity. Tertullian ad Scapulam, c. 3.]
67 (return) [ Tertullian, in his epistle to the governor of
Africa, mentions several remarkable instances of lenity and
forbearance, which had happened within his knowledge.]
68 (return) [ Neque enim in universum aliquid quod quasi certam
formam habeat, constitui potest; an expression of Trajan, which
gave a very great latitude to the governors of provinces. * Note:
Gibbon altogether forgets that Trajan fully approved of the
course pursued by Pliny. That course was, to order all who
persevered in their faith to be led to execution: perseverantes
duci jussi.—M.]
69 (return) [ In Metalla damnamur, in insulas relegamur.
Tertullian, Apolog. c. 12. The mines of Numidia contained nine
bishops, with a proportionable number of their clergy and people,
to whom Cyprian addressed a pious epistle of praise and comfort.
See Cyprian. Epistol. 76, 77.]
70 (return) [ Though we cannot receive with entire confidence
either the epistles, or the acts, of Ignatius, (they may be found
in the 2d volume of the Apostolic Fathers,) yet we may quote that
bishop of Antioch as one of these _exemplary_ martyrs. He was
sent in chains to Rome as a public spectacle, and when he arrived
at Troas, he received the pleasing intelligence, that the
persecution of Antioch was already at an end. * Note: The acts of
Ignatius are generally received as authentic, as are seven of his
letters. Eusebius and St. Jerome mention them: there are two
editions; in one, the letters are longer, and many passages
appear to have been interpolated; the other edition is that which
contains the real letters of St. Ignatius; such at least is the
opinion of the wisest and most enlightened critics. (See Lardner.
Cred. of Gospel Hist.) Less, uber dis Religion, v. i. p. 529.
Usser. Diss. de Ign. Epist. Pearson, Vindic, Ignatianæ. It should
be remarked, that it was under the reign of Trajan that the
bishop Ignatius was carried from Antioch to Rome, to be exposed
to the lions in the amphitheatre, the year of J. C. 107,
according to some; of 116, according to others.—G.]
71 (return) [ Among the martyrs of Lyons, (Euseb. l. v. c. 1,)
the slave Blandina was distinguished by more exquisite tortures.
Of the five martyrs so much celebrated in the acts of Felicitas
and Perpetua, two were of a servile, and two others of a very
mean, condition.]
72 (return) [ Origen. advers. Celsum, l. iii. p. 116. His words
deserve to be transcribed. * Note: The words that follow should
be quoted. “God not permitting that all his class of men should
be exterminated:” which appears to indicate that Origen thought
the number put to death inconsiderable only when compared to the
numbers who had survived. Besides this, he is speaking of the
state of the religion under Caracalla, Elagabalus, Alexander
Severus, and Philip, who had not persecuted the Christians. It
was during the reign of the latter that Origen wrote his books
against Celsus.—G.]
73 (return) [ If we recollect that all the Plebeians of Rome were
not Christians, and that all the Christians were not saints and
martyrs, we may judge with how much safety religious honors can
be ascribed to bones or urns, indiscriminately taken from the
public burial-place. After ten centuries of a very free and open
trade, some suspicions have arisen among the more learned
Catholics. They now require as a proof of sanctity and martyrdom,
the letters B.M., a vial full of red liquor supposed to be blood,
or the figure of a palm-tree. But the two former signs are of
little weight, and with regard to the last, it is observed by the
critics, 1. That the figure, as it is called, of a palm, is
perhaps a cypress, and perhaps only a stop, the flourish of a
comma used in the monumental inscriptions. 2. That the palm was
the symbol of victory among the Pagans. 3. That among the
Christians it served as the emblem, not only of martyrdom, but in
general of a joyful resurrection. See the epistle of P. Mabillon,
on the worship of unknown saints, and Muratori sopra le Antichita
Italiane, Dissertat. lviii.]
74 (return) [ As a specimen of these legends, we may be satisfied
with 10,000 Christian soldiers crucified in one day, either by
Trajan or Hadrian on Mount Ararat. See Baronius ad Martyrologium
Romanum; Tille mont, Mém. Ecclesiast. tom. ii. part ii. p. 438;
and Geddes’s Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 203. The abbreviation of
Mil., which may signify either _soldiers_ or _thousands_, is said
to have occasioned some extraordinary mistakes.]
75 (return) [ Dionysius ap. Euseb l. vi. c. 41 One of the
seventeen was likewise accused of robbery. * Note: Gibbon ought
to have said, was falsely accused of robbery, for so it is in the
Greek text. This Christian, named Nemesion, falsely accused of
robbery before the centurion, was acquitted of a crime altogether
foreign to his character, but he was led before the governor as
guilty of being a Christian, and the governor inflicted upon him
a double torture. (Euseb. loc. cit.) It must be added, that Saint
Dionysius only makes particular mention of the principal martyrs,
[this is very doubtful.—M.] and that he says, in general, that
the fury of the Pagans against the Christians gave to Alexandria
the appearance of a city taken by storm. [This refers to plunder
and ill usage, not to actual slaughter.—M.] Finally it should be
observed that Origen wrote before the persecution of the emperor
Decius.—G.]
During the same period of persecution, the zealous, the eloquent,
the ambitious Cyprian governed the church, not only of Carthage,
but even of Africa. He possessed every quality which could engage
the reverence of the faithful, or provoke the suspicions and
resentment of the Pagan magistrates. His character as well as his
station seemed to mark out that holy prelate as the most
distinguished object of envy and danger. 76 The experience,
however, of the life of Cyprian, is sufficient to prove that our
fancy has exaggerated the perilous situation of a Christian
bishop; and the dangers to which he was exposed were less
imminent than those which temporal ambition is always prepared to
encounter in the pursuit of honors. Four Roman emperors, with
their families, their favorites, and their adherents, perished by
the sword in the space of ten years, during which the bishop of
Carthage guided by his authority and eloquence the councils of
the African church. It was only in the third year of his
administration, that he had reason, during a few months, to
apprehend the severe edicts of Decius, the vigilance of the
magistrate and the clamors of the multitude, who loudly demanded,
that Cyprian, the leader of the Christians, should be thrown to
the lions. Prudence suggested the necessity of a temporary
retreat, and the voice of prudence was obeyed. He withdrew
himself into an obscure solitude, from whence he could maintain a
constant correspondence with the clergy and people of Carthage;
and, concealing himself till the tempest was past, he preserved
his life, without relinquishing either his power or his
reputation. His extreme caution did not, however, escape the
censure of the more rigid Christians, who lamented, or the
reproaches of his personal enemies, who insulted, a conduct which
they considered as a pusillanimous and criminal desertion of the
most sacred duty. 77 The propriety of reserving himself for the
future exigencies of the church, the example of several holy
bishops, 78 and the divine admonitions, which, as he declares
himself, he frequently received in visions and ecstacies, were
the reasons alleged in his justification. 79 But his best apology
may be found in the cheerful resolution, with which, about eight
years afterwards, he suffered death in the cause of religion. The
authentic history of his martyrdom has been recorded with unusual
candor and impartiality. A short abstract, therefore, of its most
important circumstances, will convey the clearest information of
the spirit, and of the forms, of the Roman persecutions. 80
76 (return) [ The letters of Cyprian exhibit a very curious and
original picture both of the _man_ and of the _times_. See
likewise the two lives of Cyprian, composed with equal accuracy,
though with very different views; the one by Le Clerc
(Bibliothèque Universelle, tom. xii. p. 208-378,) the other by
Tillemont, Mémoires Ecclésiastiques, tom. iv part i. p. 76-459.]
77 (return) [ See the polite but severe epistle of the clergy of
Rome to the bishop of Carthage. (Cyprian. Epist. 8, 9.) Pontius
labors with the greatest care and diligence to justify his master
against the general censure.]
78 (return) [ In particular those of Dionysius of Alexandria, and
Gregory Thaumaturgus, of Neo-Cæsarea. See Euseb. Hist.
Ecclesiast. l. vi. c. 40; and Mémoires de Tillemont, tom. iv.
part ii. p. 685.]
79 (return) [ See Cyprian. Epist. 16, and his life by Pontius.]
80 (return) [ We have an original life of Cyprian by the deacon
Pontius, the companion of his exile, and the spectator of his
death; and we likewise possess the ancient proconsular acts of
his martyrdom. These two relations are consistent with each
other, and with probability; and what is somewhat remarkable,
they are both unsullied by any miraculous circumstances.]
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.—Part IV.
When Valerian was consul for the third, and Gallienus for the
fourth time, Paternus, proconsul of Africa, summoned Cyprian to
appear in his private council-chamber. He there acquainted him
with the Imperial mandate which he had just received, 81 that
those who had abandoned the Roman religion should immediately
return to the practice of the ceremonies of their ancestors.
Cyprian replied without hesitation, that he was a Christian and a
bishop, devoted to the worship of the true and only Deity, to
whom he offered up his daily supplications for the safety and
prosperity of the two emperors, his lawful sovereigns.
With modest confidence he pleaded the privilege of a citizen, in
refusing to give any answer to some invidious and indeed illegal
questions which the proconsul had proposed. A sentence of
banishment was pronounced as the penalty of Cyprian’s
disobedience; and he was conducted without delay to Curubis, a
free and maritime city of Zeugitania, in a pleasant situation, a
fertile territory, and at the distance of about forty miles from
Carthage. 82 The exiled bishop enjoyed the conveniences of life
and the consciousness of virtue. His reputation was diffused over
Africa and Italy; an account of his behavior was published for
the edification of the Christian world; 83 and his solitude was
frequently interrupted by the letters, the visits, and the
congratulations of the faithful. On the arrival of a new
proconsul in the province the fortune of Cyprian appeared for
some time to wear a still more favorable aspect. He was recalled
from banishment; and though not yet permitted to return to
Carthage, his own gardens in the neighborhood of the capital were
assigned for the place of his residence. 84
81 (return) [ It should seem that these were circular orders,
sent at the same time to all the governors. Dionysius (ap. Euseb.
l. vii. c. 11) relates the history of his own banishment from
Alexandria almost in the same manner. But as he escaped and
survived the persecution, we must account him either more or less
fortunate than Cyprian.]
82 (return) [ See Plin. Hist. Natur. v. 3. Cellarius, Geograph.
Antiq. part iii. p. 96. Shaw’s Travels, p. 90; and for the
adjacent country, (which is terminated by Cape Bona, or the
promontory of Mercury,) l’Afrique de Marmol. tom. ii. p. 494.
There are the remains of an aqueduct near Curubis, or Curbis, at
present altered into Gurbes; and Dr. Shaw read an inscription,
which styles that city _Colonia Fulvia_. The deacon Pontius (in
Vit. Cyprian. c. 12) calls it “Apricum et competentem locum,
hospitium pro voluntate secretum, et quicquid apponi eis ante
promissum est, qui regnum et justitiam Dei quærunt.”]
83 (return) [ See Cyprian. Epistol. 77, edit. Fell.]
84 (return) [ Upon his conversion, he had sold those gardens for
the benefit of the poor. The indulgence of God (most probably the
liberality of some Christian friend) restored them to Cyprian.
See Pontius, c. 15.]
At length, exactly one year 85 after Cyprian was first
apprehended, Galerius Maximus, proconsul of Africa, received the
Imperial warrant for the execution of the Christian teachers. The
bishop of Carthage was sensible that he should be singled out for
one of the first victims; and the frailty of nature tempted him
to withdraw himself, by a secret flight, from the danger and the
honor of martyrdom; 8511 but soon recovering that fortitude which
his character required, he returned to his gardens, and patiently
expected the ministers of death. Two officers of rank, who were
intrusted with that commission, placed Cyprian between them in a
chariot, and as the proconsul was not then at leisure, they
conducted him, not to a prison, but to a private house in
Carthage, which belonged to one of them. An elegant supper was
provided for the entertainment of the bishop, and his Christian
friends were permitted for the last time to enjoy his society,
whilst the streets were filled with a multitude of the faithful,
anxious and alarmed at the approaching fate of their spiritual
father. 86 In the morning he appeared before the tribunal of the
proconsul, who, after informing himself of the name and situation
of Cyprian, commanded him to offer sacrifice, and pressed him to
reflect on the consequences of his disobedience. The refusal of
Cyprian was firm and decisive; and the magistrate, when he had
taken the opinion of his council, pronounced with some reluctance
the sentence of death. It was conceived in the following terms:
“That Thascius Cyprianus should be immediately beheaded, as the
enemy of the gods of Rome, and as the chief and ringleader of a
criminal association, which he had seduced into an impious
resistance against the laws of the most holy emperors, Valerian
and Gallienus.” 87 The manner of his execution was the mildest
and least painful that could be inflicted on a person convicted
of any capital offence; nor was the use of torture admitted to
obtain from the bishop of Carthage either the recantation of his
principles or the discovery of his accomplices.
85 (return) [ When Cyprian; a twelvemonth before, was sent into
exile, he dreamt that he should be put to death the next day. The
event made it necessary to explain that word, as signifying a
year. Pontius, c. 12.]
8511 (return) [ This was not, as it appears, the motive which
induced St. Cyprian to conceal himself for a short time; he was
threatened to be carried to Utica; he preferred remaining at
Carthage, in order to suffer martyrdom in the midst of his flock,
and in order that his death might conduce to the edification of
those whom he had guided during life. Such, at least, is his own
explanation of his conduct in one of his letters: Cum perlatum ad
nos fuisset, fratres carissimi, frumentarios esse missos qui me
Uticam per ducerent, consilioque carissimorum persuasum est, ut
de hortis interim recederemus, justa interveniente causâ,
consensi; eo quod congruat episcopum in eâ civitate, in quâ
Ecclesiæ dominicæ præest, illie. Dominum confiteri et plebem
universam præpositi præsentis confessione clarificari Ep. 83.—G]
86 (return) [ Pontius (c. 15) acknowledges that Cyprian, with
whom he supped, passed the night custodia delicata. The bishop
exercised a last and very proper act of jurisdiction, by
directing that the younger females, who watched in the streets,
should be removed from the dangers and temptations of a nocturnal
crowd. Act. Preconsularia, c. 2.]
87 (return) [ See the original sentence in the Acts, c. 4; and in
Pontius, c. 17 The latter expresses it in a more rhetorical
manner.]
As soon as the sentence was proclaimed, a general cry of “We will
die with him,” arose at once among the listening multitude of
Christians who waited before the palace gates. The generous
effusions of their zeal and their affection were neither
serviceable to Cyprian nor dangerous to themselves. He was led
away under a guard of tribunes and centurions, without resistance
and without insult, to the place of his execution, a spacious and
level plain near the city, which was already filled with great
numbers of spectators. His faithful presbyters and deacons were
permitted to accompany their holy bishop. 8711 They assisted him
in laying aside his upper garment, spread linen on the ground to
catch the precious relics of his blood, and received his orders
to bestow five-and-twenty pieces of gold on the executioner. The
martyr then covered his face with his hands, and at one blow his
head was separated from his body. His corpse remained during some
hours exposed to the curiosity of the Gentiles: but in the night
it was removed, and transported in a triumphal procession, and
with a splendid illumination, to the burial-place of the
Christians. The funeral of Cyprian was publicly celebrated
without receiving any interruption from the Roman magistrates;
and those among the faithful, who had performed the last offices
to his person and his memory, were secure from the danger of
inquiry or of punishment. It is remarkable, that of so great a
multitude of bishops in the province of Africa, Cyprian was the
first who was esteemed worthy to obtain the crown of martyrdom.
88
8711 (return) [ There is nothing in the life of St. Cyprian, by
Pontius, nor in the ancient manuscripts, which can make us
suppose that the presbyters and deacons in their clerical
character, and known to be such, had the permission to attend
their holy bishop. Setting aside all religious considerations, it
is impossible not to be surprised at the kind of complaisance
with which the historian here insists, in favor of the
persecutors, on some mitigating circumstances allowed at the
death of a man whose only crime was maintaining his own opinions
with frankness and courage.—G.]
88 (return) [ Pontius, c. 19. M. de Tillemont (Mémoires, tom. iv.
part i. p. 450, note 50) is not pleased with so positive an
exclusion of any former martyr of the episcopal rank. * Note: M.
de. Tillemont, as an honest writer, explains the difficulties
which he felt about the text of Pontius, and concludes by
distinctly stating, that without doubt there is some mistake, and
that Pontius must have meant only Africa Minor or Carthage; for
St. Cyprian, in his 58th (69th) letter addressed to Pupianus,
speaks expressly of many bishops his colleagues, qui proscripti
sunt, vel apprehensi in carcere et catenis fuerunt; aut qui in
exilium relegati, illustri itinere ed Dominum profecti sunt; aut
qui quibusdam locis animadversi, cœlestes coronas de Domini
clarificatione sumpserunt.—G.]
It was in the choice of Cyprian, either to die a martyr, or to
live an apostate; but on the choice depended the alternative of
honor or infamy. Could we suppose that the bishop of Carthage had
employed the profession of the Christian faith only as the
instrument of his avarice or ambition, it was still incumbent on
him to support the character he had assumed; 89 and if he
possessed the smallest degree of manly fortitude, rather to
expose himself to the most cruel tortures, than by a single act
to exchange the reputation of a whole life, for the abhorrence of
his Christian brethren, and the contempt of the Gentile world.
But if the zeal of Cyprian was supported by the sincere
conviction of the truth of those doctrines which he preached, the
crown of martyrdom must have appeared to him as an object of
desire rather than of terror. It is not easy to extract any
distinct ideas from the vague though eloquent declamations of the
Fathers, or to ascertain the degree of immortal glory and
happiness which they confidently promised to those who were so
fortunate as to shed their blood in the cause of religion. 90
They inculcated with becoming diligence, that the fire of
martyrdom supplied every defect and expiated every sin; that
while the souls of ordinary Christians were obliged to pass
through a slow and painful purification, the triumphant sufferers
entered into the immediate fruition of eternal bliss, where, in
the society of the patriarchs, the apostles, and the prophets,
they reigned with Christ, and acted as his assessors in the
universal judgment of mankind. The assurance of a lasting
reputation upon earth, a motive so congenial to the vanity of
human nature, often served to animate the courage of the martyrs.
The honors which Rome or Athens bestowed on those citizens who
had fallen in the cause of their country, were cold and unmeaning
demonstrations of respect, when compared with the ardent
gratitude and devotion which the primitive church expressed
towards the victorious champions of the faith. The annual
commemoration of their virtues and sufferings was observed as a
sacred ceremony, and at length terminated in religious worship.
Among the Christians who had publicly confessed their religious
principles, those who (as it very frequently happened) had been
dismissed from the tribunal or the prisons of the Pagan
magistrates, obtained such honors as were justly due to their
imperfect martyrdom and their generous resolution. The most pious
females courted the permission of imprinting kisses on the
fetters which they had worn, and on the wounds which they had
received. Their persons were esteemed holy, their decisions were
admitted with deference, and they too often abused, by their
spiritual pride and licentious manners, the preëminence which
their zeal and intrepidity had acquired. 91 Distinctions like
these, whilst they display the exalted merit, betray the
inconsiderable number of those who suffered, and of those who
died, for the profession of Christianity.
89 (return) [ Whatever opinion we may entertain of the character
or principles of Thomas Becket, we must acknowledge that he
suffered death with a constancy not unworthy of the primitive
martyrs. See Lord Lyttleton’s History of Henry II. vol. ii. p.
592, &c.]
90 (return) [ See in particular the treatise of Cyprian de
Lapsis, p. 87-98, edit. Fell. The learning of Dodwell (Dissertat.
Cyprianic. xii. xiii.,) and the ingenuity of Middleton, (Free
Inquiry, p. 162, &c.,) have left scarcely any thing to add
concerning the merit, the honors, and the motives of the
martyrs.]
91 (return) [ Cyprian. Epistol. 5, 6, 7, 22, 24; and de Unitat.
Ecclesiæ. The number of pretended martyrs has been very much
multiplied, by the custom which was introduced of bestowing that
honorable name on confessors. Note: M. Guizot denies that the
letters of Cyprian, to which he refers, bear out the statement in
the text. I cannot scruple to admit the accuracy of Gibbon’s
quotation. To take only the fifth letter, we find this passage:
Doleo enim quando audio quosdam improbe et insolenter discurrere,
et ad ineptian vel ad discordias vacare, Christi membra et jam
Christum confessa per concubitûs illicitos inquinari, nec a
diaconis aut presbyteris regi posse, sed id agere ut per paucorum
pravos et malos mores, multorum et bonorum confessorum gloria
honesta maculetur. Gibbon’s misrepresentation lies in the
ambiguous expression “too often.” Were the epistles arranged in a
different manner in the edition consulted by M. Guizot?—M.]
The sober discretion of the present age will more readily censure
than admire, but can more easily admire than imitate, the fervor
of the first Christians, who, according to the lively expressions
of Sulpicius Severus, desired martyrdom with more eagerness than
his own contemporaries solicited a bishopric. 92 The epistles
which Ignatius composed as he was carried in chains through the
cities of Asia, breathe sentiments the most repugnant to the
ordinary feelings of human nature. He earnestly beseeches the
Romans, that when he should be exposed in the amphitheatre, they
would not, by their kind but unseasonable intercession, deprive
him of the crown of glory; and he declares his resolution to
provoke and irritate the wild beasts which might be employed as
the instruments of his death. 93 Some stories are related of the
courage of martyrs, who actually performed what Ignatius had
intended; who exasperated the fury of the lions, pressed the
executioner to hasten his office, cheerfully leaped into the
fires which were kindled to consume them, and discovered a
sensation of joy and pleasure in the midst of the most exquisite
tortures. Several examples have been preserved of a zeal
impatient of those restraints which the emperors had provided for
the security of the church. The Christians sometimes supplied by
their voluntary declaration the want of an accuser, rudely
disturbed the public service of paganism, 94 and rushing in
crowds round the tribunal of the magistrates, called upon them to
pronounce and to inflict the sentence of the law. The behavior of
the Christians was too remarkable to escape the notice of the
ancient philosophers; but they seem to have considered it with
much less admiration than astonishment. Incapable of conceiving
the motives which sometimes transported the fortitude of
believers beyond the bounds of prudence or reason, they treated
such an eagerness to die as the strange result of obstinate
despair, of stupid insensibility, or of superstitious frenzy. 95
“Unhappy men!” exclaimed the proconsul Antoninus to the
Christians of Asia; “unhappy men! if you are thus weary of your
lives, is it so difficult for you to find ropes and precipices?”
96 He was extremely cautious (as it is observed by a learned and
picus historian) of punishing men who had found no accusers but
themselves, the Imperial laws not having made any provision for
so unexpected a case: condemning therefore a few as a warning to
their brethren, he dismissed the multitude with indignation and
contempt. 97 Notwithstanding this real or affected disdain, the
intrepid constancy of the faithful was productive of more
salutary effects on those minds which nature or grace had
disposed for the easy reception of religious truth. On these
melancholy occasions, there were many among the Gentiles who
pitied, who admired, and who were converted. The generous
enthusiasm was communicated from the sufferer to the spectators;
and the blood of martyrs, according to a well-known observation,
became the seed of the church.
92 (return) [ Certatim gloriosa in certamina ruebatur; multique
avidius tum martyria gloriosis mortibus quærebantur, quam nunc
Episcopatus pravis ambitionibus appetuntur. Sulpicius Severus, l.
ii. He might have omitted the word _nunc_.]
93 (return) [ See Epist. ad Roman. c. 4, 5, ap. Patres Apostol.
tom. ii. p. 27. It suited the purpose of Bishop Pearson (see
Vindiciæ Ignatianæ, part ii. c. 9) to justify, by a profusion of
examples and authorities, the sentiments of Ignatius.]
94 (return) [ The story of Polyeuctes, on which Corneille has
founded a very beautiful tragedy, is one of the most celebrated,
though not perhaps the most authentic, instances of this
excessive zeal. We should observe, that the 60th canon of the
council of Illiberis refuses the title of martyrs to those who
exposed themselves to death, by publicly destroying the idols.]
95 (return) [ See Epictetus, l. iv. c. 7, (though there is some
doubt whether he alludes to the Christians.) Marcus Antoninus de
Rebus suis, l. xi. c. 3 Lucian in Peregrin.]
96 (return) [ Tertullian ad Scapul. c. 5. The learned are divided
between three persons of the same name, who were all proconsuls
of Asia. I am inclined to ascribe this story to Antoninus Pius,
who was afterwards emperor; and who may have governed Asia under
the reign of Trajan.]
97 (return) [ Mosheim, de Rebus Christ, ante Constantin. p. 235.]
But although devotion had raised, and eloquence continued to
inflame, this fever of the mind, it insensibly gave way to the
more natural hopes and fears of the human heart, to the love of
life, the apprehension of pain, and the horror of dissolution.
The more prudent rulers of the church found themselves obliged to
restrain the indiscreet ardor of their followers, and to distrust
a constancy which too often abandoned them in the hour of trial.
98 As the lives of the faithful became less mortified and
austere, they were every day less ambitious of the honors of
martyrdom; and the soldiers of Christ, instead of distinguishing
themselves by voluntary deeds of heroism, frequently deserted
their post, and fled in confusion before the enemy whom it was
their duty to resist. There were three methods, however, of
escaping the flames of persecution, which were not attended with
an equal degree of guilt: first, indeed, was generally allowed to
be innocent; the second was of a doubtful, or at least of a
venial, nature; but the third implied a direct and criminal
apostasy from the Christian faith.
98 (return) [ See the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna, ap. Euseb.
Hist. Eccles. Liv. c. 15 * Note: The 15th chapter of the 10th
book of the Eccles. History of Eusebius treats principally of the
martyrdom of St. Polycarp, and mentions some other martyrs. A
single example of weakness is related; it is that of a Phrygian
named Quintus, who, appalled at the sight of the wild beasts and
the tortures, renounced his faith. This example proves little
against the mass of Christians, and this chapter of Eusebius
furnished much stronger evidence of their courage than of their
timidity.—G——This Quintus had, however, rashly and of his own
accord appeared before the tribunal; and the church of Smyrna
condemn “_his indiscreet ardor_,” coupled as it was with weakness
in the hour of trial.—M.]
I. A modern inquisitor would hear with surprise, that whenever an
information was given to a Roman magistrate of any person within
his jurisdiction who had embraced the sect of the Christians, the
charge was communicated to the party accused, and that a
convenient time was allowed him to settle his domestic concerns,
and to prepare an answer to the crime which was imputed to him.
99 If he entertained any doubt of his own constancy, such a delay
afforded him the opportunity of preserving his life and honor by
flight, of withdrawing himself into some obscure retirement or
some distant province, and of patiently expecting the return of
peace and security. A measure so consonant to reason was soon
authorized by the advice and example of the most holy prelates;
and seems to have been censured by few except by the Montanists,
who deviated into heresy by their strict and obstinate adherence
to the rigor of ancient discipline. 100
II.The provincial governors, whose zeal was less prevalent than
their avarice, had countenanced the practice of selling
certificates, (or libels, as they were called,) which attested,
that the persons therein mentioned had complied with the laws,
and sacrificed to the Roman deities. By producing these false
declarations, the opulent and timid Christians were enabled to
silence the malice of an informer, and to reconcile in some
measure their safety with their religion.101 A slight penance
atoned for this profane dissimulation. 1011
III. In every persecution there were great numbers of unworthy
Christians who publicly disowned or renounced the faith which
they had professed; and who confirmed the sincerity of their
abjuration, by the legal acts of burning incense or of offering
sacrifices. Some of these apostates had yielded on the first
menace or exhortation of the magistrate; whilst the patience of
others had been subdued by the length and repetition of tortures.
The affrighted countenances of some betrayed their inward
remorse, while others advanced with confidence and alacrity to
the altars of the gods. 102 But the disguise which fear had
imposed, subsisted no longer than the present danger. As soon as
the severity of the persecution was abated, the doors of the
churches were assailed by the returning multitude of penitents
who detested their idolatrous submission, and who solicited with
equal ardor, but with various success, their readmission into the
society of Christians. 103 1031
99 (return) [ In the second apology of Justin, there is a
particular and very curious instance of this legal delay. The
same indulgence was granted to accused Christians, in the
persecution of Decius: and Cyprian (de Lapsis) expressly mentions
the “Dies negantibus præstitutus.” * Note: The examples drawn by
the historian from Justin Martyr and Cyprian relate altogether to
particular cases, and prove nothing as to the general practice
adopted towards the accused; it is evident, on the contrary, from
the same apology of St. Justin, that they hardly ever obtained
delay. “A man named Lucius, himself a Christian, present at an
unjust sentence passed against a Christian by the judge Urbicus,
asked him why he thus punished a man who was neither adulterer
nor robber, nor guilty of any other crime but that of avowing
himself a Christian.” Urbicus answered only in these words: “Thou
also hast the appearance of being a Christian.” “Yes, without
doubt,” replied Lucius. The judge ordered that he should be put
to death on the instant. A third, who came up, was condemned to
be beaten with rods. Here, then, are three examples where no
delay was granted.——[Surely these acts of a single passionate and
irritated judge prove the general practice as little as those
quoted by Gibbon.—M.] There exist a multitude of others, such as
those of Ptolemy, Marcellus, &c. Justin expressly charges the
judges with ordering the accused to be executed without hearing
the cause. The words of St. Cyprian are as particular, and simply
say, that he had appointed a day by which the Christians must
have renounced their faith; those who had not done it by that
time were condemned.—G. This confirms the statement in the
text.—M.]
100 (return) [ Tertullian considers flight from persecution as an
imperfect, but very criminal, apostasy, as an impious attempt to
elude the will of God, &c., &c. He has written a treatise on this
subject, (see p. 536—544, edit. Rigalt.,) which is filled with
the wildest fanaticism and the most incoherent declamation. It
is, however, somewhat remarkable, that Tertullian did not suffer
martyrdom himself.]
101 (return) [ The _libellatici_, who are chiefly known by the
writings of Cyprian, are described with the utmost precision, in
the copious commentary of Mosheim, p. 483—489.]
1011 (return) [ The penance was not so slight, for it was exactly
the same with that of apostates who had sacrificed to idols; it
lasted several years. See Fleun Hist. Ecc. v. ii. p. 171.—G.]
102 (return) [ Plin. Epist. x. 97. Dionysius Alexandrin. ap.
Euseb. l. vi. c. 41. Ad prima statim verba minantis inimici
maximus fratrum numerus fidem suam prodidit: nec prostratus est
persecutionis impetu, sed voluntario lapsu seipsum prostravit.
Cyprian. Opera, p. 89. Among these deserters were many priests,
and even bishops.]
103 (return) [ It was on this occasion that Cyprian wrote his
treatise De Lapsis, and many of his epistles. The controversy
concerning the treatment of penitent apostates, does not occur
among the Christians of the preceding century. Shall we ascribe
this to the superiority of their faith and courage, or to our
less intimate knowledge of their history!]
1031 (return) [ Pliny says, that the greater part of the
Christians persisted in avowing themselves to be so; the reason
for his consulting Trajan was the periclitantium numerus.
Eusebius (l. vi. c. 41) does not permit us to doubt that the
number of those who renounced their faith was infinitely below
the number of those who boldly confessed it. The prefect, he says
and his assessors present at the council, were alarmed at seeing
the crowd of Christians; the judges themselves trembled. Lastly,
St. Cyprian informs us, that the greater part of those who had
appeared weak brethren in the persecution of Decius, signalized
their courage in that of Gallius. Steterunt fortes, et ipso
dolore pœnitentiæ facti ad prælium fortiores Epist. lx. p.
142.—G.]
IV. Notwithstanding the general rules established for the
conviction and punishment of the Christians, the fate of those
sectaries, in an extensive and arbitrary government, must still
in a great measure, have depended on their own behavior, the
circumstances of the times, and the temper of their supreme as
well as subordinate rulers. Zeal might sometimes provoke, and
prudence might sometimes avert or assuage, the superstitious fury
of the Pagans. A variety of motives might dispose the provincial
governors either to enforce or to relax the execution of the
laws; and of these motives the most forcible was their regard not
only for the public edicts, but for the secret intentions of the
emperor, a glance from whose eye was sufficient to kindle or to
extinguish the flames of persecution. As often as any occasional
severities were exercised in the different parts of the empire,
the primitive Christians lamented and perhaps magnified their own
sufferings; but the celebrated number of _ten_ persecutions has
been determined by the ecclesiastical writers of the fifth
century, who possessed a more distinct view of the prosperous or
adverse fortunes of the church, from the age of Nero to that of
Diocletian. The ingenious parallels of the _ten_ plagues of
Egypt, and of the _ten_ horns of the Apocalypse, first suggested
this calculation to their minds; and in their application of the
faith of prophecy to the truth of history, they were careful to
select those reigns which were indeed the most hostile to the
Christian cause. 104 But these transient persecutions served only
to revive the zeal and to restore the discipline of the faithful;
and the moments of extraordinary rigor were compensated by much
longer intervals of peace and security. The indifference of some
princes, and the indulgence of others, permitted the Christians
to enjoy, though not perhaps a legal, yet an actual and public,
toleration of their religion.
104 (return) [ See Mosheim, p. 97. Sulpicius Severus was the
first author of this computation; though he seemed desirous of
reserving the tenth and greatest persecution for the coming of
the Antichrist.]
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.—Part V.
The apology of Tertullian contains two very ancient, very
singular, but at the same time very suspicious, instances of
Imperial clemency; the edicts published by Tiberius, and by
Marcus Antoninus, and designed not only to protect the innocence
of the Christians, but even to proclaim those stupendous miracles
which had attested the truth of their doctrine. The first of
these examples is attended with some difficulties which might
perplex a sceptical mind. 105 We are required to believe, _that_
Pontius Pilate informed the emperor of the unjust sentence of
death which he had pronounced against an innocent, and, as it
appeared, a divine, person; and that, without acquiring the
merit, he exposed himself to the danger of martyrdom; _that_
Tiberius, who avowed his contempt for all religion, immediately
conceived the design of placing the Jewish Messiah among the gods
of Rome; _that_ his servile senate ventured to disobey the
commands of their master; _that_ Tiberius, instead of resenting
their refusal, contented himself with protecting the Christians
from the severity of the laws, many years before such laws were
enacted, or before the church had assumed any distinct name or
existence; and lastly, _that_ the memory of this extraordinary
transaction was preserved in the most public and authentic
records, which escaped the knowledge of the historians of Greece
and Rome, and were only visible to the eyes of an African
Christian, who composed his apology one hundred and sixty years
after the death of Tiberius. The edict of Marcus Antoninus is
supposed to have been the effect of his devotion and gratitude
for the miraculous deliverance which he had obtained in the
Marcomannic war. The distress of the legions, the seasonable
tempest of rain and hail, of thunder and of lightning, and the
dismay and defeat of the barbarians, have been celebrated by the
eloquence of several Pagan writers. If there were any Christians
in that army, it was natural that they should ascribe some merit
to the fervent prayers, which, in the moment of danger, they had
offered up for their own and the public safety. But we are still
assured by monuments of brass and marble, by the Imperial medals,
and by the Antonine column, that neither the prince nor the
people entertained any sense of this signal obligation, since
they unanimously attribute their deliverance to the providence of
Jupiter, and to the interposition of Mercury. 106 During the
whole course of his reign, Marcus despised the Christians as a
philosopher, and punished them as a sovereign. 1061
105 (return) [ The testimony given by Pontius Pilate is first
mentioned by Justin. The successive improvements which the story
acquired (as if has passed through the hands of Tertullian,
Eusebius, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Orosius, Gregory of Tours, and
the authors of the several editions of the acts of Pilate) are
very fairly stated by Dom Calmet Dissertat. sur l’Ecriture, tom.
iii. p. 651, &c.]
106 (return) [ On this miracle, as it is commonly called, of the
thundering legion, see the admirable criticism of Mr. Moyle, in
his Works, vol. ii. p. 81—390.]
1061 (return) [ Gibbon, with this phrase, and that below, which
admits the injustice of Marcus, has dexterously glossed over one
of the most remarkable facts in the early Christian history, that
the reign of the wisest and most humane of the heathen emperors
was the most fatal to the Christians. Most writers have ascribed
the persecutions under Marcus to the latent bigotry of his
character; Mosheim, to the influence of the philosophic party;
but the fact is admitted by all. A late writer (Mr. Waddington,
Hist. of the Church, p. 47) has not scrupled to assert, that
“this prince polluted every year of a long reign with innocent
blood;” but the causes as well as the date of the persecutions
authorized or permitted by Marcus are equally uncertain. Of the
Asiatic edict recorded by Melito. the date is unknown, nor is it
quite clear that it was an Imperial edict. If it was the act
under which Polycarp suffered, his martyrdom is placed by Ruinart
in the sixth, by Mosheim in the ninth, year of the reign of
Marcus. The martyrs of Vienne and Lyons are assigned by Dodwell
to the seventh, by most writers to the seventeenth. In fact, the
commencement of the persecutions of the Christians appears to
synchronize exactly with the period of the breaking out of the
Marcomannic war, which seems to have alarmed the whole empire,
and the emperor himself, into a paroxysm of returning piety to
their gods, of which the Christians were the victims. See Jul,
Capit. Script. Hist August. p. 181, edit. 1661. It is remarkable
that Tertullian (Apologet. c. v.) distinctly asserts that Verus
(M. Aurelius) issued no edicts against the Christians, and almost
positively exempts him from the charge of persecution.—M. This
remarkable synchronism, which explains the persecutions under M
Aurelius, is shown at length in Milman’s History of Christianity,
book ii. v.—M. 1845.]
By a singular fatality, the hardships which they had endured
under the government of a virtuous prince, immediately ceased on
the accession of a tyrant; and as none except themselves had
experienced the injustice of Marcus, so they alone were protected
by the lenity of Commodus. The celebrated Marcia, the most
favored of his concubines, and who at length contrived the murder
of her Imperial lover, entertained a singular affection for the
oppressed church; and though it was impossible that she could
reconcile the practice of vice with the precepts of the gospel,
she might hope to atone for the frailties of her sex and
profession by declaring herself the patroness of the Christians.
107 Under the gracious protection of Marcia, they passed in
safety the thirteen years of a cruel tyranny; and when the empire
was established in the house of Severus, they formed a domestic
but more honorable connection with the new court. The emperor was
persuaded, that in a dangerous sickness, he had derived some
benefit, either spiritual or physical, from the holy oil, with
which one of his slaves had anointed him. He always treated with
peculiar distinction several persons of both sexes who had
embraced the new religion. The nurse as well as the preceptor of
Caracalla were Christians; 1071 and if that young prince ever
betrayed a sentiment of humanity, it was occasioned by an
incident, which, however trifling, bore some relation to the
cause of Christianity. 108 Under the reign of Severus, the fury
of the populace was checked; the rigor of ancient laws was for
some time suspended; and the provincial governors were satisfied
with receiving an annual present from the churches within their
jurisdiction, as the price, or as the reward, of their
moderation. 109 The controversy concerning the precise time of
the celebration of Easter, armed the bishops of Asia and Italy
against each other, and was considered as the most important
business of this period of leisure and tranquillity. 110 Nor was
the peace of the church interrupted, till the increasing numbers
of proselytes seem at length to have attracted the attention, and
to have alienated the mind of Severus. With the design of
restraining the progress of Christianity, he published an edict,
which, though it was designed to affect only the new converts,
could not be carried into strict execution, without exposing to
danger and punishment the most zealous of their teachers and
missionaries. In this mitigated persecution we may still discover
the indulgent spirit of Rome and of Polytheism, which so readily
admitted every excuse in favor of those who practised the
religious ceremonies of their fathers. 111
107 (return) [ Dion Cassius, or rather his abbreviator Xiphilin,
l. lxxii. p. 1206. Mr. Moyle (p. 266) has explained the condition
of the church under the reign of Commodus.]
1071 (return) [ The Jews and Christians contest the honor of
having furnished a nurse is the fratricide son of Severus
Caracalla. Hist. of Jews, iii. 158.—M.]
108 (return) [ Compare the life of Caracalla in the Augustan
History, with the epistle of Tertullian to Scapula. Dr. Jortin
(Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 5, &c.) considers
the cure of Severus by the means of holy oil, with a strong
desire to convert it into a miracle.]
109 (return) [ Tertullian de Fuga, c. 13. The present was made
during the feast of the Saturnalia; and it is a matter of serious
concern to Tertullian, that the faithful should be confounded
with the most infamous professions which purchased the connivance
of the government.]
110 (return) [ Euseb. l. v. c. 23, 24. Mosheim, p. 435—447.]
111 (return) [ Judæos fieri sub gravi pœna vetuit. Idem etiam de
Christianis sanxit. Hist. August. p. 70.]
But the laws which Severus had enacted soon expired with the
authority of that emperor; and the Christians, after this
accidental tempest, enjoyed a calm of thirty-eight years. 112
Till this period they had usually held their assemblies in
private houses and sequestered places. They were now permitted to
erect and consecrate convenient edifices for the purpose of
religious worship; 113 to purchase lands, even at Rome itself,
for the use of the community; and to conduct the elections of
their ecclesiastical ministers in so public, but at the same time
in so exemplary a manner, as to deserve the respectful attention
of the Gentiles. 114 This long repose of the church was
accompanied with dignity. The reigns of those princes who derived
their extraction from the Asiatic provinces, proved the most
favorable to the Christians; the eminent persons of the sect,
instead of being reduced to implore the protection of a slave or
concubine, were admitted into the palace in the honorable
characters of priests and philosophers; and their mysterious
doctrines, which were already diffused among the people,
insensibly attracted the curiosity of their sovereign. When the
empress Mammæa passed through Antioch, she expressed a desire of
conversing with the celebrated Origen, the fame of whose piety
and learning was spread over the East. Origen obeyed so
flattering an invitation, and though he could not expect to
succeed in the conversion of an artful and ambitious woman, she
listened with pleasure to his eloquent exhortations, and
honorably dismissed him to his retirement in Palestine. 115 The
sentiments of Mammæa were adopted by her son Alexander, and the
philosophic devotion of that emperor was marked by a singular but
injudicious regard for the Christian religion. In his domestic
chapel he placed the statues of Abraham, of Orpheus, of
Apollonius, and of Christ, as an honor justly due to those
respectable sages who had instructed mankind in the various modes
of addressing their homage to the supreme and universal Deity.
116 A purer faith, as well as worship, was openly professed and
practised among his household. Bishops, perhaps for the first
time, were seen at court; and, after the death of Alexander, when
the inhuman Maximin discharged his fury on the favorites and
servants of his unfortunate benefactor, a great number of
Christians of every rank and of both sexes, were involved in the
promiscuous massacre, which, on their account, has improperly
received the name of Persecution. 117 1171
112 (return) [ Sulpicius Severus, l. ii. p. 384. This computation
(allowing for a single exception) is confirmed by the history of
Eusebius, and by the writings of Cyprian.]
113 (return) [ The antiquity of Christian churches is discussed
by Tillemont, (Mémoires Ecclésiastiques, tom. iii. part ii. p.
68-72,) and by Mr. Moyle, (vol. i. p. 378-398.) The former refers
the first construction of them to the peace of Alexander Severus;
the latter, to the peace of Gallienus.]
114 (return) [ See the Augustan History, p. 130. The emperor
Alexander adopted their method of publicly proposing the names of
those persons who were candidates for ordination. It is true that
the honor of this practice is likewise attributed to the Jews.]
115 (return) [ Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. l. vi. c. 21. Hieronym.
de Script. Eccles. c. 54. Mammæa was styled a holy and pious
woman, both by the Christians and the Pagans. From the former,
therefore, it was impossible that she should deserve that
honorable epithet.]
116 (return) [ See the Augustan History, p. 123. Mosheim (p. 465)
seems to refine too much on the domestic religion of Alexander.
His design of building a public temple to Christ, (Hist. August.
p. 129,) and the objection which was suggested either to him, or
in similar circumstances to Hadrian, appear to have no other
foundation than an improbable report, invented by the Christians,
and credulously adopted by an historian of the age of
Constantine.]
117 (return) [ Euseb. l. vi. c. 28. It may be presumed that the
success of the Christians had exasperated the increasing bigotry
of the Pagans. Dion Cassius, who composed his history under the
former reign, had most probably intended for the use of his
master those counsels of persecution, which he ascribes to a
better age, and to and to the favorite of Augustus. Concerning
this oration of Mæcenas, or rather of Dion, I may refer to my own
unbiased opinion, (vol. i. c. 1, note 25,) and to the Abbé de la
Bleterie (Mémoires de l’Académie, tom. xxiv. p. 303 tom xxv. p.
432.) * Note: If this be the case, Dion Cassius must have known
the Christians they must have been the subject of his particular
attention, since the author supposes that he wished his master to
profit by these “counsels of persecution.” How are we to
reconcile this necessary consequence with what Gibbon has said of
the ignorance of Dion Cassius even of the name of the Christians?
(c. xvi. n. 24.) (Gibbon speaks of Dion’s _silence_, not of his
_ignorance_.—M) The supposition in this note is supported by no
proof; it is probable that Dion Cassius has often designated the
Christians by the name of Jews. See Dion Cassius, l. lxvii. c 14,
lxviii. l—G. On this point I should adopt the view of Gibbon
rather than that of M Guizot.—M]
1171 (return) [ It is with good reason that this massacre has
been called a persecution, for it lasted during the whole reign
of Maximin, as may be seen in Eusebius. (l. vi. c. 28.) Rufinus
expressly confirms it: Tribus annis a Maximino persecutione
commota, in quibus finem et persecutionis fecit et vitas Hist. l.
vi. c. 19.—G.]
Notwithstanding the cruel disposition of Maximin, the effects of
his resentment against the Christians were of a very local and
temporary nature, and the pious Origen, who had been proscribed
as a devoted victim, was still reserved to convey the truths of
the gospel to the ear of monarchs. 118 He addressed several
edifying letters to the emperor Philip, to his wife, and to his
mother; and as soon as that prince, who was born in the
neighborhood of Palestine, had usurped the Imperial sceptre, the
Christians acquired a friend and a protector. The public and even
partial favor of Philip towards the sectaries of the new
religion, and his constant reverence for the ministers of the
church, gave some color to the suspicion, which prevailed in his
own times, that the emperor himself was become a convert to the
faith; 119 and afforded some grounds for a fable which was
afterwards invented, that he had been purified by confession and
penance from the guilt contracted by the murder of his innocent
predecessor. 120 The fall of Philip introduced, with the change
of masters, a new system of government, so oppressive to the
Christians, that their former condition, ever since the time of
Domitian, was represented as a state of perfect freedom and
security, if compared with the rigorous treatment which they
experienced under the short reign of Decius. 121 The virtues of
that prince will scarcely allow us to suspect that he was
actuated by a mean resentment against the favorites of his
predecessor; and it is more reasonable to believe, that in the
prosecution of his general design to restore the purity of Roman
manners, he was desirous of delivering the empire from what he
condemned as a recent and criminal superstition. The bishops of
the most considerable cities were removed by exile or death: the
vigilance of the magistrates prevented the clergy of Rome during
sixteen months from proceeding to a new election; and it was the
opinion of the Christians, that the emperor would more patiently
endure a competitor for the purple, than a bishop in the capital.
122 Were it possible to suppose that the penetration of Decius
had discovered pride under the disguise of humility, or that he
could foresee the temporal dominion which might insensibly arise
from the claims of spiritual authority, we might be less
surprised, that he should consider the successors of St. Peter,
as the most formidable rivals to those of Augustus.
118 (return) [ Orosius, l. vii. c. 19, mentions Origen as the
object of Maximin’s resentment; and Firmilianus, a Cappadocian
bishop of that age, gives a just and confined idea of this
persecution, (apud Cyprian Epist. 75.)]
119 (return) [ The mention of those princes who were publicly
supposed to be Christians, as we find it in an epistle of
Dionysius of Alexandria, (ap. Euseb. l. vii. c. 10,) evidently
alludes to Philip and his family, and forms a contemporary
evidence, that such a report had prevailed; but the Egyptian
bishop, who lived at an humble distance from the court of Rome,
expresses himself with a becoming diffidence concerning the truth
of the fact. The epistles of Origen (which were extant in the
time of Eusebius, see l. vi. c. 36) would most probably decide
this curious rather than important question.]
120 (return) [ Euseb. l. vi. c. 34. The story, as is usual, has
been embellished by succeeding writers, and is confuted, with
much superfluous learning, by Frederick Spanheim, (Opera Varia,
tom. ii. p. 400, &c.)]
121 (return) [ Lactantius, de Mortibus Persecutorum, c. 3, 4.
After celebrating the felicity and increase of the church, under
a long succession of good princes, he adds, “Extitit post annos
plurimos, execrabile animal, Decius, qui vexaret Ecclesiam.”]
122 (return) [ Euseb. l. vi. c. 39. Cyprian. Epistol. 55. The see
of Rome remained vacant from the martyrdom of Fabianus, the 20th
of January, A. D. 259, till the election of Cornelius, the 4th of
June, A. D. 251 Decius had probably left Rome, since he was
killed before the end of that year.]
The administration of Valerian was distinguished by a levity and
inconstancy ill suited to the gravity of the _Roman Censor_. In
the first part of his reign, he surpassed in clemency those
princes who had been suspected of an attachment to the Christian
faith. In the last three years and a half, listening to the
insinuations of a minister addicted to the superstitions of
Egypt, he adopted the maxims, and imitated the severity, of his
predecessor Decius. 123 The accession of Gallienus, which
increased the calamities of the empire, restored peace to the
church; and the Christians obtained the free exercise of their
religion by an edict addressed to the bishops, and conceived in
such terms as seemed to acknowledge their office and public
character. 124 The ancient laws, without being formally repealed,
were suffered to sink into oblivion; and (excepting only some
hostile intentions which are attributed to the emperor Aurelian
125 the disciples of Christ passed above forty years in a state
of prosperity, far more dangerous to their virtue than the
severest trials of persecution.
123 (return) [ Euseb. l. vii. c. 10. Mosheim (p. 548) has very
clearly shown that the præfect Macrianus, and the Egyptian
_Magus_, are one and the same person.]
124 (return) [ Eusebius (l. vii. c. 13) gives us a Greek version
of this Latin edict, which seems to have been very concise. By
another edict, he directed that the _Cæmeteria_ should be
restored to the Christians.]
125 (return) [ Euseb. l. vii. c. 30. Lactantius de M. P. c. 6.
Hieronym. in Chron. p. 177. Orosius, l. vii. c. 23. Their
language is in general so ambiguous and incorrect, that we are at
a loss to determine how far Aurelian had carried his intentions
before he was assassinated. Most of the moderns (except Dodwell,
Dissertat. Cyprian. vi. 64) have seized the occasion of gaining a
few extraordinary martyrs. * Note: Dr. Lardner has detailed, with
his usual impartiality, all that has come down to us relating to
the persecution of Aurelian, and concludes by saying, “Upon more
carefully examining the words of Eusebius, and observing the
accounts of other authors, learned men have generally, and, as I
think, very judiciously, determined, that Aurelian not only
intended, but did actually persecute: but his persecution was
short, he having died soon after the publication of his edicts.”
Heathen Test. c. xxxvi.—Basmage positively pronounces the same
opinion: Non intentatum modo, sed executum quoque brevissimo
tempore mandatum, nobis infixum est in aniasis. Basn. Ann. 275,
No. 2 and compare Pagi Ann. 272, Nos. 4, 12, 27—G.]
The story of Paul of Samosata, who filled the metropolitan see of
Antioch, while the East was in the hands of Odenathus and
Zenobia, may serve to illustrate the condition and character of
the times. The wealth of that prelate was a sufficient evidence
of his guilt, since it was neither derived from the inheritance
of his fathers, nor acquired by the arts of honest industry. But
Paul considered the service of the church as a very lucrative
profession. 126 His ecclesiastical jurisdiction was venal and
rapacious; he extorted frequent contributions from the most
opulent of the faithful, and converted to his own use a
considerable part of the public revenue. By his pride and luxury,
the Christian religion was rendered odious in the eyes of the
Gentiles. His council chamber and his throne, the splendor with
which he appeared in public, the suppliant crowd who solicited
his attention, the multitude of letters and petitions to which he
dictated his answers, and the perpetual hurry of business in
which he was involved, were circumstances much better suited to
the state of a civil magistrate, 127 than to the humility of a
primitive bishop. When he harangued his people from the pulpit,
Paul affected the figurative style and the theatrical gestures of
an Asiatic sophist, while the cathedral resounded with the
loudest and most extravagant acclamations in the praise of his
divine eloquence. Against those who resisted his power, or
refused to flatter his vanity, the prelate of Antioch was
arrogant, rigid, and inexorable; but he relaxed the discipline,
and lavished the treasures of the church on his dependent clergy,
who were permitted to imitate their master in the gratification
of every sensual appetite. For Paul indulged himself very freely
in the pleasures of the table, and he had received into the
episcopal palace two young and beautiful women as the constant
companions of his leisure moments. 128
126 (return) [ Paul was better pleased with the title of
_Ducenarius_, than with that of bishop. The _Ducenarius_ was an
Imperial procurator, so called from his salary of two hundred
_Sestertia_, or 1600_l_. a year. (See Salmatius ad Hist. August.
p. 124.) Some critics suppose that the bishop of Antioch had
actually obtained such an office from Zenobia, while others
consider it only as a figurative expression of his pomp and
insolence.]
127 (return) [ Simony was not unknown in those times; and the
clergy some times bought what they intended to sell. It appears
that the bishopric of Carthage was purchased by a wealthy matron,
named Lucilla, for her servant Majorinus. The price was 400
_Folles_. (Monument. Antiq. ad calcem Optati, p. 263.) Every
_Follis_ contained 125 pieces of silver, and the whole sum may be
computed at about 2400_l_.]
128 (return) [ If we are desirous of extenuating the vices of
Paul, we must suspect the assembled bishops of the East of
publishing the most malicious calumnies in circular epistles
addressed to all the churches of the empire, (ap. Euseb. l. vii.
c. 30.)]
Notwithstanding these scandalous vices, if Paul of Samosata had
preserved the purity of the orthodox faith, his reign over the
capital of Syria would have ended only with his life; and had a
seasonable persecution intervened, an effort of courage might
perhaps have placed him in the rank of saints and martyrs. 1281
Some nice and subtle errors, which he imprudently adopted and
obstinately maintained, concerning the doctrine of the Trinity,
excited the zeal and indignation of the Eastern churches. 129
From Egypt to the Euxine Sea, the bishops were in arms and in
motion. Several councils were held, confutations were published,
excommunications were pronounced, ambiguous explanations were by
turns accepted and refused, treaties were concluded and violated,
and at length Paul of Samosata was degraded from his episcopal
character, by the sentence of seventy or eighty bishops, who
assembled for that purpose at Antioch, and who, without
consulting the rights of the clergy or people, appointed a
successor by their own authority. The manifest irregularity of
this proceeding increased the numbers of the discontented
faction; and as Paul, who was no stranger to the arts of courts,
had insinuated himself into the favor of Zenobia, he maintained
above four years the possession of the episcopal house and
office. 1291 The victory of Aurelian changed the face of the
East, and the two contending parties, who applied to each other
the epithets of schism and heresy, were either commanded or
permitted to plead their cause before the tribunal of the
conqueror. This public and very singular trial affords a
convincing proof that the existence, the property, the
privileges, and the internal policy of the Christians, were
acknowledged, if not by the laws, at least by the magistrates, of
the empire. As a Pagan and as a soldier, it could scarcely be
expected that Aurelian should enter into the discussion, whether
the sentiments of Paul or those of his adversaries were most
agreeable to the true standard of the orthodox faith. His
determination, however, was founded on the general principles of
equity and reason. He considered the bishops of Italy as the most
impartial and respectable judges among the Christians, and as
soon as he was informed that they had unanimously approved the
sentence of the council, he acquiesced in their opinion, and
immediately gave orders that Paul should be compelled to
relinquish the temporal possessions belonging to an office, of
which, in the judgment of his brethren, he had been regularly
deprived. But while we applaud the justice, we should not
overlook the policy, of Aurelian, who was desirous of restoring
and cementing the dependence of the provinces on the capital, by
every means which could bind the interest or prejudices of any
part of his subjects. 130
1281 (return) [ It appears, nevertheless, that the vices and
immoralities of Paul of Samosata had much weight in the sentence
pronounced against him by the bishops. The object of the letter,
addressed by the synod to the bishops of Rome and Alexandria, was
to inform them of the change in the faith of Paul, the
altercations and discussions to which it had given rise, as well
as of his morals and the whole of his conduct. Euseb. Hist. Eccl.
l. vii c. xxx—G.]
129 (return) [ His heresy (like those of Noetus and Sabellius, in
the same century) tended to confound the mysterious distinction
of the divine persons. See Mosheim, p. 702, &c.]
1291 (return) [ “Her favorite, (Zenobia’s,) Paul of Samosata,
seems to have entertained some views of attempting a union
between Judaism and Christianity; both parties rejected the
unnatural alliance.” Hist. of Jews, iii. 175, and Jost.
Geschichte der Israeliter, iv. 167. The protection of the severe
Zenobia is the only circumstance which may raise a doubt of the
notorious immorality of Paul.—M.]
130 (return) [ Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. l. vii. c. 30. We are
entirely indebted to him for the curious story of Paul of
Samosata.]
Amidst the frequent revolutions of the empire, the Christians
still flourished in peace and prosperity; and notwithstanding a
celebrated æra of martyrs has been deduced from the accession of
Diocletian, 131 the new system of policy, introduced and
maintained by the wisdom of that prince, continued, during more
than eighteen years, to breathe the mildest and most liberal
spirit of religious toleration. The mind of Diocletian himself
was less adapted indeed to speculative inquiries, than to the
active labors of war and government. His prudence rendered him
averse to any great innovation, and though his temper was not
very susceptible of zeal or enthusiasm, he always maintained an
habitual regard for the ancient deities of the empire. But the
leisure of the two empresses, of his wife Prisca, and of Valeria,
his daughter, permitted them to listen with more attention and
respect to the truths of Christianity, which in every age has
acknowledged its important obligations to female devotion. 132
The principal eunuchs, Lucian 133 and Dorotheus, Gorgonius and
Andrew, who attended the person, possessed the favor, and
governed the household of Diocletian, protected by their powerful
influence the faith which they had embraced. Their example was
imitated by many of the most considerable officers of the palace,
who, in their respective stations, had the care of the Imperial
ornaments, of the robes, of the furniture, of the jewels, and
even of the private treasury; and, though it might sometimes be
incumbent on them to accompany the emperor when he sacrificed in
the temple, 134 they enjoyed, with their wives, their children,
and their slaves, the free exercise of the Christian religion.
Diocletian and his colleagues frequently conferred the most
important offices on those persons who avowed their abhorrence
for the worship of the gods, but who had displayed abilities
proper for the service of the state. The bishops held an
honorable rank in their respective provinces, and were treated
with distinction and respect, not only by the people, but by the
magistrates themselves. Almost in every city, the ancient
churches were found insufficient to contain the increasing
multitude of proselytes; and in their place more stately and
capacious edifices were erected for the public worship of the
faithful. The corruption of manners and principles, so forcibly
lamented by Eusebius, 135 may be considered, not only as a
consequence, but as a proof, of the liberty which the Christians
enjoyed and abused under the reign of Diocletian. Prosperity had
relaxed the nerves of discipline. Fraud, envy, and malice
prevailed in every congregation. The presbyters aspired to the
episcopal office, which every day became an object more worthy of
their ambition. The bishops, who contended with each other for
ecclesiastical preëminence, appeared by their conduct to claim a
secular and tyrannical power in the church; and the lively faith
which still distinguished the Christians from the Gentiles, was
shown much less in their lives, than in their controversial
writings.
131 (return) [ The Æra of Martyrs, which is still in use among
the Copts and the Abyssinians, must be reckoned from the 29th of
August, A. D. 284; as the beginning of the Egyptian year was
nineteen days earlier than the real accession of Diocletian. See
Dissertation Preliminaire a l’Art de verifier les Dates. * Note:
On the æra of martyrs see the very curious dissertations of Mons
Letronne on some recently discovered inscriptions in Egypt and
Nubis, p. 102, &c.—M.]
132 (return) [ The expression of Lactantius, (de M. P. c. 15,)
“sacrificio pollui coegit,” implies their antecedent conversion
to the faith, but does not seem to justify the assertion of
Mosheim, (p. 912,) that they had been privately baptized.]
133 (return) [ M. de Tillemont (Mémoires Ecclésiastiques, tom. v.
part i. p. 11, 12) has quoted from the Spicilegium of Dom Luc
d’Archeri a very curious instruction which Bishop Theonas
composed for the use of Lucian.]
134 (return) [ Lactantius, de M. P. c. 10.]
135 (return) [ Eusebius, Hist. Ecclesiast. l. viii. c. 1. The
reader who consults the original will not accuse me of
heightening the picture. Eusebius was about sixteen years of age
at the accession of the emperor Diocletian.]
Notwithstanding this seeming security, an attentive observer
might discern some symptoms that threatened the church with a
more violent persecution than any which she had yet endured. The
zeal and rapid progress of the Christians awakened the
Polytheists from their supine indifference in the cause of those
deities, whom custom and education had taught them to revere. The
mutual provocations of a religious war, which had already
continued above two hundred years, exasperated the animosity of
the contending parties. The Pagans were incensed at the rashness
of a recent and obscure sect, which presumed to accuse their
countrymen of error, and to devote their ancestors to eternal
misery. The habits of justifying the popular mythology against
the invectives of an implacable enemy, produced in their minds
some sentiments of faith and reverence for a system which they
had been accustomed to consider with the most careless levity.
The supernatural powers assumed by the church inspired at the
same time terror and emulation. The followers of the established
religion intrenched themselves behind a similar fortification of
prodigies; invented new modes of sacrifice, of expiation, and of
initiation; 136 attempted to revive the credit of their expiring
oracles; 137 and listened with eager credulity to every impostor,
who flattered their prejudices by a tale of wonders. 138 Both
parties seemed to acknowledge the truth of those miracles which
were claimed by their adversaries; and while they were contented
with ascribing them to the arts of magic, and to the power of
dæmons, they mutually concurred in restoring and establishing the
reign of superstition. 139 Philosophy, her most dangerous enemy,
was now converted into her most useful ally. The groves of the
academy, the gardens of Epicurus, and even the portico of the
Stoics, were almost deserted, as so many different schools of
scepticism or impiety; 140 and many among the Romans were
desirous that the writings of Cicero should be condemned and
suppressed by the authority of the senate. 141 The prevailing
sect of the new Platonicians judged it prudent to connect
themselves with the priests, whom perhaps they despised, against
the Christians, whom they had reason to fear. These fashionable
Philosophers prosecuted the design of extracting allegorical
wisdom from the fictions of the Greek poets; instituted
mysterious rites of devotion for the use of their chosen
disciples; recommended the worship of the ancient gods as the
emblems or ministers of the Supreme Deity, and composed against
the faith of the gospel many elaborate treatises, 142 which have
since been committed to the flames by the prudence of orthodox
emperors. 143
136 (return) [ We might quote, among a great number of instances,
the mysterious worship of Mythras, and the Taurobolia; the latter
of which became fashionable in the time of the Antonines, (see a
Dissertation of M. de Boze, in the Mémoires de l’Académie des
Inscriptions, tom. ii. p. 443.) The romance of Apuleius is as
full of devotion as of satire. * Note: On the extraordinary
progress of the Mahriac rites, in the West, see De Guigniaud’s
translation of Creuzer, vol. i. p. 365, and Note 9, tom. i. part
2, p. 738, &c.—M.]
137 (return) [ The impostor Alexander very strongly recommended
the oracle of Trophonius at Mallos, and those of Apollo at Claros
and Miletus, (Lucian, tom. ii. p. 236, edit. Reitz.) The last of
these, whose singular history would furnish a very curious
episode, was consulted by Diocletian before he published his
edicts of persecution, (Lactantius, de M. P. c. 11.)]
138 (return) [ Besides the ancient stories of Pythagoras and
Aristeas, the cures performed at the shrine of Æsculapius, and
the fables related of Apollonius of Tyana, were frequently
opposed to the miracles of Christ; though I agree with Dr.
Lardner, (see Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 253, 352,) that when
Philostratus composed the life of Apollonius, he had no such
intention.]
139 (return) [ It is seriously to be lamented, that the Christian
fathers, by acknowledging the supernatural, or, as they deem it,
the infernal part of Paganism, destroy with their own hands the
great advantage which we might otherwise derive from the liberal
concessions of our adversaries.]
140 (return) [ Julian (p. 301, edit. Spanheim) expresses a pious
joy, that the providence of the gods had extinguished the impious
sects, and for the most part destroyed the books of the
Pyrrhonians and Epicuræans, which had been very numerous, since
Epicurus himself composed no less than 300 volumes. See Diogenes
Laertius, l. x. c. 26.]
141 (return) [ Cumque alios audiam mussitare indignanter, et
dicere opportere statui per Senatum, aboleantur ut hæc scripta,
quibus Christiana Religio comprobetur, et vetustatis opprimatur
auctoritas. Arnobius adversus Gentes, l. iii. p. 103, 104. He
adds very properly, Erroris convincite Ciceronem... nam
intercipere scripta, et publicatam velle submergere lectionem,
non est Deum defendere sed veritatis testificationem timere.]
142 (return) [ Lactantius (Divin. Institut. l. v. c. 2, 3) gives
a very clear and spirited account of two of these philosophic
adversaries of the faith. The large treatise of Porphyry against
the Christians consisted of thirty books, and was composed in
Sicily about the year 270.]
143 (return) [ See Socrates, Hist. Ecclesiast. l. i. c. 9, and
Codex Justinian. l. i. i. l. s.]
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.—Part VI.
Although the policy of Diocletian and the humanity of Constantius
inclined them to preserve inviolate the maxims of toleration, it
was soon discovered that their two associates, Maximian and
Galerius, entertained the most implacable aversion for the name
and religion of the Christians. The minds of those princes had
never been enlightened by science; education had never softened
their temper. They owed their greatness to their swords, and in
their most elevated fortune they still retained their
superstitious prejudices of soldiers and peasants. In the general
administration of the provinces they obeyed the laws which their
benefactor had established; but they frequently found occasions
of exercising within their camp and palaces a secret persecution,
144 for which the imprudent zeal of the Christians sometimes
offered the most specious pretences. A sentence of death was
executed upon Maximilianus, an African youth, who had been
produced by his own father 1441 before the magistrate as a
sufficient and legal recruit, but who obstinately persisted in
declaring, that his conscience would not permit him to embrace
the profession of a soldier. 145 It could scarcely be expected
that any government should suffer the action of Marcellus the
Centurion to pass with impunity. On the day of a public festival,
that officer threw away his belt, his arms, and the ensigns of
his office, and exclaimed with a loud voice, that he would obey
none but Jesus Christ the eternal King, and that he renounced
forever the use of carnal weapons, and the service of an
idolatrous master. The soldiers, as soon as they recovered from
their astonishment, secured the person of Marcellus. He was
examined in the city of Tingi by the president of that part of
Mauritania; and as he was convicted by his own confession, he was
condemned and beheaded for the crime of desertion. 146 Examples
of such a nature savor much less of religious persecution than of
martial or even civil law; but they served to alienate the mind
of the emperors, to justify the severity of Galerius, who
dismissed a great number of Christian officers from their
employments; and to authorize the opinion, that a sect of
enthusiastics, which avowed principles so repugnant to the public
safety, must either remain useless, or would soon become
dangerous, subjects of the empire.
144 (return) [ Eusebius, l. viii. c. 4, c. 17. He limits the
number of military martyrs, by a remarkable expression, of which
neither his Latin nor French translator have rendered the energy.
Notwithstanding the authority of Eusebius, and the silence of
Lactantius, Ambrose, Sulpicius, Orosius, &c., it has been long
believed, that the Thebæan legion, consisting of 6000 Christians,
suffered martyrdom by the order of Maximian, in the valley of the
Pennine Alps. The story was first published about the middle of
the 5th century, by Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, who received it
from certain persons, who received it from Isaac, bishop of
Geneva, who is said to have received it from Theodore, bishop of
Octodurum. The abbey of St. Maurice still subsists, a rich
monument of the credulity of Sigismund, king of Burgundy. See an
excellent Dissertation in xxxvith volume of the Bibliothèque
Raisonnée, p. 427-454.]
1441 (return) [ M. Guizot criticizes Gibbon’s account of this
incident. He supposes that Maximilian was not “produced by his
father as a recruit,” but was obliged to appear by the law, which
compelled the sons of soldiers to serve at 21 years old. Was not
this a law of Constantine? Neither does this circumstance appear
in the acts. His father had clearly expected him to serve, as he
had bought him a new dress for the occasion; yet he refused to
force the conscience of his son. and when Maximilian was
condemned to death, the father returned home in joy, blessing God
for having bestowed upon him such a son.—M.]
145 (return) [ See the Acta Sincera, p. 299. The accounts of his
martyrdom and that of Marcellus, bear every mark of truth and
authenticity.]
146 (return) [ Acta Sincera, p. 302. * Note: M. Guizot here
justly observes, that it was the necessity of sacrificing to the
gods, which induced Marcellus to act in this manner.—M.]
After the success of the Persian war had raised the hopes and the
reputation of Galerius, he passed a winter with Diocletian in the
palace of Nicomedia; and the fate of Christianity became the
object of their secret consultations. 147 The experienced emperor
was still inclined to pursue measures of lenity; and though he
readily consented to exclude the Christians from holding any
employments in the household or the army, he urged in the
strongest terms the danger as well as cruelty of shedding the
blood of those deluded fanatics. Galerius at length extorted 1471
from him the permission of summoning a council, composed of a few
persons the most distinguished in the civil and military
departments of the state.
The important question was agitated in their presence, and those
ambitious courtiers easily discerned, that it was incumbent on
them to second, by their eloquence, the importunate violence of
the Cæsar. It may be presumed, that they insisted on every topic
which might interest the pride, the piety, or the fears, of their
sovereign in the destruction of Christianity. Perhaps they
represented, that the glorious work of the deliverance of the
empire was left imperfect, as long as an independent people was
permitted to subsist and multiply in the heart of the provinces.
The Christians, (it might specially be alleged,) renouncing the
gods and the institutions of Rome, had constituted a distinct
republic, which might yet be suppressed before it had acquired
any military force; but which was already governed by its own
laws and magistrates, was possessed of a public treasure, and was
intimately connected in all its parts by the frequent assemblies
of the bishops, to whose decrees their numerous and opulent
congregations yielded an implicit obedience. Arguments like these
may seem to have determined the reluctant mind of Diocletian to
embrace a new system of persecution; but though we may suspect,
it is not in our power to relate, the secret intrigues of the
palace, the private views and resentments, the jealousy of women
or eunuchs, and all those trifling but decisive causes which so
often influence the fate of empires, and the councils of the
wisest monarchs. 148
147 (return) [ De M. P. c. 11. Lactantius (or whoever was the
author of this little treatise) was, at that time, an inhabitant
of Nicomedia; but it seems difficult to conceive how he could
acquire so accurate a knowledge of what passed in the Imperial
cabinet. Note: * Lactantius, who was subsequently chosen by
Constantine to educate Crispus, might easily have learned these
details from Constantine himself, already of sufficient age to
interest himself in the affairs of the government, and in a
position to obtain the best information.—G. This assumes the
doubtful point of the authorship of the Treatise.—M.]
1471 (return) [ This permission was not extorted from Diocletian;
he took the step of his own accord. Lactantius says, in truth,
Nec tamen deflectere potuit (Diocletianus) præcipitis hominis
insaniam; placuit ergo amicorum sententiam experiri. (De Mort.
Pers. c. 11.) But this measure was in accordance with the
artificial character of Diocletian, who wished to have the
appearance of doing good by his own impulse and evil by the
impulse of others. Nam erat hujus malitiæ, cum bonum quid facere
decrevisse sine consilio faciebat, ut ipse laudaretur. Cum autem
malum. quoniam id reprehendendum sciebat, in consilium multos
advocabat, ut alioram culpæ adscriberetur quicquid ipse
deliquerat. Lact. ib. Eutropius says likewise, Miratus callide
fuit, sagax præterea et admodum subtilis ingenio, et qui
severitatem suam aliena invidia vellet explere. Eutrop. ix. c.
26.—G.——The manner in which the coarse and unfriendly pencil of
the author of the Treatise de Mort. Pers. has drawn the character
of Diocletian, seems inconsistent with this profound subtilty.
Many readers will perhaps agree with Gibbon.—M.]
148 (return) [ The only circumstance which we can discover, is
the devotion and jealousy of the mother of Galerius. She is
described by Lactantius, as Deorum montium cultrix; mulier
admodum superstitiosa. She had a great influence over her son,
and was offended by the disregard of some of her Christian
servants. * Note: This disregard consisted in the Christians
fasting and praying instead of participating in the banquets and
sacrifices which she celebrated with the Pagans. Dapibus
sacrificabat pœne quotidie ac vicariis suis epulis exhibebat.
Christiani abstinebant, et illa cum gentibus epulante, jejuniis
hi et oratiomibus insisteban; hine concepit odium Lact de Hist.
Pers. c. 11.—G.]
The pleasure of the emperors was at length signified to the
Christians, who, during the course of this melancholy winter, had
expected, with anxiety, the result of so many secret
consultations. The twenty-third of February, which coincided with
the Roman festival of the Terminalia, 149 was appointed (whether
from accident or design) to set bounds to the progress of
Christianity. At the earliest dawn of day, the Prætorian præfect,
150 accompanied by several generals, tribunes, and officers of
the revenue, repaired to the principal church of Nicomedia, which
was situated on an eminence in the most populous and beautiful
part of the city. The doors were instantly broke open; they
rushed into the sanctuary; and as they searched in vain for some
visible object of worship, they were obliged to content
themselves with committing to the flames the volumes of the holy
Scripture. The ministers of Diocletian were followed by a
numerous body of guards and pioneers, who marched in order of
battle, and were provided with all the instruments used in the
destruction of fortified cities. By their incessant labor, a
sacred edifice, which towered above the Imperial palace, and had
long excited the indignation and envy of the Gentiles, was in a
few hours levelled with the ground. 151
149 (return) [ The worship and festival of the god Terminus are
elegantly illustrated by M. de Boze, Mém. de l’Académie des
Inscriptions, tom. i. p. 50.]
150 (return) [ In our only MS. of Lactantius, we read
_profectus;_ but reason, and the authority of all the critics,
allow us, instead of that word, which destroys the sense of the
passage, to substitute _prœfectus_.]
151 (return) [ Lactantius, de M. P. c. 12, gives a very lively
picture of the destruction of the church.]
The next day the general edict of persecution was published; 152
and though Diocletian, still averse to the effusion of blood, had
moderated the fury of Galerius, who proposed, that every one
refusing to offer sacrifice should immediately be burnt alive,
the penalties inflicted on the obstinacy of the Christians might
be deemed sufficiently rigorous and effectual. It was enacted,
that their churches, in all the provinces of the empire, should
be demolished to their foundations; and the punishment of death
was denounced against all who should presume to hold any secret
assemblies for the purpose of religious worship. The
philosophers, who now assumed the unworthy office of directing
the blind zeal of persecution, had diligently studied the nature
and genius of the Christian religion; and as they were not
ignorant that the speculative doctrines of the faith were
supposed to be contained in the writings of the prophets, of the
evangelists, and of the apostles, they most probably suggested
the order, that the bishops and presbyters should deliver all
their sacred books into the hands of the magistrates; who were
commanded, under the severest penalties, to burn them in a public
and solemn manner. By the same edict, the property of the church
was at once confiscated; and the several parts of which it might
consist were either sold to the highest bidder, united to the
Imperial domain, bestowed on the cities and corporations, or
granted to the solicitations of rapacious courtiers. After taking
such effectual measures to abolish the worship, and to dissolve
the government of the Christians, it was thought necessary to
subject to the most intolerable hardships the condition of those
perverse individuals who should still reject the religion of
nature, of Rome, and of their ancestors. Persons of a liberal
birth were declared incapable of holding any honors or
employments; slaves were forever deprived of the hopes of
freedom, and the whole body of the people were put out of the
protection of the law. The judges were authorized to hear and to
determine every action that was brought against a Christian. But
the Christians were not permitted to complain of any injury which
they themselves had suffered; and thus those unfortunate
sectaries were exposed to the severity, while they were excluded
from the benefits, of public justice. This new species of
martyrdom, so painful and lingering, so obscure and ignominious,
was, perhaps, the most proper to weary the constancy of the
faithful: nor can it be doubted that the passions and interest of
mankind were disposed on this occasion to second the designs of
the emperors. But the policy of a well-ordered government must
sometimes have interposed in behalf of the oppressed Christians;
1521 nor was it possible for the Roman princes entirely to remove
the apprehension of punishment, or to connive at every act of
fraud and violence, without exposing their own authority and the
rest of their subjects to the most alarming dangers. 153
152 (return) [ Mosheim, (p. 922—926,) from man scattered passages
of Lactantius and Eusebius, has collected a very just and
accurate notion of this edict though he sometimes deviates into
conjecture and refinement.]
1521 (return) [ This wants proof. The edict of Diocletian was
executed in all its right during the rest of his reign. Euseb.
Hist. Eccl. l viii. c. 13.—G.]
153 (return) [ Many ages afterwards, Edward J. practised, with
great success, the same mode of persecution against the clergy of
England. See Hume’s History of England, vol. ii. p. 300, last 4to
edition.]
This edict was scarcely exhibited to the public view, in the most
conspicuous place of Nicomedia, before it was torn down by the
hands of a Christian, who expressed at the same time, by the
bitterest invectives, his contempt as well as abhorrence for such
impious and tyrannical governors. His offence, according to the
mildest laws, amounted to treason, and deserved death. And if it
be true that he was a person of rank and education, those
circumstances could serve only to aggravate his guilt. He was
burnt, or rather roasted, by a slow fire; and his executioners,
zealous to revenge the personal insult which had been offered to
the emperors, exhausted every refinement of cruelty, without
being able to subdue his patience, or to alter the steady and
insulting smile which in his dying agonies he still preserved in
his countenance. The Christians, though they confessed that his
conduct had not been strictly conformable to the laws of
prudence, admired the divine fervor of his zeal; and the
excessive commendations which they lavished on the memory of
their hero and martyr, contributed to fix a deep impression of
terror and hatred in the mind of Diocletian. 154
154 (return) [ Lactantius only calls him quidam, et si non recte,
magno tamer animo, &c., c. 12. Eusebius (l. viii. c. 5) adorns
him with secular honora Neither have condescended to mention his
name; but the Greeks celebrate his memory under that of John. See
Tillemont, Memones Ecclésiastiques, tom. v. part ii. p. 320.]
His fears were soon alarmed by the view of a danger from which he
very narrowly escaped. Within fifteen days the palace of
Nicomedia, and even the bed-chamber of Diocletian, were twice in
flames; and though both times they were extinguished without any
material damage, the singular repetition of the fire was justly
considered as an evident proof that it had not been the effect of
chance or negligence. The suspicion naturally fell on the
Christians; and it was suggested, with some degree of
probability, that those desperate fanatics, provoked by their
present sufferings, and apprehensive of impending calamities, had
entered into a conspiracy with their faithful brethren, the
eunuchs of the palace, against the lives of two emperors, whom
they detested as the irreconcilable enemies of the church of God.
Jealousy and resentment prevailed in every breast, but especially
in that of Diocletian. A great number of persons, distinguished
either by the offices which they had filled, or by the favor
which they had enjoyed, were thrown into prison. Every mode of
torture was put in practice, and the court, as well as city, was
polluted with many bloody executions. 155 But as it was found
impossible to extort any discovery of this mysterious
transaction, it seems incumbent on us either to presume the
innocence, or to admire the resolution, of the sufferers. A few
days afterwards Galerius hastily withdrew himself from Nicomedia,
declaring, that if he delayed his departure from that devoted
palace, he should fall a sacrifice to the rage of the Christians.
The ecclesiastical historians, from whom alone we derive a
partial and imperfect knowledge of this persecution, are at a
loss how to account for the fears and dangers of the emperors.
Two of these writers, a prince and a rhetorician, were
eye-witnesses of the fire of Nicomedia. The one ascribes it to
lightning, and the divine wrath; the other affirms, that it was
kindled by the malice of Galerius himself. 156
155 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 13, 14. Potentissimi
quondam Eunuchi necati, per quos Palatium et ipse constabat.
Eusebius (l. viii. c. 6) mentions the cruel executions of the
eunuchs, Gorgonius and Dorotheus, and of Anthimius, bishop of
Nicomedia; and both those writers describe, in a vague but
tragical manner, the horrid scenes which were acted even in the
Imperial presence.]
156 (return) [ See Lactantius, Eusebius, and Constantine, ad
Cœtum Sanctorum, c. xxv. Eusebius confesses his ignorance of the
cause of this fire. Note: As the history of these times affords
us no example of any attempts made by the Christians against
their persecutors, we have no reason, not the slightest
probability, to attribute to them the fire in the palace; and the
authority of Constantine and Lactantius remains to explain it. M.
de Tillemont has shown how they can be reconciled. Hist. des
Empereurs, Vie de Diocletian, xix.—G. Had it been done by a
Christian, it would probably have been a fanatic, who would have
avowed and gloried in it. Tillemont’s supposition that the fire
was first caused by lightning, and fed and increased by the
malice of Galerius, seems singularly improbable.—M.]
As the edict against the Christians was designed for a general
law of the whole empire, and as Diocletian and Galerius, though
they might not wait for the consent, were assured of the
concurrence, of the Western princes, it would appear more
consonant to our ideas of policy, that the governors of all the
provinces should have received secret instructions to publish, on
one and the same day, this declaration of war within their
respective departments. It was at least to be expected, that the
convenience of the public highways and established posts would
have enabled the emperors to transmit their orders with the
utmost despatch from the palace of Nicomedia to the extremities
of the Roman world; and that they would not have suffered fifty
days to elapse, before the edict was published in Syria, and near
four months before it was signified to the cities of Africa. 157
This delay may perhaps be imputed to the cautious temper of
Diocletian, who had yielded a reluctant consent to the measures
of persecution, and who was desirous of trying the experiment
under his more immediate eye, before he gave way to the disorders
and discontent which it must inevitably occasion in the distant
provinces. At first, indeed, the magistrates were restrained from
the effusion of blood; but the use of every other severity was
permitted, and even recommended to their zeal; nor could the
Christians, though they cheerfully resigned the ornaments of
their churches, resolve to interrupt their religious assemblies,
or to deliver their sacred books to the flames. The pious
obstinacy of Felix, an African bishop, appears to have
embarrassed the subordinate ministers of the government. The
curator of his city sent him in chains to the proconsul. The
proconsul transmitted him to the Prætorian præfect of Italy; and
Felix, who disdained even to give an evasive answer, was at
length beheaded at Venusia, in Lucania, a place on which the
birth of Horace has conferred fame. 158 This precedent, and
perhaps some Imperial rescript, which was issued in consequence
of it, appeared to authorize the governors of provinces, in
punishing with death the refusal of the Christians to deliver up
their sacred books. There were undoubtedly many persons who
embraced this opportunity of obtaining the crown of martyrdom;
but there were likewise too many who purchased an ignominious
life, by discovering and betraying the holy Scripture into the
hands of infidels. A great number even of bishops and presbyters
acquired, by this criminal compliance, the opprobrious epithet of
_Traditors;_ and their offence was productive of much present
scandal and of much future discord in the African church. 159
157 (return) [ Tillemont, Mémoires Ecclesiast. tom. v. part i. p.
43.]
158 (return) [ See the Acta Sincera of Ruinart, p. 353; those of
Felix of Thibara, or Tibiur, appear much less corrupted than in
the other editions, which afford a lively specimen of legendary
license.]
159 (return) [ See the first book of Optatus of Milevis against
the Donatiste, Paris, 1700, edit. Dupin. He lived under the reign
of Valens.]
The copies as well as the versions of Scripture, were already so
multiplied in the empire, that the most severe inquisition could
no longer be attended with any fatal consequences; and even the
sacrifice of those volumes, which, in every congregation, were
preserved for public use, required the consent of some
treacherous and unworthy Christians. But the ruin of the churches
was easily effected by the authority of the government, and by
the labor of the Pagans. In some provinces, however, the
magistrates contented themselves with shutting up the places of
religious worship. In others, they more literally complied with
the terms of the edict; and after taking away the doors, the
benches, and the pulpit, which they burnt as it were in a funeral
pile, they completely demolished the remainder of the edifice.
160 It is perhaps to this melancholy occasion that we should
apply a very remarkable story, which is related with so many
circumstances of variety and improbability, that it serves rather
to excite than to satisfy our curiosity. In a small town in
Phrygia, of whose name as well as situation we are left ignorant,
it should seem that the magistrates and the body of the people
had embraced the Christian faith; and as some resistance might be
apprehended to the execution of the edict, the governor of the
province was supported by a numerous detachment of legionaries.
On their approach the citizens threw themselves into the church,
with the resolution either of defending by arms that sacred
edifice, or of perishing in its ruins. They indignantly rejected
the notice and permission which was given them to retire, till
the soldiers, provoked by their obstinate refusal, set fire to
the building on all sides, and consumed, by this extraordinary
kind of martyrdom, a great number of Phrygians, with their wives
and children. 161
160 (return) [ The ancient monuments, published at the end of
Optatus, p. 261, &c. describe, in a very circumstantial manner,
the proceedings of the governors in the destruction of churches.
They made a minute inventory of the plate, &c., which they found
in them. That of the church of Cirta, in Numidia, is still
extant. It consisted of two chalices of gold, and six of silver;
six urns, one kettle, seven lamps, all likewise of silver;
besides a large quantity of brass utensils, and wearing apparel.]
161 (return) [ Lactantius (Institut. Divin. v. 11) confines the
calamity to the _conventiculum_, with its congregation. Eusebius
(viii. 11) extends it to a whole city, and introduces something
very like a regular siege. His ancient Latin translator, Rufinus,
adds the important circumstance of the permission given to the
inhabitants of retiring from thence. As Phrygia reached to the
confines of Isauria, it is possible that the restless temper of
those independent barbarians may have contributed to this
misfortune. Note: Universum populum. Lact. Inst. Div. v. 11.—G.]
Some slight disturbances, though they were suppressed almost as
soon as excited, in Syria and the frontiers of Armenia, afforded
the enemies of the church a very plausible occasion to insinuate,
that those troubles had been secretly fomented by the intrigues
of the bishops, who had already forgotten their ostentatious
professions of passive and unlimited obedience. 162
The resentment, or the fears, of Diocletian, at length
transported him beyond the bounds of moderation, which he had
hitherto preserved, and he declared, in a series of cruel edicts,
1621 his intention of abolishing the Christian name. By the first
of these edicts, the governors of the provinces were directed to
apprehend all persons of the ecclesiastical order; and the
prisons, destined for the vilest criminals, were soon filled with
a multitude of bishops, presbyters, deacons, readers, and
exorcists. By a second edict, the magistrates were commanded to
employ every method of severity, which might reclaim them from
their odious superstition, and oblige them to return to the
established worship of the gods. This rigorous order was
extended, by a subsequent edict, to the whole body of Christians,
who were exposed to a violent and general persecution. 163
Instead of those salutary restraints, which had required the
direct and solemn testimony of an accuser, it became the duty as
well as the interest of the Imperial officers to discover, to
pursue, and to torment the most obnoxious among the faithful.
Heavy penalties were denounced against all who should presume to
save a prescribed sectary from the just indignation of the gods,
and of the emperors. Yet, notwithstanding the severity of this
law, the virtuous courage of many of the Pagans, in concealing
their friends or relations, affords an honorable proof, that the
rage of superstition had not extinguished in their minds the
sentiments of nature and humanity. 164
162 (return) [ Eusebius, l. viii. c. 6. M. de Valois (with some
probability) thinks that he has discovered the Syrian rebellion
in an oration of Libanius; and that it was a rash attempt of the
tribune Eugenius, who with only five hundred men seized Antioch,
and might perhaps allure the Christians by the promise of
religious toleration. From Eusebius, (l. ix. c. 8,) as well as
from Moses of Chorene, (Hist. Armen. l. ii. 77, &c.,) it may be
inferred, that Christianity was already introduced into Armenia.]
1621 (return) [ He had already passed them in his first edict. It
does not appear that resentment or fear had any share in the new
persecutions: perhaps they originated in superstition, and a
specious apparent respect for its ministers. The oracle of
Apollo, consulted by Diocletian, gave no answer; and said that
just men hindered it from speaking. Constantine, who assisted at
the ceremony, affirms, with an oath, that when questioned about
these men, the high priest named the Christians. “The Emperor
eagerly seized on this answer; and drew against the innocent a
sword, destined only to punish the guilty: he instantly issued
edicts, written, if I may use the expression, with a poniard; and
ordered the judges to employ all their skill to invent new modes
of punishment. Euseb. Vit Constant. l. ii c 54.”—G.]
163 (return) [ See Mosheim, p. 938: the text of Eusebius very
plainly shows that the governors, whose powers were enlarged, not
restrained, by the new laws, could punish with death the most
obstinate Christians as an example to their brethren.]
164 (return) [ Athanasius, p. 833, ap. Tillemont, Mém.
Ecclesiast. tom v part i. 90.]
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.—Part VII.
Diocletian had no sooner published his edicts against the
Christians, than, as if he had been desirous of committing to
other hands the work of persecution, he divested himself of the
Imperial purple. The character and situation of his colleagues
and successors sometimes urged them to enforce and sometimes
inclined them to suspend, the execution of these rigorous laws;
nor can we acquire a just and distinct idea of this important
period of ecclesiastical history, unless we separately consider
the state of Christianity, in the different parts of the empire,
during the space of ten years, which elapsed between the first
edicts of Diocletian and the final peace of the church.
The mild and humane temper of Constantius was averse to the
oppression of any part of his subjects. The principal offices of
his palace were exercised by Christians. He loved their persons,
esteemed their fidelity, and entertained not any dislike to their
religious principles. But as long as Constantius remained in the
subordinate station of Cæsar, it was not in his power openly to
reject the edicts of Diocletian, or to disobey the commands of
Maximian. His authority contributed, however, to alleviate the
sufferings which he pitied and abhorred. He consented with
reluctance to the ruin of the churches; but he ventured to
protect the Christians themselves from the fury of the populace,
and from the rigor of the laws. The provinces of Gaul (under
which we may probably include those of Britain) were indebted for
the singular tranquillity which they enjoyed, to the gentle
interposition of their sovereign. 165 But Datianus, the president
or governor of Spain, actuated either by zeal or policy, chose
rather to execute the public edicts of the emperors, than to
understand the secret intentions of Constantius; and it can
scarcely be doubted, that his provincial administration was
stained with the blood of a few martyrs. 166
The elevation of Constantius to the supreme and independent
dignity of Augustus, gave a free scope to the exercise of his
virtues, and the shortness of his reign did not prevent him from
establishing a system of toleration, of which he left the precept
and the example to his son Constantine. His fortunate son, from
the first moment of his accession, declaring himself the
protector of the church, at length deserved the appellation of
the first emperor who publicly professed and established the
Christian religion. The motives of his conversion, as they may
variously be deduced from benevolence, from policy, from
conviction, or from remorse, and the progress of the revolution,
which, under his powerful influence and that of his sons,
rendered Christianity the reigning religion of the Roman empire,
will form a very interesting and important chapter in the present
volume of this history. At present it may be sufficient to
observe, that every victory of Constantine was productive of some
relief or benefit to the church.
165 (return) [ Eusebius, l. viii. c. 13. Lactantius de M. P. c.
15. Dodwell (Dissertat. Cyprian. xi. 75) represents them as
inconsistent with each other. But the former evidently speaks of
Constantius in the station of Cæsar, and the latter of the same
prince in the rank of Augustus.]
166 (return) [ Datianus is mentioned, in Gruter’s Inscriptions,
as having determined the limits between the territories of Pax
Julia, and those of Ebora, both cities in the southern part of
Lusitania. If we recollect the neighborhood of those places to
Cape St. Vincent, we may suspect that the celebrated deacon and
martyr of that name had been inaccurately assigned by Prudentius,
&c., to Saragossa, or Valentia. See the pompous history of his
sufferings, in the Mémoires de Tillemont, tom. v. part ii. p.
58-85. Some critics are of opinion, that the department of
Constantius, as Cæsar, did not include Spain, which still
continued under the immediate jurisdiction of Maximian.]
The provinces of Italy and Africa experienced a short but violent
persecution. The rigorous edicts of Diocletian were strictly and
cheerfully executed by his associate Maximian, who had long hated
the Christians, and who delighted in acts of blood and violence.
In the autumn of the first year of the persecution, the two
emperors met at Rome to celebrate their triumph; several
oppressive laws appear to have issued from their secret
consultations, and the diligence of the magistrates was animated
by the presence of their sovereigns. After Diocletian had
divested himself of the purple, Italy and Africa were
administered under the name of Severus, and were exposed, without
defence, to the implacable resentment of his master Galerius.
Among the martyrs of Rome, Adauctus deserves the notice of
posterity. He was of a noble family in Italy, and had raised
himself, through the successive honors of the palace, to the
important office of treasurer of the private Jemesnes. Adauctus
is the more remarkable for being the only person of rank and
distinction who appears to have suffered death, during the whole
course of this general persecution. 167
167 (return) [ Eusebius, l. viii. c. 11. Gruter, Inscrip. p.
1171, No. 18. Rufinus has mistaken the office of Adauctus, as
well as the place of his martyrdom. * Note: M. Guizot suggests
the powerful cunuchs of the palace. Dorotheus, Gorgonius, and
Andrew, admitted by Gibbon himself to have been put to death, p.
66.]
The revolt of Maxentius immediately restored peace to the
churches of Italy and Africa; and the same tyrant who oppressed
every other class of his subjects, showed himself just, humane,
and even partial, towards the afflicted Christians. He depended
on their gratitude and affection, and very naturally presumed,
that the injuries which they had suffered, and the dangers which
they still apprehended from his most inveterate enemy, would
secure the fidelity of a party already considerable by their
numbers and opulence. 168 Even the conduct of Maxentius towards
the bishops of Rome and Carthage may be considered as the proof
of his toleration, since it is probable that the most orthodox
princes would adopt the same measures with regard to their
established clergy. Marcellus, the former of these prelates, had
thrown the capital into confusion, by the severe penance which he
imposed on a great number of Christians, who, during the late
persecution, had renounced or dissembled their religion. The rage
of faction broke out in frequent and violent seditions; the blood
of the faithful was shed by each other’s hands, and the exile of
Marcellus, whose prudence seems to have been less eminent than
his zeal, was found to be the only measure capable of restoring
peace to the distracted church of Rome. 169 The behavior of
Mensurius, bishop of Carthage, appears to have been still more
reprehensible. A deacon of that city had published a libel
against the emperor. The offender took refuge in the episcopal
palace; and though it was somewhat early to advance any claims of
ecclesiastical immunities, the bishop refused to deliver him up
to the officers of justice. For this treasonable resistance,
Mensurius was summoned to court, and instead of receiving a legal
sentence of death or banishment, he was permitted, after a short
examination, to return to his diocese. 170 Such was the happy
condition of the Christian subjects of Maxentius, that whenever
they were desirous of procuring for their own use any bodies of
martyrs, they were obliged to purchase them from the most distant
provinces of the East. A story is related of Aglae, a Roman lady,
descended from a consular family, and possessed of so ample an
estate, that it required the management of seventy-three
stewards. Among these Boniface was the favorite of his mistress;
and as Aglae mixed love with devotion, it is reported that he was
admitted to share her bed. Her fortune enabled her to gratify the
pious desire of obtaining some sacred relics from the East. She
intrusted Boniface with a considerable sum of gold, and a large
quantity of aromatics; and her lover, attended by twelve horsemen
and three covered chariots, undertook a remote pilgrimage, as far
as Tarsus in Cilicia. 171
168 (return) [ Eusebius, l. viii. c. 14. But as Maxentius was
vanquished by Constantine, it suited the purpose of Lactantius to
place his death among those of the persecutors. * Note: M. Guizot
directly contradicts this statement of Gibbon, and appeals to
Eusebius. Maxentius, who assumed the power in Italy, pretended at
first to be a Christian, to gain the favor of the Roman people;
he ordered his ministers to cease to persecute the Christians,
affecting a hypocritical piety, in order to appear more mild than
his predecessors; but his actions soon proved that he was very
different from what they had at first hoped. The actions of
Maxentius were those of a cruel tyrant, but not those of a
persecutor: the Christians, like the rest of his subjects,
suffered from his vices, but they were not oppressed as a sect.
Christian females were exposed to his lusts, as well as to the
brutal violence of his colleague Maximian, but they were not
selected as Christians.—M.]
169 (return) [ The epitaph of Marcellus is to be found in Gruter,
Inscrip. p 1172, No. 3, and it contains all that we know of his
history. Marcellinus and Marcellus, whose names follow in the
list of popes, are supposed by many critics to be different
persons; but the learned Abbé de Longuerue was convinced that
they were one and the same.
Veridicus rector lapsis quia crimina flere
Prædixit miseris, fuit omnibus hostis amarus.
Hinc furor, hinc odium; sequitur discordia, lites,
Seditio, cædes; solvuntur fœdera pacis.
Crimen ob alterius, Christum qui in pace negavit
Finibus expulsus patriæ est feritate Tyranni.
Hæc breviter Damasus voluit comperta referre:
Marcelli populus meritum cognoscere posset.
We may observe that Damasus was made Bishop of Rome, A. D. 366.]
170 (return) [ Optatus contr. Donatist. l. i. c. 17, 18. * Note:
The words of Optatus are, Profectus (Roman) causam dixit; jussus
con reverti Carthaginem; perhaps, in pleading his cause, he
exculpated himself, since he received an order to return to
Carthage.—G.]
171 (return) [ The Acts of the Passion of St. Boniface, which
abound in miracles and declamation, are published by Ruinart, (p.
283—291,) both in Greek and Latin, from the authority of very
ancient manuscripts. Note: We are ignorant whether Aglae and
Boniface were Christians at the time of their unlawful
connection. See Tillemont. Mem, Eccles. Note on the Persecution
of Domitian, tom. v. note 82. M. de Tillemont proves also that
the history is doubtful.—G. ——Sir D. Dalrymple (Lord Hailes)
calls the story of Aglae and Boniface as of equal authority with
our _popular_ histories of Whittington and Hickathrift. Christian
Antiquities, ii. 64.—M.]
The sanguinary temper of Galerius, the first and principal author
of the persecution, was formidable to those Christians whom their
misfortunes had placed within the limits of his dominions; and it
may fairly be presumed that many persons of a middle rank, who
were not confined by the chains either of wealth or of poverty,
very frequently deserted their native country, and sought a
refuge in the milder climate of the West. 1711 As long as he
commanded only the armies and provinces of Illyricum, he could
with difficulty either find or make a considerable number of
martyrs, in a warlike country, which had entertained the
missionaries of the gospel with more coldness and reluctance than
any other part of the empire. 172 But when Galerius had obtained
the supreme power, and the government of the East, he indulged in
their fullest extent his zeal and cruelty, not only in the
provinces of Thrace and Asia, which acknowledged his immediate
jurisdiction, but in those of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, where
Maximin gratified his own inclination, by yielding a rigorous
obedience to the stern commands of his benefactor. 173 The
frequent disappointments of his ambitious views, the experience
of six years of persecution, and the salutary reflections which a
lingering and painful distemper suggested to the mind of
Galerius, at length convinced him that the most violent efforts
of despotism are insufficient to extirpate a whole people, or to
subdue their religious prejudices. Desirous of repairing the
mischief that he had occasioned, he published in his own name,
and in those of Licinius and Constantine, a general edict, which,
after a pompous recital of the Imperial titles, proceeded in the
following manner:—
1711 (return) [ A little after this, Christianity was propagated
to the north of the Roman provinces, among the tribes of Germany:
a multitude of Christians, forced by the persecutions of the
Emperors to take refuge among the Barbarians, were received with
kindness. Euseb. de Vit. Constant. ii. 53. Semler Select. cap. H.
E. p. 115. The Goths owed their first knowledge of Christianity
to a young girl, a prisoner of war; she continued in the midst of
them her exercises of piety; she fasted, prayed, and praised God
day and night. When she was asked what good would come of so much
painful trouble she answered, “It is thus that Christ, the Son of
God, is to be honored.” Sozomen, ii. c. 6.—G.]
172 (return) [ During the four first centuries, there exist few
traces of either bishops or bishoprics in the western Illyricum.
It has been thought probable that the primate of Milan extended
his jurisdiction over Sirmium, the capital of that great
province. See the Geographia Sacra of Charles de St. Paul, p.
68-76, with the observations of Lucas Holstenius.]
173 (return) [ The viiith book of Eusebius, as well as the
supplement concerning the martyrs of Palestine, principally
relate to the persecution of Galerius and Maximin. The general
lamentations with which Lactantius opens the vth book of his
Divine Institutions allude to their cruelty.] “Among the
important cares which have occupied our mind for the utility and
preservation of the empire, it was our intention to correct and
reestablish all things according to the ancient laws and public
discipline of the Romans. We were particularly desirous of
reclaiming into the way of reason and nature, the deluded
Christians who had renounced the religion and ceremonies
instituted by their fathers; and presumptuously despising the
practice of antiquity, had invented extravagant laws and
opinions, according to the dictates of their fancy, and had
collected a various society from the different provinces of our
empire. The edicts, which we have published to enforce the
worship of the gods, having exposed many of the Christians to
danger and distress, many having suffered death, and many more,
who still persist in their impious folly, being left destitute of
_any_ public exercise of religion, we are disposed to extend to
those unhappy men the effects of our wonted clemency. We permit
them therefore freely to profess their private opinions, and to
assemble in their conventicles without fear or molestation,
provided always that they preserve a due respect to the
established laws and government. By another rescript we shall
signify our intentions to the judges and magistrates; and we hope
that our indulgence will engage the Christians to offer up their
prayers to the Deity whom they adore, for our safety and
prosperity for their own, and for that of the republic.” 174 It
is not usually in the language of edicts and manifestos that we
should search for the real character or the secret motives of
princes; but as these were the words of a dying emperor, his
situation, perhaps, may be admitted as a pledge of his sincerity.
174 (return) [ Eusebius (l. viii. c. 17) has given us a Greek
version, and Lactantius (de M. P. c. 34) the Latin original, of
this memorable edict. Neither of these writers seems to recollect
how directly it contradicts whatever they have just affirmed of
the remorse and repentance of Galerius. Note: But Gibbon has
answered this by his just observation, that it is not in the
language of edicts and manifestos that we should search * * for
the secre motives of princes.—M.]
When Galerius subscribed this edict of toleration, he was well
assured that Licinius would readily comply with the inclinations
of his friend and benefactor, and that any measures in favor of
the Christians would obtain the approbation of Constantine. But
the emperor would not venture to insert in the preamble the name
of Maximin, whose consent was of the greatest importance, and who
succeeded a few days afterwards to the provinces of Asia. In the
first six months, however, of his new reign, Maximin affected to
adopt the prudent counsels of his predecessor; and though he
never condescended to secure the tranquillity of the church by a
public edict, Sabinus, his Prætorian præfect, addressed a
circular letter to all the governors and magistrates of the
provinces, expatiating on the Imperial clemency, acknowledging
the invincible obstinacy of the Christians, and directing the
officers of justice to cease their ineffectual prosecutions, and
to connive at the secret assemblies of those enthusiasts. In
consequence of these orders, great numbers of Christians were
released from prison, or delivered from the mines. The
confessors, singing hymns of triumph, returned into their own
countries; and those who had yielded to the violence of the
tempest, solicited with tears of repentance their readmission
into the bosom of the church. 175
175 (return) [ Eusebius, l. ix. c. 1. He inserts the epistle of
the præfect.]
But this treacherous calm was of short duration; nor could the
Christians of the East place any confidence in the character of
their sovereign. Cruelty and superstition were the ruling
passions of the soul of Maximin. The former suggested the means,
the latter pointed out the objects of persecution. The emperor
was devoted to the worship of the gods, to the study of magic,
and to the belief of oracles. The prophets or philosophers, whom
he revered as the favorites of Heaven, were frequently raised to
the government of provinces, and admitted into his most secret
councils. They easily convinced him that the Christians had been
indebted for their victories to their regular discipline, and
that the weakness of polytheism had principally flowed from a
want of union and subordination among the ministers of religion.
A system of government was therefore instituted, which was
evidently copied from the policy of the church. In all the great
cities of the empire, the temples were repaired and beautified by
the order of Maximin, and the officiating priests of the various
deities were subjected to the authority of a superior pontiff
destined to oppose the bishop, and to promote the cause of
paganism. These pontiffs acknowledged, in their turn, the supreme
jurisdiction of the metropolitans or high priests of the
province, who acted as the immediate vicegerents of the emperor
himself. A white robe was the ensign of their dignity; and these
new prelates were carefully selected from the most noble and
opulent families. By the influence of the magistrates, and of the
sacerdotal order, a great number of dutiful addresses were
obtained, particularly from the cities of Nicomedia, Antioch, and
Tyre, which artfully represented the well-known intentions of the
court as the general sense of the people; solicited the emperor
to consult the laws of justice rather than the dictates of his
clemency; expressed their abhorrence of the Christians, and
humbly prayed that those impious sectaries might at least be
excluded from the limits of their respective territories. The
answer of Maximin to the address which he obtained from the
citizens of Tyre is still extant. He praises their zeal and
devotion in terms of the highest satisfaction, descants on the
obstinate impiety of the Christians, and betrays, by the
readiness with which he consents to their banishment, that he
considered himself as receiving, rather than as conferring, an
obligation. The priests as well as the magistrates were empowered
to enforce the execution of his edicts, which were engraved on
tables of brass; and though it was recommended to them to avoid
the effusion of blood, the most cruel and ignominious punishments
were inflicted on the refractory Christians. 176
176 (return) [ See Eusebius, l. viii. c. 14, l. ix. c. 2—8.
Lactantius de M. P. c. 36. These writers agree in representing
the arts of Maximin; but the former relates the execution of
several martyrs, while the latter expressly affirms, occidi
servos Dei vetuit. * Note: It is easy to reconcile them; it is
sufficient to quote the entire text of Lactantius: Nam cum
clementiam specie tenus profiteretur, occidi servos Dei vetuit,
debilitari jussit. Itaque confessoribus effodiebantur oculi,
amputabantur manus, nares vel auriculæ desecabantur. Hæc ille
moliens Constantini litteris deterretur. Dissimulavit ergo, et
tamen, si quis inciderit. mari occulte mergebatur. This detail of
torments inflicted on the Christians easily reconciles Lactantius
and Eusebius. Those who died in consequence of their tortures,
those who were plunged into the sea, might well pass for martyrs.
The mutilation of the words of Lactantius has alone given rise to
the apparent contradiction.—G. ——Eusebius. ch. vi., relates the
public martyrdom of the aged bishop of Emesa, with two others,
who were thrown to the wild beasts, the beheading of Peter,
bishop of Alexandria, with several others, and the death of
Lucian, presbyter of Antioch, who was carried to Numidia, and put
to death in prison. The contradiction is direct and undeniable,
for although Eusebius may have misplaced the former martyrdoms,
it may be doubted whether the authority of Maximin extended to
Nicomedia till after the death of Galerius. The last edict of
toleration issued by Maximin and published by Eusebius himself,
Eccl. Hist. ix. 9. confirms the statement of Lactantius.—M.]
The Asiatic Christians had every thing to dread from the severity
of a bigoted monarch who prepared his measures of violence with
such deliberate policy. But a few months had scarcely elapsed
before the edicts published by the two Western emperors obliged
Maximin to suspend the prosecution of his designs: the civil war
which he so rashly undertook against Licinius employed all his
attention; and the defeat and death of Maximin soon delivered the
church from the last and most implacable of her enemies. 177
177 (return) [ A few days before his death, he published a very
ample edict of toleration, in which he imputes all the severities
which the Christians suffered to the judges and governors, who
had misunderstood his intentions.See the edict of Eusebius, l.
ix. c. 10.]
In this general view of the persecution, which was first
authorized by the edicts of Diocletian, I have purposely
refrained from describing the particular sufferings and deaths of
the Christian martyrs. It would have been an easy task, from the
history of Eusebius, from the declamations of Lactantius, and
from the most ancient acts, to collect a long series of horrid
and disgustful pictures, and to fill many pages with racks and
scourges, with iron hooks and red-hot beds, and with all the
variety of tortures which fire and steel, savage beasts, and more
savage executioners, could inflict upon the human body. These
melancholy scenes might be enlivened by a crowd of visions and
miracles destined either to delay the death, to celebrate the
triumph, or to discover the relics of those canonized saints who
suffered for the name of Christ. But I cannot determine what I
ought to transcribe, till I am satisfied how much I ought to
believe. The gravest of the ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius
himself, indirectly confesses, that he has related whatever might
redound to the glory, and that he has suppressed all that could
tend to the disgrace, of religion. 178 Such an acknowledgment
will naturally excite a suspicion that a writer who has so openly
violated one of the fundamental laws of history, has not paid a
very strict regard to the observance of the other; and the
suspicion will derive additional credit from the character of
Eusebius, 1781 which was less tinctured with credulity, and more
practised in the arts of courts, than that of almost any of his
contemporaries. On some particular occasions, when the
magistrates were exasperated by some personal motives of interest
or resentment, the rules of prudence, and perhaps of decency, to
overturn the altars, to pour out imprecations against the
emperors, or to strike the judge as he sat on his tribunal, it
may be presumed, that every mode of torture which cruelty could
invent, or constancy could endure, was exhausted on those devoted
victims. 179 Two circumstances, however, have been unwarily
mentioned, which insinuate that the general treatment of the
Christians, who had been apprehended by the officers of justice,
was less intolerable than it is usually imagined to have been. 1.
The confessors who were condemned to work in the mines were
permitted by the humanity or the negligence of their keepers to
build chapels, and freely to profess their religion in the midst
of those dreary habitations. 180 2. The bishops were obliged to
check and to censure the forward zeal of the Christians, who
voluntarily threw themselves into the hands of the magistrates.
Some of these were persons oppressed by poverty and debts, who
blindly sought to terminate a miserable existence by a glorious
death. Others were allured by the hope that a short confinement
would expiate the sins of a whole life; and others again were
actuated by the less honorable motive of deriving a plentiful
subsistence, and perhaps a considerable profit, from the alms
which the charity of the faithful bestowed on the prisoners. 181
After the church had triumphed over all her enemies, the interest
as well as vanity of the captives prompted them to magnify the
merit of their respective sufferings. A convenient distance of
time or place gave an ample scope to the progress of fiction; and
the frequent instances which might be alleged of holy martyrs,
whose wounds had been instantly healed, whose strength had been
renewed, and whose lost members had miraculously been restored,
were extremely convenient for the purpose of removing every
difficulty, and of silencing every objection. The most
extravagant legends, as they conduced to the honor of the church,
were applauded by the credulous multitude, countenanced by the
power of the clergy, and attested by the suspicious evidence of
ecclesiastical history.
178 (return) [ Such is the _fair_ deduction from two remarkable
passages in Eusebius, l. viii. c. 2, and de Martyr. Palestin. c.
12. The prudence of the historian has exposed his own character
to censure and suspicion. It was well known that he himself had
been thrown into prison; and it was suggested that he had
purchased his deliverance by some dishonorable compliance. The
reproach was urged in his lifetime, and even in his presence, at
the council of Tyre. See Tillemont, Mémoires Ecclésiastiques,
tom. viii. part i. p. 67.]
1781 (return) [ Historical criticism does not consist in
rejecting indiscriminately all the facts which do not agree with
a particular system, as Gibbon does in this chapter, in which,
except at the last extremity, he will not consent to believe a
martyrdom. Authorities are to be weighed, not excluded from
examination. Now, the Pagan historians justify in many places the
detail which have been transmitted to us by the historians of the
church, concerning the tortures endured by the Christians. Celsus
reproaches the Christians with holding their assemblies in
secret, on account of the fear inspired by their sufferings, “for
when you are arrested,” he says, “you are dragged to punishment:
and, before you are put to death, you have to suffer all kinds of
tortures.” Origen cont. Cels. l. i. ii. vi. viii. passing.
Libanius, the panegyrist of Julian, says, while speaking of the
Christians. “Those who followed a corrupt religion were in
continual apprehensions; they feared lest Julian should invent
tortures still more refined than those to which they had been
exposed before, as mutilation, burning alive, &c.; for the
emperors had inflicted upon them all these barbarities.” Lib.
Parent in Julian. ap. Fab. Bib. Græc. No. 9, No. 58, p. 283—G.
——This sentence of Gibbon has given rise to several learned
dissertation: Möller, de Fide Eusebii Cæsar, &c., Havniæ, 1813.
Danzius, de Eusebio Cæs. Hist. Eccl. Scriptore, ejusque tide
historica recte æstimandâ, &c., Jenæ, 1815. Kestner Commentatio
de Eusebii Hist. Eccles. conditoris auctoritate et fide, &c. See
also Reuterdahl, de Fontibus Historiæ Eccles. Eusebianæ, Lond.
Goth., 1826. Gibbon’s inference may appear stronger than the text
will warrant, yet it is difficult, after reading the passages, to
dismiss all suspicion of partiality from the mind.—M.]
179 (return) [ The ancient, and perhaps authentic, account of the
sufferings of Tarachus and his companions, (Acta Sincera Ruinart,
p. 419—448,) is filled with strong expressions of resentment and
contempt, which could not fail of irritating the magistrate. The
behavior of Ædesius to Hierocles, præfect of Egypt, was still
more extraordinary. Euseb. de Martyr. Palestin. c. 5. * Note: M.
Guizot states, that the acts of Tarachus and his companion
contain nothing that appears dictated by violent feelings,
(sentiment outré.) Nothing can be more painful than the constant
attempt of Gibbon throughout this discussion, to find some flaw
in the virtue and heroism of the martyrs, some extenuation for
the cruelty of the persecutors. But truth must not be sacrificed
even to well-grounded moral indignation. Though the language of
these martyrs is in great part that of calm de fiance, of noble
firmness, yet there are many expressions which betray “resentment
and contempt.” “Children of Satan, worshippers of Devils,” is
their common appellation of the heathen. One of them calls the
judge another, one curses, and declares that he will curse the
Emperors, as pestilential and bloodthirsty tyrants, whom God will
soon visit in his wrath. On the other hand, though at first they
speak the milder language of persuasion, the cold barbarity of
the judges and officers might surely have called forth one
sentence of abhorrence from Gibbon. On the first unsatisfactory
answer, “Break his jaw,” is the order of the judge. They direct
and witness the most excruciating tortures; the people, as M.
Guizot observers, were so much revolted by the cruelty of Maximus
that when the martyrs appeared in the amphitheatre, fear seized
on all hearts, and general murmurs against the unjust judge rank
through the assembly. It is singular, at least, that Gibbon
should have quoted “as probably authentic,” acts so much
embellished with miracle as these of Tarachus are, particularly
towards the end.—M. * Note: Scarcely were the authorities
informed of this, than the president of the province, a man, says
Eusebius, harsh and cruel, banished the confessors, some to
Cyprus, others to different parts of Palestine, and ordered them
to be tormented by being set to the most painful labors. Four of
them, whom he required to abjure their faith and refused, were
burnt alive. Euseb. de Mart. Palest. c. xiii.—G. Two of these
were bishops; a fifth, Silvanus, bishop of Gaza, was the last
martyr; another, named John was blinded, but used to officiate,
and recite from memory long passages of the sacred writings—M.]
180 (return) [ Euseb. de Martyr. Palestin. c. 13.]
181 (return) [ Augustin. Collat. Carthagin. Dei, iii. c. 13, ap.
Tillanant, Mémoires Ecclésiastiques, tom. v. part i. p. 46. The
controversy with the Donatists, has reflected some, though
perhaps a partial, light on the history of the African church.]
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.—Part VIII.
The vague descriptions of exile and imprisonment, of pain and
torture, are so easily exaggerated or softened by the pencil of
an artful orator, 1811 that we are naturally induced to inquire
into a fact of a more distinct and stubborn kind; the number of
persons who suffered death in consequence of the edicts published
by Diocletian, his associates, and his successors. The recent
legendaries record whole armies and cities, which were at once
swept away by the undistinguishing rage of persecution. The more
ancient writers content themselves with pouring out a liberal
effusion of loose and tragical invectives, without condescending
to ascertain the precise number of those persons who were
permitted to seal with their blood their belief of the gospel.
From the history of Eusebius, it may, however, be collected, that
only nine bishops were punished with death; and we are assured,
by his particular enumeration of the martyrs of Palestine, 182
that no more than ninety-two Christians were entitled to that
honorable appellation. 1821 As we are unacquainted with the
degree of episcopal zeal and courage which prevailed at that
time, it is not in our power to draw any useful inferences from
the former of these facts: but the latter may serve to justify a
very important and probable conclusion. According to the
distribution of Roman provinces, Palestine may be considered as
the sixteenth part of the Eastern empire: 183 and since there
were some governors, who from a real or affected clemency had
preserved their hands unstained with the blood of the faithful,
184 it is reasonable to believe, that the country which had given
birth to Christianity, produced at least the sixteenth part of
the martyrs who suffered death within the dominions of Galerius
and Maximin; the whole might consequently amount to about fifteen
hundred, a number which, if it is equally divided between the ten
years of the persecution, will allow an annual consumption of one
hundred and fifty martyrs. Allotting the same proportion to the
provinces of Italy, Africa, and perhaps Spain, where, at the end
of two or three years, the rigor of the penal laws was either
suspended or abolished, the multitude of Christians in the Roman
empire, on whom a capital punishment was inflicted by a judicia,
sentence, will be reduced to somewhat less than two thousand
persons. Since it cannot be doubted that the Christians were more
numerous, and their enemies more exasperated, in the time of
Diocletian, than they had ever been in any former persecution,
this probable and moderate computation may teach us to estimate
the number of primitive saints and martyrs who sacrificed their
lives for the important purpose of introducing Christianity into
the world.
1811 (return) [ Perhaps there never was an instance of an author
committing so deliberately the fault which he reprobates so
strongly in others. What is the dexterous management of the more
inartificial historians of Christianity, in exaggerating the
numbers of the martyrs, compared to the unfair address with which
Gibbon here quietly dismisses from the account all the horrible
and excruciating tortures which fell short of death? The reader
may refer to the xiith chapter (book viii.) of Eusebius for the
description and for the scenes of these tortures.—M.]
182 (return) [ Eusebius de Martyr. Palestin. c. 13. He closes his
narration by assuring us that these were the martyrdoms inflicted
in Palestine, during the _whole_ course of the persecution. The
9th chapter of his viiith book, which relates to the province of
Thebais in Egypt, may seem to contradict our moderate
computation; but it will only lead us to admire the artful
management of the historian. Choosing for the scene of the most
exquisite cruelty the most remote and sequestered country of the
Roman empire, he relates that in Thebais from ten to one hundred
persons had frequently suffered martyrdom in the same day. But
when he proceeds to mention his own journey into Egypt, his
language insensibly becomes more cautious and moderate. Instead
of a large, but definite number, he speaks of many Christians,
and most artfully selects two ambiguous words, which may signify
either what he had seen, or what he had heard; either the
expectation, or the execution of the punishment. Having thus
provided a secure evasion, he commits the equivocal passage to
his readers and translators; justly conceiving that their piety
would induce them to prefer the most favorable sense. There was
perhaps some malice in the remark of Theodorus Metochita, that
all who, like Eusebius, had been conversant with the Egyptians,
delighted in an obscure and intricate style. (See Valesius ad
loc.)]
1821 (return) [ This calculation is made from the martyrs, of
whom Eusebius speaks by name; but he recognizes a much greater
number. Thus the ninth and tenth chapters of his work are
entitled, “Of Antoninus, Zebinus, Germanus, and other martyrs; of
Peter the monk. of Asclepius the Maroionite, and other martyrs.”
[Are these vague contents of chapters very good authority?—M.]
Speaking of those who suffered under Diocletian, he says, “I will
only relate the death of one of these, from which, the reader may
divine what befell the rest.” Hist. Eccl. viii. 6. [This relates
only to the martyrs in the royal household.—M.] Dodwell had made,
before Gibbon, this calculation and these objections; but Ruinart
(Act. Mart. Pref p. 27, _et seq_.) has answered him in a
peremptory manner: Nobis constat Eusebium in historia infinitos
passim martyres admisisse. quamvis revera paucorum nomina
recensuerit. Nec alium Eusebii interpretem quam ipsummet Eusebium
proferimus, qui (l. iii. c. 33) ait sub Trajano plurimosa ex
fidelibus martyrii certamen subiisse (l. v. init.) sub Antonino
et Vero innumerabiles prope martyres per universum orbem
enituisse affirmat. (L. vi. c. 1.) Severum persecutionem
concitasse refert, in qua per omnes ubique locorum Ecclesias, ab
athletis pro pietate certantibus, illustria confecta fuerunt
martyria. Sic de Decii, sic de Valeriani, persecutionibus
loquitur, quæ an Dodwelli faveant conjectionibus judicet æquus
lector. Even in the persecutions which Gibbon has represented as
much more mild than that of Diocletian, the number of martyrs
appears much greater than that to which he limits the martyrs of
the latter: and this number is attested by incontestable
monuments. I will quote but one example. We find among the
letters of St. Cyprian one from Lucianus to Celerinus, written
from the depth of a prison, in which Lucianus names seventeen of
his brethren dead, some in the quarries, some in the midst of
tortures some of starvation in prison. Jussi sumus (he proceeds)
secundum præ ceptum imperatoris, fame et siti necari, et reclusi
sumus in duabus cellis, ta ut nos afficerent fame et siti et
ignis vapore.—G.]
183 (return) [ When Palestine was divided into three, the
præfecture of the East contained forty-eight provinces. As the
ancient distinctions of nations were long since abolished, the
Romans distributed the provinces according to a general
proportion of their extent and opulence.]
184 (return) [ Ut gloriari possint nullam se innocentium
poremisse, nam et ipse audivi aloquos gloriantes, quia
administratio sua, in hac paris merit incruenta. Lactant.
Institur. Divin v. 11.]
We shall conclude this chapter by a melancholy truth, which
obtrudes itself on the reluctant mind; that even admitting,
without hesitation or inquiry, all that history has recorded, or
devotion has feigned, on the subject of martyrdoms, it must still
be acknowledged, that the Christians, in the course of their
intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on
each other, than they had experienced from the zeal of infidels.
During the ages of ignorance which followed the subversion of the
Roman empire in the West, the bishops of the Imperial city
extended their dominion over the laity as well as clergy of the
Latin church. The fabric of superstition which they had erected,
and which might long have defied the feeble efforts of reason,
was at length assaulted by a crowd of daring fanatics, who from
the twelfth to the sixteenth century assumed the popular
character of reformers. The church of Rome defended by violence
the empire which she had acquired by fraud; a system of peace and
benevolence was soon disgraced by proscriptions, war, massacres,
and the institution of the holy office. And as the reformers were
animated by the love of civil as well as of religious freedom,
the Catholic princes connected their own interest with that of
the clergy, and enforced by fire and the sword the terrors of
spiritual censures. In the Netherlands alone, more than one
hundred thousand of the subjects of Charles V. are said to have
suffered by the hand of the executioner; and this extraordinary
number is attested by Grotius, 185 a man of genius and learning,
who preserved his moderation amidst the fury of contending sects,
and who composed the annals of his own age and country, at a time
when the invention of printing had facilitated the means of
intelligence, and increased the danger of detection.
If we are obliged to submit our belief to the authority of
Grotius, it must be allowed, that the number of Protestants, who
were executed in a single province and a single reign, far
exceeded that of the primitive martyrs in the space of three
centuries, and of the Roman empire. But if the improbability of
the fact itself should prevail over the weight of evidence; if
Grotius should be convicted of exaggerating the merit and
sufferings of the Reformers; 186 we shall be naturally led to
inquire what confidence can be placed in the doubtful and
imperfect monuments of ancient credulity; what degree of credit
can be assigned to a courtly bishop, and a passionate declaimer,
1861 who, under the protection of Constantine, enjoyed the
exclusive privilege of recording the persecutions inflicted on
the Christians by the vanquished rivals or disregarded
predecessors of their gracious sovereign.
185 (return) [ Grot. Annal. de Rebus Belgicis, l. i. p. 12, edit.
fol.]
186 (return) [ Fra Paola (Istoria del Concilio Tridentino, l.
iii.) reduces the number of the Belgic martyrs to 50,000. In
learning and moderation Fra Paola was not inferior to Grotius.
The priority of time gives some advantage to the evidence of the
former, which he loses, on the other hand, by the distance of
Venice from the Netherlands.]
1861 (return) [ Eusebius and the author of the Treatise de
Mortibus Persecutorum. It is deeply to be regretted that the
history of this period rest so much on the loose and, it must be
admitted, by no means scrupulous authority of Eusebius.
Ecclesiastical history is a solemn and melancholy lesson that the
best, even the most sacred, cause will eventually the least
departure from truth!—M.]
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part I.
Foundation Of Constantinople.—Political System Constantine, And
His Successors.—Military Discipline.—The Palace.—The Finances.
The unfortunate Licinius was the last rival who opposed the
greatness, and the last captive who adorned the triumph, of
Constantine. After a tranquil and prosperous reign, the conquerer
bequeathed to his family the inheritance of the Roman empire; a
new capital, a new policy, and a new religion; and the
innovations which he established have been embraced and
consecrated by succeeding generations. The age of the great
Constantine and his sons is filled with important events; but the
historian must be oppressed by their number and variety, unless
he diligently separates from each other the scenes which are
connected only by the order of time. He will describe the
political institutions that gave strength and stability to the
empire, before he proceeds to relate the wars and revolutions
which hastened its decline. He will adopt the division unknown to
the ancients of civil and ecclesiastical affairs: the victory of
the Christians, and their intestine discord, will supply copious
and distinct materials both for edification and for scandal.
After the defeat and abdication of Licinius, his victorious rival
proceeded to lay the foundations of a city destined to reign in
future times, the mistress of the East, and to survive the empire
and religion of Constantine. The motives, whether of pride or of
policy, which first induced Diocletian to withdraw himself from
the ancient seat of government, had acquired additional weight by
the example of his successors, and the habits of forty years.
Rome was insensibly confounded with the dependent kingdoms which
had once acknowledged her supremacy; and the country of the
Cæsars was viewed with cold indifference by a martial prince,
born in the neighborhood of the Danube, educated in the courts
and armies of Asia, and invested with the purple by the legions
of Britain. The Italians, who had received Constantine as their
deliverer, submissively obeyed the edicts which he sometimes
condescended to address to the senate and people of Rome; but
they were seldom honored with the presence of their new
sovereign. During the vigor of his age, Constantine, according to
the various exigencies of peace and war, moved with slow dignity,
or with active diligence, along the frontiers of his extensive
dominions; and was always prepared to take the field either
against a foreign or a domestic enemy. But as he gradually
reached the summit of prosperity and the decline of life, he
began to meditate the design of fixing in a more permanent
station the strength as well as majesty of the throne. In the
choice of an advantageous situation, he preferred the confines of
Europe and Asia; to curb with a powerful arm the barbarians who
dwelt between the Danube and the Tanais; to watch with an eye of
jealousy the conduct of the Persian monarch, who indignantly
supported the yoke of an ignominious treaty. With these views,
Diocletian had selected and embellished the residence of
Nicomedia: but the memory of Diocletian was justly abhorred by
the protector of the church: and Constantine was not insensible
to the ambition of founding a city which might perpetuate the
glory of his own name. During the late operations of the war
against Licinius, he had sufficient opportunity to contemplate,
both as a soldier and as a statesman, the incomparable position
of Byzantium; and to observe how strongly it was guarded by
nature against a hostile attack, whilst it was accessible on
every side to the benefits of commercial intercourse. Many ages
before Constantine, one of the most judicious historians of
antiquity1 had described the advantages of a situation, from
whence a feeble colony of Greeks derived the command of the sea,
and the honors of a flourishing and independent republic. 2
1 (return) [ Polybius, l. iv. p. 423, edit. Casaubon. He observes
that the peace of the Byzantines was frequently disturbed, and
the extent of their territory contracted, by the inroads of the
wild Thracians.]
2 (return) [ The navigator Byzas, who was styled the son of
Neptune, founded the city 656 years before the Christian æra. His
followers were drawn from Argos and Megara. Byzantium was
afterwards rebuild and fortified by the Spartan general
Pausanias. See Scaliger Animadvers. ad Euseb. p. 81. Ducange,
Constantinopolis, l. i part i. cap 15, 16. With regard to the
wars of the Byzantines against Philip, the Gauls, and the kings
of Bithynia, we should trust none but the ancient writers who
lived before the greatness of the Imperial city had excited a
spirit of flattery and fiction.]
If we survey Byzantium in the extent which it acquired with the
august name of Constantinople, the figure of the Imperial city
may be represented under that of an unequal triangle. The obtuse
point, which advances towards the east and the shores of Asia,
meets and repels the waves of the Thracian Bosphorus. The
northern side of the city is bounded by the harbor; and the
southern is washed by the Propontis, or Sea of Marmara. The basis
of the triangle is opposed to the west, and terminates the
continent of Europe. But the admirable form and division of the
circumjacent land and water cannot, without a more ample
explanation, be clearly or sufficiently understood. The winding
channel through which the waters of the Euxine flow with a rapid
and incessant course towards the Mediterranean, received the
appellation of Bosphorus, a name not less celebrated in the
history, than in the fables, of antiquity. 3 A crowd of temples
and of votive altars, profusely scattered along its steep and
woody banks, attested the unskilfulness, the terrors, and the
devotion of the Grecian navigators, who, after the example of the
Argonauts, explored the dangers of the inhospitable Euxine. On
these banks tradition long preserved the memory of the palace of
Phineus, infested by the obscene harpies; 4 and of the sylvan
reign of Amycus, who defied the son of Leda to the combat of the
cestus. 5 The straits of the Bosphorus are terminated by the
Cyanean rocks, which, according to the description of the poets,
had once floated on the face of the waters; and were destined by
the gods to protect the entrance of the Euxine against the eye of
profane curiosity. 6 From the Cyanean rocks to the point and
harbor of Byzantium, the winding length of the Bosphorus extends
about sixteen miles, 7 and its most ordinary breadth may be
computed at about one mile and a half. The new castles of Europe
and Asia are constructed, on either continent, upon the
foundations of two celebrated temples, of Serapis and of Jupiter
Urius. The _old_ castles, a work of the Greek emperors, command
the narrowest part of the channel in a place where the opposite
banks advance within five hundred paces of each other. These
fortresses were destroyed and strengthened by Mahomet the Second,
when he meditated the siege of Constantinople: 8 but the Turkish
conqueror was most probably ignorant, that near two thousand
years before his reign, Darius had chosen the same situation to
connect the two continents by a bridge of boats. 9 At a small
distance from the old castles we discover the little town of
Chrysopolis, or Scutari, which may almost be considered as the
Asiatic suburb of Constantinople. The Bosphorus, as it begins to
open into the Propontis, passes between Byzantium and Chalcedon.
The latter of those cities was built by the Greeks, a few years
before the former; and the blindness of its founders, who
overlooked the superior advantages of the opposite coast, has
been stigmatized by a proverbial expression of contempt. 10
3 (return) [ The Bosphorus has been very minutely described by
Dionysius of Byzantium, who lived in the time of Domitian,
(Hudson, Geograph Minor, tom. iii.,) and by Gilles or Gyllius, a
French traveller of the XVIth century. Tournefort (Lettre XV.)
seems to have used his own eyes, and the learning of Gyllius. Add
Von Hammer, Constantinopolis und der Bosphoros, 8vo.—M.]
4 (return) [ There are very few conjectures so happy as that of
Le Clere, (Bibliotehque Universelle, tom. i. p. 148,) who
supposes that the harpies were only locusts. The Syriac or
Phœnician name of those insects, their noisy flight, the stench
and devastation which they occasion, and the north wind which
drives them into the sea, all contribute to form the striking
resemblance.]
5 (return) [ The residence of Amycus was in Asia, between the old
and the new castles, at a place called Laurus Insana. That of
Phineus was in Europe, near the village of Mauromole and the
Black Sea. See Gyllius de Bosph. l. ii. c. 23. Tournefort, Lettre
XV.]
6 (return) [ The deception was occasioned by several pointed
rocks, alternately sovered and abandoned by the waves. At present
there are two small islands, one towards either shore; that of
Europe is distinguished by the column of Pompey.]
7 (return) [ The ancients computed one hundred and twenty stadia,
or fifteen Roman miles. They measured only from the new castles,
but they carried the straits as far as the town of Chalcedon.]
8 (return) [ Ducas. Hist. c. 34. Leunclavius Hist. Turcica
Mussulmanica, l. xv. p. 577. Under the Greek empire these castles
were used as state prisons, under the tremendous name of Lethe,
or towers of oblivion.]
9 (return) [ Darius engraved in Greek and Assyrian letters, on
two marble columns, the names of his subject nations, and the
amazing numbers of his land and sea forces. The Byzantines
afterwards transported these columns into the city, and used them
for the altars of their tutelar deities. Herodotus, l. iv. c.
87.]
10 (return) [ Namque arctissimo inter Europam Asiamque divortio
Byzantium in extremâ Europâ posuere Greci, quibus, Pythium
Apollinem consulentibus ubi conderent urbem, redditum oraculum
est, quærerent sedem _cæcerum_ terris adversam. Ea ambage
Chalcedonii monstrabantur quod priores illuc advecti, prævisâ
locorum utilitate pejora legissent Tacit. Annal. xii. 63.]
The harbor of Constantinople, which may be considered as an arm
of the Bosphorus, obtained, in a very remote period, the
denomination of the _Golden Horn_. The curve which it describes
might be compared to the horn of a stag, or as it should seem,
with more propriety, to that of an ox. 11 The epithet of _golden_
was expressive of the riches which every wind wafted from the
most distant countries into the secure and capacious port of
Constantinople. The River Lycus, formed by the conflux of two
little streams, pours into the harbor a perpetual supply of fresh
water, which serves to cleanse the bottom, and to invite the
periodical shoals of fish to seek their retreat in that
convenient recess. As the vicissitudes of tides are scarcely felt
in those seas, the constant depth of the harbor allows goods to
be landed on the quays without the assistance of boats; and it
has been observed, that in many places the largest vessels may
rest their prows against the houses, while their sterns are
floating in the water. 12 From the mouth of the Lycus to that of
the harbor, this arm of the Bosphorus is more than seven miles in
length. The entrance is about five hundred yards broad, and a
strong chain could be occasionally drawn across it, to guard the
port and city from the attack of a hostile navy. 13
11 (return) [ Strabo, l. vii. p. 492, [edit. Casaub.] Most of the
antlers are now broken off; or, to speak less figuratively, most
of the recesses of the harbor are filled up. See Gill. de
Bosphoro Thracio, l. i. c. 5.]
12 (return) [ Procopius de Ædificiis, l. i. c. 5. His description
is confirmed by modern travellers. See Thevenot, part i. l. i. c.
15. Tournefort, Lettre XII. Niebuhr, Voyage d’Arabie, p. 22.]
13 (return) [ See Ducange, C. P. l. i. part i. c. 16, and his
Observations sur Villehardouin, p. 289. The chain was drawn from
the Acropolis near the modern Kiosk, to the tower of Galata; and
was supported at convenient distances by large wooden piles.]
Between the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, the shores of Europe
and Asia, receding on either side, enclose the sea of Marmara,
which was known to the ancients by the denomination of Propontis.
The navigation from the issue of the Bosphorus to the entrance of
the Hellespont is about one hundred and twenty miles.
Those who steer their westward course through the middle of the
Propontis, may at once descry the high lands of Thrace and
Bithynia, and never lose sight of the lofty summit of Mount
Olympus, covered with eternal snows. 14 They leave on the left a
deep gulf, at the bottom of which Nicomedia was seated, the
Imperial residence of Diocletian; and they pass the small islands
of Cyzicus and Proconnesus before they cast anchor at Gallipoli;
where the sea, which separates Asia from Europe, is again
contracted into a narrow channel.
14 (return) [ Thevenot (Voyages au Levant, part i. l. i. c. 14)
contracts the measure to 125 small Greek miles. Belon
(Observations, l. ii. c. 1.) gives a good description of the
Propontis, but contents himself with the vague expression of one
day and one night’s sail. When Sandy’s (Travels, p. 21) talks of
150 furlongs in length, as well as breadth we can only suppose
some mistake of the press in the text of that judicious
traveller.]
The geographers who, with the most skilful accuracy, have
surveyed the form and extent of the Hellespont, assign about
sixty miles for the winding course, and about three miles for the
ordinary breadth of those celebrated straits. 15 But the
narrowest part of the channel is found to the northward of the
old Turkish castles between the cities of Sestus and Abydus. It
was here that the adventurous Leander braved the passage of the
flood for the possession of his mistress. 16 It was here
likewise, in a place where the distance between the opposite
banks cannot exceed five hundred paces, that Xerxes imposed a
stupendous bridge of boats, for the purpose of transporting into
Europe a hundred and seventy myriads of barbarians. 17 A sea
contracted within such narrow limits may seem but ill to deserve
the singular epithet of _broad_, which Homer, as well as Orpheus,
has frequently bestowed on the Hellespont. 1711 But our ideas of
greatness are of a relative nature: the traveller, and especially
the poet, who sailed along the Hellespont, who pursued the
windings of the stream, and contemplated the rural scenery, which
appeared on every side to terminate the prospect, insensibly lost
the remembrance of the sea; and his fancy painted those
celebrated straits, with all the attributes of a mighty river
flowing with a swift current, in the midst of a woody and inland
country, and at length, through a wide mouth, discharging itself
into the Ægean or Archipelago. 18 Ancient Troy, 19 seated on a an
eminence at the foot of Mount Ida, overlooked the mouth of the
Hellespont, which scarcely received an accession of waters from
the tribute of those immortal rivulets the Simois and Scamander.
The Grecian camp had stretched twelve miles along the shore from
the Sigæan to the Rhætean promontory; and the flanks of the army
were guarded by the bravest chiefs who fought under the banners
of Agamemnon. The first of those promontories was occupied by
Achilles with his invincible myrmidons, and the dauntless Ajax
pitched his tents on the other. After Ajax had fallen a sacrifice
to his disappointed pride, and to the ingratitude of the Greeks,
his sepulchre was erected on the ground where he had defended the
navy against the rage of Jove and of Hector; and the citizens of
the rising town of Rhæteum celebrated his memory with divine
honors. 20 Before Constantine gave a just preference to the
situation of Byzantium, he had conceived the design of erecting
the seat of empire on this celebrated spot, from whence the
Romans derived their fabulous origin. The extensive plain which
lies below ancient Troy, towards the Rhætean promontory and the
tomb of Ajax, was first chosen for his new capital; and though
the undertaking was soon relinquished the stately remains of
unfinished walls and towers attracted the notice of all who
sailed through the straits of the Hellespont. 21
15 (return) [ See an admirable dissertation of M. d’Anville upon
the Hellespont or Dardanelles, in the Mémoires tom. xxviii. p.
318—346. Yet even that ingenious geographer is too fond of
supposing new, and perhaps imaginary _measures_, for the purpose
of rendering ancient writers as accurate as himself. The stadia
employed by Herodotus in the description of the Euxine, the
Bosphorus, &c., (l. iv. c. 85,) must undoubtedly be all of the
same species; but it seems impossible to reconcile them either
with truth or with each other.]
16 (return) [ The oblique distance between Sestus and Abydus was
thirty stadia. The improbable tale of Hero and Leander is exposed
by M. Mahudel, but is defended on the authority of poets and
medals by M. de la Nauze. See the Académie des Inscriptions, tom.
vii. Hist. p. 74. elem. p. 240. Note: The practical illustration
of the possibility of Leander’s feat by Lord Byron and other
English swimmers is too well known to need particularly
reference—M.]
17 (return) [ See the seventh book of Herodotus, who has erected
an elegant trophy to his own fame and to that of his country. The
review appears to have been made with tolerable accuracy; but the
vanity, first of the Persians, and afterwards of the Greeks, was
interested to magnify the armament and the victory. I should much
doubt whether the _invaders_ have ever outnumbered the _men_ of
any country which they attacked.]
1711 (return) [ Gibbon does not allow greater width between the
two nearest points of the shores of the Hellespont than between
those of the Bosphorus; yet all the ancient writers speak of the
Hellespontic strait as broader than the other: they agree in
giving it seven stadia in its narrowest width, (Herod. in Melp.
c. 85. Polym. c. 34. Strabo, p. 591. Plin. iv. c. 12.) which make
875 paces. It is singular that Gibbon, who in the fifteenth note
of this chapter reproaches d’Anville with being fond of supposing
new and perhaps imaginary measures, has here adopted the peculiar
measurement which d’Anville has assigned to the stadium. This
great geographer believes that the ancients had a stadium of
fifty-one toises, and it is that which he applies to the walls of
Babylon. Now, seven of these stadia are equal to about 500 paces,
7 stadia = 2142 feet: 500 paces = 2135 feet 5 inches.—G. See
Rennell, Geog. of Herod. p. 121. Add Ukert, Geographie der
Griechen und Romer, v. i. p. 2, 71.—M.]
18 (return) [ See Wood’s Observations on Homer, p. 320. I have,
with pleasure, selected this remark from an author who in general
seems to have disappointed the expectation of the public as a
critic, and still more as a traveller. He had visited the banks
of the Hellespont; and had read Strabo; he ought to have
consulted the Roman itineraries. How was it possible for him to
confound Ilium and Alexandria Troas, (Observations, p. 340, 341,)
two cities which were sixteen miles distant from each other? *
Note: Compare Walpole’s Memoirs on Turkey, v. i. p. 101. Dr.
Clarke adopted Mr. Walpole’s interpretation of the salt
Hellespont. But the old interpretation is more graphic and
Homeric. Clarke’s Travels, ii. 70.—M.]
19 (return) [ Demetrius of Scepsis wrote sixty books on thirty
lines of Homer’s catalogue. The XIIIth Book of Strabo is
sufficient for _our_ curiosity.]
20 (return) [ Strabo, l. xiii. p. 595, [890, edit. Casaub.] The
disposition of the ships, which were drawn upon dry land, and the
posts of Ajax and Achilles, are very clearly described by Homer.
See Iliad, ix. 220.]
21 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. [c. 30,] p. 105. Sozomen, l. ii. c.
3. Theophanes, p. 18. Nicephorus Callistus, l. vii. p. 48.
Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 6. Zosimus places the new city
between Ilium and Alexandria, but this apparent difference may be
reconciled by the large extent of its circumference. Before the
foundation of Constantinople, Thessalonica is mentioned by
Cedrenus, (p. 283,) and Sardica by Zonaras, as the intended
capital. They both suppose with very little probability, that the
emperor, if he had not been prevented by a prodigy, would have
repeated the mistake of the _blind_ Chalcedonians.]
We are at present qualified to view the advantageous position of
Constantinople; which appears to have been formed by nature for
the centre and capital of a great monarchy. Situated in the
forty-first degree of latitude, the Imperial city commanded, from
her seven hills, 22 the opposite shores of Europe and Asia; the
climate was healthy and temperate, the soil fertile, the harbor
secure and capacious; and the approach on the side of the
continent was of small extent and easy defence. The Bosphorus and
the Hellespont may be considered as the two gates of
Constantinople; and the prince who possessed those important
passages could always shut them against a naval enemy, and open
them to the fleets of commerce. The preservation of the eastern
provinces may, in some degree, be ascribed to the policy of
Constantine, as the barbarians of the Euxine, who in the
preceding age had poured their armaments into the heart of the
Mediterranean, soon desisted from the exercise of piracy, and
despaired of forcing this insurmountable barrier. When the gates
of the Hellespont and Bosphorus were shut, the capital still
enjoyed within their spacious enclosure every production which
could supply the wants, or gratify the luxury, of its numerous
inhabitants. The sea-coasts of Thrace and Bithynia, which
languish under the weight of Turkish oppression, still exhibit a
rich prospect of vineyards, of gardens, and of plentiful
harvests; and the Propontis has ever been renowned for an
inexhaustible store of the most exquisite fish, that are taken in
their stated seasons, without skill, and almost without labor. 23
But when the passages of the straits were thrown open for trade,
they alternately admitted the natural and artificial riches of
the north and south, of the Euxine, and of the Mediterranean.
Whatever rude commodities were collected in the forests of
Germany and Scythia, and far as the sources of the Tanais and the
Borysthenes; whatsoever was manufactured by the skill of Europe
or Asia; the corn of Egypt, and the gems and spices of the
farthest India, were brought by the varying winds into the port
of Constantinople, which for many ages attracted the commerce of
the ancient world. 24
[See Basilica Of Constantinople]
22 (return) [ Pocock’s Description of the East, vol. ii. part ii.
p. 127. His plan of the seven hills is clear and accurate. That
traveller is seldom unsatisfactory.]
23 (return) [ See Belon, Observations, c. 72—76. Among a variety
of different species, the Pelamides, a sort of Thunnies, were the
most celebrated. We may learn from Polybius, Strabo, and Tacitus,
that the profits of the fishery constituted the principal revenue
of Byzantium.]
24 (return) [ See the eloquent description of Busbequius,
epistol. i. p. 64. Est in Europa; habet in conspectu Asiam,
Egyptum. Africamque a dextrâ: quæ tametsi contiguæ non sunt,
maris tamen navigandique commoditate veluti junguntur. A sinistra
vero Pontus est Euxinus, &c.]
The prospect of beauty, of safety, and of wealth, united in a
single spot, was sufficient to justify the choice of Constantine.
But as some decent mixture of prodigy and fable has, in every
age, been supposed to reflect a becoming majesty on the origin of
great cities, 25 the emperor was desirous of ascribing his
resolution, not so much to the uncertain counsels of human
policy, as to the infallible and eternal decrees of divine
wisdom. In one of his laws he has been careful to instruct
posterity, that in obedience to the commands of God, he laid the
everlasting foundations of Constantinople: 26 and though he has
not condescended to relate in what manner the celestial
inspiration was communicated to his mind, the defect of his
modest silence has been liberally supplied by the ingenuity of
succeeding writers; who describe the nocturnal vision which
appeared to the fancy of Constantine, as he slept within the
walls of Byzantium. The tutelar genius of the city, a venerable
matron sinking under the weight of years and infirmities, was
suddenly transformed into a blooming maid, whom his own hands
adorned with all the symbols of Imperial greatness. 27 The
monarch awoke, interpreted the auspicious omen, and obeyed,
without hesitation, the will of Heaven. The day which gave birth
to a city or colony was celebrated by the Romans with such
ceremonies as had been ordained by a generous superstition; 28
and though Constantine might omit some rites which savored too
strongly of their Pagan origin, yet he was anxious to leave a
deep impression of hope and respect on the minds of the
spectators. On foot, with a lance in his hand, the emperor
himself led the solemn procession; and directed the line, which
was traced as the boundary of the destined capital: till the
growing circumference was observed with astonishment by the
assistants, who, at length, ventured to observe, that he had
already exceeded the most ample measure of a great city. “I shall
still advance,” replied Constantine, “till He, the invisible
guide who marches before me, thinks proper to stop.” 29 Without
presuming to investigate the nature or motives of this
extraordinary conductor, we shall content ourselves with the more
humble task of describing the extent and limits of
Constantinople. 30
25 (return) [ Datur hæc venia antiquitati, ut miscendo humana
divinis, primordia urbium augustiora faciat. T. Liv. in proœm.]
26 (return) [ He says in one of his laws, pro commoditate urbis
quam æterno nomine, jubente Deo, donavimus. Cod. Theodos. l.
xiii. tit. v. leg. 7.]
27 (return) [ The Greeks, Theophanes, Cedrenus, and the author of
the Alexandrian Chronicle, confine themselves to vague and
general expressions. For a more particular account of the vision,
we are obliged to have recourse to such Latin writers as William
of Malmesbury. See Ducange, C. P. l. i. p. 24, 25.]
28 (return) [ See Plutarch in Romul. tom. i. p. 49, edit. Bryan.
Among other ceremonies, a large hole, which had been dug for that
purpose, was filled up with handfuls of earth, which each of the
settlers brought from the place of his birth, and thus adopted
his new country.]
29 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. ii. c. 9. This incident, though
borrowed from a suspected writer, is characteristic and
probable.]
30 (return) [ See in the Mémoires de l’Académie, tom. xxxv p.
747-758, a dissertation of M. d’Anville on the extent of
Constantinople. He takes the plan inserted in the Imperium
Orientale of Banduri as the most complete; but, by a series of
very nice observations, he reduced the extravagant proportion of
the scale, and instead of 9500, determines the circumference of
the city as consisting of about 7800 French _toises_.]
In the actual state of the city, the palace and gardens of the
Seraglio occupy the eastern promontory, the first of the seven
hills, and cover about one hundred and fifty acres of our own
measure. The seat of Turkish jealousy and despotism is erected on
the foundations of a Grecian republic; but it may be supposed
that the Byzantines were tempted by the conveniency of the harbor
to extend their habitations on that side beyond the modern limits
of the Seraglio. The new walls of Constantine stretched from the
port to the Propontis across the enlarged breadth of the
triangle, at the distance of fifteen stadia from the ancient
fortification; and with the city of Byzantium they enclosed five
of the seven hills, which, to the eyes of those who approach
Constantinople, appear to rise above each other in beautiful
order. 31 About a century after the death of the founder, the new
buildings, extending on one side up the harbor, and on the other
along the Propontis, already covered the narrow ridge of the
sixth, and the broad summit of the seventh hill. The necessity of
protecting those suburbs from the incessant inroads of the
barbarians engaged the younger Theodosius to surround his capital
with an adequate and permanent enclosure of walls. 32 From the
eastern promontory to the golden gate, the extreme length of
Constantinople was about three Roman miles; 33 the circumference
measured between ten and eleven; and the surface might be
computed as equal to about two thousand English acres. It is
impossible to justify the vain and credulous exaggerations of
modern travellers, who have sometimes stretched the limits of
Constantinople over the adjacent villages of the European, and
even of the Asiatic coast. 34 But the suburbs of Pera and Galata,
though situate beyond the harbor, may deserve to be considered as
a part of the city; 35 and this addition may perhaps authorize
the measure of a Byzantine historian, who assigns sixteen Greek
(about fourteen Roman) miles for the circumference of his native
city. 36 Such an extent may not seem unworthy of an Imperial
residence. Yet Constantinople must yield to Babylon and Thebes,
37 to ancient Rome, to London, and even to Paris. 38
31 (return) [ Codinus, Antiquitat. Const. p. 12. He assigns the
church of St. Anthony as the boundary on the side of the harbor.
It is mentioned in Ducange, l. iv. c. 6; but I have tried,
without success, to discover the exact place where it was
situated.]
32 (return) [ The new wall of Theodosius was constructed in the
year 413. In 447 it was thrown down by an earthquake, and rebuilt
in three months by the diligence of the præfect Cyrus. The suburb
of the Blanchernæ was first taken into the city in the reign of
Heraclius Ducange, Const. l. i. c. 10, 11.]
33 (return) [ The measurement is expressed in the Notitia by
14,075 feet. It is reasonable to suppose that these were Greek
feet, the proportion of which has been ingeniously determined by
M. d’Anville. He compares the 180 feet with 78 Hashemite cubits,
which in different writers are assigned for the heights of St.
Sophia. Each of these cubits was equal to 27 French inches.]
34 (return) [ The accurate Thevenot (l. i. c. 15) walked in one
hour and three quarters round two of the sides of the triangle,
from the Kiosk of the Seraglio to the seven towers. D’Anville
examines with care, and receives with confidence, this decisive
testimony, which gives a circumference of ten or twelve miles.
The extravagant computation of Tournefort (Lettre XI) of
thirty-tour or thirty miles, without including Scutari, is a
strange departure from his usual character.]
35 (return) [ The sycæ, or fig-trees, formed the thirteenth
region, and were very much embellished by Justinian. It has since
borne the names of Pera and Galata. The etymology of the former
is obvious; that of the latter is unknown. See Ducange, Const. l.
i. c. 22, and Gyllius de Byzant. l. iv. c. 10.]
36 (return) [ One hundred and eleven stadia, which may be
translated into modern Greek miles each of seven stadia, or 660,
sometimes only 600 French toises. See D’Anville, Mesures
Itineraires, p. 53.]
37 (return) [ When the ancient texts, which describe the size of
Babylon and Thebes, are settled, the exaggerations reduced, and
the measures ascertained, we find that those famous cities filled
the great but not incredible circumference of about twenty-five
or thirty miles. Compare D’Anville, Mém. de l’Académie, tom.
xxviii. p. 235, with his Description de l’Egypte, p. 201, 202.]
38 (return) [ If we divide Constantinople and Paris into equal
squares of 50 French _toises_, the former contains 850, and the
latter 1160, of those divisions.]
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part II.
The master of the Roman world, who aspired to erect an eternal
monument of the glories of his reign could employ in the
prosecution of that great work, the wealth, the labor, and all
that yet remained of the genius of obedient millions. Some
estimate may be formed of the expense bestowed with Imperial
liberality on the foundation of Constantinople, by the allowance
of about two millions five hundred thousand pounds for the
construction of the walls, the porticos, and the aqueducts. 39
The forests that overshadowed the shores of the Euxine, and the
celebrated quarries of white marble in the little island of
Proconnesus, supplied an inexhaustible stock of materials, ready
to be conveyed, by the convenience of a short water carriage, to
the harbor of Byzantium. 40 A multitude of laborers and
artificers urged the conclusion of the work with incessant toil:
but the impatience of Constantine soon discovered, that, in the
decline of the arts, the skill as well as numbers of his
architects bore a very unequal proportion to the greatness of his
designs. The magistrates of the most distant provinces were
therefore directed to institute schools, to appoint professors,
and by the hopes of rewards and privileges, to engage in the
study and practice of architecture a sufficient number of
ingenious youths, who had received a liberal education. 41 The
buildings of the new city were executed by such artificers as the
reign of Constantine could afford; but they were decorated by the
hands of the most celebrated masters of the age of Pericles and
Alexander. To revive the genius of Phidias and Lysippus,
surpassed indeed the power of a Roman emperor; but the immortal
productions which they had bequeathed to posterity were exposed
without defence to the rapacious vanity of a despot. By his
commands the cities of Greece and Asia were despoiled of their
most valuable ornaments. 42 The trophies of memorable wars, the
objects of religious veneration, the most finished statues of the
gods and heroes, of the sages and poets, of ancient times,
contributed to the splendid triumph of Constantinople; and gave
occasion to the remark of the historian Cedrenus, 43 who
observes, with some enthusiasm, that nothing seemed wanting
except the souls of the illustrious men whom these admirable
monuments were intended to represent. But it is not in the city
of Constantine, nor in the declining period of an empire, when
the human mind was depressed by civil and religious slavery, that
we should seek for the souls of Homer and of Demosthenes.
39 (return) [ Six hundred centenaries, or sixty thousand pounds’
weight of gold. This sum is taken from Codinus, Antiquit. Const.
p. 11; but unless that contemptible author had derived his
information from some purer sources, he would probably have been
unacquainted with so obsolete a mode of reckoning.]
40 (return) [ For the forests of the Black Sea, consult
Tournefort, Lettre XVI. for the marble quarries of Proconnesus,
see Strabo, l. xiii. p. 588, (881, edit. Casaub.) The latter had
already furnished the materials of the stately buildings of
Cyzicus.]
41 (return) [ See the Codex Theodos. l. xiii. tit. iv. leg. 1.
This law is dated in the year 334, and was addressed to the
præfect of Italy, whose jurisdiction extended over Africa. The
commentary of Godefroy on the whole title well deserves to be
consulted.]
42 (return) [ Constantinopolis dedicatur pœne omnium urbium
nuditate. Hieronym. Chron. p. 181. See Codinus, p. 8, 9. The
author of the Antiquitat. Const. l. iii. (apud Banduri Imp.
Orient. tom. i. p. 41) enumerates Rome, Sicily, Antioch, Athens,
and a long list of other cities. The provinces of Greece and Asia
Minor may be supposed to have yielded the richest booty.]
43 (return) [ Hist. Compend. p. 369. He describes the statue, or
rather bust, of Homer with a degree of taste which plainly
indicates that Cadrenus copied the style of a more fortunate
age.]
During the siege of Byzantium, the conqueror had pitched his tent
on the commanding eminence of the second hill. To perpetuate the
memory of his success, he chose the same advantageous position
for the principal Forum; 44 which appears to have been of a
circular, or rather elliptical form. The two opposite entrances
formed triumphal arches; the porticos, which enclosed it on every
side, were filled with statues; and the centre of the Forum was
occupied by a lofty column, of which a mutilated fragment is now
degraded by the appellation of the _burnt pillar_. This column
was erected on a pedestal of white marble twenty feet high; and
was composed of ten pieces of porphyry, each of which measured
about ten feet in height, and about thirty-three in
circumference. 45 On the summit of the pillar, above one hundred
and twenty feet from the ground, stood the colossal statue of
Apollo. It was a bronze, had been transported either from Athens
or from a town of Phrygia, and was supposed to be the work of
Phidias. The artist had represented the god of day, or, as it was
afterwards interpreted, the emperor Constantine himself, with a
sceptre in his right hand, the globe of the world in his left,
and a crown of rays glittering on his head. 46 The Circus, or
Hippodrome, was a stately building about four hundred paces in
length, and one hundred in breadth. 47 The space between the two
_metæ_ or goals were filled with statues and obelisks; and we may
still remark a very singular fragment of antiquity; the bodies of
three serpents, twisted into one pillar of brass. Their triple
heads had once supported the golden tripod which, after the
defeat of Xerxes, was consecrated in the temple of Delphi by the
victorious Greeks. 48 The beauty of the Hippodrome has been long
since defaced by the rude hands of the Turkish conquerors; 4811
but, under the similar appellation of Atmeidan, it still serves
as a place of exercise for their horses. From the throne, whence
the emperor viewed the Circensian games, a winding staircase 49
descended to the palace; a magnificent edifice, which scarcely
yielded to the residence of Rome itself, and which, together with
the dependent courts, gardens, and porticos, covered a
considerable extent of ground upon the banks of the Propontis
between the Hippodrome and the church of St. Sophia. 50 We might
likewise celebrate the baths, which still retained the name of
Zeuxippus, after they had been enriched, by the munificence of
Constantine, with lofty columns, various marbles, and above
threescore statues of bronze. 51 But we should deviate from the
design of this history, if we attempted minutely to describe the
different buildings or quarters of the city. It may be sufficient
to observe, that whatever could adorn the dignity of a great
capital, or contribute to the benefit or pleasure of its numerous
inhabitants, was contained within the walls of Constantinople. A
particular description, composed about a century after its
foundation, enumerates a capitol or school of learning, a circus,
two theatres, eight public, and one hundred and fifty-three
private baths, fifty-two porticos, five granaries, eight
aqueducts or reservoirs of water, four spacious halls for the
meetings of the senate or courts of justice, fourteen churches,
fourteen palaces, and four thousand three hundred and
eighty-eight houses, which, for their size or beauty, deserved to
be distinguished from the multitude of plebeian inhabitants. 52
44 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. p. 106. Chron. Alexandrin. vel
Paschal. p. 284, Ducange, Const. l. i. c. 24. Even the last of
those writers seems to confound the Forum of Constantine with the
Augusteum, or court of the palace. I am not satisfied whether I
have properly distinguished what belongs to the one and the
other.]
45 (return) [ The most tolerable account of this column is given
by Pocock. Description of the East, vol. ii. part ii. p. 131. But
it is still in many instances perplexed and unsatisfactory.]
46 (return) [ Ducange, Const. l. i. c. 24, p. 76, and his notes
ad Alexiad. p. 382. The statue of Constantine or Apollo was
thrown down under the reign of Alexius Comnenus. * Note: On this
column (says M. von Hammer) Constantine, with singular
shamelessness, placed his own statue with the attributes of
Apollo and Christ. He substituted the nails of the Passion for
the rays of the sun. Such is the direct testimony of the author
of the Antiquit. Constantinop. apud Banduri. Constantine was
replaced by the “great and religious” Julian, Julian, by
Theodosius. A. D. 1412, the key stone was loosened by an
earthquake. The statue fell in the reign of Alexius Comnenus, and
was replaced by the cross. The Palladium was said to be buried
under the pillar. Von Hammer, Constantinopolis und der Bosporos,
i. 162.—M.]
47 (return) [ Tournefort (Lettre XII.) computes the Atmeidan at
four hundred paces. If he means geometrical paces of five feet
each, it was three hundred _toises_ in length, about forty more
than the great circus of Rome. See D’Anville, Mesures
Itineraires, p. 73.]
48 (return) [ The guardians of the most holy relics would rejoice
if they were able to produce such a chain of evidence as may be
alleged on this occasion. See Banduri ad Antiquitat. Const. p.
668. Gyllius de Byzant. l. ii. c. 13. 1. The original
consecration of the tripod and pillar in the temple of Delphi may
be proved from Herodotus and Pausanias. 2. The Pagan Zosimus
agrees with the three ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius,
Socrates, and Sozomen, that the sacred ornaments of the temple of
Delphi were removed to Constantinople by the order of
Constantine; and among these the serpentine pillar of the
Hippodrome is particularly mentioned. 3. All the European
travellers who have visited Constantinople, from Buondelmonte to
Pocock, describe it in the same place, and almost in the same
manner; the differences between them are occasioned only by the
injuries which it has sustained from the Turks. Mahomet the
Second broke the under jaw of one of the serpents with a stroke
of his battle axe Thevenot, l. i. c. 17. * Note: See note 75, ch.
lxviii. for Dr. Clarke’s rejection of Thevenot’s authority. Von
Hammer, however, repeats the story of Thevenot without
questioning its authenticity.—M.]
4811 (return) [ In 1808 the Janizaries revolted against the
vizier Mustapha Baisactar, who wished to introduce a new system
of military organization, besieged the quarter of the Hippodrome,
in which stood the palace of the viziers, and the Hippodrome was
consumed in the conflagration.—G.]
49 (return) [ The Latin name _Cochlea_ was adopted by the Greeks,
and very frequently occurs in the Byzantine history. Ducange,
Const. i. c. l, p. 104.]
50 (return) [ There are three topographical points which indicate
the situation of the palace. 1. The staircase which connected it
with the Hippodrome or Atmeidan. 2. A small artificial port on
the Propontis, from whence there was an easy ascent, by a flight
of marble steps, to the gardens of the palace. 3. The Augusteum
was a spacious court, one side of which was occupied by the front
of the palace, and another by the church of St. Sophia.]
51 (return) [ Zeuxippus was an epithet of Jupiter, and the baths
were a part of old Byzantium. The difficulty of assigning their
true situation has not been felt by Ducange. History seems to
connect them with St. Sophia and the palace; but the original
plan inserted in Banduri places them on the other side of the
city, near the harbor. For their beauties, see Chron. Paschal. p.
285, and Gyllius de Byzant. l. ii. c. 7. Christodorus (see
Antiquitat. Const. l. vii.) composed inscriptions in verse for
each of the statues. He was a Theban poet in genius as well as in
birth:—Bæotum in crasso jurares aëre natum. * Note: Yet, for his
age, the description of the statues of Hecuba and of Homer are by
no means without merit. See Antholog. Palat. (edit. Jacobs) i.
37—M.]
52 (return) [ See the Notitia. Rome only reckoned 1780 large
houses, _domus;_ but the word must have had a more dignified
signification. No _insulæ_ are mentioned at Constantinople. The
old capital consisted of 42 streets, the new of 322.]
The populousness of his favored city was the next and most
serious object of the attention of its founder. In the dark ages
which succeeded the translation of the empire, the remote and the
immediate consequences of that memorable event were strangely
confounded by the vanity of the Greeks and the credulity of the
Latins. 53 It was asserted, and believed, that all the noble
families of Rome, the senate, and the equestrian order, with
their innumerable attendants, had followed their emperor to the
banks of the Propontis; that a spurious race of strangers and
plebeians was left to possess the solitude of the ancient
capital; and that the lands of Italy, long since converted into
gardens, were at once deprived of cultivation and inhabitants. 54
In the course of this history, such exaggerations will be reduced
to their just value: yet, since the growth of Constantinople
cannot be ascribed to the general increase of mankind and of
industry, it must be admitted that this artificial colony was
raised at the expense of the ancient cities of the empire. Many
opulent senators of Rome, and of the eastern provinces, were
probably invited by Constantine to adopt for their country the
fortunate spot, which he had chosen for his own residence. The
invitations of a master are scarcely to be distinguished from
commands; and the liberality of the emperor obtained a ready and
cheerful obedience. He bestowed on his favorites the palaces
which he had built in the several quarters of the city, assigned
them lands and pensions for the support of their dignity, 55 and
alienated the demesnes of Pontus and Asia to grant hereditary
estates by the easy tenure of maintaining a house in the capital.
56 But these encouragements and obligations soon became
superfluous, and were gradually abolished. Wherever the seat of
government is fixed, a considerable part of the public revenue
will be expended by the prince himself, by his ministers, by the
officers of justice, and by the domestics of the palace. The most
wealthy of the provincials will be attracted by the powerful
motives of interest and duty, of amusement and curiosity. A third
and more numerous class of inhabitants will insensibly be formed,
of servants, of artificers, and of merchants, who derive their
subsistence from their own labor, and from the wants or luxury of
the superior ranks. In less than a century, Constantinople
disputed with Rome itself the preëminence of riches and numbers.
New piles of buildings, crowded together with too little regard
to health or convenience, scarcely allowed the intervals of
narrow streets for the perpetual throng of men, of horses, and of
carriages. The allotted space of ground was insufficient to
contain the increasing people; and the additional foundations,
which, on either side, were advanced into the sea, might alone
have composed a very considerable city. 57
53 (return) [ Liutprand, Legatio ad Imp. Nicephornm, p. 153. The
modern Greeks have strangely disfigured the antiquities of
Constantinople. We might excuse the errors of the Turkish or
Arabian writers; but it is somewhat astonishing, that the Greeks,
who had access to the authentic materials preserved in their own
language, should prefer fiction to truth, and loose tradition to
genuine history. In a single page of Codinus we may detect twelve
unpardonable mistakes; the reconciliation of Severus and Niger,
the marriage of their son and daughter, the siege of Byzantium by
the Macedonians, the invasion of the Gauls, which recalled
Severus to Rome, the _sixty_ years which elapsed from his death
to the foundation of Constantinople, &c.]
54 (return) [ Montesquieu, Grandeur et Décadence des Romains, c.
17.]
55 (return) [ Themist. Orat. iii. p. 48, edit. Hardouin. Sozomen,
l. ii. c. 3. Zosim. l. ii. p. 107. Anonym. Valesian. p. 715. If
we could credit Codinus, (p. 10,) Constantine built houses for
the senators on the exact model of their Roman palaces, and
gratified them, as well as himself, with the pleasure of an
agreeable surprise; but the whole story is full of fictions and
inconsistencies.]
56 (return) [ The law by which the younger Theodosius, in the
year 438, abolished this tenure, may be found among the Novellæ
of that emperor at the end of the Theodosian Code, tom. vi. nov.
12. M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 371) has
evidently mistaken the nature of these estates. With a grant from
the Imperial demesnes, the same condition was accepted as a
favor, which would justly have been deemed a hardship, if it had
been imposed upon private property.]
57 (return) [ The passages of Zosimus, of Eunapius, of Sozomen,
and of Agathias, which relate to the increase of buildings and
inhabitants at Constantinople, are collected and connected by
Gyllius de Byzant. l. i. c. 3. Sidonius Apollinaris (in Panegyr.
Anthem. 56, p. 279, edit. Sirmond) describes the moles that were
pushed forwards into the sea, they consisted of the famous
Puzzolan sand, which hardens in the water.]
The frequent and regular distributions of wine and oil, of corn
or bread, of money or provisions, had almost exempted the poorest
citizens of Rome from the necessity of labor. The magnificence of
the first Cæsars was in some measure imitated by the founder of
Constantinople: 58 but his liberality, however it might excite
the applause of the people, has incurred the censure of
posterity. A nation of legislators and conquerors might assert
their claim to the harvests of Africa, which had been purchased
with their blood; and it was artfully contrived by Augustus,
that, in the enjoyment of plenty, the Romans should lose the
memory of freedom. But the prodigality of Constantine could not
be excused by any consideration either of public or private
interest; and the annual tribute of corn imposed upon Egypt for
the benefit of his new capital, was applied to feed a lazy and
insolent populace, at the expense of the husbandmen of an
industrious province. 59 5911 Some other regulations of this
emperor are less liable to blame, but they are less deserving of
notice. He divided Constantinople into fourteen regions or
quarters, 60 dignified the public council with the appellation of
senate, 61 communicated to the citizens the privileges of Italy,
62 and bestowed on the rising city the title of Colony, the first
and most favored daughter of ancient Rome. The venerable parent
still maintained the legal and acknowledged supremacy, which was
due to her age, her dignity, and to the remembrance of her former
greatness. 63
58 (return) [ Sozomen, l. ii. c. 3. Philostorg. l. ii. c. 9.
Codin. Antiquitat. Const. p. 8. It appears by Socrates, l. ii. c.
13, that the daily allowance of the city consisted of eight
myriads of σίτου, which we may either translate, with Valesius,
by the words modii of corn, or consider us expressive of the
number of loaves of bread. * Note: At Rome the poorer citizens
who received these gratuities were inscribed in a register; they
had only a personal right. Constantine attached the right to the
houses in his new capital, to engage the lower classes of the
people to build their houses with expedition. Codex Therodos. l.
xiv.—G.]
59 (return) [ See Cod. Theodos. l. xiii. and xiv., and Cod.
Justinian. Edict. xii. tom. ii. p. 648, edit. Genev. See the
beautiful complaint of Rome in the poem of Claudian de Bell.
Gildonico, ver. 46-64.——Cum subiit par Roma mihi, divisaque
sumsit Æquales aurora togas; Ægyptia rura In partem cessere
novam.]
5911 (return) [ This was also at the expense of Rome. The emperor
ordered that the fleet of Alexandria should transport to
Constantinople the grain of Egypt which it carried before to
Rome: this grain supplied Rome during four months of the year.
Claudian has described with force the famine occasioned by this
measure:—
Hæc nobis, hæc ante dabas; nunc pabula tantum Roma precor:
miserere tuæ; pater optime, gentis: Extremam defende famem. Claud.
de Bell. Gildon. v. 34.—G.
It was scarcely this measure. Gildo had cut off the African as
well as the Egyptian supplies.—M.]
60 (return) [ The regions of Constantinople are mentioned in the
code of Justinian, and particularly described in the Notitia of
the younger Theodosius; but as the four last of them are not
included within the wall of Constantine, it may be doubted
whether this division of the city should be referred to the
founder.]
61 (return) [ Senatum constituit secundi ordinis; _Claros_
vocavit. Anonym Valesian. p. 715. The senators of old Rome were
styled _Clarissimi_. See a curious note of Valesius ad Ammian.
Marcellin. xxii. 9. From the eleventh epistle of Julian, it
should seem that the place of senator was considered as a burden,
rather than as an honor; but the Abbé de la Bleterie (Vie de
Jovien, tom. ii. p. 371) has shown that this epistle could not
relate to Constantinople. Might we not read, instead of the
celebrated name of the obscure but more probable word Bisanthe or
Rhœdestus, now Rhodosto, was a small maritime city of Thrace. See
Stephan. Byz. de Urbibus, p. 225, and Cellar. Geograph. tom. i.
p. 849.]
62 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. xiv. 13. The commentary of
Godefroy (tom. v. p. 220) is long, but perplexed; nor indeed is
it easy to ascertain in what the Jus Italicum could consist,
after the freedom of the city had been communicated to the whole
empire. * Note: “This right, (the Jus Italicum,) which by most
writers is referred with out foundation to the personal condition
of the citizens, properly related to the city as a whole, and
contained two parts. First, the Roman or quiritarian property in
the soil, (commercium,) and its capability of mancipation,
usucaption, and vindication; moreover, as an inseparable
consequence of this, exemption from land-tax. Then, secondly, a
free constitution in the Italian form, with Duumvirs,
Quinquennales. and Ædiles, and especially with Jurisdiction.”
Savigny, Geschichte des Rom. Rechts i. p. 51—M.]
63 (return) [ Julian (Orat. i. p. 8) celebrates Constantinople as
not less superior to all other cities than she was inferior to
Rome itself. His learned commentator (Spanheim, p. 75, 76)
justifies this language by several parallel and contemporary
instances. Zosimus, as well as Socrates and Sozomen, flourished
after the division of the empire between the two sons of
Theodosius, which established a perfect _equality_ between the
old and the new capital.]
As Constantine urged the progress of the work with the impatience
of a lover, the walls, the porticos, and the principal edifices
were completed in a few years, or, according to another account,
in a few months; 64 but this extraordinary diligence should
excite the less admiration, since many of the buildings were
finished in so hasty and imperfect a manner, that under the
succeeding reign, they were preserved with difficulty from
impending ruin. 65 But while they displayed the vigor and
freshness of youth, the founder prepared to celebrate the
dedication of his city. 66 The games and largesses which crowned
the pomp of this memorable festival may easily be supposed; but
there is one circumstance of a more singular and permanent
nature, which ought not entirely to be overlooked. As often as
the birthday of the city returned, the statue of Constantine,
framed by his order, of gilt wood, and bearing in his right hand
a small image of the genius of the place, was erected on a
triumphal car. The guards, carrying white tapers, and clothed in
their richest apparel, accompanied the solemn procession as it
moved through the Hippodrome. When it was opposite to the throne
of the reigning emperor, he rose from his seat, and with grateful
reverence adored the memory of his predecessor. 67 At the
festival of the dedication, an edict, engraved on a column of
marble, bestowed the title of Second or New Rome on the city of
Constantine. 68 But the name of Constantinople 69 has prevailed
over that honorable epithet; and after the revolution of fourteen
centuries, still perpetuates the fame of its author. 70
64 (return) [ Codinus (Antiquitat. p. 8) affirms, that the
foundations of Constantinople were laid in the year of the world
5837, (A. D. 329,) on the 26th of September, and that the city
was dedicated the 11th of May, 5838, (A. D. 330.) He connects
those dates with several characteristic epochs, but they
contradict each other; the authority of Codinus is of little
weight, and the space which he assigns must appear insufficient.
The term of ten years is given us by Julian, (Orat. i. p. 8;) and
Spanheim labors to establish the truth of it, (p. 69-75,) by the
help of two passages from Themistius, (Orat. iv. p. 58,) and of
Philostorgius, (l. ii. c. 9,) which form a period from the year
324 to the year 334. Modern critics are divided concerning this
point of chronology and their different sentiments are very
accurately described by Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv.
p. 619-625.]
65 (return) [ Themistius. Orat. iii. p. 47. Zosim. l. ii. p. 108.
Constantine himself, in one of his laws, (Cod. Theod. l. xv. tit.
i.,) betrays his impatience.]
66 (return) [ Cedrenus and Zonaras, faithful to the mode of
superstition which prevailed in their own times, assure us that
Constantinople was consecrated to the virgin Mother of God.]
67 (return) [ The earliest and most complete account of this
extraordinary ceremony may be found in the Alexandrian Chronicle,
p. 285. Tillemont, and the other friends of Constantine, who are
offended with the air of Paganism which seems unworthy of a
Christian prince, had a right to consider it as doubtful, but
they were not authorized to omit the mention of it.]
68 (return) [ Sozomen, l. ii. c. 2. Ducange C. P. l. i. c. 6.
Velut ipsius Romæ filiam, is the expression of Augustin. de
Civitat. Dei, l. v. c. 25.]
69 (return) [ Eutropius, l. x. c. 8. Julian. Orat. i. p. 8.
Ducange C. P. l. i. c. 5. The name of Constantinople is extant on
the medals of Constantine.]
70 (return) [ The lively Fontenelle (Dialogues des Morts, xii.)
affects to deride the vanity of human ambition, and seems to
triumph in the disappointment of Constantine, whose immortal name
is now lost in the vulgar appellation of Istambol, a Turkish
corruption of είς τήν πόλιω. Yet the original name is still
preserved, 1. By the nations of Europe. 2. By the modern Greeks.
3. By the Arabs, whose writings are diffused over the wide extent
of their conquests in Asia and Africa. See D’Herbelot,
Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 275. 4. By the more learned Turks, and
by the emperor himself in his public mandates Cantemir’s History
of the Othman Empire, p. 51.]
The foundation of a new capital is naturally connected with the
establishment of a new form of civil and military administration.
The distinct view of the complicated system of policy, introduced
by Diocletian, improved by Constantine, and completed by his
immediate successors, may not only amuse the fancy by the
singular picture of a great empire, but will tend to illustrate
the secret and internal causes of its rapid decay. In the pursuit
of any remarkable institution, we may be frequently led into the
more early or the more recent times of the Roman history; but the
proper limits of this inquiry will be included within a period of
about one hundred and thirty years, from the accession of
Constantine to the publication of the Theodosian code; 71 from
which, as well as from the _Notitia_ 7111 of the East and West,
72 we derive the most copious and authentic information of the
state of the empire. This variety of objects will suspend, for
some time, the course of the narrative; but the interruption will
be censured only by those readers who are insensible to the
importance of laws and manners, while they peruse, with eager
curiosity, the transient intrigues of a court, or the accidental
event of a battle.
71 (return) [ The Theodosian code was promulgated A. D. 438. See
the Prolegomena of Godefroy, c. i. p. 185.]
7111 (return) [ The Notitia Dignitatum Imperii is a description
of all the offices in the court and the state, of the legions,
&c. It resembles our court almanacs, (Red Books,) with this
single difference, that our almanacs name the persons in office,
the Notitia only the offices. It is of the time of the emperor
Theodosius II., that is to say, of the fifth century, when the
empire was divided into the Eastern and Western. It is probable
that it was not made for the first time, and that descriptions of
the same kind existed before.—G.]
72 (return) [ Pancirolus, in his elaborate Commentary, assigns to
the Notitia a date almost similar to that of the Theodosian Code;
but his proofs, or rather conjectures, are extremely feeble. I
should be rather inclined to place this useful work between the
final division of the empire (A. D. 395) and the successful
invasion of Gaul by the barbarians, (A. D. 407.) See Histoire des
Anciens Peuples de l’Europe, tom. vii. p. 40.]
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part III.
The manly pride of the Romans, content with substantial power,
had left to the vanity of the East the forms and ceremonies of
ostentatious greatness. 73 But when they lost even the semblance
of those virtues which were derived from their ancient freedom,
the simplicity of Roman manners was insensibly corrupted by the
stately affectation of the courts of Asia. The distinctions of
personal merit and influence, so conspicuous in a republic, so
feeble and obscure under a monarchy, were abolished by the
despotism of the emperors; who substituted in their room a severe
subordination of rank and office from the titled slaves who were
seated on the steps of the throne, to the meanest instruments of
arbitrary power. This multitude of abject dependants was
interested in the support of the actual government from the dread
of a revolution, which might at once confound their hopes and
intercept the reward of their services. In this divine hierarchy
(for such it is frequently styled) every rank was marked with the
most scrupulous exactness, and its dignity was displayed in a
variety of trifling and solemn ceremonies, which it was a study
to learn, and a sacrilege to neglect. 74 The purity of the Latin
language was debased, by adopting, in the intercourse of pride
and flattery, a profusion of epithets, which Tully would scarcely
have understood, and which Augustus would have rejected with
indignation. The principal officers of the empire were saluted,
even by the sovereign himself, with the deceitful titles of your
_Sincerity_, your _Gravity_, your _Excellency_, your _Eminence_,
your _sublime and wonderful Magnitude_, your _illustrious and
magnificent Highness_. 75 The codicils or patents of their office
were curiously emblazoned with such emblems as were best adapted
to explain its nature and high dignity; the image or portrait of
the reigning emperors; a triumphal car; the book of mandates
placed on a table, covered with a rich carpet, and illuminated by
four tapers; the allegorical figures of the provinces which they
governed; or the appellations and standards of the troops whom
they commanded. Some of these official ensigns were really
exhibited in their hall of audience; others preceded their
pompous march whenever they appeared in public; and every
circumstance of their demeanor, their dress, their ornaments, and
their train, was calculated to inspire a deep reverence for the
representatives of supreme majesty. By a philosophic observer,
the system of the Roman government might have been mistaken for a
splendid theatre, filled with players of every character and
degree, who repeated the language, and imitated the passions, of
their original model. 76
73 (return) [ Scilicet externæ superbiæ sueto, non inerat notitia
nostri, (perhaps _nostræ;_) apud quos vis Imperii valet, inania
transmittuntur. Tacit. Annal. xv. 31. The gradation from the
style of freedom and simplicity, to that of form and servitude,
may be traced in the Epistles of Cicero, of Pliny, and of
Symmachus.]
74 (return) [ The emperor Gratian, after confirming a law of
precedency published by Valentinian, the father of his
_Divinity_, thus continues: Siquis igitur indebitum sibi locum
usurpaverit, nulla se ignoratione defendat; sitque plane
_sacrilegii_ reus, qui _divina_ præcepta neglexerit. Cod. Theod.
l. vi. tit. v. leg. 2.]
75 (return) [ Consult the _Notitia Dignitatum_ at the end of the
Theodosian code, tom. vi. p. 316. * Note: Constantin, qui
remplaca le grand Patriciat par une noblesse titree et qui
changea avec d’autres institutions la nature de la societe
Latine, est le veritable fondateur de la royaute moderne, dans ce
quelle conserva de Romain. Chateaubriand, Etud. Histor. Preface,
i. 151. Manso, (Leben Constantins des Grossen,) p. 153, &c., has
given a lucid view of the dignities and duties of the officers in
the Imperial court.—M.]
76 (return) [ Pancirolus ad Notitiam utriusque Imperii, p. 39.
But his explanations are obscure, and he does not sufficiently
distinguish the painted emblems from the effective ensigns of
office.]
All the magistrates of sufficient importance to find a place in
the general state of the empire, were accurately divided into
three classes. 1. The _Illustrious_. 2. The _Spectabiles_, or
_Respectable_. And, 3. the _Clarissimi;_ whom we may translate by
the word _Honorable_. In the times of Roman simplicity, the
last-mentioned epithet was used only as a vague expression of
deference, till it became at length the peculiar and appropriated
title of all who were members of the senate, 77 and consequently
of all who, from that venerable body, were selected to govern the
provinces. The vanity of those who, from their rank and office,
might claim a superior distinction above the rest of the
senatorial order, was long afterwards indulged with the new
appellation of _Respectable;_ but the title of _Illustrious_ was
always reserved to some eminent personages who were obeyed or
reverenced by the two subordinate classes. It was communicated
only, I. To the consuls and patricians; II. To the Prætorian
præfects, with the præfects of Rome and Constantinople; III. To
the masters-general of the cavalry and the infantry; and IV. To
the seven ministers of the palace, who exercised their _sacred_
functions about the person of the emperor. 78 Among those
illustrious magistrates who were esteemed coordinate with each
other, the seniority of appointment gave place to the union of
dignities. 79 By the expedient of honorary codicils, the
emperors, who were fond of multiplying their favors, might
sometimes gratify the vanity, though not the ambition, of
impatient courtiers. 80
77 (return) [ In the Pandects, which may be referred to the
reigns of the Antonines, Clarissimus is the ordinary and legal
title of a senator.]
78 (return) [ Pancirol. p. 12-17. I have not taken any notice of
the two inferior ranks, _Prefectissimus_ and _Egregius_, which
were given to many persons who were not raised to the senatorial
dignity.]
79 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. vi. tit. vi. The rules of
precedency are ascertained with the most minute accuracy by the
emperors, and illustrated with equal prolixity by their learned
interpreter.]
80 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. vi. tit. xxii.]
I. As long as the Roman consuls were the first magistrates of a
free state, they derived their right to power from the choice of
the people. As long as the emperors condescended to disguise the
servitude which they imposed, the consuls were still elected by
the real or apparent suffrage of the senate. From the reign of
Diocletian, even these vestiges of liberty were abolished, and
the successful candidates who were invested with the annual
honors of the consulship, affected to deplore the humiliating
condition of their predecessors. The Scipios and the Catos had
been reduced to solicit the votes of plebeians, to pass through
the tedious and expensive forms of a popular election, and to
expose their dignity to the shame of a public refusal; while
their own happier fate had reserved them for an age and
government in which the rewards of virtue were assigned by the
unerring wisdom of a gracious sovereign. 81 In the epistles which
the emperor addressed to the two consuls elect, it was declared,
that they were created by his sole authority. 82 Their names and
portraits, engraved on gilt tables of ivory, were dispersed over
the empire as presents to the provinces, the cities, the
magistrates, the senate, and the people. 83 Their solemn
inauguration was performed at the place of the Imperial
residence; and during a period of one hundred and twenty years,
Rome was constantly deprived of the presence of her ancient
magistrates. 84
81 (return) [ Ausonius (in Gratiarum Actione) basely expatiates
on this unworthy topic, which is managed by Mamertinus (Panegyr.
Vet. xi. [x.] 16, 19) with somewhat more freedom and ingenuity.]
82 (return) [ Cum de Consulibus in annum creandis, solus mecum
volutarem.... te Consulem et designavi, et declaravi, et priorem
nuncupavi; are some of the expressions employed by the emperor
Gratian to his preceptor, the poet Ausonius.]
83 (return) [ Immanesque... dentes Qui secti ferro in tabulas
auroque micantes, Inscripti rutilum cœlato Consule nomen Per
proceres et vulgus eant. —Claud. in ii. Cons. Stilichon. 456.
Montfaucon has represented some of these tablets or dypticks see
Supplement à l’Antiquité expliquée, tom. iii. p. 220.]
84 (return) [
Consule lætatur post plurima seculo viso Pallanteus apex:
agnoscunt rostra curules Auditas quondam proavis: desuetaque
cingit Regius auratis Fora fascibus Ulpia lictor. —Claud. in vi.
Cons. Honorii, 643.
From the reign of Carus to the sixth consulship of Honorius,
there was an interval of one hundred and twenty years, during
which the emperors were always absent from Rome on the first day
of January. See the Chronologie de Tillemonte, tom. iii. iv. and
v.]
On the morning of the first of January, the consuls assumed the
ensigns of their dignity. Their dress was a robe of purple,
embroidered in silk and gold, and sometimes ornamented with
costly gems. 85 On this solemn occasion they were attended by the
most eminent officers of the state and army, in the habit of
senators; and the useless fasces, armed with the once formidable
axes, were borne before them by the lictors. The procession moved
from the palace 87 to the Forum or principal square of the city;
where the consuls ascended their tribunal, and seated themselves
in the curule chairs, which were framed after the fashion of
ancient times. They immediately exercised an act of jurisdiction,
by the manumission of a slave, who was brought before them for
that purpose; and the ceremony was intended to represent the
celebrated action of the elder Brutus, the author of liberty and
of the consulship, when he admitted among his fellow-citizens the
faithful Vindex, who had revealed the conspiracy of the Tarquins.
88 The public festival was continued during several days in all
the principal cities in Rome, from custom; in Constantinople,
from imitation in Carthage, Antioch, and Alexandria, from the
love of pleasure, and the superfluity of wealth. 89 In the two
capitals of the empire the annual games of the theatre, the
circus, and the amphitheatre, 90 cost four thousand pounds of
gold, (about) one hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling: and
if so heavy an expense surpassed the faculties or the
inclinations of the magistrates themselves, the sum was supplied
from the Imperial treasury. 91 As soon as the consuls had
discharged these customary duties, they were at liberty to retire
into the shade of private life, and to enjoy, during the
remainder of the year, the undisturbed contemplation of their own
greatness. They no longer presided in the national councils; they
no longer executed the resolutions of peace or war. Their
abilities (unless they were employed in more effective offices)
were of little moment; and their names served only as the legal
date of the year in which they had filled the chair of Marius and
of Cicero. Yet it was still felt and acknowledged, in the last
period of Roman servitude, that this empty name might be
compared, and even preferred, to the possession of substantial
power. The title of consul was still the most splendid object of
ambition, the noblest reward of virtue and loyalty. The emperors
themselves, who disdained the faint shadow of the republic, were
conscious that they acquired an additional splendor and majesty
as often as they assumed the annual honors of the consular
dignity. 92
85 (return) [ See Claudian in Cons. Prob. et Olybrii, 178, &c.;
and in iv. Cons. Honorii, 585, &c.; though in the latter it is
not easy to separate the ornaments of the emperor from those of
the consul. Ausonius received from the liberality of Gratian a
_vestis palmata_, or robe of state, in which the figure of the
emperor Constantius was embroidered. Cernis et armorum proceres
legumque potentes: Patricios sumunt habitus; et more Gabino
Discolor incedit legio, positisque parumper Bellorum signis,
sequitur vexilla Quirini. Lictori cedunt aquilæ, ridetque togatus
Miles, et in mediis effulget curia castris. —Claud. in iv. Cons.
Honorii, 5. —_strictaque_ procul radiare _secures_. —In Cons.
Prob. 229]
87 (return) [ See Valesius ad Ammian. Marcellin. l. xxii. c. 7.]
88 (return) [ Auspice mox læto sonuit clamore tribunal; Te fastos
ineunte quater; solemnia ludit Omina libertas; deductum Vindice
morem Lex servat, famulusque jugo laxatus herili Ducitur, et
grato remeat securior ictu. —Claud. in iv Cons. Honorii, 611]
89 (return) [ Celebrant quidem solemnes istos dies omnes ubique
urbes quæ sub legibus agunt; et Roma de more, et Constantinopolis
de imitatione, et Antiochia pro luxu, et discincta Carthago, et
domus fluminis Alexandria, sed Treviri Principis beneficio.
Ausonius in Grat. Actione.]
90 (return) [ Claudian (in Cons. Mall. Theodori, 279-331)
describes, in a lively and fanciful manner, the various games of
the circus, the theatre, and the amphitheatre, exhibited by the
new consul. The sanguinary combats of gladiators had already been
prohibited.]
91 (return) [ Procopius in Hist. Arcana, c. 26.]
92 (return) [ In Consulatu honos sine labore suscipitur.
(Mamertin. in Panegyr. Vet. xi. [x.] 2.) This exalted idea of the
consulship is borrowed from an oration (iii. p. 107) pronounced
by Julian in the servile court of Constantius. See the Abbé de la
Bleterie, (Mémoires de l’Académie, tom. xxiv. p. 289,) who
delights to pursue the vestiges of the old constitution, and who
sometimes finds them in his copious fancy]
The proudest and most perfect separation which can be found in
any age or country, between the nobles and the people, is perhaps
that of the Patricians and the Plebeians, as it was established
in the first age of the Roman republic. Wealth and honors, the
offices of the state, and the ceremonies of religion, were almost
exclusively possessed by the former who, preserving the purity of
their blood with the most insulting jealousy, 93 held their
clients in a condition of specious vassalage. But these
distinctions, so incompatible with the spirit of a free people,
were removed, after a long struggle, by the persevering efforts
of the Tribunes. The most active and successful of the Plebeians
accumulated wealth, aspired to honors, deserved triumphs,
contracted alliances, and, after some generations, assumed the
pride of ancient nobility. 94 The Patrician families, on the
other hand, whose original number was never recruited till the
end of the commonwealth, either failed in the ordinary course of
nature, or were extinguished in so many foreign and domestic
wars, or, through a want of merit or fortune, insensibly mingled
with the mass of the people. 95 Very few remained who could
derive their pure and genuine origin from the infancy of the
city, or even from that of the republic, when Cæsar and Augustus,
Claudius and Vespasian, created from the body of the senate a
competent number of new Patrician families, in the hope of
perpetuating an order, which was still considered as honorable
and sacred. 96 But these artificial supplies (in which the
reigning house was always included) were rapidly swept away by
the rage of tyrants, by frequent revolutions, by the change of
manners, and by the intermixture of nations. 97 Little more was
left when Constantine ascended the throne, than a vague and
imperfect tradition, that the Patricians had once been the first
of the Romans. To form a body of nobles, whose influence may
restrain, while it secures the authority of the monarch, would
have been very inconsistent with the character and policy of
Constantine; but had he seriously entertained such a design, it
might have exceeded the measure of his power to ratify, by an
arbitrary edict, an institution which must expect the sanction of
time and of opinion. He revived, indeed, the title of Patricians,
but he revived it as a personal, not as an hereditary
distinction. They yielded only to the transient superiority of
the annual consuls; but they enjoyed the pre-eminence over all
the great officers of state, with the most familiar access to the
person of the prince. This honorable rank was bestowed on them
for life; and as they were usually favorites, and ministers who
had grown old in the Imperial court, the true etymology of the
word was perverted by ignorance and flattery; and the Patricians
of Constantine were reverenced as the adopted _Fathers_ of the
emperor and the republic. 98
93 (return) [ Intermarriages between the Patricians and Plebeians
were prohibited by the laws of the XII Tables; and the uniform
operations of human nature may attest that the custom survived
the law. See in Livy (iv. 1-6) the pride of family urged by the
consul, and the rights of mankind asserted by the tribune
Canuleius.]
94 (return) [ See the animated picture drawn by Sallust, in the
Jugurthine war, of the pride of the nobles, and even of the
virtuous Metellus, who was unable to brook the idea that the
honor of the consulship should be bestowed on the obscure merit
of his lieutenant Marius. (c. 64.) Two hundred years before, the
race of the Metelli themselves were confounded among the
Plebeians of Rome; and from the etymology of their name of
_Cæcilius_, there is reason to believe that those haughty nobles
derived their origin from a sutler.]
95 (return) [ In the year of Rome 800, very few remained, not
only of the old Patrician families, but even of those which had
been created by Cæsar and Augustus. (Tacit. Annal. xi. 25.) The
family of Scaurus (a branch of the Patrician Æmilii) was degraded
so low that his father, who exercised the trade of a charcoal
merchant, left him only teu slaves, and somewhat less than three
hundred pounds sterling. (Valerius Maximus, l. iv. c. 4, n. 11.
Aurel. Victor in Scauro.) The family was saved from oblivion by
the merit of the son.]
96 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xi. 25. Dion Cassius, l. iii. p. 698.
The virtues of Agricola, who was created a Patrician by the
emperor Vespasian, reflected honor on that ancient order; but his
ancestors had not any claim beyond an Equestrian nobility.]
97 (return) [ This failure would have been almost impossible if
it were true, as Casaubon compels Aurelius Victor to affirm (ad
Sueton, in Cæsar v. 24. See Hist. August p. 203 and Casaubon
Comment., p. 220) that Vespasian created at once a thousand
Patrician families. But this extravagant number is too much even
for the whole Senatorial order. unless we should include all the
Roman knights who were distinguished by the permission of wearing
the laticlave.]
98 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 118; and Godefroy ad Cod.
Theodos. l. vi. tit. vi.]
II. The fortunes of the Prætorian præfects were essentially
different from those of the consuls and Patricians. The latter
saw their ancient greatness evaporate in a vain title.
The former, rising by degrees from the most humble condition,
were invested with the civil and military administration of the
Roman world. From the reign of Severus to that of Diocletian, the
guards and the palace, the laws and the finances, the armies and
the provinces, were intrusted to their superintending care; and,
like the Viziers of the East, they held with one hand the seal,
and with the other the standard, of the empire. The ambition of
the præfects, always formidable, and sometimes fatal to the
masters whom they served, was supported by the strength of the
Prætorian bands; but after those haughty troops had been weakened
by Diocletian, and finally suppressed by Constantine, the
præfects, who survived their fall, were reduced without
difficulty to the station of useful and obedient ministers. When
they were no longer responsible for the safety of the emperor’s
person, they resigned the jurisdiction which they had hitherto
claimed and exercised over all the departments of the palace.
They were deprived by Constantine of all military command, as
soon as they had ceased to lead into the field, under their
immediate orders, the flower of the Roman troops; and at length,
by a singular revolution, the captains of the guards were
transformed into the civil magistrates of the provinces.
According to the plan of government instituted by Diocletian, the
four princes had each their Prætorian præfect; and after the
monarchy was once more united in the person of Constantine, he
still continued to create the same number of Four Præfects, and
intrusted to their care the same provinces which they already
administered. 1. The præfect of the East stretched his ample
jurisdiction into the three parts of the globe which were subject
to the Romans, from the cataracts of the Nile to the banks of the
Phasis, and from the mountains of Thrace to the frontiers of
Persia. 2. The important provinces of Pannonia, Dacia, Macedonia,
and Greece, once acknowledged the authority of the præfect of
Illyricum. 3. The power of the præfect of Italy was not confined
to the country from whence he derived his title; it extended over
the additional territory of Rhætia as far as the banks of the
Danube, over the dependent islands of the Mediterranean, and over
that part of the continent of Africa which lies between the
confines of Cyrene and those of Tingitania. 4. The præfect of the
Gauls comprehended under that plural denomination the kindred
provinces of Britain and Spain, and his authority was obeyed from
the wall of Antoninus to the foot of Mount Atlas. 99
99 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 109, 110. If we had not
fortunately possessed this satisfactory account of the division
of the power and provinces of the Prætorian præfects, we should
frequently have been perplexed amidst the copious details of the
Code, and the circumstantial minuteness of the Notitia.]
After the Prætorian præfects had been dismissed from all military
command, the civil functions which they were ordained to exercise
over so many subject nations, were adequate to the ambition and
abilities of the most consummate ministers. To their wisdom was
committed the supreme administration of justice and of the
finances, the two objects which, in a state of peace, comprehend
almost all the respective duties of the sovereign and of the
people; of the former, to protect the citizens who are obedient
to the laws; of the latter, to contribute the share of their
property which is required for the expenses of the state. The
coin, the highways, the posts, the granaries, the manufactures,
whatever could interest the public prosperity, was moderated by
the authority of the Prætorian præfects. As the immediate
representatives of the Imperial majesty, they were empowered to
explain, to enforce, and on some occasions to modify, the general
edicts by their discretionary proclamations. They watched over
the conduct of the provincial governors, removed the negligent,
and inflicted punishments on the guilty. From all the inferior
jurisdictions, an appeal in every matter of importance, either
civil or criminal, might be brought before the tribunal of the
præfect; but _his_ sentence was final and absolute; and the
emperors themselves refused to admit any complaints against the
judgment or the integrity of a magistrate whom they honored with
such unbounded confidence. 100 His appointments were suitable to
his dignity; 101 and if avarice was his ruling passion, he
enjoyed frequent opportunities of collecting a rich harvest of
fees, of presents, and of perquisites. Though the emperors no
longer dreaded the ambition of their præfects, they were
attentive to counterbalance the power of this great office by the
uncertainty and shortness of its duration. 102
100 (return) [ See a law of Constantine himself. A præfectis
autem prætorio provocare, non sinimus. Cod. Justinian. l. vii.
tit. lxii. leg. 19. Charisius, a lawyer of the time of
Constantine, (Heinec. Hist. Romani, p. 349,) who admits this law
as a fundamental principle of jurisprudence, compares the
Prætorian præfects to the masters of the horse of the ancient
dictators. Pandect. l. i. tit. xi.]
101 (return) [ When Justinian, in the exhausted condition of the
empire, instituted a Prætorian præfect for Africa, he allowed him
a salary of one hundred pounds of gold. Cod. Justinian. l. i.
tit. xxvii. leg. i.]
102 (return) [ For this, and the other dignities of the empire,
it may be sufficient to refer to the ample commentaries of
Pancirolus and Godefroy, who have diligently collected and
accurately digested in their proper order all the legal and
historical materials. From those authors, Dr. Howell (History of
the World, vol. ii. p. 24-77) has deduced a very distinct
abridgment of the state of the Roman empire]
From their superior importance and dignity, Rome and
Constantinople were alone excepted from the jurisdiction of the
Prætorian præfects. The immense size of the city, and the
experience of the tardy, ineffectual operation of the laws, had
furnished the policy of Augustus with a specious pretence for
introducing a new magistrate, who alone could restrain a servile
and turbulent populace by the strong arm of arbitrary power. 103
Valerius Messalla was appointed the first præfect of Rome, that
his reputation might countenance so invidious a measure; but, at
the end of a few days, that accomplished citizen 104 resigned his
office, declaring, with a spirit worthy of the friend of Brutus,
that he found himself incapable of exercising a power
incompatible with public freedom. 105 As the sense of liberty
became less exquisite, the advantages of order were more clearly
understood; and the præfect, who seemed to have been designed as
a terror only to slaves and vagrants, was permitted to extend his
civil and criminal jurisdiction over the equestrian and noble
families of Rome. The prætors, annually created as the judges of
law and equity, could not long dispute the possession of the
Forum with a vigorous and permanent magistrate, who was usually
admitted into the confidence of the prince. Their courts were
deserted, their number, which had once fluctuated between twelve
and eighteen, 106 was gradually reduced to two or three, and
their important functions were confined to the expensive
obligation 107 of exhibiting games for the amusement of the
people. After the office of the Roman consuls had been changed
into a vain pageant, which was rarely displayed in the capital,
the præfects assumed their vacant place in the senate, and were
soon acknowledged as the ordinary presidents of that venerable
assembly. They received appeals from the distance of one hundred
miles; and it was allowed as a principle of jurisprudence, that
all municipal authority was derived from them alone. 108 In the
discharge of his laborious employment, the governor of Rome was
assisted by fifteen officers, some of whom had been originally
his equals, or even his superiors. The principal departments were
relative to the command of a numerous watch, established as a
safeguard against fires, robberies, and nocturnal disorders; the
custody and distribution of the public allowance of corn and
provisions; the care of the port, of the aqueducts, of the common
sewers, and of the navigation and bed of the Tyber; the
inspection of the markets, the theatres, and of the private as
well as the public works. Their vigilance insured the three
principal objects of a regular police, safety, plenty, and
cleanliness; and as a proof of the attention of government to
preserve the splendor and ornaments of the capital, a particular
inspector was appointed for the statues; the guardian, as it
were, of that inanimate people, which, according to the
extravagant computation of an old writer, was scarcely inferior
in number to the living inhabitants of Rome. About thirty years
after the foundation of Constantinople, a similar magistrate was
created in that rising metropolis, for the same uses and with the
same powers. A perfect equality was established between the
dignity of the _two_ municipal, and that of the _four_ Prætorian
præfects. 109
103 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. vi. 11. Euseb. in Chron. p. 155.
Dion Cassius, in the oration of Mæcenas, (l. lvii. p. 675,)
describes the prerogatives of the præfect of the city as they
were established in his own time.]
104 (return) [ The fame of Messalla has been scarcely equal to
his merit. In the earliest youth he was recommended by Cicero to
the friendship of Brutus. He followed the standard of the
republic till it was broken in the fields of Philippi; he then
accepted and deserved the favor of the most moderate of the
conquerors; and uniformly asserted his freedom and dignity in the
court of Augustus. The triumph of Messalla was justified by the
conquest of Aquitain. As an orator, he disputed the palm of
eloquence with Cicero himself. Messalla cultivated every muse,
and was the patron of every man of genius. He spent his evenings
in philosophic conversation with Horace; assumed his place at
table between Delia and Tibullus; and amused his leisure by
encouraging the poetical talents of young Ovid.]
105 (return) [ Incivilem esse potestatem contestans, says the
translator of Eusebius. Tacitus expresses the same idea in other
words; quasi nescius exercendi.]
106 (return) [ See Lipsius, Excursus D. ad 1 lib. Tacit. Annal.]
107 (return) [ Heineccii. Element. Juris Civilis secund ordinem
Pandect i. p. 70. See, likewise, Spanheim de Usu. Numismatum,
tom. ii. dissertat. x. p. 119. In the year 450, Marcian published
a law, that _three_ citizens should be annually created Prætors
of Constantinople by the choice of the senate, but with their own
consent. Cod. Justinian. li. i. tit. xxxix. leg. 2.]
108 (return) [ Quidquid igitur intra urbem admittitur, ad P. U.
videtur pertinere; sed et siquid intra contesimum milliarium.
Ulpian in Pandect l. i. tit. xiii. n. 1. He proceeds to enumerate
the various offices of the præfect, who, in the code of
Justinian, (l. i. tit. xxxix. leg. 3,) is declared to precede and
command all city magistrates sine injuria ac detrimento honoris
alieni.]
109 (return) [ Besides our usual guides, we may observe that
Felix Cantelorius has written a separate treatise, De Præfecto
Urbis; and that many curious details concerning the police of
Rome and Constantinople are contained in the fourteenth book of
the Theodosian Code.]
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part IV.
Those who, in the imperial hierarchy, were distinguished by the
title of _Respectable_, formed an intermediate class between the
_illustrious_ præfects, and the _honorable_ magistrates of the
provinces. In this class the proconsuls of Asia, Achaia, and
Africa, claimed a preëminence, which was yielded to the
remembrance of their ancient dignity; and the appeal from their
tribunal to that of the præfects was almost the only mark of
their dependence. 110 But the civil government of the empire was
distributed into thirteen great Dioceses, each of which equalled
the just measure of a powerful kingdom. The first of these
dioceses was subject to the jurisdiction of the _count_ of the
east; and we may convey some idea of the importance and variety
of his functions, by observing, that six hundred apparitors, who
would be styled at present either secretaries, or clerks, or
ushers, or messengers, were employed in his immediate office. 111
The place of _Augustal præfect_ of Egypt was no longer filled by
a Roman knight; but the name was retained; and the extraordinary
powers which the situation of the country, and the temper of the
inhabitants, had once made indispensable, were still continued to
the governor. The eleven remaining dioceses, of Asiana, Pontica,
and Thrace; of Macedonia, Dacia, and Pannonia, or Western
Illyricum; of Italy and Africa; of Gaul, Spain, and Britain; were
governed by twelve _vicars_ or _vice-præfects_, 112 whose name
sufficiently explains the nature and dependence of their office.
It may be added, that the lieutenant-generals of the Roman
armies, the military counts and dukes, who will be hereafter
mentioned, were allowed the rank and title of _Respectable_.
110 (return) [ Eunapius affirms, that the proconsul of Asia was
independent of the præfect; which must, however, be understood
with some allowance. the jurisdiction of the vice-præfect he most
assuredly disclaimed. Pancirolus, p. 161.]
111 (return) [ The proconsul of Africa had four hundred
apparitors; and they all received large salaries, either from the
treasury or the province See Pancirol. p. 26, and Cod. Justinian.
l. xii. tit. lvi. lvii.]
112 (return) [ In Italy there was likewise the _Vicar of Rome_.
It has been much disputed whether his jurisdiction measured one
hundred miles from the city, or whether it stretched over the ten
thousand provinces of Italy.]
As the spirit of jealousy and ostentation prevailed in the
councils of the emperors, they proceeded with anxious diligence
to divide the substance and to multiply the titles of power. The
vast countries which the Roman conquerors had united under the
same simple form of administration, were imperceptibly crumbled
into minute fragments; till at length the whole empire was
distributed into one hundred and sixteen provinces, each of which
supported an expensive and splendid establishment. Of these,
three were governed by _proconsuls_, thirty-seven by _consulars_,
five by _correctors_, and seventy-one by _presidents_. The
appellations of these magistrates were different; they ranked in
successive order, and the ensigns of and their situation, from
accidental circumstances, might be more or less agreeable or
advantageous. But they were all (excepting only the pro-consuls)
alike included in the class of _honorable_ persons; and they were
alike intrusted, during the pleasure of the prince, and under the
authority of the præfects or their deputies, with the
administration of justice and the finances in their respective
districts. The ponderous volumes of the Codes and Pandects 113
would furnish ample materials for a minute inquiry into the
system of provincial government, as in the space of six centuries
it was approved by the wisdom of the Roman statesmen and lawyers.
It may be sufficient for the historian to select two singular and
salutary provisions, intended to restrain the abuse of authority.
1. For the preservation of peace and order, the governors of the
provinces were armed with the sword of justice. They inflicted
corporal punishments, and they exercised, in capital offences,
the power of life and death. But they were not authorized to
indulge the condemned criminal with the choice of his own
execution, or to pronounce a sentence of the mildest and most
honorable kind of exile. These prerogatives were reserved to the
præfects, who alone could impose the heavy fine of fifty pounds
of gold: their vicegerents were confined to the trifling weight
of a few ounces. 114 This distinction, which seems to grant the
larger, while it denies the smaller degree of authority, was
founded on a very rational motive. The smaller degree was
infinitely more liable to abuse. The passions of a provincial
magistrate might frequently provoke him into acts of oppression,
which affected only the freedom or the fortunes of the subject;
though, from a principle of prudence, perhaps of humanity, he
might still be terrified by the guilt of innocent blood. It may
likewise be considered, that exile, considerable fines, or the
choice of an easy death, relate more particularly to the rich and
the noble; and the persons the most exposed to the avarice or
resentment of a provincial magistrate, were thus removed from his
obscure persecution to the more august and impartial tribunal of
the Prætorian præfect. 2. As it was reasonably apprehended that
the integrity of the judge might be biased, if his interest was
concerned, or his affections were engaged, the strictest
regulations were established, to exclude any person, without the
special dispensation of the emperor, from the government of the
province where he was born; 115 and to prohibit the governor or
his son from contracting marriage with a native, or an
inhabitant; 116 or from purchasing slaves, lands, or houses,
within the extent of his jurisdiction. 117 Notwithstanding these
rigorous precautions, the emperor Constantine, after a reign of
twenty-five years, still deplores the venal and oppressive
administration of justice, and expresses the warmest indignation
that the audience of the judge, his despatch of business, his
seasonable delays, and his final sentence, were publicly sold,
either by himself or by the officers of his court. The
continuance, and perhaps the impunity, of these crimes, is
attested by the repetition of impotent laws and ineffectual
menaces. 118
113 (return) [ Among the works of the celebrated Ulpian, there
was one in ten books, concerning the office of a proconsul, whose
duties in the most essential articles were the same as those of
an ordinary governor of a province.]
114 (return) [ The presidents, or consulars, could impose only
two ounces; the vice-præfects, three; the proconsuls, count of
the east, and præfect of Egypt, six. See Heineccii Jur. Civil.
tom. i. p. 75. Pandect. l. xlviii. tit. xix. n. 8. Cod.
Justinian. l. i. tit. liv. leg. 4, 6.]
115 (return) [ Ut nulli patriæ suæ administratio sine speciali
principis permissu permittatur. Cod. Justinian. l. i. tit. xli.
This law was first enacted by the emperor Marcus, after the
rebellion of Cassius. (Dion. l. lxxi.) The same regulation is
observed in China, with equal strictness, and with equal effect.]
116 (return) [ Pandect. l. xxiii. tit. ii. n. 38, 57, 63.]
117 (return) [ In jure continetur, ne quis in administratione
constitutus aliquid compararet. Cod. Theod. l. viii. tit. xv.
leg. l. This maxim of common law was enforced by a series of
edicts (see the remainder of the title) from Constantine to
Justin. From this prohibition, which is extended to the meanest
officers of the governor, they except only clothes and
provisions. The purchase within five years may be recovered;
after which on information, it devolves to the treasury.]
118 (return) [ Cessent rapaces jam nunc officialium manus;
cessent, inquam nam si moniti non cessaverint, gladiis
præcidentur, &c. Cod. Theod. l. i. tit. vii. leg. l. Zeno enacted
that all governors should remain in the province, to answer any
accusations, fifty days after the expiration of their power. Cod
Justinian. l. ii. tit. xlix. leg. l.]
All the civil magistrates were drawn from the profession of the
law. The celebrated Institutes of Justinian are addressed to the
youth of his dominions, who had devoted themselves to the study
of Roman jurisprudence; and the sovereign condescends to animate
their diligence, by the assurance that their skill and ability
would in time be rewarded by an adequate share in the government
of the republic. 119 The rudiments of this lucrative science were
taught in all the considerable cities of the east and west; but
the most famous school was that of Berytus, 120 on the coast of
Phœnicia; which flourished above three centuries from the time of
Alexander Severus, the author perhaps of an institution so
advantageous to his native country. After a regular course of
education, which lasted five years, the students dispersed
themselves through the provinces, in search of fortune and
honors; nor could they want an inexhaustible supply of business
in a great empire already corrupted by the multiplicity of laws,
of arts, and of vices. The court of the Prætorian præfect of the
east could alone furnish employment for one hundred and fifty
advocates, sixty-four of whom were distinguished by peculiar
privileges, and two were annually chosen, with a salary of sixty
pounds of gold, to defend the causes of the treasury. The first
experiment was made of their judicial talents, by appointing them
to act occasionally as assessors to the magistrates; from thence
they were often raised to preside in the tribunals before which
they had pleaded. They obtained the government of a province;
and, by the aid of merit, of reputation, or of favor, they
ascended, by successive steps, to the _illustrious_ dignities of
the state. 121 In the practice of the bar, these men had
considered reason as the instrument of dispute; they interpreted
the laws according to the dictates of private interest and the
same pernicious habits might still adhere to their characters in
the public administration of the state. The honor of a liberal
profession has indeed been vindicated by ancient and modern
advocates, who have filled the most important stations, with pure
integrity and consummate wisdom: but in the decline of Roman
jurisprudence, the ordinary promotion of lawyers was pregnant
with mischief and disgrace. The noble art, which had once been
preserved as the sacred inheritance of the patricians, was fallen
into the hands of freedmen and plebeians, 122 who, with cunning
rather than with skill, exercised a sordid and pernicious trade.
Some of them procured admittance into families for the purpose of
fomenting differences, of encouraging suits, and of preparing a
harvest of gain for themselves or their brethren. Others, recluse
in their chambers, maintained the dignity of legal professors, by
furnishing a rich client with subtleties to confound the plainest
truths, and with arguments to color the most unjustifiable
pretensions. The splendid and popular class was composed of the
advocates, who filled the Forum with the sound of their turgid
and loquacious rhetoric. Careless of fame and of justice, they
are described, for the most part, as ignorant and rapacious
guides, who conducted their clients through a maze of expense, of
delay, and of disappointment; from whence, after a tedious series
of years, they were at length dismissed, when their patience and
fortune were almost exhausted. 123
119 (return) [ Summâ igitur ope, et alacri studio has leges
nostras accipite; et vosmetipsos sic eruditos ostendite, ut spes
vos pulcherrima foveat; toto legitimo opere perfecto, posse etiam
nostram rempublicam in par tibus ejus vobis credendis gubernari.
Justinian in proem. Institutionum.]
120 (return) [ The splendor of the school of Berytus, which
preserved in the east the language and jurisprudence of the
Romans, may be computed to have lasted from the third to the
middle of the sixth century Heinecc. Jur. Rom. Hist. p. 351-356.]
121 (return) [ As in a former period I have traced the civil and
military promotion of Pertinax, I shall here insert the civil
honors of Mallius Theodorus. 1. He was distinguished by his
eloquence, while he pleaded as an advocate in the court of the
Prætorian præfect. 2. He governed one of the provinces of Africa,
either as president or consular, and deserved, by his
administration, the honor of a brass statue. 3. He was appointed
vicar, or vice-præfect, of Macedonia. 4. Quæstor. 5. Count of the
sacred largesses. 6. Prætorian præfect of the Gauls; whilst he
might yet be represented as a young man. 7. After a retreat,
perhaps a disgrace of many years, which Mallius (confounded by
some critics with the poet Manilius; see Fabricius Bibliothec.
Latin. Edit. Ernest. tom. i.c. 18, p. 501) employed in the study
of the Grecian philosophy he was named Prætorian præfect of
Italy, in the year 397. 8. While he still exercised that great
office, he was created, it the year 399, consul for the West; and
his name, on account of the infamy of his colleague, the eunuch
Eutropius, often stands alone in the Fasti. 9. In the year 408,
Mallius was appointed a second time Prætorian præfect of Italy.
Even in the venal panegyric of Claudian, we may discover the
merit of Mallius Theodorus, who, by a rare felicity, was the
intimate friend, both of Symmachus and of St. Augustin. See
Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 1110-1114.]
122 (return) [ Mamertinus in Panegyr. Vet. xi. [x.] 20. Asterius
apud Photium, p. 1500.]
123 (return) [ The curious passage of Ammianus, (l. xxx. c. 4,)
in which he paints the manners of contemporary lawyers, affords a
strange mixture of sound sense, false rhetoric, and extravagant
satire. Godefroy (Prolegom. ad. Cod. Theod. c. i. p. 185)
supports the historian by similar complaints and authentic facts.
In the fourth century, many camels might have been laden with
law-books. Eunapius in Vit. Ædesii, p. 72.]
III. In the system of policy introduced by Augustus, the
governors, those at least of the Imperial provinces, were
invested with the full powers of the sovereign himself. Ministers
of peace and war, the distribution of rewards and punishments
depended on them alone, and they successively appeared on their
tribunal in the robes of civil magistracy, and in complete armor
at the head of the Roman legions. 124 The influence of the
revenue, the authority of law, and the command of a military
force, concurred to render their power supreme and absolute; and
whenever they were tempted to violate their allegiance, the loyal
province which they involved in their rebellion was scarcely
sensible of any change in its political state. From the time of
Commodus to the reign of Constantine, near one hundred governors
might be enumerated, who, with various success, erected the
standard of revolt; and though the innocent were too often
sacrificed, the guilty might be sometimes prevented, by the
suspicious cruelty of their master. 125 To secure his throne and
the public tranquillity from these formidable servants,
Constantine resolved to divide the military from the civil
administration, and to establish, as a permanent and professional
distinction, a practice which had been adopted only as an
occasional expedient. The supreme jurisdiction exercised by the
Prætorian præfects over the armies of the empire, was transferred
to the two _masters-general_ whom he instituted, the one for the
_cavalry_, the other for the _infantry;_ and though each of these
_illustrious_ officers was more peculiarly responsible for the
discipline of those troops which were under his immediate
inspection, they both indifferently commanded in the field the
several bodies, whether of horse or foot, which were united in
the same army. 126 Their number was soon doubled by the division
of the east and west; and as separate generals of the same rank
and title were appointed on the four important frontiers of the
Rhine, of the Upper and the Lower Danube, and of the Euphrates,
the defence of the Roman empire was at length committed to eight
masters-general of the cavalry and infantry. Under their orders,
thirty-five military commanders were stationed in the provinces:
three in Britain, six in Gaul, one in Spain, one in Italy, five
on the Upper, and four on the Lower Danube; in Asia, eight, three
in Egypt, and four in Africa. The titles of _counts_, and
_dukes_, 127 by which they were properly distinguished, have
obtained in modern languages so very different a sense, that the
use of them may occasion some surprise. But it should be
recollected, that the second of those appellations is only a
corruption of the Latin word, which was indiscriminately applied
to any military chief. All these provincial generals were
therefore _dukes;_ but no more than ten among them were dignified
with the rank of _counts_ or companions, a title of honor, or
rather of favor, which had been recently invented in the court of
Constantine. A gold belt was the ensign which distinguished the
office of the counts and dukes; and besides their pay, they
received a liberal allowance sufficient to maintain one hundred
and ninety servants, and one hundred and fifty-eight horses. They
were strictly prohibited from interfering in any matter which
related to the administration of justice or the revenue; but the
command which they exercised over the troops of their department,
was independent of the authority of the magistrates. About the
same time that Constantine gave a legal sanction to the
ecclesiastical order, he instituted in the Roman empire the nice
balance of the civil and the military powers. The emulation, and
sometimes the discord, which reigned between two professions of
opposite interests and incompatible manners, was productive of
beneficial and of pernicious consequences. It was seldom to be
expected that the general and the civil governor of a province
should either conspire for the disturbance, or should unite for
the service, of their country. While the one delayed to offer the
assistance which the other disdained to solicit, the troops very
frequently remained without orders or without supplies; the
public safety was betrayed, and the defenceless subjects were
left exposed to the fury of the Barbarians. The divided
administration which had been formed by Constantine, relaxed the
vigor of the state, while it secured the tranquillity of the
monarch.
124 (return) [ See a very splendid example in the life of
Agricola, particularly c. 20, 21. The lieutenant of Britain was
intrusted with the same powers which Cicero, proconsul of
Cilicia, had exercised in the name of the senate and people.]
125 (return) [ The Abbé Dubos, who has examined with accuracy
(see Hist. de la Monarchie Françoise, tom. i. p. 41-100, edit.
1742) the institutions of Augustus and of Constantine, observes,
that if Otho had been put to death the day before he executed his
conspiracy, Otho would now appear in history as innocent as
Corbulo.]
126 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 110. Before the end of the
reign of Constantius, the _magistri militum_ were already
increased to four. See Velesius ad Ammian. l. xvi. c. 7.]
127 (return) [ Though the military counts and dukes are
frequently mentioned, both in history and the codes, we must have
recourse to the Notitia for the exact knowledge of their number
and stations. For the institution, rank, privileges, &c., of the
counts in general see Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xii.—xx., with the
commentary of Godefroy.]
The memory of Constantine has been deservedly censured for
another innovation, which corrupted military discipline and
prepared the ruin of the empire. The nineteen years which
preceded his final victory over Licinius, had been a period of
license and intestine war. The rivals who contended for the
possession of the Roman world, had withdrawn the greatest part of
their forces from the guard of the general frontier; and the
principal cities which formed the boundary of their respective
dominions were filled with soldiers, who considered their
countrymen as their most implacable enemies. After the use of
these internal garrisons had ceased with the civil war, the
conqueror wanted either wisdom or firmness to revive the severe
discipline of Diocletian, and to suppress a fatal indulgence,
which habit had endeared and almost confirmed to the military
order. From the reign of Constantine, a popular and even legal
distinction was admitted between the _Palatines_ 128 and the
_Borderers;_ the troops of the court, as they were improperly
styled, and the troops of the frontier. The former, elevated by
the superiority of their pay and privileges, were permitted,
except in the extraordinary emergencies of war, to occupy their
tranquil stations in the heart of the provinces. The most
flourishing cities were oppressed by the intolerable weight of
quarters. The soldiers insensibly forgot the virtues of their
profession, and contracted only the vices of civil life. They
were either degraded by the industry of mechanic trades, or
enervated by the luxury of baths and theatres. They soon became
careless of their martial exercises, curious in their diet and
apparel; and while they inspired terror to the subjects of the
empire, they trembled at the hostile approach of the Barbarians.
129 The chain of fortifications which Diocletian and his
colleagues had extended along the banks of the great rivers, was
no longer maintained with the same care, or defended with the
same vigilance. The numbers which still remained under the name
of the troops of the frontier, might be sufficient for the
ordinary defence; but their spirit was degraded by the
humiliating reflection, that _they_ who were exposed to the
hardships and dangers of a perpetual warfare, were rewarded only
with about two thirds of the pay and emoluments which were
lavished on the troops of the court. Even the bands or legions
that were raised the nearest to the level of those unworthy
favorites, were in some measure disgraced by the title of honor
which they were allowed to assume. It was in vain that
Constantine repeated the most dreadful menaces of fire and sword
against the Borderers who should dare desert their colors, to
connive at the inroads of the Barbarians, or to participate in
the spoil. 130 The mischiefs which flow from injudicious counsels
are seldom removed by the application of partial severities; and
though succeeding princes labored to restore the strength and
numbers of the frontier garrisons, the empire, till the last
moment of its dissolution, continued to languish under the mortal
wound which had been so rashly or so weakly inflicted by the hand
of Constantine.
128 (return) [ Zosimus, l ii. p. 111. The distinction between the
two classes of Roman troops, is very darkly expressed in the
historians, the laws, and the Notitia. Consult, however, the
copious _paratitlon_, or abstract, which Godefroy has drawn up of
the seventh book, de Re Militari, of the Theodosian Code, l. vii.
tit. i. leg. 18, l. viii. tit. i. leg. 10.]
129 (return) [ Ferox erat in suos miles et rapax, ignavus vero in
hostes et fractus. Ammian. l. xxii. c. 4. He observes, that they
loved downy beds and houses of marble; and that their cups were
heavier than their swords.]
130 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vii. tit. i. leg. 1, tit. xii. leg.
i. See Howell’s Hist. of the World, vol. ii. p. 19. That learned
historian, who is not sufficiently known, labors to justify the
character and policy of Constantine.]
The same timid policy, of dividing whatever is united, of
reducing whatever is eminent, of dreading every active power, and
of expecting that the most feeble will prove the most obedient,
seems to pervade the institutions of several princes, and
particularly those of Constantine. The martial pride of the
legions, whose victorious camps had so often been the scene of
rebellion, was nourished by the memory of their past exploits,
and the consciousness of their actual strength. As long as they
maintained their ancient establishment of six thousand men, they
subsisted, under the reign of Diocletian, each of them singly, a
visible and important object in the military history of the Roman
empire. A few years afterwards, these gigantic bodies were shrunk
to a very diminutive size; and when _seven_ legions, with some
auxiliaries, defended the city of Amida against the Persians, the
total garrison, with the inhabitants of both sexes, and the
peasants of the deserted country, did not exceed the number of
twenty thousand persons. 131 From this fact, and from similar
examples, there is reason to believe, that the constitution of
the legionary troops, to which they partly owed their valor and
discipline, was dissolved by Constantine; and that the bands of
Roman infantry, which still assumed the same names and the same
honors, consisted only of one thousand or fifteen hundred men.
132 The conspiracy of so many separate detachments, each of which
was awed by the sense of its own weakness, could easily be
checked; and the successors of Constantine might indulge their
love of ostentation, by issuing their orders to one hundred and
thirty-two legions, inscribed on the muster-roll of their
numerous armies. The remainder of their troops was distributed
into several hundred cohorts of infantry, and squadrons of
cavalry. Their arms, and titles, and ensigns, were calculated to
inspire terror, and to display the variety of nations who marched
under the Imperial standard. And not a vestige was left of that
severe simplicity, which, in the ages of freedom and victory, had
distinguished the line of battle of a Roman army from the
confused host of an Asiatic monarch. 133 A more particular
enumeration, drawn from the_ Notitia_, might exercise the
diligence of an antiquary; but the historian will content himself
with observing, that the number of permanent stations or
garrisons established on the frontiers of the empire, amounted to
five hundred and eighty-three; and that, under the successors of
Constantine, the complete force of the military establishment was
computed at six hundred and forty-five thousand soldiers. 134 An
effort so prodigious surpassed the wants of a more ancient, and
the faculties of a later, period.
131 (return) [ Ammian. l. xix. c. 2. He observes, (c. 5,) that
the desperate sallies of two Gallic legions were like a handful
of water thrown on a great conflagration.]
132 (return) [ Pancirolus ad Notitiam, p. 96. Mémoires de
l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxv. p. 491.]
133 (return) [ Romana acies unius prope formæ erat et hominum et
armorum genere.—Regia acies varia magis multis gentibus
dissimilitudine armorum auxiliorumque erat. T. Liv. l. xxxvii. c.
39, 40. Flaminius, even before the event, had compared the army
of Antiochus to a supper in which the flesh of one vile animal
was diversified by the skill of the cooks. See the Life of
Flaminius in Plutarch.]
134 (return) [ Agathias, l. v. p. 157, edit. Louvre.]
In the various states of society, armies are recruited from very
different motives. Barbarians are urged by the love of war; the
citizens of a free republic may be prompted by a principle of
duty; the subjects, or at least the nobles, of a monarchy, are
animated by a sentiment of honor; but the timid and luxurious
inhabitants of a declining empire must be allured into the
service by the hopes of profit, or compelled by the dread of
punishment. The resources of the Roman treasury were exhausted by
the increase of pay, by the repetition of donatives, and by the
invention of new emolument and indulgences, which, in the opinion
of the provincial youth might compensate the hardships and
dangers of a military life. Yet, although the stature was
lowered, 135 although slaves, least by a tacit connivance, were
indiscriminately received into the ranks, the insurmountable
difficulty of procuring a regular and adequate supply of
volunteers, obliged the emperors to adopt more effectual and
coercive methods. The lands bestowed on the veterans, as the free
reward of their valor were henceforward granted under a condition
which contain the first rudiments of the feudal tenures; that
their sons, who succeeded to the inheritance, should devote
themselves to the profession of arms, as soon as they attained
the age of manhood; and their cowardly refusal was punished by
the loss of honor, of fortune, or even of life. 136 But as the
annual growth of the sons of the veterans bore a very small
proportion to the demands of the service, levies of men were
frequently required from the provinces, and every proprietor was
obliged either to take up arms, or to procure a substitute, or to
purchase his exemption by the payment of a heavy fine. The sum of
forty-two pieces of gold, to which it was _reduced_ ascertains
the exorbitant price of volunteers, and the reluctance with which
the government admitted of this alternative. 137 Such was the
horror for the profession of a soldier, which had affected the
minds of the degenerate Romans, that many of the youth of Italy
and the provinces chose to cut off the fingers of their right
hand, to escape from being pressed into the service; and this
strange expedient was so commonly practised, as to deserve the
severe animadversion of the laws, 138 and a peculiar name in the
Latin language. 139
135 (return) [ Valentinian (Cod. Theodos. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg.
3) fixes the standard at five feet seven inches, about five feet
four inches and a half, English measure. It had formerly been
five feet ten inches, and in the best corps, six Roman feet. Sed
tunc erat amplior multitude se et plures sequebantur militiam
armatam. Vegetius de Re Militari l. i. c. v.]
136 (return) [ See the two titles, De Veteranis and De Filiis
Veteranorum, in the seventh book of the Theodosian Code. The age
at which their military service was required, varied from
twenty-five to sixteen. If the sons of the veterans appeared with
a horse, they had a right to serve in the cavalry; two horses
gave them some valuable privileges]
137 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg. 7. According
to the historian Socrates, (see Godefroy ad loc.,) the same
emperor Valens sometimes required eighty pieces of gold for a
recruit. In the following law it is faintly expressed, that
slaves shall not be admitted inter optimas lectissimorum militum
turmas.]
138 (return) [ The person and property of a Roman knight, who had
mutilated his two sons, were sold at public auction by order of
Augustus. (Sueton. in August. c. 27.) The moderation of that
artful usurper proves, that this example of severity was
justified by the spirit of the times. Ammianus makes a
distinction between the effeminate Italians and the hardy Gauls.
(L. xv. c. 12.) Yet only 15 years afterwards, Valentinian, in a
law addressed to the præfect of Gaul, is obliged to enact that
these cowardly deserters shall be burnt alive. (Cod. Theod. l.
vii. tit. xiii. leg. 5.) Their numbers in Illyricum were so
considerable, that the province complained of a scarcity of
recruits. (Id. leg. 10.)]
139 (return) [ They were called _Murci. Murcidus_ is found in
Plautus and Festus, to denote a lazy and cowardly person, who,
according to Arnobius and Augustin, was under the immediate
protection of the goddess _Murcia_. From this particular instance
of cowardice, _murcare_ is used as synonymous to _mutilare_, by
the writers of the middle Latinity. See Linder brogius and
Valesius ad Ammian. Marcellin, l. xv. c. 12]
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part V.
The introduction of Barbarians into the Roman armies became every
day more universal, more necessary, and more fatal. The most
daring of the Scythians, of the Goths, and of the Germans, who
delighted in war, and who found it more profitable to defend than
to ravage the provinces, were enrolled, not only in the
auxiliaries of their respective nations, but in the legions
themselves, and among the most distinguished of the Palatine
troops. As they freely mingled with the subjects of the empire,
they gradually learned to despise their manners, and to imitate
their arts. They abjured the implicit reverence which the pride
of Rome had exacted from their ignorance, while they acquired the
knowledge and possession of those advantages by which alone she
supported her declining greatness. The Barbarian soldiers, who
displayed any military talents, were advanced, without exception,
to the most important commands; and the names of the tribunes, of
the counts and dukes, and of the generals themselves, betray a
foreign origin, which they no longer condescended to disguise.
They were often intrusted with the conduct of a war against their
countrymen; and though most of them preferred the ties of
allegiance to those of blood, they did not always avoid the
guilt, or at least the suspicion, of holding a treasonable
correspondence with the enemy, of inviting his invasion, or of
sparing his retreat. The camps and the palace of the son of
Constantine were governed by the powerful faction of the Franks,
who preserved the strictest connection with each other, and with
their country, and who resented every personal affront as a
national indignity. 140 When the tyrant Caligula was suspected of
an intention to invest a very extraordinary candidate with the
consular robes, the sacrilegious profanation would have scarcely
excited less astonishment, if, instead of a horse, the noblest
chieftain of Germany or Britain had been the object of his
choice. The revolution of three centuries had produced so
remarkable a change in the prejudices of the people, that, with
the public approbation, Constantine showed his successors the
example of bestowing the honors of the consulship on the
Barbarians, who, by their merit and services, had deserved to be
ranked among the first of the Romans. 141 But as these hardy
veterans, who had been educated in the ignorance or contempt of
the laws, were incapable of exercising any civil offices, the
powers of the human mind were contracted by the irreconcilable
separation of talents as well as of professions. The accomplished
citizens of the Greek and Roman republics, whose characters could
adapt themselves to the bar, the senate, the camp, or the
schools, had learned to write, to speak, and to act with the same
spirit, and with equal abilities.
140 (return) [ Malarichus—adhibitis Francis quorum ea tempestate
in palatio multitudo florebat, erectius jam loquebatur
tumultuabaturque. Ammian. l. xv. c. 5.]
141 (return) [ Barbaros omnium primus, ad usque fasces auxerat et
trabeas consulares. Ammian. l. xx. c. 10. Eusebius (in Vit.
Constantin. l. iv c.7) and Aurelius Victor seem to confirm the
truth of this assertion yet in the thirty-two consular Fasti of
the reign of Constantine cannot discover the name of a single
Barbarian. I should therefore interpret the liberality of that
prince as relative to the ornaments rather than to the office, of
the consulship.]
IV. Besides the magistrates and generals, who at a distance from
the court diffused their delegated authority over the provinces
and armies, the emperor conferred the rank of _Illustrious_ on
seven of his more immediate servants, to whose fidelity he
intrusted his safety, or his counsels, or his treasures. 1. The
private apartments of the palace were governed by a favorite
eunuch, who, in the language of that age, was styled the
_præpositus_, or præfect of the sacred bed-chamber. His duty was
to attend the emperor in his hours of state, or in those of
amusement, and to perform about his person all those menial
services, which can only derive their splendor from the influence
of royalty. Under a prince who deserved to reign, the great
chamberlain (for such we may call him) was a useful and humble
domestic; but an artful domestic, who improves every occasion of
unguarded confidence, will insensibly acquire over a feeble mind
that ascendant which harsh wisdom and uncomplying virtue can
seldom obtain. The degenerate grandsons of Theodosius, who were
invisible to their subjects, and contemptible to their enemies,
exalted the præfects of their bed-chamber above the heads of all
the ministers of the palace; 142 and even his deputy, the first
of the splendid train of slaves who waited in the presence, was
thought worthy to rank before the _respectable_ proconsuls of
Greece or Asia. The jurisdiction of the chamberlain was
acknowledged by the _counts_, or superintendents, who regulated
the two important provinces of the magnificence of the wardrobe,
and of the luxury of the Imperial table. 143 2. The principal
administration of public affairs was committed to the diligence
and abilities of the _master of the offices_. 144 He was the
supreme magistrate of the palace, inspected the discipline of the
civil and military _schools_, and received appeals from all parts
of the empire, in the causes which related to that numerous army
of privileged persons, who, as the servants of the court, had
obtained for themselves and families a right to decline the
authority of the ordinary judges. The correspondence between the
prince and his subjects was managed by the four _scrinia_, or
offices of this minister of state. The first was appropriated to
memorials, the second to epistles, the third to petitions, and
the fourth to papers and orders of a miscellaneous kind. Each of
these was directed by an _inferior_ master of _respectable_
dignity, and the whole business was despatched by a hundred and
forty-eight secretaries, chosen for the most part from the
profession of the law, on account of the variety of abstracts of
reports and references which frequently occurred in the exercise
of their several functions. From a condescension, which in former
ages would have been esteemed unworthy the Roman majesty, a
particular secretary was allowed for the Greek language; and
interpreters were appointed to receive the ambassadors of the
Barbarians; but the department of foreign affairs, which
constitutes so essential a part of modern policy, seldom diverted
the attention of the master of the offices. His mind was more
seriously engaged by the general direction of the posts and
arsenals of the empire. There were thirty-four cities, fifteen in
the East, and nineteen in the West, in which regular companies of
workmen were perpetually employed in fabricating defensive armor,
offensive weapons of all sorts, and military engines, which were
deposited in the arsenals, and occasionally delivered for the
service of the troops. 3. In the course of nine centuries, the
office of _quæstor_ had experienced a very singular revolution.
In the infancy of Rome, two inferior magistrates were annually
elected by the people, to relieve the consuls from the invidious
management of the public treasure; 145 a similar assistant was
granted to every proconsul, and to every prætor, who exercised a
military or provincial command; with the extent of conquest, the
two quæstors were gradually multiplied to the number of four, of
eight, of twenty, and, for a short time, perhaps, of forty; 146
and the noblest citizens ambitiously solicited an office which
gave them a seat in the senate, and a just hope of obtaining the
honors of the republic. Whilst Augustus affected to maintain the
freedom of election, he consented to accept the annual privilege
of recommending, or rather indeed of nominating, a certain
proportion of candidates; and it was his custom to select one of
these distinguished youths, to read his orations or epistles in
the assemblies of the senate. 147 The practice of Augustus was
imitated by succeeding princes; the occasional commission was
established as a permanent office; and the favored quæstor,
assuming a new and more illustrious character, alone survived the
suppression of his ancient and useless colleagues. 148 As the
orations which he composed in the name of the emperor, 149
acquired the force, and, at length, the form, of absolute edicts,
he was considered as the representative of the legislative power,
the oracle of the council, and the original source of the civil
jurisprudence. He was sometimes invited to take his seat in the
supreme judicature of the Imperial consistory, with the Prætorian
præfects, and the master of the offices; and he was frequently
requested to resolve the doubts of inferior judges: but as he was
not oppressed with a variety of subordinate business, his leisure
and talents were employed to cultivate that dignified style of
eloquence, which, in the corruption of taste and language, still
preserves the majesty of the Roman laws. 150 In some respects,
the office of the Imperial quæstor may be compared with that of a
modern chancellor; but the use of a great seal, which seems to
have been adopted by the illiterate barbarians, was never
introduced to attest the public acts of the emperors. 4. The
extraordinary title of _count of the sacred largesses_ was
bestowed on the treasurer-general of the revenue, with the
intention perhaps of inculcating, that every payment flowed from
the voluntary bounty of the monarch. To conceive the almost
infinite detail of the annual and daily expense of the civil and
military administration in every part of a great empire, would
exceed the powers of the most vigorous imagination.
The actual account employed several hundred persons, distributed
into eleven different offices, which were artfully contrived to
examine and control their respective operations. The multitude of
these agents had a natural tendency to increase; and it was more
than once thought expedient to dismiss to their native homes the
useless supernumeraries, who, deserting their honest labors, had
pressed with too much eagerness into the lucrative profession of
the finances. 151 Twenty-nine provincial receivers, of whom
eighteen were honored with the title of count, corresponded with
the treasurer; and he extended his jurisdiction over the mines
from whence the precious metals were extracted, over the mints,
in which they were converted into the current coin, and over the
public treasuries of the most important cities, where they were
deposited for the service of the state. The foreign trade of the
empire was regulated by this minister, who directed likewise all
the linen and woollen manufactures, in which the successive
operations of spinning, weaving, and dyeing were executed,
chiefly by women of a servile condition, for the use of the
palace and army. Twenty-six of these institutions are enumerated
in the West, where the arts had been more recently introduced,
and a still larger proportion may be allowed for the industrious
provinces of the East. 152 5. Besides the public revenue, which
an absolute monarch might levy and expend according to his
pleasure, the emperors, in the capacity of opulent citizens,
possessed a very extensive property, which was administered by
the _count_ or treasurer of _the private estate_. Some part had
perhaps been the ancient demesnes of kings and republics; some
accessions might be derived from the families which were
successively invested with the purple; but the most considerable
portion flowed from the impure source of confiscations and
forfeitures. The Imperial estates were scattered through the
provinces, from Mauritania to Britain; but the rich and fertile
soil of Cappadocia tempted the monarch to acquire in that country
his fairest possessions, 153 and either Constantine or his
successors embraced the occasion of justifying avarice by
religious zeal. They suppressed the rich temple of Comana, where
the high priest of the goddess of war supported the dignity of a
sovereign prince; and they applied to their private use the
consecrated lands, which were inhabited by six thousand subjects
or slaves of the deity and her ministers. 154 But these were not
the valuable inhabitants: the plains that stretch from the foot
of Mount Argæus to the banks of the Sarus, bred a generous race
of horses, renowned above all others in the ancient world for
their majestic shape and incomparable swiftness. These _sacred_
animals, destined for the service of the palace and the Imperial
games, were protected by the laws from the profanation of a
vulgar master. 155 The demesnes of Cappadocia were important
enough to require the inspection of a count; 156 officers of an
inferior rank were stationed in the other parts of the empire;
and the deputies of the private, as well as those of the public,
treasurer were maintained in the exercise of their independent
functions, and encouraged to control the authority of the
provincial magistrates. 157 6, 7. The chosen bands of cavalry and
infantry, which guarded the person of the emperor, were under the
immediate command of the _two counts of the domestics_. The whole
number consisted of three thousand five hundred men, divided into
seven _schools_, or troops, of five hundred each; and in the
East, this honorable service was almost entirely appropriated to
the Armenians. Whenever, on public ceremonies, they were drawn up
in the courts and porticos of the palace, their lofty stature,
silent order, and splendid arms of silver and gold, displayed a
martial pomp not unworthy of the Roman majesty. 158 From the
seven schools two companies of horse and foot were selected, of
the _protectors_, whose advantageous station was the hope and
reward of the most deserving soldiers. They mounted guard in the
interior apartments, and were occasionally despatched into the
provinces, to execute with celerity and vigor the orders of their
master. 159 The counts of the domestics had succeeded to the
office of the Prætorian præfects; like the præfects, they aspired
from the service of the palace to the command of armies.
142 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. 8.]
143 (return) [ By a very singular metaphor, borrowed from the
military character of the first emperors, the steward of their
household was styled the count of their camp, (comes castrensis.)
Cassiodorus very seriously represents to him, that his own fame,
and that of the empire, must depend on the opinion which foreign
ambassadors may conceive of the plenty and magnificence of the
royal table. (Variar. l. vi. epistol. 9.)]
144 (return) [ Gutherius (de Officiis Domûs Augustæ, l. ii. c.
20, l. iii.) has very accurately explained the functions of the
master of the offices, and the constitution of the subordinate
_scrinia_. But he vainly attempts, on the most doubtful
authority, to deduce from the time of the Antonines, or even of
Nero, the origin of a magistrate who cannot be found in history
before the reign of Constantine.]
145 (return) [ Tacitus (Annal. xi. 22) says, that the first
quæstors were elected by the people, sixty-four years after the
foundation of the republic; but he is of opinion, that they had,
long before that period, been annually appointed by the consuls,
and even by the kings. But this obscure point of antiquity is
contested by other writers.]
146 (return) [ Tacitus (Annal. xi. 22) seems to consider twenty
as the highest number of quæstors; and Dion (l. xliii. p 374)
insinuates, that if the dictator Cæsar once created forty, it was
only to facilitate the payment of an immense debt of gratitude.
Yet the augmentation which he made of prætors subsisted under the
succeeding reigns.]
147 (return) [ Sueton. in August. c. 65, and Torrent. ad loc.
Dion. Cas. p. 755.]
148 (return) [ The youth and inexperience of the quæstors, who
entered on that important office in their twenty-fifth year,
(Lips. Excurs. ad Tacit. l. iii. D.,) engaged Augustus to remove
them from the management of the treasury; and though they were
restored by Claudius, they seem to have been finally dismissed by
Nero. (Tacit Annal. xiii. 29. Sueton. in Aug. c. 36, in Claud. c.
24. Dion, p. 696, 961, &c. Plin. Epistol. x. 20, et alibi.) In
the provinces of the Imperial division, the place of the quæstors
was more ably supplied by the _procurators_, (Dion Cas. p. 707.
Tacit. in Vit. Agricol. c. 15;) or, as they were afterwards
called, _rationales_. (Hist. August. p. 130.) But in the
provinces of the senate we may still discover a series of
quæstors till the reign of Marcus Antoninus. (See the
Inscriptions of Gruter, the Epistles of Pliny, and a decisive
fact in the Augustan History, p. 64.) From Ulpian we may learn,
(Pandect. l. i. tit. 13,) that under the government of the house
of Severus, their provincial administration was abolished; and in
the subsequent troubles, the annual or triennial elections of
quæstors must have naturally ceased.]
149 (return) [ Cum patris nomine et epistolas ipse dictaret, et
edicta conscrib eret, orationesque in senatu recitaret, etiam
quæstoris vice. Sueton, in Tit. c. 6. The office must have
acquired new dignity, which was occasionally executed by the heir
apparent of the empire. Trajan intrusted the same care to
Hadrian, his quæstor and cousin. See Dodwell, Prælection.
Cambden, x. xi. p. 362-394.]
150 (return) [ Terris edicta daturus; Supplicibus
responsa.—Oracula regis Eloquio crevere tuo; nec dignius unquam
Majestas meminit sese Romana locutam.——Claudian in Consulat.
Mall. Theodor. 33. See likewise Symmachus (Epistol. i. 17) and
Cassiodorus. (Variar. iv. 5.)]
151 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. 30. Cod. Justinian. l.
xii. tit. 24.]
152 (return) [ In the departments of the two counts of the
treasury, the eastern part of the _Notitia_ happens to be very
defective. It may be observed, that we had a treasury chest in
London, and a gyneceum or manufacture at Winchester. But Britain
was not thought worthy either of a mint or of an arsenal. Gaul
alone possessed three of the former, and eight of the latter.]
153 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxx. leg. 2, and Godefroy
ad loc.]
154 (return) [ Strabon. Geograph. l. xxii. p. 809, [edit.
Casaub.] The other temple of Comana, in Pontus, was a colony from
that of Cappadocia, l. xii. p. 835. The President Des Brosses
(see his Saluste, tom. ii. p. 21, [edit. Causub.]) conjectures
that the deity adored in both Comanas was Beltis, the Venus of
the east, the goddess of generation; a very different being
indeed from the goddess of war.]
155 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. x. tit. vi. de Grege Dominico.
Godefroy has collected every circumstance of antiquity relative
to the Cappadocian horses. One of the finest breeds, the
Palmatian, was the forfeiture of a rebel, whose estate lay about
sixteen miles from Tyana, near the great road between
Constantinople and Antioch.]
156 (return) [ Justinian (Novell. 30) subjected the province of
the count of Cappadocia to the immediate authority of the
favorite eunuch, who presided over the sacred bed-chamber.]
157 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxx. leg. 4, &c.]
158 (return) [ Pancirolus, p. 102, 136. The appearance of these
military domestics is described in the Latin poem of Corippus, de
Laudibus Justin. l. iii. 157-179. p. 419, 420 of the Appendix
Hist. Byzantin. Rom. 177.]
159 (return) [ Ammianus Marcellinus, who served so many years,
obtained only the rank of a protector. The first ten among these
honorable soldiers were _Clarissimi_.]
The perpetual intercourse between the court and the provinces was
facilitated by the construction of roads and the institution of
posts. But these beneficial establishments were accidentally
connected with a pernicious and intolerable abuse. Two or three
hundred _agents_ or messengers were employed, under the
jurisdiction of the master of the offices, to announce the names
of the annual consuls, and the edicts or victories of the
emperors. They insensibly assumed the license of reporting
whatever they could observe of the conduct either of magistrates
or of private citizens; and were soon considered as the eyes of
the monarch, 160 and the scourge of the people. Under the warm
influence of a feeble reign, they multiplied to the incredible
number of ten thousand, disdained the mild though frequent
admonitions of the laws, and exercised in the profitable
management of the posts a rapacious and insolent oppression.
These official spies, who regularly corresponded with the palace,
were encouraged by favor and reward, anxiously to watch the
progress of every treasonable design, from the faint and latent
symptoms of disaffection, to the actual preparation of an open
revolt. Their careless or criminal violation of truth and justice
was covered by the consecrated mask of zeal; and they might
securely aim their poisoned arrows at the breast either of the
guilty or the innocent, who had provoked their resentment, or
refused to purchase their silence. A faithful subject, of Syria
perhaps, or of Britain, was exposed to the danger, or at least to
the dread, of being dragged in chains to the court of Milan or
Constantinople, to defend his life and fortune against the
malicious charge of these privileged informers. The ordinary
administration was conducted by those methods which extreme
necessity can alone palliate; and the defects of evidence were
diligently supplied by the use of torture. 161
160 (return) [ Xenophon, Cyropæd. l. viii. Brisson, de Regno
Persico, l. i No 190, p. 264. The emperors adopted with pleasure
this Persian metaphor.]
161 (return) [ For the _Agentes in Rebus_, see Ammian. l. xv. c.
3, l. xvi. c. 5, l. xxii. c. 7, with the curious annotations of
Valesius. Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxvii. xxviii. xxix. Among the
passages collected in the Commentary of Godefroy, the most
remarkable is one from Libanius, in his discourse concerning the
death of Julian.]
The deceitful and dangerous experiment of the criminal
_quæstion_, as it is emphatically styled, was admitted, rather
than approved, in the jurisprudence of the Romans. They applied
this sanguinary mode of examination only to servile bodies, whose
sufferings were seldom weighed by those haughty republicans in
the scale of justice or humanity; but they would never consent to
violate the sacred person of a citizen, till they possessed the
clearest evidence of his guilt. 162 The annals of tyranny, from
the reign of Tiberius to that of Domitian, circumstantially
relate the executions of many innocent victims; but, as long as
the faintest remembrance was kept alive of the national freedom
and honor, the last hours of a Roman were secured from the danger
of ignominions torture. 163 The conduct of the provincial
magistrates was not, however, regulated by the practice of the
city, or the strict maxims of the civilians. They found the use
of torture established not only among the slaves of oriental
despotism, but among the Macedonians, who obeyed a limited
monarch; among the Rhodians, who flourished by the liberty of
commerce; and even among the sage Athenians, who had asserted and
adorned the dignity of human kind. 164 The acquiescence of the
provincials encouraged their governors to acquire, or perhaps to
usurp, a discretionary power of employing the rack, to extort
from vagrants or plebeian criminals the confession of their
guilt, till they insensibly proceeded to confound the distinction
of rank, and to disregard the privileges of Roman citizens. The
apprehensions of the subjects urged them to solicit, and the
interest of the sovereign engaged him to grant, a variety of
special exemptions, which tacitly allowed, and even authorized,
the general use of torture. They protected all persons of
illustrious or honorable rank, bishops and their presbyters,
professors of the liberal arts, soldiers and their families,
municipal officers, and their posterity to the third generation,
and all children under the age of puberty. 165 But a fatal maxim
was introduced into the new jurisprudence of the empire, that in
the case of treason, which included every offence that the
subtlety of lawyers could derive from a _hostile intention_
towards the prince or republic, 166 all privileges were
suspended, and all conditions were reduced to the same
ignominious level. As the safety of the emperor was avowedly
preferred to every consideration of justice or humanity, the
dignity of age and the tenderness of youth were alike exposed to
the most cruel tortures; and the terrors of a malicious
information, which might select them as the accomplices, or even
as the witnesses, perhaps, of an imaginary crime, perpetually
hung over the heads of the principal citizens of the Roman world.
167
162 (return) [ The Pandects (l. xlviii. tit. xviii.) contain the
sentiments of the most celebrated civilians on the subject of
torture. They strictly confine it to slaves; and Ulpian himself
is ready to acknowledge that Res est fragilis, et periculosa, et
quæ veritatem fallat.]
163 (return) [ In the conspiracy of Piso against Nero, Epicharis
(libertina mulier) was the only person tortured; the rest were
_intacti tormentis_. It would be superfluous to add a weaker, and
it would be difficult to find a stronger, example. Tacit. Annal.
xv. 57.]
164 (return) [ Dicendum... de Institutis Atheniensium, Rhodiorum,
doctissimorum hominum, apud quos etiam (id quod acerbissimum est)
liberi, civesque torquentur. Cicero, Partit. Orat. c. 34. We may
learn from the trial of Philotas the practice of the Macedonians.
(Diodor. Sicul. l. xvii. p. 604. Q. Curt. l. vi. c. 11.)]
165 (return) [ Heineccius (Element. Jur. Civil. part vii. p. 81)
has collected these exemptions into one view.]
166 (return) [ This definition of the sage Ulpian (Pandect. l.
xlviii. tit. iv.) seems to have been adapted to the court of
Caracalla, rather than to that of Alexander Severus. See the
Codes of Theodosius and ad leg. Juliam majestatis.]
167 (return) [ Arcadius Charisius is the oldest lawyer quoted to
justify the universal practice of torture in all cases of
treason; but this maxim of tyranny, which is admitted by Ammianus
with the most respectful terror, is enforced by several laws of
the successors of Constantine. See Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. xxxv.
majestatis crimine omnibus æqua est conditio.]
These evils, however terrible they may appear, were confined to
the smaller number of Roman subjects, whose dangerous situation
was in some degree compensated by the enjoyment of those
advantages, either of nature or of fortune, which exposed them to
the jealousy of the monarch. The obscure millions of a great
empire have much less to dread from the cruelty than from the
avarice of their masters, and _their_ humble happiness is
principally affected by the grievance of excessive taxes, which,
gently pressing on the wealthy, descend with accelerated weight
on the meaner and more indigent classes of society. An ingenious
philosopher 168 has calculated the universal measure of the
public impositions by the degrees of freedom and servitude; and
ventures to assert, that, according to an invariable law of
nature, it must always increase with the former, and diminish in
a just proportion to the latter. But this reflection, which would
tend to alleviate the miseries of despotism, is contradicted at
least by the history of the Roman empire; which accuses the same
princes of despoiling the senate of its authority, and the
provinces of their wealth. Without abolishing all the various
customs and duties on merchandises, which are imperceptibly
discharged by the apparent choice of the purchaser, the policy of
Constantine and his successors preferred a simple and direct mode
of taxation, more congenial to the spirit of an arbitrary
government. 169
168 (return) [ Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xii. c. 13.]
169 (return) [ Mr. Hume (Essays, vol. i. p. 389) has seen this
importance with some degree of perplexity.]
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part VI.
The name and use of the _indictions_, 170 which serve to
ascertain the chronology of the middle ages, were derived from
the regular practice of the Roman tributes. 171 The emperor
subscribed with his own hand, and in purple ink, the solemn
edict, or indiction, which was fixed up in the principal city of
each diocese, during two months previous to the first day of
September. And by a very easy connection of ideas, the word
_indiction_ was transferred to the measure of tribute which it
prescribed, and to the annual term which it allowed for the
payment. This general estimate of the supplies was proportioned
to the real and imaginary wants of the state; but as often as the
expense exceeded the revenue, or the revenue fell short of the
computation, an additional tax, under the name of
_superindiction_, was imposed on the people, and the most
valuable attribute of sovereignty was communicated to the
Prætorian præfects, who, on some occasions, were permitted to
provide for the unforeseen and extraordinary exigencies of the
public service. The execution of these laws (which it would be
tedious to pursue in their minute and intricate detail) consisted
of two distinct operations: the resolving the general imposition
into its constituent parts, which were assessed on the provinces,
the cities, and the individuals of the Roman world; and the
collecting the separate contributions of the individuals, the
cities, and the provinces, till the accumulated sums were poured
into the Imperial treasuries. But as the account between the
monarch and the subject was perpetually open, and as the renewal
of the demand anticipated the perfect discharge of the preceding
obligation, the weighty machine of the finances was moved by the
same hands round the circle of its yearly revolution. Whatever
was honorable or important in the administration of the revenue,
was committed to the wisdom of the præfects, and their provincia.
representatives; the lucrative functions were claimed by a crowd
of subordinate officers, some of whom depended on the treasurer,
others on the governor of the province; and who, in the
inevitable conflicts of a perplexed jurisdiction, had frequent
opportunities of disputing with each other the spoils of the
people. The laborious offices, which could be productive only of
envy and reproach, of expense and danger, were imposed on the
_Decurions_, who formed the corporations of the cities, and whom
the severity of the Imperial laws had condemned to sustain the
burdens of civil society. 172 The whole landed property of the
empire (without excepting the patrimonial estates of the monarch)
was the object of ordinary taxation; and every new purchaser
contracted the obligations of the former proprietor. An accurate
_census_, 173 or survey, was the only equitable mode of
ascertaining the proportion which every citizen should be obliged
to contribute for the public service; and from the well-known
period of the indictions, there is reason to believe that this
difficult and expensive operation was repeated at the regular
distance of fifteen years. The lands were measured by surveyors,
who were sent into the provinces; their nature, whether arable or
pasture, or vineyards or woods, was distinctly reported; and an
estimate was made of their common value from the average produce
of five years. The numbers of slaves and of cattle constituted an
essential part of the report; an oath was administered to the
proprietors, which bound them to disclose the true state of their
affairs; and their attempts to prevaricate, or elude the
intention of the legislator, were severely watched, and punished
as a capital crime, which included the double guilt of treason
and sacrilege. 174 A large portion of the tribute was paid in
money; and of the current coin of the empire, gold alone could be
legally accepted. 175 The remainder of the taxes, according to
the proportions determined by the annual indiction, was furnished
in a manner still more direct, and still more oppressive.
According to the different nature of lands, their real produce in
the various articles of wine or oil, corn or barley, wood or
iron, was transported by the labor or at the expense of the
provincials 17511 to the Imperial magazines, from whence they
were occasionally distributed for the use of the court, of the
army, and of two capitals, Rome and Constantinople. The
commissioners of the revenue were so frequently obliged to make
considerable purchases, that they were strictly prohibited from
allowing any compensation, or from receiving in money the value
of those supplies which were exacted in kind. In the primitive
simplicity of small communities, this method may be well adapted
to collect the almost voluntary offerings of the people; but it
is at once susceptible of the utmost latitude, and of the utmost
strictness, which in a corrupt and absolute monarchy must
introduce a perpetual contest between the power of oppression and
the arts of fraud. 176 The agriculture of the Roman provinces was
insensibly ruined, and, in the progress of despotism which tends
to disappoint its own purpose, the emperors were obliged to
derive some merit from the forgiveness of debts, or the remission
of tributes, which their subjects were utterly incapable of
paying. According to the new division of Italy, the fertile and
happy province of Campania, the scene of the early victories and
of the delicious retirements of the citizens of Rome, extended
between the sea and the Apennine, from the Tiber to the Silarus.
Within sixty years after the death of Constantine, and on the
evidence of an actual survey, an exemption was granted in favor
of three hundred and thirty thousand English acres of desert and
uncultivated land; which amounted to one eighth of the whole
surface of the province. As the footsteps of the Barbarians had
not yet been seen in Italy, the cause of this amazing desolation,
which is recorded in the laws, can be ascribed only to the
administration of the Roman emperors. 177
170 (return) [ The cycle of indictions, which may be traced as
high as the reign of Constantius, or perhaps of his father,
Constantine, is still employed by the Papal court; but the
commencement of the year has been very reasonably altered to the
first of January. See l’Art de Verifier les Dates, p. xi.; and
Dictionnaire Raison. de la Diplomatique, tom. ii. p. 25; two
accurate treatises, which come from the workshop of the
Benedictines. —— It does not appear that the establishment of the
indiction is to be at tributed to Constantine: it existed before
he had been created _Augustus_ at Rome, and the remission granted
by him to the city of Autun is the proof. He would not have
ventured while only _Cæsar_, and under the necessity of courting
popular favor, to establish such an odious impost. Aurelius
Victor and Lactantius agree in designating Diocletian as the
author of this despotic institution. Aur. Vict. de Cæs. c. 39.
Lactant. de Mort. Pers. c. 7—G.]
171 (return) [ The first twenty-eight titles of the eleventh book
of the Theodosian Code are filled with the circumstantial
regulations on the important subject of tributes; but they
suppose a clearer knowledge of fundamental principles than it is
at present in our power to attain.]
172 (return) [ The title concerning the Decurions (l. xii. tit.
i.) is the most ample in the whole Theodosian Code; since it
contains not less than one hundred and ninety-two distinct laws
to ascertain the duties and privileges of that useful order of
citizens. * Note: The Decurions were charged with assessing,
according to the census of property prepared by the tabularii,
the payment due from each proprietor. This odious office was
authoritatively imposed on the richest citizens of each town;
they had no salary, and all their compensation was, to be exempt
from certain corporal punishments, in case they should have
incurred them. The Decurionate was the ruin of all the rich.
Hence they tried every way of avoiding this dangerous honor; they
concealed themselves, they entered into military service; but
their efforts were unavailing; they were seized, they were
compelled to become Decurions, and the dread inspired by this
title was termed _Impiety_.—G. ——The Decurions were mutually
responsible; they were obliged to undertake for pieces of ground
abandoned by their owners on account of the pressure of the
taxes, and, finally, to make up all deficiencies. Savigny chichte
des Rom. Rechts, i. 25.—M.]
173 (return) [ Habemus enim et hominum numerum qui delati sunt,
et agrun modum. Eumenius in Panegyr. Vet. viii. 6. See Cod.
Theod. l. xiii. tit. x. xi., with Godefroy’s Commentary.]
174 (return) [ Siquis sacrilegâ vitem falce succiderit, aut
feracium ramorum fœtus hebetaverit, quo delinet fidem Censuum, et
mentiatur callide paupertatis ingenium, mox detectus capitale
subibit exitium, et bona ejus in Fisci jura migrabunt. Cod.
Theod. l. xiii. tit. xi. leg. 1. Although this law is not without
its studied obscurity, it is, however clear enough to prove the
minuteness of the inquisition, and the disproportion of the
penalty.]
175 (return) [ The astonishment of Pliny would have ceased.
Equidem miror P. R. victis gentibus argentum semper imperitasse
non aurum. Hist Natur. xxxiii. 15.]
17511 (return) [ The proprietors were not charged with the
expense of this transport in the provinces situated on the
sea-shore or near the great rivers, there were companies of
boatmen, and of masters of vessels, who had this commission, and
furnished the means of transport at their own expense. In return,
they were themselves exempt, altogether, or in part, from the
indiction and other imposts. They had certain privileges;
particular regulations determined their rights and obligations.
(Cod. Theod. l. xiii. tit. v. ix.) The transports by land were
made in the same manner, by the intervention of a privileged
company called Bastaga; the members were called Bastagarii Cod.
Theod. l. viii. tit. v.—G.]
176 (return) [ Some precautions were taken (see Cod. Theod. l.
xi. tit. ii. and Cod. Justinian. l. x. tit. xxvii. leg. 1, 2, 3)
to restrain the magistrates from the abuse of their authority,
either in the exaction or in the purchase of corn: but those who
had learning enough to read the orations of Cicero against
Verres, (iii. de Frumento,) might instruct themselves in all the
various arts of oppression, with regard to the weight, the price,
the quality, and the carriage. The avarice of an unlettered
governor would supply the ignorance of precept or precedent.]
177 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. xi. tit. xxviii. leg. 2, published
the 24th of March, A. D. 395, by the emperor Honorius, only two
months after the death of his father, Theodosius. He speaks of
528,042 Roman jugera, which I have reduced to the English
measure. The jugerum contained 28,800 square Roman feet.]
Either from design or from accident, the mode of assessment
seemed to unite the substance of a land tax with the forms of a
capitation. 178 The returns which were sent of every province or
district, expressed the number of tributary subjects, and the
amount of the public impositions. The latter of these sums was
divided by the former; and the estimate, that such a province
contained so many _capita_, or heads of tribute; and that each
_head_ was rated at such a price, was universally received, not
only in the popular, but even in the legal computation. The value
of a tributary head must have varied, according to many
accidental, or at least fluctuating circumstances; but some
knowledge has been preserved of a very curious fact, the more
important, since it relates to one of the richest provinces of
the Roman empire, and which now flourishes as the most splendid
of the European kingdoms. The rapacious ministers of Constantius
had exhausted the wealth of Gaul, by exacting twenty-five pieces
of gold for the annual tribute of every head. The humane policy
of his successor reduced the capitation to seven pieces. 179 A
moderate proportion between these opposite extremes of
extraordinary oppression and of transient indulgence, may
therefore be fixed at sixteen pieces of gold, or about nine
pounds sterling, the common standard, perhaps, of the impositions
of Gaul. 180 But this calculation, or rather, indeed, the facts
from whence it is deduced, cannot fail of suggesting two
difficulties to a thinking mind, who will be at once surprised by
the _equality_, and by the _enormity_, of the capitation. An
attempt to explain them may perhaps reflect some light on the
interesting subject of the finances of the declining empire.
178 (return) [ Godefroy (Cod. Theod. tom. vi. p. 116) argues with
weight and learning on the subject of the capitation; but while
he explains the _caput_, as a share or measure of property, he
too absolutely excludes the idea of a personal assessment.]
179 (return) [ Quid profuerit (_Julianus_) anhelantibus extremâ
penuriâ Gallis, hinc maxime claret, quod primitus partes eas
ingressus, pro _capitibus_ singulis tributi nomine vicenos quinos
aureos reperit flagitari; discedens vero septenos tantum numera
universa complentes. Ammian. l. xvi. c. 5.]
180 (return) [ In the calculation of any sum of money under
Constantine and his successors, we need only refer to the
excellent discourse of Mr. Greaves on the Denarius, for the proof
of the following principles; 1. That the ancient and modern Roman
pound, containing 5256 grains of Troy weight, is about one
twelfth lighter than the English pound, which is composed of 5760
of the same grains. 2. That the pound of gold, which had once
been divided into forty-eight _aurei_, was at this time coined
into seventy-two smaller pieces of the same denomination. 3. That
five of these aurei were the legal tender for a pound of silver,
and that consequently the pound of gold was exchanged for
fourteen pounds eight ounces of silver, according to the Roman,
or about thirteen pounds according to the English weight. 4. That
the English pound of silver is coined into sixty-two shillings.
From these elements we may compute the Roman pound of gold, the
usual method of reckoning large sums, at forty pounds sterling,
and we may fix the currency of the _aureus_ at somewhat more than
eleven shillings. * Note: See, likewise, a Dissertation of M.
Letronne, “Considerations Génerales sur l’Evaluation des Monnaies
Grecques et Romaines” Paris, 1817—M.]
I. It is obvious, that, as long as the immutable constitution of
human nature produces and maintains so unequal a division of
property, the most numerous part of the community would be
deprived of their subsistence, by the equal assessment of a tax
from which the sovereign would derive a very trifling revenue.
Such indeed might be the theory of the Roman capitation; but in
the practice, this unjust equality was no longer felt, as the
tribute was collected on the principle of a _real_, not of a
_personal_ imposition. 18011 Several indigent citizens
contributed to compose a single _head_, or share of taxation;
while the wealthy provincial, in proportion to his fortune, alone
represented several of those imaginary beings. In a poetical
request, addressed to one of the last and most deserving of the
Roman princes who reigned in Gaul, Sidonius Apollinaris
personifies his tribute under the figure of a triple monster, the
Geryon of the Grecian fables, and entreats the new Hercules that
he would most graciously be pleased to save his life by cutting
off three of his heads. 181 The fortune of Sidonius far exceeded
the customary wealth of a poet; but if he had pursued the
allusion, he might have painted many of the Gallic nobles with
the hundred heads of the deadly Hydra, spreading over the face of
the country, and devouring the substance of a hundred families.
II. The difficulty of allowing an annual sum of about nine pounds
sterling, even for the average of the capitation of Gaul, may be
rendered more evident by the comparison of the present state of
the same country, as it is now governed by the absolute monarch
of an industrious, wealthy, and affectionate people. The taxes of
France cannot be magnified, either by fear or by flattery, beyond
the annual amount of eighteen millions sterling, which ought
perhaps to be shared among four and twenty millions of
inhabitants. 182 Seven millions of these, in the capacity of
fathers, or brothers, or husbands, may discharge the obligations
of the remaining multitude of women and children; yet the equal
proportion of each tributary subject will scarcely rise above
fifty shillings of our money, instead of a proportion almost four
times as considerable, which was regularly imposed on their
Gallic ancestors. The reason of this difference may be found, not
so much in the relative scarcity or plenty of gold and silver, as
in the different state of society, in ancient Gaul and in modern
France. In a country where personal freedom is the privilege of
every subject, the whole mass of taxes, whether they are levied
on property or on consumption, may be fairly divided among the
whole body of the nation. But the far greater part of the lands
of ancient Gaul, as well as of the other provinces of the Roman
world, were cultivated by slaves, or by peasants, whose dependent
condition was a less rigid servitude. 183 In such a state the
poor were maintained at the expense of the masters who enjoyed
the fruits of their labor; and as the rolls of tribute were
filled only with the names of those citizens who possessed the
means of an honorable, or at least of a decent subsistence, the
comparative smallness of their numbers explains and justifies the
high rate of their capitation. The truth of this assertion may be
illustrated by the following example: The Ædui, one of the most
powerful and civilized tribes or _cities_ of Gaul, occupied an
extent of territory, which now contains about five hundred
thousand inhabitants, in the two ecclesiastical dioceses of Autun
and Nevers; 184 and with the probable accession of those of
Châlons and Maçon, 185 the population would amount to eight
hundred thousand souls. In the time of Constantine, the territory
of the Ædui afforded no more than twenty-five thousand _heads_ of
capitation, of whom seven thousand were discharged by that prince
from the intolerable weight of tribute. 186 A just analogy would
seem to countenance the opinion of an ingenious historian, 187
that the free and tributary citizens did not surpass the number
of half a million; and if, in the ordinary administration of
government, their annual payments may be computed at about four
millions and a half of our money, it would appear, that although
the share of each individual was four times as considerable, a
fourth part only of the modern taxes of France was levied on the
Imperial province of Gaul. The exactions of Constantius may be
calculated at seven millions sterling, which were reduced to two
millions by the humanity or the wisdom of Julian.
18011 (return) [ Two masterly dissertations of M. Savigny, in the
Mem. of the Berlin Academy (1822 and 1823) have thrown new light
on the taxation system of the Empire. Gibbon, according to M.
Savigny, is mistaken in supposing that there was but one kind of
capitation tax; there was a land tax, and a capitation tax,
strictly so called. The land tax was, in its operation, a
proprietor’s or landlord’s tax. But, besides this, there was a
direct capitation tax on all who were not possessed of landed
property. This tax dates from the time of the Roman conquests;
its amount is not clearly known. Gradual exemptions released
different persons and classes from this tax. One edict exempts
painters. In Syria, all under twelve or fourteen, or above
sixty-five, were exempted; at a later period, all under twenty,
and all unmarried females; still later, all under twenty-five,
widows and nuns, soldiers, veterani and clerici—whole dioceses,
that of Thrace and Illyricum. Under Galerius and Licinius, the
plebs urbana became exempt; though this, perhaps, was only an
ordinance for the East. By degrees, however, the exemption was
extended to all the inhabitants of towns; and as it was strictly
capitatio plebeia, from which all possessors were exempted it
fell at length altogether on the coloni and agricultural slaves.
These were registered in the same cataster (capitastrum) with the
land tax. It was paid by the proprietor, who raised it again from
his coloni and laborers.—M.]
181 (return) [
Geryones nos esse puta, monstrumque tributum, Hîc _capita_ ut
vivam, tu mihi tolle _tria_. Sidon. Apollinar. Carm. xiii.
The reputation of Father Sirmond led me to expect more
satisfaction than I have found in his note (p. 144) on this
remarkable passage. The words, suo vel _suorum_ nomine, betray
the perplexity of the commentator.]
182 (return) [ This assertion, however formidable it may seem, is
founded on the original registers of births, deaths, and
marriages, collected by public authority, and now deposited in
the _Contrôlee General_ at Paris. The annual average of births
throughout the whole kingdom, taken in five years, (from 1770 to
1774, both inclusive,) is 479,649 boys, and 449,269 girls, in all
928,918 children. The province of French Hainault alone furnishes
9906 births; and we are assured, by an actual enumeration of the
people, annually repeated from the year 1773 to the year 1776,
that upon an average, Hainault contains 257,097 inhabitants. By
the rules of fair analogy, we might infer, that the ordinary
proportion of annual births to the whole people, is about 1 to
26; and that the kingdom of France contains 24,151,868 persons of
both sexes and of every age. If we content ourselves with the
more moderate proportion of 1 to 25, the whole population will
amount to 23,222,950. From the diligent researches of the French
Government, (which are not unworthy of our own imitation,) we may
hope to obtain a still greater degree of certainty on this
important subject * Note: On no subject has so much valuable
information been collected since the time of Gibbon, as the
statistics of the different countries of Europe but much is still
wanting as to our own—M.]
183 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. v. tit. ix. x. xi. Cod. Justinian.
l. xi. tit. lxiii. Coloni appellantur qui conditionem debent
genitali solo, propter agriculturum sub dominio possessorum.
Augustin. de Civitate Dei, l. x. c. i.]
184 (return) [ The ancient jurisdiction of (_Augustodunum_) Autun
in Burgundy, the capital of the Ædui, comprehended the adjacent
territory of (_Noviodunum_) Nevers. See D’Anville, Notice de
l’Ancienne Gaule, p. 491. The two dioceses of Autun and Nevers
are now composed, the former of 610, and the latter of 160
parishes. The registers of births, taken during eleven years, in
476 parishes of the same province of Burgundy, and multiplied by
the moderate proportion of 25, (see Messance Recherches sur la
Population, p. 142,) may authorizes us to assign an average
number of 656 persons for each parish, which being again
multiplied by the 770 parishes of the dioceses of Nevers and
Autun, will produce the sum of 505,120 persons for the extent of
country which was once possessed by the Ædui.]
185 (return) [ We might derive an additional supply of 301,750
inhabitants from the dioceses of Châlons (_Cabillonum_) and of
Maçon, (_Matisco_,) since they contain, the one 200, and the
other 260 parishes. This accession of territory might be
justified by very specious reasons. 1. Châlons and Maçon were
undoubtedly within the original jurisdiction of the Ædui. (See
D’Anville, Notice, p. 187, 443.) 2. In the Notitia of Gaul, they
are enumerated not as _Civitates_, but merely as _Castra_. 3.
They do not appear to have been episcopal seats before the fifth
and sixth centuries. Yet there is a passage in Eumenius (Panegyr.
Vet. viii. 7) which very forcibly deters me from extending the
territory of the Ædui, in the reign of Constantine, along the
beautiful banks of the navigable Saône. * Note: In this passage
of Eumenius, Savigny supposes the original number to have been
32,000: 7000 being discharged, there remained 25,000 liable to
the tribute. See Mem. quoted above.—M.]
186 (return) [ Eumenius in Panegyr Vet. viii. 11.]
187 (return) [ L’Abbé du Bos, Hist. Critique de la M. F. tom. i.
p. 121]
But this tax, or capitation, on the proprietors of land, would
have suffered a rich and numerous class of free citizens to
escape. With the view of sharing that species of wealth which is
derived from art or labor, and which exists in money or in
merchandise, the emperors imposed a distinct and personal tribute
on the trading part of their subjects. 188 Some exemptions, very
strictly confined both in time and place, were allowed to the
proprietors who disposed of the produce of their own estates.
Some indulgence was granted to the profession of the liberal
arts: but every other branch of commercial industry was affected
by the severity of the law. The honorable merchant of Alexandria,
who imported the gems and spices of India for the use of the
western world; the usurer, who derived from the interest of money
a silent and ignominious profit; the ingenious manufacturer, the
diligent mechanic, and even the most obscure retailer of a
sequestered village, were obliged to admit the officers of the
revenue into the partnership of their gain; and the sovereign of
the Roman empire, who tolerated the profession, consented to
share the infamous salary, of public prostitutes. 18811 As this
general tax upon industry was collected every fourth year, it was
styled the _Lustral Contribution:_ and the historian Zosimus 189
laments that the approach of the fatal period was announced by
the tears and terrors of the citizens, who were often compelled
by the impending scourge to embrace the most abhorred and
unnatural methods of procuring the sum at which their property
had been assessed. The testimony of Zosimus cannot indeed be
justified from the charge of passion and prejudice; but, from the
nature of this tribute it seems reasonable to conclude, that it
was arbitrary in the distribution, and extremely rigorous in the
mode of collecting. The secret wealth of commerce, and the
precarious profits of art or labor, are susceptible only of a
discretionary valuation, which is seldom disadvantageous to the
interest of the treasury; and as the person of the trader
supplies the want of a visible and permanent security, the
payment of the imposition, which, in the case of a land tax, may
be obtained by the seizure of property, can rarely be extorted by
any other means than those of corporal punishments. The cruel
treatment of the insolvent debtors of the state, is attested, and
was perhaps mitigated by a very humane edict of Constantine, who,
disclaiming the use of racks and of scourges, allots a spacious
and airy prison for the place of their confinement. 190
188 (return) [ See Cod. Theod. l. xiii. tit. i. and iv.]
18811 (return) [ The emperor Theodosius put an end, by a law. to
this disgraceful source of revenue. (Godef. ad Cod. Theod. xiii.
tit. i. c. 1.) But before he deprived himself of it, he made sure
of some way of replacing this deficit. A rich patrician,
Florentius, indignant at this legalized licentiousness, had made
representations on the subject to the emperor. To induce him to
tolerate it no longer, he offered his own property to supply the
diminution of the revenue. The emperor had the baseness to accept
his offer—G.]
189 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 115. There is probably as much
passion and prejudice in the attack of Zosimus, as in the
elaborate defence of the memory of Constantine by the zealous Dr.
Howell. Hist. of the World, vol. ii. p. 20.]
190 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. xi. tit vii. leg. 3.]
These general taxes were imposed and levied by the absolute
authority of the monarch; but the occasional offerings of the
_coronary gold_ still retained the name and semblance of popular
consent. It was an ancient custom that the allies of the
republic, who ascribed their safety or deliverance to the success
of the Roman arms, and even the cities of Italy, who admired the
virtues of their victorious general, adorned the pomp of his
triumph by their voluntary gifts of crowns of gold, which after
the ceremony were consecrated in the temple of Jupiter, to remain
a lasting monument of his glory to future ages. The progress of
zeal and flattery soon multiplied the number, and increased the
size, of these popular donations; and the triumph of Cæsar was
enriched with two thousand eight hundred and twenty-two massy
crowns, whose weight amounted to twenty thousand four hundred and
fourteen pounds of gold. This treasure was immediately melted
down by the prudent dictator, who was satisfied that it would be
more serviceable to his soldiers than to the gods: his example
was imitated by his successors; and the custom was introduced of
exchanging these splendid ornaments for the more acceptable
present of the current gold coin of the empire. 191 The
spontaneous offering was at length exacted as the debt of duty;
and instead of being confined to the occasion of a triumph, it
was supposed to be granted by the several cities and provinces of
the monarchy, as often as the emperor condescended to announce
his accession, his consulship, the birth of a son, the creation
of a Cæsar, a victory over the Barbarians, or any other real or
imaginary event which graced the annals of his reign. The
peculiar free gift of the senate of Rome was fixed by custom at
sixteen hundred pounds of gold, or about sixty-four thousand
pounds sterling. The oppressed subjects celebrated their own
felicity, that their sovereign should graciously consent to
accept this feeble but voluntary testimony of their loyalty and
gratitude. 192
191 (return) [ See Lipsius de Magnitud. Romana, l. ii. c. 9. The
Tarragonese Spain presented the emperor Claudius with a crown of
gold of seven, and Gaul with another of nine, _hundred_ pounds
weight. I have followed the rational emendation of Lipsius. *
Note: This custom is of still earlier date, the Romans had
borrowed it from Greece. Who is not acquainted with the famous
oration of Demosthenes for the golden crown, which his citizens
wished to bestow, and Æschines to deprive him of?—G.]
192 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. xii. tit. xiii. The senators were
supposed to be exempt from the _Aurum Coronarium;_ but the _Auri
Oblatio_, which was required at their hands, was precisely of the
same nature.]
A people elated by pride, or soured by discontent, are seldom
qualified to form a just estimate of their actual situation. The
subjects of Constantine were incapable of discerning the decline
of genius and manly virtue, which so far degraded them below the
dignity of their ancestors; but they could feel and lament the
rage of tyranny, the relaxation of discipline, and the increase
of taxes. The impartial historian, who acknowledges the justice
of their complaints, will observe some favorable circumstances
which tended to alleviate the misery of their condition. The
threatening tempest of Barbarians, which so soon subverted the
foundations of Roman greatness, was still repelled, or suspended,
on the frontiers. The arts of luxury and literature were
cultivated, and the elegant pleasures of society were enjoyed, by
the inhabitants of a considerable portion of the globe. The
forms, the pomp, and the expense of the civil administration
contributed to restrain the irregular license of the soldiers;
and although the laws were violated by power, or perverted by
subtlety, the sage principles of the Roman jurisprudence
preserved a sense of order and equity, unknown to the despotic
governments of the East. The rights of mankind might derive some
protection from religion and philosophy; and the name of freedom,
which could no longer alarm, might sometimes admonish, the
successors of Augustus, that they did not reign over a nation of
Slaves or Barbarians. 193
193 (return) [ The great Theodosius, in his judicious advice to
his son, (Claudian in iv. Consulat. Honorii, 214, &c.,)
distinguishes the station of a Roman prince from that of a
Parthian monarch. Virtue was necessary for the one; birth might
suffice for the other.]
Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.—Part I.
Character Of Constantine.—Gothic War.—Death Of
Constantine.—Division Of The Empire Among His Three Sons.— Persian
War.—Tragic Deaths Of Constantine The Younger And
Constans.—Usurpation Of Magnentius.—Civil War.—Victory Of
Constantius.
The character of the prince who removed the seat of empire, and
introduced such important changes into the civil and religious
constitution of his country, has fixed the attention, and divided
the opinions, of mankind. By the grateful zeal of the Christians,
the deliverer of the church has been decorated with every
attribute of a hero, and even of a saint; while the discontent of
the vanquished party has compared Constantine to the most
abhorred of those tyrants, who, by their vice and weakness,
dishonored the Imperial purple. The same passions have in some
degree been perpetuated to succeeding generations, and the
character of Constantine is considered, even in the present age,
as an object either of satire or of panegyric. By the impartial
union of those defects which are confessed by his warmest
admirers, and of those virtues which are acknowledged by his
most-implacable enemies, we might hope to delineate a just
portrait of that extraordinary man, which the truth and candor of
history should adopt without a blush. 1 But it would soon appear,
that the vain attempt to blend such discordant colors, and to
reconcile such inconsistent qualities, must produce a figure
monstrous rather than human, unless it is viewed in its proper
and distinct lights, by a careful separation of the different
periods of the reign of Constantine.
1 (return) [ On ne se trompera point sur Constantin, en croyant
tout le mal ru’en dit Eusebe, et tout le bien qu’en dit Zosime.
Fleury, Hist. Ecclesiastique, tom. iii. p. 233. Eusebius and
Zosimus form indeed the two extremes of flattery and invective.
The intermediate shades are expressed by those writers, whose
character or situation variously tempered the influence of their
religious zeal.]
The person, as well as the mind, of Constantine, had been
enriched by nature with her choicest endowments. His stature was
lofty, his countenance majestic, his deportment graceful; his
strength and activity were displayed in every manly exercise, and
from his earliest youth, to a very advanced season of life, he
preserved the vigor of his constitution by a strict adherence to
the domestic virtues of chastity and temperance. He delighted in
the social intercourse of familiar conversation; and though he
might sometimes indulge his disposition to raillery with less
reserve than was required by the severe dignity of his station,
the courtesy and liberality of his manners gained the hearts of
all who approached him. The sincerity of his friendship has been
suspected; yet he showed, on some occasions, that he was not
incapable of a warm and lasting attachment. The disadvantage of
an illiterate education had not prevented him from forming a just
estimate of the value of learning; and the arts and sciences
derived some encouragement from the munificent protection of
Constantine. In the despatch of business, his diligence was
indefatigable; and the active powers of his mind were almost
continually exercised in reading, writing, or meditating, in
giving audiences to ambassadors, and in examining the complaints
of his subjects. Even those who censured the propriety of his
measures were compelled to acknowledge, that he possessed
magnanimity to conceive, and patience to execute, the most
arduous designs, without being checked either by the prejudices
of education, or by the clamors of the multitude. In the field,
he infused his own intrepid spirit into the troops, whom he
conducted with the talents of a consummate general; and to his
abilities, rather than to his fortune, we may ascribe the signal
victories which he obtained over the foreign and domestic foes of
the republic. He loved glory as the reward, perhaps as the
motive, of his labors. The boundless ambition, which, from the
moment of his accepting the purple at York, appears as the ruling
passion of his soul, may be justified by the dangers of his own
situation, by the character of his rivals, by the consciousness
of superior merit, and by the prospect that his success would
enable him to restore peace and order to the distracted empire.
In his civil wars against Maxentius and Licinius, he had engaged
on his side the inclinations of the people, who compared the
undissembled vices of those tyrants with the spirit of wisdom and
justice which seemed to direct the general tenor of the
administration of Constantine. 2
2 (return) [ The virtues of Constantine are collected for the
most part from Eutropius and the younger Victor, two sincere
pagans, who wrote after the extinction of his family. Even
Zosimus, and the _Emperor_ Julian, acknowledge his personal
courage and military achievements.]
Had Constantine fallen on the banks of the Tyber, or even in the
plains of Hadrianople, such is the character which, with a few
exceptions, he might have transmitted to posterity. But the
conclusion of his reign (according to the moderate and indeed
tender sentence of a writer of the same age) degraded him from
the rank which he had acquired among the most deserving of the
Roman princes. 3 In the life of Augustus, we behold the tyrant of
the republic, converted, almost by imperceptible degrees, into
the father of his country, and of human kind. In that of
Constantine, we may contemplate a hero, who had so long inspired
his subjects with love, and his enemies with terror, degenerating
into a cruel and dissolute monarch, corrupted by his fortune, or
raised by conquest above the necessity of dissimulation. The
general peace which he maintained during the last fourteen years
of his reign, was a period of apparent splendor rather than of
real prosperity; and the old age of Constantine was disgraced by
the opposite yet reconcilable vices of rapaciousness and
prodigality. The accumulated treasures found in the palaces of
Maxentius and Licinius, were lavishly consumed; the various
innovations introduced by the conqueror, were attended with an
increasing expense; the cost of his buildings, his court, and his
festivals, required an immediate and plentiful supply; and the
oppression of the people was the only fund which could support
the magnificence of the sovereign. 4 His unworthy favorites,
enriched by the boundless liberality of their master, usurped
with impunity the privilege of rapine and corruption. 5 A secret
but universal decay was felt in every part of the public
administration, and the emperor himself, though he still retained
the obedience, gradually lost the esteem, of his subjects. The
dress and manners, which, towards the decline of life, he chose
to affect, served only to degrade him in the eyes of mankind. The
Asiatic pomp, which had been adopted by the pride of Diocletian,
assumed an air of softness and effeminacy in the person of
Constantine. He is represented with false hair of various colors,
laboriously arranged by the skilful artists to the times; a
diadem of a new and more expensive fashion; a profusion of gems
and pearls, of collars and bracelets, and a variegated flowing
robe of silk, most curiously embroidered with flowers of gold. In
such apparel, scarcely to be excused by the youth and folly of
Elagabalus, we are at a loss to discover the wisdom of an aged
monarch, and the simplicity of a Roman veteran. 6 A mind thus
relaxed by prosperity and indulgence, was incapable of rising to
that magnanimity which disdains suspicion, and dares to forgive.
The deaths of Maximian and Licinius may perhaps be justified by
the maxims of policy, as they are taught in the schools of
tyrants; but an impartial narrative of the executions, or rather
murders, which sullied the declining age of Constantine, will
suggest to our most candid thoughts the idea of a prince who
could sacrifice without reluctance the laws of justice, and the
feelings of nature, to the dictates either of his passions or of
his interest.
3 (return) [ See Eutropius, x. 6. In primo Imperii tempore
optimis principibus, ultimo mediis comparandus. From the ancient
Greek version of Poeanius, (edit. Havercamp. p. 697,) I am
inclined to suspect that Eutropius had originally written _vix_
mediis; and that the offensive monosyllable was dropped by the
wilful inadvertency of transcribers. Aurelius Victor expresses
the general opinion by a vulgar and indeed obscure proverb.
_Trachala_ decem annis præstantissimds; duodecim sequentibus
_latro;_ decem novissimis _pupillus_ ob immouicas profusiones.]
4 (return) [ Julian, Orat. i. p. 8, in a flattering discourse
pronounced before the son of Constantine; and Cæsares, p. 336.
Zosimus, p. 114, 115. The stately buildings of Constantinople,
&c., may be quoted as a lasting and unexceptionable proof of the
profuseness of their founder.]
5 (return) [ The impartial Ammianus deserves all our confidence.
Proximorum fauces aperuit primus omnium Constantinus. L. xvi. c.
8. Eusebius himself confesses the abuse, (Vit. Constantin. l. iv.
c. 29, 54;) and some of the Imperial laws feebly point out the
remedy. See above, p. 146 of this volume.]
6 (return) [ Julian, in the Cæsars, attempts to ridicule his
uncle. His suspicious testimony is confirmed, however, by the
learned Spanheim, with the authority of medals, (see Commentaire,
p. 156, 299, 397, 459.) Eusebius (Orat. c. 5) alleges, that
Constantine dressed for the public, not for himself. Were this
admitted, the vainest coxcomb could never want an excuse.]
The same fortune which so invariably followed the standard of
Constantine, seemed to secure the hopes and comforts of his
domestic life. Those among his predecessors who had enjoyed the
longest and most prosperous reigns, Augustus Trajan, and
Diocletian, had been disappointed of posterity; and the frequent
revolutions had never allowed sufficient time for any Imperial
family to grow up and multiply under the shade of the purple. But
the royalty of the Flavian line, which had been first ennobled by
the Gothic Claudius, descended through several generations; and
Constantine himself derived from his royal father the hereditary
honors which he transmitted to his children. The emperor had been
twice married. Minervina, the obscure but lawful object of his
youthful attachment, 7 had left him only one son, who was called
Crispus. By Fausta, the daughter of Maximian, he had three
daughters, and three sons known by the kindred names of
Constantine, Constantius, and Constans. The unambitious brothers
of the great Constantine, Julius Constantius, Dalmatius, and
Hannibalianus, 8 were permitted to enjoy the most honorable rank,
and the most affluent fortune, that could be consistent with a
private station. The youngest of the three lived without a name,
and died without posterity. His two elder brothers obtained in
marriage the daughters of wealthy senators, and propagated new
branches of the Imperial race. Gallus and Julian afterwards
became the most illustrious of the children of Julius
Constantius, the _Patrician_. The two sons of Dalmatius, who had
been decorated with the vain title of _Censor_, were named
Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. The two sisters of the great
Constantine, Anastasia and Eutropia, were bestowed on Optatus and
Nepotianus, two senators of noble birth and of consular dignity.
His third sister, Constantia, was distinguished by her
preëminence of greatness and of misery. She remained the widow of
the vanquished Licinius; and it was by her entreaties, that an
innocent boy, the offspring of their marriage, preserved, for
some time, his life, the title of Cæsar, and a precarious hope of
the succession. Besides the females, and the allies of the
Flavian house, ten or twelve males, to whom the language of
modern courts would apply the title of princes of the blood,
seemed, according to the order of their birth, to be destined
either to inherit or to support the throne of Constantine. But in
less than thirty years, this numerous and increasing family was
reduced to the persons of Constantius and Julian, who alone had
survived a series of crimes and calamities, such as the tragic
poets have deplored in the devoted lines of Pelops and of Cadmus.
7 (return) [ Zosimus and Zonaras agree in representing Minervina
as the concubine of Constantine; but Ducange has very gallantly
rescued her character, by producing a decisive passage from one
of the panegyrics: “Ab ipso fine pueritiæ te matrimonii legibus
dedisti.”]
8 (return) [ Ducange (Familiæ Byzantinæ, p. 44) bestows on him,
after Zosimus, the name of Constantine; a name somewhat unlikely,
as it was already occupied by the elder brother. That of
Hannibalianus is mentioned in the Paschal Chronicle, and is
approved by Tillemont. Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 527.]
Crispus, the eldest son of Constantine, and the presumptive heir
of the empire, is represented by impartial historians as an
amiable and accomplished youth. The care of his education, or at
least of his studies, was intrusted to Lactantius, the most
eloquent of the Christians; a preceptor admirably qualified to
form the taste, and the excite the virtues, of his illustrious
disciple. 9 At the age of seventeen, Crispus was invested with
the title of Cæsar, and the administration of the Gallic
provinces, where the inroads of the Germans gave him an early
occasion of signalizing his military prowess. In the civil war
which broke out soon afterwards, the father and son divided their
powers; and this history has already celebrated the valor as well
as conduct displayed by the latter, in forcing the straits of the
Hellespont, so obstinately defended by the superior fleet of
Lacinius. This naval victory contributed to determine the event
of the war; and the names of Constantine and of Crispus were
united in the joyful acclamations of their eastern subjects; who
loudly proclaimed, that the world had been subdued, and was now
governed, by an emperor endowed with every virtue; and by his
illustrious son, a prince beloved of Heaven, and the lively image
of his father’s perfections. The public favor, which seldom
accompanies old age, diffused its lustre over the youth of
Crispus. He deserved the esteem, and he engaged the affections,
of the court, the army, and the people. The experienced merit of
a reigning monarch is acknowledged by his subjects with
reluctance, and frequently denied with partial and discontented
murmurs; while, from the opening virtues of his successor, they
fondly conceive the most unbounded hopes of private as well as
public felicity. 10
9 (return) [ Jerom. in Chron. The poverty of Lactantius may be
applied either to the praise of the disinterested philosopher, or
to the shame of the unfeeling patron. See Tillemont, Mém.
Ecclesiast. tom. vi. part 1. p. 345. Dupin, Bibliothèque
Ecclesiast. tom. i. p. 205. Lardner’s Credibility of the Gospel
History, part ii. vol. vii. p. 66.]
10 (return) [ Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. l. x. c. 9. Eutropius (x.
6) styles him “egregium virum;” and Julian (Orat. i.) very
plainly alludes to the exploits of Crispus in the civil war. See
Spanheim, Comment. p. 92.]
This dangerous popularity soon excited the attention of
Constantine, who, both as a father and as a king, was impatient
of an equal. Instead of attempting to secure the allegiance of
his son by the generous ties of confidence and gratitude, he
resolved to prevent the mischiefs which might be apprehended from
dissatisfied ambition. Crispus soon had reason to complain, that
while his infant brother Constantius was sent, with the title of
Cæsar, to reign over his peculiar department of the Gallic
provinces, 11 _he_, a prince of mature years, who had performed
such recent and signal services, instead of being raised to the
superior rank of Augustus, was confined almost a prisoner to his
father’s court; and exposed, without power or defence, to every
calumny which the malice of his enemies could suggest. Under such
painful circumstances, the royal youth might not always be able
to compose his behavior, or suppress his discontent; and we may
be assured, that he was encompassed by a train of indiscreet or
perfidious followers, who assiduously studied to inflame, and who
were perhaps instructed to betray, the unguarded warmth of his
resentment. An edict of Constantine, published about this time,
manifestly indicates his real or affected suspicions, that a
secret conspiracy had been formed against his person and
government. By all the allurements of honors and rewards, he
invites informers of every degree to accuse without exception his
magistrates or ministers, his friends or his most intimate
favorites, protesting, with a solemn asseveration, that he
himself will listen to the charge, that he himself will revenge
his injuries; and concluding with a prayer, which discovers some
apprehension of danger, that the providence of the Supreme Being
may still continue to protect the safety of the emperor and of
the empire. 12
11 (return) [ Compare Idatius and the Paschal Chronicle, with
Ammianus, (l, xiv. c. 5.) The _year_ in which Constantius was
created Cæsar seems to be more accurately fixed by the two
chronologists; but the historian who lived in his court could not
be ignorant of the _day_ of the anniversary. For the appointment
of the new Cæsar to the provinces of Gaul, see Julian, Orat. i.
p. 12, Godefroy, Chronol. Legum, p. 26. and Blondel, de Primauté
de l’Eglise, p. 1183.]
12 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. iv. Godefroy suspected the
secret motives of this law. Comment. tom. iii. p. 9.]
The informers, who complied with so liberal an invitation, were
sufficiently versed in the arts of courts to select the friends
and adherents of Crispus as the guilty persons; nor is there any
reason to distrust the veracity of the emperor, who had promised
an ample measure of revenge and punishment. The policy of
Constantine maintained, however, the same appearances of regard
and confidence towards a son, whom he began to consider as his
most irreconcilable enemy. Medals were struck with the customary
vows for the long and auspicious reign of the young Cæsar; 13 and
as the people, who were not admitted into the secrets of the
palace, still loved his virtues, and respected his dignity, a
poet who solicits his recall from exile, adores with equal
devotion the majesty of the father and that of the son. 14 The
time was now arrived for celebrating the august ceremony of the
twentieth year of the reign of Constantine; and the emperor, for
that purpose, removed his court from Nicomedia to Rome, where the
most splendid preparations had been made for his reception. Every
eye, and every tongue, affected to express their sense of the
general happiness, and the veil of ceremony and dissimulation was
drawn for a while over the darkest designs of revenge and murder.
15 In the midst of the festival, the unfortunate Crispus was
apprehended by order of the emperor, who laid aside the
tenderness of a father, without assuming the equity of a judge.
The examination was short and private; 16 and as it was thought
decent to conceal the fate of the young prince from the eyes of
the Roman people, he was sent under a strong guard to Pola, in
Istria, where, soon afterwards, he was put to death, either by
the hand of the executioner, or by the more gentle operations of
poison. 17 The Cæsar Licinius, a youth of amiable manners, was
involved in the ruin of Crispus: 18 and the stern jealousy of
Constantine was unmoved by the prayers and tears of his favorite
sister, pleading for the life of a son, whose rank was his only
crime, and whose loss she did not long survive. The story of
these unhappy princes, the nature and evidence of their guilt,
the forms of their trial, and the circumstances of their death,
were buried in mysterious obscurity; and the courtly bishop, who
has celebrated in an elaborate work the virtues and piety of his
hero, observes a prudent silence on the subject of these tragic
events. 19 Such haughty contempt for the opinion of mankind,
whilst it imprints an indelible stain on the memory of
Constantine, must remind us of the very different behavior of one
of the greatest monarchs of the present age. The Czar Peter, in
the full possession of despotic power, submitted to the judgment
of Russia, of Europe, and of posterity, the reasons which had
compelled him to subscribe the condemnation of a criminal, or at
least of a degenerate son. 20
13 (return) [ Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 28. Tillemont, tom. iv. p.
610.]
14 (return) [ His name was Porphyrius Optatianus. The date of his
panegyric, written, according to the taste of the age, in vile
acrostics, is settled by Scaliger ad Euseb. p. 250, Tillemont,
tom. iv. p. 607, and Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin, l. iv. c. 1.]
15 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. p. 103. Godefroy, Chronol. Legum, p.
28.]
16 (return) [ The elder Victor, who wrote under the next reign,
speaks with becoming caution. “Natu grandior incertum qua causa,
patris judicio occidisset.” If we consult the succeeding writers,
Eutropius, the younger Victor, Orosius, Jerom, Zosimus,
Philostorgius, and Gregory of Tours, their knowledge will appear
gradually to increase, as their means of information must have
diminished—a circumstance which frequently occurs in historical
disquisition.]
17 (return) [ Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 11) uses the general
expression of peremptum Codinus (p. 34) beheads the young prince;
but Sidonius Apollinaris (Epistol. v. 8,) for the sake perhaps of
an antithesis to Fausta’s _warm_ bath, chooses to administer a
draught of _cold_ poison.]
18 (return) [ Sororis filium, commodæ indolis juvenem. Eutropius,
x. 6 May I not be permitted to conjecture that Crispus had
married Helena the daughter of the emperor Licinius, and that on
the happy delivery of the princess, in the year 322, a general
pardon was granted by Constantine? See Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p.
47, and the law (l. ix. tit. xxxvii.) of the Theodosian code,
which has so much embarrassed the interpreters. Godefroy, tom.
iii. p. 267 * Note: This conjecture is very doubtful. The
obscurity of the law quoted from the Theodosian code scarcely
allows any inference, and there is extant but one meda which can
be attributed to a Helena, wife of Crispus.]
19 (return) [ See the life of Constantine, particularly l. ii. c.
19, 20. Two hundred and fifty years afterwards Evagrius (l. iii.
c. 41) deduced from the silence of Eusebius a vain argument
against the reality of the fact.]
20 (return) [ Histoire de Pierre le Grand, par Voltaire, part ii.
c. 10.]
The innocence of Crispus was so universally acknowledged, that
the modern Greeks, who adore the memory of their founder, are
reduced to palliate the guilt of a parricide, which the common
feelings of human nature forbade them to justify. They pretend,
that as soon as the afflicted father discovered the falsehood of
the accusation by which his credulity had been so fatally misled,
he published to the world his repentance and remorse; that he
mourned forty days, during which he abstained from the use of the
bath, and all the ordinary comforts of life; and that, for the
lasting instruction of posterity, he erected a golden statue of
Crispus, with this memorable inscription: To my son, whom I
unjustly condemned. 21 A tale so moral and so interesting would
deserve to be supported by less exceptionable authority; but if
we consult the more ancient and authentic writers, they will
inform us, that the repentance of Constantine was manifested only
in acts of blood and revenge; and that he atoned for the murder
of an innocent son, by the execution, perhaps, of a guilty wife.
They ascribe the misfortunes of Crispus to the arts of his
step-mother Fausta, whose implacable hatred, or whose
disappointed love, renewed in the palace of Constantine the
ancient tragedy of Hippolitus and of Phædra. 22 Like the daughter
of Minos, the daughter of Maximian accused her son-in-law of an
incestuous attempt on the chastity of his father’s wife; and
easily obtained, from the jealousy of the emperor, a sentence of
death against a young prince, whom she considered with reason as
the most formidable rival of her own children. But Helena, the
aged mother of Constantine, lamented and revenged the untimely
fate of her grandson Crispus; nor was it long before a real or
pretended discovery was made, that Fausta herself entertained a
criminal connection with a slave belonging to the Imperial
stables. 23 Her condemnation and punishment were the instant
consequences of the charge; and the adulteress was suffocated by
the steam of a bath, which, for that purpose, had been heated to
an extraordinary degree. 24 By some it will perhaps be thought,
that the remembrance of a conjugal union of twenty years, and the
honor of their common offspring, the destined heirs of the
throne, might have softened the obdurate heart of Constantine,
and persuaded him to suffer his wife, however guilty she might
appear, to expiate her offences in a solitary prison. But it
seems a superfluous labor to weigh the propriety, unless we could
ascertain the truth, of this singular event, which is attended
with some circumstances of doubt and perplexity. Those who have
attacked, and those who have defended, the character of
Constantine, have alike disregarded two very remarkable passages
of two orations pronounced under the succeeding reign. The former
celebrates the virtues, the beauty, and the fortune of the
empress Fausta, the daughter, wife, sister, and mother of so many
princes. 25 The latter asserts, in explicit terms, that the
mother of the younger Constantine, who was slain three years
after his father’s death, survived to weep over the fate of her
son. 26 Notwithstanding the positive testimony of several writers
of the Pagan as well as of the Christian religion, there may
still remain some reason to believe, or at least to suspect, that
Fausta escaped the blind and suspicious cruelty of her husband.
2611 The deaths of a son and a nephew, with the execution of a
great number of respectable, and perhaps innocent friends, 27 who
were involved in their fall, may be sufficient, however, to
justify the discontent of the Roman people, and to explain the
satirical verses affixed to the palace gate, comparing the
splendid and bloody reigns of Constantine and Nero. 28
21 (return) [ In order to prove that the statue was erected by
Constantine, and afterwards concealed by the malice of the
Arians, Codinus very readily creates (p. 34) two witnesses,
Hippolitus, and the younger Herodotus, to whose imaginary
histories he appeals with unblushing confidence.]
22 (return) [ Zosimus (l. ii. p. 103) may be considered as our
original. The ingenuity of the moderns, assisted by a few hints
from the ancients, has illustrated and improved his obscure and
imperfect narrative.]
23 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. ii. c. 4. Zosimus (l. ii. p. 104,
116) imputes to Constantine the death of two wives, of the
innocent Fausta, and of an adulteress, who was the mother of his
three successors. According to Jerom, three or four years elapsed
between the death of Crispus and that of Fausta. The elder Victor
is prudently silent.]
24 (return) [ If Fausta was put to death, it is reasonable to
believe that the private apartments of the palace were the scene
of her execution. The orator Chrysostom indulges his fancy by
exposing the naked desert mountain to be devoured by wild
beasts.]
25 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. He seems to call her the mother of
Crispus. She might assume that title by adoption. At least, she
was not considered as his mortal enemy. Julian compares the
fortune of Fausta with that of Parysatis, the Persian queen. A
Roman would have more naturally recollected the second Agrippina:
Et moi, qui sur le trone ai suivi mes ancêtres: Moi, fille,
femme,sœur, et mere de vos maitres.]
26 (return) [ Monod. in Constantin. Jun. c. 4, ad Calcem Eutrop.
edit. Havercamp. The orator styles her the most divine and pious
of queens.]
2611 (return) [ Manso (Leben Constantins, p. 65) treats this
inference o: Gibbon, and the authorities to which he appeals,
with too much contempt, considering the general scantiness of
proof on this curious question.—M.]
27 (return) [ Interfecit numerosos amicos. Eutrop. xx. 6.]
28 (return) [ Saturni aurea sæcula quis requirat? Sunt hæc
gemmea, sed Neroniana. Sidon. Apollinar. v. 8. ——It is somewhat
singular that these satirical lines should be attributed, not to
an obscure libeller, or a disappointed patriot, but to Ablavius,
prime minister and favorite of the emperor. We may now perceive
that the imprecations of the Roman people were dictated by
humanity, as well as by superstition. Zosim. l. ii. p. 105.]
Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.—Part II.
By the death of Crispus, the inheritance of the empire seemed to
devolve on the three sons of Fausta, who have been already
mentioned under the names of Constantine, of Constantius, and of
Constans. These young princes were successively invested with the
title of Cæsar; and the dates of their promotion may be referred
to the tenth, the twentieth, and the thirtieth years of the reign
of their father. 29 This conduct, though it tended to multiply
the future masters of the Roman world, might be excused by the
partiality of paternal affection; but it is not so easy to
understand the motives of the emperor, when he endangered the
safety both of his family and of his people, by the unnecessary
elevation of his two nephews, Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. The
former was raised, by the title of Cæsar, to an equality with his
cousins. In favor of the latter, Constantine invented the new and
singular appellation of _Nobilissimus;_ 30 to which he annexed
the flattering distinction of a robe of purple and gold. But of
the whole series of Roman princes in any age of the empire,
Hannibalianus alone was distinguished by the title of King; a
name which the subjects of Tiberius would have detested, as the
profane and cruel insult of capricious tyranny. The use of such a
title, even as it appears under the reign of Constantine, is a
strange and unconnected fact, which can scarcely be admitted on
the joint authority of Imperial medals and contemporary writers.
31 3111
29 (return) [ Euseb. Orat. in Constantin. c. 3. These dates are
sufficiently correct to justify the orator.]
30 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. p. 117. Under the predecessors of
Constantine, _Nobilissimus_ was a vague epithet, rather than a
legal and determined title.]
31 (return) [ Adstruunt nummi veteres ac singulares. Spanheim de
Usu Numismat. Dissertat. xii. vol. ii. p. 357. Ammianus speaks of
this Roman king (l. xiv. c. l, and Valesius ad loc.) The Valesian
fragment styles him King of kings; and the Paschal Chronicle
acquires the weight of Latin evidence.]
3111 (return) [ Hannibalianus is always designated in these
authors by the title of king. There still exist medals struck to
his honor, on which the same title is found, Fl. Hannibaliano
Regi. See Eckhel, Doct. Num. t. viii. 204. Armeniam nationesque
circum socias habebat, says Aur. Victor, p. 225. The writer means
the Lesser Armenia. Though it is not possible to question a fact
supported by such respectable authorities, Gibbon considers it
inexplicable and incredible. It is a strange abuse of the
privilege of doubting, to refuse all belief in a fact of such
little importance in itself, and attested thus formally by
contemporary authors and public monuments. St. Martin note to Le
Beau i. 341.—M.]
The whole empire was deeply interested in the education of these
five youths, the acknowledged successors of Constantine. The
exercise of the body prepared them for the fatigues of war and
the duties of active life. Those who occasionally mention the
education or talents of Constantius, allow that he excelled in
the gymnastic arts of leaping and running that he was a dexterous
archer, a skilful horseman, and a master of all the different
weapons used in the service either of the cavalry or of the
infantry. 32 The same assiduous cultivation was bestowed, though
not perhaps with equal success, to improve the minds of the sons
and nephews of Constantine. 33 The most celebrated professors of
the Christian faith, of the Grecian philosophy, and of the Roman
jurisprudence, were invited by the liberality of the emperor, who
reserved for himself the important task of instructing the royal
youths in the science of government, and the knowledge of
mankind. But the genius of Constantine himself had been formed by
adversity and experience. In the free intercourse of private
life, and amidst the dangers of the court of Galerius, he had
learned to command his own passions, to encounter those of his
equals, and to depend for his present safety and future greatness
on the prudence and firmness of his personal conduct. His
destined successors had the misfortune of being born and educated
in the imperial purple. Incessantly surrounded with a train of
flatterers, they passed their youth in the enjoyment of luxury,
and the expectation of a throne; nor would the dignity of their
rank permit them to descend from that elevated station from
whence the various characters of human nature appear to wear a
smooth and uniform aspect. The indulgence of Constantine admitted
them, at a very tender age, to share the administration of the
empire; and they studied the art of reigning, at the expense of
the people intrusted to their care. The younger Constantine was
appointed to hold his court in Gaul; and his brother Constantius
exchanged that department, the ancient patrimony of their father,
for the more opulent, but less martial, countries of the East.
Italy, the Western Illyricum, and Africa, were accustomed to
revere Constans, the third of his sons, as the representative of
the great Constantine. He fixed Dalmatius on the Gothic frontier,
to which he annexed the government of Thrace, Macedonia, and
Greece. The city of Cæsarea was chosen for the residence of
Hannibalianus; and the provinces of Pontus, Cappadocia, and the
Lesser Armenia, were destined to form the extent of his new
kingdom. For each of these princes a suitable establishment was
provided. A just proportion of guards, of legions, and of
auxiliaries, was allotted for their respective dignity and
defence. The ministers and generals, who were placed about their
persons, were such as Constantine could trust to assist, and even
to control, these youthful sovereigns in the exercise of their
delegated power. As they advanced in years and experience, the
limits of their authority were insensibly enlarged: but the
emperor always reserved for himself the title of Augustus; and
while he showed the _Cæsars_ to the armies and provinces, he
maintained every part of the empire in equal obedience to its
supreme head. 34 The tranquillity of the last fourteen years of
his reign was scarcely interrupted by the contemptible
insurrection of a camel-driver in the Island of Cyprus, 35 or by
the active part which the policy of Constantine engaged him to
assume in the wars of the Goths and Sarmatians.
32 (return) [ His dexterity in martial exercises is celebrated by
Julian, (Orat. i. p. 11, Orat. ii. p. 53,) and allowed by
Ammianus, (l. xxi. c. 16.)]
33 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c. 51. Julian,
Orat. i. p. 11-16, with Spanheim’s elaborate Commentary.
Libanius, Orat. iii. p. 109. Constantius studied with laudable
diligence; but the dulness of his fancy prevented him from
succeeding in the art of poetry, or even of rhetoric.]
34 (return) [ Eusebius, (l. iv. c. 51, 52,) with a design of
exalting the authority and glory of Constantine, affirms, that he
divided the Roman empire as a private citizen might have divided
his patrimony. His distribution of the provinces may be collected
from Eutropius, the two Victors and the Valesian fragment.]
35 (return) [ Calocerus, the obscure leader of this rebellion, or
rather tumult, was apprehended and burnt alive in the
market-place of Tarsus, by the vigilance of Dalmatius. See the
elder Victor, the Chronicle of Jerom, and the doubtful traditions
of Theophanes and Cedrenus.]
Among the different branches of the human race, the Sarmatians
form a very remarkable shade; as they seem to unite the manners
of the Asiatic barbarians with the figure and complexion of the
ancient inhabitants of Europe. According to the various accidents
of peace and war, of alliance or conquest, the Sarmatians were
sometimes confined to the banks of the Tanais; and they sometimes
spread themselves over the immense plains which lie between the
Vistula and the Volga. 36 The care of their numerous flocks and
herds, the pursuit of game, and the exercises of war, or rather
of rapine, directed the vagrant motions of the Sarmatians. The
movable camps or cities, the ordinary residence of their wives
and children, consisted only of large wagons drawn by oxen, and
covered in the form of tents. The military strength of the nation
was composed of cavalry; and the custom of their warriors, to
lead in their hand one or two spare horses, enabled them to
advance and to retreat with a rapid diligence, which surprised
the security, and eluded the pursuit, of a distant enemy. 37
Their poverty of iron prompted their rude industry to invent a
sort of cuirass, which was capable of resisting a sword or
javelin, though it was formed only of horses’ hoofs, cut into
thin and polished slices, carefully laid over each other in the
manner of scales or feathers, and strongly sewed upon an under
garment of coarse linen. 38 The offensive arms of the Sarmatians
were short daggers, long lances, and a weighty bow with a quiver
of arrows. They were reduced to the necessity of employing
fish-bones for the points of their weapons; but the custom of
dipping them in a venomous liquor, that poisoned the wounds which
they inflicted, is alone sufficient to prove the most savage
manners, since a people impressed with a sense of humanity would
have abhorred so cruel a practice, and a nation skilled in the
arts of war would have disdained so impotent a resource. 39
Whenever these Barbarians issued from their deserts in quest of
prey, their shaggy beards, uncombed locks, the furs with which
they were covered from head to foot, and their fierce
countenances, which seemed to express the innate cruelty of their
minds, inspired the more civilized provincials of Rome with
horror and dismay.
36 (return) [ Cellarius has collected the opinions of the
ancients concerning the European and Asiatic Sarmatia; and M.
D’Anville has applied them to modern geography with the skill and
accuracy which always distinguish that excellent writer.]
37 (return) [ Ammian. l. xvii. c. 12. The Sarmatian horses were
castrated to prevent the mischievous accidents which might happen
from the noisy and ungovernable passions of the males.]
38 (return) [ Pausanius, l. i. p. 50,. edit. Kuhn. That
inquisitive traveller had carefully examined a Sarmatian cuirass,
which was preserved in the temple of Æsculapius at Athens.]
39 (return) [ Aspicis et mitti sub adunco toxica ferro, Et telum
causas mortis habere duas. Ovid, ex Ponto, l. iv. ep. 7, ver.
7.——See in the Recherches sur les Americains, tom. ii. p.
236—271, a very curious dissertation on poisoned darts. The venom
was commonly extracted from the vegetable reign: but that
employed by the Scythians appears to have been drawn from the
viper, and a mixture of human blood.]
The use of poisoned arms, which has been spread over both worlds,
never preserved a savage tribe from the arms of a disciplined
enemy. The tender Ovid, after a youth spent in the enjoyment of
fame and luxury, was condemned to a hopeless exile on the frozen
banks of the Danube, where he was exposed, almost without
defence, to the fury of these monsters of the desert, with whose
stern spirits he feared that his gentle shade might hereafter be
confounded. In his pathetic, but sometimes unmanly lamentations,
40 he describes in the most lively colors the dress and manners,
the arms and inroads, of the Getæ and Sarmatians, who were
associated for the purposes of destruction; and from the accounts
of history there is some reason to believe that these Sarmatians
were the Jazygæ, one of the most numerous and warlike tribes of
the nation. The allurements of plenty engaged them to seek a
permanent establishment on the frontiers of the empire. Soon
after the reign of Augustus, they obliged the Dacians, who
subsisted by fishing on the banks of the River Teyss or Tibiscus,
to retire into the hilly country, and to abandon to the
victorious Sarmatians the fertile plains of the Upper Hungary,
which are bounded by the course of the Danube and the
semicircular enclosure of the Carpathian Mountains. 41 In this
advantageous position, they watched or suspended the moment of
attack, as they were provoked by injuries or appeased by
presents; they gradually acquired the skill of using more
dangerous weapons, and although the Sarmatians did not illustrate
their name by any memorable exploits, they occasionally assisted
their eastern and western neighbors, the Goths and the Germans,
with a formidable body of cavalry. They lived under the irregular
aristocracy of their chieftains: 42 but after they had received
into their bosom the fugitive Vandals, who yielded to the
pressure of the Gothic power, they seem to have chosen a king
from that nation, and from the illustrious race of the Astingi,
who had formerly dwelt on the hores of the northern ocean. 43
40 (return) [ The nine books of Poetical Epistles which Ovid
composed during the seven first years of his melancholy exile,
possess, beside the merit of elegance, a double value. They
exhibit a picture of the human mind under very singular
circumstances; and they contain many curious observations, which
no Roman except Ovid, could have an opportunity of making. Every
circumstance which tends to illustrate the history of the
Barbarians, has been drawn together by the very accurate Count de
Buat. Hist. Ancienne des Peuples de l’Europe, tom. iv. c. xvi. p.
286-317]
41 (return) [ The Sarmatian Jazygæ were settled on the banks of
Pathissus or Tibiscus, when Pliny, in the year 79, published his
Natural History. See l. iv. c. 25. In the time of Strabo and
Ovid, sixty or seventy years before, they appear to have
inhabited beyond the Getæ, along the coast of the Euxine.]
42 (return) [ Principes Sarmaturum Jazygum penes quos civitatis
regimen plebem quoque et vim equitum, qua sola valent,
offerebant. Tacit. Hist. iii. p. 5. This offer was made in the
civil war between Vitellino and Vespasian.]
43 (return) [ This hypothesis of a Vandal king reigning over
Sarmatian subjects, seems necessary to reconcile the Goth
Jornandes with the Greek and Latin historians of Constantine. It
may be observed that Isidore, who lived in Spain under the
dominion of the Goths, gives them for enemies, not the Vandals,
but the Sarmatians. See his Chronicle in Grotius, p. 709. Note: I
have already noticed the confusion which must necessarily arise
in history, when names purely _geographical_, as this of
Sarmatia, are taken for _historical_ names belonging to a single
nation. We perceive it here; it has forced Gibbon to suppose,
without any reason but the necessity of extricating himself from
his perplexity, that the Sarmatians had taken a king from among
the Vandals; a supposition entirely contrary to the usages of
Barbarians Dacia, at this period, was occupied, not by
Sarmatians, who have never formed a distinct race, but by
Vandals, whom the ancients have often confounded under the
general term Sarmatians. See Gatterer’s Welt-Geschiehte p.
464—G.]
This motive of enmity must have inflamed the subjects of
contention, which perpetually arise on the confines of warlike
and independent nations. The Vandal princes were stimulated by
fear and revenge; the Gothic kings aspired to extend their
dominion from the Euxine to the frontiers of Germany; and the
waters of the Maros, a small river which falls into the Teyss,
were stained with the blood of the contending Barbarians. After
some experience of the superior strength and numbers of their
adversaries, the Sarmatians implored the protection of the Roman
monarch, who beheld with pleasure the discord of the nations, but
who was justly alarmed by the progress of the Gothic arms. As
soon as Constantine had declared himself in favor of the weaker
party, the haughty Araric, king of the Goths, instead of
expecting the attack of the legions, boldly passed the Danube,
and spread terror and devastation through the province of Mæsia.
To oppose the inroad of this destroying host, the aged emperor
took the field in person; but on this occasion either his conduct
or his fortune betrayed the glory which he had acquired in so
many foreign and domestic wars. He had the mortification of
seeing his troops fly before an inconsiderable detachment of the
Barbarians, who pursued them to the edge of their fortified camp,
and obliged him to consult his safety by a precipitate and
ignominious retreat. 4311 The event of a second and more
successful action retrieved the honor of the Roman name; and the
powers of art and discipline prevailed, after an obstinate
contest, over the efforts of irregular valor. The broken army of
the Goths abandoned the field of battle, the wasted province, and
the passage of the Danube: and although the eldest of the sons of
Constantine was permitted to supply the place of his father, the
merit of the victory, which diffused universal joy, was ascribed
to the auspicious counsels of the emperor himself.
4311 (return) [ Gibbon states, that Constantine was defeated by
the Goths in a first battle. No ancient author mentions such an
event. It is, no doubt, a mistake in Gibbon. St Martin, note to
Le Beau. i. 324.—M.]
He contributed at least to improve this advantage, by his
negotiations with the free and warlike people of Chersonesus, 44
whose capital, situate on the western coast of the Tauric or
Crimæan peninsula, still retained some vestiges of a Grecian
colony, and was governed by a perpetual magistrate, assisted by a
council of senators, emphatically styled the Fathers of the City.
The Chersonites were animated against the Goths, by the memory of
the wars, which, in the preceding century, they had maintained
with unequal forces against the invaders of their country. They
were connected with the Romans by the mutual benefits of
commerce; as they were supplied from the provinces of Asia with
corn and manufactures, which they purchased with their only
productions, salt, wax, and hides. Obedient to the requisition of
Constantine, they prepared, under the conduct of their magistrate
Diogenes, a considerable army, of which the principal strength
consisted in cross-bows and military chariots. The speedy march
and intrepid attack of the Chersonites, by diverting the
attention of the Goths, assisted the operations of the Imperial
generals. The Goths, vanquished on every side, were driven into
the mountains, where, in the course of a severe campaign, above a
hundred thousand were computed to have perished by cold and
hunger. Peace was at length granted to their humble
supplications; the eldest son of Araric was accepted as the most
valuable hostage; and Constantine endeavored to convince their
chiefs, by a liberal distribution of honors and rewards, how far
the friendship of the Romans was preferable to their enmity. In
the expressions of his gratitude towards the faithful
Chersonites, the emperor was still more magnificent. The pride of
the nation was gratified by the splendid and almost royal
decorations bestowed on their magistrate and his successors. A
perpetual exemption from all duties was stipulated for their
vessels which traded to the ports of the Black Sea. A regular
subsidy was promised, of iron, corn, oil, and of every supply
which could be useful either in peace or war. But it was thought
that the Sarmatians were sufficiently rewarded by their
deliverance from impending ruin; and the emperor, perhaps with
too strict an economy, deducted some part of the expenses of the
war from the customary gratifications which were allowed to that
turbulent nation.
44 (return) [ I may stand in need of some apology for having
used, without scruple, the authority of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, in all that relates to the wars and negotiations
of the Chersonites. I am aware that he was a Greek of the tenth
century, and that his accounts of ancient history are frequently
confused and fabulous. But on this occasion his narrative is, for
the most part, consistent and probable nor is there much
difficulty in conceiving that an emperor might have access to
some secret archives, which had escaped the diligence of meaner
historians. For the situation and history of Chersone, see
Peyssonel, des Peuples barbares qui ont habite les Bords du
Danube, c. xvi. 84-90. ——Gibbon has confounded the inhabitants of
the city of Cherson, the ancient Chersonesus, with the people of
the Chersonesus Taurica. If he had read with more attention the
chapter of Constantius Porphyrogenitus, from which this narrative
is derived, he would have seen that the author clearly
distinguishes the republic of Cherson from the rest of the Tauric
Peninsula, then possessed by the kings of the Cimmerian
Bosphorus, and that the city of Cherson alone furnished succors
to the Romans. The English historian is also mistaken in saying
that the Stephanephoros of the Chersonites was a perpetual
magistrate; since it is easy to discover from the great number of
Stephanephoroi mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, that
they were annual magistrates, like almost all those which
governed the Grecian republics. St. Martin, note to Le Beau i.
326.—M.]
Exasperated by this apparent neglect, the Sarmatians soon forgot,
with the levity of barbarians, the services which they had so
lately received, and the dangers which still threatened their
safety. Their inroads on the territory of the empire provoked the
indignation of Constantine to leave them to their fate; and he no
longer opposed the ambition of Geberic, a renowned warrior, who
had recently ascended the Gothic throne. Wisumar, the Vandal
king, whilst alone, and unassisted, he defended his dominions
with undaunted courage, was vanquished and slain in a decisive
battle, which swept away the flower of the Sarmatian youth. 4411
The remainder of the nation embraced the desperate expedient of
arming their slaves, a hardy race of hunters and herdsmen, by
whose tumultuary aid they revenged their defeat, and expelled the
invader from their confines. But they soon discovered that they
had exchanged a foreign for a domestic enemy, more dangerous and
more implacable. Enraged by their former servitude, elated by
their present glory, the slaves, under the name of Limigantes,
claimed and usurped the possession of the country which they had
saved. Their masters, unable to withstand the ungoverned fury of
the populace, preferred the hardships of exile to the tyranny of
their servants. Some of the fugitive Sarmatians solicited a less
ignominious dependence, under the hostile standard of the Goths.
A more numerous band retired beyond the Carpathian Mountains,
among the Quadi, their German allies, and were easily admitted to
share a superfluous waste of uncultivated land. But the far
greater part of the distressed nation turned their eyes towards
the fruitful provinces of Rome. Imploring the protection and
forgiveness of the emperor, they solemnly promised, as subjects
in peace, and as soldiers in war, the most inviolable fidelity to
the empire which should graciously receive them into its bosom.
According to the maxims adopted by Probus and his successors, the
offers of this barbarian colony were eagerly accepted; and a
competent portion of lands in the provinces of Pannonia, Thrace,
Macedonia, and Italy, were immediately assigned for the
habitation and subsistence of three hundred thousand Sarmatians.
45 4511
4411 (return) [ Gibbon supposes that this war took place because
Constantine had deducted a part of the customary gratifications,
granted by his predecessors to the Sarmatians. Nothing of this
kind appears in the authors. We see, on the contrary, that after
his victory, and to punish the Sarmatia is for the ravages they
had committed, he withheld the sums which it had been the custom
to bestow. St. Martin, note to Le Beau, i. 327.—M.]
45 (return) [ The Gothic and Sarmatian wars are related in so
broken and imperfect a manner, that I have been obliged to
compare the following writers, who mutually supply, correct, and
illustrate each other. Those who will take the same trouble, may
acquire a right of criticizing my narrative. Ammianus, l. xvii.
c. 12. Anonym. Valesian. p. 715. Eutropius, x. 7. Sextus Rufus de
Provinciis, c. 26. Julian Orat. i. p. 9, and Spanheim, Comment.
p. 94. Hieronym. in Chron. Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c.
6. Socrates, l. i. c. 18. Sozomen, l. i. c. 8. Zosimus, l. ii. p.
108. Jornandes de Reb. Geticis, c. 22. Isidorus in Chron. p. 709;
in Hist. Gothorum Grotii. Constantin. Porphyrogenitus de
Administrat. Imperii, c. 53, p. 208, edit. Meursii.]
4511 (return) [ Compare, on this very obscure but remarkable war,
Manso, Leben Coa xantius, p. 195—M.]
By chastising the pride of the Goths, and by accepting the homage
of a suppliant nation, Constantine asserted the majesty of the
Roman empire; and the ambassadors of Æthiopia, Persia, and the
most remote countries of India, congratulated the peace and
prosperity of his government. 46 If he reckoned, among the favors
of fortune, the death of his eldest son, of his nephew, and
perhaps of his wife, he enjoyed an uninterrupted flow of private
as well as public felicity, till the thirtieth year of his reign;
a period which none of his predecessors, since Augustus, had been
permitted to celebrate. Constantine survived that solemn festival
about ten months; and at the mature age of sixty-four, after a
short illness, he ended his memorable life at the palace of
Aquyrion, in the suburbs of Nicomedia, whither he had retired for
the benefit of the air, and with the hope of recruiting his
exhausted strength by the use of the warm baths. The excessive
demonstrations of grief, or at least of mourning, surpassed
whatever had been practised on any former occasion.
Notwithstanding the claims of the senate and people of ancient
Rome, the corpse of the deceased emperor, according to his last
request, was transported to the city, which was destined to
preserve the name and memory of its founder. The body of
Constantine adorned with the vain symbols of greatness, the
purple and diadem, was deposited on a golden bed in one of the
apartments of the palace, which for that purpose had been
splendidly furnished and illuminated. The forms of the court were
strictly maintained. Every day, at the appointed hours, the
principal officers of the state, the army, and the household,
approaching the person of their sovereign with bended knees and a
composed countenance, offered their respectful homage as
seriously as if he had been still alive. From motives of policy,
this theatrical representation was for some time continued; nor
could flattery neglect the opportunity of remarking that
Constantine alone, by the peculiar indulgence of Heaven, had
reigned after his death. 47
46 (return) [ Eusebius (in Vit. Const. l. iv. c. 50) remarks
three circumstances relative to these Indians. 1. They came from
the shores of the eastern ocean; a description which might be
applied to the coast of China or Coromandel. 2. They presented
shining gems, and unknown animals. 3. They protested their kings
had erected statues to represent the supreme majesty of
Constantine.]
47 (return) [ Funus relatum in urbem sui nominis, quod sane P. R.
ægerrime tulit. Aurelius Victor. Constantine prepared for himself
a stately tomb in the church of the Holy Apostles. Euseb. l. iv.
c. 60. The best, and indeed almost the only account of the
sickness, death, and funeral of Constantine, is contained in the
fourth book of his Life by Eusebius.]
But this reign could subsist only in empty pageantry; and it was
soon discovered that the will of the most absolute monarch is
seldom obeyed, when his subjects have no longer anything to hope
from his favor, or to dread from his resentment. The same
ministers and generals, who bowed with such referential awe
before the inanimate corpse of their deceased sovereign, were
engaged in secret consultations to exclude his two nephews,
Dalmatius and Hannibalianus, from the share which he had assigned
them in the succession of the empire. We are too imperfectly
acquainted with the court of Constantine to form any judgment of
the real motives which influenced the leaders of the conspiracy;
unless we should suppose that they were actuated by a spirit of
jealousy and revenge against the præfect Ablavius, a proud
favorite, who had long directed the counsels and abused the
confidence of the late emperor. The arguments, by which they
solicited the concurrence of the soldiers and people, are of a
more obvious nature; and they might with decency, as well as
truth, insist on the superior rank of the children of
Constantine, the danger of multiplying the number of sovereigns,
and the impending mischiefs which threatened the republic, from
the discord of so many rival princes, who were not connected by
the tender sympathy of fraternal affection. The intrigue was
conducted with zeal and secrecy, till a loud and unanimous
declaration was procured from the troops, that they would suffer
none except the sons of their lamented monarch to reign over the
Roman empire. 48 The younger Dalmatius, who was united with his
collateral relations by the ties of friendship and interest, is
allowed to have inherited a considerable share of the abilities
of the great Constantine; but, on this occasion, he does not
appear to have concerted any measure for supporting, by arms, the
just claims which himself and his royal brother derived from the
liberality of their uncle. Astonished and overwhelmed by the tide
of popular fury, they seem to have remained, without the power of
flight or of resistance, in the hands of their implacable
enemies. Their fate was suspended till the arrival of
Constantius, the second, and perhaps the most favored, of the
sons of Constantine. 49
48 (return) [ Eusebius (l. iv. c. 6) terminates his narrative by
this loyal declaration of the troops, and avoids all the
invidious circumstances of the subsequent massacre.]
49 (return) [ The character of Dalmatius is advantageously,
though concisely drawn by Eutropius. (x. 9.) Dalmatius Cæsar
prosperrimâ indole, neque patrou absimilis, _haud multo_ post
oppressus est factione militari. As both Jerom and the
Alexandrian Chronicle mention the third year of the Cæsar, which
did not commence till the 18th or 24th of September, A. D. 337,
it is certain that these military factions continued above four
months.]
Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.—Part III.
The voice of the dying emperor had recommended the care of his
funeral to the piety of Constantius; and that prince, by the
vicinity of his eastern station, could easily prevent the
diligence of his brothers, who resided in their distant
government of Italy and Gaul. As soon as he had taken possession
of the palace of Constantinople, his first care was to remove the
apprehensions of his kinsmen, by a solemn oath which he pledged
for their security. His next employment was to find some specious
pretence which might release his conscience from the obligation
of an imprudent promise. The arts of fraud were made subservient
to the designs of cruelty; and a manifest forgery was attested by
a person of the most sacred character. From the hands of the
Bishop of Nicomedia, Constantius received a fatal scroll,
affirmed to be the genuine testament of his father; in which the
emperor expressed his suspicions that he had been poisoned by his
brothers; and conjured his sons to revenge his death, and to
consult their own safety, by the punishment of the guilty. 50
Whatever reasons might have been alleged by these unfortunate
princes to defend their life and honor against so incredible an
accusation, they were silenced by the furious clamors of the
soldiers, who declared themselves, at once, their enemies, their
judges, and their executioners. The spirit, and even the forms of
legal proceedings were repeatedly violated in a promiscuous
massacre; which involved the two uncles of Constantius, seven of
his cousins, of whom Dalmatius and Hannibalianus were the most
illustrious, the Patrician Optatus, who had married a sister of
the late emperor, and the Præfect Ablavius, whose power and
riches had inspired him with some hopes of obtaining the purple.
If it were necessary to aggravate the horrors of this bloody
scene, we might add, that Constantius himself had espoused the
daughter of his uncle Julius, and that he had bestowed his sister
in marriage on his cousin Hannibalianus. These alliances, which
the policy of Constantine, regardless of the public prejudice, 51
had formed between the several branches of the Imperial house,
served only to convince mankind, that these princes were as cold
to the endearments of conjugal affection, as they were insensible
to the ties of consanguinity, and the moving entreaties of youth
and innocence. Of so numerous a family, Gallus and Julian alone,
the two youngest children of Julius Constantius, were saved from
the hands of the assassins, till their rage, satiated with
slaughter, had in some measure subsided. The emperor Constantius,
who, in the absence of his brothers, was the most obnoxious to
guilt and reproach, discovered, on some future occasions, a faint
and transient remorse for those cruelties which the perfidious
counsels of his ministers, and the irresistible violence of the
troops, had extorted from his unexperienced youth. 52
50 (return) [ I have related this singular anecdote on the
authority of Philostorgius, l. ii. c. 16. But if such a pretext
was ever used by Constantius and his adherents, it was laid aside
with contempt, as soon as it served their immediate purpose.
Athanasius (tom. i. p. 856) mention the oath which Constantius
had taken for the security of his kinsmen. ——The authority of
Philostorgius is so suspicious, as not to be sufficient to
establish this fact, which Gibbon has inserted in his history as
certain, while in the note he appears to doubt it.—G.]
51 (return) [ Conjugia sobrinarum diu ignorata, tempore addito
percrebuisse. Tacit. Annal. xii. 6, and Lipsius ad loc. The
repeal of the ancient law, and the practice of five hundred
years, were insufficient to eradicate the prejudices of the
Romans, who still considered the marriages of cousins-german as a
species of imperfect incest. (Augustin de Civitate Dei, xv. 6;)
and Julian, whose mind was biased by superstition and resentment,
stigmatizes these unnatural alliances between his own cousins
with the opprobrious epithet (Orat. vii. p. 228.). The
jurisprudence of the canons has since received and enforced this
prohibition, without being able to introduce it either into the
civil or the common law of Europe. See on the subject of these
marriages, Taylor’s Civil Law, p. 331. Brouer de Jure Connub. l.
ii. c. 12. Hericourt des Loix Ecclésiastiques, part iii. c. 5.
Fleury, Institutions du Droit Canonique, tom. i. p. 331. Paris,
1767, and Fra Paolo, Istoria del Concilio Trident, l. viii.]
52 (return) [ Julian (ad S. P.. Q. Athen. p. 270) charges his
cousin Constantius with the whole guilt of a massacre, from which
he himself so narrowly escaped. His assertion is confirmed by
Athanasius, who, for reasons of a very different nature, was not
less an enemy of Constantius, (tom. i. p. 856.) Zosimus joins in
the same accusation. But the three abbreviators, Eutropius and
the Victors, use very qualifying expressions: “sinente potius
quam jubente;” “incertum quo suasore;” “vi militum.”]
The massacre of the Flavian race was succeeded by a new division
of the provinces; which was ratified in a personal interview of
the three brothers. Constantine, the eldest of the Cæsars,
obtained, with a certain preëminence of rank, the possession of
the new capital, which bore his own name and that of his father.
Thrace, and the countries of the East, were allotted for the
patrimony of Constantius; and Constans was acknowledged as the
lawful sovereign of Italy, Africa, and the Western Illyricum. The
armies submitted to their hereditary right; and they
condescended, after some delay, to accept from the Roman senate
the title of _Augustus_. When they first assumed the reins of
government, the eldest of these princes was twenty-one, the
second twenty, and the third only seventeen, years of age. 53
53 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c. 69. Zosimus,
l. ii. p. 117. Idat. in Chron. See two notes of Tillemont, Hist.
des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 1086-1091. The reign of the eldest
brother at Constantinople is noticed only in the Alexandrian
Chronicle.]
While the martial nations of Europe followed the standards of his
brothers, Constantius, at the head of the effeminate troops of
Asia, was left to sustain the weight of the Persian war. At the
decease of Constantine, the throne of the East was filled by
Sapor, son of Hormouz, or Hormisdas, and grandson of Narses, who,
after the victory of Galerius, had humbly confessed the
superiority of the Roman power. Although Sapor was in the
thirtieth year of his long reign, he was still in the vigor of
youth, as the date of his accession, by a very strange fatality,
had preceded that of his birth. The wife of Hormouz remained
pregnant at the time of her husband’s death; and the uncertainty
of the sex, as well as of the event, excited the ambitious hopes
of the princes of the house of Sassan. The apprehensions of civil
war were at length removed, by the positive assurance of the
Magi, that the widow of Hormouz had conceived, and would safely
produce a son. Obedient to the voice of superstition, the
Persians prepared, without delay, the ceremony of his coronation.
A royal bed, on which the queen lay in state, was exhibited in
the midst of the palace; the diadem was placed on the spot, which
might be supposed to conceal the future heir of Artaxerxes, and
the prostrate satraps adored the majesty of their invisible and
insensible sovereign. 54 If any credit can be given to this
marvellous tale, which seems, however, to be countenanced by the
manners of the people, and by the extraordinary duration of his
reign, we must admire not only the fortune, but the genius, of
Sapor. In the soft, sequestered education of a Persian harem, the
royal youth could discover the importance of exercising the vigor
of his mind and body; and, by his personal merit, deserved a
throne, on which he had been seated, while he was yet unconscious
of the duties and temptations of absolute power. His minority was
exposed to the almost inevitable calamities of domestic discord;
his capital was surprised and plundered by Thair, a powerful king
of Yemen, or Arabia; and the majesty of the royal family was
degraded by the captivity of a princess, the sister of the
deceased king. But as soon as Sapor attained the age of manhood,
the presumptuous Thair, his nation, and his country, fell beneath
the first effort of the young warrior; who used his victory with
so judicious a mixture of rigor and clemency, that he obtained
from the fears and gratitude of the Arabs the title of
_Dhoulacnaf_, or protector of the nation. 55 5511
54 (return) [ Agathias, who lived in the sixth century, is the
author of this story, (l. iv. p. 135, edit. Louvre.) He derived
his information from some extracts of the Persian Chronicles,
obtained and translated by the interpreter Sergius, during his
embassy at that country. The coronation of the mother of Sapor is
likewise mentioned by Snikard, (Tarikh. p. 116,) and D’Herbelot
(Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 703.) ——The author of the
Zenut-ul-Tarikh states, that the lady herself affirmed her belief
of this from the extraordinary liveliness of the infant, and its
lying on the right side. Those who are sage on such subjects must
determine what right she had to be positive from these symptoms.
Malcolm, Hist. of Persia, i 83.—M.]
55 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 764.]
5511 (return) [ Gibbon, according to Sir J. Malcolm, has greatly
mistaken the derivation of this name; it means Zoolaktaf, the
Lord of the Shoulders, from his directing the shoulders of his
captives to be pierced and then dislocated by a string passed
through them. Eastern authors are agreed with respect to the
origin of this title. Malcolm, i. 84. Gibbon took his derivation
from D’Herbelot, who gives both, the latter on the authority of
the Leb. Tarikh.—M.]
The ambition of the Persian, to whom his enemies ascribe the
virtues of a soldier and a statesman, was animated by the desire
of revenging the disgrace of his fathers, and of wresting from
the hands of the Romans the five provinces beyond the Tigris. The
military fame of Constantine, and the real or apparent strength
of his government, suspended the attack; and while the hostile
conduct of Sapor provoked the resentment, his artful negotiations
amused the patience of the Imperial court. The death of
Constantine was the signal of war, 56 and the actual condition of
the Syrian and Armenian frontier seemed to encourage the Persians
by the prospect of a rich spoil and an easy conquest. The example
of the massacres of the palace diffused a spirit of
licentiousness and sedition among the troops of the East, who
were no longer restrained by their habits of obedience to a
veteran commander. By the prudence of Constantius, who, from the
interview with his brothers in Pannonia, immediately hastened to
the banks of the Euphrates, the legions were gradually restored
to a sense of duty and discipline; but the season of anarchy had
permitted Sapor to form the siege of Nisibis, and to occupy
several of the mo st important fortresses of Mesopotamia. 57 In
Armenia, the renowned Tiridates had long enjoyed the peace and
glory which he deserved by his valor and fidelity to the cause of
Rome. 5711 The firm alliance which he maintained with Constantine
was productive of spiritual as well as of temporal benefits; by
the conversion of Tiridates, the character of a saint was applied
to that of a hero, the Christian faith was preached and
established from the Euphrates to the shores of the Caspian, and
Armenia was attached to the empire by the double ties of policy
and religion. But as many of the Armenian nobles still refused to
abandon the plurality of their gods and of their wives, the
public tranquillity was disturbed by a discontented faction,
which insulted the feeble age of their sovereign, and impatiently
expected the hour of his death. He died at length after a reign
of fifty-six years, and the fortune of the Armenian monarchy
expired with Tiridates. His lawful heir was driven into exile,
the Christian priests were either murdered or expelled from their
churches, the barbarous tribes of Albania were solicited to
descend from their mountains; and two of the most powerful
governors, usurping the ensigns or the powers of royalty,
implored the assistance of Sapor, and opened the gates of their
cities to the Persian garrisons. The Christian party, under the
guidance of the Archbishop of Artaxata, the immediate successor
of St. Gregory the Illuminator, had recourse to the piety of
Constantius. After the troubles had continued about three years,
Antiochus, one of the officers of the household, executed with
success the Imperial commission of restoring Chosroes, 5712 the
son of Tiridates, to the throne of his fathers, of distributing
honors and rewards among the faithful servants of the house of
Arsaces, and of proclaiming a general amnesty, which was accepted
by the greater part of the rebellious satraps. But the Romans
derived more honor than advantage from this revolution. Chosroes
was a prince of a puny stature and a pusillanimous spirit.
Unequal to the fatigues of war, averse to the society of mankind,
he withdrew from his capital to a retired palace, which he built
on the banks of the River Eleutherus, and in the centre of a
shady grove; where he consumed his vacant hours in the rural
sports of hunting and hawking. To secure this inglorious ease, he
submitted to the conditions of peace which Sapor condescended to
impose; the payment of an annual tribute, and the restitution of
the fertile province of Atropatene, which the courage of
Tiridates, and the victorious arms of Galerius, had annexed to
the Armenian monarchy. 58 5811
56 (return) [ Sextus Rufus, (c. 26,) who on this occasion is no
contemptible authority, affirms, that the Persians sued in vain
for peace, and that Constantine was preparing to march against
them: yet the superior weight of the testimony of Eusebius
obliges us to admit the preliminaries, if not the ratification,
of the treaty. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p.
420. ——Constantine had endeavored to allay the fury of the
prosecutions, which, at the instigation of the Magi and the Jews,
Sapor had commenced against the Christians. Euseb Vit. Hist.
Theod. i. 25. Sozom. ii. c. 8, 15.—M.]
57 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. p. 20.]
5711 (return) [ Tiridates had sustained a war against Maximin.
caused by the hatred of the latter against Christianity. Armenia
was the first _nation_ which embraced Christianity. About the
year 276 it was the religion of the king, the nobles, and the
people of Armenia. From St. Martin, Supplement to Le Beau, v. i.
p. 78.——Compare Preface to History of Vartan by Professor
Neumann, p ix.—M.]
5712 (return) [ Chosroes was restored probably by Licinius,
between 314 and 319. There was an Antiochus who was præfectus
vigilum at Rome, as appears from the Theodosian Code, (l. iii. de
inf. his quæ sub ty.,) in 326, and from a fragment of the same
work published by M. Amedee Peyron, in 319. He may before this
have been sent into Armenia. St. M. p. 407. [Is it not more
probable that Antiochus was an officer in the service of the
Cæsar who ruled in the East?—M.] Chosroes was succeeded in the
year 322 by his son Diran. Diran was a weak prince, and in the
sixteenth year of his reign. A. D. 337. was betrayed into the
power of the Persians by the treachery of his chamberlain and the
Persian governor of Atropatene or Aderbidjan. He was blinded: his
wife and his son Arsaces shared his captivity, but the princes
and nobles of Armenia claimed the protection of Rome; and this
was the cause of Constantine’s declaration of war against the
Persians.—The king of Persia attempted to make himself master of
Armenia; but the brave resistance of the people, the advance of
Constantius, and a defeat which his army suffered at Oskha in
Armenia, and the failure before Nisibis, forced Shahpour to
submit to terms of peace. Varaz-Shahpour, the perfidious governor
of Atropatene, was flayed alive; Diran and his son were released
from captivity; Diran refused to ascend the throne, and retired
to an obscure retreat: his son Arsaces was crowned king of
Armenia. Arsaces pursued a vacillating policy between the
influence of Rome and Persia, and the war recommenced in the year
345. At least, that was the period of the expedition of
Constantius to the East. See St. Martin, additions to Le Beau, i.
442. The Persians have made an extraordinary romance out of the
history of Shahpour, who went as a spy to Constantinople, was
taken, harnessed like a horse, and carried to witness the
devastation of his kingdom. Malcolm. 84—M.]
58 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. p. 20, 21. Moses of Chorene, l.
ii. c. 89, l. iii. c. 1—9, p. 226—240. The perfect agreement
between the vague hints of the contemporary orator, and the
circumstantial narrative of the national historian, gives light
to the former, and weight to the latter. For the credit of Moses,
it may be likewise observed, that the name of Antiochus is found
a few years before in a civil office of inferior dignity. See
Godefroy, Cod. Theod. tom. vi. p. 350.]
5811 (return) [ Gibbon has endeavored, in his History, to make
use of the information furnished by Moses of Chorene, the only
Armenian historian then translated into Latin. Gibbon has not
perceived all the chronological difficulties which occur in the
narrative of that writer. He has not thought of all the critical
discussions which his text ought to undergo before it can be
combined with the relations of the western writers. From want of
this attention, Gibbon has made the facts which he has drawn from
this source more erroneous than they are in the original. This
judgment applies to all which the English historian has derived
from the Armenian author. I have made the History of Moses a
subject of particular attention; and it is with confidence that I
offer the results, which I insert here, and which will appear in
the course of my notes. In order to form a judgment of the
difference which exists between me and Gibbon, I will content
myself with remarking, that throughout he has committed an
anachronism of thirty years, from whence it follows, that he
assigns to the reign of Constantius many events which took place
during that of Constantine. He could not, therefore, discern the
true connection which exists between the Roman history and that
of Armenia, or form a correct notion of the reasons which induced
Constantine, at the close of his life, to make war upon the
Persians, or of the motives which detained Constantius so long in
the East; he does not even mention them. St. Martin, note on Le
Beau, i. 406. I have inserted M. St. Martin’s observations, but I
must add, that the chronology which he proposes, is not generally
received by Armenian scholars, not, I believe, by Professor
Neumann.—M.]
During the long period of the reign of Constantius, the provinces
of the East were afflicted by the calamities of the Persian war.
5813 The irregular incursions of the light troops alternately
spread terror and devastation beyond the Tigris and beyond the
Euphrates, from the gates of Ctesiphon to those of Antioch; and
this active service was performed by the Arabs of the desert, who
were divided in their interest and affections; some of their
independent chiefs being enlisted in the party of Sapor, whilst
others had engaged their doubtful fidelity to the emperor. 59 The
more grave and important operations of the war were conducted
with equal vigor; and the armies of Rome and Persia encountered
each other in nine bloody fields, in two of which Constantius
himself commanded in person. 60 The event of the day was most
commonly adverse to the Romans, but in the battle of Singara,
their imprudent valor had almost achieved a signal and decisive
victory. The stationary troops of Singara 6011 retired on the
approach of Sapor, who passed the Tigris over three bridges, and
occupied near the village of Hilleh an advantageous camp, which,
by the labor of his numerous pioneers, he surrounded in one day
with a deep ditch and a lofty rampart. His formidable host, when
it was drawn out in order of battle, covered the banks of the
river, the adjacent heights, and the whole extent of a plain of
above twelve miles, which separated the two armies. Both were
alike impatient to engage; but the Barbarians, after a slight
resistance, fled in disorder; unable to resist, or desirous to
weary, the strength of the heavy legions, who, fainting with heat
and thirst, pursued them across the plain, and cut in pieces a
line of cavalry, clothed in complete armor, which had been posted
before the gates of the camp to protect their retreat.
Constantius, who was hurried along in the pursuit, attempted,
without effect, to restrain the ardor of his troops, by
representing to them the dangers of the approaching night, and
the certainty of completing their success with the return of day.
As they depended much more on their own valor than on the
experience or the abilities of their chief, they silenced by
their clamors his timid remonstrances; and rushing with fury to
the charge, filled up the ditch, broke down the rampart, and
dispersed themselves through the tents to recruit their exhausted
strength, and to enjoy the rich harvest of their labors. But the
prudent Sapor had watched the moment of victory. His army, of
which the greater part, securely posted on the heights, had been
spectators of the action, advanced in silence, and under the
shadow of the night; and his Persian archers, guided by the
illumination of the camp, poured a shower of arrows on a disarmed
and licentious crowd. The sincerity of history 61 declares, that
the Romans were vanquished with a dreadful slaughter, and that
the flying remnant of the legions was exposed to the most
intolerable hardships. Even the tenderness of panegyric,
confessing that the glory of the emperor was sullied by the
disobedience of his soldiers, chooses to draw a veil over the
circumstances of this melancholy retreat. Yet one of those venal
orators, so jealous of the fame of Constantius, relates, with
amazing coolness, an act of such incredible cruelty, as, in the
judgment of posterity, must imprint a far deeper stain on the
honor of the Imperial name. The son of Sapor, the heir of his
crown, had been made a captive in the Persian camp. The unhappy
youth, who might have excited the compassion of the most savage
enemy, was scourged, tortured, and publicly executed by the
inhuman Romans. 62
5813 (return) [ It was during this war that a bold flatterer
(whose name is unknown) published the Itineraries of Alexander
and Trajan, in order to direct the _victorious_ Constantius in
the footsteps of those great conquerors of the East. The former
of these has been published for the first time by M. Angelo Mai
(Milan, 1817, reprinted at Frankfort, 1818.) It adds so little to
our knowledge of Alexander’s campaigns, that it only excites our
regret that it is not the Itinerary of Trajan, of whose eastern
victories we have no distinct record—M]
59 (return) [ Ammianus (xiv. 4) gives a lively description of the
wandering and predatory life of the Saracens, who stretched from
the confines of Assyria to the cataracts of the Nile. It appears
from the adventures of Malchus, which Jerom has related in so
entertaining a manner, that the high road between Beræa and
Edessa was infested by these robbers. See Hieronym. tom. i. p.
256.]
60 (return) [ We shall take from Eutropius the general idea of
the war. A Persis enim multa et gravia perpessus, sæpe captis,
oppidis, obsessis urbibus, cæsis exercitibus, nullumque ei contra
Saporem prosperum prælium fuit, nisi quod apud Singaram, &c. This
honest account is confirmed by the hints of Ammianus, Rufus, and
Jerom. The two first orations of Julian, and the third oration of
Libanius, exhibit a more flattering picture; but the recantation
of both those orators, after the death of Constantius, while it
restores us to the possession of the truth, degrades their own
character, and that of the emperor. The Commentary of Spanheim on
the first oration of Julian is profusely learned. See likewise
the judicious observations of Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs,
tom. iv. p. 656.]
6011 (return) [ Now Sinjar, or the River Claboras.—M.]
61 (return) [ Acerrimâ nocturnâ concertatione pugnatum est,
nostrorum copiis ngenti strage confossis. Ammian. xviii. 5. See
likewise Eutropius, x. 10, and S. Rufus, c. 27. ——The Persian
historians, or romancers, do not mention the battle of Singara,
but make the captive Shahpour escape, defeat, and take prisoner,
the Roman emperor. The Roman captives were forced to repair all
the ravages they had committed, even to replanting the smallest
trees. Malcolm. i. 82.—M.]
62 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. iii. p. 133, with Julian. Orat. i.
p. 24, and Spanneism’s Commentary, p. 179.]
Whatever advantages might attend the arms of Sapor in the field,
though nine repeated victories diffused among the nations the
fame of his valor and conduct, he could not hope to succeed in
the execution of his designs, while the fortified towns of
Mesopotamia, and, above all, the strong and ancient city of
Nisibis, remained in the possession of the Romans. In the space
of twelve years, Nisibis, which, since the time of Lucullus, had
been deservedly esteemed the bulwark of the East, sustained three
memorable sieges against the power of Sapor; and the disappointed
monarch, after urging his attacks above sixty, eighty, and a
hundred days, was thrice repulsed with loss and ignominy. 63 This
large and populous city was situate about two days’ journey from
the Tigris, in the midst of a pleasant and fertile plain at the
foot of Mount Masius. A treble enclosure of brick walls was
defended by a deep ditch; 64 and the intrepid resistance of Count
Lucilianus, and his garrison, was seconded by the desperate
courage of the people. The citizens of Nisibis were animated by
the exhortations of their bishop, 65 inured to arms by the
presence of danger, and convinced of the intentions of Sapor to
plant a Persian colony in their room, and to lead them away into
distant and barbarous captivity. The event of the two former
sieges elated their confidence, and exasperated the haughty
spirit of the Great King, who advanced a third time towards
Nisibis, at the head of the united forces of Persia and India.
The ordinary machines, invented to batter or undermine the walls,
were rendered ineffectual by the superior skill of the Romans;
and many days had vainly elapsed, when Sapor embraced a
resolution worthy of an eastern monarch, who believed that the
elements themselves were subject to his power. At the stated
season of the melting of the snows in Armenia, the River
Mygdonius, which divides the plain and the city of Nisibis,
forms, like the Nile, 66 an inundation over the adjacent country.
By the labor of the Persians, the course of the river was stopped
below the town, and the waters were confined on every side by
solid mounds of earth. On this artificial lake, a fleet of armed
vessels filled with soldiers, and with engines which discharged
stones of five hundred pounds weight, advanced in order of
battle, and engaged, almost upon a level, the troops which
defended the ramparts. 6611 The irresistible force of the waters
was alternately fatal to the contending parties, till at length a
portion of the walls, unable to sustain the accumulated pressure,
gave way at once, and exposed an ample breach of one hundred and
fifty feet. The Persians were instantly driven to the assault,
and the fate of Nisibis depended on the event of the day. The
heavy-armed cavalry, who led the van of a deep column, were
embarrassed in the mud, and great numbers were drowned in the
unseen holes which had been filled by the rushing waters. The
elephants, made furious by their wounds, increased the disorder,
and trampled down thousands of the Persian archers. The Great
King, who, from an exalted throne, beheld the misfortunes of his
arms, sounded, with reluctant indignation, the signal of the
retreat, and suspended for some hours the prosecution of the
attack. But the vigilant citizens improved the opportunity of the
night; and the return of day discovered a new wall of six feet in
height, rising every moment to fill up the interval of the
breach. Notwithstanding the disappointment of his hopes, and the
loss of more than twenty thousand men, Sapor still pressed the
reduction of Nisibis, with an obstinate firmness, which could
have yielded only to the necessity of defending the eastern
provinces of Persia against a formidable invasion of the
Massagetæ. 67 Alarmed by this intelligence, he hastily
relinquished the siege, and marched with rapid diligence from the
banks of the Tigris to those of the Oxus. The danger and
difficulties of the Scythian war engaged him soon afterwards to
conclude, or at least to observe, a truce with the Roman emperor,
which was equally grateful to both princes; as Constantius
himself, after the death of his two brothers, was involved, by
the revolutions of the West, in a civil contest, which required
and seemed to exceed the most vigorous exertion of his undivided
strength.
63 (return) [ See Julian. Orat. i. p. 27, Orat. ii. p. 62, &c.,
with the Commentary of Spanheim, (p. 188-202,) who illustrates
the circumstances, and ascertains the time of the three sieges of
Nisibis. Their dates are likewise examined by Tillemont, (Hist.
des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 668, 671, 674.) Something is added
from Zosimus, l. iii. p. 151, and the Alexandrine Chronicle, p.
290.]
64 (return) [ Sallust. Fragment. lxxxiv. edit. Brosses, and
Plutarch in Lucull. tom. iii. p. 184. Nisibis is now reduced to
one hundred and fifty houses: the marshy lands produce rice, and
the fertile meadows, as far as Mosul and the Tigris, are covered
with the ruins of towns and allages. See Niebuhr, Voyages, tom.
ii. p. 300-309.]
65 (return) [ The miracles which Theodoret (l. ii. c. 30)
ascribes to St. James, Bishop of Edessa, were at least performed
in a worthy cause, the defence of his couutry. He appeared on the
walls under the figure of the Roman emperor, and sent an army of
gnats to sting the trunks of the elephants, and to discomfit the
host of the new Sennacherib.]
66 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. p. 27. Though Niebuhr (tom. ii. p.
307) allows a very considerable swell to the Mygdonius, over
which he saw a bridge of _twelve_ arches: it is difficult,
however, to understand this parallel of a trifling rivulet with a
mighty river. There are many circumstances obscure, and almost
unintelligible, in the description of these stupendous
water-works.]
6611 (return) [ Macdonald Kinnier observes on these floating
batteries, “As the elevation of place is considerably above the
level of the country in its immediate vicinity, and the Mygdonius
is a very insignificant stream, it is difficult to imagine how
this work could have been accomplished, even with the wonderful
resources which the king must have had at his disposal”
Geographical Memoir. p. 262.—M.]
67 (return) [ We are obliged to Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 11)
for this invasion of the Massagetæ, which is perfectly consistent
with the general series of events to which we are darkly led by
the broken history of Ammianus.]
After the partition of the empire, three years had scarcely
elapsed before the sons of Constantine seemed impatient to
convince mankind that they were incapable of contenting
themselves with the dominions which they were unqualified to
govern. The eldest of those princes soon complained, that he was
defrauded of his just proportion of the spoils of their murdered
kinsmen; and though he might yield to the superior guilt and
merit of Constantius, he exacted from Constans the cession of the
African provinces, as an equivalent for the rich countries of
Macedonia and Greece, which his brother had acquired by the death
of Dalmatius. The want of sincerity, which Constantine
experienced in a tedious and fruitless negotiation, exasperated
the fierceness of his temper; and he eagerly listened to those
favorites, who suggested to him that his honor, as well as his
interest, was concerned in the prosecution of the quarrel. At the
head of a tumultuary band, suited for rapine rather than for
conquest, he suddenly broke onto the dominions of Constans, by
the way of the Julian Alps, and the country round Aquileia felt
the first effects of his resentment. The measures of Constans,
who then resided in Dacia, were directed with more prudence and
ability. On the news of his brother’s invasion, he detached a
select and disciplined body of his Illyrian troops, proposing to
follow them in person, with the remainder of his forces. But the
conduct of his lieutenants soon terminated the unnatural contest.
By the artful appearances of flight, Constantine was betrayed
into an ambuscade, which had been concealed in a wood, where the
rash youth, with a few attendants, was surprised, surrounded, and
slain. His body, after it had been found in the obscure stream of
the Alsa, obtained the honors of an Imperial sepulchre; but his
provinces transferred their allegiance to the conqueror, who,
refusing to admit his elder brother Constantius to any share in
these new acquisitions, maintained the undisputed possession of
more than two thirds of the Roman empire. 68
68 (return) [ The causes and the events of this civil war are
related with much perplexity and contradiction. I have chiefly
followed Zonaras and the younger Victor. The monody (ad Calcem
Eutrop. edit. Havercamp.) pronounced on the death of Constantine,
might have been very instructive; but prudence and false taste
engaged the orator to involve himself in vague declamation.]
Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.—Part IV.
The fate of Constans himself was delayed about ten years longer,
and the revenge of his brother’s death was reserved for the more
ignoble hand of a domestic traitor. The pernicious tendency of
the system introduced by Constantine was displayed in the feeble
administration of his sons; who, by their vices and weakness,
soon lost the esteem and affections of their people. The pride
assumed by Constans, from the unmerited success of his arms, was
rendered more contemptible by his want of abilities and
application. His fond partiality towards some German captives,
distinguished only by the charms of youth, was an object of
scandal to the people; 69 and Magnentius, an ambitious soldier,
who was himself of Barbarian extraction, was encouraged by the
public discontent to assert the honor of the Roman name. 70 The
chosen bands of Jovians and Herculians, who acknowledged
Magnentius as their leader, maintained the most respectable and
important station in the Imperial camp. The friendship of
Marcellinus, count of the sacred largesses, supplied with a
liberal hand the means of seduction. The soldiers were convinced
by the most specious arguments, that the republic summoned them
to break the bonds of hereditary servitude; and, by the choice of
an active and vigilant prince, to reward the same virtues which
had raised the ancestors of the degenerate Constans from a
private condition to the throne of the world. As soon as the
conspiracy was ripe for execution, Marcellinus, under the
pretence of celebrating his son’s birthday, gave a splendid
entertainment to the _illustrious_ and _honorable_ persons of the
court of Gaul, which then resided in the city of Autun. The
intemperance of the feast was artfully protracted till a very
late hour of the night; and the unsuspecting guests were tempted
to indulge themselves in a dangerous and guilty freedom of
conversation. On a sudden the doors were thrown open, and
Magnentius, who had retired for a few moments, returned into the
apartment, invested with the diadem and purple. The conspirators
instantly saluted him with the titles of Augustus and Emperor.
The surprise, the terror, the intoxication, the ambitious hopes,
and the mutual ignorance of the rest of the assembly, prompted
them to join their voices to the general acclamation. The guards
hastened to take the oath of fidelity; the gates of the town were
shut; and before the dawn of day, Magnentius became master of the
troops and treasure of the palace and city of Autun. By his
secrecy and diligence he entertained some hopes of surprising the
person of Constans, who was pursuing in the adjacent forest his
favorite amusement of hunting, or perhaps some pleasures of a
more private and criminal nature. The rapid progress of fame
allowed him, however, an instant for flight, though the desertion
of his soldiers and subjects deprived him of the power of
resistance. Before he could reach a seaport in Spain, where he
intended to embark, he was overtaken near Helena, 71 at the foot
of the Pyrenees, by a party of light cavalry, whose chief,
regardless of the sanctity of a temple, executed his commission
by the murder of the son of Constantine. 72
69 (return) [ Quarum (_gentium_) obsides pretio quæsitos pueros
venustiore quod cultius habuerat libidine hujusmodi arsisse _pro
certo_ habet. Had not the depraved taste of Constans been
publicly avowed, the elder Victor, who held a considerable office
in his brother’s reign, would not have asserted it in such
positive terms.]
70 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. and ii. Zosim. l. ii. p. 134.
Victor in Epitome. There is reason to believe that Magnentius was
born in one of those Barbarian colonies which Constantius Chlorus
had established in Gaul, (see this History, vol. i. p. 414.) His
behavior may remind us of the patriot earl of Leicester, the
famous Simon de Montfort, who could persuade the good people of
England, that he, a Frenchman by birth had taken arms to deliver
them from foreign favorites.]
71 (return) [ This ancient city had once flourished under the
name of Illiberis (Pomponius Mela, ii. 5.) The munificence of
Constantine gave it new splendor, and his mother’s name. Helena
(it is still called Elne) became the seat of a bishop, who long
afterwards transferred his residence to Perpignan, the capital of
modern Rousillon. See D’Anville. Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule, p.
380. Longuerue, Description de la France, p. 223, and the Marca
Hispanica, l. i. c. 2.]
72 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 119, 120. Zonaras, tom. ii. l.
xiii. p. 13, and the Abbreviators.]
As soon as the death of Constans had decided this easy but
important revolution, the example of the court of Autun was
imitated by the provinces of the West. The authority of
Magnentius was acknowledged through the whole extent of the two
great præfectures of Gaul and Italy; and the usurper prepared, by
every act of oppression, to collect a treasure, which might
discharge the obligation of an immense donative, and supply the
expenses of a civil war. The martial countries of Illyricum, from
the Danube to the extremity of Greece, had long obeyed the
government of Vetranio, an aged general, beloved for the
simplicity of his manners, and who had acquired some reputation
by his experience and services in war. 73 Attached by habit, by
duty, and by gratitude, to the house of Constantine, he
immediately gave the strongest assurances to the only surviving
son of his late master, that he would expose, with unshaken
fidelity, his person and his troops, to inflict a just revenge on
the traitors of Gaul. But the legions of Vetranio were seduced,
rather than provoked, by the example of rebellion; their leader
soon betrayed a want of firmness, or a want of sincerity; and his
ambition derived a specious pretence from the approbation of the
princess Constantina. That cruel and aspiring woman, who had
obtained from the great Constantine, her father, the rank of
_Augusta_, placed the diadem with her own hands on the head of
the Illyrian general; and seemed to expect from his victory the
accomplishment of those unbounded hopes, of which she had been
disappointed by the death of her husband Hannibalianus. Perhaps
it was without the consent of Constantina, that the new emperor
formed a necessary, though dishonorable, alliance with the
usurper of the West, whose purple was so recently stained with
her brother’s blood. 74
73 (return) [ Eutropius (x. 10) describes Vetranio with more
temper, and probably with more truth, than either of the two
Victors. Vetranio was born of obscure parents in the wildest
parts of Mæsia; and so much had his education been neglected,
that, after his elevation, he studied the alphabet.]
74 (return) [ The doubtful, fluctuating conduct of Vetranio is
described by Julian in his first oration, and accurately
explained by Spanheim, who discusses the situation and behavior
of Constantina.]
The intelligence of these important events, which so deeply
affected the honor and safety of the Imperial house, recalled the
arms of Constantius from the inglorious prosecution of the
Persian war. He recommended the care of the East to his
lieutenants, and afterwards to his cousin Gallus, whom he raised
from a prison to a throne; and marched towards Europe, with a
mind agitated by the conflict of hope and fear, of grief and
indignation. On his arrival at Heraclea in Thrace, the emperor
gave audience to the ambassadors of Magnentius and Vetranio. The
first author of the conspiracy Marcellinus, who in some measure
had bestowed the purple on his new master, boldly accepted this
dangerous commission; and his three colleagues were selected from
the illustrious personages of the state and army. These deputies
were instructed to soothe the resentment, and to alarm the fears,
of Constantius. They were empowered to offer him the friendship
and alliance of the western princes, to cement their union by a
double marriage; of Constantius with the daughter of Magnentius,
and of Magnentius himself with the ambitious Constantina; and to
acknowledge in the treaty the preëminence of rank, which might
justly be claimed by the emperor of the East. Should pride and
mistaken piety urge him to refuse these equitable conditions, the
ambassadors were ordered to expatiate on the inevitable ruin
which must attend his rashness, if he ventured to provoke the
sovereigns of the West to exert their superior strength; and to
employ against him that valor, those abilities, and those
legions, to which the house of Constantine had been indebted for
so many triumphs. Such propositions and such arguments appeared
to deserve the most serious attention; the answer of Constantius
was deferred till the next day; and as he had reflected on the
importance of justifying a civil war in the opinion of the
people, he thus addressed his council, who listened with real or
affected credulity: “Last night,” said he, “after I retired to
rest, the shade of the great Constantine, embracing the corpse of
my murdered brother, rose before my eyes; his well-known voice
awakened me to revenge, forbade me to despair of the republic,
and assured me of the success and immortal glory which would
crown the justice of my arms.” The authority of such a vision, or
rather of the prince who alleged it, silenced every doubt, and
excluded all negotiation. The ignominious terms of peace were
rejected with disdain. One of the ambassadors of the tyrant was
dismissed with the haughty answer of Constantius; his colleagues,
as unworthy of the privileges of the law of nations, were put in
irons; and the contending powers prepared to wage an implacable
war. 75
75 (return) [ See Peter the Patrician, in the Excerpta Legationem
p. 27.]
Such was the conduct, and such perhaps was the duty, of the
brother of Constans towards the perfidious usurper of Gaul. The
situation and character of Vetranio admitted of milder measures;
and the policy of the Eastern emperor was directed to disunite
his antagonists, and to separate the forces of Illyricum from the
cause of rebellion. It was an easy task to deceive the frankness
and simplicity of Vetranio, who, fluctuating some time between
the opposite views of honor and interest, displayed to the world
the insincerity of his temper, and was insensibly engaged in the
snares of an artful negotiation. Constantius acknowledged him as
a legitimate and equal colleague in the empire, on condition that
he would renounce his disgraceful alliance with Magnentius, and
appoint a place of interview on the frontiers of their respective
provinces; where they might pledge their friendship by mutual
vows of fidelity, and regulate by common consent the future
operations of the civil war. In consequence of this agreement,
Vetranio advanced to the city of Sardica, 76 at the head of
twenty thousand horse, and of a more numerous body of infantry; a
power so far superior to the forces of Constantius, that the
Illyrian emperor appeared to command the life and fortunes of his
rival, who, depending on the success of his private negotiations,
had seduced the troops, and undermined the throne, of Vetranio.
The chiefs, who had secretly embraced the party of Constantius,
prepared in his favor a public spectacle, calculated to discover
and inflame the passions of the multitude. 77 The united armies
were commanded to assemble in a large plain near the city. In the
centre, according to the rules of ancient discipline, a military
tribunal, or rather scaffold, was erected, from whence the
emperors were accustomed, on solemn and important occasions, to
harangue the troops. The well-ordered ranks of Romans and
Barbarians, with drawn swords, or with erected spears, the
squadrons of cavalry, and the cohorts of infantry, distinguished
by the variety of their arms and ensigns, formed an immense
circle round the tribunal; and the attentive silence which they
preserved was sometimes interrupted by loud bursts of clamor or
of applause. In the presence of this formidable assembly, the two
emperors were called upon to explain the situation of public
affairs: the precedency of rank was yielded to the royal birth of
Constantius; and though he was indifferently skilled in the arts
of rhetoric, he acquitted himself, under these difficult
circumstances, with firmness, dexterity, and eloquence. The first
part of his oration seemed to be pointed only against the tyrant
of Gaul; but while he tragically lamented the cruel murder of
Constans, he insinuated, that none, except a brother, could claim
a right to the succession of his brother. He displayed, with some
complacency, the glories of his Imperial race; and recalled to
the memory of the troops the valor, the triumphs, the liberality
of the great Constantine, to whose sons they had engaged their
allegiance by an oath of fidelity, which the ingratitude of his
most favored servants had tempted them to violate. The officers,
who surrounded the tribunal, and were instructed to act their
part in this extraordinary scene, confessed the irresistible
power of reason and eloquence, by saluting the emperor
Constantius as their lawful sovereign. The contagion of loyalty
and repentance was communicated from rank to rank; till the plain
of Sardica resounded with the universal acclamation of “Away with
these upstart usurpers! Long life and victory to the son of
Constantine! Under his banners alone we will fight and conquer.”
The shout of thousands, their menacing gestures, the fierce
clashing of their arms, astonished and subdued the courage of
Vetranio, who stood, amidst the defection of his followers, in
anxious and silent suspense. Instead of embracing the last refuge
of generous despair, he tamely submitted to his fate; and taking
the diadem from his head, in the view of both armies fell
prostrate at the feet of his conqueror. Constantius used his
victory with prudence and moderation; and raising from the ground
the aged suppliant, whom he affected to style by the endearing
name of Father, he gave him his hand to descend from the throne.
The city of Prusa was assigned for the exile or retirement of the
abdicated monarch, who lived six years in the enjoyment of ease
and affluence. He often expressed his grateful sense of the
goodness of Constantius, and, with a very amiable simplicity,
advised his benefactor to resign the sceptre of the world, and to
seek for content (where alone it could be found) in the peaceful
obscurity of a private condition. 78
76 (return) [ Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 16. The position of
Sardica, near the modern city of Sophia, appears better suited to
this interview than the situation of either Naissus or Sirmium,
where it is placed by Jerom, Socrates, and Sozomen.]
77 (return) [ See the two first orations of Julian, particularly
p. 31; and Zosimus, l. ii. p. 122. The distinct narrative of the
historian serves to illustrate the diffuse but vague descriptions
of the orator.]
78 (return) [ The younger Victor assigns to his exile the
emphatical appellation of “Voluptarium otium.” Socrates (l. ii.
c. 28) is the voucher for the correspondence with the emperor,
which would seem to prove that Vetranio was indeed, prope ad
stultitiam simplicissimus.]
The behavior of Constantius on this memorable occasion was
celebrated with some appearance of justice; and his courtiers
compared the studied orations which a Pericles or a Demosthenes
addressed to the populace of Athens, with the victorious
eloquence which had persuaded an armed multitude to desert and
depose the object of their partial choice. 79 The approaching
contest with Magnentius was of a more serious and bloody kind.
The tyrant advanced by rapid marches to encounter Constantius, at
the head of a numerous army, composed of Gauls and Spaniards, of
Franks and Saxons; of those provincials who supplied the strength
of the legions, and of those barbarians who were dreaded as the
most formidable enemies of the republic. The fertile plains 80 of
the Lower Pannonia, between the Drave, the Save, and the Danube,
presented a spacious theatre; and the operations of the civil war
were protracted during the summer months by the skill or timidity
of the combatants. 81 Constantius had declared his intention of
deciding the quarrel in the fields of Cibalis, a name that would
animate his troops by the remembrance of the victory, which, on
the same auspicious ground, had been obtained by the arms of his
father Constantine. Yet by the impregnable fortifications with
which the emperor encompassed his camp, he appeared to decline,
rather than to invite, a general engagement.
It was the object of Magnentius to tempt or to compel his
adversary to relinquish this advantageous position; and he
employed, with that view, the various marches, evolutions, and
stratagems, which the knowledge of the art of war could suggest
to an experienced officer. He carried by assault the important
town of Siscia; made an attack on the city of Sirmium, which lay
in the rear of the Imperial camp, attempted to force a passage
over the Save into the eastern provinces of Illyricum; and cut in
pieces a numerous detachment, which he had allured into the
narrow passes of Adarne. During the greater part of the summer,
the tyrant of Gaul showed himself master of the field. The troops
of Constantius were harassed and dispirited; his reputation
declined in the eye of the world; and his pride condescended to
solicit a treaty of peace, which would have resigned to the
assassin of Constans the sovereignty of the provinces beyond the
Alps. These offers were enforced by the eloquence of Philip the
Imperial ambassador; and the council as well as the army of
Magnentius were disposed to accept them. But the haughty usurper,
careless of the remonstrances of his friends, gave orders that
Philip should be detained as a captive, or, at least, as a
hostage; while he despatched an officer to reproach Constantius
with the weakness of his reign, and to insult him by the promise
of a pardon if he would instantly abdicate the purple. “That he
should confide in the justice of his cause, and the protection of
an avenging Deity,” was the only answer which honor permitted the
emperor to return. But he was so sensible of the difficulties of
his situation, that he no longer dared to retaliate the indignity
which had been offered to his representative. The negotiation of
Philip was not, however, ineffectual, since he determined
Sylvanus the Frank, a general of merit and reputation, to desert
with a considerable body of cavalry, a few days before the battle
of Mursa.
79 (return) [ Eum Constantius..... facundiæ vi dejectum Imperio
in pri vatum otium removit. Quæ gloria post natum Imperium soli
proces sit eloquio clementiâque, &c. Aurelius Victor, Julian, and
Themistius (Orat. iii. and iv.) adorn this exploit with all the
artificial and gaudy coloring of their rhetoric.]
80 (return) [ Busbequius (p. 112) traversed the Lower Hungary and
Sclavonia at a time when they were reduced almost to a desert, by
the reciprocal hostilities of the Turks and Christians. Yet he
mentions with admiration the unconquerable fertility of the soil;
and observes that the height of the grass was sufficient to
conceal a loaded wagon from his sight. See likewise Browne’s
Travels, in Harris’s Collection, vol ii. p. 762 &c.]
81 (return) [ Zosimus gives a very large account of the war, and
the negotiation, (l. ii. p. 123-130.) But as he neither shows
himself a soldier nor a politician, his narrative must be weighed
with attention, and received with caution.]
The city of Mursa, or Essek, celebrated in modern times for a
bridge of boats, five miles in length, over the River Drave, and
the adjacent morasses, 82 has been always considered as a place
of importance in the wars of Hungary. Magnentius, directing his
march towards Mursa, set fire to the gates, and, by a sudden
assault, had almost scaled the walls of the town. The vigilance
of the garrison extinguished the flames; the approach of
Constantius left him no time to continue the operations of the
siege; and the emperor soon removed the only obstacle that could
embarrass his motions, by forcing a body of troops which had
taken post in an adjoining amphitheatre. The field of battle
round Mursa was a naked and level plain: on this ground the army
of Constantius formed, with the Drave on their right; while their
left, either from the nature of their disposition, or from the
superiority of their cavalry, extended far beyond the right flank
of Magnentius. 83 The troops on both sides remained under arms,
in anxious expectation, during the greatest part of the morning;
and the son of Constantine, after animating his soldiers by an
eloquent speech, retired into a church at some distance from the
field of battle, and committed to his generals the conduct of
this decisive day. 84 They deserved his confidence by the valor
and military skill which they exerted. They wisely began the
action upon the left; and advancing their whole wing of cavalry
in an oblique line, they suddenly wheeled it on the right flank
of the enemy, which was unprepared to resist the impetuosity of
their charge. But the Romans of the West soon rallied, by the
habits of discipline; and the Barbarians of Germany supported the
renown of their national bravery. The engagement soon became
general; was maintained with various and singular turns of
fortune; and scarcely ended with the darkness of the night. The
signal victory which Constantius obtained is attributed to the
arms of his cavalry. His cuirassiers are described as so many
massy statues of steel, glittering with their scaly armor, and
breaking with their ponderous lances the firm array of the Gallic
legions. As soon as the legions gave way, the lighter and more
active squadrons of the second line rode sword in hand into the
intervals, and completed the disorder. In the mean while, the
huge bodies of the Germans were exposed almost naked to the
dexterity of the Oriental archers; and whole troops of those
Barbarians were urged by anguish and despair to precipitate
themselves into the broad and rapid stream of the Drave. 85 The
number of the slain was computed at fifty-four thousand men, and
the slaughter of the conquerors was more considerable than that
of the vanquished; 86 a circumstance which proves the obstinacy
of the contest, and justifies the observation of an ancient
writer, that the forces of the empire were consumed in the fatal
battle of Mursa, by the loss of a veteran army, sufficient to
defend the frontiers, or to add new triumphs to the glory of
Rome. 87 Notwithstanding the invectives of a servile orator,
there is not the least reason to believe that the tyrant deserted
his own standard in the beginning of the engagement. He seems to
have displayed the virtues of a general and of a soldier till the
day was irrecoverably lost, and his camp in the possession of the
enemy. Magnentius then consulted his safety, and throwing away
the Imperial ornaments, escaped with some difficulty from the
pursuit of the light horse, who incessantly followed his rapid
flight from the banks of the Drave to the foot of the Julian
Alps. 88
82 (return) [ This remarkable bridge, which is flanked with
towers, and supported on large wooden piles, was constructed A.
D. 1566, by Sultan Soliman, to facilitate the march of his armies
into Hungary.]
83 (return) [ This position, and the subsequent evolutions, are
clearly, though concisely, described by Julian, Orat. i. p. 36.]
84 (return) [ Sulpicius Severus, l. ii. p. 405. The emperor
passed the day in prayer with Valens, the Arian bishop of Mursa,
who gained his confidence by announcing the success of the
battle. M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 1110)
very properly remarks the silence of Julian with regard to the
personal prowess of Constantius in the battle of Mursa. The
silence of flattery is sometimes equal to the most positive and
authentic evidence.]
85 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. p. 36, 37; and Orat. ii. p. 59,
60. Zonaras, tom ii. l. xiii. p. 17. Zosimus, l. ii. p. 130-133.
The last of these celebrates the dexterity of the archer
Menelaus, who could discharge three arrows at the same time; an
advantage which, according to his apprehension of military
affairs, materially contributed to the victory of Constantius.]
86 (return) [ According to Zonaras, Constantius, out of 80,000
men, lost 30,000; and Magnentius lost 24,000 out of 36,000. The
other articles of this account seem probable and authentic, but
the numbers of the tyrant’s army must have been mistaken, either
by the author or his transcribers. Magnentius had collected the
whole force of the West, Romans and Barbarians, into one
formidable body, which cannot fairly be estimated at less than
100,000 men. Julian. Orat. i. p. 34, 35.]
87 (return) [ Ingentes R. I. vires eâ dimicatione consumptæ sunt,
ad quælibet bella externa idoneæ, quæ multum triumphorum possent
securitatisque conferre. Eutropius, x. 13. The younger Victor
expresses himself to the same effect.]
88 (return) [ On this occasion, we must prefer the unsuspected
testimony of Zosimus and Zonaras to the flattering assertions of
Julian. The younger Victor paints the character of Magnentius in
a singular light: “Sermonis acer, animi tumidi, et immodice
timidus; artifex tamen ad occultandam audaciæ specie formidinem.”
Is it most likely that in the battle of Mursa his behavior was
governed by nature or by art should incline for the latter.]
The approach of winter supplied the indolence of Constantius with
specious reasons for deferring the prosecution of the war till
the ensuing spring. Magnentius had fixed his residence in the
city of Aquileia, and showed a seeming resolution to dispute the
passage of the mountains and morasses which fortified the
confines of the Venetian province. The surprisal of a castle in
the Alps by the secret march of the Imperialists, could scarcely
have determined him to relinquish the possession of Italy, if the
inclinations of the people had supported the cause of their
tyrant. 89 But the memory of the cruelties exercised by his
ministers, after the unsuccessful revolt of Nepotian, had left a
deep impression of horror and resentment on the minds of the
Romans. That rash youth, the son of the princess Eutropia, and
the nephew of Constantine, had seen with indignation the sceptre
of the West usurped by a perfidious barbarian. Arming a desperate
troop of slaves and gladiators, he overpowered the feeble guard
of the domestic tranquillity of Rome, received the homage of the
senate, and assuming the title of Augustus, precariously reigned
during a tumult of twenty-eight days. The march of some regular
forces put an end to his ambitious hopes: the rebellion was
extinguished in the blood of Nepotian, of his mother Eutropia,
and of his adherents; and the proscription was extended to all
who had contracted a fatal alliance with the name and family of
Constantine. 90 But as soon as Constantius, after the battle of
Mursa, became master of the sea-coast of Dalmatia, a band of
noble exiles, who had ventured to equip a fleet in some harbor of
the Adriatic, sought protection and revenge in his victorious
camp. By their secret intelligence with their countrymen, Rome
and the Italian cities were persuaded to display the banners of
Constantius on their walls. The grateful veterans, enriched by
the liberality of the father, signalized their gratitude and
loyalty to the son. The cavalry, the legions, and the auxiliaries
of Italy, renewed their oath of allegiance to Constantius; and
the usurper, alarmed by the general desertion, was compelled,
with the remains of his faithful troops, to retire beyond the
Alps into the provinces of Gaul. The detachments, however, which
were ordered either to press or to intercept the flight of
Magnentius, conducted themselves with the usual imprudence of
success; and allowed him, in the plains of Pavia, an opportunity
of turning on his pursuers, and of gratifying his despair by the
carnage of a useless victory. 91
89 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. p. 38, 39. In that place, however,
as well as in Oration ii. p. 97, he insinuates the general
disposition of the senate, the people, and the soldiers of Italy,
towards the party of the emperor.]
90 (return) [ The elder Victor describes, in a pathetic manner,
the miserable condition of Rome: “Cujus stolidum ingenium adeo P.
R. patribusque exitio fuit, uti passim domus, fora, viæ,
templaque, cruore, cadaveri busque opplerentur bustorum modo.”
Athanasius (tom. i. p. 677) deplores the fate of several
illustrious victims, and Julian (Orat. ii p 58) execrates the
cruelty of Marcellinus, the implacable enemy of the house of
Constantine.]
91 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. p. 133. Victor in Epitome. The
panegyrists of Constantius, with their usual candor, forget to
mention this accidental defeat.]
The pride of Magnentius was reduced, by repeated misfortunes, to
sue, and to sue in vain, for peace. He first despatched a
senator, in whose abilities he confided, and afterwards several
bishops, whose holy character might obtain a more favorable
audience, with the offer of resigning the purple, and the promise
of devoting the remainder of his life to the service of the
emperor. But Constantius, though he granted fair terms of pardon
and reconciliation to all who abandoned the standard of
rebellion, 92 avowed his inflexible resolution to inflict a just
punishment on the crimes of an assassin, whom he prepared to
overwhelm on every side by the effort of his victorious arms. An
Imperial fleet acquired the easy possession of Africa and Spain,
confirmed the wavering faith of the Moorish nations, and landed a
considerable force, which passed the Pyrenees, and advanced
towards Lyons, the last and fatal station of Magnentius. 93 The
temper of the tyrant, which was never inclined to clemency, was
urged by distress to exercise every act of oppression which could
extort an immediate supply from the cities of Gaul. 94 Their
patience was at length exhausted; and Treves, the seat of
Prætorian government, gave the signal of revolt, by shutting her
gates against Decentius, who had been raised by his brother to
the rank either of Cæsar or of Augustus. 95 From Treves,
Decentius was obliged to retire to Sens, where he was soon
surrounded by an army of Germans, whom the pernicious arts of
Constantius had introduced into the civil dissensions of Rome. 96
In the mean time, the Imperial troops forced the passages of the
Cottian Alps, and in the bloody combat of Mount Seleucus
irrevocably fixed the title of rebels on the party of Magnentius.
97 He was unable to bring another army into the field; the
fidelity of his guards was corrupted; and when he appeared in
public to animate them by his exhortations, he was saluted with a
unanimous shout of “Long live the emperor Constantius!” The
tyrant, who perceived that they were preparing to deserve pardon
and rewards by the sacrifice of the most obnoxious criminal,
prevented their design by falling on his sword; 98 a death more
easy and more honorable than he could hope to obtain from the
hands of an enemy, whose revenge would have been colored with the
specious pretence of justice and fraternal piety. The example of
suicide was imitated by Decentius, who strangled himself on the
news of his brother’s death. The author of the conspiracy,
Marcellinus, had long since disappeared in the battle of Mursa,
99 and the public tranquillity was confirmed by the execution of
the surviving leaders of a guilty and unsuccessful faction. A
severe inquisition was extended over all who, either from choice
or from compulsion, had been involved in the cause of rebellion.
Paul, surnamed Catena from his superior skill in the judicial
exercise of tyranny, 9911 was sent to explore the latent remains
of the conspiracy in the remote province of Britain. The honest
indignation expressed by Martin, vice-præfect of the island, was
interpreted as an evidence of his own guilt; and the governor was
urged to the necessity of turning against his breast the sword
with which he had been provoked to wound the Imperial minister.
The most innocent subjects of the West were exposed to exile and
confiscation, to death and torture; and as the timid are always
cruel, the mind of Constantius was inaccessible to mercy. 100
92 (return) [ Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 17. Julian, in
several places of the two orations, expatiates on the clemency of
Constantius to the rebels.]
93 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. p. 133. Julian. Orat. i. p. 40, ii.
p. 74.]
94 (return) [ Ammian. xv. 6. Zosim. l. ii. p. 123. Julian, who
(Orat. i. p. 40) unveighs against the cruel effects of the
tyrant’s despair, mentions (Orat. i. p. 34) the oppressive edicts
which were dictated by his necessities, or by his avarice. His
subjects were compelled to purchase the Imperial demesnes; a
doubtful and dangerous species of property, which, in case of a
revolution, might be imputed to them as a treasonable
usurpation.]
95 (return) [ The medals of Magnentius celebrate the victories of
the _two_ Augusti, and of the Cæsar. The Cæsar was another
brother, named Desiderius. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs,
tom. iv. p. 757.]
96 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. p. 40, ii. p. 74; with Spanheim,
p. 263. His Commentary illustrates the transactions of this civil
war. Mons Seleuci was a small place in the Cottian Alps, a few
miles distant from Vapincum, or Gap, an episcopal city of
Dauphine. See D’Anville, Notice de la Gaule, p. 464; and
Longuerue, Description de la France, p. 327.—— The Itinerary of
Antoninus (p. 357, ed. Wess.) places Mons Seleucu twenty-four
miles from Vapinicum, (Gap,) and twenty-six from Lucus. (le Luc,)
on the road to Die, (Dea Vocontiorum.) The situation answers to
Mont Saleon, a little place on the right of the small river
Buech, which falls into the Durance. Roman antiquities have been
found in this place. St. Martin. Note to Le Beau, ii. 47.—M.]
97 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 134. Liban. Orat. x. p. 268,
269. The latter most vehemently arraigns this cruel and selfish
policy of Constantius.]
98 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. p. 40. Zosimus, l. ii. p. 134.
Socrates, l. ii. c. 32. Sozomen, l. iv. c. 7. The younger Victor
describes his death with some horrid circumstances: Transfosso
latere, ut erat vasti corporis, vulnere naribusque et ore cruorem
effundens, exspiravit. If we can give credit to Zonaras, the
tyrant, before he expired, had the pleasure of murdering, with
his own hand, his mother and his brother Desiderius.]
99 (return) [ Julian (Orat. i. p. 58, 59) seems at a loss to
determine, whether he inflicted on himself the punishment of his
crimes, whether he was drowned in the Drave, or whether he was
carried by the avenging dæmons from the field of battle to his
destined place of eternal tortures.]
9911 (return) [ This is scarcely correct, ut erat in complicandis
negotiis artifex dirum made ei Catenæ inditum est cognomentum.
Amm. Mar. loc. cit.—M.]
100 (return) [ Ammian. xiv. 5, xxi. 16.]
Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part I.
Constantius Sole Emperor.—Elevation And Death Of Gallus.— Danger
And Elevation Of Julian.—Sarmatian And Persian Wars.—Victories Of
Julian In Gaul.
The divided provinces of the empire were again united by the
victory of Constantius; but as that feeble prince was destitute
of personal merit, either in peace or war; as he feared his
generals, and distrusted his ministers; the triumph of his arms
served only to establish the reign of the _eunuchs_ over the
Roman world. Those unhappy beings, the ancient production of
Oriental jealousy and despotism, 1 were introduced into Greece
and Rome by the contagion of Asiatic luxury. 2 Their progress was
rapid; and the eunuchs, who, in the time of Augustus, had been
abhorred, as the monstrous retinue of an Egyptian queen, 3 were
gradually admitted into the families of matrons, of senators, and
of the emperors themselves. 4 Restrained by the severe edicts of
Domitian and Nerva, cherished by the pride of Diocletian, reduced
to an humble station by the prudence of Constantine, 6 they
multiplied in the palaces of his degenerate sons, and insensibly
acquired the knowledge, and at length the direction, of the
secret councils of Constantius. The aversion and contempt which
mankind had so uniformly entertained for that imperfect species,
appears to have degraded their character, and to have rendered
them almost as incapable as they were supposed to be, of
conceiving any generous sentiment, or of performing any worthy
action. 7 But the eunuchs were skilled in the arts of flattery
and intrigue; and they alternately governed the mind of
Constantius by his fears, his indolence, and his vanity. 8 Whilst
he viewed in a deceitful mirror the fair appearance of public
prosperity, he supinely permitted them to intercept the
complaints of the injured provinces, to accumulate immense
treasures by the sale of justice and of honors; to disgrace the
most important dignities, by the promotion of those who had
purchased at their hands the powers of oppression, 9 and to
gratify their resentment against the few independent spirits, who
arrogantly refused to solicit the protection of slaves. Of these
slaves the most distinguished was the chamberlain Eusebius, who
ruled the monarch and the palace with such absolute sway, that
Constantius, according to the sarcasm of an impartial historian,
possessed some credit with this haughty favorite. 10 By his
artful suggestions, the emperor was persuaded to subscribe the
condemnation of the unfortunate Gallus, and to add a new crime to
the long list of unnatural murders which pollute the honor of the
house of Constantine.
1 (return) [ Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 6) imputes the first practice
of castration to the cruel ingenuity of Semiramis, who is
supposed to have reigned above nineteen hundred years before
Christ. The use of eunuchs is of high antiquity, both in Asia and
Egypt. They are mentioned in the law of Moses, Deuteron. xxxiii.
1. See Goguet, Origines des Loix, &c., Part i. l. i. c. 3.]
2 (return) [ Eunuchum dixti velle te; Quia solæ utuntur his
reginæ—Terent. Eunuch. act i. scene 2. This play is translated
from Meander, and the original must have appeared soon after the
eastern conquests of Alexander.]
3 (return) [ Miles.... spadonibus Servire rugosis potest. Horat.
Carm. v. 9, and Dacier ad loe. By the word _spado_, the Romans
very forcibly expressed their abhorrence of this mutilated
condition. The Greek appellation of eunuchs, which insensibly
prevailed, had a milder sound, and a more ambiguous sense.]
4 (return) [ We need only mention Posides, a freedman and eunuch
of Claudius, in whose favor the emperor prostituted some of the
most honorable rewards of military valor. See Sueton. in Claudio,
c. 28. Posides employed a great part of his wealth in building.
Ut _Spado_ vincebat Capitolia Nostra Posides. Juvenal. Sat. xiv.]
Castrari mares vetuit. Sueton. in Domitian. c. 7. See Dion
Cassius, l. lxvii. p. 1107, l. lxviii. p. 1119.]
6 (return) [ There is a passage in the Augustan History, p. 137,
in which Lampridius, whilst he praises Alexander Severus and
Constantine for restraining the tyranny of the eunuchs, deplores
the mischiefs which they occasioned in other reigns. Huc accedit
quod eunuchos nec in consiliis nec in ministeriis habuit; qui
soli principes perdunt, dum eos more gentium aut regum Persarum
volunt vivere; qui a populo etiam amicissimum semovent; qui
internuntii sunt, aliud quam respondetur, referentes; claudentes
principem suum, et agentes ante omnia ne quid sciat.]
7 (return) [ Xenophon (Cyropædia, l. viii. p. 540) has stated the
specious reasons which engaged Cyrus to intrust his person to the
guard of eunuchs. He had observed in animals, that although the
practice of castration might tame their ungovernable fierceness,
it did not diminish their strength or spirit; and he persuaded
himself, that those who were separated from the rest of human
kind, would be more firmly attached to the person of their
benefactor. But a long experience has contradicted the judgment
of Cyrus. Some particular instances may occur of eunuchs
distinguished by their fidelity, their valor, and their
abilities; but if we examine the general history of Persia,
India, and China, we shall find that the power of the eunuchs has
uniformly marked the decline and fall of every dynasty.]
8 (return) [ See Ammianus Marcellinus, l. xxi. c. 16, l. xxii. c.
4. The whole tenor of his impartial history serves to justify the
invectives of Mamertinus, of Libanius, and of Julian himself, who
have insulted the vices of the court of Constantius.]
9 (return) [ Aurelius Victor censures the negligence of his
sovereign in choosing the governors of the provinces, and the
generals of the army, and concludes his history with a very bold
observation, as it is much more dangerous under a feeble reign to
attack the ministers than the master himself. “Uti verum absolvam
brevi, ut Imperatore ipso clarius ita apparitorum plerisque magis
atrox nihil.”]
10 (return) [ Apud quem (si vere dici debeat) multum Constantius
potuit. Ammian. l. xviii. c. 4.]
When the two nephews of Constantine, Gallus and Julian, were
saved from the fury of the soldiers, the former was about twelve,
and the latter about six, years of age; and, as the eldest was
thought to be of a sickly constitution, they obtained with the
less difficulty a precarious and dependent life, from the
affected pity of Constantius, who was sensible that the execution
of these helpless orphans would have been esteemed, by all
mankind, an act of the most deliberate cruelty. 11 Different
cities of Ionia and Bithynia were assigned for the places of
their exile and education; but as soon as their growing years
excited the jealousy of the emperor, he judged it more prudent to
secure those unhappy youths in the strong castle of Macellum,
near Cæsarea. The treatment which they experienced during a six
years’ confinement, was partly such as they could hope from a
careful guardian, and partly such as they might dread from a
suspicious tyrant. 12 Their prison was an ancient palace, the
residence of the kings of Cappadocia; the situation was pleasant,
the buildings stately, the enclosure spacious. They pursued their
studies, and practised their exercises, under the tuition of the
most skilful masters; and the numerous household appointed to
attend, or rather to guard, the nephews of Constantine, was not
unworthy of the dignity of their birth. But they could not
disguise to themselves that they were deprived of fortune, of
freedom, and of safety; secluded from the society of all whom
they could trust or esteem, and condemned to pass their
melancholy hours in the company of slaves devoted to the commands
of a tyrant who had already injured them beyond the hope of
reconciliation. At length, however, the emergencies of the state
compelled the emperor, or rather his eunuchs, to invest Gallus,
in the twenty-fifth year of his age, with the title of Cæsar, and
to cement this political connection by his marriage with the
princess Constantina. After a formal interview, in which the two
princes mutually engaged their faith never to undertake any thing
to the prejudice of each other, they repaired without delay to
their respective stations. Constantius continued his march
towards the West, and Gallus fixed his residence at Antioch; from
whence, with a delegated authority, he administered the five
great dioceses of the eastern præfecture. 13 In this fortunate
change, the new Cæsar was not unmindful of his brother Julian,
who obtained the honors of his rank, the appearances of liberty,
and the restitution of an ample patrimony. 14
11 (return) [ Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. iii. p. 90) reproaches the
apostate with his ingratitude towards Mark, bishop of Arethusa,
who had contributed to save his life; and we learn, though from a
less respectable authority, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
iv. p. 916,) that Julian was concealed in the sanctuary of a
church. * Note: Gallus and Julian were not sons of the same
mother. Their father, Julius Constantius, had had Gallus by his
first wife, named Galla: Julian was the son of Basilina, whom he
had espoused in a second marriage. Tillemont. Hist. des Emp. Vie
de Constantin. art. 3.—G.]
12 (return) [ The most authentic account of the education and
adventures of Julian is contained in the epistle or manifesto
which he himself addressed to the senate and people of Athens.
Libanius, (Orat. Parentalis,) on the side of the Pagans, and
Socrates, (l. iii. c. 1,) on that of the Christians, have
preserved several interesting circumstances.]
13 (return) [ For the promotion of Gallus, see Idatius, Zosimus,
and the two Victors. According to Philostorgius, (l. iv. c. 1,)
Theophilus, an Arian bishop, was the witness, and, as it were,
the guarantee of this solemn engagement. He supported that
character with generous firmness; but M. de Tillemont (Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 1120) thinks it very improbable that a
heretic should have possessed such virtue.]
14 (return) [ Julian was at first permitted to pursue his studies
at Constantinople, but the reputation which he acquired soon
excited the jealousy of Constantius; and the young prince was
advised to withdraw himself to the less conspicuous scenes of
Bithynia and Ionia.]
The writers the most indulgent to the memory of Gallus, and even
Julian himself, though he wished to cast a veil over the
frailties of his brother, are obliged to confess that the Cæsar
was incapable of reigning. Transported from a prison to a throne,
he possessed neither genius nor application, nor docility to
compensate for the want of knowledge and experience. A temper
naturally morose and violent, instead of being corrected, was
soured by solitude and adversity; the remembrance of what he had
endured disposed him to retaliation rather than to sympathy; and
the ungoverned sallies of his rage were often fatal to those who
approached his person, or were subject to his power. 15
Constantina, his wife, is described, not as a woman, but as one
of the infernal furies tormented with an insatiate thirst of
human blood. 16 Instead of employing her influence to insinuate
the mild counsels of prudence and humanity, she exasperated the
fierce passions of her husband; and as she retained the vanity,
though she had renounced, the gentleness of her sex, a pearl
necklace was esteemed an equivalent price for the murder of an
innocent and virtuous nobleman. 17 The cruelty of Gallus was
sometimes displayed in the undissembled violence of popular or
military executions; and was sometimes disguised by the abuse of
law, and the forms of judicial proceedings. The private houses of
Antioch, and the places of public resort, were besieged by spies
and informers; and the Cæsar himself, concealed in a a plebeian
habit, very frequently condescended to assume that odious
character. Every apartment of the palace was adorned with the
instruments of death and torture, and a general consternation was
diffused through the capital of Syria. The prince of the East, as
if he had been conscious how much he had to fear, and how little
he deserved to reign, selected for the objects of his resentment
the provincials accused of some imaginary treason, and his own
courtiers, whom with more reason he suspected of incensing, by
their secret correspondence, the timid and suspicious mind of
Constantius. But he forgot that he was depriving himself of his
only support, the affection of the people; whilst he furnished
the malice of his enemies with the arms of truth, and afforded
the emperor the fairest pretence of exacting the forfeit of his
purple, and of his life. 18
15 (return) [ See Julian. ad S. P. Q. A. p. 271. Jerom. in Chron.
Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, x. 14. I shall copy the words of
Eutropius, who wrote his abridgment about fifteen years after the
death of Gallus, when there was no longer any motive either to
flatter or to depreciate his character. “Multis incivilibus
gestis Gallus Cæsar.... vir natura ferox et ad tyrannidem
pronior, si suo jure imperare licuisset.”]
16 (return) [ Megæra quidem mortalis, inflammatrix sævientis
assidua, humani cruoris avida, &c. Ammian. Marcellin. l. xiv. c.
1. The sincerity of Ammianus would not suffer him to misrepresent
facts or characters, but his love of _ambitious_ ornaments
frequently betrayed him into an unnatural vehemence of
expression.]
17 (return) [ His name was Clematius of Alexandria, and his only
crime was a refusal to gratify the desires of his mother-in-law;
who solicited his death, because she had been disappointed of his
love. Ammian. xiv. c. i.]
18 (return) [ See in Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 1, 7) a very ample
detail of the cruelties of Gallus. His brother Julian (p. 272)
insinuates, that a secret conspiracy had been formed against him;
and Zosimus names (l. ii. p. 135) the persons engaged in it; a
minister of considerable rank, and two obscure agents, who were
resolved to make their fortune.]
As long as the civil war suspended the fate of the Roman world,
Constantius dissembled his knowledge of the weak and cruel
administration to which his choice had subjected the East; and
the discovery of some assassins, secretly despatched to Antioch
by the tyrant of Gaul, was employed to convince the public, that
the emperor and the Cæsar were united by the same interest, and
pursued by the same enemies. 19 But when the victory was decided
in favor of Constantius, his dependent colleague became less
useful and less formidable. Every circumstance of his conduct was
severely and suspiciously examined, and it was privately
resolved, either to deprive Gallus of the purple, or at least to
remove him from the indolent luxury of Asia to the hardships and
dangers of a German war. The death of Theophilus, consular of the
province of Syria, who in a time of scarcity had been massacred
by the people of Antioch, with the connivance, and almost at the
instigation, of Gallus, was justly resented, not only as an act
of wanton cruelty, but as a dangerous insult on the supreme
majesty of Constantius. Two ministers of illustrious rank,
Domitian the Oriental præfect, and Montius, quæstor of the
palace, were empowered by a special commission 1911 to visit and
reform the state of the East. They were instructed to behave
towards Gallus with moderation and respect, and, by the gentlest
arts of persuasion, to engage him to comply with the invitation
of his brother and colleague. The rashness of the præfect
disappointed these prudent measures, and hastened his own ruin,
as well as that of his enemy. On his arrival at Antioch, Domitian
passed disdainfully before the gates of the palace, and alleging
a slight pretence of indisposition, continued several days in
sullen retirement, to prepare an inflammatory memorial, which he
transmitted to the Imperial court. Yielding at length to the
pressing solicitations of Gallus, the præfect condescended to
take his seat in council; but his first step was to signify a
concise and haughty mandate, importing that the Cæsar should
immediately repair to Italy, and threatening that he himself
would punish his delay or hesitation, by suspending the usual
allowance of his household. The nephew and daughter of
Constantine, who could ill brook the insolence of a subject,
expressed their resentment by instantly delivering Domitian to
the custody of a guard. The quarrel still admitted of some terms
of accommodation. They were rendered impracticable by the
imprudent behavior of Montius, a statesman whose arts and
experience were frequently betrayed by the levity of his
disposition. 20 The quæstor reproached Gallus in a haughty
language, that a prince who was scarcely authorized to remove a
municipal magistrate, should presume to imprison a Prætorian
præfect; convoked a meeting of the civil and military officers;
and required them, in the name of their sovereign, to defend the
person and dignity of his representatives. By this rash
declaration of war, the impatient temper of Gallus was provoked
to embrace the most desperate counsels. He ordered his guards to
stand to their arms, assembled the populace of Antioch, and
recommended to their zeal the care of his safety and revenge. His
commands were too fatally obeyed. They rudely seized the præfect
and the quæstor, and tying their legs together with ropes, they
dragged them through the streets of the city, inflicted a
thousand insults and a thousand wounds on these unhappy victims,
and at last precipitated their mangled and lifeless bodies into
the stream of the Orontes. 21
19 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xiii. tom. ii. p. 17, 18. The assassins
had seduced a great number of legionaries; but their designs were
discovered and revealed by an old woman in whose cottage they
lodged.]
1911 (return) [ The commission seems to have been granted to
Domitian alone. Montius interfered to support his authority. Amm.
Marc. loc. cit.—M]
20 (return) [ In the present text of Ammianus, we read _Asper_,
quidem, sed ad _lenitatem_ propensior; which forms a sentence of
contradictory nonsense. With the aid of an old manuscript,
Valesius has rectified the first of these corruptions, and we
perceive a ray of light in the substitution of the word _vafer_.
If we venture to change _lenitatem_ into _levitatem_, this
alteration of a single letter will render the whole passage clear
and consistent.]
21 (return) [ Instead of being obliged to collect scattered and
imperfect hints from various sources, we now enter into the full
stream of the history of Ammianus, and need only refer to the
seventh and ninth chapters of his fourteenth book. Philostorgius,
however, (l. iii. c. 28) though partial to Gallus, should not be
entirely overlooked.]
After such a deed, whatever might have been the designs of
Gallus, it was only in a field of battle that he could assert his
innocence with any hope of success. But the mind of that prince
was formed of an equal mixture of violence and weakness. Instead
of assuming the title of Augustus, instead of employing in his
defence the troops and treasures of the East, he suffered himself
to be deceived by the affected tranquillity of Constantius, who,
leaving him the vain pageantry of a court, imperceptibly recalled
the veteran legions from the provinces of Asia. But as it still
appeared dangerous to arrest Gallus in his capital, the slow and
safer arts of dissimulation were practised with success. The
frequent and pressing epistles of Constantius were filled with
professions of confidence and friendship; exhorting the Cæsar to
discharge the duties of his high station, to relieve his
colleague from a part of the public cares, and to assist the West
by his presence, his counsels, and his arms. After so many
reciprocal injuries, Gallus had reason to fear and to distrust.
But he had neglected the opportunities of flight and of
resistance; he was seduced by the flattering assurances of the
tribune Scudilo, who, under the semblance of a rough soldier,
disguised the most artful insinuation; and he depended on the
credit of his wife Constantina, till the unseasonable death of
that princess completed the ruin in which he had been involved by
her impetuous passions. 22
22 (return) [ She had preceded her husband, but died of a fever
on the road at a little place in Bithynia, called Coenum
Gallicanum.]
Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part II.
After a long delay, the reluctant Cæsar set forwards on his
journey to the Imperial court. From Antioch to Hadrianople, he
traversed the wide extent of his dominions with a numerous and
stately train; and as he labored to conceal his apprehensions
from the world, and perhaps from himself, he entertained the
people of Constantinople with an exhibition of the games of the
circus. The progress of the journey might, however, have warned
him of the impending danger. In all the principal cities he was
met by ministers of confidence, commissioned to seize the offices
of government, to observe his motions, and to prevent the hasty
sallies of his despair. The persons despatched to secure the
provinces which he left behind, passed him with cold salutations,
or affected disdain; and the troops, whose station lay along the
public road, were studiously removed on his approach, lest they
might be tempted to offer their swords for the service of a civil
war. 23 After Gallus had been permitted to repose himself a few
days at Hadrianople, he received a mandate, expressed in the most
haughty and absolute style, that his splendid retinue should halt
in that city, while the Cæsar himself, with only ten
post-carriages, should hasten to the Imperial residence at Milan.
In this rapid journey, the profound respect which was due to the
brother and colleague of Constantius, was insensibly changed into
rude familiarity; and Gallus, who discovered in the countenances
of the attendants that they already considered themselves as his
guards, and might soon be employed as his executioners, began to
accuse his fatal rashness, and to recollect, with terror and
remorse, the conduct by which he had provoked his fate. The
dissimulation which had hitherto been preserved, was laid aside
at Petovio, 2311 in Pannonia. He was conducted to a palace in the
suburbs, where the general Barbatio, with a select band of
soldiers, who could neither be moved by pity, nor corrupted by
rewards, expected the arrival of his illustrious victim. In the
close of the evening he was arrested, ignominiously stripped of
the ensigns of Cæsar, and hurried away to Pola, [23b] in Istria,
a sequestered prison, which had been so recently polluted with
royal blood. The horror which he felt was soon increased by the
appearance of his implacable enemy the eunuch Eusebius, who, with
the assistance of a notary and a tribune, proceeded to
interrogate him concerning the administration of the East. The
Cæsar sank under the weight of shame and guilt, confessed all the
criminal actions and all the treasonable designs with which he
was charged; and by imputing them to the advice of his wife,
exasperated the indignation of Constantius, who reviewed with
partial prejudice the minutes of the examination. The emperor was
easily convinced, that his own safety was incompatible with the
life of his cousin: the sentence of death was signed, despatched,
and executed; and the nephew of Constantine, with his hands tied
behind his back, was beheaded in prison like the vilest
malefactor. 24 Those who are inclined to palliate the cruelties
of Constantius, assert that he soon relented, and endeavored to
recall the bloody mandate; but that the second messenger,
intrusted with the reprieve, was detained by the eunuchs, who
dreaded the unforgiving temper of Gallus, and were desirous of
reuniting to _their_ empire the wealthy provinces of the East. 25
23 (return) [ The Thebæan legions, which were then quartered at
Hadrianople, sent a deputation to Gallus, with a tender of their
services. Ammian. l. xiv. c. 11. The Notitia (s. 6, 20, 38, edit.
Labb.) mentions three several legions which bore the name of
Thebæan. The zeal of M. de Voltaire to destroy a despicable
though celebrated legion, has tempted him on the slightest
grounds to deny the existence of a Thebæan legion in the Roman
armies. See Œuvres de Voltaire, tom. xv. p. 414, quarto edition.]
2311 (return) [ Pettau in Styria.—M ---- Rather to Flanonia. now
Fianone, near Pola. St. Martin.—M.]
24 (return) [ See the complete narrative of the journey and death
of Gallus in Ammianus, l. xiv. c. 11. Julian complains that his
brother was put to death without a trial; attempts to justify, or
at least to excuse, the cruel revenge which he had inflicted on
his enemies; but seems at last to acknowledge that he might
justly have been deprived of the purple.]
25 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. iv. c. 1. Zonaras, l. xiii. tom.
ii. p. 19. But the former was partial towards an Arian monarch,
and the latter transcribed, without choice or criticism, whatever
he found in the writings of the ancients.]
Besides the reigning emperor, Julian alone survived, of all the
numerous posterity of Constantius Chlorus. The misfortune of his
royal birth involved him in the disgrace of Gallus. From his
retirement in the happy country of Ionia, he was conveyed under a
strong guard to the court of Milan; where he languished above
seven months, in the continual apprehension of suffering the same
ignominious death, which was daily inflicted almost before his
eyes, on the friends and adherents of his persecuted family. His
looks, his gestures, his silence, were scrutinized with malignant
curiosity, and he was perpetually assaulted by enemies whom he
had never offended, and by arts to which he was a stranger. 26
But in the school of adversity, Julian insensibly acquired the
virtues of firmness and discretion. He defended his honor, as
well as his life, against the insnaring subtleties of the
eunuchs, who endeavored to extort some declaration of his
sentiments; and whilst he cautiously suppressed his grief and
resentment, he nobly disdained to flatter the tyrant, by any
seeming approbation of his brother’s murder. Julian most devoutly
ascribes his miraculous deliverance to the protection of the
gods, who had exempted his innocence from the sentence of
destruction pronounced by their justice against the impious house
of Constantine. 27 As the most effectual instrument of their
providence, he gratefully acknowledges the steady and generous
friendship of the empress Eusebia, 28 a woman of beauty and
merit, who, by the ascendant which she had gained over the mind
of her husband, counterbalanced, in some measure, the powerful
conspiracy of the eunuchs. By the intercession of his patroness,
Julian was admitted into the Imperial presence: he pleaded his
cause with a decent freedom, he was heard with favor; and,
notwithstanding the efforts of his enemies, who urged the danger
of sparing an avenger of the blood of Gallus, the milder
sentiment of Eusebia prevailed in the council. But the effects of
a second interview were dreaded by the eunuchs; and Julian was
advised to withdraw for a while into the neighborhood of Milan,
till the emperor thought proper to assign the city of Athens for
the place of his honorable exile. As he had discovered, from his
earliest youth, a propensity, or rather passion, for the
language, the manners, the learning, and the religion of the
Greeks, he obeyed with pleasure an order so agreeable to his
wishes. Far from the tumult of arms, and the treachery of courts,
he spent six months under the groves of the academy, in a free
intercourse with the philosophers of the age, who studied to
cultivate the genius, to encourage the vanity, and to inflame the
devotion of their royal pupil. Their labors were not
unsuccessful; and Julian inviolably preserved for Athens that
tender regard which seldom fails to arise in a liberal mind, from
the recollection of the place where it has discovered and
exercised its growing powers. The gentleness and affability of
manners, which his temper suggested and his situation imposed,
insensibly engaged the affections of the strangers, as well as
citizens, with whom he conversed. Some of his fellow-students
might perhaps examine his behavior with an eye of prejudice and
aversion; but Julian established, in the schools of Athens, a
general prepossession in favor of his virtues and talents, which
was soon diffused over the Roman world. 29
26 (return) [ See Ammianus Marcellin. l. xv. c. 1, 3, 8. Julian
himself in his epistle to the Athenians, draws a very lively and
just picture of his own danger, and of his sentiments. He shows,
however, a tendency to exaggerate his sufferings, by insinuating,
though in obscure terms, that they lasted above a year; a period
which cannot be reconciled with the truth of chronology.]
27 (return) [ Julian has worked the crimes and misfortunes of the
family of Constantine into an allegorical fable, which is happily
conceived and agreeably related. It forms the conclusion of the
seventh Oration, from whence it has been detached and translated
by the Abbé de la Bleterie, Vie de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 385-408.]
28 (return) [ She was a native of Thessalonica, in Macedonia, of
a noble family, and the daughter, as well as sister, of consuls.
Her marriage with the emperor may be placed in the year 352. In a
divided age, the historians of all parties agree in her praises.
See their testimonies collected by Tillemont, Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 750-754.]
29 (return) [ Libanius and Gregory Nazianzen have exhausted the
arts as well as the powers of their eloquence, to represent
Julian as the first of heroes, or the worst of tyrants. Gregory
was his fellow-student at Athens; and the symptoms which he so
tragically describes, of the future wickedness of the apostate,
amount only to some bodily imperfections, and to some
peculiarities in his speech and manner. He protests, however,
that he _then_ foresaw and foretold the calamities of the church
and state. (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p. 121, 122.)]
Whilst his hours were passed in studious retirement, the empress,
resolute to achieve the generous design which she had undertaken,
was not unmindful of the care of his fortune. The death of the
late Cæsar had left Constantius invested with the sole command,
and oppressed by the accumulated weight, of a mighty empire.
Before the wounds of civil discord could be healed, the provinces
of Gaul were overwhelmed by a deluge of Barbarians. The
Sarmatians no longer respected the barrier of the Danube. The
impunity of rapine had increased the boldness and numbers of the
wild Isaurians: those robbers descended from their craggy
mountains to ravage the adjacent country, and had even presumed,
though without success, to besiege the important city of
Seleucia, which was defended by a garrison of three Roman
legions. Above all, the Persian monarch, elated by victory, again
threatened the peace of Asia, and the presence of the emperor was
indispensably required, both in the West and in the East. For the
first time, Constantius sincerely acknowledged, that his single
strength was unequal to such an extent of care and of dominion.
30 Insensible to the voice of flattery, which assured him that
his all-powerful virtue, and celestial fortune, would still
continue to triumph over every obstacle, he listened with
complacency to the advice of Eusebia, which gratified his
indolence, without offending his suspicious pride. As she
perceived that the remembrance of Gallus dwelt on the emperor’s
mind, she artfully turned his attention to the opposite
characters of the two brothers, which from their infancy had been
compared to those of Domitian and of Titus. 31 She accustomed her
husband to consider Julian as a youth of a mild, unambitious
disposition, whose allegiance and gratitude might be secured by
the gift of the purple, and who was qualified to fill with honor
a subordinate station, without aspiring to dispute the commands,
or to shade the glories, of his sovereign and benefactor. After
an obstinate, though secret struggle, the opposition of the
favorite eunuchs submitted to the ascendency of the empress; and
it was resolved that Julian, after celebrating his nuptials with
Helena, sister of Constantius, should be appointed, with the
title of Cæsar, to reign over the countries beyond the Alps. 32
30 (return) [ Succumbere tot necessitatibus tamque crebris unum
se, quod nunquam fecerat, aperte demonstrans. Ammian. l. xv. c.
8. He then expresses, in their own words, the fattering
assurances of the courtiers.]
31 (return) [ Tantum a temperatis moribus Juliani differens
fratris quantum inter Vespasiani filios fuit, Domitianum et
Titum. Ammian. l. xiv. c. 11. The circumstances and education of
the two brothers, were so nearly the same, as to afford a strong
example of the innate difference of characters.]
32 (return) [ Ammianus, l. xv. c. 8. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 137,
138.]
Although the order which recalled him to court was probably
accompanied by some intimation of his approaching greatness, he
appeals to the people of Athens to witness his tears of
undissembled sorrow, when he was reluctantly torn away from his
beloved retirement. 33 He trembled for his life, for his fame,
and even for his virtue; and his sole confidence was derived from
the persuasion, that Minerva inspired all his actions, and that
he was protected by an invisible guard of angels, whom for that
purpose she had borrowed from the Sun and Moon. He approached,
with horror, the palace of Milan; nor could the ingenuous youth
conceal his indignation, when he found himself accosted with
false and servile respect by the assassins of his family.
Eusebia, rejoicing in the success of her benevolent schemes,
embraced him with the tenderness of a sister; and endeavored, by
the most soothing caresses, to dispel his terrors, and reconcile
him to his fortune. But the ceremony of shaving his beard, and
his awkward demeanor, when he first exchanged the cloak of a
Greek philosopher for the military habit of a Roman prince,
amused, during a few days, the levity of the Imperial court. 34
33 (return) [ Julian. ad S. P. Q. A. p. 275, 276. Libanius, Orat.
x. p. 268. Julian did not yield till the gods had signified their
will by repeated visions and omens. His piety then forbade him to
resist.]
34 (return) [ Julian himself relates, (p. 274) with some humor,
the circumstances of his own metamorphoses, his downcast looks,
and his perplexity at being thus suddenly transported into a new
world, where every object appeared strange and hostile.]
The emperors of the age of Constantine no longer deigned to
consult with the senate in the choice of a colleague; but they
were anxious that their nomination should be ratified by the
consent of the army. On this solemn occasion, the guards, with
the other troops whose stations were in the neighborhood of
Milan, appeared under arms; and Constantius ascended his lofty
tribunal, holding by the hand his cousin Julian, who entered the
same day into the twenty-fifth year of his age. 35 In a studied
speech, conceived and delivered with dignity, the emperor
represented the various dangers which threatened the prosperity
of the republic, the necessity of naming a Cæsar for the
administration of the West, and his own intention, if it was
agreeable to their wishes, of rewarding with the honors of the
purple the promising virtues of the nephew of Constantine. The
approbation of the soldiers was testified by a respectful murmur;
they gazed on the manly countenance of Julian, and observed with
pleasure, that the fire which sparkled in his eyes was tempered
by a modest blush, on being thus exposed, for the first time, to
the public view of mankind. As soon as the ceremony of his
investiture had been performed, Constantius addressed him with
the tone of authority which his superior age and station
permitted him to assume; and exhorting the new Cæsar to deserve,
by heroic deeds, that sacred and immortal name, the emperor gave
his colleague the strongest assurances of a friendship which
should never be impaired by time, nor interrupted by their
separation into the most distant climes. As soon as the speech
was ended, the troops, as a token of applause, clashed their
shields against their knees; 36 while the officers who surrounded
the tribunal expressed, with decent reserve, their sense of the
merits of the representative of Constantius.
35 (return) [ See Ammian. Marcellin. l. xv. c. 8. Zosimus, l.
iii. p. 139. Aurelius Victor. Victor Junior in Epitom. Eutrop. x.
14.]
36 (return) [ Militares omnes horrendo fragore scuta genibus
illidentes; quod est prosperitatis indicium plenum; nam contra
cum hastis clypei feriuntur, iræ documentum est et doloris... ...
Ammianus adds, with a nice distinction, Eumque ut potiori
reverentia servaretur, nec supra modum laudabant nec infra quam
decebat.]
The two princes returned to the palace in the same chariot; and
during the slow procession, Julian repeated to himself a verse of
his favorite Homer, which he might equally apply to his fortune
and to his fears. 37 The four-and-twenty days which the Cæsar
spent at Milan after his investiture, and the first months of his
Gallic reign, were devoted to a splendid but severe captivity;
nor could the acquisition of honor compensate for the loss of
freedom. 38 His steps were watched, his correspondence was
intercepted; and he was obliged, by prudence, to decline the
visits of his most intimate friends. Of his former domestics,
four only were permitted to attend him; two pages, his physician,
and his librarian; the last of whom was employed in the care of a
valuable collection of books, the gift of the empress, who
studied the inclinations as well as the interest of her friend.
In the room of these faithful servants, a household was formed,
such indeed as became the dignity of a Cæsar; but it was filled
with a crowd of slaves, destitute, and perhaps incapable, of any
attachment for their new master, to whom, for the most part, they
were either unknown or suspected. His want of experience might
require the assistance of a wise council; but the minute
instructions which regulated the service of his table, and the
distribution of his hours, were adapted to a youth still under
the discipline of his preceptors, rather than to the situation of
a prince intrusted with the conduct of an important war. If he
aspired to deserve the esteem of his subjects, he was checked by
the fear of displeasing his sovereign; and even the fruits of his
marriage-bed were blasted by the jealous artifices of Eusebia 39
herself, who, on this occasion alone, seems to have been
unmindful of the tenderness of her sex, and the generosity of her
character. The memory of his father and of his brothers reminded
Julian of his own danger, and his apprehensions were increased by
the recent and unworthy fate of Sylvanus. In the summer which
preceded his own elevation, that general had been chosen to
deliver Gaul from the tyranny of the Barbarians; but Sylvanus
soon discovered that he had left his most dangerous enemies in
the Imperial court. A dexterous informer, countenanced by several
of the principal ministers, procured from him some recommendatory
letters; and erasing the whole of the contents, except the
signature, filled up the vacant parchment with matters of high
and treasonable import. By the industry and courage of his
friends, the fraud was however detected, and in a great council
of the civil and military officers, held in the presence of the
emperor himself, the innocence of Sylvanus was publicly
acknowledged. But the discovery came too late; the report of the
calumny, and the hasty seizure of his estate, had already
provoked the indignant chief to the rebellion of which he was so
unjustly accused. He assumed the purple at his head- quarters of
Cologne, and his active powers appeared to menace Italy with an
invasion, and Milan with a siege. In this emergency, Ursicinus, a
general of equal rank, regained, by an act of treachery, the
favor which he had lost by his eminent services in the East.
Exasperated, as he might speciously allege, by the injuries of a
similar nature, he hastened with a few followers to join the
standard, and to betray the confidence, of his too credulous
friend. After a reign of only twenty-eight days, Sylvanus was
assassinated: the soldiers who, without any criminal intention,
had blindly followed the example of their leader, immediately
returned to their allegiance; and the flatterers of Constantius
celebrated the wisdom and felicity of the monarch who had
extinguished a civil war without the hazard of a battle. 40
37 (return) [ The word _purple_ which Homer had used as a vague
but common epithet for death, was applied by Julian to express,
very aptly, the nature and object of his own apprehensions.]
38 (return) [ He represents, in the most pathetic terms, (p.
277,) the distress of his new situation. The provision for his
table was, however, so elegant and sumptuous, that the young
philosopher rejected it with disdain. Quum legeret libellum
assidue, quem Constantius ut privignum ad studia mittens manû suâ
conscripserat, prælicenter disponens quid in convivio Cæsaris
impendi deberit: Phasianum, et vulvam et sumen exigi vetuit et
inferri. Ammian. Marcellin. l. xvi. c. 5.]
39 (return) [ If we recollect that Constantine, the father of
Helena, died above eighteen years before, in a mature old age, it
will appear probable, that the daughter, though a virgin, could
not be very young at the time of her marriage. She was soon
afterwards delivered of a son, who died immediately, quod
obstetrix corrupta mercede, mox natum præsecto plusquam
convenerat umbilico necavit. She accompanied the emperor and
empress in their journey to Rome, and the latter, quæsitum
venenum bibere per fraudem illexit, ut quotiescunque concepisset,
immaturum abjicerit partum. Ammian. l. xvi. c. 10. Our physicians
will determine whether there exists such a poison. For my own
part I am inclined to hope that the public malignity imputed the
effects of accident as the guilt of Eusebia.]
40 (return) [ Ammianus (xv. v.) was perfectly well informed of
the conduct and fate of Sylvanus. He himself was one of the few
followers who attended Ursicinus in his dangerous enterprise.]
The protection of the Rhætian frontier, and the persecution of
the Catholic church, detained Constantius in Italy above eighteen
months after the departure of Julian. Before the emperor returned
into the East, he indulged his pride and curiosity in a visit to
the ancient capital. 41 He proceeded from Milan to Rome along the
Æmilian and Flaminian ways, and as soon as he approached within
forty miles of the city, the march of a prince who had never
vanquished a foreign enemy, assumed the appearance of a triumphal
procession. His splendid train was composed of all the ministers
of luxury; but in a time of profound peace, he was encompassed by
the glittering arms of the numerous squadrons of his guards and
cuirassiers. Their streaming banners of silk, embossed with gold,
and shaped in the form of dragons, waved round the person of the
emperor. Constantius sat alone in a lofty car, resplendent with
gold and precious gems; and, except when he bowed his head to
pass under the gates of the cities, he affected a stately
demeanor of inflexible, and, as it might seem, of insensible
gravity. The severe discipline of the Persian youth had been
introduced by the eunuchs into the Imperial palace; and such were
the habits of patience which they had inculcated, that during a
slow and sultry march, he was never seen to move his hand towards
his face, or to turn his eyes either to the right or to the left.
He was received by the magistrates and senate of Rome; and the
emperor surveyed, with attention, the civil honors of the
republic, and the consular images of the noble families. The
streets were lined with an innumerable multitude. Their repeated
acclamations expressed their joy at beholding, after an absence
of thirty-two years, the sacred person of their sovereign, and
Constantius himself expressed, with some pleasantry, he affected
surprise that the human race should thus suddenly be collected on
the same spot. The son of Constantine was lodged in the ancient
palace of Augustus: he presided in the senate, harangued the
people from the tribunal which Cicero had so often ascended,
assisted with unusual courtesy at the games of the Circus, and
accepted the crowns of gold, as well as the Panegyrics which had
been prepared for the ceremony by the deputies of the principal
cities. His short visit of thirty days was employed in viewing
the monuments of art and power which were scattered over the
seven hills and the interjacent valleys. He admired the awful
majesty of the Capitol, the vast extent of the baths of Caracalla
and Diocletian, the severe simplicity of the Pantheon, the massy
greatness of the amphitheatre of Titus, the elegant architecture
of the theatre of Pompey and the Temple of Peace, and, above all,
the stately structure of the Forum and column of Trajan;
acknowledging that the voice of fame, so prone to invent and to
magnify, had made an inadequate report of the metropolis of the
world. The traveller, who has contemplated the ruins of ancient
Rome, may conceive some imperfect idea of the sentiments which
they must have inspired when they reared their heads in the
splendor of unsullied beauty.
[See The Pantheon: The severe simplicity of the Pantheon]
41 (return) [ For the particulars of the visit of Constantius to
Rome, see Ammianus, l. xvi. c. 10. We have only to add, that
Themistius was appointed deputy from Constantinople, and that he
composed his fourth oration for his ceremony.]
The satisfaction which Constantius had received from this journey
excited him to the generous emulation of bestowing on the Romans
some memorial of his own gratitude and munificence. His first
idea was to imitate the equestrian and colossal statue which he
had seen in the Forum of Trajan; but when he had maturely weighed
the difficulties of the execution, 42 he chose rather to
embellish the capital by the gift of an Egyptian obelisk. In a
remote but polished age, which seems to have preceded the
invention of alphabetical writing, a great number of these
obelisks had been erected, in the cities of Thebes and
Heliopolis, by the ancient sovereigns of Egypt, in a just
confidence that the simplicity of their form, and the hardness of
their substance, would resist the injuries of time and violence.
43 Several of these extraordinary columns had been transported to
Rome by Augustus and his successors, as the most durable
monuments of their power and victory; 44 but there remained one
obelisk, which, from its size or sanctity, escaped for a long
time the rapacious vanity of the conquerors. It was designed by
Constantine to adorn his new city; 45 and, after being removed by
his order from the pedestal where it stood before the Temple of
the Sun at Heliopolis, was floated down the Nile to Alexandria.
The death of Constantine suspended the execution of his purpose,
and this obelisk was destined by his son to the ancient capital
of the empire. A vessel of uncommon strength and capaciousness
was provided to convey this enormous weight of granite, at least
a hundred and fifteen feet in length, from the banks of the Nile
to those of the Tyber. The obelisk of Constantius was landed
about three miles from the city, and elevated, by the efforts of
art and labor, in the great Circus of Rome. 46 4611
42 (return) [ Hormisdas, a fugitive prince of Persia, observed to
the emperor, that if he made such a horse, he must think of
preparing a similar stable, (the Forum of Trajan.) Another saying
of Hormisdas is recorded, “that one thing only had _displeased_
him, to find that men died at Rome as well as elsewhere.” If we
adopt this reading of the text of Ammianus, (_displicuisse_,
instead of _placuisse_,) we may consider it as a reproof of Roman
vanity. The contrary sense would be that of a misanthrope.]
43 (return) [ When Germanicus visited the ancient monuments of
Thebes, the eldest of the priests explained to him the meaning of
these hiero glyphics. Tacit. Annal. ii. c. 60. But it seems
probable, that before the useful invention of an alphabet, these
natural or arbitrary signs were the common characters of the
Egyptian nation. See Warburton’s Divine Legation of Moses, vol.
iii. p. 69-243.]
44 (return) [ See Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xxxvi. c. 14, 15.]
45 (return) [ Ammian. Marcellin l. xvii. c. 4. He gives us a
Greek interpretation of the hieroglyphics, and his commentator
Lindenbrogius adds a Latin inscription, which, in twenty verses
of the age of Constantius, contain a short history of the
obelisk.]
46 (return) [ See Donat. Roma. Antiqua, l. iii. c. 14, l. iv. c.
12, and the learned, though confused, Dissertation of Bargæus on
Obelisks, inserted in the fourth volume of Grævius’s Roman
Antiquities, p. 1897- 1936. This dissertation is dedicated to
Pope Sixtus V., who erected the obelisk of Constantius in the
square before the patriarchal church of at. John Lateran.]
4611 (return) [ It is doubtful whether the obelisk transported by
Constantius to Rome now exists. Even from the text of Ammianus,
it is uncertain whether the interpretation of Hermapion refers to
the older obelisk, (obelisco incisus est veteri quem videmus in
Circo,) raised, as he himself states, in the Circus Maximus, long
before, by Augustus, or to the one brought by Constantius. The
obelisk in the square before the church of St. John Lateran is
ascribed not to Rameses the Great but to Thoutmos II.
Champollion, 1. Lettre a M. de Blacas, p. 32.—M]
The departure of Constantius from Rome was hastened by the
alarming intelligence of the distress and danger of the Illyrian
provinces. The distractions of civil war, and the irreparable
loss which the Roman legions had sustained in the battle of
Mursa, exposed those countries, almost without defence, to the
light cavalry of the Barbarians; and particularly to the inroads
of the Quadi, a fierce and powerful nation, who seem to have
exchanged the institutions of Germany for the arms and military
arts of their Sarmatian allies. 47 The garrisons of the frontiers
were insufficient to check their progress; and the indolent
monarch was at length compelled to assemble, from the extremities
of his dominions, the flower of the Palatine troops, to take the
field in person, and to employ a whole campaign, with the
preceding autumn and the ensuing spring, in the serious
prosecution of the war. The emperor passed the Danube on a bridge
of boats, cut in pieces all that encountered his march,
penetrated into the heart of the country of the Quadi, and
severely retaliated the calamities which they had inflicted on
the Roman province. The dismayed Barbarians were soon reduced to
sue for peace: they offered the restitution of his captive
subjects as an atonement for the past, and the noblest hostages
as a pledge of their future conduct. The generous courtesy which
was shown to the first among their chieftains who implored the
clemency of Constantius, encouraged the more timid, or the more
obstinate, to imitate their example; and the Imperial camp was
crowded with the princes and ambassadors of the most distant
tribes, who occupied the plains of the Lesser Poland, and who
might have deemed themselves secure behind the lofty ridge of the
Carpathian Mountains. While Constantius gave laws to the
Barbarians beyond the Danube, he distinguished, with specious
compassion, the Sarmatian exiles, who had been expelled from
their native country by the rebellion of their slaves, and who
formed a very considerable accession to the power of the Quadi.
The emperor, embracing a generous but artful system of policy,
released the Sarmatians from the bands of this humiliating
dependence, and restored them, by a separate treaty, to the
dignity of a nation united under the government of a king, the
friend and ally of the republic. He declared his resolution of
asserting the justice of their cause, and of securing the peace
of the provinces by the extirpation, or at least the banishment,
of the Limigantes, whose manners were still infected with the
vices of their servile origin. The execution of this design was
attended with more difficulty than glory. The territory of the
Limigantes was protected against the Romans by the Danube,
against the hostile Barbarians by the Teyss. The marshy lands
which lay between those rivers, and were often covered by their
inundations, formed an intricate wilderness, pervious only to the
inhabitants, who were acquainted with its secret paths and
inaccessible fortresses. On the approach of Constantius, the
Limigantes tried the efficacy of prayers, of fraud, and of arms;
but he sternly rejected their supplications, defeated their rude
stratagems, and repelled with skill and firmness the efforts of
their irregular valor. One of their most warlike tribes,
established in a small island towards the conflux of the Teyss
and the Danube, consented to pass the river with the intention of
surprising the emperor during the security of an amicable
conference. They soon became the victims of the perfidy which
they meditated. Encompassed on every side, trampled down by the
cavalry, slaughtered by the swords of the legions, they disdained
to ask for mercy; and with an undaunted countenance, still
grasped their weapons in the agonies of death. After this
victory, a considerable body of Romans was landed on the opposite
banks of the Danube; the Taifalæ, a Gothic tribe engaged in the
service of the empire, invaded the Limigantes on the side of the
Teyss; and their former masters, the free Sarmatians, animated by
hope and revenge, penetrated through the hilly country, into the
heart of their ancient possessions. A general conflagration
revealed the huts of the Barbarians, which were seated in the
depth of the wilderness; and the soldier fought with confidence
on marshy ground, which it was dangerous for him to tread. In
this extremity, the bravest of the Limigantes were resolved to
die in arms, rather than to yield: but the milder sentiment,
enforced by the authority of their elders, at length prevailed;
and the suppliant crowd, followed by their wives and children,
repaired to the Imperial camp, to learn their fate from the mouth
of the conqueror. After celebrating his own clemency, which was
still inclined to pardon their repeated crimes, and to spare the
remnant of a guilty nation, Constantius assigned for the place of
their exile a remote country, where they might enjoy a safe and
honorable repose. The Limigantes obeyed with reluctance; but
before they could reach, at least before they could occupy, their
destined habitations, they returned to the banks of the Danube,
exaggerating the hardships of their situation, and requesting,
with fervent professions of fidelity, that the emperor would
grant them an undisturbed settlement within the limits of the
Roman provinces. Instead of consulting his own experience of
their incurable perfidy, Constantius listened to his flatterers,
who were ready to represent the honor and advantage of accepting
a colony of soldiers, at a time when it was much easier to obtain
the pecuniary contributions than the military service of the
subjects of the empire. The Limigantes were permitted to pass the
Danube; and the emperor gave audience to the multitude in a large
plain near the modern city of Buda. They surrounded the tribunal,
and seemed to hear with respect an oration full of mildness and
dignity when one of the Barbarians, casting his shoe into the
air, exclaimed with a loud voice, _Marha! Marha!_ 4711 a word of
defiance, which was received as a signal of the tumult. They
rushed with fury to seize the person of the emperor; his royal
throne and golden couch were pillaged by these rude hands; but
the faithful defence of his guards, who died at his feet, allowed
him a moment to mount a fleet horse, and to escape from the
confusion. The disgrace which had been incurred by a treacherous
surprise was soon retrieved by the numbers and discipline of the
Romans; and the combat was only terminated by the extinction of
the name and nation of the Limigantes. The free Sarmatians were
reinstated in the possession of their ancient seats; and although
Constantius distrusted the levity of their character, he
entertained some hopes that a sense of gratitude might influence
their future conduct. He had remarked the lofty stature and
obsequious demeanor of Zizais, one of the noblest of their
chiefs. He conferred on him the title of King; and Zizais proved
that he was not unworthy to reign, by a sincere and lasting
attachment to the interests of his benefactor, who, after this
splendid success, received the name of _Sarmaticus_ from the
acclamations of his victorious army. 48
47 (return) [ The events of this Quadian and Sarmatian war are
related by Ammianus, xvi. 10, xvii. 12, 13, xix. 11]
4711 (return) [ Reinesius reads Warrha, Warrha, Guerre, War.
Wagner note as a mm. Marc xix. ll.—M.]
48 (return) [ Genti Sarmatarum magno decori confidens apud eos
regem dedit. Aurelius Victor. In a pompous oration pronounced by
Constantius himself, he expatiates on his own exploits with much
vanity, and some truth]
Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part III.
While the Roman emperor and the Persian monarch, at the distance
of three thousand miles, defended their extreme limits against
the Barbarians of the Danube and of the Oxus, their intermediate
frontier experienced the vicissitudes of a languid war, and a
precarious truce. Two of the eastern ministers of Constantius,
the Prætorian præfect Musonian, whose abilities were disgraced by
the want of truth and integrity, and Cassian, duke of
Mesopotamia, a hardy and veteran soldier, opened a secret
negotiation with the satrap Tamsapor. 49 4911 These overtures of
peace, translated into the servile and flattering language of
Asia, were transmitted to the camp of the Great King; who
resolved to signify, by an ambassador, the terms which he was
inclined to grant to the suppliant Romans. Narses, whom he
invested with that character, was honorably received in his
passage through Antioch and Constantinople: he reached Sirmium
after a long journey, and, at his first audience, respectfully
unfolded the silken veil which covered the haughty epistle of his
sovereign. Sapor, King of Kings, and Brother of the Sun and Moon,
(such were the lofty titles affected by Oriental vanity,)
expressed his satisfaction that his brother, Constantius Cæsar,
had been taught wisdom by adversity. As the lawful successor of
Darius Hystaspes, Sapor asserted, that the River Strymon, in
Macedonia, was the true and ancient boundary of his empire;
declaring, however, that as an evidence of his moderation, he
would content himself with the provinces of Armenia and
Mesopotamia, which had been fraudulently extorted from his
ancestors. He alleged, that, without the restitution of these
disputed countries, it was impossible to establish any treaty on
a solid and permanent basis; and he arrogantly threatened, that
if his ambassador returned in vain, he was prepared to take the
field in the spring, and to support the justice of his cause by
the strength of his invincible arms. Narses, who was endowed with
the most polite and amiable manners, endeavored, as far as was
consistent with his duty, to soften the harshness of the message.
50 Both the style and substance were maturely weighed in the
Imperial council, and he was dismissed with the following answer:
“Constantius had a right to disclaim the officiousness of his
ministers, who had acted without any specific orders from the
throne: he was not, however, averse to an equal and honorable
treaty; but it was highly indecent, as well as absurd, to propose
to the sole and victorious emperor of the Roman world, the same
conditions of peace which he had indignantly rejected at the time
when his power was contracted within the narrow limits of the
East: the chance of arms was uncertain; and Sapor should
recollect, that if the Romans had sometimes been vanquished in
battle, they had almost always been successful in the event of
the war.” A few days after the departure of Narses, three
ambassadors were sent to the court of Sapor, who was already
returned from the Scythian expedition to his ordinary residence
of Ctesiphon. A count, a notary, and a sophist, had been selected
for this important commission; and Constantius, who was secretly
anxious for the conclusion of the peace, entertained some hopes
that the dignity of the first of these ministers, the dexterity
of the second, and the rhetoric of the third, 51 would persuade
the Persian monarch to abate of the rigor of his demands. But the
progress of their negotiation was opposed and defeated by the
hostile arts of Antoninus, 52 a Roman subject of Syria, who had
fled from oppression, and was admitted into the councils of
Sapor, and even to the royal table, where, according to the
custom of the Persians, the most important business was
frequently discussed. 53 The dexterous fugitive promoted his
interest by the same conduct which gratified his revenge. He
incessantly urged the ambition of his new master to embrace the
favorable opportunity when the bravest of the Palatine troops
were employed with the emperor in a distant war on the Danube. He
pressed Sapor to invade the exhausted and defenceless provinces
of the East, with the numerous armies of Persia, now fortified by
the alliance and accession of the fiercest Barbarians. The
ambassadors of Rome retired without success, and a second
embassy, of a still more honorable rank, was detained in strict
confinement, and threatened either with death or exile.
49 (return) [ Ammian. xvi. 9.]
4911 (return) [ In Persian, Ten-schah-pour. St. Martin, ii.
177.—M.]
50 (return) [ Ammianus (xvii. 5) transcribes the haughty letter.
Themistius (Orat. iv. p. 57, edit. Petav.) takes notice of the
silken covering. Idatius and Zonaras mention the journey of the
ambassador; and Peter the Patrician (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 58)
has informed us of his behavior.]
51 (return) [ Ammianus, xvii. 5, and Valesius ad loc. The
sophist, or philosopher, (in that age these words were almost
synonymous,) was Eustathius the Cappadocian, the disciple of
Jamblichus, and the friend of St. Basil. Eunapius (in Vit.
Ædesii, p. 44-47) fondly attributes to this philosophic
ambassador the glory of enchanting the Barbarian king by the
persuasive charms of reason and eloquence. See Tillemont, Hist.
des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 828, 1132.]
52 (return) [ Ammian. xviii. 5, 6, 8. The decent and respectful
behavior of Antoninus towards the Roman general, sets him in a
very interesting light; and Ammianus himself speaks of the
traitor with some compassion and esteem.]
53 (return) [ This circumstance, as it is noticed by Ammianus,
serves to prove the veracity of Herodotus, (l. i. c. 133,) and
the permanency of the Persian manners. In every age the Persians
have been addicted to intemperance, and the wines of Shiraz have
triumphed over the law of Mahomet. Brisson de Regno Pers. l. ii.
p. 462-472, and Voyages en Perse, tom, iii. p. 90.]
The military historian, 54 who was himself despatched to observe
the army of the Persians, as they were preparing to construct a
bridge of boats over the Tigris, beheld from an eminence the
plain of Assyria, as far as the edge of the horizon, covered with
men, with horses, and with arms. Sapor appeared in the front,
conspicuous by the splendor of his purple. On his left hand, the
place of honor among the Orientals, Grumbates, king of the
Chionites, displayed the stern countenance of an aged and
renowned warrior. The monarch had reserved a similar place on his
right hand for the king of the Albanians, who led his independent
tribes from the shores of the Caspian. 5411 The satraps and
generals were distributed according to their several ranks, and
the whole army, besides the numerous train of Oriental luxury,
consisted of more than one hundred thousand effective men, inured
to fatigue, and selected from the bravest nations of Asia. The
Roman deserter, who in some measure guided the councils of Sapor,
had prudently advised, that, instead of wasting the summer in
tedious and difficult sieges, he should march directly to the
Euphrates, and press forwards without delay to seize the feeble
and wealthy metropolis of Syria. But the Persians were no sooner
advanced into the plains of Mesopotamia, than they discovered
that every precaution had been used which could retard their
progress, or defeat their design. The inhabitants, with their
cattle, were secured in places of strength, the green forage
throughout the country was set on fire, the fords of the rivers
were fortified by sharp stakes; military engines were planted on
the opposite banks, and a seasonable swell of the waters of the
Euphrates deterred the Barbarians from attempting the ordinary
passage of the bridge of Thapsacus. Their skilful guide, changing
his plan of operations, then conducted the army by a longer
circuit, but through a fertile territory, towards the head of the
Euphrates, where the infant river is reduced to a shallow and
accessible stream. Sapor overlooked, with prudent disdain, the
strength of Nisibis; but as he passed under the walls of Amida,
he resolved to try whether the majesty of his presence would not
awe the garrison into immediate submission. The sacrilegious
insult of a random dart, which glanced against the royal tiara,
convinced him of his error; and the indignant monarch listened
with impatience to the advice of his ministers, who conjured him
not to sacrifice the success of his ambition to the gratification
of his resentment. The following day Grumbates advanced towards
the gates with a select body of troops, and required the instant
surrender of the city, as the only atonement which could be
accepted for such an act of rashness and insolence. His proposals
were answered by a general discharge, and his only son, a
beautiful and valiant youth, was pierced through the heart by a
javelin, shot from one of the balistæ. The funeral of the prince
of the Chionites was celebrated according to the rites of the
country; and the grief of his aged father was alleviated by the
solemn promise of Sapor, that the guilty city of Amida should
serve as a funeral pile to expiate the death, and to perpetuate
the memory, of his son.
54 (return) [ Ammian. lxviii. 6, 7, 8, 10.]
5411 (return) [ These perhaps were the barbarous tribes who
inhabit the northern part of the present Schirwan, the Albania of
the ancients. This country, now inhabited by the Lezghis, the
terror of the neighboring districts, was then occupied by the
same people, called by the ancients Legæ, by the Armenians Gheg,
or Leg. The latter represent them as constant allies of the
Persians in their wars against Armenia and the Empire. A little
after this period, a certain Schergir was their king, and it is
of him doubtless Ammianus Marcellinus speaks. St. Martin, ii.
285.—M.]
The ancient city of Amid or Amida, 55 which sometimes assumes the
provincial appellation of Diarbekir, 56 is advantageously situate
in a fertile plain, watered by the natural and artificial
channels of the Tigris, of which the least inconsiderable stream
bends in a semicircular form round the eastern part of the city.
The emperor Constantius had recently conferred on Amida the honor
of his own name, and the additional fortifications of strong
walls and lofty towers. It was provided with an arsenal of
military engines, and the ordinary garrison had been reenforced
to the amount of seven legions, when the place was invested by
the arms of Sapor. 57 His first and most sanguine hopes depended
on the success of a general assault. To the several nations which
followed his standard, their respective posts were assigned; the
south to the Vertæ; the north to the Albanians; the east to the
Chionites, inflamed with grief and indignation; the west to the
Segestans, the bravest of his warriors, who covered their front
with a formidable line of Indian elephants. 58 The Persians, on
every side, supported their efforts, and animated their courage;
and the monarch himself, careless of his rank and safety,
displayed, in the prosecution of the siege, the ardor of a
youthful soldier. After an obstinate combat, the Barbarians were
repulsed; they incessantly returned to the charge; they were
again driven back with a dreadful slaughter, and two rebel
legions of Gauls, who had been banished into the East, signalized
their undisciplined courage by a nocturnal sally into the heart
of the Persian camp. In one of the fiercest of these repeated
assaults, Amida was betrayed by the treachery of a deserter, who
indicated to the Barbarians a secret and neglected staircase,
scooped out of the rock that hangs over the stream of the Tigris.
Seventy chosen archers of the royal guard ascended in silence to
the third story of a lofty tower, which commanded the precipice;
they elevated on high the Persian banner, the signal of
confidence to the assailants, and of dismay to the besieged; and
if this devoted band could have maintained their post a few
minutes longer, the reduction of the place might have been
purchased by the sacrifice of their lives. After Sapor had tried,
without success, the efficacy of force and of stratagem, he had
recourse to the slower but more certain operations of a regular
siege, in the conduct of which he was instructed by the skill of
the Roman deserters. The trenches were opened at a convenient
distance, and the troops destined for that service advanced under
the portable cover of strong hurdles, to fill up the ditch, and
undermine the foundations of the walls. Wooden towers were at the
same time constructed, and moved forwards on wheels, till the
soldiers, who were provided with every species of missile
weapons, could engage almost on level ground with the troops who
defended the rampart. Every mode of resistance which art could
suggest, or courage could execute, was employed in the defence of
Amida, and the works of Sapor were more than once destroyed by
the fire of the Romans. But the resources of a besieged city may
be exhausted. The Persians repaired their losses, and pushed
their approaches; a large preach was made by the battering-ram,
and the strength of the garrison, wasted by the sword and by
disease, yielded to the fury of the assault. The soldiers, the
citizens, their wives, their children, all who had not time to
escape through the opposite gate, were involved by the conquerors
in a promiscuous massacre.
55 (return) [ For the description of Amida, see D’Herbelot,
Bebliotheque Orientale, p. Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 108.
Histoire de Timur Bec, par Cherefeddin Ali, l. iii. c. 41. Ahmed
Arabsiades, tom. i. p. 331, c. 43. Voyages de Tavernier, tom. i.
p. 301. Voyages d’Otter, tom. ii. p. 273, and Voyages de Niebuhr,
tom. ii. p. 324-328. The last of these travellers, a learned and
accurate Dane, has given a plan of Amida, which illustrates the
operations of the siege.]
56 (return) [ Diarbekir, which is styled Amid, or Kara Amid, in
the public writings of the Turks, contains above 16,000 houses,
and is the residence of a pacha with three tails. The epithet of
_Kara_ is derived from the _blackness_ of the stone which
composes the strong and ancient wall of Amida. ——In my Mém. Hist.
sur l’Armenie, l. i. p. 166, 173, I conceive that I have proved
this city, still called, by the Armenians, Dirkranagerd, the city
of Tigranes, to be the same with the famous Tigranocerta, of
which the situation was unknown. St. Martin, i. 432. On the siege
of Amida, see St. Martin’s Notes, ii. 290. Faustus of Byzantium,
nearly a contemporary, (Armenian,) states that the Persians, on
becoming masters of it, destroyed 40,000 houses though Ammianus
describes the city as of no great extent, (civitatis ambitum non
nimium amplæ.) Besides the ordinary population, and those who
took refuge from the country, it contained 20,000 soldiers. St.
Martin, ii. 290. This interpretation is extremely doubtful.
Wagner (note on Ammianus) considers the whole population to
amount only to—M.]
57 (return) [ The operations of the siege of Amida are very
minutely described by Ammianus, (xix. 1-9,) who acted an
honorable part in the defence, and escaped with difficulty when
the city was stormed by the Persians.]
58 (return) [ Of these four nations, the Albanians are too well
known to require any description. The Segestans [_Sacastenè. St.
Martin._] inhabited a large and level country, which still
preserves their name, to the south of Khorasan, and the west of
Hindostan. (See Geographia Nubiensis. p. 133, and D’Herbelot,
Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 797.) Notwithstanding the boasted
victory of Bahram, (vol. i. p. 410,) the Segestans, above
fourscore years afterwards, appear as an independent nation, the
ally of Persia. We are ignorant of the situation of the Vertæ and
Chionites, but I am inclined to place them (at least the latter)
towards the confines of India and Scythia. See Ammian. ——Klaproth
considers the real Albanians the same with the ancient Alani, and
quotes a passage of the emperor Julian in support of his opinion.
They are the Ossetæ, now inhabiting part of Caucasus. Tableaux
Hist. de l’Asie, p. 179, 180.—M. ——The Vertæ are still unknown.
It is possible that the Chionites are the same as the Huns. These
people were already known; and we find from Armenian authors that
they were making, at this period, incursions into Asia. They were
often at war with the Persians. The name was perhaps pronounced
differently in the East and in the West, and this prevents us
from recognizing it. St. Martin, ii. 177.—M.]
But the ruin of Amida was the safety of the Roman provinces.
As soon as the first transports of victory had subsided, Sapor
was at leisure to reflect, that to chastise a disobedient city,
he had lost the flower of his troops, and the most favorable
season for conquest. 59 Thirty thousand of his veterans had
fallen under the walls of Amida, during the continuance of a
siege, which lasted seventy-three days; and the disappointed
monarch returned to his capital with affected triumph and secret
mortification. It is more than probable, that the inconstancy of
his Barbarian allies was tempted to relinquish a war in which
they had encountered such unexpected difficulties; and that the
aged king of the Chionites, satiated with revenge, turned away
with horror from a scene of action where he had been deprived of
the hope of his family and nation. The strength as well as the
spirit of the army with which Sapor took the field in the ensuing
spring was no longer equal to the unbounded views of his
ambition. Instead of aspiring to the conquest of the East, he was
obliged to content himself with the reduction of two fortified
cities of Mesopotamia, Singara and Bezabde; 60 the one situate in
the midst of a sandy desert, the other in a small peninsula,
surrounded almost on every side by the deep and rapid stream of
the Tigris. Five Roman legions, of the diminutive size to which
they had been reduced in the age of Constantine, were made
prisoners, and sent into remote captivity on the extreme confines
of Persia. After dismantling the walls of Singara, the conqueror
abandoned that solitary and sequestered place; but he carefully
restored the fortifications of Bezabde, and fixed in that
important post a garrison or colony of veterans; amply supplied
with every means of defence, and animated by high sentiments of
honor and fidelity. Towards the close of the campaign, the arms
of Sapor incurred some disgrace by an unsuccessful enterprise
against Virtha, or Tecrit, a strong, or, as it was universally
esteemed till the age of Tamerlane, an impregnable fortress of
the independent Arabs. 61 6111
59 (return) [ Ammianus has marked the chronology of this year by
three signs, which do not perfectly coincide with each other, or
with the series of the history. 1 The corn was ripe when Sapor
invaded Mesopotamia; “Cum jam stipula flaveate turgerent;” a
circumstance, which, in the latitude of Aleppo, would naturally
refer us to the month of April or May. See Harmer’s Observations
on Scripture vol. i. p. 41. Shaw’s Travels, p. 335, edit 4to. 2.
The progress of Sapor was checked by the overflowing of the
Euphrates, which generally happens in July and August. Plin.
Hist. Nat. v. 21. Viaggi di Pietro della Valle, tom. i. p. 696.
3. When Sapor had taken Amida, after a siege of seventy-three
days, the autumn was far advanced. “Autumno præcipiti hædorumque
improbo sidere exorto.” To reconcile these apparent
contradictions, we must allow for some delay in the Persian king,
some inaccuracy in the historian, and some disorder in the
seasons.]
60 (return) [ The account of these sieges is given by Ammianus,
xx. 6, 7. ——The Christian bishop of Bezabde went to the camp of
the king of Persia, to persuade him to check the waste of human
blood Amm. Mare xx. 7.—M.]
61 (return) [ For the identity of Virtha and Tecrit, see
D’Anville, Geographie. For the siege of that castle by Timur Bec
or Tamerlane, see Cherefeddin, l. iii. c. 33. The Persian
biographer exaggerates the merit and difficulty of this exploit,
which delivered the caravans of Bagdad from a formidable gang of
robbers.]
6111 (return) [ St. Martin doubts whether it lay so much to the
south. “The word Girtha means in Syriac a castle or fortress, and
might be applied to many places.”]
The defence of the East against the arms of Sapor required and
would have exercised, the abilities of the most consummate
general; and it seemed fortunate for the state, that it was the
actual province of the brave Ursicinus, who alone deserved the
confidence of the soldiers and people. In the hour of danger, 62
Ursicinus was removed from his station by the intrigues of the
eunuchs; and the military command of the East was bestowed, by
the same influence, on Sabinian, a wealthy and subtle veteran,
who had attained the infirmities, without acquiring the
experience, of age. By a second order, which issued from the same
jealous and inconstant councils, Ursicinus was again despatched
to the frontier of Mesopotamia, and condemned to sustain the
labors of a war, the honors of which had been transferred to his
unworthy rival. Sabinian fixed his indolent station under the
walls of Edessa; and while he amused himself with the idle parade
of military exercise, and moved to the sound of flutes in the
Pyrrhic dance, the public defence was abandoned to the boldness
and diligence of the former general of the East. But whenever
Ursicinus recommended any vigorous plan of operations; when he
proposed, at the head of a light and active army, to wheel round
the foot of the mountains, to intercept the convoys of the enemy,
to harass the wide extent of the Persian lines, and to relieve
the distress of Amida; the timid and envious commander alleged,
that he was restrained by his positive orders from endangering
the safety of the troops. Amida was at length taken; its bravest
defenders, who had escaped the sword of the Barbarians, died in
the Roman camp by the hand of the executioner: and Ursicinus
himself, after supporting the disgrace of a partial inquiry, was
punished for the misconduct of Sabinian by the loss of his
military rank. But Constantius soon experienced the truth of the
prediction which honest indignation had extorted from his injured
lieutenant, that as long as such maxims of government were
suffered to prevail, the emperor himself would find it is no easy
task to defend his eastern dominions from the invasion of a
foreign enemy. When he had subdued or pacified the Barbarians of
the Danube, Constantius proceeded by slow marches into the East;
and after he had wept over the smoking ruins of Amida, he formed,
with a powerful army, the siege of Becabde. The walls were shaken
by the reiterated efforts of the most enormous of the
battering-rams; the town was reduced to the last extremity; but
it was still defended by the patient and intrepid valor of the
garrison, till the approach of the rainy season obliged the
emperor to raise the siege, and ingloviously to retreat into his
winter quarters at Antioch. 63 The pride of Constantius, and the
ingenuity of his courtiers, were at a loss to discover any
materials for panegyric in the events of the Persian war; while
the glory of his cousin Julian, to whose military command he had
intrusted the provinces of Gaul, was proclaimed to the world in
the simple and concise narrative of his exploits.
62 (return) [ Ammianus (xviii. 5, 6, xix. 3, xx. 2) represents
the merit and disgrace of Ursicinus with that faithful attention
which a soldier owed to his general. Some partiality may be
suspected, yet the whole account is consistent and probable.]
63 (return) [ Ammian. xx. 11. Omisso vano incepto, hiematurus
Antiochiæ redit in Syriam ærumnosam, perpessus et ulcerum sed et
atrocia, diuque deflenda. It is _thus_ that James Gronovius has
restored an obscure passage; and he thinks that this correction
alone would have deserved a new edition of his author: whose
sense may now be darkly perceived. I expected some additional
light from the recent labors of the learned Ernestus. (Lipsiæ,
1773.) * Note: The late editor (Wagner) has nothing better to
suggest, and le menta with Gibbon, the silence of Ernesti.—M.]
In the blind fury of civil discord, Constantius had abandoned to
the Barbarians of Germany the countries of Gaul, which still
acknowledged the authority of his rival. A numerous swarm of
Franks and Alemanni were invited to cross the Rhine by presents
and promises, by the hopes of spoil, and by a perpetual grant of
all the territories which they should be able to subdue. 64 But
the emperor, who for a temporary service had thus imprudently
provoked the rapacious spirit of the Barbarians, soon discovered
and lamented the difficulty of dismissing these formidable
allies, after they had tasted the richness of the Roman soil.
Regardless of the nice distinction of loyalty and rebellion,
these undisciplined robbers treated as their natural enemies all
the subjects of the empire, who possessed any property which they
were desirous of acquiring Forty-five flourishing cities,
Tongres, Cologne, Treves, Worms, Spires, Strasburgh, &c., besides
a far greater number of towns and villages, were pillaged, and
for the most part reduced to ashes. The Barbarians of Germany,
still faithful to the maxims of their ancestors, abhorred the
confinement of walls, to which they applied the odious names of
prisons and sepulchres; and fixing their independent habitations
on the banks of rivers, the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Meuse,
they secured themselves against the danger of a surprise, by a
rude and hasty fortification of large trees, which were felled
and thrown across the roads. The Alemanni were established in the
modern countries of Alsace and Lorraine; the Franks occupied the
island of the Batavians, together with an extensive district of
Brabant, which was then known by the appellation of Toxandria, 65
and may deserve to be considered as the original seat of their
Gallic monarchy. 66 From the sources, to the mouth, of the Rhine,
the conquests of the Germans extended above forty miles to the
west of that river, over a country peopled by colonies of their
own name and nation: and the scene of their devastations was
three times more extensive than that of their conquests. At a
still greater distance the open towns of Gaul were deserted, and
the inhabitants of the fortified cities, who trusted to their
strength and vigilance, were obliged to content themselves with
such supplies of corn as they could raise on the vacant land
within the enclosure of their walls. The diminished legions,
destitute of pay and provisions, of arms and discipline, trembled
at the approach, and even at the name, of the Barbarians.
64 (return) [ The ravages of the Germans, and the distress of
Gaul, may be collected from Julian himself. Orat. ad S. P. Q.
Athen. p. 277. Ammian. xv. ll. Libanius, Orat. x. Zosimus, l.
iii. p. 140. Sozomen, l. iii. c. l. (Mamertin. Grat. Art. c.
iv.)]
65 (return) [ Ammianus, xvi. 8. This name seems to be derived
from the Toxandri of Pliny, and very frequently occurs in the
histories of the middle age. Toxandria was a country of woods and
morasses, which extended from the neighborhood of Tongres to the
conflux of the Vahal and the Rhine. See Valesius, Notit. Galliar.
p. 558.]
66 (return) [ The paradox of P. Daniel, that the Franks never
obtained any permanent settlement on this side of the Rhine
before the time of Clovis, is refuted with much learning and good
sense by M. Biet, who has proved by a chain of evidence, their
uninterrupted possession of Toxandria, one hundred and thirty
years before the accession of Clovis. The Dissertation of M. Biet
was crowned by the Academy of Soissons, in the year 1736, and
seems to have been justly preferred to the discourse of his more
celebrated competitor, the Abbé le Bœuf, an antiquarian, whose
name was happily expressive of his talents.]
Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part IV.
Under these melancholy circumstances, an unexperienced youth was
appointed to save and to govern the provinces of Gaul, or rather,
as he expressed it himself, to exhibit the vain image of Imperial
greatness. The retired scholastic education of Julian, in which
he had been more conversant with books than with arms, with the
dead than with the living, left him in profound ignorance of the
practical arts of war and government; and when he awkwardly
repeated some military exercise which it was necessary for him to
learn, he exclaimed with a sigh, “O Plato, Plato, what a task for
a philosopher!” Yet even this speculative philosophy, which men
of business are too apt to despise, had filled the mind of Julian
with the noblest precepts and the most shining examples; had
animated him with the love of virtue, the desire of fame, and the
contempt of death. The habits of temperance recommended in the
schools, are still more essential in the severe discipline of a
camp. The simple wants of nature regulated the measure of his
food and sleep. Rejecting with disdain the delicacies provided
for his table, he satisfied his appetite with the coarse and
common fare which was allotted to the meanest soldiers. During
the rigor of a Gallic winter, he never suffered a fire in his
bed-chamber; and after a short and interrupted slumber, he
frequently rose in the middle of the night from a carpet spread
on the floor, to despatch any urgent business, to visit his
rounds, or to steal a few moments for the prosecution of his
favorite studies. 67 The precepts of eloquence, which he had
hitherto practised on fancied topics of declamation, were more
usefully applied to excite or to assuage the passions of an armed
multitude: and although Julian, from his early habits of
conversation and literature, was more familiarly acquainted with
the beauties of the Greek language, he had attained a competent
knowledge of the Latin tongue. 68 Since Julian was not originally
designed for the character of a legislator, or a judge, it is
probable that the civil jurisprudence of the Romans had not
engaged any considerable share of his attention: but he derived
from his philosophic studies an inflexible regard for justice,
tempered by a disposition to clemency; the knowledge of the
general principles of equity and evidence, and the faculty of
patiently investigating the most intricate and tedious questions
which could be proposed for his discussion. The measures of
policy, and the operations of war, must submit to the various
accidents of circumstance and character, and the unpractised
student will often be perplexed in the application of the most
perfect theory.
But in the acquisition of this important science, Julian was
assisted by the active vigor of his own genius, as well as by the
wisdom and experience of Sallust, and officer of rank, who soon
conceived a sincere attachment for a prince so worthy of his
friendship; and whose incorruptible integrity was adorned by the
talent of insinuating the harshest truths without wounding the
delicacy of a royal ear. 69
67 (return) [ The private life of Julian in Gaul, and the severe
discipline which he embraced, are displayed by Ammianus, (xvi.
5,) who professes to praise, and by Julian himself, who affects
to ridicule, (Misopogon, p. 340,) a conduct, which, in a prince
of the house of Constantine, might justly excite the surprise of
mankind.]
68 (return) [ Aderat Latine quoque disserenti sufficiens sermo.
Ammianus xvi. 5. But Julian, educated in the schools of Greece,
always considered the language of the Romans as a foreign and
popular dialect which he might use on necessary occasions.]
69 (return) [ We are ignorant of the actual office of this
excellent minister, whom Julian afterwards created præfect of
Gaul. Sallust was speedly recalled by the jealousy of the
emperor; and we may still read a sensible but pedantic discourse,
(p. 240-252,) in which Julian deplores the loss of so valuable a
friend, to whom he acknowledges himself indebted for his
reputation. See La Bleterie, Preface a la Vie de lovien, p. 20.]
Immediately after Julian had received the purple at Milan, he was
sent into Gaul with a feeble retinue of three hundred and sixty
soldiers. At Vienna, where he passed a painful and anxious winter
in the hands of those ministers to whom Constantius had intrusted
the direction of his conduct, the Cæsar was informed of the siege
and deliverance of Autun. That large and ancient city, protected
only by a ruined wall and pusillanimous garrison, was saved by
the generous resolution of a few veterans, who resumed their arms
for the defence of their country. In his march from Autun,
through the heart of the Gallic provinces, Julian embraced with
ardor the earliest opportunity of signalizing his courage. At the
head of a small body of archers and heavy cavalry, he preferred
the shorter but the more dangerous of two roads; 6911 and
sometimes eluding, and sometimes resisting, the attacks of the
Barbarians, who were masters of the field, he arrived with honor
and safety at the camp near Rheims, where the Roman troops had
been ordered to assemble. The aspect of their young prince
revived the drooping spirits of the soldiers, and they marched
from Rheims in search of the enemy, with a confidence which had
almost proved fatal to them. The Alemanni, familiarized to the
knowledge of the country, secretly collected their scattered
forces, and seizing the opportunity of a dark and rainy day,
poured with unexpected fury on the rear-guard of the Romans.
Before the inevitable disorder could be remedied, two legions
were destroyed; and Julian was taught by experience that caution
and vigilance are the most important lessons of the art of war.
In a second and more successful action, he recovered and
established his military fame; but as the agility of the
Barbarians saved them from the pursuit, his victory was neither
bloody nor decisive. He advanced, however, to the banks of the
Rhine, surveyed the ruins of Cologne, convinced himself of the
difficulties of the war, and retreated on the approach of winter,
discontented with the court, with his army, and with his own
success. 70 The power of the enemy was yet unbroken; and the
Cæsar had no sooner separated his troops, and fixed his own
quarters at Sens, in the centre of Gaul, than he was surrounded
and besieged, by a numerous host of Germans. Reduced, in this
extremity, to the resources of his own mind, he displayed a
prudent intrepidity, which compensated for all the deficiencies
of the place and garrison; and the Barbarians, at the end of
thirty days, were obliged to retire with disappointed rage.
6911 (return) [ Aliis per Arbor—quibusdam per Sedelaucum et Coram
in debere firrantibus. Amm. Marc. xvi. 2. I do not know what
place can be meant by the mutilated name Arbor. Sedelanus is
Saulieu, a small town of the department of the Cote d’Or, six
leagues from Autun. Cora answers to the village of Cure, on the
river of the same name, between Autun and Nevera 4; Martin, ii.
162.—M. ——Note: At Brocomages, Brumat, near Strasburgh. St.
Martin, ii. 184.—M.]
70 (return) [ Ammianus (xvi. 2, 3) appears much better satisfied
with the success of his first campaign than Julian himself; who
very fairly owns that he did nothing of consequence, and that he
fled before the enemy.]
The conscious pride of Julian, who was indebted only to his sword
for this signal deliverance, was imbittered by the reflection,
that he was abandoned, betrayed, and perhaps devoted to
destruction, by those who were bound to assist him, by every tie
of honor and fidelity. Marcellus, master-general of the cavalry
in Gaul, interpreting too strictly the jealous orders of the
court, beheld with supine indifference the distress of Julian,
and had restrained the troops under his command from marching to
the relief of Sens. If the Cæsar had dissembled in silence so
dangerous an insult, his person and authority would have been
exposed to the contempt of the world; and if an action so
criminal had been suffered to pass with impunity, the emperor
would have confirmed the suspicions, which received a very
specious color from his past conduct towards the princes of the
Flavian family. Marcellus was recalled, and gently dismissed from
his office. 71 In his room Severus was appointed general of the
cavalry; an experienced soldier, of approved courage and
fidelity, who could advise with respect, and execute with zeal;
and who submitted, without reluctance to the supreme command
which Julian, by the inrerest of his patroness Eusebia, at length
obtained over the armies of Gaul. 72 A very judicious plan of
operations was adopted for the approaching campaign. Julian
himself, at the head of the remains of the veteran bands, and of
some new levies which he had been permitted to form, boldly
penetrated into the centre of the German cantonments, and
carefully reestablished the fortifications of Saverne, in an
advantageous post, which would either check the incursions, or
intercept the retreat, of the enemy. At the same time, Barbatio,
general of the infantry, advanced from Milan with an army of
thirty thousand men, and passing the mountains, prepared to throw
a bridge over the Rhine, in the neighborhood of Basil. It was
reasonable to expect that the Alemanni, pressed on either side by
the Roman arms, would soon be forced to evacuate the provinces of
Gaul, and to hasten to the defence of their native country. But
the hopes of the campaign were defeated by the incapacity, or the
envy, or the secret instructions, of Barbatio; who acted as if he
had been the enemy of the Cæsar, and the secret ally of the
Barbarians. The negligence with which he permitted a troop of
pillagers freely to pass, and to return almost before the gates
of his camp, may be imputed to his want of abilities; but the
treasonable act of burning a number of boats, and a superfluous
stock of provisions, which would have been of the most essential
service to the army of Gaul, was an evidence of his hostile and
criminal intentions. The Germans despised an enemy who appeared
destitute either of power or of inclination to offend them; and
the ignominious retreat of Barbatio deprived Julian of the
expected support; and left him to extricate himself from a
hazardous situation, where he could neither remain with safety,
nor retire with honor. 73
71 (return) [ Ammian. xvi. 7. Libanius speaks rather more
advantageously of the military talents of Marcellus, Orat. x. p.
272. And Julian insinuates, that he would not have been so easily
recalled, unless he had given other reasons of offence to the
court, p. 278.]
72 (return) [ Severus, non discors, non arrogans, sed longa
militiæ frugalitate compertus; et eum recta præeuntem secuturus,
ut duetorem morigeran miles. Ammian xvi. 11. Zosimus, l. iii. p.
140.]
73 (return) [ On the design and failure of the cooperation
between Julian and Barbatio, see Ammianus (xvi. 11) and Libanius,
(Orat. x. p. 273.) Note: Barbatio seems to have allowed himself
to be surprised and defeated—M.]
As soon as they were delivered from the fears of invasion, the
Alemanni prepared to chastise the Roman youth, who presumed to
dispute the possession of that country, which they claimed as
their own by the right of conquest and of treaties. They employed
three days, and as many nights, in transporting over the Rhine
their military powers. The fierce Chnodomar, shaking the
ponderous javelin which he had victoriously wielded against the
brother of Magnentius, led the van of the Barbarians, and
moderated by his experience the martial ardor which his example
inspired. 74 He was followed by six other kings, by ten princes
of regal extraction, by a long train of high-spirited nobles, and
by thirty-five thousand of the bravest warriors of the tribes of
Germany. The confidence derived from the view of their own
strength, was increased by the intelligence which they received
from a deserter, that the Cæsar, with a feeble army of thirteen
thousand men, occupied a post about one-and-twenty miles from
their camp of Strasburgh. With this inadequate force, Julian
resolved to seek and to encounter the Barbarian host; and the
chance of a general action was preferred to the tedious and
uncertain operation of separately engaging the dispersed parties
of the Alemanni. The Romans marched in close order, and in two
columns; the cavalry on the right, the infantry on the left; and
the day was so far spent when they appeared in sight of the
enemy, that Julian was desirous of deferring the battle till the
next morning, and of allowing his troops to recruit their
exhausted strength by the necessary refreshments of sleep and
food. Yielding, however, with some reluctance, to the clamors of
the soldiers, and even to the opinion of his council, he exhorted
them to justify by their valor the eager impatience, which, in
case of a defeat, would be universally branded with the epithets
of rashness and presumption. The trumpets sounded, the military
shout was heard through the field, and the two armies rushed with
equal fury to the charge. The Cæsar, who conducted in person his
right wing, depended on the dexterity of his archers, and the
weight of his cuirassiers. But his ranks were instantly broken by
an irregular mixture of light horse and of light infantry, and he
had the mortification of beholding the flight of six hundred of
his most renowned cuirassiers. 75 The fugitives were stopped and
rallied by the presence and authority of Julian, who, careless of
his own safety, threw himself before them, and urging every
motive of shame and honor, led them back against the victorious
enemy. The conflict between the two lines of infantry was
obstinate and bloody. The Germans possessed the superiority of
strength and stature, the Romans that of discipline and temper;
and as the Barbarians, who served under the standard of the
empire, united the respective advantages of both parties, their
strenuous efforts, guided by a skilful leader, at length
determined the event of the day. The Romans lost four tribunes,
and two hundred and forty-three soldiers, in this memorable
battle of Strasburgh, so glorious to the Cæsar, 76 and so
salutary to the afflicted provinces of Gaul. Six thousand of the
Alemanni were slain in the field, without including those who
were drowned in the Rhine, or transfixed with darts while they
attempted to swim across the river. 77 Chnodomar himself was
surrounded and taken prisoner, with three of his brave
companions, who had devoted themselves to follow in life or death
the fate of their chieftain. Julian received him with military
pomp in the council of his officers; and expressing a generous
pity for the fallen state, dissembled his inward contempt for the
abject humiliation, of his captive. Instead of exhibiting the
vanquished king of the Alemanni, as a grateful spectacle to the
cities of Gaul, he respectfully laid at the feet of the emperor
this splendid trophy of his victory. Chnodomar experienced an
honorable treatment: but the impatient Barbarian could not long
survive his defeat, his confinement, and his exile. 78
74 (return) [ Ammianus (xvi. 12) describes with his inflated
eloquence the figure and character of Chnodomar. Audax et fidens
ingenti robore lacertorum, ubi ardor prœlii sperabatur immanis,
equo spumante sublimior, erectus in jaculum formidandæ
vastitatis, armorumque nitore conspicuus: antea strenuus et
miles, et utilis præter cæteros ductor... Decentium Cæsarem
superavit æquo marte congressus.]
75 (return) [ After the battle, Julian ventured to revive the
rigor of ancient discipline, by exposing these fugitives in
female apparel to the derision of the whole camp. In the next
campaign, these troops nobly retrieved their honor. Zosimus, l.
iii. p. 142.]
76 (return) [ Julian himself (ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 279) speaks
of the battle of Strasburgh with the modesty of conscious merit;
Zosimus compares it with the victory of Alexander over Darius;
and yet we are at a loss to discover any of those strokes of
military genius which fix the attention of ages on the conduct
and success of a single day.]
77 (return) [ Ammianus, xvi. 12. Libanius adds 2000 more to the
number of the slain, (Orat. x. p. 274.) But these trifling
differences disappear before the 60,000 Barbarians, whom Zosimus
has sacrificed to the glory of his hero, (l. iii. p. 141.) We
might attribute this extravagant number to the carelessness of
transcribers, if this credulous or partial historian had not
swelled the army of 35,000 Alemanni to an innumerable multitude
of Barbarians,. It is our own fault if this detection does not
inspire us with proper distrust on similar occasions.]
78 (return) [ Ammian. xvi. 12. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 276.]
After Julian had repulsed the Alemanni from the provinces of the
Upper Rhine, he turned his arms against the Franks, who were
seated nearer to the ocean, on the confines of Gaul and Germany;
and who, from their numbers, and still more from their intrepid
valor, had ever been esteemed the most formidable of the
Barbarians. 79 Although they were strongly actuated by the
allurements of rapine, they professed a disinterested love of
war; which they considered as the supreme honor and felicity of
human nature; and their minds and bodies were so completely
hardened by perpetual action, that, according to the lively
expression of an orator, the snows of winter were as pleasant to
them as the flowers of spring. In the month of December, which
followed the battle of Strasburgh, Julian attacked a body of six
hundred Franks, who had thrown themselves into two castles on the
Meuse. 80 In the midst of that severe season they sustained, with
inflexible constancy, a siege of fifty-four days; till at length,
exhausted by hunger, and satisfied that the vigilance of the
enemy, in breaking the ice of the river, left them no hopes of
escape, the Franks consented, for the first time, to dispense
with the ancient law which commanded them to conquer or to die.
The Cæsar immediately sent his captives to the court of
Constantius, who, accepting them as a valuable present, 81
rejoiced in the opportunity of adding so many heroes to the
choicest troops of his domestic guards. The obstinate resistance
of this handful of Franks apprised Julian of the difficulties of
the expedition which he meditated for the ensuing spring, against
the whole body of the nation. His rapid diligence surprised and
astonished the active Barbarians. Ordering his soldiers to
provide themselves with biscuit for twenty days, he suddenly
pitched his camp near Tongres, while the enemy still supposed him
in his winter quarters of Paris, expecting the slow arrival of
his convoys from Aquitain. Without allowing the Franks to unite
or deliberate, he skilfully spread his legions from Cologne to
the ocean; and by the terror, as well as by the success, of his
arms, soon reduced the suppliant tribes to implore the clemency,
and to obey the commands, of their conqueror. The Chamavians
submissively retired to their former habitations beyond the
Rhine; but the Salians were permitted to possess their new
establishment of Toxandria, as the subjects and auxiliaries of
the Roman empire. 82 The treaty was ratified by solemn oaths; and
perpetual inspectors were appointed to reside among the Franks,
with the authority of enforcing the strict observance of the
conditions. An incident is related, interesting enough in itself,
and by no means repugnant to the character of Julian, who
ingeniously contrived both the plot and the catastrophe of the
tragedy. When the Chamavians sued for peace, he required the son
of their king, as the only hostage on whom he could rely. A
mournful silence, interrupted by tears and groans, declared the
sad perplexity of the Barbarians; and their aged chief lamented
in pathetic language, that his private loss was now imbittered by
a sense of public calamity. While the Chamavians lay prostrate at
the foot of his throne, the royal captive, whom they believed to
have been slain, unexpectedly appeared before their eyes; and as
soon as the tumult of joy was hushed into attention, the Cæsar
addressed the assembly in the following terms: “Behold the son,
the prince, whom you wept. You had lost him by your fault. God
and the Romans have restored him to you. I shall still preserve
and educate the youth, rather as a monument of my own virtue,
than as a pledge of your sincerity. Should you presume to violate
the faith which you have sworn, the arms of the republic will
avenge the perfidy, not on the innocent, but on the guilty.” The
Barbarians withdrew from his presence, impressed with the warmest
sentiments of gratitude and admiration. 83
79 (return) [ Libanius (Orat. iii. p. 137) draws a very lively
picture of the manners of the Franks.]
80 (return) [ Ammianus, xvii. 2. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 278. The
Greek orator, by misapprehending a passage of Julian, has been
induced to represent the Franks as consisting of a thousand men;
and as his head was always full of the Peloponnesian war, he
compares them to the Lacedæmonians, who were besieged and taken
in the Island of Sphatoria.]
81 (return) [ Julian. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 280. Libanius, Orat.
x. p. 278. According to the expression of Libanius, the emperor,
which La Bleterie understands (Vie de Julien, p. 118) as an
honest confession, and Valesius (ad Ammian. xvii. 2) as a mean
evasion, of the truth. Dom Bouquet, (Historiens de France, tom.
i. p. 733,) by substituting another word, would suppress both the
difficulty and the spirit of this passage.]
82 (return) [ Ammian. xvii. 8. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 146-150, (his
narrative is darkened by a mixture of fable,) and Julian. ad S.
P. Q. Athen. p. 280. His expression. This difference of treatment
confirms the opinion that the Salian Franks were permitted to
retain the settlements in Toxandria. Note: A newly discovered
fragment of Eunapius, whom Zosimus probably transcribed,
illustrates this transaction. “Julian commanded the Romans to
abstain from all hostile measures against the Salians, neither to
waste or ravage _their own_ country, for he called every country
_their own_ which was surrendered without resistance or toil on
the part of the conquerors.” Mai, Script. Vez Nov. Collect. ii.
256, and Eunapius in Niebuhr, Byzant. Hist.]
83 (return) [ This interesting story, which Zosimus has abridged,
is related by Eunapius, (in Excerpt. Legationum, p. 15, 16, 17,)
with all the amplifications of Grecian rhetoric: but the silence
of Libanius, of Ammianus, and of Julian himself, renders the
truth of it extremely suspicious.]
It was not enough for Julian to have delivered the provinces of
Gaul from the Barbarians of Germany. He aspired to emulate the
glory of the first and most illustrious of the emperors; after
whose example, he composed his own commentaries of the Gallic
war. 84 Cæsar has related, with conscious pride, the manner in
which he _twice_ passed the Rhine. Julian could boast, that
before he assumed the title of Augustus, he had carried the Roman
eagles beyond that great river in _three_ successful expeditions.
85 The consternation of the Germans, after the battle of
Strasburgh, encouraged him to the first attempt; and the
reluctance of the troops soon yielded to the persuasive eloquence
of a leader, who shared the fatigues and dangers which he imposed
on the meanest of the soldiers. The villages on either side of
the Meyn, which were plentifully stored with corn and cattle,
felt the ravages of an invading army. The principal houses,
constructed with some imitation of Roman elegance, were consumed
by the flames; and the Cæsar boldly advanced about ten miles,
till his progress was stopped by a dark and impenetrable forest,
undermined by subterraneous passages, which threatened with
secret snares and ambush every step of the assailants. The ground
was already covered with snow; and Julian, after repairing an
ancient castle which had been erected by Trajan, granted a truce
of ten months to the submissive Barbarians. At the expiration of
the truce, Julian undertook a second expedition beyond the Rhine,
to humble the pride of Surmar and Hortaire, two of the kings of
the Alemanni, who had been present at the battle of Strasburgh.
They promised to restore all the Roman captives who yet remained
alive; and as the Cæsar had procured an exact account from the
cities and villages of Gaul, of the inhabitants whom they had
lost, he detected every attempt to deceive him, with a degree of
readiness and accuracy, which almost established the belief of
his supernatural knowledge. His third expedition was still more
splendid and important than the two former. The Germans had
collected their military powers, and moved along the opposite
banks of the river, with a design of destroying the bridge, and
of preventing the passage of the Romans. But this judicious plan
of defence was disconcerted by a skilful diversion. Three hundred
light-armed and active soldiers were detached in forty small
boats, to fall down the stream in silence, and to land at some
distance from the posts of the enemy. They executed their orders
with so much boldness and celerity, that they had almost
surprised the Barbarian chiefs, who returned in the fearless
confidence of intoxication from one of their nocturnal festivals.
Without repeating the uniform and disgusting tale of slaughter
and devastation, it is sufficient to observe, that Julian
dictated his own conditions of peace to six of the haughtiest
kings of the Alemanni, three of whom were permitted to view the
severe discipline and martial pomp of a Roman camp. Followed by
twenty thousand captives, whom he had rescued from the chains of
the Barbarians, the Cæsar repassed the Rhine, after terminating a
war, the success of which has been compared to the ancient
glories of the Punic and Cimbric victories.
84 (return) [ Libanius, the friend of Julian, clearly insinuates
(Orat. ix. p. 178) that his hero had composed the history of his
Gallic campaigns But Zosimus (l. iii. p, 140) seems to have
derived his information only from the Orations and the Epistles
of Julian. The discourse which is addressed to the Athenians
contains an accurate, though general, account of the war against
the Germans.]
85 (return) [ See Ammian. xvii. 1, 10, xviii. 2, and Zosim. l.
iii. p. 144. Julian ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 280.]
As soon as the valor and conduct of Julian had secured an
interval of peace, he applied himself to a work more congenial to
his humane and philosophic temper. The cities of Gaul, which had
suffered from the inroads of the Barbarians, he diligently
repaired; and seven important posts, between Mentz and the mouth
of the Rhine, are particularly mentioned, as having been rebuilt
and fortified by the order of Julian. 86 The vanquished Germans
had submitted to the just but humiliating condition of preparing
and conveying the necessary materials. The active zeal of Julian
urged the prosecution of the work; and such was the spirit which
he had diffused among the troops, that the auxiliaries
themselves, waiving their exemption from any duties of fatigue,
contended in the most servile labors with the diligence of the
Roman soldiers. It was incumbent on the Cæsar to provide for the
subsistence, as well as for the safety, of the inhabitants and of
the garrisons. The desertion of the former, and the mutiny of the
latter, must have been the fatal and inevitable consequences of
famine. The tillage of the provinces of Gaul had been interrupted
by the calamities of war; but the scanty harvests of the
continent were supplied, by his paternal care, from the plenty of
the adjacent island. Six hundred large barks, framed in the
forest of the Ardennes, made several voyages to the coast of
Britain; and returning from thence, laden with corn, sailed up
the Rhine, and distributed their cargoes to the several towns and
fortresses along the banks of the river. 87 The arms of Julian
had restored a free and secure navigation, which Constantinius
had offered to purchase at the expense of his dignity, and of a
tributary present of two thousand pounds of silver. The emperor
parsimoniously refused to his soldiers the sums which he granted
with a lavish and trembling hand to the Barbarians. The
dexterity, as well as the firmness, of Julian was put to a severe
trial, when he took the field with a discontented army, which had
already served two campaigns, without receiving any regular pay
or any extraordinary donative. 88
86 (return) [ Ammian. xviii. 2. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 279, 280.
Of these seven posts, four are at present towns of some
consequence; Bingen, Andernach, Bonn, and Nuyss. The other three,
Tricesimæ, Quadriburgium, and Castra Herculis, or Heraclea, no
longer subsist; but there is room to believe, that on the ground
of Quadriburgium the Dutch have constructed the fort of Schenk, a
name so offensive to the fastidious delicacy of Boileau. See
D’Anville, Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule, p. 183. Boileau, Epitre
iv. and the notes. Note: Tricesimæ, Kellen, Mannert, quoted by
Wagner. Heraclea, Erkeleus in the district of Juliers. St.
Martin, ii. 311.—M.]
87 (return) [ We may credit Julian himself, (Orat. ad S. P. Q.
Atheniensem, p. 280,) who gives a very particular account of the
transaction. Zosimus adds two hundred vessels more, (l. iii. p.
145.) If we compute the 600 corn ships of Julian at only seventy
tons each, they were capable of exporting 120,000 quarters, (see
Arbuthnot’s Weights and Measures, p. 237;) and the country which
could bear so large an exportation, must already have attained an
improved state of agriculture.]
88 (return) [ The troops once broke out into a mutiny,
immediately before the second passage of the Rhine. Ammian. xvii.
9.]
A tender regard for the peace and happiness of his subjects was
the ruling principle which directed, or seemed to direct, the
administration of Julian. 89 He devoted the leisure of his winter
quarters to the offices of civil government; and affected to
assume, with more pleasure, the character of a magistrate than
that of a general. Before he took the field, he devolved on the
provincial governors most of the public and private causes which
had been referred to his tribunal; but, on his return, he
carefully revised their proceedings, mitigated the rigor of the
law, and pronounced a second judgment on the judges themselves.
Superior to the last temptation of virtuous minds, an indiscreet
and intemperate zeal for justice, he restrained, with calmness
and dignity, the warmth of an advocate, who prosecuted, for
extortion, the president of the Narbonnese province. “Who will
ever be found guilty,” exclaimed the vehement Delphidius, “if it
be enough to deny?” “And who,” replied Julian, “will ever be
innocent, if it be sufficient to affirm?” In the general
administration of peace and war, the interest of the sovereign is
commonly the same as that of his people; but Constantius would
have thought himself deeply injured, if the virtues of Julian had
defrauded him of any part of the tribute which he extorted from
an oppressed and exhausted country. The prince who was invested
with the ensigns of royalty, might sometimes presume to correct
the rapacious insolence of his inferior agents, to expose their
corrupt arts, and to introduce an equal and easier mode of
collection. But the management of the finances was more safely
intrusted to Florentius, prætorian præfect of Gaul, an effeminate
tyrant, incapable of pity or remorse: and the haughty minister
complained of the most decent and gentle opposition, while Julian
himself was rather inclined to censure the weakness of his own
behavior. The Cæsar had rejected, with abhorrence, a mandate for
the levy of an extraordinary tax; a new superindiction, which the
præfect had offered for his signature; and the faithful picture
of the public misery, by which he had been obliged to justify his
refusal, offended the court of Constantius. We may enjoy the
pleasure of reading the sentiments of Julian, as he expresses
them with warmth and freedom in a letter to one of his most
intimate friends. After stating his own conduct, he proceeds in
the following terms: “Was it possible for the disciple of Plato
and Aristotle to act otherwise than I have done? Could I abandon
the unhappy subjects intrusted to my care? Was I not called upon
to defend them from the repeated injuries of these unfeeling
robbers? A tribune who deserts his post is punished with death,
and deprived of the honors of burial. With what justice could I
pronounce _his_ sentence, if, in the hour of danger, I myself
neglected a duty far more sacred and far more important? God has
placed me in this elevated post; his providence will guard and
support me. Should I be condemned to suffer, I shall derive
comfort from the testimony of a pure and upright conscience.
Would to Heaven that I still possessed a counsellor like Sallust!
If they think proper to send me a successor, I shall submit
without reluctance; and had much rather improve the short
opportunity of doing good, than enjoy a long and lasting impunity
of evil.” 90 The precarious and dependent situation of Julian
displayed his virtues and concealed his defects. The young hero
who supported, in Gaul, the throne of Constantius, was not
permitted to reform the vices of the government; but he had
courage to alleviate or to pity the distress of the people.
Unless he had been able to revive the martial spirit of the
Romans, or to introduce the arts of industry and refinement among
their savage enemies, he could not entertain any rational hopes
of securing the public tranquillity, either by the peace or
conquest of Germany. Yet the victories of Julian suspended, for a
short time, the inroads of the Barbarians, and delayed the ruin
of the Western Empire.
89 (return) [ Ammian. xvi. 5, xviii. 1. Mamertinus in Panegyr.
Vet. xi. 4]
90 (return) [ Ammian. xvii. 3. Julian. Epistol. xv. edit.
Spanheim. Such a conduct almost justifies the encomium of
Mamertinus. Ita illi anni spatia divisa sunt, ut aut Barbaros
domitet, aut civibus jura restituat, perpetuum professus, aut
contra hostem, aut contra vitia, certamen.]
His salutary influence restored the cities of Gaul, which had
been so long exposed to the evils of civil discord, Barbarian
war, and domestic tyranny; and the spirit of industry was revived
with the hopes of enjoyment. Agriculture, manufactures, and
commerce, again flourished under the protection of the laws; and
the _curiæ_, or civil corporations, were again filled with useful
and respectable members: the youth were no longer apprehensive of
marriage; and married persons were no longer apprehensive of
posterity: the public and private festivals were celebrated with
customary pomp; and the frequent and secure intercourse of the
provinces displayed the image of national prosperity. 91 A mind
like that of Julian must have felt the general happiness of which
he was the author; but he viewed, with particular satisfaction
and complacency, the city of Paris; the seat of his winter
residence, and the object even of his partial affection. 92 That
splendid capital, which now embraces an ample territory on either
side of the Seine, was originally confined to the small island in
the midst of the river, from whence the inhabitants derived a
supply of pure and salubrious water. The river bathed the foot of
the walls; and the town was accessible only by two wooden
bridges. A forest overspread the northern side of the Seine, but
on the south, the ground, which now bears the name of the
University, was insensibly covered with houses, and adorned with
a palace and amphitheatre, baths, an aqueduct, and a field of
Mars for the exercise of the Roman troops. The severity of the
climate was tempered by the neighborhood of the ocean; and with
some precautions, which experience had taught, the vine and
fig-tree were successfully cultivated. But in remarkable winters,
the Seine was deeply frozen; and the huge pieces of ice that
floated down the stream, might be compared, by an Asiatic, to the
blocks of white marble which were extracted from the quarries of
Phrygia. The licentiousness and corruption of Antioch recalled to
the memory of Julian the severe and simple manners of his beloved
Lutetia; 93 where the amusements of the theatre were unknown or
despised. He indignantly contrasted the effeminate Syrians with
the brave and honest simplicity of the Gauls, and almost forgave
the intemperance, which was the only stain of the Celtic
character. 94 If Julian could now revisit the capital of France,
he might converse with men of science and genius, capable of
understanding and of instructing a disciple of the Greeks; he
might excuse the lively and graceful follies of a nation, whose
martial spirit has never been enervated by the indulgence of
luxury; and he must applaud the perfection of that inestimable
art, which softens and refines and embellishes the intercourse of
social life.
91 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parental. in Imp. Julian. c. 38, in
Fabricius Bibliothec. Græc. tom. vii. p. 263, 264.]
92 (return) [ See Julian. in Misopogon, p. 340, 341. The
primitive state of Paris is illustrated by Henry Valesius, (ad
Ammian. xx. 4,) his brother Hadrian Valesius, or de Valois, and
M. D’Anville, (in their respective Notitias of ancient Gaul,) the
Abbé de Longuerue, (Description de la France, tom. i. p. 12, 13,)
and M. Bonamy, (in the Mém. de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom.
xv. p. 656-691.)]
93 (return) [ Julian, in Misopogon, p. 340. Leuce tia, or
Lutetia, was the ancient name of the city, which, according to
the fashion of the fourth century, assumed the territorial
appellation of _Parisii_.]
94 (return) [ Julian in Misopogon, p. 359, 360.]
Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part I.
The Motives, Progress, And Effects Of The Conversion Of
Constantine.—Legal Establishment And Constitution Of The Christian Or
Catholic Church.
The public establishment of Christianity may be considered as one of
those important and domestic revolutions which excite the most lively
curiosity, and afford the most valuable instruction. The victories and
the civil policy of Constantine no longer influence the state of
Europe; but a considerable portion of the globe still retains the
impression which it received from the conversion of that monarch; and
the ecclesiastical institutions of his reign are still connected, by an
indissoluble chain, with the opinions, the passions, and the interests
of the present generation. In the consideration of a subject which may
be examined with impartiality, but cannot be viewed with indifference,
a difficulty immediately arises of a very unexpected nature; that of
ascertaining the real and precise date of the conversion of
Constantine. The eloquent Lactantius, in the midst of his court, seems
impatient 1 to proclaim to the world the glorious example of the
sovereign of Gaul; who, in the first moments of his reign, acknowledged
and adored the majesty of the true and only God. 2 The learned Eusebius
has ascribed the faith of Constantine to the miraculous sign which was
displayed in the heavens whilst he meditated and prepared the Italian
expedition. 3 The historian Zosimus maliciously asserts, that the
emperor had imbrued his hands in the blood of his eldest son, before he
publicly renounced the gods of Rome and of his ancestors. 4 The
perplexity produced by these discordant authorities is derived from the
behavior of Constantine himself. According to the strictness of
ecclesiastical language, the first of the _Christian_ emperors was
unworthy of that name, till the moment of his death; since it was only
during his last illness that he received, as a catechumen, the
imposition of hands, 5 and was afterwards admitted, by the initiatory
rites of baptism, into the number of the faithful. 6 The Christianity
of Constantine must be allowed in a much more vague and qualified
sense; and the nicest accuracy is required in tracing the slow and
almost imperceptible gradations by which the monarch declared himself
the protector, and at length the proselyte, of the church. It was an
arduous task to eradicate the habits and prejudices of his education,
to acknowledge the divine power of Christ, and to understand that the
truth of _his_ revelation was incompatible with the worship of the
gods. The obstacles which he had probably experienced in his own mind,
instructed him to proceed with caution in the momentous change of a
national religion; and he insensibly discovered his new opinions, as
far as he could enforce them with safety and with effect. During the
whole course of his reign, the stream of Christianity flowed with a
gentle, though accelerated, motion: but its general direction was
sometimes checked, and sometimes diverted, by the accidental
circumstances of the times, and by the prudence, or possibly by the
caprice, of the monarch. His ministers were permitted to signify the
intentions of their master in the various language which was best
adapted to their respective principles; 7 and he artfully balanced the
hopes and fears of his subjects, by publishing in the same year two
edicts; the first of which enjoined the solemn observance of Sunday, 8
and the second directed the regular consultation of the Aruspices. 9
While this important revolution yet remained in suspense, the
Christians and the Pagans watched the conduct of their sovereign with
the same anxiety, but with very opposite sentiments. The former were
prompted by every motive of zeal, as well as vanity, to exaggerate the
marks of his favor, and the evidences of his faith. The latter, till
their just apprehensions were changed into despair and resentment,
attempted to conceal from the world, and from themselves, that the gods
of Rome could no longer reckon the emperor in the number of their
votaries. The same passions and prejudices have engaged the partial
writers of the times to connect the public profession of Christianity
with the most glorious or the most ignominious æra of the reign of
Constantine.
1 (return) [ The date of the Divine Institutions of Lactantius has been
accurately discussed, difficulties have been started, solutions
proposed, and an expedient imagined of two _original_ editions; the
former published during the persecution of Diocletian, the latter under
that of Licinius. See Dufresnoy, Prefat. p. v. Tillemont, Mém.
Ecclesiast. tom. vi. p. 465-470. Lardner’s Credibility, part ii. vol.
vii. p. 78-86. For my own part, I am _almost_ convinced that Lactantius
dedicated his Institutions to the sovereign of Gaul, at a time when
Galerius, Maximin, and even Licinius, persecuted the Christians; that
is, between the years 306 and 311.]
2 (return) [ Lactant. Divin. Instit. i. l. vii. 27. The first and most
important of these passages is indeed wanting in twenty-eight
manuscripts; but it is found in nineteen. If we weigh the comparative
value of these manuscripts, one of 900 years old, in the king of
France’s library may be alleged in its favor; but the passage is
omitted in the correct manuscript of Bologna, which the P. de
Montfaucon ascribes to the sixth or seventh century (Diarium Italic. p.
489.) The taste of most of the editors (except Isæus; see Lactant.
edit. Dufresnoy, tom. i. p. 596) has felt the genuine style of
Lactantius.]
3 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. i. c. 27-32.]
4 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 104.]
5 (return) [ That rite was _always_ used in making a catechumen, (see
Bingham’s Antiquities. l. x. c. i. p. 419. Dom Chardon, Hist. des
Sacramens, tom. i. p. 62,) and Constantine received it for the _first_
time (Euseb. in Vit Constant. l. iv. c. 61) immediately before his
baptism and death. From the connection of these two facts, Valesius (ad
loc. Euseb.) has drawn the conclusion which is reluctantly admitted by
Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 628,) and opposed with
feeble arguments by Mosheim, (p. 968.)]
6 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 61, 62, 63. The legend
of Constantine’s baptism at Rome, thirteen years before his death, was
invented in the eighth century, as a proper motive for his _donation_.
Such has been the gradual progress of knowledge, that a story, of which
Cardinal Baronius (Annual Ecclesiast. A. D. 324, No. 43-49) declared
himself the unblushing advocate, is now feebly supported, even within
the verge of the Vatican. See the Antiquitates Christianæ, tom. ii. p.
232; a work published with six approbations at Rome, in the year 1751
by Father Mamachi, a learned Dominican.]
7 (return) [ The quæstor, or secretary, who composed the law of the
Theodosian Code, makes his master say with indifference, “hominibus
supradictæ religionis,” (l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 1.) The minister of
ecclesiastical affairs was allowed a more devout and respectful style,
[**Greek] the legal, most holy, and Catholic worship.]
8 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. ii. viii. tit. leg. 1. Cod. Justinian. l.
iii. tit. xii. leg. 3. Constantine styles the Lord’s day _dies solis_,
a name which could not offend the ears of his pagan subjects.]
9 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x. leg. l. Godefroy, in the
character of a commentator, endeavors (tom. vi. p. 257) to excuse
Constantine; but the more zealous Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 321,
No. 17) censures his profane conduct with truth and asperity.]
Whatever symptoms of Christian piety might transpire in the discourses
or actions of Constantine, he persevered till he was near forty years
of age in the practice of the established religion; 10 and the same
conduct which in the court of Nicomedia might be imputed to his fear,
could be ascribed only to the inclination or policy of the sovereign of
Gaul. His liberality restored and enriched the temples of the gods; the
medals which issued from his Imperial mint are impressed with the
figures and attributes of Jupiter and Apollo, of Mars and Hercules; and
his filial piety increased the council of Olympus by the solemn
apotheosis of his father Constantius. 11 But the devotion of
Constantine was more peculiarly directed to the genius of the Sun, the
Apollo of Greek and Roman mythology; and he was pleased to be
represented with the symbols of the God of Light and Poetry. The
unerring shafts of that deity, the brightness of his eyes, his laurel
wreath, immortal beauty, and elegant accomplishments, seem to point him
out as the patron of a young hero. The altars of Apollo were crowned
with the votive offerings of Constantine; and the credulous multitude
were taught to believe, that the emperor was permitted to behold with
mortal eyes the visible majesty of their tutelar deity; and that,
either walking or in a vision, he was blessed with the auspicious omens
of a long and victorious reign. The Sun was universally celebrated as
the invincible guide and protector of Constantine; and the Pagans might
reasonably expect that the insulted god would pursue with unrelenting
vengeance the impiety of his ungrateful favorite. 12
10 (return) [ Theodoret. (l. i. c. 18) seems to insinuate that Helena
gave her son a Christian education; but we may be assured, from the
superior authority of Eusebius, (in Vit. Constant. l. iii. c. 47,) that
she herself was indebted to Constantine for the knowledge of
Christianity.]
11 (return) [ See the medals of Constantine in Ducange and Banduri. As
few cities had retained the privilege of coining, almost all the medals
of that age issued from the mint under the sanction of the Imperial
authority.]
12 (return) [ The panegyric of Eumenius, (vii. inter Panegyr. Vet.,)
which was pronounced a few months before the Italian war, abounds with
the most unexceptionable evidence of the Pagan superstition of
Constantine, and of his particular veneration for Apollo, or the Sun;
to which Julian alludes.]
As long as Constantine exercised a limited sovereignty over the
provinces of Gaul, his Christian subjects were protected by the
authority, and perhaps by the laws, of a prince, who wisely left to the
gods the care of vindicating their own honor. If we may credit the
assertion of Constantine himself, he had been an indignant spectator of
the savage cruelties which were inflicted, by the hands of Roman
soldiers, on those citizens whose religion was their only crime. 13 In
the East and in the West, he had seen the different effects of severity
and indulgence; and as the former was rendered still more odious by the
example of Galerius, his implacable enemy, the latter was recommended
to his imitation by the authority and advice of a dying father. The son
of Constantius immediately suspended or repealed the edicts of
persecution, and granted the free exercise of their religious
ceremonies to all those who had already professed themselves members of
the church. They were soon encouraged to depend on the favor as well as
on the justice of their sovereign, who had imbibed a secret and sincere
reverence for the name of Christ, and for the God of the Christians. 14
13 (return) [ Constantin. Orat. ad Sanctos, c. 25. But it might easily
be shown, that the Greek translator has improved the sense of the Latin
original; and the aged emperor might recollect the persecution of
Diocletian with a more lively abhorrence than he had actually felt to
the days of his youth and Paganism.]
14 (return) [ See Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. viii. 13, l. ix. 9, and in
Vit. Const. l. i. c. 16, 17 Lactant. Divin. Institut. i. l. Cæcilius de
Mort. Persecut. c. 25.]
About five months after the conquest of Italy, the emperor made a
solemn and authentic declaration of his sentiments by the celebrated
edict of Milan, which restored peace to the Catholic church. In the
personal interview of the two western princes, Constantine, by the
ascendant of genius and power, obtained the ready concurrence of his
colleague, Licinius; the union of their names and authority disarmed
the fury of Maximin; and after the death of the tyrant of the East, the
edict of Milan was received as a general and fundamental law of the
Roman world. 15
15 (return) [ Cæcilius (de Mort. Persecut. c. 48) has preserved the
Latin original; and Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. l. x. c. 5) has given a
Greek translation of this perpetual edict, which refers to some
provisional regulations.]
The wisdom of the emperors provided for the restitution of all the
civil and religious rights of which the Christians had been so unjustly
deprived. It was enacted that the places of worship, and public lands,
which had been confiscated, should be restored to the church, without
dispute, without delay, and without expense; and this severe injunction
was accompanied with a gracious promise, that if any of the purchasers
had paid a fair and adequate price, they should be indemnified from the
Imperial treasury. The salutary regulations which guard the future
tranquillity of the faithful are framed on the principles of enlarged
and equal toleration; and such an equality must have been interpreted
by a recent sect as an advantageous and honorable distinction. The two
emperors proclaim to the world, that they have granted a free and
absolute power to the Christians, and to all others, of following the
religion which each individual thinks proper to prefer, to which he has
addicted his mind, and which he may deem the best adapted to his own
use. They carefully explain every ambiguous word, remove every
exception, and exact from the governors of the provinces a strict
obedience to the true and simple meaning of an edict, which was
designed to establish and secure, without any limitation, the claims of
religious liberty. They condescend to assign two weighty reasons which
have induced them to allow this universal toleration: the humane
intention of consulting the peace and happiness of their people; and
the pious hope, that, by such a conduct, they shall appease and
propitiate _the Deity_, whose seat is in heaven. They gratefully
acknowledge the many signal proofs which they have received of the
divine favor; and they trust that the same Providence will forever
continue to protect the prosperity of the prince and people. From these
vague and indefinite expressions of piety, three suppositions may be
deduced, of a different, but not of an incompatible nature. The mind of
Constantine might fluctuate between the Pagan and the Christian
religions. According to the loose and complying notions of Polytheism,
he might acknowledge the God of the Christians as _one_ of the _many_
deities who compose the hierarchy of heaven. Or perhaps he might
embrace the philosophic and pleasing idea, that, notwithstanding the
variety of names, of rites, and of opinions, all the sects, and all the
nations of mankind, are united in the worship of the common Father and
Creator of the universe. 16
16 (return) [ A panegyric of Constantine, pronounced seven or eight
months after the edict of Milan, (see Gothofred. Chronolog. Legum, p.
7, and Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 246,) uses the
following remarkable expression: “Summe rerum sator, cujus tot nomina
sant, quot linguas gentium esse voluisti, quem enim te ipse dici velin,
scire non possumus.” (Panegyr. Vet. ix. 26.) In explaining
Constantine’s progress in the faith, Mosheim (p. 971, &c.) is
ingenious, subtle, prolix.]
But the counsels of princes are more frequently influenced by views of
temporal advantage, than by considerations of abstract and speculative
truth. The partial and increasing favor of Constantine may naturally be
referred to the esteem which he entertained for the moral character of
the Christians; and to a persuasion, that the propagation of the gospel
would inculcate the practice of private and public virtue. Whatever
latitude an absolute monarch may assume in his own conduct, whatever
indulgence he may claim for his own passions, it is undoubtedly his
interest that all his subjects should respect the natural and civil
obligations of society. But the operation of the wisest laws is
imperfect and precarious. They seldom inspire virtue, they cannot
always restrain vice. Their power is insufficient to prohibit all that
they condemn, nor can they always punish the actions which they
prohibit. The legislators of antiquity had summoned to their aid the
powers of education and of opinion. But every principle which had once
maintained the vigor and purity of Rome and Sparta, was long since
extinguished in a declining and despotic empire. Philosophy still
exercised her temperate sway over the human mind, but the cause of
virtue derived very feeble support from the influence of the Pagan
superstition. Under these discouraging circumstances, a prudent
magistrate might observe with pleasure the progress of a religion which
diffused among the people a pure, benevolent, and universal system of
ethics, adapted to every duty and every condition of life; recommended
as the will and reason of the supreme Deity, and enforced by the
sanction of eternal rewards or punishments. The experience of Greek and
Roman history could not inform the world how far the system of national
manners might be reformed and improved by the precepts of a divine
revelation; and Constantine might listen with some confidence to the
flattering, and indeed reasonable, assurances of Lactantius. The
eloquent apologist seemed firmly to expect, and almost ventured to
promise, _that_ the establishment of Christianity would restore the
innocence and felicity of the primitive age; _that_ the worship of the
true God would extinguish war and dissension among those who mutually
considered themselves as the children of a common parent; _that_ every
impure desire, every angry or selfish passion, would be restrained by
the knowledge of the gospel; and _that_ the magistrates might sheath
the sword of justice among a people who would be universally actuated
by the sentiments of truth and piety, of equity and moderation, of
harmony and universal love. 17
17 (return) [ See the elegant description of Lactantius, (Divin
Institut. v. 8,) who is much more perspicuous and positive than becomes
a discreet prophet.]
The passive and unresisting obedience, which bows under the yoke of
authority, or even of oppression, must have appeared, in the eyes of an
absolute monarch, the most conspicuous and useful of the evangelic
virtues. 18 The primitive Christians derived the institution of civil
government, not from the consent of the people, but from the decrees of
Heaven. The reigning emperor, though he had usurped the sceptre by
treason and murder, immediately assumed the sacred character of
vicegerent of the Deity. To the Deity alone he was accountable for the
abuse of his power; and his subjects were indissolubly bound, by their
oath of fidelity, to a tyrant, who had violated every law of nature and
society. The humble Christians were sent into the world as sheep among
wolves; and since they were not permitted to employ force even in the
defence of their religion, they should be still more criminal if they
were tempted to shed the blood of their fellow-creatures in disputing
the vain privileges, or the sordid possessions, of this transitory
life. Faithful to the doctrine of the apostle, who in the reign of Nero
had preached the duty of unconditional submission, the Christians of
the three first centuries preserved their conscience pure and innocent
of the guilt of secret conspiracy, or open rebellion. While they
experienced the rigor of persecution, they were never provoked either
to meet their tyrants in the field, or indignantly to withdraw
themselves into some remote and sequestered corner of the globe. 19 The
Protestants of France, of Germany, and of Britain, who asserted with
such intrepid courage their civil and religious freedom, have been
insulted by the invidious comparison between the conduct of the
primitive and of the reformed Christians. 20 Perhaps, instead of
censure, some applause may be due to the superior sense and spirit of
our ancestors, who had convinced themselves that religion cannot
abolish the unalienable rights of human nature. 21 Perhaps the patience
of the primitive church may be ascribed to its weakness, as well as to
its virtue.
A sect of unwarlike plebeians, without leaders, without arms, without
fortifications, must have encountered inevitable destruction in a rash
and fruitless resistance to the master of the Roman legions. But the
Christians, when they deprecated the wrath of Diocletian, or solicited
the favor of Constantine, could allege, with truth and confidence, that
they held the principle of passive obedience, and that, in the space of
three centuries, their conduct had always been conformable to their
principles. They might add, that the throne of the emperors would be
established on a fixed and permanent basis, if all their subjects,
embracing the Christian doctrine, should learn to suffer and to obey.
18 (return) [ The political system of the Christians is explained by
Grotius, de Jure Belli et Pacis, l. i. c. 3, 4. Grotius was a
republican and an exile, but the mildness of his temper inclined him to
support the established powers.]
19 (return) [ Tertullian. Apolog. c. 32, 34, 35, 36. Tamen nunquam
Albiniani, nec Nigriani vel Cassiani inveniri potuerunt Christiani. Ad
Scapulam, c. 2. If this assertion be strictly true, it excludes the
Christians of that age from all civil and military employments, which
would have compelled them to take an active part in the service of
their respective governors. See Moyle’s Works, vol. ii. p. 349.]
20 (return) [ See the artful Bossuet, (Hist. des Variations des Eglises
Protestantes, tom. iii. p. 210-258.) and the malicious Bayle, (tom ii.
p. 820.) I _name_ Bayle, for he was certainly the author of the Avis
aux Refugies; consult the Dictionnaire Critique de Chauffepié, tom. i.
part ii. p. 145.]
21 (return) [ Buchanan is the earliest, or at least the most
celebrated, of the reformers, who has justified the theory of
resistance. See his Dialogue de Jure Regni apud Scotos, tom. ii. p. 28,
30, edit. fol. Rudiman.]
In the general order of Providence, princes and tyrants are considered
as the ministers of Heaven, appointed to rule or to chastise the
nations of the earth. But sacred history affords many illustrious
examples of the more immediate interposition of the Deity in the
government of his chosen people. The sceptre and the sword were
committed to the hands of Moses, of Joshua, of Gideon, of David, of the
Maccabees; the virtues of those heroes were the motive or the effect of
the divine favor, the success of their arms was destined to achieve the
deliverance or the triumph of the church. If the judges of Israel were
occasional and temporary magistrates, the kings of Judah derived from
the royal unction of their great ancestor an hereditary and
indefeasible right, which could not be forfeited by their own vices,
nor recalled by the caprice of their subjects. The same extraordinary
providence, which was no longer confined to the Jewish people, might
elect Constantine and his family as the protectors of the Christian
world; and the devout Lactantius announces, in a prophetic tone, the
future glories of his long and universal reign. 22 Galerius and
Maximin, Maxentius and Licinius, were the rivals who shared with the
favorite of heaven the provinces of the empire. The tragic deaths of
Galerius and Maximin soon gratified the resentment, and fulfilled the
sanguine expectations, of the Christians. The success of Constantine
against Maxentius and Licinius removed the two formidable competitors
who still opposed the triumph of the second David, and his cause might
seem to claim the peculiar interposition of Providence. The character
of the Roman tyrant disgraced the purple and human nature; and though
the Christians might enjoy his precarious favor, they were exposed,
with the rest of his subjects, to the effects of his wanton and
capricious cruelty. The conduct of Licinius soon betrayed the
reluctance with which he had consented to the wise and humane
regulations of the edict of Milan. The convocation of provincial synods
was prohibited in his dominions; his Christian officers were
ignominiously dismissed; and if he avoided the guilt, or rather danger,
of a general persecution, his partial oppressions were rendered still
more odious by the violation of a solemn and voluntary engagement. 23
While the East, according to the lively expression of Eusebius, was
involved in the shades of infernal darkness, the auspicious rays of
celestial light warmed and illuminated the provinces of the West. The
piety of Constantine was admitted as an unexceptionable proof of the
justice of his arms; and his use of victory confirmed the opinion of
the Christians, that their hero was inspired, and conducted, by the
Lord of Hosts. The conquest of Italy produced a general edict of
toleration; and as soon as the defeat of Licinius had invested
Constantine with the sole dominion of the Roman world, he immediately,
by circular letters, exhorted all his subjects to imitate, without
delay, the example of their sovereign, and to embrace the divine truth
of Christianity. 24
22 (return) [ Lactant Divin. Institut. i. l. Eusebius in the course of
his history, his life, and his oration, repeatedly inculcates the
divine right of Constantine to the empire.]
23 (return) [ Our imperfect knowledge of the persecution of Licinius is
derived from Eusebius, (Hist. l. x. c. 8. Vit. Constantin. l. i. c.
49-56, l. ii. c. 1, 2.) Aurelius Victor mentions his cruelty in general
terms.]
24 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. ii. c. 24-42 48-60.]
Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part II.
The assurance that the elevation of Constantine was intimately
connected with the designs of Providence, instilled into the minds of
the Christians two opinions, which, by very different means, assisted
the accomplishment of the prophecy. Their warm and active loyalty
exhausted in his favor every resource of human industry; and they
confidently expected that their strenuous efforts would be seconded by
some divine and miraculous aid. The enemies of Constantine have imputed
to interested motives the alliance which he insensibly contracted with
the Catholic church, and which apparently contributed to the success of
his ambition. In the beginning of the fourth century, the Christians
still bore a very inadequate proportion to the inhabitants of the
empire; but among a degenerate people, who viewed the change of masters
with the indifference of slaves, the spirit and union of a religious
party might assist the popular leader, to whose service, from a
principle of conscience, they had devoted their lives and fortunes. 25
The example of his father had instructed Constantine to esteem and to
reward the merit of the Christians; and in the distribution of public
offices, he had the advantage of strengthening his government, by the
choice of ministers or generals, in whose fidelity he could repose a
just and unreserved confidence. By the influence of these dignified
missionaries, the proselytes of the new faith must have multiplied in
the court and army; the Barbarians of Germany, who filled the ranks of
the legions, were of a careless temper, which acquiesced without
resistance in the religion of their commander; and when they passed the
Alps, it may fairly be presumed, that a great number of the soldiers
had already consecrated their swords to the service of Christ and of
Constantine. 26 The habits of mankind and the interests of religion
gradually abated the horror of war and bloodshed, which had so long
prevailed among the Christians; and in the councils which were
assembled under the gracious protection of Constantine, the authority
of the bishops was seasonably employed to ratify the obligation of the
military oath, and to inflict the penalty of excommunication on those
soldiers who threw away their arms during the peace of the church. 27
While Constantine, in his own dominions, increased the number and zeal
of his faithful adherents, he could depend on the support of a powerful
faction in those provinces which were still possessed or usurped by his
rivals. A secret disaffection was diffused among the Christian subjects
of Maxentius and Licinius; and the resentment, which the latter did not
attempt to conceal, served only to engage them still more deeply in the
interest of his competitor. The regular correspondence which connected
the bishops of the most distant provinces, enabled them freely to
communicate their wishes and their designs, and to transmit without
danger any useful intelligence, or any pious contributions, which might
promote the service of Constantine, who publicly declared that he had
taken up arms for the deliverance of the church. 28
25 (return) [ In the beginning of the last century, the Papists of
England were only a _thirtieth_, and the Protestants of France only a
_fifteenth_, part of the respective nations, to whom their spirit and
power were a constant object of apprehension. See the relations which
Bentivoglio (who was then nuncio at Brussels, and afterwards cardinal)
transmitted to the court of Rome, (Relazione, tom. ii. p. 211, 241.)
Bentivoglio was curious, well informed, but somewhat partial.]
26 (return) [ This careless temper of the Germans appears almost
uniformly on the history of the conversion of each of the tribes. The
legions of Constantine were recruited with Germans, (Zosimus, l. ii. p.
86;) and the court even of his father had been filled with Christians.
See the first book of the Life of Constantine, by Eusebius.]
27 (return) [ De his qui arma projiciunt in _pace_, placuit eos
abstinere a communione. Council. Arelat. Canon. iii. The best critics
apply these words to the _peace of the church_.]
28 (return) [ Eusebius always considers the second civil war against
Licinius as a sort of religious crusade. At the invitation of the
tyrant, some Christian officers had resumed their _zones;_ or, in other
words, had returned to the military service. Their conduct was
afterwards censured by the twelfth canon of the Council of Nice; if
this particular application may be received, instead of the lo se and
general sense of the Greek interpreters, Balsamor Zonaras, and Alexis
Aristenus. See Beveridge, Pandect. Eccles. Græc. tom. i. p. 72, tom.
ii. p. 73 Annotation.]
The enthusiasm which inspired the troops, and perhaps the emperor
himself, had sharpened their swords while it satisfied their
conscience. They marched to battle with the full assurance, that the
same God, who had formerly opened a passage to the Israelites through
the waters of Jordan, and had thrown down the walls of Jericho at the
sound of the trumpets of Joshua, would display his visible majesty and
power in the victory of Constantine. The evidence of ecclesiastical
history is prepared to affirm, that their expectations were justified
by the conspicuous miracle to which the conversion of the first
Christian emperor has been almost unanimously ascribed. The real or
imaginary cause of so important an event, deserves and demands the
attention of posterity; and I shall endeavor to form a just estimate of
the famous vision of Constantine, by a distinct consideration of the
_standard_, the _dream_, and the _celestial sign;_ by separating the
historical, the natural, and the marvellous parts of this extraordinary
story, which, in the composition of a specious argument, have been
artfully confounded in one splendid and brittle mass.
I. An instrument of the tortures which were inflicted only on slaves
and strangers, became on object of horror in the eyes of a Roman
citizen; and the ideas of guilt, of pain, and of ignominy, were closely
united with the idea of the cross. 29 The piety, rather than the
humanity, of Constantine soon abolished in his dominions the punishment
which the Savior of mankind had condescended to suffer; 30 but the
emperor had already learned to despise the prejudices of his education,
and of his people, before he could erect in the midst of Rome his own
statue, bearing a cross in its right hand; with an inscription which
referred the victory of his arms, and the deliverance of Rome, to the
virtue of that salutary sign, the true symbol of force and courage. 31
The same symbol sanctified the arms of the soldiers of Constantine; the
cross glittered on their helmet, was engraved on their shields, was
interwoven into their banners; and the consecrated emblems which
adorned the person of the emperor himself, were distinguished only by
richer materials and more exquisite workmanship. 32 But the principal
standard which displayed the triumph of the cross was styled the
Labarum, 33 an obscure, though celebrated name, which has been vainly
derived from almost all the languages of the world. It is described 34
as a long pike intersected by a transversal beam. The silken veil,
which hung down from the beam, was curiously inwrought with the images
of the reigning monarch and his children. The summit of the pike
supported a crown of gold which enclosed the mysterious monogram, at
once expressive of the figure of the cross, and the initial letters, of
the name of Christ. 35 The safety of the labarum was intrusted to fifty
guards, of approved valor and fidelity; their station was marked by
honors and emoluments; and some fortunate accidents soon introduced an
opinion, that as long as the guards of the labarum were engaged in the
execution of their office, they were secure and invulnerable amidst the
darts of the enemy. In the second civil war, Licinius felt and dreaded
the power of this consecrated banner, the sight of which, in the
distress of battle, animated the soldiers of Constantine with an
invincible enthusiasm, and scattered terror and dismay through the
ranks of the adverse legions. 36 The Christian emperors, who respected
the example of Constantine, displayed in all their military expeditions
the standard of the cross; but when the degenerate successors of
Theodosius had ceased to appear in person at the head of their armies,
the labarum was deposited as a venerable but useless relic in the
palace of Constantinople. 37 Its honors are still preserved on the
medals of the Flavian family. Their grateful devotion has placed the
monogram of Christ in the midst of the ensigns of Rome. The solemn
epithets of, safety of the republic, glory of the army, restoration of
public happiness, are equally applied to the religious and military
trophies; and there is still extant a medal of the emperor Constantius,
where the standard of the labarum is accompanied with these memorable
words, BY THIS SIGN THOU SHALT CONQUER. 38
29 (return) [ Nomen ipsum _crucis_ absit non modo a corpore civium
Romano rum, sed etiam a cogitatione, oculis, auribus. Cicero pro
Raberio, c. 5. The Christian writers, Justin, Minucius Felix,
Tertullian, Jerom, and Maximus of Turin, have investigated with
tolerable success the figure or likeness of a cross in almost every
object of nature or art; in the intersection of the meridian and
equator, the human face, a bird flying, a man swimming, a mast and
yard, a plough, a _standard_, &c., &c., &c. See Lipsius de Cruce, l. i.
c. 9.]
30 (return) [ See Aurelius Victor, who considers this law as one of the
examples of Constantine’s piety. An edict so honorable to Christianity
deserved a place in the Theodosian Code, instead of the indirect
mention of it, which seems to result from the comparison of the fifth
and eighteenth titles of the ninth book.]
31 (return) [ Eusebius, in Vit. Constantin. l. i. c. 40. This statue,
or at least the cross and inscription, may be ascribed with more
probability to the second, or even third, visit of Constantine to Rome.
Immediately after the defeat of Maxentius, the minds of the senate and
people were scarcely ripe for this public monument.]
32 (return)
[ Agnoscas, regina, libens mea signa necesse est;
In quibus effigies crucis aut gemmata refulget
Aut longis solido ex auro præfertur in hastis.
Hoc signo invictus, transmissis Alpibus Ultor
Servitium solvit miserabile Constantinus.
Christus _purpureum_ gemmanti textus in auro
Signabat _Labarum_, clypeorum insignia Christus
Scripserat; ardebat summis crux addita cristis.
Prudent. in Symmachum, l. ii. 464, 486.]
33 (return) [ The derivation and meaning of the word _Labarum_ or
_Laborum_, which is employed by Gregory Nazianzen, Ambrose, Prudentius,
&c., still remain totally unknown, in spite of the efforts of the
critics, who have ineffectually tortured the Latin, Greek, Spanish,
Celtic, Teutonic, Illyric, Armenian, &c., in search of an etymology.
See Ducange, in Gloss. Med. et infim. Latinitat. sub voce _Labarum_,
and Godefroy, ad Cod. Theodos. tom. ii. p. 143.]
34 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. i. c. 30, 31. Baronius
(Annal. Eccles. A. D. 312, No. 26) has engraved a representation of the
Labarum.]
35 (return) [ Transversâ X literâ, summo capite circumflexo, Christum
in scutis notat. Cæcilius de M. P. c. 44, Cuper, (ad M. P. in edit.
Lactant. tom. ii. p. 500,) and Baronius (A. D. 312, No. 25) have
engraved from ancient monuments several specimens (as thus of these
monograms) which became extremely fashionable in the Christian world.]
[Illustration]
36 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. ii. c. 7, 8, 9. He
introduces the Labarum before the Italian expedition; but his narrative
seems to indicate that it was never shown at the head of an army till
Constantine above ten years afterwards, declared himself the enemy of
Licinius, and the deliverer of the church.]
37 (return) [ See Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxv. Sozomen, l. i. c. 2.
Theophan. Chronograph. p. 11. Theophanes lived towards the end of the
eighth century, almost five hundred years after Constantine. The modern
Greeks were not inclined to display in the field the standard of the
empire and of Christianity; and though they depended on every
superstitious hope of _defence_, the promise of _victory_ would have
appeared too bold a fiction.]
38 (return) [ The Abbé du Voisín, p. 103, &c., alleges several of these
medals, and quotes a particular dissertation of a Jesuit the Père de
Grainville, on this subject.]
II. In all occasions of danger and distress, it was the practice of the
primitive Christians to fortify their minds and bodies by the sign of
the cross, which they used, in all their ecclesiastical rites, in all
the daily occurrences of life, as an infallible preservative against
every species of spiritual or temporal evil. 39 The authority of the
church might alone have had sufficient weight to justify the devotion
of Constantine, who in the same prudent and gradual progress
acknowledged the truth, and assumed the symbol, of Christianity. But
the testimony of a contemporary writer, who in a formal treatise has
avenged the cause of religion, bestows on the piety of the emperor a
more awful and sublime character. He affirms, with the most perfect
confidence, that in the night which preceded the last battle against
Maxentius, Constantine was admonished in a dream 39a to inscribe the
shields of his soldiers with the _celestial sign of God_, the sacred
monogram of the name of Christ; that he executed the commands of
Heaven, and that his valor and obedience were rewarded by the decisive
victory of the Milvian Bridge. Some considerations might perhaps
incline a sceptical mind to suspect the judgment or the veracity of the
rhetorician, whose pen, either from zeal or interest, was devoted to
the cause of the prevailing faction. 40 He appears to have published
his deaths of the persecutors at Nicomedia about three years after the
Roman victory; but the interval of a thousand miles, and a thousand
days, will allow an ample latitude for the invention of declaimers, the
credulity of party, and the tacit approbation of the emperor himself
who might listen without indignation to a marvellous tale, which
exalted his fame, and promoted his designs. In favor of Licinius, who
still dissembled his animosity to the Christians, the same author has
provided a similar vision, of a form of prayer, which was communicated
by an angel, and repeated by the whole army before they engaged the
legions of the tyrant Maximin. The frequent repetition of miracles
serves to provoke, where it does not subdue, the reason of mankind; 41
but if the dream of Constantine is separately considered, it may be
naturally explained either by the policy or the enthusiasm of the
emperor. Whilst his anxiety for the approaching day, which must decide
the fate of the empire, was suspended by a short and interrupted
slumber, the venerable form of Christ, and the well-known symbol of his
religion, might forcibly offer themselves to the active fancy of a
prince who reverenced the name, and had perhaps secretly implored the
power, of the God of the Christians. As readily might a consummate
statesman indulge himself in the use of one of those military
stratagems, one of those pious frauds, which Philip and Sertorius had
employed with such art and effect. 42 The præternatural origin of
dreams was universally admitted by the nations of antiquity, and a
considerable part of the Gallic army was already prepared to place
their confidence in the salutary sign of the Christian religion. The
secret vision of Constantine could be disproved only by the event; and
the intrepid hero who had passed the Alps and the Apennine, might view
with careless despair the consequences of a defeat under the walls of
Rome. The senate and people, exulting in their own deliverance from an
odious tyrant, acknowledged that the victory of Constantine surpassed
the powers of man, without daring to insinuate that it had been
obtained by the protection of the _Gods_. The triumphal arch, which was
erected about three years after the event, proclaims, in ambiguous
language, that by the greatness of his own mind, and by an _instinct_
or impulse of the Divinity, he had saved and avenged the Roman
republic. 43 The Pagan orator, who had seized an earlier opportunity of
celebrating the virtues of the conqueror, supposes that he alone
enjoyed a secret and intimate commerce with the Supreme Being, who
delegated the care of mortals to his subordinate deities; and thus
assigns a very plausible reason why the subjects of Constantine should
not presume to embrace the new religion of their sovereign. 44
39 (return) [ Tertullian de Corona, c. 3. Athanasius, tom. i. p. 101.
The learned Jesuit Petavius (Dogmata Theolog. l. xv. c. 9, 10) has
collected many similar passages on the virtues of the cross, which in
the last age embarrassed our Protestant disputants.]
39a (return) [ Manso has observed, that Gibbon ought not to have
separated the vision of Constantine from the wonderful apparition in
the sky, as the two wonders are closely connected in Eusebius. Manso,
Leben Constantine, p. 82—M.]
40 (return) [ Cæcilius de M. P. c. 44. It is certain, that this
historical declamation was composed and published while Licinius,
sovereign of the East, still preserved the friendship of Constantine
and of the Christians. Every reader of taste must perceive that the
style is of a very different and inferior character to that of
Lactantius; and such indeed is the judgment of Le Clerc and Lardner,
(Bibliothèque Ancienne et Moderne, tom. iii. p. 438. Credibility of the
Gospel, &c., part ii. vol. vii. p. 94.) Three arguments from the title
of the book, and from the names of Donatus and Cæcilius, are produced
by the advocates for Lactantius. (See the P. Lestocq, tom. ii. p.
46-60.) Each of these proofs is singly weak and defective; but their
concurrence has great weight. I have often fluctuated, and shall
_tamely_ follow the Colbert Ms. in calling the author (whoever he was)
Cæcilius.]
41 (return) [ Cæcilius de M. P. c. 46. There seems to be some reason in
the observation of M. de Voltaire, (Œuvres, tom. xiv. p. 307.) who
ascribes to the success of Constantine the superior fame of his Labarum
above the angel of Licinius. Yet even this angel is favorably
entertained by Pagi, Tillemont, Fleury, &c., who are fond of increasing
their stock of miracles.]
42 (return) [ Besides these well-known examples, Tollius (Preface to
Boileau’s translation of Longinus) has discovered a vision of
Antigonus, who assured his troops that he had seen a pentagon (the
symbol of safety) with these words, “In this conquer.” But Tollius has
most inexcusably omitted to produce his authority, and his own
character, literary as well as moral, is not free from reproach. (See
Chauffepié, Dictionnaire Critique, tom. iv. p. 460.) Without insisting
on the silence of Diodorus Plutarch, Justin, &c., it may be observed
that Polyænus, who in a separate chapter (l. iv. c. 6) has collected
nineteen military stratagems of Antigonus, is totally ignorant of this
remarkable vision.]
43 (return) [ Instinctu Divinitatis, mentis magnitudine. The
inscription on the triumphal arch of Constantine, which has been copied
by Baronius, Gruter, &c., may still be perused by every curious
traveller.]
44 (return) [ Habes profecto aliquid cum illa mente Divinâ secretum;
quæ delegatâ nostrâ Diis Minoribus curâ uni se tibi dignatur ostendere
Panegyr. Vet. ix. 2.]
III. The philosopher, who with calm suspicion examines the dreams and
omens, the miracles and prodigies, of profane or even of ecclesiastical
history, will probably conclude, that if the eyes of the spectators
have sometimes been deceived by fraud, the understanding of the readers
has much more frequently been insulted by fiction. Every event, or
appearance, or accident, which seems to deviate from the ordinary
course of nature, has been rashly ascribed to the immediate action of
the Deity; and the astonished fancy of the multitude has sometimes
given shape and color, language and motion, to the fleeting but
uncommon meteors of the air. 45 Nazarius and Eusebius are the two most
celebrated orators, who, in studied panegyrics, have labored to exalt
the glory of Constantine. Nine years after the Roman victory, Nazarius
46 describes an army of divine warriors, who seemed to fall from the
sky: he marks their beauty, their spirit, their gigantic forms, the
stream of light which beamed from their celestial armor, their patience
in suffering themselves to be heard, as well as seen, by mortals; and
their declaration that they were sent, that they flew, to the
assistance of the great Constantine. For the truth of this prodigy, the
Pagan orator appeals to the whole Gallic nation, in whose presence he
was then speaking; and seems to hope that the ancient apparitions 47
would now obtain credit from this recent and public event. The
Christian fable of Eusebius, which, in the space of twenty-six years,
might arise from the original dream, is cast in a much more correct and
elegant mould. In one of the marches of Constantine, he is reported to
have seen with his own eyes the luminous trophy of the cross, placed
above the meridian sun and inscribed with the following words: BY THIS
CONQUER. This amazing object in the sky astonished the whole army, as
well as the emperor himself, who was yet undetermined in the choice of
a religion: but his astonishment was converted into faith by the vision
of the ensuing night. Christ appeared before his eyes; and displaying
the same celestial sign of the cross, he directed Constantine to frame
a similar standard, and to march, with an assurance of victory, against
Maxentius and all his enemies. 48 The learned bishop of Cæsarea appears
to be sensible, that the recent discovery of this marvellous anecdote
would excite some surprise and distrust among the most pious of his
readers. Yet, instead of ascertaining the precise circumstances of time
and place, which always serve to detect falsehood or establish truth;
49 instead of collecting and recording the evidence of so many living
witnesses who must have been spectators of this stupendous miracle; 50
Eusebius contents himself with alleging a very singular testimony; that
of the deceased Constantine, who, many years after the event, in the
freedom of conversation, had related to him this extraordinary incident
of his own life, and had attested the truth of it by a solemn oath. The
prudence and gratitude of the learned prelate forbade him to suspect
the veracity of his victorious master; but he plainly intimates, that
in a fact of such a nature, he should have refused his assent to any
meaner authority. This motive of credibility could not survive the
power of the Flavian family; and the celestial sign, which the Infidels
might afterwards deride, 51 was disregarded by the Christians of the
age which immediately followed the conversion of Constantine. 52 But
the Catholic church, both of the East and of the West, has adopted a
prodigy which favors, or seems to favor, the popular worship of the
cross. The vision of Constantine maintained an honorable place in the
legend of superstition, till the bold and sagacious spirit of criticism
presumed to depreciate the triumph, and to arraign the truth, of the
first Christian emperor. 53
45 (return) [ M. Freret (Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom.
iv. p. 411-437) explains, by physical causes, many of the prodigies of
antiquity; and Fabricius, who is abused by both parties, vainly tries
to introduce the celestial cross of Constantine among the solar halos.
Bibliothec. Græc. tom. iv. p. 8-29. * Note: The great difficulty in
resolving it into a natural phenomenon, arises from the inscription;
even the most heated or awe-struck imagination would hardly discover
distinct and legible letters in a solar halo. But the inscription may
have been a later embellishment, or an interpretation of the meaning
which the sign was construed to convey. Compare Heirichen, Excur in
locum Eusebii, and the authors quoted.]
46 (return) [ Nazarius inter Panegyr. Vet. x. 14, 15. It is unnecessary
to name the moderns, whose undistinguishing and ravenous appetite has
swallowed even the Pagan bait of Nazarius.]
47 (return) [ The apparitions of Castor and Pollux, particularly to
announce the Macedonian victory, are attested by historians and public
monuments. See Cicero de Natura Deorum, ii. 2, iii. 5, 6. Florus, ii.
12. Valerius Maximus, l. i. c. 8, No. 1. Yet the most recent of these
miracles is omitted, and indirectly denied, by Livy, (xlv. i.)]
48 (return) [ Eusebius, l. i. c. 28, 29, 30. The silence of the same
Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History, is deeply felt by those
advocates for the miracle who are not absolutely callous.]
49 (return) [ The narrative of Constantine seems to indicate, that he
saw the cross in the sky before he passed the Alps against Maxentius.
The scene has been fixed by provincial vanity at Trèves, Besançon, &c.
See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 573.]
50 (return) [ The pious Tillemont (Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 1317)
rejects with a sigh the useful Acts of Artemius, a veteran and a
martyr, who attests as an eye-witness to the vision of Constantine.]
51 (return) [ Gelasius Cyzic. in Act. Concil. Nicen. l. i. c. 4.]
52 (return) [ The advocates for the vision are unable to produce a
single testimony from the Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries,
who, in their voluminous writings, repeatedly celebrate the triumph of
the church and of Constantine. As these venerable men had not any
dislike to a miracle, we may suspect, (and the suspicion is confirmed
by the ignorance of Jerom,) that they were all unacquainted with the
life of Constantine by Eusebius. This tract was recovered by the
diligence of those who translated or continued his Ecclesiastical
History, and who have represented in various colors the vision of the
cross.]
53 (return) [ Godefroy was the first, who, in the year 1643, (Not ad
Philostorgium, l. i. c. 6, p. 16,) expressed any doubt of a miracle
which had been supported with equal zeal by Cardinal Baronius, and the
Centuriators of Magdeburgh. Since that time, many of the Protestant
critics have inclined towards doubt and disbelief. The objections are
urged, with great force, by M. Chauffepié, (Dictionnaire Critique, tom.
iv. p. 6–11;) and, in the year 1774, a doctor of Sorbonne, the Abbé du
Voisin published an apology, which deserves the praise of learning and
moderation. * Note: The first Excursus of Heinichen (in Vitam
Constantini, p. 507) contains a full summary of the opinions and
arguments of the later writers who have discussed this interminable
subject. As to his conversion, where interest and inclination, state
policy, and, if not a sincere conviction of its truth, at least a
respect, an esteem, an awe of Christianity, thus coincided, Constantine
himself would probably have been unable to trace the actual history of
the workings of his own mind, or to assign its real influence to each
concurrent motive.—M]
The Protestant and philosophic readers of the present age will incline
to believe, that in the account of his own conversion, Constantine
attested a wilful falsehood by a solemn and deliberate perjury. They
may not hesitate to pronounce, that in the choice of a religion, his
mind was determined only by a sense of interest; and that (according to
the expression of a profane poet) 54 he used the altars of the church
as a convenient footstool to the throne of the empire. A conclusion so
harsh and so absolute is not, however, warranted by our knowledge of
human nature, of Constantine, or of Christianity. In an age of
religious fervor, the most artful statesmen are observed to feel some
part of the enthusiasm which they inspire, and the most orthodox saints
assume the dangerous privilege of defending the cause of truth by the
arms of deceit and falsehood.
Personal interest is often the standard of our belief, as well as of
our practice; and the same motives of temporal advantage which might
influence the public conduct and professions of Constantine, would
insensibly dispose his mind to embrace a religion so propitious to his
fame and fortunes. His vanity was gratified by the flattering
assurance, that _he_ had been chosen by Heaven to reign over the earth;
success had justified his divine title to the throne, and that title
was founded on the truth of the Christian revelation. As real virtue is
sometimes excited by undeserved applause, the specious piety of
Constantine, if at first it was only specious, might gradually, by the
influence of praise, of habit, and of example, be matured into serious
faith and fervent devotion. The bishops and teachers of the new sect,
whose dress and manners had not qualified them for the residence of a
court, were admitted to the Imperial table; they accompanied the
monarch in his expeditions; and the ascendant which one of them, an
Egyptian or a Spaniard, 55 acquired over his mind, was imputed by the
Pagans to the effect of magic. 56 Lactantius, who has adorned the
precepts of the gospel with the eloquence of Cicero, 57 and Eusebius,
who has consecrated the learning and philosophy of the Greeks to the
service of religion, 58 were both received into the friendship and
familiarity of their sovereign; and those able masters of controversy
could patiently watch the soft and yielding moments of persuasion, and
dexterously apply the arguments which were the best adapted to his
character and understanding. Whatever advantages might be derived from
the acquisition of an Imperial proselyte, he was distinguished by the
splendor of his purple, rather than by the superiority of wisdom, or
virtue, from the many thousands of his subjects who had embraced the
doctrines of Christianity. Nor can it be deemed incredible, that the
mind of an unlettered soldier should have yielded to the weight of
evidence, which, in a more enlightened age, has satisfied or subdued
the reason of a Grotius, a Pascal, or a Locke. In the midst of the
incessant labors of his great office, this soldier employed, or
affected to employ, the hours of the night in the diligent study of the
Scriptures, and the composition of theological discourses; which he
afterwards pronounced in the presence of a numerous and applauding
audience. In a very long discourse, which is still extant, the royal
preacher expatiates on the various proofs still extant, the royal
preacher expatiates on the various proofs of religion; but he dwells
with peculiar complacency on the Sibylline verses, 59 and the fourth
eclogue of Virgil. 60 Forty years before the birth of Christ, the
Mantuan bard, as if inspired by the celestial muse of Isaiah, had
celebrated, with all the pomp of oriental metaphor, the return of the
Virgin, the fall of the serpent, the approaching birth of a godlike
child, the offspring of the great Jupiter, who should expiate the guilt
of human kind, and govern the peaceful universe with the virtues of his
father; the rise and appearance of a heavenly race, primitive nation
throughout the world; and the gradual restoration of the innocence and
felicity of the golden age. The poet was perhaps unconscious of the
secret sense and object of these sublime predictions, which have been
so unworthily applied to the infant son of a consul, or a triumvir; 61
but if a more splendid, and indeed specious interpretation of the
fourth eclogue contributed to the conversion of the first Christian
emperor, Virgil may deserve to be ranked among the most successful
missionaries of the gospel. 62
54 (return) [
Lors Constantin dit ces propres paroles:
J’ai renversé le culte des idoles:
Sur les debris de leurs temples fumans
Au Dieu du Ciel j’ai prodigue l’encens.
Mais tous mes soins pour sa grandeur supreme
N’eurent jamais d’autre objêt que moi-même;
Les saints autels n’etoient à mes regards
Qu’un marchepié du trone des Césars.
L’ambition, la fureur, les delices
Etoient mes Dieux, avoient mes sacrifices.
L’or des Chrêtiens, leur intrigues, leur sang
Ont cimenté ma fortune et mon rang.
The poem which contains these lines may be read with pleasure, but
cannot be named with decency.]
55 (return) [ This favorite was probably the great Osius, bishop of
Cordova, who preferred the pastoral care of the whole church to the
government of a particular diocese. His character is magnificently,
though concisely, expressed by Athanasius, (tom. i. p. 703.) See
Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 524-561. Osius was accused,
perhaps unjustly, of retiring from court with a very ample fortune.]
56 (return) [ See Eusebius (in Vit. Constant. passim) and Zosimus, l.
ii. p. 104.]
57 (return) [ The Christianity of Lactantius was of a moral rather than
of a mysterious cast. “Erat pæne rudis (says the orthodox Bull)
disciplinæ Christianæ, et in rhetorica melius quam in theologia
versatus.” Defensio Fidei Nicenæ, sect. ii. c. 14.]
58 (return) [ Fabricius, with his usual diligence, has collected a list
of between three and four hundred authors quoted in the Evangelical
Preparation of Eusebius. See Bibl. Græc. l. v. c. 4, tom. vi. p.
37-56.]
59 (return) [ See Constantin. Orat. ad Sanctos, c. 19 20. He chiefly
depends on a mysterious acrostic, composed in the sixth age after the
Deluge, by the Erythræan Sibyl, and translated by Cicero into Latin.
The initial letters of the thirty-four Greek verses form this prophetic
sentence: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior of the World.]
60 (return) [ In his paraphrase of Virgil, the emperor has frequently
assisted and improved the literal sense of the Latin ext. See Blondel
des Sibylles, l. i. c. 14, 15, 16.]
61 (return) [ The different claims of an elder and younger son of
Pollio, of Julia, of Drusus, of Marcellus, are found to be incompatible
with chronology, history, and the good sense of Virgil.]
62 (return) [ See Lowth de Sacra Poesi Hebræorum Prælect. xxi. p. 289-
293. In the examination of the fourth eclogue, the respectable bishop
of London has displayed learning, taste, ingenuity, and a temperate
enthusiasm, which exalts his fancy without degrading his judgment.]
Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part III.
The awful mysteries of the Christian faith and worship were concealed
from the eyes of strangers, and even of catechu mens, with an affected
secrecy, which served to excite their wonder and curiosity. 63 But the
severe rules of discipline which the prudence of the bishops had
instituted, were relaxed by the same prudence in favor of an Imperial
proselyte, whom it was so important to allure, by every gentle
condescension, into the pale of the church; and Constantine was
permitted, at least by a tacit dispensation, to enjoy _most_ of the
privileges, before he had contracted _any_ of the obligations, of a
Christian. Instead of retiring from the congregation, when the voice of
the deacon dismissed the profane multitude, he prayed with the
faithful, disputed with the bishops, preached on the most sublime and
intricate subjects of theology, celebrated with sacred rites the vigil
of Easter, and publicly declared himself, not only a partaker, but, in
some measure, a priest and hierophant of the Christian mysteries. 64
The pride of Constantine might assume, and his services had deserved,
some extraordinary distinction: and ill-timed rigor might have blasted
the unripened fruits of his conversion; and if the doors of the church
had been strictly closed against a prince who had deserted the altars
of the gods, the master of the empire would have been left destitute of
any form of religious worship. In his last visit to Rome, he piously
disclaimed and insulted the superstition of his ancestors, by refusing
to lead the military procession of the equestrian order, and to offer
the public vows to the Jupiter of the Capitoline Hill. 65 Many years
before his baptism and death, Constantine had proclaimed to the world,
that neither his person nor his image should ever more be seen within
the walls of an idolatrous temple; while he distributed through the
provinces a variety of medals and pictures, which represented the
emperor in an humble and suppliant posture of Christian devotion. 66
63 (return) [ The distinction between the public and the secret parts
of divine service, the _missa catechumenorum_ and the _missa fidelium_,
and the mysterious veil which piety or policy had cast over the latter,
are very judiciously explained by Thiers, Exposition du Saint
Sacrament, l. i. c. 8- 12, p. 59-91: but as, on this subject, the
Papists may reasonably be suspected, a Protestant reader will depend
with more confidence on the learned Bingham, Antiquities, l. x. c. 5.]
64 (return) [ See Eusebius in Vit. Const. l. iv. c. 15-32, and the
whole tenor of Constantine’s Sermon. The faith and devotion of the
emperor has furnished Batonics with a specious argument in favor of his
early baptism. Note: Compare Heinichen, Excursus iv. et v., where these
questions are examined with candor and acuteness, and with constant
reference to the opinions of more modern writers.—M.]
65 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 105.]
66 (return) [ Eusebius in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 15, 16.]
The pride of Constantine, who refused the privileges of a catechumen,
cannot easily be explained or excused; but the delay of his baptism may
be justified by the maxims and the practice of ecclesiastical
antiquity. The sacrament of baptism 67 was regularly administered by
the bishop himself, with his assistant clergy, in the cathedral church
of the diocese, during the fifty days between the solemn festivals of
Easter and Pentecost; and this holy term admitted a numerous band of
infants and adult persons into the bosom of the church. The discretion
of parents often suspended the baptism of their children till they
could understand the obligations which they contracted: the severity of
ancient bishops exacted from the new converts a novitiate of two or
three years; and the catechumens themselves, from different motives of
a temporal or a spiritual nature, were seldom impatient to assume the
character of perfect and initiated Christians. The sacrament of baptism
was supposed to contain a full and absolute expiation of sin; and the
soul was instantly restored to its original purity, and entitled to the
promise of eternal salvation. Among the proselytes of Christianity,
there are many who judged it imprudent to precipitate a salutary rite,
which could not be repeated; to throw away an inestimable privilege,
which could never be recovered. By the delay of their baptism, they
could venture freely to indulge their passions in the enjoyments of
this world, while they still retained in their own hands the means of a
sure and easy absolution. 68 The sublime theory of the gospel had made
a much fainter impression on the heart than on the understanding of
Constantine himself. He pursued the great object of his ambition
through the dark and bloody paths of war and policy; and, after the
victory, he abandoned himself, without moderation, to the abuse of his
fortune. Instead of asserting his just superiority above the imperfect
heroism and profane philosophy of Trajan and the Antonines, the mature
age of Constantine forfeited the reputation which he had acquired in
his youth. As he gradually advanced in the knowledge of truth, he
proportionally declined in the practice of virtue; and the same year of
his reign in which he convened the council of Nice, was polluted by the
execution, or rather murder, of his eldest son. This date is alone
sufficient to refute the ignorant and malicious suggestions of Zosimus,
69 who affirms, that, after the death of Crispus, the remorse of his
father accepted from the ministers of christianity the expiation which
he had vainly solicited from the Pagan pontiffs. At the time of the
death of Crispus, the emperor could no longer hesitate in the choice of
a religion; he could no longer be ignorant that the church was
possessed of an infallible remedy, though he chose to defer the
application of it till the approach of death had removed the temptation
and danger of a relapse. The bishops whom he summoned, in his last
illness, to the palace of Nicomedia, were edified by the fervor with
which he requested and received the sacrament of baptism, by the solemn
protestation that the remainder of his life should be worthy of a
disciple of Christ, and by his humble refusal to wear the Imperial
purple after he had been clothed in the white garment of a Neophyte.
The example and reputation of Constantine seemed to countenance the
delay of baptism. 70 Future tyrants were encouraged to believe, that
the innocent blood which they might shed in a long reign would
instantly be washed away in the waters of regeneration; and the abuse
of religion dangerously undermined the foundations of moral virtue.
67 (return) [ The theory and practice of antiquity, with regard to the
sacrament of baptism, have been copiously explained by Dom Chardon,
Hist. des Sacremens, tom. i. p. 3-405; Dom Martenne de Ritibus Ecclesiæ
Antiquis, tom. i.; and by Bingham, in the tenth and eleventh books of
his Christian Antiquities. One circumstance may be observed, in which
the modern churches have materially departed from the ancient custom.
The sacrament of baptism (even when it was administered to infants) was
immediately followed by confirmation and the holy communion.]
68 (return) [ The Fathers, who censured this criminal delay, could not
deny the certain and victorious efficacy even of a death-bed baptism.
The ingenious rhetoric of Chrysostom could find only three arguments
against these prudent Christians. 1. That we should love and pursue
virtue for her own sake, and not merely for the reward. 2. That we may
be surprised by death without an opportunity of baptism. 3. That
although we shall be placed in heaven, we shall only twinkle like
little stars, when compared to the suns of righteousness who have run
their appointed course with labor, with success, and with glory.
Chrysos tom in Epist. ad Hebræos, Homil. xiii. apud Chardon, Hist. des
Sacremens, tom. i. p. 49. I believe that this delay of baptism, though
attended with the most pernicious consequences, was never condemned by
any general or provincial council, or by any public act or declaration
of the church. The zeal of the bishops was easily kindled on much
slighter occasion. * Note: This passage of Chrysostom, though not in
his more forcible manner, is not quite fairly represented. He is
stronger in other places, in Act. Hom. xxiii.—and Hom. i. Compare,
likewise, the sermon of Gregory of Nysea on this subject, and Gregory
Nazianzen. After all, to those who believed in the efficacy of baptism,
what argument could be more conclusive, than the danger of dying
without it? Orat. xl.—M.]
69 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 104. For this disingenuous falsehood
he has deserved and experienced the harshest treatment from all the
ecclesiastical writers, except Cardinal Baronius, (A. D. 324, No.
15-28,) who had occasion to employ the infidel on a particular service
against the Arian Eusebius. Note: Heyne, in a valuable note on this
passage of Zosimus, has shown decisively that this malicious way of
accounting for the conversion of Constantine was not an invention of
Zosimus. It appears to have been the current calumny eagerly adopted
and propagated by the exasperated Pagan party. Reitemeter, a later
editor of Zosimus, whose notes are retained in the recent edition, in
the collection of the Byzantine historians, has a disquisition on the
passage, as candid, but not more conclusive than some which have
preceded him—M.]
70 (return) [ Eusebius, l. iv. c. 61, 62, 63. The bishop of Cæsarea
supposes the salvation of Constantine with the most perfect
confidence.]
The gratitude of the church has exalted the virtues and excused the
failings of a generous patron, who seated Christianity on the throne of
the Roman world; and the Greeks, who celebrate the festival of the
Imperial saint, seldom mention the name of Constantine without adding
the title of _equal to the Apostles_. 71 Such a comparison, if it
allude to the character of those divine missionaries, must be imputed
to the extravagance of impious flattery. But if the parallel be
confined to the extent and number of their evangelic victories the
success of Constantine might perhaps equal that of the Apostles
themselves. By the edicts of toleration, he removed the temporal
disadvantages which had hitherto retarded the progress of Christianity;
and its active and numerous ministers received a free permission, a
liberal encouragement, to recommend the salutary truths of revelation
by every argument which could affect the reason or piety of mankind.
The exact balance of the two religions continued but a moment; and the
piercing eye of ambition and avarice soon discovered, that the
profession of Christianity might contribute to the interest of the
present, as well as of a future life. 72 The hopes of wealth and
honors, the example of an emperor, his exhortations, his irresistible
smiles, diffused conviction among the venal and obsequious crowds which
usually fill the apartments of a palace. The cities which signalized a
forward zeal by the voluntary destruction of their temples, were
distinguished by municipal privileges, and rewarded with popular
donatives; and the new capital of the East gloried in the singular
advantage that Constantinople was never profaned by the worship of
idols. 73 As the lower ranks of society are governed by imitation, the
conversion of those who possessed any eminence of birth, of power, or
of riches, was soon followed by dependent multitudes. 74 The salvation
of the common people was purchased at an easy rate, if it be true that,
in one year, twelve thousand men were baptized at Rome, besides a
proportionable number of women and children, and that a white garment,
with twenty pieces of gold, had been promised by the emperor to every
convert. 75 The powerful influence of Constantine was not circumscribed
by the narrow limits of his life, or of his dominions. The education
which he bestowed on his sons and nephews secured to the empire a race
of princes, whose faith was still more lively and sincere, as they
imbibed, in their earliest infancy, the spirit, or at least the
doctrine, of Christianity. War and commerce had spread the knowledge of
the gospel beyond the confines of the Roman provinces; and the
Barbarians, who had disdained as humble and proscribed sect, soon
learned to esteem a religion which had been so lately embraced by the
greatest monarch, and the most civilized nation, of the globe. 76 The
Goths and Germans, who enlisted under the standard of Rome, revered the
cross which glittered at the head of the legions, and their fierce
countrymen received at the same time the lessons of faith and of
humanity. The kings of Iberia and Armenia76a worshipped the god of
their protector; and their subjects, who have invariably preserved the
name of Christians, soon formed a sacred and perpetual connection with
their Roman brethren. The Christians of Persia were suspected, in time
of war, of preferring their religion to their country; but as long as
peace subsisted between the two empires, the persecuting spirit of the
Magi was effectually restrained by the interposition of Constantine. 77
The rays of the gospel illuminated the coast of India. The colonies of
Jews, who had penetrated into Arabia and Ethiopia, 78 opposed the
progress of Christianity; but the labor of the missionaries was in some
measure facilitated by a previous knowledge of the Mosaic revelation;
and Abyssinia still reveres the memory of Frumentius, 78a who, in the
time of Constantine, devoted his life to the conversion of those
sequestered regions. Under the reign of his son Constantius,
Theophilus, 79 who was himself of Indian extraction, was invested with
the double character of ambassador and bishop. He embarked on the Red
Sea with two hundred horses of the purest breed of Cappadocia, which
were sent by the emperor to the prince of the Sabæans, or Homerites.
Theophilus was intrusted with many other useful or curious presents,
which might raise the admiration, and conciliate the friendship, of the
Barbarians; and he successfully employed several years in a pastoral
visit to the churches of the torrid zone. 80
71 (return) [ See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 429. The
Greeks, the Russians, and, in the darker ages, the Latins themselves,
have been desirous of placing Constantine in the catalogue of saints.]
72 (return) [ See the third and fourth books of his life. He was
accustomed to say, that whether Christ was preached in pretence, or in
truth, he should still rejoice, (l. iii. c. 58.)]
73 (return) [ M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 374,
616) has defended, with strength and spirit, the virgin purity of
Constantinople against some malevolent insinuations of the Pagan
Zosimus.]
74 (return) [ The author of the Histoire Politique et Philosophique des
deux Indes (tom. i. p. 9) condemns a law of Constantine, which gave
freedom to all the slaves who should embrace Christianity. The emperor
did indeed publish a law, which restrained the Jews from circumcising,
perhaps from keeping, any Christian slave. (See Euseb. in Vit.
Constant. l. iv. c. 27, and Cod. Theod. l. xvi. tit. ix., with
Godefroy’s Commentary, tom. vi. p. 247.) But this imperfect exception
related only to the Jews, and the great body of slaves, who were the
property of Christian or Pagan masters, could not improve their
temporal condition by changing their religion. I am ignorant by what
guides the Abbé Raynal was deceived; as the total absence of quotations
is the unpardonable blemish of his entertaining history.]
75 (return) [ See Acta Sti Silvestri, and Hist. Eccles. Nicephor.
Callist. l. vii. c. 34, ap. Baronium Annal. Eccles. A. D. 324, No. 67,
74. Such evidence is contemptible enough; but these circumstances are
in themselves so probable, that the learned Dr. Howell (History of the
World, vol. iii. p. 14) has not scrupled to adopt them.]
76 (return) [ The conversion of the Barbarians under the reign of
Constantine is celebrated by the ecclesiastical historians. (See
Sozomen, l. ii. c. 6, and Theodoret, l. i. c. 23, 24.) But Rufinus, the
Latin translator of Eusebius, deserves to be considered as an original
authority. His information was curiously collected from one of the
companions of the Apostle of Æthiopia, and from Bacurius, an Iberian
prince, who was count of the domestics. Father Mamachi has given an
ample compilation on the progress of Christianity, in the first and
second volumes of his great but imperfect work.]
76a (return) [ According to the Georgian chronicles, Iberia (Georgia)
was converted by the virgin Nino, who effected an extraordinary cure on
the wife of the king Mihran. The temple of the god Aramazt, or Armaz,
not far from the capital Mtskitha, was destroyed, and the cross erected
in its place. Le Beau, i. 202, with St. Martin’s Notes.—St. Martin has
likewise clearly shown (St. Martin, Add. to Le Beau, i. 291) Armenia
was the first _nation_ which embraced Christianity, (Addition to Le
Beau, i. 76. and Mémoire sur l’Armenie, i. 305.) Gibbon himself
suspected this truth.—“Instead of maintaining that the conversion of
Armenia was not attempted with any degree of success, till the sceptre
was in the hands of an orthodox emperor,” I ought to have said, that
the seeds of the faith were deeply sown during the season of the last
and greatest persecution, that many Roman exiles might assist the
labors of Gregory, and that the renowned Tiridates, the hero of the
East, may dispute with Constantine the honor of being the first
sovereign who embraced the Christian religion Vindication]
77 (return) [ See, in Eusebius, (in Vit. l. iv. c. 9,) the pressing and
pathetic epistle of Constantine in favor of his Christian brethren of
Persia.]
78 (return) [ See Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, tom. vii. p. 182, tom.
viii. p. 333, tom. ix. p. 810. The curious diligence of this writer
pursues the Jewish exiles to the extremities of the globe.]
78a (return) [ Abba Salama, or Fremonatus, is mentioned in the Tareek
Negushti, chronicle of the kings of Abyssinia. Salt’s Travels, vol. ii.
p. 464.—M.]
79 (return) [ Theophilus had been given in his infancy as a hostage by
his countrymen of the Isle of Diva, and was educated by the Romans in
learning and piety. The Maldives, of which Male, or Diva, may be the
capital, are a cluster of 1900 or 2000 minute islands in the Indian
Ocean. The ancients were imperfectly acquainted with the Maldives; but
they are described in the two Mahometan travellers of the ninth
century, published by Renaudot, Geograph. Nubiensis, p. 30, 31
D’Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale p. 704. Hist. Generale des Voy ages,
tom. viii.—See the dissertation of M. Letronne on this question. He
conceives that Theophilus was born in the island of Dahlak, in the
Arabian Gulf. His embassy was to Abyssinia rather than to India.
Letronne, Materiaux pour l’Hist. du Christianisme en Egypte Indie, et
Abyssinie. Paris, 1832 3d Dissert.—M.]
80 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 4, 5, 6, with Godefroy’s
learned observations. The historical narrative is soon lost in an
inquiry concerning the seat of Paradise, strange monsters, &c.]
The irresistible power of the Roman emperors was displayed in the
important and dangerous change of the national religion. The terrors of
a military force silenced the faint and unsupported murmurs of the
Pagans, and there was reason to expect, that the cheerful submission of
the Christian clergy, as well as people, would be the result of
conscience and gratitude. It was long since established, as a
fundamental maxim of the Roman constitution, that every rank of
citizens was alike subject to the laws, and that the care of religion
was the right as well as duty of the civil magistrate. Constantine and
his successors could not easily persuade themselves that they had
forfeited, by their conversion, any branch of the Imperial
prerogatives, or that they were incapable of giving laws to a religion
which they had protected and embraced. The emperors still continued to
exercise a supreme jurisdiction over the ecclesiastical order, and the
sixteenth book of the Theodosian code represents, under a variety of
titles, the authority which they assumed in the government of the
Catholic church. But the distinction of the spiritual and temporal
powers, 81 which had never been imposed on the free spirit of Greece
and Rome, was introduced and confirmed by the legal establishment of
Christianity. The office of supreme pontiff, which, from the time of
Numa to that of Augustus, had always been exercised by one of the most
eminent of the senators, was at length united to the Imperial dignity.
The first magistrate of the state, as often as he was prompted by
superstition or policy, performed with his own hands the sacerdotal
functions; 82 nor was there any order of priests, either at Rome or in
the provinces, who claimed a more sacred character among men, or a more
intimate communication with the gods. But in the Christian church,
which instrusts the service of the altar to a perpetual succession of
consecrated ministers, the monarch, whose spiritual rank is less
honorable than that of the meanest deacon, was seated below the rails
of the sanctuary, and confounded with the rest of the faithful
multitude. 83 The emperor might be saluted as the father of his people,
but he owed a filial duty and reverence to the fathers of the church;
and the same marks of respect, which Constantine had paid to the
persons of saints and confessors, were soon exacted by the pride of the
episcopal order. 84 A secret conflict between the civil and
ecclesiastical jurisdictions embarrassed the operation of the Roman
government; and a pious emperor was alarmed by the guilt and danger of
touching with a profane hand the ark of the covenant. The separation of
men into the two orders of the clergy and of the laity was, indeed,
familiar to many nations of antiquity; and the priests of India, of
Persia, of Assyria, of Judea, of Æthiopia, of Egypt, and of Gaul,
derived from a celestial origin the temporal power and possessions
which they had acquired. These venerable institutions had gradually
assimilated themselves to the manners and government of their
respective countries; 85 but the opposition or contempt of the civil
power served to cement the discipline of the primitive church. The
Christians had been obliged to elect their own magistrates, to raise
and distribute a peculiar revenue, and to regulate the internal policy
of their republic by a code of laws, which were ratified by the consent
of the people and the practice of three hundred years. When Constantine
embraced the faith of the Christians, he seemed to contract a perpetual
alliance with a distinct and independent society; and the privileges
granted or confirmed by that emperor, or by his successors, were
accepted, not as the precarious favors of the court, but as the just
and inalienable rights of the ecclesiastical order.
81 (return) [ See the epistle of Osius, ap. Athanasium, vol. i. p. 840.
The public remonstrance which Osius was forced to address to the son,
contained the same principles of ecclesiastical and civil government
which he had secretly instilled into the mind of the father.]
82 (return) [ M. de la Bastiel has evidently proved, that Augustus and
his successors exercised in person all the sacred functions of pontifex
maximus, of high priest, of the Roman empire.]
83 (return) [ Something of a contrary practice had insensibly prevailed
in the church of Constantinople; but the rigid Ambrose commanded
Theodosius to retire below the rails, and taught him to know the
difference between a king and a priest. See Theodoret, l. v. c. 18.]
84 (return) [ At the table of the emperor Maximus, Martin, bishop of
Tours, received the cup from an attendant, and gave it to the
presbyter, his companion, before he allowed the emperor to drink; the
empress waited on Martin at table. Sulpicius Severus, in Vit. Sti
Martin, c. 23, and Dialogue ii. 7. Yet it may be doubted, whether these
extraordinary compliments were paid to the bishop or the saint. The
honors usually granted to the former character may be seen in Bingham’s
Antiquities, l. ii. c. 9, and Vales ad Theodoret, l. iv. c. 6. See the
haughty ceremonial which Leontius, bishop of Tripoli, imposed on the
empress. Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 754. (Patres
Apostol. tom. ii. p. 179.)]
85 (return) [ Plutarch, in his treatise of Isis and Osiris, informs us
that the kings of Egypt, who were not already priests, were initiated,
after their election, into the sacerdotal order.]
The Catholic church was administered by the spiritual and legal
jurisdiction of eighteen hundred bishops; 86 of whom one thousand were
seated in the Greek, and eight hundred in the Latin, provinces of the
empire. The extent and boundaries of their respective dioceses had been
variously and accidentally decided by the zeal and success of the first
missionaries, by the wishes of the people, and by the propagation of
the gospel. Episcopal churches were closely planted along the banks of
the Nile, on the sea-coast of Africa, in the proconsular Asia, and
through the southern provinces of Italy. The bishops of Gaul and Spain,
of Thrace and Pontus, reigned over an ample territory, and delegated
their rural suffragans to execute the subordinate duties of the
pastoral office. 87 A Christian diocese might be spread over a
province, or reduced to a village; but all the bishops possessed an
equal and indelible character: they all derived the same powers and
privileges from the apostles, from the people, and from the laws. While
the _civil_ and _military_ professions were separated by the policy of
Constantine, a new and perpetual order of _ecclesiastical_ ministers,
always respectable, sometimes dangerous, was established in the church
and state. The important review of their station and attributes may be
distributed under the following heads: I. Popular Election. II.
Ordination of the Clergy. III. Property. IV. Civil Jurisdiction. V.
Spiritual censures. VI. Exercise of public oratory. VII. Privilege of
legislative assemblies.
86 (return) [ The numbers are not ascertained by any ancient writer or
original catalogue; for the partial lists of the eastern churches are
comparatively modern. The patient diligence of Charles a Sto Paolo, of
Luke Holstentius, and of Bingham, has laboriously investigated all the
episcopal sees of the Catholic church, which was almost commensurate
with the Roman empire. The ninth book of the Christian antiquities is a
very accurate map of ecclesiastical geography.]
87 (return) [ On the subject of rural bishops, or _Chorepiscopi_, who
voted in tynods, and conferred the minor orders, See Thomassin,
Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. p. 447, &c., and Chardon, Hist. des
Sacremens, tom. v. p. 395, &c. They do not appear till the fourth
century; and this equivocal character, which had excited the jealousy
of the prelates, was abolished before the end of the tenth, both in the
East and the West.]
I. The freedom of election subsisted long after the legal establishment
of Christianity; 88 and the subjects of Rome enjoyed in the church the
privilege which they had lost in the republic, of choosing the
magistrates whom they were bound to obey. As soon as a bishop had
closed his eyes, the metropolitan issued a commission to one of his
suffragans to administer the vacant see, and prepare, within a limited
time, the future election. The right of voting was vested in the
inferior clergy, who were best qualified to judge of the merit of the
candidates; in the senators or nobles of the city, all those who were
distinguished by their rank or property; and finally in the whole body
of the people, who, on the appointed day, flocked in multitudes from
the most remote parts of the diocese, 89 and sometimes silenced by
their tumultuous acclamations, the voice of reason and the laws of
discipline. These acclamations might accidentally fix on the head of
the most deserving competitor; of some ancient presbyter, some holy
monk, or some layman, conspicuous for his zeal and piety. But the
episcopal chair was solicited, especially in the great and opulent
cities of the empire, as a temporal rather than as a spiritual dignity.
The interested views, the selfish and angry passions, the arts of
perfidy and dissimulation, the secret corruption, the open and even
bloody violence which had formerly disgraced the freedom of election in
the commonwealths of Greece and Rome, too often influenced the choice
of the successors of the apostles. While one of the candidates boasted
the honors of his family, a second allured his judges by the delicacies
of a plentiful table, and a third, more guilty than his rivals, offered
to share the plunder of the church among the accomplices of his
sacrilegious hopes 90 The civil as well as ecclesiastical laws
attempted to exclude the populace from this solemn and important
transaction. The canons of ancient discipline, by requiring several
episcopal qualifications, of age, station, &c., restrained, in some
measure, the indiscriminate caprice of the electors. The authority of
the provincial bishops, who were assembled in the vacant church to
consecrate the choice of the people, was interposed to moderate their
passions and to correct their mistakes. The bishops could refuse to
ordain an unworthy candidate, and the rage of contending factions
sometimes accepted their impartial mediation. The submission, or the
resistance, of the clergy and people, on various occasions, afforded
different precedents, which were insensibly converted into positive
laws and provincial customs; 91 but it was every where admitted, as a
fundamental maxim of religious policy, that no bishop could be imposed
on an orthodox church, without the consent of its members. The
emperors, as the guardians of the public peace, and as the first
citizens of Rome and Constantinople, might effectually declare their
wishes in the choice of a primate; but those absolute monarchs
respected the freedom of ecclesiastical elections; and while they
distributed and resumed the honors of the state and army, they allowed
eighteen hundred perpetual magistrates to receive their important
offices from the free suffrages of the people. 92 It was agreeable to
the dictates of justice, that these magistrates should not desert an
honorable station from which they could not be removed; but the wisdom
of councils endeavored, without much success, to enforce the residence,
and to prevent the translation, of bishops. The discipline of the West
was indeed less relaxed than that of the East; but the same passions
which made those regulations necessary, rendered them ineffectual. The
reproaches which angry prelates have so vehemently urged against each
other, serve only to expose their common guilt, and their mutual
indiscretion.
88 (return) [ Thomassin (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom, ii. l. ii. c.
1-8, p. 673-721) has copiously treated of the election of bishops
during the five first centuries, both in the East and in the West; but
he shows a very partial bias in favor of the episcopal aristocracy.
Bingham, (l. iv. c. 2) is moderate; and Chardon (Hist. des Sacremens
tom. v. p. 108-128) is very clear and concise. * Note: This freedom was
extremely limited, and soon annihilated; already, from the third
century, the deacons were no longer nominated by the members of the
community, but by the bishops. Although it appears by the letters of
Cyprian, that even in his time, no priest could be elected without the
consent of the community. (Ep. 68,) that election was far from being
altogether free. The bishop proposed to his parishioners the candidate
whom he had chosen, and they were permitted to make such objections as
might be suggested by his conduct and morals. (St. Cyprian, Ep. 33.)
They lost this last right towards the middle of the fourth century.—G]
89 (return) [ Incredibilis multitudo, non solum ex eo oppido,
(_Tours_,) sed etiam ex vicinis urbibus ad suffragia ferenda
convenerat, &c. Sulpicius Severus, in Vit. Martin. c. 7. The council of
Laodicea, (canon xiii.) prohibits mobs and tumults; and Justinian
confines confined the right of election to the nobility. Novel. cxxiii.
l.]
90 (return) [ The epistles of Sidonius Apollinaris (iv. 25, vii. 5, 9)
exhibit some of the scandals of the Gallican church; and Gaul was less
polished and less corrupt than the East.]
91 (return) [ A compromise was sometimes introduced by law or by
consent; either the bishops or the people chose one of the three
candidates who had been named by the other party.]
92 (return) [ All the examples quoted by Thomassin (Discipline de
l’Eglise, tom. ii. l. iii. c. vi. p. 704-714) appear to be
extraordinary acts of power, and even of oppression. The confirmation
of the bishop of Alexandria is mentioned by Philostorgius as a more
regular proceeding. (Hist Eccles. l. ii. ll.) * Note: The statement of
Planck is more consistent with history: “From the middle of the fourth
century, the bishops of some of the larger churches, particularly those
of the Imperial residence, were almost always chosen under the
influence of the court, and often directly and immediately nominated by
the emperor.” Planck, Geschichte der Christlich-kirchlichen
Gesellschafteverfassung, verfassung, vol. i p 263.—M.]
II. The bishops alone possessed the faculty of _spiritual_ generation:
and this extraordinary privilege might compensate, in some degree, for
the painful celibacy 93 which was imposed as a virtue, as a duty, and
at length as a positive obligation. The religions of antiquity, which
established a separate order of priests, dedicated a holy race, a tribe
or family, to the perpetual service of the gods. 94 Such institutions
were founded for possession, rather than conquest. The children of the
priests enjoyed, with proud and indolent security, their sacred
inheritance; and the fiery spirit of enthusiasm was abated by the
cares, the pleasures, and the endearments of domestic life. But the
Christian sanctuary was open to every ambitious candidate, who aspired
to its heavenly promises or temporal possessions. This office of
priests, like that of soldiers or magistrates, was strenuously
exercised by those men, whose temper and abilities had prompted them to
embrace the ecclesiastical profession, or who had been selected by a
discerning bishop, as the best qualified to promote the glory and
interest of the church. The bishops 95 (till the abuse was restrained
by the prudence of the laws) might constrain the reluctant, and protect
the distressed; and the imposition of hands forever bestowed some of
the most valuable privileges of civil society. The whole body of the
Catholic clergy, more numerous perhaps than the legions, was exempted
[95a] by the emperors from all service, private or public, all
municipal offices, and all personal taxes and contributions, which
pressed on their fellow- citizens with intolerable weight; and the
duties of their holy profession were accepted as a full discharge of
their obligations to the republic. 96 Each bishop acquired an absolute
and indefeasible right to the perpetual obedience of the clerk whom he
ordained: the clergy of each episcopal church, with its dependent
parishes, formed a regular and permanent society; and the cathedrals of
Constantinople 97 and Carthage 98 maintained their peculiar
establishment of five hundred ecclesiastical ministers. Their ranks 99
and numbers were insensibly multiplied by the superstition of the
times, which introduced into the church the splendid ceremonies of a
Jewish or Pagan temple; and a long train of priests, deacons,
sub-deacons, acolythes, exorcists, readers, singers, and doorkeepers,
contributed, in their respective stations, to swell the pomp and
harmony of religious worship. The clerical name and privileges were
extended to many pious fraternities, who devoutly supported the
ecclesiastical throne. 100 Six hundred _parabolani_, or adventurers,
visited the sick at Alexandria; eleven hundred _copiatæ_, or
grave-diggers, buried the dead at Constantinople; and the swarms of
monks, who arose from the Nile, overspread and darkened the face of the
Christian world.
93 (return) [ The celibacy of the clergy during the first five or six
centuries, is a subject of discipline, and indeed of controversy, which
has been very diligently examined. See in particular, Thomassin,
Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. l. ii. c. lx. lxi. p. 886-902, and
Bingham’s Antiquities, l. iv. c. 5. By each of these learned but
partial critics, one half of the truth is produced, and the other is
concealed.—Note: Compare Planck, (vol. i. p. 348.) This century, the
third, first brought forth the monks, or the spirit of monkery, the
celibacy of the clergy. Planck likewise observes, that from the history
of Eusebius alone, names of married bishops and presbyters may be
adduced by dozens.—M.]
94 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus attests and approves the hereditary
succession of the priesthood among the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, and
the Indians, (l. i. p. 84, l. ii. p. 142, 153, edit. Wesseling.) The
magi are described by Ammianus as a very numerous family: “Per sæcula
multa ad præsens unâ eâdemque prosapiâ multitudo creata, Deorum
cultibus dedicata.” (xxiii. 6.) Ausonius celebrates the _Stirps
Druidarum_, (De Professorib. Burdigal. iv.;) but we may infer from the
remark of Cæsar, (vi. 13,) that in the Celtic hierarchy, some room was
left for choice and emulation.]
95 (return) [ The subject of the vocation, ordination, obedience, &c.,
of the clergy, is laboriously discussed by Thomassin (Discipline de
l’Eglise, tom. ii. p. 1-83) and Bingham, (in the 4th book of his
Antiquities, more especially the 4th, 6th, and 7th chapters.) When the
brother of St. Jerom was ordained in Cyprus, the deacons forcibly
stopped his mouth, lest he should make a solemn protestation, which
might invalidate the holy rites.]
[ This exemption was very much limited. The municipal offices were of
two kinds; the one attached to the individual in his character of
inhabitant, the other in that of _proprietor_. Constantine had
exempted ecclesiastics from offices of the first description. (Cod.
Theod. xvi. t. ii. leg. 1, 2 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. l. x. c. vii.)
They sought, also, to be exempted from those of the second, (munera
patrimoniorum.) The rich, to obtain this privilege, obtained
subordinate situations among the clergy. Constantine published in 320
an edict, by which he prohibited the more opulent citizens (decuriones
and curiales) from embracing the ecclesiastical profession, and the
bishops from admitting new ecclesiastics, before a place should be
vacant by the death of the occupant, (Godefroy ad Cod. Theod.t. xii.
t. i. de Decur.) Valentinian the First, by a rescript still more
general enacted that no rich citizen should obtain a situation in the
church, (De Episc 1. lxvii.) He also enacted that ecclesiastics, who
wished to be exempt from offices which they were bound to discharge as
proprietors, should be obliged to give up their property to their
relations. Cod Theodos l. xii t. i. leb. 49—G.]
96 (return) [ The charter of immunities, which the clergy obtained from
the Christian emperors, is contained in the 16th book of the Theodosian
code; and is illustrated with tolerable candor by the learned Godefroy,
whose mind was balanced by the opposite prejudices of a civilian and a
Protestant.]
97 (return) [ Justinian. Novell. ciii. Sixty presbyters, or priests,
one hundred deacons, forty deaconesses, ninety sub-deacons, one hundred
and ten readers, twenty-five chanters, and one hundred door-keepers; in
all, five hundred and twenty-five. This moderate number was fixed by
the emperor to relieve the distress of the church, which had been
involved in debt and usury by the expense of a much higher
establishment.]
98 (return) [ Universus clerus ecclesiæ Carthaginiensis.... fere
_quingenti_ vel amplius; inter quos quamplurima erant lectores
infantuli. Victor Vitensis, de Persecut. Vandal. v. 9, p. 78, edit.
Ruinart. This remnant of a more prosperous state still subsisted under
the oppression of the Vandals.]
99 (return) [ The number of _seven_ orders has been fixed in the Latin
church, exclusive of the episcopal character. But the four inferior
ranks, the minor orders, are now reduced to empty and useless titles.]
100 (return) [ See Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 42, 43.
Godefroy’s Commentary, and the Ecclesiastical History of Alexandria,
show the danger of these pious institutions, which often disturbed the
peace of that turbulent capital.]
Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part IV.
III. The edict of Milan secured the revenue as well as the peace of the
church. 101 The Christians not only recovered the lands and houses of
which they had been stripped by the persecuting laws of Diocletian, but
they acquired a perfect title to all the possessions which they had
hitherto enjoyed by the connivance of the magistrate. As soon as
Christianity became the religion of the emperor and the empire, the
national clergy might claim a decent and honorable maintenance; and the
payment of an annual tax might have delivered the people from the more
oppressive tribute, which superstition imposes on her votaries. But as
the wants and expenses of the church increased with her prosperity, the
ecclesiastical order was still supported and enriched by the voluntary
oblations of the faithful. Eight years after the edict of Milan,
Constantine granted to all his subjects the free and universal
permission of bequeathing their fortunes to the holy Catholic church;
102 and their devout liberality, which during their lives was checked
by luxury or avarice, flowed with a profuse stream at the hour of their
death. The wealthy Christians were encouraged by the example of their
sovereign. An absolute monarch, who is rich without patrimony, may be
charitable without merit; and Constantine too easily believed that he
should purchase the favor of Heaven, if he maintained the idle at the
expense of the industrious; and distributed among the saints the wealth
of the republic. The same messenger who carried over to Africa the head
of Maxentius, might be intrusted with an epistle to Cæcilian, bishop of
Carthage. The emperor acquaints him, that the treasurers of the
province are directed to pay into his hands the sum of three thousand
_folles_, or eighteen thousand pounds sterling, and to obey his further
requisitions for the relief of the churches of Africa, Numidia, and
Mauritania. 103 The liberality of Constantine increased in a just
proportion to his faith, and to his vices. He assigned in each city a
regular allowance of corn, to supply the fund of ecclesiastical
charity; and the persons of both sexes who embraced the monastic life
became the peculiar favorites of their sovereign. The Christian temples
of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Constantinople &c., displayed the
ostentatious piety of a prince, ambitious in a declining age to equal
the perfect labors of antiquity. 104 The form of these religious
edifices was simple and oblong; though they might sometimes swell into
the shape of a dome, and sometimes branch into the figure of a cross.
The timbers were framed for the most part of cedars of Libanus; the
roof was covered with tiles, perhaps of gilt brass; and the walls, the
columns, the pavement, were encrusted with variegated marbles. The most
precious ornaments of gold and silver, of silk and gems, were profusely
dedicated to the service of the altar; and this specious magnificence
was supported on the solid and perpetual basis of landed property. In
the space of two centuries, from the reign of Constantine to that of
Justinian, the eighteen hundred churches of the empire were enriched by
the frequent and unalienable gifts of the prince and people. An annual
income of six hundred pounds sterling may be reasonably assigned to the
bishops, who were placed at an equal distance between riches and
poverty, 105 but the standard of their wealth insensibly rose with the
dignity and opulence of the cities which they governed. An authentic
but imperfect 106 rent-roll specifies some houses, shops, gardens, and
farms, which belonged to the three _Basilicæ_ of Rome, St. Peter, St.
Paul, and St. John Lateran, in the provinces of Italy, Africa, and the
East. They produce, besides a reserved rent of oil, linen, paper,
aromatics, &c., a clear annual revenue of twenty-two thousand pieces of
gold, or twelve thousand pounds sterling. In the age of Constantine and
Justinian, the bishops no longer possessed, perhaps they no longer
deserved, the unsuspecting confidence of their clergy and people. The
ecclesiastical revenues of each diocese were divided into four parts
for the respective uses of the bishop himself, of his inferior clergy,
of the poor, and of the public worship; and the abuse of this sacred
trust was strictly and repeatedly checked. 107 The patrimony of the
church was still subject to all the public compositions of the state.
108 The clergy of Rome, Alexandria, Chessaionica, &c., might solicit
and obtain some partial exemptions; but the premature attempt of the
great council of Rimini, which aspired to universal freedom, was
successfully resisted by the son of Constantine. 109
101 (return) [ The edict of Milan (de M. P. c. 48) acknowledges, by
reciting, that there existed a species of landed property, ad jus
corporis eorum, id est, ecclesiarum non hominum singulorum pertinentia.
Such a solemn declaration of the supreme magistrate must have been
received in all the tribunals as a maxim of civil law.]
102 (return) [ Habeat unusquisque licentiam sanctissimo Catholicæ
(_ecclesiæ_) venerabilique concilio, decedens bonorum quod optavit
relinquere. Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 4. This law was
published at Rome, A. D. 321, at a time when Constantine might foresee
the probability of a rupture with the emperor of the East.]
103 (return) [ Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. l. x. 6; in Vit. Constantin. l.
iv. c. 28. He repeatedly expatiates on the liberality of the Christian
hero, which the bishop himself had an opportunity of knowing, and even
of lasting.]
104 (return) [ Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. l. x. c. 2, 3, 4. The bishop of
Cæsarea who studied and gratified the taste of his master, pronounced
in public an elaborate description of the church of Jerusalem, (in Vit
Cons. l. vi. c. 46.) It no longer exists, but he has inserted in the
life of Constantine (l. iii. c. 36) a short account of the architecture
and ornaments. He likewise mentions the church of the Holy Apostles at
Constantinople, (l. iv. c. 59.)]
105 (return) [ See Justinian. Novell. cxxiii. 3. The revenue of the
patriarchs, and the most wealthy bishops, is not expressed: the highest
annual valuation of a bishopric is stated at _thirty_, and the lowest
at _two_, pounds of gold; the medium might be taken at _sixteen_, but
these valuations are much below the real value.]
106 (return) [ See Baronius, (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 324, No. 58, 65, 70,
71.) Every record which comes from the Vatican is justly suspected; yet
these rent-rolls have an ancient and authentic color; and it is at
least evident, that, if forged, they were forged in a period when
_farms_ not _kingdoms_, were the objects of papal avarice.]
107 (return) [ See Thomassin, Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. iii. l. ii.
c. 13, 14, 15, p. 689-706. The legal division of the ecclesiastical
revenue does not appear to have been established in the time of Ambrose
and Chrysostom. Simplicius and Gelasius, who were bishops of Rome in
the latter part of the fifth century, mention it in their pastoral
letters as a general law, which was already confirmed by the custom of
Italy.]
108 (return) [ Ambrose, the most strenuous assertor of ecclesiastical
privileges, submits without a murmur to the payment of the land tax.
“Si tri butum petit Imperator, non negamus; agri ecclesiæ solvunt
tributum solvimus quæ sunt Cæsaris Cæsari, et quæ sunt Dei Deo;
tributum Cæsaris est; non negatur.” Baronius labors to interpret this
tribute as an act of charity rather than of duty, (Annal. Eccles. A. D.
387;) but the words, if not the intentions of Ambrose are more candidly
explained by Thomassin, Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. iii. l. i. c. 34.
p. 668.]
109 (return) [ In Ariminense synodo super ecclesiarum et clericorum
privilegiis tractatu habito, usque eo dispositio progressa est, ut juqa
quæ viderentur ad ecclesiam pertinere, a publica functione cessarent
inquietudine desistente; quod nostra videtur dudum sanctio repulsisse.
Cod. Theod. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 15. Had the synod of Rimini carried
this point, such practical merit might have atoned for some speculative
heresies.]
IV. The Latin clergy, who erected their tribunal on the ruins of the
civil and common law, have modestly accepted, as the gift of
Constantine, 110 the independent jurisdiction, which was the fruit of
time, of accident, and of their own industry. But the liberality of the
Christian emperors had actually endowed them with some legal
prerogatives, which secured and dignified the sacerdotal character. 111
1. Under a despotic government, the bishops alone enjoyed and asserted
the inestimable privilege of being tried only by their _peers_, and
even in a capital accusation, a synod of their brethren were the sole
judges of their guilt or innocence. Such a tribunal, unless it was
inflamed by personal resentment or religious discord, might be
favorable, or even partial, to the sacerdotal order: but Constantine
was satisfied, 112 that secret impunity would be less pernicious than
public scandal: and the Nicene council was edited by his public
declaration, that if he surprised a bishop in the act of adultery, he
should cast his Imperial mantle over the episcopal sinner. 2. The
domestic jurisdiction of the bishops was at once a privilege and a
restraint of the ecclesiastical order, whose civil causes were decently
withdrawn from the cognizance of a secular judge. Their venial offences
were not exposed to the shame of a public trial or punishment; and the
gentle correction which the tenderness of youth may endure from its
parents or instructors, was inflicted by the temperate severity of the
bishops. But if the clergy were guilty of any crime which could not be
sufficiently expiated by their degradation from an honorable and
beneficial profession, the Roman magistrate drew the sword of justice,
without any regard to ecclesiastical immunities. 3. The arbitration of
the bishops was ratified by a positive law; and the judges were
instructed to execute, without appeal or delay, the episcopal decrees,
whose validity had hitherto depended on the consent of the parties. The
conversion of the magistrates themselves, and of the whole empire,
might gradually remove the fears and scruples of the Christians. But
they still resorted to the tribunal of the bishops, whose abilities and
integrity they esteemed; and the venerable Austin enjoyed the
satisfaction of complaining that his spiritual functions were
perpetually interrupted by the invidious labor of deciding the claim or
the possession of silver and gold, of lands and cattle. 4. The ancient
privilege of sanctuary was transferred to the Christian temples, and
extended, by the liberal piety of the younger Theodosius, to the
precincts of consecrated ground. 113 The fugitive, and even guilty
suppliants,were permitted to implore either the justice, or the mercy,
of the Deity and his ministers. The rash violence of despotism was
suspended by the mild interposition of the church; and the lives or
fortunes of the most eminent subjects might be protected by the
mediation of the bishop.
110 (return) [ From Eusebius (in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 27) and
Sozomen (l. i. c. 9) we are assured that the episcopal jurisdiction was
extended and confirmed by Constantine; but the forgery of a famous
edict, which was never fairly inserted in the Theodosian Code (see at
the end, tom. vi. p. 303,) is demonstrated by Godefroy in the most
satisfactory manner. It is strange that M. de Montesquieu, who was a
lawyer as well as a philosopher, should allege this edict of
Constantine (Esprit des Loix, l. xxix. c. 16) without intimating any
suspicion.]
111 (return) [ The subject of ecclesiastical jurisdiction has been
involved in a mist of passion, of prejudice, and of interest. Two of
the fairest books which have fallen into my hands, are the Institutes
of Canon Law, by the Abbé de Fleury, and the Civil History of Naples,
by Giannone. Their moderation was the effect of situation as well as of
temper. Fleury was a French ecclesiastic, who respected the authority
of the parliaments; Giannone was an Italian lawyer, who dreaded the
power of the church. And here let me observe, that as the general
propositions which I advance are the result of _many_ particular and
imperfect facts, I must either refer the reader to those modern authors
who have expressly treated the subject, or swell these notes
disproportioned size.]
112 (return) [ Tillemont has collected from Rufinus, Theodoret, &c.,
the sentiments and language of Constantine. Mém Eccles tom. iii p. 749,
759.]
113 (return) [ See Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. xlv. leg. 4. In the works of
Fra Paolo. (tom. iv. p. 192, &c.,) there is an excellent discourse on
the origin, claims, abuses, and limits of sanctuaries. He justly
observes, that ancient Greece might perhaps contain fifteen or twenty
_azyla_ or sanctuaries; a number which at present may be found in Italy
within the walls of a single city.]
V. The bishop was the perpetual censor of the morals of his people The
discipline of penance was digested into a system of canonical
jurisprudence, 114 which accurately defined the duty of private or
public confession, the rules of evidence, the degrees of guilt, and the
measure of punishment. It was impossible to execute this spiritual
censure, if the Christian pontiff, who punished the obscure sins of the
multitude, respected the conspicuous vices and destructive crimes of
the magistrate: but it was impossible to arraign the conduct of the
magistrate, without, controlling the administration of civil
government. Some considerations of religion, or loyalty, or fear,
protected the sacred persons of the emperors from the zeal or
resentment of the bishops; but they boldly censured and excommunicated
the subordinate tyrants, who were not invested with the majesty of the
purple. St. Athanasius excommunicated one of the ministers of Egypt;
and the interdict which he pronounced, of fire and water, was solemnly
transmitted to the churches of Cappadocia. 115 Under the reign of the
younger Theodosius, the polite and eloquent Synesius, one of the
descendants of Hercules, 116 filled the episcopal seat of Ptolemais,
near the ruins of ancient Cyrene, 117 and the philosophic bishop
supported with dignity the character which he had assumed with
reluctance. 118 He vanquished the monster of Libya, the president
Andronicus, who abused the authority of a venal office, invented new
modes of rapine and torture, and aggravated the guilt of oppression by
that of sacrilege. 119 After a fruitless attempt to reclaim the haughty
magistrate by mild and religious admonition, Synesius proceeds to
inflict the last sentence of ecclesiastical justice, 120 which devotes
Andronicus, with his associates and their _families_, to the abhorrence
of earth and heaven. The impenitent sinners, more cruel than Phalaris
or Sennacherib, more destructive than war, pestilence, or a cloud of
locusts, are deprived of the name and privileges of Christians, of the
participation of the sacraments, and of the hope of Paradise. The
bishop exhorts the clergy, the magistrates, and the people, to renounce
all society with the enemies of Christ; to exclude them from their
houses and tables; and to refuse them the common offices of life, and
the decent rites of burial. The church of Ptolemais, obscure and
contemptible as she may appear, addresses this declaration to all her
sister churches of the world; and the profane who reject her decrees,
will be involved in the guilt and punishment of Andronicus and his
impious followers. These spiritual terrors were enforced by a dexterous
application to the Byzantine court; the trembling president implored
the mercy of the church; and the descendants of Hercules enjoyed the
satisfaction of raising a prostrate tyrant from the ground. 121 Such
principles and such examples insensibly prepared the triumph of the
Roman pontiffs, who have trampled on the necks of kings.
114 (return) [ The penitential jurisprudence was continually improved
by the canons of the councils. But as many cases were still left to the
discretion of the bishops, they occasionally published, after the
example of the Roman Prætor, the rules of discipline which they
proposed to observe. Among the canonical epistles of the fourth
century, those of Basil the Great were the most celebrated. They are
inserted in the Pandects of Beveridge, (tom. ii. p. 47-151,) and are
translated by Chardon, Hist. des Sacremens, tom. iv. p. 219-277.]
115 (return) [ Basil, Epistol. xlvii. in Baronius, (Annal. Eccles. A.
D. 370. N. 91,) who declares that he purposely relates it, to convince
govern that they were not exempt from a sentence of excommunication his
opinion, even a royal head is not safe from the thunders of the
Vatican; and the cardinal shows himself much more consistent than the
lawyers and theologians of the Gallican church.]
116 (return) [ The long series of his ancestors, as high as
Eurysthenes, the first Doric king of Sparta, and the fifth in lineal
descent from Hercules, was inscribed in the public registers of Cyrene,
a Lacedæmonian colony. (Synes. Epist. lvii. p. 197, edit. Petav.) Such
a pure and illustrious pedigree of seventeen hundred years, without
adding the royal ancestors of Hercules, cannot be equalled in the
history of mankind.]
117 (return) [ Synesius (de Regno, p. 2) pathetically deplores the
fallen and ruined state of Cyrene, [**Greek]. Ptolemais, a new city, 82
miles to the westward of Cyrene, assumed the metropolitan honors of the
Pentapolis, or Upper Libya, which were afterwards transferred to
Sozusa.]
118 (return) [ Synesius had previously represented his own
disqualifications. He loved profane studies and profane sports; he was
incapable of supporting a life of celibacy; he disbelieved the
resurrection; and he refused to preach _fables_ to the people unless he
might be permitted to _philosophize_ at home. Theophilus primate of
Egypt, who knew his merit, accepted this extraordinary compromise.]
119 (return) [ The promotion of Andronicus was illegal; since he was a
native of Berenice, in the same province. The instruments of torture
are curiously specified; the press that variously pressed on distended
the fingers, the feet, the nose, the ears, and the lips of the
victims.]
120 (return) [ The sentence of excommunication is expressed in a
rhetorical style. (Synesius, Epist. lviii. p. 201-203.) The method of
involving whole families, though somewhat unjust, was improved into
national interdicts.]
121 (return) [ See Synesius, Epist. xlvii. p. 186, 187. Epist. lxxii.
p. 218, 219 Epist. lxxxix. p. 230, 231.]
VI. Every popular government has experienced the effects of rude or
artificial eloquence. The coldest nature is animated, the firmest
reason is moved, by the rapid communication of the prevailing impulse;
and each hearer is affected by his own passions, and by those of the
surrounding multitude. The ruin of civil liberty had silenced the
demagogues of Athens, and the tribunes of Rome; the custom of preaching
which seems to constitute a considerable part of Christian devotion,
had not been introduced into the temples of antiquity; and the ears of
monarchs were never invaded by the harsh sound of popular eloquence,
till the pulpits of the empire were filled with sacred orators, who
possessed some advantages unknown to their profane predecessors. 122
The arguments and rhetoric of the tribune were instantly opposed with
equal arms, by skilful and resolute antagonists; and the cause of truth
and reason might derive an accidental support from the conflict of
hostile passions. The bishop, or some distinguished presbyter, to whom
he cautiously delegated the powers of preaching, harangued, without the
danger of interruption or reply, a submissive multitude, whose minds
had been prepared and subdued by the awful ceremonies of religion. Such
was the strict subordination of the Catholic church, that the same
concerted sounds might issue at once from a hundred pulpits of Italy or
Egypt, if they were _tuned_ 123 by the master hand of the Roman or
Alexandrian primate. The design of this institution was laudable, but
the fruits were not always salutary. The preachers recommended the
practice of the social duties; but they exalted the perfection of
monastic virtue, which is painful to the individual, and useless to
mankind. Their charitable exhortations betrayed a secret wish that the
clergy might be permitted to manage the wealth of the faithful, for the
benefit of the poor. The most sublime representations of the attributes
and laws of the Deity were sullied by an idle mixture of metaphysical
subleties, puerile rites, and fictitious miracles: and they expatiated,
with the most fervent zeal, on the religious merit of hating the
adversaries, and obeying the ministers of the church. When the public
peace was distracted by heresy and schism, the sacred orators sounded
the trumpet of discord, and, perhaps, of sedition. The understandings
of their congregations were perplexed by mystery, their passions were
inflamed by invectives; and they rushed from the Christian temples of
Antioch or Alexandria, prepared either to suffer or to inflict
martyrdom. The corruption of taste and language is strongly marked in
the vehement declamations of the Latin bishops; but the compositions of
Gregory and Chrysostom have been compared with the most splendid models
of Attic, or at least of Asiatic, eloquence. 124
122 (return) [ See Thomassin (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. ii. l. iii.
c. 83, p. 1761-1770,) and Bingham, (Antiquities, vol. i. l. xiv. c. 4,
p. 688- 717.) Preaching was considered as the most important office of
the bishop but this function was sometimes intrusted to such presbyters
as Chrysostom and Augustin.]
123 (return) [ Queen Elizabeth used this expression, and practised this
art whenever she wished to prepossess the minds of her people in favor
of any extraordinary measure of government. The hostile effects of this
_music_ were apprehended by her successor, and severely felt by his
son. “When pulpit, drum ecclesiastic,” &c. See Heylin’s Life of
Archbishop Laud, p. 153.]
124 (return) [ Those modest orators acknowledged, that, as they were
destitute of the gift of miracles, they endeavored to acquire the arts
of eloquence.]
VII. The representatives of the Christian republic were regularly
assembled in the spring and autumn of each year; and these synods
diffused the spirit of ecclesiastical discipline and legislation
through the hundred and twenty provinces of the Roman world. 125 The
archbishop or metropolitan was empowered, by the laws, to summon the
suffragan bishops of his province; to revise their conduct, to
vindicate their rights, to declare their faith, and to examine the
merits of the candidates who were elected by the clergy and people to
supply the vacancies of the episcopal college. The primates of Rome,
Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage, and afterwards Constantinople, who
exercised a more ample jurisdiction, convened the numerous assembly of
their dependent bishops. But the convocation of great and extraordinary
synods was the prerogative of the emperor alone. Whenever the
emergencies of the church required this decisive measure, he despatched
a peremptory summons to the bishops, or the deputies of each province,
with an order for the use of post-horses, and a competent allowance for
the expenses of their journey. At an early period, when Constantine was
the protector, rather than the proselyte, of Christianity, he referred
the African controversy to the council of Arles; in which the bishops
of York of Trèves, of Milan, and of Carthage, met as friends and
brethren, to debate in their native tongue on the common interest of
the Latin or Western church. 126 Eleven years afterwards, a more
numerous and celebrated assembly was convened at Nice in Bithynia, to
extinguish, by their final sentence, the subtle disputes which had
arisen in Egypt on the subject of the Trinity. Three hundred and
eighteen bishops obeyed the summons of their indulgent master; the
ecclesiastics of every rank, and sect, and denomination, have been
computed at two thousand and forty-eight persons; 127 the Greeks
appeared in person; and the consent of the Latins was expressed by the
legates of the Roman pontiff. The session, which lasted about two
months, was frequently honored by the presence of the emperor. Leaving
his guards at the door, he seated himself (with the permission of the
council) on a low stool in the midst of the hall. Constantine listened
with patience, and spoke with modesty: and while he influenced the
debates, he humbly professed that he was the minister, not the judge,
of the successors of the apostles, who had been established as priests
and as gods upon earth. 128 Such profound reverence of an absolute
monarch towards a feeble and unarmed assembly of his own subjects, can
only be compared to the respect with which the senate had been treated
by the Roman princes who adopted the policy of Augustus. Within the
space of fifty years, a philosophic spectator of the vicissitudes of
human affairs might have contemplated Tacitus in the senate of Rome,
and Constantine in the council of Nice. The fathers of the Capitol and
those of the church had alike degenerated from the virtues of their
founders; but as the bishops were more deeply rooted in the public
opinion, they sustained their dignity with more decent pride, and
sometimes opposed with a manly spirit the wishes of their sovereign.
The progress of time and superstition erased the memory of the
weakness, the passion, the ignorance, which disgraced these
ecclesiastical synods; and the Catholic world has unanimously submitted
129 to the _infallible_ decrees of the general councils. 130
125 (return) [ The council of Nice, in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and
seventh canons, has made some fundamental regulations concerning
synods, metropolitan, and primates. The Nicene canons have been
variously tortured, abused, interpolated, or forged, according to the
interest of the clergy. The _Suburbicarian_ churches, assigned (by
Rufinus) to the bishop of Rome, have been made the subject of vehement
controversy (See Sirmond, Opera, tom. iv. p. 1-238.)]
126 (return) [ We have only thirty-three or forty-seven episcopal
subscriptions: but Addo, a writer indeed of small account, reckons six
hundred bishops in the council of Arles. Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom.
vi. p. 422.]
127 (return) [ See Tillemont, tom. vi. p. 915, and Beausobre, Hist. du
Mani cheisme, tom i p. 529. The name of _bishop_, which is given by
Eusychius to the 2048 ecclesiastics, (Annal. tom. i. p. 440, vers.
Pocock,) must be extended far beyond the limits of an orthodox or even
episcopal ordination.]
128 (return) [ See Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c. 6-21.
Tillemont, Mém. Ecclésiastiques, tom. vi. p. 669-759.]
129 (return) [ Sancimus igitur vicem legum obtinere, quæ a quatuor
Sanctis Conciliis.... expositæ sunt act firmatæ. Prædictarum enim quat
uor synodorum dogmata sicut sanctas Scripturas et regulas sicut leges
observamus. Justinian. Novell. cxxxi. Beveridge (ad Pandect. proleg. p.
2) remarks, that the emperors never made new laws in ecclesiastical
matters; and Giannone observes, in a very different spirit, that they
gave a legal sanction to the canons of councils. Istoria Civile di
Napoli, tom. i. p. 136.]
130 (return) [ See the article Concile in the Eucyclopedie, tom. iii.
p. 668-879, edition de Lucques. The author, M. de docteur Bouchaud, has
discussed, according to the principles of the Gallican church, the
principal questions which relate to the form and constitution of
general, national, and provincial councils. The editors (see Preface,
p. xvi.) have reason to be proud of _this_ article. Those who consult
their immense compilation, seldom depart so well satisfied.]
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part I.
Persecution Of Heresy.—The Schism Of The Donatists.—The Arian
Controversy.—Athanasius.—Distracted State Of The Church And Empire
Under Constantine And His Sons.— Toleration Of Paganism.
The grateful applause of the clergy has consecrated the memory of
a prince who indulged their passions and promoted their interest.
Constantine gave them security, wealth, honors, and revenge; and
the support of the orthodox faith was considered as the most
sacred and important duty of the civil magistrate. The edict of
Milan, the great charter of toleration, had confirmed to each
individual of the Roman world the privilege of choosing and
professing his own religion. But this inestimable privilege was
soon violated; with the knowledge of truth, the emperor imbibed
the maxims of persecution; and the sects which dissented from the
Catholic church were afflicted and oppressed by the triumph of
Christianity. Constantine easily believed that the Heretics, who
presumed to dispute _his_ opinions, or to oppose _his_ commands,
were guilty of the most absurd and criminal obstinacy; and that a
seasonable application of moderate severities might save those
unhappy men from the danger of an everlasting condemnation. Not a
moment was lost in excluding the ministers and teachers of the
separated congregations from any share of the rewards and
immunities which the emperor had so liberally bestowed on the
orthodox clergy. But as the sectaries might still exist under the
cloud of royal disgrace, the conquest of the East was immediately
followed by an edict which announced their total destruction. 1
After a preamble filled with passion and reproach, Constantine
absolutely prohibits the assemblies of the Heretics, and
confiscates their public property to the use either of the
revenue or of the Catholic church. The sects against whom the
Imperial severity was directed, appear to have been the adherents
of Paul of Samosata; the Montanists of Phrygia, who maintained an
enthusiastic succession of prophecy; the Novatians, who sternly
rejected the temporal efficacy of repentance; the Marcionites and
Valentinians, under whose leading banners the various Gnostics of
Asia and Egypt had insensibly rallied; and perhaps the
Manichæans, who had recently imported from Persia a more artful
composition of Oriental and Christian theology. 2 The design of
extirpating the name, or at least of restraining the progress, of
these odious Heretics, was prosecuted with vigor and effect. Some
of the penal regulations were copied from the edicts of
Diocletian; and this method of conversion was applauded by the
same bishops who had felt the hand of oppression, and pleaded for
the rights of humanity. Two immaterial circumstances may serve,
however, to prove that the mind of Constantine was not entirely
corrupted by the spirit of zeal and bigotry. Before he condemned
the Manichæans and their kindred sects, he resolved to make an
accurate inquiry into the nature of their religious principles.
As if he distrusted the impartiality of his ecclesiastical
counsellors, this delicate commission was intrusted to a civil
magistrate, whose learning and moderation he justly esteemed, and
of whose venal character he was probably ignorant. 3 The emperor
was soon convinced, that he had too hastily proscribed the
orthodox faith and the exemplary morals of the Novatians, who had
dissented from the church in some articles of discipline which
were not perhaps essential to salvation. By a particular edict,
he exempted them from the general penalties of the law; 4 allowed
them to build a church at Constantinople, respected the miracles
of their saints, invited their bishop Acesius to the council of
Nice; and gently ridiculed the narrow tenets of his sect by a
familiar jest; which, from the mouth of a sovereign, must have
been received with applause and gratitude. 5
1 (return) [ Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c. 63, 64, 65,
66.]
2 (return) [ After some examination of the various opinions of
Tillemont, Beausobre, Lardner, &c., I am convinced that Manes did
not propagate his sect, even in Persia, before the year 270. It
is strange, that a philosophic and foreign heresy should have
penetrated so rapidly into the African provinces; yet I cannot
easily reject the edict of Diocletian against the Manichæans,
which may be found in Baronius. (Annal Eccl. A. D. 287.)]
3 (return) [ Constantinus enim, cum limatius superstitionum
quæroret sectas, Manichæorum et similium, &c. Ammian. xv. 15.
Strategius, who from this commission obtained the surname of
_Musonianus_, was a Christian of the Arian sect. He acted as one
of the counts at the council of Sardica. Libanius praises his
mildness and prudence. Vales. ad locum Ammian.]
4 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. xvi. tit. 5, leg. 2. As the general
law is not inserted in the Theodosian Code, it probable that, in
the year 438, the sects which it had condemned were already
extinct.]
5 (return) [ Sozomen, l. i. c. 22. Socrates, l. i. c. 10. These
historians have been suspected, but I think without reason, of an
attachment to the Novatian doctrine. The emperor said to the
bishop, “Acesius, take a ladder, and get up to heaven by
yourself.” Most of the Christian sects have, by turns, borrowed
the ladder of Acesius.]
The complaints and mutual accusations which assailed the throne
of Constantine, as soon as the death of Maxentius had submitted
Africa to his victorious arms, were ill adapted to edify an
imperfect proselyte. He learned, with surprise, that the
provinces of that great country, from the confines of Cyrene to
the columns of Hercules, were distracted with religious discord.
6 The source of the division was derived from a double election
in the church of Carthage; the second, in rank and opulence, of
the ecclesiastical thrones of the West. Cæcilian and Majorinus
were the two rival prelates of Africa; and the death of the
latter soon made room for Donatus, who, by his superior abilities
and apparent virtues, was the firmest support of his party. The
advantage which Cæcilian might claim from the priority of his
ordination, was destroyed by the illegal, or at least indecent,
haste, with which it had been performed, without expecting the
arrival of the bishops of Numidia. The authority of these
bishops, who, to the number of seventy, condemned Cæcilian, and
consecrated Majorinus, is again weakened by the infamy of some of
their personal characters; and by the female intrigues,
sacrilegious bargains, and tumultuous proceedings, which are
imputed to this Numidian council. 7 The bishops of the contending
factions maintained, with equal ardor and obstinacy, that their
adversaries were degraded, or at least dishonored, by the odious
crime of delivering the Holy Scriptures to the officers of
Diocletian. From their mutual reproaches, as well as from the
story of this dark transaction, it may justly be inferred, that
the late persecution had imbittered the zeal, without reforming
the manners, of the African Christians. That divided church was
incapable of affording an impartial judicature; the controversy
was solemnly tried in five successive tribunals, which were
appointed by the emperor; and the whole proceeding, from the
first appeal to the final sentence, lasted above three years. A
severe inquisition, which was taken by the Prætorian vicar, and
the proconsul of Africa, the report of two episcopal visitors who
had been sent to Carthage, the decrees of the councils of Rome
and of Arles, and the supreme judgment of Constantine himself in
his sacred consistory, were all favorable to the cause of
Cæcilian; and he was unanimously acknowledged by the civil and
ecclesiastical powers, as the true and lawful primate of Africa.
The honors and estates of the church were attributed to _his_
suffragan bishops, and it was not without difficulty, that
Constantine was satisfied with inflicting the punishment of exile
on the principal leaders of the Donatist faction. As their cause
was examined with attention, perhaps it was determined with
justice. Perhaps their complaint was not without foundation, that
the credulity of the emperor had been abused by the insidious
arts of his favorite Osius. The influence of falsehood and
corruption might procure the condemnation of the innocent, or
aggravate the sentence of the guilty. Such an act, however, of
injustice, if it concluded an importunate dispute, might be
numbered among the transient evils of a despotic administration,
which are neither felt nor remembered by posterity.
6 (return) [ The best materials for this part of ecclesiastical
history may be found in the edition of Optatus Milevitanus,
published (Paris, 1700) by M. Dupin, who has enriched it with
critical notes, geographical discussions, original records, and
an accurate abridgment of the whole controversy. M. de Tillemont
has bestowed on the Donatists the greatest part of a volume,
(tom. vi. part i.;) and I am indebted to him for an ample
collection of all the passages of his favorite St. Augustin,
which relate to those heretics.]
7 (return) [ Schisma igitur illo tempore confusæ mulieris
iracundia peperit; ambitus nutrivit; avaritia roboravit. Optatus,
l. i. c. 19. The language of Purpurius is that of a furious
madman. Dicitur te necasse lilios sororis tuæ duos. Purpurius
respondit: Putas me terreri a te.. occidi; et occido eos qui
contra me faciunt. Acta Concil. Cirtenais, ad calc. Optat. p.
274. When Cæcilian was invited to an assembly of bishops,
Purpurius said to his brethren, or rather to his accomplices,
“Let him come hither to receive our imposition of hands, and we
will break his head by way of penance.” Optat. l. i. c. 19.]
But this incident, so inconsiderable that it scarcely deserves a
place in history, was productive of a memorable schism which
afflicted the provinces of Africa above three hundred years, and
was extinguished only with Christianity itself. The inflexible
zeal of freedom and fanaticism animated the Donatists to refuse
obedience to the usurpers, whose election they disputed, and
whose spiritual powers they denied. Excluded from the civil and
religious communion of mankind, they boldly excommunicated the
rest of mankind, who had embraced the impious party of Cæcilian,
and of the Traditors, from which he derived his pretended
ordination. They asserted with confidence, and almost with
exultation, that the Apostolical succession was interrupted; that
_all_ the bishops of Europe and Asia were infected by the
contagion of guilt and schism; and that the prerogatives of the
Catholic church were confined to the chosen portion of the
African believers, who alone had preserved inviolate the
integrity of their faith and discipline. This rigid theory was
supported by the most uncharitable conduct. Whenever they
acquired a proselyte, even from the distant provinces of the
East, they carefully repeated the sacred rites of baptism 8 and
ordination; as they rejected the validity of those which he had
already received from the hands of heretics or schismatics.
Bishops, virgins, and even spotless infants, were subjected to
the disgrace of a public penance, before they could be admitted
to the communion of the Donatists. If they obtained possession of
a church which had been used by their Catholic adversaries, they
purified the unhallowed building with the same zealous care which
a temple of idols might have required. They washed the pavement,
scraped the walls, burnt the altar, which was commonly of wood,
melted the consecrated plate, and cast the Holy Eucharist to the
dogs, with every circumstance of ignominy which could provoke and
perpetuate the animosity of religious factions. 9 Notwithstanding
this irreconcilable aversion, the two parties, who were mixed and
separated in all the cities of Africa, had the same language and
manners, the same zeal and learning, the same faith and worship.
Proscribed by the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the empire,
the Donatists still maintained in some provinces, particularly in
Numidia, their superior numbers; and four hundred bishops
acknowledged the jurisdiction of their primate. But the
invincible spirit of the sect sometimes preyed on its own vitals:
and the bosom of their schismatical church was torn by intestine
divisions. A fourth part of the Donatist bishops followed the
independent standard of the Maximianists. The narrow and solitary
path which their first leaders had marked out, continued to
deviate from the great society of mankind. Even the imperceptible
sect of the Rogatians could affirm, without a blush, that when
Christ should descend to judge the earth, he would find his true
religion preserved only in a few nameless villages of the
Cæsarean Mauritania. 10
8 (return) [ The councils of Arles, of Nice, and of Trent,
confirmed the wise and moderate practice of the church of Rome.
The Donatists, however, had the advantage of maintaining the
sentiment of Cyprian, and of a considerable part of the primitive
church. Vincentius Lirinesis (p. 532, ap. Tillemont, Mém. Eccles.
tom. vi. p. 138) has explained why the Donatists are eternally
burning with the Devil, while St. Cyprian reigns in heaven with
Jesus Christ.]
9 (return) [ See the sixth book of Optatus Milevitanus, p.
91-100.]
10 (return) [ Tillemont, Mém. Ecclésiastiques, tom. vi. part i.
p. 253. He laughs at their partial credulity. He revered
Augustin, the great doctor of the system of predestination.]
The schism of the Donatists was confined to Africa: the more
diffusive mischief of the Trinitarian controversy successively
penetrated into every part of the Christian world. The former was
an accidental quarrel, occasioned by the abuse of freedom; the
latter was a high and mysterious argument, derived from the abuse
of philosophy. From the age of Constantine to that of Clovis and
Theodoric, the temporal interests both of the Romans and
Barbarians were deeply involved in the theological disputes of
Arianism. The historian may therefore be permitted respectfully
to withdraw the veil of the sanctuary; and to deduce the progress
of reason and faith, of error and passion from the school of
Plato, to the decline and fall of the empire.
The genius of Plato, informed by his own meditation, or by the
traditional knowledge of the priests of Egypt, 11 had ventured to
explore the mysterious nature of the Deity. When he had elevated
his mind to the sublime contemplation of the first self-existent,
necessary cause of the universe, the Athenian sage was incapable
of conceiving _how_ the simple unity of his essence could admit
the infinite variety of distinct and successive ideas which
compose the model of the intellectual world; _how_ a Being purely
incorporeal could execute that perfect model, and mould with a
plastic hand the rude and independent chaos. The vain hope of
extricating himself from these difficulties, which must ever
oppress the feeble powers of the human mind, might induce Plato
to consider the divine nature under the threefold modification—of
the first cause, the reason, or _Logos_, and the soul or spirit
of the universe. His poetical imagination sometimes fixed and
animated these metaphysical abstractions; the three _archical_ on
original principles were represented in the Platonic system as
three Gods, united with each other by a mysterious and ineffable
generation; and the Logos was particularly considered under the
more accessible character of the Son of an Eternal Father, and
the Creator and Governor of the world. Such appear to have been
the secret doctrines which were cautiously whispered in the
gardens of the academy; and which, according to the more recent
disciples of Plato, 1111 could not be perfectly understood, till
after an assiduous study of thirty years. 12
11 (return) [ Plato Ægyptum peragravit ut a sacerdotibus Barbaris
numeros et _cælestia_ acciperet. Cicero de Finibus, v. 25. The
Egyptians might still preserve the traditional creed of the
Patriarchs. Josephus has persuaded many of the Christian fathers,
that Plato derived a part of his knowledge from the Jews; but
this vain opinion cannot be reconciled with the obscure state and
unsocial manners of the Jewish people, whose scriptures were not
accessible to Greek curiosity till more than one hundred years
after the death of Plato. See Marsham Canon. Chron. p. 144 Le
Clerc, Epistol. Critic. vii. p. 177-194.]
1111 (return) [ This exposition of the doctrine of Plato appears
to me contrary to the true sense of that philosopher’s writings.
The brilliant imagination which he carried into metaphysical
inquiries, his style, full of allegories and figures, have misled
those interpreters who did not seek, from the whole tenor of his
works and beyond the images which the writer employs, the system
of this philosopher. In my opinion, there is no Trinity in Plato;
he has established no mysterious generation between the three
pretended principles which he is made to distinguish. Finally, he
conceives only as _attributes_ of the Deity, or of matter, those
ideas, of which it is supposed that he made _substances_, real
beings.
According to Plato, God and matter existed from all eternity.
Before the creation of the world, matter had in itself a
principle of motion, but without end or laws: it is this
principle which Plato calls the irrational soul of the world,
because, according to his doctrine, every spontaneous and
original principle of motion is called soul. God wished to
impress _form_ upon matter, that is to say, 1. To mould
matter, and make it into a body; 2. To regulate its motion,
and subject it to some end and to certain laws. The Deity, in
this operation, could not act but according to the ideas
existing in his intelligence: their union filled this, and
formed the ideal type of the world. It is this ideal world,
this divine intelligence, existing with God from all
eternity, and called by Plato which he is supposed to
personify, to substantialize; while an attentive examination
is sufficient to convince us that he has never assigned it an
existence external to the Deity, (hors de la Divinité,) and
that he considered the as the aggregate of the ideas of God,
the divine understanding in its relation to the world. The
contrary opinion is irreconcilable with all his philosophy:
thus he says (Timæus, p. 348, edit. Bip.) that to the idea of
the Deity is essentially united that of intelligence, of a
_logos_. He would thus have admitted a double _logos;_ one
inherent in the Deity as an attribute, the other
independently existing as a substance. He affirms that the
intelligence, the principle of order cannot exist but as an
attribute of a soul, the principle of motion and of life, of
which the nature is unknown to us. How, then, according to
this, could he consider the _logos_ as a substance endowed
with an independent existence? In other places, he explains
it by these two words, knowledge, science, and intelligence
which signify the attributes of the Deity. When Plato
separates God, the ideal archetype of the world and matter,
it is to explain how, according to his system, God has
proceeded, at the creation, to unite the principle of order
which he had within himself, his proper intelligence, the
principle of motion, to the principle of motion, the
irrational soul which was in matter. When he speaks of the
place occupied by the ideal world, it is to designate the
divine intelligence, which is its cause. Finally, in no part
of his writings do we find a true personification of the
pretended beings of which he is said to have formed a
trinity: and if this personification existed, it would
equally apply to many other notions, of which might be formed
many different trinities.
This error, into which many ancient as well as modern
interpreters of Plato have fallen, was very natural. Besides
the snares which were concealed in his figurative style;
besides the necessity of comprehending as a whole the system
of his ideas, and not to explain isolated passages, the
nature of his doctrine itself would conduce to this error.
When Plato appeared, the uncertainty of human knowledge, and
the continual illusions of the senses, were acknowledged, and
had given rise to a general scepticism. Socrates had aimed at
raising morality above the influence of this scepticism:
Plato endeavored to save metaphysics, by seeking in the human
intellect a source of certainty which the senses could not
furnish. He invented the system of innate ideas, of which the
aggregate formed, according to him, the ideal world, and
affirmed that these ideas were real attributes, not only
attached to our conceptions of objects, but to the nature of
the objects themselves; a nature of which from them we might
obtain a knowledge. He gave, then, to these ideas a positive
existence as attributes; his commentators could easily give
them a real existence as substances; especially as the terms
which he used to designate them, essential beauty, essential
goodness, lent themselves to this substantialization,
(hypostasis.)—G.
We have retained this view of the original philosophy of
Plato, in which there is probably much truth. The genius of
Plato was rather metaphysical than impersonative: his poetry
was in his language, rather than, like that of the Orientals,
in his conceptions.—M.]
12 (return) [ The modern guides who lead me to the knowledge of
the Platonic system are Cudworth, Basnage, Le Clerc, and Brucker.
As the learning of these writers was equal, and their intention
different, an inquisitive observer may derive instruction from
their disputes, and certainty from their agreement.]
The arms of the Macedonians diffused over Asia and Egypt the
language and learning of Greece; and the theological system of
Plato was taught, with less reserve, and perhaps with some
improvements, in the celebrated school of Alexandria. 13 A
numerous colony of Jews had been invited, by the favor of the
Ptolemies, to settle in their new capital. 14 While the bulk of
the nation practised the legal ceremonies, and pursued the
lucrative occupations of commerce, a few Hebrews, of a more
liberal spirit, devoted their lives to religious and
philosophical contemplation. 15 They cultivated with diligence,
and embraced with ardor, the theological system of the Athenian
sage. But their national pride would have been mortified by a
fair confession of their former poverty: and they boldly marked,
as the sacred inheritance of their ancestors, the gold and jewels
which they had so lately stolen from their Egyptian masters. One
hundred years before the birth of Christ, a philosophical
treatise, which manifestly betrays the style and sentiments of
the school of Plato, was produced by the Alexandrian Jews, and
unanimously received as a genuine and valuable relic of the
inspired Wisdom of Solomon. 16 A similar union of the Mosaic
faith and the Grecian philosophy, distinguishes the works of
Philo, which were composed, for the most part, under the reign of
Augustus. 17 The material soul of the universe 18 might offend
the piety of the Hebrews: but they applied the character of the
Logos to the Jehovah of Moses and the patriarchs; and the Son of
God was introduced upon earth under a visible, and even human
appearance, to perform those familiar offices which seem
incompatible with the nature and attributes of the Universal
Cause. 19
13 (return) [ Brucker, Hist. Philosoph. tom. i. p. 1349-1357. The
Alexandrian school is celebrated by Strabo (l. xvii.) and
Ammianus, (xxii. 6.) Note: The philosophy of Plato was not the
only source of that professed in the school of Alexandria. That
city, in which Greek, Jewish, and Egyptian men of letters were
assembled, was the scene of a strange fusion of the system of
these three people. The Greeks brought a Platonism, already much
changed; the Jews, who had acquired at Babylon a great number of
Oriental notions, and whose theological opinions had undergone
great changes by this intercourse, endeavored to reconcile
Platonism with their new doctrine, and disfigured it entirely:
lastly, the Egyptians, who were not willing to abandon notions
for which the Greeks themselves entertained respect, endeavored
on their side to reconcile their own with those of their
neighbors. It is in Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon that
we trace the influence of Oriental philosophy rather than that of
Platonism. We find in these books, and in those of the later
prophets, as in Ezekiel, notions unknown to the Jews before the
Babylonian captivity, of which we do not discover the germ in
Plato, but which are manifestly derived from the Orientals. Thus
God represented under the image of light, and the principle of
evil under that of darkness; the history of the good and bad
angels; paradise and hell, &c., are doctrines of which the
origin, or at least the positive determination, can only be
referred to the Oriental philosophy. Plato supposed matter
eternal; the Orientals and the Jews considered it as a creation
of God, who alone was eternal. It is impossible to explain the
philosophy of the Alexandrian school solely by the blending of
the Jewish theology with the Greek philosophy. The Oriental
philosophy, however little it may be known, is recognized at
every instant. Thus, according to the Zend Avesta, it is by the
Word (honover) more ancient than the world, that Ormuzd created
the universe. This word is the logos of Philo, consequently very
different from that of Plato. I have shown that Plato never
personified the logos as the ideal archetype of the world: Philo
ventured this personification. The Deity, according to him, has a
double logos; the first is the ideal archetype of the world, the
ideal world, the _first-born_ of the Deity; the second is the
word itself of God, personified under the image of a being acting
to create the sensible world, and to make it like to the ideal
world: it is the second-born of God. Following out his
imaginations, Philo went so far as to personify anew the ideal
world, under the image of a celestial man, the primitive type of
man, and the sensible world under the image of another man less
perfect than the celestial man. Certain notions of the Oriental
philosophy may have given rise to this strange abuse of allegory,
which it is sufficient to relate, to show what alterations
Platonism had already undergone, and what was their source.
Philo, moreover, of all the Jews of Alexandria, is the one whose
Platonism is the most pure. It is from this mixture of
Orientalism, Platonism, and Judaism, that Gnosticism arose, which
had produced so many theological and philosophical
extravagancies, and in which Oriental notions evidently
predominate.—G.]
14 (return) [ Joseph. Antiquitat, l. xii. c. 1, 3. Basnage, Hist.
des Juifs, l. vii. c. 7.]
15 (return) [ For the origin of the Jewish philosophy, see
Eusebius, Præparat. Evangel. viii. 9, 10. According to Philo, the
Therapeutæ studied philosophy; and Brucker has proved (Hist.
Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 787) that they gave the preference to that
of Plato.]
16 (return) [ See Calmet, Dissertations sur la Bible, tom. ii. p.
277. The book of the Wisdom of Solomon was received by many of
the fathers as the work of that monarch: and although rejected by
the Protestants for want of a Hebrew original, it has obtained,
with the rest of the Vulgate, the sanction of the council of
Trent.]
17 (return) [ The Platonism of Philo, which was famous to a
proverb, is proved beyond a doubt by Le Clerc, (Epist. Crit.
viii. p. 211-228.) Basnage (Hist. des Juifs, l. iv. c. 5) has
clearly ascertained, that the theological works of Philo were
composed before the death, and most probably before the birth, of
Christ. In such a time of darkness, the knowledge of Philo is
more astonishing than his errors. Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. s. i.
c. i. p. 12.]
18 (return) [ Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore _miscet_.
Besides this material soul, Cudworth has discovered (p. 562) in
Amelius, Porphyry, Plotinus, and, as he thinks, in Plato himself,
a superior, spiritual _upercosmian_ soul of the universe. But
this double soul is exploded by Brucker, Basnage, and Le Clerc,
as an idle fancy of the latter Platonists.]
19 (return) [ Petav. Dogmata Theologica, tom. ii. l. viii. c. 2,
p. 791. Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. s. i. c. l. p. 8, 13. This
notion, till it was abused by the Arians, was freely adopted in
the Christian theology. Tertullian (adv. Praxeam, c. 16) has a
remarkable and dangerous passage. After contrasting, with
indiscreet wit, the nature of God, and the actions of Jehovah, he
concludes: Scilicet ut hæc de filio Dei non credenda fuisse, si
non scripta essent; fortasse non credenda de l’atre licet
scripta. * Note: Tertullian is here arguing against the
Patripassians; those who asserted that the Father was born of the
Virgin, died and was buried.—M.]
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part II.
The eloquence of Plato, the name of Solomon, the authority of the
school of Alexandria, and the consent of the Jews and Greeks,
were insufficient to establish the truth of a mysterious
doctrine, which might please, but could not satisfy, a rational
mind. A prophet, or apostle, inspired by the Deity, can alone
exercise a lawful dominion over the faith of mankind: and the
theology of Plato might have been forever confounded with the
philosophical visions of the Academy, the Porch, and the Lycæum,
if the name and divine attributes of the _Logos_ had not been
confirmed by the celestial pen of the last and most sublime of
the Evangelists. 20 The Christian Revelation, which was
consummated under the reign of Nerva, disclosed to the world the
amazing secret, that the Logos, who was with God from the
beginning, and was God, who had made all things, and for whom all
things had been made, was incarnate in the person of Jesus of
Nazareth; who had been born of a virgin, and suffered death on
the cross. Besides the general design of fixing on a perpetual
basis the divine honors of Christ, the most ancient and
respectable of the ecclesiastical writers have ascribed to the
evangelic theologian a particular intention to confute two
opposite heresies, which disturbed the peace of the primitive
church. 21 I. The faith of the Ebionites, 22 perhaps of the
Nazarenes, 23 was gross and imperfect. They revered Jesus as the
greatest of the prophets, endowed with supernatural virtue and
power. They ascribed to his person and to his future reign all
the predictions of the Hebrew oracles which relate to the
spiritual and everlasting kingdom of the promised Messiah. 24
Some of them might confess that he was born of a virgin; but they
obstinately rejected the preceding existence and divine
perfections of the _Logos_, or Son of God, which are so clearly
defined in the Gospel of St. John. About fifty years afterwards,
the Ebionites, whose errors are mentioned by Justin Martyr with
less severity than they seem to deserve, 25 formed a very
inconsiderable portion of the Christian name. II. The Gnostics,
who were distinguished by the epithet of _Docetes_, deviated into
the contrary extreme; and betrayed the human, while they asserted
the divine, nature of Christ. Educated in the school of Plato,
accustomed to the sublime idea of the Logos, they readily
conceived that the brightest _Æon_, or _Emanation_ of the Deity,
might assume the outward shape and visible appearances of a
mortal; 26 but they vainly pretended, that the imperfections of
matter are incompatible with the purity of a celestial substance.
While the blood of Christ yet smoked on Mount Calvary, the
Docetes invented the impious and extravagant hypothesis, that,
instead of issuing from the womb of the Virgin, 27 he had
descended on the banks of the Jordan in the form of perfect
manhood; that he had imposed on the senses of his enemies, and of
his disciples; and that the ministers of Pilate had wasted their
impotent rage on an ury phantom, who _seemed_ to expire on the
cross, and, after three days, to rise from the dead. 28
20 (return) [ The Platonists admired the beginning of the Gospel
of St. John as containing an exact transcript of their own
principles. Augustin de Civitat. Dei, x. 29. Amelius apud Cyril.
advers. Julian. l. viii. p. 283. But in the third and fourth
centuries, the Platonists of Alexandria might improve their
Trinity by the secret study of the Christian theology. Note: A
short discussion on the sense in which St. John has used the word
Logos, will prove that he has not borrowed it from the philosophy
of Plato. The evangelist adopts this word without previous
explanation, as a term with which his contemporaries were already
familiar, and which they could at once comprehend. To know the
sense which he gave to it, we must inquire that which it
generally bore in his time. We find two: the one attached to the
word _logos_ by the Jews of Palestine, the other by the school of
Alexandria, particularly by Philo. The Jews had feared at all
times to pronounce the name of Jehovah; they had formed a habit
of designating God by one of his attributes; they called him
sometimes Wisdom, sometimes the Word. _By the word of the Lord
were the heavens made_. (Psalm xxxiii. 6.) Accustomed to
allegories, they often addressed themselves to this attribute of
the Deity as a real being. Solomon makes Wisdom say “The Lord
possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of
old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever
the earth was.” (Prov. viii. 22, 23.) Their residence in Persia
only increased this inclination to sustained allegories. In the
Ecclesiasticus of the son of Sirach, and the Book of Wisdom, we
find allegorical descriptions of Wisdom like the following: “I
came out of the mouth of the Most High; I covered the earth as a
cloud;... I alone compassed the circuit of heaven, and walked in
the bottom of the deep... The Creator created me from the
beginning, before the world, and I shall never fail.” (Eccles.
xxiv. 35- 39.) See also the Wisdom of Solomon, c. vii. v. 9. [The
latter book is clearly Alexandrian.—M.] We see from this that the
Jews understood from the Hebrew and Chaldaic words which signify
Wisdom, the Word, and which were translated into Greek, a simple
attribute of the Deity, allegorically personified, but of which
they did not make a real particular being separate from the
Deity.
The school of Alexandria, on the contrary, and Philo among
the rest, mingling Greek with Jewish and Oriental notions,
and abandoning himself to his inclination to mysticism,
personified the logos, and represented it a distinct being,
created by God, and intermediate between God and man. This is
the second _logos_ of Philo, that which acts from the
beginning of the world, alone in its kind, creator of the
sensible world, formed by God according to the ideal world
which he had in himself, and which was the first logos, the
first- born of the Deity. The logos taken in this sense,
then, was a created being, but, anterior to the creation of
the world, near to God, and charged with his revelations to
mankind.
Which of these two senses is that which St. John intended to
assign to the word logos in the first chapter of his Gospel,
and in all his writings? St. John was a Jew, born and
educated in Palestine; he had no knowledge, at least very
little, of the philosophy of the Greeks, and that of the
Grecizing Jews: he would naturally, then, attach to the word
_logos_ the sense attached to it by the Jews of Palestine.
If, in fact, we compare the attributes which he assigns to
the _logos_ with those which are assigned to it in Proverbs,
in the Wisdom of Solomon, in Ecclesiasticus, we shall see
that they are the same. The Word was in the world, and the
world was made by him; in him was life, and the life was the
light of men, (c. i. v. 10-14.) It is impossible not to trace
in this chapter the ideas which the Jews had formed of the
allegorized logos. The evangelist afterwards really
personifies that which his predecessors have personified only
poetically; for he affirms “_that the Word became flesh_,”
(v. 14.) It was to prove this that he wrote. Closely
examined, the ideas which he gives of the logos cannot agree
with those of Philo and the school of Alexandria; they
correspond, on the contrary, with those of the Jews of
Palestine. Perhaps St. John, employing a well-known term to
explain a doctrine which was yet unknown, has slightly
altered the sense; it is this alteration which we appear to
discover on comparing different passages of his writings.
It is worthy of remark, that the Jews of Palestine, who did
not perceive this alteration, could find nothing
extraordinary in what St. John said of the Logos; at least
they comprehended it without difficulty, while the Greeks and
Grecizing Jews, on their part, brought to it prejudices and
preconceptions easily reconciled with those of the
evangelist, who did not expressly contradict them. This
circumstance must have much favored the progress of
Christianity. Thus the fathers of the church in the two first
centuries and later, formed almost all in the school of
Alexandria, gave to the Logos of St. John a sense nearly
similar to that which it received from Philo. Their doctrine
approached very near to that which in the fourth century the
council of Nice condemned in the person of Arius.—G.
M. Guizot has forgotten the long residence of St. John at
Ephesus, the centre of the mingling opinions of the East and
West, which were gradually growing up into Gnosticism. (See
Matter. Hist. du Gnosticisme, vol. i. p. 154.) St. John’s
sense of the Logos seems as far removed from the simple
allegory ascribed to the Palestinian Jews as from the
Oriental impersonation of the Alexandrian. The simple truth
may be that St. John took the familiar term, and, as it were
infused into it the peculiar and Christian sense in which it
is used in his writings.—M.]
21 (return) [ See Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, tom.
i. p. 377. The Gospel according to St. John is supposed to have
been published about seventy years after the death of Christ.]
22 (return) [ The sentiments of the Ebionites are fairly stated
by Mosheim (p. 331) and Le Clerc, (Hist. Eccles. p. 535.) The
Clementines, published among the apostolical fathers, are
attributed by the critics to one of these sectaries.]
23 (return) [ Stanch polemics, like a Bull, (Judicium Eccles.
Cathol. c. 2,) insist on the orthodoxy of the Nazarenes; which
appears less pure and certain in the eyes of Mosheim, (p. 330.)]
24 (return) [ The humble condition and sufferings of Jesus have
always been a stumbling-block to the Jews. “Deus... contrariis
coloribus Messiam depinxerat: futurus erat Rex, Judex, Pastor,”
&c. See Limborch et Orobio Amica Collat. p. 8, 19, 53-76,
192-234. But this objection has obliged the believing Christians
to lift up their eyes to a spiritual and everlasting kingdom.]
25 (return) [ Justin Martyr, Dialog. cum Tryphonte, p. 143, 144.
See Le Clerc, Hist. Eccles. p. 615. Bull and his editor Grabe
(Judicium Eccles. Cathol. c. 7, and Appendix) attempt to distort
either the sentiments or the words of Justin; but their violent
correction of the text is rejected even by the Benedictine
editors.]
26 (return) [ The Arians reproached the orthodox party with
borrowing their Trinity from the Valentinians and Marcionites.
See Beausobre, Hist. de Manicheisme, l. iii. c. 5, 7.]
27 (return) [ Non dignum est ex utero credere Deum, et Deum
Christum.... non dignum est ut tanta majestas per sordes et
squalores muli eris transire credatur. The Gnostics asserted the
impurity of matter, and of marriage; and they were scandalized by
the gross interpretations of the fathers, and even of Augustin
himself. See Beausobre, tom. ii. p. 523, * Note: The greater part
of the Docetæ rejected the true divinity of Jesus Christ, as well
as his human nature. They belonged to the Gnostics, whom some
philosophers, in whose party Gibbon has enlisted, make to derive
their opinions from those of Plato. These philosophers did not
consider that Platonism had undergone continual alterations, and
that those who gave it some analogy with the notions of the
Gnostics were later in their origin than most of the sects
comprehended under this name Mosheim has proved (in his Instit.
Histor. Eccles. Major. s. i. p. 136, sqq and p. 339, sqq.) that
the Oriental philosophy, combined with the cabalistical
philosophy of the Jews, had given birth to Gnosticism. The
relations which exist between this doctrine and the records which
remain to us of that of the Orientals, the Chaldean and Persian,
have been the source of the errors of the Gnostic Christians, who
wished to reconcile their ancient notions with their new belief.
It is on this account that, denying the human nature of Christ,
they also denied his intimate union with God, and took him for
one of the substances (æons) created by God. As they believed in
the eternity of matter, and considered it to be the principle of
evil, in opposition to the Deity, the first cause and principle
of good, they were unwilling to admit that one of the pure
substances, one of the æons which came forth from God, had, by
partaking in the material nature, allied himself to the principle
of evil; and this was their motive for rejecting the real
humanity of Jesus Christ. See Ch. G. F. Walch, Hist. of Heresies
in Germ. t. i. p. 217, sqq. Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil. ii. p
639.—G.]
28 (return) [ Apostolis adhuc in sæculo superstitibus apud Judæam
Christi sanguine recente, et _phantasma_ corpus Domini
asserebatur. Cotelerius thinks (Patres Apostol. tom. ii. p. 24)
that those who will not allow the _Docetes_ to have arisen in the
time of the Apostles, may with equal reason deny that the sun
shines at noonday. These _Docetes_, who formed the most
considerable party among the Gnostics, were so called, because
they granted only a _seeming_ body to Christ. * Note: The name of
Docetæ was given to these sectaries only in the course of the
second century: this name did not designate a sect, properly so
called; it applied to all the sects who taught the non- reality
of the material body of Christ; of this number were the
Valentinians, the Basilidians, the Ophites, the Marcionites,
(against whom Tertullian wrote his book, De Carne Christi,) and
other Gnostics. In truth, Clement of Alexandria (l. iii. Strom.
c. 13, p. 552) makes express mention of a sect of Docetæ, and
even names as one of its heads a certain Cassianus; but every
thing leads us to believe that it was not a distinct sect.
Philastrius (de Hæres, c. 31) reproaches Saturninus with being a
Docete. Irenæus (adv. Hær. c. 23) makes the same reproach against
Basilides. Epiphanius and Philastrius, who have treated in detail
on each particular heresy, do not specially name that of the
Docetæ. Serapion, bishop of Antioch, (Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. vi.
c. 12,) and Clement of Alexandria, (l. vii. Strom. p. 900,)
appear to be the first who have used the generic name. It is not
found in any earlier record, though the error which it points out
existed even in the time of the Apostles. See Ch. G. F. Walch,
Hist. of Her. v. i. p. 283. Tillemont, Mempour servir a la Hist
Eccles. ii. p. 50. Buddæus de Eccles. Apost. c. 5 & 7—G.]
The divine sanction, which the Apostle had bestowed on the
fundamental principle of the theology of Plato, encouraged the
learned proselytes of the second and third centuries to admire
and study the writings of the Athenian sage, who had thus
marvellously anticipated one of the most surprising discoveries
of the Christian revelation. The respectable name of Plato was
used by the orthodox, 29 and abused by the heretics, 30 as the
common support of truth and error: the authority of his skilful
commentators, and the science of dialectics, were employed to
justify the remote consequences of his opinions and to supply the
discreet silence of the inspired writers. The same subtle and
profound questions concerning the nature, the generation, the
distinction, and the equality of the three divine persons of the
mysterious _Triad_, or _Trinity_, 31 were agitated in the
philosophical and in the Christian schools of Alexandria. An
eager spirit of curiosity urged them to explore the secrets of
the abyss; and the pride of the professors, and of their
disciples, was satisfied with the sciences of words. But the most
sagacious of the Christian theologians, the great Athanasius
himself, has candidly confessed, 32 that whenever he forced his
understanding to meditate on the divinity of the _Logos_, his
toilsome and unavailing efforts recoiled on themselves; that the
more he thought, the less he comprehended; and the more he wrote,
the less capable was he of expressing his thoughts. In every step
of the inquiry, we are compelled to feel and acknowledge the
immeasurable disproportion between the size of the object and the
capacity of the human mind. We may strive to abstract the notions
of time, of space, and of matter, which so closely adhere to all
the perceptions of our experimental knowledge. But as soon as we
presume to reason of infinite substance, of spiritual generation;
as often as we deduce any positive conclusions from a negative
idea, we are involved in darkness, perplexity, and inevitable
contradiction. As these difficulties arise from the nature of the
subject, they oppress, with the same insuperable weight, the
philosophic and the theological disputant; but we may observe two
essential and peculiar circumstances, which discriminated the
doctrines of the Catholic church from the opinions of the
Platonic school.
29 (return) [ Some proofs of the respect which the Christians
entertained for the person and doctrine of Plato may be found in
De la Mothe le Vayer, tom. v. p. 135, &c., edit. 1757; and
Basnage, Hist. des Juifs tom. iv. p. 29, 79, &c.]
30 (return) [ Doleo bona fide, Platonem omnium heræticorum
condimentarium factum. Tertullian. de Anima, c. 23. Petavius
(Dogm. Theolog. tom. iii. proleg. 2) shows that this was a
general complaint. Beausobre (tom. i. l. iii. c. 9, 10) has
deduced the Gnostic errors from Platonic principles; and as, in
the school of Alexandria, those principles were blended with the
Oriental philosophy, (Brucker, tom. i. p. 1356,) the sentiment of
Beausobre may be reconciled with the opinion of Mosheim, (General
History of the Church, vol. i. p. 37.)]
31 (return) [ If Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, (see Dupin,
Bibliothèque Ecclesiastique, tom. i. p. 66,) was the first who
employed the word _Triad_, _Trinity_, that abstract term, which
was already familiar to the schools of philosophy, must have been
introduced into the theology of the Christians after the middle
of the second century.]
32 (return) [ Athanasius, tom. i. p. 808. His expressions have an
uncommon energy; and as he was writing to monks, there could not
be any occasion for him to _affect_ a rational language.]
I. A chosen society of philosophers, men of a liberal education
and curious disposition, might silently meditate, and temperately
discuss in the gardens of Athens or the library of Alexandria,
the abstruse questions of metaphysical science. The lofty
speculations, which neither convinced the understanding, nor
agitated the passions, of the Platonists themselves, were
carelessly overlooked by the idle, the busy, and even the
studious part of mankind. 33 But after the _Logos_ had been
revealed as the sacred object of the faith, the hope, and the
religious worship of the Christians, the mysterious system was
embraced by a numerous and increasing multitude in every province
of the Roman world. Those persons who, from their age, or sex, or
occupations, were the least qualified to judge, who were the
least exercised in the habits of abstract reasoning, aspired to
contemplate the economy of the Divine Nature: and it is the boast
of Tertullian, 34 that a Christian mechanic could readily answer
such questions as had perplexed the wisest of the Grecian sages.
Where the subject lies so far beyond our reach, the difference
between the highest and the lowest of human understandings may
indeed be calculated as infinitely small; yet the degree of
weakness may perhaps be measured by the degree of obstinacy and
dogmatic confidence. These speculations, instead of being treated
as the amusement of a vacant hour, became the most serious
business of the present, and the most useful preparation for a
future, life. A theology, which it was incumbent to believe,
which it was impious to doubt, and which it might be dangerous,
and even fatal, to mistake, became the familiar topic of private
meditation and popular discourse. The cold indifference of
philosophy was inflamed by the fervent spirit of devotion; and
even the metaphors of common language suggested the fallacious
prejudices of sense and experience. The Christians, who abhorred
the gross and impure generation of the Greek mythology, 35 were
tempted to argue from the familiar analogy of the filial and
paternal relations. The character of _Son_ seemed to imply a
perpetual subordination to the voluntary author of his existence;
36 but as the act of generation, in the most spiritual and
abstracted sense, must be supposed to transmit the properties of
a common nature, 37 they durst not presume to circumscribe the
powers or the duration of the Son of an eternal and omnipotent
Father. Fourscore years after the death of Christ, the Christians
of Bithynia, declared before the tribunal of Pliny, that they
invoked him as a god: and his divine honors have been perpetuated
in every age and country, by the various sects who assume the
name of his disciples. 38 Their tender reverence for the memory
of Christ, and their horror for the profane worship of any
created being, would have engaged them to assert the equal and
absolute divinity of the _Logos_, if their rapid ascent towards
the throne of heaven had not been imperceptibly checked by the
apprehension of violating the unity and sole supremacy of the
great Father of Christ and of the Universe. The suspense and
fluctuation produced in the minds of the Christians by these
opposite tendencies, may be observed in the writings of the
theologians who flourished after the end of the apostolic age,
and before the origin of the Arian controversy. Their suffrage is
claimed, with equal confidence, by the orthodox and by the
heretical parties; and the most inquisitive critics have fairly
allowed, that if they had the good fortune of possessing the
Catholic verity, they have delivered their conceptions in loose,
inaccurate, and sometimes contradictory language. 39
33 (return) [ In a treatise, which professed to explain the
opinions of the ancient philosophers concerning the nature of the
gods we might expect to discover the theological Trinity of
Plato. But Cicero very honestly confessed, that although he had
translated the Timæus, he could never understand that mysterious
dialogue. See Hieronym. præf. ad l. xii. in Isaiam, tom. v. p.
154.]
34 (return) [ Tertullian. in Apolog. c. 46. See Bayle,
Dictionnaire, au mot _Simonide_. His remarks on the presumption
of Tertullian are profound and interesting.]
35 (return) [ Lactantius, iv. 8. Yet the _Probole_, or
_Prolatio_, which the most orthodox divines borrowed without
scruple from the Valentinians, and illustrated by the comparisons
of a fountain and stream, the sun and its rays, &c., either meant
nothing, or favored a material idea of the divine generation. See
Beausobre, tom. i. l. iii. c. 7, p. 548.]
36 (return) [ Many of the primitive writers have frankly
confessed, that the Son owed his being to the _will_ of the
Father.——See Clarke’s Scripture Trinity, p. 280-287. On the other
hand, Athanasius and his followers seem unwilling to grant what
they are afraid to deny. The schoolmen extricate themselves from
this difficulty by the distinction of a _preceding_ and a
_concomitant_ will. Petav. Dogm. Theolog. tom. ii. l. vi. c. 8,
p. 587-603.]
37 (return) [ See Petav. Dogm. Theolog. tom. ii. l. ii. c. 10, p.
159.]
38 (return) [ Carmenque Christo quasi Deo dicere secum invicem.
Plin. Epist. x. 97. The sense of _Deus, Elohim_, in the ancient
languages, is critically examined by Le Clerc, (Ars Critica, p.
150-156,) and the propriety of worshipping a very excellent
creature is ably defended by the Socinian Emlyn, (Tracts, p.
29-36, 51-145.)]
39 (return) [ See Daille de Usu Patrum, and Le Clerc,
Bibliothèque Universelle, tom. x. p. 409. To arraign the faith of
the Ante-Nicene fathers, was the object, or at least has been the
effect, of the stupendous work of Petavius on the Trinity, (Dogm.
Theolog. tom. ii.;) nor has the deep impression been erased by
the learned defence of Bishop Bull. Note: Dr. Burton’s work on
the doctrine of the Ante-Nicene fathers must be consulted by
those who wish to obtain clear notions on this subject.—M.]
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part
III.
II. The devotion of individuals was the first circumstance which
distinguished the Christians from the Platonists: the second was
the authority of the church. The disciples of philosophy asserted
the rights of intellectual freedom, and their respect for the
sentiments of their teachers was a liberal and voluntary tribute,
which they offered to superior reason. But the Christians formed
a numerous and disciplined society; and the jurisdiction of their
laws and magistrates was strictly exercised over the minds of the
faithful. The loose wanderings of the imagination were gradually
confined by creeds and confessions; 40 the freedom of private
judgment submitted to the public wisdom of synods; the authority
of a theologian was determined by his ecclesiastical rank; and
the episcopal successors of the apostles inflicted the censures
of the church on those who deviated from the orthodox belief. But
in an age of religious controversy, every act of oppression adds
new force to the elastic vigor of the mind; and the zeal or
obstinacy of a spiritual rebel was sometimes stimulated by secret
motives of ambition or avarice. A metaphysical argument became
the cause or pretence of political contests; the subtleties of
the Platonic school were used as the badges of popular factions,
and the distance which separated their respective tenets were
enlarged or magnified by the acrimony of dispute. As long as the
dark heresies of Praxeas and Sabellius labored to confound the
_Father_ with the _Son_, 41 the orthodox party might be excused
if they adhered more strictly and more earnestly to the
_distinction_, than to the _equality_, of the divine persons. But
as soon as the heat of controversy had subsided, and the progress
of the Sabellians was no longer an object of terror to the
churches of Rome, of Africa, or of Egypt, the tide of theological
opinion began to flow with a gentle but steady motion towards the
contrary extreme; and the most orthodox doctors allowed
themselves the use of the terms and definitions which had been
censured in the mouth of the sectaries. 42 After the edict of
toleration had restored peace and leisure to the Christians, the
Trinitarian controversy was revived in the ancient seat of
Platonism, the learned, the opulent, the tumultuous city of
Alexandria; and the flame of religious discord was rapidly
communicated from the schools to the clergy, the people, the
province, and the East. The abstruse question of the eternity of
the _Logos_ was agitated in ecclesiastic conferences and popular
sermons; and the heterodox opinions of Arius 43 were soon made
public by his own zeal, and by that of his adversaries. His most
implacable adversaries have acknowledged the learning and
blameless life of that eminent presbyter, who, in a former
election, had declared, and perhaps generously declined, his
pretensions to the episcopal throne. 44 His competitor Alexander
assumed the office of his judge. The important cause was argued
before him; and if at first he seemed to hesitate, he at length
pronounced his final sentence, as an absolute rule of faith. 45
The undaunted presbyter, who presumed to resist the authority of
his angry bishop, was separated from the community of the church.
But the pride of Arius was supported by the applause of a
numerous party. He reckoned among his immediate followers two
bishops of Egypt, seven presbyters, twelve deacons, and (what may
appear almost incredible) seven hundred virgins. A large majority
of the bishops of Asia appeared to support or favor his cause;
and their measures were conducted by Eusebius of Cæsarea, the
most learned of the Christian prelates; and by Eusebius of
Nicomedia, who had acquired the reputation of a statesman without
forfeiting that of a saint. Synods in Palestine and Bithynia were
opposed to the synods of Egypt. The attention of the prince and
people was attracted by this theological dispute; and the
decision, at the end of six years, 46 was referred to the supreme
authority of the general council of Nice.
40 (return) [ The most ancient creeds were drawn up with the
greatest latitude. See Bull, (Judicium Eccles. Cathol.,) who
tries to prevent Episcopius from deriving any advantage from this
observation.]
41 (return) [ The heresies of Praxeas, Sabellius, &c., are
accurately explained by Mosheim (p. 425, 680-714.) Praxeas, who
came to Rome about the end of the second century, deceived, for
some time, the simplicity of the bishop, and was confuted by the
pen of the angry Tertullian.]
42 (return) [ Socrates acknowledges, that the heresy of Arius
proceeded from his strong desire to embrace an opinion the most
diametrically opposite to that of Sabellius.]
43 (return) [ The figure and manners of Arius, the character and
numbers of his first proselytes, are painted in very lively
colors by Epiphanius, (tom. i. Hæres. lxix. 3, p. 729,) and we
cannot but regret that he should soon forget the historian, to
assume the task of controversy.]
44 (return) [ See Philostorgius (l. i. c. 3,) and Godefroy’s
ample Commentary. Yet the credibility of Philostorgius is
lessened, in the eyes of the orthodox, by his Arianism; and in
those of rational critics, by his passion, his prejudice, and his
ignorance.]
45 (return) [ Sozomen (l. i. c. 15) represents Alexander as
indifferent, and even ignorant, in the beginning of the
controversy; while Socrates (l. i. c. 5) ascribes the origin of
the dispute to the vain curiosity of his theological
speculations. Dr. Jortin (Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol.
ii. p. 178) has censured, with his usual freedom, the conduct of
Alexander.]
46 (return) [ The flames of Arianism might burn for some time in
secret; but there is reason to believe that they burst out with
violence as early as the year 319. Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom.
vi. p. 774-780.]
When the mysteries of the Christian faith were dangerously
exposed to public debate, it might be observed, that the human
understanding was capable of forming three district, though
imperfect systems, concerning the nature of the Divine Trinity;
and it was pronounced, that none of these systems, in a pure and
absolute sense, were exempt from heresy and error. 47 I.
According to the first hypothesis, which was maintained by Arius
and his disciples, the _Logos_ was a dependent and spontaneous
production, created from nothing by the will of the father. The
Son, by whom all things were made, 48 had been begotten before
all worlds, and the longest of the astronomical periods could be
compared only as a fleeting moment to the extent of his duration;
yet this duration was not infinite, 49 and there _had_ been a
time which preceded the ineffable generation of the _Logos_. On
this only-begotten Son, the Almighty Father had transfused his
ample spirit, and impressed the effulgence of his glory. Visible
image of invisible perfection, he saw, at an immeasurable
distance beneath his feet, the thrones of the brightest
archangels; yet he shone only with a reflected light, and, like
the sons of the Romans emperors, who were invested with the
titles of Cæsar or Augustus, 50 he governed the universe in
obedience to the will of his Father and Monarch. II. In the
second hypothesis, the _Logos_ possessed all the inherent,
incommunicable perfections, which religion and philosophy
appropriate to the Supreme God. Three distinct and infinite minds
or substances, three coëqual and coëternal beings, composed the
Divine Essence; 51 and it would have implied contradiction, that
any of them should not have existed, or that they should ever
cease to exist. 52 The advocates of a system which seemed to
establish three independent Deities, attempted to preserve the
unity of the First Cause, so conspicuous in the design and order
of the world, by the perpetual concord of their administration,
and the essential agreement of their will. A faint resemblance of
this unity of action may be discovered in the societies of men,
and even of animals. The causes which disturb their harmony,
proceed only from the imperfection and inequality of their
faculties; but the omnipotence which is guided by infinite wisdom
and goodness, cannot fail of choosing the same means for the
accomplishment of the same ends. III. Three beings, who, by the
self-derived necessity of their existence, possess all the divine
attributes in the most perfect degree; who are eternal in
duration, infinite in space, and intimately present to each
other, and to the whole universe; irresistibly force themselves
on the astonished mind, as one and the same being, 53 who, in the
economy of grace, as well as in that of nature, may manifest
himself under different forms, and be considered under different
aspects. By this hypothesis, a real substantial trinity is
refined into a trinity of names, and abstract modifications, that
subsist only in the mind which conceives them. The _Logos_ is no
longer a person, but an attribute; and it is only in a figurative
sense that the epithet of Son can be applied to the eternal
reason, which was with God from the beginning, and by _which_,
not by _whom_, all things were made. The incarnation of the
_Logos_ is reduced to a mere inspiration of the Divine Wisdom,
which filled the soul, and directed all the actions, of the man
Jesus. Thus, after revolving around the theological circle, we
are surprised to find that the Sabellian ends where the Ebionite
had begun; and that the incomprehensible mystery which excites
our adoration, eludes our inquiry. 54
47 (return) [ Quid credidit? Certe, _aut_ tria nomina audiens
tres Deos esse credidit, et idololatra effectus est; _aut_ in
tribus vocabulis trinominem credens Deum, in Sabellii hæresim
incurrit; _aut_ edoctus ab Arianis unum esse verum Deum Patrem,
filium et spiritum sanctum credidit creaturas. Aut extra hæc quid
credere potuerit nescio. Hieronym adv. Luciferianos. Jerom
reserves for the last the orthodox system, which is more
complicated and difficult.]
48 (return) [ As the doctrine of absolute creation from nothing
was gradually introduced among the Christians, (Beausobre, tom.
ii. p. 165- 215,) the dignity of the _workman_ very naturally
rose with that of the _work_.]
49 (return) [ The metaphysics of Dr. Clarke (Scripture Trinity,
p. 276-280) could digest an eternal generation from an infinite
cause.]
50 (return) [ This profane and absurd simile is employed by
several of the primitive fathers, particularly by Athenagoras, in
his Apology to the emperor Marcus and his son; and it is alleged,
without censure, by Bull himself. See Defens. Fid. Nicen. sect.
iii. c. 5, No. 4.]
51 (return) [ See Cudworth’s Intellectual System, p. 559, 579.
This dangerous hypothesis was countenanced by the two Gregories,
of Nyssa and Nazianzen, by Cyril of Alexandria, John of Damascus,
&c. See Cudworth, p. 603. Le Clerc, Bibliothèque Universelle, tom
xviii. p. 97-105.]
52 (return) [ Augustin seems to envy the freedom of the
Philosophers. Liberis verbis loquuntur philosophi.... Nos autem
non dicimus duo vel tria principia, duos vel tres Deos. De
Civitat. Dei, x. 23.]
53 (return) [ Boetius, who was deeply versed in the philosophy of
Plato and Aristotle, explains the unity of the Trinity by the
_indifference_ of the three persons. See the judicious remarks of
Le Clerc, Bibliothèque Choisie, tom. xvi. p. 225, &c.]
54 (return) [ If the Sabellians were startled at this conclusion,
they were driven another precipice into the confession, that the
Father was born of a virgin, that _he_ had suffered on the cross;
and thus deserved the epithet of _Patripassians_, with which they
were branded by their adversaries. See the invectives of
Tertullian against Praxeas, and the temperate reflections of
Mosheim, (p. 423, 681;) and Beausobre, tom. i. l. iii. c. 6, p.
533.]
If the bishops of the council of Nice 55 had been permitted to
follow the unbiased dictates of their conscience, Arius and his
associates could scarcely have flattered themselves with the
hopes of obtaining a majority of votes, in favor of an hypothesis
so directly averse to the two most popular opinions of the
Catholic world. The Arians soon perceived the danger of their
situation, and prudently assumed those modest virtues, which, in
the fury of civil and religious dissensions, are seldom
practised, or even praised, except by the weaker party. They
recommended the exercise of Christian charity and moderation;
urged the incomprehensible nature of the controversy, disclaimed
the use of any terms or definitions which could not be found in
the Scriptures; and offered, by very liberal concessions, to
satisfy their adversaries without renouncing the integrity of
their own principles. The victorious faction received all their
proposals with haughty suspicion; and anxiously sought for some
irreconcilable mark of distinction, the rejection of which might
involve the Arians in the guilt and consequences of heresy. A
letter was publicly read, and ignominiously torn, in which their
patron, Eusebius of Nicomedia, ingenuously confessed, that the
admission of the Homoousion, or Consubstantial, a word already
familiar to the Platonists, was incompatible with the principles
of their theological system. The fortunate opportunity was
eagerly embraced by the bishops, who governed the resolutions of
the synod; and, according to the lively expression of Ambrose, 56
they used the sword, which heresy itself had drawn from the
scabbard, to cut off the head of the hated monster. The
consubstantiality of the Father and the Son was established by
the council of Nice, and has been unanimously received as a
fundamental article of the Christian faith, by the consent of the
Greek, the Latin, the Oriental, and the Protestant churches. But
if the same word had not served to stigmatize the heretics, and
to unite the Catholics, it would have been inadequate to the
purpose of the majority, by whom it was introduced into the
orthodox creed. This majority was divided into two parties,
distinguished by a contrary tendency to the sentiments of the
Tritheists and of the Sabellians. But as those opposite extremes
seemed to overthrow the foundations either of natural or revealed
religion, they mutually agreed to qualify the rigor of their
principles; and to disavow the just, but invidious, consequences,
which might be urged by their antagonists. The interest of the
common cause inclined them to join their numbers, and to conceal
their differences; their animosity was softened by the healing
counsels of toleration, and their disputes were suspended by the
use of the mysterious _Homoousion_, which either party was free
to interpret according to their peculiar tenets. The Sabellian
sense, which, about fifty years before, had obliged the council
of Antioch 57 to prohibit this celebrated term, had endeared it
to those theologians who entertained a secret but partial
affection for a nominal Trinity. But the more fashionable saints
of the Arian times, the intrepid Athanasius, the learned Gregory
Nazianzen, and the other pillars of the church, who supported
with ability and success the Nicene doctrine, appeared to
consider the expression of _substance_ as if it had been
synonymous with that of _nature;_ and they ventured to illustrate
their meaning, by affirming that three men, as they belong to the
same common species, are consubstantial, or homoousian to each
other. 58 This pure and distinct equality was tempered, on the
one hand, by the internal connection, and spiritual penetration
which indissolubly unites the divine persons; 59 and, on the
other, by the preëminence of the Father, which was acknowledged
as far as it is compatible with the independence of the Son. 60
Within these limits, the almost invisible and tremulous ball of
orthodoxy was allowed securely to vibrate. On either side, beyond
this consecrated ground, the heretics and the dæmons lurked in
ambush to surprise and devour the unhappy wanderer. But as the
degrees of theological hatred depend on the spirit of the war,
rather than on the importance of the controversy, the heretics
who degraded, were treated with more severity than those who
annihilated, the person of the Son. The life of Athanasius was
consumed in irreconcilable opposition to the impious _madness_ of
the Arians; 61 but he defended above twenty years the
Sabellianism of Marcellus of Ancyra; and when at last he was
compelled to withdraw himself from his communion, he continued to
mention, with an ambiguous smile, the venial errors of his
respectable friend. 62
55 (return) [ The transactions of the council of Nice are related
by the ancients, not only in a partial, but in a very imperfect
manner. Such a picture as Fra Paolo would have drawn, can never
be recovered; but such rude sketches as have been traced by the
pencil of bigotry, and that of reason, may be seen in Tillemont,
(Mém. Eccles. tom. v. p. 669-759,) and in Le Clerc, (Bibliothèque
Universelle, tom. x p. 435-454.)]
56 (return) [ We are indebted to Ambrose (De Fide, l. iii.)
knowledge of this curious anecdote. Hoc verbum quod viderunt
adversariis esse formidini; ut ipsis gladio, ipsum nefandæ caput
hæreseos.]
57 (return) [ See Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. sect. ii. c. i. p.
25-36. He thinks it his duty to reconcile two orthodox synods.]
58 (return) [ According to Aristotle, the stars were homoousian
to each other. “That _Homoousios_ means of one substance in
_kind_, hath been shown by Petavius, Curcellæus, Cudworth, Le
Clerc, &c., and to prove it would be _actum agere_.” This is the
just remark of Dr. Jortin, (vol. ii p. 212,) who examines the
Arian controversy with learning, candor, and ingenuity.]
59 (return) [ See Petavius, (Dogm. Theolog. tom. ii. l. iv. c.
16, p. 453, &c.,) Cudworth, (p. 559,) Bull, (sect. iv. p.
285-290, edit. Grab.) The _circumincessio_, is perhaps the
deepest and darkest he whole theological abyss.]
60 (return) [ The third section of Bull’s Defence of the Nicene
Faith, which some of his antagonists have called nonsense, and
others heresy, is consecrated to the supremacy of the Father.]
61 (return) [ The ordinary appellation with which Athanasius and
his followers chose to compliment the Arians, was that of
_Ariomanites_.]
62 (return) [ Epiphanius, tom i. Hæres. lxxii. 4, p. 837. See the
adventures of Marcellus, in Tillemont, (Mém. Eccles. tom. v. i.
p. 880- 899.) His work, in _one_ book, of the unity of God, was
answered in the _three_ books, which are still extant, of
Eusebius.——After a long and careful examination, Petavius (tom.
ii. l. i. c. 14, p. 78) has reluctantly pronounced the
condemnation of Marcellus.]
The authority of a general council, to which the Arians
themselves had been compelled to submit, inscribed on the banners
of the orthodox party the mysterious characters of the word
_Homoousion_, which essentially contributed, notwithstanding some
obscure disputes, some nocturnal combats, to maintain and
perpetuate the uniformity of faith, or at least of language. The
consubstantialists, who by their success have deserved and
obtained the title of Catholics, gloried in the simplicity and
steadiness of their own creed, and insulted the repeated
variations of their adversaries, who were destitute of any
certain rule of faith. The sincerity or the cunning of the Arian
chiefs, the fear of the laws or of the people, their reverence
for Christ, their hatred of Athanasius, all the causes, human and
divine, that influence and disturb the counsels of a theological
faction, introduced among the sectaries a spirit of discord and
inconstancy, which, in the course of a few years, erected
eighteen different models of religion, 63 and avenged the
violated dignity of the church. The zealous Hilary, 64 who, from
the peculiar hardships of his situation, was inclined to
extenuate rather than to aggravate the errors of the Oriental
clergy, declares, that in the wide extent of the ten provinces of
Asia, to which he had been banished, there could be found very
few prelates who had preserved the knowledge of the true God. 65
The oppression which he had felt, the disorders of which he was
the spectator and the victim, appeased, during a short interval,
the angry passions of his soul; and in the following passage, of
which I shall transcribe a few lines, the bishop of Poitiers
unwarily deviates into the style of a Christian philosopher. “It
is a thing,” says Hilary, “equally deplorable and dangerous, that
there are as many creeds as opinions among men, as many doctrines
as inclinations, and as many sources of blasphemy as there are
faults among us; because we make creeds arbitrarily, and explain
them as arbitrarily. The Homoousion is rejected, and received,
and explained away by successive synods. The partial or total
resemblance of the Father and of the Son is a subject of dispute
for these unhappy times. Every year, nay, every moon, we make new
creeds to describe invisible mysteries. We repent of what we have
done, we defend those who repent, we anathematize those whom we
defended. We condemn either the doctrine of others in ourselves,
or our own in that of others; and reciprocally tearing one
another to pieces, we have been the cause of each other’s ruin.”
66
63 (return) [ Athanasius, in his epistle concerning the Synods of
Seleucia and Rimini, (tom. i. p. 886-905,) has given an ample
list of Arian creeds, which has been enlarged and improved by the
labors of the indefatigable Tillemont, (Mém. Eccles. tom. vi. p.
477.)]
64 (return) [ Erasmus, with admirable sense and freedom, has
delineated the just character of Hilary. To revise his text, to
compose the annals of his life, and to justify his sentiments and
conduct, is the province of the Benedictine editors.]
65 (return) [ Absque episcopo Eleusio et paucis cum eo, ex majore
parte Asianæ decem provinciæ, inter quas consisto, vere Deum
nesciunt. Atque utinam penitus nescirent! cum procliviore enim
venia ignorarent quam obtrectarent. Hilar. de Synodis, sive de
Fide Orientalium, c. 63, p. 1186, edit. Benedict. In the
celebrated parallel between atheism and superstition, the bishop
of Poitiers would have been surprised in the philosophic society
of Bayle and Plutarch.]
66 (return) [ Hilarius ad Constantium, l. i. c. 4, 5, p. 1227,
1228. This remarkable passage deserved the attention of Mr.
Locke, who has transcribed it (vol. iii. p. 470) into the model
of his new common-place book.]
It will not be expected, it would not perhaps be endured, that I
should swell this theological digression, by a minute examination
of the eighteen creeds, the authors of which, for the most part,
disclaimed the odious name of their parent Arius. It is amusing
enough to delineate the form, and to trace the vegetation, of a
singular plant; but the tedious detail of leaves without flowers,
and of branches without fruit, would soon exhaust the patience,
and disappoint the curiosity, of the laborious student. One
question, which gradually arose from the Arian controversy, may,
however, be noticed, as it served to produce and discriminate the
three sects, who were united only by their common aversion to the
Homoousion of the Nicene synod. 1. If they were asked whether the
Son was _like_ unto the Father, the question was resolutely
answered in the negative, by the heretics who adhered to the
principles of Arius, or indeed to those of philosophy; which seem
to establish an infinite difference between the Creator and the
most excellent of his creatures. This obvious consequence was
maintained by Ætius, 67 on whom the zeal of his adversaries
bestowed the surname of the Atheist. His restless and aspiring
spirit urged him to try almost every profession of human life. He
was successively a slave, or at least a husbandman, a travelling
tinker, a goldsmith, a physician, a schoolmaster, a theologian,
and at last the apostle of a new church, which was propagated by
the abilities of his disciple Eunomius. 68 Armed with texts of
Scripture, and with captious syllogisms from the logic of
Aristotle, the subtle Ætius had acquired the fame of an
invincible disputant, whom it was impossible either to silence or
to convince. Such talents engaged the friendship of the Arian
bishops, till they were forced to renounce, and even to
persecute, a dangerous ally, who, by the accuracy of his
reasoning, had prejudiced their cause in the popular opinion, and
offended the piety of their most devoted followers. 2. The
omnipotence of the Creator suggested a specious and respectful
solution of the _likeness_ of the Father and the Son; and faith
might humbly receive what reason could not presume to deny, that
the Supreme God might communicate his infinite perfections, and
create a being similar only to himself. 69 These Arians were
powerfully supported by the weight and abilities of their
leaders, who had succeeded to the management of the Eusebian
interest, and who occupied the principal thrones of the East.
They detested, perhaps with some affectation, the impiety of
Ætius; they professed to believe, either without reserve, or
according to the Scriptures, that the Son was different from all
_other_ creatures, and similar only to the Father. But they
denied, the he was either of the same, or of a similar substance;
sometimes boldly justifying their dissent, and sometimes
objecting to the use of the word substance, which seems to imply
an adequate, or at least, a distinct, notion of the nature of the
Deity. 3. The sect which deserted the doctrine of a similar
substance, was the most numerous, at least in the provinces of
Asia; and when the leaders of both parties were assembled in the
council of Seleucia, 70 _their_ opinion would have prevailed by a
majority of one hundred and five to forty-three bishops. The
Greek word, which was chosen to express this mysterious
resemblance, bears so close an affinity to the orthodox symbol,
that the profane of every age have derided the furious contests
which the difference of a single diphthong excited between the
Homoousians and the Homoiousians. As it frequently happens, that
the sounds and characters which approach the nearest to each
other accidentally represent the most opposite ideas, the
observation would be itself ridiculous, if it were possible to
mark any real and sensible distinction between the doctrine of
the Semi-Arians, as they were improperly styled, and that of the
Catholics themselves. The bishop of Poitiers, who in his Phrygian
exile very wisely aimed at a coalition of parties, endeavors to
prove that by a pious and faithful interpretation, 71 the
_Homoiousion_ may be reduced to a consubstantial sense. Yet he
confesses that the word has a dark and suspicious aspect; and, as
if darkness were congenial to theological disputes, the
Semi-Arians, who advanced to the doors of the church, assailed
them with the most unrelenting fury.
67 (return) [ In Philostorgius (l. iii. c. 15) the character and
adventures of Ætius appear singular enough, though they are
carefully softened by the hand of a friend. The editor, Godefroy,
(p. 153,) who was more attached to his principles than to his
author, has collected the odious circumstances which his various
adversaries have preserved or invented.]
68 (return) [ According to the judgment of a man who respected
both these sectaries, Ætius had been endowed with a stronger
understanding and Eunomius had acquired more art and learning.
(Philostorgius l. viii. c. 18.) The confession and apology of
Eunomius (Fabricius, Bibliot. Græc. tom. viii. p. 258-305) is one
of the few heretical pieces which have escaped.]
69 (return) [ Yet, according to the opinion of Estius and Bull,
(p. 297,) there is one power—that of creation—which God _cannot_
communicate to a creature. Estius, who so accurately defined the
limits of Omnipotence was a Dutchman by birth, and by trade a
scholastic divine. Dupin Bibliot. Eccles. tom. xvii. p. 45.]
70 (return) [ Sabinus ap. Socrat. (l. ii. c. 39) had copied the
acts: Athanasius and Hilary have explained the divisions of this
Arian synod; the other circumstances which are relative to it are
carefully collected by Baro and Tillemont]
71 (return) [ Fideli et piâ intelligentiâ... De Synod. c. 77, p.
1193. In his his short apologetical notes (first published by the
Benedictines from a MS. of Chartres) he observes, that he used
this cautious expression, qui intelligerum et impiam, p. 1206.
See p. 1146. Philostorgius, who saw those objects through a
different medium, is inclined to forget the difference of the
important diphthong. See in particular viii. 17, and Godefroy, p.
352.]
The provinces of Egypt and Asia, which cultivated the language
and manners of the Greeks, had deeply imbibed the venom of the
Arian controversy. The familiar study of the Platonic system, a
vain and argumentative disposition, a copious and flexible idiom,
supplied the clergy and people of the East with an inexhaustible
flow of words and distinctions; and, in the midst of their fierce
contentions, they easily forgot the doubt which is recommended by
philosophy, and the submission which is enjoined by religion. The
inhabitants of the West were of a less inquisitive spirit; their
passions were not so forcibly moved by invisible objects, their
minds were less frequently exercised by the habits of dispute;
and such was the happy ignorance of the Gallican church, that
Hilary himself, above thirty years after the first general
council, was still a stranger to the Nicene creed. 72 The Latins
had received the rays of divine knowledge through the dark and
doubtful medium of a translation. The poverty and stubbornness of
their native tongue was not always capable of affording just
equivalents for the Greek terms, for the technical words of the
Platonic philosophy, 73 which had been consecrated, by the gospel
or by the church, to express the mysteries of the Christian
faith; and a verbal defect might introduce into the Latin
theology a long train of error or perplexity. 74 But as the
western provincials had the good fortune of deriving their
religion from an orthodox source, they preserved with steadiness
the doctrine which they had accepted with docility; and when the
Arian pestilence approached their frontiers, they were supplied
with the seasonable preservative of the Homoousion, by the
paternal care of the Roman pontiff. Their sentiments and their
temper were displayed in the memorable synod of Rimini, which
surpassed in numbers the council of Nice, since it was composed
of above four hundred bishops of Italy, Africa, Spain, Gaul,
Britain, and Illyricum. From the first debates it appeared, that
only fourscore prelates adhered to the party, though _they_
affected to anathematize the name and memory, of Arius. But this
inferiority was compensated by the advantages of skill, of
experience, and of discipline; and the minority was conducted by
Valens and Ursacius, two bishops of Illyricum, who had spent
their lives in the intrigues of courts and councils, and who had
been trained under the Eusebian banner in the religious wars of
the East. By their arguments and negotiations, they embarrassed,
they confounded, they at last deceived, the honest simplicity of
the Latin bishops; who suffered the palladium of the faith to be
extorted from their hand by fraud and importunity, rather than by
open violence. The council of Rimini was not allowed to separate,
till the members had imprudently subscribed a captious creed, in
which some expressions, susceptible of an heretical sense, were
inserted in the room of the Homoousion. It was on this occasion,
that, according to Jerom, the world was surprised to find itself
Arian. 75 But the bishops of the Latin provinces had no sooner
reached their respective dioceses, than they discovered their
mistake, and repented of their weakness. The ignominious
capitulation was rejected with disdain and abhorrence; and the
Homoousian standard, which had been shaken but not overthrown,
was more firmly replanted in all the churches of the West. 76
72 (return) [ Testor Deum cœli atque terræ me cum neutrum
audissem, semper tamen utrumque sensisse.... Regeneratus pridem
et in episcopatu aliquantisper manens fidem Nicenam nunquam nisi
exsulaturus audivi. Hilar. de Synodis, c. xci. p. 1205. The
Benedictines are persuaded that he governed the diocese of
Poitiers several years before his exile.]
73 (return) [ Seneca (Epist. lviii.) complains that even the of
the Platonists (the _ens_ of the bolder schoolmen) could not be
expressed by a Latin noun.]
74 (return) [ The preference which the fourth council of the
Lateran at length gave to a _numerical_ rather than a _generical_
unity (See Petav. tom. ii. l. v. c. 13, p. 424) was favored by
the Latin language: seems to excite the idea of substance,
_trinitas_ of qualities.]
75 (return) [ Ingemuit totus orbis, et Arianum se esse miratus
est. Hieronym. adv. Lucifer. tom. i. p. 145.]
76 (return) [ The story of the council of Rimini is very
elegantly told by Sulpicius Severus, (Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p.
419-430, edit. Lugd. Bat. 1647,) and by Jerom, in his dialogue
against the Luciferians. The design of the latter is to apologize
for the conduct of the Latin bishops, who were deceived, and who
repented.]
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part IV.
Such was the rise and progress, and such were the natural
revolutions of those theological disputes, which disturbed the
peace of Christianity under the reigns of Constantine and of his
sons. But as those princes presumed to extend their despotism
over the faith, as well as over the lives and fortunes, of their
subjects, the weight of their suffrage sometimes inclined the
ecclesiastical balance: and the prerogatives of the King of
Heaven were settled, or changed, or modified, in the cabinet of
an earthly monarch. The unhappy spirit of discord which pervaded
the provinces of the East, interrupted the triumph of
Constantine; but the emperor continued for some time to view,
with cool and careless indifference, the object of the dispute.
As he was yet ignorant of the difficulty of appeasing the
quarrels of theologians, he addressed to the contending parties,
to Alexander and to Arius, a moderating epistle; 77 which may be
ascribed, with far greater reason, to the untutored sense of a
soldier and statesman, than to the dictates of any of his
episcopal counsellors. He attributes the origin of the whole
controversy to a trifling and subtle question, concerning an
incomprehensible point of law, which was foolishly asked by the
bishop, and imprudently resolved by the presbyter. He laments
that the Christian people, who had the same God, the same
religion, and the same worship, should be divided by such
inconsiderable distinctions; and he seriously recommends to the
clergy of Alexandria the example of the Greek philosophers; who
could maintain their arguments without losing their temper, and
assert their freedom without violating their friendship. The
indifference and contempt of the sovereign would have been,
perhaps, the most effectual method of silencing the dispute, if
the popular current had been less rapid and impetuous, and if
Constantine himself, in the midst of faction and fanaticism,
could have preserved the calm possession of his own mind. But his
ecclesiastical ministers soon contrived to seduce the
impartiality of the magistrate, and to awaken the zeal of the
proselyte. He was provoked by the insults which had been offered
to his statues; he was alarmed by the real, as well as the
imaginary magnitude of the spreading mischief; and he
extinguished the hope of peace and toleration, from the moment
that he assembled three hundred bishops within the walls of the
same palace. The presence of the monarch swelled the importance
of the debate; his attention multiplied the arguments; and he
exposed his person with a patient intrepidity, which animated the
valor of the combatants. Notwithstanding the applause which has
been bestowed on the eloquence and sagacity of Constantine, 78 a
Roman general, whose religion might be still a subject of doubt,
and whose mind had not been enlightened either by study or by
inspiration, was indifferently qualified to discuss, in the Greek
language, a metaphysical question, or an article of faith. But
the credit of his favorite Osius, who appears to have presided in
the council of Nice, might dispose the emperor in favor of the
orthodox party; and a well-timed insinuation, that the same
Eusebius of Nicomedia, who now protected the heretic, had lately
assisted the tyrant, 79 might exasperate him against their
adversaries. The Nicene creed was ratified by Constantine; and
his firm declaration, that those who resisted the divine judgment
of the synod, must prepare themselves for an immediate exile,
annihilated the murmurs of a feeble opposition; which, from
seventeen, was almost instantly reduced to two, protesting
bishops. Eusebius of Cæsarea yielded a reluctant and ambiguous
consent to the Homoousion; 80 and the wavering conduct of the
Nicomedian Eusebius served only to delay, about three months, his
disgrace and exile. 81 The impious Arius was banished into one of
the remote provinces of Illyricum; his person and disciples were
branded by law with the odious name of Porphyrians; his writings
were condemned to the flames, and a capital punishment was
denounced against those in whose possession they should be found.
The emperor had now imbibed the spirit of controversy, and the
angry, sarcastic style of his edicts was designed to inspire his
subjects with the hatred which he had conceived against the
enemies of Christ. 82
77 (return) [ Eusebius, in Vit. Constant. l. ii. c. 64-72. The
principles of toleration and religious indifference, contained in
this epistle, have given great offence to Baronius, Tillemont,
&c., who suppose that the emperor had some evil counsellor,
either Satan or Eusebius, at his elbow. See Cortin’s Remarks,
tom. ii. p. 183. * Note: Heinichen (Excursus xi.) quotes with
approbation the term “golden words,” applied by Ziegler to this
moderate and tolerant letter of Constantine. May an English
clergyman venture to express his regret that “the fine gold soon
became dim” in the Christian church?—M.]
78 (return) [ Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c. 13.]
79 (return) [ Theodoret has preserved (l. i. c. 20) an epistle
from Constantine to the people of Nicomedia, in which the monarch
declares himself the public accuser of one of his subjects; he
styles Eusebius and complains of his hostile behavior during the
civil war.]
80 (return) [ See in Socrates, (l. i. c. 8,) or rather in
Theodoret, (l. i. c. 12,) an original letter of Eusebius of
Cæsarea, in which he attempts to justify his subscribing the
Homoousion. The character of Eusebius has always been a problem;
but those who have read the second critical epistle of Le Clerc,
(Ars Critica, tom. iii. p. 30-69,) must entertain a very
unfavorable opinion of the orthodoxy and sincerity of the bishop
of Cæsarea.]
81 (return) [ Athanasius, tom. i. p. 727. Philostorgius, l. i. c.
10, and Godefroy’s Commentary, p. 41.]
82 (return) [ Socrates, l. i. c. 9. In his circular letters,
which were addressed to the several cities, Constantine employed
against the heretics the arms of ridicule and _comic_ raillery.]
But, as if the conduct of the emperor had been guided by passion
instead of principle, three years from the council of Nice were
scarcely elapsed before he discovered some symptoms of mercy, and
even of indulgence, towards the proscribed sect, which was
secretly protected by his favorite sister. The exiles were
recalled, and Eusebius, who gradually resumed his influence over
the mind of Constantine, was restored to the episcopal throne,
from which he had been ignominiously degraded. Arius himself was
treated by the whole court with the respect which would have been
due to an innocent and oppressed man. His faith was approved by
the synod of Jerusalem; and the emperor seemed impatient to
repair his injustice, by issuing an absolute command, that he
should be solemnly admitted to the communion in the cathedral of
Constantinople. On the same day, which had been fixed for the
triumph of Arius, he expired; and the strange and horrid
circumstances of his death might excite a suspicion, that the
orthodox saints had contributed more efficaciously than by their
prayers, to deliver the church from the most formidable of her
enemies. 83 The three principal leaders of the Catholics,
Athanasius of Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch, and Paul of
Constantinople were deposed on various f accusations, by the
sentence of numerous councils; and were afterwards banished into
distant provinces by the first of the Christian emperors, who, in
the last moments of his life, received the rites of baptism from
the Arian bishop of Nicomedia. The ecclesiastical government of
Constantine cannot be justified from the reproach of levity and
weakness. But the credulous monarch, unskilled in the stratagems
of theological warfare, might be deceived by the modest and
specious professions of the heretics, whose sentiments he never
perfectly understood; and while he protected Arius, and
persecuted Athanasius, he still considered the council of Nice as
the bulwark of the Christian faith, and the peculiar glory of his
own reign. 84
83 (return) [ We derive the original story from Athanasius, (tom.
i. p. 670,) who expresses some reluctance to stigmatize the
memory of the dead. He might exaggerate; but the perpetual
commerce of Alexandria and Constantinople would have rendered it
dangerous to invent. Those who press the literal narrative of the
death of Arius (his bowels suddenly burst out in a privy) must
make their option between _poison_ and _miracle_.]
84 (return) [ The change in the sentiments, or at least in the
conduct, of Constantine, may be traced in Eusebius, (in Vit.
Constant. l. iii. c. 23, l. iv. c. 41,) Socrates, (l. i. c.
23-39,) Sozomen, (l. ii. c. 16-34,) Theodoret, (l. i. c. 14-34,)
and Philostorgius, (l. ii. c. 1-17.) But the first of these
writers was too near the scene of action, and the others were too
remote from it. It is singular enough, that the important task of
continuing the history of the church should have been left for
two laymen and a heretic.]
The sons of Constantine must have been admitted from their
childhood into the rank of catechumens; but they imitated, in the
delay of their baptism, the example of their father. Like him
they presumed to pronounce their judgment on mysteries into which
they had never been regularly initiated; 85 and the fate of the
Trinitarian controversy depended, in a great measure, on the
sentiments of Constantius; who inherited the provinces of the
East, and acquired the possession of the whole empire. The Arian
presbyter or bishop, who had secreted for his use the testament
of the deceased emperor, improved the fortunate occasion which
had introduced him to the familiarity of a prince, whose public
counsels were always swayed by his domestic favorites. The
eunuchs and slaves diffused the spiritual poison through the
palace, and the dangerous infection was communicated by the
female attendants to the guards, and by the empress to her
unsuspicious husband. 86 The partiality which Constantius always
expressed towards the Eusebian faction, was insensibly fortified
by the dexterous management of their leaders; and his victory
over the tyrant Magnentius increased his inclination, as well as
ability, to employ the arms of power in the cause of Arianism.
While the two armies were engaged in the plains of Mursa, and the
fate of the two rivals depended on the chance of war, the son of
Constantine passed the anxious moments in a church of the martyrs
under the walls of the city. His spiritual comforter, Valens, the
Arian bishop of the diocese, employed the most artful precautions
to obtain such early intelligence as might secure either his
favor or his escape. A secret chain of swift and trusty
messengers informed him of the vicissitudes of the battle; and
while the courtiers stood trembling round their affrighted
master, Valens assured him that the Gallic legions gave way; and
insinuated with some presence of mind, that the glorious event
had been revealed to him by an angel. The grateful emperor
ascribed his success to the merits and intercession of the bishop
of Mursa, whose faith had deserved the public and miraculous
approbation of Heaven. 87 The Arians, who considered as their own
the victory of Constantius, preferred his glory to that of his
father. 88 Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, immediately composed the
description of a celestial cross, encircled with a splendid
rainbow; which during the festival of Pentecost, about the third
hour of the day, had appeared over the Mount of Olives, to the
edification of the devout pilgrims, and the people of the holy
city. 89 The size of the meteor was gradually magnified; and the
Arian historian has ventured to affirm, that it was conspicuous
to the two armies in the plains of Pannonia; and that the tyrant,
who is purposely represented as an idolater, fled before the
auspicious sign of orthodox Christianity. 90
85 (return) [ Quia etiam tum catechumenus sacramentum fidei
merito videretiu potuisse nescire. Sulp. Sever. Hist. Sacra, l.
ii. p. 410.]
86 (return) [ Socrates, l. ii. c. 2. Sozomen, l. iii. c. 18.
Athanas. tom. i. p. 813, 834. He observes that the eunuchs are
the natural enemies of the _Son_. Compare Dr. Jortin’s Remarks on
Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 3 with a certain genealogy in
_Candide_, (ch. iv.,) which ends with one of the first companions
of Christopher Columbus.]
87 (return) [ Sulpicius Severus in Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 405,
406.]
88 (return) [ Cyril (apud Baron. A. D. 353, No. 26) expressly
observes that in the reign of Constantine, the cross had been
found in the bowels of the earth; but that it had appeared, in
the reign of Constantius, in the midst of the heavens. This
opposition evidently proves, that Cyril was ignorant of the
stupendous miracle to which the conversion of Constantine is
attributed; and this ignorance is the more surprising, since it
was no more than twelve years after his death that Cyril was
consecrated bishop of Jerusalem, by the immediate successor of
Eusebius of Cæsarea. See Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. viii. p.
715.]
89 (return) [ It is not easy to determine how far the ingenuity
of Cyril might be assisted by some natural appearances of a solar
halo.]
90 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 26. He is followed by the
author of the Alexandrian Chronicle, by Cedrenus, and by
Nicephorus. (See Gothofred. Dissert. p. 188.) They could not
refuse a miracle, even from the hand of an enemy.]
The sentiments of a judicious stranger, who has impartially
considered the progress of civil or ecclesiastical discord, are
always entitled to our notice; and a short passage of Ammianus,
who served in the armies, and studied the character of
Constantius, is perhaps of more value than many pages of
theological invectives. “The Christian religion, which, in
itself,” says that moderate historian, “is plain and simple, _he_
confounded by the dotage of superstition. Instead of reconciling
the parties by the weight of his authority, he cherished and
promulgated, by verbal disputes, the differences which his vain
curiosity had excited. The highways were covered with troops of
bishops galloping from every side to the assemblies, which they
call synods; and while they labored to reduce the whole sect to
their own particular opinions, the public establishment of the
posts was almost ruined by their hasty and repeated journeys.” 91
Our more intimate knowledge of the ecclesiastical transactions of
the reign of Constantius would furnish an ample commentary on
this remarkable passage, which justifies the rational
apprehensions of Athanasius, that the restless activity of the
clergy, who wandered round the empire in search of the true
faith, would excite the contempt and laughter of the unbelieving
world. 92 As soon as the emperor was relieved from the terrors of
the civil war, he devoted the leisure of his winter quarters at
Arles, Milan, Sirmium, and Constantinople, to the amusement or
toils of controversy: the sword of the magistrate, and even of
the tyrant, was unsheathed, to enforce the reasons of the
theologian; and as he opposed the orthodox faith of Nice, it is
readily confessed that his incapacity and ignorance were equal to
his presumption. 93 The eunuchs, the women, and the bishops, who
governed the vain and feeble mind of the emperor, had inspired
him with an insuperable dislike to the Homoousion; but his timid
conscience was alarmed by the impiety of Ætius. The guilt of that
atheist was aggravated by the suspicious favor of the unfortunate
Gallus; and even the death of the Imperial ministers, who had
been massacred at Antioch, were imputed to the suggestions of
that dangerous sophist. The mind of Constantius, which could
neither be moderated by reason, nor fixed by faith, was blindly
impelled to either side of the dark and empty abyss, by his
horror of the opposite extreme; he alternately embraced and
condemned the sentiments, he successively banished and recalled
the leaders, of the Arian and Semi-Arian factions. 94 During the
season of public business or festivity, he employed whole days,
and even nights, in selecting the words, and weighing the
syllables, which composed his fluctuating creeds. The subject of
his meditations still pursued and occupied his slumbers: the
incoherent dreams of the emperor were received as celestial
visions, and he accepted with complacency the lofty title of
bishop of bishops, from those ecclesiastics who forgot the
interest of their order for the gratification of their passions.
The design of establishing a uniformity of doctrine, which had
engaged him to convene so many synods in Gaul, Italy, Illyricum,
and Asia, was repeatedly baffled by his own levity, by the
divisions of the Arians, and by the resistance of the Catholics;
and he resolved, as the last and decisive effort, imperiously to
dictate the decrees of a general council. The destructive
earthquake of Nicomedia, the difficulty of finding a convenient
place, and perhaps some secret motives of policy, produced an
alteration in the summons. The bishops of the East were directed
to meet at Seleucia, in Isauria; while those of the West held
their deliberations at Rimini, on the coast of the Hadriatic; and
instead of two or three deputies from each province, the whole
episcopal body was ordered to march. The Eastern council, after
consuming four days in fierce and unavailing debate, separated
without any definitive conclusion. The council of the West was
protracted till the seventh month. Taurus, the Prætorian præfect
was instructed not to dismiss the prelates till they should all
be united in the same opinion; and his efforts were supported by
the power of banishing fifteen of the most refractory, and a
promise of the consulship if he achieved so difficult an
adventure. His prayers and threats, the authority of the
sovereign, the sophistry of Valens and Ursacius, the distress of
cold and hunger, and the tedious melancholy of a hopeless exile,
at length extorted the reluctant consent of the bishops of
Rimini. The deputies of the East and of the West attended the
emperor in the palace of Constantinople, and he enjoyed the
satisfaction of imposing on the world a profession of faith which
established the _likeness_, without expressing the
_consubstantiality_, of the Son of God. 95 But the triumph of
Arianism had been preceded by the removal of the orthodox clergy,
whom it was impossible either to intimidate or to corrupt; and
the reign of Constantius was disgraced by the unjust and
ineffectual persecution of the great Athanasius.
91 (return) [ So curious a passage well deserves to be
transcribed. Christianam religionem absolutam et simplicem, anili
superstitione confundens; in qua scrutanda perplexius, quam
componenda gravius excitaret discidia plurima; quæ progressa
fusius aluit concertatione verborum, ut catervis antistium
jumentis publicis ultro citroque discarrentibus, per synodos
(quas appellant) dum ritum omnem ad suum sahere conantur
(Valesius reads _conatur_) rei vehiculariæ concideret servos.
Ammianus, xxi. 16.]
92 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 870.]
93 (return) [ Socrates, l. ii. c. 35-47. Sozomen, l. iv. c.
12-30. Theodore li. c. 18-32. Philostorg. l. iv. c. 4—12, l. v.
c. 1-4, l. vi. c. 1-5]
94 (return) [ Sozomen, l. iv. c. 23. Athanas. tom. i. p. 831.
Tillemont (Mem Eccles. tom. vii. p. 947) has collected several
instances of the haughty fanaticism of Constantius from the
detached treatises of Lucifer of Cagliari. The very titles of
these treaties inspire zeal and terror; “Moriendum pro Dei
Filio.” “De Regibus Apostaticis.” “De non conveniendo cum
Hæretico.” “De non parcendo in Deum delinquentibus.”]
95 (return) [ Sulp. Sever. Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 418-430. The
Greek historians were very ignorant of the affairs of the West.]
We have seldom an opportunity of observing, either in active or
speculative life, what effect may be produced, or what obstacles
may be surmounted, by the force of a single mind, when it is
inflexibly applied to the pursuit of a single object. The
immortal name of Athanasius 96 will never be separated from the
Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, to whose defence he consecrated
every moment and every faculty of his being. Educated in the
family of Alexander, he had vigorously opposed the early progress
of the Arian heresy: he exercised the important functions of
secretary under the aged prelate; and the fathers of the Nicene
council beheld with surprise and respect the rising virtues of
the young deacon. In a time of public danger, the dull claims of
age and of rank are sometimes superseded; and within five months
after his return from Nice, the deacon Athanasius was seated on
the archiepiscopal throne of Egypt. He filled that eminent
station above forty-six years, and his long administration was
spent in a perpetual combat against the powers of Arianism. Five
times was Athanasius expelled from his throne; twenty years he
passed as an exile or a fugitive: and almost every province of
the Roman empire was successively witness to his merit, and his
sufferings in the cause of the Homoousion, which he considered as
the sole pleasure and business, as the duty, and as the glory of
his life. Amidst the storms of persecution, the archbishop of
Alexandria was patient of labor, jealous of fame, careless of
safety; and although his mind was tainted by the contagion of
fanaticism, Athanasius displayed a superiority of character and
abilities, which would have qualified him, far better than the
degenerate sons of Constantine, for the government of a great
monarchy. His learning was much less profound and extensive than
that of Eusebius of Cæsarea, and his rude eloquence could not be
compared with the polished oratory of Gregory of Basil; but
whenever the primate of Egypt was called upon to justify his
sentiments, or his conduct, his unpremeditated style, either of
speaking or writing, was clear, forcible, and persuasive. He has
always been revered, in the orthodox school, as one of the most
accurate masters of the Christian theology; and he was supposed
to possess two profane sciences, less adapted to the episcopal
character, the knowledge of jurisprudence, 97 and that of
divination. 98 Some fortunate conjectures of future events, which
impartial reasoners might ascribe to the experience and judgment
of Athanasius, were attributed by his friends to heavenly
inspiration, and imputed by his enemies to infernal magic.
96 (return) [ We may regret that Gregory Nazianzen composed a
panegyric instead of a life of Athanasius; but we should enjoy
and improve the advantage of drawing our most authentic materials
from the rich fund of his own epistles and apologies, (tom. i. p.
670-951.) I shall not imitate the example of Socrates, (l. ii. c.
l.) who published the first edition of the history, without
giving himself the trouble to consult the writings of Athanasius.
Yet even Socrates, the more curious Sozomen, and the learned
Theodoret, connect the life of Athanasius with the series of
ecclesiastical history. The diligence of Tillemont, (tom. viii,)
and of the Benedictine editors, has collected every fact, and
examined every difficulty]
97 (return) [ Sulpicius Severus (Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 396)
calls him a lawyer, a jurisconsult. This character cannot now be
discovered either in the life or writings of Athanasius.]
98 (return) [ Dicebatur enim fatidicarum sortium fidem, quæve
augurales portenderent alites scientissime callens aliquoties
prædixisse futura. Ammianus, xv. 7. A prophecy, or rather a joke,
is related by Sozomen, (l. iv c. 10,) which evidently proves (if
the crows speak Latin) that Athanasius understood the language of
the crows.]
But as Athanasius was continually engaged with the prejudices and
passions of every order of men, from the monk to the emperor, the
knowledge of human nature was his first and most important
science. He preserved a distinct and unbroken view of a scene
which was incessantly shifting; and never failed to improve those
decisive moments which are irrecoverably past before they are
perceived by a common eye. The archbishop of Alexandria was
capable of distinguishing how far he might boldly command, and
where he must dexterously insinuate; how long he might contend
with power, and when he must withdraw from persecution; and while
he directed the thunders of the church against heresy and
rebellion, he could assume, in the bosom of his own party, the
flexible and indulgent temper of a prudent leader. The election
of Athanasius has not escaped the reproach of irregularity and
precipitation; 99 but the propriety of his behavior conciliated
the affections both of the clergy and of the people. The
Alexandrians were impatient to rise in arms for the defence of an
eloquent and liberal pastor. In his distress he always derived
support, or at least consolation, from the faithful attachment of
his parochial clergy; and the hundred bishops of Egypt adhered,
with unshaken zeal, to the cause of Athanasius. In the modest
equipage which pride and policy would affect, he frequently
performed the episcopal visitation of his provinces, from the
mouth of the Nile to the confines of Æthiopia; familiarly
conversing with the meanest of the populace, and humbly saluting
the saints and hermits of the desert. 100 Nor was it only in
ecclesiastical assemblies, among men whose education and manners
were similar to his own, that Athanasius displayed the ascendancy
of his genius. He appeared with easy and respectful firmness in
the courts of princes; and in the various turns of his prosperous
and adverse fortune he never lost the confidence of his friends,
or the esteem of his enemies.
99 (return) [ The irregular ordination of Athanasius was slightly
mentioned in the councils which were held against him. See
Philostorg. l. ii. c. 11, and Godefroy, p. 71; but it can
scarcely be supposed that the assembly of the bishops of Egypt
would solemnly attest a _public_ falsehood. Athanas. tom. i. p.
726.]
100 (return) [ See the history of the Fathers of the Desert,
published by Rosweide; and Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vii., in
the lives of Antony, Pachomius, &c. Athanasius himself, who did
not disdain to compose the life of his friend Antony, has
carefully observed how often the holy monk deplored and
prophesied the mischiefs of the Arian heresy Athanas. tom. ii. p.
492, 498, &c.]
In his youth, the primate of Egypt resisted the great
Constantine, who had repeatedly signified his will, that Arius
should be restored to the Catholic communion. 101 The emperor
respected, and might forgive, this inflexible resolution; and the
faction who considered Athanasius as their most formidable enemy,
was constrained to dissemble their hatred, and silently to
prepare an indirect and distant assault. They scattered rumors
and suspicions, represented the archbishop as a proud and
oppressive tyrant, and boldly accused him of violating the treaty
which had been ratified in the Nicene council, with the
schismatic followers of Meletius. 102 Athanasius had openly
disapproved that ignominious peace, and the emperor was disposed
to believe that he had abused his ecclesiastical and civil power,
to prosecute those odious sectaries: that he had sacrilegiously
broken a chalice in one of their churches of Mareotis; that he
had whipped or imprisoned six of their bishops; and that
Arsenius, a seventh bishop of the same party, had been murdered,
or at least mutilated, by the cruel hand of the primate. 103
These charges, which affected his honor and his life, were
referred by Constantine to his brother Dalmatius the censor, who
resided at Antioch; the synods of Cæsarea and Tyre were
successively convened; and the bishops of the East were
instructed to judge the cause of Athanasius, before they
proceeded to consecrate the new church of the Resurrection at
Jerusalem. The primate might be conscious of his innocence; but
he was sensible that the same implacable spirit which had
dictated the accusation, would direct the proceeding, and
pronounce the sentence. He prudently declined the tribunal of his
enemies; despised the summons of the synod of Cæsarea; and, after
a long and artful delay, submitted to the peremptory commands of
the emperor, who threatened to punish his criminal disobedience
if he refused to appear in the council of Tyre. 104 Before
Athanasius, at the head of fifty Egyptian prelates, sailed from
Alexandria, he had wisely secured the alliance of the Meletians;
and Arsenius himself, his imaginary victim, and his secret
friend, was privately concealed in his train. The synod of Tyre
was conducted by Eusebius of Cæsarea, with more passion, and with
less art, than his learning and experience might promise; his
numerous faction repeated the names of homicide and tyrant; and
their clamors were encouraged by the seeming patience of
Athanasius, who expected the decisive moment to produce Arsenius
alive and unhurt in the midst of the assembly. The nature of the
other charges did not admit of such clear and satisfactory
replies; yet the archbishop was able to prove, that in the
village, where he was accused of breaking a consecrated chalice,
neither church nor altar nor chalice could really exist.
The Arians, who had secretly determined the guilt and
condemnation of their enemy, attempted, however, to disguise
their injustice by the imitation of judicial forms: the synod
appointed an episcopal commission of six delegates to collect
evidence on the spot; and this measure which was vigorously
opposed by the Egyptian bishops, opened new scenes of violence
and perjury. 105 After the return of the deputies from
Alexandria, the majority of the council pronounced the final
sentence of degradation and exile against the primate of Egypt.
The decree, expressed in the fiercest language of malice and
revenge, was communicated to the emperor and the Catholic church;
and the bishops immediately resumed a mild and devout aspect,
such as became their holy pilgrimage to the Sepulchre of Christ.
106
101 (return) [ At first Constantine threatened in _speaking_, but
requested in _writing_. His letters gradually assumed a menacing
tone; by while he required that the entrance of the church should
be open to _all_, he avoided the odious name of Arius.
Athanasius, like a skilful politician, has accurately marked
these distinctions, (tom. i. p. 788.) which allowed him some
scope for excuse and delay]
102 (return) [ The Meletians in Egypt, like the Donatists in
Africa, were produced by an episcopal quarrel which arose from
the persecution. I have not leisure to pursue the obscure
controversy, which seems to have been misrepresented by the
partiality of Athanasius and the ignorance of Epiphanius. See
Mosheim’s General History of the Church, vol. i. p. 201.]
103 (return) [ The treatment of the six bishops is specified by
Sozomen, (l. ii. c. 25;) but Athanasius himself, so copious on
the subject of Arsenius and the chalice, leaves this grave
accusation without a reply. Note: This grave charge, if made,
(and it rests entirely on the authority of Soz omen,) seems to
have been silently dropped by the parties themselves: it is never
alluded to in the subsequent investigations. From Sozomen
himself, who gives the unfavorable report of the commission of
inquiry sent to Egypt concerning the cup. it does not appear that
they noticed this accusation of personal violence.—M]
104 (return) [ Athanas, tom. i. p. 788. Socrates, l. i.c. 28.
Sozomen, l. ii. c 25. The emperor, in his Epistle of Convocation,
(Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 42,) seems to prejudge some
members of the clergy and it was more than probable that the
synod would apply those reproaches to Athanasius.]
105 (return) [ See, in particular, the second Apology of
Athanasius, (tom. i. p. 763-808,) and his Epistles to the Monks,
(p. 808-866.) They are justified by original and authentic
documents; but they would inspire more confidence if he appeared
less innocent, and his enemies less absurd.]
106 (return) [ Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c. 41-47.]
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part V.
But the injustice of these ecclesiastical judges had not been
countenanced by the submission, or even by the presence, of
Athanasius. He resolved to make a bold and dangerous experiment,
whether the throne was inaccessible to the voice of truth; and
before the final sentence could be pronounced at Tyre, the
intrepid primate threw himself into a bark which was ready to
hoist sail for the Imperial city. The request of a formal
audience might have been opposed or eluded; but Athanasius
concealed his arrival, watched the moment of Constantine’s return
from an adjacent villa, and boldly encountered his angry
sovereign as he passed on horseback through the principal street
of Constantinople. So strange an apparition excited his surprise
and indignation; and the guards were ordered to remove the
importunate suitor; but his resentment was subdued by involuntary
respect; and the haughty spirit of the emperor was awed by the
courage and eloquence of a bishop, who implored his justice and
awakened his conscience. 107 Constantine listened to the
complaints of Athanasius with impartial and even gracious
attention; the members of the synod of Tyre were summoned to
justify their proceedings; and the arts of the Eusebian faction
would have been confounded, if they had not aggravated the guilt
of the primate, by the dexterous supposition of an unpardonable
offence; a criminal design to intercept and detain the corn-fleet
of Alexandria, which supplied the subsistence of the new capital.
108 The emperor was satisfied that the peace of Egypt would be
secured by the absence of a popular leader; but he refused to
fill the vacancy of the archiepiscopal throne; and the sentence,
which, after long hesitation, he pronounced, was that of a
jealous ostracism, rather than of an ignominious exile. In the
remote province of Gaul, but in the hospitable court of Treves,
Athanasius passed about twenty eight months. The death of the
emperor changed the face of public affairs and, amidst the
general indulgence of a young reign, the primate was restored to
his country by an honorable edict of the younger Constantine, who
expressed a deep sense of the innocence and merit of his
venerable guest. 109
107 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 804. In a church dedicated to
St. Athanasius this situation would afford a better subject for a
picture, than most of the stories of miracles and martyrdoms.]
108 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 729. Eunapius has related (in
Vit. Sophist. p. 36, 37, edit. Commelin) a strange example of the
cruelty and credulity of Constantine on a similar occasion. The
eloquent Sopater, a Syrian philosopher, enjoyed his friendship,
and provoked the resentment of Ablavius, his Prætorian præfect.
The corn-fleet was detained for want of a south wind; the people
of Constantinople were discontented; and Sopater was beheaded, on
a charge that he had _bound_ the winds by the power of magic.
Suidas adds, that Constantine wished to prove, by this execution,
that he had absolutely renounced the superstition of the
Gentiles.]
109 (return) [ In his return he saw Constantius twice, at
Viminiacum, and at Cæsarea in Cappadocia, (Athanas. tom. i. p.
676.) Tillemont supposes that Constantine introduced him to the
meeting of the three royal brothers in Pannonia, (Mémoires
Eccles. tom. viii. p. 69.)]
The death of that prince exposed Athanasius to a second
persecution; and the feeble Constantius, the sovereign of the
East, soon became the secret accomplice of the Eusebians. Ninety
bishops of that sect or faction assembled at Antioch, under the
specious pretence of dedicating the cathedral. They composed an
ambiguous creed, which is faintly tinged with the colors of
Semi-Arianism, and twenty-five canons, which still regulate the
discipline of the orthodox Greeks. 110 It was decided, with some
appearance of equity, that a bishop, deprived by a synod, should
not resume his episcopal functions till he had been absolved by
the judgment of an equal synod; the law was immediately applied
to the case of Athanasius; the council of Antioch pronounced, or
rather confirmed, his degradation: a stranger, named Gregory, was
seated on his throne; and Philagrius, 111 the præfect of Egypt,
was instructed to support the new primate with the civil and
military powers of the province. Oppressed by the conspiracy of
the Asiatic prelates, Athanasius withdrew from Alexandria, and
passed three years 112 as an exile and a suppliant on the holy
threshold of the Vatican. 113 By the assiduous study of the Latin
language, he soon qualified himself to negotiate with the western
clergy; his decent flattery swayed and directed the haughty
Julius; the Roman pontiff was persuaded to consider his appeal as
the peculiar interest of the Apostolic see: and his innocence was
unanimously declared in a council of fifty bishops of Italy. At
the end of three years, the primate was summoned to the court of
Milan by the emperor Constans, who, in the indulgence of unlawful
pleasures, still professed a lively regard for the orthodox
faith. The cause of truth and justice was promoted by the
influence of gold, 114 and the ministers of Constans advised
their sovereign to require the convocation of an ecclesiastical
assembly, which might act as the representatives of the Catholic
church. Ninety-four bishops of the West, seventy-six bishops of
the East, encountered each other at Sardica, on the verge of the
two empires, but in the dominions of the protector of Athanasius.
Their debates soon degenerated into hostile altercations; the
Asiatics, apprehensive for their personal safety, retired to
Philippopolis in Thrace; and the rival synods reciprocally hurled
their spiritual thunders against their enemies, whom they piously
condemned as the enemies of the true God. Their decrees were
published and ratified in their respective provinces: and
Athanasius, who in the West was revered as a saint, was exposed
as a criminal to the abhorrence of the East. 115 The council of
Sardica reveals the first symptoms of discord and schism between
the Greek and Latin churches which were separated by the
accidental difference of faith, and the permanent distinction of
language.
110 (return) [ See Beveridge, Pandect. tom. i. p. 429-452, and
tom. ii. Annotation. p. 182. Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vi. p.
310-324. St. Hilary of Poitiers has mentioned this synod of
Antioch with too much favor and respect. He reckons ninety-seven
bishops.]
111 (return) [ This magistrate, so odious to Athanasius, is
praised by Gregory Nazianzen, tom. i. Orat. xxi. p. 390, 391.
Sæpe premente Deo fert Deus alter opem.
For the credit of human nature, I am always pleased to discover
some good qualities in those men whom party has represented as
tyrants and monsters.]
112 (return) [ The chronological difficulties which perplex the
residence of Athanasius at Rome, are strenuously agitated by
Valesius (Observat ad Calcem, tom. ii. Hist. Eccles. l. i. c.
1-5) and Tillemont, (Men: Eccles. tom. viii. p. 674, &c.) I have
followed the simple hypothesis of Valesius, who allows only one
journey, after the intrusion Gregory.]
113 (return) [ I cannot forbear transcribing a judicious
observation of Wetstein, (Prolegomen. N.S. p. 19: ) Si tamen
Historiam Ecclesiasticam velimus consulere, patebit jam inde a
seculo quarto, cum, ortis controversiis, ecclesiæ Græciæ doctores
in duas partes scinderentur, ingenio, eloquentia, numero, tantum
non æquales, eam partem quæ vincere cupiebat Romam confugisse,
majestatemque pontificis comiter coluisse, eoque pacto oppressis
per pontificem et episcopos Latinos adversariis prævaluisse,
atque orthodoxiam in conciliis stabilivisse. Eam ob causam
Athanasius, non sine comitatu, Roman petiit, pluresque annos ibi
hæsit.]
114 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 12. If any corruption
was used to promote the interest of religion, an advocate of
Athanasius might justify or excuse this questionable conduct, by
the example of Cato and Sidney; the former of whom is _said_ to
have given, and the latter to have received, a bribe in the cause
of liberty.]
115 (return) [ The canon which allows appeals to the Roman
pontiffs, has almost raised the council of Sardica to the dignity
of a general council; and its acts have been ignorantly or
artfully confounded with those of the Nicene synod. See
Tillemont, tom. vii. p. 689, and Geddos’s Tracts, vol. ii. p.
419-460.]
During his second exile in the West, Athanasius was frequently
admitted to the Imperial presence; at Capua, Lodi, Milan, Verona,
Padua, Aquileia, and Treves. The bishop of the diocese usually
assisted at these interviews; the master of the offices stood
before the veil or curtain of the sacred apartment; and the
uniform moderation of the primate might be attested by these
respectable witnesses, to whose evidence he solemnly appeals. 116
Prudence would undoubtedly suggest the mild and respectful tone
that became a subject and a bishop. In these familiar conferences
with the sovereign of the West, Athanasius might lament the error
of Constantius, but he boldly arraigned the guilt of his eunuchs
and his Arian prelates; deplored the distress and danger of the
Catholic church; and excited Constans to emulate the zeal and
glory of his father. The emperor declared his resolution of
employing the troops and treasures of Europe in the orthodox
cause; and signified, by a concise and peremptory epistle to his
brother Constantius, that unless he consented to the immediate
restoration of Athanasius, he himself, with a fleet and army,
would seat the archbishop on the throne of Alexandria. 117 But
this religious war, so horrible to nature, was prevented by the
timely compliance of Constantius; and the emperor of the East
condescended to solicit a reconciliation with a subject whom he
had injured. Athanasius waited with decent pride, till he had
received three successive epistles full of the strongest
assurances of the protection, the favor, and the esteem of his
sovereign; who invited him to resume his episcopal seat, and who
added the humiliating precaution of engaging his principal
ministers to attest the sincerity of his intentions. They were
manifested in a still more public manner, by the strict orders
which were despatched into Egypt to recall the adherents of
Athanasius, to restore their privileges, to proclaim their
innocence, and to erase from the public registers the illegal
proceedings which had been obtained during the prevalence of the
Eusebian faction. After every satisfaction and security had been
given, which justice or even delicacy could require, the primate
proceeded, by slow journeys, through the provinces of Thrace,
Asia, and Syria; and his progress was marked by the abject homage
of the Oriental bishops, who excited his contempt without
deceiving his penetration. 118 At Antioch he saw the emperor
Constantius; sustained, with modest firmness, the embraces and
protestations of his master, and eluded the proposal of allowing
the Arians a single church at Alexandria, by claiming, in the
other cities of the empire, a similar toleration for his own
party; a reply which might have appeared just and moderate in the
mouth of an independent prince. The entrance of the archbishop
into his capital was a triumphal procession; absence and
persecution had endeared him to the Alexandrians; his authority,
which he exercised with rigor, was more firmly established; and
his fame was diffused from Æthiopia to Britain, over the whole
extent of the Christian world. 119
116 (return) [ As Athanasius dispersed secret invectives against
Constantius, (see the Epistle to the Monks,) at the same time
that he assured him of his profound respect, we might distrust
the professions of the archbishop. Tom. i. p. 677.]
117 (return) [ Notwithstanding the discreet silence of
Athanasius, and the manifest forgery of a letter inserted by
Socrates, these menaces are proved by the unquestionable evidence
of Lucifer of Cagliari, and even of Constantius himself. See
Tillemont, tom. viii. p. 693]
118 (return) [ I have always entertained some doubts concerning
the retraction of Ursacius and Valens, (Athanas. tom. i. p. 776.)
Their epistles to Julius, bishop of Rome, and to Athanasius
himself, are of so different a cast from each other, that they
cannot both be genuine. The one speaks the language of criminals
who confess their guilt and infamy; the other of enemies, who
solicit on equal terms an honorable reconciliation. * Note: I
cannot quite comprehend the ground of Gibbon’s doubts. Athanasius
distinctly asserts the fact of their retractation. (Athan. Op. i.
p. 124, edit. Benedict.) The epistles are apparently translations
from the Latin, if, in fact, more than the substance of the
epistles. That to Athanasius is brief, almost abrupt. Their
retractation is likewise mentioned in the address of the orthodox
bishops of Rimini to Constantius. Athan. de Synodis, Op t. i. p
723-M.]
119 (return) [ The circumstances of his second return may be
collected from Athanasius himself, tom. i. p. 769, and 822, 843.
Socrates, l. ii. c. 18, Sozomen, l. iii. c. 19. Theodoret, l. ii.
c. 11, 12. Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 12.]
But the subject who has reduced his prince to the necessity of
dissembling, can never expect a sincere and lasting forgiveness;
and the tragic fate of Constans soon deprived Athanasius of a
powerful and generous protector. The civil war between the
assassin and the only surviving brother of Constans, which
afflicted the empire above three years, secured an interval of
repose to the Catholic church; and the two contending parties
were desirous to conciliate the friendship of a bishop, who, by
the weight of his personal authority, might determine the
fluctuating resolutions of an important province. He gave
audience to the ambassadors of the tyrant, with whom he was
afterwards accused of holding a secret correspondence; 120 and
the emperor Constantius repeatedly assured his dearest father,
the most reverend Athanasius, that, notwithstanding the malicious
rumors which were circulated by their common enemies, he had
inherited the sentiments, as well as the throne, of his deceased
brother. 121 Gratitude and humanity would have disposed the
primate of Egypt to deplore the untimely fate of Constans, and to
abhor the guilt of Magnentius; but as he clearly understood that
the apprehensions of Constantius were his only safeguard, the
fervor of his prayers for the success of the righteous cause
might perhaps be somewhat abated. The ruin of Athanasius was no
longer contrived by the obscure malice of a few bigoted or angry
bishops, who abused the authority of a credulous monarch. The
monarch himself avowed the resolution, which he had so long
suppressed, of avenging his private injuries; 122 and the first
winter after his victory, which he passed at Arles, was employed
against an enemy more odious to him than the vanquished tyrant of
Gaul.
120 (return) [ Athanasius (tom. i. p. 677, 678) defends his
innocence by pathetic complaints, solemn assertions, and specious
arguments. He admits that letters had been forged in his name,
but he requests that his own secretaries and those of the tyrant
might be examined, whether those letters had been written by the
former, or received by the latter.]
121 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 825-844.]
122 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 861. Theodoret, l. ii. c. 16.
The emperor declared that he was more desirous to subdue
Athanasius, than he had been to vanquish Magnentius or Sylvanus.]
If the emperor had capriciously decreed the death of the most
eminent and virtuous citizen of the republic, the cruel order
would have been executed without hesitation, by the ministers of
open violence or of specious injustice. The caution, the delay,
the difficulty with which he proceeded in the condemnation and
punishment of a popular bishop, discovered to the world that the
privileges of the church had already revived a sense of order and
freedom in the Roman government. The sentence which was
pronounced in the synod of Tyre, and subscribed by a large
majority of the Eastern bishops, had never been expressly
repealed; and as Athanasius had been once degraded from his
episcopal dignity by the judgment of his brethren, every
subsequent act might be considered as irregular, and even
criminal. But the memory of the firm and effectual support which
the primate of Egypt had derived from the attachment of the
Western church, engaged Constantius to suspend the execution of
the sentence till he had obtained the concurrence of the Latin
bishops. Two years were consumed in ecclesiastical negotiations;
and the important cause between the emperor and one of his
subjects was solemnly debated, first in the synod of Arles, and
afterwards in the great council of Milan, 123 which consisted of
above three hundred bishops. Their integrity was gradually
undermined by the arguments of the Arians, the dexterity of the
eunuchs, and the pressing solicitations of a prince who gratified
his revenge at the expense of his dignity, and exposed his own
passions, whilst he influenced those of the clergy. Corruption,
the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty, was
successfully practised; honors, gifts, and immunities were
offered and accepted as the price of an episcopal vote; 124 and
the condemnation of the Alexandrian primate was artfully
represented as the only measure which could restore the peace and
union of the Catholic church. The friends of Athanasius were not,
however, wanting to their leader, or to their cause. With a manly
spirit, which the sanctity of their character rendered less
dangerous, they maintained, in public debate, and in private
conference with the emperor, the eternal obligation of religion
and justice. They declared, that neither the hope of his favor,
nor the fear of his displeasure, should prevail on them to join
in the condemnation of an absent, an innocent, a respectable
brother. 125 They affirmed, with apparent reason, that the
illegal and obsolete decrees of the council of Tyre had long
since been tacitly abolished by the Imperial edicts, the
honorable reestablishment of the archbishop of Alexandria, and
the silence or recantation of his most clamorous adversaries.
They alleged, that his innocence had been attested by the
unanimous bishops of Egypt, and had been acknowledged in the
councils of Rome and Sardica, 126 by the impartial judgment of
the Latin church. They deplored the hard condition of Athanasius,
who, after enjoying so many years his seat, his reputation, and
the seeming confidence of his sovereign, was again called upon to
confute the most groundless and extravagant accusations. Their
language was specious; their conduct was honorable: but in this
long and obstinate contest, which fixed the eyes of the whole
empire on a single bishop, the ecclesiastical factions were
prepared to sacrifice truth and justice to the more interesting
object of defending or removing the intrepid champion of the
Nicene faith. The Arians still thought it prudent to disguise, in
ambiguous language, their real sentiments and designs; but the
orthodox bishops, armed with the favor of the people, and the
decrees of a general council, insisted on every occasion, and
particularly at Milan, that their adversaries should purge
themselves from the suspicion of heresy, before they presumed to
arraign the conduct of the great Athanasius. 127
123 (return) [ The affairs of the council of Milan are so
imperfectly and erroneously related by the Greek writers, that we
must rejoice in the supply of some letters of Eusebius, extracted
by Baronius from the archives of the church of Vercellæ, and of
an old life of Dionysius of Milan, published by Bollandus. See
Baronius, A.D. 355, and Tillemont, tom. vii. p. 1415.]
124 (return) [ The honors, presents, feasts, which seduced so
many bishops, are mentioned with indignation by those who were
too pure or too proud to accept them. “We combat (says Hilary of
Poitiers) against Constantius the Antichrist; who strokes the
belly instead of scourging the back;” qui non dorsa cædit; sed
ventrem palpat. Hilarius contra Constant c. 5, p. 1240.]
125 (return) [ Something of this opposition is mentioned by
Ammianus (x. 7,) who had a very dark and superficial knowledge of
ecclesiastical history. Liberius... perseveranter renitebatur,
nec visum hominem, nec auditum damnare, nefas ultimum sæpe
exclamans; aperte scilicet recalcitrans Imperatoris arbitrio. Id
enim ille Athanasio semper infestus, &c.]
126 (return) [ More properly by the orthodox part of the council
of Sardica. If the bishops of both parties had fairly voted, the
division would have been 94 to 76. M. de Tillemont (see tom.
viii. p. 1147-1158) is justly surprised that so small a majority
should have proceeded as vigorously against their adversaries,
the principal of whom they immediately deposed.]
127 (return) [ Sulp. Severus in Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 412.]
But the voice of reason (if reason was indeed on the side of
Athanasius) was silenced by the clamors of a factious or venal
majority; and the councils of Arles and Milan were not dissolved,
till the archbishop of Alexandria had been solemnly condemned and
deposed by the judgment of the Western, as well as of the
Eastern, church. The bishops who had opposed, were required to
subscribe, the sentence, and to unite in religious communion with
the suspected leaders of the adverse party. A formulary of
consent was transmitted by the messengers of state to the absent
bishops: and all those who refused to submit their private
opinion to the public and inspired wisdom of the councils of
Arles and Milan, were immediately banished by the emperor, who
affected to execute the decrees of the Catholic church. Among
those prelates who led the honorable band of confessors and
exiles, Liberius of Rome, Osius of Cordova, Paulinus of Treves,
Dionysius of Milan, Eusebius of Vercellæ, Lucifer of Cagliari and
Hilary of Poitiers, may deserve to be particularly distinguished.
The eminent station of Liberius, who governed the capital of the
empire; the personal merit and long experience of the venerable
Osius, who was revered as the favorite of the great Constantine,
and the father of the Nicene faith, placed those prelates at the
head of the Latin church: and their example, either of submission
or resistance, would probable be imitated by the episcopal crowd.
But the repeated attempts of the emperor to seduce or to
intimidate the bishops of Rome and Cordova, were for some time
ineffectual. The Spaniard declared himself ready to suffer under
Constantius, as he had suffered threescore years before under his
grandfather Maximian. The Roman, in the presence of his
sovereign, asserted the innocence of Athanasius and his own
freedom. When he was banished to Beræa in Thrace, he sent back a
large sum which had been offered for the accommodation of his
journey; and insulted the court of Milan by the haughty remark,
that the emperor and his eunuchs might want that gold to pay
their soldiers and their bishops. 128 The resolution of Liberius
and Osius was at length subdued by the hardships of exile and
confinement. The Roman pontiff purchased his return by some
criminal compliances; and afterwards expiated his guilt by a
seasonable repentance. Persuasion and violence were employed to
extort the reluctant signature of the decrepit bishop of Cordova,
whose strength was broken, and whose faculties were perhaps
impaired by the weight of a hundred years; and the insolent
triumph of the Arians provoked some of the orthodox party to
treat with inhuman severity the character, or rather the memory,
of an unfortunate old man, to whose former services Christianity
itself was so deeply indebted. 129
128 (return) [ The exile of Liberius is mentioned by Ammianus,
xv. 7. See Theodoret, l. ii. c. 16. Athanas. tom. i. p. 834-837.
Hilar. Fragment l.]
129 (return) [ The life of Osius is collected by Tillemont, (tom.
vii. p. 524-561,) who in the most extravagant terms first
admires, and then reprobates, the bishop of Cordova. In the midst
of their lamentations on his fall, the prudence of Athanasius may
be distinguished from the blind and intemperate zeal of Hilary.]
The fall of Liberius and Osius reflected a brighter lustre on the
firmness of those bishops who still adhered, with unshaken
fidelity, to the cause of Athanasius and religious truth. The
ingenious malice of their enemies had deprived them of the
benefit of mutual comfort and advice, separated those illustrious
exiles into distant provinces, and carefully selected the most
inhospitable spots of a great empire. 130 Yet they soon
experienced that the deserts of Libya, and the most barbarous
tracts of Cappadocia, were less inhospitable than the residence
of those cities in which an Arian bishop could satiate, without
restraint, the exquisite rancor of theological hatred. 131 Their
consolation was derived from the consciousness of rectitude and
independence, from the applause, the visits, the letters, and the
liberal alms of their adherents, 132 and from the satisfaction
which they soon enjoyed of observing the intestine divisions of
the adversaries of the Nicene faith. Such was the nice and
capricious taste of the emperor Constantius; and so easily was he
offended by the slightest deviation from his imaginary standard
of Christian truth, that he persecuted, with equal zeal, those
who defended the _consubstantiality_, those who asserted the
_similar substance_, and those who denied the _likeness_ of the
Son of God. Three bishops, degraded and banished for those
adverse opinions, might possibly meet in the same place of exile;
and, according to the difference of their temper, might either
pity or insult the blind enthusiasm of their antagonists, whose
present sufferings would never be compensated by future
happiness.
130 (return) [ The confessors of the West were successively
banished to the deserts of Arabia or Thebais, the lonely places
of Mount Taurus, the wildest parts of Phrygia, which were in the
possession of the impious Montanists, &c. When the heretic Ætius
was too favorably entertained at Mopsuestia in Cilicia, the place
of his exile was changed, by the advice of Acacius, to Amblada, a
district inhabited by savages and infested by war and pestilence.
Philostorg. l. v. c. 2.]
131 (return) [ See the cruel treatment and strange obstinacy of
Eusebius, in his own letters, published by Baronius, A.D. 356,
No. 92-102.]
132 (return) [ Cæterum exules satis constat, totius orbis studiis
celebratos pecuniasque eis in sumptum affatim congestas,
legationibus quoque plebis Catholicæ ex omnibus fere provinciis
frequentatos. Sulp. Sever Hist. Sacra, p. 414. Athanas. tom. i.
p. 836, 840.]
The disgrace and exile of the orthodox bishops of the West were
designed as so many preparatory steps to the ruin of Athanasius
himself. 133 Six-and-twenty months had elapsed, during which the
Imperial court secretly labored, by the most insidious arts, to
remove him from Alexandria, and to withdraw the allowance which
supplied his popular liberality. But when the primate of Egypt,
deserted and proscribed by the Latin church, was left destitute
of any foreign support, Constantius despatched two of his
secretaries with a verbal commission to announce and execute the
order of his banishment. As the justice of the sentence was
publicly avowed by the whole party, the only motive which could
restrain Constantius from giving his messengers the sanction of a
written mandate, must be imputed to his doubt of the event; and
to a sense of the danger to which he might expose the second
city, and the most fertile province, of the empire, if the people
should persist in the resolution of defending, by force of arms,
the innocence of their spiritual father. Such extreme caution
afforded Athanasius a specious pretence respectfully to dispute
the truth of an order, which he could not reconcile, either with
the equity, or with the former declarations, of his gracious
master. The civil powers of Egypt found themselves inadequate to
the task of persuading or compelling the primate to abdicate his
episcopal throne; and they were obliged to conclude a treaty with
the popular leaders of Alexandria, by which it was stipulated,
that all proceedings and all hostilities should be suspended till
the emperor’s pleasure had been more distinctly ascertained. By
this seeming moderation, the Catholics were deceived into a false
and fatal security; while the legions of the Upper Egypt, and of
Libya, advanced, by secret orders and hasty marches, to besiege,
or rather to surprise, a capital habituated to sedition, and
inflamed by religious zeal. 134 The position of Alexandria,
between the sea and the Lake Mareotis, facilitated the approach
and landing of the troops; who were introduced into the heart of
the city, before any effectual measures could be taken either to
shut the gates or to occupy the important posts of defence. At
the hour of midnight, twenty-three days after the signature of
the treaty, Syrianus, duke of Egypt, at the head of five thousand
soldiers, armed and prepared for an assault, unexpectedly
invested the church of St. Theonas, where the archbishop, with a
part of his clergy and people, performed their nocturnal
devotions. The doors of the sacred edifice yielded to the
impetuosity of the attack, which was accompanied with every
horrid circumstance of tumult and bloodshed; but, as the bodies
of the slain, and the fragments of military weapons, remained the
next day an unexceptionable evidence in the possession of the
Catholics, the enterprise of Syrianus may be considered as a
successful irruption rather than as an absolute conquest. The
other churches of the city were profaned by similar outrages;
and, during at least four months, Alexandria was exposed to the
insults of a licentious army, stimulated by the ecclesiastics of
a hostile faction. Many of the faithful were killed; who may
deserve the name of martyrs, if their deaths were neither
provoked nor revenged; bishops and presbyters were treated with
cruel ignominy; consecrated virgins were stripped naked, scourged
and violated; the houses of wealthy citizens were plundered; and,
under the mask of religious zeal, lust, avarice, and private
resentment were gratified with impunity, and even with applause.
The Pagans of Alexandria, who still formed a numerous and
discontented party, were easily persuaded to desert a bishop whom
they feared and esteemed. The hopes of some peculiar favors, and
the apprehension of being involved in the general penalties of
rebellion, engaged them to promise their support to the destined
successor of Athanasius, the famous George of Cappadocia. The
usurper, after receiving the consecration of an Arian synod, was
placed on the episcopal throne by the arms of Sebastian, who had
been appointed Count of Egypt for the execution of that important
design. In the use, as well as in the acquisition, of power, the
tyrant, George disregarded the laws of religion, of justice, and
of humanity; and the same scenes of violence and scandal which
had been exhibited in the capital, were repeated in more than
ninety episcopal cities of Egypt. Encouraged by success,
Constantius ventured to approve the conduct of his minister. By a
public and passionate epistle, the emperor congratulates the
deliverance of Alexandria from a popular tyrant, who deluded his
blind votaries by the magic of his eloquence; expatiates on the
virtues and piety of the most reverend George, the elected
bishop; and aspires, as the patron and benefactor of the city to
surpass the fame of Alexander himself. But he solemnly declares
his unalterable resolution to pursue with fire and sword the
seditious adherents of the wicked Athanasius, who, by flying from
justice, has confessed his guilt, and escaped the ignominious
death which he had so often deserved. 135
133 (return) [ Ample materials for the history of this third
persecution of Athanasius may be found in his own works. See
particularly his very able Apology to Constantius, (tom. i. p.
673,) his first Apology for his flight (p. 701,) his prolix
Epistle to the Solitaries, (p. 808,) and the original protest of
the people of Alexandria against the violences committed by
Syrianus, (p. 866.) Sozomen (l. iv. c. 9) has thrown into the
narrative two or three luminous and important circumstances.]
134 (return) [ Athanasius had lately sent for Antony, and some of
his chosen monks. They descended from their mountains, announced
to the Alexandrians the sanctity of Athanasius, and were
honorably conducted by the archbishop as far as the gates of the
city. Athanas tom. ii. p. 491, 492. See likewise Rufinus, iii.
164, in Vit. Patr. p. 524.]
135 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 694. The emperor, or his Arian
secretaries while they express their resentment, betray their
fears and esteem of Athanasius.]
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part VI.
Athanasius had indeed escaped from the most imminent dangers; and
the adventures of that extraordinary man deserve and fix our
attention. On the memorable night when the church of St. Theonas
was invested by the troops of Syrianus, the archbishop, seated on
his throne, expected, with calm and intrepid dignity, the
approach of death. While the public devotion was interrupted by
shouts of rage and cries of terror, he animated his trembling
congregation to express their religious confidence, by chanting
one of the psalms of David which celebrates the triumph of the
God of Israel over the haughty and impious tyrant of Egypt. The
doors were at length burst open: a cloud of arrows was discharged
among the people; the soldiers, with drawn swords, rushed
forwards into the sanctuary; and the dreadful gleam of their arms
was reflected by the holy luminaries which burnt round the altar.
136 Athanasius still rejected the pious importunity of the monks
and presbyters, who were attached to his person; and nobly
refused to desert his episcopal station, till he had dismissed in
safety the last of the congregation. The darkness and tumult of
the night favored the retreat of the archbishop; and though he
was oppressed by the waves of an agitated multitude, though he
was thrown to the ground, and left without sense or motion, he
still recovered his undaunted courage, and eluded the eager
search of the soldiers, who were instructed by their Arian
guides, that the head of Athanasius would be the most acceptable
present to the emperor. From that moment the primate of Egypt
disappeared from the eyes of his enemies, and remained above six
years concealed in impenetrable obscurity. 137
136 (return) [ These minute circumstances are curious, as they
are literally transcribed from the protest, which was publicly
presented three days afterwards by the Catholics of Alexandria.
See Athanas. tom. l. n. 867]
137 (return) [ The Jansenists have often compared Athanasius and
Arnauld, and have expatiated with pleasure on the faith and zeal,
the merit and exile, of those celebrated doctors. This concealed
parallel is very dexterously managed by the Abbé de la Bleterie,
Vie de Jovien, tom. i. p. 130.]
The despotic power of his implacable enemy filled the whole
extent of the Roman world; and the exasperated monarch had
endeavored, by a very pressing epistle to the Christian princes
of Ethiopia, 13711 to exclude Athanasius from the most remote and
sequestered regions of the earth. Counts, præfects, tribunes,
whole armies, were successively employed to pursue a bishop and a
fugitive; the vigilance of the civil and military powers was
excited by the Imperial edicts; liberal rewards were promised to
the man who should produce Athanasius, either alive or dead; and
the most severe penalties were denounced against those who should
dare to protect the public enemy. 138 But the deserts of Thebais
were now peopled by a race of wild, yet submissive fanatics, who
preferred the commands of their abbot to the laws of their
sovereign. The numerous disciples of Antony and Pachonnus
received the fugitive primate as their father, admired the
patience and humility with which he conformed to their strictest
institutions, collected every word which dropped from his lips as
the genuine effusions of inspired wisdom; and persuaded
themselves that their prayers, their fasts, and their vigils,
were less meritorious than the zeal which they expressed, and the
dangers which they braved, in the defence of truth and innocence.
139 The monasteries of Egypt were seated in lonely and desolate
places, on the summit of mountains, or in the islands of the
Nile; and the sacred horn or trumpet of Tabenne was the
well-known signal which assembled several thousand robust and
determined monks, who, for the most part, had been the peasants
of the adjacent country. When their dark retreats were invaded by
a military force, which it was impossible to resist, they
silently stretched out their necks to the executioner; and
supported their national character, that tortures could never
wrest from an Egyptian the confession of a secret which he was
resolved not to disclose. 140 The archbishop of Alexandria, for
whose safety they eagerly devoted their lives, was lost among a
uniform and well-disciplined multitude; and on the nearer
approach of danger, he was swiftly removed, by their officious
hands, from one place of concealment to another, till he reached
the formidable deserts, which the gloomy and credulous temper of
superstition had peopled with dæmons and savage monsters. The
retirement of Athanasius, which ended only with the life of
Constantius, was spent, for the most part, in the society of the
monks, who faithfully served him as guards, as secretaries, and
as messengers; but the importance of maintaining a more intimate
connection with the Catholic party tempted him, whenever the
diligence of the pursuit was abated, to emerge from the desert,
to introduce himself into Alexandria, and to trust his person to
the discretion of his friends and adherents. His various
adventures might have furnished the subject of a very
entertaining romance. He was once secreted in a dry cistern,
which he had scarcely left before he was betrayed by the
treachery of a female slave; 141 and he was once concealed in a
still more extraordinary asylum, the house of a virgin, only
twenty years of age, and who was celebrated in the whole city for
her exquisite beauty. At the hour of midnight, as she related the
story many years afterwards, she was surprised by the appearance
of the archbishop in a loose undress, who, advancing with hasty
steps, conjured her to afford him the protection which he had
been directed by a celestial vision to seek under her hospitable
roof. The pious maid accepted and preserved the sacred pledge
which was intrusted to her prudence and courage. Without
imparting the secret to any one, she instantly conducted
Athanasius into her most secret chamber, and watched over his
safety with the tenderness of a friend and the assiduity of a
servant. As long as the danger continued, she regularly supplied
him with books and provisions, washed his feet, managed his
correspondence, and dexterously concealed from the eye of
suspicion this familiar and solitary intercourse between a saint
whose character required the most unblemished chastity, and a
female whose charms might excite the most dangerous emotions. 142
During the six years of persecution and exile, Athanasius
repeated his visits to his fair and faithful companion; and the
formal declaration, that he _saw_ the councils of Rimini and
Seleucia, 143 forces us to believe that he was secretly present
at the time and place of their convocation. The advantage of
personally negotiating with his friends, and of observing and
improving the divisions of his enemies, might justify, in a
prudent statesman, so bold and dangerous an enterprise: and
Alexandria was connected by trade and navigation with every
seaport of the Mediterranean. From the depth of his inaccessible
retreat the intrepid primate waged an incessant and offensive war
against the protector of the Arians; and his seasonable writings,
which were diligently circulated and eagerly perused, contributed
to unite and animate the orthodox party. In his public apologies,
which he addressed to the emperor himself, he sometimes affected
the praise of moderation; whilst at the same time, in secret and
vehement invectives, he exposed Constantius as a weak and wicked
prince, the executioner of his family, the tyrant of the
republic, and the Antichrist of the church. In the height of his
prosperity, the victorious monarch, who had chastised the
rashness of Gallus, and suppressed the revolt of Sylvanus, who
had taken the diadem from the head of Vetranio, and vanquished in
the field the legions of Magnentius, received from an invisible
hand a wound, which he could neither heal nor revenge; and the
son of Constantine was the first of the Christian princes who
experienced the strength of those principles, which, in the cause
of religion, could resist the most violent exertions 144 of the
civil power.
13711 (return) [ These princes were called Aeizanas and
Saiazanas. Athanasius calls them the kings of Axum. In the
superscription of his letter, Constantius gives them no title.
Mr. Salt, during his first journey in Ethiopia, (in 1806,)
discovered, in the ruins of Axum, a long and very interesting
inscription relating to these princes. It was erected to
commemorate the victory of Aeizanas over the Bougaitæ, (St.
Martin considers them the Blemmyes, whose true name is Bedjah or
Bodjah.) Aeizanas is styled king of the Axumites, the Homerites,
of Raeidan, of the Ethiopians, of the Sabsuites, of Silea, of
Tiamo, of the Bougaites, and of Kaei. It appears that at this
time the king of the Ethiopians ruled over the Homerites, the
inhabitants of Yemen. He was not yet a Christian, as he calls
himself son of the invincible Mars. Another brother besides
Saiazanas, named Adephas, is mentioned, though Aeizanas seems to
have been sole king. See St. Martin, note on Le Beau, ii. 151.
Salt’s Travels. De Sacy, note in Annales des Voyages, xii. p.
53.—M.]
138 (return) [ Hinc jam toto orbe profugus Athanasius, nec ullus
ci tutus ad latendum supererat locus. Tribuni, Præfecti, Comites,
exercitus quoque ad pervestigandum cum moventur edictis
Imperialibus; præmia dela toribus proponuntur, si quis eum vivum,
si id minus, caput certe Atha casii detulisset. Rufin. l. i. c.
16.]
139 (return) [ Gregor. Nazianzen. tom. i. Orat. xxi. p. 384, 385.
See Tillemont Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 176-410, 820-830.]
140 (return) [ Et nulla tormentorum vis inveneri, adhuc potuit,
quæ obdurato illius tractus latroni invito elicere potuit, ut
nomen proprium dicat Ammian. xxii. 16, and Valesius ad locum.]
141 (return) [ Rufin. l. i. c. 18. Sozomen, l. iv. c. 10. This
and the following story will be rendered impossible, if we
suppose that Athanasius always inhabited the asylum which he
accidentally or occasionally had used.]
142 (return) [ Paladius, (Hist. Lausiac. c. 136, in Vit. Patrum,
p. 776,) the original author of this anecdote, had conversed with
the damsel, who in her old age still remembered with pleasure so
pious and honorable a connection. I cannot indulge the delicacy
of Baronius, Valesius, Tillemont, &c., who almost reject a story
so unworthy, as they deem it, of the gravity of ecclesiastical
history.]
143 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 869. I agree with Tillemont,
(tom. iii. p. 1197,) that his expressions imply a personal,
though perhaps secret visit to the synods.]
144 (return) [ The epistle of Athanasius to the monks is filled
with reproaches, which the public must feel to be true, (vol. i.
p. 834, 856;) and, in compliment to his readers, he has
introduced the comparisons of Pharaoh, Ahab, Belshazzar, &c. The
boldness of Hilary was attended with less danger, if he published
his invective in Gaul after the revolt of Julian; but Lucifer
sent his libels to Constantius, and almost challenged the reward
of martyrdom. See Tillemont, tom. vii. p. 905.]
The persecution of Athanasius, and of so many respectable
bishops, who suffered for the truth of their opinions, or at
least for the integrity of their conscience, was a just subject
of indignation and discontent to all Christians, except those who
were blindly devoted to the Arian faction. The people regretted
the loss of their faithful pastors, whose banishment was usually
followed by the intrusion of a stranger 145 into the episcopal
chair; and loudly complained, that the right of election was
violated, and that they were condemned to obey a mercenary
usurper, whose person was unknown, and whose principles were
suspected. The Catholics might prove to the world, that they were
not involved in the guilt and heresy of their ecclesiastical
governor, by publicly testifying their dissent, or by totally
separating themselves from his communion. The first of these
methods was invented at Antioch, and practised with such success,
that it was soon diffused over the Christian world. The doxology
or sacred hymn, which celebrates the _glory_ of the Trinity, is
susceptible of very nice, but material, inflections; and the
substance of an orthodox, or an heretical, creed, may be
expressed by the difference of a disjunctive, or a copulative,
particle. Alternate responses, and a more regular psalmody, 146
were introduced into the public service by Flavianus and
Diodorus, two devout and active laymen, who were attached to the
Nicene faith. Under their conduct a swarm of monks issued from
the adjacent desert, bands of well-disciplined singers were
stationed in the cathedral of Antioch, the Glory to the Father,
And the Son, And the Holy Ghost, 147 was triumphantly chanted by
a full chorus of voices; and the Catholics insulted, by the
purity of their doctrine, the Arian prelate, who had usurped the
throne of the venerable Eustathius. The same zeal which inspired
their songs prompted the more scrupulous members of the orthodox
party to form separate assemblies, which were governed by the
presbyters, till the death of their exiled bishop allowed the
election and consecration of a new episcopal pastor. 148 The
revolutions of the court multiplied the number of pretenders; and
the same city was often disputed, under the reign of Constantius,
by two, or three, or even four, bishops, who exercised their
spiritual jurisdiction over their respective followers, and
alternately lost and regained the temporal possessions of the
church. The abuse of Christianity introduced into the Roman
government new causes of tyranny and sedition; the bands of civil
society were torn asunder by the fury of religious factions; and
the obscure citizen, who might calmly have surveyed the elevation
and fall of successive emperors, imagined and experienced, that
his own life and fortune were connected with the interests of a
popular ecclesiastic. The example of the two capitals, Rome and
Constantinople, may serve to represent the state of the empire,
and the temper of mankind, under the reign of the sons of
Constantine.
145 (return) [ Athanasius (tom. i. p. 811) complains in general
of this practice, which he afterwards exemplifies (p. 861) in the
pretended election of Fælix. Three eunuchs represented the Roman
people, and three prelates, who followed the court, assumed the
functions of the bishops of the Suburbicarian provinces.]
146 (return) [ Thomassin (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. l. ii.
c. 72, 73, p. 966-984) has collected many curious facts
concerning the origin and progress of church singing, both in the
East and West. * Note: Arius appears to have been the first who
availed himself of this means of impressing his doctrines on the
popular ear: he composed songs for sailors, millers, and
travellers, and set them to common airs; “beguiling the ignorant,
by the sweetness of his music, into the impiety of his
doctrines.” Philostorgius, ii. 2. Arian singers used to parade
the streets of Constantinople by night, till Chrysostom arrayed
against them a band of orthodox choristers. Sozomen, viii. 8.—M.]
147 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 13. Godefroy has
examined this subject with singular accuracy, (p. 147, &c.) There
were three heterodox forms: “To the Father _by_ the Son, _and_ in
the Holy Ghost.” “To the Father, _and_ the Son _in_ the Holy
Ghost;” and “To the Father _in_ the Son _and_ the Holy Ghost.”]
148 (return) [ After the exile of Eustathius, under the reign of
Constantine, the rigid party of the orthodox formed a separation
which afterwards degenerated into a schism, and lasted about
fourscore years. See Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 35-54,
1137-1158, tom. viii. p. 537-632, 1314-1332. In many churches,
the Arians and Homoousians, who had renounced each other’s
_communion_, continued for some time to join in prayer.
Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 14.]
I. The Roman pontiff, as long as he maintained his station and
his principles, was guarded by the warm attachment of a great
people; and could reject with scorn the prayers, the menaces, and
the oblations of an heretical prince. When the eunuchs had
secretly pronounced the exile of Liberius, the well-grounded
apprehension of a tumult engaged them to use the utmost
precautions in the execution of the sentence. The capital was
invested on every side, and the præfect was commanded to seize
the person of the bishop, either by stratagem or by open force.
The order was obeyed, and Liberius, with the greatest difficulty,
at the hour of midnight, was swiftly conveyed beyond the reach of
the Roman people, before their consternation was turned into
rage. As soon as they were informed of his banishment into
Thrace, a general assembly was convened, and the clergy of Rome
bound themselves, by a public and solemn oath, never to desert
their bishop, never to acknowledge the usurper Fælix; who, by the
influence of the eunuchs, had been irregularly chosen and
consecrated within the walls of a profane palace. At the end of
two years, their pious obstinacy subsisted entire and unshaken;
and when Constantius visited Rome, he was assailed by the
importunate solicitations of a people, who had preserved, as the
last remnant of their ancient freedom, the right of treating
their sovereign with familiar insolence. The wives of many of the
senators and most honorable citizens, after pressing their
husbands to intercede in favor of Liberius, were advised to
undertake a commission, which in their hands would be less
dangerous, and might prove more successful. The emperor received
with politeness these female deputies, whose wealth and dignity
were displayed in the magnificence of their dress and ornaments:
he admired their inflexible resolution of following their beloved
pastor to the most distant regions of the earth; and consented
that the two bishops, Liberius and Fælix, should govern in peace
their respective congregations. But the ideas of toleration were
so repugnant to the practice, and even to the sentiments, of
those times, that when the answer of Constantius was publicly
read in the Circus of Rome, so reasonable a project of
accommodation was rejected with contempt and ridicule. The eager
vehemence which animated the spectators in the decisive moment of
a horse-race, was now directed towards a different object; and
the Circus resounded with the shout of thousands, who repeatedly
exclaimed, “One God, One Christ, One Bishop!” The zeal of the
Roman people in the cause of Liberius was not confined to words
alone; and the dangerous and bloody sedition which they excited
soon after the departure of Constantius determined that prince to
accept the submission of the exiled prelate, and to restore him
to the undivided dominion of the capital. After some ineffectual
resistance, his rival was expelled from the city by the
permission of the emperor and the power of the opposite faction;
the adherents of Fælix were inhumanly murdered in the streets, in
the public places, in the baths, and even in the churches; and
the face of Rome, upon the return of a Christian bishop, renewed
the horrid image of the massacres of Marius, and the
proscriptions of Sylla. 149
149 (return) [ See, on this ecclesiastical revolution of Rome,
Ammianus, xv. 7 Athanas. tom. i. p. 834, 861. Sozomen, l. iv. c.
15. Theodoret, l. ii c. 17. Sulp. Sever. Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p.
413. Hieronym. Chron. Marcellin. et Faustin. Libell. p. 3, 4.
Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vi. p.]
II. Notwithstanding the rapid increase of Christians under the
reign of the Flavian family, Rome, Alexandria, and the other
great cities of the empire, still contained a strong and powerful
faction of Infidels, who envied the prosperity, and who
ridiculed, even in their theatres, the theological disputes of
the church. Constantinople alone enjoyed the advantage of being
born and educated in the bosom of the faith. The capital of the
East had never been polluted by the worship of idols; and the
whole body of the people had deeply imbibed the opinions, the
virtues, and the passions, which distinguished the Christians of
that age from the rest of mankind. After the death of Alexander,
the episcopal throne was disputed by Paul and Macedonius. By
their zeal and abilities they both deserved the eminent station
to which they aspired; and if the moral character of Macedonius
was less exceptionable, his competitor had the advantage of a
prior election and a more orthodox doctrine. His firm attachment
to the Nicene creed, which has given Paul a place in the calendar
among saints and martyrs, exposed him to the resentment of the
Arians. In the space of fourteen years he was five times driven
from his throne; to which he was more frequently restored by the
violence of the people, than by the permission of the prince; and
the power of Macedonius could be secured only by the death of his
rival. The unfortunate Paul was dragged in chains from the sandy
deserts of Mesopotamia to the most desolate places of Mount
Taurus, 150 confined in a dark and narrow dungeon, left six days
without food, and at length strangled, by the order of Philip,
one of the principal ministers of the emperor Constantius. 151
The first blood which stained the new capital was spilt in this
ecclesiastical contest; and many persons were slain on both
sides, in the furious and obstinate seditions of the people. The
commission of enforcing a sentence of banishment against Paul had
been intrusted to Hermogenes, the master-general of the cavalry;
but the execution of it was fatal to himself. The Catholics rose
in the defence of their bishop; the palace of Hermogenes was
consumed; the first military officer of the empire was dragged by
the heels through the streets of Constantinople, and, after he
expired, his lifeless corpse was exposed to their wanton insults.
152 The fate of Hermogenes instructed Philip, the Prætorian
præfect, to act with more precaution on a similar occasion. In
the most gentle and honorable terms, he required the attendance
of Paul in the baths of Xeuxippus, which had a private
communication with the palace and the sea. A vessel, which lay
ready at the garden stairs, immediately hoisted sail; and, while
the people were still ignorant of the meditated sacrilege, their
bishop was already embarked on his voyage to Thessalonica. They
soon beheld, with surprise and indignation, the gates of the
palace thrown open, and the usurper Macedonius seated by the side
of the præfect on a lofty chariot, which was surrounded by troops
of guards with drawn swords. The military procession advanced
towards the cathedral; the Arians and the Catholics eagerly
rushed to occupy that important post; and three thousand one
hundred and fifty persons lost their lives in the confusion of
the tumult. Macedonius, who was supported by a regular force,
obtained a decisive victory; but his reign was disturbed by
clamor and sedition; and the causes which appeared the least
connected with the subject of dispute, were sufficient to nourish
and to kindle the flame of civil discord. As the chapel in which
the body of the great Constantine had been deposited was in a
ruinous condition, the bishop transported those venerable remains
into the church of St. Acacius. This prudent and even pious
measure was represented as a wicked profanation by the whole
party which adhered to the Homoousian doctrine. The factions
immediately flew to arms, the consecrated ground was used as
their field of battle; and one of the ecclesiastical historians
has observed, as a real fact, not as a figure of rhetoric, that
the well before the church overflowed with a stream of blood,
which filled the porticos and the adjacent courts. The writer who
should impute these tumults solely to a religious principle,
would betray a very imperfect knowledge of human nature; yet it
must be confessed that the motive which misled the sincerity of
zeal, and the pretence which disguised the licentiousness of
passion, suppressed the remorse which, in another cause, would
have succeeded to the rage of the Christians at Constantinople.
153
150 (return) [ Cucusus was the last stage of his life and
sufferings. The situation of that lonely town, on the confines of
Cappadocia, Cilicia, and the Lesser Armenia, has occasioned some
geographical perplexity; but we are directed to the true spot by
the course of the Roman road from Cæsarea to Anazarbus. See
Cellarii Geograph. tom. ii. p. 213. Wesseling ad Itinerar. p.
179, 703.]
151 (return) [ Athanasius (tom. i. p. 703, 813, 814) affirms, in
the most positive terms, that Paul was murdered; and appeals, not
only to common fame, but even to the unsuspicious testimony of
Philagrius, one of the Arian persecutors. Yet he acknowledges
that the heretics attributed to disease the death of the bishop
of Constantinople. Athanasius is servilely copied by Socrates,
(l. ii. c. 26;) but Sozomen, who discovers a more liberal temper.
presumes (l. iv. c. 2) to insinuate a prudent doubt.]
152 (return) [ Ammianus (xiv. 10) refers to his own account of
this tragic event. But we no longer possess that part of his
history. Note: The murder of Hermogenes took place at the first
expulsion of Paul from the see of Constantinople.—M.]
153 (return) [ See Socrates, l. ii. c. 6, 7, 12, 13, 15, 16, 26,
27, 38, and Sozomen, l. iii. 3, 4, 7, 9, l. iv. c. ii. 21. The
acts of St. Paul of Constantinople, of which Photius has made an
abstract, (Phot. Bibliot. p. 1419-1430,) are an indifferent copy
of these historians; but a modern Greek, who could write the life
of a saint without adding fables and miracles, is entitled to
some commendation.]
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part
VII.
The cruel and arbitrary disposition of Constantius, which did not
always require the provocations of guilt and resistance, was
justly exasperated by the tumults of his capital, and the
criminal behavior of a faction, which opposed the authority and
religion of their sovereign. The ordinary punishments of death,
exile, and confiscation, were inflicted with partial vigor; and
the Greeks still revere the holy memory of two clerks, a reader,
and a sub-deacon, who were accused of the murder of Hermogenes,
and beheaded at the gates of Constantinople. By an edict of
Constantius against the Catholics which has not been judged
worthy of a place in the Theodosian code, those who refused to
communicate with the Arian bishops, and particularly with
Macedonius, were deprived of the immunities of ecclesiastics, and
of the rights of Christians; they were compelled to relinquish
the possession of the churches; and were strictly prohibited from
holding their assemblies within the walls of the city. The
execution of this unjust law, in the provinces of Thrace and Asia
Minor, was committed to the zeal of Macedonius; the civil and
military powers were directed to obey his commands; and the
cruelties exercised by this Semi- Arian tyrant in the support of
the _Homoiousion_, exceeded the commission, and disgraced the
reign, of Constantius. The sacraments of the church were
administered to the reluctant victims, who denied the vocation,
and abhorred the principles, of Macedonius. The rites of baptism
were conferred on women and children, who, for that purpose, had
been torn from the arms of their friends and parents; the mouths
of the communicants were held open by a wooden engine, while the
consecrated bread was forced down their throat; the breasts of
tender virgins were either burnt with red-hot egg-shells, or
inhumanly compressed betweens harp and heavy boards. 154 The
Novatians of Constantinople and the adjacent country, by their
firm attachment to the Homoousian standard, deserved to be
confounded with the Catholics themselves. Macedonius was
informed, that a large district of Paphlagonia 155 was almost
entirely inhabited by those sectaries. He resolved either to
convert or to extirpate them; and as he distrusted, on this
occasion, the efficacy of an ecclesiastical mission, he commanded
a body of four thousand legionaries to march against the rebels,
and to reduce the territory of Mantinium under his spiritual
dominion. The Novatian peasants, animated by despair and
religious fury, boldly encountered the invaders of their country;
and though many of the Paphlagonians were slain, the Roman
legions were vanquished by an irregular multitude, armed only
with scythes and axes; and, except a few who escaped by an
ignominious flight, four thousand soldiers were left dead on the
field of battle. The successor of Constantius has expressed, in a
concise but lively manner, some of the theological calamities
which afflicted the empire, and more especially the East, in the
reign of a prince who was the slave of his own passions, and of
those of his eunuchs: “Many were imprisoned, and persecuted, and
driven into exile. Whole troops of those who are styled heretics,
were massacred, particularly at Cyzicus, and at Samosata. In
Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Galatia, and in many other provinces,
towns and villages were laid waste, and utterly destroyed.” 156
154 (return) [ Socrates, l. ii. c. 27, 38. Sozomen, l. iv. c. 21.
The principal assistants of Macedonius, in the work of
persecution, were the two bishops of Nicomedia and Cyzicus, who
were esteemed for their virtues, and especially for their
charity. I cannot forbear reminding the reader, that the
difference between the _Homoousion_ and _Homoiousion_, is almost
invisible to the nicest theological eye.]
155 (return) [ We are ignorant of the precise situation of
Mantinium. In speaking of these four bands of legionaries,
Socrates, Sozomen, and the author of the acts of St. Paul, use
the indefinite terms of, which Nicephorus very properly
translates thousands. Vales. ad Socrat. l. ii. c. 38.]
156 (return) [ Julian. Epist. lii. p. 436, edit. Spanheim.]
While the flames of the Arian controversy consumed the vitals of
the empire, the African provinces were infested by their peculiar
enemies, the savage fanatics, who, under the name of
_Circumcellions_, formed the strength and scandal of the Donatist
party. 157 The severe execution of the laws of Constantine had
excited a spirit of discontent and resistance, the strenuous
efforts of his son Constans, to restore the unity of the church,
exasperated the sentiments of mutual hatred, which had first
occasioned the separation; and the methods of force and
corruption employed by the two Imperial commissioners, Paul and
Macarius, furnished the schismatics with a specious contrast
between the maxims of the apostles and the conduct of their
pretended successors. 158 The peasants who inhabited the villages
of Numidia and Mauritania, were a ferocious race, who had been
imperfectly reduced under the authority of the Roman laws; who
were imperfectly converted to the Christian faith; but who were
actuated by a blind and furious enthusiasm in the cause of their
Donatist teachers. They indignantly supported the exile of their
bishops, the demolition of their churches, and the interruption
of their secret assemblies. The violence of the officers of
justice, who were usually sustained by a military guard, was
sometimes repelled with equal violence; and the blood of some
popular ecclesiastics, which had been shed in the quarrel,
inflamed their rude followers with an eager desire of revenging
the death of these holy martyrs. By their own cruelty and
rashness, the ministers of persecution sometimes provoked their
fate; and the guilt of an accidental tumult precipitated the
criminals into despair and rebellion. Driven from their native
villages, the Donatist peasants assembled in formidable gangs on
the edge of the Getulian desert; and readily exchanged the habits
of labor for a life of idleness and rapine, which was consecrated
by the name of religion, and faintly condemned by the doctors of
the sect. The leaders of the Circumcellions assumed the title of
captains of the saints; their principal weapon, as they were
indifferently provided with swords and spears, was a huge and
weighty club, which they termed an _Israelite;_ and the
well-known sound of “Praise be to God,” which they used as their
cry of war, diffused consternation over the unarmed provinces of
Africa. At first their depredations were colored by the plea of
necessity; but they soon exceeded the measure of subsistence,
indulged without control their intemperance and avarice, burnt
the villages which they had pillaged, and reigned the licentious
tyrants of the open country. The occupations of husbandry, and
the administration of justice, were interrupted; and as the
Circumcellions pretended to restore the primitive equality of
mankind, and to reform the abuses of civil society, they opened a
secure asylum for the slaves and debtors, who flocked in crowds
to their holy standard. When they were not resisted, they usually
contented themselves with plunder, but the slightest opposition
provoked them to acts of violence and murder; and some Catholic
priests, who had imprudently signalized their zeal, were tortured
by the fanatics with the most refined and wanton barbarity. The
spirit of the Circumcellions was not always exerted against their
defenceless enemies; they engaged, and sometimes defeated, the
troops of the province; and in the bloody action of Bagai, they
attacked in the open field, but with unsuccessful valor, an
advanced guard of the Imperial cavalry. The Donatists who were
taken in arms, received, and they soon deserved, the same
treatment which might have been shown to the wild beasts of the
desert. The captives died, without a murmur, either by the sword,
the axe, or the fire; and the measures of retaliation were
multiplied in a rapid proportion, which aggravated the horrors of
rebellion, and excluded the hope of mutual forgiveness. In the
beginning of the present century, the example of the
Circumcellions has been renewed in the persecution, the boldness,
the crimes, and the enthusiasm of the Camisards; and if the
fanatics of Languedoc surpassed those of Numidia, by their
military achievements, the Africans maintained their fierce
independence with more resolution and perseverance. 159
157 (return) [ See Optatus Milevitanus, (particularly iii. 4,)
with the Donatis history, by M. Dupin, and the original pieces at
the end of his edition. The numerous circumstances which Augustin
has mentioned, of the fury of the Circumcellions against others,
and against themselves, have been laboriously collected by
Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 147-165; and he has often,
though without design, exposed injuries which had provoked those
fanatics.]
158 (return) [ It is amusing enough to observe the language of
opposite parties, when they speak of the same men and things.
Gratus, bishop of Carthage, begins the acclamations of an
orthodox synod, “Gratias Deo omnipotenti et Christu Jesu... qui
imperavit religiosissimo Constanti Imperatori, ut votum gereret
unitatis, et mitteret ministros sancti operis _famulos Dei_
Paulum et Macarium.” Monument. Vet. ad Calcem Optati, p. 313.
“Ecce subito,” (says the Donatist author of the Passion of
Marculus), “de Constantis regif tyrannica domo.. pollutum
Macarianæ persecutionis murmur increpuit, et _duabus bestiis_ ad
Africam missis, eodem scilicet Macario et Paulo, execrandum
prorsus ac dirum ecclesiæ certamen indictum est; ut populus
Christianus ad unionem cum traditoribus faciendam, nudatis
militum gladiis et draconum præsentibus signis, et tubarum
vocibus cogeretur.” Monument. p. 304.]
159 (return) [ The Histoire des Camisards, in 3 vols. 12mo.
Villefranche, 1760 may be recommended as accurate and impartial.
It requires some attention to discover the religion of the
author.]
Such disorders are the natural effects of religious tyranny, but
the rage of the Donatists was inflamed by a frenzy of a very
extraordinary kind; and which, if it really prevailed among them
in so extravagant a degree, cannot surely be paralleled in any
country or in any age. Many of these fanatics were possessed with
the horror of life, and the desire of martyrdom; and they deemed
it of little moment by what means, or by what hands, they
perished, if their conduct was sanctified by the intention of
devoting themselves to the glory of the true faith, and the hope
of eternal happiness. 160 Sometimes they rudely disturbed the
festivals, and profaned the temples of Paganism, with the design
of exciting the most zealous of the idolaters to revenge the
insulted honor of their gods. They sometimes forced their way
into the courts of justice, and compelled the affrighted judge to
give orders for their immediate execution. They frequently
stopped travellers on the public highways, and obliged them to
inflict the stroke of martyrdom, by the promise of a reward, if
they consented, and by the threat of instant death, if they
refused to grant so very singular a favor. When they were
disappointed of every other resource, they announced the day on
which, in the presence of their friends and brethren, they should
cast themselves headlong from some lofty rock; and many
precipices were shown, which had acquired fame by the number of
religious suicides. In the actions of these desperate
enthusiasts, who were admired by one party as the martyrs of God,
and abhorred by the other as the victims of Satan, an impartial
philosopher may discover the influence and the last abuse of that
inflexible spirit which was originally derived from the character
and principles of the Jewish nation.
160 (return) [ The Donatist suicides alleged in their
justification the example of Razias, which is related in the 14th
chapter of the second book of the Maccabees.]
The simple narrative of the intestine divisions, which distracted
the peace, and dishonored the triumph, of the church, will
confirm the remark of a Pagan historian, and justify the
complaint of a venerable bishop. The experience of Ammianus had
convinced him, that the enmity of the Christians towards each
other, surpassed the fury of savage beasts against man; 161 and
Gregory Nazianzen most pathetically laments, that the kingdom of
heaven was converted, by discord, into the image of chaos, of a
nocturnal tempest, and of hell itself. 162 The fierce and partial
writers of the times, ascribing _all_ virtue to themselves, and
imputing _all_ guilt to their adversaries, have painted the
battle of the angels and dæmons. Our calmer reason will reject
such pure and perfect monsters of vice or sanctity, and will
impute an equal, or at least an indiscriminate, measure of good
and evil to the hostile sectaries, who assumed and bestowed the
appellations of orthodox and heretics. They had been educated in
the same religion and the same civil society. Their hopes and
fears in the present, or in a future life, were balanced in the
same proportion. On either side, the error might be innocent, the
faith sincere, the practice meritorious or corrupt. Their
passions were excited by similar objects; and they might
alternately abuse the favor of the court, or of the people. The
metaphysical opinions of the Athanasians and the Arians could not
influence their moral character; and they were alike actuated by
the intolerant spirit which has been extracted from the pure and
simple maxims of the gospel.
161 (return) [ Nullus infestas hominibus bestias, ut sunt sibi
ferales plerique Christianorum, expertus. Ammian. xxii. 5.]
162 (return) [ Gregor, Nazianzen, Orav. i. p. 33. See Tillemont,
tom vi. p. 501, qua to edit.]
A modern writer, who, with a just confidence, has prefixed to his
own history the honorable epithets of political and
philosophical, 163 accuses the timid prudence of Montesquieu, for
neglecting to enumerate, among the causes of the decline of the
empire, a law of Constantine, by which the exercise of the Pagan
worship was absolutely suppressed, and a considerable part of his
subjects was left destitute of priests, of temples, and of any
public religion. The zeal of the philosophic historian for the
rights of mankind, has induced him to acquiesce in the ambiguous
testimony of those ecclesiastics, who have too lightly ascribed
to their favorite hero the _merit_ of a general persecution. 164
Instead of alleging this imaginary law, which would have blazed
in the front of the Imperial codes, we may safely appeal to the
original epistle, which Constantine addressed to the followers of
the ancient religion; at a time when he no longer disguised his
conversion, nor dreaded the rivals of his throne. He invites and
exhorts, in the most pressing terms, the subjects of the Roman
empire to imitate the example of their master; but he declares,
that those who still refuse to open their eyes to the celestial
light, may freely enjoy their temples and their fancied gods. A
report, that the ceremonies of paganism were suppressed, is
formally contradicted by the emperor himself, who wisely assigns,
as the principle of his moderation, the invincible force of
habit, of prejudice, and of superstition. 165 Without violating
the sanctity of his promise, without alarming the fears of the
Pagans, the artful monarch advanced, by slow and cautious steps,
to undermine the irregular and decayed fabric of polytheism. The
partial acts of severity which he occasionally exercised, though
they were secretly promoted by a Christian zeal, were colored by
the fairest pretences of justice and the public good; and while
Constantine designed to ruin the foundations, he seemed to reform
the abuses, of the ancient religion. After the example of the
wisest of his predecessors, he condemned, under the most rigorous
penalties, the occult and impious arts of divination; which
excited the vain hopes, and sometimes the criminal attempts, of
those who were discontented with their present condition. An
ignominious silence was imposed on the oracles, which had been
publicly convicted of fraud and falsehood; the effeminate priests
of the Nile were abolished; and Constantine discharged the duties
of a Roman censor, when he gave orders for the demolition of
several temples of Phœnicia; in which every mode of prostitution
was devoutly practised in the face of day, and to the honor of
Venus. 166 The Imperial city of Constantinople was, in some
measure, raised at the expense, and was adorned with the spoils,
of the opulent temples of Greece and Asia; the sacred property
was confiscated; the statues of gods and heroes were transported,
with rude familiarity, among a people who considered them as
objects, not of adoration, but of curiosity; the gold and silver
were restored to circulation; and the magistrates, the bishops,
and the eunuchs, improved the fortunate occasion of gratifying,
at once, their zeal, their avarice, and their resentment. But
these depredations were confined to a small part of the Roman
world; and the provinces had been long since accustomed to endure
the same sacrilegious rapine, from the tyranny of princes and
proconsuls, who could not be suspected of any design to subvert
the established religion. 167
163 (return) [ Histoire Politique et Philosophique des
Etablissemens des Europeens dans les deux Indes, tom. i. p. 9.]
164 (return) [ According to Eusebius, (in Vit. Constantin. l. ii.
c. 45,) the emperor prohibited, both in cities and in the
country, the abominable acts or parts of idolatry. l Socrates (l.
i. c. 17) and Sozomen (l. ii. c. 4, 5) have represented the
conduct of Constantine with a just regard to truth and history;
which has been neglected by Theodoret (l. v. c. 21) and Orosius,
(vii. 28.) Tum deinde (says the latter) primus Constantinus
_justo_ ordine et _pio_ vicem vertit edicto; siquidem statuit
citra ullam hominum cædem, paganorum templa claudi.]
165 (return) [ See Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. ii. c. 56, 60.
In the sermon to the assembly of saints, which the emperor
pronounced when he was mature in years and piety, he declares to
the idolaters (c. xii.) that they are permitted to offer
sacrifices, and to exercise every part of their religious
worship.]
166 (return) [ See Eusebius, in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c.
54-58, and l. iv. c. 23, 25. These acts of authority may be
compared with the suppression of the Bacchanals, and the
demolition of the temple of Isis, by the magistrates of Pagan
Rome.]
167 (return) [ Eusebius (in Vit. Constan. l. iii. c. 54-58) and
Libanius (Orat. pro Templis, p. 9, 10, edit. Gothofred) both
mention the pious sacrilege of Constantine, which they viewed in
very different lights. The latter expressly declares, that “he
made use of the sacred money, but made no alteration in the legal
worship; the temples indeed were impoverished, but the sacred
rites were performed there.” Lardner’s Jewish and Heathen
Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 140.]
The sons of Constantine trod in the footsteps of their father,
with more zeal, and with less discretion. The pretences of rapine
and oppression were insensibly multiplied; 168 every indulgence
was shown to the illegal behavior of the Christians; every doubt
was explained to the disadvantage of Paganism; and the demolition
of the temples was celebrated as one of the auspicious events of
the reign of Constans and Constantius. 169 The name of
Constantius is prefixed to a concise law, which might have
superseded the necessity of any future prohibitions. “It is our
pleasure, that in all places, and in all cities, the temples be
immediately shut, and carefully guarded, that none may have the
power of offending. It is likewise our pleasure, that all our
subjects should abstain from sacrifices. If any one should be
guilty of such an act, let him feel the sword of vengeance, and
after his execution, let his property be confiscated to the
public use. We denounce the same penalties against the governors
of the provinces, if they neglect to punish the criminals.” 170
But there is the strongest reason to believe, that this
formidable edict was either composed without being published, or
was published without being executed. The evidence of facts, and
the monuments which are still extant of brass and marble,
continue to prove the public exercise of the Pagan worship during
the whole reign of the sons of Constantine. In the East, as well
as in the West, in cities, as well as in the country, a great
number of temples were respected, or at least were spared; and
the devout multitude still enjoyed the luxury of sacrifices, of
festivals, and of processions, by the permission, or by the
connivance, of the civil government. About four years after the
supposed date of this bloody edict, Constantius visited the
temples of Rome; and the decency of his behavior is recommended
by a pagan orator as an example worthy of the imitation of
succeeding princes. “That emperor,” says Symmachus, “suffered the
privileges of the vestal virgins to remain inviolate; he bestowed
the sacerdotal dignities on the nobles of Rome, granted the
customary allowance to defray the expenses of the public rites
and sacrifices; and, though he had embraced a different religion,
he never attempted to deprive the empire of the sacred worship of
antiquity.” 171 The senate still presumed to consecrate, by
solemn decrees, the _divine_ memory of their sovereigns; and
Constantine himself was associated, after his death, to those
gods whom he had renounced and insulted during his life. The
title, the ensigns, the prerogatives, of sovereign pontiff, which
had been instituted by Numa, and assumed by Augustus, were
accepted, without hesitation, by seven Christian emperors; who
were invested with a more absolute authority over the religion
which they had deserted, than over that which they professed. 172
168 (return) [ Ammianus (xxii. 4) speaks of some court eunuchs
who were spoliis templorum pasti. Libanius says (Orat. pro Templ.
p. 23) that the emperor often gave away a temple, like a dog, or
a horse, or a slave, or a gold cup; but the devout philosopher
takes care to observe that these sacrilegious favorites very
seldom prospered.]
169 (return) [ See Gothofred. Cod. Theodos. tom. vi. p. 262.
Liban. Orat. Parental c. x. in Fabric. Bibl. Græc. tom. vii. p.
235.]
170 (return) [ Placuit omnibus locis atque urbibus universis
claudi protinus empla, et accessu vetitis omnibus licentiam
delinquendi perditis abnegari. Volumus etiam cunctos a
sacrificiis abstinere. Quod siquis aliquid forte hujusmodi
perpetraverit, gladio sternatur: facultates etiam perempti fisco
decernimus vindicari: et similiter adfligi rectores provinciarum
si facinora vindicare neglexerint. Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x.
leg. 4. Chronology has discovered some contradiction in the date
of this extravagant law; the only one, perhaps, by which the
negligence of magistrates is punished by death and confiscation.
M. de la Bastie (Mém. de l’Académie, tom. xv. p. 98) conjectures,
with a show of reason, that this was no more than the minutes of
a law, the heads of an intended bill, which were found in
Scriniis Memoriæ among the papers of Constantius, and afterwards
inserted, as a worthy model, in the Theodosian Code.]
171 (return) [ Symmach. Epistol. x. 54.]
172 (return) [ The fourth Dissertation of M. de la Bastie, sur le
Souverain Pontificat des Empereurs Romains, (in the Mém. de
l’Acad. tom. xv. p. 75- 144,) is a very learned and judicious
performance, which explains the state, and prove the toleration,
of Paganism from Constantino to Gratian. The assertion of
Zosimus, that Gratian was the first who refused the pontifical
robe, is confirmed beyond a doubt; and the murmurs of bigotry on
that subject are almost silenced.]
The divisions of Christianity suspended the ruin of _Paganism;_
173 and the holy war against the infidels was less vigorously
prosecuted by princes and bishops, who were more immediately
alarmed by the guilt and danger of domestic rebellion. The
extirpation of _idolatry_ 174 might have been justified by the
established principles of intolerance: but the hostile sects,
which alternately reigned in the Imperial court were mutually
apprehensive of alienating, and perhaps exasperating, the minds
of a powerful, though declining faction. Every motive of
authority and fashion, of interest and reason, now militated on
the side of Christianity; but two or three generations elapsed,
before their victorious influence was universally felt. The
religion which had so long and so lately been established in the
Roman empire was still revered by a numerous people, less
attached indeed to speculative opinion, than to ancient custom.
The honors of the state and army were indifferently bestowed on
all the subjects of Constantine and Constantius; and a
considerable portion of knowledge and wealth and valor was still
engaged in the service of polytheism. The superstition of the
senator and of the peasant, of the poet and the philosopher, was
derived from very different causes, but they met with equal
devotion in the temples of the gods. Their zeal was insensibly
provoked by the insulting triumph of a proscribed sect; and their
hopes were revived by the well-grounded confidence, that the
presumptive heir of the empire, a young and valiant hero, who had
delivered Gaul from the arms of the Barbarians, had secretly
embraced the religion of his ancestors.
173 (return) [ As I have freely anticipated the use of _pagans_
and _paganism_, I shall now trace the singular revolutions of
those celebrated words. 1. in the Doric dialect, so familiar to
the Italians, signifies a fountain; and the rural neighborhood,
which frequented the same fountain, derived the common
appellation of _pagus_ and _pagans_. (Festus sub voce, and
Servius ad Virgil. Georgic. ii. 382.) 2. By an easy extension of
the word, pagan and rural became almost synonymous, (Plin. Hist.
Natur. xxviii. 5;) and the meaner rustics acquired that name,
which has been corrupted into _peasants_ in the modern languages
of Europe. 3. The amazing increase of the military order
introduced the necessity of a correlative term, (Hume’s Essays,
vol. i. p. 555;) and all the _people_ who were not enlisted in
the service of the prince were branded with the contemptuous
epithets of pagans. (Tacit. Hist. iii. 24, 43, 77. Juvenal.
Satir. 16. Tertullian de Pallio, c. 4.) 4. The Christians were
the soldiers of Christ; their adversaries, who refused his
_sacrament_, or military oath of baptism might deserve the
metaphorical name of pagans; and this popular reproach was
introduced as early as the reign of Valentinian (A. D. 365) into
Imperial laws (Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 18) and
theological writings. 5. Christianity gradually filled the cities
of the empire: the old religion, in the time of Prudentius
(advers. Symmachum, l. i. ad fin.) and Orosius, (in Præfat.
Hist.,) retired and languished in obscure villages; and the word
_pagans_, with its new signification, reverted to its primitive
origin. 6. Since the worship of Jupiter and his family has
expired, the vacant title of pagans has been successively applied
to all the idolaters and polytheists of the old and new world. 7.
The Latin Christians bestowed it, without scruple, on their
mortal enemies, the Mahometans; and the purest _Unitarians_ were
branded with the unjust reproach of idolatry and paganism. See
Gerard Vossius, Etymologicon Linguæ Latinæ, in his works, tom. i.
p. 420; Godefroy’s Commentary on the Theodosian Code, tom. vi. p.
250; and Ducange, Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitat. Glossar.]
174 (return) [ In the pure language of Ionia and Athens were
ancient and familiar words. The former expressed a likeness, an
apparition (Homer. Odys. xi. 601,) a representation, an _image_,
created either by fancy or art. The latter denoted any sort of
_service_ or slavery. The Jews of Egypt, who translated the
Hebrew Scriptures, restrained the use of these words (Exod. xx.
4, 5) to the religious worship of an image. The peculiar idiom of
the Hellenists, or Grecian Jews, has been adopted by the sacred
and ecclesiastical writers and the reproach of _idolatry_ has
stigmatized that visible and abject mode of superstition, which
some sects of Christianity should not hastily impute to the
polytheists of Greece and Rome.]
Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part I.
Julian Is Declared Emperor By The Legions Of Gaul.—His March And
Success.—The Death Of Constantius.—Civil Administration Of Julian.
While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of
eunuchs and bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with
transport in every part of the empire, except in the palace of
Constantius. The barbarians of Germany had felt, and still
dreaded, the arms of the young Cæsar; his soldiers were the
companions of his victory; the grateful provincials enjoyed the
blessings of his reign; but the favorites, who had opposed his
elevation, were offended by his virtues; and they justly
considered the friend of the people as the enemy of the court. As
long as the fame of Julian was doubtful, the buffoons of the
palace, who were skilled in the language of satire, tried the
efficacy of those arts which they had so often practised with
success. They easily discovered, that his simplicity was not
exempt from affectation: the ridiculous epithets of a hairy
savage, of an ape invested with the purple, were applied to the
dress and person of the philosophic warrior; and his modest
despatches were stigmatized as the vain and elaborate fictions of
a loquacious Greek, a speculative soldier, who had studied the
art of war amidst the groves of the academy. 1 The voice of
malicious folly was at length silenced by the shouts of victory;
the conqueror of the Franks and Alemanni could no longer be
painted as an object of contempt; and the monarch himself was
meanly ambitious of stealing from his lieutenant the honorable
reward of his labors. In the letters crowned with laurel, which,
according to ancient custom, were addressed to the provinces, the
name of Julian was omitted. “Constantius had made his
dispositions in person; _he_ had signalized his valor in the
foremost ranks; _his_ military conduct had secured the victory;
and the captive king of the barbarians was presented to _him_ on
the field of battle,” from which he was at that time distant
about forty days’ journey. 2 So extravagant a fable was
incapable, however, of deceiving the public credulity, or even of
satisfying the pride of the emperor himself. Secretly conscious
that the applause and favor of the Romans accompanied the rising
fortunes of Julian, his discontented mind was prepared to receive
the subtle poison of those artful sycophants, who colored their
mischievous designs with the fairest appearances of truth and
candor. 3 Instead of depreciating the merits of Julian, they
acknowledged, and even exaggerated, his popular fame, superior
talents, and important services. But they darkly insinuated, that
the virtues of the Cæsar might instantly be converted into the
most dangerous crimes, if the inconstant multitude should prefer
their inclinations to their duty; or if the general of a
victorious army should be tempted from his allegiance by the
hopes of revenge and independent greatness. The personal fears of
Constantius were interpreted by his council as a laudable anxiety
for the public safety; whilst in private, and perhaps in his own
breast, he disguised, under the less odious appellation of fear,
the sentiments of hatred and envy, which he had secretly
conceived for the inimitable virtues of Julian.
1 (return) [ Omnes qui plus poterant in palatio, adulandi
professores jam docti, recte consulta, prospereque completa
vertebant in deridiculum: talia sine modo strepentes insulse; in
odium venit cum victoriis suis; capella, non homo; ut hirsutum
Julianum carpentes, appellantesque loquacem talpam, et purpuratam
simiam, et litterionem Græcum: et his congruentia plurima atque
vernacula principi resonantes, audire hæc taliaque gestienti,
virtutes ejus obruere verbis impudentibus conabantur, et segnem
incessentes et timidum et umbratilem, gestaque secus verbis
comptioribus exornantem. Ammianus, s. xvii. 11. * Note: The
philosophers retaliated on the courtiers. Marius (says Eunapius
in a newly-discovered fragment) was wont to call his antagonist
Sylla a beast half lion and half fox. Constantius had nothing of
the lion, but was surrounded by a whole litter of foxes. Mai.
Script. Byz. Nov. Col. ii. 238. Niebuhr. Byzant. Hist. 66.—M.]
2 (return) [ Ammian. xvi. 12. The orator Themistius (iv. p. 56,
57) believed whatever was contained in the Imperial letters,
which were addressed to the senate of Constantinople Aurelius
Victor, who published his Abridgment in the last year of
Constantius, ascribes the German victories to the _wisdom_ of the
emperor, and the _fortune_ of the Cæsar. Yet the historian, soon
afterwards, was indebted to the favor or esteem of Julian for the
honor of a brass statue, and the important offices of consular of
the second Pannonia, and præfect of the city, Ammian. xxi. 10.]
3 (return) [ Callido nocendi artificio, accusatoriam diritatem
laudum titulis peragebant. .. Hæ voces fuerunt ad inflammanda
odia probria omnibus potentiores. See Mamertin, in Actione
Gratiarum in Vet Panegyr. xi. 5, 6.]
The apparent tranquillity of Gaul, and the imminent danger of the
eastern provinces, offered a specious pretence for the design
which was artfully concerted by the Imperial ministers. They
resolved to disarm the Cæsar; to recall those faithful troops who
guarded his person and dignity; and to employ, in a distant war
against the Persian monarch, the hardy veterans who had
vanquished, on the banks of the Rhine, the fiercest nations of
Germany. While Julian used the laborious hours of his winter
quarters at Paris in the administration of power, which, in his
hands, was the exercise of virtue, he was surprised by the hasty
arrival of a tribune and a notary, with positive orders, from the
emperor, which _they_ were directed to execute, and _he_ was
commanded not to oppose. Constantius signified his pleasure, that
four entire legions, the Celtæ, and Petulants, the Heruli, and
the Batavians, should be separated from the standard of Julian,
under which they had acquired their fame and discipline; that in
each of the remaining bands three hundred of the bravest youths
should be selected; and that this numerous detachment, the
strength of the Gallic army, should instantly begin their march,
and exert their utmost diligence to arrive, before the opening of
the campaign, on the frontiers of Persia. 4 The Cæsar foresaw and
lamented the consequences of this fatal mandate. Most of the
auxiliaries, who engaged their voluntary service, had stipulated,
that they should never be obliged to pass the Alps. The public
faith of Rome, and the personal honor of Julian, had been pledged
for the observance of this condition. Such an act of treachery
and oppression would destroy the confidence, and excite the
resentment, of the independent warriors of Germany, who
considered truth as the noblest of their virtues, and freedom as
the most valuable of their possessions. The legionaries, who
enjoyed the title and privileges of Romans, were enlisted for the
general defence of the republic; but those mercenary troops heard
with cold indifference the antiquated names of the republic and
of Rome. Attached, either from birth or long habit, to the
climate and manners of Gaul, they loved and admired Julian; they
despised, and perhaps hated, the emperor; they dreaded the
laborious march, the Persian arrows, and the burning deserts of
Asia. They claimed as their own the country which they had saved;
and excused their want of spirit, by pleading the sacred and more
immediate duty of protecting their families and friends.
The apprehensions of the Gauls were derived from the knowledge of
the impending and inevitable danger. As soon as the provinces
were exhausted of their military strength, the Germans would
violate a treaty which had been imposed on their fears; and
notwithstanding the abilities and valor of Julian, the general of
a nominal army, to whom the public calamities would be imputed,
must find himself, after a vain resistance, either a prisoner in
the camp of the barbarians, or a criminal in the palace of
Constantius. If Julian complied with the orders which he had
received, he subscribed his own destruction, and that of a people
who deserved his affection. But a positive refusal was an act of
rebellion, and a declaration of war. The inexorable jealousy of
the emperor, the peremptory, and perhaps insidious, nature of his
commands, left not any room for a fair apology, or candid
interpretation; and the dependent station of the Cæsar scarcely
allowed him to pause or to deliberate. Solitude increased the
perplexity of Julian; he could no longer apply to the faithful
counsels of Sallust, who had been removed from his office by the
judicious malice of the eunuchs: he could not even enforce his
representations by the concurrence of the ministers, who would
have been afraid or ashamed to approve the ruin of Gaul. The
moment had been chosen, when Lupicinus, 5 the general of the
cavalry, was despatched into Britain, to repulse the inroads of
the Scots and Picts; and Florentius was occupied at Vienna by the
assessment of the tribute. The latter, a crafty and corrupt
statesman, declining to assume a responsible part on this
dangerous occasion, eluded the pressing and repeated invitations
of Julian, who represented to him, that in every important
measure, the presence of the præfect was indispensable in the
council of the prince. In the mean while the Cæsar was oppressed
by the rude and importunate solicitations of the Imperial
messengers, who presumed to suggest, that if he expected the
return of his ministers, he would charge himself with the guilt
of the delay, and reserve for them the merit of the execution.
Unable to resist, unwilling to comply, Julian expressed, in the
most serious terms, his wish, and even his intention, of
resigning the purple, which he could not preserve with honor, but
which he could not abdicate with safety.
4 (return) [ The minute interval, which may be interposed,
between the _hyeme adultâ_ and the _primo vere_ of Ammianus, (xx.
l. 4,) instead of allowing a sufficient space for a march of
three thousand miles, would render the orders of Constantius as
extravagant as they were unjust. The troops of Gaul could not
have reached Syria till the end of autumn. The memory of Ammianus
must have been inaccurate, and his language incorrect. * Note:
The late editor of Ammianus attempts to vindicate his author from
the charge of inaccuracy. “It is clear, from the whole course of
the narrative, that Constantius entertained this design of
demanding his troops from Julian, immediately after the taking of
Amida, in the autumn of the preceding year, and had transmitted
his orders into Gaul, before it was known that Lupicinus had gone
into Britain with the Herulians and Batavians.” Wagner, note to
Amm. xx. 4. But it seems also clear that the troops were in
winter quarters (hiemabant) when the orders arrived. Ammianus can
scarcely be acquitted of incorrectness in his language at
least.—M]
5 (return) [ Ammianus, xx. l. The valor of Lupicinus, and his
military skill, are acknowledged by the historian, who, in his
affected language, accuses the general of exalting the horns of
his pride, bellowing in a tragic tone, and exciting a doubt
whether he was more cruel or avaricious. The danger from the
Scots and Picts was so serious that Julian himself had some
thoughts of passing over into the island.]
After a painful conflict, Julian was compelled to acknowledge,
that obedience was the virtue of the most eminent subject, and
that the sovereign alone was entitled to judge of the public
welfare. He issued the necessary orders for carrying into
execution the commands of Constantius; a part of the troops began
their march for the Alps; and the detachments from the several
garrisons moved towards their respective places of assembly. They
advanced with difficulty through the trembling and affrighted
crowds of provincials, who attempted to excite their pity by
silent despair, or loud lamentations, while the wives of the
soldiers, holding their infants in their arms, accused the
desertion of their husbands, in the mixed language of grief, of
tenderness, and of indignation. This scene of general distress
afflicted the humanity of the Cæsar; he granted a sufficient
number of post-wagons to transport the wives and families of the
soldiers, 6 endeavored to alleviate the hardships which he was
constrained to inflict, and increased, by the most laudable arts,
his own popularity, and the discontent of the exiled troops. The
grief of an armed multitude is soon converted into rage; their
licentious murmurs, which every hour were communicated from tent
to tent with more boldness and effect, prepared their minds for
the most daring acts of sedition; and by the connivance of their
tribunes, a seasonable libel was secretly dispersed, which
painted in lively colors the disgrace of the Cæsar, the
oppression of the Gallic army, and the feeble vices of the tyrant
of Asia. The servants of Constantius were astonished and alarmed
by the progress of this dangerous spirit. They pressed the Cæsar
to hasten the departure of the troops; but they imprudently
rejected the honest and judicious advice of Julian; who proposed
that they should not march through Paris, and suggested the
danger and temptation of a last interview.
6 (return) [ He granted them the permission of the _cursus
clavularis_, or _clabularis_. These post-wagons are often
mentioned in the Code, and were supposed to carry fifteen hundred
pounds weight. See Vales. ad Ammian. xx. 4.]
As soon as the approach of the troops was announced, the Cæsar
went out to meet them, and ascended his tribunal, which had been
erected in a plain before the gates of the city. After
distinguishing the officers and soldiers, who by their rank or
merit deserved a peculiar attention, Julian addressed himself in
a studied oration to the surrounding multitude: he celebrated
their exploits with grateful applause; encouraged them to accept,
with alacrity, the honor of serving under the eye of a powerful
and liberal monarch; and admonished them, that the commands of
Augustus required an instant and cheerful obedience. The
soldiers, who were apprehensive of offending their general by an
indecent clamor, or of belying their sentiments by false and
venal acclamations, maintained an obstinate silence; and after a
short pause, were dismissed to their quarters. The principal
officers were entertained by the Cæsar, who professed, in the
warmest language of friendship, his desire and his inability to
reward, according to their deserts, the brave companions of his
victories. They retired from the feast, full of grief and
perplexity; and lamented the hardship of their fate, which tore
them from their beloved general and their native country. The
only expedient which could prevent their separation was boldly
agitated and approved; the popular resentment was insensibly
moulded into a regular conspiracy; their just reasons of
complaint were heightened by passion, and their passions were
inflamed by wine; as, on the eve of their departure, the troops
were indulged in licentious festivity. At the hour of midnight,
the impetuous multitude, with swords, and bows, and torches in
their hands, rushed into the suburbs; encompassed the palace; 7
and, careless of future dangers, pronounced the fatal and
irrevocable words, Julian Augustus! The prince, whose anxious
suspense was interrupted by their disorderly acclamations,
secured the doors against their intrusion; and as long as it was
in his power, secluded his person and dignity from the accidents
of a nocturnal tumult. At the dawn of day, the soldiers, whose
zeal was irritated by opposition, forcibly entered the palace,
seized, with respectful violence, the object of their choice,
guarded Julian with drawn swords through the streets of Paris,
placed him on the tribunal, and with repeated shouts saluted him
as their emperor. Prudence, as well as loyalty, inculcated the
propriety of resisting their treasonable designs; and of
preparing, for his oppressed virtue, the excuse of violence.
Addressing himself by turns to the multitude and to individuals,
he sometimes implored their mercy, and sometimes expressed his
indignation; conjured them not to sully the fame of their
immortal victories; and ventured to promise, that if they would
immediately return to their allegiance, he would undertake to
obtain from the emperor not only a free and gracious pardon, but
even the revocation of the orders which had excited their
resentment. But the soldiers, who were conscious of their guilt,
chose rather to depend on the gratitude of Julian, than on the
clemency of the emperor. Their zeal was insensibly turned into
impatience, and their impatience into rage. The inflexible Cæsar
sustained, till the third hour of the day, their prayers, their
reproaches, and their menaces; nor did he yield, till he had been
repeatedly assured, that if he wished to live, he must consent to
reign. He was exalted on a shield in the presence, and amidst the
unanimous acclamations, of the troops; a rich military collar,
which was offered by chance, supplied the want of a diadem; 8 the
ceremony was concluded by the promise of a moderate donative; and
the new emperor, overwhelmed with real or affected grief retired
into the most secret recesses of his apartment. 10
7 (return) [ Most probably the palace of the baths,
(_Thermarum_,) of which a solid and lofty hall still subsists in
the _Rue de la Harpe_. The buildings covered a considerable space
of the modern quarter of the university; and the gardens, under
the Merovingian kings, communicated with the abbey of St. Germain
des Prez. By the injuries of time and the Normans, this ancient
palace was reduced, in the twelfth century, to a maze of ruins,
whose dark recesses were the scene of licentious love.
Explicat aula sinus montemque amplectitur alis; Multiplici latebra
scelerum tersura ruborem. .... pereuntis sæpe pudoris Celatura
nefas, Venerisque accommoda furtis.
(These lines are quoted from the Architrenius, l. iv. c. 8, a
poetical work of John de Hauteville, or Hanville, a monk of St.
Alban’s, about the year 1190. See Warton’s History of English
Poetry, vol. i. dissert. ii.) Yet such _thefts_ might be less
pernicious to mankind than the theological disputes of the
Sorbonne, which have been since agitated on the same ground.
Bonamy, Mém. de l’Académie, tom. xv. p. 678-632]
8 (return) [ Even in this tumultuous moment, Julian attended to
the forms of superstitious ceremony, and obstinately refused the
inauspicious use of a female necklace, or a horse collar, which
the impatient soldiers would have employed in the room of a
diadem. ----An equal proportion of gold and silver, five pieces
of the former one pound of the latter; the whole amounting to
about five pounds ten shillings of our money.]
10 (return) [ For the whole narrative of this revolt, we may
appeal to authentic and original materials; Julian himself, (ad
S. P. Q. Atheniensem, p. 282, 283, 284,) Libanius, (Orat.
Parental. c. 44-48, in Fabricius, Bibliot. Græc. tom. vii. p.
269-273,) Ammianus, (xx. 4,) and Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 151, 152,
153.) who, in the reign of Julian, appears to follow the more
respectable authority of Eunapius. With such guides we _might_
neglect the abbreviators and ecclesiastical historians.]
The grief of Julian could proceed only from his innocence; out
his innocence must appear extremely doubtful 11 in the eyes of
those who have learned to suspect the motives and the professions
of princes. His lively and active mind was susceptible of the
various impressions of hope and fear, of gratitude and revenge,
of duty and of ambition, of the love of fame, and of the fear of
reproach. But it is impossible for us to calculate the respective
weight and operation of these sentiments; or to ascertain the
principles of action which might escape the observation, while
they guided, or rather impelled, the steps of Julian himself. The
discontent of the troops was produced by the malice of his
enemies; their tumult was the natural effect of interest and of
passion; and if Julian had tried to conceal a deep design under
the appearances of chance, he must have employed the most
consummate artifice without necessity, and probably without
success. He solemnly declares, in the presence of Jupiter, of the
Sun, of Mars, of Minerva, and of all the other deities, that till
the close of the evening which preceded his elevation, he was
utterly ignorant of the designs of the soldiers; 12 and it may
seem ungenerous to distrust the honor of a hero and the truth of
a philosopher. Yet the superstitious confidence that Constantius
was the enemy, and that he himself was the favorite, of the gods,
might prompt him to desire, to solicit, and even to hasten the
auspicious moment of his reign, which was predestined to restore
the ancient religion of mankind. When Julian had received the
intelligence of the conspiracy, he resigned himself to a short
slumber; and afterwards related to his friends that he had seen
the genius of the empire waiting with some impatience at his
door, pressing for admittance, and reproaching his want of spirit
and ambition. 13 Astonished and perplexed, he addressed his
prayers to the great Jupiter, who immediately signified, by a
clear and manifest omen, that he should submit to the will of
heaven and of the army. The conduct which disclaims the ordinary
maxims of reason, excites our suspicion and eludes our inquiry.
Whenever the spirit of fanaticism, at once so credulous and so
crafty, has insinuated itself into a noble mind, it insensibly
corrodes the vital principles of virtue and veracity.
11 (return) [ Eutropius, a respectable witness, uses a doubtful
expression, “consensu militum.” (x. 15.) Gregory Nazianzen, whose
ignorance night excuse his fanaticism, directly charges the
apostate with presumption, madness, and impious rebellion, Orat.
iii. p. 67.]
12 (return) [ Julian. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 284. The _devout_
Abbé de la Bleterie (Vie de Julien, p. 159) is almost inclined to
respect the _devout_ protestations of a Pagan.]
13 (return) [ Ammian. xx. 5, with the note of Lindenbrogius on
the Genius of the empire. Julian himself, in a confidential
letter to his friend and physician, Oribasius, (Epist. xvii. p.
384,) mentions another dream, to which, before the event, he gave
credit; of a stately tree thrown to the ground, of a small plant
striking a deep root into the earth. Even in his sleep, the mind
of the Cæsar must have been agitated by the hopes and fears of
his fortune. Zosimus (l. iii. p. 155) relates a subsequent
dream.]
To moderate the zeal of his party, to protect the persons of his
enemies, 14 to defeat and to despise the secret enterprises which
were formed against his life and dignity, were the cares which
employed the first days of the reign of the new emperor. Although
he was firmly resolved to maintain the station which he had
assumed, he was still desirous of saving his country from the
calamities of civil war, of declining a contest with the superior
forces of Constantius, and of preserving his own character from
the reproach of perfidy and ingratitude. Adorned with the ensigns
of military and imperial pomp, Julian showed himself in the field
of Mars to the soldiers, who glowed with ardent enthusiasm in the
cause of their pupil, their leader, and their friend. He
recapitulated their victories, lamented their sufferings,
applauded their resolution, animated their hopes, and checked
their impetuosity; nor did he dismiss the assembly, till he had
obtained a solemn promise from the troops, that if the emperor of
the East would subscribe an equitable treaty, they would renounce
any views of conquest, and satisfy themselves with the tranquil
possession of the Gallic provinces. On this foundation he
composed, in his own name, and in that of the army, a specious
and moderate epistle, 15 which was delivered to Pentadius, his
master of the offices, and to his chamberlain Eutherius; two
ambassadors whom he appointed to receive the answer, and observe
the dispositions of Constantius. This epistle is inscribed with
the modest appellation of Cæsar; but Julian solicits in a
peremptory, though respectful, manner, the confirmation of the
title of Augustus. He acknowledges the irregularity of his own
election, while he justifies, in some measure, the resentment and
violence of the troops which had extorted his reluctant consent.
He allows the supremacy of his brother Constantius; and engages
to send him an annual present of Spanish horses, to recruit his
army with a select number of barbarian youths, and to accept from
his choice a Prætorian præfect of approved discretion and
fidelity. But he reserves for himself the nomination of his other
civil and military officers, with the troops, the revenue, and
the sovereignty of the provinces beyond the Alps. He admonishes
the emperor to consult the dictates of justice; to distrust the
arts of those venal flatterers, who subsist only by the discord
of princes; and to embrace the offer of a fair and honorable
treaty, equally advantageous to the republic and to the house of
Constantine. In this negotiation Julian claimed no more than he
already possessed. The delegated authority which he had long
exercised over the provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, was
still obeyed under a name more independent and august. The
soldiers and the people rejoiced in a revolution which was not
stained even with the blood of the guilty. Florentius was a
fugitive; Lupicinus a prisoner. The persons who were disaffected
to the new government were disarmed and secured; and the vacant
offices were distributed, according to the recommendation of
merit, by a prince who despised the intrigues of the palace, and
the clamors of the soldiers. 16
14 (return) [ The difficult situation of the prince of a
rebellious army is finely described by Tacitus, (Hist. 1, 80-85.)
But Otho had much more guilt, and much less abilities, than
Julian.]
15 (return) [ To this ostensible epistle he added, says Ammianus,
private letters, objurgatorias et mordaces, which the historian
had not seen, and would not have published. Perhaps they never
existed.]
16 (return) [ See the first transactions of his reign, in Julian.
ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 285, 286. Ammianus, xx. 5, 8. Liban. Orat.
Parent. c. 49, 50, p. 273-275.]
The negotiations of peace were accompanied and supported by the
most vigorous preparations for war. The army, which Julian held
in readiness for immediate action, was recruited and augmented by
the disorders of the times. The cruel persecutions of the faction
of Magnentius had filled Gaul with numerous bands of outlaws and
robbers. They cheerfully accepted the offer of a general pardon
from a prince whom they could trust, submitted to the restraints
of military discipline, and retained only their implacable hatred
to the person and government of Constantius. 17 As soon as the
season of the year permitted Julian to take the field, he
appeared at the head of his legions; threw a bridge over the
Rhine in the neighborhood of Cleves; and prepared to chastise the
perfidy of the Attuarii, a tribe of Franks, who presumed that
they might ravage, with impunity, the frontiers of a divided
empire. The difficulty, as well as glory, of this enterprise,
consisted in a laborious march; and Julian had conquered, as soon
as he could penetrate into a country, which former princes had
considered as inaccessible. After he had given peace to the
Barbarians, the emperor carefully visited the fortifications
along the Qhine from Cleves to Basil; surveyed, with peculiar
attention, the territories which he had recovered from the hands
of the Alemanni, passed through Besançon, 18 which had severely
suffered from their fury, and fixed his headquarters at Vienna
for the ensuing winter. The barrier of Gaul was improved and
strengthened with additional fortifications; and Julian
entertained some hopes that the Germans, whom he had so often
vanquished, might, in his absence, be restrained by the terror of
his name. Vadomair 19 was the only prince of the Alemanni whom he
esteemed or feared and while the subtle Barbarian affected to
observe the faith of treaties, the progress of his arms
threatened the state with an unseasonable and dangerous war. The
policy of Julian condescended to surprise the prince of the
Alemanni by his own arts: and Vadomair, who, in the character of
a friend, had incautiously accepted an invitation from the Roman
governors, was seized in the midst of the entertainment, and sent
away prisoner into the heart of Spain. Before the Barbarians were
recovered from their amazement, the emperor appeared in arms on
the banks of the Rhine, and, once more crossing the river,
renewed the deep impressions of terror and respect which had been
already made by four preceding expeditions. 20
17 (return) [ Liban. Orat. Parent. c. 50, p. 275, 276. A strange
disorder, since it continued above seven years. In the factions
of the Greek republics, the exiles amounted to 20,000 persons;
and Isocrates assures Philip, that it would be easier to raise an
army from the vagabonds than from the cities. See Hume’s Essays,
tom. i. p. 426, 427.]
18 (return) [ Julian (Epist. xxxviii. p. 414) gives a short
description of Vesontio, or Besançon; a rocky peninsula almost
encircled by the River Doux; once a magnificent city, filled with
temples, &c., now reduced to a small town, emerging, however,
from its ruins.]
19 (return) [ Vadomair entered into the Roman service, and was
promoted from a barbarian kingdom to the military rank of duke of
Phœnicia. He still retained the same artful character, (Ammian.
xxi. 4;) but under the reign of Valens, he signalized his valor
in the Armenian war, (xxix. 1.)]
20 (return) [ Ammian. xx. 10, xxi. 3, 4. Zosimus, l. iii. p.
155.]
Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part II.
The ambassadors of Julian had been instructed to execute, with
the utmost diligence, their important commission. But, in their
passage through Italy and Illyricum, they were detained by the
tedious and affected delays of the provincial governors; they
were conducted by slow journeys from Constantinople to Cæsarea in
Cappadocia; and when at length they were admitted to the presence
of Constantius, they found that he had already conceived, from
the despatches of his own officers, the most unfavorable opinion
of the conduct of Julian, and of the Gallic army. The letters
were heard with impatience; the trembling messengers were
dismissed with indignation and contempt; and the looks, gestures,
the furious language of the monarch, expressed the disorder of
his soul. The domestic connection, which might have reconciled
the brother and the husband of Helena, was recently dissolved by
the death of that princess, whose pregnancy had been several
times fruitless, and was at last fatal to herself. 21 The empress
Eusebia had preserved, to the last moment of her life, the warm,
and even jealous, affection which she had conceived for Julian;
and her mild influence might have moderated the resentment of a
prince, who, since her death, was abandoned to his own passions,
and to the arts of his eunuchs. But the terror of a foreign
invasion obliged him to suspend the punishment of a private
enemy: he continued his march towards the confines of Persia, and
thought it sufficient to signify the conditions which might
entitle Julian and his guilty followers to the clemency of their
offended sovereign. He required, that the presumptuous Cæsar
should expressly renounce the appellation and rank of Augustus,
which he had accepted from the rebels; that he should descend to
his former station of a limited and dependent minister; that he
should vest the powers of the state and army in the hands of
those officers who were appointed by the Imperial court; and that
he should trust his safety to the assurances of pardon, which
were announced by Epictetus, a Gallic bishop, and one of the
Arian favorites of Constantius. Several months were ineffectually
consumed in a treaty which was negotiated at the distance of
three thousand miles between Paris and Antioch; and, as soon as
Julian perceived that his modest and respectful behavior served
only to irritate the pride of an implacable adversary, he boldly
resolved to commit his life and fortune to the chance of a civil
war. He gave a public and military audience to the quæstor
Leonas: the haughty epistle of Constantius was read to the
attentive multitude; and Julian protested, with the most
flattering deference, that he was ready to resign the title of
Augustus, if he could obtain the consent of those whom he
acknowledged as the authors of his elevation. The faint proposal
was impetuously silenced; and the acclamations of “Julian
Augustus, continue to reign, by the authority of the army, of the
people, of the republic which you have saved,” thundered at once
from every part of the field, and terrified the pale ambassador
of Constantius. A part of the letter was afterwards read, in
which the emperor arraigned the ingratitude of Julian, whom he
had invested with the honors of the purple; whom he had educated
with so much care and tenderness; whom he had preserved in his
infancy, when he was left a helpless orphan.
“An orphan!” interrupted Julian, who justified his cause by
indulging his passions: “does the assassin of my family reproach
me that I was left an orphan? He urges me to revenge those
injuries which I have long studied to forget.” The assembly was
dismissed; and Leonas, who, with some difficulty, had been
protected from the popular fury, was sent back to his master with
an epistle, in which Julian expressed, in a strain of the most
vehement eloquence, the sentiments of contempt, of hatred, and of
resentment, which had been suppressed and imbittered by the
dissimulation of twenty years. After this message, which might be
considered as a signal of irreconcilable war, Julian, who, some
weeks before, had celebrated the Christian festival of the
Epiphany, 22 made a public declaration that he committed the care
of his safety to the Immortal Gods; and thus publicly renounced
the religion as well as the friendship of Constantius. 23
21 (return) [ Her remains were sent to Rome, and interred near
those of her sister Constantina, in the suburb of the _Via
Nomentana_. Ammian. xxi. 1. Libanius has composed a very weak
apology, to justify his hero from a very absurd charge of
poisoning his wife, and rewarding her physician with his mother’s
jewels. (See the seventh of seventeen new orations, published at
Venice, 1754, from a MS. in St. Mark’s Library, p. 117-127.)
Elpidius, the Prætorian præfect of the East, to whose evidence
the accuser of Julian appeals, is arraigned by Libanius, as
_effeminate_ and ungrateful; yet the religion of Elpidius is
praised by Jerom, (tom. i. p. 243,) and his Ammianus (xxi. 6.)]
22 (return) [ Feriarum die quem celebrantes mense Januario,
Christiani _Epiphania_ dictitant, progressus in eorum ecclesiam,
solemniter numine orato discessit. Ammian. xxi. 2. Zonaras
observes, that it was on Christmas day, and his assertion is not
inconsistent; since the churches of Egypt, Asia, and perhaps
Gaul, celebrated on the same day (the sixth of January) the
nativity and the baptism of their Savior. The Romans, as ignorant
as their brethren of the real date of his birth, fixed the solemn
festival to the 25th of December, the _Brumalia_, or winter
solstice, when the Pagans annually celebrated the birth of the
sun. See Bingham’s Antiquities of the Christian Church, l. xx. c.
4, and Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manicheismo tom. ii. p.
690-700.]
23 (return) [ The public and secret negotiations between
Constantius and Julian must be extracted, with some caution, from
Julian himself. (Orat. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 286.) Libanius,
(Orat. Parent. c. 51, p. 276,) Ammianus, (xx. 9,) Zosimus, (l.
iii. p. 154,) and even Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 20, 21,
22,) who, on this occasion, appears to have possessed and used
some valuable materials.]
The situation of Julian required a vigorous and immediate
resolution. He had discovered, from intercepted letters, that his
adversary, sacrificing the interest of the state to that of the
monarch, had again excited the Barbarians to invade the provinces
of the West. The position of two magazines, one of them collected
on the banks of the Lake of Constance, the other formed at the
foot of the Cottian Alps, seemed to indicate the march of two
armies; and the size of those magazines, each of which consisted
of six hundred thousand quarters of wheat, or rather flour, 24
was a threatening evidence of the strength and numbers of the
enemy who prepared to surround him. But the Imperial legions were
still in their distant quarters of Asia; the Danube was feebly
guarded; and if Julian could occupy, by a sudden incursion, the
important provinces of Illyricum, he might expect that a people
of soldiers would resort to his standard, and that the rich mines
of gold and silver would contribute to the expenses of the civil
war. He proposed this bold enterprise to the assembly of the
soldiers; inspired them with a just confidence in their general,
and in themselves; and exhorted them to maintain their reputation
of being terrible to the enemy, moderate to their
fellow-citizens, and obedient to their officers. His spirited
discourse was received with the loudest acclamations, and the
same troops which had taken up arms against Constantius, when he
summoned them to leave Gaul, now declared with alacrity, that
they would follow Julian to the farthest extremities of Europe or
Asia. The oath of fidelity was administered; and the soldiers,
clashing their shields, and pointing their drawn swords to their
throats, devoted themselves, with horrid imprecations, to the
service of a leader whom they celebrated as the deliverer of Gaul
and the conqueror of the Germans. 25 This solemn engagement,
which seemed to be dictated by affection rather than by duty, was
singly opposed by Nebridius, who had been admitted to the office
of Prætorian præfect. That faithful minister, alone and
unassisted, asserted the rights of Constantius, in the midst of
an armed and angry multitude, to whose fury he had almost fallen
an honorable, but useless sacrifice. After losing one of his
hands by the stroke of a sword, he embraced the knees of the
prince whom he had offended. Julian covered the præfect with his
Imperial mantle, and, protecting him from the zeal of his
followers, dismissed him to his own house, with less respect than
was perhaps due to the virtue of an enemy. 26 The high office of
Nebridius was bestowed on Sallust; and the provinces of Gaul,
which were now delivered from the intolerable oppression of
taxes, enjoyed the mild and equitable administration of the
friend of Julian, who was permitted to practise those virtues
which he had instilled into the mind of his pupil. 27
24 (return) [ Three hundred myriads, or three millions of
_medimni_, a corn measure familiar to the Athenians, and which
contained six Roman _modii_. Julian explains, like a soldier and
a statesman, the danger of his situation, and the necessity and
advantages of an offensive war, (ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 286,
287.)]
25 (return) [ See his oration, and the behavior of the troops, in
Ammian. xxi. 5.]
26 (return) [ He sternly refused his hand to the suppliant
præfect, whom he sent into Tuscany. (Ammian. xxi. 5.) Libanius,
with savage fury, insults Nebridius, applauds the soldiers, and
almost censures the humanity of Julian. (Orat. Parent. c. 53, p.
278.)]
27 (return) [ Ammian. xxi. 8. In this promotion, Julian obeyed
the law which he publicly imposed on himself. Neque civilis
quisquam judex nec militaris rector, alio quodam præter merita
suffragante, ad potiorem veniat gradum. (Ammian. xx. 5.) Absence
did not weaken his regard for Sallust, with whose name (A. D.
363) he honored the consulship.]
The hopes of Julian depended much less on the number of his
troops, than on the celerity of his motions. In the execution of
a daring enterprise, he availed himself of every precaution, as
far as prudence could suggest; and where prudence could no longer
accompany his steps, he trusted the event to valor and to
fortune. In the neighborhood of Basil he assembled and divided
his army. 28 One body, which consisted of ten thousand men, was
directed under the command of Nevitta, general of the cavalry, to
advance through the midland parts of Rhætia and Noricum. A
similar division of troops, under the orders of Jovius and
Jovinus, prepared to follow the oblique course of the highways,
through the Alps, and the northern confines of Italy. The
instructions to the generals were conceived with energy and
precision: to hasten their march in close and compact columns,
which, according to the disposition of the ground, might readily
be changed into any order of battle; to secure themselves against
the surprises of the night by strong posts and vigilant guards;
to prevent resistance by their unexpected arrival; to elude
examination by their sudden departure; to spread the opinion of
their strength, and the terror of his name; and to join their
sovereign under the walls of Sirmium. For himself Julian had
reserved a more difficult and extraordinary part. He selected
three thousand brave and active volunteers, resolved, like their
leader, to cast behind them every hope of a retreat; at the head
of this faithful band, he fearlessly plunged into the recesses of
the Marcian, or Black Forest, which conceals the sources of the
Danube; 29 and, for many days, the fate of Julian was unknown to
the world. The secrecy of his march, his diligence, and vigor,
surmounted every obstacle; he forced his way over mountains and
morasses, occupied the bridges or swam the rivers, pursued his
direct course, 30 without reflecting whether he traversed the
territory of the Romans or of the Barbarians, and at length
emerged, between Ratisbon and Vienna, at the place where he
designed to embark his troops on the Danube. By a well-concerted
stratagem, he seized a fleet of light brigantines, 31 as it lay
at anchor; secured a apply of coarse provisions sufficient to
satisfy the indelicate, and voracious, appetite of a Gallic army;
and boldly committed himself to the stream of the Danube. The
labors of the mariners, who plied their oars with incessant
diligence, and the steady continuance of a favorable wind,
carried his fleet above seven hundred miles in eleven days; 32
and he had already disembarked his troops at Bononia, 3211 only
nineteen miles from Sirmium, before his enemies could receive any
certain intelligence that he had left the banks of the Rhine. In
the course of this long and rapid navigation, the mind of Julian
was fixed on the object of his enterprise; and though he accepted
the deputations of some cities, which hastened to claim the merit
of an early submission, he passed before the hostile stations,
which were placed along the river, without indulging the
temptation of signalizing a useless and ill-timed valor. The
banks of the Danube were crowded on either side with spectators,
who gazed on the military pomp, anticipated the importance of the
event, and diffused through the adjacent country the fame of a
young hero, who advanced with more than mortal speed at the head
of the innumerable forces of the West. Lucilian, who, with the
rank of general of the cavalry, commanded the military powers of
Illyricum, was alarmed and perplexed by the doubtful reports,
which he could neither reject nor believe. He had taken some slow
and irresolute measures for the purpose of collecting his troops,
when he was surprised by Dagalaiphus, an active officer, whom
Julian, as soon as he landed at Bononia, had pushed forwards with
some light infantry. The captive general, uncertain of his life
or death, was hastily thrown upon a horse, and conducted to the
presence of Julian; who kindly raised him from the ground, and
dispelled the terror and amazement which seemed to stupefy his
faculties. But Lucilian had no sooner recovered his spirits, than
he betrayed his want of discretion, by presuming to admonish his
conqueror that he had rashly ventured, with a handful of men, to
expose his person in the midst of his enemies. “Reserve for your
master Constantius these timid remonstrances,” replied Julian,
with a smile of contempt: “when I gave you my purple to kiss, I
received you not as a counsellor, but as a suppliant.” Conscious
that success alone could justify his attempt, and that boldness
only could command success, he instantly advanced, at the head of
three thousand soldiers, to attack the strongest and most
populous city of the Illyrian provinces. As he entered the long
suburb of Sirmium, he was received by the joyful acclamations of
the army and people; who, crowned with flowers, and holding
lighted tapers in their hands, conducted their acknowledged
sovereign to his Imperial residence. Two days were devoted to the
public joy, which was celebrated by the games of the circus; but,
early on the morning of the third day, Julian marched to occupy
the narrow pass of Succi, in the defiles of Mount Hæmus; which,
almost in the midway between Sirmium and Constantinople,
separates the provinces of Thrace and Dacia, by an abrupt descent
towards the former, and a gentle declivity on the side of the
latter. 33 The defence of this important post was intrusted to
the brave Nevitta; who, as well as the generals of the Italian
division, successfully executed the plan of the march and
junction which their master had so ably conceived. 34
28 (return) [ Ammianus (xxi. 8) ascribes the same practice, and
the same motive, to Alexander the Great and other skilful
generals.]
29 (return) [ This wood was a part of the great Hercynian forest,
which, is the time of Cæsar, stretched away from the country of
the Rauraci (Basil) into the boundless regions of the north. See
Cluver, Germania Antiqua. l. iii. c. 47.]
30 (return) [ Compare Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 53, p. 278, 279,
with Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 68. Even the saint admires
the speed and secrecy of this march. A modern divine might apply
to the progress of Julian the lines which were originally
designed for another apostate:—
—So eagerly the fiend, O’er bog, or steep, through strait, rough,
dense, or rare, With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.]
31 (return) [ In that interval the _Notitia_ places two or three
fleets, the Lauriacensis, (at Lauriacum, or Lorch,) the
Arlapensis, the Maginensis; and mentions five legions, or
cohorts, of Libernarii, who should be a sort of marines. Sect.
lviii. edit. Labb.]
32 (return) [ Zosimus alone (l. iii. p. 156) has specified this
interesting circumstance. Mamertinus, (in Panegyr. Vet. xi. 6, 7,
8,) who accompanied Julian, as count of the sacred largesses,
describes this voyage in a florid and picturesque manner,
challenges Triptolemus and the Argonauts of Greece, &c.]
3211 (return) [ Banostar. _Mannert_.—M.]
33 (return) [ The description of Ammianus, which might be
supported by collateral evidence, ascertains the precise
situation of the _Angustiæ Succorum_, or passes of _Succi_. M.
d’Anville, from the trifling resemblance of names, has placed
them between Sardica and Naissus. For my own justification I am
obliged to mention the _only_ error which I have discovered in
the maps or writings of that admirable geographer.]
34 (return) [ Whatever circumstances we may borrow elsewhere,
Ammianus (xx. 8, 9, 10) still supplies the series of the
narrative.]
The homage which Julian obtained, from the fears or the
inclination of the people, extended far beyond the immediate
effect of his arms. 35 The præfectures of Italy and Illyricum
were administered by Taurus and Florentius, who united that
important office with the vain honors of the consulship; and as
those magistrates had retired with precipitation to the court of
Asia, Julian, who could not always restrain the levity of his
temper, stigmatized their flight by adding, in all the Acts of
the Year, the epithet of _fugitive_ to the names of the two
consuls. The provinces which had been deserted by their first
magistrates acknowledged the authority of an emperor, who,
conciliating the qualities of a soldier with those of a
philosopher, was equally admired in the camps of the Danube and
in the cities of Greece. From his palace, or, more properly, from
his head-quarters of Sirmium and Naissus, he distributed to the
principal cities of the empire, a labored apology for his own
conduct; published the secret despatches of Constantius; and
solicited the judgment of mankind between two competitors, the
one of whom had expelled, and the other had invited, the
Barbarians. 36 Julian, whose mind was deeply wounded by the
reproach of ingratitude, aspired to maintain, by argument as well
as by arms, the superior merits of his cause; and to excel, not
only in the arts of war, but in those of composition. His epistle
to the senate and people of Athens 37 seems to have been dictated
by an elegant enthusiasm; which prompted him to submit his
actions and his motives to the degenerate Athenians of his own
times, with the same humble deference as if he had been pleading,
in the days of Aristides, before the tribunal of the Areopagus.
His application to the senate of Rome, which was still permitted
to bestow the titles of Imperial power, was agreeable to the
forms of the expiring republic. An assembly was summoned by
Tertullus, præfect of the city; the epistle of Julian was read;
and, as he appeared to be master of Italy his claims were
admitted without a dissenting voice. His oblique censure of the
innovations of Constantine, and his passionate invective against
the vices of Constantius, were heard with less satisfaction; and
the senate, as if Julian had been present, unanimously exclaimed,
“Respect, we beseech you, the author of your own fortune.” 38 An
artful expression, which, according to the chance of war, might
be differently explained; as a manly reproof of the ingratitude
of the usurper, or as a flattering confession, that a single act
of such benefit to the state ought to atone for all the failings
of Constantius.
35 (return) [ Ammian. xxi. 9, 10. Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 54,
p. 279, 280. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 156, 157.]
36 (return) [ Julian (ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 286) positively
asserts, that he intercepted the letters of Constantius to the
Barbarians; and Libanius as positively affirms, that he read them
on his march to the troops and the cities. Yet Ammianus (xxi. 4)
expresses himself with cool and candid hesitation, si _famæ
solius_ admittenda est fides. He specifies, however, an
intercepted letter from Vadomair to Constantius, which supposes
an intimate correspondence between them. “disciplinam non
habet.”]
37 (return) [ Zosimus mentions his epistles to the Athenians, the
Corinthians, and the Lacedæmonians. The substance was probably
the same, though the address was properly varied. The epistle to
the Athenians is still extant, (p. 268-287,) and has afforded
much valuable information. It deserves the praises of the Abbé de
la Bleterie, (Pref. a l’Histoire de Jovien, p. 24, 25,) and is
one of the best manifestoes to be found in any language.]
38 (return) [ _Auctori tuo reverentiam rogamus_. Ammian. xxi. 10.
It is amusing enough to observe the secret conflicts of the
senate between flattery and fear. See Tacit. Hist. i. 85.]
The intelligence of the march and rapid progress of Julian was
speedily transmitted to his rival, who, by the retreat of Sapor,
had obtained some respite from the Persian war. Disguising the
anguish of his soul under the semblance of contempt, Constantius
professed his intention of returning into Europe, and of giving
chase to Julian; for he never spoke of his military expedition in
any other light than that of a hunting party. 39 In the camp of
Hierapolis, in Syria, he communicated this design to his army;
slightly mentioned the guilt and rashness of the Cæsar; and
ventured to assure them, that if the mutineers of Gaul presumed
to meet them in the field, they would be unable to sustain the
fire of their eyes, and the irresistible weight of their shout of
onset. The speech of the emperor was received with military
applause, and Theodotus, the president of the council of
Hierapolis, requested, with tears of adulation, that _his_ city
might be adorned with the head of the vanquished rebel. 40 A
chosen detachment was despatched away in post-wagons, to secure,
if it were yet possible, the pass of Succi; the recruits, the
horses, the arms, and the magazines, which had been prepared
against Sapor, were appropriated to the service of the civil war;
and the domestic victories of Constantius inspired his partisans
with the most sanguine assurances of success. The notary
Gaudentius had occupied in his name the provinces of Africa; the
subsistence of Rome was intercepted; and the distress of Julian
was increased by an unexpected event, which might have been
productive of fatal consequences. Julian had received the
submission of two legions and a cohort of archers, who were
stationed at Sirmium; but he suspected, with reason, the fidelity
of those troops which had been distinguished by the emperor; and
it was thought expedient, under the pretence of the exposed state
of the Gallic frontier, to dismiss them from the most important
scene of action. They advanced, with reluctance, as far as the
confines of Italy; but as they dreaded the length of the way, and
the savage fierceness of the Germans, they resolved, by the
instigation of one of their tribunes, to halt at Aquileia, and to
erect the banners of Constantius on the walls of that impregnable
city. The vigilance of Julian perceived at once the extent of the
mischief, and the necessity of applying an immediate remedy. By
his order, Jovinus led back a part of the army into Italy; and
the siege of Aquileia was formed with diligence, and prosecuted
with vigor. But the legionaries, who seemed to have rejected the
yoke of discipline, conducted the defence of the place with skill
and perseverance; vited the rest of Italy to imitate the example
of their courage and loyalty; and threatened the retreat of
Julian, if he should be forced to yield to the superior numbers
of the armies of the East. 41
39 (return) [ Tanquam venaticiam prædam caperet: hoc enim ad
Jeniendum suorum metum subinde prædicabat. Ammian. xxii. 7.]
40 (return) [ See the speech and preparations in Ammianus, xxi.
13. The vile Theodotus afterwards implored and obtained his
pardon from the merciful conqueror, who signified his wish of
diminishing his enemies and increasing the numbers of his
friends, (xxii. 14.)]
41 (return) [ Ammian. xxi. 7, 11, 12. He seems to describe, with
superfluous labor, the operations of the siege of Aquileia,
which, on this occasion, maintained its impregnable fame. Gregory
Nazianzen (Orat. iii. p. 68) ascribes this accidental revolt to
the wisdom of Constantius, whose assured victory he announces
with some appearance of truth. Constantio quem credebat procul
dubio fore victorem; nemo enim omnium tunc ab hac constanti
sententia discrepebat. Ammian. xxi. 7.]
But the humanity of Julian was preserved from the cruel
alternative which he pathetically laments, of destroying or of
being himself destroyed: and the seasonable death of Constantius
delivered the Roman empire from the calamities of civil war. The
approach of winter could not detain the monarch at Antioch; and
his favorites durst not oppose his impatient desire of revenge. A
slight fever, which was perhaps occasioned by the agitation of
his spirits, was increased by the fatigues of the journey; and
Constantius was obliged to halt at the little town of Mopsucrene,
twelve miles beyond Tarsus, where he expired, after a short
illness, in the forty-fifth year of his age, and the
twenty-fourth of his reign. 42 His genuine character, which was
composed of pride and weakness, of superstition and cruelty, has
been fully displayed in the preceding narrative of civil and
ecclesiastical events. The long abuse of power rendered him a
considerable object in the eyes of his contemporaries; but as
personal merit can alone deserve the notice of posterity, the
last of the sons of Constantine may be dismissed from the world,
with the remark, that he inherited the defects, without the
abilities, of his father. Before Constantius expired, he is said
to have named Julian for his successor; nor does it seem
improbable, that his anxious concern for the fate of a young and
tender wife, whom he left with child, may have prevailed, in his
last moments, over the harsher passions of hatred and revenge.
Eusebius, and his guilty associates, made a faint attempt to
prolong the reign of the eunuchs, by the election of another
emperor; but their intrigues were rejected with disdain, by an
army which now abhorred the thought of civil discord; and two
officers of rank were instantly despatched, to assure Julian,
that every sword in the empire would be drawn for his service.
The military designs of that prince, who had formed three
different attacks against Thrace, were prevented by this
fortunate event. Without shedding the blood of his
fellow-citizens, he escaped the dangers of a doubtful conflict,
and acquired the advantages of a complete victory. Impatient to
visit the place of his birth, and the new capital of the empire,
he advanced from Naissus through the mountains of Hæmus, and the
cities of Thrace. When he reached Heraclea, at the distance of
sixty miles, all Constantinople was poured forth to receive him;
and he made his triumphal entry amidst the dutiful acclamations
of the soldiers, the people, and the senate. An innumerable
multitude pressed around him with eager respect and were perhaps
disappointed when they beheld the small stature and simple garb
of a hero, whose unexperienced youth had vanquished the
Barbarians of Germany, and who had now traversed, in a successful
career, the whole continent of Europe, from the shores of the
Atlantic to those of the Bosphorus. 43 A few days afterwards,
when the remains of the deceased emperor were landed in the
harbor, the subjects of Julian applauded the real or affected
humanity of their sovereign. On foot, without his diadem, and
clothed in a mourning habit, he accompanied the funeral as far as
the church of the Holy Apostles, where the body was deposited:
and if these marks of respect may be interpreted as a selfish
tribute to the birth and dignity of his Imperial kinsman, the
tears of Julian professed to the world that he had forgot the
injuries, and remembered only the obligations, which he had
received from Constantius. 44 As soon as the legions of Aquileia
were assured of the death of the emperor, they opened the gates
of the city, and, by the sacrifice of their guilty leaders,
obtained an easy pardon from the prudence or lenity of Julian;
who, in the thirty-second year of his age, acquired the
undisputed possession of the Roman empire. 45
42 (return) [ His death and character are faithfully delineated
by Ammianus, (xxi. 14, 15, 16;) and we are authorized to despise
and detest the foolish calumny of Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 68,)
who accuses Julian of contriving the death of his benefactor. The
private repentance of the emperor, that he had spared and
promoted Julian, (p. 69, and Orat. xxi. p. 389,) is not
improbable in itself, nor incompatible with the public verbal
testament which prudential considerations might dictate in the
last moments of his life. Note: Wagner thinks this sudden change
of sentiment altogether a fiction of the attendant courtiers and
chiefs of the army. who up to this time had been hostile to
Julian. Note in loco Ammian.—M.]
43 (return) [ In describing the triumph of Julian, Ammianus
(xxii. l, 2) assumes the lofty tone of an orator or poet; while
Libanius (Orat. Parent, c. 56, p. 281) sinks to the grave
simplicity of an historian.]
44 (return) [ The funeral of Constantius is described by
Ammianus, (xxi. 16.) Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 119,)
Mamertinus, in (Panegyr. Vet. xi. 27,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent.
c. lvi. p. 283,) and Philostorgius, (l. vi. c. 6, with Godefroy’s
Dissertations, p. 265.) These writers, and their followers,
Pagans, Catholics, Arians, beheld with very different eyes both
the dead and the living emperor.]
45 (return) [ The day and year of the birth of Julian are not
perfectly ascertained. The day is probably the sixth of November,
and the year must be either 331 or 332. Tillemont, Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 693. Ducange, Fam. Byzantin. p. 50. I have
preferred the earlier date.]
Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part III.
Philosophy had instructed Julian to compare the advantages of
action and retirement; but the elevation of his birth, and the
accidents of his life, never allowed him the freedom of choice.
He might perhaps sincerely have preferred the groves of the
academy, and the society of Athens; but he was constrained, at
first by the will, and afterwards by the injustice, of
Constantius, to expose his person and fame to the dangers of
Imperial greatness; and to make himself accountable to the world,
and to posterity, for the happiness of millions. 46 Julian
recollected with terror the observation of his master Plato, 47
that the government of our flocks and herds is always committed
to beings of a superior species; and that the conduct of nations
requires and deserves the celestial powers of the gods or of the
genii. From this principle he justly concluded, that the man who
presumes to reign, should aspire to the perfection of the divine
nature; that he should purify his soul from her mortal and
terrestrial part; that he should extinguish his appetites,
enlighten his understanding, regulate his passions, and subdue
the wild beast, which, according to the lively metaphor of
Aristotle, 48 seldom fails to ascend the throne of a despot. The
throne of Julian, which the death of Constantius fixed on an
independent basis, was the seat of reason, of virtue, and perhaps
of vanity. He despised the honors, renounced the pleasures, and
discharged with incessant diligence the duties, of his exalted
station; and there were few among his subjects who would have
consented to relieve him from the weight of the diadem, had they
been obliged to submit their time and their actions to the
rigorous laws which that philosophic emperor imposed on himself.
One of his most intimate friends, 49 who had often shared the
frugal simplicity of his table, has remarked, that his light and
sparing diet (which was usually of the vegetable kind) left his
mind and body always free and active, for the various and
important business of an author, a pontiff, a magistrate, a
general, and a prince. In one and the same day, he gave audience
to several ambassadors, and wrote, or dictated, a great number of
letters to his generals, his civil magistrates, his private
friends, and the different cities of his dominions. He listened
to the memorials which had been received, considered the subject
of the petitions, and signified his intentions more rapidly than
they could be taken in short-hand by the diligence of his
secretaries. He possessed such flexibility of thought, and such
firmness of attention, that he could employ his hand to write,
his ear to listen, and his voice to dictate; and pursue at once
three several trains of ideas without hesitation, and without
error. While his ministers reposed, the prince flew with agility
from one labor to another, and, after a hasty dinner, retired
into his library, till the public business, which he had
appointed for the evening, summoned him to interrupt the
prosecution of his studies. The supper of the emperor was still
less substantial than the former meal; his sleep was never
clouded by the fumes of indigestion; and except in the short
interval of a marriage, which was the effect of policy rather
than love, the chaste Julian never shared his bed with a female
companion. 50 He was soon awakened by the entrance of fresh
secretaries, who had slept the preceding day; and his servants
were obliged to wait alternately while their indefatigable master
allowed himself scarcely any other refreshment than the change of
occupation. The predecessors of Julian, his uncle, his brother,
and his cousin, indulged their puerile taste for the games of the
Circus, under the specious pretence of complying with the
inclinations of the people; and they frequently remained the
greatest part of the day as idle spectators, and as a part of the
splendid spectacle, till the ordinary round of twenty-four races
51 was completely finished. On solemn festivals, Julian, who felt
and professed an unfashionable dislike to these frivolous
amusements, condescended to appear in the Circus; and after
bestowing a careless glance at five or six of the races, he
hastily withdrew with the impatience of a philosopher, who
considered every moment as lost that was not devoted to the
advantage of the public or the improvement of his own mind. 52 By
this avarice of time, he seemed to protract the short duration of
his reign; and if the dates were less securely ascertained, we
should refuse to believe, that only sixteen months elapsed
between the death of Constantius and the departure of his
successor for the Persian war. The actions of Julian can only be
preserved by the care of the historian; but the portion of his
voluminous writings, which is still extant, remains as a monument
of the application, as well as of the genius, of the emperor. The
Misopogon, the Cæsars, several of his orations, and his elaborate
work against the Christian religion, were composed in the long
nights of the two winters, the former of which he passed at
Constantinople, and the latter at Antioch.
46 (return) [ Julian himself (p. 253-267) has expressed these
philosophical ideas with much eloquence and some affectation, in
a very elaborate epistle to Themistius. The Abbé de la Bleterie,
(tom. ii. p. 146-193,) who has given an elegant translation, is
inclined to believe that it was the celebrated Themistius, whose
orations are still extant.]
47 (return) [ Julian. ad Themist. p. 258. Petavius (not. p. 95)
observes that this passage is taken from the fourth book De
Legibus; but either Julian quoted from memory, or his MSS. were
different from ours Xenophon opens the Cyropædia with a similar
reflection.]
48 (return) [ Aristot. ap. Julian. p. 261. The MS. of Vossius,
unsatisfied with the single beast, affords the stronger reading
of which the experience of despotism may warrant.]
49 (return) [ Libanius (Orat. Parentalis, c. lxxxiv. lxxxv. p.
310, 311, 312) has given this interesting detail of the private
life of Julian. He himself (in Misopogon, p. 350) mentions his
vegetable diet, and upbraids the gross and sensual appetite of
the people of Antioch.]
50 (return) [ Lectulus... Vestalium toris purior, is the praise
which Mamertinus (Panegyr. Vet. xi. 13) addresses to Julian
himself. Libanius affirms, in sober peremptory language, that
Julian never knew a woman before his marriage, or after the death
of his wife, (Orat. Parent. c. lxxxviii. p. 313.) The chastity of
Julian is confirmed by the impartial testimony of Ammianus, (xxv.
4,) and the partial silence of the Christians. Yet Julian
ironically urges the reproach of the people of Antioch, that he
_almost always_ (in Misopogon, p. 345) lay alone. This suspicious
expression is explained by the Abbé de la Bleterie (Hist. de
Jovien, tom. ii. p. 103-109) with candor and ingenuity.]
51 (return) [ See Salmasius ad Sueton in Claud. c. xxi. A
twenty-fifth race, or _missus_, was added, to complete the number
of one hundred chariots, four of which, the four colors, started
each heat.
Centum quadrijugos agitabo ad flumina currus.
It appears, that they ran five or seven times round the _Meta_
(Sueton. in Domitian. c. 4;) and (from the measure of the Circus
Maximus at Rome, the Hippodrome at Constantinople, &c.) it might
be about a four mile course.]
52 (return) [ Julian. in Misopogon, p. 340. Julius Cæsar had
offended the Roman people by reading his despatches during the
actual race. Augustus indulged their taste, or his own, by his
constant attention to the important business of the Circus, for
which he professed the warmest inclination. Sueton. in August. c.
xlv.]
The reformation of the Imperial court was one of the first and
most necessary acts of the government of Julian. 53 Soon after
his entrance into the palace of Constantinople, he had occasion
for the service of a barber. An officer, magnificently dressed,
immediately presented himself. “It is a barber,” exclaimed the
prince, with affected surprise, “that I want, and not a
receiver-general of the finances.” 54 He questioned the man
concerning the profits of his employment and was informed, that
besides a large salary, and some valuable perquisites, he enjoyed
a daily allowance for twenty servants, and as many horses. A
thousand barbers, a thousand cup-bearers, a thousand cooks, were
distributed in the several offices of luxury; and the number of
eunuchs could be compared only with the insects of a summer’s
day. The monarch who resigned to his subjects the superiority of
merit and virtue, was distinguished by the oppressive
magnificence of his dress, his table, his buildings, and his
train. The stately palaces erected by Constantine and his sons,
were decorated with many colored marbles, and ornaments of massy
gold. The most exquisite dainties were procured, to gratify their
pride, rather than their taste; birds of the most distant
climates, fish from the most remote seas, fruits out of their
natural season, winter roses, and summer snows. 56 The domestic
crowd of the palace surpassed the expense of the legions; yet the
smallest part of this costly multitude was subservient to the
use, or even to the splendor, of the throne. The monarch was
disgraced, and the people was injured, by the creation and sale
of an infinite number of obscure, and even titular employments;
and the most worthless of mankind might purchase the privilege of
being maintained, without the necessity of labor, from the public
revenue. The waste of an enormous household, the increase of fees
and perquisites, which were soon claimed as a lawful debt, and
the bribes which they extorted from those who feared their
enmity, or solicited their favor, suddenly enriched these haughty
menials. They abused their fortune, without considering their
past, or their future, condition; and their rapine and venality
could be equalled only by the extravagance of their dissipations.
Their silken robes were embroidered with gold, their tables were
served with delicacy and profusion; the houses which they built
for their own use, would have covered the farm of an ancient
consul; and the most honorable citizens were obliged to dismount
from their horses, and respectfully to salute a eunuch whom they
met on the public highway. The luxury of the palace excited the
contempt and indignation of Julian, who usually slept on the
ground, who yielded with reluctance to the indispensable calls of
nature; and who placed his vanity, not in emulating, but in
despising, the pomp of royalty.
53 (return) [ The reformation of the palace is described by
Ammianus, (xxii. 4,) Libanius, Orat. (Parent. c. lxii. p. 288,
&c.,) Mamertinus, in Panegyr. (Vet. xi. 11,) Socrates, (l. iii.
c. l.,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 24.)]
54 (return) [ Ego non _rationalem_ jussi sed tonsorem acciri.
Zonaras uses the less natural image of a senator. Yet an officer
of the finances, who was satisfied with wealth, might desire and
obtain the honors of the senate.]
56 (return) [ The expressions of Mamertinus are lively and
forcible. Quis etiam prandiorum et cænarum laboratas magnitudines
Romanus populus sensit; cum quæsitissimæ dapes non gustu sed
difficultatibus æstimarentur; miracula avium, longinqui maris
pisces, aheni temporis poma, æstivæ nives, hybernæ rosæ]
By the total extirpation of a mischief which was magnified even
beyond its real extent, he was impatient to relieve the distress,
and to appease the murmurs of the people; who support with less
uneasiness the weight of taxes, if they are convinced that the
fruits of their industry are appropriated to the service of the
state. But in the execution of this salutary work, Julian is
accused of proceeding with too much haste and inconsiderate
severity. By a single edict, he reduced the palace of
Constantinople to an immense desert, and dismissed with ignominy
the whole train of slaves and dependants, 57 without providing
any just, or at least benevolent, exceptions, for the age, the
services, or the poverty, of the faithful domestics of the
Imperial family. Such indeed was the temper of Julian, who seldom
recollected the fundamental maxim of Aristotle, that true virtue
is placed at an equal distance between the opposite vices.
The splendid and effeminate dress of the Asiatics, the curls and
paint, the collars and bracelets, which had appeared so
ridiculous in the person of Constantine, were consistently
rejected by his philosophic successor. But with the fopperies,
Julian affected to renounce the decencies of dress; and seemed to
value himself for his neglect of the laws of cleanliness. In a
satirical performance, which was designed for the public eye, the
emperor descants with pleasure, and even with pride, on the
length of his nails, and the inky blackness of his hands;
protests, that although the greatest part of his body was covered
with hair, the use of the razor was confined to his head alone;
and celebrates, with visible complacency, the shaggy and
_populous_ 58 beard, which he fondly cherished, after the example
of the philosophers of Greece. Had Julian consulted the simple
dictates of reason, the first magistrate of the Romans would have
scorned the affectation of Diogenes, as well as that of Darius.
57 (return) [ Yet Julian himself was accused of bestowing whole
towns on the eunuchs, (Orat. vii. against Polyclet. p. 117-127.)
Libanius contents himself with a cold but positive denial of the
fact, which seems indeed to belong more properly to Constantius.
This charge, however, may allude to some unknown circumstance.]
58 (return) [ In the Misopogon (p. 338, 339) he draws a very
singular picture of himself, and the following words are
strangely characteristic. The friends of the Abbé de la Bleterie
adjured him, in the name of the French nation, not to translate
this passage, so offensive to their delicacy, (Hist. de Jovien,
tom. ii. p. 94.) Like him, I have contented myself with a
transient allusion; but the little animal which Julian _names_,
is a beast familiar to man, and signifies love.]
But the work of public reformation would have remained imperfect,
if Julian had only corrected the abuses, without punishing the
crimes, of his predecessor’s reign. “We are now delivered,” says
he, in a familiar letter to one of his intimate friends, “we are
now surprisingly delivered from the voracious jaws of the Hydra.
59 I do not mean to apply the epithet to my brother Constantius.
He is no more; may the earth lie light on his head! But his
artful and cruel favorites studied to deceive and exasperate a
prince, whose natural mildness cannot be praised without some
efforts of adulation. It is not, however, my intention, that even
those men should be oppressed: they are accused, and they shall
enjoy the benefit of a fair and impartial trial.” To conduct this
inquiry, Julian named six judges of the highest rank in the state
and army; and as he wished to escape the reproach of condemning
his personal enemies, he fixed this extraordinary tribunal at
Chalcedon, on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus; and transferred
to the commissioners an absolute power to pronounce and execute
their final sentence, without delay, and without appeal. The
office of president was exercised by the venerable præfect of the
East, a _second_ Sallust, 60 whose virtues conciliated the esteem
of Greek sophists, and of Christian bishops. He was assisted by
the eloquent Mamertinus, 61 one of the consuls elect, whose merit
is loudly celebrated by the doubtful evidence of his own
applause. But the civil wisdom of two magistrates was
overbalanced by the ferocious violence of four generals, Nevitta,
Agilo, Jovinus, and Arbetio. Arbetio, whom the public would have
seen with less surprise at the bar than on the bench, was
supposed to possess the secret of the commission; the armed and
angry leaders of the Jovian and Herculian bands encompassed the
tribunal; and the judges were alternately swayed by the laws of
justice, and by the clamors of faction. 62
59 (return) [ Julian, epist. xxiii. p. 389. He uses the words in
writing to his friend Hermogenes, who, like himself, was
conversant with the Greek poets.]
60 (return) [ The two Sallusts, the præfect of Gaul, and the
præfect of the East, must be carefully distinguished, (Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 696.) I have used the surname of
_Secundus_, as a convenient epithet. The second Sallust extorted
the esteem of the Christians themselves; and Gregory Nazianzen,
who condemned his religion, has celebrated his virtues, (Orat.
iii. p. 90.) See a curious note of the Abbé de la Bleterie, Vie
de Julien, p. 363. Note: Gibbonus secundum habet pro numero, quod
tamen est viri agnomen Wagner, nota in loc. Amm. It is not a
mistake; it is rather an error in taste. Wagner inclines to
transfer the chief guilt to Arbetio.—M.]
61 (return) [ Mamertinus praises the emperor (xi. l.) for
bestowing the offices of Treasurer and Præfect on a man of
wisdom, firmness, integrity, &c., like himself. Yet Ammianus
ranks him (xxi. l.) among the ministers of Julian, quorum merita
norat et fidem.]
62 (return) [ The proceedings of this chamber of justice are
related by Ammianus, (xxii. 3,) and praised by Libanius, (Orat.
Parent. c. 74, p. 299, 300.)]
The chamberlain Eusebius, who had so long abused the favor of
Constantius, expiated, by an ignominious death, the insolence,
the corruption, and cruelty of his servile reign. The executions
of Paul and Apodemius (the former of whom was burnt alive) were
accepted as an inadequate atonement by the widows and orphans of
so many hundred Romans, whom those legal tyrants had betrayed and
murdered. But justice herself (if we may use the pathetic
expression of Ammianus) 63 appeared to weep over the fate of
Ursulus, the treasurer of the empire; and his blood accused the
ingratitude of Julian, whose distress had been seasonably
relieved by the intrepid liberality of that honest minister. The
rage of the soldiers, whom he had provoked by his indiscretion,
was the cause and the excuse of his death; and the emperor,
deeply wounded by his own reproaches and those of the public,
offered some consolation to the family of Ursulus, by the
restitution of his confiscated fortunes. Before the end of the
year in which they had been adorned with the ensigns of the
prefecture and consulship, 64 Taurus and Florentius were reduced
to implore the clemency of the inexorable tribunal of Chalcedon.
The former was banished to Vercellæ in Italy, and a sentence of
death was pronounced against the latter. A wise prince should
have rewarded the crime of Taurus: the faithful minister, when he
was no longer able to oppose the progress of a rebel, had taken
refuge in the court of his benefactor and his lawful sovereign.
But the guilt of Florentius justified the severity of the judges;
and his escape served to display the magnanimity of Julian, who
nobly checked the interested diligence of an informer, and
refused to learn what place concealed the wretched fugitive from
his just resentment. 65 Some months after the tribunal of
Chalcedon had been dissolved, the prætorian vicegerent of Africa,
the notary Gaudentius, and Artemius 66 duke of Egypt, were
executed at Antioch. Artemius had reigned the cruel and corrupt
tyrant of a great province; Gaudentius had long practised the
arts of calumny against the innocent, the virtuous, and even the
person of Julian himself. Yet the circumstances of their trial
and condemnation were so unskillfully managed, that these wicked
men obtained, in the public opinion, the glory of suffering for
the obstinate loyalty with which they had supported the cause of
Constantius. The rest of his servants were protected by a general
act of oblivion; and they were left to enjoy with impunity the
bribes which they had accepted, either to defend the oppressed,
or to oppress the friendless. This measure, which, on the
soundest principles of policy, may deserve our approbation, was
executed in a manner which seemed to degrade the majesty of the
throne. Julian was tormented by the importunities of a multitude,
particularly of Egyptians, who loudly redemanded the gifts which
they had imprudently or illegally bestowed; he foresaw the
endless prosecution of vexatious suits; and he engaged a promise,
which ought always to have been sacred, that if they would repair
to Chalcedon, he would meet them in person, to hear and determine
their complaints. But as soon as they were landed, he issued an
absolute order, which prohibited the watermen from transporting
any Egyptian to Constantinople; and thus detained his
disappointed clients on the Asiatic shore till, their patience
and money being utterly exhausted, they were obliged to return
with indignant murmurs to their native country. 67
63 (return) [ Ursuli vero necem ipsa mihi videtur flesse
justitia. Libanius, who imputes his death to the soldiers,
attempts to criminate the court of the largesses.]
64 (return) [ Such respect was still entertained for the
venerable names of the commonwealth, that the public was
surprised and scandalized to hear Taurus summoned as a criminal
under the consulship of Taurus. The summons of his colleague
Florentius was probably delayed till the commencement of the
ensuing year.]
65 (return) [ Ammian. xx. 7.]
66 (return) [ For the guilt and punishment of Artemius, see
Julian (Epist. x. p. 379) and Ammianus, (xxii. 6, and Vales, ad
hoc.) The merit of Artemius, who demolished temples, and was put
to death by an apostate, has tempted the Greek and Latin churches
to honor him as a martyr. But as ecclesiastical history attests
that he was not only a tyrant, but an Arian, it is not altogether
easy to justify this indiscreet promotion. Tillemont, Mém.
Eccles. tom. vii. p. 1319.]
67 (return) [ See Ammian. xxii. 6, and Vales, ad locum; and the
Codex Theodosianus, l. ii. tit. xxxix. leg. i.; and Godefroy’s
Commentary, tom. i. p. 218, ad locum.]
Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part IV.
The numerous army of spies, of agents, and informers enlisted by
Constantius to secure the repose of one man, and to interrupt
that of millions, was immediately disbanded by his generous
successor. Julian was slow in his suspicions, and gentle in his
punishments; and his contempt of treason was the result of
judgment, of vanity, and of courage. Conscious of superior merit,
he was persuaded that few among his subjects would dare to meet
him in the field, to attempt his life, or even to seat themselves
on his vacant throne. The philosopher could excuse the hasty
sallies of discontent; and the hero could despise the ambitious
projects which surpassed the fortune or the abilities of the rash
conspirators. A citizen of Ancyra had prepared for his own use a
purple garment; and this indiscreet action, which, under the
reign of Constantius, would have been considered as a capital
offence, 68 was reported to Julian by the officious importunity
of a private enemy. The monarch, after making some inquiry into
the rank and character of his rival, despatched the informer with
a present of a pair of purple slippers, to complete the
magnificence of his Imperial habit. A more dangerous conspiracy
was formed by ten of the domestic guards, who had resolved to
assassinate Julian in the field of exercise near Antioch. Their
intemperance revealed their guilt; and they were conducted in
chains to the presence of their injured sovereign, who, after a
lively representation of the wickedness and folly of their
enterprise, instead of a death of torture, which they deserved
and expected, pronounced a sentence of exile against the two
principal offenders. The only instance in which Julian seemed to
depart from his accustomed clemency, was the execution of a rash
youth, who, with a feeble hand, had aspired to seize the reins of
empire. But that youth was the son of Marcellus, the general of
cavalry, who, in the first campaign of the Gallic war, had
deserted the standard of the Cæsar and the republic. Without
appearing to indulge his personal resentment, Julian might easily
confound the crime of the son and of the father; but he was
reconciled by the distress of Marcellus, and the liberality of
the emperor endeavored to heal the wound which had been inflicted
by the hand of justice. 69
68 (return) [ The president Montesquieu (Considerations sur la
Grandeur, &c., des Romains, c. xiv. in his works, tom. iii. p.
448, 449,) excuses this minute and absurd tyranny, by supposing
that actions the most indifferent in our eyes might excite, in a
Roman mind, the idea of guilt and danger. This strange apology is
supported by a strange misapprehension of the English laws, “chez
une nation.... où il est défendu de boire à la santé d’une
certaine personne.”]
69 (return) [ The clemency of Julian, and the conspiracy which
was formed against his life at Antioch, are described by Ammianus
(xxii. 9, 10, and Vales, ad loc.) and Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c.
99, p. 323.)]
Julian was not insensible of the advantages of freedom. 70 From
his studies he had imbibed the spirit of ancient sages and
heroes; his life and fortunes had depended on the caprice of a
tyrant; and when he ascended the throne, his pride was sometimes
mortified by the reflection, that the slaves who would not dare
to censure his defects were not worthy to applaud his virtues. 71
He sincerely abhorred the system of Oriental despotism, which
Diocletian, Constantine, and the patient habits of fourscore
years, had established in the empire. A motive of superstition
prevented the execution of the design, which Julian had
frequently meditated, of relieving his head from the weight of a
costly diadem; 72 but he absolutely refused the title of
_Dominus_, or _Lord_, 73 a word which was grown so familiar to
the ears of the Romans, that they no longer remembered its
servile and humiliating origin. The office, or rather the name,
of consul, was cherished by a prince who contemplated with
reverence the ruins of the republic; and the same behavior which
had been assumed by the prudence of Augustus was adopted by
Julian from choice and inclination. On the calends of January, at
break of day, the new consuls, Mamertinus and Nevitta, hastened
to the palace to salute the emperor. As soon as he was informed
of their approach, he leaped from his throne, eagerly advanced to
meet them, and compelled the blushing magistrates to receive the
demonstrations of his affected humility. From the palace they
proceeded to the senate. The emperor, on foot, marched before
their litters; and the gazing multitude admired the image of
ancient times, or secretly blamed a conduct, which, in their
eyes, degraded the majesty of the purple. 74 But the behavior of
Julian was uniformly supported. During the games of the Circus,
he had, imprudently or designedly, performed the manumission of a
slave in the presence of the consul. The moment he was reminded
that he had trespassed on the jurisdiction of _another_
magistrate, he condemned himself to pay a fine of ten pounds of
gold; and embraced this public occasion of declaring to the
world, that he was subject, like the rest of his fellow-citizens,
to the laws, 75 and even to the forms, of the republic. The
spirit of his administration, and his regard for the place of his
nativity, induced Julian to confer on the senate of
Constantinople the same honors, privileges, and authority, which
were still enjoyed by the senate of ancient Rome. 76 A legal
fiction was introduced, and gradually established, that one half
of the national council had migrated into the East; and the
despotic successors of Julian, accepting the title of Senators,
acknowledged themselves the members of a respectable body, which
was permitted to represent the majesty of the Roman name. From
Constantinople, the attention of the monarch was extended to the
municipal senates of the provinces. He abolished, by repeated
edicts, the unjust and pernicious exemptions which had withdrawn
so many idle citizens from the services of their country; and by
imposing an equal distribution of public duties, he restored the
strength, the splendor, or, according to the glowing expression
of Libanius, 77 the soul of the expiring cities of his empire.
The venerable age of Greece excited the most tender compassion in
the mind of Julian, which kindled into rapture when he
recollected the gods, the heroes, and the men superior to heroes
and to gods, who have bequeathed to the latest posterity the
monuments of their genius, or the example of their virtues. He
relieved the distress, and restored the beauty, of the cities of
Epirus and Peloponnesus. 78 Athens acknowledged him for her
benefactor; Argos, for her deliverer. The pride of Corinth, again
rising from her ruins with the honors of a Roman colony, exacted
a tribute from the adjacent republics, for the purpose of
defraying the games of the Isthmus, which were celebrated in the
amphitheatre with the hunting of bears and panthers. From this
tribute the cities of Elis, of Delphi, and of Argos, which had
inherited from their remote ancestors the sacred office of
perpetuating the Olympic, the Pythian, and the Nemean games,
claimed a just exemption. The immunity of Elis and Delphi was
respected by the Corinthians; but the poverty of Argos tempted
the insolence of oppression; and the feeble complaints of its
deputies were silenced by the decree of a provincial magistrate,
who seems to have consulted only the interest of the capital in
which he resided. Seven years after this sentence, Julian 79
allowed the cause to be referred to a superior tribunal; and his
eloquence was interposed, most probably with success, in the
defence of a city, which had been the royal seat of Agamemnon, 80
and had given to Macedonia a race of kings and conquerors. 81
70 (return) [ According to some, says Aristotle, (as he is quoted
by Julian ad Themist. p. 261,) the form of absolute government is
contrary to nature. Both the prince and the philosopher choose,
how ever to involve this eternal truth in artful and labored
obscurity.]
71 (return) [ That sentiment is expressed almost in the words of
Julian himself. Ammian. xxii. 10.]
72 (return) [ Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 95, p. 320,) who
mentions the wish and design of Julian, insinuates, in mysterious
language that the emperor was restrained by some particular
revelation.]
73 (return) [ Julian in Misopogon, p. 343. As he never abolished,
by any public law, the proud appellations of _Despot_, or
_Dominus_, they are still extant on his medals, (Ducange, Fam.
Byzantin. p. 38, 39;) and the private displeasure which he
affected to express, only gave a different tone to the servility
of the court. The Abbé de la Bleterie (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii.
p. 99-102) has curiously traced the origin and progress of the
word _Dominus_ under the Imperial government.]
74 (return) [ Ammian. xxii. 7. The consul Mamertinus (in Panegyr.
Vet. xi. 28, 29, 30) celebrates the auspicious day, like an
elegant slave, astonished and intoxicated by the condescension of
his master.]
75 (return) [ Personal satire was condemned by the laws of the
twelve tables: Si male condiderit in quem quis carmina, jus est
Judiciumque—Horat. Sat. ii. 1. 82. ——Julian (in Misopogon, p.
337) owns himself subject to the law; and the Abbé de la Bleterie
(Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 92) has eagerly embraced a
declaration so agreeable to his own system, and, indeed, to the
true spirit of the Imperial constitution.]
76 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iii. p. 158.]
77 (return) [ See Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 71, p. 296,)
Ammianus, (xxii. 9,) and the Theodosian Code (l. xii. tit. i.
leg. 50-55.) with Godefroy’s Commentary, (tom. iv. p. 390-402.)
Yet the whole subject of the _Curia_, notwithstanding very ample
materials, still remains the most obscure in the legal history of
the empire.]
78 (return) [ Quæ paulo ante arida et siti anhelantia visebantur,
ea nunc perlui, mundari, madere; Fora, Deambulacra, Gymnasia,
lætis et gaudentibus populis frequentari; dies festos, et
celebrari veteres, et novos in honorem principis consecrari,
(Mamertin. xi. 9.) He particularly restored the city of Nicopolis
and the Actiac games, which had been instituted by Augustus.]
79 (return) [ Julian. Epist. xxxv. p. 407-411. This epistle,
which illustrates the declining age of Greece, is omitted by the
Abbé de la Bleterie, and strangely disfigured by the Latin
translator, who, by rendering _tributum_, and _populus_, directly
contradicts the sense of the original.]
80 (return) [ He reigned in Mycenæ at the distance of fifty
stadia, or six miles from Argos: but these cities, which
alternately flourished, are confounded by the Greek poets.
Strabo, l. viii. p. 579, edit. Amstel. 1707.]
81 (return) [ Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 421. This pedigree from
Temenus and Hercules may be suspicious; yet it was allowed, after
a strict inquiry, by the judges of the Olympic games, (Herodot.
l. v. c. 22,) at a time when the Macedonian kings were obscure
and unpopular in Greece. When the Achæan league declared against
Philip, it was thought decent that the deputies of Argos should
retire, (T. Liv. xxxii. 22.)]
The laborious administration of military and civil affairs, which
were multiplied in proportion to the extent of the empire,
exercised the abilities of Julian; but he frequently assumed the
two characters of Orator 82 and of Judge, 83 which are almost
unknown to the modern sovereigns of Europe. The arts of
persuasion, so diligently cultivated by the first Cæsars, were
neglected by the military ignorance and Asiatic pride of their
successors; and if they condescended to harangue the soldiers,
whom they feared, they treated with silent disdain the senators,
whom they despised. The assemblies of the senate, which
Constantius had avoided, were considered by Julian as the place
where he could exhibit, with the most propriety, the maxims of a
republican, and the talents of a rhetorician. He alternately
practised, as in a school of declamation, the several modes of
praise, of censure, of exhortation; and his friend Libanius has
remarked, that the study of Homer taught him to imitate the
simple, concise style of Menelaus, the copiousness of Nestor,
whose words descended like the flakes of a winter’s snow, or the
pathetic and forcible eloquence of Ulysses. The functions of a
judge, which are sometimes incompatible with those of a prince,
were exercised by Julian, not only as a duty, but as an
amusement; and although he might have trusted the integrity and
discernment of his Prætorian præfects, he often placed himself by
their side on the seat of judgment. The acute penetration of his
mind was agreeably occupied in detecting and defeating the
chicanery of the advocates, who labored to disguise the truths of
facts, and to pervert the sense of the laws. He sometimes forgot
the gravity of his station, asked indiscreet or unseasonable
questions, and betrayed, by the loudness of his voice, and the
agitation of his body, the earnest vehemence with which he
maintained his opinion against the judges, the advocates, and
their clients. But his knowledge of his own temper prompted him
to encourage, and even to solicit, the reproof of his friends and
ministers; and whenever they ventured to oppose the irregular
sallies of his passions, the spectators could observe the shame,
as well as the gratitude, of their monarch. The decrees of Julian
were almost always founded on the principles of justice; and he
had the firmness to resist the two most dangerous temptations,
which assault the tribunal of a sovereign, under the specious
forms of compassion and equity. He decided the merits of the
cause without weighing the circumstances of the parties; and the
poor, whom he wished to relieve, were condemned to satisfy the
just demands of a wealthy and noble adversary. He carefully
distinguished the judge from the legislator; 84 and though he
meditated a necessary reformation of the Roman jurisprudence, he
pronounced sentence according to the strict and literal
interpretation of those laws, which the magistrates were bound to
execute, and the subjects to obey.
82 (return) [ His eloquence is celebrated by Libanius, (Orat.
Parent. c. 75, 76, p. 300, 301,) who distinctly mentions the
orators of Homer. Socrates (l. iii. c. 1) has rashly asserted
that Julian was the only prince, since Julius Cæsar, who
harangued the senate. All the predecessors of Nero, (Tacit.
Annal. xiii. 3,) and many of his successors, possessed the
faculty of speaking in public; and it might be proved by various
examples, that they frequently exercised it in the senate.]
83 (return) [ Ammianus (xxi. 10) has impartially stated the
merits and defects of his judicial proceedings. Libanius (Orat.
Parent. c. 90, 91, p. 315, &c.) has seen only the fair side, and
his picture, if it flatters the person, expresses at least the
duties, of the judge. Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 120,) who
suppresses the virtues, and exaggerates even the venial faults of
the Apostate, triumphantly asks, whether such a judge was fit to
be seated between Minos and Rhadamanthus, in the Elysian Fields.]
84 (return) [ Of the laws which Julian enacted in a reign of
sixteen months, fifty-four have been admitted into the codes of
Theodosius and Justinian. (Gothofred. Chron. Legum, p. 64-67.)
The Abbé de la Bleterie (tom. ii. p. 329-336) has chosen one of
these laws to give an idea of Julian’s Latin style, which is
forcible and elaborate, but less pure than his Greek.]
The generality of princes, if they were stripped of their purple,
and cast naked into the world, would immediately sink to the
lowest rank of society, without a hope of emerging from their
obscurity. But the personal merit of Julian was, in some measure,
independent of his fortune. Whatever had been his choice of life,
by the force of intrepid courage, lively wit, and intense
application, he would have obtained, or at least he would have
deserved, the highest honors of his profession; and Julian might
have raised himself to the rank of minister, or general, of the
state in which he was born a private citizen. If the jealous
caprice of power had disappointed his expectations, if he had
prudently declined the paths of greatness, the employment of the
same talents in studious solitude would have placed beyond the
reach of kings his present happiness and his immortal fame. When
we inspect, with minute, or perhaps malevolent attention, the
portrait of Julian, something seems wanting to the grace and
perfection of the whole figure. His genius was less powerful and
sublime than that of Cæsar; nor did he possess the consummate
prudence of Augustus. The virtues of Trajan appear more steady
and natural, and the philosophy of Marcus is more simple and
consistent. Yet Julian sustained adversity with firmness, and
prosperity with moderation. After an interval of one hundred and
twenty years from the death of Alexander Severus, the Romans
beheld an emperor who made no distinction between his duties and
his pleasures; who labored to relieve the distress, and to revive
the spirit, of his subjects; and who endeavored always to connect
authority with merit, and happiness with virtue. Even faction,
and religious faction, was constrained to acknowledge the
superiority of his genius, in peace as well as in war, and to
confess, with a sigh, that the apostate Julian was a lover of his
country, and that he deserved the empire of the world. 85
85 (return) [
... Ductor fortissimus armis; Conditor et legum celeberrimus; ore
manûque Consultor patriæ; sed non consultor habendæ Religionis;
amans tercentum millia Divûm. Pertidus ille Deo, sed non et
perfidus orbi. Prudent. Apotheosis, 450, &c.
The consciousness of a generous sentiment seems to have raised
the Christian post above his usual mediocrity.]
Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part I.
The Religion Of Julian.—Universal Toleration.—He Attempts To
Restore And Reform The Pagan Worship—To Rebuild The Temple Of
Jerusalem—His Artful Persecution Of The Christians.—Mutual Zeal
And Injustice.
The character of Apostate has injured the reputation of Julian;
and the enthusiasm which clouded his virtues has exaggerated the
real and apparent magnitude of his faults. Our partial ignorance
may represent him as a philosophic monarch, who studied to
protect, with an equal hand, the religious factions of the
empire; and to allay the theological fever which had inflamed the
minds of the people, from the edicts of Diocletian to the exile
of Athanasius. A more accurate view of the character and conduct
of Julian will remove this favorable prepossession for a prince
who did not escape the general contagion of the times. We enjoy
the singular advantage of comparing the pictures which have been
delineated by his fondest admirers and his implacable enemies.
The actions of Julian are faithfully related by a judicious and
candid historian, the impartial spectator of his life and death.
The unanimous evidence of his contemporaries is confirmed by the
public and private declarations of the emperor himself; and his
various writings express the uniform tenor of his religious
sentiments, which policy would have prompted him to dissemble
rather than to affect. A devout and sincere attachment for the
gods of Athens and Rome constituted the ruling passion of Julian;
1 the powers of an enlightened understanding were betrayed and
corrupted by the influence of superstitious prejudice; and the
phantoms which existed only in the mind of the emperor had a real
and pernicious effect on the government of the empire. The
vehement zeal of the Christians, who despised the worship, and
overturned the altars of those fabulous deities, engaged their
votary in a state of irreconcilable hostility with a very
numerous party of his subjects; and he was sometimes tempted by
the desire of victory, or the shame of a repulse, to violate the
laws of prudence, and even of justice. The triumph of the party,
which he deserted and opposed, has fixed a stain of infamy on the
name of Julian; and the unsuccessful apostate has been
overwhelmed with a torrent of pious invectives, of which the
signal was given by the sonorous trumpet 2 of Gregory Nazianzen.
3 The interesting nature of the events which were crowded into
the short reign of this active emperor, deserve a just and
circumstantial narrative. His motives, his counsels, and his
actions, as far as they are connected with the history of
religion, will be the subject of the present chapter.
1 (return) [ I shall transcribe some of his own expressions from
a short religious discourse which the Imperial pontiff composed
to censure the bold impiety of a Cynic. Orat. vii. p. 212. The
variety and copiousness of the Greek tongue seem inadequate to
the fervor of his devotion.]
2 (return) [ The orator, with some eloquence, much enthusiasm,
and more vanity, addresses his discourse to heaven and earth, to
men and angels, to the living and the dead; and above all, to the
great Constantius, an odd Pagan expression. He concludes with a
bold assurance, that he has erected a monument not less durable,
and much more portable, than the columns of Hercules. See Greg.
Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 50, iv. p. 134.]
3 (return) [ See this long invective, which has been
injudiciously divided into two orations in Gregory’s works, tom.
i. p. 49-134, Paris, 1630. It was published by Gregory and his
friend Basil, (iv. p. 133,) about six months after the death of
Julian, when his remains had been carried to Tarsus, (iv. p.
120;) but while Jovian was still on the throne, (iii. p. 54, iv.
p. 117) I have derived much assistance from a French version and
remarks, printed at Lyons, 1735.]
The cause of his strange and fatal apostasy may be derived from
the early period of his life, when he was left an orphan in the
hands of the murderers of his family. The names of Christ and of
Constantius, the ideas of slavery and of religion, were soon
associated in a youthful imagination, which was susceptible of
the most lively impressions. The care of his infancy was
intrusted to Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, 4 who was related to
him on the side of his mother; and till Julian reached the
twentieth year of his age, he received from his Christian
preceptors the education, not of a hero, but of a saint. The
emperor, less jealous of a heavenly than of an earthly crown,
contented himself with the imperfect character of a catechumen,
while he bestowed the advantages of baptism 5 on the nephews of
Constantine. 6 They were even admitted to the inferior offices of
the ecclesiastical order; and Julian publicly read the Holy
Scriptures in the church of Nicomedia. The study of religion,
which they assiduously cultivated, appeared to produce the
fairest fruits of faith and devotion. 7 They prayed, they fasted,
they distributed alms to the poor, gifts to the clergy, and
oblations to the tombs of the martyrs; and the splendid monument
of St. Mamas, at Cæsarea, was erected, or at least was
undertaken, by the joint labor of Gallus and Julian. 8 They
respectfully conversed with the bishops, who were eminent for
superior sanctity, and solicited the benediction of the monks and
hermits, who had introduced into Cappadocia the voluntary
hardships of the ascetic life. 9 As the two princes advanced
towards the years of manhood, they discovered, in their religious
sentiments, the difference of their characters. The dull and
obstinate understanding of Gallus embraced, with implicit zeal,
the doctrines of Christianity; which never influenced his
conduct, or moderated his passions. The mild disposition of the
younger brother was less repugnant to the precepts of the gospel;
and his active curiosity might have been gratified by a
theological system, which explains the mysterious essence of the
Deity, and opens the boundless prospect of invisible and future
worlds. But the independent spirit of Julian refused to yield the
passive and unresisting obedience which was required, in the name
of religion, by the haughty ministers of the church. Their
speculative opinions were imposed as positive laws, and guarded
by the terrors of eternal punishments; but while they prescribed
the rigid formulary of the thoughts, the words, and the actions
of the young prince; whilst they silenced his objections, and
severely checked the freedom of his inquiries, they secretly
provoked his impatient genius to disclaim the authority of his
ecclesiastical guides. He was educated in the Lesser Asia, amidst
the scandals of the Arian controversy. 10 The fierce contests of
the Eastern bishops, the incessant alterations of their creeds,
and the profane motives which appeared to actuate their conduct,
insensibly strengthened the prejudice of Julian, that they
neither understood nor believed the religion for which they so
fiercely contended. Instead of listening to the proofs of
Christianity with that favorable attention which adds weight to
the most respectable evidence, he heard with suspicion, and
disputed with obstinacy and acuteness, the doctrines for which he
already entertained an invincible aversion. Whenever the young
princes were directed to compose declamations on the subject of
the prevailing controversies, Julian always declared himself the
advocate of Paganism; under the specious excuse that, in the
defence of the weaker cause, his learning and ingenuity might be
more advantageously exercised and displayed.
4 (return) [ Nicomediæ ab Eusebio educatus Episcopo, quem genere
longius contingebat, (Ammian. xxii. 9.) Julian never expresses
any gratitude towards that Arian prelate; but he celebrates his
preceptor, the eunuch Mardonius, and describes his mode of
education, which inspired his pupil with a passionate admiration
for the genius, and perhaps the religion of Homer. Misopogon, p.
351, 352.]
5 (return) [ Greg. Naz. iii. p. 70. He labored to effect that
holy mark in the blood, perhaps of a Taurobolium. Baron. Annal.
Eccles. A. D. 361, No. 3, 4.]
6 (return) [ Julian himself (Epist. li. p. 454) assures the
Alexandrians that he had been a Christian (he must mean a sincere
one) till the twentieth year of his age.]
7 (return) [ See his Christian, and even ecclesiastical
education, in Gregory, (iii. p. 58,) Socrates, (l. iii. c. 1,)
and Sozomen, (l. v. c. 2.) He escaped very narrowly from being a
bishop, and perhaps a saint.]
8 (return) [ The share of the work which had been allotted to
Gallus, was prosecuted with vigor and success; but the earth
obstinately rejected and subverted the structures which were
imposed by the sacrilegious hand of Julian. Greg. iii. p. 59, 60,
61. Such a partial earthquake, attested by many living
spectators, would form one of the clearest miracles in
ecclesiastical story.]
9 (return) [ The _philosopher_ (Fragment, p. 288,) ridicules the
iron chains, &c, of these solitary fanatics, (see Tillemont, Mém.
Eccles. tom. ix. p. 661, 632,) who had forgot that man is by
nature a gentle and social animal. The _Pagan_ supposes, that
because they had renounced the gods, they were possessed and
tormented by evil dæmons.]
10 (return) [ See Julian apud Cyril, l. vi. p. 206, l. viii. p.
253, 262. “You persecute,” says he, “those heretics who do not
mourn the dead man precisely in the way which you approve.” He
shows himself a tolerable theologian; but he maintains that the
Christian Trinity is not derived from the doctrine of Paul, of
Jesus, or of Moses.]
As soon as Gallus was invested with the honors of the purple,
Julian was permitted to breathe the air of freedom, of
literature, and of Paganism. 11 The crowd of sophists, who were
attracted by the taste and liberality of their royal pupil, had
formed a strict alliance between the learning and the religion of
Greece; and the poems of Homer, instead of being admired as the
original productions of human genius, were seriously ascribed to
the heavenly inspiration of Apollo and the muses. The deities of
Olympus, as they are painted by the immortal bard, imprint
themselves on the minds which are the least addicted to
superstitious credulity. Our familiar knowledge of their names
and characters, their forms and attributes, _seems_ to bestow on
those airy beings a real and substantial existence; and the
pleasing enchantment produces an imperfect and momentary assent
of the imagination to those fables, which are the most repugnant
to our reason and experience. In the age of Julian, every
circumstance contributed to prolong and fortify the illusion; the
magnificent temples of Greece and Asia; the works of those
artists who had expressed, in painting or in sculpture, the
divine conceptions of the poet; the pomp of festivals and
sacrifices; the successful arts of divination; the popular
traditions of oracles and prodigies; and the ancient practice of
two thousand years. The weakness of polytheism was, in some
measure, excused by the moderation of its claims; and the
devotion of the Pagans was not incompatible with the most
licentious scepticism. 12 Instead of an indivisible and regular
system, which occupies the whole extent of the believing mind,
the mythology of the Greeks was composed of a thousand loose and
flexible parts, and the servant of the gods was at liberty to
define the degree and measure of his religious faith. The creed
which Julian adopted for his own use was of the largest
dimensions; and, by strange contradiction, he disdained the
salutary yoke of the gospel, whilst he made a voluntary offering
of his reason on the altars of Jupiter and Apollo. One of the
orations of Julian is consecrated to the honor of Cybele, the
mother of the gods, who required from her effeminate priests the
bloody sacrifice, so rashly performed by the madness of the
Phrygian boy. The pious emperor condescends to relate, without a
blush, and without a smile, the voyage of the goddess from the
shores of Pergamus to the mouth of the Tyber, and the stupendous
miracle, which convinced the senate and people of Rome that the
lump of clay, which their ambassadors had transported over the
seas, was endowed with life, and sentiment, and divine power. 13
For the truth of this prodigy he appeals to the public monuments
of the city; and censures, with some acrimony, the sickly and
affected taste of those men, who impertinently derided the sacred
traditions of their ancestors. 14
11 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parentalis, c. 9, 10, p. 232, &c.
Greg. Nazianzen. Orat. iii. p 61. Eunap. Vit. Sophist. in Maximo,
p. 68, 69, 70, edit Commelin.]
12 (return) [ A modern philosopher has ingeniously compared the
different operation of theism and polytheism, with regard to the
doubt or conviction which they produce in the human mind. See
Hume’s Essays vol. ii. p. 444- 457, in 8vo. edit. 1777.]
13 (return) [ The Idæan mother landed in Italy about the end of
the second Punic war. The miracle of Claudia, either virgin or
matron, who cleared her fame by disgracing the graver modesty of
the Roman Indies, is attested by a cloud of witnesses. Their
evidence is collected by Drakenborch, (ad Silium Italicum, xvii.
33;) but we may observe that Livy (xxix. 14) slides over the
transaction with discreet ambiguity.]
14 (return) [ I cannot refrain from transcribing the emphatical
words of Julian: Orat. v. p. 161. Julian likewise declares his
firm belief in the ancilia, the holy shields, which dropped from
heaven on the Quirinal hill; and pities the strange blindness of
the Christians, who preferred the cross to these celestial
trophies. Apud Cyril. l. vi. p. 194.]
But the devout philosopher, who sincerely embraced, and warmly
encouraged, the superstition of the people, reserved for himself
the privilege of a liberal interpretation; and silently withdrew
from the foot of the altars into the sanctuary of the temple. The
extravagance of the Grecian mythology proclaimed, with a clear
and audible voice, that the pious inquirer, instead of being
scandalized or satisfied with the literal sense, should
diligently explore the occult wisdom, which had been disguised,
by the prudence of antiquity, under the mask of folly and of
fable. 15 The philosophers of the Platonic school, 16 Plotinus,
Porphyry, and the divine Iamblichus, were admired as the most
skilful masters of this allegorical science, which labored to
soften and harmonize the deformed features of Paganism. Julian
himself, who was directed in the mysterious pursuit by Ædesius,
the venerable successor of Iamblichus, aspired to the possession
of a treasure, which he esteemed, if we may credit his solemn
asseverations, far above the empire of the world. 17 It was
indeed a treasure, which derived its value only from opinion; and
every artist who flattered himself that he had extracted the
precious ore from the surrounding dross, claimed an equal right
of stamping the name and figure the most agreeable to his
peculiar fancy. The fable of Atys and Cybele had been already
explained by Porphyry; but his labors served only to animate the
pious industry of Julian, who invented and published his own
allegory of that ancient and mystic tale. This freedom of
interpretation, which might gratify the pride of the Platonists,
exposed the vanity of their art. Without a tedious detail, the
modern reader could not form a just idea of the strange
allusions, the forced etymologies, the solemn trifling, and the
impenetrable obscurity of these sages, who professed to reveal
the system of the universe. As the traditions of Pagan mythology
were variously related, the sacred interpreters were at liberty
to select the most convenient circumstances; and as they
translated an arbitrary cipher, they could extract from _any_
fable _any_ sense which was adapted to their favorite system of
religion and philosophy. The lascivious form of a naked Venus was
tortured into the discovery of some moral precept, or some
physical truth; and the castration of Atys explained the
revolution of the sun between the tropics, or the separation of
the human soul from vice and error. 18
15 (return) [ See the principles of allegory, in Julian, (Orat.
vii. p. 216, 222.) His reasoning is less absurd than that of some
modern theologians, who assert that an extravagant or
contradictory doctrine must be divine; since no man alive could
have thought of inventing it.]
16 (return) [ Eunapius has made these sophists the subject of a
partial and fanatical history; and the learned Brucker (Hist.
Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 217-303) has employed much labor to
illustrate their obscure lives and incomprehensible doctrines.]
17 (return) [ Julian, Orat. vii p 222. He swears with the most
fervent and enthusiastic devotion; and trembles, lest he should
betray too much of these holy mysteries, which the profane might
deride with an impious Sardonic laugh.]
18 (return) [ See the fifth oration of Julian. But all the
allegories which ever issued from the Platonic school are not
worth the short poem of Catullus on the same extraordinary
subject. The transition of Atys, from the wildest enthusiasm to
sober, pathetic complaint, for his irretrievable loss, must
inspire a man with pity, a eunuch with despair.]
The theological system of Julian appears to have contained the
sublime and important principles of natural religion. But as the
faith, which is not founded on revelation, must remain destitute
of any firm assurance, the disciple of Plato imprudently relapsed
into the habits of vulgar superstition; and the popular and
philosophic notion of the Deity seems to have been confounded in
the practice, the writings, and even in the mind of Julian. 19
The pious emperor acknowledged and adored the Eternal Cause of
the universe, to whom he ascribed all the perfections of an
infinite nature, invisible to the eyes and inaccessible to the
understanding, of feeble mortals. The Supreme God had created, or
rather, in the Platonic language, had generated, the gradual
succession of dependent spirits, of gods, of dæmons, of heroes,
and of men; and every being which derived its existence
immediately from the First Cause, received the inherent gift of
immortality. That so precious an advantage might not be lavished
upon unworthy objects, the Creator had intrusted to the skill and
power of the inferior gods the office of forming the human body,
and of arranging the beautiful harmony of the animal, the
vegetable, and the mineral kingdoms. To the conduct of these
divine ministers he delegated the temporal government of this
lower world; but their imperfect administration is not exempt
from discord or error. The earth and its inhabitants are divided
among them, and the characters of Mars or Minerva, of Mercury or
Venus, may be distinctly traced in the laws and manners of their
peculiar votaries. As long as our immortal souls are confined in
a mortal prison, it is our interest, as well as our duty, to
solicit the favor, and to deprecate the wrath, of the powers of
heaven; whose pride is gratified by the devotion of mankind; and
whose grosser parts may be supposed to derive some nourishment
from the fumes of sacrifice. 20 The inferior gods might sometimes
condescend to animate the statues, and to inhabit the temples,
which were dedicated to their honor. They might occasionally
visit the earth, but the heavens were the proper throne and
symbol of their glory. The invariable order of the sun, moon, and
stars, was hastily admitted by Julian, as a proof of their
_eternal_ duration; and their eternity was a sufficient evidence
that they were the workmanship, not of an inferior deity, but of
the Omnipotent King. In the system of Platonists, the visible was
a type of the invisible world. The celestial bodies, as they were
informed by a divine spirit, might be considered as the objects
the most worthy of religious worship. The Sun, whose genial
influence pervades and sustains the universe, justly claimed the
adoration of mankind, as the bright representative of the Logos,
the lively, the rational, the beneficent image of the
intellectual Father. 21
19 (return) [ The true religion of Julian may be deduced from the
Cæsars, p. 308, with Spanheim’s notes and illustrations, from the
fragments in Cyril, l. ii. p. 57, 58, and especially from the
theological oration in Solem Regem, p. 130-158, addressed in the
confidence of friendship, to the præfect Sallust.]
20 (return) [ Julian adopts this gross conception by ascribing to
his favorite Marcus Antoninus, (Cæsares, p. 333.) The Stoics and
Platonists hesitated between the analogy of bodies and the purity
of spirits; yet the gravest philosophers inclined to the
whimsical fancy of Aristophanes and Lucian, that an unbelieving
age might starve the immortal gods. See Observations de Spanheim,
p. 284, 444, &c.]
21 (return) [ Julian. Epist. li. In another place, (apud Cyril.
l. ii. p. 69,) he calls the Sun God, and the throne of God.
Julian believed the Platonician Trinity; and only blames the
Christians for preferring a mortal to an immortal _Logos_.]
In every age, the absence of genuine inspiration is supplied by
the strong illusions of enthusiasm, and the mimic arts of
imposture. If, in the time of Julian, these arts had been
practised only by the pagan priests, for the support of an
expiring cause, some indulgence might perhaps be allowed to the
interest and habits of the sacerdotal character. But it may
appear a subject of surprise and scandal, that the philosophers
themselves should have contributed to abuse the superstitious
credulity of mankind, 22 and that the Grecian mysteries should
have been supported by the magic or theurgy of the modern
Platonists. They arrogantly pretended to control the order of
nature, to explore the secrets of futurity, to command the
service of the inferior dæmons, to enjoy the view and
conversation of the superior gods, and by disengaging the soul
from her material bands, to reunite that immortal particle with
the Infinite and Divine Spirit.
22 (return) [ The sophists of Eunapias perform as many miracles
as the saints of the desert; and the only circumstance in their
favor is, that they are of a less gloomy complexion. Instead of
devils with horns and tails, Iamblichus evoked the genii of love,
Eros and Anteros, from two adjacent fountains. Two beautiful boys
issued from the water, fondly embraced him as their father, and
retired at his command, p. 26, 27.]
The devout and fearless curiosity of Julian tempted the
philosophers with the hopes of an easy conquest; which, from the
situation of their young proselyte, might be productive of the
most important consequences. 23 Julian imbibed the first
rudiments of the Platonic doctrines from the mouth of Ædesius,
who had fixed at Pergamus his wandering and persecuted school.
But as the declining strength of that venerable sage was unequal
to the ardor, the diligence, the rapid conception of his pupil,
two of his most learned disciples, Chrysanthes and Eusebius,
supplied, at his own desire, the place of their aged master.
These philosophers seem to have prepared and distributed their
respective parts; and they artfully contrived, by dark hints and
affected disputes, to excite the impatient hopes of the
_aspirant_, till they delivered him into the hands of their
associate, Maximus, the boldest and most skilful master of the
Theurgic science. By his hands, Julian was secretly initiated at
Ephesus, in the twentieth year of his age. His residence at
Athens confirmed this unnatural alliance of philosophy and
superstition.
He obtained the privilege of a solemn initiation into the
mysteries of Eleusis, which, amidst the general decay of the
Grecian worship, still retained some vestiges of their primæval
sanctity; and such was the zeal of Julian, that he afterwards
invited the Eleusinian pontiff to the court of Gaul, for the sole
purpose of consummating, by mystic rites and sacrifices, the
great work of his sanctification. As these ceremonies were
performed in the depth of caverns, and in the silence of the
night, and as the inviolable secret of the mysteries was
preserved by the discretion of the initiated, I shall not presume
to describe the horrid sounds, and fiery apparitions, which were
presented to the senses, or the imagination, of the credulous
aspirant, 24 till the visions of comfort and knowledge broke upon
him in a blaze of celestial light. 25 In the caverns of Ephesus
and Eleusis, the mind of Julian was penetrated with sincere,
deep, and unalterable enthusiasm; though he might sometimes
exhibit the vicissitudes of pious fraud and hypocrisy, which may
be observed, or at least suspected, in the characters of the most
conscientious fanatics. From that moment he consecrated his life
to the service of the gods; and while the occupations of war, of
government, and of study, seemed to claim the whole measure of
his time, a stated portion of the hours of the night was
invariably reserved for the exercise of private devotion. The
temperance which adorned the severe manners of the soldier and
the philosopher was connected with some strict and frivolous
rules of religious abstinence; and it was in honor of Pan or
Mercury, of Hecate or Isis, that Julian, on particular days,
denied himself the use of some particular food, which might have
been offensive to his tutelar deities. By these voluntary fasts,
he prepared his senses and his understanding for the frequent and
familiar visits with which he was honored by the celestial
powers. Notwithstanding the modest silence of Julian himself, we
may learn from his faithful friend, the orator Libanius, that he
lived in a perpetual intercourse with the gods and goddesses;
that they descended upon earth to enjoy the conversation of their
favorite hero; that they gently interrupted his slumbers by
touching his hand or his hair; that they warned him of every
impending danger, and conducted him, by their infallible wisdom,
in every action of his life; and that he had acquired such an
intimate knowledge of his heavenly guests, as readily to
distinguish the voice of Jupiter from that of Minerva, and the
form of Apollo from the figure of Hercules. 26 These sleeping or
waking visions, the ordinary effects of abstinence and
fanaticism, would almost degrade the emperor to the level of an
Egyptian monk. But the useless lives of Antony or Pachomius were
consumed in these vain occupations. Julian could break from the
dream of superstition to arm himself for battle; and after
vanquishing in the field the enemies of Rome, he calmly retired
into his tent, to dictate the wise and salutary laws of an
empire, or to indulge his genius in the elegant pursuits of
literature and philosophy.
23 (return) [ The dexterous management of these sophists, who
played their credulous pupil into each other’s hands, is fairly
told by Eunapius (p. 69- 79) with unsuspecting simplicity. The
Abbé de la Bleterie understands, and neatly describes, the whole
comedy, (Vie de Julian, p. 61-67.)]
24 (return) [ When Julian, in a momentary panic, made the sign of
the cross the dæmons instantly disappeared, (Greg. Naz. Orat.
iii. p. 71.) Gregory supposes that they were frightened, but the
priests declared that they were indignant. The reader, according
to the measure of his faith, will determine this profound
question.]
25 (return) [ A dark and distant view of the terrors and joys of
initiation is shown by Dion Chrysostom, Themistius, Proclus, and
Stobæus. The learned author of the Divine Legation has exhibited
their words, (vol. i. p. 239, 247, 248, 280, edit. 1765,) which
he dexterously or forcibly applies to his own hypothesis.]
26 (return) [ Julian’s modesty confined him to obscure and
occasional hints: but Libanius expiates with pleasure on the
facts and visions of the religious hero. (Legat. ad Julian. p.
157, and Orat. Parental. c. lxxxiii. p. 309, 310.)]
The important secret of the apostasy of Julian was intrusted to
the fidelity of the _initiated_, with whom he was united by the
sacred ties of friendship and religion. 27 The pleasing rumor was
cautiously circulated among the adherents of the ancient worship;
and his future greatness became the object of the hopes, the
prayers, and the predictions of the Pagans, in every province of
the empire. From the zeal and virtues of their royal proselyte,
they fondly expected the cure of every evil, and the restoration
of every blessing; and instead of disapproving of the ardor of
their pious wishes, Julian ingenuously confessed, that he was
ambitious to attain a situation in which he might be useful to
his country and to his religion. But this religion was viewed
with a hostile eye by the successor of Constantine, whose
capricious passions altercately saved and threatened the life of
Julian. The arts of magic and divination were strictly prohibited
under a despotic government, which condescended to fear them; and
if the Pagans were reluctantly indulged in the exercise of their
superstition, the rank of Julian would have excepted him from the
general toleration. The apostate soon became the presumptive heir
of the monarchy, and his death could alone have appeased the just
apprehensions of the Christians. 28 But the young prince, who
aspired to the glory of a hero rather than of a martyr, consulted
his safety by dissembling his religion; and the easy temper of
polytheism permitted him to join in the public worship of a sect
which he inwardly despised. Libanius has considered the hypocrisy
of his friend as a subject, not of censure, but of praise. “As
the statues of the gods,” says that orator, “which have been
defiled with filth, are again placed in a magnificent temple, so
the beauty of truth was seated in the mind of Julian, after it
had been purified from the errors and follies of his education.
His sentiments were changed; but as it would have been dangerous
to have avowed his sentiments, his conduct still continued the
same. Very different from the ass in Æsop, who disguised himself
with a lion’s hide, our lion was obliged to conceal himself under
the skin of an ass; and, while he embraced the dictates of
reason, to obey the laws of prudence and necessity.” 29 The
dissimulation of Julian lasted about ten years, from his secret
initiation at Ephesus to the beginning of the civil war; when he
declared himself at once the implacable enemy of Christ and of
Constantius. This state of constraint might contribute to
strengthen his devotion; and as soon as he had satisfied the
obligation of assisting, on solemn festivals, at the assemblies
of the Christians, Julian returned, with the impatience of a
lover, to burn his free and voluntary incense on the domestic
chapels of Jupiter and Mercury. But as every act of dissimulation
must be painful to an ingenuous spirit, the profession of
Christianity increased the aversion of Julian for a religion
which oppressed the freedom of his mind, and compelled him to
hold a conduct repugnant to the noblest attributes of human
nature, sincerity and courage.
27 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. x. p. 233, 234. Gallus
had some reason to suspect the secret apostasy of his brother;
and in a letter, which may be received as genuine, he exhorts
Julian to adhere to the religion of their _ancestors;_ an
argument which, as it should seem, was not yet perfectly ripe.
See Julian, Op. p. 454, and Hist. de Jovien tom ii. p. 141.]
28 (return) [ Gregory, (iii. p. 50,) with inhuman zeal, censures
Constantius for paring the infant apostate. His French translator
(p. 265) cautiously observes, that such expressions must not be
prises à la lettre.]
29 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parental. c ix. p. 233.]
Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part II.
The inclination of Julian might prefer the gods of Homer, and of
the Scipios, to the new faith, which his uncle had established in
the Roman empire; and in which he himself had been sanctified by
the sacrament of baptism. But, as a philosopher, it was incumbent
on him to justify his dissent from Christianity, which was
supported by the number of its converts, by the chain of
prophecy, the splendor of miracles, and the weight of evidence.
The elaborate work, 30 which he composed amidst the preparations
of the Persian war, contained the substance of those arguments
which he had long revolved in his mind. Some fragments have been
transcribed and preserved, by his adversary, the vehement Cyril
of Alexandria; 31 and they exhibit a very singular mixture of wit
and learning, of sophistry and fanaticism. The elegance of the
style and the rank of the author, recommended his writings to the
public attention; 32 and in the impious list of the enemies of
Christianity, the celebrated name of Porphyry was effaced by the
superior merit or reputation of Julian. The minds of the faithful
were either seduced, or scandalized, or alarmed; and the pagans,
who sometimes presumed to engage in the unequal dispute, derived,
from the popular work of their Imperial missionary, an
inexhaustible supply of fallacious objections. But in the
assiduous prosecution of these theological studies, the emperor
of the Romans imbibed the illiberal prejudices and passions of a
polemic divine. He contracted an irrevocable obligation to
maintain and propagate his religious opinions; and whilst he
secretly applauded the strength and dexterity with which he
wielded the weapons of controversy, he was tempted to distrust
the sincerity, or to despise the understandings, of his
antagonists, who could obstinately resist the force of reason and
eloquence.
30 (return) [ Fabricius (Biblioth. Græc. l. v. c. viii, p. 88-90)
and Lardner (Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 44-47) have
accurately compiled all that can now be discovered of Julian’s
work against the Christians.]
31 (return) [ About seventy years after the death of Julian, he
executed a task which had been feebly attempted by Philip of
Side, a prolix and contemptible writer. Even the work of Cyril
has not entirely satisfied the most favorable judges; and the
Abbé de la Bleterie (Preface a l’Hist. de Jovien, p. 30, 32)
wishes that some _theologien philosophe_ (a strange centaur)
would undertake the refutation of Julian.]
32 (return) [ Libanius, (Orat. Parental. c. lxxxvii. p. 313,) who
has been suspected of assisting his friend, prefers this divine
vindication (Orat. ix in necem Julian. p. 255, edit. Morel.) to
the writings of Porphyry. His judgment may be arraigned,
(Socrates, l. iii. c. 23,) but Libanius cannot be accused of
flattery to a dead prince.]
The Christians, who beheld with horror and indignation the
apostasy of Julian, had much more to fear from his power than
from his arguments. The pagans, who were conscious of his fervent
zeal, expected, perhaps with impatience, that the flames of
persecution should be immediately kindled against the enemies of
the gods; and that the ingenious malice of Julian would invent
some cruel refinements of death and torture which had been
unknown to the rude and inexperienced fury of his predecessors.
But the hopes, as well as the fears, of the religious factions
were apparently disappointed, by the prudent humanity of a
prince, 33 who was careful of his own fame, of the public peace,
and of the rights of mankind. Instructed by history and
reflection, Julian was persuaded, that if the diseases of the
body may sometimes be cured by salutary violence, neither steel
nor fire can eradicate the erroneous opinions of the mind. The
reluctant victim may be dragged to the foot of the altar; but the
heart still abhors and disclaims the sacrilegious act of the
hand. Religious obstinacy is hardened and exasperated by
oppression; and, as soon as the persecution subsides, those who
have yielded are restored as penitents, and those who have
resisted are honored as saints and martyrs. If Julian adopted the
unsuccessful cruelty of Diocletian and his colleagues, he was
sensible that he should stain his memory with the name of a
tyrant, and add new glories to the Catholic church, which had
derived strength and increase from the severity of the pagan
magistrates. Actuated by these motives, and apprehensive of
disturbing the repose of an unsettled reign, Julian surprised the
world by an edict, which was not unworthy of a statesman, or a
philosopher. He extended to all the inhabitants of the Roman
world the benefits of a free and equal toleration; and the only
hardship which he inflicted on the Christians, was to deprive
them of the power of tormenting their fellow-subjects, whom they
stigmatized with the odious titles of idolaters and heretics. The
pagans received a gracious permission, or rather an express
order, to open All their temples; 34 and they were at once
delivered from the oppressive laws, and arbitrary vexations,
which they had sustained under the reign of Constantine, and of
his sons. At the same time the bishops and clergy, who had been
banished by the Arian monarch, were recalled from exile, and
restored to their respective churches; the Donatists, the
Novatians, the Macedonians, the Eunomians, and those who, with a
more prosperous fortune, adhered to the doctrine of the Council
of Nice. Julian, who understood and derided their theological
disputes, invited to the palace the leaders of the hostile sects,
that he might enjoy the agreeable spectacle of their furious
encounters. The clamor of controversy sometimes provoked the
emperor to exclaim, “Hear me! the Franks have heard me, and the
Alemanni;” but he soon discovered that he was now engaged with
more obstinate and implacable enemies; and though he exerted the
powers of oratory to persuade them to live in concord, or at
least in peace, he was perfectly satisfied, before he dismissed
them from his presence, that he had nothing to dread from the
union of the Christians. The impartial Ammianus has ascribed this
affected clemency to the desire of fomenting the intestine
divisions of the church, and the insidious design of undermining
the foundations of Christianity, was inseparably connected with
the zeal which Julian professed, to restore the ancient religion
of the empire. 35
33 (return) [ Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. lviii. p. 283, 284) has
eloquently explained the tolerating principles and conduct of his
Imperial friend. In a very remarkable epistle to the people of
Bostra, Julian himself (Epist. lii.) professes his moderation,
and betrays his zeal, which is acknowledged by Ammianus, and
exposed by Gregory (Orat. iii. p.72)]
34 (return) [ In Greece the temples of Minerva were opened by his
express command, before the death of Constantius, (Liban. Orat.
Parent. c. 55, p. 280;) and Julian declares himself a Pagan in
his public manifesto to the Athenians. This unquestionable
evidence may correct the hasty assertion of Ammianus, who seems
to suppose Constantinople to be the place where he discovered his
attachment to the gods]
35 (return) [ Ammianus, xxii. 5. Sozomen, l. v. c. 5. Bestia
moritur, tranquillitas redit.... omnes episcopi qui de propriis
sedibus fuerant exterminati per indulgentiam novi principis ad
acclesias redeunt. Jerom. adversus Luciferianos, tom. ii. p. 143.
Optatus accuses the Donatists for owing their safety to an
apostate, (l. ii. c. 16, p. 36, 37, edit. Dupin.)]
As soon as he ascended the throne, he assumed, according to the
custom of his predecessors, the character of supreme pontiff; not
only as the most honorable title of Imperial greatness, but as a
sacred and important office; the duties of which he was resolved
to execute with pious diligence. As the business of the state
prevented the emperor from joining every day in the public
devotion of his subjects, he dedicated a domestic chapel to his
tutelar deity the Sun; his gardens were filled with statues and
altars of the gods; and each apartment of the palace displaced
the appearance of a magnificent temple. Every morning he saluted
the parent of light with a sacrifice; the blood of another victim
was shed at the moment when the Sun sunk below the horizon; and
the Moon, the Stars, and the Genii of the night received their
respective and seasonable honors from the indefatigable devotion
of Julian. On solemn festivals, he regularly visited the temple
of the god or goddess to whom the day was peculiarly consecrated,
and endeavored to excite the religion of the magistrates and
people by the example of his own zeal. Instead of maintaining the
lofty state of a monarch, distinguished by the splendor of his
purple, and encompassed by the golden shields of his guards,
Julian solicited, with respectful eagerness, the meanest offices
which contributed to the worship of the gods. Amidst the sacred
but licentious crowd of priests, of inferior ministers, and of
female dancers, who were dedicated to the service of the temple,
it was the business of the emperor to bring the wood, to blow the
fire, to handle the knife, to slaughter the victim, and,
thrusting his bloody hands into the bowels of the expiring
animal, to draw forth the heart or liver, and to read, with the
consummate skill of an haruspex, imaginary signs of future
events. The wisest of the Pagans censured this extravagant
superstition, which affected to despise the restraints of
prudence and decency. Under the reign of a prince, who practised
the rigid maxims of economy, the expense of religious worship
consumed a very large portion of the revenue; a constant supply
of the scarcest and most beautiful birds was transported from
distant climates, to bleed on the altars of the gods; a hundred
oxen were frequently sacrificed by Julian on one and the same
day; and it soon became a popular jest, that if he should return
with conquest from the Persian war, the breed of horned cattle
must infallibly be extinguished. Yet this expense may appear
inconsiderable, when it is compared with the splendid presents
which were offered either by the hand, or by order, of the
emperor, to all the celebrated places of devotion in the Roman
world; and with the sums allotted to repair and decorate the
ancient temples, which had suffered the silent decay of time, or
the recent injuries of Christian rapine. Encouraged by the
example, the exhortations, the liberality, of their pious
sovereign, the cities and families resumed the practice of their
neglected ceremonies. “Every part of the world,” exclaims
Libanius, with devout transport, “displayed the triumph of
religion; and the grateful prospect of flaming altars, bleeding
victims, the smoke of incense, and a solemn train of priests and
prophets, without fear and without danger. The sound of prayer
and of music was heard on the tops of the highest mountains; and
the same ox afforded a sacrifice for the gods, and a supper for
their joyous votaries.” 36
36 (return) [ The restoration of the Pagan worship is described
by Julian, (Misopogon, p. 346,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 60,
p. 286, 287, and Orat. Consular. ad Julian. p. 245, 246, edit.
Morel.,) Ammianus, (xxii. 12,) and Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv.
p. 121.) These writers agree in the essential, and even minute,
facts; but the different lights in which they view the extreme
devotion of Julian, are expressive of the gradations of
self-applause, passionate admiration, mild reproof, and partial
invective.]
But the genius and power of Julian were unequal to the enterprise
of restoring a religion which was destitute of theological
principles, of moral precepts, and of ecclesiastical discipline;
which rapidly hastened to decay and dissolution, and was not
susceptible of any solid or consistent reformation. The
jurisdiction of the supreme pontiff, more especially after that
office had been united with the Imperial dignity, comprehended
the whole extent of the Roman empire. Julian named for his
vicars, in the several provinces, the priests and philosophers
whom he esteemed the best qualified to cooperate in the execution
of his great design; and his pastoral letters, 37 if we may use
that name, still represent a very curious sketch of his wishes
and intentions. He directs, that in every city the sacerdotal
order should be composed, without any distinction of birth and
fortune, of those persons who were the most conspicuous for the
love of the gods, and of men. “If they are guilty,” continues he,
“of any scandalous offence, they should be censured or degraded
by the superior pontiff; but as long as they retain their rank,
they are entitled to the respect of the magistrates and people.
Their humility may be shown in the plainness of their domestic
garb; their dignity, in the pomp of holy vestments. When they are
summoned in their turn to officiate before the altar, they ought
not, during the appointed number of days, to depart from the
precincts of the temple; nor should a single day be suffered to
elapse, without the prayers and the sacrifice, which they are
obliged to offer for the prosperity of the state, and of
individuals. The exercise of their sacred functions requires an
immaculate purity, both of mind and body; and even when they are
dismissed from the temple to the occupations of common life, it
is incumbent on them to excel in decency and virtue the rest of
their fellow-citizens. The priest of the gods should never be
seen in theatres or taverns. His conversation should be chaste,
his diet temperate, his friends of honorable reputation; and if
he sometimes visits the Forum or the Palace, he should appear
only as the advocate of those who have vainly solicited either
justice or mercy. His studies should be suited to the sanctity of
his profession. Licentious tales, or comedies, or satires, must
be banished from his library, which ought solely to consist of
historical or philosophical writings; of history, which is
founded in truth, and of philosophy, which is connected with
religion. The impious opinions of the Epicureans and sceptics
deserve his abhorrence and contempt; 38 but he should diligently
study the systems of Pythagoras, of Plato, and of the Stoics,
which unanimously teach that there _are_ gods; that the world is
governed by their providence; that their goodness is the source
of every temporal blessing; and that they have prepared for the
human soul a future state of reward or punishment.” The Imperial
pontiff inculcates, in the most persuasive language, the duties
of benevolence and hospitality; exhorts his inferior clergy to
recommend the universal practice of those virtues; promises to
assist their indigence from the public treasury; and declares his
resolution of establishing hospitals in every city, where the
poor should be received without any invidious distinction of
country or of religion. Julian beheld with envy the wise and
humane regulations of the church; and he very frankly confesses
his intention to deprive the Christians of the applause, as well
as advantage, which they had acquired by the exclusive practice
of charity and beneficence. 39 The same spirit of imitation might
dispose the emperor to adopt several ecclesiastical institutions,
the use and importance of which were approved by the success of
his enemies. But if these imaginary plans of reformation had been
realized, the forced and imperfect copy would have been less
beneficial to Paganism, than honorable to Christianity. 40 The
Gentiles, who peaceably followed the customs of their ancestors,
were rather surprised than pleased with the introduction of
foreign manners; and in the short period of his reign, Julian had
frequent occasions to complain of the want of fervor of his own
party. 41
37 (return) [ See Julian. Epistol. xlix. lxii. lxiii., and a long
and curious fragment, without beginning or end, (p. 288-305.) The
supreme pontiff derides the Mosaic history and the Christian
discipline, prefers the Greek poets to the Hebrew prophets, and
palliates, with the skill of a Jesuit the _relative_ worship of
images.]
38 (return) [ The exultation of Julian (p. 301) that these
impious sects and even their writings, are extinguished, may be
consistent enough with the sacerdotal character; but it is
unworthy of a philosopher to wish that any opinions and arguments
the most repugnant to his own should be concealed from the
knowledge of mankind.]
39 (return) [ Yet he insinuates, that the Christians, under the
pretence of charity, inveigled children from their religion and
parents, conveyed them on shipboard, and devoted those victims to
a life of poverty or pervitude in a remote country, (p. 305.) Had
the charge been proved it was his duty, not to complain, but to
punish.]
40 (return) [ Gregory Nazianzen is facetious, ingenious, and
argumentative, (Orat. iii. p. 101, 102, &c.) He ridicules the
folly of such vain imitation; and amuses himself with inquiring,
what lessons, moral or theological, could be extracted from the
Grecian fables.]
41 (return) [ He accuses one of his pontiffs of a secret
confederacy with the Christian bishops and presbyters, (Epist.
lxii.) &c. Epist. lxiii.]
The enthusiasm of Julian prompted him to embrace the friends of
Jupiter as his personal friends and brethren; and though he
partially overlooked the merit of Christian constancy, he admired
and rewarded the noble perseverance of those Gentiles who had
preferred the favor of the gods to that of the emperor. 42 If
they cultivated the literature, as well as the religion, of the
Greeks, they acquired an additional claim to the friendship of
Julian, who ranked the Muses in the number of his tutelar
deities. In the religion which he had adopted, piety and learning
were almost synonymous; 43 and a crowd of poets, of rhetoricians,
and of philosophers, hastened to the Imperial court, to occupy
the vacant places of the bishops, who had seduced the credulity
of Constantius. His successor esteemed the ties of common
initiation as far more sacred than those of consanguinity; he
chose his favorites among the sages, who were deeply skilled in
the occult sciences of magic and divination; and every impostor,
who pretended to reveal the secrets of futurity, was assured of
enjoying the present hour in honor and affluence. 44 Among the
philosophers, Maximus obtained the most eminent rank in the
friendship of his royal disciple, who communicated, with
unreserved confidence, his actions, his sentiments, and his
religious designs, during the anxious suspense of the civil war.
45 As soon as Julian had taken possession of the palace of
Constantinople, he despatched an honorable and pressing
invitation to Maximus, who then resided at Sardes in Lydia, with
Chrysanthius, the associate of his art and studies. The prudent
and superstitious Chrysanthius refused to undertake a journey
which showed itself, according to the rules of divination, with
the most threatening and malignant aspect: but his companion,
whose fanaticism was of a bolder cast, persisted in his
interrogations, till he had extorted from the gods a seeming
consent to his own wishes, and those of the emperor. The journey
of Maximus through the cities of Asia displayed the triumph of
philosophic vanity; and the magistrates vied with each other in
the honorable reception which they prepared for the friend of
their sovereign. Julian was pronouncing an oration before the
senate, when he was informed of the arrival of Maximus. The
emperor immediately interrupted his discourse, advanced to meet
him, and after a tender embrace, conducted him by the hand into
the midst of the assembly; where he publicly acknowledged the
benefits which he had derived from the instructions of the
philosopher. Maximus, 46 who soon acquired the confidence, and
influenced the councils of Julian, was insensibly corrupted by
the temptations of a court. His dress became more splendid, his
demeanor more lofty, and he was exposed, under a succeeding
reign, to a disgraceful inquiry into the means by which the
disciple of Plato had accumulated, in the short duration of his
favor, a very scandalous proportion of wealth. Of the other
philosophers and sophists, who were invited to the Imperial
residence by the choice of Julian, or by the success of Maximus,
few were able to preserve their innocence or their reputation.
The liberal gifts of money, lands, and houses, were insufficient
to satiate their rapacious avarice; and the indignation of the
people was justly excited by the remembrance of their abject
poverty and disinterested professions. The penetration of Julian
could not always be deceived: but he was unwilling to despise the
characters of those men whose talents deserved his esteem: he
desired to escape the double reproach of imprudence and
inconstancy; and he was apprehensive of degrading, in the eyes of
the profane, the honor of letters and of religion. 47 48
42 (return) [ He praises the fidelity of Callixene, priestess of
Ceres, who had been twice as constant as Penelope, and rewards
her with the priesthood of the Phrygian goddess at Pessinus,
(Julian. Epist. xxi.) He applauds the firmness of Sopater of
Hierapolis, who had been repeatedly pressed by Constantius and
Gallus to _apostatize_, (Epist. xxvii p. 401.)]
43 (return) [ Orat. Parent. c. 77, p. 202. The same sentiment is
frequently inculcated by Julian, Libanius, and the rest of their
party.]
44 (return) [ The curiosity and credulity of the emperor, who
tried every mode of divination, are fairly exposed by Ammianus,
xxii. 12.]
45 (return) [ Julian. Epist. xxxviii. Three other epistles, (xv.
xvi. xxxix.,) in the same style of friendship and confidence, are
addressed to the philosopher Maximus.]
46 (return) [ Eunapius (in Maximo, p. 77, 78, 79, and in
Chrysanthio, p. 147, 148) has minutely related these anecdotes,
which he conceives to be the most important events of the age.
Yet he fairly confesses the frailty of Maximus. His reception at
Constantinople is described by Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 86, p.
301) and Ammianus, (xxii. 7.) * Note: Eunapius wrote a
continuation of the History of Dexippus. Some valuable fragments
of this work have been recovered by M. Mai, and reprinted in
Niebuhr’s edition of the Byzantine Historians.—M.]
47 (return) [ Chrysanthius, who had refused to quit Lydia, was
created high priest of the province. His cautious and temperate
use of power secured him after the revolution; and he lived in
peace, while Maximus, Priscus, &c., were persecuted by the
Christian ministers. See the adventures of those fanatic
sophists, collected by Brucker, tom ii. p. 281-293.]
48 (return) [ Sec Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 101, 102, p. 324,
325, 326) and Eunapius, (Vit. Sophist. in Proæresio, p. 126.)
Some students, whose expectations perhaps were groundless, or
extravagant, retired in disgust, (Greg. Naz. Orat. iv. p. 120.)
It is strange that we should not be able to contradict the title
of one of Tillemont’s chapters, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p.
960,) “La Cour de Julien est pleine de philosphes et de gens
perdus.”]
The favor of Julian was almost equally divided between the
Pagans, who had firmly adhered to the worship of their ancestors,
and the Christians, who prudently embraced the religion of their
sovereign. The acquisition of new proselytes 49 gratified the
ruling passions of his soul, superstition and vanity; and he was
heard to declare, with the enthusiasm of a missionary, that if he
could render each individual richer than Midas, and every city
greater than Babylon, he should not esteem himself the benefactor
of mankind, unless, at the same time, he could reclaim his
subjects from their impious revolt against the immortal gods. 50
A prince who had studied human nature, and who possessed the
treasures of the Roman empire, could adapt his arguments, his
promises, and his rewards, to every order of Christians; 51 and
the merit of a seasonable conversion was allowed to supply the
defects of a candidate, or even to expiate the guilt of a
criminal. As the army is the most forcible engine of absolute
power, Julian applied himself, with peculiar diligence, to
corrupt the religion of his troops, without whose hearty
concurrence every measure must be dangerous and unsuccessful; and
the natural temper of soldiers made this conquest as easy as it
was important. The legions of Gaul devoted themselves to the
faith, as well as to the fortunes, of their victorious leader;
and even before the death of Constantius, he had the satisfaction
of announcing to his friends, that they assisted with fervent
devotion, and voracious appetite, at the sacrifices, which were
repeatedly offered in his camp, of whole hecatombs of fat oxen.
52 The armies of the East, which had been trained under the
standard of the cross, and of Constantius, required a more artful
and expensive mode of persuasion. On the days of solemn and
public festivals, the emperor received the homage, and rewarded
the merit, of the troops. His throne of state was encircled with
the military ensigns of Rome and the republic; the holy name of
Christ was erased from the _Labarum;_ and the symbols of war, of
majesty, and of pagan superstition, were so dexterously blended,
that the faithful subject incurred the guilt of idolatry, when he
respectfully saluted the person or image of his sovereign. The
soldiers passed successively in review; and each of them, before
he received from the hand of Julian a liberal donative,
proportioned to his rank and services, was required to cast a few
grains of incense into the flame which burnt upon the altar. Some
Christian confessors might resist, and others might repent; but
the far greater number, allured by the prospect of gold, and awed
by the presence of the emperor, contracted the criminal
engagement; and their future perseverance in the worship of the
gods was enforced by every consideration of duty and of interest.
By the frequent repetition of these arts, and at the expense of
sums which would have purchased the service of half the nations
of Scythia, Julian gradually acquired for his troops the
imaginary protection of the gods, and for himself the firm and
effectual support of the Roman legions. 53 It is indeed more than
probable, that the restoration and encouragement of Paganism
revealed a multitude of pretended Christians, who, from motives
of temporal advantage, had acquiesced in the religion of the
former reign; and who afterwards returned, with the same
flexibility of conscience, to the faith which was professed by
the successors of Julian.
49 (return) [ Under the reign of Lewis XIV. his subjects of every
rank aspired to the glorious title of _Convertisseur_, expressive
of their zea and success in making proselytes. The word and the
idea are growing obsolete in France may they never be introduced
into England.]
50 (return) [ See the strong expressions of Libanius, which were
probably those of Julian himself, (Orat. Parent. c. 59, p. 285.)]
51 (return) [ When Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. x. p. 167) is
desirous to magnify the Christian firmness of his brother
Cæsarius, physician to the Imperial court, he owns that Cæsarius
disputed with a formidable adversary. In his invectives he
scarcely allows any share of wit or courage to the apostate.]
52 (return) [ Julian, Epist. xxxviii. Ammianus, xxii. 12. Adeo ut
in dies pæne singulos milites carnis distentiore sagina
victitantes incultius, potusque aviditate correpti, humeris
impositi transeuntium per plateas, ex publicis ædibus..... ad sua
diversoria portarentur. The devout prince and the indignant
historian describe the same scene; and in Illyricum or Antioch,
similar causes must have produced similar effects.]
53 (return) [ Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 74, 75, 83-86) and Libanius,
(Orat. Parent. c. lxxxi. lxxxii. p. 307, 308,). The sophist owns
and justifies the expense of these military conversions.]
While the devout monarch incessantly labored to restore and
propagate the religion of his ancestors, he embraced the
extraordinary design of rebuilding the temple of Jerusalem. In a
public epistle 54 to the nation or community of the Jews,
dispersed through the provinces, he pities their misfortunes,
condemns their oppressors, praises their constancy, declares
himself their gracious protector, and expresses a pious hope,
that after his return from the Persian war, he may be permitted
to pay his grateful vows to the Almighty in his holy city of
Jerusalem. The blind superstition, and abject slavery, of those
unfortunate exiles, must excite the contempt of a philosophic
emperor; but they deserved the friendship of Julian, by their
implacable hatred of the Christian name. The barren synagogue
abhorred and envied the fecundity of the rebellious church; the
power of the Jews was not equal to their malice; but their
gravest rabbis approved the private murder of an apostate; 55 and
their seditious clamors had often awakened the indolence of the
Pagan magistrates. Under the reign of Constantine, the Jews
became the subjects of their revolted children nor was it long
before they experienced the bitterness of domestic tyranny. The
civil immunities which had been granted, or confirmed, by
Severus, were gradually repealed by the Christian princes; and a
rash tumult, excited by the Jews of Palestine, 56 seemed to
justify the lucrative modes of oppression which were invented by
the bishops and eunuchs of the court of Constantius. The Jewish
patriarch, who was still permitted to exercise a precarious
jurisdiction, held his residence at Tiberias; 57 and the
neighboring cities of Palestine were filled with the remains of a
people who fondly adhered to the promised land. But the edict of
Hadrian was renewed and enforced; and they viewed from afar the
walls of the holy city, which were profaned in their eyes by the
triumph of the cross and the devotion of the Christians. 58
54 (return) [ Julian’s epistle (xxv.) is addressed to the
community of the Jews. Aldus (Venet. 1499) has branded it with
an; but this stigma is justly removed by the subsequent editors,
Petavius and Spanheim. This epistle is mentioned by Sozomen, (l.
v. c. 22,) and the purport of it is confirmed by Gregory, (Orat.
iv. p. 111.) and by Julian himself (Fragment. p. 295.)]
55 (return) [ The Misnah denounced death against those who
abandoned the foundation. The judgment of zeal is explained by
Marsham (Canon. Chron. p. 161, 162, edit. fol. London, 1672) and
Basnage, (Hist. des Juifs, tom. viii. p. 120.) Constantine made a
law to protect Christian converts from Judaism. Cod. Theod. l.
xvi. tit. viii. leg. 1. Godefroy, tom. vi. p. 215.]
56 (return) [ Et interea (during the civil war of Magnentius)
Judæorum seditio, qui Patricium, nefarie in regni speciem
sustulerunt, oppressa. Aurelius Victor, in Constantio, c. xlii.
See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 379, in 4to.]
57 (return) [ The city and synagogue of Tiberias are curiously
described by Reland. Palestin. tom. ii. p. 1036-1042.]
58 (return) [ Basnage has fully illustrated the state of the Jews
under Constantine and his successors, (tom. viii. c. iv. p.
111-153.)]
Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part III.
In the midst of a rocky and barren country, the walls of
Jerusalem 59 enclosed the two mountains of Sion and Acra, within
an oval figure of about three English miles. 60 Towards the
south, the upper town, and the fortress of David, were erected on
the lofty ascent of Mount Sion: on the north side, the buildings
of the lower town covered the spacious summit of Mount Acra; and
a part of the hill, distinguished by the name of Moriah, and
levelled by human industry, was crowned with the stately temple
of the Jewish nation. After the final destruction of the temple
by the arms of Titus and Hadrian, a ploughshare was drawn over
the consecrated ground, as a sign of perpetual interdiction. Sion
was deserted; and the vacant space of the lower city was filled
with the public and private edifices of the Ælian colony, which
spread themselves over the adjacent hill of Calvary. The holy
places were polluted with mountains of idolatry; and, either from
design or accident, a chapel was dedicated to Venus, on the spot
which had been sanctified by the death and resurrection of
Christ. 61 6111 Almost three hundred years after those stupendous
events, the profane chapel of Venus was demolished by the order
of Constantine; and the removal of the earth and stones revealed
the holy sepulchre to the eyes of mankind. A magnificent church
was erected on that mystic ground, by the first Christian
emperor; and the effects of his pious munificence were extended
to every spot which had been consecrated by the footstep of
patriarchs, of prophets, and of the Son of God. 62
59 (return) [ Reland (Palestin. l. i. p. 309, 390, l. iii. p.
838) describes, with learning and perspicuity, Jerusalem, and the
face of the adjacent country.]
60 (return) [ I have consulted a rare and curious treatise of M.
D’Anville, (sur l’Ancienne Jerusalem, Paris, 1747, p. 75.) The
circumference of the ancient city (Euseb. Preparat. Evangel. l.
ix. c. 36) was 27 stadia, or 2550 _toises_. A plan, taken on the
spot, assigns no more than 1980 for the modern town. The circuit
is defined by natural landmarks, which cannot be mistaken or
removed.]
61 (return) [ See two curious passages in Jerom, (tom. i. p. 102,
tom. vi. p. 315,) and the ample details of Tillemont, (Hist, des
Empereurs, tom. i. p. 569. tom. ii. p. 289, 294, 4to edition.)]
6111 (return) [ On the site of the Holy Sepulchre, compare the
chapter in Professor Robinson’s Travels in Palestine, which has
renewed the old controversy with great vigor. To me, this temple
of Venus, said to have been erected by Hadrian to insult the
Christians, is not the least suspicious part of the whole
legend.-M. 1845.]
62 (return) [ Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c. 25-47,
51-53. The emperor likewise built churches at Bethlem, the Mount
of Olives, and the oa of Mambre. The holy sepulchre is described
by Sandys, (Travels, p. 125-133,) and curiously delineated by Le
Bruyn, (Voyage au Levant, p. 28-296.)]
The passionate desire of contemplating the original monuments of
their redemption attracted to Jerusalem a successive crowd of
pilgrims, from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, and the most
distant countries of the East; 63 and their piety was authorized
by the example of the empress Helena, who appears to have united
the credulity of age with the warm feelings of a recent
conversion. Sages and heroes, who have visited the memorable
scenes of ancient wisdom or glory, have confessed the inspiration
of the genius of the place; 64 and the Christian who knelt before
the holy sepulchre, ascribed his lively faith, and his fervent
devotion, to the more immediate influence of the Divine Spirit.
The zeal, perhaps the avarice, of the clergy of Jerusalem,
cherished and multiplied these beneficial visits. They fixed, by
unquestionable tradition, the scene of each memorable event. They
exhibited the instruments which had been used in the passion of
Christ; the nails and the lance that had pierced his hands, his
feet, and his side; the crown of thorns that was planted on his
head; the pillar at which he was scourged; and, above all, they
showed the cross on which he suffered, and which was dug out of
the earth in the reign of those princes, who inserted the symbol
of Christianity in the banners of the Roman legions. 65 Such
miracles as seemed necessary to account for its extraordinary
preservation, and seasonable discovery, were gradually propagated
without opposition. The custody of the _true cross_, which on
Easter Sunday was solemnly exposed to the people, was intrusted
to the bishop of Jerusalem; and he alone might gratify the
curious devotion of the pilgrims, by the gift of small pieces,
which they encased in gold or gems, and carried away in triumph
to their respective countries. But as this gainful branch of
commerce must soon have been annihilated, it was found convenient
to suppose, that the marvelous wood possessed a secret power of
vegetation; and that its substance, though continually
diminished, still remained entire and unimpaired. 66 It might
perhaps have been expected, that the influence of the place and
the belief of a perpetual miracle, should have produced some
salutary effects on the morals, as well as on the faith, of the
people. Yet the most respectable of the ecclesiastical writers
have been obliged to confess, not only that the streets of
Jerusalem were filled with the incessant tumult of business and
pleasure, 67 but that every species of vice—adultery, theft,
idolatry, poisoning, murder—was familiar to the inhabitants of
the holy city. 68 The wealth and preëminence of the church of
Jerusalem excited the ambition of Arian, as well as orthodox,
candidates; and the virtues of Cyril, who, since his death, has
been honored with the title of Saint, were displayed in the
exercise, rather than in the acquisition, of his episcopal
dignity. 69
63 (return) [ The Itinerary from Bourdeaux to Jerusalem was
composed in the year 333, for the use of pilgrims; among whom
Jerom (tom. i. p. 126) mentions the Britons and the Indians. The
causes of this superstitious fashion are discussed in the learned
and judicious preface of Wesseling. (Itinarar. p. 537-545.)
——Much curious information on this subject is collected in the
first chapter of Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzüge.—M.]
64 (return) [ Cicero (de Finibus, v. 1) has beautifully expressed
the common sense of mankind.]
65 (return) [ Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 326, No. 42-50) and
Tillemont (Mém. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 8-16) are the historians and
champions of the miraculous _invention_ of the cross, under the
reign of Constantine. Their oldest witnesses are Paulinus,
Sulpicius Severus, Rufinus, Ambrose, and perhaps Cyril of
Jerusalem. The silence of Eusebius, and the Bourdeaux pilgrim,
which satisfies those who think perplexes those who believe. See
Jortin’s sensible remarks, vol. ii. p 238-248.]
66 (return) [ This multiplication is asserted by Paulinus,
(Epist. xxxvi. See Dupin. Bibliot. Eccles. tom. iii. p. 149,) who
seems to have improved a rhetorical flourish of Cyril into a real
fact. The same supernatural privilege must have been communicated
to the Virgin’s milk, (Erasmi Opera, tom. i. p. 778, Lugd. Batav.
1703, in Colloq. de Peregrinat. Religionis ergo,) saints’ heads,
&c. and other relics, which are repeated in so many different
churches. * Note: Lord Mahon, in a memoir read before the Society
of Antiquaries, (Feb. 1831,) has traced in a brief but
interesting manner, the singular adventures of the “true” cross.
It is curious to inquire, what authority we have, except of
_late_ tradition, for the _Hill_ of Calvary. There is none in the
sacred writings; the uniform use of the common word, instead of
any word expressing assent or acclivity, is against the
notion.—M.]
67 (return) [ Jerom, (tom. i. p. 103,) who resided in the
neighboring village of Bethlem, describes the vices of Jerusalem
from his personal experience.]
68 (return) [ Gregor. Nyssen, apud Wesseling, p. 539. The whole
epistle, which condemns either the use or the abuse of religious
pilgrimage, is painful to the Catholic divines, while it is dear
and familiar to our Protestant polemics.]
69 (return) [ He renounced his orthodox ordination, officiated as
a deacon, and was re-ordained by the hands of the Arians. But
Cyril afterwards changed with the times, and prudently conformed
to the Nicene faith. Tillemont, (Mém. Eccles. tom. viii.,) who
treats his memory with tenderness and respect, has thrown his
virtues into the text, and his faults into the notes, in decent
obscurity, at the end of the volume.]
The vain and ambitious mind of Julian might aspire to restore the
ancient glory of the temple of Jerusalem. 70 As the Christians
were firmly persuaded that a sentence of everlasting destruction
had been pronounced against the whole fabric of the Mosaic law,
the Imperial sophist would have converted the success of his
undertaking into a specious argument against the faith of
prophecy, and the truth of revelation. 71 He was displeased with
the spiritual worship of the synagogue; but he approved the
institutions of Moses, who had not disdained to adopt many of the
rites and ceremonies of Egypt. 72 The local and national deity of
the Jews was sincerely adored by a polytheist, who desired only
to multiply the number of the gods; 73 and such was the appetite
of Julian for bloody sacrifice, that his emulation might be
excited by the piety of Solomon, who had offered, at the feast of
the dedication, twenty-two thousand oxen, and one hundred and
twenty thousand sheep. 74 These considerations might influence
his designs; but the prospect of an immediate and important
advantage would not suffer the impatient monarch to expect the
remote and uncertain event of the Persian war. He resolved to
erect, without delay, on the commanding eminence of Moriah, a
stately temple, which might eclipse the splendor of the church of
the resurrection on the adjacent hill of Calvary; to establish an
order of priests, whose interested zeal would detect the arts,
and resist the ambition, of their Christian rivals; and to invite
a numerous colony of Jews, whose stern fanaticism would be always
prepared to second, and even to anticipate, the hostile measures
of the Pagan government. Among the friends of the emperor (if the
names of emperor, and of friend, are not incompatible) the first
place was assigned, by Julian himself, to the virtuous and
learned Alypius. 75 The humanity of Alypius was tempered by
severe justice and manly fortitude; and while he exercised his
abilities in the civil administration of Britain, he imitated, in
his poetical compositions, the harmony and softness of the odes
of Sappho. This minister, to whom Julian communicated, without
reserve, his most careless levities, and his most serious
counsels, received an extraordinary commission to restore, in its
pristine beauty, the temple of Jerusalem; and the diligence of
Alypius required and obtained the strenuous support of the
governor of Palestine. At the call of their great deliverer, the
Jews, from all the provinces of the empire, assembled on the holy
mountain of their fathers; and their insolent triumph alarmed and
exasperated the Christian inhabitants of Jerusalem. The desire of
rebuilding the temple has in every age been the ruling passion of
the children of Israel. In this propitious moment the men forgot
their avarice, and the women their delicacy; spades and pickaxes
of silver were provided by the vanity of the rich, and the
rubbish was transported in mantles of silk and purple. Every
purse was opened in liberal contributions, every hand claimed a
share in the pious labor, and the commands of a great monarch
were executed by the enthusiasm of a whole people. 76
70 (return) [ Imperii sui memoriam magnitudine operum gestiens
propagare Ammian. xxiii. 1. The temple of Jerusalem had been
famous even among the Gentiles. _They_ had many temples in each
city, (at Sichem five, at Gaza eight, at Rome four hundred and
twenty-four;) but the wealth and religion of the Jewish nation
was centred in one spot.]
71 (return) [ The secret intentions of Julian are revealed by the
late bishop of Gloucester, the learned and dogmatic Warburton;
who, with the authority of a theologian, prescribes the motives
and conduct of the Supreme Being. The discourse entitled _Julian_
(2d edition, London, 1751) is strongly marked with all the
peculiarities which are imputed to the Warburtonian school.]
72 (return) [ I shelter myself behind Maimonides, Marsham,
Spencer, Le Clerc, Warburton, &c., who have fairly derided the
fears, the folly, and the falsehood of some superstitious
divines. See Divine Legation, vol. iv. p. 25, &c.]
73 (return) [ Julian (Fragment. p. 295) respectfully styles him,
and mentions him elsewhere (Epist. lxiii.) with still higher
reverence. He doubly condemns the Christians for believing, and
for renouncing, the religion of the Jews. Their Deity was a
_true_, but not the _only_, God Apul Cyril. l. ix. p. 305, 306.]
74 (return) [ 1 Kings, viii. 63. 2 Chronicles, vii. 5. Joseph.
Antiquitat. Judaic. l. viii. c. 4, p. 431, edit. Havercamp. As
the blood and smoke of so many hecatombs might be inconvenient,
Lightfoot, the Christian Rabbi, removes them by a miracle. Le
Clerc (ad loca) is bold enough to suspect to fidelity of the
numbers. * Note: According to the historian Kotobeddym, quoted by
Burckhardt, (Travels in Arabia, p. 276,) the Khalif Mokteder
sacrificed, during his pilgrimage to Mecca, in the year of the
Hejira 350, forty thousand camels and cows, and fifty thousand
sheep. Barthema describes thirty thousand oxen slain, and their
carcasses given to the poor. Quarterly Review, xiii.p.39—M.]
75 (return) [ Julian, epist. xxix. xxx. La Bleterie has neglected
to translate the second of these epistles.]
76 (return) [ See the zeal and impatience of the Jews in Gregory
Nazianzen (Orat. iv. p. 111) and Theodoret. (l. iii. c. 20.)]
Yet, on this occasion, the joint efforts of power and enthusiasm
were unsuccessful; and the ground of the Jewish temple, which is
now covered by a Mahometan mosque, 77 still continued to exhibit
the same edifying spectacle of ruin and desolation. Perhaps the
absence and death of the emperor, and the new maxims of a
Christian reign, might explain the interruption of an arduous
work, which was attempted only in the last six months of the life
of Julian. 78 But the Christians entertained a natural and pious
expectation, that, in this memorable contest, the honor of
religion would be vindicated by some signal miracle. An
earthquake, a whirlwind, and a fiery eruption, which overturned
and scattered the new foundations of the temple, are attested,
with some variations, by contemporary and respectable evidence.
79 This public event is described by Ambrose, 80 bishop of Milan,
in an epistle to the emperor Theodosius, which must provoke the
severe animadversion of the Jews; by the eloquent Chrysostom, 81
who might appeal to the memory of the elder part of his
congregation at Antioch; and by Gregory Nazianzen, 82 who
published his account of the miracle before the expiration of the
same year. The last of these writers has boldly declared, that
this preternatural event was not disputed by the infidels; and
his assertion, strange as it may seem is confirmed by the
unexceptionable testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus. 83 The
philosophic soldier, who loved the virtues, without adopting the
prejudices, of his master, has recorded, in his judicious and
candid history of his own times, the extraordinary obstacles
which interrupted the restoration of the temple of Jerusalem.
“Whilst Alypius, assisted by the governor of the province, urged,
with vigor and diligence, the execution of the work, horrible
balls of fire breaking out near the foundations, with frequent
and reiterated attacks, rendered the place, from time to time,
inaccessible to the scorched and blasted workmen; and the
victorious element continuing in this manner obstinately and
resolutely bent, as it were, to drive them to a distance, the
undertaking was abandoned.” 8311 Such authority should satisfy a
believing, and must astonish an incredulous, mind. Yet a
philosopher may still require the original evidence of impartial
and intelligent spectators. At this important crisis, any
singular accident of nature would assume the appearance, and
produce the effects of a real prodigy. This glorious deliverance
would be speedily improved and magnified by the pious art of the
clergy of Jerusalem, and the active credulity of the Christian
world and, at the distance of twenty years, a Roman historian,
careless of theological disputes, might adorn his work with the
specious and splendid miracle. 84
77 (return) [ Built by Omar, the second Khalif, who died A. D.
644. This great mosque covers the whole consecrated ground of the
Jewish temple, and constitutes almost a square of 760 _toises_,
or one Roman mile in circumference. See D’Anville, Jerusalem, p.
45.]
78 (return) [ Ammianus records the consults of the year 363,
before he proceeds to mention the _thoughts_ of Julian. Templum.
... instaurare sumptibus _cogitabat_ immodicis. Warburton has a
secret wish to anticipate the design; but he must have
understood, from former examples, that the execution of such a
work would have demanded many years.]
79 (return) [ The subsequent witnesses, Socrates, Sozomen,
Theodoret, Philostorgius, &c., add contradictions rather than
authority. Compare the objections of Basnage (Hist. des Juifs,
tom. viii. p. 156-168) with Warburton’s answers, (Julian, p.
174-258.) The bishop has ingeniously explained the miraculous
crosses which appeared on the garments of the spectators by a
similar instance, and the natural effects of lightning.]
80 (return) [ Ambros. tom. ii. epist. xl. p. 946, edit.
Benedictin. He composed this fanatic epistle (A. D. 388) to
justify a bishop who had been condemned by the civil magistrate
for burning a synagogue.]
81 (return) [ Chrysostom, tom. i. p. 580, advers. Judæos et
Gentes, tom. ii. p. 574, de Sto Babyla, edit. Montfaucon. I have
followed the common and natural supposition; but the learned
Benedictine, who dates the composition of these sermons in the
year 383, is confident they were never pronounced from the
pulpit.]
82 (return) [ Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p. 110-113.]
83 (return) [ Ammian. xxiii. 1. Cum itaque rei fortiter instaret
Alypius, juvaretque provinciæ rector, metuendi globi flammarum
prope fundamenta crebris assultibus erumpentes fecere locum
exustis aliquoties operantibus inaccessum; hocque modo elemento
destinatius repellente, cessavit inceptum. Warburton labors (p.
60-90) to extort a confession of the miracle from the mouths of
Julian and Libanius, and to employ the evidence of a rabbi who
lived in the fifteenth century. Such witnesses can only be
received by a very favorable judge.]
8311 (return) [ Michaelis has given an ingenious and sufficiently
probable explanation of this remarkable incident, which the
positive testimony of Ammianus, a contemporary and a pagan, will
not permit us to call in question. It was suggested by a passage
in Tacitus. That historian, speaking of Jerusalem, says, [I omit
the first part of the quotation adduced by M. Guizot, which only
by a most extraordinary mistranslation of muri introrsus sinuati
by “_enfoncemens_” could be made to bear on the question.—M.]
“The Temple itself was a kind of citadel, which had its own
walls, superior in their workmanship and construction to those of
the city. The porticos themselves, which surrounded the temple,
were an excellent fortification. There was a fountain of
constantly running water; _subterranean excavations under the
mountain; reservoirs and cisterns to collect the rain-water_.”
Tac. Hist. v. ii. 12. These excavations and reservoirs must have
been very considerable. The latter furnished water during the
whole siege of Jerusalem to 1,100,000 inhabitants, for whom the
fountain of Siloe could not have sufficed, and who had no fresh
rain-water, the siege having taken place from the month of April
to the month of August, a period of the year during which it
rarely rains in Jerusalem. As to the excavations, they served
after, and even before, the return of the Jews from Babylon, to
contain not only magazines of oil, wine, and corn, but also the
treasures which were laid up in the Temple. Josephus has related
several incidents which show their extent. When Jerusalem was on
the point of being taken by Titus, the rebel chiefs, placing
their last hopes in these vast subterranean cavities, formed a
design of concealing themselves there, and remaining during the
conflagration of the city, and until the Romans had retired to a
distance. The greater part had not time to execute their design;
but one of them, Simon, the Son of Gioras, having provided
himself with food, and tools to excavate the earth descended into
this retreat with some companions: he remained there till Titus
had set out for Rome: under the pressure of famine he issued
forth on a sudden in the very place where the Temple had stood,
and appeared in the midst of the Roman guard. He was seized and
carried to Rome for the triumph. His appearance made it be
suspected that other Jews might have chosen the same asylum;
search was made, and a great number discovered. Joseph. de Bell.
Jud. l. vii. c. 2. It is probable that the greater part of these
excavations were the remains of the time of Solomon, when it was
the custom to work to a great extent under ground: no other date
can be assigned to them. The Jews, on their return from the
captivity, were too poor to undertake such works; and, although
Herod, on rebuilding the Temple, made some excavations, (Joseph.
Ant. Jud. xv. 11, vii.,) the haste with which that building was
completed will not allow us to suppose that they belonged to that
period. Some were used for sewers and drains, others served to
conceal the immense treasures of which Crassus, a hundred and
twenty years before, plundered the Jews, and which doubtless had
been since replaced. The Temple was destroyed A. C. 70; the
attempt of Julian to rebuild it, and the fact related by
Ammianus, coincide with the year 363. There had then elapsed
between these two epochs an interval of near 300 years, during
which the excavations, choked up with ruins, must have become
full of inflammable air. The workmen employed by Julian as they
were digging, arrived at the excavations of the Temple; they
would take torches to explore them; sudden flames repelled those
who approached; explosions were heard, and these phenomena were
renewed every time that they penetrated into new subterranean
passages. This explanation is confirmed by the relation of an
event nearly similar, by Josephus. King Herod having heard that
immense treasures had been concealed in the sepulchre of David,
he descended into it with a few confidential persons; he found in
the first subterranean chamber only jewels and precious stuffs:
but having wished to penetrate into a second chamber, which had
been long closed, he was repelled, when he opened it, by flames
which killed those who accompanied him. (Ant. Jud. xvi. 7, i.) As
here there is no room for miracle, this fact may be considered as
a new proof of the veracity of that related by Ammianus and the
contemporary writers.—G. ——To the illustrations of the extent of
the subterranean chambers adduced by Michaelis, may be added,
that when John of Gischala, during the siege, surprised the
Temple, the party of Eleazar took refuge within them. Bell. Jud.
vi. 3, i. The sudden sinking of the hill of Sion when Jerusalem
was occupied by Barchocab, may have been connected with similar
excavations. Hist. of Jews, vol. iii. 122 and 186.—M. ——It is a
fact now popularly known, that when mines which have been long
closed are opened, one of two things takes place; either the
torches are extinguished and the men fall first into a swoor and
soon die; or, if the air is inflammable, a little flame is seen
to flicker round the lamp, which spreads and multiplies till the
conflagration becomes general, is followed by an explosion, and
kill all who are in the way.—G.]
84 (return) [ Dr. Lardner, perhaps alone of the Christian
critics, presumes to doubt the truth of this famous miracle.
(Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 47-71.)]
The silence of Jerom would lead to a suspicion that the same
story which was celebrated at a distance, might be despised on
the spot. * Note: Gibbon has forgotten Basnage, to whom Warburton
replied.—M.
Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part IV.
The restoration of the Jewish temple was secretly connected with
the ruin of the Christian church. Julian still continued to
maintain the freedom of religious worship, without distinguishing
whether this universal toleration proceeded from his justice or
his clemency. He affected to pity the unhappy Christians, who
were mistaken in the most important object of their lives; but
his pity was degraded by contempt, his contempt was embittered by
hatred; and the sentiments of Julian were expressed in a style of
sarcastic wit, which inflicts a deep and deadly wound, whenever
it issues from the mouth of a sovereign. As he was sensible that
the Christians gloried in the name of their Redeemer, he
countenanced, and perhaps enjoined, the use of the less honorable
appellation of Galilæans. 85 He declared, that by the folly of
the Galilæans, whom he describes as a sect of fanatics,
contemptible to men, and odious to the gods, the empire had been
reduced to the brink of destruction; and he insinuates in a
public edict, that a frantic patient might sometimes be cured by
salutary violence. 86 An ungenerous distinction was admitted into
the mind and counsels of Julian, that, according to the
difference of their religious sentiments, one part of his
subjects deserved his favor and friendship, while the other was
entitled only to the common benefits that his justice could not
refuse to an obedient people. According to a principle, pregnant
with mischief and oppression, the emperor transferred to the
pontiffs of his own religion the management of the liberal
allowances from the public revenue, which had been granted to the
church by the piety of Constantine and his sons. The proud system
of clerical honors and immunities, which had been constructed
with so much art and labor, was levelled to the ground; the hopes
of testamentary donations were intercepted by the rigor of the
laws; and the priests of the Christian sect were confounded with
the last and most ignominious class of the people. Such of these
regulations as appeared necessary to check the ambition and
avarice of the ecclesiastics, were soon afterwards imitated by
the wisdom of an orthodox prince. The peculiar distinctions which
policy has bestowed, or superstition has lavished, on the
sacerdotal order, _must_ be confined to those priests who profess
the religion of the state. But the will of the legislator was not
exempt from prejudice and passion; and it was the object of the
insidious policy of Julian, to deprive the Christians of all the
temporal honors and advantages which rendered them respectable in
the eyes of the world. 88
85 (return) [ Greg. Naz. Orat. iii. p. 81. And this law was
confirmed by the invariable practice of Julian himself. Warburton
has justly observed (p. 35,) that the Platonists believed in the
mysterious virtue of words and Julian’s dislike for the name of
Christ might proceed from superstition, as well as from
contempt.]
86 (return) [ Fragment. Julian. p. 288. He derides the (Epist.
vii.,) and so far loses sight of the principles of toleration, as
to wish (Epist. xlii.).]
88 (return) [ These laws, which affected the clergy, may be found
in the slight hints of Julian himself, (Epist. lii.) in the vague
declamations of Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 86, 87,) and in the
positive assertions of Sozomen, (l. v. c. 5.)]
A just and severe censure has been inflicted on the law which
prohibited the Christians from teaching the arts of grammar and
rhetoric. 89 The motives alleged by the emperor to justify this
partial and oppressive measure, might command, during his
lifetime, the silence of slaves and the applause of Gatterers.
Julian abuses the ambiguous meaning of a word which might be
indifferently applied to the language and the religion of the
Greeks: he contemptuously observes, that the men who exalt the
merit of implicit faith are unfit to claim or to enjoy the
advantages of science; and he vainly contends, that if they
refuse to adore the gods of Homer and Demosthenes, they ought to
content themselves with expounding Luke and Matthew in the church
of the Galilæans. 90 In all the cities of the Roman world, the
education of the youth was intrusted to masters of grammar and
rhetoric; who were elected by the magistrates, maintained at the
public expense, and distinguished by many lucrative and honorable
privileges. The edict of Julian appears to have included the
physicians, and professors of all the liberal arts; and the
emperor, who reserved to himself the approbation of the
candidates, was authorized by the laws to corrupt, or to punish,
the religious constancy of the most learned of the Christians. 91
As soon as the resignation of the more obstinate 92 teachers had
established the unrivalled dominion of the Pagan sophists, Julian
invited the rising generation to resort with freedom to the
public schools, in a just confidence, that their tender minds
would receive the impressions of literature and idolatry. If the
greatest part of the Christian youth should be deterred by their
own scruples, or by those of their parents, from accepting this
dangerous mode of instruction, they must, at the same time,
relinquish the benefits of a liberal education. Julian had reason
to expect that, in the space of a few years, the church would
relapse into its primæval simplicity, and that the theologians,
who possessed an adequate share of the learning and eloquence of
the age, would be succeeded by a generation of blind and ignorant
fanatics, incapable of defending the truth of their own
principles, or of exposing the various follies of Polytheism. 93
89 (return) [ Inclemens.... perenni obruendum silentio. Ammian.
xxii. 10, ixv. 5.]
90 (return) [ The edict itself, which is still extant among the
epistles of Julian, (xlii.,) may be compared with the loose
invectives of Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 96.) Tillemont (Mém. Eccles.
tom. vii. p. 1291-1294) has collected the seeming differences of
ancients and moderns. They may be easily reconciled. The
Christians were _directly_ forbid to teach, they were
_indirectly_ forbid to learn; since they would not frequent the
schools of the Pagans.]
91 (return) [ Codex Theodos. l. xiii. tit. iii. de medicis et
professoribus, leg. 5, (published the 17th of June, received, at
Spoleto in Italy, the 29th of July, A. D. 363,) with Godefroy’s
Illustrations, tom. v. p. 31.]
92 (return) [ Orosius celebrates their disinterested resolution,
Sicut a majori bus nostris compertum habemus, omnes ubique
propemodum... officium quam fidem deserere maluerunt, vii. 30.
Proæresius, a Christian sophist, refused to accept the partial
favor of the emperor Hieronym. in Chron. p. 185, edit. Scaliger.
Eunapius in Proæresio p. 126.]
93 (return) [ They had recourse to the expedient of composing
books for their own schools. Within a few months Apollinaris
produced his Christian imitations of Homer, (a sacred history in
twenty-four books,) Pindar, Euripides, and Menander; and Sozomen
is satisfied, that they equalled, or excelled, the originals. *
Note: Socrates, however, implies that, on the death of Julian,
they were contemptuously thrown aside by the Christians. Socr.
Hist. iii.16.—M.]
It was undoubtedly the wish and design of Julian to deprive the
Christians of the advantages of wealth, of knowledge, and of
power; but the injustice of excluding them from all offices of
trust and profit seems to have been the result of his general
policy, rather than the immediate consequence of any positive
law. 94 Superior merit might deserve and obtain, some
extraordinary exceptions; but the greater part of the Christian
officers were gradually removed from their employments in the
state, the army, and the provinces. The hopes of future
candidates were extinguished by the declared partiality of a
prince, who maliciously reminded them, that it was unlawful for a
Christian to use the sword, either of justice, or of war; and who
studiously guarded the camp and the tribunals with the ensigns of
idolatry. The powers of government were intrusted to the pagans,
who professed an ardent zeal for the religion of their ancestors;
and as the choice of the emperor was often directed by the rules
of divination, the favorites whom he preferred as the most
agreeable to the gods, did not always obtain the approbation of
mankind. 95 Under the administration of their enemies, the
Christians had much to suffer, and more to apprehend. The temper
of Julian was averse to cruelty; and the care of his reputation,
which was exposed to the eyes of the universe, restrained the
philosophic monarch from violating the laws of justice and
toleration, which he himself had so recently established. But the
provincial ministers of his authority were placed in a less
conspicuous station. In the exercise of arbitrary power, they
consulted the wishes, rather than the commands, of their
sovereign; and ventured to exercise a secret and vexatious
tyranny against the sectaries, on whom they were not permitted to
confer the honors of martyrdom. The emperor, who dissembled as
long as possible his knowledge of the injustice that was
exercised in his name, expressed his real sense of the conduct of
his officers, by gentle reproofs and substantial rewards. 96
94 (return) [ It was the instruction of Julian to his
magistrates, (Epist. vii.,). Sozomen (l. v. c. 18) and Socrates
(l. iii. c. 13) must be reduced to the standard of Gregory,
(Orat. iii. p. 95,) not less prone to exaggeration, but more
restrained by the actual knowledge of his contemporary readers.]
95 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. 88, p. 814.]
96 (return) [ Greg. Naz. Orat. iii. p. 74, 91, 92. Socrates, l.
iii. c. 14. The doret, l. iii. c. 6. Some drawback may, however,
be allowed for the violence of _their_ zeal, not less partial
than the zeal of Julian]
The most effectual instrument of oppression, with which they were
armed, was the law that obliged the Christians to make full and
ample satisfaction for the temples which they had destroyed under
the preceding reign. The zeal of the triumphant church had not
always expected the sanction of the public authority; and the
bishops, who were secure of impunity, had often marched at the
head of their congregation, to attack and demolish the fortresses
of the prince of darkness. The consecrated lands, which had
increased the patrimony of the sovereign or of the clergy, were
clearly defined, and easily restored. But on these lands, and on
the ruins of Pagan superstition, the Christians had frequently
erected their own religious edifices: and as it was necessary to
remove the church before the temple could be rebuilt, the justice
and piety of the emperor were applauded by one party, while the
other deplored and execrated his sacrilegious violence. 97 After
the ground was cleared, the restitution of those stately
structures which had been levelled with the dust, and of the
precious ornaments which had been converted to Christian uses,
swelled into a very large account of damages and debt. The
authors of the injury had neither the ability nor the inclination
to discharge this accumulated demand: and the impartial wisdom of
a legislator would have been displayed in balancing the adverse
claims and complaints, by an equitable and temperate arbitration.
But the whole empire, and particularly the East, was thrown into
confusion by the rash edicts of Julian; and the Pagan
magistrates, inflamed by zeal and revenge, abused the rigorous
privilege of the Roman law, which substitutes, in the place of
his inadequate property, the person of the insolvent debtor.
Under the preceding reign, Mark, bishop of Arethusa, 98 had
labored in the conversion of his people with arms more effectual
than those of persuasion. 99 The magistrates required the full
value of a temple which had been destroyed by his intolerant
zeal: but as they were satisfied of his poverty, they desired
only to bend his inflexible spirit to the promise of the
slightest compensation. They apprehended the aged prelate, they
inhumanly scourged him, they tore his beard; and his naked body,
annointed with honey, was suspended, in a net, between heaven and
earth, and exposed to the stings of insects and the rays of a
Syrian sun. 100 From this lofty station, Mark still persisted to
glory in his crime, and to insult the impotent rage of his
persecutors. He was at length rescued from their hands, and
dismissed to enjoy the honor of his divine triumph. The Arians
celebrated the virtue of their pious confessor; the Catholics
ambitiously claimed his alliance; 101 and the Pagans, who might
be susceptible of shame or remorse, were deterred from the
repetition of such unavailing cruelty. 102 Julian spared his
life: but if the bishop of Arethusa had saved the infancy of
Julian, 103 posterity will condemn the ingratitude, instead of
praising the clemency, of the emperor.
97 (return) [ If we compare the gentle language of Libanius
(Orat. Parent c. 60. p. 286) with the passionate exclamations of
Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 86, 87,) we may find it difficult to
persuade ourselves that the two orators are really describing the
same events.]
98 (return) [ Restan, or Arethusa, at the equal distance of
sixteen miles between Emesa (_Hems_) and Epiphania, (_Hamath_,)
was founded, or at least named, by Seleucus Nicator. Its peculiar
æra dates from the year of Rome 685, according to the medals of
the city. In the decline of the Seleucides, Emesa and Arethusa
were usurped by the Arab Sampsiceramus, whose posterity, the
vassals of Rome, were not extinguished in the reign of
Vespasian.——See D’Anville’s Maps and Geographie Ancienne, tom.
ii. p. 134. Wesseling, Itineraria, p. 188, and Noris. Epoch
Syro-Macedon, p. 80, 481, 482.]
99 (return) [ Sozomen, l. v. c. 10. It is surprising, that
Gregory and Theodoret should suppress a circumstance, which, in
their eyes, must have enhanced the religious merit of the
confessor.]
100 (return) [ The sufferings and constancy of Mark, which
Gregory has so tragically painted, (Orat. iii. p. 88-91,) are
confirmed by the unexceptionable and reluctant evidence of
Libanius. Epist. 730, p. 350, 351. Edit. Wolf. Amstel. 1738.]
101 (return) [ Certatim eum sibi (Christiani) vindicant. It is
thus that La Croze and Wolfius (ad loc.) have explained a Greek
word, whose true signification had been mistaken by former
interpreters, and even by Le Clerc, (Bibliothèque Ancienne et
Moderne, tom. iii. p. 371.) Yet Tillemont is strangely puzzled to
understand (Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 1309) _how_ Gregory and
Theodoret could mistake a Semi-Arian bishop for a saint.]
102 (return) [ See the probable advice of Sallust, (Greg.
Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 90, 91.) Libanius intercedes for a
similar offender, lest they should find many _Marks;_ yet he
allows, that if Orion had secreted the consecrated wealth, he
deserved to suffer the punishment of Marsyas; to be flayed alive,
(Epist. 730, p. 349-351.)]
103 (return) [ Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 90) is satisfied that, by
saving the apostate, Mark had deserved still more than he had
suffered.]
At the distance of five miles from Antioch, the Macedonian kings
of Syria had consecrated to Apollo one of the most elegant places
of devotion in the Pagan world. 104 A magnificent temple rose in
honor of the god of light; and his colossal figure 105 almost
filled the capacious sanctuary, which was enriched with gold and
gems, and adorned by the skill of the Grecian artists. The deity
was represented in a bending attitude, with a golden cup in his
hand, pouring out a libation on the earth; as if he supplicated
the venerable mother to give to his arms the cold and beauteous
Daphne: for the spot was ennobled by fiction; and the fancy of
the Syrian poets had transported the amorous tale from the banks
of the Peneus to those of the Orontes. The ancient rites of
Greece were imitated by the royal colony of Antioch. A stream of
prophecy, which rivalled the truth and reputation of the Delphic
oracle, flowed from the _Castalian_ fountain of Daphne. 106 In
the adjacent fields a stadium was built by a special privilege,
107 which had been purchased from Elis; the Olympic games were
celebrated at the expense of the city; and a revenue of thirty
thousand pounds sterling was annually applied to the public
pleasures. 108 The perpetual resort of pilgrims and spectators
insensibly formed, in the neighborhood of the temple, the stately
and populous village of Daphne, which emulated the splendor,
without acquiring the title, of a provincial city. The temple and
the village were deeply bosomed in a thick grove of laurels and
cypresses, which reached as far as a circumference of ten miles,
and formed in the most sultry summers a cool and impenetrable
shade. A thousand streams of the purest water, issuing from every
hill, preserved the verdure of the earth, and the temperature of
the air; the senses were gratified with harmonious sounds and
aromatic odors; and the peaceful grove was consecrated to health
and joy, to luxury and love. The vigorous youth pursued, like
Apollo, the object of his desires; and the blushing maid was
warned, by the fate of Daphne, to shun the folly of unseasonable
coyness. The soldier and the philosopher wisely avoided the
temptation of this sensual paradise: 109 where pleasure, assuming
the character of religion, imperceptibly dissolved the firmness
of manly virtue. But the groves of Daphne continued for many ages
to enjoy the veneration of natives and strangers; the privileges
of the holy ground were enlarged by the munificence of succeeding
emperors; and every generation added new ornaments to the
splendor of the temple. 110
104 (return) [ The grove and temple of Daphne are described by
Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 1089, 1090, edit. Amstel. 1707,) Libanius,
(Nænia, p. 185-188. Antiochic. Orat. xi. p. 380, 381,) and
Sozomen, (l. v. c. 19.) Wesseling (Itinerar. p. 581) and Casaubon
(ad Hist. August. p. 64) illustrate this curious subject.]
105 (return) [ Simulacrum in eo Olympiaci Jovis imitamenti
æquiparans magnitudinem. Ammian. xxii. 13. The Olympic Jupiter
was sixty feet high, and his bulk was consequently equal to that
of a thousand men. See a curious _Mémoire_ of the Abbé Gedoyn,
(Académie des Inscriptions, tom. ix. p. 198.)]
106 (return) [ Hadrian read the history of his future fortunes on
a leaf dipped in the Castalian stream; a trick which, according
to the physician Vandale, (de Oraculis, p. 281, 282,) might be
easily performed by chemical preparations. The emperor stopped
the source of such dangerous knowledge; which was again opened by
the devout curiosity of Julian.]
107 (return) [ It was purchased, A. D. 44, in the year 92 of the
æra of Antioch, (Noris. Epoch. Syro-Maced. p. 139-174,) for the
term of ninety Olympiads. But the Olympic games of Antioch were
not regularly celebrated till the reign of Commodus. See the
curious details in the Chronicle of John Malala, (tom. i. p. 290,
320, 372-381,) a writer whose merit and authority are confined
within the limits of his native city.]
108 (return) [ Fifteen talents of gold, bequeathed by Sosibius,
who died in the reign of Augustus. The theatrical merits of the
Syrian cities in the reign of Constantine, are computed in the
Expositio totius Murd, p. 8, (Hudson, Geograph. Minor tom. iii.)]
109 (return) [ Avidio Cassio Syriacas legiones dedi luxuria
diffluentes et _Daphnicis_ moribus. These are the words of the
emperor Marcus Antoninus in an original letter preserved by his
biographer in Hist. August. p. 41. Cassius dismissed or punished
every soldier who was seen at Daphne.]
110 (return) [ Aliquantum agrorum Daphnensibus dedit, (_Pompey_,)
quo lucus ibi spatiosior fieret; delectatus amœnitate loci et
aquarum abundantiz, Eutropius, vi. 14. Sextus Rufus, de
Provinciis, c. 16.]
When Julian, on the day of the annual festival, hastened to adore
the Apollo of Daphne, his devotion was raised to the highest
pitch of eagerness and impatience. His lively imagination
anticipated the grateful pomp of victims, of libations and of
incense; a long procession of youths and virgins, clothed in
white robes, the symbol of their innocence; and the tumultuous
concourse of an innumerable people. But the zeal of Antioch was
diverted, since the reign of Christianity, into a different
channel. Instead of hecatombs of fat oxen sacrificed by the
tribes of a wealthy city to their tutelar deity the emperor
complains that he found only a single goose, provided at the
expense of a priest, the pale and solitary inhabitant of this
decayed temple. 111 The altar was deserted, the oracle had been
reduced to silence, and the holy ground was profaned by the
introduction of Christian and funereal rites. After Babylas 112
(a bishop of Antioch, who died in prison in the persecution of
Decius) had rested near a century in his grave, his body, by the
order of Cæsar Gallus, was transported into the midst of the
grove of Daphne. A magnificent church was erected over his
remains; a portion of the sacred lands was usurped for the
maintenance of the clergy, and for the burial of the Christians
at Antioch, who were ambitious of lying at the feet of their
bishop; and the priests of Apollo retired, with their affrighted
and indignant votaries. As soon as another revolution seemed to
restore the fortune of Paganism, the church of St. Babylas was
demolished, and new buildings were added to the mouldering
edifice which had been raised by the piety of Syrian kings. But
the first and most serious care of Julian was to deliver his
oppressed deity from the odious presence of the dead and living
Christians, who had so effectually suppressed the voice of fraud
or enthusiasm. 113 The scene of infection was purified, according
to the forms of ancient rituals; the bodies were decently
removed; and the ministers of the church were permitted to convey
the remains of St. Babylas to their former habitation within the
walls of Antioch. The modest behavior which might have assuaged
the jealousy of a hostile government was neglected, on this
occasion, by the zeal of the Christians. The lofty car, that
transported the relics of Babylas, was followed, and accompanied,
and received, by an innumerable multitude; who chanted, with
thundering acclamations, the Psalms of David the most expressive
of their contempt for idols and idolaters. The return of the
saint was a triumph; and the triumph was an insult on the
religion of the emperor, who exerted his pride to dissemble his
resentment. During the night which terminated this indiscreet
procession, the temple of Daphne was in flames; the statue of
Apollo was consumed; and the walls of the edifice were left a
naked and awful monument of ruin. The Christians of Antioch
asserted, with religious confidence, that the powerful
intercession of St. Babylas had pointed the lightnings of heaven
against the devoted roof: but as Julian was reduced to the
alternative of believing either a crime or a miracle, he chose,
without hesitation, without evidence, but with some color of
probability, to impute the fire of Daphne to the revenge of the
Galilæans. 114 Their offence, had it been sufficiently proved,
might have justified the retaliation, which was immediately
executed by the order of Julian, of shutting the doors, and
confiscating the wealth, of the cathedral of Antioch. To discover
the criminals who were guilty of the tumult, of the fire, or of
secreting the riches of the church, several of the ecclesiastics
were tortured; 115 and a Presbyter, of the name of Theodoret, was
beheaded by the sentence of the Count of the East. But this hasty
act was blamed by the emperor; who lamented, with real or
affected concern, that the imprudent zeal of his ministers would
tarnish his reign with the disgrace of persecution. 116
111 (return) [ Julian (Misopogon, p. 367, 362) discovers his own
character with _naïveté_, that unconscious simplicity which
always constitutes genuine humor.]
112 (return) [ Babylas is named by Eusebius in the succession of
the bishops of Antioch, (Hist. Eccles. l. vi. c. 29, 39.) His
triumph over two emperors (the first fabulous, the second
historical) is diffusely celebrated by Chrysostom, (tom. ii. p.
536-579, edit. Montfaucon.) Tillemont (Mém. Eccles. tom. iii.
part ii. p. 287-302, 459-465) becomes almost a sceptic.]
113 (return) [ Ecclesiastical critics, particularly those who
love relics, exult in the confession of Julian (Misopogon, p.
361) and Libanius, (Lænia, p. 185,) that Apollo was disturbed by
the vicinity of _one_ dead man. Yet Ammianus (xxii. 12) clears
and purifies the whole ground, according to the rites which the
Athenians formerly practised in the Isle of Delos.]
114 (return) [ Julian (in Misopogon, p. 361) rather insinuates,
than affirms, their guilt. Ammianus (xxii. 13) treats the
imputation as _levissimus rumor_, and relates the story with
extraordinary candor.]
115 (return) [ Quo tam atroci casu repente consumpto, ad id usque
e imperatoris ira provexit, ut quæstiones agitare juberet solito
acriores, (yet Julian blames the lenity of the magistrates of
Antioch,) et majorem ecclesiam Antiochiæ claudi. This
interdiction was performed with some circumstances of indignity
and profanation; and the seasonable death of the principal actor,
Julian’s uncle, is related with much superstitious complacency by
the Abbé de la Bleterie. Vie de Julien, p. 362-369.]
116 (return) [ Besides the ecclesiastical historians, who are
more or less to be suspected, we may allege the passion of St.
Theodore, in the Acta Sincera of Ruinart, p. 591. The complaint
of Julian gives it an original and authentic air.]
Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part V.
The zeal of the ministers of Julian was instantly checked by the
frown of their sovereign; but when the father of his country
declares himself the leader of a faction, the license of popular
fury cannot easily be restrained, nor consistently punished.
Julian, in a public composition, applauds the devotion and
loyalty of the holy cities of Syria, whose pious inhabitants had
destroyed, at the first signal, the sepulchres of the Galilæans;
and faintly complains, that they had revenged the injuries of the
gods with less moderation than he should have recommended. 117
This imperfect and reluctant confession may appear to confirm the
ecclesiastical narratives; that in the cities of Gaza, Ascalon,
Cæsarea, Heliopolis, &c., the Pagans abused, without prudence or
remorse, the moment of their prosperity. That the unhappy objects
of their cruelty were released from torture only by death; and as
their mangled bodies were dragged through the streets, they were
pierced (such was the universal rage) by the spits of cooks, and
the distaffs of enraged women; and that the entrails of Christian
priests and virgins, after they had been tasted by those bloody
fanatics, were mixed with barley, and contemptuously thrown to
the unclean animals of the city. 118 Such scenes of religious
madness exhibit the most contemptible and odious picture of human
nature; but the massacre of Alexandria attracts still more
attention, from the certainty of the fact, the rank of the
victims, and the splendor of the capital of Egypt.
117 (return) [ Julian. Misopogon, p. 361.]
118 (return) [ See Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iii. p. 87.) Sozomen
(l. v. c. 9) may be considered as an original, though not
impartial, witness. He was a native of Gaza, and had conversed
with the confessor Zeno, who, as bishop of Maiuma, lived to the
age of a hundred, (l. vii. c. 28.) Philostorgius (l. vii. c. 4,
with Godefroy’s Dissertations, p. 284) adds some tragic
circumstances, of Christians who were _literally_ sacrificed at
the altars of the gods, &c.]
George, 119 from his parents or his education, surnamed the
Cappadocian, was born at Epiphania in Cilicia, in a fuller’s
shop. From this obscure and servile origin he raised himself by
the talents of a parasite; and the patrons, whom he assiduously
flattered, procured for their worthless dependent a lucrative
commission, or contract, to supply the army with bacon. His
employment was mean; he rendered it infamous. He accumulated
wealth by the basest arts of fraud and corruption; but his
malversations were so notorious, that George was compelled to
escape from the pursuits of justice. After this disgrace, in
which he appears to have saved his fortune at the expense of his
honor, he embraced, with real or affected zeal, the profession of
Arianism. From the love, or the ostentation, of learning, he
collected a valuable library of history rhetoric, philosophy, and
theology, 120 and the choice of the prevailing faction promoted
George of Cappadocia to the throne of Athanasius. The entrance of
the new archbishop was that of a Barbarian conqueror; and each
moment of his reign was polluted by cruelty and avarice. The
Catholics of Alexandria and Egypt were abandoned to a tyrant,
qualified, by nature and education, to exercise the office of
persecution; but he oppressed with an impartial hand the various
inhabitants of his extensive diocese. The primate of Egypt
assumed the pomp and insolence of his lofty station; but he still
betrayed the vices of his base and servile extraction. The
merchants of Alexandria were impoverished by the unjust, and
almost universal, monopoly, which he acquired, of nitre, salt,
paper, funerals, &c.: and the spiritual father of a great people
condescended to practise the vile and pernicious arts of an
informer. The Alexandrians could never forget, nor forgive, the
tax, which he suggested, on all the houses of the city; under an
obsolete claim, that the royal founder had conveyed to his
successors, the Ptolemies and the Cæsars, the perpetual property
of the soil. The Pagans, who had been flattered with the hopes of
freedom and toleration, excited his devout avarice; and the rich
temples of Alexandria were either pillaged or insulted by the
haughty prince, who exclaimed, in a loud and threatening tone,
“How long will these sepulchres be permitted to stand?” Under the
reign of Constantius, he was expelled by the fury, or rather by
the justice, of the people; and it was not without a violent
struggle, that the civil and military powers of the state could
restore his authority, and gratify his revenge. The messenger who
proclaimed at Alexandria the accession of Julian, announced the
downfall of the archbishop. George, with two of his obsequious
ministers, Count Diodorus, and Dracontius, master of the mint
were ignominiously dragged in chains to the public prison. At the
end of twenty-four days, the prison was forced open by the rage
of a superstitious multitude, impatient of the tedious forms of
judicial proceedings. The enemies of gods and men expired under
their cruel insults; the lifeless bodies of the archbishop and
his associates were carried in triumph through the streets on the
back of a camel; 12011 and the inactivity of the Athanasian party
121 was esteemed a shining example of evangelical patience. The
remains of these guilty wretches were thrown into the sea; and
the popular leaders of the tumult declared their resolution to
disappoint the devotion of the Christians, and to intercept the
future honors of these _martyrs_, who had been punished, like
their predecessors, by the enemies of their religion. 122 The
fears of the Pagans were just, and their precautions ineffectual.
The meritorious death of the archbishop obliterated the memory of
his life. The rival of Athanasius was dear and sacred to the
Arians, and the seeming conversion of those sectaries introduced
his worship into the bosom of the Catholic church. 123 The odious
stranger, disguising every circumstance of time and place,
assumed the mask of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero; 124
and the infamous George of Cappadocia has been transformed 125
into the renowned St. George of England, the patron of arms, of
chivalry, and of the garter. 126
119 (return) [ The life and death of George of Cappadocia are
described by Ammianus, (xxii. 11,) Gregory of Nazianzen, (Orat.
xxi. p. 382, 385, 389, 390,) and Epiphanius, (Hæres. lxxvi.) The
invectives of the two saints might not deserve much credit,
unless they were confirmed by the testimony of the cool and
impartial infidel.]
120 (return) [ After the massacre of George, the emperor Julian
repeatedly sent orders to preserve the library for his own use,
and to torture the slaves who might be suspected of secreting any
books. He praises the merit of the collection, from whence he had
borrowed and transcribed several manuscripts while he pursued his
studies in Cappadocia. He could wish, indeed, that the works of
the Galiæans might perish but he requires an exact account even
of those theological volumes lest other treatises more valuable
should be confounded in their less Julian. Epist. ix. xxxvi.]
12011 (return) [ Julian himself says, that they tore him to
pieces like dogs, Epist. x.—M.]
121 (return) [ Philostorgius, with cautious malice, insinuates
their guilt, l. vii. c. ii. Godefroy p. 267.]
122 (return) [ Cineres projecit in mare, id metuens ut clamabat,
ne, collectis supremis, ædes illis exstruerentur ut reliquis, qui
deviare a religione compulsi, pertulere, cruciabiles pœnas,
adusque gloriosam mortem intemeratâ fide progressi, et nunc
Martyres appellantur. Ammian. xxii. 11. Epiphanius proves to the
Arians, that George was not a martyr.]
123 (return) [ Some Donatists (Optatus Milev. p. 60, 303, edit.
Dupin; and Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 713, in 4to.) and
Priscillianists (Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 517, in
4to.) have in like manner usurped the honors of the Catholic
saints and martyrs.]
124 (return) [ The saints of Cappadocia, Basil, and the
Gregories, were ignorant of their holy companion. Pope Gelasius,
(A. D. 494,) the first Catholic who acknowledges St. George,
places him among the martyrs “qui Deo magis quam hominibus noti
sunt.” He rejects his Acts as the composition of heretics. Some,
perhaps, not the oldest, of the spurious Acts, are still extant;
and, through a cloud of fiction, we may yet distinguish the
combat which St. George of Cappadocia sustained, in the presence
of Queen _Alexandria_, against the _magician Athanasius_.]
125 (return) [ This transformation is not given as absolutely
certain, but as _extremely_ probable. See the Longueruana, tom.
i. p. 194. ——Note: The late Dr. Milner (the Roman Catholic
bishop) wrote a tract to vindicate the existence and the
orthodoxy of the tutelar saint of England. He succeeds, I think,
in tracing the worship of St. George up to a period which makes
it improbable that so notorious an Arian could be palmed upon the
Catholic church as a saint and a martyr. The Acts rejected by
Gelasius may have been of Arian origin, and designed to ingraft
the story of their hero on the obscure adventures of some earlier
saint. See an Historical and Critical Inquiry into the Existence
and Character of Saint George, in a letter to the Earl of
Leicester, by the Rev. J. Milner. F. S. A. London 1792.—M.]
126 (return) [ A curious history of the worship of St. George,
from the sixth century, (when he was already revered in
Palestine, in Armenia at Rome, and at Treves in Gaul,) might be
extracted from Dr. Heylin (History of St. George, 2d edition,
London, 1633, in 4to. p. 429) and the Bollandists, (Act. Ss.
Mens. April. tom. iii. p. 100-163.) His fame and popularity in
Europe, and especially in England, proceeded from the Crusades.]
About the same time that Julian was informed of the tumult of
Alexandria, he received intelligence from Edessa, that the proud
and wealthy faction of the Arians had insulted the weakness of
the Valentinians, and committed such disorders as ought not to be
suffered with impunity in a well-regulated state. Without
expecting the slow forms of justice, the exasperated prince
directed his mandate to the magistrates of Edessa, 127 by which
he confiscated the whole property of the church: the money was
distributed among the soldiers; the lands were added to the
domain; and this act of oppression was aggravated by the most
ungenerous irony. “I show myself,” says Julian, “the true friend
of the Galilæans. Their _admirable_ law has promised the kingdom
of heaven to the poor; and they will advance with more diligence
in the paths of virtue and salvation, when they are relieved by
my assistance from the load of temporal possessions. Take care,”
pursued the monarch, in a more serious tone, “take care how you
provoke my patience and humanity. If these disorders continue, I
will revenge on the magistrates the crimes of the people; and you
will have reason to dread, not only confiscation and exile, but
fire and the sword.” The tumults of Alexandria were doubtless of
a more bloody and dangerous nature: but a Christian bishop had
fallen by the hands of the Pagans; and the public epistle of
Julian affords a very lively proof of the partial spirit of his
administration. His reproaches to the citizens of Alexandria are
mingled with expressions of esteem and tenderness; and he
laments, that, on this occasion, they should have departed from
the gentle and generous manners which attested their Grecian
extraction. He gravely censures the offence which they had
committed against the laws of justice and humanity; but he
recapitulates, with visible complacency, the intolerable
provocations which they had so long endured from the impious
tyranny of George of Cappadocia. Julian admits the principle,
that a wise and vigorous government should chastise the insolence
of the people; yet, in consideration of their founder Alexander,
and of Serapis their tutelar deity, he grants a free and gracious
pardon to the guilty city, for which he again feels the affection
of a brother. 128
127 (return) [ Julian. Epist. xliii.]
128 (return) [ Julian. Epist. x. He allowed his friends to
assuage his anger Ammian. xxii. 11.]
After the tumult of Alexandria had subsided, Athanasius, amidst
the public acclamations, seated himself on the throne from whence
his unworthy competitor had been precipitated: and as the zeal of
the archbishop was tempered with discretion, the exercise of his
authority tended not to inflame, but to reconcile, the minds of
the people. His pastoral labors were not confined to the narrow
limits of Egypt. The state of the Christian world was present to
his active and capacious mind; and the age, the merit, the
reputation of Athanasius, enabled him to assume, in a moment of
danger, the office of Ecclesiastical Dictator. 129 Three years
were not yet elapsed since the majority of the bishops of the
West had ignorantly, or reluctantly, subscribed the Confession of
Rimini. They repented, they believed, but they dreaded the
unseasonable rigor of their orthodox brethren; and if their pride
was stronger than their faith, they might throw themselves into
the arms of the Arians, to escape the indignity of a public
penance, which must degrade them to the condition of obscure
laymen. At the same time the domestic differences concerning the
union and distinction of the divine persons, were agitated with
some heat among the Catholic doctors; and the progress of this
metaphysical controversy seemed to threaten a public and lasting
division of the Greek and Latin churches. By the wisdom of a
select synod, to which the name and presence of Athanasius gave
the authority of a general council, the bishops, who had unwarily
deviated into error, were admitted to the communion of the
church, on the easy condition of subscribing the Nicene Creed;
without any formal acknowledgment of their past fault, or any
minute definition of their scholastic opinions. The advice of the
primate of Egypt had already prepared the clergy of Gaul and
Spain, of Italy and Greece, for the reception of this salutary
measure; and, notwithstanding the opposition of some ardent
spirits, 130 the fear of the common enemy promoted the peace and
harmony of the Christians. 131
129 (return) [ See Athanas. ad Rufin. tom. ii. p. 40, 41, and
Greg. Nazianzen Orat. iii. p. 395, 396; who justly states the
temperate zeal of the primate, as much more meritorious than his
prayers, his fasts, his persecutions, &c.]
130 (return) [ I have not leisure to follow the blind obstinacy
of Lucifer of Cagliari. See his adventures in Tillemont, (Mém.
Eccles. tom. vii. p. 900-926;) and observe how the color of the
narrative insensibly changes, as the confessor becomes a
schismatic.]
131 (return) [ Assensus est huic sententiæ Occidens, et, per tam
necessarium conilium, Satanæ faucibus mundus ereptus. The lively
and artful dialogue of Jerom against the Luciferians (tom. ii. p.
135-155) exhibits an original picture of the ecclesiastical
policy of the times.]
The skill and diligence of the primate of Egypt had improved the
season of tranquillity, before it was interrupted by the hostile
edicts of the emperor. 132 Julian, who despised the Christians,
honored Athanasius with his sincere and peculiar hatred. For his
sake alone, he introduced an arbitrary distinction, repugnant at
least to the spirit of his former declarations. He maintained,
that the Galilæans, whom he had recalled from exile, were not
restored, by that general indulgence, to the possession of their
respective churches; and he expressed his astonishment, that a
criminal, who had been repeatedly condemned by the judgment of
the emperors, should dare to insult the majesty of the laws, and
insolently usurp the archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria, without
expecting the orders of his sovereign. As a punishment for the
imaginary offence, he again banished Athanasius from the city;
and he was pleased to suppose, that this act of justice would be
highly agreeable to his pious subjects. The pressing
solicitations of the people soon convinced him, that the majority
of the Alexandrians were Christians; and that the greatest part
of the Christians were firmly attached to the cause of their
oppressed primate. But the knowledge of their sentiments, instead
of persuading him to recall his decree, provoked him to extend to
all Egypt the term of the exile of Athanasius. The zeal of the
multitude rendered Julian still more inexorable: he was alarmed
by the danger of leaving at the head of a tumultuous city, a
daring and popular leader; and the language of his resentment
discovers the opinion which he entertained of the courage and
abilities of Athanasius. The execution of the sentence was still
delayed, by the caution or negligence of Ecdicius, præfect of
Egypt, who was at length awakened from his lethargy by a severe
reprimand. “Though you neglect,” says Julian, “to write to me on
any other subject, at least it is your duty to inform me of your
conduct towards Athanasius, the enemy of the gods. My intentions
have been long since communicated to you. I swear by the great
Serapis, that unless, on the calends of December, Athanasius has
departed from Alexandria, nay, from Egypt, the officers of your
government shall pay a fine of one hundred pounds of gold. You
know my temper: I am slow to condemn, but I am still slower to
forgive.” This epistle was enforced by a short postscript,
written with the emperor’s own hand. “The contempt that is shown
for all the gods fills me with grief and indignation. There is
nothing that I should see, nothing that I should hear, with more
pleasure, than the expulsion of Athanasius from all Egypt. The
abominable wretch! Under my reign, the baptism of several Grecian
ladies of the highest rank has been the effect of his
persecutions.” 133 The death of Athanasius was not _expressly_
commanded; but the præfect of Egypt understood that it was safer
for him to exceed, than to neglect, the orders of an irritated
master. The archbishop prudently retired to the monasteries of
the Desert; eluded, with his usual dexterity, the snares of the
enemy; and lived to triumph over the ashes of a prince, who, in
words of formidable import, had declared his wish that the whole
venom of the Galilæan school were contained in the single person
of Athanasius. 134 13411
132 (return) [ Tillemont, who supposes that George was massacred
in August crowds the actions of Athanasius into a narrow space,
(Mém. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 360.) An original fragment, published
by the Marquis Maffei, from the old Chapter library of Verona,
(Osservazioni Letterarie, tom. iii. p. 60-92,) affords many
important dates, which are authenticated by the computation of
Egyptian months.]
133 (return) [ I have preserved the ambiguous sense of the last
word, the ambiguity of a tyrant who wished to find, or to create,
guilt.]
134 (return) [ The three epistles of Julian, which explain his
intentions and conduct with regard to Athanasius, should be
disposed in the following chronological order, xxvi. x. vi. * See
likewise, Greg. Nazianzen xxi. p. 393. Sozomen, l. v. c. 15.
Socrates, l. iii. c. 14. Theodoret, l iii. c. 9, and Tillemont,
Mém. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 361-368, who has used some materials
prepared by the Bollandists.]
13411 (return) [ The sentence in the text is from Epist. li.
addressed to the people of Alexandria.—M.]
I have endeavored faithfully to represent the artful system by
which Julian proposed to obtain the effects, without incurring
the guilt, or reproach, of persecution. But if the deadly spirit
of fanaticism perverted the heart and understanding of a virtuous
prince, it must, at the same time, be confessed that the _real_
sufferings of the Christians were inflamed and magnified by human
passions and religious enthusiasm. The meekness and resignation
which had distinguished the primitive disciples of the gospel,
was the object of the applause, rather than of the imitation of
their successors. The Christians, who had now possessed above
forty years the civil and ecclesiastical government of the
empire, had contracted the insolent vices of prosperity, 135 and
the habit of believing that the saints alone were entitled to
reign over the earth. As soon as the enmity of Julian deprived
the clergy of the privileges which had been conferred by the
favor of Constantine, they complained of the most cruel
oppression; and the free toleration of idolaters and heretics was
a subject of grief and scandal to the orthodox party. 136 The
acts of violence, which were no longer countenanced by the
magistrates, were still committed by the zeal of the people. At
Pessinus, the altar of Cybele was overturned almost in the
presence of the emperor; and in the city of Cæsarea in
Cappadocia, the temple of Fortune, the sole place of worship
which had been left to the Pagans, was destroyed by the rage of a
popular tumult. On these occasions, a prince, who felt for the
honor of the gods, was not disposed to interrupt the course of
justice; and his mind was still more deeply exasperated, when he
found that the fanatics, who had deserved and suffered the
punishment of incendiaries, were rewarded with the honors of
martyrdom. 137 The Christian subjects of Julian were assured of
the hostile designs of their sovereign; and, to their jealous
apprehension, every circumstance of his government might afford
some grounds of discontent and suspicion. In the ordinary
administration of the laws, the Christians, who formed so large a
part of the people, must frequently be condemned: but their
indulgent brethren, without examining the merits of the cause,
presumed their innocence, allowed their claims, and imputed the
severity of their judge to the partial malice of religious
persecution. 138 These present hardships, intolerable as they
might appear, were represented as a slight prelude of the
impending calamities. The Christians considered Julian as a cruel
and crafty tyrant; who suspended the execution of his revenge
till he should return victorious from the Persian war. They
expected, that as soon as he had triumphed over the foreign
enemies of Rome, he would lay aside the irksome mask of
dissimulation; that the amphitheatre would stream with the blood
of hermits and bishops; and that the Christians who still
persevered in the profession of the faith, would be deprived of
the common benefits of nature and society. 139 Every calumny 140
that could wound the reputation of the Apostate, was credulously
embraced by the fears and hatred of his adversaries; and their
indiscreet clamors provoked the temper of a sovereign, whom it
was their duty to respect, and their interest to flatter.
They still protested, that prayers and tears were their only
weapons against the impious tyrant, whose head they devoted to
the justice of offended Heaven. But they insinuated, with sullen
resolution, that their submission was no longer the effect of
weakness; and that, in the imperfect state of human virtue, the
patience, which is founded on principle, may be exhausted by
persecution. It is impossible to determine how far the zeal of
Julian would have prevailed over his good sense and humanity; but
if we seriously reflect on the strength and spirit of the church,
we shall be convinced, that before the emperor could have
extinguished the religion of Christ, he must have involved his
country in the horrors of a civil war. 141
135 (return) [ See the fair confession of Gregory, (Orat. iii. p.
61, 62.)]
136 (return) [ Hear the furious and absurd complaint of Optatus,
(de Schismat Denatist. l. ii. c. 16, 17.)]
137 (return) [ Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 91, iv. p. 133. He
praises the rioters of Cæsarea. See Sozomen, l. v. 4, 11.
Tillemont (Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 649, 650) owns, that their
behavior was not dans l’ordre commun: but he is perfectly
satisfied, as the great St. Basil always celebrated the festival
of these blessed martyrs.]
138 (return) [ Julian determined a lawsuit against the new
Christian city at Maiuma, the port of Gaza; and his sentence,
though it might be imputed to bigotry, was never reversed by his
successors. Sozomen, l. v. c. 3. Reland, Palestin. tom. ii. p.
791.]
139 (return) [ Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 93, 94, 95. Orat. iv. p.
114) pretends to speak from the information of Julian’s
confidants, whom Orosius (vii. 30) could not have seen.]
140 (return) [ Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 91) charges the Apostate
with secret sacrifices of boys and girls; and positively affirms,
that the dead bodies were thrown into the Orontes. See Theodoret,
l. iii. c. 26, 27; and the equivocal candor of the Abbé de la
Bleterie, Vie de Julien, p. 351, 352. Yet _contemporary_ malice
could not impute to Julian the troops of martyrs, more especially
in the West, which Baronius so greedily swallows, and Tillemont
so faintly rejects, (Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 1295-1315.)]
141 (return) [ The resignation of Gregory is truly edifying,
(Orat. iv. p. 123, 124.) Yet, when an officer of Julian attempted
to seize the church of Nazianzus, he would have lost his life, if
he had not yielded to the zeal of the bishop and people, (Orat.
xix. p. 308.) See the reflections of Chrysostom, as they are
alleged by Tillemont, (Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 575.)]
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part I.
Residence Of Julian At Antioch.—His Successful Expedition Against
The Persians.—Passage Of The Tigris—The Retreat And Death Of
Julian.—Election Of Jovian.—He Saves The Roman Army By A
Disgraceful Treaty.
The philosophical fable which Julian composed under the name of
the Cæsars, 1 is one of the most agreeable and instructive
productions of ancient wit. 2 During the freedom and equality of
the days of the Saturnalia, Romulus prepared a feast for the
deities of Olympus, who had adopted him as a worthy associate,
and for the Roman princes, who had reigned over his martial
people, and the vanquished nations of the earth. The immortals
were placed in just order on their thrones of state, and the
table of the Cæsars was spread below the Moon in the upper region
of the air. The tyrants, who would have disgraced the society of
gods and men, were thrown headlong, by the inexorable Nemesis,
into the Tartarean abyss. The rest of the Cæsars successively
advanced to their seats; and as they passed, the vices, the
defects, the blemishes of their respective characters, were
maliciously noticed by old Silenus, a laughing moralist, who
disguised the wisdom of a philosopher under the mask of a
Bacchanal. 3 As soon as the feast was ended, the voice of Mercury
proclaimed the will of Jupiter, that a celestial crown should be
the reward of superior merit. Julius Cæsar, Augustus, Trajan, and
Marcus Antoninus, were selected as the most illustrious
candidates; the effeminate Constantine 4 was not excluded from
this honorable competition, and the great Alexander was invited
to dispute the prize of glory with the Roman heroes. Each of the
candidates was allowed to display the merit of his own exploits;
but, in the judgment of the gods, the modest silence of Marcus
pleaded more powerfully than the elaborate orations of his
haughty rivals. When the judges of this awful contest proceeded
to examine the heart, and to scrutinize the springs of action,
the superiority of the Imperial Stoic appeared still more
decisive and conspicuous. 5 Alexander and Cæsar, Augustus,
Trajan, and Constantine, acknowledged, with a blush, that fame,
or power, or pleasure had been the important object of _their_
labors: but the gods themselves beheld, with reverence and love,
a virtuous mortal, who had practised on the throne the lessons of
philosophy; and who, in a state of human imperfection, had
aspired to imitate the moral attributes of the Deity. The value
of this agreeable composition (the Cæsars of Julian) is enhanced
by the rank of the author. A prince, who delineates, with
freedom, the vices and virtues of his predecessors, subscribes,
in every line, the censure or approbation of his own conduct.
1 (return) [ See this fable or satire, p. 306-336 of the Leipsig
edition of Julian’s works. The French version of the learned
Ezekiel Spanheim (Paris, 1683) is coarse, languid, and correct;
and his notes, proofs, illustrations, &c., are piled on each
other till they form a mass of 557 close-printed quarto pages.
The Abbé’ de la Bleterie (Vie de Jovien, tom. i. p. 241-393) has
more happily expressed the spirit, as well as the sense, of the
original, which he illustrates with some concise and curious
notes.]
2 (return) [ Spanheim (in his preface) has most learnedly
discussed the etymology, origin, resemblance, and disagreement of
the Greek _satyrs_, a dramatic piece, which was acted after the
tragedy; and the Latin _satires_, (from _Satura_,) a
_miscellaneous_ composition, either in prose or verse. But the
Cæsars of Julian are of such an original cast, that the critic is
perplexed to which class he should ascribe them. * Note: See also
Casaubon de Satira, with Rambach’s observations.—M.]
3 (return) [ This mixed character of Silenus is finely painted in
the sixth eclogue of Virgil.]
4 (return) [ Every impartial reader must perceive and condemn the
partiality of Julian against his uncle Constantine, and the
Christian religion. On this occasion, the interpreters are
compelled, by a most sacred interest, to renounce their
allegiance, and to desert the cause of their author.]
5 (return) [ Julian was secretly inclined to prefer a Greek to a
Roman. But when he seriously compared a hero with a philosopher,
he was sensible that mankind had much greater obligations to
Socrates than to Alexander, (Orat. ad Themistium, p. 264.)]
In the cool moments of reflection, Julian preferred the useful
and benevolent virtues of Antoninus; but his ambitious spirit was
inflamed by the glory of Alexander; and he solicited, with equal
ardor, the esteem of the wise, and the applause of the multitude.
In the season of life when the powers of the mind and body enjoy
the most active vigor, the emperor who was instructed by the
experience, and animated by the success, of the German war,
resolved to signalize his reign by some more splendid and
memorable achievement. The ambassadors of the East, from the
continent of India, and the Isle of Ceylon, 6 had respectfully
saluted the Roman purple. 7 The nations of the West esteemed and
dreaded the personal virtues of Julian, both in peace and war. He
despised the trophies of a Gothic victory, and was satisfied that
the rapacious Barbarians of the Danube would be restrained from
any future violation of the faith of treaties by the terror of
his name, and the additional fortifications with which he
strengthened the Thracian and Illyrian frontiers. The successor
of Cyrus and Artaxerxes was the only rival whom he deemed worthy
of his arms; and he resolved, by the final conquest of Persia, to
chastise the naughty nation which had so long resisted and
insulted the majesty of Rome. 9 As soon as the Persian monarch
was informed that the throne of Constantius was filled by a
prince of a very different character, he condescended to make
some artful, or perhaps sincere, overtures towards a negotiation
of peace. But the pride of Sapor was astonished by the firmness
of Julian; who sternly declared, that he would never consent to
hold a peaceful conference among the flames and ruins of the
cities of Mesopotamia; and who added, with a smile of contempt,
that it was needless to treat by ambassadors, as he himself had
determined to visit speedily the court of Persia. The impatience
of the emperor urged the diligence of the military preparations.
The generals were named; and Julian, marching from Constantinople
through the provinces of Asia Minor, arrived at Antioch about
eight months after the death of his predecessor. His ardent
desire to march into the heart of Persia, was checked by the
indispensable duty of regulating the state of the empire; by his
zeal to revive the worship of the gods; and by the advice of his
wisest friends; who represented the necessity of allowing the
salutary interval of winter quarters, to restore the exhausted
strength of the legions of Gaul, and the discipline and spirit of
the Eastern troops. Julian was persuaded to fix, till the ensuing
spring, his residence at Antioch, among a people maliciously
disposed to deride the haste, and to censure the delays, of their
sovereign. 10
6 (return) [ Inde nationibus Indicis certatim cum aonis optimates
mittentibus.... ab usque Divis et _Serendivis_. Ammian. xx. 7.
This island, to which the names of Taprobana, Serendib, and
Ceylon, have been successively applied, manifests how imperfectly
the seas and lands to the east of Cape Comorin were known to the
Romans. 1. Under the reign of Claudius, a freedman, who farmed
the customs of the Red Sea, was accidentally driven by the winds
upon this strange and undiscovered coast: he conversed six months
with the natives; and the king of Ceylon, who heard, for the
first time, of the power and justice of Rome, was persuaded to
send an embassy to the emperor. (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 24.) 2. The
geographers (and even Ptolemy) have magnified, above fifteen
times, the real size of this new world, which they extended as
far as the equator, and the neighborhood of China. * Note: The
name of Diva gens or Divorum regio, according to the probable
conjecture of M. Letronne, (Trois Mém. Acad. p. 127,) was applied
by the ancients to the whole eastern coast of the Indian
Peninsula, from Ceylon to the Canges. The name may be traced in
Devipatnam, Devidan, Devicotta, Divinelly, the point of Divy.——M.
Letronne, p.121, considers the freedman with his embassy from
Ceylon to have been an impostor.—M.]
7 (return) [ These embassies had been sent to Constantius.
Ammianus, who unwarily deviates into gross flattery, must have
forgotten the length of the way, and the short duration of the
reign of Julian. ——Gothos sæpe fallaces et perfidos; hostes
quærere se meliores aiebat: illis enim sufficere mercators
Galatas per quos ubique sine conditionis discrimine venumdantur.
(Ammian. xxii. 7.) Within less than fifteen years, these Gothic
slaves threatened and subdued their masters.]
9 (return) [ Alexander reminds his rival Cæsar, who depreciated
the fame and merit of an Asiatic victory, that Crassus and Antony
had felt the Persian arrows; and that the Romans, in a war of
three hundred years, had not yet subdued the single province of
Mesopotamia or Assyria, (Cæsares, p. 324.)]
10 (return) [ The design of the Persian war is declared by
Ammianus, (xxii. 7, 12,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 79, 80, p.
305, 306,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 158,) and Socrates, (l. iii. c.
19.)]
If Julian had flattered himself, that his personal connection
with the capital of the East would be productive of mutual
satisfaction to the prince and people, he made a very false
estimate of his own character, and of the manners of Antioch. 11
The warmth of the climate disposed the natives to the most
intemperate enjoyment of tranquillity and opulence; and the
lively licentiousness of the Greeks was blended with the
hereditary softness of the Syrians. Fashion was the only law,
pleasure the only pursuit, and the splendor of dress and
furniture was the only distinction of the citizens of Antioch.
The arts of luxury were honored; the serious and manly virtues
were the subject of ridicule; and the contempt for female modesty
and reverent age announced the universal corruption of the
capital of the East. The love of spectacles was the taste, or
rather passion, of the Syrians; the most skilful artists were
procured from the adjacent cities; 12 a considerable share of the
revenue was devoted to the public amusements; and the
magnificence of the games of the theatre and circus was
considered as the happiness and as the glory of Antioch. The
rustic manners of a prince who disdained such glory, and was
insensible of such happiness, soon disgusted the delicacy of his
subjects; and the effeminate Orientals could neither imitate, nor
admire, the severe simplicity which Julian always maintained, and
sometimes affected. The days of festivity, consecrated, by
ancient custom, to the honor of the gods, were the only occasions
in which Julian relaxed his philosophic severity; and those
festivals were the only days in which the Syrians of Antioch
could reject the allurements of pleasure. The majority of the
people supported the glory of the Christian name, which had been
first invented by their ancestors: 13 they contended themselves
with disobeying the moral precepts, but they were scrupulously
attached to the speculative doctrines of their religion. The
church of Antioch was distracted by heresy and schism; but the
Arians and the Athanasians, the followers of Meletius and those
of Paulinus, 14 were actuated by the same pious hatred of their
common adversary.
11 (return) [ The Satire of Julian, and the Homilies of St.
Chrysostom, exhibit the same picture of Antioch. The miniature
which the Abbé de la Bleterie has copied from thence, (Vie de
Julian, p. 332,) is elegant and correct.]
12 (return) [ Laodicea furnished charioteers; Tyre and Berytus,
comedians; Cæsarea, pantomimes; Heliopolis, singers; Gaza,
gladiators, Ascalon, wrestlers; and Castabala, rope-dancers. See
the Expositio totius Mundi, p. 6, in the third tome of Hudson’s
Minor Geographers.]
13 (return) [ The people of Antioch ingenuously professed their
attachment to the _Chi_, (Christ,) and the _Kappa_,
(Constantius.) Julian in Misopogon, p. 357.]
14 (return) [ The schism of Antioch, which lasted eighty-five
years, (A. D. 330-415,) was inflamed, while Julian resided in
that city, by the indiscreet ordination of Paulinus. See
Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. iii. p. 803 of the quarto edition,
(Paris, 1701, &c,) which henceforward I shall quote.]
The strongest prejudice was entertained against the character of
an apostate, the enemy and successor of a prince who had engaged
the affections of a very numerous sect; and the removal of St.
Babylas excited an implacable opposition to the person of Julian.
His subjects complained, with superstitious indignation, that
famine had pursued the emperor’s steps from Constantinople to
Antioch; and the discontent of a hungry people was exasperated by
the injudicious attempt to relieve their distress. The inclemency
of the season had affected the harvests of Syria; and the price
of bread, 15 in the markets of Antioch, had naturally risen in
proportion to the scarcity of corn. But the fair and reasonable
proportion was soon violated by the rapacious arts of monopoly.
In this unequal contest, in which the produce of the land is
claimed by one party as his exclusive property, is used by
another as a lucrative object of trade, and is required by a
third for the daily and necessary support of life, all the
profits of the intermediate agents are accumulated on the head of
the defenceless customers. The hardships of their situation were
exaggerated and increased by their own impatience and anxiety;
and the apprehension of a scarcity gradually produced the
appearances of a famine. When the luxurious citizens of Antioch
complained of the high price of poultry and fish, Julian publicly
declared, that a frugal city ought to be satisfied with a regular
supply of wine, oil, and bread; but he acknowledged, that it was
the duty of a sovereign to provide for the subsistence of his
people. With this salutary view, the emperor ventured on a very
dangerous and doubtful step, of fixing, by legal authority, the
value of corn. He enacted, that, in a time of scarcity, it should
be sold at a price which had seldom been known in the most
plentiful years; and that his own example might strengthen his
laws, he sent into the market four hundred and twenty-two
thousand _modii_, or measures, which were drawn by his order from
the granaries of Hierapolis, of Chalcis, and even of Egypt. The
consequences might have been foreseen, and were soon felt. The
Imperial wheat was purchased by the rich merchants; the
proprietors of land, or of corn, withheld from the city the
accustomed supply; and the small quantities that appeared in the
market were secretly sold at an advanced and illegal price.
Julian still continued to applaud his own policy, treated the
complaints of the people as a vain and ungrateful murmur, and
convinced Antioch that he had inherited the obstinacy, though not
the cruelty, of his brother Gallus. 16 The remonstrances of the
municipal senate served only to exasperate his inflexible mind.
He was persuaded, perhaps with truth, that the senators of
Antioch who possessed lands, or were concerned in trade, had
themselves contributed to the calamities of their country; and he
imputed the disrespectful boldness which they assumed, to the
sense, not of public duty, but of private interest. The whole
body, consisting of two hundred of the most noble and wealthy
citizens, were sent, under a guard, from the palace to the
prison; and though they were permitted, before the close of
evening, to return to their respective houses, 17 the emperor
himself could not obtain the forgiveness which he had so easily
granted. The same grievances were still the subject of the same
complaints, which were industriously circulated by the wit and
levity of the Syrian Greeks. During the licentious days of the
Saturnalia, the streets of the city resounded with insolent
songs, which derided the laws, the religion, the personal
conduct, and even the _beard_, of the emperor; the spirit of
Antioch was manifested by the connivance of the magistrates, and
the applause of the multitude. 18 The disciple of Socrates was
too deeply affected by these popular insults; but the monarch,
endowed with a quick sensibility, and possessed of absolute
power, refused his passions the gratification of revenge. A
tyrant might have proscribed, without distinction, the lives and
fortunes of the citizens of Antioch; and the unwarlike Syrians
must have patiently submitted to the lust, the rapaciousness and
the cruelty, of the faithful legions of Gaul. A milder sentence
might have deprived the capital of the East of its honors and
privileges; and the courtiers, perhaps the subjects, of Julian,
would have applauded an act of justice, which asserted the
dignity of the supreme magistrate of the republic. 19 But instead
of abusing, or exerting, the authority of the state, to revenge
his personal injuries, Julian contented himself with an
inoffensive mode of retaliation, which it would be in the power
of few princes to employ. He had been insulted by satires and
libels; in his turn, he composed, under the title of the _Enemy
of the Beard_, an ironical confession of his own faults, and a
severe satire on the licentious and effeminate manners of
Antioch. This Imperial reply was publicly exposed before the
gates of the palace; and the Misopogon 20 still remains a
singular monument of the resentment, the wit, the humanity, and
the indiscretion of Julian. Though he affected to laugh, he could
not forgive. 21 His contempt was expressed, and his revenge might
be gratified, by the nomination of a governor 22 worthy only of
such subjects; and the emperor, forever renouncing the ungrateful
city, proclaimed his resolution to pass the ensuing winter at
Tarsus in Cilicia. 23
15 (return) [ Julian states three different proportions, of five,
ten, or fifteen _modii_ of wheat for one piece of gold, according
to the degrees of plenty and scarcity, (in Misopogon, p. 369.)
From this fact, and from some collateral examples, I conclude,
that under the successors of Constantine, the moderate price of
wheat was about thirty-two shillings the English quarter, which
is equal to the average price of the sixty-four first years of
the present century. See Arbuthnot’s Tables of Coins, Weights,
and Measures, p. 88, 89. Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 12. Mém. de
l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 718-721. Smith’s
Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, vol.
i. p 246. This last I am proud to quote as the work of a sage and
a friend.]
16 (return) [ Nunquam a proposito declinabat, Galli similis
fratris, licet incruentus. Ammian. xxii. 14. The ignorance of the
most enlightened princes may claim some excuse; but we cannot be
satisfied with Julian’s own defence, (in Misopogon, p. 363, 369,)
or the elaborate apology of Libanius, (Orat. Parental c. xcvii.
p. 321.)]
17 (return) [ Their short and easy confinement is gently touched
by Libanius, (Orat. Parental. c. xcviii. p. 322, 323.)]
18 (return) [ Libanius, (ad Antiochenos de Imperatoris ira, c.
17, 18, 19, in Fabricius, Bibliot. Græc. tom. vii. p. 221-223,)
like a skilful advocate, severely censures the folly of the
people, who suffered for the crime of a few obscure and drunken
wretches.]
19 (return) [ Libanius (ad Antiochen. c. vii. p. 213) reminds
Antioch of the recent chastisement of Cæsarea; and even Julian
(in Misopogon, p. 355) insinuates how severely Tarentum had
expiated the insult to the Roman ambassadors.]
20 (return) [ On the subject of the Misopogon, see Ammianus,
(xxii. 14,) Libanius, (Orat. Parentalis, c. xcix. p. 323,)
Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 133) and the Chronicle of
Antioch, by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 15, 16.) I have essential
obligations to the translation and notes of the Abbé de la
Bleterie, (Vie de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 1-138.)]
21 (return) [ Ammianus very justly remarks, Coactus dissimulare
pro tempore ira sufflabatur interna. The elaborate irony of
Julian at length bursts forth into serious and direct invective.]
22 (return) [ Ipse autem Antiochiam egressurus, Heliopoliten
quendam Alexandrum Syriacæ jurisdictioni præfecit, turbulentum et
sævum; dicebatque non illum meruisse, sed Antiochensibus avaris
et contumeliosis hujusmodi judicem convenire. Ammian. xxiii. 2.
Libanius, (Epist. 722, p. 346, 347,) who confesses to Julian
himself, that he had shared the general discontent, pretends that
Alexander was a useful, though harsh, reformer of the manners and
religion of Antioch.]
23 (return) [ Julian, in Misopogon, p. 364. Ammian. xxiii. 2, and
Valesius, ad loc. Libanius, in a professed oration, invites him
to return to his loyal and penitent city of Antioch.]
Yet Antioch possessed one citizen, whose genius and virtues might
atone, in the opinion of Julian, for the vice and folly of his
country. The sophist Libanius was born in the capital of the
East; he publicly professed the arts of rhetoric and declamation
at Nice, Nicomedia, Constantinople, Athens, and, during the
remainder of his life, at Antioch. His school was assiduously
frequented by the Grecian youth; his disciples, who sometimes
exceeded the number of eighty, celebrated their incomparable
master; and the jealousy of his rivals, who persecuted him from
one city to another, confirmed the favorable opinion which
Libanius ostentatiously displayed of his superior merit. The
preceptors of Julian had extorted a rash but solemn assurance,
that he would never attend the lectures of their adversary: the
curiosity of the royal youth was checked and inflamed: he
secretly procured the writings of this dangerous sophist, and
gradually surpassed, in the perfect imitation of his style, the
most laborious of his domestic pupils. 24 When Julian ascended
the throne, he declared his impatience to embrace and reward the
Syrian sophist, who had preserved, in a degenerate age, the
Grecian purity of taste, of manners, and of religion. The
emperor’s prepossession was increased and justified by the
discreet pride of his favorite. Instead of pressing, with the
foremost of the crowd, into the palace of Constantinople,
Libanius calmly expected his arrival at Antioch; withdrew from
court on the first symptoms of coldness and indifference;
required a formal invitation for each visit; and taught his
sovereign an important lesson, that he might command the
obedience of a subject, but that he must deserve the attachment
of a friend. The sophists of every age, despising, or affecting
to despise, the accidental distinctions of birth and fortune, 25
reserve their esteem for the superior qualities of the mind, with
which they themselves are so plentifully endowed. Julian might
disdain the acclamations of a venal court, who adored the
Imperial purple; but he was deeply flattered by the praise, the
admonition, the freedom, and the envy of an independent
philosopher, who refused his favors, loved his person, celebrated
his fame, and protected his memory. The voluminous writings of
Libanius still exist; for the most part, they are the vain and
idle compositions of an orator, who cultivated the science of
words; the productions of a recluse student, whose mind,
regardless of his contemporaries, was incessantly fixed on the
Trojan war and the Athenian commonwealth. Yet the sophist of
Antioch sometimes descended from this imaginary elevation; he
entertained a various and elaborate correspondence; 26 he praised
the virtues of his own times; he boldly arraigned the abuse of
public and private life; and he eloquently pleaded the cause of
Antioch against the just resentment of Julian and Theodosius. It
is the common calamity of old age, 27 to lose whatever might have
rendered it desirable; but Libanius experienced the peculiar
misfortune of surviving the religion and the sciences, to which
he had consecrated his genius. The friend of Julian was an
indignant spectator of the triumph of Christianity; and his
bigotry, which darkened the prospect of the visible world, did
not inspire Libanius with any lively hopes of celestial glory and
happiness. 28
24 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. vii. p. 230, 231.]
25 (return) [ Eunapius reports, that Libanius refused the
honorary rank of Prætorian præfect, as less illustrious than the
title of Sophist, (in Vit. Sophist. p. 135.) The critics have
observed a similar sentiment in one of the epistles (xviii. edit.
Wolf) of Libanius himself.]
26 (return) [ Near two thousand of his letters—a mode of
composition in which Libanius was thought to excel—are still
extant, and already published. The critics may praise their
subtle and elegant brevity; yet Dr. Bentley (Dissertation upon
Phalaris, p. 48) might justly, though quaintly observe, that “you
feel, by the emptiness and deadness of them, that you converse
with some dreaming pedant, with his elbow on his desk.”]
27 (return) [ His birth is assigned to the year 314. He mentions
the seventy-sixth year of his age, (A. D. 390,) and seems to
allude to some events of a still later date.]
28 (return) [ Libanius has composed the vain, prolix, but curious
narrative of his own life, (tom. ii. p. 1-84, edit. Morell,) of
which Eunapius (p. 130-135) has left a concise and unfavorable
account. Among the moderns, Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
iv. p. 571-576,) Fabricius, (Bibliot. Græc. tom. vii. p.
376-414,) and Lardner, (Heathen Testimonies, tom. iv. p.
127-163,) have illustrated the character and writings of this
famous sophist.]
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part II.
The martial impatience of Julian urged him to take the field in
the beginning of the spring; and he dismissed, with contempt and
reproach, the senate of Antioch, who accompanied the emperor
beyond the limits of their own territory, to which he was
resolved never to return. After a laborious march of two days, 29
he halted on the third at Beræa, or Aleppo, where he had the
mortification of finding a senate almost entirely Christian; who
received with cold and formal demonstrations of respect the
eloquent sermon of the apostle of paganism. The son of one of the
most illustrious citizens of Beræa, who had embraced, either from
interest or conscience, the religion of the emperor, was
disinherited by his angry parent. The father and the son were
invited to the Imperial table. Julian, placing himself between
them, attempted, without success, to inculcate the lesson and
example of toleration; supported, with affected calmness, the
indiscreet zeal of the aged Christian, who seemed to forget the
sentiments of nature, and the duty of a subject; and at length,
turning towards the afflicted youth, “Since you have lost a
father,” said he, “for my sake, it is incumbent on me to supply
his place.” 30 The emperor was received in a manner much more
agreeable to his wishes at Batnæ, 3011 a small town pleasantly
seated in a grove of cypresses, about twenty miles from the city
of Hierapolis. The solemn rites of sacrifice were decently
prepared by the inhabitants of Batnæ, who seemed attached to the
worship of their tutelar deities, Apollo and Jupiter; but the
serious piety of Julian was offended by the tumult of their
applause; and he too clearly discerned, that the smoke which
arose from their altars was the incense of flattery, rather than
of devotion. The ancient and magnificent temple which had
sanctified, for so many ages, the city of Hierapolis, 31 no
longer subsisted; and the consecrated wealth, which afforded a
liberal maintenance to more than three hundred priests, might
hasten its downfall. Yet Julian enjoyed the satisfaction of
embracing a philosopher and a friend, whose religious firmness
had withstood the pressing and repeated solicitations of
Constantius and Gallus, as often as those princes lodged at his
house, in their passage through Hierapolis. In the hurry of
military preparation, and the careless confidence of a familiar
correspondence, the zeal of Julian appears to have been lively
and uniform. He had now undertaken an important and difficult
war; and the anxiety of the event rendered him still more
attentive to observe and register the most trifling presages,
from which, according to the rules of divination, any knowledge
of futurity could be derived. 32 He informed Libanius of his
progress as far as Hierapolis, by an elegant epistle, 33 which
displays the facility of his genius, and his tender friendship
for the sophist of Antioch.
29 (return) [ From Antioch to Litarbe, on the territory of
Chalcis, the road, over hills and through morasses, was extremely
bad; and the loose stones were cemented only with sand, (Julian.
epist. xxvii.) It is singular enough that the Romans should have
neglected the great communication between Antioch and the
Euphrates. See Wesseling Itinerar. p. 190 Bergier, Hist des
Grands Chemins, tom. ii. p. 100]
30 (return) [ Julian alludes to this incident, (epist. xxvii.,)
which is more distinctly related by Theodoret, (l. iii. c. 22.)
The intolerant spirit of the father is applauded by Tillemont,
(Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 534.) and even by La Bleterie,
(Vie de Julien, p. 413.)]
3011 (return) [ This name, of Syriac origin, is found in the
Arabic, and means a place in a valley where waters meet. Julian
says, the name of the city is Barbaric, the situation Greek. The
geographer Abulfeda (tab. Syriac. p. 129, edit. Koehler) speaks
of it in a manner to justify the praises of Julian.—St. Martin.
Notes to Le Beau, iii. 56.—M.]
31 (return) [ See the curious treatise de Deâ Syriâ, inserted
among the works of Lucian, (tom. iii. p. 451-490, edit. Reitz.)
The singular appellation of _Ninus vetus_ (Ammian. xiv. 8) might
induce a suspicion, that Heirapolis had been the royal seat of
the Assyrians.]
32 (return) [ Julian (epist. xxviii.) kept a regular account of
all the fortunate omens; but he suppresses the inauspicious
signs, which Ammianus (xxiii. 2) has carefully recorded.]
33 (return) [ Julian. epist. xxvii. p. 399-402.]
Hierapolis, 3311 situate almost on the banks of the Euphrates, 34
had been appointed for the general rendezvous of the Roman
troops, who immediately passed the great river on a bridge of
boats, which was previously constructed. 35 If the inclinations
of Julian had been similar to those of his predecessor, he might
have wasted the active and important season of the year in the
circus of Samosata or in the churches of Edessa. But as the
warlike emperor, instead of Constantius, had chosen Alexander for
his model, he advanced without delay to Carrhæ, 36 a very ancient
city of Mesopotamia, at the distance of fourscore miles from
Hierapolis. The temple of the Moon attracted the devotion of
Julian; but the halt of a few days was principally employed in
completing the immense preparations of the Persian war. The
secret of the expedition had hitherto remained in his own breast;
but as Carrhæ is the point of separation of the two great roads,
he could no longer conceal whether it was his design to attack
the dominions of Sapor on the side of the Tigris, or on that of
the Euphrates. The emperor detached an army of thirty thousand
men, under the command of his kinsman Procopius, and of
Sebastian, who had been duke of Egypt. They were ordered to
direct their march towards Nisibis, and to secure the frontier
from the desultory incursions of the enemy, before they attempted
the passage of the Tigris. Their subsequent operations were left
to the discretion of the generals; but Julian expected, that
after wasting with fire and sword the fertile districts of Media
and Adiabene, they might arrive under the walls of Ctesiphon at
the same time that he himself, advancing with equal steps along
the banks of the Euphrates, should besiege the capital of the
Persian monarchy. The success of this well-concerted plan
depended, in a great measure, on the powerful and ready
assistance of the king of Armenia, who, without exposing the
safety of his own dominions, might detach an army of four
thousand horse, and twenty thousand foot, to the assistance of
the Romans. 37 But the feeble Arsaces Tiranus, 38 king of
Armenia, had degenerated still more shamefully than his father
Chosroes, from the manly virtues of the great Tiridates; and as
the pusillanimous monarch was averse to any enterprise of danger
and glory, he could disguise his timid indolence by the more
decent excuses of religion and gratitude. He expressed a pious
attachment to the memory of Constantius, from whose hands he had
received in marriage Olympias, the daughter of the præfect
Ablavius; and the alliance of a female, who had been educated as
the destined wife of the emperor Constans, exalted the dignity of
a Barbarian king. 39 Tiranus professed the Christian religion; he
reigned over a nation of Christians; and he was restrained, by
every principle of conscience and interest, from contributing to
the victory, which would consummate the ruin of the church. The
alienated mind of Tiranus was exasperated by the indiscretion of
Julian, who treated the king of Armenia as _his_ slave, and as
the enemy of the gods. The haughty and threatening style of the
Imperial mandates 40 awakened the secret indignation of a prince,
who, in the humiliating state of dependence, was still conscious
of his royal descent from the Arsacides, the lords of the East,
and the rivals of the Roman power. 4011
3311 (return) [ Or Bambyce, now Bambouch; Manbedj Arab., or
Maboug, Syr. It was twenty-four Roman miles from the
Euphrates.—M.]
34 (return) [ I take the earliest opportunity of acknowledging my
obligations to M. d’Anville, for his recent geography of the
Euphrates and Tigris, (Paris, 1780, in 4to.,) which particularly
illustrates the expedition of Julian.]
35 (return) [ There are three passages within a few miles of each
other; 1. Zeugma, celebrated by the ancients; 2. Bir, frequented
by the moderns; and, 3. The bridge of Menbigz, or Hierapolis, at
the distance of four parasangs from the city. —— Djisr Manbedj is
the same with the ancient Zeugma. St. Martin, iii. 58—M.]
36 (return) [ Haran, or Carrhæ, was the ancient residence of the
Sabæans, and of Abraham. See the Index Geographicus of Schultens,
(ad calcem Vit. Saladin.,) a work from which I have obtained much
_Oriental_ knowledge concerning the ancient and modern geography
of Syria and the adjacent countries. ——On an inedited medal in
the collection of the late M. Tochon. of the Academy of
Inscriptions, it is read Xappan. St. Martin. iii 60—M.]
37 (return) [ See Xenophon. Cyropæd. l. iii. p. 189, edit.
Hutchinson. Artavasdes might have supplied Marc Antony with
16,000 horse, armed and disciplined after the Parthian manner,
(Plutarch, in M. Antonio. tom. v. p. 117.)]
38 (return) [ Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armeniac. l. iii. c. 11, p.
242) fixes his accession (A. D. 354) to the 17th year of
Constantius. ——Arsaces Tiranus, or Diran, had ceased to reign
twenty-five years before, in 337. The intermediate changes in
Armenia, and the character of this Arsaces, the son of Diran, are
traced by M. St. Martin, at considerable length, in his
supplement to Le Beau, ii. 208-242. As long as his Grecian queen
Olympias maintained her influence, Arsaces was faithful to the
Roman and _Christian_ alliance. On the accession of Julian, the
same influence made his fidelity to waver; but Olympias having
been poisoned in the sacramental bread by the agency of
Pharandcem, the former wife of Arsaces, another change took place
in Armenian politics unfavorable to the Christian interest. The
patriarch Narses retired from the impious court to a safe
seclusion. Yet Pharandsem was equally hostile to the Persian
influence, and Arsaces began to support with vigor the cause of
Julian. He made an inroad into the Persian dominions with a body
of Rans and Alans as auxiliaries; wasted Aderbidgan and Sapor,
who had been defeated near Tauriz, was engaged in making head
against his troops in Persarmenia, at the time of the death of
Julian. Such is M. St. Martin’s view, (ii. 276, et sqq.,) which
rests on the Armenian historians, Faustos of Byzantium, and
Mezrob the biographer of the Partriarch Narses. In the history of
Armenia by Father Chamitch, and translated by Avdall, Tiran is
still king of Armenia, at the time of Julian’s death. F. Chamitch
follows Moses of Chorene, The authority of Gibbon.—M.]
39 (return) [ Ammian. xx. 11. Athanasius (tom. i. p. 856) says,
in general terms, that Constantius gave to his brother’s widow,
an expression more suitable to a Roman than a Christian.]
40 (return) [ Ammianus (xxiii. 2) uses a word much too soft for
the occasion, _monuerat_. Muratori (Fabricius, Bibliothec. Græc.
tom. vii. p. 86) has published an epistle from Julian to the
satrap Arsaces; fierce, vulgar, and (though it might deceive
Sozomen, l. vi. c. 5) most probably spurious. La Bleterie (Hist.
de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 339) translates and rejects it. Note: St.
Martin considers it genuine: the Armenian writers mention such a
letter, iii. 37.—M.]
4011 (return) [ Arsaces did not abandon the Roman alliance, but
gave it only feeble support. St. Martin, iii. 41—M.]
The military dispositions of Julian were skilfully contrived to
deceive the spies and to divert the attention of Sapor. The
legions appeared to direct their march towards Nisibis and the
Tigris. On a sudden they wheeled to the right; traversed the
level and naked plain of Carrhæ; and reached, on the third day,
the banks of the Euphrates, where the strong town of Nicephorium,
or Callinicum, had been founded by the Macedonian kings. From
thence the emperor pursued his march, above ninety miles, along
the winding stream of the Euphrates, till, at length, about one
month after his departure from Antioch, he discovered the towers
of Circesium, 4012 the extreme limit of the Roman dominions. The
army of Julian, the most numerous that any of the Cæsars had ever
led against Persia, consisted of sixty-five thousand effective
and well-disciplined soldiers. The veteran bands of cavalry and
infantry, of Romans and Barbarians, had been selected from the
different provinces; and a just preëminence of loyalty and valor
was claimed by the hardy Gauls, who guarded the throne and person
of their beloved prince. A formidable body of Scythian
auxiliaries had been transported from another climate, and almost
from another world, to invade a distant country, of whose name
and situation they were ignorant. The love of rapine and war
allured to the Imperial standard several tribes of Saracens, or
roving Arabs, whose service Julian had commanded, while he
sternly refused the payment of the accustomed subsidies. The
broad channel of the Euphrates 41 was crowded by a fleet of
eleven hundred ships, destined to attend the motions, and to
satisfy the wants, of the Roman army. The military strength of
the fleet was composed of fifty armed galleys; and these were
accompanied by an equal number of flat-bottomed boats, which
might occasionally be connected into the form of temporary
bridges. The rest of the ships, partly constructed of timber, and
partly covered with raw hides, were laden with an almost
inexhaustible supply of arms and engines, of utensils and
provisions. The vigilant humanity of Julian had embarked a very
large magazine of vinegar and biscuit for the use of the
soldiers, but he prohibited the indulgence of wine; and
rigorously stopped a long string of superfluous camels that
attempted to follow the rear of the army. The River Chaboras
falls into the Euphrates at Circesium; 42 and as soon as the
trumpet gave the signal of march, the Romans passed the little
stream which separated two mighty and hostile empires. The custom
of ancient discipline required a military oration; and Julian
embraced every opportunity of displaying his eloquence. He
animated the impatient and attentive legions by the example of
the inflexible courage and glorious triumphs of their ancestors.
He excited their resentment by a lively picture of the insolence
of the Persians; and he exhorted them to imitate his firm
resolution, either to extirpate that perfidious nation, or to
devote his life in the cause of the republic. The eloquence of
Julian was enforced by a donative of one hundred and thirty
pieces of silver to every soldier; and the bridge of the Chaboras
was instantly cut away, to convince the troops that they must
place their hopes of safety in the success of their arms. Yet the
prudence of the emperor induced him to secure a remote frontier,
perpetually exposed to the inroads of the hostile Arabs. A
detachment of four thousand men was left at Circesium, which
completed, to the number of ten thousand, the regular garrison of
that important fortress. 43
4012 (return) [ Kirkesia the Carchemish of the Scriptures.—M.]
41 (return) [ Latissimum flumen Euphraten artabat. Ammian. xxiii.
3 Somewhat higher, at the fords of Thapsacus, the river is four
stadia or 800 yards, almost half an English mile, broad.
(Xenophon, Anabasis, l. i. p. 41, edit. Hutchinson, with Foster’s
Observations, p. 29, &c., in the 2d volume of Spelman’s
translation.) If the breadth of the Euphrates at Bir and Zeugma
is no more than 130 yards, (Voyages de Niebuhr, tom. ii. p. 335,)
the enormous difference must chiefly arise from the depth of the
channel.]
42 (return) [ Munimentum tutissimum et fabre politum, Abora (the
Orientals aspirate Chaboras or Chabour) et Euphrates ambiunt
flumina, velut spatium insulare fingentes. Ammian. xxiii. 5.]
43 (return) [ The enterprise and armament of Julian are described
by himself, (Epist. xxvii.,) Ammianus Marcellinus, (xxiii. 3, 4,
5,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 108, 109, p. 332, 333,) Zosimus,
(l. iii. p. 160, 161, 162) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. l,) and John
Malala, (tom. ii. p. 17.)]
From the moment that the Romans entered the enemy’s country, 44
the country of an active and artful enemy, the order of march was
disposed in three columns. 45 The strength of the infantry, and
consequently of the whole army was placed in the centre, under
the peculiar command of their master-general Victor. On the
right, the brave Nevitta led a column of several legions along
the banks of the Euphrates, and almost always in sight of the
fleet. The left flank of the army was protected by the column of
cavalry. Hormisdas and Arinthæus were appointed generals of the
horse; and the singular adventures of Hormisdas 46 are not
undeserving of our notice. He was a Persian prince, of the royal
race of the Sassanides, who, in the troubles of the minority of
Sapor, had escaped from prison to the hospitable court of the
great Constantine. Hormisdas at first excited the compassion, and
at length acquired the esteem, of his new masters; his valor and
fidelity raised him to the military honors of the Roman service;
and though a Christian, he might indulge the secret satisfaction
of convincing his ungrateful country, that an oppressed subject
may prove the most dangerous enemy. Such was the disposition of
the three principal columns. The front and flanks of the army
were covered by Lucilianus with a flying detachment of fifteen
hundred light-armed soldiers, whose active vigilance observed the
most distant signs, and conveyed the earliest notice, of any
hostile approach. Dagalaiphus, and Secundinus duke of Osrhoene,
conducted the troops of the rear-guard; the baggage securely
proceeded in the intervals of the columns; and the ranks, from a
motive either of use or ostentation, were formed in such open
order, that the whole line of march extended almost ten miles.
The ordinary post of Julian was at the head of the centre column;
but as he preferred the duties of a general to the state of a
monarch, he rapidly moved, with a small escort of light cavalry,
to the front, the rear, the flanks, wherever his presence could
animate or protect the march of the Roman army. The country which
they traversed from the Chaboras, to the cultivated lands of
Assyria, may be considered as a part of the desert of Arabia, a
dry and barren waste, which could never be improved by the most
powerful arts of human industry. Julian marched over the same
ground which had been trod above seven hundred years before by
the footsteps of the younger Cyrus, and which is described by one
of the companions of his expedition, the sage and heroic
Xenophon. 47 “The country was a plain throughout, as even as the
sea, and full of wormwood; and if any other kind of shrubs or
reeds grew there, they had all an aromatic smell, but no trees
could be seen. Bustards and ostriches, antelopes and wild asses,
48 appeared to be the only inhabitants of the desert; and the
fatigues of the march were alleviated by the amusements of the
chase.” The loose sand of the desert was frequently raised by the
wind into clouds of dust; and a great number of the soldiers of
Julian, with their tents, were suddenly thrown to the ground by
the violence of an unexpected hurricane.
44 (return) [ Before he enters Persia, Ammianus copiously
describes (xxiii. p. 396-419, edit. Gronov. in 4to.) the eighteen
great provinces, (as far as the Seric, or Chinese frontiers,)
which were subject to the Sassanides.]
45 (return) [ Ammianus (xxiv. 1) and Zosimus (l. iii. p. 162,
163) rately expressed the order of march.]
46 (return) [ The adventures of Hormisdas are related with some
mixture of fable, (Zosimus, l. ii. p. 100-102; Tillemont, Hist.
des Empereurs tom. iv. p. 198.) It is almost impossible that he
should be the brother (frater germanus) of an _eldest_ and
_posthumous_ child: nor do I recollect that Ammianus ever gives
him that title. * Note: St. Martin conceives that he was an elder
brother by another mother who had several children, ii. 24—M.]
47 (return) [ See the first book of the Anabasis, p. 45, 46. This
pleasing work is original and authentic. Yet Xenophon’s memory,
perhaps many years after the expedition, has sometimes betrayed
him; and the distances which he marks are often larger than
either a soldier or a geographer will allow.]
48 (return) [ Mr. Spelman, the English translator of the
Anabasis, (vol. i. p. 51,) confounds the antelope with the
roebuck, and the wild ass with the zebra.]
The sandy plains of Mesopotamia were abandoned to the antelopes
and wild asses of the desert; but a variety of populous towns and
villages were pleasantly situated on the banks of the Euphrates,
and in the islands which are occasionally formed by that river.
The city of Annah, or Anatho, 49 the actual residence of an
Arabian emir, is composed of two long streets, which enclose,
within a natural fortification, a small island in the midst, and
two fruitful spots on either side, of the Euphrates. The warlike
inhabitants of Anatho showed a disposition to stop the march of a
Roman emperor; till they were diverted from such fatal
presumption by the mild exhortations of Prince Hormisdas, and the
approaching terrors of the fleet and army. They implored, and
experienced, the clemency of Julian, who transplanted the people
to an advantageous settlement, near Chalcis in Syria, and
admitted Pusæus, the governor, to an honorable rank in his
service and friendship. But the impregnable fortress of Thilutha
could scorn the menace of a siege; and the emperor was obliged to
content himself with an insulting promise, that, when he had
subdued the interior provinces of Persia, Thilutha would no
longer refuse to grace the triumph of the emperor. The
inhabitants of the open towns, unable to resist, and unwilling to
yield, fled with precipitation; and their houses, filled with
spoil and provisions, were occupied by the soldiers of Julian,
who massacred, without remorse and without punishment, some
defenceless women. During the march, the Surenas, 4911 or Persian
general, and Malek Rodosaces, the renowned emir of the tribe of
Gassan, 50 incessantly hovered round the army; every straggler
was intercepted; every detachment was attacked; and the valiant
Hormisdas escaped with some difficulty from their hands. But the
Barbarians were finally repulsed; the country became every day
less favorable to the operations of cavalry; and when the Romans
arrived at Macepracta, they perceived the ruins of the wall,
which had been constructed by the ancient kings of Assyria, to
secure their dominions from the incursions of the Medes. These
preliminaries of the expedition of Julian appear to have employed
about fifteen days; and we may compute near three hundred miles
from the fortress of Circesium to the wall of Macepracta. 51
49 (return) [ See Voyages de Tavernier, part i. l. iii. p. 316,
and more especially Viaggi di Pietro della Valle, tom. i. lett.
xvii. p. 671, &c. He was ignorant of the old name and condition
of Annah. Our blind travellers _seldom_ possess any previous
knowledge of the countries which they visit. Shaw and Tournefort
deserve an honorable exception.]
4911 (return) [ This is not a title, but the name of a great
Persian family. St. Martin, iii. 79.—M.]
50 (return) [ Famosi nominis latro, says Ammianus; a high
encomium for an Arab. The tribe of Gassan had settled on the edge
of Syria, and reigned some time in Damascus, under a dynasty of
thirty-one kings, or emirs, from the time of Pompey to that of
the Khalif Omar. D’Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 360.
Pococke, Specimen Hist. Arabicæ, p. 75-78. The name of Rodosaces
does not appear in the list. * Note: Rodosaces-malek is king. St.
Martin considers that Gibbon has fallen into an error in bringing
the tribe of Gassan to the Euphrates. In Ammianus it is Assan. M.
St. Martin would read Massanitarum, the same with the Mauzanitæ
of Malala.—M.]
51 (return) [ See Ammianus, (xxiv. 1, 2,) Libanius, (Orat.
Parental. c. 110, 111, p. 334,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 164-168.) *
Note: This Syriac or Chaldaic has relation to its position; it
easily bears the signification of the division of the waters. M.
St. M. considers it the Missice of Pliny, v. 26. St. Martin, iii.
83.—M.]
The fertile province of Assyria, 52 which stretched beyond the
Tigris, as far as the mountains of Media, 53 extended about four
hundred miles from the ancient wall of Macepracta, to the
territory of Basra, where the united streams of the Euphrates and
Tigris discharge themselves into the Persian Gulf. 54 The whole
country might have claimed the peculiar name of Mesopotamia; as
the two rivers, which are never more distant than fifty,
approach, between Bagdad and Babylon, within twenty-five miles,
of each other. A multitude of artificial canals, dug without much
labor in a soft and yielding soil connected the rivers, and
intersected the plain of Assyria. The uses of these artificial
canals were various and important. They served to discharge the
superfluous waters from one river into the other, at the season
of their respective inundations. Subdividing themselves into
smaller and smaller branches, they refreshed the dry lands, and
supplied the deficiency of rain. They facilitated the intercourse
of peace and commerce; and, as the dams could be speedily broke
down, they armed the despair of the Assyrians with the means of
opposing a sudden deluge to the progress of an invading army. To
the soil and climate of Assyria, nature had denied some of her
choicest gifts, the vine, the olive, and the fig-tree; 5411 but
the food which supports the life of man, and particularly wheat
and barley, were produced with inexhaustible fertility; and the
husbandman, who committed his seed to the earth, was frequently
rewarded with an increase of two, or even of three, hundred. The
face of the country was interspersed with groves of innumerable
palm-trees; 55 and the diligent natives celebrated, either in
verse or prose, the three hundred and sixty uses to which the
trunk, the branches, the leaves, the juice, and the fruit, were
skilfully applied. Several manufactures, especially those of
leather and linen, employed the industry of a numerous people,
and afforded valuable materials for foreign trade; which appears,
however, to have been conducted by the hands of strangers.
Babylon had been converted into a royal park; but near the ruins
of the ancient capital, new cities had successively arisen, and
the populousness of the country was displayed in the multitude of
towns and villages, which were built of bricks dried in the sun,
and strongly cemented with bitumen; the natural and peculiar
production of the Babylonian soil. While the successors of Cyrus
reigned over Asia, the province of Syria alone maintained, during
a third part of the year, the luxurious plenty of the table and
household of the Great King. Four considerable villages were
assigned for the subsistence of his Indian dogs; eight hundred
stallions, and sixteen thousand mares, were constantly kept, at
the expense of the country, for the royal stables; and as the
daily tribute, which was paid to the satrap, amounted to one
English bushe of silver, we may compute the annual revenue of
Assyria at more than twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling. 56
52 (return) [ The description of Assyria, is furnished by
Herodotus, (l. i. c. 192, &c.,) who sometimes writes for
children, and sometimes for philosophers; by Strabo, (l. xvi. p.
1070-1082,) and by Ammianus, (l.xxiii. c. 6.) The most useful of
the modern travellers are Tavernier, (part i. l. ii. p. 226-258,)
Otter, (tom. ii. p. 35-69, and 189-224,) and Niebuhr, (tom. ii.
p. 172-288.) Yet I much regret that the _Irak Arabi_ of Abulfeda
has not been translated.]
53 (return) [ Ammianus remarks, that the primitive Assyria, which
comprehended Ninus, (Nineveh,) and Arbela, had assumed the more
recent and peculiar appellation of Adiabene; and he seems to fix
Teredon, Vologesia, and Apollonia, as the _extreme_ cities of the
actual province of Assyria.]
54 (return) [ The two rivers unite at Apamea, or Corna, (one
hundred miles from the Persian Gulf,) into the broad stream of
the Pasitigris, or Shutul-Arab. The Euphrates formerly reached
the sea by a separate channel, which was obstructed and diverted
by the citizens of Orchoe, about twenty miles to the south-east
of modern Basra. (D’Anville, in the Mémoires de l’Acad. des
Inscriptions, tom.xxx. p. 171-191.)]
5411 (return) [ We are informed by Mr. Gibbon, that nature has
denied to the soil an climate of Assyria some of her choicest
gifts, the vine, the olive, and the fig-tree. This might have
been the case ir the age of Ammianus Marcellinus, but it is not
so at the present day; and it is a curious fact that the grape,
the olive, and the fig, are the most common fruits in the
province, and may be seen in every garden. Macdonald Kinneir,
Geogr. Mem. on Persia 239—M.]
55 (return) [ The learned Kæmpfer, as a botanist, an antiquary,
and a traveller, has exhausted (Amœnitat. Exoticæ, Fasicul. iv.
p. 660-764) the whole subject of palm-trees.]
56 (return) [ Assyria yielded to the Persian satrap an _Artaba_
of silver each day. The well-known proportion of weights and
measures (see Bishop Hooper’s elaborate Inquiry,) the specific
gravity of water and silver, and the value of that metal, will
afford, after a short process, the annual revenue which I have
stated. Yet the Great King received no more than 1000 Euboic, or
Tyrian, talents (252,000l.) from Assyria. The comparison of two
passages in Herodotus, (l. i. c. 192, l. iii. c. 89-96) reveals
an important difference between the _gross_, and the _net_,
revenue of Persia; the sums paid by the province, and the gold or
silver deposited in the royal treasure. The monarch might
annually save three millions six hundred thousand pounds, of the
seventeen or eighteen millions raised upon the people.]
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part III.
The fields of Assyria were devoted by Julian to the calamities of
war; and the philosopher retaliated on a guiltless people the
acts of rapine and cruelty which had been committed by their
haughty master in the Roman provinces. The trembling Assyrians
summoned the rivers to their assistance; and completed, with
their own hands, the ruin of their country. The roads were
rendered impracticable; a flood of waters was poured into the
camp; and, during several days, the troops of Julian were obliged
to contend with the most discouraging hardships. But every
obstacle was surmounted by the perseverance of the legionaries,
who were inured to toil as well as to danger, and who felt
themselves animated by the spirit of their leader. The damage was
gradually repaired; the waters were restored to their proper
channels; whole groves of palm-trees were cut down, and placed
along the broken parts of the road; and the army passed over the
broad and deeper canals, on bridges of floating rafts, which were
supported by the help of bladders. Two cities of Assyria presumed
to resist the arms of a Roman emperor: and they both paid the
severe penalty of their rashness. At the distance of fifty miles
from the royal residence of Ctesiphon, Perisabor, 5711 or Anbar,
held the second rank in the province; a city, large, populous,
and well fortified, surrounded with a double wall, almost
encompassed by a branch of the Euphrates, and defended by the
valor of a numerous garrison. The exhortations of Hormisdas were
repulsed with contempt; and the ears of the Persian prince were
wounded by a just reproach, that, unmindful of his royal birth,
he conducted an army of strangers against his king and country.
The Assyrians maintained their loyalty by a skilful, as well as
vigorous, defence; till the lucky stroke of a battering-ram,
having opened a large breach, by shattering one of the angles of
the wall, they hastily retired into the fortifications of the
interior citadel. The soldiers of Julian rushed impetuously into
the town, and after the full gratification of every military
appetite, Perisabor was reduced to ashes; and the engines which
assaulted the citadel were planted on the ruins of the smoking
houses. The contest was continued by an incessant and mutual
discharge of missile weapons; and the superiority which the
Romans might derive from the mechanical powers of their balistæ
and catapultæ was counterbalanced by the advantage of the ground
on the side of the besieged. But as soon as an _Helepolis_ had
been constructed, which could engage on equal terms with the
loftiest ramparts, the tremendous aspect of a moving turret, that
would leave no hope of resistance or mercy, terrified the
defenders of the citadel into an humble submission; and the place
was surrendered only two days after Julian first appeared under
the walls of Perisabor. Two thousand five hundred persons, of
both sexes, the feeble remnant of a flourishing people, were
permitted to retire; the plentiful magazines of corn, of arms,
and of splendid furniture, were partly distributed among the
troops, and partly reserved for the public service; the useless
stores were destroyed by fire or thrown into the stream of the
Euphrates; and the fate of Amida was revenged by the total ruin
of Perisabor.
5711 (return) [ Libanius says that it was a great city of
Assyria, called after the name of the reigning king. The orator
of Antioch is not mistaken. The Persians and Syrians called it
Fyrouz Schapour or Fyrouz Schahbour; in Persian, the victory of
Schahpour. It owed that name to Sapor the First. It was before
called Anbar St. Martin, iii. 85.—M.]
The city or rather fortress, of Maogamalcha, which was defended
by sixteen large towers, a deep ditch, and two strong and solid
walls of brick and bitumen, appears to have been constructed at
the distance of eleven miles, as the safeguard of the capital of
Persia. The emperor, apprehensive of leaving such an important
fortress in his rear, immediately formed the siege of
Maogamalcha; and the Roman army was distributed, for that
purpose, into three divisions. Victor, at the head of the
cavalry, and of a detachment of heavy-armed foot, was ordered to
clear the country, as far as the banks of the Tigris, and the
suburbs of Ctesiphon. The conduct of the attack was assumed by
Julian himself, who seemed to place his whole dependence in the
military engines which he erected against the walls; while he
secretly contrived a more efficacious method of introducing his
troops into the heart of the city. Under the direction of Nevitta
and Dagalaiphus, the trenches were opened at a considerable
distance, and gradually prolonged as far as the edge of the
ditch. The ditch was speedily filled with earth; and, by the
incessant labor of the troops, a mine was carried under the
foundations of the walls, and sustained, at sufficient intervals,
by props of timber. Three chosen cohorts, advancing in a single
file, silently explored the dark and dangerous passage; till
their intrepid leader whispered back the intelligence, that he
was ready to issue from his confinement into the streets of the
hostile city. Julian checked their ardor, that he might insure
their success; and immediately diverted the attention of the
garrison, by the tumult and clamor of a general assault. The
Persians, who, from their walls, contemptuously beheld the
progress of an impotent attack, celebrated with songs of triumph
the glory of Sapor; and ventured to assure the emperor, that he
might ascend the starry mansion of Ormusd, before he could hope
to take the impregnable city of Maogamalcha. The city was already
taken. History has recorded the name of a private soldier the
first who ascended from the mine into a deserted tower. The
passage was widened by his companions, who pressed forwards with
impatient valor. Fifteen hundred enemies were already in the
midst of the city. The astonished garrison abandoned the walls,
and their only hope of safety; the gates were instantly burst
open; and the revenge of the soldier, unless it were suspended by
lust or avarice, was satiated by an undistinguishing massacre.
The governor, who had yielded on a promise of mercy, was burnt
alive, a few days afterwards, on a charge of having uttered some
disrespectful words against the honor of Prince Hormisdas. The
fortifications were razed to the ground; and not a vestige was
left, that the city of Maogamalcha had ever existed. The
neighborhood of the capital of Persia was adorned with three
stately palaces, laboriously enriched with every production that
could gratify the luxury and pride of an Eastern monarch. The
pleasant situation of the gardens along the banks of the Tigris,
was improved, according to the Persian taste, by the symmetry of
flowers, fountains, and shady walks: and spacious parks were
enclosed for the reception of the bears, lions, and wild boars,
which were maintained at a considerable expense for the pleasure
of the royal chase. The park walls were broken down, the savage
game was abandoned to the darts of the soldiers, and the palaces
of Sapor were reduced to ashes, by the command of the Roman
emperor. Julian, on this occasion, showed himself ignorant, or
careless, of the laws of civility, which the prudence and
refinement of polished ages have established between hostile
princes. Yet these wanton ravages need not excite in our breasts
any vehement emotions of pity or resentment. A simple, naked
statue, finished by the hand of a Grecian artist, is of more
genuine value than all these rude and costly monuments of
Barbaric labor; and, if we are more deeply affected by the ruin
of a palace than by the conflagration of a cottage, our humanity
must have formed a very erroneous estimate of the miseries of
human life. 57
57 (return) [ The operations of the Assyrian war are
circumstantially related by Ammianus, (xxiv. 2, 3, 4, 5,)
Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 112-123, p. 335-347,) Zosimus, (l.
iii. p. 168-180,) and Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat iv. p. 113, 144.)
The _military_ criticisms of the saint are devoutly copied by
Tillemont, his faithful slave.]
Julian was an object of hatred and terror to the Persian and the
painters of that nation represented the invader of their country
under the emblem of a furious lion, who vomited from his mouth a
consuming fire. 58 To his friends and soldiers the philosophic
hero appeared in a more amiable light; and his virtues were never
more conspicuously displayed, than in the last and most active
period of his life. He practised, without effort, and almost
without merit, the habitual qualities of temperance and sobriety.
According to the dictates of that artificial wisdom, which
assumes an absolute dominion over the mind and body, he sternly
refused himself the indulgence of the most natural appetites. 59
In the warm climate of Assyria, which solicited a luxurious
people to the gratification of every sensual desire, 60 a
youthful conqueror preserved his chastity pure and inviolate; nor
was Julian ever tempted, even by a motive of curiosity, to visit
his female captives of exquisite beauty, 61 who, instead of
resisting his power, would have disputed with each other the
honor of his embraces. With the same firmness that he resisted
the allurements of love, he sustained the hardships of war. When
the Romans marched through the flat and flooded country, their
sovereign, on foot, at the head of his legions, shared their
fatigues and animated their diligence. In every useful labor, the
hand of Julian was prompt and strenuous; and the Imperial purple
was wet and dirty as the coarse garment of the meanest soldier.
The two sieges allowed him some remarkable opportunities of
signalizing his personal valor, which, in the improved state of
the military art, can seldom be exerted by a prudent general. The
emperor stood before the citadel of Perisabor, insensible of his
extreme danger, and encouraged his troops to burst open the gates
of iron, till he was almost overwhelmed under a cloud of missile
weapons and huge stones, that were directed against his person.
As he examined the exterior fortifications of Maogamalcha, two
Persians, devoting themselves for their country, suddenly rushed
upon him with drawn cimeters: the emperor dexterously received
their blows on his uplifted shield; and, with a steady and
well-aimed thrust, laid one of his adversaries dead at his feet.
The esteem of a prince who possesses the virtues which he
approves, is the noblest recompense of a deserving subject; and
the authority which Julian derived from his personal merit,
enabled him to revive and enforce the rigor of ancient
discipline. He punished with death or ignominy the misbehavior of
three troops of horse, who, in a skirmish with the Surenas, had
lost their honor and one of their standards: and he distinguished
with _obsidional_ 62 crowns the valor of the foremost soldiers,
who had ascended into the city of Maogamalcha.
After the siege of Perisabor, the firmness of the emperor was
exercised by the insolent avarice of the army, who loudly
complained, that their services were rewarded by a trifling
donative of one hundred pieces of silver. His just indignation
was expressed in the grave and manly language of a Roman. “Riches
are the object of your desires; those riches are in the hands of
the Persians; and the spoils of this fruitful country are
proposed as the prize of your valor and discipline. Believe me,”
added Julian, “the Roman republic, which formerly possessed such
immense treasures, is now reduced to want and wretchedness once
our princes have been persuaded, by weak and interested
ministers, to purchase with gold the tranquillity of the
Barbarians. The revenue is exhausted; the cities are ruined; the
provinces are dispeopled. For myself, the only inheritance that I
have received from my royal ancestors is a soul incapable of
fear; and as long as I am convinced that every real advantage is
seated in the mind, I shall not blush to acknowledge an honorable
poverty, which, in the days of ancient virtue, was considered as
the glory of Fabricius. That glory, and that virtue, may be your
own, if you will listen to the voice of Heaven and of your
leader. But if you will rashly persist, if you are determined to
renew the shameful and mischievous examples of old seditions,
proceed. As it becomes an emperor who has filled the first rank
among men, I am prepared to die, standing; and to despise a
precarious life, which, every hour, may depend on an accidental
fever. If I have been found unworthy of the command, there are
now among you, (I speak it with pride and pleasure,) there are
many chiefs whose merit and experience are equal to the conduct
of the most important war. Such has been the temper of my reign,
that I can retire, without regret, and without apprehension, to
the obscurity of a private station” 63 The modest resolution of
Julian was answered by the unanimous applause and cheerful
obedience of the Romans, who declared their confidence of
victory, while they fought under the banners of their heroic
prince. Their courage was kindled by his frequent and familiar
asseverations, (for such wishes were the oaths of Julian,) “So
may I reduce the Persians under the yoke!” “Thus may I restore
the strength and splendor of the republic!” The love of fame was
the ardent passion of his soul: but it was not before he trampled
on the ruins of Maogamalcha, that he allowed himself to say, “We
have now provided some materials for the sophist of Antioch.” 64
58 (return) [ Libanius de ulciscenda Juliani nece, c. 13, p.
162.]
59 (return) [ The famous examples of Cyrus, Alexander, and
Scipio, were acts of justice. Julian’s chastity was voluntary,
and, in his opinion, meritorious.]
60 (return) [ Sallust (ap. Vet. Scholiast. Juvenal. Satir. i.
104) observes, that nihil corruptius moribus. The matrons and
virgins of Babylon freely mingled with the men in licentious
banquets; and as they felt the intoxication of wine and love,
they gradually, and almost completely, threw aside the
encumbrance of dress; ad ultimum ima corporum velamenta
projiciunt. Q. Curtius, v. 1.]
61 (return) [ Ex virginibus autem quæ speciosæ sunt captæ, et in
Perside, ubi fæminarum pulchritudo excellit, nec contrectare
aliquam votuit nec videre. Ammian. xxiv. 4. The native race of
Persians is small and ugly; but it has been improved by the
perpetual mixture of Circassian blood, (Herodot. l. iii. c. 97.
Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. iii. p. 420.)]
62 (return) [ Obsidionalibus coronis donati. Ammian. xxiv. 4.
Either Julian or his historian were unskillful antiquaries. He
should have given mural crowns. The _obsidional_ were the reward
of a general who had delivered a besieged city, (Aulus Gellius,
Noct. Attic. v. 6.)]
63 (return) [ I give this speech as original and genuine.
Ammianus might hear, could transcribe, and was incapable of
inventing, it. I have used some slight freedoms, and conclude
with the most forcibic sentence.]
64 (return) [ Ammian. xxiv. 3. Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 122, p.
346.]
The successful valor of Julian had triumphed over all the
obstacles that opposed his march to the gates of Ctesiphon. But
the reduction, or even the siege, of the capital of Persia, was
still at a distance: nor can the military conduct of the emperor
be clearly apprehended, without a knowledge of the country which
was the theatre of his bold and skilful operations. 65 Twenty
miles to the south of Bagdad, and on the eastern bank of the
Tigris, the curiosity of travellers has observed some ruins of
the palaces of Ctesiphon, which, in the time of Julian, was a
great and populous city. The name and glory of the adjacent
Seleucia were forever extinguished; and the only remaining
quarter of that Greek colony had resumed, with the Assyrian
language and manners, the primitive appellation of Coche. Coche
was situate on the western side of the Tigris; but it was
naturally considered as a suburb of Ctesiphon, with which we may
suppose it to have been connected by a permanent bridge of boats.
The united parts contribute to form the common epithet of Al
Modain, the cities, which the Orientals have bestowed on the
winter residence of the Sassinadees; and the whole circumference
of the Persian capital was strongly fortified by the waters of
the river, by lofty walls, and by impracticable morasses. Near
the ruins of Seleucia, the camp of Julian was fixed, and secured,
by a ditch and rampart, against the sallies of the numerous and
enterprising garrison of Coche. In this fruitful and pleasant
country, the Romans were plentifully supplied with water and
forage: and several forts, which might have embarrassed the
motions of the army, submitted, after some resistance, to the
efforts of their valor. The fleet passed from the Euphrates into
an artificial derivation of that river, which pours a copious and
navigable stream into the Tigris, at a small distance _below_ the
great city. If they had followed this royal canal, which bore the
name of Nahar-Malcha, 66 the intermediate situation of Coche
would have separated the fleet and army of Julian; and the rash
attempt of steering against the current of the Tigris, and
forcing their way through the midst of a hostile capital, must
have been attended with the total destruction of the Roman navy.
The prudence of the emperor foresaw the danger, and provided the
remedy. As he had minutely studied the operations of Trajan in
the same country, he soon recollected that his warlike
predecessor had dug a new and navigable canal, which, leaving
Coche on the right hand, conveyed the waters of the Nahar-Malcha
into the river Tigris, at some distance _above_ the cities. From
the information of the peasants, Julian ascertained the vestiges
of this ancient work, which were almost obliterated by design or
accident. By the indefatigable labor of the soldiers, a broad and
deep channel was speedily prepared for the reception of the
Euphrates. A strong dike was constructed to interrupt the
ordinary current of the Nahar-Malcha: a flood of waters rushed
impetuously into their new bed; and the Roman fleet, steering
their triumphant course into the Tigris, derided the vain and
ineffectual barriers which the Persians of Ctesiphon had erected
to oppose their passage.
65 (return) [ M. d’Anville, (Mém. de l’Académie des Inscriptions,
tom. xxxviii p. 246-259) has ascertained the true position and
distance of Babylon, Seleucia, Ctesiphon, Bagdad, &c. The Roman
traveller, Pietro della Valle, (tom. i. lett. xvii. p. 650-780,)
seems to be the most intelligent spectator of that famous
province. He is a gentleman and a scholar, but intolerably vain
and prolix.]
66 (return) [ The Royal Canal (_Nahar-Malcha_) might be
successively restored, altered, divided, &c., (Cellarius,
Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 453;) and these changes may serve to
explain the seeming contradictions of antiquity. In the time of
Julian, it must have fallen into the Euphrates _below_
Ctesiphon.]
As it became necessary to transport the Roman army over the
Tigris, another labor presented itself, of less toil, but of more
danger, than the preceding expedition. The stream was broad and
rapid; the ascent steep and difficult; and the intrenchments
which had been formed on the ridge of the opposite bank, were
lined with a numerous army of heavy cuirrasiers, dexterous
archers, and huge elephants; who (according to the extravagant
hyperbole of Libanius) could trample with the same ease a field
of corn, or a legion of Romans. 67 In the presence of such an
enemy, the construction of a bridge was impracticable; and the
intrepid prince, who instantly seized the only possible
expedient, concealed his design, till the moment of execution,
from the knowledge of the Barbarians, of his own troops, and even
of his generals themselves. Under the specious pretence of
examining the state of the magazines, fourscore vessels 6711 were
gradually unladen; and a select detachment, apparently destined
for some secret expedition, was ordered to stand to their arms on
the first signal. Julian disguised the silent anxiety of his own
mind with smiles of confidence and joy; and amused the hostile
nations with the spectacle of military games, which he
insultingly celebrated under the walls of Coche. The day was
consecrated to pleasure; but, as soon as the hour of supper was
passed, the emperor summoned the generals to his tent, and
acquainted them that he had fixed that night for the passage of
the Tigris. They stood in silent and respectful astonishment;
but, when the venerable Sallust assumed the privilege of his age
and experience, the rest of the chiefs supported with freedom the
weight of his prudent remonstrances. 68 Julian contented himself
with observing, that conquest and safety depended on the attempt;
that instead of diminishing, the number of their enemies would be
increased, by successive reenforcements; and that a longer delay
would neither contract the breadth of the stream, nor level the
height of the bank. The signal was instantly given, and obeyed;
the most impatient of the legionaries leaped into five vessels
that lay nearest to the bank; and as they plied their oars with
intrepid diligence, they were lost, after a few moments, in the
darkness of the night. A flame arose on the opposite side; and
Julian, who too clearly understood that his foremost vessels, in
attempting to land, had been fired by the enemy, dexterously
converted their extreme danger into a presage of victory. “Our
fellow-soldiers,” he eagerly exclaimed, “are already masters of
the bank; see—they make the appointed signal; let us hasten to
emulate and assist their courage.” The united and rapid motion of
a great fleet broke the violence of the current, and they reached
the eastern shore of the Tigris with sufficient speed to
extinguish the flames, and rescue their adventurous companions.
The difficulties of a steep and lofty ascent were increased by
the weight of armor, and the darkness of the night. A shower of
stones, darts, and fire, was incessantly discharged on the heads
of the assailants; who, after an arduous struggle, climbed the
bank and stood victorious upon the rampart. As soon as they
possessed a more equal field, Julian, who, with his light
infantry, had led the attack, 69 darted through the ranks a
skilful and experienced eye: his bravest soldiers, according to
the precepts of Homer, 70 were distributed in the front and rear:
and all the trumpets of the Imperial army sounded to battle. The
Romans, after sending up a military shout, advanced in measured
steps to the animating notes of martial music; launched their
formidable javelins; and rushed forwards with drawn swords, to
deprive the Barbarians, by a closer onset, of the advantage of
their missile weapons. The whole engagement lasted above twelve
hours; till the gradual retreat of the Persians was changed into
a disorderly flight, of which the shameful example was given by
the principal leader, and the Surenas himself. They were pursued
to the gates of Ctesiphon; and the conquerors might have entered
the dismayed city, 71 if their general, Victor, who was
dangerously wounded with an arrow, had not conjured them to
desist from a rash attempt, which must be fatal, if it were not
successful. On _their_ side, the Romans acknowledged the loss of
only seventy-five men; while they affirmed, that the Barbarians
had left on the field of battle two thousand five hundred, or
even six thousand, of their bravest soldiers. The spoil was such
as might be expected from the riches and luxury of an Oriental
camp; large quantities of silver and gold, splendid arms and
trappings, and beds and tables of massy silver. 7111 The
victorious emperor distributed, as the rewards of valor, some
honorable gifts, civic, and mural, and naval crowns; which he,
and perhaps he alone, esteemed more precious than the wealth of
Asia. A solemn sacrifice was offered to the god of war, but the
appearances of the victims threatened the most inauspicious
events; and Julian soon discovered, by less ambiguous signs, that
he had now reached the term of his prosperity. 72
67 (return) [ Rien n’est beau que le vrai; a maxim which should
be inscribed on the desk of every rhetorician.]
6711 (return) [ This is a mistake; each vessel (according to
Zosimus two, according to Ammianus five) had eighty men. Amm.
xxiv. 6, with Wagner’s note. Gibbon must have read _octogenas_
for _octogenis_. The five vessels selected for this service were
remarkably large and strong provision transports. The strength of
the fleet remained with Julian to carry over the army—M.]
68 (return) [ Libanius alludes to the most powerful of the
generals. I have ventured to name _Sallust_. Ammianus says, of
all the leaders, quod acri metû territ acrimetu territi duces
concordi precatû precaut fieri prohibere tentarent. * Note: It is
evident that Gibbon has mistaken the sense of Libanius; his words
can only apply to a commander of a detachment, not to so eminent
a person as the Præfect of the East. St. Martin, iii. 313.—M.]
69 (return) [ Hinc Imperator.... (says Ammianus) ipse cum levis
armaturæ auxiliis per prima postremaque discurrens, &c. Yet
Zosimus, his friend, does not allow him to pass the river till
two days after the battle.]
70 (return) [ Secundum Homericam dispositionem. A similar
disposition is ascribed to the wise Nestor, in the fourth book of
the Iliad; and Homer was never absent from the mind of Julian.]
71 (return) [ Persas terrore subito miscuerunt, versisque
agminibus totius gentis, apertas Ctesiphontis portas victor miles
intrâsset, ni major prædarum occasio fuisset, quam cura victoriæ,
(Sextus Rufus de Provinciis c. 28.) Their avarice might dispose
them to hear the advice of Victor.]
7111 (return) [ The suburbs of Ctesiphon, according to a new
fragment of Eunapius, were so full of provisions, that the
soldiers were in danger of suffering from excess. Mai, p. 260.
Eunapius in Niebuhr. Nov. Byz. Coll. 68. Julian exhibited warlike
dances and games in his camp to recreate the soldiers Ibid.—M.]
72 (return) [ The labor of the canal, the passage of the Tigris,
and the victory, are described by Ammianus, (xxiv. 5, 6,)
Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 124-128, p. 347-353,) Greg.
Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 115,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 181-183,) and
Sextus Rufus, (de Provinciis, c. 28.)]
On the second day after the battle, the domestic guards, the
Jovians and Herculians, and the remaining troops, which composed
near two thirds of the whole army, were securely wafted over the
Tigris. 73 While the Persians beheld from the walls of Ctesiphon
the desolation of the adjacent country, Julian cast many an
anxious look towards the North, in full expectation, that as he
himself had victoriously penetrated to the capital of Sapor, the
march and junction of his lieutenants, Sebastian and Procopius,
would be executed with the same courage and diligence. His
expectations were disappointed by the treachery of the Armenian
king, who permitted, and most probably directed, the desertion of
his auxiliary troops from the camp of the Romans; 74 and by the
dissensions of the two generals, who were incapable of forming or
executing any plan for the public service. When the emperor had
relinquished the hope of this important reenforcement, he
condescended to hold a council of war, and approved, after a full
debate, the sentiment of those generals, who dissuaded the siege
of Ctesiphon, as a fruitless and pernicious undertaking. It is
not easy for us to conceive, by what arts of fortification a city
thrice besieged and taken by the predecessors of Julian could be
rendered impregnable against an army of sixty thousand Romans,
commanded by a brave and experienced general, and abundantly
supplied with ships, provisions, battering engines, and military
stores. But we may rest assured, from the love of glory, and
contempt of danger, which formed the character of Julian, that he
was not discouraged by any trivial or imaginary obstacles. 75 At
the very time when he declined the siege of Ctesiphon, he
rejected, with obstinacy and disdain, the most flattering offers
of a negotiation of peace. Sapor, who had been so long accustomed
to the tardy ostentation of Constantius, was surprised by the
intrepid diligence of his successor. As far as the confines of
India and Scythia, the satraps of the distant provinces were
ordered to assemble their troops, and to march, without delay, to
the assistance of their monarch. But their preparations were
dilatory, their motions slow; and before Sapor could lead an army
into the field, he received the melancholy intelligence of the
devastation of Assyria, the ruin of his palaces, and the
slaughter of his bravest troops, who defended the passage of the
Tigris. The pride of royalty was humbled in the dust; he took his
repasts on the ground; and the disorder of his hair expressed the
grief and anxiety of his mind. Perhaps he would not have refused
to purchase, with one half of his kingdom, the safety of the
remainder; and he would have gladly subscribed himself, in a
treaty of peace, the faithful and dependent ally of the Roman
conqueror. Under the pretence of private business, a minister of
rank and confidence was secretly despatched to embrace the knees
of Hormisdas, and to request, in the language of a suppliant,
that he might be introduced into the presence of the emperor. The
Sassanian prince, whether he listened to the voice of pride or
humanity, whether he consulted the sentiments of his birth, or
the duties of his situation, was equally inclined to promote a
salutary measure, which would terminate the calamities of Persia,
and secure the triumph of Rome. He was astonished by the
inflexible firmness of a hero, who remembered, most unfortunately
for himself and for his country, that Alexander had uniformly
rejected the propositions of Darius. But as Julian was sensible,
that the hope of a safe and honorable peace might cool the ardor
of his troops, he earnestly requested that Hormisdas would
privately dismiss the minister of Sapor, and conceal this
dangerous temptation from the knowledge of the camp. 76
73 (return) [ The fleet and army were formed in three divisions,
of which the first only had passed during the night.]
74 (return) [ Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armen. l. iii. c. 15, p.
246) supplies us with a national tradition, and a spurious
letter. I have borrowed only the leading circumstance, which is
consistent with truth, probability, and Libanius, (Orat. Parent.
c. 131, p. 355.)]
75 (return) [ Civitas inexpugnabilis, facinus audax et
importunum. Ammianus, xxiv. 7. His fellow-soldier, Eutropius,
turns aside from the difficulty, Assyriamque populatus, castra
apud Ctesiphontem stativa aliquandiu habuit: remeansbue victor,
&c. x. 16. Zosimus is artful or ignorant, and Socrates
inaccurate.]
76 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 130, p. 354, c. 139, p.
361. Socrates, l. iii. c. 21. The ecclesiastical historian
imputes the refusal of peace to the advice of Maximus. Such
advice was unworthy of a philosopher; but the philosopher was
likewise a magician, who flattered the hopes and passions of his
master.]
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part IV.
The honor, as well as interest, of Julian, forbade him to consume
his time under the impregnable walls of Ctesiphon and as often as
he defied the Barbarians, who defended the city, to meet him on
the open plain, they prudently replied, that if he desired to
exercise his valor, he might seek the army of the Great King. He
felt the insult, and he accepted the advice. Instead of confining
his servile march to the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris, he
resolved to imitate the adventurous spirit of Alexander, and
boldly to advance into the inland provinces, till he forced his
rival to contend with him, perhaps in the plains of Arbela, for
the empire of Asia. The magnanimity of Julian was applauded and
betrayed, by the arts of a noble Persian, who, in the cause of
his country, had generously submitted to act a part full of
danger, of falsehood, and of shame. 77 With a train of faithful
followers, he deserted to the Imperial camp; exposed, in a
specious tale, the injuries which he had sustained; exaggerated
the cruelty of Sapor, the discontent of the people, and the
weakness of the monarchy; and confidently offered himself as the
hostage and guide of the Roman march. The most rational grounds
of suspicion were urged, without effect, by the wisdom and
experience of Hormisdas; and the credulous Julian, receiving the
traitor into his bosom, was persuaded to issue a hasty order,
which, in the opinion of mankind, appeared to arraign his
prudence, and to endanger his safety. He destroyed, in a single
hour, the whole navy, which had been transported above five
hundred miles, at so great an expense of toil, of treasure, and
of blood. Twelve, or, at the most, twenty-two small vessels were
saved, to accompany, on carriages, the march of the army, and to
form occasional bridges for the passage of the rivers. A supply
of twenty days’ provisions was reserved for the use of the
soldiers; and the rest of the magazines, with a fleet of eleven
hundred vessels, which rode at anchor in the Tigris, were
abandoned to the flames, by the absolute command of the emperor.
The Christian bishops, Gregory and Augustin, insult the madness
of the Apostate, who executed, with his own hands, the sentence
of divine justice. Their authority, of less weight, perhaps, in a
military question, is confirmed by the cool judgment of an
experienced soldier, who was himself spectator of the
conflagration, and who could not disapprove the reluctant murmurs
of the troops. 78 Yet there are not wanting some specious, and
perhaps solid, reasons, which might justify the resolution of
Julian. The navigation of the Euphrates never ascended above
Babylon, nor that of the Tigris above Opis. 79 The distance of
the last-mentioned city from the Roman camp was not very
considerable: and Julian must soon have renounced the vain and
impracticable attempt of forcing upwards a great fleet against
the stream of a rapid river, 80 which in several places was
embarrassed by natural or artificial cataracts. 81 The power of
sails and oars was insufficient; it became necessary to tow the
ships against the current of the river; the strength of twenty
thousand soldiers was exhausted in this tedious and servile
labor, and if the Romans continued to march along the banks of
the Tigris, they could only expect to return home without
achieving any enterprise worthy of the genius or fortune of their
leader. If, on the contrary, it was advisable to advance into the
inland country, the destruction of the fleet and magazines was
the only measure which could save that valuable prize from the
hands of the numerous and active troops which might suddenly be
poured from the gates of Ctesiphon. Had the arms of Julian been
victorious, we should now admire the conduct, as well as the
courage, of a hero, who, by depriving his soldiers of the hopes
of a retreat, left them only the alternative of death or
conquest. 82
77 (return) [ The arts of this new Zopyrus (Greg. Nazianzen,
Orat. iv. p. 115, 116) may derive some credit from the testimony
of two abbreviators, (Sextus Rufus and Victor,) and the casual
hints of Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 134, p. 357) and Ammianus,
(xxiv. 7.) The course of genuine history is interrupted by a most
unseasonable chasm in the text of Ammianus.]
78 (return) [ See Ammianus, (xxiv. 7,) Libanius, (Orat.
Parentalis, c. 132, 133, p. 356, 357,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 183,)
Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 26) Gregory, (Orat. iv. p. 116,)
and Augustin, (de Civitate Dei, l. iv. c. 29, l. v. c. 21.) Of
these Libanius alone attempts a faint apology for his hero; who,
according to Ammianus, pronounced his own condemnation by a tardy
and ineffectual attempt to extinguish the flames.]
79 (return) [ Consult Herodotus, (l. i. c. 194,) Strabo, (l. xvi.
p. 1074,) and Tavernier, (part i. l. ii. p. 152.)]
80 (return) [ A celeritate Tigris incipit vocari, ita appellant
Medi sagittam. Plin. Hist. Natur. vi. 31.]
81 (return) [ One of these dikes, which produces an artificial
cascade or cataract, is described by Tavernier (part i. l. ii. p.
226) and Thevenot, (part ii. l. i. p. 193.) The Persians, or
Assyrians, labored to interrupt the navigation of the river,
(Strabo, l. xv. p. 1075. D’Anville, l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p.
98, 99.)]
82 (return) [ Recollect the successful and applauded rashness of
Agathocles and Cortez, who burnt their ships on the coast of
Africa and Mexico.]
The cumbersome train of artillery and wagons, which retards the
operations of a modern army, were in a great measure unknown in
the camps of the Romans. 83 Yet, in every age, the subsistence of
sixty thousand men must have been one of the most important cares
of a prudent general; and that subsistence could only be drawn
from his own or from the enemy’s country. Had it been possible
for Julian to maintain a bridge of communication on the Tigris,
and to preserve the conquered places of Assyria, a desolated
province could not afford any large or regular supplies, in a
season of the year when the lands were covered by the inundation
of the Euphrates, 84 and the unwholesome air was darkened with
swarms of innumerable insects. 85 The appearance of the hostile
country was far more inviting. The extensive region that lies
between the River Tigris and the mountains of Media, was filled
with villages and towns; and the fertile soil, for the most part,
was in a very improved state of cultivation. Julian might expect,
that a conqueror, who possessed the two forcible instruments of
persuasion, steel and gold, would easily procure a plentiful
subsistence from the fears or avarice of the natives. But, on the
approach of the Romans, the rich and smiling prospect was
instantly blasted. Wherever they moved, the inhabitants deserted
the open villages, and took shelter in the fortified towns; the
cattle was driven away; the grass and ripe corn were consumed
with fire; and, as soon as the flames had subsided which
interrupted the march of Julian, he beheld the melancholy face of
a smoking and naked desert. This desperate but effectual method
of defence can only be executed by the enthusiasm of a people who
prefer their independence to their property; or by the rigor of
an arbitrary government, which consults the public safety without
submitting to their inclinations the liberty of choice. On the
present occasion the zeal and obedience of the Persians seconded
the commands of Sapor; and the emperor was soon reduced to the
scanty stock of provisions, which continually wasted in his
hands. Before they were entirely consumed, he might still have
reached the wealthy and unwarlike cities of Ecbatana or Susa, by
the effort of a rapid and well-directed march; 86 but he was
deprived of this last resource by his ignorance of the roads, and
by the perfidy of his guides. The Romans wandered several days in
the country to the eastward of Bagdad; the Persian deserter, who
had artfully led them into the snare, escaped from their
resentment; and his followers, as soon as they were put to the
torture, confessed the secret of the conspiracy. The visionary
conquests of Hyrcania and India, which had so long amused, now
tormented, the mind of Julian. Conscious that his own imprudence
was the cause of the public distress, he anxiously balanced the
hopes of safety or success, without obtaining a satisfactory
answer, either from gods or men. At length, as the only
practicable measure, he embraced the resolution of directing his
steps towards the banks of the Tigris, with the design of saving
the army by a hasty march to the confines of Corduene; a fertile
and friendly province, which acknowledged the sovereignty of
Rome. The desponding troops obeyed the signal of the retreat,
only seventy days after they had passed the Chaboras, with the
sanguine expectation of subverting the throne of Persia. 87
83 (return) [ See the judicious reflections of the author of the
Essai sur la Tactique, tom. ii. p. 287-353, and the learned
remarks of M. Guichardt Nouveaux Mémoires Militaires, tom. i. p.
351-382, on the baggage and subsistence of the Roman armies.]
84 (return) [ The Tigris rises to the south, the Euphrates to the
north, of the Armenian mountains. The former overflows in March,
the latter in July. These circumstances are well explained in the
Geographical Dissertation of Foster, inserted in Spelman’s
Expedition of Cyras, vol. ii. p. 26.]
85 (return) [ Ammianus (xxiv. 8) describes, as he had felt, the
inconveniency of the flood, the heat, and the insects. The lands
of Assyria, oppressed by the Turks, and ravaged by the Curds or
Arabs, yield an increase of ten, fifteen, and twenty fold, for
the seed which is cast into the ground by the wretched and
unskillful husbandmen. Voyage de Niebuhr, tom. ii. p. 279, 285.]
86 (return) [ Isidore of Charax (Mansion. Parthic. p. 5, 6, in
Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. ii.) reckons 129 schæni from
Seleucia, and Thevenot, (part i. l. i. ii. p. 209-245,) 128 hours
of march from Bagdad to Ecbatana, or Hamadan. These measures
cannot exceed an ordinary parasang, or three Roman miles.]
87 (return) [ The march of Julian from Ctesiphon is
circumstantially, but not clearly, described by Ammianus, (xxiv.
7, 8,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 134, p. 357,) and Zosimus, (l.
iii. p. 183.) The two last seem ignorant that their conqueror was
retreating; and Libanius absurdly confines him to the banks of
the Tigris.]
As long as the Romans seemed to advance into the country, their
march was observed and insulted from a distance, by several
bodies of Persian cavalry; who, showing themselves sometimes in
loose, and sometimes in close order, faintly skirmished with the
advanced guards. These detachments were, however, supported by a
much greater force; and the heads of the columns were no sooner
pointed towards the Tigris than a cloud of dust arose on the
plain. The Romans, who now aspired only to the permission of a
safe and speedy retreat, endeavored to persuade themselves, that
this formidable appearance was occasioned by a troop of wild
asses, or perhaps by the approach of some friendly Arabs. They
halted, pitched their tents, fortified their camp, passed the
whole night in continual alarms; and discovered at the dawn of
day, that they were surrounded by an army of Persians. This army,
which might be considered only as the van of the Barbarians, was
soon followed by the main body of cuirassiers, archers, and
elephants, commanded by Meranes, a general of rank and
reputation. He was accompanied by two of the king’s sons, and
many of the principal satraps; and fame and expectation
exaggerated the strength of the remaining powers, which slowly
advanced under the conduct of Sapor himself. As the Romans
continued their march, their long array, which was forced to bend
or divide, according to the varieties of the ground, afforded
frequent and favorable opportunities to their vigilant enemies.
The Persians repeatedly charged with fury; they were repeatedly
repulsed with firmness; and the action at Maronga, which almost
deserved the name of a battle, was marked by a considerable loss
of satraps and elephants, perhaps of equal value in the eyes of
their monarch. These splendid advantages were not obtained
without an adequate slaughter on the side of the Romans: several
officers of distinction were either killed or wounded; and the
emperor himself, who, on all occasions of danger, inspired and
guided the valor of his troops, was obliged to expose his person,
and exert his abilities. The weight of offensive and defensive
arms, which still constituted the strength and safety of the
Romans, disabled them from making any long or effectual pursuit;
and as the horsemen of the East were trained to dart their
javelins, and shoot their arrows, at full speed, and in every
possible direction, 88 the cavalry of Persia was never more
formidable than in the moment of a rapid and disorderly flight.
But the most certain and irreparable loss of the Romans was that
of time. The hardy veterans, accustomed to the cold climate of
Gaul and Germany, fainted under the sultry heat of an Assyrian
summer; their vigor was exhausted by the incessant repetition of
march and combat; and the progress of the army was suspended by
the precautions of a slow and dangerous retreat, in the presence
of an active enemy. Every day, every hour, as the supply
diminished, the value and price of subsistence increased in the
Roman camp. 89 Julian, who always contented himself with such
food as a hungry soldier would have disdained, distributed, for
the use of the troops, the provisions of the Imperial household,
and whatever could be spared, from the sumpter-horses, of the
tribunes and generals. But this feeble relief served only to
aggravate the sense of the public distress; and the Romans began
to entertain the most gloomy apprehensions that, before they
could reach the frontiers of the empire, they should all perish,
either by famine, or by the sword of the Barbarians. 90
88 (return) [ Chardin, the most judicious of modern travellers,
describes (tom. ii. p. 57, 58, &c., edit. in 4to.) the education
and dexterity of the Persian horsemen. Brissonius (de Regno
Persico, p. 650 651, &c.,) has collected the testimonies of
antiquity.]
89 (return) [ In Mark Antony’s retreat, an attic chœnix sold for
fifty drachmæ, or, in other words, a pound of flour for twelve or
fourteen shillings barley bread was sold for its weight in
silver. It is impossible to peruse the interesting narrative of
Plutarch, (tom. v. p. 102-116,) without perceiving that Mark
Antony and Julian were pursued by the same enemies, and involved
in the same distress.]
90 (return) [ Ammian. xxiv. 8, xxv. 1. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 184,
185, 186. Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 134, 135, p. 357, 358, 359.
The sophist of Antioch appears ignorant that the troops were
hungry.]
While Julian struggled with the almost insuperable difficulties
of his situation, the silent hours of the night were still
devoted to study and contemplation. Whenever he closed his eyes
in short and interrupted slumbers, his mind was agitated with
painful anxiety; nor can it be thought surprising, that the
Genius of the empire should once more appear before him, covering
with a funeral veil his head, and his horn of abundance, and
slowly retiring from the Imperial tent. The monarch started from
his couch, and stepping forth to refresh his wearied spirits with
the coolness of the midnight air, he beheld a fiery meteor, which
shot athwart the sky, and suddenly vanished. Julian was convinced
that he had seen the menacing countenance of the god of war; 91
the council which he summoned, of Tuscan Haruspices, 92
unanimously pronounced that he should abstain from action; but on
this occasion, necessity and reason were more prevalent than
superstition; and the trumpets sounded at the break of day. The
army marched through a hilly country; and the hills had been
secretly occupied by the Persians. Julian led the van with the
skill and attention of a consummate general; he was alarmed by
the intelligence that his rear was suddenly attacked. The heat of
the weather had tempted him to lay aside his cuirass; but he
snatched a shield from one of his attendants, and hastened, with
a sufficient reenforcement, to the relief of the rear-guard. A
similar danger recalled the intrepid prince to the defence of the
front; and, as he galloped through the columns, the centre of the
left was attacked, and almost overpowered by the furious charge
of the Persian cavalry and elephants. This huge body was soon
defeated, by the well-timed evolution of the light infantry, who
aimed their weapons, with dexterity and effect, against the backs
of the horsemen, and the legs of the elephants. The Barbarians
fled; and Julian, who was foremost in every danger, animated the
pursuit with his voice and gestures. His trembling guards,
scattered and oppressed by the disorderly throng of friends and
enemies, reminded their fearless sovereign that he was without
armor; and conjured him to decline the fall of the impending
ruin. As they exclaimed, 93 a cloud of darts and arrows was
discharged from the flying squadrons; and a javelin, after razing
the skin of his arm, transpierced the ribs, and fixed in the
inferior part of the liver. Julian attempted to draw the deadly
weapon from his side; but his fingers were cut by the sharpness
of the steel, and he fell senseless from his horse. His guards
flew to his relief; and the wounded emperor was gently raised
from the ground, and conveyed out of the tumult of the battle
into an adjacent tent. The report of the melancholy event passed
from rank to rank; but the grief of the Romans inspired them with
invincible valor, and the desire of revenge. The bloody and
obstinate conflict was maintained by the two armies, till they
were separated by the total darkness of the night. The Persians
derived some honor from the advantage which they obtained against
the left wing, where Anatolius, master of the offices, was slain,
and the præfect Sallust very narrowly escaped. But the event of
the day was adverse to the Barbarians. They abandoned the field;
their two generals, Meranes and Nohordates, 94 fifty nobles or
satraps, and a multitude of their bravest soldiers; and the
success of the Romans, if Julian had survived, might have been
improved into a decisive and useful victory.
91 (return) [ Ammian. xxv. 2. Julian had sworn in a passion,
nunquam se Marti sacra facturum, (xxiv. 6.) Such whimsical
quarrels were not uncommon between the gods and their insolent
votaries; and even the prudent Augustus, after his fleet had been
twice shipwrecked, excluded Neptune from the honors of public
processions. See Hume’s Philosophical Reflections. Essays, vol.
ii. p. 418.]
92 (return) [ They still retained the monopoly of the vain but
lucrative science, which had been invented in Hetruria; and
professed to derive their knowledge of signs and omens from the
ancient books of Tarquitius, a Tuscan sage.]
93 (return) [ Clambant hinc inde _candidati_ (see the note of
Valesius) quos terror, ut fugientium molem tanquam ruinam male
compositi culminis declinaret. Ammian. xxv 3.]
94 (return) [ Sapor himself declared to the Romans, that it was
his practice to comfort the families of his deceased satraps, by
sending them, as a present, the heads of the guards and officers
who had not fallen by their master’s side. Libanius, de nece
Julian. ulcis. c. xiii. p. 163.]
The first words that Julian uttered, after his recovery from the
fainting fit into which he had been thrown by loss of blood, were
expressive of his martial spirit. He called for his horse and
arms, and was impatient to rush into the battle. His remaining
strength was exhausted by the painful effort; and the surgeons,
who examined his wound, discovered the symptoms of approaching
death. He employed the awful moments with the firm temper of a
hero and a sage; the philosophers who had accompanied him in this
fatal expedition, compared the tent of Julian with the prison of
Socrates; and the spectators, whom duty, or friendship, or
curiosity, had assembled round his couch, listened with
respectful grief to the funeral oration of their dying emperor.
95 “Friends and fellow-soldiers, the seasonable period of my
departure is now arrived, and I discharge, with the cheerfulness
of a ready debtor, the demands of nature. I have learned from
philosophy, how much the soul is more excellent than the body;
and that the separation of the nobler substance should be the
subject of joy, rather than of affliction. I have learned from
religion, that an early death has often been the reward of piety;
96 and I accept, as a favor of the gods, the mortal stroke that
secures me from the danger of disgracing a character, which has
hitherto been supported by virtue and fortitude. I die without
remorse, as I have lived without guilt. I am pleased to reflect
on the innocence of my private life; and I can affirm with
confidence, that the supreme authority, that emanation of the
Divine Power, has been preserved in my hands pure and immaculate.
Detesting the corrupt and destructive maxims of despotism, I have
considered the happiness of the people as the end of government.
Submitting my actions to the laws of prudence, of justice, and of
moderation, I have trusted the event to the care of Providence.
Peace was the object of my counsels, as long as peace was
consistent with the public welfare; but when the imperious voice
of my country summoned me to arms, I exposed my person to the
dangers of war, with the clear foreknowledge (which I had
acquired from the art of divination) that I was destined to fall
by the sword. I now offer my tribute of gratitude to the Eternal
Being, who has not suffered me to perish by the cruelty of a
tyrant, by the secret dagger of conspiracy, or by the slow
tortures of lingering disease. He has given me, in the midst of
an honorable career, a splendid and glorious departure from this
world; and I hold it equally absurd, equally base, to solicit, or
to decline, the stroke of fate. This much I have attempted to
say; but my strength fails me, and I feel the approach of death.
I shall cautiously refrain from any word that may tend to
influence your suffrages in the election of an emperor. My choice
might be imprudent or injudicious; and if it should not be
ratified by the consent of the army, it might be fatal to the
person whom I should recommend. I shall only, as a good citizen,
express my hopes, that the Romans may be blessed with the
government of a virtuous sovereign.” After this discourse, which
Julian pronounced in a firm and gentle tone of voice, he
distributed, by a military testament, 97 the remains of his
private fortune; and making some inquiry why Anatolius was not
present, he understood, from the answer of Sallust, that
Anatolius was killed; and bewailed, with amiable inconsistency,
the loss of his friend. At the same time he reproved the
immoderate grief of the spectators; and conjured them not to
disgrace, by unmanly tears, the fate of a prince, who in a few
moments would be united with heaven, and with the stars. 98 The
spectators were silent; and Julian entered into a metaphysical
argument with the philosophers Priscus and Maximus, on the nature
of the soul. The efforts which he made, of mind as well as body,
most probably hastened his death. His wound began to bleed with
fresh violence; his respiration was embarrassed by the swelling
of the veins; he called for a draught of cold water, and, as soon
as he had drank it, expired without pain, about the hour of
midnight. Such was the end of that extraordinary man, in the
thirty-second year of his age, after a reign of one year and
about eight months, from the death of Constantius. In his last
moments he displayed, perhaps with some ostentation, the love of
virtue and of fame, which had been the ruling passions of his
life. 99
95 (return) [ The character and situation of Julian might
countenance the suspicion that he had previously composed the
elaborate oration, which Ammianus heard, and has transcribed. The
version of the Abbé de la Bleterie is faithful and elegant. I
have followed him in expressing the Platonic idea of emanations,
which is darkly insinuated in the original.]
96 (return) [ Herodotus (l. i. c. 31,) has displayed that
doctrine in an agreeable tale. Yet the Jupiter, (in the 16th book
of the Iliad,) who laments with tears of blood the death of
Sarpedon his son, had a very imperfect notion of happiness or
glory beyond the grave.]
97 (return) [ The soldiers who made their verbal or nuncupatory
testaments, upon actual service, (in procinctu,) were exempted
from the formalities of the Roman law. See Heineccius, (Antiquit.
Jur. Roman. tom. i. p. 504,) and Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix,
l. xxvii.)]
98 (return) [ This union of the human soul with the divine
æthereal substance of the universe, is the ancient doctrine of
Pythagoras and Plato: but it seems to exclude any personal or
conscious immortality. See Warburton’s learned and rational
observations. Divine Legation, vol ii. p. 199-216.]
99 (return) [ The whole relation of the death of Julian is given
by Ammianus, (xxv. 3,) an intelligent spectator. Libanius, who
turns with horror from the scene, has supplied some
circumstances, (Orat. Parental. c 136-140, p. 359-362.) The
calumnies of Gregory, and the legends of more recent saints, may
now be _silently_ despised. * Note: A very remarkable fragment of
Eunapius describes, not without spirit, the struggle between the
terror of the army on account of their perilous situation, and
their grief for the death of Julian. “Even the vulgar felt that
they would soon provide a general, but such a general as Julian
they would never find, even though a god in the form of
man—Julian, who, with a mind equal to the divinity, triumphed
over the evil propensities of human nature,—* * who held commerce
with immaterial beings while yet in the material body—who
condescended to rule because a ruler was necessary to the welfare
of mankind.” Mai, Nov. Coll. ii. 261. Eunapius in Niebuhr, 69.]
The triumph of Christianity, and the calamities of the empire,
may, in some measure, be ascribed to Julian himself, who had
neglected to secure the future execution of his designs, by the
timely and judicious nomination of an associate and successor.
But the royal race of Constantius Chlorus was reduced to his own
person; and if he entertained any serious thoughts of investing
with the purple the most worthy among the Romans, he was diverted
from his resolution by the difficulty of the choice, the jealousy
of power, the fear of ingratitude, and the natural presumption of
health, of youth, and of prosperity. His unexpected death left
the empire without a master, and without an heir, in a state of
perplexity and danger, which, in the space of fourscore years,
had never been experienced, since the election of Diocletian. In
a government which had almost forgotten the distinction of pure
and noble blood, the superiority of birth was of little moment;
the claims of official rank were accidental and precarious; and
the candidates, who might aspire to ascend the vacant throne
could be supported only by the consciousness of personal merit,
or by the hopes of popular favor. But the situation of a famished
army, encompassed on all sides by a host of Barbarians, shortened
the moments of grief and deliberation. In this scene of terror
and distress, the body of the deceased prince, according to his
own directions, was decently embalmed; and, at the dawn of day,
the generals convened a military senate, at which the commanders
of the legions, and the officers both of cavalry and infantry,
were invited to assist. Three or four hours of the night had not
passed away without some secret cabals; and when the election of
an emperor was proposed, the spirit of faction began to agitate
the assembly. Victor and Arinthæus collected the remains of the
court of Constantius; the friends of Julian attached themselves
to the Gallic chiefs, Dagalaiphus and Nevitta; and the most fatal
consequences might be apprehended from the discord of two
factions, so opposite in their character and interest, in their
maxims of government, and perhaps in their religious principles.
The superior virtues of Sallust could alone reconcile their
divisions, and unite their suffrages; and the venerable præfect
would immediately have been declared the successor of Julian, if
he himself, with sincere and modest firmness, had not alleged his
age and infirmities, so unequal to the weight of the diadem. The
generals, who were surprised and perplexed by his refusal, showed
some disposition to adopt the salutary advice of an inferior
officer, 100 that they should act as they would have acted in the
absence of the emperor; that they should exert their abilities to
extricate the army from the present distress; and, if they were
fortunate enough to reach the confines of Mesopotamia, they
should proceed with united and deliberate counsels in the
election of a lawful sovereign. While they debated, a few voices
saluted Jovian, who was no more than _first_ 101 of the
domestics, with the names of Emperor and Augustus. The tumultuary
acclamation 10111 was instantly repeated by the guards who
surrounded the tent, and passed, in a few minutes, to the
extremities of the line. The new prince, astonished with his own
fortune was hastily invested with the Imperial ornaments, and
received an oath of fidelity from the generals, whose favor and
protection he so lately solicited. The strongest recommendation
of Jovian was the merit of his father, Count Varronian, who
enjoyed, in honorable retirement, the fruit of his long services.
In the obscure freedom of a private station, the son indulged his
taste for wine and women; yet he supported, with credit, the
character of a Christian 102 and a soldier. Without being
conspicuous for any of the ambitious qualifications which excite
the admiration and envy of mankind, the comely person of Jovian,
his cheerful temper, and familiar wit, had gained the affection
of his fellow-soldiers; and the generals of both parties
acquiesced in a popular election, which had not been conducted by
the arts of their enemies. The pride of this unexpected elevation
was moderated by the just apprehension, that the same day might
terminate the life and reign of the new emperor. The pressing
voice of necessity was obeyed without delay; and the first orders
issued by Jovian, a few hours after his predecessor had expired,
were to prosecute a march, which could alone extricate the Romans
from their actual distress. 103
100 (return) [ Honoratior aliquis miles; perhaps Ammianus
himself. The modest and judicious historian describes the scene
of the election, at which he was undoubtedly present, (xxv. 5.)]
101 (return) [ The _primus_ or _primicerius_ enjoyed the dignity
of a senator, and though only a tribune, he ranked with the
military dukes. Cod. Theodosian. l. vi. tit. xxiv. These
privileges are perhaps more recent than the time of Jovian.]
10111 (return) [ The soldiers supposed that the acclamations
proclaimed the name of Julian, restored, as they fondly thought,
to health, not that of Jovian. loc.—M.]
102 (return) [ The ecclesiastical historians, Socrates, (l. iii.
c. 22,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 3,) and Theodoret, (l. iv. c. 1,)
ascribe to Jovian the merit of a confessor under the preceding
reign; and piously suppose that he refused the purple, till the
whole army unanimously exclaimed that they were Christians.
Ammianus, calmly pursuing his narrative, overthrows the legend by
a single sentence. Hostiis pro Joviano extisque inspectis,
pronuntiatum est, &c., xxv. 6.]
103 (return) [ Ammianus (xxv. 10) has drawn from the life an
impartial portrait of Jovian; to which the younger Victor has
added some remarkable strokes. The Abbé de la Bleterie (Histoire
de Jovien, tom. i. p. 1-238) has composed an elaborate history of
his short reign; a work remarkably distinguished by elegance of
style, critical disquisition, and religious prejudice.]
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part V.
The esteem of an enemy is most sincerely expressed by his fears;
and the degree of fear may be accurately measured by the joy with
which he celebrates his deliverance. The welcome news of the
death of Julian, which a deserter revealed to the camp of Sapor,
inspired the desponding monarch with a sudden confidence of
victory. He immediately detached the royal cavalry, perhaps the
ten thousand _Immortals_, 104 to second and support the pursuit;
and discharged the whole weight of his united forces on the
rear-guard of the Romans. The rear-guard was thrown into
disorder; the renowned legions, which derived their titles from
Diocletian, and his warlike colleague, were broke and trampled
down by the elephants; and three tribunes lost their lives in
attempting to stop the flight of their soldiers. The battle was
at length restored by the persevering valor of the Romans; the
Persians were repulsed with a great slaughter of men and
elephants; and the army, after marching and fighting a long
summer’s day, arrived, in the evening, at Samara, on the banks of
the Tigris, about one hundred miles above Ctesiphon. 105 On the
ensuing day, the Barbarians, instead of harassing the march,
attacked the camp, of Jovian; which had been seated in a deep and
sequestered valley. From the hills, the archers of Persia
insulted and annoyed the wearied legionaries; and a body of
cavalry, which had penetrated with desperate courage through the
Prætorian gate, was cut in pieces, after a doubtful conflict,
near the Imperial tent. In the succeeding night, the camp of
Carche was protected by the lofty dikes of the river; and the
Roman army, though incessantly exposed to the vexatious pursuit
of the Saracens, pitched their tents near the city of Dura, 106
four days after the death of Julian. The Tigris was still on
their left; their hopes and provisions were almost consumed; and
the impatient soldiers, who had fondly persuaded themselves that
the frontiers of the empire were not far distant, requested their
new sovereign, that they might be permitted to hazard the passage
of the river. With the assistance of his wisest officers, Jovian
endeavored to check their rashness; by representing, that if they
possessed sufficient skill and vigor to stem the torrent of a
deep and rapid stream, they would only deliver themselves naked
and defenceless to the Barbarians, who had occupied the opposite
banks, Yielding at length to their clamorous importunities, he
consented, with reluctance, that five hundred Gauls and Germans,
accustomed from their infancy to the waters of the Rhine and
Danube, should attempt the bold adventure, which might serve
either as an encouragement, or as a warning, for the rest of the
army. In the silence of the night, they swam the Tigris,
surprised an unguarded post of the enemy, and displayed at the
dawn of day the signal of their resolution and fortune. The
success of this trial disposed the emperor to listen to the
promises of his architects, who propose to construct a floating
bridge of the inflated skins of sheep, oxen, and goats, covered
with a floor of earth and fascines. 107 Two important days were
spent in the ineffectual labor; and the Romans, who already
endured the miseries of famine, cast a look of despair on the
Tigris, and upon the Barbarians; whose numbers and obstinacy
increased with the distress of the Imperial army. 108
104 (return) [ Regius equitatus. It appears, from Irocopius, that
the Immortals, so famous under Cyrus and his successors, were
revived, if we may use that improper word, by the Sassanides.
Brisson de Regno Persico, p. 268, &c.]
105 (return) [ The obscure villages of the inland country are
irrecoverably lost; nor can we name the field of battle where
Julian fell: but M. D’Anville has demonstrated the precise
situation of Sumere, Carche, and Dura, along the banks of the
Tigris, (Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 248 L’Euphrate et le
Tigre, p. 95, 97.) In the ninth century, Sumere, or Samara,
became, with a slight change of name, the royal residence of the
khalifs of the house of Abbas. * Note: Sormanray, called by the
Arabs Samira, where D’Anville placed Samara, is too much to the
south; and is a modern town built by Caliph Morasen.
Serra-man-rai means, in Arabic, it rejoices every one who sees
it. St. Martin, iii. 133.—M.]
106 (return) [ Dura was a fortified place in the wars of
Antiochus against the rebels of Media and Persia, (Polybius, l.
v. c. 48, 52, p. 548, 552 edit. Casaubon, in 8vo.)]
107 (return) [ A similar expedient was proposed to the leaders of
the ten thousand, and wisely rejected. Xenophon, Anabasis, l.
iii. p. 255, 256, 257. It appears, from our modern travellers,
that rafts floating on bladders perform the trade and navigation
of the Tigris.]
108 (return) [ The first military acts of the reign of Jovian are
related by Ammianus, (xxv. 6,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 146,
p. 364,) and Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 189, 190, 191.) Though we may
distrust the fairness of Libanius, the ocular testimony of
Eutropius (uno a Persis atque altero prœlio victus, x. 17) must
incline us to suspect that Ammianus had been too jealous of the
honor of the Roman arms.]
In this hopeless condition, the fainting spirits of the Romans
were revived by the sound of peace. The transient presumption of
Sapor had vanished: he observed, with serious concern, that, in
the repetition of doubtful combats, he had lost his most faithful
and intrepid nobles, his bravest troops, and the greatest part of
his train of elephants: and the experienced monarch feared to
provoke the resistance of despair, the vicissitudes of fortune,
and the unexhausted powers of the Roman empire; which might soon
advance to elieve, or to revenge, the successor of Julian. The
Surenas himself, accompanied by another satrap, appeared in the
camp of Jovian; 109 and declared, that the clemency of his
sovereign was not averse to signify the conditions on which he
would consent to spare and to dismiss the Cæsar with the relics
of his captive army. 10911 The hopes of safety subdued the
firmness of the Romans; the emperor was compelled, by the advice
of his council, and the cries of his soldiers, to embrace the
offer of peace; 10912 and the præfect Sallust was immediately
sent, with the general Arinthæus, to understand the pleasure of
the Great King. The crafty Persian delayed, under various
pretenses, the conclusion of the agreement; started difficulties,
required explanations, suggested expedients, receded from his
concessions, increased his demands, and wasted four days in the
arts of negotiation, till he had consumed the stock of provisions
which yet remained in the camp of the Romans. Had Jovian been
capable of executing a bold and prudent measure, he would have
continued his march, with unremitting diligence; the progress of
the treaty would have suspended the attacks of the Barbarians;
and, before the expiration of the fourth day, he might have
safely reached the fruitful province of Corduene, at the distance
only of one hundred miles. 110 The irresolute emperor, instead of
breaking through the toils of the enemy, expected his fate with
patient resignation; and accepted the humiliating conditions of
peace, which it was no longer in his power to refuse. The five
provinces beyond the Tigris, which had been ceded by the
grandfather of Sapor, were restored to the Persian monarchy. He
acquired, by a single article, the impregnable city of Nisibis;
which had sustained, in three successive sieges, the effort of
his arms. Singara, and the castle of the Moors, one of the
strongest places of Mesopotamia, were likewise dismembered from
the empire. It was considered as an indulgence, that the
inhabitants of those fortresses were permitted to retire with
their effects; but the conqueror rigorously insisted, that the
Romans should forever abandon the king and kingdom of Armenia.
11011 A peace, or rather a long truce, of thirty years, was
stipulated between the hostile nations; the faith of the treaty
was ratified by solemn oaths and religious ceremonies; and
hostages of distinguished rank were reciprocally delivered to
secure the performance of the conditions. 111
109 (return) [ Sextus Rufus (de Provinciis, c. 29) embraces a
poor subterfuge of national vanity. Tanta reverentia nominis
Romani fuit, ut a Persis _primus_ de pace sermo haberetur. ——He
is called Junius by John Malala; the same, M. St. Martin
conjectures, with a satrap of Gordyene named Jovianus, or
Jovinianus; mentioned in Ammianus Marcellinus, xviii. 6.—M.]
10911 (return) [ The Persian historians couch the message of
Shah-pour in these Oriental terms: “I have reassembled my
numerous army. I am resolved to revenge my subjects, who have
been plundered, made captives, and slain. It is for this that I
have bared my arm, and girded my loins. If you consent to pay the
price of the blood which has been shed, to deliver up the booty
which has been plundered, and to restore the city of Nisibis,
which is in Irak, and belongs to our empire, though now in your
possession, I will sheathe the sword of war; but should you
refuse these terms, the hoofs of my horse, which are hard as
steel, shall efface the name of the Romans from the earth; and my
glorious cimeter, that destroys like fire, shall exterminate the
people of your empire.” These authorities do not mention the
death of Julian. Malcolm’s Persia, i. 87.—M.]
10912 (return) [ The Paschal chronicle, not, as M. St. Martin
says, supported by John Malala, places the mission of this
ambassador before the death of Julian. The king of Persia was
then in Persarmenia, ignorant of the death of Julian; he only
arrived at the army subsequent to that event. St. Martin adopts
this view, and finds or extorts support for it, from Libanius and
Ammianus, iii. 158.—M.]
110 (return) [ It is presumptuous to controvert the opinion of
Ammianus, a soldier and a spectator. Yet it is difficult to
understand _how_ the mountains of Corduene could extend over the
plains of Assyria, as low as the conflux of the Tigris and the
great Zab; or _how_ an army of sixty thousand men could march one
hundred miles in four days. Note: * Yet this appears to be the
case (in modern maps: ) the march is the difficulty.—M.]
11011 (return) [ Sapor availed himself, a few years after, of the
dissolution of the alliance between the Romans and the Armenians.
See St. M. iii. 163.—M.]
111 (return) [ The treaty of Dura is recorded with grief or
indignation by Ammianus, (xxv. 7,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c.
142, p. 364,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 190, 191,) Gregory Nazianzen,
(Orat. iv. p. 117, 118, who imputes the distress to Julian, the
deliverance to Jovian,) and Eutropius, (x. 17.) The
last-mentioned writer, who was present in military station,
styles this peace necessarium quidem sed ignoblem.]
The sophist of Antioch, who saw with indignation the sceptre of
his hero in the feeble hand of a Christian successor, professes
to admire the moderation of Sapor, in contenting himself with so
small a portion of the Roman empire. If he had stretched as far
as the Euphrates the claims of his ambition, he might have been
secure, says Libanius, of not meeting with a refusal. If he had
fixed, as the boundary of Persia, the Orontes, the Cydnus, the
Sangarius, or even the Thracian Bosphorus, flatterers would not
have been wanting in the court of Jovian to convince the timid
monarch, that his remaining provinces would still afford the most
ample gratifications of power and luxury. 112 Without adopting in
its full force this malicious insinuation, we must acknowledge,
that the conclusion of so ignominious a treaty was facilitated by
the private ambition of Jovian. The obscure domestic, exalted to
the throne by fortune, rather than by merit, was impatient to
escape from the hands of the Persians, that he might prevent the
designs of Procopius, who commanded the army of Mesopotamia, and
establish his doubtful reign over the legions and provinces which
were still ignorant of the hasty and tumultuous choice of the
camp beyond the Tigris. 113 In the neighborhood of the same
river, at no very considerable distance from the fatal station of
Dura, 114 the ten thousand Greeks, without generals, or guides,
or provisions, were abandoned, above twelve hundred miles from
their native country, to the resentment of a victorious monarch.
The difference of _their_ conduct and success depended much more
on their character than on their situation. Instead of tamely
resigning themselves to the secret deliberations and private
views of a single person, the united councils of the Greeks were
inspired by the generous enthusiasm of a popular assembly; where
the mind of each citizen is filled with the love of glory, the
pride of freedom, and the contempt of death. Conscious of their
superiority over the Barbarians in arms and discipline, they
disdained to yield, they refused to capitulate: every obstacle
was surmounted by their patience, courage, and military skill;
and the memorable retreat of the ten thousand exposed and
insulted the weakness of the Persian monarchy. 115
112 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 143, p. 364, 365.]
113 (return) [ Conditionibus..... dispendiosis Romanæ reipublicæ
impositis.... quibus cupidior regni quam gloriæ Jovianus, imperio
rudis, adquievit. Sextus Rufus de Provinciis, c. 29. La Bleterie
has expressed, in a long, direct oration, these specious
considerations of public and private interest, (Hist. de Jovien,
tom. i. p. 39, &c.)]
114 (return) [ The generals were murdered on the bauks of the
Zabatus, (Ana basis, l. ii. p. 156, l. iii. p. 226,) or great
Zab, a river of Assyria, 400 feet broad, which falls into the
Tigris fourteen hours below Mosul. The error of the Greeks
bestowed on the greater and lesser Zab the names of the _Wolf_,
(Lycus,) and the _Goat_, (Capros.) They created these animals to
attend the _Tiger_ of the East.]
115 (return) [ The _Cyropædia_ is vague and languid; the
_Anabasis_ circumstance and animated. Such is the eternal
difference between fiction and truth.]
As the price of his disgraceful concessions, the emperor might
perhaps have stipulated, that the camp of the hungry Romans
should be plentifully supplied; 116 and that they should be
permitted to pass the Tigris on the bridge which was constructed
by the hands of the Persians. But, if Jovian presumed to solicit
those equitable terms, they were sternly refused by the haughty
tyrant of the East, whose clemency had pardoned the invaders of
his country. The Saracens sometimes intercepted the stragglers of
the march; but the generals and troops of Sapor respected the
cessation of arms; and Jovian was suffered to explore the most
convenient place for the passage of the river. The small vessels,
which had been saved from the conflagration of the fleet,
performed the most essential service. They first conveyed the
emperor and his favorites; and afterwards transported, in many
successive voyages, a great part of the army. But, as every man
was anxious for his personal safety, and apprehensive of being
left on the hostile shore, the soldiers, who were too impatient
to wait the slow returns of the boats, boldly ventured themselves
on light hurdles, or inflated skins; and, drawing after them
their horses, attempted, with various success, to swim across the
river. Many of these daring adventurers were swallowed by the
waves; many others, who were carried along by the violence of the
stream, fell an easy prey to the avarice or cruelty of the wild
Arabs: and the loss which the army sustained in the passage of
the Tigris, was not inferior to the carnage of a day of battle.
As soon as the Romans were landed on the western bank, they were
delivered from the hostile pursuit of the Barbarians; but, in a
laborious march of two hundred miles over the plains of
Mesopotamia, they endured the last extremities of thirst and
hunger. They were obliged to traverse the sandy desert, which, in
the extent of seventy miles, did not afford a single blade of
sweet grass, nor a single spring of fresh water; and the rest of
the inhospitable waste was untrod by the footsteps either of
friends or enemies. Whenever a small measure of flour could be
discovered in the camp, twenty pounds weight were greedily
purchased with ten pieces of gold: 117 the beasts of burden were
slaughtered and devoured; and the desert was strewed with the
arms and baggage of the Roman soldiers, whose tattered garments
and meagre countenances displayed their past sufferings and
actual misery. A small convoy of provisions advanced to meet the
army as far as the castle of Ur; and the supply was the more
grateful, since it declared the fidelity of Sebastian and
Procopius. At Thilsaphata, 118 the emperor most graciously
received the generals of Mesopotamia; and the remains of a once
flourishing army at length reposed themselves under the walls of
Nisibis. The messengers of Jovian had already proclaimed, in the
language of flattery, his election, his treaty, and his return;
and the new prince had taken the most effectual measures to
secure the allegiance of the armies and provinces of Europe, by
placing the military command in the hands of those officers, who,
from motives of interest, or inclination, would firmly support
the cause of their benefactor. 119
116 (return) [ According to Rufinus, an immediate supply of
provisions was stipulated by the treaty, and Theodoret affirms,
that the obligation was faithfully discharged by the Persians.
Such a fact is probable but undoubtedly false. See Tillemont,
Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 702.]
117 (return) [ We may recollect some lines of Lucan, (Pharsal.
iv. 95,) who describes a similar distress of Cæsar’s army in
Spain:— ——Sæva fames aderat—Miles eget: toto censu non prodigus
emit Exiguam Cererem. Proh lucri pallida tabes! Non deest prolato
jejunus venditor auro. See Guichardt (Nouveaux Mémoires
Militaires, tom. i. p. 370-382.) His analysis of the two
campaigns in Spain and Africa is the noblest monument that has
ever been raised to the fame of Cæsar.]
118 (return) [ M. d’Anville (see his Maps, and l’Euphrate et le
Tigre, p. 92, 93) traces their march, and assigns the true
position of Hatra, Ur, and Thilsaphata, which Ammianus has
mentioned. ——He does not complain of the Samiel, the deadly hot
wind, which Thevenot (Voyages, part ii. l. i. p. 192) so much
dreaded. ——Hatra, now Kadhr. Ur, Kasr or Skervidgi. Thilsaphata
is unknown—M.]
119 (return) [ The retreat of Jovian is described by Ammianus,
(xxv. 9,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 143, p. 365,) and Zosimus,
(l. iii. p. 194.)]
The friends of Julian had confidently announced the success of
his expedition. They entertained a fond persuasion that the
temples of the gods would be enriched with the spoils of the
East; that Persia would be reduced to the humble state of a
tributary province, governed by the laws and magistrates of Rome;
that the Barbarians would adopt the dress, and manners, and
language of their conquerors; and that the youth of Ecbatana and
Susa would study the art of rhetoric under Grecian masters. 120
The progress of the arms of Julian interrupted his communication
with the empire; and, from the moment that he passed the Tigris,
his affectionate subjects were ignorant of the fate and fortunes
of their prince. Their contemplation of fancied triumphs was
disturbed by the melancholy rumor of his death; and they
persisted to doubt, after they could no longer deny, the truth of
that fatal event. 121 The messengers of Jovian promulgated the
specious tale of a prudent and necessary peace; the voice of
fame, louder and more sincere, revealed the disgrace of the
emperor, and the conditions of the ignominious treaty. The minds
of the people were filled with astonishment and grief, with
indignation and terror, when they were informed, that the
unworthy successor of Julian relinquished the five provinces
which had been acquired by the victory of Galerius; and that he
shamefully surrendered to the Barbarians the important city of
Nisibis, the firmest bulwark of the provinces of the East. 122
The deep and dangerous question, how far the public faith should
be observed, when it becomes incompatible with the public safety,
was freely agitated in popular conversation; and some hopes were
entertained that the emperor would redeem his pusillanimous
behavior by a splendid act of patriotic perfidy. The inflexible
spirit of the Roman senate had always disclaimed the unequal
conditions which were extorted from the distress of their captive
armies; and, if it were necessary to satisfy the national honor,
by delivering the guilty general into the hands of the
Barbarians, the greatest part of the subjects of Jovian would
have cheerfully acquiesced in the precedent of ancient times. 123
120 (return) [ Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 145, p. 366.) Such
were the natural hopes and wishes of a rhetorician.]
121 (return) [ The people of Carrhæ, a city devoted to Paganism,
buried the inauspicious messenger under a pile of stones,
(Zosimus, l. iii. p. 196.) Libanius, when he received the fatal
intelligence, cast his eye on his sword; but he recollected that
Plato had condemned suicide, and that he must live to compose the
Panegyric of Julian, (Libanius de Vita sua, tom. ii. p. 45, 46.)]
122 (return) [ Ammianus and Eutropius may be admitted as fair and
credible witnesses of the public language and opinions. The
people of Antioch reviled an ignominious peace, which exposed
them to the Persians, on a naked and defenceless frontier,
(Excerpt. Valesiana, p. 845, ex Johanne Antiocheno.)]
123 (return) [ The Abbé de la Bleterie, (Hist. de Jovien, tom. i.
p. 212-227.) though a severe casuist, has pronounced that Jovian
was not bound to execute his promise; since he _could not_
dismember the empire, nor alienate, without their consent, the
allegiance of his people. I have never found much delight or
instruction in such political metaphysics.]
But the emperor, whatever might be the limits of his
constitutional authority, was the absolute master of the laws and
arms of the state; and the same motives which had forced him to
subscribe, now pressed him to execute, the treaty of peace. He
was impatient to secure an empire at the expense of a few
provinces; and the respectable names of religion and honor
concealed the personal fears and ambition of Jovian.
Notwithstanding the dutiful solicitations of the inhabitants,
decency, as well as prudence, forbade the emperor to lodge in the
palace of Nisibis; but the next morning after his arrival,
Bineses, the ambassador of Persia, entered the place, displayed
from the citadel the standard of the Great King, and proclaimed,
in his name, the cruel alternative of exile or servitude. The
principal citizens of Nisibis, who, till that fatal moment, had
confided in the protection of their sovereign, threw themselves
at his feet. They conjured him not to abandon, or, at least, not
to deliver, a faithful colony to the rage of a Barbarian tyrant,
exasperated by the three successive defeats which he had
experienced under the walls of Nisibis. They still possessed arms
and courage to repel the invaders of their country: they
requested only the permission of using them in their own defence;
and, as soon as they had asserted their independence, they should
implore the favor of being again admitted into the ranks of his
subjects. Their arguments, their eloquence, their tears, were
ineffectual. Jovian alleged, with some confusion, the sanctity of
oaths; and, as the reluctance with which he accepted the present
of a crown of gold, convinced the citizens of their hopeless
condition, the advocate Sylvanus was provoked to exclaim, “O
emperor! may you thus be crowned by all the cities of your
dominions!” Jovian, who in a few weeks had assumed the habits of
a prince, 124 was displeased with freedom, and offended with
truth: and as he reasonably supposed, that the discontent of the
people might incline them to submit to the Persian government, he
published an edict, under pain of death, that they should leave
the city within the term of three days. Ammianus has delineated
in lively colors the scene of universal despair, which he seems
to have viewed with an eye of compassion. 125 The martial youth
deserted, with indignant grief, the walls which they had so
gloriously defended: the disconsolate mourner dropped a last tear
over the tomb of a son or husband, which must soon be profaned by
the rude hand of a Barbarian master; and the aged citizen kissed
the threshold, and clung to the doors, of the house where he had
passed the cheerful and careless hours of infancy. The highways
were crowded with a trembling multitude: the distinctions of
rank, and sex, and age, were lost in the general calamity. Every
one strove to bear away some fragment from the wreck of his
fortunes; and as they could not command the immediate service of
an adequate number of horses or wagons, they were obliged to
leave behind them the greatest part of their valuable effects.
The savage insensibility of Jovian appears to have aggravated the
hardships of these unhappy fugitives. They were seated, however,
in a new-built quarter of Amida; and that rising city, with the
reenforcement of a very considerable colony, soon recovered its
former splendor, and became the capital of Mesopotamia. 126
Similar orders were despatched by the emperor for the evacuation
of Singara and the castle of the Moors; and for the restitution
of the five provinces beyond the Tigris. Sapor enjoyed the glory
and the fruits of his victory; and this ignominious peace has
justly been considered as a memorable æra in the decline and fall
of the Roman empire. The predecessors of Jovian had sometimes
relinquished the dominion of distant and unprofitable provinces;
but, since the foundation of the city, the genius of Rome, the
god Terminus, who guarded the boundaries of the republic, had
never retired before the sword of a victorious enemy. 127
124 (return) [ At Nisibis he performed a _royal_ act. A brave
officer, his namesake, who had been thought worthy of the purple,
was dragged from supper, thrown into a well, and stoned to death
without any form of trial or evidence of guilt. Anomian. xxv. 8.]
125 (return) [ See xxv. 9, and Zosimus, l. iii. p. 194, 195.]
126 (return) [ Chron. Paschal. p. 300. The ecclesiastical Notitiæ
may be consulted.]
127 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iii. p. 192, 193. Sextus Rufus de
Provinciis, c. 29. Augustin de Civitat. Dei, l. iv. c. 29. This
general position must be applied and interpreted with some
caution.]
After Jovian had performed those engagements which the voice of
his people might have tempted him to violate, he hastened away
from the scene of his disgrace, and proceeded with his whole
court to enjoy the luxury of Antioch. 128 Without consulting the
dictates of religious zeal, he was prompted, by humanity and
gratitude, to bestow the last honors on the remains of his
deceased sovereign: 129 and Procopius, who sincerely bewailed the
loss of his kinsman, was removed from the command of the army,
under the decent pretence of conducting the funeral. The corpse
of Julian was transported from Nisibis to Tarsus, in a slow march
of fifteen days; and, as it passed through the cities of the
East, was saluted by the hostile factions, with mournful
lamentations and clamorous insults. The Pagans already placed
their beloved hero in the rank of those gods whose worship he had
restored; while the invectives of the Christians pursued the soul
of the Apostate to hell, and his body to the grave. 130 One party
lamented the approaching ruin of their altars; the other
celebrated the marvellous deliverance of their church. The
Christians applauded, in lofty and ambiguous strains, the stroke
of divine vengeance, which had been so long suspended over the
guilty head of Julian. They acknowledge, that the death of the
tyrant, at the instant he expired beyond the Tigris, was
_revealed_ to the saints of Egypt, Syria, and Cappadocia; 131 and
instead of suffering him to fall by the Persian darts, their
indiscretion ascribed the heroic deed to the obscure hand of some
mortal or immortal champion of the faith. 132 Such imprudent
declarations were eagerly adopted by the malice, or credulity, of
their adversaries; 133 who darkly insinuated, or confidently
asserted, that the governors of the church had instigated and
directed the fanaticism of a domestic assassin. 134 Above sixteen
years after the death of Julian, the charge was solemnly and
vehemently urged, in a public oration, addressed by Libanius to
the emperor Theodosius. His suspicions are unsupported by fact or
argument; and we can only esteem the generous zeal of the sophist
of Antioch for the cold and neglected ashes of his friend. 135
128 (return) [ Ammianus, xxv. 9. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 196. He
might be edax, vino Venerique indulgens. But I agree with La
Bleterie (tom. i. p. 148-154) in rejecting the foolish report of
a Bacchanalian riot (ap. Suidam) celebrated at Antioch, by the
emperor, his _wife_, and a troop of concubines.]
129 (return) [ The Abbé de la Bleterie (tom. i. p. 156-209)
handsomely exposes the brutal bigotry of Baronius, who would have
thrown Julian to the dogs, ne cespititia quidem sepultura
dignus.]
130 (return) [ Compare the sophist and the saint, (Libanius,
Monod. tom. ii. p. 251, and Orat. Parent. c. 145, p. 367, c. 156,
p. 377, with Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p. 125-132.) The
Christian orator faintly mutters some exhortations to modesty and
forgiveness; but he is well satisfied, that the real sufferings
of Julian will far exceed the fabulous torments of Ixion or
Tantalus.]
131 (return) [ Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 549)
has collected these visions. Some saint or angel was observed to
be absent in the night, on a secret expedition, &c.]
132 (return) [ Sozomen (l. vi. 2) applauds the Greek doctrine of
_tyrannicide;_ but the whole passage, which a Jesuit might have
translated, is prudently suppressed by the president Cousin.]
133 (return) [ Immediately after the death of Julian, an
uncertain rumor was scattered, telo cecidisse Romano. It was
carried, by some deserters to the Persian camp; and the Romans
were reproached as the assassins of the emperor by Sapor and his
subjects, (Ammian. xxv. 6. Libanius de ulciscenda Juliani nece,
c. xiii. p. 162, 163.) It was urged, as a decisive proof, that no
Persian had appeared to claim the promised reward, (Liban. Orat.
Parent. c. 141, p. 363.) But the flying horseman, who darted the
fatal javelin, might be ignorant of its effect; or he might be
slain in the same action. Ammianus neither feels nor inspires a
suspicion.]
134 (return) [ This dark and ambiguous expression may point to
Athanasius, the first, without a rival, of the Christian clergy,
(Libanius de ulcis. Jul. nece, c. 5, p. 149. La Bleterie, Hist.
de Jovien, tom. i. p. 179.)]
135 (return) [ The orator (Fabricius, Bibliot. Græc. tom. vii. p.
145-179) scatters suspicions, demands an inquiry, and insinuates,
that proofs might still be obtained. He ascribes the success of
the Huns to the criminal neglect of revenging Julian’s death.]
It was an ancient custom in the funerals, as well as in the
triumphs, of the Romans, that the voice of praise should be
corrected by that of satire and ridicule; and that, in the midst
of the splendid pageants, which displayed the glory of the living
or of the dead, their imperfections should not be concealed from
the eyes of the world. 136 This custom was practised in the
funeral of Julian. The comedians, who resented his contempt and
aversion for the theatre, exhibited, with the applause of a
Christian audience, the lively and exaggerated representation of
the faults and follies of the deceased emperor. His various
character and singular manners afforded an ample scope for
pleasantry and ridicule. 137 In the exercise of his uncommon
talents, he often descended below the majesty of his rank.
Alexander was transformed into Diogenes; the philosopher was
degraded into a priest. The purity of his virtue was sullied by
excessive vanity; his superstition disturbed the peace, and
endangered the safety, of a mighty empire; and his irregular
sallies were the less entitled to indulgence, as they appeared to
be the laborious efforts of art, or even of affectation. The
remains of Julian were interred at Tarsus in Cilicia; but his
stately tomb, which arose in that city, on the banks of the cold
and limpid Cydnus, 138 was displeasing to the faithful friends,
who loved and revered the memory of that extraordinary man. The
philosopher expressed a very reasonable wish, that the disciple
of Plato might have reposed amidst the groves of the academy; 139
while the soldier exclaimed, in bolder accents, that the ashes of
Julian should have been mingled with those of Cæsar, in the field
of Mars, and among the ancient monuments of Roman virtue. 140 The
history of princes does not very frequently renew the examples of
a similar competition.
136 (return) [ At the funeral of Vespasian, the comedian who
personated that frugal emperor, anxiously inquired how much it
cost. Fourscore thousand pounds, (centies.) Give me the tenth
part of the sum, and throw my body into the Tiber. Sueton, in
Vespasian, c. 19, with the notes of Casaubon and Gronovius.]
137 (return) [ Gregory (Orat. iv. p. 119, 120) compares this
supposed ignominy and ridicule to the funeral honors of
Constantius, whose body was chanted over Mount Taurus by a choir
of angels.]
138 (return) [ Quintus Curtius, l. iii. c. 4. The luxuriancy of
his descriptions has been often censured. Yet it was almost the
duty of the historian to describe a river, whose waters had
nearly proved fatal to Alexander.]
139 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 156, p. 377. Yet he
acknowledges with gratitude the liberality of the two royal
brothers in decorating the tomb of Julian, (de ulcis. Jul. nece,
c. 7, p. 152.)]
140 (return) [ Cujus suprema et cineres, si qui tunc juste
consuleret, non Cydnus videre deberet, quamvis gratissimus amnis
et liquidus: sed ad perpetuandam gloriam recte factorum
præterlambere Tiberis, intersecans urbem æternam, divorumque
veterum monumenta præstringens Ammian. xxv. 10.]
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.—Part I.
The Government And Death Of Jovian.—Election Of Valentinian, Who
Associates His Brother Valens, And Makes The Final Division Of The
Eastern And Western Empires.— Revolt Of Procopius.—Civil And
Ecclesiastical Administration.—Germany. —Britain.—Africa.—The
East.— The Danube.—Death Of Valentinian.—His Two Sons, Gratian And
Valentinian II., Succeed To The Western Empire.
The death of Julian had left the public affairs of the empire in
a very doubtful and dangerous situation. The Roman army was saved
by an inglorious, perhaps a necessary treaty; 1 and the first
moments of peace were consecrated by the pious Jovian to restore
the domestic tranquility of the church and state. The
indiscretion of his predecessor, instead of reconciling, had
artfully fomented the religious war: and the balance which he
affected to preserve between the hostile factions, served only to
perpetuate the contest, by the vicissitudes of hope and fear, by
the rival claims of ancient possession and actual favor. The
Christians had forgotten the spirit of the gospel; and the Pagans
had imbibed the spirit of the church. In private families, the
sentiments of nature were extinguished by the blind fury of zeal
and revenge: the majesty of the laws was violated or abused; the
cities of the East were stained with blood; and the most
implacable enemies of the Romans were in the bosom of their
country. Jovian was educated in the profession of Christianity;
and as he marched from Nisibis to Antioch, the banner of the
Cross, the Labarum of Constantine, which was again displayed at
the head of the legions, announced to the people the faith of
their new emperor. As soon as he ascended the throne, he
transmitted a circular epistle to all the governors of provinces;
in which he confessed the divine truth, and secured the legal
establishment, of the Christian religion. The insidious edicts of
Julian were abolished; the ecclesiastical immunities were
restored and enlarged; and Jovian condescended to lament, that
the distress of the times obliged him to diminish the measure of
charitable distributions. 2 The Christians were unanimous in the
loud and sincere applause which they bestowed on the pious
successor of Julian. But they were still ignorant what creed, or
what synod, he would choose for the standard of orthodoxy; and
the peace of the church immediately revived those eager disputes
which had been suspended during the season of persecution. The
episcopal leaders of the contending sects, convinced, from
experience, how much their fate would depend on the earliest
impressions that were made on the mind of an untutored soldier,
hastened to the court of Edessa, or Antioch. The highways of the
East were crowded with Homoousian, and Arian, and Semi-Arian, and
Eunomian bishops, who struggled to outstrip each other in the
holy race: the apartments of the palace resounded with their
clamors; and the ears of the prince were assaulted, and perhaps
astonished, by the singular mixture of metaphysical argument and
passionate invective. 3 The moderation of Jovian, who recommended
concord and charity, and referred the disputants to the sentence
of a future council, was interpreted as a symptom of
indifference: but his attachment to the Nicene creed was at
length discovered and declared, by the reverence which he
expressed for the _celestial_ 4 virtues of the great Athanasius.
The intrepid veteran of the faith, at the age of seventy, had
issued from his retreat on the first intelligence of the tyrant’s
death. The acclamations of the people seated him once more on the
archiepiscopal throne; and he wisely accepted, or anticipated,
the invitation of Jovian. The venerable figure of Athanasius, his
calm courage, and insinuating eloquence, sustained the reputation
which he had already acquired in the courts of four successive
princes. 5 As soon as he had gained the confidence, and secured
the faith, of the Christian emperor, he returned in triumph to
his diocese, and continued, with mature counsels and undiminished
vigor, to direct, ten years longer, 6 the ecclesiastical
government of Alexandria, Egypt, and the Catholic church. Before
his departure from Antioch, he assured Jovian that his orthodox
devotion would be rewarded with a long and peaceful reign.
Athanasius, had reason to hope, that he should be allowed either
the merit of a successful prediction, or the excuse of a grateful
though ineffectual prayer. 7
1 (return) [ The medals of Jovian adorn him with victories,
laurel crowns, and prostrate captives. Ducange, Famil. Byzantin.
p. 52. Flattery is a foolish suicide; she destroys herself with
her own hands.]
2 (return) [ Jovian restored to the church a forcible and
comprehensive expression, (Philostorgius, l. viii. c. 5, with
Godefroy’s Dissertations, p. 329. Sozomen, l. vi. c. 3.) The new
law which condemned the rape or marriage of nuns (Cod. Theod. l.
ix. tit. xxv. leg. 2) is exaggerated by Sozomen; who supposes,
that an amorous glance, the adultery of the heart, was punished
with death by the evangelic legislator.]
3 (return) [ Compare Socrates, l. iii. c. 25, and Philostorgius,
l. viii. c. 6, with Godefroy’s Dissertations, p. 330.]
4 (return) [ The word _celestial_ faintly expresses the impious
and extravagant flattery of the emperor to the archbishop. (See
the original epistle in Athanasius, tom. ii. p. 33.) Gregory
Nazianzen (Orat. xxi. p. 392) celebrates the friendship of Jovian
and Athanasius. The primate’s journey was advised by the Egyptian
monks, (Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 221.)]
5 (return) [ Athanasius, at the court of Antioch, is agreeably
represented by La Bleterie, (Hist. de Jovien, tom. i. p.
121-148;) he translates the singular and original conferences of
the emperor, the primate of Egypt, and the Arian deputies. The
Abbé is not satisfied with the coarse pleasantry of Jovian; but
his partiality for Athanasius assumes, in _his_ eyes, the
character of justice.]
6 (return) [ The true area of his death is perplexed with some
difficulties, (Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 719-723.)
But the date (A. D. 373, May 2) which seems the most consistent
with history and reason, is ratified by his authentic life,
(Maffei Osservazioni Letterarie, tom. iii. p. 81.)]
7 (return) [ See the observations of Valesius and Jortin (Remarks
on Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 38) on the original letter
of Athanasius; which is preserved by Theodoret, (l. iv. c. 3.) In
some Mss. this indiscreet promise is omitted; perhaps by the
Catholics, jealous of the prophetic fame of their leader.]
The slightest force, when it is applied to assist and guide the
natural descent of its object, operates with irresistible weight;
and Jovian had the good fortune to embrace the religious opinions
which were supported by the spirit of the times, and the zeal and
numbers of the most powerful sect. 8 Under his reign,
Christianity obtained an easy and lasting victory; and as soon as
the smile of royal patronage was withdrawn, the genius of
Paganism, which had been fondly raised and cherished by the arts
of Julian, sunk irrecoverably in the. In many cities, the temples
were shut or deserted: the philosophers who had abused their
transient favor, thought it prudent to shave their beards, and
disguise their profession; and the Christians rejoiced, that they
were now in a condition to forgive, or to revenge, the injuries
which they had suffered under the preceding reign. 9 The
consternation of the Pagan world was dispelled by a wise and
gracious edict of toleration; in which Jovian explicitly
declared, that although he should severely punish the
sacrilegious rites of magic, his subjects might exercise, with
freedom and safety, the ceremonies of the ancient worship. The
memory of this law has been preserved by the orator Themistius,
who was deputed by the senate of Constantinople to express their
royal devotion for the new emperor. Themistius expatiates on the
clemency of the Divine Nature, the facility of human error, the
rights of conscience, and the independence of the mind; and, with
some eloquence, inculcates the principles of philosophical
toleration; whose aid Superstition herself, in the hour of her
distress, is not ashamed to implore. He justly observes, that in
the recent changes, both religions had been alternately disgraced
by the seeming acquisition of worthless proselytes, of those
votaries of the reigning purple, who could pass, without a
reason, and without a blush, from the church to the temple, and
from the altars of Jupiter to the sacred table of the Christians.
10
8 (return) [ Athanasius (apud Theodoret, l. iv. c. 3) magnifies
the number of the orthodox, who composed the whole world. This
assertion was verified in the space of thirty and forty years.]
9 (return) [ Socrates, l. iii. c. 24. Gregory Nazianzen (Orat.
iv. p. 131) and Libanius (Orat. Parentalis, c. 148, p. 369)
expresses the _living_ sentiments of their respective factions.]
10 (return) [ Themistius, Orat. v. p. 63-71, edit. Harduin,
Paris, 1684. The Abbé de la Bleterie judiciously remarks, (Hist.
de Jovien, tom. i. p. 199,) that Sozomen has forgot the general
toleration; and Themistius the establishment of the Catholic
religion. Each of them turned away from the object which he
disliked, and wished to suppress the part of the edict the least
honorable, in his opinion, to the emperor.]
In the space of seven months, the Roman troops, who were now
returned to Antioch, had performed a march of fifteen hundred
miles; in which they had endured all the hardships of war, of
famine, and of climate. Notwithstanding their services, their
fatigues, and the approach of winter, the timid and impatient
Jovian allowed only, to the men and horses, a respite of six
weeks. The emperor could not sustain the indiscreet and malicious
raillery of the people of Antioch. 11 He was impatient to possess
the palace of Constantinople; and to prevent the ambition of some
competitor, who might occupy the vacant allegiance of Europe. But
he soon received the grateful intelligence, that his authority
was acknowledged from the Thracian Bosphorus to the Atlantic
Ocean. By the first letters which he despatched from the camp of
Mesopotamia, he had delegated the military command of Gaul and
Illyricum to Malarich, a brave and faithful officer of the nation
of the Franks; and to his father-in-law, Count Lucillian, who had
formerly distinguished his courage and conduct in the defence of
Nisibis. Malarich had declined an office to which he thought
himself unequal; and Lucillian was massacred at Rheims, in an
accidental mutiny of the Batavian cohorts. 12 But the moderation
of Jovinus, master-general of the cavalry, who forgave the
intention of his disgrace, soon appeased the tumult, and
confirmed the uncertain minds of the soldiers. The oath of
fidelity was administered and taken, with loyal acclamations; and
the deputies of the Western armies 13 saluted their new sovereign
as he descended from Mount Taurus to the city of Tyana in
Cappadocia. From Tyana he continued his hasty march to Ancyra,
capital of the province of Galatia; where Jovian assumed, with
his infant son, the name and ensigns of the consulship. 14
Dadastana, 15 an obscure town, almost at an equal distance
between Ancyra and Nice, was marked for the fatal term of his
journey and life. After indulging himself with a plentiful,
perhaps an intemperate, supper, he retired to rest; and the next
morning the emperor Jovian was found dead in his bed. The cause
of this sudden death was variously understood. By some it was
ascribed to the consequences of an indigestion, occasioned either
by the quantity of the wine, or the quality of the mushrooms,
which he had swallowed in the evening. According to others, he
was suffocated in his sleep by the vapor of charcoal, which
extracted from the walls of the apartment the unwholesome
moisture of the fresh plaster. 16 But the want of a regular
inquiry into the death of a prince, whose reign and person were
soon forgotten, appears to have been the only circumstance which
countenanced the malicious whispers of poison and domestic guilt.
17 The body of Jovian was sent to Constantinople, to be interred
with his predecessors, and the sad procession was met on the road
by his wife Charito, the daughter of Count Lucillian; who still
wept the recent death of her father, and was hastening to dry her
tears in the embraces of an Imperial husband. Her disappointment
and grief were imbittered by the anxiety of maternal tenderness.
Six weeks before the death of Jovian, his infant son had been
placed in the curule chair, adorned with the title of
_Nobilissimus_, and the vain ensigns of the consulship.
Unconscious of his fortune, the royal youth, who, from his
grandfather, assumed the name of Varronian, was reminded only by
the jealousy of the government, that he was the son of an
emperor. Sixteen years afterwards he was still alive, but he had
already been deprived of an eye; and his afflicted mother
expected every hour, that the innocent victim would be torn from
her arms, to appease, with his blood, the suspicions of the
reigning prince. 18
11 (return) [ Johan. Antiochen. in Excerpt. Valesian. p. 845. The
libels of Antioch may be admitted on very slight evidence.]
12 (return) [ Compare Ammianus, (xxv. 10,) who omits the name of
the Batarians, with Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 197,) who removes the
scene of action from Rheims to Sirmium.]
13 (return) [ Quos capita scholarum ordo castrensis appellat.
Ammian. xxv. 10, and Vales. ad locum.]
14 (return) [ Cugus vagitus, pertinaciter reluctantis, ne in
curuli sella veheretur ex more, id quod mox accidit protendebat.
Augustus and his successors respectfully solicited a dispensation
of age for the sons or nephews whom they raised to the
consulship. But the curule chair of the first Brutus had never
been dishonored by an infant.]
15 (return) [ The Itinerary of Antoninus fixes Dadastana 125
Roman miles from Nice; 117 from Ancyra, (Wesseling, Itinerar. p.
142.) The pilgrim of Bourdeaux, by omitting some stages, reduces
the whole space from 242 to 181 miles. Wesseling, p. 574. * Note:
Dadastana is supposed to be Castabat.—M.]
16 (return) [ See Ammianus, (xxv. 10,) Eutropius, (x. 18.) who
might likewise be present, Jerom, (tom. i. p. 26, ad Heliodorum.)
Orosius, (vii. 31,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 6,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p.
197, 198,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 28, 29.) We cannot
expect a perfect agreement, and we shall not discuss minute
differences.]
17 (return) [ Ammianus, unmindful of his usual candor and good
sense, compares the death of the harmless Jovian to that of the
second Africanus, who had excited the fears and resentment of the
popular faction.]
18 (return) [ Chrysostom, tom. i. p. 336, 344, edit. Montfaucon.
The Christian orator attempts to comfort a widow by the examples
of illustrious misfortunes; and observes, that of nine emperors
(including the Cæsar Gallus) who had reigned in his time, only
two (Constantine and Constantius) died a natural death. Such
vague consolations have never wiped away a single tear.]
After the death of Jovian, the throne of the Roman world remained
ten days, 19 without a master. The ministers and generals still
continued to meet in council; to exercise their respective
functions; to maintain the public order; and peaceably to conduct
the army to the city of Nice in Bithynia, which was chosen for
the place of the election. 20 In a solemn assembly of the civil
and military powers of the empire, the diadem was again
unanimously offered to the præfect Sallust. He enjoyed the glory
of a second refusal: and when the virtues of the father were
alleged in favor of his son, the præfect, with the firmness of a
disinterested patriot, declared to the electors, that the feeble
age of the one, and the unexperienced youth of the other, were
equally incapable of the laborious duties of government. Several
candidates were proposed; and, after weighing the objections of
character or situation, they were successively rejected; but, as
soon as the name of Valentinian was pronounced, the merit of that
officer united the suffrages of the whole assembly, and obtained
the sincere approbation of Sallust himself. Valentinian 21 was
the son of Count Gratian, a native of Cibalis, in Pannonia, who
from an obscure condition had raised himself, by matchless
strength and dexterity, to the military commands of Africa and
Britain; from which he retired with an ample fortune and
suspicious integrity. The rank and services of Gratian
contributed, however, to smooth the first steps of the promotion
of his son; and afforded him an early opportunity of displaying
those solid and useful qualifications, which raised his character
above the ordinary level of his fellow-soldiers. The person of
Valentinian was tall, graceful, and majestic. His manly
countenance, deeply marked with the impression of sense and
spirit, inspired his friends with awe, and his enemies with fear;
and to second the efforts of his undaunted courage, the son of
Gratian had inherited the advantages of a strong and healthy
constitution. By the habits of chastity and temperance, which
restrain the appetites and invigorate the faculties, Valentinian
preserved his own and the public esteem. The avocations of a
military life had diverted his youth from the elegant pursuits of
literature; 2111 he was ignorant of the Greek language, and the
arts of rhetoric; but as the mind of the orator was never
disconcerted by timid perplexity, he was able, as often as the
occasion prompted him, to deliver his decided sentiments with
bold and ready elocution. The laws of martial discipline were the
only laws that he had studied; and he was soon distinguished by
the laborious diligence, and inflexible severity, with which he
discharged and enforced the duties of the camp. In the time of
Julian he provoked the danger of disgrace, by the contempt which
he publicly expressed for the reigning religion; 22 and it should
seem, from his subsequent conduct, that the indiscreet and
unseasonable freedom of Valentinian was the effect of military
spirit, rather than of Christian zeal. He was pardoned, however,
and still employed by a prince who esteemed his merit; 23 and in
the various events of the Persian war, he improved the reputation
which he had already acquired on the banks of the Rhine. The
celerity and success with which he executed an important
commission, recommended him to the favor of Jovian; and to the
honorable command of the second _school_, or company, of
Targetiers, of the domestic guards. In the march from Antioch, he
had reached his quarters at Ancyra, when he was unexpectedly
summoned, without guilt and without intrigue, to assume, in the
forty-third year of his age, the absolute government of the Roman
empire.
19 (return) [ Ten days appear scarcely sufficient for the march
and election. But it may be observed, 1. That the generals might
command the expeditious use of the public posts for themselves,
their attendants, and messengers. 2. That the troops, for the
ease of the cities, marched in many divisions; and that the head
of the column might arrive at Nice, when the rear halted at
Ancyra.]
20 (return) [ Ammianus, xxvi. 1. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 198.
Philostorgius, l. viii. c. 8, and Godefroy, Dissertat. p. 334.
Philostorgius, who appears to have obtained some curious and
authentic intelligence, ascribes the choice of Valentinian to the
præfect Sallust, the master-general Arintheus, Dagalaiphus count
of the domestics, and the patrician Datianus, whose pressing
recommendations from Ancyra had a weighty influence in the
election.]
21 (return) [ Ammianus (xxx. 7, 9) and the younger Victor have
furnished the portrait of Valentinian, which naturally precedes
and illustrates the history of his reign. * Note: Symmachus, in a
fragment of an oration published by M. Mai, describes Valentinian
as born among the snows of Illyria, and habituated to military
labor amid the heat and dust of Libya: genitus in frigoribus,
educatus is solibus Sym. Orat. Frag. edit. Niebuhr, p. 5.—M.]
2111 (return) [ According to Ammianus, he wrote elegantly, and
was skilled in painting and modelling. Scribens decore,
venusteque pingens et fingens. xxx. 7.—M.]
22 (return) [ At Antioch, where he was obliged to attend the
emperor to the table, he struck a priest, who had presumed to
purify him with lustral water, (Sozomen, l. vi. c. 6. Theodoret,
l. iii. c. 15.) Such public defiance might become Valentinian;
but it could leave no room for the unworthy delation of the
philosopher Maximus, which supposes some more private offence,
(Zosimus, l. iv. p. 200, 201.)]
23 (return) [ Socrates, l. iv. A previous exile to Melitene, or
Thebais (the first might be possible,) is interposed by Sozomen
(l. vi. c. 6) and Philostorgius, (l. vii. c. 7, with Godefroy’s
Dissertations, p. 293.)]
The invitation of the ministers and generals at Nice was of
little moment, unless it were confirmed by the voice of the army.
The aged Sallust, who had long observed the irregular
fluctuations of popular assemblies, proposed, under pain of
death, that none of those persons, whose rank in the service
might excite a party in their favor, should appear in public on
the day of the inauguration. Yet such was the prevalence of
ancient superstition, that a whole day was voluntarily added to
this dangerous interval, because it happened to be the
intercalation of the Bissextile. 24 At length, when the hour was
supposed to be propitious, Valentinian showed himself from a
lofty tribunal; the judicious choice was applauded; and the new
prince was solemnly invested with the diadem and the purple,
amidst the acclamation of the troops, who were disposed in
martial order round the tribunal. But when he stretched forth his
hand to address the armed multitude, a busy whisper was
accidentally started in the ranks, and insensibly swelled into a
loud and imperious clamor, that he should name, without delay, a
colleague in the empire. The intrepid calmness of Valentinian
obtained silence, and commanded respect; and he thus addressed
the assembly: “A few minutes since it was in _your_ power,
fellow-soldiers, to have left me in the obscurity of a private
station. Judging, from the testimony of my past life, that I
deserved to reign, you have placed me on the throne. It is now
_my_ duty to consult the safety and interest of the republic. The
weight of the universe is undoubtedly too great for the hands of
a feeble mortal. I am conscious of the limits of my abilities,
and the uncertainty of my life; and far from declining, I am
anxious to solicit, the assistance of a worthy colleague. But,
where discord may be fatal, the choice of a faithful friend
requires mature and serious deliberation. That deliberation shall
be _my_ care. Let _your_ conduct be dutiful and consistent.
Retire to your quarters; refresh your minds and bodies; and
expect the accustomed donative on the accession of a new
emperor.” 25 The astonished troops, with a mixture of pride, of
satisfaction, and of terror, confessed the voice of their master.
Their angry clamors subsided into silent reverence; and
Valentinian, encompassed with the eagles of the legions, and the
various banners of the cavalry and infantry, was conducted, in
warlike pomp, to the palace of Nice. As he was sensible, however,
of the importance of preventing some rash declaration of the
soldiers, he consulted the assembly of the chiefs; and their real
sentiments were concisely expressed by the generous freedom of
Dagalaiphus. “Most excellent prince,” said that officer, “if you
consider only your family, you have a brother; if you love the
republic, look round for the most deserving of the Romans.” 26
The emperor, who suppressed his displeasure, without altering his
intention, slowly proceeded from Nice to Nicomedia and
Constantinople. In one of the suburbs of that capital, 27 thirty
days after his own elevation, he bestowed the title of Augustus
on his brother Valens; 2711 and as the boldest patriots were
convinced, that their opposition, without being serviceable to
their country, would be fatal to themselves, the declaration of
his absolute will was received with silent submission. Valens was
now in the thirty-sixth year of his age; but his abilities had
never been exercised in any employment, military or civil; and
his character had not inspired the world with any sanguine
expectations. He possessed, however, one quality, which
recommended him to Valentinian, and preserved the domestic peace
of the empire; devout and grateful attachment to his benefactor,
whose superiority of genius, as well as of authority, Valens
humbly and cheerfully acknowledged in every action of his life.
28
24 (return) [ Ammianus, in a long, because unseasonable,
digression, (xxvi. l, and Valesius, ad locum,) rashly supposes
that he understands an astronomical question, of which his
readers are ignorant. It is treated with more judgment and
propriety by Censorinus (de Die Natali, c. 20) and Macrobius,
(Saturnal. i. c. 12-16.) The appellation of _Bissextile_, which
marks the inauspicious year, (Augustin. ad Januarium, Epist.
119,) is derived from the _repetition_ of the _sixth_ day of the
calends of March.]
25 (return) [ Valentinian’s first speech is in Ammianus, (xxvi.
2;) concise and sententious in Philostorgius, (l. viii. c. 8.)]
26 (return) [ Si tuos amas, Imperator optime, habes fratrem; si
Rempublicam quære quem vestias. Ammian. xxvi. 4. In the division
of the empire, Valentinian retained that sincere counsellor for
himself, (c.6.)]
27 (return) [ In suburbano, Ammian. xxvi. 4. The famous
_Hebdomon_, or field of Mars, was distant from Constantinople
either seven stadia, or seven miles. See Valesius, and his
brother, ad loc., and Ducange, Const. l. ii. p. 140, 141, 172,
173.]
2711 (return) [ Symmachus praises the liberality of Valentinian
in raising his brother at once to the rank of Augustus, not
training him through the slow and probationary degree of Cæsar.
Exigui animi vices munerum partiuntur, liberalitas desideriis
nihil reliquit. Symm. Orat. p. 7. edit. Niebuhr, 1816, reprinted
from Mai.—M.]
28 (return) [ Participem quidem legitimum potestatis; sed in
modum apparitoris morigerum, ut progrediens aperiet textus.
Ammian. xxvi. 4.]
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.—Part II.
Before Valentinian divided the provinces, he reformed the
administration of the empire. All ranks of subjects, who had been
injured or oppressed under the reign of Julian, were invited to
support their public accusations. The silence of mankind attested
the spotless integrity of the præfect Sallust; 29 and his own
pressing solicitations, that he might be permitted to retire from
the business of the state, were rejected by Valentinian with the
most honorable expressions of friendship and esteem. But among
the favorites of the late emperor, there were many who had abused
his credulity or superstition; and who could no longer hope to be
protected either by favor or justice. 30 The greater part of the
ministers of the palace, and the governors of the provinces, were
removed from their respective stations; yet the eminent merit of
some officers was distinguished from the obnoxious crowd; and,
notwithstanding the opposite clamors of zeal and resentment, the
whole proceedings of this delicate inquiry appear to have been
conducted with a reasonable share of wisdom and moderation. 31
The festivity of a new reign received a short and suspicious
interruption from the sudden illness of the two princes; but as
soon as their health was restored, they left Constantinople in
the beginning of the spring. In the castle, or palace, of
Mediana, only three miles from Naissus, they executed the solemn
and final division of the Roman empire. 32 Valentinian bestowed
on his brother the rich præfecture of the _East_, from the Lower
Danube to the confines of Persia; whilst he reserved for his
immediate government the warlike 3211 præfectures of _Illyricum,
Italy_, and _Gaul_, from the extremity of Greece to the
Caledonian rampart, and from the rampart of Caledonia to the foot
of Mount Atlas. The provincial administration remained on its
former basis; but a double supply of generals and magistrates was
required for two councils, and two courts: the division was made
with a just regard to their peculiar merit and situation, and
seven master-generals were soon created, either of the cavalry or
infantry. When this important business had been amicably
transacted, Valentinian and Valens embraced for the last time.
The emperor of the West established his temporary residence at
Milan; and the emperor of the East returned to Constantinople, to
assume the dominion of fifty provinces, of whose language he was
totally ignorant. 33
29 (return) [ Notwithstanding the evidence of Zonaras, Suidas,
and the Paschal Chronicle, M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs,
tom. v. p. 671) _wishes_ to disbelieve those stories, si
avantageuses à un payen.]
30 (return) [ Eunapius celebrates and exaggerates the sufferings
of Maximus. (p. 82, 83;) yet he allows that the sophist or
magician, the guilty favorite of Julian, and the personal enemy
of Valentinian, was dismissed on the payment of a small fine.]
31 (return) [ The loose assertions of a general disgrace
(Zosimus, l. iv. p. 201), are detected and refuted by Tillemont,
(tom. v. p. 21.)]
32 (return) [ Ammianus, xxvi. 5.]
3211 (return) [ Ipse supra impacati Rhen semibarbaras ripas
raptim vexilla constituens * * Princeps creatus ad difficilem
militiam revertisti. Symm. Orat. 81.—M.]
33 (return) [ Ammianus says, in general terms, subagrestis
ingenii, nec bellicis nec liberalibus studiis eruditus. Ammian.
xxxi. 14. The orator Themistius, with the genuine impertinence of
a Greek, wishes for the first time to speak the Latin language,
the dialect of his sovereign. Orat. vi. p. 71.]
The tranquility of the East was soon disturbed by rebellion; and
the throne of Valens was threatened by the daring attempts of a
rival whose affinity to the emperor Julian 34 was his sole merit,
and had been his only crime. Procopius had been hastily promoted
from the obscure station of a tribune, and a notary, to the joint
command of the army of Mesopotamia; the public opinion already
named him as the successor of a prince who was destitute of
natural heirs; and a vain rumor was propagated by his friends, or
his enemies, that Julian, before the altar of the Moon at Carrhæ,
had privately invested Procopius with the Imperial purple. 35 He
endeavored, by his dutiful and submissive behavior, to disarm the
jealousy of Jovian; resigned, without a contest, his military
command; and retired, with his wife and family, to cultivate the
ample patrimony which he possessed in the province of Cappadocia.
These useful and innocent occupations were interrupted by the
appearance of an officer with a band of soldiers, who, in the
name of his new sovereigns, Valentinian and Valens, was
despatched to conduct the unfortunate Procopius either to a
perpetual prison or an ignominious death. His presence of mind
procured him a longer respite, and a more splendid fate. Without
presuming to dispute the royal mandate, he requested the
indulgence of a few moments to embrace his weeping family; and
while the vigilance of his guards was relaxed by a plentiful
entertainment, he dexterously escaped to the sea-coast of the
Euxine, from whence he passed over to the country of Bosphorus.
In that sequestered region he remained many months, exposed to
the hardships of exile, of solitude, and of want; his melancholy
temper brooding over his misfortunes, and his mind agitated by
the just apprehension, that, if any accident should discover his
name, the faithless Barbarians would violate, without much
scruple, the laws of hospitality. In a moment of impatience and
despair, Procopius embarked in a merchant vessel, which made sail
for Constantinople; and boldly aspired to the rank of a
sovereign, because he was not allowed to enjoy the security of a
subject. At first he lurked in the villages of Bithynia,
continually changing his habitation and his disguise. 36 By
degrees he ventured into the capital, trusted his life and
fortune to the fidelity of two friends, a senator and a eunuch,
and conceived some hopes of success, from the intelligence which
he obtained of the actual state of public affairs. The body of
the people was infected with a spirit of discontent: they
regretted the justice and the abilities of Sallust, who had been
imprudently dismissed from the præfecture of the East. They
despised the character of Valens, which was rude without vigor,
and feeble without mildness. They dreaded the influence of his
father-in-law, the patrician Petronius, a cruel and rapacious
minister, who rigorously exacted all the arrears of tribute that
might remain unpaid since the reign of the emperor Aurelian. The
circumstances were propitious to the designs of a usurper. The
hostile measures of the Persians required the presence of Valens
in Syria: from the Danube to the Euphrates the troops were in
motion; and the capital was occasionally filled with the soldiers
who passed or repassed the Thracian Bosphorus. Two cohorts of
Gaul were persuaded to listen to the secret proposals of the
conspirators; which were recommended by the promise of a liberal
donative; and, as they still revered the memory of Julian, they
easily consented to support the hereditary claim of his
proscribed kinsman. At the dawn of day they were drawn up near
the baths of Anastasia; and Procopius, clothed in a purple
garment, more suitable to a player than to a monarch, appeared,
as if he rose from the dead, in the midst of Constantinople. The
soldiers, who were prepared for his reception, saluted their
trembling prince with shouts of joy and vows of fidelity. Their
numbers were soon increased by a band of sturdy peasants,
collected from the adjacent country; and Procopius, shielded by
the arms of his adherents, was successively conducted to the
tribunal, the senate, and the palace. During the first moments of
his tumultuous reign, he was astonished and terrified by the
gloomy silence of the people; who were either ignorant of the
cause, or apprehensive of the event. But his military strength
was superior to any actual resistance: the malcontents flocked to
the standard of rebellion; the poor were excited by the hopes,
and the rich were intimidated by the fear, of a general pillage;
and the obstinate credulity of the multitude was once more
deceived by the promised advantages of a revolution. The
magistrates were seized; the prisons and arsenals broke open; the
gates, and the entrance of the harbor, were diligently occupied;
and, in a few hours, Procopius became the absolute, though
precarious, master of the Imperial city. 3611 The usurper
improved this unexpected success with some degree of courage and
dexterity. He artfully propagated the rumors and opinions the
most favorable to his interest; while he deluded the populace by
giving audience to the frequent, but imaginary, ambassadors of
distant nations. The large bodies of troops stationed in the
cities of Thrace and the fortresses of the Lower Danube, were
gradually involved in the guilt of rebellion: and the Gothic
princes consented to supply the sovereign of Constantinople with
the formidable strength of several thousand auxiliaries. His
generals passed the Bosphorus, and subdued, without an effort,
the unarmed, but wealthy provinces of Bithynia and Asia. After an
honorable defence, the city and island of Cyzicus yielded to his
power; the renowned legions of the Jovians and Herculeans
embraced the cause of the usurper, whom they were ordered to
crush; and, as the veterans were continually augmented with new
levies, he soon appeared at the head of an army, whose valor, as
well as numbers, were not unequal to the greatness of the
contest. The son of Hormisdas, 37 a youth of spirit and ability,
condescended to draw his sword against the lawful emperor of the
East; and the Persian prince was immediately invested with the
ancient and extraordinary powers of a Roman Proconsul. The
alliance of Faustina, the widow of the emperor Constantius, who
intrusted herself and her daughter to the hands of the usurper,
added dignity and reputation to his cause. The princess
Constantia, who was then about five years of age, accompanied, in
a litter, the march of the army. She was shown to the multitude
in the arms of her adopted father; and, as often as she passed
through the ranks, the tenderness of the soldiers was inflamed
into martial fury: 38 they recollected the glories of the house
of Constantine, and they declared, with loyal acclamation, that
they would shed the last drop of their blood in the defence of
the royal infant. 39
34 (return) [ The uncertain degree of alliance, or consanguinity,
is expressed by the words, cognatus, consobrinus, (see Valesius
ad Ammian. xxiii. 3.) The mother of Procopius might be a sister
of Basilina and Count Julian, the mother and uncle of the
Apostate. Ducange, Fam. Byzantin. p. 49.]
35 (return) [ Ammian. xxiii. 3, xxvi. 6. He mentions the report
with much hesitation: susurravit obscurior fama; nemo enim dicti
auctor exstitit verus. It serves, however, to remark, that
Procopius was a Pagan. Yet his religion does not appear to have
promoted, or obstructed, his pretensions.]
36 (return) [ One of his retreats was a country-house of
Eunomius, the heretic. The master was absent, innocent, ignorant;
yet he narrowly escaped a sentence of death, and was banished
into the remote parts of Mauritania, (Philostorg. l. ix. c. 5, 8,
and Godefroy’s Dissert. p. 369-378.)]
3611 (return) [ It may be suspected, from a fragment of Eunapius,
that the heathen and philosophic party espoused the cause of
Procopius. Heraclius, the Cynic, a man who had been honored by a
philosophic controversy with Julian, striking the ground with his
staff, incited him to courage with the line of Homer Eunapius.
Mai, p. 207 or in Niebuhr’s edition, p. 73.—M.]
37 (return) [ Hormisdæ maturo juveni Hormisdæ regalis illius
filio, potestatem Proconsulis detulit; et civilia, more veterum,
et bella, recturo. Ammian. xxvi. 8. The Persian prince escaped
with honor and safety, and was afterwards (A. D. 380) restored to
the same extraordinary office of proconsul of Bithynia,
(Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 204) I am ignorant
whether the race of Sassan was propagated. I find (A. D. 514) a
pope Hormisdas; but he was a native of Frusino, in Italy, (Pagi
Brev. Pontific. tom. i. p. 247)]
38 (return) [ The infant rebel was afterwards the wife of the
emperor Gratian but she died young, and childless. See Ducange,
Fam. Byzantin. p. 48, 59.]
39 (return) [ Sequimini culminis summi prosapiam, was the
language of Procopius, who affected to despise the obscure birth,
and fortuitous election of the upstart Pannonian. Ammian. xxvi.
7.]
In the mean while Valentinian was alarmed and perplexed by the
doubtful intelligence of the revolt of the East. 3911 The
difficulties of a German war forced him to confine his immediate
care to the safety of his own dominions; and, as every channel of
communication was stopped or corrupted, he listened, with
doubtful anxiety, to the rumors which were industriously spread,
that the defeat and death of Valens had left Procopius sole
master of the Eastern provinces. Valens was not dead: but on the
news of the rebellion, which he received at Cæsarea, he basely
despaired of his life and fortune; proposed to negotiate with the
usurper, and discovered his secret inclination to abdicate the
Imperial purple. The timid monarch was saved from disgrace and
ruin by the firmness of his ministers, and their abilities soon
decided in his favor the event of the civil war. In a season of
tranquillity, Sallust had resigned without a murmur; but as soon
as the public safety was attacked, he ambitiously solicited the
preëminence of toil and danger; and the restoration of that
virtuous minister to the præfecture of the East, was the first
step which indicated the repentance of Valens, and satisfied the
minds of the people. The reign of Procopius was apparently
supported by powerful armies and obedient provinces. But many of
the principal officers, military as well as civil, had been
urged, either by motives of duty or interest, to withdraw
themselves from the guilty scene; or to watch the moment of
betraying, and deserting, the cause of the usurper. Lupicinus
advanced by hasty marches, to bring the legions of Syria to the
aid of Valens. Arintheus, who, in strength, beauty, and valor,
excelled all the heroes of the age, attacked with a small troop a
superior body of the rebels. When he beheld the faces of the
soldiers who had served under his banner, he commanded them, with
a loud voice, to seize and deliver up their pretended leader; and
such was the ascendant of his genius, that this extraordinary
order was instantly obeyed. 40 Arbetio, a respectable veteran of
the great Constantine, who had been distinguished by the honors
of the consulship, was persuaded to leave his retirement, and
once more to conduct an army into the field. In the heat of
action, calmly taking off his helmet, he showed his gray hairs
and venerable countenance: saluted the soldiers of Procopius by
the endearing names of children and companions, and exhorted them
no longer to support the desperate cause of a contemptible
tyrant; but to follow their old commander, who had so often led
them to honor and victory. In the two engagements of Thyatira 41
and Nacolia, the unfortunate Procopius was deserted by his
troops, who were seduced by the instructions and example of their
perfidious officers. After wandering some time among the woods
and mountains of Phyrgia, he was betrayed by his desponding
followers, conducted to the Imperial camp, and immediately
beheaded. He suffered the ordinary fate of an unsuccessful
usurper; but the acts of cruelty which were exercised by the
conqueror, under the forms of legal justice, excited the pity and
indignation of mankind. 42
3911 (return) [ Symmachus describes his embarrassment. “The
Germans are the common enemies of the state, Procopius the
private foe of the Emperor; his first care must be victory, his
second revenge.” Symm. Orat. p. 11.—M.]
40 (return) [ Et dedignatus hominem superare certamine
despicabilem, auctoritatis et celsi fiducia corporis ipsis
hostibus jussit, suum vincire rectorem: atque ita turmarum,
antesignanus umbratilis comprensus suorum manibus. The strength
and beauty of Arintheus, the new Hercules, are celebrated by St.
Basil, who supposed that God had created him as an inimitable
model of the human species. The painters and sculptors could not
express his figure: the historians appeared fabulous when they
related his exploits, (Ammian. xxvi. and Vales. ad loc.)]
41 (return) [ The same field of battle is placed by Ammianus in
Lycia, and by Zosimus at Thyatira, which are at the distance of
150 miles from each other. But Thyatira alluitur _Lyco_, (Plin.
Hist. Natur. v. 31, Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 79;)
and the transcribers might easily convert an obscure river into a
well-known province. * Note: Ammianus and Zosimus place the last
battle at Nacolia in _Phrygia;_ Ammianus altogether omits the
former battle near Thyatira. Procopius was on his march (iter
tendebat) towards Lycia. See Wagner’s note, in c.—M.]
42 (return) [ The adventures, usurpation, and fall of Procopius,
are related, in a regular series, by Ammianus, (xxvi. 6, 7, 8, 9,
10,) and Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 203-210.) They often illustrate, and
seldom contradict, each other. Themistius (Orat. vii. p. 91, 92)
adds some base panegyric; and Euna pius (p. 83, 84) some
malicious satire. ——Symmachus joins with Themistius in praising
the clemency of Valens dic victoriæ moderatus est, quasi contra
se nemo pugnavit. Symm. Orat. p. 12.—M.]
Such indeed are the common and natural fruits of despotism and
rebellion. But the inquisition into the crime of magic, 4211
which, under the reign of the two brothers, was so rigorously
prosecuted both at Rome and Antioch, was interpreted as the fatal
symptom, either of the displeasure of Heaven, or of the depravity
of mankind. 43 Let us not hesitate to indulge a liberal pride,
that, in the present age, the enlightened part of Europe has
abolished 44 a cruel and odious prejudice, which reigned in every
climate of the globe, and adhered to every system of religious
opinions. 45 The nations, and the sects, of the Roman world,
admitted with equal credulity, and similar abhorrence, the
reality of that infernal art, 46 which was able to control the
eternal order of the planets, and the voluntary operations of the
human mind. They dreaded the mysterious power of spells and
incantations, of potent herbs, and execrable rites; which could
extinguish or recall life, inflame the passions of the soul,
blast the works of creation, and extort from the reluctant dæmons
the secrets of futurity. They believed, with the wildest
inconsistency, that this preternatural dominion of the air, of
earth, and of hell, was exercised, from the vilest motives of
malice or gain, by some wrinkled hags and itinerant sorcerers,
who passed their obscure lives in penury and contempt. 47 The
arts of magic were equally condemned by the public opinion, and
by the laws of Rome; but as they tended to gratify the most
imperious passions of the heart of man, they were continually
proscribed, and continually practised. 48 An imaginary cause was
capable of producing the most serious and mischievous effects.
The dark predictions of the death of an emperor, or the success
of a conspiracy, were calculated only to stimulate the hopes of
ambition, and to dissolve the ties of fidelity; and the
intentional guilt of magic was aggravated by the actual crimes of
treason and sacrilege. 49 Such vain terrors disturbed the peace
of society, and the happiness of individuals; and the harmless
flame which insensibly melted a waxen image, might derive a
powerful and pernicious energy from the affrighted fancy of the
person whom it was maliciously designed to represent. 50 From the
infusion of those herbs, which were supposed to possess a
supernatural influence, it was an easy step to the use of more
substantial poison; and the folly of mankind sometimes became the
instrument, and the mask, of the most atrocious crimes. As soon
as the zeal of informers was encouraged by the ministers of
Valens and Valentinian, they could not refuse to listen to
another charge, too frequently mingled in the scenes of domestic
guilt; a charge of a softer and less malignant nature, for which
the pious, though excessive, rigor of Constantine had recently
decreed the punishment of death. 51 This deadly and incoherent
mixture of treason and magic, of poison and adultery, afforded
infinite gradations of guilt and innocence, of excuse and
aggravation, which in these proceedings appear to have been
confounded by the angry or corrupt passions of the judges. They
easily discovered that the degree of their industry and
discernment was estimated, by the Imperial court, according to
the number of executions that were furnished from the respective
tribunals. It was not without extreme reluctance that they
pronounced a sentence of acquittal; but they eagerly admitted
such evidence as was stained with perjury, or procured by
torture, to prove the most improbable charges against the most
respectable characters. The progress of the inquiry continually
opened new subjects of criminal prosecution; the audacious
informer, whose falsehood was detected, retired with impunity;
but the wretched victim, who discovered his real or pretended
accomplices, were seldom permitted to receive the price of his
infamy. From the extremity of Italy and Asia, the young, and the
aged, were dragged in chains to the tribunals of Rome and
Antioch. Senators, matrons, and philosophers, expired in
ignominious and cruel tortures. The soldiers, who were appointed
to guard the prisons, declared, with a murmur of pity and
indignation, that their numbers were insufficient to oppose the
flight, or resistance, of the multitude of captives. The
wealthiest families were ruined by fines and confiscations; the
most innocent citizens trembled for their safety; and we may form
some notion of the magnitude of the evil, from the extravagant
assertion of an ancient writer, that, in the obnoxious provinces,
the prisoners, the exiles, and the fugitives, formed the greatest
part of the inhabitants. 52
4211 (return) [ This infamous inquisition into sorcery and
witchcraft has been of greater influence on human affairs than is
commonly supposed. The persecutions against philosophers and
their libraries was carried on with so much fury, that from this
time (A. D. 374) the names of the Gentile philosophers became
almost extinct; and the Christian philosophy and religion,
particularly in the East, established their ascendency. I am
surprised that Gibbon has not made this observation. Heyne, Note
on Zosimus, l. iv. 14, p. 637. Besides vast heaps of manuscripts
publicly destroyed throughout the East, men of letters burned
their whole libraries, lest some fatal volume should expose them
to the malice of the informers and the extreme penalty of the
law. Amm. Marc. xxix. 11.—M.]
43 (return) [ Libanius de ulciscend. Julian. nece, c. ix. p. 158,
159. The sophist deplores the public frenzy, but he does not
(after their deaths) impeach the justice of the emperors.]
44 (return) [ The French and English lawyers, of the present age,
allow the _theory_, and deny the _practice_, of witchcraft,
(Denisart, Recueil de Decisions de Jurisprudence, au mot
_Sorciers_, tom. iv. p. 553. Blackstone’s Commentaries, vol. iv.
p. 60.) As private reason always prevents, or outstrips, public
wisdom, the president Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xii. c. 5,
6) rejects the _existence_ of magic.]
45 (return) [ See Œuvres de Bayle, tom. iii. p. 567-589. The
sceptic of Rotterdam exhibits, according to his custom, a strange
medley of loose knowledge and lively wit.]
46 (return) [ The Pagans distinguished between good and bad
magic, the Theurgic and the Goetic, (Hist. de l’Académie, &c.,
tom. vii. p. 25.) But they could not have defended this obscure
distinction against the acute logic of Bayle. In the Jewish and
Christian system, _all_ dæmons are infernal spirits; and _all_
commerce with them is idolatry, apostasy &c., which deserves
death and damnation.]
47 (return) [ The Canidia of Horace (Carm. l. v. Od. 5, with
Dacier’s and Sanadon’s illustrations) is a vulgar witch. The
Erictho of Lucan (Pharsal. vi. 430-830) is tedious, disgusting,
but sometimes sublime. She chides the delay of the Furies, and
threatens, with tremendous obscurity, to pronounce their real
names; to reveal the true infernal countenance of Hecate; to
invoke the secret powers that lie below hell, &c.]
48 (return) [ Genus hominum potentibus infidum, sperantibus
fallax, quod in civitate nostrâ et vetabitur semper et
retinebitur. Tacit. Hist. i. 22. See Augustin. de Civitate Dei,
l. viii. c. 19, and the Theodosian Code l. ix. tit. xvi., with
Godefroy’s Commentary.]
49 (return) [ The persecution of Antioch was occasioned by a
criminal consultation. The twenty-four letters of the alphabet
were arranged round a magic tripod: and a dancing ring, which had
been placed in the centre, pointed to the four first letters in
the name of the future emperor, O. E. O Triangle. Theodorus
(perhaps with many others, who owned the fatal syllables) was
executed. Theodosius succeeded. Lardner (Heathen Testimonies,
vol. iv. p. 353-372) has copiously and fairly examined this dark
transaction of the reign of Valens.]
50 (return) [
Limus ut hic durescit, et hæc ut cera liquescit Uno eodemque
igni—Virgil. Bucolic. viii. 80.
Devovet absentes, simulacraque cerea figit. —Ovid. in Epist. Hypsil.
ad Jason 91.
Such vain incantations could affect the mind, and increase the
disease of Germanicus. Tacit. Annal. ii. 69.]
51 (return) [ See Heineccius, Antiquitat. Juris Roman. tom. ii.
p. 353, &c. Cod. Theodosian. l. ix. tit. 7, with Godefroy’s
Commentary.]
52 (return) [ The cruel persecution of Rome and Antioch is
described, and most probably exaggerated, by Ammianus (xxvii. 1.
xxix. 1, 2) and Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 216-218.) The philosopher
Maximus, with some justice, was involved in the charge of magic,
(Eunapius in Vit. Sophist. p. 88, 89;) and young Chrysostom, who
had accidentally found one of the proscribed books, gave himself
up for lost, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 340.)]
When Tacitus describes the deaths of the innocent and illustrious
Romans, who were sacrificed to the cruelty of the first Cæsars,
the art of the historian, or the merit of the sufferers, excites
in our breast the most lively sensations of terror, of
admiration, and of pity. The coarse and undistinguishing pencil
of Ammianus has delineated his bloody figures with tedious and
disgusting accuracy. But as our attention is no longer engaged by
the contrast of freedom and servitude, of recent greatness and of
actual misery, we should turn with horror from the frequent
executions, which disgraced, both at Rome and Antioch, the reign
of the two brothers. 53 Valens was of a timid, 54 and Valentinian
of a choleric, disposition. 55 An anxious regard to his personal
safety was the ruling principle of the administration of Valens.
In the condition of a subject, he had kissed, with trembling awe,
the hand of the oppressor; and when he ascended the throne, he
reasonably expected, that the same fears, which had subdued his
own mind, would secure the patient submission of his people. The
favorites of Valens obtained, by the privilege of rapine and
confiscation, the wealth which his economy would have refused. 56
They urged, with persuasive eloquence, _that_, in all cases of
treason, suspicion is equivalent to proof; _that_ the power
supposes the intention, of mischief; _that_ the intention is not
less criminal than the act; and _that_ a subject no longer
deserves to live, if his life may threaten the safety, or disturb
the repose, of his sovereign. The judgment of Valentinian was
sometimes deceived, and his confidence abused; but he would have
silenced the informers with a contemptuous smile, had they
presumed to alarm his fortitude by the sound of danger. They
praised his inflexible love of justice; and, in the pursuit of
justice, the emperor was easily tempted to consider clemency as a
weakness, and passion as a virtue. As long as he wrestled with
his equals, in the bold competition of an active and ambitious
life, Valentinian was seldom injured, and never insulted, with
impunity: if his prudence was arraigned, his spirit was
applauded; and the proudest and most powerful generals were
apprehensive of provoking the resentment of a fearless soldier.
After he became master of the world, he unfortunately forgot,
that where no resistance can be made, no courage can be exerted;
and instead of consulting the dictates of reason and magnanimity,
he indulged the furious emotions of his temper, at a time when
they were disgraceful to himself, and fatal to the defenceless
objects of his displeasure. In the government of his household,
or of his empire, slight, or even imaginary, offences—a hasty
word, a casual omission, an involuntary delay—were chastised by a
sentence of immediate death. The expressions which issued the
most readily from the mouth of the emperor of the West were,
“Strike off his head;” “Burn him alive;” “Let him be beaten with
clubs till he expires;” 57 and his most favored ministers soon
understood, that, by a rash attempt to dispute, or suspend, the
execution of his sanguinary commands, they might involve
themselves in the guilt and punishment of disobedience. The
repeated gratification of this savage justice hardened the mind
of Valentinian against pity and remorse; and the sallies of
passion were confirmed by the habits of cruelty. 58 He could
behold with calm satisfaction the convulsive agonies of torture
and death; he reserved his friendship for those faithful servants
whose temper was the most congenial to his own. The merit of
Maximin, who had slaughtered the noblest families of Rome, was
rewarded with the royal approbation, and the præfecture of Gaul.
Two fierce and enormous bears, distinguished by the appellations
of _Innocence_, and _Mica Aurea_, could alone deserve to share
the favor of Maximin. The cages of those trusty guards were
always placed near the bed-chamber of Valentinian, who frequently
amused his eyes with the grateful spectacle of seeing them tear
and devour the bleeding limbs of the malefactors who were
abandoned to their rage. Their diet and exercises were carefully
inspected by the Roman emperor; and when _Innocence_ had earned
her discharge, by a long course of meritorious service, the
faithful animal was again restored to the freedom of her native
woods. 59
53 (return) [ Consult the six last books of Ammianus, and more
particularly the portraits of the two royal brothers, (xxx. 8, 9,
xxxi. 14.) Tillemont has collected (tom. v. p. 12-18, p. 127-133)
from all antiquity their virtues and vices.]
54 (return) [ The younger Victor asserts, that he was valde
timidus: yet he behaved, as almost every man would do, with
decent resolution at the _head_ of an army. The same historian
attempts to prove that his anger was harmless. Ammianus observes,
with more candor and judgment, incidentia crimina ad contemptam
vel læsam principis amplitudinem trahens, in sanguinem sæviebat.]
55 (return) [ Cum esset ad acerbitatem naturæ calore propensior.
.. pœnas perignes augebat et gladios. Ammian. xxx. 8. See xxvii.
7]
56 (return) [ I have transferred the reproach of avarice from
Valens to his servant. Avarice more properly belongs to ministers
than to kings; in whom that passion is commonly extinguished by
absolute possession.]
57 (return) [ He sometimes expressed a sentence of death with a
tone of pleasantry: “Abi, Comes, et muta ei caput, qui sibi
mutari provinciam cupit.” A boy, who had slipped too hastily a
Spartan bound; an armorer, who had made a polished cuirass that
wanted some grains of the legitimate weight, &c., were the
victims of his fury.]
58 (return) [ The innocents of Milan were an agent and three
apparitors, whom Valentinian condemned for signifying a legal
summons. Ammianus (xxvii. 7) strangely supposes, that all who had
been unjustly executed were worshipped as martyrs by the
Christians. His impartial silence does not allow us to believe,
that the great chamberlain Rhodanus was burnt alive for an act of
oppression, (Chron. Paschal. p. 392.) * Note: Ammianus does not
say that they were worshipped as _martyrs_. Quorum memoriam apud
Mediolanum colentes nunc usque Christiani loculos ubi sepulti
sunt, _ad innocentes_ appellant. Wagner’s note in loco. Yet if
the next paragraph refers to that transaction, which is not quite
clear. Gibbon is right.—M.]
59 (return) [ Ut bene meritam in sylvas jussit abire _Innoxiam_.
Ammian. xxix. and Valesius ad locum.]
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.—Part III.
But in the calmer moments of reflection, when the mind of Valens
was not agitated by fear, or that of Valentinian by rage, the
tyrant resumed the sentiments, or at least the conduct, of the
father of his country. The dispassionate judgment of the Western
emperor could clearly perceive, and accurately pursue, his own
and the public interest; and the sovereign of the East, who
imitated with equal docility the various examples which he
received from his elder brother, was sometimes guided by the
wisdom and virtue of the præfect Sallust. Both princes invariably
retained, in the purple, the chaste and temperate simplicity
which had adorned their private life; and, under their reign, the
pleasures of the court never cost the people a blush or a sigh.
They gradually reformed many of the abuses of the times of
Constantius; judiciously adopted and improved the designs of
Julian and his successor; and displayed a style and spirit of
legislation which might inspire posterity with the most favorable
opinion of their character and government. It is not from the
master of _Innocence_, that we should expect the tender regard
for the welfare of his subjects, which prompted Valentinian to
condemn the exposition of new-born infants; 60 and to establish
fourteen skilful physicians, with stipends and privileges, in the
fourteen quarters of Rome. The good sense of an illiterate
soldier founded a useful and liberal institution for the
education of youth, and the support of declining science. 61 It
was his intention, that the arts of rhetoric and grammar should
be taught in the Greek and Latin languages, in the metropolis of
every province; and as the size and dignity of the school was
usually proportioned to the importance of the city, the academies
of Rome and Constantinople claimed a just and singular
preëminence. The fragments of the literary edicts of Valentinian
imperfectly represent the school of Constantinople, which was
gradually improved by subsequent regulations. That school
consisted of thirty-one professors in different branches of
learning. One philosopher, and two lawyers; five sophists, and
ten grammarians for the Greek, and three orators, and ten
grammarians for the Latin tongue; besides seven scribes, or, as
they were then styled, antiquarians, whose laborious pens
supplied the public library with fair and correct copies of the
classic writers. The rule of conduct, which was prescribed to the
students, is the more curious, as it affords the first outlines
of the form and discipline of a modern university. It was
required, that they should bring proper certificates from the
magistrates of their native province. Their names, professions,
and places of abode, were regularly entered in a public register.
60 (return) [ See the Code of Justinian, l. viii. tit. lii. leg.
2. Unusquisque sabolem suam nutriat. Quod si exponendam putaverit
animadversioni quæ constituta est subjacebit. For the present I
shall not interfere in the dispute between Noodt and Binkershoek;
how far, or how long this unnatural practice had been condemned
or abolished by law philosophy, and the more civilized state of
society.]
61 (return) [ These salutary institutions are explained in the
Theodosian Code, l. xiii. tit. iii. _De Professoribus et
Medicis_, and l. xiv. tit. ix. _De Studiis liberalibus Urbis
Romæ_. Besides our usual guide, (Godefroy,) we may consult
Giannone, (Istoria di Napoli, tom. i. p. 105-111,) who has
treated the interesting subject with the zeal and curiosity of a
man of latters who studies his domestic history.]
The studious youth were severely prohibited from wasting their
time in feasts, or in the theatre; and the term of their
education was limited to the age of twenty. The præfect of the
city was empowered to chastise the idle and refractory by stripes
or expulsion; and he was directed to make an annual report to the
master of the offices, that the knowledge and abilities of the
scholars might be usefully applied to the public service. The
institutions of Valentinian contributed to secure the benefits of
peace and plenty; and the cities were guarded by the
establishment of the _Defensors;_ 62 freely elected as the
tribunes and advocates of the people, to support their rights,
and to expose their grievances, before the tribunals of the civil
magistrates, or even at the foot of the Imperial throne. The
finances were diligently administered by two princes, who had
been so long accustomed to the rigid economy of a private
fortune; but in the receipt and application of the revenue, a
discerning eye might observe some difference between the
government of the East and of the West. Valens was persuaded,
that royal liberality can be supplied only by public oppression,
and his ambition never aspired to secure, by their actual
distress, the future strength and prosperity of his people.
Instead of increasing the weight of taxes, which, in the space of
forty years, had been gradually doubled, he reduced, in the first
years of his reign, one fourth of the tribute of the East. 63
Valentinian appears to have been less attentive and less anxious
to relieve the burdens of his people. He might reform the abuses
of the fiscal administration; but he exacted, without scruple, a
very large share of the private property; as he was convinced,
that the revenues, which supported the luxury of individuals,
would be much more advantageously employed for the defence and
improvement of the state. The subjects of the East, who enjoyed
the present benefit, applauded the indulgence of their prince.
The solid but less splendid, merit of Valentinian was felt and
acknowledged by the subsequent generation. 64
62 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. i. tit. xi. with Godefroy’s
_Paratitlon_, which diligently gleans from the rest of the code.]
63 (return) [ Three lines of Ammianus (xxxi. 14) countenance a
whole oration of Themistius, (viii. p. 101-120,) full of
adulation, pedantry, and common-place morality. The eloquent M.
Thomas (tom. i. p. 366-396) has amused himself with celebrating
the virtues and genius of Themistius, who was not unworthy of the
age in which he lived.]
64 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 202. Ammian. xxx. 9. His
reformation of costly abuses might entitle him to the praise of,
in provinciales admodum parcus, tributorum ubique molliens
sarcinas. By some his frugality was styled avarice, (Jerom.
Chron. p. 186)]
But the most honorable circumstance of the character of
Valentinian, is the firm and temperate impartiality which he
uniformly preserved in an age of religious contention. His strong
sense, unenlightened, but uncorrupted, by study, declined, with
respectful indifference, the subtle questions of theological
debate. The government of the _Earth_ claimed his vigilance, and
satisfied his ambition; and while he remembered that he was the
disciple of the church, he never forgot that he was the sovereign
of the clergy. Under the reign of an apostate, he had signalized
his zeal for the honor of Christianity: he allowed to his
subjects the privilege which he had assumed for himself; and they
might accept, with gratitude and confidence, the general
toleration which was granted by a prince addicted to passion, but
incapable of fear or of disguise. 65 The Pagans, the Jews, and
all the various sects which acknowledged the divine authority of
Christ, were protected by the laws from arbitrary power or
popular insult; nor was any mode of worship prohibited by
Valentinian, except those secret and criminal practices, which
abused the name of religion for the dark purposes of vice and
disorder. The art of magic, as it was more cruelly punished, was
more strictly proscribed: but the emperor admitted a formal
distinction to protect the ancient methods of divination, which
were approved by the senate, and exercised by the Tuscan
haruspices. He had condemned, with the consent of the most
rational Pagans, the license of nocturnal sacrifices; but he
immediately admitted the petition of Prætextatus, proconsul of
Achaia, who represented, that the life of the Greeks would become
dreary and comfortless, if they were deprived of the invaluable
blessing of the Eleusinian mysteries. Philosophy alone can boast,
(and perhaps it is no more than the boast of philosophy,) that
her gentle hand is able to eradicate from the human mind the
latent and deadly principle of fanaticism. But this truce of
twelve years, which was enforced by the wise and vigorous
government of Valentinian, by suspending the repetition of mutual
injuries, contributed to soften the manners, and abate the
prejudices, of the religious factions.
65 (return) [ Testes sunt leges a me in exordio Imperii mei datæ;
quibus unicuique quod animo imbibisset colendi libera facultas
tributa est. Cod. Theodos. l. ix. tit. xvi. leg. 9. To this
declaration of Valentinian, we may add the various testimonies of
Ammianus, (xxx. 9,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 204,) and Sozomen, (l.
vi. c. 7, 21.) Baronius would naturally blame such rational
toleration, (Annal. Eccles A. D. 370, No. 129-132, A. D. 376, No.
3, 4.) ——Comme il s’était prescrit pour règle de ne point se
mêler de disputes de religion, son histoire est presque
entièrement dégagée des affaires ecclésiastiques. Le Beau. iii.
214.—M.]
The friend of toleration was unfortunately placed at a distance
from the scene of the fiercest controversies. As soon as the
Christians of the West had extricated themselves from the snares
of the creed of Rimini, they happily relapsed into the slumber of
orthodoxy; and the small remains of the Arian party, that still
subsisted at Sirmium or Milan, might be considered rather as
objects of contempt than of resentment. But in the provinces of
the East, from the Euxine to the extremity of Thebais, the
strength and numbers of the hostile factions were more equally
balanced; and this equality, instead of recommending the counsels
of peace, served only to perpetuate the horrors of religious war.
The monks and bishops supported their arguments by invectives;
and their invectives were sometimes followed by blows. Athanasius
still reigned at Alexandria; the thrones of Constantinople and
Antioch were occupied by Arian prelates, and every episcopal
vacancy was the occasion of a popular tumult. The Homoousians
were fortified by the reconciliation of fifty-nine Macelonian, or
Semi-Arian, bishops; but their secret reluctance to embrace the
divinity of the Holy Ghost, clouded the splendor of the triumph;
and the declaration of Valens, who, in the first years of his
reign, had imitated the impartial conduct of his brother, was an
important victory on the side of Arianism. The two brothers had
passed their private life in the condition of catechumens; but
the piety of Valens prompted him to solicit the sacrament of
baptism, before he exposed his person to the dangers of a Gothic
war. He naturally addressed himself to Eudoxus, 66 6611 bishop of
the Imperial city; and if the ignorant monarch was instructed by
that Arian pastor in the principles of heterodox theology, his
misfortune, rather than his guilt, was the inevitable consequence
of his erroneous choice. Whatever had been the determination of
the emperor, he must have offended a numerous party of his
Christian subjects; as the leaders both of the Homoousians and of
the Arians believed, that, if they were not suffered to reign,
they were most cruelly injured and oppressed. After he had taken
this decisive step, it was extremely difficult for him to
preserve either the virtue, or the reputation of impartiality. He
never aspired, like Constantius, to the fame of a profound
theologian; but as he had received with simplicity and respect
the tenets of Euxodus, Valens resigned his conscience to the
direction of his ecclesiastical guides, and promoted, by the
influence of his authority, the reunion of the _Athanasian
heretics_ to the body of the Catholic church. At first, he pitied
their blindness; by degrees he was provoked at their obstinacy;
and he insensibly hated those sectaries to whom he was an object
of hatred. 67 The feeble mind of Valens was always swayed by the
persons with whom he familiarly conversed; and the exile or
imprisonment of a private citizen are the favors the most readily
granted in a despotic court. Such punishments were frequently
inflicted on the leaders of the Homoousian party; and the
misfortune of fourscore ecclesiastics of Constantinople, who,
perhaps accidentally, were burned on shipboard, was imputed to
the cruel and premeditated malice of the emperor, and his Arian
ministers. In every contest, the Catholics (if we may anticipate
that name) were obliged to pay the penalty of their own faults,
and of those of their adversaries. In every election, the claims
of the Arian candidate obtained the preference; and if they were
opposed by the majority of the people, he was usually supported
by the authority of the civil magistrate, or even by the terrors
of a military force. The enemies of Athanasius attempted to
disturb the last years of his venerable age; and his temporary
retreat to his father’s sepulchre has been celebrated as a fifth
exile. But the zeal of a great people, who instantly flew to
arms, intimidated the præfect: and the archbishop was permitted
to end his life in peace and in glory, after a reign of
forty-seven years. The death of Athanasius was the signal of the
persecution of Egypt; and the Pagan minister of Valens, who
forcibly seated the worthless Lucius on the archiepiscopal
throne, purchased the favor of the reigning party, by the blood
and sufferings of their Christian brethren. The free toleration
of the heathen and Jewish worship was bitterly lamented, as a
circumstance which aggravated the misery of the Catholics, and
the guilt of the impious tyrant of the East. 68
66 (return) [ Eudoxus was of a mild and timid disposition. When
he baptized Valens, (A. D. 367,) he must have been extremely old;
since he had studied theology fifty-five years before, under
Lucian, a learned and pious martyr. Philostorg. l. ii. c. 14-16,
l. iv. c. 4, with Godefroy, p 82, 206, and Tillemont, Mém.
Eccles. tom. v. p. 471-480, &c.]
6611 (return) [ Through the influence of his wife say the
ecclesiastical writers.—M.]
67 (return) [ Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. xxv. p. 432) insults the
persecuting spirit of the Arians, as an infallible symptom of
error and heresy.]
68 (return) [ This sketch of the ecclesiastical government of
Valens is drawn from Socrates, (l. iv.,) Sozomen, (l. vi.,)
Theodoret, (l. iv.,) and the immense compilations of Tillemont,
(particularly tom. vi. viii. and ix.)]
The triumph of the orthodox party has left a deep stain of
persecution on the memory of Valens; and the character of a
prince who derived his virtues, as well as his vices, from a
feeble understanding and a pusillanimous temper, scarcely
deserves the labor of an apology. Yet candor may discover some
reasons to suspect that the ecclesiastical ministers of Valens
often exceeded the orders, or even the intentions, of their
master; and that the real measure of facts has been very
liberally magnified by the vehement declamation and easy
credulity of his antagonists. 69 1. The silence of Valentinian
may suggest a probable argument that the partial severities,
which were exercised in the name and provinces of his colleague,
amounted only to some obscure and inconsiderable deviations from
the established system of religious toleration: and the judicious
historian, who has praised the equal temper of the elder brother,
has not thought himself obliged to contrast the tranquillity of
the West with the cruel persecution of the East. 70 2. Whatever
credit may be allowed to vague and distant reports, the
character, or at least the behavior, of Valens, may be most
distinctly seen in his personal transactions with the eloquent
Basil, archbishop of Cæsarea, who had succeeded Athanasius in the
management of the Trinitarian cause. 71 The circumstantial
narrative has been composed by the friends and admirers of Basil;
and as soon as we have stripped away a thick coat of rhetoric and
miracle, we shall be astonished by the unexpected mildness of the
Arian tyrant, who admired the firmness of his character, or was
apprehensive, if he employed violence, of a general revolt in the
province of Cappadocia. The archbishop, who asserted, with
inflexible pride, 72 the truth of his opinions, and the dignity
of his rank, was left in the free possession of his conscience
and his throne. The emperor devoutly assisted at the solemn
service of the cathedral; and, instead of a sentence of
banishment, subscribed the donation of a valuable estate for the
use of a hospital, which Basil had lately founded in the
neighborhood of Cæsarea. 73 3. I am not able to discover, that
any law (such as Theodosius afterwards enacted against the
Arians) was published by Valens against the Athanasian sectaries;
and the edict which excited the most violent clamors, may not
appear so extremely reprehensible. The emperor had observed, that
several of his subjects, gratifying their lazy disposition under
the pretence of religion, had associated themselves with the
monks of Egypt; and he directed the count of the East to drag
them from their solitude; and to compel these deserters of
society to accept the fair alternative of renouncing their
temporal possessions, or of discharging the public duties of men
and citizens. 74 The ministers of Valens seem to have extended
the sense of this penal statute, since they claimed a right of
enlisting the young and ablebodied monks in the Imperial armies.
A detachment of cavalry and infantry, consisting of three
thousand men, marched from Alexandria into the adjacent desert of
Nitria, 75 which was peopled by five thousand monks. The soldiers
were conducted by Arian priests; and it is reported, that a
considerable slaughter was made in the monasteries which
disobeyed the commands of their sovereign. 76
69 (return) [ Dr. Jortin (Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol.
iv. p. 78) has already conceived and intimated the same
suspicion.]
70 (return) [ This reflection is so obvious and forcible, that
Orosius (l. vii. c. 32, 33,) delays the persecution till after
the death of Valentinian. Socrates, on the other hand, supposes,
(l. iii. c. 32,) that it was appeased by a philosophical oration,
which Themistius pronounced in the year 374, (Orat. xii. p. 154,
in Latin only.) Such contradictions diminish the evidence, and
reduce the term, of the persecution of Valens.]
71 (return) [ Tillemont, whom I follow and abridge, has extracted
(Mém. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 153-167) the most authentic
circumstances from the Panegyrics of the two Gregories; the
brother, and the friend, of Basil. The letters of Basil himself
(Dupin, Bibliothèque, Ecclesiastique, tom. ii. p. 155-180) do not
present the image of a very lively persecution.]
72 (return) [ Basilius Cæsariensis episcopus Cappadociæ clarus
habetur... qui multa continentiæ et ingenii bona uno superbiæ
malo perdidit. This irreverent passage is perfectly in the style
and character of St. Jerom. It does not appear in Scaliger’s
edition of his Chronicle; but Isaac Vossius found it in some old
Mss. which had not been reformed by the monks.]
73 (return) [ This noble and charitable foundation (almost a new
city) surpassed in merit, if not in greatness, the pyramids, or
the walls of Babylon. It was principally intended for the
reception of lepers, (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. xx. p. 439.)]
74 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. xii. tit. i. leg. 63. Godefroy
(tom. iv. p. 409-413) performs the duty of a commentator and
advocate. Tillemont (Mém. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 808) _supposes_ a
second law to excuse his orthodox friends, who had misrepresented
the edict of Valens, and suppressed the liberty of choice.]
75 (return) [ See D’Anville, Description de l’Egypte, p. 74.
Hereafter I shall consider the monastic institutions.]
76 (return) [ Socrates, l. iv. c. 24, 25. Orosius, l. vii. c. 33.
Jerom. in Chron. p. 189, and tom. ii. p. 212. The monks of Egypt
performed many miracles, which prove the truth of their faith.
Right, says Jortin, (Remarks, vol iv. p. 79,) but what proves the
truth of those miracles.]
The strict regulations which have been framed by the wisdom of
modern legislators to restrain the wealth and avarice of the
clergy, may be originally deduced from the example of the emperor
Valentinian. His edict, 77 addressed to Damasus, bishop of Rome,
was publicly read in the churches of the city. He admonished the
ecclesiastics and monks not to frequent the houses of widows and
virgins; and menaced their disobedience with the animadversion of
the civil judge. The director was no longer permitted to receive
any gift, or legacy, or inheritance, from the liberality of his
spiritual-daughter: every testament contrary to this edict was
declared null and void; and the illegal donation was confiscated
for the use of the treasury. By a subsequent regulation, it
should seem, that the same provisions were extended to nuns and
bishops; and that all persons of the ecclesiastical order were
rendered incapable of receiving any testamentary gifts, and
strictly confined to the natural and legal rights of inheritance.
As the guardian of domestic happiness and virtue, Valentinian
applied this severe remedy to the growing evil. In the capital of
the empire, the females of noble and opulent houses possessed a
very ample share of independent property: and many of those
devout females had embraced the doctrines of Christianity, not
only with the cold assent of the understanding, but with the
warmth of affection, and perhaps with the eagerness of fashion.
They sacrificed the pleasures of dress and luxury; and renounced,
for the praise of chastity, the soft endearments of conjugal
society. Some ecclesiastic, of real or apparent sanctity, was
chosen to direct their timorous conscience, and to amuse the
vacant tenderness of their heart: and the unbounded confidence,
which they hastily bestowed, was often abused by knaves and
enthusiasts; who hastened from the extremities of the East, to
enjoy, on a splendid theatre, the privileges of the monastic
profession. By their contempt of the world, they insensibly
acquired its most desirable advantages; the lively attachment,
perhaps of a young and beautiful woman, the delicate plenty of an
opulent household, and the respectful homage of the slaves, the
freedmen, and the clients of a senatorial family. The immense
fortunes of the Roman ladies were gradually consumed in lavish
alms and expensive pilgrimages; and the artful monk, who had
assigned himself the first, or possibly the sole place, in the
testament of his spiritual daughter, still presumed to declare,
with the smooth face of hypocrisy, that _he_ was only the
instrument of charity, and the steward of the poor. The
lucrative, but disgraceful, trade, 78 which was exercised by the
clergy to defraud the expectations of the natural heirs, had
provoked the indignation of a superstitious age: and two of the
most respectable of the Latin fathers very honestly confess, that
the ignominious edict of Valentinian was just and necessary; and
that the Christian priests had deserved to lose a privilege,
which was still enjoyed by comedians, charioteers, and the
ministers of idols. But the wisdom and authority of the
legislator are seldom victorious in a contest with the vigilant
dexterity of private interest; and Jerom, or Ambrose, might
patiently acquiesce in the justice of an ineffectual or salutary
law. If the ecclesiastics were checked in the pursuit of personal
emolument, they would exert a more laudable industry to increase
the wealth of the church; and dignify their covetousness with the
specious names of piety and patriotism. 79
77 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 20. Godefroy,
(tom. vi. p. 49,) after the example of Baronius, impartially
collects all that the fathers have said on the subject of this
important law; whose spirit was long afterwards revived by the
emperor Frederic II., Edward I. of England, and other Christian
princes who reigned after the twelfth century.]
78 (return) [ The expressions which I have used are temperate and
feeble, if compared with the vehement invectives of Jerom, (tom.
i. p. 13, 45, 144, &c.) In _his_ turn he was reproached with the
guilt which he imputed to his brother monks; and the
_Sceleratus_, the _Versipellis_, was publicly accused as the
lover of the widow Paula, (tom. ii. p. 363.) He undoubtedly
possessed the affection, both of the mother and the daughter; but
he declares that he never abused his influence to any selfish or
sensual purpose.]
79 (return) [ Pudet dicere, sacerdotes idolorum, mimi et aurigæ,
et scorta, hæreditates capiunt: solis _clericis_ ac _monachis_
hac lege prohibetur. Et non prohibetur a persecutoribus, sed a
principibus Christianis. Nec de lege queror; sed doleo cur
_meruerimus_ hanc legem. Jerom (tom. i. p. 13) discreetly
insinuates the secret policy of his patron Damasus.]
Damasus, bishop of Rome, who was constrained to stigmatize the
avarice of his clergy by the publication of the law of
Valentinian, had the good sense, or the good fortune, to engage
in his service the zeal and abilities of the learned Jerom; and
the grateful saint has celebrated the merit and purity of a very
ambiguous character. 80 But the splendid vices of the church of
Rome, under the reign of Valentinian and Damasus, have been
curiously observed by the historian Ammianus, who delivers his
impartial sense in these expressive words: “The præfecture of
Juventius was accompanied with peace and plenty, but the
tranquillity of his government was soon disturbed by a bloody
sedition of the distracted people. The ardor of Damasus and
Ursinus, to seize the episcopal seat, surpassed the ordinary
measure of human ambition. They contended with the rage of party;
the quarrel was maintained by the wounds and death of their
followers; and the præfect, unable to resist or appease the
tumult, was constrained, by superior violence, to retire into the
suburbs. Damasus prevailed: the well-disputed victory remained on
the side of his faction; one hundred and thirty-seven dead bodies
81 were found in the _Basilica_ of Sicininus, 82 where the
Christians hold their religious assemblies; and it was long
before the angry minds of the people resumed their accustomed
tranquillity. When I consider the splendor of the capital, I am
not astonished that so valuable a prize should inflame the
desires of ambitious men, and produce the fiercest and most
obstinate contests. The successful candidate is secure, that he
will be enriched by the offerings of matrons; 83 that, as soon as
his dress is composed with becoming care and elegance, he may
proceed, in his chariot, through the streets of Rome; 84 and that
the sumptuousness of the Imperial table will not equal the
profuse and delicate entertainments provided by the taste, and at
the expense, of the Roman pontiffs. How much more rationally
(continues the honest Pagan) would those pontiffs consult their
true happiness, if, instead of alleging the greatness of the city
as an excuse for their manners, they would imitate the exemplary
life of some provincial bishops, whose temperance and sobriety,
whose mean apparel and downcast looks, recommend their pure and
modest virtue to the Deity and his true worshippers!” 85 The
schism of Damasus and Ursinus was extinguished by the exile of
the latter; and the wisdom of the præfect Prætextatus 86 restored
the tranquillity of the city. Prætextatus was a philosophic
Pagan, a man of learning, of taste, and politeness; who disguised
a reproach in the form of a jest, when he assured Damasus, that
if he could obtain the bishopric of Rome, he himself would
immediately embrace the Christian religion. 87 This lively
picture of the wealth and luxury of the popes in the fourth
century becomes the more curious, as it represents the
intermediate degree between the humble poverty of the apostolic
fishermen, and the royal state of a temporal prince, whose
dominions extend from the confines of Naples to the banks of the
Po.
80 (return) [ Three words of Jerom, _sanctæ memoriæ Damasus_
(tom. ii. p. 109,) wash away all his stains, and blind the devout
eyes of Tillemont. (Mem Eccles. tom. viii. p. 386-424.)]
81 (return) [ Jerom himself is forced to allow, crudelissimæ
interfectiones diversi sexûs perpetratæ, (in Chron. p. 186.) But
an original _libel_, or petition of two presbyters of the adverse
party, has unaccountably escaped. They affirm that the doors of
the Basilica were burnt, and that the roof was untiled; that
Damasus marched at the head of his own clergy, grave-diggers,
charioteers, and hired gladiators; that none of _his_ party were
killed, but that one hundred and sixty dead bodies were found.
This petition is published by the P. Sirmond, in the first volume
of his work.]
82 (return) [ The _Basilica_ of Sicininus, or Liberius, is
probably the church of Sancta Maria Maggiore, on the Esquiline
hill. Baronius, A. D. 367 No. 3; and Donatus, Roma Antiqua et
Nova, l. iv. c. 3, p. 462.]
83 (return) [ The enemies of Damasus styled him _Auriscalpius
Matronarum_ the ladies’ ear-scratcher.]
84 (return) [ Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. xxxii. p. 526) describes
the pride and luxury of the prelates who reigned in the Imperial
cities; their gilt car, fiery steeds, numerous train, &c. The
crowd gave way as to a wild beast.]
85 (return) [ Ammian. xxvii. 3. Perpetuo Numini, _verisque_ ejus
cultoribus. The incomparable pliancy of a polytheist!]
86 (return) [ Ammianus, who makes a fair report of his præfecture
(xxvii. 9) styles him præclaræ indolis, gravitatisque senator,
(xxii. 7, and Vales. ad loc.) A curious inscription (Grutor MCII.
No. 2) records, in two columns, his religious and civil honors.
In one line he was Pontiff of the Sun, and of Vesta, Augur,
Quindecemvir, Hierophant, &c., &c. In the other, 1. Quæstor
candidatus, more probably titular. 2. Prætor. 3. Corrector of
Tuscany and Umbria. 4. Consular of Lusitania. 5. Proconsul of
Achaia. 6. Præfect of Rome. 7. Prætorian præfect of Italy. 8. Of
Illyricum. 9. Consul elect; but he died before the beginning of
the year 385. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom v. p. 241,
736.]
87 (return) [ Facite me Romanæ urbis episcopum; et ero protinus
Christianus (Jerom, tom. ii. p. 165.) It is more than probable
that Damasus would not have purchased his conversion at such a
price.]
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.—Part IV.
When the suffrage of the generals and of the army committed the
sceptre of the Roman empire to the hands of Valentinian, his
reputation in arms, his military skill and experience, and his
rigid attachment to the forms, as well as spirit, of ancient
discipline, were the principal motives of their judicious choice.
The eagerness of the troops, who pressed him to nominate his
colleague, was justified by the dangerous situation of public
affairs; and Valentinian himself was conscious, that the
abilities of the most active mind were unequal to the defence of
the distant frontiers of an invaded monarchy. As soon as the
death of Julian had relieved the Barbarians from the terror of
his name, the most sanguine hopes of rapine and conquest excited
the nations of the East, of the North, and of the South. Their
inroads were often vexatious, and sometimes formidable; but,
during the twelve years of the reign of Valentinian, his firmness
and vigilance protected his own dominions; and his powerful
genius seemed to inspire and direct the feeble counsels of his
brother. Perhaps the method of annals would more forcibly express
the urgent and divided cares of the two emperors; but the
attention of the reader, likewise, would be distracted by a
tedious and desultory narrative. A separate view of the five
great theatres of war; I. Germany; II. Britain; III. Africa; IV.
The East; and, V. The Danube; will impress a more distinct image
of the military state of the empire under the reigns of
Valentinian and Valens.
I. The ambassadors of the Alemanni had been offended by the harsh
and haughty behavior of Ursacius, master of the offices; 88 who
by an act of unseasonable parsimony, had diminished the value, as
well as the quantity, of the presents to which they were
entitled, either from custom or treaty, on the accession of a new
emperor. They expressed, and they communicated to their
countrymen, their strong sense of the national affront. The
irascible minds of the chiefs were exasperated by the suspicion
of contempt; and the martial youth crowded to their standard.
Before Valentinian could pass the Alps, the villages of Gaul were
in flames; before his general Degalaiphus could encounter the
Alemanni, they had secured the captives and the spoil in the
forests of Germany. In the beginning of the ensuing year, the
military force of the whole nation, in deep and solid columns,
broke through the barrier of the Rhine, during the severity of a
northern winter. Two Roman counts were defeated and mortally
wounded; and the standard of the Heruli and Batavians fell into
the hands of the conquerors, who displayed, with insulting shouts
and menaces, the trophy of their victory. The standard was
recovered; but the Batavians had not redeemed the shame of their
disgrace and flight in the eyes of their severe judge. It was the
opinion of Valentinian, that his soldiers must learn to fear
their commander, before they could cease to fear the enemy. The
troops were solemnly assembled; and the trembling Batavians were
enclosed within the circle of the Imperial army. Valentinian then
ascended his tribunal; and, as if he disdained to punish
cowardice with death, he inflicted a stain of indelible ignominy
on the officers, whose misconduct and pusillanimity were found to
be the first occasion of the defeat. The Batavians were degraded
from their rank, stripped of their arms, and condemned to be sold
for slaves to the highest bidder. At this tremendous sentence,
the troops fell prostrate on the ground, deprecated the
indignation of their sovereign, and protested, that, if he would
indulge them in another trial, they would approve themselves not
unworthy of the name of Romans, and of his soldiers. Valentinian,
with affected reluctance, yielded to their entreaties; the
Batavians resumed their arms, and with their arms, the invincible
resolution of wiping away their disgrace in the blood of the
Alemanni. 89 The principal command was declined by Dagalaiphus;
and that experienced general, who had represented, perhaps with
too much prudence, the extreme difficulties of the undertaking,
had the mortification, before the end of the campaign, of seeing
his rival Jovinus convert those difficulties into a decisive
advantage over the scattered forces of the Barbarians. At the
head of a well-disciplined army of cavalry, infantry, and light
troops, Jovinus advanced, with cautious and rapid steps, to
Scarponna, 90 9011 in the territory of Metz, where he surprised a
large division of the Alemanni, before they had time to run to
their arms; and flushed his soldiers with the confidence of an
easy and bloodless victory. Another division, or rather army, of
the enemy, after the cruel and wanton devastation of the adjacent
country, reposed themselves on the shady banks of the Moselle.
Jovinus, who had viewed the ground with the eye of a general,
made a silent approach through a deep and woody vale, till he
could distinctly perceive the indolent security of the Germans.
Some were bathing their huge limbs in the river; others were
combing their long and flaxen hair; others again were swallowing
large draughts of rich and delicious wine. On a sudden they heard
the sound of the Roman trumpet; they saw the enemy in their camp.
Astonishment produced disorder; disorder was followed by flight
and dismay; and the confused multitude of the bravest warriors
was pierced by the swords and javelins of the legionaries and
auxiliaries. The fugitives escaped to the third, and most
considerable, camp, in the Catalonian plains, near Châlons in
Champagne: the straggling detachments were hastily recalled to
their standard; and the Barbarian chiefs, alarmed and admonished
by the fate of their companions, prepared to encounter, in a
decisive battle, the victorious forces of the lieutenant of
Valentinian. The bloody and obstinate conflict lasted a whole
summer’s day, with equal valor, and with alternate success. The
Romans at length prevailed, with the loss of about twelve hundred
men. Six thousand of the Alemanni were slain, four thousand were
wounded; and the brave Jovinus, after chasing the flying remnant
of their host as far as the banks of the Rhine, returned to
Paris, to receive the applause of his sovereign, and the ensigns
of the consulship for the ensuing year. 91 The triumph of the
Romans was indeed sullied by their treatment of the captive king,
whom they hung on a gibbet, without the knowledge of their
indignant general. This disgraceful act of cruelty, which might
be imputed to the fury of the troops, was followed by the
deliberate murder of Withicab, the son of Vadomair; a German
prince, of a weak and sickly constitution, but of a daring and
formidable spirit. The domestic assassin was instigated and
protected by the Romans; 92 and the violation of the laws of
humanity and justice betrayed their secret apprehension of the
weakness of the declining empire. The use of the dagger is seldom
adopted in public councils, as long as they retain any confidence
in the power of the sword.
88 (return) [ Ammian, xxvi. 5. Valesius adds a long and good note
on the master of the offices.]
89 (return) [ Ammian. xxvii. 1. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 208. The
disgrace of the Batavians is suppressed by the contemporary
soldier, from a regard for military honor, which could not affect
a Greek rhetorician of the succeeding age.]
90 (return) [ See D’Anville, Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule, p. 587.
The name of the Moselle, which is not specified by Ammianus, is
clearly understood by Mascou, (Hist. of the Ancient Germans, vii.
2)]
9011 (return) [ Charpeigne on the Moselle. Mannert—M.]
91 (return) [ The battles are described by Ammianus, (xxvii. 2,)
and by Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 209,) who supposes Valentinian to have
been present.]
92 (return) [ Studio solicitante nostrorum, occubuit. Ammian
xxvii. 10.]
While the Alemanni appeared to be humbled by their recent
calamities, the pride of Valentinian was mortified by the
unexpected surprisal of Moguntiacum, or Mentz, the principal city
of the Upper Germany. In the unsuspicious moment of a Christian
festival, 9211 Rando, a bold and artful chieftain, who had long
meditated his attempt, suddenly passed the Rhine; entered the
defenceless town, and retired with a multitude of captives of
either sex. Valentinian resolved to execute severe vengeance on
the whole body of the nation. Count Sebastian, with the bands of
Italy and Illyricum, was ordered to invade their country, most
probably on the side of Rhætia. The emperor in person,
accompanied by his son Gratian, passed the Rhine at the head of a
formidable army, which was supported on both flanks by Jovinus
and Severus, the two masters-general of the cavalry and infantry
of the West. The Alemanni, unable to prevent the devastation of
their villages, fixed their camp on a lofty, and almost
inaccessible, mountain, in the modern duchy of Wirtemberg, and
resolutely expected the approach of the Romans. The life of
Valentinian was exposed to imminent danger by the intrepid
curiosity with which he persisted to explore some secret and
unguarded path. A troop of Barbarians suddenly rose from their
ambuscade: and the emperor, who vigorously spurred his horse down
a steep and slippery descent, was obliged to leave behind him his
armor-bearer, and his helmet, magnificently enriched with gold
and precious stones. At the signal of the general assault, the
Roman troops encompassed and ascended the mountain of Solicinium
on three different sides. 9212 Every step which they gained,
increased their ardor, and abated the resistance of the enemy:
and after their united forces had occupied the summit of the
hill, they impetuously urged the Barbarians down the northern
descent, where Count Sebastian was posted to intercept their
retreat. After this signal victory, Valentinian returned to his
winter quarters at Treves; where he indulged the public joy by
the exhibition of splendid and triumphal games. 93 But the wise
monarch, instead of aspiring to the conquest of Germany, confined
his attention to the important and laborious defence of the
Gallic frontier, against an enemy whose strength was renewed by a
stream of daring volunteers, which incessantly flowed from the
most distant tribes of the North. 94 The banks of the Rhine 9411
from its source to the straits of the ocean, were closely planted
with strong castles and convenient towers; new works, and new
arms, were invented by the ingenuity of a prince who was skilled
in the mechanical arts; and his numerous levies of Roman and
Barbarian youth were severely trained in all the exercises of
war. The progress of the work, which was sometimes opposed by
modest representations, and sometimes by hostile attempts,
secured the tranquillity of Gaul during the nine subsequent years
of the administration of Valentinian. 95
9211 (return) [ Probably Easter. Wagner.—M.]
9212 (return) [ Mannert is unable to fix the position of
Solicinium. Haefelin (in Comm Acad Elect. Palat. v. 14)
conjectures Schwetzingen, near Heidelberg. See Wagner’s note. St.
Martin, Sultz in Wirtemberg, near the sources of the Neckar St.
Martin, iii. 339.—M.]
93 (return) [ The expedition of Valentinian is related by
Ammianus, (xxvii. 10;) and celebrated by Ausonius, (Mosell. 421,
&c.,) who foolishly supposes, that the Romans were ignorant of
the sources of the Danube.]
94 (return) [ Immanis enim natio, jam inde ab incunabulis primis
varietate casuum imminuta; ita sæpius adolescit, ut fuisse longis
sæculis æstimetur intacta. Ammianus, xxviii. 5. The Count de Buat
(Hist. des Peuples de l’Europe, tom. vi. p. 370) ascribes the
fecundity of the Alemanni to their easy adoption of strangers.
——Note: “This explanation,” says Mr. Malthus, “only removes the
difficulty a little farther off. It makes the earth rest upon the
tortoise, but does not tell us on what the tortoise rests. We may
still ask what northern reservoir supplied this incessant stream
of daring adventurers. Montesquieu’s solution of the problem
will, I think, hardly be admitted, (Grandeur et Décadence des
Romains, c. 16, p. 187.) * * * The whole difficulty, however, is
at once removed, if we apply to the German nations, at that time,
a fact which is so generally known to have occurred in America,
and suppose that, when not checked by wars and famine, they
increased at a rate that would double their numbers in
twenty-five or thirty years. The propriety, and even the
necessity, of applying this rate of increase to the inhabitants
of ancient Germany, will strikingly appear from that most
valuable picture of their manners which has been left us by
Tacitus, (Tac. de Mor. Germ. 16 to 20.) * * * With these manners,
and a habit of enterprise and emigration, which would naturally
remove all fears about providing for a family, it is difficult to
conceive a society with a stronger principle of increase in it,
and we see at once that prolific source of armies and colonies
against which the force of the Roman empire so long struggled
with difficulty, and under which it ultimately sunk. It is not
probable that, for two periods together, or even for one, the
population within the confines of Germany ever doubled itself in
twenty-five years. Their perpetual wars, the rude state of
agriculture, and particularly the very strange custom adopted by
most of the tribes of marking their barriers by extensive
deserts, would prevent any very great actual increase of numbers.
At no one period could the country be called well peopled, though
it was often redundant in population. * * * Instead of clearing
their forests, draining their swamps, and rendering their soil
fit to support an extended population, they found it more
congenial to their martial habits and impatient dispositions to
go in quest of food, of plunder, or of glory, into other
countries.” Malthus on Population, i. p. 128.—G.]
9411 (return) [ The course of the Neckar was likewise strongly
guarded. The hyperbolical eulogy of Symmachus asserts that the
Neckar first became known to the Romans by the conquests and
fortifications of Valentinian. Nunc primum victoriis tuis
externus fluvius publicatur. Gaudeat servitute, captivus
innotuit. Symm. Orat. p. 22.—M.]
95 (return) [ Ammian. xxviii. 2. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 214. The
younger Victor mentions the mechanical genius of Valentinian,
nova arma meditari fingere terra seu limo simulacra.]
That prudent emperor, who diligently practised the wise maxims of
Diocletian, was studious to foment and excite the intestine
divisions of the tribes of Germany. About the middle of the
fourth century, the countries, perhaps of Lusace and Thuringia,
on either side of the Elbe, were occupied by the vague dominion
of the Burgundians; a warlike and numerous people, 9511 of the
Vandal race, 96 whose obscure name insensibly swelled into a
powerful kingdom, and has finally settled on a flourishing
province. The most remarkable circumstance in the ancient manners
of the Burgundians appears to have been the difference of their
civil and ecclesiastical constitution. The appellation of
_Hendinos_ was given to the king or general, and the title of
_Sinistus_ to the high priest, of the nation. The person of the
priest was sacred, and his dignity perpetual; but the temporal
government was held by a very precarious tenure. If the events of
war accuses the courage or conduct of the king, he was
immediately deposed; and the injustice of his subjects made him
responsible for the fertility of the earth, and the regularity of
the seasons, which seemed to fall more properly within the
sacerdotal department. 97 The disputed possession of some
salt-pits 98 engaged the Alemanni and the Burgundians in frequent
contests: the latter were easily tempted, by the secret
solicitations and liberal offers of the emperor; and their
fabulous descent from the Roman soldiers, who had formerly been
left to garrison the fortresses of Drusus, was admitted with
mutual credulity, as it was conducive to mutual interest. 99 An
army of fourscore thousand Burgundians soon appeared on the banks
of the Rhine; and impatiently required the support and subsidies
which Valentinian had promised: but they were amused with excuses
and delays, till at length, after a fruitless expectation, they
were compelled to retire. The arms and fortifications of the
Gallic frontier checked the fury of their just resentment; and
their massacre of the captives served to imbitter the hereditary
feud of the Burgundians and the Alemanni. The inconstancy of a
wise prince may, perhaps, be explained by some alteration of
circumstances; and perhaps it was the original design of
Valentinian to intimidate, rather than to destroy; as the balance
of power would have been equally overturned by the extirpation of
either of the German nations. Among the princes of the Alemanni,
Macrianus, who, with a Roman name, had assumed the arts of a
soldier and a statesman, deserved his hatred and esteem. The
emperor himself, with a light and unencumbered band, condescended
to pass the Rhine, marched fifty miles into the country, and
would infallibly have seized the object of his pursuit, if his
judicious measures had not been defeated by the impatience of the
troops. Macrianus was afterwards admitted to the honor of a
personal conference with the emperor; and the favors which he
received, fixed him, till the hour of his death, a steady and
sincere friend of the republic. 100
9511 (return) [ According to the general opinion, the Burgundians
formed a Gothic o Vandalic tribe, who, from the banks of the
Lower Vistula, made incursions, on one side towards Transylvania,
on the other towards the centre of Germany. All that remains of
the Burgundian language is Gothic. * * * Nothing in their customs
indicates a different origin. Malte Brun, Geog. tom. i. p. 396.
(edit. 1831.)—M.]
96 (return) [ Bellicosos et pubis immensæ viribus affluentes; et
ideo metuendos finitimis universis. Ammian. xxviii. 5.]
97 (return) [ I am always apt to suspect historians and
travellers of improving extraordinary facts into general laws.
Ammianus ascribes a similar custom to Egypt; and the Chinese have
imputed it to the Ta-tsin, or Roman empire, (De Guignes, Hist.
des Huns, tom. ii. part. 79.)]
98 (return) [ Salinarum finiumque causa Alemannis sæpe jurgabant.
Ammian xxviii. 5. Possibly they disputed the possession of the
_Sala_, a river which produced salt, and which had been the
object of ancient contention. Tacit. Annal. xiii. 57, and Lipsius
ad loc.]
99 (return) [ Jam inde temporibus priscis sobolem se esse Romanam
Burgundii sciunt: and the vague tradition gradually assumed a
more regular form, (Oros. l. vii. c. 32.) It is annihilated by
the decisive authority of Pliny, who composed the History of
Drusus, and served in Germany, (Plin. Secund. Epist. iii. 5,)
within sixty years after the death of that hero. _Germanorum
genera_ quinque; Vindili, quorum pars _Burgundiones_, &c., (Hist.
Natur. iv. 28.)]
100 (return) [ The wars and negotiations relative to the
Burgundians and Alemanni, are distinctly related by Ammianus
Marcellinus, (xxviii. 5, xxix 4, xxx. 3.) Orosius, (l. vii. c.
32,) and the Chronicles of Jerom and Cassiodorus, fix some dates,
and add some circumstances.]
The land was covered by the fortifications of Valentinian; but
the sea-coast of Gaul and Britain was exposed to the depredations
of the Saxons. That celebrated name, in which we have a dear and
domestic interest, escaped the notice of Tacitus; and in the maps
of Ptolemy, it faintly marks the narrow neck of the Cimbric
peninsula, and three small islands towards the mouth of the Elbe.
101 This contracted territory, the present duchy of Sleswig, or
perhaps of Holstein, was incapable of pouring forth the
inexhaustible swarms of Saxons who reigned over the ocean, who
filled the British island with their language, their laws, and
their colonies; and who so long defended the liberty of the North
against the arms of Charlemagne. 102 The solution of this
difficulty is easily derived from the similar manners, and loose
constitution, of the tribes of Germany; which were blended with
each other by the slightest accidents of war or friendship. The
situation of the native Saxons disposed them to embrace the
hazardous professions of fishermen and pirates; and the success
of their first adventures would naturally excite the emulation of
their bravest countrymen, who were impatient of the gloomy
solitude of their woods and mountains. Every tide might float
down the Elbe whole fleets of canoes, filled with hardy and
intrepid associates, who aspired to behold the unbounded prospect
of the ocean, and to taste the wealth and luxury of unknown
worlds. It should seem probable, however, that the most numerous
auxiliaries of the Saxons were furnished by the nations who dwelt
along the shores of the Baltic. They possessed arms and ships,
the art of navigation, and the habits of naval war; but the
difficulty of issuing through the northern columns of Hercules
103 (which, during several months of the year, are obstructed
with ice) confined their skill and courage within the limits of a
spacious lake. The rumor of the successful armaments which sailed
from the mouth of the Elbe, would soon provoke them to cross the
narrow isthmus of Sleswig, and to launch their vessels on the
great sea. The various troops of pirates and adventurers, who
fought under the same standard, were insensibly united in a
permanent society, at first of rapine, and afterwards of
government. A military confederation was gradually moulded into a
national body, by the gentle operation of marriage and
consanguinity; and the adjacent tribes, who solicited the
alliance, accepted the name and laws, of the Saxons. If the fact
were not established by the most unquestionable evidence, we
should appear to abuse the credulity of our readers, by the
description of the vessels in which the Saxon pirates ventured to
sport in the waves of the German Ocean, the British Channel, and
the Bay of Biscay. The keel of their large flat-bottomed boats
were framed of light timber, but the sides and upper works
consisted only of wicker, with a covering of strong hides. 104 In
the course of their slow and distant navigations, they must
always have been exposed to the danger, and very frequently to
the misfortune, of shipwreck; and the naval annals of the Saxons
were undoubtedly filled with the accounts of the losses which
they sustained on the coasts of Britain and Gaul. But the daring
spirit of the pirates braved the perils both of the sea and of
the shore: their skill was confirmed by the habits of enterprise;
the meanest of their mariners was alike capable of handling an
oar, of rearing a sail, or of conducting a vessel, and the Saxons
rejoiced in the appearance of a tempest, which concealed their
design, and dispersed the fleets of the enemy. 105 After they had
acquired an accurate knowledge of the maritime provinces of the
West, they extended the scene of their depredations, and the most
sequestered places had no reason to presume on their security.
The Saxon boats drew so little water that they could easily
proceed fourscore or a hundred miles up the great rivers; their
weight was so inconsiderable, that they were transported on
wagons from one river to another; and the pirates who had entered
the mouth of the Seine, or of the Rhine, might descend, with the
rapid stream of the Rhone, into the Mediterranean. Under the
reign of Valentinian, the maritime provinces of Gaul were
afflicted by the Saxons: a military count was stationed for the
defence of the sea-coast, or Armorican limit; and that officer,
who found his strength, or his abilities, unequal to the task,
implored the assistance of Severus, master-general of the
infantry. The Saxons, surrounded and outnumbered, were forced to
relinquish their spoil, and to yield a select band of their tall
and robust youth to serve in the Imperial armies. They stipulated
only a safe and honorable retreat; and the condition was readily
granted by the Roman general, who meditated an act of perfidy,
106 imprudent as it was inhuman, while a Saxon remained alive,
and in arms, to revenge the fate of their countrymen. The
premature eagerness of the infantry, who were secretly posted in
a deep valley, betrayed the ambuscade; and they would perhaps
have fallen the victims of their own treachery, if a large body
of cuirassiers, alarmed by the noise of the combat, had not
hastily advanced to extricate their companions, and to overwhelm
the undaunted valor of the Saxons. Some of the prisoners were
saved from the edge of the sword, to shed their blood in the
amphitheatre; and the orator Symmachus complains, that
twenty-nine of those desperate savages, by strangling themselves
with their own hands, had disappointed the amusement of the
public. Yet the polite and philosophic citizens of Rome were
impressed with the deepest horror, when they were informed, that
the Saxons consecrated to the gods the tithe of their _human_
spoil; and that they ascertained by lot the objects of the
barbarous sacrifice. 107
101 (return) [ At the northern extremity of the peninsula, (the
Cimbric promontory of Pliny, iv. 27,) Ptolemy fixes the remnant
of the _Cimbri_. He fills the interval between the _Saxons_ and
the Cimbri with six obscure tribes, who were united, as early as
the sixth century, under the national appellation of _Danes_. See
Cluver. German. Antiq. l. iii. c. 21, 22, 23.]
102 (return) [ M. D’Anville (Establissement des Etats de
l’Europe, &c., p. 19-26) has marked the extensive limits of the
Saxony of Charlemagne.]
103 (return) [ The fleet of Drusus had failed in their attempt to
pass, or even to approach, the _Sound_, (styled, from an obvious
resemblance, the columns of Hercules,) and the naval enterprise
was never resumed, (Tacit. de Moribus German. c. 34.) The
knowledge which the Romans acquired of the naval powers of the
Baltic, (c. 44, 45) was obtained by their land journeys in search
of amber.]
104 (return) [ Quin et Aremoricus piratam _Saxona_ tractus
Sperabat; cui pelle salum sulcare Britannum
Ludus; et assuto glaucum mare findere lembo.
Sidon. in Panegyr. Avit. 369.
The genius of Cæsar imitated, for a particular service, these
rude, but light vessels, which were likewise used by the natives
of Britain. (Comment. de Bell. Civil. i. 51, and Guichardt,
Nouveaux Mémoires Militaires, tom. ii. p. 41, 42.) The British
vessels would now astonish the genius of Cæsar.]
105 (return) [ The best original account of the Saxon pirates may
be found in Sidonius Apollinaris, (l. viii. epist. 6, p. 223,
edit. Sirmond,) and the best commentary in the Abbé du Bos,
(Hist. Critique de la Monarchie Françoise, &c. tom. i. l. i. c.
16, p. 148-155. See likewise p. 77, 78.)]
106 (return) [ Ammian. (xxviii. 5) justifies this breach of faith
to pirates and robbers; and Orosius (l. vii. c. 32) more clearly
expresses their real guilt; virtute atque agilitate terribeles.]
107 (return) [ Symmachus (l. ii. epist. 46) still presumes to
mention the sacred name of Socrates and philosophy. Sidonius,
bishop of Clermont, might condemn, (l. viii. epist. 6,) with
_less_ inconsistency, the human sacrifices of the Saxons.]
II. The fabulous colonies of Egyptians and Trojans, of
Scandinavians and Spaniards, which flattered the pride, and
amused the credulity, of our rude ancestors, have insensibly
vanished in the light of science and philosophy. 108 The present
age is satisfied with the simple and rational opinion, that the
islands of Great Britain and Ireland were gradually peopled from
the adjacent continent of Gaul. From the coast of Kent, to the
extremity of Caithness and Ulster, the memory of a Celtic origin
was distinctly preserved, in the perpetual resemblance of
language, of religion, and of manners; and the peculiar
characters of the British tribes might be naturally ascribed to
the influence of accidental and local circumstances. 109 The
Roman Province was reduced to the state of civilized and peaceful
servitude; the rights of savage freedom were contracted to the
narrow limits of Caledonia. The inhabitants of that northern
region were divided, as early as the reign of Constantine,
between the two great tribes of the Scots and of the Picts, 110
who have since experienced a very different fortune. The power,
and almost the memory, of the Picts have been extinguished by
their successful rivals; and the Scots, after maintaining for
ages the dignity of an independent kingdom, have multiplied, by
an equal and voluntary union, the honors of the English name. The
hand of nature had contributed to mark the ancient distinctions
of the Scots and Picts. The former were the men of the hills, and
the latter those of the plain. The eastern coast of Caledonia may
be considered as a level and fertile country, which, even in a
rude state of tillage, was capable of producing a considerable
quantity of corn; and the epithet of _cruitnich_, or
wheat-eaters, expressed the contempt or envy of the carnivorous
highlander. The cultivation of the earth might introduce a more
accurate separation of property, and the habits of a sedentary
life; but the love of arms and rapine was still the ruling
passion of the Picts; and their warriors, who stripped themselves
for a day of battle, were distinguished, in the eyes of the
Romans, by the strange fashion of painting their naked bodies
with gaudy colors and fantastic figures. The western part of
Caledonia irregularly rises into wild and barren hills, which
scarcely repay the toil of the husbandman, and are most
profitably used for the pasture of cattle. The highlanders were
condemned to the occupations of shepherds and hunters; and, as
they seldom were fixed to any permanent habitation, they acquired
the expressive name of Scots, which, in the Celtic tongue, is
said to be equivalent to that of _wanderers_, or _vagrants_. The
inhabitants of a barren land were urged to seek a fresh supply of
food in the waters. The deep lakes and bays which intersect their
country, are plentifully supplied with fish; and they gradually
ventured to cast their nets in the waves of the ocean. The
vicinity of the Hebrides, so profusely scattered along the
western coast of Scotland, tempted their curiosity, and improved
their skill; and they acquired, by slow degrees, the art, or
rather the habit, of managing their boats in a tempestuous sea,
and of steering their nocturnal course by the light of the
well-known stars. The two bold headlands of Caledonia almost
touch the shores of a spacious island, which obtained, from its
luxuriant vegetation, the epithet of _Green;_ and has preserved,
with a slight alteration, the name of Erin, or Ierne, or Ireland.
It is _probable_, that in some remote period of antiquity, the
fertile plains of Ulster received a colony of hungry Scots; and
that the strangers of the North, who had dared to encounter the
arms of the legions, spread their conquests over the savage and
unwarlike natives of a solitary island. It is _certain_, that, in
the declining age of the Roman empire, Caledonia, Ireland, and
the Isle of Man, were inhabited by the Scots, and that the
kindred tribes, who were often associated in military enterprise,
were deeply affected by the various accidents of their mutual
fortunes. They long cherished the lively tradition of their
common name and origin; and the missionaries of the Isle of
Saints, who diffused the light of Christianity over North
Britain, established the vain opinion, that their Irish
countrymen were the natural, as well as spiritual, fathers of the
Scottish race. The loose and obscure tradition has been preserved
by the venerable Bede, who scattered some rays of light over the
darkness of the eighth century. On this slight foundation, a huge
superstructure of fable was gradually reared, by the bards and
the monks; two orders of men, who equally abused the privilege of
fiction. The Scottish nation, with mistaken pride, adopted their
Irish genealogy; and the annals of a long line of imaginary kings
have been adorned by the fancy of Boethius, and the classic
elegance of Buchanan. 111
108 (return) [ In the beginning of the last century, the learned
Camden was obliged to undermine, with respectful scepticism, the
romance of _Brutus_, the Trojan; who is now buried in silent
oblivion with _Scota_, the daughter of Pharaoh, and her numerous
progeny. Yet I am informed, that some champions of the _Milesian
colony_ may still be found among the original natives of Ireland.
A people dissatisfied with their present condition, grasp at any
visions of their past or future glory.]
109 (return) [ Tacitus, or rather his father-in-law, Agricola,
might remark the German or Spanish complexion of some British
tribes. But it was their sober, deliberate opinion: “In universum
tamen æstimanti Gallos cicinum solum occupâsse credibile est.
Eorum sacra deprehendas.... ermo haud multum diversus,” (in Vit.
Agricol. c. xi.) Cæsar had observed their common religion,
(Comment. de Bello Gallico, vi. 13;) and in his time the
emigration from the Belgic Gaul was a recent, or at least an
historical event, (v. 10.) Camden, the British Strabo, has
modestly ascertained our genuine antiquities, (Britannia, vol. i.
Introduction, p. ii.—xxxi.)]
110 (return) [ In the dark and doubtful paths of Caledonian
antiquity, I have chosen for my guides two learned and ingenious
Highlanders, whom their birth and education had peculiarly
qualified for that office. See Critical Dissertations on the
Origin and Antiquities, &c., of the Caledonians, by Dr. John
Macpherson, London 1768, in 4to.; and Introduction to the History
of Great Britain and Ireland, by James Macpherson, Esq., London
1773, in 4to., third edit. Dr. Macpherson was a minister in the
Isle of Sky: and it is a circumstance honorable for the present
age, that a work, replete with erudition and criticism, should
have been composed in the most remote of the Hebrides.]
111 (return) [ The Irish descent of the Scots has been revived in
the last moments of its decay, and strenuously supported, by the
Rev. Mr. Whitaker, (Hist. of Manchester, vol. i. p. 430, 431; and
Genuine History of the Britons asserted, &c., p. 154-293) Yet he
acknowledges, 1. _That_ the Scots of Ammianus Marcellinus (A.D.
340) were already settled in Caledonia; and that the Roman
authors do not afford any hints of their emigration from another
country. 2. _That_ all the accounts of such emigrations, which
have been asserted or received, by Irish bards, Scotch
historians, or English antiquaries, (Buchanan, Camden, Usher,
Stillingfleet, &c.,) are totally fabulous. 3. _That_ three of the
Irish tribes, which are mentioned by Ptolemy, (A.D. 150,) were of
Caledonian extraction. 4. _That_ a younger branch of Caledonian
princes, of the house of Fingal, acquired and possessed the
monarchy of Ireland. After these concessions, the remaining
difference between Mr. Whitaker and his adversaries is minute and
obscure. The _genuine history_, which he produces, of a Fergus,
the cousin of Ossian, who was transplanted (A.D. 320) from
Ireland to Caledonia, is built on a conjectural supplement to the
Erse poetry, and the feeble evidence of Richard of Cirencester, a
monk of the fourteenth century. The lively spirit of the learned
and ingenious antiquarian has tempted him to forget the nature of
a question, which he so _vehemently_ debates, and so _absolutely_
decides. * Note: This controversy has not slumbered since the
days of Gibbon. We have strenuous advocates of the Phœnician
origin of the Irish, and each of the old theories, with several
new ones, maintains its partisans. It would require several pages
fairly to bring down the dispute to our own days, and perhaps we
should be no nearer to any satisfactory theory than Gibbon
was.—M.]
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.—Part V.
Six years after the death of Constantine, the destructive inroads
of the Scots and Picts required the presence of his youngest son,
who reigned in the Western empire. Constans visited his British
dominions: but we may form some estimate of the importance of his
achievements, by the language of panegyric, which celebrates only
his triumph over the elements or, in other words, the good
fortune of a safe and easy passage from the port of Boulogne to
the harbor of Sandwich. 112 The calamities which the afflicted
provincials continued to experience, from foreign war and
domestic tyranny, were aggravated by the feeble and corrupt
administration of the eunuchs of Constantius; and the transient
relief which they might obtain from the virtues of Julian, was
soon lost by the absence and death of their benefactor. The sums
of gold and silver, which had been painfully collected, or
liberally transmitted, for the payment of the troops, were
intercepted by the avarice of the commanders; discharges, or, at
least, exemptions, from the military service, were publicly sold;
the distress of the soldiers, who were injuriously deprived of
their legal and scanty subsistence, provoked them to frequent
desertion; the nerves of discipline were relaxed, and the
highways were infested with robbers. 113 The oppression of the
good, and the impunity of the wicked, equally contributed to
diffuse through the island a spirit of discontent and revolt; and
every ambitious subject, every desperate exile, might entertain a
reasonable hope of subverting the weak and distracted government
of Britain. The hostile tribes of the North, who detested the
pride and power of the King of the World, suspended their
domestic feuds; and the Barbarians of the land and sea, the
Scots, the Picts, and the Saxons, spread themselves with rapid
and irresistible fury, from the wall of Antoninus to the shores
of Kent. Every production of art and nature, every object of
convenience and luxury, which they were incapable of creating by
labor or procuring by trade, was accumulated in the rich and
fruitful province of Britain. 114 A philosopher may deplore the
eternal discords of the human race, but he will confess, that the
desire of spoil is a more rational provocation than the vanity of
conquest. From the age of Constantine to the Plantagenets, this
rapacious spirit continued to instigate the poor and hardy
Caledonians; but the same people, whose generous humanity seems
to inspire the songs of Ossian, was disgraced by a savage
ignorance of the virtues of peace, and of the laws of war. Their
southern neighbors have felt, and perhaps exaggerated, the cruel
depredations of the Scots and Picts; 115 and a valiant tribe of
Caledonia, the Attacotti, 116 the enemies, and afterwards the
soldiers, of Valentinian, are accused, by an eye-witness, of
delighting in the taste of human flesh. When they hunted the
woods for prey, it is said, that they attacked the shepherd
rather than his flock; and that they curiously selected the most
delicate and brawny parts, both of males and females, which they
prepared for their horrid repasts. 117 If, in the neighborhood of
the commercial and literary town of Glasgow, a race of cannibals
has really existed, we may contemplate, in the period of the
Scottish history, the opposite extremes of savage and civilized
life. Such reflections tend to enlarge the circle of our ideas;
and to encourage the pleasing hope, that New Zealand may produce,
in some future age, the Hume of the Southern Hemisphere.
112 (return) [ Hyeme tumentes ac sævientes undas calcâstis Oceani
sub remis vestris;... insperatam imperatoris faciem Britannus
expavit. Julius Fermicus Maternus de Errore Profan. Relig. p.
464. edit. Gronov. ad calcem Minuc. Fæl. See Tillemont, (Hist.
des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 336.)]
113 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. xxxix. p. 264. This
curious passage has escaped the diligence of our British
antiquaries.]
114 (return) [ The Caledonians praised and coveted the gold, the
steeds, the lights, &c., of the _stranger_. See Dr. Blair’s
Dissertation on Ossian, vol ii. p. 343; and Mr. Macpherson’s
Introduction, p. 242-286.]
115 (return) [ Lord Lyttelton has circumstantially related,
(History of Henry II. vol. i. p. 182,) and Sir David Dalrymple
has slightly mentioned, (Annals of Scotland, vol. i. p. 69,) a
barbarous inroad of the Scots, at a time (A.D. 1137) when law,
religion, and society must have softened their primitive
manners.]
116 (return) [ Attacotti bellicosa hominum natio. Ammian. xxvii.
8. Camden (Introduct. p. clii.) has restored their true name in
the text of Jerom. The bands of Attacotti, which Jerom had seen
in Gaul, were afterwards stationed in Italy and Illyricum,
(Notitia, S. viii. xxxix. xl.)]
117 (return) [ Cum ipse adolescentulus in Gallia viderim
Attacottos (or Scotos) gentem Britannicam humanis vesci carnibus;
et cum per silvas porcorum greges, et armentorum percudumque
reperiant, pastorum _nates_ et feminarum _papillas_ solere
abscindere; et has solas ciborum delicias arbitrari. Such is the
evidence of Jerom, (tom. ii. p. 75,) whose veracity I find no
reason to question. * Note: See Dr. Parr’s works, iii. 93, where
he questions the propriety of Gibbon’s translation of this
passage. The learned doctor approves of the version proposed by a
Mr. Gaches, who would make out that it was the delicate parts of
the swine and the cattle, which were eaten by these ancestors of
the Scotch nation. I confess that even to acquit them of this
charge. I cannot agree to the new version, which, in my opinion,
is directly contrary both to the meaning of the words, and the
general sense of the passage. But I would suggest, did Jerom, as
a boy, accompany these savages in any of their hunting
expeditions? If he did not, how could he be an eye-witness of
this practice? The Attacotti in Gaul must have been in the
service of Rome. Were they permitted to indulge these cannibal
propensities at the expense, not of the flocks, but of the
shepherds of the provinces? These sanguinary trophies of plunder
would scarce’y have been publicly exhibited in a Roman city or a
Roman camp. I must leave the hereditary pride of our northern
neighbors at issue with the veracity of St. Jerom.—M.]
Every messenger who escaped across the British Channel, conveyed
the most melancholy and alarming tidings to the ears of
Valentinian; and the emperor was soon informed that the two
military commanders of the province had been surprised and cut
off by the Barbarians. Severus, count of the domestics, was
hastily despatched, and as suddenly recalled, by the court of
Treves. The representations of Jovinus served only to indicate
the greatness of the evil; and, after a long and serious
consultation, the defence, or rather the recovery, of Britain was
intrusted to the abilities of the brave Theodosius. The exploits
of that general, the father of a line of emperors, have been
celebrated, with peculiar complacency, by the writers of the age:
but his real merit deserved their applause; and his nomination
was received, by the army and province, as a sure presage of
approaching victory. He seized the favorable moment of
navigation, and securely landed the numerous and veteran bands of
the Heruli and Batavians, the Jovians and the Victors. In his
march from Sandwich to London, Theodosius defeated several
parties of the Barbarians, released a multitude of captives, and,
after distributing to his soldiers a small portion of the spoil,
established the fame of disinterested justice, by the restitution
of the remainder to the rightful proprietors. The citizens of
London, who had almost despaired of their safety, threw open
their gates; and as soon as Theodosius had obtained from the
court of Treves the important aid of a military lieutenant, and a
civil governor, he executed, with wisdom and vigor, the laborious
task of the deliverance of Britain. The vagrant soldiers were
recalled to their standard; an edict of amnesty dispelled the
public apprehensions; and his cheerful example alleviated the
rigor of martial discipline. The scattered and desultory warfare
of the Barbarians, who infested the land and sea, deprived him of
the glory of a signal victory; but the prudent spirit, and
consummate art, of the Roman general, were displayed in the
operations of two campaigns, which successively rescued every
part of the province from the hands of a cruel and rapacious
enemy. The splendor of the cities, and the security of the
fortifications, were diligently restored, by the paternal care of
Theodosius; who with a strong hand confined the trembling
Caledonians to the northern angle of the island; and perpetuated,
by the name and settlement of the new province of _Valentia_, the
glories of the reign of Valentinian. 118 The voice of poetry and
panegyric may add, perhaps with some degree of truth, that the
unknown regions of Thule were stained with the blood of the
Picts; that the oars of Theodosius dashed the waves of the
Hyperborean ocean; and that the distant Orkneys were the scene of
his naval victory over the Saxon pirates. 119 He left the
province with a fair, as well as splendid, reputation; and was
immediately promoted to the rank of master-general of the
cavalry, by a prince who could applaud, without envy, the merit
of his servants. In the important station of the Upper Danube,
the conqueror of Britain checked and defeated the armies of the
Alemanni, before he was chosen to suppress the revolt of Africa.
118 (return) [ Ammianus has concisely represented (xx. l. xxvi.
4, xxvii. 8 xxviii. 3) the whole series of the British war.]
119 (return) [ Horrescit.... ratibus.... impervia Thule. Ille....
nec falso nomine Pictos Edomuit. Scotumque vago mucrone secutus,
Fregit Hyperboreas remis audacibus undas. Claudian, in iii. Cons.
Honorii, ver. 53, &c—Madurunt Saxone fuso Orcades: incaluit
Pictorum sanguine Thule, Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis Ierne.
In iv. Cons. Hon. ver. 31, &c. ——See likewise Pacatus, (in
Panegyr. Vet. xii. 5.) But it is not easy to appreciate the
intrinsic value of flattery and metaphor. Compare the _British_
victories of Bolanus (Statius, Silv. v. 2) with his real
character, (Tacit. in Vit. Agricol. c. 16.)]
III. The prince who refuses to be the judge, instructs the people
to consider him as the accomplice, of his ministers. The military
command of Africa had been long exercised by Count Romanus, and
his abilities were not inadequate to his station; but, as sordid
interest was the sole motive of his conduct, he acted, on most
occasions, as if he had been the enemy of the province, and the
friend of the Barbarians of the desert. The three flourishing
cities of Oea, Leptis, and Sobrata, which, under the name of
Tripoli, had long constituted a federal union, 120 were obliged,
for the first time, to shut their gates against a hostile
invasion; several of their most honorable citizens were surprised
and massacred; the villages, and even the suburbs, were pillaged;
and the vines and fruit trees of that rich territory were
extirpated by the malicious savages of Getulia. The unhappy
provincials implored the protection of Romanus; but they soon
found that their military governor was not less cruel and
rapacious than the Barbarians. As they were incapable of
furnishing the four thousand camels, and the exorbitant present,
which he required, before he would march to the assistance of
Tripoli; his demand was equivalent to a refusal, and he might
justly be accused as the author of the public calamity. In the
annual assembly of the three cities, they nominated two deputies,
to lay at the feet of Valentinian the customary offering of a
gold victory; and to accompany this tribute of duty, rather than
of gratitude, with their humble complaint, that they were ruined
by the enemy, and betrayed by their governor. If the severity of
Valentinian had been rightly directed, it would have fallen on
the guilty head of Romanus. But the count, long exercised in the
arts of corruption, had despatched a swift and trusty messenger
to secure the venal friendship of Remigius, master of the
offices. The wisdom of the Imperial council was deceived by
artifice; and their honest indignation was cooled by delay. At
length, when the repetition of complaint had been justified by
the repetition of public misfortunes, the notary Palladius was
sent from the court of Treves, to examine the state of Africa,
and the conduct of Romanus. The rigid impartiality of Palladius
was easily disarmed: he was tempted to reserve for himself a part
of the public treasure, which he brought with him for the payment
of the troops; and from the moment that he was conscious of his
own guilt, he could no longer refuse to attest the innocence and
merit of the count. The charge of the Tripolitans was declared to
be false and frivolous; and Palladius himself was sent back from
Treves to Africa, with a special commission to discover and
prosecute the authors of this impious conspiracy against the
representatives of the sovereign. His inquiries were managed with
so much dexterity and success, that he compelled the citizens of
Leptis, who had sustained a recent siege of eight days, to
contradict the truth of their own decrees, and to censure the
behavior of their own deputies. A bloody sentence was pronounced,
without hesitation, by the rash and headstrong cruelty of
Valentinian. The president of Tripoli, who had presumed to pity
the distress of the province, was publicly executed at Utica;
four distinguished citizens were put to death, as the accomplices
of the imaginary fraud; and the tongues of two others were cut
out, by the express order of the emperor. Romanus, elated by
impunity, and irritated by resistance, was still continued in the
military command; till the Africans were provoked, by his
avarice, to join the rebellious standard of Firmus, the Moor. 121
120 (return) [ Ammianus frequently mentions their concilium
annuum, legitimum, &c. Leptis and Sabrata are long since ruined;
but the city of Oea, the native country of Apuleius, still
flourishes under the provincial denomination of _Tripoli_. See
Cellarius (Geograph. Antiqua, tom. ii. part ii. p. 81,)
D’Anville, (Geographie Ancienne, tom. iii. p. 71, 72,) and
Marmol, (Arrique, tom. ii. p. 562.)]
121 (return) [ Ammian. xviii. 6. Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs,
tom. v. p 25, 676) has discussed the chronological difficulties
of the history of Count Romanus.]
His father Nabal was one of the richest and most powerful of the
Moorish princes, who acknowledged the supremacy of Rome. But as
he left, either by his wives or concubines, a very numerous
posterity, the wealthy inheritance was eagerly disputed; and
Zamma, one of his sons, was slain in a domestic quarrel by his
brother Firmus. The implacable zeal, with which Romanus
prosecuted the legal revenge of this murder, could be ascribed
only to a motive of avarice, or personal hatred; but, on this
occasion, his claims were just; his influence was weighty; and
Firmus clearly understood, that he must either present his neck
to the executioner, or appeal from the sentence of the Imperial
consistory, to his sword, and to the people. 122 He was received
as the deliverer of his country; and, as soon as it appeared that
Romanus was formidable only to a submissive province, the tyrant
of Africa became the object of universal contempt. The ruin of
Cæsarea, which was plundered and burnt by the licentious
Barbarians, convinced the refractory cities of the danger of
resistance; the power of Firmus was established, at least in the
provinces of Mauritania and Numidia; and it seemed to be his only
doubt whether he should assume the diadem of a Moorish king, or
the purple of a Roman emperor. But the imprudent and unhappy
Africans soon discovered, that, in this rash insurrection, they
had not sufficiently consulted their own strength, or the
abilities of their leader. Before he could procure any certain
intelligence, that the emperor of the West had fixed the choice
of a general, or that a fleet of transports was collected at the
mouth of the Rhone, he was suddenly informed that the great
Theodosius, with a small band of veterans, had landed near
Igilgilis, or Gigeri, on the African coast; and the timid usurper
sunk under the ascendant of virtue and military genius. Though
Firmus possessed arms and treasures, his despair of victory
immediately reduced him to the use of those arts, which, in the
same country, and in a similar situation, had formerly been
practised by the crafty Jugurtha. He attempted to deceive, by an
apparent submission, the vigilance of the Roman general; to
seduce the fidelity of his troops; and to protract the duration
of the war, by successively engaging the independent tribes of
Africa to espouse his quarrel, or to protect his flight.
Theodosius imitated the example, and obtained the success, of his
predecessor Metellus. When Firmus, in the character of a
suppliant, accused his own rashness, and humbly solicited the
clemency of the emperor, the lieutenant of Valentinian received
and dismissed him with a friendly embrace: but he diligently
required the useful and substantial pledges of a sincere
repentance; nor could he be persuaded, by the assurances of
peace, to suspend, for an instant, the operations of an active
war. A dark conspiracy was detected by the penetration of
Theodosius; and he satisfied, without much reluctance, the public
indignation, which he had secretly excited. Several of the guilty
accomplices of Firmus were abandoned, according to ancient
custom, to the tumult of a military execution; many more, by the
amputation of both their hands, continued to exhibit an
instructive spectacle of horror; the hatred of the rebels was
accompanied with fear; and the fear of the Roman soldiers was
mingled with respectful admiration. Amidst the boundless plains
of Getulia, and the innumerable valleys of Mount Atlas, it was
impossible to prevent the escape of Firmus; and if the usurper
could have tired the patience of his antagonist, he would have
secured his person in the depth of some remote solitude, and
expected the hopes of a future revolution. He was subdued by the
perseverance of Theodosius; who had formed an inflexible
determination, that the war should end only by the death of the
tyrant; and that every nation of Africa, which presumed to
support his cause, should be involved in his ruin. At the head of
a small body of troops, which seldom exceeded three thousand five
hundred men, the Roman general advanced, with a steady prudence,
devoid of rashness or of fear, into the heart of a country, where
he was sometimes attacked by armies of twenty thousand Moors. The
boldness of his charge dismayed the irregular Barbarians; they
were disconcerted by his seasonable and orderly retreats; they
were continually baffled by the unknown resources of the military
art; and they felt and confessed the just superiority which was
assumed by the leader of a civilized nation. When Theodosius
entered the extensive dominions of Igmazen, king of the
Isaflenses, the haughty savage required, in words of defiance,
his name, and the object of his expedition. “I am,” replied the
stern and disdainful count, “I am the general of Valentinian, the
lord of the world; who has sent me hither to pursue and punish a
desperate robber. Deliver him instantly into my hands; and be
assured, that if thou dost not obey the commands of my invincible
sovereign, thou, and the people over whom thou reignest, shall be
utterly extirpated.” 12211 As soon as Igmazen was satisfied, that
his enemy had strength and resolution to execute the fatal
menace, he consented to purchase a necessary peace by the
sacrifice of a guilty fugitive. The guards that were placed to
secure the person of Firmus deprived him of the hopes of escape;
and the Moorish tyrant, after wine had extinguished the sense of
danger, disappointed the insulting triumph of the Romans, by
strangling himself in the night. His dead body, the only present
which Igmazen could offer to the conqueror, was carelessly thrown
upon a camel; and Theodosius, leading back his victorious troops
to Sitifi, was saluted by the warmest acclamations of joy and
loyalty. 123
122 (return) [ The Chronology of Ammianus is loose and obscure;
and Orosius (i. vii. c. 33, p. 551, edit. Havercamp) seems to
place the revolt of Firmus after the deaths of Valentinian and
Valens. Tillemont (Hist. des. Emp. tom. v. p. 691) endeavors to
pick his way. The patient and sure-foot mule of the Alps may be
trusted in the most slippery paths.]
12211 (return) [ The war was longer protracted than this sentence
would lead us to suppose: it was not till defeated more than once
that Igmazen yielded Amm. xxix. 5.—M]
123 (return) [ Ammian xxix. 5. The text of this long chapter
(fifteen quarto pages) is broken and corrupted; and the narrative
is perplexed by the want of chronological and geographical
landmarks.]
Africa had been lost by the vices of Romanus; it was restored by
the virtues of Theodosius; and our curiosity may be usefully
directed to the inquiry of the respective treatment which the two
generals received from the Imperial court. The authority of Count
Romanus had been suspended by the master-general of the cavalry;
and he was committed to safe and honorable custody till the end
of the war. His crimes were proved by the most authentic
evidence; and the public expected, with some impatience, the
decree of severe justice. But the partial and powerful favor of
Mellobaudes encouraged him to challenge his legal judges, to
obtain repeated delays for the purpose of procuring a crowd of
friendly witnesses, and, finally, to cover his guilty conduct, by
the additional guilt of fraud and forgery. About the same time,
the restorer of Britain and Africa, on a vague suspicion that his
name and services were superior to the rank of a subject, was
ignominiously beheaded at Carthage. Valentinian no longer
reigned; and the death of Theodosius, as well as the impunity of
Romanus, may justly be imputed to the arts of the ministers, who
abused the confidence, and deceived the inexperienced youth, of
his sons. 124
124 (return) [ Ammian xxviii. 4. Orosius, l. vii. c. 33, p. 551,
552. Jerom. in Chron. p. 187.]
If the geographical accuracy of Ammianus had been fortunately
bestowed on the British exploits of Theodosius, we should have
traced, with eager curiosity, the distinct and domestic footsteps
of his march. But the tedious enumeration of the unknown and
uninteresting tribes of Africa may be reduced to the general
remark, that they were all of the swarthy race of the Moors; that
they inhabited the back settlements of the Mauritanian and
Numidian province, the country, as they have since been termed by
the Arabs, of dates and of locusts; 125 and that, as the Roman
power declined in Africa, the boundary of civilized manners and
cultivated land was insensibly contracted. Beyond the utmost
limits of the Moors, the vast and inhospitable desert of the
South extends above a thousand miles to the banks of the Niger.
The ancients, who had a very faint and imperfect knowledge of the
great peninsula of Africa, were sometimes tempted to believe,
that the torrid zone must ever remain destitute of inhabitants;
126 and they sometimes amused their fancy by filling the vacant
space with headless men, or rather monsters; 127 with horned and
cloven-footed satyrs; 128 with fabulous centaurs; 129 and with
human pygmies, who waged a bold and doubtful warfare against the
cranes. 130 Carthage would have trembled at the strange
intelligence that the countries on either side of the equator
were filled with innumerable nations, who differed only in their
color from the ordinary appearance of the human species: and the
subjects of the Roman empire might have anxiously expected, that
the swarms of Barbarians, which issued from the North, would soon
be encountered from the South by new swarms of Barbarians,
equally fierce and equally formidable. These gloomy terrors would
indeed have been dispelled by a more intimate acquaintance with
the character of their African enemies. The inaction of the
negroes does not seem to be the effect either of their virtue or
of their pusillanimity. They indulge, like the rest of mankind,
their passions and appetites; and the adjacent tribes are engaged
in frequent acts of hostility. 131 But their rude ignorance has
never invented any effectual weapons of defence, or of
destruction; they appear incapable of forming any extensive plans
of government, or conquest; and the obvious inferiority of their
mental faculties has been discovered and abused by the nations of
the temperate zone. Sixty thousand blacks are annually embarked
from the coast of Guinea, never to return to their native
country; but they are embarked in chains; 132 and this constant
emigration, which, in the space of two centuries, might have
furnished armies to overrun the globe, accuses the guilt of
Europe, and the weakness of Africa.
125 (return) [ Leo Africanus (in the Viaggi di Ramusio, tom. i.
fol. 78-83) has traced a curious picture of the people and the
country; which are more minutely described in the Afrique de
Marmol, tom. iii. p. 1-54.]
126 (return) [ This uninhabitable zone was gradually reduced by
the improvements of ancient geography, from forty-five to
twenty-four, or even sixteen degrees of latitude. See a learned
and judicious note of Dr. Robertson, Hist. of America, vol. i. p.
426.]
127 (return) [ Intra, si credere libet, vix jam homines et magis
semiferi... Blemmyes, Satyri, &c. Pomponius Mela, i. 4, p. 26,
edit. Voss. in 8vo. Pliny _philosophically_ explains (vi. 35) the
irregularities of nature, which he had _credulously_ admitted,
(v. 8.)]
128 (return) [ If the satyr was the Orang-outang, the great human
ape, (Buffon, Hist. Nat. tom. xiv. p. 43, &c.,) one of that
species might actually be shown alive at Alexandria, in the reign
of Constantine. Yet some difficulty will still remain about the
conversation which St. Anthony held with one of these pious
savages, in the desert of Thebais. (Jerom. in Vit. Paul. Eremit.
tom. i. p. 238.)]
129 (return) [ St. Anthony likewise met one of _these_ monsters;
whose existence was seriously asserted by the emperor Claudius.
The public laughed; but his præfect of Egypt had the address to
send an artful preparation, the embalmed corpse of a
_Hippocentaur_, which was preserved almost a century afterwards
in the Imperial palace. See Pliny, (Hist. Natur. vii. 3,) and the
judicious observations of Freret. (Mémoires de l’Acad. tom. vii.
p. 321, &c.)]
130 (return) [ The fable of the pygmies is as old as Homer,
(Iliad. iii. 6) The pygmies of India and Æthiopia were
(trispithami) twenty-seven inches high. Every spring their
cavalry (mounted on rams and goats) marched, in battle array, to
destroy the cranes’ eggs, aliter (says Pliny) futuris gregibus
non resisti. Their houses were built of mud, feathers, and
egg-shells. See Pliny, (vi. 35, vii. 2,) and Strabo, (l. ii. p.
121.)]
131 (return) [ The third and fourth volumes of the valuable
Histoire des Voyages describe the present state of the Negroes.
The nations of the sea-coast have been polished by European
commerce; and those of the inland country have been improved by
Moorish colonies. * Note: The martial tribes in chain armor,
discovered by Denham, are Mahometan; the great question of the
inferiority of the African tribes in their mental faculties will
probably be experimentally resolved before the close of the
century; but the Slave Trade still continues, and will, it is to
be feared, till the spirit of gain is subdued by the spirit of
Christian humanity.—M.]
132 (return) [ Histoire Philosophique et Politique, &c., tom. iv.
p. 192.]
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.—Part VI.
IV. The ignominious treaty, which saved the army of Jovian, had
been faithfully executed on the side of the Romans; and as they
had solemnly renounced the sovereignty and alliance of Armenia
and Iberia, those tributary kingdoms were exposed, without
protection, to the arms of the Persian monarch. 133 Sapor entered
the Armenian territories at the head of a formidable host of
cuirassiers, of archers, and of mercenary foot; but it was the
invariable practice of Sapor to mix war and negotiation, and to
consider falsehood and perjury as the most powerful instruments
of regal policy. He affected to praise the prudent and moderate
conduct of the king of Armenia; and the unsuspicious Tiranus was
persuaded, by the repeated assurances of insidious friendship, to
deliver his person into the hands of a faithless and cruel enemy.
In the midst of a splendid entertainment, he was bound in chains
of silver, as an honor due to the blood of the Arsacides; and,
after a short confinement in the Tower of Oblivion at Ecbatana,
he was released from the miseries of life, either by his own
dagger, or by that of an assassin. 13311 The kingdom of Armenia
was reduced to the state of a Persian province; the
administration was shared between a distinguished satrap and a
favorite eunuch; and Sapor marched, without delay, to subdue the
martial spirit of the Iberians. Sauromaces, who reigned in that
country by the permission of the emperors, was expelled by a
superior force; and, as an insult on the majesty of Rome, the
king of kings placed a diadem on the head of his abject vassal
Aspacuras. The city of Artogerassa 134 was the only place of
Armenia 13411 which presumed to resist the efforts of his arms.
The treasure deposited in that strong fortress tempted the
avarice of Sapor; but the danger of Olympias, the wife or widow
of the Armenian king, excited the public compassion, and animated
the desperate valor of her subjects and soldiers. 13412 The
Persians were surprised and repulsed under the walls of
Artogerassa, by a bold and well-concerted sally of the besieged.
But the forces of Sapor were continually renewed and increased;
the hopeless courage of the garrison was exhausted; the strength
of the walls yielded to the assault; and the proud conqueror,
after wasting the rebellious city with fire and sword, led away
captive an unfortunate queen; who, in a more auspicious hour, had
been the destined bride of the son of Constantine. 135 Yet if
Sapor already triumphed in the easy conquest of two dependent
kingdoms, he soon felt, that a country is unsubdued as long as
the minds of the people are actuated by a hostile and
contumacious spirit. The satraps, whom he was obliged to trust,
embraced the first opportunity of regaining the affection of
their countrymen, and of signalizing their immortal hatred to the
Persian name. Since the conversion of the Armenians and Iberians,
these nations considered the Christians as the favorites, and the
Magians as the adversaries, of the Supreme Being: the influence
of the clergy, over a superstitious people was uniformly exerted
in the cause of Rome; and as long as the successors of
Constantine disputed with those of Artaxerxes the sovereignty of
the intermediate provinces, the religious connection always threw
a decisive advantage into the scale of the empire. A numerous and
active party acknowledged Para, the son of Tiranus, as the lawful
sovereign of Armenia, and his title to the throne was deeply
rooted in the hereditary succession of five hundred years. By the
unanimous consent of the Iberians, the country was equally
divided between the rival princes; and Aspacuras, who owed his
diadem to the choice of Sapor, was obliged to declare, that his
regard for his children, who were detained as hostages by the
tyrant, was the only consideration which prevented him from
openly renouncing the alliance of Persia. The emperor Valens, who
respected the obligations of the treaty, and who was apprehensive
of involving the East in a dangerous war, ventured, with slow and
cautious measures, to support the Roman party in the kingdoms of
Iberia and Armenia. 13511 Twelve legions established the
authority of Sauromaces on the banks of the Cyrus. The Euphrates
was protected by the valor of Arintheus. A powerful army, under
the command of Count Trajan, and of Vadomair, king of the
Alemanni, fixed their camp on the confines of Armenia. But they
were strictly enjoined not to commit the first hostilities, which
might be understood as a breach of the treaty: and such was the
implicit obedience of the Roman general, that they retreated,
with exemplary patience, under a shower of Persian arrows till
they had clearly acquired a just title to an honorable and
legitimate victory. Yet these appearances of war insensibly
subsided in a vain and tedious negotiation. The contending
parties supported their claims by mutual reproaches of perfidy
and ambition; and it should seem, that the original treaty was
expressed in very obscure terms, since they were reduced to the
necessity of making their inconclusive appeal to the partial
testimony of the generals of the two nations, who had assisted at
the negotiations. 136 The invasion of the Goths and Huns which
soon afterwards shook the foundations of the Roman empire,
exposed the provinces of Asia to the arms of Sapor. But the
declining age, and perhaps the infirmities, of the monarch
suggested new maxims of tranquillity and moderation. His death,
which happened in the full maturity of a reign of seventy years,
changed in a moment the court and councils of Persia; and their
attention was most probably engaged by domestic troubles, and the
distant efforts of a Carmanian war. 137 The remembrance of
ancient injuries was lost in the enjoyment of peace. The kingdoms
of Armenia and Iberia were permitted, by the mutual,though tacit
consent of both empires, to resume their doubtful neutrality. In
the first years of the reign of Theodosius, a Persian embassy
arrived at Constantinople, to excuse the unjustifiable measures
of the former reign; and to offer, as the tribute of friendship,
or even of respect, a splendid present of gems, of silk, and of
Indian elephants. 138
133 (return) [ The evidence of Ammianus is original and decisive,
(xxvii. 12.) Moses of Chorene, (l. iii. c. 17, p. 249, and c. 34,
p. 269,) and Procopius, (de Bell. Persico, l. i. c. 5, p. 17,
edit. Louvre,) have been consulted: but those historians who
confound distinct facts, repeat the same events, and introduce
strange stories, must be used with diffidence and caution. Note:
The statement of Ammianus is more brief and succinct, but
harmonizes with the more complicated history developed by M. St.
Martin from the Armenian writers, and from Procopius, who wrote,
as he states from Armenian authorities.—M.]
13311 (return) [ According to M. St. Martin, Sapor, though
supported by the two apostate Armenian princes, Meroujan the
Ardzronnian and Vahan the Mamigonian, was gallantly resisted by
Arsaces, and his brave though impious wife Pharandsem. His troops
were defeated by Vasag, the high constable of the kingdom. (See
M. St. Martin.) But after four years’ courageous defence of his
kingdom, Arsaces was abandoned by his nobles, and obliged to
accept the perfidious hospitality of Sapor. He was blinded and
imprisoned in the “Castle of Oblivion;” his brave general Vasag
was flayed alive; his skin stuffed and placed near the king in
his lonely prison. It was not till many years after (A.D. 371)
that he stabbed himself, according to the romantic story, (St. M.
iii. 387, 389,) in a paroxysm of excitement at his restoration to
royal honors. St. Martin, Additions to Le Beau, iii. 283,
296.—M.]
134 (return) [ Perhaps Artagera, or Ardis; under whose walls
Caius, the grandson of Augustus, was wounded. This fortress was
situate above Amida, near one of the sources of the Tigris. See
D’Anville, Geographie Ancienue, tom. ii. p. 106. * Note: St.
Martin agrees with Gibbon, that it was the same fortress with
Ardis Note, p. 373.—M.]
13411 (return) [ Artaxata, Vagharschabad, or Edchmiadzin,
Erovantaschad, and many other cities, in all of which there was a
considerable Jewish population were taken and destroyed.—M.]
13412 (return) [ Pharandsem, not Olympias, refusing the orders of
her captive husband to surrender herself to Sapor, threw herself
into Artogerassa St. Martin, iii. 293, 302. She defended herself
for fourteen months, till famine and disease had left few
survivors out of 11,000 soldiers and 6000 women who had taken
refuge in the fortress. She then threw open the gates with her
own hand. M. St. Martin adds, what even the horrors of Oriental
warfare will scarcely permit us to credit, that she was exposed
by Sapor on a public scaffold to the brutal lusts of his
soldiery, and afterwards empaled, iii. 373, &c.—M.]
135 (return) [ Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 701)
proves, from chronology, that Olympias must have been the mother
of Para. Note *: An error according to St. M. 273.—M.]
13511 (return) [ According to Themistius, quoted by St. Martin,
he once advanced to the Tigris, iii. 436.—M.]
136 (return) [ Ammianus (xxvii. 12, xix. 1. xxx. 1, 2) has
described the events, without the dates, of the Persian war.
Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armen. l. iii. c. 28, p. 261, c. 31, p.
266, c. 35, p. 271) affords some additional facts; but it is
extremely difficult to separate truth from fable.]
137 (return) [ Artaxerxes was the successor and brother (_the
cousin-german_) of the great Sapor; and the guardian of his son,
Sapor III. (Agathias, l. iv. p. 136, edit. Louvre.) See the
Universal History, vol. xi. p. 86, 161. The authors of that
unequal work have compiled the Sassanian dynasty with erudition
and diligence; but it is a preposterous arrangement to divide the
Roman and Oriental accounts into two distinct histories. * Note:
On the war of Sapor with the Bactrians, which diverted from
Armenia, see St. M. iii. 387.—M.]
138 (return) [ Pacatus in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 22, and Orosius, l.
vii. c. 34. Ictumque tum fœdus est, quo universus Oriens usque ad
num (A. D. 416) tranquillissime fruitur.]
In the general picture of the affairs of the East under the reign
of Valens, the adventures of Para form one of the most striking
and singular objects. The noble youth, by the persuasion of his
mother Olympias, had escaped through the Persian host that
besieged Artogerassa, and implored the protection of the emperor
of the East. By his timid councils, Para was alternately
supported, and recalled, and restored, and betrayed. The hopes of
the Armenians were sometimes raised by the presence of their
natural sovereign, 13811 and the ministers of Valens were
satisfied, that they preserved the integrity of the public faith,
if their vassal was not suffered to assume the diadem and title
of King. But they soon repented of their own rashness. They were
confounded by the reproaches and threats of the Persian monarch.
They found reason to distrust the cruel and inconstant temper of
Para himself; who sacrificed, to the slightest suspicions, the
lives of his most faithful servants, and held a secret and
disgraceful correspondence with the assassin of his father and
the enemy of his country. Under the specious pretence of
consulting with the emperor on the subject of their common
interest, Para was persuaded to descend from the mountains of
Armenia, where his party was in arms, and to trust his
independence and safety to the discretion of a perfidious court.
The king of Armenia, for such he appeared in his own eyes and in
those of his nation, was received with due honors by the
governors of the provinces through which he passed; but when he
arrived at Tarsus in Cilicia, his progress was stopped under
various pretences; his motions were watched with respectful
vigilance, and he gradually discovered, that he was a prisoner in
the hands of the Romans. Para suppressed his indignation,
dissembled his fears, and after secretly preparing his escape,
mounted on horseback with three hundred of his faithful
followers. The officer stationed at the door of his apartment
immediately communicated his flight to the consular of Cilicia,
who overtook him in the suburbs, and endeavored without success,
to dissuade him from prosecuting his rash and dangerous design. A
legion was ordered to pursue the royal fugitive; but the pursuit
of infantry could not be very alarming to a body of light
cavalry; and upon the first cloud of arrows that was discharged
into the air, they retreated with precipitation to the gates of
Tarsus. After an incessant march of two days and two nights, Para
and his Armenians reached the banks of the Euphrates; but the
passage of the river which they were obliged to swim, 13812 was
attended with some delay and some loss. The country was alarmed;
and the two roads, which were only separated by an interval of
three miles had been occupied by a thousand archers on horseback,
under the command of a count and a tribune. Para must have
yielded to superior force, if the accidental arrival of a
friendly traveller had not revealed the danger and the means of
escape. A dark and almost impervious path securely conveyed the
Armenian troop through the thicket; and Para had left behind him
the count and the tribune, while they patiently expected his
approach along the public highways. They returned to the Imperial
court to excuse their want of diligence or success; and seriously
alleged, that the king of Armenia, who was a skilful magician,
had transformed himself and his followers, and passed before
their eyes under a borrowed shape. 13813 After his return to his
native kingdom, Para still continued to profess himself the
friend and ally of the Romans: but the Romans had injured him too
deeply ever to forgive, and the secret sentence of his death was
signed in the council of Valens. The execution of the bloody deed
was committed to the subtle prudence of Count Trajan; and he had
the merit of insinuating himself into the confidence of the
credulous prince, that he might find an opportunity of stabbing
him to the heart Para was invited to a Roman banquet, which had
been prepared with all the pomp and sensuality of the East; the
hall resounded with cheerful music, and the company was already
heated with wine; when the count retired for an instant, drew his
sword, and gave the signal of the murder. A robust and desperate
Barbarian instantly rushed on the king of Armenia; and though he
bravely defended his life with the first weapon that chance
offered to his hand, the table of the Imperial general was
stained with the royal blood of a guest, and an ally. Such were
the weak and wicked maxims of the Roman administration, that, to
attain a doubtful object of political interest the laws of
nations, and the sacred rights of hospitality were inhumanly
violated in the face of the world. 139
13811 (return) [ On the reconquest of Armenia by Para, or rather
by Mouschegh, the Mamigonian see St. M. iii. 375, 383.—M.]
13812 (return) [ On planks floated by bladders.—M.]
13813 (return) [ It is curious enough that the Armenian
historian, Faustus of Byzandum, represents Para as a magician.
His impious mother Pharandac had devoted him to the demons on his
birth. St. M. iv. 23.—M.]
139 (return) [ See in Ammianus (xxx. 1) the adventures of Para.
Moses of Chorene calls him Tiridates; and tells a long, and not
improbable story of his son Gnelus, who afterwards made himself
popular in Armenia, and provoked the jealousy of the reigning
king, (l. iii. c 21, &c., p. 253, &c.) * Note: This note is a
tissue of mistakes. Tiridates and Para are two totally different
persons. Tiridates was the father of Gnel first husband of
Pharandsem, the mother of Para. St. Martin, iv. 27—M.]
V. During a peaceful interval of thirty years, the Romans secured
their frontiers, and the Goths extended their dominions. The
victories of the great Hermanric, 140 king of the Ostrogoths, and
the most noble of the race of the Amali, have been compared, by
the enthusiasm of his countrymen, to the exploits of Alexander;
with this singular, and almost incredible, difference, that the
martial spirit of the Gothic hero, instead of being supported by
the vigor of youth, was displayed with glory and success in the
extreme period of human life, between the age of fourscore and
one hundred and ten years. The independent tribes were persuaded,
or compelled, to acknowledge the king of the Ostrogoths as the
sovereign of the Gothic nation: the chiefs of the Visigoths, or
Thervingi, renounced the royal title, and assumed the more humble
appellation of _Judges;_ and, among those judges, Athanaric,
Fritigern, and Alavivus, were the most illustrious, by their
personal merit, as well as by their vicinity to the Roman
provinces. These domestic conquests, which increased the military
power of Hermanric, enlarged his ambitious designs. He invaded
the adjacent countries of the North; and twelve considerable
nations, whose names and limits cannot be accurately defined,
successively yielded to the superiority of the Gothic arms. 141
The Heruli, who inhabited the marshy lands near the lake Mæotis,
were renowned for their strength and agility; and the assistance
of their light infantry was eagerly solicited, and highly
esteemed, in all the wars of the Barbarians. But the active
spirit of the Heruli was subdued by the slow and steady
perseverance of the Goths; and, after a bloody action, in which
the king was slain, the remains of that warlike tribe became a
useful accession to the camp of Hermanric.
He then marched against the Venedi; unskilled in the use of arms,
and formidable only by their numbers, which filled the wide
extent of the plains of modern Poland. The victorious Goths, who
were not inferior in numbers, prevailed in the contest, by the
decisive advantages of exercise and discipline. After the
submission of the Venedi, the conqueror advanced, without
resistance, as far as the confines of the Æstii; 142 an ancient
people, whose name is still preserved in the province of
Esthonia. Those distant inhabitants of the Baltic coast were
supported by the labors of agriculture, enriched by the trade of
amber, and consecrated by the peculiar worship of the Mother of
the Gods. But the scarcity of iron obliged the Æstian warriors to
content themselves with wooden clubs; and the reduction of that
wealthy country is ascribed to the prudence, rather than to the
arms, of Hermanric. His dominions, which extended from the Danube
to the Baltic, included the native seats, and the recent
acquisitions, of the Goths; and he reigned over the greatest part
of Germany and Scythia with the authority of a conqueror, and
sometimes with the cruelty of a tyrant. But he reigned over a
part of the globe incapable of perpetuating and adorning the
glory of its heroes. The name of Hermanric is almost buried in
oblivion; his exploits are imperfectly known; and the Romans
themselves appeared unconscious of the progress of an aspiring
power which threatened the liberty of the North, and the peace of
the empire. 143
140 (return) [ The concise account of the reign and conquests of
Hermanric seems to be one of the valuable fragments which
Jornandes (c 28) borrowed from the Gothic histories of Ablavius,
or Cassiodorus.]
141 (return) [ M. d. Buat. (Hist. des Peuples de l’Europe, tom.
vi. p. 311-329) investigates, with more industry than success,
the nations subdued by the arms of Hermanric. He denies the
existence of the _Vasinobroncæ_, on account of the immoderate
length of their name. Yet the French envoy to Ratisbon, or
Dresden, must have traversed the country of the _Mediomatrici_.]
142 (return) [ The edition of Grotius (Jornandes, p. 642)
exhibits the name of _Æstri_. But reason and the Ambrosian MS.
have restored the _Æstii_, whose manners and situation are
expressed by the pencil of Tacitus, (Germania, c. 45.)]
143 (return) [ Ammianus (xxxi. 3) observes, in general terms,
Ermenrichi.... nobilissimi Regis, et per multa variaque fortiter
facta, vicinigentibus formidati, &c.]
The Goths had contracted an hereditary attachment for the
Imperial house of Constantine, of whose power and liberality they
had received so many signal proofs. They respected the public
peace; and if a hostile band sometimes presumed to pass the Roman
limit, their irregular conduct was candidly ascribed to the
ungovernable spirit of the Barbarian youth. Their contempt for
two new and obscure princes, who had been raised to the throne by
a popular election, inspired the Goths with bolder hopes; and,
while they agitated some design of marching their confederate
force under the national standard, 144 they were easily tempted
to embrace the party of Procopius; and to foment, by their
dangerous aid, the civil discord of the Romans. The public treaty
might stipulate no more than ten thousand auxiliaries; but the
design was so zealously adopted by the chiefs of the Visigoths,
that the army which passed the Danube amounted to the number of
thirty thousand men. 145 They marched with the proud confidence,
that their invincible valor would decide the fate of the Roman
empire; and the provinces of Thrace groaned under the weight of
the Barbarians, who displayed the insolence of masters and the
licentiousness of enemies. But the intemperance which gratified
their appetites, retarded their progress; and before the Goths
could receive any certain intelligence of the defeat and death of
Procopius, they perceived, by the hostile state of the country,
that the civil and military powers were resumed by his successful
rival. A chain of posts and fortifications, skilfully disposed by
Valens, or the generals of Valens, resisted their march,
prevented their retreat, and intercepted their subsistence. The
fierceness of the Barbarians was tamed and suspended by hunger;
they indignantly threw down their arms at the feet of the
conqueror, who offered them food and chains: the numerous
captives were distributed in all the cities of the East; and the
provincials, who were soon familiarized with their savage
appearance, ventured, by degrees, to measure their own strength
with these formidable adversaries, whose name had so long been
the object of their terror. The king of Scythia (and Hermanric
alone could deserve so lofty a title) was grieved and exasperated
by this national calamity. His ambassadors loudly complained, at
the court of Valens, of the infraction of the ancient and solemn
alliance, which had so long subsisted between the Romans and the
Goths. They alleged, that they had fulfilled the duty of allies,
by assisting the kinsman and successor of the emperor Julian;
they required the immediate restitution of the noble captives;
and they urged a very singular claim, that the Gothic generals
marching in arms, and in hostile array, were entitled to the
sacred character and privileges of ambassadors. The decent, but
peremptory, refusal of these extravagant demands, was signified
to the Barbarians by Victor, master-general of the cavalry; who
expressed, with force and dignity, the just complaints of the
emperor of the East. 146 The negotiation was interrupted; and the
manly exhortations of Valentinian encouraged his timid brother to
vindicate the insulted majesty of the empire. 147
144 (return) [ Valens. ... docetur relationibus Ducum, gentem
Gothorum, ea tempestate intactam ideoque sævissimam, conspirantem
in unum, ad pervadenda parari collimitia Thraciarum. Ammian. xxi.
6.]
145 (return) [ M. de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l’Europe, tom.
vi. p. 332) has curiously ascertained the real number of these
auxiliaries. The 3000 of Ammianus, and the 10,000 of Zosimus,
were only the first divisions of the Gothic army. * Note: M. St.
Martin (iii. 246) denies that there is any authority for these
numbers.—M.]
146 (return) [ The march, and subsequent negotiation, are
described in the Fragments of Eunapius, (Excerpt. Legat. p. 18,
edit. Louvre.) The provincials who afterwards became familiar
with the Barbarians, found that their strength was more apparent
than real. They were tall of stature; but their legs were clumsy,
and their shoulders were narrow.]
147 (return) [ Valens enim, ut consulto placuerat fratri, cujus
regebatur arbitrio, arma concussit in Gothos ratione justâ
permotus. Ammianus (xxvii. 4) then proceeds to describe, not the
country of the Goths, but the peaceful and obedient province of
Thrace, which was not affected by the war.]
The splendor and magnitude of this Gothic war are celebrated by a
contemporary historian: 148 but the events scarcely deserve the
attention of posterity, except as the preliminary steps of the
approaching decline and fall of the empire. Instead of leading
the nations of Germany and Scythia to the banks of the Danube, or
even to the gates of Constantinople, the aged monarch of the
Goths resigned to the brave Athanaric the danger and glory of a
defensive war, against an enemy, who wielded with a feeble hand
the powers of a mighty state. A bridge of boats was established
upon the Danube; the presence of Valens animated his troops; and
his ignorance of the art of war was compensated by personal
bravery, and a wise deference to the advice of Victor and
Arintheus, his masters-general of the cavalry and infantry. The
operations of the campaign were conducted by their skill and
experience; but they found it impossible to drive the Visigoths
from their strong posts in the mountains; and the devastation of
the plains obliged the Romans themselves to repass the Danube on
the approach of winter. The incessant rains, which swelled the
waters of the river, produced a tacit suspension of arms, and
confined the emperor Valens, during the whole course of the
ensuing summer, to his camp of Marcianopolis. The third year of
the war was more favorable to the Romans, and more pernicious to
the Goths. The interruption of trade deprived the Barbarians of
the objects of luxury, which they already confounded with the
necessaries of life; and the desolation of a very extensive tract
of country threatened them with the horrors of famine. Athanaric
was provoked, or compelled, to risk a battle, which he lost, in
the plains; and the pursuit was rendered more bloody by the cruel
precaution of the victorious generals, who had promised a large
reward for the head of every Goth that was brought into the
Imperial camp. The submission of the Barbarians appeased the
resentment of Valens and his council: the emperor listened with
satisfaction to the flattering and eloquent remonstrance of the
senate of Constantinople, which assumed, for the first time, a
share in the public deliberations; and the same generals, Victor
and Arintheus, who had successfully directed the conduct of the
war, were empowered to regulate the conditions of peace. The
freedom of trade, which the Goths had hitherto enjoyed, was
restricted to two cities on the Danube; the rashness of their
leaders was severely punished by the suppression of their
pensions and subsidies; and the exception, which was stipulated
in favor of Athanaric alone, was more advantageous than honorable
to the Judge of the Visigoths. Athanaric, who, on this occasion,
appears to have consulted his private interest, without expecting
the orders of his sovereign, supported his own dignity, and that
of his tribe, in the personal interview which was proposed by the
ministers of Valens. He persisted in his declaration, that it was
impossible for him, without incurring the guilt of perjury, ever
to set his foot on the territory of the empire; and it is more
than probable, that his regard for the sanctity of an oath was
confirmed by the recent and fatal examples of Roman treachery.
The Danube, which separated the dominions of the two independent
nations, was chosen for the scene of the conference. The emperor
of the East, and the Judge of the Visigoths, accompanied by an
equal number of armed followers, advanced in their respective
barges to the middle of the stream. After the ratification of the
treaty, and the delivery of hostages, Valens returned in triumph
to Constantinople; and the Goths remained in a state of
tranquillity about six years; till they were violently impelled
against the Roman empire by an innumerable host of Scythians, who
appeared to issue from the frozen regions of the North. 149
148 (return) [ Eunapius, in Excerpt. Legat. p. 18, 19. The Greek
sophist must have considered as _one_ and the _same_ war, the
whole series of Gothic history till the victories and peace of
Theodosius.]
149 (return) [ The Gothic war is described by Ammianus, (xxvii.
6,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 211-214,) and Themistius, (Orat. x. p.
129-141.) The orator Themistius was sent from the senate of
Constantinople to congratulate the victorious emperor; and his
servile eloquence compares Valens on the Danube to Achilles in
the Scamander. Jornandes forgets a war peculiar to the
_Visi_-Goths, and inglorious to the Gothic name, (Mascon’s Hist.
of the Germans, vii. 3.)]
The emperor of the West, who had resigned to his brother the
command of the Lower Danube, reserved for his immediate care the
defence of the Rhætian and Illyrian provinces, which spread so
many hundred miles along the greatest of the European rivers. The
active policy of Valentinian was continually employed in adding
new fortifications to the security of the frontier: but the abuse
of this policy provoked the just resentment of the Barbarians.
The Quadi complained, that the ground for an intended fortress
had been marked out on their territories; and their complaints
were urged with so much reason and moderation, that Equitius,
master-general of Illyricum, consented to suspend the prosecution
of the work, till he should be more clearly informed of the will
of his sovereign. This fair occasion of injuring a rival, and of
advancing the fortune of his son, was eagerly embraced by the
inhuman Maximin, the præfect, or rather tyrant, of Gaul. The
passions of Valentinian were impatient of control; and he
credulously listened to the assurances of his favorite, that if
the government of Valeria, and the direction of the work, were
intrusted to the zeal of his son Marcellinus, the emperor should
no longer be importuned with the audacious remonstrances of the
Barbarians. The subjects of Rome, and the natives of Germany,
were insulted by the arrogance of a young and worthless minister,
who considered his rapid elevation as the proof and reward of his
superior merit. He affected, however, to receive the modest
application of Gabinius, king of the Quadi, with some attention
and regard: but this artful civility concealed a dark and bloody
design, and the credulous prince was persuaded to accept the
pressing invitation of Marcellinus. I am at a loss how to vary
the narrative of similar crimes; or how to relate, that, in the
course of the same year, but in remote parts of the empire, the
inhospitable table of two Imperial generals was stained with the
royal blood of two guests and allies, inhumanly murdered by their
order, and in their presence. The fate of Gabinius, and of Para,
was the same: but the cruel death of their sovereign was resented
in a very different manner by the servile temper of the
Armenians, and the free and daring spirit of the Germans. The
Quadi were much declined from that formidable power, which, in
the time of Marcus Antoninus, had spread terror to the gates of
Rome. But they still possessed arms and courage; their courage
was animated by despair, and they obtained the usual
reenforcement of the cavalry of their Sarmatian allies. So
improvident was the assassin Marcellinus, that he chose the
moment when the bravest veterans had been drawn away, to suppress
the revolt of Firmus; and the whole province was exposed, with a
very feeble defence, to the rage of the exasperated Barbarians.
They invaded Pannonia in the season of harvest; unmercifully
destroyed every object of plunder which they could not easily
transport; and either disregarded, or demolished, the empty
fortifications. The princess Constantia, the daughter of the
emperor Constantius, and the granddaughter of the great
Constantine, very narrowly escaped. That royal maid, who had
innocently supported the revolt of Procopius, was now the
destined wife of the heir of the Western empire. She traversed
the peaceful province with a splendid and unarmed train. Her
person was saved from danger, and the republic from disgrace, by
the active zeal of Messala, governor of the provinces. As soon as
he was informed that the village, where she stopped only to dine,
was almost encompassed by the Barbarians, he hastily placed her
in his own chariot, and drove full speed till he reached the
gates of Sirmium, which were at the distance of six-and-twenty
miles. Even Sirmium might not have been secure, if the Quadi and
Sarmatians had diligently advanced during the general
consternation of the magistrates and people. Their delay allowed
Probus, the Prætorian præfect, sufficient time to recover his own
spirits, and to revive the courage of the citizens. He skilfully
directed their strenuous efforts to repair and strengthen the
decayed fortifications; and procured the seasonable and effectual
assistance of a company of archers, to protect the capital of the
Illyrian provinces. Disappointed in their attempts against the
walls of Sirmium, the indignant Barbarians turned their arms
against the master general of the frontier, to whom they unjustly
attributed the murder of their king. Equitius could bring into
the field no more than two legions; but they contained the
veteran strength of the Mæsian and Pannonian bands. The obstinacy
with which they disputed the vain honors of rank and precedency,
was the cause of their destruction; and while they acted with
separate forces and divided councils, they were surprised and
slaughtered by the active vigor of the Sarmatian horse. The
success of this invasion provoked the emulation of the bordering
tribes; and the province of Mæsia would infallibly have been
lost, if young Theodosius, the duke, or military commander, of
the frontier, had not signalized, in the defeat of the public
enemy, an intrepid genius, worthy of his illustrious father, and
of his future greatness. 150
150 (return) [ Ammianus (xxix. 6) and Zosimus (I. iv. p. 219,
220) carefully mark the origin and progress of the Quadic and
Sarmatian war.]
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.—Part VII.
The mind of Valentinian, who then resided at Treves, was deeply
affected by the calamities of Illyricum; but the lateness of the
season suspended the execution of his designs till the ensuing
spring. He marched in person, with a considerable part of the
forces of Gaul, from the banks of the Moselle: and to the
suppliant ambassadors of the Sarmatians, who met him on the way,
he returned a doubtful answer, that, as soon as he reached the
scene of action, he should examine, and pronounce. When he
arrived at Sirmium, he gave audience to the deputies of the
Illyrian provinces; who loudly congratulated their own felicity
under the auspicious government of Probus, his Prætorian præfect.
151 Valentinian, who was flattered by these demonstrations of
their loyalty and gratitude, imprudently asked the deputy of
Epirus, a Cynic philosopher of intrepid sincerity, 152 whether he
was freely sent by the wishes of the province. “With tears and
groans am I sent,” replied Iphicles, “by a reluctant people.” The
emperor paused: but the impunity of his ministers established the
pernicious maxim, that they might oppress his subjects, without
injuring his service. A strict inquiry into their conduct would
have relieved the public discontent. The severe condemnation of
the murder of Gabinius, was the only measure which could restore
the confidence of the Germans, and vindicate the honor of the
Roman name. But the haughty monarch was incapable of the
magnanimity which dares to acknowledge a fault. He forgot the
provocation, remembered only the injury, and advanced into the
country of the Quadi with an insatiate thirst of blood and
revenge. The extreme devastation, and promiscuous massacre, of a
savage war, were justified, in the eyes of the emperor, and
perhaps in those of the world, by the cruel equity of
retaliation: 153 and such was the discipline of the Romans, and
the consternation of the enemy, that Valentinian repassed the
Danube without the loss of a single man. As he had resolved to
complete the destruction of the Quadi by a second campaign, he
fixed his winter quarters at Bregetio, on the Danube, near the
Hungarian city of Presburg. While the operations of war were
suspended by the severity of the weather, the Quadi made an
humble attempt to deprecate the wrath of their conqueror; and, at
the earnest persuasion of Equitius, their ambassadors were
introduced into the Imperial council. They approached the throne
with bended bodies and dejected countenances; and without daring
to complain of the murder of their king, they affirmed, with
solemn oaths, that the late invasion was the crime of some
irregular robbers, which the public council of the nation
condemned and abhorred. The answer of the emperor left them but
little to hope from his clemency or compassion. He reviled, in
the most intemperate language, their baseness, their ingratitude,
their insolence. His eyes, his voice, his color, his gestures,
expressed the violence of his ungoverned fury; and while his
whole frame was agitated with convulsive passion, a large blood
vessel suddenly burst in his body; and Valentinian fell
speechless into the arms of his attendants. Their pious care
immediately concealed his situation from the crowd; but, in a few
minutes, the emperor of the West expired in an agony of pain,
retaining his senses till the last; and struggling, without
success, to declare his intentions to the generals and ministers,
who surrounded the royal couch. Valentinian was about fifty-four
years of age; and he wanted only one hundred days to accomplish
the twelve years of his reign. 154
151 (return) [ Ammianus, (xxx. 5,) who acknowledges the merit,
has censured, with becoming asperity, the oppressive
administration of Petronius Probus. When Jerom translated and
continued the Chronicle of Eusebius, (A. D. 380; see Tillemont,
Mém. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 53, 626,) he expressed the truth, or at
least the public opinion of his country, in the following words:
“Probus P. P. Illyrici inquissimus tributorum exactionibus, ante
provincias quas regebat, quam a Barbaris vastarentur, _erasit_.”
(Chron. edit. Scaliger, p. 187. Animadvers p. 259.) The Saint
afterwards formed an intimate and tender friendship with the
widow of Probus; and the name of Count Equitius with less
propriety, but without much injustice, has been substituted in
the text.]
152 (return) [ Julian (Orat. vi. p. 198) represents his friend
Iphicles, as a man of virtue and merit, who had made himself
ridiculous and unhappy by adopting the extravagant dress and
manners of the Cynics.]
153 (return) [ Ammian. xxx. v. Jerom, who exaggerates the
misfortune of Valentinian, refuses him even this last consolation
of revenge. Genitali vastato solo et _inultam_ patriam
derelinquens, (tom. i. p. 26.)]
154 (return) [ See, on the death of Valentinian, Ammianus, (xxx.
6,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 221,) Victor, (in Epitom.,) Socrates, (l.
iv. c. 31,) and Jerom, (in Chron. p. 187, and tom. i. p. 26, ad
Heliodor.) There is much variety of circumstances among them; and
Ammianus is so eloquent, that he writes nonsense.]
The polygamy of Valentinian is seriously attested by an
ecclesiastical historian. 155 “The empress Severa (I relate the
fable) admitted into her familiar society the lovely Justina, the
daughter of an Italian governor: her admiration of those naked
charms, which she had often seen in the bath, was expressed with
such lavish and imprudent praise, that the emperor was tempted to
introduce a second wife into his bed; and his public edict
extended to all the subjects of the empire the same domestic
privilege which he had assumed for himself.” But we may be
assured, from the evidence of reason as well as history, that the
two marriages of Valentinian, with Severa, and with Justina, were
_successively_ contracted; and that he used the ancient
permission of divorce, which was still allowed by the laws,
though it was condemned by the church. Severa was the mother of
Gratian, who seemed to unite every claim which could entitle him
to the undoubted succession of the Western empire. He was the
eldest son of a monarch whose glorious reign had confirmed the
free and honorable choice of his fellow-soldiers. Before he had
attained the ninth year of his age, the royal youth received from
the hands of his indulgent father the purple robe and diadem,
with the title of Augustus; the election was solemnly ratified by
the consent and applause of the armies of Gaul; 156 and the name
of Gratian was added to the names of Valentinian and Valens, in
all the legal transactions of the Roman government. By his
marriage with the granddaughter of Constantine, the son of
Valentinian acquired all the hereditary rights of the Flavian
family; which, in a series of three Imperial generations, were
sanctified by time, religion, and the reverence of the people. At
the death of his father, the royal youth was in the seventeenth
year of his age; and his virtues already justified the favorable
opinion of the army and the people. But Gratian resided, without
apprehension, in the palace of Treves; whilst, at the distance of
many hundred miles, Valentinian suddenly expired in the camp of
Bregetio. The passions, which had been so long suppressed by the
presence of a master, immediately revived in the Imperial
council; and the ambitious design of reigning in the name of an
infant, was artfully executed by Mellobaudes and Equitius, who
commanded the attachment of the Illyrian and Italian bands. They
contrived the most honorable pretences to remove the popular
leaders, and the troops of Gaul, who might have asserted the
claims of the lawful successor; they suggested the necessity of
extinguishing the hopes of foreign and domestic enemies, by a
bold and decisive measure. The empress Justina, who had been left
in a palace about one hundred miles from Bregetio, was
respectively invited to appear in the camp, with the son of the
deceased emperor. On the sixth day after the death of
Valentinian, the infant prince of the same name, who was only
four years old, was shown, in the arms of his mother, to the
legions; and solemnly invested, by military acclamation, with the
titles and ensigns of supreme power. The impending dangers of a
civil war were seasonably prevented by the wise and moderate
conduct of the emperor Gratian. He cheerfully accepted the choice
of the army; declared that he should always consider the son of
Justina as a brother, not as a rival; and advised the empress,
with her son Valentinian to fix their residence at Milan, in the
fair and peaceful province of Italy; while he assumed the more
arduous command of the countries beyond the Alps. Gratian
dissembled his resentment till he could safely punish, or
disgrace, the authors of the conspiracy; and though he uniformly
behaved with tenderness and regard to his infant colleague, he
gradually confounded, in the administration of the Western
empire, the office of a guardian with the authority of a
sovereign. The government of the Roman world was exercised in the
united names of Valens and his two nephews; but the feeble
emperor of the East, who succeeded to the rank of his elder
brother, never obtained any weight or influence in the councils
of the West. 157
155 (return) [ Socrates (l. iv. c. 31) is the only original
witness of this foolish story, so repugnant to the laws and
manners of the Romans, that it scarcely deserved the formal and
elaborate dissertation of M. Bonamy, (Mém. de l’Académie, tom.
xxx. p. 394-405.) Yet I would preserve the natural circumstance
of the bath; instead of following Zosimus who represents Justina
as an old woman, the widow of Magnentius.]
156 (return) [ Ammianus (xxvii. 6) describes the form of this
military election, and _august_ investiture. Valentinian does not
appear to have consulted, or even informed, the senate of Rome.]
157 (return) [ Ammianus, xxx. 10. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 222, 223.
Tillemont has proved (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 707-709)
that Gratian _reigned_ in Italy, Africa, and Illyricum. I have
endeavored to express his authority over his brother’s dominions,
as he used it, in an ambiguous style.]
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part I.
Manners Of The Pastoral Nations.—Progress Of The Huns, From China
To Europe.—Flight Of The Goths.—They Pass The Danube.—Gothic
War.—Defeat And Death Of Valens.—Gratian Invests Theodosius With
The Eastern Empire.—His Character And Success.—Peace And
Settlement Of The Goths.
In the second year of the reign of Valentinian and Valens, on the
morning of the twenty-first day of July, the greatest part of the
Roman world was shaken by a violent and destructive earthquake.
The impression was communicated to the waters; the shores of the
Mediterranean were left dry, by the sudden retreat of the sea;
great quantities of fish were caught with the hand; large vessels
were stranded on the mud; and a curious spectator 1 amused his
eye, or rather his fancy, by contemplating the various appearance
of valleys and mountains, which had never, since the formation of
the globe, been exposed to the sun. But the tide soon returned,
with the weight of an immense and irresistible deluge, which was
severely felt on the coasts of Sicily, of Dalmatia, of Greece,
and of Egypt: large boats were transported, and lodged on the
roofs of houses, or at the distance of two miles from the shore;
the people, with their habitations, were swept away by the
waters; and the city of Alexandria annually commemorated the
fatal day, on which fifty thousand persons had lost their lives
in the inundation. This calamity, the report of which was
magnified from one province to another, astonished and terrified
the subjects of Rome; and their affrighted imagination enlarged
the real extent of a momentary evil. They recollected the
preceding earthquakes, which had subverted the cities of
Palestine and Bithynia: they considered these alarming strokes as
the prelude only of still more dreadful calamities, and their
fearful vanity was disposed to confound the symptoms of a
declining empire and a sinking world. 2 It was the fashion of the
times to attribute every remarkable event to the particular will
of the Deity; the alterations of nature were connected, by an
invisible chain, with the moral and metaphysical opinions of the
human mind; and the most sagacious divines could distinguish,
according to the color of their respective prejudices, that the
establishment of heresy tended to produce an earthquake; or that
a deluge was the inevitable consequence of the progress of sin
and error. Without presuming to discuss the truth or propriety of
these lofty speculations, the historian may content himself with
an observation, which seems to be justified by experience, that
man has much more to fear from the passions of his
fellow-creatures, than from the convulsions of the elements. 3
The mischievous effects of an earthquake, or deluge, a hurricane,
or the eruption of a volcano, bear a very inconsiderable portion
to the ordinary calamities of war, as they are now moderated by
the prudence or humanity of the princes of Europe, who amuse
their own leisure, and exercise the courage of their subjects, in
the practice of the military art. But the laws and manners of
modern nations protect the safety and freedom of the vanquished
soldier; and the peaceful citizen has seldom reason to complain,
that his life, or even his fortune, is exposed to the rage of
war. In the disastrous period of the fall of the Roman empire,
which may justly be dated from the reign of Valens, the happiness
and security of each individual were personally attacked; and the
arts and labors of ages were rudely defaced by the Barbarians of
Scythia and Germany. The invasion of the Huns precipitated on the
provinces of the West the Gothic nation, which advanced, in less
than forty years, from the Danube to the Atlantic, and opened a
way, by the success of their arms, to the inroads of so many
hostile tribes, more savage than themselves. The original
principle of motion was concealed in the remote countries of the
North; and the curious observation of the pastoral life of the
Scythians, 4 or Tartars, 5 will illustrate the latent cause of
these destructive emigrations.
1 (return) [ Such is the bad taste of Ammianus, (xxvi. 10,) that
it is not easy to distinguish his facts from his metaphors. Yet
he positively affirms, that he saw the rotten carcass of a ship,
_ad decundum lapidem_, at Mothone, or Modon, in Peloponnesus.]
2 (return) [ The earthquakes and inundations are variously
described by Libanius, (Orat. de ulciscenda Juliani nece, c. x.,
in Fabricius, Bibl. Græc. tom. vii. p. 158, with a learned note
of Olearius,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 221,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 2,)
Cedrenus, (p. 310, 314,) and Jerom, (in Chron. p. 186, and tom.
i. p. 250, in Vit. Hilarion.) Epidaurus must have been
overwhelmed, had not the prudent citizens placed St. Hilarion, an
Egyptian monk, on the beach. He made the sign of the Cross; the
mountain-wave stopped, bowed, and returned.]
3 (return) [ Dicæarchus, the Peripatetic, composed a formal
treatise, to prove this obvious truth; which is not the most
honorable to the human species. (Cicero, de Officiis, ii. 5.)]
4 (return) [ The original Scythians of Herodotus (l. iv. c.
47—57, 99—101) were confined, by the Danube and the Palus Mæotis,
within a square of 4000 stadia, (400 Roman miles.) See D’Anville
(Mém. de l’Académie, tom. xxxv. p. 573—591.) Diodorus Siculus
(tom. i. l. ii. p. 155, edit. Wesseling) has marked the gradual
progress of the _name_ and nation.]
5 (return) [ The _Tatars_, or Tartars, were a primitive tribe,
the rivals, and at length the subjects, of the Moguls. In the
victorious armies of Zingis Khan, and his successors, the Tartars
formed the vanguard; and the name, which first reached the ears
of foreigners, was applied to the whole nation, (Freret, in the
Hist. de l’Académie, tom. xviii. p. 60.) In speaking of all, or
any of the northern shepherds of Europe, or Asia, I indifferently
use the appellations of _Scythians_ or _Tartars_. * Note: The
Moguls, (Mongols,) according to M. Klaproth, are a tribe of the
Tartar nation. Tableaux Hist. de l’Asie, p. 154.—M.]
The different characters that mark the civilized nations of the
globe, may be ascribed to the use, and the abuse, of reason;
which so variously shapes, and so artificially composes, the
manners and opinions of a European, or a Chinese. But the
operation of instinct is more sure and simple than that of
reason: it is much easier to ascertain the appetites of a
quadruped than the speculations of a philosopher; and the savage
tribes of mankind, as they approach nearer to the condition of
animals, preserve a stronger resemblance to themselves and to
each other. The uniform stability of their manners is the natural
consequence of the imperfection of their faculties. Reduced to a
similar situation, their wants, their desires, their enjoyments,
still continue the same: and the influence of food or climate,
which, in a more improved state of society, is suspended, or
subdued, by so many moral causes, most powerfully contributes to
form, and to maintain, the national character of Barbarians. In
every age, the immense plains of Scythia, or Tartary, have been
inhabited by vagrant tribes of hunters and shepherds, whose
indolence refuses to cultivate the earth, and whose restless
spirit disdains the confinement of a sedentary life. In every
age, the Scythians, and Tartars, have been renowned for their
invincible courage and rapid conquests. The thrones of Asia have
been repeatedly overturned by the shepherds of the North; and
their arms have spread terror and devastation over the most
fertile and warlike countries of Europe. 6 On this occasion, as
well as on many others, the sober historian is forcibly awakened
from a pleasing vision; and is compelled, with some reluctance,
to confess, that the pastoral manners, which have been adorned
with the fairest attributes of peace and innocence, are much
better adapted to the fierce and cruel habits of a military life.
To illustrate this observation, I shall now proceed to consider a
nation of shepherds and of warriors, in the three important
articles of, I. Their diet; II. Their habitations; and, III.
Their exercises. The narratives of antiquity are justified by the
experience of modern times; 7 and the banks of the Borysthenes,
of the Volga, or of the Selinga, will indifferently present the
same uniform spectacle of similar and native manners. 8
6 (return) [ Imperium Asiæ _ter_ quæsivere: ipsi perpetuo ab
alieno imperio, aut intacti aut invicti, mansere. Since the time
of Justin, (ii. 2,) they have multiplied this account. Voltaire,
in a few words, (tom. x. p. 64, Hist. Generale, c. 156,) has
abridged the Tartar conquests.
Oft o’er the trembling nations from afar,
Has Scythia breathed the living cloud of war.
Note *: Gray.—M.]
7 (return) [ The fourth book of Herodotus affords a curious
though imperfect, portrait of the Scythians. Among the moderns,
who describe the uniform scene, the Khan of Khowaresm, Abulghazi
Bahadur, expresses his native feelings; and his genealogical
history of the Tartars has been copiously illustrated by the
French and English editors. Carpin, Ascelin, and Rubruquis (in
the Hist. des Voyages, tom. vii.) represent the Moguls of the
fourteenth century. To these guides I have added Gerbillon, and
the other Jesuits, (Description de la China par du Halde, tom.
iv.,) who accurately surveyed the Chinese Tartary; and that
honest and intelligent traveller, Bell, of Antermony, (two
volumes in 4to. Glasgow, 1763.) * Note: Of the various works
published since the time of Gibbon, which throw fight on the
nomadic population of Central Asia, may be particularly remarked
the Travels and Dissertations of Pallas; and above all, the very
curious work of Bergman, Nomadische Streifereyen. Riga, 1805.—M.]
8 (return) [ The Uzbecks are the most altered from their
primitive manners; 1. By the profession of the Mahometan
religion; and 2. By the possession of the cities and harvests of
the great Bucharia.]
I. The corn, or even the rice, which constitutes the ordinary and
wholesome food of a civilized people, can be obtained only by the
patient toil of the husbandman. Some of the happy savages, who
dwell between the tropics, are plentifully nourished by the
liberality of nature; but in the climates of the North, a nation
of shepherds is reduced to their flocks and herds. The skilful
practitioners of the medical art will determine (if they are able
to determine) how far the temper of the human mind may be
affected by the use of animal, or of vegetable, food; and whether
the common association of carniverous and cruel deserves to be
considered in any other light than that of an innocent, perhaps a
salutary, prejudice of humanity. 9 Yet, if it be true, that the
sentiment of compassion is imperceptibly weakened by the sight
and practice of domestic cruelty, we may observe, that the horrid
objects which are disguised by the arts of European refinement,
are exhibited in their naked and most disgusting simplicity in
the tent of a Tartarian shepherd. The ox, or the sheep, are
slaughtered by the same hand from which they were accustomed to
receive their daily food; and the bleeding limbs are served, with
very little preparation, on the table of their unfeeling
murderer. In the military profession, and especially in the
conduct of a numerous army, the exclusive use of animal food
appears to be productive of the most solid advantages. Corn is a
bulky and perishable commodity; and the large magazines, which
are indispensably necessary for the subsistence of our troops,
must be slowly transported by the labor of men or horses. But the
flocks and herds, which accompany the march of the Tartars,
afford a sure and increasing supply of flesh and milk: in the far
greater part of the uncultivated waste, the vegetation of the
grass is quick and luxuriant; and there are few places so
extremely barren, that the hardy cattle of the North cannot find
some tolerable pasture.
The supply is multiplied and prolonged by the undistinguishing
appetite, and patient abstinence, of the Tartars. They
indifferently feed on the flesh of those animals that have been
killed for the table, or have died of disease. Horseflesh, which
in every age and country has been proscribed by the civilized
nations of Europe and Asia, they devour with peculiar greediness;
and this singular taste facilitates the success of their military
operations. The active cavalry of Scythia is always followed, in
their most distant and rapid incursions, by an adequate number of
spare horses, who may be occasionally used, either to redouble
the speed, or to satisfy the hunger, of the Barbarians. Many are
the resources of courage and poverty. When the forage round a
camp of Tartars is almost consumed, they slaughter the greatest
part of their cattle, and preserve the flesh, either smoked, or
dried in the sun. On the sudden emergency of a hasty march, they
provide themselves with a sufficient quantity of little balls of
cheese, or rather of hard curd, which they occasionally dissolve
in water; and this unsubstantial diet will support, for many
days, the life, and even the spirits, of the patient warrior. But
this extraordinary abstinence, which the Stoic would approve, and
the hermit might envy, is commonly succeeded by the most
voracious indulgence of appetite. The wines of a happier climate
are the most grateful present, or the most valuable commodity,
that can be offered to the Tartars; and the only example of their
industry seems to consist in the art of extracting from mare’s
milk a fermented liquor, which possesses a very strong power of
intoxication. Like the animals of prey, the savages, both of the
old and new world, experience the alternate vicissitudes of
famine and plenty; and their stomach is inured to sustain,
without much inconvenience, the opposite extremes of hunger and
of intemperance.
9 (return) [ Il est certain que les grands mangeurs de viande
sont en général cruels et féroces plus que les autres hommes.
Cette observation est de tous les lieux, et de tous les temps: la
barbarie Angloise est connue, &c. Emile de Rousseau, tom. i. p.
274. Whatever we may think of the general observation, _we_ shall
not easily allow the truth of his example. The good-natured
complaints of Plutarch, and the pathetic lamentations of Ovid,
seduce our reason, by exciting our sensibility.]
II. In the ages of rustic and martial simplicity, a people of
soldiers and husbandmen are dispersed over the face of an
extensive and cultivated country; and some time must elapse
before the warlike youth of Greece or Italy could be assembled
under the same standard, either to defend their own confines, or
to invade the territories of the adjacent tribes. The progress of
manufactures and commerce insensibly collects a large multitude
within the walls of a city: but these citizens are no longer
soldiers; and the arts which adorn and improve the state of civil
society, corrupt the habits of the military life. The pastoral
manners of the Scythians seem to unite the different advantages
of simplicity and refinement. The individuals of the same tribe
are constantly assembled, but they are assembled in a camp; and
the native spirit of these dauntless shepherds is animated by
mutual support and emulation. The houses of the Tartars are no
more than small tents, of an oval form, which afford a cold and
dirty habitation, for the promiscuous youth of both sexes. The
palaces of the rich consist of wooden huts, of such a size that
they may be conveniently fixed on large wagons, and drawn by a
team perhaps of twenty or thirty oxen. The flocks and herds,
after grazing all day in the adjacent pastures, retire, on the
approach of night, within the protection of the camp. The
necessity of preventing the most mischievous confusion, in such a
perpetual concourse of men and animals, must gradually introduce,
in the distribution, the order, and the guard, of the encampment,
the rudiments of the military art. As soon as the forage of a
certain district is consumed, the tribe, or rather army, of
shepherds, makes a regular march to some fresh pastures; and thus
acquires, in the ordinary occupations of the pastoral life, the
practical knowledge of one of the most important and difficult
operations of war. The choice of stations is regulated by the
difference of the seasons: in the summer, the Tartars advance
towards the North, and pitch their tents on the banks of a river,
or, at least, in the neighborhood of a running stream. But in the
winter, they return to the South, and shelter their camp, behind
some convenient eminence, against the winds, which are chilled in
their passage over the bleak and icy regions of Siberia. These
manners are admirably adapted to diffuse, among the wandering
tribes, the spirit of emigration and conquest. The connection
between the people and their territory is of so frail a texture,
that it may be broken by the slightest accident. The camp, and
not the soil, is the native country of the genuine Tartar. Within
the precincts of that camp, his family, his companions, his
property, are always included; and, in the most distant marches,
he is still surrounded by the objects which are dear, or
valuable, or familiar in his eyes. The thirst of rapine, the
fear, or the resentment of injury, the impatience of servitude,
have, in every age, been sufficient causes to urge the tribes of
Scythia boldly to advance into some unknown countries, where they
might hope to find a more plentiful subsistence or a less
formidable enemy. The revolutions of the North have frequently
determined the fate of the South; and in the conflict of hostile
nations, the victor and the vanquished have alternately drove,
and been driven, from the confines of China to those of Germany.
10 These great emigrations, which have been sometimes executed
with almost incredible diligence, were rendered more easy by the
peculiar nature of the climate. It is well known that the cold of
Tartary is much more severe than in the midst of the temperate
zone might reasonably be expected; this uncommon rigor is
attributed to the height of the plains, which rise, especially
towards the East, more than half a mile above the level of the
sea; and to the quantity of saltpetre with which the soil is
deeply impregnated. 11 In the winter season, the broad and rapid
rivers, that discharge their waters into the Euxine, the Caspian,
or the Icy Sea, are strongly frozen; the fields are covered with
a bed of snow; and the fugitive, or victorious, tribes may
securely traverse, with their families, their wagons, and their
cattle, the smooth and hard surface of an immense plain.
10 (return) [ These Tartar emigrations have been discovered by M.
de Guignes (Histoire des Huns, tom. i. ii.) a skilful and
laborious interpreter of the Chinese language; who has thus laid
open new and important scenes in the history of mankind.]
11 (return) [ A plain in the Chinese Tartary, only eighty leagues
from the great wall, was found by the missionaries to be three
thousand geometrical paces above the level of the sea.
Montesquieu, who has used, and abused, the relations of
travellers, deduces the revolutions of Asia from this important
circumstance, that heat and cold, weakness and strength, touch
each other without any temperate zone, (Esprit des Loix, l. xvii.
c. 3.)]
III. The pastoral life, compared with the labors of agriculture
and manufactures, is undoubtedly a life of idleness; and as the
most honorable shepherds of the Tartar race devolve on their
captives the domestic management of the cattle, their own leisure
is seldom disturbed by any servile and assiduous cares. But this
leisure, instead of being devoted to the soft enjoyments of love
and harmony, is usefully spent in the violent and sanguinary
exercise of the chase. The plains of Tartary are filled with a
strong and serviceable breed of horses, which are easily trained
for the purposes of war and hunting. The Scythians of every age
have been celebrated as bold and skilful riders; and constant
practice had seated them so firmly on horseback, that they were
supposed by strangers to perform the ordinary duties of civil
life, to eat, to drink, and even to sleep, without dismounting
from their steeds. They excel in the dexterous management of the
lance; the long Tartar bow is drawn with a nervous arm; and the
weighty arrow is directed to its object with unerring aim and
irresistible force. These arrows are often pointed against the
harmless animals of the desert, which increase and multiply in
the absence of their most formidable enemy; the hare, the goat,
the roebuck, the fallow-deer, the stag, the elk, and the
antelope. The vigor and patience, both of the men and horses, are
continually exercised by the fatigues of the chase; and the
plentiful supply of game contributes to the subsistence, and even
luxury, of a Tartar camp. But the exploits of the hunters of
Scythia are not confined to the destruction of timid or innoxious
beasts; they boldly encounter the angry wild boar, when he turns
against his pursuers, excite the sluggish courage of the bear,
and provoke the fury of the tiger, as he slumbers in the thicket.
Where there is danger, there may be glory; and the mode of
hunting, which opens the fairest field to the exertions of valor,
may justly be considered as the image, and as the school, of war.
The general hunting matches, the pride and delight of the Tartar
princes, compose an instructive exercise for their numerous
cavalry. A circle is drawn, of many miles in circumference, to
encompass the game of an extensive district; and the troops that
form the circle regularly advance towards a common centre; where
the captive animals, surrounded on every side, are abandoned to
the darts of the hunters. In this march, which frequently
continues many days, the cavalry are obliged to climb the hills,
to swim the rivers, and to wind through the valleys, without
interrupting the prescribed order of their gradual progress. They
acquire the habit of directing their eye, and their steps, to a
remote object; of preserving their intervals of suspending or
accelerating their pace, according to the motions of the troops
on their right and left; and of watching and repeating the
signals of their leaders. Their leaders study, in this practical
school, the most important lesson of the military art; the prompt
and accurate judgment of ground, of distance, and of time. To
employ against a human enemy the same patience and valor, the
same skill and discipline, is the only alteration which is
required in real war; and the amusements of the chase serve as a
prelude to the conquest of an empire. 12
12 (return) [ Petit de la Croix (Vie de Gengiscan, l. iii. c. 6)
represents the full glory and extent of the Mogul chase. The
Jesuits Gerbillon and Verbiest followed the emperor Khamhi when
he hunted in Tartary, (Duhalde, Déscription de la Chine, tom. iv.
p. 81, 290, &c., folio edit.) His grandson, Kienlong, who unites
the Tartar discipline with the laws and learning of China,
describes (Eloge de Moukden, p. 273—285) as a poet the pleasures
which he had often enjoyed as a sportsman.]
The political society of the ancient Germans has the appearance
of a voluntary alliance of independent warriors. The tribes of
Scythia, distinguished by the modern appellation of _Hords_,
assume the form of a numerous and increasing family; which, in
the course of successive generations, has been propagated from
the same original stock. The meanest, and most ignorant, of the
Tartars, preserve, with conscious pride, the inestimable treasure
of their genealogy; and whatever distinctions of rank may have
been introduced, by the unequal distribution of pastoral wealth,
they mutually respect themselves, and each other, as the
descendants of the first founder of the tribe. The custom, which
still prevails, of adopting the bravest and most faithful of the
captives, may countenance the very probable suspicion, that this
extensive consanguinity is, in a great measure, legal and
fictitious. But the useful prejudice, which has obtained the
sanction of time and opinion, produces the effects of truth; the
haughty Barbarians yield a cheerful and voluntary obedience to
the head of their blood; and their chief, or _mursa_, as the
representative of their great father, exercises the authority of
a judge in peace, and of a leader in war. In the original state
of the pastoral world, each of the _mursas_ (if we may continue
to use a modern appellation) acted as the independent chief of a
large and separate family; and the limits of their peculiar
territories were gradually fixed by superior force, or mutual
consent. But the constant operation of various and permanent
causes contributed to unite the vagrant Hords into national
communities, under the command of a supreme head. The weak were
desirous of support, and the strong were ambitious of dominion;
the power, which is the result of union, oppressed and collected
the divided force of the adjacent tribes; and, as the vanquished
were freely admitted to share the advantages of victory, the most
valiant chiefs hastened to range themselves and their followers
under the formidable standard of a confederate nation. The most
successful of the Tartar princes assumed the military command, to
which he was entitled by the superiority, either of merit or of
power. He was raised to the throne by the acclamations of his
equals; and the title of _Khan_ expresses, in the language of the
North of Asia, the full extent of the regal dignity. The right of
hereditary succession was long confined to the blood of the
founder of the monarchy; and at this moment all the Khans, who
reign from Crimea to the wall of China, are the lineal
descendants of the renowned Zingis. 13 But, as it is the
indispensable duty of a Tartar sovereign to lead his warlike
subjects into the field, the claims of an infant are often
disregarded; and some royal kinsman, distinguished by his age and
valor, is intrusted with the sword and sceptre of his
predecessor. Two distinct and regular taxes are levied on the
tribes, to support the dignity of the national monarch, and of
their peculiar chief; and each of those contributions amounts to
the tithe, both of their property, and of their spoil. A Tartar
sovereign enjoys the tenth part of the wealth of his people; and
as his own domestic riches of flocks and herds increase in a much
larger proportion, he is able plentifully to maintain the rustic
splendor of his court, to reward the most deserving, or the most
favored of his followers, and to obtain, from the gentle
influence of corruption, the obedience which might be sometimes
refused to the stern mandates of authority. The manners of his
subjects, accustomed, like himself, to blood and rapine, might
excuse, in their eyes, such partial acts of tyranny, as would
excite the horror of a civilized people; but the power of a
despot has never been acknowledged in the deserts of Scythia. The
immediate jurisdiction of the khan is confined within the limits
of his own tribe; and the exercise of his royal prerogative has
been moderated by the ancient institution of a national council.
The Coroulai, 14 or Diet, of the Tartars, was regularly held in
the spring and autumn, in the midst of a plain; where the princes
of the reigning family, and the mursas of the respective tribes,
may conveniently assemble on horseback, with their martial and
numerous trains; and the ambitious monarch, who reviewed the
strength, must consult the inclination of an armed people. The
rudiments of a feudal government may be discovered in the
constitution of the Scythian or Tartar nations; but the perpetual
conflict of those hostile nations has sometimes terminated in the
establishment of a powerful and despotic empire. The victor,
enriched by the tribute, and fortified by the arms of dependent
kings, has spread his conquests over Europe or Asia: the
successful shepherds of the North have submitted to the
confinement of arts, of laws, and of cities; and the introduction
of luxury, after destroying the freedom of the people, has
undermined the foundations of the throne. 15
13 (return) [ See the second volume of the Genealogical History
of the Tartars; and the list of the Khans, at the end of the life
of Geng’s, or Zingis. Under the reign of Timur, or Tamerlane, one
of his subjects, a descendant of Zingis, still bore the regal
appellation of Khan and the conqueror of Asia contented himself
with the title of Emir or Sultan. Abulghazi, part v. c. 4.
D’Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orien tale, p. 878.]
14 (return) [ See the Diets of the ancient Huns, (De Guignes,
tom. ii. p. 26,) and a curious description of those of Zingis,
(Vie de Gengiscan, l. i. c. 6, l. iv. c. 11.) Such assemblies are
frequently mentioned in the Persian history of Timur; though they
served only to countenance the resolutions of their master.]
15 (return) [ Montesquieu labors to explain a difference, which
has not existed, between the liberty of the Arabs, and the
_perpetual_ slavery of the Tartars. (Esprit des Loix, l. xvii. c.
5, l. xviii. c. 19, &c.)]
The memory of past events cannot long be preserved in the
frequent and remote emigrations of illiterate Barbarians. The
modern Tartars are ignorant of the conquests of their ancestors;
16 and our knowledge of the history of the Scythians is derived
from their intercourse with the learned and civilized nations of
the South, the Greeks, the Persians, and the Chinese. The Greeks,
who navigated the Euxine, and planted their colonies along the
sea-coast, made the gradual and imperfect discovery of Scythia;
from the Danube, and the confines of Thrace, as far as the frozen
Mæotis, the seat of eternal winter, and Mount Caucasus, which, in
the language of poetry, was described as the utmost boundary of
the earth. They celebrated, with simple credulity, the virtues of
the pastoral life: 17 they entertained a more rational
apprehension of the strength and numbers of the warlike
Barbarians, 18 who contemptuously baffled the immense armament of
Darius, the son of Hystaspes. 19 The Persian monarchs had
extended their western conquests to the banks of the Danube, and
the limits of European Scythia. The eastern provinces of their
empire were exposed to the Scythians of Asia; the wild
inhabitants of the plains beyond the Oxus and the Jaxartes, two
mighty rivers, which direct their course towards the Caspian Sea.
The long and memorable quarrel of Iran and Touran is still the
theme of history or romance: the famous, perhaps the fabulous,
valor of the Persian heroes, Rustan and Asfendiar, was
signalized, in the defence of their country, against the
Afrasiabs of the North; 20 and the invincible spirit of the same
Barbarians resisted, on the same ground, the victorious arms of
Cyrus and Alexander. 21 In the eyes of the Greeks and Persians,
the real geography of Scythia was bounded, on the East, by the
mountains of Imaus, or Caf; and their distant prospect of the
extreme and inaccessible parts of Asia was clouded by ignorance,
or perplexed by fiction. But those inaccessible regions are the
ancient residence of a powerful and civilized nation, 22 which
ascends, by a probable tradition, above forty centuries; 23 and
which is able to verify a series of near two thousand years, by
the perpetual testimony of accurate and contemporary historians.
24 The annals of China 25 illustrate the state and revolutions of
the pastoral tribes, which may still be distinguished by the
vague appellation of Scythians, or Tartars; the vassals, the
enemies, and sometimes the conquerors, of a great empire; whose
policy has uniformly opposed the blind and impetuous valor of the
Barbarians of the North. From the mouth of the Danube to the Sea
of Japan, the whole longitude of Scythia is about one hundred and
ten degrees, which, in that parallel, are equal to more than five
thousand miles. The latitude of these extensive deserts cannot be
so easily, or so accurately, measured; but, from the fortieth
degree, which touches the wall of China, we may securely advance
above a thousand miles to the northward, till our progress is
stopped by the excessive cold of Siberia. In that dreary climate,
instead of the animated picture of a Tartar camp, the smoke that
issues from the earth, or rather from the snow, betrays the
subterraneous dwellings of the Tongouses, and the Samoides: the
want of horses and oxen is imperfectly supplied by the use of
reindeer, and of large dogs; and the conquerors of the earth
insensibly degenerate into a race of deformed and diminutive
savages, who tremble at the sound of arms. 26
16 (return) [ Abulghasi Khan, in the two first parts of his
Genealogical History, relates the miserable tales and traditions
of the Uzbek Tartars concerning the times which preceded the
reign of Zingis. * Note: The differences between the various
pastoral tribes and nations comprehended by the ancients under
the vague name of Scythians, and by Gibbon under inst of Tartars,
have received some, and still, perhaps, may receive more, light
from the comparisons of their dialects and languages by modern
scholars.—M]
17 (return) [ In the thirteenth book of the Iliad, Jupiter turns
away his eyes from the bloody fields of Troy, to the plains of
Thrace and Scythia. He would not, by changing the prospect,
behold a more peaceful or innocent scene.]
18 (return) [ Thucydides, l. ii. c. 97.]
19 (return) [ See the fourth book of Herodotus. When Darius
advanced into the Moldavian desert, between the Danube and the
Niester, the king of the Scythians sent him a mouse, a frog, a
bird, and five arrows; a tremendous allegory!]
20 (return) [ These wars and heroes may be found under their
respective _titles_, in the Bibliothèque Orientale of D’Herbelot.
They have been celebrated in an epic poem of sixty thousand
rhymed couplets, by Ferdusi, the Homer of Persia. See the history
of Nadir Shah, p. 145, 165. The public must lament that Mr. Jones
has suspended the pursuit of Oriental learning. Note: Ferdusi is
yet imperfectly known to European readers. An abstract of the
whole poem has been published by Goerres in German, under the
title “das Heldenbuch des Iran.” In English, an abstract with
poetical translations, by Mr. Atkinson, has appeared, under the
auspices of the Oriental Fund. But to translate a poet a man must
be a poet. The best account of the poem is in an article by Von
Hammer in the Vienna Jahrbucher, 1820: or perhaps in a masterly
article in Cochrane’s Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 1, 1835. A
splendid and critical edition of the whole work has been
published by a very learned English Orientalist, Captain Macan,
at the expense of the king of Oude. As to the number of 60,000
couplets, Captain Macan (Preface, p. 39) states that he never saw
a MS. containing more than 56,685, including doubtful and
spurious passages and episodes.—M. * Note: The later studies of
Sir W. Jones were more in unison with the wishes of the public,
thus expressed by Gibbon.—M.]
21 (return) [ The Caspian Sea, with its rivers and adjacent
tribes, are laboriously illustrated in the Examen Critique des
Historiens d’Alexandre, which compares the true geography, and
the errors produced by the vanity or ignorance of the Greeks.]
22 (return) [ The original seat of the nation appears to have
been in the Northwest of China, in the provinces of Chensi and
Chansi. Under the two first dynasties, the principal town was
still a movable camp; the villages were thinly scattered; more
land was employed in pasture than in tillage; the exercise of
hunting was ordained to clear the country from wild beasts;
Petcheli (where Pekin stands) was a desert, and the Southern
provinces were peopled with Indian savages. The dynasty of the
_Han_ (before Christ 206) gave the empire its actual form and
extent.]
23 (return) [ The æra of the Chinese monarchy has been variously
fixed from 2952 to 2132 years before Christ; and the year 2637
has been chosen for the lawful epoch, by the authority of the
present emperor. The difference arises from the uncertain
duration of the two first dynasties; and the vacant space that
lies beyond them, as far as the real, or fabulous, times of Fohi,
or Hoangti. Sematsien dates his authentic chronology from the
year 841; the thirty-six eclipses of Confucius (thirty-one of
which have been verified) were observed between the years 722 and
480 before Christ. The _historical_ period of China does not
ascend above the Greek Olympiads.]
24 (return) [ After several ages of anarchy and despotism, the
dynasty of the Han (before Christ 206) was the æra of the revival
of learning. The fragments of ancient literature were restored;
the characters were improved and fixed; and the future
preservation of books was secured by the useful inventions of
ink, paper, and the art of printing. Ninety-seven years before
Christ, Sematsien published the first history of China. His
labors were illustrated, and continued, by a series of one
hundred and eighty historians. The substance of their works is
still extant; and the most considerable of them are now deposited
in the king of France’s library.]
25 (return) [ China has been illustrated by the labors of the
French; of the missionaries at Pekin, and Messrs. Freret and De
Guignes at Paris. The substance of the three preceding notes is
extracted from the Chou-king, with the preface and notes of M. de
Guignes, Paris, 1770. The _Tong-Kien-Kang-Mou_, translated by P.
de Mailla, under the name of Hist. Génerale de la Chine, tom. i.
p. xlix.—cc.; the Mémoires sur la Chine, Paris, 1776, &c., tom.
i. p. 1—323; tom. ii. p. 5—364; the Histoire des Huns, tom. i. p.
4—131, tom. v. p. 345—362; and the Mémoires de l’Académie des
Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 377—402; tom. xv. p. 495—564; tom.
xviii. p. 178—295; xxxvi. p. 164—238.]
26 (return) [ See the Histoire Generale des Voyages, tom. xviii.,
and the Genealogical History, vol. ii. p. 620—664.]
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part II.
The Huns, who under the reign of Valens threatened the empire of
Rome, had been formidable, in a much earlier period, to the
empire of China. 27 Their ancient, perhaps their original, seat
was an extensive, though dry and barren, tract of country,
immediately on the north side of the great wall. Their place is
at present occupied by the forty-nine Hords or Banners of the
Mongous, a pastoral nation, which consists of about two hundred
thousand families. 28 But the valor of the Huns had extended the
narrow limits of their dominions; and their rustic chiefs, who
assumed the appellation of _Tanjou_, gradually became the
conquerors, and the sovereigns of a formidable empire. Towards
the East, their victorious arms were stopped only by the ocean;
and the tribes, which are thinly scattered between the Amoor and
the extreme peninsula of Corea, adhered, with reluctance, to the
standard of the Huns. On the West, near the head of the Irtish,
in the valleys of Imaus, they found a more ample space, and more
numerous enemies. One of the lieutenants of the Tanjou subdued,
in a single expedition, twenty-six nations; the Igours, 29
distinguished above the Tartar race by the use of letters, were
in the number of his vassals; and, by the strange connection of
human events, the flight of one of those vagrant tribes recalled
the victorious Parthians from the invasion of Syria. 30 On the
side of the North, the ocean was assigned as the limit of the
power of the Huns. Without enemies to resist their progress, or
witnesses to contradict their vanity, they might securely achieve
a real, or imaginary, conquest of the frozen regions of Siberia.
The _Northern Sea_ was fixed as the remote boundary of their
empire. But the name of that sea, on whose shores the patriot
Sovou embraced the life of a shepherd and an exile, 31 may be
transferred, with much more probability, to the Baikal, a
capacious basin, above three hundred miles in length, which
disdains the modest appellation of a lake 32 and which actually
communicates with the seas of the North, by the long course of
the Angara, the Tongusha, and the Jenissea. The submission of so
many distant nations might flatter the pride of the Tanjou; but
the valor of the Huns could be rewarded only by the enjoyment of
the wealth and luxury of the empire of the South. In the third
century 3211 before the Christian æra, a wall of fifteen hundred
miles in length was constructed, to defend the frontiers of China
against the inroads of the Huns; 33 but this stupendous work,
which holds a conspicuous place in the map of the world, has
never contributed to the safety of an unwarlike people. The
cavalry of the Tanjou frequently consisted of two or three
hundred thousand men, formidable by the matchless dexterity with
which they managed their bows and their horses: by their hardy
patience in supporting the inclemency of the weather; and by the
incredible speed of their march, which was seldom checked by
torrents, or precipices, by the deepest rivers, or by the most
lofty mountains. They spread themselves at once over the face of
the country; and their rapid impetuosity surprised, astonished,
and disconcerted the grave and elaborate tactics of a Chinese
army. The emperor Kaoti, 34 a soldier of fortune, whose personal
merit had raised him to the throne, marched against the Huns with
those veteran troops which had been trained in the civil wars of
China. But he was soon surrounded by the Barbarians; and, after a
siege of seven days, the monarch, hopeless of relief, was reduced
to purchase his deliverance by an ignominious capitulation. The
successors of Kaoti, whose lives were dedicated to the arts of
peace, or the luxury of the palace, submitted to a more permanent
disgrace. They too hastily confessed the insufficiency of arms
and fortifications. They were too easily convinced, that while
the blazing signals announced on every side the approach of the
Huns, the Chinese troops, who slept with the helmet on their
head, and the cuirass on their back, were destroyed by the
incessant labor of ineffectual marches. 35 A regular payment of
money, and silk, was stipulated as the condition of a temporary
and precarious peace; and the wretched expedient of disguising a
real tribute, under the names of a gift or subsidy, was practised
by the emperors of China as well as by those of Rome. But there
still remained a more disgraceful article of tribute, which
violated the sacred feelings of humanity and nature. The
hardships of the savage life, which destroy in their infancy the
children who are born with a less healthy and robust
constitution, introduced a remarkable disproportion between the
numbers of the two sexes. The Tartars are an ugly and even
deformed race; and while they consider their own women as the
instruments of domestic labor, their desires, or rather their
appetites, are directed to the enjoyment of more elegant beauty.
A select band of the fairest maidens of China was annually
devoted to the rude embraces of the Huns; 36 and the alliance of
the haughty Tanjous was secured by their marriage with the
genuine, or adopted, daughters of the Imperial family, which
vainly attempted to escape the sacrilegious pollution. The
situation of these unhappy victims is described in the verses of
a Chinese princess, who laments that she had been condemned by
her parents to a distant exile, under a Barbarian husband; who
complains that sour milk was her only drink, raw flesh her only
food, a tent her only palace; and who expresses, in a strain of
pathetic simplicity, the natural wish, that she were transformed
into a bird, to fly back to her dear country; the object of her
tender and perpetual regret. 37
27 (return) [ M. de Guignes (tom. ii. p. 1—124) has given the
original history of the ancient Hiong-nou, or Huns. The Chinese
geography of their country (tom. i. part. p. lv.—lxiii.) seems to
comprise a part of their conquests. * Note: The theory of De
Guignes on the early history of the Huns is, in general, rejected
by modern writers. De Guignes advanced no valid proof of the
identity of the Hioung-nou of the Chinese writers with the Huns,
except the similarity of name. Schlozer, (Allgemeine Nordische
Geschichte, p. 252,) Klaproth, (Tableaux Historiques de l’Asie,
p. 246,) St. Martin, iv. 61, and A. Remusat, (Recherches sur les
Langues Tartares, D. P. xlvi, and p. 328; though in the latter
passage he considers the theory of De Guignes not absolutely
disproved,) concur in considering the Huns as belonging to the
Finnish stock, distinct from the Moguls the Mandscheus, and the
Turks. The Hiong-nou, according to Klaproth, were Turks. The
names of the Hunnish chiefs could not be pronounced by a Turk;
and, according to the same author, the Hioung-nou, which is
explained in Chinese as _detestable slaves_, as early as the year
91 J. C., were dispersed by the Chinese, and assumed the name of
Yue-po or Yue-pan. M. St. Martin does not consider it impossible
that the appellation of Hioung-nou may have belonged to the Huns.
But all agree in considering the Madjar or Magyar of modern
Hungary the descendants of the Huns. Their language (compare
Gibbon, c. lv. n. 22) is nearly related to the Lapponian and
Vogoul. The noble forms of the modern Hungarians, so strongly
contrasted with the hideous pictures which the fears and the
hatred of the Romans give of the Huns, M. Klaproth accounts for
by the intermingling with other races, Turkish and Slavonian. The
present state of the question is thus stated in the last edition
of Malte Brun, and a new and ingenious hypothesis suggested to
resolve all the difficulties of the question.
Were the Huns Finns? This obscure question has not been
debated till very recently, and is yet very far from being
decided. We are of opinion that it will be so hereafter in
the same manner as that with regard to the Scythians. We
shall trace in the portrait of Attila a dominant tribe or
Mongols, or Kalmucks, with all the hereditary ugliness of
that race; but in the mass of the Hunnish army and nation
will be recognized the Chuni and the Ounni of the Greek
Geography. the Kuns of the Hungarians, the European Huns, and
a race in close relationship with the Flemish stock. Malte
Brun, vi. p. 94. This theory is more fully and ably
developed, p. 743. Whoever has seen the emperor of Austria’s
Hungarian guard, will not readily admit their descent from
the Huns described by Sidonius Appolinaris.—M]
28 (return) [ See in Duhalde (tom. iv. p. 18—65) a circumstantial
description, with a correct map, of the country of the Mongous.]
29 (return) [ The Igours, or Vigours, were divided into three
branches; hunters, shepherds, and husbandmen; and the last class
was despised by the two former. See Abulghazi, part ii. c. 7. *
Note: On the Ouigour or Igour characters, see the work of M. A.
Remusat, Sur les Langues Tartares. He conceives the Ouigour
alphabet of sixteen letters to have been formed from the Syriac,
and introduced by the Nestorian Christians.—Ch. ii. M.]
30 (return) [ Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxv.
p. 17—33. The comprehensive view of M. de Guignes has compared
these distant events.]
31 (return) [ The fame of Sovou, or So-ou, his merit, and his
singular adventurers, are still celebrated in China. See the
Eloge de Moukden, p. 20, and notes, p. 241—247; and Mémoires sur
la Chine, tom. iii. p. 317—360.]
32 (return) [ See Isbrand Ives in Harris’s Collection, vol. ii.
p. 931; Bell’s Travels, vol. i. p. 247—254; and Gmelin, in the
Hist. Generale des Voyages, tom. xviii. 283—329. They all remark
the vulgar opinion that the _holy sea_ grows angry and
tempestuous if any one presumes to call it a _lake_. This
grammatical nicety often excites a dispute between the absurd
superstition of the mariners and the absurd obstinacy of
travellers.]
3211 (return) [ 224 years before Christ. It was built by
Chi-hoang-ti of the Dynasty Thsin. It is from twenty to
twenty-five feet high. Ce monument, aussi gigantesque
qu’impuissant, arreterait bien les incursions de quelques
Nomades; mais il n’a jamais empéché les invasions des Turcs, des
Mongols, et des Mandchous. Abe Remusat Rech. Asiat. 2d ser. vol.
i. p. 58—M.]
33 (return) [ The construction of the wall of China is mentioned
by Duhalde (tom. ii. p. 45) and De Guignes, (tom. ii. p. 59.)]
34 (return) [ See the life of Lieoupang, or Kaoti, in the Hist,
de la Chine, published at Paris, 1777, &c., tom. i. p. 442—522.
This voluminous work is the translation (by the P. de Mailla) of
the _Tong- Kien-Kang-Mou_, the celebrated abridgment of the great
History of Semakouang (A.D. 1084) and his continuators.]
35 (return) [ See a free and ample memorial, presented by a
Mandarin to the emperor Venti, (before Christ 180—157,) in
Duhalde, (tom. ii. p. 412—426,) from a collection of State papers
marked with the red pencil by Kamhi himself, (p. 354—612.)
Another memorial from the minister of war (Kang-Mou, tom. ii. p
555) supplies some curious circumstances of the manners of the
Huns.]
36 (return) [ A supply of women is mentioned as a customary
article of treaty and tribute, (Hist. de la Conquete de la Chine,
par les Tartares Mantcheoux, tom. i. p. 186, 187, with the note
of the editor.)]
37 (return) [ De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 62.]
The conquest of China has been twice achieved by the pastoral
tribes of the North: the forces of the Huns were not inferior to
those of the Moguls, or of the Mantcheoux; and their ambition
might entertain the most sanguine hopes of success. But their
pride was humbled, and their progress was checked, by the arms
and policy of Vouti, 38 the fifth emperor of the powerful dynasty
of the Han. In his long reign of fifty- four years, the
Barbarians of the southern provinces submitted to the laws and
manners of China; and the ancient limits of the monarchy were
enlarged, from the great river of Kiang, to the port of Canton.
Instead of confining himself to the timid operations of a
defensive war, his lieutenants penetrated many hundred miles into
the country of the Huns. In those boundless deserts, where it is
impossible to form magazines, and difficult to transport a
sufficient supply of provisions, the armies of Vouti were
repeatedly exposed to intolerable hardships: and, of one hundred
and forty thousand soldiers, who marched against the Barbarians,
thirty thousand only returned in safety to the feet of their
master. These losses, however, were compensated by splendid and
decisive success. The Chinese generals improved the superiority
which they derived from the temper of their arms, their chariots
of war, and the service of their Tartar auxiliaries. The camp of
the Tanjou was surprised in the midst of sleep and intemperance;
and, though the monarch of the Huns bravely cut his way through
the ranks of the enemy, he left above fifteen thousand of his
subjects on the field of battle. Yet this signal victory, which
was preceded and followed by many bloody engagements, contributed
much less to the destruction of the power of the Huns than the
effectual policy which was employed to detach the tributary
nations from their obedience. Intimidated by the arms, or allured
by the promises, of Vouti and his successors, the most
considerable tribes, both of the East and of the West, disclaimed
the authority of the Tanjou. While some acknowledged themselves
the allies or vassals of the empire, they all became the
implacable enemies of the Huns; and the numbers of that haughty
people, as soon as they were reduced to their native strength,
might, perhaps, have been contained within the walls of one of
the great and populous cities of China. 39 The desertion of his
subjects, and the perplexity of a civil war, at length compelled
the Tanjou himself to renounce the dignity of an independent
sovereign, and the freedom of a warlike and high-spirited nation.
He was received at Sigan, the capital of the monarchy, by the
troops, the mandarins, and the emperor himself, with all the
honors that could adorn and disguise the triumph of Chinese
vanity. 40 A magnificent palace was prepared for his reception;
his place was assigned above all the princes of the royal family;
and the patience of the Barbarian king was exhausted by the
ceremonies of a banquet, which consisted of eight courses of
meat, and of nine solemn pieces of music. But he performed, on
his knees, the duty of a respectful homage to the emperor of
China; pronounced, in his own name, and in the name of his
successors, a perpetual oath of fidelity; and gratefully accepted
a seal, which was bestowed as the emblem of his regal dependence.
After this humiliating submission, the Tanjous sometimes departed
from their allegiance and seized the favorable moments of war and
rapine; but the monarchy of the Huns gradually declined, till it
was broken, by civil dissension, into two hostile and separate
kingdoms. One of the princes of the nation was urged, by fear and
ambition, to retire towards the South with eight hords, which
composed between forty and fifty thousand families. He obtained,
with the title of Tanjou, a convenient territory on the verge of
the Chinese provinces; and his constant attachment to the service
of the empire was secured by weakness, and the desire of revenge.
From the time of this fatal schism, the Huns of the North
continued to languish about fifty years; till they were oppressed
on every side by their foreign and domestic enemies. The proud
inscription 41 of a column, erected on a lofty mountain,
announced to posterity, that a Chinese army had marched seven
hundred miles into the heart of their country. The Sienpi, 42 a
tribe of Oriental Tartars, retaliated the injuries which they had
formerly sustained; and the power of the Tanjous, after a reign
of thirteen hundred years, was utterly destroyed before the end
of the first century of the Christian æra. 43
38 (return) [ See the reign of the emperor Vouti, in the
Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 1—98. His various and inconsistent
character seems to be impartially drawn.]
39 (return) [ This expression is used in the memorial to the
emperor Venti, (Duhalde, tom. ii. p. 411.) Without adopting the
exaggerations of Marco Polo and Isaac Vossius, we may rationally
allow for Pekin two millions of inhabitants. The cities of the
South, which contain the manufactures of China, are still more
populous.]
40 (return) [ See the Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 150, and the
subsequent events under the proper years. This memorable festival
is celebrated in the Eloge de Moukden, and explained in a note by
the P. Gaubil, p. 89, 90.]
41 (return) [ This inscription was composed on the spot by
Parkou, President of the Tribunal of History (Kang-Mou, tom. iii.
p. 392.) Similar monuments have been discovered in many parts of
Tartary, (Histoire des Huns, tom. ii. p. 122.)]
42 (return) [ M. de Guignes (tom. i. p. 189) has inserted a short
account of the Sienpi.]
43 (return) [ The æra of the Huns is placed, by the Chinese, 1210
years before Christ. But the series of their kings does not
commence till the year 230, (Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 21,
123.)]
The fate of the vanquished Huns was diversified by the various
influence of character and situation. 44 Above one hundred
thousand persons, the poorest, indeed, and the most pusillanimous
of the people, were contented to remain in their native country,
to renounce their peculiar name and origin, and to mingle with
the victorious nation of the Sienpi. Fifty-eight hords, about two
hundred thousand men, ambitious of a more honorable servitude,
retired towards the South; implored the protection of the
emperors of China; and were permitted to inhabit, and to guard,
the extreme frontiers of the province of Chansi and the territory
of Ortous. But the most warlike and powerful tribes of the Huns
maintained, in their adverse fortune, the undaunted spirit of
their ancestors. The Western world was open to their valor; and
they resolved, under the conduct of their hereditary chieftains,
to conquer and subdue some remote country, which was still
inaccessible to the arms of the Sienpi, and to the laws of China.
45 The course of their emigration soon carried them beyond the
mountains of Imaus, and the limits of the Chinese geography; but
_we_ are able to distinguish the two great divisions of these
formidable exiles, which directed their march towards the Oxus,
and towards the Volga. The first of these colonies established
their dominion in the fruitful and extensive plains of Sogdiana,
on the eastern side of the Caspian; where they preserved the name
of Huns, with the epithet of Euthalites, or Nepthalites. 4511
Their manners were softened, and even their features were
insensibly improved, by the mildness of the climate, and their
long residence in a flourishing province, 46 which might still
retain a faint impression of the arts of Greece. 47 The _white_
Huns, a name which they derived from the change of their
complexions, soon abandoned the pastoral life of Scythia. Gorgo,
which, under the appellation of Carizme, has since enjoyed a
temporary splendor, was the residence of the king, who exercised
a legal authority over an obedient people. Their luxury was
maintained by the labor of the Sogdians; and the only vestige of
their ancient barbarism, was the custom which obliged all the
companions, perhaps to the number of twenty, who had shared the
liberality of a wealthy lord, to be buried alive in the same
grave. 48 The vicinity of the Huns to the provinces of Persia,
involved them in frequent and bloody contests with the power of
that monarchy. But they respected, in peace, the faith of
treaties; in war, the dictates of humanity; and their memorable
victory over Peroses, or Firuz, displayed the moderation, as well
as the valor, of the Barbarians. The _second_ division of their
countrymen, the Huns, who gradually advanced towards the
North-west, were exercised by the hardships of a colder climate,
and a more laborious march. Necessity compelled them to exchange
the silks of China for the furs of Siberia; the imperfect
rudiments of civilized life were obliterated; and the native
fierceness of the Huns was exasperated by their intercourse with
the savage tribes, who were compared, with some propriety, to the
wild beasts of the desert. Their independent spirit soon rejected
the hereditary succession of the Tanjous; and while each horde
was governed by its peculiar mursa, their tumultuary council
directed the public measures of the whole nation. As late as the
thirteenth century, their transient residence on the eastern
banks of the Volga was attested by the name of Great Hungary. 49
In the winter, they descended with their flocks and herds towards
the mouth of that mighty river; and their summer excursions
reached as high as the latitude of Saratoff, or perhaps the
conflux of the Kama. Such at least were the recent limits of the
black Calmucks, 50 who remained about a century under the
protection of Russia; and who have since returned to their native
seats on the frontiers of the Chinese empire. The march, and the
return, of those wandering Tartars, whose united camp consists of
fifty thousand tents or families, illustrate the distant
emigrations of the ancient Huns. 51
44 (return) [ The various accidents, the downfall, and the flight
of the Huns, are related in the Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 88, 91,
95, 139, &c. The small numbers of each horde may be due to their
losses and divisions.]
45 (return) [ M. de Guignes has skilfully traced the footsteps of
the Huns through the vast deserts of Tartary, (tom. ii. p. 123,
277, &c., 325, &c.)]
4511 (return) [ The Armenian authors often mention this people
under the name of Hepthal. St. Martin considers that the name of
Nepthalites is an error of a copyist. St. Martin, iv. 254.—M.]
46 (return) [ Mohammed, sultan of Carizme, reigned in Sogdiana
when it was invaded (A.D. 1218) by Zingis and his moguls. The
Oriental historians (see D’Herbelot, Petit de la Croix, &c.,)
celebrate the populous cities which he ruined, and the fruitful
country which he desolated. In the next century, the same
provinces of Chorasmia and Nawaralnahr were described by
Abulfeda, (Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. iii.) Their actual
misery may be seen in the Genealogical History of the Tartars, p.
423—469.]
47 (return) [ Justin (xli. 6) has left a short abridgment of the
Greek kings of Bactriana. To their industry I should ascribe the
new and extraordinary trade, which transported the merchandises
of India into Europe, by the Oxus, the Caspian, the Cyrus, the
Phasis, and the Euxine. The other ways, both of the land and sea,
were possessed by the Seleucides and the Ptolemies. (See l’Esprit
des Loix, l. xxi.)]
48 (return) [ Procopius de Bell. Persico, l. i. c. 3, p. 9.]
49 (return) [ In the thirteenth century, the monk Rubruquis (who
traversed the immense plain of Kipzak, in his journey to the
court of the Great Khan) observed the remarkable name of
_Hungary_, with the traces of a common language and origin,
(Hist. des Voyages, tom. vii. p. 269.)]
50 (return) [ Bell, (vol. i. p. 29—34,) and the editors of the
Genealogical History, (p. 539,) have described the Calmucks of
the Volga in the beginning of the present century.]
51 (return) [ This great transmigration of 300,000 Calmucks, or
Torgouts, happened in the year 1771. The original narrative of
Kien-long, the reigning emperor of China, which was intended for
the inscription of a column, has been translated by the
missionaries of Pekin, (Mémoires sur la Chine, tom. i. p.
401—418.) The emperor affects the smooth and specious language of
the Son of Heaven, and the Father of his People.]
It is impossible to fill the dark interval of time, which
elapsed, after the Huns of the Volga were lost in the eyes of the
Chinese, and before they showed themselves to those of the
Romans. There is some reason, however, to apprehend, that the
same force which had driven them from their native seats, still
continued to impel their march towards the frontiers of Europe.
The power of the Sienpi, their implacable enemies, which extended
above three thousand miles from East to West, 52 must have
gradually oppressed them by the weight and terror of a formidable
neighborhood; and the flight of the tribes of Scythia would
inevitably tend to increase the strength or to contract the
territories, of the Huns. The harsh and obscure appellations of
those tribes would offend the ear, without informing the
understanding, of the reader; but I cannot suppress the very
natural suspicion, _that_ the Huns of the North derived a
considerable reenforcement from the ruin of the dynasty of the
South, which, in the course of the third century, submitted to
the dominion of China; _that_ the bravest warriors marched away
in search of their free and adventurous countrymen; _and_ that,
as they had been divided by prosperity, they were easily reunited
by the common hardships of their adverse fortune. 53 The Huns,
with their flocks and herds, their wives and children, their
dependents and allies, were transported to the west of the Volga,
and they boldly advanced to invade the country of the Alani, a
pastoral people, who occupied, or wasted, an extensive tract of
the deserts of Scythia. The plains between the Volga and the
Tanais were covered with the tents of the Alani, but their name
and manners were diffused over the wide extent of their
conquests; and the painted tribes of the Agathyrsi and Geloni
were confounded among their vassals. Towards the North, they
penetrated into the frozen regions of Siberia, among the savages
who were accustomed, in their rage or hunger, to the taste of
human flesh; and their Southern inroads were pushed as far as the
confines of Persia and India. The mixture of Samartic and German
blood had contributed to improve the features of the Alani, 5311
to whiten their swarthy complexions, and to tinge their hair with
a yellowish cast, which is seldom found in the Tartar race. They
were less deformed in their persons, less brutish in their
manners, than the Huns; but they did not yield to those
formidable Barbarians in their martial and independent spirit; in
the love of freedom, which rejected even the use of domestic
slaves; and in the love of arms, which considered war and rapine
as the pleasure and the glory of mankind. A naked cimeter, fixed
in the ground, was the only object of their religious worship;
the scalps of their enemies formed the costly trappings of their
horses; and they viewed, with pity and contempt, the
pusillanimous warriors, who patiently expected the infirmities of
age, and the tortures of lingering disease. 54 On the banks of
the Tanais, the military power of the Huns and the Alani
encountered each other with equal valor, but with unequal
success. The Huns prevailed in the bloody contest; the king of
the Alani was slain; and the remains of the vanquished nation
were dispersed by the ordinary alternative of flight or
submission. 55 A colony of exiles found a secure refuge in the
mountains of Caucasus, between the Euxine and the Caspian, where
they still preserve their name and their independence. Another
colony advanced, with more intrepid courage, towards the shores
of the Baltic; associated themselves with the Northern tribes of
Germany; and shared the spoil of the Roman provinces of Gaul and
Spain. But the greatest part of the nation of the Alani embraced
the offers of an honorable and advantageous union; and the Huns,
who esteemed the valor of their less fortunate enemies,
proceeded, with an increase of numbers and confidence, to invade
the limits of the Gothic empire.
52 (return) [ The Khan-Mou (tom. iii. p. 447) ascribes to their
conquests a space of 14,000 _lis_. According to the present
standard, 200 _lis_ (or more accurately 193) are equal to one
degree of latitude; and one English mile consequently exceeds
three miles of China. But there are strong reasons to believe
that the ancient _li_ scarcely equalled one half of the modern.
See the elaborate researches of M. D’Anville, a geographer who is
not a stranger in any age or climate of the globe. (Mémoires de
l’Acad. tom. ii. p. 125-502. Itineraires, p. 154-167.)]
53 (return) [ See Histoire des Huns, tom. ii. p. 125—144. The
subsequent history (p. 145—277) of three or four Hunnic dynasties
evidently proves that their martial spirit was not impaired by a
long residence in China.]
5311 (return) [ Compare M. Klaproth’s curious speculations on the
Alani. He supposes them to have been the people, known by the
Chinese, at the time of their first expeditions to the West,
under the name of Yath-sai or A-lanna, the Alanân of Persian
tradition, as preserved in Ferdusi; the same, according to
Ammianus, with the Massagetæ, and with the Albani. The remains of
the nation still exist in the Ossetæ of Mount Caucasus. Klaproth,
Tableaux Historiques de l’Asie, p. 174.—M. Compare Shafarik
Slawische alterthümer, i. p. 350.—M. 1845.]
54 (return) [ Utque hominibus quietis et placidis otium est
voluptabile, ita illos pericula juvent et bella. Judicatur ibi
beatus qui in prœlio profuderit animam: senescentes etiam et
fortuitis mortibus mundo digressos, ut degeneres et ignavos,
conviciis atrocibus insectantur. [Ammian. xxxi. 11.] We must
think highly of the conquerors of _such_ men.]
55 (return) [ On the subject of the Alani, see Ammianus, (xxxi.
2,) Jornandes, (de Rebus Geticis, c. 24,) M. de Guignes, (Hist.
des Huns, tom. ii. p. 279,) and the Genealogical History of the
Tartars, (tom. ii. p. 617.)]
The great Hermanric, whose dominions extended from the Baltic to
the Euxine, enjoyed, in the full maturity of age and reputation,
the fruit of his victories, when he was alarmed by the formidable
approach of a host of unknown enemies, 56 on whom his barbarous
subjects might, without injustice, bestow the epithet of
Barbarians. The numbers, the strength, the rapid motions, and the
implacable cruelty of the Huns, were felt, and dreaded, and
magnified, by the astonished Goths; who beheld their fields and
villages consumed with flames, and deluged with indiscriminate
slaughter. To these real terrors they added the surprise and
abhorrence which were excited by the shrill voice, the uncouth
gestures, and the strange deformity of the Huns. 5611 These
savages of Scythia were compared (and the picture had some
resemblance) to the animals who walk very awkwardly on two legs
and to the misshapen figures, the _Termini_, which were often
placed on the bridges of antiquity. They were distinguished from
the rest of the human species by their broad shoulders, flat
noses, and small black eyes, deeply buried in the head; and as
they were almost destitute of beards, they never enjoyed either
the manly grace of youth, or the venerable aspect of age. 57 A
fabulous origin was assigned, worthy of their form and manners;
that the witches of Scythia, who, for their foul and deadly
practices, had been driven from society, had copulated in the
desert with infernal spirits; and that the Huns were the
offspring of this execrable conjunction. 58 The tale, so full of
horror and absurdity, was greedily embraced by the credulous
hatred of the Goths; but, while it gratified their hatred, it
increased their fear, since the posterity of dæmons and witches
might be supposed to inherit some share of the præternatural
powers, as well as of the malignant temper, of their parents.
Against these enemies, Hermanric prepared to exert the united
forces of the Gothic state; but he soon discovered that his
vassal tribes, provoked by oppression, were much more inclined to
second, than to repel, the invasion of the Huns. One of the
chiefs of the Roxolani 59 had formerly deserted the standard of
Hermanric, and the cruel tyrant had condemned the innocent wife
of the traitor to be torn asunder by wild horses. The brothers of
that unfortunate woman seized the favorable moment of revenge.
The aged king of the Goths languished some time after the
dangerous wound which he received from their daggers; but the
conduct of the war was retarded by his infirmities; and the
public councils of the nation were distracted by a spirit of
jealousy and discord. His death, which has been imputed to his
own despair, left the reins of government in the hands of
Withimer, who, with the doubtful aid of some Scythian
mercenaries, maintained the unequal contest against the arms of
the Huns and the Alani, till he was defeated and slain in a
decisive battle. The Ostrogoths submitted to their fate; and the
royal race of the Amali will hereafter be found among the
subjects of the haughty Attila. But the person of Witheric, the
infant king, was saved by the diligence of Alatheus and Saphrax;
two warriors of approved valor and fiedlity, who, by cautious
marches, conducted the independent remains of the nation of the
Ostrogoths towards the Danastus, or Niester; a considerable
river, which now separates the Turkish dominions from the empire
of Russia. On the banks of the Niester, the prudent Athanaric,
more attentive to his own than to the general safety, had fixed
the camp of the Visigoths; with the firm resolution of opposing
the victorious Barbarians, whom he thought it less advisable to
provoke. The ordinary speed of the Huns was checked by the weight
of baggage, and the encumbrance of captives; but their military
skill deceived, and almost destroyed, the army of Athanaric.
While the Judge of the Visigoths defended the banks of the
Niester, he was encompassed and attacked by a numerous detachment
of cavalry, who, by the light of the moon, had passed the river
in a fordable place; and it was not without the utmost efforts of
courage and conduct, that he was able to effect his retreat
towards the hilly country. The undaunted general had already
formed a new and judicious plan of defensive war; and the strong
lines, which he was preparing to construct between the mountains,
the Pruth, and the Danube, would have secured the extensive and
fertile territory that bears the modern name of Walachia, from
the destructive inroads of the Huns. 60 But the hopes and
measures of the Judge of the Visigoths was soon disappointed, by
the trembling impatience of his dismayed countrymen; who were
persuaded by their fears, that the interposition of the Danube
was the only barrier that could save them from the rapid pursuit,
and invincible valor, of the Barbarians of Scythia. Under the
command of Fritigern and Alavivus, 61 the body of the nation
hastily advanced to the banks of the great river, and implored
the protection of the Roman emperor of the East. Athanaric
himself, still anxious to avoid the guilt of perjury, retired,
with a band of faithful followers, into the mountainous country
of Caucaland; which appears to have been guarded, and almost
concealed, by the impenetrable forests of Transylvania. 62 6211
56 (return) [ As we are possessed of the authentic history of the
Huns, it would be impertinent to repeat, or to refute, the fables
which misrepresent their origin and progress, their passage of
the mud or water of the Mæotis, in pursuit of an ox or stag, les
Indes qu’ils avoient découvertes, &c., (Zosimus, l. iv. p. 224.
Sozomen, l. vi. c. 37. Procopius, Hist. Miscell. c. 5. Jornandes,
c. 24. Grandeur et Décadence, &c., des Romains, c. 17.)]
5611 (return) [ Art added to their native ugliness; in fact, it
is difficult to ascribe the proper share in the features of this
hideous picture to nature, to the barbarous skill with which they
were self-disfigured, or to the terror and hatred of the Romans.
Their noses were flattened by their nurses, their cheeks were
gashed by an iron instrument, that the scars might look more
fearful, and prevent the growth of the beard. Jornandes and
Sidonius Apollinaris:—
Obtundit teneras circumdata fascia nares, Ut galeis cedant.
Yet he adds that their forms were robust and manly, their height
of a middle size, but, from the habit of riding, disproportioned.
Stant pectora vasta, Insignes humer, succincta sub ilibus alvus.
Forma quidem pediti media est, procera sed extat Si cernas
equites, sic longi sæpe putantur Si sedeant.]
57 (return) [ Prodigiosæ formæ, et pandi; ut bipedes existimes
bestias; vel quales in commarginandis pontibus, effigiati
stipites dolantur incompte. Ammian. xxxi. i. Jornandes (c. 24)
draws a strong caricature of a Calmuck face. Species pavenda
nigredine... quædam deformis offa, non fecies; habensque magis
puncta quam lumina. See Buffon. Hist. Naturelle, tom. iii. 380.]
58 (return) [ This execrable origin, which Jornandes (c. 24)
describes with the rancor of a Goth, might be originally derived
from a more pleasing fable of the Greeks. (Herodot. l. iv. c. 9,
&c.)]
59 (return) [ The Roxolani may be the fathers of the the
_Russians_, (D’Anville, Empire de Russie, p. 1—10,) whose
residence (A.D. 862) about Novogrod Veliki cannot be very remote
from that which the Geographer of Ravenna (i. 12, iv. 4, 46, v.
28, 30) assigns to the Roxolani, (A.D. 886.) * Note: See, on the
origin of the Russ, Schlozer, Nordische Geschichte, p. 78—M.]
60 (return) [ The text of Ammianus seems to be imperfect or
corrupt; but the nature of the ground explains, and almost
defines, the Gothic rampart. Mémoires de l’Académie, &c., tom.
xxviii. p. 444—462.]
61 (return) [ M. de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l’Europe, tom. vi.
p. 407) has conceived a strange idea, that Alavivus was the same
person as Ulphilas, the Gothic bishop; and that Ulphilas, the
grandson of a Cappadocian captive, became a temporal prince of
the Goths.]
62 (return) [ Ammianus (xxxi. 3) and Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis,
c. 24) describe the subversion of the Gothic empire by the Huns.]
6211 (return) [ The most probable opinion as to the position of
this land is that of M. Malte-Brun. He thinks that Caucaland is
the territory of the Cacoenses, placed by Ptolemy (l. iii. c. 8)
towards the Carpathian Mountains, on the side of the present
Transylvania, and therefore the canton of Cacava, to the south of
Hermanstadt, the capital of the principality. Caucaland it is
evident, is the Gothic form of these different names. St. Martin,
iv 103.—M.]
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part III.
After Valens had terminated the Gothic war with some appearance
of glory and success, he made a progress through his dominions of
Asia, and at length fixed his residence in the capital of Syria.
The five years 63 which he spent at Antioch was employed to
watch, from a secure distance, the hostile designs of the Persian
monarch; to check the depredations of the Saracens and Isaurians;
64 to enforce, by arguments more prevalent than those of reason
and eloquence, the belief of the Arian theology; and to satisfy
his anxious suspicions by the promiscuous execution of the
innocent and the guilty. But the attention of the emperor was
most seriously engaged, by the important intelligence which he
received from the civil and military officers who were intrusted
with the defence of the Danube. He was informed, that the North
was agitated by a furious tempest; that the irruption of the
Huns, an unknown and monstrous race of savages, had subverted the
power of the Goths; and that the suppliant multitudes of that
warlike nation, whose pride was now humbled in the dust, covered
a space of many miles along the banks of the river. With
outstretched arms, and pathetic lamentations, they loudly
deplored their past misfortunes and their present danger;
acknowledged that their only hope of safety was in the clemency
of the Roman government; and most solemnly protested, that if the
gracious liberality of the emperor would permit them to cultivate
the waste lands of Thrace, they should ever hold themselves
bound, by the strongest obligations of duty and gratitude, to
obey the laws, and to guard the limits, of the republic. These
assurances were confirmed by the ambassadors of the Goths, 6411
who impatiently expected from the mouth of Valens an answer that
must finally determine the fate of their unhappy countrymen. The
emperor of the East was no longer guided by the wisdom and
authority of his elder brother, whose death happened towards the
end of the preceding year; and as the distressful situation of
the Goths required an instant and peremptory decision, he was
deprived of the favorite resources of feeble and timid minds, who
consider the use of dilatory and ambiguous measures as the most
admirable efforts of consummate prudence. As long as the same
passions and interests subsist among mankind, the questions of
war and peace, of justice and policy, which were debated in the
councils of antiquity, will frequently present themselves as the
subject of modern deliberation. But the most experienced
statesman of Europe has never been summoned to consider the
propriety, or the danger, of admitting, or rejecting, an
innumerable multitude of Barbarians, who are driven by despair
and hunger to solicit a settlement on the territories of a
civilized nation. When that important proposition, so essentially
connected with the public safety, was referred to the ministers
of Valens, they were perplexed and divided; but they soon
acquiesced in the flattering sentiment which seemed the most
favorable to the pride, the indolence, and the avarice of their
sovereign. The slaves, who were decorated with the titles of
præfects and generals, dissembled or disregarded the terrors of
this national emigration; so extremely different from the partial
and accidental colonies, which had been received on the extreme
limits of the empire. But they applauded the liberality of
fortune, which had conducted, from the most distant countries of
the globe, a numerous and invincible army of strangers, to defend
the throne of Valens; who might now add to the royal treasures
the immense sums of gold supplied by the provincials to
compensate their annual proportion of recruits. The prayers of
the Goths were granted, and their service was accepted by the
Imperial court: and orders were immediately despatched to the
civil and military governors of the Thracian diocese, to make the
necessary preparations for the passage and subsistence of a great
people, till a proper and sufficient territory could be allotted
for their future residence. The liberality of the emperor was
accompanied, however, with two harsh and rigorous conditions,
which prudence might justify on the side of the Romans; but which
distress alone could extort from the indignant Goths. Before they
passed the Danube, they were required to deliver their arms: and
it was insisted, that their children should be taken from them,
and dispersed through the provinces of Asia; where they might be
civilized by the arts of education, and serve as hostages to
secure the fidelity of their parents.
63 (return) [ The Chronology of Ammianus is obscure and
imperfect. Tillemont has labored to clear and settle the annals
of Valens.]
64 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 223. Sozomen, l. vi. c. 38. The
Isaurians, each winter, infested the roads of Asia Minor, as far
as the neighborhood of Constantinople. Basil, Epist. cel. apud
Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 106.]
6411 (return) [ Sozomen and Philostorgius say that the bishop
Ulphilas was one of these ambassadors.—M.]
During the suspense of a doubtful and distant negotiation, the
impatient Goths made some rash attempts to pass the Danube,
without the permission of the government, whose protection they
had implored. Their motions were strictly observed by the
vigilance of the troops which were stationed along the river and
their foremost detachments were defeated with considerable
slaughter; yet such were the timid councils of the reign of
Valens, that the brave officers who had served their country in
the execution of their duty, were punished by the loss of their
employments, and narrowly escaped the loss of their heads. The
Imperial mandate was at length received for transporting over the
Danube the whole body of the Gothic nation; 65 but the execution
of this order was a task of labor and difficulty. The stream of
the Danube, which in those parts is above a mile broad, 66 had
been swelled by incessant rains; and in this tumultuous passage,
many were swept away, and drowned, by the rapid violence of the
current. A large fleet of vessels, of boats, and of canoes, was
provided; many days and nights they passed and repassed with
indefatigable toil; and the most strenuous diligence was exerted
by the officers of Valens, that not a single Barbarian, of those
who were reserved to subvert the foundations of Rome, should be
left on the opposite shore. It was thought expedient that an
accurate account should be taken of their numbers; but the
persons who were employed soon desisted, with amazement and
dismay, from the prosecution of the endless and impracticable
task: 67 and the principal historian of the age most seriously
affirms, that the prodigious armies of Darius and Xerxes, which
had so long been considered as the fables of vain and credulous
antiquity, were now justified, in the eyes of mankind, by the
evidence of fact and experience. A probable testimony has fixed
the number of the Gothic warriors at two hundred thousand men:
and if we can venture to add the just proportion of women, of
children, and of slaves, the whole mass of people which composed
this formidable emigration, must have amounted to near a million
of persons, of both sexes, and of all ages. The children of the
Goths, those at least of a distinguished rank, were separated
from the multitude. They were conducted, without delay, to the
distant seats assigned for their residence and education; and as
the numerous train of hostages or captives passed through the
cities, their gay and splendid apparel, their robust and martial
figure, excited the surprise and envy of the Provincials. 6711
But the stipulation, the most offensive to the Goths, and the
most important to the Romans, was shamefully eluded. The
Barbarians, who considered their arms as the ensigns of honor and
the pledges of safety, were disposed to offer a price, which the
lust or avarice of the Imperial officers was easily tempted to
accept. To preserve their arms, the haughty warriors consented,
with some reluctance, to prostitute their wives or their
daughters; the charms of a beauteous maid, or a comely boy,
secured the connivance of the inspectors; who sometimes cast an
eye of covetousness on the fringed carpets and linen garments of
their new allies, 68 or who sacrificed their duty to the mean
consideration of filling their farms with cattle, and their
houses with slaves. The Goths, with arms in their hands, were
permitted to enter the boats; and when their strength was
collected on the other side of the river, the immense camp which
was spread over the plains and the hills of the Lower Mæsia,
assumed a threatening and even hostile aspect. The leaders of the
Ostrogoths, Alatheus and Saphrax, the guardians of their infant
king, appeared soon afterwards on the Northern banks of the
Danube; and immediately despatched their ambassadors to the court
of Antioch, to solicit, with the same professions of allegiance
and gratitude, the same favor which had been granted to the
suppliant Visigoths. The absolute refusal of Valens suspended
their progress, and discovered the repentance, the suspicions,
and the fears, of the Imperial council.
65 (return) [ The passage of the Danube is exposed by Ammianus,
(xxxi. 3, 4,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 223, 224,) Eunapius in Excerpt.
Legat. (p. 19, 20,) and Jornandes, (c. 25, 26.) Ammianus declares
(c. 5) that he means only, ispas rerum digerere _summitates_. But
he often takes a false measure of their importance; and his
superfluous prolixity is disagreeably balanced by his
unseasonable brevity.]
66 (return) [ Chishull, a curious traveller, has remarked the
breadth of the Danube, which he passed to the south of Bucharest
near the conflux of the Argish, (p. 77.) He admires the beauty
and spontaneous plenty of Mæsia, or Bulgaria.]
67 (return) [
Quem sci scire velit, Libyci velit æquoris idem Discere quam multæ
Zephyro turbentur harenæ.
Ammianus has inserted, in his prose, these lines of Virgil,
(Georgia l. ii. 105,) originally designed by the poet to express
the impossibility of numbering the different sorts of vines. See
Plin. Hist. Natur l. xiv.]
6711 (return) [ A very curious, but obscure, passage of Eunapius,
appears to me to have been misunderstood by M. Mai, to whom we
owe its discovery. The substance is as follows: “The Goths
transported over the river their native deities, with their
priests of both sexes; but concerning their rites they maintained
a deep and ‘_adamantine_ silence.’ To the Romans they pretended
to be generally Christians, and placed certain persons to
represent bishops in a conspicuous manner on their wagons. There
was even among them a sort of what are called monks, persons whom
it was not difficult to mimic; it was enough to wear black
raiment, to be wicked, and held in respect.” (Eunapius hated the
“black-robed monks,” as appears in another passage, with the
cordial detestation of a heathen philosopher.) “Thus, while they
faithfully but secretly adhered to their own religion, the Romans
were weak enough to suppose them perfect Christians.” Mai, 277.
Eunapius in Niebuhr, 82.—M]
68 (return) [ Eunapius and Zosimus curiously specify these
articles of Gothic wealth and luxury. Yet it must be presumed,
that they were the manufactures of the provinces; which the
Barbarians had acquired as the spoils of war; or as the gifts, or
merchandise, of peace.]
An undisciplined and unsettled nation of Barbarians required the
firmest temper, and the most dexterous management. The daily
subsistence of near a million of extraordinary subjects could be
supplied only by constant and skilful diligence, and might
continually be interrupted by mistake or accident. The insolence,
or the indignation, of the Goths, if they conceived themselves to
be the objects either of fear or of contempt, might urge them to
the most desperate extremities; and the fortune of the state
seemed to depend on the prudence, as well as the integrity, of
the generals of Valens. At this important crisis, the military
government of Thrace was exercised by Lupicinus and Maximus, in
whose venal minds the slightest hope of private emolument
outweighed every consideration of public advantage; and whose
guilt was only alleviated by their incapacity of discerning the
pernicious effects of their rash and criminal administration.
Instead of obeying the orders of their sovereign, and satisfying,
with decent liberality, the demands of the Goths, they levied an
ungenerous and oppressive tax on the wants of the hungry
Barbarians. The vilest food was sold at an extravagant price;
and, in the room of wholesome and substantial provisions, the
markets were filled with the flesh of dogs, and of unclean
animals, who had died of disease. To obtain the valuable
acquisition of a pound of bread, the Goths resigned the
possession of an expensive, though serviceable, slave; and a
small quantity of meat was greedily purchased with ten pounds of
a precious, but useless metal, 69 when their property was
exhausted, they continued this necessary traffic by the sale of
their sons and daughters; and notwithstanding the love of
freedom, which animated every Gothic breast, they submitted to
the humiliating maxim, that it was better for their children to
be maintained in a servile condition, than to perish in a state
of wretched and helpless independence. The most lively resentment
is excited by the tyranny of pretended benefactors, who sternly
exact the debt of gratitude which they have cancelled by
subsequent injuries: a spirit of discontent insensibly arose in
the camp of the Barbarians, who pleaded, without success, the
merit of their patient and dutiful behavior; and loudly
complained of the inhospitable treatment which they had received
from their new allies. They beheld around them the wealth and
plenty of a fertile province, in the midst of which they suffered
the intolerable hardships of artificial famine. But the means of
relief, and even of revenge, were in their hands; since the
rapaciousness of their tyrants had left to an injured people the
possession and the use of arms. The clamors of a multitude,
untaught to disguise their sentiments, announced the first
symptoms of resistance, and alarmed the timid and guilty minds of
Lupicinus and Maximus. Those crafty ministers, who substituted
the cunning of temporary expedients to the wise and salutary
counsels of general policy, attempted to remove the Goths from
their dangerous station on the frontiers of the empire; and to
disperse them, in separate quarters of cantonment, through the
interior provinces. As they were conscious how ill they had
deserved the respect, or confidence, of the Barbarians, they
diligently collected, from every side, a military force, that
might urge the tardy and reluctant march of a people, who had not
yet renounced the title, or the duties, of Roman subjects. But
the generals of Valens, while their attention was solely directed
to the discontented Visigoths, imprudently disarmed the ships and
the fortifications which constituted the defence of the Danube.
The fatal oversight was observed, and improved, by Alatheus and
Saphrax, who anxiously watched the favorable moment of escaping
from the pursuit of the Huns. By the help of such rafts and
vessels as could be hastily procured, the leaders of the
Ostrogoths transported, without opposition, their king and their
army; and boldly fixed a hostile and independent camp on the
territories of the empire. 70
69 (return) [ _Decem libras;_ the word _silver_ must be
understood. Jornandes betrays the passions and prejudices of a
Goth. The servile Geeks, Eunapius and Zosimus, disguise the Roman
oppression, and execrate the perfidy of the Barbarians. Ammianus,
a patriot historian, slightly, and reluctantly, touches on the
odious subject. Jerom, who wrote almost on the spot, is fair,
though concise. Per avaritaim aximi ducis, ad rebellionem fame
_coacti_ sunt, (in Chron.) * Note: A new passage from the history
of Eunapius is nearer to the truth. ‘It appeared to our
commanders a legitimate source of gain to be bribed by the
Barbarians: Edit. Niebuhr, p. 82.—M.]
70 (return) [ Ammianus, xxxi. 4, 5.]
Under the name of Judges, Alavivus and Fritigern were the leaders
of the Visigoths in peace and war; and the authority which they
derived from their birth was ratified by the free consent of the
nation. In a season of tranquility, their power might have been
equal, as well as their rank; but, as soon as their countrymen
were exasperated by hunger and oppression, the superior abilities
of Fritigern assumed the military command, which he was qualified
to exercise for the public welfare. He restrained the impatient
spirit of the Visigoths till the injuries and the insults of
their tyrants should justify their resistance in the opinion of
mankind: but he was not disposed to sacrifice any solid
advantages for the empty praise of justice and moderation.
Sensible of the benefits which would result from the union of the
Gothic powers under the same standard, he secretly cultivated the
friendship of the Ostrogoths; and while he professed an implicit
obedience to the orders of the Roman generals, he proceeded by
slow marches towards Marcianopolis, the capital of the Lower
Mæsia, about seventy miles from the banks of the Danube. On that
fatal spot, the flames of discord and mutual hatred burst forth
into a dreadful conflagration. Lupicinus had invited the Gothic
chiefs to a splendid entertainment; and their martial train
remained under arms at the entrance of the palace. But the gates
of the city were strictly guarded, and the Barbarians were
sternly excluded from the use of a plentiful market, to which
they asserted their equal claim of subjects and allies. Their
humble prayers were rejected with insolence and derision; and as
their patience was now exhausted, the townsmen, the soldiers, and
the Goths, were soon involved in a conflict of passionate
altercation and angry reproaches. A blow was imprudently given; a
sword was hastily drawn; and the first blood that was spilt in
this accidental quarrel, became the signal of a long and
destructive war. In the midst of noise and brutal intemperance,
Lupicinus was informed, by a secret messenger, that many of his
soldiers were slain, and despoiled of their arms; and as he was
already inflamed by wine, and oppressed by sleep he issued a rash
command, that their death should be revenged by the massacre of
the guards of Fritigern and Alavivus.
The clamorous shouts and dying groans apprised Fritigern of his
extreme danger; and, as he possessed the calm and intrepid spirit
of a hero, he saw that he was lost if he allowed a moment of
deliberation to the man who had so deeply injured him. “A
trifling dispute,” said the Gothic leader, with a firm but gentle
tone of voice, “appears to have arisen between the two nations;
but it may be productive of the most dangerous consequences,
unless the tumult is immediately pacified by the assurance of our
safety, and the authority of our presence.” At these words,
Fritigern and his companions drew their swords, opened their
passage through the unresisting crowd, which filled the palace,
the streets, and the gates, of Marcianopolis, and, mounting their
horses, hastily vanished from the eyes of the astonished Romans.
The generals of the Goths were saluted by the fierce and joyful
acclamations of the camp; war was instantly resolved, and the
resolution was executed without delay: the banners of the nation
were displayed according to the custom of their ancestors; and
the air resounded with the harsh and mournful music of the
Barbarian trumpet. 71 The weak and guilty Lupicinus, who had
dared to provoke, who had neglected to destroy, and who still
presumed to despise, his formidable enemy, marched against the
Goths, at the head of such a military force as could be collected
on this sudden emergency. The Barbarians expected his approach
about nine miles from Marcianopolis; and on this occasion the
talents of the general were found to be of more prevailing
efficacy than the weapons and discipline of the troops. The valor
of the Goths was so ably directed by the genius of Fritigern,
that they broke, by a close and vigorous attack, the ranks of the
Roman legions. Lupicinus left his arms and standards, his
tribunes and his bravest soldiers, on the field of battle; and
their useless courage served only to protect the ignominious
flight of their leader. “That successful day put an end to the
distress of the Barbarians, and the security of the Romans: from
that day, the Goths, renouncing the precarious condition of
strangers and exiles, assumed the character of citizens and
masters, claimed an absolute dominion over the possessors of
land, and held, in their own right, the northern provinces of the
empire, which are bounded by the Danube.” Such are the words of
the Gothic historian, 72 who celebrates, with rude eloquence, the
glory of his countrymen. But the dominion of the Barbarians was
exercised only for the purposes of rapine and destruction. As
they had been deprived, by the ministers of the emperor, of the
common benefits of nature, and the fair intercourse of social
life, they retaliated the injustice on the subjects of the
empire; and the crimes of Lupicinus were expiated by the ruin of
the peaceful husbandmen of Thrace, the conflagration of their
villages, and the massacre, or captivity, of their innocent
families. The report of the Gothic victory was soon diffused over
the adjacent country; and while it filled the minds of the Romans
with terror and dismay, their own hasty imprudence contributed to
increase the forces of Fritigern, and the calamities of the
province. Some time before the great emigration, a numerous body
of Goths, under the command of Suerid and Colias, had been
received into the protection and service of the empire. 73 They
were encamped under the walls of Hadrianople; but the ministers
of Valens were anxious to remove them beyond the Hellespont, at a
distance from the dangerous temptation which might so easily be
communicated by the neighborhood, and the success, of their
countrymen. The respectful submission with which they yielded to
the order of their march, might be considered as a proof of their
fidelity; and their moderate request of a sufficient allowance of
provisions, and of a delay of only two days was expressed in the
most dutiful terms. But the first magistrate of Hadrianople,
incensed by some disorders which had been committed at his
country-house, refused this indulgence; and arming against them
the inhabitants and manufacturers of a populous city, he urged,
with hostile threats, their instant departure. The Barbarians
stood silent and amazed, till they were exasperated by the
insulting clamors, and missile weapons, of the populace: but when
patience or contempt was fatigued, they crushed the undisciplined
multitude, inflicted many a shameful wound on the backs of their
flying enemies, and despoiled them of the splendid armor, 74
which they were unworthy to bear. The resemblance of their
sufferings and their actions soon united this victorious
detachment to the nation of the Visigoths; the troops of Colias
and Suerid expected the approach of the great Fritigern, ranged
themselves under his standard, and signalized their ardor in the
siege of Hadrianople. But the resistance of the garrison informed
the Barbarians, that in the attack of regular fortifications, the
efforts of unskillful courage are seldom effectual. Their general
acknowledged his error, raised the siege, declared that “he was
at peace with stone walls,” 75 and revenged his disappointment on
the adjacent country. He accepted, with pleasure, the useful
reenforcement of hardy workmen, who labored in the gold mines of
Thrace, 76 for the emolument, and under the lash, of an unfeeling
master: 77 and these new associates conducted the Barbarians,
through the secret paths, to the most sequestered places, which
had been chosen to secure the inhabitants, the cattle, and the
magazines of corn. With the assistance of such guides, nothing
could remain impervious or inaccessible; resistance was fatal;
flight was impracticable; and the patient submission of helpless
innocence seldom found mercy from the Barbarian conqueror. In the
course of these depredations, a great number of the children of
the Goths, who had been sold into captivity, were restored to the
embraces of their afflicted parents; but these tender interviews,
which might have revived and cherished in their minds some
sentiments of humanity, tended only to stimulate their native
fierceness by the desire of revenge. They listened, with eager
attention, to the complaints of their captive children, who had
suffered the most cruel indignities from the lustful or angry
passions of their masters, and the same cruelties, the same
indignities, were severely retaliated on the sons and daughters
of the Romans. 78
71 (return) [ Vexillis de _more_ sublatis, auditisque _triste
sonantibus classicis_. Ammian. xxxi. 5. These are the _rauca
cornua_ of Claudian, (in Rufin. ii. 57,) the large horns of the
_Uri_, or wild bull; such as have been more recently used by the
Swiss Cantons of Uri and Underwald. (Simler de Republicâ Helvet,
l. ii. p. 201, edit. Fuselin. Tigur 1734.) Their military horn is
finely, though perhaps casually, introduced in an original
narrative of the battle of Nancy, (A.D. 1477.) “Attendant le
combat le dit cor fut corné par trois fois, tant que le vent du
souffler pouvoit durer: ce qui esbahit fort Monsieur de
Bourgoigne; _car deja à Morat l’avoit ouy_.” (See the Pièces
Justificatives in the 4to. edition of Philippe de Comines, tom.
iii. p. 493.)]
72 (return) [ Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c. 26, p. 648, edit.
Grot. These _splendidi panni_ (they are comparatively such) are
undoubtedly transcribed from the larger histories of Priscus,
Ablavius, or Cassiodorus.]
73 (return) [ Cum populis suis longe ante suscepti. We are
ignorant of the precise date and circumstances of their
transmigration.]
74 (return) [ An Imperial manufacture of shields, &c., was
established at Hadrianople; and the populace were headed by the
Fabricenses, or workmen. (Vales. ad Ammian. xxxi. 6.)]
75 (return) [ Pacem sibi esse cum parietibus memorans. Ammian.
xxxi. 7.]
76 (return) [ These mines were in the country of the Bessi, in
the ridge of mountains, the Rhodope, that runs between Philippi
and Philippopolis; two Macedonian cities, which derived their
name and origin from the father of Alexander. From the mines of
Thrace he annually received the value, not the weight, of a
thousand talents, (200,000l.,) a revenue which paid the phalanx,
and corrupted the orators of Greece. See Diodor. Siculus, tom.
ii. l. xvi. p. 88, edit. Wesseling. Godefroy’s Commentary on the
Theodosian Code, tom. iii. p. 496. Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq.
tom. i. p. 676, 857. D Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p.
336.]
77 (return) [ As those unhappy workmen often ran away, Valens had
enacted severe laws to drag them from their hiding-places. Cod.
Theodosian, l. x. tit xix leg. 5, 7.]
78 (return) [ See Ammianus, xxxi. 5, 6. The historian of the
Gothic war loses time and space, by an unseasonable
recapitulation of the ancient inroads of the Barbarians.]
The imprudence of Valens and his ministers had introduced into
the heart of the empire a nation of enemies; but the Visigoths
might even yet have been reconciled, by the manly confession of
past errors, and the sincere performance of former engagements.
These healing and temperate measures seemed to concur with the
timorous disposition of the sovereign of the East: but, on this
occasion alone, Valens was brave; and his unseasonable bravery
was fatal to himself and to his subjects. He declared his
intention of marching from Antioch to Constantinople, to subdue
this dangerous rebellion; and, as he was not ignorant of the
difficulties of the enterprise, he solicited the assistance of
his nephew, the emperor Gratian, who commanded all the forces of
the West. The veteran troops were hastily recalled from the
defence of Armenia; that important frontier was abandoned to the
discretion of Sapor; and the immediate conduct of the Gothic war
was intrusted, during the absence of Valens, to his lieutenants
Trajan and Profuturus, two generals who indulged themselves in a
very false and favorable opinion of their own abilities. On their
arrival in Thrace, they were joined by Richomer, count of the
domestics; and the auxiliaries of the West, that marched under
his banner, were composed of the Gallic legions, reduced indeed,
by a spirit of desertion, to the vain appearances of strength and
numbers. In a council of war, which was influenced by pride,
rather than by reason, it was resolved to seek, and to encounter,
the Barbarians, who lay encamped in the spacious and fertile
meadows, near the most southern of the six mouths of the Danube.
79 Their camp was surrounded by the usual fortification of
wagons; 80 and the Barbarians, secure within the vast circle of
the enclosure, enjoyed the fruits of their valor, and the spoils
of the province. In the midst of riotous intemperance, the
watchful Fritigern observed the motions, and penetrated the
designs, of the Romans. He perceived, that the numbers of the
enemy were continually increasing: and, as he understood their
intention of attacking his rear, as soon as the scarcity of
forage should oblige him to remove his camp, he recalled to their
standard his predatory detachments, which covered the adjacent
country. As soon as they descried the flaming beacons, 81 they
obeyed, with incredible speed, the signal of their leader: the
camp was filled with the martial crowd of Barbarians; their
impatient clamors demanded the battle, and their tumultuous zeal
was approved and animated by the spirit of their chiefs. The
evening was already far advanced; and the two armies prepared
themselves for the approaching combat, which was deferred only
till the dawn of day.
While the trumpets sounded to arms, the undaunted courage of the
Goths was confirmed by the mutual obligation of a solemn oath;
and as they advanced to meet the enemy, the rude songs, which
celebrated the glory of their forefathers, were mingled with
their fierce and dissonant outcries, and opposed to the
artificial harmony of the Roman shout. Some military skill was
displayed by Fritigern to gain the advantage of a commanding
eminence; but the bloody conflict, which began and ended with the
light, was maintained on either side, by the personal and
obstinate efforts of strength, valor, and agility. The legions of
Armenia supported their fame in arms; but they were oppressed by
the irresistible weight of the hostile multitude the left wing of
the Romans was thrown into disorder and the field was strewed
with their mangled carcasses. This partial defeat was balanced,
however, by partial success; and when the two armies, at a late
hour of the evening, retreated to their respective camps, neither
of them could claim the honors, or the effects, of a decisive
victory. The real loss was more severely felt by the Romans, in
proportion to the smallness of their numbers; but the Goths were
so deeply confounded and dismayed by this vigorous, and perhaps
unexpected, resistance, that they remained seven days within the
circle of their fortifications. Such funeral rites, as the
circumstances of time and place would admit, were piously
discharged to some officers of distinguished rank; but the
indiscriminate vulgar was left unburied on the plain. Their flesh
was greedily devoured by the birds of prey, who in that age
enjoyed very frequent and delicious feasts; and several years
afterwards the white and naked bones, which covered the wide
extent of the fields, presented to the eyes of Ammianus a
dreadful monument of the battle of Salices. 82
79 (return) [ The Itinerary of Antoninus (p. 226, 227, edit.
Wesseling) marks the situation of this place about sixty miles
north of Tomi, Ovid’s exile; and the name of _Salices_ (the
willows) expresses the nature of the soil.]
80 (return) [ This circle of wagons, the _Carrago_, was the usual
fortification of the Barbarians. (Vegetius de Re Militari, l.
iii. c. 10. Valesius ad Ammian. xxxi. 7.) The practice and the
name were preserved by their descendants as late as the fifteenth
century. The _Charroy_, which surrounded the _Ost_, is a word
familiar to the readers of Froissard, or Comines.]
81 (return) [ Statim ut accensi malleoli. I have used the literal
sense of real torches or beacons; but I almost suspect, that it
is only one of those turgid metaphors, those false ornaments,
that perpetually disfigure to style of Ammianus.]
82 (return) [ Indicant nunc usque albentes ossibus campi. Ammian.
xxxi. 7. The historian might have viewed these plains, either as
a soldier, or as a traveller. But his modesty has suppressed the
adventures of his own life subsequent to the Persian wars of
Constantius and Julian. We are ignorant of the time when he
quitted the service, and retired to Rome, where he appears to
have composed his History of his Own Times.]
The progress of the Goths had been checked by the doubtful event
of that bloody day; and the Imperial generals, whose army would
have been consumed by the repetition of such a contest, embraced
the more rational plan of destroying the Barbarians by the wants
and pressure of their own multitudes. They prepared to confine
the Visigoths in the narrow angle of land between the Danube, the
desert of Scythia, and the mountains of Hæmus, till their
strength and spirit should be insensibly wasted by the inevitable
operation of famine. The design was prosecuted with some conduct
and success: the Barbarians had almost exhausted their own
magazines, and the harvests of the country; and the diligence of
Saturninus, the master-general of the cavalry, was employed to
improve the strength, and to contract the extent, of the Roman
fortifications. His labors were interrupted by the alarming
intelligence, that new swarms of Barbarians had passed the
unguarded Danube, either to support the cause, or to imitate the
example, of Fritigern. The just apprehension, that he himself
might be surrounded, and overwhelmed, by the arms of hostile and
unknown nations, compelled Saturninus to relinquish the siege of
the Gothic camp; and the indignant Visigoths, breaking from their
confinement, satiated their hunger and revenge by the repeated
devastation of the fruitful country, which extends above three
hundred miles from the banks of the Danube to the straits of the
Hellespont. 83 The sagacious Fritigern had successfully appealed
to the passions, as well as to the interest, of his Barbarian
allies; and the love of rapine, and the hatred of Rome, seconded,
or even prevented, the eloquence of his ambassadors. He cemented
a strict and useful alliance with the great body of his
countrymen, who obeyed Alatheus and Saphrax as the guardians of
their infant king: the long animosity of rival tribes was
suspended by the sense of their common interest; the independent
part of the nation was associated under one standard; and the
chiefs of the Ostrogoths appear to have yielded to the superior
genius of the general of the Visigoths. He obtained the
formidable aid of the Taifalæ, 8311 whose military renown was
disgraced and polluted by the public infamy of their domestic
manners. Every youth, on his entrance into the world, was united
by the ties of honorable friendship, and brutal love, to some
warrior of the tribe; nor could he hope to be released from this
unnatural connection, till he had approved his manhood by
slaying, in single combat, a huge bear, or a wild boar of the
forest. 84 But the most powerful auxiliaries of the Goths were
drawn from the camp of those enemies who had expelled them from
their native seats. The loose subordination, and extensive
possessions, of the Huns and the Alani, delayed the conquests,
and distracted the councils, of that victorious people. Several
of the hords were allured by the liberal promises of Fritigern;
and the rapid cavalry of Scythia added weight and energy to the
steady and strenuous efforts of the Gothic infantry. The
Sarmatians, who could never forgive the successor of Valentinian,
enjoyed and increased the general confusion; and a seasonable
irruption of the Alemanni, into the provinces of Gaul, engaged
the attention, and diverted the forces, of the emperor of the
West. 85
83 (return) [ Ammian. xxxi. 8.]
8311 (return) [ The Taifalæ, who at this period inhabited the
country which now forms the principality of Wallachia, were, in
my opinion, the last remains of the great and powerful nation of
the Dacians, (Daci or Dahæ.) which has given its name to these
regions, over which they had ruled so long. The Taifalæ passed
with the Goths into the territory of the empire. A great number
of them entered the Roman service, and were quartered in
different provinces. They are mentioned in the Notitia Imperii.
There was a considerable body in the country of the Pictavi, now
Poithou. They long retained their manners and language, and
caused the name of the Theofalgicus pagus to be given to the
district they inhabited. Two places in the department of La
Vendee, Tiffanges and La Tiffardière, still preserve evident
traces of this denomination. St. Martin, iv. 118.—M.]
84 (return) [ Hanc Taifalorum gentem turpem, et obscenæ vitæ
flagitiis ita accipimus mersam; ut apud eos nefandi concubitûs
fœdere copulentur mares puberes, ætatis viriditatem in eorum
pollutis usibus consumpturi. Porro, siqui jam adultus aprum
exceperit solus, vel interemit ursum immanem, colluvione
liberatur incesti. Ammian. xxxi. 9. ——Among the Greeks, likewise,
more especially among the Cretans, the holy bands of friendship
were confirmed, and sullied, by unnatural love.]
85 (return) [ Ammian. xxxi. 8, 9. Jerom (tom. i. p. 26)
enumerates the nations and marks a calamitous period of twenty
years. This epistle to Heliodorus was composed in the year 397,
(Tillemont, Mém. Eccles tom xii. p. 645.)]
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part IV.
One of the most dangerous inconveniences of the introduction of
the Barbarians into the army and the palace, was sensibly felt in
their correspondence with their hostile countrymen; to whom they
imprudently, or maliciously, revealed the weakness of the Roman
empire. A soldier, of the lifeguards of Gratian, was of the
nation of the Alemanni, and of the tribe of the Lentienses, who
dwelt beyond the Lake of Constance. Some domestic business
obliged him to request a leave of absence. In a short visit to
his family and friends, he was exposed to their curious
inquiries: and the vanity of the loquacious soldier tempted him
to display his intimate acquaintance with the secrets of the
state, and the designs of his master. The intelligence, that
Gratian was preparing to lead the military force of Gaul, and of
the West, to the assistance of his uncle Valens, pointed out to
the restless spirit of the Alemanni the moment, and the mode, of
a successful invasion. The enterprise of some light detachments,
who, in the month of February, passed the Rhine upon the ice, was
the prelude of a more important war. The boldest hopes of rapine,
perhaps of conquest, outweighed the considerations of timid
prudence, or national faith. Every forest, and every village,
poured forth a band of hardy adventurers; and the great army of
the Alemanni, which, on their approach, was estimated at forty
thousand men by the fears of the people, was afterwards magnified
to the number of seventy thousand by the vain and credulous
flattery of the Imperial court. The legions, which had been
ordered to march into Pannonia, were immediately recalled, or
detained, for the defence of Gaul; the military command was
divided between Nanienus and Mellobaudes; and the youthful
emperor, though he respected the long experience and sober wisdom
of the former, was much more inclined to admire, and to follow,
the martial ardor of his colleague; who was allowed to unite the
incompatible characters of count of the domestics, and of king of
the Franks. His rival Priarius, king of the Alemanni, was guided,
or rather impelled, by the same headstrong valor; and as their
troops were animated by the spirit of their leaders, they met,
they saw, they encountered each other, near the town of
Argentaria, or Colmar, 86 in the plains of Alsace. The glory of
the day was justly ascribed to the missile weapons, and
well-practised evolutions, of the Roman soldiers; the Alemanni,
who long maintained their ground, were slaughtered with
unrelenting fury; five thousand only of the Barbarians escaped to
the woods and mountains; and the glorious death of their king on
the field of battle saved him from the reproaches of the people,
who are always disposed to accuse the justice, or policy, of an
unsuccessful war. After this signal victory, which secured the
peace of Gaul, and asserted the honor of the Roman arms, the
emperor Gratian appeared to proceed without delay on his Eastern
expedition; but as he approached the confines of the Alemanni, he
suddenly inclined to the left, surprised them by his unexpected
passage of the Rhine, and boldly advanced into the heart of their
country. The Barbarians opposed to his progress the obstacles of
nature and of courage; and still continued to retreat, from one
hill to another, till they were satisfied, by repeated trials, of
the power and perseverance of their enemies. Their submission was
accepted as a proof, not indeed of their sincere repentance, but
of their actual distress; and a select number of their brave and
robust youth was exacted from the faithless nation, as the most
substantial pledge of their future moderation. The subjects of
the empire, who had so often experienced that the Alemanni could
neither be subdued by arms, nor restrained by treaties, might not
promise themselves any solid or lasting tranquillity: but they
discovered, in the virtues of their young sovereign, the prospect
of a long and auspicious reign. When the legions climbed the
mountains, and scaled the fortifications of the Barbarians, the
valor of Gratian was distinguished in the foremost ranks; and the
gilt and variegated armor of his guards was pierced and shattered
by the blows which they had received in their constant attachment
to the person of their sovereign. At the age of nineteen, the son
of Valentinian seemed to possess the talents of peace and war;
and his personal success against the Alemanni was interpreted as
a sure presage of his Gothic triumphs. 87
86 (return) [ The field of battle, _Argentaria_ or
_Argentovaria_, is accurately fixed by M. D’Anville (Notice de
l’Ancienne Gaule, p. 96—99) at twenty-three Gallic leagues, or
thirty-four and a half Roman miles to the south of Strasburg.
From its ruins the adjacent town of _Colmar_ has arisen. Note: It
is rather Horburg, on the right bank of the River Ill, opposite
to Colmar. From Schoepflin, Alsatia Illustrata. St. Martin, iv.
121.—M.]
87 (return) [ The full and impartial narrative of Ammianus (xxxi.
10) may derive some additional light from the Epitome of Victor,
the Chronicle of Jerom, and the History of Orosius, (l. vii. c.
33, p. 552, edit. Havercamp.)]
While Gratian deserved and enjoyed the applause of his subjects,
the emperor Valens, who, at length, had removed his court and
army from Antioch, was received by the people of Constantinople
as the author of the public calamity. Before he had reposed
himself ten days in the capital, he was urged by the licentious
clamors of the Hippodrome to march against the Barbarians, whom
he had invited into his dominions; and the citizens, who are
always brave at a distance from any real danger, declared, with
confidence, that, if they were supplied with arms, _they_ alone
would undertake to deliver the province from the ravages of an
insulting foe. 88 The vain reproaches of an ignorant multitude
hastened the downfall of the Roman empire; they provoked the
desperate rashness of Valens; who did not find, either in his
reputation or in his mind, any motives to support with firmness
the public contempt. He was soon persuaded, by the successful
achievements of his lieutenants, to despise the power of the
Goths, who, by the diligence of Fritigern, were now collected in
the neighborhood of Hadrianople. The march of the Taifalæ had
been intercepted by the valiant Frigeric: the king of those
licentious Barbarians was slain in battle; and the suppliant
captives were sent into distant exile to cultivate the lands of
Italy, which were assigned for their settlement in the vacant
territories of Modena and Parma. 89 The exploits of Sebastian, 90
who was recently engaged in the service of Valens, and promoted
to the rank of master-general of the infantry, were still more
honorable to himself, and useful to the republic. He obtained the
permission of selecting three hundred soldiers from each of the
legions; and this separate detachment soon acquired the spirit of
discipline, and the exercise of arms, which were almost forgotten
under the reign of Valens. By the vigor and conduct of Sebastian,
a large body of the Goths were surprised in their camp; and the
immense spoil, which was recovered from their hands, filled the
city of Hadrianople, and the adjacent plain. The splendid
narratives, which the general transmitted of his own exploits,
alarmed the Imperial court by the appearance of superior merit;
and though he cautiously insisted on the difficulties of the
Gothic war, his valor was praised, his advice was rejected; and
Valens, who listened with pride and pleasure to the flattering
suggestions of the eunuchs of the palace, was impatient to seize
the glory of an easy and assured conquest. His army was
strengthened by a numerous reenforcement of veterans; and his
march from Constantinople to Hadrianople was conducted with so
much military skill, that he prevented the activity of the
Barbarians, who designed to occupy the intermediate defiles, and
to intercept either the troops themselves, or their convoys of
provisions. The camp of Valens, which he pitched under the walls
of Hadrianople, was fortified, according to the practice of the
Romans, with a ditch and rampart; and a most important council
was summoned, to decide the fate of the emperor and of the
empire. The party of reason and of delay was strenuously
maintained by Victor, who had corrected, by the lessons of
experience, the native fierceness of the Sarmatian character;
while Sebastian, with the flexible and obsequious eloquence of a
courtier, represented every precaution, and every measure, that
implied a doubt of immediate victory, as unworthy of the courage
and majesty of their invincible monarch. The ruin of Valens was
precipitated by the deceitful arts of Fritigern, and the prudent
admonitions of the emperor of the West. The advantages of
negotiating in the midst of war were perfectly understood by the
general of the Barbarians; and a Christian ecclesiastic was
despatched, as the holy minister of peace, to penetrate, and to
perplex, the councils of the enemy. The misfortunes, as well as
the provocations, of the Gothic nation, were forcibly and truly
described by their ambassador; who protested, in the name of
Fritigern, that he was still disposed to lay down his arms, or to
employ them only in the defence of the empire; if he could secure
for his wandering countrymen a tranquil settlement on the waste
lands of Thrace, and a sufficient allowance of corn and cattle.
But he added, in a whisper of confidential friendship, that the
exasperated Barbarians were averse to these reasonable
conditions; and that Fritigern was doubtful whether he could
accomplish the conclusion of the treaty, unless he found himself
supported by the presence and terrors of an Imperial army. About
the same time, Count Richomer returned from the West to announce
the defeat and submission of the Alemanni, to inform Valens that
his nephew advanced by rapid marches at the head of the veteran
and victorious legions of Gaul, and to request, in the name of
Gratian and of the republic, that every dangerous and decisive
measure might be suspended, till the junction of the two emperors
should insure the success of the Gothic war. But the feeble
sovereign of the East was actuated only by the fatal illusions of
pride and jealousy. He disdained the importunate advice; he
rejected the humiliating aid; he secretly compared the
ignominious, at least the inglorious, period of his own reign,
with the fame of a beardless youth; and Valens rushed into the
field, to erect his imaginary trophy, before the diligence of his
colleague could usurp any share of the triumphs of the day.
88 (return) [ Moratus paucissimos dies, seditione popularium
levium pulsus Ammian. xxxi. 11. Socrates (l. iv. c. 38) supplies
the dates and some circumstances. * Note: Compare fragment of
Eunapius. Mai, 272, in Niebuhr, p. 77.—M]
89 (return) [ Vivosque omnes circa Mutinam, Regiumque, et Parmam,
Italica oppida, rura culturos exterminavit. Ammianus, xxxi. 9.
Those cities and districts, about ten years after the colony of
the Taifalæ, appear in a very desolate state. See Muratori,
Dissertazioni sopra le Antichità Italiane, tom. i. Dissertat.
xxi. p. 354.]
90 (return) [ Ammian. xxxi. 11. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 228—230. The
latter expatiates on the desultory exploits of Sebastian, and
despatches, in a few lines, the important battle of Hadrianople.
According to the ecclesiastical critics, who hate Sebastian, the
praise of Zosimus is disgrace, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs,
tom. v. p. 121.) His prejudice and ignorance undoubtedly render
him a very questionable judge of merit.]
On the ninth of August, a day which has deserved to be marked
among the most inauspicious of the Roman Calendar, 91 the emperor
Valens, leaving, under a strong guard, his baggage and military
treasure, marched from Hadrianople to attack the Goths, who were
encamped about twelve miles from the city. 92 By some mistake of
the orders, or some ignorance of the ground, the right wing, or
column of cavalry arrived in sight of the enemy, whilst the left
was still at a considerable distance; the soldiers were
compelled, in the sultry heat of summer, to precipitate their
pace; and the line of battle was formed with tedious confusion
and irregular delay. The Gothic cavalry had been detached to
forage in the adjacent country; and Fritigern still continued to
practise his customary arts. He despatched messengers of peace,
made proposals, required hostages, and wasted the hours, till the
Romans, exposed without shelter to the burning rays of the sun,
were exhausted by thirst, hunger, and intolerable fatigue. The
emperor was persuaded to send an ambassador to the Gothic camp;
the zeal of Richomer, who alone had courage to accept the
dangerous commission, was applauded; and the count of the
domestics, adorned with the splendid ensigns of his dignity, had
proceeded some way in the space between the two armies, when he
was suddenly recalled by the alarm of battle. The hasty and
imprudent attack was made by Bacurius the Iberian, who commanded
a body of archers and targeteers; and as they advanced with
rashness, they retreated with loss and disgrace. In the same
moment, the flying squadrons of Alatheus and Saphrax, whose
return was anxiously expected by the general of the Goths,
descended like a whirlwind from the hills, swept across the
plain, and added new terrors to the tumultuous, but irresistible
charge of the Barbarian host. The event of the battle of
Hadrianople, so fatal to Valens and to the empire, may be
described in a few words: the Roman cavalry fled; the infantry
was abandoned, surrounded, and cut in pieces. The most skilful
evolutions, the firmest courage, are scarcely sufficient to
extricate a body of foot, encompassed, on an open plain, by
superior numbers of horse; but the troops of Valens, oppressed by
the weight of the enemy and their own fears, were crowded into a
narrow space, where it was impossible for them to extend their
ranks, or even to use, with effect, their swords and javelins. In
the midst of tumult, of slaughter, and of dismay, the emperor,
deserted by his guards and wounded, as it was supposed, with an
arrow, sought protection among the Lancearii and the Mattiarii,
who still maintained their ground with some appearance of order
and firmness. His faithful generals, Trajan and Victor, who
perceived his danger, loudly exclaimed that all was lost, unless
the person of the emperor could be saved. Some troops, animated
by their exhortation, advanced to his relief: they found only a
bloody spot, covered with a heap of broken arms and mangled
bodies, without being able to discover their unfortunate prince,
either among the living or the dead. Their search could not
indeed be successful, if there is any truth in the circumstances
with which some historians have related the death of the emperor.
By the care of his attendants, Valens was removed from the field
of battle to a neighboring cottage, where they attempted to dress
his wound, and to provide for his future safety. But this humble
retreat was instantly surrounded by the enemy: they tried to
force the door, they were provoked by a discharge of arrows from
the roof, till at length, impatient of delay, they set fire to a
pile of dry magots, and consumed the cottage with the Roman
emperor and his train. Valens perished in the flames; and a
youth, who dropped from the window, alone escaped, to attest the
melancholy tale, and to inform the Goths of the inestimable prize
which they had lost by their own rashness. A great number of
brave and distinguished officers perished in the battle of
Hadrianople, which equalled in the actual loss, and far surpassed
in the fatal consequences, the misfortune which Rome had formerly
sustained in the fields of Cannæ. 93 Two master-generals of the
cavalry and infantry, two great officers of the palace, and
thirty-five tribunes, were found among the slain; and the death
of Sebastian might satisfy the world, that he was the victim, as
well as the author, of the public calamity. Above two thirds of
the Roman army were destroyed: and the darkness of the night was
esteemed a very favorable circumstance, as it served to conceal
the flight of the multitude, and to protect the more orderly
retreat of Victor and Richomer, who alone, amidst the general
consternation, maintained the advantage of calm courage and
regular discipline. 94
91 (return) [ Ammianus (xxxi. 12, 13) almost alone describes the
councils and actions which were terminated by the fatal battle of
Hadrianople. We might censure the vices of his style, the
disorder and perplexity of his narrative: but we must now take
leave of this impartial historian; and reproach is silenced by
our regret for such an irreparable loss.]
92 (return) [ The difference of the eight miles of Ammianus, and
the twelve of Idatius, can only embarrass those critics (Valesius
ad loc.,) who suppose a great army to be a mathematical point,
without space or dimensions.]
93 (return) [ Nec ulla annalibus, præter Cannensem pugnam, ita ad
internecionem res legitur gesta. Ammian. xxxi. 13. According to
the grave Polybius, no more than 370 horse, and 3,000 foot,
escaped from the field of Cannæ: 10,000 were made prisoners; and
the number of the slain amounted to 5,630 horse, and 70,000 foot,
(Polyb. l. iii. p 371, edit. Casaubon, 8vo.) Livy (xxii. 49) is
somewhat less bloody: he slaughters only 2,700 horse, and 40,000
foot. The Roman army was supposed to consist of 87,200 effective
men, (xxii. 36.)]
94 (return) [ We have gained some faint light from Jerom, (tom.
i. p. 26 and in Chron. p. 188,) Victor, (in Epitome,) Orosius,
(l. vii. c. 33, p. 554,) Jornandes, (c. 27,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p.
230,) Socrates, (l. iv. c. 38,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 40,) Idatius,
(in Chron.) But their united evidence, if weighed against
Ammianus alone, is light and unsubstantial.]
While the impressions of grief and terror were still recent in
the minds of men, the most celebrated rhetorician of the age
composed the funeral oration of a vanquished army, and of an
unpopular prince, whose throne was already occupied by a
stranger. “There are not wanting,” says the candid Libanius,
“those who arraign the prudence of the emperor, or who impute the
public misfortune to the want of courage and discipline in the
troops. For my own part, I reverence the memory of their former
exploits: I reverence the glorious death, which they bravely
received, standing, and fighting in their ranks: I reverence the
field of battle, stained with _their_ blood, and the blood of the
Barbarians. Those honorable marks have been already washed away
by the rains; but the lofty monuments of their bones, the bones
of generals, of centurions, and of valiant warriors, claim a
longer period of duration. The king himself fought and fell in
the foremost ranks of the battle. His attendants presented him
with the fleetest horses of the Imperial stable, that would soon
have carried him beyond the pursuit of the enemy. They vainly
pressed him to reserve his important life for the future service
of the republic. He still declared that he was unworthy to
survive so many of the bravest and most faithful of his subjects;
and the monarch was nobly buried under a mountain of the slain.
Let none, therefore, presume to ascribe the victory of the
Barbarians to the fear, the weakness, or the imprudence, of the
Roman troops. The chiefs and the soldiers were animated by the
virtue of their ancestors, whom they equalled in discipline and
the arts of war. Their generous emulation was supported by the
love of glory, which prompted them to contend at the same time
with heat and thirst, with fire and the sword; and cheerfully to
embrace an honorable death, as their refuge against flight and
infamy. The indignation of the gods has been the only cause of
the success of our enemies.” The truth of history may disclaim
some parts of this panegyric, which cannot strictly be reconciled
with the character of Valens, or the circumstances of the battle:
but the fairest commendation is due to the eloquence, and still
more to the generosity, of the sophist of Antioch. 95
95 (return) [ Libanius de ulciscend. Julian. nece, c. 3, in
Fabricius, Bibliot Græc. tom. vii. p. 146—148.]
The pride of the Goths was elated by this memorable victory; but
their avarice was disappointed by the mortifying discovery, that
the richest part of the Imperial spoil had been within the walls
of Hadrianople. They hastened to possess the reward of their
valor; but they were encountered by the remains of a vanquished
army, with an intrepid resolution, which was the effect of their
despair, and the only hope of their safety. The walls of the
city, and the ramparts of the adjacent camp, were lined with
military engines, that threw stones of an enormous weight; and
astonished the ignorant Barbarians by the noise, and velocity,
still more than by the real effects, of the discharge. The
soldiers, the citizens, the provincials, the domestics of the
palace, were united in the danger, and in the defence: the
furious assault of the Goths was repulsed; their secret arts of
treachery and treason were discovered; and, after an obstinate
conflict of many hours, they retired to their tents; convinced,
by experience, that it would be far more advisable to observe the
treaty, which their sagacious leader had tacitly stipulated with
the fortifications of great and populous cities. After the hasty
and impolitic massacre of three hundred deserters, an act of
justice extremely useful to the discipline of the Roman armies,
the Goths indignantly raised the siege of Hadrianople. The scene
of war and tumult was instantly converted into a silent solitude:
the multitude suddenly disappeared; the secret paths of the woods
and mountains were marked with the footsteps of the trembling
fugitives, who sought a refuge in the distant cities of Illyricum
and Macedonia; and the faithful officers of the household, and
the treasury, cautiously proceeded in search of the emperor, of
whose death they were still ignorant. The tide of the Gothic
inundation rolled from the walls of Hadrianople to the suburbs of
Constantinople. The Barbarians were surprised with the splendid
appearance of the capital of the East, the height and extent of
the walls, the myriads of wealthy and affrighted citizens who
crowded the ramparts, and the various prospect of the sea and
land. While they gazed with hopeless desire on the inaccessible
beauties of Constantinople, a sally was made from one of the
gates by a party of Saracens, 96 who had been fortunately engaged
in the service of Valens. The cavalry of Scythia was forced to
yield to the admirable swiftness and spirit of the Arabian
horses: their riders were skilled in the evolutions of irregular
war; and the Northern Barbarians were astonished and dismayed, by
the inhuman ferocity of the Barbarians of the South.
A Gothic soldier was slain by the dagger of an Arab; and the
hairy, naked savage, applying his lips to the wound, expressed a
horrid delight, while he sucked the blood of his vanquished
enemy. 97 The army of the Goths, laden with the spoils of the
wealthy suburbs and the adjacent territory, slowly moved, from
the Bosphorus, to the mountains which form the western boundary
of Thrace. The important pass of Succi was betrayed by the fear,
or the misconduct, of Maurus; and the Barbarians, who no longer
had any resistance to apprehend from the scattered and vanquished
troops of the East, spread themselves over the face of a fertile
and cultivated country, as far as the confines of Italy and the
Hadriatic Sea. 98
96 (return) [ Valens had gained, or rather purchased, the
friendship of the Saracens, whose vexatious inroads were felt on
the borders of Phœnicia, Palestine, and Egypt. The Christian
faith had been lately introduced among a people, reserved, in a
future age, to propagate another religion, (Tillemont, Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. v. p. 104, 106, 141. Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p.
593.)]
97 (return) [ Crinitus quidam, nudus omnia præter pubem,
subraunum et ugubre strepens. Ammian. xxxi. 16, and Vales. ad
loc. The Arabs often fought naked; a custom which may be ascribed
to their sultry climate, and ostentatious bravery. The
description of this unknown savage is the lively portrait of
Derar, a name so dreadful to the Christians of Syria. See
Ockley’s Hist. of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 72, 84, 87.]
98 (return) [ The series of events may still be traced in the
last pages of Ammianus, (xxxi. 15, 16.) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 227,
231,) whom we are now reduced to cherish, misplaces the sally of
the Arabs before the death of Valens. Eunapius (in Excerpt.
Legat. p. 20) praises the fertility of Thrace, Macedonia, &c.]
The Romans, who so coolly, and so concisely, mention the acts of
_justice_ which were exercised by the legions, 99 reserve their
compassion, and their eloquence, for their own sufferings, when
the provinces were invaded, and desolated, by the arms of the
successful Barbarians. The simple circumstantial narrative (did
such a narrative exist) of the ruin of a single town, of the
misfortunes of a single family, 100 might exhibit an interesting
and instructive picture of human manners: but the tedious
repetition of vague and declamatory complaints would fatigue the
attention of the most patient reader. The same censure may be
applied, though not perhaps in an equal degree, to the profane,
and the ecclesiastical, writers of this unhappy period; that
their minds were inflamed by popular and religious animosity; and
that the true size and color of every object is falsified by the
exaggerations of their corrupt eloquence. The vehement Jerom 101
might justly deplore the calamities inflicted by the Goths, and
their barbarous allies, on his native country of Pannonia, and
the wide extent of the provinces, from the walls of
Constantinople to the foot of the Julian Alps; the rapes, the
massacres, the conflagrations; and, above all, the profanation of
the churches, that were turned into stables, and the contemptuous
treatment of the relics of holy martyrs. But the Saint is surely
transported beyond the limits of nature and history, when he
affirms, “that, in those desert countries, nothing was left
except the sky and the earth; that, after the destruction of the
cities, and the extirpation of the human race, the land was
overgrown with thick forests and inextricable brambles; and that
the universal desolation, announced by the prophet Zephaniah, was
accomplished, in the scarcity of the beasts, the birds, and even
of the fish.” These complaints were pronounced about twenty years
after the death of Valens; and the Illyrian provinces, which were
constantly exposed to the invasion and passage of the Barbarians,
still continued, after a calamitous period of ten centuries, to
supply new materials for rapine and destruction. Could it even be
supposed, that a large tract of country had been left without
cultivation and without inhabitants, the consequences might not
have been so fatal to the inferior productions of animated
nature. The useful and feeble animals, which are nourished by the
hand of man, might suffer and perish, if they were deprived of
his protection; but the beasts of the forest, his enemies or his
victims, would multiply in the free and undisturbed possession of
their solitary domain. The various tribes that people the air, or
the waters, are still less connected with the fate of the human
species; and it is highly probable that the fish of the Danube
would have felt more terror and distress, from the approach of a
voracious pike, than from the hostile inroad of a Gothic army.
99 (return) [ Observe with how much indifference Cæsar relates,
in the Commentaries of the Gallic war, _that_ he put to death the
whole senate of the Veneti, who had yielded to his mercy, (iii.
16;) _that_ he labored to extirpate the whole nation of the
Eburones, (vi. 31;) _that_ forty thousand persons were massacred
at Bourges by the just revenge of his soldiers, who spared
neither age nor sex, (vii. 27,) &c.]
100 (return) [ Such are the accounts of the sack of Magdeburgh,
by the ecclesiastic and the fisherman, which Mr. Harte has
transcribed, (Hist. of Gustavus Adolphus, vol. i. p. 313—320,)
with some apprehension of violating the _dignity_ of history.]
101 (return) [ Et vastatis urbibus, hominibusque interfectis,
solitudinem et _raritatem bestiarum_ quoque fieri, _et
volatilium, pisciumque:_ testis Illyricum est, testis Thracia,
testis in quo ortus sum solum, (Pannonia;) ubi præter cœlum et
terram, et crescentes vepres, et condensa sylvarum _cuncta
perierunt_. Tom. vii. p. 250, l, Cap. Sophonias and tom. i. p.
26.]
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part V.
Whatever may have been the just measure of the calamities of
Europe, there was reason to fear that the same calamities would
soon extend to the peaceful countries of Asia. The sons of the
Goths had been judiciously distributed through the cities of the
East; and the arts of education were employed to polish, and
subdue, the native fierceness of their temper. In the space of
about twelve years, their numbers had continually increased; and
the children, who, in the first emigration, were sent over the
Hellespont, had attained, with rapid growth, the strength and
spirit of perfect manhood. 102 It was impossible to conceal from
their knowledge the events of the Gothic war; and, as those
daring youths had not studied the language of dissimulation, they
betrayed their wish, their desire, perhaps their intention, to
emulate the glorious example of their fathers. The danger of the
times seemed to justify the jealous suspicions of the
provincials; and these suspicions were admitted as unquestionable
evidence, that the Goths of Asia had formed a secret and
dangerous conspiracy against the public safety. The death of
Valens had left the East without a sovereign; and Julius, who
filled the important station of master-general of the troops,
with a high reputation of diligence and ability, thought it his
duty to consult the senate of Constantinople; which he
considered, during the vacancy of the throne, as the
representative council of the nation. As soon as he had obtained
the discretionary power of acting as he should judge most
expedient for the good of the republic, he assembled the
principal officers, and privately concerted effectual measures
for the execution of his bloody design. An order was immediately
promulgated, that, on a stated day, the Gothic youth should
assemble in the capital cities of their respective provinces;
and, as a report was industriously circulated, that they were
summoned to receive a liberal gift of lands and money, the
pleasing hope allayed the fury of their resentment, and, perhaps,
suspended the motions of the conspiracy. On the appointed day,
the unarmed crowd of the Gothic youth was carefully collected in
the square or Forum; the streets and avenues were occupied by the
Roman troops, and the roofs of the houses were covered with
archers and slingers. At the same hour, in all the cities of the
East, the signal was given of indiscriminate slaughter; and the
provinces of Asia were delivered by the cruel prudence of Julius,
from a domestic enemy, who, in a few months, might have carried
fire and sword from the Hellespont to the Euphrates. 103 The
urgent consideration of the public safety may undoubtedly
authorize the violation of every positive law. How far that, or
any other, consideration may operate to dissolve the natural
obligations of humanity and justice, is a doctrine of which I
still desire to remain ignorant.
102 (return) [ Eunapius (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 20) foolishly
supposes a præternatural growth of the young Goths, that he may
introduce Cadmus’s armed men, who sprang from the dragon’s teeth,
&c. Such was the Greek eloquence of the times.]
103 (return) [ Ammianus evidently approves this execution,
efficacia velox et salutaris, which concludes his work, (xxxi.
16.) Zosimus, who is curious and copious, (l. iv. p. 233—236,)
mistakes the date, and labors to find the reason, why Julius did
not consult the emperor Theodosius who had not yet ascended the
throne of the East.]
The emperor Gratian was far advanced on his march towards the
plains of Hadrianople, when he was informed, at first by the
confused voice of fame, and afterwards by the more accurate
reports of Victor and Richomer, that his impatient colleague had
been slain in battle, and that two thirds of the Roman army were
exterminated by the sword of the victorious Goths. Whatever
resentment the rash and jealous vanity of his uncle might
deserve, the resentment of a generous mind is easily subdued by
the softer emotions of grief and compassion; and even the sense
of pity was soon lost in the serious and alarming consideration
of the state of the republic. Gratian was too late to assist, he
was too weak to revenge, his unfortunate colleague; and the
valiant and modest youth felt himself unequal to the support of a
sinking world. A formidable tempest of the Barbarians of Germany
seemed ready to burst over the provinces of Gaul; and the mind of
Gratian was oppressed and distracted by the administration of the
Western empire. In this important crisis, the government of the
East, and the conduct of the Gothic war, required the undivided
attention of a hero and a statesman. A subject invested with such
ample command would not long have preserved his fidelity to a
distant benefactor; and the Imperial council embraced the wise
and manly resolution of conferring an obligation, rather than of
yielding to an insult. It was the wish of Gratian to bestow the
purple as the reward of virtue; but, at the age of nineteen, it
is not easy for a prince, educated in the supreme rank, to
understand the true characters of his ministers and generals. He
attempted to weigh, with an impartial hand, their various merits
and defects; and, whilst he checked the rash confidence of
ambition, he distrusted the cautious wisdom which despaired of
the republic. As each moment of delay diminished something of the
power and resources of the future sovereign of the East, the
situation of the times would not allow a tedious debate. The
choice of Gratian was soon declared in favor of an exile, whose
father, only three years before, had suffered, under the sanction
of _his_ authority, an unjust and ignominious death. The great
Theodosius, a name celebrated in history, and dear to the
Catholic church, 104 was summoned to the Imperial court, which
had gradually retreated from the confines of Thrace to the more
secure station of Sirmium. Five months after the death of Valens,
the emperor Gratian produced before the assembled troops _his_
colleague and _their_ master; who, after a modest, perhaps a
sincere, resistance, was compelled to accept, amidst the general
acclamations, the diadem, the purple, and the equal title of
Augustus. 105 The provinces of Thrace, Asia, and Egypt, over
which Valens had reigned, were resigned to the administration of
the new emperor; but, as he was specially intrusted with the
conduct of the Gothic war, the Illyrian præfecture was
dismembered; and the two great dioceses of Dacia and Macedonia
were added to the dominions of the Eastern empire. 106
104 (return) [ A life of Theodosius the Great was composed in the
last century, (Paris, 1679, in 4to-1680, 12mo.,) to inflame the
mind of the young Dauphin with Catholic zeal. The author,
Flechier, afterwards bishop of Nismes, was a celebrated preacher;
and his history is adorned, or tainted, with pulpit eloquence;
but he takes his learning from Baronius, and his principles from
St. Ambrose and St Augustin.]
105 (return) [ The birth, character, and elevation of Theodosius
are marked in Pacatus, (in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 10, 11, 12,)
Themistius, (Orat. xiv. p. 182,) (Zosimus, l. iv. p. 231,)
Augustin. (de Civitat. Dei. v. 25,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 34,)
Sozomen, (l. vii. c. 2,) Socrates, (l. v. c. 2,) Theodoret, (l.
v. c. 5,) Philostorgius, (l. ix. c. 17, with Godefroy, p. 393,)
the Epitome of Victor, and the Chronicles of Prosper, Idatius,
and Marcellinus, in the Thesaurus Temporum of Scaliger. * Note:
Add a hostile fragment of Eunapius. Mai, p. 273, in Niebuhr, p
178—M.]
106 (return) [ Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 716,
&c.]
The same province, and perhaps the same city, 107 which had given
to the throne the virtues of Trajan, and the talents of Hadrian,
was the orignal seat of another family of Spaniards, who, in a
less fortunate age, possessed, near fourscore years, the
declining empire of Rome. 108 They emerged from the obscurity of
municipal honors by the active spirit of the elder Theodosius, a
general whose exploits in Britain and Africa have formed one of
the most splendid parts of the annals of Valentinian. The son of
that general, who likewise bore the name of Theodosius, was
educated, by skilful preceptors, in the liberal studies of youth;
but he was instructed in the art of war by the tender care and
severe discipline of his father. 109 Under the standard of such a
leader, young Theodosius sought glory and knowledge, in the most
distant scenes of military action; inured his constitution to the
difference of seasons and climates; distinguished his valor by
sea and land; and observed the various warfare of the Scots, the
Saxons, and the Moors. His own merit, and the recommendation of
the conqueror of Africa, soon raised him to a separate command;
and, in the station of Duke of Mæsia, he vanquished an army of
Sarmatians; saved the province; deserved the love of the
soldiers; and provoked the envy of the court. 110 His rising
fortunes were soon blasted by the disgrace and execution of his
illustrious father; and Theodosius obtained, as a favor, the
permission of retiring to a private life in his native province
of Spain. He displayed a firm and temperate character in the ease
with which he adapted himself to this new situation. His time was
almost equally divided between the town and country; the spirit,
which had animated his public conduct, was shown in the active
and affectionate performance of every social duty; and the
diligence of the soldier was profitably converted to the
improvement of his ample patrimony, 111 which lay between
Valladolid and Segovia, in the midst of a fruitful district,
still famous for a most exquisite breed of sheep. 112 From the
innocent, but humble labors of his farm, Theodosius was
transported, in less than four months, to the throne of the
Eastern empire; and the whole period of the history of the world
will not perhaps afford a similar example, of an elevation at the
same time so pure and so honorable. The princes who peaceably
inherit the sceptre of their fathers, claim and enjoy a legal
right, the more secure as it is absolutely distinct from the
merits of their personal characters. The subjects, who, in a
monarchy, or a popular state, acquire the possession of supreme
power, may have raised themselves, by the superiority either of
genius or virtue, above the heads of their equals; but their
virtue is seldom exempt from ambition; and the cause of the
successful candidate is frequently stained by the guilt of
conspiracy, or civil war. Even in those governments which allow
the reigning monarch to declare a colleague or a successor, his
partial choice, which may be influenced by the blindest passions,
is often directed to an unworthy object But the most suspicious
malignity cannot ascribe to Theodosius, in his obscure solitude
of Caucha, the arts, the desires, or even the hopes, of an
ambitious statesman; and the name of the Exile would long since
have been forgotten, if his genuine and distinguished virtues had
not left a deep impression in the Imperial court. During the
season of prosperity, he had been neglected; but, in the public
distress, his superior merit was universally felt and
acknowledged. What confidence must have been reposed in his
integrity, since Gratian could trust, that a pious son would
forgive, for the sake of the republic, the murder of his father!
What expectations must have been formed of his abilities to
encourage the hope, that a single man could save, and restore,
the empire of the East! Theodosius was invested with the purple
in the thirty-third year of his age. The vulgar gazed with
admiration on the manly beauty of his face, and the graceful
majesty of his person, which they were pleased to compare with
the pictures and medals of the emperor Trajan; whilst intelligent
observers discovered, in the qualities of his heart and
understanding, a more important resemblance to the best and
greatest of the Roman princes.
107 (return) [ _Italica_, founded by Scipio Africanus for his
wounded veterans of _Italy_. The ruins still appear, about a
league above Seville, but on the opposite bank of the river. See
the Hispania Illustrata of Nonius, a short though valuable
treatise, c. xvii. p. 64—67.]
108 (return) [ I agree with Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
v. p. 726) in suspecting the royal pedigree, which remained a
secret till the promotion of Theodosius. Even after that event,
the silence of Pacatus outweighs the venal evidence of
Themistius, Victor, and Claudian, who connect the family of
Theodosius with the blood of Trajan and Hadrian.]
109 (return) [ Pacatas compares, and consequently prefers, the
youth of Theodosius to the military education of Alexander,
Hannibal, and the second Africanus; who, like him, had served
under their fathers, (xii. 8.)]
110 (return) [ Ammianus (xxix. 6) mentions this victory of
Theodosius Junior Dux Mæsiæ, prima etiam tum lanugine juvenis,
princeps postea perspectissimus. The same fact is attested by
Themistius and Zosimus but Theodoret, (l. v. c. 5,) who adds some
curious circumstances, strangely applies it to the time of the
interregnum.]
111 (return) [ Pacatus (in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 9) prefers the
rustic life of Theodosius to that of Cincinnatus; the one was the
effect of choice, the other of poverty.]
112 (return) [ M. D’Anville (Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 25)
has fixed the situation of Caucha, or Coca, in the old province
of Gallicia, where Zosimus and Idatius have placed the birth, or
patrimony, of Theodosius.]
It is not without the most sincere regret, that I must now take
leave of an accurate and faithful guide, who has composed the
history of his own times, without indulging the prejudices and
passions, which usually affect the mind of a contemporary.
Ammianus Marcellinus, who terminates his useful work with the
defeat and death of Valens, recommends the more glorious subject
of the ensuing reign to the youthful vigor and eloquence of the
rising generation. 113 The rising generation was not disposed to
accept his advice or to imitate his example; 114 and, in the
study of the reign of Theodosius, we are reduced to illustrate
the partial narrative of Zosimus, by the obscure hints of
fragments and chronicles, by the figurative style of poetry or
panegyric, and by the precarious assistance of the ecclesiastical
writers, who, in the heat of religious faction, are apt to
despise the profane virtues of sincerity and moderation.
Conscious of these disadvantages, which will continue to involve
a considerable portion of the decline and fall of the Roman
empire, I shall proceed with doubtful and timorous steps. Yet I
may boldly pronounce, that the battle of Hadrianople was never
revenged by any signal or decisive victory of Theodosius over the
Barbarians: and the expressive silence of his venal orators may
be confirmed by the observation of the condition and
circumstances of the times. The fabric of a mighty state, which
has been reared by the labors of successive ages, could not be
overturned by the misfortune of a single day, if the fatal power
of the imagination did not exaggerate the real measure of the
calamity. The loss of forty thousand Romans, who fell in the
plains of Hadrianople, might have been soon recruited in the
populous provinces of the East, which contained so many millions
of inhabitants. The courage of a soldier is found to be the
cheapest, and most common, quality of human nature; and
sufficient skill to encounter an undisciplined foe might have
been speedily taught by the care of the surviving centurions. If
the Barbarians were mounted on the horses, and equipped with the
armor, of their vanquished enemies, the numerous studs of
Cappadocia and Spain would have supplied new squadrons of
cavalry; the thirty-four arsenals of the empire were plentifully
stored with magazines of offensive and defensive arms: and the
wealth of Asia might still have yielded an ample fund for the
expenses of the war. But the effects which were produced by the
battle of Hadrianople on the minds of the Barbarians and of the
Romans, extended the victory of the former, and the defeat of the
latter, far beyond the limits of a single day. A Gothic chief was
heard to declare, with insolent moderation, that, for his own
part, he was fatigued with slaughter: but that he was astonished
how a people, who fled before him like a flock of sheep, could
still presume to dispute the possession of their treasures and
provinces. 115 The same terrors which the name of the Huns had
spread among the Gothic tribes, were inspired, by the formidable
name of the Goths, among the subjects and soldiers of the Roman
empire. 116 If Theodosius, hastily collecting his scattered
forces, had led them into the field to encounter a victorious
enemy, his army would have been vanquished by their own fears;
and his rashness could not have been excused by the chance of
success. But the _great_ Theodosius, an epithet which he
honorably deserved on this momentous occasion, conducted himself
as the firm and faithful guardian of the republic. He fixed his
head-quarters at Thessalonica, the capital of the Macedonian
diocese; 117 from whence he could watch the irregular motions of
the Barbarians, and direct the operations of his lieutenants,
from the gates of Constantinople to the shores of the Hadriatic.
The fortifications and garrisons of the cities were strengthened;
and the troops, among whom a sense of order and discipline was
revived, were insensibly emboldened by the confidence of their
own safety. From these secure stations, they were encouraged to
make frequent sallies on the Barbarians, who infested the
adjacent country; and, as they were seldom allowed to engage,
without some decisive superiority, either of ground or of
numbers, their enterprises were, for the most part, successful;
and they were soon convinced, by their own experience, of the
possibility of vanquishing their _invincible_ enemies. The
detachments of these separate garrisons were generally united
into small armies; the same cautious measures were pursued,
according to an extensive and well-concerted plan of operations;
the events of each day added strength and spirit to the Roman
arms; and the artful diligence of the emperor, who circulated the
most favorable reports of the success of the war, contributed to
subdue the pride of the Barbarians, and to animate the hopes and
courage of his subjects. If, instead of this faint and imperfect
outline, we could accurately represent the counsels and actions
of Theodosius, in four successive campaigns, there is reason to
believe, that his consummate skill would deserve the applause of
every military reader. The republic had formerly been saved by
the delays of Fabius; and, while the splendid trophies of Scipio,
in the field of Zama, attract the eyes of posterity, the camps
and marches of the dictator among the hills of the Campania, may
claim a juster proportion of the solid and independent fame,
which the general is not compelled to share, either with fortune
or with his troops. Such was likewise the merit of Theodosius;
and the infirmities of his body, which most unseasonably
languished under a long and dangerous disease, could not oppress
the vigor of his mind, or divert his attention from the public
service. 118
113 (return) [ Let us hear Ammianus himself. Hæc, ut miles
quondam et Græcus, a principatu Cæsaris Nervæ exorsus, adusque
Valentis inter, pro virium explicavi mensurâ: opus veritatem
professum nun quam, ut arbitror, sciens, silentio ausus
corrumpere vel mendacio. Scribant reliqua potiores ætate,
doctrinisque florentes. Quos id, si libuerit, aggressuros,
procudere linguas ad majores moneo stilos. Ammian. xxxi. 16. The
first thirteen books, a superficial epitome of two hundred and
fifty-seven years, are now lost: the last eighteen, which contain
no more than twenty-five years, still preserve the copious and
authentic history of his own times.]
114 (return) [ Ammianus was the last subject of Rome who composed
a profane history in the Latin language. The East, in the next
century, produced some rhetorical historians, Zosimus,
Olympiedorus, Malchus, Candidus &c. See Vossius de Historicis
Græcis, l. ii. c. 18, de Historicis Latinis l. ii. c. 10, &c.]
115 (return) [ Chrysostom, tom. i. p. 344, edit. Montfaucon. I
have verified and examined this passage: but I should never,
without the aid of Tillemont, (Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 152,)
have detected an historical anecdote, in a strange medley of
moral and mystic exhortations, addressed, by the preacher of
Antioch, to a young widow.]
116 (return) [ Eunapius, in Excerpt. Legation. p. 21.]
117 (return) [ See Godefroy’s Chronology of the Laws. Codex
Theodos tom. l. Prolegomen. p. xcix.—civ.]
118 (return) [ Most writers insist on the illness, and long
repose, of Theodosius, at Thessalonica: Zosimus, to diminish his
glory; Jornandes, to favor the Goths; and the ecclesiastical
writers, to introduce his baptism.]
The deliverance and peace of the Roman provinces 119 was the work
of prudence, rather than of valor: the prudence of Theodosius was
seconded by fortune: and the emperor never failed to seize, and
to improve, every favorable circumstance. As long as the superior
genius of Fritigern preserved the union, and directed the motions
of the Barbarians, their power was not inadequate to the conquest
of a great empire. The death of that hero, the predecessor and
master of the renowned Alaric, relieved an impatient multitude
from the intolerable yoke of discipline and discretion. The
Barbarians, who had been restrained by his authority, abandoned
themselves to the dictates of their passions; and their passions
were seldom uniform or consistent. An army of conquerors was
broken into many disorderly bands of savage robbers; and their
blind and irregular fury was not less pernicious to themselves,
than to their enemies. Their mischievous disposition was shown in
the destruction of every object which they wanted strength to
remove, or taste to enjoy; and they often consumed, with
improvident rage, the harvests, or the granaries, which soon
afterwards became necessary for their own subsistence. A spirit
of discord arose among the independent tribes and nations, which
had been united only by the bands of a loose and voluntary
alliance. The troops of the Huns and the Alani would naturally
upbraid the flight of the Goths; who were not disposed to use
with moderation the advantages of their fortune; the ancient
jealousy of the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths could not long be
suspended; and the haughty chiefs still remembered the insults
and injuries, which they had reciprocally offered, or sustained,
while the nation was seated in the countries beyond the Danube.
The progress of domestic faction abated the more diffusive
sentiment of national animosity; and the officers of Theodosius
were instructed to purchase, with liberal gifts and promises, the
retreat or service of the discontented party. The acquisition of
Modar, a prince of the royal blood of the Amali, gave a bold and
faithful champion to the cause of Rome. The illustrious deserter
soon obtained the rank of master-general, with an important
command; surprised an army of his countrymen, who were immersed
in wine and sleep; and, after a cruel slaughter of the astonished
Goths, returned with an immense spoil, and four thousand wagons,
to the Imperial camp. 120 In the hands of a skilful politician,
the most different means may be successfully applied to the same
ends; and the peace of the empire, which had been forwarded by
the divisions, was accomplished by the reunion, of the Gothic
nation. Athanaric, who had been a patient spectator of these
extraordinary events, was at length driven, by the chance of
arms, from the dark recesses of the woods of Caucaland. He no
longer hesitated to pass the Danube; and a very considerable part
of the subjects of Fritigern, who already felt the inconveniences
of anarchy, were easily persuaded to acknowledge for their king a
Gothic Judge, whose birth they respected, and whose abilities
they had frequently experienced. But age had chilled the daring
spirit of Athanaric; and, instead of leading his people to the
field of battle and victory, he wisely listened to the fair
proposal of an honorable and advantageous treaty. Theodosius, who
was acquainted with the merit and power of his new ally,
condescended to meet him at the distance of several miles from
Constantinople; and entertained him in the Imperial city, with
the confidence of a friend, and the magnificence of a monarch.
“The Barbarian prince observed, with curious attention, the
variety of objects which attracted his notice, and at last broke
out into a sincere and passionate exclamation of wonder. I now
behold (said he) what I never could believe, the glories of this
stupendous capital! And as he cast his eyes around, he viewed,
and he admired, the commanding situation of the city, the
strength and beauty of the walls and public edifices, the
capacious harbor, crowded with innumerable vessels, the perpetual
concourse of distant nations, and the arms and discipline of the
troops. Indeed, (continued Athanaric,) the emperor of the Romans
is a god upon earth; and the presumptuous man, who dares to lift
his hand against him, is guilty of his own blood.” 121 The Gothic
king did not long enjoy this splendid and honorable reception;
and, as temperance was not the virtue of his nation, it may
justly be suspected, that his mortal disease was contracted
amidst the pleasures of the Imperial banquets. But the policy of
Theodosius derived more solid benefit from the death, than he
could have expected from the most faithful services, of his ally.
The funeral of Athanaric was performed with solemn rites in the
capital of the East; a stately monument was erected to his
memory; and his whole army, won by the liberal courtesy, and
decent grief, of Theodosius, enlisted under the standard of the
Roman empire. 122 The submission of so great a body of the
Visigoths was productive of the most salutary consequences; and
the mixed influence of force, of reason, and of corruption,
became every day more powerful, and more extensive. Each
independent chieftain hastened to obtain a separate treaty, from
the apprehension that an obstinate delay might expose _him_,
alone and unprotected, to the revenge, or justice, of the
conqueror. The general, or rather the final, capitulation of the
Goths, may be dated four years, one month, and twenty-five days,
after the defeat and death of the emperor Valens. 123
119 (return) [ Compare Themistius (Orat, xiv. p. 181) with
Zosimus (l. iv. p. 232,) Jornandes, (c. xxvii. p. 649,) and the
prolix Commentary of M. de Buat, (Hist. de Peuples, &c., tom. vi.
p. 477—552.) The Chronicles of Idatius and Marcellinus allude, in
general terms, to magna certamina, _magna multaque_ prælia. The
two epithets are not easily reconciled.]
120 (return) [ Zosimus (l. iv. p. 232) styles him a Scythian, a
name which the more recent Greeks seem to have appropriated to
the Goths.]
121 (return) [ The reader will not be displeased to see the
original words of Jornandes, or the author whom he transcribed.
Regiam urbem ingressus est, miransque, En, inquit, cerno quod
sæpe incredulus audiebam, famam videlicet tantæ urbis. Et huc
illuc oculos volvens, nunc situm urbis, commeatumque navium, nunc
mœnia clara pro spectans, miratur; populosque diversarum gentium,
quasi fonte in uno e diversis partibus scaturiente unda, sic
quoque militem ordinatum aspiciens; Deus, inquit, sine dubio est
terrenus Imperator, et quisquis adversus eum manum moverit, ipse
sui sanguinis reus existit Jornandes (c. xxviii. p. 650) proceeds
to mention his death and funeral.]
122 (return) [ Jornandes, c. xxviii. p. 650. Even Zosimus (l. v.
p. 246) is compelled to approve the generosity of Theodosius, so
honorable to himself, and so beneficial to the public.]
123 (return) [ The short, but authentic, hints in the _Fasti_ of
Idatius (Chron. Scaliger. p. 52) are stained with contemporary
passion. The fourteenth oration of Themistius is a compliment to
Peace, and the consul Saturninus, (A.D. 383.)]
The provinces of the Danube had been already relieved from the
oppressive weight of the Gruthungi, or Ostrogoths, by the
voluntary retreat of Alatheus and Saphrax, whose restless spirit
had prompted them to seek new scenes of rapine and glory. Their
destructive course was pointed towards the West; but we must be
satisfied with a very obscure and imperfect knowledge of their
various adventures. The Ostrogoths impelled several of the German
tribes on the provinces of Gaul; concluded, and soon violated, a
treaty with the emperor Gratian; advanced into the unknown
countries of the North; and, after an interval of more than four
years, returned, with accumulated force, to the banks of the
Lower Danube. Their troops were recruited with the fiercest
warriors of Germany and Scythia; and the soldiers, or at least
the historians, of the empire, no longer recognized the name and
countenances of their former enemies. 124 The general who
commanded the military and naval powers of the Thracian frontier,
soon perceived that his superiority would be disadvantageous to
the public service; and that the Barbarians, awed by the presence
of his fleet and legions, would probably defer the passage of the
river till the approaching winter. The dexterity of the spies,
whom he sent into the Gothic camp, allured the Barbarians into a
fatal snare. They were persuaded that, by a bold attempt, they
might surprise, in the silence and darkness of the night, the
sleeping army of the Romans; and the whole multitude was hastily
embarked in a fleet of three thousand canoes. 125 The bravest of
the Ostrogoths led the van; the main body consisted of the
remainder of their subjects and soldiers; and the women and
children securely followed in the rear. One of the nights without
a moon had been selected for the execution of their design; and
they had almost reached the southern bank of the Danube, in the
firm confidence that they should find an easy landing and an
unguarded camp. But the progress of the Barbarians was suddenly
stopped by an unexpected obstacle a triple line of vessels,
strongly connected with each other, and which formed an
impenetrable chain of two miles and a half along the river. While
they struggled to force their way in the unequal conflict, their
right flank was overwhelmed by the irresistible attack of a fleet
of galleys, which were urged down the stream by the united
impulse of oars and of the tide. The weight and velocity of those
ships of war broke, and sunk, and dispersed, the rude and feeble
canoes of the Barbarians; their valor was ineffectual; and
Alatheus, the king, or general, of the Ostrogoths, perished with
his bravest troops, either by the sword of the Romans, or in the
waves of the Danube. The last division of this unfortunate fleet
might regain the opposite shore; but the distress and disorder of
the multitude rendered them alike incapable, either of action or
counsel; and they soon implored the clemency of the victorious
enemy. On this occasion, as well as on many others, it is a
difficult task to reconcile the passions and prejudices of the
writers of the age of Theodosius. The partial and malignant
historian, who misrepresents every action of his reign, affirms,
that the emperor did not appear in the field of battle till the
Barbarians had been vanquished by the valor and conduct of his
lieutenant Promotus. 126 The flattering poet, who celebrated, in
the court of Honorius, the glory of the father and of the son,
ascribes the victory to the personal prowess of Theodosius; and
almost insinuates, that the king of the Ostrogoths was slain by
the hand of the emperor. 127 The truth of history might perhaps
be found in a just medium between these extreme and contradictory
assertions.
124 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 252.]
125 (return) [ I am justified, by reason and example, in applying
this Indian name to the the Barbarians, the single trees hollowed
into the shape of a boat. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 253. Ausi Danubium
quondam tranare Gruthungi In lintres fregere nemus: ter mille
ruebant Per fluvium plenæ cuneis immanibus alni. Claudian, in iv.
Cols. Hon. 623.]
126 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 252—255. He too frequently
betrays his poverty of judgment by disgracing the most serious
narratives with trifling and incredible circumstances.]
127 (return) [—Odothæi Regis _opima_ Retulit—Ver. 632. The
_opima_ were the spoils which a Roman general could only win from
the king, or general, of the enemy, whom he had slain with his
own hands: and no more than three such examples are celebrated in
the victorious ages of Rome.]
The original treaty which fixed the settlement of the Goths,
ascertained their privileges, and stipulated their obligations,
would illustrate the history of Theodosius and his successors.
The series of their history has imperfectly preserved the spirit
and substance of this single agreement. 128 The ravages of war
and tyranny had provided many large tracts of fertile but
uncultivated land for the use of those Barbarians who might not
disdain the practice of agriculture. A numerous colony of the
Visigoths was seated in Thrace; the remains of the Ostrogoths
were planted in Phrygia and Lydia; their immediate wants were
supplied by a distribution of corn and cattle; and their future
industry was encouraged by an exemption from tribute, during a
certain term of years. The Barbarians would have deserved to feel
the cruel and perfidious policy of the Imperial court, if they
had suffered themselves to be dispersed through the provinces.
They required, and they obtained, the sole possession of the
villages and districts assigned for their residence; they still
cherished and propagated their native manners and language;
asserted, in the bosom of despotism, the freedom of their
domestic government; and acknowledged the sovereignty of the
emperor, without submitting to the inferior jurisdiction of the
laws and magistrates of Rome. The hereditary chiefs of the tribes
and families were still permitted to command their followers in
peace and war; but the royal dignity was abolished; and the
generals of the Goths were appointed and removed at the pleasure
of the emperor. An army of forty thousand Goths was maintained
for the perpetual service of the empire of the East; and those
haughty troops, who assumed the title of _Fæderati_, or allies,
were distinguished by their gold collars, liberal pay, and
licentious privileges. Their native courage was improved by the
use of arms and the knowledge of discipline; and, while the
republic was guarded, or threatened, by the doubtful sword of the
Barbarians, the last sparks of the military flame were finally
extinguished in the minds of the Romans. 129 Theodosius had the
address to persuade his allies, that the conditions of peace,
which had been extorted from him by prudence and necessity, were
the voluntary expressions of his sincere friendship for the
Gothic nation. 130 A different mode of vindication or apology was
opposed to the complaints of the people; who loudly censured
these shameful and dangerous concessions. 131 The calamities of
the war were painted in the most lively colors; and the first
symptoms of the return of order, of plenty, and security, were
diligently exaggerated. The advocates of Theodosius could affirm,
with some appearance of truth and reason, that it was impossible
to extirpate so many warlike tribes, who were rendered desperate
by the loss of their native country; and that the exhausted
provinces would be revived by a fresh supply of soldiers and
husbandmen. The Barbarians still wore an angry and hostile
aspect; but the experience of past times might encourage the
hope, that they would acquire the habits of industry and
obedience; that their manners would be polished by time,
education, and the influence of Christianity; and that their
posterity would insensibly blend with the great body of the Roman
people. 132
128 (return) [ See Themistius, Orat. xvi. p. 211. Claudian (in
Eutrop. l. ii. 112) mentions the Phrygian colony:——Ostrogothis
colitur mistisque Gruthungis Phyrx ager——and then proceeds to
name the rivers of Lydia, the Pactolus, and Herreus.]
129 (return) [ Compare Jornandes, (c. xx. 27,) who marks the
condition and number of the Gothic _Fæderati_, with Zosimus, (l.
iv. p. 258,) who mentions their golden collars; and Pacatus, (in
Panegyr. Vet. xii. 37,) who applauds, with false or foolish joy,
their bravery and discipline.]
130 (return) [ Amator pacis generisque Gothorum, is the praise
bestowed by the Gothic historian, (c. xxix.,) who represents his
nation as innocent, peaceable men, slow to anger, and patient of
injuries. According to Livy, the Romans conquered the world in
their own defence.]
131 (return) [ Besides the partial invectives of Zosimus, (always
discontented with the Christian reigns,) see the grave
representations which Synesius addresses to the emperor Arcadius,
(de Regno, p. 25, 26, edit. Petav.) The philosophic bishop of
Cyrene was near enough to judge; and he was sufficiently removed
from the temptation of fear or flattery.]
132 (return) [ Themistius (Orat. xvi. p. 211, 212) composes an
elaborate and rational apology, which is not, however, exempt
from the puerilities of Greek rhetoric. Orpheus could _only_
charm the wild beasts of Thrace; but Theodosius enchanted the men
and women, whose predecessors in the same country had torn
Orpheus in pieces, &c.]
Notwithstanding these specious arguments, and these sanguine
expectations, it was apparent to every discerning eye, that the
Goths would long remain the enemies, and might soon become the
conquerors of the Roman empire. Their rude and insolent behavior
expressed their contempt of the citizens and provincials, whom
they insulted with impunity. 133 To the zeal and valor of the
Barbarians Theodosius was indebted for the success of his arms:
but their assistance was precarious; and they were sometimes
seduced, by a treacherous and inconstant disposition, to abandon
his standard, at the moment when their service was the most
essential. During the civil war against Maximus, a great number
of Gothic deserters retired into the morasses of Macedonia,
wasted the adjacent provinces, and obliged the intrepid monarch
to expose his person, and exert his power, to suppress the rising
flame of rebellion. 134 The public apprehensions were fortified
by the strong suspicion, that these tumults were not the effect
of accidental passion, but the result of deep and premeditated
design. It was generally believed, that the Goths had signed the
treaty of peace with a hostile and insidious spirit; and that
their chiefs had previously bound themselves, by a solemn and
secret oath, never to keep faith with the Romans; to maintain the
fairest show of loyalty and friendship, and to watch the
favorable moment of rapine, of conquest, and of revenge. But as
the minds of the Barbarians were not insensible to the power of
gratitude, several of the Gothic leaders sincerely devoted
themselves to the service of the empire, or, at least, of the
emperor; the whole nation was insensibly divided into two
opposite factions, and much sophistry was employed in
conversation and dispute, to compare the obligations of their
first, and second, engagements. The Goths, who considered
themselves as the friends of peace, of justice, and of Rome, were
directed by the authority of Fravitta, a valiant and honorable
youth, distinguished above the rest of his countrymen by the
politeness of his manners, the liberality of his sentiments, and
the mild virtues of social life. But the more numerous faction
adhered to the fierce and faithless Priulf, 13411 who inflamed
the passions, and asserted the independence, of his warlike
followers. On one of the solemn festivals, when the chiefs of
both parties were invited to the Imperial table, they were
insensibly heated by wine, till they forgot the usual restraints
of discretion and respect, and betrayed, in the presence of
Theodosius, the fatal secret of their domestic disputes. The
emperor, who had been the reluctant witness of this extraordinary
controversy, dissembled his fears and resentment, and soon
dismissed the tumultuous assembly. Fravitta, alarmed and
exasperated by the insolence of his rival, whose departure from
the palace might have been the signal of a civil war, boldly
followed him; and, drawing his sword, laid Priulf dead at his
feet. Their companions flew to arms; and the faithful champion of
Rome would have been oppressed by superior numbers, if he had not
been protected by the seasonable interposition of the Imperial
guards. 135 Such were the scenes of Barbaric rage, which
disgraced the palace and table of the Roman emperor; and, as the
impatient Goths could only be restrained by the firm and
temperate character of Theodosius, the public safety seemed to
depend on the life and abilities of a single man. 136
133 (return) [ Constantinople was deprived half a day of the
public allowance of bread, to expiate the murder of a Gothic
soldier: was the guilt of the people. Libanius, Orat. xii. p.
394, edit. Morel.]
134 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 267-271. He tells a long and
ridiculous story of the adventurous prince, who roved the country
with only five horsemen, of a spy whom they detected, whipped,
and killed in an old woman’s cottage, &c.]
13411 (return) [ Eunapius.—M.]
135 (return) [ Compare Eunapius (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 21, 22)
with Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 279.) The difference of circumstances
and names must undoubtedly be applied to the same story.
Fravitta, or Travitta, was afterwards consul, (A.D. 401.) and
still continued his faithful services to the eldest son of
Theodosius. (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 467.)]
136 (return) [ Les Goths ravagerent tout depuis le Danube
jusqu’au Bosphore; exterminerent Valens et son armée; et ne
repasserent le Danube, que pour abandonner l’affreuse solitude
qu’ils avoient faite, (Œuvres de Montesquieu, tom. iii. p. 479.
Considerations sur les _Causes_ de la Grandeur et de la Décadence
des Romains, c. xvii.) The president Montesquieu seems ignorant
that the Goths, after the defeat of Valens, _never_ abandoned the
Roman territory. It is now thirty years, says Claudian, (de Bello
Getico, 166, &c., A.D. 404,) Ex quo jam patrios gens hæc oblita
Triones, Atque Istrum transvecta semel, vestigia fixit Threicio
funesta solo—the error is inexcusable; since it disguises the
principal and immediate cause of the fall of the Western empire
of Rome.]
VOLUME THREE
Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part I.
Death Of Gratian.—Ruin Of Arianism.—St. Ambrose.—First Civil War,
Against Maximus.—Character, Administration, And Penance Of
Theodosius.—Death Of Valentinian II.—Second Civil War, Against
Eugenius.—Death Of Theodosius.
The fame of Gratian, before he had accomplished the twentieth
year of his age, was equal to that of the most celebrated
princes. His gentle and amiable disposition endeared him to his
private friends, the graceful affability of his manners engaged
the affection of the people: the men of letters, who enjoyed the
liberality, acknowledged the taste and eloquence, of their
sovereign; his valor and dexterity in arms were equally applauded
by the soldiers; and the clergy considered the humble piety of
Gratian as the first and most useful of his virtues. The victory
of Colmar had delivered the West from a formidable invasion; and
the grateful provinces of the East ascribed the merits of
Theodosius to the author of his greatness, and of the public
safety. Gratian survived those memorable events only four or five
years; but he survived his reputation; and, before he fell a
victim to rebellion, he had lost, in a great measure, the respect
and confidence of the Roman world.
The remarkable alteration of his character or conduct may not be
imputed to the arts of flattery, which had besieged the son of
Valentinian from his infancy; nor to the headstrong passions
which the that gentle youth appears to have escaped. A more
attentive view of the life of Gratian may perhaps suggest the
true cause of the disappointment of the public hopes. His
apparent virtues, instead of being the hardy productions of
experience and adversity, were the premature and artificial
fruits of a royal education. The anxious tenderness of his father
was continually employed to bestow on him those advantages, which
he might perhaps esteem the more highly, as he himself had been
deprived of them; and the most skilful masters of every science,
and of every art, had labored to form the mind and body of the
young prince. 1 The knowledge which they painfully communicated
was displayed with ostentation, and celebrated with lavish
praise. His soft and tractable disposition received the fair
impression of their judicious precepts, and the absence of
passion might easily be mistaken for the strength of reason. His
preceptors gradually rose to the rank and consequence of
ministers of state: 2 and, as they wisely dissembled their secret
authority, he seemed to act with firmness, with propriety, and
with judgment, on the most important occasions of his life and
reign. But the influence of this elaborate instruction did not
penetrate beyond the surface; and the skilful preceptors, who so
accurately guided the steps of their royal pupil, could not
infuse into his feeble and indolent character the vigorous and
independent principle of action which renders the laborious
pursuit of glory essentially necessary to the happiness, and
almost to the existence, of the hero. As soon as time and
accident had removed those faithful counsellors from the throne,
the emperor of the West insensibly descended to the level of his
natural genius; abandoned the reins of government to the
ambitious hands which were stretched forwards to grasp them; and
amused his leisure with the most frivolous gratifications. A
public sale of favor and injustice was instituted, both in the
court and in the provinces, by the worthless delegates of his
power, whose merit it was made sacrilege to question. 3 The
conscience of the credulous prince was directed by saints and
bishops; 4 who procured an Imperial edict to punish, as a capital
offence, the violation, the neglect, or even the ignorance, of
the divine law. 5 Among the various arts which had exercised the
youth of Gratian, he had applied himself, with singular
inclination and success, to manage the horse, to draw the bow,
and to dart the javelin; and these qualifications, which might be
useful to a soldier, were prostituted to the viler purposes of
hunting. Large parks were enclosed for the Imperial pleasures,
and plentifully stocked with every species of wild beasts; and
Gratian neglected the duties, and even the dignity, of his rank,
to consume whole days in the vain display of his dexterity and
boldness in the chase. The pride and wish of the Roman emperor to
excel in an art, in which he might be surpassed by the meanest of
his slaves, reminded the numerous spectators of the examples of
Nero and Commodus, but the chaste and temperate Gratian was a
stranger to their monstrous vices; and his hands were stained
only with the blood of animals. 6 The behavior of Gratian, which
degraded his character in the eyes of mankind, could not have
disturbed the security of his reign, if the army had not been
provoked to resent their peculiar injuries. As long as the young
emperor was guided by the instructions of his masters, he
professed himself the friend and pupil of the soldiers; many of
his hours were spent in the familiar conversation of the camp;
and the health, the comforts, the rewards, the honors, of his
faithful troops, appeared to be the objects of his attentive
concern. But, after Gratian more freely indulged his prevailing
taste for hunting and shooting, he naturally connected himself
with the most dexterous ministers of his favorite amusement. A
body of the Alani was received into the military and domestic
service of the palace; and the admirable skill, which they were
accustomed to display in the unbounded plains of Scythia, was
exercised, on a more narrow theatre, in the parks and enclosures
of Gaul. Gratian admired the talents and customs of these
favorite guards, to whom alone he intrusted the defence of his
person; and, as if he meant to insult the public opinion, he
frequently showed himself to the soldiers and people, with the
dress and arms, the long bow, the sounding quiver, and the fur
garments of a Scythian warrior. The unworthy spectacle of a Roman
prince, who had renounced the dress and manners of his country,
filled the minds of the legions with grief and indignation. 7
Even the Germans, so strong and formidable in the armies of the
empire, affected to disdain the strange and horrid appearance of
the savages of the North, who, in the space of a few years, had
wandered from the banks of the Volga to those of the Seine. A
loud and licentious murmur was echoed through the camps and
garrisons of the West; and as the mild indolence of Gratian
neglected to extinguish the first symptoms of discontent, the
want of love and respect was not supplied by the influence of
fear. But the subversion of an established government is always a
work of some real, and of much apparent, difficulty; and the
throne of Gratian was protected by the sanctions of custom, law,
religion, and the nice balance of the civil and military powers,
which had been established by the policy of Constantine. It is
not very important to inquire from what cause the revolt of
Britain was produced. Accident is commonly the parent of
disorder; the seeds of rebellion happened to fall on a soil which
was supposed to be more fruitful than any other in tyrants and
usurpers; 8 the legions of that sequestered island had been long
famous for a spirit of presumption and arrogance; 9 and the name
of Maximus was proclaimed, by the tumultuary, but unanimous
voice, both of the soldiers and of the provincials. The emperor,
or the rebel,—for this title was not yet ascertained by
fortune,—was a native of Spain, the countryman, the
fellow-soldier, and the rival of Theodosius whose elevation he
had not seen without some emotions of envy and resentment: the
events of his life had long since fixed him in Britain; and I
should not be unwilling to find some evidence for the marriage,
which he is said to have contracted with the daughter of a
wealthy lord of Caernarvonshire. 10 But this provincial rank
might justly be considered as a state of exile and obscurity; and
if Maximus had obtained any civil or military office, he was not
invested with the authority either of governor or general. 11 His
abilities, and even his integrity, are acknowledged by the
partial writers of the age; and the merit must indeed have been
conspicuous that could extort such a confession in favor of the
vanquished enemy of Theodosius. The discontent of Maximus might
incline him to censure the conduct of his sovereign, and to
encourage, perhaps, without any views of ambition, the murmurs of
the troops. But in the midst of the tumult, he artfully, or
modestly, refused to ascend the throne; and some credit appears
to have been given to his own positive declaration, that he was
compelled to accept the dangerous present of the Imperial purple.
12
1 (return) [ Valentinian was less attentive to the religion of
his son; since he intrusted the education of Gratian to Ausonius,
a professed Pagan. (Mem. de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xv.
p. 125-138). The poetical fame of Ausonius condemns the taste of
his age.]
2 (return) [ Ausonius was successively promoted to the Prætorian
praefecture of Italy, (A.D. 377,) and of Gaul, (A.D. 378;) and
was at length invested with the consulship, (A.D. 379.) He
expressed his gratitude in a servile and insipid piece of
flattery, (Actio Gratiarum, p. 699-736,) which has survived more
worthy productions.]
3 (return) [ Disputare de principali judicio non oportet.
Sacrilegii enim instar est dubitare, an is dignus sit, quem
elegerit imperator. Codex Justinian, l. ix. tit. xxix. leg. 3.
This convenient law was revived and promulgated, after the death
of Gratian, by the feeble court of Milan.]
4 (return) [ Ambrose composed, for his instruction, a theological
treatise on the faith of the Trinity: and Tillemont, (Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. v. p. 158, 169,) ascribes to the archbishop the
merit of Gratian’s intolerant laws.]
5 (return) [ Qui divinae legis sanctitatem nesciendo omittunt,
aut negligende violant, et offendunt, sacrilegium committunt.
Codex Justinian. l. ix. tit. xxix. leg. 1. Theodosius indeed may
claim his share in the merit of this comprehensive law.]
6 (return) [ Ammianus (xxxi. 10) and the younger Victor
acknowledge the virtues of Gratian; and accuse, or rather lament,
his degenerate taste. The odious parallel of Commodus is saved by
“licet incruentus;” and perhaps Philostorgius (l. x. c. 10, and
Godefroy, p. 41) had guarded with some similar reserve, the
comparison of Nero.]
7 (return) [ Zosimus (l. iv. p. 247) and the younger Victor
ascribe the revolution to the favor of the Alani, and the
discontent of the Roman troops Dum exercitum negligeret, et
paucos ex Alanis, quos ingenti auro ad sa transtulerat,
anteferret veteri ac Romano militi.]
8 (return) [ Britannia fertilis provincia tyrannorum, is a
memorable expression, used by Jerom in the Pelagian controversy,
and variously tortured in the disputes of our national
antiquaries. The revolutions of the last age appeared to justify
the image of the sublime Bossuet, “sette ile, plus orageuse que
les mers qui l’environment.”]
9 (return) [ Zosimus says of the British soldiers.]
10 (return) [ Helena, the daughter of Eudda. Her chapel may still
be seen at Caer-segont, now Caer-narvon. (Carte’s Hist. of
England, vol. i. p. 168, from Rowland’s Mona Antiqua.) The
prudent reader may not perhaps be satisfied with such Welsh
evidence.]
11 (return) [ Camden (vol. i. introduct. p. ci.) appoints him
governor at Britain; and the father of our antiquities is
followed, as usual, by his blind progeny. Pacatus and Zosimus had
taken some pains to prevent this error, or fable; and I shall
protect myself by their decisive testimonies. Regali habitu
exulem suum, illi exules orbis induerunt, (in Panegyr. Vet. xii.
23,) and the Greek historian still less equivocally, (Maximus)
(l. iv. p. 248.)]
12 (return) [ Sulpicius Severus, Dialog. ii. 7. Orosius, l. vii.
c. 34. p. 556. They both acknowledge (Sulpicius had been his
subject) his innocence and merit. It is singular enough, that
Maximus should be less favorably treated by Zosimus, the partial
adversary of his rival.]
But there was danger likewise in refusing the empire; and from
the moment that Maximus had violated his allegiance to his lawful
sovereign, he could not hope to reign, or even to live, if he
confined his moderate ambition within the narrow limits of
Britain. He boldly and wisely resolved to prevent the designs of
Gratian; the youth of the island crowded to his standard, and he
invaded Gaul with a fleet and army, which were long afterwards
remembered, as the emigration of a considerable part of the
British nation. 13 The emperor, in his peaceful residence of
Paris, was alarmed by their hostile approach; and the darts which
he idly wasted on lions and bears, might have been employed more
honorably against the rebels. But his feeble efforts announced
his degenerate spirit and desperate situation; and deprived him
of the resources, which he still might have found, in the support
of his subjects and allies. The armies of Gaul, instead of
opposing the march of Maximus, received him with joyful and loyal
acclamations; and the shame of the desertion was transferred from
the people to the prince. The troops, whose station more
immediately attached them to the service of the palace, abandoned
the standard of Gratian the first time that it was displayed in
the neighborhood of Paris. The emperor of the West fled towards
Lyons, with a train of only three hundred horse; and, in the
cities along the road, where he hoped to find refuge, or at least
a passage, he was taught, by cruel experience, that every gate is
shut against the unfortunate. Yet he might still have reached, in
safety, the dominions of his brother; and soon have returned with
the forces of Italy and the East; if he had not suffered himself
to be fatally deceived by the perfidious governor of the Lyonnese
province. Gratian was amused by protestations of doubtful
fidelity, and the hopes of a support, which could not be
effectual; till the arrival of Andragathius, the general of the
cavalry of Maximus, put an end to his suspense. That resolute
officer executed, without remorse, the orders or the intention of
the usurper. Gratian, as he rose from supper, was delivered into
the hands of the assassin: and his body was denied to the pious
and pressing entreaties of his brother Valentinian. 14 The death
of the emperor was followed by that of his powerful general
Mellobaudes, the king of the Franks; who maintained, to the last
moment of his life, the ambiguous reputation, which is the just
recompense of obscure and subtle policy. 15 These executions
might be necessary to the public safety: but the successful
usurper, whose power was acknowledged by all the provinces of the
West, had the merit, and the satisfaction, of boasting, that,
except those who had perished by the chance of war, his triumph
was not stained by the blood of the Romans. 16
13 (return) [ Archbishop Usher (Antiquat. Britan. Eccles. p. 107,
108) has diligently collected the legends of the island, and the
continent. The whole emigration consisted of 30,000 soldiers, and
100,000 plebeians, who settled in Bretagne. Their destined
brides, St. Ursula with 11,000 noble, and 60,000 plebeian,
virgins, mistook their way; landed at Cologne, and were all most
cruelly murdered by the Huns. But the plebeian sisters have been
defrauded of their equal honors; and what is still harder, John
Trithemius presumes to mention the children of these British
virgins.]
14 (return) [ Zosimus (l. iv. p. 248, 249) has transported the
death of Gratian from Lugdunum in Gaul (Lyons) to Singidunum in
Moesia. Some hints may be extracted from the Chronicles; some
lies may be detected in Sozomen (l. vii. c. 13) and Socrates, (l.
v. c. 11.) Ambrose is our most authentic evidence, (tom. i.
Enarrat. in Psalm lxi. p. 961, tom ii. epist. xxiv. p. 888 &c.,
and de Obitu Valentinian Consolat. Ner. 28, p. 1182.)]
15 (return) [ Pacatus (xii. 28) celebrates his fidelity; while
his treachery is marked in Prosper’s Chronicle, as the cause of
the ruin of Gratian. Ambrose, who has occasion to exculpate
himself, only condemns the death of Vallio, a faithful servant of
Gratian, (tom. ii. epist. xxiv. p. 891, edit. Benedict.) * Note:
Le Beau contests the reading in the chronicle of Prosper upon
which this charge rests. Le Beau, iv. 232.—M. * Note: According
to Pacatus, the Count Vallio, who commanded the army, was carried
to Chalons to be burnt alive; but Maximus, dreading the
imputation of cruelty, caused him to be secretly strangled by his
Bretons. Macedonius also, master of the offices, suffered the
death which he merited. Le Beau, iv. 244.—M.]
16 (return) [ He protested, nullum ex adversariis nisi in acissie
occubu. Sulp. Jeverus in Vit. B. Martin, c. 23. The orator
Theodosius bestows reluctant, and therefore weighty, praise on
his clemency. Si cui ille, pro ceteris sceleribus suis, minus
crudelis fuisse videtur, (Panegyr. Vet. xii. 28.)]
The events of this revolution had passed in such rapid
succession, that it would have been impossible for Theodosius to
march to the relief of his benefactor, before he received the
intelligence of his defeat and death. During the season of
sincere grief, or ostentatious mourning, the Eastern emperor was
interrupted by the arrival of the principal chamberlain of
Maximus; and the choice of a venerable old man, for an office
which was usually exercised by eunuchs, announced to the court of
Constantinople the gravity and temperance of the British usurper.
The ambassador condescended to justify, or excuse, the conduct of
his master; and to protest, in specious language, that the murder
of Gratian had been perpetrated, without his knowledge or
consent, by the precipitate zeal of the soldiers. But he
proceeded, in a firm and equal tone, to offer Theodosius the
alternative of peace, or war. The speech of the ambassador
concluded with a spirited declaration, that although Maximus, as
a Roman, and as the father of his people, would choose rather to
employ his forces in the common defence of the republic, he was
armed and prepared, if his friendship should be rejected, to
dispute, in a field of battle, the empire of the world. An
immediate and peremptory answer was required; but it was
extremely difficult for Theodosius to satisfy, on this important
occasion, either the feelings of his own mind, or the
expectations of the public. The imperious voice of honor and
gratitude called aloud for revenge. From the liberality of
Gratian, he had received the Imperial diadem; his patience would
encourage the odious suspicion, that he was more deeply sensible
of former injuries, than of recent obligations; and if he
accepted the friendship, he must seem to share the guilt, of the
assassin. Even the principles of justice, and the interest of
society, would receive a fatal blow from the impunity of Maximus;
and the example of successful usurpation would tend to dissolve
the artificial fabric of government, and once more to replunge
the empire in the crimes and calamities of the preceding age.
But, as the sentiments of gratitude and honor should invariably
regulate the conduct of an individual, they may be overbalanced
in the mind of a sovereign, by the sense of superior duties; and
the maxims both of justice and humanity must permit the escape of
an atrocious criminal, if an innocent people would be involved in
the consequences of his punishment. The assassin of Gratian had
usurped, but he actually possessed, the most warlike provinces of
the empire: the East was exhausted by the misfortunes, and even
by the success, of the Gothic war; and it was seriously to be
apprehended, that, after the vital strength of the republic had
been wasted in a doubtful and destructive contest, the feeble
conqueror would remain an easy prey to the Barbarians of the
North. These weighty considerations engaged Theodosius to
dissemble his resentment, and to accept the alliance of the
tyrant. But he stipulated, that Maximus should content himself
with the possession of the countries beyond the Alps. The brother
of Gratian was confirmed and secured in the sovereignty of Italy,
Africa, and the Western Illyricum; and some honorable conditions
were inserted in the treaty, to protect the memory, and the laws,
of the deceased emperor. 17 According to the custom of the age,
the images of the three Imperial colleagues were exhibited to the
veneration of the people; nor should it be lightly supposed,
that, in the moment of a solemn reconciliation, Theodosius
secretly cherished the intention of perfidy and revenge. 18
17 (return) [ Ambrose mentions the laws of Gratian, quas non
abrogavit hostia (tom. ii epist. xvii. p. 827.)]
18 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 251, 252. We may disclaim his
odious suspicions; but we cannot reject the treaty of peace which
the friends of Theodosius have absolutely forgotten, or slightly
mentioned.]
The contempt of Gratian for the Roman soldiers had exposed him to
the fatal effects of their resentment. His profound veneration
for the Christian clergy was rewarded by the applause and
gratitude of a powerful order, which has claimed, in every age,
the privilege of dispensing honors, both on earth and in heaven.
19 The orthodox bishops bewailed his death, and their own
irreparable loss; but they were soon comforted by the discovery,
that Gratian had committed the sceptre of the East to the hands
of a prince, whose humble faith and fervent zeal, were supported
by the spirit and abilities of a more vigorous character. Among
the benefactors of the church, the fame of Constantine has been
rivalled by the glory of Theodosius. If Constantine had the
advantage of erecting the standard of the cross, the emulation of
his successor assumed the merit of subduing the Arian heresy, and
of abolishing the worship of idols in the Roman world. Theodosius
was the first of the emperors baptized in the true faith of the
Trinity. Although he was born of a Christian family, the maxims,
or at least the practice, of the age, encouraged him to delay the
ceremony of his initiation; till he was admonished of the danger
of delay, by the serious illness which threatened his life,
towards the end of the first year of his reign. Before he again
took the field against the Goths, he received the sacrament of
baptism 20 from Acholius, the orthodox bishop of Thessalonica: 21
and, as the emperor ascended from the holy font, still glowing
with the warm feelings of regeneration, he dictated a solemn
edict, which proclaimed his own faith, and prescribed the
religion of his subjects. “It is our pleasure (such is the
Imperial style) that all the nations, which are governed by our
clemency and moderation, should steadfastly adhere to the
religion which was taught by St. Peter to the Romans; which
faithful tradition has preserved; and which is now professed by
the pontiff Damasus, and by Peter, bishop of Alexandria, a man of
apostolic holiness. According to the discipline of the apostles,
and the doctrine of the gospel, let us believe the sole deity of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; under an equal majesty,
and a pious Trinity. We authorize the followers of this doctrine
to assume the title of Catholic Christians; and as we judge, that
all others are extravagant madmen, we brand them with the
infamous name of Heretics; and declare that their conventicles
shall no longer usurp the respectable appellation of churches.
Besides the condemnation of divine justice, they must expect to
suffer the severe penalties, which our authority, guided by
heavenly wisdom, shall think proper to inflict upon them.” 22 The
faith of a soldier is commonly the fruit of instruction, rather
than of inquiry; but as the emperor always fixed his eyes on the
visible landmarks of orthodoxy, which he had so prudently
constituted, his religious opinions were never affected by the
specious texts, the subtle arguments, and the ambiguous creeds of
the Arian doctors. Once indeed he expressed a faint inclination
to converse with the eloquent and learned Eunomius, who lived in
retirement at a small distance from Constantinople. But the
dangerous interview was prevented by the prayers of the empress
Flaccilla, who trembled for the salvation of her husband; and the
mind of Theodosius was confirmed by a theological argument,
adapted to the rudest capacity. He had lately bestowed on his
eldest son, Arcadius, the name and honors of Augustus, and the
two princes were seated on a stately throne to receive the homage
of their subjects. A bishop, Amphilochius of Iconium, approached
the throne, and after saluting, with due reverence, the person of
his sovereign, he accosted the royal youth with the same familiar
tenderness which he might have used towards a plebeian child.
Provoked by this insolent behavior, the monarch gave orders, that
the rustic priest should be instantly driven from his presence.
But while the guards were forcing him to the door, the dexterous
polemic had time to execute his design, by exclaiming, with a
loud voice, “Such is the treatment, O emperor! which the King of
heaven has prepared for those impious men, who affect to worship
the Father, but refuse to acknowledge the equal majesty of his
divine Son.” Theodosius immediately embraced the bishop of
Iconium, and never forgot the important lesson, which he had
received from this dramatic parable. 23
19 (return) [ Their oracle, the archbishop of Milan, assigns to
his pupil Gratian, a high and respectable place in heaven, (tom.
ii. de Obit. Val. Consol p. 1193.)]
20 (return) [ For the baptism of Theodosius, see Sozomen, (l.
vii. c. 4,) Socrates, (l. v. c. 6,) and Tillemont, (Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. v. p. 728.)]
21 (return) [ Ascolius, or Acholius, was honored by the
friendship, and the praises, of Ambrose; who styles him murus
fidei atque sanctitatis, (tom. ii. epist. xv. p. 820;) and
afterwards celebrates his speed and diligence in running to
Constantinople, Italy, &c., (epist. xvi. p. 822.) a virtue which
does not appertain either to a wall, or a bishop.]
22 (return) [ Codex Theodos. l. xvi. tit. i. leg. 2, with
Godefroy’s Commentary, tom. vi. p. 5-9. Such an edict deserved
the warmest praises of Baronius, auream sanctionem, edictum pium
et salutare.—Sic itua ad astra.]
23 (return) [ Sozomen, l. vii. c. 6. Theodoret, l. v. c. 16.
Tillemont is displeased (Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 627, 628) with
the terms of “rustic bishop,” “obscure city.” Yet I must take
leave to think, that both Amphilochius and Iconium were objects
of inconsiderable magnitude in the Roman empire.]
Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part II.
Constantinople was the principal seat and fortress of Arianism;
and, in a long interval of forty years, 24 the faith of the
princes and prelates, who reigned in the capital of the East, was
rejected in the purer schools of Rome and Alexandria. The
archiepiscopal throne of Macedonius, which had been polluted with
so much Christian blood, was successively filled by Eudoxus and
Damophilus. Their diocese enjoyed a free importation of vice and
error from every province of the empire; the eager pursuit of
religious controversy afforded a new occupation to the busy
idleness of the metropolis; and we may credit the assertion of an
intelligent observer, who describes, with some pleasantry, the
effects of their loquacious zeal. “This city,” says he, “is full
of mechanics and slaves, who are all of them profound
theologians; and preach in the shops, and in the streets. If you
desire a man to change a piece of silver, he informs you, wherein
the Son differs from the Father; if you ask the price of a loaf,
you are told by way of reply, that the Son is inferior to the
Father; and if you inquire, whether the bath is ready, the answer
is, that the Son was made out of nothing.” 25 The heretics, of
various denominations, subsisted in peace under the protection of
the Arians of Constantinople; who endeavored to secure the
attachment of those obscure sectaries, while they abused, with
unrelenting severity, the victory which they had obtained over
the followers of the council of Nice. During the partial reigns
of Constantius and Valens, the feeble remnant of the Homoousians
was deprived of the public and private exercise of their
religion; and it has been observed, in pathetic language, that
the scattered flock was left without a shepherd to wander on the
mountains, or to be devoured by rapacious wolves. 26 But, as
their zeal, instead of being subdued, derived strength and vigor
from oppression, they seized the first moments of imperfect
freedom, which they had acquired by the death of Valens, to form
themselves into a regular congregation, under the conduct of an
episcopal pastor. Two natives of Cappadocia, Basil, and Gregory
Nazianzen, 27 were distinguished above all their contemporaries,
28 by the rare union of profane eloquence and of orthodox piety.
These orators, who might sometimes be compared, by themselves,
and by the public, to the most celebrated of the ancient Greeks,
were united by the ties of the strictest friendship. They had
cultivated, with equal ardor, the same liberal studies in the
schools of Athens; they had retired, with equal devotion, to the
same solitude in the deserts of Pontus; and every spark of
emulation, or envy, appeared to be totally extinguished in the
holy and ingenuous breasts of Gregory and Basil. But the
exaltation of Basil, from a private life to the archiepiscopal
throne of Caesarea, discovered to the world, and perhaps to
himself, the pride of his character; and the first favor which he
condescended to bestow on his friend, was received, and perhaps
was intended, as a cruel insult. 29 Instead of employing the
superior talents of Gregory in some useful and conspicuous
station, the haughty prelate selected, among the fifty bishoprics
of his extensive province, the wretched village of Sasima, 30
without water, without verdure, without society, situate at the
junction of three highways, and frequented only by the incessant
passage of rude and clamorous wagoners. Gregory submitted with
reluctance to this humiliating exile; he was ordained bishop of
Sasima; but he solemnly protests, that he never consummated his
spiritual marriage with this disgusting bride. He afterwards
consented to undertake the government of his native church of
Nazianzus, 31 of which his father had been bishop above
five-and-forty years. But as he was still conscious that he
deserved another audience, and another theatre, he accepted, with
no unworthy ambition, the honorable invitation, which was
addressed to him from the orthodox party of Constantinople. On
his arrival in the capital, Gregory was entertained in the house
of a pious and charitable kinsman; the most spacious room was
consecrated to the uses of religious worship; and the name of
Anastasia was chosen to express the resurrection of the Nicene
faith. This private conventicle was afterwards converted into a
magnificent church; and the credulity of the succeeding age was
prepared to believe the miracles and visions, which attested the
presence, or at least the protection, of the Mother of God. 32
The pulpit of the Anastasia was the scene of the labors and
triumphs of Gregory Nazianzen; and, in the space of two years, he
experienced all the spiritual adventures which constitute the
prosperous or adverse fortunes of a missionary. 33 The Arians,
who were provoked by the boldness of his enterprise, represented
his doctrine, as if he had preached three distinct and equal
Deities; and the devout populace was excited to suppress, by
violence and tumult, the irregular assemblies of the Athanasian
heretics. From the cathedral of St. Sophia there issued a motley
crowd “of common beggars, who had forfeited their claim to pity;
of monks, who had the appearance of goats or satyrs; and of
women, more terrible than so many Jezebels.” The doors of the
Anastasia were broke open; much mischief was perpetrated, or
attempted, with sticks, stones, and firebrands; and as a man lost
his life in the affray, Gregory, who was summoned the next
morning before the magistrate, had the satisfaction of supposing,
that he publicly confessed the name of Christ. After he was
delivered from the fear and danger of a foreign enemy, his infant
church was disgraced and distracted by intestine faction. A
stranger who assumed the name of Maximus, 34 and the cloak of a
Cynic philosopher, insinuated himself into the confidence of
Gregory; deceived and abused his favorable opinion; and forming a
secret connection with some bishops of Egypt, attempted, by a
clandestine ordination, to supplant his patron in the episcopal
seat of Constantinople. These mortifications might sometimes
tempt the Cappadocian missionary to regret his obscure solitude.
But his fatigues were rewarded by the daily increase of his fame
and his congregation; and he enjoyed the pleasure of observing,
that the greater part of his numerous audience retired from his
sermons satisfied with the eloquence of the preacher, 35 or
dissatisfied with the manifold imperfections of their faith and
practice. 36
24 (return) [ Sozomen, l. vii. c. v. Socrates, l. v. c. 7.
Marcellin. in Chron. The account of forty years must be dated
from the election or intrusion of Eusebius, who wisely exchanged
the bishopric of Nicomedia for the throne of Constantinople.]
25 (return) [ See Jortin’s Remarks on Ecclesiastical History,
vol. iv. p. 71. The thirty-third Oration of Gregory Nazianzen
affords indeed some similar ideas, even some still more
ridiculous; but I have not yet found the words of this remarkable
passage, which I allege on the faith of a correct and liberal
scholar.]
26 (return) [ See the thirty-second Oration of Gregory Nazianzen,
and the account of his own life, which he has composed in 1800
iambics. Yet every physician is prone to exaggerate the
inveterate nature of the disease which he has cured.]
27 (return) [ I confess myself deeply indebted to the two lives
of Gregory Nazianzen, composed, with very different views, by
Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. ix. p. 305-560, 692-731) and Le
Clerc, (Bibliothèque Universelle, tom. xviii. p. 1-128.)]
28 (return) [ Unless Gregory Nazianzen mistook thirty years in
his own age, he was born, as well as his friend Basil, about the
year 329. The preposterous chronology of Suidas has been
graciously received, because it removes the scandal of Gregory’s
father, a saint likewise, begetting children after he became a
bishop, (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. ix. p. 693-697.)]
29 (return) [ Gregory’s Poem on his own Life contains some
beautiful lines, (tom. ii. p. 8,) which burst from the heart, and
speak the pangs of injured and lost friendship. ——In the
Midsummer Night’s Dream, Helena addresses the same pathetic
complaint to her friend Hermia:—Is all the counsel that we two
have shared. The sister’s vows, &c. Shakspeare had never read the
poems of Gregory Nazianzen; he was ignorant of the Greek
language; but his mother tongue, the language of Nature, is the
same in Cappadocia and in Britain.]
30 (return) [ This unfavorable portrait of Sasimae is drawn by
Gregory Nazianzen, (tom. ii. de Vita sua, p. 7, 8.) Its precise
situation, forty-nine miles from Archelais, and thirty-two from
Tyana, is fixed in the Itinerary of Antoninus, (p. 144, edit.
Wesseling.)]
31 (return) [ The name of Nazianzus has been immortalized by
Gregory; but his native town, under the Greek or Roman title of
Diocaesarea, (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. ix. p. 692,) is
mentioned by Pliny, (vi. 3,) Ptolemy, and Hierocles, (Itinerar.
Wesseling, p. 709). It appears to have been situate on the edge
of Isauria.]
32 (return) [ See Ducange, Constant. Christiana, l. iv. p. 141,
142. The Sozomen (l. vii. c. 5) is interpreted to mean the Virgin
Mary.]
33 (return) [ Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. ix. p. 432, &c.)
diligently collects, enlarges, and explains, the oratorical and
poetical hints of Gregory himself.]
34 (return) [ He pronounced an oration (tom. i. Orat. xxiii. p.
409) in his praise; but after their quarrel, the name of Maximus
was changed into that of Heron, (see Jerom, tom. i. in Catalog.
Script. Eccles. p. 301). I touch slightly on these obscure and
personal squabbles.]
35 (return) [ Under the modest emblem of a dream, Gregory (tom.
ii. Carmen ix. p. 78) describes his own success with some human
complacency. Yet it should seem, from his familiar conversation
with his auditor St. Jerom, (tom. i. Epist. ad Nepotian. p. 14,)
that the preacher understood the true value of popular applause.]
36 (return) [ Lachrymae auditorum laudes tuae sint, is the lively
and judicious advice of St. Jerom.]
The Catholics of Constantinople were animated with joyful
confidence by the baptism and edict of Theodosius; and they
impatiently waited the effects of his gracious promise. Their
hopes were speedily accomplished; and the emperor, as soon as he
had finished the operations of the campaign, made his public
entry into the capital at the head of a victorious army. The next
day after his arrival, he summoned Damophilus to his presence,
and offered that Arian prelate the hard alternative of
subscribing the Nicene creed, or of instantly resigning, to the
orthodox believers, the use and possession of the episcopal
palace, the cathedral of St. Sophia, and all the churches of
Constantinople. The zeal of Damophilus, which in a Catholic saint
would have been justly applauded, embraced, without hesitation, a
life of poverty and exile, 37 and his removal was immediately
followed by the purification of the Imperial city. The Arians
might complain, with some appearance of justice, that an
inconsiderable congregation of sectaries should usurp the hundred
churches, which they were insufficient to fill; whilst the far
greater part of the people was cruelly excluded from every place
of religious worship. Theodosius was still inexorable; but as the
angels who protected the Catholic cause were only visible to the
eyes of faith, he prudently reenforced those heavenly legions
with the more effectual aid of temporal and carnal weapons; and
the church of St. Sophia was occupied by a large body of the
Imperial guards. If the mind of Gregory was susceptible of pride,
he must have felt a very lively satisfaction, when the emperor
conducted him through the streets in solemn triumph; and, with
his own hand, respectfully placed him on the archiepiscopal
throne of Constantinople. But the saint (who had not subdued the
imperfections of human virtue) was deeply affected by the
mortifying consideration, that his entrance into the fold was
that of a wolf, rather than of a shepherd; that the glittering
arms which surrounded his person, were necessary for his safety;
and that he alone was the object of the imprecations of a great
party, whom, as men and citizens, it was impossible for him to
despise. He beheld the innumerable multitude of either sex, and
of every age, who crowded the streets, the windows, and the roofs
of the houses; he heard the tumultuous voice of rage, grief,
astonishment, and despair; and Gregory fairly confesses, that on
the memorable day of his installation, the capital of the East
wore the appearance of a city taken by storm, and in the hands of
a Barbarian conqueror. 38 About six weeks afterwards, Theodosius
declared his resolution of expelling from all the churches of his
dominions the bishops and their clergy who should obstinately
refuse to believe, or at least to profess, the doctrine of the
council of Nice. His lieutenant, Sapor, was armed with the ample
powers of a general law, a special commission, and a military
force; 39 and this ecclesiastical revolution was conducted with
so much discretion and vigor, that the religion of the emperor
was established, without tumult or bloodshed, in all the
provinces of the East. The writings of the Arians, if they had
been permitted to exist, 40 would perhaps contain the lamentable
story of the persecution, which afflicted the church under the
reign of the impious Theodosius; and the sufferings of their holy
confessors might claim the pity of the disinterested reader. Yet
there is reason to imagine, that the violence of zeal and revenge
was, in some measure, eluded by the want of resistance; and that,
in their adversity, the Arians displayed much less firmness than
had been exerted by the orthodox party under the reigns of
Constantius and Valens. The moral character and conduct of the
hostile sects appear to have been governed by the same common
principles of nature and religion: but a very material
circumstance may be discovered, which tended to distinguish the
degrees of their theological faith. Both parties, in the schools,
as well as in the temples, acknowledged and worshipped the divine
majesty of Christ; and, as we are always prone to impute our own
sentiments and passions to the Deity, it would be deemed more
prudent and respectful to exaggerate, than to circumscribe, the
adorable perfections of the Son of God. The disciple of
Athanasius exulted in the proud confidence, that he had entitled
himself to the divine favor; while the follower of Arius must
have been tormented by the secret apprehension, that he was
guilty, perhaps, of an unpardonable offence, by the scanty
praise, and parsimonious honors, which he bestowed on the Judge
of the World. The opinions of Arianism might satisfy a cold and
speculative mind: but the doctrine of the Nicene creed, most
powerfully recommended by the merits of faith and devotion, was
much better adapted to become popular and successful in a
believing age.
37 (return) [ Socrates (l. v. c. 7) and Sozomen (l. vii. c. 5)
relate the evangelical words and actions of Damophilus without a
word of approbation. He considered, says Socrates, that it is
difficult to resist the powerful, but it was easy, and would have
been profitable, to submit.]
38 (return) [ See Gregory Nazianzen, tom. ii. de Vita sua, p. 21,
22. For the sake of posterity, the bishop of Constantinople
records a stupendous prodigy. In the month of November, it was a
cloudy morning, but the sun broke forth when the procession
entered the church.]
39 (return) [ Of the three ecclesiastical historians, Theodoret
alone (l. v. c. 2) has mentioned this important commission of
Sapor, which Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 728)
judiciously removes from the reign of Gratian to that of
Theodosius.]
40 (return) [ I do not reckon Philostorgius, though he mentions
(l. ix. c. 19) the explosion of Damophilus. The Eunomian
historian has been carefully strained through an orthodox sieve.]
The hope, that truth and wisdom would be found in the assemblies
of the orthodox clergy, induced the emperor to convene, at
Constantinople, a synod of one hundred and fifty bishops, who
proceeded, without much difficulty or delay, to complete the
theological system which had been established in the council of
Nice. The vehement disputes of the fourth century had been
chiefly employed on the nature of the Son of God; and the various
opinions which were embraced, concerning the Second, were
extended and transferred, by a natural analogy, to the Third
person of the Trinity. 41 Yet it was found, or it was thought,
necessary, by the victorious adversaries of Arianism, to explain
the ambiguous language of some respectable doctors; to confirm
the faith of the Catholics; and to condemn an unpopular and
inconsistent sect of Macedonians; who freely admitted that the
Son was consubstantial to the Father, while they were fearful of
seeming to acknowledge the existence of Three Gods. A final and
unanimous sentence was pronounced to ratify the equal Deity of
the Holy Ghost: the mysterious doctrine has been received by all
the nations, and all the churches of the Christian world; and
their grateful reverence has assigned to the bishops of
Theodosius the second rank among the general councils. 42 Their
knowledge of religious truth may have been preserved by
tradition, or it may have been communicated by inspiration; but
the sober evidence of history will not allow much weight to the
personal authority of the Fathers of Constantinople. In an age
when the ecclesiastics had scandalously degenerated from the
model of apostolic purity, the most worthless and corrupt were
always the most eager to frequent, and disturb, the episcopal
assemblies. The conflict and fermentation of so many opposite
interests and tempers inflamed the passions of the bishops: and
their ruling passions were, the love of gold, and the love of
dispute. Many of the same prelates who now applauded the orthodox
piety of Theodosius, had repeatedly changed, with prudent
flexibility, their creeds and opinions; and in the various
revolutions of the church and state, the religion of their
sovereign was the rule of their obsequious faith. When the
emperor suspended his prevailing influence, the turbulent synod
was blindly impelled by the absurd or selfish motives of pride,
hatred, or resentment. The death of Meletius, which happened at
the council of Constantinople, presented the most favorable
opportunity of terminating the schism of Antioch, by suffering
his aged rival, Paulinus, peaceably to end his days in the
episcopal chair. The faith and virtues of Paulinus were
unblemished. But his cause was supported by the Western churches;
and the bishops of the synod resolved to perpetuate the mischiefs
of discord, by the hasty ordination of a perjured candidate, 43
rather than to betray the imagined dignity of the East, which had
been illustrated by the birth and death of the Son of God. Such
unjust and disorderly proceedings forced the gravest members of
the assembly to dissent and to secede; and the clamorous majority
which remained masters of the field of battle, could be compared
only to wasps or magpies, to a flight of cranes, or to a flock of
geese. 44
41 (return) [ Le Clerc has given a curious extract (Bibliothèque
Universelle, tom. xviii. p. 91-105) of the theological sermons
which Gregory Nazianzen pronounced at Constantinople against the
Arians, Eunomians, Macedonians, &c. He tells the Macedonians, who
deified the Father and the Son without the Holy Ghost, that they
might as well be styled Tritheists as Ditheists. Gregory himself
was almost a Tritheist; and his monarchy of heaven resembles a
well-regulated aristocracy.]
42 (return) [ The first general council of Constantinople now
triumphs in the Vatican; but the popes had long hesitated, and
their hesitation perplexes, and almost staggers, the humble
Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. ix. p. 499, 500.)]
43 (return) [ Before the death of Meletius, six or eight of his
most popular ecclesiastics, among whom was Flavian, had abjured,
for the sake of peace, the bishopric of Antioch, (Sozomen, l.
vii. c. 3, 11. Socrates, l. v. c. v.) Tillemont thinks it his
duty to disbelieve the story; but he owns that there are many
circumstances in the life of Flavian which seem inconsistent with
the praises of Chrysostom, and the character of a saint, (Mem.
Eccles. tom. x. p. 541.)]
44 (return) [ Consult Gregory Nazianzen, de Vita sua, tom. ii. p.
25-28. His general and particular opinion of the clergy and their
assemblies may be seen in verse and prose, (tom. i. Orat. i. p.
33. Epist. lv. p. 814, tom. ii. Carmen x. p. 81.) Such passages
are faintly marked by Tillemont, and fairly produced by Le
Clerc.]
A suspicion may possibly arise, that so unfavorable a picture of
ecclesiastical synods has been drawn by the partial hand of some
obstinate heretic, or some malicious infidel. But the name of the
sincere historian who has conveyed this instructive lesson to the
knowledge of posterity, must silence the impotent murmurs of
superstition and bigotry. He was one of the most pious and
eloquent bishops of the age; a saint, and a doctor of the church;
the scourge of Arianism, and the pillar of the orthodox faith; a
distinguished member of the council of Constantinople, in which,
after the death of Meletius, he exercised the functions of
president; in a word—Gregory Nazianzen himself. The harsh and
ungenerous treatment which he experienced, 45 instead of
derogating from the truth of his evidence, affords an additional
proof of the spirit which actuated the deliberations of the
synod. Their unanimous suffrage had confirmed the pretensions
which the bishop of Constantinople derived from the choice of the
people, and the approbation of the emperor. But Gregory soon
became the victim of malice and envy. The bishops of the East,
his strenuous adherents, provoked by his moderation in the
affairs of Antioch, abandoned him, without support, to the
adverse faction of the Egyptians; who disputed the validity of
his election, and rigorously asserted the obsolete canon, that
prohibited the licentious practice of episcopal translations. The
pride, or the humility, of Gregory prompted him to decline a
contest which might have been imputed to ambition and avarice;
and he publicly offered, not without some mixture of indignation,
to renounce the government of a church which had been restored,
and almost created, by his labors. His resignation was accepted
by the synod, and by the emperor, with more readiness than he
seems to have expected. At the time when he might have hoped to
enjoy the fruits of his victory, his episcopal throne was filled
by the senator Nectarius; and the new archbishop, accidentally
recommended by his easy temper and venerable aspect, was obliged
to delay the ceremony of his consecration, till he had previously
despatched the rites of his baptism. 46 After this remarkable
experience of the ingratitude of princes and prelates, Gregory
retired once more to his obscure solitude of Cappadocia; where he
employed the remainder of his life, about eight years, in the
exercises of poetry and devotion. The title of Saint has been
added to his name: but the tenderness of his heart, 47 and the
elegance of his genius, reflect a more pleasing lustre on the
memory of Gregory Nazianzen.
45 (return) [ See Gregory, tom. ii. de Vita sua, p. 28-31. The
fourteenth, twenty-seventh, and thirty-second Orations were
pronounced in the several stages of this business. The peroration
of the last, (tom. i. p. 528,) in which he takes a solemn leave
of men and angels, the city and the emperor, the East and the
West, &c., is pathetic, and almost sublime.]
46 (return) [ The whimsical ordination of Nectarius is attested
by Sozomen, (l. vii. c. 8;) but Tillemont observes, (Mem. Eccles.
tom. ix. p. 719,) Apres tout, ce narre de Sozomene est si
honteux, pour tous ceux qu’il y mele, et surtout pour Theodose,
qu’il vaut mieux travailler a le detruire, qu’a le soutenir; an
admirable canon of criticism!]
47 (return) [ I can only be understood to mean, that such was his
natural temper when it was not hardened, or inflamed, by
religious zeal. From his retirement, he exhorts Nectarius to
prosecute the heretics of Constantinople.]
It was not enough that Theodosius had suppressed the insolent
reign of Arianism, or that he had abundantly revenged the
injuries which the Catholics sustained from the zeal of
Constantius and Valens. The orthodox emperor considered every
heretic as a rebel against the supreme powers of heaven and of
earth; and each of those powers might exercise their peculiar
jurisdiction over the soul and body of the guilty. The decrees of
the council of Constantinople had ascertained the true standard
of the faith; and the ecclesiastics, who governed the conscience
of Theodosius, suggested the most effectual methods of
persecution. In the space of fifteen years, he promulgated at
least fifteen severe edicts against the heretics; 48 more
especially against those who rejected the doctrine of the
Trinity; and to deprive them of every hope of escape, he sternly
enacted, that if any laws or rescripts should be alleged in their
favor, the judges should consider them as the illegal productions
either of fraud or forgery. The penal statutes were directed
against the ministers, the assemblies, and the persons of the
heretics; and the passions of the legislator were expressed in
the language of declamation and invective. I. The heretical
teachers, who usurped the sacred titles of Bishops, or
Presbyters, were not only excluded from the privileges and
emoluments so liberally granted to the orthodox clergy, but they
were exposed to the heavy penalties of exile and confiscation, if
they presumed to preach the doctrine, or to practise the rites,
of their accursed sects. A fine of ten pounds of gold (above four
hundred pounds sterling) was imposed on every person who should
dare to confer, or receive, or promote, an heretical ordination:
and it was reasonably expected, that if the race of pastors could
be extinguished, their helpless flocks would be compelled, by
ignorance and hunger, to return within the pale of the Catholic
church. II. The rigorous prohibition of conventicles was
carefully extended to every possible circumstance, in which the
heretics could assemble with the intention of worshipping God and
Christ according to the dictates of their conscience. Their
religious meetings, whether public or secret, by day or by night,
in cities or in the country, were equally proscribed by the
edicts of Theodosius; and the building, or ground, which had been
used for that illegal purpose, was forfeited to the Imperial
domain. III. It was supposed, that the error of the heretics
could proceed only from the obstinate temper of their minds; and
that such a temper was a fit object of censure and punishment.
The anathemas of the church were fortified by a sort of civil
excommunication; which separated them from their fellow-citizens,
by a peculiar brand of infamy; and this declaration of the
supreme magistrate tended to justify, or at least to excuse, the
insults of a fanatic populace. The sectaries were gradually
disqualified from the possession of honorable or lucrative
employments; and Theodosius was satisfied with his own justice,
when he decreed, that, as the Eunomians distinguished the nature
of the Son from that of the Father, they should be incapable of
making their wills or of receiving any advantage from
testamentary donations. The guilt of the Manichaean heresy was
esteemed of such magnitude, that it could be expiated only by the
death of the offender; and the same capital punishment was
inflicted on the Audians, or Quartodecimans, 49 who should dare
to perpetrate the atrocious crime of celebrating on an improper
day the festival of Easter. Every Roman might exercise the right
of public accusation; but the office of Inquisitors of the Faith,
a name so deservedly abhorred, was first instituted under the
reign of Theodosius. Yet we are assured, that the execution of
his penal edicts was seldom enforced; and that the pious emperor
appeared less desirous to punish, than to reclaim, or terrify,
his refractory subjects. 50
48 (return) [ See the Theodosian Code, l. xvi. tit. v. leg. 6—23,
with Godefroy’s commentary on each law, and his general summary,
or Paratitlon, tom vi. p. 104-110.]
49 (return) [ They always kept their Easter, like the Jewish
Passover, on the fourteenth day of the first moon after the
vernal equinox; and thus pertinaciously opposed the Roman Church
and Nicene synod, which had fixed Easter to a Sunday. Bingham’s
Antiquities, l. xx. c. 5, vol. ii. p. 309, fol. edit.]
50 (return) [ Sozomen, l. vii. c. 12.]
The theory of persecution was established by Theodosius, whose
justice and piety have been applauded by the saints: but the
practice of it, in the fullest extent, was reserved for his rival
and colleague, Maximus, the first, among the Christian princes,
who shed the blood of his Christian subjects on account of their
religious opinions. The cause of the Priscillianists, 51 a recent
sect of heretics, who disturbed the provinces of Spain, was
transferred, by appeal, from the synod of Bordeaux to the
Imperial consistory of Treves; and by the sentence of the
Prætorian praefect, seven persons were tortured, condemned, and
executed. The first of these was Priscillian 52 himself, bishop
of Avila, in Spain; who adorned the advantages of birth and
fortune, by the accomplishments of eloquence and learning. 53 Two
presbyters, and two deacons, accompanied their beloved master in
his death, which they esteemed as a glorious martyrdom; and the
number of religious victims was completed by the execution of
Latronian, a poet, who rivalled the fame of the ancients; and of
Euchrocia, a noble matron of Bordeaux, the widow of the orator
Delphidius. 54 Two bishops who had embraced the sentiments of
Priscillian, were condemned to a distant and dreary exile; 55 and
some indulgence was shown to the meaner criminals, who assumed
the merit of an early repentance. If any credit could be allowed
to confessions extorted by fear or pain, and to vague reports,
the offspring of malice and credulity, the heresy of the
Priscillianists would be found to include the various
abominations of magic, of impiety, and of lewdness. 56
Priscillian, who wandered about the world in the company of his
spiritual sisters, was accused of praying stark naked in the
midst of the congregation; and it was confidently asserted, that
the effects of his criminal intercourse with the daughter of
Euchrocia had been suppressed, by means still more odious and
criminal. But an accurate, or rather a candid, inquiry will
discover, that if the Priscillianists violated the laws of
nature, it was not by the licentiousness, but by the austerity,
of their lives. They absolutely condemned the use of the
marriage-bed; and the peace of families was often disturbed by
indiscreet separations. They enjoyed, or recommended, a total
abstinence from all animal food; and their continual prayers,
fasts, and vigils, inculcated a rule of strict and perfect
devotion. The speculative tenets of the sect, concerning the
person of Christ, and the nature of the human soul, were derived
from the Gnostic and Manichaean system; and this vain philosophy,
which had been transported from Egypt to Spain, was ill adapted
to the grosser spirits of the West. The obscure disciples of
Priscillian suffered languished, and gradually disappeared: his
tenets were rejected by the clergy and people, but his death was
the subject of a long and vehement controversy; while some
arraigned, and others applauded, the justice of his sentence. It
is with pleasure that we can observe the humane inconsistency of
the most illustrious saints and bishops, Ambrose of Milan, 57 and
Martin of Tours, 58 who, on this occasion, asserted the cause of
toleration. They pitied the unhappy men, who had been executed at
Treves; they refused to hold communion with their episcopal
murderers; and if Martin deviated from that generous resolution,
his motives were laudable, and his repentance was exemplary. The
bishops of Tours and Milan pronounced, without hesitation, the
eternal damnation of heretics; but they were surprised, and
shocked, by the bloody image of their temporal death, and the
honest feelings of nature resisted the artificial prejudices of
theology. The humanity of Ambrose and Martin was confirmed by the
scandalous irregularity of the proceedings against Priscillian
and his adherents. The civil and ecclesiastical ministers had
transgressed the limits of their respective provinces. The
secular judge had presumed to receive an appeal, and to pronounce
a definitive sentence, in a matter of faith, and episcopal
jurisdiction. The bishops had disgraced themselves, by exercising
the functions of accusers in a criminal prosecution. The cruelty
of Ithacius, 59 who beheld the tortures, and solicited the death,
of the heretics, provoked the just indignation of mankind; and
the vices of that profligate bishop were admitted as a proof,
that his zeal was instigated by the sordid motives of interest.
Since the death of Priscillian, the rude attempts of persecution
have been refined and methodized in the holy office, which
assigns their distinct parts to the ecclesiastical and secular
powers. The devoted victim is regularly delivered by the priest
to the magistrate, and by the magistrate to the executioner; and
the inexorable sentence of the church, which declares the
spiritual guilt of the offender, is expressed in the mild
language of pity and intercession.
51 (return) [ See the Sacred History of Sulpicius Severus, (l.
ii. p. 437-452, edit. Ludg. Bat. 1647,) a correct and original
writer. Dr. Lardner (Credibility, &c., part ii. vol. ix. p.
256-350) has labored this article with pure learning, good sense,
and moderation. Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 491-527)
has raked together all the dirt of the fathers; a useful
scavenger!]
52 (return) [ Severus Sulpicius mentions the arch-heretic with
esteem and pity Faelix profecto, si non pravo studio corrupisset
optimum ingenium prorsus multa in eo animi et corporis bona
cerneres. (Hist. Sacra, l ii. p. 439.) Even Jerom (tom. i. in
Script. Eccles. p. 302) speaks with temper of Priscillian and
Latronian.]
53 (return) [ The bishopric (in Old Castile) is now worth 20,000
ducats a year, (Busching’s Geography, vol. ii. p. 308,) and is
therefore much less likely to produce the author of a new
heresy.]
54 (return) [ Exprobrabatur mulieri viduae nimia religio, et
diligentius culta divinitas, (Pacat. in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 29.)
Such was the idea of a humane, though ignorant, polytheist.]
55 (return) [ One of them was sent in Sillinam insulam quae ultra
Britannianest. What must have been the ancient condition of the
rocks of Scilly? (Camden’s Britannia, vol. ii. p. 1519.)]
56 (return) [ The scandalous calumnies of Augustin, Pope Leo,
&c., which Tillemont swallows like a child, and Lardner refutes
like a man, may suggest some candid suspicions in favor of the
older Gnostics.]
57 (return) [ Ambros. tom. ii. Epist. xxiv. p. 891.]
58 (return) [ In the Sacred History, and the Life of St. Martin,
Sulpicius Severus uses some caution; but he declares himself more
freely in the Dialogues, (iii. 15.) Martin was reproved, however,
by his own conscience, and by an angel; nor could he afterwards
perform miracles with so much ease.]
59 (return) [ The Catholic Presbyter (Sulp. Sever. l. ii. p. 448)
and the Pagan Orator (Pacat. in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 29) reprobate,
with equal indignation, the character and conduct of Ithacius.]
Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part III.
Among the ecclesiastics, who illustrated the reign of Theodosius,
Gregory Nazianzen was distinguished by the talents of an eloquent
preacher; the reputation of miraculous gifts added weight and
dignity to the monastic virtues of Martin of Tours; 60 but the
palm of episcopal vigor and ability was justly claimed by the
intrepid Ambrose. 61 He was descended from a noble family of
Romans; his father had exercised the important office of
Prætorian praefect of Gaul; and the son, after passing through
the studies of a liberal education, attained, in the regular
gradation of civil honors, the station of consular of Liguria, a
province which included the Imperial residence of Milan. At the
age of thirty-four, and before he had received the sacrament of
baptism, Ambrose, to his own surprise, and to that of the world,
was suddenly transformed from a governor to an archbishop.
Without the least mixture, as it is said, of art or intrigue, the
whole body of the people unanimously saluted him with the
episcopal title; the concord and perseverance of their
acclamations were ascribed to a praeternatural impulse; and the
reluctant magistrate was compelled to undertake a spiritual
office, for which he was not prepared by the habits and
occupations of his former life. But the active force of his
genius soon qualified him to exercise, with zeal and prudence,
the duties of his ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and while he
cheerfully renounced the vain and splendid trappings of temporal
greatness, he condescended, for the good of the church, to direct
the conscience of the emperors, and to control the administration
of the empire. Gratian loved and revered him as a father; and the
elaborate treatise on the faith of the Trinity was designed for
the instruction of the young prince. After his tragic death, at a
time when the empress Justina trembled for her own safety, and
for that of her son Valentinian, the archbishop of Milan was
despatched, on two different embassies, to the court of Treves.
He exercised, with equal firmness and dexterity, the powers of
his spiritual and political characters; and perhaps contributed,
by his authority and eloquence, to check the ambition of Maximus,
and to protect the peace of Italy. 62 Ambrose had devoted his
life, and his abilities, to the service of the church. Wealth was
the object of his contempt; he had renounced his private
patrimony; and he sold, without hesitation, the consecrated
plate, for the redemption of captives. The clergy and people of
Milan were attached to their archbishop; and he deserved the
esteem, without soliciting the favor, or apprehending the
displeasure, of his feeble sovereigns.
60 (return) [ The Life of St. Martin, and the Dialogues
concerning his miracles contain facts adapted to the grossest
barbarism, in a style not unworthy of the Augustan age. So
natural is the alliance between good taste and good sense, that I
am always astonished by this contrast.]
61 (return) [ The short and superficial Life of St. Ambrose, by
his deacon Paulinus, (Appendix ad edit. Benedict. p. i.—xv.,) has
the merit of original evidence. Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. x.
p. 78-306) and the Benedictine editors (p. xxxi.—lxiii.) have
labored with their usual diligence.]
62 (return) [ Ambrose himself (tom. ii. Epist. xxiv. p. 888—891)
gives the emperor a very spirited account of his own embassy.]
The government of Italy, and of the young emperor, naturally
devolved to his mother Justina, a woman of beauty and spirit, but
who, in the midst of an orthodox people, had the misfortune of
professing the Arian heresy, which she endeavored to instil into
the mind of her son. Justina was persuaded, that a Roman emperor
might claim, in his own dominions, the public exercise of his
religion; and she proposed to the archbishop, as a moderate and
reasonable concession, that he should resign the use of a single
church, either in the city or the suburbs of Milan. But the
conduct of Ambrose was governed by very different principles. 63
The palaces of the earth might indeed belong to Caesar; but the
churches were the houses of God; and, within the limits of his
diocese, he himself, as the lawful successor of the apostles, was
the only minister of God. The privileges of Christianity,
temporal as well as spiritual, were confined to the true
believers; and the mind of Ambrose was satisfied, that his own
theological opinions were the standard of truth and orthodoxy.
The archbishop, who refused to hold any conference, or
negotiation, with the instruments of Satan, declared, with modest
firmness, his resolution to die a martyr, rather than to yield to
the impious sacrilege; and Justina, who resented the refusal as
an act of insolence and rebellion, hastily determined to exert
the Imperial prerogative of her son. As she desired to perform
her public devotions on the approaching festival of Easter,
Ambrose was ordered to appear before the council. He obeyed the
summons with the respect of a faithful subject, but he was
followed, without his consent, by an innumerable people; they
pressed, with impetuous zeal, against the gates of the palace;
and the affrighted ministers of Valentinian, instead of
pronouncing a sentence of exile on the archbishop of Milan,
humbly requested that he would interpose his authority, to
protect the person of the emperor, and to restore the tranquility
of the capital. But the promises which Ambrose received and
communicated were soon violated by a perfidious court; and,
during six of the most solemn days, which Christian piety had set
apart for the exercise of religion, the city was agitated by the
irregular convulsions of tumult and fanaticism. The officers of
the household were directed to prepare, first, the Portian, and
afterwards, the new, Basilica, for the immediate reception of the
emperor and his mother. The splendid canopy and hangings of the
royal seat were arranged in the customary manner; but it was
found necessary to defend them. by a strong guard, from the
insults of the populace. The Arian ecclesiastics, who ventured to
show themselves in the streets, were exposed to the most imminent
danger of their lives; and Ambrose enjoyed the merit and
reputation of rescuing his personal enemies from the hands of the
enraged multitude.
63 (return) [ His own representation of his principles and
conduct (tom. ii. Epist. xx xxi. xxii. p. 852-880) is one of the
curious monuments of ecclesiastical antiquity. It contains two
letters to his sister Marcellina, with a petition to Valentinian
and the sermon de Basilicis non madendis.]
But while he labored to restrain the effects of their zeal, the
pathetic vehemence of his sermons continually inflamed the angry
and seditious temper of the people of Milan. The characters of
Eve, of the wife of Job, of Jezebel, of Herodias, were indecently
applied to the mother of the emperor; and her desire to obtain a
church for the Arians was compared to the most cruel persecutions
which Christianity had endured under the reign of Paganism. The
measures of the court served only to expose the magnitude of the
evil. A fine of two hundred pounds of gold was imposed on the
corporate body of merchants and manufacturers: an order was
signified, in the name of the emperor, to all the officers, and
inferior servants, of the courts of justice, that, during the
continuance of the public disorders, they should strictly confine
themselves to their houses; and the ministers of Valentinian
imprudently confessed, that the most respectable part of the
citizens of Milan was attached to the cause of their archbishop.
He was again solicited to restore peace to his country, by timely
compliance with the will of his sovereign. The reply of Ambrose
was couched in the most humble and respectful terms, which might,
however, be interpreted as a serious declaration of civil war.
“His life and fortune were in the hands of the emperor; but he
would never betray the church of Christ, or degrade the dignity
of the episcopal character. In such a cause he was prepared to
suffer whatever the malice of the daemon could inflict; and he
only wished to die in the presence of his faithful flock, and at
the foot of the altar; he had not contributed to excite, but it
was in the power of God alone to appease, the rage of the people:
he deprecated the scenes of blood and confusion which were likely
to ensue; and it was his fervent prayer, that he might not
survive to behold the ruin of a flourishing city, and perhaps the
desolation of all Italy.” 64 The obstinate bigotry of Justina
would have endangered the empire of her son, if, in this contest
with the church and people of Milan, she could have depended on
the active obedience of the troops of the palace. A large body of
Goths had marched to occupy the Basilica, which was the object of
the dispute: and it might be expected from the Arian principles,
and barbarous manners, of these foreign mercenaries, that they
would not entertain any scruples in the execution of the most
sanguinary orders. They were encountered, on the sacred
threshold, by the archbishop, who, thundering against them a
sentence of excommunication, asked them, in the tone of a father
and a master, whether it was to invade the house of God, that
they had implored the hospitable protection of the republic. The
suspense of the Barbarians allowed some hours for a more
effectual negotiation; and the empress was persuaded, by the
advice of her wisest counsellors, to leave the Catholics in
possession of all the churches of Milan; and to dissemble, till a
more convenient season, her intentions of revenge. The mother of
Valentinian could never forgive the triumph of Ambrose; and the
royal youth uttered a passionate exclamation, that his own
servants were ready to betray him into the hands of an insolent
priest.
64 (return) [ Retz had a similar message from the queen, to
request that he would appease the tumult of Paris. It was no
longer in his power, &c. A quoi j’ajoutai tout ce que vous pouvez
vous imaginer de respect de douleur, de regret, et de soumission,
&c. (Mémoires, tom. i. p. 140.) Certainly I do not compare either
the causes or the men yet the coadjutor himself had some idea (p.
84) of imitating St. Ambrose]
The laws of the empire, some of which were inscribed with the
name of Valentinian, still condemned the Arian heresy, and seemed
to excuse the resistance of the Catholics. By the influence of
Justina, an edict of toleration was promulgated in all the
provinces which were subject to the court of Milan; the free
exercise of their religion was granted to those who professed the
faith of Rimini; and the emperor declared, that all persons who
should infringe this sacred and salutary constitution, should be
capitally punished, as the enemies of the public peace. 65 The
character and language of the archbishop of Milan may justify the
suspicion, that his conduct soon afforded a reasonable ground, or
at least a specious pretence, to the Arian ministers; who watched
the opportunity of surprising him in some act of disobedience to
a law which he strangely represents as a law of blood and
tyranny. A sentence of easy and honorable banishment was
pronounced, which enjoined Ambrose to depart from Milan without
delay; whilst it permitted him to choose the place of his exile,
and the number of his companions. But the authority of the
saints, who have preached and practised the maxims of passive
loyalty, appeared to Ambrose of less moment than the extreme and
pressing danger of the church. He boldly refused to obey; and his
refusal was supported by the unanimous consent of his faithful
people. 66 They guarded by turns the person of their archbishop;
the gates of the cathedral and the episcopal palace were strongly
secured; and the Imperial troops, who had formed the blockade,
were unwilling to risk the attack, of that impregnable fortress.
The numerous poor, who had been relieved by the liberality of
Ambrose, embraced the fair occasion of signalizing their zeal and
gratitude; and as the patience of the multitude might have been
exhausted by the length and uniformity of nocturnal vigils, he
prudently introduced into the church of Milan the useful
institution of a loud and regular psalmody. While he maintained
this arduous contest, he was instructed, by a dream, to open the
earth in a place where the remains of two martyrs, Gervasius and
Protasius, 67 had been deposited above three hundred years.
Immediately under the pavement of the church two perfect
skeletons were found, 68 with the heads separated from their
bodies, and a plentiful effusion of blood. The holy relics were
presented, in solemn pomp, to the veneration of the people; and
every circumstance of this fortunate discovery was admirably
adapted to promote the designs of Ambrose. The bones of the
martyrs, their blood, their garments, were supposed to contain a
healing power; and the praeternatural influence was communicated
to the most distant objects, without losing any part of its
original virtue. The extraordinary cure of a blind man, 69 and
the reluctant confessions of several daemoniacs, appeared to
justify the faith and sanctity of Ambrose; and the truth of those
miracles is attested by Ambrose himself, by his secretary
Paulinus, and by his proselyte, the celebrated Augustin, who, at
that time, professed the art of rhetoric in Milan. The reason of
the present age may possibly approve the incredulity of Justina
and her Arian court; who derided the theatrical representations
which were exhibited by the contrivance, and at the expense, of
the archbishop. 70 Their effect, however, on the minds of the
people, was rapid and irresistible; and the feeble sovereign of
Italy found himself unable to contend with the favorite of
Heaven. The powers likewise of the earth interposed in the
defence of Ambrose: the disinterested advice of Theodosius was
the genuine result of piety and friendship; and the mask of
religious zeal concealed the hostile and ambitious designs of the
tyrant of Gaul. 71
65 (return) [ Sozomen alone (l. vii. c. 13) throws this luminous
fact into a dark and perplexed narrative.]
66 (return) [ Excubabat pia plebs in ecclesia, mori parata cum
episcopo suo.... Nos, adhuc frigidi, excitabamur tamen civitate
attonita atque curbata. Augustin. Confession. l. ix. c. 7]
67 (return) [ Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. ii. p. 78, 498. Many
churches in Italy, Gaul, &c., were dedicated to these unknown
martyrs, of whom St. Gervaise seems to have been more fortunate
than his companion.]
68 (return) [ Invenimus mirae magnitudinis viros duos, ut prisca
aetas ferebat, tom. ii. Epist. xxii. p. 875. The size of these
skeletons was fortunately, or skillfully, suited to the popular
prejudice of the gradual decrease of the human stature, which has
prevailed in every age since the time of Homer.—Grandiaque
effossis mirabitur ossa sepulchris.]
69 (return) [ Ambros. tom. ii. Epist. xxii. p. 875. Augustin.
Confes, l. ix. c. 7, de Civitat. Dei, l. xxii. c. 8. Paulin. in
Vita St. Ambros. c. 14, in Append. Benedict. p. 4. The blind
man’s name was Severus; he touched the holy garment, recovered
his sight, and devoted the rest of his life (at least twenty-five
years) to the service of the church. I should recommend this
miracle to our divines, if it did not prove the worship of
relics, as well as the Nicene creed.]
70 (return) [ Paulin, in Tit. St. Ambros. c. 5, in Append.
Benedict. p. 5.]
71 (return) [ Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. x. p. 190, 750. He
partially allow the mediation of Theodosius, and capriciously
rejects that of Maximus, though it is attested by Prosper,
Sozomen, and Theodoret.]
The reign of Maximus might have ended in peace and prosperity,
could he have contented himself with the possession of three
ample countries, which now constitute the three most flourishing
kingdoms of modern Europe. But the aspiring usurper, whose sordid
ambition was not dignified by the love of glory and of arms,
considered his actual forces as the instruments only of his
future greatness, and his success was the immediate cause of his
destruction. The wealth which he extorted 72 from the oppressed
provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, was employed in levying
and maintaining a formidable army of Barbarians, collected, for
the most part, from the fiercest nations of Germany. The conquest
of Italy was the object of his hopes and preparations: and he
secretly meditated the ruin of an innocent youth, whose
government was abhorred and despised by his Catholic subjects.
But as Maximus wished to occupy, without resistance, the passes
of the Alps, he received, with perfidious smiles, Domninus of
Syria, the ambassador of Valentinian, and pressed him to accept
the aid of a considerable body of troops, for the service of a
Pannonian war. The penetration of Ambrose had discovered the
snares of an enemy under the professions of friendship; 73 but
the Syrian Domninus was corrupted, or deceived, by the liberal
favor of the court of Treves; and the council of Milan
obstinately rejected the suspicion of danger, with a blind
confidence, which was the effect, not of courage, but of fear.
The march of the auxiliaries was guided by the ambassador; and
they were admitted, without distrust, into the fortresses of the
Alps. But the crafty tyrant followed, with hasty and silent
footsteps, in the rear; and, as he diligently intercepted all
intelligence of his motions, the gleam of armor, and the dust
excited by the troops of cavalry, first announced the hostile
approach of a stranger to the gates of Milan. In this extremity,
Justina and her son might accuse their own imprudence, and the
perfidious arts of Maximus; but they wanted time, and force, and
resolution, to stand against the Gauls and Germans, either in the
field, or within the walls of a large and disaffected city.
Flight was their only hope, Aquileia their only refuge; and as
Maximus now displayed his genuine character, the brother of
Gratian might expect the same fate from the hands of the same
assassin. Maximus entered Milan in triumph; and if the wise
archbishop refused a dangerous and criminal connection with the
usurper, he might indirectly contribute to the success of his
arms, by inculcating, from the pulpit, the duty of resignation,
rather than that of resistance. 74 The unfortunate Justina
reached Aquileia in safety; but she distrusted the strength of
the fortifications: she dreaded the event of a siege; and she
resolved to implore the protection of the great Theodosius, whose
power and virtue were celebrated in all the countries of the
West. A vessel was secretly provided to transport the Imperial
family; they embarked with precipitation in one of the obscure
harbors of Venetia, or Istria; traversed the whole extent of the
Adriatic and Ionian Seas; turned the extreme promontory of
Peloponnesus; and, after a long, but successful navigation,
reposed themselves in the port of Thessalonica. All the subjects
of Valentinian deserted the cause of a prince, who, by his
abdication, had absolved them from the duty of allegiance; and if
the little city of Aemona, on the verge of Italy, had not
presumed to stop the career of his inglorious victory, Maximus
would have obtained, without a struggle, the sole possession of
the Western empire.
72 (return) [ The modest censure of Sulpicius (Dialog. iii. 15)
inflicts a much deeper wound than the declamation of Pacatus,
(xii. 25, 26.)]
73 (return) [ Esto tutior adversus hominem, pacis involurco
tegentem, was the wise caution of Ambrose (tom. ii. p. 891) after
his return from his second embassy.]
74 (return) [ Baronius (A.D. 387, No. 63) applies to this season
of public distress some of the penitential sermons of the
archbishop.]
Instead of inviting his royal guests to take the palace of
Constantinople, Theodosius had some unknown reasons to fix their
residence at Thessalonica; but these reasons did not proceed from
contempt or indifference, as he speedily made a visit to that
city, accompanied by the greatest part of his court and senate.
After the first tender expressions of friendship and sympathy,
the pious emperor of the East gently admonished Justina, that the
guilt of heresy was sometimes punished in this world, as well as
in the next; and that the public profession of the Nicene faith
would be the most efficacious step to promote the restoration of
her son, by the satisfaction which it must occasion both on earth
and in heaven. The momentous question of peace or war was
referred, by Theodosius, to the deliberation of his council; and
the arguments which might be alleged on the side of honor and
justice, had acquired, since the death of Gratian, a considerable
degree of additional weight. The persecution of the Imperial
family, to which Theodosius himself had been indebted for his
fortune, was now aggravated by recent and repeated injuries.
Neither oaths nor treaties could restrain the boundless ambition
of Maximus; and the delay of vigorous and decisive measures,
instead of prolonging the blessings of peace, would expose the
Eastern empire to the danger of a hostile invasion. The
Barbarians, who had passed the Danube, had lately assumed the
character of soldiers and subjects, but their native fierceness
was yet untamed: and the operations of a war, which would
exercise their valor, and diminish their numbers, might tend to
relieve the provinces from an intolerable oppression.
Notwithstanding these specious and solid reasons, which were
approved by a majority of the council, Theodosius still hesitated
whether he should draw the sword in a contest which could no
longer admit any terms of reconciliation; and his magnanimous
character was not disgraced by the apprehensions which he felt
for the safety of his infant sons, and the welfare of his
exhausted people. In this moment of anxious doubt, while the fate
of the Roman world depended on the resolution of a single man,
the charms of the princess Galla most powerfully pleaded the
cause of her brother Valentinian. 75 The heart of Theodosius wa
softened by the tears of beauty; his affections were insensibly
engaged by the graces of youth and innocence: the art of Justina
managed and directed the impulse of passion; and the celebration
of the royal nuptials was the assurance and signal of the civil
war. The unfeeling critics, who consider every amorous weakness
as an indelible stain on the memory of a great and orthodox
emperor, are inclined, on this occasion, to dispute the
suspicious evidence of the historian Zosimus. For my own part, I
shall frankly confess, that I am willing to find, or even to
seek, in the revolutions of the world, some traces of the mild
and tender sentiments of domestic life; and amidst the crowd of
fierce and ambitious conquerors, I can distinguish, with peculiar
complacency, a gentle hero, who may be supposed to receive his
armor from the hands of love. The alliance of the Persian king
was secured by the faith of treaties; the martial Barbarians were
persuaded to follow the standard, or to respect the frontiers, of
an active and liberal monarch; and the dominions of Theodosius,
from the Euphrates to the Adriatic, resounded with the
preparations of war both by land and sea. The skilful disposition
of the forces of the East seemed to multiply their numbers, and
distracted the attention of Maximus. He had reason to fear, that
a chosen body of troops, under the command of the intrepid
Arbogastes, would direct their march along the banks of the
Danube, and boldly penetrate through the Rhaetian provinces into
the centre of Gaul. A powerful fleet was equipped in the harbors
of Greece and Epirus, with an apparent design, that, as soon as
the passage had been opened by a naval victory, Valentinian and
his mother should land in Italy, proceed, without delay, to Rome,
and occupy the majestic seat of religion and empire. In the mean
while, Theodosius himself advanced at the head of a brave and
disciplined army, to encounter his unworthy rival, who, after the
siege of Aemona, 7511 had fixed his camp in the neighborhood of
Siscia, a city of Pannonia, strongly fortified by the broad and
rapid stream of the Save.
75 (return) [ The flight of Valentinian, and the love of
Theodosius for his sister, are related by Zosimus, (l. iv. p.
263, 264.) Tillemont produces some weak and ambiguous evidence to
antedate the second marriage of Theodosius, (Hist. des Empereurs,
to. v. p. 740,) and consequently to refute ces contes de Zosime,
qui seroient trop contraires a la piete de Theodose.]
7511 (return) [ Aemonah, Laybach. Siscia Sciszek.—M.]
Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part IV.
The veterans, who still remembered the long resistance, and
successive resources, of the tyrant Magnentius, might prepare
themselves for the labors of three bloody campaigns. But the
contest with his successor, who, like him, had usurped the throne
of the West, was easily decided in the term of two months, 76 and
within the space of two hundred miles. The superior genius of the
emperor of the East might prevail over the feeble Maximus, who,
in this important crisis, showed himself destitute of military
skill, or personal courage; but the abilities of Theodosius were
seconded by the advantage which he possessed of a numerous and
active cavalry. The Huns, the Alani, and, after their example,
the Goths themselves, were formed into squadrons of archers; who
fought on horseback, and confounded the steady valor of the Gauls
and Germans, by the rapid motions of a Tartar war. After the
fatigue of a long march, in the heat of summer, they spurred
their foaming horses into the waters of the Save, swam the river
in the presence of the enemy, and instantly charged and routed
the troops who guarded the high ground on the opposite side.
Marcellinus, the tyrant’s brother, advanced to support them with
the select cohorts, which were considered as the hope and
strength of the army. The action, which had been interrupted by
the approach of night, was renewed in the morning; and, after a
sharp conflict, the surviving remnant of the bravest soldiers of
Maximus threw down their arms at the feet of the conqueror.
Without suspending his march, to receive the loyal acclamations
of the citizens of Aemona, Theodosius pressed forwards to
terminate the war by the death or captivity of his rival, who
fled before him with the diligence of fear. From the summit of
the Julian Alps, he descended with such incredible speed into the
plain of Italy, that he reached Aquileia on the evening of the
first day; and Maximus, who found himself encompassed on all
sides, had scarcely time to shut the gates of the city. But the
gates could not long resist the effort of a victorious enemy; and
the despair, the disaffection, the indifference of the soldiers
and people, hastened the downfall of the wretched Maximus. He was
dragged from his throne, rudely stripped of the Imperial
ornaments, the robe, the diadem, and the purple slippers; and
conducted, like a malefactor, to the camp and presence of
Theodosius, at a place about three miles from Aquileia. The
behavior of the emperor was not intended to insult, and he showed
disposition to pity and forgive, the tyrant of the West, who had
never been his personal enemy, and was now become the object of
his contempt. Our sympathy is the most forcibly excited by the
misfortunes to which we are exposed; and the spectacle of a proud
competitor, now prostrate at his feet, could not fail of
producing very serious and solemn thoughts in the mind of the
victorious emperor. But the feeble emotion of involuntary pity
was checked by his regard for public justice, and the memory of
Gratian; and he abandoned the victim to the pious zeal of the
soldiers, who drew him out of the Imperial presence, and
instantly separated his head from his body. The intelligence of
his defeat and death was received with sincere or well-dissembled
joy: his son Victor, on whom he had conferred the title of
Augustus, died by the order, perhaps by the hand, of the bold
Arbogastes; and all the military plans of Theodosius were
successfully executed. When he had thus terminated the civil war,
with less difficulty and bloodshed than he might naturally
expect, he employed the winter months of his residence at Milan,
to restore the state of the afflicted provinces; and early in the
spring he made, after the example of Constantine and Constantius,
his triumphal entry into the ancient capital of the Roman empire.
77
76 (return) [ See Godefroy’s Chronology of the Laws, Cod.
Theodos, tom l. p. cxix.]
77 (return) [ Besides the hints which may be gathered from
chronicles and ecclesiastical history, Zosimus (l. iv. p.
259—267,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 35,) and Pacatus, (in Panegyr.
Vet. xii. 30-47,) supply the loose and scanty materials of this
civil war. Ambrose (tom. ii. Epist. xl. p. 952, 953) darkly
alludes to the well-known events of a magazine surprised, an
action at Petovio, a Sicilian, perhaps a naval, victory, &c.,
Ausonius (p. 256, edit. Toll.) applauds the peculiar merit and
good fortune of Aquileia.]
The orator, who may be silent without danger, may praise without
difficulty, and without reluctance; 78 and posterity will
confess, that the character of Theodosius 79 might furnish the
subject of a sincere and ample panegyric. The wisdom of his laws,
and the success of his arms, rendered his administration
respectable in the eyes both of his subjects and of his enemies.
He loved and practised the virtues of domestic life, which seldom
hold their residence in the palaces of kings. Theodosius was
chaste and temperate; he enjoyed, without excess, the sensual and
social pleasures of the table; and the warmth of his amorous
passions was never diverted from their lawful objects. The proud
titles of Imperial greatness were adorned by the tender names of
a faithful husband, an indulgent father; his uncle was raised, by
his affectionate esteem, to the rank of a second parent:
Theodosius embraced, as his own, the children of his brother and
sister; and the expressions of his regard were extended to the
most distant and obscure branches of his numerous kindred. His
familiar friends were judiciously selected from among those
persons, who, in the equal intercourse of private life, had
appeared before his eyes without a mask; the consciousness of
personal and superior merit enabled him to despise the accidental
distinction of the purple; and he proved by his conduct, that he
had forgotten all the injuries, while he most gratefully
remembered all the favors and services, which he had received
before he ascended the throne of the Roman empire. The serious or
lively tone of his conversation was adapted to the age, the rank,
or the character of his subjects, whom he admitted into his
society; and the affability of his manners displayed the image of
his mind. Theodosius respected the simplicity of the good and
virtuous: every art, every talent, of a useful, or even of an
innocent nature, was rewarded by his judicious liberality; and,
except the heretics, whom he persecuted with implacable hatred,
the diffusive circle of his benevolence was circumscribed only by
the limits of the human race. The government of a mighty empire
may assuredly suffice to occupy the time, and the abilities, of a
mortal: yet the diligent prince, without aspiring to the
unsuitable reputation of profound learning, always reserved some
moments of his leisure for the instructive amusement of reading.
History, which enlarged his experience, was his favorite study.
The annals of Rome, in the long period of eleven hundred years,
presented him with a various and splendid picture of human life:
and it has been particularly observed, that whenever he perused
the cruel acts of Cinna, of Marius, or of Sylla, he warmly
expressed his generous detestation of those enemies of humanity
and freedom. His disinterested opinion of past events was
usefully applied as the rule of his own actions; and Theodosius
has deserved the singular commendation, that his virtues always
seemed to expand with his fortune: the season of his prosperity
was that of his moderation; and his clemency appeared the most
conspicuous after the danger and success of a civil war. The
Moorish guards of the tyrant had been massacred in the first heat
of the victory, and a small number of the most obnoxious
criminals suffered the punishment of the law. But the emperor
showed himself much more attentive to relieve the innocent than
to chastise the guilty. The oppressed subjects of the West, who
would have deemed themselves happy in the restoration of their
lands, were astonished to receive a sum of money equivalent to
their losses; and the liberality of the conqueror supported the
aged mother, and educated the orphan daughters, of Maximus. 80 A
character thus accomplished might almost excuse the extravagant
supposition of the orator Pacatus; that, if the elder Brutus
could be permitted to revisit the earth, the stern republican
would abjure, at the feet of Theodosius, his hatred of kings; and
ingenuously confess, that such a monarch was the most faithful
guardian of the happiness and dignity of the Roman people. 81
78 (return) [ Quam promptum laudare principem, tam tutum siluisse
de principe, (Pacat. in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 2.) Latinus Pacatus
Drepanius, a native of Gaul, pronounced this oration at Rome,
(A.D. 388.) He was afterwards proconsul of Africa; and his friend
Ausonius praises him as a poet second only to Virgil. See
Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 303.]
79 (return) [ See the fair portrait of Theodosius, by the younger
Victor; the strokes are distinct, and the colors are mixed. The
praise of Pacatus is too vague; and Claudian always seems afraid
of exalting the father above the son.]
80 (return) [ Ambros. tom. ii. Epist. xl. p. 55. Pacatus, from
the want of skill or of courage, omits this glorious
circumstance.]
81 (return) [ Pacat. in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 20.]
Yet the piercing eye of the founder of the republic must have
discerned two essential imperfections, which might, perhaps, have
abated his recent love of despostism. The virtuous mind of
Theodosius was often relaxed by indolence, 82 and it was
sometimes inflamed by passion. 83 In the pursuit of an important
object, his active courage was capable of the most vigorous
exertions; but, as soon as the design was accomplished, or the
danger was surmounted, the hero sunk into inglorious repose; and,
forgetful that the time of a prince is the property of his
people, resigned himself to the enjoyment of the innocent, but
trifling, pleasures of a luxurious court. The natural disposition
of Theodosius was hasty and choleric; and, in a station where
none could resist, and few would dissuade, the fatal consequence
of his resentment, the humane monarch was justly alarmed by the
consciousness of his infirmity and of his power. It was the
constant study of his life to suppress, or regulate, the
intemperate sallies of passion and the success of his efforts
enhanced the merit of his clemency. But the painful virtue which
claims the merit of victory, is exposed to the danger of defeat;
and the reign of a wise and merciful prince was polluted by an
act of cruelty which would stain the annals of Nero or Domitian.
Within the space of three years, the inconsistent historian of
Theodosius must relate the generous pardon of the citizens of
Antioch, and the inhuman massacre of the people of Thessalonica.
82 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 271, 272. His partial evidence
is marked by an air of candor and truth. He observes these
vicissitudes of sloth and activity, not as a vice, but as a
singularity in the character of Theodosius.]
83 (return) [ This choleric temper is acknowledged and excused by
Victor Sed habes (says Ambrose, in decent and many language, to
his sovereign) nature impetum, quem si quis lenire velit, cito
vertes ad misericordiam: si quis stimulet, in magis exsuscitas,
ut eum revocare vix possis, (tom. ii. Epist. li. p. 998.)
Theodosius (Claud. in iv. Hon. 266, &c.) exhorts his son to
moderate his anger.]
The lively impatience of the inhabitants of Antioch was never
satisfied with their own situation, or with the character and
conduct of their successive sovereigns. The Arian subjects of
Theodosius deplored the loss of their churches; and as three
rival bishops disputed the throne of Antioch, the sentence which
decided their pretensions excited the murmurs of the two
unsuccessful congregations. The exigencies of the Gothic war, and
the inevitable expense that accompanied the conclusion of the
peace, had constrained the emperor to aggravate the weight of the
public impositions; and the provinces of Asia, as they had not
been involved in the distress were the less inclined to
contribute to the relief, of Europe. The auspicious period now
approached of the tenth year of his reign; a festival more
grateful to the soldiers, who received a liberal donative, than
to the subjects, whose voluntary offerings had been long since
converted into an extraordinary and oppressive burden. The edicts
of taxation interrupted the repose, and pleasures, of Antioch;
and the tribunal of the magistrate was besieged by a suppliant
crowd; who, in pathetic, but, at first, in respectful language,
solicited the redress of their grievances. They were gradually
incensed by the pride of their haughty rulers, who treated their
complaints as a criminal resistance; their satirical wit
degenerated into sharp and angry invectives; and, from the
subordinate powers of government, the invectives of the people
insensibly rose to attack the sacred character of the emperor
himself. Their fury, provoked by a feeble opposition, discharged
itself on the images of the Imperial family, which were erected,
as objects of public veneration, in the most conspicuous places
of the city. The statues of Theodosius, of his father, of his
wife Flaccilla, of his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius, were
insolently thrown down from their pedestals, broken in pieces, or
dragged with contempt through the streets; and the indignities
which were offered to the representations of Imperial majesty,
sufficiently declared the impious and treasonable wishes of the
populace. The tumult was almost immediately suppressed by the
arrival of a body of archers: and Antioch had leisure to reflect
on the nature and consequences of her crime. 84 According to the
duty of his office, the governor of the province despatched a
faithful narrative of the whole transaction: while the trembling
citizens intrusted the confession of their crime, and the
assurances of their repentance, to the zeal of Flavian, their
bishop, and to the eloquence of the senator Hilarius, the friend,
and most probably the disciple, of Libanius; whose genius, on
this melancholy occasion, was not useless to his country. 85 But
the two capitals, Antioch and Constantinople, were separated by
the distance of eight hundred miles; and, notwithstanding the
diligence of the Imperial posts, the guilty city was severely
punished by a long and dreadful interval of suspense. Every rumor
agitated the hopes and fears of the Antiochians, and they heard
with terror, that their sovereign, exasperated by the insult
which had been offered to his own statues, and more especially,
to those of his beloved wife, had resolved to level with the
ground the offending city; and to massacre, without distinction
of age or sex, the criminal inhabitants; 86 many of whom were
actually driven, by their apprehensions, to seek a refuge in the
mountains of Syria, and the adjacent desert. At length,
twenty-four days after the sedition, the general Hellebicus and
Caesarius, master of the offices, declared the will of the
emperor, and the sentence of Antioch. That proud capital was
degraded from the rank of a city; and the metropolis of the East,
stripped of its lands, its privileges, and its revenues, was
subjected, under the humiliating denomination of a village, to
the jurisdiction of Laodicea. 87 The baths, the Circus, and the
theatres were shut: and, that every source of plenty and pleasure
might at the same time be intercepted, the distribution of corn
was abolished, by the severe instructions of Theodosius. His
commissioners then proceeded to inquire into the guilt of
individuals; of those who had perpetrated, and of those who had
not prevented, the destruction of the sacred statues. The
tribunal of Hellebicus and Caesarius, encompassed with armed
soldiers, was erected in the midst of the Forum. The noblest, and
most wealthy, of the citizens of Antioch appeared before them in
chains; the examination was assisted by the use of torture, and
their sentence was pronounced or suspended, according to the
judgment of these extraordinary magistrates. The houses of the
criminals were exposed to sale, their wives and children were
suddenly reduced, from affluence and luxury, to the most abject
distress; and a bloody execution was expected to conclude the
horrors of the day, 88 which the preacher of Antioch, the
eloquent Chrysostom, has represented as a lively image of the
last and universal judgment of the world. But the ministers of
Theodosius performed, with reluctance, the cruel task which had
been assigned them; they dropped a gentle tear over the
calamities of the people; and they listened with reverence to the
pressing solicitations of the monks and hermits, who descended in
swarms from the mountains. 89 Hellebicus and Caesarius were
persuaded to suspend the execution of their sentence; and it was
agreed that the former should remain at Antioch, while the latter
returned, with all possible speed, to Constantinople; and
presumed once more to consult the will of his sovereign. The
resentment of Theodosius had already subsided; the deputies of
the people, both the bishop and the orator, had obtained a
favorable audience; and the reproaches of the emperor were the
complaints of injured friendship, rather than the stern menaces
of pride and power. A free and general pardon was granted to the
city and citizens of Antioch; the prison doors were thrown open;
the senators, who despaired of their lives, recovered the
possession of their houses and estates; and the capital of the
East was restored to the enjoyment of her ancient dignity and
splendor. Theodosius condescended to praise the senate of
Constantinople, who had generously interceded for their
distressed brethren: he rewarded the eloquence of Hilarius with
the government of Palestine; and dismissed the bishop of Antioch
with the warmest expressions of his respect and gratitude. A
thousand new statues arose to the clemency of Theodosius; the
applause of his subjects was ratified by the approbation of his
own heart; and the emperor confessed, that, if the exercise of
justice is the most important duty, the indulgence of mercy is
the most exquisite pleasure, of a sovereign. 90
84 (return) [ The Christians and Pagans agreed in believing that
the sedition of Antioch was excited by the daemons. A gigantic
woman (says Sozomen, l. vii. c. 23) paraded the streets with a
scourge in her hand. An old man, says Libanius, (Orat. xii. p.
396,) transformed himself into a youth, then a boy, &c.]
85 (return) [ Zosimus, in his short and disingenuous account, (l.
iv. p. 258, 259,) is certainly mistaken in sending Libanius
himself to Constantinople. His own orations fix him at Antioch.]
86 (return) [ Libanius (Orat. i. p. 6, edit. Venet.) declares,
that under such a reign the fear of a massacre was groundless and
absurd, especially in the emperor’s absence, for his presence,
according to the eloquent slave, might have given a sanction to
the most bloody acts.]
87 (return) [ Laodicea, on the sea-coast, sixty-five miles from
Antioch, (see Noris Epoch. Syro-Maced. Dissert. iii. p. 230.) The
Antiochians were offended, that the dependent city of Seleucia
should presume to intercede for them.]
88 (return) [ As the days of the tumult depend on the movable
festival of Easter, they can only be determined by the previous
determination of the year. The year 387 has been preferred, after
a laborious inquiry, by Tillemont (Hist. des. Emp. tom. v. p.
741-744) and Montfaucon, (Chrysostom, tom. xiii. p. 105-110.)]
89 (return) [ Chrysostom opposes their courage, which was not
attended with much risk, to the cowardly flight of the Cynics.]
90 (return) [ The sedition of Antioch is represented in a lively,
and almost dramatic, manner by two orators, who had their
respective shares of interest and merit. See Libanius (Orat. xiv.
xv. p. 389-420, edit. Morel. Orat. i. p. 1-14, Venet. 1754) and
the twenty orations of St. John Chrysostom, de Statuis, (tom. ii.
p. 1-225, edit. Montfaucon.) I do not pretend to much personal
acquaintance with Chrysostom but Tillemont (Hist. des. Empereurs,
tom. v. p. 263-283) and Hermant (Vie de St. Chrysostome, tom. i.
p. 137-224) had read him with pious curiosity and diligence.]
The sedition of Thessalonica is ascribed to a more shameful
cause, and was productive of much more dreadful consequences.
That great city, the metropolis of all the Illyrian provinces,
had been protected from the dangers of the Gothic war by strong
fortifications and a numerous garrison. Botheric, the general of
those troops, and, as it should seem from his name, a Barbarian,
had among his slaves a beautiful boy, who excited the impure
desires of one of the charioteers of the Circus. The insolent and
brutal lover was thrown into prison by the order of Botheric; and
he sternly rejected the importunate clamors of the multitude,
who, on the day of the public games, lamented the absence of
their favorite; and considered the skill of a charioteer as an
object of more importance than his virtue. The resentment of the
people was imbittered by some previous disputes; and, as the
strength of the garrison had been drawn away for the service of
the Italian war, the feeble remnant, whose numbers were reduced
by desertion, could not save the unhappy general from their
licentious fury. Botheric, and several of his principal officers,
were inhumanly murdered; their mangled bodies were dragged about
the streets; and the emperor, who then resided at Milan, was
surprised by the intelligence of the audacious and wanton cruelty
of the people of Thessalonica. The sentence of a dispassionate
judge would have inflicted a severe punishment on the authors of
the crime; and the merit of Botheric might contribute to
exasperate the grief and indignation of his master.
The fiery and choleric temper of Theodosius was impatient of the
dilatory forms of a judicial inquiry; and he hastily resolved,
that the blood of his lieutenant should be expiated by the blood
of the guilty people. Yet his mind still fluctuated between the
counsels of clemency and of revenge; the zeal of the bishops had
almost extorted from the reluctant emperor the promise of a
general pardon; his passion was again inflamed by the flattering
suggestions of his minister Rufinus; and, after Theodosius had
despatched the messengers of death, he attempted, when it was too
late, to prevent the execution of his orders. The punishment of a
Roman city was blindly committed to the undistinguishing sword of
the Barbarians; and the hostile preparations were concerted with
the dark and perfidious artifice of an illegal conspiracy. The
people of Thessalonica were treacherously invited, in the name of
their sovereign, to the games of the Circus; and such was their
insatiate avidity for those amusements, that every consideration
of fear, or suspicion, was disregarded by the numerous
spectators. As soon as the assembly was complete, the soldiers,
who had secretly been posted round the Circus, received the
signal, not of the races, but of a general massacre. The
promiscuous carnage continued three hours, without discrimination
of strangers or natives, of age or sex, of innocence or guilt;
the most moderate accounts state the number of the slain at seven
thousand; and it is affirmed by some writers that more than
fifteen thousand victims were sacrificed to the names of
Botheric. A foreign merchant, who had probably no concern in his
murder, offered his own life, and all his wealth, to supply the
place of one of his two sons; but, while the father hesitated
with equal tenderness, while he was doubtful to choose, and
unwilling to condemn, the soldiers determined his suspense, by
plunging their daggers at the same moment into the breasts of the
defenceless youths. The apology of the assassins, that they were
obliged to produce the prescribed number of heads, serves only to
increase, by an appearance of order and design, the horrors of
the massacre, which was executed by the commands of Theodosius.
The guilt of the emperor is aggravated by his long and frequent
residence at Thessalonica. The situation of the unfortunate city,
the aspect of the streets and buildings, the dress and faces of
the inhabitants, were familiar, and even present, to his
imagination; and Theodosius possessed a quick and lively sense of
the existence of the people whom he destroyed. 91
91 (return) [ The original evidence of Ambrose, (tom. ii. Epist.
li. p. 998.) Augustin, (de Civitat. Dei, v. 26,) and Paulinus,
(in Vit. Ambros. c. 24,) is delivered in vague expressions of
horror and pity. It is illustrated by the subsequent and unequal
testimonies of Sozomen, (l. vii. c. 25,) Theodoret, (l. v. c.
17,) Theophanes, (Chronograph. p. 62,) Cedrenus, (p. 317,) and
Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 34.) Zosimus alone, the partial
enemy of Theodosius, most unaccountably passes over in silence
the worst of his actions.]
The respectful attachment of the emperor for the orthodox clergy,
had disposed him to love and admire the character of Ambrose; who
united all the episcopal virtues in the most eminent degree. The
friends and ministers of Theodosius imitated the example of their
sovereign; and he observed, with more surprise than displeasure,
that all his secret counsels were immediately communicated to the
archbishop; who acted from the laudable persuasion, that every
measure of civil government may have some connection with the
glory of God, and the interest of the true religion. The monks
and populace of Callinicum, 9111 an obscure town on the frontier
of Persia, excited by their own fanaticism, and by that of their
bishop, had tumultuously burnt a conventicle of the Valentinians,
and a synagogue of the Jews. The seditious prelate was condemned,
by the magistrate of the province, either to rebuild the
synagogue, or to repay the damage; and this moderate sentence was
confirmed by the emperor. But it was not confirmed by the
archbishop of Milan. 92 He dictated an epistle of censure and
reproach, more suitable, perhaps, if the emperor had received the
mark of circumcision, and renounced the faith of his baptism.
Ambrose considers the toleration of the Jewish, as the
persecution of the Christian, religion; boldly declares that he
himself, and every true believer, would eagerly dispute with the
bishop of Callinicum the merit of the deed, and the crown of
martyrdom; and laments, in the most pathetic terms, that the
execution of the sentence would be fatal to the fame and
salvation of Theodosius. As this private admonition did not
produce an immediate effect, the archbishop, from his pulpit, 93
publicly addressed the emperor on his throne; 94 nor would he
consent to offer the oblation of the altar, till he had obtained
from Theodosius a solemn and positive declaration, which secured
the impunity of the bishop and monks of Callinicum. The
recantation of Theodosius was sincere; 95 and, during the term of
his residence at Milan, his affection for Ambrose was continually
increased by the habits of pious and familiar conversation.
9111 (return) [ Raeca, on the Euphrates—M.]
92 (return) [ See the whole transaction in Ambrose, (tom. ii.
Epist. xl. xli. p. 950-956,) and his biographer Paulinus, (c.
23.) Bayle and Barbeyrac (Morales des Peres, c. xvii. p. 325,
&c.) have justly condemned the archbishop.]
93 (return) [ His sermon is a strange allegory of Jeremiah’s rod,
of an almond tree, of the woman who washed and anointed the feet
of Christ. But the peroration is direct and personal.]
94 (return) [ Hodie, Episcope, de me proposuisti. Ambrose
modestly confessed it; but he sternly reprimanded Timasius,
general of the horse and foot, who had presumed to say that the
monks of Callinicum deserved punishment.]
95 (return) [ Yet, five years afterwards, when Theodosius was
absent from his spiritual guide, he tolerated the Jews, and
condemned the destruction of their synagogues. Cod. Theodos. l.
xvi. tit. viii. leg. 9, with Godefroy’s Commentary, tom. vi. p.
225.]
When Ambrose was informed of the massacre of Thessalonica, his
mind was filled with horror and anguish. He retired into the
country to indulge his grief, and to avoid the presence of
Theodosius. But as the archbishop was satisfied that a timid
silence would render him the accomplice of his guilt, he
represented, in a private letter, the enormity of the crime;
which could only be effaced by the tears of penitence. The
episcopal vigor of Ambrose was tempered by prudence; and he
contented himself with signifying 96 an indirect sort of
excommunication, by the assurance, that he had been warned in a
vision not to offer the oblation in the name, or in the presence,
of Theodosius; and by the advice, that he would confine himself
to the use of prayer, without presuming to approach the altar of
Christ, or to receive the holy eucharist with those hands that
were still polluted with the blood of an innocent people. The
emperor was deeply affected by his own reproaches, and by those
of his spiritual father; and after he had bewailed the
mischievous and irreparable consequences of his rash fury, he
proceeded, in the accustomed manner, to perform his devotions in
the great church of Milan. He was stopped in the porch by the
archbishop; who, in the tone and language of an ambassador of
Heaven, declared to his sovereign, that private contrition was
not sufficient to atone for a public fault, or to appease the
justice of the offended Deity. Theodosius humbly represented,
that if he had contracted the guilt of homicide, David, the man
after God’s own heart, had been guilty, not only of murder, but
of adultery. “You have imitated David in his crime, imitate then
his repentance,” was the reply of the undaunted Ambrose. The
rigorous conditions of peace and pardon were accepted; and the
public penance of the emperor Theodosius has been recorded as one
of the most honorable events in the annals of the church.
According to the mildest rules of ecclesiastical discipline,
which were established in the fourth century, the crime of
homicide was expiated by the penitence of twenty years: 97 and as
it was impossible, in the period of human life, to purge the
accumulated guilt of the massacre of Thessalonica, the murderer
should have been excluded from the holy communion till the hour
of his death. But the archbishop, consulting the maxims of
religious policy, granted some indulgence to the rank of his
illustrious penitent, who humbled in the dust the pride of the
diadem; and the public edification might be admitted as a weighty
reason to abridge the duration of his punishment. It was
sufficient, that the emperor of the Romans, stripped of the
ensigns of royalty, should appear in a mournful and suppliant
posture; and that, in the midst of the church of Milan, he should
humbly solicit, with sighs and tears, the pardon of his sins. 98
In this spiritual cure, Ambrose employed the various methods of
mildness and severity. After a delay of about eight months,
Theodosius was restored to the communion of the faithful; and the
edict which interposes a salutary interval of thirty days between
the sentence and the execution, may be accepted as the worthy
fruits of his repentance. 99 Posterity has applauded the virtuous
firmness of the archbishop; and the example of Theodosius may
prove the beneficial influence of those principles, which could
force a monarch, exalted above the apprehension of human
punishment, to respect the laws, and ministers, of an invisible
Judge. “The prince,” says Montesquieu, “who is actuated by the
hopes and fears of religion, may be compared to a lion, docile
only to the voice, and tractable to the hand, of his keeper.” 100
The motions of the royal animal will therefore depend on the
inclination, and interest, of the man who has acquired such
dangerous authority over him; and the priest, who holds in his
hands the conscience of a king, may inflame, or moderate, his
sanguinary passions. The cause of humanity, and that of
persecution, have been asserted, by the same Ambrose, with equal
energy, and with equal success.
96 (return) [ Ambros. tom. ii. Epist. li. p. 997-1001. His
epistle is a miserable rhapsody on a noble subject. Ambrose could
act better than he could write. His compositions are destitute of
taste, or genius; without the spirit of Tertullian, the copious
elegance of Lactantius the lively wit of Jerom, or the grave
energy of Augustin.]
97 (return) [ According to the discipline of St. Basil, (Canon
lvi.,) the voluntary homicide was four years a mourner; five a
hearer; seven in a prostrate state; and four in a standing
posture. I have the original (Beveridge, Pandect. tom. ii. p.
47-151) and a translation (Chardon, Hist. des Sacremens, tom. iv.
p. 219-277) of the Canonical Epistles of St. Basil.]
98 (return) [ The penance of Theodosius is authenticated by
Ambrose, (tom. vi. de Obit. Theodos. c. 34, p. 1207,) Augustin,
(de Civitat. Dei, v. 26,) and Paulinus, (in Vit. Ambros. c. 24.)
Socrates is ignorant; Sozomen (l. vii. c. 25) concise; and the
copious narrative of Theodoret (l. v. c. 18) must be used with
precaution.]
99 (return) [ Codex Theodos. l. ix. tit. xl. leg. 13. The date
and circumstances of this law are perplexed with difficulties;
but I feel myself inclined to favor the honest efforts of
Tillemont (Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 721) and Pagi, (Critica,
tom. i. p. 578.)]
100 (return) [ Un prince qui aime la religion, et qui la craint,
est un lion qui cede a la main qui le flatte, ou a la voix qui
l’appaise. Esprit des Loix, l. xxiv. c. 2.]
Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part V.
After the defeat and death of the tyrant of Gaul, the Roman world
was in the possession of Theodosius. He derived from the choice
of Gratian his honorable title to the provinces of the East: he
had acquired the West by the right of conquest; and the three
years which he spent in Italy were usefully employed to restore
the authority of the laws, and to correct the abuses which had
prevailed with impunity under the usurpation of Maximus, and the
minority of Valentinian. The name of Valentinian was regularly
inserted in the public acts: but the tender age, and doubtful
faith, of the son of Justina, appeared to require the prudent
care of an orthodox guardian; and his specious ambition might
have excluded the unfortunate youth, without a struggle, and
almost without a murmur, from the administration, and even from
the inheritance, of the empire. If Theodosius had consulted the
rigid maxims of interest and policy, his conduct would have been
justified by his friends; but the generosity of his behavior on
this memorable occasion has extorted the applause of his most
inveterate enemies. He seated Valentinian on the throne of Milan;
and, without stipulating any present or future advantages,
restored him to the absolute dominion of all the provinces, from
which he had been driven by the arms of Maximus. To the
restitution of his ample patrimony, Theodosius added the free and
generous gift of the countries beyond the Alps, which his
successful valor had recovered from the assassin of Gratian. 101
Satisfied with the glory which he had acquired, by revenging the
death of his benefactor, and delivering the West from the yoke of
tyranny, the emperor returned from Milan to Constantinople; and,
in the peaceful possession of the East, insensibly relapsed into
his former habits of luxury and indolence. Theodosius discharged
his obligation to the brother, he indulged his conjugal
tenderness to the sister, of Valentinian; and posterity, which
admires the pure and singular glory of his elevation, must
applaud his unrivalled generosity in the use of victory.
101 (return) [ It is the niggard praise of Zosimus himself, (l.
iv. p. 267.) Augustin says, with some happiness of expression,
Valentinianum.... misericordissima veneratione restituit.]
The empress Justina did not long survive her return to Italy;
and, though she beheld the triumph of Theodosius, she was not
allowed to influence the government of her son. 102 The
pernicious attachment to the Arian sect, which Valentinian had
imbibed from her example and instructions, was soon erased by the
lessons of a more orthodox education. His growing zeal for the
faith of Nice, and his filial reverence for the character and
authority of Ambrose, disposed the Catholics to entertain the
most favorable opinion of the virtues of the young emperor of the
West. 103 They applauded his chastity and temperance, his
contempt of pleasure, his application to business, and his tender
affection for his two sisters; which could not, however, seduce
his impartial equity to pronounce an unjust sentence against the
meanest of his subjects. But this amiable youth, before he had
accomplished the twentieth year of his age, was oppressed by
domestic treason; and the empire was again involved in the
horrors of a civil war. Arbogastes, 104 a gallant soldier of the
nation of the Franks, held the second rank in the service of
Gratian. On the death of his master he joined the standard of
Theodosius; contributed, by his valor and military conduct, to
the destruction of the tyrant; and was appointed, after the
victory, master-general of the armies of Gaul. His real merit,
and apparent fidelity, had gained the confidence both of the
prince and people; his boundless liberality corrupted the
allegiance of the troops; and, whilst he was universally esteemed
as the pillar of the state, the bold and crafty Barbarian was
secretly determined either to rule, or to ruin, the empire of the
West. The important commands of the army were distributed among
the Franks; the creatures of Arbogastes were promoted to all the
honors and offices of the civil government; the progress of the
conspiracy removed every faithful servant from the presence of
Valentinian; and the emperor, without power and without
intelligence, insensibly sunk into the precarious and dependent
condition of a captive. 105 The indignation which he expressed,
though it might arise only from the rash and impatient temper of
youth, may be candidly ascribed to the generous spirit of a
prince, who felt that he was not unworthy to reign. He secretly
invited the archbishop of Milan to undertake the office of a
mediator; as the pledge of his sincerity, and the guardian of his
safety. He contrived to apprise the emperor of the East of his
helpless situation, and he declared, that, unless Theodosius
could speedily march to his assistance, he must attempt to escape
from the palace, or rather prison, of Vienna in Gaul, where he
had imprudently fixed his residence in the midst of the hostile
faction. But the hopes of relief were distant, and doubtful: and,
as every day furnished some new provocation, the emperor, without
strength or counsel, too hastily resolved to risk an immediate
contest with his powerful general. He received Arbogastes on the
throne; and, as the count approached with some appearance of
respect, delivered to him a paper, which dismissed him from all
his employments. “My authority,” replied Arbogastes, with
insulting coolness, “does not depend on the smile or the frown of
a monarch;” and he contemptuously threw the paper on the ground.
The indignant monarch snatched at the sword of one of the guards,
which he struggled to draw from its scabbard; and it was not
without some degree of violence that he was prevented from using
the deadly weapon against his enemy, or against himself. A few
days after this extraordinary quarrel, in which he had exposed
his resentment and his weakness, the unfortunate Valentinian was
found strangled in his apartment; and some pains were employed to
disguise the manifest guilt of Arbogastes, and to persuade the
world, that the death of the young emperor had been the voluntary
effect of his own despair. 106 His body was conducted with decent
pomp to the sepulchre of Milan; and the archbishop pronounced a
funeral oration to commemorate his virtues and his misfortunes.
107 On this occasion the humanity of Ambrose tempted him to make
a singular breach in his theological system; and to comfort the
weeping sisters of Valentinian, by the firm assurance, that their
pious brother, though he had not received the sacrament of
baptism, was introduced, without difficulty, into the mansions of
eternal bliss. 108
102 (return) [ Sozomen, l. vii. c. 14. His chronology is very
irregular.]
103 (return) [ See Ambrose, (tom. ii. de Obit. Valentinian. c.
15, &c. p. 1178. c. 36, &c. p. 1184.) When the young emperor gave
an entertainment, he fasted himself; he refused to see a handsome
actress, &c. Since he ordered his wild beasts to to be killed, it
is ungenerous in Philostor (l. xi. c. 1) to reproach him with the
love of that amusement.]
104 (return) [ Zosimus (l. iv. p. 275) praises the enemy of
Theodosius. But he is detested by Socrates (l. v. c. 25) and
Orosius, (l. vii. c. 35.)]
105 (return) [ Gregory of Tours (l. ii. c. 9, p. 165, in the
second volume of the Historians of France) has preserved a
curious fragment of Sulpicius Alexander, an historian far more
valuable than himself.]
106 (return) [ Godefroy (Dissertat. ad. Philostorg. p. 429-434)
has diligently collected all the circumstances of the death of
Valentinian II. The variations, and the ignorance, of
contemporary writers, prove that it was secret.]
107 (return) [ De Obitu Valentinian. tom. ii. p. 1173-1196. He is
forced to speak a discreet and obscure language: yet he is much
bolder than any layman, or perhaps any other ecclesiastic, would
have dared to be.]
108 (return) [ See c. 51, p. 1188, c. 75, p. 1193. Dom Chardon,
(Hist. des Sacramens, tom. i. p. 86,) who owns that St. Ambrose
most strenuously maintains the indispensable necessity of
baptism, labors to reconcile the contradiction.]
The prudence of Arbogastes had prepared the success of his
ambitious designs: and the provincials, in whose breast every
sentiment of patriotism or loyalty was extinguished, expected,
with tame resignation, the unknown master, whom the choice of a
Frank might place on the Imperial throne. But some remains of
pride and prejudice still opposed the elevation of Arbogastes
himself; and the judicious Barbarian thought it more advisable to
reign under the name of some dependent Roman. He bestowed the
purple on the rhetorician Eugenius; 109 whom he had already
raised from the place of his domestic secretary to the rank of
master of the offices. In the course, both of his private and
public service, the count had always approved the attachment and
abilities of Eugenius; his learning and eloquence, supported by
the gravity of his manners, recommended him to the esteem of the
people; and the reluctance with which he seemed to ascend the
throne, may inspire a favorable prejudice of his virtue and
moderation. The ambassadors of the new emperor were immediately
despatched to the court of Theodosius, to communicate, with
affected grief, the unfortunate accident of the death of
Valentinian; and, without mentioning the name of Arbogastes, to
request, that the monarch of the East would embrace, as his
lawful colleague, the respectable citizen, who had obtained the
unanimous suffrage of the armies and provinces of the West. 110
Theodosius was justly provoked, that the perfidy of a Barbarian,
should have destroyed, in a moment, the labors, and the fruit, of
his former victory; and he was excited by the tears of his
beloved wife, 111 to revenge the fate of her unhappy brother, and
once more to assert by arms the violated majesty of the throne.
But as the second conquest of the West was a task of difficulty
and danger, he dismissed, with splendid presents, and an
ambiguous answer, the ambassadors of Eugenius; and almost two
years were consumed in the preparations of the civil war. Before
he formed any decisive resolution, the pious emperor was anxious
to discover the will of Heaven; and as the progress of
Christianity had silenced the oracles of Delphi and Dodona, he
consulted an Egyptian monk, who possessed, in the opinion of the
age, the gift of miracles, and the knowledge of futurity.
Eutropius, one of the favorite eunuchs of the palace of
Constantinople, embarked for Alexandria, from whence he sailed up
the Nile, as far as the city of Lycopolis, or of Wolves, in the
remote province of Thebais. 112 In the neighborhood of that city,
and on the summit of a lofty mountain, the holy John 113 had
constructed, with his own hands, an humble cell, in which he had
dwelt above fifty years, without opening his door, without seeing
the face of a woman, and without tasting any food that had been
prepared by fire, or any human art. Five days of the week he
spent in prayer and meditation; but on Saturdays and Sundays he
regularly opened a small window, and gave audience to the crowd
of suppliants who successively flowed from every part of the
Christian world. The eunuch of Theodosius approached the window
with respectful steps, proposed his questions concerning the
event of the civil war, and soon returned with a favorable
oracle, which animated the courage of the emperor by the
assurance of a bloody, but infallible victory. 114 The
accomplishment of the prediction was forwarded by all the means
that human prudence could supply. The industry of the two
master-generals, Stilicho and Timasius, was directed to recruit
the numbers, and to revive the discipline of the Roman legions.
The formidable troops of Barbarians marched under the ensigns of
their national chieftains. The Iberian, the Arab, and the Goth,
who gazed on each other with mutual astonishment, were enlisted
in the service of the same prince; 1141 and the renowned Alaric
acquired, in the school of Theodosius, the knowledge of the art
of war, which he afterwards so fatally exerted for the
destruction of Rome. 115
109 (return) [ Quem sibi Germanus famulam delegerat exul, is the
contemptuous expression of Claudian, (iv. Cons. Hon. 74.)
Eugenius professed Christianity; but his secret attachment to
Paganism (Sozomen, l. vii. c. 22, Philostorg. l. xi. c. 2) is
probable in a grammarian, and would secure the friendship of
Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 276, 277.)]
110 (return) [ Zosimus (l. iv. p. 278) mentions this embassy; but
he is diverted by another story from relating the event.]
111 (return) [ Zosim. l. iv. p. 277. He afterwards says (p. 280)
that Galla died in childbed; and intimates, that the affliction
of her husband was extreme but short.]
112 (return) [ Lycopolis is the modern Siut, or Osiot, a town of
Said, about the size of St. Denys, which drives a profitable
trade with the kingdom of Senaar, and has a very convenient
fountain, “cujus potu signa virgini tatis eripiuntur.” See
D’Anville, Description de l’Egypte, p. 181 Abulfeda, Descript.
Egypt. p. 14, and the curious Annotations, p. 25, 92, of his
editor Michaelis.]
113 (return) [ The Life of John of Lycopolis is described by his
two friends, Rufinus (l. ii. c. i. p. 449) and Palladius, (Hist.
Lausiac. c. 43, p. 738,) in Rosweyde’s great Collection of the
Vitae Patrum. Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. x. p. 718, 720) has
settled the chronology.]
114 (return) [ Sozomen, l. vii. c. 22. Claudian (in Eutrop. l. i.
312) mentions the eunuch’s journey; but he most contemptuously
derides the Egyptian dreams, and the oracles of the Nile.]
1141 (return) [ Gibbon has embodied the picturesque verses of
Claudian:—
.... Nec tantis dissona linguis Turba, nec armorum cultu diversion
unquam]
115 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 280. Socrates, l. vii. 10.
Alaric himself (de Bell. Getico, 524) dwells with more
complacency on his early exploits against the Romans.
.... Tot Augustos Hebro qui teste fugavi.
Yet his vanity could scarcely have proved this plurality of
flying emperors.]
The emperor of the West, or, to speak more properly, his general
Arbogastes, was instructed by the misconduct and misfortune of
Maximus, how dangerous it might prove to extend the line of
defence against a skilful antagonist, who was free to press, or
to suspend, to contract, or to multiply, his various methods of
attack. 116 Arbogastes fixed his station on the confines of
Italy; the troops of Theodosius were permitted to occupy, without
resistance, the provinces of Pannonia, as far as the foot of the
Julian Alps; and even the passes of the mountains were
negligently, or perhaps artfully, abandoned to the bold invader.
He descended from the hills, and beheld, with some astonishment,
the formidable camp of the Gauls and Germans, that covered with
arms and tents the open country which extends to the walls of
Aquileia, and the banks of the Frigidus, 117 or Cold River. 118
This narrow theatre of the war, circumscribed by the Alps and the
Adriatic, did not allow much room for the operations of military
skill; the spirit of Arbogastes would have disdained a pardon;
his guilt extinguished the hope of a negotiation; and Theodosius
was impatient to satisfy his glory and revenge, by the
chastisement of the assassins of Valentinian. Without weighing
the natural and artificial obstacles that opposed his efforts,
the emperor of the East immediately attacked the fortifications
of his rivals, assigned the post of honorable danger to the
Goths, and cherished a secret wish, that the bloody conflict
might diminish the pride and numbers of the conquerors. Ten
thousand of those auxiliaries, and Bacurius, general of the
Iberians, died bravely on the field of battle. But the victory
was not purchased by their blood; the Gauls maintained their
advantage; and the approach of night protected the disorderly
flight, or retreat, of the troops of Theodosius. The emperor
retired to the adjacent hills; where he passed a disconsolate
night, without sleep, without provisions, and without hopes; 119
except that strong assurance, which, under the most desperate
circumstances, the independent mind may derive from the contempt
of fortune and of life. The triumph of Eugenius was celebrated by
the insolent and dissolute joy of his camp; whilst the active and
vigilant Arbogastes secretly detached a considerable body of
troops to occupy the passes of the mountains, and to encompass
the rear of the Eastern army. The dawn of day discovered to the
eyes of Theodosius the extent and the extremity of his danger;
but his apprehensions were soon dispelled, by a friendly message
from the leaders of those troops who expressed their inclination
to desert the standard of the tyrant. The honorable and lucrative
rewards, which they stipulated as the price of their perfidy,
were granted without hesitation; and as ink and paper could not
easily be procured, the emperor subscribed, on his own tablets,
the ratification of the treaty. The spirit of his soldiers was
revived by this seasonable reenforcement; and they again marched,
with confidence, to surprise the camp of a tyrant, whose
principal officers appeared to distrust, either the justice or
the success of his arms. In the heat of the battle, a violent
tempest, 120 such as is often felt among the Alps, suddenly arose
from the East. The army of Theodosius was sheltered by their
position from the impetuosity of the wind, which blew a cloud of
dust in the faces of the enemy, disordered their ranks, wrested
their weapons from their hands, and diverted, or repelled, their
ineffectual javelins. This accidental advantage was skilfully
improved, the violence of the storm was magnified by the
superstitious terrors of the Gauls; and they yielded without
shame to the invisible powers of heaven, who seemed to militate
on the side of the pious emperor. His victory was decisive; and
the deaths of his two rivals were distinguished only by the
difference of their characters. The rhetorician Eugenius, who had
almost acquired the dominion of the world, was reduced to implore
the mercy of the conqueror; and the unrelenting soldiers
separated his head from his body as he lay prostrate at the feet
of Theodosius. Arbogastes, after the loss of a battle, in which
he had discharged the duties of a soldier and a general, wandered
several days among the mountains. But when he was convinced that
his cause was desperate, and his escape impracticable, the
intrepid Barbarian imitated the example of the ancient Romans,
and turned his sword against his own breast. The fate of the
empire was determined in a narrow corner of Italy; and the
legitimate successor of the house of Valentinian embraced the
archbishop of Milan, and graciously received the submission of
the provinces of the West. Those provinces were involved in the
guilt of rebellion; while the inflexible courage of Ambrose alone
had resisted the claims of successful usurpation. With a manly
freedom, which might have been fatal to any other subject, the
archbishop rejected the gifts of Eugenius, 1201 declined his
correspondence, and withdrew himself from Milan, to avoid the
odious presence of a tyrant, whose downfall he predicted in
discreet and ambiguous language. The merit of Ambrose was
applauded by the conqueror, who secured the attachment of the
people by his alliance with the church; and the clemency of
Theodosius is ascribed to the humane intercession of the
archbishop of Milan. 121
116 (return) [ Claudian (in iv. Cons. Honor. 77, &c.) contrasts
the military plans of the two usurpers:—
.... Novitas audere priorem Suadebat; cautumque dabant exempla
sequentem. Hic nova moliri praeceps: hic quaerere tuta Providus.
Hic fusis; colectis viribus ille. Hic vagus excurrens; hic
claustra reductus Dissimiles, sed morte pares......]
117 (return) [ The Frigidus, a small, though memorable, stream in
the country of Goretz, now called the Vipao, falls into the
Sontius, or Lisonzo, above Aquileia, some miles from the
Adriatic. See D’Anville’s ancient and modern maps, and the Italia
Antiqua of Cluverius, (tom. i. c. 188.)]
118 (return) [ Claudian’s wit is intolerable: the snow was dyed
red; the cold ver smoked; and the channel must have been choked
with carcasses the current had not been swelled with blood.
Confluxit populus: totam pater undique secum Moverat Aurorem;
mixtis hic Colchus Iberis, Hic mitra velatus Arabs, hic crine
decoro Armenius, hic picta Saces, fucataque Medus, Hic gemmata
tiger tentoria fixerat Indus.—De Laud. Stil. l. 145.—M.]
119 (return) [ Theodoret affirms, that St. John, and St. Philip,
appeared to the waking, or sleeping, emperor, on horseback, &c.
This is the first instance of apostolic chivalry, which
afterwards became so popular in Spain, and in the Crusades.]
120 (return) [ Te propter, gelidis Aquilo de monte procellis
Obruit adversas acies; revolutaque tela Vertit in auctores, et
turbine reppulit hastas
O nimium dilecte Deo, cui fundit ab antris Aeolus armatas hyemes;
cui militat Aether, Et conjurati veniunt ad classica venti.
These famous lines of Claudian (in iii. Cons. Honor. 93, &c. A.D.
396) are alleged by his contemporaries, Augustin and Orosius; who
suppress the Pagan deity of Aeolus, and add some circumstances
from the information of eye-witnesses. Within four months after
the victory, it was compared by Ambrose to the miraculous
victories of Moses and Joshua.]
1201 (return) [ Arbogastes and his emperor had openly espoused
the Pagan party, according to Ambrose and Augustin. See Le Beau,
v. 40. Beugnot (Histoire de la Destruction du Paganisme) is more
full, and perhaps somewhat fanciful, on this remarkable reaction
in favor of Paganism, but compare p 116.—M.]
121 (return) [ The events of this civil war are gathered from
Ambrose, (tom. ii. Epist. lxii. p. 1022,) Paulinus, (in Vit.
Ambros. c. 26-34,) Augustin, (de Civitat. Dei, v. 26,) Orosius,
(l. vii. c. 35,) Sozomen, (l. vii. c. 24,) Theodoret, (l. v. c.
24,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 281, 282,) Claudian, (in iii. Cons. Hon.
63-105, in iv. Cons. Hon. 70-117,) and the Chronicles published
by Scaliger.]
After the defeat of Eugenius, the merit, as well as the
authority, of Theodosius was cheerfully acknowledged by all the
inhabitants of the Roman world. The experience of his past
conduct encouraged the most pleasing expectations of his future
reign; and the age of the emperor, which did not exceed fifty
years, seemed to extend the prospect of the public felicity. His
death, only four months after his victory, was considered by the
people as an unforeseen and fatal event, which destroyed, in a
moment, the hopes of the rising generation. But the indulgence of
ease and luxury had secretly nourished the principles of disease.
122 The strength of Theodosius was unable to support the sudden
and violent transition from the palace to the camp; and the
increasing symptoms of a dropsy announced the speedy dissolution
of the emperor. The opinion, and perhaps the interest, of the
public had confirmed the division of the Eastern and Western
empires; and the two royal youths, Arcadius and Honorius, who had
already obtained, from the tenderness of their father, the title
of Augustus, were destined to fill the thrones of Constantinople
and of Rome. Those princes were not permitted to share the danger
and glory of the civil war; 123 but as soon as Theodosius had
triumphed over his unworthy rivals, he called his younger son,
Honorius, to enjoy the fruits of the victory, and to receive the
sceptre of the West from the hands of his dying father. The
arrival of Honorius at Milan was welcomed by a splendid
exhibition of the games of the Circus; and the emperor, though he
was oppressed by the weight of his disorder, contributed by his
presence to the public joy. But the remains of his strength were
exhausted by the painful effort which he made to assist at the
spectacles of the morning. Honorius supplied, during the rest of
the day, the place of his father; and the great Theodosius
expired in the ensuing night. Notwithstanding the recent
animosities of a civil war, his death was universally lamented.
The Barbarians, whom he had vanquished and the churchmen, by whom
he had been subdued, celebrated, with loud and sincere applause,
the qualities of the deceased emperor, which appeared the most
valuable in their eyes. The Romans were terrified by the
impending dangers of a feeble and divided administration, and
every disgraceful moment of the unfortunate reigns of Arcadius
and Honorius revived the memory of their irreparable loss.
122 (return) [ This disease, ascribed by Socrates (l. v. c. 26)
to the fatigues of war, is represented by Philostorgius (l. xi.
c. 2) as the effect of sloth and intemperance; for which Photius
calls him an impudent liar, (Godefroy, Dissert. p. 438.)]
123 (return) [ Zosimus supposes, that the boy Honorius
accompanied his father, (l. iv. p. 280.) Yet the quanto
flagrabrant pectora voto is all that flattery would allow to a
contemporary poet; who clearly describes the emperor’s refusal,
and the journey of Honorius, after the victory (Claudian in iii.
Cons. 78-125.)]
In the faithful picture of the virtues of Theodosius, his
imperfections have not been dissembled; the act of cruelty, and
the habits of indolence, which tarnished the glory of one of the
greatest of the Roman princes. An historian, perpetually adverse
to the fame of Theodosius, has exaggerated his vices, and their
pernicious effects; he boldly asserts, that every rank of
subjects imitated the effeminate manners of their sovereign; and
that every species of corruption polluted the course of public
and private life; and that the feeble restraints of order and
decency were insufficient to resist the progress of that
degenerate spirit, which sacrifices, without a blush, the
consideration of duty and interest to the base indulgence of
sloth and appetite. 124 The complaints of contemporary writers,
who deplore the increase of luxury, and depravation of manners,
are commonly expressive of their peculiar temper and situation.
There are few observers, who possess a clear and comprehensive
view of the revolutions of society; and who are capable of
discovering the nice and secret springs of action, which impel,
in the same uniform direction, the blind and capricious passions
of a multitude of individuals. If it can be affirmed, with any
degree of truth, that the luxury of the Romans was more shameless
and dissolute in the reign of Theodosius than in the age of
Constantine, perhaps, or of Augustus, the alteration cannot be
ascribed to any beneficial improvements, which had gradually
increased the stock of national riches. A long period of calamity
or decay must have checked the industry, and diminished the
wealth, of the people; and their profuse luxury must have been
the result of that indolent despair, which enjoys the present
hour, and declines the thoughts of futurity. The uncertain
condition of their property discouraged the subjects of
Theodosius from engaging in those useful and laborious
undertakings which require an immediate expense, and promise a
slow and distant advantage. The frequent examples of ruin and
desolation tempted them not to spare the remains of a patrimony,
which might, every hour, become the prey of the rapacious Goth.
And the mad prodigality which prevails in the confusion of a
shipwreck, or a siege, may serve to explain the progress of
luxury amidst the misfortunes and terrors of a sinking nation.
124 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 244.]
The effeminate luxury, which infected the manners of courts and
cities, had instilled a secret and destructive poison into the
camps of the legions; and their degeneracy has been marked by the
pen of a military writer, who had accurately studied the genuine
and ancient principles of Roman discipline. It is the just and
important observation of Vegetius, that the infantry was
invariably covered with defensive armor, from the foundation of
the city, to the reign of the emperor Gratian. The relaxation of
discipline, and the disuse of exercise, rendered the soldiers
less able, and less willing, to support the fatigues of the
service; they complained of the weight of the armor, which they
seldom wore; and they successively obtained the permission of
laying aside both their cuirasses and their helmets. The heavy
weapons of their ancestors, the short sword, and the formidable
pilum, which had subdued the world, insensibly dropped from their
feeble hands. As the use of the shield is incompatible with that
of the bow, they reluctantly marched into the field; condemned to
suffer either the pain of wounds, or the ignominy of flight, and
always disposed to prefer the more shameful alternative. The
cavalry of the Goths, the Huns, and the Alani, had felt the
benefits, and adopted the use, of defensive armor; and, as they
excelled in the management of missile weapons, they easily
overwhelmed the naked and trembling legions, whose heads and
breasts were exposed, without defence, to the arrows of the
Barbarians. The loss of armies, the destruction of cities, and
the dishonor of the Roman name, ineffectually solicited the
successors of Gratian to restore the helmets and the cuirasses of
the infantry. The enervated soldiers abandoned their own and the
public defence; and their pusillanimous indolence may be
considered as the immediate cause of the downfall of the empire.
125
125 (return) [ Vegetius, de Re Militari, l. i. c. 10. The series
of calamities which he marks, compel us to believe, that the
Hero, to whom he dedicates his book, is the last and most
inglorious of the Valentinians.]
Chapter XXVIII: Destruction Of Paganism.—Part I.
Final Destruction Of Paganism.—Introduction Of The Worship Of
Saints, And Relics, Among The Christians.
The ruin of Paganism, in the age of Theodosius, is perhaps the
only example of the total extirpation of any ancient and popular
superstition; and may therefore deserve to be considered as a
singular event in the history of the human mind. The Christians,
more especially the clergy, had impatiently supported the prudent
delays of Constantine, and the equal toleration of the elder
Valentinian; nor could they deem their conquest perfect or
secure, as long as their adversaries were permitted to exist. The
influence which Ambrose and his brethren had acquired over the
youth of Gratian, and the piety of Theodosius, was employed to
infuse the maxims of persecution into the breasts of their
Imperial proselytes. Two specious principles of religious
jurisprudence were established, from whence they deduced a direct
and rigorous conclusion, against the subjects of the empire who
still adhered to the ceremonies of their ancestors: that the
magistrate is, in some measure, guilty of the crimes which he
neglects to prohibit, or to punish; and, that the idolatrous
worship of fabulous deities, and real daemons, is the most
abominable crime against the supreme majesty of the Creator. The
laws of Moses, and the examples of Jewish history, 1 were
hastily, perhaps erroneously, applied, by the clergy, to the mild
and universal reign of Christianity. 2 The zeal of the emperors
was excited to vindicate their own honor, and that of the Deity:
and the temples of the Roman world were subverted, about sixty
years after the conversion of Constantine.
1 (return) [ St. Ambrose (tom. ii. de Obit. Theodos. p. 1208)
expressly praises and recommends the zeal of Josiah in the
destruction of idolatry The language of Julius Firmicus Maternus
on the same subject (de Errore Profan. Relig. p. 467, edit.
Gronov.) is piously inhuman. Nec filio jubet (the Mosaic Law)
parci, nec fratri, et per amatam conjugera gladium vindicem
ducit, &c.]
2 (return) [ Bayle (tom. ii. p. 406, in his Commentaire
Philosophique) justifies, and limits, these intolerant laws by
the temporal reign of Jehovah over the Jews. The attempt is
laudable.]
From the age of Numa to the reign of Gratian, the Romans
preserved the regular succession of the several colleges of the
sacerdotal order. 3 Fifteen Pontiffs exercised their supreme
jurisdiction over all things, and persons, that were consecrated
to the service of the gods; and the various questions which
perpetually arose in a loose and traditionary system, were
submitted to the judgment of their holy tribunal. Fifteen grave
and learned Augurs observed the face of the heavens, and
prescribed the actions of heroes, according to the flight of
birds. Fifteen keepers of the Sibylline books (their name of
Quindecemvirs was derived from their number) occasionally
consulted the history of future, and, as it should seem, of
contingent, events. Six Vestals devoted their virginity to the
guard of the sacred fire, and of the unknown pledges of the
duration of Rome; which no mortal had been suffered to behold
with impunity. 4 Seven Epulos prepared the table of the gods,
conducted the solemn procession, and regulated the ceremonies of
the annual festival. The three Flamens of Jupiter, of Mars, and
of Quirinus, were considered as the peculiar ministers of the
three most powerful deities, who watched over the fate of Rome
and of the universe. The King of the Sacrifices represented the
person of Numa, and of his successors, in the religious
functions, which could be performed only by royal hands. The
confraternities of the Salians, the Lupercals, &c., practised
such rites as might extort a smile of contempt from every
reasonable man, with a lively confidence of recommending
themselves to the favor of the immortal gods. The authority,
which the Roman priests had formerly obtained in the counsels of
the republic, was gradually abolished by the establishment of
monarchy, and the removal of the seat of empire. But the dignity
of their sacred character was still protected by the laws, and
manners of their country; and they still continued, more
especially the college of pontiffs, to exercise in the capital,
and sometimes in the provinces, the rights of their
ecclesiastical and civil jurisdiction. Their robes of purple,
chariotz of state, and sumptuous entertainments, attracted the
admiration of the people; and they received, from the consecrated
lands, and the public revenue, an ample stipend, which liberally
supported the splendor of the priesthood, and all the expenses of
the religious worship of the state. As the service of the altar
was not incompatible with the command of armies, the Romans,
after their consulships and triumphs, aspired to the place of
pontiff, or of augur; the seats of Cicero 5 and Pompey were
filled, in the fourth century, by the most illustrious members of
the senate; and the dignity of their birth reflected additional
splendor on their sacerdotal character. The fifteen priests, who
composed the college of pontiffs, enjoyed a more distinguished
rank as the companions of their sovereign; and the Christian
emperors condescended to accept the robe and ensigns, which were
appropriated to the office of supreme pontiff. But when Gratian
ascended the throne, more scrupulous or more enlightened, he
sternly rejected those profane symbols; 6 applied to the service
of the state, or of the church, the revenues of the priests and
vestals; abolished their honors and immunities; and dissolved the
ancient fabric of Roman superstition, which was supported by the
opinions and habits of eleven hundred years. Paganism was still
the constitutional religion of the senate. The hall, or temple,
in which they assembled, was adorned by the statue and altar of
Victory; 7 a majestic female standing on a globe, with flowing
garments, expanded wings, and a crown of laurel in her
outstretched hand. 8 The senators were sworn on the altar of the
goddess to observe the laws of the emperor and of the empire: and
a solemn offering of wine and incense was the ordinary prelude of
their public deliberations. 9 The removal of this ancient
monument was the only injury which Constantius had offered to the
superstition of the Romans. The altar of Victory was again
restored by Julian, tolerated by Valentinian, and once more
banished from the senate by the zeal of Gratian. 10 But the
emperor yet spared the statues of the gods which were exposed to
the public veneration: four hundred and twenty-four temples, or
chapels, still remained to satisfy the devotion of the people;
and in every quarter of Rome the delicacy of the Christians was
offended by the fumes of idolatrous sacrifice. 11
3 (return) [ See the outlines of the Roman hierarchy in Cicero,
(de Legibus, ii. 7, 8,) Livy, (i. 20,) Dionysius
Halicarnassensis, (l. ii. p. 119-129, edit. Hudson,) Beaufort,
(Republique Romaine, tom. i. p. 1-90,) and Moyle, (vol. i. p.
10-55.) The last is the work of an English whig, as well as of a
Roman antiquary.]
4 (return) [ These mystic, and perhaps imaginary, symbols have
given birth to various fables and conjectures. It seems probable,
that the Palladium was a small statue (three cubits and a half
high) of Minerva, with a lance and distaff; that it was usually
enclosed in a seria, or barrel; and that a similar barrel was
placed by its side to disconcert curiosity, or sacrilege. See
Mezeriac (Comment. sur les Epitres d’Ovide, tom i. p. 60—66) and
Lipsius, (tom. iii. p. 610 de Vesta, &c. c 10.)]
5 (return) [ Cicero frankly (ad Atticum, l. ii. Epist. 5) or
indirectly (ad Familiar. l. xv. Epist. 4) confesses that the
Augurate is the supreme object of his wishes. Pliny is proud to
tread in the footsteps of Cicero, (l. iv. Epist. 8,) and the
chain of tradition might be continued from history and marbles.]
6 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 249, 250. I have suppressed the
foolish pun about Pontifex and Maximus.]
7 (return) [ This statue was transported from Tarentum to Rome,
placed in the Curia Julia by Caesar, and decorated by Augustus
with the spoils of Egypt.]
8 (return) [ Prudentius (l. ii. in initio) has drawn a very
awkward portrait of Victory; but the curious reader will obtain
more satisfaction from Montfaucon’s Antiquities, (tom. i. p.
341.)]
9 (return) [ See Suetonius (in August. c. 35) and the Exordium of
Pliny’s Panegyric.]
10 (return) [ These facts are mutually allowed by the two
advocates, Symmachus and Ambrose.]
11 (return) [ The Notitia Urbis, more recent than Constantine,
does not find one Christian church worthy to be named among the
edifices of the city. Ambrose (tom. ii. Epist. xvii. p. 825)
deplores the public scandals of Rome, which continually offended
the eyes, the ears, and the nostrils of the faithful.]
But the Christians formed the least numerous party in the senate
of Rome: 12 and it was only by their absence, that they could
express their dissent from the legal, though profane, acts of a
Pagan majority. In that assembly, the dying embers of freedom
were, for a moment, revived and inflamed by the breath of
fanaticism. Four respectable deputations were successively voted
to the Imperial court, 13 to represent the grievances of the
priesthood and the senate, and to solicit the restoration of the
altar of Victory. The conduct of this important business was
intrusted to the eloquent Symmachus, 14 a wealthy and noble
senator, who united the sacred characters of pontiff and augur
with the civil dignities of proconsul of Africa and praefect of
the city. The breast of Symmachus was animated by the warmest
zeal for the cause of expiring Paganism; and his religious
antagonists lamented the abuse of his genius, and the inefficacy
of his moral virtues. 15 The orator, whose petition is extant to
the emperor Valentinian, was conscious of the difficulty and
danger of the office which he had assumed. He cautiously avoids
every topic which might appear to reflect on the religion of his
sovereign; humbly declares, that prayers and entreaties are his
only arms; and artfully draws his arguments from the schools of
rhetoric, rather than from those of philosophy. Symmachus
endeavors to seduce the imagination of a young prince, by
displaying the attributes of the goddess of victory; he
insinuates, that the confiscation of the revenues, which were
consecrated to the service of the gods, was a measure unworthy of
his liberal and disinterested character; and he maintains, that
the Roman sacrifices would be deprived of their force and energy,
if they were no longer celebrated at the expense, as well as in
the name, of the republic. Even scepticism is made to supply an
apology for superstition. The great and incomprehensible secret
of the universe eludes the inquiry of man. Where reason cannot
instruct, custom may be permitted to guide; and every nation
seems to consult the dictates of prudence, by a faithful
attachment to those rites and opinions, which have received the
sanction of ages. If those ages have been crowned with glory and
prosperity, if the devout people have frequently obtained the
blessings which they have solicited at the altars of the gods, it
must appear still more advisable to persist in the same salutary
practice; and not to risk the unknown perils that may attend any
rash innovations. The test of antiquity and success was applied
with singular advantage to the religion of Numa; and Rome
herself, the celestial genius that presided over the fates of the
city, is introduced by the orator to plead her own cause before
the tribunal of the emperors. “Most excellent princes,” says the
venerable matron, “fathers of your country! pity and respect my
age, which has hitherto flowed in an uninterrupted course of
piety. Since I do not repent, permit me to continue in the
practice of my ancient rites. Since I am born free, allow me to
enjoy my domestic institutions. This religion has reduced the
world under my laws. These rites have repelled Hannibal from the
city, and the Gauls from the Capitol. Were my gray hairs reserved
for such intolerable disgrace? I am ignorant of the new system
that I am required to adopt; but I am well assured, that the
correction of old age is always an ungrateful and ignominious
office.” 16 The fears of the people supplied what the discretion
of the orator had suppressed; and the calamities, which
afflicted, or threatened, the declining empire, were unanimously
imputed, by the Pagans, to the new religion of Christ and of
Constantine.
12 (return) [ Ambrose repeatedly affirms, in contradiction to
common sense (Moyle’s Works, vol. ii. p. 147,) that the
Christians had a majority in the senate.]
13 (return) [ The first (A.D. 382) to Gratian, who refused them
audience; the second (A.D. 384) to Valentinian, when the field
was disputed by Symmachus and Ambrose; the third (A.D. 388) to
Theodosius; and the fourth (A.D. 392) to Valentinian. Lardner
(Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 372-399) fairly represents the
whole transaction.]
14 (return) [ Symmachus, who was invested with all the civil and
sacerdotal honors, represented the emperor under the two
characters of Pontifex Maximus, and Princeps Senatus. See the
proud inscription at the head of his works. * Note: Mr. Beugnot
has made it doubtful whether Symmachus was more than Pontifex
Major. Destruction du Paganisme, vol. i. p. 459.—M.]
15 (return) [ As if any one, says Prudentius (in Symmach. i. 639)
should dig in the mud with an instrument of gold and ivory. Even
saints, and polemic saints, treat this adversary with respect and
civility.]
16 (return) [ See the fifty-fourth Epistle of the tenth book of
Symmachus. In the form and disposition of his ten books of
Epistles, he imitated the younger Pliny; whose rich and florid
style he was supposed, by his friends, to equal or excel,
(Macrob. Saturnal. l. v. c. i.) But the luxcriancy of Symmachus
consists of barren leaves, without fruits, and even without
flowers. Few facts, and few sentiments, can be extracted from his
verbose correspondence.]
But the hopes of Symmachus were repeatedly baffled by the firm
and dexterous opposition of the archbishop of Milan, who
fortified the emperors against the fallacious eloquence of the
advocate of Rome. In this controversy, Ambrose condescends to
speak the language of a philosopher, and to ask, with some
contempt, why it should be thought necessary to introduce an
imaginary and invisible power, as the cause of those victories,
which were sufficiently explained by the valor and discipline of
the legions. He justly derides the absurd reverence for
antiquity, which could only tend to discourage the improvements
of art, and to replunge the human race into their original
barbarism. From thence, gradually rising to a more lofty and
theological tone, he pronounces, that Christianity alone is the
doctrine of truth and salvation; and that every mode of
Polytheism conducts its deluded votaries, through the paths of
error, to the abyss of eternal perdition. 17 Arguments like
these, when they were suggested by a favorite bishop, had power
to prevent the restoration of the altar of Victory; but the same
arguments fell, with much more energy and effect, from the mouth
of a conqueror; and the gods of antiquity were dragged in triumph
at the chariot-wheels of Theodosius. 18 In a full meeting of the
senate, the emperor proposed, according to the forms of the
republic, the important question, Whether the worship of Jupiter,
or that of Christ, should be the religion of the Romans. 1811 The
liberty of suffrages, which he affected to allow, was destroyed
by the hopes and fears that his presence inspired; and the
arbitrary exile of Symmachus was a recent admonition, that it
might be dangerous to oppose the wishes of the monarch. On a
regular division of the senate, Jupiter was condemned and
degraded by the sense of a very large majority; and it is rather
surprising, that any members should be found bold enough to
declare, by their speeches and votes, that they were still
attached to the interest of an abdicated deity. 19 The hasty
conversion of the senate must be attributed either to
supernatural or to sordid motives; and many of these reluctant
proselytes betrayed, on every favorable occasion, their secret
disposition to throw aside the mask of odious dissimulation. But
they were gradually fixed in the new religion, as the cause of
the ancient became more hopeless; they yielded to the authority
of the emperor, to the fashion of the times, and to the
entreaties of their wives and children, 20 who were instigated
and governed by the clergy of Rome and the monks of the East. The
edifying example of the Anician family was soon imitated by the
rest of the nobility: the Bassi, the Paullini, the Gracchi,
embraced the Christian religion; and “the luminaries of the
world, the venerable assembly of Catos (such are the high-flown
expressions of Prudentius) were impatient to strip themselves of
their pontifical garment; to cast the skin of the old serpent; to
assume the snowy robes of baptismal innocence, and to humble the
pride of the consular fasces before tombs of the martyrs.” 21 The
citizens, who subsisted by their own industry, and the populace,
who were supported by the public liberality, filled the churches
of the Lateran, and Vatican, with an incessant throng of devout
proselytes. The decrees of the senate, which proscribed the
worship of idols, were ratified by the general consent of the
Romans; 22 the splendor of the Capitol was defaced, and the
solitary temples were abandoned to ruin and contempt. 23 Rome
submitted to the yoke of the Gospel; and the vanquished provinces
had not yet lost their reverence for the name and authority of
Rome. 2311
17 (return) [ See Ambrose, (tom. ii. Epist. xvii. xviii. p.
825-833.) The former of these epistles is a short caution; the
latter is a formal reply of the petition or libel of Symmachus.
The same ideas are more copiously expressed in the poetry, if it
may deserve that name, of Prudentius; who composed his two books
against Symmachus (A.D. 404) while that senator was still alive.
It is whimsical enough that Montesquieu (Considerations, &c. c.
xix. tom. iii. p. 487) should overlook the two professed
antagonists of Symmachus, and amuse himself with descanting on
the more remote and indirect confutations of Orosius, St.
Augustin, and Salvian.]
18 (return) [ See Prudentius (in Symmach. l. i. 545, &c.) The
Christian agrees with the Pagan Zosimus (l. iv. p. 283) in
placing this visit of Theodosius after the second civil war,
gemini bis victor caede Tyranni, (l. i. 410.) But the time and
circumstances are better suited to his first triumph.]
1811 (return) [ M. Beugnot (in his Histoire de la Destruction du
Paganisme en Occident, i. p. 483-488) questions, altogether, the
truth of this statement. It is very remarkable that Zosimus and
Prudentius concur in asserting the fact of the question being
solemnly deliberated by the senate, though with directly opposite
results. Zosimus declares that the majority of the assembly
adhered to the ancient religion of Rome; Gibbon has adopted the
authority of Prudentius, who, as a Latin writer, though a poet,
deserves more credit than the Greek historian. Both concur in
placing this scene after the second triumph of Theodosius; but it
has been almost demonstrated (and Gibbon—see the preceding
note—seems to have acknowledged this) by Pagi and Tillemont, that
Theodosius did not visit Rome after the defeat of Eugenius. M.
Beugnot urges, with much force, the improbability that the
Christian emperor would submit such a question to the senate,
whose authority was nearly obsolete, except on one occasion,
which was almost hailed as an epoch in the restoration of her
ancient privileges. The silence of Ambrose and of Jerom on an
event so striking, and redounding so much to the honor of
Christianity, is of considerable weight. M. Beugnot would ascribe
the whole scene to the poetic imagination of Prudentius; but I
must observe, that, however Prudentius is sometimes elevated by
the grandeur of his subject to vivid and eloquent language, this
flight of invention would be so much bolder and more vigorous
than usual with this poet, that I cannot but suppose there must
have been some foundation for the story, though it may have been
exaggerated by the poet, or misrepresented by the historian.—M]
19 (return) [ Prudentius, after proving that the sense of the
senate is declared by a legal majority, proceeds to say, (609,
&c.)—
Adspice quam pleno subsellia nostra Senatu Decernant infame Jovis
pulvinar, et omne Idolum longe purgata ex urbe fugandum, Qua vocat
egregii sententia Principis, illuc Libera, cum pedibus, tum corde,
frequentia transit.
Zosimus ascribes to the conscript fathers a heathenish courage,
which few of them are found to possess.]
20 (return) [ Jerom specifies the pontiff Albinus, who was
surrounded with such a believing family of children and
grandchildren, as would have been sufficient to convert even
Jupiter himself; an extraordinary proselyted (tom. i. ad Laetam,
p. 54.)]
21 (return) [
Exultare Patres videas, pulcherrima mundi Lumina; Conciliumque
senum gestire Catonum Candidiore toga niveum pietatis amictum
Sumere; et exuvias deponere pontificales.
The fancy of Prudentius is warmed and elevated by victory]
22 (return) [ Prudentius, after he has described the conversion
of the senate and people, asks, with some truth and confidence,
Et dubitamus adhuc Romam, tibi, Christe, dicatam In leges transisse
tuas?]
23 (return) [ Jerom exults in the desolation of the Capitol, and
the other temples of Rome, (tom. i. p. 54, tom. ii. p. 95.)]
2311 (return) [ M. Beugnot is more correct in his general
estimate of the measures enforced by Theodosius for the abolition
of Paganism. He seized (according to Zosimus) the funds bestowed
by the public for the expense of sacrifices. The public
sacrifices ceased, not because they were positively prohibited,
but because the public treasury would no longer bear the expense.
The public and the private sacrifices in the provinces, which
were not under the same regulations with those of the capital,
continued to take place. In Rome itself, many pagan ceremonies,
which were without sacrifice, remained in full force. The gods,
therefore, were invoked, the temples were frequented, the
pontificates inscribed, according to ancient usage, among the
family titles of honor; and it cannot be asserted that idolatry
was completely destroyed by Theodosius. See Beugnot, p. 491.—M.]
Chapter XXVIII: Destruction Of Paganism.—Part II.
The filial piety of the emperors themselves engaged them to
proceed, with some caution and tenderness, in the reformation of
the eternal city. Those absolute monarchs acted with less regard
to the prejudices of the provincials. The pious labor which had
been suspended near twenty years since the death of Constantius,
24 was vigorously resumed, and finally accomplished, by the zeal
of Theodosius. Whilst that warlike prince yet struggled with the
Goths, not for the glory, but for the safety, of the republic, he
ventured to offend a considerable party of his subjects, by some
acts which might perhaps secure the protection of Heaven, but
which must seem rash and unseasonable in the eye of human
prudence. The success of his first experiments against the Pagans
encouraged the pious emperor to reiterate and enforce his edicts
of proscription: the same laws which had been originally
published in the provinces of the East, were applied, after the
defeat of Maximus, to the whole extent of the Western empire; and
every victory of the orthodox Theodosius contributed to the
triumph of the Christian and Catholic faith. 25 He attacked
superstition in her most vital part, by prohibiting the use of
sacrifices, which he declared to be criminal as well as infamous;
and if the terms of his edicts more strictly condemned the
impious curiosity which examined the entrails of the victim, 26
every subsequent explanation tended to involve in the same guilt
the general practice of immolation, which essentially constituted
the religion of the Pagans. As the temples had been erected for
the purpose of sacrifice, it was the duty of a benevolent prince
to remove from his subjects the dangerous temptation of offending
against the laws which he had enacted. A special commission was
granted to Cynegius, the Prætorian praefect of the East, and
afterwards to the counts Jovius and Gaudentius, two officers of
distinguished rank in the West; by which they were directed to
shut the temples, to seize or destroy the instruments of
idolatry, to abolish the privileges of the priests, and to
confiscate the consecrated property for the benefit of the
emperor, of the church, or of the army. 27 Here the desolation
might have stopped: and the naked edifices, which were no longer
employed in the service of idolatry, might have been protected
from the destructive rage of fanaticism. Many of those temples
were the most splendid and beautiful monuments of Grecian
architecture; and the emperor himself was interested not to
deface the splendor of his own cities, or to diminish the value
of his own possessions. Those stately edifices might be suffered
to remain, as so many lasting trophies of the victory of Christ.
In the decline of the arts they might be usefully converted into
magazines, manufactures, or places of public assembly: and
perhaps, when the walls of the temple had been sufficiently
purified by holy rites, the worship of the true Deity might be
allowed to expiate the ancient guilt of idolatry. But as long as
they subsisted, the Pagans fondly cherished the secret hope, that
an auspicious revolution, a second Julian, might again restore
the altars of the gods: and the earnestness with which they
addressed their unavailing prayers to the throne, 28 increased
the zeal of the Christian reformers to extirpate, without mercy,
the root of superstition. The laws of the emperors exhibit some
symptoms of a milder disposition: 29 but their cold and languid
efforts were insufficient to stem the torrent of enthusiasm and
rapine, which was conducted, or rather impelled, by the spiritual
rulers of the church. In Gaul, the holy Martin, bishop of Tours,
30 marched at the head of his faithful monks to destroy the
idols, the temples, and the consecrated trees of his extensive
diocese; and, in the execution of this arduous task, the prudent
reader will judge whether Martin was supported by the aid of
miraculous powers, or of carnal weapons. In Syria, the divine and
excellent Marcellus, 31 as he is styled by Theodoret, a bishop
animated with apostolic fervor, resolved to level with the ground
the stately temples within the diocese of Apamea. His attack was
resisted by the skill and solidity with which the temple of
Jupiter had been constructed. The building was seated on an
eminence: on each of the four sides, the lofty roof was supported
by fifteen massy columns, sixteen feet in circumference; and the
large stone, of which they were composed, were firmly cemented
with lead and iron. The force of the strongest and sharpest tools
had been tried without effect. It was found necessary to
undermine the foundations of the columns, which fell down as soon
as the temporary wooden props had been consumed with fire; and
the difficulties of the enterprise are described under the
allegory of a black daemon, who retarded, though he could not
defeat, the operations of the Christian engineers. Elated with
victory, Marcellus took the field in person against the powers of
darkness; a numerous troop of soldiers and gladiators marched
under the episcopal banner, and he successively attacked the
villages and country temples of the diocese of Apamea. Whenever
any resistance or danger was apprehended, the champion of the
faith, whose lameness would not allow him either to fight or fly,
placed himself at a convenient distance, beyond the reach of
darts. But this prudence was the occasion of his death: he was
surprised and slain by a body of exasperated rustics; and the
synod of the province pronounced, without hesitation, that the
holy Marcellus had sacrificed his life in the cause of God. In
the support of this cause, the monks, who rushed with tumultuous
fury from the desert, distinguished themselves by their zeal and
diligence. They deserved the enmity of the Pagans; and some of
them might deserve the reproaches of avarice and intemperance; of
avarice, which they gratified with holy plunder, and of
intemperance, which they indulged at the expense of the people,
who foolishly admired their tattered garments, loud psalmody, and
artificial paleness. 32 A small number of temples was protected
by the fears, the venality, the taste, or the prudence, of the
civil and ecclesiastical governors. The temple of the Celestial
Venus at Carthage, whose sacred precincts formed a circumference
of two miles, was judiciously converted into a Christian church;
33 and a similar consecration has preserved inviolate the
majestic dome of the Pantheon at Rome. 34 But in almost every
province of the Roman world, an army of fanatics, without
authority, and without discipline, invaded the peaceful
inhabitants; and the ruin of the fairest structures of antiquity
still displays the ravages of those Barbarians, who alone had
time and inclination to execute such laborious destruction.
24 (return) [ Libanius (Orat. pro Templis, p. 10, Genev. 1634,
published by James Godefroy, and now extremely scarce) accuses
Valentinian and Valens of prohibiting sacrifices. Some partial
order may have been issued by the Eastern emperor; but the idea
of any general law is contradicted by the silence of the Code,
and the evidence of ecclesiastical history. Note: See in Reiske’s
edition of Libanius, tom. ii. p. 155. Sacrific was prohibited by
Valens, but not the offering of incense.—M.]
25 (return) [ See his laws in the Theodosian Code, l. xvi. tit.
x. leg. 7-11.]
26 (return) [ Homer’s sacrifices are not accompanied with any
inquisition of entrails, (see Feithius, Antiquitat. Homer. l. i.
c. 10, 16.) The Tuscans, who produced the first Haruspices,
subdued both the Greeks and the Romans, (Cicero de Divinatione,
ii. 23.)]
27 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 245, 249. Theodoret. l. v. c.
21. Idatius in Chron. Prosper. Aquitan. l. iii. c. 38, apud
Baronium, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 389, No. 52. Libanius (pro Templis,
p. 10) labors to prove that the commands of Theodosius were not
direct and positive. * Note: Libanius appears to be the best
authority for the East, where, under Theodosius, the work of
devastation was carried on with very different degrees of
violence, according to the temper of the local authorities and of
the clergy; and more especially the neighborhood of the more
fanatican monks. Neander well observes, that the prohibition of
sacrifice would be easily misinterpreted into an authority for
the destruction of the buildings in which sacrifices were
performed. (Geschichte der Christlichen religion ii. p. 156.) An
abuse of this kind led to this remarkable oration of Libanius.
Neander, however, justly doubts whether this bold vindication or
at least exculpation, of Paganism was ever delivered before, or
even placed in the hands of the Christian emperor.—M.]
28 (return) [ Cod. Theodos, l. xvi. tit. x. leg. 8, 18. There is
room to believe, that this temple of Edessa, which Theodosius
wished to save for civil uses, was soon afterwards a heap of
ruins, (Libanius pro Templis, p. 26, 27, and Godefroy’s notes, p.
59.)]
29 (return) [ See this curious oration of Libanius pro Templis,
pronounced, or rather composed, about the year 390. I have
consulted, with advantage, Dr. Lardner’s version and remarks,
(Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 135-163.)]
30 (return) [ See the Life of Martin by Sulpicius Severus, c.
9-14. The saint once mistook (as Don Quixote might have done) a
harmless funeral for an idolatrous procession, and imprudently
committed a miracle.]
31 (return) [ Compare Sozomen, (l. vii. c. 15) with Theodoret,
(l. v. c. 21.) Between them, they relate the crusade and death of
Marcellus.]
32 (return) [ Libanius, pro Templis, p. 10-13. He rails at these
black-garbed men, the Christian monks, who eat more than
elephants. Poor elephants! they are temperate animals.]
33 (return) [ Prosper. Aquitan. l. iii. c. 38, apud Baronium;
Annal. Eccles. A.D. 389, No. 58, &c. The temple had been shut
some time, and the access to it was overgrown with brambles.]
34 (return) [ Donatus, Roma Antiqua et Nova, l. iv. c. 4, p. 468.
This consecration was performed by Pope Boniface IV. I am
ignorant of the favorable circumstances which had preserved the
Pantheon above two hundred years after the reign of Theodosius.]
In this wide and various prospect of devastation, the spectator
may distinguish the ruins of the temple of Serapis, at
Alexandria. 35 Serapis does not appear to have been one of the
native gods, or monsters, who sprung from the fruitful soil of
superstitious Egypt. 36 The first of the Ptolemies had been
commanded, by a dream, to import the mysterious stranger from the
coast of Pontus, where he had been long adored by the inhabitants
of Sinope; but his attributes and his reign were so imperfectly
understood, that it became a subject of dispute, whether he
represented the bright orb of day, or the gloomy monarch of the
subterraneous regions. 37 The Egyptians, who were obstinately
devoted to the religion of their fathers, refused to admit this
foreign deity within the walls of their cities. 38 But the
obsequious priests, who were seduced by the liberality of the
Ptolemies, submitted, without resistance, to the power of the god
of Pontus: an honorable and domestic genealogy was provided; and
this fortunate usurper was introduced into the throne and bed of
Osiris, 39 the husband of Isis, and the celestial monarch of
Egypt. Alexandria, which claimed his peculiar protection, gloried
in the name of the city of Serapis. His temple, 40 which rivalled
the pride and magnificence of the Capitol, was erected on the
spacious summit of an artificial mount, raised one hundred steps
above the level of the adjacent parts of the city; and the
interior cavity was strongly supported by arches, and distributed
into vaults and subterraneous apartments. The consecrated
buildings were surrounded by a quadrangular portico; the stately
halls, and exquisite statues, displayed the triumph of the arts;
and the treasures of ancient learning were preserved in the
famous Alexandrian library, which had arisen with new splendor
from its ashes. 41 After the edicts of Theodosius had severely
prohibited the sacrifices of the Pagans, they were still
tolerated in the city and temple of Serapis; and this singular
indulgence was imprudently ascribed to the superstitious terrors
of the Christians themselves; as if they had feared to abolish
those ancient rites, which could alone secure the inundations of
the Nile, the harvests of Egypt, and the subsistence of
Constantinople. 42
35 (return) [ Sophronius composed a recent and separate history,
(Jerom, in Script. Eccles. tom. i. p. 303,) which has furnished
materials to Socrates, (l. v. c. 16.) Theodoret, (l. v. c. 22,)
and Rufinus, (l. ii. c. 22.) Yet the last, who had been at
Alexandria before and after the event, may deserve the credit of
an original witness.]
36 (return) [ Gerard Vossius (Opera, tom. v. p. 80, and de
Idoloaltria, l. i. c. 29) strives to support the strange notion
of the Fathers; that the patriarch Joseph was adored in Egypt, as
the bull Apis, and the god Serapis. * Note: Consult du Dieu
Serapis et son Origine, par J D. Guigniaut, (the translator of
Creuzer’s Symbolique,) Paris, 1828; and in the fifth volume of
Bournouf’s translation of Tacitus.—M.]
37 (return) [ Origo dei nondum nostris celebrata. Aegyptiorum
antistites sic memorant, &c., Tacit. Hist. iv. 83. The Greeks,
who had travelled into Egypt, were alike ignorant of this new
deity.]
38 (return) [ Macrobius, Saturnal, l. i. c. 7. Such a living fact
decisively proves his foreign extraction.]
39 (return) [ At Rome, Isis and Serapis were united in the same
temple. The precedency which the queen assumed, may seem to
betray her unequal alliance with the stranger of Pontus. But the
superiority of the female sex was established in Egypt as a civil
and religious institution, (Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. i. p. 31,
edit. Wesseling,) and the same order is observed in Plutarch’s
Treatise of Isis and Osiris; whom he identifies with Serapis.]
40 (return) [ Ammianus, (xxii. 16.) The Expositio totius Mundi,
(p. 8, in Hudson’s Geograph. Minor. tom. iii.,) and Rufinus, (l.
ii. c. 22,) celebrate the Serapeum, as one of the wonders of the
world.]
41 (return) [ See Mémoires de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. ix.
p. 397-416. The old library of the Ptolemies was totally consumed
in Caesar’s Alexandrian war. Marc Antony gave the whole
collection of Pergamus (200,000 volumes) to Cleopatra, as the
foundation of the new library of Alexandria.]
42 (return) [ Libanius (pro Templis, p. 21) indiscreetly provokes
his Christian masters by this insulting remark.]
At that time 43 the archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria was
filled by Theophilus, 44 the perpetual enemy of peace and virtue;
a bold, bad man, whose hands were alternately polluted with gold
and with blood. His pious indignation was excited by the honors
of Serapis; and the insults which he offered to an ancient temple
of Bacchus, 4411 convinced the Pagans that he meditated a more
important and dangerous enterprise. In the tumultuous capital of
Egypt, the slightest provocation was sufficient to inflame a
civil war. The votaries of Serapis, whose strength and numbers
were much inferior to those of their antagonists, rose in arms at
the instigation of the philosopher Olympius, 45 who exhorted them
to die in the defence of the altars of the gods. These Pagan
fanatics fortified themselves in the temple, or rather fortress,
of Serapis; repelled the besiegers by daring sallies, and a
resolute defence; and, by the inhuman cruelties which they
exercised on their Christian prisoners, obtained the last
consolation of despair. The efforts of the prudent magistrate
were usefully exerted for the establishment of a truce, till the
answer of Theodosius should determine the fate of Serapis. The
two parties assembled, without arms, in the principal square; and
the Imperial rescript was publicly read. But when a sentence of
destruction against the idols of Alexandria was pronounced, the
Christians set up a shout of joy and exultation, whilst the
unfortunate Pagans, whose fury had given way to consternation,
retired with hasty and silent steps, and eluded, by their flight
or obscurity, the resentment of their enemies. Theophilus
proceeded to demolish the temple of Serapis, without any other
difficulties, than those which he found in the weight and
solidity of the materials: but these obstacles proved so
insuperable, that he was obliged to leave the foundations; and to
content himself with reducing the edifice itself to a heap of
rubbish, a part of which was soon afterwards cleared away, to
make room for a church, erected in honor of the Christian
martyrs. The valuable library of Alexandria was pillaged or
destroyed; and near twenty years afterwards, the appearance of
the empty shelves excited the regret and indignation of every
spectator, whose mind was not totally darkened by religious
prejudice. 46 The compositions of ancient genius, so many of
which have irretrievably perished, might surely have been
excepted from the wreck of idolatry, for the amusement and
instruction of succeeding ages; and either the zeal or the
avarice of the archbishop, 47 might have been satiated with the
rich spoils, which were the reward of his victory. While the
images and vases of gold and silver were carefully melted, and
those of a less valuable metal were contemptuously broken, and
cast into the streets, Theophilus labored to expose the frauds
and vices of the ministers of the idols; their dexterity in the
management of the loadstone; their secret methods of introducing
a human actor into a hollow statue; 4711 and their scandalous
abuse of the confidence of devout husbands and unsuspecting
females. 48 Charges like these may seem to deserve some degree of
credit, as they are not repugnant to the crafty and interested
spirit of superstition. But the same spirit is equally prone to
the base practice of insulting and calumniating a fallen enemy;
and our belief is naturally checked by the reflection, that it is
much less difficult to invent a fictitious story, than to support
a practical fraud. The colossal statue of Serapis 49 was involved
in the ruin of his temple and religion. A great number of plates
of different metals, artificially joined together, composed the
majestic figure of the deity, who touched on either side the
walls of the sanctuary. The aspect of Serapis, his sitting
posture, and the sceptre, which he bore in his left hand, were
extremely similar to the ordinary representations of Jupiter. He
was distinguished from Jupiter by the basket, or bushel, which
was placed on his head; and by the emblematic monster which he
held in his right hand; the head and body of a serpent branching
into three tails, which were again terminated by the triple heads
of a dog, a lion, and a wolf. It was confidently affirmed, that
if any impious hand should dare to violate the majesty of the
god, the heavens and the earth would instantly return to their
original chaos. An intrepid soldier, animated by zeal, and armed
with a weighty battle-axe, ascended the ladder; and even the
Christian multitude expected, with some anxiety, the event of the
combat. 50 He aimed a vigorous stroke against the cheek of
Serapis; the cheek fell to the ground; the thunder was still
silent, and both the heavens and the earth continued to preserve
their accustomed order and tranquillity. The victorious soldier
repeated his blows: the huge idol was overthrown, and broken in
pieces; and the limbs of Serapis were ignominiously dragged
through the streets of Alexandria. His mangled carcass was burnt
in the Amphitheatre, amidst the shouts of the populace; and many
persons attributed their conversion to this discovery of the
impotence of their tutelar deity. The popular modes of religion,
that propose any visible and material objects of worship, have
the advantage of adapting and familiarizing themselves to the
senses of mankind: but this advantage is counterbalanced by the
various and inevitable accidents to which the faith of the
idolater is exposed. It is scarcely possible, that, in every
disposition of mind, he should preserve his implicit reverence
for the idols, or the relics, which the naked eye, and the
profane hand, are unable to distinguish from the most common
productions of art or nature; and if, in the hour of danger,
their secret and miraculous virtue does not operate for their own
preservation, he scorns the vain apologies of his priests, and
justly derides the object, and the folly, of his superstitious
attachment. 51 After the fall of Serapis, some hopes were still
entertained by the Pagans, that the Nile would refuse his annual
supply to the impious masters of Egypt; and the extraordinary
delay of the inundation seemed to announce the displeasure of the
river-god. But this delay was soon compensated by the rapid swell
of the waters. They suddenly rose to such an unusual height, as
to comfort the discontented party with the pleasing expectation
of a deluge; till the peaceful river again subsided to the
well-known and fertilizing level of sixteen cubits, or about
thirty English feet. 52
43 (return) [ We may choose between the date of Marcellinus (A.D.
389) or that of Prosper, ( A.D. 391.) Tillemont (Hist. des Emp.
tom. v. p. 310, 756) prefers the former, and Pagi the latter.]
44 (return) [ Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xi. p. 441-500. The
ambiguous situation of Theophilus—a saint, as the friend of Jerom
a devil, as the enemy of Chrysostom—produces a sort of
impartiality; yet, upon the whole, the balance is justly inclined
against him.]
4411 (return) [ No doubt a temple of Osiris. St. Martin, iv
398-M.]
45 (return) [ Lardner (Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 411) has
alleged beautiful passage from Suidas, or rather from Damascius,
which show the devout and virtuous Olympius, not in the light of
a warrior, but of a prophet.]
46 (return) [ Nos vidimus armaria librorum, quibus direptis,
exinanita ea a nostris hominibus, nostris temporibus memorant.
Orosius, l. vi. c. 15, p. 421, edit. Havercamp. Though a bigot,
and a controversial writer. Orosius seems to blush.]
47 (return) [ Eunapius, in the Lives of Antoninus and Aedesius,
execrates the sacrilegious rapine of Theophilus. Tillemont (Mem.
Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 453) quotes an epistle of Isidore of
Pelusium, which reproaches the primate with the idolatrous
worship of gold, the auri sacra fames.]
4711 (return) [ An English traveller, Mr. Wilkinson, has
discovered the secret of the vocal Memnon. There was a cavity in
which a person was concealed, and struck a stone, which gave a
ringing sound like brass. The Arabs, who stood below when Mr.
Wilkinson performed the miracle, described sound just as the
author of the epigram.—M.]
48 (return) [ Rufinus names the priest of Saturn, who, in the
character of the god, familiarly conversed with many pious ladies
of quality, till he betrayed himself, in a moment of transport,
when he could not disguise the tone of his voice. The authentic
and impartial narrative of Aeschines, (see Bayle, Dictionnaire
Critique, Scamandre,) and the adventure of Mudus, (Joseph.
Antiquitat. Judaic. l. xviii. c. 3, p. 877 edit. Havercamp,) may
prove that such amorous frauds have been practised with success.]
49 (return) [ See the images of Serapis, in Montfaucon, (tom. ii.
p. 297:) but the description of Macrobius (Saturnal. l. i. c. 20)
is much more picturesque and satisfactory.]
50 (return) [
Sed fortes tremuere manus, motique verenda Majestate loci, si
robora sacra ferirent In sua credebant redituras membra secures.
(Lucan. iii. 429.) “Is it true,” (said Augustus to a veteran of
Italy, at whose house he supped) “that the man who gave the first
blow to the golden statue of Anaitis, was instantly deprived of
his eyes, and of his life?”—“I was that man, (replied the
clear-sighted veteran,) and you now sup on one of the legs of the
goddess.” (Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 24)]
51 (return) [ The history of the reformation affords frequent
examples of the sudden change from superstition to contempt.]
52 (return) [ Sozomen, l. vii. c. 20. I have supplied the
measure. The same standard, of the inundation, and consequently
of the cubit, has uniformly subsisted since the time of
Herodotus. See Freret, in the Mem. de l’Academie des
Inscriptions, tom. xvi. p. 344-353. Greaves’s Miscellaneous
Works, vol. i. p. 233. The Egyptian cubit is about twenty-two
inches of the English measure. * Note: Compare Wilkinson’s Thebes
and Egypt, p. 313.—M.]
The temples of the Roman empire were deserted, or destroyed; but
the ingenious superstition of the Pagans still attempted to elude
the laws of Theodosius, by which all sacrifices had been severely
prohibited. The inhabitants of the country, whose conduct was
less opposed to the eye of malicious curiosity, disguised their
religious, under the appearance of convivial, meetings. On the
days of solemn festivals, they assembled in great numbers under
the spreading shade of some consecrated trees; sheep and oxen
were slaughtered and roasted; and this rural entertainment was
sanctified by the use of incense, and by the hymns which were
sung in honor of the gods. But it was alleged, that, as no part
of the animal was made a burnt-offering, as no altar was provided
to receive the blood, and as the previous oblation of salt cakes,
and the concluding ceremony of libations, were carefully omitted,
these festal meetings did not involve the guests in the guilt, or
penalty, of an illegal sacrifice. 53 Whatever might be the truth
of the facts, or the merit of the distinction, 54 these vain
pretences were swept away by the last edict of Theodosius, which
inflicted a deadly wound on the superstition of the Pagans. 55
5511 This prohibitory law is expressed in the most absolute and
comprehensive terms. “It is our will and pleasure,” says the
emperor, “that none of our subjects, whether magistrates or
private citizens, however exalted or however humble may be their
rank and condition, shall presume, in any city or in any place,
to worship an inanimate idol, by the sacrifice of a guiltless
victim.” The act of sacrificing, and the practice of divination
by the entrails of the victim, are declared (without any regard
to the object of the inquiry) a crime of high treason against the
state, which can be expiated only by the death of the guilty. The
rites of Pagan superstition, which might seem less bloody and
atrocious, are abolished, as highly injurious to the truth and
honor of religion; luminaries, garlands, frankincense, and
libations of wine, are specially enumerated and condemned; and
the harmless claims of the domestic genius, of the household
gods, are included in this rigorous proscription. The use of any
of these profane and illegal ceremonies, subjects the offender to
the forfeiture of the house or estate, where they have been
performed; and if he has artfully chosen the property of another
for the scene of his impiety, he is compelled to discharge,
without delay, a heavy fine of twenty-five pounds of gold, or
more than one thousand pounds sterling. A fine, not less
considerable, is imposed on the connivance of the secret enemies
of religion, who shall neglect the duty of their respective
stations, either to reveal, or to punish, the guilt of idolatry.
Such was the persecuting spirit of the laws of Theodosius, which
were repeatedly enforced by his sons and grandsons, with the loud
and unanimous applause of the Christian world. 56
53 (return) [ Libanius (pro Templis, p. 15, 16, 17) pleads their
cause with gentle and insinuating rhetoric. From the earliest
age, such feasts had enlivened the country: and those of Bacchus
(Georgic. ii. 380) had produced the theatre of Athens. See
Godefroy, ad loc. Liban. and Codex Theodos. tom. vi. p. 284.]
54 (return) [ Honorius tolerated these rustic festivals, (A.D.
399.) “Absque ullo sacrificio, atque ulla superstitione
damnabili.” But nine years afterwards he found it necessary to
reiterate and enforce the same proviso, (Codex Theodos. l. xvi.
tit. x. leg. 17, 19.)]
55 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x. leg. 12. Jortin
(Remarks on Eccles. History, vol. iv. p. 134) censures, with
becoming asperity, the style and sentiments of this intolerant
law.]
5511 (return) [ Paganism maintained its ground for a considerable
time in the rural districts. Endelechius, a poet who lived at the
beginning of the fifth century, speaks of the cross as Signum
quod perhibent esse crucis Dei, Magnis qui colitur solus
inurbibus. In the middle of the same century, Maximus, bishop of
Turin, writes against the heathen deities as if their worship was
still in full vigor in the neighborhood of his city. Augustine
complains of the encouragement of the Pagan rites by heathen
landowners; and Zeno of Verona, still later, reproves the apathy
of the Christian proprietors in conniving at this abuse. (Compare
Neander, ii. p. 169.) M. Beugnot shows that this was the case
throughout the north and centre of Italy and in Sicily. But
neither of these authors has adverted to one fact, which must
have tended greatly to retard the progress of Christianity in
these quarters. It was still chiefly a slave population which
cultivated the soil; and however, in the towns, the better class
of Christians might be eager to communicate “the blessed liberty
of the gospel” to this class of mankind; however their condition
could not but be silently ameliorated by the humanizing influence
of Christianity; yet, on the whole, no doubt the servile class
would be the least fitted to receive the gospel; and its general
propagation among them would be embarrassed by many peculiar
difficulties. The rural population was probably not entirely
converted before the general establishment of the monastic
institutions. Compare Quarterly Review of Beugnot. vol lvii. p.
52—M.]
56 (return) [ Such a charge should not be lightly made; but it
may surely be justified by the authority of St. Augustin, who
thus addresses the Donatists: “Quis nostrum, quis vestrum non
laudat leges ab Imperatoribus datas adversus sacrificia
Paganorum? Et certe longe ibi poera severior constituta est;
illius quippe impietatis capitale supplicium est.” Epist. xciii.
No. 10, quoted by Le Clerc, (Bibliothèque Choisie, tom. viii. p.
277,) who adds some judicious reflections on the intolerance of
the victorious Christians. * Note: Yet Augustine, with laudable
inconsistency, disapproved of the forcible demolition of the
temples. “Let us first extirpate the idolatry of the hearts of
the heathen, and they will either themselves invite us or
anticipate us in the execution of this good work,” tom. v. p. 62.
Compare Neander, ii. 169, and, in p. 155, a beautiful passage
from Chrysostom against all violent means of propagating
Christianity.—M.]
Chapter XXVIII: Destruction Of Paganism.—Part III.
In the cruel reigns of Decius and Diocletian, Christianity had
been proscribed, as a revolt from the ancient and hereditary
religion of the empire; and the unjust suspicions which were
entertained of a dark and dangerous faction, were, in some
measure, countenanced by the inseparable union and rapid
conquests of the Catholic church. But the same excuses of fear
and ignorance cannot be applied to the Christian emperors who
violated the precepts of humanity and of the Gospel. The
experience of ages had betrayed the weakness, as well as folly,
of Paganism; the light of reason and of faith had already
exposed, to the greatest part of mankind, the vanity of idols;
and the declining sect, which still adhered to their worship,
might have been permitted to enjoy, in peace and obscurity, the
religious costumes of their ancestors. Had the Pagans been
animated by the undaunted zeal which possessed the minds of the
primitive believers, the triumph of the Church must have been
stained with blood; and the martyrs of Jupiter and Apollo might
have embraced the glorious opportunity of devoting their lives
and fortunes at the foot of their altars. But such obstinate zeal
was not congenial to the loose and careless temper of Polytheism.
The violent and repeated strokes of the orthodox princes were
broken by the soft and yielding substance against which they were
directed; and the ready obedience of the Pagans protected them
from the pains and penalties of the Theodosian Code. 57 Instead
of asserting, that the authority of the gods was superior to that
of the emperor, they desisted, with a plaintive murmur, from the
use of those sacred rites which their sovereign had condemned. If
they were sometimes tempted by a sally of passion, or by the
hopes of concealment, to indulge their favorite superstition,
their humble repentance disarmed the severity of the Christian
magistrate, and they seldom refused to atone for their rashness,
by submitting, with some secret reluctance, to the yoke of the
Gospel. The churches were filled with the increasing multitude of
these unworthy proselytes, who had conformed, from temporal
motives, to the reigning religion; and whilst they devoutly
imitated the postures, and recited the prayers, of the faithful,
they satisfied their conscience by the silent and sincere
invocation of the gods of antiquity. 58 If the Pagans wanted
patience to suffer they wanted spirit to resist; and the
scattered myriads, who deplored the ruin of the temples, yielded,
without a contest, to the fortune of their adversaries. The
disorderly opposition 59 of the peasants of Syria, and the
populace of Alexandria, to the rage of private fanaticism, was
silenced by the name and authority of the emperor. The Pagans of
the West, without contributing to the elevation of Eugenius,
disgraced, by their partial attachment, the cause and character
of the usurper. The clergy vehemently exclaimed, that he
aggravated the crime of rebellion by the guilt of apostasy; that,
by his permission, the altar of victory was again restored; and
that the idolatrous symbols of Jupiter and Hercules were
displayed in the field, against the invincible standard of the
cross. But the vain hopes of the Pagans were soon annihilated by
the defeat of Eugenius; and they were left exposed to the
resentment of the conqueror, who labored to deserve the favor of
Heaven by the extirpation of idolatry. 60
57 (return) [ Orosius, l. vii. c. 28, p. 537. Augustin (Enarrat.
in Psalm cxl apud Lardner, Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 458)
insults their cowardice. “Quis eorum comprehensus est in
sacrificio (cum his legibus sta prohiberentur) et non negavit?”]
58 (return) [ Libanius (pro Templis, p. 17, 18) mentions, without
censure the occasional conformity, and as it were theatrical
play, of these hypocrites.]
59 (return) [ Libanius concludes his apology (p. 32) by declaring
to the emperor, that unless he expressly warrants the destruction
of the temples, the proprietors will defend themselves and the
laws.]
60 (return) [ Paulinus, in Vit. Ambros. c. 26. Augustin de
Civitat. Dei, l. v. c. 26. Theodoret, l. v. c. 24.]
A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of
their master, who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not
proceed to the last extremes of injustice and oppression.
Theodosius might undoubtedly have proposed to his Pagan subjects
the alternative of baptism or of death; and the eloquent Libanius
has praised the moderation of a prince, who never enacted, by any
positive law, that all his subjects should immediately embrace
and practise the religion of their sovereign. 61 The profession
of Christianity was not made an essential qualification for the
enjoyment of the civil rights of society, nor were any peculiar
hardships imposed on the sectaries, who credulously received the
fables of Ovid, and obstinately rejected the miracles of the
Gospel. The palace, the schools, the army, and the senate, were
filled with declared and devout Pagans; they obtained, without
distinction, the civil and military honors of the empire. 6111
Theodosius distinguished his liberal regard for virtue and genius
by the consular dignity, which he bestowed on Symmachus; 62 and
by the personal friendship which he expressed to Libanius; 63 and
the two eloquent apologists of Paganism were never required
either to change or to dissemble their religious opinions. The
Pagans were indulged in the most licentious freedom of speech and
writing; the historical and philosophic remains of Eunapius,
Zosimus, 64 and the fanatic teachers of the school of Plato,
betray the most furious animosity, and contain the sharpest
invectives, against the sentiments and conduct of their
victorious adversaries. If these audacious libels were publicly
known, we must applaud the good sense of the Christian princes,
who viewed, with a smile of contempt, the last struggles of
superstition and despair. 65 But the Imperial laws, which
prohibited the sacrifices and ceremonies of Paganism, were
rigidly executed; and every hour contributed to destroy the
influence of a religion, which was supported by custom, rather
than by argument. The devotion or the poet, or the philosopher,
may be secretly nourished by prayer, meditation, and study; but
the exercise of public worship appears to be the only solid
foundation of the religious sentiments of the people, which
derive their force from imitation and habit. The interruption of
that public exercise may consummate, in the period of a few
years, the important work of a national revolution. The memory of
theological opinions cannot long be preserved, without the
artificial helps of priests, of temples, and of books. 66 The
ignorant vulgar, whose minds are still agitated by the blind
hopes and terrors of superstition, will be soon persuaded by
their superiors to direct their vows to the reigning deities of
the age; and will insensibly imbibe an ardent zeal for the
support and propagation of the new doctrine, which spiritual
hunger at first compelled them to accept. The generation that
arose in the world after the promulgation of the Imperial laws,
was attracted within the pale of the Catholic church: and so
rapid, yet so gentle, was the fall of Paganism, that only
twenty-eight years after the death of Theodosius, the faint and
minute vestiges were no longer visible to the eye of the
legislator. 67
61 (return) [ Libanius suggests the form of a persecuting edict,
which Theodosius might enact, (pro Templis, p. 32;) a rash joke,
and a dangerous experiment. Some princes would have taken his
advice.]
6111 (return) [ The most remarkable instance of this, at a much
later period, occurs in the person of Merobaudes, a general and a
poet, who flourished in the first half of the fifth century. A
statue in honor of Merobaudes was placed in the Forum of Trajan,
of which the inscription is still extant. Fragments of his poems
have been recovered by the industry and sagacity of Niebuhr. In
one passage, Merobaudes, in the genuine heathen spirit,
attributes the ruin of the empire to the abolition of Paganism,
and almost renews the old accusation of Atheism against
Christianity. He impersonates some deity, probably Discord, who
summons Bellona to take arms for the destruction of Rome; and in
a strain of fierce irony recommends to her other fatal measures,
to extirpate the gods of Rome:—
Roma, ipsique tremant furialia murmura reges. Jam superos terris
atque hospita numina pelle: Romanos populare Deos, et nullus in
aris Vestoe exoratoe fotus strue palleat ignis. Ilis instructa
dolis palatia celsa subibo; Majorum mores, et pectora prisca
fugabo Funditus; atque simul, nullo discrimine rerum, Spernantur
fortes, nec sic reverentia justis. Attica neglecto pereat facundia
Phoebo: Indignis contingat honos, et pondera rerum; Non virtus sed
casus agat; tristique cupido; Pectoribus saevi demens furor
aestuet aevi; Omniaque hoec sine mente Jovis, sine numine sumimo.
Merobaudes in Niebuhr’s edit. of the Byzantines, p. 14.—M.]
62 (return) [ Denique pro meritis terrestribus aequa rependens
Munera, sacricolis summos impertit honores.
Dux bonus, et certare sinit cum laude suorum, Nec pago implicitos
per debita culmina mundi Ire viros prohibet. Ipse magistratum tibi
consulis, ipse tribunal
Contulit. Prudent. in Symmach. i. 617, &c.
Note: I have inserted some lines omitted by Gibbon.—M.]
63 (return) [ Libanius (pro Templis, p. 32) is proud that
Theodosius should thus distinguish a man, who even in his
presence would swear by Jupiter. Yet this presence seems to be no
more than a figure of rhetoric.]
64 (return) [ Zosimus, who styles himself Count and Ex-advocate
of the Treasury, reviles, with partial and indecent bigotry, the
Christian princes, and even the father of his sovereign. His work
must have been privately circulated, since it escaped the
invectives of the ecclesiastical historians prior to Evagrius,
(l. iii. c. 40-42,) who lived towards the end of the sixth
century. * Note: Heyne in his Disquisitio in Zosimum Ejusque
Fidem. places Zosimum towards the close of the fifth century.
Zosim. Heynii, p. xvii.—M.]
65 (return) [ Yet the Pagans of Africa complained, that the times
would not allow them to answer with freedom the City of God; nor
does St. Augustin (v. 26) deny the charge.]
66 (return) [ The Moors of Spain, who secretly preserved the
Mahometan religion above a century, under the tyranny of the
Inquisition, possessed the Koran, with the peculiar use of the
Arabic tongue. See the curious and honest story of their
expulsion in Geddes, (Miscellanies, vol. i. p. 1-198.)]
67 (return) [ Paganos qui supersunt, quanquam jam nullos esse
credamus, &c. Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x. leg. 22, A.D. 423.
The younger Theodosius was afterwards satisfied, that his
judgment had been somewhat premature. Note: The statement of
Gibbon is much too strongly worded. M. Beugnot has traced the
vestiges of Paganism in the West, after this period, in monuments
and inscriptions with curious industry. Compare likewise note, p.
112, on the more tardy progress of Christianity in the rural
districts.—M.]
The ruin of the Pagan religion is described by the sophists as a
dreadful and amazing prodigy, which covered the earth with
darkness, and restored the ancient dominion of chaos and of
night. They relate, in solemn and pathetic strains, that the
temples were converted into sepulchres, and that the holy places,
which had been adorned by the statues of the gods, were basely
polluted by the relics of Christian martyrs. “The monks” (a race
of filthy animals, to whom Eunapius is tempted to refuse the name
of men) “are the authors of the new worship, which, in the place
of those deities who are conceived by the understanding, has
substituted the meanest and most contemptible slaves. The heads,
salted and pickled, of those infamous malefactors, who for the
multitude of their crimes have suffered a just and ignominious
death; their bodies still marked by the impression of the lash,
and the scars of those tortures which were inflicted by the
sentence of the magistrate; such” (continues Eunapius) “are the
gods which the earth produces in our days; such are the martyrs,
the supreme arbitrators of our prayers and petitions to the
Deity, whose tombs are now consecrated as the objects of the
veneration of the people.” 68 Without approving the malice, it is
natural enough to share the surprise of the sophist, the
spectator of a revolution, which raised those obscure victims of
the laws of Rome to the rank of celestial and invisible
protectors of the Roman empire. The grateful respect of the
Christians for the martyrs of the faith, was exalted, by time and
victory, into religious adoration; and the most illustrious of
the saints and prophets were deservedly associated to the honors
of the martyrs. One hundred and fifty years after the glorious
deaths of St. Peter and St. Paul, the Vatican and the Ostian road
were distinguished by the tombs, or rather by the trophies, of
those spiritual heroes. 69 In the age which followed the
conversion of Constantine, the emperors, the consuls, and the
generals of armies, devoutly visited the sepulchres of a
tentmaker and a fisherman; 70 and their venerable bones were
deposited under the altars of Christ, on which the bishops of the
royal city continually offered the unbloody sacrifice. 71 The new
capital of the Eastern world, unable to produce any ancient and
domestic trophies, was enriched by the spoils of dependent
provinces. The bodies of St. Andrew, St. Luke, and St. Timothy,
had reposed near three hundred years in the obscure graves, from
whence they were transported, in solemn pomp, to the church of
the apostles, which the magnificence of Constantine had founded
on the banks of the Thracian Bosphorus. 72 About fifty years
afterwards, the same banks were honored by the presence of
Samuel, the judge and prophet of the people of Israel. His ashes,
deposited in a golden vase, and covered with a silken veil, were
delivered by the bishops into each other’s hands. The relics of
Samuel were received by the people with the same joy and
reverence which they would have shown to the living prophet; the
highways, from Palestine to the gates of Constantinople, were
filled with an uninterrupted procession; and the emperor Arcadius
himself, at the head of the most illustrious members of the
clergy and senate, advanced to meet his extraordinary guest, who
had always deserved and claimed the homage of kings. 73 The
example of Rome and Constantinople confirmed the faith and
discipline of the Catholic world. The honors of the saints and
martyrs, after a feeble and ineffectual murmur of profane reason,
74 were universally established; and in the age of Ambrose and
Jerom, something was still deemed wanting to the sanctity of a
Christian church, till it had been consecrated by some portion of
holy relics, which fixed and inflamed the devotion of the
faithful.
68 (return) [ See Eunapius, in the Life of the sophist Aedesius;
in that of Eustathius he foretells the ruin of Paganism.]
69 (return) [ Caius, (apud Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. ii. c. 25,) a
Roman presbyter, who lived in the time of Zephyrinus, (A.D.
202-219,) is an early witness of this superstitious practice.]
70 (return) [ Chrysostom. Quod Christus sit Deus. Tom. i. nov.
edit. No. 9. I am indebted for this quotation to Benedict the
XIVth’s pastoral letter on the Jubilee of the year 1759. See the
curious and entertaining letters of M. Chais, tom. iii.]
71 (return) [ Male facit ergo Romanus episcopus? qui, super
mortuorum hominum, Petri & Pauli, secundum nos, ossa veneranda
... offeri Domino sacrificia, et tumulos eorum, Christi
arbitratur altaria. Jerom. tom. ii. advers. Vigilant. p. 183.]
72 (return) [ Jerom (tom. ii. p. 122) bears witness to these
translations, which are neglected by the ecclesiastical
historians. The passion of St. Andrew at Patrae is described in
an epistle from the clergy of Achaia, which Baronius (Annal.
Eccles. A.D. 60, No. 34) wishes to believe, and Tillemont is
forced to reject. St. Andrew was adopted as the spiritual founder
of Constantinople, (Mem. Eccles. tom. i. p. 317-323, 588-594.)]
73 (return) [ Jerom (tom. ii. p. 122) pompously describes the
translation of Samuel, which is noticed in all the chronicles of
the times.]
74 (return) [ The presbyter Vigilantius, the Protestant of his
age, firmly, though ineffectually, withstood the superstition of
monks, relics, saints, fasts, &c., for which Jerom compares him
to the Hydra, Cerberus, the Centaurs, &c., and considers him only
as the organ of the Daemon, (tom. ii. p. 120-126.) Whoever will
peruse the controversy of St. Jerom and Vigilantius, and St.
Augustin’s account of the miracles of St. Stephen, may speedily
gain some idea of the spirit of the Fathers.]
In the long period of twelve hundred years, which elapsed between
the reign of Constantine and the reformation of Luther, the
worship of saints and relics corrupted the pure and perfect
simplicity of the Christian model: and some symptoms of
degeneracy may be observed even in the first generations which
adopted and cherished this pernicious innovation.
I. The satisfactory experience, that the relics of saints were
more valuable than gold or precious stones, 75 stimulated the
clergy to multiply the treasures of the church. Without much
regard for truth or probability, they invented names for
skeletons, and actions for names. The fame of the apostles, and
of the holy men who had imitated their virtues, was darkened by
religious fiction. To the invincible band of genuine and
primitive martyrs, they added myriads of imaginary heroes, who
had never existed, except in the fancy of crafty or credulous
legendaries; and there is reason to suspect, that Tours might not
be the only diocese in which the bones of a malefactor were
adored, instead of those of a saint. 76 A superstitious practice,
which tended to increase the temptations of fraud, and credulity,
insensibly extinguished the light of history, and of reason, in
the Christian world.
75 (return) [ M. de Beausobre (Hist. du Manicheisme, tom. ii. p.
648) has applied a worldly sense to the pious observation of the
clergy of Smyrna, who carefully preserved the relics of St.
Polycarp the martyr.]
76 (return) [ Martin of Tours (see his Life, c. 8, by Sulpicius
Severus) extorted this confession from the mouth of the dead man.
The error is allowed to be natural; the discovery is supposed to
be miraculous. Which of the two was likely to happen most
frequently?]
II. But the progress of superstition would have been much less
rapid and victorious, if the faith of the people had not been
assisted by the seasonable aid of visions and miracles, to
ascertain the authenticity and virtue of the most suspicious
relics. In the reign of the younger Theodosius, Lucian, 77 a
presbyter of Jerusalem, and the ecclesiastical minister of the
village of Caphargamala, about twenty miles from the city,
related a very singular dream, which, to remove his doubts, had
been repeated on three successive Saturdays. A venerable figure
stood before him, in the silence of the night, with a long beard,
a white robe, and a gold rod; announced himself by the name of
Gamaliel, and revealed to the astonished presbyter, that his own
corpse, with the bodies of his son Abibas, his friend Nicodemus,
and the illustrious Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian
faith, were secretly buried in the adjacent field. He added, with
some impatience, that it was time to release himself and his
companions from their obscure prison; that their appearance would
be salutary to a distressed world; and that they had made choice
of Lucian to inform the bishop of Jerusalem of their situation
and their wishes. The doubts and difficulties which still
retarded this important discovery were successively removed by
new visions; and the ground was opened by the bishop, in the
presence of an innumerable multitude. The coffins of Gamaliel, of
his son, and of his friend, were found in regular order; but when
the fourth coffin, which contained the remains of Stephen, was
shown to the light, the earth trembled, and an odor, such as that
of paradise, was smelt, which instantly cured the various
diseases of seventy-three of the assistants. The companions of
Stephen were left in their peaceful residence of Caphargamala:
but the relics of the first martyr were transported, in solemn
procession, to a church constructed in their honor on Mount Sion;
and the minute particles of those relics, a drop of blood, 78 or
the scrapings of a bone, were acknowledged, in almost every
province of the Roman world, to possess a divine and miraculous
virtue. The grave and learned Augustin, 79 whose understanding
scarcely admits the excuse of credulity, has attested the
innumerable prodigies which were performed in Africa by the
relics of St. Stephen; and this marvellous narrative is inserted
in the elaborate work of the City of God, which the bishop of
Hippo designed as a solid and immortal proof of the truth of
Christianity. Augustin solemnly declares, that he has selected
those miracles only which were publicly certified by the persons
who were either the objects, or the spectators, of the power of
the martyr. Many prodigies were omitted, or forgotten; and Hippo
had been less favorably treated than the other cities of the
province. And yet the bishop enumerates above seventy miracles,
of which three were resurrections from the dead, in the space of
two years, and within the limits of his own diocese. 80 If we
enlarge our view to all the dioceses, and all the saints, of the
Christian world, it will not be easy to calculate the fables, and
the errors, which issued from this inexhaustible source. But we
may surely be allowed to observe, that a miracle, in that age of
superstition and credulity, lost its name and its merit, since it
could scarcely be considered as a deviation from the ordinary and
established laws of nature.
77 (return) [ Lucian composed in Greek his original narrative,
which has been translated by Avitus, and published by Baronius,
(Annal. Eccles. A.D. 415, No. 7-16.) The Benedictine editors of
St. Augustin have given (at the end of the work de Civitate Dei)
two several copies, with many various readings. It is the
character of falsehood to be loose and inconsistent. The most
incredible parts of the legend are smoothed and softened by
Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. ii. p. 9, &c.)]
78 (return) [ A phial of St. Stephen’s blood was annually
liquefied at Naples, till he was superseded by St. Jamarius,
(Ruinart. Hist. Persecut. Vandal p. 529.)]
79 (return) [ Augustin composed the two-and-twenty books de
Civitate Dei in the space of thirteen years, A.D. 413-426.
Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 608, &c.) His learning is
too often borrowed, and his arguments are too often his own; but
the whole work claims the merit of a magnificent design,
vigorously, and not unskilfully, executed.]
80 (return) [ See Augustin de Civitat. Dei, l. xxii. c. 22, and
the Appendix, which contains two books of St. Stephen’s miracles,
by Evodius, bishop of Uzalis. Freculphus (apud Basnage, Hist. des
Juifs, tom. vii. p. 249) has preserved a Gallic or a Spanish
proverb, “Whoever pretends to have read all the miracles of St.
Stephen, he lies.”]
III. The innumerable miracles, of which the tombs of the martyrs
were the perpetual theatre, revealed to the pious believer the
actual state and constitution of the invisible world; and his
religious speculations appeared to be founded on the firm basis
of fact and experience. Whatever might be the condition of vulgar
souls, in the long interval between the dissolution and the
resurrection of their bodies, it was evident that the superior
spirits of the saints and martyrs did not consume that portion of
their existence in silent and inglorious sleep. 81 It was evident
(without presuming to determine the place of their habitation, or
the nature of their felicity) that they enjoyed the lively and
active consciousness of their happiness, their virtue, and their
powers; and that they had already secured the possession of their
eternal reward. The enlargement of their intellectual faculties
surpassed the measure of the human imagination; since it was
proved by experience, that they were capable of hearing and
understanding the various petitions of their numerous votaries;
who, in the same moment of time, but in the most distant parts of
the world, invoked the name and assistance of Stephen or of
Martin. 82 The confidence of their petitioners was founded on the
persuasion, that the saints, who reigned with Christ, cast an eye
of pity upon earth; that they were warmly interested in the
prosperity of the Catholic Church; and that the individuals, who
imitated the example of their faith and piety, were the peculiar
and favorite objects of their most tender regard. Sometimes,
indeed, their friendship might be influenced by considerations of
a less exalted kind: they viewed with partial affection the
places which had been consecrated by their birth, their
residence, their death, their burial, or the possession of their
relics. The meaner passions of pride, avarice, and revenge, may
be deemed unworthy of a celestial breast; yet the saints
themselves condescended to testify their grateful approbation of
the liberality of their votaries; and the sharpest bolts of
punishment were hurled against those impious wretches, who
violated their magnificent shrines, or disbelieved their
supernatural power. 83 Atrocious, indeed, must have been the
guilt, and strange would have been the scepticism, of those men,
if they had obstinately resisted the proofs of a divine agency,
which the elements, the whole range of the animal creation, and
even the subtle and invisible operations of the human mind, were
compelled to obey. 84 The immediate, and almost instantaneous,
effects that were supposed to follow the prayer, or the offence,
satisfied the Christians of the ample measure of favor and
authority which the saints enjoyed in the presence of the Supreme
God; and it seemed almost superfluous to inquire whether they
were continually obliged to intercede before the throne of grace;
or whether they might not be permitted to exercise, according to
the dictates of their benevolence and justice, the delegated
powers of their subordinate ministry. The imagination, which had
been raised by a painful effort to the contemplation and worship
of the Universal Cause, eagerly embraced such inferior objects of
adoration as were more proportioned to its gross conceptions and
imperfect faculties. The sublime and simple theology of the
primitive Christians was gradually corrupted; and the Monarchy of
heaven, already clouded by metaphysical subtleties, was degraded
by the introduction of a popular mythology, which tended to
restore the reign of polytheism. 85
81 (return) [ Burnet (de Statu Mortuorum, p. 56-84) collects the
opinions of the Fathers, as far as they assert the sleep, or
repose, of human souls till the day of judgment. He afterwards
exposes (p. 91, &c.) the inconveniences which must arise, if they
possessed a more active and sensible existence.]
82 (return) [ Vigilantius placed the souls of the prophets and
martyrs, either in the bosom of Abraham, (in loco refrigerii,) or
else under the altar of God. Nec posse suis tumulis et ubi
voluerunt adesse praesentes. But Jerom (tom. ii. p. 122) sternly
refutes this blasphemy. Tu Deo leges pones? Tu apostolis vincula
injicies, ut usque ad diem judicii teneantur custodia, nec sint
cum Domino suo; de quibus scriptum est, Sequuntur Agnum quocunque
vadit. Si Agnus ubique, ergo, et hi, qui cum Agno sunt, ubique
esse credendi sunt. Et cum diabolus et daemones tote vagentur in
orbe, &c.]
83 (return) [ Fleury Discours sur l’Hist. Ecclesiastique, iii p.
80.]
84 (return) [ At Minorca, the relics of St. Stephen converted, in
eight days, 540 Jews; with the help, indeed, of some wholesome
severities, such as burning the synagogue, driving the obstinate
infidels to starve among the rocks, &c. See the original letter
of Severus, bishop of Minorca (ad calcem St. Augustin. de Civ.
Dei,) and the judicious remarks of Basnage, (tom. viii. p.
245-251.)]
85 (return) [ Mr. Hume (Essays, vol. ii. p. 434) observes, like a
philosopher, the natural flux and reflux of polytheism and
theism.]
IV. As the objects of religion were gradually reduced to the
standard of the imagination, the rites and ceremonies were
introduced that seemed most powerfully to affect the senses of
the vulgar. If, in the beginning of the fifth century, 86
Tertullian, or Lactantius, 87 had been suddenly raised from the
dead, to assist at the festival of some popular saint, or martyr,
88 they would have gazed with astonishment, and indignation, on
the profane spectacle, which had succeeded to the pure and
spiritual worship of a Christian congregation. As soon as the
doors of the church were thrown open, they must have been
offended by the smoke of incense, the perfume of flowers, and the
glare of lamps and tapers, which diffused, at noonday, a gaudy,
superfluous, and, in their opinion, a sacrilegious light. If they
approached the balustrade of the altar, they made their way
through the prostrate crowd, consisting, for the most part, of
strangers and pilgrims, who resorted to the city on the vigil of
the feast; and who already felt the strong intoxication of
fanaticism, and, perhaps, of wine. Their devout kisses were
imprinted on the walls and pavement of the sacred edifice; and
their fervent prayers were directed, whatever might be the
language of their church, to the bones, the blood, or the ashes
of the saint, which were usually concealed, by a linen or silken
veil, from the eyes of the vulgar. The Christians frequented the
tombs of the martyrs, in the hope of obtaining, from their
powerful intercession, every sort of spiritual, but more
especially of temporal, blessings. They implored the preservation
of their health, or the cure of their infirmities; the
fruitfulness of their barren wives, or the safety and happiness
of their children. Whenever they undertook any distant or
dangerous journey, they requested, that the holy martyrs would be
their guides and protectors on the road; and if they returned
without having experienced any misfortune, they again hastened to
the tombs of the martyrs, to celebrate, with grateful
thanksgivings, their obligations to the memory and relics of
those heavenly patrons. The walls were hung round with symbols of
the favors which they had received; eyes, and hands, and feet, of
gold and silver: and edifying pictures, which could not long
escape the abuse of indiscreet or idolatrous devotion,
represented the image, the attributes, and the miracles of the
tutelar saint. The same uniform original spirit of superstition
might suggest, in the most distant ages and countries, the same
methods of deceiving the credulity, and of affecting the senses
of mankind: 89 but it must ingenuously be confessed, that the
ministers of the Catholic church imitated the profane model,
which they were impatient to destroy. The most respectable
bishops had persuaded themselves that the ignorant rustics would
more cheerfully renounce the superstitions of Paganism, if they
found some resemblance, some compensation, in the bosom of
Christianity. The religion of Constantine achieved, in less than
a century, the final conquest of the Roman empire: but the
victors themselves were insensibly subdued by the arts of their
vanquished rivals. 90 9011
86 (return) [ D’Aubigne (see his own Mémoires, p. 156-160)
frankly offered, with the consent of the Huguenot ministers, to
allow the first 400 years as the rule of faith. The Cardinal du
Perron haggled for forty years more, which were indiscreetly
given. Yet neither party would have found their account in this
foolish bargain.]
87 (return) [ The worship practised and inculcated by Tertullian,
Lactantius Arnobius, &c., is so extremely pure and spiritual,
that their declamations against the Pagan sometimes glance
against the Jewish, ceremonies.]
88 (return) [ Faustus the Manichaean accuses the Catholics of
idolatry. Vertitis idola in martyres.... quos votis similibus
colitis. M. de Beausobre, (Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, tom.
ii. p. 629-700,) a Protestant, but a philosopher, has
represented, with candor and learning, the introduction of
Christian idolatry in the fourth and fifth centuries.]
89 (return) [ The resemblance of superstition, which could not be
imitated, might be traced from Japan to Mexico. Warburton has
seized this idea, which he distorts, by rendering it too general
and absolute, (Divine Legation, vol. iv. p. 126, &c.)]
90 (return) [ The imitation of Paganism is the subject of Dr.
Middleton’s agreeable letter from Rome. Warburton’s
animadversions obliged him to connect (vol. iii. p. 120-132,) the
history of the two religions, and to prove the antiquity of the
Christian copy.]
9011 (return) [ But there was always this important difference
between Christian and heathen Polytheism. In Paganism this was
the whole religion; in the darkest ages of Christianity, some,
however obscure and vague, Christian notions of future
retribution, of the life after death, lurked at the bottom, and
operated, to a certain extent, on the thoughts and feelings,
sometimes on the actions.—M.]
Chapter XXIX: Division Of Roman Empire Between Sons Of Theodosius.—Part
I.
Final Division Of The Roman Empire Between The Sons Of
Theodosius.—Reign Of Arcadius And Honorius—Administration Of
Rufinus And Stilicho.—Revolt And Defeat Of Gildo In Africa.
The genius of Rome expired with Theodosius; the last of the
successors of Augustus and Constantine, who appeared in the field
at the head of their armies, and whose authority was universally
acknowledged throughout the whole extent of the empire. The
memory of his virtues still continued, however, to protect the
feeble and inexperienced youth of his two sons. After the death
of their father, Arcadius and Honorius were saluted, by the
unanimous consent of mankind, as the lawful emperors of the East,
and of the West; and the oath of fidelity was eagerly taken by
every order of the state; the senates of old and new Rome, the
clergy, the magistrates, the soldiers, and the people. Arcadius,
who was then about eighteen years of age, was born in Spain, in
the humble habitation of a private family. But he received a
princely education in the palace of Constantinople; and his
inglorious life was spent in that peaceful and splendid seat of
royalty, from whence he appeared to reign over the provinces of
Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, from the Lower Danube to
the confines of Persia and Æthiopia. His younger brother
Honorius, assumed, in the eleventh year of his age, the nominal
government of Italy, Africa, Gaul, Spain, and Britain; and the
troops, which guarded the frontiers of his kingdom, were opposed,
on one side, to the Caledonians, and on the other, to the Moors.
The great and martial praefecture of Illyricum was divided
between the two princes: the defence and possession of the
provinces of Noricum, Pannonia, and Dalmatia still belonged to
the Western empire; but the two large dioceses of Dacia and
Macedonia, which Gratian had intrusted to the valor of
Theodosius, were forever united to the empire of the East. The
boundary in Europe was not very different from the line which now
separates the Germans and the Turks; and the respective
advantages of territory, riches, populousness, and military
strength, were fairly balanced and compensated, in this final and
permanent division of the Roman empire. The hereditary sceptre of
the sons of Theodosius appeared to be the gift of nature, and of
their father; the generals and ministers had been accustomed to
adore the majesty of the royal infants; and the army and people
were not admonished of their rights, and of their power, by the
dangerous example of a recent election. The gradual discovery of
the weakness of Arcadius and Honorius, and the repeated
calamities of their reign, were not sufficient to obliterate the
deep and early impressions of loyalty. The subjects of Rome, who
still reverenced the persons, or rather the names, of their
sovereigns, beheld, with equal abhorrence, the rebels who
opposed, and the ministers who abused, the authority of the
throne.
Theodosius had tarnished the glory of his reign by the elevation
of Rufinus; an odious favorite, who, in an age of civil and
religious faction, has deserved, from every party, the imputation
of every crime. The strong impulse of ambition and avarice 1 had
urged Rufinus to abandon his native country, an obscure corner of
Gaul, 2 to advance his fortune in the capital of the East: the
talent of bold and ready elocution, 3 qualified him to succeed in
the lucrative profession of the law; and his success in that
profession was a regular step to the most honorable and important
employments of the state. He was raised, by just degrees, to the
station of master of the offices. In the exercise of his various
functions, so essentially connected with the whole system of
civil government, he acquired the confidence of a monarch, who
soon discovered his diligence and capacity in business, and who
long remained ignorant of the pride, the malice, and the
covetousness of his disposition. These vices were concealed
beneath the mask of profound dissimulation; 4 his passions were
subservient only to the passions of his master; yet in the horrid
massacre of Thessalonica, the cruel Rufinus inflamed the fury,
without imitating the repentance, of Theodosius. The minister,
who viewed with proud indifference the rest of mankind, never
forgave the appearance of an injury; and his personal enemies had
forfeited, in his opinion, the merit of all public services.
Promotus, the master-general of the infantry, had saved the
empire from the invasion of the Ostrogoths; but he indignantly
supported the preeminence of a rival, whose character and
profession he despised; and in the midst of a public council, the
impatient soldier was provoked to chastise with a blow the
indecent pride of the favorite. This act of violence was
represented to the emperor as an insult, which it was incumbent
on his dignity to resent. The disgrace and exile of Promotus were
signified by a peremptory order, to repair, without delay, to a
military station on the banks of the Danube; and the death of
that general (though he was slain in a skirmish with the
Barbarians) was imputed to the perfidious arts of Rufinus. 5 The
sacrifice of a hero gratified his revenge; the honors of the
consulship elated his vanity; but his power was still imperfect
and precarious, as long as the important posts of praefect of the
East, and of praefect of Constantinople, were filled by Tatian, 6
and his son Proculus; whose united authority balanced, for some
time, the ambition and favor of the master of the offices. The
two praefects were accused of rapine and corruption in the
administration of the laws and finances. For the trial of these
illustrious offenders, the emperor constituted a special
commission: several judges were named to share the guilt and
reproach of injustice; but the right of pronouncing sentence was
reserved to the president alone, and that president was Rufinus
himself. The father, stripped of the praefecture of the East, was
thrown into a dungeon; but the son, conscious that few ministers
can be found innocent, where an enemy is their judge, had
secretly escaped; and Rufinus must have been satisfied with the
least obnoxious victim, if despotism had not condescended to
employ the basest and most ungenerous artifice. The prosecution
was conducted with an appearance of equity and moderation, which
flattered Tatian with the hope of a favorable event: his
confidence was fortified by the solemn assurances, and perfidious
oaths, of the president, who presumed to interpose the sacred
name of Theodosius himself; and the unhappy father was at last
persuaded to recall, by a private letter, the fugitive Proculus.
He was instantly seized, examined, condemned, and beheaded, in
one of the suburbs of Constantinople, with a precipitation which
disappointed the clemency of the emperor. Without respecting the
misfortunes of a consular senator, the cruel judges of Tatian
compelled him to behold the execution of his son: the fatal cord
was fastened round his own neck; but in the moment when he
expected. and perhaps desired, the relief of a speedy death, he
was permitted to consume the miserable remnant of his old age in
poverty and exile. 7 The punishment of the two praefects might,
perhaps, be excused by the exceptionable parts of their own
conduct; the enmity of Rufinus might be palliated by the jealous
and unsociable nature of ambition. But he indulged a spirit of
revenge equally repugnant to prudence and to justice, when he
degraded their native country of Lycia from the rank of Roman
provinces; stigmatized a guiltless people with a mark of
ignominy; and declared, that the countrymen of Tatian and
Proculus should forever remain incapable of holding any
employment of honor or advantage under the Imperial government. 8
The new praefect of the East (for Rufinus instantly succeeded to
the vacant honors of his adversary) was not diverted, however, by
the most criminal pursuits, from the performance of the religious
duties, which in that age were considered as the most essential
to salvation. In the suburb of Chalcedon, surnamed the Oak, he
had built a magnificent villa; to which he devoutly added a
stately church, consecrated to the apostles St. Peter and St.
Paul, and continually sanctified by the prayers and penance of a
regular society of monks. A numerous, and almost general, synod
of the bishops of the Eastern empire, was summoned to celebrate,
at the same time, the dedication of the church, and the baptism
of the founder. This double ceremony was performed with
extraordinary pomp; and when Rufinus was purified, in the holy
font, from all the sins that he had hitherto committed, a
venerable hermit of Egypt rashly proposed himself as the sponsor
of a proud and ambitious statesman. 9
1 (return) [ Alecto, envious of the public felicity, convenes an
infernal synod Megaera recommends her pupil Rufinus, and excites
him to deeds of mischief, &c. But there is as much difference
between Claudian’s fury and that of Virgil, as between the
characters of Turnus and Rufinus.]
2 (return) [ It is evident, (Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p.
770,) though De Marca is ashamed of his countryman, that Rufinus
was born at Elusa, the metropolis of Novempopulania, now a small
village of Gassony, (D’Anville, Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule, p.
289.)]
3 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. xi c. 3, with Godefroy’s Dissert.
p. 440.]
4 (return) [ A passage of Suidas is expressive of his profound
dissimulation.]
5 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 272, 273.]
6 (return) [ Zosimus, who describes the fall of Tatian and his
son, (l. iv. p. 273, 274,) asserts their innocence; and even his
testimony may outweigh the charges of their enemies, (Cod. Theod.
tom. iv. p. 489,) who accuse them of oppressing the Curiae. The
connection of Tatian with the Arians, while he was praefect of
Egypt, (A.D. 373,) inclines Tillemont to believe that he was
guilty of every crime, (Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 360. Mem.
Eccles. tom vi. p. 589.)]
7 (return) [—Juvenum rorantia colla Ante patrum vultus stricta
cecidere securi.
Ibat grandaevus nato moriente superstes Post trabeas exsul. —-In
Rufin. i. 248.
The facts of Zosimus explain the allusions of Claudian; but his
classic interpreters were ignorant of the fourth century. The
fatal cord, I found, with the help of Tillemont, in a sermon of
St. Asterius of Amasea.]
8 (return) [ This odious law is recited and repealed by Arcadius,
(A.D. 296,) on the Theodosian Code, l. ix. tit. xxxviii. leg. 9.
The sense as it is explained by Claudian, (in Rufin. i. 234,) and
Godefroy, (tom. iii. p. 279,) is perfectly clear.
—-Exscindere cives Funditus; et nomen gentis delere laborat.
The scruples of Pagi and Tillemont can arise only from their zeal
for the glory of Theodosius.]
9 (return) [ Ammonius.... Rufinum propriis manibus suscepit sacro
fonte mundatum. See Rosweyde’s Vitae Patrum, p. 947. Sozomen (l.
viii. c. 17) mentions the church and monastery; and Tillemont
(Mem. Eccles. tom. ix. p. 593) records this synod, in which St.
Gregory of Nyssa performed a conspicuous part.]
The character of Theodosius imposed on his minister the task of
hypocrisy, which disguised, and sometimes restrained, the abuse
of power; and Rufinus was apprehensive of disturbing the indolent
slumber of a prince still capable of exerting the abilities and
the virtue, which had raised him to the throne. 10 But the
absence, and, soon afterwards, the death, of the emperor,
confirmed the absolute authority of Rufinus over the person and
dominions of Arcadius; a feeble youth, whom the imperious
praefect considered as his pupil, rather than his sovereign.
Regardless of the public opinion, he indulged his passions
without remorse, and without resistance; and his malignant and
rapacious spirit rejected every passion that might have
contributed to his own glory, or the happiness of the people. His
avarice, 11 which seems to have prevailed, in his corrupt mind,
over every other sentiment, attracted the wealth of the East, by
the various arts of partial and general extortion; oppressive
taxes, scandalous bribery, immoderate fines, unjust
confiscations, forced or fictitious testaments, by which the
tyrant despoiled of their lawful inheritance the children of
strangers, or enemies; and the public sale of justice, as well as
of favor, which he instituted in the palace of Constantinople.
The ambitious candidate eagerly solicited, at the expense of the
fairest part of his patrimony, the honors and emoluments of some
provincial government; the lives and fortunes of the unhappy
people were abandoned to the most liberal purchaser; and the
public discontent was sometimes appeased by the sacrifice of an
unpopular criminal, whose punishment was profitable only to the
praefect of the East, his accomplice and his judge. If avarice
were not the blindest of the human passions, the motives of
Rufinus might excite our curiosity; and we might be tempted to
inquire with what view he violated every principle of humanity
and justice, to accumulate those immense treasures, which he
could not spend without folly, nor possess without danger.
Perhaps he vainly imagined, that he labored for the interest of
an only daughter, on whom he intended to bestow his royal pupil,
and the august rank of Empress of the East. Perhaps he deceived
himself by the opinion, that his avarice was the instrument of
his ambition. He aspired to place his fortune on a secure and
independent basis, which should no longer depend on the caprice
of the young emperor; yet he neglected to conciliate the hearts
of the soldiers and people, by the liberal distribution of those
riches, which he had acquired with so much toil, and with so much
guilt. The extreme parsimony of Rufinus left him only the
reproach and envy of ill-gotten wealth; his dependants served him
without attachment; the universal hatred of mankind was repressed
only by the influence of servile fear. The fate of Lucian
proclaimed to the East, that the praefect, whose industry was
much abated in the despatch of ordinary business, was active and
indefatigable in the pursuit of revenge. Lucian, the son of the
praefect Florentius, the oppressor of Gaul, and the enemy of
Julian, had employed a considerable part of his inheritance, the
fruit of rapine and corruption, to purchase the friendship of
Rufinus, and the high office of Count of the East. But the new
magistrate imprudently departed from the maxims of the court, and
of the times; disgraced his benefactor by the contrast of a
virtuous and temperate administration; and presumed to refuse an
act of injustice, which might have tended to the profit of the
emperor’s uncle. Arcadius was easily persuaded to resent the
supposed insult; and the praefect of the East resolved to execute
in person the cruel vengeance, which he meditated against this
ungrateful delegate of his power. He performed with incessant
speed the journey of seven or eight hundred miles, from
Constantinople to Antioch, entered the capital of Syria at the
dead of night, and spread universal consternation among a people
ignorant of his design, but not ignorant of his character. The
Count of the fifteen provinces of the East was dragged, like the
vilest malefactor, before the arbitrary tribunal of Rufinus.
Notwithstanding the clearest evidence of his integrity, which was
not impeached even by the voice of an accuser, Lucian was
condemned, almost with out a trial, to suffer a cruel and
ignominious punishment. The ministers of the tyrant, by the
orders, and in the presence, of their master, beat him on the
neck with leather thongs armed at the extremities with lead; and
when he fainted under the violence of the pain, he was removed in
a close litter, to conceal his dying agonies from the eyes of the
indignant city. No sooner had Rufinus perpetrated this inhuman
act, the sole object of his expedition, than he returned, amidst
the deep and silent curses of a trembling people, from Antioch to
Constantinople; and his diligence was accelerated by the hope of
accomplishing, without delay, the nuptials of his daughter with
the emperor of the East. 12
10 (return) [ Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xii. c. 12)
praises one of the laws of Theodosius addressed to the praefect
Rufinus, (l. ix. tit. iv. leg. unic.,) to discourage the
prosecution of treasonable, or sacrilegious, words. A tyrannical
statute always proves the existence of tyranny; but a laudable
edict may only contain the specious professions, or ineffectual
wishes, of the prince, or his ministers. This, I am afraid, is a
just, though mortifying, canon of criticism.]
11 (return) [
—fluctibus auri Expleri sitis ista nequit— ***** Congestae
cumulantur opes; orbisque ruinas Accipit una domus.
This character (Claudian, in. Rufin. i. 184-220) is confirmed by
Jerom, a disinterested witness, (dedecus insatiabilis avaritiae,
tom. i. ad Heliodor. p. 26,) by Zosimus, (l. v. p. 286,) and by
Suidas, who copied the history of Eunapius.]
12 (return) [
—Caetera segnis; Ad facinus velox; penitus regione remotas Impiger
ire vias.
This allusion of Claudian (in Rufin. i. 241) is again explained
by the circumstantial narrative of Zosimus, (l. v. p. 288, 289.)]
But Rufinus soon experienced, that a prudent minister should
constantly secure his royal captive by the strong, though
invisible chain of habit; and that the merit, and much more
easily the favor, of the absent, are obliterated in a short time
from the mind of a weak and capricious sovereign. While the
praefect satiated his revenge at Antioch, a secret conspiracy of
the favorite eunuchs, directed by the great chamberlain
Eutropius, undermined his power in the palace of Constantinople.
They discovered that Arcadius was not inclined to love the
daughter of Rufinus, who had been chosen, without his consent,
for his bride; and they contrived to substitute in her place the
fair Eudoxia, the daughter of Bauto, 13 a general of the Franks
in the service of Rome; and who was educated, since the death of
her father, in the family of the sons of Promotus. The young
emperor, whose chastity had been strictly guarded by the pious
care of his tutor Arsenius, 14 eagerly listened to the artful and
flattering descriptions of the charms of Eudoxia: he gazed with
impatient ardor on her picture, and he understood the necessity
of concealing his amorous designs from the knowledge of a
minister who was so deeply interested to oppose the consummation
of his happiness. Soon after the return of Rufinus, the
approaching ceremony of the royal nuptials was announced to the
people of Constantinople, who prepared to celebrate, with false
and hollow acclamations, the fortune of his daughter. A splendid
train of eunuchs and officers issued, in hymeneal pomp, from the
gates of the palace; bearing aloft the diadem, the robes, and the
inestimable ornaments, of the future empress. The solemn
procession passed through the streets of the city, which were
adorned with garlands, and filled with spectators; but when it
reached the house of the sons of Promotus, the principal eunuch
respectfully entered the mansion, invested the fair Eudoxia with
the Imperial robes, and conducted her in triumph to the palace
and bed of Arcadius. 15 The secrecy and success with which this
conspiracy against Rufinus had been conducted, imprinted a mark
of indelible ridicule on the character of a minister, who had
suffered himself to be deceived, in a post where the arts of
deceit and dissimulation constitute the most distinguished merit.
He considered, with a mixture of indignation and fear, the
victory of an aspiring eunuch, who had secretly captivated the
favor of his sovereign; and the disgrace of his daughter, whose
interest was inseparably connected with his own, wounded the
tenderness, or, at least, the pride of Rufinus. At the moment
when he flattered himself that he should become the father of a
line of kings, a foreign maid, who had been educated in the house
of his implacable enemies, was introduced into the Imperial bed;
and Eudoxia soon displayed a superiority of sense and spirit, to
improve the ascendant which her beauty must acquire over the mind
of a fond and youthful husband. The emperor would soon be
instructed to hate, to fear, and to destroy the powerful subject,
whom he had injured; and the consciousness of guilt deprived
Rufinus of every hope, either of safety or comfort, in the
retirement of a private life. But he still possessed the most
effectual means of defending his dignity, and perhaps of
oppressing his enemies. The praefect still exercised an
uncontrolled authority over the civil and military government of
the East; and his treasures, if he could resolve to use them,
might be employed to procure proper instruments for the execution
of the blackest designs, that pride, ambition, and revenge could
suggest to a desperate statesman. The character of Rufinus seemed
to justify the accusations that he conspired against the person
of his sovereign, to seat himself on the vacant throne; and that
he had secretly invited the Huns and the Goths to invade the
provinces of the empire, and to increase the public confusion.
The subtle praefect, whose life had been spent in the intrigues
of the palace, opposed, with equal arms, the artful measures of
the eunuch Eutropius; but the timid soul of Rufinus was
astonished by the hostile approach of a more formidable rival, of
the great Stilicho, the general, or rather the master, of the
empire of the West. 16
13 (return) [ Zosimus (l. iv. p. 243) praises the valor,
prudence, and integrity of Bauto the Frank. See Tillemont, Hist.
des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 771.]
14 (return) [ Arsenius escaped from the palace of Constantinople,
and passed fifty-five years in rigid penance in the monasteries
of Egypt. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 676-702; and
Fleury, Hist Eccles. tom. v. p. 1, &c.; but the latter, for want
of authentic materials, has given too much credit to the legend
of Metaphrastes.]
15 (return) [ This story (Zosimus, l. v. p. 290) proves that the
hymeneal rites of antiquity were still practised, without
idolatry, by the Christians of the East; and the bride was
forcibly conducted from the house of her parents to that of her
husband. Our form of marriage requires, with less delicacy, the
express and public consent of a virgin.]
16 (return) [ Zosimus, (l. v. p. 290,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 37,)
and the Chronicle of Marcellinus. Claudian (in Rufin. ii. 7-100)
paints, in lively colors, the distress and guilt of the
praefect.]
The celestial gift, which Achilles obtained, and Alexander
envied, of a poet worthy to celebrate the actions of heroes has
been enjoyed by Stilicho, in a much higher degree than might have
been expected from the declining state of genius, and of art. The
muse of Claudian, 17 devoted to his service, was always prepared
to stigmatize his adversaries, Rufinus, or Eutropius, with
eternal infamy; or to paint, in the most splendid colors, the
victories and virtues of a powerful benefactor. In the review of
a period indifferently supplied with authentic materials, we
cannot refuse to illustrate the annals of Honorius, from the
invectives, or the panegyrics, of a contemporary writer; but as
Claudian appears to have indulged the most ample privilege of a
poet and a courtier, some criticism will be requisite to
translate the language of fiction or exaggeration, into the truth
and simplicity of historic prose. His silence concerning the
family of Stilicho may be admitted as a proof, that his patron
was neither able, nor desirous, to boast of a long series of
illustrious progenitors; and the slight mention of his father, an
officer of Barbarian cavalry in the service of Valens, seems to
countenance the assertion, that the general, who so long
commanded the armies of Rome, was descended from the savage and
perfidious race of the Vandals. 18 If Stilicho had not possessed
the external advantages of strength and stature, the most
flattering bard, in the presence of so many thousand spectators,
would have hesitated to affirm, that he surpassed the measure of
the demi-gods of antiquity; and that whenever he moved, with
lofty steps, through the streets of the capital, the astonished
crowd made room for the stranger, who displayed, in a private
condition, the awful majesty of a hero. From his earliest youth
he embraced the profession of arms; his prudence and valor were
soon distinguished in the field; the horsemen and archers of the
East admired his superior dexterity; and in each degree of his
military promotions, the public judgment always prevented and
approved the choice of the sovereign. He was named, by
Theodosius, to ratify a solemn treaty with the monarch of Persia;
he supported, during that important embassy, the dignity of the
Roman name; and after he returned to Constantinople, his merit
was rewarded by an intimate and honorable alliance with the
Imperial family. Theodosius had been prompted, by a pious motive
of fraternal affection, to adopt, for his own, the daughter of
his brother Honorius; the beauty and accomplishments of Serena 19
were universally admired by the obsequious court; and Stilicho
obtained the preference over a crowd of rivals, who ambitiously
disputed the hand of the princess, and the favor of her adopted
father. 20 The assurance that the husband of Serena would be
faithful to the throne, which he was permitted to approach,
engaged the emperor to exalt the fortunes, and to employ the
abilities, of the sagacious and intrepid Stilicho. He rose,
through the successive steps of master of the horse, and count of
the domestics, to the supreme rank of master-general of all the
cavalry and infantry of the Roman, or at least of the Western,
empire; 21 and his enemies confessed, that he invariably
disdained to barter for gold the rewards of merit, or to defraud
the soldiers of the pay and gratifications which they deserved or
claimed, from the liberality of the state. 22 The valor and
conduct which he afterwards displayed, in the defence of Italy,
against the arms of Alaric and Radagaisus, may justify the fame
of his early achievements and in an age less attentive to the
laws of honor, or of pride, the Roman generals might yield the
preeminence of rank, to the ascendant of superior genius. 23 He
lamented, and revenged, the murder of Promotus, his rival and his
friend; and the massacre of many thousands of the flying
Bastarnae is represented by the poet as a bloody sacrifice, which
the Roman Achilles offered to the manes of another Patroclus. The
virtues and victories of Stilicho deserved the hatred of Rufinus:
and the arts of calumny might have been successful if the tender
and vigilant Serena had not protected her husband against his
domestic foes, whilst he vanquished in the field the enemies of
the empire. 24 Theodosius continued to support an unworthy
minister, to whose diligence he delegated the government of the
palace, and of the East; but when he marched against the tyrant
Eugenius, he associated his faithful general to the labors and
glories of the civil war; and in the last moments of his life,
the dying monarch recommended to Stilicho the care of his sons,
and of the republic. 25 The ambition and the abilities of
Stilicho were not unequal to the important trust; and he claimed
the guardianship of the two empires, during the minority of
Arcadius and Honorius. 26 The first measure of his
administration, or rather of his reign, displayed to the nations
the vigor and activity of a spirit worthy to command. He passed
the Alps in the depth of winter; descended the stream of the
Rhine, from the fortress of Basil to the marshes of Batavia;
reviewed the state of the garrisons; repressed the enterprises of
the Germans; and, after establishing along the banks a firm and
honorable peace, returned, with incredible speed, to the palace
of Milan. 27 The person and court of Honorius were subject to the
master-general of the West; and the armies and provinces of
Europe obeyed, without hesitation, a regular authority, which was
exercised in the name of their young sovereign. Two rivals only
remained to dispute the claims, and to provoke the vengeance, of
Stilicho. Within the limits of Africa, Gildo, the Moor,
maintained a proud and dangerous independence; and the minister
of Constantinople asserted his equal reign over the emperor, and
the empire, of the East.
17 (return) [ Stilicho, directly or indirectly, is the perpetual
theme of Claudian. The youth and private life of the hero are
vaguely expressed in the poem on his first consulship, 35-140.]
18 (return) [ Vandalorum, imbellis, avarae, perfidae, et dolosae,
gentis, genere editus. Orosius, l. vii. c. 38. Jerom (tom. i. ad
Gerontiam, p. 93) call him a Semi-Barbarian.]
19 (return) [ Claudian, in an imperfect poem, has drawn a fair,
perhaps a flattering, portrait of Serena. That favorite niece of
Theodosius was born, as well as here sister Thermantia, in Spain;
from whence, in their earliest youth, they were honorably
conducted to the palace of Constantinople.]
20 (return) [ Some doubt may be entertained, whether this
adoption was legal or only metaphorical, (see Ducange, Fam.
Byzant. p. 75.) An old inscription gives Stilicho the singular
title of Pro-gener Divi Theodosius]
21 (return) [ Claudian (Laus Serenae, 190, 193) expresses, in
poetic language “the dilectus equorum,” and the “gemino mox idem
culmine duxit agmina.” The inscription adds, “count of the
domestics,” an important command, which Stilicho, in the height
of his grandeur, might prudently retain.]
22 (return) [ The beautiful lines of Claudian (in i. Cons.
Stilich. ii. 113) displays his genius; but the integrity of
Stilicho (in the military administration) is much more firmly
established by the unwilling evidence of Zosimus, (l. v. p.
345.)]
23 (return) [—Si bellica moles Ingrueret, quamvis annis et jure
minori,
Cedere grandaevos equitum peditumque magistros
Adspiceres. Claudian, Laus Seren. p. 196, &c. A modern general
would deem their submission either heroic patriotism or abject
servility.]
24 (return) [ Compare the poem on the first consulship (i.
95-115) with the Laus Serenoe (227-237, where it unfortunately
breaks off.) We may perceive the deep, inveterate malice of
Rufinus.]
25 (return) [—Quem fratribus ipse Discedens, clypeum
defensoremque dedisti. Yet the nomination (iv. Cons. Hon. 432)
was private, (iii. Cons. Hon. 142,) cunctos discedere... jubet;
and may therefore be suspected. Zosimus and Suidas apply to
Stilicho and Rufinus the same equal title of guardians, or
procurators.]
26 (return) [ The Roman law distinguishes two sorts of minority,
which expired at the age of fourteen, and of twenty-five. The one
was subject to the tutor, or guardian, of the person; the other,
to the curator, or trustee, of the estate, (Heineccius,
Antiquitat. Rom. ad Jurisprudent. pertinent. l. i. tit. xxii.
xxiii. p. 218-232.) But these legal ideas were never accurately
transferred into the constitution of an elective monarchy.]
27 (return) [ See Claudian, (i. Cons. Stilich. i. 188-242;) but
he must allow more than fifteen days for the journey and return
between Milan and Leyden.]
Chapter XXIX: Division Of Roman Empire Between Sons Of Theodosius.—Part
II.
The impartiality which Stilicho affected, as the common guardian
of the royal brothers, engaged him to regulate the equal division
of the arms, the jewels, and the magnificent wardrobe and
furniture of the deceased emperor. 28 But the most important
object of the inheritance consisted of the numerous legions,
cohorts, and squadrons, of Romans, or Barbarians, whom the event
of the civil war had united under the standard of Theodosius. The
various multitudes of Europe and Asia, exasperated by recent
animosities, were overawed by the authority of a single man; and
the rigid discipline of Stilicho protected the lands of the
citizens from the rapine of the licentious soldier. 29 Anxious,
however, and impatient, to relieve Italy from the presence of
this formidable host, which could be useful only on the frontiers
of the empire, he listened to the just requisition of the
minister of Arcadius, declared his intention of reconducting in
person the troops of the East, and dexterously employed the rumor
of a Gothic tumult to conceal his private designs of ambition and
revenge. 30 The guilty soul of Rufinus was alarmed by the
approach of a warrior and a rival, whose enmity he deserved; he
computed, with increasing terror, the narrow space of his life
and greatness; and, as the last hope of safety, he interposed the
authority of the emperor Arcadius. Stilicho, who appears to have
directed his march along the sea-coast of the Adriatic, was not
far distant from the city of Thessalonica, when he received a
peremptory message, to recall the troops of the East, and to
declare, that his nearer approach would be considered, by the
Byzantine court, as an act of hostility. The prompt and
unexpected obedience of the general of the West, convinced the
vulgar of his loyalty and moderation; and, as he had already
engaged the affection of the Eastern troops, he recommended to
their zeal the execution of his bloody design, which might be
accomplished in his absence, with less danger, perhaps, and with
less reproach. Stilicho left the command of the troops of the
East to Gainas, the Goth, on whose fidelity he firmly relied,
with an assurance, at least, that the hardy Barbarians would
never be diverted from his purpose by any consideration of fear
or remorse. The soldiers were easily persuaded to punish the
enemy of Stilicho and of Rome; and such was the general hatred
which Rufinus had excited, that the fatal secret, communicated to
thousands, was faithfully preserved during the long march from
Thessalonica to the gates of Constantinople. As soon as they had
resolved his death, they condescended to flatter his pride; the
ambitious praefect was seduced to believe, that those powerful
auxiliaries might be tempted to place the diadem on his head; and
the treasures which he distributed, with a tardy and reluctant
hand, were accepted by the indignant multitude as an insult,
rather than as a gift. At the distance of a mile from the
capital, in the field of Mars, before the palace of Hebdomon, the
troops halted: and the emperor, as well as his minister,
advanced, according to ancient custom, respectfully to salute the
power which supported their throne. As Rufinus passed along the
ranks, and disguised, with studied courtesy, his innate
haughtiness, the wings insensibly wheeled from the right and
left, and enclosed the devoted victim within the circle of their
arms. Before he could reflect on the danger of his situation,
Gainas gave the signal of death; a daring and forward soldier
plunged his sword into the breast of the guilty praefect, and
Rufinus fell, groaned, and expired, at the feet of the affrighted
emperor. If the agonies of a moment could expiate the crimes of a
whole life, or if the outrages inflicted on a breathless corpse
could be the object of pity, our humanity might perhaps be
affected by the horrid circumstances which accompanied the murder
of Rufinus. His mangled body was abandoned to the brutal fury of
the populace of either sex, who hastened in crowds, from every
quarter of the city, to trample on the remains of the haughty
minister, at whose frown they had so lately trembled. His right
hand was cut off, and carried through the streets of
Constantinople, in cruel mockery, to extort contributions for the
avaricious tyrant, whose head was publicly exposed, borne aloft
on the point of a long lance. 31 According to the savage maxims
of the Greek republics, his innocent family would have shared the
punishment of his crimes. The wife and daughter of Rufinus were
indebted for their safety to the influence of religion. Her
sanctuary protected them from the raging madness of the people;
and they were permitted to spend the remainder of their lives in
the exercise of Christian devotions, in the peaceful retirement
of Jerusalem. 32
28 (return) [ I. Cons. Stilich. ii. 88-94. Not only the robes and
diadems of the deceased emperor, but even the helmets,
sword-hilts, belts, rasses, &c., were enriched with pearls,
emeralds, and diamonds.]
29 (return) [—Tantoque remoto Principe, mutatas orbis non sensit
habenas. This high commendation (i. Cons. Stil. i. 149) may be
justified by the fears of the dying emperor, (de Bell. Gildon.
292-301;) and the peace and good order which were enjoyed after
his death, (i. Cons. Stil i. 150-168.)]
30 (return) [ Stilicho’s march, and the death of Rufinus, are
described by Claudian, (in Rufin. l. ii. 101-453, Zosimus, l. v.
p. 296, 297,) Sozomen (l. viii. c. 1,) Socrates, l. vi. c. 1,)
Philostorgius, (l. xi c. 3, with Godefory, p. 441,) and the
Chronicle of Marcellinus.]
31 (return) [ The dissection of Rufinus, which Claudian performs
with the savage coolness of an anatomist, (in Rufin. ii.
405-415,) is likewise specified by Zosimus and Jerom, (tom. i. p.
26.)]
32 (return) [ The Pagan Zosimus mentions their sanctuary and
pilgrimage. The sister of Rufinus, Sylvania, who passed her life
at Jerusalem, is famous in monastic history. 1. The studious
virgin had diligently, and even repeatedly, perused the
commentators on the Bible, Origen, Gregory, Basil, &c., to the
amount of five millions of lines. 2. At the age of threescore,
she could boast, that she had never washed her hands, face, or
any part of her whole body, except the tips of her fingers to
receive the communion. See the Vitae Patrum, p. 779, 977.]
The servile poet of Stilicho applauds, with ferocious joy, this
horrid deed, which, in the execution, perhaps, of justice,
violated every law of nature and society, profaned the majesty of
the prince, and renewed the dangerous examples of military
license. The contemplation of the universal order and harmony had
satisfied Claudian of the existence of the Deity; but the
prosperous impunity of vice appeared to contradict his moral
attributes; and the fate of Rufinus was the only event which
could dispel the religious doubts of the poet. 33 Such an act
might vindicate the honor of Providence, but it did not much
contribute to the happiness of the people. In less than three
months they were informed of the maxims of the new
administration, by a singular edict, which established the
exclusive right of the treasury over the spoils of Rufinus; and
silenced, under heavy penalties, the presumptuous claims of the
subjects of the Eastern empire, who had been injured by his
rapacious tyranny. 34 Even Stilicho did not derive from the
murder of his rival the fruit which he had proposed; and though
he gratified his revenge, his ambition was disappointed. Under
the name of a favorite, the weakness of Arcadius required a
master, but he naturally preferred the obsequious arts of the
eunuch Eutropius, who had obtained his domestic confidence: and
the emperor contemplated, with terror and aversion, the stern
genius of a foreign warrior. Till they were divided by the
jealousy of power, the sword of Gainas, and the charms of
Eudoxia, supported the favor of the great chamberlain of the
palace: the perfidious Goth, who was appointed master-general of
the East, betrayed, without scruple, the interest of his
benefactor; and the same troops, who had so lately massacred the
enemy of Stilicho, were engaged to support, against him, the
independence of the throne of Constantinople. The favorites of
Arcadius fomented a secret and irreconcilable war against a
formidable hero, who aspired to govern, and to defend, the two
empires of Rome, and the two sons of Theodosius. They incessantly
labored, by dark and treacherous machinations, to deprive him of
the esteem of the prince, the respect of the people, and the
friendship of the Barbarians. The life of Stilicho was repeatedly
attempted by the dagger of hired assassins; and a decree was
obtained from the senate of Constantinople, to declare him an
enemy of the republic, and to confiscate his ample possessions in
the provinces of the East. At a time when the only hope of
delaying the ruin of the Roman name depended on the firm union,
and reciprocal aid, of all the nations to whom it had been
gradually communicated, the subjects of Arcadius and Honorius
were instructed, by their respective masters, to view each other
in a foreign, and even hostile, light; to rejoice in their mutual
calamities, and to embrace, as their faithful allies, the
Barbarians, whom they excited to invade the territories of their
countrymen. 35 The natives of Italy affected to despise the
servile and effeminate Greeks of Byzantium, who presumed to
imitate the dress, and to usurp the dignity, of Roman senators;
36 and the Greeks had not yet forgot the sentiments of hatred and
contempt, which their polished ancestors had so long entertained
for the rude inhabitants of the West. The distinction of two
governments, which soon produced the separation of two nations,
will justify my design of suspending the series of the Byzantine
history, to prosecute, without interruption, the disgraceful, but
memorable, reign of Honorius.
33 (return) [ See the beautiful exordium of his invective against
Rufinus, which is curiously discussed by the sceptic Bayle,
Dictionnaire Critique, Rufin. Not. E.]
34 (return) [ See the Theodosian Code, l. ix. tit. xlii. leg. 14,
15. The new ministers attempted, with inconsistent avarice, to
seize the spoils of their predecessor, and to provide for their
own future security.]
35 (return) [ See Claudian, (i. Cons. Stilich, l. i. 275, 292,
296, l. ii. 83,) and Zosimus, (l. v. p. 302.)]
36 (return) [ Claudian turns the consulship of the eunuch
Eutropius into a national reflection, (l. ii. 134):—
—-Plaudentem cerne senatum, Et Byzantinos proceres Graiosque
Quirites: O patribus plebes, O digni consule patres.
It is curious to observe the first symptoms of jealousy and
schism between old and new Rome, between the Greeks and Latins.]
The prudent Stilicho, instead of persisting to force the
inclinations of a prince, and people, who rejected his
government, wisely abandoned Arcadius to his unworthy favorites;
and his reluctance to involve the two empires in a civil war
displayed the moderation of a minister, who had so often
signalized his military spirit and abilities. But if Stilicho had
any longer endured the revolt of Africa, he would have betrayed
the security of the capital, and the majesty of the Western
emperor, to the capricious insolence of a Moorish rebel. Gildo,
37 the brother of the tyrant Firmus, had preserved and obtained,
as the reward of his apparent fidelity, the immense patrimony
which was forfeited by treason: long and meritorious service, in
the armies of Rome, raised him to the dignity of a military
count; the narrow policy of the court of Theodosius had adopted
the mischievous expedient of supporting a legal government by the
interest of a powerful family; and the brother of Firmus was
invested with the command of Africa. His ambition soon usurped
the administration of justice, and of the finances, without
account, and without control; and he maintained, during a reign
of twelve years, the possession of an office, from which it was
impossible to remove him, without the danger of a civil war.
During those twelve years, the provinces of Africa groaned under
the dominion of a tyrant, who seemed to unite the unfeeling
temper of a stranger with the partial resentments of domestic
faction. The forms of law were often superseded by the use of
poison; and if the trembling guests, who were invited to the
table of Gildo, presumed to express fears, the insolent suspicion
served only to excite his fury, and he loudly summoned the
ministers of death. Gildo alternately indulged the passions of
avarice and lust; 38 and if his days were terrible to the rich,
his nights were not less dreadful to husbands and parents. The
fairest of their wives and daughters were prostituted to the
embraces of the tyrant; and afterwards abandoned to a ferocious
troop of Barbarians and assassins, the black, or swarthy, natives
of the desert; whom Gildo considered as the only guardians of his
throne. In the civil war between Theodosius and Eugenius, the
count, or rather the sovereign, of Africa, maintained a haughty
and suspicious neutrality; refused to assist either of the
contending parties with troops or vessels, expected the
declaration of fortune, and reserved for the conqueror the vain
professions of his allegiance. Such professions would not have
satisfied the master of the Roman world; but the death of
Theodosius, and the weakness and discord of his sons, confirmed
the power of the Moor; who condescended, as a proof of his
moderation, to abstain from the use of the diadem, and to supply
Rome with the customary tribute, or rather subsidy, of corn. In
every division of the empire, the five provinces of Africa were
invariably assigned to the West; and Gildo had to govern that
extensive country in the name of Honorius, but his knowledge of
the character and designs of Stilicho soon engaged him to address
his homage to a more distant and feeble sovereign. The ministers
of Arcadius embraced the cause of a perfidious rebel; and the
delusive hope of adding the numerous cities of Africa to the
empire of the East, tempted them to assert a claim, which they
were incapable of supporting, either by reason or by arms. 39
37 (return) [ Claudian may have exaggerated the vices of Gildo;
but his Moorish extraction, his notorious actions, and the
complaints of St. Augustin, may justify the poet’s invectives.
Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 398, No. 35-56) has treated the
African rebellion with skill and learning.]
38 (return) [
Instat terribilis vivis, morientibus haeres, Virginibus raptor,
thalamis obscoenus adulter. Nulla quies: oritur praeda cessante
libido, Divitibusque dies, et nox metuenda maritis. Mauris
clarissima quaeque Fastidita datur. ——De Bello Gildonico, 165,
189.
Baronius condemns, still more severely, the licentiousness of
Gildo; as his wife, his daughter, and his sister, were examples
of perfect chastity. The adulteries of the African soldiers are
checked by one of the Imperial laws.]
39 (return) [ Inque tuam sortem numerosas transtulit urbes.
Claudian (de Bell. Gildonico, 230-324) has touched, with
political delicacy, the intrigues of the Byzantine court, which
are likewise mentioned by Zosimus, (l. v. p. 302.)]
When Stilicho had given a firm and decisive answer to the
pretensions of the Byzantine court, he solemnly accused the
tyrant of Africa before the tribunal, which had formerly judged
the kings and nations of the earth; and the image of the republic
was revived, after a long interval, under the reign of Honorius.
The emperor transmitted an accurate and ample detail of the
complaints of the provincials, and the crimes of Gildo, to the
Roman senate; and the members of that venerable assembly were
required to pronounce the condemnation of the rebel. Their
unanimous suffrage declared him the enemy of the republic; and
the decree of the senate added a sacred and legitimate sanction
to the Roman arms. 40 A people, who still remembered that their
ancestors had been the masters of the world, would have
applauded, with conscious pride, the representation of ancient
freedom; if they had not since been accustomed to prefer the
solid assurance of bread to the unsubstantial visions of liberty
and greatness. The subsistence of Rome depended on the harvests
of Africa; and it was evident, that a declaration of war would be
the signal of famine. The praefect Symmachus, who presided in the
deliberations of the senate, admonished the minister of his just
apprehension, that as soon as the revengeful Moor should prohibit
the exportation of corn, tranquility and perhaps the safety, of
the capital would be threatened by the hungry rage of a turbulent
multitude. 41 The prudence of Stilicho conceived and executed,
without delay, the most effectual measure for the relief of the
Roman people. A large and seasonable supply of corn, collected in
the inland provinces of Gaul, was embarked on the rapid stream of
the Rhone, and transported, by an easy navigation, from the Rhone
to the Tyber. During the whole term of the African war, the
granaries of Rome were continually filled, her dignity was
vindicated from the humiliating dependence, and the minds of an
immense people were quieted by the calm confidence of peace and
plenty. 42
40 (return) [ Symmachus (l. iv. epist. 4) expresses the judicial
forms of the senate; and Claudian (i. Cons. Stilich. l. i. 325,
&c.) seems to feel the spirit of a Roman.]
41 (return) [ Claudian finely displays these complaints of
Symmachus, in a speech of the goddess of Rome, before the throne
of Jupiter, (de Bell Gildon. 28-128.)]
42 (return) [ See Claudian (in Eutrop. l. i 401, &c. i. Cons.
Stil. l. i. 306, &c. i. Cons. Stilich. 91, &c.)]
The cause of Rome, and the conduct of the African war, were
intrusted by Stilicho to a general, active and ardent to avenge
his private injuries on the head of the tyrant. The spirit of
discord which prevailed in the house of Nabal, had excited a
deadly quarrel between two of his sons, Gildo and Mascezel. 43
The usurper pursued, with implacable rage, the life of his
younger brother, whose courage and abilities he feared; and
Mascezel, oppressed by superior power, took refuge in the court
of Milan, where he soon received the cruel intelligence that his
two innocent and helpless children had been murdered by their
inhuman uncle. The affliction of the father was suspended only by
the desire of revenge. The vigilant Stilicho already prepared to
collect the naval and military force of the Western empire; and
he had resolved, if the tyrant should be able to wage an equal
and doubtful war, to march against him in person. But as Italy
required his presence, and as it might be dangerous to weaken the
defence of the frontier, he judged it more advisable, that
Mascezel should attempt this arduous adventure at the head of a
chosen body of Gallic veterans, who had lately served under the
standard of Eugenius. These troops, who were exhorted to convince
the world that they could subvert, as well as defend the throne
of a usurper, consisted of the Jovian, the Herculian, and the
Augustan legions; of the Nervian auxiliaries; of the soldiers who
displayed in their banners the symbol of a lion, and of the
troops which were distinguished by the auspicious names of
Fortunate, and Invincible. Yet such was the smallness of their
establishments, or the difficulty of recruiting, that these seven
bands, 44 of high dignity and reputation in the service of Rome,
amounted to no more than five thousand effective men. 45 The
fleet of galleys and transports sailed in tempestuous weather
from the port of Pisa, in Tuscany, and steered their course to
the little island of Capraria; which had borrowed that name from
the wild goats, its original inhabitants, whose place was
occupied by a new colony of a strange and savage appearance. “The
whole island (says an ingenious traveller of those times) is
filled, or rather defiled, by men who fly from the light. They
call themselves Monks, or solitaries, because they choose to live
alone, without any witnesses of their actions. They fear the
gifts of fortune, from the apprehension of losing them; and, lest
they should be miserable, they embrace a life of voluntary
wretchedness. How absurd is their choice! how perverse their
understanding! to dread the evils, without being able to support
the blessings, of the human condition. Either this melancholy
madness is the effect of disease, or exercise on their own bodies
the tortures which are inflicted on fugitive slaves by the hand
of justice.” 46 Such was the contempt of a profane magistrate for
the monks as the chosen servants of God. 47 Some of them were
persuaded, by his entreaties, to embark on board the fleet; and
it is observed, to the praise of the Roman general, that his days
and nights were employed in prayer, fasting, and the occupation
of singing psalms. The devout leader, who, with such a
reenforcement, appeared confident of victory, avoided the
dangerous rocks of Corsica, coasted along the eastern side of
Sardinia, and secured his ships against the violence of the south
wind, by casting anchor in the and capacious harbor of Cagliari,
at the distance of one hundred and forty miles from the African
shores. 48
43 (return) [ He was of a mature age; since he had formerly (A.D.
373) served against his brother Firmus (Ammian. xxix. 5.)
Claudian, who understood the court of Milan, dwells on the
injuries, rather than the merits, of Mascezel, (de Bell. Gild.
389-414.) The Moorish war was not worthy of Honorius, or
Stilicho, &c.]
44 (return) [ Claudian, Bell. Gild. 415-423. The change of
discipline allowed him to use indifferently the names of Legio
Cohors, Manipulus. See Notitia Imperii, S. 38, 40.]
45 (return) [ Orosius (l. vii. c. 36, p. 565) qualifies this
account with an expression of doubt, (ut aiunt;) and it scarcely
coincides with Zosimus, (l. v. p. 303.) Yet Claudian, after some
declamation about Cadmus, soldiers, frankly owns that Stilicho
sent a small army lest the rebels should fly, ne timeare times,
(i. Cons. Stilich. l. i. 314 &c.)]
46 (return) [ Claud. Rutil. Numatian. Itinerar. i. 439-448. He
afterwards (515-526) mentions a religious madman on the Isle of
Gorgona. For such profane remarks, Rutilius and his accomplices
are styled, by his commentator, Barthius, rabiosi canes diaboli.
Tillemont (Mem. Eccles com. xii. p. 471) more calmly observes,
that the unbelieving poet praises where he means to censure.]
47 (return) [ Orosius, l. vii. c. 36, p. 564. Augustin commends
two of these savage saints of the Isle of Goats, (epist. lxxxi.
apud Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 317, and Baronius,
Annal Eccles. A.D. 398 No. 51.)]
48 (return) [ Here the first book of the Gildonic war is
terminated. The rest of Claudian’s poem has been lost; and we are
ignorant how or where the army made good their landing in Afica.]
Gildo was prepared to resist the invasion with all the forces of
Africa. By the liberality of his gifts and promises, he
endeavored to secure the doubtful allegiance of the Roman
soldiers, whilst he attracted to his standard the distant tribes
of Gaetulia and Æthiopia. He proudly reviewed an army of seventy
thousand men, and boasted, with the rash presumption which is the
forerunner of disgrace, that his numerous cavalry would trample
under their horses’ feet the troops of Mascezel, and involve, in
a cloud of burning sand, the natives of the cold regions of Gaul
and Germany. 49 But the Moor, who commanded the legions of
Honorius, was too well acquainted with the manners of his
countrymen, to entertain any serious apprehension of a naked and
disorderly host of Barbarians; whose left arm, instead of a
shield, was protected only by mantle; who were totally disarmed
as soon as they had darted their javelin from their right hand;
and whose horses had never been in combat. He fixed his camp of
five thousand veterans in the face of a superior enemy, and,
after the delay of three days, gave the signal of a general
engagement. 50 As Mascezel advanced before the front with fair
offers of peace and pardon, he encountered one of the foremost
standard-bearers of the Africans, and, on his refusal to yield,
struck him on the arm with his sword. The arm, and the standard,
sunk under the weight of the blow; and the imaginary act of
submission was hastily repeated by all the standards of the line.
At this the disaffected cohorts proclaimed the name of their
lawful sovereign; the Barbarians, astonished by the defection of
their Roman allies, dispersed, according to their custom, in
tumultuary flight; and Mascezel obtained the honors of an easy,
and almost bloodless, victory. 51 The tyrant escaped from the
field of battle to the sea-shore; and threw himself into a small
vessel, with the hope of reaching in safety some friendly port of
the empire of the East; but the obstinacy of the wind drove him
back into the harbor of Tabraca, 52 which had acknowledged, with
the rest of the province, the dominion of Honorius, and the
authority of his lieutenant. The inhabitants, as a proof of their
repentance and loyalty, seized and confined the person of Gildo
in a dungeon; and his own despair saved him from the intolerable
torture of supporting the presence of an injured and victorious
brother. 53 The captives and the spoils of Africa were laid at
the feet of the emperor; but Stilicho, whose moderation appeared
more conspicuous and more sincere, in the midst of prosperity,
still affected to consult the laws of the republic; and referred
to the senate and people of Rome the judgment of the most
illustrious criminals. 54 Their trial was public and solemn; but
the judges, in the exercise of this obsolete and precarious
jurisdiction, were impatient to punish the African magistrates,
who had intercepted the subsistence of the Roman people. The rich
and guilty province was oppressed by the Imperial ministers, who
had a visible interest to multiply the number of the accomplices
of Gildo; and if an edict of Honorius seems to check the
malicious industry of informers, a subsequent edict, at the
distance of ten years, continues and renews the prosecution of
the offences which had been committed in the time of the general
rebellion. 55 The adherents of the tyrant who escaped the first
fury of the soldiers, and the judges, might derive some
consolation from the tragic fate of his brother, who could never
obtain his pardon for the extraordinary services which he had
performed. After he had finished an important war in the space of
a single winter, Mascezel was received at the court of Milan with
loud applause, affected gratitude, and secret jealousy; 56 and
his death, which, perhaps, was the effect of passage of a bridge,
the Moorish prince, who accompanied the master-general of the
West, was suddenly thrown from his horse into the river; the
officious haste of the attendants was restrained by a cruel and
perfidious smile which they observed on the countenance of
Stilicho; and while they delayed the necessary assistance, the
unfortunate Mascezel was irrecoverably drowned. 57
49 (return) [ Orosius must be responsible for the account. The
presumption of Gildo and his various train of Barbarians is
celebrated by Claudian, Cons. Stil. l. i. 345-355.]
50 (return) [ St. Ambrose, who had been dead about a year,
revealed, in a vision, the time and place of the victory.
Mascezel afterwards related his dream to Paulinus, the original
biographer of the saint, from whom it might easily pass to
Orosius.]
51 (return) [ Zosimus (l. v. p. 303) supposes an obstinate
combat; but the narrative of Orosius appears to conceal a real
fact, under the disguise of a miracle.]
52 (return) [ Tabraca lay between the two Hippos, (Cellarius,
tom. ii. p. 112; D’Anville, tom. iii. p. 84.) Orosius has
distinctly named the field of battle, but our ignorance cannot
define the precise situation.]
53 (return) [ The death of Gildo is expressed by Claudian (i.
Cons. Stil. 357) and his best interpreters, Zosimus and Orosius.]
54 (return) [ Claudian (ii. Cons. Stilich. 99-119) describes
their trial (tremuit quos Africa nuper, cernunt rostra reos,) and
applauds the restoration of the ancient constitution. It is here
that he introduces the famous sentence, so familiar to the
friends of despotism:
—-Nunquam libertas gratior exstat, Quam sub rege pio.
But the freedom which depends on royal piety, scarcely deserves
appellation]
55 (return) [ See the Theodosian Code, l. ix. tit. xxxix. leg. 3,
tit. xl. leg. 19.]
56 (return) [ Stilicho, who claimed an equal share in all the
victories of Theodosius and his son, particularly asserts, that
Africa was recovered by the wisdom of his counsels, (see an
inscription produced by Baronius.)]
57 (return) [ I have softened the narrative of Zosimus, which, in
its crude simplicity, is almost incredible, (l. v. p. 303.)
Orosius damns the victorious general (p. 538) for violating the
right of sanctuary.]
The joy of the African triumph was happily connected with the
nuptials of the emperor Honorius, and of his cousin Maria, the
daughter of Stilicho: and this equal and honorable alliance
seemed to invest the powerful minister with the authority of a
parent over his submissive pupil. The muse of Claudian was not
silent on this propitious day; 58 he sung, in various and lively
strains, the happiness of the royal pair; and the glory of the
hero, who confirmed their union, and supported their throne. The
ancient fables of Greece, which had almost ceased to be the
object of religious faith, were saved from oblivion by the genius
of poetry. The picture of the Cyprian grove, the seat of harmony
and love; the triumphant progress of Venus over her native seas,
and the mild influence which her presence diffused in the palace
of Milan, express to every age the natural sentiments of the
heart, in the just and pleasing language of allegorical fiction.
But the amorous impatience which Claudian attributes to the young
prince, 59 must excite the smiles of the court; and his beauteous
spouse (if she deserved the praise of beauty) had not much to
fear or to hope from the passions of her lover. Honorius was only
in the fourteenth year of his age; Serena, the mother of his
bride, deferred, by art of persuasion, the consummation of the
royal nuptials; Maria died a virgin, after she had been ten years
a wife; and the chastity of the emperor was secured by the
coldness, or perhaps, the debility, of his constitution. 60 His
subjects, who attentively studied the character of their young
sovereign, discovered that Honorius was without passions, and
consequently without talents; and that his feeble and languid
disposition was alike incapable of discharging the duties of his
rank, or of enjoying the pleasures of his age. In his early youth
he made some progress in the exercises of riding and drawing the
bow: but he soon relinquished these fatiguing occupations, and
the amusement of feeding poultry became the serious and daily
care of the monarch of the West, 61 who resigned the reins of
empire to the firm and skilful hand of his guardian Stilicho. The
experience of history will countenance the suspicion that a
prince who was born in the purple, received a worse education
than the meanest peasant of his dominions; and that the ambitious
minister suffered him to attain the age of manhood, without
attempting to excite his courage, or to enlighten his
understanding. 62 The predecessors of Honorius were accustomed to
animate by their example, or at least by their presence, the
valor of the legions; and the dates of their laws attest the
perpetual activity of their motions through the provinces of the
Roman world. But the son of Theodosius passed the slumber of his
life, a captive in his palace, a stranger in his country, and the
patient, almost the indifferent, spectator of the ruin of the
Western empire, which was repeatedly attacked, and finally
subverted, by the arms of the Barbarians. In the eventful history
of a reign of twenty-eight years, it will seldom be necessary to
mention the name of the emperor Honorius.
58 (return) [ Claudian,as the poet laureate, composed a serious
and elaborate epithalamium of 340 lines; besides some gay
Fescennines, which were sung, in a more licentious tone, on the
wedding night.]
59 (return) [
Calet obvius ire Jam princeps, tardumque cupit discedere solem.
Nobilis haud aliter sonipes.
(De Nuptiis Honor. et Mariae, and more freely in the Fescennines
112-116)
Dices, O quoties,hoc mihi dulcius Quam flavos decics vincere
Sarmatas. .... Tum victor madido prosilias toro, Nocturni referens
vulnera proelii.]
60 (return) [ See Zosimus, l. v. p. 333.]
61 (return) [ Procopius de Bell. Gothico, l. i. c. 2. I have
borrowed the general practice of Honorius, without adopting the
singular, and indeed improbable tale, which is related by the
Greek historian.]
62 (return) [ The lessons of Theodosius, or rather Claudian, (iv.
Cons. Honor 214-418,) might compose a fine institution for the
future prince of a great and free nation. It was far above
Honorius, and his degenerate subjects.]
Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part I.
Revolt Of The Goths.—They Plunder Greece.—Two Great Invasions Of
Italy By Alaric And Radagaisus.—They Are Repulsed By Stilicho.—The
Germans Overrun Gaul.—Usurpation Of Constantine In The
West.—Disgrace And Death Of Stilicho.
If the subjects of Rome could be ignorant of their obligations to
the great Theodosius, they were too soon convinced, how painfully
the spirit and abilities of their deceased emperor had supported
the frail and mouldering edifice of the republic. He died in the
month of January; and before the end of the winter of the same
year, the Gothic nation was in arms. 1 The Barbarian auxiliaries
erected their independent standard; and boldly avowed the hostile
designs, which they had long cherished in their ferocious minds.
Their countrymen, who had been condemned, by the conditions of
the last treaty, to a life of tranquility and labor, deserted
their farms at the first sound of the trumpet; and eagerly
resumed the weapons which they had reluctantly laid down. The
barriers of the Danube were thrown open; the savage warriors of
Scythia issued from their forests; and the uncommon severity of
the winter allowed the poet to remark, “that they rolled their
ponderous wagons over the broad and icy back of the indignant
river.” 2 The unhappy natives of the provinces to the south of
the Danube submitted to the calamities, which, in the course of
twenty years, were almost grown familiar to their imagination;
and the various troops of Barbarians, who gloried in the Gothic
name, were irregularly spread from woody shores of Dalmatia, to
the walls of Constantinople. 3 The interruption, or at least the
diminution, of the subsidy, which the Goths had received from the
prudent liberality of Theodosius, was the specious pretence of
their revolt: the affront was imbittered by their contempt for
the unwarlike sons of Theodosius; and their resentment was
inflamed by the weakness, or treachery, of the minister of
Arcadius. The frequent visits of Rufinus to the camp of the
Barbarians whose arms and apparel he affected to imitate, were
considered as a sufficient evidence of his guilty correspondence,
and the public enemy, from a motive either of gratitude or of
policy, was attentive, amidst the general devastation, to spare
the private estates of the unpopular praefect. The Goths, instead
of being impelled by the blind and headstrong passions of their
chiefs, were now directed by the bold and artful genius of
Alaric. That renowned leader was descended from the noble race of
the Balti; 4 which yielded only to the royal dignity of the
Amali: he had solicited the command of the Roman armies; and the
Imperial court provoked him to demonstrate the folly of their
refusal, and the importance of their loss. Whatever hopes might
be entertained of the conquest of Constantinople, the judicious
general soon abandoned an impracticable enterprise. In the midst
of a divided court and a discontented people, the emperor
Arcadius was terrified by the aspect of the Gothic arms; but the
want of wisdom and valor was supplied by the strength of the
city; and the fortifications, both of the sea and land, might
securely brave the impotent and random darts of the Barbarians.
Alaric disdained to trample any longer on the prostrate and
ruined countries of Thrace and Dacia, and he resolved to seek a
plentiful harvest of fame and riches in a province which had
hitherto escaped the ravages of war. 5
1 (return) [ The revolt of the Goths, and the blockade of
Constantinople, are distinctly mentioned by Claudian, (in Rufin.
l. ii. 7-100,) Zosimus, (l. v. 292,) and Jornandes, (de Rebus
Geticis, c. 29.)]
2 (return) [—
Alii per toga ferocis Danubii solidata ruunt; expertaque remis
Frangunt stagna rotis.
Claudian and Ovid often amuse their fancy by interchanging the
metaphors and properties of liquid water, and solid ice. Much
false wit has been expended in this easy exercise.]
3 (return) [ Jerom, tom. i. p. 26. He endeavors to comfort his
friend Heliodorus, bishop of Altinum, for the loss of his nephew,
Nepotian, by a curious recapitulation of all the public and
private misfortunes of the times. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles.
tom. xii. p. 200, &c.]
4 (return) [ Baltha or bold: origo mirifica, says Jornandes, (c.
29.) This illustrious race long continued to flourish in France,
in the Gothic province of Septimania, or Languedoc; under the
corrupted appellation of Boax; and a branch of that family
afterwards settled in the kingdom of Naples (Grotius in Prolegom.
ad Hist. Gothic. p. 53.) The lords of Baux, near Arles, and of
seventy-nine subordinate places, were independent of the counts
of Provence, (Longuerue, Description de la France, tom. i. p.
357).]
5 (return) [ Zosimus (l. v. p. 293-295) is our best guide for the
conquest of Greece: but the hints and allusion of Claudian are so
many rays of historic light.]
The character of the civil and military officers, on whom Rufinus
had devolved the government of Greece, confirmed the public
suspicion, that he had betrayed the ancient seat of freedom and
learning to the Gothic invader. The proconsul Antiochus was the
unworthy son of a respectable father; and Gerontius, who
commanded the provincial troops, was much better qualified to
execute the oppressive orders of a tyrant, than to defend, with
courage and ability, a country most remarkably fortified by the
hand of nature. Alaric had traversed, without resistance, the
plains of Macedonia and Thessaly, as far as the foot of Mount
Oeta, a steep and woody range of hills, almost impervious to his
cavalry. They stretched from east to west, to the edge of the
sea-shore; and left, between the precipice and the Malian Gulf,
an interval of three hundred feet, which, in some places, was
contracted to a road capable of admitting only a single carriage.
6 In this narrow pass of Thermopylae, where Leonidas and the
three hundred Spartans had gloriously devoted their lives, the
Goths might have been stopped, or destroyed, by a skilful
general; and perhaps the view of that sacred spot might have
kindled some sparks of military ardor in the breasts of the
degenerate Greeks. The troops which had been posted to defend the
Straits of Thermopylae, retired, as they were directed, without
attempting to disturb the secure and rapid passage of Alaric; 7
and the fertile fields of Phocis and Boeotia were instantly
covered by a deluge of Barbarians who massacred the males of an
age to bear arms, and drove away the beautiful females, with the
spoil and cattle of the flaming villages. The travellers, who
visited Greece several years afterwards, could easily discover
the deep and bloody traces of the march of the Goths; and Thebes
was less indebted for her preservation to the strength of her
seven gates, than to the eager haste of Alaric, who advanced to
occupy the city of Athens, and the important harbor of the
Piraeus. The same impatience urged him to prevent the delay and
danger of a siege, by the offer of a capitulation; and as soon as
the Athenians heard the voice of the Gothic herald, they were
easily persuaded to deliver the greatest part of their wealth, as
the ransom of the city of Minerva and its inhabitants. The treaty
was ratified by solemn oaths, and observed with mutual fidelity.
The Gothic prince, with a small and select train, was admitted
within the walls; he indulged himself in the refreshment of the
bath, accepted a splendid banquet, which was provided by the
magistrate, and affected to show that he was not ignorant of the
manners of civilized nations. 8 But the whole territory of
Attica, from the promontory of Sunium to the town of Megara, was
blasted by his baleful presence; and, if we may use the
comparison of a contemporary philosopher, Athens itself resembled
the bleeding and empty skin of a slaughtered victim. The distance
between Megara and Corinth could not much exceed thirty miles;
but the bad road, an expressive name, which it still bears among
the Greeks, was, or might easily have been made, impassable for
the march of an enemy. The thick and gloomy woods of Mount
Cithaeron covered the inland country; the Scironian rocks
approached the water’s edge, and hung over the narrow and winding
path, which was confined above six miles along the sea-shore. 9
The passage of those rocks, so infamous in every age, was
terminated by the Isthmus of Corinth; and a small a body of firm
and intrepid soldiers might have successfully defended a
temporary intrenchment of five or six miles from the Ionian to
the Aegean Sea. The confidence of the cities of Peloponnesus in
their natural rampart, had tempted them to neglect the care of
their antique walls; and the avarice of the Roman governors had
exhausted and betrayed the unhappy province. 10 Corinth, Argos,
Sparta, yielded without resistance to the arms of the Goths; and
the most fortunate of the inhabitants were saved, by death, from
beholding the slavery of their families and the conflagration of
their cities. 11 The vases and statues were distributed among the
Barbarians, with more regard to the value of the materials, than
to the elegance of the workmanship; the female captives submitted
to the laws of war; the enjoyment of beauty was the reward of
valor; and the Greeks could not reasonably complain of an abuse
which was justified by the example of the heroic times. 12 The
descendants of that extraordinary people, who had considered
valor and discipline as the walls of Sparta, no longer remembered
the generous reply of their ancestors to an invader more
formidable than Alaric. “If thou art a god, thou wilt not hurt
those who have never injured thee; if thou art a man,
advance:—and thou wilt find men equal to thyself.” 13 From
Thermopylae to Sparta, the leader of the Goths pursued his
victorious march without encountering any mortal antagonists: but
one of the advocates of expiring Paganism has confidently
asserted, that the walls of Athens were guarded by the goddess
Minerva, with her formidable Aegis, and by the angry phantom of
Achilles; 14 and that the conqueror was dismayed by the presence
of the hostile deities of Greece. In an age of miracles, it would
perhaps be unjust to dispute the claim of the historian Zosimus
to the common benefit: yet it cannot be dissembled, that the mind
of Alaric was ill prepared to receive, either in sleeping or
waking visions, the impressions of Greek superstition. The songs
of Homer, and the fame of Achilles, had probably never reached
the ear of the illiterate Barbarian; and the Christian faith,
which he had devoutly embraced, taught him to despise the
imaginary deities of Rome and Athens. The invasion of the Goths,
instead of vindicating the honor, contributed, at least
accidentally, to extirpate the last remains of Paganism: and the
mysteries of Ceres, which had subsisted eighteen hundred years,
did not survive the destruction of Eleusis, and the calamities of
Greece. 15
6 (return) [ Compare Herodotus (l. vii. c. 176) and Livy, (xxxvi.
15.) The narrow entrance of Greece was probably enlarged by each
successive ravisher.]
7 (return) [ He passed, says Eunapius, (in Vit. Philosoph. p. 93,
edit. Commelin, 1596,) through the straits, of Thermopylae.]
8 (return) [ In obedience to Jerom and Claudian, (in Rufin. l.
ii. 191,) I have mixed some darker colors in the mild
representation of Zosimus, who wished to soften the calamities of
Athens.
Nec fera Cecropias traxissent vincula matres.
Synesius (Epist. clvi. p. 272, edit. Petav.) observes, that
Athens, whose sufferings he imputes to the proconsul’s avarice,
was at that time less famous for her schools of philosophy than
for her trade of honey.]
9 (return) [—
Vallata mari Scironia rupes, Et duo continuo connectens aequora
muro Isthmos. —Claudian de Bel. Getico, 188.
The Scironian rocks are described by Pausanias, (l. i. c. 44, p.
107, edit. Kuhn,) and our modern travellers, Wheeler (p. 436) and
Chandler, (p. 298.) Hadrian made the road passable for two
carriages.]
10 (return) [ Claudian (in Rufin. l. ii. 186, and de Bello
Getico, 611, &c.) vaguely, though forcibly, delineates the scene
of rapine and destruction.]
11 (return) [ These generous lines of Homer (Odyss. l. v. 306)
were transcribed by one of the captive youths of Corinth: and the
tears of Mummius may prove that the rude conqueror, though he was
ignorant of the value of an original picture, possessed the
purest source of good taste, a benevolent heart, (Plutarch,
Symposiac. l. ix. tom. ii. p. 737, edit. Wechel.)]
12 (return) [ Homer perpetually describes the exemplary patience
of those female captives, who gave their charms, and even their
hearts, to the murderers of their fathers, brothers, &c. Such a
passion (of Eriphile for Achilles) is touched with admirable
delicacy by Racine.]
13 (return) [ Plutarch (in Pyrrho, tom. ii. p. 474, edit. Brian)
gives the genuine answer in the Laconic dialect. Pyrrhus attacked
Sparta with 25,000 foot, 2000 horse, and 24 elephants, and the
defence of that open town is a fine comment on the laws of
Lycurgus, even in the last stage of decay.]
14 (return) [ Such, perhaps, as Homer (Iliad, xx. 164) had so
nobly painted him.]
15 (return) [ Eunapius (in Vit. Philosoph. p. 90-93) intimates
that a troop of monks betrayed Greece, and followed the Gothic
camp. * Note: The expression is curious: Vit. Max. t. i. p. 53,
edit. Boissonade.—M.]
The last hope of a people who could no longer depend on their
arms, their gods, or their sovereign, was placed in the powerful
assistance of the general of the West; and Stilicho, who had not
been permitted to repulse, advanced to chastise, the invaders of
Greece. 16 A numerous fleet was equipped in the ports of Italy;
and the troops, after a short and prosperous navigation over the
Ionian Sea, were safely disembarked on the isthmus, near the
ruins of Corinth. The woody and mountainous country of Arcadia,
the fabulous residence of Pan and the Dryads, became the scene of
a long and doubtful conflict between the two generals not
unworthy of each other. The skill and perseverance of the Roman
at length prevailed; and the Goths, after sustaining a
considerable loss from disease and desertion, gradually retreated
to the lofty mountain of Pholoe, near the sources of the Peneus,
and on the frontiers of Elis; a sacred country, which had
formerly been exempted from the calamities of war. 17 The camp of
the Barbarians was immediately besieged; the waters of the river
18 were diverted into another channel; and while they labored
under the intolerable pressure of thirst and hunger, a strong
line of circumvallation was formed to prevent their escape. After
these precautions, Stilicho, too confident of victory, retired to
enjoy his triumph, in the theatrical games, and lascivious
dances, of the Greeks; his soldiers, deserting their standards,
spread themselves over the country of their allies, which they
stripped of all that had been saved from the rapacious hands of
the enemy. Alaric appears to have seized the favorable moment to
execute one of those hardy enterprises, in which the abilities of
a general are displayed with more genuine lustre, than in the
tumult of a day of battle. To extricate himself from the prison
of Peloponnesus, it was necessary that he should pierce the
intrenchments which surrounded his camp; that he should perform a
difficult and dangerous march of thirty miles, as far as the Gulf
of Corinth; and that he should transport his troops, his
captives, and his spoil, over an arm of the sea, which, in the
narrow interval between Rhium and the opposite shore, is at least
half a mile in breadth. 19 The operations of Alaric must have
been secret, prudent, and rapid; since the Roman general was
confounded by the intelligence, that the Goths, who had eluded
his efforts, were in full possession of the important province of
Epirus. This unfortunate delay allowed Alaric sufficient time to
conclude the treaty, which he secretly negotiated, with the
ministers of Constantinople. The apprehension of a civil war
compelled Stilicho to retire, at the haughty mandate of his
rivals, from the dominions of Arcadius; and he respected, in the
enemy of Rome, the honorable character of the ally and servant of
the emperor of the East.
16 (return) [ For Stilicho’s Greek war, compare the honest
narrative of Zosimus (l. v. p. 295, 296) with the curious
circumstantial flattery of Claudian, (i. Cons. Stilich. l. i.
172-186, iv. Cons. Hon. 459-487.) As the event was not glorious,
it is artfully thrown into the shade.]
17 (return) [ The troops who marched through Elis delivered up
their arms. This security enriched the Eleans, who were lovers of
a rural life. Riches begat pride: they disdained their privilege,
and they suffered. Polybius advises them to retire once more
within their magic circle. See a learned and judicious discourse
on the Olympic games, which Mr. West has prefixed to his
translation of Pindar.]
18 (return) [ Claudian (in iv. Cons. Hon. 480) alludes to the
fact without naming the river; perhaps the Alpheus, (i. Cons.
Stil. l. i. 185.)
—-Et Alpheus Geticis angustus acervis Tardior ad Siculos etiamnum
pergit amores.
Yet I should prefer the Peneus, a shallow stream in a wide and
deep bed, which runs through Elis, and falls into the sea below
Cyllene. It had been joined with the Alpheus to cleanse the
Augean stable. (Cellarius, tom. i. p. 760. Chandler’s Travels, p.
286.)]
19 (return) [ Strabo, l. viii. p. 517. Plin. Hist. Natur. iv. 3.
Wheeler, p. 308. Chandler, p. 275. They measured from different
points the distance between the two lands.]
A Grecian philosopher, 20 who visited Constantinople soon after
the death of Theodosius, published his liberal opinions
concerning the duties of kings, and the state of the Roman
republic. Synesius observes, and deplores, the fatal abuse, which
the imprudent bounty of the late emperor had introduced into the
military service. The citizens and subjects had purchased an
exemption from the indispensable duty of defending their country;
which was supported by the arms of Barbarian mercenaries. The
fugitives of Scythia were permitted to disgrace the illustrious
dignities of the empire; their ferocious youth, who disdained the
salutary restraint of laws, were more anxious to acquire the
riches, than to imitate the arts, of a people, the object of
their contempt and hatred; and the power of the Goths was the
stone of Tantalus, perpetually suspended over the peace and
safety of the devoted state. The measures which Synesius
recommends, are the dictates of a bold and generous patriot. He
exhorts the emperor to revive the courage of his subjects, by the
example of manly virtue; to banish luxury from the court and from
the camp; to substitute, in the place of the Barbarian
mercenaries, an army of men, interested in the defence of their
laws and of their property; to force, in such a moment of public
danger, the mechanic from his shop, and the philosopher from his
school; to rouse the indolent citizen from his dream of pleasure,
and to arm, for the protection of agriculture, the hands of the
laborious husbandman. At the head of such troops, who might
deserve the name, and would display the spirit, of Romans, he
animates the son of Theodosius to encounter a race of Barbarians,
who were destitute of any real courage; and never to lay down his
arms, till he had chased them far away into the solitudes of
Scythia; or had reduced them to the state of ignominious
servitude, which the Lacedaemonians formerly imposed on the
captive Helots. 21 The court of Arcadius indulged the zeal,
applauded the eloquence, and neglected the advice, of Synesius.
Perhaps the philosopher who addresses the emperor of the East in
the language of reason and virtue, which he might have used to a
Spartan king, had not condescended to form a practicable scheme,
consistent with the temper, and circumstances, of a degenerate
age. Perhaps the pride of the ministers, whose business was
seldom interrupted by reflection, might reject, as wild and
visionary, every proposal, which exceeded the measure of their
capacity, and deviated from the forms and precedents of office.
While the oration of Synesius, and the downfall of the
Barbarians, were the topics of popular conversation, an edict was
published at Constantinople, which declared the promotion of
Alaric to the rank of master-general of the Eastern Illyricum.
The Roman provincials, and the allies, who had respected the
faith of treaties, were justly indignant, that the ruin of Greece
and Epirus should be so liberally rewarded. The Gothic conqueror
was received as a lawful magistrate, in the cities which he had
so lately besieged. The fathers, whose sons he had massacred, the
husbands, whose wives he had violated, were subject to his
authority; and the success of his rebellion encouraged the
ambition of every leader of the foreign mercenaries. The use to
which Alaric applied his new command, distinguishes the firm and
judicious character of his policy. He issued his orders to the
four magazines and manufactures of offensive and defensive arms,
Margus, Ratiaria, Naissus, and Thessalonica, to provide his
troops with an extraordinary supply of shields, helmets, swords,
and spears; the unhappy provincials were compelled to forge the
instruments of their own destruction; and the Barbarians removed
the only defect which had sometimes disappointed the efforts of
their courage. 22 The birth of Alaric, the glory of his past
exploits, and the confidence in his future designs, insensibly
united the body of the nation under his victorious standard; and,
with the unanimous consent of the Barbarian chieftains, the
master-general of Illyricum was elevated, according to ancient
custom, on a shield, and solemnly proclaimed king of the
Visigoths. 23 Armed with this double power, seated on the verge
of the two empires, he alternately sold his deceitful promises to
the courts of Arcadius and Honorius; till he declared and
executed his resolution of invading the dominions of the West.
The provinces of Europe which belonged to the Eastern emperor,
were already exhausted; those of Asia were inaccessible; and the
strength of Constantinople had resisted his attack. But he was
tempted by the fame, the beauty, the wealth of Italy, which he
had twice visited; and he secretly aspired to plant the Gothic
standard on the walls of Rome, and to enrich his army with the
accumulated spoils of three hundred triumphs. 25
20 (return) [ Synesius passed three years (A.D. 397-400) at
Constantinople, as deputy from Cyrene to the emperor Arcadius. He
presented him with a crown of gold, and pronounced before him the
instructive oration de Regno, (p. 1-32, edit. Petav. Paris,
1612.) The philosopher was made bishop of Ptolemais, A.D. 410,
and died about 430. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 490,
554, 683-685.]
21 (return) [ Synesius de Regno, p. 21-26.]
22 (return) [—qui foedera rumpit
Ditatur: qui servat, eget: vastator Achivae Gentis, et Epirum
nuper populatus inultam, Praesidet Illyrico: jam, quos obsedit,
amicos Ingreditur muros; illis responsa daturus, Quorum
conjugibus potitur, natosque peremit.
Claudian in Eutrop. l. ii. 212. Alaric applauds his own policy
(de Bell Getic. 533-543) in the use which he had made of this
Illyrian jurisdiction.]
23 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 29, p. 651. The Gothic historian
adds, with unusual spirit, Cum suis deliberans suasit suo labore
quaerere regna, quam alienis per otium subjacere.
Discors odiisque anceps civilibus orbis, Non sua vis tutata diu,
dum foedera fallax Ludit, et alternae perjuria venditat aulae.
—-Claudian de Bell. Get. 565]
25 (return) [ Alpibus Italiae ruptis penetrabis ad Urbem. This
authentic prediction was announced by Alaric, or at least by
Claudian, (de Bell. Getico, 547,) seven years before the event.
But as it was not accomplished within the term which has been
rashly fixed the interpreters escaped through an ambiguous
meaning.]
The scarcity of facts, 26 and the uncertainty of dates, 27 oppose
our attempts to describe the circumstances of the first invasion
of Italy by the arms of Alaric. His march, perhaps from
Thessalonica, through the warlike and hostile country of
Pannonia, as far as the foot of the Julian Alps; his passage of
those mountains, which were strongly guarded by troops and
intrenchments; the siege of Aquileia, and the conquest of the
provinces of Istria and Venetia, appear to have employed a
considerable time. Unless his operations were extremely cautious
and slow, the length of the interval would suggest a probable
suspicion, that the Gothic king retreated towards the banks of
the Danube; and reenforced his army with fresh swarms of
Barbarians, before he again attempted to penetrate into the heart
of Italy. Since the public and important events escape the
diligence of the historian, he may amuse himself with
contemplating, for a moment, the influence of the arms of Alaric
on the fortunes of two obscure individuals, a presbyter of
Aquileia and a husbandman of Verona. The learned Rufinus, who was
summoned by his enemies to appear before a Roman synod, 28 wisely
preferred the dangers of a besieged city; and the Barbarians, who
furiously shook the walls of Aquileia, might save him from the
cruel sentence of another heretic, who, at the request of the
same bishops, was severely whipped, and condemned to perpetual
exile on a desert island. 29 The old man, 30 who had passed his
simple and innocent life in the neighborhood of Verona, was a
stranger to the quarrels both of kings and of bishops; his
pleasures, his desires, his knowledge, were confined within the
little circle of his paternal farm; and a staff supported his
aged steps, on the same ground where he had sported in his
infancy. Yet even this humble and rustic felicity (which Claudian
describes with so much truth and feeling) was still exposed to
the undistinguishing rage of war. His trees, his old contemporary
trees, 31 must blaze in the conflagration of the whole country; a
detachment of Gothic cavalry might sweep away his cottage and his
family; and the power of Alaric could destroy this happiness,
which he was not able either to taste or to bestow. “Fame,” says
the poet, “encircling with terror her gloomy wings, proclaimed
the march of the Barbarian army, and filled Italy with
consternation:” the apprehensions of each individual were
increased in just proportion to the measure of his fortune: and
the most timid, who had already embarked their valuable effects,
meditated their escape to the Island of Sicily, or the African
coast. The public distress was aggravated by the fears and
reproaches of superstition. 32 Every hour produced some horrid
tale of strange and portentous accidents; the Pagans deplored the
neglect of omens, and the interruption of sacrifices; but the
Christians still derived some comfort from the powerful
intercession of the saints and martyrs. 33
26 (return) [ Our best materials are 970 verses of Claudian in
the poem on the Getic war, and the beginning of that which
celebrates the sixth consulship of Honorius. Zosimus is totally
silent; and we are reduced to such scraps, or rather crumbs, as
we can pick from Orosius and the Chronicles.]
27 (return) [ Notwithstanding the gross errors of Jornandes, who
confounds the Italian wars of Alaric, (c. 29,) his date of the
consulship of Stilicho and Aurelian (A.D. 400) is firm and
respectable. It is certain from Claudian (Tillemont, Hist. des
Emp. tom. v. p. 804) that the battle of Polentia was fought A.D.
403; but we cannot easily fill the interval.]
28 (return) [ Tantum Romanae urbis judicium fugis, ut magis
obsidionem barbaricam, quam pacatoe urbis judicium velis
sustinere. Jerom, tom. ii. p. 239. Rufinus understood his own
danger; the peaceful city was inflamed by the beldam Marcella,
and the rest of Jerom’s faction.]
29 (return) [ Jovinian, the enemy of fasts and of celibacy, who
was persecuted and insulted by the furious Jerom, (Jortin’s
Remarks, vol. iv. p. 104, &c.) See the original edict of
banishment in the Theodosian Code, xvi. tit. v. leg. 43.]
30 (return) [ This epigram (de Sene Veronensi qui suburbium
nusquam egres sus est) is one of the earliest and most pleasing
compositions of Claudian. Cowley’s imitation (Hurd’s edition,
vol. ii. p. 241) has some natural and happy strokes: but it is
much inferior to the original portrait, which is evidently drawn
from the life.]
31 (return) [
Ingentem meminit parvo qui germine quercum Aequaevumque videt
consenuisse nemus.
A neighboring wood born with himself he sees, And loves his old
contemporary trees.
In this passage, Cowley is perhaps superior to his original; and
the English poet, who was a good botanist, has concealed the oaks
under a more general expression.]
32 (return) [ Claudian de Bell. Get. 199-266. He may seem prolix:
but fear and superstition occupied as large a space in the minds
of the Italians.]
33 (return) [ From the passages of Paulinus, which Baronius has
produced, (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 403, No. 51,) it is manifest that
the general alarm had pervaded all Italy, as far as Nola in
Campania, where that famous penitent had fixed his abode.]
Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part II.
The emperor Honorius was distinguished, above his subjects, by
the preeminence of fear, as well as of rank. The pride and luxury
in which he was educated, had not allowed him to suspect, that
there existed on the earth any power presumptuous enough to
invade the repose of the successor of Augustus. The arts of
flattery concealed the impending danger, till Alaric approached
the palace of Milan. But when the sound of war had awakened the
young emperor, instead of flying to arms with the spirit, or even
the rashness, of his age, he eagerly listened to those timid
counsellors, who proposed to convey his sacred person, and his
faithful attendants, to some secure and distant station in the
provinces of Gaul. Stilicho alone 34 had courage and authority to
resist his disgraceful measure, which would have abandoned Rome
and Italy to the Barbarians; but as the troops of the palace had
been lately detached to the Rhaetian frontier, and as the
resource of new levies was slow and precarious, the general of
the West could only promise, that if the court of Milan would
maintain their ground during his absence, he would soon return
with an army equal to the encounter of the Gothic king. Without
losing a moment, (while each moment was so important to the
public safety,) Stilicho hastily embarked on the Larian Lake,
ascended the mountains of ice and snow, amidst the severity of an
Alpine winter, and suddenly repressed, by his unexpected
presence, the enemy, who had disturbed the tranquillity of
Rhaetia. 35 The Barbarians, perhaps some tribes of the Alemanni,
respected the firmness of a chief, who still assumed the language
of command; and the choice which he condescended to make, of a
select number of their bravest youth, was considered as a mark of
his esteem and favor. The cohorts, who were delivered from the
neighboring foe, diligently repaired to the Imperial standard;
and Stilicho issued his orders to the most remote troops of the
West, to advance, by rapid marches, to the defence of Honorius
and of Italy. The fortresses of the Rhine were abandoned; and the
safety of Gaul was protected only by the faith of the Germans,
and the ancient terror of the Roman name. Even the legion, which
had been stationed to guard the wall of Britain against the
Caledonians of the North, was hastily recalled; 36 and a numerous
body of the cavalry of the Alani was persuaded to engage in the
service of the emperor, who anxiously expected the return of his
general. The prudence and vigor of Stilicho were conspicuous on
this occasion, which revealed, at the same time, the weakness of
the falling empire. The legions of Rome, which had long since
languished in the gradual decay of discipline and courage, were
exterminated by the Gothic and civil wars; and it was found
impossible, without exhausting and exposing the provinces, to
assemble an army for the defence of Italy.
34 (return) [ Solus erat Stilicho, &c., is the exclusive
commendation which Claudian bestows, (del Bell. Get. 267,)
without condescending to except the emperor. How insignificant
must Honorius have appeared in his own court.]
35 (return) [ The face of the country, and the hardiness of
Stilicho, are finely described, (de Bell. Get. 340-363.)]
36 (return) [
Venit et extremis legio praetenta Britannis, Quae Scoto dat frena
truci. —-De Bell. Get. 416.
Yet the most rapid march from Edinburgh, or Newcastle, to Milan,
must have required a longer space of time than Claudian seems
willing to allow for the duration of the Gothic war.]
Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part III.
When Stilicho seemed to abandon his sovereign in the unguarded
palace of Milan, he had probably calculated the term of his
absence, the distance of the enemy, and the obstacles that might
retard their march. He principally depended on the rivers of
Italy, the Adige, the Mincius, the Oglio, and the Addua, which,
in the winter or spring, by the fall of rains, or by the melting
of the snows, are commonly swelled into broad and impetuous
torrents. 37 But the season happened to be remarkably dry: and
the Goths could traverse, without impediment, the wide and stony
beds, whose centre was faintly marked by the course of a shallow
stream. The bridge and passage of the Addua were secured by a
strong detachment of the Gothic army; and as Alaric approached
the walls, or rather the suburbs, of Milan, he enjoyed the proud
satisfaction of seeing the emperor of the Romans fly before him.
Honorius, accompanied by a feeble train of statesmen and eunuchs,
hastily retreated towards the Alps, with a design of securing his
person in the city of Arles, which had often been the royal
residence of his predecessors. 3711 But Honorius 38 had scarcely
passed the Po, before he was overtaken by the speed of the Gothic
cavalry; 39 since the urgency of the danger compelled him to seek
a temporary shelter within the fortifications of Asta, a town of
Liguria or Piemont, situate on the banks of the Tanarus. 40 The
siege of an obscure place, which contained so rich a prize, and
seemed incapable of a long resistance, was instantly formed, and
indefatigably pressed, by the king of the Goths; and the bold
declaration, which the emperor might afterwards make, that his
breast had never been susceptible of fear, did not probably
obtain much credit, even in his own court. 41 In the last, and
almost hopeless extremity, after the Barbarians had already
proposed the indignity of a capitulation, the Imperial captive
was suddenly relieved by the fame, the approach, and at length
the presence, of the hero, whom he had so long expected. At the
head of a chosen and intrepid vanguard, Stilicho swam the stream
of the Addua, to gain the time which he must have lost in the
attack of the bridge; the passage of the Po was an enterprise of
much less hazard and difficulty; and the successful action, in
which he cut his way through the Gothic camp under the walls of
Asta, revived the hopes, and vindicated the honor, of Rome.
Instead of grasping the fruit of his victory, the Barbarian was
gradually invested, on every side, by the troops of the West, who
successively issued through all the passes of the Alps; his
quarters were straitened; his convoys were intercepted; and the
vigilance of the Romans prepared to form a chain of
fortifications, and to besiege the lines of the besiegers. A
military council was assembled of the long-haired chiefs of the
Gothic nation; of aged warriors, whose bodies were wrapped in
furs, and whose stern countenances were marked with honorable
wounds. They weighed the glory of persisting in their attempt
against the advantage of securing their plunder; and they
recommended the prudent measure of a seasonable retreat. In this
important debate, Alaric displayed the spirit of the conqueror of
Rome; and after he had reminded his countrymen of their
achievements and of their designs, he concluded his animating
speech by the solemn and positive assurance that he was resolved
to find in Italy either a kingdom or a grave. 42
37 (return) [ Every traveller must recollect the face of
Lombardy, (see Fonvenelle, tom. v. p. 279,) which is often
tormented by the capricious and irregular abundance of waters.
The Austrians, before Genoa, were encamped in the dry bed of the
Polcevera. “Ne sarebbe” (says Muratori) “mai passato per mente a
que’ buoni Alemanni, che quel picciolo torrente potesse, per cosi
dire, in un instante cangiarsi in un terribil gigante.” (Annali
d’Italia, tom. xvi. p. 443, Milan, 1752, 8vo edit.)]
3711 (return) [ According to Le Beau and his commentator M. St.
Martin, Honorius did not attempt to fly. Settlements were offered
to the Goths in Lombardy, and they advanced from the Po towards
the Alps to take possession of them. But it was a treacherous
stratagem of Stilicho, who surprised them while they were
reposing on the faith of this treaty. Le Beau, v. x.]
38 (return) [ Claudian does not clearly answer our question,
Where was Honorius himself? Yet the flight is marked by the
pursuit; and my idea of the Gothic was is justified by the
Italian critics, Sigonius (tom. P, ii. p. 369, de Imp. Occident.
l. x.) and Muratori, (Annali d’Italia. tom. iv. p. 45.)]
39 (return) [ One of the roads may be traced in the Itineraries,
(p. 98, 288, 294, with Wesseling’s Notes.) Asta lay some miles on
the right hand.]
40 (return) [ Asta, or Asti, a Roman colony, is now the capital
of a pleasant country, which, in the sixteenth century, devolved
to the dukes of Savoy, (Leandro Alberti Descrizzione d’Italia, p.
382.)]
41 (return) [ Nec me timor impulit ullus. He might hold this
proud language the next year at Rome, five hundred miles from the
scene of danger (vi. Cons. Hon. 449.)]
42 (return) [ Hanc ego vel victor regno, vel morte tenebo Victus,
humum.——The speeches (de Bell. Get. 479-549) of the Gothic
Nestor, and Achilles, are strong, characteristic, adapted to the
circumstances; and possibly not less genuine than those of Livy.]
The loose discipline of the Barbarians always exposed them to the
danger of a surprise; but, instead of choosing the dissolute
hours of riot and intemperance, Stilicho resolved to attack the
Christian Goths, whilst they were devoutly employed in
celebrating the festival of Easter. 43 The execution of the
stratagem, or, as it was termed by the clergy of the sacrilege,
was intrusted to Saul, a Barbarian and a Pagan, who had served,
however, with distinguished reputation among the veteran generals
of Theodosius. The camp of the Goths, which Alaric had pitched in
the neighborhood of Pollentia, 44 was thrown into confusion by
the sudden and impetuous charge of the Imperial cavalry; but, in
a few moments, the undaunted genius of their leader gave them an
order, and a field of battle; and, as soon as they had recovered
from their astonishment, the pious confidence, that the God of
the Christians would assert their cause, added new strength to
their native valor. In this engagement, which was long maintained
with equal courage and success, the chief of the Alani, whose
diminutive and savage form concealed a magnanimous soul approved
his suspected loyalty, by the zeal with which he fought, and
fell, in the service of the republic; and the fame of this
gallant Barbarian has been imperfectly preserved in the verses of
Claudian, since the poet, who celebrates his virtue, has omitted
the mention of his name. His death was followed by the flight and
dismay of the squadrons which he commanded; and the defeat of the
wing of cavalry might have decided the victory of Alaric, if
Stilicho had not immediately led the Roman and Barbarian infantry
to the attack. The skill of the general, and the bravery of the
soldiers, surmounted every obstacle. In the evening of the bloody
day, the Goths retreated from the field of battle; the
intrenchments of their camp were forced, and the scene of rapine
and slaughter made some atonement for the calamities which they
had inflicted on the subjects of the empire. 45 The magnificent
spoils of Corinth and Argos enriched the veterans of the West;
the captive wife of Alaric, who had impatiently claimed his
promise of Roman jewels and Patrician handmaids, 46 was reduced
to implore the mercy of the insulting foe; and many thousand
prisoners, released from the Gothic chains, dispersed through the
provinces of Italy the praises of their heroic deliverer. The
triumph of Stilicho 47 was compared by the poet, and perhaps by
the public, to that of Marius; who, in the same part of Italy,
had encountered and destroyed another army of Northern
Barbarians. The huge bones, and the empty helmets, of the Cimbri
and of the Goths, would easily be confounded by succeeding
generations; and posterity might erect a common trophy to the
memory of the two most illustrious generals, who had vanquished,
on the same memorable ground, the two most formidable enemies of
Rome. 48
43 (return) [ Orosius (l. vii. c. 37) is shocked at the impiety
of the Romans, who attacked, on Easter Sunday, such pious
Christians. Yet, at the same time, public prayers were offered at
the shrine of St. Thomas of Edessa, for the destruction of the
Arian robber. See Tillemont (Hist des Emp. tom. v. p. 529) who
quotes a homily, which has been erroneously ascribed to St.
Chrysostom.]
44 (return) [ The vestiges of Pollentia are twenty-five miles to
the south-east of Turin. Urbs, in the same neighborhood, was a
royal chase of the kings of Lombardy, and a small river, which
excused the prediction, “penetrabis ad urbem,” (Cluver. Ital.
Antiq tom. i. p. 83-85.)]
45 (return) [ Orosius wishes, in doubtful words, to insinuate the
defeat of the Romans. “Pugnantes vicimus, victores victi sumus.”
Prosper (in Chron.) makes it an equal and bloody battle, but the
Gothic writers Cassiodorus (in Chron.) and Jornandes (de Reb.
Get. c. 29) claim a decisive victory.]
46 (return) [ Demens Ausonidum gemmata monilia matrum, Romanasque
alta famulas cervice petebat. De Bell. Get. 627.]
47 (return) [ Claudian (de Bell. Get. 580-647) and Prudentius (in
Symmach. n. 694-719) celebrate, without ambiguity, the Roman
victory of Pollentia. They are poetical and party writers; yet
some credit is due to the most suspicious witnesses, who are
checked by the recent notoriety of facts.]
48 (return) [ Claudian’s peroration is strong and elegant; but
the identity of the Cimbric and Gothic fields must be understood
(like Virgil’s Philippi, Georgic i. 490) according to the loose
geography of a poet. Verselle and Pollentia are sixty miles from
each other; and the latitude is still greater, if the Cimbri were
defeated in the wide and barren plain of Verona, (Maffei, Verona
Illustrata, P. i. p. 54-62.)]
The eloquence of Claudian 49 has celebrated, with lavish
applause, the victory of Pollentia, one of the most glorious days
in the life of his patron; but his reluctant and partial muse
bestows more genuine praise on the character of the Gothic king.
His name is, indeed, branded with the reproachful epithets of
pirate and robber, to which the conquerors of every age are so
justly entitled; but the poet of Stilicho is compelled to
acknowledge that Alaric possessed the invincible temper of mind,
which rises superior to every misfortune, and derives new
resources from adversity. After the total defeat of his infantry,
he escaped, or rather withdrew, from the field of battle, with
the greatest part of his cavalry entire and unbroken. Without
wasting a moment to lament the irreparable loss of so many brave
companions, he left his victorious enemy to bind in chains the
captive images of a Gothic king; 50 and boldly resolved to break
through the unguarded passes of the Apennine, to spread
desolation over the fruitful face of Tuscany, and to conquer or
die before the gates of Rome. The capital was saved by the active
and incessant diligence of Stilicho; but he respected the despair
of his enemy; and, instead of committing the fate of the republic
to the chance of another battle, he proposed to purchase the
absence of the Barbarians. The spirit of Alaric would have
rejected such terms, the permission of a retreat, and the offer
of a pension, with contempt and indignation; but he exercised a
limited and precarious authority over the independent chieftains
who had raised him, for their service, above the rank of his
equals; they were still less disposed to follow an unsuccessful
general, and many of them were tempted to consult their interest
by a private negotiation with the minister of Honorius. The king
submitted to the voice of his people, ratified the treaty with
the empire of the West, and repassed the Po with the remains of
the flourishing army which he had led into Italy. A considerable
part of the Roman forces still continued to attend his motions;
and Stilicho, who maintained a secret correspondence with some of
the Barbarian chiefs, was punctually apprised of the designs that
were formed in the camp and council of Alaric. The king of the
Goths, ambitious to signalize his retreat by some splendid
achievement, had resolved to occupy the important city of Verona,
which commands the principal passage of the Rhaetian Alps; and,
directing his march through the territories of those German
tribes, whose alliance would restore his exhausted strength, to
invade, on the side of the Rhine, the wealthy and unsuspecting
provinces of Gaul. Ignorant of the treason which had already
betrayed his bold and judicious enterprise, he advanced towards
the passes of the mountains, already possessed by the Imperial
troops; where he was exposed, almost at the same instant, to a
general attack in the front, on his flanks, and in the rear. In
this bloody action, at a small distance from the walls of Verona,
the loss of the Goths was not less heavy than that which they had
sustained in the defeat of Pollentia; and their valiant king, who
escaped by the swiftness of his horse, must either have been
slain or made prisoner, if the hasty rashness of the Alani had
not disappointed the measures of the Roman general. Alaric
secured the remains of his army on the adjacent rocks; and
prepared himself, with undaunted resolution, to maintain a siege
against the superior numbers of the enemy, who invested him on
all sides. But he could not oppose the destructive progress of
hunger and disease; nor was it possible for him to check the
continual desertion of his impatient and capricious Barbarians.
In this extremity he still found resources in his own courage, or
in the moderation of his adversary; and the retreat of the Gothic
king was considered as the deliverance of Italy. 51 Yet the
people, and even the clergy, incapable of forming any rational
judgment of the business of peace and war, presumed to arraign
the policy of Stilicho, who so often vanquished, so often
surrounded, and so often dismissed the implacable enemy of the
republic. The first momen of the public safety is devoted to
gratitude and joy; but the second is diligently occupied by envy
and calumny. 52
49 (return) [ Claudian and Prudentius must be strictly examined,
to reduce the figures, and extort the historic sense, of those
poets.]
50 (return) [
Et gravant en airain ses freles avantages De mes etats conquis
enchainer les images.
The practice of exposing in triumph the images of kings and
provinces was familiar to the Romans. The bust of Mithridates
himself was twelve feet high, of massy gold, (Freinshem.
Supplement. Livian. ciii. 47.)]
51 (return) [ The Getic war, and the sixth consulship of
Honorius, obscurely connect the events of Alaric’s retreat and
losses.]
52 (return) [ Taceo de Alarico... saepe visto, saepe concluso,
semperque dimisso. Orosius, l. vii. c. 37, p. 567. Claudian (vi.
Cons. Hon. 320) drops the curtain with a fine image.]
The citizens of Rome had been astonished by the approach of
Alaric; and the diligence with which they labored to restore the
walls of the capital, confessed their own fears, and the decline
of the empire. After the retreat of the Barbarians, Honorius was
directed to accept the dutiful invitation of the senate, and to
celebrate, in the Imperial city, the auspicious era of the Gothic
victory, and of his sixth consulship. 53 The suburbs and the
streets, from the Milvian bridge to the Palatine mount, were
filled by the Roman people, who, in the space of a hundred years,
had only thrice been honored with the presence of their
sovereigns. While their eyes were fixed on the chariot where
Stilicho was deservedly seated by the side of his royal pupil,
they applauded the pomp of a triumph, which was not stained, like
that of Constantine, or of Theodosius, with civil blood. The
procession passed under a lofty arch, which had been purposely
erected: but in less than seven years, the Gothic conquerors of
Rome might read, if they were able to read, the superb
inscription of that monument, which attested the total defeat and
destruction of their nation. 54 The emperor resided several
months in the capital, and every part of his behavior was
regulated with care to conciliate the affection of the clergy,
the senate, and the people of Rome. The clergy was edified by his
frequent visits and liberal gifts to the shrines of the apostles.
The senate, who, in the triumphal procession, had been excused
from the humiliating ceremony of preceding on foot the Imperial
chariot, was treated with the decent reverence which Stilicho
always affected for that assembly. The people was repeatedly
gratified by the attention and courtesy of Honorius in the public
games, which were celebrated on that occasion with a magnificence
not unworthy of the spectator. As soon as the appointed number of
chariot-races was concluded, the decoration of the Circus was
suddenly changed; the hunting of wild beasts afforded a various
and splendid entertainment; and the chase was succeeded by a
military dance, which seems, in the lively description of
Claudian, to present the image of a modern tournament.
53 (return) [ The remainder of Claudian’s poem on the sixth
consulship of Honorius, describes the journey, the triumph, and
the games, (330-660.)]
54 (return) [ See the inscription in Mascou’s History of the
Ancient Germans, viii. 12. The words are positive and indiscreet:
Getarum nationem in omne aevum domitam, &c.]
In these games of Honorius, the inhuman combats of gladiators 55
polluted, for the last time, the amphitheater of Rome. The first
Christian emperor may claim the honor of the first edict which
condemned the art and amusement of shedding human blood; 56 but
this benevolent law expressed the wishes of the prince, without
reforming an inveterate abuse, which degraded a civilized nation
below the condition of savage cannibals. Several hundred, perhaps
several thousand, victims were annually slaughtered in the great
cities of the empire; and the month of December, more peculiarly
devoted to the combats of gladiators, still exhibited to the eyes
of the Roman people a grateful spectacle of blood and cruelty.
Amidst the general joy of the victory of Pollentia, a Christian
poet exhorted the emperor to extirpate, by his authority, the
horrid custom which had so long resisted the voice of humanity
and religion. 57 The pathetic representations of Prudentius were
less effectual than the generous boldness of Telemachus, an
Asiatic monk, whose death was more useful to mankind than his
life. 58 The Romans were provoked by the interruption of their
pleasures; and the rash monk, who had descended into the arena to
separate the gladiators, was overwhelmed under a shower of
stones. But the madness of the people soon subsided; they
respected the memory of Telemachus, who had deserved the honors
of martyrdom; and they submitted, without a murmur, to the laws
of Honorius, which abolished forever the human sacrifices of the
amphitheater. 5811 The citizens, who adhered to the manners of
their ancestors, might perhaps insinuate that the last remains of
a martial spirit were preserved in this school of fortitude,
which accustomed the Romans to the sight of blood, and to the
contempt of death; a vain and cruel prejudice, so nobly confuted
by the valor of ancient Greece, and of modern Europe! 59
55 (return) [ On the curious, though horrid, subject of the
gladiators, consult the two books of the Saturnalia of Lipsius,
who, as an antiquarian, is inclined to excuse the practice of
antiquity, (tom. iii. p. 483-545.)]
56 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. xv. tit. xii. leg. i. The
Commentary of Godefroy affords large materials (tom. v. p. 396)
for the history of gladiators.]
57 (return) [ See the peroration of Prudentius (in Symmach. l.
ii. 1121-1131) who had doubtless read the eloquent invective of
Lactantius, (Divin. Institut. l. vi. c. 20.) The Christian
apologists have not spared these bloody games, which were
introduced in the religious festivals of Paganism.]
58 (return) [ Theodoret, l. v. c. 26. I wish to believe the story
of St. Telemachus. Yet no church has been dedicated, no altar has
been erected, to the only monk who died a martyr in the cause of
humanity.]
5811 (return) [ Muller, in his valuable Treatise, de Genio,
moribus et luxu aevi Theodosiani, is disposed to question the
effect produced by the heroic, or rather saintly, death of
Telemachus. No prohibitory law of Honorius is to be found in the
Theodosian Code, only the old and imperfect edict of Constantine.
But Muller has produced no evidence or allusion to gladiatorial
shows after this period. The combats with wild beasts certainly
lasted till the fall of the Western empire; but the gladiatorial
combats ceased either by common consent, or by Imperial
edict.—M.]
59 (return) [ Crudele gladiatorum spectaculum et inhumanum
nonnullis videri solet, et haud scio an ita sit, ut nunc fit.
Cicero Tusculan. ii. 17. He faintly censures the abuse, and
warmly defends the use, of these sports; oculis nulla poterat
esse fortior contra dolorem et mortem disciplina. Seneca (epist.
vii.) shows the feelings of a man.]
The recent danger, to which the person of the emperor had been
exposed in the defenceless palace of Milan, urged him to seek a
retreat in some inaccessible fortress of Italy, where he might
securely remain, while the open country was covered by a deluge
of Barbarians. On the coast of the Adriatic, about ten or twelve
miles from the most southern of the seven mouths of the Po, the
Thessalians had founded the ancient colony of Ravenna, 60 which
they afterwards resigned to the natives of Umbria. Augustus, who
had observed the opportunity of the place, prepared, at the
distance of three miles from the old town, a capacious harbor,
for the reception of two hundred and fifty ships of war. This
naval establishment, which included the arsenals and magazines,
the barracks of the troops, and the houses of the artificers,
derived its origin and name from the permanent station of the
Roman fleet; the intermediate space was soon filled with
buildings and inhabitants, and the three extensive and populous
quarters of Ravenna gradually contributed to form one of the most
important cities of Italy. The principal canal of Augustus poured
a copious stream of the waters of the Po through the midst of the
city, to the entrance of the harbor; the same waters were
introduced into the profound ditches that encompassed the walls;
they were distributed by a thousand subordinate canals, into
every part of the city, which they divided into a variety of
small islands; the communication was maintained only by the use
of boats and bridges; and the houses of Ravenna, whose appearance
may be compared to that of Venice, were raised on the foundation
of wooden piles. The adjacent country, to the distance of many
miles, was a deep and impassable morass; and the artificial
causeway, which connected Ravenna with the continent, might be
easily guarded or destroyed, on the approach of a hostile army
These morasses were interspersed, however, with vineyards: and
though the soil was exhausted by four or five crops, the town
enjoyed a more plentiful supply of wine than of fresh water. 61
The air, instead of receiving the sickly, and almost
pestilential, exhalations of low and marshy grounds, was
distinguished, like the neighborhood of Alexandria, as uncommonly
pure and salubrious; and this singular advantage was ascribed to
the regular tides of the Adriatic, which swept the canals,
interrupted the unwholesome stagnation of the waters, and
floated, every day, the vessels of the adjacent country into the
heart of Ravenna. The gradual retreat of the sea has left the
modern city at the distance of four miles from the Adriatic; and
as early as the fifth or sixth century of the Christian era, the
port of Augustus was converted into pleasant orchards; and a
lonely grove of pines covered the ground where the Roman fleet
once rode at anchor. 62 Even this alteration contributed to
increase the natural strength of the place, and the shallowness
of the water was a sufficient barrier against the large ships of
the enemy. This advantageous situation was fortified by art and
labor; and in the twentieth year of his age, the emperor of the
West, anxious only for his personal safety, retired to the
perpetual confinement of the walls and morasses of Ravenna. The
example of Honorius was imitated by his feeble successors, the
Gothic kings, and afterwards the Exarchs, who occupied the throne
and palace of the emperors; and till the middle of the eight
century, Ravenna was considered as the seat of government, and
the capital of Italy. 63
60 (return) [ This account of Ravenna is drawn from Strabo, (l.
v. p. 327,) Pliny, (iii. 20,) Stephen of Byzantium, (sub voce, p.
651, edit. Berkel,) Claudian, (in vi. Cons. Honor. 494, &c.,)
Sidonius Apollinaris, (l. i. epist. 5, 8,) Jornandes, (de Reb.
Get. c. 29,) Procopius (de Bell, (lothic, l. i. c. i. p. 309,
edit. Louvre,) and Cluverius, (Ital. Antiq tom i. p. 301-307.)
Yet I still want a local antiquarian and a good topographical
map.]
61 (return) [ Martial (Epigram iii. 56, 57) plays on the trick of
the knave, who had sold him wine instead of water; but he
seriously declares that a cistern at Ravenna is more valuable
than a vineyard. Sidonius complains that the town is destitute of
fountains and aqueducts; and ranks the want of fresh water among
the local evils, such as the croaking of frogs, the stinging of
gnats, &c.]
62 (return) [ The fable of Theodore and Honoria, which Dryden has
so admirably transplanted from Boccaccio, (Giornata iii. novell.
viii.,) was acted in the wood of Chiassi, a corrupt word from
Classis, the naval station which, with the intermediate road, or
suburb the Via Caesaris, constituted the triple city of Ravenna.]
63 (return) [ From the year 404, the dates of the Theodosian Code
become sedentary at Constantinople and Ravenna. See Godefroy’s
Chronology of the Laws, tom. i. p. cxlviii., &c.]
The fears of Honorius were not without foundation, nor were his
precautions without effect. While Italy rejoiced in her
deliverance from the Goths, a furious tempest was excited among
the nations of Germany, who yielded to the irresistible impulse
that appears to have been gradually communicated from the eastern
extremity of the continent of Asia. The Chinese annals, as they
have been interpreted by the learned industry of the present age,
may be usefully applied to reveal the secret and remote causes of
the fall of the Roman empire. The extensive territory to the
north of the great wall was possessed, after the flight of the
Huns, by the victorious Sienpi, who were sometimes broken into
independent tribes, and sometimes reunited under a supreme chief;
till at length, styling themselves Topa, or masters of the earth,
they acquired a more solid consistence, and a more formidable
power. The Topa soon compelled the pastoral nations of the
eastern desert to acknowledge the superiority of their arms; they
invaded China in a period of weakness and intestine discord; and
these fortunate Tartars, adopting the laws and manners of the
vanquished people, founded an Imperial dynasty, which reigned
near one hundred and sixty years over the northern provinces of
the monarchy. Some generations before they ascended the throne of
China, one of the Topa princes had enlisted in his cavalry a
slave of the name of Moko, renowned for his valor, but who was
tempted, by the fear of punishment, to desert his standard, and
to range the desert at the head of a hundred followers. This gang
of robbers and outlaws swelled into a camp, a tribe, a numerous
people, distinguished by the appellation of Geougen; and their
hereditary chieftains, the posterity of Moko the slave, assumed
their rank among the Scythian monarchs. The youth of Toulun, the
greatest of his descendants, was exercised by those misfortunes
which are the school of heroes. He bravely struggled with
adversity, broke the imperious yoke of the Topa, and became the
legislator of his nation, and the conqueror of Tartary. His
troops were distributed into regular bands of a hundred and of a
thousand men; cowards were stoned to death; the most splendid
honors were proposed as the reward of valor; and Toulun, who had
knowledge enough to despise the learning of China, adopted only
such arts and institutions as were favorable to the military
spirit of his government. His tents, which he removed in the
winter season to a more southern latitude, were pitched, during
the summer, on the fruitful banks of the Selinga. His conquests
stretched from Corea far beyond the River Irtish. He vanquished,
in the country to the north of the Caspian Sea, the nation of the
Huns; and the new title of Khan, or Cagan, expressed the fame and
power which he derived from this memorable victory. 64
64 (return) [ See M. de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p.
179-189, tom ii p. 295, 334-338.]
The chain of events is interrupted, or rather is concealed, as it
passes from the Volga to the Vistula, through the dark interval
which separates the extreme limits of the Chinese, and of the
Roman, geography. Yet the temper of the Barbarians, and the
experience of successive emigrations, sufficiently declare, that
the Huns, who were oppressed by the arms of the Geougen, soon
withdrew from the presence of an insulting victor. The countries
towards the Euxine were already occupied by their kindred tribes;
and their hasty flight, which they soon converted into a bold
attack, would more naturally be directed towards the rich and
level plains, through which the Vistula gently flows into the
Baltic Sea. The North must again have been alarmed, and agitated,
by the invasion of the Huns; 6411 and the nations who retreated
before them must have pressed with incumbent weight on the
confines of Germany. 65 The inhabitants of those regions, which
the ancients have assigned to the Suevi, the Vandals, and the
Burgundians, might embrace the resolution of abandoning to the
fugitives of Sarmatia their woods and morasses; or at least of
discharging their superfluous numbers on the provinces of the
Roman empire. 66 About four years after the victorious Toulun had
assumed the title of Khan of the Geougen, another Barbarian, the
haughty Rhodogast, or Radagaisus, 67 marched from the northern
extremities of Germany almost to the gates of Rome, and left the
remains of his army to achieve the destruction of the West. The
Vandals, the Suevi, and the Burgundians, formed the strength of
this mighty host; but the Alani, who had found a hospitable
reception in their new seats, added their active cavalry to the
heavy infantry of the Germans; and the Gothic adventurers crowded
so eagerly to the standard of Radagaisus, that by some
historians, he has been styled the King of the Goths. Twelve
thousand warriors, distinguished above the vulgar by their noble
birth, or their valiant deeds, glittered in the van; 68 and the
whole multitude, which was not less than two hundred thousand
fighting men, might be increased, by the accession of women, of
children, and of slaves, to the amount of four hundred thousand
persons. This formidable emigration issued from the same coast of
the Baltic, which had poured forth the myriads of the Cimbri and
Teutones, to assault Rome and Italy in the vigor of the republic.
After the departure of those Barbarians, their native country,
which was marked by the vestiges of their greatness, long
ramparts, and gigantic moles, 69 remained, during some ages, a
vast and dreary solitude; till the human species was renewed by
the powers of generation, and the vacancy was filled by the
influx of new inhabitants. The nations who now usurp an extent of
land which they are unable to cultivate, would soon be assisted
by the industrious poverty of their neighbors, if the government
of Europe did not protect the claims of dominion and property.
6411 (return) [ There is no authority which connects this inroad
of the Teutonic tribes with the movements of the Huns. The Huns
can hardly have reached the shores of the Baltic, and probably
the greater part of the forces of Radagaisus, particularly the
Vandals, had long occupied a more southern position.—M.]
65 (return) [ Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. iii. p. 182)
has observed an emigration from the Palus Maeotis to the north of
Germany, which he ascribes to famine. But his views of ancient
history are strangely darkened by ignorance and error.]
66 (return) [ Zosimus (l. v. p. 331) uses the general description
of the nations beyond the Danube and the Rhine. Their situation,
and consequently their names, are manifestly shown, even in the
various epithets which each ancient writer may have casually
added.]
67 (return) [ The name of Rhadagast was that of a local deity of
the Obotrites, (in Mecklenburg.) A hero might naturally assume
the appellation of his tutelar god; but it is not probable that
the Barbarians should worship an unsuccessful hero. See Mascou,
Hist. of the Germans, viii. 14. * Note: The god of war and of
hospitality with the Vends and all the Sclavonian races of
Germany bore the name of Radegast, apparently the same with
Rhadagaisus. His principal temple was at Rhetra in Mecklenburg.
It was adorned with great magnificence. The statue of the gold
was of gold. St. Martin, v. 255. A statue of Radegast, of much
coarser materials, and of the rudest workmanship, was discovered
between 1760 and 1770, with those of other Wendish deities, on
the supposed site of Rhetra. The names of the gods were cut upon
them in Runic characters. See the very curious volume on these
antiquities—Die Gottesdienstliche Alterthumer der Obotriter—Masch
and Wogen. Berlin, 1771.—M.]
68 (return) [ Olympiodorus (apud Photium, p. 180), uses the Greek
word which does not convey any precise idea. I suspect that they
were the princes and nobles with their faithful companions; the
knights with their squires, as they would have been styled some
centuries afterwards.]
69 (return) [ Tacit. de Moribus Germanorum, c. 37.]
Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part IV.
The correspondence of nations was, in that age, so imperfect and
precarious, that the revolutions of the North might escape the
knowledge of the court of Ravenna; till the dark cloud, which was
collected along the coast of the Baltic, burst in thunder upon
the banks of the Upper Danube. The emperor of the West, if his
ministers disturbed his amusements by the news of the impending
danger, was satisfied with being the occasion, and the spectator,
of the war. 70 The safety of Rome was intrusted to the counsels,
and the sword, of Stilicho; but such was the feeble and exhausted
state of the empire, that it was impossible to restore the
fortifications of the Danube, or to prevent, by a vigorous
effort, the invasion of the Germans. 71 The hopes of the vigilant
minister of Honorius were confined to the defence of Italy. He
once more abandoned the provinces, recalled the troops, pressed
the new levies, which were rigorously exacted, and
pusillanimously eluded; employed the most efficacious means to
arrest, or allure, the deserters; and offered the gift of
freedom, and of two pieces of gold, to all the slaves who would
enlist. 72 By these efforts he painfully collected, from the
subjects of a great empire, an army of thirty or forty thousand
men, which, in the days of Scipio or Camillus, would have been
instantly furnished by the free citizens of the territory of
Rome. 73 The thirty legions of Stilicho were reenforced by a
large body of Barbarian auxiliaries; the faithful Alani were
personally attached to his service; and the troops of Huns and of
Goths, who marched under the banners of their native princes,
Huldin and Sarus, were animated by interest and resentment to
oppose the ambition of Radagaisus. The king of the confederate
Germans passed, without resistance, the Alps, the Po, and the
Apennine; leaving on one hand the inaccessible palace of
Honorius, securely buried among the marshes of Ravenna; and, on
the other, the camp of Stilicho, who had fixed his head-quarters
at Ticinum, or Pavia, but who seems to have avoided a decisive
battle, till he had assembled his distant forces. Many cities of
Italy were pillaged, or destroyed; and the siege of Florence, 74
by Radagaisus, is one of the earliest events in the history of
that celebrated republic; whose firmness checked and delayed the
unskillful fury of the Barbarians. The senate and people trembled
at their approach within a hundred and eighty miles of Rome; and
anxiously compared the danger which they had escaped, with the
new perils to which they were exposed. Alaric was a Christian and
a soldier, the leader of a disciplined army; who understood the
laws of war, who respected the sanctity of treaties, and who had
familiarly conversed with the subjects of the empire in the same
camps, and the same churches. The savage Radagaisus was a
stranger to the manners, the religion, and even the language, of
the civilized nations of the South. The fierceness of his temper
was exasperated by cruel superstition; and it was universally
believed, that he had bound himself, by a solemn vow, to reduce
the city into a heap of stones and ashes, and to sacrifice the
most illustrious of the Roman senators on the altars of those
gods who were appeased by human blood. The public danger, which
should have reconciled all domestic animosities, displayed the
incurable madness of religious faction. The oppressed votaries of
Jupiter and Mercury respected, in the implacable enemy of Rome,
the character of a devout Pagan; loudly declared, that they were
more apprehensive of the sacrifices, than of the arms, of
Radagaisus; and secretly rejoiced in the calamities of their
country, which condemned the faith of their Christian
adversaries. 75 7511
70 (return) [
Cujus agendi Spectator vel causa fui, —-(Claudian, vi. Cons. Hon.
439,)
is the modest language of Honorius, in speaking of the Gothic
war, which he had seen somewhat nearer.]
71 (return) [ Zosimus (l. v. p. 331) transports the war, and the
victory of Stilisho, beyond the Danube. A strange error, which is
awkwardly and imperfectly cured (Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. tom.
v. p. 807.) In good policy, we must use the service of Zosimus,
without esteeming or trusting him.]
72 (return) [ Codex Theodos. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg. 16. The date
of this law A.D. 406. May 18 satisfies me, as it had done
Godefroy, (tom. ii. p. 387,) of the true year of the invasion of
Radagaisus. Tillemont, Pagi, and Muratori, prefer the preceding
year; but they are bound, by certain obligations of civility and
respect, to St. Paulinus of Nola.]
73 (return) [ Soon after Rome had been taken by the Gauls, the
senate, on a sudden emergency, armed ten legions, 3000 horse, and
42,000 foot; a force which the city could not have sent forth
under Augustus, (Livy, xi. 25.) This declaration may puzzle an
antiquary, but it is clearly explained by Montesquieu.]
74 (return) [ Machiavel has explained, at least as a philosopher,
the origin of Florence, which insensibly descended, for the
benefit of trade, from the rock of Faesulae to the banks of the
Arno, (Istoria Fiorentina, tom. i. p. 36. Londra, 1747.) The
triumvirs sent a colony to Florence, which, under Tiberius,
(Tacit. Annal. i. 79,) deserved the reputation and name of a
flourishing city. See Cluver. Ital. Antiq. tom. i. p. 507, &c.]
75 (return) [ Yet the Jupiter of Radagaisus, who worshipped Thor
and Woden, was very different from the Olympic or Capitoline
Jove. The accommodating temper of Polytheism might unite those
various and remote deities; but the genuine Romans ahhorred the
human sacrifices of Gaul and Germany.]
7511 (return) [ Gibbon has rather softened the language of
Augustine as to this threatened insurrection of the Pagans, in
order to restore the prohibited rites and ceremonies of Paganism;
and their treasonable hopes that the success of Radagaisus would
be the triumph of idolatry. Compare ii. 25—M.]
Florence was reduced to the last extremity; and the fainting
courage of the citizens was supported only by the authority of
St. Ambrose; who had communicated, in a dream, the promise of a
speedy deliverance. 76 On a sudden, they beheld, from their
walls, the banners of Stilicho, who advanced, with his united
force, to the relief of the faithful city; and who soon marked
that fatal spot for the grave of the Barbarian host. The apparent
contradictions of those writers who variously relate the defeat
of Radagaisus, may be reconciled without offering much violence
to their respective testimonies. Orosius and Augustin, who were
intimately connected by friendship and religion, ascribed this
miraculous victory to the providence of God, rather than to the
valor of man. 77 They strictly exclude every idea of chance, or
even of bloodshed; and positively affirm, that the Romans, whose
camp was the scene of plenty and idleness, enjoyed the distress
of the Barbarians, slowly expiring on the sharp and barren ridge
of the hills of Faesulae, which rise above the city of Florence.
Their extravagant assertion that not a single soldier of the
Christian army was killed, or even wounded, may be dismissed with
silent contempt; but the rest of the narrative of Augustin and
Orosius is consistent with the state of the war, and the
character of Stilicho. Conscious that he commanded the last army
of the republic, his prudence would not expose it, in the open
field, to the headstrong fury of the Germans. The method of
surrounding the enemy with strong lines of circumvallation, which
he had twice employed against the Gothic king, was repeated on a
larger scale, and with more considerable effect. The examples of
Caesar must have been familiar to the most illiterate of the
Roman warriors; and the fortifications of Dyrrachium, which
connected twenty-four castles, by a perpetual ditch and rampart
of fifteen miles, afforded the model of an intrenchment which
might confine, and starve, the most numerous host of Barbarians.
78 The Roman troops had less degenerated from the industry, than
from the valor, of their ancestors; and if their servile and
laborious work offended the pride of the soldiers, Tuscany could
supply many thousand peasants, who would labor, though, perhaps,
they would not fight, for the salvation of their native country.
The imprisoned multitude of horses and men 79 was gradually
destroyed, by famine rather than by the sword; but the Romans
were exposed, during the progress of such an extensive work, to
the frequent attacks of an impatient enemy. The despair of the
hungry Barbarians would precipitate them against the
fortifications of Stilicho; the general might sometimes indulge
the ardor of his brave auxiliaries, who eagerly pressed to
assault the camp of the Germans; and these various incidents
might produce the sharp and bloody conflicts which dignify the
narrative of Zosimus, and the Chronicles of Prosper and
Marcellinus. 80 A seasonable supply of men and provisions had
been introduced into the walls of Florence, and the famished host
of Radagaisus was in its turn besieged. The proud monarch of so
many warlike nations, after the loss of his bravest warriors, was
reduced to confide either in the faith of a capitulation, or in
the clemency of Stilicho. 81 But the death of the royal captive,
who was ignominiously beheaded, disgraced the triumph of Rome and
of Christianity; and the short delay of his execution was
sufficient to brand the conqueror with the guilt of cool and
deliberate cruelty. 82 The famished Germans, who escaped the fury
of the auxiliaries, were sold as slaves, at the contemptible
price of as many single pieces of gold; but the difference of
food and climate swept away great numbers of those unhappy
strangers; and it was observed, that the inhuman purchasers,
instead of reaping the fruits of their labor were soon obliged to
provide the expense of their interment. Stilicho informed the
emperor and the senate of his success; and deserved, a second
time, the glorious title of Deliverer of Italy. 83
76 (return) [ Paulinus (in Vit. Ambros c. 50) relates this story,
which he received from the mouth of Pansophia herself, a
religious matron of Florence. Yet the archbishop soon ceased to
take an active part in the business of the world, and never
became a popular saint.]
77 (return) [ Augustin de Civitat. Dei, v. 23. Orosius, l. vii.
c. 37, p. 567-571. The two friends wrote in Africa, ten or twelve
years after the victory; and their authority is implicitly
followed by Isidore of Seville, (in Chron. p. 713, edit. Grot.)
How many interesting facts might Orosius have inserted in the
vacant space which is devoted to pious nonsense!]
78 (return) [
Franguntur montes, planumque per ardua Caesar Ducit opus: pandit
fossas, turritaque summis Disponit castella jugis, magnoque
necessu Amplexus fines, saltus, memorosaque tesqua Et silvas,
vastaque feras indagine claudit.!
Yet the simplicity of truth (Caesar, de Bell. Civ. iii. 44) is
far greater than the amplifications of Lucan, (Pharsal. l. vi.
29-63.)]
79 (return) [ The rhetorical expressions of Orosius, “in arido et
aspero montis jugo;” “in unum ac parvum verticem,” are not very
suitable to the encampment of a great army. But Faesulae, only
three miles from Florence, might afford space for the
head-quarters of Radagaisus, and would be comprehended within the
circuit of the Roman lines.]
80 (return) [ See Zosimus, l. v. p. 331, and the Chronicles of
Prosper and Marcellinus.]
81 (return) [ Olympiodorus (apud Photium, p. 180) uses an
expression which would denote a strict and friendly alliance, and
render Stilicho still more criminal. The paulisper detentus,
deinde interfectus, of Orosius, is sufficiently odious. * Note:
Gibbon, by translating this passage of Olympiodorus, as if it had
been good Greek, has probably fallen into an error. The natural
order of the words is as Gibbon translates it; but it is almost
clear, refers to the Gothic chiefs, “whom Stilicho, after he had
defeated Radagaisus, attached to his army.” So in the version
corrected by Classen for Niebuhr’s edition of the Byzantines, p.
450.—M.]
82 (return) [ Orosius, piously inhuman, sacrifices the king and
people, Agag and the Amalekites, without a symptom of compassion.
The bloody actor is less detestable than the cool, unfeeling
historian.——Note: Considering the vow, which he was universally
believed to have made, to destroy Rome, and to sacrifice the
senators on the altars, and that he is said to have immolated his
prisoners to his gods, the execution of Radagaisus, if, as it
appears, he was taken in arms, cannot deserve Gibbon’s severe
condemnation. Mr. Herbert (notes to his poem of Attila, p. 317)
justly observes, that “Stilicho had probably authority for
hanging him on the first tree.” Marcellinus, adds Mr. Herbert,
attributes the execution to the Gothic chiefs Sarus.—M.]
83 (return) [ And Claudian’s muse, was she asleep? had she been
ill paid! Methinks the seventh consulship of Honorius (A.D. 407)
would have furnished the subject of a noble poem. Before it was
discovered that the state could no longer be saved, Stilicho
(after Romulus, Camillus and Marius) might have been worthily
surnamed the fourth founder of Rome.]
The fame of the victory, and more especially of the miracle, has
encouraged a vain persuasion, that the whole army, or rather
nation, of Germans, who migrated from the shores of the Baltic,
miserably perished under the walls of Florence. Such indeed was
the fate of Radagaisus himself, of his brave and faithful
companions, and of more than one third of the various multitude
of Sueves and Vandals, of Alani and Burgundians, who adhered to
the standard of their general. 84 The union of such an army might
excite our surprise, but the causes of separation are obvious and
forcible; the pride of birth, the insolence of valor, the
jealousy of command, the impatience of subordination, and the
obstinate conflict of opinions, of interests, and of passions,
among so many kings and warriors, who were untaught to yield, or
to obey. After the defeat of Radagaisus, two parts of the German
host, which must have exceeded the number of one hundred thousand
men, still remained in arms, between the Apennine and the Alps,
or between the Alps and the Danube. It is uncertain whether they
attempted to revenge the death of their general; but their
irregular fury was soon diverted by the prudence and firmness of
Stilicho, who opposed their march, and facilitated their retreat;
who considered the safety of Rome and Italy as the great object
of his care, and who sacrificed, with too much indifference, the
wealth and tranquillity of the distant provinces. 85 The
Barbarians acquired, from the junction of some Pannonian
deserters, the knowledge of the country, and of the roads; and
the invasion of Gaul, which Alaric had designed, was executed by
the remains of the great army of Radagaisus. 86
84 (return) [ A luminous passage of Prosper’s Chronicle, “In tres
partes, pes diversos principes, diversus exercitus,” reduces the
miracle of Florence and connects the history of Italy, Gaul, and
Germany.]
85 (return) [ Orosius and Jerom positively charge him with
instigating the in vasion. “Excitatae a Stilichone gentes,” &c.
They must mean a directly. He saved Italy at the expense of Gaul]
86 (return) [ The Count de Buat is satisfied, that the Germans
who invaded Gaul were the two thirds that yet remained of the
army of Radagaisus. See the Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de
l’Europe, (tom. vii. p. 87, 121. Paris, 1772;) an elaborate work,
which I had not the advantage of perusing till the year 1777. As
early as 1771, I find the same idea expressed in a rough draught
of the present History. I have since observed a similar
intimation in Mascou, (viii. 15.) Such agreement, without mutual
communication, may add some weight to our common sentiment.]
Yet if they expected to derive any assistance from the tribes of
Germany, who inhabited the banks of the Rhine, their hopes were
disappointed. The Alemanni preserved a state of inactive
neutrality; and the Franks distinguished their zeal and courage
in the defence of the of the empire. In the rapid progress down
the Rhine, which was the first act of the administration of
Stilicho, he had applied himself, with peculiar attention, to
secure the alliance of the warlike Franks, and to remove the
irreconcilable enemies of peace and of the republic. Marcomir,
one of their kings, was publicly convicted, before the tribunal
of the Roman magistrate, of violating the faith of treaties. He
was sentenced to a mild, but distant exile, in the province of
Tuscany; and this degradation of the regal dignity was so far
from exciting the resentment of his subjects, that they punished
with death the turbulent Sunno, who attempted to revenge his
brother; and maintained a dutiful allegiance to the princes, who
were established on the throne by the choice of Stilicho. 87 When
the limits of Gaul and Germany were shaken by the northern
emigration, the Franks bravely encountered the single force of
the Vandals; who, regardless of the lessons of adversity, had
again separated their troops from the standard of their Barbarian
allies. They paid the penalty of their rashness; and twenty
thousand Vandals, with their king Godigisclus, were slain in the
field of battle. The whole people must have been extirpated, if
the squadrons of the Alani, advancing to their relief, had not
trampled down the infantry of the Franks; who, after an honorable
resistance, were compelled to relinquish the unequal contest. The
victorious confederates pursued their march, and on the last day
of the year, in a season when the waters of the Rhine were most
probably frozen, they entered, without opposition, the
defenceless provinces of Gaul. This memorable passage of the
Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never
afterwards retreated, may be considered as the fall of the Roman
empire in the countries beyond the Alps; and the barriers, which
had so long separated the savage and the civilized nations of the
earth, were from that fatal moment levelled with the ground. 88
87 (return) [
Provincia missos Expellet citius fasces, quam Francia reges Quos
dederis.
Claudian (i. Cons. Stil. l. i. 235, &c.) is clear and
satisfactory. These kings of France are unknown to Gregory of
Tours; but the author of the Gesta Francorum mentions both Sunno
and Marcomir, and names the latter as the father of Pharamond,
(in tom. ii. p. 543.) He seems to write from good materials,
which he did not understand.]
88 (return) [ See Zosimus, (l. vi. p. 373,) Orosius, (l. vii. c.
40, p. 576,) and the Chronicles. Gregory of Tours (l. ii. c. 9,
p. 165, in the second volume of the Historians of France) has
preserved a valuable fragment of Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus,
whose three names denote a Christian, a Roman subject, and a
Semi-Barbarian.]
While the peace of Germany was secured by the attachment of the
Franks, and the neutrality of the Alemanni, the subjects of Rome,
unconscious of their approaching calamities, enjoyed the state of
quiet and prosperity, which had seldom blessed the frontiers of
Gaul. Their flocks and herds were permitted to graze in the
pastures of the Barbarians; their huntsmen penetrated, without
fear or danger, into the darkest recesses of the Hercynian wood.
89 The banks of the Rhine were crowned, like those of the Tyber,
with elegant houses, and well-cultivated farms; and if a poet
descended the river, he might express his doubt, on which side
was situated the territory of the Romans. 90 This scene of peace
and plenty was suddenly changed into a desert; and the prospect
of the smoking ruins could alone distinguish the solitude of
nature from the desolation of man. The flourishing city of Mentz
was surprised and destroyed; and many thousand Christians were
inhumanly massacred in the church. Worms perished after a long
and obstinate siege; Strasburgh, Spires, Rheims, Tournay, Arras,
Amiens, experienced the cruel oppression of the German yoke; and
the consuming flames of war spread from the banks of the Rhine
over the greatest part of the seventeen provinces of Gaul. That
rich and extensive country, as far as the ocean, the Alps, and
the Pyrenees, was delivered to the Barbarians, who drove before
them, in a promiscuous crowd, the bishop, the senator, and the
virgin, laden with the spoils of their houses and altars. 91 The
ecclesiastics, to whom we are indebted for this vague description
of the public calamities, embraced the opportunity of exhorting
the Christians to repent of the sins which had provoked the
Divine Justice, and to renounce the perishable goods of a
wretched and deceitful world. But as the Pelagian controversy, 92
which attempts to sound the abyss of grace and predestination,
soon became the serious employment of the Latin clergy, the
Providence which had decreed, or foreseen, or permitted, such a
train of moral and natural evils, was rashly weighed in the
imperfect and fallacious balance of reason. The crimes, and the
misfortunes, of the suffering people, were presumptuously
compared with those of their ancestors; and they arraigned the
Divine Justice, which did not exempt from the common destruction
the feeble, the guiltless, the infant portion of the human
species. These idle disputants overlooked the invariable laws of
nature, which have connected peace with innocence, plenty with
industry, and safety with valor. The timid and selfish policy of
the court of Ravenna might recall the Palatine legions for the
protection of Italy; the remains of the stationary troops might
be unequal to the arduous task; and the Barbarian auxiliaries
might prefer the unbounded license of spoil to the benefits of a
moderate and regular stipend. But the provinces of Gaul were
filled with a numerous race of hardy and robust youth, who, in
the defence of their houses, their families, and their altars, if
they had dared to die, would have deserved to vanquish. The
knowledge of their native country would have enabled them to
oppose continual and insuperable obstacles to the progress of an
invader; and the deficiency of the Barbarians, in arms, as well
as in discipline, removed the only pretence which excuses the
submission of a populous country to the inferior numbers of a
veteran army. When France was invaded by Charles V., he inquired
of a prisoner, how many days Paris might be distant from the
frontier; “Perhaps twelve, but they will be days of battle:” 93
such was the gallant answer which checked the arrogance of that
ambitious prince. The subjects of Honorius, and those of Francis
I., were animated by a very different spirit; and in less than
two years, the divided troops of the savages of the Baltic, whose
numbers, were they fairly stated, would appear contemptible,
advanced, without a combat, to the foot of the Pyrenean
Mountains.
89 (return) [ Claudian (i. Cons. Stil. l. i. 221, &c., l. ii.
186) describes the peace and prosperity of the Gallic frontier.
The Abbe Dubos (Hist. Critique, &c., tom. i. p. 174) would read
Alba (a nameless rivulet of the Ardennes) instead of Albis; and
expatiates on the danger of the Gallic cattle grazing beyond the
Elbe. Foolish enough! In poetical geography, the Elbe, and the
Hercynian, signify any river, or any wood, in Germany. Claudian
is not prepared for the strict examination of our antiquaries.]
90 (return) [—Germinasque viator Cum videat ripas, quae sit
Romana requirat.]
91 (return) [ Jerom, tom. i. p. 93. See in the 1st vol. of the
Historians of France, p. 777, 782, the proper extracts from the
Carmen de Providentil Divina, and Salvian. The anonymous poet was
himself a captive, with his bishop and fellow-citizens.]
92 (return) [ The Pelagian doctrine, which was first agitated
A.D. 405, was condemned, in the space of ten years, at Rome and
Carthage. St Augustin fought and conquered; but the Greek church
was favorable to his adversaries; and (what is singular enough)
the people did not take any part in a dispute which they could
not understand.]
93 (return) [ See the Mémoires de Guillaume du Bellay, l. vi. In
French, the original reproof is less obvious, and more pointed,
from the double sense of the word journee, which alike signifies,
a day’s travel, or a battle.]
In the early part of the reign of Honorius, the vigilance of
Stilicho had successfully guarded the remote island of Britain
from her incessant enemies of the ocean, the mountains, and the
Irish coast. 94 But those restless Barbarians could not neglect
the fair opportunity of the Gothic war, when the walls and
stations of the province were stripped of the Roman troops. If
any of the legionaries were permitted to return from the Italian
expedition, their faithful report of the court and character of
Honorius must have tended to dissolve the bonds of allegiance,
and to exasperate the seditious temper of the British army. The
spirit of revolt, which had formerly disturbed the age of
Gallienus, was revived by the capricious violence of the
soldiers; and the unfortunate, perhaps the ambitious, candidates,
who were the objects of their choice, were the instruments, and
at length the victims, of their passion. 95 Marcus was the first
whom they placed on the throne, as the lawful emperor of Britain
and of the West. They violated, by the hasty murder of Marcus,
the oath of fidelity which they had imposed on themselves; and
their disapprobation of his manners may seem to inscribe an
honorable epitaph on his tomb. Gratian was the next whom they
adorned with the diadem and the purple; and, at the end of four
months, Gratian experienced the fate of his predecessor. The
memory of the great Constantine, whom the British legions had
given to the church and to the empire, suggested the singular
motive of their third choice. They discovered in the ranks a
private soldier of the name of Constantine, and their impetuous
levity had already seated him on the throne, before they
perceived his incapacity to sustain the weight of that glorious
appellation. 96 Yet the authority of Constantine was less
precarious, and his government was more successful, than the
transient reigns of Marcus and of Gratian. The danger of leaving
his inactive troops in those camps, which had been twice polluted
with blood and sedition, urged him to attempt the reduction of
the Western provinces. He landed at Boulogne with an
inconsiderable force; and after he had reposed himself some days,
he summoned the cities of Gaul, which had escaped the yoke of the
Barbarians, to acknowledge their lawful sovereign. They obeyed
the summons without reluctance. The neglect of the court of
Ravenna had absolved a deserted people from the duty of
allegiance; their actual distress encouraged them to accept any
circumstances of change, without apprehension, and, perhaps, with
some degree of hope; and they might flatter themselves, that the
troops, the authority, and even the name of a Roman emperor, who
fixed his residence in Gaul, would protect the unhappy country
from the rage of the Barbarians. The first successes of
Constantine against the detached parties of the Germans, were
magnified by the voice of adulation into splendid and decisive
victories; which the reunion and insolence of the enemy soon
reduced to their just value. His negotiations procured a short
and precarious truce; and if some tribes of the Barbarians were
engaged, by the liberality of his gifts and promises, to
undertake the defence of the Rhine, these expensive and uncertain
treaties, instead of restoring the pristine vigor of the Gallic
frontier, served only to disgrace the majesty of the prince, and
to exhaust what yet remained of the treasures of the republic.
Elated, however, with this imaginary triumph, the vain deliverer
of Gaul advanced into the provinces of the South, to encounter a
more pressing and personal danger. Sarus the Goth was ordered to
lay the head of the rebel at the feet of the emperor Honorius;
and the forces of Britain and Italy were unworthily consumed in
this domestic quarrel. After the loss of his two bravest
generals, Justinian and Nevigastes, the former of whom was slain
in the field of battle, the latter in a peaceful but treacherous
interview, Constantine fortified himself within the walls of
Vienna. The place was ineffectually attacked seven days; and the
Imperial army supported, in a precipitate retreat, the ignominy
of purchasing a secure passage from the freebooters and outlaws
of the Alps. 97 Those mountains now separated the dominions of
two rival monarchs; and the fortifications of the double frontier
were guarded by the troops of the empire, whose arms would have
been more usefully employed to maintain the Roman limits against
the Barbarians of Germany and Scythia.
94 (return) [ Claudian, (i. Cons. Stil. l. ii. 250.) It is
supposed that the Scots of Ireland invaded, by sea, the whole
western coast of Britain: and some slight credit may be given
even to Nennius and the Irish traditions, (Carte’s Hist. of
England, vol. i. p. 169.) Whitaker’s Genuine History of the
Britons, p. 199. The sixty-six lives of St. Patrick, which were
extant in the ninth century, must have contained as many thousand
lies; yet we may believe, that, in one of these Irish inroads the
future apostle was led away captive, (Usher, Antiquit. Eccles
Britann. p. 431, and Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 45 782,
&c.)]
95 (return) [ The British usurpers are taken from Zosimus, (l.
vi. p. 371-375,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 40, p. 576, 577,)
Olympiodorus, (apud Photium, p. 180, 181,) the ecclesiastical
historians, and the Chronicles. The Latins are ignorant of
Marcus.]
96 (return) [ Cum in Constantino inconstantiam... execrarentur,
(Sidonius Apollinaris, l. v. epist. 9, p. 139, edit. secund.
Sirmond.) Yet Sidonius might be tempted, by so fair a pun, to
stigmatize a prince who had disgraced his grandfather.]
97 (return) [ Bagaudoe is the name which Zosimus applies to them;
perhaps they deserved a less odious character, (see Dubos, Hist.
Critique, tom. i. p. 203, and this History, vol. i. p. 407.) We
shall hear of them again.]
Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part V.
On the side of the Pyrenees, the ambition of Constantine might be
justified by the proximity of danger; but his throne was soon
established by the conquest, or rather submission, of Spain;
which yielded to the influence of regular and habitual
subordination, and received the laws and magistrates of the
Gallic praefecture. The only opposition which was made to the
authority of Constantine proceeded not so much from the powers of
government, or the spirit of the people, as from the private zeal
and interest of the family of Theodosius. Four brothers 98 had
obtained, by the favor of their kinsman, the deceased emperor, an
honorable rank and ample possessions in their native country; and
the grateful youths resolved to risk those advantages in the
service of his son. After an unsuccessful effort to maintain
their ground at the head of the stationary troops of Lusitania,
they retired to their estates; where they armed and levied, at
their own expense, a considerable body of slaves and dependants,
and boldly marched to occupy the strong posts of the Pyrenean
Mountains. This domestic insurrection alarmed and perplexed the
sovereign of Gaul and Britain; and he was compelled to negotiate
with some troops of Barbarian auxiliaries, for the service of the
Spanish war. They were distinguished by the title of Honorians;
99 a name which might have reminded them of their fidelity to
their lawful sovereign; and if it should candidly be allowed that
the Scots were influenced by any partial affection for a British
prince, the Moors and the Marcomanni could be tempted only by the
profuse liberality of the usurper, who distributed among the
Barbarians the military, and even the civil, honors of Spain. The
nine bands of Honorians, which may be easily traced on the
establishment of the Western empire, could not exceed the number
of five thousand men: yet this inconsiderable force was
sufficient to terminate a war, which had threatened the power and
safety of Constantine. The rustic army of the Theodosian family
was surrounded and destroyed in the Pyrenees: two of the brothers
had the good fortune to escape by sea to Italy, or the East; the
other two, after an interval of suspense, were executed at Arles;
and if Honorius could remain insensible of the public disgrace,
he might perhaps be affected by the personal misfortunes of his
generous kinsmen. Such were the feeble arms which decided the
possession of the Western provinces of Europe, from the wall of
Antoninus to the columns of Hercules. The events of peace and war
have undoubtedly been diminished by the narrow and imperfect view
of the historians of the times, who were equally ignorant of the
causes, and of the effects, of the most important revolutions.
But the total decay of the national strength had annihilated even
the last resource of a despotic government; and the revenue of
exhausted provinces could no longer purchase the military service
of a discontented and pusillanimous people.
98 (return) [ Verinianus, Didymus, Theodosius, and Lagodius, who
in modern courts would be styled princes of the blood, were not
distinguished by any rank or privileges above the rest of their
fellow-subjects.]
99 (return) [ These Honoriani, or Honoriaci, consisted of two
bands of Scots, or Attacotti, two of Moors, two of Marcomanni,
the Victores, the Asca in, and the Gallicani, (Notitia Imperii,
sect. xxxiii. edit. Lab.) They were part of the sixty-five
Auxilia Palatina, and are properly styled by Zosimus, (l. vi.
374.)]
The poet, whose flattery has ascribed to the Roman eagle the
victories of Pollentia and Verona, pursues the hasty retreat of
Alaric, from the confines of Italy, with a horrid train of
imaginary spectres, such as might hover over an army of
Barbarians, which was almost exterminated by war, famine, and
disease. 100 In the course of this unfortunate expedition, the
king of the Goths must indeed have sustained a considerable loss;
and his harassed forces required an interval of repose, to
recruit their numbers and revive their confidence. Adversity had
exercised and displayed the genius of Alaric; and the fame of his
valor invited to the Gothic standard the bravest of the Barbarian
warriors; who, from the Euxine to the Rhine, were agitated by the
desire of rapine and conquest. He had deserved the esteem, and he
soon accepted the friendship, of Stilicho himself. Renouncing the
service of the emperor of the East, Alaric concluded, with the
court of Ravenna, a treaty of peace and alliance, by which he was
declared master-general of the Roman armies throughout the
praefecture of Illyricum; as it was claimed, according to the
true and ancient limits, by the minister of Honorius. 101 The
execution of the ambitious design, which was either stipulated,
or implied, in the articles of the treaty, appears to have been
suspended by the formidable irruption of Radagaisus; and the
neutrality of the Gothic king may perhaps be compared to the
indifference of Caesar, who, in the conspiracy of Catiline,
refused either to assist, or to oppose, the enemy of the
republic. After the defeat of the Vandals, Stilicho resumed his
pretensions to the provinces of the East; appointed civil
magistrates for the administration of justice, and of the
finances; and declared his impatience to lead to the gates of
Constantinople the united armies of the Romans and of the Goths.
The prudence, however, of Stilicho, his aversion to civil war,
and his perfect knowledge of the weakness of the state, may
countenance the suspicion, that domestic peace, rather than
foreign conquest, was the object of his policy; and that his
principal care was to employ the forces of Alaric at a distance
from Italy. This design could not long escape the penetration of
the Gothic king, who continued to hold a doubtful, and perhaps a
treacherous, correspondence with the rival courts; who
protracted, like a dissatisfied mercenary, his languid operations
in Thessaly and Epirus, and who soon returned to claim the
extravagant reward of his ineffectual services. From his camp
near Aemona, 102 on the confines of Italy, he transmitted to the
emperor of the West a long account of promises, of expenses, and
of demands; called for immediate satisfaction, and clearly
intimated the consequences of a refusal. Yet if his conduct was
hostile, his language was decent and dutiful. He humbly professed
himself the friend of Stilicho, and the soldier of Honorius;
offered his person and his troops to march, without delay,
against the usurper of Gaul; and solicited, as a permanent
retreat for the Gothic nation, the possession of some vacant
province of the Western empire.
100 (return) [
Comitatur euntem Pallor, et atra fames; et saucia lividus ora
Luctus; et inferno stridentes agmine morbi. —-Claudian in vi.
Cons. Hon. 821, &c.]
101 (return) [ These dark transactions are investigated by the
Count de Bual (Hist. des Peuples de l’Europe, tom. vii. c.
iii.—viii. p. 69-206,) whose laborious accuracy may sometimes
fatigue a superficial reader.]
102 (return) [ See Zosimus, l. v. p. 334, 335. He interrupts his
scanty narrative to relate the fable of Aemona, and of the ship
Argo; which was drawn overland from that place to the Adriatic.
Sozomen (l. viii. c. 25, l. ix. c. 4) and Socrates (l. vii. c.
10) cast a pale and doubtful light; and Orosius (l. vii. c. 38,
p. 571) is abominably partial.]
The political and secret transactions of two statesmen, who
labored to deceive each other and the world, must forever have
been concealed in the impenetrable darkness of the cabinet, if
the debates of a popular assembly had not thrown some rays of
light on the correspondence of Alaric and Stilicho. The necessity
of finding some artificial support for a government, which, from
a principle, not of moderation, but of weakness, was reduced to
negotiate with its own subjects, had insensibly revived the
authority of the Roman senate; and the minister of Honorius
respectfully consulted the legislative council of the republic.
Stilicho assembled the senate in the palace of the Caesars;
represented, in a studied oration, the actual state of affairs;
proposed the demands of the Gothic king, and submitted to their
consideration the choice of peace or war. The senators, as if
they had been suddenly awakened from a dream of four hundred
years, appeared, on this important occasion, to be inspired by
the courage, rather than by the wisdom, of their predecessors.
They loudly declared, in regular speeches, or in tumultuary
acclamations, that it was unworthy of the majesty of Rome to
purchase a precarious and disgraceful truce from a Barbarian
king; and that, in the judgment of a magnanimous people, the
chance of ruin was always preferable to the certainty of
dishonor. The minister, whose pacific intentions were seconded
only by the voice of a few servile and venal followers, attempted
to allay the general ferment, by an apology for his own conduct,
and even for the demands of the Gothic prince. “The payment of a
subsidy, which had excited the indignation of the Romans, ought
not (such was the language of Stilicho) to be considered in the
odious light, either of a tribute, or of a ransom, extorted by
the menaces of a Barbarian enemy. Alaric had faithfully asserted
the just pretensions of the republic to the provinces which were
usurped by the Greeks of Constantinople: he modestly required the
fair and stipulated recompense of his services; and if he had
desisted from the prosecution of his enterprise, he had obeyed,
in his retreat, the peremptory, though private, letters of the
emperor himself. These contradictory orders (he would not
dissemble the errors of his own family) had been procured by the
intercession of Serena. The tender piety of his wife had been too
deeply affected by the discord of the royal brothers, the sons of
her adopted father; and the sentiments of nature had too easily
prevailed over the stern dictates of the public welfare.” These
ostensible reasons, which faintly disguise the obscure intrigues
of the palace of Ravenna, were supported by the authority of
Stilicho; and obtained, after a warm debate, the reluctant
approbation of the senate. The tumult of virtue and freedom
subsided; and the sum of four thousand pounds of gold was
granted, under the name of a subsidy, to secure the peace of
Italy, and to conciliate the friendship of the king of the Goths.
Lampadius alone, one of the most illustrious members of the
assembly, still persisted in his dissent; exclaimed, with a loud
voice, “This is not a treaty of peace, but of servitude;” 103 and
escaped the danger of such bold opposition by immediately
retiring to the sanctuary of a Christian church. [See Palace Of
The Caesars]
103 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 338, 339. He repeats the words
of Lampadius, as they were spoke in Latin, “Non est ista pax, sed
pactio servi tutis,” and then translates them into Greek for the
benefit of his readers. * Note: From Cicero’s XIIth Philippic,
14.—M.]
But the reign of Stilicho drew towards its end; and the proud
minister might perceive the symptoms of his approaching disgrace.
The generous boldness of Lampadius had been applauded; and the
senate, so patiently resigned to a long servitude, rejected with
disdain the offer of invidious and imaginary freedom. The troops,
who still assumed the name and prerogatives of the Roman legions,
were exasperated by the partial affection of Stilicho for the
Barbarians: and the people imputed to the mischievous policy of
the minister the public misfortunes, which were the natural
consequence of their own degeneracy. Yet Stilicho might have
continued to brave the clamors of the people, and even of the
soldiers, if he could have maintained his dominion over the
feeble mind of his pupil. But the respectful attachment of
Honorius was converted into fear, suspicion, and hatred. The
crafty Olympius, 104 who concealed his vices under the mask of
Christian piety, had secretly undermined the benefactor, by whose
favor he was promoted to the honorable offices of the Imperial
palace. Olympius revealed to the unsuspecting emperor, who had
attained the twenty-fifth year of his age, that he was without
weight, or authority, in his own government; and artfully alarmed
his timid and indolent disposition by a lively picture of the
designs of Stilicho, who already meditated the death of his
sovereign, with the ambitious hope of placing the diadem on the
head of his son Eucherius. The emperor was instigated, by his new
favorite, to assume the tone of independent dignity; and the
minister was astonished to find, that secret resolutions were
formed in the court and council, which were repugnant to his
interest, or to his intentions. Instead of residing in the palace
of Rome, Honorius declared that it was his pleasure to return to
the secure fortress of Ravenna. On the first intelligence of the
death of his brother Arcadius, he prepared to visit
Constantinople, and to regulate, with the authority of a
guardian, the provinces of the infant Theodosius. 105 The
representation of the difficulty and expense of such a distant
expedition, checked this strange and sudden sally of active
diligence; but the dangerous project of showing the emperor to
the camp of Pavia, which was composed of the Roman troops, the
enemies of Stilicho, and his Barbarian auxiliaries, remained
fixed and unalterable. The minister was pressed, by the advice of
his confidant, Justinian, a Roman advocate, of a lively and
penetrating genius, to oppose a journey so prejudicial to his
reputation and safety. His strenuous but ineffectual efforts
confirmed the triumph of Olympius; and the prudent lawyer
withdrew himself from the impending ruin of his patron.
104 (return) [ He came from the coast of the Euxine, and
exercised a splendid office. His actions justify his character,
which Zosimus (l. v. p. 340) exposes with visible satisfaction.
Augustin revered the piety of Olympius, whom he styles a true son
of the church, (Baronius, Annal. Eccles, Eccles. A.D. 408, No.
19, &c. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 467, 468.) But
these praises, which the African saint so unworthily bestows,
might proceed as well from ignorance as from adulation.]
105 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 338, 339. Sozomen, l. ix. c. 4.
Stilicho offered to undertake the journey to Constantinople, that
he might divert Honorius from the vain attempt. The Eastern
empire would not have obeyed, and could not have been conquered.]
In the passage of the emperor through Bologna, a mutiny of the
guards was excited and appeased by the secret policy of Stilicho;
who announced his instructions to decimate the guilty, and
ascribed to his own intercession the merit of their pardon. After
this tumult, Honorius embraced, for the last time, the minister
whom he now considered as a tyrant, and proceeded on his way to
the camp of Pavia; where he was received by the loyal
acclamations of the troops who were assembled for the service of
the Gallic war. On the morning of the fourth day, he pronounced,
as he had been taught, a military oration in the presence of the
soldiers, whom the charitable visits, and artful discourses, of
Olympius had prepared to execute a dark and bloody conspiracy. At
the first signal, they massacred the friends of Stilicho, the
most illustrious officers of the empire; two Prætorian praefects,
of Gaul and of Italy; two masters-general of the cavalry and
infantry; the master of the offices; the quaestor, the treasurer,
and the count of the domestics. Many lives were lost; many houses
were plundered; the furious sedition continued to rage till the
close of the evening; and the trembling emperor, who was seen in
the streets of Pavia without his robes or diadem, yielded to the
persuasions of his favorite; condemned the memory of the slain;
and solemnly approved the innocence and fidelity of their
assassins. The intelligence of the massacre of Pavia filled the
mind of Stilicho with just and gloomy apprehensions; and he
instantly summoned, in the camp of Bologna, a council of the
confederate leaders, who were attached to his service, and would
be involved in his ruin. The impetuous voice of the assembly
called aloud for arms, and for revenge; to march, without a
moment’s delay, under the banners of a hero, whom they had so
often followed to victory; to surprise, to oppress, to extirpate
the guilty Olympius, and his degenerate Romans; and perhaps to
fix the diadem on the head of their injured general. Instead of
executing a resolution, which might have been justified by
success, Stilicho hesitated till he was irrecoverably lost. He
was still ignorant of the fate of the emperor; he distrusted the
fidelity of his own party; and he viewed with horror the fatal
consequences of arming a crowd of licentious Barbarians against
the soldiers and people of Italy. The confederates, impatient of
his timorous and doubtful delay, hastily retired, with fear and
indignation. At the hour of midnight, Sarus, a Gothic warrior,
renowned among the Barbarians themselves for his strength and
valor, suddenly invaded the camp of his benefactor, plundered the
baggage, cut in pieces the faithful Huns, who guarded his person,
and penetrated to the tent, where the minister, pensive and
sleepless, meditated on the dangers of his situation. Stilicho
escaped with difficulty from the sword of the Goths and, after
issuing a last and generous admonition to the cities of Italy, to
shut their gates against the Barbarians, his confidence, or his
despair, urged him to throw himself into Ravenna, which was
already in the absolute possession of his enemies. Olympius, who
had assumed the dominion of Honorius, was speedily informed, that
his rival had embraced, as a suppliant the altar of the Christian
church. The base and cruel disposition of the hypocrite was
incapable of pity or remorse; but he piously affected to elude,
rather than to violate, the privilege of the sanctuary. Count
Heraclian, with a troop of soldiers, appeared, at the dawn of
day, before the gates of the church of Ravenna. The bishop was
satisfied by a solemn oath, that the Imperial mandate only
directed them to secure the person of Stilicho: but as soon as
the unfortunate minister had been tempted beyond the holy
threshold, he produced the warrant for his instant execution.
Stilicho supported, with calm resignation, the injurious names of
traitor and parricide; repressed the unseasonable zeal of his
followers, who were ready to attempt an ineffectual rescue; and,
with a firmness not unworthy of the last of the Roman generals,
submitted his neck to the sword of Heraclian. 106
106 (return) [ Zosimus (l. v. p. 336-345) has copiously, though
not clearly, related the disgrace and death of Stilicho.
Olympiodorus, (apud Phot. p. 177.) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 38, p.
571, 572,) Sozomen, (l. ix. c. 4,) and Philostorgius, (l. xi. c.
3, l. xii. c. 2,) afford supplemental hints.]
The servile crowd of the palace, who had so long adored the
fortune of Stilicho, affected to insult his fall; and the most
distant connection with the master-general of the West, which had
so lately been a title to wealth and honors, was studiously
denied, and rigorously punished. His family, united by a triple
alliance with the family of Theodosius, might envy the condition
of the meanest peasant. The flight of his son Eucherius was
intercepted; and the death of that innocent youth soon followed
the divorce of Thermantia, who filled the place of her sister
Maria; and who, like Maria, had remained a virgin in the Imperial
bed. 107 The friends of Stilicho, who had escaped the massacre of
Pavia, were persecuted by the implacable revenge of Olympius; and
the most exquisite cruelty was employed to extort the confession
of a treasonable and sacrilegious conspiracy. They died in
silence: their firmness justified the choice, 108 and perhaps
absolved the innocence of their patron: and the despotic power,
which could take his life without a trial, and stigmatize his
memory without a proof, has no jurisdiction over the impartial
suffrage of posterity. 109 The services of Stilicho are great and
manifest; his crimes, as they are vaguely stated in the language
of flattery and hatred, are obscure at least, and improbable.
About four months after his death, an edict was published, in the
name of Honorius, to restore the free communication of the two
empires, which had been so long interrupted by the public enemy.
110 The minister, whose fame and fortune depended on the
prosperity of the state, was accused of betraying Italy to the
Barbarians; whom he repeatedly vanquished at Pollentia, at
Verona, and before the walls of Florence. His pretended design of
placing the diadem on the head of his son Eucherius, could not
have been conducted without preparations or accomplices; and the
ambitious father would not surely have left the future emperor,
till the twentieth year of his age, in the humble station of
tribune of the notaries. Even the religion of Stilicho was
arraigned by the malice of his rival. The seasonable, and almost
miraculous, deliverance was devoutly celebrated by the applause
of the clergy; who asserted, that the restoration of idols, and
the persecution of the church, would have been the first measure
of the reign of Eucherius. The son of Stilicho, however, was
educated in the bosom of Christianity, which his father had
uniformly professed, and zealously supported. 111 1111 Serena had
borrowed her magnificent necklace from the statue of Vesta; 112
and the Pagans execrated the memory of the sacrilegious minister,
by whose order the Sibylline books, the oracles of Rome, had been
committed to the flames. 113 The pride and power of Stilicho
constituted his real guilt. An honorable reluctance to shed the
blood of his countrymen appears to have contributed to the
success of his unworthy rival; and it is the last humiliation of
the character of Honorius, that posterity has not condescended to
reproach him with his base ingratitude to the guardian of his
youth, and the support of his empire.
107 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 333. The marriage of a Christian
with two sisters, scandalizes Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs,
tom. v. p. 557;) who expects, in vain, that Pope Innocent I.
should have done something in the way either of censure or of
dispensation.]
108 (return) [ Two of his friends are honorably mentioned,
(Zosimus, l. v. p. 346:) Peter, chief of the school of notaries,
and the great chamberlain Deuterius. Stilicho had secured the
bed-chamber; and it is surprising that, under a feeble prince,
the bed-chamber was not able to secure him.]
109 (return) [ Orosius (l. vii. c. 38, p. 571, 572) seems to copy
the false and furious manifestos, which were dispersed through
the provinces by the new administration.]
110 (return) [ See the Theodosian code, l. vii. tit. xvi. leg. 1,
l. ix. tit. xlii. leg. 22. Stilicho is branded with the name of
proedo publicus, who employed his wealth, ad omnem ditandam,
inquietandamque Barbariem.]
111 (return) [ Augustin himself is satisfied with the effectual
laws, which Stilicho had enacted against heretics and idolaters;
and which are still extant in the Code. He only applies to
Olympius for their confirmation, (Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D.
408, No. 19.)]
112 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 351. We may observe the bad
taste of the age, in dressing their statues with such awkward
finery.]
113 (return) [ See Rutilius Numatianus, (Itinerar. l. ii. 41-60,)
to whom religious enthusiasm has dictated some elegant and
forcible lines. Stilicho likewise stripped the gold plates from
the doors of the Capitol, and read a prophetic sentence which was
engraven under them, (Zosimus, l. v. p. 352.) These are foolish
stories: yet the charge of impiety adds weight and credit to the
praise which Zosimus reluctantly bestows on his virtues. Note:
One particular in the extorted praise of Zosimus, deserved the
notice of the historian, as strongly opposed to the former
imputations of Zosimus himself, and indicative of he corrupt
practices of a declining age. “He had never bartered promotion in
the army for bribes, nor peculated in the supplies of provisions
for the army.” l. v. c. xxxiv.—M.]
1111 (return) [ Hence, perhaps, the accusation of treachery is
countenanced by Hatilius:—
Quo magis est facinus diri Stilichonis iniquum Proditor arcani
quod fuit imperii. Romano generi dum nititur esse superstes,
Crudelis summis miscuit ima furor. Dumque timet, quicquid se
fecerat ipso timeri, Immisit Latiae barbara tela neci. Rutil.
Itin. II. 41.—M.] Among the train of dependants whose wealth and
dignity attracted the notice of their own times, our curiosity is
excited by the celebrated name of the poet Claudian, who enjoyed
the favor of Stilicho, and was overwhelmed in the ruin of his
patron.]
Among the train of dependants whose wealth and dignity attracted
the notice of their own times, _our_ curiosity is excited by the
celebrated name of the poet Claudian, who enjoyed the favor of
Stilicho, and was overwhelmed in the ruin of his patron. The
titular offices of tribune and notary fixed his rank in the
Imperial court: he was indebted to the powerful intercession of
Serena for his marriage with a very rich heiress of the province
of Africa; 114 and the statute of Claudian, erected in the forum
of Trajan, was a monument of the taste and liberality of the
Roman senate. 115 After the praises of Stilicho became offensive
and criminal, Claudian was exposed to the enmity of a powerful
and unforgiving courtier, whom he had provoked by the insolence
of wit. He had compared, in a lively epigram, the opposite
characters of two Prætorian praefects of Italy; he contrasts the
innocent repose of a philosopher, who sometimes resigned the
hours of business to slumber, perhaps to study, with the
interesting diligence of a rapacious minister, indefatigable in
the pursuit of unjust or sacrilegious, gain. “How happy,”
continues Claudian, “how happy might it be for the people of
Italy, if Mallius could be constantly awake, and if Hadrian would
always sleep!” 116 The repose of Mallius was not disturbed by
this friendly and gentle admonition; but the cruel vigilance of
Hadrian watched the opportunity of revenge, and easily obtained,
from the enemies of Stilicho, the trifling sacrifice of an
obnoxious poet. The poet concealed himself, however, during the
tumult of the revolution; and, consulting the dictates of
prudence rather than of honor, he addressed, in the form of an
epistle, a suppliant and humble recantation to the offended
praefect. He deplores, in mournful strains, the fatal
indiscretion into which he had been hurried by passion and folly;
submits to the imitation of his adversary the generous examples
of the clemency of gods, of heroes, and of lions; and expresses
his hope that the magnanimity of Hadrian will not trample on a
defenceless and contemptible foe, already humbled by disgrace and
poverty, and deeply wounded by the exile, the tortures, and the
death of his dearest friends. 117 Whatever might be the success
of his prayer, or the accidents of his future life, the period of
a few years levelled in the grave the minister and the poet: but
the name of Hadrian is almost sunk in oblivion, while Claudian is
read with pleasure in every country which has retained, or
acquired, the knowledge of the Latin language. If we fairly
balance his merits and his defects, we shall acknowledge that
Claudian does not either satisfy, or silence, our reason. It
would not be easy to produce a passage that deserves the epithet
of sublime or pathetic; to select a verse that melts the heart or
enlarges the imagination. We should vainly seek, in the poems of
Claudian, the happy invention, and artificial conduct, of an
interesting fable; or the just and lively representation of the
characters and situations of real life. For the service of his
patron, he published occasional panegyrics and invectives: and
the design of these slavish compositions encouraged his
propensity to exceed the limits of truth and nature. These
imperfections, however, are compensated in some degree by the
poetical virtues of Claudian. He was endowed with the rare and
precious talent of raising the meanest, of adorning the most
barren, and of diversifying the most similar, topics: his
coloring, more especially in descriptive poetry, is soft and
splendid; and he seldom fails to display, and even to abuse, the
advantages of a cultivated understanding, a copious fancy, an
easy, and sometimes forcible, expression; and a perpetual flow of
harmonious versification. To these commendations, independent of
any accidents of time and place, we must add the peculiar merit
which Claudian derived from the unfavorable circumstances of his
birth. In the decline of arts, and of empire, a native of Egypt,
118 who had received the education of a Greek, assumed, in a
mature age, the familiar use, and absolute command, of the Latin
language; 119 soared above the heads of his feeble
contemporaries; and placed himself, after an interval of three
hundred years, among the poets of ancient Rome. 120
114 (return) [ At the nuptials of Orpheus (a modest comparison!)
all the parts of animated nature contributed their various gifts;
and the gods themselves enriched their favorite. Claudian had
neither flocks, nor herds, nor vines, nor olives. His wealthy
bride was heiress to them all. But he carried to Africa a
recommendatory letter from Serena, his Juno, and was made happy,
(Epist. ii. ad Serenam.)]
115 (return) [ Claudian feels the honor like a man who deserved
it, (in praefat Bell. Get.) The original inscription, on marble,
was found at Rome, in the fifteenth century, in the house of
Pomponius Laetus. The statue of a poet, far superior to Claudian,
should have been erected, during his lifetime, by the men of
letters, his countrymen and contemporaries. It was a noble
design.]
116 (return) [ See Epigram xxx.
Mallius indulget somno noctesque diesque: Insomnis Pharius sacra,
profana, rapit. Omnibus, hoc, Italae gentes, exposcite votis;
Mallius ut vigilet, dormiat ut Pharius.
Hadrian was a Pharian, (of Alexandrian.) See his public life in
Godefroy, Cod. Theodos. tom. vi. p. 364. Mallius did not always
sleep. He composed some elegant dialogues on the Greek systems of
natural philosophy, (Claud, in Mall. Theodor. Cons. 61-112.)]
117 (return) [ See Claudian’s first Epistle. Yet, in some places,
an air of irony and indignation betrays his secret reluctance. *
Note: M. Beugnot has pointed out one remarkable characteristic of
Claudian’s poetry, and of the times—his extraordinary religious
indifference. Here is a poet writing at the actual crisis of the
complete triumph of the new religion, the visible extinction of
the old: if we may so speak, a strictly historical poet, whose
works, excepting his Mythological poem on the rape of Proserpine,
are confined to temporary subjects, and to the politics of his
own eventful day; yet, excepting in one or two small and
indifferent pieces, manifestly written by a Christian, and
interpolated among his poems, there is no allusion whatever to
the great religious strife. No one would know the existence of
Christianity at that period of the world, by reading the works of
Claudian. His panegyric and his satire preserve the same
religious impartiality; award their most lavish praise or their
bitterest invective on Christian or Pagan; he insults the fall of
Eugenius, and glories in the victories of Theodosius. Under the
child,—and Honorius never became more than a child,—Christianity
continued to inflict wounds more and more deadly on expiring
Paganism. Are the gods of Olympus agitated with apprehension at
the birth of this new enemy? They are introduced as rejoicing at
his appearance, and promising long years of glory. The whole
prophetic choir of Paganism, all the oracles throughout the
world, are summoned to predict the felicity of his reign. His
birth is compared to that of Apollo, but the narrow limits of an
island must not confine the new deity—
... Non littora nostro Sufficerent angusta Deo.
Augury and divination, the shrines of Ammon, and of Delphi, the
Persian Magi, and the Etruscan seers, the Chaldean astrologers,
the Sibyl herself, are described as still discharging their
prophetic functions, and celebrating the natal day of this
Christian prince. They are noble lines, as well as curious
illustrations of the times:
... Quae tunc documenta futuri? Quae voces avium? quanti per inane
volatus? Quis vatum discursus erat? Tibi corniger Ammon, Et dudum
taciti rupere silentia Delphi. Te Persae cecinere Magi, te sensit
Etruscus Augur, et inspectis Babylonius horruit astris; Chaldaei
stupuere senes, Cumanaque rursus Itonuit rupes, rabidae delubra
Sibyllae. —Claud. iv. Cons. Hon. 141.
From the Quarterly Review of Beugnot. Hist. de la Paganisme en
Occident, Q. R. v. lvii. p. 61.—M.]
118 (return) [ National vanity has made him a Florentine, or a
Spaniard. But the first Epistle of Claudian proves him a native
of Alexandria, (Fabricius, Bibliot. Latin. tom. iii. p. 191-202,
edit. Ernest.)]
119 (return) [ His first Latin verses were composed during the
consulship of Probinus, A.D. 395.
Romanos bibimus primum, te consule, fontes, Et Latiae cessit
Graia Thalia togae.
Besides some Greek epigrams, which are still extant, the Latin
poet had composed, in Greek, the Antiquities of Tarsus,
Anazarbus, Berytus, Nice, &c. It is more easy to supply the loss
of good poetry, than of authentic history.]
120 (return) [ Strada (Prolusion v. vi.) allows him to contend
with the five heroic poets, Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, and
Statius. His patron is the accomplished courtier Balthazar
Castiglione. His admirers are numerous and passionate. Yet the
rigid critics reproach the exotic weeds, or flowers, which spring
too luxuriantly in his Latian soil]
Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By
Barbarians.—Part I.
Invasion Of Italy By Alaric.—Manners Of The Roman Senate And
People.—Rome Is Thrice Besieged, And At Length Pillaged, By The
Goths.—Death Of Alaric.—The Goths Evacuate Italy.—Fall Of
Constantine.—Gaul And Spain Are Occupied By The Barbarians.
—Independence Of Britain.
The incapacity of a weak and distracted government may often
assume the appearance, and produce the effects, of a treasonable
correspondence with the public enemy. If Alaric himself had been
introduced into the council of Ravenna, he would probably have
advised the same measures which were actually pursued by the
ministers of Honorius. 1 The king of the Goths would have
conspired, perhaps with some reluctance, to destroy the
formidable adversary, by whose arms, in Italy, as well as in
Greece, he had been twice overthrown. Their active and interested
hatred laboriously accomplished the disgrace and ruin of the
great Stilicho. The valor of Sarus, his fame in arms, and his
personal, or hereditary, influence over the confederate
Barbarians, could recommend him only to the friends of their
country, who despised, or detested, the worthless characters of
Turpilio, Varanes, and Vigilantius. By the pressing instances of
the new favorites, these generals, unworthy as they had shown
themselves of the names of soldiers, 2 were promoted to the
command of the cavalry, of the infantry, and of the domestic
troops. The Gothic prince would have subscribed with pleasure the
edict which the fanaticism of Olympius dictated to the simple and
devout emperor. Honorius excluded all persons, who were adverse
to the Catholic church, from holding any office in the state;
obstinately rejected the service of all those who dissented from
his religion; and rashly disqualified many of his bravest and
most skilful officers, who adhered to the Pagan worship, or who
had imbibed the opinions of Arianism. 3 These measures, so
advantageous to an enemy, Alaric would have approved, and might
perhaps have suggested; but it may seem doubtful, whether the
Barbarian would have promoted his interest at the expense of the
inhuman and absurd cruelty which was perpetrated by the
direction, or at least with the connivance of the Imperial
ministers. The foreign auxiliaries, who had been attached to the
person of Stilicho, lamented his death; but the desire of revenge
was checked by a natural apprehension for the safety of their
wives and children; who were detained as hostages in the strong
cities of Italy, where they had likewise deposited their most
valuable effects. At the same hour, and as if by a common signal,
the cities of Italy were polluted by the same horrid scenes of
universal massacre and pillage, which involved, in promiscuous
destruction, the families and fortunes of the Barbarians.
Exasperated by such an injury, which might have awakened the
tamest and most servile spirit, they cast a look of indignation
and hope towards the camp of Alaric, and unanimously swore to
pursue, with just and implacable war, the perfidious nation who
had so basely violated the laws of hospitality. By the imprudent
conduct of the ministers of Honorius, the republic lost the
assistance, and deserved the enmity, of thirty thousand of her
bravest soldiers; and the weight of that formidable army, which
alone might have determined the event of the war, was transferred
from the scale of the Romans into that of the Goths.
1 (return) [ The series of events, from the death of Stilicho to
the arrival of Alaric before Rome, can only be found in Zosimus,
l. v. p. 347-350.]
2 (return) [ The expression of Zosimus is strong and lively,
sufficient to excite the contempt of the enemy.]
3 (return) [ Eos qui catholicae sectae sunt inimici, intra
palatium militare pro hibemus. Nullus nobis sit aliqua ratione
conjunctus, qui a nobis fidest religione discordat. Cod. Theodos.
l. xvi. tit. v. leg. 42, and Godefroy’s Commentary, tom. vi. p.
164. This law was applied in the utmost latitude, and rigorously
executed. Zosimus, l. v. p. 364.]
In the arts of negotiation, as well as in those of war, the
Gothic king maintained his superior ascendant over an enemy,
whose seeming changes proceeded from the total want of counsel
and design. From his camp, on the confines of Italy, Alaric
attentively observed the revolutions of the palace, watched the
progress of faction and discontent, disguised the hostile aspect
of a Barbarian invader, and assumed the more popular appearance
of the friend and ally of the great Stilicho: to whose virtues,
when they were no longer formidable, he could pay a just tribute
of sincere praise and regret. The pressing invitation of the
malecontents, who urged the king of the Goths to invade Italy,
was enforced by a lively sense of his personal injuries; and he
might especially complain, that the Imperial ministers still
delayed and eluded the payment of the four thousand pounds of
gold which had been granted by the Roman senate, either to reward
his services, or to appease his fury. His decent firmness was
supported by an artful moderation, which contributed to the
success of his designs. He required a fair and reasonable
satisfaction; but he gave the strongest assurances, that, as soon
as he had obtained it, he would immediately retire. He refused to
trust the faith of the Romans, unless Ætius and Jason, the sons
of two great officers of state, were sent as hostages to his
camp; but he offered to deliver, in exchange, several of the
noblest youths of the Gothic nation. The modesty of Alaric was
interpreted, by the ministers of Ravenna, as a sure evidence of
his weakness and fear. They disdained either to negotiate a
treaty, or to assemble an army; and with a rash confidence,
derived only from their ignorance of the extreme danger,
irretrievably wasted the decisive moments of peace and war. While
they expected, in sullen silence, that the Barbarians would
evacuate the confines of Italy, Alaric, with bold and rapid
marches, passed the Alps and the Po; hastily pillaged the cities
of Aquileia, Altinum, Concordia, and Cremona, which yielded to
his arms; increased his forces by the accession of thirty
thousand auxiliaries; and, without meeting a single enemy in the
field, advanced as far as the edge of the morass which protected
the impregnable residence of the emperor of the West. Instead of
attempting the hopeless siege of Ravenna, the prudent leader of
the Goths proceeded to Rimini, stretched his ravages along the
sea-coast of the Hadriatic, and meditated the conquest of the
ancient mistress of the world. An Italian hermit, whose zeal and
sanctity were respected by the Barbarians themselves, encountered
the victorious monarch, and boldly denounced the indignation of
Heaven against the oppressors of the earth; but the saint himself
was confounded by the solemn asseveration of Alaric, that he felt
a secret and praeternatural impulse, which directed, and even
compelled, his march to the gates of Rome. He felt, that his
genius and his fortune were equal to the most arduous
enterprises; and the enthusiasm which he communicated to the
Goths, insensibly removed the popular, and almost superstitious,
reverence of the nations for the majesty of the Roman name. His
troops, animated by the hopes of spoil, followed the course of
the Flaminian way, occupied the unguarded passes of the Apennine,
4 descended into the rich plains of Umbria; and, as they lay
encamped on the banks of the Clitumnus, might wantonly slaughter
and devour the milk-white oxen, which had been so long reserved
for the use of Roman triumphs. A lofty situation, and a
seasonable tempest of thunder and lightning, preserved the little
city of Narni; but the king of the Goths, despising the ignoble
prey, still advanced with unabated vigor; and after he had passed
through the stately arches, adorned with the spoils of Barbaric
victories, he pitched his camp under the walls of Rome. 6
4 (return) [ Addison (see his Works, vol. ii. p. 54, edit.
Baskerville) has given a very picturesque description of the road
through the Apennine. The Goths were not at leisure to observe
the beauties of the prospect; but they were pleased to find that
the Saxa Intercisa, a narrow passage which Vespasian had cut
through the rock, (Cluver. Italia Antiq. tom. i. p. 168,) was
totally neglected.
Hine albi, Clitumne, greges, et maxima taurus Victima, saepe tuo
perfusi flumine sacro, Romanos ad templa Deum duxere triumphos.
—Georg. ii. 147.
Besides Virgil, most of the Latin poets, Propertius, Lucan,
Silius Italicus, Claudian, &c., whose passages may be found in
Cluverius and Addison, have celebrated the triumphal victims of
the Clitumnus.]
6 (return) [ Some ideas of the march of Alaric are borrowed from
the journey of Honorius over the same ground. (See Claudian in
vi. Cons. Hon. 494-522.) The measured distance between Ravenna
and Rome was 254 Roman miles. Itinerar. Wesseling, p. 126.]
During a period of six hundred and nineteen years, the seat of
empire had never been violated by the presence of a foreign
enemy. The unsuccessful expedition of Hannibal 7 served only to
display the character of the senate and people; of a senate
degraded, rather than ennobled, by the comparison of an assembly
of kings; and of a people, to whom the ambassador of Pyrrhus
ascribed the inexhaustible resources of the Hydra. 8 Each of the
senators, in the time of the Punic war, had accomplished his term
of the military service, either in a subordinate or a superior
station; and the decree, which invested with temporary command
all those who had been consuls, or censors, or dictators, gave
the republic the immediate assistance of many brave and
experienced generals. In the beginning of the war, the Roman
people consisted of two hundred and fifty thousand citizens of an
age to bear arms. 9 Fifty thousand had already died in the
defence of their country; and the twenty-three legions which were
employed in the different camps of Italy, Greece, Sardinia,
Sicily, and Spain, required about one hundred thousand men. But
there still remained an equal number in Rome, and the adjacent
territory, who were animated by the same intrepid courage; and
every citizen was trained, from his earliest youth, in the
discipline and exercises of a soldier. Hannibal was astonished by
the constancy of the senate, who, without raising the siege of
Capua, or recalling their scattered forces, expected his
approach. He encamped on the banks of the Anio, at the distance
of three miles from the city; and he was soon informed, that the
ground on which he had pitched his tent, was sold for an adequate
price at a public auction; 911 and that a body of troops was
dismissed by an opposite road, to reenforce the legions of Spain.
10 He led his Africans to the gates of Rome, where he found three
armies in order of battle, prepared to receive him; but Hannibal
dreaded the event of a combat, from which he could not hope to
escape, unless he destroyed the last of his enemies; and his
speedy retreat confessed the invincible courage of the Romans.
7 (return) [ The march and retreat of Hannibal are described by
Livy, l. xxvi. c. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11; and the reader is made a
spectator of the interesting scene.]
8 (return) [ These comparisons were used by Cyneas, the
counsellor of Pyrrhus, after his return from his embassy, in
which he had diligently studied the discipline and manners of
Rome. See Plutarch in Pyrrho. tom. ii. p. 459.]
9 (return) [ In the three census which were made of the Roman
people, about the time of the second Punic war, the numbers stand
as follows, (see Livy, Epitom. l. xx. Hist. l. xxvii. 36. xxix.
37:) 270,213, 137,108 214,000. The fall of the second, and the
rise of the third, appears so enormous, that several critics,
notwithstanding the unanimity of the Mss., have suspected some
corruption of the text of Livy. (See Drakenborch ad xxvii. 36,
and Beaufort, Republique Romaine, tom. i. p. 325.) They did not
consider that the second census was taken only at Rome, and that
the numbers were diminished, not only by the death, but likewise
by the absence, of many soldiers. In the third census, Livy
expressly affirms, that the legions were mustered by the care of
particular commissaries. From the numbers on the list we must
always deduct one twelfth above threescore, and incapable of
bearing arms. See Population de la France, p. 72.]
911 (return) [ Compare the remarkable transaction in Jeremiah
xxxii. 6, to 44, where the prophet purchases his uncle’s estate
at the approach of the Babylonian captivity, in his undoubting
confidence in the future restoration of the people. In the one
case it is the triumph of religious faith, in the other of
national pride.—M.]
10 (return) [ Livy considers these two incidents as the effects
only of chance and courage. I suspect that they were both managed
by the admirable policy of the senate.]
From the time of the Punic war, the uninterrupted succession of
senators had preserved the name and image of the republic; and
the degenerate subjects of Honorius ambitiously derived their
descent from the heroes who had repulsed the arms of Hannibal,
and subdued the nations of the earth. The temporal honors which
the devout Paula 11 inherited and despised, are carefully
recapitulated by Jerom, the guide of her conscience, and the
historian of her life. The genealogy of her father, Rogatus,
which ascended as high as Agamemnon, might seem to betray a
Grecian origin; but her mother, Blaesilla, numbered the Scipios,
Aemilius Paulus, and the Gracchi, in the list of her ancestors;
and Toxotius, the husband of Paula, deduced his royal lineage
from Aeneas, the father of the Julian line. The vanity of the
rich, who desired to be noble, was gratified by these lofty
pretensions. Encouraged by the applause of their parasites, they
easily imposed on the credulity of the vulgar; and were
countenanced, in some measure, by the custom of adopting the name
of their patron, which had always prevailed among the freedmen
and clients of illustrious families. Most of those families,
however, attacked by so many causes of external violence or
internal decay, were gradually extirpated; and it would be more
reasonable to seek for a lineal descent of twenty generations,
among the mountains of the Alps, or in the peaceful solitude of
Apulia, than on the theatre of Rome, the seat of fortune, of
danger, and of perpetual revolutions. Under each successive
reign, and from every province of the empire, a crowd of hardy
adventurers, rising to eminence by their talents or their vices,
usurped the wealth, the honors, and the palaces of Rome; and
oppressed, or protected, the poor and humble remains of consular
families; who were ignorant, perhaps, of the glory of their
ancestors. 12
11 (return) [ See Jerom, tom. i. p. 169, 170, ad Eustochium; he
bestows on Paula the splendid titles of Gracchorum stirps,
soboles Scipionum, Pauli haeres, cujus vocabulum trahit, Martiae
Papyriae Matris Africani vera et germana propago. This particular
description supposes a more solid title than the surname of
Julius, which Toxotius shared with a thousand families of the
western provinces. See the Index of Tacitus, of Gruter’s
Inscriptions, &c.]
12 (return) [ Tacitus (Annal. iii. 55) affirms, that between the
battle of Actium and the reign of Vespasian, the senate was
gradually filled with new families from the Municipia and
colonies of Italy.]
In the time of Jerom and Claudian, the senators unanimously
yielded the preeminence to the Anician line; and a slight view of
their history will serve to appreciate the rank and antiquity of
the noble families, which contended only for the second place. 13
During the five first ages of the city, the name of the Anicians
was unknown; they appear to have derived their origin from
Praeneste; and the ambition of those new citizens was long
satisfied with the Plebeian honors of tribunes of the people. 14
One hundred and sixty-eight years before the Christian era, the
family was ennobled by the Prætorship of Anicius, who gloriously
terminated the Illyrian war, by the conquest of the nation, and
the captivity of their king. 15 From the triumph of that general,
three consulships, in distant periods, mark the succession of the
Anician name. 16 From the reign of Diocletian to the final
extinction of the Western empire, that name shone with a lustre
which was not eclipsed, in the public estimation, by the majesty
of the Imperial purple. 17 The several branches, to whom it was
communicated, united, by marriage or inheritance, the wealth and
titles of the Annian, the Petronian, and the Olybrian houses; and
in each generation the number of consulships was multiplied by an
hereditary claim. 18 The Anician family excelled in faith and in
riches: they were the first of the Roman senate who embraced
Christianity; and it is probable that Anicius Julian, who was
afterwards consul and praefect of the city, atoned for his
attachment to the party of Maxentius, by the readiness with which
he accepted the religion of Constantine. 19 Their ample patrimony
was increased by the industry of Probus, the chief of the Anician
family; who shared with Gratian the honors of the consulship, and
exercised, four times, the high office of Prætorian praefect. 20
His immense estates were scattered over the wide extent of the
Roman world; and though the public might suspect or disapprove
the methods by which they had been acquired, the generosity and
magnificence of that fortunate statesman deserved the gratitude
of his clients, and the admiration of strangers. 21 Such was the
respect entertained for his memory, that the two sons of Probus,
in their earliest youth, and at the request of the senate, were
associated in the consular dignity; a memorable distinction,
without example, in the annals of Rome. 22
13 (return) [
Nec quisquam Procerum tentet (licet aere vetusto Floreat, et claro
cingatur Roma senatu) Se jactare parem; sed prima sede relicta
Aucheniis, de jure licet certare secundo. —-Claud. in Prob. et
Olybrii Coss. 18.
Such a compliment paid to the obscure name of the Auchenii has
amazed the critics; but they all agree, that whatever may be the
true reading, the sense of Claudian can be applied only to the
Anician family.]
14 (return) [ The earliest date in the annals of Pighius, is that
of M. Anicius Gallus. Trib. Pl. A. U. C. 506. Another tribune, Q.
Anicius, A. U. C. 508, is distinguished by the epithet of
Praenestinus. Livy (xlv. 43) places the Anicii below the great
families of Rome.]
15 (return) [ Livy, xliv. 30, 31, xlv. 3, 26, 43. He fairly
appreciates the merit of Anicius, and justly observes, that his
fame was clouded by the superior lustre of the Macedonian, which
preceded the Illyrian triumph.]
16 (return) [ The dates of the three consulships are, A. U. C.
593, 818, 967 the two last under the reigns of Nero and
Caracalla. The second of these consuls distinguished himself only
by his infamous flattery, (Tacit. Annal. xv. 74;) but even the
evidence of crimes, if they bear the stamp of greatness and
antiquity, is admitted, without reluctance, to prove the
genealogy of a noble house.]
17 (return) [ In the sixth century, the nobility of the Anician
name is mentioned (Cassiodor. Variar. l. x. Ep. 10, 12) with
singular respect by the minister of a Gothic king of Italy.]
18 (return) [
Fixus in omnes Cognatos procedit honos; quemcumque requiras Hac de
stirpe virum, certum est de Consule nasci. Per fasces numerantur
Avi, semperque renata Nobilitate virent, et prolem fata sequuntur.
(Claudian in Prob. et Olyb. Consulat. 12, &c.) The Annii, whose
name seems to have merged in the Anician, mark the Fasti with
many consulships, from the time of Vespasian to the fourth
century.]
19 (return) [ The title of first Christian senator may be
justified by the authority of Prudentius (in Symmach. i. 553) and
the dislike of the Pagans to the Anician family. See Tillemont,
Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 183, v. p. 44. Baron. Annal.
A.D. 312, No. 78, A.D. 322, No. 2.]
20 (return) [ Probus... claritudine generis et potentia et opum
magnitudine, cognitus Orbi Romano, per quem universum poene
patrimonia sparsa possedit, juste an secus non judicioli est
nostri. Ammian Marcellin. xxvii. 11. His children and widow
erected for him a magnificent tomb in the Vatican, which was
demolished in the time of Pope Nicholas V. to make room for the
new church of St. Peter Baronius, who laments the ruin of this
Christian monument, has diligently preserved the inscriptions and
basso-relievos. See Annal. Eccles. A.D. 395, No. 5-17.]
21 (return) [ Two Persian satraps travelled to Milan and Rome, to
hear St. Ambrose, and to see Probus, (Paulin. in Vit. Ambros.)
Claudian (in Cons. Probin. et Olybr. 30-60) seems at a loss how
to express the glory of Probus.]
22 (return) [ See the poem which Claudian addressed to the two
noble youths.]
Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By
Barbarians.—Part II.
“The marbles of the Anician palace,” were used as a proverbial
expression of opulence and splendor; 23 but the nobles and
senators of Rome aspired, in due gradation, to imitate that
illustrious family. The accurate description of the city, which
was composed in the Theodosian age, enumerates one thousand seven
hundred and eighty houses, the residence of wealthy and honorable
citizens. 24 Many of these stately mansions might almost excuse
the exaggeration of the poet; that Rome contained a multitude of
palaces, and that each palace was equal to a city: since it
included within its own precincts every thing which could be
subservient either to use or luxury; markets, hippodromes,
temples, fountains, baths, porticos, shady groves, and artificial
aviaries. 25 The historian Olympiodorus, who represents the state
of Rome when it was besieged by the Goths, 26 continues to
observe, that several of the richest senators received from their
estates an annual income of four thousand pounds of gold, above
one hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling; without computing
the stated provision of corn and wine, which, had they been sold,
might have equalled in value one third of the money. Compared to
this immoderate wealth, an ordinary revenue of a thousand or
fifteen hundred pounds of gold might be considered as no more
than adequate to the dignity of the senatorian rank, which
required many expenses of a public and ostentatious kind. Several
examples are recorded, in the age of Honorius, of vain and
popular nobles, who celebrated the year of their praetorship by a
festival, which lasted seven days, and cost above one hundred
thousand pounds sterling. 27 The estates of the Roman senators,
which so far exceeded the proportion of modern wealth, were not
confined to the limits of Italy. Their possessions extended far
beyond the Ionian and Aegean Seas, to the most distant provinces:
the city of Nicopolis, which Augustus had founded as an eternal
monument of the Actian victory, was the property of the devout
Paula; 28 and it is observed by Seneca, that the rivers, which
had divided hostile nations, now flowed through the lands of
private citizens. 29 According to their temper and circumstances,
the estates of the Romans were either cultivated by the labor of
their slaves, or granted, for a certain and stipulated rent, to
the industrious farmer. The economical writers of antiquity
strenuously recommend the former method, wherever it may be
practicable; but if the object should be removed, by its distance
or magnitude, from the immediate eye of the master, they prefer
the active care of an old hereditary tenant, attached to the
soil, and interested in the produce, to the mercenary
administration of a negligent, perhaps an unfaithful, steward. 30
23 (return) [ Secundinus, the Manichaean, ap. Baron. Annal.
Eccles. A.D. 390, No. 34.]
24 (return) [ See Nardini, Roma Antica, p. 89, 498, 500.]
25 (return) [
Quid loquar inclusas inter laquearia sylvas; Vernula queis vario
carmine ludit avis.
Claud. Rutil. Numatian. Itinerar. ver. 111. The poet lived at the
time of the Gothic invasion. A moderate palace would have covered
Cincinnatus’s farm of four acres (Val. Max. iv. 4.) In laxitatem
ruris excurrunt, says Seneca, Epist. 114. See a judicious note of
Mr. Hume, Essays, vol. i. p. 562, last 8vo edition.]
26 (return) [ This curious account of Rome, in the reign of
Honorius, is found in a fragment of the historian Olympiodorus,
ap. Photium, p. 197.]
27 (return) [ The sons of Alypius, of Symmachus, and of Maximus,
spent, during their respective praetorships, twelve, or twenty,
or forty, centenaries, (or hundred weight of gold.) See
Olympiodor. ap. Phot. p. 197. This popular estimation allows some
latitude; but it is difficult to explain a law in the Theodosian
Code, (l. vi. leg. 5,) which fixes the expense of the first
praetor at 25,000, of the second at 20,000, and of the third at
15,000 folles. The name of follis (see Mem. de l’Academie des
Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 727) was equally applied to a purse
of 125 pieces of silver, and to a small copper coin of the value
of 1/2625 part of that purse. In the former sense, the 25,000
folles would be equal to 150,000 L.; in the latter, to five or
six ponuds sterling The one appears extravagant, the other is
ridiculous. There must have existed some third and middle value,
which is here understood; but ambiguity is an excusable fault in
the language of laws.]
28 (return) [ Nicopolis...... in Actiaco littore sita
possessioris vestra nunc pars vel maxima est. Jerom. in Praefat.
Comment. ad Epistol. ad Titum, tom. ix. p. 243. M. D. Tillemont
supposes, strangely enough, that it was part of Agamemnon’s
inheritance. Mem. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 85.]
29 (return) [ Seneca, Epist. lxxxix. His language is of the
declamatory kind: but declamation could scarcely exaggerate the
avarice and luxury of the Romans. The philosopher himself
deserved some share of the reproach, if it be true that his
rigorous exaction of Quadringenties, above three hundred thousand
pounds which he had lent at high interest, provoked a rebellion
in Britain, (Dion Cassius, l. lxii. p. 1003.) According to the
conjecture of Gale (Antoninus’s Itinerary in Britain, p. 92,) the
same Faustinus possessed an estate near Bury, in Suffolk and
another in the kingdom of Naples.]
30 (return) [ Volusius, a wealthy senator, (Tacit. Annal. iii.
30,) always preferred tenants born on the estate. Columella, who
received this maxim from him, argues very judiciously on the
subject. De Re Rustica, l. i. c. 7, p. 408, edit. Gesner.
Leipsig, 1735.]
The opulent nobles of an immense capital, who were never excited
by the pursuit of military glory, and seldom engaged in the
occupations of civil government, naturally resigned their leisure
to the business and amusements of private life. At Rome, commerce
was always held in contempt: but the senators, from the first age
of the republic, increased their patrimony, and multiplied their
clients, by the lucrative practice of usury; and the obselete
laws were eluded, or violated, by the mutual inclinations and
interest of both parties. 31 A considerable mass of treasure must
always have existed at Rome, either in the current coin of the
empire, or in the form of gold and silver plate; and there were
many sideboards in the time of Pliny which contained more solid
silver, than had been transported by Scipio from vanquished
Carthage. 32 The greater part of the nobles, who dissipated their
fortunes in profuse luxury, found themselves poor in the midst of
wealth, and idle in a constant round of dissipation. Their
desires were continually gratified by the labor of a thousand
hands; of the numerous train of their domestic slaves, who were
actuated by the fear of punishment; and of the various
professions of artificers and merchants, who were more powerfully
impelled by the hopes of gain. The ancients were destitute of
many of the conveniences of life, which have been invented or
improved by the progress of industry; and the plenty of glass and
linen has diffused more real comforts among the modern nations of
Europe, than the senators of Rome could derive from all the
refinements of pompous or sensual luxury. 33 Their luxury, and
their manners, have been the subject of minute and laborious
disposition: but as such inquiries would divert me too long from
the design of the present work, I shall produce an authentic
state of Rome and its inhabitants, which is more peculiarly
applicable to the period of the Gothic invasion. Ammianus
Marcellinus, who prudently chose the capital of the empire as the
residence the best adapted to the historian of his own times, has
mixed with the narrative of public events a lively representation
of the scenes with which he was familiarly conversant. The
judicious reader will not always approve of the asperity of
censure, the choice of circumstances, or the style of expression;
he will perhaps detect the latent prejudices, and personal
resentments, which soured the temper of Ammianus himself; but he
will surely observe, with philosophic curiosity, the interesting
and original picture of the manners of Rome. 34
31 (return) [ Valesius (ad Ammian. xiv. 6) has proved, from
Chrysostom and Augustin, that the senators were not allowed to
lend money at usury. Yet it appears from the Theodosian Code,
(see Godefroy ad l. ii. tit. xxxiii. tom. i. p. 230-289,) that
they were permitted to take six percent., or one half of the
legal interest; and, what is more singular, this permission was
granted to the young senators.]
32 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 50. He states the silver
at only 4380 pounds, which is increased by Livy (xxx. 45) to
100,023: the former seems too little for an opulent city, the
latter too much for any private sideboard.]
33 (return) [ The learned Arbuthnot (Tables of Ancient Coins, &c.
p. 153) has observed with humor, and I believe with truth, that
Augustus had neither glass to his windows, nor a shirt to his
back. Under the lower empire, the use of linen and glass became
somewhat more common. * Note: The discovery of glass in such
common use at Pompeii, spoils the argument of Arbuthnot. See Sir
W. Gell. Pompeiana, 2d ser. p. 98.—M.]
34 (return) [ It is incumbent on me to explain the liberties
which I have taken with the text of Ammianus. 1. I have melted
down into one piece the sixth chapter of the fourteenth and the
fourth of the twenty-eighth book. 2. I have given order and
connection to the confused mass of materials. 3. I have softened
some extravagant hyperbeles, and pared away some superfluities of
the original. 4. I have developed some observations which were
insinuated rather than expressed. With these allowances, my
version will be found, not literal indeed, but faithful and
exact.]
“The greatness of Rome”—such is the language of the
historian—“was founded on the rare, and almost incredible,
alliance of virtue and of fortune. The long period of her infancy
was employed in a laborious struggle against the tribes of Italy,
the neighbors and enemies of the rising city. In the strength and
ardor of youth, she sustained the storms of war; carried her
victorious arms beyond the seas and the mountains; and brought
home triumphal laurels from every country of the globe. At
length, verging towards old age, and sometimes conquering by the
terror only of her name, she sought the blessings of ease and
tranquillity. The venerable city, which had trampled on the necks
of the fiercest nations, and established a system of laws, the
perpetual guardians of justice and freedom, was content, like a
wise and wealthy parent, to devolve on the Caesars, her favorite
sons, the care of governing her ample patrimony. 35 A secure and
profound peace, such as had been once enjoyed in the reign of
Numa, succeeded to the tumults of a republic; while Rome was
still adored as the queen of the earth; and the subject nations
still reverenced the name of the people, and the majesty of the
senate. But this native splendor,” continues Ammianus, “is
degraded, and sullied, by the conduct of some nobles, who,
unmindful of their own dignity, and of that of their country,
assume an unbounded license of vice and folly. They contend with
each other in the empty vanity of titles and surnames; and
curiously select, or invent, the most lofty and sonorous
appellations, Reburrus, or Fabunius, Pagonius, or Tarasius, 36
which may impress the ears of the vulgar with astonishment and
respect. From a vain ambition of perpetuating their memory, they
affect to multiply their likeness, in statues of bronze and
marble; nor are they satisfied, unless those statues are covered
with plates of gold; an honorable distinction, first granted to
Acilius the consul, after he had subdued, by his arms and
counsels, the power of King Antiochus. The ostentation of
displaying, of magnifying, perhaps, the rent-roll of the estates
which they possess in all the provinces, from the rising to the
setting sun, provokes the just resentment of every man, who
recollects, that their poor and invincible ancestors were not
distinguished from the meanest of the soldiers, by the delicacy
of their food, or the splendor of their apparel. But the modern
nobles measure their rank and consequence according to the
loftiness of their chariots, 37 and the weighty magnificence of
their dress. Their long robes of silk and purple float in the
wind; and as they are agitated, by art or accident, they
occasionally discover the under garments, the rich tunics,
embroidered with the figures of various animals. 38 Followed by a
train of fifty servants, and tearing up the pavement, they move
along the streets with the same impetuous speed as if they
travelled with post-horses; and the example of the senators is
boldly imitated by the matrons and ladies, whose covered
carriages are continually driving round the immense space of the
city and suburbs. Whenever these persons of high distinction
condescend to visit the public baths, they assume, on their
entrance, a tone of loud and insolent command, and appropriate to
their own use the conveniences which were designed for the Roman
people. If, in these places of mixed and general resort, they
meet any of the infamous ministers of their pleasures, they
express their affection by a tender embrace; while they proudly
decline the salutations of their fellow-citizens, who are not
permitted to aspire above the honor of kissing their hands, or
their knees. As soon as they have indulged themselves in the
refreshment of the bath, they resume their rings, and the other
ensigns of their dignity, select from their private wardrobe of
the finest linen, such as might suffice for a dozen persons, the
garments the most agreeable to their fancy, and maintain till
their departure the same haughty demeanor; which perhaps might
have been excused in the great Marcellus, after the conquest of
Syracuse. Sometimes, indeed, these heroes undertake more arduous
achievements; they visit their estates in Italy, and procure
themselves, by the toil of servile hands, the amusements of the
chase. 39 If at any time, but more especially on a hot day, they
have courage to sail, in their painted galleys, from the Lucrine
Lake 40 to their elegant villas on the seacoast of Puteoli and
Cayeta, 41 they compare their own expeditions to the marches of
Caesar and Alexander. Yet should a fly presume to settle on the
silken folds of their gilded umbrellas; should a sunbeam
penetrate through some unguarded and imperceptible chink, they
deplore their intolerable hardships, and lament, in affected
language, that they were not born in the land of the Cimmerians,
42 the regions of eternal darkness. In these journeys into the
country, 43 the whole body of the household marches with their
master. In the same manner as the cavalry and infantry, the heavy
and the light armed troops, the advanced guard and the rear, are
marshalled by the skill of their military leaders; so the
domestic officers, who bear a rod, as an ensign of authority,
distribute and arrange the numerous train of slaves and
attendants. The baggage and wardrobe move in the front; and are
immediately followed by a multitude of cooks, and inferior
ministers, employed in the service of the kitchens, and of the
table. The main body is composed of a promiscuous crowd of
slaves, increased by the accidental concourse of idle or
dependent plebeians. The rear is closed by the favorite band of
eunuchs, distributed from age to youth, according to the order of
seniority. Their numbers and their deformity excite the horror of
the indignant spectators, who are ready to execrate the memory of
Semiramis, for the cruel art which she invented, of frustrating
the purposes of nature, and of blasting in the bud the hopes of
future generations. In the exercise of domestic jurisdiction, the
nobles of Rome express an exquisite sensibility for any personal
injury, and a contemptuous indifference for the rest of the human
species. When they have called for warm water, if a slave has
been tardy in his obedience, he is instantly chastised with three
hundred lashes: but should the same slave commit a wilful murder,
the master will mildly observe, that he is a worthless fellow;
but that, if he repeats the offence, he shall not escape
punishment. Hospitality was formerly the virtue of the Romans;
and every stranger, who could plead either merit or misfortune,
was relieved, or rewarded by their generosity. At present, if a
foreigner, perhaps of no contemptible rank, is introduced to one
of the proud and wealthy senators, he is welcomed indeed in the
first audience, with such warm professions, and such kind
inquiries, that he retires, enchanted with the affability of his
illustrious friend, and full of regret that he had so long
delayed his journey to Rome, the active seat of manners, as well
as of empire. Secure of a favorable reception, he repeats his
visit the ensuing day, and is mortified by the discovery, that
his person, his name, and his country, are already forgotten. If
he still has resolution to persevere, he is gradually numbered in
the train of dependants, and obtains the permission to pay his
assiduous and unprofitable court to a haughty patron, incapable
of gratitude or friendship; who scarcely deigns to remark his
presence, his departure, or his return. Whenever the rich prepare
a solemn and popular entertainment; 44 whenever they celebrate,
with profuse and pernicious luxury, their private banquets; the
choice of the guests is the subject of anxious deliberation. The
modest, the sober, and the learned, are seldom preferred; and the
nomenclators, who are commonly swayed by interested motives, have
the address to insert, in the list of invitations, the obscure
names of the most worthless of mankind. But the frequent and
familiar companions of the great, are those parasites, who
practise the most useful of all arts, the art of flattery; who
eagerly applaud each word, and every action, of their immortal
patron; gaze with rapture on his marble columns and variegated
pavements; and strenuously praise the pomp and elegance which he
is taught to consider as a part of his personal merit. At the
Roman tables, the birds, the squirrels, 45 or the fish, which
appear of an uncommon size, are contemplated with curious
attention; a pair of scales is accurately applied, to ascertain
their real weight; and, while the more rational guests are
disgusted by the vain and tedious repetition, notaries are
summoned to attest, by an authentic record, the truth of such a
marvelous event. Another method of introduction into the houses
and society of the great, is derived from the profession of
gaming, or, as it is more politely styled, of play. The
confederates are united by a strict and indissoluble bond of
friendship, or rather of conspiracy; a superior degree of skill
in the Tesserarian art (which may be interpreted the game of dice
and tables) 46 is a sure road to wealth and reputation. A master
of that sublime science, who in a supper, or assembly, is placed
below a magistrate, displays in his countenance the surprise and
indignation which Cato might be supposed to feel, when he was
refused the praetorship by the votes of a capricious people. The
acquisition of knowledge seldom engages the curiosity of nobles,
who abhor the fatigue, and disdain the advantages, of study; and
the only books which they peruse are the Satires of Juvenal, and
the verbose and fabulous histories of Marius Maximus. 47 The
libraries, which they have inherited from their fathers, are
secluded, like dreary sepulchres, from the light of day. 48 But
the costly instruments of the theatre, flutes, and enormous
lyres, and hydraulic organs, are constructed for their use; and
the harmony of vocal and instrumental music is incessantly
repeated in the palaces of Rome. In those palaces, sound is
preferred to sense, and the care of the body to that of the
mind.”
It is allowed as a salutary maxim, that the light and frivolous
suspicion of a contagious malady, is of sufficient weight to
excuse the visits of the most intimate friends; and even the
servants, who are despatched to make the decent inquiries, are
not suffered to return home, till they have undergone the
ceremony of a previous ablution. Yet this selfish and unmanly
delicacy occasionally yields to the more imperious passion of
avarice. The prospect of gain will urge a rich and gouty senator
as far as Spoleto; every sentiment of arrogance and dignity is
subdued by the hopes of an inheritance, or even of a legacy; and
a wealthy childless citizen is the most powerful of the Romans.
The art of obtaining the signature of a favorable testament, and
sometimes of hastening the moment of its execution, is perfectly
understood; and it has happened, that in the same house, though
in different apartments, a husband and a wife, with the laudable
design of overreaching each other, have summoned their respective
lawyers, to declare, at the same time, their mutual, but
contradictory, intentions. The distress which follows and
chastises extravagant luxury, often reduces the great to the use
of the most humiliating expedients. When they desire to borrow,
they employ the base and supplicating style of the slave in the
comedy; but when they are called upon to pay, they assume the
royal and tragic declamation of the grandsons of Hercules. If the
demand is repeated, they readily procure some trusty sycophant,
instructed to maintain a charge of poison, or magic, against the
insolent creditor; who is seldom released from prison, till he
has signed a discharge of the whole debt. These vices, which
degrade the moral character of the Romans, are mixed with a
puerile superstition, that disgraces their understanding. They
listen with confidence to the predictions of haruspices, who
pretend to read, in the entrails of victims, the signs of future
greatness and prosperity; and there are many who do not presume
either to bathe, or to dine, or to appear in public, till they
have diligently consulted, according to the rules of astrology,
the situation of Mercury, and the aspect of the moon. 49 It is
singular enough, that this vain credulity may often be discovered
among the profane sceptics, who impiously doubt, or deny, the
existence of a celestial power.”
35 (return) [ Claudian, who seems to have read the history of
Ammianus, speaks of this great revolution in a much less courtly
style:—
Postquam jura ferox in se communia Caesar Transtulit; et lapsi
mores; desuetaque priscis Artibus, in gremium pacis servile
recessi. —De Be. Gildonico, p. 49.]
36 (return) [ The minute diligence of antiquarians has not been
able to verify these extraordinary names. I am of opinion that
they were invented by the historian himself, who was afraid of
any personal satire or application. It is certain, however, that
the simple denominations of the Romans were gradually lengthened
to the number of four, five, or even seven, pompous surnames; as,
for instance, Marcus Maecius Maemmius Furius Balburius
Caecilianus Placidus. See Noris Cenotaph Piran Dissert. iv. p.
438.]
37 (return) [ The or coaches of the romans, were often of solid
silver, curiously carved and engraved; and the trappings of the
mules, or horses, were embossed with gold. This magnificence
continued from the reign of Nero to that of Honorius; and the
Appian way was covered with the splendid equipages of the nobles,
who came out to meet St. Melania, when she returned to Rome, six
years before the Gothic siege, (Seneca, epist. lxxxvii. Plin.
Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 49. Paulin. Nolan. apud Baron. Annal.
Eccles. A.D. 397, No. 5.) Yet pomp is well exchange for
convenience; and a plain modern coach, that is hung upon springs,
is much preferable to the silver or gold carts of antiquity,
which rolled on the axle-tree, and were exposed, for the most
part, to the inclemency of the weather.]
38 (return) [ In a homily of Asterius, bishop of Amasia, M. de
Valois has discovered (ad Ammian. xiv. 6) that this was a new
fashion; that bears, wolves lions, and tigers, woods,
hunting-matches, &c., were represented in embroidery: and that
the more pious coxcombs substituted the figure or legend of some
favorite saint.]
39 (return) [ See Pliny’s Epistles, i. 6. Three large wild boars
were allured and taken in the toils without interrupting the
studies of the philosophic sportsman.]
40 (return) [ The change from the inauspicious word Avernus,
which stands in the text, is immaterial. The two lakes, Avernus
and Lucrinus, communicated with each other, and were fashioned by
the stupendous moles of Agrippa into the Julian port, which
opened, through a narrow entrance, into the Gulf of Puteoli.
Virgil, who resided on the spot, has described (Georgic ii. 161)
this work at the moment of its execution: and his commentators,
especially Catrou, have derived much light from Strabo,
Suetonius, and Dion. Earthquakes and volcanoes have changed the
face of the country, and turned the Lucrine Lake, since the year
1538, into the Monte Nuovo. See Camillo Pellegrino Discorsi della
Campania Felice, p. 239, 244, &c. Antonii Sanfelicii Campania, p.
13, 88—Note: Compare Lyell’s Geology, ii. 72.—M.]
41 (return) [ The regna Cumana et Puteolana; loca caetiroqui
valde expe tenda, interpellantium autem multitudine paene
fugienda. Cicero ad Attic. xvi. 17.]
42 (return) [ The proverbial expression of Cimmerian darkness was
originally borrowed from the description of Homer, (in the
eleventh book of the Odyssey,) which he applies to a remote and
fabulous country on the shores of the ocean. See Erasmi Adagia,
in his works, tom. ii. p. 593, the Leyden edition.]
43 (return) [ We may learn from Seneca (epist. cxxiii.) three
curious circumstances relative to the journeys of the Romans. 1.
They were preceded by a troop of Numidian light horse, who
announced, by a cloud of dust, the approach of a great man. 2.
Their baggage mules transported not only the precious vases, but
even the fragile vessels of crystal and murra, which last is
almost proved, by the learned French translator of Seneca, (tom.
iii. p. 402-422,) to mean the porcelain of China and Japan. 3.
The beautiful faces of the young slaves were covered with a
medicated crust, or ointment, which secured them against the
effects of the sun and frost.]
44 (return) [ Distributio solemnium sportularum. The sportuloe,
or sportelloe, were small baskets, supposed to contain a quantity
of hot provisions of the value of 100 quadrantes, or twelvepence
halfpenny, which were ranged in order in the hall, and
ostentatiously distributed to the hungry or servile crowd who
waited at the door. This indelicate custom is very frequently
mentioned in the epigrams of Martial, and the satires of Juvenal.
See likewise Suetonius, in Claud. c. 21, in Neron. c. 16, in
Domitian, c. 4, 7. These baskets of provisions were afterwards
converted into large pieces of gold and silver coin, or plate,
which were mutually given and accepted even by persons of the
highest rank, (see Symmach. epist. iv. 55, ix. 124, and Miscell.
p. 256,) on solemn occasions, of consulships, marriages, &c.]
45 (return) [ The want of an English name obliges me to refer to
the common genus of squirrels, the Latin glis, the French loir; a
little animal, who inhabits the woods, and remains torpid in cold
weather, (see Plin. Hist. Natur. viii. 82. Buffon, Hist.
Naturelle, tom. viii. 153. Pennant’s Synopsis of Quadrupeds, p.
289.) The art of rearing and fattening great numbers of glires
was practised in Roman villas as a profitable article of rural
economy, (Varro, de Re Rustica, iii. 15.) The excessive demand of
them for luxurious tables was increased by the foolish
prohibitions of the censors; and it is reported that they are
still esteemed in modern Rome, and are frequently sent as
presents by the Colonna princes, (see Brotier, the last editor of
Pliny tom. ii. p. 453. epud Barbou, 1779.)—Note: Is it not the
dormouse?—M.]
46 (return) [ This game, which might be translated by the more
familiar names of trictrac, or backgammon, was a favorite
amusement of the gravest Romans; and old Mucius Scaevola, the
lawyer, had the reputation of a very skilful player. It was
called ludus duodecim scriptorum, from the twelve scripta, or
lines, which equally divided the alvevolus or table. On these,
the two armies, the white and the black, each consisting of
fifteen men, or catculi, were regularly placed, and alternately
moved according to the laws of the game, and the chances of the
tesseroe, or dice. Dr. Hyde, who diligently traces the history
and varieties of the nerdiludium (a name of Persic etymology)
from Ireland to Japan, pours forth, on this trifling subject, a
copious torrent of classic and Oriental learning. See Syntagma
Dissertat. tom. ii. p. 217-405.]
47 (return) [ Marius Maximus, homo omnium verbosissimus, qui, et
mythistoricis se voluminibus implicavit. Vopiscus in Hist.
August. p. 242. He wrote the lives of the emperors, from Trajan
to Alexander Severus. See Gerard Vossius de Historicis Latin. l.
ii. c. 3, in his works, vol. iv. p. 47.]
48 (return) [ This satire is probably exaggerated. The Saturnalia
of Macrobius, and the epistles of Jerom, afford satisfactory
proofs, that Christian theology and classic literature were
studiously cultivated by several Romans, of both sexes, and of
the highest rank.]
49 (return) [ Macrobius, the friend of these Roman nobles,
considered the siara as the cause, or at least the signs, of
future events, (de Somn. Scipion l. i. c 19. p. 68.)]
Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By
Barbarians.—Part III.
In populous cities, which are the seat of commerce and
manufactures, the middle ranks of inhabitants, who derive their
subsistence from the dexterity or labor of their hands, are
commonly the most prolific, the most useful, and, in that sense,
the most respectable part of the community. But the plebeians of
Rome, who disdained such sedentary and servile arts, had been
oppressed from the earliest times by the weight of debt and
usury; and the husbandman, during the term of his military
service, was obliged to abandon the cultivation of his farm. 50
The lands of Italy which had been originally divided among the
families of free and indigent proprietors, were insensibly
purchased or usurped by the avarice of the nobles; and in the age
which preceded the fall of the republic, it was computed that
only two thousand citizens were possessed of an independent
substance. 51 Yet as long as the people bestowed, by their
suffrages, the honors of the state, the command of the legions,
and the administration of wealthy provinces, their conscious
pride alleviated in some measure, the hardships of poverty; and
their wants were seasonably supplied by the ambitious liberality
of the candidates, who aspired to secure a venal majority in the
thirty-five tribes, or the hundred and ninety-three centuries, of
Rome. But when the prodigal commons had not only imprudently
alienated the use, but the inheritance of power, they sunk, under
the reign of the Caesars, into a vile and wretched populace,
which must, in a few generations, have been totally extinguished,
if it had not been continually recruited by the manumission of
slaves, and the influx of strangers. As early as the time of
Hadrian, it was the just complaint of the ingenuous natives, that
the capital had attracted the vices of the universe, and the
manners of the most opposite nations. The intemperance of the
Gauls, the cunning and levity of the Greeks, the savage obstinacy
of the Egyptians and Jews, the servile temper of the Asiatics,
and the dissolute, effeminate prostitution of the Syrians, were
mingled in the various multitude, which, under the proud and
false denomination of Romans, presumed to despise their
fellow-subjects, and even their sovereigns, who dwelt beyond the
precincts of the Eternal City. 52
50 (return) [ The histories of Livy (see particularly vi. 36) are
full of the extortions of the rich, and the sufferings of the
poor debtors. The melancholy story of a brave old soldier
(Dionys. Hal. l. vi. c. 26, p. 347, edit. Hudson, and Livy, ii.
23) must have been frequently repeated in those primitive times,
which have been so undeservedly praised.]
51 (return) [ Non esse in civitate duo millia hominum qui rem
habereni. Cicero. Offic. ii. 21, and Comment. Paul. Manut. in
edit. Graev. This vague computation was made A. U. C. 649, in a
speech of the tribune Philippus, and it was his object, as well
as that of the Gracchi, (see Plutarch,) to deplore, and perhaps
to exaggerate, the misery of the common people.]
52 (return) [ See the third Satire (60-125) of Juvenal, who
indignantly complains,
Quamvis quota portio faecis Achaei! Jampridem Syrus in Tiberem
defluxit Orontes; Et linguam et mores, &c.
Seneca, when he proposes to comfort his mother (Consolat. ad
Helv. c. 6) by the reflection, that a great part of mankind were
in a state of exile, reminds her how few of the inhabitants of
Rome were born in the city.]
Yet the name of that city was still pronounced with respect: the
frequent and capricious tumults of its inhabitants were indulged
with impunity; and the successors of Constantine, instead of
crushing the last remains of the democracy by the strong arm of
military power, embraced the mild policy of Augustus, and studied
to relieve the poverty, and to amuse the idleness, of an
innumerable people. 53 I. For the convenience of the lazy
plebeians, the monthly distributions of corn were converted into
a daily allowance of bread; a great number of ovens were
constructed and maintained at the public expense; and at the
appointed hour, each citizen, who was furnished with a ticket,
ascended the flight of steps, which had been assigned to his
peculiar quarter or division, and received, either as a gift, or
at a very low price, a loaf of bread of the weight of three
pounds, for the use of his family. II. The forest of Lucania,
whose acorns fattened large droves of wild hogs, 54 afforded, as
a species of tribute, a plentiful supply of cheap and wholesome
meat. During five months of the year, a regular allowance of
bacon was distributed to the poorer citizens; and the annual
consumption of the capital, at a time when it was much declined
from its former lustre, was ascertained, by an edict from
Valentinian the Third, at three millions six hundred and
twenty-eight thousand pounds. 55 III. In the manners of
antiquity, the use of oil was indispensable for the lamp, as well
as for the bath; and the annual tax, which was imposed on Africa
for the benefit of Rome, amounted to the weight of three millions
of pounds, to the measure, perhaps, of three hundred thousand
English gallons. IV. The anxiety of Augustus to provide the
metropolis with sufficient plenty of corn, was not extended
beyond that necessary article of human subsistence; and when the
popular clamor accused the dearness and scarcity of wine, a
proclamation was issued, by the grave reformer, to remind his
subjects that no man could reasonably complain of thirst, since
the aqueducts of Agrippa had introduced into the city so many
copious streams of pure and salubrious water. 56 This rigid
sobriety was insensibly relaxed; and, although the generous
design of Aurelian 57 does not appear to have been executed in
its full extent, the use of wine was allowed on very easy and
liberal terms. The administration of the public cellars was
delegated to a magistrate of honorable rank; and a considerable
part of the vintage of Campania was reserved for the fortunate
inhabitants of Rome.
53 (return) [ Almost all that is said of the bread, bacon, oil,
wine, &c., may be found in the fourteenth book of the Theodosian
Code; which expressly treats of the police of the great cities.
See particularly the titles iii. iv. xv. xvi. xvii. xxiv. The
collateral testimonies are produced in Godefroy’s Commentary, and
it is needless to transcribe them. According to a law of
Theodosius, which appreciates in money the military allowance, a
piece of gold (eleven shillings) was equivalent to eighty pounds
of bacon, or to eighty pounds of oil, or to twelve modii (or
pecks) of salt, (Cod. Theod. l. viii. tit. iv. leg. 17.) This
equation, compared with another of seventy pounds of bacon for an
amphora, (Cod. Theod. l. xiv. tit. iv. leg. 4,) fixes the price
of wine at about sixteenpence the gallon.]
54 (return) [ The anonymous author of the Description of the
World (p. 14. in tom. iii. Geograph. Minor. Hudson) observes of
Lucania, in his barbarous Latin, Regio optima, et ipsa omnibus
habundans, et lardum multum foras. Proptor quod est in montibus,
cujus aescam animalium rariam, &c.]
55 (return) [ See Novell. ad calcem Cod. Theod. D. Valent. l. i.
tit. xv. This law was published at Rome, June 29th, A.D. 452.]
56 (return) [ Sueton. in August. c. 42. The utmost debauch of the
emperor himself, in his favorite wine of Rhaetia, never exceeded
a sextarius, (an English pint.) Id. c. 77. Torrentius ad loc. and
Arbuthnot’s Tables, p. 86.]
57 (return) [ His design was to plant vineyards along the
sea-coast of Hetruria, (Vopiscus, in Hist. August. p. 225;) the
dreary, unwholesome, uncultivated Maremme of modern Tuscany]
The stupendous aqueducts, so justly celebrated by the praises of
Augustus himself, replenished the Thermoe, or baths, which had
been constructed in every part of the city, with Imperial
magnificence. The baths of Antoninus Caracalla, which were open,
at stated hours, for the indiscriminate service of the senators
and the people, contained above sixteen hundred seats of marble;
and more than three thousand were reckoned in the baths of
Diocletian. 58 The walls of the lofty apartments were covered
with curious mosaics, that imitated the art of the pencil in the
elegance of design, and the variety of colors. The Egyptian
granite was beautifully encrusted with the precious green marble
of Numidia; the perpetual stream of hot water was poured into the
capacious basins, through so many wide mouths of bright and massy
silver; and the meanest Roman could purchase, with a small copper
coin, the daily enjoyment of a scene of pomp and luxury, which
might excite the envy of the kings of Asia. 59 From these stately
palaces issued a swarm of dirty and ragged plebeians, without
shoes and without a mantle; who loitered away whole days in the
street of Forum, to hear news and to hold disputes; who
dissipated in extravagant gaming, the miserable pittance of their
wives and children; and spent the hours of the night in the
obscure taverns, and brothels, in the indulgence of gross and
vulgar sensuality. 60
58 (return) [ Olympiodor. apud Phot. p. 197.]
59 (return) [ Seneca (epistol. lxxxvi.) compares the baths of
Scipio Africanus, at his villa of Liternum, with the magnificence
(which was continually increasing) of the public baths of Rome,
long before the stately Thermae of Antoninus and Diocletian were
erected. The quadrans paid for admission was the quarter of the
as, about one eighth of an English penny.]
60 (return) [ Ammianus, (l. xiv. c. 6, and l. xxviii. c. 4,)
after describing the luxury and pride of the nobles of Rome,
exposes, with equal indignation, the vices and follies of the
common people.]
But the most lively and splendid amusement of the idle multitude,
depended on the frequent exhibition of public games and
spectacles. The piety of Christian princes had suppressed the
inhuman combats of gladiators; but the Roman people still
considered the Circus as their home, their temple, and the seat
of the republic. The impatient crowd rushed at the dawn of day to
secure their places, and there were many who passed a sleepless
and anxious night in the adjacent porticos. From the morning to
the evening, careless of the sun, or of the rain, the spectators,
who sometimes amounted to the number of four hundred thousand,
remained in eager attention; their eyes fixed on the horses and
charioteers, their minds agitated with hope and fear, for the
success of the colors which they espoused: and the happiness of
Rome appeared to hang on the event of a race. 61 The same
immoderate ardor inspired their clamors and their applause, as
often as they were entertained with the hunting of wild beasts,
and the various modes of theatrical representation. These
representations in modern capitals may deserve to be considered
as a pure and elegant school of taste, and perhaps of virtue. But
the Tragic and Comic Muse of the Romans, who seldom aspired
beyond the imitation of Attic genius, 62 had been almost totally
silent since the fall of the republic; 63 and their place was
unworthily occupied by licentious farce, effeminate music, and
splendid pageantry. The pantomimes, 64 who maintained their
reputation from the age of Augustus to the sixth century,
expressed, without the use of words, the various fables of the
gods and heroes of antiquity; and the perfection of their art,
which sometimes disarmed the gravity of the philosopher, always
excited the applause and wonder of the people. The vast and
magnificent theatres of Rome were filled by three thousand female
dancers, and by three thousand singers, with the masters of the
respective choruses. Such was the popular favor which they
enjoyed, that, in a time of scarcity, when all strangers were
banished from the city, the merit of contributing to the public
pleasures exempted them from a law, which was strictly executed
against the professors of the liberal arts. 65
61 (return) [ Juvenal. Satir. xi. 191, &c. The expressions of the
historian Ammianus are not less strong and animated than those of
the satirist and both the one and the other painted from the
life. The numbers which the great Circus was capable of receiving
are taken from the original Notitioe of the city. The differences
between them prove that they did not transcribe each other; but
the same may appear incredible, though the country on these
occasions flocked to the city.]
62 (return) [ Sometimes indeed they composed original pieces.
Vestigia Graeca Ausi deserere et celeb rare domestica facta.
Horat. Epistol. ad Pisones, 285, and the learned, though
perplexed note of Dacier, who might have allowed the name of
tragedies to the Brutus and the Decius of Pacuvius, or to the
Cato of Maternus. The Octavia, ascribed to one of the Senecas,
still remains a very unfavorable specimen of Roman tragedy.]
63 (return) [ In the time of Quintilian and Pliny, a tragic poet
was reduced to the imperfect method of hiring a great room, and
reading his play to the company, whom he invited for that
purpose. (See Dialog. de Oratoribus, c. 9, 11, and Plin. Epistol.
vii. 17.)]
64 (return) [ See the dialogue of Lucian, entitled the
Saltatione, tom. ii. p. 265-317, edit. Reitz. The pantomimes
obtained the honorable name; and it was required, that they
should be conversant with almost every art and science. Burette
(in the Mémoires de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. i. p. 127,
&c.) has given a short history of the art of pantomimes.]
65 (return) [ Ammianus, l. xiv. c. 6. He complains, with decent
indignation that the streets of Rome were filled with crowds of
females, who might have given children to the state, but whose
only occupation was to curl and dress their hair, and jactari
volubilibus gyris, dum experimunt innumera simulacra, quae
finxere fabulae theatrales.]
It is said, that the foolish curiosity of Elagabalus attempted to
discover, from the quantity of spiders’ webs, the number of the
inhabitants of Rome. A more rational method of inquiry might not
have been undeserving of the attention of the wisest princes, who
could easily have resolved a question so important for the Roman
government, and so interesting to succeeding ages. The births and
deaths of the citizens were duly registered; and if any writer of
antiquity had condescended to mention the annual amount, or the
common average, we might now produce some satisfactory
calculation, which would destroy the extravagant assertions of
critics, and perhaps confirm the modest and probable conjectures
of philosophers. 66 The most diligent researches have collected
only the following circumstances; which, slight and imperfect as
they are, may tend, in some degree, to illustrate the question of
the populousness of ancient Rome. I. When the capital of the
empire was besieged by the Goths, the circuit of the walls was
accurately measured, by Ammonius, the mathematician, who found it
equal to twenty-one miles. 67 It should not be forgotten that the
form of the city was almost that of a circle; the geometrical
figure which is known to contain the largest space within any
given circumference. II. The architect Vitruvius, who flourished
in the Augustan age, and whose evidence, on this occasion, has
peculiar weight and authority, observes, that the innumerable
habitations of the Roman people would have spread themselves far
beyond the narrow limits of the city; and that the want of
ground, which was probably contracted on every side by gardens
and villas, suggested the common, though inconvenient, practice
of raising the houses to a considerable height in the air. 68 But
the loftiness of these buildings, which often consisted of hasty
work and insufficient materials, was the cause of frequent and
fatal accidents; and it was repeatedly enacted by Augustus, as
well as by Nero, that the height of private edifices within the
walls of Rome, should not exceed the measure of seventy feet from
the ground. 69 III. Juvenal 70 laments, as it should seem from
his own experience, the hardships of the poorer citizens, to whom
he addresses the salutary advice of emigrating, without delay,
from the smoke of Rome, since they might purchase, in the little
towns of Italy, a cheerful commodious dwelling, at the same price
which they annually paid for a dark and miserable lodging.
House-rent was therefore immoderately dear: the rich acquired, at
an enormous expense, the ground, which they covered with palaces
and gardens; but the body of the Roman people was crowded into a
narrow space; and the different floors, and apartments, of the
same house, were divided, as it is still the custom of Paris, and
other cities, among several families of plebeians. IV. The total
number of houses in the fourteen regions of the city, is
accurately stated in the description of Rome, composed under the
reign of Theodosius, and they amount to forty-eight thousand
three hundred and eighty-two. 71 The two classes of domus and of
insulæ, into which they are divided, include all the habitations
of the capital, of every rank and condition from the marble
palace of the Anicii, with a numerous establishment of freedmen
and slaves, to the lofty and narrow lodging-house, where the poet
Codrus and his wife were permitted to hire a wretched garret
immediately under the tiles. If we adopt the same average, which,
under similar circumstances, has been found applicable to Paris,
72 and indifferently allow about twenty-five persons for each
house, of every degree, we may fairly estimate the inhabitants of
Rome at twelve hundred thousand: a number which cannot be thought
excessive for the capital of a mighty empire, though it exceeds
the populousness of the greatest cities of modern Europe. 73 7311
66 (return) [ Lipsius (tom. iii. p. 423, de Magnitud. Romana, l.
iii. c. 3) and Isaac Vossius (Observant. Var. p. 26-34) have
indulged strange dreams, of four, or eight, or fourteen, millions
in Rome. Mr. Hume, (Essays, vol. i. p. 450-457,) with admirable
good sense and scepticism betrays some secret disposition to
extenuate the populousness of ancient times.]
67 (return) [ Olympiodor. ap. Phot. p. 197. See Fabricius, Bibl.
Graec. tom. ix. p. 400.]
68 (return) [ In ea autem majestate urbis, et civium infinita
frequentia, innumerabiles habitationes opus fuit explicare. Ergo
cum recipero non posset area plana tantam multitudinem in urbe,
ad auxilium altitudinis aedificiorum res ipsa coegit devenire.
Vitruv. ii. 8. This passage, which I owe to Vossius, is clear,
strong, and comprehensive.]
69 (return) [ The successive testimonies of Pliny, Aristides,
Claudian, Rutilius, &c., prove the insufficiency of these
restrictive edicts. See Lipsius, de Magnitud. Romana, l. iii. c.
4.
Tabulata tibi jam tertia fumant; Tu nescis; nam si gradibus
trepidatur ab imis Ultimus ardebit, quem tegula sola tuetur A
pluvia. —-Juvenal. Satir. iii. 199]
70 (return) [ Read the whole third satire, but particularly 166,
223, &c. The description of a crowded insula, or lodging-house,
in Petronius, (c. 95, 97,) perfectly tallies with the complaints
of Juvenal; and we learn from legal authority, that, in the time
of Augustus, (Heineccius, Hist. Juris. Roman. c. iv. p. 181,) the
ordinary rent of the several coenacula, or apartments of an
insula, annually produced forty thousand sesterces, between three
and four hundred pounds sterling, (Pandect. l. xix. tit. ii. No.
30,) a sum which proves at once the large extent, and high value,
of those common buildings.]
71 (return) [ This sum total is composed of 1780 domus, or great
houses of 46,602 insulæ, or plebeian habitations, (see Nardini,
Roma Antica, l. iii. p. 88;) and these numbers are ascertained by
the agreement of the texts of the different Notitioe. Nardini, l.
viii. p. 498, 500.]
72 (return) [ See that accurate writer M. de Messance, Recherches
sur la Population, p. 175-187. From probable, or certain grounds,
he assigns to Paris 23,565 houses, 71,114 families, and 576,630
inhabitants.]
73 (return) [ This computation is not very different from that
which M. Brotier, the last editor of Tacitus, (tom. ii. p. 380,)
has assumed from similar principles; though he seems to aim at a
degree of precision which it is neither possible nor important to
obtain.]
7311 (return) [ M. Dureau de la Malle (Economic Politique des
Romaines, t. i. p. 369) quotes a passage from the xvth chapter of
Gibbon, in which he estimates the population of Rome at not less
than a million, and adds (omitting any reference to this
passage,) that he (Gibbon) could not have seriously studied the
question. M. Dureau de la Malle proceeds to argue that Rome, as
contained within the walls of Servius Tullius, occupying an area
only one fifth of that of Paris, could not have contained 300,000
inhabitants; within those of Aurelian not more than 560,000,
inclusive of soldiers and strangers. The suburbs, he endeavors to
show, both up to the time of Aurelian, and after his reign, were
neither so extensive, nor so populous, as generally supposed. M.
Dureau de la Malle has but imperfectly quoted the important
passage of Dionysius, that which proves that when he wrote (in
the time of Augustus) the walls of Servius no longer marked the
boundary of the city. In many places they were so built upon,
that it was impossible to trace them. There was no certain limit,
where the city ended and ceased to be the city; it stretched out
to so boundless an extent into the country. Ant. Rom. iv. 13.
None of M. de la Malle’s arguments appear to me to prove, against
this statement, that these irregular suburbs did not extend so
far in many parts, as to make it impossible to calculate
accurately the inhabited area of the city. Though no doubt the
city, as reconstructed by Nero, was much less closely built and
with many more open spaces for palaces, temples, and other public
edifices, yet many passages seem to prove that the laws
respecting the height of houses were not rigidly enforced. A
great part of the lower especially of the slave population, were
very densely crowded, and lived, even more than in our modern
towns, in cellars and subterranean dwellings under the public
edifices. Nor do M. de la Malle’s arguments, by which he would
explain the insulae insulae (of which the Notitiae Urbis give us
the number) as rows of shops, with a chamber or two within the
domus, or houses of the wealthy, satisfy me as to their soundness
of their scholarship. Some passages which he adduces directly
contradict his theory; none, as appears to me, distinctly prove
it. I must adhere to the old interpretation of the word, as
chiefly dwellings for the middling or lower classes, or clusters
of tenements, often perhaps, under the same roof. On this point,
Zumpt, in the Dissertation before quoted, entirely disagrees with
M. de la Malle. Zumpt has likewise detected the mistake of M. de
la Malle as to the “canon” of corn, mentioned in the life of
Septimius Severus by Spartianus. On this canon the French writer
calculates the inhabitants of Rome at that time. But the “canon”
was not the whole supply of Rome, but that quantity which the
state required for the public granaries to supply the gratuitous
distributions to the people, and the public officers and slaves;
no doubt likewise to keep down the general price. M. Zumpt
reckons the population of Rome at 2,000,000. After careful
consideration, I should conceive the number in the text,
1,200,000, to be nearest the truth—M. 1845.]
Such was the state of Rome under the reign of Honorius; at the
time when the Gothic army formed the siege, or rather the
blockade, of the city. 74 By a skilful disposition of his
numerous forces, who impatiently watched the moment of an
assault, Alaric encompassed the walls, commanded the twelve
principal gates, intercepted all communication with the adjacent
country, and vigilantly guarded the navigation of the Tyber, from
which the Romans derived the surest and most plentiful supply of
provisions. The first emotions of the nobles, and of the people,
were those of surprise and indignation, that a vile Barbarian
should dare to insult the capital of the world: but their
arrogance was soon humbled by misfortune; and their unmanly rage,
instead of being directed against an enemy in arms, was meanly
exercised on a defenceless and innocent victim. Perhaps in the
person of Serena, the Romans might have respected the niece of
Theodosius, the aunt, nay, even the adoptive mother, of the
reigning emperor: but they abhorred the widow of Stilicho; and
they listened with credulous passion to the tale of calumny,
which accused her of maintaining a secret and criminal
correspondence with the Gothic invader. Actuated, or overawed, by
the same popular frenzy, the senate, without requiring any
evidence of his guilt, pronounced the sentence of her death.
Serena was ignominiously strangled; and the infatuated multitude
were astonished to find, that this cruel act of injustice did not
immediately produce the retreat of the Barbarians, and the
deliverance of the city. That unfortunate city gradually
experienced the distress of scarcity, and at length the horrid
calamities of famine. The daily allowance of three pounds of
bread was reduced to one half, to one third, to nothing; and the
price of corn still continued to rise in a rapid and extravagant
proportion. The poorer citizens, who were unable to purchase the
necessaries of life, solicited the precarious charity of the
rich; and for a while the public misery was alleviated by the
humanity of Laeta, the widow of the emperor Gratian, who had
fixed her residence at Rome, and consecrated to the use of the
indigent the princely revenue which she annually received from
the grateful successors of her husband. 75 But these private and
temporary donatives were insufficient to appease the hunger of a
numerous people; and the progress of famine invaded the marble
palaces of the senators themselves. The persons of both sexes,
who had been educated in the enjoyment of ease and luxury,
discovered how little is requisite to supply the demands of
nature; and lavished their unavailing treasures of gold and
silver, to obtain the coarse and scanty sustenance which they
would formerly have rejected with disdain. The food the most
repugnant to sense or imagination, the aliments the most
unwholesome and pernicious to the constitution, were eagerly
devoured, and fiercely disputed, by the rage of hunger. A dark
suspicion was entertained, that some desperate wretches fed on
the bodies of their fellow-creatures, whom they had secretly
murdered; and even mothers, (such was the horrid conflict of the
two most powerful instincts implanted by nature in the human
breast,) even mothers are said to have tasted the flesh of their
slaughtered infants! 76 Many thousands of the inhabitants of Rome
expired in their houses, or in the streets, for want of
sustenance; and as the public sepulchres without the walls were
in the power of the enemy the stench, which arose from so many
putrid and unburied carcasses, infected the air; and the miseries
of famine were succeeded and aggravated by the contagion of a
pestilential disease. The assurances of speedy and effectual
relief, which were repeatedly transmitted from the court of
Ravenna, supported for some time, the fainting resolution of the
Romans, till at length the despair of any human aid tempted them
to accept the offers of a praeternatural deliverance. Pompeianus,
praefect of the city, had been persuaded, by the art or
fanaticism of some Tuscan diviners, that, by the mysterious force
of spells and sacrifices, they could extract the lightning from
the clouds, and point those celestial fires against the camp of
the Barbarians. 77 The important secret was communicated to
Innocent, the bishop of Rome; and the successor of St. Peter is
accused, perhaps without foundation, of preferring the safety of
the republic to the rigid severity of the Christian worship. But
when the question was agitated in the senate; when it was
proposed, as an essential condition, that those sacrifices should
be performed in the Capitol, by the authority, and in the
presence, of the magistrates, the majority of that respectable
assembly, apprehensive either of the Divine or of the Imperial
displeasure, refused to join in an act, which appeared almost
equivalent to the public restoration of Paganism. 78
74 (return) [ For the events of the first siege of Rome, which
are often confounded with those of the second and third, see
Zosimus, l. v. p. 350-354, Sozomen, l. ix. c. 6, Olympiodorus,
ap. Phot. p. 180, Philostorgius, l. xii. c. 3, and Godefroy,
Dissertat. p. 467-475.]
75 (return) [ The mother of Laeta was named Pissumena. Her
father, family, and country, are unknown. Ducange, Fam.
Byzantium, p. 59.]
76 (return) [ Ad nefandos cibos erupit esurientium rabies, et sua
invicem membra laniarunt, dum mater non parcit lactenti
infantiae; et recipit utero, quem paullo ante effuderat. Jerom.
ad Principiam, tom. i. p. 121. The same horrid circumstance is
likewise told of the sieges of Jerusalem and Paris. For the
latter, compare the tenth book of the Henriade, and the Journal
de Henri IV. tom. i. p. 47-83; and observe that a plain narrative
of facts is much more pathetic, than the most labored
descriptions of epic poetry]
77 (return) [ Zosimus (l. v. p. 355, 356) speaks of these
ceremonies like a Greek unacquainted with the national
superstition of Rome and Tuscany. I suspect, that they consisted
of two parts, the secret and the public; the former were probably
an imitation of the arts and spells, by which Numa had drawn down
Jupiter and his thunder on Mount Aventine.
Quid agant laqueis, quae carmine dicant, Quaque trahant superis
sedibus arte Jovem, Scire nefas homini.
The ancilia, or shields of Mars, the pignora Imperii, which were
carried in solemn procession on the calends of March, derived
their origin from this mysterious event, (Ovid. Fast. iii.
259-398.) It was probably designed to revive this ancient
festival, which had been suppressed by Theodosius. In that case,
we recover a chronological date (March the 1st, A.D. 409) which
has not hitherto been observed. * Note: On this curious question
of the knowledge of conducting lightning, processed by the
ancients, consult Eusebe Salverte, des Sciences Occultes, l.
xxiv. Paris, 1829.—M.]
78 (return) [ Sozomen (l. ix. c. 6) insinuates that the
experiment was actually, though unsuccessfully, made; but he does
not mention the name of Innocent: and Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles.
tom. x. p. 645) is determined not to believe, that a pope could
be guilty of such impious condescension.]
The last resource of the Romans was in the clemency, or at least
in the moderation, of the king of the Goths. The senate, who in
this emergency assumed the supreme powers of government,
appointed two ambassadors to negotiate with the enemy. This
important trust was delegated to Basilius, a senator, of Spanish
extraction, and already conspicuous in the administration of
provinces; and to John, the first tribune of the notaries, who
was peculiarly qualified, by his dexterity in business, as well
as by his former intimacy with the Gothic prince. When they were
introduced into his presence, they declared, perhaps in a more
lofty style than became their abject condition, that the Romans
were resolved to maintain their dignity, either in peace or war;
and that, if Alaric refused them a fair and honorable
capitulation, he might sound his trumpets, and prepare to give
battle to an innumerable people, exercised in arms, and animated
by despair. “The thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed,” was
the concise reply of the Barbarian; and this rustic metaphor was
accompanied by a loud and insulting laugh, expressive of his
contempt for the menaces of an unwarlike populace, enervated by
luxury before they were emaciated by famine. He then condescended
to fix the ransom, which he would accept as the price of his
retreat from the walls of Rome: all the gold and silver in the
city, whether it were the property of the state, or of
individuals; all the rich and precious movables; and all the
slaves that could prove their title to the name of Barbarians.
The ministers of the senate presumed to ask, in a modest and
suppliant tone, “If such, O king, are your demands, what do you
intend to leave us?” “Your Lives!” replied the haughty conqueror:
they trembled, and retired. Yet, before they retired, a short
suspension of arms was granted, which allowed some time for a
more temperate negotiation. The stern features of Alaric were
insensibly relaxed; he abated much of the rigor of his terms; and
at length consented to raise the siege, on the immediate payment
of five thousand pounds of gold, of thirty thousand pounds of
silver, of four thousand robes of silk, of three thousand pieces
of fine scarlet cloth, and of three thousand pounds weight of
pepper. 79 But the public treasury was exhausted; the annual
rents of the great estates in Italy and the provinces, had been
exchanged, during the famine, for the vilest sustenance; the
hoards of secret wealth were still concealed by the obstinacy of
avarice; and some remains of consecrated spoils afforded the only
resource that could avert the impending ruin of the city. As soon
as the Romans had satisfied the rapacious demands of Alaric, they
were restored, in some measure, to the enjoyment of peace and
plenty. Several of the gates were cautiously opened; the
importation of provisions from the river and the adjacent country
was no longer obstructed by the Goths; the citizens resorted in
crowds to the free market, which was held during three days in
the suburbs; and while the merchants who undertook this gainful
trade made a considerable profit, the future subsistence of the
city was secured by the ample magazines which were deposited in
the public and private granaries. A more regular discipline than
could have been expected, was maintained in the camp of Alaric;
and the wise Barbarian justified his regard for the faith of
treaties, by the just severity with which he chastised a party of
licentious Goths, who had insulted some Roman citizens on the
road to Ostia. His army, enriched by the contributions of the
capital, slowly advanced into the fair and fruitful province of
Tuscany, where he proposed to establish his winter quarters; and
the Gothic standard became the refuge of forty thousand Barbarian
slaves, who had broke their chains, and aspired, under the
command of their great deliverer, to revenge the injuries and the
disgrace of their cruel servitude. About the same time, he
received a more honorable reenforcement of Goths and Huns, whom
Adolphus, 80 the brother of his wife, had conducted, at his
pressing invitation, from the banks of the Danube to those of the
Tyber, and who had cut their way, with some difficulty and loss,
through the superior number of the Imperial troops. A victorious
leader, who united the daring spirit of a Barbarian with the art
and discipline of a Roman general, was at the head of a hundred
thousand fighting men; and Italy pronounced, with terror and
respect, the formidable name of Alaric. 81
79 (return) [ Pepper was a favorite ingredient of the most
expensive Roman cookery, and the best sort commonly sold for
fifteen denarii, or ten shillings, the pound. See Pliny, Hist.
Natur. xii. 14. It was brought from India; and the same country,
the coast of Malabar, still affords the greatest plenty: but the
improvement of trade and navigation has multiplied the quantity
and reduced the price. See Histoire Politique et Philosophique,
&c., tom. i. p. 457.]
80 (return) [ This Gothic chieftain is called by Jornandes and
Isidore, Athaulphus; by Zosimus and Orosius, Ataulphus; and by
Olympiodorus, Adaoulphus. I have used the celebrated name of
Adolphus, which seems to be authorized by the practice of the
Swedes, the sons or brothers of the ancient Goths.]
81 (return) [ The treaty between Alaric and the Romans, &c., is
taken from Zosimus, l. v. p. 354, 355, 358, 359, 362, 363. The
additional circumstances are too few and trifling to require any
other quotation.]
Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By
Barbarians.—Part IV.
At the distance of fourteen centuries, we may be satisfied with
relating the military exploits of the conquerors of Rome, without
presuming to investigate the motives of their political conduct.
In the midst of his apparent prosperity, Alaric was conscious,
perhaps, of some secret weakness, some internal defect; or
perhaps the moderation which he displayed, was intended only to
deceive and disarm the easy credulity of the ministers of
Honorius. The king of the Goths repeatedly declared, that it was
his desire to be considered as the friend of peace, and of the
Romans. Three senators, at his earnest request, were sent
ambassadors to the court of Ravenna, to solicit the exchange of
hostages, and the conclusion of the treaty; and the proposals,
which he more clearly expressed during the course of the
negotiations, could only inspire a doubt of his sincerity, as
they might seem inadequate to the state of his fortune. The
Barbarian still aspired to the rank of master-general of the
armies of the West; he stipulated an annual subsidy of corn and
money; and he chose the provinces of Dalmatia, Noricum, and
Venetia, for the seat of his new kingdom, which would have
commanded the important communication between Italy and the
Danube. If these modest terms should be rejected, Alaric showed a
disposition to relinquish his pecuniary demands, and even to
content himself with the possession of Noricum; an exhausted and
impoverished country, perpetually exposed to the inroads of the
Barbarians of Germany. 82 But the hopes of peace were
disappointed by the weak obstinacy, or interested views, of the
minister Olympius. Without listening to the salutary
remonstrances of the senate, he dismissed their ambassadors under
the conduct of a military escort, too numerous for a retinue of
honor, and too feeble for any army of defence. Six thousand
Dalmatians, the flower of the Imperial legions, were ordered to
march from Ravenna to Rome, through an open country which was
occupied by the formidable myriads of the Barbarians. These brave
legionaries, encompassed and betrayed, fell a sacrifice to
ministerial folly; their general, Valens, with a hundred
soldiers, escaped from the field of battle; and one of the
ambassadors, who could no longer claim the protection of the law
of nations, was obliged to purchase his freedom with a ransom of
thirty thousand pieces of gold. Yet Alaric, instead of resenting
this act of impotent hostility, immediately renewed his proposals
of peace; and the second embassy of the Roman senate, which
derived weight and dignity from the presence of Innocent, bishop
of the city, was guarded from the dangers of the road by a
detachment of Gothic soldiers. 83
82 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 367 368, 369.]
83 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 360, 361, 362. The bishop, by
remaining at Ravenna, escaped the impending calamities of the
city. Orosius, l. vii. c. 39, p. 573.]
Olympius 84 might have continued to insult the just resentment of
a people who loudly accused him as the author of the public
calamities; but his power was undermined by the secret intrigues
of the palace. The favorite eunuchs transferred the government of
Honorius, and the empire, to Jovius, the Prætorian praefect; an
unworthy servant, who did not atone, by the merit of personal
attachment, for the errors and misfortunes of his administration.
The exile, or escape, of the guilty Olympius, reserved him for
more vicissitudes of fortune: he experienced the adventures of an
obscure and wandering life; he again rose to power; he fell a
second time into disgrace; his ears were cut off; he expired
under the lash; and his ignominious death afforded a grateful
spectacle to the friends of Stilicho. After the removal of
Olympius, whose character was deeply tainted with religious
fanaticism, the Pagans and heretics were delivered from the
impolitic proscription, which excluded them from the dignities of
the state. The brave Gennerid, 85 a soldier of Barbarian origin,
who still adhered to the worship of his ancestors, had been
obliged to lay aside the military belt: and though he was
repeatedly assured by the emperor himself, that laws were not
made for persons of his rank or merit, he refused to accept any
partial dispensation, and persevered in honorable disgrace, till
he had extorted a general act of justice from the distress of the
Roman government. The conduct of Gennerid in the important
station to which he was promoted or restored, of master-general
of Dalmatia, Pannonia, Noricum, and Rhaetia, seemed to revive the
discipline and spirit of the republic. From a life of idleness
and want, his troops were soon habituated to severe exercise and
plentiful subsistence; and his private generosity often supplied
the rewards, which were denied by the avarice, or poverty, of the
court of Ravenna. The valor of Gennerid, formidable to the
adjacent Barbarians, was the firmest bulwark of the Illyrian
frontier; and his vigilant care assisted the empire with a
reenforcement of ten thousand Huns, who arrived on the confines
of Italy, attended by such a convoy of provisions, and such a
numerous train of sheep and oxen, as might have been sufficient,
not only for the march of an army, but for the settlement of a
colony. But the court and councils of Honorius still remained a
scene of weakness and distraction, of corruption and anarchy.
Instigated by the praefect Jovius, the guards rose in furious
mutiny, and demanded the heads of two generals, and of the two
principal eunuchs. The generals, under a perfidious promise of
safety, were sent on shipboard, and privately executed; while the
favor of the eunuchs procured them a mild and secure exile at
Milan and Constantinople. Eusebius the eunuch, and the Barbarian
Allobich, succeeded to the command of the bed-chamber and of the
guards; and the mutual jealousy of these subordinate ministers
was the cause of their mutual destruction. By the insolent order
of the count of the domestics, the great chamberlain was
shamefully beaten to death with sticks, before the eyes of the
astonished emperor; and the subsequent assassination of Allobich,
in the midst of a public procession, is the only circumstance of
his life, in which Honorius discovered the faintest symptom of
courage or resentment. Yet before they fell, Eusebius and
Allobich had contributed their part to the ruin of the empire, by
opposing the conclusion of a treaty which Jovius, from a selfish,
and perhaps a criminal, motive, had negotiated with Alaric, in a
personal interview under the walls of Rimini. During the absence
of Jovius, the emperor was persuaded to assume a lofty tone of
inflexible dignity, such as neither his situation, nor his
character, could enable him to support; and a letter, signed with
the name of Honorius, was immediately despatched to the Prætorian
praefect, granting him a free permission to dispose of the public
money, but sternly refusing to prostitute the military honors of
Rome to the proud demands of a Barbarian. This letter was
imprudently communicated to Alaric himself; and the Goth, who in
the whole transaction had behaved with temper and decency,
expressed, in the most outrageous language, his lively sense of
the insult so wantonly offered to his person and to his nation.
The conference of Rimini was hastily interrupted; and the
praefect Jovius, on his return to Ravenna, was compelled to
adopt, and even to encourage, the fashionable opinions of the
court. By his advice and example, the principal officers of the
state and army were obliged to swear, that, without listening, in
any circumstances, to any conditions of peace, they would still
persevere in perpetual and implacable war against the enemy of
the republic. This rash engagement opposed an insuperable bar to
all future negotiation. The ministers of Honorius were heard to
declare, that, if they had only invoked the name of the Deity,
they would consult the public safety, and trust their souls to
the mercy of Heaven: but they had sworn by the sacred head of the
emperor himself; they had touched, in solemn ceremony, that
august seat of majesty and wisdom; and the violation of their
oath would expose them to the temporal penalties of sacrilege and
rebellion. 86
84 (return) [ For the adventures of Olympius, and his successors
in the ministry, see Zosimus, l. v. p. 363, 365, 366, and
Olympiodor. ap. Phot. p. 180, 181. ]
85 (return) [ Zosimus (l. v. p. 364) relates this circumstance
with visible complacency, and celebrates the character of
Gennerid as the last glory of expiring Paganism. Very different
were the sentiments of the council of Carthage, who deputed four
bishops to the court of Ravenna to complain of the law, which had
been just enacted, that all conversions to Christianity should be
free and voluntary. See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 409, No.
12, A.D. 410, No. 47, 48.]
86 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 367, 368, 369. This custom of
swearing by the head, or life, or safety, or genius, of the
sovereign, was of the highest antiquity, both in Egypt (Genesis,
xlii. 15) and Scythia. It was soon transferred, by flattery, to
the Caesars; and Tertullian complains, that it was the only oath
which the Romans of his time affected to reverence. See an
elegant Dissertation of the Abbe Mossieu on the Oaths of the
Ancients, in the Mem de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. i. p.
208, 209.]
While the emperor and his court enjoyed, with sullen pride, the
security of the marches and fortifications of Ravenna, they
abandoned Rome, almost without defence, to the resentment of
Alaric. Yet such was the moderation which he still preserved, or
affected, that, as he moved with his army along the Flaminian
way, he successively despatched the bishops of the towns of Italy
to reiterate his offers of peace, and to conjure the emperor,
that he would save the city and its inhabitants from hostile
fire, and the sword of the Barbarians. 87 These impending
calamities were, however, averted, not indeed by the wisdom of
Honorius, but by the prudence or humanity of the Gothic king; who
employed a milder, though not less effectual, method of conquest.
Instead of assaulting the capital, he successfully directed his
efforts against the Port of Ostia, one of the boldest and most
stupendous works of Roman magnificence. 88 The accidents to which
the precarious subsistence of the city was continually exposed in
a winter navigation, and an open road, had suggested to the
genius of the first Caesar the useful design, which was executed
under the reign of Claudius. The artificial moles, which formed
the narrow entrance, advanced far into the sea, and firmly
repelled the fury of the waves, while the largest vessels
securely rode at anchor within three deep and capacious basins,
which received the northern branch of the Tyber, about two miles
from the ancient colony of Ostia. 89 The Roman Port insensibly
swelled to the size of an episcopal city, 90 where the corn of
Africa was deposited in spacious granaries for the use of the
capital. As soon as Alaric was in possession of that important
place, he summoned the city to surrender at discretion; and his
demands were enforced by the positive declaration, that a
refusal, or even a delay, should be instantly followed by the
destruction of the magazines, on which the life of the Roman
people depended. The clamors of that people, and the terror of
famine, subdued the pride of the senate; they listened, without
reluctance, to the proposal of placing a new emperor on the
throne of the unworthy Honorius; and the suffrage of the Gothic
conqueror bestowed the purple on Attalus, praefect of the city.
The grateful monarch immediately acknowledged his protector as
master-general of the armies of the West; Adolphus, with the rank
of count of the domestics, obtained the custody of the person of
Attalus; and the two hostile nations seemed to be united in the
closest bands of friendship and alliance. 91
87 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 368, 369. I have softened the
expressions of Alaric, who expatiates, in too florid a manner, on
the history of Rome]
88 (return) [ See Sueton. in Claud. c. 20. Dion Cassius, l. lx.
p. 949, edit Reimar, and the lively description of Juvenal,
Satir. xii. 75, &c. In the sixteenth century, when the remains of
this Augustan port were still visible, the antiquarians sketched
the plan, (see D’Anville, Mem. de l’Academie des Inscriptions,
tom. xxx. p. 198,) and declared, with enthusiasm, that all the
monarchs of Europe would be unable to execute so great a work,
(Bergier, Hist. des grands Chemins des Romains, tom. ii. p.
356.)]
89 (return) [ The Ostia Tyberina, (see Cluver. Italia Antiq. l.
iii. p. 870-879,) in the plural number, the two mouths of the
Tyber, were separated by the Holy Island, an equilateral
triangle, whose sides were each of them computed at about two
miles. The colony of Ostia was founded immediately beyond the
left, or southern, and the Port immediately beyond the right, or
northern, branch of hte river; and the distance between their
remains measures something more than two miles on Cingolani’s
map. In the time of Strabo, the sand and mud deposited by the
Tyber had choked the harbor of Ostia; the progress of the same
cause has added much to the size of the Holy Islands, and
gradually left both Ostia and the Port at a considerable distance
from the shore. The dry channels (fiumi morti) and the large
estuaries (stagno di Ponente, di Levante) mark the changes of the
river, and the efforts of the sea. Consult, for the present state
of this dreary and desolate tract, the excellent map of the
ecclesiastical state by the mathematicians of Benedict XIV.; an
actual survey of the Agro Romano, in six sheets, by Cingolani,
which contains 113,819 rubbia, (about 570,000 acres;) and the
large topographical map of Ameti, in eight sheets.]
90 (return) [ As early as the third, (Lardner’s Credibility of
the Gospel, part ii. vol. iii. p. 89-92,) or at least the fourth,
century, (Carol. a Sancta Paulo, Notit. Eccles. p. 47,) the Port
of Rome was an episcopal city, which was demolished, as it should
seem in the ninth century, by Pope Gregory IV., during the
incursions of the Arabs. It is now reduced to an inn, a church,
and the house, or palace, of the bishop; who ranks as one of six
cardinal-bishops of the Roman church. See Eschinard, Deserizione
di Roman et dell’ Agro Romano, p. 328. * Note: Compare Sir W.
Gell. Rome and its Vicinity vol. ii p. 134.—M.]
91 (return) [ For the elevation of Attalus, consult Zosimus, l.
vi. p. 377-380, Sozomen, l. ix. c. 8, 9, Olympiodor. ap. Phot. p.
180, 181, Philostorg. l. xii. c. 3, and Godefroy’s Dissertat. p.
470.]
The gates of the city were thrown open, and the new emperor of
the Romans, encompassed on every side by the Gothic arms, was
conducted, in tumultuous procession, to the palace of Augustus
and Trajan. After he had distributed the civil and military
dignities among his favorites and followers, Attalus convened an
assembly of the senate; before whom, in a formal and florid
speech, he asserted his resolution of restoring the majesty of
the republic, and of uniting to the empire the provinces of Egypt
and the East, which had once acknowledged the sovereignty of
Rome. Such extravagant promises inspired every reasonable citizen
with a just contempt for the character of an unwarlike usurper,
whose elevation was the deepest and most ignominious wound which
the republic had yet sustained from the insolence of the
Barbarians. But the populace, with their usual levity, applauded
the change of masters. The public discontent was favorable to the
rival of Honorius; and the sectaries, oppressed by his
persecuting edicts, expected some degree of countenance, or at
least of toleration, from a prince, who, in his native country of
Ionia, had been educated in the Pagan superstition, and who had
since received the sacrament of baptism from the hands of an
Arian bishop. 92 The first days of the reign of Attalus were fair
and prosperous. An officer of confidence was sent with an
inconsiderable body of troops to secure the obedience of Africa;
the greatest part of Italy submitted to the terror of the Gothic
powers; and though the city of Bologna made a vigorous and
effectual resistance, the people of Milan, dissatisfied perhaps
with the absence of Honorius, accepted, with loud acclamations,
the choice of the Roman senate. At the head of a formidable army,
Alaric conducted his royal captive almost to the gates of
Ravenna; and a solemn embassy of the principal ministers, of
Jovius, the Prætorian praefect, of Valens, master of the cavalry
and infantry, of the quaestor Potamius, and of Julian, the first
of the notaries, was introduced, with martial pomp, into the
Gothic camp. In the name of their sovereign, they consented to
acknowledge the lawful election of his competitor, and to divide
the provinces of Italy and the West between the two emperors.
Their proposals were rejected with disdain; and the refusal was
aggravated by the insulting clemency of Attalus, who condescended
to promise, that, if Honorius would instantly resign the purple,
he should be permitted to pass the remainder of his life in the
peaceful exile of some remote island. 93 So desperate indeed did
the situation of the son of Theodosius appear, to those who were
the best acquainted with his strength and resources, that Jovius
and Valens, his minister and his general, betrayed their trust,
infamously deserted the sinking cause of their benefactor, and
devoted their treacherous allegiance to the service of his more
fortunate rival. Astonished by such examples of domestic treason,
Honorius trembled at the approach of every servant, at the
arrival of every messenger. He dreaded the secret enemies, who
might lurk in his capital, his palace, his bed-chamber; and some
ships lay ready in the harbor of Ravenna, to transport the
abdicated monarch to the dominions of his infant nephew, the
emperor of the East.
92 (return) [ We may admit the evidence of Sozomen for the Arian
baptism, and that of Philostorgius for the Pagan education, of
Attalus. The visible joy of Zosimus, and the discontent which he
imputes to the Anician family, are very unfavorable to the
Christianity of the new emperor.]
93 (return) [ He carried his insolence so far, as to declare that
he should mutilate Honorius before he sent him into exile. But
this assertion of Zosimus is destroyed by the more impartial
testimony of Olympiodorus; who attributes the ungenerous proposal
(which was absolutely rejected by Attalus) to the baseness, and
perhaps the treachery, of Jovius.]
But there is a Providence (such at least was the opinion of the
historian Procopius) 94 that watches over innocence and folly;
and the pretensions of Honorius to its peculiar care cannot
reasonably be disputed. At the moment when his despair, incapable
of any wise or manly resolution, meditated a shameful flight, a
seasonable reenforcement of four thousand veterans unexpectedly
landed in the port of Ravenna. To these valiant strangers, whose
fidelity had not been corrupted by the factions of the court, he
committed the walls and gates of the city; and the slumbers of
the emperor were no longer disturbed by the apprehension of
imminent and internal danger. The favorable intelligence which
was received from Africa suddenly changed the opinions of men,
and the state of public affairs. The troops and officers, whom
Attalus had sent into that province, were defeated and slain; and
the active zeal of Heraclian maintained his own allegiance, and
that of his people. The faithful count of Africa transmitted a
large sum of money, which fixed the attachment of the Imperial
guards; and his vigilance, in preventing the exportation of corn
and oil, introduced famine, tumult, and discontent, into the
walls of Rome. The failure of the African expedition was the
source of mutual complaint and recrimination in the party of
Attalus; and the mind of his protector was insensibly alienated
from the interest of a prince, who wanted spirit to command, or
docility to obey. The most imprudent measures were adopted,
without the knowledge, or against the advice, of Alaric; and the
obstinate refusal of the senate, to allow, in the embarkation,
the mixture even of five hundred Goths, betrayed a suspicious and
distrustful temper, which, in their situation, was neither
generous nor prudent. The resentment of the Gothic king was
exasperated by the malicious arts of Jovius, who had been raised
to the rank of patrician, and who afterwards excused his double
perfidy, by declaring, without a blush, that he had only seemed
to abandon the service of Honorius, more effectually to ruin the
cause of the usurper. In a large plain near Rimini, and in the
presence of an innumerable multitude of Romans and Barbarians,
the wretched Attalus was publicly despoiled of the diadem and
purple; and those ensigns of royalty were sent by Alaric, as the
pledge of peace and friendship, to the son of Theodosius. 95 The
officers who returned to their duty, were reinstated in their
employments, and even the merit of a tardy repentance was
graciously allowed; but the degraded emperor of the Romans,
desirous of life, and insensible of disgrace, implored the
permission of following the Gothic camp, in the train of a
haughty and capricious Barbarian. 96
94 (return) [ Procop. de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 2.]
95 (return) [ See the cause and circumstances of the fall of
Attalus in Zosimus, l. vi. p. 380-383. Sozomen, l. ix. c. 8.
Philostorg. l. xii. c. 3. The two acts of indemnity in the
Theodosian Code, l. ix. tit. xxxviii. leg. 11, 12, which were
published the 12th of February, and the 8th of August, A.D. 410,
evidently relate to this usurper.]
96 (return) [ In hoc, Alaricus, imperatore, facto, infecto,
refecto, ac defecto... Mimum risit, et ludum spectavit imperii.
Orosius, l. vii. c. 42, p. 582.]
The degradation of Attalus removed the only real obstacle to the
conclusion of the peace; and Alaric advanced within three miles
of Ravenna, to press the irresolution of the Imperial ministers,
whose insolence soon returned with the return of fortune. His
indignation was kindled by the report, that a rival chieftain,
that Sarus, the personal enemy of Adolphus, and the hereditary
foe of the house of Balti, had been received into the palace. At
the head of three hundred followers, that fearless Barbarian
immediately sallied from the gates of Ravenna; surprised, and cut
in pieces, a considerable body of Goths; reentered the city in
triumph; and was permitted to insult his adversary, by the voice
of a herald, who publicly declared that the guilt of Alaric had
forever excluded him from the friendship and alliance of the
emperor. 97 The crime and folly of the court of Ravenna was
expiated, a third time, by the calamities of Rome. The king of
the Goths, who no longer dissembled his appetite for plunder and
revenge, appeared in arms under the walls of the capital; and the
trembling senate, without any hopes of relief, prepared, by a
desperate resistance, to defray the ruin of their country. But
they were unable to guard against the secret conspiracy of their
slaves and domestics; who, either from birth or interest, were
attached to the cause of the enemy. At the hour of midnight, the
Salarian gate was silently opened, and the inhabitants were
awakened by the tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet. Eleven
hundred and sixty-three years after the foundation of Rome, the
Imperial city, which had subdued and civilized so considerable a
part of mankind, was delivered to the licentious fury of the
tribes of Germany and Scythia. 98
97 (return) [ Zosimus, l. vi. p. 384. Sozomen, l. ix. c. 9.
Philostorgius, l. xii. c. 3. In this place the text of Zosimus is
mutilated, and we have lost the remainder of his sixth and last
book, which ended with the sack of Rome. Credulous and partial as
he is, we must take our leave of that historian with some
regret.]
98 (return) [ Adest Alaricus, trepidam Romam obsidet, turbat,
irrumpit. Orosius, l. vii. c. 39, p. 573. He despatches this
great event in seven words; but he employs whole pages in
celebrating the devotion of the Goths. I have extracted from an
improbable story of Procopius, the circumstances which had an air
of probability. Procop. de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 2. He supposes
that the city was surprised while the senators slept in the
afternoon; but Jerom, with more authority and more reason,
affirms, that it was in the night, nocte Moab capta est. nocte
cecidit murus ejus, tom. i. p. 121, ad Principiam.]
The proclamation of Alaric, when he forced his entrance into a
vanquished city, discovered, however, some regard for the laws of
humanity and religion. He encouraged his troops boldly to seize
the rewards of valor, and to enrich themselves with the spoils of
a wealthy and effeminate people: but he exhorted them, at the
same time, to spare the lives of the unresisting citizens, and to
respect the churches of the apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, as
holy and inviolable sanctuaries. Amidst the horrors of a
nocturnal tumult, several of the Christian Goths displayed the
fervor of a recent conversion; and some instances of their
uncommon piety and moderation are related, and perhaps adorned,
by the zeal of ecclesiastical writers. 99 While the Barbarians
roamed through the city in quest of prey, the humble dwelling of
an aged virgin, who had devoted her life to the service of the
altar, was forced open by one of the powerful Goths. He
immediately demanded, though in civil language, all the gold and
silver in her possession; and was astonished at the readiness
with which she conducted him to a splendid hoard of massy plate,
of the richest materials, and the most curious workmanship. The
Barbarian viewed with wonder and delight this valuable
acquisition, till he was interrupted by a serious admonition,
addressed to him in the following words: “These,” said she, “are
the consecrated vessels belonging to St. Peter: if you presume to
touch them, the sacrilegious deed will remain on your conscience.
For my part, I dare not keep what I am unable to defend.” The
Gothic captain, struck with reverential awe, despatched a
messenger to inform the king of the treasure which he had
discovered; and received a peremptory order from Alaric, that all
the consecrated plate and ornaments should be transported,
without damage or delay, to the church of the apostle. From the
extremity, perhaps, of the Quirinal hill, to the distant quarter
of the Vatican, a numerous detachment of Goths, marching in order
of battle through the principal streets, protected, with
glittering arms, the long train of their devout companions, who
bore aloft, on their heads, the sacred vessels of gold and
silver; and the martial shouts of the Barbarians were mingled
with the sound of religious psalmody. From all the adjacent
houses, a crowd of Christians hastened to join this edifying
procession; and a multitude of fugitives, without distinction of
age, or rank, or even of sect, had the good fortune to escape to
the secure and hospitable sanctuary of the Vatican. The learned
work, concerning the City of God, was professedly composed by St.
Augustin, to justify the ways of Providence in the destruction of
the Roman greatness. He celebrates, with peculiar satisfaction,
this memorable triumph of Christ; and insults his adversaries, by
challenging them to produce some similar example of a town taken
by storm, in which the fabulous gods of antiquity had been able
to protect either themselves or their deluded votaries. 100
99 (return) [ Orosius (l. vii. c. 39, p. 573-576) applauds the
piety of the Christian Goths, without seeming to perceive that
the greatest part of them were Arian heretics. Jornandes (c. 30,
p. 653) and Isidore of Seville, (Chron. p. 417, edit. Grot.,) who
were both attached to the Gothic cause, have repeated and
embellished these edifying tales. According to Isidore, Alaric
himself was heard to say, that he waged war with the Romans, and
not with the apostles. Such was the style of the seventh century;
two hundred years before, the fame and merit had been ascribed,
not to the apostles, but to Christ.]
100 (return) [ See Augustin, de Civitat. Dei, l. i. c. 1-6. He
particularly appeals to the examples of Troy, Syracuse, and
Tarentum.]
In the sack of Rome, some rare and extraordinary examples of
Barbarian virtue have been deservedly applauded. But the holy
precincts of the Vatican, and the apostolic churches, could
receive a very small proportion of the Roman people; many
thousand warriors, more especially of the Huns, who served under
the standard of Alaric, were strangers to the name, or at least
to the faith, of Christ; and we may suspect, without any breach
of charity or candor, that in the hour of savage license, when
every passion was inflamed, and every restraint was removed, the
precepts of the Gospel seldom influenced the behavior of the
Gothic Christians. The writers, the best disposed to exaggerate
their clemency, have freely confessed, that a cruel slaughter was
made of the Romans; 101 and that the streets of the city were
filled with dead bodies, which remained without burial during the
general consternation. The despair of the citizens was sometimes
converted into fury: and whenever the Barbarians were provoked by
opposition, they extended the promiscuous massacre to the feeble,
the innocent, and the helpless. The private revenge of forty
thousand slaves was exercised without pity or remorse; and the
ignominious lashes, which they had formerly received, were washed
away in the blood of the guilty, or obnoxious, families. The
matrons and virgins of Rome were exposed to injuries more
dreadful, in the apprehension of chastity, than death itself; and
the ecclesiastical historian has selected an example of female
virtue, for the admiration of future ages. 102 A Roman lady, of
singular beauty and orthodox faith, had excited the impatient
desires of a young Goth, who, according to the sagacious remark
of Sozomen, was attached to the Arian heresy. Exasperated by her
obstinate resistance, he drew his sword, and, with the anger of a
lover, slightly wounded her neck. The bleeding heroine still
continued to brave his resentment, and to repel his love, till
the ravisher desisted from his unavailing efforts, respectfully
conducted her to the sanctuary of the Vatican, and gave six
pieces of gold to the guards of the church, on condition that
they should restore her inviolate to the arms of her husband.
Such instances of courage and generosity were not extremely
common. The brutal soldiers satisfied their sensual appetites,
without consulting either the inclination or the duties of their
female captives: and a nice question of casuistry was seriously
agitated, Whether those tender victims, who had inflexibly
refused their consent to the violation which they sustained, had
lost, by their misfortune, the glorious crown of virginity. 103
Their were other losses indeed of a more substantial kind, and
more general concern. It cannot be presumed, that all the
Barbarians were at all times capable of perpetrating such amorous
outrages; and the want of youth, or beauty, or chastity,
protected the greatest part of the Roman women from the danger of
a rape. But avarice is an insatiate and universal passion; since
the enjoyment of almost every object that can afford pleasure to
the different tastes and tempers of mankind may be procured by
the possession of wealth. In the pillage of Rome, a just
preference was given to gold and jewels, which contain the
greatest value in the smallest compass and weight: but, after
these portable riches had been removed by the more diligent
robbers, the palaces of Rome were rudely stripped of their
splendid and costly furniture. The sideboards of massy plate, and
the variegated wardrobes of silk and purple, were irregularly
piled in the wagons, that always followed the march of a Gothic
army. The most exquisite works of art were roughly handled, or
wantonly destroyed; many a statue was melted for the sake of the
precious materials; and many a vase, in the division of the
spoil, was shivered into fragments by the stroke of a battle-axe.
The acquisition of riches served only to stimulate the avarice of
the rapacious Barbarians, who proceeded, by threats, by blows,
and by tortures, to force from their prisoners the confession of
hidden treasure. 104 Visible splendor and expense were alleged as
the proof of a plentiful fortune; the appearance of poverty was
imputed to a parsimonious disposition; and the obstinacy of some
misers, who endured the most cruel torments before they would
discover the secret object of their affection, was fatal to many
unhappy wretches, who expired under the lash, for refusing to
reveal their imaginary treasures. The edifices of Rome, though
the damage has been much exaggerated, received some injury from
the violence of the Goths. At their entrance through the Salarian
gate, they fired the adjacent houses to guide their march, and to
distract the attention of the citizens; the flames, which
encountered no obstacle in the disorder of the night, consumed
many private and public buildings; and the ruins of the palace of
Sallust 105 remained, in the age of Justinian, a stately monument
of the Gothic conflagration. 106 Yet a contemporary historian has
observed, that fire could scarcely consume the enormous beams of
solid brass, and that the strength of man was insufficient to
subvert the foundations of ancient structures. Some truth may
possibly be concealed in his devout assertion, that the wrath of
Heaven supplied the imperfections of hostile rage; and that the
proud Forum of Rome, decorated with the statues of so many gods
and heroes, was levelled in the dust by the stroke of lightning.
107
101 (return) [ Jerom (tom. i. p. 121, ad Principiam) has applied
to the sack of Rome all the strong expressions of Virgil:—
Quis cladem illius noctis, quis funera fando, Explicet, &c.
Procopius (l. i. c. 2) positively affirms that great numbers were
slain by the Goths. Augustin (de Civ. Dei, l. i. c. 12, 13)
offers Christian comfort for the death of those whose bodies
(multa corpora) had remained (in tanta strage) unburied.
Baronius, from the different writings of the Fathers, has thrown
some light on the sack of Rome. Annal. Eccles. A.D. 410, No.
16-34.]
102 (return) [ Sozomen. l. ix. c. 10. Augustin (de Civitat. Dei,
l. i. c. 17) intimates, that some virgins or matrons actually
killed themselves to escape violation; and though he admires
their spirit, he is obliged, by his theology, to condemn their
rash presumption. Perhaps the good bishop of Hippo was too easy
in the belief, as well as too rigid in the censure, of this act
of female heroism. The twenty maidens (if they ever existed) who
threw themselves into the Elbe, when Magdeburgh was taken by
storm, have been multiplied to the number of twelve hundred. See
Harte’s History of Gustavus Adolphus, vol. i. p. 308.]
103 (return) [ See Augustin de Civitat. Dei, l. i. c. 16, 18. He
treats the subject with remarkable accuracy: and after admitting
that there cannot be any crime where there is no consent, he
adds, Sed quia non solum quod ad dolorem, verum etiam quod ad
libidinem, pertinet, in corpore alieno pepetrari potest; quicquid
tale factum fuerit, etsi retentam constantissimo animo pudicitiam
non excutit, pudorem tamen incutit, ne credatur factum cum mentis
etiam voluntate, quod fieri fortasse sine carnis aliqua voluptate
non potuit. In c. 18 he makes some curious distinctions between
moral and physical virginity.]
104 (return) [ Marcella, a Roman lady, equally respectable for
her rank, her age, and her piety, was thrown on the ground, and
cruelly beaten and whipped, caesam fustibus flagellisque, &c.
Jerom, tom. i. p. 121, ad Principiam. See Augustin, de Civ. Dei,
l. c. 10. The modern Sacco di Roma, p. 208, gives an idea of the
various methods of torturing prisoners for gold.]
105 (return) [ The historian Sallust, who usefully practiced the
vices which he has so eloquently censured, employed the plunder
of Numidia to adorn his palace and gardens on the Quirinal hill.
The spot where the house stood is now marked by the church of St.
Susanna, separated only by a street from the baths of Diocletian,
and not far distant from the Salarian gate. See Nardini, Roma
Antica, p. 192, 193, and the great I’lan of Modern Rome, by
Nolli.]
106 (return) [ The expressions of Procopius are distinct and
moderate, (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 2.) The Chronicle of
Marcellinus speaks too strongly partem urbis Romae cremavit; and
the words of Philostorgius (l. xii. c. 3) convey a false and
exaggerated idea. Bargaeus has composed a particular dissertation
(see tom. iv. Antiquit. Rom. Graev.) to prove that the edifices
of Rome were not subverted by the Goths and Vandals.]
107 (return) [ Orosius, l. ii. c. 19, p. 143. He speaks as if he
disapproved all statues; vel Deum vel hominem mentiuntur. They
consisted of the kings of Alba and Rome from Aeneas, the Romans,
illustrious either in arms or arts, and the deified Caesars. The
expression which he uses of Forum is somewhat ambiguous, since
there existed five principal Fora; but as they were all
contiguous and adjacent, in the plain which is surrounded by the
Capitoline, the Quirinal, the Esquiline, and the Palatine hills,
they might fairly be considered as one. See the Roma Antiqua of
Donatus, p. 162-201, and the Roma Antica of Nardini, p. 212-273.
The former is more useful for the ancient descriptions, the
latter for the actual topography.]
Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By
Barbarians.—Part V.
Whatever might be the numbers of equestrian or plebeian rank, who
perished in the massacre of Rome, it is confidently affirmed that
only one senator lost his life by the sword of the enemy. 108 But
it was not easy to compute the multitudes, who, from an honorable
station and a prosperous fortune, were suddenly reduced to the
miserable condition of captives and exiles. As the Barbarians had
more occasion for money than for slaves, they fixed at a moderate
price the redemption of their indigent prisoners; and the ransom
was often paid by the benevolence of their friends, or the
charity of strangers. 109 The captives, who were regularly sold,
either in open market, or by private contract, would have legally
regained their native freedom, which it was impossible for a
citizen to lose, or to alienate. 110 But as it was soon
discovered that the vindication of their liberty would endanger
their lives; and that the Goths, unless they were tempted to
sell, might be provoked to murder, their useless prisoners; the
civil jurisprudence had been already qualified by a wise
regulation, that they should be obliged to serve the moderate
term of five years, till they had discharged by their labor the
price of their redemption. 111 The nations who invaded the Roman
empire, had driven before them, into Italy, whole troops of
hungry and affrighted provincials, less apprehensive of servitude
than of famine. The calamities of Rome and Italy dispersed the
inhabitants to the most lonely, the most secure, the most distant
places of refuge. While the Gothic cavalry spread terror and
desolation along the sea-coast of Campania and Tuscany, the
little island of Igilium, separated by a narrow channel from the
Argentarian promontory, repulsed, or eluded, their hostile
attempts; and at so small a distance from Rome, great numbers of
citizens were securely concealed in the thick woods of that
sequestered spot. 112 The ample patrimonies, which many
senatorian families possessed in Africa, invited them, if they
had time, and prudence, to escape from the ruin of their country,
to embrace the shelter of that hospitable province. The most
illustrious of these fugitives was the noble and pious Proba, 113
the widow of the praefect Petronius. After the death of her
husband, the most powerful subject of Rome, she had remained at
the head of the Anician family, and successively supplied, from
her private fortune, the expense of the consulships of her three
sons. When the city was besieged and taken by the Goths, Proba
supported, with Christian resignation, the loss of immense
riches; embarked in a small vessel, from whence she beheld, at
sea, the flames of her burning palace, and fled with her daughter
Laeta, and her granddaughter, the celebrated virgin, Demetrias,
to the coast of Africa. The benevolent profusion with which the
matron distributed the fruits, or the price, of her estates,
contributed to alleviate the misfortunes of exile and captivity.
But even the family of Proba herself was not exempt from the
rapacious oppression of Count Heraclian, who basely sold, in
matrimonial prostitution, the noblest maidens of Rome to the lust
or avarice of the Syrian merchants. The Italian fugitives were
dispersed through the provinces, along the coast of Egypt and
Asia, as far as Constantinople and Jerusalem; and the village of
Bethlem, the solitary residence of St. Jerom and his female
converts, was crowded with illustrious beggars of either sex, and
every age, who excited the public compassion by the remembrance
of their past fortune. 114 This awful catastrophe of Rome filled
the astonished empire with grief and terror. So interesting a
contrast of greatness and ruin, disposed the fond credulity of
the people to deplore, and even to exaggerate, the afflictions of
the queen of cities. The clergy, who applied to recent events the
lofty metaphors of oriental prophecy, were sometimes tempted to
confound the destruction of the capital and the dissolution of
the globe.
108 (return) [ Orosius (l. ii. c. 19, p. 142) compares the
cruelty of the Gauls and the clemency of the Goths. Ibi vix
quemquam inventum senatorem, qui vel absens evaserit; hic vix
quemquam requiri, qui forte ut latens perierit. But there is an
air of rhetoric, and perhaps of falsehood, in this antithesis;
and Socrates (l. vii. c. 10) affirms, perhaps by an opposite
exaggeration, that many senators were put to death with various
and exquisite tortures.]
109 (return) [ Multi... Christiani incaptivitatem ducti sunt.
Augustin, de Civ Dei, l. i. c. 14; and the Christians experienced
no peculiar hardships.]
110 (return) [ See Heineccius, Antiquitat. Juris Roman. tom. i.
p. 96.]
111 (return) [ Appendix Cod. Theodos. xvi. in Sirmond. Opera,
tom. i. p. 735. This edict was published on the 11th of December,
A.D. 408, and is more reasonable than properly belonged to the
ministers of Honorius.]
112 (return) [ Eminus Igilii sylvosa cacumina miror; Quem
fraudare nefas laudis honore suae.
Haec proprios nuper tutata est insula saltus;
Sive loci ingenio, seu Domini genio. Gurgite cum modico
victricibus obstitit armis, Tanquam longinquo dissociata mari.
Haec multos lacera suscepit ab urbe fugates,
Hic fessis posito certa timore salus. Plurima terreno populaverat
aequora bello,
Contra naturam classe timendus eques: Unum, mira fides, vario
discrimine portum!
Tam prope Romanis, tam procul esse Getis.
—-Rutilius, in Itinerar. l. i. 325
The island is now called Giglio. See Cluver. Ital. Antiq. l. ii.
]
113 (return) [ As the adventures of Proba and her family are
connected with the life of St. Augustin, they are diligently
illustrated by Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 620-635.
Some time after their arrival in Africa, Demetrias took the veil,
and made a vow of virginity; an event which was considered as of
the highest importance to Rome and to the world. All the Saints
wrote congratulatory letters to her; that of Jerom is still
extant, (tom. i. p. 62-73, ad Demetriad. de servand Virginitat.,)
and contains a mixture of absurd reasoning, spirited declamation,
and curious facts, some of which relate to the siege and sack of
Rome.]
114 (return) [ See the pathetic complaint of Jerom, (tom. v. p.
400,) in his preface to the second book of his Commentaries on
the Prophet Ezekiel.]
There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate
the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times.
Yet, when the first emotions had subsided, and a fair estimate
was made of the real damage, the more learned and judicious
contemporaries were forced to confess, that infant Rome had
formerly received more essential injury from the Gauls, than she
had now sustained from the Goths in her declining age. 115 The
experience of eleven centuries has enabled posterity to produce a
much more singular parallel; and to affirm with confidence, that
the ravages of the Barbarians, whom Alaric had led from the banks
of the Danube, were less destructive than the hostilities
exercised by the troops of Charles the Fifth, a Catholic prince,
who styled himself Emperor of the Romans. 116 The Goths evacuated
the city at the end of six days, but Rome remained above nine
months in the possession of the Imperialists; and every hour was
stained by some atrocious act of cruelty, lust, and rapine. The
authority of Alaric preserved some order and moderation among the
ferocious multitude which acknowledged him for their leader and
king; but the constable of Bourbon had gloriously fallen in the
attack of the walls; and the death of the general removed every
restraint of discipline from an army which consisted of three
independent nations, the Italians, the Spaniards, and the
Germans. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the manners
of Italy exhibited a remarkable scene of the depravity of
mankind. They united the sanguinary crimes that prevail in an
unsettled state of society, with the polished vices which spring
from the abuse of art and luxury; and the loose adventurers, who
had violated every prejudice of patriotism and superstition to
assault the palace of the Roman pontiff, must deserve to be
considered as the most profligate of the Italians. At the same
era, the Spaniards were the terror both of the Old and New World:
but their high-spirited valor was disgraced by gloomy pride,
rapacious avarice, and unrelenting cruelty. Indefatigable in the
pursuit of fame and riches, they had improved, by repeated
practice, the most exquisite and effectual methods of torturing
their prisoners: many of the Castilians, who pillaged Rome, were
familiars of the holy inquisition; and some volunteers, perhaps,
were lately returned from the conquest of Mexico. The Germans
were less corrupt than the Italians, less cruel than the
Spaniards; and the rustic, or even savage, aspect of those
Tramontane warriors, often disguised a simple and merciful
disposition. But they had imbibed, in the first fervor of the
reformation, the spirit, as well as the principles, of Luther. It
was their favorite amusement to insult, or destroy, the
consecrated objects of Catholic superstition; they indulged,
without pity or remorse, a devout hatred against the clergy of
every denomination and degree, who form so considerable a part of
the inhabitants of modern Rome; and their fanatic zeal might
aspire to subvert the throne of Anti-christ, to purify, with
blood and fire, the abominations of the spiritual Babylon. 117
115 (return) [ Orosius, though with some theological partiality,
states this comparison, l. ii. c. 19, p. 142, l. vii. c. 39, p.
575. But, in the history of the taking of Rome by the Gauls,
every thing is uncertain, and perhaps fabulous. See Beaufort sur
l’Incertitude, &c., de l’Histoire Romaine, p. 356; and Melot, in
the Mem. de l’Academie des Inscript. tom. xv. p. 1-21.]
116 (return) [ The reader who wishes to inform himself of the
circumstances of his famous event, may peruse an admirable
narrative in Dr. Robertson’s History of Charles V. vol. ii. p.
283; or consult the Annali d’Italia of the learned Muratori, tom.
xiv. p. 230-244, octavo edition. If he is desirous of examining
the originals, he may have recourse to the eighteenth book of the
great, but unfinished, history of Guicciardini. But the account
which most truly deserves the name of authentic and original, is
a little book, entitled, Il Sacco di Roma, composed, within less
than a month after the assault of the city, by the brother of the
historian Guicciardini, who appears to have been an able
magistrate and a dispassionate writer.]
117 (return) [ The furious spirit of Luther, the effect of temper
and enthusiasm, has been forcibly attacked, (Bossuet, Hist. des
Variations des Eglises Protestantes, livre i. p. 20-36,) and
feebly defended, (Seckendorf. Comment. de Lutheranismo,
especially l. i. No. 78, p. 120, and l. iii. No. 122, p. 556.)]
The retreat of the victorious Goths, who evacuated Rome on the
sixth day, 118 might be the result of prudence; but it was not
surely the effect of fear. 119 At the head of an army encumbered
with rich and weighty spoils, their intrepid leader advanced
along the Appian way into the southern provinces of Italy,
destroying whatever dared to oppose his passage, and contenting
himself with the plunder of the unresisting country. The fate of
Capua, the proud and luxurious metropolis of Campania, and which
was respected, even in its decay, as the eighth city of the
empire, 120 is buried in oblivion; whilst the adjacent town of
Nola 121 has been illustrated, on this occasion, by the sanctity
of Paulinus, 122 who was successively a consul, a monk, and a
bishop. At the age of forty, he renounced the enjoyment of wealth
and honor, of society and literature, to embrace a life of
solitude and penance; and the loud applause of the clergy
encouraged him to despise the reproaches of his worldly friends,
who ascribed this desperate act to some disorder of the mind or
body. 123 An early and passionate attachment determined him to
fix his humble dwelling in one of the suburbs of Nola, near the
miraculous tomb of St. Faelix, which the public devotion had
already surrounded with five large and populous churches. The
remains of his fortune, and of his understanding, were dedicated
to the service of the glorious martyr; whose praise, on the day
of his festival, Paulinus never failed to celebrate by a solemn
hymn; and in whose name he erected a sixth church, of superior
elegance and beauty, which was decorated with many curious
pictures, from the history of the Old and New Testament. Such
assiduous zeal secured the favor of the saint, 124 or at least of
the people; and, after fifteen years’ retirement, the Roman
consul was compelled to accept the bishopric of Nola, a few
months before the city was invested by the Goths. During the
siege, some religious persons were satisfied that they had seen,
either in dreams or visions, the divine form of their tutelar
patron; yet it soon appeared by the event, that Faelix wanted
power, or inclination, to preserve the flock of which he had
formerly been the shepherd. Nola was not saved from the general
devastation; 125 and the captive bishop was protected only by the
general opinion of his innocence and poverty. Above four years
elapsed from the successful invasion of Italy by the arms of
Alaric, to the voluntary retreat of the Goths under the conduct
of his successor Adolphus; and, during the whole time, they
reigned without control over a country, which, in the opinion of
the ancients, had united all the various excellences of nature
and art. The prosperity, indeed, which Italy had attained in the
auspicious age of the Antonines, had gradually declined with the
decline of the empire.
The fruits of a long peace perished under the rude grasp of the
Barbarians; and they themselves were incapable of tasting the
more elegant refinements of luxury, which had been prepared for
the use of the soft and polished Italians. Each soldier, however,
claimed an ample portion of the substantial plenty, the corn and
cattle, oil and wine, that was daily collected and consumed in
the Gothic camp; and the principal warriors insulted the villas
and gardens, once inhabited by Lucullus and Cicero, along the
beauteous coast of Campania. Their trembling captives, the sons
and daughters of Roman senators, presented, in goblets of gold
and gems, large draughts of Falernian wine to the haughty
victors; who stretched their huge limbs under the shade of
plane-trees, 126 artificially disposed to exclude the scorching
rays, and to admit the genial warmth, of the sun. These delights
were enhanced by the memory of past hardships: the comparison of
their native soil, the bleak and barren hills of Scythia, and the
frozen banks of the Elbe and Danube, added new charms to the
felicity of the Italian climate. 127
118 (return) [ Marcellinus, in Chron. Orosius, (l. vii. c. 39, p.
575,) asserts, that he left Rome on the third day; but this
difference is easily reconciled by the successive motions of
great bodies of troops.]
119 (return) [ Socrates (l. vii. c. 10) pretends, without any
color of truth, or reason, that Alaric fled on the report that
the armies of the Eastern empire were in full march to attack
him.]
120 (return) [ Ausonius de Claris Urbibus, p. 233, edit. Toll.
The luxury of Capua had formerly surpassed that of Sybaris
itself. See Athenaeus Deipnosophist. l. xii. p. 528, edit.
Casaubon.]
121 (return) [ Forty-eight years before the foundation of Rome,
(about 800 before the Christian era,) the Tuscans built Capua and
Nola, at the distance of twenty-three miles from each other; but
the latter of the two cities never emerged from a state of
mediocrity.]
122 (return) [ Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 1-46) has
compiled, with his usual diligence, all that relates to the life
and writings of Paulinus, whose retreat is celebrated by his own
pen, and by the praises of St. Ambrose, St. Jerom, St. Augustin,
Sulpicius Severus, &c., his Christian friends and
contemporaries.]
123 (return) [ See the affectionate letters of Ausonius (epist.
xix.—xxv. p. 650-698, edit. Toll.) to his colleague, his friend,
and his disciple, Paulinus. The religion of Ausonius is still a
problem, (see Mem. de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xv. p.
123-138.) I believe that it was such in his own time, and,
consequently, that in his heart he was a Pagan.]
124 (return) [ The humble Paulinus once presumed to say, that he
believed St. Faelix did love him; at least, as a master loves his
little dog.]
125 (return) [ See Jornandes, de Reb. Get. c. 30, p. 653.
Philostorgius, l. xii. c. 3. Augustin. de Civ. Dei, l.i.c. 10.
Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 410, No. 45, 46.]
126 (return) [ The platanus, or plane-tree, was a favorite of the
ancients, by whom it was propagated, for the sake of shade, from
the East to Gaul. Plin. Hist. Natur. xii. 3, 4, 5. He mentions
several of an enormous size; one in the Imperial villa, at
Velitrae, which Caligula called his nest, as the branches were
capable of holding a large table, the proper attendants, and the
emperor himself, whom Pliny quaintly styles pars umbroe; an
expression which might, with equal reason, be applied to Alaric]
127 (return) [ The prostrate South to the destroyer yields
Her boasted titles, and her golden fields; With grim delight the
brood of winter view A brighter day, and skies of azure hue; Scent
the new fragrance of the opening rose, And quaff the pendent
vintage as it grows.
See Gray’s Poems, published by Mr. Mason, p. 197. Instead of
compiling tables of chronology and natural history, why did not
Mr. Gray apply the powers of his genius to finish the philosophic
poem, of which he has left such an exquisite specimen?]
Whether fame, or conquest, or riches, were the object or Alaric,
he pursued that object with an indefatigable ardor, which could
neither be quelled by adversity nor satiated by success. No
sooner had he reached the extreme land of Italy, than he was
attracted by the neighboring prospect of a fertile and peaceful
island. Yet even the possession of Sicily he considered only as
an intermediate step to the important expedition, which he
already meditated against the continent of Africa. The Straits of
Rhegium and Messina 128 are twelve miles in length, and, in the
narrowest passage, about one mile and a half broad; and the
fabulous monsters of the deep, the rocks of Scylla, and the
whirlpool of Charybdis, could terrify none but the most timid and
unskilful mariners. Yet as soon as the first division of the
Goths had embarked, a sudden tempest arose, which sunk, or
scattered, many of the transports; their courage was daunted by
the terrors of a new element; and the whole design was defeated
by the premature death of Alaric, which fixed, after a short
illness, the fatal term of his conquests. The ferocious character
of the Barbarians was displayed in the funeral of a hero whose
valor and fortune they celebrated with mournful applause. By the
labor of a captive multitude, they forcibly diverted the course
of the Busentinus, a small river that washes the walls of
Consentia. The royal sepulchre, adorned with the splendid spoils
and trophies of Rome, was constructed in the vacant bed; the
waters were then restored to their natural channel; and the
secret spot, where the remains of Alaric had been deposited, was
forever concealed by the inhuman massacre of the prisoners, who
had been employed to execute the work. 129
128 (return) [ For the perfect description of the Straits of
Messina, Scylla, Clarybdis, &c., see Cluverius, (Ital. Antiq. l.
iv. p. 1293, and Sicilia Antiq. l. i. p. 60-76), who had
diligently studied the ancients, and surveyed with a curious eye
the actual face of the country.]
129 (return) [ Jornandes, de Reb Get. c. 30, p. 654.]
Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By
Barbarians.—Part VI.
The personal animosities and hereditary feuds of the Barbarians
were suspended by the strong necessity of their affairs; and the
brave Adolphus, the brother-in-law of the deceased monarch, was
unanimously elected to succeed to his throne. The character and
political system of the new king of the Goths may be best
understood from his own conversation with an illustrious citizen
of Narbonne; who afterwards, in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land,
related it to St. Jerom, in the presence of the historian
Orosius. “In the full confidence of valor and victory, I once
aspired (said Adolphus) to change the face of the universe; to
obliterate the name of Rome; to erect on its ruins the dominion
of the Goths; and to acquire, like Augustus, the immortal fame of
the founder of a new empire. By repeated experiments, I was
gradually convinced, that laws are essentially necessary to
maintain and regulate a well-constituted state; and that the
fierce, untractable humor of the Goths was incapable of bearing
the salutary yoke of laws and civil government. From that moment
I proposed to myself a different object of glory and ambition;
and it is now my sincere wish that the gratitude of future ages
should acknowledge the merit of a stranger, who employed the
sword of the Goths, not to subvert, but to restore and maintain,
the prosperity of the Roman empire.” 130 With these pacific
views, the successor of Alaric suspended the operations of war;
and seriously negotiated with the Imperial court a treaty of
friendship and alliance. It was the interest of the ministers of
Honorius, who were now released from the obligation of their
extravagant oath, to deliver Italy from the intolerable weight of
the Gothic powers; and they readily accepted their service
against the tyrants and Barbarians who infested the provinces
beyond the Alps. 131 Adolphus, assuming the character of a Roman
general, directed his march from the extremity of Campania to the
southern provinces of Gaul. His troops, either by force or
agreement, immediately occupied the cities of Narbonne,
Thoulouse, and Bordeaux; and though they were repulsed by Count
Boniface from the walls of Marseilles, they soon extended their
quarters from the Mediterranean to the Ocean.
The oppressed provincials might exclaim, that the miserable
remnant, which the enemy had spared, was cruelly ravished by
their pretended allies; yet some specious colors were not wanting
to palliate, or justify the violence of the Goths. The cities of
Gaul, which they attacked, might perhaps be considered as in a
state of rebellion against the government of Honorius: the
articles of the treaty, or the secret instructions of the court,
might sometimes be alleged in favor of the seeming usurpations of
Adolphus; and the guilt of any irregular, unsuccessful act of
hostility might always be imputed, with an appearance of truth,
to the ungovernable spirit of a Barbarian host, impatient of
peace or discipline. The luxury of Italy had been less effectual
to soften the temper, than to relax the courage, of the Goths;
and they had imbibed the vices, without imitating the arts and
institutions, of civilized society. 132
130 (return) [ Orosius, l. vii. c. 43, p. 584, 585. He was sent
by St. Augustin in the year 415, from Africa to Palestine, to
visit St. Jerom, and to consult with him on the subject of the
Pelagian controversy.]
131 (return) [ Jornandes supposes, without much probability, that
Adolphus visited and plundered Rome a second time, (more
locustarum erasit) Yet he agrees with Orosius in supposing that a
treaty of peace was concluded between the Gothic prince and
Honorius. See Oros. l. vii. c. 43 p. 584, 585. Jornandes, de Reb.
Geticis, c. 31, p. 654, 655.]
132 (return) [ The retreat of the Goths from Italy, and their
first transactions in Gaul, are dark and doubtful. I have derived
much assistance from Mascou, (Hist. of the Ancient Germans, l.
viii. c. 29, 35, 36, 37,) who has illustrated, and connected, the
broken chronicles and fragments of the times.]
The professions of Adolphus were probably sincere, and his
attachment to the cause of the republic was secured by the
ascendant which a Roman princess had acquired over the heart and
understanding of the Barbarian king. Placidia, 133 the daughter
of the great Theodosius, and of Galla, his second wife, had
received a royal education in the palace of Constantinople; but
the eventful story of her life is connected with the revolutions
which agitated the Western empire under the reign of her brother
Honorius. When Rome was first invested by the arms of Alaric,
Placidia, who was then about twenty years of age, resided in the
city; and her ready consent to the death of her cousin Serena has
a cruel and ungrateful appearance, which, according to the
circumstances of the action, may be aggravated, or excused, by
the consideration of her tender age. 134 The victorious
Barbarians detained, either as a hostage or a captive, 135 the
sister of Honorius; but, while she was exposed to the disgrace of
following round Italy the motions of a Gothic camp, she
experienced, however, a decent and respectful treatment. The
authority of Jornandes, who praises the beauty of Placidia, may
perhaps be counterbalanced by the silence, the expressive
silence, of her flatterers: yet the splendor of her birth, the
bloom of youth, the elegance of manners, and the dexterous
insinuation which she condescended to employ, made a deep
impression on the mind of Adolphus; and the Gothic king aspired
to call himself the brother of the emperor. The ministers of
Honorius rejected with disdain the proposal of an alliance so
injurious to every sentiment of Roman pride; and repeatedly urged
the restitution of Placidia, as an indispensable condition of the
treaty of peace. But the daughter of Theodosius submitted,
without reluctance, to the desires of the conqueror, a young and
valiant prince, who yielded to Alaric in loftiness of stature,
but who excelled in the more attractive qualities of grace and
beauty. The marriage of Adolphus and Placidia 136 was consummated
before the Goths retired from Italy; and the solemn, perhaps the
anniversary day of their nuptials was afterwards celebrated in
the house of Ingenuus, one of the most illustrious citizens of
Narbonne in Gaul. The bride, attired and adorned like a Roman
empress, was placed on a throne of state; and the king of the
Goths, who assumed, on this occasion, the Roman habit, contented
himself with a less honorable seat by her side. The nuptial gift,
which, according to the custom of his nation, 137 was offered to
Placidia, consisted of the rare and magnificent spoils of her
country. Fifty beautiful youths, in silken robes, carried a basin
in each hand; and one of these basins was filled with pieces of
gold, the other with precious stones of an inestimable value.
Attalus, so long the sport of fortune, and of the Goths, was
appointed to lead the chorus of the Hymeneal song; and the
degraded emperor might aspire to the praise of a skilful
musician. The Barbarians enjoyed the insolence of their triumph;
and the provincials rejoiced in this alliance, which tempered, by
the mild influence of love and reason, the fierce spirit of their
Gothic lord. 138
133 (return) [ See an account of Placidia in Ducange Fam. Byzant.
p. 72; and Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 260, 386,
&c. tom. vi. p. 240.]
134 (return) [ Zosim. l. v. p. 350.]
135 (return) [ Zosim. l. vi. p. 383. Orosius, (l. vii. c. 40, p.
576,) and the Chronicles of Marcellinus and Idatius, seem to
suppose, that the Goths did not carry away Placidia till after
the last siege of Rome.]
136 (return) [ See the pictures of Adolphus and Placidia, and the
account of their marriage, in Jornandes, de Reb. Geticis, c. 31,
p. 654, 655. With regard to the place where the nuptials were
stipulated, or consummated, or celebrated, the Mss. of Jornandes
vary between two neighboring cities, Forli and Imola, (Forum
Livii and Forum Cornelii.) It is fair and easy to reconcile the
Gothic historian with Olympiodorus, (see Mascou, l. viii. c. 46:)
but Tillemont grows peevish, and swears that it is not worth
while to try to conciliate Jornandes with any good authors.]
137 (return) [ The Visigoths (the subjects of Adolphus)
restrained by subsequent laws, the prodigality of conjugal love.
It was illegal for a husband to make any gift or settlement for
the benefit of his wife during the first year of their marriage;
and his liberality could not at any time exceed the tenth part of
his property. The Lombards were somewhat more indulgent: they
allowed the morgingcap immediately after the wedding night; and
this famous gift, the reward of virginity might equal the fourth
part of the husband’s substance. Some cautious maidens, indeed,
were wise enough to stipulate beforehand a present, which they
were too sure of not deserving. See Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix,
l. xix. c. 25. Muratori, delle Antichita Italiane, tom. i.
Dissertazion, xx. p. 243.]
138 (return) [ We owe the curious detail of this nuptial feast to
the historian Olympiodorus, ap. Photium, p. 185, 188.]
The hundred basins of gold and gems, presented to Placidia at her
nuptial feast, formed an inconsiderable portion of the Gothic
treasures; of which some extraordinary specimens may be selected
from the history of the successors of Adolphus. Many curious and
costly ornaments of pure gold, enriched with jewels, were found
in their palace of Narbonne, when it was pillaged, in the sixth
century, by the Franks: sixty cups, or chalices; fifteen patens,
or plates, for the use of the communion; twenty boxes, or cases,
to hold the books of the Gospels: this consecrated wealth 139 was
distributed by the son of Clovis among the churches of his
dominions, and his pious liberality seems to upbraid some former
sacrilege of the Goths. They possessed, with more security of
conscience, the famous missorium, or great dish for the service
of the table, of massy gold, of the weight of five hundred
pounds, and of far superior value, from the precious stones, the
exquisite workmanship, and the tradition, that it had been
presented by Ætius, the patrician, to Torismond, king of the
Goths. One of the successors of Torismond purchased the aid of
the French monarch by the promise of this magnificent gift. When
he was seated on the throne of Spain, he delivered it with
reluctance to the ambassadors of Dagobert; despoiled them on the
road; stipulated, after a long negotiation, the inadequate ransom
of two hundred thousand pieces of gold; and preserved the
missorium, as the pride of the Gothic treasury. 140 When that
treasury, after the conquest of Spain, was plundered by the
Arabs, they admired, and they have celebrated, another object
still more remarkable; a table of considerable size, of one
single piece of solid emerald, 141 encircled with three rows of
fine pearls, supported by three hundred and sixty-five feet of
gems and massy gold, and estimated at the price of five hundred
thousand pieces of gold. 142 Some portion of the Gothic treasures
might be the gift of friendship, or the tribute of obedience; but
the far greater part had been the fruits of war and rapine, the
spoils of the empire, and perhaps of Rome.
139 (return) [ See in the great collection of the Historians of
France by Dom Bouquet, tom. ii. Greg. Turonens. l. iii. c. 10, p.
191. Gesta Regum Francorum, c. 23, p. 557. The anonymous writer,
with an ignorance worthy of his times, supposes that these
instruments of Christian worship had belonged to the temple of
Solomon. If he has any meaning it must be, that they were found
in the sack of Rome.]
140 (return) [ Consult the following original testimonies in the
Historians of France, tom. ii. Fredegarii Scholastici Chron. c.
73, p. 441. Fredegar. Fragment. iii. p. 463. Gesta Regis
Dagobert, c. 29, p. 587. The accession of Sisenand to the throne
of Spain happened A.D. 631. The 200,000 pieces of gold were
appropriated by Dagobert to the foundation of the church of St.
Denys.]
141 (return) [ The president Goguet (Origine des Loix, &c., tom.
ii. p. 239) is of opinion, that the stupendous pieces of emerald,
the statues and columns which antiquity has placed in Egypt, at
Gades, at Constantinople, were in reality artificial compositions
of colored glass. The famous emerald dish, which is shown at
Genoa, is supposed to countenance the suspicion.]
142 (return) [ Elmacin. Hist. Saracenica, l. i. p. 85. Roderic.
Tolet. Hist. Arab. c. 9. Cardonne, Hist. de l’Afrique et de
l’Espagne sous les Arabes tom. i. p. 83. It was called the Table
of Solomon, according to the custom of the Orientals, who ascribe
to that prince every ancient work of knowledge or magnificence.]
After the deliverance of Italy from the oppression of the Goths,
some secret counsellor was permitted, amidst the factions of the
palace, to heal the wounds of that afflicted country. 143 By a
wise and humane regulation, the eight provinces which had been
the most deeply injured, Campania, Tuscany, Picenum, Samnium,
Apulia, Calabria, Bruttium, and Lucania, obtained an indulgence
of five years: the ordinary tribute was reduced to one fifth, and
even that fifth was destined to restore and support the useful
institution of the public posts. By another law, the lands which
had been left without inhabitants or cultivation, were granted,
with some diminution of taxes, to the neighbors who should
occupy, or the strangers who should solicit them; and the new
possessors were secured against the future claims of the fugitive
proprietors. About the same time a general amnesty was published
in the name of Honorius, to abolish the guilt and memory of all
the involuntary offences which had been committed by his unhappy
subjects, during the term of the public disorder and calamity. A
decent and respectful attention was paid to the restoration of
the capital; the citizens were encouraged to rebuild the edifices
which had been destroyed or damaged by hostile fire; and
extraordinary supplies of corn were imported from the coast of
Africa. The crowds that so lately fled before the sword of the
Barbarians, were soon recalled by the hopes of plenty and
pleasure; and Albinus, praefect of Rome, informed the court, with
some anxiety and surprise, that, in a single day, he had taken an
account of the arrival of fourteen thousand strangers. 144 In
less than seven years, the vestiges of the Gothic invasion were
almost obliterated; and the city appeared to resume its former
splendor and tranquillity. The venerable matron replaced her
crown of laurel, which had been ruffled by the storms of war; and
was still amused, in the last moment of her decay, with the
prophecies of revenge, of victory, and of eternal dominion. 145
143 (return) [ His three laws are inserted in the Theodosian
Code, l. xi. tit. xxviii. leg. 7. L. xiii. tit. xi. leg. 12. L.
xv. tit. xiv. leg. 14 The expressions of the last are very
remarkable; since they contain not only a pardon, but an
apology.]
144 (return) [ Olympiodorus ap. Phot. p. 188. Philostorgius (l.
xii. c. 5) observes, that when Honorius made his triumphal entry,
he encouraged the Romans, with his hand and voice, to rebuild
their city; and the Chronicle of Prosper commends Heraclian, qui
in Romanae urbis reparationem strenuum exhibuerat ministerium.]
145 (return) [ The date of the voyage of Claudius Rutilius
Numatianus is clogged with some difficulties; but Scaliger has
deduced from astronomical characters, that he left Rome the 24th
of September and embarked at Porto the 9th of October, A.D. 416.
See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom, v. p. 820. In this
poetical Itinerary, Rutilius (l. i. 115, &c.) addresses Rome in a
high strain of congratulation:—
Erige crinales lauros, seniumque sacrati Verticis in virides,
Roma, recinge comas, &c.]
This apparent tranquillity was soon disturbed by the approach of
a hostile armament from the country which afforded the daily
subsistence of the Roman people. Heraclian, count of Africa, who,
under the most difficult and distressful circumstances, had
supported, with active loyalty, the cause of Honorius, was
tempted, in the year of his consulship, to assume the character
of a rebel, and the title of emperor. The ports of Africa were
immediately filled with the naval forces, at the head of which he
prepared to invade Italy: and his fleet, when it cast anchor at
the mouth of the Tyber, indeed surpassed the fleets of Xerxes and
Alexander, if all the vessels, including the royal galley, and
the smallest boat, did actually amount to the incredible number
of three thousand two hundred. 146 Yet with such an armament,
which might have subverted, or restored, the greatest empires of
the earth, the African usurper made a very faint and feeble
impression on the provinces of his rival. As he marched from the
port, along the road which leads to the gates of Rome, he was
encountered, terrified, and routed, by one of the Imperial
captains; and the lord of this mighty host, deserting his fortune
and his friends, ignominiously fled with a single ship. 147 When
Heraclian landed in the harbor of Carthage, he found that the
whole province, disdaining such an unworthy ruler, had returned
to their allegiance. The rebel was beheaded in the ancient temple
of Memory; his consulship was abolished: 148 and the remains of
his private fortune, not exceeding the moderate sum of four
thousand pounds of gold, were granted to the brave Constantius,
who had already defended the throne, which he afterwards shared
with his feeble sovereign. Honorius viewed, with supine
indifference, the calamities of Rome and Italy; 149 but the
rebellious attempts of Attalus and Heraclian, against his
personal safety, awakened, for a moment, the torpid instinct of
his nature. He was probably ignorant of the causes and events
which preserved him from these impending dangers; and as Italy
was no longer invaded by any foreign or domestic enemies, he
peaceably existed in the palace of Ravenna, while the tyrants
beyond the Alps were repeatedly vanquished in the name, and by
the lieutenants, of the son of Theodosius. 150 In the course of a
busy and interesting narrative I might possibly forget to mention
the death of such a prince: and I shall therefore take the
precaution of observing, in this place, that he survived the last
siege of Rome about thirteen years.
146 (return) [ Orosius composed his history in Africa, only two
years after the event; yet his authority seems to be overbalanced
by the improbability of the fact. The Chronicle of Marcellinus
gives Heraclian 700 ships and 3000 men: the latter of these
numbers is ridiculously corrupt; but the former would please me
very much.]
147 (return) [ The Chronicle of Idatius affirms, without the
least appearance of truth, that he advanced as far as Otriculum,
in Umbria, where he was overthrown in a great battle, with the
loss of 50,000 men.]
148 (return) [ See Cod. Theod. l. xv. tit. xiv. leg. 13. The
legal acts performed in his name, even the manumission of slaves,
were declared invalid, till they had been formally repeated.]
149 (return) [ I have disdained to mention a very foolish, and
probably a false, report, (Procop. de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 2,)
that Honorius was alarmed by the loss of Rome, till he understood
that it was not a favorite chicken of that name, but only the
capital of the world, which had been lost. Yet even this story is
some evidence of the public opinion.]
150 (return) [ The materials for the lives of all these tyrants
are taken from six contemporary historians, two Latins and four
Greeks: Orosius, l. vii. c. 42, p. 581, 582, 583; Renatus
Profuturus Frigeridus, apud Gregor Turon. l. ii. c. 9, in the
Historians of France, tom. ii. p. 165, 166; Zosimus, l. v. p.
370, 371; Olympiodorus, apud Phot. p. 180, 181, 184, 185;
Sozomen, l. ix. c. 12, 13, 14, 15; and Philostorgius, l. xii. c.
5, 6, with Godefroy’s Dissertation, p. 477-481; besides the four
Chronicles of Prosper Tyro, Prosper of Aquitain, Idatius, and
Marcellinus.]
The usurpation of Constantine, who received the purple from the
legions of Britain, had been successful, and seemed to be secure.
His title was acknowledged, from the wall of Antoninus to the
columns of Hercules; and, in the midst of the public disorder he
shared the dominion, and the plunder, of Gaul and Spain, with the
tribes of Barbarians, whose destructive progress was no longer
checked by the Rhine or Pyrenees. Stained with the blood of the
kinsmen of Honorius, he extorted, from the court of Ravenna, with
which he secretly corresponded, the ratification of his
rebellious claims. Constantine engaged himself, by a solemn
promise, to deliver Italy from the Goths; advanced as far as the
banks of the Po; and after alarming, rather than assisting, his
pusillanimous ally, hastily returned to the palace of Arles, to
celebrate, with intemperate luxury, his vain and ostentatious
triumph. But this transient prosperity was soon interrupted and
destroyed by the revolt of Count Gerontius, the bravest of his
generals; who, during the absence of his son Constans, a prince
already invested with the Imperial purple, had been left to
command in the provinces of Spain. From some reason, of which we
are ignorant, Gerontius, instead of assuming the diadem, placed
it on the head of his friend Maximus, who fixed his residence at
Tarragona, while the active count pressed forwards, through the
Pyrenees, to surprise the two emperors, Constantine and Constans,
before they could prepare for their defence. The son was made
prisoner at Vienna, and immediately put to death: and the
unfortunate youth had scarcely leisure to deplore the elevation
of his family; which had tempted, or compelled him,
sacrilegiously to desert the peaceful obscurity of the monastic
life. The father maintained a siege within the walls of Arles;
but those walls must have yielded to the assailants, had not the
city been unexpectedly relieved by the approach of an Italian
army. The name of Honorius, the proclamation of a lawful emperor,
astonished the contending parties of the rebels. Gerontius,
abandoned by his own troops, escaped to the confines of Spain;
and rescued his name from oblivion, by the Roman courage which
appeared to animate the last moments of his life. In the middle
of the night, a great body of his perfidious soldiers surrounded
and attacked his house, which he had strongly barricaded. His
wife, a valiant friend of the nation of the Alani, and some
faithful slaves, were still attached to his person; and he used,
with so much skill and resolution, a large magazine of darts and
arrows, that above three hundred of the assailants lost their
lives in the attempt. His slaves when all the missile weapons
were spent, fled at the dawn of day; and Gerontius, if he had not
been restrained by conjugal tenderness, might have imitated their
example; till the soldiers, provoked by such obstinate
resistance, applied fire on all sides to the house. In this fatal
extremity, he complied with the request of his Barbarian friend,
and cut off his head. The wife of Gerontius, who conjured him not
to abandon her to a life of misery and disgrace, eagerly
presented her neck to his sword; and the tragic scene was
terminated by the death of the count himself, who, after three
ineffectual strokes, drew a short dagger, and sheathed it in his
heart. 151 The unprotected Maximus, whom he had invested with the
purple, was indebted for his life to the contempt that was
entertained of his power and abilities. The caprice of the
Barbarians, who ravaged Spain, once more seated this Imperial
phantom on the throne: but they soon resigned him to the justice
of Honorius; and the tyrant Maximus, after he had been shown to
the people of Ravenna and Rome, was publicly executed.
151 (return) [ The praises which Sozomen has bestowed on this act
of despair, appear strange and scandalous in the mouth of an
ecclesiastical historian. He observes (p. 379) that the wife of
Gerontius was a Christian; and that her death was worthy of her
religion, and of immortal fame.]
The general, (Constantius was his name,) who raised by his
approach the siege of Arles, and dissipated the troops of
Gerontius, was born a Roman; and this remarkable distinction is
strongly expressive of the decay of military spirit among the
subjects of the empire. The strength and majesty which were
conspicuous in the person of that general, 152 marked him, in the
popular opinion, as a candidate worthy of the throne, which he
afterwards ascended. In the familiar intercourse of private life,
his manners were cheerful and engaging; nor would he sometimes
disdain, in the license of convivial mirth, to vie with the
pantomimes themselves, in the exercises of their ridiculous
profession. But when the trumpet summoned him to arms; when he
mounted his horse, and, bending down (for such was his singular
practice) almost upon the neck, fiercely rolled his large
animated eyes round the field, Constantius then struck terror
into his foes, and inspired his soldiers with the assurance of
victory. He had received from the court of Ravenna the important
commission of extirpating rebellion in the provinces of the West;
and the pretended emperor Constantine, after enjoying a short and
anxious respite, was again besieged in his capital by the arms of
a more formidable enemy. Yet this interval allowed time for a
successful negotiation with the Franks and Alemanni and his
ambassador, Edobic, soon returned at the head of an army, to
disturb the operations of the siege of Arles. The Roman general,
instead of expecting the attack in his lines, boldly and perhaps
wisely, resolved to pass the Rhone, and to meet the Barbarians.
His measures were conducted with so much skill and secrecy, that,
while they engaged the infantry of Constantius in the front, they
were suddenly attacked, surrounded, and destroyed, by the cavalry
of his lieutenant Ulphilas, who had silently gained an
advantageous post in their rear. The remains of the army of
Edobic were preserved by flight or submission, and their leader
escaped from the field of battle to the house of a faithless
friend; who too clearly understood, that the head of his
obnoxious guest would be an acceptable and lucrative present for
the Imperial general. On this occasion, Constantius behaved with
the magnanimity of a genuine Roman. Subduing, or suppressing,
every sentiment of jealousy, he publicly acknowledged the merit
and services of Ulphilas; but he turned with horror from the
assassin of Edobic; and sternly intimated his commands, that the
camp should no longer be polluted by the presence of an
ungrateful wretch, who had violated the laws of friendship and
hospitality. The usurper, who beheld, from the walls of Arles,
the ruin of his last hopes, was tempted to place some confidence
in so generous a conqueror. He required a solemn promise for his
security; and after receiving, by the imposition of hands, the
sacred character of a Christian Presbyter, he ventured to open
the gates of the city. But he soon experienced that the
principles of honor and integrity, which might regulate the
ordinary conduct of Constantius, were superseded by the loose
doctrines of political morality. The Roman general, indeed,
refused to sully his laurels with the blood of Constantine; but
the abdicated emperor, and his son Julian, were sent under a
strong guard into Italy; and before they reached the palace of
Ravenna, they met the ministers of death.
152 (return) [ It is the expression of Olympiodorus, which he
seems to have borrowed from Aeolus, a tragedy of Euripides, of
which some fragments only are now extant, (Euripid. Barnes, tom.
ii. p. 443, ver 38.) This allusion may prove, that the ancient
tragic poets were still familiar to the Greeks of the fifth
century.]
At a time when it was universally confessed, that almost every
man in the empire was superior in personal merit to the princes
whom the accident of their birth had seated on the throne, a
rapid succession of usurpers, regardless of the fate of their
predecessors, still continued to arise. This mischief was
peculiarly felt in the provinces of Spain and Gaul, where the
principles of order and obedience had been extinguished by war
and rebellion. Before Constantine resigned the purple, and in the
fourth month of the siege of Arles, intelligence was received in
the Imperial camp, that Jovinus has assumed the diadem at Mentz,
in the Upper Germany, at the instigation of Goar, king of the
Alani, and of Guntiarius, king of the Burgundians; and that the
candidate, on whom they had bestowed the empire, advanced with a
formidable host of Barbarians, from the banks of the Rhine to
those of the Rhone. Every circumstance is dark and extraordinary
in the short history of the reign of Jovinus. It was natural to
expect, that a brave and skilful general, at the head of a
victorious army, would have asserted, in a field of battle, the
justice of the cause of Honorius. The hasty retreat of
Constantius might be justified by weighty reasons; but he
resigned, without a struggle, the possession of Gaul; and
Dardanus, the Prætorian praefect, is recorded as the only
magistrate who refused to yield obedience to the usurper. 153
When the Goths, two years after the siege of Rome, established
their quarters in Gaul, it was natural to suppose that their
inclinations could be divided only between the emperor Honorius,
with whom they had formed a recent alliance, and the degraded
Attalus, whom they reserved in their camp for the occasional
purpose of acting the part of a musician or a monarch. Yet in a
moment of disgust, (for which it is not easy to assign a cause,
or a date,) Adolphus connected himself with the usurper of Gaul;
and imposed on Attalus the ignominious task of negotiating the
treaty, which ratified his own disgrace. We are again surprised
to read, that, instead of considering the Gothic alliance as the
firmest support of his throne, Jovinus upbraided, in dark and
ambiguous language, the officious importunity of Attalus; that,
scorning the advice of his great ally, he invested with the
purple his brother Sebastian; and that he most imprudently
accepted the service of Sarus, when that gallant chief, the
soldier of Honorius, was provoked to desert the court of a
prince, who knew not how to reward or punish. Adolphus, educated
among a race of warriors, who esteemed the duty of revenge as the
most precious and sacred portion of their inheritance, advanced
with a body of ten thousand Goths to encounter the hereditary
enemy of the house of Balti. He attacked Sarus at an unguarded
moment, when he was accompanied only by eighteen or twenty of his
valiant followers. United by friendship, animated by despair, but
at length oppressed by multitudes, this band of heroes deserved
the esteem, without exciting the compassion, of their enemies;
and the lion was no sooner taken in the toils, 154 than he was
instantly despatched. The death of Sarus dissolved the loose
alliance which Adolphus still maintained with the usurpers of
Gaul. He again listened to the dictates of love and prudence; and
soon satisfied the brother of Placidia, by the assurance that he
would immediately transmit to the palace of Ravenna the heads of
the two tyrants, Jovinus and Sebastian. The king of the Goths
executed his promise without difficulty or delay; the helpless
brothers, unsupported by any personal merit, were abandoned by
their Barbarian auxiliaries; and the short opposition of Valentia
was expiated by the ruin of one of the noblest cities of Gaul.
The emperor, chosen by the Roman senate, who had been promoted,
degraded, insulted, restored, again degraded, and again insulted,
was finally abandoned to his fate; but when the Gothic king
withdrew his protection, he was restrained, by pity or contempt,
from offering any violence to the person of Attalus. The
unfortunate Attalus, who was left without subjects or allies,
embarked in one of the ports of Spain, in search of some secure
and solitary retreat: but he was intercepted at sea, conducted to
the presence of Honorius, led in triumph through the streets of
Rome or Ravenna, and publicly exposed to the gazing multitude, on
the second step of the throne of his invincible conqueror. The
same measure of punishment, with which, in the days of his
prosperity, he was accused of menacing his rival, was inflicted
on Attalus himself; he was condemned, after the amputation of two
fingers, to a perpetual exile in the Isle of Lipari, where he was
supplied with the decent necessaries of life. The remainder of
the reign of Honorius was undisturbed by rebellion; and it may be
observed, that, in the space of five years, seven usurpers had
yielded to the fortune of a prince, who was himself incapable
either of counsel or of action.
153 (return) [ Sidonius Apollinaris, (l. v. epist. 9, p. 139, and
Not. Sirmond. p. 58,) after stigmatizing the inconstancy of
Constantine, the facility of Jovinus, the perfidy of Gerontius,
continues to observe, that all the vices of these tyrants were
united in the person of Dardanus. Yet the praefect supported a
respectable character in the world, and even in the church; held
a devout correspondence with St. Augustin and St. Jerom; and was
complimented by the latter (tom. iii. p. 66) with the epithets of
Christianorum Nobilissime, and Nobilium Christianissime.]
154 (return) [ The expression may be understood almost literally:
Olympiodorus says a sack, or a loose garment; and this method of
entangling and catching an enemy, laciniis contortis, was much
practised by the Huns, (Ammian. xxxi. 2.) Il fut pris vif avec
des filets, is the translation of Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs,
tom. v. p. 608. * Note: Bekker in his Photius reads something,
but in the new edition of the Bysantines, he retains the old
version, which is translated Scutis, as if they protected him
with their shields, in order to take him alive. Photius, Bekker,
p. 58.—M]
Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By
Barbarians.—Part VII.
The situation of Spain, separated, on all sides, from the enemies
of Rome, by the sea, by the mountains, and by intermediate
provinces, had secured the long tranquillity of that remote and
sequestered country; and we may observe, as a sure symptom of
domestic happiness, that, in a period of four hundred years,
Spain furnished very few materials to the history of the Roman
empire. The footsteps of the Barbarians, who, in the reign of
Gallienus, had penetrated beyond the Pyrenees, were soon
obliterated by the return of peace; and in the fourth century of
the Christian era, the cities of Emerita, or Merida, of Corduba,
Seville, Bracara, and Tarragona, were numbered with the most
illustrious of the Roman world. The various plenty of the animal,
the vegetable, and the mineral kingdoms, was improved and
manufactured by the skill of an industrious people; and the
peculiar advantages of naval stores contributed to support an
extensive and profitable trade. 155 The arts and sciences
flourished under the protection of the emperors; and if the
character of the Spaniards was enfeebled by peace and servitude,
the hostile approach of the Germans, who had spread terror and
desolation from the Rhine to the Pyrenees, seemed to rekindle
some sparks of military ardor. As long as the defence of the
mountains was intrusted to the hardy and faithful militia of the
country, they successfully repelled the frequent attempts of the
Barbarians. But no sooner had the national troops been compelled
to resign their post to the Honorian bands, in the service of
Constantine, than the gates of Spain were treacherously betrayed
to the public enemy, about ten months before the sack of Rome by
the Goths. 156 The consciousness of guilt, and the thirst of
rapine, prompted the mercenary guards of the Pyrenees to desert
their station; to invite the arms of the Suevi, the Vandals, and
the Alani; and to swell the torrent which was poured with
irresistible violence from the frontiers of Gaul to the sea of
Africa. The misfortunes of Spain may be described in the language
of its most eloquent historian, who has concisely expressed the
passionate, and perhaps exaggerated, declamations of contemporary
writers. 157 “The irruption of these nations was followed by the
most dreadful calamities; as the Barbarians exercised their
indiscriminate cruelty on the fortunes of the Romans and the
Spaniards, and ravaged with equal fury the cities and the open
country. The progress of famine reduced the miserable inhabitants
to feed on the flesh of their fellow-creatures; and even the wild
beasts, who multiplied, without control, in the desert, were
exasperated, by the taste of blood, and the impatience of hunger,
boldly to attack and devour their human prey. Pestilence soon
appeared, the inseparable companion of famine; a large proportion
of the people was swept away; and the groans of the dying excited
only the envy of their surviving friends. At length the
Barbarians, satiated with carnage and rapine, and afflicted by
the contagious evils which they themselves had introduced, fixed
their permanent seats in the depopulated country. The ancient
Gallicia, whose limits included the kingdom of Old Castille, was
divided between the Suevi and the Vandals; the Alani were
scattered over the provinces of Carthagena and Lusitania, from
the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean; and the fruitful
territory of Boetica was allotted to the Silingi, another branch
of the Vandalic nation. After regulating this partition, the
conquerors contracted with their new subjects some reciprocal
engagements of protection and obedience: the lands were again
cultivated; and the towns and villages were again occupied by a
captive people. The greatest part of the Spaniards was even
disposed to prefer this new condition of poverty and barbarism,
to the severe oppressions of the Roman government; yet there were
many who still asserted their native freedom; and who refused,
more especially in the mountains of Gallicia, to submit to the
Barbarian yoke.” 158
155 (return) [ Without recurring to the more ancient writers, I
shall quote three respectable testimonies which belong to the
fourth and seventh centuries; the Expositio totius Mundi, (p. 16,
in the third volume of Hudson’s Minor Geographers,) Ausonius, (de
Claris Urbibus, p. 242, edit. Toll.,) and Isidore of Seville,
(Praefat. ad. Chron. ap. Grotium, Hist. Goth. 707.) Many
particulars relative to the fertility and trade of Spain may be
found in Nonnius, Hispania Illustrata; and in Huet, Hist. du
Commerce des Anciens, c. 40. p. 228-234.]
156 (return) [ The date is accurately fixed in the Fasti, and the
Chronicle of Idatius. Orosius (l. vii. c. 40, p. 578) imputes the
loss of Spain to the treachery of the Honorians; while Sozomen
(l. ix. c. 12) accuses only their negligence.]
157 (return) [ Idatius wishes to apply the prophecies of Daniel
to these national calamities; and is therefore obliged to
accommodate the circumstances of the event to the terms of the
prediction.]
158 (return) [ Mariana de Rebus Hispanicis, l. v. c. 1, tom. i.
p. 148. Comit. 1733. He had read, in Orosius, (l. vii. c. 41, p.
579,) that the Barbarians had turned their swords into
ploughshares; and that many of the Provincials had preferred
inter Barbaros pauperem libertatem, quam inter Romanos
tributariam solicitudinem, sustinere.]
The important present of the heads of Jovinus and Sebastian had
approved the friendship of Adolphus, and restored Gaul to the
obedience of his brother Honorius. Peace was incompatible with
the situation and temper of the king of the Goths. He readily
accepted the proposal of turning his victorious arms against the
Barbarians of Spain; the troops of Constantius intercepted his
communication with the seaports of Gaul, and gently pressed his
march towards the Pyrenees: 159 he passed the mountains, and
surprised, in the name of the emperor, the city of Barcelona. The
fondness of Adolphus for his Roman bride, was not abated by time
or possession: and the birth of a son, surnamed, from his
illustrious grandsire, Theodosius, appeared to fix him forever in
the interest of the republic. The loss of that infant, whose
remains were deposited in a silver coffin in one of the churches
near Barcelona, afflicted his parents; but the grief of the
Gothic king was suspended by the labors of the field; and the
course of his victories was soon interrupted by domestic treason.
He had imprudently received into his service one of the followers
of Sarus; a Barbarian of a daring spirit, but of a diminutive
stature; whose secret desire of revenging the death of his
beloved patron was continually irritated by the sarcasms of his
insolent master. Adolphus was assassinated in the palace of
Barcelona; the laws of the succession were violated by a
tumultuous faction; 160 and a stranger to the royal race,
Singeric, the brother of Sarus himself, was seated on the Gothic
throne. The first act of his reign was the inhuman murder of the
six children of Adolphus, the issue of a former marriage, whom he
tore, without pity, from the feeble arms of a venerable bishop.
161 The unfortunate Placidia, instead of the respectful
compassion, which she might have excited in the most savage
breasts, was treated with cruel and wanton insult. The daughter
of the emperor Theodosius, confounded among a crowd of vulgar
captives, was compelled to march on foot above twelve miles,
before the horse of a Barbarian, the assassin of a husband whom
Placidia loved and lamented. 162
159 (return) [ This mixture of force and persuasion may be fairly
inferred from comparing Orosius and Jornandes, the Roman and the
Gothic historian.]
160 (return) [ According to the system of Jornandes, (c. 33, p.
659,) the true hereditary right to the Gothic sceptre was vested
in the Amali; but those princes, who were the vassals of the
Huns, commanded the tribes of the Ostrogoths in some distant
parts of Germany or Scythia.]
161 (return) [ The murder is related by Olympiodorus: but the
number of the children is taken from an epitaph of suspected
authority.]
162 (return) [ The death of Adolphus was celebrated at
Constantinople with illuminations and Circensian games. (See
Chron. Alexandrin.) It may seem doubtful whether the Greeks were
actuated, on this occasion, be their hatred of the Barbarians, or
of the Latins.]
But Placidia soon obtained the pleasure of revenge, and the view
of her ignominious sufferings might rouse an indignant people
against the tyrant, who was assassinated on the seventh day of
his usurpation. After the death of Singeric, the free choice of
the nation bestowed the Gothic sceptre on Wallia; whose warlike
and ambitious temper appeared, in the beginning of his reign,
extremely hostile to the republic. He marched in arms from
Barcelona to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, which the ancients
revered and dreaded as the boundary of the world. But when he
reached the southern promontory of Spain, 163 and, from the rock
now covered by the fortress of Gibraltar, contemplated the
neighboring and fertile coast of Africa, Wallia resumed the
designs of conquest, which had been interrupted by the death of
Alaric. The winds and waves again disappointed the enterprise of
the Goths; and the minds of a superstitious people were deeply
affected by the repeated disasters of storms and shipwrecks. In
this disposition the successor of Adolphus no longer refused to
listen to a Roman ambassador, whose proposals were enforced by
the real, or supposed, approach of a numerous army, under the
conduct of the brave Constantius. A solemn treaty was stipulated
and observed; Placidia was honorably restored to her brother; six
hundred thousand measures of wheat were delivered to the hungry
Goths; 164 and Wallia engaged to draw his sword in the service of
the empire. A bloody war was instantly excited among the
Barbarians of Spain; and the contending princes are said to have
addressed their letters, their ambassadors, and their hostages,
to the throne of the Western emperor, exhorting him to remain a
tranquil spectator of their contest; the events of which must be
favorable to the Romans, by the mutual slaughter of their common
enemies. 165 The Spanish war was obstinately supported, during
three campaigns, with desperate valor, and various success; and
the martial achievements of Wallia diffused through the empire
the superior renown of the Gothic hero. He exterminated the
Silingi, who had irretrievably ruined the elegant plenty of the
province of Boetica. He slew, in battle, the king of the Alani;
and the remains of those Scythian wanderers, who escaped from the
field, instead of choosing a new leader, humbly sought a refuge
under the standard of the Vandals, with whom they were ever
afterwards confounded. The Vandals themselves, and the Suevi,
yielded to the efforts of the invincible Goths. The promiscuous
multitude of Barbarians, whose retreat had been intercepted, were
driven into the mountains of Gallicia; where they still
continued, in a narrow compass and on a barren soil, to exercise
their domestic and implacable hostilities. In the pride of
victory, Wallia was faithful to his engagements: he restored his
Spanish conquests to the obedience of Honorius; and the tyranny
of the Imperial officers soon reduced an oppressed people to
regret the time of their Barbarian servitude. While the event of
the war was still doubtful, the first advantages obtained by the
arms of Wallia had encouraged the court of Ravenna to decree the
honors of a triumph to their feeble sovereign. He entered Rome
like the ancient conquerors of nations; and if the monuments of
servile corruption had not long since met with the fate which
they deserved, we should probably find that a crowd of poets and
orators, of magistrates and bishops, applauded the fortune, the
wisdom, and the invincible courage, of the emperor Honorius. 166
163 (return) [
Quod Tartessiacis avus hujus Vallia terris Vandalicas turmas, et
juncti Martis Alanos Stravit, et occiduam texere cadavera Calpen.
Sidon. Apollinar. in Panegyr. Anthem. 363 p. 300, edit. Sirmond.]
164 (return) [ This supply was very acceptable: the Goths were
insulted by the Vandals of Spain with the epithet of Truli,
because in their extreme distress, they had given a piece of gold
for a trula, or about half a pound of flour. Olympiod. apud Phot.
p. 189.]
165 (return) [ Orosius inserts a copy of these pretended letters.
Tu cum omnibus pacem habe, omniumque obsides accipe; nos nobis
confligimus nobis perimus, tibi vincimus; immortalis vero
quaestus erit Reipublicae tuae, si utrique pereamus. The idea is
just; but I cannot persuade myself that it was entertained or
expressed by the Barbarians.]
166 (return) [ Roman triumphans ingreditur, is the formal
expression of Prosper’s Chronicle. The facts which relate to the
death of Adolphus, and the exploits of Wallia, are related from
Olympiodorus, (ap. Phot. p. 188,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 43 p.
584-587,) Jornandes, (de Rebus p. 31, 32,) and the chronicles of
Idatius and Isidore.]
Such a triumph might have been justly claimed by the ally of
Rome, if Wallia, before he repassed the Pyrenees, had extirpated
the seeds of the Spanish war. His victorious Goths, forty-three
years after they had passed the Danube, were established,
according to the faith of treaties, in the possession of the
second Aquitain; a maritime province between the Garonne and the
Loire, under the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction of
Bourdeaux. That metropolis, advantageously situated for the trade
of the ocean, was built in a regular and elegant form; and its
numerous inhabitants were distinguished among the Gauls by their
wealth, their learning, and the politeness of their manners. The
adjacent province, which has been fondly compared to the garden
of Eden, is blessed with a fruitful soil, and a temperate
climate; the face of the country displayed the arts and the
rewards of industry; and the Goths, after their martial toils,
luxuriously exhausted the rich vineyards of Aquitain. 167 The
Gothic limits were enlarged by the additional gift of some
neighboring dioceses; and the successors of Alaric fixed their
royal residence at Thoulouse, which included five populous
quarters, or cities, within the spacious circuit of its walls.
About the same time, in the last years of the reign of Honorius,
the Goths, the Burgundians, and the Franks, obtained a permanent
seat and dominion in the provinces of Gaul. The liberal grant of
the usurper Jovinus to his Burgundian allies, was confirmed by
the lawful emperor; the lands of the First, or Upper, Germany,
were ceded to those formidable Barbarians; and they gradually
occupied, either by conquest or treaty, the two provinces which
still retain, with the titles of Duchy and County, the national
appellation of Burgundy. 168 The Franks, the valiant and faithful
allies of the Roman republic, were soon tempted to imitate the
invaders, whom they had so bravely resisted. Treves, the capital
of Gaul, was pillaged by their lawless bands; and the humble
colony, which they so long maintained in the district of
Toxandia, in Brabant, insensibly multiplied along the banks of
the Meuse and Scheld, till their independent power filled the
whole extent of the Second, or Lower Germany. These facts may be
sufficiently justified by historic evidence; but the foundation
of the French monarchy by Pharamond, the conquests, the laws, and
even the existence, of that hero, have been justly arraigned by
the impartial severity of modern criticism. 169
167 (return) [ Ausonius (de Claris Urbibus, p. 257-262)
celebrates Bourdeaux with the partial affection of a native. See
in Salvian (de Gubern. Dei, p. 228. Paris, 1608) a florid
description of the provinces of Aquitain and Novempopulania.]
168 (return) [ Orosius (l. vii. c. 32, p. 550) commends the
mildness and modesty of these Burgundians, who treated their
subjects of Gaul as their Christian brethren. Mascou has
illustrated the origin of their kingdom in the four first
annotations at the end of his laborious History of the Ancient
Germans, vol. ii. p. 555-572, of the English translation.]
169 (return) [ See Mascou, l. viii. c. 43, 44, 45. Except in a
short and suspicious line of the Chronicle of Prosper, (in tom.
i. p. 638,) the name of Pharamond is never mentioned before the
seventh century. The author of the Gesta Francorum (in tom. ii.
p. 543) suggests, probably enough, that the choice of Pharamond,
or at least of a king, was recommended to the Franks by his
father Marcomir, who was an exile in Tuscany. Note: The first
mention of Pharamond is in the Gesta Francorum, assigned to about
the year 720. St. Martin, iv. 469. The modern French writers in
general subscribe to the opinion of Thierry: Faramond fils de
Markomir, quo que son nom soit bien germanique, et son regne
possible, ne figure pas dans les histoires les plus dignes de
foi. A. Thierry, Lettres l’Histoire de France, p. 90.—M.]
The ruin of the opulent provinces of Gaul may be dated from the
establishment of these Barbarians, whose alliance was dangerous
and oppressive, and who were capriciously impelled, by interest
or passion, to violate the public peace. A heavy and partial
ransom was imposed on the surviving provincials, who had escaped
the calamities of war; the fairest and most fertile lands were
assigned to the rapacious strangers, for the use of their
families, their slaves, and their cattle; and the trembling
natives relinquished with a sigh the inheritance of their
fathers. Yet these domestic misfortunes, which are seldom the lot
of a vanquished people, had been felt and inflicted by the Romans
themselves, not only in the insolence of foreign conquest, but in
the madness of civil discord. The Triumvirs proscribed eighteen
of the most flourishing colonies of Italy; and distributed their
lands and houses to the veterans who revenged the death of
Caesar, and oppressed the liberty of their country. Two poets of
unequal fame have deplored, in similar circumstances, the loss of
their patrimony; but the legionaries of Augustus appear to have
surpassed, in violence and injustice, the Barbarians who invaded
Gaul under the reign of Honorius. It was not without the utmost
difficulty that Virgil escaped from the sword of the Centurion,
who had usurped his farm in the neighborhood of Mantua; 170 but
Paulinus of Bourdeaux received a sum of money from his Gothic
purchaser, which he accepted with pleasure and surprise; and
though it was much inferior to the real value of his estate, this
act of rapine was disguised by some colors of moderation and
equity. 171 The odious name of conquerors was softened into the
mild and friendly appellation of the guests of the Romans; and
the Barbarians of Gaul, more especially the Goths, repeatedly
declared, that they were bound to the people by the ties of
hospitality, and to the emperor by the duty of allegiance and
military service. The title of Honorius and his successors, their
laws, and their civil magistrates, were still respected in the
provinces of Gaul, of which they had resigned the possession to
the Barbarian allies; and the kings, who exercised a supreme and
independent authority over their native subjects, ambitiously
solicited the more honorable rank of master-generals of the
Imperial armies. 172 Such was the involuntary reverence which the
Roman name still impressed on the minds of those warriors, who
had borne away in triumph the spoils of the Capitol.
170 (return) [ O Lycida, vivi pervenimus: advena nostri (Quod
nunquam veriti sumus) ut possessor agelli Diseret: Haec mea sunt;
veteres migrate coloni. Nunc victi tristes, &c.——See the whole of
the ninth eclogue, with the useful Commentary of Servius. Fifteen
miles of the Mantuan territory were assigned to the veterans,
with a reservation, in favor of the inhabitants, of three miles
round the city. Even in this favor they were cheated by Alfenus
Varus, a famous lawyer, and one of the commissioners, who
measured eight hundred paces of water and morass.]
171 (return) [ See the remarkable passage of the Eucharisticon of
Paulinus, 575, apud Mascou, l. viii. c. 42.]
172 (return) [ This important truth is established by the
accuracy of Tillemont, (Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 641,) and by
the ingenuity of the Abbe Dubos, (Hist. de l’Etablissement de la
Monarchie Francoise dans les Gaules, tom. i. p. 259.)]
Whilst Italy was ravaged by the Goths, and a succession of feeble
tyrants oppressed the provinces beyond the Alps, the British
island separated itself from the body of the Roman empire. The
regular forces, which guarded that remote province, had been
gradually withdrawn; and Britain was abandoned without defence to
the Saxon pirates, and the savages of Ireland and Caledonia. The
Britons, reduced to this extremity, no longer relied on the tardy
and doubtful aid of a declining monarchy. They assembled in arms,
repelled the invaders, and rejoiced in the important discovery of
their own strength. 173 Afflicted by similar calamities, and
actuated by the same spirit, the Armorican provinces (a name
which comprehended the maritime countries of Gaul between the
Seine and the Loire 174 resolved to imitate the example of the
neighboring island. They expelled the Roman magistrates, who
acted under the authority of the usurper Constantine; and a free
government was established among a people who had so long been
subject to the arbitrary will of a master. The independence of
Britain and Armorica was soon confirmed by Honorius himself, the
lawful emperor of the West; and the letters, by which he
committed to the new states the care of their own safety, might
be interpreted as an absolute and perpetual abdication of the
exercise and rights of sovereignty. This interpretation was, in
some measure, justified by the event.
After the usurpers of Gaul had successively fallen, the maritime
provinces were restored to the empire. Yet their obedience was
imperfect and precarious: the vain, inconstant, rebellious
disposition of the people, was incompatible either with freedom
or servitude; 175 and Armorica, though it could not long maintain
the form of a republic, 176 was agitated by frequent and
destructive revolts. Britain was irrecoverably lost. 177 But as
the emperors wisely acquiesced in the independence of a remote
province, the separation was not imbittered by the reproach of
tyranny or rebellion; and the claims of allegiance and protection
were succeeded by the mutual and voluntary offices of national
friendship. 178
173 (return) [ Zosimus (l. vi. 376, 383) relates in a few words
the revolt of Britain and Armorica. Our antiquarians, even the
great Cambder himself, have been betrayed into many gross errors,
by their imperfect knowledge of the history of the continent.]
174 (return) [ The limits of Armorica are defined by two national
geographers, Messieurs De Valois and D’Anville, in their Notitias
of Ancient Gaul. The word had been used in a more extensive, and
was afterwards contracted to a much narrower, signification.]
175 (return) [ Gens inter geminos notissima clauditur amnes,
Armoricana prius veteri cognomine dicta. Torva, ferox, ventosa,
procax, incauta, rebellis; Inconstans, disparque sibi novitatis
amore; Prodiga verborum, sed non et prodiga facti.
Erricus, Monach. in Vit. St. Germani. l. v. apud Vales. Notit.
Galliarum, p. 43. Valesius alleges several testimonies to confirm
this character; to which I shall add the evidence of the
presbyter Constantine, (A.D. 488,) who, in the life of St.
Germain, calls the Armorican rebels mobilem et indisciplinatum
populum. See the Historians of France, tom. i. p. 643.]
176 (return) [ I thought it necessary to enter my protest against
this part of the system of the Abbe Dubos, which Montesquieu has
so vigorously opposed. See Esprit des Loix, l. xxx. c. 24. Note:
See Mémoires de Gallet sur l’Origine des Bretons, quoted by Daru
Histoire de Bretagne, i. p. 57. According to the opinion of these
authors, the government of Armorica was monarchical from the
period of its independence on the Roman empire.—M.]
177 (return) [ The words of Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c.
2, p. 181, Louvre edition) in a very important passage, which has
been too much neglected Even Bede (Hist. Gent. Anglican. l. i. c.
12, p. 50, edit. Smith) acknowledges that the Romans finally left
Britain in the reign of Honorius. Yet our modern historians and
antiquaries extend the term of their dominion; and there are some
who allow only the interval of a few months between their
departure and the arrival of the Saxons.]
178 (return) [ Bede has not forgotten the occasional aid of the
legions against the Scots and Picts; and more authentic proof
will hereafter be produced, that the independent Britons raised
12,000 men for the service of the emperor Anthemius, in Gaul.]
This revolution dissolved the artificial fabric of civil and
military government; and the independent country, during a period
of forty years, till the descent of the Saxons, was ruled by the
authority of the clergy, the nobles, and the municipal towns. 179
I. Zosimus, who alone has preserved the memory of this singular
transaction, very accurately observes, that the letters of
Honorius were addressed to the cities of Britain. 180 Under the
protection of the Romans, ninety-two considerable towns had
arisen in the several parts of that great province; and, among
these, thirty-three cities were distinguished above the rest by
their superior privileges and importance. 181 Each of these
cities, as in all the other provinces of the empire, formed a
legal corporation, for the purpose of regulating their domestic
policy; and the powers of municipal government were distributed
among annual magistrates, a select senate, and the assembly of
the people, according to the original model of the Roman
constitution. 182 The management of a common revenue, the
exercise of civil and criminal jurisdiction, and the habits of
public counsel and command, were inherent to these petty
republics; and when they asserted their independence, the youth
of the city, and of the adjacent districts, would naturally range
themselves under the standard of the magistrate. But the desire
of obtaining the advantages, and of escaping the burdens, of
political society, is a perpetual and inexhaustible source of
discord; nor can it reasonably be presumed, that the restoration
of British freedom was exempt from tumult and faction. The
preeminence of birth and fortune must have been frequently
violated by bold and popular citizens; and the haughty nobles,
who complained that they were become the subjects of their own
servants, 183 would sometimes regret the reign of an arbitrary
monarch.
II. The jurisdiction of each city over the adjacent country, was
supported by the patrimonial influence of the principal senators;
and the smaller towns, the villages, and the proprietors of land,
consulted their own safety by adhering to the shelter of these
rising republics. The sphere of their attraction was proportioned
to the respective degrees of their wealth and populousness; but
the hereditary lords of ample possessions, who were not oppressed
by the neighborhood of any powerful city, aspired to the rank of
independent princes, and boldly exercised the rights of peace and
war. The gardens and villas, which exhibited some faint imitation
of Italian elegance, would soon be converted into strong castles,
the refuge, in time of danger, of the adjacent country: 184 the
produce of the land was applied to purchase arms and horses; to
maintain a military force of slaves, of peasants, and of
licentious followers; and the chieftain might assume, within his
own domain, the powers of a civil magistrate. Several of these
British chiefs might be the genuine posterity of ancient kings;
and many more would be tempted to adopt this honorable genealogy,
and to vindicate their hereditary claims, which had been
suspended by the usurpation of the Caesars. 185 Their situation
and their hopes would dispose them to affect the dress, the
language, and the customs of their ancestors. If the princes of
Britain relapsed into barbarism, while the cities studiously
preserved the laws and manners of Rome, the whole island must
have been gradually divided by the distinction of two national
parties; again broken into a thousand subdivisions of war and
faction, by the various provocations of interest and resentment.
The public strength, instead of being united against a foreign
enemy, was consumed in obscure and intestine quarrels; and the
personal merit which had placed a successful leader at the head
of his equals, might enable him to subdue the freedom of some
neighboring cities; and to claim a rank among the tyrants, 186
who infested Britain after the dissolution of the Roman
government. III. The British church might be composed of thirty
or forty bishops, 187 with an adequate proportion of the inferior
clergy; and the want of riches (for they seem to have been poor
188) would compel them to deserve the public esteem, by a decent
and exemplary behavior.
The interest, as well as the temper of the clergy, was favorable
to the peace and union of their distracted country: those
salutary lessons might be frequently inculcated in their popular
discourses; and the episcopal synods were the only councils that
could pretend to the weight and authority of a national assembly.
In such councils, where the princes and magistrates sat
promiscuously with the bishops, the important affairs of the
state, as well as of the church, might be freely debated;
differences reconciled, alliances formed, contributions imposed,
wise resolutions often concerted, and sometimes executed; and
there is reason to believe, that, in moments of extreme danger, a
Pendragon, or Dictator, was elected by the general consent of the
Britons. These pastoral cares, so worthy of the episcopal
character, were interrupted, however, by zeal and superstition;
and the British clergy incessantly labored to eradicate the
Pelagian heresy, which they abhorred, as the peculiar disgrace of
their native country. 189
179 (return) [ I owe it to myself, and to historic truth, to
declare, that some circumstances in this paragraph are founded
only on conjecture and analogy. The stubbornness of our language
has sometimes forced me to deviate from the conditional into the
indicative mood.]
180 (return) [ Zosimus, l. vi. p. 383.]
181 (return) [ Two cities of Britain were municipia, nine
colonies, ten Latii jure donatoe, twelve stipendiarioe of eminent
note. This detail is taken from Richard of Cirencester, de Situ
Britanniae, p. 36; and though it may not seem probable that he
wrote from the Mss. of a Roman general, he shows a genuine
knowledge of antiquity, very extraordinary for a monk of the
fourteenth century.
Note: The names may be found in Whitaker’s Hist. of Manchester
vol. ii. 330, 379. Turner, Hist. Anglo-Saxons, i. 216.—M.]
182 (return) [ See Maffei Verona Illustrata, part i. l. v. p.
83-106.]
183 (return) [ Leges restituit, libertatemque reducit, Et servos
famulis non sinit esse suis. Itinerar. Rutil. l. i. 215.]
184 (return) [ An inscription (apud Sirmond, Not. ad Sidon.
Apollinar. p. 59) describes a castle, cum muris et portis,
tutioni omnium, erected by Dardanus on his own estate, near
Sisteron, in the second Narbonnese, and named by him Theopolis.]
185 (return) [ The establishment of their power would have been
easy indeed, if we could adopt the impracticable scheme of a
lively and learned antiquarian; who supposes that the British
monarchs of the several tribes continued to reign, though with
subordinate jurisdiction, from the time of Claudius to that of
Honorius. See Whitaker’s History of Manchester, vol. i. p.
247-257.]
186 (return) [ Procopius, de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 3, p. 181.
Britannia fertilis provincia tyrannorum, was the expression of
Jerom, in the year 415 (tom. ii. p. 255, ad Ctesiphont.) By the
pilgrims, who resorted every year to the Holy Land, the monk of
Bethlem received the earliest and most accurate intelligence.]
187 (return) [ See Bingham’s Eccles. Antiquities, vol. i. l. ix.
c. 6, p. 394.]
188 (return) [ It is reported of three British bishops who
assisted at the council of Rimini, A.D. 359, tam pauperes fuisse
ut nihil haberent. Sulpicius Severus, Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 420.
Some of their brethren however, were in better circumstances.]
189 (return) [ Consult Usher, de Antiq. Eccles. Britannicar. c.
8-12.]
It is somewhat remarkable, or rather it is extremely natural,
that the revolt of Britain and Armorica should have introduced an
appearance of liberty into the obedient provinces of Gaul. In a
solemn edict, 190 filled with the strongest assurances of that
paternal affection which princes so often express, and so seldom
feel, the emperor Honorius promulgated his intention of convening
an annual assembly of the seven provinces: a name peculiarly
appropriated to Aquitain and the ancient Narbonnese, which had
long since exchanged their Celtic rudeness for the useful and
elegant arts of Italy. 191 Arles, the seat of government and
commerce, was appointed for the place of the assembly; which
regularly continued twenty-eight days, from the fifteenth of
August to the thirteenth of September, of every year. It
consisted of the Prætorian praefect of the Gauls; of seven
provincial governors, one consular, and six presidents; of the
magistrates, and perhaps the bishops, of about sixty cities; and
of a competent, though indefinite, number of the most honorable
and opulent possessors of land, who might justly be considered as
the representatives of their country. They were empowered to
interpret and communicate the laws of their sovereign; to expose
the grievances and wishes of their constituents; to moderate the
excessive or unequal weight of taxes; and to deliberate on every
subject of local or national importance, that could tend to the
restoration of the peace and prosperity of the seven provinces.
If such an institution, which gave the people an interest in
their own government, had been universally established by Trajan
or the Antonines, the seeds of public wisdom and virtue might
have been cherished and propagated in the empire of Rome. The
privileges of the subject would have secured the throne of the
monarch; the abuses of an arbitrary administration might have
been prevented, in some degree, or corrected, by the
interposition of these representative assemblies; and the country
would have been defended against a foreign enemy by the arms of
natives and freemen. Under the mild and generous influence of
liberty, the Roman empire might have remained invincible and
immortal; or if its excessive magnitude, and the instability of
human affairs, had opposed such perpetual continuance, its vital
and constituent members might have separately preserved their
vigor and independence. But in the decline of the empire, when
every principle of health and life had been exhausted, the tardy
application of this partial remedy was incapable of producing any
important or salutary effects. The emperor Honorius expresses his
surprise, that he must compel the reluctant provinces to accept a
privilege which they should ardently have solicited. A fine of
three, or even five, pounds of gold, was imposed on the absent
representatives; who seem to have declined this imaginary gift of
a free constitution, as the last and most cruel insult of their
oppressors.
190 (return) [ See the correct text of this edict, as published
by Sirmond, (Not. ad Sidon. Apollin. p. 148.) Hincmar of Rheims,
who assigns a place to the bishops, had probably seen (in the
ninth century) a more perfect copy. Dubos, Hist. Critique de la
Monarchie Francoise, tom. i. p. 241-255]
191 (return) [ It is evident from the Notitia, that the seven
provinces were the Viennensis, the maritime Alps, the first and
second Narbonnese Novempopulania, and the first and second
Aquitain. In the room of the first Aquitain, the Abbe Dubos, on
the authority of Hincmar, desires to introduce the first
Lugdunensis, or Lyonnese.]
Chapter XXXII: Emperors Arcadius, Eutropius, Theodosius II.—Part I.
Arcadius Emperor Of The East.—Administration And Disgrace Of
Eutropius.—Revolt Of Gainas.—Persecution Of St. John
Chrysostom.—Theodosius II. Emperor Of The East.—His Sister
Pulcheria.—His Wife Eudocia.—The Persian War, And Division Of
Armenia.
The division of the Roman world between the sons of Theodosius
marks the final establishment of the empire of the East, which,
from the reign of Arcadius to the taking of Constantinople by the
Turks, subsisted one thousand and fifty-eight years, in a state
of premature and perpetual decay. The sovereign of that empire
assumed, and obstinately retained, the vain, and at length
fictitious, title of Emperor of the Romans; and the hereditary
appellation of Caesar and Augustus continued to declare, that he
was the legitimate successor of the first of men, who had reigned
over the first of nations. The place of Constantinople rivalled,
and perhaps excelled, the magnificence of Persia; and the
eloquent sermons of St. Chrysostom 1 celebrate, while they
condemn, the pompous luxury of the reign of Arcadius. “The
emperor,” says he, “wears on his head either a diadem, or a crown
of gold, decorated with precious stones of inestimable value.
These ornaments, and his purple garments, are reserved for his
sacred person alone; and his robes of silk are embroidered with
the figures of golden dragons. His throne is of massy gold.
Whenever he appears in public, he is surrounded by his courtiers,
his guards, and his attendants. Their spears, their shields,
their cuirasses, the bridles and trappings of their horses, have
either the substance or the appearance of gold; and the large
splendid boss in the midst of their shield is encircled with
smaller bosses, which represent the shape of the human eye. The
two mules that drew the chariot of the monarch are perfectly
white, and shining all over with gold. The chariot itself, of
pure and solid gold, attracts the admiration of the spectators,
who contemplate the purple curtains, the snowy carpet, the size
of the precious stones, and the resplendent plates of gold, that
glitter as they are agitated by the motion of the carriage. The
Imperial pictures are white, on a blue ground; the emperor
appears seated on his throne, with his arms, his horses, and his
guards beside him; and his vanquished enemies in chains at his
feet.” The successors of Constantine established their perpetual
residence in the royal city, which he had erected on the verge of
Europe and Asia. Inaccessible to the menaces of their enemies,
and perhaps to the complaints of their people, they received,
with each wind, the tributary productions of every climate; while
the impregnable strength of their capital continued for ages to
defy the hostile attempts of the Barbarians. Their dominions were
bounded by the Adriatic and the Tigris; and the whole interval of
twenty-five days’ navigation, which separated the extreme cold of
Scythia from the torrid zone of Æthiopia, 2 was comprehended
within the limits of the empire of the East. The populous
countries of that empire were the seat of art and learning, of
luxury and wealth; and the inhabitants, who had assumed the
language and manners of Greeks, styled themselves, with some
appearance of truth, the most enlightened and civilized portion
of the human species. The form of government was a pure and
simple monarchy; the name of the Roman Republic, which so long
preserved a faint tradition of freedom, was confined to the Latin
provinces; and the princes of Constantinople measured their
greatness by the servile obedience of their people. They were
ignorant how much this passive disposition enervates and degrades
every faculty of the mind. The subjects, who had resigned their
will to the absolute commands of a master, were equally incapable
of guarding their lives and fortunes against the assaults of the
Barbarians, or of defending their reason from the terrors of
superstition.
1 (return) [ Father Montfaucon, who, by the command of his
Benedictine superiors, was compelled (see Longueruana, tom. i. p.
205) to execute the laborious edition of St. Chrysostom, in
thirteen volumes in folio, (Paris, 1738,) amused himself with
extracting from that immense collection of morals, some curious
antiquities, which illustrate the manners of the Theodosian age,
(see Chrysostom, Opera, tom. xiii. p. 192-196,) and his French
Dissertation, in the Mémoires de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, tom.
xiii. p. 474-490.]
2 (return) [ According to the loose reckoning, that a ship could
sail, with a fair wind, 1000 stadia, or 125 miles, in the
revolution of a day and night, Diodorus Siculus computes ten days
from the Palus Moeotis to Rhodes, and four days from Rhodes to
Alexandria. The navigation of the Nile from Alexandria to Syene,
under the tropic of Cancer, required, as it was against the
stream, ten days more. Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. iii. p. 200,
edit. Wesseling. He might, without much impropriety, measure the
extreme heat from the verge of the torrid zone; but he speaks of
the Moeotis in the 47th degree of northern latitude, as if it lay
within the polar circle.]
The first events of the reign of Arcadius and Honorius are so
intimately connected, that the rebellion of the Goths, and the
fall of Rufinus, have already claimed a place in the history of
the West. It has already been observed, that Eutropius, 3 one of
the principal eunuchs of the palace of Constantinople, succeeded
the haughty minister whose ruin he had accomplished, and whose
vices he soon imitated. Every order of the state bowed to the new
favorite; and their tame and obsequious submission encouraged him
to insult the laws, and, what is still more difficult and
dangerous, the manners of his country. Under the weakest of the
predecessors of Arcadius, the reign of the eunuchs had been
secret and almost invisible. They insinuated themselves into the
confidence of the prince; but their ostensible functions were
confined to the menial service of the wardrobe and Imperial
bed-chamber. They might direct, in a whisper, the public
counsels, and blast, by their malicious suggestions, the fame and
fortunes of the most illustrious citizens; but they never
presumed to stand forward in the front of empire, 4 or to profane
the public honors of the state. Eutropius was the first of his
artificial sex, who dared to assume the character of a Roman
magistrate and general. Sometimes, in the presence of the
blushing senate, he ascended the tribunal to pronounce judgment,
or to repeat elaborate harangues; and, sometimes, appeared on
horseback, at the head of his troops, in the dress and armor of a
hero. The disregard of custom and decency always betrays a weak
and ill-regulated mind; nor does Eutropius seem to have
compensated for the folly of the design by any superior merit or
ability in the execution. His former habits of life had not
introduced him to the study of the laws, or the exercises of the
field; his awkward and unsuccessful attempts provoked the secret
contempt of the spectators; the Goths expressed their wish that
such a general might always command the armies of Rome; and the
name of the minister was branded with ridicule, more pernicious,
perhaps, than hatred, to a public character. The subjects of
Arcadius were exasperated by the recollection, that this deformed
and decrepit eunuch, 6 who so perversely mimicked the actions of
a man, was born in the most abject condition of servitude; that
before he entered the Imperial palace, he had been successively
sold and purchased by a hundred masters, who had exhausted his
youthful strength in every mean and infamous office, and at
length dismissed him, in his old age, to freedom and poverty. 7
While these disgraceful stories were circulated, and perhaps
exaggerated, in private conversation, the vanity of the favorite
was flattered with the most extraordinary honors. In the senate,
in the capital, in the provinces, the statues of Eutropius were
erected, in brass, or marble, decorated with the symbols of his
civil and military virtues, and inscribed with the pompous title
of the third founder of Constantinople. He was promoted to the
rank of patrician, which began to signify in a popular, and even
legal, acceptation, the father of the emperor; and the last year
of the fourth century was polluted by the consulship of a eunuch
and a slave. This strange and inexpiable prodigy 8 awakened,
however, the prejudices of the Romans. The effeminate consul was
rejected by the West, as an indelible stain to the annals of the
republic; and without invoking the shades of Brutus and Camillus,
the colleague of Eutropius, a learned and respectable magistrate,
9 sufficiently represented the different maxims of the two
administrations.
3 (return) [ Barthius, who adored his author with the blind
superstition of a commentator, gives the preference to the two
books which Claudian composed against Eutropius, above all his
other productions, (Baillet Jugemens des Savans, tom. iv. p.
227.) They are indeed a very elegant and spirited satire; and
would be more valuable in an historical light, if the invective
were less vague and more temperate.]
4 (return) [ After lamenting the progress of the eunuchs in the
Roman palace, and defining their proper functions, Claudian adds,
A fronte recedant. Imperii. —-In Eutrop. i. 422.
Yet it does not appear that the eunuchs had assumed any of the
efficient offices of the empire, and he is styled only
Praepositun sacri cubiculi, in the edict of his banishment. See
Cod. Theod. l. leg 17.
Jamque oblita sui, nec sobria divitiis mens In miseras leges
hominumque negotia ludit Judicat eunuchus....... Arma etiam
violare parat......
Claudian, (i. 229-270,) with that mixture of indignation and
humor which always pleases in a satiric poet, describes the
insolent folly of the eunuch, the disgrace of the empire, and the
joy of the Goths.
Gaudet, cum viderit, hostis, Et sentit jam deesse viros.]
6 (return) [ The poet’s lively description of his deformity (i.
110-125) is confirmed by the authentic testimony of Chrysostom,
(tom. iii. p. 384, edit Montfaucon;) who observes, that when the
paint was washed away the face of Eutropius appeared more ugly
and wrinkled than that of an old woman. Claudian remarks, (i.
469,) and the remark must have been founded on experience, that
there was scarcely an interval between the youth and the decrepit
age of a eunuch.]
7 (return) [ Eutropius appears to have been a native of Armenia
or Assyria. His three services, which Claudian more particularly
describes, were these: 1. He spent many years as the catamite of
Ptolemy, a groom or soldier of the Imperial stables. 2. Ptolemy
gave him to the old general Arintheus, for whom he very skilfully
exercised the profession of a pimp. 3. He was given, on her
marriage, to the daughter of Arintheus; and the future consul was
employed to comb her hair, to present the silver ewer to wash and
to fan his mistress in hot weather. See l. i. 31-137.]
8 (return) [ Claudian, (l. i. in Eutrop. l.—22,) after
enumerating the various prodigies of monstrous births, speaking
animals, showers of blood or stones, double suns, &c., adds, with
some exaggeration,
Omnia cesserunt eunucho consule monstra.
The first book concludes with a noble speech of the goddess of
Rome to her favorite Honorius, deprecating the new ignominy to
which she was exposed.]
9 (return) [ Fl. Mallius Theodorus, whose civil honors, and
philosophical works, have been celebrated by Claudian in a very
elegant panegyric.]
The bold and vigorous mind of Rufinus seems to have been actuated
by a more sanguinary and revengeful spirit; but the avarice of
the eunuch was not less insatiate than that of the praefect. 10
As long as he despoiled the oppressors, who had enriched
themselves with the plunder of the people, Eutropius might
gratify his covetous disposition without much envy or injustice:
but the progress of his rapine soon invaded the wealth which had
been acquired by lawful inheritance, or laudable industry. The
usual methods of extortion were practised and improved; and
Claudian has sketched a lively and original picture of the public
auction of the state. “The impotence of the eunuch,” says that
agreeable satirist, “has served only to stimulate his avarice:
the same hand which in his servile condition, was exercised in
petty thefts, to unlock the coffers of his master, now grasps the
riches of the world; and this infamous broker of the empire
appreciates and divides the Roman provinces from Mount Haemus to
the Tigris. One man, at the expense of his villa, is made
proconsul of Asia; a second purchases Syria with his wife’s
jewels; and a third laments that he has exchanged his paternal
estate for the government of Bithynia. In the antechamber of
Eutropius, a large tablet is exposed to public view, which marks
the respective prices of the provinces. The different value of
Pontus, of Galatia, of Lydia, is accurately distinguished. Lycia
may be obtained for so many thousand pieces of gold; but the
opulence of Phrygia will require a more considerable sum. The
eunuch wishes to obliterate, by the general disgrace, his
personal ignominy; and as he has been sold himself, he is
desirous of selling the rest of mankind. In the eager contention,
the balance, which contains the fate and fortunes of the
province, often trembles on the beam; and till one of the scales
is inclined, by a superior weight, the mind of the impartial
judge remains in anxious suspense. Such,” continues the indignant
poet, “are the fruits of Roman valor, of the defeat of Antiochus,
and of the triumph of Pompey.” This venal prostitution of public
honors secured the impunity of future crimes; but the riches,
which Eutropius derived from confiscation, were already stained
with injustice; since it was decent to accuse, and to condemn,
the proprietors of the wealth, which he was impatient to
confiscate. Some noble blood was shed by the hand of the
executioner; and the most inhospitable extremities of the empire
were filled with innocent and illustrious exiles. Among the
generals and consuls of the East, Abundantius 12 had reason to
dread the first effects of the resentment of Eutropius. He had
been guilty of the unpardonable crime of introducing that abject
slave to the palace of Constantinople; and some degree of praise
must be allowed to a powerful and ungrateful favorite, who was
satisfied with the disgrace of his benefactor. Abundantius was
stripped of his ample fortunes by an Imperial rescript, and
banished to Pityus, on the Euxine, the last frontier of the Roman
world; where he subsisted by the precarious mercy of the
Barbarians, till he could obtain, after the fall of Eutropius, a
milder exile at Sidon, in Phoenicia. The destruction of Timasius
13 required a more serious and regular mode of attack. That great
officer, the master-general of the armies of Theodosius, had
signalized his valor by a decisive victory, which he obtained
over the Goths of Thessaly; but he was too prone, after the
example of his sovereign, to enjoy the luxury of peace, and to
abandon his confidence to wicked and designing flatterers.
Timasius had despised the public clamor, by promoting an infamous
dependant to the command of a cohort; and he deserved to feel the
ingratitude of Bargus, who was secretly instigated by the
favorite to accuse his patron of a treasonable conspiracy. The
general was arraigned before the tribunal of Arcadius himself;
and the principal eunuch stood by the side of the throne to
suggest the questions and answers of his sovereign. But as this
form of trial might be deemed partial and arbitrary, the further
inquiry into the crimes of Timasius was delegated to Saturninus
and Procopius; the former of consular rank, the latter still
respected as the father-in-law of the emperor Valens. The
appearances of a fair and legal proceeding were maintained by the
blunt honesty of Procopius; and he yielded with reluctance to the
obsequious dexterity of his colleague, who pronounced a sentence
of condemnation against the unfortunate Timasius. His immense
riches were confiscated in the name of the emperor, and for the
benefit of the favorite; and he was doomed to perpetual exile a
Oasis, a solitary spot in the midst of the sandy deserts of
Libya. 14 Secluded from all human converse, the master-general of
the Roman armies was lost forever to the world; but the
circumstances of his fate have been related in a various and
contradictory manner. It is insinuated that Eutropius despatched
a private order for his secret execution. 15 It was reported,
that, in attempting to escape from Oasis, he perished in the
desert, of thirst and hunger; and that his dead body was found on
the sands of Libya. 16 It has been asserted, with more
confidence, that his son Syagrius, after successfully eluding the
pursuit of the agents and emissaries of the court, collected a
band of African robbers; that he rescued Timasius from the place
of his exile; and that both the father and the son disappeared
from the knowledge of mankind. 17 But the ungrateful Bargus,
instead of being suffered to possess the reward of guilt was soon
after circumvented and destroyed, by the more powerful villany of
the minister himself, who retained sense and spirit enough to
abhor the instrument of his own crimes.
10 (return) [ Drunk with riches, is the forcible expression of
Zosimus, (l. v. p. 301;) and the avarice of Eutropius is equally
execrated in the Lexicon of Suidas and the Chronicle of
Marcellinus Chrysostom had often admonished the favorite of the
vanity and danger of immoderate wealth, tom. iii. p. 381.
-certantum saepe duorum Diversum suspendit onus: cum pondere
judex Vergit, et in geminas nutat provincia lances. Claudian (i.
192-209) so curiously distinguishes the circumstances of the
sale, that they all seem to allude to particular anecdotes.]
12 (return) [ Claudian (i. 154-170) mentions the guilt and exile
of Abundantius; nor could he fail to quote the example of the
artist, who made the first trial of the brazen bull, which he
presented to Phalaris. See Zosimus, l. v. p. 302. Jerom, tom. i.
p. 26. The difference of place is easily reconciled; but the
decisive authority of Asterius of Amasia (Orat. iv. p. 76, apud
Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 435) must turn the
scale in favor of Pityus.]
13 (return) [ Suidas (most probably from the history of Eunapius)
has given a very unfavorable picture of Timasius. The account of
his accuser, the judges, trial, &c., is perfectly agreeable to
the practice of ancient and modern courts. (See Zosimus, l. v. p.
298, 299, 300.) I am almost tempted to quote the romance of a
great master, (Fielding’s Works, vol. iv. p. 49, &c., 8vo.
edit.,) which may be considered as the history of human nature.]
14 (return) [ The great Oasis was one of the spots in the sands
of Libya, watered with springs, and capable of producing wheat,
barley, and palm-trees. It was about three days’ journey from
north to south, about half a day in breadth, and at the distance
of about five days’ march to the west of Abydus, on the Nile. See
D’Anville, Description de l’Egypte, p. 186, 187, 188. The barren
desert which encompasses Oasis (Zosimus, l. v. p. 300) has
suggested the idea of comparative fertility, and even the epithet
of the happy island ]
15 (return) [ The line of Claudian, in Eutrop. l. i. 180,
Marmaricus claris violatur caedibus Hammon,
evidently alludes to his persuasion of the death of Timasius. *
Note: A fragment of Eunapius confirms this account. “Thus having
deprived this great person of his life—a eunuch, a man, a slave,
a consul, a minister of the bed-chamber, one bred in camps.” Mai,
p. 283, in Niebuhr. 87—M.]
16 (return) [ Sozomen, l. viii. c. 7. He speaks from report.]
17 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 300. Yet he seems to suspect that
this rumor was spread by the friends of Eutropius.]
The public hatred, and the despair of individuals, continually
threatened, or seemed to threaten, the personal safety of
Eutropius; as well as of the numerous adherents, who were
attached to his fortune, and had been promoted by his venal
favor. For their mutual defence, he contrived the safeguard of a
law, which violated every principal of humanity and justice. 18
I. It is enacted, in the name, and by the authority of Arcadius,
that all those who should conspire, either with subjects or with
strangers, against the lives of any of the persons whom the
emperor considers as the members of his own body, shall be
punished with death and confiscation. This species of fictitious
and metaphorical treason is extended to protect, not only the
illustrious officers of the state and army, who were admitted
into the sacred consistory, but likewise the principal domestics
of the palace, the senators of Constantinople, the military
commanders, and the civil magistrates of the provinces; a vague
and indefinite list, which, under the successors of Constantine,
included an obscure and numerous train of subordinate ministers.
II. This extreme severity might perhaps be justified, had it been
only directed to secure the representatives of the sovereign from
any actual violence in the execution of their office. But the
whole body of Imperial dependants claimed a privilege, or rather
impunity, which screened them, in the loosest moments of their
lives, from the hasty, perhaps the justifiable, resentment of
their fellow-citizens; and, by a strange perversion of the laws,
the same degree of guilt and punishment was applied to a private
quarrel, and to a deliberate conspiracy against the emperor and
the empire. The edicts of Arcadius most positively and most
absurdly declares, that in such cases of treason, thoughts and
actions ought to be punished with equal severity; that the
knowledge of a mischievous intention, unless it be instantly
revealed, becomes equally criminal with the intention itself; 19
and that those rash men, who shall presume to solicit the pardon
of traitors, shall themselves be branded with public and
perpetual infamy. III. “With regard to the sons of the traitors,”
(continues the emperor,) “although they ought to share the
punishment, since they will probably imitate the guilt, of their
parents, yet, by the special effect of our Imperial lenity, we
grant them their lives; but, at the same time, we declare them
incapable of inheriting, either on the father’s or on the
mother’s side, or of receiving any gift or legacy, from the
testament either of kinsmen or of strangers. Stigmatized with
hereditary infamy, excluded from the hopes of honors or fortune,
let them endure the pangs of poverty and contempt, till they
shall consider life as a calamity, and death as a comfort and
relief.” In such words, so well adapted to insult the feelings of
mankind, did the emperor, or rather his favorite eunuch, applaud
the moderation of a law, which transferred the same unjust and
inhuman penalties to the children of all those who had seconded,
or who had not disclosed, their fictitious conspiracies. Some of
the noblest regulations of Roman jurisprudence have been suffered
to expire; but this edict, a convenient and forcible engine of
ministerial tyranny, was carefully inserted in the codes of
Theodosius and Justinian; and the same maxims have been revived
in modern ages, to protect the electors of Germany, and the
cardinals of the church of Rome. 20
18 (return) [ See the Theodosian Code, l. ix. tit. 14, ad legem
Corneliam de Sicariis, leg. 3, and the Code of Justinian, l. ix.
tit. viii, viii. ad legem Juliam de Majestate, leg. 5. The
alteration of the title, from murder to treason, was an
improvement of the subtle Tribonian. Godefroy, in a formal
dissertation, which he has inserted in his Commentary,
illustrates this law of Arcadius, and explains all the difficult
passages which had been perverted by the jurisconsults of the
darker ages. See tom. iii. p. 88-111.]
19 (return) [ Bartolus understands a simple and naked
consciousness, without any sign of approbation or concurrence.
For this opinion, says Baldus, he is now roasting in hell. For my
own part, continues the discreet Heineccius, (Element. Jur. Civil
l. iv. p. 411,) I must approve the theory of Bartolus; but in
practice I should incline to the sentiments of Baldus. Yet
Bartolus was gravely quoted by the lawyers of Cardinal Richelieu;
and Eutropius was indirectly guilty of the murder of the virtuous
De Thou.]
20 (return) [ Godefroy, tom. iii. p. 89. It is, however,
suspected, that this law, so repugnant to the maxims of Germanic
freedom, has been surreptitiously added to the golden bull.]
Yet these sanguinary laws, which spread terror among a disarmed
and dispirited people, were of too weak a texture to restrain the
bold enterprise of Tribigild 21 the Ostrogoth. The colony of that
warlike nation, which had been planted by Theodosius in one of
the most fertile districts of Phrygia, 22 impatiently compared
the slow returns of laborious husbandry with the successful
rapine and liberal rewards of Alaric; and their leader resented,
as a personal affront, his own ungracious reception in the palace
of Constantinople. A soft and wealthy province, in the heart of
the empire, was astonished by the sound of war; and the faithful
vassal who had been disregarded or oppressed, was again
respected, as soon as he resumed the hostile character of a
Barbarian. The vineyards and fruitful fields, between the rapid
Marsyas and the winding Maeander, 23 were consumed with fire; the
decayed walls of the cities crumbled into dust, at the first
stroke of an enemy; the trembling inhabitants escaped from a
bloody massacre to the shores of the Hellespont; and a
considerable part of Asia Minor was desolated by the rebellion of
Tribigild. His rapid progress was checked by the resistance of
the peasants of Pamphylia; and the Ostrogoths, attacked in a
narrow pass, between the city of Selgae, 24 a deep morass, and
the craggy cliffs of Mount Taurus, were defeated with the loss of
their bravest troops. But the spirit of their chief was not
daunted by misfortune; and his army was continually recruited by
swarms of Barbarians and outlaws, who were desirous of exercising
the profession of robbery, under the more honorable names of war
and conquest. The rumors of the success of Tribigild might for
some time be suppressed by fear, or disguised by flattery; yet
they gradually alarmed both the court and the capital. Every
misfortune was exaggerated in dark and doubtful hints; and the
future designs of the rebels became the subject of anxious
conjecture. Whenever Tribigild advanced into the inland country,
the Romans were inclined to suppose that he meditated the passage
of Mount Taurus, and the invasion of Syria. If he descended
towards the sea, they imputed, and perhaps suggested, to the
Gothic chief, the more dangerous project of arming a fleet in the
harbors of Ionia, and of extending his depredations along the
maritime coast, from the mouth of the Nile to the port of
Constantinople. The approach of danger, and the obstinacy of
Tribigild, who refused all terms of accommodation, compelled
Eutropius to summon a council of war. 25 After claiming for
himself the privilege of a veteran soldier, the eunuch intrusted
the guard of Thrace and the Hellespont to Gainas the Goth, and
the command of the Asiatic army to his favorite, Leo; two
generals, who differently, but effectually, promoted the cause of
the rebels. Leo, 26 who, from the bulk of his body, and the
dulness of his mind, was surnamed the Ajax of the East, had
deserted his original trade of a woolcomber, to exercise, with
much less skill and success, the military profession; and his
uncertain operations were capriciously framed and executed, with
an ignorance of real difficulties, and a timorous neglect of
every favorable opportunity. The rashness of the Ostrogoths had
drawn them into a disadvantageous position between the Rivers
Melas and Eurymedon, where they were almost besieged by the
peasants of Pamphylia; but the arrival of an Imperial army,
instead of completing their destruction, afforded the means of
safety and victory. Tribigild surprised the unguarded camp of the
Romans, in the darkness of the night; seduced the faith of the
greater part of the Barbarian auxiliaries, and dissipated,
without much effort, the troops, which had been corrupted by the
relaxation of discipline, and the luxury of the capital. The
discontent of Gainas, who had so boldly contrived and executed
the death of Rufinus, was irritated by the fortune of his
unworthy successor; he accused his own dishonorable patience
under the servile reign of a eunuch; and the ambitious Goth was
convicted, at least in the public opinion, of secretly fomenting
the revolt of Tribigild, with whom he was connected by a
domestic, as well as by a national alliance. 27 When Gainas
passed the Hellespont, to unite under his standard the remains of
the Asiatic troops, he skilfully adapted his motions to the
wishes of the Ostrogoths; abandoning, by his retreat, the country
which they desired to invade; or facilitating, by his approach,
the desertion of the Barbarian auxiliaries. To the Imperial court
he repeatedly magnified the valor, the genius, the inexhaustible
resources of Tribigild; confessed his own inability to prosecute
the war; and extorted the permission of negotiating with his
invincible adversary. The conditions of peace were dictated by
the haughty rebel; and the peremptory demand of the head of
Eutropius revealed the author and the design of this hostile
conspiracy.
21 (return) [ A copious and circumstantial narrative (which he
might have reserved for more important events) is bestowed by
Zosimus (l. v. p. 304-312) on the revolt of Tribigild and Gainas.
See likewise Socrates, l. vi. c. 6, and Sozomen, l. viii. c. 4.
The second book of Claudian against Eutropius, is a fine, though
imperfect, piece of history.]
22 (return) [ Claudian (in Eutrop. l. ii. 237-250) very
accurately observes, that the ancient name and nation of the
Phrygians extended very far on every side, till their limits were
contracted by the colonies of the Bithvnians of Thrace, of the
Greeks, and at last of the Gauls. His description (ii. 257-272)
of the fertility of Phrygia, and of the four rivers that produced
gold, is just and picturesque.]
23 (return) [ Xenophon, Anabasis, l. i. p. 11, 12, edit.
Hutchinson. Strabo, l. xii p. 865, edit. Amstel. Q. Curt. l. iii.
c. 1. Claudian compares the junction of the Marsyas and Maeander
to that of the Saone and the Rhone, with this difference,
however, that the smaller of the Phrygian rivers is not
accelerated, but retarded, by the larger.]
24 (return) [ Selgae, a colony of the Lacedaemonians, had
formerly numbered twenty thousand citizens; but in the age of
Zosimus it was reduced to a small town. See Cellarius, Geograph.
Antiq tom. ii. p. 117.]
25 (return) [ The council of Eutropius, in Claudian, may be
compared to that of Domitian in the fourth Satire of Juvenal. The
principal members of the former were juvenes protervi lascivique
senes; one of them had been a cook, a second a woolcomber. The
language of their original profession exposes their assumed
dignity; and their trifling conversation about tragedies,
dancers, &c., is made still more ridiculous by the importance of
the debate.]
26 (return) [ Claudian (l. ii. 376-461) has branded him with
infamy; and Zosimus, in more temperate language, confirms his
reproaches. L. v. p. 305.]
27 (return) [ The conspiracy of Gainas and Tribigild, which is
attested by the Greek historian, had not reached the ears of
Claudian, who attributes the revolt of the Ostrogoth to his own
martial spirit, and the advice of his wife.]
Chapter XXXII: Emperors Arcadius, Eutropius, Theodosius II.—Part II.
The bold satirist, who has indulged his discontent by the partial
and passionate censure of the Christian emperors, violates the
dignity, rather than the truth, of history, by comparing the son
of Theodosius to one of those harmless and simple animals, who
scarcely feel that they are the property of their shepherd. Two
passions, however, fear and conjugal affection, awakened the
languid soul of Arcadius: he was terrified by the threats of a
victorious Barbarian; and he yielded to the tender eloquence of
his wife Eudoxia, who, with a flood of artificial tears,
presenting her infant children to their father, implored his
justice for some real or imaginary insult, which she imputed to
the audacious eunuch. 28 The emperor’s hand was directed to sign
the condemnation of Eutropius; the magic spell, which during four
years had bound the prince and the people, was instantly
dissolved; and the acclamations that so lately hailed the merit
and fortune of the favorite, were converted into the clamors of
the soldiers and people, who reproached his crimes, and pressed
his immediate execution. In this hour of distress and despair,
his only refuge was in the sanctuary of the church, whose
privileges he had wisely or profanely attempted to circumscribe;
and the most eloquent of the saints, John Chrysostom, enjoyed the
triumph of protecting a prostrate minister, whose choice had
raised him to the ecclesiastical throne of Constantinople. The
archbishop, ascending the pulpit of the cathedral, that he might
be distinctly seen and heard by an innumerable crowd of either
sex and of every age, pronounced a seasonable and pathetic
discourse on the forgiveness of injuries, and the instability of
human greatness. The agonies of the pale and affrighted wretch,
who lay grovelling under the table of the altar, exhibited a
solemn and instructive spectacle; and the orator, who was
afterwards accused of insulting the misfortunes of Eutropius,
labored to excite the contempt, that he might assuage the fury,
of the people. 29 The powers of humanity, of superstition, and of
eloquence, prevailed. The empress Eudoxia was restrained by her
own prejudices, or by those of her subjects, from violating the
sanctuary of the church; and Eutropius was tempted to capitulate,
by the milder arts of persuasion, and by an oath, that his life
should be spared. 30 Careless of the dignity of their sovereign,
the new ministers of the palace immediately published an edict to
declare, that his late favorite had disgraced the names of consul
and patrician, to abolish his statues, to confiscate his wealth,
and to inflict a perpetual exile in the Island of Cyprus. 31 A
despicable and decrepit eunuch could no longer alarm the fears of
his enemies; nor was he capable of enjoying what yet remained,
the comforts of peace, of solitude, and of a happy climate. But
their implacable revenge still envied him the last moments of a
miserable life, and Eutropius had no sooner touched the shores of
Cyprus, than he was hastily recalled. The vain hope of eluding,
by a change of place, the obligation of an oath, engaged the
empress to transfer the scene of his trial and execution from
Constantinople to the adjacent suburb of Chalcedon. The consul
Aurelian pronounced the sentence; and the motives of that
sentence expose the jurisprudence of a despotic government. The
crimes which Eutropius had committed against the people might
have justified his death; but he was found guilty of harnessing
to his chariot the sacred animals, who, from their breed or
color, were reserved for the use of the emperor alone. 32
28 (return) [ This anecdote, which Philostorgius alone has
preserved, (l xi. c. 6, and Gothofred. Dissertat. p. 451-456) is
curious and important; since it connects the revolt of the Goths
with the secret intrigues of the palace.]
29 (return) [ See the Homily of Chrysostom, tom. iii. p. 381-386,
which the exordium is particularly beautiful. Socrates, l. vi. c.
5. Sozomen, l. viii. c. 7. Montfaucon (in his Life of Chrysostom,
tom. xiii. p. 135) too hastily supposes that Tribigild was
actually in Constantinople; and that he commanded the soldiers
who were ordered to seize Eutropius Even Claudian, a Pagan poet,
(praefat. ad l. ii. in Eutrop. 27,) has mentioned the flight of
the eunuch to the sanctuary.
Suppliciterque pias humilis prostratus ad aras, Mitigat iratas
voce tremente nurus,]
30 (return) [ Chrysostom, in another homily, (tom. iii. p. 386,)
affects to declare that Eutropius would not have been taken, had
he not deserted the church. Zosimus, (l. v. p. 313,) on the
contrary, pretends, that his enemies forced him from the
sanctuary. Yet the promise is an evidence of some treaty; and the
strong assurance of Claudian, (Praefat. ad l. ii. 46,) Sed tamen
exemplo non feriere tuo, may be considered as an evidence of some
promise.]
31 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. xi. leg. 14. The date of
that law (Jan. 17, A.D. 399) is erroneous and corrupt; since the
fall of Eutropius could not happen till the autumn of the same
year. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 780.]
32 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 313. Philostorgius, l. xi. c. 6.]
While this domestic revolution was transacted, Gainas 33 openly
revolted from his allegiance; united his forces at Thyatira in
Lydia, with those of Tribigild; and still maintained his superior
ascendant over the rebellious leader of the Ostrogoths. The
confederate armies advanced, without resistance, to the straits
of the Hellespont and the Bosphorus; and Arcadius was instructed
to prevent the loss of his Asiatic dominions, by resigning his
authority and his person to the faith of the Barbarians. The
church of the holy martyr Euphemia, situate on a lofty eminence
near Chalcedon, 34 was chosen for the place of the interview.
Gainas bowed with reverence at the feet of the emperor, whilst he
required the sacrifice of Aurelian and Saturninus, two ministers
of consular rank; and their naked necks were exposed, by the
haughty rebel, to the edge of the sword, till he condescended to
grant them a precarious and disgraceful respite. The Goths,
according to the terms of the agreement, were immediately
transported from Asia into Europe; and their victorious chief,
who accepted the title of master-general of the Roman armies,
soon filled Constantinople with his troops, and distributed among
his dependants the honors and rewards of the empire. In his early
youth, Gainas had passed the Danube as a suppliant and a
fugitive: his elevation had been the work of valor and fortune;
and his indiscreet or perfidious conduct was the cause of his
rapid downfall. Notwithstanding the vigorous opposition of the
archbishop, he importunately claimed for his Arian sectaries the
possession of a peculiar church; and the pride of the Catholics
was offended by the public toleration of heresy. 35 Every quarter
of Constantinople was filled with tumult and disorder; and the
Barbarians gazed with such ardor on the rich shops of the
jewellers, and the tables of the bankers, which were covered with
gold and silver, that it was judged prudent to remove those
dangerous temptations from their sight. They resented the
injurious precaution; and some alarming attempts were made,
during the night, to attack and destroy with fire the Imperial
palace. 36 In this state of mutual and suspicious hostility, the
guards and the people of Constantinople shut the gates, and rose
in arms to prevent or to punish the conspiracy of the Goths.
During the absence of Gainas, his troops were surprised and
oppressed; seven thousand Barbarians perished in this bloody
massacre. In the fury of the pursuit, the Catholics uncovered the
roof, and continued to throw down flaming logs of wood, till they
overwhelmed their adversaries, who had retreated to the church or
conventicle of the Arians. Gainas was either innocent of the
design, or too confident of his success; he was astonished by the
intelligence that the flower of his army had been ingloriously
destroyed; that he himself was declared a public enemy; and that
his countryman, Fravitta, a brave and loyal confederate, had
assumed the management of the war by sea and land. The
enterprises of the rebel, against the cities of Thrace, were
encountered by a firm and well-ordered defence; his hungry
soldiers were soon reduced to the grass that grew on the margin
of the fortifications; and Gainas, who vainly regretted the
wealth and luxury of Asia, embraced a desperate resolution of
forcing the passage of the Hellespont. He was destitute of
vessels; but the woods of the Chersonesus afforded materials for
rafts, and his intrepid Barbarians did not refuse to trust
themselves to the waves. But Fravitta attentively watched the
progress of their undertaking. As soon as they had gained the
middle of the stream, the Roman galleys, 37 impelled by the full
force of oars, of the current, and of a favorable wind, rushed
forwards in compact order, and with irresistible weight; and the
Hellespont was covered with the fragments of the Gothic
shipwreck. After the destruction of his hopes, and the loss of
many thousands of his bravest soldiers, Gainas, who could no
longer aspire to govern or to subdue the Romans, determined to
resume the independence of a savage life. A light and active body
of Barbarian horse, disengaged from their infantry and baggage,
might perform in eight or ten days a march of three hundred miles
from the Hellespont to the Danube; 38 the garrisons of that
important frontier had been gradually annihilated; the river, in
the month of December, would be deeply frozen; and the unbounded
prospect of Scythia was opened to the ambition of Gainas. This
design was secretly communicated to the national troops, who
devoted themselves to the fortunes of their leader; and before
the signal of departure was given, a great number of provincial
auxiliaries, whom he suspected of an attachment to their native
country, were perfidiously massacred. The Goths advanced, by
rapid marches, through the plains of Thrace; and they were soon
delivered from the fear of a pursuit, by the vanity of Fravitta,
3811 who, instead of extinguishing the war, hastened to enjoy the
popular applause, and to assume the peaceful honors of the
consulship. But a formidable ally appeared in arms to vindicate
the majesty of the empire, and to guard the peace and liberty of
Scythia. 39 The superior forces of Uldin, king of the Huns,
opposed the progress of Gainas; a hostile and ruined country
prohibited his retreat; he disdained to capitulate; and after
repeatedly attempting to cut his way through the ranks of the
enemy, he was slain, with his desperate followers, in the field
of battle. Eleven days after the naval victory of the Hellespont,
the head of Gainas, the inestimable gift of the conqueror, was
received at Constantinople with the most liberal expressions of
gratitude; and the public deliverance was celebrated by festivals
and illuminations. The triumphs of Arcadius became the subject of
epic poems; 40 and the monarch, no longer oppressed by any
hostile terrors, resigned himself to the mild and absolute
dominion of his wife, the fair and artful Eudoxia, who was
sullied her fame by the persecution of St. John Chrysostom.
33 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 313-323,) Socrates, (l. vi. c.
4,) Sozomen, (l. viii. c. 4,) and Theodoret, (l. v. c. 32, 33,)
represent, though with some various circumstances, the
conspiracy, defeat, and death of Gainas.]
34 (return) [ It is the expression of Zosimus himself, (l. v. p.
314,) who inadvertently uses the fashionable language of the
Christians. Evagrius describes (l. ii. c. 3) the situation,
architecture, relics, and miracles, of that celebrated church, in
which the general council of Chalcedon was afterwards held.]
35 (return) [ The pious remonstrances of Chrysostom, which do not
appear in his own writings, are strongly urged by Theodoret; but
his insinuation, that they were successful, is disproved by
facts. Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 383) has
discovered that the emperor, to satisfy the rapacious demands of
Gainas, was obliged to melt the plate of the church of the
apostles.]
36 (return) [ The ecclesiastical historians, who sometimes guide,
and sometimes follow, the public opinion, most confidently
assert, that the palace of Constantinople was guarded by legions
of angels.]
37 (return) [ Zosmius (l. v. p. 319) mentions these galleys by
the name of Liburnians, and observes that they were as swift
(without explaining the difference between them) as the vessels
with fifty oars; but that they were far inferior in speed to the
triremes, which had been long disused. Yet he reasonably
concludes, from the testimony of Polybius, that galleys of a
still larger size had been constructed in the Punic wars. Since
the establishment of the Roman empire over the Mediterranean, the
useless art of building large ships of war had probably been
neglected, and at length forgotten.]
38 (return) [ Chishull (Travels, p. 61-63, 72-76) proceeded from
Gallipoli, through Hadrianople to the Danube, in about fifteen
days. He was in the train of an English ambassador, whose baggage
consisted of seventy-one wagons. That learned traveller has the
merit of tracing a curious and unfrequented route.]
3811 (return) [ Fravitta, according to Zosimus, though a Pagan,
received the honors of the consulate. Zosim, v. c. 20. On
Fravitta, see a very imperfect fragment of Eunapius. Mai. ii.
290, in Niebuhr. 92.—M.]
39 (return) [ The narrative of Zosimus, who actually leads Gainas
beyond the Danube, must be corrected by the testimony of
Socrates, aud Sozomen, that he was killed in Thrace; and by the
precise and authentic dates of the Alexandrian, or Paschal,
Chronicle, p. 307. The naval victory of the Hellespont is fixed
to the month Apellaeus, the tenth of the Calends of January,
(December 23;) the head of Gainas was brought to Constantinople
the third of the nones of January, (January 3,) in the month
Audynaeus.]
40 (return) [ Eusebius Scholasticus acquired much fame by his
poem on the Gothic war, in which he had served. Near forty years
afterwards Ammonius recited another poem on the same subject, in
the presence of the emperor Theodosius. See Socrates, l. vi. c.
6.]
After the death of the indolent Nectarius, the successor of
Gregory Nazianzen, the church of Constantinople was distracted by
the ambition of rival candidates, who were not ashamed to
solicit, with gold or flattery, the suffrage of the people, or of
the favorite. On this occasion Eutropius seems to have deviated
from his ordinary maxims; and his uncorrupted judgment was
determined only by the superior merit of a stranger. In a late
journey into the East, he had admired the sermons of John, a
native and presbyter of Antioch, whose name has been
distinguished by the epithet of Chrysostom, or the Golden Mouth.
41 A private order was despatched to the governor of Syria; and
as the people might be unwilling to resign their favorite
preacher, he was transported, with speed and secrecy in a
post-chariot, from Antioch to Constantinople. The unanimous and
unsolicited consent of the court, the clergy, and the people,
ratified the choice of the minister; and, both as a saint and as
an orator, the new archbishop surpassed the sanguine expectations
of the public. Born of a noble and opulent family, in the capital
of Syria, Chrysostom had been educated, by the care of a tender
mother, under the tuition of the most skilful masters. He studied
the art of rhetoric in the school of Libanius; and that
celebrated sophist, who soon discovered the talents of his
disciple, ingenuously confessed that John would have deserved to
succeed him, had he not been stolen away by the Christians. His
piety soon disposed him to receive the sacrament of baptism; to
renounce the lucrative and honorable profession of the law; and
to bury himself in the adjacent desert, where he subdued the
lusts of the flesh by an austere penance of six years. His
infirmities compelled him to return to the society of mankind;
and the authority of Meletius devoted his talents to the service
of the church: but in the midst of his family, and afterwards on
the archiepiscopal throne, Chrysostom still persevered in the
practice of the monastic virtues. The ample revenues, which his
predecessors had consumed in pomp and luxury, he diligently
applied to the establishment of hospitals; and the multitudes,
who were supported by his charity, preferred the eloquent and
edifying discourses of their archbishop to the amusements of the
theatre or the circus. The monuments of that eloquence, which was
admired near twenty years at Antioch and Constantinople, have
been carefully preserved; and the possession of near one thousand
sermons, or homilies has authorized the critics 42 of succeeding
times to appreciate the genuine merit of Chrysostom. They
unanimously attribute to the Christian orator the free command of
an elegant and copious language; the judgment to conceal the
advantages which he derived from the knowledge of rhetoric and
philosophy; an inexhaustible fund of metaphors and similitudes of
ideas and images, to vary and illustrate the most familiar
topics; the happy art of engaging the passions in the service of
virtue; and of exposing the folly, as well as the turpitude, of
vice, almost with the truth and spirit of a dramatic
representation.
41 (return) [ The sixth book of Socrates, the eighth of Sozomen,
and the fifth of Theodoret, afford curious and authentic
materials for the life of John Chrysostom. Besides those general
historians, I have taken for my guides the four principal
biographers of the saint. 1. The author of a partial and
passionate Vindication of the archbishop of Constantinople,
composed in the form of a dialogue, and under the name of his
zealous partisan, Palladius, bishop of Helenopolis, (Tillemont,
Mem. Eccles. tom. xi. p. 500-533.) It is inserted among the works
of Chrysostom. tom. xiii. p. 1-90, edit. Montfaucon. 2. The
moderate Erasmus, (tom. iii. epist. Mcl. p. 1331-1347, edit.
Lugd. Bat.) His vivacity and good sense were his own; his errors,
in the uncultivated state of ecclesiastical antiquity, were
almost inevitable. 3. The learned Tillemont, (Mem.
Ecclesiastiques, tom. xi. p. 1-405, 547-626, &c. &c.,) who
compiles the lives of the saints with incredible patience and
religious accuracy. He has minutely searched the voluminous works
of Chrysostom himself. 4. Father Montfaucon, who has perused
those works with the curious diligence of an editor, discovered
several new homilies, and again reviewed and composed the Life of
Chrysostom, (Opera Chrysostom. tom. xiii. p. 91-177.)]
42 (return) [ As I am almost a stranger to the voluminous sermons
of Chrysostom, I have given my confidence to the two most
judicious and moderate of the ecclesiastical critics, Erasmus
(tom. iii. p. 1344) and Dupin, (Bibliothèque Ecclesiastique, tom.
iii. p. 38:) yet the good taste of the former is sometimes
vitiated by an excessive love of antiquity; and the good sense of
the latter is always restrained by prudential considerations.]
The pastoral labors of the archbishop of Constantinople provoked,
and gradually united against him, two sorts of enemies; the
aspiring clergy, who envied his success, and the obstinate
sinners, who were offended by his reproofs. When Chrysostom
thundered, from the pulpit of St. Sophia, against the degeneracy
of the Christians, his shafts were spent among the crowd, without
wounding, or even marking, the character of any individual. When
he declaimed against the peculiar vices of the rich, poverty
might obtain a transient consolation from his invectives; but the
guilty were still sheltered by their numbers; and the reproach
itself was dignified by some ideas of superiority and enjoyment.
But as the pyramid rose towards the summit, it insensibly
diminished to a point; and the magistrates, the ministers, the
favorite eunuchs, the ladies of the court, 43 the empress Eudoxia
herself, had a much larger share of guilt to divide among a
smaller proportion of criminals. The personal applications of the
audience were anticipated, or confirmed, by the testimony of
their own conscience; and the intrepid preacher assumed the
dangerous right of exposing both the offence and the offender to
the public abhorrence. The secret resentment of the court
encouraged the discontent of the clergy and monks of
Constantinople, who were too hastily reformed by the fervent zeal
of their archbishop. He had condemned, from the pulpit, the
domestic females of the clergy of Constantinople, who, under the
name of servants, or sisters, afforded a perpetual occasion
either of sin or of scandal. The silent and solitary ascetics,
who had secluded themselves from the world, were entitled to the
warmest approbation of Chrysostom; but he despised and
stigmatized, as the disgrace of their holy profession, the crowd
of degenerate monks, who, from some unworthy motives of pleasure
or profit, so frequently infested the streets of the capital. To
the voice of persuasion, the archbishop was obliged to add the
terrors of authority; and his ardor, in the exercise of
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, was not always exempt from passion;
nor was it always guided by prudence. Chrysostom was naturally of
a choleric disposition. 44 Although he struggled, according to
the precepts of the gospel, to love his private enemies, he
indulged himself in the privilege of hating the enemies of God
and of the church; and his sentiments were sometimes delivered
with too much energy of countenance and expression. He still
maintained, from some considerations of health or abstinence, his
former habits of taking his repasts alone; and this inhospitable
custom, 45 which his enemies imputed to pride, contributed, at
least, to nourish the infirmity of a morose and unsocial humor.
Separated from that familiar intercourse, which facilitates the
knowledge and the despatch of business, he reposed an
unsuspecting confidence in his deacon Serapion; and seldom
applied his speculative knowledge of human nature to the
particular character, either of his dependants, or of his equals.
Conscious of the purity of his intentions, and perhaps of the
superiority of his genius, the archbishop of Constantinople
extended the jurisdiction of the Imperial city, that he might
enlarge the sphere of his pastoral labors; and the conduct which
the profane imputed to an ambitious motive, appeared to
Chrysostom himself in the light of a sacred and indispensable
duty. In his visitation through the Asiatic provinces, he deposed
thirteen bishops of Lydia and Phrygia; and indiscreetly declared
that a deep corruption of simony and licentiousness had infected
the whole episcopal order. 46 If those bishops were innocent,
such a rash and unjust condemnation must excite a well-grounded
discontent. If they were guilty, the numerous associates of their
guilt would soon discover that their own safety depended on the
ruin of the archbishop; whom they studied to represent as the
tyrant of the Eastern church.
43 (return) [ The females of Constantinople distinguished
themselves by their enmity or their attachment to Chrysostom.
Three noble and opulent widows, Marsa, Castricia, and Eugraphia,
were the leaders of the persecution, (Pallad. Dialog. tom. xiii.
p. 14.) It was impossible that they should forgive a preacher who
reproached their affectation to conceal, by the ornaments of
dress, their age and ugliness, (Pallad p. 27.) Olympias, by equal
zeal, displayed in a more pious cause, has obtained the title of
saint. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xi p. 416-440.]
44 (return) [ Sozomen, and more especially Socrates, have defined
the real character of Chrysostom with a temperate and impartial
freedom, very offensive to his blind admirers. Those historians
lived in the next generation, when party violence was abated, and
had conversed with many persons intimately acquainted with the
virtues and imperfections of the saint.]
45 (return) [ Palladius (tom. xiii. p. 40, &c.) very seriously
defends the archbishop 1. He never tasted wine. 2. The weakness
of his stomach required a peculiar diet. 3. Business, or study,
or devotion, often kept him fasting till sunset. 4. He detested
the noise and levity of great dinners. 5. He saved the expense
for the use of the poor. 6. He was apprehensive, in a capital
like Constantinople, of the envy and reproach of partial
invitations.]
46 (return) [ Chrysostom declares his free opinion (tom. ix. hom.
iii in Act. Apostol. p. 29) that the number of bishops, who might
be saved, bore a very small proportion to those who would be
damned.]
This ecclesiastical conspiracy was managed by Theophilus, 47
archbishop of Alexandria, an active and ambitious prelate, who
displayed the fruits of rapine in monuments of ostentation. His
national dislike to the rising greatness of a city which degraded
him from the second to the third rank in the Christian world, was
exasperated by some personal dispute with Chrysostom himself. 48
By the private invitation of the empress, Theophilus landed at
Constantinople with a stou body of Egyptian mariners, to
encounter the populace; and a train of dependent bishops, to
secure, by their voices, the majority of a synod. The synod 49
was convened in the suburb of Chalcedon, surnamed the Oak, where
Rufinus had erected a stately church and monastery; and their
proceedings were continued during fourteen days, or sessions. A
bishop and a deacon accused the archbishop of Constantinople; but
the frivolous or improbable nature of the forty-seven articles
which they presented against him, may justly be considered as a
fair and unexceptional panegyric. Four successive summons were
signified to Chrysostom; but he still refused to trust either his
person or his reputation in the hands of his implacable enemies,
who, prudently declining the examination of any particular
charges, condemned his contumacious disobedience, and hastily
pronounced a sentence of deposition. The synod of the Oak
immediately addressed the emperor to ratify and execute their
judgment, and charitably insinuated, that the penalties of
treason might be inflicted on the audacious preacher, who had
reviled, under the name of Jezebel, the empress Eudoxia herself.
The archbishop was rudely arrested, and conducted through the
city, by one of the Imperial messengers, who landed him, after a
short navigation, near the entrance of the Euxine; from whence,
before the expiration of two days, he was gloriously recalled.
47 (return) [ See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xi. p. 441-500.]
48 (return) [ I have purposely omitted the controversy which
arose among the monks of Egypt, concerning Origenism and
Anthropomorphism; the dissimulation and violence of Theophilus;
his artful management of the simplicity of Epiphanius; the
persecution and flight of the long, or tall, brothers; the
ambiguous support which they received at Constantinople from
Chrysostom, &c. &c.]
49 (return) [ Photius (p. 53-60) has preserved the original acts
of the synod of the Oak; which destroys the false assertion, that
Chrysostom was condemned by no more than thirty-six bishops, of
whom twenty-nine were Egyptians. Forty-five bishops subscribed
his sentence. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xi. p. 595. *
Note: Tillemont argues strongly for the number of thirty-six—M]
The first astonishment of his faithful people had been mute and
passive: they suddenly rose with unanimous and irresistible fury.
Theophilus escaped, but the promiscuous crowd of monks and
Egyptian mariners was slaughtered without pity in the streets of
Constantinople. 50 A seasonable earthquake justified the
interposition of Heaven; the torrent of sedition rolled forwards
to the gates of the palace; and the empress, agitated by fear or
remorse, threw herself at the feet of Arcadius, and confessed
that the public safety could be purchased only by the restoration
of Chrysostom. The Bosphorus was covered with innumerable
vessels; the shores of Europe and Asia were profusely
illuminated; and the acclamations of a victorious people
accompanied, from the port to the cathedral, the triumph of the
archbishop; who, too easily, consented to resume the exercise of
his functions, before his sentence had been legally reversed by
the authority of an ecclesiastical synod. Ignorant, or careless,
of the impending danger, Chrysostom indulged his zeal, or perhaps
his resentment; declaimed with peculiar asperity against female
vices; and condemned the profane honors which were addressed,
almost in the precincts of St. Sophia, to the statue of the
empress. His imprudence tempted his enemies to inflame the
haughty spirit of Eudoxia, by reporting, or perhaps inventing,
the famous exordium of a sermon, “Herodias is again furious;
Herodias again dances; she once more requires the head of John;”
an insolent allusion, which, as a woman and a sovereign, it was
impossible for her to forgive. 51 The short interval of a
perfidious truce was employed to concert more effectual measures
for the disgrace and ruin of the archbishop. A numerous council
of the Eastern prelates, who were guided from a distance by the
advice of Theophilus, confirmed the validity, without examining
the justice, of the former sentence; and a detachment of
Barbarian troops was introduced into the city, to suppress the
emotions of the people. On the vigil of Easter, the solemn
administration of baptism was rudely interrupted by the soldiers,
who alarmed the modesty of the naked catechumens, and violated,
by their presence, the awful mysteries of the Christian worship.
Arsacius occupied the church of St. Sophia, and the
archiepiscopal throne. The Catholics retreated to the baths of
Constantine, and afterwards to the fields; where they were still
pursued and insulted by the guards, the bishops, and the
magistrates. The fatal day of the second and final exile of
Chrysostom was marked by the conflagration of the cathedral, of
the senate-house, and of the adjacent buildings; and this
calamity was imputed, without proof, but not without probability,
to the despair of a persecuted faction. 52
50 (return) [ Palladius owns (p. 30) that if the people of
Constantinople had found Theophilus, they would certainly have
thrown him into the sea. Socrates mentions (l. vi. c. 17) a
battle between the mob and the sailors of Alexandria, in which
many wounds were given, and some lives were lost. The massacre of
the monks is observed only by the Pagan Zosimus, (l. v. p. 324,)
who acknowledges that Chrysostom had a singular talent to lead
the illiterate multitude.]
51 (return) [ See Socrates, l. vi. c. 18. Sozomen, l. viii. c.
20. Zosimus (l. v. p 324, 327) mentions, in general terms, his
invectives against Eudoxia. The homily, which begins with those
famous words, is rejected as spurious. Montfaucon, tom. xiii. p.
151. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom xi. p. 603.]
52 (return) [ We might naturally expect such a charge from
Zosimus, (l. v. p. 327;) but it is remarkable enough, that it
should be confirmed by Socrates, (l. vi. c. 18,) and the Paschal
Chronicle, (p. 307.)]
Cicero might claim some merit, if his voluntary banishment
preserved the peace of the republic; 53 but the submission of
Chrysostom was the indispensable duty of a Christian and a
subject. Instead of listening to his humble prayer, that he might
be permitted to reside at Cyzicus, or Nicomedia, the inflexible
empress assigned for his exile the remote and desolate town of
Cucusus, among the ridges of Mount Taurus, in the Lesser Armenia.
A secret hope was entertained, that the archbishop might perish
in a difficult and dangerous march of seventy days, in the heat
of summer, through the provinces of Asia Minor, where he was
continually threatened by the hostile attacks of the Isaurians,
and the more implacable fury of the monks. Yet Chrysostom arrived
in safety at the place of his confinement; and the three years
which he spent at Cucusus, and the neighboring town of Arabissus,
were the last and most glorious of his life. His character was
consecrated by absence and persecution; the faults of his
administration were no longer remembered; but every tongue
repeated the praises of his genius and virtue: and the respectful
attention of the Christian world was fixed on a desert spot among
the mountains of Taurus. From that solitude the archbishop, whose
active mind was invigorated by misfortunes, maintained a strict
and frequent correspondence 54 with the most distant provinces;
exhorted the separate congregation of his faithful adherents to
persevere in their allegiance; urged the destruction of the
temples of Phoenicia, and the extirpation of heresy in the Isle
of Cyprus; extended his pastoral care to the missions of Persia
and Scythia; negotiated, by his ambassadors, with the Roman
pontiff and the emperor Honorius; and boldly appealed, from a
partial synod, to the supreme tribunal of a free and general
council. The mind of the illustrious exile was still independent;
but his captive body was exposed to the revenge of the
oppressors, who continued to abuse the name and authority of
Arcadius. 55 An order was despatched for the instant removal of
Chrysostom to the extreme desert of Pityus: and his guards so
faithfully obeyed their cruel instructions, that, before he
reached the sea-coast of the Euxine, he expired at Comana, in
Pontus, in the sixtieth year of his age. The succeeding
generation acknowledged his innocence and merit. The archbishops
of the East, who might blush that their predecessors had been the
enemies of Chrysostom, were gradually disposed, by the firmness
of the Roman pontiff, to restore the honors of that venerable
name. 56 At the pious solicitation of the clergy and people of
Constantinople, his relics, thirty years after his death, were
transported from their obscure sepulchre to the royal city. 57
The emperor Theodosius advanced to receive them as far as
Chalcedon; and, falling prostrate on the coffin, implored, in the
name of his guilty parents, Arcadius and Eudoxia, the forgiveness
of the injured saint. 58
53 (return) [ He displays those specious motives (Post Reditum,
c. 13, 14) in the language of an orator and a politician.]
54 (return) [ Two hundred and forty-two of the epistles of
Chrysostom are still extant, (Opera, tom. iii. p. 528-736.) They
are addressed to a great variety of persons, and show a firmness
of mind much superior to that of Cicero in his exile. The
fourteenth epistle contains a curious narrative of the dangers of
his journey.]
55 (return) [ After the exile of Chrysostom, Theophilus published
an enormous and horrible volume against him, in which he
perpetually repeats the polite expressions of hostem humanitatis,
sacrilegorum principem, immundum daemonem; he affirms, that John
Chrysostom had delivered his soul to be adulterated by the devil;
and wishes that some further punishment, adequate (if possible)
to the magnitude of his crimes, may be inflicted on him. St.
Jerom, at the request of his friend Theophilus, translated this
edifying performance from Greek into Latin. See Facundus Hermian.
Defens. pro iii. Capitul. l. vi. c. 5 published by Sirmond.
Opera, tom. ii. p. 595, 596, 597.]
56 (return) [ His name was inserted by his successor Atticus in
the Dyptics of the church of Constantinople, A.D. 418. Ten years
afterwards he was revered as a saint. Cyril, who inherited the
place, and the passions, of his uncle Theophilus, yielded with
much reluctance. See Facund. Hermian. l. 4, c. 1. Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 277-283.]
57 (return) [ Socrates, l. vii. c. 45. Theodoret, l. v. c. 36.
This event reconciled the Joannites, who had hitherto refused to
acknowledge his successors. During his lifetime, the Joannites
were respected, by the Catholics, as the true and orthodox
communion of Constantinople. Their obstinacy gradually drove them
to the brink of schism.]
58 (return) [ According to some accounts, (Baronius, Annal.
Eccles. A.D. 438 No. 9, 10,) the emperor was forced to send a
letter of invitation and excuses, before the body of the
ceremonious saint could be moved from Comana.]
Chapter XXXII: Emperors Arcadius, Eutropius, Theodosius II.—Part III.
Yet a reasonable doubt may be entertained, whether any stain of
hereditary guilt could be derived from Arcadius to his successor.
Eudoxia was a young and beautiful woman, who indulged her
passions, and despised her husband; Count John enjoyed, at least,
the familiar confidence of the empress; and the public named him
as the real father of Theodosius the younger. 59 The birth of a
son was accepted, however, by the pious husband, as an event the
most fortunate and honorable to himself, to his family, and to
the Eastern world: and the royal infant, by an unprecedented
favor, was invested with the titles of Caesar and Augustus. In
less than four years afterwards, Eudoxia, in the bloom of youth,
was destroyed by the consequences of a miscarriage; and this
untimely death confounded the prophecy of a holy bishop, 60 who,
amidst the universal joy, had ventured to foretell, that she
should behold the long and auspicious reign of her glorious son.
The Catholics applauded the justice of Heaven, which avenged the
persecution of St. Chrysostom; and perhaps the emperor was the
only person who sincerely bewailed the loss of the haughty and
rapacious Eudoxia. Such a domestic misfortune afflicted him more
deeply than the public calamities of the East; 61 the licentious
excursions, from Pontus to Palestine, of the Isaurian robbers,
whose impunity accused the weakness of the government; and the
earthquakes, the conflagrations, the famine, and the flights of
locusts, 62 which the popular discontent was equally disposed to
attribute to the incapacity of the monarch. At length, in the
thirty-first year of his age, after a reign (if we may abuse that
word) of thirteen years, three months, and fifteen days, Arcadius
expired in the palace of Constantinople. It is impossible to
delineate his character; since, in a period very copiously
furnished with historical materials, it has not been possible to
remark one action that properly belongs to the son of the great
Theodosius.
59 (return) [ Zosimus, l. v. p. 315. The chastity of an empress
should not be impeached without producing a witness; but it is
astonishing, that the witness should write and live under a
prince whose legitimacy he dared to attack. We must suppose that
his history was a party libel, privately read and circulated by
the Pagans. Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 782) is
not averse to brand the reputation of Eudoxia.]
60 (return) [ Porphyry of Gaza. His zeal was transported by the
order which he had obtained for the destruction of eight Pagan
temples of that city. See the curious details of his life,
(Baronius, A.D. 401, No. 17-51,) originally written in Greek, or
perhaps in Syriac, by a monk, one of his favorite deacons.]
61 (return) [ Philostorg. l. xi. c. 8, and Godefroy, Dissertat.
p. 457.]
62 (return) [ Jerom (tom. vi. p. 73, 76) describes, in lively
colors, the regular and destructive march of the locusts, which
spread a dark cloud, between heaven and earth, over the land of
Palestine. Seasonable winds scattered them, partly into the Dead
Sea, and partly into the Mediterranean.]
The historian Procopius 63 has indeed illuminated the mind of the
dying emperor with a ray of human prudence, or celestial wisdom.
Arcadius considered, with anxious foresight, the helpless
condition of his son Theodosius, who was no more than seven years
of age, the dangerous factions of a minority, and the aspiring
spirit of Jezdegerd, the Persian monarch. Instead of tempting the
allegiance of an ambitious subject, by the participation of
supreme power, he boldly appealed to the magnanimity of a king;
and placed, by a solemn testament, the sceptre of the East in the
hands of Jezdegerd himself. The royal guardian accepted and
discharged this honorable trust with unexampled fidelity; and the
infancy of Theodosius was protected by the arms and councils of
Persia. Such is the singular narrative of Procopius; and his
veracity is not disputed by Agathias, 64 while he presumes to
dissent from his judgment, and to arraign the wisdom of a
Christian emperor, who, so rashly, though so fortunately,
committed his son and his dominions to the unknown faith of a
stranger, a rival, and a heathen. At the distance of one hundred
and fifty years, this political question might be debated in the
court of Justinian; but a prudent historian will refuse to
examine the propriety, till he has ascertained the truth, of the
testament of Arcadius. As it stands without a parallel in the
history of the world, we may justly require, that it should be
attested by the positive and unanimous evidence of
contemporaries. The strange novelty of the event, which excites
our distrust, must have attracted their notice; and their
universal silence annihilates the vain tradition of the
succeeding age.
63 (return) [ Procopius, de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 2, p. 8, edit.
Louvre.]
64 (return) [ Agathias, l. iv. p. 136, 137. Although he confesses
the prevalence of the tradition, he asserts, that Procopius was
the first who had committed it to writing. Tillemont (Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. vi. p. 597) argues very sensibly on the merits of
this fable. His criticism was not warped by any ecclesiastical
authority: both Procopius and Agathias are half Pagans. * Note:
See St Martin’s article on Jezdegerd, in the Biographie
Universelle de Michand.—M.]
The maxims of Roman jurisprudence, if they could fairly be
transferred from private property to public dominion, would have
adjudged to the emperor Honorius the guardianship of his nephew,
till he had attained, at least, the fourteenth year of his age.
But the weakness of Honorius, and the calamities of his reign,
disqualified him from prosecuting this natural claim; and such
was the absolute separation of the two monarchies, both in
interest and affection, that Constantinople would have obeyed,
with less reluctance, the orders of the Persian, than those of
the Italian, court. Under a prince whose weakness is disguised by
the external signs of manhood and discretion, the most worthless
favorites may secretly dispute the empire of the palace; and
dictate to submissive provinces the commands of a master, whom
they direct and despise. But the ministers of a child, who is
incapable of arming them with the sanction of the royal name,
must acquire and exercise an independent authority. The great
officers of the state and army, who had been appointed before the
death of Arcadius, formed an aristocracy, which might have
inspired them with the idea of a free republic; and the
government of the Eastern empire was fortunately assumed by the
praefect Anthemius, 65 who obtained, by his superior abilities, a
lasting ascendant over the minds of his equals. The safety of the
young emperor proved the merit and integrity of Anthemius; and
his prudent firmness sustained the force and reputation of an
infant reign. Uldin, with a formidable host of Barbarians, was
encamped in the heart of Thrace; he proudly rejected all terms of
accommodation; and, pointing to the rising sun, declared to the
Roman ambassadors, that the course of that planet should alone
terminate the conquest of the Huns. But the desertion of his
confederates, who were privately convinced of the justice and
liberality of the Imperial ministers, obliged Uldin to repass the
Danube: the tribe of the Scyrri, which composed his rear-guard,
was almost extirpated; and many thousand captives were dispersed
to cultivate, with servile labor, the fields of Asia. 66 In the
midst of the public triumph, Constantinople was protected by a
strong enclosure of new and more extensive walls; the same
vigilant care was applied to restore the fortifications of the
Illyrian cities; and a plan was judiciously conceived, which, in
the space of seven years, would have secured the command of the
Danube, by establishing on that river a perpetual fleet of two
hundred and fifty armed vessels. 67
65 (return) [ Socrates, l. vii. c. l. Anthemius was the grandson
of Philip, one of the ministers of Constantius, and the
grandfather of the emperor Anthemius. After his return from the
Persian embassy, he was appointed consul and Prætorian praefect
of the East, in the year 405 and held the praefecture about ten
years. See his honors and praises in Godefroy, Cod. Theod. tom.
vi. p. 350. Tillemont, Hist. des Emptom. vi. p. 1. &c.]
66 (return) [ Sozomen, l. ix. c. 5. He saw some Scyrri at work
near Mount Olympus, in Bithynia, and cherished the vain hope that
those captives were the last of the nation.]
67 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vii. tit. xvi. l. xv. tit. i. leg.
49.]
But the Romans had so long been accustomed to the authority of a
monarch, that the first, even among the females, of the Imperial
family, who displayed any courage or capacity, was permitted to
ascend the vacant throne of Theodosius. His sister Pulcheria, 68
who was only two years older than himself, received, at the age
of sixteen, the title of Augusta; and though her favor might be
sometimes clouded by caprice or intrigue, she continued to govern
the Eastern empire near forty years; during the long minority of
her brother, and after his death, in her own name, and in the
name of Marcian, her nominal husband. From a motive either of
prudence or religion, she embraced a life of celibacy; and
notwithstanding some aspersions on the chastity of Pulcheria, 69
this resolution, which she communicated to her sisters Arcadia
and Marina, was celebrated by the Christian world, as the sublime
effort of heroic piety. In the presence of the clergy and people,
the three daughters of Arcadius 70 dedicated their virginity to
God; and the obligation of their solemn vow was inscribed on a
tablet of gold and gems; which they publicly offered in the great
church of Constantinople. Their palace was converted into a
monastery; and all males, except the guides of their conscience,
the saints who had forgotten the distinction of sexes, were
scrupulously excluded from the holy threshold. Pulcheria, her two
sisters, and a chosen train of favorite damsels, formed a
religious community: they denounced the vanity of dress;
interrupted, by frequent fasts, their simple and frugal diet;
allotted a portion of their time to works of embroidery; and
devoted several hours of the day and night to the exercises of
prayer and psalmody. The piety of a Christian virgin was adorned
by the zeal and liberality of an empress. Ecclesiastical history
describes the splendid churches, which were built at the expense
of Pulcheria, in all the provinces of the East; her charitable
foundations for the benefit of strangers and the poor; the ample
donations which she assigned for the perpetual maintenance of
monastic societies; and the active severity with which she
labored to suppress the opposite heresies of Nestorius and
Eutyches. Such virtues were supposed to deserve the peculiar
favor of the Deity: and the relics of martyrs, as well as the
knowledge of future events, were communicated in visions and
revelations to the Imperial saint. 71 Yet the devotion of
Pulcheria never diverted her indefatigable attention from
temporal affairs; and she alone, among all the descendants of the
great Theodosius, appears to have inherited any share of his
manly spirit and abilities. The elegant and familiar use which
she had acquired, both of the Greek and Latin languages, was
readily applied to the various occasions of speaking or writing,
on public business: her deliberations were maturely weighed; her
actions were prompt and decisive; and, while she moved, without
noise or ostentation, the wheel of government, she discreetly
attributed to the genius of the emperor the long tranquillity of
his reign. In the last years of his peaceful life, Europe was
indeed afflicted by the arms of war; but the more extensive
provinces of Asia still continued to enjoy a profound and
permanent repose. Theodosius the younger was never reduced to the
disgraceful necessity of encountering and punishing a rebellious
subject: and since we cannot applaud the vigor, some praise may
be due to the mildness and prosperity, of the administration of
Pulcheria.
68 (return) [ Sozomen has filled three chapters with a
magnificent panegyric of Pulcheria, (l. ix. c. 1, 2, 3;) and
Tillemont (Mémoires Eccles. tom. xv. p. 171-184) has dedicated a
separate article to the honor of St. Pulcheria, virgin and
empress. * Note: The heathen Eunapius gives a frightful picture
of the venality and a justice of the court of Pulcheria. Fragm.
Eunap. in Mai, ii. 293, in p. 97.—M.]
69 (return) [ Suidas, (Excerpta, p. 68, in Script. Byzant.)
pretends, on the credit of the Nestorians, that Pulcheria was
exasperated against their founder, because he censured her
connection with the beautiful Paulinus, and her incest with her
brother Theodosius.]
70 (return) [ See Ducange, Famil. Byzantin. p. 70. Flaccilla, the
eldest daughter, either died before Arcadius, or, if she lived
till the year 431, (Marcellin. Chron.,) some defect of mind or
body must have excluded her from the honors of her rank.]
71 (return) [ She was admonished, by repeated dreams, of the
place where the relics of the forty martyrs had been buried. The
ground had successively belonged to the house and garden of a
woman of Constantinople, to a monastery of Macedonian monks, and
to a church of St. Thyrsus, erected by Caesarius, who was consul
A.D. 397; and the memory of the relics was almost obliterated.
Notwithstanding the charitable wishes of Dr. Jortin, (Remarks,
tom. iv. p. 234,) it is not easy to acquit Pulcheria of some
share in the pious fraud; which must have been transacted when
she was more than five-and-thirty years of age.]
The Roman world was deeply interested in the education of its
master. A regular course of study and exercise was judiciously
instituted; of the military exercises of riding, and shooting
with the bow; of the liberal studies of grammar, rhetoric, and
philosophy: the most skilful masters of the East ambitiously
solicited the attention of their royal pupil; and several noble
youths were introduced into the palace, to animate his diligence
by the emulation of friendship. Pulcheria alone discharged the
important task of instructing her brother in the arts of
government; but her precepts may countenance some suspicions of
the extent of her capacity, or of the purity of her intentions.
She taught him to maintain a grave and majestic deportment; to
walk, to hold his robes, to seat himself on his throne, in a
manner worthy of a great prince; to abstain from laughter; to
listen with condescension; to return suitable answers; to assume,
by turns, a serious or a placid countenance: in a word, to
represent with grace and dignity the external figure of a Roman
emperor. But Theodosius 72 was never excited to support the
weight and glory of an illustrious name: and, instead of aspiring
to support his ancestors, he degenerated (if we may presume to
measure the degrees of incapacity) below the weakness of his
father and his uncle. Arcadius and Honorius had been assisted by
the guardian care of a parent, whose lessons were enforced by his
authority and example. But the unfortunate prince, who is born in
the purple, must remain a stranger to the voice of truth; and the
son of Arcadius was condemned to pass his perpetual infancy
encompassed only by a servile train of women and eunuchs. The
ample leisure which he acquired by neglecting the essential
duties of his high office, was filled by idle amusements and
unprofitable studies. Hunting was the only active pursuit that
could tempt him beyond the limits of the palace; but he most
assiduously labored, sometimes by the light of a midnight lamp,
in the mechanic occupations of painting and carving; and the
elegance with which he transcribed religious books entitled the
Roman emperor to the singular epithet of Calligraphes, or a fair
writer. Separated from the world by an impenetrable veil,
Theodosius trusted the persons whom he loved; he loved those who
were accustomed to amuse and flatter his indolence; and as he
never perused the papers that were presented for the royal
signature, the acts of injustice the most repugnant to his
character were frequently perpetrated in his name. The emperor
himself was chaste, temperate, liberal, and merciful; but these
qualities, which can only deserve the name of virtues when they
are supported by courage and regulated by discretion, were seldom
beneficial, and they sometimes proved mischievous, to mankind.
His mind, enervated by a royal education, was oppressed and
degraded by abject superstition: he fasted, he sung psalms, he
blindly accepted the miracles and doctrines with which his faith
was continually nourished. Theodosius devoutly worshipped the
dead and living saints of the Catholic church; and he once
refused to eat, till an insolent monk, who had cast an
excommunication on his sovereign, condescended to heal the
spiritual wound which he had inflicted. 73
72 (return) [ There is a remarkable difference between the two
ecclesiastical historians, who in general bear so close a
resemblance. Sozomen (l. ix. c. 1) ascribes to Pulcheria the
government of the empire, and the education of her brother, whom
he scarcely condescends to praise. Socrates, though he affectedly
disclaims all hopes of favor or fame, composes an elaborate
panegyric on the emperor, and cautiously suppresses the merits of
his sister, (l. vii. c. 22, 42.) Philostorgius (l. xii. c. 7)
expresses the influence of Pulcheria in gentle and courtly
language. Suidas (Excerpt. p. 53) gives a true character of
Theodosius; and I have followed the example of Tillemont (tom.
vi. p. 25) in borrowing some strokes from the modern Greeks.]
73 (return) [ Theodoret, l. v. c. 37. The bishop of Cyrrhus, one
of the first men of his age for his learning and piety, applauds
the obedience of Theodosius to the divine laws.]
The story of a fair and virtuous maiden, exalted from a private
condition to the Imperial throne, might be deemed an incredible
romance, if such a romance had not been verified in the marriage
of Theodosius. The celebrated Athenais 74 was educated by her
father Leontius in the religion and sciences of the Greeks; and
so advantageous was the opinion which the Athenian philosopher
entertained of his contemporaries, that he divided his patrimony
between his two sons, bequeathing to his daughter a small legacy
of one hundred pieces of gold, in the lively confidence that her
beauty and merit would be a sufficient portion. The jealousy and
avarice of her brothers soon compelled Athenais to seek a refuge
at Constantinople; and, with some hopes, either of justice or
favor, to throw herself at the feet of Pulcheria. That sagacious
princess listened to her eloquent complaint; and secretly
destined the daughter of the philosopher Leontius for the future
wife of the emperor of the East, who had now attained the
twentieth year of his age. She easily excited the curiosity of
her brother, by an interesting picture of the charms of Athenais;
large eyes, a well-proportioned nose, a fair complexion, golden
locks, a slender person, a graceful demeanor, an understanding
improved by study, and a virtue tried by distress. Theodosius,
concealed behind a curtain in the apartment of his sister, was
permitted to behold the Athenian virgin: the modest youth
immediately declared his pure and honorable love; and the royal
nuptials were celebrated amidst the acclamations of the capital
and the provinces. Athenais, who was easily persuaded to renounce
the errors of Paganism, received at her baptism the Christian
name of Eudocia; but the cautious Pulcheria withheld the title of
Augusta, till the wife of Theodosius had approved her
fruitfulness by the birth of a daughter, who espoused, fifteen
years afterwards, the emperor of the West. The brothers of
Eudocia obeyed, with some anxiety, her Imperial summons; but as
she could easily forgive their unfortunate unkindness, she
indulged the tenderness, or perhaps the vanity, of a sister, by
promoting them to the rank of consuls and praefects. In the
luxury of the palace, she still cultivated those ingenuous arts
which had contributed to her greatness; and wisely dedicated her
talents to the honor of religion, and of her husband. Eudocia
composed a poetical paraphrase of the first eight books of the
Old Testament, and of the prophecies of Daniel and Zechariah; a
cento of the verses of Homer, applied to the life and miracles of
Christ, the legend of St. Cyprian, and a panegyric on the Persian
victories of Theodosius; and her writings, which were applauded
by a servile and superstitious age, have not been disdained by
the candor of impartial criticism. 75 The fondness of the emperor
was not abated by time and possession; and Eudocia, after the
marriage of her daughter, was permitted to discharge her grateful
vows by a solemn pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Her ostentatious
progress through the East may seem inconsistent with the spirit
of Christian humility; she pronounced, from a throne of gold and
gems, an eloquent oration to the senate of Antioch, declared her
royal intention of enlarging the walls of the city, bestowed a
donative of two hundred pounds of gold to restore the public
baths, and accepted the statues, which were decreed by the
gratitude of Antioch. In the Holy Land, her alms and pious
foundations exceeded the munificence of the great Helena, and
though the public treasure might be impoverished by this
excessive liberality, she enjoyed the conscious satisfaction of
returning to Constantinople with the chains of St. Peter, the
right arm of St. Stephen, and an undoubted picture of the Virgin,
painted by St. Luke. 76 But this pilgrimage was the fatal term of
the glories of Eudocia. Satiated with empty pomp, and unmindful,
perhaps, of her obligations to Pulcheria, she ambitiously aspired
to the government of the Eastern empire; the palace was
distracted by female discord; but the victory was at last
decided, by the superior ascendant of the sister of Theodosius.
The execution of Paulinus, master of the offices, and the
disgrace of Cyrus, Prætorian praefect of the East, convinced the
public that the favor of Eudocia was insufficient to protect her
most faithful friends; and the uncommon beauty of Paulinus
encouraged the secret rumor, that his guilt was that of a
successful lover. 77 As soon as the empress perceived that the
affection of Theodosius was irretrievably lost, she requested the
permission of retiring to the distant solitude of Jerusalem. She
obtained her request; but the jealousy of Theodosius, or the
vindictive spirit of Pulcheria, pursued her in her last retreat;
and Saturninus, count of the domestics, was directed to punish
with death two ecclesiastics, her most favored servants. Eudocia
instantly revenged them by the assassination of the count; the
furious passions which she indulged on this suspicious occasion,
seemed to justify the severity of Theodosius; and the empress,
ignominiously stripped of the honors of her rank, 78 was
disgraced, perhaps unjustly, in the eyes of the world. The
remainder of the life of Eudocia, about sixteen years, was spent
in exile and devotion; and the approach of age, the death of
Theodosius, the misfortunes of her only daughter, who was led a
captive from Rome to Carthage, and the society of the Holy Monks
of Palestine, insensibly confirmed the religious temper of her
mind. After a full experience of the vicissitudes of human life,
the daughter of the philosopher Leontius expired, at Jerusalem,
in the sixty-seventh year of her age; protesting, with her dying
breath, that she had never transgressed the bounds of innocence
and friendship. 79
74 (return) [ Socrates (l. vii. c. 21) mentions her name,
(Athenais, the daughter of Leontius, an Athenian sophist,) her
baptism, marriage, and poetical genius. The most ancient account
of her history is in John Malala (part ii. p. 20, 21, edit.
Venet. 1743) and in the Paschal Chronicle, (p. 311, 312.) Those
authors had probably seen original pictures of the empress
Eudocia. The modern Greeks, Zonaras, Cedrenus, &c., have
displayed the love, rather than the talent of fiction. From
Nicephorus, indeed, I have ventured to assume her age. The writer
of a romance would not have imagined, that Athenais was near
twenty eight years old when she inflamed the heart of a young
emperor.]
75 (return) [ Socrates, l. vii. c. 21, Photius, p. 413-420. The
Homeric cento is still extant, and has been repeatedly printed:
but the claim of Eudocia to that insipid performance is disputed
by the critics. See Fabricius, Biblioth. Graec. tom. i. p. 357.
The Ionia, a miscellaneous dictionary of history and fable, was
compiled by another empress of the name of Eudocia, who lived in
the eleventh century: and the work is still extant in
manuscript.]
76 (return) [ Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 438, 439) is copious
and florid, but he is accused of placing the lies of different
ages on the same level of authenticity.]
77 (return) [ In this short view of the disgrace of Eudocia, I
have imitated the caution of Evagrius (l. i. c. 21) and Count
Marcellinus, (in Chron A.D. 440 and 444.) The two authentic dates
assigned by the latter, overturn a great part of the Greek
fictions; and the celebrated story of the apple, &c., is fit only
for the Arabian Nights, where something not very unlike it may be
found.]
78 (return) [ Priscus, (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 69,) a
contemporary, and a courtier, dryly mentions her Pagan and
Christian names, without adding any title of honor or respect.]
79 (return) [ For the two pilgrimages of Eudocia, and her long
residence at Jerusalem, her devotion, alms, &c., see Socrates (l.
vii. c. 47) and Evagrius, (l. i. c. 21, 22.) The Paschal
Chronicle may sometimes deserve regard; and in the domestic
history of Antioch, John Malala becomes a writer of good
authority. The Abbe Guenee, in a memoir on the fertility of
Palestine, of which I have only seen an extract, calculates the
gifts of Eudocia at 20,488 pounds of gold, above 800,000 pounds
sterling.]
The gentle mind of Theodosius was never inflamed by the ambition
of conquest, or military renown; and the slight alarm of a
Persian war scarcely interrupted the tranquillity of the East.
The motives of this war were just and honorable. In the last year
of the reign of Jezdegerd, the supposed guardian of Theodosius, a
bishop, who aspired to the crown of martyrdom, destroyed one of
the fire-temples of Susa. 80 His zeal and obstinacy were revenged
on his brethren: the Magi excited a cruel persecution; and the
intolerant zeal of Jezdegerd was imitated by his son Varanes, or
Bahram, who soon afterwards ascended the throne. Some Christian
fugitives, who escaped to the Roman frontier, were sternly
demanded, and generously refused; and the refusal, aggravated by
commercial disputes, soon kindled a war between the rival
monarchies. The mountains of Armenia, and the plains of
Mesopotamia, were filled with hostile armies; but the operations
of two successive campaigns were not productive of any decisive
or memorable events. Some engagements were fought, some towns
were besieged, with various and doubtful success: and if the
Romans failed in their attempt to recover the long-lost
possession of Nisibis, the Persians were repulsed from the walls
of a Mesopotamian city, by the valor of a martial bishop, who
pointed his thundering engine in the name of St. Thomas the
Apostle. Yet the splendid victories which the incredible speed of
the messenger Palladius repeatedly announced to the palace of
Constantinople, were celebrated with festivals and panegyrics.
From these panegyrics the historians 81 of the age might borrow
their extraordinary, and, perhaps, fabulous tales; of the proud
challenge of a Persian hero, who was entangled by the net, and
despatched by the sword, of Areobindus the Goth; of the ten
thousand Immortals, who were slain in the attack of the Roman
camp; and of the hundred thousand Arabs, or Saracens, who were
impelled by a panic terror to throw themselves headlong into the
Euphrates. Such events may be disbelieved or disregarded; but the
charity of a bishop, Acacius of Amida, whose name might have
dignified the saintly calendar, shall not be lost in oblivion.
Boldly declaring, that vases of gold and silver are useless to a
God who neither eats nor drinks, the generous prelate sold the
plate of the church of Amida; employed the price in the
redemption of seven thousand Persian captives; supplied their
wants with affectionate liberality; and dismissed them to their
native country, to inform their king of the true spirit of the
religion which he persecuted. The practice of benevolence in the
midst of war must always tend to assuage the animosity of
contending nations; and I wish to persuade myself, that Acacius
contributed to the restoration of peace. In the conference which
was held on the limits of the two empires, the Roman ambassadors
degraded the personal character of their sovereign, by a vain
attempt to magnify the extent of his power; when they seriously
advised the Persians to prevent, by a timely accommodation, the
wrath of a monarch, who was yet ignorant of this distant war. A
truce of one hundred years was solemnly ratified; and although
the revolutions of Armenia might threaten the public
tranquillity, the essential conditions of this treaty were
respected near fourscore years by the successors of Constantine
and Artaxerxes.
80 (return) [ Theodoret, l. v. c. 39 Tillemont. Mem. Eccles tom.
xii. 356-364. Assemanni, Bibliot. Oriental. tom. iii. p. 396,
tom. iv. p. 61. Theodoret blames the rashness of Abdas, but
extols the constancy of his martyrdom. Yet I do not clearly
understand the casuistry which prohibits our repairing the damage
which we have unlawfully committed.]
81 (return) [ Socrates (l. vii. c. 18, 19, 20, 21) is the best
author for the Persian war. We may likewise consult the three
Chronicles, the Paschal and those of Marcellinus and Malala.]
Since the Roman and Parthian standards first encountered on the
banks of the Euphrates, the kingdom of Armenia 82 was alternately
oppressed by its formidable protectors; and in the course of this
History, several events, which inclined the balance of peace and
war, have been already related. A disgraceful treaty had resigned
Armenia to the ambition of Sapor; and the scale of Persia
appeared to preponderate. But the royal race of Arsaces
impatiently submitted to the house of Sassan; the turbulent
nobles asserted, or betrayed, their hereditary independence; and
the nation was still attached to the Christian princes of
Constantinople. In the beginning of the fifth century, Armenia
was divided by the progress of war and faction; 83 and the
unnatural division precipitated the downfall of that ancient
monarchy. Chosroes, the Persian vassal, reigned over the Eastern
and most extensive portion of the country; while the Western
province acknowledged the jurisdiction of Arsaces, and the
supremacy of the emperor Arcadius. 8111 After the death of
Arsaces, the Romans suppressed the regal government, and imposed
on their allies the condition of subjects. The military command
was delegated to the count of the Armenian frontier; the city of
Theodosiopolis 84 was built and fortified in a strong situation,
on a fertile and lofty ground, near the sources of the Euphrates;
and the dependent territories were ruled by five satraps, whose
dignity was marked by a peculiar habit of gold and purple. The
less fortunate nobles, who lamented the loss of their king, and
envied the honors of their equals, were provoked to negotiate
their peace and pardon at the Persian court; and returning, with
their followers, to the palace of Artaxata, acknowledged Chosroes
8411 for their lawful sovereign. About thirty years afterwards,
Artasires, the nephew and successor of Chosroes, fell under the
displeasure of the haughty and capricious nobles of Armenia; and
they unanimously desired a Persian governor in the room of an
unworthy king. The answer of the archbishop Isaac, whose sanction
they earnestly solicited, is expressive of the character of a
superstitious people. He deplored the manifest and inexcusable
vices of Artasires; and declared, that he should not hesitate to
accuse him before the tribunal of a Christian emperor, who would
punish, without destroying, the sinner. “Our king,” continued
Isaac, “is too much addicted to licentious pleasures, but he has
been purified in the holy waters of baptism. He is a lover of
women, but he does not adore the fire or the elements. He may
deserve the reproach of lewdness, but he is an undoubted
Catholic; and his faith is pure, though his manners are
flagitious. I will never consent to abandon my sheep to the rage
of devouring wolves; and you would soon repent your rash exchange
of the infirmities of a believer, for the specious virtues of a
heathen.” 85 Exasperated by the firmness of Isaac, the factious
nobles accused both the king and the archbishop as the secret
adherents of the emperor; and absurdly rejoiced in the sentence
of condemnation, which, after a partial hearing, was solemnly
pronounced by Bahram himself. The descendants of Arsaces were
degraded from the royal dignity, 86 which they had possessed
above five hundred and sixty years; 87 and the dominions of the
unfortunate Artasires, 8711 under the new and significant
appellation of Persarmenia, were reduced into the form of a
province. This usurpation excited the jealousy of the Roman
government; but the rising disputes were soon terminated by an
amicable, though unequal, partition of the ancient kingdom of
Armenia: 8712 and a territorial acquisition, which Augustus might
have despised, reflected some lustre on the declining empire of
the younger Theodosius.
82 (return) [ This account of the ruin and division of the
kingdom of Armenia is taken from the third book of the Armenian
history of Moses of Chorene. Deficient as he is in every
qualification of a good historian, his local information, his
passions, and his prejudices are strongly expressive of a native
and contemporary. Procopius (de Edificiis, l. iii. c. 1, 5)
relates the same facts in a very different manner; but I have
extracted the circumstances the most probable in themselves, and
the least inconsistent with Moses of Chorene.]
83 (return) [ The western Armenians used the Greek language and
characters in their religious offices; but the use of that
hostile tongue was prohibited by the Persians in the Eastern
provinces, which were obliged to use the Syriac, till the
invention of the Armenian letters by Mesrobes, in the beginning
of the fifth century, and the subsequent version of the Bible
into the Armenian language; an event which relaxed to the
connection of the church and nation with Constantinople.]
84 (return) [ Moses Choren. l. iii. c. 59, p. 309, and p. 358.
Procopius, de Edificiis, l. iii. c. 5. Theodosiopolis stands, or
rather stood, about thirty-five miles to the east of Arzeroum,
the modern capital of Turkish Armenia. See D’Anville, Geographie
Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 99, 100.]
8111 (return) [ The division of Armenia, according to M. St.
Martin, took place much earlier, A. C. 390. The Eastern or
Persian division was four times as large as the Western or Roman.
This partition took place during the reigns of Theodosius the
First, and Varanes (Bahram) the Fourth. St. Martin, Sup. to Le
Beau, iv. 429. This partition was but imperfectly accomplished,
as both parts were afterwards reunited under Chosroes, who paid
tribute both to the Roman emperor and to the Persian king. v.
439.—M.]
8411 (return) [ Chosroes, according to Procopius (who calls him
Arsaces, the common name of the Armenian kings) and the Armenian
writers, bequeathed to his two sons, to Tigranes the Persian, to
Arsaces the Roman, division of Armenia, A. C. 416. With the
assistance of the discontented nobles the Persian king placed his
son Sapor on the throne of the Eastern division; the Western at
the same time was united to the Roman empire, and called the
Greater Armenia. It was then that Theodosiopolis was built. Sapor
abandoned the throne of Armenia to assert his rights to that of
Persia; he perished in the struggle, and after a period of
anarchy, Bahram V., who had ascended the throne of Persia, placed
the last native prince, Ardaschir, son of Bahram Schahpour, on
the throne of the Persian division of Armenia. St. Martin, v.
506. This Ardaschir was the Artasires of Gibbon. The archbishop
Isaac is called by the Armenians the Patriarch Schag. St. Martin,
vi. 29.—M.]
85 (return) [ Moses Choren, l. iii. c. 63, p. 316. According to
the institution of St. Gregory, the Apostle of Armenia, the
archbishop was always of the royal family; a circumstance which,
in some degree, corrected the influence of the sacerdotal
character, and united the mitre with the crown.]
86 (return) [ A branch of the royal house of Arsaces still
subsisted with the rank and possessions (as it should seem) of
Armenian satraps. See Moses Choren. l. iii. c. 65, p. 321.]
87 (return) [ Valarsaces was appointed king of Armenia by his
brother the Parthian monarch, immediately after the defeat of
Antiochus Sidetes, (Moses Choren. l. ii. c. 2, p. 85,) one
hundred and thirty years before Christ. Without depending on the
various and contradictory periods of the reigns of the last
kings, we may be assured, that the ruin of the Armenian kingdom
happened after the council of Chalcedon, A.D. 431, (l. iii. c.
61, p. 312;) and under Varamus, or Bahram, king of Persia, (l.
iii. c. 64, p. 317,) who reigned from A.D. 420 to 440. See
Assemanni, Bibliot. Oriental. tom. iii. p. 396. * Note: Five
hundred and eighty. St. Martin, ibid. He places this event A. C
429.—M.——Note: According to M. St. Martin, vi. 32, Vagharschah,
or Valarsaces, was appointed king by his brother Mithridates the
Great, king of Parthia.—M.]
8711 (return) [ Artasires or Ardaschir was probably sent to the
castle of Oblivion. St. Martin, vi. 31.—M.]
8712 (return) [ The duration of the Armenian kingdom according to
M. St. Martin, was 580 years.—M]
Chapter XXXIII: Conquest Of Africa By The Vandals.—Part I.
Death Of Honorius.—Valentinian III.—Emperor Of The East.
—Administration Of His Mother Placidia—Ætius And
Boniface.—Conquest Of Africa By The Vandals.
During a long and disgraceful reign of twenty-eight years,
Honorius, emperor of the West, was separated from the friendship
of his brother, and afterwards of his nephew, who reigned over
the East; and Constantinople beheld, with apparent indifference
and secret joy, the calamities of Rome. The strange adventures of
Placidia 1 gradually renewed and cemented the alliance of the two
empires. The daughter of the great Theodosius had been the
captive, and the queen, of the Goths; she lost an affectionate
husband; she was dragged in chains by his insulting assassin; she
tasted the pleasure of revenge, and was exchanged, in the treaty
of peace, for six hundred thousand measures of wheat. After her
return from Spain to Italy, Placidia experienced a new
persecution in the bosom of her family. She was averse to a
marriage, which had been stipulated without her consent; and the
brave Constantius, as a noble reward for the tyrants whom he had
vanquished, received, from the hand of Honorius himself, the
struggling and the reluctant hand of the widow of Adolphus. But
her resistance ended with the ceremony of the nuptials: nor did
Placidia refuse to become the mother of Honoria and Valentinian
the Third, or to assume and exercise an absolute dominion over
the mind of her grateful husband. The generous soldier, whose
time had hitherto been divided between social pleasure and
military service, was taught new lessons of avarice and ambition:
he extorted the title of Augustus: and the servant of Honorius
was associated to the empire of the West. The death of
Constantius, in the seventh month of his reign, instead of
diminishing, seemed to inerease the power of Placidia; and the
indecent familiarity 2 of her brother, which might be no more
than the symptoms of a childish affection, were universally
attributed to incestuous love. On a sudden, by some base
intrigues of a steward and a nurse, this excessive fondness was
converted into an irreconcilable quarrel: the debates of the
emperor and his sister were not long confined within the walls of
the palace; and as the Gothic soldiers adhered to their queen,
the city of Ravenna was agitated with bloody and dangerous
tumults, which could only be appeased by the forced or voluntary
retreat of Placidia and her children. The royal exiles landed at
Constantinople, soon after the marriage of Theodosius, during the
festival of the Persian victories. They were treated with
kindness and magnificence; but as the statues of the emperor
Constantius had been rejected by the Eastern court, the title of
Augusta could not decently be allowed to his widow. Within a few
months after the arrival of Placidia, a swift messenger announced
the death of Honorius, the consequence of a dropsy; but the
important secret was not divulged, till the necessary orders had
been despatched for the march of a large body of troops to the
sea-coast of Dalmatia. The shops and the gates of Constantinople
remained shut during seven days; and the loss of a foreign
prince, who could neither be esteemed nor regretted, was
celebrated with loud and affected demonstrations of the public
grief.
1 (return) [ See vol. iii. p. 296.]
2 (return) [ It is the expression of Olympiodorus (apud Phetium
p. 197;) who means, perhaps, to describe the same caresses which
Mahomet bestowed on his daughter Phatemah. Quando, (says the
prophet himself,) quando subit mihi desiderium Paradisi, osculor
eam, et ingero linguam meam in os ejus. But this sensual
indulgence was justified by miracle and mystery; and the anecdote
has been communicated to the public by the Reverend Father
Maracci in his Version and Confutation of the Koran, tom. i. p.
32.]
While the ministers of Constantinople deliberated, the vacant
throne of Honorius was usurped by the ambition of a stranger. The
name of the rebel was John; he filled the confidential office of
Primicerius, or principal secretary, and history has attributed
to his character more virtues, than can easily be reconciled with
the violation of the most sacred duty. Elated by the submission
of Italy, and the hope of an alliance with the Huns, John
presumed to insult, by an embassy, the majesty of the Eastern
emperor; but when he understood that his agents had been
banished, imprisoned, and at length chased away with deserved
ignominy, John prepared to assert, by arms, the injustice of his
claims. In such a cause, the grandson of the great Theodosius
should have marched in person: but the young emperor was easily
diverted, by his physicians, from so rash and hazardous a design;
and the conduct of the Italian expedition was prudently intrusted
to Ardaburius, and his son Aspar, who had already signalized
their valor against the Persians. It was resolved, that
Ardaburius should embark with the infantry; whilst Aspar, at the
head of the cavalry, conducted Placidia and her son Valentinian
along the sea-coast of the Adriatic. The march of the cavalry was
performed with such active diligence, that they surprised,
without resistance, the important city of Aquileia: when the
hopes of Aspar were unexpectedly confounded by the intelligence,
that a storm had dispersed the Imperial fleet; and that his
father, with only two galleys, was taken and carried a prisoner
into the port of Ravenna. Yet this incident, unfortunate as it
might seem, facilitated the conquest of Italy. Ardaburius
employed, or abused, the courteous freedom which he was permitted
to enjoy, to revive among the troops a sense of loyalty and
gratitude; and as soon as the conspiracy was ripe for execution,
he invited, by private messages, and pressed the approach of,
Aspar. A shepherd, whom the popular credulity transformed into an
angel, guided the eastern cavalry by a secret, and, it was
thought, an impassable road, through the morasses of the Po: the
gates of Ravenna, after a short struggle, were thrown open; and
the defenceless tyrant was delivered to the mercy, or rather to
the cruelty, of the conquerors. His right hand was first cut off;
and, after he had been exposed, mounted on an ass, to the public
derision, John was beheaded in the circus of Aquileia. The
emperor Theodosius, when he received the news of the victory,
interrupted the horse-races; and singing, as he marched through
the streets, a suitable psalm, conducted his people from the
Hippodrome to the church, where he spent the remainder of the day
in grateful devotion. 3
3 (return) [ For these revolutions of the Western empire, consult
Olympiodor, apud Phot. p. 192, 193, 196, 197, 200; Sozomen, l.
ix. c. 16; Socrates, l. vii. 23, 24; Philostorgius, l. xii. c.
10, 11, and Godefroy, Dissertat p. 486; Procopius, de Bell.
Vandal. l. i. c. 3, p. 182, 183, in Chronograph, p. 72, 73, and
the Chronicles.]
In a monarchy, which, according to various precedents, might be
considered as elective, or hereditary, or patrimonial, it was
impossible that the intricate claims of female and collateral
succession should be clearly defined; 4 and Theodosius, by the
right of consanguinity or conquest, might have reigned the sole
legitimate emperor of the Romans. For a moment, perhaps, his eyes
were dazzled by the prospect of unbounded sway; but his indolent
temper gradually acquiesced in the dictates of sound policy. He
contented himself with the possession of the East; and wisely
relinquished the laborious task of waging a distant and doubtful
war against the Barbarians beyond the Alps; or of securing the
obedience of the Italians and Africans, whose minds were
alienated by the irreconcilable difference of language and
interest. Instead of listening to the voice of ambition,
Theodosius resolved to imitate the moderation of his grandfather,
and to seat his cousin Valentinian on the throne of the West. The
royal infant was distinguished at Constantinople by the title of
Nobilissimus: he was promoted, before his departure from
Thessalonica, to the rank and dignity of Caesar; and after the
conquest of Italy, the patrician Helion, by the authority of
Theodosius, and in the presence of the senate, saluted
Valentinian the Third by the name of Augustus, and solemnly
invested him with the diadem and the Imperial purple. 5 By the
agreement of the three females who governed the Roman world, the
son of Placidia was betrothed to Eudoxia, the daughter of
Theodosius and Athenais; and as soon as the lover and his bride
had attained the age of puberty, this honorable alliance was
faithfully accomplished. At the same time, as a compensation,
perhaps, for the expenses of the war, the Western Illyricum was
detached from the Italian dominions, and yielded to the throne of
Constantinople. 6 The emperor of the East acquired the useful
dominion of the rich and maritime province of Dalmatia, and the
dangerous sovereignty of Pannonia and Noricum, which had been
filled and ravaged above twenty years by a promiscuous crowd of
Huns, Ostrogoths, Vandals, and Bavarians. Theodosius and
Valentinian continued to respect the obligations of their public
and domestic alliance; but the unity of the Roman government was
finally dissolved. By a positive declaration, the validity of all
future laws was limited to the dominions of their peculiar
author; unless he should think proper to communicate them,
subscribed with his own hand, for the approbation of his
independent colleague. 7
4 (return) [ See Grotius de Jure Belli et Pacis, l. ii. c. 7. He
has laboriously out vainly, attempted to form a reasonable system
of jurisprudence from the various and discordant modes of royal
succession, which have been introduced by fraud or force, by time
or accident.]
5 (return) [ The original writers are not agreed (see Muratori,
Annali d’Italia tom. iv. p. 139) whether Valentinian received the
Imperial diadem at Rome or Ravenna. In this uncertainty, I am
willing to believe, that some respect was shown to the senate.]
6 (return) [ The count de Buat (Hist. des Peup es de l’Europe,
tom. vii. p. 292-300) has established the reality, explained the
motives, and traced the consequences, of this remarkable
cession.]
7 (return) [ See the first Novel of Theodosius, by which he
ratifies and communicates (A.D. 438) the Theodosian Code. About
forty years before that time, the unity of legislation had been
proved by an exception. The Jews, who were numerous in the cities
of Apulia and Calabria, produced a law of the East to justify
their exemption from municipal offices, (Cod. Theod. l. xvi. tit.
viii. leg. 13;) and the Western emperor was obliged to
invalidate, by a special edict, the law, quam constat meis
partibus esse damnosam. Cod. Theod. l. xi. tit. i. leg. 158.]
Valentinian, when he received the title of Augustus, was no more
than six years of age; and his long minority was intrusted to the
guardian care of a mother, who might assert a female claim to the
succession of the Western empire. Placidia envied, but she could
not equal, the reputation and virtues of the wife and sister of
Theodosius, the elegant genius of Eudocia, the wise and
successful policy of Pulcheria. The mother of Valentinian was
jealous of the power which she was incapable of exercising; 8 she
reigned twenty-five years, in the name of her son; and the
character of that unworthy emperor gradually countenanced the
suspicion that Placidia had enervated his youth by a dissolute
education, and studiously diverted his attention from every manly
and honorable pursuit. Amidst the decay of military spirit, her
armies were commanded by two generals, Ætius 9 and Boniface, 10
who may be deservedly named as the last of the Romans. Their
union might have supported a sinking empire; their discord was
the fatal and immediate cause of the loss of Africa. The invasion
and defeat of Attila have immortalized the fame of Ætius; and
though time has thrown a shade over the exploits of his rival,
the defence of Marseilles, and the deliverance of Africa, attest
the military talents of Count Boniface. In the field of battle,
in partial encounters, in single combats, he was still the terror
of the Barbarians: the clergy, and particularly his friend
Augustin, were edified by the Christian piety which had once
tempted him to retire from the world; the people applauded his
spotless integrity; the army dreaded his equal and inexorable
justice, which may be displayed in a very singular example. A
peasant, who complained of the criminal intimacy between his wife
and a Gothic soldier, was directed to attend his tribunal the
following day: in the evening the count, who had diligently
informed himself of the time and place of the assignation,
mounted his horse, rode ten miles into the country, surprised the
guilty couple, punished the soldier with instant death, and
silenced the complaints of the husband by presenting him, the
next morning, with the head of the adulterer. The abilities of
Ætius and Boniface might have been usefully employed against the
public enemies, in separate and important commands; but the
experience of their past conduct should have decided the real
favor and confidence of the empress Placidia. In the melancholy
season of her exile and distress, Boniface alone had maintained
her cause with unshaken fidelity: and the troops and treasures of
Africa had essentially contributed to extinguish the rebellion.
The same rebellion had been supported by the zeal and activity of
Ætius, who brought an army of sixty thousand Huns from the Danube
to the confines of Italy, for the service of the usurper. The
untimely death of John compelled him to accept an advantageous
treaty; but he still continued, the subject and the soldier of
Valentinian, to entertain a secret, perhaps a treasonable,
correspondence with his Barbarian allies, whose retreat had been
purchased by liberal gifts, and more liberal promises. But Ætius
possessed an advantage of singular moment in a female reign; he
was present: he besieged, with artful and assiduous flattery, the
palace of Ravenna; disguised his dark designs with the mask of
loyalty and friendship; and at length deceived both his mistress
and his absent rival, by a subtle conspiracy, which a weak woman
and a brave man could not easily suspect. He had secretly
persuaded 11 Placidia to recall Boniface from the government of
Africa; he secretly advised Boniface to disobey the Imperial
summons: to the one, he represented the order as a sentence of
death; to the other, he stated the refusal as a signal of revolt;
and when the credulous and unsuspectful count had armed the
province in his defence, Ætius applauded his sagacity in
foreseeing the rebellion, which his own perfidy had excited. A
temperate inquiry into the real motives of Boniface would have
restored a faithful servant to his duty and to the republic; but
the arts of Ætius still continued to betray and to inflame, and
the count was urged, by persecution, to embrace the most
desperate counsels. The success with which he eluded or repelled
the first attacks, could not inspire a vain confidence, that at
the head of some loose, disorderly Africans, he should be able to
withstand the regular forces of the West, commanded by a rival,
whose military character it was impossible for him to despise.
After some hesitation, the last struggles of prudence and
loyalty, Boniface despatched a trusty friend to the court, or
rather to the camp, of Gonderic, king of the Vandals, with the
proposal of a strict alliance, and the offer of an advantageous
and perpetual settlement.
8 (return) [ Cassiodorus (Variar. l. xi. Epist. i. p. 238) has
compared the regencies of Placidia and Amalasuntha. He arraigns
the weakness of the mother of Valentinian, and praises the
virtues of his royal mistress. On this occasion, flattery seems
to have spoken the language of truth.]
9 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. xii. c. 12, and Godefroy’s
Dissertat. p. 493, &c.; and Renatus Frigeridus, apud Gregor.
Turon. l. ii. c. 8, in tom. ii. p. 163. The father of Ætius was
Gaudentius, an illustrious citizen of the province of Scythia,
and master-general of the cavalry; his mother was a rich and
noble Italian. From his earliest youth, Ætius, as a soldier and a
hostage, had conversed with the Barbarians.]
10 (return) [ For the character of Boniface, see Olympiodorus,
apud Phot. p. 196; and St. Augustin apud Tillemont, Mémoires
Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 712-715, 886. The bishop of Hippo at length
deplored the fall of his friend, who, after a solemn vow of
chastity, had married a second wife of the Arian sect, and who
was suspected of keeping several concubines in his house.]
11 (return) [ Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 3, 4, p.
182-186) relates the fraud of Ætius, the revolt of Boniface, and
the loss of Africa. This anecdote, which is supported by some
collateral testimony, (see Ruinart, Hist. Persecut. Vandal. p.
420, 421,) seems agreeable to the practice of ancient and modern
courts, and would be naturally revealed by the repentance of
Boniface.]
After the retreat of the Goths, the authority of Honorius had
obtained a precarious establishment in Spain; except only in the
province of Gallicia, where the Suevi and the Vandals had
fortified their camps, in mutual discord and hostile
independence. The Vandals prevailed; and their adversaries were
besieged in the Nervasian hills, between Leon and Oviedo, till
the approach of Count Asterius compelled, or rather provoked, the
victorious Barbarians to remove the scene of the war to the
plains of Boetica. The rapid progress of the Vandals soon
acquired a more effectual opposition; and the master-general
Castinus marched against them with a numerous army of Romans and
Goths. Vanquished in battle by an inferior army, Castinus fled
with dishonor to Tarragona; and this memorable defeat, which has
been represented as the punishment, was most probably the effect,
of his rash presumption. 12 Seville and Carthagena became the
reward, or rather the prey, of the ferocious conquerors; and the
vessels which they found in the harbor of Carthagena might easily
transport them to the Isles of Majorca and Minorca, where the
Spanish fugitives, as in a secure recess, had vainly concealed
their families and their fortunes. The experience of navigation,
and perhaps the prospect of Africa, encouraged the Vandals to
accept the invitation which they received from Count Boniface;
and the death of Gonderic served only to forward and animate the
bold enterprise. In the room of a prince not conspicuous for any
superior powers of the mind or body, they acquired his bastard
brother, the terrible Genseric; 13 a name, which, in the
destruction of the Roman empire, has deserved an equal rank with
the names of Alaric and Attila. The king of the Vandals is
described to have been of a middle stature, with a lameness in
one leg, which he had contracted by an accidental fall from his
horse. His slow and cautious speech seldom declared the deep
purposes of his soul; he disdained to imitate the luxury of the
vanquished; but he indulged the sterner passions of anger and
revenge. The ambition of Genseric was without bounds and without
scruples; and the warrior could dexterously employ the dark
engines of policy to solicit the allies who might be useful to
his success, or to scatter among his enemies the seeds of hatred
and contention. Almost in the moment of his departure he was
informed that Hermanric, king of the Suevi, had presumed to
ravage the Spanish territories, which he was resolved to abandon.
Impatient of the insult, Genseric pursued the hasty retreat of
the Suevi as far as Merida; precipitated the king and his army
into the River Anas, and calmly returned to the sea-shore to
embark his victorious troops. The vessels which transported the
Vandals over the modern Straits of Gibraltar, a channel only
twelve miles in breadth, were furnished by the Spaniards, who
anxiously wished their departure; and by the African general, who
had implored their formidable assistance. 14
12 (return) [ See the Chronicles of Prosper and Idatius. Salvian
(de Gubernat. Dei, l. vii. p. 246, Paris, 1608) ascribes the
victory of the Vandals to their superior piety. They fasted, they
prayed, they carried a Bible in the front of the Host, with the
design, perhaps, of reproaching the perfidy and sacrilege of
their enemies.]
13 (return) [ Gizericus (his name is variously expressed) statura
mediocris et equi casu claudicans, animo profundus, sermone
rarus, luxuriae contemptor, ira turbidus, habendi cupidus, ad
solicitandas gentes providentissimus, semina contentionum jacere,
odia miscere paratus. Jornandes, de Rebus Geticis, c. 33, p. 657.
This portrait, which is drawn with some skill, and a strong
likeness, must have been copied from the Gothic history of
Cassiodorus.]
14 (return) [ See the Chronicle of Idatius. That bishop, a
Spaniard and a contemporary, places the passage of the Vandals in
the month of May, of the year of Abraham, (which commences in
October,) 2444. This date, which coincides with A.D. 429, is
confirmed by Isidore, another Spanish bishop, and is justly
preferred to the opinion of those writers who have marked for
that event one of the two preceding years. See Pagi Critica, tom.
ii. p. 205, &c.]
Our fancy, so long accustomed to exaggerate and multiply the
martial swarms of Barbarians that seemed to issue from the North,
will perhaps be surprised by the account of the army which
Genseric mustered on the coast of Mauritania. The Vandals, who in
twenty years had penetrated from the Elbe to Mount Atlas, were
united under the command of their warlike king; and he reigned
with equal authority over the Alani, who had passed, within the
term of human life, from the cold of Scythia to the excessive
heat of an African climate. The hopes of the bold enterprise had
excited many brave adventurers of the Gothic nation; and many
desperate provincials were tempted to repair their fortunes by
the same means which had occasioned their ruin. Yet this various
multitude amounted only to fifty thousand effective men; and
though Genseric artfully magnified his apparent strength, by
appointing eighty chinarchs, or commanders of thousands, the
fallacious increase of old men, of children, and of slaves, would
scarcely have swelled his army to the number of four-score
thousand persons. 15 But his own dexterity, and the discontents
of Africa, soon fortified the Vandal powers, by the accession of
numerous and active allies. The parts of Mauritania which border
on the Great Desert and the Atlantic Ocean, were filled with a
fierce and untractable race of men, whose savage temper had been
exasperated, rather than reclaimed, by their dread of the Roman
arms. The wandering Moors, 16 as they gradually ventured to
approach the seashore, and the camp of the Vandals, must have
viewed with terror and astonishment the dress, the armor, the
martial pride and discipline of the unknown strangers who had
landed on their coast; and the fair complexions of the blue-eyed
warriors of Germany formed a very singular contrast with the
swarthy or olive hue which is derived from the neighborhood of
the torrid zone. After the first difficulties had in some measure
been removed, which arose from the mutual ignorance of their
respective language, the Moors, regardless of any future
consequence, embraced the alliance of the enemies of Rome; and a
crowd of naked savages rushed from the woods and valleys of Mount
Atlas, to satiate their revenge on the polished tyrants, who had
injuriously expelled them from the native sovereignty of the
land.
15 (return) [ Compare Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 5, p.
190) and Victor Vitensis, (de Persecutione Vandal. l. i. c. 1, p.
3, edit. Ruinart.) We are assured by Idatius, that Genseric
evacuated Spain, cum Vandalis omnibus eorumque familiis; and
Possidius (in Vit. Augustin. c. 28, apud Ruinart, p. 427)
describes his army as manus ingens immanium gentium Vandalorum et
Alanorum, commixtam secum babens Gothorum gentem, aliarumque
diversarum personas.]
16 (return) [ For the manners of the Moors, see Procopius, (de
Bell. Vandal. l. ii. c. 6, p. 249;) for their figure and
complexion, M. de Buffon, (Histoire Naturelle, tom. iii. p. 430.)
Procopius says in general, that the Moors had joined the Vandals
before the death of Valentinian, (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 5, p.
190;) and it is probable that the independent tribes did not
embrace any uniform system of policy.]
The persecution of the Donatists 17 was an event not less
favorable to the designs of Genseric. Seventeen years before he
landed in Africa, a public conference was held at Carthage, by
the order of the magistrate. The Catholics were satisfied, that,
after the invincible reasons which they had alleged, the
obstinacy of the schismatics must be inexcusable and voluntary;
and the emperor Honorius was persuaded to inflict the most
rigorous penalties on a faction which had so long abused his
patience and clemency. Three hundred bishops, 18 with many
thousands of the inferior clergy, were torn from their churches,
stripped of their ecclesiastical possessions, banished to the
islands, and proscribed by the laws, if they presumed to conceal
themselves in the provinces of Africa. Their numerous
congregations, both in cities and in the country, were deprived
of the rights of citizens, and of the exercise of religious
worship. A regular scale of fines, from ten to two hundred pounds
of silver, was curiously ascertained, according to the
distinction of rank and fortune, to punish the crime of assisting
at a schismatic conventicle; and if the fine had been levied five
times, without subduing the obstinacy of the offender, his future
punishment was referred to the discretion of the Imperial court.
19 By these severities, which obtained the warmest approbation of
St. Augustin, 20 great numbers of Donatists were reconciled to
the Catholic Church; but the fanatics, who still persevered in
their opposition, were provoked to madness and despair; the
distracted country was filled with tumult and bloodshed; the
armed troops of Circumcellions alternately pointed their rage
against themselves, or against their adversaries; and the
calendar of martyrs received on both sides a considerable
augmentation. 21 Under these circumstances, Genseric, a
Christian, but an enemy of the orthodox communion, showed himself
to the Donatists as a powerful deliverer, from whom they might
reasonably expect the repeal of the odious and oppressive edicts
of the Roman emperors. 22 The conquest of Africa was facilitated
by the active zeal, or the secret favor, of a domestic faction;
the wanton outrages against the churches and the clergy of which
the Vandals are accused, may be fairly imputed to the fanaticism
of their allies; and the intolerant spirit which disgraced the
triumph of Christianity, contributed to the loss of the most
important province of the West. 23
17 (return) [ See Tillemont, Mémoires Eccles. tom. xiii. p.
516-558; and the whole series of the persecution, in the original
monuments, published by Dupin at the end of Optatus, p. 323-515.]
18 (return) [ The Donatist Bishops, at the conference of
Carthage, amounted to 279; and they asserted that their whole
number was not less than 400. The Catholics had 286 present, 120
absent, besides sixty four vacant bishoprics.]
19 (return) [ The fifth title of the sixteenth book of the
Theodosian Code exhibits a series of the Imperial laws against
the Donatists, from the year 400 to the year 428. Of these the
54th law, promulgated by Honorius, A.D. 414, is the most severe
and effectual.]
20 (return) [ St. Augustin altered his opinion with regard tosthe
proper treatment of heretics. His pathetic declaration of pity
and indulgence for the Manichæans, has been inserted by Mr. Locke
(vol. iii. p. 469) among the choice specimens of his common-place
book. Another philosopher, the celebrated Bayle, (tom. ii. p.
445-496,) has refuted, with superfluous diligence and ingenuity,
the arguments by which the bishop of Hippo justified, in his old
age, the persecution of the Donatists.]
21 (return) [ See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 586-592,
806. The Donatists boasted of thousands of these voluntary
martyrs. Augustin asserts, and probably with truth, that these
numbers were much exaggerated; but he sternly maintains, that it
was better that some should burn themselves in this world, than
that all should burn in hell flames.]
22 (return) [ According to St. Augustin and Theodoret, the
Donatists were inclined to the principles, or at least to the
party, of the Arians, which Genseric supported. Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom. vi. p. 68.]
23 (return) [ See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 428, No. 7, A.D.
439, No. 35. The cardinal, though more inclined to seek the cause
of great events in heaven than on the earth, has observed the
apparent connection of the Vandals and the Donatists. Under the
reign of the Barbarians, the schismatics of Africa enjoyed an
obscure peace of one hundred years; at the end of which we may
again trace them by the fight of the Imperial persecutions. See
Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 192. &c.]
The court and the people were astonished by the strange
intelligence, that a virtuous hero, after so many favors, and so
many services, had renounced his allegiance, and invited the
Barbarians to destroy the province intrusted to his command. The
friends of Boniface, who still believed that his criminal
behavior might be excused by some honorable motive, solicited,
during the absence of Ætius, a free conference with the Count of
Africa; and Darius, an officer of high distinction, was named for
the important embassy. 24 In their first interview at Carthage,
the imaginary provocations were mutually explained; the opposite
letters of Ætius were produced and compared; and the fraud was
easily detected. Placidia and Boniface lamented their fatal
error; and the count had sufficient magnanimity to confide in the
forgiveness of his sovereign, or to expose his head to her future
resentment. His repentance was fervent and sincere; but he soon
discovered that it was no longer in his power to restore the
edifice which he had shaken to its foundations. Carthage and the
Roman garrisons returned with their general to the allegiance of
Valentinian; but the rest of Africa was still distracted with war
and faction; and the inexorable king of the Vandals, disdaining
all terms of accommodation, sternly refused to relinquish the
possession of his prey. The band of veterans who marched under
the standard of Boniface, and his hasty levies of provincial
troops, were defeated with considerable loss; the victorious
Barbarians insulted the open country; and Carthage, Cirta, and
Hippo Regius, were the only cities that appeared to rise above
the general inundation.
24 (return) [ In a confidential letter to Count Boniface, St.
Augustin, without examining the grounds of the quarrel, piously
exhorts him to discharge the duties of a Christian and a subject:
to extricate himself without delay from his dangerous and guilty
situation; and even, if he could obtain the consent of his wife,
to embrace a life of celibacy and penance, (Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 890.) The bishop was intimately connected
with Darius, the minister of peace, (Id. tom. xiii. p. 928.)]
The long and narrow tract of the African coast was filled with
frequent monuments of Roman art and magnificence; and the
respective degrees of improvement might be accurately measured by
the distance from Carthage and the Mediterranean. A simple
reflection will impress every thinking mind with the clearest
idea of fertility and cultivation: the country was extremely
populous; the inhabitants reserved a liberal subsistence for
their own use; and the annual exportation, particularly of wheat,
was so regular and plentiful, that Africa deserved the name of
the common granary of Rome and of mankind. On a sudden the seven
fruitful provinces, from Tangier to Tripoli, were overwhelmed by
the invasion of the Vandals; whose destructive rage has perhaps
been exaggerated by popular animosity, religious zeal, and
extravagant declamation. War, in its fairest form, implies a
perpetual violation of humanity and justice; and the hostilities
of Barbarians are inflamed by the fierce and lawless spirit which
incessantly disturbs their peaceful and domestic society. The
Vandals, where they found resistance, seldom gave quarter; and
the deaths of their valiant countrymen were expiated by the ruin
of the cities under whose walls they had fallen. Careless of the
distinctions of age, or sex, or rank, they employed every species
of indignity and torture, to force from the captives a discovery
of their hidden wealth. The stern policy of Genseric justified
his frequent examples of military execution: he was not always
the master of his own passions, or of those of his followers; and
the calamities of war were aggravated by the licentiousness of
the Moors, and the fanaticism of the Donatists. Yet I shall not
easily be persuaded, that it was the common practice of the
Vandals to extirpate the olives, and other fruit trees, of a
country where they intended to settle: nor can I believe that it
was a usual stratagem to slaughter great numbers of their
prisoners before the walls of a besieged city, for the sole
purpose of infecting the air, and producing a pestilence, of
which they themselves must have been the first victims. 25
25 (return) [ The original complaints of the desolation of Africa
are contained 1. In a letter from Capreolus, bishop of Carthage,
to excuse his absence from the council of Ephesus, (ap. Ruinart,
p. 427.) 2. In the life of St. Augustin, by his friend and
colleague Possidius, (ap. Ruinart, p. 427.) 3. In the history of
the Vandalic persecution, by Victor Vitensis, (l. i. c. 1, 2, 3,
edit. Ruinart.) The last picture, which was drawn sixty years
after the event, is more expressive of the author’s passions than
of the truth of facts.]
The generous mind of Count Boniface was tortured by the exquisite
distress of beholding the ruin which he had occasioned, and whose
rapid progress he was unable to check. After the loss of a battle
he retired into Hippo Regius; where he was immediately besieged
by an enemy, who considered him as the real bulwark of Africa.
The maritime colony of Hippo, 26 about two hundred miles westward
of Carthage, had formerly acquired the distinguishing epithet of
Regius, from the residence of Numidian kings; and some remains of
trade and populousness still adhere to the modern city, which is
known in Europe by the corrupted name of Bona. The military
labors, and anxious reflections, of Count Boniface, were
alleviated by the edifying conversation of his friend St.
Augustin; 27 till that bishop, the light and pillar of the
Catholic church, was gently released, in the third month of the
siege, and in the seventy-sixth year of his age, from the actual
and the impending calamities of his country. The youth of
Augustin had been stained by the vices and errors which he so
ingenuously confesses; but from the moment of his conversion to
that of his death, the manners of the bishop of Hippo were pure
and austere: and the most conspicuous of his virtues was an
ardent zeal against heretics of every denomination; the
Manichæans, the Donatists, and the Pelagians, against whom he
waged a perpetual controversy. When the city, some months after
his death, was burnt by the Vandals, the library was fortunately
saved, which contained his voluminous writings; two hundred and
thirty-two separate books or treatises on theological subjects,
besides a complete exposition of the psalter and the gospel, and
a copious magazine of epistles and homilies. 28 According to the
judgment of the most impartial critics, the superficial learning
of Augustin was confined to the Latin language; 29 and his style,
though sometimes animated by the eloquence of passion, is usually
clouded by false and affected rhetoric. But he possessed a
strong, capacious, argumentative mind; he boldly sounded the dark
abyss of grace, predestination, free will, and original sin; and
the rigid system of Christianity which he framed or restored, 30
has been entertained, with public applause, and secret
reluctance, by the Latin church. 31
26 (return) [ See Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. part ii.
p. 112. Leo African. in Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 70. L’Afrique de
Marmol, tom. ii. p. 434, 437. Shaw’s Travels, p. 46, 47. The old
Hippo Regius was finally destroyed by the Arabs in the seventh
century; but a new town, at the distance of two miles, was built
with the materials; and it contained, in the sixteenth century,
about three hundred families of industrious, but turbulent
manufacturers. The adjacent territory is renowned for a pure air,
a fertile soil, and plenty of exquisite fruits.]
27 (return) [ The life of St. Augustin, by Tillemont, fills a
quarto volume (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiii.) of more than one thousand
pages; and the diligence of that learned Jansenist was excited,
on this occasion, by factious and devout zeal for the founder of
his sect.]
28 (return) [ Such, at least, is the account of Victor Vitensis,
(de Persecut. Vandal. l. i. c. 3;) though Gennadius seems to
doubt whether any person had read, or even collected, all the
works of St. Augustin, (see Hieronym. Opera, tom. i. p. 319, in
Catalog. Scriptor. Eccles.) They have been repeatedly printed;
and Dupin (Bibliothèque Eccles. tom. iii. p. 158-257) has given a
large and satisfactory abstract of them as they stand in the last
edition of the Benedictines. My personal acquaintance with the
bishop of Hippo does not extend beyond the Confessions, and the
City of God.]
29 (return) [ In his early youth (Confess. i. 14) St. Augustin
disliked and neglected the study of Greek; and he frankly owns
that he read the Platonists in a Latin version, (Confes. vii. 9.)
Some modern critics have thought, that his ignorance of Greek
disqualified him from expounding the Scriptures; and Cicero or
Quintilian would have required the knowledge of that language in
a professor of rhetoric.]
30 (return) [ These questions were seldom agitated, from the time
of St. Paul to that of St. Augustin. I am informed that the Greek
fathers maintain the natural sentiments of the Semi-Pelagians;
and that the orthodoxy of St. Augustin was derived from the
Manichaean school.]
31 (return) [ The church of Rome has canonized Augustin, and
reprobated Calvin. Yet as the real difference between them is
invisible even to a theological microscope, the Molinists are
oppressed by the authority of the saint, and the Jansenists are
disgraced by their resemblance to the heretic. In the mean while,
the Protestant Arminians stand aloof, and deride the mutual
perplexity of the disputants, (see a curious Review of the
Controversy, by Le Clerc, Bibliothèque Universelle, tom. xiv. p.
144-398.) Perhaps a reasoner still more independent may smile in
his turn, when he peruses an Arminian Commentary on the Epistle
to the Romans.]
Chapter XXXIII: Conquest Of Africa By The Vandals.—Part II.
By the skill of Boniface, and perhaps by the ignorance of the
Vandals, the siege of Hippo was protracted above fourteen months:
the sea was continually open; and when the adjacent country had
been exhausted by irregular rapine, the besiegers themselves were
compelled by famine to relinquish their enterprise. The
importance and danger of Africa were deeply felt by the regent of
the West. Placidia implored the assistance of her eastern ally;
and the Italian fleet and army were reenforced by Asper, who
sailed from Constantinople with a powerful armament. As soon as
the force of the two empires was united under the command of
Boniface, he boldly marched against the Vandals; and the loss of
a second battle irretrievably decided the fate of Africa. He
embarked with the precipitation of despair; and the people of
Hippo were permitted, with their families and effects, to occupy
the vacant place of the soldiers, the greatest part of whom were
either slain or made prisoners by the Vandals. The count, whose
fatal credulity had wounded the vitals of the republic, might
enter the palace of Ravenna with some anxiety, which was soon
removed by the smiles of Placidia. Boniface accepted with
gratitude the rank of patrician, and the dignity of
master-general of the Roman armies; but he must have blushed at
the sight of those medals, in which he was represented with the
name and attributes of victory. 32 The discovery of his fraud,
the displeasure of the empress, and the distinguished favor of
his rival, exasperated the haughty and perfidious soul of Ætius.
He hastily returned from Gaul to Italy, with a retinue, or rather
with an army, of Barbarian followers; and such was the weakness
of the government, that the two generals decided their private
quarrel in a bloody battle. Boniface was successful; but he
received in the conflict a mortal wound from the spear of his
adversary, of which he expired within a few days, in such
Christian and charitable sentiments, that he exhorted his wife, a
rich heiress of Spain, to accept Ætius for her second husband.
But Ætius could not derive any immediate advantage from the
generosity of his dying enemy: he was proclaimed a rebel by the
justice of Placidia; and though he attempted to defend some
strong fortresses, erected on his patrimonial estate, the
Imperial power soon compelled him to retire into Pannonia, to the
tents of his faithful Huns. The republic was deprived, by their
mutual discord, of the service of her two most illustrious
champions. 33
32 (return) [ Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 67. On one side, the head
of Valentinian; on the reverse, Boniface, with a scourge in one
hand, and a palm in the other, standing in a triumphal car, which
is drawn by four horses, or, in another medal, by four stags; an
unlucky emblem! I should doubt whether another example can be
found of the head of a subject on the reverse of an Imperial
medal. See Science des Medailles, by the Pere Jobert, tom. i. p.
132-150, edit. of 1739, by the haron de la Bastie. * Note: Lord
Mahon, Life of Belisarius, p. 133, mentions one of Belisarius on
the authority of Cedrenus—M.]
33 (return) [ Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 3, p. 185)
continues the history of Boniface no further than his return to
Italy. His death is mentioned by Prosper and Marcellinus; the
expression of the latter, that Ætius, the day before, had
provided himself with a longer spear, implies something like a
regular duel.]
It might naturally be expected, after the retreat of Boniface,
that the Vandals would achieve, without resistance or delay, the
conquest of Africa. Eight years, however, elapsed, from the
evacuation of Hippo to the reduction of Carthage. In the midst of
that interval, the ambitious Genseric, in the full tide of
apparent prosperity, negotiated a treaty of peace, by which he
gave his son Hunneric for a hostage; and consented to leave the
Western emperor in the undisturbed possession of the three
Mauritanias. 34 This moderation, which cannot be imputed to the
justice, must be ascribed to the policy, of the conqueror.
His throne was encompassed with domestic enemies, who accused the
baseness of his birth, and asserted the legitimate claims of his
nephews, the sons of Gonderic. Those nephews, indeed, he
sacrificed to his safety; and their mother, the widow of the
deceased king, was precipitated, by his order, into the river
Ampsaga. But the public discontent burst forth in dangerous and
frequent conspiracies; and the warlike tyrant is supposed to have
shed more Vandal blood by the hand of the executioner, than in
the field of battle. 35 The convulsions of Africa, which had
favored his attack, opposed the firm establishment of his power;
and the various seditions of the Moors and Germans, the Donatists
and Catholics, continually disturbed, or threatened, the
unsettled reign of the conqueror. As he advanced towards
Carthage, he was forced to withdraw his troops from the Western
provinces; the sea-coast was exposed to the naval enterprises of
the Romans of Spain and Italy; and, in the heart of Numidia, the
strong inland city of Corta still persisted in obstinate
independence. 36 These difficulties were gradually subdued by the
spirit, the perseverance, and the cruelty of Genseric; who
alternately applied the arts of peace and war to the
establishment of his African kingdom. He subscribed a solemn
treaty, with the hope of deriving some advantage from the term of
its continuance, and the moment of its violation. The vigilance
of his enemies was relaxed by the protestations of friendship,
which concealed his hostile approach; and Carthage was at length
surprised by the Vandals, five hundred and eighty-five years
after the destruction of the city and republic by the younger
Scipio. 37
34 (return) [ See Procopius, de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 4, p. 186.
Valentinian published several humane laws, to relieve the
distress of his Numidian and Mauritanian subjects; he discharged
them, in a great measure, from the payment of their debts,
reduced their tribute to one eighth, and gave them a right of
appeal from their provincial magistrates to the praefect of Rome.
Cod. Theod. tom. vi. Novell. p. 11, 12.]
35 (return) [ Victor Vitensis, de Persecut. Vandal. l. ii. c. 5,
p. 26. The cruelties of Genseric towards his subjects are
strongly expressed in Prosper’s Chronicle, A.D. 442.]
36 (return) [ Possidius, in Vit. Augustin. c. 28, apud Ruinart,
p. 428.]
37 (return) [ See the Chronicles of Idatius, Isidore, Prosper,
and Marcellinus. They mark the same year, but different days, for
the surprisal of Carthage.]
A new city had arisen from its ruins, with the title of a colony;
and though Carthage might yield to the royal prerogatives of
Constantinople, and perhaps to the trade of Alexandria, or the
splendor of Antioch, she still maintained the second rank in the
West; as the Rome (if we may use the style of contemporaries) of
the African world. That wealthy and opulent metropolis 38
displayed, in a dependent condition, the image of a flourishing
republic. Carthage contained the manufactures, the arms, and the
treasures of the six provinces. A regular subordination of civil
honors gradually ascended from the procurators of the streets and
quarters of the city, to the tribunal of the supreme magistrate,
who, with the title of proconsul, represented the state and
dignity of a consul of ancient Rome. Schools and gymnasia were
instituted for the education of the African youth; and the
liberal arts and manners, grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy, were
publicly taught in the Greek and Latin languages. The buildings
of Carthage were uniform and magnificent; a shady grove was
planted in the midst of the capital; the new port, a secure and
capacious harbor, was subservient to the commercial industry of
citizens and strangers; and the splendid games of the circus and
theatre were exhibited almost in the presence of the Barbarians.
The reputation of the Carthaginians was not equal to that of
their country, and the reproach of Punic faith still adhered to
their subtle and faithless character. 39 The habits of trade, and
the abuse of luxury, had corrupted their manners; but their
impious contempt of monks, and the shameless practice of
unnatural lusts, are the two abominations which excite the pious
vehemence of Salvian, the preacher of the age. 40 The king of the
Vandals severely reformed the vices of a voluptuous people; and
the ancient, noble, ingenuous freedom of Carthage (these
expressions of Victor are not without energy) was reduced by
Genseric into a state of ignominious servitude. After he had
permitted his licentious troops to satiate their rage and
avarice, he instituted a more regular system of rapine and
oppression. An edict was promulgated, which enjoined all persons,
without fraud or delay, to deliver their gold, silver, jewels,
and valuable furniture or apparel, to the royal officers; and the
attempt to secrete any part of their patrimony was inexorably
punished with death and torture, as an act of treason against the
state. The lands of the proconsular province, which formed the
immediate district of Carthage, were accurately measured, and
divided among the Barbarians; and the conqueror reserved for his
peculiar domain the fertile territory of Byzacium, and the
adjacent parts of Numidia and Getulia. 41
38 (return) [ The picture of Carthage; as it flourished in the
fourth and fifth centuries, is taken from the Expositio totius
Mundi, p. 17, 18, in the third volume of Hudson’s Minor
Geographers, from Ausonius de Claris Urbibus, p. 228, 229; and
principally from Salvian, de Gubernatione Dei, l. vii. p. 257,
258.]
39 (return) [ The anonymous author of the Expositio totius Mundi
compares in his barbarous Latin, the country and the inhabitants;
and, after stigmatizing their want of faith, he coolly concludes,
Difficile autem inter eos invenitur bonus, tamen in multis pauci
boni esse possunt P. 18.]
40 (return) [ He declares, that the peculiar vices of each
country were collected in the sink of Carthage, (l. vii. p. 257.)
In the indulgence of vice, the Africans applauded their manly
virtue. Et illi se magis virilis fortitudinis esse crederent, qui
maxime vires foeminei usus probositate fregissent, (p. 268.) The
streets of Carthage were polluted by effeminate wretches, who
publicly assumed the countenance, the dress, and the character of
women, (p. 264.) If a monk appeared in the city, the holy man was
pursued with impious scorn and ridicule; de testantibus ridentium
cachinnis, (p. 289.)]
41 (return) [ Compare Procopius de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 5, p.
189, 190, and Victor Vitensis, de Persecut Vandal. l. i. c. 4.]
It was natural enough that Genseric should hate those whom he had
injured: the nobility and senators of Carthage were exposed to
his jealousy and resentment; and all those who refused the
ignominious terms, which their honor and religion forbade them to
accept, were compelled by the Arian tyrant to embrace the
condition of perpetual banishment. Rome, Italy, and the provinces
of the East, were filled with a crowd of exiles, of fugitives,
and of ingenuous captives, who solicited the public compassion;
and the benevolent epistles of Theodoret still preserve the names
and misfortunes of Cælestian and Maria. 42 The Syrian bishop
deplores the misfortunes of Cælestian, who, from the state of a
noble and opulent senator of Carthage, was reduced, with his wife
and family, and servants, to beg his bread in a foreign country;
but he applauds the resignation of the Christian exile, and the
philosophic temper, which, under the pressure of such calamities,
could enjoy more real happiness than was the ordinary lot of
wealth and prosperity. The story of Maria, the daughter of the
magnificent Eudaemon, is singular and interesting. In the sack of
Carthage, she was purchased from the Vandals by some merchants of
Syria, who afterwards sold her as a slave in their native
country. A female attendant, transported in the same ship, and
sold in the same family, still continued to respect a mistress
whom fortune had reduced to the common level of servitude; and
the daughter of Eudaemon received from her grateful affection the
domestic services which she had once required from her obedience.
This remarkable behavior divulged the real condition of Maria,
who, in the absence of the bishop of Cyrrhus, was redeemed from
slavery by the generosity of some soldiers of the garrison. The
liberality of Theodoret provided for her decent maintenance; and
she passed ten months among the deaconesses of the church; till
she was unexpectedly informed, that her father, who had escaped
from the ruin of Carthage, exercised an honorable office in one
of the Western provinces. Her filial impatience was seconded by
the pious bishop: Theodoret, in a letter still extant, recommends
Maria to the bishop of Aegae, a maritime city of Cilicia, which
was frequented, during the annual fair, by the vessels of the
West; most earnestly requesting, that his colleague would use the
maiden with a tenderness suitable to her birth; and that he would
intrust her to the care of such faithful merchants, as would
esteem it a sufficient gain, if they restored a daughter, lost
beyond all human hope, to the arms of her afflicted parent.
42 (return) [ Ruinart (p. 441-457) has collected from Theodoret,
and other authors, the misfortunes, real and fabulous, of the
inhabitants of Carthage.]
Among the insipid legends of ecclesiastical history, I am tempted
to distinguish the memorable fable of the Seven Sleepers; 43
whose imaginary date corresponds with the reign of the younger
Theodosius, and the conquest of Africa by the Vandals. 44 When
the emperor Decius persecuted the Christians, seven noble youths
of Ephesus concealed themselves in a spacious cavern in the side
of an adjacent mountain; where they were doomed to perish by the
tyrant, who gave orders that the entrance should be firmly
secured by the a pile of huge stones. They immediately fell into
a deep slumber, which was miraculously prolonged without injuring
the powers of life, during a period of one hundred and
eighty-seven years. At the end of that time, the slaves of
Adolius, to whom the inheritance of the mountain had descended,
removed the stones to supply materials for some rustic edifice:
the light of the sun darted into the cavern, and the Seven
Sleepers were permitted to awake. After a slumber, as they
thought of a few hours, they were pressed by the calls of hunger;
and resolved that Jamblichus, one of their number, should
secretly return to the city to purchase bread for the use of his
companions. The youth (if we may still employ that appellation)
could no longer recognize the once familiar aspect of his native
country; and his surprise was increased by the appearance of a
large cross, triumphantly erected over the principal gate of
Ephesus. His singular dress, and obsolete language, confounded
the baker, to whom he offered an ancient medal of Decius as the
current coin of the empire; and Jamblichus, on the suspicion of a
secret treasure, was dragged before the judge. Their mutual
inquiries produced the amazing discovery, that two centuries were
almost elapsed since Jamblichus and his friends had escaped from
the rage of a Pagan tyrant. The bishop of Ephesus, the clergy,
the magistrates, the people, and, as it is said, the emperor
Theodosius himself, hastened to visit the cavern of the Seven
Sleepers; who bestowed their benediction, related their story,
and at the same instant peaceably expired. The origin of this
marvellous fable cannot be ascribed to the pious fraud and
credulity of the modern Greeks, since the authentic tradition may
be traced within half a century of the supposed miracle. James of
Sarug, a Syrian bishop, who was born only two years after the
death of the younger Theodosius, has devoted one of his two
hundred and thirty homilies to the praise of the young men of
Ephesus. 45 Their legend, before the end of the sixth century,
was translated from the Syriac into the Latin language, by the
care of Gregory of Tours. The hostile communions of the East
preserve their memory with equal reverence; and their names are
honorably inscribed in the Roman, the Abyssinian, and the Russian
calendar. 46 Nor has their reputation been confined to the
Christian world. This popular tale, which Mahomet might learn
when he drove his camels to the fairs of Syria, is introduced as
a divine revelation, into the Koran. 47 The story of the Seven
Sleepers has been adopted and adorned by the nations, from Bengal
to Africa, who profess the Mahometan religion; 48 and some
vestiges of a similar tradition have been discovered in the
remote extremities of Scandinavia. 49 This easy and universal
belief, so expressive of the sense of mankind, may be ascribed to
the genuine merit of the fable itself. We imperceptibly advance
from youth to age, without observing the gradual, but incessant,
change of human affairs; and even in our larger experience of
history, the imagination is accustomed, by a perpetual series of
causes and effects, to unite the most distant revolutions. But if
the interval between two memorable eras could be instantly
annihilated; if it were possible, after a momentary slumber of
two hundred years, to display the new world to the eyes of a
spectator, who still retained a lively and recent impression of
the old, his surprise and his reflections would furnish the
pleasing subject of a philosophical romance. The scene could not
be more advantageously placed, than in the two centuries which
elapsed between the reigns of Decius and of Theodosius the
Younger. During this period, the seat of government had been
transported from Rome to a new city on the banks of the Thracian
Bosphorus; and the abuse of military spirit had been suppressed
by an artificial system of tame and ceremonious servitude. The
throne of the persecuting Decius was filled by a succession of
Christian and orthodox princes, who had extirpated the fabulous
gods of antiquity: and the public devotion of the age was
impatient to exalt the saints and martyrs of the Catholic church,
on the altars of Diana and Hercules. The union of the Roman
empire was dissolved; its genius was humbled in the dust; and
armies of unknown Barbarians, issuing from the frozen regions of
the North, had established their victorious reign over the
fairest provinces of Europe and Africa.
43 (return) [ The choice of fabulous circumstances is of small
importance; yet I have confined myself to the narrative which was
translated from the Syriac by the care of Gregory of Tours, (de
Gloria Martyrum, l. i. c. 95, in Max. Bibliotheca Patrum, tom.
xi. p. 856,) to the Greek acts of their martyrdom (apud Photium,
p. 1400, 1401) and to the Annals of the Patriarch Eutychius,
(tom. i. p. 391, 531, 532, 535, Vers. Pocock.)]
44 (return) [ Two Syriac writers, as they are quoted by
Assemanni, (Bibliot. Oriental. tom. i. p. 336, 338,) place the
resurrection of the Seven Sleepers in the year 736 (A.D. 425) or
748, (A.D. 437,) of the era of the Seleucides. Their Greek acts,
which Photius had read, assign the date of the thirty-eighth year
of the reign of Theodosius, which may coincide either with A.D.
439, or 446. The period which had elapsed since the persecution
of Decius is easily ascertained; and nothing less than the
ignorance of Mahomet, or the legendaries, could suppose an
internal of three or four hundred years.]
45 (return) [ James, one of the orthodox fathers of the Syrian
church, was born A.D. 452; he began to compose his sermons A.D.
474; he was made bishop of Batnae, in the district of Sarug, and
province of Mesopotamia, A.D. 519, and died A.D. 521. (Assemanni,
tom. i. p. 288, 289.) For the homily de Pueris Ephesinis, see p.
335-339: though I could wish that Assemanni had translated the
text of James of Sarug, instead of answering the objections of
Baronius.]
46 (return) [ See the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists, Mensis
Julii, tom. vi. p. 375-397. This immense calendar of Saints, in
one hundred and twenty-six years, (1644-1770,) and in fifty
volumes in folio, has advanced no further than the 7th day of
October. The suppression of the Jesuits has most probably checked
an undertaking, which, through the medium of fable and
superstition, communicates much historical and philosophical
instruction.]
47 (return) [ See Maracci Alcoran. Sura xviii. tom. ii. p.
420-427, and tom. i. part iv. p. 103. With such an ample
privilege, Mahomet has not shown much taste or ingenuity. He has
invented the dog (Al Rakim) the Seven Sleepers; the respect of
the sun, who altered his course twice a day, that he might not
shine into the cavern; and the care of God himself, who preserved
their bodies from putrefaction, by turning them to the right and
left.]
48 (return) [ See D’Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 139; and
Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alexandrin. p. 39, 40.]
49 (return) [ Paul, the deacon of Aquileia, (de Gestis
Langobardorum, l. i. c. 4, p. 745, 746, edit. Grot.,) who lived
towards the end of the eight century, has placed in a cavern,
under a rock, on the shore of the ocean, the Seven Sleepers of
the North, whose long repose was respected by the Barbarians.
Their dress declared them to be Romans and the deacon
conjectures, that they were reserved by Providence as the future
apostles of those unbelieving countries.]
Chapter XXXIV: Attila.—Part I.
The Character, Conquests, And Court Of Attila, King Of The
Huns.—Death Of Theodosius The Younger.—Elevation Of Marcian To The
Empire Of The East.
The Western world was oppressed by the Goths and Vandals, who
fled before the Huns; but the achievements of the Huns themselves
were not adequate to their power and prosperity. Their victorious
hordes had spread from the Volga to the Danube; but the public
force was exhausted by the discord of independent chieftains;
their valor was idly consumed in obscure and predatory
excursions; and they often degraded their national dignity, by
condescending, for the hopes of spoil, to enlist under the
banners of their fugitive enemies. In the reign of Attila, 1 the
Huns again became the terror of the world; and I shall now
describe the character and actions of that formidable Barbarian;
who alternately insulted and invaded the East and the West, and
urged the rapid downfall of the Roman empire.
1 (return) [ The authentic materials for the history of Attila,
may be found in Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 34-50, p.
668-688, edit. Grot.) and Priscus (Excerpta de Legationibus, p.
33-76, Paris, 1648.) I have not seen the Lives of Attila,
composed by Juvencus Caelius Calanus Dalmatinus, in the twelfth
century, or by Nicholas Olahus, archbishop of Gran, in the
sixteenth. See Mascou’s History of the Germans, ix., and Maffei
Osservazioni Litterarie, tom. i. p. 88, 89. Whatever the modern
Hungarians have added must be fabulous; and they do not seem to
have excelled in the art of fiction. They suppose, that when
Attila invaded Gaul and Italy, married innumerable wives, &c., he
was one hundred and twenty years of age. Thewrocz Chron. c. i. p.
22, in Script. Hunger. tom. i. p. 76.]
In the tide of emigration which impetuously rolled from the
confines of China to those of Germany, the most powerful and
populous tribes may commonly be found on the verge of the Roman
provinces. The accumulated weight was sustained for a while by
artificial barriers; and the easy condescension of the emperors
invited, without satisfying, the insolent demands of the
Barbarians, who had acquired an eager appetite for the luxuries
of civilized life. The Hungarians, who ambitiously insert the
name of Attila among their native kings, may affirm with truth
that the hordes, which were subject to his uncle Roas, or
Rugilas, had formed their encampments within the limits of modern
Hungary, 2 in a fertile country, which liberally supplied the
wants of a nation of hunters and shepherds. In this advantageous
situation, Rugilas, and his valiant brothers, who continually
added to their power and reputation, commanded the alternative of
peace or war with the two empires. His alliance with the Romans
of the West was cemented by his personal friendship for the great
Ætius; who was always secure of finding, in the Barbarian camp, a
hospitable reception and a powerful support. At his solicitation,
and in the name of John the usurper, sixty thousand Huns advanced
to the confines of Italy; their march and their retreat were
alike expensive to the state; and the grateful policy of Ætius
abandoned the possession of Pannonia to his faithful
confederates. The Romans of the East were not less apprehensive
of the arms of Rugilas, which threatened the provinces, or even
the capital. Some ecclesiastical historians have destroyed the
Barbarians with lightning and pestilence; 3 but Theodosius was
reduced to the more humble expedient of stipulating an annual
payment of three hundred and fifty pounds of gold, and of
disguising this dishonorable tribute by the title of general,
which the king of the Huns condescended to accept. The public
tranquillity was frequently interrupted by the fierce impatience
of the Barbarians, and the perfidious intrigues of the Byzantine
court. Four dependent nations, among whom we may distinguish the
Barbarians, disclaimed the sovereignty of the Huns; and their
revolt was encouraged and protected by a Roman alliance; till the
just claims, and formidable power, of Rugilas, were effectually
urged by the voice of Eslaw his ambassador. Peace was the
unanimous wish of the senate: their decree was ratified by the
emperor; and two ambassadors were named, Plinthas, a general of
Scythian extraction, but of consular rank; and the quaestor
Epigenes, a wise and experienced statesman, who was recommended
to that office by his ambitious colleague.
2 (return) [ Hungary has been successively occupied by three
Scythian colonies. 1. The Huns of Attila; 2. The Abares, in the
sixth century; and, 3. The Turks or Magiars, A.D. 889; the
immediate and genuine ancestors of the modern Hungarians, whose
connection with the two former is extremely faint and remote. The
Prodromus and Notitia of Matthew Belius appear to contain a rich
fund of information concerning ancient and modern Hungary. I have
seen the extracts in Bibliothèque Ancienne et Moderne, tom. xxii.
p. 1-51, and Bibliothèque Raisonnée, tom. xvi. p. 127-175. *
Note: Mailath (in his Geschichte der Magyaren) considers the
question of the origin of the Magyars as still undecided. The old
Hungarian chronicles unanimously derived them from the Huns of
Attila See note, vol. iv. pp. 341, 342. The later opinion,
adopted by Schlozer, Belnay, and Dankowsky, ascribes them, from
their language, to the Finnish race. Fessler, in his history of
Hungary, agrees with Gibbon in supposing them Turks. Mailath has
inserted an ingenious dissertation of Fejer, which attempts to
connect them with the Parthians. Vol. i. Ammerkungen p. 50—M.]
3 (return) [ Socrates, l. vii. c. 43. Theodoret, l. v. c. 36.
Tillemont, who always depends on the faith of his ecclesiastical
authors, strenuously contends (Hist. des Emp. tom. vi. p. 136,
607) that the wars and personages were not the same.]
The death of Rugilas suspended the progress of the treaty. His
two nephews, Attila and Bleda, who succeeded to the throne of
their uncle, consented to a personal interview with the
ambassadors of Constantinople; but as they proudly refused to
dismount, the business was transacted on horseback, in a spacious
plain near the city of Margus, in the Upper Maesia. The kings of
the Huns assumed the solid benefits, as well as the vain honors,
of the negotiation. They dictated the conditions of peace, and
each condition was an insult on the majesty of the empire.
Besides the freedom of a safe and plentiful market on the banks
of the Danube, they required that the annual contribution should
be augmented from three hundred and fifty to seven hundred pounds
of gold; that a fine or ransom of eight pieces of gold should be
paid for every Roman captive who had escaped from his Barbarian
master; that the emperor should renounce all treaties and
engagements with the enemies of the Huns; and that all the
fugitives who had taken refuge in the court or provinces of
Theodosius, should be delivered to the justice of their offended
sovereign. This justice was rigorously inflicted on some
unfortunate youths of a royal race. They were crucified on the
territories of the empire, by the command of Attila: and as soon
as the king of the Huns had impressed the Romans with the terror
of his name, he indulged them in a short and arbitrary respite,
whilst he subdued the rebellious or independent nations of
Scythia and Germany. 4
4 (return) [ See Priscus, p. 47, 48, and Hist. de Peuples de
l’Europe, tom. v. i. c. xii, xiii, xiv, xv.]
Attila, the son of Mundzuk, deduced his noble, perhaps his regal,
descent 5 from the ancient Huns, who had formerly contended with
the monarchs of China. His features, according to the observation
of a Gothic historian, bore the stamp of his national origin; and
the portrait of Attila exhibits the genuine deformity of a modern
Calmuk; 6 a large head, a swarthy complexion, small, deep-seated
eyes, a flat nose, a few hairs in the place of a beard, broad
shoulders, and a short square body, of nervous strength, though
of a disproportioned form. The haughty step and demeanor of the
king of the Huns expressed the consciousness of his superiority
above the rest of mankind; and he had a custom of fiercely
rolling his eyes, as if he wished to enjoy the terror which he
inspired. Yet this savage hero was not inaccessible to pity; his
suppliant enemies might confide in the assurance of peace or
pardon; and Attila was considered by his subjects as a just and
indulgent master. He delighted in war; but, after he had ascended
the throne in a mature age, his head, rather than his hand,
achieved the conquest of the North; and the fame of an
adventurous soldier was usefully exchanged for that of a prudent
and successful general. The effects of personal valor are so
inconsiderable, except in poetry or romance, that victory, even
among Barbarians, must depend on the degree of skill with which
the passions of the multitude are combined and guided for the
service of a single man. The Scythian conquerors, Attila and
Zingis, surpassed their rude countrymen in art rather than in
courage; and it may be observed that the monarchies, both of the
Huns and of the Moguls, were erected by their founders on the
basis of popular superstition. The miraculous conception, which
fraud and credulity ascribed to the virgin-mother of Zingis,
raised him above the level of human nature; and the naked
prophet, who in the name of the Deity invested him with the
empire of the earth, pointed the valor of the Moguls with
irresistible enthusiasm. 7 The religious arts of Attila were not
less skillfully adapted to the character of his age and country.
It was natural enough that the Scythians should adore, with
peculiar devotion, the god of war; but as they were incapable of
forming either an abstract idea, or a corporeal representation,
they worshipped their tutelar deity under the symbol of an iron
cimeter. 8 One of the shepherds of the Huns perceived, that a
heifer, who was grazing, had wounded herself in the foot, and
curiously followed the track of the blood, till he discovered,
among the long grass, the point of an ancient sword, which he dug
out of the ground and presented to Attila. That magnanimous, or
rather that artful, prince accepted, with pious gratitude, this
celestial favor; and, as the rightful possessor of the sword of
Mars, asserted his divine and indefeasible claim to the dominion
of the earth. 9 If the rites of Scythia were practised on this
solemn occasion, a lofty altar, or rather pile of fagots, three
hundred yards in length and in breadth, was raised in a spacious
plain; and the sword of Mars was placed erect on the summit of
this rustic altar, which was annually consecrated by the blood of
sheep, horses, and of the hundredth captive. 10 Whether human
sacrifices formed any part of the worship of Attila, or whether
he propitiated the god of war with the victims which he
continually offered in the field of battle, the favorite of Mars
soon acquired a sacred character, which rendered his conquests
more easy and more permanent; and the Barbarian princes
confessed, in the language of devotion or flattery, that they
could not presume to gaze, with a steady eye, on the divine
majesty of the king of the Huns. 11 His brother Bleda, who
reigned over a considerable part of the nation, was compelled to
resign his sceptre and his life. Yet even this cruel act was
attributed to a supernatural impulse; and the vigor with which
Attila wielded the sword of Mars, convinced the world that it had
been reserved alone for his invincible arm. 12 But the extent of
his empire affords the only remaining evidence of the number and
importance of his victories; and the Scythian monarch, however
ignorant of the value of science and philosophy, might perhaps
lament that his illiterate subjects were destitute of the art
which could perpetuate the memory of his exploits.
5 (return) [ Priscus, p. 39. The modern Hungarians have deduced
his genealogy, which ascends, in the thirty-fifth degree, to Ham,
the son of Noah; yet they are ignorant of his father’s real name.
(De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 297.)]
6 (return) [ Compare Jornandes (c. 35, p. 661) with Buffon, Hist.
Naturelle, tom. iii. p. 380. The former had a right to observe,
originis suae sigua restituens. The character and portrait of
Attila are probably transcribed from Cassiodorus.]
7 (return) [ Abulpharag. Pocock, p. 281. Genealogical History of
the Tartars, by Abulghazi Bahader Khan, part iii c. 15, part iv
c. 3. Vie de Gengiscan, par Petit de la Croix, l. 1, c. 1, 6. The
relations of the missionaries, who visited Tartary in the
thirteenth century, (see the seventh volume of the Histoire des
Voyages,) express the popular language and opinions; Zingis is
styled the son of God, &c. &c.]
8 (return) [ Nec templum apud eos visitur, aut delubrum, ne
tugurium quidem culmo tectum cerni usquam potest; sed gladius
Barbarico ritu humi figitur nudus, eumque ut Martem regionum quas
circumcircant praesulem verecundius colunt. Ammian. Marcellin.
xxxi. 2, and the learned Notes of Lindenbrogius and Valesius.]
9 (return) [ Priscus relates this remarkable story, both in his
own text (p. 65) and in the quotation made by Jornandes, (c. 35,
p. 662.) He might have explained the tradition, or fable, which
characterized this famous sword, and the name, as well as
attributes, of the Scythian deity, whom he has translated into
the Mars of the Greeks and Romans.]
10 (return) [ Herodot. l. iv. c. 62. For the sake of economy, I
have calculated by the smallest stadium. In the human sacrifices,
they cut off the shoulder and arm of the victim, which they threw
up into the air, and drew omens and presages from the manner of
their falling on the pile]
11 (return) [ Priscus, p. 65. A more civilized hero, Augustus
himself, was pleased, if the person on whom he fixed his eyes
seemed unable to support their divine lustre. Sueton. in August.
c. 79.]
12 (return) [ The Count de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l’Europe,
tom. vii. p. 428, 429) attempts to clear Attila from the murder
of his brother; and is almost inclined to reject the concurrent
testimony of Jornandes, and the contemporary Chronicles.]
If a line of separation were drawn between the civilized and the
savage climates of the globe; between the inhabitants of cities,
who cultivated the earth, and the hunters and shepherds, who
dwelt in tents, Attila might aspire to the title of supreme and
sole monarch of the Barbarians. 13 He alone, among the conquerors
of ancient and modern times, united the two mighty kingdoms of
Germany and Scythia; and those vague appellations, when they are
applied to his reign, may be understood with an ample latitude.
Thuringia, which stretched beyond its actual limits as far as the
Danube, was in the number of his provinces; he interposed, with
the weight of a powerful neighbor, in the domestic affairs of the
Franks; and one of his lieutenants chastised, and almost
exterminated, the Burgundians of the Rhine.
He subdued the islands of the ocean, the kingdoms of Scandinavia,
encompassed and divided by the waters of the Baltic; and the Huns
might derive a tribute of furs from that northern region, which
has been protected from all other conquerors by the severity of
the climate, and the courage of the natives. Towards the East, it
is difficult to circumscribe the dominion of Attila over the
Scythian deserts; yet we may be assured, that he reigned on the
banks of the Volga; that the king of the Huns was dreaded, not
only as a warrior, but as a magician; 14 that he insulted and
vanquished the khan of the formidable Geougen; and that he sent
ambassadors to negotiate an equal alliance with the empire of
China. In the proud review of the nations who acknowledged the
sovereignty of Attila, and who never entertained, during his
lifetime, the thought of a revolt, the Gepidae and the Ostrogoths
were distinguished by their numbers, their bravery, and the
personal merits of their chiefs. The renowned Ardaric, king of
the Gepidae, was the faithful and sagacious counsellor of the
monarch, who esteemed his intrepid genius, whilst he loved the
mild and discreet virtues of the noble Walamir, king of the
Ostrogoths. The crowd of vulgar kings, the leaders of so many
martial tribes, who served under the standard of Attila, were
ranged in the submissive order of guards and domestics round the
person of their master. They watched his nod; they trembled at
his frown; and at the first signal of his will, they executed,
without murmur or hesitation, his stern and absolute commands. In
time of peace, the dependent princes, with their national troops,
attended the royal camp in regular succession; but when Attila
collected his military force, he was able to bring into the field
an army of five, or, according to another account, of seven
hundred thousand Barbarians. 15
13 (return) [ Fortissimarum gentium dominus, qui inaudita ante se
potentia colus Scythica et Germanica regna possedit. Jornandes,
c. 49, p. 684. Priscus, p. 64, 65. M. de Guignes, by his
knowledge of the Chinese, has acquired (tom. ii. p. 295-301) an
adequate idea of the empire of Attila.]
14 (return) [ See Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 296. The Geougen
believed that the Huns could excite, at pleasure, storms of wind
and rain. This phenomenon was produced by the stone Gezi; to
whose magic power the loss of a battle was ascribed by the
Mahometan Tartars of the fourteenth century. See Cherefeddin Ali,
Hist. de Timur Bec, tom. i. p. 82, 83.]
15 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 35, p. 661, c. 37, p. 667. See
Tillemont, Hist. dea Empereurs, tom. vi. p. 129, 138. Corneille
has represented the pride of Attila to his subject kings, and his
tragedy opens with these two ridiculous lines:—
Ils ne sont pas venus, nos deux rois! qu’on leur die Qu’ils se
font trop attendre, et qu’Attila s’ennuie.
The two kings of the Gepidae and the Ostrogoths are profound
politicians and sentimental lovers, and the whole piece exhibits
the defects without the genius, of the poet.]
The ambassadors of the Huns might awaken the attention of
Theodosius, by reminding him that they were his neighbors both in
Europe and Asia; since they touched the Danube on one hand, and
reached, with the other, as far as the Tanais. In the reign of
his father Arcadius, a band of adventurous Huns had ravaged the
provinces of the East; from whence they brought away rich spoils
and innumerable captives. 16 They advanced, by a secret path,
along the shores of the Caspian Sea; traversed the snowy
mountains of Armenia; passed the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the
Halys; recruited their weary cavalry with the generous breed of
Cappadocian horses; occupied the hilly country of Cilicia, and
disturbed the festal songs and dances of the citizens of Antioch.
Egypt trembled at their approach; and the monks and pilgrims of
the Holy Land prepared to escape their fury by a speedy
embarkation. The memory of this invasion was still recent in the
minds of the Orientals. The subjects of Attila might execute,
with superior forces, the design which these adventurers had so
boldly attempted; and it soon became the subject of anxious
conjecture, whether the tempest would fall on the dominions of
Rome, or of Persia. Some of the great vassals of the king of the
Huns, who were themselves in the rank of powerful princes, had
been sent to ratify an alliance and society of arms with the
emperor, or rather with the general of the West. They related,
during their residence at Rome, the circumstances of an
expedition, which they had lately made into the East. After
passing a desert and a morass, supposed by the Romans to be the
Lake Maeotis, they penetrated through the mountains, and arrived,
at the end of fifteen days’ march, on the confines of Media;
where they advanced as far as the unknown cities of Basic and
Cursic. 1611 They encountered the Persian army in the plains of
Media and the air, according to their own expression, was
darkened by a cloud of arrows. But the Huns were obliged to
retire before the numbers of the enemy. Their laborious retreat
was effected by a different road; they lost the greatest part of
their booty; and at length returned to the royal camp, with some
knowledge of the country, and an impatient desire of revenge. In
the free conversation of the Imperial ambassadors, who discussed,
at the court of Attila, the character and designs of their
formidable enemy, the ministers of Constantinople expressed their
hope, that his strength might be diverted and employed in a long
and doubtful contest with the princes of the house of Sassan. The
more sagacious Italians admonished their Eastern brethren of the
folly and danger of such a hope; and convinced them, that the
Medes and Persians were incapable of resisting the arms of the
Huns; and that the easy and important acquisition would exalt the
pride, as well as power, of the conqueror. Instead of contenting
himself with a moderate contribution, and a military title, which
equalled him only to the generals of Theodosius, Attila would
proceed to impose a disgraceful and intolerable yoke on the necks
of the prostrate and captive Romans, who would then be
encompassed, on all sides, by the empire of the Huns. 17
16 (return) [
Alii per Caspia claustra Armeniasque nives, inopino tramite ducti
Invadunt Orientis opes: jam pascua fumant Cappadocum, volucrumque
parens Argaeus equorum. Jam rubet altus Halys, nec se defendit
iniquo Monte Cilix; Syriae tractus vestantur amoeni Assuetumque
choris, et laeta plebe canorum, Proterit imbellem sonipes hostilis
Orontem. —-Claudian, in Rufin. l. ii. 28-35.
See likewise, in Eutrop. l. i. 243-251, and the strong
description of Jerom, who wrote from his feelings, tom. i. p. 26,
ad Heliodor. p. 200 ad Ocean. Philostorgius (l. ix. c. 8)
mentions this irruption.]
1611 (return) [ Gibbon has made a curious mistake; Basic and
Cursic were the names of the commanders of the Huns. Priscus,
edit. Bonn, p. 200.—M.]
17 (return) [ See the original conversation in Priscus, p. 64,
65.]
While the powers of Europe and Asia were solicitous to avert the
impending danger, the alliance of Attila maintained the Vandals
in the possession of Africa. An enterprise had been concerted
between the courts of Ravenna and Constantinople, for the
recovery of that valuable province; and the ports of Sicily were
already filled with the military and naval forces of Theodosius.
But the subtle Genseric, who spread his negotiations round the
world, prevented their designs, by exciting the king of the Huns
to invade the Eastern empire; and a trifling incident soon became
the motive, or pretence, of a destructive war. 18 Under the faith
of the treaty of Margus, a free market was held on the Northern
side of the Danube, which was protected by a Roman fortress
surnamed Constantia. A troop of Barbarians violated the
commercial security; killed, or dispersed, the unsuspecting
traders; and levelled the fortress with the ground. The Huns
justified this outrage as an act of reprisal; alleged, that the
bishop of Margus had entered their territories, to discover and
steal a secret treasure of their kings; and sternly demanded the
guilty prelate, the sacrilegious spoil, and the fugitive
subjects, who had escaped from the justice of Attila. The refusal
of the Byzantine court was the signal of war; and the Maesians at
first applauded the generous firmness of their sovereign. But
they were soon intimidated by the destruction of Viminiacum and
the adjacent towns; and the people was persuaded to adopt the
convenient maxim, that a private citizen, however innocent or
respectable, may be justly sacrificed to the safety of his
country. The bishop of Margus, who did not possess the spirit of
a martyr, resolved to prevent the designs which he suspected. He
boldly treated with the princes of the Huns: secured, by solemn
oaths, his pardon and reward; posted a numerous detachment of
Barbarians, in silent ambush, on the banks of the Danube; and, at
the appointed hour, opened, with his own hand, the gates of his
episcopal city. This advantage, which had been obtained by
treachery, served as a prelude to more honorable and decisive
victories. The Illyrian frontier was covered by a line of castles
and fortresses; and though the greatest part of them consisted
only of a single tower, with a small garrison, they were commonly
sufficient to repel, or to intercept, the inroads of an enemy,
who was ignorant of the art, and impatient of the delay, of a
regular siege. But these slight obstacles were instantly swept
away by the inundation of the Huns. 19 They destroyed, with fire
and sword, the populous cities of Sirmium and Singidunum, of
Ratiaria and Marcianopolis, of Naissus and Sardica; where every
circumstance of the discipline of the people, and the
construction of the buildings, had been gradually adapted to the
sole purpose of defence. The whole breadth of Europe, as it
extends above five hundred miles from the Euxine to the
Hadriatic, was at once invaded, and occupied, and desolated, by
the myriads of Barbarians whom Attila led into the field. The
public danger and distress could not, however, provoke Theodosius
to interrupt his amusements and devotion, or to appear in person
at the head of the Roman legions. But the troops, which had been
sent against Genseric, were hastily recalled from Sicily; the
garrisons, on the side of Persia, were exhausted; and a military
force was collected in Europe, formidable by their arms and
numbers, if the generals had understood the science of command,
and the soldiers the duty of obedience. The armies of the Eastern
empire were vanquished in three successive engagements; and the
progress of Attila may be traced by the fields of battle.
The two former, on the banks of the Utus, and under the walls of
Marcianopolis, were fought in the extensive plains between the
Danube and Mount Haemus. As the Romans were pressed by a
victorious enemy, they gradually, and unskilfully, retired
towards the Chersonesus of Thrace; and that narrow peninsula, the
last extremity of the land, was marked by their third, and
irreparable, defeat. By the destruction of this army, Attila
acquired the indisputable possession of the field. From the
Hellespont to Thermopylae, and the suburbs of Constantinople, he
ravaged, without resistance, and without mercy, the provinces of
Thrace and Macedonia. Heraclea and Hadrianople might, perhaps,
escape this dreadful irruption of the Huns; but the words, the
most expressive of total extirpation and erasure, are applied to
the calamities which they inflicted on seventy cities of the
Eastern empire. 20 Theodosius, his court, and the unwarlike
people, were protected by the walls of Constantinople; but those
walls had been shaken by a recent earthquake, and the fall of
fifty-eight towers had opened a large and tremendous breach. The
damage indeed was speedily repaired; but this accident was
aggravated by a superstitious fear, that Heaven itself had
delivered the Imperial city to the shepherds of Scythia, who were
strangers to the laws, the language, and the religion, of the
Romans. 21
18 (return) [ Priscus, p. 331. His history contained a copious
and elegant account of the war, (Evagrius, l. i. c. 17;) but the
extracts which relate to the embassies are the only parts that
have reached our times. The original work was accessible,
however, to the writers from whom we borrow our imperfect
knowledge, Jornandes, Theophanes, Count Marcellinus,
Prosper-Tyro, and the author of the Alexandrian, or Paschal,
Chronicle. M. de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l’Europe, tom. vii.
c. xv.) has examined the cause, the circumstances, and the
duration of this war; and will not allow it to extend beyond the
year 44.]
19 (return) [ Procopius, de Edificiis, l. 4, c. 5. These
fortresses were afterwards restored, strengthened, and enlarged
by the emperor Justinian, but they were soon destroyed by the
Abares, who succeeded to the power and possessions of the Huns.]
20 (return) [ Septuaginta civitates (says Prosper-Tyro)
depredatione vastatoe. The language of Count Marcellinus is still
more forcible. Pene totam Europam, invasis excisisque civitatibus
atque castellis, conrasit.]
21 (return) [ Tillemont (Hist des Empereurs, tom. vi. p. 106,
107) has paid great attention to this memorable earthquake; which
was felt as far from Constantinople as Antioch and Alexandria,
and is celebrated by all the ecclesiastical writers. In the hands
of a popular preacher, an earthquake is an engine of admirable
effect.]
In all their invasions of the civilized empires of the South, the
Scythian shepherds have been uniformly actuated by a savage and
destructive spirit. The laws of war, that restrain the exercise
of national rapine and murder, are founded on two principles of
substantial interest: the knowledge of the permanent benefits
which may be obtained by a moderate use of conquest; and a just
apprehension, lest the desolation which we inflict on the enemy’s
country may be retaliated on our own. But these considerations of
hope and fear are almost unknown in the pastoral state of
nations. The Huns of Attila may, without injustice, be compared
to the Moguls and Tartars, before their primitive manners were
changed by religion and luxury; and the evidence of Oriental
history may reflect some light on the short and imperfect annals
of Rome. After the Moguls had subdued the northern provinces of
China, it was seriously proposed, not in the hour of victory and
passion, but in calm deliberate council, to exterminate all the
inhabitants of that populous country, that the vacant land might
be converted to the pasture of cattle. The firmness of a Chinese
mandarin, 22 who insinuated some principles of rational policy
into the mind of Zingis, diverted him from the execution of this
horrid design. But in the cities of Asia, which yielded to the
Moguls, the inhuman abuse of the rights of war was exercised with
a regular form of discipline, which may, with equal reason,
though not with equal authority, be imputed to the victorious
Huns. The inhabitants, who had submitted to their discretion,
were ordered to evacuate their houses, and to assemble in some
plain adjacent to the city; where a division was made of the
vanquished into three parts. The first class consisted of the
soldiers of the garrison, and of the young men capable of bearing
arms; and their fate was instantly decided: they were either
enlisted among the Moguls, or they were massacred on the spot by
the troops, who, with pointed spears and bended bows, had formed
a circle round the captive multitude. The second class, composed
of the young and beautiful women, of the artificers of every rank
and profession, and of the more wealthy or honorable citizens,
from whom a private ransom might be expected, was distributed in
equal or proportionable lots. The remainder, whose life or death
was alike useless to the conquerors, were permitted to return to
the city; which, in the mean while, had been stripped of its
valuable furniture; and a tax was imposed on those wretched
inhabitants for the indulgence of breathing their native air.
Such was the behavior of the Moguls, when they were not conscious
of any extraordinary rigor. 23 But the most casual provocation,
the slightest motive of caprice or convenience, often provoked
them to involve a whole people in an indiscriminate massacre; and
the ruin of some flourishing cities was executed with such
unrelenting perseverance, that, according to their own
expression, horses might run, without stumbling, over the ground
where they had once stood. The three great capitals of Khorasan,
Maru, Neisabour, and Herat, were destroyed by the armies of
Zingis; and the exact account which was taken of the slain
amounted to four millions three hundred and forty-seven thousand
persons. 24 Timur, or Tamerlane, was educated in a less barbarous
age, and in the profession of the Mahometan religion; yet, if
Attila equalled the hostile ravages of Tamerlane, 25 either the
Tartar or the Hun might deserve the epithet of the Scourge of
God. 26
22 (return) [ He represented to the emperor of the Moguls that
the four provinces, (Petcheli, Chantong, Chansi, and
Leaotong,)which he already possessed, might annually produce,
under a mild administration, 500,000 ounces of silver, 400,000
measures of rice, and 800,000 pieces of silk. Gaubil, Hist. de la
Dynastie des Mongous, p. 58, 59. Yelut chousay (such was the name
of the mandarin) was a wise and virtuous minister, who saved his
country, and civilized the conquerors. * Note: Compare the life
of this remarkable man, translated from the Chinese by M. Abel
Remusat. Nouveaux Melanges Asiatiques, t. ii. p. 64.—M]
23 (return) [ Particular instances would be endless; but the
curious reader may consult the life of Gengiscan, by Petit de la
Croix, the Histoire des Mongous, and the fifteenth book of the
History of the Huns.]
24 (return) [ At Maru, 1,300,000; at Herat, 1,600,000; at
Neisabour, 1,747,000. D’Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 380,
381. I use the orthography of D’Anville’s maps. It must, however,
be allowed, that the Persians were disposed to exaggerate their
losses and the Moguls to magnify their exploits.]
25 (return) [ Cherefeddin Ali, his servile panegyrist, would
afford us many horrid examples. In his camp before Delhi, Timour
massacred 100,000 Indian prisoners, who had smiled when the army
of their countrymen appeared in sight, (Hist. de Timur Bec, tom.
iii. p. 90.) The people of Ispahan supplied 70,000 human skulls
for the structure of several lofty towers, (id. tom. i. p. 434.)
A similar tax was levied on the revolt of Bagdad, (tom. iii. p.
370;) and the exact account, which Cherefeddin was not able to
procure from the proper officers, is stated by another historian
(Ahmed Arabsiada, tom. ii. p. 175, vera Manger) at 90,000 heads.]
26 (return) [ The ancients, Jornandes, Priscus, &c., are ignorant
of this epithet. The modern Hungarians have imagined, that it was
applied, by a hermit of Gaul, to Attila, who was pleased to
insert it among the titles of his royal dignity. Mascou, ix. 23,
and Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. vi. p. 143.]
Chapter XXXIV: Attila.—Part II.
It may be affirmed, with bolder assurance, that the Huns
depopulated the provinces of the empire, by the number of Roman
subjects whom they led away into captivity. In the hands of a
wise legislator, such an industrious colony might have
contributed to diffuse through the deserts of Scythia the
rudiments of the useful and ornamental arts; but these captives,
who had been taken in war, were accidentally dispersed among the
hordes that obeyed the empire of Attila. The estimate of their
respective value was formed by the simple judgment of
unenlightened and unprejudiced Barbarians. Perhaps they might not
understand the merit of a theologian, profoundly skilled in the
controversies of the Trinity and the Incarnation; yet they
respected the ministers of every religion; and the active zeal of
the Christian missionaries, without approaching the person or the
palace of the monarch, successfully labored in the propagation of
the gospel. 27 The pastoral tribes, who were ignorant of the
distinction of landed property, must have disregarded the use, as
well as the abuse, of civil jurisprudence; and the skill of an
eloquent lawyer could excite only their contempt or their
abhorrence. 28 The perpetual intercourse of the Huns and the
Goths had communicated the familiar knowledge of the two national
dialects; and the Barbarians were ambitious of conversing in
Latin, the military idiom even of the Eastern empire. 29 But they
disdained the language and the sciences of the Greeks; and the
vain sophist, or grave philosopher, who had enjoyed the
flattering applause of the schools, was mortified to find that
his robust servant was a captive of more value and importance
than himself. The mechanic arts were encouraged and esteemed, as
they tended to satisfy the wants of the Huns. An architect in the
service of Onegesius, one of the favorites of Attila, was
employed to construct a bath; but this work was a rare example of
private luxury; and the trades of the smith, the carpenter, the
armorer, were much more adapted to supply a wandering people with
the useful instruments of peace and war. But the merit of the
physician was received with universal favor and respect: the
Barbarians, who despised death, might be apprehensive of disease;
and the haughty conqueror trembled in the presence of a captive,
to whom he ascribed, perhaps, an imaginary power of prolonging or
preserving his life. 30 The Huns might be provoked to insult the
misery of their slaves, over whom they exercised a despotic
command; 31 but their manners were not susceptible of a refined
system of oppression; and the efforts of courage and diligence
were often recompensed by the gift of freedom. The historian
Priscus, whose embassy is a source of curious instruction, was
accosted in the camp of Attila by a stranger, who saluted him in
the Greek language, but whose dress and figure displayed the
appearance of a wealthy Scythian. In the siege of Viminiacum, he
had lost, according to his own account, his fortune and liberty;
he became the slave of Onegesius; but his faithful services,
against the Romans and the Acatzires, had gradually raised him to
the rank of the native Huns; to whom he was attached by the
domestic pledges of a new wife and several children. The spoils
of war had restored and improved his private property; he was
admitted to the table of his former lord; and the apostate Greek
blessed the hour of his captivity, since it had been the
introduction to a happy and independent state; which he held by
the honorable tenure of military service. This reflection
naturally produced a dispute on the advantages and defects of the
Roman government, which was severely arraigned by the apostate,
and defended by Priscus in a prolix and feeble declamation. The
freedman of Onegesius exposed, in true and lively colors, the
vices of a declining empire, of which he had so long been the
victim; the cruel absurdity of the Roman princes, unable to
protect their subjects against the public enemy, unwilling to
trust them with arms for their own defence; the intolerable
weight of taxes, rendered still more oppressive by the intricate
or arbitrary modes of collection; the obscurity of numerous and
contradictory laws; the tedious and expensive forms of judicial
proceedings; the partial administration of justice; and the
universal corruption, which increased the influence of the rich,
and aggravated the misfortunes of the poor. A sentiment of
patriotic sympathy was at length revived in the breast of the
fortunate exile; and he lamented, with a flood of tears, the
guilt or weakness of those magistrates who had perverted the
wisest and most salutary institutions. 32
27 (return) [ The missionaries of St. Chrysostom had converted
great numbers of the Scythians, who dwelt beyond the Danube in
tents and wagons. Theodoret, l. v. c. 31. Photius, p. 1517. The
Mahometans, the Nestorians, and the Latin Christians, thought
themselves secure of gaining the sons and grandsons of Zingis,
who treated the rival missionaries with impartial favor.]
28 (return) [ The Germans, who exterminated Varus and his
legions, had been particularly offended with the Roman laws and
lawyers. One of the Barbarians, after the effectual precautions
of cutting out the tongue of an advocate, and sewing up his
mouth, observed, with much satisfaction, that the viper could no
longer hiss. Florus, iv. 12.]
29 (return) [ Priscus, p. 59. It should seem that the Huns
preferred the Gothic and Latin languages to their own; which was
probably a harsh and barren idiom.]
30 (return) [ Philip de Comines, in his admirable picture of the
last moments of Lewis XI., (Mémoires, l. vi. c. 12,) represents
the insolence of his physician, who, in five months, extorted
54,000 crowns, and a rich bishopric, from the stern, avaricious
tyrant.]
31 (return) [ Priscus (p. 61) extols the equity of the Roman
laws, which protected the life of a slave. Occidere solent (says
Tacitus of the Germans) non disciplina et severitate, sed impetu
et ira, ut inimicum, nisi quod impune. De Moribus Germ. c. 25.
The Heruli, who were the subjects of Attila, claimed, and
exercised, the power of life and death over their slaves. See a
remarkable instance in the second book of Agathias]
32 (return) [ See the whole conversation in Priscus, p. 59-62.]
The timid or selfish policy of the Western Romans had abandoned
the Eastern empire to the Huns. 33 The loss of armies, and the
want of discipline or virtue, were not supplied by the personal
character of the monarch. Theodosius might still affect the
style, as well as the title, of Invincible Augustus; but he was
reduced to solicit the clemency of Attila, who imperiously
dictated these harsh and humiliating conditions of peace. I. The
emperor of the East resigned, by an express or tacit convention,
an extensive and important territory, which stretched along the
southern banks of the Danube, from Singidunum, or Belgrade, as
far as Novae, in the diocese of Thrace. The breadth was defined
by the vague computation of fifteen 3311 days’ journey; but, from
the proposal of Attila to remove the situation of the national
market, it soon appeared, that he comprehended the ruined city of
Naissus within the limits of his dominions. II. The king of the
Huns required and obtained, that his tribute or subsidy should be
augmented from seven hundred pounds of gold to the annual sum of
two thousand one hundred; and he stipulated the immediate payment
of six thousand pounds of gold, to defray the expenses, or to
expiate the guilt, of the war. One might imagine, that such a
demand, which scarcely equalled the measure of private wealth,
would have been readily discharged by the opulent empire of the
East; and the public distress affords a remarkable proof of the
impoverished, or at least of the disorderly, state of the
finances. A large proportion of the taxes extorted from the
people was detained and intercepted in their passage, though the
foulest channels, to the treasury of Constantinople. The revenue
was dissipated by Theodosius and his favorites in wasteful and
profuse luxury; which was disguised by the names of Imperial
magnificence, or Christian charity. The immediate supplies had
been exhausted by the unforeseen necessity of military
preparations. A personal contribution, rigorously, but
capriciously, imposed on the members of the senatorian order, was
the only expedient that could disarm, without loss of time, the
impatient avarice of Attila; and the poverty of the nobles
compelled them to adopt the scandalous resource of exposing to
public auction the jewels of their wives, and the hereditary
ornaments of their palaces. 34 III. The king of the Huns appears
to have established, as a principle of national jurisprudence,
that he could never lose the property, which he had once
acquired, in the persons who had yielded either a voluntary, or
reluctant, submission to his authority. From this principle he
concluded, and the conclusions of Attila were irrevocable laws,
that the Huns, who had been taken prisoner in war, should be
released without delay, and without ransom; that every Roman
captive, who had presumed to escape, should purchase his right to
freedom at the price of twelve pieces of gold; and that all the
Barbarians, who had deserted the standard of Attila, should be
restored, without any promise or stipulation of pardon.
In the execution of this cruel and ignominious treaty, the
Imperial officers were forced to massacre several loyal and noble
deserters, who refused to devote themselves to certain death; and
the Romans forfeited all reasonable claims to the friendship of
any Scythian people, by this public confession, that they were
destitute either of faith, or power, to protect the suppliant,
who had embraced the throne of Theodosius. 35
33 (return) [ Nova iterum Orienti assurgit ruina... quum nulla ab
Cocidentalibus ferrentur auxilia. Prosper Tyro composed his
Chronicle in the West; and his observation implies a censure.]
3311 (return) [ Five in the last edition of Priscus. Niebuhr,
Byz. Hist. p 147—M]
34 (return) [ According to the description, or rather invective,
of Chrysostom, an auction of Byzantine luxury must have been very
productive. Every wealthy house possessed a semicircular table of
massy silver such as two men could scarcely lift, a vase of solid
gold of the weight of forty pounds, cups, dishes, of the same
metal, &c.]
35 (return) [ The articles of the treaty, expressed without much
order or precision, may be found in Priscus, (p. 34, 35, 36, 37,
53, &c.) Count Marcellinus dispenses some comfort, by observing,
1. That Attila himself solicited the peace and presents, which he
had formerly refused; and, 2dly, That, about the same time, the
ambassadors of India presented a fine large tame tiger to the
emperor Theodosius.]
The firmness of a single town, so obscure, that, except on this
occasion, it has never been mentioned by any historian or
geographer, exposed the disgrace of the emperor and empire.
Azimus, or Azimuntium, a small city of Thrace on the Illyrian
borders, 36 had been distinguished by the martial spirit of its
youth, the skill and reputation of the leaders whom they had
chosen, and their daring exploits against the innumerable host of
the Barbarians. Instead of tamely expecting their approach, the
Azimuntines attacked, in frequent and successful sallies, the
troops of the Huns, who gradually declined the dangerous
neighborhood, rescued from their hands the spoil and the
captives, and recruited their domestic force by the voluntary
association of fugitives and deserters. After the conclusion of
the treaty, Attila still menaced the empire with implacable war,
unless the Azimuntines were persuaded, or compelled, to comply
with the conditions which their sovereign had accepted. The
ministers of Theodosius confessed with shame, and with truth,
that they no longer possessed any authority over a society of
men, who so bravely asserted their natural independence; and the
king of the Huns condescended to negotiate an equal exchange with
the citizens of Azimus. They demanded the restitution of some
shepherds, who, with their cattle, had been accidentally
surprised. A strict, though fruitless, inquiry was allowed: but
the Huns were obliged to swear, that they did not detain any
prisoners belonging to the city, before they could recover two
surviving countrymen, whom the Azimuntines had reserved as
pledges for the safety of their lost companions. Attila, on his
side, was satisfied, and deceived, by their solemn asseveration,
that the rest of the captives had been put to the sword; and that
it was their constant practice, immediately to dismiss the Romans
and the deserters, who had obtained the security of the public
faith. This prudent and officious dissimulation may be condemned,
or excused, by the casuists, as they incline to the rigid decree
of St. Augustin, or to the milder sentiment of St. Jerom and St.
Chrysostom: but every soldier, every statesman, must acknowledge,
that, if the race of the Azimuntines had been encouraged and
multiplied, the Barbarians would have ceased to trample on the
majesty of the empire. 37
36 (return) [ Priscus, p. 35, 36. Among the hundred and
eighty-two forts, or castles, of Thrace, enumerated by Procopius,
(de Edificiis, l. iv. c. xi. tom. ii. p. 92, edit. Paris,) there
is one of the name of Esimontou, whose position is doubtfully
marked, in the neighborhood of Anchialus and the Euxine Sea. The
name and walls of Azimuntium might subsist till the reign of
Justinian; but the race of its brave defenders had been carefully
extirpated by the jealousy of the Roman princes]
37 (return) [ The peevish dispute of St. Jerom and St. Augustin,
who labored, by different expedients, to reconcile the seeming
quarrel of the two apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, depends on
the solution of an important question, (Middleton’s Works, vol.
ii. p. 5-20,) which has been frequently agitated by Catholic and
Protestant divines, and even by lawyers and philosophers of every
age.]
It would have been strange, indeed, if Theodosius had purchased,
by the loss of honor, a secure and solid tranquillity, or if his
tameness had not invited the repetition of injuries. The
Byzantine court was insulted by five or six successive embassies;
38 and the ministers of Attila were uniformly instructed to press
the tardy or imperfect execution of the last treaty; to produce
the names of fugitives and deserters, who were still protected by
the empire; and to declare, with seeming moderation, that, unless
their sovereign obtained complete and immediate satisfaction, it
would be impossible for him, were it even his wish, to check the
resentment of his warlike tribes. Besides the motives of pride
and interest, which might prompt the king of the Huns to continue
this train of negotiation, he was influenced by the less
honorable view of enriching his favorites at the expense of his
enemies. The Imperial treasury was exhausted, to procure the
friendly offices of the ambassadors and their principal
attendants, whose favorable report might conduce to the
maintenance of peace. The Barbarian monarch was flattered by the
liberal reception of his ministers; he computed, with pleasure,
the value and splendor of their gifts, rigorously exacted the
performance of every promise which would contribute to their
private emolument, and treated as an important business of state
the marriage of his secretary Constantius. 39 That Gallic
adventurer, who was recommended by Ætius to the king of the Huns,
had engaged his service to the ministers of Constantinople, for
the stipulated reward of a wealthy and noble wife; and the
daughter of Count Saturninus was chosen to discharge the
obligations of her country. The reluctance of the victim, some
domestic troubles, and the unjust confiscation of her fortune,
cooled the ardor of her interested lover; but he still demanded,
in the name of Attila, an equivalent alliance; and, after many
ambiguous delays and excuses, the Byzantine court was compelled
to sacrifice to this insolent stranger the widow of Armatius,
whose birth, opulence, and beauty, placed her in the most
illustrious rank of the Roman matrons. For these importunate and
oppressive embassies, Attila claimed a suitable return: he
weighed, with suspicious pride, the character and station of the
Imperial envoys; but he condescended to promise that he would
advance as far as Sardica to receive any ministers who had been
invested with the consular dignity. The council of Theodosius
eluded this proposal, by representing the desolate and ruined
condition of Sardica, and even ventured to insinuate that every
officer of the army or household was qualified to treat with the
most powerful princes of Scythia. Maximin, 40 a respectable
courtier, whose abilities had been long exercised in civil and
military employments, accepted, with reluctance, the troublesome,
and perhaps dangerous, commission of reconciling the angry spirit
of the king of the Huns. His friend, the historian Priscus, 41
embraced the opportunity of observing the Barbarian hero in the
peaceful and domestic scenes of life: but the secret of the
embassy, a fatal and guilty secret, was intrusted only to the
interpreter Vigilius. The two last ambassadors of the Huns,
Orestes, a noble subject of the Pannonian province, and Edecon, a
valiant chieftain of the tribe of the Scyrri, returned at the
same time from Constantinople to the royal camp. Their obscure
names were afterwards illustrated by the extraordinary fortune
and the contrast of their sons: the two servants of Attila became
the fathers of the last Roman emperor of the West, and of the
first Barbarian king of Italy.
38 (return) [ Montesquieu (Considerations sur la Grandeur, &c. c.
xix.) has delineated, with a bold and easy pencil, some of the
most striking circumstances of the pride of Attila, and the
disgrace of the Romans. He deserves the praise of having read the
Fragments of Priscus, which have been too much disregarded.]
39 (return) [ See Priscus, p. 69, 71, 72, &c. I would fain
believe, that this adventurer was afterwards crucified by the
order of Attila, on a suspicion of treasonable practices; but
Priscus (p. 57) has too plainly distinguished two persons of the
name of Constantius, who, from the similar events of their lives,
might have been easily confounded.]
40 (return) [ In the Persian treaty, concluded in the year 422,
the wise and eloquent Maximin had been the assessor of
Ardaburius, (Socrates, l. vii. c. 20.) When Marcian ascended the
throne, the office of Great Chamberlain was bestowed on Maximin,
who is ranked, in the public edict, among the four principal
ministers of state, (Novell. ad Calc. Cod. Theod. p. 31.) He
executed a civil and military commission in the Eastern
provinces; and his death was lamented by the savages of Æthiopia,
whose incursions he had repressed. See Priscus, p. 40, 41.]
41 (return) [ Priscus was a native of Panium in Thrace, and
deserved, by his eloquence, an honorable place among the sophists
of the age. His Byzantine history, which related to his own
times, was comprised in seven books. See Fabricius, Bibliot.
Graec. tom. vi. p. 235, 236. Notwithstanding the charitable
judgment of the critics, I suspect that Priscus was a Pagan. *
Note: Niebuhr concurs in this opinion. Life of Priscus in the new
edition of the Byzantine historians.—M]
The ambassadors, who were followed by a numerous train of men and
horses, made their first halt at Sardica, at the distance of
three hundred and fifty miles, or thirteen days’ journey, from
Constantinople. As the remains of Sardica were still included
within the limits of the empire, it was incumbent on the Romans
to exercise the duties of hospitality. They provided, with the
assistance of the provincials, a sufficient number of sheep and
oxen, and invited the Huns to a splendid, or at least, a
plentiful supper. But the harmony of the entertainment was soon
disturbed by mutual prejudice and indiscretion. The greatness of
the emperor and the empire was warmly maintained by their
ministers; the Huns, with equal ardor, asserted the superiority
of their victorious monarch: the dispute was inflamed by the rash
and unseasonable flattery of Vigilius, who passionately rejected
the comparison of a mere mortal with the divine Theodosius; and
it was with extreme difficulty that Maximin and Priscus were able
to divert the conversation, or to soothe the angry minds, of the
Barbarians. When they rose from table, the Imperial ambassador
presented Edecon and Orestes with rich gifts of silk robes and
Indian pearls, which they thankfully accepted. Yet Orestes could
not forbear insinuating that he had not always been treated with
such respect and liberality: and the offensive distinction which
was implied, between his civil office and the hereditary rank of
his colleague seems to have made Edecon a doubtful friend, and
Orestes an irreconcilable enemy. After this entertainment, they
travelled about one hundred miles from Sardica to Naissus. That
flourishing city, which has given birth to the great Constantine,
was levelled with the ground: the inhabitants were destroyed or
dispersed; and the appearance of some sick persons, who were
still permitted to exist among the ruins of the churches, served
only to increase the horror of the prospect. The surface of the
country was covered with the bones of the slain; and the
ambassadors, who directed their course to the north-west, were
obliged to pass the hills of modern Servia, before they descended
into the flat and marshy grounds which are terminated by the
Danube. The Huns were masters of the great river: their
navigation was performed in large canoes, hollowed out of the
trunk of a single tree; the ministers of Theodosius were safely
landed on the opposite bank; and their Barbarian associates
immediately hastened to the camp of Attila, which was equally
prepared for the amusements of hunting or of war. No sooner had
Maximin advanced about two miles 4111 from the Danube, than he
began to experience the fastidious insolence of the conqueror. He
was sternly forbid to pitch his tents in a pleasant valley, lest
he should infringe the distant awe that was due to the royal
mansion. 4112 The ministers of Attila pressed them to communicate
the business, and the instructions, which he reserved for the ear
of their sovereign. When Maximin temperately urged the contrary
practice of nations, he was still more confounded to find that
the resolutions of the Sacred Consistory, those secrets (says
Priscus) which should not be revealed to the gods themselves, had
been treacherously disclosed to the public enemy. On his refusal
to comply with such ignominious terms, the Imperial envoy was
commanded instantly to depart; the order was recalled; it was
again repeated; and the Huns renewed their ineffectual attempts
to subdue the patient firmness of Maximin. At length, by the
intercession of Scotta, the brother of Onegesius, whose
friendship had been purchased by a liberal gift, he was admitted
to the royal presence; but, instead of obtaining a decisive
answer, he was compelled to undertake a remote journey towards
the north, that Attila might enjoy the proud satisfaction of
receiving, in the same camp, the ambassadors of the Eastern and
Western empires. His journey was regulated by the guides, who
obliged him to halt, to hasten his march, or to deviate from the
common road, as it best suited the convenience of the king. The
Romans, who traversed the plains of Hungary, suppose that they
passed several navigable rivers, either in canoes or portable
boats; but there is reason to suspect that the winding stream of
the Teyss, or Tibiscus, might present itself in different places
under different names. From the contiguous villages they received
a plentiful and regular supply of provisions; mead instead of
wine, millet in the place of bread, and a certain liquor named
camus, which according to the report of Priscus, was distilled
from barley. 42 Such fare might appear coarse and indelicate to
men who had tasted the luxury of Constantinople; but, in their
accidental distress, they were relieved by the gentleness and
hospitality of the same Barbarians, so terrible and so merciless
in war. The ambassadors had encamped on the edge of a large
morass. A violent tempest of wind and rain, of thunder and
lightning, overturned their tents, immersed their baggage and
furniture in the water, and scattered their retinue, who wandered
in the darkness of the night, uncertain of their road, and
apprehensive of some unknown danger, till they awakened by their
cries the inhabitants of a neighboring village, the property of
the widow of Bleda. A bright illumination, and, in a few moments,
a comfortable fire of reeds, was kindled by their officious
benevolence; the wants, and even the desires, of the Romans were
liberally satisfied; and they seem to have been embarrassed by
the singular politeness of Bleda’s widow, who added to her other
favors the gift, or at least the loan, of a sufficient number of
beautiful and obsequious damsels. The sunshine of the succeeding
day was dedicated to repose, to collect and dry the baggage, and
to the refreshment of the men and horses: but, in the evening,
before they pursued their journey, the ambassadors expressed
their gratitude to the bounteous lady of the village, by a very
acceptable present of silver cups, red fleeces, dried fruits, and
Indian pepper. Soon after this adventure, they rejoined the march
of Attila, from whom they had been separated about six days, and
slowly proceeded to the capital of an empire, which did not
contain, in the space of several thousand miles, a single city.
4111 (return) [ 70 stadia. Priscus, 173.—M.]
4112 (return) [ He was forbidden to pitch his tents on an
eminence because Attila’s were below on the plain. Ibid.—M.]
42 (return) [ The Huns themselves still continued to despise the
labors of agriculture: they abused the privilege of a victorious
nation; and the Goths, their industrious subjects, who cultivated
the earth, dreaded their neighborhood, like that of so many
ravenous wolves, (Priscus, p. 45.) In the same manner the Sarts
and Tadgics provide for their own subsistence, and for that of
the Usbec Tartars, their lazy and rapacious sovereigns. See
Genealogical History of the Tartars, p. 423 455, &c.]
As far as we may ascertain the vague and obscure geography of
Priscus, this capital appears to have been seated between the
Danube, the Teyss, and the Carpathian hills, in the plains of
Upper Hungary, and most probably in the neighborhood of Jezberin,
Agria, or Tokay. 43 In its origin it could be no more than an
accidental camp, which, by the long and frequent residence of
Attila, had insensibly swelled into a huge village, for the
reception of his court, of the troops who followed his person,
and of the various multitude of idle or industrious slaves and
retainers. 44 The baths, constructed by Onegesius, were the only
edifice of stone; the materials had been transported from
Pannonia; and since the adjacent country was destitute even of
large timber, it may be presumed, that the meaner habitations of
the royal village consisted of straw, or mud, or of canvass. The
wooden houses of the more illustrious Huns were built and adorned
with rude magnificence, according to the rank, the fortune, or
the taste of the proprietors. They seem to have been distributed
with some degree of order and symmetry; and each spot became more
honorable as it approached the person of the sovereign. The
palace of Attila, which surpassed all other houses in his
dominions, was built entirely of wood, and covered an ample space
of ground. The outward enclosure was a lofty wall, or palisade,
of smooth square timber, intersected with high towers, but
intended rather for ornament than defence. This wall, which seems
to have encircled the declivity of a hill, comprehended a great
variety of wooden edifices, adapted to the uses of royalty.
A separate house was assigned to each of the numerous wives of
Attila; and, instead of the rigid and illiberal confinement
imposed by Asiatic jealousy they politely admitted the Roman
ambassadors to their presence, their table, and even to the
freedom of an innocent embrace. When Maximin offered his presents
to Cerca, 4411 the principal queen, he admired the singular
architecture on her mansion, the height of the round columns, the
size and beauty of the wood, which was curiously shaped or turned
or polished or carved; and his attentive eye was able to discover
some taste in the ornaments and some regularity in the
proportions. After passing through the guards, who watched before
the gate, the ambassadors were introduced into the private
apartment of Cerca. The wife of Attila received their visit
sitting, or rather lying, on a soft couch; the floor was covered
with a carpet; the domestics formed a circle round the queen; and
her damsels, seated on the ground, were employed in working the
variegated embroidery which adorned the dress of the Barbaric
warriors. The Huns were ambitious of displaying those riches
which were the fruit and evidence of their victories: the
trappings of their horses, their swords, and even their shoes,
were studded with gold and precious stones; and their tables were
profusely spread with plates, and goblets, and vases of gold and
silver, which had been fashioned by the labor of Grecian artists.
The monarch alone assumed the superior pride of still adhering to
the simplicity of his Scythian ancestors. 45 The dress of Attila,
his arms, and the furniture of his horse, were plain, without
ornament, and of a single color. The royal table was served in
wooden cups and platters; flesh was his only food; and the
conqueror of the North never tasted the luxury of bread.
43 (return) [ It is evident that Priscus passed the Danube and
the Teyss, and that he did not reach the foot of the Carpathian
hills. Agria, Tokay, and Jazberin, are situated in the plains
circumscribed by this definition. M. de Buat (Histoire des
Peuples, &c., tom. vii. p. 461) has chosen Tokay; Otrokosci, (p.
180, apud Mascou, ix. 23,) a learned Hungarian, has preferred
Jazberin, a place about thirty-six miles westward of Buda and the
Danube. * Note: M. St. Martin considers the narrative of Priscus,
the only authority of M. de Buat and of Gibbon, too vague to fix
the position of Attila’s camp. “It is worthy of remark, that in
the Hungarian traditions collected by Thwrocz, l. 2, c. 17,
precisely on the left branch of the Danube, where Attila’s
residence was situated, in the same parallel stands the present
city of Buda, in Hungarian Buduvur. It is for this reason that
this city has retained for a long time among the Germans of
Hungary the name of Etzelnburgh or Etzela-burgh, i. e., the city
of Attila. The distance of Buda from the place where Priscus
crossed the Danube, on his way from Naissus, is equal to that
which he traversed to reach the residence of the king of the
Huns. I see no good reason for not acceding to the relations of
the Hungarian historians.” St. Martin, vi. 191.—M]
44 (return) [ The royal village of Attila may be compared to the
city of Karacorum, the residence of the successors of Zingis;
which, though it appears to have been a more stable habitation,
did not equal the size or splendor of the town and abbey of St.
Denys, in the 13th century. (See Rubruquis, in the Histoire
Generale des Voyages, tom. vii p. 286.) The camp of Aurengzebe,
as it is so agreeably described by Bernier, (tom. ii. p.
217-235,) blended the manners of Scythia with the magnificence
and luxury of Hindostan.]
4411 (return) [ The name of this queen occurs three times in
Priscus, and always in a different form—Cerca, Creca, and Rheca.
The Scandinavian poets have preserved her memory under the name
of Herkia. St. Martin, vi. 192.—M.]
45 (return) [ When the Moguls displayed the spoils of Asia, in
the diet of Toncat, the throne of Zingis was still covered with
the original black felt carpet, on which he had been seated, when
he was raised to the command of his warlike countrymen. See Vie
de Gengiscan, v. c. 9.]
When Attila first gave audience to the Roman ambassadors on the
banks of the Danube, his tent was encompassed with a formidable
guard. The monarch himself was seated in a wooden chair. His
stern countenance, angry gestures, and impatient tone, astonished
the firmness of Maximin; but Vigilius had more reason to tremble,
since he distinctly understood the menace, that if Attila did not
respect the law of nations, he would nail the deceitful
interpreter to the cross. and leave his body to the vultures. The
Barbarian condescended, by producing an accurate list, to expose
the bold falsehood of Vigilius, who had affirmed that no more
than seventeen deserters could be found. But he arrogantly
declared, that he apprehended only the disgrace of contending
with his fugitive slaves; since he despised their impotent
efforts to defend the provinces which Theodosius had intrusted to
their arms: “For what fortress,” (added Attila,) “what city, in
the wide extent of the Roman empire, can hope to exist, secure
and impregnable, if it is our pleasure that it should be erased
from the earth?” He dismissed, however, the interpreter, who
returned to Constantinople with his peremptory demand of more
complete restitution, and a more splendid embassy.
His anger gradually subsided, and his domestic satisfaction in a
marriage which he celebrated on the road with the daughter of
Eslam, 4511 might perhaps contribute to mollify the native
fierceness of his temper. The entrance of Attila into the royal
village was marked by a very singular ceremony. A numerous troop
of women came out to meet their hero and their king. They marched
before him, distributed into long and regular files; the
intervals between the files were filled by white veils of thin
linen, which the women on either side bore aloft in their hands,
and which formed a canopy for a chorus of young virgins, who
chanted hymns and songs in the Scythian language. The wife of his
favorite Onegesius, with a train of female attendants, saluted
Attila at the door of her own house, on his way to the palace;
and offered, according to the custom of the country, her
respectful homage, by entreating him to taste the wine and meat
which she had prepared for his reception. As soon as the monarch
had graciously accepted her hospitable gift, his domestics lifted
a small silver table to a convenient height, as he sat on
horseback; and Attila, when he had touched the goblet with his
lips, again saluted the wife of Onegesius, and continued his
march. During his residence at the seat of empire, his hours were
not wasted in the recluse idleness of a seraglio; and the king of
the Huns could maintain his superior dignity, without concealing
his person from the public view. He frequently assembled his
council, and gave audience to the ambassadors of the nations; and
his people might appeal to the supreme tribunal, which he held at
stated times, and, according to the Eastern custom, before the
principal gate of his wooden palace. The Romans, both of the East
and of the West, were twice invited to the banquets, where Attila
feasted with the princes and nobles of Scythia. Maximin and his
colleagues were stopped on the threshold, till they had made a
devout libation to the health and prosperity of the king of the
Huns; and were conducted, after this ceremony, to their
respective seats in a spacious hall. The royal table and couch,
covered with carpets and fine linen, was raised by several steps
in the midst of the hall; and a son, an uncle, or perhaps a
favorite king, were admitted to share the simple and homely
repast of Attila. Two lines of small tables, each of which
contained three or four guests, were ranged in order on either
hand; the right was esteemed the most honorable, but the Romans
ingenuously confess, that they were placed on the left; and that
Beric, an unknown chieftain, most probably of the Gothic race,
preceded the representatives of Theodosius and Valentinian. The
Barbarian monarch received from his cup-bearer a goblet filled
with wine, and courteously drank to the health of the most
distinguished guest; who rose from his seat, and expressed, in
the same manner, his loyal and respectful vows. This ceremony was
successively performed for all, or at least for the illustrious
persons of the assembly; and a considerable time must have been
consumed, since it was thrice repeated as each course or service
was placed on the table. But the wine still remained after the
meat had been removed; and the Huns continued to indulge their
intemperance long after the sober and decent ambassadors of the
two empires had withdrawn themselves from the nocturnal banquet.
Yet before they retired, they enjoyed a singular opportunity of
observing the manners of the nation in their convivial
amusements. Two Scythians stood before the couch of Attila, and
recited the verses which they had composed, to celebrate his
valor and his victories. 4512 A profound silence prevailed in the
hall; and the attention of the guests was captivated by the vocal
harmony, which revived and perpetuated the memory of their own
exploits; a martial ardor flashed from the eyes of the warriors,
who were impatient for battle; and the tears of the old men
expressed their generous despair, that they could no longer
partake the danger and glory of the field. 46 This entertainment,
which might be considered as a school of military virtue, was
succeeded by a farce, that debased the dignity of human nature. A
Moorish and a Scythian buffoon successively excited the mirth of
the rude spectators, by their deformed figure, ridiculous dress,
antic gestures, absurd speeches, and the strange, unintelligible
confusion of the Latin, the Gothic, and the Hunnic languages; and
the hall resounded with loud and licentious peals of laughter. In
the midst of this intemperate riot, Attila alone, without a
change of countenance, maintained his steadfast and inflexible
gravity; which was never relaxed, except on the entrance of
Irnac, the youngest of his sons: he embraced the boy with a smile
of paternal tenderness, gently pinched him by the cheek, and
betrayed a partial affection, which was justified by the
assurance of his prophets, that Irnac would be the future support
of his family and empire. Two days afterwards, the ambassadors
received a second invitation; and they had reason to praise the
politeness, as well as the hospitality, of Attila. The king of
the Huns held a long and familiar conversation with Maximin; but
his civility was interrupted by rude expressions and haughty
reproaches; and he was provoked, by a motive of interest, to
support, with unbecoming zeal, the private claims of his
secretary Constantius.
“The emperor” (said Attila) “has long promised him a rich wife:
Constantius must not be disappointed; nor should a Roman emperor
deserve the name of liar.” On the third day, the ambassadors were
dismissed; the freedom of several captives was granted, for a
moderate ransom, to their pressing entreaties; and, besides the
royal presents, they were permitted to accept from each of the
Scythian nobles the honorable and useful gift of a horse. Maximin
returned, by the same road, to Constantinople; and though he was
involved in an accidental dispute with Beric, the new ambassador
of Attila, he flattered himself that he had contributed, by the
laborious journey, to confirm the peace and alliance of the two
nations.
4511 (return) [ Was this his own daughter, or the daughter of a
person named Escam? (Gibbon has written incorrectly Eslam, an
unknown name. The officer of Attila, called Eslas.) In either
case the construction is imperfect: a good Greek writer would
have introduced an article to determine the sense. Nor is it
quite clear, whether Scythian usage is adduced to excuse the
polygamy, or a marriage, which would be considered incestuous in
other countries. The Latin version has carefully preserved the
ambiguity, filiam Escam uxorem. I am not inclined to construe it
‘his own daughter’ though I have too little confidence in the
uniformity of the grammatical idioms of the Byzantines (though
Priscus is one of the best) to express myself without
hesitation.—M.]
4512 (return) [ This passage is remarkable from the connection of
the name of Attila with that extraordinary cycle of poetry, which
is found in different forms in almost all the Teutonic
languages.]
A Latin poem, de prima expeditione Attilæ, Regis Hunnorum, in
Gallias, was published in the year 1780, by Fischer at Leipsic.
It contains, with the continuation, 1452 lines. It abounds in
metrical faults, but is occasionally not without some rude spirit
and some copiousness of fancy in the variation of the
circumstances in the different combats of the hero Walther,
prince of Aquitania. It contains little which can be supposed
historical, and still less which is characteristic concerning
Attila. It relates to a first expedition of Attila into Europe
which cannot be traced in history, during which the kings of the
Franks, of the Burgundians, and of Aquitaine, submit themselves,
and give hostages to Attila: the king of the Franks, a personage
who seems the same with the Hagen of Teutonic romance; the king
of Burgundy, his daughter Heldgund; the king of Aquitaine, his
son Walther. The main subject of the poem is the escape of
Walther and Heldgund from the camp of Attila, and the combat
between Walther and Gunthar, king of the Franks. with his twelve
peers, among whom is Hagen. Walther had been betrayed while he
passed through Worms, the city of the Frankish king, by paying
for his ferry over the Rhine with some strange fish, which he had
caught during his flight, and which were unknown in the waters of
the Rhine. Gunthar was desirous of plundering him of the
treasure, which Walther had carried off from the camp of Attila.
The author of this poem is unknown, nor can I, on the vague and
rather doubtful allusion to Thule, as Iceland, venture to assign
its date. It was, evidently, recited in a monastery, as appears
by the first line; and no doubt composed there. The faults of
metre would point out a late date; and it may have been formed
upon some local tradition, as Walther, the hero, seems to have
turned monk.
This poem, however, in its character and its incidents, bears no
relation to the Teutonic cycle, of which the Nibelungen Lied is
the most complete form. In this, in the Heldenbuch, in some of
the Danish Sagas. in countess lays and ballads in all the
dialects of Scandinavia, appears King Etzel (Attila) in strife
with the Burgundians and the Franks. With these appears, by a
poetic anachronism, Dietrich of Berne. (Theodoric of Verona,) the
celebrated Ostrogothic king; and many other very singular
coincidences of historic names, which appear in the poems. (See
Lachman Kritik der Sage in his volume of various readings to the
Nibelungen; Berlin, 1836, p. 336.)
Chapter XXXIV: Attila.—Part III.
I must acknowledge myself unable to form any satisfactory theory
as to the connection of these poems with the history of the time,
or the period, from which they may date their origin;
notwithstanding the laborious investigations and critical
sagacity of the Schlegels, the Grimms, of P. E. Muller and
Lachman, and a whole host of German critics and antiquaries; not
to omit our own countryman, Mr. Herbert, whose theory concerning
Attila is certainly neither deficient in boldness nor
originality. I conceive the only way to obtain any thing like a
clear conception on this point would be what Lachman has begun,
(see above,) patiently to collect and compare the various forms
which the traditions have assumed, without any preconceived,
either mythical or poetical, theory, and, if possible, to
discover the original basis of the whole rich and fantastic
legend. One point, which to me is strongly in favor of the
antiquity of this poetic cycle, is, that the manners are so
clearly anterior to chivalry, and to the influence exercised on
the poetic literature of Europe by the chivalrous poems and
romances. I think I find some traces of that influence in the
Latin poem, though strained through the imagination of a monk.
The English reader will find an amusing account of the German
Nibelungen and Heldenbuch, and of some of the Scandinavian Sagas,
in the volume of Northern Antiquities published by Weber, the
friend of Sir Walter Scott. Scott himself contributed a
considerable, no doubt far the most valuable, part to the work.
4612 4712
See also the various German editions of the Nibelungen, to which
Lachman, with true German perseverance, has compiled a thick
volume of various readings; the Heldenbuch, the old Danish poems
by Grimm, the Eddas, &c. Herbert’s Attila, p. 510, et seq.—M.]
46 (return) [ If we may believe Plutarch, (in Demetrio, tom. v.
p. 24,) it was the custom of the Scythians, when they indulged in
the pleasures of the table, to awaken their languid courage by
the martial harmony of twanging their bow-strings.]
4612 (return) [ The Scythian was an idiot or lunatic; the Moor a
regular buffoon—M.]
4712 (return) [ The curious narrative of this embassy, which
required few observations, and was not susceptible of any
collateral evidence, may be found in Priscus, p. 49-70. But I
have not confined myself to the same order; and I had previously
extracted the historical circumstances, which were less
intimately connected with the journey, and business, of the Roman
ambassadors.]
But the Roman ambassador was ignorant of the treacherous design,
which had been concealed under the mask of the public faith. The
surprise and satisfaction of Edecon, when he contemplated the
splendor of Constantinople, had encouraged the interpreter
Vigilius to procure for him a secret interview with the eunuch
Chrysaphius, 48 who governed the emperor and the empire. After
some previous conversation, and a mutual oath of secrecy, the
eunuch, who had not, from his own feelings or experience, imbibed
any exalted notions of ministerial virtue, ventured to propose
the death of Attila, as an important service, by which Edecon
might deserve a liberal share of the wealth and luxury which he
admired. The ambassador of the Huns listened to the tempting
offer; and professed, with apparent zeal, his ability, as well as
readiness, to execute the bloody deed; the design was
communicated to the master of the offices, and the devout
Theodosius consented to the assassination of his invincible
enemy. But this perfidious conspiracy was defeated by the
dissimulation, or the repentance, of Edecon; and though he might
exaggerate his inward abhorrence for the treason, which he seemed
to approve, he dexterously assumed the merit of an early and
voluntary confession. If we now review the embassy of Maximin,
and the behavior of Attila, we must applaud the Barbarian, who
respected the laws of hospitality, and generously entertained and
dismissed the minister of a prince who had conspired against his
life. But the rashness of Vigilius will appear still more
extraordinary, since he returned, conscious of his guilt and
danger, to the royal camp, accompanied by his son, and carrying
with him a weighty purse of gold, which the favorite eunuch had
furnished, to satisfy the demands of Edecon, and to corrupt the
fidelity of the guards. The interpreter was instantly seized, and
dragged before the tribunal of Attila, where he asserted his
innocence with specious firmness, till the threat of inflicting
instant death on his son extorted from him a sincere discovery of
the criminal transaction. Under the name of ransom, or
confiscation, the rapacious king of the Huns accepted two hundred
pounds of gold for the life of a traitor, whom he disdained to
punish. He pointed his just indignation against a nobler object.
His ambassadors, Eslaw and Orestes, were immediately despatched
to Constantinople, with a peremptory instruction, which it was
much safer for them to execute than to disobey. They boldly
entered the Imperial presence, with the fatal purse hanging down
from the neck of Orestes; who interrogated the eunuch
Chrysaphius, as he stood beside the throne, whether he recognized
the evidence of his guilt. But the office of reproof was reserved
for the superior dignity of his colleague Eslaw, who gravely
addressed the emperor of the East in the following words:
“Theodosius is the son of an illustrious and respectable parent:
Attila likewise is descended from a noble race; and he has
supported, by his actions, the dignity which he inherited from
his father Mundzuk. But Theodosius has forfeited his paternal
honors, and, by consenting to pay tribute has degraded himself to
the condition of a slave. It is therefore just, that he should
reverence the man whom fortune and merit have placed above him;
instead of attempting, like a wicked slave, clandestinely to
conspire against his master.” The son of Arcadius, who was
accustomed only to the voice of flattery, heard with astonishment
the severe language of truth: he blushed and trembled; nor did he
presume directly to refuse the head of Chrysaphius, which Eslaw
and Orestes were instructed to demand. A solemn embassy, armed
with full powers and magnificent gifts, was hastily sent to
deprecate the wrath of Attila; and his pride was gratified by the
choice of Nomius and Anatolius, two ministers of consular or
patrician rank, of whom the one was great treasurer, and the
other was master-general of the armies of the East. He
condescended to meet these ambassadors on the banks of the River
Drenco; and though he at first affected a stern and haughty
demeanor, his anger was insensibly mollified by their eloquence
and liberality. He condescended to pardon the emperor, the
eunuch, and the interpreter; bound himself by an oath to observe
the conditions of peace; released a great number of captives;
abandoned the fugitives and deserters to their fate; and resigned
a large territory, to the south of the Danube, which he had
already exhausted of its wealth and inhabitants. But this treaty
was purchased at an expense which might have supported a vigorous
and successful war; and the subjects of Theodosius were compelled
to redeem the safety of a worthless favorite by oppressive taxes,
which they would more cheerfully have paid for his destruction.
49
48 (return) [ M. de Tillemont has very properly given the
succession of chamberlains, who reigned in the name of
Theodosius. Chrysaphius was the last, and, according to the
unanimous evidence of history, the worst of these favorites, (see
Hist. des Empereurs, tom. vi. p. 117-119. Mem. Eccles. tom. xv.
p. 438.) His partiality for his godfather the heresiarch
Eutyches, engaged him to persecute the orthodox party]
49 (return) [ This secret conspiracy and its important
consequences, may be traced in the fragments of Priscus, p. 37,
38, 39, 54, 70, 71, 72. The chronology of that historian is not
fixed by any precise date; but the series of negotiations between
Attila and the Eastern empire must be included within the three
or four years which are terminated, A.D. 450. by the death of
Theodosius.]
The emperor Theodosius did not long survive the most humiliating
circumstance of an inglorious life. As he was riding, or hunting,
in the neighborhood of Constantinople, he was thrown from his
horse into the River Lycus: the spine of the back was injured by
the fall; and he expired some days afterwards, in the fiftieth
year of his age, and the forty-third of his reign. 50 His sister
Pulcheria, whose authority had been controlled both in civil and
ecclesiastical affairs by the pernicious influence of the
eunuchs, was unanimously proclaimed Empress of the East; and the
Romans, for the first time, submitted to a female reign. No
sooner had Pulcheria ascended the throne, than she indulged her
own and the public resentment, by an act of popular justice.
Without any legal trial, the eunuch Chrysaphius was executed
before the gates of the city; and the immense riches which had
been accumulated by the rapacious favorite, served only to hasten
and to justify his punishment. 51 Amidst the general acclamations
of the clergy and people, the empress did not forget the
prejudice and disadvantage to which her sex was exposed; and she
wisely resolved to prevent their murmurs by the choice of a
colleague, who would always respect the superior rank and virgin
chastity of his wife. She gave her hand to Marcian, a senator,
about sixty years of age; and the nominal husband of Pulcheria
was solemnly invested with the Imperial purple. The zeal which he
displayed for the orthodox creed, as it was established by the
council of Chalcedon, would alone have inspired the grateful
eloquence of the Catholics. But the behavior of Marcian in a
private life, and afterwards on the throne, may support a more
rational belief, that he was qualified to restore and invigorate
an empire, which had been almost dissolved by the successive
weakness of two hereditary monarchs. He was born in Thrace, and
educated to the profession of arms; but Marcian’s youth had been
severely exercised by poverty and misfortune, since his only
resource, when he first arrived at Constantinople, consisted in
two hundred pieces of gold, which he had borrowed of a friend. He
passed nineteen years in the domestic and military service of
Aspar, and his son Ardaburius; followed those powerful generals
to the Persian and African wars; and obtained, by their
influence, the honorable rank of tribune and senator. His mild
disposition, and useful talents, without alarming the jealousy,
recommended Marcian to the esteem and favor of his patrons; he
had seen, perhaps he had felt, the abuses of a venal and
oppressive administration; and his own example gave weight and
energy to the laws, which he promulgated for the reformation of
manners. 52
50 (return) [ Theodorus the Reader, (see Vales. Hist. Eccles.
tom. iii. p. 563,) and the Paschal Chronicle, mention the fall,
without specifying the injury: but the consequence was so likely
to happen, and so unlikely to be invented, that we may safely
give credit to Nicephorus Callistus, a Greek of the fourteenth
century.]
51 (return) [ Pulcheriae nutu (says Count Marcellinus) sua cum
avaritia interemptus est. She abandoned the eunuch to the pious
revenge of a son, whose father had suffered at his instigation.
Note: Might not the execution of Chrysaphius have been a
sacrifice to avert the anger of Attila, whose assassination the
eunuch had attempted to contrive?—M.]
52 (return) [ de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 4. Evagrius, l. ii. c. 1.
Theophanes, p. 90, 91. Novell. ad Calcem. Cod. Theod. tom. vi. p.
30. The praises which St. Leo and the Catholics have bestowed on
Marcian, are diligently transcribed by Baronius, as an
encouragement for future princes.]
Chapter XXXV: Invasion By Attila.—Part I.
Invasion Of Gaul By Attila.—He Is Repulsed By Ætius And The
Visigoths.—Attila Invades And Evacuates Italy.—The Deaths Of
Attila, Ætius, And Valentinian The Third.
It was the opinion of Marcian, that war should be avoided, as
long as it is possible to preserve a secure and honorable peace;
but it was likewise his opinion, that peace cannot be honorable
or secure, if the sovereign betrays a pusillanimous aversion to
war. This temperate courage dictated his reply to the demands of
Attila, who insolently pressed the payment of the annual tribute.
The emperor signified to the Barbarians, that they must no longer
insult the majesty of Rome by the mention of a tribute; that he
was disposed to reward, with becoming liberality, the faithful
friendship of his allies; but that, if they presumed to violate
the public peace, they should feel that he possessed troops, and
arms, and resolution, to repel their attacks. The same language,
even in the camp of the Huns, was used by his ambassador
Apollonius, whose bold refusal to deliver the presents, till he
had been admitted to a personal interview, displayed a sense of
dignity, and a contempt of danger, which Attila was not prepared
to expect from the degenerate Romans. 1 He threatened to chastise
the rash successor of Theodosius; but he hesitated whether he
should first direct his invincible arms against the Eastern or
the Western empire. While mankind awaited his decision with awful
suspense, he sent an equal defiance to the courts of Ravenna and
Constantinople; and his ministers saluted the two emperors with
the same haughty declaration. “Attila, my lord, and thy lord,
commands thee to provide a palace for his immediate reception.” 2
But as the Barbarian despised, or affected to despise, the Romans
of the East, whom he had so often vanquished, he soon declared
his resolution of suspending the easy conquest, till he had
achieved a more glorious and important enterprise. In the
memorable invasions of Gaul and Italy, the Huns were naturally
attracted by the wealth and fertility of those provinces; but the
particular motives and provocations of Attila can only be
explained by the state of the Western empire under the reign of
Valentinian, or, to speak more correctly, under the
administration of Ætius. 3
1 (return) [ See Priscus, p. 39, 72.]
2 (return) [ The Alexandrian or Paschal Chronicle, which
introduces this haughty message, during the lifetime of
Theodosius, may have anticipated the date; but the dull annalist
was incapable of inventing the original and genuine style of
Attila.]
3 (return) [ The second book of the Histoire Critique de
l’Etablissement de la Monarchie Francoise tom. i. p. 189-424,
throws great light on the state of Gaul, when it was invaded by
Attila; but the ingenious author, the Abbe Dubos, too often
bewilders himself in system and conjecture.]
After the death of his rival Boniface, Ætius had prudently
retired to the tents of the Huns; and he was indebted to their
alliance for his safety and his restoration. Instead of the
suppliant language of a guilty exile, he solicited his pardon at
the head of sixty thousand Barbarians; and the empress Placidia
confessed, by a feeble resistance, that the condescension, which
might have been ascribed to clemency, was the effect of weakness
or fear. She delivered herself, her son Valentinian, and the
Western empire, into the hands of an insolent subject; nor could
Placidia protect the son-in-law of Boniface, the virtuous and
faithful Sebastian, 4 from the implacable persecution which urged
him from one kingdom to another, till he miserably perished in
the service of the Vandals. The fortunate Ætius, who was
immediately promoted to the rank of patrician, and thrice
invested with the honors of the consulship, assumed, with the
title of master of the cavalry and infantry, the whole military
power of the state; and he is sometimes styled, by contemporary
writers, the duke, or general, of the Romans of the West. His
prudence, rather than his virtue, engaged him to leave the
grandson of Theodosius in the possession of the purple; and
Valentinian was permitted to enjoy the peace and luxury of Italy,
while the patrician appeared in the glorious light of a hero and
a patriot, who supported near twenty years the ruins of the
Western empire. The Gothic historian ingenuously confesses, that
Ætius was born for the salvation of the Roman republic; 5 and the
following portrait, though it is drawn in the fairest colors,
must be allowed to contain a much larger proportion of truth than
of flattery. 411 “His mother was a wealthy and noble Italian, and
his father Gaudentius, who held a distinguished rank in the
province of Scythia, gradually rose from the station of a
military domestic, to the dignity of master of the cavalry. Their
son, who was enrolled almost in his infancy in the guards, was
given as a hostage, first to Alaric, and afterwards to the Huns;
412 and he successively obtained the civil and military honors of
the palace, for which he was equally qualified by superior merit.
The graceful figure of Ætius was not above the middle stature;
but his manly limbs were admirably formed for strength, beauty,
and agility; and he excelled in the martial exercises of managing
a horse, drawing the bow, and darting the javelin. He could
patiently endure the want of food, or of sleep; and his mind and
body were alike capable of the most laborious efforts. He
possessed the genuine courage that can despise not only dangers,
but injuries: and it was impossible either to corrupt, or
deceive, or intimidate the firm integrity of his soul.” 6 The
Barbarians, who had seated themselves in the Western provinces,
were insensibly taught to respect the faith and valor of the
patrician Ætius. He soothed their passions, consulted their
prejudices, balanced their interests, and checked their ambition.
611 A seasonable treaty, which he concluded with Genseric,
protected Italy from the depredations of the Vandals; the
independent Britons implored and acknowledged his salutary aid;
the Imperial authority was restored and maintained in Gaul and
Spain; and he compelled the Franks and the Suevi, whom he had
vanquished in the field, to become the useful confederates of the
republic.
4 (return) [ Victor Vitensis (de Persecut. Vandal. l. i. 6, p. 8,
edit. Ruinart) calls him, acer consilio et strenuus in bello: but
his courage, when he became unfortunate, was censured as
desperate rashness; and Sebastian deserved, or obtained, the
epithet of proeceps, (Sidon. Apollinar Carmen ix. 181.) His
adventures in Constantinople, in Sicily, Gaul, Spain, and Africa,
are faintly marked in the Chronicles of Marcellinus and Idatius.
In his distress he was always followed by a numerous train; since
he could ravage the Hellespont and Propontis, and seize the city
of Barcelona.]
5 (return) [ Reipublicae Romanae singulariter natus, qui
superbiam Suevorum, Francorumque barbariem immensis caedibus
servire Imperio Romano coegisset. Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c.
34, p. 660.]
411 (return) [ Some valuable fragments of a poetical panegyric on
Ætius by Merobaudes, a Spaniard, have been recovered from a
palimpsest MS. by the sagacity and industry of Niebuhr. They have
been reprinted in the new edition of the Byzantine Historians.
The poet speaks in glowing terms of the long (annosa) peace
enjoyed under the administration of Ætius. The verses are very
spirited. The poet was rewarded by a statue publicly dedicated to
his honor in Rome.
Danuvii cum pace redit, Tanaimque furore Exuit, et nigro candentes
aethere terras Marte suo caruisse jubet. Dedit otia ferro
Caucasus, et saevi condemnant praelia reges. Addidit hiberni
famulantia foedera Rhenus Orbis...... Lustrat Aremoricos jam
mitior incola saltus; Perdidit et mores tellus, adsuetaque saevo
Crimine quaesitas silvis celare rapinas, Discit inexpertis Cererem
committere campis; Caesareoque diu manus obluctata labori Sustinet
acceptas nostro sub consule leges; Et quamvis Geticis sulcum
confundat aratris, Barbara vicinae refugit consortia gentis.
—Merobaudes, p. 1]
412 (return) [—cum Scythicis succumberet ensibus orbis,
Telaque Tarpeias premerent Arctoa secures, Hostilem fregit rabiem,
pignus quesuperbi Foederis et mundi pretium fuit. Hinc modo voti
Rata fides, validis quod dux premat impiger armis Edomuit quos
pace puer; bellumque repressit Ignarus quid bella forent.
Stupuere feroces In tenero jam membra Getae. Rex ipse, verendum
Miratus pueri decus et prodentia fatum Lumina, primaevas dederat
gestare faretras, Laudabatque manus librantem et tela gerentem
Oblitus quod noster erat Pro nescia regis Corda, feris quanto
populis discrimine constet Quod Latium docet arma ducem.
—Merobaudes, Panegyr. p. 15.—M.]
6 (return) [ This portrait is drawn by Renetus Profuturus
Frigeridus, a contemporary historian, known only by some
extracts, which are preserved by Gregory of Tours, (l. ii. c. 8,
in tom. ii. p. 163.) It was probably the duty, or at least the
interest, of Renatus, to magnify the virtues of Ætius; but he
would have shown more dexterity if he had not insisted on his
patient, forgiving disposition.]
611 (return) [
Insessor Libyes, quamvis, fatalibus armis Ausus Elisaei solium
rescindere regni, Milibus Arctois Tyrias compleverat arces, Nunc
hostem exutus pactis proprioribus arsit
Romanam vincire fidem, Latiosque parentes Adnumerare sib,
sociamque intexere prolem. —-Merobaudes, p. 12.—M.]
From a principle of interest, as well as gratitude, Ætius
assiduously cultivated the alliance of the Huns. While he resided
in their tents as a hostage, or an exile, he had familiarly
conversed with Attila himself, the nephew of his benefactor; and
the two famous antagonists appeared to have been connected by a
personal and military friendship, which they afterwards confirmed
by mutual gifts, frequent embassies, and the education of
Carpilio, the son of Ætius, in the camp of Attila. By the
specious professions of gratitude and voluntary attachment, the
patrician might disguise his apprehensions of the Scythian
conqueror, who pressed the two empires with his innumerable
armies. His demands were obeyed or eluded. When he claimed the
spoils of a vanquished city, some vases of gold, which had been
fraudulently embezzled, the civil and military governors of
Noricum were immediately despatched to satisfy his complaints: 7
and it is evident, from their conversation with Maximin and
Priscus, in the royal village, that the valor and prudence of
Ætius had not saved the Western Romans from the common ignominy
of tribute. Yet his dexterous policy prolonged the advantages of
a salutary peace; and a numerous army of Huns and Alani, whom he
had attached to his person, was employed in the defence of Gaul.
Two colonies of these Barbarians were judiciously fixed in the
territories of Valens and Orleans; 8 and their active cavalry
secured the important passages of the Rhone and of the Loire.
These savage allies were not indeed less formidable to the
subjects than to the enemies of Rome. Their original settlement
was enforced with the licentious violence of conquest; and the
province through which they marched was exposed to all the
calamities of a hostile invasion. 9 Strangers to the emperor or
the republic, the Alani of Gaul were devoted to the ambition of
Ætius, and though he might suspect, that, in a contest with
Attila himself, they would revolt to the standard of their
national king, the patrician labored to restrain, rather than to
excite, their zeal and resentment against the Goths, the
Burgundians, and the Franks.
7 (return) [ The embassy consisted of Count Romulus; of Promotus,
president of Noricum; and of Romanus, the military duke. They
were accompanied by Tatullus, an illustrious citizen of Petovio,
in the same province, and father of Orestes, who had married the
daughter of Count Romulus. See Priscus, p. 57, 65. Cassiodorus
(Variar. i. 4) mentions another embassy, which was executed by
his father and Carpilio, the son of Ætius; and, as Attila was no
more, he could safely boast of their manly, intrepid behavior in
his presence.]
8 (return) [ Deserta Valentinae urbis rura Alanis partienda
traduntur. Prosper. Tyronis Chron. in Historiens de France, tom.
i. p. 639. A few lines afterwards, Prosper observes, that lands
in the ulterior Gaul were assigned to the Alani. Without
admitting the correction of Dubos, (tom. i. p. 300,) the
reasonable supposition of two colonies or garrisons of Alani will
confirm his arguments, and remove his objections.]
9 (return) [ See Prosper. Tyro, p. 639. Sidonius (Panegyr. Avit.
246) complains, in the name of Auvergne, his native country,
Litorius Scythicos equites tunc forte subacto Celsus Aremorico,
Geticum rapiebat in agmen Per terras, Averne, tuas, qui proxima
quaedue Discursu, flammis, ferro, feritate, rapinis, Delebant;
pacis fallentes nomen inane.
another poet, Paulinus of Perigord, confirms the complaint:—
Nam socium vix ferre queas, qui durior hoste. —-See Dubos, tom. i.
p. 330.]
The kingdom established by the Visigoths in the southern
provinces of Gaul, had gradually acquired strength and maturity;
and the conduct of those ambitious Barbarians, either in peace or
war, engaged the perpetual vigilance of Ætius. After the death of
Wallia, the Gothic sceptre devolved to Theodoric, the son of the
great Alaric; 10 and his prosperous reign of more than thirty
years, over a turbulent people, may be allowed to prove, that his
prudence was supported by uncommon vigor, both of mind and body.
Impatient of his narrow limits, Theodoric aspired to the
possession of Arles, the wealthy seat of government and commerce;
but the city was saved by the timely approach of Ætius; and the
Gothic king, who had raised the siege with some loss and
disgrace, was persuaded, for an adequate subsidy, to divert the
martial valor of his subjects in a Spanish war. Yet Theodoric
still watched, and eagerly seized, the favorable moment of
renewing his hostile attempts. The Goths besieged Narbonne, while
the Belgic provinces were invaded by the Burgundians; and the
public safety was threatened on every side by the apparent union
of the enemies of Rome. On every side, the activity of Ætius, and
his Scythian cavalry, opposed a firm and successful resistance.
Twenty thousand Burgundians were slain in battle; and the remains
of the nation humbly accepted a dependent seat in the mountains
of Savoy. 11 The walls of Narbonne had been shaken by the
battering engines, and the inhabitants had endured the last
extremities of famine, when Count Litorius, approaching in
silence, and directing each horseman to carry behind him two
sacks of flour, cut his way through the intrenchments of the
besiegers. The siege was immediately raised; and the more
decisive victory, which is ascribed to the personal conduct of
Ætius himself, was marked with the blood of eight thousand Goths.
But in the absence of the patrician, who was hastily summoned to
Italy by some public or private interest, Count Litorius
succeeded to the command; and his presumption soon discovered
that far different talents are required to lead a wing of
cavalry, or to direct the operations of an important war. At the
head of an army of Huns, he rashly advanced to the gates of
Thoulouse, full of careless contempt for an enemy whom his
misfortunes had rendered prudent, and his situation made
desperate. The predictions of the augurs had inspired Litorius
with the profane confidence that he should enter the Gothic
capital in triumph; and the trust which he reposed in his Pagan
allies, encouraged him to reject the fair conditions of peace,
which were repeatedly proposed by the bishops in the name of
Theodoric. The king of the Goths exhibited in his distress the
edifying contrast of Christian piety and moderation; nor did he
lay aside his sackcloth and ashes till he was prepared to arm for
the combat. His soldiers, animated with martial and religious
enthusiasm, assaulted the camp of Litorius. The conflict was
obstinate; the slaughter was mutual. The Roman general, after a
total defeat, which could be imputed only to his unskilful
rashness, was actually led through the streets of Thoulouse, not
in his own, but in a hostile triumph; and the misery which he
experienced, in a long and ignominious captivity, excited the
compassion of the Barbarians themselves. 12 Such a loss, in a
country whose spirit and finances were long since exhausted,
could not easily be repaired; and the Goths, assuming, in their
turn, the sentiments of ambition and revenge, would have planted
their victorious standards on the banks of the Rhone, if the
presence of Ætius had not restored strength and discipline to the
Romans. 13 The two armies expected the signal of a decisive
action; but the generals, who were conscious of each other’s
force, and doubtful of their own superiority, prudently sheathed
their swords in the field of battle; and their reconciliation was
permanent and sincere. Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, appears
to have deserved the love of his subjects, the confidence of his
allies, and the esteem of mankind. His throne was surrounded by
six valiant sons, who were educated with equal care in the
exercises of the Barbarian camp, and in those of the Gallic
schools: from the study of the Roman jurisprudence, they acquired
the theory, at least, of law and justice; and the harmonious
sense of Virgil contributed to soften the asperity of their
native manners. 14 The two daughters of the Gothic king were
given in marriage to the eldest sons of the kings of the Suevi
and of the Vandals, who reigned in Spain and Africa: but these
illustrious alliances were pregnant with guilt and discord. The
queen of the Suevi bewailed the death of a husband inhumanly
massacred by her brother. The princess of the Vandals was the
victim of a jealous tyrant, whom she called her father. The cruel
Genseric suspected that his son’s wife had conspired to poison
him; the supposed crime was punished by the amputation of her
nose and ears; and the unhappy daughter of Theodoric was
ignominiously returned to the court of Thoulouse in that deformed
and mutilated condition. This horrid act, which must seem
incredible to a civilized age drew tears from every spectator;
but Theodoric was urged, by the feelings of a parent and a king,
to revenge such irreparable injuries. The Imperial ministers, who
always cherished the discord of the Barbarians, would have
supplied the Goths with arms, and ships, and treasures, for the
African war; and the cruelty of Genseric might have been fatal to
himself, if the artful Vandal had not armed, in his cause, the
formidable power of the Huns. His rich gifts and pressing
solicitations inflamed the ambition of Attila; and the designs of
Ætius and Theodoric were prevented by the invasion of Gaul. 15
10 (return) [ Theodoric II., the son of Theodoric I., declares to
Avitus his resolution of repairing, or expiating, the faults
which his grandfather had committed,—
Quae noster peccavit avus, quem fuscat id unum, Quod te, Roma,
capit.
Sidon. Panegyric. Avit. 505.
This character, applicable only to the great Alaric, establishes
the genealogy of the Gothic kings, which has hitherto been
unnoticed.]
11 (return) [ The name of Sapaudia, the origin of Savoy, is first
mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus; and two military posts are
ascertained by the Notitia, within the limits of that province; a
cohort was stationed at Grenoble in Dauphine; and Ebredunum, or
Iverdun, sheltered a fleet of small vessels, which commanded the
Lake of Neufchatel. See Valesius, Notit. Galliarum, p. 503.
D’Anville, Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule, p. 284, 579.]
12 (return) [ Salvian has attempted to explain the moral
government of the Deity; a task which may be readily performed by
supposing that the calamities of the wicked are judgments, and
those of the righteous, trials.]
13 (return) [
—Capto terrarum damna patebant Litorio, in Rhodanum proprios
producere fines, Thendoridae fixum; nec erat pugnare necesse, Sed
migrare Getis; rabidam trux asperat iram Victor; quod sensit
Scythicum sub moenibus hostem Imputat, et nihil estgravius, si
forsitan unquam Vincerecontingat, trepido. —Panegyr. Avit. 300,
&c.
Sitionius then proceeds, according to the duty of a panegyrist,
to transfer the whole merit from Ætius to his minister Avitus.]
14 (return) [ Theodoric II. revered, in the person of Avitus, the
character of his preceptor.
Mihi Romula dudum Per te jura placent; parvumque ediscere jussit
Ad tua verba pater, docili quo prisca Maronis Carmine molliret
Scythicos mihi pagina mores. —-Sidon. Panegyr. Avit. 495 &c.]
15 (return) [ Our authorities for the reign of Theodoric I. are,
Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c. 34, 36, and the Chronicles of
Idatius, and the two Prospers, inserted in the historians of
France, tom. i. p. 612-640. To these we may add Salvian de
Gubernatione Dei, l. vii. p. 243, 244, 245, and the panegyric of
Avitus, by Sidonius.]
The Franks, whose monarchy was still confined to the neighborhood
of the Lower Rhine, had wisely established the right of
hereditary succession in the noble family of the Merovingians. 16
These princes were elevated on a buckler, the symbol of military
command; 17 and the royal fashion of long hair was the ensign of
their birth and dignity. Their flaxen locks, which they combed
and dressed with singular care, hung down in flowing ringlets on
their back and shoulders; while the rest of the nation were
obliged, either by law or custom, to shave the hinder part of
their head, to comb their hair over the forehead, and to content
themselves with the ornament of two small whiskers. 18 The lofty
stature of the Franks, and their blue eyes, denoted a Germanic
origin; their close apparel accurately expressed the figure of
their limbs; a weighty sword was suspended from a broad belt;
their bodies were protected by a large shield; and these warlike
Barbarians were trained, from their earliest youth, to run, to
leap, to swim; to dart the javelin, or battle-axe, with unerring
aim; to advance, without hesitation, against a superior enemy;
and to maintain, either in life or death, the invincible
reputation of their ancestors. 19 Clodion, the first of their
long-haired kings, whose name and actions are mentioned in
authentic history, held his residence at Dispargum, 20 a village
or fortress, whose place may be assigned between Louvain and
Brussels. From the report of his spies, the king of the Franks
was informed, that the defenceless state of the second Belgic
must yield, on the slightest attack, to the valor of his
subjects. He boldly penetrated through the thickets and morasses
of the Carbonarian forest; 21 occupied Tournay and Cambray, the
only cities which existed in the fifth century, and extended his
conquests as far as the River Somme, over a desolate country,
whose cultivation and populousness are the effects of more recent
industry. 22 While Clodion lay encamped in the plains of Artois,
23 and celebrated, with vain and ostentatious security, the
marriage, perhaps, of his son, the nuptial feast was interrupted
by the unexpected and unwelcome presence of Ætius, who had passed
the Somme at the head of his light cavalry. The tables, which had
been spread under the shelter of a hill, along the banks of a
pleasant stream, were rudely overturned; the Franks were
oppressed before they could recover their arms, or their ranks;
and their unavailing valor was fatal only to themselves. The
loaded wagons, which had followed their march, afforded a rich
booty; and the virgin-bride, with her female attendants,
submitted to the new lovers, who were imposed on them by the
chance of war. This advance, which had been obtained by the skill
and activity of Ætius, might reflect some disgrace on the
military prudence of Clodion; but the king of the Franks soon
regained his strength and reputation, and still maintained the
possession of his Gallic kingdom from the Rhine to the Somme. 24
Under his reign, and most probably from the enterprising spirit
of his subjects, his three capitals, Mentz, Treves, and Cologne,
experienced the effects of hostile cruelty and avarice. The
distress of Cologne was prolonged by the perpetual dominion of
the same Barbarians, who evacuated the ruins of Treves; and
Treves, which in the space of forty years had been four times
besieged and pillaged, was disposed to lose the memory of her
afflictions in the vain amusements of the Circus. 25 The death of
Clodion, after a reign of twenty years, exposed his kingdom to
the discord and ambition of his two sons. Meroveus, the younger,
26 was persuaded to implore the protection of Rome; he was
received at the Imperial court, as the ally of Valentinian, and
the adopted son of the patrician Ætius; and dismissed to his
native country, with splendid gifts, and the strongest assurances
of friendship and support. During his absence, his elder brother
had solicited, with equal ardor, the formidable aid of Attila;
and the king of the Huns embraced an alliance, which facilitated
the passage of the Rhine, and justified, by a specious and
honorable pretence, the invasion of Gaul. 27
16 (return) [ Reges Crinitos se creavisse de prima, et ut ita
dicam nobiliori suorum familia, (Greg. Turon. l. ii. c. 9, p.
166, of the second volume of the Historians of France.) Gregory
himself does not mention the Merovingian name, which may be
traced, however, to the beginning of the seventh century, as the
distinctive appellation of the royal family, and even of the
French monarchy. An ingenious critic has deduced the Merovingians
from the great Maroboduus; and he has clearly proved, that the
prince, who gave his name to the first race, was more ancient
than the father of Childeric. See Mémoires de l’Academie des
Inscriptions, tom. xx. p. 52-90, tom. xxx. p. 557-587.]
17 (return) [ This German custom, which may be traced from
Tacitus to Gregory of Tours, was at length adopted by the
emperors of Constantinople. From a MS. of the tenth century,
Montfaucon has delineated the representation of a similar
ceremony, which the ignorance of the age had applied to King
David. See Monumens de la Monarchie Francoise, tom. i. Discours
Preliminaire.]
18 (return) [ Caesaries prolixa... crinium flagellis per terga
dimissis, &c. See the Preface to the third volume of the
Historians of France, and the Abbe Le Boeuf, (Dissertat. tom.
iii. p. 47-79.) This peculiar fashion of the Merovingians has
been remarked by natives and strangers; by Priscus, (tom. i. p.
608,) by Agathias, (tom. ii. p. 49,) and by Gregory of Tours, (l.
viii. 18, vi. 24, viii. 10, tom. ii. p. 196, 278, 316.)]
19 (return) [ See an original picture of the figure, dress, arms,
and temper of the ancient Franks, in Sidonius Apollinaris,
(Panegyr. Majorian. 238-254;) and such pictures, though coarsely
drawn, have a real and intrinsic value. Father Daniel (History de
la Milice Francoise, tom. i. p. 2-7) has illustrated the
description.]
20 (return) [ Dubos, Hist. Critique, &c., tom. i. p. 271, 272.
Some geographers have placed Dispargum on the German side of the
Rhine. See a note of the Benedictine Editors, to the Historians
of France, tom. ii p. 166.]
21 (return) [ The Carbonarian wood was that part of the great
forest of the Ardennes which lay between the Escaut, or Scheldt,
and the Meuse. Vales. Notit. Gall. p. 126.]
22 (return) [ Gregor. Turon. l. ii. c. 9, in tom. ii. p. 166,
167. Fredegar. Epitom. c. 9, p. 395. Gesta Reg. Francor. c. 5, in
tom. ii. p. 544. Vit St. Remig. ab Hincmar, in tom. iii. p. 373.]
23 (return) [
—Francus qua Cloio patentes Atrebatum terras pervaserat. —Panegyr.
Majorian 213
The precise spot was a town or village, called Vicus Helena; and
both the name and place are discovered by modern geographers at
Lens See Vales. Notit. Gall. p. 246. Longuerue, Description de la
France tom. ii. p. 88.]
24 (return) [ See a vague account of the action in Sidonius.
Panegyr. Majorian 212-230. The French critics, impatient to
establish their monarchy in Gaul, have drawn a strong argument
from the silence of Sidonius, who dares not insinuate, that the
vanquished Franks were compelled to repass the Rhine. Dubos, tom.
i. p. 322.]
25 (return) [ Salvian (de Gubernat. Dei, l. vi.) has expressed,
in vague and declamatory language, the misfortunes of these three
cities, which are distinctly ascertained by the learned Mascou,
Hist. of the Ancient Germans, ix. 21.]
26 (return) [ Priscus, in relating the contest, does not name the
two brothers; the second of whom he had seen at Rome, a beardless
youth, with long, flowing hair, (Historians of France, tom. i. p.
607, 608.) The Benedictine Editors are inclined to believe, that
they were the sons of some unknown king of the Franks, who
reigned on the banks of the Neckar; but the arguments of M. de
Foncemagne (Mem. de l’Academie, tom. viii. p. 464) seem to prove
that the succession of Clodion was disputed by his two sons, and
that the younger was Meroveus, the father of Childeric. * Note:
The relationship of Meroveus to Clodion is extremely doubtful.—By
some he is called an illegitimate son; by others merely of his
race. Tur ii. c. 9, in Sismondi, Hist. des Francais, i. 177. See
Mezeray.]
27 (return) [ Under the Merovingian race, the throne was
hereditary; but all the sons of the deceased monarch were equally
entitled to their share of his treasures and territories. See the
Dissertations of M. de Foncemagne, in the sixth and eighth
volumes of the Mémoires de l’Academie.]
Chapter XXXV: Invasion By Attila.—Part II.
When Attila declared his resolution of supporting the cause of
his allies, the Vandals and the Franks, at the same time, and
almost in the spirit of romantic chivalry, the savage monarch
professed himself the lover and the champion of the princess
Honoria. The sister of Valentinian was educated in the palace of
Ravenna; and as her marriage might be productive of some danger
to the state, she was raised, by the title of Augusta, 28 above
the hopes of the most presumptuous subject. But the fair Honoria
had no sooner attained the sixteenth year of her age, than she
detested the importunate greatness which must forever exclude her
from the comforts of honorable love; in the midst of vain and
unsatisfactory pomp, Honoria sighed, yielded to the impulse of
nature, and threw herself into the arms of her chamberlain
Eugenius. Her guilt and shame (such is the absurd language of
imperious man) were soon betrayed by the appearances of
pregnancy; but the disgrace of the royal family was published to
the world by the imprudence of the empress Placidia who dismissed
her daughter, after a strict and shameful confinement, to a
remote exile at Constantinople. The unhappy princess passed
twelve or fourteen years in the irksome society of the sisters of
Theodosius, and their chosen virgins; to whose crown Honoria
could no longer aspire, and whose monastic assiduity of prayer,
fasting, and vigils, she reluctantly imitated. Her impatience of
long and hopeless celibacy urged her to embrace a strange and
desperate resolution. The name of Attila was familiar and
formidable at Constantinople; and his frequent embassies
entertained a perpetual intercourse between his camp and the
Imperial palace. In the pursuit of love, or rather of revenge,
the daughter of Placidia sacrificed every duty and every
prejudice; and offered to deliver her person into the arms of a
Barbarian, of whose language she was ignorant, whose figure was
scarcely human, and whose religion and manners she abhorred. By
the ministry of a faithful eunuch, she transmitted to Attila a
ring, the pledge of her affection; and earnestly conjured him to
claim her as a lawful spouse, to whom he had been secretly
betrothed. These indecent advances were received, however, with
coldness and disdain; and the king of the Huns continued to
multiply the number of his wives, till his love was awakened by
the more forcible passions of ambition and avarice. The invasion
of Gaul was preceded, and justified, by a formal demand of the
princess Honoria, with a just and equal share of the Imperial
patrimony. His predecessors, the ancient Tanjous, had often
addressed, in the same hostile and peremptory manner, the
daughters of China; and the pretensions of Attila were not less
offensive to the majesty of Rome. A firm, but temperate, refusal
was communicated to his ambassadors. The right of female
succession, though it might derive a specious argument from the
recent examples of Placidia and Pulcheria, was strenuously
denied; and the indissoluble engagements of Honoria were opposed
to the claims of her Scythian lover. 29 On the discovery of her
connection with the king of the Huns, the guilty princess had
been sent away, as an object of horror, from Constantinople to
Italy: her life was spared; but the ceremony of her marriage was
performed with some obscure and nominal husband, before she was
immured in a perpetual prison, to bewail those crimes and
misfortunes, which Honoria might have escaped, had she not been
born the daughter of an emperor. 30
28 (return) [ A medal is still extant, which exhibits the
pleasing countenance of Honoria, with the title of Augusta; and
on the reverse, the improper legend of Salus Reipublicoe round
the monogram of Christ. See Ducange, Famil. Byzantin. p. 67, 73.]
29 (return) [ See Priscus, p, 39, 40. It might be fairly alleged,
that if females could succeed to the throne, Valentinian himself,
who had married the daughter and heiress of the younger
Theodosius, would have asserted her right to the Eastern empire.]
30 (return) [ The adventures of Honoria are imperfectly related
by Jornandes, de Successione Regn. c. 97, and de Reb. Get. c. 42,
p. 674; and in the Chronicles of Prosper and Marcellinus; but
they cannot be made consistent, or probable, unless we separate,
by an interval of time and place, her intrigue with Eugenius, and
her invitation of Attila.]
A native of Gaul, and a contemporary, the learned and eloquent
Sidonius, who was afterwards bishop of Clermont, had made a
promise to one of his friends, that he would compose a regular
history of the war of Attila. If the modesty of Sidonius had not
discouraged him from the prosecution of this interesting work, 31
the historian would have related, with the simplicity of truth,
those memorable events, to which the poet, in vague and doubtful
metaphors, has concisely alluded. 32 The kings and nations of
Germany and Scythia, from the Volga perhaps to the Danube, obeyed
the warlike summons of Attila. From the royal village, in the
plains of Hungary his standard moved towards the West; and after
a march of seven or eight hundred miles, he reached the conflux
of the Rhine and the Neckar, where he was joined by the Franks,
who adhered to his ally, the elder of the sons of Clodion. A
troop of light Barbarians, who roamed in quest of plunder, might
choose the winter for the convenience of passing the river on the
ice; but the innumerable cavalry of the Huns required such plenty
of forage and provisions, as could be procured only in a milder
season; the Hercynian forest supplied materials for a bridge of
boats; and the hostile myriads were poured, with resistless
violence, into the Belgic provinces. 33 The consternation of Gaul
was universal; and the various fortunes of its cities have been
adorned by tradition with martyrdoms and miracles. 34 Troyes was
saved by the merits of St. Lupus; St. Servatius was removed from
the world, that he might not behold the ruin of Tongres; and the
prayers of St. Genevieve diverted the march of Attila from the
neighborhood of Paris. But as the greatest part of the Gallic
cities were alike destitute of saints and soldiers, they were
besieged and stormed by the Huns; who practised, in the example
of Metz, 35 their customary maxims of war. They involved, in a
promiscuous massacre, the priests who served at the altar, and
the infants, who, in the hour of danger, had been providently
baptized by the bishop; the flourishing city was delivered to the
flames, and a solitary chapel of St. Stephen marked the place
where it formerly stood. From the Rhine and the Moselle, Attila
advanced into the heart of Gaul; crossed the Seine at Auxerre;
and, after a long and laborious march, fixed his camp under the
walls of Orleans. He was desirous of securing his conquests by
the possession of an advantageous post, which commanded the
passage of the Loire; and he depended on the secret invitation of
Sangiban, king of the Alani, who had promised to betray the city,
and to revolt from the service of the empire. But this
treacherous conspiracy was detected and disappointed: Orleans had
been strengthened with recent fortifications; and the assaults of
the Huns were vigorously repelled by the faithful valor of the
soldiers, or citizens, who defended the place. The pastoral
diligence of Anianus, a bishop of primitive sanctity and
consummate prudence, exhausted every art of religious policy to
support their courage, till the arrival of the expected succors.
After an obstinate siege, the walls were shaken by the battering
rams; the Huns had already occupied the suburbs; and the people,
who were incapable of bearing arms, lay prostrate in prayer.
Anianus, who anxiously counted the days and hours, despatched a
trusty messenger to observe, from the rampart, the face of the
distant country. He returned twice, without any intelligence that
could inspire hope or comfort; but, in his third report, he
mentioned a small cloud, which he had faintly descried at the
extremity of the horizon. “It is the aid of God!” exclaimed the
bishop, in a tone of pious confidence; and the whole multitude
repeated after him, “It is the aid of God.” The remote object, on
which every eye was fixed, became each moment larger, and more
distinct; the Roman and Gothic banners were gradually perceived;
and a favorable wind blowing aside the dust, discovered, in deep
array, the impatient squadrons of Ætius and Theodoric, who
pressed forwards to the relief of Orleans.
31 (return) [ Exegeras mihi, ut promitterem tibi, Attilæ bellum
stylo me posteris intimaturum.... coeperam scribere, sed operis
arrepti fasce perspecto, taeduit inchoasse. Sidon. Apoll. l.
viii. epist. 15, p. 235]
32 (return) [
Subito cum rupta tumultu Barbaries totas in te transfuderat
Arctos,
Gallia. Pugnacem Rugum comitante Gelono, Gepida trux sequitur;
Scyrum Burgundio cogit:
Chunus, Bellonotus, Neurus, Basterna, Toringus,
Bructerus, ulvosa vel quem Nicer abluit unda
Prorumpit Francus. Cecidit cito secta bipenni Hercynia in
lintres, et Rhenum texuit alno. Et jam terrificis diffuderat
Attila turmis In campos se, Belga, tuos. Panegyr. Avit.]
33 (return) [ The most authentic and circumstantial account of
this war is contained in Jornandes, (de Reb. Geticis, c. 36-41,
p. 662-672,) who has sometimes abridged, and sometimes
transcribed, the larger history of Cassiodorus. Jornandes, a
quotation which it would be superfluous to repeat, may be
corrected and illustrated by Gregory of Tours, l. ii. c. 5, 6, 7,
and the Chronicles of Idatius, Isidore, and the two Prospers. All
the ancient testimonies are collected and inserted in the
Historians of France; but the reader should be cautioned against
a supposed extract from the Chronicle of Idatius, (among the
fragments of Fredegarius, tom. ii. p. 462,) which often
contradicts the genuine text of the Gallician bishop.]
34 (return) [ The ancient legendaries deserve some regard, as
they are obliged to connect their fables with the real history of
their own times. See the lives of St. Lupus, St. Anianus, the
bishops of Metz, Ste. Genevieve, &c., in the Historians of
France, tom. i. p. 644, 645, 649, tom. iii. p. 369.]
35 (return) [ The scepticism of the count de Buat (Hist. des
Peuples, tom. vii. p. 539, 540) cannot be reconciled with any
principles of reason or criticism. Is not Gregory of Tours
precise and positive in his account of the destruction of Metz?
At the distance of no more than a hundred years, could he be
ignorant, could the people be ignorant of the fate of a city, the
actual residence of his sovereigns, the kings of Austrasia? The
learned count, who seems to have undertaken the apology of Attila
and the Barbarians, appeals to the false Idatius, parcens
Germaniae et Galliae, and forgets that the true Idatius had
explicitly affirmed, plurimae civitates effractoe, among which he
enumerates Metz.]
The facility with which Attila had penetrated into the heart of
Gaul, may be ascribed to his insidious policy, as well as to the
terror of his arms. His public declarations were skilfully
mitigated by his private assurances; he alternately soothed and
threatened the Romans and the Goths; and the courts of Ravenna
and Thoulouse, mutually suspicious of each other’s intentions,
beheld, with supine indifference, the approach of their common
enemy. Ætius was the sole guardian of the public safety; but his
wisest measures were embarrassed by a faction, which, since the
death of Placidia, infested the Imperial palace: the youth of
Italy trembled at the sound of the trumpet; and the Barbarians,
who, from fear or affection, were inclined to the cause of
Attila, awaited with doubtful and venal faith, the event of the
war. The patrician passed the Alps at the head of some troops,
whose strength and numbers scarcely deserved the name of an army.
36 But on his arrival at Arles, or Lyons, he was confounded by
the intelligence, that the Visigoths, refusing to embrace the
defence of Gaul, had determined to expect, within their own
territories, the formidable invader, whom they professed to
despise. The senator Avitus, who, after the honorable exercise of
the Prætorian praefecture, had retired to his estate in Auvergne,
was persuaded to accept the important embassy, which he executed
with ability and success. He represented to Theodoric, that an
ambitious conqueror, who aspired to the dominion of the earth,
could be resisted only by the firm and unanimous alliance of the
powers whom he labored to oppress. The lively eloquence of Avitus
inflamed the Gothic warriors, by the description of the injuries
which their ancestors had suffered from the Huns; whose
implacable fury still pursued them from the Danube to the foot of
the Pyrenees. He strenuously urged, that it was the duty of every
Christian to save, from sacrilegious violation, the churches of
God, and the relics of the saints: that it was the interest of
every Barbarian, who had acquired a settlement in Gaul, to defend
the fields and vineyards, which were cultivated for his use,
against the desolation of the Scythian shepherds. Theodoric
yielded to the evidence of truth; adopted the measure at once the
most prudent and the most honorable; and declared, that, as the
faithful ally of Ætius and the Romans, he was ready to expose his
life and kingdom for the common safety of Gaul. 37 The Visigoths,
who, at that time, were in the mature vigor of their fame and
power, obeyed with alacrity the signal of war; prepared their
arms and horses, and assembled under the standard of their aged
king, who was resolved, with his two eldest sons, Torismond and
Theodoric, to command in person his numerous and valiant people.
The example of the Goths determined several tribes or nations,
that seemed to fluctuate between the Huns and the Romans. The
indefatigable diligence of the patrician gradually collected the
troops of Gaul and Germany, who had formerly acknowledged
themselves the subjects, or soldiers, of the republic, but who
now claimed the rewards of voluntary service, and the rank of
independent allies; the Læti, the Armoricans, the Breones, the
Saxons, the Burgundians, the Sarmatians, or Alani, the
Ripuarians, and the Franks who followed Meroveus as their lawful
prince. Such was the various army, which, under the conduct of
Ætius and Theodoric, advanced, by rapid marches to relieve
Orleans, and to give battle to the innumerable host of Attila. 38
36 (return) [
Vix liquerat Alpes Ætius, tenue, et rarum sine milite ducens
Robur, in auxiliis Geticum male credulus agmen Incassum propriis
praesumens adfore castris. —-Panegyr. Avit. 328, &c.]
37 (return) [ The policy of Attila, of Ætius, and of the
Visigoths, is imperfectly described in the Panegyric of Avitus,
and the thirty-sixth chapter of Jornandes. The poet and the
historian were both biased by personal or national prejudices.
The former exalts the merit and importance of Avitus; orbis,
Avite, salus, &c.! The latter is anxious to show the Goths in the
most favorable light. Yet their agreement when they are fairly
interpreted, is a proof of their veracity.]
38 (return) [ The review of the army of Ætius is made by
Jornandes, c. 36, p. 664, edit. Grot. tom. ii. p. 23, of the
Historians of France, with the notes of the Benedictine editor.
The Loeti were a promiscuous race of Barbarians, born or
naturalized in Gaul; and the Riparii, or Ripuarii, derived their
name from their post on the three rivers, the Rhine, the Meuse,
and the Moselle; the Armoricans possessed the independent cities
between the Seine and the Loire. A colony of Saxons had been
planted in the diocese of Bayeux; the Burgundians were settled in
Savoy; and the Breones were a warlike tribe of Rhaetians, to the
east of the Lake of Constance.]
On their approach the king of the Huns immediately raised the
siege, and sounded a retreat to recall the foremost of his troops
from the pillage of a city which they had already entered. 39 The
valor of Attila was always guided by his prudence; and as he
foresaw the fatal consequences of a defeat in the heart of Gaul,
he repassed the Seine, and expected the enemy in the plains of
Chalons, whose smooth and level surface was adapted to the
operations of his Scythian cavalry. But in this tumultuary
retreat, the vanguard of the Romans and their allies continually
pressed, and sometimes engaged, the troops whom Attila had posted
in the rear; the hostile columns, in the darkness of the night
and the perplexity of the roads, might encounter each other
without design; and the bloody conflict of the Franks and
Gepidae, in which fifteen thousand 40 Barbarians were slain, was
a prelude to a more general and decisive action. The Catalaunian
fields 41 spread themselves round Chalons, and extend, according
to the vague measurement of Jornandes, to the length of one
hundred and fifty, and the breadth of one hundred miles, over the
whole province, which is entitled to the appellation of a
champaign country. 42 This spacious plain was distinguished,
however, by some inequalities of ground; and the importance of a
height, which commanded the camp of Attila, was understood and
disputed by the two generals. The young and valiant Torismond
first occupied the summit; the Goths rushed with irresistible
weight on the Huns, who labored to ascend from the opposite side:
and the possession of this advantageous post inspired both the
troops and their leaders with a fair assurance of victory. The
anxiety of Attila prompted him to consult his priests and
haruspices. It was reported, that, after scrutinizing the
entrails of victims, and scraping their bones, they revealed, in
mysterious language, his own defeat, with the death of his
principal adversary; and that the Barbarians, by accepting the
equivalent, expressed his involuntary esteem for the superior
merit of Ætius. But the unusual despondency, which seemed to
prevail among the Huns, engaged Attila to use the expedient, so
familiar to the generals of antiquity, of animating his troops by
a military oration; and his language was that of a king, who had
often fought and conquered at their head. 43 He pressed them to
consider their past glory, their actual danger, and their future
hopes. The same fortune, which opened the deserts and morasses of
Scythia to their unarmed valor, which had laid so many warlike
nations prostrate at their feet, had reserved the joys of this
memorable field for the consummation of their victories. The
cautious steps of their enemies, their strict alliance, and their
advantageous posts, he artfully represented as the effects, not
of prudence, but of fear. The Visigoths alone were the strength
and nerves of the opposite army; and the Huns might securely
trample on the degenerate Romans, whose close and compact order
betrayed their apprehensions, and who were equally incapable of
supporting the dangers or the fatigues of a day of battle. The
doctrine of predestination, so favorable to martial virtue, was
carefully inculcated by the king of the Huns; who assured his
subjects, that the warriors, protected by Heaven, were safe and
invulnerable amidst the darts of the enemy; but that the unerring
Fates would strike their victims in the bosom of inglorious
peace. “I myself,” continued Attila, “will throw the first
javelin, and the wretch who refuses to imitate the example of his
sovereign, is devoted to inevitable death.” The spirit of the
Barbarians was rekindled by the presence, the voice, and the
example of their intrepid leader; and Attila, yielding to their
impatience, immediately formed his order of battle. At the head
of his brave and faithful Huns, he occupied in person the centre
of the line. The nations subject to his empire, the Rugians, the
Heruli, the Thuringians, the Franks, the Burgundians, were
extended on either hand, over the ample space of the Catalaunian
fields; the right wing was commanded by Ardaric, king of the
Gepidae; and the three valiant brothers, who reigned over the
Ostrogoths, were posted on the left to oppose the kindred tribes
of the Visigoths. The disposition of the allies was regulated by
a different principle. Sangiban, the faithless king of the Alani,
was placed in the centre, where his motions might be strictly
watched, and that the treachery might be instantly punished.
Ætius assumed the command of the left, and Theodoric of the right
wing; while Torismond still continued to occupy the heights which
appear to have stretched on the flank, and perhaps the rear, of
the Scythian army. The nations from the Volga to the Atlantic
were assembled on the plain of Chalons; but many of these nations
had been divided by faction, or conquest, or emigration; and the
appearance of similar arms and ensigns, which threatened each
other, presented the image of a civil war.
39 (return) [ Aurelianensis urbis obsidio, oppugnatio, irruptio,
nec direptio, l. v. Sidon. Apollin. l. viii. Epist. 15, p. 246.
The preservation of Orleans might easily be turned into a
miracle, obtained and foretold by the holy bishop.]
40 (return) [ The common editions read xcm but there is some
authority of manuscripts (and almost any authority is sufficient)
for the more reasonable number of xvm.]
41 (return) [ Chalons, or Duro-Catalaunum, afterwards Catalauni,
had formerly made a part of the territory of Rheims from whence
it is distant only twenty-seven miles. See Vales, Notit. Gall. p.
136. D’Anville, Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule, p. 212, 279.]
42 (return) [ The name of Campania, or Champagne, is frequently
mentioned by Gregory of Tours; and that great province, of which
Rheims was the capital, obeyed the command of a duke. Vales.
Notit. p. 120-123.]
43 (return) [ I am sensible that these military orations are
usually composed by the historian; yet the old Ostrogoths, who
had served under Attila, might repeat his discourse to
Cassiodorus; the ideas, and even the expressions, have an
original Scythian cast; and I doubt, whether an Italian of the
sixth century would have thought of the hujus certaminis gaudia.]
The discipline and tactics of the Greeks and Romans form an
interesting part of their national manners. The attentive study
of the military operations of Xenophon, or Caesar, or Frederic,
when they are described by the same genius which conceived and
executed them, may tend to improve (if such improvement can be
wished) the art of destroying the human species. But the battle
of Chalons can only excite our curiosity by the magnitude of the
object; since it was decided by the blind impetuosity of
Barbarians, and has been related by partial writers, whose civil
or ecclesiastical profession secluded them from the knowledge of
military affairs. Cassiolorus, however, had familiarly conversed
with many Gothic warriors, who served in that memorable
engagement; “a conflict,” as they informed him, “fierce, various,
obstinate, and bloody; such as could not be paralleled either in
the present or in past ages.” The number of the slain amounted to
one hundred and sixty-two thousand, or, according to another
account, three hundred thousand persons; 44 and these incredible
exaggerations suppose a real and effective loss sufficient to
justify the historian’s remark, that whole generations may be
swept away by the madness of kings, in the space of a single
hour. After the mutual and repeated discharge of missile weapons,
in which the archers of Scythia might signalize their superior
dexterity, the cavalry and infantry of the two armies were
furiously mingled in closer combat. The Huns, who fought under
the eyes of their king pierced through the feeble and doubtful
centre of the allies, separated their wings from each other, and
wheeling, with a rapid effort, to the left, directed their whole
force against the Visigoths. As Theodoric rode along the ranks,
to animate his troops, he received a mortal stroke from the
javelin of Andages, a noble Ostrogoth, and immediately fell from
his horse. The wounded king was oppressed in the general
disorder, and trampled under the feet of his own cavalry; and
this important death served to explain the ambiguous prophecy of
the haruspices. Attila already exulted in the confidence of
victory, when the valiant Torismond descended from the hills, and
verified the remainder of the prediction. The Visigoths, who had
been thrown into confusion by the flight or defection of the
Alani, gradually restored their order of battle; and the Huns
were undoubtedly vanquished, since Attila was compelled to
retreat. He had exposed his person with the rashness of a private
soldier; but the intrepid troops of the centre had pushed
forwards beyond the rest of the line; their attack was faintly
supported; their flanks were unguarded; and the conquerors of
Scythia and Germany were saved by the approach of the night from
a total defeat. They retired within the circle of wagons that
fortified their camp; and the dismounted squadrons prepared
themselves for a defence, to which neither their arms, nor their
temper, were adapted. The event was doubtful: but Attila had
secured a last and honorable resource. The saddles and rich
furniture of the cavalry were collected, by his order, into a
funeral pile; and the magnanimous Barbarian had resolved, if his
intrenchments should be forced, to rush headlong into the flames,
and to deprive his enemies of the glory which they might have
acquired, by the death or captivity of Attila. 45
44 (return) [ The expressions of Jornandes, or rather of
Cassiodorus, are extremely strong. Bellum atrox, multiplex,
immane, pertinax, cui simile nulla usquam narrat antiquitas: ubi
talia gesta referuntur, ut nihil esset quod in vita sua
conspicere potuisset egregius, qui hujus miraculi privaretur
aspectu. Dubos (Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 392, 393) attempts to
reconcile the 162,000 of Jornandes with the 300,000 of Idatius
and Isidore, by supposing that the larger number included the
total destruction of the war, the effects of disease, the
slaughter of the unarmed people, &c.]
45 (return) [ The count de Buat, (Hist. des Peuples, &c., tom.
vii. p. 554-573,) still depending on the false, and again
rejecting the true, Idatius, has divided the defeat of Attila
into two great battles; the former near Orleans, the latter in
Champagne: in the one, Theodoric was slain in the other, he was
revenged.]
But his enemies had passed the night in equal disorder and
anxiety. The inconsiderate courage of Torismond was tempted to
urge the pursuit, till he unexpectedly found himself, with a few
followers, in the midst of the Scythian wagons. In the confusion
of a nocturnal combat, he was thrown from his horse; and the
Gothic prince must have perished like his father, if his youthful
strength, and the intrepid zeal of his companions, had not
rescued him from this dangerous situation. In the same manner,
but on the left of the line, Ætius himself, separated from his
allies, ignorant of their victory, and anxious for their fate,
encountered and escaped the hostile troops that were scattered
over the plains of Chalons; and at length reached the camp of the
Goths, which he could only fortify with a slight rampart of
shields, till the dawn of day. The Imperial general was soon
satisfied of the defeat of Attila, who still remained inactive
within his intrenchments; and when he contemplated the bloody
scene, he observed, with secret satisfaction, that the loss had
principally fallen on the Barbarians. The body of Theodoric,
pierced with honorable wounds, was discovered under a heap of the
slain: his subjects bewailed the death of their king and father;
but their tears were mingled with songs and acclamations, and his
funeral rites were performed in the face of a vanquished enemy.
The Goths, clashing their arms, elevated on a buckler his eldest
son Torismond, to whom they justly ascribed the glory of their
success; and the new king accepted the obligation of revenge as a
sacred portion of his paternal inheritance. Yet the Goths
themselves were astonished by the fierce and undaunted aspect of
their formidable antagonist; and their historian has compared
Attila to a lion encompassed in his den, and threatening his
hunters with redoubled fury. The kings and nations who might have
deserted his standard in the hour of distress, were made sensible
that the displeasure of their monarch was the most imminent and
inevitable danger. All his instruments of martial music
incessantly sounded a loud and animating strain of defiance; and
the foremost troops who advanced to the assault were checked or
destroyed by showers of arrows from every side of the
intrenchments. It was determined, in a general council of war, to
besiege the king of the Huns in his camp, to intercept his
provisions, and to reduce him to the alternative of a disgraceful
treaty or an unequal combat. But the impatience of the Barbarians
soon disdained these cautious and dilatory measures; and the
mature policy of Ætius was apprehensive that, after the
extirpation of the Huns, the republic would be oppressed by the
pride and power of the Gothic nation. The patrician exerted the
superior ascendant of authority and reason to calm the passions,
which the son of Theodoric considered as a duty; represented,
with seeming affection and real truth, the dangers of absence and
delay and persuaded Torismond to disappoint, by his speedy
return, the ambitious designs of his brothers, who might occupy
the throne and treasures of Thoulouse. 46 After the departure of
the Goths, and the separation of the allied army, Attila was
surprised at the vast silence that reigned over the plains of
Chalons: the suspicion of some hostile stratagem detained him
several days within the circle of his wagons, and his retreat
beyond the Rhine confessed the last victory which was achieved in
the name of the Western empire. Meroveus and his Franks,
observing a prudent distance, and magnifying the opinion of their
strength by the numerous fires which they kindled every night,
continued to follow the rear of the Huns till they reached the
confines of Thuringia. The Thuringians served in the army of
Attila: they traversed, both in their march and in their return,
the territories of the Franks; and it was perhaps in this war
that they exercised the cruelties which, about fourscore years
afterwards, were revenged by the son of Clovis. They massacred
their hostages, as well as their captives: two hundred young
maidens were tortured with exquisite and unrelenting rage; their
bodies were torn asunder by wild horses, or their bones were
crushed under the weight of rolling wagons; and their unburied
limbs were abandoned on the public roads, as a prey to dogs and
vultures. Such were those savage ancestors, whose imaginary
virtues have sometimes excited the praise and envy of civilized
ages. 47
46 (return) [ Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c. 41, p. 671. The
policy of Ætius, and the behavior of Torismond, are extremely
natural; and the patrician, according to Gregory of Tours, (l.
ii. c. 7, p. 163,) dismissed the prince of the Franks, by
suggesting to him a similar apprehension. The false Idatius
ridiculously pretends, that Ætius paid a clandestine nocturnal
visit to the kings of the Huns and of the Visigoths; from each of
whom he obtained a bribe of ten thousand pieces of gold, as the
price of an undisturbed retreat.]
47 (return) [ These cruelties, which are passionately deplored by
Theodoric, the son of Clovis, (Gregory of Tours, l. iii. c. 10,
p. 190,) suit the time and circumstances of the invasion of
Attila. His residence in Thuringia was long attested by popular
tradition; and he is supposed to have assembled a couroultai, or
diet, in the territory of Eisenach. See Mascou, ix. 30, who
settles with nice accuracy the extent of ancient Thuringia, and
derives its name from the Gothic tribe of the Therungi]
Chapter XXXV: Invasion By Attila.—Part III.
Neither the spirit, nor the forces, nor the reputation, of
Attila, were impaired by the failure of the Gallic expedition. In
the ensuing spring he repeated his demand of the princess
Honoria, and her patrimonial treasures. The demand was again
rejected, or eluded; and the indignant lover immediately took the
field, passed the Alps, invaded Italy, and besieged Aquileia with
an innumerable host of Barbarians. Those Barbarians were
unskilled in the methods of conducting a regular siege, which,
even among the ancients, required some knowledge, or at least
some practice, of the mechanic arts. But the labor of many
thousand provincials and captives, whose lives were sacrificed
without pity, might execute the most painful and dangerous work.
The skill of the Roman artists might be corrupted to the
destruction of their country. The walls of Aquileia were
assaulted by a formidable train of battering rams, movable
turrets, and engines, that threw stones, darts, and fire; 48 and
the monarch of the Huns employed the forcible impulse of hope,
fear, emulation, and interest, to subvert the only barrier which
delayed the conquest of Italy. Aquileia was at that period one of
the richest, the most populous, and the strongest of the maritime
cities of the Adriatic coast. The Gothic auxiliaries, who
appeared to have served under their native princes, Alaric and
Antala, communicated their intrepid spirit; and the citizens
still remembered the glorious and successful resistance which
their ancestors had opposed to a fierce, inexorable Barbarian,
who disgraced the majesty of the Roman purple. Three months were
consumed without effect in the siege of the Aquileia; till the
want of provisions, and the clamors of his army, compelled Attila
to relinquish the enterprise; and reluctantly to issue his
orders, that the troops should strike their tents the next
morning, and begin their retreat. But as he rode round the walls,
pensive, angry, and disappointed, he observed a stork preparing
to leave her nest, in one of the towers, and to fly with her
infant family towards the country. He seized, with the ready
penetration of a statesman, this trifling incident, which chance
had offered to superstition; and exclaimed, in a loud and
cheerful tone, that such a domestic bird, so constantly attached
to human society, would never have abandoned her ancient seats,
unless those towers had been devoted to impending ruin and
solitude. 49 The favorable omen inspired an assurance of victory;
the siege was renewed and prosecuted with fresh vigor; a large
breach was made in the part of the wall from whence the stork had
taken her flight; the Huns mounted to the assault with
irresistible fury; and the succeeding generation could scarcely
discover the ruins of Aquileia. 50 After this dreadful
chastisement, Attila pursued his march; and as he passed, the
cities of Altinum, Concordia, and Padua, were reduced into heaps
of stones and ashes. The inland towns, Vicenza, Verona, and
Bergamo, were exposed to the rapacious cruelty of the Huns. Milan
and Pavia submitted, without resistance, to the loss of their
wealth; and applauded the unusual clemency which preserved from
the flames the public, as well as private, buildings, and spared
the lives of the captive multitude. The popular traditions of
Comum, Turin, or Modena, may justly be suspected; yet they concur
with more authentic evidence to prove, that Attila spread his
ravages over the rich plains of modern Lombardy; which are
divided by the Po, and bounded by the Alps and Apennine. 51 When
he took possession of the royal palace of Milan, he was surprised
and offended at the sight of a picture which represented the
Caesars seated on their throne, and the princes of Scythia
prostrate at their feet. The revenge which Attila inflicted on
this monument of Roman vanity, was harmless and ingenious. He
commanded a painter to reverse the figures and the attitudes; and
the emperors were delineated on the same canvas, approaching in a
suppliant posture to empty their bags of tributary gold before
the throne of the Scythian monarch. 52 The spectators must have
confessed the truth and propriety of the alteration; and were
perhaps tempted to apply, on this singular occasion, the
well-known fable of the dispute between the lion and the man. 53
48 (return) [ Machinis constructis, omnibusque tormentorum
generibus adhibitis. Jornandes, c. 42, p. 673. In the thirteenth
century, the Moguls battered the cities of China with large
engines, constructed by the Mahometans or Christians in their
service, which threw stones from 150 to 300 pounds weight. In the
defence of their country, the Chinese used gunpowder, and even
bombs, above a hundred years before they were known in Europe;
yet even those celestial, or infernal, arms were insufficient to
protect a pusillanimous nation. See Gaubil. Hist. des Mongous, p.
70, 71, 155, 157, &c.]
49 (return) [ The same story is told by Jornandes, and by
Procopius, (de Bell Vandal. l. i. c. 4, p. 187, 188:) nor is it
easy to decide which is the original. But the Greek historian is
guilty of an inexcusable mistake, in placing the siege of
Aquileia after the death of Ætius.]
50 (return) [ Jornandes, about a hundred years afterwards,
affirms, that Aquileia was so completely ruined, ita ut vix ejus
vestigia, ut appareant, reliquerint. See Jornandes de Reb.
Geticis, c. 42, p. 673. Paul. Diacon. l. ii. c. 14, p. 785.
Liutprand, Hist. l. iii. c. 2. The name of Aquileia was sometimes
applied to Forum Julii, (Cividad del Friuli,) the more recent
capital of the Venetian province. * Note: Compare the curious
Latin poems on the destruction of Aquileia, published by M.
Endlicher in his valuable catalogue of Latin Mss. in the library
of Vienna, p. 298, &c.
Repleta quondam domibus sublimibus, ornatis mire, niveis, marmorels,
Nune ferax frugum metiris funiculo ruricolarum.
The monkish poet has his consolation in Attila’s sufferings in
soul and body.
Vindictam tamen non evasit impius destructor tuus Attila sevissimus,
Nunc igni simul gehennae et vermibus excruciatur—P. 290.—M.]
51 (return) [ In describing this war of Attila, a war so famous,
but so imperfectly known, I have taken for my guides two learned
Italians, who considered the subject with some peculiar
advantages; Sigonius, de Imperio Occidentali, l. xiii. in his
works, tom. i. p. 495-502; and Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom.
iv. p. 229-236, 8vo. edition.]
52 (return) [ This anecdote may be found under two different
articles of the miscellaneous compilation of Suidas.]
53 (return) [
Leo respondit, humana, hoc pictum manu: Videres hominem dejectum,
si pingere Leones scirent. —Appendix ad Phaedrum, Fab. xxv.
The lion in Phaedrus very foolishly appeals from pictures to the
amphitheatre; and I am glad to observe, that the native taste of
La Fontaine (l. iii. fable x.) has omitted this most lame and
impotent conclusion.]
It is a saying worthy of the ferocious pride of Attila, that the
grass never grew on the spot where his horse had trod. Yet the
savage destroyer undesignedly laid the foundation of a republic,
which revived, in the feudal state of Europe, the art and spirit
of commercial industry. The celebrated name of Venice, or
Venetia, 54 was formerly diffused over a large and fertile
province of Italy, from the confines of Pannonia to the River
Addua, and from the Po to the Rhaetian and Julian Alps. Before
the irruption of the Barbarians, fifty Venetian cities flourished
in peace and prosperity: Aquileia was placed in the most
conspicuous station: but the ancient dignity of Padua was
supported by agriculture and manufactures; and the property of
five hundred citizens, who were entitled to the equestrian rank,
must have amounted, at the strictest computation, to one million
seven hundred thousand pounds. Many families of Aquileia, Padua,
and the adjacent towns, who fled from the sword of the Huns,
found a safe, though obscure, refuge in the neighboring islands.
55 At the extremity of the Gulf, where the Adriatic feebly
imitates the tides of the ocean, near a hundred small islands are
separated by shallow water from the continent, and protected from
the waves by several long slips of land, which admit the entrance
of vessels through some secret and narrow channels. 56 Till the
middle of the fifth century, these remote and sequestered spots
remained without cultivation, with few inhabitants, and almost
without a name. But the manners of the Venetian fugitives, their
arts and their government, were gradually formed by their new
situation; and one of the epistles of Cassiodorus, 57 which
describes their condition about seventy years afterwards, may be
considered as the primitive monument of the republic. 571 The
minister of Theodoric compares them, in his quaint declamatory
style, to water-fowl, who had fixed their nests on the bosom of
the waves; and though he allows, that the Venetian provinces had
formerly contained many noble families, he insinuates, that they
were now reduced by misfortune to the same level of humble
poverty. Fish was the common, and almost the universal, food of
every rank: their only treasure consisted in the plenty of salt,
which they extracted from the sea: and the exchange of that
commodity, so essential to human life, was substituted in the
neighboring markets to the currency of gold and silver. A people,
whose habitations might be doubtfully assigned to the earth or
water, soon became alike familiar with the two elements; and the
demands of avarice succeeded to those of necessity. The
islanders, who, from Grado to Chiozza, were intimately connected
with each other, penetrated into the heart of Italy, by the
secure, though laborious, navigation of the rivers and inland
canals. Their vessels, which were continually increasing in size
and number, visited all the harbors of the Gulf; and the marriage
which Venice annually celebrates with the Adriatic, was
contracted in her early infancy. The epistle of Cassiodorus, the
Prætorian praefect, is addressed to the maritime tribunes; and he
exhorts them, in a mild tone of authority, to animate the zeal of
their countrymen for the public service, which required their
assistance to transport the magazines of wine and oil from the
province of Istria to the royal city of Ravenna. The ambiguous
office of these magistrates is explained by the tradition, that,
in the twelve principal islands, twelve tribunes, or judges, were
created by an annual and popular election. The existence of the
Venetian republic under the Gothic kingdom of Italy, is attested
by the same authentic record, which annihilates their lofty claim
of original and perpetual independence. 58
54 (return) [ Paul the Deacon (de Gestis Langobard. l. ii. c. 14,
p. 784) describes the provinces of Italy about the end of the
eighth century Venetia non solum in paucis insulis quas nunc
Venetias dicimus, constat; sed ejus terminus a Pannoniae finibus
usque Adduam fluvium protelatur. The history of that province
till the age of Charlemagne forms the first and most interesting
part of the Verona (Illustrata, p. 1-388,) in which the marquis
Scipio Maffei has shown himself equally capable of enlarged views
and minute disquisitions.]
55 (return) [ This emigration is not attested by any contemporary
evidence; but the fact is proved by the event, and the
circumstances might be preserved by tradition. The citizens of
Aquileia retired to the Isle of Gradus, those of Padua to Rivus
Altus, or Rialto, where the city of Venice was afterwards built,
&c.]
56 (return) [ The topography and antiquities of the Venetian
islands, from Gradus to Clodia, or Chioggia, are accurately
stated in the Dissertatio Chorographica de Italia Medii Aevi. p.
151-155.]
57 (return) [ Cassiodor. Variar. l. xii. epist. 24. Maffei
(Verona Illustrata, part i. p. 240-254) has translated and
explained this curious letter, in the spirit of a learned
antiquarian and a faithful subject, who considered Venice as the
only legitimate offspring of the Roman republic. He fixes the
date of the epistle, and consequently the praefecture, of
Cassiodorus, A.D. 523; and the marquis’s authority has the more
weight, as he prepared an edition of his works, and actually
published a dissertation on the true orthography of his name. See
Osservazioni Letterarie, tom. ii. p. 290-339.]
571 (return) [ The learned count Figliasi has proved, in his
memoirs upon the Veneti (Memorie de’ Veneti primi e secondi del
conte Figliasi, t. vi. Veneziai, 796,) that from the most remote
period, this nation, which occupied the country which has since
been called the Venetian States or Terra Firma, likewise
inhabited the islands scattered upon the coast, and that from
thence arose the names of Venetia prima and secunda, of which the
first applied to the main land and the second to the islands and
lagunes. From the time of the Pelasgi and of the Etrurians, the
first Veneti, inhabiting a fertile and pleasant country, devoted
themselves to agriculture: the second, placed in the midst of
canals, at the mouth of several rivers, conveniently situated
with regard to the islands of Greece, as well as the fertile
plains of Italy, applied themselves to navigation and commerce.
Both submitted to the Romans a short time before the second Punic
war; yet it was not till after the victory of Marius over the
Cimbri, that their country was reduced to a Roman province. Under
the emperors, Venetia Prima obtained more than once, by its
calamities, a place in history. * * But the maritime province was
occupied in salt works, fisheries, and commerce. The Romans have
considered the inhabitants of this part as beneath the dignity of
history, and have left them in obscurity. * * * They dwelt there
until the period when their islands afforded a retreat to their
ruined and fugitive compatriots. Sismondi. Hist. des Rep.
Italiens, v. i. p. 313.—G. ——Compare, on the origin of Venice,
Daru, Hist. de Venise, vol. i. c. l.—M.]
58 (return) [ See, in the second volume of Amelot de la Houssaie,
Histoire du Gouvernement de Venise, a translation of the famous
Squittinio. This book, which has been exalted far above its
merits, is stained, in every line, with the disingenuous
malevolence of party: but the principal evidence, genuine and
apocryphal, is brought together and the reader will easily choose
the fair medium.]
The Italians, who had long since renounced the exercise of arms,
were surprised, after forty years’ peace, by the approach of a
formidable Barbarian, whom they abhorred, as the enemy of their
religion, as well as of their republic. Amidst the general
consternation, Ætius alone was incapable of fear; but it was
impossible that he should achieve, alone and unassisted, any
military exploits worthy of his former renown. The Barbarians who
had defended Gaul, refused to march to the relief of Italy; and
the succors promised by the Eastern emperor were distant and
doubtful. Since Ætius, at the head of his domestic troops, still
maintained the field, and harassed or retarded the march of
Attila, he never showed himself more truly great, than at the
time when his conduct was blamed by an ignorant and ungrateful
people. 59 If the mind of Valentinian had been susceptible of any
generous sentiments, he would have chosen such a general for his
example and his guide. But the timid grandson of Theodosius,
instead of sharing the dangers, escaped from the sound of war;
and his hasty retreat from Ravenna to Rome, from an impregnable
fortress to an open capital, betrayed his secret intention of
abandoning Italy, as soon as the danger should approach his
Imperial person. This shameful abdication was suspended, however,
by the spirit of doubt and delay, which commonly adheres to
pusillanimous counsels, and sometimes corrects their pernicious
tendency. The Western emperor, with the senate and people of
Rome, embraced the more salutary resolution of deprecating, by a
solemn and suppliant embassy, the wrath of Attila. This important
commission was accepted by Avienus, who, from his birth and
riches, his consular dignity, the numerous train of his clients,
and his personal abilities, held the first rank in the Roman
senate. The specious and artful character of Avienus 60 was
admirably qualified to conduct a negotiation either of public or
private interest: his colleague Trigetius had exercised the
Prætorian praefecture of Italy; and Leo, bishop of Rome,
consented to expose his life for the safety of his flock. The
genius of Leo 61 was exercised and displayed in the public
misfortunes; and he has deserved the appellation of Great, by the
successful zeal with which he labored to establish his opinions
and his authority, under the venerable names of orthodox faith
and ecclesiastical discipline. The Roman ambassadors were
introduced to the tent of Attila, as he lay encamped at the place
where the slow-winding Mincius is lost in the foaming waves of
the Lake Benacus, 62 and trampled, with his Scythian cavalry, the
farms of Catullus and Virgil. 63 The Barbarian monarch listened
with favorable, and even respectful, attention; and the
deliverance of Italy was purchased by the immense ransom, or
dowry, of the princess Honoria. The state of his army might
facilitate the treaty, and hasten his retreat. Their martial
spirit was relaxed by the wealth and idolence of a warm climate.
The shepherds of the North, whose ordinary food consisted of milk
and raw flesh, indulged themselves too freely in the use of
bread, of wine, and of meat, prepared and seasoned by the arts of
cookery; and the progress of disease revenged in some measure the
injuries of the Italians. 64 When Attila declared his resolution
of carrying his victorious arms to the gates of Rome, he was
admonished by his friends, as well as by his enemies, that Alaric
had not long survived the conquest of the eternal city. His mind,
superior to real danger, was assaulted by imaginary terrors; nor
could he escape the influence of superstition, which had so often
been subservient to his designs. 65 The pressing eloquence of
Leo, his majestic aspect and sacerdotal robes, excited the
veneration of Attila for the spiritual father of the Christians.
The apparition of the two apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, who
menaced the Barbarian with instant death, if he rejected the
prayer of their successor, is one of the noblest legends of
ecclesiastical tradition. The safety of Rome might deserve the
interposition of celestial beings; and some indulgence is due to
a fable, which has been represented by the pencil of Raphael, and
the chisel of Algardi. 66
59 (return) [ Sirmond (Not. ad Sidon. Apollin. p. 19) has
published a curious passage from the Chronicle of Prosper.
Attila, redintegratis viribus, quas in Gallia amiserat, Italiam
ingredi per Pannonias intendit; nihil duce nostro Aetio secundum
prioris belli opera prospiciente, &c. He reproaches Ætius with
neglecting to guard the Alps, and with a design to abandon Italy;
but this rash censure may at least be counterbalanced by the
favorable testimonies of Idatius and Isidore.]
60 (return) [ See the original portraits of Avienus and his rival
Basilius, delineated and contrasted in the epistles (i. 9. p. 22)
of Sidonius. He had studied the characters of the two chiefs of
the senate; but he attached himself to Basilius, as the more
solid and disinterested friend.]
61 (return) [ The character and principles of Leo may be traced
in one hundred and forty-one original epistles, which illustrate
the ecclesiastical history of his long and busy pontificate, from
A.D. 440 to 461. See Dupin, Bibliothèque Ecclesiastique, tom.
iii. part ii p. 120-165.]
62 (return) [
Tardis ingens ubi flexibus errat Mincius, et tenera praetexit
arundine ripas ———- Anne lacus tantos, te Lari maxime, teque
Fluctibus, et fremitu assurgens Benace marino.]
63 (return) [ The marquis Maffei (Verona Illustrata, part i. p.
95, 129, 221, part ii. p. 2, 6) has illustrated with taste and
learning this interesting topography. He places the interview of
Attila and St. Leo near Ariolica, or Ardelica, now Peschiera, at
the conflux of the lake and river; ascertains the villa of
Catullus, in the delightful peninsula of Sirmio, and discovers
the Andes of Virgil, in the village of Bandes, precisely situate,
qua se subducere colles incipiunt, where the Veronese hills
imperceptibly slope down into the plain of Mantua. * Note: Gibbon
has made a singular mistake: the Mincius flows out of the Bonacus
at Peschiera, not into it. The interview is likewise placed at
Ponte Molino. and at Governolo, at the conflux of the Mincio and
the Gonzaga. bishop of Mantua, erected a tablet in the year 1616,
in the church of the latter place, commemorative of the event.
Descrizione di Verona a de la sua provincia. C. 11, p. 126.—M.]
64 (return) [ Si statim infesto agmine urbem petiissent, grande
discrimen esset: sed in Venetia quo fere tractu Italia mollissima
est, ipsa soli coelique clementia robur elanquit. Ad hoc panis
usu carnisque coctae, et dulcedine vini mitigatos, &c. This
passage of Florus (iii. 3) is still more applicable to the Huns
than to the Cimbri, and it may serve as a commentary on the
celestial plague, with which Idatius and Isidore have afflicted
the troops of Attila.]
65 (return) [ The historian Priscus had positively mentioned the
effect which this example produced on the mind of Attila.
Jornandes, c. 42, p. 673]
66 (return) [ The picture of Raphael is in the Vatican; the basso
(or perhaps the alto) relievo of Algardi, on one of the altars of
St. Peter, (see Dubos, Reflexions sur la Poesie et sur la
Peinture, tom. i. p. 519, 520.) Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D.
452, No. 57, 58) bravely sustains the truth of the apparition;
which is rejected, however, by the most learned and pious
Catholics.]
Before the king of the Huns evacuated Italy, he threatened to
return more dreadful, and more implacable, if his bride, the
princess Honoria, were not delivered to his ambassadors within
the term stipulated by the treaty. Yet, in the mean while, Attila
relieved his tender anxiety, by adding a beautiful maid, whose
name was Ildico, to the list of his innumerable wives. 67 Their
marriage was celebrated with barbaric pomp and festivity, at his
wooden palace beyond the Danube; and the monarch, oppressed with
wine and sleep, retired at a late hour from the banquet to the
nuptial bed. His attendants continued to respect his pleasures,
or his repose, the greatest part of the ensuing day, till the
unusual silence alarmed their fears and suspicions; and, after
attempting to awaken Attila by loud and repeated cries, they at
length broke into the royal apartment. They found the trembling
bride sitting by the bedside, hiding her face with her veil, and
lamenting her own danger, as well as the death of the king, who
had expired during the night. 68 An artery had suddenly burst:
and as Attila lay in a supine posture, he was suffocated by a
torrent of blood, which, instead of finding a passage through the
nostrils, regurgitated into the lungs and stomach. His body was
solemnly exposed in the midst of the plain, under a silken
pavilion; and the chosen squadrons of the Huns, wheeling round in
measured evolutions, chanted a funeral song to the memory of a
hero, glorious in his life, invincible in his death, the father
of his people, the scourge of his enemies, and the terror of the
world. According to their national custom, the Barbarians cut off
a part of their hair, gashed their faces with unseemly wounds,
and bewailed their valiant leader as he deserved, not with the
tears of women, but with the blood of warriors. The remains of
Attila were enclosed within three coffins, of gold, of silver,
and of iron, and privately buried in the night: the spoils of
nations were thrown into his grave; the captives who had opened
the ground were inhumanly massacred; and the same Huns, who had
indulged such excessive grief, feasted, with dissolute and
intemperate mirth, about the recent sepulchre of their king. It
was reported at Constantinople, that on the fortunate night on
which he expired, Marcian beheld in a dream the bow of Attila
broken asunder: and the report may be allowed to prove, how
seldom the image of that formidable Barbarian was absent from the
mind of a Roman emperor. 69
67 (return) [ Attila, ut Priscus historicus refert, extinctionis
suae tempore, puellam Ildico nomine, decoram, valde, sibi
matrimonium post innumerabiles uxores... socians. Jornandes, c.
49, p. 683, 684.
He afterwards adds, (c. 50, p. 686,) Filii Attilæ, quorum per
licentiam libidinis poene populus fuit. Polygamy has been
established among the Tartars of every age. The rank of plebeian
wives is regulated only by their personal charms; and the faded
matron prepares, without a murmur, the bed which is destined for
her blooming rival. But in royal families, the daughters of Khans
communicate to their sons a prior right. See Genealogical
History, p. 406, 407, 408.]
68 (return) [ The report of her guilt reached Constantinople,
where it obtained a very different name; and Marcellinus
observes, that the tyrant of Europe was slain in the night by the
hand, and the knife, of a woman Corneille, who has adapted the
genuine account to his tragedy, describes the irruption of blood
in forty bombast lines, and Attila exclaims, with ridiculous
fury,
S’il ne veut s’arreter, (his blood.) (Dit-il) on me payera ce qui
m’en va couter.]
69 (return) [ The curious circumstances of the death and funeral
of Attila are related by Jornandes, (c. 49, p. 683, 684, 685,)
and were probably transcribed from Priscus.]
The revolution which subverted the empire of the Huns,
established the fame of Attila, whose genius alone had sustained
the huge and disjointed fabric. After his death, the boldest
chieftains aspired to the rank of kings; the most powerful kings
refused to acknowledge a superior; and the numerous sons, whom so
many various mothers bore to the deceased monarch, divided and
disputed, like a private inheritance, the sovereign command of
the nations of Germany and Scythia. The bold Ardaric felt and
represented the disgrace of this servile partition; and his
subjects, the warlike Gepidae, with the Ostrogoths, under the
conduct of three valiant brothers, encouraged their allies to
vindicate the rights of freedom and royalty. In a bloody and
decisive conflict on the banks of the River Netad, in Pannonia,
the lance of the Gepidae, the sword of the Goths, the arrows of
the Huns, the Suevic infantry, the light arms of the Heruli, and
the heavy weapons of the Alani, encountered or supported each
other; and the victory of the Ardaric was accompanied with the
slaughter of thirty thousand of his enemies. Ellac, the eldest
son of Attila, lost his life and crown in the memorable battle of
Netad: his early valor had raised him to the throne of the
Acatzires, a Scythian people, whom he subdued; and his father,
who loved the superior merit, would have envied the death of
Ellac. 70 His brother, Dengisich, with an army of Huns, still
formidable in their flight and ruin, maintained his ground above
fifteen years on the banks of the Danube. The palace of Attila,
with the old country of Dacia, from the Carpathian hills to the
Euxine, became the seat of a new power, which was erected by
Ardaric, king of the Gepidae. The Pannonian conquests from Vienna
to Sirmium, were occupied by the Ostrogoths; and the settlements
of the tribes, who had so bravely asserted their native freedom,
were irregularly distributed, according to the measure of their
respective strength. Surrounded and oppressed by the multitude of
his father’s slaves, the kingdom of Dengisich was confined to the
circle of his wagons; his desperate courage urged him to invade
the Eastern empire: he fell in battle; and his head ignominiously
exposed in the Hippodrome, exhibited a grateful spectacle to the
people of Constantinople. Attila had fondly or superstitiously
believed, that Irnac, the youngest of his sons, was destined to
perpetuate the glories of his race. The character of that prince,
who attempted to moderate the rashness of his brother Dengisich,
was more suitable to the declining condition of the Huns; and
Irnac, with his subject hordes, retired into the heart of the
Lesser Scythia. They were soon overwhelmed by a torrent of new
Barbarians, who followed the same road which their own ancestors
had formerly discovered. The Geougen, or Avares, whose residence
is assigned by the Greek writers to the shores of the ocean,
impelled the adjacent tribes; till at length the Igours of the
North, issuing from the cold Siberian regions, which produce the
most valuable furs, spread themselves over the desert, as far as
the Borysthenes and the Caspian gates; and finally extinguished
the empire of the Huns. 71
70 (return) [ See Jornandes, de Rebus Geticis, c. 50, p. 685,
686, 687, 688. His distinction of the national arms is curious
and important. Nan ibi admirandum reor fuisse spectaculum, ubi
cernere erat cunctis, pugnantem Gothum ense furentem, Gepidam in
vulnere suorum cuncta tela frangentem, Suevum pede, Hunnum
sagitta praesumere, Alanum gravi Herulum levi, armatura, aciem
instruere. I am not precisely informed of the situation of the
River Netad.]
71 (return) [ Two modern historians have thrown much new light on
the ruin and division of the empire of Attila; M. de Buat, by his
laborious and minute diligence, (tom. viii. p. 3-31, 68-94,) and
M. de Guignes, by his extraordinary knowledge of the Chinese
language and writers. See Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 315-319.]
Such an event might contribute to the safety of the Eastern
empire, under the reign of a prince who conciliated the
friendship, without forfeiting the esteem, of the Barbarians. But
the emperor of the West, the feeble and dissolute Valentinian,
who had reached his thirty-fifth year without attaining the age
of reason or courage, abused this apparent security, to undermine
the foundations of his own throne, by the murder of the patrician
Ætius. From the instinct of a base and jealous mind, he hated the
man who was universally celebrated as the terror of the
Barbarians, and the support of the republic; 711 and his new
favorite, the eunuch Heraclius, awakened the emperor from the
supine lethargy, which might be disguised, during the life of
Placidia, 72 by the excuse of filial piety. The fame of Ætius,
his wealth and dignity, the numerous and martial train of
Barbarian followers, his powerful dependants, who filled the
civil offices of the state, and the hopes of his son Gaudentius,
who was already contracted to Eudoxia, the emperor’s daughter,
had raised him above the rank of a subject. The ambitious
designs, of which he was secretly accused, excited the fears, as
well as the resentment, of Valentinian. Ætius himself, supported
by the consciousness of his merit, his services, and perhaps his
innocence, seems to have maintained a haughty and indiscreet
behavior. The patrician offended his sovereign by a hostile
declaration; he aggravated the offence, by compelling him to
ratify, with a solemn oath, a treaty of reconciliation and
alliance; he proclaimed his suspicions, he neglected his safety;
and from a vain confidence that the enemy, whom he despised, was
incapable even of a manly crime, he rashly ventured his person in
the palace of Rome. Whilst he urged, perhaps with intemperate
vehemence, the marriage of his son, Valentinian, drawing his
sword, the first sword he had ever drawn, plunged it in the
breast of a general who had saved his empire: his courtiers and
eunuchs ambitiously struggled to imitate their master; and Ætius,
pierced with a hundred wounds, fell dead in the royal presence.
Boethius, the Prætorian praefect, was killed at the same moment,
and before the event could be divulged, the principal friends of
the patrician were summoned to the palace, and separately
murdered. The horrid deed, palliated by the specious names of
justice and necessity, was immediately communicated by the
emperor to his soldiers, his subjects, and his allies. The
nations, who were strangers or enemies to Ætius, generously
deplored the unworthy fate of a hero: the Barbarians, who had
been attached to his service, dissembled their grief and
resentment: and the public contempt, which had been so long
entertained for Valentinian, was at once converted into deep and
universal abhorrence. Such sentiments seldom pervade the walls of
a palace; yet the emperor was confounded by the honest reply of a
Roman, whose approbation he had not disdained to solicit. “I am
ignorant, sir, of your motives or provocations; I only know, that
you have acted like a man who cuts off his right hand with his
left.” 73
711 (return) [ The praises awarded by Gibbon to the character of
Ætius have been animadverted upon with great severity. (See Mr.
Herbert’s Attila. p. 321.) I am not aware that Gibbon has
dissembled or palliated any of the crimes or treasons of Ætius:
but his position at the time of his murder was certainly that of
the preserver of the empire, the conqueror of the most dangerous
of the barbarians: it is by no means clear that he was not
“innocent” of any treasonable designs against Valentinian. If the
early acts of his life, the introduction of the Huns into Italy,
and of the Vandals into Africa, were among the proximate causes
of the ruin of the empire, his murder was the signal for its
almost immediate downfall.—M.]
72 (return) [ Placidia died at Rome, November 27, A.D. 450. She
was buried at Ravenna, where her sepulchre, and even her corpse,
seated in a chair of cypress wood, were preserved for ages. The
empress received many compliments from the orthodox clergy; and
St. Peter Chrysologus assured her, that her zeal for the Trinity
had been recompensed by an august trinity of children. See
Tillemont, Uist. Jer Emp. tom. vi. p. 240.]
73 (return) [ Aetium Placidus mactavit semivir amens, is the
expression of Sidonius, (Panegyr. Avit. 359.) The poet knew the
world, and was not inclined to flatter a minister who had injured
or disgraced Avitus and Majorian, the successive heroes of his
song.]
The luxury of Rome seems to have attracted the long and frequent
visits of Valentinian; who was consequently more despised at Rome
than in any other part of his dominions. A republican spirit was
insensibly revived in the senate, as their authority, and even
their supplies, became necessary for the support of his feeble
government. The stately demeanor of an hereditary monarch
offended their pride; and the pleasures of Valentinian were
injurious to the peace and honor of noble families. The birth of
the empress Eudoxia was equal to his own, and her charms and
tender affection deserved those testimonies of love which her
inconstant husband dissipated in vague and unlawful amours.
Petronius Maximus, a wealthy senator of the Anician family, who
had been twice consul, was possessed of a chaste and beautiful
wife: her obstinate resistance served only to irritate the
desires of Valentinian; and he resolved to accomplish them,
either by stratagem or force. Deep gaming was one of the vices of
the court: the emperor, who, by chance or contrivance, had gained
from Maximus a considerable sum, uncourteously exacted his ring
as a security for the debt; and sent it by a trusty messenger to
his wife, with an order, in her husband’s name, that she should
immediately attend the empress Eudoxia. The unsuspecting wife of
Maximus was conveyed in her litter to the Imperial palace; the
emissaries of her impatient lover conducted her to a remote and
silent bed-chamber; and Valentinian violated, without remorse,
the laws of hospitality. Her tears, when she returned home, her
deep affliction, and her bitter reproaches against a husband whom
she considered as the accomplice of his own shame, excited
Maximus to a just revenge; the desire of revenge was stimulated
by ambition; and he might reasonably aspire, by the free suffrage
of the Roman senate, to the throne of a detested and despicable
rival. Valentinian, who supposed that every human breast was
devoid, like his own, of friendship and gratitude, had
imprudently admitted among his guards several domestics and
followers of Ætius. Two of these, of Barbarian race were
persuaded to execute a sacred and honorable duty, by punishing
with death the assassin of their patron; and their intrepid
courage did not long expect a favorable moment. Whilst
Valentinian amused himself, in the field of Mars, with the
spectacle of some military sports, they suddenly rushed upon him
with drawn weapons, despatched the guilty Heraclius, and stabbed
the emperor to the heart, without the least opposition from his
numerous train, who seemed to rejoice in the tyrant’s death. Such
was the fate of Valentinian the Third, 74 the last Roman emperor
of the family of Theodosius. He faithfully imitated the
hereditary weakness of his cousin and his two uncles, without
inheriting the gentleness, the purity, the innocence, which
alleviate, in their characters, the want of spirit and ability.
Valentinian was less excusable, since he had passions, without
virtues: even his religion was questionable; and though he never
deviated into the paths of heresy, he scandalized the pious
Christians by his attachment to the profane arts of magic and
divination.
74 (return) [ With regard to the cause and circumstances of the
deaths of Ætius and Valentinian, our information is dark and
imperfect. Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 4, p. 186, 187,
188) is a fabulous writer for the events which precede his own
memory. His narrative must therefore be supplied and corrected by
five or six Chronicles, none of which were composed in Rome or
Italy; and which can only express, in broken sentences, the
popular rumors, as they were conveyed to Gaul, Spain, Africa,
Constantinople, or Alexandria.]
As early as the time of Cicero and Varro, it was the opinion of
the Roman augurs, that the twelve vultures which Romulus had
seen, represented the twelve centuries, assigned for the fatal
period of his city. 75 This prophecy, disregarded perhaps in the
season of health and prosperity, inspired the people with gloomy
apprehensions, when the twelfth century, clouded with disgrace
and misfortune, was almost elapsed; 76 and even posterity must
acknowledge with some surprise, that the arbitrary interpretation
of an accidental or fabulous circumstance has been seriously
verified in the downfall of the Western empire. But its fall was
announced by a clearer omen than the flight of vultures: the
Roman government appeared every day less formidable to its
enemies, more odious and oppressive to its subjects. 77 The taxes
were multiplied with the public distress; economy was neglected
in proportion as it became necessary; and the injustice of the
rich shifted the unequal burden from themselves to the people,
whom they defrauded of the indulgences that might sometimes have
alleviated their misery. The severe inquisition which confiscated
their goods, and tortured their persons, compelled the subjects
of Valentinian to prefer the more simple tyranny of the
Barbarians, to fly to the woods and mountains, or to embrace the
vile and abject condition of mercenary servants. They abjured and
abhorred the name of Roman citizens, which had formerly excited
the ambition of mankind. The Armorican provinces of Gaul, and the
greatest part of Spain, were-thrown into a state of disorderly
independence, by the confederations of the Bagaudae; and the
Imperial ministers pursued with proscriptive laws, and
ineffectual arms, the rebels whom they had made. 78 If all the
Barbarian conquerors had been annihilated in the same hour, their
total destruction would not have restored the empire of the West:
and if Rome still survived, she survived the loss of freedom, of
virtue, and of honor.
75 (return) [ This interpretation of Vettius, a celebrated augur,
was quoted by Varro, in the xviiith book of his Antiquities.
Censorinus, de Die Natali, c. 17, p. 90, 91, edit. Havercamp.]
76 (return) [ According to Varro, the twelfth century would
expire A.D. 447, but the uncertainty of the true era of Rome
might allow some latitude of anticipation or delay. The poets of
the age, Claudian (de Bell Getico, 265) and Sidonius, (in
Panegyr. Avit. 357,) may be admitted as fair witnesses of the
popular opinion.
Jam reputant annos, interceptoque volatu Vulturis, incidunt
properatis saecula metis. ....... Jam prope fata tui bissenas
Vulturis alas Implebant; seis namque tuos, scis, Roma, labores.
—See Dubos, Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 340-346.]
77 (return) [ The fifth book of Salvian is filled with pathetic
lamentations and vehement invectives. His immoderate freedom
serves to prove the weakness, as well as the corruption, of the
Roman government. His book was published after the loss of
Africa, (A.D. 439,) and before Attila’s war, (A.D. 451.)]
78 (return) [ The Bagaudae of Spain, who fought pitched battles
with the Roman troops, are repeatedly mentioned in the Chronicle
of Idatius. Salvian has described their distress and rebellion in
very forcible language. Itaque nomen civium Romanorum... nunc
ultro repudiatur ac fugitur, nec vile tamen sed etiam abominabile
poene habetur... Et hinc est ut etiam hi quid ad Barbaros non
confugiunt, Barbari tamen esse coguntur, scilicet ut est pars
magna Hispanorum, et non minima Gallorum.... De Bagaudis nunc
mihi sermo est, qui per malos judices et cruentos spoliati,
afflicti, necati postquam jus Romanae libertatis amiserant, etiam
honorem Romani nominis perdiderunt.... Vocamus rabelles, vocamus
perditos quos esse compulimua criminosos. De Gubernat. Dei, l. v.
p. 158, 159.]
Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Part I.
Sack Of Rome By Genseric, King Of The Vandals.—His Naval
Depredations.—Succession Of The Last Emperors Of The West,
Maximus, Avitus, Majorian, Severus, Anthemius, Olybrius,
Glycerius, Nepos, Augustulus.—Total Extinction Of The Western
Empire.—Reign Of Odoacer, The First Barbarian King Of Italy.
The loss or desolation of the provinces, from the Ocean to the
Alps, impaired the glory and greatness of Rome: her internal
prosperity was irretrievably destroyed by the separation of
Africa. The rapacious Vandals confiscated the patrimonial estates
of the senators, and intercepted the regular subsidies, which
relieved the poverty and encouraged the idleness of the
plebeians. The distress of the Romans was soon aggravated by an
unexpected attack; and the province, so long cultivated for their
use by industrious and obedient subjects, was armed against them
by an ambitious Barbarian. The Vandals and Alani, who followed
the successful standard of Genseric, had acquired a rich and
fertile territory, which stretched along the coast above ninety
days’ journey from Tangier to Tripoli; but their narrow limits
were pressed and confined, on either side, by the sandy desert
and the Mediterranean. The discovery and conquest of the Black
nations, that might dwell beneath the torrid zone, could not
tempt the rational ambition of Genseric; but he cast his eyes
towards the sea; he resolved to create a naval power, and his
bold resolution was executed with steady and active perseverance.
The woods of Mount Atlas afforded an inexhaustible nursery of
timber: his new subjects were skilled in the arts of navigation
and ship-building; he animated his daring Vandals to embrace a
mode of warfare which would render every maritime country
accessible to their arms; the Moors and Africans were allured by
the hopes of plunder; and, after an interval of six centuries,
the fleets that issued from the port of Carthage again claimed
the empire of the Mediterranean. The success of the Vandals, the
conquest of Sicily, the sack of Palermo, and the frequent
descents on the coast of Lucania, awakened and alarmed the mother
of Valentinian, and the sister of Theodosius. Alliances were
formed; and armaments, expensive and ineffectual, were prepared,
for the destruction of the common enemy; who reserved his courage
to encounter those dangers which his policy could not prevent or
elude. The designs of the Roman government were repeatedly
baffled by his artful delays, ambiguous promises, and apparent
concessions; and the interposition of his formidable confederate,
the king of the Huns, recalled the emperors from the conquest of
Africa to the care of their domestic safety. The revolutions of
the palace, which left the Western empire without a defender, and
without a lawful prince, dispelled the apprehensions, and
stimulated the avarice, of Genseric. He immediately equipped a
numerous fleet of Vandals and Moors, and cast anchor at the mouth
of the Tyber, about three months after the death of Valentinian,
and the elevation of Maximus to the Imperial throne.
The private life of the senator Petronius Maximus 1 was often
alleged as a rare example of human felicity. His birth was noble
and illustrious, since he descended from the Anician family; his
dignity was supported by an adequate patrimony in land and money;
and these advantages of fortune were accompanied with liberal
arts and decent manners, which adorn or imitate the inestimable
gifts of genius and virtue. The luxury of his palace and table
was hospitable and elegant. Whenever Maximus appeared in public,
he was surrounded by a train of grateful and obsequious clients;
2 and it is possible that among these clients, he might deserve
and possess some real friends. His merit was rewarded by the
favor of the prince and senate: he thrice exercised the office of
Prætorian praefect of Italy; he was twice invested with the
consulship, and he obtained the rank of patrician. These civil
honors were not incompatible with the enjoyment of leisure and
tranquillity; his hours, according to the demands of pleasure or
reason, were accurately distributed by a water-clock; and this
avarice of time may be allowed to prove the sense which Maximus
entertained of his own happiness. The injury which he received
from the emperor Valentinian appears to excuse the most bloody
revenge. Yet a philosopher might have reflected, that, if the
resistance of his wife had been sincere, her chastity was still
inviolate, and that it could never be restored if she had
consented to the will of the adulterer. A patriot would have
hesitated before he plunged himself and his country into those
inevitable calamities which must follow the extinction of the
royal house of Theodosius. The imprudent Maximus disregarded
these salutary considerations; he gratified his resentment and
ambition; he saw the bleeding corpse of Valentinian at his feet;
and he heard himself saluted Emperor by the unanimous voice of
the senate and people. But the day of his inauguration was the
last day of his happiness. He was imprisoned (such is the lively
expression of Sidonius) in the palace; and after passing a
sleepless night, he sighed that he had attained the summit of his
wishes, and aspired only to descend from the dangerous elevation.
Oppressed by the weight of the diadem, he communicated his
anxious thoughts to his friend and quaestor Fulgentius; and when
he looked back with unavailing regret on the secure pleasures of
his former life, the emperor exclaimed, “O fortunate Damocles, 3
thy reign began and ended with the same dinner;” a well-known
allusion, which Fulgentius afterwards repeated as an instructive
lesson for princes and subjects.
1 (return) [ Sidonius Apollinaris composed the thirteenth epistle
of the second book, to refute the paradox of his friend Serranus,
who entertained a singular, though generous, enthusiasm for the
deceased emperor. This epistle, with some indulgence, may claim
the praise of an elegant composition; and it throws much light on
the character of Maximus.]
2 (return) [ Clientum, praevia, pedisequa, circumfusa,
populositas, is the train which Sidonius himself (l. i. epist. 9)
assigns to another senator of rank]
3 (return) [
Districtus ensis cui super impia Cervice pendet, non Siculoe dapes
Dulcem elaborabunt saporem: Non avium citharaeque cantus Somnum
reducent. —Horat. Carm. iii. 1.
Sidonius concludes his letter with the story of Damocles, which
Cicero (Tusculan. v. 20, 21) had so inimitably told.]
The reign of Maximus continued about three months. His hours, of
which he had lost the command, were disturbed by remorse, or
guilt, or terror, and his throne was shaken by the seditions of
the soldiers, the people, and the confederate Barbarians. The
marriage of his son Paladius with the eldest daughter of the late
emperor, might tend to establish the hereditary succession of his
family; but the violence which he offered to the empress Eudoxia,
could proceed only from the blind impulse of lust or revenge. His
own wife, the cause of these tragic events, had been seasonably
removed by death; and the widow of Valentinian was compelled to
violate her decent mourning, perhaps her real grief, and to
submit to the embraces of a presumptuous usurper, whom she
suspected as the assassin of her deceased husband. These
suspicions were soon justified by the indiscreet confession of
Maximus himself; and he wantonly provoked the hatred of his
reluctant bride, who was still conscious that she was descended
from a line of emperors. From the East, however, Eudoxia could
not hope to obtain any effectual assistance; her father and her
aunt Pulcheria were dead; her mother languished at Jerusalem in
disgrace and exile; and the sceptre of Constantinople was in the
hands of a stranger. She directed her eyes towards Carthage;
secretly implored the aid of the king of the Vandals; and
persuaded Genseric to improve the fair opportunity of disguising
his rapacious designs by the specious names of honor, justice,
and compassion. 4 Whatever abilities Maximus might have shown in
a subordinate station, he was found incapable of administering an
empire; and though he might easily have been informed of the
naval preparations which were made on the opposite shores of
Africa, he expected with supine indifference the approach of the
enemy, without adopting any measures of defence, of negotiation,
or of a timely retreat. When the Vandals disembarked at the mouth
of the Tyber, the emperor was suddenly roused from his lethargy
by the clamors of a trembling and exasperated multitude. The only
hope which presented itself to his astonished mind was that of a
precipitate flight, and he exhorted the senators to imitate the
example of their prince. But no sooner did Maximus appear in the
streets, than he was assaulted by a shower of stones; a Roman, or
a Burgundian soldier, claimed the honor of the first wound; his
mangled body was ignominiously cast into the Tyber; the Roman
people rejoiced in the punishment which they had inflicted on the
author of the public calamities; and the domestics of Eudoxia
signalized their zeal in the service of their mistress. 5
4 (return) [ Notwithstanding the evidence of Procopius, Evagrius,
Idatius Marcellinus, &c., the learned Muratori (Annali d’Italia,
tom. iv. p. 249) doubts the reality of this invitation, and
observes, with great truth, “Non si puo dir quanto sia facile il
popolo a sognare e spacciar voci false.” But his argument, from
the interval of time and place, is extremely feeble. The figs
which grew near Carthage were produced to the senate of Rome on
the third day.]
5 (return) [
Infidoque tibi Burgundio ductu Extorquet trepidas mactandi
principis iras. —-Sidon. in Panegyr. Avit. 442.
A remarkable line, which insinuates that Rome and Maximus were
betrayed by their Burgundian mercenaries.]
On the third day after the tumult, Genseric boldly advanced from
the port of Ostia to the gates of the defenceless city. Instead
of a sally of the Roman youth, there issued from the gates an
unarmed and venerable procession of the bishop at the head of his
clergy. 6 The fearless spirit of Leo, his authority and
eloquence, again mitigated the fierceness of a Barbarian
conqueror; the king of the Vandals promised to spare the
unresisting multitude, to protect the buildings from fire, and to
exempt the captives from torture; and although such orders were
neither seriously given, nor strictly obeyed, the mediation of
Leo was glorious to himself, and in some degree beneficial to his
country. But Rome and its inhabitants were delivered to the
licentiousness of the Vandals and Moors, whose blind passions
revenged the injuries of Carthage. The pillage lasted fourteen
days and nights; and all that yet remained of public or private
wealth, of sacred or profane treasure, was diligently transported
to the vessels of Genseric. Among the spoils, the splendid relics
of two temples, or rather of two religions, exhibited a memorable
example of the vicissitudes of human and divine things.
Since the abolition of Paganism, the Capitol had been violated
and abandoned; yet the statues of the gods and heroes were still
respected, and the curious roof of gilt bronze was reserved for
the rapacious hands of Genseric. 7 The holy instruments of the
Jewish worship, 8 the gold table, and the gold candlestick with
seven branches, originally framed according to the particular
instructions of God himself, and which were placed in the
sanctuary of his temple, had been ostentatiously displayed to the
Roman people in the triumph of Titus. They were afterwards
deposited in the temple of Peace; and at the end of four hundred
years, the spoils of Jerusalem were transferred from Rome to
Carthage, by a Barbarian who derived his origin from the shores
of the Baltic. These ancient monuments might attract the notice
of curiosity, as well as of avarice. But the Christian churches,
enriched and adorned by the prevailing superstition of the times,
afforded more plentiful materials for sacrilege; and the pious
liberality of Pope Leo, who melted six silver vases, the gift of
Constantine, each of a hundred pounds weight, is an evidence of
the damage which he attempted to repair. In the forty-five years
that had elapsed since the Gothic invasion, the pomp and luxury
of Rome were in some measure restored; and it was difficult
either to escape, or to satisfy, the avarice of a conqueror, who
possessed leisure to collect, and ships to transport, the wealth
of the capital. The Imperial ornaments of the palace, the
magnificent furniture and wardrobe, the sideboards of massy
plate, were accumulated with disorderly rapine; the gold and
silver amounted to several thousand talents; yet even the brass
and copper were laboriously removed. Eudoxia herself, who
advanced to meet her friend and deliverer, soon bewailed the
imprudence of her own conduct. She was rudely stripped of her
jewels; and the unfortunate empress, with her two daughters, the
only surviving remains of the great Theodosius, was compelled, as
a captive, to follow the haughty Vandal; who immediately hoisted
sail, and returned with a prosperous navigation to the port of
Carthage. 9 Many thousand Romans of both sexes, chosen for some
useful or agreeable qualifications, reluctantly embarked on board
the fleet of Genseric; and their distress was aggravated by the
unfeeling Barbarians, who, in the division of the booty,
separated the wives from their husbands, and the children from
their parents. The charity of Deogratias, bishop of Carthage, 10
was their only consolation and support. He generously sold the
gold and silver plate of the church to purchase the freedom of
some, to alleviate the slavery of others, and to assist the wants
and infirmities of a captive multitude, whose health was impaired
by the hardships which they had suffered in their passage from
Italy to Africa. By his order, two spacious churches were
converted into hospitals; the sick were distributed into
convenient beds, and liberally supplied with food and medicines;
and the aged prelate repeated his visits both in the day and
night, with an assiduity that surpassed his strength, and a
tender sympathy which enhanced the value of his services. Compare
this scene with the field of Cannae; and judge between Hannibal
and the successor of St. Cyprian. 11
6 (return) [The apparant success of Pope Leo may be justified by
Prosper, and the Historia Miscellan.; but the improbable notion
of Baronius A.D. 455, (No. 13) that Genseric spared the three
apostolical churches, is not countenanced even by the doubtful
testimony of the Liber Pontificalis.]
7 (return) [ The profusion of Catulus, the first who gilt the
roof of the Capitol, was not universally approved, (Plin. Hist.
Natur. xxxiii. 18;) but it was far exceeded by the emperor’s, and
the external gilding of the temple cost Domitian 12,000 talents,
(2,400,000 L.) The expressions of Claudian and Rutilius (luce
metalli oemula.... fastigia astris, and confunduntque vagos
delubra micantia visus) manifestly prove, that this splendid
covering was not removed either by the Christians or the Goths,
(see Donatus, Roma Antiqua, l. ii. c. 6, p. 125.) It should seem
that the roof of the Capitol was decorated with gilt statues, and
chariots drawn by four horses.]
8 (return) [ The curious reader may consult the learned and
accurate treatise of Hadrian Reland, de Spoliis Templi
Hierosolymitani in Arcu Titiano Romae conspicuis, in 12mo.
Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1716.]
9 (return) [ The vessel which transported the relics of the
Capitol was the only one of the whole fleet that suffered
shipwreck. If a bigoted sophist, a Pagan bigot, had mentioned the
accident, he might have rejoiced that this cargo of sacrilege was
lost in the sea.]
10 (return) [ See Victor Vitensis, de Persecut. Vandal. l. i. c.
8, p. 11, 12, edit. Ruinart. Deogratius governed the church of
Carthage only three years. If he had not been privately buried,
his corpse would have been torn piecemeal by the mad devotion of
the people.]
11 (return) [ The general evidence for the death of Maximus, and
the sack of Rome by the Vandals, is comprised in Sidonius,
(Panegyr. Avit. 441-450,) Procopius, (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c.
4, 5, p. 188, 189, and l. ii. c. 9, p. 255,) Evagrius, (l. ii. c.
7,) Jornandes, (de Reb. Geticis, c. 45, p. 677,) and the
Chronicles of Idatius, Prosper, Marcellinus, and Theophanes,
under the proper year.]
The deaths of Ætius and Valentinian had relaxed the ties which
held the Barbarians of Gaul in peace and subordination. The
sea-coast was infested by the Saxons; the Alemanni and the Franks
advanced from the Rhine to the Seine; and the ambition of the
Goths seemed to meditate more extensive and permanent conquests.
The emperor Maximus relieved himself, by a judicious choice, from
the weight of these distant cares; he silenced the solicitations
of his friends, listened to the voice of fame, and promoted a
stranger to the general command of the forces of Gaul.
Avitus, 12 the stranger, whose merit was so nobly rewarded,
descended from a wealthy and honorable family in the diocese of
Auvergne. The convulsions of the times urged him to embrace, with
the same ardor, the civil and military professions: and the
indefatigable youth blended the studies of literature and
jurisprudence with the exercise of arms and hunting. Thirty years
of his life were laudably spent in the public service; he
alternately displayed his talents in war and negotiation; and the
soldier of Ætius, after executing the most important embassies,
was raised to the station of Prætorian praefect of Gaul. Either
the merit of Avitus excited envy, or his moderation was desirous
of repose, since he calmly retired to an estate, which he
possessed in the neighborhood of Clermont. A copious stream,
issuing from the mountain, and falling headlong in many a loud
and foaming cascade, discharged its waters into a lake about two
miles in length, and the villa was pleasantly seated on the
margin of the lake. The baths, the porticos, the summer and
winter apartments, were adapted to the purposes of luxury and
use; and the adjacent country afforded the various prospects of
woods, pastures, and meadows. 13 In this retreat, where Avitus
amused his leisure with books, rural sports, the practice of
husbandry, and the society of his friends, 14 he received the
Imperial diploma, which constituted him master-general of the
cavalry and infantry of Gaul. He assumed the military command;
the Barbarians suspended their fury; and whatever means he might
employ, whatever concessions he might be forced to make, the
people enjoyed the benefits of actual tranquillity. But the fate
of Gaul depended on the Visigoths; and the Roman general, less
attentive to his dignity than to the public interest, did not
disdain to visit Thoulouse in the character of an ambassador. He
was received with courteous hospitality by Theodoric, the king of
the Goths; but while Avitus laid the foundations of a solid
alliance with that powerful nation, he was astonished by the
intelligence, that the emperor Maximus was slain, and that Rome
had been pillaged by the Vandals. A vacant throne, which he might
ascend without guilt or danger, tempted his ambition; 15 and the
Visigoths were easily persuaded to support his claim by their
irresistible suffrage. They loved the person of Avitus; they
respected his virtues; and they were not insensible of the
advantage, as well as honor, of giving an emperor to the West.
The season was now approaching, in which the annual assembly of
the seven provinces was held at Arles; their deliberations might
perhaps be influenced by the presence of Theodoric and his
martial brothers; but their choice would naturally incline to the
most illustrious of their countrymen. Avitus, after a decent
resistance, accepted the Imperial diadem from the representatives
of Gaul; and his election was ratified by the acclamations of the
Barbarians and provincials. The formal consent of Marcian,
emperor of the East, was solicited and obtained; but the senate,
Rome, and Italy, though humbled by their recent calamities,
submitted with a secret murmur to the presumption of the Gallic
usurper.
12 (return) [ The private life and elevation of Avitus must be
deduced, with becoming suspicion, from the panegyric pronounced
by Sidonius Apollinaris, his subject, and his son-in-law.]
13 (return) [ After the example of the younger Pliny, Sidonius
(l. ii. c. 2) has labored the florid, prolix, and obscure
description of his villa, which bore the name, (Avitacum,) and
had been the property of Avitus. The precise situation is not
ascertained. Consult, however, the notes of Savaron and Sirmond.]
14 (return) [ Sidonius (l. ii. epist. 9) has described the
country life of the Gallic nobles, in a visit which he made to
his friends, whose estates were in the neighborhood of Nismes.
The morning hours were spent in the sphoeristerium, or
tennis-court; or in the library, which was furnished with Latin
authors, profane and religious; the former for the men, the
latter for the ladies. The table was twice served, at dinner and
supper, with hot meat (boiled and roast) and wine. During the
intermediate time, the company slept, took the air on horseback,
and need the warm bath.]
15 (return) [ Seventy lines of panegyric (505-575) which describe
the importunity of Theodoric and of Gaul, struggling to overcome
the modest reluctance of Avitus, are blown away by three words of
an honest historian. Romanum ambisset Imperium, (Greg. Turon. l.
ii. c. 1l, in tom. ii. p. 168.)]
Theodoric, to whom Avitus was indebted for the purple, had
acquired the Gothic sceptre by the murder of his elder brother
Torismond; and he justified this atrocious deed by the design
which his predecessor had formed of violating his alliance with
the empire. 16 Such a crime might not be incompatible with the
virtues of a Barbarian; but the manners of Theodoric were gentle
and humane; and posterity may contemplate without terror the
original picture of a Gothic king, whom Sidonius had intimately
observed, in the hours of peace and of social intercourse. In an
epistle, dated from the court of Thoulouse, the orator satisfies
the curiosity of one of his friends, in the following
description: 17 “By the majesty of his appearance, Theodoric
would command the respect of those who are ignorant of his merit;
and although he is born a prince, his merit would dignify a
private station. He is of a middle stature, his body appears
rather plump than fat, and in his well-proportioned limbs agility
is united with muscular strength. 18 If you examine his
countenance, you will distinguish a high forehead, large shaggy
eyebrows, an aquiline nose, thin lips, a regular set of white
teeth, and a fair complexion, that blushes more frequently from
modesty than from anger. The ordinary distribution of his time,
as far as it is exposed to the public view, may be concisely
represented. Before daybreak, he repairs, with a small train, to
his domestic chapel, where the service is performed by the Arian
clergy; but those who presume to interpret his secret sentiments,
consider this assiduous devotion as the effect of habit and
policy. The rest of the morning is employed in the administration
of his kingdom. His chair is surrounded by some military officers
of decent aspect and behavior: the noisy crowd of his Barbarian
guards occupies the hall of audience; but they are not permitted
to stand within the veils or curtains that conceal the
council-chamber from vulgar eyes. The ambassadors of the nations
are successively introduced: Theodoric listens with attention,
answers them with discreet brevity, and either announces or
delays, according to the nature of their business, his final
resolution. About eight (the second hour) he rises from his
throne, and visits either his treasury or his stables. If he
chooses to hunt, or at least to exercise himself on horseback,
his bow is carried by a favorite youth; but when the game is
marked, he bends it with his own hand, and seldom misses the
object of his aim: as a king, he disdains to bear arms in such
ignoble warfare; but as a soldier, he would blush to accept any
military service which he could perform himself. On common days,
his dinner is not different from the repast of a private citizen,
but every Saturday, many honorable guests are invited to the
royal table, which, on these occasions, is served with the
elegance of Greece, the plenty of Gaul, and the order and
diligence of Italy. 19 The gold or silver plate is less
remarkable for its weight than for the brightness and curious
workmanship: the taste is gratified without the help of foreign
and costly luxury; the size and number of the cups of wine are
regulated with a strict regard to the laws of temperance; and the
respectful silence that prevails, is interrupted only by grave
and instructive conversation. After dinner, Theodoric sometimes
indulges himself in a short slumber; and as soon as he wakes, he
calls for the dice and tables, encourages his friends to forget
the royal majesty, and is delighted when they freely express the
passions which are excited by the incidents of play. At this
game, which he loves as the image of war, he alternately displays
his eagerness, his skill, his patience, and his cheerful temper.
If he loses, he laughs; he is modest and silent if he wins. Yet,
notwithstanding this seeming indifference, his courtiers choose
to solicit any favor in the moments of victory; and I myself, in
my applications to the king, have derived some benefit from my
losses. 20 About the ninth hour (three o’clock) the tide of
business again returns, and flows incessantly till after sunset,
when the signal of the royal supper dismisses the weary crowd of
suppliants and pleaders. At the supper, a more familiar repast,
buffoons and pantomimes are sometimes introduced, to divert, not
to offend, the company, by their ridiculous wit: but female
singers, and the soft, effeminate modes of music, are severely
banished, and such martial tunes as animate the soul to deeds of
valor are alone grateful to the ear of Theodoric. He retires from
table; and the nocturnal guards are immediately posted at the
entrance of the treasury, the palace, and the private
apartments.”
16 (return) [ Isidore, archbishop of Seville, who was himself of
the blood royal of the Goths, acknowledges, and almost justifies,
(Hist. Goth. p. 718,) the crime which their slave Jornandes had
basely dissembled, (c 43, p. 673.)]
17 (return) [ This elaborate description (l. i. ep. ii. p. 2-7)
was dictated by some political motive. It was designed for the
public eye, and had been shown by the friends of Sidonius, before
it was inserted in the collection of his epistles. The first book
was published separately. See Tillemont, Mémoires Eccles. tom.
xvi. p. 264.]
18 (return) [ I have suppressed, in this portrait of Theodoric,
several minute circumstances, and technical phrases, which could
be tolerable, or indeed intelligible, to those only who, like the
contemporaries of Sidonius, had frequented the markets where
naked slaves were exposed to sale, (Dubos, Hist. Critique, tom.
i. p. 404.)]
19 (return) [ Videas ibi elegantiam Græcam, abundantiam
Gallicanam; celeritatem Italam; publicam pompam, privatam
diligentiam, regiam disciplinam.]
20 (return) [ Tunc etiam ego aliquid obsecraturus feliciter
vincor, et mihi tabula perit ut causa salvetur. Sidonius of
Auvergne was not a subject of Theodoric; but he might be
compelled to solicit either justice or favor at the court of
Thoulouse.]
When the king of the Visigoths encouraged Avitus to assume the
purple, he offered his person and his forces, as a faithful
soldier of the republic. 21 The exploits of Theodoric soon
convinced the world that he had not degenerated from the warlike
virtues of his ancestors. After the establishment of the Goths in
Aquitain, and the passage of the Vandals into Africa, the Suevi,
who had fixed their kingdom in Gallicia, aspired to the conquest
of Spain, and threatened to extinguish the feeble remains of the
Roman dominion. The provincials of Carthagena and Tarragona,
afflicted by a hostile invasion, represented their injuries and
their apprehensions. Count Fronto was despatched, in the name of
the emperor Avitus, with advantageous offers of peace and
alliance; and Theodoric interposed his weighty mediation, to
declare, that, unless his brother-in-law, the king of the Suevi,
immediately retired, he should be obliged to arm in the cause of
justice and of Rome. “Tell him,” replied the haughty Rechiarius,
“that I despise his friendship and his arms; but that I shall
soon try whether he will dare to expect my arrival under the
walls of Thoulouse.” Such a challenge urged Theodoric to prevent
the bold designs of his enemy; he passed the Pyrenees at the head
of the Visigoths: the Franks and Burgundians served under his
standard; and though he professed himself the dutiful servant of
Avitus, he privately stipulated, for himself and his successors,
the absolute possession of his Spanish conquests. The two armies,
or rather the two nations, encountered each other on the banks of
the River Urbicus, about twelve miles from Astorga; and the
decisive victory of the Goths appeared for a while to have
extirpated the name and kingdom of the Suevi. From the field of
battle Theodoric advanced to Braga, their metropolis, which still
retained the splendid vestiges of its ancient commerce and
dignity. 22 His entrance was not polluted with blood; and the
Goths respected the chastity of their female captives, more
especially of the consecrated virgins: but the greatest part of
the clergy and people were made slaves, and even the churches and
altars were confounded in the universal pillage. The unfortunate
king of the Suevi had escaped to one of the ports of the ocean;
but the obstinacy of the winds opposed his flight: he was
delivered to his implacable rival; and Rechiarius, who neither
desired nor expected mercy, received, with manly constancy, the
death which he would probably have inflicted. After this bloody
sacrifice to policy or resentment, Theodoric carried his
victorious arms as far as Merida, the principal town of
Lusitania, without meeting any resistance, except from the
miraculous powers of St. Eulalia; but he was stopped in the full
career of success, and recalled from Spain before he could
provide for the security of his conquests. In his retreat towards
the Pyrenees, he revenged his disappointment on the country
through which he passed; and, in the sack of Pollentia and
Astorga, he showed himself a faithless ally, as well as a cruel
enemy. Whilst the king of the Visigoths fought and vanquished in
the name of Avitus, the reign of Avitus had expired; and both the
honor and the interest of Theodoric were deeply wounded by the
disgrace of a friend, whom he had seated on the throne of the
Western empire. 23
21 (return) [ Theodoric himself had given a solemn and voluntary
promise of fidelity, which was understood both in Gaul and Spain.
Romae sum, te duce, Amicus, Principe te, Miles. Sidon. Panegyr.
Avit. 511.]
22 (return) [ Quaeque sinu pelagi jactat se Bracara dives. Auson.
de Claris Urbibus, p. 245. ——From the design of the king of the
Suevi, it is evident that the navigation from the ports of
Gallicia to the Mediterranean was known and practised. The ships
of Bracara, or Braga, cautiously steered along the coast, without
daring to lose themselves in the Atlantic.]
23 (return) [ This Suevic war is the most authentic part of the
Chronicle of Idatius, who, as bishop of Iria Flavia, was himself
a spectator and a sufferer. Jornandes (c. 44, p. 675, 676, 677)
has expatiated, with pleasure, on the Gothic victory.]
Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Part II.
The pressing solicitations of the senate and people persuaded the
emperor Avitus to fix his residence at Rome, and to accept the
consulship for the ensuing year. On the first day of January, his
son-in-law, Sidonius Apollinaris, celebrated his praises in a
panegyric of six hundred verses; but this composition, though it
was rewarded with a brass statue, 24 seems to contain a very
moderate proportion, either of genius or of truth. The poet, if
we may degrade that sacred name, exaggerates the merit of a
sovereign and a father; and his prophecy of a long and glorious
reign was soon contradicted by the event. Avitus, at a time when
the Imperial dignity was reduced to a preeminence of toil and
danger, indulged himself in the pleasures of Italian luxury: age
had not extinguished his amorous inclinations; and he is accused
of insulting, with indiscreet and ungenerous raillery, the
husbands whose wives he had seduced or violated. 25 But the
Romans were not inclined either to excuse his faults or to
acknowledge his virtues. The several parts of the empire became
every day more alienated from each other; and the stranger of
Gaul was the object of popular hatred and contempt. The senate
asserted their legitimate claim in the election of an emperor;
and their authority, which had been originally derived from the
old constitution, was again fortified by the actual weakness of a
declining monarchy. Yet even such a monarchy might have resisted
the votes of an unarmed senate, if their discontent had not been
supported, or perhaps inflamed, by the Count Ricimer, one of the
principal commanders of the Barbarian troops, who formed the
military defence of Italy. The daughter of Wallia, king of the
Visigoths, was the mother of Ricimer; but he was descended, on
the father’s side, from the nation of the Suevi; 26 his pride or
patriotism might be exasperated by the misfortunes of his
countrymen; and he obeyed, with reluctance, an emperor in whose
elevation he had not been consulted. His faithful and important
services against the common enemy rendered him still more
formidable; 27 and, after destroying on the coast of Corsica a
fleet of Vandals, which consisted of sixty galleys, Ricimer
returned in triumph with the appellation of the Deliverer of
Italy. He chose that moment to signify to Avitus, that his reign
was at an end; and the feeble emperor, at a distance from his
Gothic allies, was compelled, after a short and unavailing
struggle to abdicate the purple. By the clemency, however, or the
contempt, of Ricimer, 28 he was permitted to descend from the
throne to the more desirable station of bishop of Placentia: but
the resentment of the senate was still unsatisfied; and their
inflexible severity pronounced the sentence of his death. He fled
towards the Alps, with the humble hope, not of arming the
Visigoths in his cause, but of securing his person and treasures
in the sanctuary of Julian, one of the tutelar saints of
Auvergne. 29 Disease, or the hand of the executioner, arrested
him on the road; yet his remains were decently transported to
Brivas, or Brioude, in his native province, and he reposed at the
feet of his holy patron. 30 Avitus left only one daughter, the
wife of Sidonius Apollinaris, who inherited the patrimony of his
father-in-law; lamenting, at the same time, the disappointment of
his public and private expectations. His resentment prompted him
to join, or at least to countenance, the measures of a rebellious
faction in Gaul; and the poet had contracted some guilt, which it
was incumbent on him to expiate, by a new tribute of flattery to
the succeeding emperor. 31
24 (return) [ In one of the porticos or galleries belonging to
Trajan’s library, among the statues of famous writers and
orators. Sidon. Apoll. l. ix. epist, 16, p. 284. Carm. viii. p.
350.]
25 (return) [ Luxuriose agere volens a senatoribus projectus est,
is the concise expression of Gregory of Tours, (l. ii. c. xi. in
tom. ii. p. 168.) An old Chronicle (in tom. ii. p. 649) mentions
an indecent jest of Avitus, which seems more applicable to Rome
than to Treves.]
26 (return) [ Sidonius (Panegyr. Anthem. 302, &c.) praises the
royal birth of Ricimer, the lawful heir, as he chooses to
insinuate, both of the Gothic and Suevic kingdoms.]
27 (return) [ See the Chronicle of Idatius. Jornandes (c. xliv.
p. 676) styles him, with some truth, virum egregium, et pene tune
in Italia ad ex ercitum singularem.]
28 (return) [ Parcens innocentiae Aviti, is the compassionate,
but contemptuous, language of Victor Tunnunensis, (in Chron. apud
Scaliger Euseb.) In another place, he calls him, vir totius
simplicitatis. This commendation is more humble, but it is more
solid and sincere, than the praises of Sidonius]
29 (return) [ He suffered, as it is supposed, in the persecution
of Diocletian, (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. v. p. 279, 696.)
Gregory of Tours, his peculiar votary, has dedicated to the glory
of Julian the Martyr an entire book, (de Gloria Martyrum, l. ii.
in Max. Bibliot. Patrum, tom. xi. p. 861-871,) in which he
relates about fifty foolish miracles performed by his relics.]
30 (return) [ Gregory of Tours (l. ii. c. xi. p. 168) is concise,
but correct, in the reign of his countryman. The words of
Idatius, “cadet imperio, caret et vita,” seem to imply, that the
death of Avitus was violent; but it must have been secret, since
Evagrius (l. ii. c. 7) could suppose, that he died of the
plaque.]
31 (return) [ After a modest appeal to the examples of his
brethren, Virgil and Horace, Sidonius honestly confesses the
debt, and promises payment.
Sic mihi diverso nuper sub Marte cadenti Jussisti placido Victor
ut essem animo. Serviat ergo tibi servati lingua poetae, Atque
meae vitae laus tua sit pretium. —Sidon. Apoll. Carm. iv. p. 308
See Dubos, Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 448, &c.]
The successor of Avitus presents the welcome discovery of a great
and heroic character, such as sometimes arise, in a degenerate
age, to vindicate the honor of the human species. The emperor
Majorian has deserved the praises of his contemporaries, and of
posterity; and these praises may be strongly expressed in the
words of a judicious and disinterested historian: “That he was
gentle to his subjects; that he was terrible to his enemies; and
that he excelled, in every virtue, all his predecessors who had
reigned over the Romans.” 32 Such a testimony may justify at
least the panegyric of Sidonius; and we may acquiesce in the
assurance, that, although the obsequious orator would have
flattered, with equal zeal, the most worthless of princes, the
extraordinary merit of his object confined him, on this occasion,
within the bounds of truth. 33 Majorian derived his name from his
maternal grandfather, who, in the reign of the great Theodosius,
had commanded the troops of the Illyrian frontier. He gave his
daughter in marriage to the father of Majorian, a respectable
officer, who administered the revenues of Gaul with skill and
integrity; and generously preferred the friendship of Ætius to
the tempting offer of an insidious court. His son, the future
emperor, who was educated in the profession of arms, displayed,
from his early youth, intrepid courage, premature wisdom, and
unbounded liberality in a scanty fortune. He followed the
standard of Ætius, contributed to his success, shared, and
sometimes eclipsed, his glory, and at last excited the jealousy
of the patrician, or rather of his wife, who forced him to retire
from the service. 34 Majorian, after the death of Ætius, was
recalled and promoted; and his intimate connection with Count
Ricimer was the immediate step by which he ascended the throne of
the Western empire. During the vacancy that succeeded the
abdication of Avitus, the ambitious Barbarian, whose birth
excluded him from the Imperial dignity, governed Italy with the
title of Patrician; resigned to his friend the conspicuous
station of master-general of the cavalry and infantry; and, after
an interval of some months, consented to the unanimous wish of
the Romans, whose favor Majorian had solicited by a recent
victory over the Alemanni. 35 He was invested with the purple at
Ravenna: and the epistle which he addressed to the senate, will
best describe his situation and his sentiments. “Your election,
Conscript Fathers! and the ordinance of the most valiant army,
have made me your emperor. 36 May the propitious Deity direct and
prosper the counsels and events of my administration, to your
advantage and to the public welfare! For my own part, I did not
aspire, I have submitted to reign; nor should I have discharged
the obligations of a citizen if I had refused, with base and
selfish ingratitude, to support the weight of those labors, which
were imposed by the republic. Assist, therefore, the prince whom
you have made; partake the duties which you have enjoined; and
may our common endeavors promote the happiness of an empire,
which I have accepted from your hands. Be assured, that, in our
times, justice shall resume her ancient vigor, and that virtue
shall become, not only innocent, but meritorious. Let none,
except the authors themselves, be apprehensive of delations, 37
which, as a subject, I have always condemned, and, as a prince,
will severely punish. Our own vigilance, and that of our father,
the patrician Ricimer, shall regulate all military affairs, and
provide for the safety of the Roman world, which we have saved
from foreign and domestic enemies. 38 You now understand the
maxims of my government; you may confide in the faithful love and
sincere assurances of a prince who has formerly been the
companion of your life and dangers; who still glories in the name
of senator, and who is anxious that you should never repent the
judgment which you have pronounced in his favor.” The emperor,
who, amidst the ruins of the Roman world, revived the ancient
language of law and liberty, which Trajan would not have
disclaimed, must have derived those generous sentiments from his
own heart; since they were not suggested to his imitation by the
customs of his age, or the example of his predecessors. 39
32 (return) [ The words of Procopius deserve to be transcribed
(de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 7, p. 194;) a concise but
comprehensive definition of royal virtue.]
33 (return) [ The Panegyric was pronounced at Lyons before the
end of the year 458, while the emperor was still consul. It has
more art than genius, and more labor than art. The ornaments are
false and trivial; the expression is feeble and prolix; and
Sidonius wants the skill to exhibit the principal figure in a
strong and distinct light. The private life of Majorian occupies
about two hundred lines, 107-305.]
34 (return) [ She pressed his immediate death, and was scarcely
satisfied with his disgrace. It should seem that Ætius, like
Belisarius and Marlborough, was governed by his wife; whose
fervent piety, though it might work miracles, (Gregor. Turon. l.
ii. c. 7, p. 162,) was not incompatible with base and sanguinary
counsels.]
35 (return) [ The Alemanni had passed the Rhaetian Alps, and were
defeated in the Campi Canini, or Valley of Bellinzone, through
which the Tesin flows, in its descent from Mount Adula to the
Lago Maggiore, (Cluver Italia Antiq. tom. i. p. 100, 101.) This
boasted victory over nine hundred Barbarians (Panegyr. Majorian.
373, &c.) betrays the extreme weakness of Italy.]
36 (return) [ Imperatorem me factum, P.C. electionis vestrae
arbitrio, et fortissimi exercitus ordinatione agnoscite, (Novell.
Majorian. tit. iii. p. 34, ad Calcem. Cod. Theodos.) Sidonius
proclaims the unanimous voice of the empire:—
Postquam ordine vobis Ordo omnis regnum dederat; plebs, curia,
nules, —-Et collega simul. 386.
This language is ancient and constitutional; and we may observe,
that the clergy were not yet considered as a distinct order of
the state.]
37 (return) [ Either dilationes, or delationes would afford a
tolerable reading, but there is much more sense and spirit in the
latter, to which I have therefore given the preference.]
38 (return) [ Ab externo hoste et a domestica clade liberavimus:
by the latter, Majorian must understand the tyranny of Avitus;
whose death he consequently avowed as a meritorious act. On this
occasion, Sidonius is fearful and obscure; he describes the
twelve Caesars, the nations of Africa, &c., that he may escape
the dangerous name of Avitus (805-369.)]
39 (return) [ See the whole edict or epistle of Majorian to the
senate, (Novell. tit. iv. p. 34.) Yet the expression, regnum
nostrum, bears some taint of the age, and does not mix kindly
with the word respublica, which he frequently repeats.]
The private and public actions of Majorian are very imperfectly
known: but his laws, remarkable for an original cast of thought
and expression, faithfully represent the character of a sovereign
who loved his people, who sympathized in their distress, who had
studied the causes of the decline of the empire, and who was
capable of applying (as far as such reformation was practicable)
judicious and effectual remedies to the public disorders. 40 His
regulations concerning the finances manifestly tended to remove,
or at least to mitigate, the most intolerable grievances. I. From
the first hour of his reign, he was solicitous (I translate his
own words) to relieve the weary fortunes of the provincials,
oppressed by the accumulated weight of indictions and
superindictions. 41 With this view he granted a universal
amnesty, a final and absolute discharge of all arrears of
tribute, of all debts, which, under any pretence, the fiscal
officers might demand from the people. This wise dereliction of
obsolete, vexatious, and unprofitable claims, improved and
purified the sources of the public revenue; and the subject who
could now look back without despair, might labor with hope and
gratitude for himself and for his country. II. In the assessment
and collection of taxes, Majorian restored the ordinary
jurisdiction of the provincial magistrates; and suppressed the
extraordinary commissions which had been introduced, in the name
of the emperor himself, or of the Prætorian praefects. The
favorite servants, who obtained such irregular powers, were
insolent in their behavior, and arbitrary in their demands: they
affected to despise the subordinate tribunals, and they were
discontented, if their fees and profits did not twice exceed the
sum which they condescended to pay into the treasury. One
instance of their extortion would appear incredible, were it not
authenticated by the legislator himself. They exacted the whole
payment in gold: but they refused the current coin of the empire,
and would accept only such ancient pieces as were stamped with
the names of Faustina or the Antonines. The subject, who was
unprovided with these curious medals, had recourse to the
expedient of compounding with their rapacious demands; or if he
succeeded in the research, his imposition was doubled, according
to the weight and value of the money of former times. 42 III.
“The municipal corporations, (says the emperor,) the lesser
senates, (so antiquity has justly styled them,) deserve to be
considered as the heart of the cities, and the sinews of the
republic. And yet so low are they now reduced, by the injustice
of magistrates and the venality of collectors, that many of their
members, renouncing their dignity and their country, have taken
refuge in distant and obscure exile.” He urges, and even compels,
their return to their respective cities; but he removes the
grievance which had forced them to desert the exercise of their
municipal functions. They are directed, under the authority of
the provincial magistrates, to resume their office of levying the
tribute; but, instead of being made responsible for the whole sum
assessed on their district, they are only required to produce a
regular account of the payments which they have actually
received, and of the defaulters who are still indebted to the
public. IV. But Majorian was not ignorant that these corporate
bodies were too much inclined to retaliate the injustice and
oppression which they had suffered; and he therefore revives the
useful office of the defenders of cities. He exhorts the people
to elect, in a full and free assembly, some man of discretion and
integrity, who would dare to assert their privileges, to
represent their grievances, to protect the poor from the tyranny
of the rich, and to inform the emperor of the abuses that were
committed under the sanction of his name and authority.
40 (return) [ See the laws of Majorian (they are only nine in
number, but very long, and various) at the end of the Theodosian
Code, Novell. l. iv. p. 32-37. Godefroy has not given any
commentary on these additional pieces.]
41 (return) [ Fessas provincialium varia atque multiplici
tributorum exactione fortunas, et extraordinariis fiscalium
solutionum oneribus attritas, &c. Novell. Majorian. tit. iv. p.
34.]
42 (return) [ The learned Greaves (vol. i. p. 329, 330, 331) has
found, by a diligent inquiry, that aurei of the Antonines weighed
one hundred and eighteen, and those of the fifth century only
sixty-eight, English grains. Majorian gives currency to all gold
coin, excepting only the Gallic solidus, from its deficiency, not
in the weight, but in the standard.]
The spectator who casts a mournful view over the ruins of ancient
Rome, is tempted to accuse the memory of the Goths and Vandals,
for the mischief which they had neither leisure, nor power, nor
perhaps inclination, to perpetrate. The tempest of war might
strike some lofty turrets to the ground; but the destruction
which undermined the foundations of those massy fabrics was
prosecuted, slowly and silently, during a period of ten
centuries; and the motives of interest, that afterwards operated
without shame or control, were severely checked by the taste and
spirit of the emperor Majorian. The decay of the city had
gradually impaired the value of the public works. The circus and
theatres might still excite, but they seldom gratified, the
desires of the people: the temples, which had escaped the zeal of
the Christians, were no longer inhabited, either by gods or men;
the diminished crowds of the Romans were lost in the immense
space of their baths and porticos; and the stately libraries and
halls of justice became useless to an indolent generation, whose
repose was seldom disturbed, either by study or business. The
monuments of consular, or Imperial, greatness were no longer
revered, as the immortal glory of the capital: they were only
esteemed as an inexhaustible mine of materials, cheaper, and more
convenient than the distant quarry. Specious petitions were
continually addressed to the easy magistrates of Rome, which
stated the want of stones or bricks, for some necessary service:
the fairest forms of architecture were rudely defaced, for the
sake of some paltry, or pretended, repairs; and the degenerate
Romans, who converted the spoil to their own emolument,
demolished, with sacrilegious hands, the labors of their
ancestors. Majorian, who had often sighed over the desolation of
the city, applied a severe remedy to the growing evil. 43 He
reserved to the prince and senate the sole cognizance of the
extreme cases which might justify the destruction of an ancient
edifice; imposed a fine of fifty pounds of gold (two thousand
pounds sterling) on every magistrate who should presume to grant
such illegal and scandalous license, and threatened to chastise
the criminal obedience of their subordinate officers, by a severe
whipping, and the amputation of both their hands. In the last
instance, the legislator might seem to forget the proportion of
guilt and punishment; but his zeal arose from a generous
principle, and Majorian was anxious to protect the monuments of
those ages, in which he would have desired and deserved to live.
The emperor conceived, that it was his interest to increase the
number of his subjects; and that it was his duty to guard the
purity of the marriage-bed: but the means which he employed to
accomplish these salutary purposes are of an ambiguous, and
perhaps exceptionable, kind. The pious maids, who consecrated
their virginity to Christ, were restrained from taking the veil
till they had reached their fortieth year. Widows under that age
were compelled to form a second alliance within the term of five
years, by the forfeiture of half their wealth to their nearest
relations, or to the state. Unequal marriages were condemned or
annulled. The punishment of confiscation and exile was deemed so
inadequate to the guilt of adultery, that, if the criminal
returned to Italy, he might, by the express declaration of
Majorian, be slain with impunity. 44
43 (return) [ The whole edict (Novell. Majorian. tit. vi. p. 35)
is curious. “Antiquarum aedium dissipatur speciosa constructio;
et ut aliquid reparetur, magna diruuntur. Hinc jam occasio
nascitur, ut etiam unusquisque privatum aedificium construens,
per gratiam judicum..... praesumere de publicis locis necessaria,
et transferre non dubitet” &c. With equal zeal, but with less
power, Petrarch, in the fourteenth century, repeated the same
complaints. (Vie de Petrarque, tom. i. p. 326, 327.) If I
prosecute this history, I shall not be unmindful of the decline
and fall of the city of Rome; an interesting object to which any
plan was originally confined.]
44 (return) [ The emperor chides the lenity of Rogatian, consular
of Tuscany in a style of acrimonious reproof, which sounds almost
like personal resentment, (Novell. tit. ix. p. 47.) The law of
Majorian, which punished obstinate widows, was soon afterwards
repealed by his successor Severus, (Novell. Sever. tit. i. p.
37.)]
While the emperor Majorian assiduously labored to restore the
happiness and virtue of the Romans, he encountered the arms of
Genseric, from his character and situation their most formidable
enemy. A fleet of Vandals and Moors landed at the mouth of the
Liris, or Garigliano; but the Imperial troops surprised and
attacked the disorderly Barbarians, who were encumbered with the
spoils of Campania; they were chased with slaughter to their
ships, and their leader, the king’s brother-in-law, was found in
the number of the slain. 45 Such vigilance might announce the
character of the new reign; but the strictest vigilance, and the
most numerous forces, were insufficient to protect the
long-extended coast of Italy from the depredations of a naval
war. The public opinion had imposed a nobler and more arduous
task on the genius of Majorian. Rome expected from him alone the
restitution of Africa; and the design, which he formed, of
attacking the Vandals in their new settlements, was the result of
bold and judicious policy. If the intrepid emperor could have
infused his own spirit into the youth of Italy; if he could have
revived in the field of Mars, the manly exercises in which he had
always surpassed his equals; he might have marched against
Genseric at the head of a Roman army. Such a reformation of
national manners might be embraced by the rising generation; but
it is the misfortune of those princes who laboriously sustain a
declining monarchy, that, to obtain some immediate advantage, or
to avert some impending danger, they are forced to countenance,
and even to multiply, the most pernicious abuses. Majorian, like
the weakest of his predecessors, was reduced to the disgraceful
expedient of substituting Barbarian auxiliaries in the place of
his unwarlike subjects: and his superior abilities could only be
displayed in the vigor and dexterity with which he wielded a
dangerous instrument, so apt to recoil on the hand that used it.
Besides the confederates, who were already engaged in the service
of the empire, the fame of his liberality and valor attracted the
nations of the Danube, the Borysthenes, and perhaps of the
Tanais. Many thousands of the bravest subjects of Attila, the
Gepidae, the Ostrogoths, the Rugians, the Burgundians, the Suevi,
the Alani, assembled in the plains of Liguria; and their
formidable strength was balanced by their mutual animosities. 46
They passed the Alps in a severe winter. The emperor led the way,
on foot, and in complete armor; sounding, with his long staff,
the depth of the ice, or snow, and encouraging the Scythians, who
complained of the extreme cold, by the cheerful assurance, that
they should be satisfied with the heat of Africa. The citizens of
Lyons had presumed to shut their gates; they soon implored, and
experienced, the clemency of Majorian. He vanquished Theodoric in
the field; and admitted to his friendship and alliance a king
whom he had found not unworthy of his arms. The beneficial,
though precarious, reunion of the greater part of Gaul and Spain,
was the effect of persuasion, as well as of force; 47 and the
independent Bagaudae, who had escaped, or resisted, the
oppression, of former reigns, were disposed to confide in the
virtues of Majorian. His camp was filled with Barbarian allies;
his throne was supported by the zeal of an affectionate people;
but the emperor had foreseen, that it was impossible, without a
maritime power, to achieve the conquest of Africa. In the first
Punic war, the republic had exerted such incredible diligence,
that, within sixty days after the first stroke of the axe had
been given in the forest, a fleet of one hundred and sixty
galleys proudly rode at anchor in the sea. 48 Under circumstances
much less favorable, Majorian equalled the spirit and
perseverance of the ancient Romans. The woods of the Apennine
were felled; the arsenals and manufactures of Ravenna and Misenum
were restored; Italy and Gaul vied with each other in liberal
contributions to the public service; and the Imperial navy of
three hundred large galleys, with an adequate proportion of
transports and smaller vessels, was collected in the secure and
capacious harbor of Carthagena in Spain. 49 The intrepid
countenance of Majorian animated his troops with a confidence of
victory; and, if we might credit the historian Procopius, his
courage sometimes hurried him beyond the bounds of prudence.
Anxious to explore, with his own eyes, the state of the Vandals,
he ventured, after disguising the color of his hair, to visit
Carthage, in the character of his own ambassador: and Genseric
was afterwards mortified by the discovery, that he had
entertained and dismissed the emperor of the Romans. Such an
anecdote may be rejected as an improbable fiction; but it is a
fiction which would not have been imagined, unless in the life of
a hero. 50
45 (return) [ Sidon. Panegyr. Majorian, 385-440.]
46 (return) [ The review of the army, and passage of the Alps,
contain the most tolerable passages of the Panegyric, (470-552.)
M. de Buat (Hist. des Peuples, &c., tom. viii. p. 49-55) is a
more satisfactory commentator, than either Savaron or Sirmond.]
47 (return) [ It is the just and forcible distinction of Priscus,
(Excerpt. Legat. p. 42,) in a short fragment, which throws much
light on the history of Majorian. Jornandes has suppressed the
defeat and alliance of the Visigoths, which were solemnly
proclaimed in Gallicia; and are marked in the Chronicle of
Idatius.]
48 (return) [ Florus, l. ii. c. 2. He amuses himself with the
poetical fancy, that the trees had been transformed into ships;
and indeed the whole transaction, as it is related in the first
book of Polybius, deviates too much from the probable course of
human events.]
49 (return) [
Iterea duplici texis dum littore classem Inferno superoque mari,
cadit omnis in aequor Sylva tibi, &c. —-Sidon. Panegyr. Majorian,
441-461.
The number of ships, which Priscus fixed at 300, is magnified, by
an indefinite comparison with the fleets of Agamemnon, Xerxes,
and Augustus.]
50 (return) [ Procopius de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 8, p. 194. When
Genseric conducted his unknown guest into the arsenal of
Carthage, the arms clashed of their own accord. Majorian had
tinged his yellow locks with a black color.]
Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Part III.
Without the help of a personal interview, Genseric was
sufficiently acquainted with the genius and designs of his
adversary. He practiced his customary arts of fraud and delay,
but he practiced them without success. His applications for peace
became each hour more submissive, and perhaps more sincere; but
the inflexible Majorian had adopted the ancient maxim, that Rome
could not be safe, as long as Carthage existed in a hostile
state. The king of the Vandals distrusted the valor of his native
subjects, who were enervated by the luxury of the South; 51 he
suspected the fidelity of the vanquished people, who abhorred him
as an Arian tyrant; and the desperate measure, which he executed,
of reducing Mauritania into a desert, 52 could not defeat the
operations of the Roman emperor, who was at liberty to land his
troops on any part of the African coast. But Genseric was saved
from impending and inevitable ruin by the treachery of some
powerful subjects, envious, or apprehensive, of their master’s
success. Guided by their secret intelligence, he surprised the
unguarded fleet in the Bay of Carthagena: many of the ships were
sunk, or taken, or burnt; and the preparations of three years
were destroyed in a single day. 53 After this event, the behavior
of the two antagonists showed them superior to their fortune. The
Vandal, instead of being elated by this accidental victory,
immediately renewed his solicitations for peace. The emperor of
the West, who was capable of forming great designs, and of
supporting heavy disappointments, consented to a treaty, or
rather to a suspension of arms; in the full assurance that,
before he could restore his navy, he should be supplied with
provocations to justify a second war. Majorian returned to Italy,
to prosecute his labors for the public happiness; and, as he was
conscious of his own integrity, he might long remain ignorant of
the dark conspiracy which threatened his throne and his life. The
recent misfortune of Carthagena sullied the glory which had
dazzled the eyes of the multitude; almost every description of
civil and military officers were exasperated against the
Reformer, since they all derived some advantage from the abuses
which he endeavored to suppress; and the patrician Ricimer
impelled the inconstant passions of the Barbarians against a
prince whom he esteemed and hated. The virtues of Majorian could
not protect him from the impetuous sedition, which broke out in
the camp near Tortona, at the foot of the Alps. He was compelled
to abdicate the Imperial purple: five days after his abdication,
it was reported that he died of a dysentery; 54 and the humble
tomb, which covered his remains, was consecrated by the respect
and gratitude of succeeding generations. 55 The private character
of Majorian inspired love and respect. Malicious calumny and
satire excited his indignation, or, if he himself were the
object, his contempt; but he protected the freedom of wit, and,
in the hours which the emperor gave to the familiar society of
his friends, he could indulge his taste for pleasantry, without
degrading the majesty of his rank. 56
51 (return) [
Spoliisque potitus Immensis, robux luxu jam perdidit omne, Quo
valuit dum pauper erat. —Panegyr. Majorian, 330.
He afterwards applies to Genseric, unjustly, as it should seem,
the vices of his subjects.]
52 (return) [ He burnt the villages, and poisoned the springs,
(Priscus, p. 42.) Dubos (Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 475)
observes, that the magazines which the Moors buried in the earth
might escape his destructive search. Two or three hundred pits
are sometimes dug in the same place; and each pit contains at
least four hundred bushels of corn Shaw’s Travels, p. 139.]
53 (return) [ Idatius, who was safe in Gallicia from the power of
Recimer boldly and honestly declares, Vandali per proditeres
admoniti, &c: i. e. dissembles, however, the name of the
traitor.]
54 (return) [ Procop. de Bell. Vandal. l. i. i. c. 8, p. 194. The
testimony of Idatius is fair and impartial: “Majorianum de
Galliis Romam redeuntem, et Romano imperio vel nomini res
necessarias ordinantem; Richimer livore percitus, et invidorum
consilio fultus, fraude interficit circumventum.” Some read
Suevorum, and I am unwilling to efface either of the words, as
they express the different accomplices who united in the
conspiracy against Majorian.]
55 (return) [ See the Epigrams of Ennodius, No. cxxxv. inter
Sirmond. Opera, tom. i. p. 1903. It is flat and obscure; but
Ennodius was made bishop of Pavia fifty years after the death of
Majorian, and his praise deserves credit and regard.]
56 (return) [ Sidonius gives a tedious account (l. i. epist. xi.
p. 25-31) of a supper at Arles, to which he was invited by
Majorian, a short time before his death. He had no intention of
praising a deceased emperor: but a casual disinterested remark,
“Subrisit Augustus; ut erat, auctoritate servata, cum se
communioni dedisset, joci plenus,” outweighs the six hundred
lines of his venal panegyric.]
It was not, perhaps, without some regret, that Ricimer sacrificed
his friend to the interest of his ambition: but he resolved, in a
second choice, to avoid the imprudent preference of superior
virtue and merit. At his command, the obsequious senate of Rome
bestowed the Imperial title on Libius Severus, who ascended the
throne of the West without emerging from the obscurity of a
private condition. History has scarcely deigned to notice his
birth, his elevation, his character, or his death. Severus
expired, as soon as his life became inconvenient to his patron;
57 and it would be useless to discriminate his nominal reign in
the vacant interval of six years, between the death of Majorian
and the elevation of Anthemius. During that period, the
government was in the hands of Ricimer alone; and, although the
modest Barbarian disclaimed the name of king, he accumulated
treasures, formed a separate army, negotiated private alliances,
and ruled Italy with the same independent and despotic authority,
which was afterwards exercised by Odoacer and Theodoric. But his
dominions were bounded by the Alps; and two Roman generals,
Marcellinus and Aegidius, maintained their allegiance to the
republic, by rejecting, with disdain, the phantom which he styled
an emperor. Marcellinus still adhered to the old religion; and
the devout Pagans, who secretly disobeyed the laws of the church
and state, applauded his profound skill in the science of
divination. But he possessed the more valuable qualifications of
learning, virtue, and courage; 58 the study of the Latin
literature had improved his taste; and his military talents had
recommended him to the esteem and confidence of the great Ætius,
in whose ruin he was involved. By a timely flight, Marcellinus
escaped the rage of Valentinian, and boldly asserted his liberty
amidst the convulsions of the Western empire. His voluntary, or
reluctant, submission to the authority of Majorian, was rewarded
by the government of Sicily, and the command of an army,
stationed in that island to oppose, or to attack, the Vandals;
but his Barbarian mercenaries, after the emperor’s death, were
tempted to revolt by the artful liberality of Ricimer. At the
head of a band of faithful followers, the intrepid Marcellinus
occupied the province of Dalmatia, assumed the title of patrician
of the West, secured the love of his subjects by a mild and
equitable reign, built a fleet which claimed the dominion of the
Adriatic, and alternately alarmed the coasts of Italy and of
Africa. 59 Aegidius, the master-general of Gaul, who equalled, or
at least who imitated, the heroes of ancient Rome, 60 proclaimed
his immortal resentment against the assassins of his beloved
master. A brave and numerous army was attached to his standard:
and, though he was prevented by the arts of Ricimer, and the arms
of the Visigoths, from marching to the gates of Rome, he
maintained his independent sovereignty beyond the Alps, and
rendered the name of Aegidius, respectable both in peace and war.
The Franks, who had punished with exile the youthful follies of
Childeric, elected the Roman general for their king: his vanity,
rather than his ambition, was gratified by that singular honor;
and when the nation, at the end of four years, repented of the
injury which they had offered to the Merovingian family, he
patiently acquiesced in the restoration of the lawful prince. The
authority of Aegidius ended only with his life, and the
suspicions of poison and secret violence, which derived some
countenance from the character of Ricimer, were eagerly
entertained by the passionate credulity of the Gauls. 61
57 (return) [ Sidonius (Panegyr. Anthem. 317) dismisses him to
heaven:—Auxerat Augustus naturae lege Severus—Divorum numerum.
And an old list of the emperors, composed about the time of
Justinian, praises his piety, and fixes his residence at Rome,
(Sirmond. Not. ad Sidon. p. 111, 112.)]
58 (return) [ Tillemont, who is always scandalized by the virtues
of infidels, attributes this advantageous portrait of Marcellinus
(which Suidas has preserved) to the partial zeal of some Pagan
historian, (Hist. des Empereurs. tom. vi. p. 330.)]
59 (return) [ Procopius de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 6, p. 191. In
various circumstances of the life of Marcellinus, it is not easy
to reconcile the Greek historian with the Latin Chronicles of the
times.]
60 (return) [ I must apply to Aegidius the praises which Sidonius
(Panegyr Majorian, 553) bestows on a nameless master-general, who
commanded the rear-guard of Majorian. Idatius, from public
report, commends his Christian piety; and Priscus mentions (p.
42) his military virtues.]
61 (return) [ Greg. Turon. l. ii. c. 12, in tom. ii. p. 168. The
Pere Daniel, whose ideas were superficial and modern, has started
some objections against the story of Childeric, (Hist. de France,
tom. i. Preface Historique, p. lxxvii., &c.:) but they have been
fairly satisfied by Dubos, (Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 460-510,)
and by two authors who disputed the prize of the Academy of
Soissons, (p. 131-177, 310-339.) With regard to the term of
Childeric’s exile, it is necessary either to prolong the life of
Aegidius beyond the date assigned by the Chronicle of Idatius or
to correct the text of Gregory, by reading quarto anno, instead
of octavo.]
The kingdom of Italy, a name to which the Western empire was
gradually reduced, was afflicted, under the reign of Ricimer, by
the incessant depredations of the Vandal pirates. 62 In the
spring of each year, they equipped a formidable navy in the port
of Carthage; and Genseric himself, though in a very advanced age,
still commanded in person the most important expeditions. His
designs were concealed with impenetrable secrecy, till the moment
that he hoisted sail. When he was asked, by his pilot, what
course he should steer, “Leave the determination to the winds,
(replied the Barbarian, with pious arrogance;) they will
transport us to the guilty coast, whose inhabitants have provoked
the divine justice;” but if Genseric himself deigned to issue
more precise orders, he judged the most wealthy to be the most
criminal. The Vandals repeatedly visited the coasts of Spain,
Liguria, Tuscany, Campania, Lucania, Bruttium, Apulia, Calabria,
Venetia, Dalmatia, Epirus, Greece, and Sicily: they were tempted
to subdue the Island of Sardinia, so advantageously placed in the
centre of the Mediterranean; and their arms spread desolation, or
terror, from the columns of Hercules to the mouth of the Nile. As
they were more ambitious of spoil than of glory, they seldom
attacked any fortified cities, or engaged any regular troops in
the open field. But the celerity of their motions enabled them,
almost at the same time, to threaten and to attack the most
distant objects, which attracted their desires; and as they
always embarked a sufficient number of horses, they had no sooner
landed, than they swept the dismayed country with a body of light
cavalry. Yet, notwithstanding the example of their king, the
native Vandals and Alani insensibly declined this toilsome and
perilous warfare; the hardy generation of the first conquerors
was almost extinguished, and their sons, who were born in Africa,
enjoyed the delicious baths and gardens which had been acquired
by the valor of their fathers. Their place was readily supplied
by a various multitude of Moors and Romans, of captives and
outlaws; and those desperate wretches, who had already violated
the laws of their country, were the most eager to promote the
atrocious acts which disgrace the victories of Genseric. In the
treatment of his unhappy prisoners, he sometimes consulted his
avarice, and sometimes indulged his cruelty; and the massacre of
five hundred noble citizens of Zant or Zacynthus, whose mangled
bodies he cast into the Ionian Sea, was imputed, by the public
indignation, to his latest posterity.
62 (return) [ The naval war of Genseric is described by Priscus,
(Excerpta Legation. p. 42,) Procopius, (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c.
5, p. 189, 190, and c. 22, p. 228,) Victor Vitensis, (de
Persecut. Vandal. l. i. c. 17, and Ruinart, p. 467-481,) and in
three panegyrics of Sidonius, whose chronological order is
absurdly transposed in the editions both of Savaron and Sirmond.
(Avit. Carm. vii. 441-451. Majorian. Carm. v. 327-350, 385-440.
Anthem. Carm. ii. 348-386) In one passage the poet seems inspired
by his subject, and expresses a strong idea by a lively image:—
Hinc Vandalus hostis Urget; et in nostrum numerosa classe
quotannis Militat excidium; conversoque ordine Fati Torrida
Caucaseos infert mihi Byrsa furores]
Such crimes could not be excused by any provocations; but the
war, which the king of the Vandals prosecuted against the Roman
empire was justified by a specious and reasonable motive. The
widow of Valentinian, Eudoxia, whom he had led captive from Rome
to Carthage, was the sole heiress of the Theodosian house; her
elder daughter, Eudocia, became the reluctant wife of Hunneric,
his eldest son; and the stern father, asserting a legal claim,
which could not easily be refuted or satisfied, demanded a just
proportion of the Imperial patrimony. An adequate, or at least a
valuable, compensation, was offered by the Eastern emperor, to
purchase a necessary peace. Eudoxia and her younger daughter,
Placidia, were honorably restored, and the fury of the Vandals
was confined to the limits of the Western empire. The Italians,
destitute of a naval force, which alone was capable of protecting
their coasts, implored the aid of the more fortunate nations of
the East; who had formerly acknowledged, in peace and war, the
supremacy of Rome. But the perpetual divisions of the two empires
had alienated their interest and their inclinations; the faith of
a recent treaty was alleged; and the Western Romans, instead of
arms and ships, could only obtain the assistance of a cold and
ineffectual mediation. The haughty Ricimer, who had long
struggled with the difficulties of his situation, was at length
reduced to address the throne of Constantinople, in the humble
language of a subject; and Italy submitted, as the price and
security of the alliance, to accept a master from the choice of
the emperor of the East. 63 It is not the purpose of the present
chapter, or even of the present volume, to continue the distinct
series of the Byzantine history; but a concise view of the reign
and character of the emperor Leo, may explain the last efforts
that were attempted to save the falling empire of the West. 64
63 (return) [ The poet himself is compelled to acknowledge the
distress of Ricimer:—
Præterea invictus Ricimer, quem publica fata Respiciunt, proprio
solas vix Marte repellit Piratam per rura vagum.
Italy addresses her complaint to the Tyber, and Rome, at the
solicitation of the river god, transports herself to
Constantinople, renounces her ancient claims, and implores the
friendship of Aurora, the goddess of the East. This fabulous
machinery, which the genius of Claudian had used and abused, is
the constant and miserable resource of the muse of Sidonius.]
64 (return) [ The original authors of the reigns of Marcian, Leo,
and Zeno, are reduced to some imperfect fragments, whose
deficiencies must be supplied from the more recent compilations
of Theophanes, Zonaras, and Cedrenus.]
Since the death of the younger Theodosius, the domestic repose of
Constantinople had never been interrupted by war or faction.
Pulcheria had bestowed her hand, and the sceptre of the East, on
the modest virtue of Marcian: he gratefully reverenced her august
rank and virgin chastity; and, after her death, he gave his
people the example of the religious worship that was due to the
memory of the Imperial saint. 65 Attentive to the prosperity of
his own dominions, Marcian seemed to behold, with indifference,
the misfortunes of Rome; and the obstinate refusal of a brave and
active prince, to draw his sword against the Vandals, was
ascribed to a secret promise, which had formerly been exacted
from him when he was a captive in the power of Genseric. 66 The
death of Marcian, after a reign of seven years, would have
exposed the East to the danger of a popular election; if the
superior weight of a single family had not been able to incline
the balance in favor of the candidate whose interest they
supported. The patrician Aspar might have placed the diadem on
his own head, if he would have subscribed the Nicene creed. 67
During three generations, the armies of the East were
successively commanded by his father, by himself, and by his son
Ardaburius; his Barbarian guards formed a military force that
overawed the palace and the capital; and the liberal distribution
of his immense treasures rendered Aspar as popular as he was
powerful. He recommended the obscure name of Leo of Thrace, a
military tribune, and the principal steward of his household. His
nomination was unanimously ratified by the senate; and the
servant of Aspar received the Imperial crown from the hands of
the patriarch or bishop, who was permitted to express, by this
unusual ceremony, the suffrage of the Deity. 68 This emperor, the
first of the name of Leo, has been distinguished by the title of
the Great; from a succession of princes, who gradually fixed in
the opinion of the Greeks a very humble standard of heroic, or at
least of royal, perfection. Yet the temperate firmness with which
Leo resisted the oppression of his benefactor, showed that he was
conscious of his duty and of his prerogative. Aspar was
astonished to find that his influence could no longer appoint a
praefect of Constantinople: he presumed to reproach his sovereign
with a breach of promise, and insolently shaking his purple, “It
is not proper, (said he,) that the man who is invested with this
garment, should be guilty of lying.” “Nor is it proper, (replied
Leo,) that a prince should be compelled to resign his own
judgment, and the public interest, to the will of a subject.”69
After this extraordinary scene, it was impossible that the
reconciliation of the emperor and the patrician could be sincere;
or, at least, that it could be solid and permanent. An army of
Isaurians 70 was secretly levied, and introduced into
Constantinople; and while Leo undermined the authority, and
prepared the disgrace, of the family of Aspar, his mild and
cautious behavior restrained them from any rash and desperate
attempts, which might have been fatal to themselves, or their
enemies. The measures of peace and war were affected by this
internal revolution. As long as Aspar degraded the majesty of the
throne, the secret correspondence of religion and interest
engaged him to favor the cause of Genseric. When Leo had
delivered himself from that ignominious servitude, he listened to
the complaints of the Italians; resolved to extirpate the tyranny
of the Vandals; and declared his alliance with his colleague,
Anthemius, whom he solemnly invested with the diadem and purple
of the West.
65 (return) [ St. Pulcheria died A.D. 453, four years before her
nominal husband; and her festival is celebrated on the 10th of
September by the modern Greeks: she bequeathed an immense
patrimony to pious, or, at least, to ecclesiastical, uses. See
Tillemont, Mémoires Eccles. tom. xv p. 181-184.]
66 (return) [ See Procopius, de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 4, p.
185.]
67 (return) [ From this disability of Aspar to ascend the throne,
it may be inferred that the stain of Heresy was perpetual and
indelible, while that of Barbarism disappeared in the second
generation.]
68 (return) [ Theophanes, p. 95. This appears to be the first
origin of a ceremony, which all the Christian princes of the
world have since adopted and from which the clergy have deduced
the most formidable consequences.]
69 (return) [ Cedrenus, (p. 345, 346,) who was conversant with
the writers of better days, has preserved the remarkable words of
Aspar.]
70 (return) [ The power of the Isaurians agitated the Eastern
empire in the two succeeding reigns of Zeno and Anastasius; but
it ended in the destruction of those Barbarians, who maintained
their fierce independences about two hundred and thirty years.]
The virtues of Anthemius have perhaps been magnified, since the
Imperial descent, which he could only deduce from the usurper
Procopius, has been swelled into a line of emperors. 71 But the
merit of his immediate parents, their honors, and their riches,
rendered Anthemius one of the most illustrious subjects of the
East. His father, Procopius, obtained, after his Persian embassy,
the rank of general and patrician; and the name of Anthemius was
derived from his maternal grandfather, the celebrated praefect,
who protected, with so much ability and success, the infant reign
of Theodosius. The grandson of the praefect was raised above the
condition of a private subject, by his marriage with Euphemia,
the daughter of the emperor Marcian. This splendid alliance,
which might supersede the necessity of merit, hastened the
promotion of Anthemius to the successive dignities of count, of
master-general, of consul, and of patrician; and his merit or
fortune claimed the honors of a victory, which was obtained on
the banks of the Danube, over the Huns. Without indulging an
extravagant ambition, the son-in-law of Marcian might hope to be
his successor; but Anthemius supported the disappointment with
courage and patience; and his subsequent elevation was
universally approved by the public, who esteemed him worthy to
reign, till he ascended the throne. 72 The emperor of the West
marched from Constantinople, attended by several counts of high
distinction, and a body of guards almost equal to the strength
and numbers of a regular army: he entered Rome in triumph, and
the choice of Leo was confirmed by the senate, the people, and
the Barbarian confederates of Italy. 73 The solemn inauguration
of Anthemius was followed by the nuptials of his daughter and the
patrician Ricimer; a fortunate event, which was considered as the
firmest security of the union and happiness of the state. The
wealth of two empires was ostentatiously displayed; and many
senators completed their ruin, by an expensive effort to disguise
their poverty. All serious business was suspended during this
festival; the courts of justice were shut; the streets of Rome,
the theatres, the places of public and private resort, resounded
with hymeneal songs and dances: and the royal bride, clothed in
silken robes, with a crown on her head, was conducted to the
palace of Ricimer, who had changed his military dress for the
habit of a consul and a senator. On this memorable occasion,
Sidonius, whose early ambition had been so fatally blasted,
appeared as the orator of Auvergne, among the provincial deputies
who addressed the throne with congratulations or complaints. 74
The calends of January were now approaching, and the venal poet,
who had loved Avitus, and esteemed Majorian, was persuaded by his
friends to celebrate, in heroic verse, the merit, the felicity,
the second consulship, and the future triumphs, of the emperor
Anthemius. Sidonius pronounced, with assurance and success, a
panegyric which is still extant; and whatever might be the
imperfections, either of the subject or of the composition, the
welcome flatterer was immediately rewarded with the praefecture
of Rome; a dignity which placed him among the illustrious
personages of the empire, till he wisely preferred the more
respectable character of a bishop and a saint. 75
71 (return) [
Tali tu civis ab urbe Procopio genitore micas; cui prisca propago
Augustis venit a proavis.
The poet (Sidon. Panegyr. Anthem. 67-306) then proceeds to relate
the private life and fortunes of the future emperor, with which
he must have been imperfectly acquainted.]
72 (return) [ Sidonius discovers, with tolerable ingenuity, that
this disappointment added new lustre to the virtues of Anthemius,
(210, &c.,) who declined one sceptre, and reluctantly accepted
another, (22, &c.)]
73 (return) [ The poet again celebrates the unanimity of all
orders of the state, (15-22;) and the Chronicle of Idatius
mentions the forces which attended his march.]
74 (return) [ Interveni autem nuptiis Patricii Ricimeris, cui
filia perennis Augusti in spem publicae securitatis copulabator.
The journey of Sidonius from Lyons, and the festival of Rome, are
described with some spirit. L. i. epist. 5, p. 9-13, epist. 9, p.
21.]
75 (return) [ Sidonius (l. i. epist. 9, p. 23, 24) very fairly
states his motive, his labor, and his reward. “Hic ipse
Panegyricus, si non judicium, certa eventum, boni operis,
accepit.” He was made bishop of Clermont, A.D. 471. Tillemont,
Mem. Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 750.]
The Greeks ambitiously commend the piety and catholic faith of
the emperor whom they gave to the West; nor do they forget to
observe, that when he left Constantinople, he converted his
palace into the pious foundation of a public bath, a church, and
a hospital for old men. 76 Yet some suspicious appearances are
found to sully the theological fame of Anthemius. From the
conversation of Philotheus, a Macedonian sectary, he had imbibed
the spirit of religious toleration; and the Heretics of Rome
would have assembled with impunity, if the bold and vehement
censure which Pope Hilary pronounced in the church of St. Peter,
had not obliged him to abjure the unpopular indulgence. 77 Even
the Pagans, a feeble and obscure remnant, conceived some vain
hopes, from the indifference, or partiality, of Anthemius; and
his singular friendship for the philosopher Severus, whom he
promoted to the consulship, was ascribed to a secret project, of
reviving the ancient worship of the gods. 78 These idols were
crumbled into dust: and the mythology which had once been the
creed of nations, was so universally disbelieved, that it might
be employed without scandal, or at least without suspicion, by
Christian poets. 79 Yet the vestiges of superstition were not
absolutely obliterated, and the festival of the Lupercalia, whose
origin had preceded the foundation of Rome, was still celebrated
under the reign of Anthemius. The savage and simple rites were
expressive of an early state of society before the invention of
arts and agriculture. The rustic deities who presided over the
toils and pleasures of the pastoral life, Pan, Faunus, and their
train of satyrs, were such as the fancy of shepherds might
create, sportive, petulant, and lascivious; whose power was
limited, and whose malice was inoffensive. A goat was the
offering the best adapted to their character and attributes; the
flesh of the victim was roasted on willow spits; and the riotous
youths, who crowded to the feast, ran naked about the fields,
with leather thongs in their hands, communicating, as it was
supposed, the blessing of fecundity to the women whom they
touched. 80 The altar of Pan was erected, perhaps by Evander the
Arcadian, in a dark recess in the side of the Palantine hill,
watered by a perpetual fountain, and shaded by a hanging grove. A
tradition, that, in the same place, Romulus and Remus were
suckled by the wolf, rendered it still more sacred and venerable
in the eyes of the Romans; and this sylvan spot was gradually
surrounded by the stately edifices of the Forum. 81 After the
conversion of the Imperial city, the Christians still continued,
in the month of February, the annual celebration of the
Lupercalia; to which they ascribed a secret and mysterious
influence on the genial powers of the animal and vegetable world.
The bishops of Rome were solicitous to abolish a profane custom,
so repugnant to the spirit of Christianity; but their zeal was
not supported by the authority of the civil magistrate: the
inveterate abuse subsisted till the end of the fifth century, and
Pope Gelasius, who purified the capital from the last stain of
idolatry, appeased by a formal apology, the murmurs of the senate
and people. 82
76 (return) [ The palace of Anthemius stood on the banks of the
Propontis. In the ninth century, Alexius, the son-in-law of the
emperor Theophilus, obtained permission to purchase the ground;
and ended his days in a monastery which he founded on that
delightful spot. Ducange Constantinopolis Christiana, p. 117,
152.]
77 (return) [ Papa Hilarius... apud beatum Petrum Apostolum,
palam ne id fieret, clara voce constrinxit, in tantum ut non ea
facienda cum interpositione juramenti idem promitteret Imperator.
Gelasius Epistol ad Andronicum, apud Baron. A.D. 467, No. 3. The
cardinal observes, with some complacency, that it was much easier
to plant heresies at Constantinople, than at Rome.]
78 (return) [ Damascius, in the life of the philosopher Isidore,
apud Photium, p. 1049. Damascius, who lived under Justinian,
composed another work, consisting of 570 praeternatural stories
of souls, daemons, apparitions, the dotage of Platonic Paganism.]
79 (return) [ In the poetical works of Sidonius, which he
afterwards condemned, (l. ix. epist. 16, p. 285,) the fabulous
deities are the principal actors. If Jerom was scourged by the
angels for only reading Virgil, the bishop of Clermont, for such
a vile imitation, deserved an additional whipping from the
Muses.]
80 (return) [ Ovid (Fast. l. ii. 267-452) has given an amusing
description of the follies of antiquity, which still inspired so
much respect, that a grave magistrate, running naked through the
streets, was not an object of astonishment or laughter.]
81 (return) [ See Dionys. Halicarn. l. i. p. 25, 65, edit.
Hudson. The Roman antiquaries Donatus (l. ii. c. 18, p. 173, 174)
and Nardini (p. 386, 387) have labored to ascertain the true
situation of the Lupercal.]
82 (return) [ Baronius published, from the MSS. of the Vatican,
this epistle of Pope Gelasius, (A.D. 496, No. 28-45,) which is
entitled Adversus Andromachum Senatorem, caeterosque Romanos, qui
Lupercalia secundum morem pristinum colenda constituebant.
Gelasius always supposes that his adversaries are nominal
Christians, and, that he may not yield to them in absurd
prejudice, he imputes to this harmless festival all the
calamities of the age.]
Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Part IV.
In all his public declarations, the emperor Leo assumes the
authority, and professes the affection, of a father, for his son
Anthemius, with whom he had divided the administration of the
universe. 83 The situation, and perhaps the character, of Leo,
dissuaded him from exposing his person to the toils and dangers
of an African war. But the powers of the Eastern empire were
strenuously exerted to deliver Italy and the Mediterranean from
the Vandals; and Genseric, who had so long oppressed both the
land and sea, was threatened from every side with a formidable
invasion. The campaign was opened by a bold and successful
enterprise of the praefect Heraclius. 84 The troops of Egypt,
Thebais, and Libya, were embarked, under his command; and the
Arabs, with a train of horses and camels, opened the roads of the
desert. Heraclius landed on the coast of Tripoli, surprised and
subdued the cities of that province, and prepared, by a laborious
march, which Cato had formerly executed, 85 to join the Imperial
army under the walls of Carthage. The intelligence of this loss
extorted from Genseric some insidious and ineffectual
propositions of peace; but he was still more seriously alarmed by
the reconciliation of Marcellinus with the two empires. The
independent patrician had been persuaded to acknowledge the
legitimate title of Anthemius, whom he accompanied in his journey
to Rome; the Dalmatian fleet was received into the harbors of
Italy; the active valor of Marcellinus expelled the Vandals from
the Island of Sardinia; and the languid efforts of the West added
some weight to the immense preparations of the Eastern Romans.
The expense of the naval armament, which Leo sent against the
Vandals, has been distinctly ascertained; and the curious and
instructive account displays the wealth of the declining empire.
The Royal demesnes, or private patrimony of the prince, supplied
seventeen thousand pounds of gold; forty-seven thousand pounds of
gold, and seven hundred thousand of silver, were levied and paid
into the treasury by the Prætorian praefects. But the cities were
reduced to extreme poverty; and the diligent calculation of fines
and forfeitures, as a valuable object of the revenue, does not
suggest the idea of a just or merciful administration. The whole
expense, by whatsoever means it was defrayed, of the African
campaign, amounted to the sum of one hundred and thirty thousand
pounds of gold, about five millions two hundred thousand pounds
sterling, at a time when the value of money appears, from the
comparative price of corn, to have been somewhat higher than in
the present age. 86 The fleet that sailed from Constantinople to
Carthage, consisted of eleven hundred and thirteen ships, and the
number of soldiers and mariners exceeded one hundred thousand
men. Basiliscus, the brother of the empress Vorina, was intrusted
with this important command. His sister, the wife of Leo, had
exaggerated the merit of his former exploits against the
Scythians. But the discovery of his guilt, or incapacity, was
reserved for the African war; and his friends could only save his
military reputation by asserting, that he had conspired with
Aspar to spare Genseric, and to betray the last hope of the
Western empire.
83 (return) [ Itaque nos quibus totius mundi regimen commisit
superna provisio.... Pius et triumphator semper Augustus filius
noster Anthemius, licet Divina Majestas et nostra creatio pietati
ejus plenam Imperii commiserit potestatem, &c..... Such is the
dignified style of Leo, whom Anthemius respectfully names,
Dominus et Pater meus Princeps sacratissimus Leo. See Novell.
Anthem. tit. ii. iii. p. 38, ad calcem Cod. Theod.]
84 (return) [ The expedition of Heraclius is clouded with
difficulties, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. vi. p. 640,)
and it requires some dexterity to use the circumstances afforded
by Theophanes, without injury to the more respectable evidence of
Procopius.]
85 (return) [ The march of Cato from Berenice, in the province of
Cyrene, was much longer than that of Heraclius from Tripoli. He
passed the deep sandy desert in thirty days, and it was found
necessary to provide, besides the ordinary supplies, a great
number of skins filled with water, and several Psylli, who were
supposed to possess the art of sucking the wounds which had been
made by the serpents of their native country. See Plutarch in
Caton. Uticens. tom. iv. p. 275. Straben Geograph. l. xxii. p.
1193.]
86 (return) [ The principal sum is clearly expressed by
Procopius, (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 6, p. 191;) the smaller
constituent parts, which Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
vi. p. 396) has laboriously collected from the Byzantine writers,
are less certain, and less important. The historian Malchus
laments the public misery, (Excerpt. ex Suida in Corp. Hist.
Byzant. p. 58;) but he is surely unjust, when he charges Leo with
hoarding the treasures which he extorted from the people. * Note:
Compare likewise the newly-discovered work of Lydus, de
Magistratibus, ed. Hase, Paris, 1812, (and in the new collection
of the Byzantines,) l. iii. c. 43. Lydus states the expenditure
at 65,000 lbs. of gold, 700,000 of silver. But Lydus exaggerates
the fleet to the incredible number of 10,000 long ships,
(Liburnae,) and the troops to 400,000 men. Lydus describes this
fatal measure, of which he charges the blame on Basiliscus, as
the shipwreck of the state. From that time all the revenues of
the empire were anticipated; and the finances fell into
inextricable confusion.—M.]
Experience has shown, that the success of an invader most
commonly depends on the vigor and celerity of his operations. The
strength and sharpness of the first impression are blunted by
delay; the health and spirit of the troops insensibly languish in
a distant climate; the naval and military force, a mighty effort
which perhaps can never be repeated, is silently consumed; and
every hour that is wasted in negotiation, accustoms the enemy to
contemplate and examine those hostile terrors, which, on their
first appearance, he deemed irresistible. The formidable navy of
Basiliscus pursued its prosperous navigation from the Thracian
Bosphorus to the coast of Africa. He landed his troops at Cape
Bona, or the promontory of Mercury, about forty miles from
Carthage. 87 The army of Heraclius, and the fleet of Marcellinus,
either joined or seconded the Imperial lieutenant; and the
Vandals who opposed his progress by sea or land, were
successively vanquished. 88 If Basiliscus had seized the moment
of consternation, and boldly advanced to the capital, Carthage
must have surrendered, and the kingdom of the Vandals was
extinguished. Genseric beheld the danger with firmness, and
eluded it with his veteran dexterity. He protested, in the most
respectful language, that he was ready to submit his person, and
his dominions, to the will of the emperor; but he requested a
truce of five days to regulate the terms of his submission; and
it was universally believed, that his secret liberality
contributed to the success of this public negotiation. Instead of
obstinately refusing whatever indulgence his enemy so earnestly
solicited, the guilty, or the credulous, Basiliscus consented to
the fatal truce; and his imprudent security seemed to proclaim,
that he already considered himself as the conqueror of Africa.
During this short interval, the wind became favorable to the
designs of Genseric. He manned his largest ships of war with the
bravest of the Moors and Vandals; and they towed after them many
large barks, filled with combustible materials. In the obscurity
of the night, these destructive vessels were impelled against the
unguarded and unsuspecting fleet of the Romans, who were awakened
by the sense of their instant danger. Their close and crowded
order assisted the progress of the fire, which was communicated
with rapid and irresistible violence; and the noise of the wind,
the crackling of the flames, the dissonant cries of the soldiers
and mariners, who could neither command nor obey, increased the
horror of the nocturnal tumult. Whilst they labored to extricate
themselves from the fire-ships, and to save at least a part of
the navy, the galleys of Genseric assaulted them with temperate
and disciplined valor; and many of the Romans, who escaped the
fury of the flames, were destroyed or taken by the victorious
Vandals. Among the events of that disastrous night, the heroic,
or rather desperate, courage of John, one of the principal
officers of Basiliscus, has rescued his name from oblivion. When
the ship, which he had bravely defended, was almost consumed, he
threw himself in his armor into the sea, disdainfully rejected
the esteem and pity of Genso, the son of Genseric, who pressed
him to accept honorable quarter, and sunk under the waves;
exclaiming, with his last breath, that he would never fall alive
into the hands of those impious dogs. Actuated by a far different
spirit, Basiliscus, whose station was the most remote from
danger, disgracefully fled in the beginning of the engagement,
returned to Constantinople with the loss of more than half of his
fleet and army, and sheltered his guilty head in the sanctuary of
St. Sophia, till his sister, by her tears and entreaties, could
obtain his pardon from the indignant emperor. Heraclius effected
his retreat through the desert; Marcellinus retired to Sicily,
where he was assassinated, perhaps at the instigation of Ricimer,
by one of his own captains; and the king of the Vandals expressed
his surprise and satisfaction, that the Romans themselves should
remove from the world his most formidable antagonists. 89 After
the failure of this great expedition, 891 Genseric again became
the tyrant of the sea: the coasts of Italy, Greece, and Asia,
were again exposed to his revenge and avarice; Tripoli and
Sardinia returned to his obedience; he added Sicily to the number
of his provinces; and before he died, in the fulness of years and
of glory, he beheld the final extinction of the empire of the
West. 90
87 (return) [ This promontory is forty miles from Carthage,
(Procop. l. i. c. 6, p. 192,) and twenty leagues from Sicily,
(Shaw’s Travels, p. 89.) Scipio landed farther in the bay, at the
fair promontory; see the animated description of Livy, xxix. 26,
27.]
88 (return) [ Theophanes (p. 100) affirms that many ships of the
Vandals were sunk. The assertion of Jornandes, (de Successione
Regn.,) that Basiliscus attacked Carthage, must be understood in
a very qualified sense]
89 (return) [ Damascius in Vit. Isidor. apud Phot. p. 1048. It
will appear, by comparing the three short chronicles of the
times, that Marcellinus had fought near Carthage, and was killed
in Sicily.]
891 (return) [ According to Lydus, Leo, distracted by this and
the other calamities of his reign, particularly a dreadful fire
at Constantinople, abandoned the palace, like another Orestes,
and was preparing to quit Constantinople forever l iii. c. 44, p.
230.—M.]
90 (return) [ For the African war, see Procopius, de Bell.
(Vandal. l. i. c. 6, p. 191, 192, 193,) Theophanes, (p. 99, 100,
101,) Cedrenus, (p. 349, 350,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiv. p.
50, 51.) Montesquieu (Considerations sur la Grandeur, &c., c. xx.
tom. iii. p. 497) has made a judicious observation on the failure
of these great naval armaments.]
During his long and active reign, the African monarch had
studiously cultivated the friendship of the Barbarians of Europe,
whose arms he might employ in a seasonable and effectual
diversion against the two empires. After the death of Attila, he
renewed his alliance with the Visigoths of Gaul; and the sons of
the elder Theodoric, who successively reigned over that warlike
nation, were easily persuaded, by the sense of interest, to
forget the cruel affront which Genseric had inflicted on their
sister. 91 The death of the emperor Majorian delivered Theodoric
the Second from the restraint of fear, and perhaps of honor; he
violated his recent treaty with the Romans; and the ample
territory of Narbonne, which he firmly united to his dominions,
became the immediate reward of his perfidy. The selfish policy of
Ricimer encouraged him to invade the provinces which were in the
possession of Aegidius, his rival; but the active count, by the
defence of Arles, and the victory of Orleans, saved Gaul, and
checked, during his lifetime, the progress of the Visigoths.
Their ambition was soon rekindled; and the design of
extinguishing the Roman empire in Spain and Gaul was conceived,
and almost completed, in the reign of Euric, who assassinated his
brother Theodoric, and displayed, with a more savage temper,
superior abilities, both in peace and war. He passed the Pyrenees
at the head of a numerous army, subdued the cities of Saragossa
and Pampeluna, vanquished in battle the martial nobles of the
Tarragonese province, carried his victorious arms into the heart
of Lusitania, and permitted the Suevi to hold the kingdom of
Gallicia under the Gothic monarchy of Spain. 92 The efforts of
Euric were not less vigorous, or less successful, in Gaul; and
throughout the country that extends from the Pyrenees to the
Rhone and the Loire, Berry and Auvergne were the only cities, or
dioceses, which refused to acknowledge him as their master. 93 In
the defence of Clermont, their principal town, the inhabitants of
Auvergne sustained, with inflexible resolution, the miseries of
war, pestilence, and famine; and the Visigoths, relinquishing the
fruitless siege, suspended the hopes of that important conquest.
The youth of the province were animated by the heroic, and almost
incredible, valor of Ecdicius, the son of the emperor Avitus, 94
who made a desperate sally with only eighteen horsemen, boldly
attacked the Gothic army, and, after maintaining a flying
skirmish, retired safe and victorious within the walls of
Clermont. His charity was equal to his courage: in a time of
extreme scarcity, four thousand poor were fed at his expense; and
his private influence levied an army of Burgundians for the
deliverance of Auvergne. From his virtues alone the faithful
citizens of Gaul derived any hopes of safety or freedom; and even
such virtues were insufficient to avert the impending ruin of
their country, since they were anxious to learn, from his
authority and example, whether they should prefer the alternative
of exile or servitude. 95 The public confidence was lost; the
resources of the state were exhausted; and the Gauls had too much
reason to believe, that Anthemius, who reigned in Italy, was
incapable of protecting his distressed subjects beyond the Alps.
The feeble emperor could only procure for their defence the
service of twelve thousand British auxiliaries. Riothamus, one of
the independent kings, or chieftains, of the island, was
persuaded to transport his troops to the continent of Gaul: he
sailed up the Loire, and established his quarters in Berry, where
the people complained of these oppressive allies, till they were
destroyed or dispersed by the arms of the Visigoths. 96
91 (return) [ Jornandes is our best guide through the reigns of
Theodoric II. and Euric, (de Rebus Geticis, c. 44, 45, 46, 47, p.
675-681.) Idatius ends too soon, and Isidore is too sparing of
the information which he might have given on the affairs of
Spain. The events that relate to Gaul are laboriously illustrated
in the third book of the Abbe Dubos, Hist. Critique, tom. i. p.
424-620.]
92 (return) [ See Mariana, Hist. Hispan. tom. i. l. v. c. 5. p.
162.]
93 (return) [ An imperfect, but original, picture of Gaul, more
especially of Auvergne, is shown by Sidonius; who, as a senator,
and afterwards as a bishop, was deeply interested in the fate of
his country. See l. v. epist. 1, 5, 9, &c.]
94 (return) [ Sidonius, l. iii. epist. 3, p. 65-68. Greg. Turon.
l. ii. c. 24, in tom. ii. p. 174. Jornandes, c. 45, p. 675.
Perhaps Ecdicius was only the son-in-law of Avitus, his wife’s
son by another husband.]
95 (return) [ Si nullae a republica vires, nulla praesidia; si
nullae, quantum rumor est, Anthemii principis opes; statuit, te
auctore, nobilitas, seu patriaca dimittere seu capillos, (Sidon.
l. ii. epist. 1, p. 33.) The last words Sirmond, (Not. p. 25) may
likewise denote the clerical tonsure, which was indeed the choice
of Sidonius himself.]
96 (return) [ The history of these Britons may be traced in
Jornandes, (c. 45, p. 678,) Sidonius, (l. iii. epistol. 9, p. 73,
74,) and Gregory of Tours, (l. ii. c. 18, in tom. ii. p. 170.)
Sidonius (who styles these mercenary troops argutos, armatos,
tumultuosos, virtute numero, contul ernio, contumaces) addresses
their general in a tone of friendship and familiarity.]
One of the last acts of jurisdiction, which the Roman senate
exercised over their subjects of Gaul, was the trial and
condemnation of Arvandus, the Prætorian praefect. Sidonius, who
rejoices that he lived under a reign in which he might pity and
assist a state criminal, has expressed, with tenderness and
freedom, the faults of his indiscreet and unfortunate friend. 97
From the perils which he had escaped, Arvandus imbibed confidence
rather than wisdom; and such was the various, though uniform,
imprudence of his behavior, that his prosperity must appear much
more surprising than his downfall. The second praefecture, which
he obtained within the term of five years, abolished the merit
and popularity of his preceding administration. His easy temper
was corrupted by flattery, and exasperated by opposition; he was
forced to satisfy his importunate creditors with the spoils of
the province; his capricious insolence offended the nobles of
Gaul, and he sunk under the weight of the public hatred. The
mandate of his disgrace summoned him to justify his conduct
before the senate; and he passed the Sea of Tuscany with a
favorable wind, the presage, as he vainly imagined, of his future
fortunes. A decent respect was still observed for the
Proefectorian rank; and on his arrival at Rome, Arvandus was
committed to the hospitality, rather than to the custody, of
Flavius Asellus, the count of the sacred largesses, who resided
in the Capitol. 98 He was eagerly pursued by his accusers, the
four deputies of Gaul, who were all distinguished by their birth,
their dignities, or their eloquence. In the name of a great
province, and according to the forms of Roman jurisprudence, they
instituted a civil and criminal action, requiring such
restitution as might compensate the losses of individuals, and
such punishment as might satisfy the justice of the state. Their
charges of corrupt oppression were numerous and weighty; but they
placed their secret dependence on a letter which they had
intercepted, and which they could prove, by the evidence of his
secretary, to have been dictated by Arvandus himself. The author
of this letter seemed to dissuade the king of the Goths from a
peace with the Greek emperor: he suggested the attack of the
Britons on the Loire; and he recommended a division of Gaul,
according to the law of nations, between the Visigoths and the
Burgundians. 99 These pernicious schemes, which a friend could
only palliate by the reproaches of vanity and indiscretion, were
susceptible of a treasonable interpretation; and the deputies had
artfully resolved not to produce their most formidable weapons
till the decisive moment of the contest. But their intentions
were discovered by the zeal of Sidonius. He immediately apprised
the unsuspecting criminal of his danger; and sincerely lamented,
without any mixture of anger, the haughty presumption of
Arvandus, who rejected, and even resented, the salutary advice of
his friends. Ignorant of his real situation, Arvandus showed
himself in the Capitol in the white robe of a candidate, accepted
indiscriminate salutations and offers of service, examined the
shops of the merchants, the silks and gems, sometimes with the
indifference of a spectator, and sometimes with the attention of
a purchaser; and complained of the times, of the senate, of the
prince, and of the delays of justice. His complaints were soon
removed. An early day was fixed for his trial; and Arvandus
appeared, with his accusers, before a numerous assembly of the
Roman senate. The mournful garb which they affected, excited the
compassion of the judges, who were scandalized by the gay and
splendid dress of their adversary: and when the praefect
Arvandus, with the first of the Gallic deputies, were directed to
take their places on the senatorial benches, the same contrast of
pride and modesty was observed in their behavior. In this
memorable judgment, which presented a lively image of the old
republic, the Gauls exposed, with force and freedom, the
grievances of the province; and as soon as the minds of the
audience were sufficiently inflamed, they recited the fatal
epistle. The obstinacy of Arvandus was founded on the strange
supposition, that a subject could not be convicted of treason,
unless he had actually conspired to assume the purple. As the
paper was read, he repeatedly, and with a loud voice,
acknowledged it for his genuine composition; and his astonishment
was equal to his dismay, when the unanimous voice of the senate
declared him guilty of a capital offence. By their decree, he was
degraded from the rank of a praefect to the obscure condition of
a plebeian, and ignominiously dragged by servile hands to the
public prison. After a fortnight’s adjournment, the senate was
again convened to pronounce the sentence of his death; but while
he expected, in the Island of Aesculapius, the expiration of the
thirty days allowed by an ancient law to the vilest malefactors,
100 his friends interposed, the emperor Anthemius relented, and
the praefect of Gaul obtained the milder punishment of exile and
confiscation. The faults of Arvandus might deserve compassion;
but the impunity of Seronatus accused the justice of the
republic, till he was condemned and executed, on the complaint of
the people of Auvergne. That flagitious minister, the Catiline of
his age and country, held a secret correspondence with the
Visigoths, to betray the province which he oppressed: his
industry was continually exercised in the discovery of new taxes
and obsolete offences; and his extravagant vices would have
inspired contempt, if they had not excited fear and abhorrence.
101
97 (return) [ See Sidonius, l. i. epist. 7, p. 15-20, with
Sirmond’s notes. This letter does honor to his heart, as well as
to his understanding. The prose of Sidonius, however vitiated by
a false and affected taste, is much superior to his insipid
verses.]
98 (return) [ When the Capitol ceased to be a temple, it was
appropriated to the use of the civil magistrate; and it is still
the residence of the Roman senator. The jewellers, &c., might be
allowed to expose then precious wares in the porticos.]
99 (return) [ Haec ad regem Gothorum, charta videbatur emitti,
pacem cum Graeco Imperatore dissuadens, Britannos super Ligerim
sitos impugnari oportere, demonstrans, cum Burgundionibus jure
gentium Gallias dividi debere confirmans.]
100 (return) [ Senatusconsultum Tiberianum, (Sirmond Not. p. 17;)
but that law allowed only ten days between the sentence and
execution; the remaining twenty were added in the reign of
Theodosius.]
101 (return) [ Catilina seculi nostri. Sidonius, l. ii. epist. 1,
p. 33; l. v. epist 13, p. 143; l. vii. epist. vii. p. 185. He
execrates the crimes, and applauds the punishment, of Seronatus,
perhaps with the indignation of a virtuous citizen, perhaps with
the resentment of a personal enemy.]
Such criminals were not beyond the reach of justice; but whatever
might be the guilt of Ricimer, that powerful Barbarian was able
to contend or to negotiate with the prince, whose alliance he had
condescended to accept. The peaceful and prosperous reign which
Anthemius had promised to the West, was soon clouded by
misfortune and discord. Ricimer, apprehensive, or impatient, of a
superior, retired from Rome, and fixed his residence at Milan; an
advantageous situation either to invite or to repel the warlike
tribes that were seated between the Alps and the Danube. 102
Italy was gradually divided into two independent and hostile
kingdoms; and the nobles of Liguria, who trembled at the near
approach of a civil war, fell prostrate at the feet of the
patrician, and conjured him to spare their unhappy country. “For
my own part,” replied Ricimer, in a tone of insolent moderation,
“I am still inclined to embrace the friendship of the Galatian;
103 but who will undertake to appease his anger, or to mitigate
the pride, which always rises in proportion to our submission?”
They informed him, that Epiphanius, bishop of Pavia, 104 united
the wisdom of the serpent with the innocence of the dove; and
appeared confident, that the eloquence of such an ambassador must
prevail against the strongest opposition, either of interest or
passion. Their recommendation was approved; and Epiphanius,
assuming the benevolent office of mediation, proceeded without
delay to Rome, where he was received with the honors due to his
merit and reputation. The oration of a bishop in favor of peace
may be easily supposed; he argued, that, in all possible
circumstances, the forgiveness of injuries must be an act of
mercy, or magnanimity, or prudence; and he seriously admonished
the emperor to avoid a contest with a fierce Barbarian, which
might be fatal to himself, and must be ruinous to his dominions.
Anthemius acknowledged the truth of his maxims; but he deeply
felt, with grief and indignation, the behavior of Ricimer, and
his passion gave eloquence and energy to his discourse. “What
favors,” he warmly exclaimed, “have we refused to this ungrateful
man? What provocations have we not endured! Regardless of the
majesty of the purple, I gave my daughter to a Goth; I sacrificed
my own blood to the safety of the republic. The liberality which
ought to have secured the eternal attachment of Ricimer has
exasperated him against his benefactor. What wars has he not
excited against the empire! How often has he instigated and
assisted the fury of hostile nations! Shall I now accept his
perfidious friendship? Can I hope that he will respect the
engagements of a treaty, who has already violated the duties of a
son?” But the anger of Anthemius evaporated in these passionate
exclamations: he insensibly yielded to the proposals of
Epiphanius; and the bishop returned to his diocese with the
satisfaction of restoring the peace of Italy, by a
reconciliation, 105 of which the sincerity and continuance might
be reasonably suspected. The clemency of the emperor was extorted
from his weakness; and Ricimer suspended his ambitious designs
till he had secretly prepared the engines with which he resolved
to subvert the throne of Anthemius. The mask of peace and
moderation was then thrown aside. The army of Ricimer was
fortified by a numerous reenforcement of Burgundians and Oriental
Suevi: he disclaimed all allegiance to the Greek emperor, marched
from Milan to the Gates of Rome, and fixing his camp on the banks
of the Anio, impatiently expected the arrival of Olybrius, his
Imperial candidate.
102 (return) [ Ricimer, under the reign of Anthemius, defeated
and slew in battle Beorgor, king of the Alani, (Jornandes, c. 45,
p. 678.) His sister had married the king of the Burgundians, and
he maintained an intimate connection with the Suevic colony
established in Pannonia and Noricum.]
103 (return) [ Galatam concitatum. Sirmond (in his notes to
Ennodius) applies this appellation to Anthemius himself. The
emperor was probably born in the province of Galatia, whose
inhabitants, the Gallo-Grecians, were supposed to unite the vices
of a savage and a corrupted people.]
104 (return) [ Epiphanius was thirty years bishop of Pavia, (A.D.
467-497;) see Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 788. His name
and actions would have been unknown to posterity, if Ennodius,
one of his successors, had not written his life; (Sirmond, Opera
tom. i. p. 1647-1692;) in which he represents him as one of the
greatest characters of the age]
105 (return) [ Ennodius (p. 1659-1664) has related this embassy
of Epiphanius; and his narrative, verbose and turgid as it must
appear, illustrates some curious passages in the fall of the
Western empire.]
The senator Olybrius, of the Anician family, might esteem himself
the lawful heir of the Western empire. He had married Placidia,
the younger daughter of Valentinian, after she was restored by
Genseric; who still detained her sister Eudoxia, as the wife, or
rather as the captive, of his son. The king of the Vandals
supported, by threats and solicitations, the fair pretensions of
his Roman ally; and assigned, as one of the motives of the war,
the refusal of the senate and people to acknowledge their lawful
prince, and the unworthy preference which they had given to a
stranger. 106 The friendship of the public enemy might render
Olybrius still more unpopular to the Italians; but when Ricimer
meditated the ruin of the emperor Anthemius, he tempted, with the
offer of a diadem, the candidate who could justify his rebellion
by an illustrious name and a royal alliance. The husband of
Placidia, who, like most of his ancestors, had been invested with
the consular dignity, might have continued to enjoy a secure and
splendid fortune in the peaceful residence of Constantinople; nor
does he appear to have been tormented by such a genius as cannot
be amused or occupied, unless by the administration of an empire.
Yet Olybrius yielded to the importunities of his friends, perhaps
of his wife; rashly plunged into the dangers and calamities of a
civil war; and, with the secret connivance of the emperor Leo,
accepted the Italian purple, which was bestowed, and resumed, at
the capricious will of a Barbarian. He landed without obstacle
(for Genseric was master of the sea) either at Ravenna, or the
port of Ostia, and immediately proceeded to the camp of Ricimer,
where he was received as the sovereign of the Western world. 107
106 (return) [ Priscus, Excerpt. Legation p. 74. Procopius de
Bell. Vandel l. i. c. 6, p. 191. Eudoxia and her daughter were
restored after the death of Majorian. Perhaps the consulship of
Olybrius (A.D. 464) was bestowed as a nuptial present.]
107 (return) [ The hostile appearance of Olybrius is fixed
(notwithstanding the opinion of Pagi) by the duration of his
reign. The secret connivance of Leo is acknowledged by Theophanes
and the Paschal Chronicle. We are ignorant of his motives; but in
this obscure period, our ignorance extends to the most public and
important facts.]
The patrician, who had extended his posts from the Anio to the
Melvian bridge, already possessed two quarters of Rome, the
Vatican and the Janiculum, which are separated by the Tyber from
the rest of the city; 108 and it may be conjectured, that an
assembly of seceding senators imitated, in the choice of
Olybrius, the forms of a legal election. But the body of the
senate and people firmly adhered to the cause of Anthemius; and
the more effectual support of a Gothic army enabled him to
prolong his reign, and the public distress, by a resistance of
three months, which produced the concomitant evils of famine and
pestilence. At length Ricimer made a furious assault on the
bridge of Hadrian, or St. Angelo; and the narrow pass was
defended with equal valor by the Goths, till the death of
Gilimer, their leader. The victorious troops, breaking down every
barrier, rushed with irresistible violence into the heart of the
city, and Rome (if we may use the language of a contemporary
pope) was subverted by the civil fury of Anthemius and Ricimer.
109 The unfortunate Anthemius was dragged from his concealment,
and inhumanly massacred by the command of his son-in-law; who
thus added a third, or perhaps a fourth, emperor to the number of
his victims. The soldiers, who united the rage of factious
citizens with the savage manners of Barbarians, were indulged,
without control, in the license of rapine and murder: the crowd
of slaves and plebeians, who were unconcerned in the event, could
only gain by the indiscriminate pillage; and the face of the city
exhibited the strange contrast of stern cruelty and dissolute
intemperance. 110 Forty days after this calamitous event, the
subject, not of glory, but of guilt, Italy was delivered, by a
painful disease, from the tyrant Ricimer, who bequeathed the
command of his army to his nephew Gundobald, one of the princes
of the Burgundians. In the same year all the principal actors in
this great revolution were removed from the stage; and the whole
reign of Olybrius, whose death does not betray any symptoms of
violence, is included within the term of seven months. He left
one daughter, the offspring of his marriage with Placidia; and
the family of the great Theodosius, transplanted from Spain to
Constantinople, was propagated in the female line as far as the
eighth generation. 111
108 (return) [ Of the fourteen regions, or quarters, into which
Rome was divided by Augustus, only one, the Janiculum, lay on the
Tuscan side of the Tyber. But, in the fifth century, the Vatican
suburb formed a considerable city; and in the ecclesiastical
distribution, which had been recently made by Simplicius, the
reigning pope, two of the seven regions, or parishes of Rome,
depended on the church of St. Peter. See Nardini Roma Antica, p.
67. It would require a tedious dissertation to mark the
circumstances, in which I am inclined to depart from the
topography of that learned Roman.]
109 (return) [ Nuper Anthemii et Ricimeris civili furore subversa
est. Gelasius in Epist. ad Andromach. apud Baron. A.D. 496, No.
42, Sigonius (tom. i. l. xiv. de Occidentali Imperio, p. 542,
543,) and Muratori (Annali d’Italia, tom. iv. p. 308, 309,) with
the aid of a less imperfect Ms. of the Historia Miscella., have
illustrated this dark and bloody transaction.]
110 (return) [ Such had been the saeva ac deformis urbe tota
facies, when Rome was assaulted and stormed by the troops of
Vespasian, (see Tacit. Hist. iii. 82, 83;) and every cause of
mischief had since acquired much additional energy. The
revolution of ages may bring round the same calamities; but ages
may revolve without producing a Tacitus to describe them.]
111 (return) [ See Ducange, Familiae Byzantin. p. 74, 75.
Areobindus, who appears to have married the niece of the emperor
Justinian, was the eighth descendant of the elder Theodosius.]
Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Part V.
Whilst the vacant throne of Italy was abandoned to lawless
Barbarians, 112 the election of a new colleague was seriously
agitated in the council of Leo. The empress Verina, studious to
promote the greatness of her own family, had married one of her
nieces to Julius Nepos, who succeeded his uncle Marcellinus in
the sovereignty of Dalmatia, a more solid possession than the
title which he was persuaded to accept, of Emperor of the West.
But the measures of the Byzantine court were so languid and
irresolute, that many months elapsed after the death of
Anthemius, and even of Olybrius, before their destined successor
could show himself, with a respectable force, to his Italian
subjects. During that interval, Glycerius, an obscure soldier,
was invested with the purple by his patron Gundobald; but the
Burgundian prince was unable, or unwilling, to support his
nomination by a civil war: the pursuits of domestic ambition
recalled him beyond the Alps, 113 and his client was permitted to
exchange the Roman sceptre for the bishopric of Salona. After
extinguishing such a competitor, the emperor Nepos was
acknowledged by the senate, by the Italians, and by the
provincials of Gaul; his moral virtues, and military talents,
were loudly celebrated; and those who derived any private benefit
from his government, announced, in prophetic strains, the
restoration of the public felicity. 114 Their hopes (if such
hopes had been entertained) were confounded within the term of a
single year, and the treaty of peace, which ceded Auvergue to the
Visigoths, is the only event of his short and inglorious reign.
The most faithful subjects of Gaul were sacrificed, by the
Italian emperor, to the hope of domestic security; 115 but his
repose was soon invaded by a furious sedition of the Barbarian
confederates, who, under the command of Orestes, their general,
were in full march from Rome to Ravenna. Nepos trembled at their
approach; and, instead of placing a just confidence in the
strength of Ravenna, he hastily escaped to his ships, and retired
to his Dalmatian principality, on the opposite coast of the
Adriatic. By this shameful abdication, he protracted his life
about five years, in a very ambiguous state, between an emperor
and an exile, till he was assassinated at Salona by the
ungrateful Glycerius, who was translated, perhaps as the reward
of his crime, to the archbishopric of Milan. 116
112 (return) [ The last revolutions of the Western empire are
faintly marked in Theophanes, (p. 102,) Jornandes, (c. 45, p.
679,) the Chronicle of Marcellinus, and the Fragments of an
anonymous writer, published by Valesius at the end of Ammianus,
(p. 716, 717.) If Photius had not been so wretchedly concise, we
should derive much information from the contemporary histories of
Malchus and Candidus. See his Extracts, p. 172-179.]
113 (return) [ See Greg. Turon. l. ii. c. 28, in tom. ii. p. 175.
Dubos, Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 613. By the murder or death of
his two brothers, Gundobald acquired the sole possession of the
kingdom of Burgundy, whose ruin was hastened by their discord.]
114 (return) [ Julius Nepos armis pariter summus Augustus ac
moribus. Sidonius, l. v. ep. 16, p. 146. Nepos had given to
Ecdicius the title of Patrician, which Anthemius had promised,
decessoris Anthemii fidem absolvit. See l. viii. ep. 7, p. 224.]
115 (return) [ Epiphanius was sent ambassador from Nepos to the
Visigoths, for the purpose of ascertaining the fines Imperii
Italici, (Ennodius in Sirmond, tom. i. p. 1665-1669.) His
pathetic discourse concealed the disgraceful secret which soon
excited the just and bitter complaints of the bishop of
Clermont.]
116 (return) [ Malchus, apud Phot. p. 172. Ennod. Epigram.
lxxxii. in Sirmond. Oper. tom. i. p. 1879. Some doubt may,
however, be raised on the identity of the emperor and the
archbishop.]
The nations who had asserted their independence after the death
of Attila, were established, by the right of possession or
conquest, in the boundless countries to the north of the Danube;
or in the Roman provinces between the river and the Alps. But the
bravest of their youth enlisted in the army of confederates, who
formed the defence and the terror of Italy; 117 and in this
promiscuous multitude, the names of the Heruli, the Scyrri, the
Alani, the Turcilingi, and the Rugians, appear to have
predominated. The example of these warriors was imitated by
Orestes, 118 the son of Tatullus, and the father of the last
Roman emperor of the West. Orestes, who has been already
mentioned in this History, had never deserted his country. His
birth and fortunes rendered him one of the most illustrious
subjects of Pannonia. When that province was ceded to the Huns,
he entered into the service of Attila, his lawful sovereign,
obtained the office of his secretary, and was repeatedly sent
ambassador to Constantinople, to represent the person, and
signify the commands, of the imperious monarch. The death of that
conqueror restored him to his freedom; and Orestes might
honorably refuse either to follow the sons of Attila into the
Scythian desert, or to obey the Ostrogoths, who had usurped the
dominion of Pannonia. He preferred the service of the Italian
princes, the successors of Valentinian; and as he possessed the
qualifications of courage, industry, and experience, he advanced
with rapid steps in the military profession, till he was
elevated, by the favor of Nepos himself, to the dignities of
patrician, and master-general of the troops. These troops had
been long accustomed to reverence the character and authority of
Orestes, who affected their manners, conversed with them in their
own language, and was intimately connected with their national
chieftains, by long habits of familiarity and friendship. At his
solicitation they rose in arms against the obscure Greek, who
presumed to claim their obedience; and when Orestes, from some
secret motive, declined the purple, they consented, with the same
facility, to acknowledge his son Augustulus as the emperor of the
West. By the abdication of Nepos, Orestes had now attained the
summit of his ambitious hopes; but he soon discovered, before the
end of the first year, that the lessons of perjury and
ingratitude, which a rebel must inculcate, will be resorted to
against himself; and that the precarious sovereign of Italy was
only permitted to choose, whether he would be the slave, or the
victim, of his Barbarian mercenaries. The dangerous alliance of
these strangers had oppressed and insulted the last remains of
Roman freedom and dignity. At each revolution, their pay and
privileges were augmented; but their insolence increased in a
still more extravagant degree; they envied the fortune of their
brethren in Gaul, Spain, and Africa, whose victorious arms had
acquired an independent and perpetual inheritance; and they
insisted on their peremptory demand, that a third part of the
lands of Italy should be immediately divided among them. Orestes,
with a spirit, which, in another situation, might be entitled to
our esteem, chose rather to encounter the rage of an armed
multitude, than to subscribe the ruin of an innocent people. He
rejected the audacious demand; and his refusal was favorable to
the ambition of Odoacer; a bold Barbarian, who assured his
fellow-soldiers, that, if they dared to associate under his
command, they might soon extort the justice which had been denied
to their dutiful petitions. From all the camps and garrisons of
Italy, the confederates, actuated by the same resentment and the
same hopes, impatiently flocked to the standard of this popular
leader; and the unfortunate patrician, overwhelmed by the
torrent, hastily retreated to the strong city of Pavia, the
episcopal seat of the holy Epiphanites. Pavia was immediately
besieged, the fortifications were stormed, the town was pillaged;
and although the bishop might labor, with much zeal and some
success, to save the property of the church, and the chastity of
female captives, the tumult could only be appeased by the
execution of Orestes. 119 His brother Paul was slain in an action
near Ravenna; and the helpless Augustulus, who could no longer
command the respect, was reduced to implore the clemency, of
Odoacer.
117 (return) [ Our knowledge of these mercenaries, who subverted
the Western empire, is derived from Procopius, (de Bell. Gothico,
l. i. c. i. p. 308.) The popular opinion, and the recent
historians, represent Odoacer in the false light of a stranger,
and a king, who invaded Italy with an army of foreigners, his
native subjects.]
118 (return) [ Orestes, qui eo tempore quando Attila ad Italiam
venit, se illi unxit, ejus notarius factus fuerat. Anonym. Vales.
p. 716. He is mistaken in the date; but we may credit his
assertion, that the secretary of Attila was the father of
Augustulus]
119 (return) [ See Ennodius, (in Vit. Epiphan. Sirmond, tom. i.
p. 1669, 1670.) He adds weight to the narrative of Procopius,
though we may doubt whether the devil actually contrived the
siege of Pavia, to distress the bishop and his flock.]
That successful Barbarian was the son of Edecon; who, in some
remarkable transactions, particularly described in a preceding
chapter, had been the colleague of Orestes himself. 1191 The
honor of an ambassador should be exempt from suspicion; and
Edecon had listened to a conspiracy against the life of his
sovereign. But this apparent guilt was expiated by his merit or
repentance; his rank was eminent and conspicuous; he enjoyed the
favor of Attila; and the troops under his command, who guarded,
in their turn, the royal village, consisted of a tribe of Scyrri,
his immediate and hereditary subjects. In the revolt of the
nations, they still adhered to the Huns; and more than twelve
years afterwards, the name of Edecon is honorably mentioned, in
their unequal contests with the Ostrogoths; which was terminated,
after two bloody battles, by the defeat and dispersion of the
Scyrri. 120 Their gallant leader, who did not survive this
national calamity, left two sons, Onulf and Odoacer, to struggle
with adversity, and to maintain as they might, by rapine or
service, the faithful followers of their exile. Onulf directed
his steps towards Constantinople, where he sullied, by the
assassination of a generous benefactor, the fame which he had
acquired in arms. His brother Odoacer led a wandering life among
the Barbarians of Noricum, with a mind and a fortune suited to
the most desperate adventures; and when he had fixed his choice,
he piously visited the cell of Severinus, the popular saint of
the country, to solicit his approbation and blessing. The lowness
of the door would not admit the lofty stature of Odoacer: he was
obliged to stoop; but in that humble attitude the saint could
discern the symptoms of his future greatness; and addressing him
in a prophetic tone, “Pursue” (said he) “your design; proceed to
Italy; you will soon cast away this coarse garment of skins; and
your wealth will be adequate to the liberality of your mind.” 121
The Barbarian, whose daring spirit accepted and ratified the
prediction, was admitted into the service of the Western empire,
and soon obtained an honorable rank in the guards. His manners
were gradually polished, his military skill was improved, and the
confederates of Italy would not have elected him for their
general, unless the exploits of Odoacer had established a high
opinion of his courage and capacity. 122 Their military
acclamations saluted him with the title of king; but he
abstained, during his whole reign, from the use of the purple and
diadem, 123 lest he should offend those princes, whose subjects,
by their accidental mixture, had formed the victorious army,
which time and policy might insensibly unite into a great nation.
1191 (return) [ Manso observes that the evidence which identifies
Edecon, the father of Odoacer, with the colleague of Orestes, is
not conclusive. Geschichte des Ost-Gothischen Reiches, p. 32. But
St. Martin inclines to agree with Gibbon, note, vi. 75.—M.]
120 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 53, 54, p. 692-695. M. de Buat
(Hist. des Peuples de l’Europe, tom. viii. p. 221-228) has
clearly explained the origin and adventures of Odoacer. I am
almost inclined to believe that he was the same who pillaged
Angers, and commanded a fleet of Saxon pirates on the ocean.
Greg. Turon. l. ii. c. 18, in tom. ii. p. 170. 8 Note: According
to St. Martin there is no foundation for this conjecture, vii
5—M.]
121 (return) [ Vade ad Italiam, vade vilissimis nunc pellibus
coopertis: sed multis cito plurima largiturus. Anonym. Vales. p.
717. He quotes the life of St. Severinus, which is extant, and
contains much unknown and valuable history; it was composed by
his disciple Eugippius (A.D. 511) thirty years after his death.
See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 168-181.]
122 (return) [ Theophanes, who calls him a Goth, affirms, that he
was educated, aursed in Italy, (p. 102;) and as this strong
expression will not bear a literal interpretation, it must be
explained by long service in the Imperial guards.]
123 (return) [ Nomen regis Odoacer assumpsit, cum tamen neque
purpura nee regalibus uteretur insignibus. Cassiodor. in Chron.
A.D. 476. He seems to have assumed the abstract title of a king,
without applying it to any particular nation or country. 8 Note:
Manso observes that Odoacer never called himself king of Italy,
assume the purple, and no coins are extant with his name.
Gescnichte Osi Goth. Reiches, p. 36—M.]
Royalty was familiar to the Barbarians, and the submissive people
of Italy was prepared to obey, without a murmur, the authority
which he should condescend to exercise as the vicegerent of the
emperor of the West. But Odoacer had resolved to abolish that
useless and expensive office; and such is the weight of antique
prejudice, that it required some boldness and penetration to
discover the extreme facility of the enterprise. The unfortunate
Augustulus was made the instrument of his own disgrace: he
signified his resignation to the senate; and that assembly, in
their last act of obedience to a Roman prince, still affected the
spirit of freedom, and the forms of the constitution. An epistle
was addressed, by their unanimous decree, to the emperor Zeno,
the son-in-law and successor of Leo; who had lately been
restored, after a short rebellion, to the Byzantine throne. They
solemnly “disclaim the necessity, or even the wish, of continuing
any longer the Imperial succession in Italy; since, in their
opinion, the majesty of a sole monarch is sufficient to pervade
and protect, at the same time, both the East and the West. In
their own name, and in the name of the people, they consent that
the seat of universal empire shall be transferred from Rome to
Constantinople; and they basely renounce the right of choosing
their master, the only vestige that yet remained of the authority
which had given laws to the world. The republic (they repeat that
name without a blush) might safely confide in the civil and
military virtues of Odoacer; and they humbly request, that the
emperor would invest him with the title of Patrician, and the
administration of the diocese of Italy.” The deputies of the
senate were received at Constantinople with some marks of
displeasure and indignation: and when they were admitted to the
audience of Zeno, he sternly reproached them with their treatment
of the two emperors, Anthemius and Nepos, whom the East had
successively granted to the prayers of Italy. “The first”
(continued he) “you have murdered; the second you have expelled;
but the second is still alive, and whilst he lives he is your
lawful sovereign.” But the prudent Zeno soon deserted the
hopeless cause of his abdicated colleague. His vanity was
gratified by the title of sole emperor, and by the statues
erected to his honor in the several quarters of Rome; he
entertained a friendly, though ambiguous, correspondence with the
patrician Odoacer; and he gratefully accepted the Imperial
ensigns, the sacred ornaments of the throne and palace, which the
Barbarian was not unwilling to remove from the sight of the
people. 124
124 (return) [ Malchus, whose loss excites our regret, has
preserved (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 93) this extraordinary embassy
from the senate to Zeno. The anonymous fragment, (p. 717,) and
the extract from Candidus, (apud Phot. p. 176,) are likewise of
some use.]
In the space of twenty years since the death of Valentinian, nine
emperors had successively disappeared; and the son of Orestes, a
youth recommended only by his beauty, would be the least entitled
to the notice of posterity, if his reign, which was marked by the
extinction of the Roman empire in the West, did not leave a
memorable era in the history of mankind. 125 The patrician
Orestes had married the daughter of Count Romulus, of Petovio in
Noricum: the name of Augustus, notwithstanding the jealousy of
power, was known at Aquileia as a familiar surname; and the
appellations of the two great founders, of the city and of the
monarchy, were thus strangely united in the last of their
successors. 126 The son of Orestes assumed and disgraced the
names of Romulus Augustus; but the first was corrupted into
Momyllus, by the Greeks, and the second has been changed by the
Latins into the contemptible diminutive Augustulus. The life of
this inoffensive youth was spared by the generous clemency of
Odoacer; who dismissed him, with his whole family, from the
Imperial palace, fixed his annual allowance at six thousand
pieces of gold, and assigned the castle of Lucullus, in Campania,
for the place of his exile or retirement. 127 As soon as the
Romans breathed from the toils of the Punic war, they were
attracted by the beauties and the pleasures of Campania; and the
country-house of the elder Scipio at Liternum exhibited a lasting
model of their rustic simplicity. 128 The delicious shores of the
Bay of Naples were crowded with villas; and Sylla applauded the
masterly skill of his rival, who had seated himself on the lofty
promontory of Misenum, that commands, on every side, the sea and
land, as far as the boundaries of the horizon. 129 The villa of
Marius was purchased, within a few years, by Lucullus, and the
price had increased from two thousand five hundred, to more than
fourscore thousand, pounds sterling. 130 It was adorned by the
new proprietor with Grecian arts and Asiatic treasures; and the
houses and gardens of Lucullus obtained a distinguished rank in
the list of Imperial palaces. 131 When the Vandals became
formidable to the sea-coast, the Lucullan villa, on the
promontory of Misenum, gradually assumed the strength and
appellation of a strong castle, the obscure retreat of the last
emperor of the West. About twenty years after that great
revolution, it was converted into a church and monastery, to
receive the bones of St. Severinus. They securely reposed, amidst
the the broken trophies of Cimbric and Armenian victories,till
the beginning of the tenth century; when the fortifications,
which might afford a dangerous shelter to the Saracens, were
demolished by the people of Naples. 132
125 (return) [ The precise year in which the Western empire was
extinguished, is not positively ascertained. The vulgar era of
A.D. 476 appears to have the sanction of authentic chronicles.
But the two dates assigned by Jornandes (c. 46, p. 680) would
delay that great event to the year 479; and though M. de Buat has
overlooked his evidence, he produces (tom. viii. p. 261-288) many
collateral circumstances in support of the same opinion.]
126 (return) [ See his medals in Ducange, (Fam. Byzantin. p. 81,)
Priscus, (Excerpt. Legat. p. 56,) Maffei, (Osservazioni
Letterarie, tom. ii p. 314.) We may allege a famous and similar
case. The meanest subjects of the Roman empire assumed the
illustrious name of Patricius, which, by the conversion of
Ireland has been communicated to a whole nation.]
127 (return) [ Ingrediens autem Ravennam deposuit Augustulum de
regno, cujus infantiam misertus concessit ei sanguinem; et quia
pulcher erat, tamen donavit ei reditum sex millia solidos, et
misit eum intra Campaniam cum parentibus suis libere vivere.
Anonym. Vales. p. 716. Jornandes says, (c 46, p. 680,) in
Lucullano Campaniae castello exilii poena damnavit.]
128 (return) [ See the eloquent Declamation of Seneca, (Epist.
lxxxvi.) The philosopher might have recollected, that all luxury
is relative; and that the elder Scipio, whose manners were
polished by study and conversation, was himself accused of that
vice by his ruder contemporaries, (Livy, xxix. 19.)]
129 (return) [ Sylla, in the language of a soldier, praised his
peritia castrametandi, (Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 7.) Phaedrus,
who makes its shady walks (loeta viridia) the scene of an insipid
fable, (ii. 5,) has thus described the situation:—
Caesar Tiberius quum petens Neapolim, In Misenensem villam
venissit suam; Quae monte summo posita Luculli manu Prospectat
Siculum et prospicit Tuscum mare.]
130 (return) [ From seven myriads and a half to two hundred and
fifty myriads of drachmae. Yet even in the possession of Marius,
it was a luxurious retirement. The Romans derided his indolence;
they soon bewailed his activity. See Plutarch, in Mario, tom. ii.
p. 524.]
131 (return) [ Lucullus had other villa of equal, though various,
magnificence, at Baiae, Naples, Tusculum, &c., He boasted that he
changed his climate with the storks and cranes. Plutarch, in
Lucull. tom. iii. p. 193.]
132 (return) [ Severinus died in Noricum, A.D. 482. Six years
afterwards, his body, which scattered miracles as it passed, was
transported by his disciples into Italy. The devotion of a
Neapolitan lady invited the saint to the Lucullan villa, in the
place of Augustulus, who was probably no more. See Baronius
(Annal. Eccles. A.D. 496, No. 50, 51) and Tillemont, (Mem.
Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 178-181,) from the original life by
Eugippius. The narrative of the last migration of Severinus to
Naples is likewise an authentic piece.]
Odoacer was the first Barbarian who reigned in Italy, over a
people who had once asserted their just superiority above the
rest of mankind. The disgrace of the Romans still excites our
respectful compassion, and we fondly sympathize with the
imaginary grief and indignation of their degenerate posterity.
But the calamities of Italy had gradually subdued the proud
consciousness of freedom and glory. In the age of Roman virtue
the provinces were subject to the arms, and the citizens to the
laws, of the republic; till those laws were subverted by civil
discord, and both the city and the province became the servile
property of a tyrant. The forms of the constitution, which
alleviated or disguised their abject slavery, were abolished by
time and violence; the Italians alternately lamented the presence
or the absence of the sovereign, whom they detested or despised;
and the succession of five centuries inflicted the various evils
of military license, capricious despotism, and elaborate
oppression. During the same period, the Barbarians had emerged
from obscurity and contempt, and the warriors of Germany and
Scythia were introduced into the provinces, as the servants, the
allies, and at length the masters, of the Romans, whom they
insulted or protected. The hatred of the people was suppressed by
fear; they respected the spirit and splendor of the martial
chiefs who were invested with the honors of the empire; and the
fate of Rome had long depended on the sword of those formidable
strangers. The stern Ricimer, who trampled on the ruins of Italy,
had exercised the power, without assuming the title, of a king;
and the patient Romans were insensibly prepared to acknowledge
the royalty of Odoacer and his Barbaric successors. The king of
Italy was not unworthy of the high station to which his valor and
fortune had exalted him: his savage manners were polished by the
habits of conversation; and he respected, though a conqueror and
a Barbarian, the institutions, and even the prejudices, of his
subjects. After an interval of seven years, Odoacer restored the
consulship of the West. For himself, he modestly, or proudly,
declined an honor which was still accepted by the emperors of the
East; but the curule chair was successively filled by eleven of
the most illustrious senators; 133 and the list is adorned by the
respectable name of Basilius, whose virtues claimed the
friendship and grateful applause of Sidonius, his client. 134 The
laws of the emperors were strictly enforced, and the civil
administration of Italy was still exercised by the Prætorian
praefect and his subordinate officers. Odoacer devolved on the
Roman magistrates the odious and oppressive task of collecting
the public revenue; but he reserved for himself the merit of
seasonable and popular indulgence. 135 Like the rest of the
Barbarians, he had been instructed in the Arian heresy; but he
revered the monastic and episcopal characters; and the silence of
the Catholics attest the toleration which they enjoyed. The peace
of the city required the interposition of his praefect Basilius
in the choice of a Roman pontiff: the decree which restrained the
clergy from alienating their lands was ultimately designed for
the benefit of the people, whose devotions would have been taxed
to repair the dilapidations of the church. 136 Italy was
protected by the arms of its conqueror; and its frontiers were
respected by the Barbarians of Gaul and Germany, who had so long
insulted the feeble race of Theodosius. Odoacer passed the
Adriatic, to chastise the assassins of the emperor Nepos, and to
acquire the maritime province of Dalmatia. He passed the Alps, to
rescue the remains of Noricum from Fava, or Feletheus, king of
the Rugians, who held his residence beyond the Danube. The king
was vanquished in battle, and led away prisoner; a numerous
colony of captives and subjects was transplanted into Italy; and
Rome, after a long period of defeat and disgrace, might claim the
triumph of her Barbarian master. 137
133 (return) [ The consular Fasti may be found in Pagi or
Muratori. The consuls named by Odoacer, or perhaps by the Roman
senate, appear to have been acknowledged in the Eastern empire.]
134 (return) [ Sidonius Apollinaris (l. i. epist. 9, p. 22, edit.
Sirmond) has compared the two leading senators of his time, (A.D.
468,) Gennadius Avienus and Caecina Basilius. To the former he
assigns the specious, to the latter the solid, virtues of public
and private life. A Basilius junior, possibly his son, was consul
in the year 480.]
135 (return) [ Epiphanius interceded for the people of Pavia; and
the king first granted an indulgence of five years, and
afterwards relieved them from the oppression of Pelagius, the
Prætorian praefect, (Ennodius in Vit St. Epiphan., in Sirmond,
Oper. tom. i. p. 1670-1672.)]
136 (return) [ See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 483, No. 10-15.
Sixteen years afterwards the irregular proceedings of Basilius
were condemned by Pope Symmachus in a Roman synod.]
137 (return) [ The wars of Odoacer are concisely mentioned by
Paul the Deacon, (de Gest. Langobard. l. i. c. 19, p. 757, edit.
Grot.,) and in the two Chronicles of Cassiodorus and Cuspinian.
The life of St. Severinus by Eugippius, which the count de Buat
(Hist. des Peuples, &c., tom. viii. c. 1, 4, 8, 9) has diligently
studied, illustrates the ruin of Noricum and the Bavarian
antiquities]
Notwithstanding the prudence and success of Odoacer, his kingdom
exhibited the sad prospect of misery and desolation. Since the
age of Tiberius, the decay of agriculture had been felt in Italy;
and it was a just subject of complaint, that the life of the
Roman people depended on the accidents of the winds and waves.
138 In the division and the decline of the empire, the tributary
harvests of Egypt and Africa were withdrawn; the numbers of the
inhabitants continually diminished with the means of subsistence;
and the country was exhausted by the irretrievable losses of war,
famine, 139 and pestilence. St. Ambrose has deplored the ruin of
a populous district, which had been once adorned with the
flourishing cities of Bologna, Modena, Regium, and Placentia. 140
Pope Gelasius was a subject of Odoacer; and he affirms, with
strong exaggeration, that in Aemilia, Tuscany, and the adjacent
provinces, the human species was almost extirpated. 141 The
plebeians of Rome, who were fed by the hand of their master,
perished or disappeared, as soon as his liberality was
suppressed; the decline of the arts reduced the industrious
mechanic to idleness and want; and the senators, who might
support with patience the ruin of their country, bewailed their
private loss of wealth and luxury. 1411 One third of those ample
estates, to which the ruin of Italy is originally imputed, 142
was extorted for the use of the conquerors. Injuries were
aggravated by insults; the sense of actual sufferings was
imbittered by the fear of more dreadful evils; and as new lands
were allotted to the new swarms of Barbarians, each senator was
apprehensive lest the arbitrary surveyors should approach his
favorite villa, or his most profitable farm. The least
unfortunate were those who submitted without a murmur to the
power which it was impossible to resist. Since they desired to
live, they owed some gratitude to the tyrant who had spared their
lives; and since he was the absolute master of their fortunes,
the portion which he left must be accepted as his pure and
voluntary gift. 143 The distress of Italy 1431 was mitigated by
the prudence and humanity of Odoacer, who had bound himself, as
the price of his elevation, to satisfy the demands of a
licentious and turbulent multitude. The kings of the Barbarians
were frequently resisted, deposed, or murdered, by their native
subjects, and the various bands of Italian mercenaries, who
associated under the standard of an elective general, claimed a
larger privilege of freedom and rapine. A monarchy destitute of
national union, and hereditary right, hastened to its
dissolution. After a reign of fourteen years, Odoacer was
oppressed by the superior genius of Theodoric, king of the
Ostrogoths; a hero alike excellent in the arts of war and of
government, who restored an age of peace and prosperity, and
whose name still excites and deserves the attention of mankind.
138 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. iii. 53. The Recherches sur
l’Administration des Terres chez les Romains (p. 351-361) clearly
state the progress of internal decay.]
139 (return) [ A famine, which afflicted Italy at the time of the
irruption of Odoacer, king of the Heruli, is eloquently
described, in prose and verse, by a French poet, (Les Mois, tom.
ii. p. 174, 205, edit. in 12 mo.) I am ignorant from whence he
derives his information; but I am well assured that he relates
some facts incompatible with the truth of history]
140 (return) [ See the xxxixth epistle of St. Ambrose, as it is
quoted by Muratori, sopra le Antichita Italiane, tom. i. Dissert.
xxi. p. 354.]
141 (return) [ Aemilia, Tuscia, ceteraeque provinciae in quibus
hominum propenullus exsistit. Gelasius, Epist. ad Andromachum,
ap. Baronium, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 496, No. 36.]
1411 (return) [ Denina supposes that the Barbarians were
compelled by necessity to turn their attention to agriculture.
Italy, either imperfectly cultivated, or not at all, by the
indolent or ruined proprietors, not only could not furnish the
imposts, on which the pay of the soldiery depended, but not even
a certain supply of the necessaries of life. The neighboring
countries were now occupied by warlike nations; the supplies of
corn from Africa were cut off; foreign commerce nearly destroyed;
they could not look for supplies beyond the limits of Italy,
throughout which the agriculture had been long in a state of
progressive but rapid depression. (Denina, Rev. d’Italia t. v. c.
i.)—M.]
142 (return) [ Verumque confitentibus, latifundia perdidere
Italiam. Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 7.]
143 (return) [ Such are the topics of consolation, or rather of
patience, which Cicero (ad Familiares, lib. ix. Epist. 17)
suggests to his friend Papirius Paetus, under the military
despotism of Caesar. The argument, however, of “vivere
pulcherrimum duxi,” is more forcibly addressed to a Roman
philosopher, who possessed the free alternative of life or death]
1431 (return) [ Compare, on the desolation and change of property
in Italy, Manno des Ost-Gothischen Reiches, Part ii. p. 73, et
seq.—M.]
Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity.—Part I.
Origin Progress, And Effects Of The Monastic Life.— Conversion Of
The Barbarians To Christianity And Arianism.— Persecution Of The
Vandals In Africa.—Extinction Of Arianism Among The Barbarians.
The indissoluble connection of civil and ecclesiastical affairs
has compelled, and encouraged, me to relate the progress, the
persecutions, the establishment, the divisions, the final
triumph, and the gradual corruption, of Christianity. I have
purposely delayed the consideration of two religious events,
interesting in the study of human nature, and important in the
decline and fall of the Roman empire. I. The institution of the
monastic life; 1 and, II. The conversion of the northern
Barbarians.
1 (return) [ The origin of the monastic institution has been
laboriously discussed by Thomassin (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom.
i. p. 1119-1426) and Helyot, (Hist. des Ordres Monastiques, tom.
i. p. 1-66.) These authors are very learned, and tolerably
honest, and their difference of opinion shows the subject in its
full extent. Yet the cautious Protestant, who distrusts any
popish guides, may consult the seventh book of Bingham’s
Christian Antiquities.]
I. Prosperity and peace introduced the distinction of the vulgar
and the Ascetic Christians. 2 The loose and imperfect practice of
religion satisfied the conscience of the multitude. The prince or
magistrate, the soldier or merchant, reconciled their fervent
zeal, and implicit faith, with the exercise of their profession,
the pursuit of their interest, and the indulgence of their
passions: but the Ascetics, who obeyed and abused the rigid
precepts of the gospel, were inspired by the savage enthusiasm
which represents man as a criminal, and God as a tyrant. They
seriously renounced the business, and the pleasures, of the age;
abjured the use of wine, of flesh, and of marriage; chastised
their body, mortified their affections, and embraced a life of
misery, as the price of eternal happiness. In the reign of
Constantine, the Ascetics fled from a profane and degenerate
world, to perpetual solitude, or religious society. Like the
first Christians of Jerusalem, 3 311 they resigned the use, or
the property of their temporal possessions; established regular
communities of the same sex, and a similar disposition; and
assumed the names of Hermits, Monks, and Anachorets, expressive
of their lonely retreat in a natural or artificial desert. They
soon acquired the respect of the world, which they despised; and
the loudest applause was bestowed on this Divine Philosophy, 4
which surpassed, without the aid of science or reason, the
laborious virtues of the Grecian schools. The monks might indeed
contend with the Stoics, in the contempt of fortune, of pain, and
of death: the Pythagorean silence and submission were revived in
their servile discipline; and they disdained, as firmly as the
Cynics themselves, all the forms and decencies of civil society.
But the votaries of this Divine Philosophy aspired to imitate a
purer and more perfect model. They trod in the footsteps of the
prophets, who had retired to the desert; 5 and they restored the
devout and contemplative life, which had been instituted by the
Essenians, in Palestine and Egypt. The philosophic eye of Pliny
had surveyed with astonishment a solitary people, who dwelt among
the palm-trees near the Dead Sea; who subsisted without money,
who were propagated without women; and who derived from the
disgust and repentance of mankind a perpetual supply of voluntary
associates. 6
2 (return) [ See Euseb. Demonstrat. Evangel., (l. i. p. 20, 21,
edit. Graec. Rob. Stephani, Paris, 1545.) In his Ecclesiastical
History, published twelve years after the Demonstration, Eusebius
(l. ii. c. 17) asserts the Christianity of the Therapeutae; but
he appears ignorant that a similar institution was actually
revived in Egypt.]
3 (return) [ Cassian (Collat. xviii. 5.) claims this origin for
the institution of the Coenobites, which gradually decayed till
it was restored by Antony and his disciples.]
311 (return) [ It has before been shown that the first Christian
community was not strictly coenobitic. See vol. ii.—M.]
4 (return) [ These are the expressive words of Sozomen, who
copiously and agreeably describes (l. i. c. 12, 13, 14) the
origin and progress of this monkish philosophy, (see Suicer.
Thesau, Eccles., tom. ii. p. 1441.) Some modern writers, Lipsius
(tom. iv. p. 448. Manuduct. ad Philosoph. Stoic. iii. 13) and La
Mothe le Vayer, (tom. ix. de la Vertu des Payens, p. 228-262,)
have compared the Carmelites to the Pythagoreans, and the Cynics
to the Capucins.]
5 (return) [ The Carmelites derive their pedigree, in regular
succession, from the prophet Elijah, (see the Theses of Beziers,
A.D. 1682, in Bayle’s Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres,
Oeuvres, tom. i. p. 82, &c., and the prolix irony of the Ordres
Monastiques, an anonymous work, tom. i. p. 1-433, Berlin, 1751.)
Rome, and the inquisition of Spain, silenced the profane
criticism of the Jesuits of Flanders, (Helyot, Hist. des Ordres
Monastiques, tom. i. p. 282-300,) and the statue of Elijah, the
Carmelite, has been erected in the church of St. Peter, (Voyages
du P. Labat tom. iii. p. 87.)]
6 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. v. 15. Gens sola, et in toto orbe
praeter ceteras mira, sine ulla femina, omni venere abdicata,
sine pecunia, socia palmarum. Ita per seculorum millia
(incredibile dictu) gens aeterna est in qua nemo nascitur. Tam
foecunda illis aliorum vitae poenitentia est. He places them just
beyond the noxious influence of the lake, and names Engaddi and
Massada as the nearest towns. The Laura, and monastery of St.
Sabas, could not be far distant from this place. See Reland.
Palestin., tom. i. p. 295; tom. ii. p. 763, 874, 880, 890.]
Egypt, the fruitful parent of superstition, afforded the first
example of the monastic life. Antony, 7 an illiterate 8 youth of
the lower parts of Thebais, distributed his patrimony, 9 deserted
his family and native home, and executed his monastic penance
with original and intrepid fanaticism. After a long and painful
novitiate, among the tombs, and in a ruined tower, he boldly
advanced into the desert three days’ journey to the eastward of
the Nile; discovered a lonely spot, which possessed the
advantages of shade and water, and fixed his last residence on
Mount Colzim, near the Red Sea; where an ancient monastery still
preserves the name and memory of the saint. 10 The curious
devotion of the Christians pursued him to the desert; and when he
was obliged to appear at Alexandria, in the face of mankind, he
supported his fame with discretion and dignity. He enjoyed the
friendship of Athanasius, whose doctrine he approved; and the
Egyptian peasant respectfully declined a respectful invitation
from the emperor Constantine. The venerable patriarch (for Antony
attained the age of one hundred and five years) beheld the
numerous progeny which had been formed by his example and his
lessons. The prolific colonies of monks multiplied with rapid
increase on the sands of Libya, upon the rocks of Thebais, and in
the cities of the Nile. To the south of Alexandria, the mountain,
and adjacent desert, of Nitria, were peopled by five thousand
anachorets; and the traveller may still investigate the ruins of
fifty monasteries, which were planted in that barren soil by the
disciples of Antony. 11 In the Upper Thebais, the vacant island
of Tabenne, 12 was occupied by Pachomius and fourteen hundred of
his brethren. That holy abbot successively founded nine
monasteries of men, and one of women; and the festival of Easter
sometimes collected fifty thousand religious persons, who
followed his angelic rule of discipline. 13 The stately and
populous city of Oxyrinchus, the seat of Christian orthodoxy, had
devoted the temples, the public edifices, and even the ramparts,
to pious and charitable uses; and the bishop, who might preach in
twelve churches, computed ten thousand females and twenty
thousand males, of the monastic profession. 14 The Egyptians, who
gloried in this marvellous revolution, were disposed to hope, and
to believe, that the number of the monks was equal to the
remainder of the people; 15 and posterity might repeat the
saying, which had formerly been applied to the sacred animals of
the same country, That in Egypt it was less difficult to find a
god than a man.
7 (return) [ See Athanas. Op. tom. ii. p. 450-505, and the Vit.
Patrum, p. 26-74, with Rosweyde’s Annotations. The former is the
Greek original the latter, a very ancient Latin version by
Evagrius, the friend of St. Jerom.]
8 (return) [ Athanas. tom. ii. in Vit. St. Anton. p. 452; and the
assertion of his total ignorance has been received by many of the
ancients and moderns. But Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p.
666) shows, by some probable arguments, that Antony could read
and write in the Coptic, his native tongue; and that he was only
a stranger to the Greek letters. The philosopher Synesius (p. 51)
acknowledges that the natural genius of Antony did not require
the aid of learning.]
9 (return) [ Aruroe autem erant ei trecentae uberes, et valde
optimae, (Vit. Patr. l. v. p. 36.) If the Arura be a square
measure, of a hundred Egyptian cubits, (Rosweyde, Onomasticon ad
Vit. Patrum, p. 1014, 1015,) and the Egyptian cubit of all ages
be equal to twenty-two English inches, (Greaves, vol. i. p. 233,)
the arura will consist of about three quarters of an English
acre.]
10 (return) [ The description of the monastery is given by Jerom
(tom. i. p. 248, 249, in Vit. Hilarion) and the P. Sicard,
(Missions du Levant tom. v. p. 122-200.) Their accounts cannot
always be reconciled the father painted from his fancy, and the
Jesuit from his experience.]
11 (return) [ Jerom, tom. i. p. 146, ad Eustochium. Hist.
Lausiac. c. 7, in Vit. Patrum, p. 712. The P. Sicard (Missions du
Levant, tom. ii. p. 29-79) visited and has described this desert,
which now contains four monasteries, and twenty or thirty monks.
See D’Anville, Description de l’Egypte, p. 74.]
12 (return) [ Tabenne is a small island in the Nile, in the
diocese of Tentyra or Dendera, between the modern town of Girge
and the ruins of ancient Thebes, (D’Anville, p. 194.) M. de
Tillemont doubts whether it was an isle; but I may conclude, from
his own facts, that the primitive name was afterwards transferred
to the great monastery of Bau or Pabau, (Mem. Eccles. tom. vii.
p. 678, 688.)]
13 (return) [ See in the Codex Regularum (published by Lucas
Holstenius, Rome, 1661) a preface of St. Jerom to his Latin
version of the Rule of Pachomius, tom. i. p. 61.]
14 (return) [ Rufin. c. 5, in Vit. Patrum, p. 459. He calls it
civitas ampla ralde et populosa, and reckons twelve churches.
Strabo (l. xvii. p. 1166) and Ammianus (xxii. 16) have made
honorable mention of Oxyrinchus, whose inhabitants adored a small
fish in a magnificent temple.]
15 (return) [ Quanti populi habentur in urbibus, tantae paene
habentur in desertis multitudines monachorum. Rufin. c. 7, in
Vit. Patrum, p. 461. He congratulates the fortunate change.]
Athanasius introduced into Rome the knowledge and practice of the
monastic life; and a school of this new philosophy was opened by
the disciples of Antony, who accompanied their primate to the
holy threshold of the Vatican. The strange and savage appearance
of these Egyptians excited, at first, horror and contempt, and,
at length, applause and zealous imitation. The senators, and more
especially the matrons, transformed their palaces and villas into
religious houses; and the narrow institution of six vestals was
eclipsed by the frequent monasteries, which were seated on the
ruins of ancient temples, and in the midst of the Roman forum. 16
Inflamed by the example of Antony, a Syrian youth, whose name was
Hilarion, 17 fixed his dreary abode on a sandy beach, between the
sea and a morass, about seven miles from Gaza. The austere
penance, in which he persisted forty-eight years, diffused a
similar enthusiasm; and the holy man was followed by a train of
two or three thousand anachorets, whenever he visited the
innumerable monasteries of Palestine. The fame of Basil 18 is
immortal in the monastic history of the East. With a mind that
had tasted the learning and eloquence of Athens; with an ambition
scarcely to be satisfied with the archbishopric of Caesarea,
Basil retired to a savage solitude in Pontus; and deigned, for a
while, to give laws to the spiritual colonies which he profusely
scattered along the coast of the Black Sea. In the West, Martin
of Tours, 19 a soldier, a hermit, a bishop, and a saint,
established the monasteries of Gaul; two thousand of his
disciples followed him to the grave; and his eloquent historian
challenges the deserts of Thebais to produce, in a more favorable
climate, a champion of equal virtue. The progress of the monks
was not less rapid, or universal, than that of Christianity
itself. Every province, and, at last, every city, of the empire,
was filled with their increasing multitudes; and the bleak and
barren isles, from Lerins to Lipari, that arose out of the Tuscan
Sea, were chosen by the anachorets for the place of their
voluntary exile. An easy and perpetual intercourse by sea and
land connected the provinces of the Roman world; and the life of
Hilarion displays the facility with which an indigent hermit of
Palestine might traverse Egypt, embark for Sicily, escape to
Epirus, and finally settle in the Island of Cyprus. 20 The Latin
Christians embraced the religious institutions of Rome. The
pilgrims, who visited Jerusalem, eagerly copied, in the most
distant climates of the earth, the faithful model of the monastic
life. The disciples of Antony spread themselves beyond the
tropic, over the Christian empire of Æthiopia. 21 The monastery
of Banchor, 22 in Flintshire, which contained above two thousand
brethren, dispersed a numerous colony among the Barbarians of
Ireland; 23 and Iona, one of the Hebrides, which was planted by
the Irish monks, diffused over the northern regions a doubtful
ray of science and superstition. 24
16 (return) [ The introduction of the monastic life into Rome and
Italy is occasionally mentioned by Jerom, tom. i. p. 119, 120,
199.]
17 (return) [ See the Life of Hilarion, by St. Jerom, (tom. i. p.
241, 252.) The stories of Paul, Hilarion, and Malchus, by the
same author, are admirably told: and the only defect of these
pleasing compositions is the want of truth and common sense.]
18 (return) [ His original retreat was in a small village on the
banks of the Iris, not far from Neo-Caesarea. The ten or twelve
years of his monastic life were disturbed by long and frequent
avocations. Some critics have disputed the authenticity of his
Ascetic rules; but the external evidence is weighty, and they can
only prove that it is the work of a real or affected enthusiast.
See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles tom. ix. p. 636-644. Helyot, Hist. des
Ordres Monastiques tom. i. p. 175-181]
19 (return) [ See his Life, and the three Dialogues by Sulpicius
Severus, who asserts (Dialog. i. 16) that the booksellers of Rome
were delighted with the quick and ready sale of his popular
work.]
20 (return) [ When Hilarion sailed from Paraetonium to Cape
Pachynus, he offered to pay his passage with a book of the
Gospels. Posthumian, a Gallic monk, who had visited Egypt, found
a merchant ship bound from Alexandria to Marseilles, and
performed the voyage in thirty days, (Sulp. Sever. Dialog. i. 1.)
Athanasius, who addressed his Life of St. Antony to the foreign
monks, was obliged to hasten the composition, that it might be
ready for the sailing of the fleets, (tom. ii. p. 451.)]
21 (return) [ See Jerom, (tom. i. p. 126,) Assemanni, Bibliot.
Orient. tom. iv. p. 92, p. 857-919, and Geddes, Church History of
Æthiopia, p. 29-31. The Abyssinian monks adhere very strictly to
the primitive institution.]
22 (return) [ Camden’s Britannia, vol. i. p. 666, 667.]
23 (return) [ All that learning can extract from the rubbish of
the dark ages is copiously stated by Archbishop Usher in his
Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates, cap. xvi. p. 425-503.]
24 (return) [ This small, though not barren, spot, Iona, Hy, or
Columbkill, only two miles in length, aud one mile in breadth,
has been distinguished, 1. By the monastery of St. Columba,
founded A.D. 566; whose abbot exercised an extraordinary
jurisdiction over the bishops of Caledonia; 2. By a classic
library, which afforded some hopes of an entire Livy; and, 3. By
the tombs of sixty kings, Scots, Irish, and Norwegians, who
reposed in holy ground. See Usher (p. 311, 360-370) and Buchanan,
(Rer. Scot. l. ii. p. 15, edit. Ruddiman.)]
These unhappy exiles from social life were impelled by the dark
and implacable genius of superstition. Their mutual resolution
was supported by the example of millions, of either sex, of every
age, and of every rank; and each proselyte who entered the gates
of a monastery, was persuaded that he trod the steep and thorny
path of eternal happiness. 25 But the operation of these
religious motives was variously determined by the temper and
situation of mankind. Reason might subdue, or passion might
suspend, their influence: but they acted most forcibly on the
infirm minds of children and females; they were strengthened by
secret remorse, or accidental misfortune; and they might derive
some aid from the temporal considerations of vanity or interest.
It was naturally supposed, that the pious and humble monks, who
had renounced the world to accomplish the work of their
salvation, were the best qualified for the spiritual government
of the Christians. The reluctant hermit was torn from his cell,
and seated, amidst the acclamations of the people, on the
episcopal throne: the monasteries of Egypt, of Gaul, and of the
East, supplied a regular succession of saints and bishops; and
ambition soon discovered the secret road which led to the
possession of wealth and honors. 26 The popular monks, whose
reputation was connected with the fame and success of the order,
assiduously labored to multiply the number of their
fellow-captives. They insinuated themselves into noble and
opulent families; and the specious arts of flattery and seduction
were employed to secure those proselytes who might bestow wealth
or dignity on the monastic profession. The indignant father
bewailed the loss, perhaps, of an only son; 27 the credulous maid
was betrayed by vanity to violate the laws of nature; and the
matron aspired to imaginary perfection, by renouncing the virtues
of domestic life. Paula yielded to the persuasive eloquence of
Jerom; 28 and the profane title of mother-in-law of God 29
tempted that illustrious widow to consecrate the virginity of her
daughter Eustochium. By the advice, and in the company, of her
spiritual guide, Paula abandoned Rome and her infant son; retired
to the holy village of Bethlem; founded a hospital and four
monasteries; and acquired, by her alms and penance, an eminent
and conspicuous station in the Catholic church. Such rare and
illustrious penitents were celebrated as the glory and example of
their age; but the monasteries were filled by a crowd of obscure
and abject plebeians, 30 who gained in the cloister much more
than they had sacrificed in the world. Peasants, slaves, and
mechanics, might escape from poverty and contempt to a safe and
honorable profession; whose apparent hardships are mitigated by
custom, by popular applause, and by the secret relaxation of
discipline. 31 The subjects of Rome, whose persons and fortunes
were made responsible for unequal and exorbitant tributes,
retired from the oppression of the Imperial government; and the
pusillanimous youth preferred the penance of a monastic, to the
dangers of a military, life. The affrighted provincials of every
rank, who fled before the Barbarians, found shelter and
subsistence: whole legions were buried in these religious
sanctuaries; and the same cause, which relieved the distress of
individuals, impaired the strength and fortitude of the empire.
32
25 (return) [ Chrysostom (in the first tome of the Benedictine
edition) has consecrated three books to the praise and defence of
the monastic life. He is encouraged, by the example of the ark,
to presume that none but the elect (the monks) can possibly be
saved (l. i. p. 55, 56.) Elsewhere, indeed, he becomes more
merciful, (l. iii. p. 83, 84,) and allows different degrees of
glory, like the sun, moon, and stars. In his lively comparison of
a king and a monk, (l. iii. p. 116-121,) he supposes (what is
hardly fair) that the king will be more sparingly rewarded, and
more rigorously punished.]
26 (return) [ Thomassin (Discipline de l’Eglise tom. i. p.
1426-1469) and Mabillon, (Oeuvres Posthumes, tom. ii. p.
115-158.) The monks were gradually adopted as a part of the
ecclesiastical hierarchy.]
27 (return) [ Dr. Middleton (vol. i. p. 110) liberally censures
the conduct and writings of Chrysostom, one of the most eloquent
and successful advocates for the monastic life.]
28 (return) [ Jerom’s devout ladies form a very considerable
portion of his works: the particular treatise, which he styles
the Epitaph of Paula, (tom. i. p. 169-192,) is an elaborate and
extravagant panegyric. The exordium is ridiculously turgid: “If
all the members of my body were changed into tongues, and if all
my limbs resounded with a human voice, yet should I be
incapable,” &c.]
29 (return) [ Socrus Dei esse coepisti, (Jerom, tom. i. p. 140,
ad Eustochium.) Rufinus, (in Hieronym. Op. tom. iv. p. 223,) who
was justly scandalized, asks his adversary, from what Pagan poet
he had stolen an expression so impious and absurd.]
30 (return) [ Nunc autem veniunt plerumque ad hanc professionem
servitutis Dei, et ex conditione servili, vel etiam liberati, vel
propter hoc a Dominis liberati sive liberandi; et ex vita
rusticana et ex opificum exercitatione, et plebeio labore.
Augustin, de Oper. Monach. c. 22, ap. Thomassin, Discipline de
l’Eglise, tom. iii. p. 1094. The Egyptian, who blamed Arsenius,
owned that he led a more comfortable life as a monk than as a
shepherd. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 679.]
31 (return) [ A Dominican friar, (Voyages du P. Labat, tom. i. p.
10,) who lodged at Cadiz in a convent of his brethren, soon
understood that their repose was never interrupted by nocturnal
devotion; “quoiqu’on ne laisse pas de sonner pour l’edification
du peuple.”]
32 (return) [ See a very sensible preface of Lucas Holstenius to
the Codex Regularum. The emperors attempted to support the
obligation of public and private duties; but the feeble dikes
were swept away by the torrent of superstition; and Justinian
surpassed the most sanguine wishes of the monks, (Thomassin, tom.
i. p. 1782-1799, and Bingham, l. vii. c. iii. p. 253.) Note: The
emperor Valens, in particular, promulgates a law contra ignavise
quosdam sectatores, qui desertis civitatum muneribus, captant
solitudines secreta, et specie religionis cum coetibus monachorum
congregantur. Cad. Theod l. xii. tit. i. leg. 63.—G.]
The monastic profession of the ancients 33 was an act of
voluntary devotion. The inconstant fanatic was threatened with
the eternal vengeance of the God whom he deserted; but the doors
of the monastery were still open for repentance. Those monks,
whose conscience was fortified by reason or passion, were at
liberty to resume the character of men and citizens; and even the
spouses of Christ might accept the legal embraces of an earthly
lover. 34 The examples of scandal, and the progress of
superstition, suggested the propriety of more forcible
restraints. After a sufficient trial, the fidelity of the novice
was secured by a solemn and perpetual vow; and his irrevocable
engagement was ratified by the laws of the church and state. A
guilty fugitive was pursued, arrested, and restored to his
perpetual prison; and the interposition of the magistrate
oppressed the freedom and the merit, which had alleviated, in
some degree, the abject slavery of the monastic discipline. 35
The actions of a monk, his words, and even his thoughts, were
determined by an inflexible rule, 36 or a capricious superior:
the slightest offences were corrected by disgrace or confinement,
extraordinary fasts, or bloody flagellation; and disobedience,
murmur, or delay, were ranked in the catalogue of the most
heinous sins. 37 A blind submission to the commands of the abbot,
however absurd, or even criminal, they might seem, was the ruling
principle, the first virtue of the Egyptian monks; and their
patience was frequently exercised by the most extravagant trials.
They were directed to remove an enormous rock; assiduously to
water a barren staff, that was planted in the ground, till, at
the end of three years, it should vegetate and blossom like a
tree; to walk into a fiery furnace; or to cast their infant into
a deep pond: and several saints, or madmen, have been
immortalized in monastic story, by their thoughtless and fearless
obedience. 38 The freedom of the mind, the source of every
generous and rational sentiment, was destroyed by the habits of
credulity and submission; and the monk, contracting the vices of
a slave, devoutly followed the faith and passions of his
ecclesiastical tyrant. The peace of the Eastern church was
invaded by a swarm of fanatics, incapable of fear, or reason, or
humanity; and the Imperial troops acknowledged, without shame,
that they were much less apprehensive of an encounter with the
fiercest Barbarians. 39
33 (return) [ The monastic institutions, particularly those of
Egypt, about the year 400, are described by four curious and
devout travellers; Rufinus, (Vit. Patrum, l. ii. iii. p.
424-536,) Posthumian, (Sulp. Sever. Dialog. i.) Palladius, (Hist.
Lausiac. in Vit. Patrum, p. 709-863,) and Cassian, (see in tom.
vii. Bibliothec. Max. Patrum, his four first books of Institutes,
and the twenty-four Collations or Conferences.)]
34 (return) [ The example of Malchus, (Jerom, tom. i. p. 256,)
and the design of Cassian and his friend, (Collation. xxiv. 1,)
are incontestable proofs of their freedom; which is elegantly
described by Erasmus in his Life of St. Jerom. See Chardon, Hist.
des Sacremens, tom. vi. p. 279-300.]
35 (return) [ See the Laws of Justinian, (Novel. cxxiii. No. 42,)
and of Lewis the Pious, (in the Historians of France, tom vi. p.
427,) and the actual jurisprudence of France, in Denissart,
(Decisions, &c., tom. iv. p. 855,) &c.]
36 (return) [ The ancient Codex Regularum, collected by Benedict
Anianinus, the reformer of the monks in the beginning of the
ninth century, and published in the seventeenth, by Lucas
Holstenius, contains thirty different rules for men and women. Of
these, seven were composed in Egypt, one in the East, one in
Cappadocia, one in Italy, one in Africa, four in Spain, eight in
Gaul, or France, and one in England.]
37 (return) [ The rule of Columbanus, so prevalent in the West,
inflicts one hundred lashes for very slight offences, (Cod. Reg.
part ii. p. 174.) Before the time of Charlemagne, the abbots
indulged themselves in mutilating their monks, or putting out
their eyes; a punishment much less cruel than the tremendous vade
in pace (the subterraneous dungeon or sepulchre) which was
afterwards invented. See an admirable discourse of the learned
Mabillon, (Oeuvres Posthumes, tom. ii. p. 321-336,) who, on this
occasion, seems to be inspired by the genius of humanity. For
such an effort, I can forgive his defence of the holy tear of
Vendeme (p. 361-399.)]
38 (return) [ Sulp. Sever. Dialog. i. 12, 13, p. 532, &c.
Cassian. Institut. l. iv. c. 26, 27. “Praecipua ibi virtus et
prima est obedientia.” Among the Verba seniorum, (in Vit. Patrum,
l. v. p. 617,) the fourteenth libel or discourse is on the
subject of obedience; and the Jesuit Rosweyde, who published that
huge volume for the use of convents, has collected all the
scattered passages in his two copious indexes.]
39 (return) [ Dr. Jortin (Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol.
iv. p. 161) has observed the scandalous valor of the Cappadocian
monks, which was exemplified in the banishment of Chrysostom.]
Superstition has often framed and consecrated the fantastic
garments of the monks: 40 but their apparent singularity
sometimes proceeds from their uniform attachment to a simple and
primitive model, which the revolutions of fashion have made
ridiculous in the eyes of mankind. The father of the Benedictines
expressly disclaims all idea of choice of merit; and soberly
exhorts his disciples to adopt the coarse and convenient dress of
the countries which they may inhabit. 41 The monastic habits of
the ancients varied with the climate, and their mode of life; and
they assumed, with the same indifference, the sheep-skin of the
Egyptian peasants, or the cloak of the Grecian philosophers. They
allowed themselves the use of linen in Egypt, where it was a
cheap and domestic manufacture; but in the West they rejected
such an expensive article of foreign luxury. 42 It was the
practice of the monks either to cut or shave their hair; they
wrapped their heads in a cowl to escape the sight of profane
objects; their legs and feet were naked, except in the extreme
cold of winter; and their slow and feeble steps were supported by
a long staff. The aspect of a genuine anachoret was horrid and
disgusting: every sensation that is offensive to man was thought
acceptable to God; and the angelic rule of Tabenne condemned the
salutary custom of bathing the limbs in water, and of anointing
them with oil. 43 431 The austere monks slept on the ground, on a
hard mat, or a rough blanket; and the same bundle of palm-leaves
served them as a seat in the day, and a pillow in the night.
Their original cells were low, narrow huts, built of the
slightest materials; which formed, by the regular distribution of
the streets, a large and populous village, enclosing, within the
common wall, a church, a hospital, perhaps a library, some
necessary offices, a garden, and a fountain or reservoir of fresh
water. Thirty or forty brethren composed a family of separate
discipline and diet; and the great monasteries of Egypt consisted
of thirty or forty families.
40 (return) [ Cassian has simply, though copiously, described the
monastic habit of Egypt, (Institut. l. i.,) to which Sozomen (l.
iii. c. 14) attributes such allegorical meaning and virtue.]
41 (return) [ Regul. Benedict. No. 55, in Cod. Regul. part ii. p.
51.]
42 (return) [ See the rule of Ferreolus, bishop of Usez, (No. 31,
in Cod. Regul part ii. p. 136,) and of Isidore, bishop of
Seville, (No. 13, in Cod. Regul part ii. p. 214.)]
43 (return) [ Some partial indulgences were granted for the hands
and feet “Totum autem corpus nemo unguet nisi causa infirmitatis,
nec lavabitur aqua nudo corpore, nisi languor perspicuus sit,”
(Regul. Pachom xcii. part i. p. 78.)]
431 (return) [ Athanasius (Vit. Ant. c. 47) boasts of Antony’s
holy horror of clear water, by which his feet were uncontaminated
except under dire necessity—M.]
Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity.—Part II.
Pleasure and guilt are synonymous terms in the language of the
monks, and they discovered, by experience, that rigid fasts, and
abstemious diet, are the most effectual preservatives against the
impure desires of the flesh. 44 The rules of abstinence which
they imposed, or practised, were not uniform or perpetual: the
cheerful festival of the Pentecost was balanced by the
extraordinary mortification of Lent; the fervor of new
monasteries was insensibly relaxed; and the voracious appetite of
the Gauls could not imitate the patient and temperate virtue of
the Egyptians. 45 The disciples of Antony and Pachomius were
satisfied with their daily pittance, 46 of twelve ounces of
bread, or rather biscuit, 47 which they divided into two frugal
repasts, of the afternoon and of the evening. It was esteemed a
merit, and almost a duty, to abstain from the boiled vegetables
which were provided for the refectory; but the extraordinary
bounty of the abbot sometimes indulged them with the luxury of
cheese, fruit, salad, and the small dried fish of the Nile. 48 A
more ample latitude of sea and river fish was gradually allowed
or assumed; but the use of flesh was long confined to the sick or
travellers; and when it gradually prevailed in the less rigid
monasteries of Europe, a singular distinction was introduced; as
if birds, whether wild or domestic, had been less profane than
the grosser animals of the field. Water was the pure and innocent
beverage of the primitive monks; and the founder of the
Benedictines regrets the daily portion of half a pint of wine,
which had been extorted from him by the intemperance of the age.
49 Such an allowance might be easily supplied by the vineyards of
Italy; and his victorious disciples, who passed the Alps, the
Rhine, and the Baltic, required, in the place of wine, an
adequate compensation of strong beer or cider.
44 (return) [ St. Jerom, in strong, but indiscreet, language,
expresses the most important use of fasting and abstinence: “Non
quod Deus universitatis Creator et Dominus, intestinorum
nostrorum rugitu, et inanitate ventris, pulmonisque ardore
delectetur, sed quod aliter pudicitia tuta esse non possit.” (Op.
tom. i. p. 32, ad Eustochium.) See the twelfth and twenty-second
Collations of Cassian, de Castitate and de Illusionibus
Nocturnis.]
45 (return) [ Edacitas in Graecis gula est, in Gallis natura,
(Dialog. i. c. 4 p. 521.) Cassian fairly owns, that the perfect
model of abstinence cannot be imitated in Gaul, on account of the
aerum temperies, and the qualitas nostrae fragilitatis,
(Institut. iv. 11.) Among the Western rules, that of Columbanus
is the most austere; he had been educated amidst the poverty of
Ireland, as rigid, perhaps, and inflexible as the abstemious
virtue of Egypt. The rule of Isidore of Seville is the mildest;
on holidays he allows the use of flesh.]
46 (return) [ “Those who drink only water, and have no nutritious
liquor, ought, at least, to have a pound and a half (twenty-four
ounces) of bread every day.” State of Prisons, p. 40, by Mr.
Howard.]
47 (return) [ See Cassian. Collat. l. ii. 19-21. The small
loaves, or biscuit, of six ounces each, had obtained the name of
Paximacia, (Rosweyde, Onomasticon, p. 1045.) Pachomius, however,
allowed his monks some latitude in the quantity of their food;
but he made them work in proportion as they ate, (Pallad. in
Hist. Lausiac. c. 38, 39, in Vit. Patrum, l. viii. p. 736, 737.)]
48 (return) [ See the banquet to which Cassian (Collation viii.
1) was invited by Serenus, an Egyptian abbot.]
49 (return) [ See the Rule of St. Benedict, No. 39, 40, (in Cod.
Reg. part ii. p. 41, 42.) Licet legamus vinum omnino monachorum
non esse, sed quia nostris temporibus id monachis persuaderi non
potest; he allows them a Roman hemina, a measure which may be
ascertained from Arbuthnot’s Tables.]
The candidate who aspired to the virtue of evangelical poverty,
abjured, at his first entrance into a regular community, the
idea, and even the name, of all separate or exclusive
possessions. 50 The brethren were supported by their manual
labor; and the duty of labor was strenuously recommended as a
penance, as an exercise, and as the most laudable means of
securing their daily subsistence. 51 The garden and fields, which
the industry of the monks had often rescued from the forest or
the morass, were diligently cultivated by their hands. They
performed, without reluctance, the menial offices of slaves and
domestics; and the several trades that were necessary to provide
their habits, their utensils, and their lodging, were exercised
within the precincts of the great monasteries. The monastic
studies have tended, for the most part, to darken, rather than to
dispel, the cloud of superstition. Yet the curiosity or zeal of
some learned solitaries has cultivated the ecclesiastical, and
even the profane, sciences; and posterity must gratefully
acknowledge, that the monuments of Greek and Roman literature
have been preserved and multiplied by their indefatigable pens.
52 But the more humble industry of the monks, especially in
Egypt, was contented with the silent, sedentary occupation of
making wooden sandals, or of twisting the leaves of the palm-tree
into mats and baskets. The superfluous stock, which was not
consumed in domestic use, supplied, by trade, the wants of the
community: the boats of Tabenne, and the other monasteries of
Thebais, descended the Nile as far as Alexandria; and, in a
Christian market, the sanctity of the workmen might enhance the
intrinsic value of the work.
50 (return) [ Such expressions as my book, my cloak, my shoes,
(Cassian Institut. l. iv. c. 13,) were not less severely
prohibited among the Western monks, (Cod. Regul. part ii. p. 174,
235, 288;) and the rule of Columbanus punished them with six
lashes. The ironical author of the Ordres Monastiques, who laughs
at the foolish nicety of modern convents, seems ignorant that the
ancients were equally absurd.]
51 (return) [ Two great masters of ecclesiastical science, the P.
Thomassin, (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. iii. p. 1090-1139,) and
the P. Mabillon, (Etudes Monastiques, tom. i. p. 116-155,) have
seriously examined the manual labor of the monks, which the
former considers as a merit and the latter as a duty.]
52 (return) [ Mabillon (Etudes Monastiques, tom. i. p. 47-55) has
collected many curious facts to justify the literary labors of
his predecessors, both in the East and West. Books were copied in
the ancient monasteries of Egypt, (Cassian. Institut. l. iv. c.
12,) and by the disciples of St. Martin, (Sulp. Sever. in Vit.
Martin. c. 7, p. 473.) Cassiodorus has allowed an ample scope for
the studies of the monks; and we shall not be scandalized, if
their pens sometimes wandered from Chrysostom and Augustin to
Homer and Virgil. But the necessity of manual labor was
insensibly superseded.]
The novice was tempted to bestow his fortune on the saints, in
whose society he was resolved to spend the remainder of his life;
and the pernicious indulgence of the laws permitted him to
receive, for their use, any future accessions of legacy or
inheritance. 53 Melania contributed her plate, three hundred
pounds weight of silver; and Paula contracted an immense debt,
for the relief of their favorite monks; who kindly imparted the
merits of their prayers and penance to a rich and liberal sinner.
54 Time continually increased, and accidents could seldom
diminish, the estates of the popular monasteries, which spread
over the adjacent country and cities: and, in the first century
of their institution, the infidel Zosimus has maliciously
observed, that, for the benefit of the poor, the Christian monks
had reduced a great part of mankind to a state of beggary. 55 As
long as they maintained their original fervor, they approved
themselves, however, the faithful and benevolent stewards of the
charity, which was entrusted to their care. But their discipline
was corrupted by prosperity: they gradually assumed the pride of
wealth, and at last indulged the luxury of expense. Their public
luxury might be excused by the magnificence of religious worship,
and the decent motive of erecting durable habitations for an
immortal society. But every age of the church has accused the
licentiousness of the degenerate monks; who no longer remembered
the object of their institution, embraced the vain and sensual
pleasures of the world, which they had renounced, 56 and
scandalously abused the riches which had been acquired by the
austere virtues of their founders. 57 Their natural descent, from
such painful and dangerous virtue, to the common vices of
humanity, will not, perhaps, excite much grief or indignation in
the mind of a philosopher.
53 (return) [ Thomassin (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. iii. p.
118, 145, 146, 171-179) has examined the revolution of the civil,
canon, and common law. Modern France confirms the death which
monks have inflicted on themselves, and justly deprives them of
all right of inheritance.]
54 (return) [ See Jerom, (tom. i. p. 176, 183.) The monk Pambo
made a sublime answer to Melania, who wished to specify the value
of her gift: “Do you offer it to me, or to God? If to God, He who
suspends the mountain in a balance, need not be informed of the
weight of your plate.” (Pallad. Hist. Lausiac. c. 10, in the Vit.
Patrum, l. viii. p. 715.)]
55 (return) [ Zosim. l. v. p. 325. Yet the wealth of the Eastern
monks was far surpassed by the princely greatness of the
Benedictines.]
56 (return) [ The sixth general council (the Quinisext in Trullo,
Canon xlvii in Beveridge, tom. i. p. 213) restrains women from
passing the night in a male, or men in a female, monastery. The
seventh general council (the second Nicene, Canon xx. in
Beveridge, tom. i. p. 325) prohibits the erection of double or
promiscuous monasteries of both sexes; but it appears from
Balsamon, that the prohibition was not effectual. On the
irregular pleasures and expenses of the clergy and monks, see
Thomassin, tom. iii. p. 1334-1368.]
57 (return) [ I have somewhere heard or read the frank confession
of a Benedictine abbot: “My vow of poverty has given me a hundred
thousand crowns a year; my vow of obedience has raised me to the
rank of a sovereign prince.”—I forget the consequences of his vow
of chastity.]
The lives of the primitive monks were consumed in penance and
solitude; undisturbed by the various occupations which fill the
time, and exercise the faculties, of reasonable, active, and
social beings. Whenever they were permitted to step beyond the
precincts of the monastery, two jealous companions were the
mutual guards and spies of each other’s actions; and, after their
return, they were condemned to forget, or, at least, to suppress,
whatever they had seen or heard in the world. Strangers, who
professed the orthodox faith, were hospitably entertained in a
separate apartment; but their dangerous conversation was
restricted to some chosen elders of approved discretion and
fidelity. Except in their presence, the monastic slave might not
receive the visits of his friends or kindred; and it was deemed
highly meritorious, if he afflicted a tender sister, or an aged
parent, by the obstinate refusal of a word or look. 58 The monks
themselves passed their lives, without personal attachments,
among a crowd which had been formed by accident, and was
detained, in the same prison, by force or prejudice. Recluse
fanatics have few ideas or sentiments to communicate: a special
license of the abbot regulated the time and duration of their
familiar visits; and, at their silent meals, they were enveloped
in their cowls, inaccessible, and almost invisible, to each
other. 59 Study is the resource of solitude: but education had
not prepared and qualified for any liberal studies the mechanics
and peasants who filled the monastic communities. They might
work: but the vanity of spiritual perfection was tempted to
disdain the exercise of manual labor; and the industry must be
faint and languid, which is not excited by the sense of personal
interest.
58 (return) [ Pior, an Egyptian monk, allowed his sister to see
him; but he shut his eyes during the whole visit. See Vit.
Patrum, l. iii. p. 504. Many such examples might be added.]
59 (return) [ The 7th, 8th, 29th, 30th, 31st, 34th, 57th, 60th,
86th, and 95th articles of the Rule of Pachomius, impose most
intolerable laws of silence and mortification.]
According to their faith and zeal, they might employ the day,
which they passed in their cells, either in vocal or mental
prayer: they assembled in the evening, and they were awakened in
the night, for the public worship of the monastery. The precise
moment was determined by the stars, which are seldom clouded in
the serene sky of Egypt; and a rustic horn, or trumpet, the
signal of devotion, twice interrupted the vast silence of the
desert. 60 Even sleep, the last refuge of the unhappy, was
rigorously measured: the vacant hours of the monk heavily rolled
along, without business or pleasure; and, before the close of
each day, he had repeatedly accused the tedious progress of the
sun. 61 In this comfortless state, superstition still pursued and
tormented her wretched votaries. 62 The repose which they had
sought in the cloister was disturbed by a tardy repentance,
profane doubts, and guilty desires; and, while they considered
each natural impulse as an unpardonable sin, they perpetually
trembled on the edge of a flaming and bottomless abyss. From the
painful struggles of disease and despair, these unhappy victims
were sometimes relieved by madness or death; and, in the sixth
century, a hospital was founded at Jerusalem for a small portion
of the austere penitents, who were deprived of their senses. 63
Their visions, before they attained this extreme and acknowledged
term of frenzy, have afforded ample materials of supernatural
history. It was their firm persuasion, that the air, which they
breathed, was peopled with invisible enemies; with innumerable
demons, who watched every occasion, and assumed every form, to
terrify, and above all to tempt, their unguarded virtue. The
imagination, and even the senses, were deceived by the illusions
of distempered fanaticism; and the hermit, whose midnight prayer
was oppressed by involuntary slumber, might easily confound the
phantoms of horror or delight, which had occupied his sleeping
and his waking dreams. 64
60 (return) [ The diurnal and nocturnal prayers of the monks are
copiously discussed by Cassian, in the third and fourth books of
his Institutions; and he constantly prefers the liturgy, which an
angel had dictated to the monasteries of Tebennoe.]
61 (return) [ Cassian, from his own experience, describes the
acedia, or listlessness of mind and body, to which a monk was
exposed, when he sighed to find himself alone. Saepiusque
egreditur et ingreditur cellam, et Solem velut ad occasum tardius
properantem crebrius intuetur, (Institut. x. l.)]
62 (return) [ The temptations and sufferings of Stagirius were
communicated by that unfortunate youth to his friend St.
Chrysostom. See Middleton’s Works, vol. i. p. 107-110. Something
similar introduces the life of every saint; and the famous Inigo,
or Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, (vide d’Inigo de
Guiposcoa, tom. i. p. 29-38,) may serve as a memorable example.]
63 (return) [ Fleury, Hist. Ecclesiastique, tom. vii. p. 46. I
have read somewhere, in the Vitae Patrum, but I cannot recover
the place that several, I believe many, of the monks, who did not
reveal their temptations to the abbot, became guilty of suicide.]
64 (return) [ See the seventh and eighth Collations of Cassian,
who gravely examines, why the demons were grown less active and
numerous since the time of St. Antony. Rosweyde’s copious index
to the Vitae Patrum will point out a variety of infernal scenes.
The devils were most formidable in a female shape.]
The monks were divided into two classes: the Coenobites, who
lived under a common and regular discipline; and the Anachorets,
who indulged their unsocial, independent fanaticism. 65 The most
devout, or the most ambitious, of the spiritual brethren,
renounced the convent, as they had renounced the world. The
fervent monasteries of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, were
surrounded by a Laura, 66 a distant circle of solitary cells; and
the extravagant penance of Hermits was stimulated by applause and
emulation. 67 They sunk under the painful weight of crosses and
chains; and their emaciated limbs were confined by collars,
bracelets, gauntlets, and greaves of massy and rigid iron. All
superfluous encumbrance of dress they contemptuously cast away;
and some savage saints of both sexes have been admired, whose
naked bodies were only covered by their long hair. They aspired
to reduce themselves to the rude and miserable state in which the
human brute is scarcely distinguishable above his kindred
animals; and the numerous sect of Anachorets derived their name
from their humble practice of grazing in the fields of
Mesopotamia with the common herd. 68 They often usurped the den
of some wild beast whom they affected to resemble; they buried
themselves in some gloomy cavern, which art or nature had scooped
out of the rock; and the marble quarries of Thebais are still
inscribed with the monuments of their penance. 69 The most
perfect Hermits are supposed to have passed many days without
food, many nights without sleep, and many years without speaking;
and glorious was the man ( I abuse that name) who contrived any
cell, or seat, of a peculiar construction, which might expose
him, in the most inconvenient posture, to the inclemency of the
seasons.
65 (return) [ For the distinction of the Coenobites and the
Hermits, especially in Egypt, see Jerom, (tom. i. p. 45, ad
Rusticum,) the first Dialogue of Sulpicius Severus, Rufinus, (c.
22, in Vit. Patrum, l. ii. p. 478,) Palladius, (c. 7, 69, in Vit.
Patrum, l. viii. p. 712, 758,) and, above all, the eighteenth and
nineteenth Collations of Cassian. These writers, who compare the
common and solitary life, reveal the abuse and danger of the
latter.]
66 (return) [ Suicer. Thesaur. Ecclesiast. tom. ii. p. 205, 218.
Thomassin (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. p. 1501, 1502) gives a
good account of these cells. When Gerasimus founded his monastery
in the wilderness of Jordan, it was accompanied by a Laura of
seventy cells.]
67 (return) [ Theodoret, in a large volume, (the Philotheus in
Vit. Patrum, l. ix. p. 793-863,) has collected the lives and
miracles of thirty Anachorets. Evagrius (l. i. c. 12) more
briefly celebrates the monks and hermits of Palestine.]
68 (return) [ Sozomen, l. vi. c. 33. The great St. Ephrem
composed a panegyric on these or grazing monks, (Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom. viii. p. 292.)]
69 (return) [ The P. Sicard (Missions du Levant, tom. ii. p.
217-233) examined the caverns of the Lower Thebais with wonder
and devotion. The inscriptions are in the old Syriac character,
which was used by the Christians of Abyssinia.]
Among these heroes of the monastic life, the name and genius of
Simeon Stylites 70 have been immortalized by the singular
invention of an aerial penance. At the age of thirteen, the young
Syrian deserted the profession of a shepherd, and threw himself
into an austere monastery. After a long and painful novitiate, in
which Simeon was repeatedly saved from pious suicide, he
established his residence on a mountain, about thirty or forty
miles to the east of Antioch. Within the space of a mandra, or
circle of stones, to which he had attached himself by a ponderous
chain, he ascended a column, which was successively raised from
the height of nine, to that of sixty, feet from the ground. 71 In
this last and lofty station, the Syrian Anachoret resisted the
heat of thirty summers, and the cold of as many winters. Habit
and exercise instructed him to maintain his dangerous situation
without fear or giddiness, and successively to assume the
different postures of devotion. He sometimes prayed in an erect
attitude, with his outstretched arms in the figure of a cross,
but his most familiar practice was that of bending his meagre
skeleton from the forehead to the feet; and a curious spectator,
after numbering twelve hundred and forty-four repetitions, at
length desisted from the endless account. The progress of an
ulcer in his thigh 72 might shorten, but it could not disturb,
this celestial life; and the patient Hermit expired, without
descending from his column. A prince, who should capriciously
inflict such tortures, would be deemed a tyrant; but it would
surpass the power of a tyrant to impose a long and miserable
existence on the reluctant victims of his cruelty. This voluntary
martyrdom must have gradually destroyed the sensibility both of
the mind and body; nor can it be presumed that the fanatics, who
torment themselves, are susceptible of any lively affection for
the rest of mankind. A cruel, unfeeling temper has distinguished
the monks of every age and country: their stern indifference,
which is seldom mollified by personal friendship, is inflamed by
religious hatred; and their merciless zeal has strenuously
administered the holy office of the Inquisition.
70 (return) [ See Theodoret (in Vit. Patrum, l. ix. p. 848-854,)
Antony, (in Vit. Patrum, l. i. p. 170-177,) Cosmas, (in Asseman.
Bibliot. Oriental tom. i. p. 239-253,) Evagrius, (l. i. c. 13,
14,) and Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. xv. p. 347-392.)]
71 (return) [ The narrow circumference of two cubits, or three
feet, which Evagrius assigns for the summit of the column is
inconsistent with reason, with facts, and with the rules of
architecture. The people who saw it from below might be easily
deceived.]
72 (return) [ I must not conceal a piece of ancient scandal
concerning the origin of this ulcer. It has been reported that
the Devil, assuming an angelic form, invited him to ascend, like
Elijah, into a fiery chariot. The saint too hastily raised his
foot, and Satan seized the moment of inflicting this chastisement
on his vanity.]
The monastic saints, who excite only the contempt and pity of a
philosopher, were respected, and almost adored, by the prince and
people. Successive crowds of pilgrims from Gaul and India saluted
the divine pillar of Simeon: the tribes of Saracens disputed in
arms the honor of his benediction; the queens of Arabia and
Persia gratefully confessed his supernatural virtue; and the
angelic Hermit was consulted by the younger Theodosius, in the
most important concerns of the church and state. His remains were
transported from the mountain of Telenissa, by a solemn
procession of the patriarch, the master-general of the East, six
bishops, twenty-one counts or tribunes, and six thousand
soldiers; and Antioch revered his bones, as her glorious ornament
and impregnable defence. The fame of the apostles and martyrs was
gradually eclipsed by these recent and popular Anachorets; the
Christian world fell prostrate before their shrines; and the
miracles ascribed to their relics exceeded, at least in number
and duration, the spiritual exploits of their lives. But the
golden legend of their lives 73 was embellished by the artful
credulity of their interested brethren; and a believing age was
easily persuaded, that the slightest caprice of an Egyptian or a
Syrian monk had been sufficient to interrupt the eternal laws of
the universe. The favorites of Heaven were accustomed to cure
inveterate diseases with a touch, a word, or a distant message;
and to expel the most obstinate demons from the souls or bodies
which they possessed. They familiarly accosted, or imperiously
commanded, the lions and serpents of the desert; infused
vegetation into a sapless trunk; suspended iron on the surface of
the water; passed the Nile on the back of a crocodile, and
refreshed themselves in a fiery furnace. These extravagant tales,
which display the fiction without the genius, of poetry, have
seriously affected the reason, the faith, and the morals, of the
Christians. Their credulity debased and vitiated the faculties of
the mind: they corrupted the evidence of history; and
superstition gradually extinguished the hostile light of
philosophy and science. Every mode of religious worship which had
been practised by the saints, every mysterious doctrine which
they believed, was fortified by the sanction of divine
revelation, and all the manly virtues were oppressed by the
servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks. If it be possible
to measure the interval between the philosophic writings of
Cicero and the sacred legend of Theodoret, between the character
of Cato and that of Simeon, we may appreciate the memorable
revolution which was accomplished in the Roman empire within a
period of five hundred years.
73 (return) [ I know not how to select or specify the miracles
contained in the Vitae Patrum of Rosweyde, as the number very
much exceeds the thousand pages of that voluminous work. An
elegant specimen may be found in the dialogues of Sulpicius
Severus, and his Life of St. Martin. He reveres the monks of
Egypt; yet he insults them with the remark, that they never
raised the dead; whereas the bishop of Tours had restored three
dead men to life.]
II. The progress of Christianity has been marked by two glorious
and decisive victories: over the learned and luxurious citizens
of the Roman empire; and over the warlike Barbarians of Scythia
and Germany, who subverted the empire, and embraced the religion,
of the Romans. The Goths were the foremost of these savage
proselytes; and the nation was indebted for its conversion to a
countryman, or, at least, to a subject, worthy to be ranked among
the inventors of useful arts, who have deserved the remembrance
and gratitude of posterity. A great number of Roman provincials
had been led away into captivity by the Gothic bands, who ravaged
Asia in the time of Gallienus; and of these captives, many were
Christians, and several belonged to the ecclesiastical order.
Those involuntary missionaries, dispersed as slaves in the
villages of Dacia, successively labored for the salvation of
their masters. The seeds which they planted, of the evangelic
doctrine, were gradually propagated; and before the end of a
century, the pious work was achieved by the labors of Ulphilas,
whose ancestors had been transported beyond the Danube from a
small town of Cappadocia.
Ulphilas, the bishop and apostle of the Goths, 74 acquired their
love and reverence by his blameless life and indefatigable zeal;
and they received, with implicit confidence, the doctrines of
truth and virtue which he preached and practised. He executed the
arduous task of translating the Scriptures into their native
tongue, a dialect of the German or Teutonic language; but he
prudently suppressed the four books of Kings, as they might tend
to irritate the fierce and sanguinary spirit of the Barbarians.
The rude, imperfect idiom of soldiers and shepherds, so ill
qualified to communicate any spiritual ideas, was improved and
modulated by his genius: and Ulphilas, before he could frame his
version, was obliged to compose a new alphabet of twenty-four
letters; 741 four of which he invented, to express the peculiar
sounds that were unknown to the Greek and Latin pronunciation. 75
But the prosperous state of the Gothic church was soon afflicted
by war and intestine discord, and the chieftains were divided by
religion as well as by interest. Fritigern, the friend of the
Romans, became the proselyte of Ulphilas; while the haughty soul
of Athanaric disdained the yoke of the empire and of the gospel.
The faith of the new converts was tried by the persecution which
he excited. A wagon, bearing aloft the shapeless image of Thor,
perhaps, or of Woden, was conducted in solemn procession through
the streets of the camp; and the rebels, who refused to worship
the god of their fathers, were immediately burnt, with their
tents and families. The character of Ulphilas recommended him to
the esteem of the Eastern court, where he twice appeared as the
minister of peace; he pleaded the cause of the distressed Goths,
who implored the protection of Valens; and the name of Moses was
applied to this spiritual guide, who conducted his people through
the deep waters of the Danube to the Land of Promise. 76 The
devout shepherds, who were attached to his person, and tractable
to his voice, acquiesced in their settlement, at the foot of the
Maesian mountains, in a country of woodlands and pastures, which
supported their flocks and herds, and enabled them to purchase
the corn and wine of the more plentiful provinces. These harmless
Barbarians multiplied in obscure peace and the profession of
Christianity. 77
74 (return) [ On the subject of Ulphilas, and the conversion of
the Goths, see Sozomen, l. vi. c. 37. Socrates, l. iv. c. 33.
Theodoret, l. iv. c. 37. Philostorg. l. ii. c. 5. The heresy of
Philostorgius appears to have given him superior means of
information.]
741 (return) [ This is the Moeso-Gothic alphabet of which many of
the letters are evidently formed from the Greek and Roman. M. St.
Martin, however contends, that it is impossible but that some
written alphabet must have been known long before among the
Goths. He supposes that their former letters were those inscribed
on the runes, which, being inseparably connected with the old
idolatrous superstitions, were proscribed by the Christian
missionaries. Everywhere the runes, so common among all the
German tribes, disappear after the propagation of Christianity.
S. Martin iv. p. 97, 98.—M.]
75 (return) [ A mutilated copy of the four Gospels, in the Gothic
version, was published A.D. 1665, and is esteemed the most
ancient monument of the Teutonic language, though Wetstein
attempts, by some frivolous conjectures, to deprive Ulphilas of
the honor of the work. Two of the four additional letters express
the W, and our own Th. See Simon, Hist. Critique du Nouveau
Testament, tom ii. p. 219-223. Mill. Prolegom p. 151, edit.
Kuster. Wetstein, Prolegom. tom. i. p. 114. * Note: The Codex
Argenteus, found in the sixteenth century at Wenden, near
Cologne, and now preserved at Upsal, contains almost the entire
four Gospels. The best edition is that of J. Christ. Zahn,
Weissenfels, 1805. In 1762 Knettel discovered and published from
a Palimpsest MS. four chapters of the Epistle to the Romans: they
were reprinted at Upsal, 1763. M. Mai has since that time
discovered further fragments, and other remains of Moeso-Gothic
literature, from a Palimpsest at Milan. See Ulphilae partium
inedi arum in Ambrosianis Palimpsestis ab Ang. Maio repertarum
specimen Milan. Ito. 1819.—M.]
76 (return) [ Philostorgius erroneously places this passage under
the reign of Constantine; but I am much inclined to believe that
it preceded the great emigration.]
77 (return) [ We are obliged to Jornandes (de Reb. Get. c. 51, p.
688) for a short and lively picture of these lesser Goths. Gothi
minores, populus immensus, cum suo Pontifice ipsoque primate
Wulfila. The last words, if they are not mere tautology, imply
some temporal jurisdiction.]
Their fiercer brethren, the formidable Visigoths, universally
adopted the religion of the Romans, with whom they maintained a
perpetual intercourse, of war, of friendship, or of conquest. In
their long and victorious march from the Danube to the Atlantic
Ocean, they converted their allies; they educated the rising
generation; and the devotion which reigned in the camp of Alaric,
or the court of Thoulouse, might edify or disgrace the palaces of
Rome and Constantinople. 78 During the same period, Christianity
was embraced by almost all the Barbarians, who established their
kingdoms on the ruins of the Western empire; the Burgundians in
Gaul, the Suevi in Spain, the Vandals in Africa, the Ostrogoths
in Pannonia, and the various bands of mercenaries, that raised
Odoacer to the throne of Italy. The Franks and the Saxons still
persevered in the errors of Paganism; but the Franks obtained the
monarchy of Gaul by their submission to the example of Clovis;
and the Saxon conquerors of Britain were reclaimed from their
savage superstition by the missionaries of Rome. These Barbarian
proselytes displayed an ardent and successful zeal in the
propagation of the faith. The Merovingian kings, and their
successors, Charlemagne and the Othos, extended, by their laws
and victories, the dominion of the cross. England produced the
apostle of Germany; and the evangelic light was gradually
diffused from the neighborhood of the Rhine, to the nations of
the Elbe, the Vistula, and the Baltic. 79
78 (return) [ At non ita Gothi non ita Vandali; malis licet
doctoribus instituti meliores tamen etiam in hac parte quam
nostri. Salvian, de Gubern, Dei, l. vii. p. 243.]
79 (return) [ Mosheim has slightly sketched the progress of
Christianity in the North, from the fourth to the fourteenth
century. The subject would afford materials for an ecclesiastical
and even philosophical, history]
Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity.—Part III.
The different motives which influenced the reason, or the
passions, of the Barbarian converts, cannot easily be
ascertained. They were often capricious and accidental; a dream,
an omen, the report of a miracle, the example of some priest, or
hero, the charms of a believing wife, and, above all, the
fortunate event of a prayer, or vow, which, in a moment of
danger, they had addressed to the God of the Christians. 80 The
early prejudices of education were insensibly erased by the
habits of frequent and familiar society, the moral precepts of
the gospel were protected by the extravagant virtues of the
monks; and a spiritual theology was supported by the visible
power of relics, and the pomp of religious worship. But the
rational and ingenious mode of persuasion, which a Saxon bishop
81 suggested to a popular saint, might sometimes be employed by
the missionaries, who labored for the conversion of infidels.
“Admit,” says the sagacious disputant, “whatever they are pleased
to assert of the fabulous, and carnal, genealogy of their gods
and goddesses, who are propagated from each other. From this
principle deduce their imperfect nature, and human infirmities,
the assurance they were born, and the probability that they will
die. At what time, by what means, from what cause, were the
eldest of the gods or goddesses produced? Do they still continue,
or have they ceased, to propagate? If they have ceased, summon
your antagonists to declare the reason of this strange
alteration. If they still continue, the number of the gods must
become infinite; and shall we not risk, by the indiscreet worship
of some impotent deity, to excite the resentment of his jealous
superior? The visible heavens and earth, the whole system of the
universe, which may be conceived by the mind, is it created or
eternal? If created, how, or where, could the gods themselves
exist before creation? If eternal, how could they assume the
empire of an independent and preexisting world? Urge these
arguments with temper and moderation; insinuate, at seasonable
intervals, the truth and beauty of the Christian revelation; and
endeavor to make the unbelievers ashamed, without making them
angry.” This metaphysical reasoning, too refined, perhaps, for
the Barbarians of Germany, was fortified by the grosser weight of
authority and popular consent. The advantage of temporal
prosperity had deserted the Pagan cause, and passed over to the
service of Christianity. The Romans themselves, the most powerful
and enlightened nation of the globe, had renounced their ancient
superstition; and, if the ruin of their empire seemed to accuse
the efficacy of the new faith, the disgrace was already retrieved
by the conversion of the victorious Goths. The valiant and
fortunate Barbarians, who subdued the provinces of the West,
successively received, and reflected, the same edifying example.
Before the age of Charlemagne, the Christian nations of Europe
might exult in the exclusive possession of the temperate
climates, of the fertile lands, which produced corn, wine, and
oil; while the savage idolaters, and their helpless idols, were
confined to the extremities of the earth, the dark and frozen
regions of the North. 82
80 (return) [ To such a cause has Socrates (l. vii. c. 30)
ascribed the conversion of the Burgundians, whose Christian piety
is celebrated by Orosius, (l. vii. c. 19.)]
81 (return) [ See an original and curious epistle from Daniel,
the first bishop of Winchester, (Beda, Hist. Eccles. Anglorum, l.
v. c. 18, p. 203, edit Smith,) to St. Boniface, who preached the
gospel among the savages of Hesse and Thuringia. Epistol.
Bonifacii, lxvii., in the Maxima Bibliotheca Patrum, tom. xiii.
p. 93]
82 (return) [ The sword of Charlemagne added weight to the
argument; but when Daniel wrote this epistle, (A.D. 723,) the
Mahometans, who reigned from India to Spain, might have retorted
it against the Christians.]
Christianity, which opened the gates of Heaven to the Barbarians,
introduced an important change in their moral and political
condition. They received, at the same time, the use of letters,
so essential to a religion whose doctrines are contained in a
sacred book; and while they studied the divine truth, their minds
were insensibly enlarged by the distant view of history, of
nature, of the arts, and of society. The version of the
Scriptures into their native tongue, which had facilitated their
conversion, must excite among their clergy some curiosity to read
the original text, to understand the sacred liturgy of the
church, and to examine, in the writings of the fathers, the chain
of ecclesiastical tradition. These spiritual gifts were preserved
in the Greek and Latin languages, which concealed the inestimable
monuments of ancient learning. The immortal productions of
Virgil, Cicero, and Livy, which were accessible to the Christian
Barbarians, maintained a silent intercourse between the reign of
Augustus and the times of Clovis and Charlemagne. The emulation
of mankind was encouraged by the remembrance of a more perfect
state; and the flame of science was secretly kept alive, to warm
and enlighten the mature age of the Western world.
In the most corrupt state of Christianity, the Barbarians might
learn justice from the law, and mercy from the gospel; and if the
knowledge of their duty was insufficient to guide their actions,
or to regulate their passions, they were sometimes restrained by
conscience, and frequently punished by remorse. But the direct
authority of religion was less effectual than the holy communion,
which united them with their Christian brethren in spiritual
friendship. The influence of these sentiments contributed to
secure their fidelity in the service, or the alliance, of the
Romans, to alleviate the horrors of war, to moderate the
insolence of conquest, and to preserve, in the downfall of the
empire, a permanent respect for the name and institutions of
Rome. In the days of Paganism, the priests of Gaul and Germany
reigned over the people, and controlled the jurisdiction of the
magistrates; and the zealous proselytes transferred an equal, or
more ample, measure of devout obedience, to the pontiffs of the
Christian faith. The sacred character of the bishops was
supported by their temporal possessions; they obtained an
honorable seat in the legislative assemblies of soldiers and
freemen; and it was their interest, as well as their duty, to
mollify, by peaceful counsels, the fierce spirit of the
Barbarians. The perpetual correspondence of the Latin clergy, the
frequent pilgrimages to Rome and Jerusalem, and the growing
authority of the popes, cemented the union of the Christian
republic, and gradually produced the similar manners, and common
jurisprudence, which have distinguished, from the rest of
mankind, the independent, and even hostile, nations of modern
Europe.
But the operation of these causes was checked and retarded by the
unfortunate accident, which infused a deadly poison into the cup
of Salvation. Whatever might be the early sentiments of Ulphilas,
his connections with the empire and the church were formed during
the reign of Arianism. The apostle of the Goths subscribed the
creed of Rimini; professed with freedom, and perhaps with
sincerity, that the Son was not equal, or consubstantial to the
Father; 83 communicated these errors to the clergy and people;
and infected the Barbaric world with a heresy, 84 which the great
Theodosius proscribed and extinguished among the Romans. The
temper and understanding of the new proselytes were not adapted
to metaphysical subtilties; but they strenuously maintained, what
they had piously received, as the pure and genuine doctrines of
Christianity. The advantage of preaching and expounding the
Scriptures in the Teutonic language promoted the apostolic labors
of Ulphilas and his successors; and they ordained a competent
number of bishops and presbyters for the instruction of the
kindred tribes. The Ostrogoths, the Burgundians, the Suevi, and
the Vandals, who had listened to the eloquence of the Latin
clergy, 85 preferred the more intelligible lessons of their
domestic teachers; and Arianism was adopted as the national faith
of the warlike converts, who were seated on the ruins of the
Western empire. This irreconcilable difference of religion was a
perpetual source of jealousy and hatred; and the reproach of
Barbarian was imbittered by the more odious epithet of Heretic.
The heroes of the North, who had submitted, with some reluctance,
to believe that all their ancestors were in hell, 86 were
astonished and exasperated to learn, that they themselves had
only changed the mode of their eternal condemnation. Instead of
the smooth applause, which Christian kings are accustomed to
expect from their royal prelates, the orthodox bishops and their
clergy were in a state of opposition to the Arian courts; and
their indiscreet opposition frequently became criminal, and might
sometimes be dangerous. 87 The pulpit, that safe and sacred organ
of sedition, resounded with the names of Pharaoh and Holofernes;
88 the public discontent was inflamed by the hope or promise of a
glorious deliverance; and the seditious saints were tempted to
promote the accomplishment of their own predictions.
Notwithstanding these provocations, the Catholics of Gaul, Spain,
and Italy, enjoyed, under the reign of the Arians, the free and
peaceful exercise of their religion. Their haughty masters
respected the zeal of a numerous people, resolved to die at the
foot of their altars; and the example of their devout constancy
was admired and imitated by the Barbarians themselves. The
conquerors evaded, however, the disgraceful reproach, or
confession, of fear, by attributing their toleration to the
liberal motives of reason and humanity; and while they affected
the language, they imperceptiby imbibed the spirit, of genuine
Christianity.
83 (return) [ The opinions of Ulphilas and the Goths inclined to
semi-Arianism, since they would not say that the Son was a
creature, though they held communion with those who maintained
that heresy. Their apostle represented the whole controversy as a
question of trifling moment, which had been raised by the
passions of the clergy. Theodoret l. iv. c. 37.]
84 (return) [ The Arianism of the Goths has been imputed to the
emperor Valens: “Itaque justo Dei judicio ipsi eum vivum
incenderunt, qui propter eum etiam mortui, vitio erroris arsuri
sunt.” Orosius, l. vii. c. 33, p. 554. This cruel sentence is
confirmed by Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 604-610,) who
coolly observes, “un seul homme entraina dans l’enfer un nombre
infini de Septentrionaux, &c.” Salvian (de Gubern. Dei, l. v p.
150, 151) pities and excuses their involuntary error.]
85 (return) [ Orosius affirms, in the year 416, (l. vii. c. 41,
p. 580,) that the Churches of Christ (of the Catholics) were
filled with Huns, Suevi, Vandals, Burgundians.]
86 (return) [ Radbod, king of the Frisons, was so much
scandalized by this rash declaration of a missionary, that he
drew back his foot after he had entered the baptismal font. See
Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. ix p. 167.]
87 (return) [ The epistles of Sidonius, bishop of Clermont, under
the Visigotha, and of Avitus, bishop of Vienna, under the
Burgundians, explain sometimes in dark hints, the general
dispositions of the Catholics. The history of Clovis and
Theodoric will suggest some particular facts]
88 (return) [ Genseric confessed the resemblance, by the severity
with which he punished such indiscreet allusions. Victor
Vitensis, l. 7, p. 10.]
The peace of the church was sometimes interrupted. The Catholics
were indiscreet, the Barbarians were impatient; and the partial
acts of severity or injustice, which had been recommended by the
Arian clergy, were exaggerated by the orthodox writers. The guilt
of persecution may be imputed to Euric, king of the Visigoths;
who suspended the exercise of ecclesiastical, or, at least, of
episcopal functions; and punished the popular bishops of Aquitain
with imprisonment, exile, and confiscation. 89 But the cruel and
absurd enterprise of subduing the minds of a whole people was
undertaken by the Vandals alone. Genseric himself, in his early
youth, had renounced the orthodox communion; and the apostate
could neither grant, nor expect, a sincere forgiveness. He was
exasperated to find that the Africans, who had fled before him in
the field, still presumed to dispute his will in synods and
churches; and his ferocious mind was incapable of fear or of
compassion. His Catholic subjects were oppressed by intolerant
laws and arbitrary punishments. The language of Genseric was
furious and formidable; the knowledge of his intentions might
justify the most unfavorable interpretation of his actions; and
the Arians were reproached with the frequent executions which
stained the palace and the dominions of the tyrant. Arms and
ambition were, however, the ruling passions of the monarch of the
sea. But Hunneric, his inglorious son, who seemed to inherit only
his vices, tormented the Catholics with the same unrelenting fury
which had been fatal to his brother, his nephews, and the friends
and favorites of his father; and even to the Arian patriarch, who
was inhumanly burnt alive in the midst of Carthage. The religious
war was preceded and prepared by an insidious truce; persecution
was made the serious and important business of the Vandal court;
and the loathsome disease which hastened the death of Hunneric,
revenged the injuries, without contributing to the deliverance,
of the church. The throne of Africa was successively filled by
the two nephews of Hunneric; by Gundamund, who reigned about
twelve, and by Thrasimund, who governed the nation about
twenty-seven, years. Their administration was hostile and
oppressive to the orthodox party. Gundamund appeared to emulate,
or even to surpass, the cruelty of his uncle; and, if at length
he relented, if he recalled the bishops, and restored the freedom
of Athanasian worship, a premature death intercepted the benefits
of his tardy clemency. His brother, Thrasimund, was the greatest
and most accomplished of the Vandal kings, whom he excelled in
beauty, prudence, and magnanimity of soul. But this magnanimous
character was degraded by his intolerant zeal and deceitful
clemency. Instead of threats and tortures, he employed the
gentle, but efficacious, powers of seduction. Wealth, dignity,
and the royal favor, were the liberal rewards of apostasy; the
Catholics, who had violated the laws, might purchase their pardon
by the renunciation of their faith; and whenever Thrasimund
meditated any rigorous measure, he patiently waited till the
indiscretion of his adversaries furnished him with a specious
opportunity. Bigotry was his last sentiment in the hour of death;
and he exacted from his successor a solemn oath, that he would
never tolerate the sectaries of Athanasius. But his successor,
Hilderic, the gentle son of the savage Hunneric, preferred the
duties of humanity and justice to the vain obligation of an
impious oath; and his accession was gloriously marked by the
restoration of peace and universal freedom. The throne of that
virtuous, though feeble monarch, was usurped by his cousin
Gelimer, a zealous Arian: but the Vandal kingdom, before he could
enjoy or abuse his power, was subverted by the arms of
Belisarius; and the orthodox party retaliated the injuries which
they had endured. 90
89 (return) [ Such are the contemporary complaints of Sidonius,
bishop of Clermont (l. vii. c. 6, p. 182, &c., edit. Sirmond.)
Gregory of Tours who quotes this Epistle, (l. ii. c. 25, in tom.
ii. p. 174,) extorts an unwarrantable assertion, that of the nine
vacancies in Aquitain, some had been produced by episcopal
martyrdoms]
90 (return) [ The original monuments of the Vandal persecution
are preserved in the five books of the history of Victor
Vitensis, (de Persecutione Vandalica,) a bishop who was exiled by
Hunneric; in the life of St. Fulgentius, who was distinguished in
the persecution of Thrasimund (in Biblioth. Max. Patrum, tom. ix.
p. 4-16;) and in the first book of the Vandalic War, by the
impartial Procopius, (c. 7, 8, p. 196, 197, 198, 199.) Dom
Ruinart, the last editor of Victor, has illustrated the whole
subject with a copious and learned apparatus of notes and
supplement (Paris, 1694.)]
The passionate declamations of the Catholics, the sole historians
of this persecution, cannot afford any distinct series of causes
and events; any impartial view of the characters, or counsels;
but the most remarkable circumstances that deserve either credit
or notice, may be referred to the following heads; I. In the
original law, which is still extant, 91 Hunneric expressly
declares, (and the declaration appears to be correct,) that he
had faithfully transcribed the regulations and penalties of the
Imperial edicts, against the heretical congregations, the clergy,
and the people, who dissented from the established religion. If
the rights of conscience had been understood, the Catholics must
have condemned their past conduct or acquiesced in their actual
suffering. But they still persisted to refuse the indulgence
which they claimed. While they trembled under the lash of
persecution, they praised the laudable severity of Hunneric
himself, who burnt or banished great numbers of Manichæans; 92
and they rejected, with horror, the ignominious compromise, that
the disciples of Arius and of Athanasius should enjoy a
reciprocal and similar toleration in the territories of the
Romans, and in those of the Vandals. 93 II. The practice of a
conference, which the Catholics had so frequently used to insult
and punish their obstinate antagonists, was retorted against
themselves. 94 At the command of Hunneric, four hundred and
sixty-six orthodox bishops assembled at Carthage; but when they
were admitted into the hall of audience, they had the
mortification of beholding the Arian Cyrila exalted on the
patriarchal throne. The disputants were separated, after the
mutual and ordinary reproaches of noise and silence, of delay and
precipitation, of military force and of popular clamor. One
martyr and one confessor were selected among the Catholic
bishops; twenty-eight escaped by flight, and eighty-eight by
conformity; forty-six were sent into Corsica to cut timber for
the royal navy; and three hundred and two were banished to the
different parts of Africa, exposed to the insults of their
enemies, and carefully deprived of all the temporal and spiritual
comforts of life. 95 The hardships of ten years’ exile must have
reduced their numbers; and if they had complied with the law of
Thrasimund, which prohibited any episcopal consecrations, the
orthodox church of Africa must have expired with the lives of its
actual members. They disobeyed, and their disobedience was
punished by a second exile of two hundred and twenty bishops into
Sardinia; where they languished fifteen years, till the accession
of the gracious Hilderic. 96 The two islands were judiciously
chosen by the malice of their Arian tyrants. Seneca, from his own
experience, has deplored and exaggerated the miserable state of
Corsica, 97 and the plenty of Sardinia was overbalanced by the
unwholesome quality of the air. 98 III. The zeal of Genseric and
his successors, for the conversion of the Catholics, must have
rendered them still more jealous to guard the purity of the
Vandal faith. Before the churches were finally shut, it was a
crime to appear in a Barbarian dress; and those who presumed to
neglect the royal mandate were rudely dragged backwards by their
long hair. 99 The palatine officers, who refused to profess the
religion of their prince, were ignominiously stripped of their
honors and employments; banished to Sardinia and Sicily; or
condemned to the servile labors of slaves and peasants in the
fields of Utica. In the districts which had been peculiarly
allotted to the Vandals, the exercise of the Catholic worship was
more strictly prohibited; and severe penalties were denounced
against the guilt both of the missionary and the proselyte. By
these arts, the faith of the Barbarians was preserved, and their
zeal was inflamed: they discharged, with devout fury, the office
of spies, informers, or executioners; and whenever their cavalry
took the field, it was the favorite amusement of the march to
defile the churches, and to insult the clergy of the adverse
faction. 100 IV. The citizens who had been educated in the luxury
of the Roman province, were delivered, with exquisite cruelty, to
the Moors of the desert. A venerable train of bishops,
presbyters, and deacons, with a faithful crowd of four thousand
and ninety-six persons, whose guilt is not precisely ascertained,
were torn from their native homes, by the command of Hunneric.
During the night they were confined, like a herd of cattle,
amidst their own ordure: during the day they pursued their march
over the burning sands; and if they fainted under the heat and
fatigue, they were goaded, or dragged along, till they expired in
the hands of their tormentors. 101 These unhappy exiles, when
they reached the Moorish huts, might excite the compassion of a
people, whose native humanity was neither improved by reason, nor
corrupted by fanaticism: but if they escaped the dangers, they
were condemned to share the distress of a savage life. V. It is
incumbent on the authors of persecution previously to reflect,
whether they are determined to support it in the last extreme.
They excite the flame which they strive to extinguish; and it
soon becomes necessary to chastise the contumacy, as well as the
crime, of the offender. The fine, which he is unable or unwilling
to discharge, exposes his person to the severity of the law; and
his contempt of lighter penalties suggests the use and propriety
of capital punishment. Through the veil of fiction and
declamation we may clearly perceive, that the Catholics more
especially under the reign of Hunneric, endured the most cruel
and ignominious treatment. 102 Respectable citizens, noble
matrons, and consecrated virgins, were stripped naked, and raised
in the air by pulleys, with a weight suspended at their feet. In
this painful attitude their naked bodies were torn with scourges,
or burnt in the most tender parts with red-hot plates of iron.
The amputation of the ears the nose, the tongue, and the right
hand, was inflicted by the Arians; and although the precise
number cannot be defined, it is evident that many persons, among
whom a bishop 103 and a proconsul 104 may be named, were entitled
to the crown of martyrdom. The same honor has been ascribed to
the memory of Count Sebastian, who professed the Nicene creed
with unshaken constancy; and Genseric might detest, as a heretic,
the brave and ambitious fugitive whom he dreaded as a rival. 105
VI. A new mode of conversion, which might subdue the feeble, and
alarm the timorous, was employed by the Arian ministers. They
imposed, by fraud or violence, the rites of baptism; and punished
the apostasy of the Catholics, if they disclaimed this odious and
profane ceremony, which scandalously violated the freedom of the
will, and the unity of the sacrament. 106 The hostile sects had
formerly allowed the validity of each other’s baptism; and the
innovation, so fiercely maintained by the Vandals, can be imputed
only to the example and advice of the Donatists. VII. The Arian
clergy surpassed in religious cruelty the king and his Vandals;
but they were incapable of cultivating the spiritual vineyard,
which they were so desirous to possess. A patriarch 107 might
seat himself on the throne of Carthage; some bishops, in the
principal cities, might usurp the place of their rivals; but the
smallness of their numbers, and their ignorance of the Latin
language, 108 disqualified the Barbarians for the ecclesiastical
ministry of a great church; and the Africans, after the loss of
their orthodox pastors, were deprived of the public exercise of
Christianity. VIII. The emperors were the natural protectors of
the Homoousian doctrine; and the faithful people of Africa, both
as Romans and as Catholics, preferred their lawful sovereignty to
the usurpation of the Barbarous heretics. During an interval of
peace and friendship, Hunneric restored the cathedral of
Carthage; at the intercession of Zeno, who reigned in the East,
and of Placidia, the daughter and relict of emperors, and the
sister of the queen of the Vandals. 109 But this decent regard
was of short duration; and the haughty tyrant displayed his
contempt for the religion of the empire, by studiously arranging
the bloody images of persecution, in all the principal streets
through which the Roman ambassador must pass in his way to the
palace. 110 An oath was required from the bishops, who were
assembled at Carthage, that they would support the succession of
his son Hilderic, and that they would renounce all foreign or
transmarine correspondence. This engagement, consistent, as it
should seem, with their moral and religious duties, was refused
by the more sagacious members 111 of the assembly. Their refusal,
faintly colored by the pretence that it is unlawful for a
Christian to swear, must provoke the suspicions of a jealous
tyrant.
91 (return) [ Victor, iv. 2, p. 65. Hunneric refuses the name of
Catholics to the Homoousians. He describes, as the veri Divinae
Majestatis cultores, his own party, who professed the faith,
confirmed by more than a thousand bishops, in the synods of
Rimini and Seleucia.]
92 (return) [ Victor, ii, 1, p. 21, 22: Laudabilior... videbatur.
In the Mss which omit this word, the passage is unintelligible.
See Ruinart Not. p. 164.]
93 (return) [ Victor, ii. p. 22, 23. The clergy of Carthage
called these conditions periculosoe; and they seem, indeed, to
have been proposed as a snare to entrap the Catholic bishops.]
94 (return) [ See the narrative of this conference, and the
treatment of the bishops, in Victor, ii. 13-18, p. 35-42 and the
whole fourth book p. 63-171. The third book, p. 42-62, is
entirely filled by their apology or confession of faith.]
95 (return) [ See the list of the African bishops, in Victor, p.
117-140, and Ruinart’s notes, p. 215-397. The schismatic name of
Donatus frequently occurs, and they appear to have adopted (like
our fanatics of the last age) the pious appellations of Deodatus,
Deogratias, Quidvultdeus, Habetdeum, &c. Note: These names appear
to have been introduced by the Donatists.—M.]
96 (return) [ Fulgent. Vit. c. 16-29. Thrasimund affected the
praise of moderation and learning; and Fulgentius addressed three
books of controversy to the Arian tyrant, whom he styles piissime
Rex. Biblioth. Maxim. Patrum, tom. ix. p. 41. Only sixty bishops
are mentioned as exiles in the life of Fulgentius; they are
increased to one hundred and twenty by Victor Tunnunensis and
Isidore; but the number of two hundred and twenty is specified in
the Historia Miscella, and a short authentic chronicle of the
times. See Ruinart, p. 570, 571.]
97 (return) [ See the base and insipid epigrams of the Stoic, who
could not support exile with more fortitude than Ovid. Corsica
might not produce corn, wine, or oil; but it could not be
destitute of grass, water, and even fire.]
98 (return) [ Si ob gravitatem coeli interissent vile damnum.
Tacit. Annal. ii. 85. In this application, Thrasimund would have
adopted the reading of some critics, utile damnum.]
99 (return) [ See these preludes of a general persecution, in
Victor, ii. 3, 4, 7 and the two edicts of Hunneric, l. ii. p. 35,
l. iv. p. 64.]
100 (return) [ See Procopius de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 7, p. 197,
198. A Moorish prince endeavored to propitiate the God of the
Christians, by his diligence to erase the marks of the Vandal
sacrilege.]
101 (return) [ See this story in Victor. ii. 8-12, p. 30-34.
Victor describes the distress of these confessors as an
eye-witness.]
102 (return) [ See the fifth book of Victor. His passionate
complaints are confirmed by the sober testimony of Procopius, and
the public declaration of the emperor Justinian. Cod. l. i. tit.
xxvii.]
103 (return) [ Victor, ii. 18, p. 41.]
104 (return) [ Victor, v. 4, p. 74, 75. His name was Victorianus,
and he was a wealthy citizen of Adrumetum, who enjoyed the
confidence of the king; by whose favor he had obtained the
office, or at least the title, of proconsul of Africa.]
105 (return) [ Victor, i. 6, p. 8, 9. After relating the firm
resistance and dexterous reply of Count Sebastian, he adds, quare
alio generis argumento postea bellicosum virum eccidit.]
106 (return) [ Victor, v. 12, 13. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom.
vi. p. 609.]
107 (return) [ Primate was more properly the title of the bishop
of Carthage; but the name of patriarch was given by the sects and
nations to their principal ecclesiastic. See Thomassin,
Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. p. 155, 158.]
108 (return) [ The patriarch Cyrila himself publicly declared,
that he did not understand Latin (Victor, ii. 18, p. 42:) Nescio
Latine; and he might converse with tolerable ease, without being
capable of disputing or preaching in that language. His Vandal
clergy were still more ignorant; and small confidence could be
placed in the Africans who had conformed.]
109 (return) [ Victor, ii. 1, 2, p. 22.]
110 (return) [ Victor, v. 7, p. 77. He appeals to the ambassador
himself, whose name was Uranius.]
111 (return) [ Astutiores, Victor, iv. 4, p. 70. He plainly
intimates that their quotation of the gospel “Non jurabitis in
toto,” was only meant to elude the obligation of an inconvenient
oath. The forty-six bishops who refused were banished to Corsica;
the three hundred and two who swore were distributed through the
provinces of Africa.]
Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity.—Part IV.
The Catholics, oppressed by royal and military force, were far
superior to their adversaries in numbers and learning. With the
same weapons which the Greek 112 and Latin fathers had already
provided for the Arian controversy, they repeatedly silenced, or
vanquished, the fierce and illiterate successors of Ulphilas. The
consciousness of their own superiority might have raised them
above the arts and passions of religious warfare. Yet, instead of
assuming such honorable pride, the orthodox theologians were
tempted, by the assurance of impunity, to compose fictions, which
must be stigmatized with the epithets of fraud and forgery. They
ascribed their own polemical works to the most venerable names of
Christian antiquity; the characters of Athanasius and Augustin
were awkwardly personated by Vigilius and his disciples; 113 and
the famous creed, which so clearly expounds the mysteries of the
Trinity and the Incarnation, is deduced, with strong probability,
from this African school. 114 Even the Scriptures themselves were
profaned by their rash and sacrilegious hands. The memorable
text, which asserts the unity of the three who bear witness in
heaven, 115 is condemned by the universal silence of the orthodox
fathers, ancient versions, and authentic manuscripts. 116 It was
first alleged by the Catholic bishops whom Hunneric summoned to
the conference of Carthage. 117 An allegorical interpretation, in
the form, perhaps, of a marginal note, invaded the text of the
Latin Bibles, which were renewed and corrected in a dark period
of ten centuries. 118 After the invention of printing, 119 the
editors of the Greek Testament yielded to their own prejudices,
or those of the times; 120 and the pious fraud, which was
embraced with equal zeal at Rome and at Geneva, has been
infinitely multiplied in every country and every language of
modern Europe.
112 (return) [ Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspae, in the Byzacene
province, was of a senatorial family, and had received a liberal
education. He could repeat all Homer and Menander before he was
allowed to study Latin his native tongue, (Vit. Fulgent. c. l.)
Many African bishops might understand Greek, and many Greek
theologians were translated into Latin.]
113 (return) [ Compare the two prefaces to the Dialogue of
Vigilius of Thapsus, (p. 118, 119, edit. Chiflet.) He might amuse
his learned reader with an innocent fiction; but the subject was
too grave, and the Africans were too ignorant.]
114 (return) [ The P. Quesnel started this opinion, which has
been favorably received. But the three following truths, however
surprising they may seem, are now universally acknowledged,
(Gerard Vossius, tom. vi. p. 516-522. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles.
tom. viii. p. 667-671.) 1. St. Athanasius is not the author of
the creed which is so frequently read in our churches. 2. It does
not appear to have existed within a century after his death. 3.
It was originally composed in the Latin tongue, and, consequently
in the Western provinces. Gennadius patriarch of Constantinople,
was so much amazed by this extraordinary composition, that he
frankly pronounced it to be the work of a drunken man. Petav.
Dogmat. Theologica, tom. ii. l. vii. c. 8, p. 687.]
115 (return) [ 1 John, v. 7. See Simon, Hist. Critique du Nouveau
Testament, part i. c. xviii. p. 203-218; and part ii. c. ix. p.
99-121; and the elaborate Prolegomena and Annotations of Dr. Mill
and Wetstein to their editions of the Greek Testament. In 1689,
the papist Simon strove to be free; in 1707, the Protestant Mill
wished to be a slave; in 1751, the Armenian Wetstein used the
liberty of his times, and of his sect. * Note: This controversy
has continued to be agitated, but with declining interest even in
the more religious part of the community; and may now be
considered to have terminated in an almost general acquiescence
of the learned to the conclusions of Porson in his Letters to
Travis. See the pamphlets of the late Bishop of Salisbury and of
Crito Cantabrigiensis, Dr. Turton of Cambridge.—M.]
116 (return) [ Of all the Mss. now extant, above fourscore in
number, some of which are more than 1200 years old, (Wetstein ad
loc.) The orthodox copies of the Vatican, of the Complutensian
editors, of Robert Stephens, are become invisible; and the two
Mss. of Dublin and Berlin are unworthy to form an exception. See
Emlyn’s Works, vol. ii. p 227-255, 269-299; and M. de Missy’s
four ingenious letters, in tom. viii. and ix. of the Journal
Britannique.]
117 (return) [ Or, more properly, by the four bishops who
composed and published the profession of faith in the name of
their brethren. They styled this text, luce clarius, (Victor
Vitensis de Persecut. Vandal. l. iii. c. 11, p. 54.) It is quoted
soon afterwards by the African polemics, Vigilius and
Fulgentius.]
118 (return) [ In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Bibles
were corrected by Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, and by
Nicholas, cardinal and librarian of the Roman church, secundum
orthodoxam fidem, (Wetstein, Prolegom. p. 84, 85.)
Notwithstanding these corrections, the passage is still wanting
in twenty-five Latin Mss., (Wetstein ad loc.,) the oldest and the
fairest; two qualities seldom united, except in manuscripts.]
119 (return) [ The art which the Germans had invented was applied
in Italy to the profane writers of Rome and Greece. The original
Greek of the New Testament was published about the same time
(A.D. 1514, 1516, 1520,) by the industry of Erasmus, and the
munificence of Cardinal Ximenes. The Complutensian Polyglot cost
the cardinal 50,000 ducats. See Mattaire, Annal. Typograph. tom.
ii. p. 2-8, 125-133; and Wetstein, Prolegomena, p. 116-127.]
120 (return) [ The three witnesses have been established in our
Greek Testaments by the prudence of Erasmus; the honest bigotry
of the Complutensian editors; the typographical fraud, or error,
of Robert Stephens, in the placing a crotchet; and the deliberate
falsehood, or strange misapprehension, of Theodore Beza.]
The example of fraud must excite suspicion: and the specious
miracles by which the African Catholics have defended the truth
and justice of their cause, may be ascribed, with more reason, to
their own industry, than to the visible protection of Heaven. Yet
the historian, who views this religious conflict with an
impartial eye, may condescend to mention one preternatural event,
which will edify the devout, and surprise the incredulous.
Tipasa, 121 a maritime colony of Mauritania, sixteen miles to the
east of Caesarea, had been distinguished, in every age, by the
orthodox zeal of its inhabitants. They had braved the fury of the
Donatists; 122 they resisted, or eluded, the tyranny of the
Arians. The town was deserted on the approach of an heretical
bishop: most of the inhabitants who could procure ships passed
over to the coast of Spain; and the unhappy remnant, refusing all
communion with the usurper, still presumed to hold their pious,
but illegal, assemblies. Their disobedience exasperated the
cruelty of Hunneric. A military count was despatched from
Carthage to Tipasa: he collected the Catholics in the Forum, and,
in the presence of the whole province, deprived the guilty of
their right hands and their tongues. But the holy confessors
continued to speak without tongues; and this miracle is attested
by Victor, an African bishop, who published a history of the
persecution within two years after the event. 123 “If any one,”
says Victor, “should doubt of the truth, let him repair to
Constantinople, and listen to the clear and perfect language of
Restitutus, the sub-deacon, one of these glorious sufferers, who
is now lodged in the palace of the emperor Zeno, and is respected
by the devout empress.” At Constantinople we are astonished to
find a cool, a learned, and unexceptionable witness, without
interest, and without passion. Aeneas of Gaza, a Platonic
philosopher, has accurately described his own observations on
these African sufferers. “I saw them myself: I heard them speak:
I diligently inquired by what means such an articulate voice
could be formed without any organ of speech: I used my eyes to
examine the report of my ears; I opened their mouth, and saw that
the whole tongue had been completely torn away by the roots; an
operation which the physicians generally suppose to be mortal.”
124 The testimony of Aeneas of Gaza might be confirmed by the
superfluous evidence of the emperor Justinian, in a perpetual
edict; of Count Marcellinus, in his Chronicle of the times; and
of Pope Gregory the First, who had resided at Constantinople, as
the minister of the Roman pontiff. 125 They all lived within the
compass of a century; and they all appeal to their personal
knowledge, or the public notoriety, for the truth of a miracle,
which was repeated in several instances, displayed on the
greatest theatre of the world, and submitted, during a series of
years, to the calm examination of the senses. This supernatural
gift of the African confessors, who spoke without tongues, will
command the assent of those, and of those only, who already
believe, that their language was pure and orthodox. But the
stubborn mind of an infidel, is guarded by secret, incurable
suspicion; and the Arian, or Socinian, who has seriously rejected
the doctrine of a Trinity, will not be shaken by the most
plausible evidence of an Athanasian miracle.
121 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natural. v. 1. Itinerar. Wesseling, p.
15. Cellanius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. part ii. p. 127. This
Tipasa (which must not be confounded with another in Numidia) was
a town of some note since Vespasian endowed it with the right of
Latium.]
122 (return) [ Optatus Milevitanus de Schism. Donatist. l. ii. p.
38.]
123 (return) [ Victor Vitensis, v. 6, p. 76. Ruinart, p.
483-487.]
124 (return) [ Aeneas Gazaeus in Theophrasto, in Biblioth.
Patrum, tom. viii. p. 664, 665. He was a Christian, and composed
this Dialogue (the Theophrastus) on the immortality of the soul,
and the resurrection of the body; besides twenty-five Epistles,
still extant. See Cave, (Hist. Litteraria, p. 297,) and
Fabricius, (Biblioth. Graec. tom. i. p. 422.)]
125 (return) [ Justinian. Codex. l. i. tit. xxvii. Marcellin. in
Chron. p. 45, in Thesaur. Temporum Scaliger. Procopius, de Bell.
Vandal. l. i. c. 7. p. 196. Gregor. Magnus, Dialog. iii. 32. None
of these witnesses have specified the number of the confessors,
which is fixed at sixty in an old menology, (apud Ruinart. p.
486.) Two of them lost their speech by fornication; but the
miracle is enhanced by the singular instance of a boy who had
never spoken before his tongue was cut out. ]
The Vandals and the Ostrogoths persevered in the profession of
Arianism till the final ruin of the kingdoms which they had
founded in Africa and Italy. The Barbarians of Gaul submitted to
the orthodox dominion of the Franks; and Spain was restored to
the Catholic church by the voluntary conversion of the Visigoths.
This salutary revolution 126 was hastened by the example of a
royal martyr, whom our calmer reason may style an ungrateful
rebel. Leovigild, the Gothic monarch of Spain, deserved the
respect of his enemies, and the love of his subjects; the
Catholics enjoyed a free toleration, and his Arian synods
attempted, without much success, to reconcile their scruples by
abolishing the unpopular rite of a second baptism. His eldest son
Hermenegild, who was invested by his father with the royal
diadem, and the fair principality of Boetica, contracted an
honorable and orthodox alliance with a Merovingian princess, the
daughter of Sigebert, king of Austrasia, and of the famous
Brunechild. The beauteous Ingundis, who was no more than thirteen
years of age, was received, beloved, and persecuted, in the Arian
court of Toledo; and her religious constancy was alternately
assaulted with blandishments and violence by Goisvintha, the
Gothic queen, who abused the double claim of maternal authority.
127 Incensed by her resistance, Goisvintha seized the Catholic
princess by her long hair, inhumanly dashed her against the
ground, kicked her till she was covered with blood, and at last
gave orders that she should be stripped, and thrown into a basin,
or fish-pond. 128 Love and honor might excite Hermenegild to
resent this injurious treatment of his bride; and he was
gradually persuaded that Ingundis suffered for the cause of
divine truth. Her tender complaints, and the weighty arguments of
Leander, archbishop of Seville, accomplished his conversion and
the heir of the Gothic monarchy was initiated in the Nicene faith
by the solemn rites of confirmation. 129 The rash youth, inflamed
by zeal, and perhaps by ambition, was tempted to violate the
duties of a son and a subject; and the Catholics of Spain,
although they could not complain of persecution, applauded his
pious rebellion against an heretical father. The civil war was
protracted by the long and obstinate sieges of Merida, Cordova,
and Seville, which had strenuously espoused the party of
Hermenegild. He invited the orthodox Barbarians, the Seuvi, and
the Franks, to the destruction of his native land; he solicited
the dangerous aid of the Romans, who possessed Africa, and a part
of the Spanish coast; and his holy ambassador, the archbishop
Leander, effectually negotiated in person with the Byzantine
court. But the hopes of the Catholics were crushed by the active
diligence of the monarch who commanded the troops and treasures
of Spain; and the guilty Hermenegild, after his vain attempts to
resist or to escape, was compelled to surrender himself into the
hands of an incensed father. Leovigild was still mindful of that
sacred character; and the rebel, despoiled of the regal
ornaments, was still permitted, in a decent exile, to profess the
Catholic religion. His repeated and unsuccessful treasons at
length provoked the indignation of the Gothic king; and the
sentence of death, which he pronounced with apparent reluctance,
was privately executed in the tower of Seville. The inflexible
constancy with which he refused to accept the Arian communion, as
the price of his safety, may excuse the honors that have been
paid to the memory of St. Hermenegild. His wife and infant son
were detained by the Romans in ignominious captivity; and this
domestic misfortune tarnished the glories of Leovigild, and
imbittered the last moments of his life.
126 (return) [ See the two general historians of Spain, Mariana
(Hist. de Rebus Hispaniae, tom. i. l. v. c. 12-15, p. 182-194)
and Ferreras, (French translation, tom. ii. p. 206-247.) Mariana
almost forgets that he is a Jesuit, to assume the style and
spirit of a Roman classic. Ferreras, an industrious compiler,
reviews his facts, and rectifies his chronology.]
127 (return) [ Goisvintha successively married two kings of the
Visigoths: Athanigild, to whom she bore Brunechild, the mother of
Ingundis; and Leovigild, whose two sons, Hermenegild and Recared,
were the issue of a former marriage.]
128 (return) [ Iracundiae furore succensa, adprehensam per comam
capitis puellam in terram conlidit, et diu calcibus verberatam,
ac sanguins cruentatam, jussit exspoliari, et piscinae immergi.
Greg. Turon. l. v. c. 39. in tom. ii. p. 255. Gregory is one of
our best originals for this portion of history.]
129 (return) [ The Catholics who admitted the baptism of heretics
repeated the rite, or, as it was afterwards styled, the
sacrament, of confirmation, to which they ascribed many mystic
and marvellous prerogatives both visible and invisible. See
Chardon. Hist. des Sacremens, tom. 1. p. 405-552.]
His son and successor, Recared, the first Catholic king of Spain,
had imbibed the faith of his unfortunate brother, which he
supported with more prudence and success. Instead of revolting
against his father, Recared patiently expected the hour of his
death. Instead of condemning his memory, he piously supposed,
that the dying monarch had abjured the errors of Arianism, and
recommended to his son the conversion of the Gothic nation. To
accomplish that salutary end, Recared convened an assembly of the
Arian clergy and nobles, declared himself a Catholic, and
exhorted them to imitate the example of their prince. The
laborious interpretation of doubtful texts, or the curious
pursuit of metaphysical arguments, would have excited an endless
controversy; and the monarch discreetly proposed to his
illiterate audience two substantial and visible arguments,—the
testimony of Earth, and of Heaven. The Earth had submitted to the
Nicene synod: the Romans, the Barbarians, and the inhabitants of
Spain, unanimously professed the same orthodox creed; and the
Visigoths resisted, almost alone, the consent of the Christian
world. A superstitious age was prepared to reverence, as the
testimony of Heaven, the preternatural cures, which were
performed by the skill or virtue of the Catholic clergy; the
baptismal fonts of Osset in Boetica, 130 which were spontaneously
replenished every year, on the vigil of Easter; 131 and the
miraculous shrine of St. Martin of Tours, which had already
converted the Suevic prince and people of Gallicia. 132 The
Catholic king encountered some difficulties on this important
change of the national religion. A conspiracy, secretly fomented
by the queen-dowager, was formed against his life; and two counts
excited a dangerous revolt in the Narbonnese Gaul. But Recared
disarmed the conspirators, defeated the rebels, and executed
severe justice; which the Arians, in their turn, might brand with
the reproach of persecution. Eight bishops, whose names betray
their Barbaric origin, abjured their errors; and all the books of
Arian theology were reduced to ashes, with the house in which
they had been purposely collected. The whole body of the
Visigoths and Suevi were allured or driven into the pale of the
Catholic communion; the faith, at least of the rising generation,
was fervent and sincere: and the devout liberality of the
Barbarians enriched the churches and monasteries of Spain.
Seventy bishops, assembled in the council of Toledo, received the
submission of their conquerors; and the zeal of the Spaniards
improved the Nicene creed, by declaring the procession of the
Holy Ghost from the Son, as well as from the Father; a weighty
point of doctrine, which produced, long afterwards, the schism of
the Greek and Latin churches. 133 The royal proselyte immediately
saluted and consulted Pope Gregory, surnamed the Great, a learned
and holy prelate, whose reign was distinguished by the conversion
of heretics and infidels. The ambassadors of Recared respectfully
offered on the threshold of the Vatican his rich presents of gold
and gems; they accepted, as a lucrative exchange, the hairs of
St. John the Baptist; a cross, which enclosed a small piece of
the true wood; and a key, that contained some particles of iron
which had been scraped from the chains of St. Peter. 134
130 (return) [ Osset, or Julia Constantia, was opposite to
Seville, on the northern side of the Boetis, (Plin. Hist. Natur.
iii. 3:) and the authentic reference of Gregory of Tours (Hist.
Francor. l. vi. c. 43, p. 288) deserves more credit than the name
of Lusitania, (de Gloria Martyr. c. 24,) which has been eagerly
embraced by the vain and superstitious Portuguese, (Ferreras,
Hist. d’Espagne, tom. ii. p. 166.)]
131 (return) [ This miracle was skilfully performed. An Arian
king sealed the doors, and dug a deep trench round the church,
without being able to intercept the Easter supply of baptismal
water.]
132 (return) [ Ferreras (tom. ii. p. 168-175, A.D. 550) has
illustrated the difficulties which regard the time and
circumstances of the conversion of the Suevi. They had been
recently united by Leovigild to the Gothic monarchy of Spain.]
133 (return) [ This addition to the Nicene, or rather the
Constantinopolitan creed, was first made in the eighth council of
Toledo, A.D. 653; but it was expressive of the popular doctrine,
(Gerard Vossius, tom. vi. p. 527, de tribus Symbolis.)]
134 (return) [ See Gregor. Magn. l. vii. epist. 126, apud
Baronium, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 559, No. 25, 26.]
The same Gregory, the spiritual conqueror of Britain, encouraged
the pious Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards, to propagate the
Nicene faith among the victorious savages, whose recent
Christianity was polluted by the Arian heresy. Her devout labors
still left room for the industry and success of future
missionaries; and many cities of Italy were still disputed by
hostile bishops. But the cause of Arianism was gradually
suppressed by the weight of truth, of interest, and of example;
and the controversy, which Egypt had derived from the Platonic
school, was terminated, after a war of three hundred years, by
the final conversion of the Lombards of Italy. 135
135 (return) [ Paul Warnefrid (de Gestis Langobard. l. iv. c. 44,
p. 153, edit Grot.) allows that Arianism still prevailed under
the reign of Rotharis, (A.D. 636-652.) The pious deacon does not
attempt to mark the precise era of the national conversion, which
was accomplished, however, before the end of the seventh
century.]
The first missionaries who preached the gospel to the Barbarians,
appealed to the evidence of reason, and claimed the benefit of
toleration. 136 But no sooner had they established their
spiritual dominion, than they exhorted the Christian kings to
extirpate, without mercy, the remains of Roman or Barbaric
superstition. The successors of Clovis inflicted one hundred
lashes on the peasants who refused to destroy their idols; the
crime of sacrificing to the demons was punished by the
Anglo-Saxon laws with the heavier penalties of imprisonment and
confiscation; and even the wise Alfred adopted, as an
indispensable duty, the extreme rigor of the Mosaic institutions.
137 But the punishment and the crime were gradually abolished
among a Christian people; the theological disputes of the schools
were suspended by propitious ignorance; and the intolerant spirit
which could find neither idolaters nor heretics, was reduced to
the persecution of the Jews. That exiled nation had founded some
synagogues in the cities of Gaul; but Spain, since the time of
Hadrian, was filled with their numerous colonies. 138 The wealth
which they accumulated by trade, and the management of the
finances, invited the pious avarice of their masters; and they
might be oppressed without danger, as they had lost the use, and
even the remembrance, of arms. Sisebut, a Gothic king, who
reigned in the beginning of the seventh century, proceeded at
once to the last extremes of persecution. 139 Ninety thousand
Jews were compelled to receive the sacrament of baptism; the
fortunes of the obstinate infidels were confiscated, their bodies
were tortured; and it seems doubtful whether they were permitted
to abandon their native country. The excessive zeal of the
Catholic king was moderated, even by the clergy of Spain, who
solemnly pronounced an inconsistent sentence: that the sacraments
should not be forcibly imposed; but that the Jews who had been
baptized should be constrained, for the honor of the church, to
persevere in the external practice of a religion which they
disbelieved and detested. Their frequent relapses provoked one of
the successors of Sisebut to banish the whole nation from his
dominions; and a council of Toledo published a decree, that every
Gothic king should swear to maintain this salutary edict. But the
tyrants were unwilling to dismiss the victims, whom they
delighted to torture, or to deprive themselves of the industrious
slaves, over whom they might exercise a lucrative oppression. The
Jews still continued in Spain, under the weight of the civil and
ecclesiastical laws, which in the same country have been
faithfully transcribed in the Code of the Inquisition. The Gothic
kings and bishops at length discovered, that injuries will
produce hatred, and that hatred will find the opportunity of
revenge. A nation, the secret or professed enemies of
Christianity, still multiplied in servitude and distress; and the
intrigues of the Jews promoted the rapid success of the Arabian
conquerors. 140
136 (return) [ Quorum fidei et conversioni ita congratulatus esse
rex perhibetur, ut nullum tamen cogeret ad Christianismum....
Didiceret enim a doctoribus auctoribusque suae salutis, servitium
Christi voluntarium non coactitium esse debere. Bedae Hist.
Ecclesiastic. l. i. c. 26, p. 62, edit. Smith.]
137 (return) [ See the Historians of France, tom. iv. p. 114; and
Wilkins, Leges Anglo-Saxonicae, p. 11, 31. Siquis sacrificium
immolaverit praeter Deo soli morte moriatur.]
138 (return) [ The Jews pretend that they were introduced into
Spain by the fleets of Solomon, and the arms of Nebuchadnezzar;
that Hadrian transported forty thousand families of the tribe of
Judah, and ten thousand of the tribe of Benjamin, &c. Basnage,
Hist. des Juifs, tom. vii. c. 9, p. 240-256.]
139 (return) [ Isidore, at that time archbishop of Seville,
mentions, disapproves and congratulates, the zeal of Sisebut
(Chron. Goth. p. 728.) Barosins (A.D. 614, No. 41) assigns the
number of the evidence of Almoin, (l. iv. c. 22;) but the
evidence is weak, and I have not been able to verify the
quotation, (Historians of France, tom. iii. p. 127.)]
140 (return) [ Basnage (tom. viii. c. 13, p. 388-400) faithfully
represents the state of the Jews; but he might have added from
the canons of the Spanish councils, and the laws of the
Visigoths, many curious circumstances, essential to his subject,
though they are foreign to mine. * Note: Compare Milman, Hist. of
Jews iii. 256—M]
As soon as the Barbarians withdrew their powerful support, the
unpopular heresy of Arius sunk into contempt and oblivion. But
the Greeks still retained their subtle and loquacious
disposition: the establishment of an obscure doctrine suggested
new questions, and new disputes; and it was always in the power
of an ambitious prelate, or a fanatic monk, to violate the peace
of the church, and, perhaps, of the empire. The historian of the
empire may overlook those disputes which were confined to the
obscurity of schools and synods. The Manichæans, who labored to
reconcile the religions of Christ and of Zoroaster, had secretly
introduced themselves into the provinces: but these foreign
sectaries were involved in the common disgrace of the Gnostics,
and the Imperial laws were executed by the public hatred. The
rational opinions of the Pelagians were propagated from Britain
to Rome, Africa, and Palestine, and silently expired in a
superstitious age. But the East was distracted by the Nestorian
and Eutychian controversies; which attempted to explain the
mystery of the incarnation, and hastened the ruin of Christianity
in her native land. These controversies were first agitated under
the reign of the younger Theodosius: but their important
consequences extend far beyond the limits of the present volume.
The metaphysical chain of argument, the contests of
ecclesiastical ambition, and their political influence on the
decline of the Byzantine empire, may afford an interesting and
instructive series of history, from the general councils of
Ephesus and Chalcedon, to the conquest of the East by the
successors of Mahomet.
Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part I.
Reign And Conversion Of Clovis.—His Victories Over The Alemanni,
Burgundians, And Visigoths.—Establishment Of The French Monarchy
In Gaul.—Laws Of The Barbarians.—State Of The Romans.—The
Visigoths Of Spain.—Conquest Of Britain By The Saxons.
The Gauls, 1 who impatiently supported the Roman yoke, received a
memorable lesson from one of the lieutenants of Vespasian, whose
weighty sense has been refined and expressed by the genius of
Tacitus. 2 “The protection of the republic has delivered Gaul
from internal discord and foreign invasions. By the loss of
national independence, you have acquired the name and privileges
of Roman citizens. You enjoy, in common with yourselves, the
permanent benefits of civil government; and your remote situation
is less exposed to the accidental mischiefs of tyranny. Instead
of exercising the rights of conquest, we have been contented to
impose such tributes as are requisite for your own preservation.
Peace cannot be secured without armies; and armies must be
supported at the expense of the people. It is for your sake, not
for our own, that we guard the barrier of the Rhine against the
ferocious Germans, who have so often attempted, and who will
always desire, to exchange the solitude of their woods and
morasses for the wealth and fertility of Gaul. The fall of Rome
would be fatal to the provinces; and you would be buried in the
ruins of that mighty fabric, which has been raised by the valor
and wisdom of eight hundred years. Your imaginary freedom would
be insulted and oppressed by a savage master; and the expulsion
of the Romans would be succeeded by the eternal hostilities of
the Barbarian conquerors.” 3 This salutary advice was accepted,
and this strange prediction was accomplished. In the space of
four hundred years, the hardy Gauls, who had encountered the arms
of Caesar, were imperceptibly melted into the general mass of
citizens and subjects: the Western empire was dissolved; and the
Germans, who had passed the Rhine, fiercely contended for the
possession of Gaul, and excited the contempt, or abhorrence, of
its peaceful and polished inhabitants. With that conscious pride
which the preeminence of knowledge and luxury seldom fails to
inspire, they derided the hairy and gigantic savages of the
North; their rustic manners, dissonant joy, voracious appetite,
and their horrid appearance, equally disgusting to the sight and
to the smell. The liberal studies were still cultivated in the
schools of Autun and Bordeaux; and the language of Cicero and
Virgil was familiar to the Gallic youth. Their ears were
astonished by the harsh and unknown sounds of the Germanic
dialect, and they ingeniously lamented that the trembling muses
fled from the harmony of a Burgundian lyre. The Gauls were
endowed with all the advantages of art and nature; but as they
wanted courage to defend them, they were justly condemned to
obey, and even to flatter, the victorious Barbarians, by whose
clemency they held their precarious fortunes and their lives. 4
1 (return) [ In this chapter I shall draw my quotations from the
Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, Paris,
1738-1767, in eleven volumes in folio. By the labor of Dom
Bouquet, and the other Benedictines, all the original
testimonies, as far as A.D. 1060, are disposed in chronological
order, and illustrated with learned notes. Such a national work,
which will be continued to the year 1500, might provoke our
emulation.]
2 (return) [ Tacit. Hist. iv. 73, 74, in tom. i. p. 445. To
abridge Tacitus would indeed be presumptuous; but I may select
the general ideas which he applies to the present state and
future revelations of Gaul.]
3 (return) [ Eadem semper causa Germanis transcendendi in Gallias
libido atque avaritiae et mutandae sedis amor; ut relictis
paludibus et solitudinibus, suis, fecundissimum hoc solum vosque
ipsos possiderent.... Nam pulsis Romanis quid aliud quam bella
omnium inter se gentium exsistent?]
4 (return) [ Sidonius Apollinaris ridicules, with affected wit
and pleasantry, the hardships of his situation, (Carm. xii. in
tom. i. p. 811.)]
As soon as Odoacer had extinguished the Western empire, he sought
the friendship of the most powerful of the Barbarians. The new
sovereign of Italy resigned to Euric, king of the Visigoths, all
the Roman conquests beyond the Alps, as far as the Rhine and the
Ocean: 5 and the senate might confirm this liberal gift with some
ostentation of power, and without any real loss of revenue and
dominion. The lawful pretensions of Euric were justified by
ambition and success; and the Gothic nation might aspire, under
his command, to the monarchy of Spain and Gaul. Arles and
Marseilles surrendered to his arms: he oppressed the freedom of
Auvergne; and the bishop condescended to purchase his recall from
exile by a tribute of just, but reluctant praise. Sidonius waited
before the gates of the palace among a crowd of ambassadors and
suppliants; and their various business at the court of Bordeaux
attested the power, and the renown, of the king of the Visigoths.
The Heruli of the distant ocean, who painted their naked bodies
with its coerulean color, implored his protection; and the Saxons
respected the maritime provinces of a prince, who was destitute
of any naval force. The tall Burgundians submitted to his
authority; nor did he restore the captive Franks, till he had
imposed on that fierce nation the terms of an unequal peace. The
Vandals of Africa cultivated his useful friendship; and the
Ostrogoths of Pannonia were supported by his powerful aid against
the oppression of the neighboring Huns. The North (such are the
lofty strains of the poet) was agitated or appeased by the nod of
Euric; the great king of Persia consulted the oracle of the West;
and the aged god of the Tyber was protected by the swelling
genius of the Garonne. 6 The fortune of nations has often
depended on accidents; and France may ascribe her greatness to
the premature death of the Gothic king, at a time when his son
Alaric was a helpless infant, and his adversary Clovis 7 an
ambitious and valiant youth.
5 (return) [ See Procopius de Bell. Gothico, l. i. c. 12, in tom.
ii. p. 81. The character of Grotius inclines me to believe, that
he has not substituted the Rhine for the Rhone (Hist. Gothorum,
p. 175) without the authority of some Ms.]
6 (return) [ Sidonius, l. viii. epist. 3, 9, in tom. i. p. 800.
Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 47 p. 680) justifies, in some
measure, this portrait of the Gothic hero.]
7 (return) [ I use the familiar appellation of Clovis, from the
Latin Chlodovechus, or Chlodovoeus. But the Ch expresses only the
German aspiration, and the true name is not different from Lewis,
(Mem. de ‘Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xx. p. 68.)]
While Childeric, the father of Clovis, lived an exile in Germany,
he was hospitably entertained by the queen, as well as by the
king, of the Thuringians. After his restoration, Basina escaped
from her husband’s bed to the arms of her lover; freely
declaring, that if she had known a man wiser, stronger, or more
beautiful, than Childeric, that man should have been the object
of her preference. 8 9 Clovis was the offspring of this voluntary
union; and, when he was no more than fifteen years of age, he
succeeded, by his father’s death, to the command of the Salian
tribe. The narrow limits of his kingdom were confined to the
island of the Batavians, with the ancient dioceses of Tournay and
Arras; 10 and at the baptism of Clovis the number of his warriors
could not exceed five thousand. The kindred tribes of the Franks,
who had seated themselves along the Belgic rivers, the Scheld,
the Meuse, the Moselle, and the Rhine, were governed by their
independent kings, of the Merovingian race; the equals, the
allies, and sometimes the enemies of the Salic prince. But the
Germans, who obeyed, in peace, the hereditary jurisdiction of
their chiefs, were free to follow the standard of a popular and
victorious general; and the superior merit of Clovis attracted
the respect and allegiance of the national confederacy. When he
first took the field, he had neither gold and silver in his
coffers, nor wine and corn in his magazine; 11 but he imitated
the example of Caesar, who, in the same country, had acquired
wealth by the sword, and purchased soldiers with the fruits of
conquest. After each successful battle or expedition, the spoils
were accumulated in one common mass; every warrior received his
proportionable share; and the royal prerogative submitted to the
equal regulations of military law. The untamed spirit of the
Barbarians was taught to acknowledge the advantages of regular
discipline. 12 At the annual review of the month of March, their
arms were diligently inspected; and when they traversed a
peaceful territory, they were prohibited from touching a blade of
grass. The justice of Clovis was inexorable; and his careless or
disobedient soldiers were punished with instant death. It would
be superfluous to praise the valor of a Frank; but the valor of
Clovis was directed by cool and consummate prudence. 13 In all
his transactions with mankind, he calculated the weight of
interest, of passion, and of opinion; and his measures were
sometimes adapted to the sanguinary manners of the Germans, and
sometimes moderated by the milder genius of Rome, and
Christianity. He was intercepted in the career of victory, since
he died in the forty-fifth year of his age: but he had already
accomplished, in a reign of thirty years, the establishment of
the French monarchy in Gaul.
8 (return) [ Greg. l. ii. c. 12, in tom. i. p. 168. Basina speaks
the language of nature; the Franks, who had seen her in their
youth, might converse with Gregory in their old age; and the
bishop of Tours could not wish to defame the mother of the first
Christian king.]
9 (return) [ The Abbe Dubos (Hist. Critique de l’Etablissement de
la Monarchie Francoise dans les Gaules, tom. i. p. 630-650) has
the merit of defining the primitive kingdom of Clovis, and of
ascertaining the genuine number of his subjects.]
10 (return) [ Ecclesiam incultam ac negligentia civium Paganorum
praetermis sam, veprium densitate oppletam, &c. Vit. St. Vedasti,
in tom. iii. p. 372. This description supposes that Arras was
possessed by the Pagans many years before the baptism of Clovis.]
11 (return) [ Gregory of Tours (l v. c. i. tom. ii. p. 232)
contrasts the poverty of Clovis with the wealth of his grandsons.
Yet Remigius (in tom. iv. p. 52) mentions his paternas opes, as
sufficient for the redemption of captives.]
12 (return) [ See Gregory, (l. ii. c. 27, 37, in tom. ii. p. 175,
181, 182.) The famous story of the vase of Soissons explains both
the power and the character of Clovis. As a point of controversy,
it has been strangely tortured by Boulainvilliers Dubos, and the
other political antiquarians.]
13 (return) [ The duke of Nivernois, a noble statesman, who has
managed weighty and delicate negotiations, ingeniously
illustrates (Mem. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. xx. p.
147-184) the political system of Clovis.]
The first exploit of Clovis was the defeat of Syagrius, the son
of Aegidius; and the public quarrel might, on this occasion, be
inflamed by private resentment. The glory of the father still
insulted the Merovingian race; the power of the son might excite
the jealous ambition of the king of the Franks. Syagrius
inherited, as a patrimonial estate, the city and diocese of
Soissons: the desolate remnant of the second Belgic, Rheims and
Troyes, Beauvais and Amiens, would naturally submit to the count
or patrician: 14 and after the dissolution of the Western empire,
he might reign with the title, or at least with the authority, of
king of the Romans. 15 As a Roman, he had been educated in the
liberal studies of rhetoric and jurisprudence; but he was engaged
by accident and policy in the familiar use of the Germanic idiom.
The independent Barbarians resorted to the tribunal of a
stranger, who possessed the singular talent of explaining, in
their native tongue, the dictates of reason and equity. The
diligence and affability of their judge rendered him popular, the
impartial wisdom of his decrees obtained their voluntary
obedience, and the reign of Syagrius over the Franks and
Burgundians seemed to revive the original institution of civil
society. 16 In the midst of these peaceful occupations, Syagrius
received, and boldly accepted, the hostile defiance of Clovis;
who challenged his rival in the spirit, and almost in the
language, of chivalry, to appoint the day and the field 17 of
battle. In the time of Caesar Soissons would have poured forth a
body of fifty thousand horse and such an army might have been
plentifully supplied with shields, cuirasses, and military
engines, from the three arsenals or manufactures of the city. 18
But the courage and numbers of the Gallic youth were long since
exhausted; and the loose bands of volunteers, or mercenaries, who
marched under the standard of Syagrius, were incapable of
contending with the national valor of the Franks. It would be
ungenerous without some more accurate knowledge of his strength
and resources, to condemn the rapid flight of Syagrius, who
escaped, after the loss of a battle, to the distant court of
Thoulouse. The feeble minority of Alaric could not assist or
protect an unfortunate fugitive; the pusillanimous 19 Goths were
intimidated by the menaces of Clovis; and the Roman king, after a
short confinement, was delivered into the hands of the
executioner. The Belgic cities surrendered to the king of the
Franks; and his dominions were enlarged towards the East by the
ample diocese of Tongres 20 which Clovis subdued in the tenth
year of his reign.
14 (return) [ M. Biet (in a Dissertation which deserved the prize
of the Academy of Soissons, p. 178-226,) has accurately defined
the nature and extent of the kingdom of Syagrius and his father;
but he too readily allows the slight evidence of Dubos (tom. ii.
p. 54-57) to deprive him of Beauvais and Amiens.]
15 (return) [ I may observe that Fredegarius, in his epitome of
Gregory of Tours, (tom. ii. p. 398,) has prudently substituted
the name of Patricius for the incredible title of Rex Romanorum.]
16 (return) [ Sidonius, (l. v. Epist. 5, in tom. i. p. 794,) who
styles him the Solon, the Amphion, of the Barbarians, addresses
this imaginary king in the tone of friendship and equality. From
such offices of arbitration, the crafty Dejoces had raised
himself to the throne of the Medes, (Herodot. l. i. c. 96-100.)]
17 (return) [ Campum sibi praeparari jussit. M. Biet (p. 226-251)
has diligently ascertained this field of battle, at Nogent, a
Benedictine abbey, about ten miles to the north of Soissons. The
ground was marked by a circle of Pagan sepulchres; and Clovis
bestowed the adjacent lands of Leully and Coucy on the church of
Rheims.]
18 (return) [ See Caesar. Comment. de Bell. Gallic. ii. 4, in
tom. i. p. 220, and the Notitiae, tom. i. p. 126. The three
Fabricae of Soissons were, Seutaria, Balistaria, and Clinabaria.
The last supplied the complete armor of the heavy cuirassiers.]
19 (return) [ The epithet must be confined to the circumstances;
and history cannot justify the French prejudice of Gregory, (l.
ii. c. 27, in tom. ii. p. 175,) ut Gothorum pavere mos est.]
20 (return) [ Dubos has satisfied me (tom. i. p. 277-286) that
Gregory of Tours, his transcribers, or his readers, have
repeatedly confounded the German kingdom of Thuringia, beyond the
Rhine, and the Gallic city of Tongria, on the Meuse, which was
more anciently the country of the Eburones, and more recently the
diocese of Liege.]
The name of the Alemanni has been absurdly derived from their
imaginary settlement on the banks of the Leman Lake. 21 That
fortunate district, from the lake to the Avenche, and Mount Jura,
was occupied by the Burgundians. 22 The northern parts of
Helvetia had indeed been subdued by the ferocious Alemanni, who
destroyed with their own hands the fruits of their conquest. A
province, improved and adorned by the arts of Rome, was again
reduced to a savage wilderness; and some vestige of the stately
Vindonissa may still be discovered in the fertile and populous
valley of the Aar. 23 From the source of the Rhine to its conflux
with the Mein and the Moselle, the formidable swarms of the
Alemanni commanded either side of the river, by the right of
ancient possession, or recent victory. They had spread themselves
into Gaul, over the modern provinces of Alsace and Lorraine; and
their bold invasion of the kingdom of Cologne summoned the Salic
prince to the defence of his Ripuarian allies.
Clovis encountered the invaders of Gaul in the plain of Tolbiac,
about twenty-four miles from Cologne; and the two fiercest
nations of Germany were mutually animated by the memory of past
exploits, and the prospect of future greatness. The Franks, after
an obstinate struggle, gave way; and the Alemanni, raising a
shout of victory, impetuously pressed their retreat. But the
battle was restored by the valor, and the conduct, and perhaps by
the piety, of Clovis; and the event of the bloody day decided
forever the alternative of empire or servitude. The last king of
the Alemanni was slain in the field, and his people were
slaughtered or pursued, till they threw down their arms, and
yielded to the mercy of the conqueror. Without discipline it was
impossible for them to rally: they had contemptuously demolished
the walls and fortifications which might have protected their
distress; and they were followed into the heart of their forests
by an enemy not less active, or intrepid, than themselves. The
great Theodoric congratulated the victory of Clovis, whose sister
Albofleda the king of Italy had lately married; but he mildly
interceded with his brother in favor of the suppliants and
fugitives, who had implored his protection. The Gallic
territories, which were possessed by the Alemanni, became the
prize of their conqueror; and the haughty nation, invincible, or
rebellious, to the arms of Rome, acknowledged the sovereignty of
the Merovingian kings, who graciously permitted them to enjoy
their peculiar manners and institutions, under the government of
official, and, at length, of hereditary, dukes. After the
conquest of the Western provinces, the Franks alone maintained
their ancient habitations beyond the Rhine. They gradually
subdued, and civilized, the exhausted countries, as far as the
Elbe, and the mountains of Bohemia; and the peace of Europe was
secured by the obedience of Germany. 24
21 (return) [ Populi habitantes juxta Lemannum lacum, Alemanni
dicuntur. Servius, ad Virgil. Georgic. iv. 278. Don Bouquet (tom.
i. p. 817) has only alleged the more recent and corrupt text of
Isidore of Seville.]
22 (return) [ Gregory of Tours sends St. Lupicinus inter illa
Jurensis deserti secreta, quae, inter Burgundiam Alamanniamque
sita, Aventicae adja cent civitati, in tom. i. p. 648. M. de
Watteville (Hist. de la Confederation Helvetique, tom. i. p. 9,
10) has accurately defined the Helvetian limits of the Duchy of
Alemannia, and the Transjurane Burgundy. They were commensurate
with the dioceses of Constance and Avenche, or Lausanne, and are
still discriminated, in modern Switzerland, by the use of the
German, or French, language.]
23 (return) [ See Guilliman de Rebus Helveticis, l i. c. 3, p.
11, 12. Within the ancient walls of Vindonissa, the castle of
Hapsburgh, the abbey of Konigsfield, and the town of Bruck, have
successively risen. The philosophic traveller may compare the
monuments of Roman conquest of feudal or Austrian tyranny, of
monkish superstition, and of industrious freedom. If he be truly
a philosopher, he will applaud the merit and happiness of his own
times.]
24 (return) [ Gregory of Tours, (l. ii. 30, 37, in tom. ii. p.
176, 177, 182,) the Gesta Francorum, (in tom. ii. p. 551,) and
the epistle of Theodoric, (Cassiodor. Variar. l. ii. c. 41, in
tom. iv. p. 4,) represent the defeat of the Alemanni. Some of
their tribes settled in Rhaetia, under the protection of
Theodoric; whose successors ceded the colony and their country to
the grandson of Clovis. The state of the Alemanni under the
Merovingian kings may be seen in Mascou (Hist. of the Ancient
Germans, xi. 8, &c. Annotation xxxvi.) and Guilliman, (de Reb.
Helvet. l. ii. c. 10-12, p. 72-80.)]
Till the thirtieth year of his age, Clovis continued to worship
the gods of his ancestors. 25 His disbelief, or rather disregard,
of Christianity, might encourage him to pillage with less remorse
the churches of a hostile territory: but his subjects of Gaul
enjoyed the free exercise of religious worship; and the bishops
entertained a more favorable hope of the idolater, than of the
heretics. The Merovingian prince had contracted a fortunate
alliance with the fair Clotilda, the niece of the king of
Burgundy, who, in the midst of an Arian court, was educated in
the profession of the Catholic faith. It was her interest, as
well as her duty, to achieve the conversion 26 of a Pagan
husband; and Clovis insensibly listened to the voice of love and
religion. He consented (perhaps such terms had been previously
stipulated) to the baptism of his eldest son; and though the
sudden death of the infant excited some superstitious fears, he
was persuaded, a second time, to repeat the dangerous experiment.
In the distress of the battle of Tolbiac, Clovis loudly invoked
the God of Clotilda and the Christians; and victory disposed him
to hear, with respectful gratitude, the eloquent 27 Remigius, 28
bishop of Rheims, who forcibly displayed the temporal and
spiritual advantages of his conversion. The king declared himself
satisfied of the truth of the Catholic faith; and the political
reasons which might have suspended his public profession, were
removed by the devout or loyal acclamations of the Franks, who
showed themselves alike prepared to follow their heroic leader to
the field of battle, or to the baptismal font. The important
ceremony was performed in the cathedral of Rheims, with every
circumstance of magnificence and solemnity that could impress an
awful sense of religion on the minds of its rude proselytes. 29
The new Constantine was immediately baptized, with three thousand
of his warlike subjects; and their example was imitated by the
remainder of the gentle Barbarians, who, in obedience to the
victorious prelate, adored the cross which they had burnt, and
burnt the idols which they had formerly adored. 30 The mind of
Clovis was susceptible of transient fervor: he was exasperated by
the pathetic tale of the passion and death of Christ; and,
instead of weighing the salutary consequences of that mysterious
sacrifice, he exclaimed, with indiscreet fury, “Had I been
present at the head of my valiant Franks, I would have revenged
his injuries.” 31 But the savage conqueror of Gaul was incapable
of examining the proofs of a religion, which depends on the
laborious investigation of historic evidence and speculative
theology. He was still more incapable of feeling the mild
influence of the gospel, which persuades and purifies the heart
of a genuine convert. His ambitious reign was a perpetual
violation of moral and Christian duties: his hands were stained
with blood in peace as well as in war; and, as soon as Clovis had
dismissed a synod of the Gallican church, he calmly assassinated
all the princes of the Merovingian race. 32 Yet the king of the
Franks might sincerely worship the Christian God, as a Being more
excellent and powerful than his national deities; and the signal
deliverance and victory of Tolbiac encouraged Clovis to confide
in the future protection of the Lord of Hosts. Martin, the most
popular of the saints, had filled the Western world with the fame
of those miracles which were incessantly performed at his holy
sepulchre of Tours. His visible or invisible aid promoted the
cause of a liberal and orthodox prince; and the profane remark of
Clovis himself, that St.Martin was an expensive friend, 33 need
not be interpreted as the symptom of any permanent or rational
scepticism. But earth, as well as heaven, rejoiced in the
conversion of the Franks. On the memorable day when Clovis
ascended from the baptismal font, he alone, in the Christian
world, deserved the name and prerogatives of a Catholic king. The
emperor Anastasius entertained some dangerous errors concerning
the nature of the divine incarnation; and the Barbarians of
Italy, Africa, Spain, and Gaul, were involved in the Arian
heresy. The eldest, or rather the only, son of the church, was
acknowledged by the clergy as their lawful sovereign, or glorious
deliverer; and the armies of Clovis were strenuously supported by
the zeal and fervor of the Catholic faction. 34
25 (return) [ Clotilda, or rather Gregory, supposes that Clovis
worshipped the gods of Greece and Rome. The fact is incredible,
and the mistake only shows how completely, in less than a
century, the national religion of the Franks had been abolished
and even forgotten]
26 (return) [ Gregory of Tours relates the marriage and
conversion of Clovis, (l. ii. c. 28-31, in tom. ii. p. 175-178.)
Even Fredegarius, or the nameless Epitomizer, (in tom. ii. p.
398-400,) the author of the Gesta Francorum, (in tom. ii. p.
548-552,) and Aimoin himself, (l. i. c. 13, in tom. iii. p.
37-40,) may be heard without disdain. Tradition might long
preserve some curious circumstances of these important
transactions.]
27 (return) [ A traveller, who returned from Rheims to Auvergne,
had stolen a copy of his declamations from the secretary or
bookseller of the modest archbishop, (Sidonius Apollinar. l. ix.
epist. 7.) Four epistles of Remigius, which are still extant, (in
tom. iv. p. 51, 52, 53,) do not correspond with the splendid
praise of Sidonius.]
28 (return) [ Hincmar, one of the successors of Remigius, (A.D.
845-882,) had composed his life, (in tom. iii. p. 373-380.) The
authority of ancient MSS. of the church of Rheims might inspire
some confidence, which is destroyed, however, by the selfish and
audacious fictions of Hincmar. It is remarkable enough, that
Remigius, who was consecrated at the age of twenty-two, (A.D.
457,) filled the episcopal chair seventy-four years, (Pagi
Critica, in Baron tom. ii. p. 384, 572.)]
29 (return) [ A phial (the Sainte Ampoulle of holy, or rather
celestial, oil,) was brought down by a white dove, for the
baptism of Clovis; and it is still used and renewed, in the
coronation of the kings of France. Hincmar (he aspired to the
primacy of Gaul) is the first author of this fable, (in tom. iii.
p. 377,) whose slight foundations the Abbe de Vertot (Mémoires de
l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. ii. p. 619-633) has undermined,
with profound respect and consummate dexterity.]
30 (return) [ Mitis depone colla, Sicamber: adora quod
incendisti, incende quod adorasti. Greg. Turon. l. ii. c. 31, in
tom. ii. p. 177.]
31 (return) [ Si ego ibidem cum Francis meis fuissem, injurias
ejus vindicassem. This rash expression, which Gregory has
prudently concealed, is celebrated by Fredegarius, (Epitom. c.
21, in tom. ii. p. 400,) Ai moin, (l. i. c. 16, in tom. iii. p.
40,) and the Chroniques de St. Denys, (l. i. c. 20, in tom. iii.
p. 171,) as an admirable effusion of Christian zeal.]
32 (return) [ Gregory, (l. ii. c. 40-43, in tom. ii. p. 183-185,)
after coolly relating the repeated crimes, and affected remorse,
of Clovis, concludes, perhaps undesignedly, with a lesson, which
ambition will never hear. “His ita transactis obiit.”]
33 (return) [ After the Gothic victory, Clovis made rich
offerings to St. Martin of Tours. He wished to redeem his
war-horse by the gift of one hundred pieces of gold, but the
enchanted steed could not remove from the stable till the price
of his redemption had been doubled. This miracle provoked the
king to exclaim, Vere B. Martinus est bonus in auxilio, sed carus
in negotio. (Gesta Francorum, in tom. ii. p. 554, 555.)]
34 (return) [ See the epistle from Pope Anastasius to the royal
convert, (in Com. iv. p. 50, 51.) Avitus, bishop of Vienna,
addressed Clovis on the same subject, (p. 49;) and many of the
Latin bishops would assure him of their joy and attachment.]
Under the Roman empire, the wealth and jurisdiction of the
bishops, their sacred character, and perpetual office, their
numerous dependants, popular eloquence, and provincial
assemblies, had rendered them always respectable, and sometimes
dangerous. Their influence was augmented with the progress of
superstition; and the establishment of the French monarchy may,
in some degree, be ascribed to the firm alliance of a hundred
prelates, who reigned in the discontented, or independent, cities
of Gaul. The slight foundations of the Armorican republic had
been repeatedly shaken, or overthrown; but the same people still
guarded their domestic freedom; asserted the dignity of the Roman
name; and bravely resisted the predatory inroads, and regular
attacks, of Clovis, who labored to extend his conquests from the
Seine to the Loire. Their successful opposition introduced an
equal and honorable union. The Franks esteemed the valor of the
Armoricans 35 and the Armoricans were reconciled by the religion
of the Franks. The military force which had been stationed for
the defence of Gaul, consisted of one hundred different bands of
cavalry or infantry; and these troops, while they assumed the
title and privileges of Roman soldiers, were renewed by an
incessant supply of the Barbarian youth. The extreme
fortifications, and scattered fragments of the empire, were still
defended by their hopeless courage. But their retreat was
intercepted, and their communication was impracticable: they were
abandoned by the Greek princes of Constantinople, and they
piously disclaimed all connection with the Arian usurpers of
Gaul. They accepted, without shame or reluctance, the generous
capitulation, which was proposed by a Catholic hero; and this
spurious, or legitimate, progeny of the Roman legions, was
distinguished in the succeeding age by their arms, their ensigns,
and their peculiar dress and institutions. But the national
strength was increased by these powerful and voluntary
accessions; and the neighboring kingdoms dreaded the numbers, as
well as the spirit, of the Franks. The reduction of the Northern
provinces of Gaul, instead of being decided by the chance of a
single battle, appears to have been slowly effected by the
gradual operation of war and treaty and Clovis acquired each
object of his ambition, by such efforts, or such concessions, as
were adequate to its real value. His savage character, and the
virtues of Henry IV., suggest the most opposite ideas of human
nature; yet some resemblance may be found in the situation of two
princes, who conquered France by their valor, their policy, and
the merits of a seasonable conversion. 36
35 (return) [ Instead of an unknown people, who now appear on the
text of Procopious, Hadrian de Valois has restored the proper
name of the easy correction has been almost universally approved.
Yet an unprejudiced reader would naturally suppose, that
Procopius means to describe a tribe of Germans in the alliance of
Rome; and not a confederacy of Gallic cities, which had revolted
from the empire. * Note: Compare Hallam’s Europe during the
Middle Ages, vol i. p. 2, Daru, Hist. de Bretagne vol. i. p.
129—M.]
36 (return) [ This important digression of Procopius (de Bell.
Gothic. l. i. c. 12, in tom. ii. p. 29-36) illustrates the origin
of the French monarchy. Yet I must observe, 1. That the Greek
historian betrays an inexcusable ignorance of the geography of
the West. 2. That these treaties and privileges, which should
leave some lasting traces, are totally invisible in Gregory of
Tours, the Salic laws, &c.]
The kingdom of the Burgundians, which was defined by the course
of two Gallic rivers, the Saone and the Rhone, extended from the
forest of Vosges to the Alps and the sea of Marscilles. 37 The
sceptre was in the hands of Gundobald. That valiant and ambitious
prince had reduced the number of royal candidates by the death of
two brothers, one of whom was the father of Clotilda; 38 but his
imperfect prudence still permitted Godegisel, the youngest of his
brothers, to possess the dependent principality of Geneva. The
Arian monarch was justly alarmed by the satisfaction, and the
hopes, which seemed to animate his clergy and people after the
conversion of Clovis; and Gundobald convened at Lyons an assembly
of his bishops, to reconcile, if it were possible, their
religious and political discontents. A vain conference was
agitated between the two factions. The Arians upbraided the
Catholics with the worship of three Gods: the Catholics defended
their cause by theological distinctions; and the usual arguments,
objections, and replies were reverberated with obstinate clamor;
till the king revealed his secret apprehensions, by an abrupt but
decisive question, which he addressed to the orthodox bishops.
“If you truly profess the Christian religion, why do you not
restrain the king of the Franks? He has declared war against me,
and forms alliances with my enemies for my destruction. A
sanguinary and covetous mind is not the symptom of a sincere
conversion: let him show his faith by his works.” The answer of
Avitus, bishop of Vienna, who spoke in the name of his brethren,
was delivered with the voice and countenance of an angel. “We are
ignorant of the motives and intentions of the king of the Franks:
but we are taught by Scripture, that the kingdoms which abandon
the divine law are frequently subverted; and that enemies will
arise on every side against those who have made God their enemy.
Return, with thy people, to the law of God, and he will give
peace and security to thy dominions.” The king of Burgundy, who
was not prepared to accept the condition which the Catholics
considered as essential to the treaty, delayed and dismissed the
ecclesiastical conference; after reproaching his bishops, that
Clovis, their friend and proselyte, had privately tempted the
allegiance of his brother. 39
37 (return) [ Regnum circa Rhodanum aut Ararim cum provincia
Massiliensi retinebant. Greg. Turon. l. ii. c. 32, in tom. ii. p.
178. The province of Marseilles, as far as the Durance, was
afterwards ceded to the Ostrogoths; and the signatures of
twenty-five bishops are supposed to represent the kingdom of
Burgundy, A.D. 519. (Concil. Epaon, in tom. iv. p. 104, 105.) Yet
I would except Vindonissa. The bishop, who lived under the Pagan
Alemanni, would naturally resort to the synods of the next
Christian kingdom. Mascou (in his four first annotations) has
explained many circumstances relative to the Burgundian
monarchy.]
38 (return) [ Mascou, (Hist. of the Germans, xi. 10,) who very
reasonably distracts the testimony of Gregory of Tours, has
produced a passage from Avitus (epist. v.) to prove that
Gundobald affected to deplore the tragic event, which his
subjects affected to applaud.]
39 (return) [ See the original conference, (in tom. iv. p.
99-102.) Avitus, the principal actor, and probably the secretary
of the meeting, was bishop of Vienna. A short account of his
person and works may be fouud in Dupin, (Bibliothèque
Ecclesiastique, tom. v. p. 5-10.)]
Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part II.
The allegiance of his brother was already seduced; and the
obedience of Godegisel, who joined the royal standard with the
troops of Geneva, more effectually promoted the success of the
conspiracy. While the Franks and Burgundians contended with equal
valor, his seasonable desertion decided the event of the battle;
and as Gundobald was faintly supported by the disaffected Gauls,
he yielded to the arms of Clovis, and hastily retreated from the
field, which appears to have been situate between Langres and
Dijon. He distrusted the strength of Dijon, a quadrangular
fortress, encompassed by two rivers, and by a wall thirty feet
high, and fifteen thick, with four gates, and thirty-three
towers: 40 he abandoned to the pursuit of Clovis the important
cities of Lyons and Vienna; and Gundobald still fled with
precipitation, till he had reached Avignon, at the distance of
two hundred and fifty miles from the field of battle.
A long siege and an artful negotiation, admonished the king of
the Franks of the danger and difficulty of his enterprise. He
imposed a tribute on the Burgundian prince, compelled him to
pardon and reward his brother’s treachery, and proudly returned
to his own dominions, with the spoils and captives of the
southern provinces. This splendid triumph was soon clouded by the
intelligence, that Gundobald had violated his recent obligations,
and that the unfortunate Godegisel, who was left at Vienna with a
garrison of five thousand Franks, 41 had been besieged,
surprised, and massacred by his inhuman brother. Such an outrage
might have exasperated the patience of the most peaceful
sovereign; yet the conqueror of Gaul dissembled the injury,
released the tribute, and accepted the alliance, and military
service, of the king of Burgundy. Clovis no longer possessed
those advantages which had assured the success of the preceding
war; and his rival, instructed by adversity, had found new
resources in the affections of his people. The Gauls or Romans
applauded the mild and impartial laws of Gundobald, which almost
raised them to the same level with their conquerors. The bishops
were reconciled, and flattered, by the hopes, which he artfully
suggested, of his approaching conversion; and though he eluded
their accomplishment to the last moment of his life, his
moderation secured the peace, and suspended the ruin, of the
kingdom of Burgundy. 42
40 (return) [ Gregory of Tours (l. iii. c. 19, in tom. ii. p.
197) indulges his genius, or rather describes some more eloquent
writer, in the description of Dijon; a castle, which already
deserved the title of a city. It depended on the bishops of
Langres till the twelfth century, and afterwards became the
capital of the dukes of Burgundy Longuerue Description de la
France, part i. p. 280.]
41 (return) [ The Epitomizer of Gregory of Tours (in tom. ii. p.
401) has supplied this number of Franks; but he rashly supposes
that they were cut in pieces by Gundobald. The prudent Burgundian
spared the soldiers of Clovis, and sent these captives to the
king of the Visigoths, who settled them in the territory of
Thoulouse.]
42 (return) [ In this Burgundian war I have followed Gregory of
Tours, (l. ii. c. 32, 33, in tom. ii. p. 178, 179,) whose
narrative appears so incompatible with that of Procopius, (de
Bell. Goth. l. i. c. 12, in tom. ii. p. 31, 32,) that some
critics have supposed two different wars. The Abbe Dubos (Hist.
Critique, &c., tom. ii. p. 126-162) has distinctly represented
the causes and the events.]
I am impatient to pursue the final ruin of that kingdom, which
was accomplished under the reign of Sigismond, the son of
Gundobald. The Catholic Sigismond has acquired the honors of a
saint and martyr; 43 but the hands of the royal saint were
stained with the blood of his innocent son, whom he inhumanly
sacrificed to the pride and resentment of a step-mother. He soon
discovered his error, and bewailed the irreparable loss. While
Sigismond embraced the corpse of the unfortunate youth, he
received a severe admonition from one of his attendants: “It is
not his situation, O king! it is thine which deserves pity and
lamentation.” The reproaches of a guilty conscience were
alleviated, however, by his liberal donations to the monastery of
Agaunum, or St. Maurice, in Vallais; which he himself had founded
in honor of the imaginary martyrs of the Thebaean legion. 44 A
full chorus of perpetual psalmody was instituted by the pious
king; he assiduously practised the austere devotion of the monks;
and it was his humble prayer, that Heaven would inflict in this
world the punishment of his sins. His prayer was heard: the
avengers were at hand: and the provinces of Burgundy were
overwhelmed by an army of victorious Franks. After the event of
an unsuccessful battle, Sigismond, who wished to protract his
life that he might prolong his penance, concealed himself in the
desert in a religious habit, till he was discovered and betrayed
by his subjects, who solicited the favor of their new masters.
The captive monarch, with his wife and two children, was
transported to Orleans, and buried alive in a deep well, by the
stern command of the sons of Clovis; whose cruelty might derive
some excuse from the maxims and examples of their barbarous age.
Their ambition, which urged them to achieve the conquest of
Burgundy, was inflamed, or disguised, by filial piety: and
Clotilda, whose sanctity did not consist in the forgiveness of
injuries, pressed them to revenge her father’s death on the
family of his assassin. The rebellious Burgundians (for they
attempted to break their chains) were still permitted to enjoy
their national laws under the obligation of tribute and military
service; and the Merovingian princes peaceably reigned over a
kingdom, whose glory and greatness had been first overthrown by
the arms of Clovis. 45
43 (return) [ See his life or legend, (in tom. iii. p. 402.) A
martyr! how strangely has that word been distorted from its
original sense of a common witness. St. Sigismond was remarkable
for the cure of fevers]
44 (return) [ Before the end of the fifth century, the church of
St. Maurice, and his Thebaean legion, had rendered Agaunum a
place of devout pilgrimage. A promiscuous community of both sexes
had introduced some deeds of darkness, which were abolished (A.D.
515) by the regular monastery of Sigismond. Within fifty years,
his angels of light made a nocturnal sally to murder their
bishop, and his clergy. See in the Bibliothèque Raisonnée (tom.
xxxvi. p. 435-438) the curious remarks of a learned librarian of
Geneva.]
45 (return) [ Marius, bishop of Avenche, (Chron. in tom. ii. p.
15,) has marked the authentic dates, and Gregory of Tours (l.
iii. c. 5, 6, in tom. ii. p. 188, 189) has expressed the
principal facts, of the life of Sigismond, and the conquest of
Burgundy. Procopius (in tom. ii. p. 34) and Agathias (in tom. ii.
p. 49) show their remote and imperfect knowledge.]
The first victory of Clovis had insulted the honor of the Goths.
They viewed his rapid progress with jealousy and terror; and the
youthful fame of Alaric was oppressed by the more potent genius
of his rival. Some disputes inevitably arose on the edge of their
contiguous dominions; and after the delays of fruitless
negotiation, a personal interview of the two kings was proposed
and accepted. The conference of Clovis and Alaric was held in a
small island of the Loire, near Amboise. They embraced,
familiarly conversed, and feasted together; and separated with
the warmest professions of peace and brotherly love. But their
apparent confidence concealed a dark suspicion of hostile and
treacherous designs; and their mutual complaints solicited,
eluded, and disclaimed, a final arbitration. At Paris, which he
already considered as his royal seat, Clovis declared to an
assembly of the princes and warriors, the pretence, and the
motive, of a Gothic war. “It grieves me to see that the Arians
still possess the fairest portion of Gaul. Let us march against
them with the aid of God; and, having vanquished the heretics, we
will possess and divide their fertile provinces.” 46 The Franks,
who were inspired by hereditary valor and recent zeal, applauded
the generous design of their monarch; expressed their resolution
to conquer or die, since death and conquest would be equally
profitable; and solemnly protested that they would never shave
their beards till victory should absolve them from that
inconvenient vow. The enterprise was promoted by the public or
private exhortations of Clotilda. She reminded her husband how
effectually some pious foundation would propitiate the Deity, and
his servants: and the Christian hero, darting his battle-axe with
a skilful and nervous band, “There, (said he,) on that spot where
my Francisca, 47 shall fall, will I erect a church in honor of
the holy apostles.” This ostentatious piety confirmed and
justified the attachment of the Catholics, with whom he secretly
corresponded; and their devout wishes were gradually ripened into
a formidable conspiracy. The people of Aquitain were alarmed by
the indiscreet reproaches of their Gothic tyrants, who justly
accused them of preferring the dominion of the Franks: and their
zealous adherent Quintianus, bishop of Rodez, 48 preached more
forcibly in his exile than in his diocese. To resist these
foreign and domestic enemies, who were fortified by the alliance
of the Burgundians, Alaric collected his troops, far more
numerous than the military powers of Clovis. The Visigoths
resumed the exercise of arms, which they had neglected in a long
and luxurious peace; 49 a select band of valiant and robust
slaves attended their masters to the field; 50 and the cities of
Gaul were compelled to furnish their doubtful and reluctant aid.
Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, who reigned in Italy, had
labored to maintain the tranquillity of Gaul; and he assumed, or
affected, for that purpose, the impartial character of a
mediator. But the sagacious monarch dreaded the rising empire of
Clovis, and he was firmly engaged to support the national and
religious cause of the Goths.
46 (return) [ Gregory of Tours (l. ii. c. 37, in tom. ii. p. 181)
inserts the short but persuasive speech of Clovis. Valde moleste
fero, quod hi Ariani partem teneant Galliarum, (the author of the
Gesta Francorum, in tom. ii. p. 553, adds the precious epithet of
optimam,) camus cum Dei adjutorio, et, superatis eis, redigamus
terram in ditionem nostram.]
47 (return) [ Tunc rex projecit a se in directum Bipennem suam
quod est Francisca, &c. (Gesta Franc. in tom. ii. p. 554.) The
form and use of this weapon are clearly described by Procopius,
(in tom. ii. p. 37.) Examples of its national appellation in
Latin and French may be found in the Glossary of Ducange, and the
large Dictionnaire de Trevoux.]
48 (return) [ It is singular enough that some important and
authentic facts should be found in a Life of Quintianus, composed
in rhyme in the old Patois of Rouergue, (Dubos, Hist. Critique,
&c., tom. ii. p. 179.)]
49 (return) [ Quamvis fortitudini vestrae confidentiam tribuat
parentum ves trorum innumerabilis multitudo; quamvis Attilam
potentem reminiscamini Visigotharum viribus inclinatum; tamen
quia populorum ferocia corda longa pace mollescunt, cavete subito
in alean aleam mittere, quos constat tantis temporibus exercitia
non habere. Such was the salutary, but fruitless, advice of peace
of reason, and of Theodoric, (Cassiodor. l. iii. ep. 2.)]
50 (return) [ Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xv. c. 14)
mentions and approves the law of the Visigoths, (l. ix. tit. 2,
in tom. iv. p. 425,) which obliged all masters to arm, and send,
or lead, into the field a tenth of their slaves.]
The accidental, or artificial, prodigies which adorned the
expedition of Clovis, were accepted by a superstitious age, as
the manifest declaration of the divine favor. He marched from
Paris; and as he proceeded with decent reverence through the holy
diocese of Tours, his anxiety tempted him to consult the shrine
of St. Martin, the sanctuary and the oracle of Gaul. His
messengers were instructed to remark the words of the Psalm which
should happen to be chanted at the precise moment when they
entered the church. Those words most fortunately expressed the
valor and victory of the champions of Heaven, and the application
was easily transferred to the new Joshua, the new Gideon, who
went forth to battle against the enemies of the Lord. 51 Orleans
secured to the Franks a bridge on the Loire; but, at the distance
of forty miles from Poitiers, their progress was intercepted by
an extraordinary swell of the River Vigenna or Vienne; and the
opposite banks were covered by the encampment of the Visigoths.
Delay must be always dangerous to Barbarians, who consume the
country through which they march; and had Clovis possessed
leisure and materials, it might have been impracticable to
construct a bridge, or to force a passage, in the face of a
superior enemy. But the affectionate peasants who were impatient
to welcome their deliverer, could easily betray some unknown or
unguarded ford: the merit of the discovery was enhanced by the
useful interposition of fraud or fiction; and a white hart, of
singular size and beauty, appeared to guide and animate the march
of the Catholic army. The counsels of the Visigoths were
irresolute and distracted. A crowd of impatient warriors,
presumptuous in their strength, and disdaining to fly before the
robbers of Germany, excited Alaric to assert in arms the name and
blood of the conquerors of Rome. The advice of the graver
chieftains pressed him to elude the first ardor of the Franks;
and to expect, in the southern provinces of Gaul, the veteran and
victorious Ostrogoths, whom the king of Italy had already sent to
his assistance. The decisive moments were wasted in idle
deliberation the Goths too hastily abandoned, perhaps, an
advantageous post; and the opportunity of a secure retreat was
lost by their slow and disorderly motions. After Clovis had
passed the ford, as it is still named, of the Hart, he advanced
with bold and hasty steps to prevent the escape of the enemy. His
nocturnal march was directed by a flaming meteor, suspended in
the air above the cathedral of Poitiers; and this signal, which
might be previously concerted with the orthodox successor of St.
Hilary, was compared to the column of fire that guided the
Israelites in the desert. At the third hour of the day, about ten
miles beyond Poitiers, Clovis overtook, and instantly attacked,
the Gothic army; whose defeat was already prepared by terror and
confusion. Yet they rallied in their extreme distress, and the
martial youths, who had clamorously demanded the battle, refused
to survive the ignominy of flight. The two kings encountered each
other in single combat. Alaric fell by the hand of his rival; and
the victorious Frank was saved by the goodness of his cuirass,
and the vigor of his horse, from the spears of two desperate
Goths, who furiously rode against him to revenge the death of
their sovereign. The vague expression of a mountain of the slain,
serves to indicate a cruel though indefinite slaughter; but
Gregory has carefully observed, that his valiant countryman
Apollinaris, the son of Sidonius, lost his life at the head of
the nobles of Auvergne. Perhaps these suspected Catholics had
been maliciously exposed to the blind assault of the enemy; and
perhaps the influence of religion was superseded by personal
attachment or military honor. 52
51 (return) [ This mode of divination, by accepting as an omen
the first sacred words, which in particular circumstances should
be presented to the eye or ear, was derived from the Pagans; and
the Psalter, or Bible, was substituted to the poems of Homer and
Virgil. From the fourth to the fourteenth century, these sortes
sanctorum, as they are styled, were repeatedly condemned by the
decrees of councils, and repeatedly practised by kings, bishops,
and saints. See a curious dissertation of the Abbe du Resnel, in
the Mémoires de l’Academie, tom. xix. p. 287-310]
52 (return) [ After correcting the text, or excusing the mistake,
of Procopius, who places the defeat of Alaric near Carcassone, we
may conclude, from the evidence of Gregory, Fortunatus, and the
author of the Gesta Francorum, that the battle was fought in
campo Vocladensi, on the banks of the Clain, about ten miles to
the south of Poitiers. Clovis overtook and attacked the Visigoths
near Vivonne, and the victory was decided near a village still
named Champagne St. Hilaire. See the Dissertations of the Abbe le
Boeuf, tom. i. p. 304-331.]
Such is the empire of Fortune, (if we may still disguise our
ignorance under that popular name,) that it is almost equally
difficult to foresee the events of war, or to explain their
various consequences. A bloody and complete victory has sometimes
yielded no more than the possession of the field; and the loss of
ten thousand men has sometimes been sufficient to destroy, in a
single day, the work of ages. The decisive battle of Poitiers was
followed by the conquest of Aquitain. Alaric had left behind him
an infant son, a bastard competitor, factious nobles, and a
disloyal people; and the remaining forces of the Goths were
oppressed by the general consternation, or opposed to each other
in civil discord. The victorious king of the Franks proceeded
without delay to the siege of Angoulême. At the sound of his
trumpets the walls of the city imitated the example of Jericho,
and instantly fell to the ground; a splendid miracle, which may
be reduced to the supposition, that some clerical engineers had
secretly undermined the foundations of the rampart. 53 At
Bordeaux, which had submitted without resistance, Clovis
established his winter quarters; and his prudent economy
transported from Thoulouse the royal treasures, which were
deposited in the capital of the monarchy. The conqueror
penetrated as far as the confines of Spain; 54 restored the
honors of the Catholic church; fixed in Aquitain a colony of
Franks; 55 and delegated to his lieutenants the easy task of
subduing, or extirpating, the nation of the Visigoths. But the
Visigoths were protected by the wise and powerful monarch of
Italy. While the balance was still equal, Theodoric had perhaps
delayed the march of the Ostrogoths; but their strenuous efforts
successfully resisted the ambition of Clovis; and the army of the
Franks, and their Burgundian allies, was compelled to raise the
siege of Arles, with the loss, as it is said, of thirty thousand
men. These vicissitudes inclined the fierce spirit of Clovis to
acquiesce in an advantageous treaty of peace. The Visigoths were
suffered to retain the possession of Septimania, a narrow tract
of sea-coast, from the Rhone to the Pyrenees; but the ample
province of Aquitain, from those mountains to the Loire, was
indissolubly united to the kingdom of France. 56
53 (return) [ Angoulême is in the road from Poitiers to Bordeaux;
and although Gregory delays the siege, I can more readily believe
that he confounded the order of history, than that Clovis
neglected the rules of war.]
54 (return) [ Pyrenaeos montes usque Perpinianum subjecit, is the
expression of Rorico, which betrays his recent date; since
Perpignan did not exist before the tenth century, (Marca
Hispanica, p. 458.) This florid and fabulous writer (perhaps a
monk of Amiens—see the Abbe le Boeuf, Mem. de l’Academie, tom.
xvii. p. 228-245) relates, in the allegorical character of a
shepherd, the general history of his countrymen the Franks; but
his narrative ends with the death of Clovis.]
55 (return) [ The author of the Gesta Francorum positively
affirms, that Clovis fixed a body of Franks in the Saintonge and
Bourdelois: and he is not injudiciously followed by Rorico,
electos milites, atque fortissimos, cum parvulis, atque
mulieribus. Yet it should seem that they soon mingled with the
Romans of Aquitain, till Charlemagne introduced a more numerous
and powerful colony, (Dubos, Hist. Critique, tom. ii. p. 215.)]
56 (return) [ In the composition of the Gothic war, I have used
the following materials, with due regard to their unequal value.
Four epistles from Theodoric, king of Italy, (Cassiodor l. iii.
epist. 1-4. in tom. iv p. 3-5;) Procopius, (de Bell. Goth. l. i.
c 12, in tom. ii. p. 32, 33;) Gregory of Tours, (l. ii. c. 35,
36, 37, in tom. ii. p. 181-183;) Jornandes, (de Reb. Geticis, c.
58, in tom. ii. p. 28;) Fortunatas, (in Vit. St. Hilarii, in tom.
iii. p. 380;) Isidore, (in Chron. Goth. in tom. ii. p. 702;) the
Epitome of Gregory of Tours, (in tom. ii. p. 401;) the author of
the Gesta Francorum, (in tom. ii. p. 553-555;) the Fragments of
Fredegarius, (in tom. ii. p. 463;) Aimoin, (l. i. c. 20, in tom.
iii. p. 41, 42,) and Rorico, (l. iv. in tom. iii. p. 14-19.)]
After the success of the Gothic war, Clovis accepted the honors
of the Roman consulship. The emperor Anastasius ambitiously
bestowed on the most powerful rival of Theodoric the title and
ensigns of that eminent dignity; yet, from some unknown cause,
the name of Clovis has not been inscribed in the Fasti either of
the East or West. 57 On the solemn day, the monarch of Gaul,
placing a diadem on his head, was invested, in the church of St.
Martin, with a purple tunic and mantle. From thence he proceeded
on horseback to the cathedral of Tours; and, as he passed through
the streets, profusely scattered, with his own hand, a donative
of gold and silver to the joyful multitude, who incessantly
repeated their acclamations of Consul and Augustus. The actual or
legal authority of Clovis could not receive any new accessions
from the consular dignity. It was a name, a shadow, an empty
pageant; and if the conqueror had been instructed to claim the
ancient prerogatives of that high office, they must have expired
with the period of its annual duration. But the Romans were
disposed to revere, in the person of their master, that antique
title which the emperors condescended to assume: the Barbarian
himself seemed to contract a sacred obligation to respect the
majesty of the republic; and the successors of Theodosius, by
soliciting his friendship, tacitly forgave, and almost ratified,
the usurpation of Gaul.
57 (return) [ The Fasti of Italy would naturally reject a consul,
the enemy of their sovereign; but any ingenious hypothesis that
might explain the silence of Constantinople and Egypt, (the
Chronicle of Marcellinus, and the Paschal,) is overturned by the
similar silence of Marius, bishop of Avenche, who composed his
Fasti in the kingdom of Burgundy. If the evidence of Gregory of
Tours were less weighty and positive, (l. ii. c. 38, in tom. ii.
p. 183,) I could believe that Clovis, like Odoacer, received the
lasting title and honors of Patrician, (Pagi Critica, tom. ii. p.
474, 492.)]
Twenty-five years after the death of Clovis this important
concession was more formally declared, in a treaty between his
sons and the emperor Justinian. The Ostrogoths of Italy, unable
to defend their distant acquisitions, had resigned to the Franks
the cities of Arles and Marseilles; of Arles, still adorned with
the seat of a Prætorian praefect, and of Marseilles, enriched by
the advantages of trade and navigation. 58 This transaction was
confirmed by the Imperial authority; and Justinian, generously
yielding to the Franks the sovereignty of the countries beyond
the Alps, which they already possessed, absolved the provincials
from their allegiance; and established on a more lawful, though
not more solid, foundation, the throne of the Merovingians. 59
From that era they enjoyed the right of celebrating at Arles the
games of the circus; and by a singular privilege, which was
denied even to the Persian monarch, the gold coin, impressed with
their name and image, obtained a legal currency in the empire. 60
A Greek historian of that age has praised the private and public
virtues of the Franks, with a partial enthusiasm, which cannot be
sufficiently justified by their domestic annals. 61 He celebrates
their politeness and urbanity, their regular government, and
orthodox religion; and boldly asserts, that these Barbarians
could be distinguished only by their dress and language from the
subjects of Rome. Perhaps the Franks already displayed the social
disposition, and lively graces, which, in every age, have
disguised their vices, and sometimes concealed their intrinsic
merit. Perhaps Agathias, and the Greeks, were dazzled by the
rapid progress of their arms, and the splendor of their empire.
Since the conquest of Burgundy, Gaul, except the Gothic province
of Septimania, was subject, in its whole extent, to the sons of
Clovis. They had extinguished the German kingdom of Thuringia,
and their vague dominion penetrated beyond the Rhine, into the
heart of their native forests. The Alemanni, and Bavarians, who
had occupied the Roman provinces of Rhaetia and Noricum, to the
south of the Danube, confessed themselves the humble vassals of
the Franks; and the feeble barrier of the Alps was incapable of
resisting their ambition. When the last survivor of the sons of
Clovis united the inheritance and conquests of the Merovingians,
his kingdom extended far beyond the limits of modern France. Yet
modern France, such has been the progress of arts and policy, far
surpasses, in wealth, populousness, and power, the spacious but
savage realms of Clotaire or Dagobert. 62
58 (return) [ Under the Merovingian kings, Marseilles still
imported from the East paper, wine, oil, linen, silk, precious
stones, spices, &c. The Gauls, or Franks, traded to Syria, and
the Syrians were established in Gaul. See M. de Guignes, Mem. de
l’Academie, tom. xxxvii. p. 471-475.]
59 (return) [ This strong declaration of Procopius (de Bell.
Gothic. l. iii. cap. 33, in tom. ii. p. 41) would almost suffice
to justify the Abbe Dubos.]
60 (return) [ The Franks, who probably used the mints of Treves,
Lyons, and Arles, imitated the coinage of the Roman emperors of
seventy-two solidi, or pieces, to the pound of gold. But as the
Franks established only a decuple proportion of gold and silver,
ten shillings will be a sufficient valuation of their solidus of
gold. It was the common standard of the Barbaric fines, and
contained forty denarii, or silver three pences. Twelve of these
denarii made a solidus, or shilling, the twentieth part of the
ponderal and numeral livre, or pound of silver, which has been so
strangely reduced in modern France. See La Blanc, Traite
Historique des Monnoyes de France, p. 36-43, &c.]
61 (return) [ Agathias, in tom. ii. p. 47. Gregory of Tours
exhibits a very different picture. Perhaps it would not be easy,
within the same historical space, to find more vice and less
virtue. We are continually shocked by the union of savage and
corrupt manners.]
62 (return) [ M. de Foncemagne has traced, in a correct and
elegant dissertation, (Mem. de l’Academie, tom. viii. p.
505-528,) the extent and limits of the French monarchy.]
The Franks, or French, are the only people of Europe who can
deduce a perpetual succession from the conquerors of the Western
empire. But their conquest of Gaul was followed by ten centuries
of anarchy and ignorance. On the revival of learning, the
students, who had been formed in the schools of Athens and Rome,
disdained their Barbarian ancestors; and a long period elapsed
before patient labor could provide the requisite materials to
satisfy, or rather to excite, the curiosity of more enlightened
times. 63 At length the eye of criticism and philosophy was
directed to the antiquities of France; but even philosophers have
been tainted by the contagion of prejudice and passion. The most
extreme and exclusive systems, of the personal servitude of the
Gauls, or of their voluntary and equal alliance with the Franks,
have been rashly conceived, and obstinately defended; and the
intemperate disputants have accused each other of conspiring
against the prerogative of the crown, the dignity of the nobles,
or the freedom of the people. Yet the sharp conflict has usefully
exercised the adverse powers of learning and genius; and each
antagonist, alternately vanquished and victorious has extirpated
some ancient errors, and established some interesting truths. An
impartial stranger, instructed by their discoveries, their
disputes, and even their faults, may describe, from the same
original materials, the state of the Roman provincials, after
Gaul had submitted to the arms and laws of the Merovingian kings.
64
63 (return) [ The Abbe Dubos (Histoire Critique, tom. i. p.
29-36) has truly and agreeably represented the slow progress of
these studies; and he observes, that Gregory of Tours was only
once printed before the year 1560. According to the complaint of
Heineccius, (Opera, tom. iii. Sylloge, iii. p. 248, &c.,) Germany
received with indifference and contempt the codes of Barbaric
laws, which were published by Heroldus, Lindenbrogius, &c. At
present those laws, (as far as they relate to Gaul,) the history
of Gregory of Tours, and all the monuments of the Merovingian
race, appear in a pure and perfect state, in the first four
volumes of the Historians of France.]
64 (return) [ In the space of [about] thirty years (1728-1765)
this interesting subject has been agitated by the free spirit of
the count de Boulainvilliers, (Mémoires Historiques sur l’Etat de
la France, particularly tom. i. p. 15-49;) the learned ingenuity
of the Abbe Dubos, (Histoire Critique de l’Etablissement de la
Monarchie Francoise dans les Gaules, 2 vols. in 4to;) the
comprehensive genius of the president de Montesquieu, (Esprit des
Loix, particularly l. xxviii. xxx. xxxi.;) and the good sense and
diligence of the Abbe de Mably, (Observations sur l’Histoire de
France, 2 vols. 12mo.)]
The rudest, or the most servile, condition of human society, is
regulated, however, by some fixed and general rules. When Tacitus
surveyed the primitive simplicity of the Germans, he discovered
some permanent maxims, or customs, of public and private life,
which were preserved by faithful tradition till the introduction
of the art of writing, and of the Latin tongue. 65 Before the
election of the Merovingian kings, the most powerful tribe, or
nation, of the Franks, appointed four venerable chieftains to
compose the Salic laws; 66 and their labors were examined and
approved in three successive assemblies of the people. After the
baptism of Clovis, he reformed several articles that appeared
incompatible with Christianity: the Salic law was again amended
by his sons; and at length, under the reign of Dagobert, the code
was revised and promulgated in its actual form, one hundred years
after the establishment of the French monarchy. Within the same
period, the customs of the Ripuarians were transcribed and
published; and Charlemagne himself, the legislator of his age and
country, had accurately studied the two national laws, which
still prevailed among the Franks. 67 The same care was extended
to their vassals; and the rude institutions of the Alemanni and
Bavarians were diligently compiled and ratified by the supreme
authority of the Merovingian kings. The Visigoths and
Burgundians, whose conquests in Gaul preceded those of the
Franks, showed less impatience to attain one of the principal
benefits of civilized society. Euric was the first of the Gothic
princes who expressed, in writing, the manners and customs of his
people; and the composition of the Burgundian laws was a measure
of policy rather than of justice; to alleviate the yoke, and
regain the affections, of their Gallic subjects. 68 Thus, by a
singular coincidence, the Germans framed their artless
institutions, at a time when the elaborate system of Roman
jurisprudence was finally consummated. In the Salic laws, and the
Pandects of Justinian, we may compare the first rudiments, and
the full maturity, of civil wisdom; and whatever prejudices may
be suggested in favor of Barbarism, our calmer reflections will
ascribe to the Romans the superior advantages, not only of
science and reason, but of humanity and justice. Yet the laws 681
of the Barbarians were adapted to their wants and desires, their
occupations and their capacity; and they all contributed to
preserve the peace, and promote the improvement, of the society
for whose use they were originally established. The Merovingians,
instead of imposing a uniform rule of conduct on their various
subjects, permitted each people, and each family, of their
empire, freely to enjoy their domestic institutions; 69 nor were
the Romans excluded from the common benefits of this legal
toleration. 70 The children embraced the law of their parents,
the wife that of her husband, the freedman that of his patron;
and in all causes where the parties were of different nations,
the plaintiff or accuser was obliged to follow the tribunal of
the defendant, who may always plead a judicial presumption of
right, or innocence. A more ample latitude was allowed, if every
citizen, in the presence of the judge, might declare the law
under which he desired to live, and the national society to which
he chose to belong. Such an indulgence would abolish the partial
distinctions of victory: and the Roman provincials might
patiently acquiesce in the hardships of their condition; since it
depended on themselves to assume the privilege, if they dared to
assert the character, of free and warlike Barbarians. 71
65 (return) [ I have derived much instruction from two learned
works of Heineccius, the History, and the Elements, of the
Germanic law. In a judicious preface to the Elements, he
considers, and tries to excuse the defects of that barbarous
jurisprudence.]
66 (return) [ Latin appears to have been the original language of
the Salic law. It was probably composed in the beginning of the
fifth century, before the era (A.D. 421) of the real or fabulous
Pharamond. The preface mentions the four cantons which produced
the four legislators; and many provinces, Franconia, Saxony,
Hanover, Brabant, &c., have claimed them as their own. See an
excellent Dissertation of Heinecties de Lege Salica, tom. iii.
Sylloge iii. p. 247-267. * Note: The relative antiquity of the
two copies of the Salic law has been contested with great
learning and ingenuity. The work of M. Wiarda, History and
Explanation of the Salic Law, Bremen, 1808, asserts that what is
called the Lex Antiqua, or Vetustior in which many German words
are mingled with the Latin, has no claim to superior antiquity,
and may be suspected to be more modern. M. Wiarda has been
opposed by M. Fuer bach, who maintains the higher age of the
“ancient” Code, which has been greatly corrupted by the
transcribers. See Guizot, Cours de l’Histoire Moderne, vol. i.
sect. 9: and the preface to the useful republication of five of
the different texts of the Salic law, with that of the Ripuarian
in parallel columns. By E. A. I. Laspeyres, Halle, 1833.—M.]
67 (return) [ Eginhard, in Vit. Caroli Magni, c. 29, in tom. v.
p. 100. By these two laws, most critics understand the Salic and
the Ripuarian. The former extended from the Carbonarian forest to
the Loire, (tom. iv. p. 151,) and the latter might be obeyed from
the same forest to the Rhine, (tom. iv. p. 222.)]
68 (return) [ Consult the ancient and modern prefaces of the
several codes, in the fourth volume of the Historians of France.
The original prologue to the Salic law expresses (though in a
foreign dialect) the genuine spirit of the Franks more forcibly
than the ten books of Gregory of Tours.]
69 (return) [ The Ripuarian law declares, and defines, this
indulgence in favor of the plaintiff, (tit. xxxi. in tom. iv. p.
240;) and the same toleration is understood, or expressed, in all
the codes, except that of the Visigoths of Spain. Tanta
diversitas legum (says Agobard in the ninth century) quanta non
solum in regionibus, aut civitatibus, sed etiam in multis domibus
habetur. Nam plerumque contingit ut simul eant aut sedeant
quinque homines, et nullus eorum communem legem cum altero
habeat, (in tom. vi. p. 356.) He foolishly proposes to introduce
a uniformity of law, as well as of faith. * Note: It is the
object of the important work of M. Savigny, Geschichte des
Romisches Rechts in Mittelalter, to show the perpetuity of the
Roman law from the 5th to the 12th century.—M.]
681 (return) [ The most complete collection of these codes is in
the “Barbarorum leges antiquae,” by P. Canciani, 5 vols. folio,
Venice, 1781-9.—M.]
70 (return) [ Inter Romanos negotia causarum Romanis legibus
praecipimus terminari. Such are the words of a general
constitution promulgated by Clotaire, the son of Clovis, the sole
monarch of the Franks (in tom. iv. p. 116) about the year 560.]
71 (return) [ This liberty of choice has been aptly deduced
(Esprit des Loix, l. xxviii. 2) from the constitution of Lothaire
I. (Leg. Langobard. l. ii. tit. lvii. in Codex Lindenbrog. p.
664;) though the example is too recent and partial. From a
various reading in the Salic law, (tit. xliv. not. xlv.) the Abbe
de Mably (tom. i. p. 290-293) has conjectured, that, at first, a
Barbarian only, and afterwards any man, (consequently a Roman,)
might live according to the law of the Franks. I am sorry to
offend this ingenious conjecture by observing, that the stricter
sense (Barbarum) is expressed in the reformed copy of
Charlemagne; which is confirmed by the Royal and Wolfenbuttle
MSS. The looser interpretation (hominem) is authorized only by
the MS. of Fulda, from from whence Heroldus published his
edition. See the four original texts of the Salic law in tom. iv.
p. 147, 173, 196, 220. * Note: Gibbon appears to have doubted the
evidence on which this “liberty of choice” rested. His doubts
have been confirmed by the researches of M. Savigny, who has not
only confuted but traced with convincing sagacity the origin and
progress of this error. As a general principle, though liable to
some exceptions, each lived according to his native law. Romische
Recht. vol. i. p. 123-138—M. * Note: This constitution of
Lothaire at first related only to the duchy of Rome; it
afterwards found its way into the Lombard code. Savigny. p.
138.—M.]
Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part III.
When justice inexorably requires the death of a murderer, each
private citizen is fortified by the assurance, that the laws, the
magistrate, and the whole community, are the guardians of his
personal safety. But in the loose society of the Germans, revenge
was always honorable, and often meritorious: the independent
warrior chastised, or vindicated, with his own hand, the injuries
which he had offered or received; and he had only to dread the
resentment of the sons and kinsmen of the enemy, whom he had
sacrificed to his selfish or angry passions. The magistrate,
conscious of his weakness, interposed, not to punish, but to
reconcile; and he was satisfied if he could persuade or compel
the contending parties to pay and to accept the moderate fine
which had been ascertained as the price of blood. 72 The fierce
spirit of the Franks would have opposed a more rigorous sentence;
the same fierceness despised these ineffectual restraints; and,
when their simple manners had been corrupted by the wealth of
Gaul, the public peace was continually violated by acts of hasty
or deliberate guilt. In every just government the same penalty is
inflicted, or at least is imposed, for the murder of a peasant or
a prince. But the national inequality established by the Franks,
in their criminal proceedings, was the last insult and abuse of
conquest. 73 In the calm moments of legislation, they solemnly
pronounced, that the life of a Roman was of smaller value than
that of a Barbarian. The Antrustion, 74 a name expressive of the
most illustrious birth or dignity among the Franks, was
appreciated at the sum of six hundred pieces of gold; while the
noble provincial, who was admitted to the king’s table, might be
legally murdered at the expense of three hundred pieces.
Two hundred were deemed sufficient for a Frank of ordinary
condition; but the meaner Romans were exposed to disgrace and
danger by a trifling compensation of one hundred, or even fifty,
pieces of gold. Had these laws been regulated by any principle of
equity or reason, the public protection should have supplied, in
just proportion, the want of personal strength. But the
legislator had weighed in the scale, not of justice, but of
policy, the loss of a soldier against that of a slave: the head
of an insolent and rapacious Barbarian was guarded by a heavy
fine; and the slightest aid was afforded to the most defenceless
subjects. Time insensibly abated the pride of the conquerors and
the patience of the vanquished; and the boldest citizen was
taught, by experience, that he might suffer more injuries than he
could inflict. As the manners of the Franks became less
ferocious, their laws were rendered more severe; and the
Merovingian kings attempted to imitate the impartial rigor of the
Visigoths and Burgundians. 75 Under the empire of Charlemagne,
murder was universally punished with death; and the use of
capital punishments has been liberally multiplied in the
jurisprudence of modern Europe. 76
72 (return) [ In the heroic times of Greece, the guilt of murder
was expiated by a pecuniary satisfaction to the family of the
deceased, (Feithius Antiquitat. Homeric. l. ii. c. 8.)
Heineccius, in his preface to the Elements of Germanic Law,
favorably suggests, that at Rome and Athens homicide was only
punished with exile. It is true: but exile was a capital
punishment for a citizen of Rome or Athens.]
73 (return) [ This proportion is fixed by the Salic (tit. xliv.
in tom. iv. p. 147) and the Ripuarian (tit. vii. xi. xxxvi. in
tom. iv. p. 237, 241) laws: but the latter does not distinguish
any difference of Romans. Yet the orders of the clergy are placed
above the Franks themselves, and the Burgundians and Alemanni
between the Franks and the Romans.]
74 (return) [ The Antrustiones, qui in truste Dominica sunt,
leudi, fideles, undoubtedly represent the first order of Franks;
but it is a question whether their rank was personal or
hereditary. The Abbe de Mably (tom. i. p. 334-347) is not
displeased to mortify the pride of birth (Esprit, l. xxx. c. 25)
by dating the origin of the French nobility from the reign
Clotaire II. (A.D. 615.)]
75 (return) [ See the Burgundian laws, (tit. ii. in tom. iv. p.
257,) the code of the Visigoths, (l. vi. tit. v. in tom. p. 384,)
and the constitution of Childebert, not of Paris, but most
evidently of Austrasia, (in tom. iv. p. 112.) Their premature
severity was sometimes rash, and excessive. Childebert condemned
not only murderers but robbers; quomodo sine lege involavit, sine
lege moriatur; and even the negligent judge was involved in the
same sentence. The Visigoths abandoned an unsuccessful surgeon to
the family of his deceased patient, ut quod de eo facere
voluerint habeant potestatem, (l. xi. tit. i. in tom. iv. p.
435.)]
76 (return) [ See, in the sixth volume of the works of
Heineccius, the Elementa Juris Germanici, l. ii. p. 2, No. 261,
262, 280-283. Yet some vestiges of these pecuniary compositions
for murder have been traced in Germany as late as the sixteenth
century.]
The civil and military professions, which had been separated by
Constantine, were again united by the Barbarians. The harsh sound
of the Teutonic appellations was mollified into the Latin titles
of Duke, of Count, or of Praefect; and the same officer assumed,
within his district, the command of the troops, and the
administration of justice. 77 But the fierce and illiterate
chieftain was seldom qualified to discharge the duties of a
judge, which required all the faculties of a philosophic mind,
laboriously cultivated by experience and study; and his rude
ignorance was compelled to embrace some simple, and visible,
methods of ascertaining the cause of justice. In every religion,
the Deity has been invoked to confirm the truth, or to punish the
falsehood of human testimony; but this powerful instrument was
misapplied and abused by the simplicity of the German
legislators. The party accused might justify his innocence, by
producing before their tribunal a number of friendly witnesses,
who solemnly declared their belief, or assurance, that he was not
guilty. According to the weight of the charge, this legal number
of compurgators was multiplied; seventy-two voices were required
to absolve an incendiary or assassin: and when the chastity of a
queen of France was suspected, three hundred gallant nobles
swore, without hesitation, that the infant prince had been
actually begotten by her deceased husband. 78 The sin and scandal
of manifest and frequent perjuries engaged the magistrates to
remove these dangerous temptations; and to supply the defects of
human testimony by the famous experiments of fire and water.
These extraordinary trials were so capriciously contrived, that,
in some cases, guilt, and innocence in others, could not be
proved without the interposition of a miracle. Such miracles were
really provided by fraud and credulity; the most intricate causes
were determined by this easy and infallible method, and the
turbulent Barbarians, who might have disdained the sentence of
the magistrate, submissively acquiesced in the judgment of God.
79
77 (return) [ The whole subject of the Germanic judges, and their
jurisdiction, is copiously treated by Heineccius, (Element. Jur.
Germ. l. iii. No. 1-72.) I cannot find any proof that, under the
Merovingian race, the scabini, or assessors, were chosen by the
people. * Note: The question of the scabini is treated at
considerable length by Savigny. He questions the existence of the
scabini anterior to Charlemagne. Before this time the decision
was by an open court of the freemen, the boni Romische Recht,
vol. i. p. 195. et seq.—M.]
78 (return) [ Gregor. Turon. l. viii. c. 9, in tom. ii. p. 316.
Montesquieu observes, (Esprit des Loix. l. xxviii. c. 13,) that
the Salic law did not admit these negative proofs so universally
established in the Barbaric codes. Yet this obscure concubine
(Fredegundis,) who became the wife of the grandson of Clovis,
must have followed the Salic law.]
79 (return) [ Muratori, in the Antiquities of Italy, has given
two Dissertations (xxxvii. xxxix.) on the judgments of God. It
was expected that fire would not burn the innocent; and that the
pure element of water would not allow the guilty to sink into its
bosom.]
But the trials by single combat gradually obtained superior
credit and authority, among a warlike people, who could not
believe that a brave man deserved to suffer, or that a coward
deserved to live. 80 Both in civil and criminal proceedings, the
plaintiff, or accuser, the defendant, or even the witness, were
exposed to mortal challenge from the antagonist who was destitute
of legal proofs; and it was incumbent on them either to desert
their cause, or publicly to maintain their honor, in the lists of
battle. They fought either on foot, or on horseback, according to
the custom of their nation; 81 and the decision of the sword, or
lance, was ratified by the sanction of Heaven, of the judge, and
of the people. This sanguinary law was introduced into Gaul by
the Burgundians; and their legislator Gundobald 82 condescended
to answer the complaints and objections of his subject Avitus.
“Is it not true,” said the king of Burgundy to the bishop, “that
the event of national wars, and private combats, is directed by
the judgment of God; and that his providence awards the victory
to the juster cause?” By such prevailing arguments, the absurd
and cruel practice of judicial duels, which had been peculiar to
some tribes of Germany, was propagated and established in all the
monarchies of Europe, from Sicily to the Baltic. At the end of
ten centuries, the reign of legal violence was not totally
extinguished; and the ineffectual censures of saints, of popes,
and of synods, may seem to prove, that the influence of
superstition is weakened by its unnatural alliance with reason
and humanity. The tribunals were stained with the blood, perhaps,
of innocent and respectable citizens; the law, which now favors
the rich, then yielded to the strong; and the old, the feeble,
and the infirm, were condemned, either to renounce their fairest
claims and possessions, to sustain the dangers of an unequal
conflict, 83 or to trust the doubtful aid of a mercenary
champion. This oppressive jurisprudence was imposed on the
provincials of Gaul, who complained of any injuries in their
persons and property. Whatever might be the strength, or courage,
of individuals, the victorious Barbarians excelled in the love
and exercise of arms; and the vanquished Roman was unjustly
summoned to repeat, in his own person, the bloody contest which
had been already decided against his country. 84
80 (return) [ Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xxviii. c. 17) has
condescended to explain and excuse “la maniere de penser de nos
peres,” on the subject of judicial combats. He follows this
strange institution from the age of Gundobald to that of St.
Lewis; and the philosopher is some times lost in the legal
antiquarian.]
81 (return) [ In a memorable duel at Aix-la-Chapelle, (A.D. 820,)
before the emperor Lewis the Pious, his biographer observes,
secundum legem propriam, utpote quia uterque Gothus erat,
equestri pugna est, (Vit. Lud. Pii, c. 33, in tom. vi. p. 103.)
Ermoldus Nigellus, (l. iii. 543-628, in tom. vi. p. 48-50,) who
describes the duel, admires the ars nova of fighting on
horseback, which was unknown to the Franks.]
82 (return) [ In his original edict, published at Lyons, (A.D.
501,) establishes and justifies the use of judicial combat, (Les
Burgund. tit. xlv. in tom. ii. p. 267, 268.) Three hundred years
afterwards, Agobard, bishop of Lyons, solicited Lewis the Pious
to abolish the law of an Arian tyrant, (in tom. vi. p. 356-358.)
He relates the conversation of Gundobald and Avitus.]
83 (return) [ “Accidit, (says Agobard,) ut non solum valentes
viribus, sed etiam infirmi et senes lacessantur ad pugnam, etiam
pro vilissimis rebus. Quibus foralibus certaminibus contingunt
homicidia injusta; et crudeles ac perversi eventus judiciorum.”
Like a prudent rhetorician, he suppresses the legal privilege of
hiring champions.]
84 (return) [ Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, xxviii. c. 14,) who
understands why the judicial combat was admitted by the
Burgundians, Ripuarians, Alemanni, Bavarians, Lombards,
Thuringians, Frisons, and Saxons, is satisfied (and Agobard seems
to countenance the assertion) that it was not allowed by the
Salic law. Yet the same custom, at least in case of treason, is
mentioned by Ermoldus, Nigellus (l. iii. 543, in tom. vi. p. 48,)
and the anonymous biographer of Lewis the Pious, (c. 46, in tom.
vi. p. 112,) as the “mos antiquus Francorum, more Francis
solito,” &c., expressions too general to exclude the noblest of
their tribes.]
A devouring host of one hundred and twenty thousand Germans had
formerly passed the Rhine under the command of Ariovistus. One
third part of the fertile lands of the Sequani was appropriated
to their use; and the conqueror soon repeated his oppressive
demand of another third, for the accommodation of a new colony of
twenty-four thousand Barbarians, whom he had invited to share the
rich harvest of Gaul. 85 At the distance of five hundred years,
the Visigoths and Burgundians, who revenged the defeat of
Ariovistus, usurped the same unequal proportion of two thirds of
the subject lands. But this distribution, instead of spreading
over the province, may be reasonably confined to the peculiar
districts where the victorious people had been planted by their
own choice, or by the policy of their leader. In these districts,
each Barbarian was connected by the ties of hospitality with some
Roman provincial. To this unwelcome guest, the proprietor was
compelled to abandon two thirds of his patrimony, but the German,
a shepherd and a hunter, might sometimes content himself with a
spacious range of wood and pasture, and resign the smallest,
though most valuable, portion, to the toil of the industrious
husbandman. 86 The silence of ancient and authentic testimony has
encouraged an opinion, that the rapine of the Franks was not
moderated, or disguised, by the forms of a legal division; that
they dispersed themselves over the provinces of Gaul, without
order or control; and that each victorious robber, according to
his wants, his avarice, and his strength, measured with his sword
the extent of his new inheritance. At a distance from their
sovereign, the Barbarians might indeed be tempted to exercise
such arbitrary depredation; but the firm and artful policy of
Clovis must curb a licentious spirit, which would aggravate the
misery of the vanquished, whilst it corrupted the union and
discipline of the conquerors. 861 The memorable vase of Soissons
is a monument and a pledge of the regular distribution of the
Gallic spoils. It was the duty and the interest of Clovis to
provide rewards for a successful army, settlements for a numerous
people; without inflicting any wanton or superfluous injuries on
the loyal Catholics of Gaul. The ample fund, which he might
lawfully acquire, of the Imperial patrimony, vacant lands, and
Gothic usurpations, would diminish the cruel necessity of seizure
and confiscation, and the humble provincials would more patiently
acquiesce in the equal and regular distribution of their loss. 87
85 (return) [ Caesar de Bell. Gall. l. i. c. 31, in tom. i. p.
213.]
86 (return) [ The obscure hints of a division of lands
occasionally scattered in the laws of the Burgundians, (tit. liv.
No. 1, 2, in tom. iv. p. 271, 272,) and Visigoths, (l. x. tit. i.
No. 8, 9, 16, in tom. iv. p. 428, 429, 430,) are skillfully
explained by the president Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxx.
c. 7, 8, 9.) I shall only add, that among the Goths, the division
seems to have been ascertained by the judgment of the
neighborhood, that the Barbarians frequently usurped the
remaining third; and that the Romans might recover their right,
unless they were barred by a prescription of fifty years.]
861 (return) [ Sismondi (Hist des Francais, vol. i. p. 197)
observes, they were not a conquering people, who had emigrated
with their families, like the Goths or Burgundians. The women,
the children, the old, had not followed Clovis: they remained in
their ancient possessions on the Waal and the Rhine. The
adventurers alone had formed the invading force, and they always
considered themselves as an army, not as a colony. Hence their
laws retained no traces of the partition of the Roman properties.
It is curious to observe the recoil from the national vanity of
the French historians of the last century. M. Sismondi compares
the position of the Franks with regard to the conquered people
with that of the Dey of Algiers and his corsair troops to the
peaceful inhabitants of that province: M. Thierry (Lettres sur
l’Histoire de France, p. 117) with that of the Turks towards the
Raias or Phanariotes, the mass of the Greeks.—M.]
87 (return) [ It is singular enough that the president de
Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xxx. c. 7) and the Abbe de Mably
(Observations, tom i. p. 21, 22) agree in this strange
supposition of arbitrary and private rapine. The Count de
Boulainvilliers (Etat de la France, tom. i. p. 22, 23) shows a
strong understanding through a cloud of ignorance and prejudice.
Note: Sismondi supposes that the Barbarians, if a farm were
conveniently situated, would show no great respect for the laws
of property; but in general there would have been vacant land
enough for the lots assigned to old or worn-out warriors, (Hist.
des Francais, vol. i. p. 196.)—M.]
The wealth of the Merovingian princes consisted in their
extensive domain. After the conquest of Gaul, they still
delighted in the rustic simplicity of their ancestors; the cities
were abandoned to solitude and decay; and their coins, their
charters, and their synods, are still inscribed with the names of
the villas, or rural palaces, in which they successively resided.
One hundred and sixty of these palaces, a title which need not
excite any unseasonable ideas of art or luxury, were scattered
through the provinces of their kingdom; and if some might claim
the honors of a fortress, the far greater part could be esteemed
only in the light of profitable farms. The mansion of the
long-haired kings was surrounded with convenient yards and
stables, for the cattle and the poultry; the garden was planted
with useful vegetables; the various trades, the labors of
agriculture, and even the arts of hunting and fishing, were
exercised by servile hands for the emolument of the sovereign;
his magazines were filled with corn and wine, either for sale or
consumption; and the whole administration was conducted by the
strictest maxims of private economy. 88 This ample patrimony was
appropriated to supply the hospitable plenty of Clovis and his
successors; and to reward the fidelity of their brave companions
who, both in peace and war, were devoted to their personal
service. Instead of a horse, or a suit of armor, each companion,
according to his rank, or merit, or favor, was invested with a
benefice, the primitive name, and most simple form, of the feudal
possessions. These gifts might be resumed at the pleasure of the
sovereign; and his feeble prerogative derived some support from
the influence of his liberality. 881 But this dependent tenure
was gradually abolished 89 by the independent and rapacious
nobles of France, who established the perpetual property, and
hereditary succession, of their benefices; a revolution salutary
to the earth, which had been injured, or neglected, by its
precarious masters. 90 Besides these royal and beneficiary
estates, a large proportion had been assigned, in the division of
Gaul, of allodial and Salic lands: they were exempt from tribute,
and the Salic lands were equally shared among the male
descendants of the Franks. 91
88 (return) [ See the rustic edict, or rather code, of
Charlemagne, which contains seventy distinct and minute
regulations of that great monarch (in tom. v. p. 652-657.) He
requires an account of the horns and skins of the goats, allows
his fish to be sold, and carefully directs, that the larger
villas (Capitaneoe) shall maintain one hundred hens and thirty
geese; and the smaller (Mansionales) fifty hens and twelve geese.
Mabillon (de Re Diplomatica) has investigated the names, the
number, and the situation of the Merovingian villas.]
881 (return) [ The resumption of benefices at the pleasure of the
sovereign, (the general theory down to his time,) is ably
contested by Mr. Hallam; “for this resumption some delinquency
must be imputed to the vassal.” Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 162. The
reader will be interested by the singular analogies with the
beneficial and feudal system of Europe in a remote part of the
world, indicated by Col. Tod in his splendid work on Raja’sthan,
vol. ii p. 129, &c.—M.]
89 (return) [ From a passage of the Burgundian law (tit. i. No.
4, in tom. iv. p. 257) it is evident, that a deserving son might
expect to hold the lands which his father had received from the
royal bounty of Gundobald. The Burgundians would firmly maintain
their privilege, and their example might encourage the
Beneficiaries of France.]
90 (return) [ The revolutions of the benefices and fiefs are
clearly fixed by the Abbe de Mably. His accurate distinction of
times gives him a merit to which even Montesquieu is a stranger.]
91 (return) [ See the Salic law, (tit. lxii. in tom. iv. p. 156.)
The origin and nature of these Salic lands, which, in times of
ignorance, were perfectly understood, now perplex our most
learned and sagacious critics. * Note: No solution seems more
probable, than that the ancient lawgivers of the Salic Franks
prohibited females from inheriting the lands assigned to the
nation, upon its conquest of Gaul, both in compliance with their
ancient usages, and in order to secure the military service of
every proprietor. But lands subsequently acquired by purchase or
other means, though equally bound to the public defence, were
relieved from the severity of this rule, and presumed not to
belong to the class of Sallic. Hallam’s Middle Ages, vol. i. p.
145. Compare Sismondi, vol. i. p. 196.—M.]
In the bloody discord and silent decay of the Merovingian line, a
new order of tyrants arose in the provinces, who, under the
appellation of Seniors, or Lords, usurped a right to govern, and
a license to oppress, the subjects of their peculiar territory.
Their ambition might be checked by the hostile resistance of an
equal: but the laws were extinguished; and the sacrilegious
Barbarians, who dared to provoke the vengeance of a saint or
bishop, 92 would seldom respect the landmarks of a profane and
defenceless neighbor. The common or public rights of nature, such
as they had always been deemed by the Roman jurisprudence, 93
were severely restrained by the German conquerors, whose
amusement, or rather passion, was the exercise of hunting. The
vague dominion which Man has assumed over the wild inhabitants of
the earth, the air, and the waters, was confined to some
fortunate individuals of the human species. Gaul was again
overspread with woods; and the animals, who were reserved for the
use or pleasure of the lord, might ravage with impunity the
fields of his industrious vassals. The chase was the sacred
privilege of the nobles and their domestic servants. Plebeian
transgressors were legally chastised with stripes and
imprisonment; 94 but in an age which admitted a slight
composition for the life of a citizen, it was a capital crime to
destroy a stag or a wild bull within the precincts of the royal
forests. 95
92 (return) [ Many of the two hundred and six miracles of St.
Martin (Greg Turon. in Maxima Bibliotheca Patrum, tom. xi. p.
896-932) were repeatedly performed to punish sacrilege. Audite
haec omnes (exclaims the bishop of Tours) protestatem habentes,
after relating, how some horses ran mad, that had been turned
into a sacred meadow.]
93 (return) [ Heinec. Element. Jur. German. l. ii. p. 1, No. 8.]
94 (return) [ Jonas, bishop of Orleans, (A.D. 821-826. Cave,
Hist. Litteraria, p. 443,) censures the legal tyranny of the
nobles. Pro feris, quas cura hominum non aluit, sed Deus in
commune mortalibus ad utendum concessit, pauperes a potentioribus
spoliantur, flagellantur, ergastulis detruduntur, et multa alia
patiuntur. Hoc enim qui faciunt, lege mundi se facere juste posse
contendant. De Institutione Laicorum, l. ii. c. 23, apud
Thomassin, Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. iii. p. 1348.]
95 (return) [ On a mere suspicion, Chundo, a chamberlain of
Gontram, king of Burgundy, was stoned to death, (Greg. Turon. l.
x. c. 10, in tom. ii. p. 369.) John of Salisbury (Policrat. l. i.
c. 4) asserts the rights of nature, and exposes the cruel
practice of the twelfth century. See Heineccius, Elem. Jur. Germ.
l. ii. p. 1, No. 51-57.]
According to the maxims of ancient war, the conqueror became the
lawful master of the enemy whom he had subdued and spared: 96 and
the fruitful cause of personal slavery, which had been almost
suppressed by the peaceful sovereignty of Rome, was again revived
and multiplied by the perpetual hostilities of the independent
Barbarians. The Goth, the Burgundian, or the Frank, who returned
from a successful expedition, dragged after him a long train of
sheep, of oxen, and of human captives, whom he treated with the
same brutal contempt. The youths of an elegant form and an
ingenuous aspect were set apart for the domestic service; a
doubtful situation, which alternately exposed them to the
favorable or cruel impulse of passion. The useful mechanics and
servants (smiths, carpenters, tailors, shoemakers, cooks,
gardeners, dyers, and workmen in gold and silver, &c.) employed
their skill for the use, or profit, of their master. But the
Roman captives, who were destitute of art, but capable of labor,
were condemned, without regard to their former rank, to tend the
cattle and cultivate the lands of the Barbarians. The number of
the hereditary bondsmen, who were attached to the Gallic estates,
was continually increased by new supplies; and the servile
people, according to the situation and temper of their lords, was
sometimes raised by precarious indulgence, and more frequently
depressed by capricious despotism. 97 An absolute power of life
and death was exercised by these lords; and when they married
their daughters, a train of useful servants, chained on the
wagons to prevent their escape, was sent as a nuptial present
into a distant country. 98 The majesty of the Roman laws
protected the liberty of each citizen, against the rash effects
of his own distress or despair. But the subjects of the
Merovingian kings might alienate their personal freedom; and this
act of legal suicide, which was familiarly practised, is
expressed in terms most disgraceful and afflicting to the dignity
of human nature. 99 The example of the poor, who purchased life
by the sacrifice of all that can render life desirable, was
gradually imitated by the feeble and the devout, who, in times of
public disorder, pusillanimously crowded to shelter themselves
under the battlements of a powerful chief, and around the shrine
of a popular saint. Their submission was accepted by these
temporal or spiritual patrons; and the hasty transaction
irrecoverably fixed their own condition, and that of their latest
posterity. From the reign of Clovis, during five successive
centuries, the laws and manners of Gaul uniformly tended to
promote the increase, and to confirm the duration, of personal
servitude. Time and violence almost obliterated the intermediate
ranks of society; and left an obscure and narrow interval between
the noble and the slave. This arbitrary and recent division has
been transformed by pride and prejudice into a national
distinction, universally established by the arms and the laws of
the Merovingians. The nobles, who claimed their genuine or
fabulous descent from the independent and victorious Franks, have
asserted and abused the indefeasible right of conquest over a
prostrate crowd of slaves and plebeians, to whom they imputed the
imaginary disgrace of Gallic or Roman extraction.
96 (return) [ The custom of enslaving prisoners of war was
totally extinguished in the thirteenth century, by the prevailing
influence of Christianity; but it might be proved, from frequent
passages of Gregory of Tours, &c., that it was practised, without
censure, under the Merovingian race; and even Grotius himself,
(de Jure Belli et Pacis l. iii. c. 7,) as well as his commentator
Barbeyrac, have labored to reconcile it with the laws of nature
and reason.]
97 (return) [ The state, professions, &c., of the German,
Italian, and Gallic slaves, during the middle ages, are explained
by Heineccius, (Element Jur. Germ. l. i. No. 28-47,) Muratori,
(Dissertat. xiv. xv.,) Ducange, (Gloss. sub voce Servi,) and the
Abbe de Mably, (Observations, tom. ii. p. 3, &c., p. 237, &c.)
Note: Compare Hallam, vol. i. p. 216.—M.]
98 (return) [ Gregory of Tours (l. vi. c. 45, in tom. ii. p. 289)
relates a memorable example, in which Chilperic only abused the
private rights of a master. Many families which belonged to his
domus fiscales in the neighborhood of Paris, were forcibly sent
away into Spain.]
99 (return) [ Licentiam habeatis mihi qualemcunque volueritis
disciplinam ponere; vel venumdare, aut quod vobis placuerit de me
facere Marculf. Formul. l. ii. 28, in tom. iv. p. 497. The
Formula of Lindenbrogius, (p. 559,) and that of Anjou, (p. 565,)
are to the same effect Gregory of Tours (l. vii. c. 45, in tom.
ii. p. 311) speak of many person who sold themselves for bread,
in a great famine.]
The general state and revolutions of France, a name which was
imposed by the conquerors, may be illustrated by the particular
example of a province, a diocese, or a senatorial family.
Auvergne had formerly maintained a just preeminence among the
independent states and cities of Gaul. The brave and numerous
inhabitants displayed a singular trophy; the sword of Caesar
himself, which he had lost when he was repulsed before the walls
of Gergovia. 100 As the common offspring of Troy, they claimed a
fraternal alliance with the Romans; 101 and if each province had
imitated the courage and loyalty of Auvergne, the fall of the
Western empire might have been prevented or delayed. They firmly
maintained the fidelity which they had reluctantly sworn to the
Visigoths, out when their bravest nobles had fallen in the battle
of Poitiers, they accepted, without resistance, a victorious and
Catholic sovereign. This easy and valuable conquest was achieved
and possessed by Theodoric, the eldest son of Clovis: but the
remote province was separated from his Austrasian dominions, by
the intermediate kingdoms of Soissons, Paris, and Orleans, which
formed, after their father’s death, the inheritance of his three
brothers. The king of Paris, Childebert, was tempted by the
neighborhood and beauty of Auvergne. 102 The Upper country, which
rises towards the south into the mountains of the Cevennes,
presented a rich and various prospect of woods and pastures; the
sides of the hills were clothed with vines; and each eminence was
crowned with a villa or castle. In the Lower Auvergne, the River
Allier flows through the fair and spacious plain of Limagne; and
the inexhaustible fertility of the soil supplied, and still
supplies, without any interval of repose, the constant repetition
of the same harvests. 103 On the false report, that their lawful
sovereign had been slain in Germany, the city and diocese of
Auvergne were betrayed by the grandson of Sidonius Apollinaris.
Childebert enjoyed this clandestine victory; and the free
subjects of Theodoric threatened to desert his standard, if he
indulged his private resentment, while the nation was engaged in
the Burgundian war. But the Franks of Austrasia soon yielded to
the persuasive eloquence of their king. “Follow me,” said
Theodoric, “into Auvergne; I will lead you into a province, where
you may acquire gold, silver, slaves, cattle, and precious
apparel, to the full extent of your wishes. I repeat my promise;
I give you the people and their wealth as your prey; and you may
transport them at pleasure into your own country.” By the
execution of this promise, Theodoric justly forfeited the
allegiance of a people whom he devoted to destruction. His
troops, reenforced by the fiercest Barbarians of Germany, 104
spread desolation over the fruitful face of Auvergne; and two
places only, a strong castle and a holy shrine, were saved or
redeemed from their licentious fury. The castle of Meroliac 105
was seated on a lofty rock, which rose a hundred feet above the
surface of the plain; and a large reservoir of fresh water was
enclosed, with some arable lands, within the circle of its
fortifications. The Franks beheld with envy and despair this
impregnable fortress; but they surprised a party of fifty
stragglers; and, as they were oppressed by the number of their
captives, they fixed, at a trifling ransom, the alternative of
life or death for these wretched victims, whom the cruel
Barbarians were prepared to massacre on the refusal of the
garrison. Another detachment penetrated as far as Brivas, or
Brioude, where the inhabitants, with their valuable effects, had
taken refuge in the sanctuary of St. Julian. The doors of the
church resisted the assault; but a daring soldier entered through
a window of the choir, and opened a passage to his companions.
The clergy and people, the sacred and the profane spoils, were
rudely torn from the altar; and the sacrilegious division was
made at a small distance from the town of Brioude. But this act
of impiety was severely chastised by the devout son of Clovis. He
punished with death the most atrocious offenders; left their
secret accomplices to the vengeance of St. Julian; released the
captives; restored the plunder; and extended the rights of
sanctuary five miles round the sepulchre of the holy martyr. 106
100 (return) [ When Caesar saw it, he laughed, (Plutarch. in
Caesar. in tom. i. p. 409:) yet he relates his unsuccessful siege
of Gergovia with less frankness than we might expect from a great
man to whom victory was familiar. He acknowledges, however, that
in one attack he lost forty-six centurions and seven hundred men,
(de Bell. Gallico, l. vi. c. 44-53, in tom. i. p. 270-272.)]
101 (return) [ Audebant se quondam fatres Latio dicere, et
sanguine ab Iliaco populos computare, (Sidon. Apollinar. l. vii.
epist. 7, in tom i. p. 799.) I am not informed of the degrees and
circumstances of this fabulous pedigree.]
102 (return) [ Either the first, or second, partition among the
sons of Clovis, had given Berry to Childebert, (Greg. Turon. l.
iii. c. 12, in tom. ii. p. 192.) Velim (said he) Arvernam
Lemanem, quae tanta jocunditatis gratia refulgere dicitur, oculis
cernere, (l. iii. c. p. 191.) The face of the country was
concealed by a thick fog, when the king of Paris made his entry
into Clermen.]
103 (return) [ For the description of Auvergne, see Sidonius, (l.
iv. epist. 21, in tom. i. p. 703,) with the notes of Savaron and
Sirmond, (p. 279, and 51, of their respective editions.)
Boulainvilliers, (Etat de la France, tom. ii. p. 242-268,) and
the Abbe de la Longuerue, (Description de la France, part i. p.
132-139.)]
104 (return) [Furorem gentium, quae de ulteriore Rheni amnis
parte venerant, superare non poterat, (Greg. Turon. l. iv. c. 50,
in tom. ii. 229.) was the excuse of another king of Austrasia
(A.D. 574) for the ravages which his troops committed in the
neighborhood of Paris.]
105 (return) [ From the name and situation, the Benedictine
editors of Gregory of Tours (in tom. ii. p. 192) have fixed this
fortress at a place named Castel Merliac, two miles from Mauriac,
in the Upper Auvergne. In this description, I translate infra as
if I read intra; the two are perpetually confounded by Gregory,
or his transcribed and the sense must always decide.]
106 (return) [ See these revolutions, and wars, of Auvergne, in
Gregory of Tours, (l. ii. c. 37, in tom. ii. p. 183, and l. iii.
c. 9, 12, 13, p. 191, 192, de Miraculis St. Julian. c. 13, in
tom. ii. p. 466.) He frequently betrays his extraordinary
attention to his native country.]
Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part IV.
Before the Austrasian army retreated from Auvergne, Theodoric
exacted some pledges of the future loyalty of a people, whose
just hatred could be restrained only by their fear. A select band
of noble youths, the sons of the principal senators, was
delivered to the conqueror, as the hostages of the faith of
Childebert, and of their countrymen. On the first rumor of war,
or conspiracy, these guiltless youths were reduced to a state of
servitude; and one of them, Attalus, 107 whose adventures are
more particularly related, kept his master’s horses in the
diocese of Treves. After a painful search, he was discovered, in
this unworthy occupation, by the emissaries of his grandfather,
Gregory bishop of Langres; but his offers of ransom were sternly
rejected by the avarice of the Barbarian, who required an
exorbitant sum of ten pounds of gold for the freedom of his noble
captive. His deliverance was effected by the hardy stratagem of
Leo, a slave belonging to the kitchens of the bishop of Langres.
108 An unknown agent easily introduced him into the same family.
The Barbarian purchased Leo for the price of twelve pieces of
gold; and was pleased to learn that he was deeply skilled in the
luxury of an episcopal table: “Next Sunday,” said the Frank, “I
shall invite my neighbors and kinsmen. Exert thy art, and force
them to confess, that they have never seen, or tasted, such an
entertainment, even in the king’s house.” Leo assured him, that
if he would provide a sufficient quantity of poultry, his wishes
should be satisfied. The master who already aspired to the merit
of elegant hospitality, assumed, as his own, the praise which the
voracious guests unanimously bestowed on his cook; and the
dexterous Leo insensibly acquired the trust and management of his
household. After the patient expectation of a whole year, he
cautiously whispered his design to Attalus, and exhorted him to
prepare for flight in the ensuing night. At the hour of midnight,
the intemperate guests retired from the table; and the Frank’s
son-in-law, whom Leo attended to his apartment with a nocturnal
potation, condescended to jest on the facility with which he
might betray his trust. The intrepid slave, after sustaining this
dangerous raillery, entered his master’s bedchamber; removed his
spear and shield; silently drew the fleetest horses from the
stable; unbarred the ponderous gates; and excited Attalus to save
his life and liberty by incessant diligence. Their apprehensions
urged them to leave their horses on the banks of the Meuse; 109
they swam the river, wandered three days in the adjacent forest,
and subsisted only by the accidental discovery of a wild
plum-tree. As they lay concealed in a dark thicket, they heard
the noise of horses; they were terrified by the angry countenance
of their master, and they anxiously listened to his declaration,
that, if he could seize the guilty fugitives, one of them he
would cut in pieces with his sword, and would expose the other on
a gibbet. A length, Attalus and his faithful Leo reached the
friendly habitation of a presbyter of Rheims, who recruited their
fainting strength with bread and wine, concealed them from the
search of their enemy, and safely conducted them beyond the
limits of the Austrasian kingdom, to the episcopal palace of
Langres. Gregory embraced his grandson with tears of joy,
gratefully delivered Leo, with his whole family, from the yoke of
servitude, and bestowed on him the property of a farm, where he
might end his days in happiness and freedom. Perhaps this
singular adventure, which is marked with so many circumstances of
truth and nature, was related by Attalus himself, to his cousin
or nephew, the first historian of the Franks. Gregory of Tours
110 was born about sixty years after the death of Sidonius
Apollinaris; and their situation was almost similar, since each
of them was a native of Auvergne, a senator, and a bishop. The
difference of their style and sentiments may, therefore, express
the decay of Gaul; and clearly ascertain how much, in so short a
space, the human mind had lost of its energy and refinement. 111
107 (return) [ The story of Attalus is related by Gregory of
Tours, (l. iii. c. 16, tom. ii. p. 193-195.) His editor, the P.
Ruinart, confounds this Attalus, who was a youth (puer) in the
year 532, with a friend of Silonius of the same name, who was
count of Autun, fifty or sixty years before. Such an error, which
cannot be imputed to ignorance, is excused, in some degree, by
its own magnitude.]
108 (return) [ This Gregory, the great grandfather of Gregory of
Tours, (in tom. ii. p. 197, 490,) lived ninety-two years; of
which he passed forty as count of Autun, and thirty-two as bishop
of Langres. According to the poet Fortunatus, he displayed equal
merit in these different stations. Nobilis antiqua decurrens
prole parentum, Nobilior gestis, nunc super astra manet. Arbiter
ante ferox, dein pius ipse sacerdos, Quos domuit judex, fovit
amore patris.]
109 (return) [ As M. de Valois, and the P. Ruinart, are
determined to change the Mosella of the text into Mosa, it
becomes me to acquiesce in the alteration. Yet, after some
examination of the topography. I could defend the common
reading.]
110 (return) [ The parents of Gregory (Gregorius Florentius
Georgius) were of noble extraction, (natalibus... illustres,) and
they possessed large estates (latifundia) both in Auvergne and
Burgundy. He was born in the year 539, was consecrated bishop of
Tours in 573, and died in 593 or 595, soon after he had
terminated his history. See his life by Odo, abbot of Clugny, (in
tom. ii. p. 129-135,) and a new Life in the Mémoires de
l’Academie, &c., tom. xxvi. p. 598-637.]
111 (return) [ Decedente atque immo potius pereunte ab urbibus
Gallicanis liberalium cultura literarum, &c., (in praefat. in
tom. ii. p. 137,) is the complaint of Gregory himself, which he
fully verifies by his own work. His style is equally devoid of
elegance and simplicity. In a conspicuous station, he still
remained a stranger to his own age and country; and in a prolific
work (the five last books contain ten years) he has omitted
almost every thing that posterity desires to learn. I have
tediously acquired, by a painful perusal, the right of
pronouncing this unfavorable sentence]
We are now qualified to despise the opposite, and, perhaps,
artful, misrepresentations, which have softened, or exaggerated,
the oppression of the Romans of Gaul under the reign of the
Merovingians. The conquerors never promulgated any universal
edict of servitude, or confiscation; but a degenerate people, who
excused their weakness by the specious names of politeness and
peace, was exposed to the arms and laws of the ferocious
Barbarians, who contemptuously insulted their possessions, their
freedom, and their safety. Their personal injuries were partial
and irregular; but the great body of the Romans survived the
revolution, and still preserved the property, and privileges, of
citizens. A large portion of their lands was exacted for the use
of the Franks: but they enjoyed the remainder, exempt from
tribute; 112 and the same irresistible violence which swept away
the arts and manufactures of Gaul, destroyed the elaborate and
expensive system of Imperial despotism. The Provincials must
frequently deplore the savage jurisprudence of the Salic or
Ripuarian laws; but their private life, in the important concerns
of marriage, testaments, or inheritance, was still regulated by
the Theodosian Code; and a discontented Roman might freely
aspire, or descend, to the title and character of a Barbarian.
The honors of the state were accessible to his ambition: the
education and temper of the Romans more peculiarly qualified them
for the offices of civil government; and, as soon as emulation
had rekindled their military ardor, they were permitted to march
in the ranks, or even at the head, of the victorious Germans. I
shall not attempt to enumerate the generals and magistrates,
whose names 113 attest the liberal policy of the Merovingians.
The supreme command of Burgundy, with the title of Patrician, was
successively intrusted to three Romans; and the last, and most
powerful, Mummolus, 114 who alternately saved and disturbed the
monarchy, had supplanted his father in the station of count of
Autun, and left a treasury of thirty talents of gold, and two
hundred and fifty talents of silver. The fierce and illiterate
Barbarians were excluded, during several generations, from the
dignities, and even from the orders, of the church. 115 The
clergy of Gaul consisted almost entirely of native provincials;
the haughty Franks fell at the feet of their subjects, who were
dignified with the episcopal character: and the power and riches
which had been lost in war, were insensibly recovered by
superstition. 116 In all temporal affairs, the Theodosian Code
was the universal law of the clergy; but the Barbaric
jurisprudence had liberally provided for their personal safety; a
sub-deacon was equivalent to two Franks; the antrustion, and
priest, were held in similar estimation: and the life of a bishop
was appreciated far above the common standard, at the price of
nine hundred pieces of gold. 117 The Romans communicated to their
conquerors the use of the Christian religion and Latin language;
118 but their language and their religion had alike degenerated
from the simple purity of the Augustan, and Apostolic age. The
progress of superstition and Barbarism was rapid and universal:
the worship of the saints concealed from vulgar eyes the God of
the Christians; and the rustic dialect of peasants and soldiers
was corrupted by a Teutonic idiom and pronunciation. Yet such
intercourse of sacred and social communion eradicated the
distinctions of birth and victory; and the nations of Gaul were
gradually confounded under the name and government of the Franks.
112 (return) [ The Abbe de Mably (tom. p. i. 247-267) has
diligently confirmed this opinion of the President de
Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxx. c. 13.)]
113 (return) [ See Dubos, Hist. Critique de la Monarchie
Francoise, tom. ii. l. vi. c. 9, 10. The French antiquarians
establish as a principle, that the Romans and Barbarians may be
distinguished by their names. Their names undoubtedly form a
reasonable presumption; yet in reading Gregory of Tours, I have
observed Gondulphus, of Senatorian, or Roman, extraction, (l. vi.
c. 11, in tom. ii. p. 273,) and Claudius, a Barbarian, (l. vii.
c. 29, p. 303.)]
114 (return) [ Eunius Mummolus is repeatedly mentioned by Gregory
of Tours, from the fourth (c. 42, p. 224) to the seventh (c. 40,
p. 310) book. The computation by talents is singular enough; but
if Gregory attached any meaning to that obsolete word, the
treasures of Mummolus must have exceeded 100,000 L. sterling.]
115 (return) [ See Fleury, Discours iii. sur l’Histoire
Ecclesiastique.]
116 (return) [ The bishop of Tours himself has recorded the
complaint of Chilperic, the grandson of Clovis. Ecce pauper
remansit Fiscus noster; ecce divitiae nostrae ad ecclesias sunt
translatae; nulli penitus nisi soli Episcopi regnant, (l. vi. c.
46, in tom. ii. p. 291.)]
117 (return) [ See the Ripuarian Code, (tit. xxxvi in tom. iv. p.
241.) The Salic law does not provide for the safety of the
clergy; and we might suppose, on the behalf of the more civilized
tribe, that they had not foreseen such an impious act as the
murder of a priest. Yet Praetextatus, archbishop of Rouen, was
assassinated by the order of Queen Fredegundis before the altar,
(Greg. Turon. l. viii. c. 31, in tom. ii. p. 326.)]
118 (return) [ M. Bonamy (Mem. de l’Academie des Inscriptions,
tom. xxiv. p. 582-670) has ascertained the Lingua Romana Rustica,
which, through the medium of the Romance, has gradually been
polished into the actual form of the French language. Under the
Carlovingian race, the kings and nobles of France still
understood the dialect of their German ancestors.]
The Franks, after they mingled with their Gallic subjects, might
have imparted the most valuable of human gifts, a spirit and
system of constitutional liberty. Under a king, hereditary, but
limited, the chiefs and counsellors might have debated at Paris,
in the palace of the Caesars: the adjacent field, where the
emperors reviewed their mercenary legions, would have admitted
the legislative assembly of freemen and warriors; and the rude
model, which had been sketched in the woods of Germany, 119 might
have been polished and improved by the civil wisdom of the
Romans. But the careless Barbarians, secure of their personal
independence, disdained the labor of government: the annual
assemblies of the month of March were silently abolished; and the
nation was separated, and almost dissolved, by the conquest of
Gaul. 120 The monarchy was left without any regular establishment
of justice, of arms, or of revenue. The successors of Clovis
wanted resolution to assume, or strength to exercise, the
legislative and executive powers, which the people had abdicated:
the royal prerogative was distinguished only by a more ample
privilege of rapine and murder; and the love of freedom, so often
invigorated and disgraced by private ambition, was reduced, among
the licentious Franks, to the contempt of order, and the desire
of impunity. Seventy-five years after the death of Clovis, his
grandson, Gontran, king of Burgundy, sent an army to invade the
Gothic possessions of Septimania, or Languedoc. The troops of
Burgundy, Berry, Auvergne, and the adjacent territories, were
excited by the hopes of spoil. They marched, without discipline,
under the banners of German, or Gallic, counts: their attack was
feeble and unsuccessful; but the friendly and hostile provinces
were desolated with indiscriminate rage. The cornfields, the
villages, the churches themselves, were consumed by fire: the
inhabitants were massacred, or dragged into captivity; and, in
the disorderly retreat, five thousand of these inhuman savages
were destroyed by hunger or intestine discord. When the pious
Gontran reproached the guilt or neglect of their leaders, and
threatened to inflict, not a legal sentence, but instant and
arbitrary execution, they accused the universal and incurable
corruption of the people. “No one,” they said, “any longer fears
or respects his king, his duke, or his count. Each man loves to
do evil, and freely indulges his criminal inclinations. The most
gentle correction provokes an immediate tumult, and the rash
magistrate, who presumes to censure or restrain his seditious
subjects, seldom escapes alive from their revenge.” 121 It has
been reserved for the same nation to expose, by their intemperate
vices, the most odious abuse of freedom; and to supply its loss
by the spirit of honor and humanity, which now alleviates and
dignifies their obedience to an absolute sovereign. 1211
119 (return) [ Ce beau systeme a ete trouve dans les bois.
Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xi. c. 6.]
120 (return) [ See the Abbe de Mably. Observations, &c., tom. i.
p. 34-56. It should seem that the institution of national
assemblies, which are with the French nation, has never been
congenial to its temper.]
121 (return) [ Gregory of Tours (l. viii. c. 30, in tom. ii. p.
325, 326) relates, with much indifference, the crimes, the
reproof, and the apology. Nullus Regem metuit, nullus Ducem,
nullus Comitem reveretur; et si fortassis alicui ista displicent,
et ea, pro longaevitate vitae vestrae, emendare conatur, statim
seditio in populo, statim tumultus exoritur, et in tantum
unusquisque contra seniorem saeva intentione grassatur, ut vix se
credat evadere, si tandem silere nequiverit.]
1211 (return) [ This remarkable passage was published in 1779—M.]
The Visigoths had resigned to Clovis the greatest part of their
Gallic possessions; but their loss was amply compensated by the
easy conquest, and secure enjoyment, of the provinces of Spain.
From the monarchy of the Goths, which soon involved the Suevic
kingdom of Gallicia, the modern Spaniards still derive some
national vanity; but the historian of the Roman empire is neither
invited, nor compelled, to pursue the obscure and barren series
of their annals. 122 The Goths of Spain were separated from the
rest of mankind by the lofty ridge of the Pyrenaean mountains:
their manners and institutions, as far as they were common to the
Germanic tribes, have been already explained. I have anticipated,
in the preceding chapter, the most important of their
ecclesiastical events, the fall of Arianism, and the persecution
of the Jews; and it only remains to observe some interesting
circumstances which relate to the civil and ecclesiastical
constitution of the Spanish kingdom.
122 (return) [ Spain, in these dark ages, has been peculiarly
unfortunate. The Franks had a Gregory of Tours; the Saxons, or
Angles, a Bede; the Lombards, a Paul Warnefrid, &c. But the
history of the Visigoths is contained in the short and imperfect
Chronicles of Isidore of Seville and John of Biclar]
After their conversion from idolatry or heresy, the Frank and the
Visigoths were disposed to embrace, with equal submission, the
inherent evils and the accidental benefits, of superstition. But
the prelates of France, long before the extinction of the
Merovingian race, had degenerated into fighting and hunting
Barbarians. They disdained the use of synods; forgot the laws of
temperance and chastity; and preferred the indulgence of private
ambition and luxury to the general interest of the sacerdotal
profession. 123 The bishops of Spain respected themselves, and
were respected by the public: their indissoluble union disguised
their vices, and confirmed their authority; and the regular
discipline of the church introduced peace, order, and stability,
into the government of the state. From the reign of Recared, the
first Catholic king, to that of Witiza, the immediate predecessor
of the unfortunate Roderic, sixteen national councils were
successively convened. The six metropolitans, Toledo, Seville,
Merida, Braga, Tarragona, and Narbonne, presided according to
their respective seniority; the assembly was composed of their
suffragan bishops, who appeared in person, or by their proxies;
and a place was assigned to the most holy, or opulent, of the
Spanish abbots. During the first three days of the convocation,
as long as they agitated the ecclesiastical question of doctrine
and discipline, the profane laity was excluded from their
debates; which were conducted, however, with decent solemnity.
But, on the morning of the fourth day, the doors were thrown open
for the entrance of the great officers of the palace, the dukes
and counts of the provinces, the judges of the cities, and the
Gothic nobles, and the decrees of Heaven were ratified by the
consent of the people.
The same rules were observed in the provincial assemblies, the
annual synods, which were empowered to hear complaints, and to
redress grievances; and a legal government was supported by the
prevailing influence of the Spanish clergy. The bishops, who, in
each revolution, were prepared to flatter the victorious, and to
insult the prostrate labored, with diligence and success, to
kindle the flames of persecution, and to exalt the mitre above
the crown. Yet the national councils of Toledo, in which the free
spirit of the Barbarians was tempered and guided by episcopal
policy, have established some prudent laws for the common benefit
of the king and people. The vacancy of the throne was supplied by
the choice of the bishops and palatines; and after the failure of
the line of Alaric, the regal dignity was still limited to the
pure and noble blood of the Goths. The clergy, who anointed their
lawful prince, always recommended, and sometimes practised, the
duty of allegiance; and the spiritual censures were denounced on
the heads of the impious subjects, who should resist his
authority, conspire against his life, or violate, by an indecent
union, the chastity even of his widow. But the monarch himself,
when he ascended the throne, was bound by a reciprocal oath to
God and his people, that he would faithfully execute this
important trust. The real or imaginary faults of his
administration were subject to the control of a powerful
aristocracy; and the bishops and palatines were guarded by a
fundamental privilege, that they should not be degraded,
imprisoned, tortured, nor punished with death, exile, or
confiscation, unless by the free and public judgment of their
peers. 124
123 (return) [ Such are the complaints of St. Boniface, the
apostle of Germany, and the reformer of Gaul, (in tom. iv. p.
94.) The fourscore years, which he deplores, of license and
corruption, would seem to insinuate that the Barbarians were
admitted into the clergy about the year 660.]
124 (return) [ The acts of the councils of Toledo are still the
most authentic records of the church and constitution of Spain.
The following passages are particularly important, (iii. 17, 18;
iv. 75; v. 2, 3, 4, 5, 8; vi. 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18; vii. 1;
xiii. 2 3 6.) I have found Mascou (Hist. of the Ancient Germans,
xv. 29, and Annotations, xxvi. and xxxiii.) and Ferreras (Hist.
Generale de l’Espagne, tom. ii.) very useful and accurate
guides.]
One of these legislative councils of Toledo examined and ratified
the code of laws which had been compiled by a succession of
Gothic kings, from the fierce Euric, to the devout Egica. As long
as the Visigoths themselves were satisfied with the rude customs
of their ancestors, they indulged their subjects of Aquitain and
Spain in the enjoyment of the Roman law. Their gradual
improvement in arts, in policy, and at length in religion,
encouraged them to imitate, and to supersede, these foreign
institutions; and to compose a code of civil and criminal
jurisprudence, for the use of a great and united people. The same
obligations, and the same privileges, were communicated to the
nations of the Spanish monarchy; and the conquerors, insensibly
renouncing the Teutonic idiom, submitted to the restraints of
equity, and exalted the Romans to the participation of freedom.
The merit of this impartial policy was enhanced by the situation
of Spain under the reign of the Visigoths. The provincials were
long separated from their Arian masters by the irreconcilable
difference of religion. After the conversion of Recared had
removed the prejudices of the Catholics, the coasts, both of the
Ocean and Mediterranean, were still possessed by the Eastern
emperors; who secretly excited a discontented people to reject
the yoke of the Barbarians, and to assert the name and dignity of
Roman citizens. The allegiance of doubtful subjects is indeed
most effectually secured by their own persuasion, that they
hazard more in a revolt, than they can hope to obtain by a
revolution; but it has appeared so natural to oppress those whom
we hate and fear, that the contrary system well deserves the
praise of wisdom and moderation. 125
125 (return) [ The Code of the Visigoths, regularly divided into
twelve books, has been correctly published by Dom Bouquet, (in
tom. iv. p. 273-460.) It has been treated by the President de
Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xxviii. c. 1) with excessive
severity. I dislike the style; I detest the superstition; but I
shall presume to think, that the civil jurisprudence displays a
more civilized and enlightened state of society, than that of the
Burgundians, or even of the Lombards.]
While the kingdom of the Franks and Visigoths were established in
Gaul and Spain, the Saxons achieved the conquest of Britain, the
third great diocese of the Praefecture of the West. Since Britain
was already separated from the Roman empire, I might, without
reproach, decline a story familiar to the most illiterate, and
obscure to the most learned, of my readers. The Saxons, who
excelled in the use of the oar, or the battle-axe, were ignorant
of the art which could alone perpetuate the fame of their
exploits; the Provincials, relapsing into barbarism, neglected to
describe the ruin of their country; and the doubtful tradition
was almost extinguished, before the missionaries of Rome restored
the light of science and Christianity. The declamations of
Gildas, the fragments, or fables, of Nennius, the obscure hints
of the Saxon laws and chronicles, and the ecclesiastical tales of
the venerable Bede, 126 have been illustrated by the diligence,
and sometimes embellished by the fancy, of succeeding writers,
whose works I am not ambitious either to censure or to
transcribe. 127 Yet the historian of the empire may be tempted to
pursue the revolutions of a Roman province, till it vanishes from
his sight; and an Englishman may curiously trace the
establishment of the Barbarians, from whom he derives his name,
his laws, and perhaps his origin.
126 (return) [ See Gildas de Excidio Britanniae, c. 11-25, p.
4-9, edit. Gale. Nennius, Hist. Britonum, c. 28, 35-65, p.
105-115, edit. Gale. Bede, Hist. Ecclesiast. Gentis Angloruml. i.
c. 12-16, p. 49-53. c. 22, p. 58, edit. Smith. Chron. Saxonicum,
p. 11-23, &c., edit. Gibson. The Anglo-Saxon laws were published
by Wilkins, London, 1731, in folio; and the Leges Wallicae, by
Wotton and Clarke, London, 1730, in folio.]
127 (return) [ The laborious Mr. Carte, and the ingenious Mr.
Whitaker, are the two modern writers to whom I am principally
indebted. The particular historian of Manchester embraces, under
that obscure title, a subject almost as extensive as the general
history of England. * Note: Add the Anglo-Saxon History of Mr. S.
Turner; and Sir F. Palgrave Sketch of the “Early History of
England.”—M.]
About forty years after the dissolution of the Roman government,
Vortigern appears to have obtained the supreme, though precarious
command of the princes and cities of Britain. That unfortunate
monarch has been almost unanimously condemned for the weak and
mischievous policy of inviting 128 a formidable stranger, to
repel the vexatious inroads of a domestic foe. His ambassadors
are despatched, by the gravest historians, to the coast of
Germany: they address a pathetic oration to the general assembly
of the Saxons, and those warlike Barbarians resolve to assist
with a fleet and army the suppliants of a distant and unknown
island. If Britain had indeed been unknown to the Saxons, the
measure of its calamities would have been less complete. But the
strength of the Roman government could not always guard the
maritime province against the pirates of Germany; the independent
and divided states were exposed to their attacks; and the Saxons
might sometimes join the Scots and the Picts, in a tacit, or
express, confederacy of rapine and destruction. Vortigern could
only balance the various perils, which assaulted on every side
his throne and his people; and his policy may deserve either
praise or excuse, if he preferred the alliance of those
Barbarians, whose naval power rendered them the most dangerous
enemies and the most serviceable allies. Hengist and Horsa, as
they ranged along the Eastern coast with three ships, were
engaged, by the promise of an ample stipend, to embrace the
defence of Britain; and their intrepid valor soon delivered the
country from the Caledonian invaders. The Isle of Thanet, a
secure and fertile district, was allotted for the residence of
these German auxiliaries, and they were supplied, according to
the treaty, with a plentiful allowance of clothing and
provisions. This favorable reception encouraged five thousand
warriors to embark with their families in seventeen vessels, and
the infant power of Hengist was fortified by this strong and
seasonable reenforcement. The crafty Barbarian suggested to
Vortigern the obvious advantage of fixing, in the neighborhood of
the Picts, a colony of faithful allies: a third fleet of forty
ships, under the command of his son and nephew, sailed from
Germany, ravaged the Orkneys, and disembarked a new army on the
coast of Northumberland, or Lothian, at the opposite extremity of
the devoted land. It was easy to foresee, but it was impossible
to prevent, the impending evils. The two nations were soon
divided and exasperated by mutual jealousies. The Saxons
magnified all that they had done and suffered in the cause of an
ungrateful people; while the Britons regretted the liberal
rewards which could not satisfy the avarice of those haughty
mercenaries. The causes of fear and hatred were inflamed into an
irreconcilable quarrel. The Saxons flew to arms; and if they
perpetrated a treacherous massacre during the security of a
feast, they destroyed the reciprocal confidence which sustains
the intercourse of peace and war. 129
128 (return) [ This invitation, which may derive some countenance
from the loose expressions of Gildas and Bede, is framed into a
regular story by Witikind, a Saxon monk of the tenth century,
(see Cousin, Hist. de l’Empire d’Occident, tom. ii. p. 356.)
Rapin, and even Hume, have too freely used this suspicious
evidence, without regarding the precise and probable testimony of
Tennius: Iterea venerunt tres Chinlae a exilio pulsoe, in quibus
erant Hors et Hengist.]
129 (return) [ Nennius imputes to the Saxons the murder of three
hundred British chiefs; a crime not unsuitable to their savage
manners. But we are not obliged to believe (see Jeffrey of
Monmouth, l. viii. c. 9-12) that Stonehenge is their monument,
which the giants had formerly transported from Africa to Ireland,
and which was removed to Britain by the order of Ambrosius, and
the art of Merlin. * Note: Sir f. Palgrave (Hist. of England, p.
36) is inclined to resolve the whole of these stories, as Niebuhr
the older Roman history, into poetry. To the editor they
appeared, in early youth, so essentially poetic, as to justify
the rash attempt to embody them in an Epic Poem, called Samor,
commenced at Eton, and finished before he had arrived at the
maturer taste of manhood.—M.]
Hengist, who boldly aspired to the conquest of Britain, exhorted
his countrymen to embrace the glorious opportunity: he painted in
lively colors the fertility of the soil, the wealth of the
cities, the pusillanimous temper of the natives, and the
convenient situation of a spacious solitary island, accessible on
all sides to the Saxon fleets. The successive colonies which
issued, in the period of a century, from the mouths of the Elbe,
the Weser, and the Rhine, were principally composed of three
valiant tribes or nations of Germany; the Jutes, the old Saxons,
and the Angles. The Jutes, who fought under the peculiar banner
of Hengist, assumed the merit of leading their countrymen in the
paths of glory, and of erecting, in Kent, the first independent
kingdom. The fame of the enterprise was attributed to the
primitive Saxons; and the common laws and language of the
conquerors are described by the national appellation of a people,
which, at the end of four hundred years, produced the first
monarchs of South Britain. The Angles were distinguished by their
numbers and their success; and they claimed the honor of fixing a
perpetual name on the country, of which they occupied the most
ample portion. The Barbarians, who followed the hopes of rapine
either on the land or sea, were insensibly blended with this
triple confederacy; the Frisians, who had been tempted by their
vicinity to the British shores, might balance, during a short
space, the strength and reputation of the native Saxons; the
Danes, the Prussians, the Rugians, are faintly described; and
some adventurous Huns, who had wandered as far as the Baltic,
might embark on board the German vessels, for the conquest of a
new world. 130 But this arduous achievement was not prepared or
executed by the union of national powers. Each intrepid
chieftain, according to the measure of his fame and fortunes,
assembled his followers; equipped a fleet of three, or perhaps of
sixty, vessels; chose the place of the attack; and conducted his
subsequent operations according to the events of the war, and the
dictates of his private interest. In the invasion of Britain many
heroes vanquished and fell; but only seven victorious leaders
assumed, or at least maintained, the title of kings. Seven
independent thrones, the Saxon Heptarchy, 1301 were founded by
the conquerors, and seven families, one of which has been
continued, by female succession, to our present sovereign,
derived their equal and sacred lineage from Woden, the god of
war. It has been pretended, that this republic of kings was
moderated by a general council and a supreme magistrate. But such
an artificial scheme of policy is repugnant to the rude and
turbulent spirit of the Saxons: their laws are silent; and their
imperfect annals afford only a dark and bloody prospect of
intestine discord. 131
130 (return) [ All these tribes are expressly enumerated by Bede,
(l. i. c. 15, p. 52, l. v. c. 9, p. 190;) and though I have
considered Mr. Whitaker’s remarks, (Hist. of Manchester, vol. ii.
p. 538-543,) I do not perceive the absurdity of supposing that
the Frisians, &c., were mingled with the Anglo-Saxons.]
1301 (return) [ This term (the Heptarchy) must be rejected
because an idea is conveyed thereby which is substantially wrong.
At no one period were there ever seven kingdoms independent of
each other. Palgrave, vol. i. p. 46. Mr. Sharon Turner has the
merit of having first confuted the popular notion on this
subject. Anglo-Saxon History, vol. i. p. 302.—M.]
131 (return) [ Bede has enumerated seven kings, two Saxons, a
Jute, and four Angles, who successively acquired in the heptarchy
an indefinite supremacy of power and renown. But their reign was
the effect, not of law, but of conquest; and he observes, in
similar terms, that one of them subdued the Isles of Man and
Anglesey; and that another imposed a tribute on the Scots and
Picts. (Hist. Eccles. l. ii. c. 5, p. 83.)]
A monk, who, in the profound ignorance of human life, has
presumed to exercise the office of historian, strangely
disfigures the state of Britain at the time of its separation
from the Western empire. Gildas 132 describes in florid language
the improvements of agriculture, the foreign trade which flowed
with every tide into the Thames and the Severn the solid and
lofty construction of public and private edifices; he accuses the
sinful luxury of the British people; of a people, according to
the same writer, ignorant of the most simple arts, and incapable,
without the aid of the Romans, of providing walls of stone, or
weapons of iron, for the defence of their native land. 133 Under
the long dominion of the emperors, Britain had been insensibly
moulded into the elegant and servile form of a Roman province,
whose safety was intrusted to a foreign power. The subjects of
Honorius contemplated their new freedom with surprise and terror;
they were left destitute of any civil or military constitution;
and their uncertain rulers wanted either skill, or courage, or
authority, to direct the public force against the common enemy.
The introduction of the Saxons betrayed their internal weakness,
and degraded the character both of the prince and people. Their
consternation magnified the danger; the want of union diminished
their resources; and the madness of civil factions was more
solicitous to accuse, than to remedy, the evils, which they
imputed to the misconduct of their adversaries.
Yet the Britons were not ignorant, they could not be ignorant, of
the manufacture or the use of arms; the successive and disorderly
attacks of the Saxons allowed them to recover from their
amazement, and the prosperous or adverse events of the war added
discipline and experience to their native valor.
132 (return) [ See Gildas de Excidio Britanniae, c. i. p. l.
edit. Gale.]
133 (return) [ Mr. Whitaker (Hist. of Manchester, vol. ii. p.
503, 516) has smartly exposed this glaring absurdity, which had
passed unnoticed by the general historians, as they were
hastening to more interesting and important events]
While the continent of Europe and Africa yielded, without
resistance, to the Barbarians, the British island, alone and
unaided, maintained a long, a vigorous, though an unsuccessful,
struggle, against the formidable pirates, who, almost at the same
instant, assaulted the Northern, the Eastern, and the Southern
coasts. The cities which had been fortified with skill, were
defended with resolution; the advantages of ground, hills,
forests, and morasses, were diligently improved by the
inhabitants; the conquest of each district was purchased with
blood; and the defeats of the Saxons are strongly attested by the
discreet silence of their annalist. Hengist might hope to achieve
the conquest of Britain; but his ambition, in an active reign of
thirty-five years, was confined to the possession of Kent; and
the numerous colony which he had planted in the North, was
extirpated by the sword of the Britons. The monarchy of the West
Saxons was laboriously founded by the persevering efforts of
three martial generations. The life of Cerdic, one of the bravest
of the children of Woden, was consumed in the conquest of
Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight; and the loss which he sustained
in the battle of Mount Badon, reduced him to a state of
inglorious repose. Kenric, his valiant son, advanced into
Wiltshire; besieged Salisbury, at that time seated on a
commanding eminence; and vanquished an army which advanced to the
relief of the city. In the subsequent battle of Marlborough, 134
his British enemies displayed their military science. Their
troops were formed in three lines; each line consisted of three
distinct bodies, and the cavalry, the archers, and the pikemen,
were distributed according to the principles of Roman tactics.
The Saxons charged in one weighty column, boldly encountered with
their shord swords the long lances of the Britons, and maintained
an equal conflict till the approach of night. Two decisive
victories, the death of three British kings, and the reduction of
Cirencester, Bath, and Gloucester, established the fame and power
of Ceaulin, the grandson of Cerdic, who carried his victorious
arms to the banks of the Severn.
134 (return) [ At Beran-birig, or Barbury-castle, near
Marlborough. The Saxon chronicle assigns the name and date.
Camden (Britannia, vol. i. p. 128) ascertains the place; and
Henry of Huntingdon (Scriptores pest Bedam, p. 314) relates the
circumstances of this battle. They are probable and
characteristic; and the historians of the twelfth century might
consult some materials that no longer exist.] After a war of a
hundred years, the independent Britons still occupied the whole
extent of the Western coast, from the wall of Antoninus to the
extreme promontory of Cornwall; and the principal cities of the
inland country still opposed the arms of the Barbarians.
Resistance became more languid, as the number and boldness of the
assailants continually increased. Winning their way by slow and
painful efforts, the Saxons, the Angles, and their various
confederates, advanced from the North, from the East, and from
the South, till their victorious banners were united in the
centre of the island. Beyond the Severn the Britons still
asserted their national freedom, which survived the heptarchy,
and even the monarchy, of the Saxons. The bravest warriors, who
preferred exile to slavery, found a secure refuge in the
mountains of Wales: the reluctant submission of Cornwall was
delayed for some ages; 135 and a band of fugitives acquired a
settlement in Gaul, by their own valor, or the liberality of the
Merovingian kings. 136 The Western angle of Armorica acquired the
new appellations of Cornwall, and the Lesser Britain; and the
vacant lands of the Osismii were filled by a strange people, who,
under the authority of their counts and bishops, preserved the
laws and language of their ancestors. To the feeble descendants
of Clovis and Charlemagne, the Britons of Armorica refused the
customary tribute, subdued the neighboring dioceses of Vannes,
Rennes, and Nantes, and formed a powerful, though vassal, state,
which has been united to the crown of France. 137
135 (return) [ Cornwall was finally subdued by Athelstan, (A.D.
927-941,) who planted an English colony at Exeter, and confined
the Britons beyond the River Tamar. See William of Malmsbury, l.
ii., in the Scriptores post Bedam, p. 50. The spirit of the
Cornish knights was degraded by servitude: and it should seem,
from the Romance of Sir Tristram, that their cowardice was almost
proverbial.]
136 (return) [ The establishment of the Britons in Gaul is proved
in the sixth century, by Procopius, Gregory of Tours, the second
council of Tours, (A.D. 567,) and the least suspicious of their
chronicles and lives of saints. The subscription of a bishop of
the Britons to the first council of Tours, (A.D. 461, or rather
481,) the army of Riothamus, and the loose declamation of Gildas,
(alii transmarinas petebant regiones, c. 25, p. 8,) may
countenance an emigration as early as the middle of the fifth
century. Beyond that era, the Britons of Armorica can be found
only in romance; and I am surprised that Mr. Whitaker (Genuine
History of the Britons, p. 214-221) should so faithfully
transcribe the gross ignorance of Carte, whose venial errors he
has so rigorously chastised.]
137 (return) [ The antiquities of Bretagne, which have been the
subject even of political controversy, are illustrated by Hadrian
Valesius, (Notitia Galliarum, sub voce Britannia Cismarina, p.
98-100.) M. D’Anville, (Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule, Corisopiti,
Curiosolites, Osismii, Vorganium, p. 248, 258, 508, 720, and
Etats de l’Europe, p. 76-80,) Longuerue, (Description de la
France, tom. i. p. 84-94,) and the Abbe de Vertot, (Hist.
Critique de l’Etablissement des Bretons dans les Gaules, 2 vols.
in 12 mo., Paris, 1720.) I may assume the merit of examining the
original evidence which they have produced. * Note: Compare
Gallet, Mémoires sur la Bretagne, and Daru, Histoire de Bretagne.
These authors appear to me to establish the point of the
independence of Bretagne at the time that the insular Britons
took refuge in their country, and that the greater part landed as
fugitives rather than as conquerors. I observe that M. Lappenberg
(Geschichte von England, vol. i. p. 56) supposes the settlement
of a military colony formed of British soldiers, (Milites
limitanei, laeti,) during the usurpation of Maximus, (381, 388,)
who gave their name and peculiar civilization to Bretagne. M.
Lappenberg expresses his surprise that Gibbon here rejects the
authority which he follows elsewhere.—M.]
Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part V.
In a century of perpetual, or at least implacable, war, much
courage, and some skill, must have been exerted for the defence
of Britain. Yet if the memory of its champions is almost buried
in oblivion, we need not repine; since every age, however
destitute of science or virtue, sufficiently abounds with acts of
blood and military renown. The tomb of Vortimer, the son of
Vortigern, was erected on the margin of the sea-shore, as a
landmark formidable to the Saxons, whom he had thrice vanquished
in the fields of Kent. Ambrosius Aurelian was descended from a
noble family of Romans; 138 his modesty was equal to his valor,
and his valor, till the last fatal action, 139 was crowned with
splendid success. But every British name is effaced by the
illustrious name of Arthur, 140 the hereditary prince of the
Silures, in South Wales, and the elective king or general of the
nation. According to the most rational account, he defeated, in
twelve successive battles, the Angles of the North, and the
Saxons of the West; but the declining age of the hero was
imbittered by popular ingratitude and domestic misfortunes. The
events of his life are less interesting than the singular
revolutions of his fame. During a period of five hundred years
the tradition of his exploits was preserved, and rudely
embellished, by the obscure bards of Wales and Armorica, who were
odious to the Saxons, and unknown to the rest of mankind. The
pride and curiosity of the Norman conquerors prompted them to
inquire into the ancient history of Britain: they listened with
fond credulity to the tale of Arthur, and eagerly applauded the
merit of a prince who had triumphed over the Saxons, their common
enemies. His romance, transcribed in the Latin of Jeffrey of
Monmouth, and afterwards translated into the fashionable idiom of
the times, was enriched with the various, though incoherent,
ornaments which were familiar to the experience, the learning, or
the fancy, of the twelfth century. The progress of a Phrygian
colony, from the Tyber to the Thames, was easily ingrafted on the
fable of the Aeneid; and the royal ancestors of Arthur derived
their origin from Troy, and claimed their alliance with the
Caesars. His trophies were decorated with captive provinces and
Imperial titles; and his Danish victories avenged the recent
injuries of his country. The gallantry and superstition of the
British hero, his feasts and tournaments, and the memorable
institution of his Knights of the Round Table, were faithfully
copied from the reigning manners of chivalry; and the fabulous
exploits of Uther’s son appear less incredible than the
adventures which were achieved by the enterprising valor of the
Normans. Pilgrimage, and the holy wars, introduced into Europe
the specious miracles of Arabian magic. Fairies and giants,
flying dragons, and enchanted palaces, were blended with the more
simple fictions of the West; and the fate of Britain depended on
the art, or the predictions, of Merlin. Every nation embraced and
adorned the popular romance of Arthur, and the Knights of the
Round Table: their names were celebrated in Greece and Italy; and
the voluminous tales of Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristram were
devoutly studied by the princes and nobles, who disregarded the
genuine heroes and historians of antiquity. At length the light
of science and reason was rekindled; the talisman was broken; the
visionary fabric melted into air; and by a natural, though
unjust, reverse of the public opinion, the severity of the
present age is inclined to question the existence of Arthur. 141
138 (return) [ Bede, who in his chronicle (p. 28) places
Ambrosius under the reign of Zeno, (A.D. 474-491,) observes, that
his parents had been “purpura induti;” which he explains, in his
ecclesiastical history, by “regium nomen et insigne ferentibus,”
(l. i. c. 16, p. 53.) The expression of Nennius (c. 44, p. 110,
edit. Gale) is still more singular, “Unus de consulibus gentis
Romanicae est pater meus.”]
139 (return) [ By the unanimous, though doubtful, conjecture of
our antiquarians, Ambrosius is confounded with Natanleod, who
(A.D. 508) lost his own life, and five thousand of his subjects,
in a battle against Cerdic, the West Saxon, (Chron. Saxon. p. 17,
18.)]
140 (return) [ As I am a stranger to the Welsh bards, Myrdhin,
Llomarch, and Taliessin, my faith in the existence and exploits
of Arthur principally rests on the simple and circumstantial
testimony of Nennius. (Hist. Brit. c. 62, 63, p. 114.) Mr.
Whitaker, (Hist. of Manchester, vol. ii. p. 31-71) had framed an
interesting, and even probable, narrative of the wars of Arthur:
though it is impossible to allow the reality of the round table.
* Note: I presume that Gibbon means Llywarch Hen, or the
Aged.—The Elegies of this Welsh prince and bard have been
published by Mr. Owen; to whose works and in the Myvyrian
Archaeology, slumbers much curious information on the subject of
Welsh tradition and poetry. But the Welsh antiquarians have never
obtained a hearing from the public; they have had no Macpherson
to compensate for his corruption of their poetic legends by
forcing them into popularity.—See also Mr. Sharon Turner’s Essay
on the Welsh Bards.—M.]
141 (return) [ The progress of romance, and the state of
learning, in the middle ages, are illustrated by Mr. Thomas
Warton, with the taste of a poet, and the minute diligence of an
antiquarian. I have derived much instruction from the two learned
dissertations prefixed to the first volume of his History of
English Poetry. * Note: These valuable dissertations should not
now be read without the notes and preliminary essay of the late
editor, Mr. Price, which, in point of taste and fulness of
information, are worthy of accompanying and completing those of
Warton.—M.]
Resistance, if it cannot avert, must increase the miseries of
conquest; and conquest has never appeared more dreadful and
destructive than in the hands of the Saxons; who hated the valor
of their enemies, disdained the faith of treaties, and violated,
without remorse, the most sacred objects of the Christian
worship. The fields of battle might be traced, almost in every
district, by monuments of bones; the fragments of falling towers
were stained with blood; the last of the Britons, without
distinction of age or sex, was massacred, 142 in the ruins of
Anderida; 143 and the repetition of such calamities was frequent
and familiar under the Saxon heptarchy. The arts and religion,
the laws and language, which the Romans had so carefully planted
in Britain, were extirpated by their barbarous successors. After
the destruction of the principal churches, the bishops, who had
declined the crown of martyrdom, retired with the holy relics
into Wales and Armorica; the remains of their flocks were left
destitute of any spiritual food; the practice, and even the
remembrance, of Christianity were abolished; and the British
clergy might obtain some comfort from the damnation of the
idolatrous strangers. The kings of France maintained the
privileges of their Roman subjects; but the ferocious Saxons
trampled on the laws of Rome, and of the emperors. The
proceedings of civil and criminal jurisdiction, the titles of
honor, the forms of office, the ranks of society, and even the
domestic rights of marriage, testament, and inheritance, were
finally suppressed; and the indiscriminate crowd of noble and
plebeian slaves was governed by the traditionary customs, which
had been coarsely framed for the shepherds and pirates of
Germany. The language of science, of business, and of
conversation, which had been introduced by the Romans, was lost
in the general desolation. A sufficient number of Latin or Celtic
words might be assumed by the Germans, to express their new wants
and ideas; 144 but those illiterate Pagans preserved and
established the use of their national dialect. 145 Almost every
name, conspicuous either in the church or state, reveals its
Teutonic origin; 146 and the geography of England was universally
inscribed with foreign characters and appellations. The example
of a revolution, so rapid and so complete, may not easily be
found; but it will excite a probable suspicion, that the arts of
Rome were less deeply rooted in Britain than in Gaul or Spain;
and that the native rudeness of the country and its inhabitants
was covered by a thin varnish of Italian manners.
142 (return) [ Hoc anno (490) Aella et Cissa obsederunt
Andredes-Ceaster; et interfecerunt omnes qui id incoluerunt; adeo
ut ne unus Brito ibi superstes fuerit, (Chron. Saxon. p. 15;) an
expression more dreadful in its simplicity, than all the vague
and tedious lamentations of the British Jeremiah.]
143 (return) [ Andredes-Ceaster, or Anderida, is placed by Camden
(Britannia, vol. i. p. 258) at Newenden, in the marshy grounds of
Kent, which might be formerly covered by the sea, and on the edge
of the great forest (Anderida) which overspread so large a
portion of Hampshire and Sussex.]
144 (return) [ Dr. Johnson affirms, that few English words are of
British extraction. Mr. Whitaker, who understands the British
language, has discovered more than three thousand, and actually
produces a long and various catalogue, (vol. ii. p. 235-329.) It
is possible, indeed, that many of these words may have been
imported from the Latin or Saxon into the native idiom of
Britain. * Note: Dr. Prichard’s very curious researches, which
connect the Celtic, as well as the Teutonic languages with the
Indo-European class, make it still more difficult to decide
between the Celtic or Teutonic origin of English words.—See
Prichard on the Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations Oxford,
1831.—M.]
145 (return) [ In the beginning of the seventh century, the
Franks and the Anglo-Saxons mutually understood each other’s
language, which was derived from the same Teutonic root, (Bede,
l. i. c. 25, p. 60.)]
146 (return) [ After the first generation of Italian, or
Scottish, missionaries, the dignities of the church were filled
with Saxon proselytes.]
This strange alteration has persuaded historians, and even
philosophers, that the provincials of Britain were totally
exterminated; and that the vacant land was again peopled by the
perpetual influx, and rapid increase, of the German colonies.
Three hundred thousand Saxons are said to have obeyed the summons
of Hengist; 147 the entire emigation of the Angles was attested,
in the age of Bede, by the solitude of their native country; 148
and our experience has shown the free propagation of the human
race, if they are cast on a fruitful wilderness, where their
steps are unconfined, and their subsistence is plentiful. The
Saxon kingdoms displayed the face of recent discovery and
cultivation; the towns were small, the villages were distant; the
husbandry was languid and unskilful; four sheep were equivalent
to an acre of the best land; 149 an ample space of wood and
morass was resigned to the vague dominion of nature; and the
modern bishopric of Durham, the whole territory from the Tyne to
the Tees, had returned to its primitive state of a savage and
solitary forest. 150 Such imperfect population might have been
supplied, in some generations, by the English colonies; but
neither reason nor facts can justify the unnatural supposition,
that the Saxons of Britain remained alone in the desert which
they had subdued. After the sanguinary Barbarians had secured
their dominion, and gratified their revenge, it was their
interest to preserve the peasants as well as the cattle, of the
unresisting country. In each successive revolution, the patient
herd becomes the property of its new masters; and the salutary
compact of food and labor is silently ratified by their mutual
necessities. Wilfrid, the apostle of Sussex, 151 accepted from
his royal convert the gift of the peninsula of Selsey, near
Chichester, with the persons and property of its inhabitants, who
then amounted to eighty-seven families. He released them at once
from spiritual and temporal bondage; and two hundred and fifty
slaves of both sexes were baptized by their indulgent master. The
kingdom of Sussex, which spread from the sea to the Thames,
contained seven thousand families; twelve hundred were ascribed
to the Isle of Wight; and, if we multiply this vague computation,
it may seem probable, that England was cultivated by a million of
servants, or villains, who were attached to the estates of their
arbitrary landlords. The indigent Barbarians were often tempted
to sell their children, or themselves into perpetual, and even
foreign, bondage; 152 yet the special exemptions which were
granted to national slaves, 153 sufficiently declare that they
were much less numerous than the strangers and captives, who had
lost their liberty, or changed their masters, by the accidents of
war. When time and religion had mitigated the fierce spirit of
the Anglo-Saxons, the laws encouraged the frequent practice of
manumission; and their subjects, of Welsh or Cambrian extraction,
assumed the respectable station of inferior freemen, possessed of
lands, and entitled to the rights of civil society. 154 Such
gentle treatment might secure the allegiance of a fierce people,
who had been recently subdued on the confines of Wales and
Cornwall. The sage Ina, the legislator of Wessex, united the two
nations in the bands of domestic alliance; and four British lords
of Somersetshire may be honorably distinguished in the court of a
Saxon monarch. 155
147 (return) [ Carte’s History of England, vol. i. p. 195. He
quotes the British historians; but I much fear, that Jeffrey of
Monmouth (l. vi. c. 15) is his only witness.]
148 (return) [ Bede, Hist. Ecclesiast. l. i. c. 15, p. 52. The
fact is probable, and well attested: yet such was the loose
intermixture of the German tribes, that we find, in a subsequent
period, the law of the Angli and Warini of Germany, (Lindenbrog.
Codex, p. 479-486.)]
149 (return) [ See Dr. Henry’s useful and laborious History of
Great Britain, vol. ii. p. 388.]
150 (return) [ Quicquid (says John of Tinemouth) inter Tynam et
Tesam fluvios extitit, sola eremi vastitudo tunc temporis fuit,
et idcirco nullius ditioni servivit, eo quod sola indomitorum et
sylvestrium animalium spelunca et habitatio fuit, (apud Carte,
vol. i. p. 195.) From bishop Nicholson (English Historical
Library, p. 65, 98) I understand that fair copies of John of
Tinemouth’s ample collections are preserved in the libraries of
Oxford, Lambeth, &c.]
151 (return) [ See the mission of Wilfrid, &c., in Bede, Hist.
Eccles. l. iv. c. 13, 16, p. 155, 156, 159.]
152 (return) [ From the concurrent testimony of Bede (l. ii. c.
1, p. 78) and William of Malmsbury, (l. iii. p. 102,) it appears,
that the Anglo-Saxons, from the first to the last age, persisted
in this unnatural practice. Their youths were publicly sold in
the market of Rome.]
153 (return) [ According to the laws of Ina, they could not be
lawfully sold beyond the seas.]
154 (return) [ The life of a Wallus, or Cambricus, homo, who
possessed a hyde of land, is fixed at 120 shillings, by the same
laws (of Ina, tit. xxxii. in Leg. Anglo-Saxon. p. 20) which
allowed 200 shillings for a free Saxon, 1200 for a Thane, (see
likewise Leg. Anglo-Saxon. p. 71.) We may observe, that these
legislators, the West Saxons and Mercians, continued their
British conquests after they became Christians. The laws of the
four kings of Kent do not condescend to notice the existence of
any subject Britons.]
155 (return) [ See Carte’s Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 278.]
The independent Britons appear to have relapsed into the state of
original barbarism, from whence they had been imperfectly
reclaimed. Separated by their enemies from the rest of mankind,
they soon became an object of scandal and abhorrence to the
Catholic world. 156 Christianity was still professed in the
mountains of Wales; but the rude schismatics, in the form of the
clerical tonsure, and in the day of the celebration of Easter,
obstinately resisted the imperious mandates of the Roman
pontiffs. The use of the Latin language was insensibly abolished,
and the Britons were deprived of the art and learning which Italy
communicated to her Saxon proselytes. In Wales and Armorica, the
Celtic tongue, the native idiom of the West, was preserved and
propagated; and the Bards, who had been the companions of the
Druids, were still protected, in the sixteenth century, by the
laws of Elizabeth. Their chief, a respectable officer of the
courts of Pengwern, or Aberfraw, or Caermarthen, accompanied the
king’s servants to war: the monarchy of the Britons, which he
sung in the front of battle, excited their courage, and justified
their depredations; and the songster claimed for his legitimate
prize the fairest heifer of the spoil. His subordinate ministers,
the masters and disciples of vocal and instrumental music,
visited, in their respective circuits, the royal, the noble, and
the plebeian houses; and the public poverty, almost exhausted by
the clergy, was oppressed by the importunate demands of the
bards. Their rank and merit were ascertained by solemn trials,
and the strong belief of supernatural inspiration exalted the
fancy of the poet, and of his audience. 157 The last retreats of
Celtic freedom, the extreme territories of Gaul and Britain, were
less adapted to agriculture than to pasturage: the wealth of the
Britons consisted in their flocks and herds; milk and flesh were
their ordinary food; and bread was sometimes esteemed, or
rejected, as a foreign luxury. Liberty had peopled the mountains
of Wales and the morasses of Armorica; but their populousness has
been maliciously ascribed to the loose practice of polygamy; and
the houses of these licentious barbarians have been supposed to
contain ten wives, and perhaps fifty children. 158 Their
disposition was rash and choleric; they were bold in action and
in speech; 159 and as they were ignorant of the arts of peace,
they alternately indulged their passions in foreign and domestic
war. The cavalry of Armorica, the spearmen of Gwent, and the
archers of Merioneth, were equally formidable; but their poverty
could seldom procure either shields or helmets; and the
inconvenient weight would have retarded the speed and agility of
their desultory operations. One of the greatest of the English
monarchs was requested to satisfy the curiosity of a Greek
emperor concerning the state of Britain; and Henry II. could
assert, from his personal experience, that Wales was inhabited by
a race of naked warriors, who encountered, without fear, the
defensive armor of their enemies. 160
156 (return) [ At the conclusion of his history, (A.D. 731,) Bede
describes the ecclesiastical state of the island, and censures
the implacable, though impotent, hatred of the Britons against
the English nation, and the Catholic church, (l. v. c. 23, p.
219.)]
157 (return) [ Mr. Pennant’s Tour in Wales (p. 426-449) has
furnished me with a curious and interesting account of the Welsh
bards. In the year 1568, a session was held at Caerwys by the
special command of Queen Elizabeth, and regular degrees in vocal
and instrumental music were conferred on fifty-five minstrels.
The prize (a silver harp) was adjudged by the Mostyn family.]
158 (return) [ Regio longe lateque diffusa, milite, magis quam
credibile sit, referta. Partibus equidem in illis miles unus
quinquaginta generat, sortitus more barbaro denas aut amplius
uxores. This reproach of William of Poitiers (in the Historians
of France, tom. xi. p. 88) is disclaimed by the Benedictine
editors.]
159 (return) [ Giraldus Cambrensis confines this gift of bold and
ready eloquence to the Romans, the French, and the Britons. The
malicious Welshman insinuates that the English taciturnity might
possibly be the effect of their servitude under the Normans.]
160 (return) [ The picture of Welsh and Armorican manners is
drawn from Giraldus, (Descript. Cambriae, c. 6-15, inter Script.
Camden. p. 886-891,) and the authors quoted by the Abbe de
Vertot, (Hist. Critique tom. ii. p. 259-266.)]
By the revolution of Britain, the limits of science, as well as
of empire, were contracted. The dark cloud, which had been
cleared by the Phoenician discoveries, and finally dispelled by
the arms of Caesar, again settled on the shores of the Atlantic,
and a Roman province was again lost among the fabulous Islands of
the Ocean. One hundred and fifty years after the reign of
Honorius, the gravest historian of the times 161 describes the
wonders of a remote isle, whose eastern and western parts are
divided by an antique wall, the boundary of life and death, or,
more properly, of truth and fiction. The east is a fair country,
inhabited by a civilized people: the air is healthy, the waters
are pure and plentiful, and the earth yields her regular and
fruitful increase. In the west, beyond the wall, the air is
infectious and mortal; the ground is covered with serpents; and
this dreary solitude is the region of departed spirits, who are
transported from the opposite shores in substantial boats, and by
living rowers. Some families of fishermen, the subjects of the
Franks, are excused from tribute, in consideration of the
mysterious office which is performed by these Charons of the
ocean. Each in his turn is summoned, at the hour of midnight, to
hear the voices, and even the names, of the ghosts: he is
sensible of their weight, and he feels himself impelled by an
unknown, but irresistible power. After this dream of fancy, we
read with astonishment, that the name of this island is Brittia;
that it lies in the ocean, against the mouth of the Rhine, and
less than thirty miles from the continent; that it is possessed
by three nations, the Frisians, the Angles, and the Britons; and
that some Angles had appeared at Constantinople, in the train of
the French ambassadors. From these ambassadors Procopius might be
informed of a singular, though not improbable, adventure, which
announces the spirit, rather than the delicacy, of an English
heroine. She had been betrothed to Radiger, king of the Varni, a
tribe of Germans who touched the ocean and the Rhine; but the
perfidious lover was tempted, by motives of policy, to prefer his
father’s widow, the sister of Theodebert, king of the Franks. 162
The forsaken princess of the Angles, instead of bewailing,
revenged her disgrace. Her warlike subjects are said to have been
ignorant of the use, and even of the form, of a horse; but she
boldly sailed from Britain to the mouth of the Rhine, with a
fleet of four hundred ships, and an army of one hundred thousand
men. After the loss of a battle, the captive Radiger implored the
mercy of his victorious bride, who generously pardoned his
offence, dismissed her rival, and compelled the king of the Varni
to discharge with honor and fidelity the duties of a husband. 163
This gallant exploit appears to be the last naval enterprise of
the Anglo-Saxons. The arts of navigation, by which they acquired
the empire of Britain and of the sea, were soon neglected by the
indolent Barbarians, who supinely renounced all the commercial
advantages of their insular situation. Seven independent kingdoms
were agitated by perpetual discord; and the British world was
seldom connected, either in peace or war, with the nations of the
Continent. 164
161 (return) [ See Procopius de Bell. Gothic. l. iv. c. 20, p.
620-625. The Greek historian is himself so confounded by the
wonders which he relates, that he weakly attempts to distinguish
the islands of Britia and Britain, which he has identified by so
many inseparable circumstances.]
162 (return) [ Theodebert, grandson of Clovis, and king of
Austrasia, was the most powerful and warlike prince of the age;
and this remarkable adventure may be placed between the years 534
and 547, the extreme terms of his reign. His sister Theudechildis
retired to Sens, where she founded monasteries, and distributed
alms, (see the notes of the Benedictine editors, in tom. ii. p.
216.) If we may credit the praises of Fortunatus, (l. vi. carm.
5, in tom. ii. p. 507,) Radiger was deprived of a most valuable
wife.]
163 (return) [ Perhaps she was the sister of one of the princes
or chiefs of the Angles, who landed in 527, and the following
years, between the Humber and the Thames, and gradually founded
the kingdoms of East Anglia and Mercia. The English writers are
ignorant of her name and existence: but Procopius may have
suggested to Mr. Rowe the character and situation of Rodogune in
the tragedy of the Royal Convert.]
164 (return) [ In the copious history of Gregory of Tours, we
cannot find any traces of hostile or friendly intercourse between
France and England except in the marriage of the daughter of
Caribert, king of Paris, quam regis cujusdam in Cantia filius
matrimonio copulavit, (l. ix. c. 28, in tom. ii. p. 348.) The
bishop of Tours ended his history and his life almost immediately
before the conversion of Kent.]
I have now accomplished the laborious narrative of the decline
and fall of the Roman empire, from the fortunate age of Trajan
and the Antonines, to its total extinction in the West, about
five centuries after the Christian era. At that unhappy period,
the Saxons fiercely struggled with the natives for the possession
of Britain: Gaul and Spain were divided between the powerful
monarchies of the Franks and Visigoths, and the dependent
kingdoms of the Suevi and Burgundians: Africa was exposed to the
cruel persecution of the Vandals, and the savage insults of the
Moors: Rome and Italy, as far as the banks of the Danube, were
afflicted by an army of Barbarian mercenaries, whose lawless
tyranny was succeeded by the reign of Theodoric the Ostrogoth.
All the subjects of the empire, who, by the use of the Latin
language, more particularly deserved the name and privileges of
Romans, were oppressed by the disgrace and calamities of foreign
conquest; and the victorious nations of Germany established a new
system of manners and government in the western countries of
Europe. The majesty of Rome was faintly represented by the
princes of Constantinople, the feeble and imaginary successors of
Augustus. Yet they continued to reign over the East, from the
Danube to the Nile and Tigris; the Gothic and Vandal kingdoms of
Italy and Africa were subverted by the arms of Justinian; and the
history of the Greek emperors may still afford a long series of
instructive lessons, and interesting revolutions.
Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part VI.
General Observations On The Fall Of The Roman Empire In The West.
The Greeks, after their country had been reduced into a province,
imputed the triumphs of Rome, not to the merit, but to the
fortune, of the republic. The inconstant goddess, who so blindly
distributes and resumes her favors, had now consented (such was
the language of envious flattery) to resign her wings, to descend
from her globe, and to fix her firm and immutable throne on the
banks of the Tyber. 1000 A wiser Greek, who has composed, with a
philosophic spirit, the memorable history of his own times,
deprived his countrymen of this vain and delusive comfort, by
opening to their view the deep foundations of the greatness of
Rome. 2000 The fidelity of the citizens to each other, and to the
state, was confirmed by the habits of education, and the
prejudices of religion. Honor, as well as virtue, was the
principle of the republic; the ambitious citizens labored to
deserve the solemn glories of a triumph; and the ardor of the
Roman youth was kindled into active emulation, as often as they
beheld the domestic images of their ancestors. 3000 The temperate
struggles of the patricians and plebeians had finally established
the firm and equal balance of the constitution; which united the
freedom of popular assemblies, with the authority and wisdom of a
senate, and the executive powers of a regal magistrate. When the
consul displayed the standard of the republic, each citizen bound
himself, by the obligation of an oath, to draw his sword in the
cause of his country, till he had discharged the sacred duty by a
military service of ten years. This wise institution continually
poured into the field the rising generations of freemen and
soldiers; and their numbers were reenforced by the warlike and
populous states of Italy, who, after a brave resistance, had
yielded to the valor and embraced the alliance, of the Romans.
The sage historian, who excited the virtue of the younger Scipio,
and beheld the ruin of Carthage, 4000 has accurately described
their military system; their levies, arms, exercises,
subordination, marches, encampments; and the invincible legion,
superior in active strength to the Macedonian phalanx of Philip
and Alexander. From these institutions of peace and war Polybius
has deduced the spirit and success of a people, incapable of
fear, and impatient of repose. The ambitious design of conquest,
which might have been defeated by the seasonable conspiracy of
mankind, was attempted and achieved; and the perpetual violation
of justice was maintained by the political virtues of prudence
and courage. The arms of the republic, sometimes vanquished in
battle, always victorious in war, advanced with rapid steps to
the Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhine, and the Ocean; and the
images of gold, or silver, or brass, that might serve to
represent the nations and their kings, were successively broken
by the iron monarchy of Rome. 5000
1000 (return) [ Such are the figurative expressions of Plutarch,
(Opera, tom. ii. p. 318, edit. Wechel,) to whom, on the faith of
his son Lamprias, (Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec. tom. iii. p. 341,)
I shall boldly impute the malicious declamation. The same
opinions had prevailed among the Greeks two hundred and fifty
years before Plutarch; and to confute them is the professed
intention of Polybius, (Hist. l. i. p. 90, edit. Gronov. Amstel.
1670.)]
2000 (return) [ See the inestimable remains of the sixth book of
Polybius, and many other parts of his general history,
particularly a digression in the seventeenth book, in which he
compares the phalanx and the legion.]
3000 (return) [ Sallust, de Bell. Jugurthin. c. 4. Such were the
generous professions of P. Scipio and Q. Maximus. The Latin
historian had read and most probably transcribes, Polybius, their
contemporary and friend.]
4000 (return) [ While Carthage was in flames, Scipio repeated two
lines of the Iliad, which express the destruction of Troy,
acknowledging to Polybius, his friend and preceptor, (Polyb. in
Excerpt. de Virtut. et Vit. tom. ii. p. 1455-1465,) that while he
recollected the vicissitudes of human affairs, he inwardly
applied them to the future calamities of Rome, (Appian. in
Libycis, p. 136, edit. Toll.)]
5000 (return) [ See Daniel, ii. 31-40. “And the fourth kingdom
shall be strong as iron; forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and
subdueth all things.” The remainder of the prophecy (the mixture
of iron and clay) was accomplished, according to St. Jerom, in
his own time. Sicut enim in principio nihil Romano Imperio
fortius et durius, ita in fine rerum nihil imbecillius; quum et
in bellis civilibus et adversus diversas nationes, aliarum
gentium barbararum auxilio indigemus, (Opera, tom. v. p. 572.)]
The rise of a city, which swelled into an empire, may deserve, as
a singular prodigy, the reflection of a philosophic mind. But the
decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of
immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay;
the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest;
and as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial
supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its
own weight. The story of its ruin is simple and obvious; and
instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we
should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long. The
victorious legions, who, in distant wars, acquired the vices of
strangers and mercenaries, first oppressed the freedom of the
republic, and afterwards violated the majesty of the purple. The
emperors, anxious for their personal safety and the public peace,
were reduced to the base expedient of corrupting the discipline
which rendered them alike formidable to their sovereign and to
the enemy; the vigor of the military government was relaxed, and
finally dissolved, by the partial institutions of Constantine;
and the Roman world was overwhelmed by a deluge of Barbarians.
The decay of Rome has been frequently ascribed to the translation
of the seat of empire; but this History has already shown, that
the powers of government were divided, rather than removed. The
throne of Constantinople was erected in the East; while the West
was still possessed by a series of emperors who held their
residence in Italy, and claimed their equal inheritance of the
legions and provinces. This dangerous novelty impaired the
strength, and fomented the vices, of a double reign: the
instruments of an oppressive and arbitrary system were
multiplied; and a vain emulation of luxury, not of merit, was
introduced and supported between the degenerate successors of
Theodosius. Extreme distress, which unites the virtue of a free
people, imbitters the factions of a declining monarchy. The
hostile favorites of Arcadius and Honorius betrayed the republic
to its common enemies; and the Byzantine court beheld with
indifference, perhaps with pleasure, the disgrace of Rome, the
misfortunes of Italy, and the loss of the West. Under the
succeeding reigns, the alliance of the two empires was restored;
but the aid of the Oriental Romans was tardy, doubtful, and
ineffectual; and the national schism of the Greeks and Latins was
enlarged by the perpetual difference of language and manners, of
interests, and even of religion. Yet the salutary event approved
in some measure the judgment of Constantine. During a long period
of decay, his impregnable city repelled the victorious armies of
Barbarians, protected the wealth of Asia, and commanded, both in
peace and war, the important straits which connect the Euxine and
Mediterranean Seas. The foundation of Constantinople more
essentially contributed to the preservation of the East, than to
the ruin of the West.
As the happiness of a future life is the great object of
religion, we may hear without surprise or scandal, that the
introduction or at least the abuse, of Christianity had some
influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The clergy
successfully preached the doctrines of patience and
pusillanimity: the active virtues of society were discouraged;
and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the
cloister: a large portion of public and private wealth was
consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and
the soldiers’ pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both
sexes, who could only plead the merits of abstinence and
chastity. 511 Faith, zeal, curiosity, and the more earthly
passions of malice and ambition, kindled the flame of theological
discord; the church, and even the state, were distracted by
religious factions, whose conflicts were sometimes bloody, and
always implacable; the attention of the emperors was diverted
from camps to synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new
species of tyranny; and the persecuted sects became the secret
enemies of their country. Yet party spirit, however pernicious or
absurd, is a principle of union as well as of dissension. The
bishops, from eighteen hundred pulpits, inculcated the duty of
passive obedience to a lawful and orthodox sovereign; their
frequent assemblies, and perpetual correspondence, maintained the
communion of distant churches; and the benevolent temper of the
gospel was strengthened, though confined, by the spiritual
alliance of the Catholics. The sacred indolence of the monks was
devoutly embraced by a servile and effeminate age; but if
superstition had not afforded a decent retreat, the same vices
would have tempted the unworthy Romans to desert, from baser
motives, the standard of the republic. Religious precepts are
easily obeyed, which indulge and sanctify the natural
inclinations of their votaries; but the pure and genuine
influence of Christianity may be traced in its beneficial, though
imperfect, effects on the Barbarian proselytes of the North. If
the decline of the Roman empire was hastened by the conversion of
Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the
fall, and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors.
511 (return) [ It might be a curious speculation, how far the
purer morals of the genuine and more active Christians may have
compensated, in the population of the Roman empire, for the
secession of such numbers into inactive and unproductive
celibacy.—M.]
This awful revolution may be usefully applied to the instruction
of the present age. It is the duty of a patriot to prefer and
promote the exclusive interest and glory of his native country:
but a philosopher may be permitted to enlarge his views, and to
consider Europe as one great republic whose various inhabitants
have obtained almost the same level of politeness and
cultivation. The balance of power will continue to fluctuate, and
the prosperity of our own, or the neighboring kingdoms, may be
alternately exalted or depressed; but these partial events cannot
essentially injure our general state of happiness, the system of
arts, and laws, and manners, which so advantageously distinguish,
above the rest of mankind, the Europeans and their colonies. The
savage nations of the globe are the common enemies of civilized
society; and we may inquire, with anxious curiosity, whether
Europe is still threatened with a repetition of those calamities,
which formerly oppressed the arms and institutions of Rome.
Perhaps the same reflections will illustrate the fall of that
mighty empire, and explain the probable causes of our actual
security.
I. The Romans were ignorant of the extent of their danger, and
the number of their enemies. Beyond the Rhine and Danube, the
Northern countries of Europe and Asia were filled with
innumerable tribes of hunters and shepherds, poor, voracious, and
turbulent; bold in arms, and impatient to ravish the fruits of
industry. The Barbarian world was agitated by the rapid impulse
of war; and the peace of Gaul or Italy was shaken by the distant
revolutions of China. The Huns, who fled before a victorious
enemy, directed their march towards the West; and the torrent was
swelled by the gradual accession of captives and allies. The
flying tribes who yielded to the Huns assumed in their turn the
spirit of conquest; the endless column of Barbarians pressed on
the Roman empire with accumulated weight; and, if the foremost
were destroyed, the vacant space was instantly replenished by new
assailants. Such formidable emigrations can no longer issue from
the North; and the long repose, which has been imputed to the
decrease of population, is the happy consequence of the progress
of arts and agriculture. Instead of some rude villages, thinly
scattered among its woods and morasses, Germany now produces a
list of two thousand three hundred walled towns: the Christian
kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Poland, have been successively
established; and the Hanse merchants, with the Teutonic knights,
have extended their colonies along the coast of the Baltic, as
far as the Gulf of Finland. From the Gulf of Finland to the
Eastern Ocean, Russia now assumes the form of a powerful and
civilized empire. The plough, the loom, and the forge, are
introduced on the banks of the Volga, the Oby, and the Lena; and
the fiercest of the Tartar hordes have been taught to tremble and
obey. The reign of independent Barbarism is now contracted to a
narrow span; and the remnant of Calmucks or Uzbecks, whose forces
may be almost numbered, cannot seriously excite the apprehensions
of the great republic of Europe. 6000 Yet this apparent security
should not tempt us to forget, that new enemies, and unknown
dangers, may possibly arise from some obscure people, scarcely
visible in the map of the world, The Arabs or Saracens, who
spread their conquests from India to Spain, had languished in
poverty and contempt, till Mahomet breathed into those savage
bodies the soul of enthusiasm.
6000 (return) [ The French and English editors of the
Genealogical History of the Tartars have subjoined a curious,
though imperfect, description, of their present state. We might
question the independence of the Calmucks, or Eluths, since they
have been recently vanquished by the Chinese, who, in the year
1759, subdued the Lesser Bucharia, and advanced into the country
of Badakshan, near the source of the Oxus, (Mémoires sur les
Chinois, tom. i. p. 325-400.) But these conquests are precarious,
nor will I venture to insure the safety of the Chinese empire.]
II. The empire of Rome was firmly established by the singular and
perfect coalition of its members. The subject nations, resigning
the hope, and even the wish, of independence, embraced the
character of Roman citizens; and the provinces of the West were
reluctantly torn by the Barbarians from the bosom of their mother
country. 7000 But this union was purchased by the loss of
national freedom and military spirit; and the servile provinces,
destitute of life and motion, expected their safety from the
mercenary troops and governors, who were directed by the orders
of a distant court. The happiness of a hundred millions depended
on the personal merit of one or two men, perhaps children, whose
minds were corrupted by education, luxury, and despotic power.
The deepest wounds were inflicted on the empire during the
minorities of the sons and grandsons of Theodosius; and, after
those incapable princes seemed to attain the age of manhood, they
abandoned the church to the bishops, the state to the eunuchs,
and the provinces to the Barbarians. Europe is now divided into
twelve powerful, though unequal kingdoms, three respectable
commonwealths, and a variety of smaller, though independent,
states: the chances of royal and ministerial talents are
multiplied, at least, with the number of its rulers; and a
Julian, or Semiramis, may reign in the North, while Arcadius and
Honorius again slumber on the thrones of the South. The abuses of
tyranny are restrained by the mutual influence of fear and shame;
republics have acquired order and stability; monarchies have
imbibed the principles of freedom, or, at least, of moderation;
and some sense of honor and justice is introduced into the most
defective constitutions by the general manners of the times. In
peace, the progress of knowledge and industry is accelerated by
the emulation of so many active rivals: in war, the European
forces are exercised by temperate and undecisive contests. If a
savage conqueror should issue from the deserts of Tartary, he
must repeatedly vanquish the robust peasants of Russia, the
numerous armies of Germany, the gallant nobles of France, and the
intrepid freemen of Britain; who, perhaps, might confederate for
their common defence. Should the victorious Barbarians carry
slavery and desolation as far as the Atlantic Ocean, ten thousand
vessels would transport beyond their pursuit the remains of
civilized society; and Europe would revive and flourish in the
American world, which is already filled with her colonies and
institutions. 8000
7000 (return) [ The prudent reader will determine how far this
general proposition is weakened by the revolt of the Isaurians,
the independence of Britain and Armorica, the Moorish tribes, or
the Bagaudae of Gaul and Spain, (vol. i. p. 328, vol. iii. p.
315, vol. iii. p. 372, 480.)]
8000 (return) [ America now contains about six millions of
European blood and descent; and their numbers, at least in the
North, are continually increasing. Whatever may be the changes of
their political situation, they must preserve the manners of
Europe; and we may reflect with some pleasure, that the English
language will probably be diffused ever an immense and populous
continent.]
III. Cold, poverty, and a life of danger and fatigue, fortify the
strength and courage of Barbarians. In every age they have
oppressed the polite and peaceful nations of China, India, and
Persia, who neglected, and still neglect, to counterbalance these
natural powers by the resources of military art. The warlike
states of antiquity, Greece, Macedonia, and Rome, educated a race
of soldiers; exercised their bodies, disciplined their courage,
multiplied their forces by regular evolutions, and converted the
iron, which they possessed, into strong and serviceable weapons.
But this superiority insensibly declined with their laws and
manners; and the feeble policy of Constantine and his successors
armed and instructed, for the ruin of the empire, the rude valor
of the Barbarian mercenaries. The military art has been changed
by the invention of gunpowder; which enables man to command the
two most powerful agents of nature, air and fire. Mathematics,
chemistry, mechanics, architecture, have been applied to the
service of war; and the adverse parties oppose to each other the
most elaborate modes of attack and of defence. Historians may
indignantly observe, that the preparations of a siege would found
and maintain a flourishing colony; 9000 yet we cannot be
displeased, that the subversion of a city should be a work of
cost and difficulty; or that an industrious people should be
protected by those arts, which survive and supply the decay of
military virtue. Cannon and fortifications now form an
impregnable barrier against the Tartar horse; and Europe is
secure from any future irruptions of Barbarians; since, before
they can conquer, they must cease to be barbarous. Their gradual
advances in the science of war would always be accompanied, as we
may learn from the example of Russia, with a proportionable
improvement in the arts of peace and civil policy; and they
themselves must deserve a place among the polished nations whom
they subdue.
9000 (return) [ On avoit fait venir (for the siege of Turin) 140
pieces de canon; et il est a remarquer que chaque gros canon
monte revient a environ ecus: il y avoit 100,000 boulets; 106,000
cartouches d’une facon, et 300,000 d’une autre; 21,000 bombes;
27,700 grenades, 15,000 sacs a terre, 30,000 instruments pour la
pionnage; 1,200,000 livres de poudre. Ajoutez a ces munitions, le
plomb, le fer, et le fer-blanc, les cordages, tout ce qui sert
aux mineurs, le souphre, le salpetre, les outils de toute espece.
Il est certain que les frais de tous ces preparatifs de
destruction suffiroient pour fonder et pour faire fleurir la plus
aombreuse colonie. Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV. c. xx. in his
Works. tom. xi. p. 391.]
Should these speculations be found doubtful or fallacious, there
still remains a more humble source of comfort and hope. The
discoveries of ancient and modern navigators, and the domestic
history, or tradition, of the most enlightened nations, represent
the human savage, naked both in body and mind and destitute of
laws, of arts, of ideas, and almost of language. 1001 From this
abject condition, perhaps the primitive and universal state of
man, he has gradually arisen to command the animals, to fertilize
the earth, to traverse the ocean and to measure the heavens. His
progress in the improvement and exercise of his mental and
corporeal faculties 1101 has been irregular and various;
infinitely slow in the beginning, and increasing by degrees with
redoubled velocity: ages of laborious ascent have been followed
by a moment of rapid downfall; and the several climates of the
globe have felt the vicissitudes of light and darkness. Yet the
experience of four thousand years should enlarge our hopes, and
diminish our apprehensions: we cannot determine to what height
the human species may aspire in their advances towards
perfection; but it may safely be presumed, that no people, unless
the face of nature is changed, will relapse into their original
barbarism. The improvements of society may be viewed under a
threefold aspect. 1. The poet or philosopher illustrates his age
and country by the efforts of a single mind; but those superior
powers of reason or fancy are rare and spontaneous productions;
and the genius of Homer, or Cicero, or Newton, would excite less
admiration, if they could be created by the will of a prince, or
the lessons of a preceptor. 2. The benefits of law and policy, of
trade and manufactures, of arts and sciences, are more solid and
permanent: and many individuals may be qualified, by education
and discipline, to promote, in their respective stations, the
interest of the community. But this general order is the effect
of skill and labor; and the complex machinery may be decayed by
time, or injured by violence.
3. Fortunately for mankind, the more useful, or, at least, more
necessary arts, can be performed without superior talents, or
national subordination: without the powers of one, or the union
of many. Each village, each family, each individual, must always
possess both ability and inclination to perpetuate the use of
fire 1201 and of metals; the propagation and service of domestic
animals; the methods of hunting and fishing; the rudiments of
navigation; the imperfect cultivation of corn, or other nutritive
grain; and the simple practice of the mechanic trades. Private
genius and public industry may be extirpated; but these hardy
plants survive the tempest, and strike an everlasting root into
the most unfavorable soil. The splendid days of Augustus and
Trajan were eclipsed by a cloud of ignorance; and the Barbarians
subverted the laws and palaces of Rome. But the scythe, the
invention or emblem of Saturn, 1302 still continued annually to
mow the harvests of Italy; and the human feasts of the
Laestrigons 1401 have never been renewed on the coast of
Campania.
1001 (return) [ It would be an easy, though tedious, task, to
produce the authorities of poets, philosophers, and historians. I
shall therefore content myself with appealing to the decisive and
authentic testimony of Diodorus Siculus, (tom. i. l. i. p. 11,
12, l. iii. p. 184, &c., edit. Wesseling.) The Icthyophagi, who
in his time wandered along the shores of the Red Sea, can only be
compared to the natives of New Holland, (Dampier’s Voyages, vol.
i. p. 464-469.) Fancy, or perhaps reason, may still suppose an
extreme and absolute state of nature far below the level of these
savages, who had acquired some arts and instruments.]
1101 (return) [ See the learned and rational work of the
president Goguet, de l’Origine des Loix, des Arts, et des
Sciences. He traces from facts, or conjectures, (tom. i. p.
147-337, edit. 12mo.,) the first and most difficult steps of
human invention.]
1201 (return) [ It is certain, however strange, that many nations
have been ignorant of the use of fire. Even the ingenious natives
of Otaheite, who are destitute of metals, have not invented any
earthen vessels capable of sustaining the action of fire, and of
communicating the heat to the liquids which they contain.]
1302 (return) [ Plutarch. Quaest. Rom. in tom. ii. p. 275.
Macrob. Saturnal. l. i. c. 8, p. 152, edit. London. The arrival
of Saturn (of his religious worship) in a ship, may indicate,
that the savage coast of Latium was first discovered and
civilized by the Phoenicians.]
1401 (return) [ In the ninth and tenth books of the Odyssey,
Homer has embellished the tales of fearful and credulous sailors,
who transformed the cannibals of Italy and Sicily into monstrous
giants.]
Since the first discovery of the arts, war, commerce, and
religious zeal have diffused, among the savages of the Old and
New World, these inestimable gifts: they have been successively
propagated; they can never be lost. We may therefore acquiesce in
the pleasing conclusion, that every age of the world has
increased, and still increases, the real wealth, the happiness,
the knowledge, and perhaps the virtue, of the human race. 1501
1501 (return) [ The merit of discovery has too often been stained
with avarice, cruelty, and fanaticism; and the intercourse of
nations has produced the communication of disease and prejudice.
A singular exception is due to the virtue of our own times and
country. The five great voyages, successively undertaken by the
command of his present Majesty, were inspired by the pure and
generous love of science and of mankind. The same prince,
adapting his benefactions to the different stages of society, has
founded his school of painting in his capital; and has introduced
into the islands of the South Sea the vegetables and animals most
useful to human life.]
VOLUME FOUR
Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—Part I.
Zeno And Anastasius, Emperors Of The East.—Birth, Education, And First
Exploits Of Theodoric The Ostrogoth.—His Invasion And Conquest Of
Italy.—The Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—State Of The West.—Military And
Civil Government.—The Senator Boethius.—Last Acts And Death Of
Theodoric.
After the fall of the Roman empire in the West, an interval of
fifty years, till the memorable reign of Justinian, is faintly
marked by the obscure names and imperfect annals of Zeno,
Anastasius, and Justin, who successively ascended to the throne
of Constantinople. During the same period, Italy revived and
flourished under the government of a Gothic king, who might have
deserved a statue among the best and bravest of the ancient
Romans.
Theodoric the Ostrogoth, the fourteenth in lineal descent of the
royal line of the Amali, 1 was born in the neighborhood of Vienna
2 two years after the death of Attila. 2111 A recent victory had
restored the independence of the Ostrogoths; and the three
brothers, Walamir, Theodemir, and Widimir, who ruled that warlike
nation with united counsels, had separately pitched their
habitations in the fertile though desolate province of Pannonia.
The Huns still threatened their revolted subjects, but their
hasty attack was repelled by the single forces of Walamir, and
the news of his victory reached the distant camp of his brother
in the same auspicious moment that the favorite concubine of
Theodemir was delivered of a son and heir. In the eighth year of
his age, Theodoric was reluctantly yielded by his father to the
public interest, as the pledge of an alliance which Leo, emperor
of the East, had consented to purchase by an annual subsidy of
three hundred pounds of gold. The royal hostage was educated at
Constantinople with care and tenderness. His body was formed to
all the exercises of war, his mind was expanded by the habits of
liberal conversation; he frequented the schools of the most
skilful masters; but he disdained or neglected the arts of
Greece, and so ignorant did he always remain of the first
elements of science, that a rude mark was contrived to represent
the signature of the illiterate king of Italy. 3 As soon as he
had attained the age of eighteen, he was restored to the wishes
of the Ostrogoths, whom the emperor aspired to gain by liberality
and confidence. Walamir had fallen in battle; the youngest of the
brothers, Widimir, had led away into Italy and Gaul an army of
Barbarians, and the whole nation acknowledged for their king the
father of Theodoric. His ferocious subjects admired the strength
and stature of their young prince; 4 and he soon convinced them
that he had not degenerated from the valor of his ancestors. At
the head of six thousand volunteers, he secretly left the camp in
quest of adventures, descended the Danube as far as Singidunum,
or Belgrade, and soon returned to his father with the spoils of a
Sarmatian king whom he had vanquished and slain. Such triumphs,
however, were productive only of fame, and the invincible
Ostrogoths were reduced to extreme distress by the want of
clothing and food. They unanimously resolved to desert their
Pannonian encampments, and boldly to advance into the warm and
wealthy neighborhood of the Byzantine court, which already
maintained in pride and luxury so many bands of confederate
Goths. After proving, by some acts of hostility, that they could
be dangerous, or at least troublesome, enemies, the Ostrogoths
sold at a high price their reconciliation and fidelity, accepted
a donative of lands and money, and were intrusted with the
defence of the Lower Danube, under the command of Theodoric, who
succeeded after his father’s death to the hereditary throne of
the Amali. 5
1 (return) [ Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 13, 14, p. 629, 630,
edit. Grot.) has drawn the pedigree of Theodoric from Gapt, one
of the Anses or Demigods, who lived about the time of Domitian.
Cassiodorus, the first who celebrates the royal race of the
Amali, (Viriar. viii. 5, ix. 25, x. 2, xi. 1,) reckons the
grandson of Theodoric as the xviith in descent. Peringsciold (the
Swedish commentator of Cochloeus, Vit. Theodoric. p. 271, &c.,
Stockholm, 1699) labors to connect this genealogy with the
legends or traditions of his native country. * Note: Amala was a
name of hereditary sanctity and honor among the Visigoths. It
enters into the names of Amalaberga, Amala suintha, (swinther
means strength,) Amalafred, Amalarich. In the poem of the
Nibelungen written three hundred years later, the Ostrogoths are
called the Amilungen. According to Wachter it means, unstained,
from the privative a, and malo a stain. It is pure Sanscrit,
Amala, immaculatus. Schlegel. Indische Bibliothek, 1. p. 233.—M.]
2 (return) [ More correctly on the banks of the Lake Pelso,
(Nieusiedler-see,) near Carnuntum, almost on the same spot where
Marcus Antoninus composed his meditations, Jornandes, c. 52, p.
659. Severin. Pannonia Illustrata, p. 22. Cellarius, Geograph.
Antiq. (tom. i. p. 350.)]
2111 (return) [ The date of Theodoric’s birth is not accurately
determined. We can hardly err, observes Manso, in placing it
between the years 453 and 455, Manso, Geschichte des Ost
Gothischen Reichs, p. 14.—M.]
3 (return) [ The four first letters of his name were inscribed on
a gold plate, and when it was fixed on the paper, the king drew
his pen through the intervals (Anonym. Valesian. ad calcem Amm.
Marcellin p. 722.) This authentic fact, with the testimony of
Procopius, or at least of the contemporary Goths, (Gothic. 1. i.
c. 2, p. 311,) far outweighs the vague praises of Ennodius
(Sirmond Opera, tom. i. p. 1596) and Theophanes, (Chronograph. p.
112.) * Note: Le Beau and his Commentator, M. St. Martin,
support, though with no very satisfactory evidence, the opposite
opinion. But Lord Mahon (Life of Belisarius, p. 19) urges the
much stronger argument, the Byzantine education of Theodroic.—M.]
4 (return) [ Statura est quae resignet proceritate regnantem,
(Ennodius, p. 1614.) The bishop of Pavia (I mean the ecclesiastic
who wished to be a bishop) then proceeds to celebrate the
complexion, eyes, hands, &c, of his sovereign.]
5 (return) [ The state of the Ostrogoths, and the first years of
Theodoric, are found in Jornandes, (c. 52—56, p. 689—696) and
Malchus, (Excerpt. Legat. p. 78—80,) who erroneously styles him
the son of Walamir.]
A hero, descended from a race of kings, must have despised the
base Isaurian who was invested with the Roman purple, without any
endowment of mind or body, without any advantages of royal birth,
or superior qualifications. After the failure of the Theodosian
line, the choice of Pulcheria and of the senate might be
justified in some measure by the characters of Martin and Leo,
but the latter of these princes confirmed and dishonored his
reign by the perfidious murder of Aspar and his sons, who too
rigorously exacted the debt of gratitude and obedience. The
inheritance of Leo and of the East was peaceably devolved on his
infant grandson, the son of his daughter Ariadne; and her
Isaurian husband, the fortunate Trascalisseus, exchanged that
barbarous sound for the Grecian appellation of Zeno. After the
decease of the elder Leo, he approached with unnatural respect
the throne of his son, humbly received, as a gift, the second
rank in the empire, and soon excited the public suspicion on the
sudden and premature death of his young colleague, whose life
could no longer promote the success of his ambition. But the
palace of Constantinople was ruled by female influence, and
agitated by female passions: and Verina, the widow of Leo,
claiming his empire as her own, pronounced a sentence of
deposition against the worthless and ungrateful servant on whom
she alone had bestowed the sceptre of the East. 6 As soon as she
sounded a revolt in the ears of Zeno, he fled with precipitation
into the mountains of Isauria, and her brother Basiliscus,
already infamous by his African expedition, 7 was unanimously
proclaimed by the servile senate. But the reign of the usurper
was short and turbulent. Basiliscus presumed to assassinate the
lover of his sister; he dared to offend the lover of his wife,
the vain and insolent Harmatius, who, in the midst of Asiatic
luxury, affected the dress, the demeanor, and the surname of
Achilles. 8 By the conspiracy of the malcontents, Zeno was
recalled from exile; the armies, the capital, the person, of
Basiliscus, were betrayed; and his whole family was condemned to
the long agony of cold and hunger by the inhuman conqueror, who
wanted courage to encounter or to forgive his enemies. 811 The
haughty spirit of Verina was still incapable of submission or
repose. She provoked the enmity of a favorite general, embraced
his cause as soon as he was disgraced, created a new emperor in
Syria and Egypt, 812 raised an army of seventy thousand men, and
persisted to the last moment of her life in a fruitless
rebellion, which, according to the fashion of the age, had been
predicted by Christian hermits and Pagan magicians. While the
East was afflicted by the passions of Verina, her daughter
Ariadne was distinguished by the female virtues of mildness and
fidelity; she followed her husband in his exile, and after his
restoration, she implored his clemency in favor of her mother. On
the decease of Zeno, Ariadne, the daughter, the mother, and the
widow of an emperor, gave her hand and the Imperial title to
Anastasius, an aged domestic of the palace, who survived his
elevation above twenty-seven years, and whose character is
attested by the acclamation of the people, “Reign as you have
lived!” 9 912
6 (return) [ Theophanes (p. 111) inserts a copy of her sacred
letters to the provinces. Such female pretensions would have
astonished the slaves of the first Caesars.]
7 (return) [ Vol. iii. p. 504—508.]
8 (return) [ Suidas, tom. i. p. 332, 333, edit. Kuster.]
811 (return) [ Joannes Lydus accuses Zeno of timidity, or,
rather, of cowardice; he purchased an ignominious peace from the
enemies of the empire, whom he dared not meet in battle; and
employed his whole time at home in confiscations and executions.
Lydus, de Magist. iii. 45, p. 230.—M.]
812 (return) [ Named Illus.—M.]
9 (return) [ The contemporary histories of Malchus and Candidus
are lost; but some extracts or fragments have been saved by
Photius, (lxxviii. lxxix. p. 100—102,) Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, (Excerpt. Leg. p. 78—97,) and in various
articles of the Lexicon of Suidas. The Chronicles of Marcellinus
(Imago Historiae) are originals for the reigns of Zeno and
Anastasius; and I must acknowledge, almost for the last time, my
obligations to the large and accurate collections of Tillemont,
(Hist. des Emp. tom. vi. p. 472—652).]
912 (return) [ The Panegyric of Procopius of Gaza, (edited by
Villoison in his Anecdota Graeca, and reprinted in the new
edition of the Byzantine historians by Niebuhr, in the same vol.
with Dexippus and Eunapius, viii. p. 488 516,) was unknown to
Gibbon. It is vague and pedantic, and contains few facts. The
same criticism will apply to the poetical panegyric of Priscian
edited from the Ms. of Bobbio by Ang. Mai. Priscian, the gram
marian, Niebuhr argues from this work, must have been born in the
African, not in either of the Asiatic Caesareas. Pref. p. xi.—M.]
Whatever fear or affection could bestow, was profusely lavished
by Zeno on the king of the Ostrogoths; the rank of patrician and
consul, the command of the Palatine troops, an equestrian statue,
a treasure in gold and silver of many thousand pounds, the name
of son, and the promise of a rich and honorable wife. As long as
Theodoric condescended to serve, he supported with courage and
fidelity the cause of his benefactor; his rapid march contributed
to the restoration of Zeno; and in the second revolt, the
Walamirs, as they were called, pursued and pressed the Asiatic
rebels, till they left an easy victory to the Imperial troops. 10
But the faithful servant was suddenly converted into a formidable
enemy, who spread the flames of war from Constantinople to the
Adriatic; many flourishing cities were reduced to ashes, and the
agriculture of Thrace was almost extirpated by the wanton cruelty
of the Goths, who deprived their captive peasants of the right
hand that guided the plough. 11 On such occasions, Theodoric
sustained the loud and specious reproach of disloyalty, of
ingratitude, and of insatiate avarice, which could be only
excused by the hard necessity of his situation. He reigned, not
as the monarch, but as the minister of a ferocious people, whose
spirit was unbroken by slavery, and impatient of real or
imaginary insults. Their poverty was incurable; since the most
liberal donatives were soon dissipated in wasteful luxury, and
the most fertile estates became barren in their hands; they
despised, but they envied, the laborious provincials; and when
their subsistence had failed, the Ostrogoths embraced the
familiar resources of war and rapine. It had been the wish of
Theodoric (such at least was his declaration) to lead a peaceful,
obscure, obedient life on the confines of Scythia, till the
Byzantine court, by splendid and fallacious promises, seduced him
to attack a confederate tribe of Goths, who had been engaged in
the party of Basiliscus. He marched from his station in Maesia,
on the solemn assurance that before he reached Adrianople, he
should meet a plentiful convoy of provisions, and a reenforcement
of eight thousand horse and thirty thousand foot, while the
legions of Asia were encamped at Heraclea to second his
operations. These measures were disappointed by mutual jealousy.
As he advanced into Thrace, the son of Theodemir found an
inhospitable solitude, and his Gothic followers, with a heavy
train of horses, of mules, and of wagons, were betrayed by their
guides among the rocks and precipices of Mount Sondis, where he
was assaulted by the arms and invectives of Theodoric the son of
Triarius. From a neighboring height, his artful rival harangued
the camp of the Walamirs, and branded their leader with the
opprobrious names of child, of madman, of perjured traitor, the
enemy of his blood and nation. “Are you ignorant,” exclaimed the
son of Triarius, “that it is the constant policy of the Romans to
destroy the Goths by each other’s swords? Are you insensible that
the victor in this unnatural contest will be exposed, and justly
exposed, to their implacable revenge? Where are those warriors,
my kinsmen and thy own, whose widows now lament that their lives
were sacrificed to thy rash ambition? Where is the wealth which
thy soldiers possessed when they were first allured from their
native homes to enlist under thy standard? Each of them was then
master of three or four horses; they now follow thee on foot,
like slaves, through the deserts of Thrace; those men who were
tempted by the hope of measuring gold with a bushel, those brave
men who are as free and as noble as thyself.” A language so well
suited to the temper of the Goths excited clamor and discontent;
and the son of Theodemir, apprehensive of being left alone, was
compelled to embrace his brethren, and to imitate the example of
Roman perfidy. 12 1211
10 (return) [ In ipsis congressionis tuae foribus cessit invasor,
cum profugo per te sceptra redderentur de salute dubitanti.
Ennodius then proceeds (p. 1596, 1597, tom. i. Sirmond.) to
transport his hero (on a flying dragon?) into Aethiopia, beyond
the tropic of Cancer. The evidence of the Valesian Fragment, (p.
717,) Liberatus, (Brev. Eutych. c. 25 p. 118,) and Theophanes,
(p. 112,) is more sober and rational.]
11 (return) [ This cruel practice is specially imputed to the
Triarian Goths, less barbarous, as it should seem, than the
Walamirs; but the son of Theodemir is charged with the ruin of
many Roman cities, (Malchus, Excerpt. Leg. p. 95.)]
12 (return) [ Jornandes (c. 56, 57, p. 696) displays the services
of Theodoric, confesses his rewards, but dissembles his revolt,
of which such curious details have been preserved by Malchus,
(Excerpt. Legat. p. 78—97.) Marcellinus, a domestic of Justinian,
under whose ivth consulship (A.D. 534) he composed his Chronicle,
(Scaliger, Thesaurus Temporum, P. ii, p. 34—57,) betrays his
prejudice and passion: in Graeciam debacchantem ...Zenonis
munificentia pene pacatus...beneficiis nunquam satiatus, &c.]
1211 (return) [ Gibbon has omitted much of the complicated
intrigues of the Byzantine court with the two Theodorics. The
weak emperor attempted to play them one against the other, and
was himself in turn insulted, and the empire ravaged, by both.
The details of the successive alliance and revolt, of hostility
and of union, between the two Gothic chieftains, to dictate terms
to the emperor, may be found in Malchus.—M.]
In every state of his fortune, the prudence and firmness of
Theodoric were equally conspicuous; whether he threatened
Constantinople at the head of the confederate Goths, or retreated
with a faithful band to the mountains and sea-coast of Epirus. At
length the accidental death of the son of Triarius 13 destroyed
the balance which the Romans had been so anxious to preserve, the
whole nation acknowledged the supremacy of the Amali, and the
Byzantine court subscribed an ignominious and oppressive treaty.
14 The senate had already declared, that it was necessary to
choose a party among the Goths, since the public was unequal to
the support of their united forces; a subsidy of two thousand
pounds of gold, with the ample pay of thirteen thousand men, were
required for the least considerable of their armies; 15 and the
Isaurians, who guarded not the empire but the emperor, enjoyed,
besides the privilege of rapine, an annual pension of five
thousand pounds. The sagacious mind of Theodoric soon perceived
that he was odious to the Romans, and suspected by the
Barbarians: he understood the popular murmur, that his subjects
were exposed in their frozen huts to intolerable hardships, while
their king was dissolved in the luxury of Greece, and he
prevented the painful alternative of encountering the Goths, as
the champion, or of leading them to the field, as the enemy, of
Zeno. Embracing an enterprise worthy of his courage and ambition,
Theodoric addressed the emperor in the following words: “Although
your servant is maintained in affluence by your liberality,
graciously listen to the wishes of my heart! Italy, the
inheritance of your predecessors, and Rome itself, the head and
mistress of the world, now fluctuate under the violence and
oppression of Odoacer the mercenary. Direct me, with my national
troops, to march against the tyrant. If I fall, you will be
relieved from an expensive and troublesome friend: if, with the
divine permission, I succeed, I shall govern in your name, and to
your glory, the Roman senate, and the part of the republic
delivered from slavery by my victorious arms.” The proposal of
Theodoric was accepted, and perhaps had been suggested, by the
Byzantine court. But the forms of the commission, or grant,
appear to have been expressed with a prudent ambiguity, which
might be explained by the event; and it was left doubtful,
whether the conqueror of Italy should reign as the lieutenant,
the vassal, or the ally, of the emperor of the East.16
13 (return) [ As he was riding in his own camp, an unruly horse
threw him against the point of a spear which hung before a tent,
or was fixed on a wagon, (Marcellin. in Chron. Evagrius, l. iii.
c. 25.)]
14 (return) [ See Malchus (p. 91) and Evagrius, (l. iii. c. 35.)]
15 (return) [ Malchus, p. 85. In a single action, which was
decided by the skill and discipline of Sabinian, Theodoric could
lose 5000 men.] [Footnote 16: Jornandes (c. 57, p. 696, 697) has
abridged the great history of Cassiodorus. See, compare, and
reconcile Procopius, (Gothic. l. i. c. i.,) the Valesian
Fragment, (p. 718,) Theophanes, (p. 113,) and Marcellinus, (in
Chron.)]
16 (return) [ Jordanes (c. 57, p. 696, 697) has abridged the
great history of Cassiodorus. See, compare, and reconcile,
Procopius (Gothic. 1. i. c. i.), the Valesian Fragment (p.718),
Theophanes (p. 113), and Marcellinus (in Chron.).]
The reputation both of the leader and of the war diffused a
universal ardor; the Walamirs were multiplied by the Gothic
swarms already engaged in the service, or seated in the
provinces, of the empire; and each bold Barbarian, who had heard
of the wealth and beauty of Italy, was impatient to seek, through
the most perilous adventures, the possession of such enchanting
objects. The march of Theodoric must be considered as the
emigration of an entire people; the wives and children of the
Goths, their aged parents, and most precious effects, were
carefully transported; and some idea may be formed of the heavy
baggage that now followed the camp, by the loss of two thousand
wagons, which had been sustained in a single action in the war of
Epirus. For their subsistence, the Goths depended on the
magazines of corn which was ground in portable mills by the hands
of their women; on the milk and flesh of their flocks and herds;
on the casual produce of the chase, and upon the contributions
which they might impose on all who should presume to dispute the
passage, or to refuse their friendly assistance. Notwithstanding
these precautions, they were exposed to the danger, and almost to
the distress, of famine, in a march of seven hundred miles, which
had been undertaken in the depth of a rigorous winter. Since the
fall of the Roman power, Dacia and Pannonia no longer exhibited
the rich prospect of populous cities, well-cultivated fields, and
convenient highways: the reign of barbarism and desolation was
restored, and the tribes of Bulgarians, Gepidae, and Sarmatians,
who had occupied the vacant province, were prompted by their
native fierceness, or the solicitations of Odoacer, to resist the
progress of his enemy. In many obscure though bloody battles,
Theodoric fought and vanquished; till at length, surmounting
every obstacle by skilful conduct and persevering courage, he
descended from the Julian Alps, and displayed his invincible
banners on the confines of Italy. 17
17 (return) [ Theodoric’s march is supplied and illustrated by
Ennodius, (p. 1598—1602,) when the bombast of the oration is
translated into the language of common sense.]
Odoacer, a rival not unworthy of his arms, had already occupied
the advantageous and well-known post of the River Sontius, near
the ruins of Aquileia, at the head of a powerful host, whose
independent kings 18 or leaders disdained the duties of
subordination and the prudence of delays. No sooner had Theodoric
gained a short repose and refreshment to his wearied cavalry,
than he boldly attacked the fortifications of the enemy; the
Ostrogoths showed more ardor to acquire, than the mercenaries to
defend, the lands of Italy; and the reward of the first victory
was the possession of the Venetian province as far as the walls
of Verona. In the neighborhood of that city, on the steep banks
of the rapid Adige, he was opposed by a new army, reenforced in
its numbers, and not impaired in its courage: the contest was
more obstinate, but the event was still more decisive; Odoacer
fled to Ravenna, Theodoric advanced to Milan, and the vanquished
troops saluted their conqueror with loud acclamations of respect
and fidelity. But their want either of constancy or of faith soon
exposed him to the most imminent danger; his vanguard, with
several Gothic counts, which had been rashly intrusted to a
deserter, was betrayed and destroyed near Faenza by his double
treachery; Odoacer again appeared master of the field, and the
invader, strongly intrenched in his camp of Pavia, was reduced to
solicit the aid of a kindred nation, the Visigoths of Gaul. In
the course of this History, the most voracious appetite for war
will be abundantly satiated; nor can I much lament that our dark
and imperfect materials do not afford a more ample narrative of
the distress of Italy, and of the fierce conflict, which was
finally decided by the abilities, experience, and valor of the
Gothic king. Immediately before the battle of Verona, he visited
the tent of his mother 19 and sister, and requested, that on a
day, the most illustrious festival of his life, they would adorn
him with the rich garments which they had worked with their own
hands. “Our glory,” said he, “is mutual and inseparable. You are
known to the world as the mother of Theodoric; and it becomes me
to prove, that I am the genuine offspring of those heroes from
whom I claim my descent.” The wife or concubine of Theodemir was
inspired with the spirit of the German matrons, who esteemed
their sons’ honor far above their safety; and it is reported,
that in a desperate action, when Theodoric himself was hurried
along by the torrent of a flying crowd, she boldly met them at
the entrance of the camp, and, by her generous reproaches, drove
them back on the swords of the enemy. 20
18 (return) [ Tot reges, &c., (Ennodius, p. 1602.) We must
recollect how much the royal title was multiplied and degraded,
and that the mercenaries of Italy were the fragments of many
tribes and nations.]
19 (return) [ See Ennodius, p. 1603, 1604. Since the orator, in
the king’s presence, could mention and praise his mother, we may
conclude that the magnanimity of Theodoric was not hurt by the
vulgar reproaches of concubine and bastard. * Note: Gibbon here
assumes that the mother of Theodoric was the concubine of
Theodemir, which he leaves doubtful in the text.—M.]
20 (return) [ This anecdote is related on the modern but
respectable authority of Sigonius, (Op. tom. i. p. 580. De
Occident. Impl. l. xv.:) his words are curious: “Would you
return?” &c. She presented and almost displayed the original
recess. * Note: The authority of Sigonius would scarcely have
weighed with Gibbon except for an indecent anecdote. I have a
recollection of a similar story in some of the Italian wars.—M.]
From the Alps to the extremity of Calabria, Theodoric reigned by
the right of conquest; the Vandal ambassadors surrendered the
Island of Sicily, as a lawful appendage of his kingdom; and he
was accepted as the deliverer of Rome by the senate and people,
who had shut their gates against the flying usurper. 21 Ravenna
alone, secure in the fortifications of art and nature, still
sustained a siege of almost three years; and the daring sallies
of Odoacer carried slaughter and dismay into the Gothic camp. At
length, destitute of provisions and hopeless of relief, that
unfortunate monarch yielded to the groans of his subjects and the
clamors of his soldiers. A treaty of peace was negotiated by the
bishop of Ravenna; the Ostrogoths were admitted into the city,
and the hostile kings consented, under the sanction of an oath,
to rule with equal and undivided authority the provinces of
Italy. The event of such an agreement may be easily foreseen.
After some days had been devoted to the semblance of joy and
friendship, Odoacer, in the midst of a solemn banquet, was
stabbed by the hand, or at least by the command, of his rival.
Secret and effectual orders had been previously despatched; the
faithless and rapacious mercenaries, at the same moment, and
without resistance, were universally massacred; and the royalty
of Theodoric was proclaimed by the Goths, with the tardy,
reluctant, ambiguous consent of the emperor of the East. The
design of a conspiracy was imputed, according to the usual forms,
to the prostrate tyrant; but his innocence, and the guilt of his
conqueror, 22 are sufficiently proved by the advantageous treaty
which force would not sincerely have granted, nor weakness have
rashly infringed. The jealousy of power, and the mischiefs of
discord, may suggest a more decent apology, and a sentence less
rigorous may be pronounced against a crime which was necessary to
introduce into Italy a generation of public felicity. The living
author of this felicity was audaciously praised in his own
presence by sacred and profane orators; 23 but history (in his
time she was mute and inglorious) has not left any just
representation of the events which displayed, or of the defects
which clouded, the virtues of Theodoric. 24 One record of his
fame, the volume of public epistles composed by Cassiodorus in
the royal name, is still extant, and has obtained more implicit
credit than it seems to deserve. 25 They exhibit the forms,
rather than the substance, of his government; and we should
vainly search for the pure and spontaneous sentiments of the
Barbarian amidst the declamation and learning of a sophist, the
wishes of a Roman senator, the precedents of office, and the
vague professions, which, in every court, and on every occasion,
compose the language of discreet ministers. The reputation of
Theodoric may repose with more confidence on the visible peace
and prosperity of a reign of thirty-three years; the unanimous
esteem of his own times, and the memory of his wisdom and
courage, his justice and humanity, which was deeply impressed on
the minds of the Goths and Italians.
21 (return) [ Hist. Miscell. l. xv., a Roman history from Janus
to the ixth century, an Epitome of Eutropius, Paulus Diaconus,
and Theophanes which Muratori has published from a Ms. in the
Ambrosian library, (Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. i. p. 100.)]
22 (return) [ Procopius (Gothic. l. i. c. i.) approves himself an
impartial sceptic. Cassiodorus (in Chron.) and Ennodius (p. 1604)
are loyal and credulous, and the testimony of the Valesian
Fragment (p. 718) may justify their belief. Marcellinus spits the
venom of a Greek subject—perjuriis illectus, interfectusque est,
(in Chron.)]
23 (return) [ The sonorous and servile oration of Ennodius was
pronounced at Milan or Ravenna in the years 507 or 508, (Sirmond,
tom. i. p. 615.) Two or three years afterwards, the orator was
rewarded with the bishopric of Pavia, which he held till his
death in the year 521. (Dupin, Bibliot. Eccles. tom. v. p. 11-14.
See Saxii Onomasticon, tom. ii. p. 12.)]
24 (return) [ Our best materials are occasional hints from
Procopius and the Valesian Fragment, which was discovered by
Sirmond, and is published at the end of Ammianus Marcellinus. The
author’s name is unknown, and his style is barbarous; but in his
various facts he exhibits the knowledge, without the passions, of
a contemporary. The president Montesquieu had formed the plan of
a history of Theodoric, which at a distance might appear a rich
and interesting subject.]
25 (return) [ The best edition of the Variarum Libri xii. is that
of Joh. Garretius, (Rotomagi, 1679, in Opp. Cassiodor. 2 vols. in
fol.;) but they deserved and required such an editor as the
Marquis Scipio Maffei, who thought of publishing them at Verona.
The Barbara Eleganza (as it is ingeniously named by Tiraboschi)
is never simple, and seldom perspicuous]
The partition of the lands of Italy, of which Theodoric assigned
the third part to his soldiers, is honorably arraigned as the
sole injustice of his life. 2511 And even this act may be fairly
justified by the example of Odoacer, the rights of conquest, the
true interest of the Italians, and the sacred duty of subsisting
a whole people, who, on the faith of his promises, had
transported themselves into a distant land. 26 Under the reign of
Theodoric, and in the happy climate of Italy, the Goths soon
multiplied to a formidable host of two hundred thousand men, 27
and the whole amount of their families may be computed by the
ordinary addition of women and children. Their invasion of
property, a part of which must have been already vacant, was
disguised by the generous but improper name of hospitality; these
unwelcome guests were irregularly dispersed over the face of
Italy, and the lot of each Barbarian was adequate to his birth
and office, the number of his followers, and the rustic wealth
which he possessed in slaves and cattle. The distinction of noble
and plebeian were acknowledged; 28 but the lands of every freeman
were exempt from taxes, 2811 and he enjoyed the inestimable
privilege of being subject only to the laws of his country. 29
Fashion, and even convenience, soon persuaded the conquerors to
assume the more elegant dress of the natives, but they still
persisted in the use of their mother-tongue; and their contempt
for the Latin schools was applauded by Theodoric himself, who
gratified their prejudices, or his own, by declaring, that the
child who had trembled at a rod, would never dare to look upon a
sword. 30 Distress might sometimes provoke the indigent Roman to
assume the ferocious manners which were insensibly relinquished
by the rich and luxurious Barbarian; 31 but these mutual
conversions were not encouraged by the policy of a monarch who
perpetuated the separation of the Italians and Goths; reserving
the former for the arts of peace, and the latter for the service
of war. To accomplish this design, he studied to protect his
industrious subjects, and to moderate the violence, without
enervating the valor, of his soldiers, who were maintained for
the public defence. They held their lands and benefices as a
military stipend: at the sound of the trumpet, they were prepared
to march under the conduct of their provincial officers; and the
whole extent of Italy was distributed into the several quarters
of a well-regulated camp. The service of the palace and of the
frontiers was performed by choice or by rotation; and each
extraordinary fatigue was recompensed by an increase of pay and
occasional donatives. Theodoric had convinced his brave
companions, that empire must be acquired and defended by the same
arts. After his example, they strove to excel in the use, not
only of the lance and sword, the instruments of their victories,
but of the missile weapons, which they were too much inclined to
neglect; and the lively image of war was displayed in the daily
exercise and annual reviews of the Gothic cavalry. A firm though
gentle discipline imposed the habits of modesty, obedience, and
temperance; and the Goths were instructed to spare the people, to
reverence the laws, to understand the duties of civil society,
and to disclaim the barbarous license of judicial combat and
private revenge. 32
2511 (return) [ Compare Gibbon, ch. xxxvi. vol. iii. p. 459,
&c.—Manso observes that this division was conducted not in a
violent and irregular, but in a legal and orderly, manner. The
Barbarian, who could not show a title of grant from the officers
of Theodoric appointed for the purpose, or a prescriptive right
of thirty years, in case he had obtained the property before the
Ostrogothic conquest, was ejected from the estate. He conceives
that estates too small to bear division paid a third of their
produce.—Geschichte des Os Gothischen Reiches, p. 82.—M.]
26 (return) [ Procopius, Gothic, l. i. c. i. Variarum, ii. Maffei
(Verona Illustrata, P. i. p. 228) exaggerates the injustice of
the Goths, whom he hated as an Italian noble. The plebeian
Muratori crouches under their oppression.]
27 (return) [ Procopius, Goth. l. iii. c. 421. Ennodius describes
(p. 1612, 1613) the military arts and increasing numbers of the
Goths.]
28 (return) [ When Theodoric gave his sister to the king of the
Vandals she sailed for Africa with a guard of 1000 noble Goths,
each of whom was attended by five armed followers, (Procop.
Vandal. l. i. c. 8.) The Gothic nobility must have been as
numerous as brave.]
2811 (return) [ Manso (p. 100) quotes two passages from
Cassiodorus to show that the Goths were not exempt from the
fiscal claims.—Cassiodor, i. 19, iv. 14—M.]
29 (return) [ See the acknowledgment of Gothic liberty, (Var. v.
30.)]
30 (return) [ Procopius, Goth. l. i. c. 2. The Roman boys learnt
the language (Var. viii. 21) of the Goths. Their general
ignorance is not destroyed by the exceptions of Amalasuntha, a
female, who might study without shame, or of Theodatus, whose
learning provoked the indignation and contempt of his
countrymen.]
31 (return) [ A saying of Theodoric was founded on experience:
“Romanus miser imitatur Gothum; ut utilis (dives) Gothus imitatur
Romanum.” (See the Fragment and Notes of Valesius, p. 719.)]
32 (return) [ The view of the military establishment of the Goths
in Italy is collected from the Epistles of Cassiodorus (Var. i.
24, 40; iii. 3, 24, 48; iv. 13, 14; v. 26, 27; viii. 3, 4, 25.)
They are illustrated by the learned Mascou, (Hist. of the
Germans, l. xi. 40—44, Annotation xiv.) Note: Compare Manso,
Geschichte des Ost Gothischen Reiches, p. 114.—M.]
Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—Part II.
Among the Barbarians of the West, the victory of Theodoric had
spread a general alarm. But as soon as it appeared that he was
satisfied with conquest and desirous of peace, terror was changed
into respect, and they submitted to a powerful mediation, which
was uniformly employed for the best purposes of reconciling their
quarrels and civilizing their manners. 33 The ambassadors who
resorted to Ravenna from the most distant countries of Europe,
admired his wisdom, magnificence, 34 and courtesy; and if he
sometimes accepted either slaves or arms, white horses or strange
animals, the gift of a sun-dial, a water-clock, or a musician,
admonished even the princes of Gaul of the superior art and
industry of his Italian subjects. His domestic alliances, 35 a
wife, two daughters, a sister, and a niece, united the family of
Theodoric with the kings of the Franks, the Burgundians, the
Visigoths, the Vandals, and the Thuringians, and contributed to
maintain the harmony, or at least the balance, of the great
republic of the West. 36 It is difficult in the dark forests of
Germany and Poland to pursue the emigrations of the Heruli, a
fierce people who disdained the use of armor, and who condemned
their widows and aged parents not to survive the loss of their
husbands, or the decay of their strength. 37 The king of these
savage warriors solicited the friendship of Theodoric, and was
elevated to the rank of his son, according to the barbaric rites
of a military adoption. 38 From the shores of the Baltic, the
Aestians or Livonians laid their offerings of native amber 39 at
the feet of a prince, whose fame had excited them to undertake an
unknown and dangerous journey of fifteen hundred miles. With the
country 40 from whence the Gothic nation derived their origin, he
maintained a frequent and friendly correspondence: the Italians
were clothed in the rich sables 41 of Sweden; and one of its
sovereigns, after a voluntary or reluctant abdication, found a
hospitable retreat in the palace of Ravenna. He had reigned over
one of the thirteen populous tribes who cultivated a small
portion of the great island or peninsula of Scandinavia, to which
the vague appellation of Thule has been sometimes applied. That
northern region was peopled, or had been explored, as high as the
sixty-eighth degree of latitude, where the natives of the polar
circle enjoy and lose the presence of the sun at each summer and
winter solstice during an equal period of forty days. 42 The long
night of his absence or death was the mournful season of distress
and anxiety, till the messengers, who had been sent to the
mountain tops, descried the first rays of returning light, and
proclaimed to the plain below the festival of his resurrection.
43
33 (return) [ See the clearness and vigor of his negotiations in
Ennodius, (p. 1607,) and Cassiodorus, (Var. iii. 1, 2, 3, 4; iv.
13; v. 43, 44,) who gives the different styles of friendship,
counsel expostulation, &c.]
34 (return) [ Even of his table (Var. vi. 9) and palace, (vii.
5.) The admiration of strangers is represented as the most
rational motive to justify these vain expenses, and to stimulate
the diligence of the officers to whom these provinces were
intrusted.]
35 (return) [ See the public and private alliances of the Gothic
monarch, with the Burgundians, (Var. i. 45, 46,) with the Franks,
(ii. 40,) with the Thuringians, (iv. 1,) and with the Vandals,
(v. 1;) each of these epistles affords some curious knowledge of
the policy and manners of the Barbarians.]
36 (return) [ His political system may be observed in
Cassiodorus, (Var. iv. l ix. l,) Jornandes, (c. 58, p. 698, 699,)
and the Valesian Fragment, (p. 720, 721.) Peace, honorable peace,
was the constant aim of Theodoric.]
37 (return) [ The curious reader may contemplate the Heruli of
Procopius, (Goth. l. ii. c. 14,) and the patient reader may
plunge into the dark and minute researches of M. de Buat, (Hist.
des Peuples Anciens, tom. ix. p. 348—396. * Note: Compare Manso,
Ost Gothische Reich. Beylage, vi. Malte-Brun brings them from
Scandinavia: their names, the only remains of their language, are
Gothic. “They fought almost naked, like the Icelandic Berserkirs
their bravery was like madness: few in number, they were mostly
of royal blood. What ferocity, what unrestrained license, sullied
their victories! The Goth respects the church, the priests, the
senate; the Heruli mangle all in a general massacre: there is no
pity for age, no refuge for chastity. Among themselves there is
the same ferocity: the sick and the aged are put to death. at
their own request, during a solemn festival; the widow ends her
days by hanging herself upon the tree which shadows her husband’s
tomb. All these circumstances, so striking to a mind familiar
with Scandinavian history, lead us to discover among the Heruli
not so much a nation as a confederacy of princes and nobles,
bound by an oath to live and die together with their arms in
their hands. Their name, sometimes written Heruli or Eruli.
sometimes Aeruli, signified, according to an ancient author,
(Isid. Hispal. in gloss. p. 24, ad calc. Lex. Philolog. Martini,
ll,) nobles, and appears to correspond better with the
Scandinavian word iarl or earl, than with any of those numerous
derivations proposed by etymologists.” Malte-Brun, vol. i. p.
400, (edit. 1831.) Of all the Barbarians who threw themselves on
the ruins of the Roman empire, it is most difficult to trace the
origin of the Heruli. They seem never to have been very powerful
as a nation, and branches of them are found in countries very
remote from each other. In my opinion they belong to the Gothic
race, and have a close affinity with the Scyrri or Hirri. They
were, possibly, a division of that nation. They are often mingled
and confounded with the Alani. Though brave and formidable. they
were never numerous. nor did they found any state.—St. Martin,
vol. vi. p. 375.—M. Schafarck considers them descendants of the
Hirri. of which Heruli is a diminutive,—Slawische Alter
thinner—M. 1845.]
38 (return) [ Variarum, iv. 2. The spirit and forms of this
martial institution are noticed by Cassiodorus; but he seems to
have only translated the sentiments of the Gothic king into the
language of Roman eloquence.]
39 (return) [ Cassiodorus, who quotes Tacitus to the Aestians,
the unlettered savages of the Baltic, (Var. v. 2,) describes the
amber for which their shores have ever been famous, as the gum of
a tree, hardened by the sun, and purified and wafted by the
waves. When that singular substance is analyzed by the chemists,
it yields a vegetable oil and a mineral acid.]
40 (return) [ Scanzia, or Thule, is described by Jornandes (c. 3,
p. 610—613) and Procopius, (Goth. l. ii. c. 15.) Neither the Goth
nor the Greek had visited the country: both had conversed with
the natives in their exile at Ravenna or Constantinople.]
41 (return) [ Sapherinas pelles. In the time of Jornandes they
inhabited Suethans, the proper Sweden; but that beautiful race of
animals has gradually been driven into the eastern parts of
Siberia. See Buffon, (Hist. Nat. tom. xiii. p. 309—313, quarto
edition;) Pennant, (System of Quadrupeds, vol. i. p. 322—328;)
Gmelin, (Hist. Gen des. Voyages, tom. xviii. p. 257, 258;) and
Levesque, (Hist. de Russie, tom. v. p. 165, 166, 514, 515.)]
42 (return) [ In the system or romance of Mr. Bailly, (Lettres
sur les Sciences et sur l’Atlantide, tom. i. p. 249—256, tom. ii.
p. 114—139,) the phoenix of the Edda, and the annual death and
revival of Adonis and Osiris, are the allegorical symbols of the
absence and return of the sun in the Arctic regions. This
ingenious writer is a worthy disciple of the great Buffon; nor is
it easy for the coldest reason to withstand the magic of their
philosophy.]
43 (return) [ Says Procopius. At present a rude Manicheism
(generous enough) prevails among the Samoyedes in Greenland and
in Lapland, (Hist. des Voyages, tom. xviii. p. 508, 509, tom.
xix. p. 105, 106, 527, 528;) yet, according to Orotius Samojutae
coelum atque astra adorant, numina haud aliis iniquiora, (de
Rebus Belgicis, l. iv. p. 338, folio edition) a sentence which
Tacitus would not have disowned.]
The life of Theodoric represents the rare and meritorious example
of a Barbarian, who sheathed his sword in the pride of victory
and the vigor of his age. A reign of three and thirty years was
consecrated to the duties of civil government, and the
hostilities, in which he was sometimes involved, were speedily
terminated by the conduct of his lieutenants, the discipline of
his troops, the arms of his allies, and even by the terror of his
name. He reduced, under a strong and regular government, the
unprofitable countries of Rhaetia, Noricum, Dalmatia, and
Pannonia, from the source of the Danube and the territory of the
Bavarians, 44 to the petty kingdom erected by the Gepidae on the
ruins of Sirmium. His prudence could not safely intrust the
bulwark of Italy to such feeble and turbulent neighbors; and his
justice might claim the lands which they oppressed, either as a
part of his kingdom, or as the inheritance of his father. The
greatness of a servant, who was named perfidious because he was
successful, awakened the jealousy of the emperor Anastasius; and
a war was kindled on the Dacian frontier, by the protection which
the Gothic king, in the vicissitude of human affairs, had granted
to one of the descendants of Attila. Sabinian, a general
illustrious by his own and father’s merit, advanced at the head
of ten thousand Romans; and the provisions and arms, which filled
a long train of wagons, were distributed to the fiercest of the
Bulgarian tribes. But in the fields of Margus, the eastern powers
were defeated by the inferior forces of the Goths and Huns; the
flower and even the hope of the Roman armies was irretrievably
destroyed; and such was the temperance with which Theodoric had
inspired his victorious troops, that, as their leader had not
given the signal of pillage, the rich spoils of the enemy lay
untouched at their feet. 45 Exasperated by this disgrace, the
Byzantine court despatched two hundred ships and eight thousand
men to plunder the sea-coast of Calabria and Apulia: they
assaulted the ancient city of Tarentum, interrupted the trade and
agriculture of a happy country, and sailed back to the
Hellespont, proud of their piratical victory over a people whom
they still presumed to consider as their Roman brethren. 46 Their
retreat was possibly hastened by the activity of Theodoric; Italy
was covered by a fleet of a thousand light vessels, 47 which he
constructed with incredible despatch; and his firm moderation was
soon rewarded by a solid and honorable peace. He maintained, with
a powerful hand, the balance of the West, till it was at length
overthrown by the ambition of Clovis; and although unable to
assist his rash and unfortunate kinsman, the king of the
Visigoths, he saved the remains of his family and people, and
checked the Franks in the midst of their victorious career. I am
not desirous to prolong or repeat 48 this narrative of military
events, the least interesting of the reign of Theodoric; and
shall be content to add, that the Alemanni were protected, 49
that an inroad of the Burgundians was severely chastised, and
that the conquest of Arles and Marseilles opened a free
communication with the Visigoths, who revered him as their
national protector, and as the guardian of his grandchild, the
infant son of Alaric. Under this respectable character, the king
of Italy restored the praetorian præfecture of the Gauls,
reformed some abuses in the civil government of Spain, and
accepted the annual tribute and apparent submission of its
military governor, who wisely refused to trust his person in the
palace of Ravenna. 50 The Gothic sovereignty was established from
Sicily to the Danube, from Sirmium or Belgrade to the Atlantic
Ocean; and the Greeks themselves have acknowledged that Theodoric
reigned over the fairest portion of the Western empire. 51
44 (return) [ See the Hist. des Peuples Anciens, &c., tom. ix. p.
255—273, 396—501. The count de Buat was French minister at the
court of Bavaria: a liberal curiosity prompted his inquiries into
the antiquities of the country, and that curiosity was the germ
of twelve respectable volumes.]
45 (return) [ See the Gothic transactions on the Danube and the
Illyricum, in Jornandes, (c. 58, p. 699;) Ennodius, (p.
1607-1610;) Marcellmus (in Chron. p. 44, 47, 48;) and
Cassiodorus, in (in Chron and Var. iii. 29 50, iv. 13, vii. 4 24,
viii. 9, 10, 11, 21, ix. 8, 9.)]
46 (return) [ I cannot forbear transcribing the liberal and
classic style of Count Marcellinus: Romanus comes domesticorum,
et Rusticus comes scholariorum cum centum armatis navibus,
totidemque dromonibus, octo millia militum armatorum secum
ferentibus, ad devastanda Italiae littora processerunt, ut usque
ad Tarentum antiquissimam civitatem aggressi sunt; remensoque
mari in honestam victoriam quam piratico ausu Romani ex Romanis
rapuerunt, Anastasio Caesari reportarunt, (in Chron. p. 48.) See
Variar. i. 16, ii. 38.]
47 (return) [ See the royal orders and instructions, (Var. iv.
15, v. 16—20.) These armed boats should be still smaller than the
thousand vessels of Agamemnon at the siege of Troy. (Manso, p.
121.)]
48 (return) [ Vol. iii. p. 581—585.]
49 (return) [ Ennodius (p. 1610) and Cassiodorus, in the royal
name, (Var. ii 41,) record his salutary protection of the
Alemanni.]
50 (return) [ The Gothic transactions in Gaul and Spain are
represented with some perplexity in Cassiodorus, (Var. iii. 32,
38, 41, 43, 44, v. 39.) Jornandes, (c. 58, p. 698, 699,) and
Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. 12.) I will neither hear nor reconcile
the long and contradictory arguments of the Abbe Dubos and the
Count de Buat, about the wars of Burgundy.]
51 (return) [ Theophanes, p. 113.]
The union of the Goths and Romans might have fixed for ages the
transient happiness of Italy; and the first of nations, a new
people of free subjects and enlightened soldiers, might have
gradually arisen from the mutual emulation of their respective
virtues. But the sublime merit of guiding or seconding such a
revolution was not reserved for the reign of Theodoric: he wanted
either the genius or the opportunities of a legislator; 52 and
while he indulged the Goths in the enjoyment of rude liberty, he
servilely copied the institutions, and even the abuses, of the
political system which had been framed by Constantine and his
successors. From a tender regard to the expiring prejudices of
Rome, the Barbarian declined the name, the purple, and the
diadem, of the emperors; but he assumed, under the hereditary
title of king, the whole substance and plenitude of Imperial
prerogative. 53 His addresses to the eastern throne were
respectful and ambiguous: he celebrated, in pompous style, the
harmony of the two republics, applauded his own government as the
perfect similitude of a sole and undivided empire, and claimed
above the kings of the earth the same preeminence which he
modestly allowed to the person or rank of Anastasius. The
alliance of the East and West was annually declared by the
unanimous choice of two consuls; but it should seem that the
Italian candidate who was named by Theodoric accepted a formal
confirmation from the sovereign of Constantinople. 54 The Gothic
palace of Ravenna reflected the image of the court of Theodosius
or Valentinian. The Praetorian præfect, the præfect of Rome, the
quaestor, the master of the offices, with the public and
patrimonial treasurers, 5411 whose functions are painted in gaudy
colors by the rhetoric of Cassiodorus, still continued to act as
the ministers of state. And the subordinate care of justice and
the revenue was delegated to seven consulars, three correctors,
and five presidents, who governed the fifteen regions of Italy
according to the principles, and even the forms, of Roman
jurisprudence. 55 The violence of the conquerors was abated or
eluded by the slow artifice of judicial proceedings; the civil
administration, with its honors and emoluments, was confined to
the Italians; and the people still preserved their dress and
language, their laws and customs, their personal freedom, and two
thirds of their landed property. 5511 It had been the object of
Augustus to conceal the introduction of monarchy; it was the
policy of Theodoric to disguise the reign of a Barbarian. 56 If
his subjects were sometimes awakened from this pleasing vision of
a Roman government, they derived more substantial comfort from
the character of a Gothic prince, who had penetration to discern,
and firmness to pursue, his own and the public interest.
Theodoric loved the virtues which he possessed, and the talents
of which he was destitute. Liberius was promoted to the office of
Praetorian præfect for his unshaken fidelity to the unfortunate
cause of Odoacer. The ministers of Theodoric, Cassiodorus, 57 and
Boethius, have reflected on his reign the lustre of their genius
and learning. More prudent or more fortunate than his colleague,
Cassiodorus preserved his own esteem without forfeiting the royal
favor; and after passing thirty years in the honors of the world,
he was blessed with an equal term of repose in the devout and
studious solitude of Squillace. 5711
52 (return) [ Procopius affirms that no laws whatsoever were
promulgated by Theodoric and the succeeding kings of Italy,
(Goth. l. ii. c. 6.) He must mean in the Gothic language. A Latin
edict of Theodoric is still extant, in one hundred and fifty-four
articles. * Note: See Manso, 92. Savigny, vol. ii. p. 164, et
seq.—M.]
53 (return) [ The image of Theodoric is engraved on his coins:
his modest successors were satisfied with adding their own name
to the head of the reigning emperor, (Muratori, Antiquitat.
Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. ii. dissert. xxvii. p. 577—579.
Giannone, Istoria Civile di Napoli tom. i. p. 166.)]
54 (return) [ The alliance of the emperor and the king of Italy
are represented by Cassiodorus (Var. i. l, ii. 1, 2, 3, vi. l)
and Procopius, (Goth. l. ii. c. 6, l. iii. c. 21,) who celebrate
the friendship of Anastasius and Theodoric; but the figurative
style of compliment was interpreted in a very different sense at
Constantinople and Ravenna.]
5411 (return) [ All causes between Roman and Roman were judged by
the old Roman courts. The comes Gothorum judged between Goth and
Goth; between Goths and Romans, (without considering which was
the plaintiff.) the comes Gothorum, with a Roman jurist as his
assessor, making a kind of mixed jurisdiction, but with a natural
predominance to the side of the Goth Savigny, vol. i. p. 290.—M.]
55 (return) [ To the xvii. provinces of the Notitia, Paul
Warnefrid the deacon (De Reb. Longobard. l. ii. c. 14—22) has
subjoined an xviiith, the Apennine, (Muratori, Script. Rerum
Italicarum, tom. i. p. 431—443.) But of these Sardinia and
Corsica were possessed by the Vandals, and the two Rhaetias, as
well as the Cottian Alps, seem to have been abandoned to a
military government. The state of the four provinces that now
form the kingdom of Naples is labored by Giannone (tom. i. p.
172, 178) with patriotic diligence.]
5511 (return) [ Manso enumerates and develops at some length the
following sources of the royal revenue of Theodoric: 1. A domain,
either by succession to that of Odoacer, or a part of the third
of the lands was reserved for the royal patrimony. 1. Regalia,
including mines, unclaimed estates, treasure-trove, and
confiscations. 3. Land tax. 4. Aurarium, like the Chrysargyrum, a
tax on certain branches of trade. 5. Grant of Monopolies. 6.
Siliquaticum, a small tax on the sale of all kinds of
commodities. 7. Portoria, customs Manso, 96, 111. Savigny (i.
285) supposes that in many cases the property remained in the
original owner, who paid his tertia, a third of the produce to
the crown, vol. i. p. 285.—M.]
56 (return) [ See the Gothic history of Procopius, (l. i. c. 1,
l. ii. c. 6,) the Epistles of Cassiodorus, passim, but especially
the vth and vith books, which contain the formulae, or patents of
offices,) and the Civil History of Giannone, (tom. i. l. ii.
iii.) The Gothic counts, which he places in every Italian city,
are annihilated, however, by Maffei, (Verona Illustrata, P. i. l.
viii. p. 227; for those of Syracuse and Naples (Var vi. 22, 23)
were special and temporary commissions.]
57 (return) [ Two Italians of the name of Cassiodorus, the father
(Var. i. 24, 40) and the son, (ix. 24, 25,) were successively
employed in the administration of Theodoric. The son was born in
the year 479: his various epistles as quaestor, master of the
offices, and Praetorian præfect, extend from 509 to 539, and he
lived as a monk about thirty years, (Tiraboschi Storia della
Letteratura Italiana, tom. iii. p. 7—24. Fabricius, Bibliot. Lat.
Med. Aevi, tom. i. p. 357, 358, edit. Mansi.)]
5711 (return) [ Cassiodorus was of an ancient and honorable
family; his grandfather had distinguished himself in the defence
of Sicily against the ravages of Genseric; his father held a high
rank at the court of Valentinian III., enjoyed the friendship of
Aetius, and was one of the ambassadors sent to arrest the
progress of Attila. Cassiodorus himself was first the treasurer
of the private expenditure to Odoacer, afterwards “count of the
sacred largesses.” Yielding with the rest of the Romans to the
dominion of Theodoric, he was instrumental in the peaceable
submission of Sicily; was successively governor of his native
provinces of Bruttium and Lucania, quaestor, magister, palatii,
Praetorian præfect, patrician, consul, and private secretary,
and, in fact, first minister of the king. He was five times
Praetorian præfect under different sovereigns, the last time in
the reign of Vitiges. This is the theory of Manso, which is not
unencumbered with difficulties. M. Buat had supposed that it was
the father of Cassiodorus who held the office first named.
Compare Manso, p. 85, &c., and Beylage, vii. It certainly appears
improbable that Cassiodorus should have been count of the sacred
largesses at twenty years old.—M.]
As the patron of the republic, it was the interest and duty of
the Gothic king to cultivate the affections of the senate 58 and
people. The nobles of Rome were flattered by sonorous epithets
and formal professions of respect, which had been more justly
applied to the merit and authority of their ancestors. The people
enjoyed, without fear or danger, the three blessings of a
capital, order, plenty, and public amusements. A visible
diminution of their numbers may be found even in the measure of
liberality; 59 yet Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, poured their
tribute of corn into the granaries of Rome; an allowance of bread
and meat was distributed to the indigent citizens; and every
office was deemed honorable which was consecrated to the care of
their health and happiness. The public games, such as the Greek
ambassador might politely applaud, exhibited a faint and feeble
copy of the magnificence of the Caesars: yet the musical, the
gymnastic, and the pantomime arts, had not totally sunk in
oblivion; the wild beasts of Africa still exercised in the
amphitheatre the courage and dexterity of the hunters; and the
indulgent Goth either patiently tolerated or gently restrained
the blue and green factions, whose contests so often filled the
circus with clamor and even with blood. 60 In the seventh year of
his peaceful reign, Theodoric visited the old capital of the
world; the senate and people advanced in solemn procession to
salute a second Trajan, a new Valentinian; and he nobly supported
that character by the assurance of a just and legal government,
61 in a discourse which he was not afraid to pronounce in public,
and to inscribe on a tablet of brass. Rome, in this august
ceremony, shot a last ray of declining glory; and a saint, the
spectator of this pompous scene, could only hope, in his pious
fancy, that it was excelled by the celestial splendor of the new
Jerusalem. 62 During a residence of six months, the fame, the
person, and the courteous demeanor of the Gothic king, excited
the admiration of the Romans, and he contemplated, with equal
curiosity and surprise, the monuments that remained of their
ancient greatness. He imprinted the footsteps of a conqueror on
the Capitoline hill, and frankly confessed that each day he
viewed with fresh wonder the forum of Trajan and his lofty
column. The theatre of Pompey appeared, even in its decay, as a
huge mountain artificially hollowed, and polished, and adorned by
human industry; and he vaguely computed, that a river of gold
must have been drained to erect the colossal amphitheatre of
Titus. 63 From the mouths of fourteen aqueducts, a pure and
copious stream was diffused into every part of the city; among
these the Claudian water, which arose at the distance of
thirty-eight miles in the Sabine mountains, was conveyed along a
gentle though constant declivity of solid arches, till it
descended on the summit of the Aventine hill. The long and
spacious vaults which had been constructed for the purpose of
common sewers, subsisted, after twelve centuries, in their
pristine strength; and these subterraneous channels have been
preferred to all the visible wonders of Rome. 64 The Gothic
kings, so injuriously accused of the ruin of antiquity, were
anxious to preserve the monuments of the nation whom they had
subdued. 65 The royal edicts were framed to prevent the abuses,
the neglect, or the depredations of the citizens themselves; and
a professed architect, the annual sum of two hundred pounds of
gold, twenty-five thousand tiles, and the receipt of customs from
the Lucrine port, were assigned for the ordinary repairs of the
walls and public edifices. A similar care was extended to the
statues of metal or marble of men or animals. The spirit of the
horses, which have given a modern name to the Quirinal, was
applauded by the Barbarians; 66 the brazen elephants of the Via
sacra were diligently restored; 67 the famous heifer of Myron
deceived the cattle, as they were driven through the forum of
peace; 68 and an officer was created to protect those works of
art, which Theodoric considered as the noblest ornament of his
kingdom.
58 (return) [ See his regard for the senate in Cochlaeus, (Vit.
Theod. viii. p. 72—80.)]
59 (return) [ No more than 120,000 modii, or four thousand
quarters, (Anonym. Valesian. p. 721, and Var. i. 35, vi. 18, xi.
5, 39.)]
60 (return) [ See his regard and indulgence for the spectacles of
the circus, the amphitheatre, and the theatre, in the Chronicle
and Epistles of Cassiodorus, (Var. i. 20, 27, 30, 31, 32, iii.
51, iv. 51, illustrated by the xivth Annotation of Mascou’s
History), who has contrived to sprinkle the subject with
ostentatious, though agreeable, learning.]
61 (return) [ Anonym. Vales. p. 721. Marius Aventicensis in
Chron. In the scale of public and personal merit, the Gothic
conqueror is at least as much above Valentinian, as he may seem
inferior to Trajan.]
62 (return) [ Vit. Fulgentii in Baron. Annal. Eccles. A.D. 500,
No. 10.]
63 (return) [ Cassiodorus describes in his pompous style the
Forum of Trajan (Var. vii. 6,) the theatre of Marcellus, (iv.
51,) and the amphitheatre of Titus, (v. 42;) and his descriptions
are not unworthy of the reader’s perusal. According to the modern
prices, the Abbe Barthelemy computes that the brick work and
masonry of the Coliseum would now cost twenty millions of French
livres, (Mem. de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p.
585, 586.) How small a part of that stupendous fabric!]
64 (return) [ For the aqueducts and cloacae, see Strabo, (l. v.
p. 360;) Pliny, (Hist. Natur. xxxvi. 24; Cassiodorus, Var. iii.
30, 31, vi. 6;) Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. 19;) and Nardini,
(Roma Antica, p. 514—522.) How such works could be executed by a
king of Rome, is yet a problem. Note: See Niebuhr, vol. i. p.
402. These stupendous works are among the most striking
confirmations of Niebuhr’s views of the early Roman history; at
least they appear to justify his strong sentence—“These works and
the building of the Capitol attest with unquestionable evidence
that this Rome of the later kings was the chief city of a great
state.”—Page 110—M.]
65 (return) [ For the Gothic care of the buildings and statues,
see Cassiodorus (Var. i. 21, 25, ii. 34, iv. 30, vii. 6, 13, 15)
and the Valesian Fragment, (p. 721.)]
66 (return) [ Var. vii. 15. These horses of Monte Cavallo had
been transported from Alexandria to the baths of Constantine,
(Nardini, p. 188.) Their sculpture is disdained by the Abbe
Dubos, (Reflexions sur la Poesie et sur la Peinture, tom. i.
section 39,) and admired by Winkelman, (Hist. de l’Art, tom. ii.
p. 159.)]
67 (return) [ Var. x. 10. They were probably a fragment of some
triumphal car, (Cuper de Elephantis, ii. 10.)]
68 (return) [ Procopius (Goth. l. iv. c. 21) relates a foolish
story of Myron’s cow, which is celebrated by the false wit of
thirty-six Greek epigrams, (Antholog. l. iv. p. 302—306, edit.
Hen. Steph.; Auson. Epigram. xiii.—lxviii.)]
Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—Part III.
After the example of the last emperors, Theodoric preferred the
residence of Ravenna, where he cultivated an orchard with his own
hands. 69 As often as the peace of his kingdom was threatened
(for it was never invaded) by the Barbarians, he removed his
court to Verona 70 on the northern frontier, and the image of his
palace, still extant on a coin, represents the oldest and most
authentic model of Gothic architecture. These two capitals, as
well as Pavia, Spoleto, Naples, and the rest of the Italian
cities, acquired under his reign the useful or splendid
decorations of churches, aqueducts, baths, porticos, and palaces.
71 But the happiness of the subject was more truly conspicuous in
the busy scene of labor and luxury, in the rapid increase and
bold enjoyment of national wealth. From the shades of Tibur and
Praeneste, the Roman senators still retired in the winter season
to the warm sun, and salubrious springs of Baiae; and their
villas, which advanced on solid moles into the Bay of Naples,
commanded the various prospect of the sky, the earth, and the
water. On the eastern side of the Adriatic, a new Campania was
formed in the fair and fruitful province of Istria, which
communicated with the palace of Ravenna by an easy navigation of
one hundred miles. The rich productions of Lucania and the
adjacent provinces were exchanged at the Marcilian fountain, in a
populous fair annually dedicated to trade, intemperance, and
superstition. In the solitude of Comum, which had once been
animated by the mild genius of Pliny, a transparent basin above
sixty miles in length still reflected the rural seats which
encompassed the margin of the Larian lake; and the gradual ascent
of the hills was covered by a triple plantation of olives, of
vines, and of chestnut trees. 72 Agriculture revived under the
shadow of peace, and the number of husbandmen was multiplied by
the redemption of captives. 73 The iron mines of Dalmatia, a gold
mine in Bruttium, were carefully explored, and the Pomptine
marshes, as well as those of Spoleto, were drained and cultivated
by private undertakers, whose distant reward must depend on the
continuance of the public prosperity. 74 Whenever the seasons
were less propitious, the doubtful precautions of forming
magazines of corn, fixing the price, and prohibiting the
exportation, attested at least the benevolence of the state; but
such was the extraordinary plenty which an industrious people
produced from a grateful soil, that a gallon of wine was
sometimes sold in Italy for less than three farthings, and a
quarter of wheat at about five shillings and sixpence. 75 A
country possessed of so many valuable objects of exchange soon
attracted the merchants of the world, whose beneficial traffic
was encouraged and protected by the liberal spirit of Theodoric.
The free intercourse of the provinces by land and water was
restored and extended; the city gates were never shut either by
day or by night; and the common saying, that a purse of gold
might be safely left in the fields, was expressive of the
conscious security of the inhabitants.
69 (return) [See an epigram of Ennodius (ii. 3, p. 1893, 1894) on
this garden and the royal gardener.]
70 (return) [ His affection for that city is proved by the
epithet of “Verona tua,” and the legend of the hero; under the
barbarous name of Dietrich of Bern, (Peringsciold and Cochloeum,
p. 240,) Maffei traces him with knowledge and pleasure in his
native country, (l. ix. p. 230—236.)]
71 (return) [ See Maffei, (Verona Illustrata, Part i. p. 231,
232, 308, &c.) His amputes Gothic architecture, like the
corruption of language, writing &c., not to the Barbarians, but
to the Italians themselves. Compare his sentiments with those of
Tiraboschi, (tom. iii. p. 61.) * Note: Mr. Hallam (vol. iii. p.
432) observes that “the image of Theodoric’s palace” is
represented in Maffei, not from a coin, but from a seal. Compare
D’Agincourt (Storia dell’arte, Italian Transl., Arcitecttura,
Plate xvii. No. 2, and Pittura, Plate xvi. No. 15,) where there
is likewise an engraving from a mosaic in the church of St.
Apollinaris in Ravenna, representing a building ascribed to
Theodoric in that city. Neither of these, as Mr. Hallam justly
observes, in the least approximates to what is called the Gothic
style. They are evidently the degenerate Roman architecture, and
more resemble the early attempts of our architects to get back
from our national Gothic into a classical Greek style. One of
them calls to mind Inigo Jones inner quadrangle in St. John’s
College Oxford. Compare Hallam and D’Agincon vol. i. p.
140—145.—M]
72 (return) [ The villas, climate, and landscape of Baiae, (Var.
ix. 6; see Cluver Italia Antiq. l. iv. c. 2, p. 1119, &c.,)
Istria, (Var. xii. 22, 26,) and Comum, (Var. xi. 14; compare with
Pliny’s two villas, ix. 7,) are agreeably painted in the Epistles
of Cassiodorus.]
73 (return) [ In Liguria numerosa agricolarum progenies,
(Ennodius, p. 1678, 1679, 1680.) St. Epiphanius of Pavia redeemed
by prayer or ransom 6000 captives from the Burgundians of Lyons
and Savoy. Such deeds are the best of miracles.]
74 (return) [ The political economy of Theodoric (see Anonym.
Vales. p. 721, and Cassiodorus, in Chron.) may be distinctly
traced under the following heads: iron mine, (Var. iii. 23;) gold
mine, (ix. 3;) Pomptine marshes, (ii. 32, 33;) Spoleto, (ii. 21;)
corn, (i. 34, x. 27, 28, xi. 11, 12;) trade, (vi. 7, vii. 9, 23;)
fair of Leucothoe or St. Cyprian in Lucania, (viii. 33;) plenty,
(xii. 4;) the cursus, or public post, (i. 29, ii. 31, iv. 47, v.
5, vi 6, vii. 33;) the Flaminian way, (xii. 18.) * Note: The
inscription commemorative of the draining of the Pomptine marshes
may be found in many works; in Gruter, Inscript. Ant. Heidelberg,
p. 152, No. 8. With variations, in Nicolai De’ bonificamenti
delle terre Pontine, p. 103. In Sartorius, in his prize essay on
the reign of Theodoric, and Manse Beylage, xi.—M.]
75 (return) [ LX modii tritici in solidum ipsius tempore fuerunt,
et vinum xxx amphoras in solidum, (Fragment. Vales.) Corn was
distributed from the granaries at xv or xxv modii for a piece of
gold, and the price was still moderate.]
A difference of religion is always pernicious, and often fatal,
to the harmony of the prince and people: the Gothic conqueror had
been educated in the profession of Arianism, and Italy was
devoutly attached to the Nicene faith. But the persuasion of
Theodoric was not infected by zeal; and he piously adhered to the
heresy of his fathers, without condescending to balance the
subtile arguments of theological metaphysics. Satisfied with the
private toleration of his Arian sectaries, he justly conceived
himself to be the guardian of the public worship, and his
external reverence for a superstition which he despised, may have
nourished in his mind the salutary indifference of a statesman or
philosopher. The Catholics of his dominions acknowledged, perhaps
with reluctance, the peace of the church; their clergy, according
to the degrees of rank or merit, were honorably entertained in
the palace of Theodoric; he esteemed the living sanctity of
Caesarius 76 and Epiphanius, 77 the orthodox bishops of Arles and
Pavia; and presented a decent offering on the tomb of St. Peter,
without any scrupulous inquiry into the creed of the apostle. 78
His favorite Goths, and even his mother, were permitted to retain
or embrace the Athanasian faith, and his long reign could not
afford the example of an Italian Catholic, who, either from
choice or compulsion, had deviated into the religion of the
conqueror. 79 The people, and the Barbarians themselves, were
edified by the pomp and order of religious worship; the
magistrates were instructed to defend the just immunities of
ecclesiastical persons and possessions; the bishops held their
synods, the metropolitans exercised their jurisdiction, and the
privileges of sanctuary were maintained or moderated according to
the spirit of the Roman jurisprudence. 80 With the protection,
Theodoric assumed the legal supremacy, of the church; and his
firm administration restored or extended some useful prerogatives
which had been neglected by the feeble emperors of the West. He
was not ignorant of the dignity and importance of the Roman
pontiff, to whom the venerable name of Pope was now appropriated.
The peace or the revolt of Italy might depend on the character of
a wealthy and popular bishop, who claimed such ample dominion
both in heaven and earth; who had been declared in a numerous
synod to be pure from all sin, and exempt from all judgment. 81
When the chair of St. Peter was disputed by Symmachus and
Laurence, they appeared at his summons before the tribunal of an
Arian monarch, and he confirmed the election of the most worthy
or the most obsequious candidate. At the end of his life, in a
moment of jealousy and resentment, he prevented the choice of the
Romans, by nominating a pope in the palace of Ravenna. The danger
and furious contests of a schism were mildly restrained, and the
last decree of the senate was enacted to extinguish, if it were
possible, the scandalous venality of the papal elections. 82
76 (return) [ See the life of St. Caesarius in Baronius, (A.D.
508, No. 12, 13, 14.) The king presented him with 300 gold
solidi, and a discus of silver of the weight of sixty pounds.]
77 (return) [ Ennodius in Vit. St. Epiphanii, in Sirmond, Op.
tom. i. p. 1672—1690. Theodoric bestowed some important favors on
this bishop, whom he used as a counsellor in peace and war.]
78 (return) [ Devotissimus ac si Catholicus, (Anonym. Vales. p.
720;) yet his offering was no more than two silver candlesticks
(cerostrata) of the weight of seventy pounds, far inferior to the
gold and gems of Constantinople and France, (Anastasius in Vit.
Pont. in Hormisda, p. 34, edit. Paris.)]
79 (return) [ The tolerating system of his reign (Ennodius, p.
1612. Anonym. Vales. p. 719. Procop. Goth. l. i. c. 1, l. ii. c.
6) may be studied in the Epistles of Cassiodorous, under the
following heads: bishops, (Var. i. 9, vii. 15, 24, xi. 23;)
immunities, (i. 26, ii. 29, 30;) church lands (iv. 17, 20;)
sanctuaries, (ii. 11, iii. 47;) church plate, (xii. 20;)
discipline, (iv. 44;) which prove, at the same time, that he was
the head of the church as well as of the state. * Note: He
recommended the same toleration to the emperor Justin.—M.]
80 (return) [ We may reject a foolish tale of his beheading a
Catholic deacon who turned Arian, (Theodor. Lector. No. 17.) Why
is Theodoric surnamed After? From Vafer? (Vales. ad loc.) A light
conjecture.]
81 (return) [ Ennodius, p. 1621, 1622, 1636, 1638. His libel was
approved and registered (synodaliter) by a Roman council,
(Baronius, A.D. 503, No. 6, Franciscus Pagi in Breviar. Pont.
Rom. tom. i. p. 242.)]
82 (return) [ See Cassiodorus, (Var. viii. 15, ix. 15, 16,)
Anastasius, (in Symmacho, p. 31,) and the xviith Annotation of
Mascou. Baronius, Pagi, and most of the Catholic doctors,
confess, with an angry growl, this Gothic usurpation.]
I have descanted with pleasure on the fortunate condition of
Italy; but our fancy must not hastily conceive that the golden
age of the poets, a race of men without vice or misery, was
realized under the Gothic conquest. The fair prospect was
sometimes overcast with clouds; the wisdom of Theodoric might be
deceived, his power might be resisted and the declining age of
the monarch was sullied with popular hatred and patrician blood.
In the first insolence of victory, he had been tempted to deprive
the whole party of Odoacer of the civil and even the natural
rights of society; 83 a tax unseasonably imposed after the
calamities of war, would have crushed the rising agriculture of
Liguria; a rigid preemption of corn, which was intended for the
public relief, must have aggravated the distress of Campania.
These dangerous projects were defeated by the virtue and
eloquence of Epiphanius and Boethius, who, in the presence of
Theodoric himself, successfully pleaded the cause of the people:
84 but if the royal ear was open to the voice of truth, a saint
and a philosopher are not always to be found at the ear of kings.
The privileges of rank, or office, or favor, were too frequently
abused by Italian fraud and Gothic violence, and the avarice of
the king’s nephew was publicly exposed, at first by the
usurpation, and afterwards by the restitution of the estates
which he had unjustly extorted from his Tuscan neighbors. Two
hundred thousand Barbarians, formidable even to their master,
were seated in the heart of Italy; they indignantly supported the
restraints of peace and discipline; the disorders of their march
were always felt and sometimes compensated; and where it was
dangerous to punish, it might be prudent to dissemble, the
sallies of their native fierceness. When the indulgence of
Theodoric had remitted two thirds of the Ligurian tribute, he
condescended to explain the difficulties of his situation, and to
lament the heavy though inevitable burdens which he imposed on
his subjects for their own defence. 85 These ungrateful subjects
could never be cordially reconciled to the origin, the religion,
or even the virtues of the Gothic conqueror; past calamities were
forgotten, and the sense or suspicion of injuries was rendered
still more exquisite by the present felicity of the times.
83 (return) [ He disabled them—alicentia testandi; and all Italy
mourned—lamentabili justitio. I wish to believe, that these
penalties were enacted against the rebels who had violated their
oath of allegiance; but the testimony of Ennodius (p. 1675-1678)
is the more weighty, as he lived and died under the reign of
Theodoric.]
84 (return) [ Ennodius, in Vit. Epiphan. p. 1589, 1690. Boethius
de Consolatione Philosphiae, l. i. pros. iv. p. 45, 46, 47.
Respect, but weigh the passions of the saint and the senator; and
fortify and alleviate their complaints by the various hints of
Cassiodorus, (ii. 8, iv. 36, viii. 5.)]
85 (return) [ Immanium expensarum pondus...pro ipsorum salute,
&c.; yet these are no more than words.]
Even the religious toleration which Theodoric had the glory of
introducing into the Christian world, was painful and offensive
to the orthodox zeal of the Italians. They respected the armed
heresy of the Goths; but their pious rage was safely pointed
against the rich and defenceless Jews, who had formed their
establishments at Naples, Rome, Ravenna, Milan, and Genoa, for
the benefit of trade, and under the sanction of the laws. 86
Their persons were insulted, their effects were pillaged, and
their synagogues were burned by the mad populace of Ravenna and
Rome, inflamed, as it should seem, by the most frivolous or
extravagant pretences. The government which could neglect, would
have deserved such an outrage. A legal inquiry was instantly
directed; and as the authors of the tumult had escaped in the
crowd, the whole community was condemned to repair the damage;
and the obstinate bigots, who refused their contributions, were
whipped through the streets by the hand of the executioner. 8611
This simple act of justice exasperated the discontent of the
Catholics, who applauded the merit and patience of these holy
confessors. Three hundred pulpits deplored the persecution of the
church; and if the chapel of St. Stephen at Verona was demolished
by the command of Theodoric, it is probable that some miracle
hostile to his name and dignity had been performed on that sacred
theatre. At the close of a glorious life, the king of Italy
discovered that he had excited the hatred of a people whose
happiness he had so assiduously labored to promote; and his mind
was soured by indignation, jealousy, and the bitterness of
unrequited love. The Gothic conqueror condescended to disarm the
unwarlike natives of Italy, interdicting all weapons of offence,
and excepting only a small knife for domestic use. The deliverer
of Rome was accused of conspiring with the vilest informers
against the lives of senators whom he suspected of a secret and
treasonable correspondence with the Byzantine court. 87 After the
death of Anastasius, the diadem had been placed on the head of a
feeble old man; but the powers of government were assumed by his
nephew Justinian, who already meditated the extirpation of
heresy, and the conquest of Italy and Africa. A rigorous law,
which was published at Constantinople, to reduce the Arians by
the dread of punishment within the pale of the church, awakened
the just resentment of Theodoric, who claimed for his distressed
brethren of the East the same indulgence which he had so long
granted to the Catholics of his dominions. 8711 At his stern
command, the Roman pontiff, with four illustrious senators,
embarked on an embassy, of which he must have alike dreaded the
failure or the success. The singular veneration shown to the
first pope who had visited Constantinople was punished as a crime
by his jealous monarch; the artful or peremptory refusal of the
Byzantine court might excuse an equal, and would provoke a
larger, measure of retaliation; and a mandate was prepared in
Italy, to prohibit, after a stated day, the exercise of the
Catholic worship. By the bigotry of his subjects and enemies, the
most tolerant of princes was driven to the brink of persecution;
and the life of Theodoric was too long, since he lived to condemn
the virtue of Boethius and Symmachus. 88
86 (return) [ The Jews were settled at Naples, (Procopius, Goth.
l. i. c. 8,) at Genoa, (Var. ii. 28, iv. 33,) Milan, (v. 37,)
Rome, (iv. 43.) See likewise Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, tom. viii.
c. 7, p. 254.]
8611 (return) [ See History of the Jews vol. iii. p. 217.—M.]
87 (return) [ Rex avidus communis exitii, &c., (Boethius, l. i.
p. 59:) rex colum Romanis tendebat, (Anonym. Vales. p. 723.)
These are hard words: they speak the passions of the Italians and
those (I fear) of Theodoric himself.]
8711 (return) [ Gibbon should not have omitted the golden words
of Theodoric in a letter which he addressed to Justin: That to
pretend to a dominion over the conscience is to usurp the
prerogative of God; that by the nature of things the power of
sovereigns is confined to external government; that they have no
right of punishment but over those who disturb the public peace,
of which they are the guardians; that the most dangerous heresy
is that of a sovereign who separates from himself a part of his
subjects because they believe not according to his belief.
Compare Le Beau, vol viii. p. 68.—M]
88 (return) [ I have labored to extract a rational narrative from
the dark, concise, and various hints of the Valesian Fragment,
(p. 722, 723, 724,) Theophanes, (p. 145,) Anastasius, (in
Johanne, p. 35,) and the Hist Miscella, (p. 103, edit. Muratori.)
A gentle pressure and paraphrase of their words is no violence.
Consult likewise Muratori (Annali d’ Italia, tom. iv. p.
471-478,) with the Annals and Breviary (tom. i. p. 259—263) of
the two Pagis, the uncle and the nephew.]
The senator Boethius 89 is the last of the Romans whom Cato or
Tully could have acknowledged for their countryman. As a wealthy
orphan, he inherited the patrimony and honors of the Anician
family, a name ambitiously assumed by the kings and emperors of
the age; and the appellation of Manlius asserted his genuine or
fabulous descent from a race of consuls and dictators, who had
repulsed the Gauls from the Capitol, and sacrificed their sons to
the discipline of the republic. In the youth of Boethius the
studies of Rome were not totally abandoned; a Virgil 90 is now
extant, corrected by the hand of a consul; and the professors of
grammar, rhetoric, and jurisprudence, were maintained in their
privileges and pensions by the liberality of the Goths. But the
erudition of the Latin language was insufficient to satiate his
ardent curiosity: and Boethius is said to have employed eighteen
laborious years in the schools of Athens, 91 which were supported
by the zeal, the learning, and the diligence of Proclus and his
disciples. The reason and piety of their Roman pupil were
fortunately saved from the contagion of mystery and magic, which
polluted the groves of the academy; but he imbibed the spirit,
and imitated the method, of his dead and living masters, who
attempted to reconcile the strong and subtile sense of Aristotle
with the devout contemplation and sublime fancy of Plato. After
his return to Rome, and his marriage with the daughter of his
friend, the patrician Symmachus, Boethius still continued, in a
palace of ivory and marble, to prosecute the same studies. 92 The
church was edified by his profound defence of the orthodox creed
against the Arian, the Eutychian, and the Nestorian heresies; and
the Catholic unity was explained or exposed in a formal treatise
by the indifference of three distinct though consubstantial
persons. For the benefit of his Latin readers, his genius
submitted to teach the first elements of the arts and sciences of
Greece. The geometry of Euclid, the music of Pythagoras, the
arithmetic of Nicomachus, the mechanics of Archimedes, the
astronomy of Ptolemy, the theology of Plato, and the logic of
Aristotle, with the commentary of Porphyry, were translated and
illustrated by the indefatigable pen of the Roman senator. And he
alone was esteemed capable of describing the wonders of art, a
sun-dial, a water-clock, or a sphere which represented the
motions of the planets. From these abstruse speculations,
Boethius stooped, or, to speak more truly, he rose to the social
duties of public and private life: the indigent were relieved by
his liberality; and his eloquence, which flattery might compare
to the voice of Demosthenes or Cicero, was uniformly exerted in
the cause of innocence and humanity. Such conspicuous merit was
felt and rewarded by a discerning prince: the dignity of Boethius
was adorned with the titles of consul and patrician, and his
talents were usefully employed in the important station of master
of the offices. Notwithstanding the equal claims of the East and
West, his two sons were created, in their tender youth, the
consuls of the same year. 93 On the memorable day of their
inauguration, they proceeded in solemn pomp from their palace to
the forum amidst the applause of the senate and people; and their
joyful father, the true consul of Rome, after pronouncing an
oration in the praise of his royal benefactor, distributed a
triumphal largess in the games of the circus. Prosperous in his
fame and fortunes, in his public honors and private alliances, in
the cultivation of science and the consciousness of virtue,
Boethius might have been styled happy, if that precarious epithet
could be safely applied before the last term of the life of man.
89 (return) [ Le Clerc has composed a critical and philosophical
life of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boetius, (Bibliot. Choisie,
tom. xvi. p. 168—275;) and both Tiraboschi (tom. iii.) and
Fabricius (Bibliot Latin.) may be usefully consulted. The date of
his birth may be placed about the year 470, and his death in 524,
in a premature old age, (Consol. Phil. Metrica. i. p. 5.)]
90 (return) [ For the age and value of this Ms., now in the
Medicean library at Florence, see the Cenotaphia Pisana (p.
430-447) of Cardinal Noris.]
91 (return) [ The Athenian studies of Boethius are doubtful,
(Baronius, A.D. 510, No. 3, from a spurious tract, De Disciplina
Scholarum,) and the term of eighteen years is doubtless too long:
but the simple fact of a visit to Athens is justified by much
internal evidence, (Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philosoph. tom. iii. p.
524—527,) and by an expression (though vague and ambiguous) of
his friend Cassiodorus, (Var. i. 45,) “longe positas Athenas
intrioisti.”]
92 (return) [ Bibliothecae comptos ebore ac vitro * parietes,
&c., (Consol. Phil. l. i. pros. v. p. 74.) The Epistles of
Ennodius (vi. 6, vii. 13, viii. 1 31, 37, 40) and Cassiodorus
(Var. i. 39, iv. 6, ix. 21) afford many proofs of the high
reputation which he enjoyed in his own times. It is true, that
the bishop of Pavia wanted to purchase of him an old house at
Milan, and praise might be tendered and accepted in part of
payment. * Note: Gibbon translated vitro, marble; under the
impression, no doubt that glass was unknown.—M.]
93 (return) [ Pagi, Muratori, &c., are agreed that Boethius
himself was consul in the year 510, his two sons in 522, and in
487, perhaps, his father. A desire of ascribing the last of these
consulships to the philosopher had perplexed the chronology of
his life. In his honors, alliances, children, he celebrates his
own felicity—his past felicity, (p. 109 110)]
A philosopher, liberal of his wealth and parsimonious of his
time, might be insensible to the common allurements of ambition,
the thirst of gold and employment. And some credit may be due to
the asseveration of Boethius, that he had reluctantly obeyed the
divine Plato, who enjoins every virtuous citizen to rescue the
state from the usurpation of vice and ignorance. For the
integrity of his public conduct he appeals to the memory of his
country. His authority had restrained the pride and oppression of
the royal officers, and his eloquence had delivered Paulianus
from the dogs of the palace. He had always pitied, and often
relieved, the distress of the provincials, whose fortunes were
exhausted by public and private rapine; and Boethius alone had
courage to oppose the tyranny of the Barbarians, elated by
conquest, excited by avarice, and, as he complains, encouraged by
impunity. In these honorable contests his spirit soared above the
consideration of danger, and perhaps of prudence; and we may
learn from the example of Cato, that a character of pure and
inflexible virtue is the most apt to be misled by prejudice, to
be heated by enthusiasm, and to confound private enmities with
public justice. The disciple of Plato might exaggerate the
infirmities of nature, and the imperfections of society; and the
mildest form of a Gothic kingdom, even the weight of allegiance
and gratitude, must be insupportable to the free spirit of a
Roman patriot. But the favor and fidelity of Boethius declined in
just proportion with the public happiness; and an unworthy
colleague was imposed to divide and control the power of the
master of the offices. In the last gloomy season of Theodoric, he
indignantly felt that he was a slave; but as his master had only
power over his life, he stood without arms and without fear
against the face of an angry Barbarian, who had been provoked to
believe that the safety of the senate was incompatible with his
own. The senator Albinus was accused and already convicted on the
presumption of hoping, as it was said, the liberty of Rome. “If
Albinus be criminal,” exclaimed the orator, “the senate and
myself are all guilty of the same crime. If we are innocent,
Albinus is equally entitled to the protection of the laws.” These
laws might not have punished the simple and barren wish of an
unattainable blessing; but they would have shown less indulgence
to the rash confession of Boethius, that, had he known of a
conspiracy, the tyrant never should. 94 The advocate of Albinus
was soon involved in the danger and perhaps the guilt of his
client; their signature (which they denied as a forgery) was
affixed to the original address, inviting the emperor to deliver
Italy from the Goths; and three witnesses of honorable rank,
perhaps of infamous reputation, attested the treasonable designs
of the Roman patrician. 95 Yet his innocence must be presumed,
since he was deprived by Theodoric of the means of justification,
and rigorously confined in the tower of Pavia, while the senate,
at the distance of five hundred miles, pronounced a sentence of
confiscation and death against the most illustrious of its
members. At the command of the Barbarians, the occult science of
a philosopher was stigmatized with the names of sacrilege and
magic. 96 A devout and dutiful attachment to the senate was
condemned as criminal by the trembling voices of the senators
themselves; and their ingratitude deserved the wish or prediction
of Boethius, that, after him, none should be found guilty of the
same offence. 97
94 (return) [ Si ego scissem tu nescisses. Beothius adopts this
answer (l. i. pros. 4, p. 53) of Julius Canus, whose philosophic
death is described by Seneca, (De Tranquillitate Animi, c. 14.)]
95 (return) [ The characters of his two delators, Basilius (Var.
ii. 10, 11, iv. 22) and Opilio, (v. 41, viii. 16,) are
illustrated, not much to their honor, in the Epistles of
Cassiodorus, which likewise mention Decoratus, (v. 31,) the
worthless colleague of Beothius, (l. iii. pros. 4, p. 193.)]
96 (return) [ A severe inquiry was instituted into the crime of
magic, (Var. iv 22, 23, ix. 18;) and it was believed that many
necromancers had escaped by making their jailers mad: for mad I
should read drunk.]
97 (return) [ Boethius had composed his own Apology, (p. 53,)
perhaps more interesting than his Consolation. We must be content
with the general view of his honors, principles, persecution,
&c., (l. i. pros. 4, p. 42—62,) which may be compared with the
short and weighty words of the Valesian Fragment, (p. 723.) An
anonymous writer (Sinner, Catalog. Mss. Bibliot. Bern. tom. i. p.
287) charges him home with honorable and patriotic treason.]
While Boethius, oppressed with fetters, expected each moment the
sentence or the stroke of death, he composed, in the tower of
Pavia, the Consolation of Philosophy; a golden volume not
unworthy of the leisure of Plato or Tully, but which claims
incomparable merit from the barbarism of the times and the
situation of the author. The celestial guide, whom he had so long
invoked at Rome and Athens, now condescended to illumine his
dungeon, to revive his courage, and to pour into his wounds her
salutary balm. She taught him to compare his long prosperity and
his recent distress, and to conceive new hopes from the
inconstancy of fortune. Reason had informed him of the precarious
condition of her gifts; experience had satisfied him of their
real value; he had enjoyed them without guilt; he might resign
them without a sigh, and calmly disdain the impotent malice of
his enemies, who had left him happiness, since they had left him
virtue. From the earth, Boethius ascended to heaven in search of
the Supreme Good; explored the metaphysical labyrinth of chance
and destiny, of prescience and free will, of time and eternity;
and generously attempted to reconcile the perfect attributes of
the Deity with the apparent disorders of his moral and physical
government. Such topics of consolation so obvious, so vague, or
so abstruse, are ineffectual to subdue the feelings of human
nature. Yet the sense of misfortune may be diverted by the labor
of thought; and the sage who could artfully combine in the same
work the various riches of philosophy, poetry, and eloquence,
must already have possessed the intrepid calmness which he
affected to seek. Suspense, the worst of evils, was at length
determined by the ministers of death, who executed, and perhaps
exceeded, the inhuman mandate of Theodoric. A strong cord was
fastened round the head of Boethius, and forcibly tightened, till
his eyes almost started from their sockets; and some mercy may be
discovered in the milder torture of beating him with clubs till
he expired. 98 But his genius survived to diffuse a ray of
knowledge over the darkest ages of the Latin world; the writings
of the philosopher were translated by the most glorious of the
English kings, 99 and the third emperor of the name of Otho
removed to a more honorable tomb the bones of a Catholic saint,
who, from his Arian persecutors, had acquired the honors of
martyrdom, and the fame of miracles. 100 In the last hours of
Boethius, he derived some comfort from the safety of his two
sons, of his wife, and of his father-in-law, the venerable
Symmachus. But the grief of Symmachus was indiscreet, and perhaps
disrespectful: he had presumed to lament, he might dare to
revenge, the death of an injured friend. He was dragged in chains
from Rome to the palace of Ravenna; and the suspicions of
Theodoric could only be appeased by the blood of an innocent and
aged senator. 101
98 (return) [ He was executed in Agro Calventiano, (Calvenzano,
between Marignano and Pavia,) Anonym. Vales. p. 723, by order of
Eusebius, count of Ticinum or Pavia. This place of confinement is
styled the baptistery, an edifice and name peculiar to
cathedrals. It is claimed by the perpetual tradition of the
church of Pavia. The tower of Boethius subsisted till the year
1584, and the draught is yet preserved, (Tiraboschi, tom. iii. p.
47, 48.)]
99 (return) [ See the Biographia Britannica, Alfred, tom. i. p.
80, 2d edition. The work is still more honorable if performed
under the learned eye of Alfred by his foreign and domestic
doctors. For the reputation of Boethius in the middle ages,
consult Brucker, (Hist. Crit. Philosoph. tom. iii. p. 565, 566.)]
100 (return) [ The inscription on his new tomb was composed by
the preceptor of Otho III., the learned Pope Silvester II., who,
like Boethius himself, was styled a magician by the ignorance of
the times. The Catholic martyr had carried his head in his hands
a considerable way, (Baronius, A.D. 526, No. 17, 18;) and yet on
a similar tale, a lady of my acquaintance once observed, “La
distance n’y fait rien; il n’y a que lo remier pas qui coute.”
Note: Madame du Deffand. This witticism referred to the miracle
of St. Denis.—G.]
101 (return) [ Boethius applauds the virtues of his
father-in-law, (l. i. pros. 4, p. 59, l. ii. pros. 4, p. 118.)
Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. i.,) the Valesian Fragment, (p. 724,)
and the Historia Miscella, (l. xv. p. 105,) agree in praising the
superior innocence or sanctity of Symmachus; and in the
estimation of the legend, the guilt of his murder is equal to the
imprisonment of a pope.]
Humanity will be disposed to encourage any report which testifies
the jurisdiction of conscience and the remorse of kings; and
philosophy is not ignorant that the most horrid spectres are
sometimes created by the powers of a disordered fancy, and the
weakness of a distempered body. After a life of virtue and glory,
Theodoric was now descending with shame and guilt into the grave;
his mind was humbled by the contrast of the past, and justly
alarmed by the invisible terrors of futurity. One evening, as it
is related, when the head of a large fish was served on the royal
table, 102 he suddenly exclaimed, that he beheld the angry
countenance of Symmachus, his eyes glaring fury and revenge, and
his mouth armed with long sharp teeth, which threatened to devour
him. The monarch instantly retired to his chamber, and, as he
lay, trembling with aguish cold, under a weight of bed-clothes,
he expressed, in broken murmurs to his physician Elpidius, his
deep repentance for the murders of Boethius and Symmachus. 103
His malady increased, and after a dysentery which continued three
days, he expired in the palace of Ravenna, in the thirty-third,
or, if we compute from the invasion of Italy, in the
thirty-seventh year of his reign. Conscious of his approaching
end, he divided his treasures and provinces between his two
grandsons, and fixed the Rhone as their common boundary. 104
Amalaric was restored to the throne of Spain. Italy, with all the
conquests of the Ostrogoths, was bequeathed to Athalaric; whose
age did not exceed ten years, but who was cherished as the last
male offspring of the line of Amali, by the short-lived marriage
of his mother Amalasuntha with a royal fugitive of the same
blood. 105 In the presence of the dying monarch, the Gothic
chiefs and Italian magistrates mutually engaged their faith and
loyalty to the young prince, and to his guardian mother; and
received, in the same awful moment, his last salutary advice, to
maintain the laws, to love the senate and people of Rome, and to
cultivate with decent reverence the friendship of the emperor.
106 The monument of Theodoric was erected by his daughter
Amalasuntha, in a conspicuous situation, which commanded the city
of Ravenna, the harbor, and the adjacent coast. A chapel of a
circular form, thirty feet in diameter, is crowned by a dome of
one entire piece of granite: from the centre of the dome four
columns arose, which supported, in a vase of porphyry, the
remains of the Gothic king, surrounded by the brazen statues of
the twelve apostles. 107 His spirit, after some previous
expiation, might have been permitted to mingle with the
benefactors of mankind, if an Italian hermit had not been
witness, in a vision, to the damnation of Theodoric, 108 whose
soul was plunged, by the ministers of divine vengeance, into the
volcano of Lipari, one of the flaming mouths of the infernal
world. 109
102 (return) [ In the fanciful eloquence of Cassiodorus, the
variety of sea and river fish are an evidence of extensive
dominion; and those of the Rhine, of Sicily, and of the Danube,
were served on the table of Theodoric, (Var. xii. 14.) The
monstrous turbot of Domitian (Juvenal Satir. iii. 39) had been
caught on the shores of the Adriatic.]
103 (return) [ Procopius, Goth. l. i. c. 1. But he might have
informed us, whether he had received this curious anecdote from
common report or from the mouth of the royal physician.]
104 (return) [ Procopius, Goth. l. i. c. 1, 2, 12, 13. This
partition had been directed by Theodoric, though it was not
executed till after his death, Regni hereditatem superstes
reliquit, (Isidor. Chron. p. 721, edit. Grot.)]
105 (return) [ Berimund, the third in descent from Hermanric,
king of the Ostrogoths, had retired into Spain, where he lived
and died in obscurity, (Jornandes, c. 33, p. 202, edit.
Muratori.) See the discovery, nuptials, and death of his grandson
Eutharic, (c. 58, p. 220.) His Roman games might render him
popular, (Cassiodor. in Chron.,) but Eutharic was asper in
religione, (Anonym. Vales. p. 723.)]
106 (return) [ See the counsels of Theodoric, and the professions
of his successor, in Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. 1, 2,) Jornandes,
(c. 59, p. 220, 221,) and Cassiodorus, (Var. viii. 1—7.) These
epistles are the triumph of his ministerial eloquence.]
107 (return) [ Anonym. Vales. p. 724. Agnellus de Vitis. Pont.
Raven. in Muratori Script. Rerum Ital. tom. ii. P. i. p. 67.
Alberti Descrittione d’ Italia, p. 311. * Note: The Mausoleum of
Theodoric, now Sante Maria della Rotonda, is engraved in
D’Agincourt, Histoire de l’Art, p xviii. of the Architectural
Prints.—M]
108 (return) [ This legend is related by Gregory I., (Dialog. iv.
36,) and approved by Baronius, (A.D. 526, No. 28;) and both the
pope and cardinal are grave doctors, sufficient to establish a
probable opinion.]
109 (return) [ Theodoric himself, or rather Cassiodorus, had
described in tragic strains the volcanos of Lipari (Cluver.
Sicilia, p. 406—410) and Vesuvius, (v 50.)]
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part I.
Elevation Of Justin The Elder.—Reign Of Justinian.—I. The Empress
Theodora.—II. Factions Of The Circus, And Sedition Of
Constantinople.—III. Trade And Manufacture Of Silk.—IV. Finances And
Taxes.—V. Edifices Of Justinian.—Church Of St. Sophia.—Fortifications
And Frontiers Of The Eastern Empire.—Abolition Of The Schools Of
Athens, And The Consulship Of Rome.
The emperor Justinian was born 1 near the ruins of Sardica, (the
modern Sophia,) of an obscure race 2 of Barbarians, 3 the
inhabitants of a wild and desolate country, to which the names of
Dardania, of Dacia, and of Bulgaria, have been successively
applied. His elevation was prepared by the adventurous spirit of
his uncle Justin, who, with two other peasants of the same
village, deserted, for the profession of arms, the more useful
employment of husbandmen or shepherds. 4 On foot, with a scanty
provision of biscuit in their knapsacks, the three youths
followed the high road of Constantinople, and were soon enrolled,
for their strength and stature, among the guards of the emperor
Leo. Under the two succeeding reigns, the fortunate peasant
emerged to wealth and honors; and his escape from some dangers
which threatened his life was afterwards ascribed to the guardian
angel who watches over the fate of kings. His long and laudable
service in the Isaurian and Persian wars would not have preserved
from oblivion the name of Justin; yet they might warrant the
military promotion, which in the course of fifty years he
gradually obtained; the rank of tribune, of count, and of
general; the dignity of senator, and the command of the guards,
who obeyed him as their chief, at the important crisis when the
emperor Anastasius was removed from the world. The powerful
kinsmen whom he had raised and enriched were excluded from the
throne; and the eunuch Amantius, who reigned in the palace, had
secretly resolved to fix the diadem on the head of the most
obsequious of his creatures. A liberal donative, to conciliate
the suffrage of the guards, was intrusted for that purpose in the
hands of their commander. But these weighty arguments were
treacherously employed by Justin in his own favor; and as no
competitor presumed to appear, the Dacian peasant was invested
with the purple by the unanimous consent of the soldiers, who
knew him to be brave and gentle, of the clergy and people, who
believed him to be orthodox, and of the provincials, who yielded
a blind and implicit submission to the will of the capital. The
elder Justin, as he is distinguished from another emperor of the
same family and name, ascended the Byzantine throne at the age of
sixty-eight years; and, had he been left to his own guidance,
every moment of a nine years’ reign must have exposed to his
subjects the impropriety of their choice. His ignorance was
similar to that of Theodoric; and it is remarkable that in an age
not destitute of learning, two contemporary monarchs had never
been instructed in the knowledge of the alphabet. 411 But the
genius of Justin was far inferior to that of the Gothic king: the
experience of a soldier had not qualified him for the government
of an empire; and though personally brave, the consciousness of
his own weakness was naturally attended with doubt, distrust, and
political apprehension. But the official business of the state
was diligently and faithfully transacted by the quaestor Proclus;
5 and the aged emperor adopted the talents and ambition of his
nephew Justinian, an aspiring youth, whom his uncle had drawn
from the rustic solitude of Dacia, and educated at
Constantinople, as the heir of his private fortune, and at length
of the Eastern empire.
1 (return) [ There is some difficulty in the date of his birth
(Ludewig in Vit. Justiniani, p. 125;) none in the place—the
district Bederiana—the village Tauresium, which he afterwards
decorated with his name and splendor, (D’Anville, Hist. de
l’Acad. &c., tom. xxxi. p. 287—292.)]
2 (return) [ The names of these Dardanian peasants are Gothic,
and almost English: Justinian is a translation of uprauda,
(upright;) his father Sabatius (in Graeco-barbarous language
stipes) was styled in his village Istock, (Stock;) his mother
Bigleniza was softened into Vigilantia.]
3 (return) [ Ludewig (p. 127—135) attempts to justify the Anician
name of Justinian and Theodora, and to connect them with a family
from which the house of Austria has been derived.]
4 (return) [ See the anecdotes of Procopius, (c. 6,) with the
notes of N. Alemannus. The satirist would not have sunk, in the
vague and decent appellation of Zonaras. Yet why are those names
disgraceful?—and what German baron would not be proud to descend
from the Eumaeus of the Odyssey! Note: It is whimsical enough
that, in our own days, we should have, even in jest, a claimant
to lineal descent from the godlike swineherd not in the person of
a German baron, but in that of a professor of the Ionian
University. Constantine Koliades, or some malicious wit under
this name, has written a tall folio to prove Ulysses to be Homer,
and himself the descendant, the heir (?), of the Eumaeus of the
Odyssey.—M]
411 (return) [ St. Martin questions the fact in both cases. The
ignorance of Justin rests on the secret history of Procopius,
vol. viii. p. 8. St. Martin’s notes on Le Beau.—M]
5 (return) [ His virtues are praised by Procopius, (Persic. l. i.
c. 11.) The quaestor Proclus was the friend of Justinian, and the
enemy of every other adoption.]
Since the eunuch Amantius had been defrauded of his money, it
became necessary to deprive him of his life. The task was easily
accomplished by the charge of a real or fictitious conspiracy;
and the judges were informed, as an accumulation of guilt, that
he was secretly addicted to the Manichaean heresy. 6 Amantius
lost his head; three of his companions, the first domestics of
the palace, were punished either with death or exile; and their
unfortunate candidate for the purple was cast into a deep
dungeon, overwhelmed with stones, and ignominiously thrown,
without burial, into the sea. The ruin of Vitalian was a work of
more difficulty and danger. That Gothic chief had rendered
himself popular by the civil war which he boldly waged against
Anastasius for the defence of the orthodox faith, and after the
conclusion of an advantageous treaty, he still remained in the
neighborhood of Constantinople at the head of a formidable and
victorious army of Barbarians. By the frail security of oaths, he
was tempted to relinquish this advantageous situation, and to
trust his person within the walls of a city, whose inhabitants,
particularly the blue faction, were artfully incensed against him
by the remembrance even of his pious hostilities. The emperor and
his nephew embraced him as the faithful and worthy champion of
the church and state; and gratefully adorned their favorite with
the titles of consul and general; but in the seventh month of his
consulship, Vitalian was stabbed with seventeen wounds at the
royal banquet; 7 and Justinian, who inherited the spoil, was
accused as the assassin of a spiritual brother, to whom he had
recently pledged his faith in the participation of the Christian
mysteries. 8 After the fall of his rival, he was promoted,
without any claim of military service, to the office of
master-general of the Eastern armies, whom it was his duty to
lead into the field against the public enemy. But, in the pursuit
of fame, Justinian might have lost his present dominion over the
age and weakness of his uncle; and instead of acquiring by
Scythian or Persian trophies the applause of his countrymen, 9
the prudent warrior solicited their favor in the churches, the
circus, and the senate, of Constantinople. The Catholics were
attached to the nephew of Justin, who, between the Nestorian and
Eutychian heresies, trod the narrow path of inflexible and
intolerant orthodoxy. 10 In the first days of the new reign, he
prompted and gratified the popular enthusiasm against the memory
of the deceased emperor. After a schism of thirty-four years, he
reconciled the proud and angry spirit of the Roman pontiff, and
spread among the Latins a favorable report of his pious respect
for the apostolic see. The thrones of the East were filled with
Catholic bishops, devoted to his interest, the clergy and the
monks were gained by his liberality, and the people were taught
to pray for their future sovereign, the hope and pillar of the
true religion. The magnificence of Justinian was displayed in the
superior pomp of his public spectacles, an object not less sacred
and important in the eyes of the multitude than the creed of Nice
or Chalcedon: the expense of his consulship was esteemed at two
hundred and twenty-eight thousand pieces of gold; twenty lions,
and thirty leopards, were produced at the same time in the
amphitheatre, and a numerous train of horses, with their rich
trappings, was bestowed as an extraordinary gift on the
victorious charioteers of the circus. While he indulged the
people of Constantinople, and received the addresses of foreign
kings, the nephew of Justin assiduously cultivated the friendship
of the senate. That venerable name seemed to qualify its members
to declare the sense of the nation, and to regulate the
succession of the Imperial throne: the feeble Anastasius had
permitted the vigor of government to degenerate into the form or
substance of an aristocracy; and the military officers who had
obtained the senatorial rank were followed by their domestic
guards, a band of veterans, whose arms or acclamations might fix
in a tumultuous moment the diadem of the East. The treasures of
the state were lavished to procure the voices of the senators,
and their unanimous wish, that he would be pleased to adopt
Justinian for his colleague, was communicated to the emperor. But
this request, which too clearly admonished him of his approaching
end, was unwelcome to the jealous temper of an aged monarch,
desirous to retain the power which he was incapable of
exercising; and Justin, holding his purple with both his hands,
advised them to prefer, since an election was so profitable, some
older candidate. Not withstanding this reproach, the senate
proceeded to decorate Justinian with the royal epithet of
nobilissimus; and their decree was ratified by the affection or
the fears of his uncle. After some time the languor of mind and
body, to which he was reduced by an incurable wound in his thigh,
indispensably required the aid of a guardian. He summoned the
patriarch and senators; and in their presence solemnly placed the
diadem on the head of his nephew, who was conducted from the
palace to the circus, and saluted by the loud and joyful applause
of the people. The life of Justin was prolonged about four
months; but from the instant of this ceremony, he was considered
as dead to the empire, which acknowledged Justinian, in the
forty-fifth year of his age, for the lawful sovereign of the
East. 11
6 (return) [ Manichaean signifies Eutychian. Hear the furious
acclamations of Constantinople and Tyre, the former no more than
six days after the decease of Anastasius. They produced, the
latter applauded, the eunuch’s death, (Baronius, A.D. 518, P. ii.
No. 15. Fleury, Hist Eccles. tom. vii. p. 200, 205, from the
Councils, tom. v. p. 182, 207.)]
7 (return) [ His power, character, and intentions, are perfectly
explained by the court de Buat, (tom. ix. p. 54—81.) He was
great-grandson of Aspar, hereditary prince in the Lesser Scythia,
and count of the Gothic foederati of Thrace. The Bessi, whom he
could influence, are the minor Goths of Jornandes, (c. 51.)]
8 (return) [ Justiniani patricii factione dicitur interfectus
fuisse, (Victor Tu nunensis, Chron. in Thesaur. Temp. Scaliger,
P. ii. p. 7.) Procopius (Anecdot. c. 7) styles him a tyrant, but
acknowledges something which is well explained by Alemannus.]
9 (return) [ In his earliest youth (plane adolescens) he had
passed some time as a hostage with Theodoric. For this curious
fact, Alemannus (ad Procop. Anecdot. c. 9, p. 34, of the first
edition) quotes a Ms. history of Justinian, by his preceptor
Theophilus. Ludewig (p. 143) wishes to make him a soldier.]
10 (return) [ The ecclesiastical history of Justinian will be
shown hereafter. See Baronius, A.D. 518—521, and the copious
article Justinianas in the index to the viith volume of his
Annals.]
11 (return) [ The reign of the elder Justin may be found in the
three Chronicles of Marcellinus, Victor, and John Malala, (tom.
ii. p. 130—150,) the last of whom (in spite of Hody, Prolegom.
No. 14, 39, edit. Oxon.) lived soon after Justinian, (Jortin’s
Remarks, &c., vol. iv p. 383:) in the Ecclesiastical History of
Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 1, 2, 3, 9,) and the Excerpta of Theodorus
Lector, (No. 37,) and in Cedrenus, (p. 362—366,) and Zonaras, (l.
xiv. p. 58—61,) who may pass for an original. * Note: Dindorf, in
his preface to the new edition of Malala, p. vi., concurs with
this opinion of Gibbon, which was also that of Reiske, as to the
age of the chronicler.—M.]
From his elevation to his death, Justinian governed the Roman
empire thirty-eight years, seven months, and thirteen days.
The events of his reign, which excite our curious attention by
their number, variety, and importance, are diligently related by
the secretary of Belisarius, a rhetorician, whom eloquence had
promoted to the rank of senator and præfect of Constantinople.
According to the vicissitudes of courage or servitude, of favor
or disgrace, Procopius 12 successively composed the history, the
panegyric, and the satire of his own times. The eight books of
the Persian, Vandalic, and Gothic wars, 13 which are continued in
the five books of Agathias, deserve our esteem as a laborious and
successful imitation of the Attic, or at least of the Asiatic,
writers of ancient Greece. His facts are collected from the
personal experience and free conversation of a soldier, a
statesman, and a traveller; his style continually aspires, and
often attains, to the merit of strength and elegance; his
reflections, more especially in the speeches, which he too
frequently inserts, contain a rich fund of political knowledge;
and the historian, excited by the generous ambition of pleasing
and instructing posterity, appears to disdain the prejudices of
the people, and the flattery of courts. The writings of Procopius
14 were read and applauded by his contemporaries: 15 but,
although he respectfully laid them at the foot of the throne, the
pride of Justinian must have been wounded by the praise of a
hero, who perpetually eclipses the glory of his inactive
sovereign. The conscious dignity of independence was subdued by
the hopes and fears of a slave; and the secretary of Belisarius
labored for pardon and reward in the six books of the Imperial
edifices. He had dexterously chosen a subject of apparent
splendor, in which he could loudly celebrate the genius, the
magnificence, and the piety of a prince, who, both as a conqueror
and legislator, had surpassed the puerile virtues of Themistocles
and Cyrus. 16 Disappointment might urge the flatterer to secret
revenge; and the first glance of favor might again tempt him to
suspend and suppress a libel, 17 in which the Roman Cyrus is
degraded into an odious and contemptible tyrant, in which both
the emperor and his consort Theodora are seriously represented as
two daemons, who had assumed a human form for the destruction of
mankind. 18 Such base inconsistency must doubtless sully the
reputation, and detract from the credit, of Procopius: yet, after
the venom of his malignity has been suffered to exhale, the
residue of the anecdotes, even the most disgraceful facts, some
of which had been tenderly hinted in his public history, are
established by their internal evidence, or the authentic
monuments of the times. 19 1911 From these various materials, I
shall now proceed to describe the reign of Justinian, which will
deserve and occupy an ample space. The present chapter will
explain the elevation and character of Theodora, the factions of
the circus, and the peaceful administration of the sovereign of
the East. In the three succeeding chapters, I shall relate the
wars of Justinian, which achieved the conquest of Africa and
Italy; and I shall follow the victories of Belisarius and Narses,
without disguising the vanity of their triumphs, or the hostile
virtue of the Persian and Gothic heroes. The series of this and
the following volume will embrace the jurisprudence and theology
of the emperor; the controversies and sects which still divide
the Oriental church; the reformation of the Roman law which is
obeyed or respected by the nations of modern Europe.
12 (return) [ See the characters of Procopius and Agathias in La
Mothe le Vayer, (tom. viii. p. 144—174,) Vossius, (de Historicis
Graecis, l. ii. c. 22,) and Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. l. v. c.
5, tom. vi. p. 248—278.) Their religion, an honorable problem,
betrays occasional conformity, with a secret attachment to
Paganism and Philosophy.]
13 (return) [ In the seven first books, two Persic, two Vandalic,
and three Gothic, Procopius has borrowed from Appian the division
of provinces and wars: the viiith book, though it bears the name
of Gothic, is a miscellaneous and general supplement down to the
spring of the year 553, from whence it is continued by Agathias
till 559, (Pagi, Critica, A.D. 579, No. 5.)]
14 (return) [ The literary fate of Procopius has been somewhat
unlucky.
1. His book de Bello Gothico were stolen by Leonard Aretin, and
published (Fulginii, 1470, Venet. 1471, apud Janson. Mattaire,
Annal Typograph. tom. i. edit. posterior, p. 290, 304, 279, 299,)
in his own name, (see Vossius de Hist. Lat. l. iii. c. 5, and the
feeble defence of the Venice Giornale de Letterati, tom. xix. p.
207.)
2. His works were mutilated by the first Latin translators,
Christopher Persona, (Giornale, tom. xix. p. 340—348,) and
Raphael de Volaterra, (Huet, de Claris Interpretibus, p. 166,)
who did not even consult the Ms. of the Vatican library, of which
they were præfects, (Aleman. in Praefat Anecdot.) 3. The Greek
text was not printed till 1607, by Hoeschelius of Augsburg,
(Dictionnaire de Bayle, tom. ii. p. 782.)
4. The Paris edition was imperfectly executed by Claude Maltret,
a Jesuit of Toulouse, (in 1663,) far distant from the Louvre
press and the Vatican Ms., from which, however, he obtained some
supplements. His promised commentaries, &c., have never appeared.
The Agathias of Leyden (1594) has been wisely reprinted by the
Paris editor, with the Latin version of Bonaventura Vulcanius, a
learned interpreter, (Huet, p. 176.)
* Note: Procopius forms a part of the new Byzantine collection
under the superintendence of Dindorf.—M.]
15 (return) [ Agathias in Praefat. p. 7, 8, l. iv. p. 137.
Evagrius, l. iv. c. 12. See likewise Photius, cod. lxiii. p. 65.]
16 (return) [ Says, he, Praefat. ad l. de Edificiis is no more
than a pun! In these five books, Procopius affects a Christian as
well as a courtly style.]
17 (return) [ Procopius discloses himself, (Praefat. ad Anecdot.
c. 1, 2, 5,) and the anecdotes are reckoned as the ninth book by
Suidas, (tom. iii. p. 186, edit. Kuster.) The silence of Evagrius
is a poor objection. Baronius (A.D. 548, No. 24) regrets the loss
of this secret history: it was then in the Vatican library, in
his own custody, and was first published sixteen years after his
death, with the learned, but partial notes of Nicholas Alemannus,
(Lugd. 1623.)]
18 (return) [ Justinian an ass—the perfect likeness of
Domitian—Anecdot. c. 8.—Theodora’s lovers driven from her bed by
rival daemons—her marriage foretold with a great daemon—a monk
saw the prince of the daemons, instead of Justinian, on the
throne—the servants who watched beheld a face without features, a
body walking without a head, &c., &c. Procopius declares his own
and his friends’ belief in these diabolical stories, (c. 12.)]
19 (return) [ Montesquieu (Considerations sur la Grandeur et la
Decadence des Romains, c. xx.) gives credit to these anecdotes,
as connected, 1. with the weakness of the empire, and, 2. with
the instability of Justinian’s laws.]
1911 (return) [ The Anecdota of Procopius, compared with the
former works of the same author, appear to me the basest and most
disgraceful work in literature. The wars, which he has described
in the former volumes as glorious or necessary, are become
unprofitable and wanton massacres; the buildings which he
celebrated, as raised to the immortal honor of the great emperor,
and his admirable queen, either as magnificent embellishments of
the city, or useful fortifications for the defence of the
frontier, are become works of vain prodigality and useless
ostentation. I doubt whether Gibbon has made sufficient allowance
for the “malignity” of the Anecdota; at all events, the extreme
and disgusting profligacy of Theodora’s early life rests entirely
on this viratent libel—M.]
I. In the exercise of supreme power, the first act of Justinian
was to divide it with the woman whom he loved, the famous
Theodora, 20 whose strange elevation cannot be applauded as the
triumph of female virtue. Under the reign of Anastasius, the care
of the wild beasts maintained by the green faction at
Constantinople was intrusted to Acacius, a native of the Isle of
Cyprus, who, from his employment, was surnamed the master of the
bears. This honorable office was given after his death to another
candidate, notwithstanding the diligence of his widow, who had
already provided a husband and a successor. Acacius had left
three daughters, Comito, 21 Theodora, and Anastasia, the eldest
of whom did not then exceed the age of seven years. On a solemn
festival, these helpless orphans were sent by their distressed
and indignant mother, in the garb of suppliants, into the midst
of the theatre: the green faction received them with contempt,
the blues with compassion; and this difference, which sunk deep
into the mind of Theodora, was felt long afterwards in the
administration of the empire. As they improved in age and beauty,
the three sisters were successively devoted to the public and
private pleasures of the Byzantine people: and Theodora, after
following Comito on the stage, in the dress of a slave, with a
stool on her head, was at length permitted to exercise her
independent talents. She neither danced, nor sung, nor played on
the flute; her skill was confined to the pantomime arts; she
excelled in buffoon characters, and as often as the comedian
swelled her cheeks, and complained with a ridiculous tone and
gesture of the blows that were inflicted, the whole theatre of
Constantinople resounded with laughter and applause. The beauty
of Theodora 22 was the subject of more flattering praise, and the
source of more exquisite delight. Her features were delicate and
regular; her complexion, though somewhat pale, was tinged with a
natural color; every sensation was instantly expressed by the
vivacity of her eyes; her easy motions displayed the graces of a
small but elegant figure; and either love or adulation might
proclaim, that painting and poetry were incapable of delineating
the matchless excellence of her form. But this form was degraded
by the facility with which it was exposed to the public eye, and
prostituted to licentious desire. Her venal charms were abandoned
to a promiscuous crowd of citizens and strangers of every rank,
and of every profession: the fortunate lover who had been
promised a night of enjoyment, was often driven from her bed by a
stronger or more wealthy favorite; and when she passed through
the streets, her presence was avoided by all who wished to escape
either the scandal or the temptation. The satirical historian has
not blushed 23 to describe the naked scenes which Theodora was
not ashamed to exhibit in the theatre. 24 After exhausting the
arts of sensual pleasure, 25 she most ungratefully murmured
against the parsimony of Nature; 26 but her murmurs, her
pleasures, and her arts, must be veiled in the obscurity of a
learned language. After reigning for some time, the delight and
contempt of the capital, she condescended to accompany Ecebolus,
a native of Tyre, who had obtained the government of the African
Pentapolis. But this union was frail and transient; Ecebolus soon
rejected an expensive or faithless concubine; she was reduced at
Alexandria to extreme distress; and in her laborious return to
Constantinople, every city of the East admired and enjoyed the
fair Cyprian, whose merit appeared to justify her descent from
the peculiar island of Venus. The vague commerce of Theodora, and
the most detestable precautions, preserved her from the danger
which she feared; yet once, and once only, she became a mother.
The infant was saved and educated in Arabia, by his father, who
imparted to him on his death-bed, that he was the son of an
empress. Filled with ambitious hopes, the unsuspecting youth
immediately hastened to the palace of Constantinople, and was
admitted to the presence of his mother. As he was never more
seen, even after the decease of Theodora, she deserves the foul
imputation of extinguishing with his life a secret so offensive
to her Imperial virtue. 2611
20 (return) [ For the life and manners of the empress Theodora
see the Anecdotes; more especially c. 1—5, 9, 10—15, 16, 17, with
the learned notes of Alemannus—a reference which is always
implied.]
21 (return) [ Comito was afterwards married to Sittas, duke of
Armenia, the father, perhaps, at least she might be the mother,
of the empress Sophia. Two nephews of Theodora may be the sons of
Anastasia, (Aleman. p. 30, 31.)]
22 (return) [ Her statute was raised at Constantinople, on a
porphyry column. See Procopius, (de Edif. l. i. c. 11,) who gives
her portrait in the Anecdotes, (c. 10.) Aleman. (p. 47) produces
one from a Mosaic at Ravenna, loaded with pearls and jewels, and
yet handsome.]
23 (return) [ A fragment of the Anecdotes, (c. 9,) somewhat too
naked, was suppressed by Alemannus, though extant in the Vatican
Ms.; nor has the defect been supplied in the Paris or Venice
editions. La Mothe le Vayer (tom. viii. p. 155) gave the first
hint of this curious and genuine passage, (Jortin’s Remarks, vol.
iv. p. 366,) which he had received from Rome, and it has been
since published in the Menagiana (tom. iii. p. 254—259) with a
Latin version.]
24 (return) [ After the mention of a narrow girdle, (as none
could appear stark naked in the theatre,) Procopius thus
proceeds. I have heard that a learned prelate, now deceased, was
fond of quoting this passage in conversation.]
25 (return) [ Theodora surpassed the Crispa of Ausonius, (Epigram
lxxi.,) who imitated the capitalis luxus of the females of Nola.
See Quintilian Institut. viii. 6, and Torrentius ad Horat.
Sermon. l. i. sat. 2, v. 101. At a memorable supper, thirty
slaves waited round the table ten young men feasted with
Theodora. Her charity was universal. Et lassata viris, necdum
satiata, recessit.]
26 (return) [ She wished for a fourth altar, on which she might
pour libations to the god of love.]
2611 (return) [ Gibbon should have remembered the axiom which he
quotes in another piece, scelera ostendi oportet dum puniantur
abscondi flagitia.—M.]
In the most abject state of her fortune, and reputation, some
vision, either of sleep or of fancy, had whispered to Theodora
the pleasing assurance that she was destined to become the spouse
of a potent monarch. Conscious of her approaching greatness, she
returned from Paphlagonia to Constantinople; assumed, like a
skilful actress, a more decent character; relieved her poverty by
the laudable industry of spinning wool; and affected a life of
chastity and solitude in a small house, which she afterwards
changed into a magnificent temple. 27 Her beauty, assisted by art
or accident, soon attracted, captivated, and fixed, the patrician
Justinian, who already reigned with absolute sway under the name
of his uncle. Perhaps she contrived to enhance the value of a
gift which she had so often lavished on the meanest of mankind;
perhaps she inflamed, at first by modest delays, and at last by
sensual allurements, the desires of a lover, who, from nature or
devotion, was addicted to long vigils and abstemious diet. When
his first transports had subsided, she still maintained the same
ascendant over his mind, by the more solid merit of temper and
understanding. Justinian delighted to ennoble and enrich the
object of his affection; the treasures of the East were poured at
her feet, and the nephew of Justin was determined, perhaps by
religious scruples, to bestow on his concubine the sacred and
legal character of a wife. But the laws of Rome expressly
prohibited the marriage of a senator with any female who had been
dishonored by a servile origin or theatrical profession: the
empress Lupicina, or Euphemia, a Barbarian of rustic manners, but
of irreproachable virtue, refused to accept a prostitute for her
niece; and even Vigilantia, the superstitious mother of
Justinian, though she acknowledged the wit and beauty of
Theodora, was seriously apprehensive, lest the levity and
arrogance of that artful paramour might corrupt the piety and
happiness of her son. These obstacles were removed by the
inflexible constancy of Justinian. He patiently expected the
death of the empress; he despised the tears of his mother, who
soon sunk under the weight of her affliction; and a law was
promulgated in the name of the emperor Justin, which abolished
the rigid jurisprudence of antiquity. A glorious repentance (the
words of the edict) was left open for the unhappy females who had
prostituted their persons on the theatre, and they were permitted
to contract a legal union with the most illustrious of the
Romans. 28 This indulgence was speedily followed by the solemn
nuptials of Justinian and Theodora; her dignity was gradually
exalted with that of her lover, and, as soon as Justin had
invested his nephew with the purple, the patriarch of
Constantinople placed the diadem on the heads of the emperor and
empress of the East. But the usual honors which the severity of
Roman manners had allowed to the wives of princes, could not
satisfy either the ambition of Theodora or the fondness of
Justinian. He seated her on the throne as an equal and
independent colleague in the sovereignty of the empire, and an
oath of allegiance was imposed on the governors of the provinces
in the joint names of Justinian and Theodora. 29 The Eastern
world fell prostrate before the genius and fortune of the
daughter of Acacius. The prostitute who, in the presence of
innumerable spectators, had polluted the theatre of
Constantinople, was adored as a queen in the same city, by grave
magistrates, orthodox bishops, victorious generals, and captive
monarchs. 30
27 (return) [ Anonym. de Antiquitat. C. P. l. iii. 132, in
Banduri Imperium Orient. tom. i. p. 48. Ludewig (p. 154) argues
sensibly that Theodora would not have immortalized a brothel: but
I apply this fact to her second and chaster residence at
Constantinople.]
28 (return) [ See the old law in Justinian’s Code, (l. v. tit. v.
leg. 7, tit. xxvii. leg. 1,) under the years 336 and 454. The new
edict (about the year 521 or 522, Aleman. p. 38, 96) very
awkwardly repeals no more than the clause of mulieres scenicoe,
libertinae, tabernariae. See the novels 89 and 117, and a Greek
rescript from Justinian to the bishops, (Aleman. p. 41.)]
29 (return) [ I swear by the Father, &c., by the Virgin Mary, by
the four Gospels, quae in manibus teneo, and by the Holy
Archangels Michael and Gabriel, puram conscientiam germanumque
servitium me servaturum, sacratissimis DDNN. Justiniano et
Theodorae conjugi ejus, (Novell. viii. tit. 3.) Would the oath
have been binding in favor of the widow? Communes tituli et
triumphi, &c., (Aleman. p. 47, 48.)]
30 (return) [ “Let greatness own her, and she’s mean no more,”
&c. Without Warburton’s critical telescope, I should never have
seen, in this general picture of triumphant vice, any personal
allusion to Theodora.]
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part II.
Those who believe that the female mind is totally depraved by the
loss of chastity, will eagerly listen to all the invectives of
private envy, or popular resentment which have dissembled the
virtues of Theodora, exaggerated her vices, and condemned with
rigor the venal or voluntary sins of the youthful harlot. From a
motive of shame, or contempt, she often declined the servile
homage of the multitude, escaped from the odious light of the
capital, and passed the greatest part of the year in the palaces
and gardens which were pleasantly seated on the sea-coast of the
Propontis and the Bosphorus. Her private hours were devoted to
the prudent as well as grateful care of her beauty, the luxury of
the bath and table, and the long slumber of the evening and the
morning. Her secret apartments were occupied by the favorite
women and eunuchs, whose interests and passions she indulged at
the expense of justice; the most illustrious personages of the
state were crowded into a dark and sultry antechamber, and when
at last, after tedious attendance, they were admitted to kiss the
feet of Theodora, they experienced, as her humor might suggest,
the silent arrogance of an empress, or the capricious levity of a
comedian. Her rapacious avarice to accumulate an immense
treasure, may be excused by the apprehension of her husband’s
death, which could leave no alternative between ruin and the
throne; and fear as well as ambition might exasperate Theodora
against two generals, who, during the malady of the emperor, had
rashly declared that they were not disposed to acquiesce in the
choice of the capital. But the reproach of cruelty, so repugnant
even to her softer vices, has left an indelible stain on the
memory of Theodora. Her numerous spies observed, and zealously
reported, every action, or word, or look, injurious to their
royal mistress. Whomsoever they accused were cast into her
peculiar prisons, 31 inaccessible to the inquiries of justice;
and it was rumored, that the torture of the rack, or scourge, had
been inflicted in the presence of the female tyrant, insensible
to the voice of prayer or of pity. 32 Some of these unhappy
victims perished in deep, unwholesome dungeons, while others were
permitted, after the loss of their limbs, their reason, or their
fortunes, to appear in the world, the living monuments of her
vengeance, which was commonly extended to the children of those
whom she had suspected or injured. The senator or bishop, whose
death or exile Theodora had pronounced, was delivered to a trusty
messenger, and his diligence was quickened by a menace from her
own mouth. “If you fail in the execution of my commands, I swear
by Him who liveth forever, that your skin shall be flayed from
your body.” 33
31 (return) [ Her prisons, a labyrinth, a Tartarus, (Anecdot. c.
4,) were under the palace. Darkness is propitious to cruelty, but
it is likewise favorable to calumny and fiction.]
32 (return) [ A more jocular whipping was inflicted on
Saturninus, for presuming to say that his wife, a favorite of the
empress, had not been found. (Anecdot. c. 17.)]
33 (return) [ Per viventem in saecula excoriari te faciam.
Anastasius de Vitis Pont. Roman. in Vigilio, p. 40.]
If the creed of Theodora had not been tainted with heresy, her
exemplary devotion might have atoned, in the opinion of her
contemporaries, for pride, avarice, and cruelty. But, if she
employed her influence to assuage the intolerant fury of the
emperor, the present age will allow some merit to her religion,
and much indulgence to her speculative errors. 34 The name of
Theodora was introduced, with equal honor, in all the pious and
charitable foundations of Justinian; and the most benevolent
institution of his reign may be ascribed to the sympathy of the
empress for her less fortunate sisters, who had been seduced or
compelled to embrace the trade of prostitution. A palace, on the
Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, was converted into a stately and
spacious monastery, and a liberal maintenance was assigned to
five hundred women, who had been collected from the streets and
brothels of Constantinople. In this safe and holy retreat, they
were devoted to perpetual confinement; and the despair of some,
who threw themselves headlong into the sea, was lost in the
gratitude of the penitents, who had been delivered from sin and
misery by their generous benefactress. 35 The prudence of
Theodora is celebrated by Justinian himself; and his laws are
attributed to the sage counsels of his most reverend wife whom he
had received as the gift of the Deity. 36 Her courage was
displayed amidst the tumult of the people and the terrors of the
court. Her chastity, from the moment of her union with Justinian,
is founded on the silence of her implacable enemies; and although
the daughter of Acacius might be satiated with love, yet some
applause is due to the firmness of a mind which could sacrifice
pleasure and habit to the stronger sense either of duty or
interest. The wishes and prayers of Theodora could never obtain
the blessing of a lawful son, and she buried an infant daughter,
the sole offspring of her marriage. 37 Notwithstanding this
disappointment, her dominion was permanent and absolute; she
preserved, by art or merit, the affections of Justinian; and
their seeming dissensions were always fatal to the courtiers who
believed them to be sincere. Perhaps her health had been impaired
by the licentiousness of her youth; but it was always delicate,
and she was directed by her physicians to use the Pythian warm
baths. In this journey, the empress was followed by the
Praetorian præfect, the great treasurer, several counts and
patricians, and a splendid train of four thousand attendants: the
highways were repaired at her approach; a palace was erected for
her reception; and as she passed through Bithynia, she
distributed liberal alms to the churches, the monasteries, and
the hospitals, that they might implore Heaven for the restoration
of her health. 38 At length, in the twenty-fourth year of her
marriage, and the twenty-second of her reign, she was consumed by
a cancer; 39 and the irreparable loss was deplored by her
husband, who, in the room of a theatrical prostitute, might have
selected the purest and most noble virgin of the East. 40
34 (return) [ Ludewig, p. 161—166. I give him credit for the
charitable attempt, although he hath not much charity in his
temper.]
35 (return) [ Compare the anecdotes (c. 17) with the Edifices (l.
i. c. 9)—how differently may the same fact be stated! John Malala
(tom. ii. p. 174, 175) observes, that on this, or a similar
occasion, she released and clothed the girls whom she had
purchased from the stews at five aurei apiece.]
36 (return) [ Novel. viii. 1. An allusion to Theodora. Her
enemies read the name Daemonodora, (Aleman. p. 66.)]
37 (return) [ St. Sabas refused to pray for a son of Theodora,
lest he should prove a heretic worse than Anastasius himself,
(Cyril in Vit. St. Sabae, apud Aleman. p. 70, 109.)]
38 (return) [ See John Malala, tom. ii. p. 174. Theophanes, p.
158. Procopius de Edific. l. v. c. 3.]
39 (return) [ Theodora Chalcedonensis synodi inimica canceris
plaga toto corpore perfusa vitam prodigiose finivit, (Victor
Tununensis in Chron.) On such occasions, an orthodox mind is
steeled against pity. Alemannus (p. 12, 13) understands of
Theophanes as civil language, which does not imply either piety
or repentance; yet two years after her death, St. Theodora is
celebrated by Paul Silentiarius, (in proem. v. 58—62.)]
40 (return) [ As she persecuted the popes, and rejected a
council, Baronius exhausts the names of Eve, Dalila, Herodias,
&c.; after which he has recourse to his infernal dictionary:
civis inferni—alumna daemonum—satanico agitata spiritu-oestro
percita diabolico, &c., &c., (A.D. 548, No. 24.)]
II. A material difference may be observed in the games of
antiquity: the most eminent of the Greeks were actors, the Romans
were merely spectators. The Olympic stadium was open to wealth,
merit, and ambition; and if the candidates could depend on their
personal skill and activity, they might pursue the footsteps of
Diomede and Menelaus, and conduct their own horses in the rapid
career. 41 Ten, twenty, forty chariots were allowed to start at
the same instant; a crown of leaves was the reward of the victor;
and his fame, with that of his family and country, was chanted in
lyric strains more durable than monuments of brass and marble.
But a senator, or even a citizen, conscious of his dignity, would
have blushed to expose his person, or his horses, in the circus
of Rome. The games were exhibited at the expense of the republic,
the magistrates, or the emperors: but the reins were abandoned to
servile hands; and if the profits of a favorite charioteer
sometimes exceeded those of an advocate, they must be considered
as the effects of popular extravagance, and the high wages of a
disgraceful profession. The race, in its first institution, was a
simple contest of two chariots, whose drivers were distinguished
by white and red liveries: two additional colors, a light green,
and a caerulean blue, were afterwards introduced; and as the
races were repeated twenty-five times, one hundred chariots
contributed in the same day to the pomp of the circus. The four
factions soon acquired a legal establishment, and a mysterious
origin, and their fanciful colors were derived from the various
appearances of nature in the four seasons of the year; the red
dogstar of summer, the snows of winter, the deep shades of
autumn, and the cheerful verdure of the spring. 42 Another
interpretation preferred the elements to the seasons, and the
struggle of the green and blue was supposed to represent the
conflict of the earth and sea. Their respective victories
announced either a plentiful harvest or a prosperous navigation,
and the hostility of the husbandmen and mariners was somewhat
less absurd than the blind ardor of the Roman people, who devoted
their lives and fortunes to the color which they had espoused.
Such folly was disdained and indulged by the wisest princes; but
the names of Caligula, Nero, Vitellius, Verus, Commodus,
Caracalla, and Elagabalus, were enrolled in the blue or green
factions of the circus; they frequented their stables, applauded
their favorites, chastised their antagonists, and deserved the
esteem of the populace, by the natural or affected imitation of
their manners. The bloody and tumultuous contest continued to
disturb the public festivity, till the last age of the spectacles
of Rome; and Theodoric, from a motive of justice or affection,
interposed his authority to protect the greens against the
violence of a consul and a patrician, who were passionately
addicted to the blue faction of the circus. 43
41 (return) [ Read and feel the xxiid book of the Iliad, a living
picture of manners, passions, and the whole form and spirit of
the chariot race West’s Dissertation on the Olympic Games (sect.
xii.—xvii.) affords much curious and authentic information.]
42 (return) [ The four colors, albati, russati, prasini, veneti,
represent the four seasons, according to Cassiodorus, (Var. iii.
51,) who lavishes much wit and eloquence on this theatrical
mystery. Of these colors, the three first may be fairly
translated white, red, and green. Venetus is explained by
coeruleus, a word various and vague: it is properly the sky
reflected in the sea; but custom and convenience may allow blue
as an equivalent, (Robert. Stephan. sub voce. Spence’s Polymetis,
p. 228.)]
43 (return) [ See Onuphrius Panvinius de Ludis Circensibus, l. i.
c. 10, 11; the xviith Annotation on Mascou’s History of the
Germans; and Aleman ad c. vii.]
Constantinople adopted the follies, though not the virtues, of
ancient Rome; and the same factions which had agitated the
circus, raged with redoubled fury in the hippodrome. Under the
reign of Anastasius, this popular frenzy was inflamed by
religious zeal; and the greens, who had treacherously concealed
stones and daggers under baskets of fruit, massacred, at a solemn
festival, three thousand of their blue adversaries. 44 From this
capital, the pestilence was diffused into the provinces and
cities of the East, and the sportive distinction of two colors
produced two strong and irreconcilable factions, which shook the
foundations of a feeble government. 45 The popular dissensions,
founded on the most serious interest, or holy pretence, have
scarcely equalled the obstinacy of this wanton discord, which
invaded the peace of families, divided friends and brothers, and
tempted the female sex, though seldom seen in the circus, to
espouse the inclinations of their lovers, or to contradict the
wishes of their husbands. Every law, either human or divine, was
trampled under foot, and as long as the party was successful, its
deluded followers appeared careless of private distress or public
calamity. The license, without the freedom, of democracy, was
revived at Antioch and Constantinople, and the support of a
faction became necessary to every candidate for civil or
ecclesiastical honors. A secret attachment to the family or sect
of Anastasius was imputed to the greens; the blues were zealously
devoted to the cause of orthodoxy and Justinian, 46 and their
grateful patron protected, above five years, the disorders of a
faction, whose seasonable tumults overawed the palace, the
senate, and the capitals of the East. Insolent with royal favor,
the blues affected to strike terror by a peculiar and Barbaric
dress, the long hair of the Huns, their close sleeves and ample
garments, a lofty step, and a sonorous voice. In the day they
concealed their two-edged poniards, but in the night they boldly
assembled in arms, and in numerous bands, prepared for every act
of violence and rapine. Their adversaries of the green faction,
or even inoffensive citizens, were stripped and often murdered by
these nocturnal robbers, and it became dangerous to wear any gold
buttons or girdles, or to appear at a late hour in the streets of
a peaceful capital. A daring spirit, rising with impunity,
proceeded to violate the safeguard of private houses; and fire
was employed to facilitate the attack, or to conceal the crimes
of these factious rioters. No place was safe or sacred from their
depredations; to gratify either avarice or revenge, they
profusely spilt the blood of the innocent; churches and altars
were polluted by atrocious murders; and it was the boast of the
assassins, that their dexterity could always inflict a mortal
wound with a single stroke of their dagger. The dissolute youth
of Constantinople adopted the blue livery of disorder; the laws
were silent, and the bonds of society were relaxed: creditors
were compelled to resign their obligations; judges to reverse
their sentence; masters to enfranchise their slaves; fathers to
supply the extravagance of their children; noble matrons were
prostituted to the lust of their servants; beautiful boys were
torn from the arms of their parents; and wives, unless they
preferred a voluntary death, were ravished in the presence of
their husbands. 47 The despair of the greens, who were persecuted
by their enemies, and deserted by the magistrates, assumed the
privilege of defence, perhaps of retaliation; but those who
survived the combat were dragged to execution, and the unhappy
fugitives, escaping to woods and caverns, preyed without mercy on
the society from whence they were expelled. Those ministers of
justice who had courage to punish the crimes, and to brave the
resentment, of the blues, became the victims of their indiscreet
zeal; a præfect of Constantinople fled for refuge to the holy
sepulchre, a count of the East was ignominiously whipped, and a
governor of Cilicia was hanged, by the order of Theodora, on the
tomb of two assassins whom he had condemned for the murder of his
groom, and a daring attack upon his own life. 48 An aspiring
candidate may be tempted to build his greatness on the public
confusion, but it is the interest as well as duty of a sovereign
to maintain the authority of the laws. The first edict of
Justinian, which was often repeated, and sometimes executed,
announced his firm resolution to support the innocent, and to
chastise the guilty, of every denomination and color. Yet the
balance of justice was still inclined in favor of the blue
faction, by the secret affection, the habits, and the fears of
the emperor; his equity, after an apparent struggle, submitted,
without reluctance, to the implacable passions of Theodora, and
the empress never forgot, or forgave, the injuries of the
comedian. At the accession of the younger Justin, the
proclamation of equal and rigorous justice indirectly condemned
the partiality of the former reign. “Ye blues, Justinian is no
more! ye greens, he is still alive!” 49
44 (return) [ Marcellin. in Chron. p. 47. Instead of the vulgar
word venata he uses the more exquisite terms of coerulea and
coerealis. Baronius (A.D. 501, No. 4, 5, 6) is satisfied that the
blues were orthodox; but Tillemont is angry at the supposition,
and will not allow any martyrs in a playhouse, (Hist. des Emp.
tom. vi. p. 554.)]
45 (return) [ See Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 24.) In describing
the vices of the factions and of the government, the public, is
not more favorable than the secret, historian. Aleman. (p. 26)
has quoted a fine passage from Gregory Nazianzen, which proves
the inveteracy of the evil.]
46 (return) [ The partiality of Justinian for the blues (Anecdot.
c. 7) is attested by Evagrius, (Hist. Eccles. l. iv. c. 32,) John
Malala, (tom ii p. 138, 139,) especially for Antioch; and
Theophanes, (p. 142.)]
47 (return) [ A wife, (says Procopius,) who was seized and almost
ravished by a blue-coat, threw herself into the Bosphorus. The
bishops of the second Syria (Aleman. p. 26) deplore a similar
suicide, the guilt or glory of female chastity, and name the
heroine.]
48 (return) [ The doubtful credit of Procopius (Anecdot. c. 17)
is supported by the less partial Evagrius, who confirms the fact,
and specifies the names. The tragic fate of the præfect of
Constantinople is related by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 139.)]
49 (return) [ See John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 147;) yet he owns
that Justinian was attached to the blues. The seeming discord of
the emperor and Theodora is, perhaps, viewed with too much
jealousy and refinement by Procopius, (Anecdot. c. 10.) See
Aleman. Praefat. p. 6.]
A sedition, which almost laid Constantinople in ashes, was
excited by the mutual hatred and momentary reconciliation of the
two factions. In the fifth year of his reign, Justinian
celebrated the festival of the ides of January; the games were
incessantly disturbed by the clamorous discontent of the greens:
till the twenty-second race, the emperor maintained his silent
gravity; at length, yielding to his impatience, he condescended
to hold, in abrupt sentences, and by the voice of a crier, the
most singular dialogue 50 that ever passed between a prince and
his subjects. Their first complaints were respectful and modest;
they accused the subordinate ministers of oppression, and
proclaimed their wishes for the long life and victory of the
emperor. “Be patient and attentive, ye insolent railers!”
exclaimed Justinian; “be mute, ye Jews, Samaritans, and
Manichaeans!” The greens still attempted to awaken his
compassion. “We are poor, we are innocent, we are injured, we
dare not pass through the streets: a general persecution is
exercised against our name and color. Let us die, O emperor! but
let us die by your command, and for your service!” But the
repetition of partial and passionate invectives degraded, in
their eyes, the majesty of the purple; they renounced allegiance
to the prince who refused justice to his people; lamented that
the father of Justinian had been born; and branded his son with
the opprobrious names of a homicide, an ass, and a perjured
tyrant. “Do you despise your lives?” cried the indignant monarch:
the blues rose with fury from their seats; their hostile clamors
thundered in the hippodrome; and their adversaries, deserting the
unequal contest spread terror and despair through the streets of
Constantinople. At this dangerous moment, seven notorious
assassins of both factions, who had been condemned by the
præfect, were carried round the city, and afterwards transported
to the place of execution in the suburb of Pera. Four were
immediately beheaded; a fifth was hanged: but when the same
punishment was inflicted on the remaining two, the rope broke,
they fell alive to the ground, the populace applauded their
escape, and the monks of St. Conon, issuing from the neighboring
convent, conveyed them in a boat to the sanctuary of the church.
51 As one of these criminals was of the blue, and the other of
the green livery, the two factions were equally provoked by the
cruelty of their oppressor, or the ingratitude of their patron;
and a short truce was concluded till they had delivered their
prisoners and satisfied their revenge. The palace of the præfect,
who withstood the seditious torrent, was instantly burnt, his
officers and guards were massacred, the prisons were forced open,
and freedom was restored to those who could only use it for the
public destruction. A military force, which had been despatched
to the aid of the civil magistrate, was fiercely encountered by
an armed multitude, whose numbers and boldness continually
increased; and the Heruli, the wildest Barbarians in the service
of the empire, overturned the priests and their relics, which,
from a pious motive, had been rashly interposed to separate the
bloody conflict. The tumult was exasperated by this sacrilege,
the people fought with enthusiasm in the cause of God; the women,
from the roofs and windows, showered stones on the heads of the
soldiers, who darted fire brands against the houses; and the
various flames, which had been kindled by the hands of citizens
and strangers, spread without control over the face of the city.
The conflagration involved the cathedral of St. Sophia, the baths
of Zeuxippus, a part of the palace, from the first entrance to
the altar of Mars, and the long portico from the palace to the
forum of Constantine: a large hospital, with the sick patients,
was consumed; many churches and stately edifices were destroyed
and an immense treasure of gold and silver was either melted or
lost. From such scenes of horror and distress, the wise and
wealthy citizens escaped over the Bosphorus to the Asiatic side;
and during five days Constantinople was abandoned to the
factions, whose watchword, Nika, vanquish! has given a name to
this memorable sedition. 52
50 (return) [ This dialogue, which Theophanes has preserved,
exhibits the popular language, as well as the manners, of
Constantinople, in the vith century. Their Greek is mingled with
many strange and barbarous words, for which Ducange cannot always
find a meaning or etymology.]
51 (return) [ See this church and monastery in Ducange, C. P.
Christiana, l. iv p 182.]
52 (return) [ The history of the Nika sedition is extracted from
Marcellinus, (in Chron.,) Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 26,) John
Malala, (tom. ii. p. 213—218,) Chron. Paschal., (p. 336—340,)
Theophanes, (Chronograph. p. 154—158) and Zonaras, (l. xiv. p.
61—63.)]
As long as the factions were divided, the triumphant blues, and
desponding greens, appeared to behold with the same indifference
the disorders of the state. They agreed to censure the corrupt
management of justice and the finance; and the two responsible
ministers, the artful Tribonian, and the rapacious John of
Cappadocia, were loudly arraigned as the authors of the public
misery. The peaceful murmurs of the people would have been
disregarded: they were heard with respect when the city was in
flames; the quaestor, and the præfect, were instantly removed,
and their offices were filled by two senators of blameless
integrity. After this popular concession, Justinian proceeded to
the hippodrome to confess his own errors, and to accept the
repentance of his grateful subjects; but they distrusted his
assurances, though solemnly pronounced in the presence of the
holy Gospels; and the emperor, alarmed by their distrust,
retreated with precipitation to the strong fortress of the
palace. The obstinacy of the tumult was now imputed to a secret
and ambitious conspiracy, and a suspicion was entertained, that
the insurgents, more especially the green faction, had been
supplied with arms and money by Hypatius and Pompey, two
patricians, who could neither forget with honor, nor remember
with safety, that they were the nephews of the emperor
Anastasius. Capriciously trusted, disgraced, and pardoned, by the
jealous levity of the monarch, they had appeared as loyal
servants before the throne; and, during five days of the tumult,
they were detained as important hostages; till at length, the
fears of Justinian prevailing over his prudence, he viewed the
two brothers in the light of spies, perhaps of assassins, and
sternly commanded them to depart from the palace. After a
fruitless representation, that obedience might lead to
involuntary treason, they retired to their houses, and in the
morning of the sixth day, Hypatius was surrounded and seized by
the people, who, regardless of his virtuous resistance, and the
tears of his wife, transported their favorite to the forum of
Constantine, and instead of a diadem, placed a rich collar on his
head. If the usurper, who afterwards pleaded the merit of his
delay, had complied with the advice of his senate, and urged the
fury of the multitude, their first irresistible effort might have
oppressed or expelled his trembling competitor. The Byzantine
palace enjoyed a free communication with the sea; vessels lay
ready at the garden stairs; and a secret resolution was already
formed, to convey the emperor with his family and treasures to a
safe retreat, at some distance from the capital.
Justinian was lost, if the prostitute whom he raised from the
theatre had not renounced the timidity, as well as the virtues,
of her sex. In the midst of a council, where Belisarius was
present, Theodora alone displayed the spirit of a hero; and she
alone, without apprehending his future hatred, could save the
emperor from the imminent danger, and his unworthy fears. “If
flight,” said the consort of Justinian, “were the only means of
safety, yet I should disdain to fly. Death is the condition of
our birth; but they who have reigned should never survive the
loss of dignity and dominion. I implore Heaven, that I may never
be seen, not a day, without my diadem and purple; that I may no
longer behold the light, when I cease to be saluted with the name
of queen. If you resolve, O Caesar! to fly, you have treasures;
behold the sea, you have ships; but tremble lest the desire of
life should expose you to wretched exile and ignominious death.
For my own part, I adhere to the maxim of antiquity, that the
throne is a glorious sepulchre.” The firmness of a woman restored
the courage to deliberate and act, and courage soon discovers the
resources of the most desperate situation. It was an easy and a
decisive measure to revive the animosity of the factions; the
blues were astonished at their own guilt and folly, that a
trifling injury should provoke them to conspire with their
implacable enemies against a gracious and liberal benefactor;
they again proclaimed the majesty of Justinian; and the greens,
with their upstart emperor, were left alone in the hippodrome.
The fidelity of the guards was doubtful; but the military force
of Justinian consisted in three thousand veterans, who had been
trained to valor and discipline in the Persian and Illyrian wars.
Under the command of Belisarius and Mundus, they silently marched
in two divisions from the palace, forced their obscure way
through narrow passages, expiring flames, and falling edifices,
and burst open at the same moment the two opposite gates of the
hippodrome. In this narrow space, the disorderly and affrighted
crowd was incapable of resisting on either side a firm and
regular attack; the blues signalized the fury of their
repentance; and it is computed, that above thirty thousand
persons were slain in the merciless and promiscuous carnage of
the day. Hypatius was dragged from his throne, and conducted,
with his brother Pompey, to the feet of the emperor: they
implored his clemency; but their crime was manifest, their
innocence uncertain, and Justinian had been too much terrified to
forgive. The next morning the two nephews of Anastasius, with
eighteen illustrious accomplices, of patrician or consular rank,
were privately executed by the soldiers; their bodies were thrown
into the sea, their palaces razed, and their fortunes
confiscated. The hippodrome itself was condemned, during several
years, to a mournful silence: with the restoration of the games,
the same disorders revived; and the blue and green factions
continued to afflict the reign of Justinian, and to disturb the
tranquility of the Eastern empire. 53
53 (return) [ Marcellinus says in general terms, innumeris
populis in circotrucidatis. Procopius numbers 30,000 victims: and
the 35,000 of Theophanes are swelled to 40,000 by the more recent
Zonaras. Such is the usual progress of exaggeration.]
III. That empire, after Rome was barbarous, still embraced the
nations whom she had conquered beyond the Adriatic, and as far as
the frontiers of Aethiopia and Persia. Justinian reigned over
sixty-four provinces, and nine hundred and thirty-five cities; 54
his dominions were blessed by nature with the advantages of soil,
situation, and climate: and the improvements of human art had
been perpetually diffused along the coast of the Mediterranean
and the banks of the Nile from ancient Troy to the Egyptian
Thebes. Abraham 55 had been relieved by the well-known plenty of
Egypt; the same country, a small and populous tract, was still
capable of exporting, each year, two hundred and sixty thousand
quarters of wheat for the use of Constantinople; 56 and the
capital of Justinian was supplied with the manufactures of Sidon,
fifteen centuries after they had been celebrated in the poems of
Homer. 57 The annual powers of vegetation, instead of being
exhausted by two thousand harvests, were renewed and invigorated
by skilful husbandry, rich manure, and seasonable repose. The
breed of domestic animals was infinitely multiplied. Plantations,
buildings, and the instruments of labor and luxury, which are
more durable than the term of human life, were accumulated by the
care of successive generations. Tradition preserved, and
experience simplified, the humble practice of the arts: society
was enriched by the division of labor and the facility of
exchange; and every Roman was lodged, clothed, and subsisted, by
the industry of a thousand hands. The invention of the loom and
distaff has been piously ascribed to the gods. In every age, a
variety of animal and vegetable productions, hair, skins, wool,
flax, cotton, and at length silk, have been skilfully
manufactured to hide or adorn the human body; they were stained
with an infusion of permanent colors; and the pencil was
successfully employed to improve the labors of the loom. In the
choice of those colors 58 which imitate the beauties of nature,
the freedom of taste and fashion was indulged; but the deep
purple 59 which the Phœnicians extracted from a shell-fish, was
restrained to the sacred person and palace of the emperor; and
the penalties of treason were denounced against the ambitious
subjects who dared to usurp the prerogative of the throne. 60
54 (return) [ Hierocles, a contemporary of Justinian, composed
his (Itineraria, p. 631,) review of the eastern provinces and
cities, before the year 535, (Wesseling, in Praefat. and Not. ad
p. 623, &c.)]
55 (return) [ See the Book of Genesis (xii. 10) and the
administration of Joseph. The annals of the Greeks and Hebrews
agree in the early arts and plenty of Egypt: but this antiquity
supposes a long series of improvement; and Warburton, who is
almost stifled by the Hebrew calls aloud for the Samaritan,
Chronology, (Divine Legation, vol. iii. p. 29, &c.) * Note: The
recent extraordinary discoveries in Egyptian antiquities strongly
confirm the high notion of the early Egyptian civilization, and
imperatively demand a longer period for their development. As to
the common Hebrew chronology, as far as such a subject is capable
of demonstration, it appears to me to have been framed, with a
particular view, by the Jews of Tiberias. It was not the
chronology of the Samaritans, not that of the LXX., not that of
Josephus, not that of St. Paul.—M.]
56 (return) [ Eight millions of Roman modii, besides a
contribution of 80,000 aurei for the expenses of water-carriage,
from which the subject was graciously excused. See the 13th Edict
of Justinian: the numbers are checked and verified by the
agreement of the Greek and Latin texts.]
57 (return) [ Homer’s Iliad, vi. 289. These veils, were the work
of the Sidonian women. But this passage is more honorable to the
manufactures than to the navigation of Phoenicia, from whence
they had been imported to Troy in Phrygian bottoms.]
58 (return) [ See in Ovid (de Arte Amandi, iii. 269, &c.) a
poetical list of twelve colors borrowed from flowers, the
elements, &c. But it is almost impossible to discriminate by
words all the nice and various shades both of art and nature.]
59 (return) [ By the discovery of cochineal, &c., we far surpass
the colors of antiquity. Their royal purple had a strong smell,
and a dark cast as deep as bull’s blood—obscuritas rubens, (says
Cassiodorus, Var. 1, 2,) nigredo saguinea. The president Goguet
(Origine des Loix et des Arts, part ii. l. ii. c. 2, p. 184—215)
will amuse and satisfy the reader. I doubt whether his book,
especially in England, is as well known as it deserves to be.]
60 (return) [ Historical proofs of this jealousy have been
occasionally introduced, and many more might have been added; but
the arbitrary acts of despotism were justified by the sober and
general declarations of law, (Codex Theodosian. l. x. tit. 21,
leg. 3. Codex Justinian. l. xi. tit. 8, leg. 5.) An inglorious
permission, and necessary restriction, was applied to the mince,
the female dancers, (Cod. Theodos. l. xv. tit. 7, leg. 11.)]
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part III.
I need not explain that silk 61 is originally spun from the
bowels of a caterpillar, and that it composes the golden tomb,
from whence a worm emerges in the form of a butterfly. Till the
reign of Justinian, the silk-worm who feed on the leaves of the
white mulberry-tree were confined to China; those of the pine,
the oak, and the ash, were common in the forests both of Asia and
Europe; but as their education is more difficult, and their
produce more uncertain, they were generally neglected, except in
the little island of Ceos, near the coast of Attica. A thin gauze
was procured from their webs, and this Cean manufacture, the
invention of a woman, for female use, was long admired both in
the East and at Rome. Whatever suspicions may be raised by the
garments of the Medes and Assyrians, Virgil is the most ancient
writer, who expressly mentions the soft wool which was combed
from the trees of the Seres or Chinese; 62 and this natural
error, less marvellous than the truth, was slowly corrected by
the knowledge of a valuable insect, the first artificer of the
luxury of nations. That rare and elegant luxury was censured, in
the reign of Tiberius, by the gravest of the Romans; and Pliny,
in affected though forcible language, has condemned the thirst of
gain, which explores the last confines of the earth, for the
pernicious purpose of exposing to the public eye naked draperies
and transparent matrons. 63 6311 A dress which showed the turn of
the limbs, and color of the skin, might gratify vanity, or
provoke desire; the silks which had been closely woven in China
were sometimes unravelled by the Phœnician women, and the
precious materials were multiplied by a looser texture, and the
intermixture of linen threads. 64 Two hundred years after the age
of Pliny, the use of pure, or even of mixed silks, was confined
to the female sex, till the opulent citizens of Rome and the
provinces were insensibly familiarized with the example of
Elagabalus, the first who, by this effeminate habit, had sullied
the dignity of an emperor and a man. Aurelian complained, that a
pound of silk was sold at Rome for twelve ounces of gold; but the
supply increased with the demand, and the price diminished with
the supply. If accident or monopoly sometimes raised the value
even above the standard of Aurelian, the manufacturers of Tyre
and Berytus were sometimes compelled, by the operation of the
same causes, to content themselves with a ninth part of that
extravagant rate. 65 A law was thought necessary to discriminate
the dress of comedians from that of senators; and of the silk
exported from its native country the far greater part was
consumed by the subjects of Justinian. They were still more
intimately acquainted with a shell-fish of the Mediterranean,
surnamed the silk-worm of the sea: the fine wool or hair by which
the mother-of-pearl affixes itself to the rock is now
manufactured for curiosity rather than use; and a robe obtained
from the same singular materials was the gift of the Roman
emperor to the satraps of Armenia. 66
61 (return) [ In the history of insects (far more wonderful than
Ovid’s Metamorphoses) the silk-worm holds a conspicuous place.
The bombyx of the Isle of Ceos, as described by Pliny, (Hist.
Natur. xi. 26, 27, with the notes of the two learned Jesuits,
Hardouin and Brotier,) may be illustrated by a similar species in
China, (Memoires sur les Chinois, tom. ii. p. 575—598;) but our
silk-worm, as well as the white mulberry-tree, were unknown to
Theophrastus and Pliny.]
62 (return) [ Georgic. ii. 121. Serica quando venerint in usum
planissime non acio: suspicor tamen in Julii Caesaris aevo, nam
ante non invenio, says Justus Lipsius, (Excursus i. ad Tacit.
Annal. ii. 32.) See Dion Cassius, (l. xliii. p. 358, edit.
Reimar,) and Pausanius, (l. vi. p. 519,) the first who describes,
however strangely, the Seric insect.]
63 (return) [ Tam longinquo orbe petitur, ut in publico matrona
transluceat...ut denudet foeminas vestis, (Plin. vi. 20, xi. 21.)
Varro and Publius Syrus had already played on the Toga vitrea,
ventus texilis, and nebula linen, (Horat. Sermon. i. 2, 101, with
the notes of Torrentius and Dacier.)]
6311 (return) [ Gibbon must have written transparent draperies
and naked matrons. Through sometimes affected, he is never
inaccurate.—M.]
64 (return) [ On the texture, colors, names, and use of the silk,
half silk, and liuen garments of antiquity, see the profound,
diffuse, and obscure researches of the great Salmasius, (in Hist.
August. p. 127, 309, 310, 339, 341, 342, 344, 388—391, 395, 513,)
who was ignorant of the most common trades of Dijon or Leyden.]
65 (return) [ Flavius Vopiscus in Aurelian. c. 45, in Hist.
August. p. 224. See Salmasius ad Hist. Aug. p. 392, and Plinian.
Exercitat. in Solinum, p. 694, 695. The Anecdotes of Procopius
(c. 25) state a partial and imperfect rate of the price of silk
in the time of Justinian.]
66 (return) [ Procopius de Edit. l. iii. c. 1. These pinnes de
mer are found near Smyrna, Sicily, Corsica, and Minorca; and a
pair of gloves of their silk was presented to Pope Benedict XIV.]
A valuable merchandise of small bulk is capable of defraying the
expense of land-carriage; and the caravans traversed the whole
latitude of Asia in two hundred and forty-three days from the
Chinese Ocean to the sea-coast of Syria. Silk was immediately
delivered to the Romans by the Persian merchants, 67 who
frequented the fairs of Armenia and Nisibis; but this trade,
which in the intervals of truce was oppressed by avarice and
jealousy, was totally interrupted by the long wars of the rival
monarchies. The great king might proudly number Sogdiana, and
even Serica, among the provinces of his empire; but his real
dominion was bounded by the Oxus and his useful intercourse with
the Sogdoites, beyond the river, depended on the pleasure of
their conquerors, the white Huns, and the Turks, who successively
reigned over that industrious people. Yet the most savage
dominion has not extirpated the seeds of agriculture and
commerce, in a region which is celebrated as one of the four
gardens of Asia; the cities of Samarcand and Bochara are
advantageously seated for the exchange of its various
productions; and their merchants purchased from the Chinese, 68
the raw or manufactured silk which they transported into Persia
for the use of the Roman empire. In the vain capital of China,
the Sogdian caravans were entertained as the suppliant embassies
of tributary kingdoms, and if they returned in safety, the bold
adventure was rewarded with exorbitant gain. But the difficult
and perilous march from Samarcand to the first town of Shensi,
could not be performed in less than sixty, eighty, or one hundred
days: as soon as they had passed the Jaxartes they entered the
desert; and the wandering hordes, unless they are restrained by
armies and garrisons, have always considered the citizen and the
traveller as the objects of lawful rapine. To escape the Tartar
robbers, and the tyrants of Persia, the silk caravans explored a
more southern road; they traversed the mountains of Thibet,
descended the streams of the Ganges or the Indus, and patiently
expected, in the ports of Guzerat and Malabar, the annual fleets
of the West. 69 But the dangers of the desert were found less
intolerable than toil, hunger, and the loss of time; the attempt
was seldom renewed, and the only European who has passed that
unfrequented way, applauds his own diligence, that, in nine
months after his departure from Pekin, he reached the mouth of
the Indus. The ocean, however, was open to the free communication
of mankind. From the great river to the tropic of Cancer, the
provinces of China were subdued and civilized by the emperors of
the North; they were filled about the time of the Christian aera
with cities and men, mulberry-trees and their precious
inhabitants; and if the Chinese, with the knowledge of the
compass, had possessed the genius of the Greeks or Phœnicians,
they might have spread their discoveries over the southern
hemisphere. I am not qualified to examine, and I am not disposed
to believe, their distant voyages to the Persian Gulf, or the
Cape of Good Hope; but their ancestors might equal the labors and
success of the present race, and the sphere of their navigation
might extend from the Isles of Japan to the Straits of Malacca,
the pillars, if we may apply that name, of an Oriental Hercules.
70 Without losing sight of land, they might sail along the coast
to the extreme promontory of Achin, which is annually visited by
ten or twelve ships laden with the productions, the manufactures,
and even the artificers of China; the Island of Sumatra and the
opposite peninsula are faintly delineated 71 as the regions of
gold and silver; and the trading cities named in the geography of
Ptolemy may indicate, that this wealth was not solely derived
from the mines. The direct interval between Sumatra and Ceylon is
about three hundred leagues: the Chinese and Indian navigators
were conducted by the flight of birds and periodical winds; and
the ocean might be securely traversed in square-built ships,
which, instead of iron, were sewed together with the strong
thread of the cocoanut. Ceylon, Serendib, or Taprobana, was
divided between two hostile princes; one of whom possessed the
mountains, the elephants, and the luminous carbuncle, and the
other enjoyed the more solid riches of domestic industry, foreign
trade, and the capacious harbor of Trinquemale, which received
and dismissed the fleets of the East and West. In this hospitable
isle, at an equal distance (as it was computed) from their
respective countries, the silk merchants of China, who had
collected in their voyages aloes, cloves, nutmeg, and sandal
wood, maintained a free and beneficial commerce with the
inhabitants of the Persian Gulf. The subjects of the great king
exalted, without a rival, his power and magnificence: and the
Roman, who confounded their vanity by comparing his paltry coin
with a gold medal of the emperor Anastasius, had sailed to
Ceylon, in an Aethiopian ship, as a simple passenger. 72
67 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 20, l. ii. c. 25;
Gothic. l. iv. c. 17. Menander in Excerpt. Legat. p. 107. Of the
Parthian or Persian empire, Isidore of Charax (in Stathmis
Parthicis, p. 7, 8, in Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. ii.) has
marked the roads, and Ammianus Marcellinus (l. xxiii. c. 6, p.
400) has enumerated the provinces. * Note: See St. Martin, Mem.
sur l’Armenie, vol. ii. p. 41.—M.]
68 (return) [ The blind admiration of the Jesuits confounds the
different periods of the Chinese history. They are more
critically distinguished by M. de Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom.
i. part i. in the Tables, part ii. in the Geography. Memoires de
l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxxii. xxxvi. xlii. xliii.,)
who discovers the gradual progress of the truth of the annals and
the extent of the monarchy, till the Christian aera. He has
searched, with a curious eye, the connections of the Chinese with
the nations of the West; but these connections are slight,
casual, and obscure; nor did the Romans entertain a suspicion
that the Seres or Sinae possessed an empire not inferior to their
own. * Note: An abstract of the various opinions of the learned
modern writers, Gosselin, Mannert, Lelewel, Malte-Brun, Heeren,
and La Treille, on the Serica and the Thinae of the ancients, may
be found in the new edition of Malte-Brun, vol. vi. p. 368,
382.—M.]
69 (return) [ The roads from China to Persia and Hindostan may be
investigated in the relations of Hackluyt and Thevenot, the
ambassadors of Sharokh, Anthony Jenkinson, the Pere Greuber, &c.
See likewise Hanway’s Travels, vol. i. p. 345—357. A
communication through Thibet has been lately explored by the
English sovereigns of Bengal.]
70 (return) [ For the Chinese navigation to Malacca and Achin,
perhaps to Ceylon, see Renaudot, (on the two Mahometan
Travellers, p. 8—11, 13—17, 141—157;) Dampier, (vol. ii. p. 136;)
the Hist. Philosophique des deux Indes, (tom. i. p. 98,) and
Hist. Generale des Voyages, (tom. vi. p. 201.)]
71 (return) [ The knowledge, or rather ignorance, of Strabo,
Pliny, Ptolemy, Arrian, Marcian, &c., of the countries eastward
of Cape Comorin, is finely illustrated by D’Anville, (Antiquite
Geographique de l’Inde, especially p. 161—198.) Our geography of
India is improved by commerce and conquest; and has been
illustrated by the excellent maps and memoirs of Major Rennel. If
he extends the sphere of his inquiries with the same critical
knowledge and sagacity, he will succeed, and may surpass, the
first of modern geographers.]
72 (return) [ The Taprobane of Pliny, (vi. 24,) Solinus, (c. 53,)
and Salmas. Plinianae Exercitat., (p. 781, 782,) and most of the
ancients, who often confound the islands of Ceylon and Sumatra,
is more clearly described by Cosmas Indicopleustes; yet even the
Christian topographer has exaggerated its dimensions. His
information on the Indian and Chinese trade is rare and curious,
(l. ii. p. 138, l. xi. p. 337, 338, edit. Montfaucon.)]
As silk became of indispensable use, the emperor Justinian saw
with concern that the Persians had occupied by land and sea the
monopoly of this important supply, and that the wealth of his
subjects was continually drained by a nation of enemies and
idolaters. An active government would have restored the trade of
Egypt and the navigation of the Red Sea, which had decayed with
the prosperity of the empire; and the Roman vessels might have
sailed, for the purchase of silk, to the ports of Ceylon, of
Malacca, or even of China. Justinian embraced a more humble
expedient, and solicited the aid of his Christian allies, the
Aethiopians of Abyssinia, who had recently acquired the arts of
navigation, the spirit of trade, and the seaport of Adulis, 73
7311 still decorated with the trophies of a Grecian conqueror.
Along the African coast, they penetrated to the equator in search
of gold, emeralds, and aromatics; but they wisely declined an
unequal competition, in which they must be always prevented by
the vicinity of the Persians to the markets of India; and the
emperor submitted to the disappointment, till his wishes were
gratified by an unexpected event. The gospel had been preached to
the Indians: a bishop already governed the Christians of St.
Thomas on the pepper-coast of Malabar; a church was planted in
Ceylon, and the missionaries pursued the footsteps of commerce to
the extremities of Asia. 74 Two Persian monks had long resided in
China, perhaps in the royal city of Nankin, the seat of a monarch
addicted to foreign superstitions, and who actually received an
embassy from the Isle of Ceylon. Amidst their pious occupations,
they viewed with a curious eye the common dress of the Chinese,
the manufactures of silk, and the myriads of silk-worms, whose
education (either on trees or in houses) had once been considered
as the labor of queens. 75 They soon discovered that it was
impracticable to transport the short-lived insect, but that in
the eggs a numerous progeny might be preserved and multiplied in
a distant climate. Religion or interest had more power over the
Persian monks than the love of their country: after a long
journey, they arrived at Constantinople, imparted their project
to the emperor, and were liberally encouraged by the gifts and
promises of Justinian. To the historians of that prince, a
campaign at the foot of Mount Caucasus has seemed more deserving
of a minute relation than the labors of these missionaries of
commerce, who again entered China, deceived a jealous people by
concealing the eggs of the silk-worm in a hollow cane, and
returned in triumph with the spoils of the East. Under their
direction, the eggs were hatched at the proper season by the
artificial heat of dung; the worms were fed with mulberry leaves;
they lived and labored in a foreign climate; a sufficient number
of butterflies was saved to propagate the race, and trees were
planted to supply the nourishment of the rising generations.
Experience and reflection corrected the errors of a new attempt,
and the Sogdoite ambassadors acknowledged, in the succeeding
reign, that the Romans were not inferior to the natives of China
in the education of the insects, and the manufactures of silk, 76
in which both China and Constantinople have been surpassed by the
industry of modern Europe. I am not insensible of the benefits of
elegant luxury; yet I reflect with some pain, that if the
importers of silk had introduced the art of printing, already
practised by the Chinese, the comedies of Menander and the entire
decads of Livy would have been perpetuated in the editions of the
sixth century.
A larger view of the globe might at least have promoted the
improvement of speculative science, but the Christian geography
was forcibly extracted from texts of Scripture, and the study of
nature was the surest symptom of an unbelieving mind. The
orthodox faith confined the habitable world to one temperate
zone, and represented the earth as an oblong surface, four
hundred days’ journey in length, two hundred in breadth,
encompassed by the ocean, and covered by the solid crystal of the
firmament. 77
73 (return) [ See Procopius, Persic. (l. ii. c. 20.) Cosmas
affords some interesting knowledge of the port and inscription of
Adulis, (Topograph. Christ. l. ii. p. 138, 140—143,) and of the
trade of the Axumites along the African coast of Barbaria or
Zingi, (p. 138, 139,) and as far as Taprobane, (l. xi. p. 339.)]
7311 (return) [ Mr. Salt obtained information of considerable
ruins of an ancient town near Zulla, called Azoole, which answers
to the position of Adulis. Mr. Salt was prevented by illness, Mr.
Stuart, whom he sent, by the jealousy of the natives, from
investigating these ruins: of their existence there seems no
doubt. Salt’s 2d Journey, p. 452.—M.]
74 (return) [ See the Christian missions in India, in Cosmas, (l.
iii. p. 178, 179, l. xi. p. 337,) and consult Asseman. Bibliot.
Orient. (tom. iv. p. 413—548.)]
75 (return) [ The invention, manufacture, and general use of silk
in China, may be seen in Duhalde, (Description Generale de la
Chine, tom. ii. p. 165, 205—223.) The province of Chekian is the
most renowned both for quantity and quality.]
76 (return) [ Procopius, (l. viii. Gothic. iv. c. 17. Theophanes
Byzant. apud Phot. Cod. lxxxiv. p. 38. Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiv.
p. 69. Pagi tom. ii. p. 602) assigns to the year 552 this
memorable importation. Menander (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 107)
mentions the admiration of the Sogdoites; and Theophylact
Simocatta (l. vii. c. 9) darkly represents the two rival kingdoms
in (China) the country of silk.]
77 (return) [ Cosmas, surnamed Indicopleustes, or the Indian
navigator, performed his voyage about the year 522, and composed
at Alexandria, between 535, and 547, Christian Topography,
(Montfaucon, Praefat. c. i.,) in which he refutes the impious
opinion, that the earth is a globe; and Photius had read this
work, (Cod. xxxvi. p. 9, 10,) which displays the prejudices of a
monk, with the knowledge of a merchant; the most valuable part
has been given in French and in Greek by Melchisedec Thevenot,
(Relations Curieuses, part i.,) and the whole is since published
in a splendid edition by Pere Montfaucon, (Nova Collectio Patrum,
Paris, 1707, 2 vols. in fol., tom. ii. p. 113—346.) But the
editor, a theologian, might blush at not discovering the
Nestorian heresy of Cosmas, which has been detected by La Croz
(Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 40—56.)]
IV. The subjects of Justinian were dissatisfied with the times,
and with the government. Europe was overrun by the Barbarians,
and Asia by the monks: the poverty of the West discouraged the
trade and manufactures of the East: the produce of labor was
consumed by the unprofitable servants of the church, the state,
and the army; and a rapid decrease was felt in the fixed and
circulating capitals which constitute the national wealth. The
public distress had been alleviated by the economy of Anastasius,
and that prudent emperor accumulated an immense treasure, while
he delivered his people from the most odious or oppressive taxes.
7711 Their gratitude universally applauded the abolition of the
gold of affliction, a personal tribute on the industry of the
poor, 78 but more intolerable, as it should seem, in the form
than in the substance, since the flourishing city of Edessa paid
only one hundred and forty pounds of gold, which was collected in
four years from ten thousand artificers. 79 Yet such was the
parsimony which supported this liberal disposition, that, in a
reign of twenty-seven years, Anastasius saved, from his annual
revenue, the enormous sum of thirteen millions sterling, or three
hundred and twenty thousand pounds of gold. 80 His example was
neglected, and his treasure was abused, by the nephew of Justin.
The riches of Justinian were speedily exhausted by alms and
buildings, by ambitious wars, and ignominious treaties. His
revenues were found inadequate to his expenses. Every art was
tried to extort from the people the gold and silver which he
scattered with a lavish hand from Persia to France: 81 his reign
was marked by the vicissitudes or rather by the combat, of
rapaciousness and avarice, of splendor and poverty; he lived with
the reputation of hidden treasures, 82 and bequeathed to his
successor the payment of his debts. 83 Such a character has been
justly accused by the voice of the people and of posterity: but
public discontent is credulous; private malice is bold; and a
lover of truth will peruse with a suspicious eye the instructive
anecdotes of Procopius. The secret historian represents only the
vices of Justinian, and those vices are darkened by his
malevolent pencil. Ambiguous actions are imputed to the worst
motives; error is confounded with guilt, accident with design,
and laws with abuses; the partial injustice of a moment is
dexterously applied as the general maxim of a reign of thirty-two
years; the emperor alone is made responsible for the faults of
his officers, the disorders of the times, and the corruption of
his subjects; and even the calamities of nature, plagues,
earthquakes, and inundations, are imputed to the prince of the
daemons, who had mischievously assumed the form of Justinian. 84
7711 (return) [ See the character of Anastasius in Joannes Lydus
de Magistratibus, iii. c. 45, 46, p. 230—232. His economy is
there said to have degenerated into parsimony. He is accused of
having taken away the levying of taxes and payment of the troops
from the municipal authorities, (the decurionate) in the Eastern
cities, and intrusted it to an extortionate officer named Mannus.
But he admits that the imperial revenue was enormously increased
by this measure. A statue of iron had been erected to Anastasius
in the Hippodrome, on which appeared one morning this pasquinade.
This epigram is also found in the Anthology. Jacobs, vol. iv. p.
114 with some better readings. This iron statue meetly do we
place To thee, world-wasting king, than brass more base; For all
the death, the penury, famine, woe, That from thy wide-destroying
avarice flow, This fell Charybdis, Scylla, near to thee, This
fierce devouring Anastasius, see; And tremble, Scylla! on thee,
too, his greed, Coining thy brazen deity, may feed. But Lydus,
with no uncommon inconsistency in such writers, proceeds to paint
the character of Anastasius as endowed with almost every virtue,
not excepting the utmost liberality. He was only prevented by
death from relieving his subjects altogether from the capitation
tax, which he greatly diminished.—M.]
78 (return) [ Evagrius (l. ii. c. 39, 40) is minute and grateful,
but angry with Zosimus for calumniating the great Constantine. In
collecting all the bonds and records of the tax, the humanity of
Anastasius was diligent and artful: fathers were sometimes
compelled to prostitute their daughters, (Zosim. Hist. l. ii. c.
38, p. 165, 166, Lipsiae, 1784.) Timotheus of Gaza chose such an
event for the subject of a tragedy, (Suidas, tom. iii. p. 475,)
which contributed to the abolition of the tax, (Cedrenus, p.
35,)—a happy instance (if it be true) of the use of the theatre.]
79 (return) [ See Josua Stylites, in the Bibliotheca Orientalis
of Asseman, (tom. p. 268.) This capitation tax is slightly
mentioned in the Chronicle of Edessa.]
80 (return) [ Procopius (Anecdot. c. 19) fixes this sum from the
report of the treasurers themselves. Tiberias had vicies ter
millies; but far different was his empire from that of
Anastasius.]
81 (return) [ Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 30,) in the next generation,
was moderate and well informed; and Zonaras, (l. xiv. c. 61,) in
the xiith century, had read with care, and thought without
prejudice; yet their colors are almost as black as those of the
anecdotes.]
82 (return) [ Procopius (Anecdot. c. 30) relates the idle
conjectures of the times. The death of Justinian, says the secret
historian, will expose his wealth or poverty.]
83 (return) [ See Corippus de Laudibus Justini Aug. l. ii. 260,
&c., 384, &c “Plurima sunt vivo nimium neglecta parenti, Unde tot
exhaustus contraxit debita fiscus.” Centenaries of gold were
brought by strong men into the Hippodrome, “Debita persolvit,
genitoris cauta recepit.”]
84 (return) [ The Anecdotes (c. 11—14, 18, 20—30) supply many
facts and more complaints. * Note: The work of Lydus de
Magistratibus (published by Hase at Paris, 1812, and reprinted in
the new edition of the Byzantine Historians,) was written during
the reign of Justinian. This work of Lydus throws no great light
on the earlier history of the Roman magistracy, but gives some
curious details of the changes and retrenchments in the offices
of state, which took place at this time. The personal history of
the author, with the account of his early and rapid advancement,
and the emoluments of the posts which he successively held, with
the bitter disappointment which he expresses, at finding himself,
at the height of his ambition, in an unpaid place, is an
excellent illustration of this statement. Gibbon has before, c.
iv. n. 45, and c. xvii. n. 112, traced the progress of a Roman
citizen to the highest honors of the state under the empire; the
steps by which Lydus reached his humbler eminence may likewise
throw light on the civil service at this period. He was first
received into the office of the Praetorian præfect; became a
notary in that office, and made in one year 1000 golden solidi,
and that without extortion. His place and the influence of his
relatives obtained him a wife with 400 pounds of gold for her
dowry. He became chief chartularius, with an annual stipend of
twenty-four solidi, and considerable emoluments for all the
various services which he performed. He rose to an Augustalis,
and finally to the dignity of Corniculus, the highest, and at one
time the most lucrative office in the department. But the
Praetorian præfect had gradually been deprived of his powers and
his honors. He lost the superintendence of the supply and
manufacture of arms; the uncontrolled charge of the public posts;
the levying of the troops; the command of the army in war when
the emperors ceased nominally to command in person, but really
through the Praetorian præfect; that of the household troops,
which fell to the magister aulae. At length the office was so
completely stripped of its power, as to be virtually abolished,
(see de Magist. l. iii. c. 40, p. 220, &c.) This diminution of
the office of the præfect destroyed the emoluments of his
subordinate officers, and Lydus not only drew no revenue from his
dignity, but expended upon it all the gains of his former
services. Lydus gravely refers this calamitous, and, as he
considers it, fatal degradation of the Praetorian office to the
alteration in the style of the official documents from Latin to
Greek; and refers to a prophecy of a certain Fonteius, which
connected the ruin of the Roman empire with its abandonment of
its language. Lydus chiefly owed his promotion to his knowledge
of Latin!—M.]
After this precaution, I shall briefly relate the anecdotes of
avarice and rapine under the following heads: I. Justinian was so
profuse that he could not be liberal. The civil and military
officers, when they were admitted into the service of the palace,
obtained an humble rank and a moderate stipend; they ascended by
seniority to a station of affluence and repose; the annual
pensions, of which the most honorable class was abolished by
Justinian, amounted to four hundred thousand pounds; and this
domestic economy was deplored by the venal or indigent courtiers
as the last outrage on the majesty of the empire. The posts, the
salaries of physicians, and the nocturnal illuminations, were
objects of more general concern; and the cities might justly
complain, that he usurped the municipal revenues which had been
appropriated to these useful institutions. Even the soldiers were
injured; and such was the decay of military spirit, that they
were injured with impunity. The emperor refused, at the return of
each fifth year, the customary donative of five pieces of gold,
reduced his veterans to beg their bread, and suffered unpaid
armies to melt away in the wars of Italy and Persia. II. The
humanity of his predecessors had always remitted, in some
auspicious circumstance of their reign, the arrears of the public
tribute, and they dexterously assumed the merit of resigning
those claims which it was impracticable to enforce. “Justinian,
in the space of thirty-two years, has never granted a similar
indulgence; and many of his subjects have renounced the
possession of those lands whose value is insufficient to satisfy
the demands of the treasury. To the cities which had suffered by
hostile inroads Anastasius promised a general exemption of seven
years: the provinces of Justinian have been ravaged by the
Persians and Arabs, the Huns and Sclavonians; but his vain and
ridiculous dispensation of a single year has been confined to
those places which were actually taken by the enemy.” Such is the
language of the secret historian, who expressly denies that any
indulgence was granted to Palestine after the revolt of the
Samaritans; a false and odious charge, confuted by the authentic
record which attests a relief of thirteen centenaries of gold
(fifty-two thousand pounds) obtained for that desolate province
by the intercession of St. Sabas. 85 III. Procopius has not
condescended to explain the system of taxation, which fell like a
hail-storm upon the land, like a devouring pestilence on its
inhabitants: but we should become the accomplices of his
malignity, if we imputed to Justinian alone the ancient though
rigorous principle, that a whole district should be condemned to
sustain the partial loss of the persons or property of
individuals. The Annona, or supply of corn for the use of the
army and capital, was a grievous and arbitrary exaction, which
exceeded, perhaps in a tenfold proportion, the ability of the
farmer; and his distress was aggravated by the partial injustice
of weights and measures, and the expense and labor of distant
carriage. In a time of scarcity, an extraordinary requisition was
made to the adjacent provinces of Thrace, Bithynia, and Phrygia:
but the proprietors, after a wearisome journey and perilous
navigation, received so inadequate a compensation, that they
would have chosen the alternative of delivering both the corn and
price at the doors of their granaries. These precautions might
indicate a tender solicitude for the welfare of the capital; yet
Constantinople did not escape the rapacious despotism of
Justinian. Till his reign, the Straits of the Bosphorus and
Hellespont were open to the freedom of trade, and nothing was
prohibited except the exportation of arms for the service of the
Barbarians. At each of these gates of the city, a praetor was
stationed, the minister of Imperial avarice; heavy customs were
imposed on the vessels and their merchandise; the oppression was
retaliated on the helpless consumer; the poor were afflicted by
the artificial scarcity, and exorbitant price of the market; and
a people, accustomed to depend on the liberality of their prince,
might sometimes complain of the deficiency of water and bread. 86
The aerial tribute, without a name, a law, or a definite object,
was an annual gift of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds,
which the emperor accepted from his Praetorian præfect; and the
means of payment were abandoned to the discretion of that
powerful magistrate.
IV. Even such a tax was less intolerable than the privilege of
monopolies, 8611 which checked the fair competition of industry,
and, for the sake of a small and dishonest gain, imposed an
arbitrary burden on the wants and luxury of the subject. “As
soon” (I transcribe the Anecdotes) “as the exclusive sale of silk
was usurped by the Imperial treasurer, a whole people, the
manufacturers of Tyre and Berytus, was reduced to extreme misery,
and either perished with hunger, or fled to the hostile dominions
of Persia.” A province might suffer by the decay of its
manufactures, but in this example of silk, Procopius has
partially overlooked the inestimable and lasting benefit which
the empire received from the curiosity of Justinian. His addition
of one seventh to the ordinary price of copper money may be
interpreted with the same candor; and the alteration, which might
be wise, appears to have been innocent; since he neither alloyed
the purity, nor enhanced the value, of the gold coin, 87 the
legal measure of public and private payments. V. The ample
jurisdiction required by the farmers of the revenue to accomplish
their engagements might be placed in an odious light, as if they
had purchased from the emperor the lives and fortunes of their
fellow-citizens. And a more direct sale of honors and offices was
transacted in the palace, with the permission, or at least with
the connivance, of Justinian and Theodora. The claims of merit,
even those of favor, were disregarded, and it was almost
reasonable to expect, that the bold adventurer, who had
undertaken the trade of a magistrate, should find a rich
compensation for infamy, labor, danger, the debts which he had
contracted, and the heavy interest which he paid. A sense of the
disgrace and mischief of this venal practice, at length awakened
the slumbering virtue of Justinian; and he attempted, by the
sanction of oaths 88 and penalties, to guard the integrity of his
government: but at the end of a year of perjury, his rigorous
edict was suspended, and corruption licentiously abused her
triumph over the impotence of the laws. VI. The testament of
Eulalius, count of the domestics, declared the emperor his sole
heir, on condition, however, that he should discharge his debts
and legacies, allow to his three daughters a decent maintenance,
and bestow each of them in marriage, with a portion of ten pounds
of gold. But the splendid fortune of Eulalius had been consumed
by fire, and the inventory of his goods did not exceed the
trifling sum of five hundred and sixty-four pieces of gold. A
similar instance, in Grecian history, admonished the emperor of
the honorable part prescribed for his imitation. He checked the
selfish murmurs of the treasury, applauded the confidence of his
friend, discharged the legacies and debts, educated the three
virgins under the eye of the empress Theodora, and doubled the
marriage portion which had satisfied the tenderness of their
father. 89 The humanity of a prince (for princes cannot be
generous) is entitled to some praise; yet even in this act of
virtue we may discover the inveterate custom of supplanting the
legal or natural heirs, which Procopius imputes to the reign of
Justinian. His charge is supported by eminent names and
scandalous examples; neither widows nor orphans were spared; and
the art of soliciting, or extorting, or supposing testaments, was
beneficially practised by the agents of the palace. This base and
mischievous tyranny invades the security of private life; and the
monarch who has indulged an appetite for gain, will soon be
tempted to anticipate the moment of succession, to interpret
wealth as an evidence of guilt, and to proceed, from the claim of
inheritance, to the power of confiscation. VII. Among the forms
of rapine, a philosopher may be permitted to name the conversion
of Pagan or heretical riches to the use of the faithful; but in
the time of Justinian this holy plunder was condemned by the
sectaries alone, who became the victims of his orthodox avarice.
90
85 (return) [ One to Scythopolis, capital of the second
Palestine, and twelve for the rest of the province. Aleman. (p.
59) honestly produces this fact from a Ms. life of St. Sabas, by
his disciple Cyril, in the Vatican Library, and since published
by Cotelerius.]
86 (return) [ John Malala (tom. ii. p. 232) mentions the want of
bread, and Zonaras (l. xiv. p. 63) the leaden pipes, which
Justinian, or his servants, stole from the aqueducts.]
8611 (return) [ Hullman (Geschichte des Byzantinischen Handels.
p. 15) shows that the despotism of the government was aggravated
by the unchecked rapenity of the officers. This state monopoly,
even of corn, wine, and oil, was to force at the time of the
first crusade.—M.]
87 (return) [ For an aureus, one sixth of an ounce of gold,
instead of 210, he gave no more than 180 folles, or ounces of
copper. A disproportion of the mint, below the market price, must
have soon produced a scarcity of small money. In England twelve
pence in copper would sell for no more than seven pence, (Smith’s
Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations, vol. i. p. 49.) For
Justinian’s gold coin, see Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 30.)]
88 (return) [ The oath is conceived in the most formidable words,
(Novell. viii. tit. 3.) The defaulters imprecate on themselves,
quicquid haben: telorum armamentaria coeli: the part of Judas,
the leprosy of Gieza, the tremor of Cain, &c., besides all
temporal pains.]
89 (return) [ A similar or more generous act of friendship is
related by Lucian of Eudamidas of Corinth, (in Toxare, c. 22, 23,
tom. ii. p. 530,) and the story has produced an ingenious, though
feeble, comedy of Fontenelle.]
90 (return) [ John Malala, tom. ii. p. 101, 102, 103.]
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part IV.
Dishonor might be ultimately reflected on the character of
Justinian; but much of the guilt, and still more of the profit,
was intercepted by the ministers, who were seldom promoted for
their virtues, and not always selected for their talents. 91 The
merits of Tribonian the quaestor will hereafter be weighed in the
reformation of the Roman law; but the economy of the East was
subordinate to the Praetorian præfect, and Procopius has
justified his anecdotes by the portrait which he exposes in his
public history, of the notorious vices of John of Cappadocia. 92
921 His knowledge was not borrowed from the schools, 93 and his
style was scarcely legible; but he excelled in the powers of
native genius, to suggest the wisest counsels, and to find
expedients in the most desperate situations. The corruption of
his heart was equal to the vigor of his understanding. Although
he was suspected of magic and Pagan superstition, he appeared
insensible to the fear of God or the reproaches of man; and his
aspiring fortune was raised on the death of thousands, the
poverty of millions, the ruins of cities, and the desolation of
provinces. From the dawn of light to the moment of dinner, he
assiduously labored to enrich his master and himself at the
expense of the Roman world; the remainder of the day was spent in
sensual and obscene pleasures, 931 and the silent hours of the
night were interrupted by the perpetual dread of the justice of
an assassin. His abilities, perhaps his vices, recommended him to
the lasting friendship of Justinian: the emperor yielded with
reluctance to the fury of the people; his victory was displayed
by the immediate restoration of their enemy; and they felt above
ten years, under his oppressive administration, that he was
stimulated by revenge, rather than instructed by misfortune.
Their murmurs served only to fortify the resolution of Justinian;
but the præfect, in the insolence of favor, provoked the
resentment of Theodora, disdained a power before which every knee
was bent, and attempted to sow the seeds of discord between the
emperor and his beloved consort. Even Theodora herself was
constrained to dissemble, to wait a favorable moment, and, by an
artful conspiracy, to render John of Coppadocia the accomplice of
his own destruction. 932 At a time when Belisarius, unless he had
been a hero, must have shown himself a rebel, his wife Antonina,
who enjoyed the secret confidence of the empress, communicated
his feigned discontent to Euphemia, the daughter of the præfect;
the credulous virgin imparted to her father the dangerous
project, and John, who might have known the value of oaths and
promises, was tempted to accept a nocturnal, and almost
treasonable, interview with the wife of Belisarius. An ambuscade
of guards and eunuchs had been posted by the command of Theodora;
they rushed with drawn swords to seize or to punish the guilty
minister: he was saved by the fidelity of his attendants; but
instead of appealing to a gracious sovereign, who had privately
warned him of his danger, he pusillanimously fled to the
sanctuary of the church. The favorite of Justinian was sacrificed
to conjugal tenderness or domestic tranquility; the conversion of
a præfect into a priest extinguished his ambitious hopes: but the
friendship of the emperor alleviated his disgrace, and he
retained in the mild exile of Cyzicus an ample portion of his
riches. Such imperfect revenge could not satisfy the unrelenting
hatred of Theodora; the murder of his old enemy, the bishop of
Cyzicus, afforded a decent pretence; and John of Cappadocia,
whose actions had deserved a thousand deaths, was at last
condemned for a crime of which he was innocent. A great minister,
who had been invested with the honors of consul and patrician,
was ignominiously scourged like the vilest of malefactors; a
tattered cloak was the sole remnant of his fortunes; he was
transported in a bark to the place of his banishment at
Antinopolis in Upper Egypt, and the præfect of the East begged
his bread through the cities which had trembled at his name.
During an exile of seven years, his life was protracted and
threatened by the ingenious cruelty of Theodora; and when her
death permitted the emperor to recall a servant whom he had
abandoned with regret, the ambition of John of Cappadocia was
reduced to the humble duties of the sacerdotal profession. His
successors convinced the subjects of Justinian, that the arts of
oppression might still be improved by experience and industry;
the frauds of a Syrian banker were introduced into the
administration of the finances; and the example of the præfect
was diligently copied by the quaestor, the public and private
treasurer, the governors of provinces, and the principal
magistrates of the Eastern empire. 94
91 (return) [ One of these, Anatolius, perished in an
earthquake—doubtless a judgment! The complaints and clamors of
the people in Agathias (l. v. p. 146, 147) are almost an echo of
the anecdote. The aliena pecunia reddenda of Corippus (l. ii.
381, &c.,) is not very honorable to Justinian’s memory.]
92 (return) [ See the history and character of John of Cappadocia
in Procopius. (Persic, l. i. c. 35, 25, l. ii. c. 30. Vandal. l.
i. c. 13. Anecdot. c. 2, 17, 22.) The agreement of the history
and anecdotes is a mortal wound to the reputation of the
praefct.]
921 (return) [ This view, particularly of the cruelty of John of
Cappadocia, is confirmed by the testimony of Joannes Lydus, who
was in the office of the præfect, and eye-witness of the tortures
inflicted by his command on the miserable debtors, or supposed
debtors, of the state. He mentions one horrible instance of a
respectable old man, with whom he was personally acquainted, who,
being suspected of possessing money, was hung up by the hands
till he was dead. Lydus de Magist. lib. iii. c. 57, p. 254.—M.]
93 (return) [ A forcible expression.]
931 (return) [ Joannes Lydus is diffuse on this subject, lib.
iii. c. 65, p. 268. But the indignant virtue of Lydus seems
greatly stimulated by the loss of his official fees, which he
ascribes to the innovations of the minister.—M.]
932 (return) [ According to Lydus, Theodora disclosed the crimes
and unpopularity of the minister to Justinian, but the emperor
had not the courage to remove, and was unable to replace, a
servant, under whom his finances seemed to prosper. He attributes
the sedition and conflagration to the popular resentment against
the tyranny of John, lib. iii. c 70, p. 278. Unfortunately there
is a large gap in his work just at this period.—M.]
94 (return) [ The chronology of Procopius is loose and obscure;
but with the aid of Pagi I can discern that John was appointed
Praetorian præfect of the East in the year 530—that he was
removed in January, 532—restored before June, 533—banished in
541—and recalled between June, 548, and April 1, 549. Aleman. (p.
96, 97) gives the list of his ten successors—a rapid series in a
part of a single reign. * Note: Lydus gives a high character of
Phocas, his successor tom. iii. c. 78 p. 288.—M.]
V. The edifices of Justinian were cemented with the blood and
treasure of his people; but those stately structures appeared to
announce the prosperity of the empire, and actually displayed the
skill of their architects. Both the theory and practice of the
arts which depend on mathematical science and mechanical power,
were cultivated under the patronage of the emperors; the fame of
Archimedes was rivalled by Proclus and Anthemius; and if their
miracles had been related by intelligent spectators, they might
now enlarge the speculations, instead of exciting the distrust,
of philosophers. A tradition has prevailed, that the Roman fleet
was reduced to ashes in the port of Syracuse, by the
burning-glasses of Archimedes; 95 and it is asserted, that a
similar expedient was employed by Proclus to destroy the Gothic
vessels in the harbor of Constantinople, and to protect his
benefactor Anastasius against the bold enterprise of Vitalian. 96
A machine was fixed on the walls of the city, consisting of a
hexagon mirror of polished brass, with many smaller and movable
polygons to receive and reflect the rays of the meridian sun; and
a consuming flame was darted, to the distance, perhaps of two
hundred feet. 97 The truth of these two extraordinary facts is
invalidated by the silence of the most authentic historians; and
the use of burning-glasses was never adopted in the attack or
defence of places. 98 Yet the admirable experiments of a French
philosopher 99 have demonstrated the possibility of such a
mirror; and, since it is possible, I am more disposed to
attribute the art to the greatest mathematicians of antiquity,
than to give the merit of the fiction to the idle fancy of a monk
or a sophist. According to another story, Proclus applied sulphur
to the destruction of the Gothic fleet; 100 in a modern
imagination, the name of sulphur is instantly connected with the
suspicion of gunpowder, and that suspicion is propagated by the
secret arts of his disciple Anthemius. 101 A citizen of Tralles
in Asia had five sons, who were all distinguished in their
respective professions by merit and success. Olympius excelled in
the knowledge and practice of the Roman jurisprudence. Dioscorus
and Alexander became learned physicians; but the skill of the
former was exercised for the benefit of his fellow-citizens,
while his more ambitious brother acquired wealth and reputation
at Rome. The fame of Metrodorus the grammarian, and of Anthemius
the mathematician and architect, reached the ears of the emperor
Justinian, who invited them to Constantinople; and while the one
instructed the rising generation in the schools of eloquence, the
other filled the capital and provinces with more lasting
monuments of his art. In a trifling dispute relative to the walls
or windows of their contiguous houses, he had been vanquished by
the eloquence of his neighbor Zeno; but the orator was defeated
in his turn by the master of mechanics, whose malicious, though
harmless, stratagems are darkly represented by the ignorance of
Agathias. In a lower room, Anthemius arranged several vessels or
caldrons of water, each of them covered by the wide bottom of a
leathern tube, which rose to a narrow top, and was artificially
conveyed among the joists and rafters of the adjacent building. A
fire was kindled beneath the caldron; the steam of the boiling
water ascended through the tubes; the house was shaken by the
efforts of imprisoned air, and its trembling inhabitants might
wonder that the city was unconscious of the earthquake which they
had felt. At another time, the friends of Zeno, as they sat at
table, were dazzled by the intolerable light which flashed in
their eyes from the reflecting mirrors of Anthemius; they were
astonished by the noise which he produced from the collision of
certain minute and sonorous particles; and the orator declared in
tragic style to the senate, that a mere mortal must yield to the
power of an antagonist, who shook the earth with the trident of
Neptune, and imitated the thunder and lightning of Jove himself.
The genius of Anthemius, and his colleague Isidore the Milesian,
was excited and employed by a prince, whose taste for
architecture had degenerated into a mischievous and costly
passion. His favorite architects submitted their designs and
difficulties to Justinian, and discreetly confessed how much
their laborious meditations were surpassed by the intuitive
knowledge of celestial inspiration of an emperor, whose views
were always directed to the benefit of his people, the glory of
his reign, and the salvation of his soul. 102
95 (return) [ This conflagration is hinted by Lucian (in Hippia,
c. 2) and Galen, (l. iii. de Temperamentis, tom. i. p. 81, edit.
Basil.) in the second century. A thousand years afterwards, it is
positively affirmed by Zonaras, (l. ix. p. 424,) on the faith of
Dion Cassius, Tzetzes, (Chiliad ii. 119, &c.,) Eustathius, (ad
Iliad. E. p. 338,) and the scholiast of Lucian. See Fabricius,
(Bibliot. Graec. l. iii. c. 22, tom. ii. p. 551, 552,) to whom I
am more or less indebted for several of these quotations.]
96 (return) [ Zonaras (l. xi. c. p. 55) affirms the fact, without
quoting any evidence.]
97 (return) [ Tzetzes describes the artifice of these
burning-glasses, which he had read, perhaps, with no learned
eyes, in a mathematical treatise of Anthemius. That treatise has
been lately published, translated, and illustrated, by M. Dupuys,
a scholar and a mathematician, (Memoires de l’Academie des
Inscriptions, tom xlii p. 392—451.)]
98 (return) [ In the siege of Syracuse, by the silence of
Polybius, Plutarch, Livy; in the siege of Constantinople, by that
of Marcellinus and all the contemporaries of the vith century.]
99 (return) [ Without any previous knowledge of Tzetzes or
Anthemius, the immortal Buffon imagined and executed a set of
burning-glasses, with which he could inflame planks at the
distance of 200 feet, (Supplement a l’Hist. Naturelle, tom. i.
399—483, quarto edition.) What miracles would not his genius have
performed for the public service, with royal expense, and in the
strong sun of Constantinople or Syracuse?]
100 (return) [ John Malala (tom. ii. p. 120—124) relates the
fact; but he seems to confound the names or persons of Proclus
and Marinus.]
101 (return) [ Agathias, l. v. p. 149—152. The merit of Anthemius
as an architect is loudly praised by Procopius (de Edif. l. i. c.
1) and Paulus Silentiarius, (part i. 134, &c.)]
102 (return) [ See Procopius, (de Edificiis, l. i. c. 1, 2, l.
ii. c. 3.) He relates a coincidence of dreams, which supposes
some fraud in Justinian or his architect. They both saw, in a
vision, the same plan for stopping an inundation at Dara. A stone
quarry near Jerusalem was revealed to the emperor, (l. v. c. 6:)
an angel was tricked into the perpetual custody of St. Sophia,
(Anonym. de Antiq. C. P. l. iv. p. 70.)]
The principal church, which was dedicated by the founder of
Constantinople to St. Sophia, or the eternal wisdom, had been
twice destroyed by fire; after the exile of John Chrysostom, and
during the Nika of the blue and green factions. No sooner did the
tumult subside, than the Christian populace deplored their
sacrilegious rashness; but they might have rejoiced in the
calamity, had they foreseen the glory of the new temple, which at
the end of forty days was strenuously undertaken by the piety of
Justinian. 103 The ruins were cleared away, a more spacious plan
was described, and as it required the consent of some proprietors
of ground, they obtained the most exorbitant terms from the eager
desires and timorous conscience of the monarch. Anthemius formed
the design, and his genius directed the hands of ten thousand
workmen, whose payment in pieces of fine silver was never delayed
beyond the evening. The emperor himself, clad in a linen tunic,
surveyed each day their rapid progress, and encouraged their
diligence by his familiarity, his zeal, and his rewards. The new
Cathedral of St. Sophia was consecrated by the patriarch, five
years, eleven months, and ten days from the first foundation; and
in the midst of the solemn festival Justinian exclaimed with
devout vanity, “Glory be to God, who hath thought me worthy to
accomplish so great a work; I have vanquished thee, O Solomon!”
104 But the pride of the Roman Solomon, before twenty years had
elapsed, was humbled by an earthquake, which overthrew the
eastern part of the dome. Its splendor was again restored by the
perseverance of the same prince; and in the thirty-sixth year of
his reign, Justinian celebrated the second dedication of a temple
which remains, after twelve centuries, a stately monument of his
fame. The architecture of St. Sophia, which is now converted into
the principal mosque, has been imitated by the Turkish sultans,
and that venerable pile continues to excite the fond admiration
of the Greeks, and the more rational curiosity of European
travellers. The eye of the spectator is disappointed by an
irregular prospect of half-domes and shelving roofs: the western
front, the principal approach, is destitute of simplicity and
magnificence; and the scale of dimensions has been much surpassed
by several of the Latin cathedrals. But the architect who first
erected an _aerial_ cupola, is entitled to the praise of bold
design and skilful execution. The dome of St. Sophia, illuminated
by four-and-twenty windows, is formed with so small a curve, that
the depth is equal only to one sixth of its diameter; the measure
of that diameter is one hundred and fifteen feet, and the lofty
centre, where a crescent has supplanted the cross, rises to the
perpendicular height of one hundred and eighty feet above the
pavement. The circle which encompasses the dome, lightly reposes
on four strong arches, and their weight is firmly supported by
four massy piles, whose strength is assisted, on the northern and
southern sides, by four columns of Egyptian granite.
A Greek cross, inscribed in a quadrangle, represents the form of
the edifice; the exact breadth is two hundred and forty-three
feet, and two hundred and sixty-nine may be assigned for the
extreme length from the sanctuary in the east, to the nine
western doors, which open into the vestibule, and from thence
into the narthex or exterior portico. That portico was the humble
station of the penitents. The nave or body of the church was
filled by the congregation of the faithful; but the two sexes
were prudently distinguished, and the upper and lower galleries
were allotted for the more private devotion of the women. Beyond
the northern and southern piles, a balustrade, terminated on
either side by the thrones of the emperor and the patriarch,
divided the nave from the choir; and the space, as far as the
steps of the altar, was occupied by the clergy and singers. The
altar itself, a name which insensibly became familiar to
Christian ears, was placed in the eastern recess, artificially
built in the form of a demi-cylinder; and this sanctuary
communicated by several doors with the sacristy, the vestry, the
baptistery, and the contiguous buildings, subservient either to
the pomp of worship, or the private use of the ecclesiastical
ministers. The memory of past calamities inspired Justinian with
a wise resolution, that no wood, except for the doors, should be
admitted into the new edifice; and the choice of the materials
was applied to the strength, the lightness, or the splendor of
the respective parts. The solid piles which contained the cupola
were composed of huge blocks of freestone, hewn into squares and
triangles, fortified by circles of iron, and firmly cemented by
the infusion of lead and quicklime: but the weight of the cupola
was diminished by the levity of its substance, which consists
either of pumice-stone that floats in the water, or of bricks
from the Isle of Rhodes, five times less ponderous than the
ordinary sort. The whole frame of the edifice was constructed of
brick; but those base materials were concealed by a crust of
marble; and the inside of St. Sophia, the cupola, the two larger,
and the six smaller, semi-domes, the walls, the hundred columns,
and the pavement, delight even the eyes of Barbarians, with a
rich and variegated picture. A poet, 105 who beheld the primitive
lustre of St. Sophia, enumerates the colors, the shades, and the
spots of ten or twelve marbles, jaspers, and porphyries, which
nature had profusely diversified, and which were blended and
contrasted as it were by a skilful painter. The triumph of Christ
was adorned with the last spoils of Paganism, but the greater
part of these costly stones was extracted from the quarries of
Asia Minor, the isles and continent of Greece, Egypt, Africa, and
Gaul. Eight columns of porphyry, which Aurelian had placed in the
temple of the sun, were offered by the piety of a Roman matron;
eight others of green marble were presented by the ambitious zeal
of the magistrates of Ephesus: both are admirable by their size
and beauty, but every order of architecture disclaims their
fantastic capital. A variety of ornaments and figures was
curiously expressed in mosaic; and the images of Christ, of the
Virgin, of saints, and of angels, which have been defaced by
Turkish fanaticism, were dangerously exposed to the superstition
of the Greeks. According to the sanctity of each object, the
precious metals were distributed in thin leaves or in solid
masses. The balustrade of the choir, the capitals of the pillars,
the ornaments of the doors and galleries, were of gilt bronze;
the spectator was dazzled by the glittering aspect of the cupola;
the sanctuary contained forty thousand pounds weight of silver;
and the holy vases and vestments of the altar were of the purest
gold, enriched with inestimable gems. Before the structure of the
church had arisen two cubits above the ground, forty-five
thousand two hundred pounds were already consumed; and the whole
expense amounted to three hundred and twenty thousand: each
reader, according to the measure of his belief, may estimate
their value either in gold or silver; but the sum of one million
sterling is the result of the lowest computation. A magnificent
temple is a laudable monument of national taste and religion; and
the enthusiast who entered the dome of St. Sophia might be
tempted to suppose that it was the residence, or even the
workmanship, of the Deity. Yet how dull is the artifice, how
insignificant is the labor, if it be compared with the formation
of the vilest insect that crawls upon the surface of the temple!
103 (return) [Among the crowd of ancients and moderns who have
celebrated the edifice of St. Sophia, I shall distinguish and
follow, 1. Four original spectators and historians: Procopius,
(de Edific. l. i. c. 1,) Agathias, (l. v. p. 152, 153,) Paul
Silentiarius, (in a poem of 1026 hexameters, and calcem Annae
Commen. Alexiad.,) and Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 31.) 2. Two legendary
Greeks of a later period: George Codinus, (de Origin. C. P. p.
64-74,) and the anonymous writer of Banduri, (Imp. Orient. tom.
i. l. iv. p. 65—80.)3. The great Byzantine antiquarian. Ducange,
(Comment. ad Paul Silentiar. p. 525—598, and C. P. Christ. l.
iii. p. 5—78.) 4. Two French travellers—the one, Peter Gyllius,
(de Topograph. C. P. l. ii. c. 3, 4,) in the xvith; the other,
Grelot, (Voyage de C. P. p. 95—164, Paris, 1680, in 4to:) he has
given plans, prospects, and inside views of St. Sophia; and his
plans, though on a smaller scale, appear more correct than those
of Ducange. I have adopted and reduced the measures of Grelot:
but as no Christian can now ascend the dome, the height is
borrowed from Evagrius, compared with Gyllius, Greaves, and the
Oriental Geographer.]
104 (return) [ Solomon’s temple was surrounded with courts,
porticos, &c.; but the proper structure of the house of God was
no more (if we take the Egyptian or Hebrew cubic at 22 inches)
than 55 feet in height, 36 2/3 in breadth, and 110 in length—a
small parish church, says Prideaux, (Connection, vol. i. p. 144,
folio;) but few sanctuaries could be valued at four or five
millions sterling! * Note *: Hist of Jews, vol i p 257.—M]
105 (return) [ Paul Silentiarius, in dark and poetic language,
describes the various stones and marbles that were employed in
the edifice of St. Sophia, (P. ii. p. 129, 133, &c., &c.:)
1. The Carystian—pale, with iron veins.
2. The Phrygian—of two sorts, both of a rosy hue; the one with a
white shade, the other purple, with silver flowers.
3. The Porphyry of Egypt—with small stars.
4. The green marble of Laconia.
5. The Carian—from Mount Iassis, with oblique veins, white and
red. 6. The Lydian—pale, with a red flower.
7. The African, or Mauritanian—of a gold or saffron hue. 8. The
Celtic—black, with white veins.
9. The Bosphoric—white, with black edges. Besides the
Proconnesian which formed the pavement; the Thessalian,
Molossian, &c., which are less distinctly painted.]
So minute a description of an edifice which time has respected,
may attest the truth, and excuse the relation, of the innumerable
works, both in the capital and provinces, which Justinian
constructed on a smaller scale and less durable foundations. 106
In Constantinople alone and the adjacent suburbs, he dedicated
twenty-five churches to the honor of Christ, the Virgin, and the
saints: most of these churches were decorated with marble and
gold; and their various situation was skilfully chosen in a
populous square, or a pleasant grove; on the margin of the
sea-shore, or on some lofty eminence which overlooked the
continents of Europe and Asia. The church of the Holy Apostles at
Constantinople, and that of St. John at Ephesus, appear to have
been framed on the same model: their domes aspired to imitate the
cupolas of St. Sophia; but the altar was more judiciously placed
under the centre of the dome, at the junction of four stately
porticos, which more accurately expressed the figure of the Greek
cross. The Virgin of Jerusalem might exult in the temple erected
by her Imperial votary on a most ungrateful spot, which afforded
neither ground nor materials to the architect. A level was formed
by raising part of a deep valley to the height of the mountain.
The stones of a neighboring quarry were hewn into regular forms;
each block was fixed on a peculiar carriage, drawn by forty of
the strongest oxen, and the roads were widened for the passage of
such enormous weights. Lebanon furnished her loftiest cedars for
the timbers of the church; and the seasonable discovery of a vein
of red marble supplied its beautiful columns, two of which, the
supporters of the exterior portico, were esteemed the largest in
the world. The pious munificence of the emperor was diffused over
the Holy Land; and if reason should condemn the monasteries of
both sexes which were built or restored by Justinian, yet charity
must applaud the wells which he sunk, and the hospitals which he
founded, for the relief of the weary pilgrims. The schismatical
temper of Egypt was ill entitled to the royal bounty; but in
Syria and Africa, some remedies were applied to the disasters of
wars and earthquakes, and both Carthage and Antioch, emerging
from their ruins, might revere the name of their gracious
benefactor. 107 Almost every saint in the calendar acquired the
honors of a temple; almost every city of the empire obtained the
solid advantages of bridges, hospitals, and aqueducts; but the
severe liberality of the monarch disdained to indulge his
subjects in the popular luxury of baths and theatres. While
Justinian labored for the public service, he was not unmindful of
his own dignity and ease. The Byzantine palace, which had been
damaged by the conflagration, was restored with new magnificence;
and some notion may be conceived of the whole edifice, by the
vestibule or hall, which, from the doors perhaps, or the roof,
was surnamed chalce, or the brazen. The dome of a spacious
quadrangle was supported by massy pillars; the pavement and walls
were incrusted with many-colored marbles—the emerald green of
Laconia, the fiery red, and the white Phrygian stone, intersected
with veins of a sea-green hue: the mosaic paintings of the dome
and sides represented the glories of the African and Italian
triumphs. On the Asiatic shore of the Propontis, at a small
distance to the east of Chalcedon, the costly palace and gardens
of Heraeum 108 were prepared for the summer residence of
Justinian, and more especially of Theodora. The poets of the age
have celebrated the rare alliance of nature and art, the harmony
of the nymphs of the groves, the fountains, and the waves: yet
the crowd of attendants who followed the court complained of
their inconvenient lodgings, 109 and the nymphs were too often
alarmed by the famous Porphyrio, a whale of ten cubits in
breadth, and thirty in length, who was stranded at the mouth of
the River Sangaris, after he had infested more than half a
century the seas of Constantinople. 110
106 (return) [ The six books of the Edifices of Procopius are
thus distributed the first is confined to Constantinople: the
second includes Mesopotamia and Syria the third, Armenia and the
Euxine; the fourth, Europe; the fifth, Asia Minor and Palestine;
the sixth, Egypt and Africa. Italy is forgot by the emperor or
the historian, who published this work of adulation before the
date (A.D. 555) of its final conquest.]
107 (return) [ Justinian once gave forty-five centenaries of gold
(180,000 L.) for the repairs of Antioch after the earthquake,
(John Malala, tom. ii p 146—149.)]
108 (return) [ For the Heraeum, the palace of Theodora, see
Gyllius, (de Bosphoro Thracio, l. iii. c. xi.,) Aleman. (Not. ad.
Anec. p. 80, 81, who quotes several epigrams of the Anthology,)
and Ducange, (C. P. Christ. l. iv. c. 13, p. 175, 176.)]
109 (return) [ Compare, in the Edifices, (l. i. c. 11,) and in
the Anecdotes, (c. 8, 15.) the different styles of adulation and
malevolence: stripped of the paint, or cleansed from the dirt,
the object appears to be the same.]
110 (return) [ Procopius, l. viii. 29; most probably a stranger
and wanderer, as the Mediterranean does not breed whales.
Balaenae quoque in nostra maria penetrant, (Plin. Hist. Natur.
ix. 2.) Between the polar circle and the tropic, the cetaceous
animals of the ocean grow to the length of 50, 80, or 100 feet,
(Hist. des Voyages, tom. xv. p. 289. Pennant’s British Zoology,
vol. iii. p. 35.)]
The fortifications of Europe and Asia were multiplied by
Justinian; but the repetition of those timid and fruitless
precautions exposes, to a philosophic eye, the debility of the
empire. 111 From Belgrade to the Euxine, from the conflux of the
Save to the mouth of the Danube, a chain of above fourscore
fortified places was extended along the banks of the great river.
Single watch-towers were changed into spacious citadels; vacant
walls, which the engineers contracted or enlarged according to
the nature of the ground, were filled with colonies or garrisons;
a strong fortress defended the ruins of Trajan’s bridge, 112 and
several military stations affected to spread beyond the Danube
the pride of the Roman name. But that name was divested of its
terrors; the Barbarians, in their annual inroads, passed, and
contemptuously repassed, before these useless bulwarks; and the
inhabitants of the frontier, instead of reposing under the shadow
of the general defence, were compelled to guard, with incessant
vigilance, their separate habitations. The solitude of ancient
cities, was replenished; the new foundations of Justinian
acquired, perhaps too hastily, the epithets of impregnable and
populous; and the auspicious place of his own nativity attracted
the grateful reverence of the vainest of princes. Under the name
of Justiniana prima, the obscure village of Tauresium became the
seat of an archbishop and a præfect, whose jurisdiction extended
over seven warlike provinces of Illyricum; 113 and the corrupt
appellation of Giustendil still indicates, about twenty miles to
the south of Sophia, the residence of a Turkish sanjak. 114 For
the use of the emperor’s countryman, a cathedral, a place, and an
aqueduct, were speedily constructed; the public and private
edifices were adapted to the greatness of a royal city; and the
strength of the walls resisted, during the lifetime of Justinian,
the unskilful assaults of the Huns and Sclavonians. Their
progress was sometimes retarded, and their hopes of rapine were
disappointed, by the innumerable castles which, in the provinces
of Dacia, Epirus, Thessaly, Macedonia, and Thrace, appeared to
cover the whole face of the country. Six hundred of these forts
were built or repaired by the emperor; but it seems reasonable to
believe, that the far greater part consisted only of a stone or
brick tower, in the midst of a square or circular area, which was
surrounded by a wall and ditch, and afforded in a moment of
danger some protection to the peasants and cattle of the
neighboring villages. 115 Yet these military works, which
exhausted the public treasure, could not remove the just
apprehensions of Justinian and his European subjects. The warm
baths of Anchialus in Thrace were rendered as safe as they were
salutary; but the rich pastures of Thessalonica were foraged by
the Scythian cavalry; the delicious vale of Tempe, three hundred
miles from the Danube, was continually alarmed by the sound of
war; 116 and no unfortified spot, however distant or solitary,
could securely enjoy the blessings of peace. The Straits of
Thermopylae, which seemed to protect, but which had so often
betrayed, the safety of Greece, were diligently strengthened by
the labors of Justinian. From the edge of the sea-shore, through
the forests and valleys, and as far as the summit of the
Thessalian mountains, a strong wall was continued, which occupied
every practicable entrance. Instead of a hasty crowd of peasants,
a garrison of two thousand soldiers was stationed along the
rampart; granaries of corn and reservoirs of water were provided
for their use; and by a precaution that inspired the cowardice
which it foresaw, convenient fortresses were erected for their
retreat. The walls of Corinth, overthrown by an earthquake, and
the mouldering bulwarks of Athens and Plataea, were carefully
restored; the Barbarians were discouraged by the prospect of
successive and painful sieges: and the naked cities of
Peloponnesus were covered by the fortifications of the Isthmus of
Corinth. At the extremity of Europe, another peninsula, the
Thracian Chersonesus, runs three days’ journey into the sea, to
form, with the adjacent shores of Asia, the Straits of the
Hellespont. The intervals between eleven populous towns were
filled by lofty woods, fair pastures, and arable lands; and the
isthmus, of thirty seven stadia or furlongs, had been fortified
by a Spartan general nine hundred years before the reign of
Justinian. 117 In an age of freedom and valor, the slightest
rampart may prevent a surprise; and Procopius appears insensible
of the superiority of ancient times, while he praises the solid
construction and double parapet of a wall, whose long arms
stretched on either side into the sea; but whose strength was
deemed insufficient to guard the Chersonesus, if each city, and
particularly Gallipoli and Sestus, had not been secured by their
peculiar fortifications. The long wall, as it was emphatically
styled, was a work as disgraceful in the object, as it was
respectable in the execution. The riches of a capital diffuse
themselves over the neighboring country, and the territory of
Constantinople a paradise of nature, was adorned with the
luxurious gardens and villas of the senators and opulent
citizens. But their wealth served only to attract the bold and
rapacious Barbarians; the noblest of the Romans, in the bosom of
peaceful indolence, were led away into Scythian captivity, and
their sovereign might view from his palace the hostile flames
which were insolently spread to the gates of the Imperial city.
At the distance only of forty miles, Anastasius was constrained
to establish a last frontier; his long wall, of sixty miles from
the Propontis to the Euxine, proclaimed the impotence of his
arms; and as the danger became more imminent, new fortifications
were added by the indefatigable prudence of Justinian. 118
111 (return) [ Montesquieu observes, (tom. iii. p. 503,
Considerations sur la Grandeur et la Decadence des Romains, c.
xx.,) that Justinian’s empire was like France in the time of the
Norman inroads—never so weak as when every village was
fortified.]
112 (return) [ Procopius affirms (l. iv. c. 6) that the Danube
was stopped by the ruins of the bridge. Had Apollodorus, the
architect, left a description of his own work, the fabulous
wonders of Dion Cassius (l lxviii. p. 1129) would have been
corrected by the genuine picture Trajan’s bridge consisted of
twenty or twenty-two stone piles with wooden arches; the river is
shallow, the current gentle, and the whole interval no more than
443 (Reimer ad Dion. from Marsigli) or 5l7 toises, (D’Anville,
Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 305.)]
113 (return) [ Of the two Dacias, Mediterranea and Ripensis,
Dardania, Pravalitana, the second Maesia, and the second
Macedonia. See Justinian (Novell. xi.,) who speaks of his castles
beyond the Danube, and on omines semper bellicis sudoribus
inhaerentes.]
114 (return) [ See D’Anville, (Memoires de l’Academie, &c., tom.
xxxi p. 280, 299,) Rycaut, (Present State of the Turkish Empire,
p. 97, 316,) Max sigli, (Stato Militare del Imperio Ottomano, p.
130.) The sanjak of Giustendil is one of the twenty under the
beglerbeg of Rurselis, and his district maintains 48 zaims and
588 timariots.]
115 (return) [ These fortifications may be compared to the
castles in Mingrelia (Chardin, Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 60,
131)—a natural picture.]
116 (return) [ The valley of Tempe is situate along the River
Peneus, between the hills of Ossa and Olympus: it is only five
miles long, and in some places no more than 120 feet in breadth.
Its verdant beauties are elegantly described by Pliny, (Hist.
Natur. l. iv. 15,) and more diffusely by Aelian, (Hist. Var. l.
iii. c. i.)]
117 (return) [ Xenophon Hellenic. l. iii. c. 2. After a long and
tedious conversation with the Byzantine declaimers, how
refreshing is the truth, the simplicity, the elegance of an Attic
writer!]
118 (return) [ See the long wall in Evagarius, (l. iv. c. 38.)
This whole article is drawn from the fourth book of the Edifices,
except Anchialus, (l. iii. c. 7.)]
Asia Minor, after the submission of the Isaurians, 119 remained
without enemies and without fortifications. Those bold savages,
who had disdained to be the subjects of Gallienus, persisted two
hundred and thirty years in a life of independence and rapine.
The most successful princes respected the strength of the
mountains and the despair of the natives; their fierce spirit was
sometimes soothed with gifts, and sometimes restrained by terror;
and a military count, with three legions, fixed his permanent and
ignominious station in the heart of the Roman provinces. 120 But
no sooner was the vigilance of power relaxed or diverted, than
the light-armed squadrons descended from the hills, and invaded
the peaceful plenty of Asia. Although the Isaurians were not
remarkable for stature or bravery, want rendered them bold, and
experience made them skilful in the exercise of predatory war.
They advanced with secrecy and speed to the attack of villages
and defenceless towns; their flying parties have sometimes
touched the Hellespont, the Euxine, and the gates of Tarsus,
Antioch, or Damascus; 121 and the spoil was lodged in their
inaccessible mountains, before the Roman troops had received
their orders, or the distant province had computed its loss. The
guilt of rebellion and robbery excluded them from the rights of
national enemies; and the magistrates were instructed, by an
edict, that the trial or punishment of an Isaurian, even on the
festival of Easter, was a meritorious act of justice and piety.
122 If the captives were condemned to domestic slavery, they
maintained, with their sword or dagger, the private quarrel of
their masters; and it was found expedient for the public
tranquillity to prohibit the service of such dangerous retainers.
When their countryman Tarcalissaeus or Zeno ascended the throne,
he invited a faithful and formidable band of Isaurians, who
insulted the court and city, and were rewarded by an annual
tribute of five thousand pounds of gold. But the hopes of fortune
depopulated the mountains, luxury enervated the hardiness of
their minds and bodies, and in proportion as they mixed with
mankind, they became less qualified for the enjoyment of poor and
solitary freedom. After the death of Zeno, his successor
Anastasius suppressed their pensions, exposed their persons to
the revenge of the people, banished them from Constantinople, and
prepared to sustain a war, which left only the alternative of
victory or servitude. A brother of the last emperor usurped the
title of Augustus; his cause was powerfully supported by the
arms, the treasures, and the magazines, collected by Zeno; and
the native Isaurians must have formed the smallest portion of the
hundred and fifty thousand Barbarians under his standard, which
was sanctified, for the first time, by the presence of a fighting
bishop. Their disorderly numbers were vanquished in the plains of
Phrygia by the valor and discipline of the Goths; but a war of
six years almost exhausted the courage of the emperor. 123 The
Isaurians retired to their mountains; their fortresses were
successively besieged and ruined; their communication with the
sea was intercepted; the bravest of their leaders died in arms;
the surviving chiefs, before their execution, were dragged in
chains through the hippodrome; a colony of their youth was
transplanted into Thrace, and the remnant of the people submitted
to the Roman government. Yet some generations elapsed before
their minds were reduced to the level of slavery. The populous
villages of Mount Taurus were filled with horsemen and archers:
they resisted the imposition of tributes, but they recruited the
armies of Justinian; and his civil magistrates, the proconsul of
Cappadocia, the count of Isauria, and the praetors of Lycaonia
and Pisidia, were invested with military power to restrain the
licentious practice of rapes and assassinations. 124
119 (return) [ Turn back to vol. i. p. 328. In the course of this
History, I have sometimes mentioned, and much oftener slighted,
the hasty inroads of the Isaurians, which were not attended with
any consequences.]
120 (return) [ Trebellius Pollio in Hist. August. p. 107, who
lived under Diocletian, or Constantine. See likewise Pancirolus
ad Notit. Imp. Orient c. 115, 141. See Cod. Theodos. l. ix. tit.
35, leg. 37, with a copious collective Annotation of Godefroy,
tom. iii. p. 256, 257.]
121 (return) [ See the full and wide extent of their inroads in
Philostorgius (Hist. Eccles. l. xi. c. 8,) with Godefroy’s
learned Dissertations.]
122 (return) [ Cod. Justinian. l. ix. tit. 12, leg. 10. The
punishments are severs—a fine of a hundred pounds of gold,
degradation, and even death. The public peace might afford a
pretence, but Zeno was desirous of monopolizing the valor and
service of the Isaurians.]
123 (return) [ The Isaurian war and the triumph of Anastasius are
briefly and darkly represented by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 106,
107,) Evagrius, (l. iii. c. 35,) Theophanes, (p. 118—120,) and
the Chronicle of Marcellinus.]
124 (return) [ Fortes ea regio (says Justinian) viros habet, nec
in ullo differt ab Isauria, though Procopius (Persic. l. i. c.
18) marks an essential difference between their military
character; yet in former times the Lycaonians and Pisidians had
defended their liberty against the great king, Xenophon.
(Anabasis, l. iii. c. 2.) Justinian introduces some false and
ridiculous erudition of the ancient empire of the Pisidians, and
of Lycaon, who, after visiting Rome, (long before Aeenas,) gave a
name and people to Lycaoni, (Novell. 24, 25, 27, 30.)]
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part V.
If we extend our view from the tropic to the mouth of the Tanais,
we may observe, on one hand, the precautions of Justinian to curb
the savages of Aethiopia, 125 and on the other, the long walls
which he constructed in Crimaea for the protection of his
friendly Goths, a colony of three thousand shepherds and
warriors. 126 From that peninsula to Trebizond, the eastern curve
of the Euxine was secured by forts, by alliance, or by religion;
and the possession of Lazica, the Colchos of ancient, the
Mingrelia of modern, geography, soon became the object of an
important war. Trebizond, in after-times the seat of a romantic
empire, was indebted to the liberality of Justinian for a church,
an aqueduct, and a castle, whose ditches are hewn in the solid
rock. From that maritime city, frontier line of five hundred
miles may be drawn to the fortress of Circesium, the last Roman
station on the Euphrates. 127 Above Trebizond immediately, and
five days’ journey to the south, the country rises into dark
forests and craggy mountains, as savage though not so lofty as
the Alps and the Pyrenees. In this rigorous climate, 128 where
the snows seldom melt, the fruits are tardy and tasteless, even
honey is poisonous: the most industrious tillage would be
confined to some pleasant valleys; and the pastoral tribes
obtained a scanty sustenance from the flesh and milk of their
cattle. The Chalybians 129 derived their name and temper from the
iron quality of the soil; and, since the days of Cyrus, they
might produce, under the various appellations of Chaldæans and
Zanians, an uninterrupted prescription of war and rapine. Under
the reign of Justinian, they acknowledged the god and the emperor
of the Romans, and seven fortresses were built in the most
accessible passages, to exclude the ambition of the Persian
monarch. 130 The principal source of the Euphrates descends from
the Chalybian mountains, and seems to flow towards the west and
the Euxine: bending to the south-west, the river passes under the
walls of Satala and Melitene (which were restored by Justinian as
the bulwarks of the Lesser Armenia,) and gradually approaches the
Mediterranean Sea; till at length, repelled by Mount Taurus, 131
the Euphrates inclines its long and flexible course to the
south-east and the Gulf of Persia. Among the Roman cities beyond
the Euphrates, we distinguish two recent foundations, which were
named from Theodosius, and the relics of the martyrs; and two
capitals, Amida and Edessa, which are celebrated in the history
of every age. Their strength was proportioned by Justinian to the
danger of their situation. A ditch and palisade might be
sufficient to resist the artless force of the cavalry of Scythia;
but more elaborate works were required to sustain a regular siege
against the arms and treasures of the great king. His skilful
engineers understood the methods of conducting deep mines, and of
raising platforms to the level of the rampart: he shook the
strongest battlements with his military engines, and sometimes
advanced to the assault with a line of movable turrets on the
backs of elephants. In the great cities of the East, the
disadvantage of space, perhaps of position, was compensated by
the zeal of the people, who seconded the garrison in the defence
of their country and religion; and the fabulous promise of the
Son of God, that Edessa should never be taken, filled the
citizens with valiant confidence, and chilled the besiegers with
doubt and dismay. 132 The subordinate towns of Armenia and
Mesopotamia were diligently strengthened, and the posts which
appeared to have any command of ground or water were occupied by
numerous forts, substantially built of stone, or more hastily
erected with the obvious materials of earth and brick. The eye of
Justinian investigated every spot; and his cruel precautions
might attract the war into some lonely vale, whose peaceful
natives, connected by trade and marriage, were ignorant of
national discord and the quarrels of princes. Westward of the
Euphrates, a sandy desert extends above six hundred miles to the
Red Sea. Nature had interposed a vacant solitude between the
ambition of two rival empires; the Arabians, till Mahomet arose,
were formidable only as robbers; and in the proud security of
peace the fortifications of Syria were neglected on the most
vulnerable side.
125 (return) [ See Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 19. The altar of
national concern, of annual sacrifice and oaths, which Diocletian
had created in the Isla of Elephantine, was demolished by
Justinian with less policy than]
126 (return) [ Procopius de Edificiis, l. iii. c. 7. Hist. l.
viii. c. 3, 4. These unambitious Goths had refused to follow the
standard of Theodoric. As late as the xvth and xvith century, the
name and nation might be discovered between Caffa and the Straits
of Azoph, (D’Anville, Memoires de l’academie, tom. xxx. p. 240.)
They well deserved the curiosity of Busbequius, (p. 321-326;) but
seem to have vanished in the more recent account of the Missions
du Levant, (tom. i.,) Tott, Peysonnnel, &c.]
127 (return) [ For the geography and architecture of this
Armenian border, see the Persian Wars and Edifices (l. ii. c.
4-7, l. iii. c. 2—7) of Procopius.]
128 (return) [ The country is described by Tournefort, (Voyage au
Levant, tom. iii. lettre xvii. xviii.) That skilful botanist soon
discovered the plant that infects the honey, (Plin. xxi. 44, 45:)
he observes, that the soldiers of Lucullus might indeed be
astonished at the cold, since, even in the plain of Erzerum, snow
sometimes falls in June, and the harvest is seldom finished
before September. The hills of Armenia are below the fortieth
degree of latitude; but in the mountainous country which I
inhabit, it is well known that an ascent of some hours carries
the traveller from the climate of Languedoc to that of Norway;
and a general theory has been introduced, that, under the line,
an elevation of 2400 toises is equivalent to the cold of the
polar circle, (Remond, Observations sur les Voyages de Coxe dans
la Suisse, tom. ii. p. 104.)]
129 (return) [ The identity or proximity of the Chalybians, or
Chaldaeana may be investigated in Strabo, (l. xii. p. 825, 826,)
Cellarius, (Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 202—204,) and Freret,
(Mem. de Academie, tom. iv. p. 594) Xenophon supposes, in his
romance, (Cyropaed l. iii.,) the same Barbarians, against whom he
had fought in his retreat, (Anabasis, l. iv.)]
130 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 15. De Edific. l. iii.
c. 6.]
131 (return) [ Ni Taurus obstet in nostra maria venturus,
(Pomponius Mela, iii. 8.) Pliny, a poet as well as a naturalist,
(v. 20,) personifies the river and mountain, and describes their
combat. See the course of the Tigris and Euphrates in the
excellent treatise of D’Anville.]
132 (return) [ Procopius (Persic. l. ii. c. 12) tells the story
with the tone, half sceptical, half superstitious, of Herodotus.
The promise was not in the primitive lie of Eusebius, but dates
at least from the year 400; and a third lie, the Veronica, was
soon raised on the two former, (Evagrius, l. iv. c. 27.) As
Edessa has been taken, Tillemont must disclaim the promise, (Mem.
Eccles. tom. i. p. 362, 383, 617.)]
But the national enmity, at least the effects of that enmity, had
been suspended by a truce, which continued above fourscore years.
An ambassador from the emperor Zeno accompanied the rash and
unfortunate Perozes, 1321 in his expedition against the
Nepthalites, 1322 or white Huns, whose conquests had been
stretched from the Caspian to the heart of India, whose throne
was enriched with emeralds, 133 and whose cavalry was supported
by a line of two thousand elephants. 134 The Persians 1341 were
twice circumvented, in a situation which made valor useless and
flight impossible; and the double victory of the Huns was
achieved by military stratagem. They dismissed their royal
captive after he had submitted to adore the majesty of a
Barbarian; and the humiliation was poorly evaded by the
casuistical subtlety of the Magi, who instructed Perozes to
direct his attention to the rising sun. 1342 The indignant
successor of Cyrus forgot his danger and his gratitude; he
renewed the attack with headstrong fury, and lost both his army
and his life. 135 The death of Perozes abandoned Persia to her
foreign and domestic enemies; 1351 and twelve years of confusion
elapsed before his son Cabades, or Kobad, could embrace any
designs of ambition or revenge. The unkind parsimony of
Anastasius was the motive or pretence of a Roman war; 136 the
Huns and Arabs marched under the Persian standard, and the
fortifications of Armenia and Mesopotamia were, at that time, in
a ruinous or imperfect condition. The emperor returned his thanks
to the governor and people of Martyropolis for the prompt
surrender of a city which could not be successfully defended, and
the conflagration of Theodosiopolis might justify the conduct of
their prudent neighbors. Amida sustained a long and destructive
siege: at the end of three months the loss of fifty thousand of
the soldiers of Cabades was not balanced by any prospect of
success, and it was in vain that the Magi deduced a flattering
prediction from the indecency of the women 1361 on the ramparts,
who had revealed their most secret charms to the eyes of the
assailants. At length, in a silent night, they ascended the most
accessible tower, which was guarded only by some monks,
oppressed, after the duties of a festival, with sleep and wine.
Scaling-ladders were applied at the dawn of day; the presence of
Cabades, his stern command, and his drawn sword, compelled the
Persians to vanquish; and before it was sheathed, fourscore
thousand of the inhabitants had expiated the blood of their
companions. After the siege of Amida, the war continued three
years, and the unhappy frontier tasted the full measure of its
calamities. The gold of Anastasius was offered too late, the
number of his troops was defeated by the number of their
generals; the country was stripped of its inhabitants, and both
the living and the dead were abandoned to the wild beasts of the
desert. The resistance of Edessa, and the deficiency of spoil,
inclined the mind of Cabades to peace: he sold his conquests for
an exorbitant price; and the same line, though marked with
slaughter and devastation, still separated the two empires. To
avert the repetition of the same evils, Anastasius resolved to
found a new colony, so strong, that it should defy the power of
the Persian, so far advanced towards Assyria, that its stationary
troops might defend the province by the menace or operation of
offensive war. For this purpose, the town of Dara, 137 fourteen
miles from Nisibis, and four days’ journey from the Tigris, was
peopled and adorned; the hasty works of Anastasius were improved
by the perseverance of Justinian; and, without insisting on
places less important, the fortifications of Dara may represent
the military architecture of the age. The city was surrounded
with two walls, and the interval between them, of fifty paces,
afforded a retreat to the cattle of the besieged. The inner wall
was a monument of strength and beauty: it measured sixty feet
from the ground, and the height of the towers was one hundred
feet; the loopholes, from whence an enemy might be annoyed with
missile weapons, were small, but numerous; the soldiers were
planted along the rampart, under the shelter of double galleries,
and a third platform, spacious and secure, was raised on the
summit of the towers. The exterior wall appears to have been less
lofty, but more solid; and each tower was protected by a
quadrangular bulwark. A hard, rocky soil resisted the tools of
the miners, and on the south-east, where the ground was more
tractable, their approach was retarded by a new work, which
advanced in the shape of a half-moon. The double and treble
ditches were filled with a stream of water; and in the management
of the river, the most skilful labor was employed to supply the
inhabitants, to distress the besiegers, and to prevent the
mischiefs of a natural or artificial inundation. Dara continued
more than sixty years to fulfil the wishes of its founders, and
to provoke the jealousy of the Persians, who incessantly
complained, that this impregnable fortress had been constructed
in manifest violation of the treaty of peace between the two
empires. 1371
1321 (return) [ Firouz the Conqueror—unfortunately so named. See
St. Martin, vol. vi. p. 439.—M.]
1322 (return) [ Rather Hepthalites.—M.]
133 (return) [ They were purchased from the merchants of Adulis
who traded to India, (Cosmas, Topograph. Christ. l. xi. p. 339;)
yet, in the estimate of precious stones, the Scythian emerald was
the first, the Bactrian the second, the Aethiopian only the
third, (Hill’s Theophrastus, p. 61, &c., 92.) The production,
mines, &c., of emeralds, are involved in darkness; and it is
doubtful whether we possess any of the twelve sorts known to the
ancients, (Goguet, Origine des Loix, &c., part ii. l. ii. c. 2,
art. 3.) In this war the Huns got, or at least Perozes lost, the
finest pearl in the world, of which Procopius relates a
ridiculous fable.]
134 (return) [ The Indo-Scythae continued to reign from the time
of Augustus (Dionys. Perieget. 1088, with the Commentary of
Eustathius, in Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. iv.) to that of the
elder Justin, (Cosmas, Topograph. Christ. l. xi. p. 338, 339.) On
their origin and conquests, see D’Anville, (sur l’Inde, p. 18,
45, &c., 69, 85, 89.) In the second century they were masters of
Larice or Guzerat.]
1341 (return) [ According to the Persian historians, he was
misled by guides who used he old stratagem of Zopyrus. Malcolm,
vol. i. p. 101.—M.]
1342 (return) [ In the Ms. Chronicle of Tabary, it is said that
the Moubedan Mobed, or Grand Pontiff, opposed with all his
influence the violation of the treaty. St. Martin, vol. vii. p.
254.—M.]
135 (return) [ See the fate of Phirouz, or Perozes, and its
consequences, in Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 3—6,) who may be
compared with the fragments of Oriental history, (D’Herbelot,
Bibliot. Orient. p. 351, and Texeira, History of Persia,
translated or abridged by Stephens, l. i. c. 32, p. 132—138.) The
chronology is ably ascertained by Asseman. (Bibliot. Orient. tom.
iii. p. 396—427.)]
1351 (return) [ When Firoze advanced, Khoosh-Nuaz (the king of
the Huns) presented on the point of a lance the treaty to which
he had sworn, and exhorted him yet to desist before he destroyed
his fame forever. Malcolm, vol. i. p. 103.—M.]
136 (return) [ The Persian war, under the reigns of Anastasius
and Justin, may be collected from Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 7,
8, 9,) Theophanes, (in Chronograph. p. 124—127,) Evagrius, (l.
iii. c. 37,) Marcellinus, (in Chron. p. 47,) and Josue Stylites,
(apud Asseman. tom. i. p. 272—281.)]
1361 (return) [ Gibbon should have written “some prostitutes.”
Proc Pers. vol. 1 p. 7.—M.]
137 (return) [ The description of Dara is amply and correctly
given by Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 10, l. ii. c. 13. De
Edific. l. ii. c. 1, 2, 3, l. iii. c. 5.) See the situation in
D’Anville, (l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 53, 54, 55,) though he
seems to double the interval between Dara and Nisibis.]
1371 (return) [ The situation (of Dara) does not appear to give
it strength, as it must have been commanded on three sides by the
mountains, but opening on the south towards the plains of
Mesopotamia. The foundation of the walls and towers, built of
large hewn stone, may be traced across the valley, and over a
number of low rocky hills which branch out from the foot of Mount
Masius. The circumference I conceive to be nearly two miles and a
half; and a small stream, which flows through the middle of the
place, has induced several Koordish and Armenian families to fix
their residence within the ruins. Besides the walls and towers,
the remains of many other buildings attest the former grandeur of
Dara; a considerable part of the space within the walls is arched
and vaulted underneath, and in one place we perceived a large
cavern, supported by four ponderous columns, somewhat resembling
the great cistern of Constantinople. In the centre of the village
are the ruins of a palace (probably that mentioned by Procopius)
or church, one hundred paces in length, and sixty in breadth. The
foundations, which are quite entire, consist of a prodigious
number of subterraneous vaulted chambers, entered by a narrow
passage forty paces in length. The gate is still standing; a
considerable part of the wall has bid defiance to time, &c. M
Donald Kinneir’s Journey, p. 438.—M]
Between the Euxine and the Caspian, the countries of Colchos,
Iberia, and Albania, are intersected in every direction by the
branches of Mount Caucasus; and the two principal gates, or
passes, from north to south, have been frequently confounded in
the geography both of the ancients and moderns. The name of
Caspian or Albanian gates is properly applied to Derbend, 138
which occupies a short declivity between the mountains and the
sea: the city, if we give credit to local tradition, had been
founded by the Greeks; and this dangerous entrance was fortified
by the kings of Persia with a mole, double walls, and doors of
iron. The Iberian gates 139 1391 are formed by a narrow passage
of six miles in Mount Caucasus, which opens from the northern
side of Iberia, or Georgia, into the plain that reaches to the
Tanais and the Volga. A fortress, designed by Alexander perhaps,
or one of his successors, to command that important pass, had
descended by right of conquest or inheritance to a prince of the
Huns, who offered it for a moderate price to the emperor; but
while Anastasius paused, while he timorously computed the cost
and the distance, a more vigilant rival interposed, and Cabades
forcibly occupied the Straits of Caucasus. The Albanian and
Iberian gates excluded the horsemen of Scythia from the shortest
and most practicable roads, and the whole front of the mountains
was covered by the rampart of Gog and Magog, the long wall which
has excited the curiosity of an Arabian caliph 140 and a Russian
conqueror. 141 According to a recent description, huge stones,
seven feet thick, and twenty-one feet in length or height, are
artificially joined without iron or cement, to compose a wall,
which runs above three hundred miles from the shores of Derbend,
over the hills, and through the valleys of Daghestan and Georgia.
Without a vision, such a work might be undertaken by the policy
of Cabades; without a miracle, it might be accomplished by his
son, so formidable to the Romans, under the name of Chosroes; so
dear to the Orientals, under the appellation of Nushirwan. The
Persian monarch held in his hand the keys both of peace and war;
but he stipulated, in every treaty, that Justinian should
contribute to the expense of a common barrier, which equally
protected the two empires from the inroads of the Scythians. 142
138 (return) [ For the city and pass of Derbend, see D’Herbelot,
(Bibliot. Orient. p. 157, 291, 807,) Petit de la Croix. (Hist. de
Gengiscan, l. iv. c. 9,) Histoire Genealogique des Tatars, (tom.
i. p. 120,) Olearius, (Voyage en Perse, p. 1039—1041,) and
Corneille le Bruyn, (Voyages, tom. i. p. 146, 147:) his view may
be compared with the plan of Olearius, who judges the wall to be
of shells and gravel hardened by time.]
139 (return) [ Procopius, though with some confusion, always
denominates them Caspian, (Persic. l. i. c. 10.) The pass is now
styled Tatar-topa, the Tartar-gates, (D’Anville, Geographie
Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 119, 120.)]
1391 (return) [ Malte-Brun. tom. viii. p. 12, makes three passes:
1. The central, which leads from Mosdok to Teflis. 2. The
Albanian, more inland than the Derbend Pass. 3. The Derbend—the
Caspian Gates. But the narrative of Col. Monteith, in the Journal
of the Geographical Society of London. vol. iii. p. i. p. 39,
clearly shows that there are but two passes between the Black Sea
and the Caspian; the central, the Caucasian, or, as Col. Monteith
calls it, the Caspian Gates, and the pass of Derbend, though it
is practicable to turn this position (of Derbend) by a road a few
miles distant through the mountains, p. 40.—M.]
140 (return) [ The imaginary rampart of Gog and Magog, which was
seriously explored and believed by a caliph of the ninth century,
appears to be derived from the gates of Mount Caucasus, and a
vague report of the wall of China, (Geograph. Nubiensis, p.
267-270. Memoires de l’Academie, tom. xxxi. p. 210—219.)]
141 (return) [ See a learned dissertation of Baier, de muro
Caucaseo, in Comment. Acad. Petropol. ann. 1726, tom. i. p.
425-463; but it is destitute of a map or plan. When the czar
Peter I. became master of Derbend in the year 1722, the measure
of the wall was found to be 3285 Russian orgyioe, or fathom, each
of seven feet English; in the whole somewhat more than four miles
in length.]
142 (return) [ See the fortifications and treaties of Chosroes,
or Nushirwan, in Procopius (Persic. l. i. c. 16, 22, l. ii.) and
D’Herbelot, (p. 682.)] VII. Justinian suppressed the schools of
Athens and the consulship of Rome, which had given so many sages
and heroes to mankind. Both these institutions had long since
degenerated from their primitive glory; yet some reproach may be
justly inflicted on the avarice and jealousy of a prince, by
whose hand such venerable ruins were destroyed.
Athens, after her Persian triumphs, adopted the philosophy of
Ionia and the rhetoric of Sicily; and these studies became the
patrimony of a city, whose inhabitants, about thirty thousand
males, condensed, within the period of a single life, the genius
of ages and millions. Our sense of the dignity of human nature is
exalted by the simple recollection, that Isocrates 143 was the
companion of Plato and Xenophon; that he assisted, perhaps with
the historian Thucydides, at the first representation of the
Oedipus of Sophocles and the Iphigenia of Euripides; and that his
pupils Aeschines and Demosthenes contended for the crown of
patriotism in the presence of Aristotle, the master of
Theophrastus, who taught at Athens with the founders of the Stoic
and Epicurean sects. 144 The ingenuous youth of Attica enjoyed
the benefits of their domestic education, which was communicated
without envy to the rival cities. Two thousand disciples heard
the lessons of Theophrastus; 145 the schools of rhetoric must
have been still more populous than those of philosophy; and a
rapid succession of students diffused the fame of their teachers
as far as the utmost limits of the Grecian language and name.
Those limits were enlarged by the victories of Alexander; the
arts of Athens survived her freedom and dominion; and the Greek
colonies which the Macedonians planted in Egypt, and scattered
over Asia, undertook long and frequent pilgrimages to worship the
Muses in their favorite temple on the banks of the Ilissus. The
Latin conquerors respectfully listened to the instructions of
their subjects and captives; the names of Cicero and Horace were
enrolled in the schools of Athens; and after the perfect
settlement of the Roman empire, the natives of Italy, of Africa,
and of Britain, conversed in the groves of the academy with their
fellow-students of the East. The studies of philosophy and
eloquence are congenial to a popular state, which encourages the
freedom of inquiry, and submits only to the force of persuasion.
In the republics of Greece and Rome, the art of speaking was the
powerful engine of patriotism or ambition; and the schools of
rhetoric poured forth a colony of statesmen and legislators. When
the liberty of public debate was suppressed, the orator, in the
honorable profession of an advocate, might plead the cause of
innocence and justice; he might abuse his talents in the more
profitable trade of panegyric; and the same precepts continued to
dictate the fanciful declamations of the sophist, and the chaster
beauties of historical composition. The systems which professed
to unfold the nature of God, of man, and of the universe,
entertained the curiosity of the philosophic student; and
according to the temper of his mind, he might doubt with the
Sceptics, or decide with the Stoics, sublimely speculate with
Plato, or severely argue with Aristotle. The pride of the adverse
sects had fixed an unattainable term of moral happiness and
perfection; but the race was glorious and salutary; the disciples
of Zeno, and even those of Epicurus, were taught both to act and
to suffer; and the death of Petronius was not less effectual than
that of Seneca, to humble a tyrant by the discovery of his
impotence. The light of science could not indeed be confined
within the walls of Athens. Her incomparable writers address
themselves to the human race; the living masters emigrated to
Italy and Asia; Berytus, in later times, was devoted to the study
of the law; astronomy and physic were cultivated in the musaeum
of Alexandria; but the Attic schools of rhetoric and philosophy
maintained their superior reputation from the Peloponnesian war
to the reign of Justinian. Athens, though situate in a barren
soil, possessed a pure air, a free navigation, and the monuments
of ancient art. That sacred retirement was seldom disturbed by
the business of trade or government; and the last of the
Athenians were distinguished by their lively wit, the purity of
their taste and language, their social manners, and some traces,
at least in discourse, of the magnanimity of their fathers. In
the suburbs of the city, the academy of the Platonists, the
lycaeum of the Peripatetics, the portico of the Stoics, and the
garden of the Epicureans, were planted with trees and decorated
with statues; and the philosophers, instead of being immured in a
cloister, delivered their instructions in spacious and pleasant
walks, which, at different hours, were consecrated to the
exercises of the mind and body. The genius of the founders still
lived in those venerable seats; the ambition of succeeding to the
masters of human reason excited a generous emulation; and the
merit of the candidates was determined, on each vacancy, by the
free voices of an enlightened people. The Athenian professors
were paid by their disciples: according to their mutual wants and
abilities, the price appears to have varied; and Isocrates
himself, who derides the avarice of the sophists, required, in
his school of rhetoric, about thirty pounds from each of his
hundred pupils. The wages of industry are just and honorable, yet
the same Isocrates shed tears at the first receipt of a stipend:
the Stoic might blush when he was hired to preach the contempt of
money; and I should be sorry to discover that Aristotle or Plato
so far degenerated from the example of Socrates, as to exchange
knowledge for gold. But some property of lands and houses was
settled by the permission of the laws, and the legacies of
deceased friends, on the philosophic chairs of Athens. Epicurus
bequeathed to his disciples the gardens which he had purchased
for eighty minae or two hundred and fifty pounds, with a fund
sufficient for their frugal subsistence and monthly festivals;
146 and the patrimony of Plato afforded an annual rent, which, in
eight centuries, was gradually increased from three to one
thousand pieces of gold. 147 The schools of Athens were protected
by the wisest and most virtuous of the Roman princes. The
library, which Hadrian founded, was placed in a portico adorned
with pictures, statues, and a roof of alabaster, and supported by
one hundred columns of Phrygian marble. The public salaries were
assigned by the generous spirit of the Antonines; and each
professor of politics, of rhetoric, of the Platonic, the
Peripatetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean philosophy, received an
annual stipend of ten thousand drachmae, or more than three
hundred pounds sterling. 148 After the death of Marcus, these
liberal donations, and the privileges attached to the thrones of
science, were abolished and revived, diminished and enlarged; but
some vestige of royal bounty may be found under the successors of
Constantine; and their arbitrary choice of an unworthy candidate
might tempt the philosophers of Athens to regret the days of
independence and poverty. 149 It is remarkable, that the
impartial favor of the Antonines was bestowed on the four adverse
sects of philosophy, which they considered as equally useful, or
at least, as equally innocent. Socrates had formerly been the
glory and the reproach of his country; and the first lessons of
Epicurus so strangely scandalized the pious ears of the
Athenians, that by his exile, and that of his antagonists, they
silenced all vain disputes concerning the nature of the gods. But
in the ensuing year they recalled the hasty decree, restored the
liberty of the schools, and were convinced by the experience of
ages, that the moral character of philosophers is not affected by
the diversity of their theological speculations. 150
143 (return) [ The life of Isocrates extends from Olymp. lxxxvi.
1. to cx. 3, (ante Christ. 436—438.) See Dionys. Halicarn. tom.
ii. p. 149, 150, edit. Hudson. Plutarch (sive anonymus) in Vit.
X. Oratorum, p. 1538—1543, edit. H. Steph. Phot. cod. cclix. p.
1453.]
144 (return) [ The schools of Athens are copiously though
concisely represented in the Fortuna Attica of Meursius, (c.
viii. p. 59—73, in tom. i. Opp.) For the state and arts of the
city, see the first book of Pausanias, and a small tract of
Dicaearchus, in the second volume of Hudson’s Geographers, who
wrote about Olymp. cxvii. (Dodwell’s Dissertia sect. 4.)]
145 (return) [ Diogen Laert. de Vit. Philosoph. l. v. segm. 37,
p. 289.]
146 (return) [ See the Testament of Epicurus in Diogen. Laert. l.
x. segm. 16—20, p. 611, 612. A single epistle (ad Familiares,
xiii. l.) displays the injustice of the Areopagus, the fidelity
of the Epicureans, the dexterous politeness of Cicero, and the
mixture of contempt and esteem with which the Roman senators
considered the philosophy and philosophers of Greece.]
147 (return) [ Damascius, in Vit. Isidor. apud Photium, cod.
ccxlii. p. 1054.]
148 (return) [ See Lucian (in Eunuch. tom. ii. p. 350—359, edit.
Reitz,) Philostratus (in Vit. Sophist. l. ii. c. 2,) and Dion
Cassius, or Xiphilin, (lxxi. p. 1195,) with their editors Du
Soul, Olearius, and Reimar, and, above all, Salmasius, (ad Hist.
August. p. 72.) A judicious philosopher (Smith’s Wealth of
Nations, vol. ii. p. 340—374) prefers the free contributions of
the students to a fixed stipend for the professor.]
149 (return) [ Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 310,
&c.]
150 (return) [ The birth of Epicurus is fixed to the year 342
before Christ, (Bayle,) Olympiad cix. 3; and he opened his school
at Athens, Olmp. cxviii. 3, 306 years before the same aera. This
intolerant law (Athenaeus, l. xiii. p. 610. Diogen. Laertius, l.
v. s. 38. p. 290. Julius Pollux, ix. 5) was enacted in the same
or the succeeding year, (Sigonius, Opp. tom. v. p. 62. Menagius
ad Diogen. Laert. p. 204. Corsini, Fasti Attici, tom. iv. p. 67,
68.) Theophrastus chief of the Peripatetics, and disciple of
Aristotle, was involved in the same exile.]
The Gothic arms were less fatal to the schools of Athens than the
establishment of a new religion, whose ministers superseded the
exercise of reason, resolved every question by an article of
faith, and condemned the infidel or sceptic to eternal flames. In
many a volume of laborious controversy, they exposed the weakness
of the understanding and the corruption of the heart, insulted
human nature in the sages of antiquity, and proscribed the spirit
of philosophical inquiry, so repugnant to the doctrine, or at
least to the temper, of an humble believer. The surviving sects
of the Platonists, whom Plato would have blushed to acknowledge,
extravagantly mingled a sublime theory with the practice of
superstition and magic; and as they remained alone in the midst
of a Christian world, they indulged a secret rancor against the
government of the church and state, whose severity was still
suspended over their heads. About a century after the reign of
Julian, 151 Proclus 152 was permitted to teach in the philosophic
chair of the academy; and such was his industry, that he
frequently, in the same day, pronounced five lessons, and
composed seven hundred lines. His sagacious mind explored the
deepest questions of morals and metaphysics, and he ventured to
urge eighteen arguments against the Christian doctrine of the
creation of the world. But in the intervals of study, he
personally conversed with Pan, Aesculapius, and Minerva, in whose
mysteries he was secretly initiated, and whose prostrate statues
he adored; in the devout persuasion that the philosopher, who is
a citizen of the universe, should be the priest of its various
deities. An eclipse of the sun announced his approaching end; and
his life, with that of his scholar Isidore, 153 compiled by two
of their most learned disciples, exhibits a deplorable picture of
the second childhood of human reason. Yet the golden chain, as it
was fondly styled, of the Platonic succession, continued
forty-four years from the death of Proclus to the edict of
Justinian, 154 which imposed a perpetual silence on the schools
of Athens, and excited the grief and indignation of the few
remaining votaries of Grecian science and superstition. Seven
friends and philosophers, Diogenes and Hermias, Eulalius and
Priscian, Damascius, Isidore, and Simplicius, who dissented from
the religion of their sovereign, embraced the resolution of
seeking in a foreign land the freedom which was denied in their
native country. They had heard, and they credulously believed,
that the republic of Plato was realized in the despotic
government of Persia, and that a patriot king reigned ever the
happiest and most virtuous of nations. They were soon astonished
by the natural discovery, that Persia resembled the other
countries of the globe; that Chosroes, who affected the name of a
philosopher, was vain, cruel, and ambitious; that bigotry, and a
spirit of intolerance, prevailed among the Magi; that the nobles
were haughty, the courtiers servile, and the magistrates unjust;
that the guilty sometimes escaped, and that the innocent were
often oppressed. The disappointment of the philosophers provoked
them to overlook the real virtues of the Persians; and they were
scandalized, more deeply perhaps than became their profession,
with the plurality of wives and concubines, the incestuous
marriages, and the custom of exposing dead bodies to the dogs and
vultures, instead of hiding them in the earth, or consuming them
with fire. Their repentance was expressed by a precipitate
return, and they loudly declared that they had rather die on the
borders of the empire, than enjoy the wealth and favor of the
Barbarian. From this journey, however, they derived a benefit
which reflects the purest lustre on the character of Chosroes. He
required, that the seven sages who had visited the court of
Persia should be exempted from the penal laws which Justinian
enacted against his Pagan subjects; and this privilege, expressly
stipulated in a treaty of peace, was guarded by the vigilance of
a powerful mediator. 155 Simplicius and his companions ended
their lives in peace and obscurity; and as they left no
disciples, they terminate the long list of Grecian philosophers,
who may be justly praised, notwithstanding their defects, as the
wisest and most virtuous of their contemporaries. The writings of
Simplicius are now extant. His physical and metaphysical
commentaries on Aristotle have passed away with the fashion of
the times; but his moral interpretation of Epictetus is preserved
in the library of nations, as a classic book, most excellently
adapted to direct the will, to purify the heart, and to confirm
the understanding, by a just confidence in the nature both of God
and man.
151 (return) [ This is no fanciful aera: the Pagans reckoned
their calamities from the reign of their hero. Proclus, whose
nativity is marked by his horoscope, (A.D. 412, February 8, at C.
P.,) died 124 years, A.D. 485, (Marin. in Vita Procli, c. 36.)]
152 (return) [ The life of Proclus, by Marinus, was published by
Fabricius (Hamburg, 1700, et ad calcem Bibliot. Latin. Lond.
1703.) See Saidas, (tom. iii. p. 185, 186,) Fabricius, (Bibliot.
Graec. l. v. c. 26 p. 449—552,) and Brucker, (Hist. Crit.
Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 319—326)]
153 (return) [ The life of Isidore was composed by Damascius,
(apud Photium, sod. ccxlii. p. 1028—1076.) See the last age of
the Pagan philosophers, in Brucker, (tom. ii. p. 341—351.)]
154 (return) [ The suppression of the schools of Athens is
recorded by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 187, sub Decio Cos. Sol.,)
and an anonymous Chronicle in the Vatican library, (apud Aleman.
p. 106.)]
155 (return) [ Agathias (l. ii. p. 69, 70, 71) relates this
curious story Chosroes ascended the throne in the year 531, and
made his first peace with the Romans in the beginning of 533—a
date most compatible with his young fame and the old age of
Isidore, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. iii. p. 404. Pagi, tom.
ii. p. 543, 550.)]
About the same time that Pythagoras first invented the
appellation of philosopher, liberty and the consulship were
founded at Rome by the elder Brutus. The revolutions of the
consular office, which may be viewed in the successive lights of
a substance, a shadow, and a name, have been occasionally
mentioned in the present History. The first magistrates of the
republic had been chosen by the people, to exercise, in the
senate and in the camp, the powers of peace and war, which were
afterwards translated to the emperors. But the tradition of
ancient dignity was long revered by the Romans and Barbarians. A
Gothic historian applauds the consulship of Theodoric as the
height of all temporal glory and greatness; 156 the king of Italy
himself congratulated those annual favorites of fortune who,
without the cares, enjoyed the splendor of the throne; and at the
end of a thousand years, two consuls were created by the
sovereigns of Rome and Constantinople, for the sole purpose of
giving a date to the year, and a festival to the people. But the
expenses of this festival, in which the wealthy and the vain
aspired to surpass their predecessors, insensibly arose to the
enormous sum of fourscore thousand pounds; the wisest senators
declined a useless honor, which involved the certain ruin of
their families, and to this reluctance I should impute the
frequent chasms in the last age of the consular Fasti. The
predecessors of Justinian had assisted from the public treasures
the dignity of the less opulent candidates; the avarice of that
prince preferred the cheaper and more convenient method of advice
and regulation. 157 Seven processions or spectacles were the
number to which his edict confined the horse and chariot races,
the athletic sports, the music, and pantomimes of the theatre,
and the hunting of wild beasts; and small pieces of silver were
discreetly substituted to the gold medals, which had always
excited tumult and drunkenness, when they were scattered with a
profuse hand among the populace. Notwithstanding these
precautions, and his own example, the succession of consuls
finally ceased in the thirteenth year of Justinian, whose
despotic temper might be gratified by the silent extinction of a
title which admonished the Romans of their ancient freedom. 158
Yet the annual consulship still lived in the minds of the people;
they fondly expected its speedy restoration; they applauded the
gracious condescension of successive princes, by whom it was
assumed in the first year of their reign; and three centuries
elapsed, after the death of Justinian, before that obsolete
dignity, which had been suppressed by custom, could be abolished
by law. 159 The imperfect mode of distinguishing each year by the
name of a magistrate, was usefully supplied by the date of a
permanent aera: the creation of the world, according to the
Septuagint version, was adopted by the Greeks; 160 and the
Latins, since the age of Charlemagne, have computed their time
from the birth of Christ. 161
156 (return) [ Cassiodor. Variarum Epist. vi. 1. Jornandes, c.
57, p. 696, dit. Grot. Quod summum bonum primumque in mundo decus
dicitur.]
157 (return) [ See the regulations of Justinian, (Novell. cv.,)
dated at Constantinople, July 5, and addressed to Strategius,
treasurer of the empire.]
158 (return) [ Procopius, in Anecdot. c. 26. Aleman. p. 106. In
the xviiith year after the consulship of Basilius, according to
the reckoning of Marcellinus, Victor, Marius, &c., the secret
history was composed, and, in the eyes of Procopius, the
consulship was finally abolished.]
159 (return) [ By Leo, the philosopher, (Novell. xciv. A.D.
886-911.) See Pagi (Dissertat. Hypatica, p. 325—362) and Ducange,
(Gloss, Graec p. 1635, 1636.) Even the title was vilified:
consulatus codicilli.. vilescunt, says the emperor himself.]
160 (return) [ According to Julius Africanus, &c., the world was
created the first of September, 5508 years, three months, and
twenty-five days before the birth of Christ. (See Pezron,
Antiquite des Tems defendue, p. 20—28.) And this aera has been
used by the Greeks, the Oriental Christians, and even by the
Russians, till the reign of Peter I The period, however
arbitrary, is clear and convenient. Of the 7296 years which are
supposed to elapse since the creation, we shall find 3000 of
ignorance and darkness; 2000 either fabulous or doubtful; 1000 of
ancient history, commencing with the Persian empire, and the
Republics of Rome and Athens; 1000 from the fall of the Roman
empire in the West to the discovery of America; and the remaining
296 will almost complete three centuries of the modern state of
Europe and mankind. I regret this chronology, so far preferable
to our double and perplexed method of counting backwards and
forwards the years before and after the Christian era.]
161 (return) [ The aera of the world has prevailed in the East
since the vith general council, (A.D. 681.) In the West, the
Christian aera was first invented in the vith century: it was
propagated in the viiith by the authority and writings of
venerable Bede; but it was not till the xth that the use became
legal and popular. See l’Art de Veriner les Dates, Dissert.
Preliminaire, p. iii. xii. Dictionnaire Diplomatique, tom. i. p.
329—337; the works of a laborious society of Benedictine monks.]
Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Character Of Balisarius.—Part I.
Conquests Of Justinian In The West.—Character And First Campaigns Of
Belisarius—He Invades And Subdues The Vandal Kingdom Of Africa—His
Triumph.—The Gothic War.—He Recovers Sicily, Naples, And Rome.—Siege Of
Rome By The Goths.—Their Retreat And Losses.—Surrender Of
Ravenna.—Glory Of Belisarius.—His Domestic Shame And Misfortunes.
When Justinian ascended the throne, about fifty years after the
fall of the Western empire, the kingdoms of the Goths and Vandals
had obtained a solid, and, as it might seem, a legal
establishment both in Europe and Africa. The titles, which Roman
victory had inscribed, were erased with equal justice by the
sword of the Barbarians; and their successful rapine derived a
more venerable sanction from time, from treaties, and from the
oaths of fidelity, already repeated by a second or third
generation of obedient subjects. Experience and Christianity had
refuted the superstitious hope, that Rome was founded by the gods
to reign forever over the nations of the earth. But the proud
claim of perpetual and indefeasible dominion, which her soldiers
could no longer maintain, was firmly asserted by her statesmen
and lawyers, whose opinions have been sometimes revived and
propagated in the modern schools of jurisprudence. After Rome
herself had been stripped of the Imperial purple, the princes of
Constantinople assumed the sole and sacred sceptre of the
monarchy; demanded, as their rightful inheritance, the provinces
which had been subdued by the consuls, or possessed by the
Caesars; and feebly aspired to deliver their faithful subjects of
the West from the usurpation of heretics and Barbarians. The
execution of this splendid design was in some degree reserved for
Justinian. During the five first years of his reign, he
reluctantly waged a costly and unprofitable war against the
Persians; till his pride submitted to his ambition, and he
purchased at the price of four hundred and forty thousand pounds
sterling, the benefit of a precarious truce, which, in the
language of both nations, was dignified with the appellation of
the endless peace. The safety of the East enabled the emperor to
employ his forces against the Vandals; and the internal state of
Africa afforded an honorable motive, and promised a powerful
support, to the Roman arms. 1
1 (return) [ The complete series of the Vandal war is related by
Procopius in a regular and elegant narrative, (l. i. c. 9—25, l.
ii. c. 1—13,) and happy would be my lot, could I always tread in
the footsteps of such a guide. From the entire and diligent
perusal of the Greek text, I have a right to pronounce that the
Latin and French versions of Grotius and Cousin may not be
implicitly trusted; yet the president Cousin has been often
praised, and Hugo Grotius was the first scholar of a learned
age.]
According to the testament of the founder, the African kingdom
had lineally descended to Hilderic, the eldest of the Vandal
princes. A mild disposition inclined the son of a tyrant, the
grandson of a conqueror, to prefer the counsels of clemency and
peace; and his accession was marked by the salutary edict, which
restored two hundred bishops to their churches, and allowed the
free profession of the Athanasian creed. 2 But the Catholics
accepted, with cold and transient gratitude, a favor so
inadequate to their pretensions, and the virtues of Hilderic
offended the prejudices of his countrymen. The Arian clergy
presumed to insinuate that he had renounced the faith, and the
soldiers more loudly complained that he had degenerated from the
courage, of his ancestors. His ambassadors were suspected of a
secret and disgraceful negotiation in the Byzantine court; and
his general, the Achilles, 3 as he was named, of the Vandals,
lost a battle against the naked and disorderly Moors. The public
discontent was exasperated by Gelimer, whose age, descent, and
military fame, gave him an apparent title to the succession: he
assumed, with the consent of the nation, the reins of government;
and his unfortunate sovereign sunk without a struggle from the
throne to a dungeon, where he was strictly guarded with a
faithful counsellor, and his unpopular nephew the Achilles of the
Vandals. But the indulgence which Hilderic had shown to his
Catholic subjects had powerfully recommended him to the favor of
Justinian, who, for the benefit of his own sect, could
acknowledge the use and justice of religious toleration: their
alliance, while the nephew of Justin remained in a private
station, was cemented by the mutual exchange of gifts and
letters; and the emperor Justinian asserted the cause of royalty
and friendship. In two successive embassies, he admonished the
usurper to repent of his treason, or to abstain, at least, from
any further violence which might provoke the displeasure of God
and of the Romans; to reverence the laws of kindred and
succession, and to suffer an infirm old man peaceably to end his
days, either on the throne of Carthage or in the palace of
Constantinople. The passions, or even the prudence, of Gelimer
compelled him to reject these requests, which were urged in the
haughty tone of menace and command; and he justified his ambition
in a language rarely spoken in the Byzantine court, by alleging
the right of a free people to remove or punish their chief
magistrate, who had failed in the execution of the kingly office.
After this fruitless expostulation, the captive monarch was more
rigorously treated, his nephew was deprived of his eyes, and the
cruel Vandal, confident in his strength and distance, derided the
vain threats and slow preparations of the emperor of the East.
Justinian resolved to deliver or revenge his friend, Gelimer to
maintain his usurpation; and the war was preceded, according to
the practice of civilized nations, by the most solemn
protestations, that each party was sincerely desirous of peace.
2 (return) [ See Ruinart, Hist. Persecut. Vandal. c. xii. p. 589.
His best evidence is drawn from the life of St. Fulgentius,
composed by one of his disciples, transcribed in a great measure
in the annals of Baronius, and printed in several great
collections, (Catalog. Bibliot. Bunavianae, tom. i. vol. ii. p.
1258.)]
3 (return) [ For what quality of the mind or body? For speed, or
beauty, or valor?—In what language did the Vandals read
Homer?—Did he speak German?—The Latins had four versions,
(Fabric. tom. i. l. ii. c. 8, p. 297:) yet, in spite of the
praises of Seneca, (Consol. c. 26,) they appear to have been more
successful in imitating than in translating the Greek poets. But
the name of Achilles might be famous and popular even among the
illiterate Barbarians.]
The report of an African war was grateful only to the vain and
idle populace of Constantinople, whose poverty exempted them from
tribute, and whose cowardice was seldom exposed to military
service. But the wiser citizens, who judged of the future by the
past, revolved in their memory the immense loss, both of men and
money, which the empire had sustained in the expedition of
Basiliscus. The troops, which, after five laborious campaigns,
had been recalled from the Persian frontier, dreaded the sea, the
climate, and the arms of an unknown enemy. The ministers of the
finances computed, as far as they might compute, the demands of
an African war; the taxes which must be found and levied to
supply those insatiate demands; and the danger, lest their own
lives, or at least their lucrative employments, should be made
responsible for the deficiency of the supply. Inspired by such
selfish motives, (for we may not suspect him of any zeal for the
public good,) John of Cappadocia ventured to oppose in full
council the inclinations of his master. He confessed, that a
victory of such importance could not be too dearly purchased; but
he represented in a grave discourse the certain difficulties and
the uncertain event. “You undertake,” said the præfect, “to
besiege Carthage: by land, the distance is not less than one
hundred and forty days’ journey; on the sea, a whole year 4 must
elapse before you can receive any intelligence from your fleet.
If Africa should be reduced, it cannot be preserved without the
additional conquest of Sicily and Italy. Success will impose the
obligations of new labors; a single misfortune will attract the
Barbarians into the heart of your exhausted empire.” Justinian
felt the weight of this salutary advice; he was confounded by the
unwonted freedom of an obsequious servant; and the design of the
war would perhaps have been relinquished, if his courage had not
been revived by a voice which silenced the doubts of profane
reason. “I have seen a vision,” cried an artful or fanatic bishop
of the East. “It is the will of Heaven, O emperor! that you
should not abandon your holy enterprise for the deliverance of
the African church. The God of battles will march before your
standard, and disperse your enemies, who are the enemies of his
Son.” The emperor, might be tempted, and his counsellors were
constrained, to give credit to this seasonable revelation: but
they derived more rational hope from the revolt, which the
adherents of Hilderic or Athanasius had already excited on the
borders of the Vandal monarchy. Pudentius, an African subject,
had privately signified his loyal intentions, and a small
military aid restored the province of Tripoli to the obedience of
the Romans. The government of Sardinia had been intrusted to
Godas, a valiant Barbarian: he suspended the payment of tribute,
disclaimed his allegiance to the usurper, and gave audience to
the emissaries of Justinian, who found him master of that
fruitful island, at the head of his guards, and proudly invested
with the ensigns of royalty. The forces of the Vandals were
diminished by discord and suspicion; the Roman armies were
animated by the spirit of Belisarius; one of those heroic names
which are familiar to every age and to every nation.
4 (return) [ A year—absurd exaggeration! The conquest of Africa
may be dated A. D 533, September 14. It is celebrated by
Justinian in the preface to his Institutes, which were published
November 21 of the same year. Including the voyage and return,
such a computation might be truly applied to our Indian empire.]
The Africanus of new Rome was born, and perhaps educated, among
the Thracian peasants, 5 without any of those advantages which
had formed the virtues of the elder and younger Scipio; a noble
origin, liberal studies, and the emulation of a free state.
The silence of a loquacious secretary may be admitted, to prove
that the youth of Belisarius could not afford any subject of
praise: he served, most assuredly with valor and reputation,
among the private guards of Justinian; and when his patron became
emperor, the domestic was promoted to military command. After a
bold inroad into Persarmenia, in which his glory was shared by a
colleague, and his progress was checked by an enemy, Belisarius
repaired to the important station of Dara, where he first
accepted the service of Procopius, the faithful companion, and
diligent historian, of his exploits. 6 The Mirranes of Persia
advanced, with forty thousand of her best troops, to raze the
fortifications of Dara; and signified the day and the hour on
which the citizens should prepare a bath for his refreshment,
after the toils of victory. He encountered an adversary equal to
himself, by the new title of General of the East; his superior in
the science of war, but much inferior in the number and quality
of his troops, which amounted only to twenty-five thousand Romans
and strangers, relaxed in their discipline, and humbled by recent
disasters. As the level plain of Dara refused all shelter to
stratagem and ambush, Belisarius protected his front with a deep
trench, which was prolonged at first in perpendicular, and
afterwards in parallel, lines, to cover the wings of cavalry
advantageously posted to command the flanks and rear of the
enemy. When the Roman centre was shaken, their well-timed and
rapid charge decided the conflict: the standard of Persia fell;
the immortals fled; the infantry threw away their bucklers, and
eight thousand of the vanquished were left on the field of
battle. In the next campaign, Syria was invaded on the side of
the desert; and Belisarius, with twenty thousand men, hastened
from Dara to the relief of the province. During the whole summer,
the designs of the enemy were baffled by his skilful
dispositions: he pressed their retreat, occupied each night their
camp of the preceding day, and would have secured a bloodless
victory, if he could have resisted the impatience of his own
troops. Their valiant promise was faintly supported in the hour
of battle; the right wing was exposed by the treacherous or
cowardly desertion of the Christian Arabs; the Huns, a veteran
band of eight hundred warriors, were oppressed by superior
numbers; the flight of the Isaurians was intercepted; but the
Roman infantry stood firm on the left; for Belisarius himself,
dismounting from his horse, showed them that intrepid despair was
their only safety. 611 They turned their backs to the Euphrates,
and their faces to the enemy: innumerable arrows glanced without
effect from the compact and shelving order of their bucklers; an
impenetrable line of pikes was opposed to the repeated assaults
of the Persian cavalry; and after a resistance of many hours, the
remaining troops were skilfully embarked under the shadow of the
night. The Persian commander retired with disorder and disgrace,
to answer a strict account of the lives of so many soldiers,
which he had consumed in a barren victory. But the fame of
Belisarius was not sullied by a defeat, in which he alone had
saved his army from the consequences of their own rashness: the
approach of peace relieved him from the guard of the eastern
frontier, and his conduct in the sedition of Constantinople amply
discharged his obligations to the emperor. When the African war
became the topic of popular discourse and secret deliberation,
each of the Roman generals was apprehensive, rather than
ambitious, of the dangerous honor; but as soon as Justinian had
declared his preference of superior merit, their envy was
rekindled by the unanimous applause which was given to the choice
of Belisarius. The temper of the Byzantine court may encourage a
suspicion, that the hero was darkly assisted by the intrigues of
his wife, the fair and subtle Antonina, who alternately enjoyed
the confidence, and incurred the hatred, of the empress Theodora.
The birth of Antonina was ignoble; she descended from a family of
charioteers; and her chastity has been stained with the foulest
reproach. Yet she reigned with long and absolute power over the
mind of her illustrious husband; and if Antonina disdained the
merit of conjugal fidelity, she expressed a manly friendship to
Belisarius, whom she accompanied with undaunted resolution in all
the hardships and dangers of a military life. 7
5 (return) [ (Procop. Vandal. l. i. c. 11.) Aleman, (Not. ad
Anecdot. p. 5,) an Italian, could easily reject the German vanity
of Giphanius and Velserus, who wished to claim the hero; but his
Germania, a metropolis of Thrace, I cannot find in any civil or
ecclesiastical lists of the provinces and cities. Note *: M. von
Hammer (in a review of Lord Mahon’s Life of Belisarius in the
Vienna Jahrbucher) shows that the name of Belisarius is a
Sclavonic word, Beli-tzar, the White Prince, and that the place
of his birth was a village of Illvria, which still bears the name
of Germany.—M.]
6 (return) [ The two first Persian campaigns of Belisarius are
fairly and copiously related by his secretary, (Persic. l. i. c.
12—18.)]
611 (return) [ The battle was fought on Easter Sunday, April 19,
not at the end of the summer. The date is supplied from John
Malala by Lord Mabon p. 47.—M.]
7 (return) [ See the birth and character of Antonina, in the
Anecdotes, c. l. and the notes of Alemannus, p. 3.]
The preparations for the African war were not unworthy of the
last contest between Rome and Carthage. The pride and flower of
the army consisted of the guards of Belisarius, who, according to
the pernicious indulgence of the times, devoted themselves, by a
particular oath of fidelity, to the service of their patrons.
Their strength and stature, for which they had been curiously
selected, the goodness of their horses and armor, and the
assiduous practice of all the exercises of war, enabled them to
act whatever their courage might prompt; and their courage was
exalted by the social honor of their rank, and the personal
ambition of favor and fortune. Four hundred of the bravest of the
Heruli marched under the banner of the faithful and active
Pharas; their untractable valor was more highly prized than the
tame submission of the Greeks and Syrians; and of such importance
was it deemed to procure a reenforcement of six hundred
Massagetae, or Huns, that they were allured by fraud and deceit
to engage in a naval expedition. Five thousand horse and ten
thousand foot were embarked at Constantinople, for the conquest
of Africa; but the infantry, for the most part levied in Thrace
and Isauria, yielded to the more prevailing use and reputation of
the cavalry; and the Scythian bow was the weapon on which the
armies of Rome were now reduced to place their principal
dependence. From a laudable desire to assert the dignity of his
theme, Procopius defends the soldiers of his own time against the
morose critics, who confined that respectable name to the
heavy-armed warriors of antiquity, and maliciously observed, that
the word archer is introduced by Homer8 as a term of contempt.
“Such contempt might perhaps be due to the naked youths who
appeared on foot in the fields of Troy, and lurking behind a
tombstone, or the shield of a friend, drew the bow-string to
their breast, 9 and dismissed a feeble and lifeless arrow. But
our archers (pursues the historian) are mounted on horses, which
they manage with admirable skill; their head and shoulders are
protected by a casque or buckler; they wear greaves of iron on
their legs, and their bodies are guarded by a coat of mail. On
their right side hangs a quiver, a sword on their left, and their
hand is accustomed to wield a lance or javelin in closer combat.
Their bows are strong and weighty; they shoot in every possible
direction, advancing, retreating, to the front, to the rear, or
to either flank; and as they are taught to draw the bow-string
not to the breast, but to the right ear, firm indeed must be the
armor that can resist the rapid violence of their shaft.” Five
hundred transports, navigated by twenty thousand mariners of
Egypt, Cilicia, and Ionia, were collected in the harbor of
Constantinople. The smallest of these vessels may be computed at
thirty, the largest at five hundred, tons; and the fair average
will supply an allowance, liberal, but not profuse, of about one
hundred thousand tons, 10 for the reception of thirty-five
thousand soldiers and sailors, of five thousand horses, of arms,
engines, and military stores, and of a sufficient stock of water
and provisions for a voyage, perhaps, of three months. The proud
galleys, which in former ages swept the Mediterranean with so
many hundred oars, had long since disappeared; and the fleet of
Justinian was escorted only by ninety-two light brigantines,
covered from the missile weapons of the enemy, and rowed by two
thousand of the brave and robust youth of Constantinople.
Twenty-two generals are named, most of whom were afterwards
distinguished in the wars of Africa and Italy: but the supreme
command, both by land and sea, was delegated to Belisarius alone,
with a boundless power of acting according to his discretion, as
if the emperor himself were present. The separation of the naval
and military professions is at once the effect and the cause of
the modern improvements in the science of navigation and maritime
war.
8 (return) [ See the preface of Procopius. The enemies of archery
might quote the reproaches of Diomede (Iliad. Delta. 385, &c.)
and the permittere vulnera ventis of Lucan, (viii. 384:) yet the
Romans could not despise the arrows of the Parthians; and in the
siege of Troy, Pandarus, Paris, and Teucer, pierced those haughty
warriors who insulted them as women or children.]
9 (return) [ (Iliad. Delta. 123.) How concise—how just—how
beautiful is the whole picture! I see the attitudes of the
archer—I hear the twanging of the bow.]
10 (return) [ The text appears to allow for the largest vessels
50,000 medimni, or 3000 tons, (since the medimnus weighed 160
Roman, or 120 avoirdupois, pounds.) I have given a more rational
interpretation, by supposing that the Attic style of Procopius
conceals the legal and popular modius, a sixth part of the
medimnus, (Hooper’s Ancient Measures, p. 152, &c.) A contrary and
indeed a stranger mistake has crept into an oration of Dinarchus,
(contra Demosthenem, in Reiske Orator. Graec tom iv. P. ii. p.
34.) By reducing the number of ships from 500 to 50, and
translating by mines, or pounds, Cousin has generously allowed
500 tons for the whole of the Imperial fleet! Did he never
think?]
In the seventh year of the reign of Justinian, and about the time
of the summer solstice, the whole fleet of six hundred ships was
ranged in martial pomp before the gardens of the palace. The
patriarch pronounced his benediction, the emperor signified his
last commands, the general’s trumpet gave the signal of
departure, and every heart, according to its fears or wishes,
explored, with anxious curiosity, the omens of misfortune and
success. The first halt was made at Perinthus or Heraclea, where
Belisarius waited five days to receive some Thracian horses, a
military gift of his sovereign. From thence the fleet pursued
their course through the midst of the Propontis; but as they
struggled to pass the Straits of the Hellespont, an unfavorable
wind detained them four days at Abydus, where the general
exhibited a memorable lesson of firmness and severity. Two of the
Huns, who in a drunken quarrel had slain one of their
fellow-soldiers, were instantly shown to the army suspended on a
lofty gibbet. The national indignity was resented by their
countrymen, who disclaimed the servile laws of the empire, and
asserted the free privilege of Scythia, where a small fine was
allowed to expiate the hasty sallies of intemperance and anger.
Their complaints were specious, their clamors were loud, and the
Romans were not averse to the example of disorder and impunity.
But the rising sedition was appeased by the authority and
eloquence of the general: and he represented to the assembled
troops the obligation of justice, the importance of discipline,
the rewards of piety and virtue, and the unpardonable guilt of
murder, which, in his apprehension, was aggravated rather than
excused by the vice of intoxication. 11 In the navigation from
the Hellespont to Peloponnesus, which the Greeks, after the siege
of Troy, had performed in four days, 12 the fleet of Belisarius
was guided in their course by his master-galley, conspicuous in
the day by the redness of the sails, and in the night by the
torches blazing from the mast head. It was the duty of the
pilots, as they steered between the islands, and turned the Capes
of Malea and Taenarium, to preserve the just order and regular
intervals of such a multitude of ships: as the wind was fair and
moderate, their labors were not unsuccessful, and the troops were
safely disembarked at Methone on the Messenian coast, to repose
themselves for a while after the fatigues of the sea. In this
place they experienced how avarice, invested with authority, may
sport with the lives of thousands which are bravely exposed for
the public service. According to military practice, the bread or
biscuit of the Romans was twice prepared in the oven, and the
diminution of one fourth was cheerfully allowed for the loss of
weight. To gain this miserable profit, and to save the expense of
wood, the præfect John of Cappadocia had given orders that the
flour should be slightly baked by the same fire which warmed the
baths of Constantinople; and when the sacks were opened, a soft
and mouldy paste was distributed to the army. Such unwholesome
food, assisted by the heat of the climate and season, soon
produced an epidemical disease, which swept away five hundred
soldiers. Their health was restored by the diligence of
Belisarius, who provided fresh bread at Methone, and boldly
expressed his just and humane indignation; the emperor heard his
complaint; the general was praised but the minister was not
punished. From the port of Methone, the pilots steered along the
western coast of Peloponnesus, as far as the Isle of Zacynthus,
or Zante, before they undertook the voyage (in their eyes a most
arduous voyage) of one hundred leagues over the Ionian Sea. As
the fleet was surprised by a calm, sixteen days were consumed in
the slow navigation; and even the general would have suffered the
intolerable hardship of thirst, if the ingenuity of Antonina had
not preserved the water in glass bottles, which she buried deep
in the sand in a part of the ship impervious to the rays of the
sun. At length the harbor of Caucana, 13 on the southern side of
Sicily, afforded a secure and hospitable shelter. The Gothic
officers who governed the island in the name of the daughter and
grandson of Theodoric, obeyed their imprudent orders, to receive
the troops of Justinian like friends and allies: provisions were
liberally supplied, the cavalry was remounted, 14 and Procopius
soon returned from Syracuse with correct information of the state
and designs of the Vandals. His intelligence determined
Belisarius to hasten his operations, and his wise impatience was
seconded by the winds. The fleet lost sight of Sicily, passed
before the Isle of Malta, discovered the capes of Africa, ran
along the coast with a strong gale from the north-east, and
finally cast anchor at the promontory of Caput Vada, about five
days’ journey to the south of Carthage. 15
11 (return) [ I have read of a Greek legislator, who inflicted a
double penalty on the crimes committed in a state of
intoxication; but it seems agreed that this was rather a
political than a moral law.]
12 (return) [ Or even in three days, since they anchored the
first evening in the neighboring isle of Tenedos: the second day
they sailed to Lesbon the third to the promontory of Euboea, and
on the fourth they reached Argos, (Homer, Odyss. P. 130—183.
Wood’s Essay on Homer, p. 40—46.) A pirate sailed from the
Hellespont to the seaport of Sparta in three days, (Xenophon.
Hellen. l. ii. c. l.)]
13 (return) [ Caucana, near Camarina, is at least 50 miles (350
or 400 stadia) from Syracuse, (Cluver. Sicilia Antiqua, p. 191.)
* Note *: Lord Mahon. (Life of Belisarius, p.88) suggests some
valid reasons for reading Catana, the ancient name of
Catania.—M.]
14 (return) [ Procopius, Gothic. l. i. c. 3. Tibi tollit hinnitum
apta quadrigis equa, in the Sicilian pastures of Grosphus,
(Horat. Carm. ii. 16.) Acragas.... magnanimum quondam generator
equorum, (Virg. Aeneid. iii. 704.) Thero’s horses, whose
victories are immortalized by Pindar, were bred in this country.]
15 (return) [ The Caput Vada of Procopius (where Justinian
afterwards founded a city—De Edific.l. vi. c. 6) is the
promontory of Ammon in Strabo, the Brachodes of Ptolemy, the
Capaudia of the moderns, a long narrow slip that runs into the
sea, (Shaw’s Travels, p. 111.)]
If Gelimer had been informed of the approach of the enemy, he
must have delayed the conquest of Sardinia for the immediate
defence of his person and kingdom. A detachment of five thousand
soldiers, and one hundred and twenty galleys, would have joined
the remaining forces of the Vandals; and the descendant of
Genseric might have surprised and oppressed a fleet of deep laden
transports, incapable of action, and of light brigantines that
seemed only qualified for flight. Belisarius had secretly
trembled when he overheard his soldiers, in the passage,
emboldening each other to confess their apprehensions: if they
were once on shore, they hoped to maintain the honor of their
arms; but if they should be attacked at sea, they did not blush
to acknowledge that they wanted courage to contend at the same
time with the winds, the waves, and the Barbarians. 16 The
knowledge of their sentiments decided Belisarius to seize the
first opportunity of landing them on the coast of Africa; and he
prudently rejected, in a council of war, the proposal of sailing
with the fleet and army into the port of Carthage. 1611 Three
months after their departure from Constantinople, the men and
horses, the arms and military stores, were safely disembarked,
and five soldiers were left as a guard on board each of the
ships, which were disposed in the form of a semicircle. The
remainder of the troops occupied a camp on the sea-shore, which
they fortified, according to ancient discipline, with a ditch and
rampart; and the discovery of a source of fresh water, while it
allayed the thirst, excited the superstitious confidence, of the
Romans. The next morning, some of the neighboring gardens were
pillaged; and Belisarius, after chastising the offenders,
embraced the slight occasion, but the decisive moment, of
inculcating the maxims of justice, moderation, and genuine
policy. “When I first accepted the commission of subduing Africa,
I depended much less,” said the general, “on the numbers, or even
the bravery of my troops, than on the friendly disposition of the
natives, and their immortal hatred to the Vandals. You alone can
deprive me of this hope; if you continue to extort by rapine what
might be purchased for a little money, such acts of violence will
reconcile these implacable enemies, and unite them in a just and
holy league against the invaders of their country.” These
exhortations were enforced by a rigid discipline, of which the
soldiers themselves soon felt and praised the salutary effects.
The inhabitants, instead of deserting their houses, or hiding
their corn, supplied the Romans with a fair and liberal market:
the civil officers of the province continued to exercise their
functions in the name of Justinian: and the clergy, from motives
of conscience and interest, assiduously labored to promote the
cause of a Catholic emperor. The small town of Sullecte, 17 one
day’s journey from the camp, had the honor of being foremost to
open her gates, and to resume her ancient allegiance: the larger
cities of Leptis and Adrumetum imitated the example of loyalty as
soon as Belisarius appeared; and he advanced without opposition
as far as Grasse, a palace of the Vandal kings, at the distance
of fifty miles from Carthage. The weary Romans indulged
themselves in the refreshment of shady groves, cool fountains,
and delicious fruits; and the preference which Procopius allows
to these gardens over any that he had seen, either in the East or
West, may be ascribed either to the taste, or the fatigue, of the
historian. In three generations, prosperity and a warm climate
had dissolved the hardy virtue of the Vandals, who insensibly
became the most luxurious of mankind. In their villas and
gardens, which might deserve the Persian name of Paradise, 18
they enjoyed a cool and elegant repose; and, after the daily use
of the bath, the Barbarians were seated at a table profusely
spread with the delicacies of the land and sea. Their silken
robes loosely flowing, after the fashion of the Medes, were
embroidered with gold; love and hunting were the labors of their
life, and their vacant hours were amused by pantomimes,
chariot-races, and the music and dances of the theatre.
16 (return) [ A centurion of Mark Antony expressed, though in a
more manly train, the same dislike to the sea and to naval
combats, (Plutarch in Antonio, p. 1730, edit. Hen. Steph.)]
1611 (return) [ Rather into the present Lake of Tunis. Lord
Mahon, p. 92.—M.]
17 (return) [ Sullecte is perhaps the Turris Hannibalis, an old
building, now as large as the Tower of London. The march of
Belisarius to Leptis. Adrumetum, &c., is illustrated by the
campaign of Caesar, (Hirtius, de Bello Africano, with the Analyse
of Guichardt,) and Shaw’s Travels (p. 105—113) in the same
country.]
18 (return) [ The paradises, a name and fashion adopted from
Persia, may be represented by the royal garden of Ispahan,
(Voyage d’Olearius, p. 774.) See, in the Greek romances, their
most perfect model, (Longus. Pastoral. l. iv. p. 99—101 Achilles
Tatius. l. i. p. 22, 23.)]
In a march of ten or twelve days, the vigilance of Belisarius was
constantly awake and active against his unseen enemies, by whom,
in every place, and at every hour, he might be suddenly attacked.
An officer of confidence and merit, John the Armenian, led the
vanguard of three hundred horse; six hundred Massagetae covered
at a certain distance the left flank; and the whole fleet,
steering along the coast, seldom lost sight of the army, which
moved each day about twelve miles, and lodged in the evening in
strong camps, or in friendly towns. The near approach of the
Romans to Carthage filled the mind of Gelimer with anxiety and
terror. He prudently wished to protract the war till his brother,
with his veteran troops, should return from the conquest of
Sardinia; and he now lamented the rash policy of his ancestors,
who, by destroying the fortifications of Africa, had left him
only the dangerous resource of risking a battle in the
neighborhood of his capital. The Vandal conquerors, from their
original number of fifty thousand, were multiplied, without
including their women and children, to one hundred and sixty
thousand fighting men: 1811 and such forces, animated with valor
and union, might have crushed, at their first landing, the feeble
and exhausted bands of the Roman general. But the friends of the
captive king were more inclined to accept the invitations, than
to resist the progress, of Belisarius; and many a proud Barbarian
disguised his aversion to war under the more specious name of his
hatred to the usurper. Yet the authority and promises of Gelimer
collected a formidable army, and his plans were concerted with
some degree of military skill. An order was despatched to his
brother Ammatas, to collect all the forces of Carthage, and to
encounter the van of the Roman army at the distance of ten miles
from the city: his nephew Gibamund, with two thousand horse, was
destined to attack their left, when the monarch himself, who
silently followed, should charge their rear, in a situation which
excluded them from the aid or even the view of their fleet. But
the rashness of Ammatas was fatal to himself and his country. He
anticipated the hour of the attack, outstripped his tardy
followers, and was pierced with a mortal wound, after he had
slain with his own hand twelve of his boldest antagonists. His
Vandals fled to Carthage; the highway, almost ten miles, was
strewed with dead bodies; and it seemed incredible that such
multitudes could be slaughtered by the swords of three hundred
Romans. The nephew of Gelimer was defeated, after a slight
combat, by the six hundred Massagetae: they did not equal the
third part of his numbers; but each Scythian was fired by the
example of his chief, who gloriously exercised the privilege of
his family, by riding, foremost and alone, to shoot the first
arrow against the enemy. In the mean while, Gelimer himself,
ignorant of the event, and misguided by the windings of the
hills, inadvertently passed the Roman army, and reached the scene
of action where Ammatas had fallen. He wept the fate of his
brother and of Carthage, charged with irresistible fury the
advancing squadrons, and might have pursued, and perhaps decided,
the victory, if he had not wasted those inestimable moments in
the discharge of a vain, though pious, duty to the dead. While
his spirit was broken by this mournful office, he heard the
trumpet of Belisarius, who, leaving Antonina and his infantry in
the camp, pressed forwards with his guards and the remainder of
the cavalry to rally his flying troops, and to restore the
fortune of the day. Much room could not be found, in this
disorderly battle, for the talents of a general; but the king
fled before the hero; and the Vandals, accustomed only to a
Moorish enemy, were incapable of withstanding the arms and
discipline of the Romans. Gelimer retired with hasty steps
towards the desert of Numidia: but he had soon the consolation of
learning that his private orders for the execution of Hilderic
and his captive friends had been faithfully obeyed. The tyrant’s
revenge was useful only to his enemies. The death of a lawful
prince excited the compassion of his people; his life might have
perplexed the victorious Romans; and the lieutenant of Justinian,
by a crime of which he was innocent, was relieved from the
painful alternative of forfeiting his honor or relinquishing his
conquests.
1811 (return) [ 80,000. Hist. Arc. c. 18. Gibbon has been misled
by the translation. See Lord ov. p. 99.—M.]
Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Character Of Balisarius.—Part II.
As soon as the tumult had subsided, the several parts of the army
informed each other of the accidents of the day; and Belisarius
pitched his camp on the field of victory, to which the tenth
mile-stone from Carthage had applied the Latin appellation of
Decimus. From a wise suspicion of the stratagems and resources of
the Vandals, he marched the next day in order of battle, halted
in the evening before the gates of Carthage, and allowed a night
of repose, that he might not, in darkness and disorder, expose
the city to the license of the soldiers, or the soldiers
themselves to the secret ambush of the city. But as the fears of
Belisarius were the result of calm and intrepid reason, he was
soon satisfied that he might confide, without danger, in the
peaceful and friendly aspect of the capital. Carthage blazed with
innumerable torches, the signals of the public joy; the chain was
removed that guarded the entrance of the port; the gates were
thrown open, and the people, with acclamations of gratitude,
hailed and invited their Roman deliverers. The defeat of the
Vandals, and the freedom of Africa, were announced to the city on
the eve of St. Cyprian, when the churches were already adorned
and illuminated for the festival of the martyr whom three
centuries of superstition had almost raised to a local deity. The
Arians, conscious that their reign had expired, resigned the
temple to the Catholics, who rescued their saint from profane
hands, performed the holy rites, and loudly proclaimed the creed
of Athanasius and Justinian. One awful hour reversed the fortunes
of the contending parties. The suppliant Vandals, who had so
lately indulged the vices of conquerors, sought an humble refuge
in the sanctuary of the church; while the merchants of the East
were delivered from the deepest dungeon of the palace by their
affrighted keeper, who implored the protection of his captives,
and showed them, through an aperture in the wall, the sails of
the Roman fleet. After their separation from the army, the naval
commanders had proceeded with slow caution along the coast till
they reached the Hermaean promontory, and obtained the first
intelligence of the victory of Belisarius. Faithful to his
instructions, they would have cast anchor about twenty miles from
Carthage, if the more skilful seamen had not represented the
perils of the shore, and the signs of an impending tempest. Still
ignorant of the revolution, they declined, however, the rash
attempt of forcing the chain of the port; and the adjacent harbor
and suburb of Mandracium were insulted only by the rapine of a
private officer, who disobeyed and deserted his leaders. But the
Imperial fleet, advancing with a fair wind, steered through the
narrow entrance of the Goletta, and occupied, in the deep and
capacious lake of Tunis, a secure station about five miles from
the capital. 19 No sooner was Belisarius informed of their
arrival, than he despatched orders that the greatest part of the
mariners should be immediately landed to join the triumph, and to
swell the apparent numbers, of the Romans. Before he allowed them
to enter the gates of Carthage, he exhorted them, in a discourse
worthy of himself and the occasion, not to disgrace the glory of
their arms; and to remember that the Vandals had been the
tyrants, but that they were the deliverers, of the Africans, who
must now be respected as the voluntary and affectionate subjects
of their common sovereign. The Romans marched through the streets
in close ranks prepared for battle if an enemy had appeared: the
strict order maintained by the general imprinted on their minds
the duty of obedience; and in an age in which custom and impunity
almost sanctified the abuse of conquest, the genius of one man
repressed the passions of a victorious army. The voice of menace
and complaint was silent; the trade of Carthage was not
interrupted; while Africa changed her master and her government,
the shops continued open and busy; and the soldiers, after
sufficient guards had been posted, modestly departed to the
houses which were allotted for their reception. Belisarius fixed
his residence in the palace; seated himself on the throne of
Genseric; accepted and distributed the Barbaric spoil; granted
their lives to the suppliant Vandals; and labored to repair the
damage which the suburb of Mandracium had sustained in the
preceding night. At supper he entertained his principal officers
with the form and magnificence of a royal banquet. 20 The victor
was respectfully served by the captive officers of the household;
and in the moments of festivity, when the impartial spectators
applauded the fortune and merit of Belisarius, his envious
flatterers secretly shed their venom on every word and gesture
which might alarm the suspicions of a jealous monarch. One day
was given to these pompous scenes, which may not be despised as
useless, if they attracted the popular veneration; but the active
mind of Belisarius, which in the pride of victory could suppose a
defeat, had already resolved that the Roman empire in Africa
should not depend on the chance of arms, or the favor of the
people. The fortifications of Carthage 2011 had alone been
exempted from the general proscription; but in the reign of
ninety-five years they were suffered to decay by the thoughtless
and indolent Vandals. A wiser conqueror restored, with incredible
despatch, the walls and ditches of the city. His liberality
encouraged the workmen; the soldiers, the mariners, and the
citizens, vied with each other in the salutary labor; and
Gelimer, who had feared to trust his person in an open town,
beheld with astonishment and despair, the rising strength of an
impregnable fortress.
19 (return) [ The neighborhood of Carthage, the sea, the land,
and the rivers, are changed almost as much as the works of man.
The isthmus, or neck of the city, is now confounded with the
continent; the harbor is a dry plain; and the lake, or stagnum,
no more than a morass, with six or seven feet water in the
mid-channel. See D’Anville, (Geographie Ancienne, tom. iii. p.
82,) Shaw, (Travels, p. 77—84,) Marmol, (Description de
l’Afrique, tom. ii. p. 465,) and Thuanus, (lviii. 12, tom. iii.
p. 334.)]
20 (return) [ From Delphi, the name of Delphicum was given, both
in Greek and Latin, to a tripod; and by an easy analogy, the same
appellation was extended at Rome, Constantinople, and Carthage,
to the royal banquetting room, (Procopius, Vandal. l. i. c. 21.
Ducange, Gloss, Graec. p. 277., ad Alexiad. p. 412.)]
2011 (return) [ And a few others. Procopius states in his work De
Edi Sciis. l. vi. vol i. p. 5.—M]
That unfortunate monarch, after the loss of his capital, applied
himself to collect the remains of an army scattered, rather than
destroyed, by the preceding battle; and the hopes of pillage
attracted some Moorish bands to the standard of Gelimer. He
encamped in the fields of Bulla, four days’ journey from
Carthage; insulted the capital, which he deprived of the use of
an aqueduct; proposed a high reward for the head of every Roman;
affected to spare the persons and property of his African
subjects, and secretly negotiated with the Arian sectaries and
the confederate Huns. Under these circumstances, the conquest of
Sardinia served only to aggravate his distress: he reflected,
with the deepest anguish, that he had wasted, in that useless
enterprise, five thousand of his bravest troops; and he read,
with grief and shame, the victorious letters of his brother Zano,
2012 who expressed a sanguine confidence that the king, after the
example of their ancestors, had already chastised the rashness of
the Roman invader. “Alas! my brother,” replied Gelimer, “Heaven
has declared against our unhappy nation. While you have subdued
Sardinia, we have lost Africa. No sooner did Belisarius appear
with a handful of soldiers, than courage and prosperity deserted
the cause of the Vandals. Your nephew Gibamund, your brother
Ammatas, have been betrayed to death by the cowardice of their
followers. Our horses, our ships, Carthage itself, and all
Africa, are in the power of the enemy. Yet the Vandals still
prefer an ignominious repose, at the expense of their wives and
children, their wealth and liberty. Nothing now remains, except
the fields of Bulla, and the hope of your valor. Abandon
Sardinia; fly to our relief; restore our empire, or perish by our
side.” On the receipt of this epistle, Zano imparted his grief to
the principal Vandals; but the intelligence was prudently
concealed from the natives of the island. The troops embarked in
one hundred and twenty galleys at the port of Caghari, cast
anchor the third day on the confines of Mauritania, and hastily
pursued their march to join the royal standard in the camp of
Bulla. Mournful was the interview: the two brothers embraced;
they wept in silence; no questions were asked of the Sardinian
victory; no inquiries were made of the African misfortunes: they
saw before their eyes the whole extent of their calamities; and
the absence of their wives and children afforded a melancholy
proof that either death or captivity had been their lot. The
languid spirit of the Vandals was at length awakened and united
by the entreaties of their king, the example of Zano, and the
instant danger which threatened their monarchy and religion. The
military strength of the nation advanced to battle; and such was
the rapid increase, that before their army reached Tricameron,
about twenty miles from Carthage, they might boast, perhaps with
some exaggeration, that they surpassed, in a tenfold proportion,
the diminutive powers of the Romans. But these powers were under
the command of Belisarius; and, as he was conscious of their
superior merit, he permitted the Barbarians to surprise him at an
unseasonable hour. The Romans were instantly under arms; a
rivulet covered their front; the cavalry formed the first line,
which Belisarius supported in the centre, at the head of five
hundred guards; the infantry, at some distance, was posted in the
second line; and the vigilance of the general watched the
separate station and ambiguous faith of the Massagetae, who
secretly reserved their aid for the conquerors. The historian has
inserted, and the reader may easily supply, the speeches 21 of
the commanders, who, by arguments the most apposite to their
situation, inculcated the importance of victory, and the contempt
of life. Zano, with the troops which had followed him to the
conquest of Sardinia, was placed in the centre; and the throne of
Genseric might have stood, if the multitude of Vandals had
imitated their intrepid resolution. Casting away their lances and
missile weapons, they drew their swords, and expected the charge:
the Roman cavalry thrice passed the rivulet; they were thrice
repulsed; and the conflict was firmly maintained, till Zano fell,
and the standard of Belisarius was displayed. Gelimer retreated
to his camp; the Huns joined the pursuit; and the victors
despoiled the bodies of the slain. Yet no more than fifty Romans,
and eight hundred Vandals were found on the field of battle; so
inconsiderable was the carnage of a day, which extinguished a
nation, and transferred the empire of Africa. In the evening
Belisarius led his infantry to the attack of the camp; and the
pusillanimous flight of Gelimer exposed the vanity of his recent
declarations, that to the vanquished, death was a relief, life a
burden, and infamy the only object of terror. His departure was
secret; but as soon as the Vandals discovered that their king had
deserted them, they hastily dispersed, anxious only for their
personal safety, and careless of every object that is dear or
valuable to mankind. The Romans entered the camp without
resistance; and the wildest scenes of disorder were veiled in the
darkness and confusion of the night. Every Barbarian who met
their swords was inhumanly massacred; their widows and daughters,
as rich heirs, or beautiful concubines, were embraced by the
licentious soldiers; and avarice itself was almost satiated with
the treasures of gold and silver, the accumulated fruits of
conquest or economy in a long period of prosperity and peace. In
this frantic search, the troops, even of Belisarius, forgot their
caution and respect. Intoxicated with lust and rapine, they
explored, in small parties, or alone, the adjacent fields, the
woods, the rocks, and the caverns, that might possibly conceal
any desirable prize: laden with booty, they deserted their ranks,
and wandered without a guide, on the high road to Carthage; and
if the flying enemies had dared to return, very few of the
conquerors would have escaped. Deeply sensible of the disgrace
and danger, Belisarius passed an apprehensive night on the field
of victory: at the dawn of day, he planted his standard on a
hill, recalled his guardians and veterans, and gradually restored
the modesty and obedience of the camp. It was equally the concern
of the Roman general to subdue the hostile, and to save the
prostrate, Barbarian; and the suppliant Vandals, who could be
found only in churches, were protected by his authority,
disarmed, and separately confined, that they might neither
disturb the public peace, nor become the victims of popular
revenge. After despatching a light detachment to tread the
footsteps of Gelimer, he advanced, with his whole army, about ten
days’ march, as far as Hippo Regius, which no longer possessed
the relics of St. Augustin. 22 The season, and the certain
intelligence that the Vandal had fled to an inaccessible country
of the Moors, determined Belisarius to relinquish the vain
pursuit, and to fix his winter quarters at Carthage. From thence
he despatched his principal lieutenant, to inform the emperor,
that in the space of three months he had achieved the conquest of
Africa.
2012 (return) [ Gibbon had forgotten that the bearer of the
“victorious letters of his brother” had sailed into the port of
Carthage; and that the letters had fallen into the hands of the
Romans. Proc. Vandal. l. i. c. 23.—M.]
21 (return) [ These orations always express the sense of the
times, and sometimes of the actors. I have condensed that sense,
and thrown away declamation.]
22 (return) [ The relics of St. Augustin were carried by the
African bishops to their Sardinian exile, (A.D. 500;) and it was
believed, in the viiith century, that Liutprand, king of the
Lombards, transported them (A.D. 721) from Sardinia to Pavia. In
the year 1695, the Augustan friars of that city found a brick
arch, marble coffin, silver case, silk wrapper, bones, blood,
&c., and perhaps an inscription of Agostino in Gothic letters.
But this useful discovery has been disputed by reason and
jealousy, (Baronius, Annal. A.D. 725, No. 2-9. Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 944. Montfaucon, Diarium Ital. p. 26-30.
Muratori, Antiq. Ital. Medii Aevi, tom. v. dissert. lviii. p. 9,
who had composed a separate treatise before the decree of the
bishop of Pavia, and Pope Benedict XIII.)]
Belisarius spoke the language of truth. The surviving Vandals
yielded, without resistance, their arms and their freedom; the
neighborhood of Carthage submitted to his presence; and the more
distant provinces were successively subdued by the report of his
victory. Tripoli was confirmed in her voluntary allegiance;
Sardinia and Corsica surrendered to an officer, who carried,
instead of a sword, the head of the valiant Zano; and the Isles
of Majorca, Minorca, and Yvica consented to remain an humble
appendage of the African kingdom. Caesarea, a royal city, which
in looser geography may be confounded with the modern Algiers,
was situate thirty days’ march to the westward of Carthage: by
land, the road was infested by the Moors; but the sea was open,
and the Romans were now masters of the sea. An active and
discreet tribune sailed as far as the Straits, where he occupied
Septem or Ceuta, 23 which rises opposite to Gibraltar on the
African coast; that remote place was afterwards adorned and
fortified by Justinian; and he seems to have indulged the vain
ambition of extending his empire to the columns of Hercules. He
received the messengers of victory at the time when he was
preparing to publish the Pandects of the Roman laws; and the
devout or jealous emperor celebrated the divine goodness, and
confessed, in silence, the merit of his successful general. 24
Impatient to abolish the temporal and spiritual tyranny of the
Vandals, he proceeded, without delay, to the full establishment
of the Catholic church. Her jurisdiction, wealth, and immunites,
perhaps the most essential part of episcopal religion, were
restored and amplified with a liberal hand; the Arian worship was
suppressed; the Donatist meetings were proscribed; 25 and the
synod of Carthage, by the voice of two hundred and seventeen
bishops, 26 applauded the just measure of pious retaliation. On
such an occasion, it may not be presumed, that many orthodox
prelates were absent; but the comparative smallness of their
number, which in ancient councils had been twice or even thrice
multiplied, most clearly indicates the decay both of the church
and state. While Justinian approved himself the defender of the
faith, he entertained an ambitious hope, that his victorious
lieutenant would speedily enlarge the narrow limits of his
dominion to the space which they occupied before the invasion of
the Moors and Vandals; and Belisarius was instructed to establish
five dukes or commanders in the convenient stations of Tripoli,
Leptis, Cirta, Caesarea, and Sardinia, and to compute the
military force of palatines or borderers that might be sufficient
for the defence of Africa. The kingdom of the Vandals was not
unworthy of the presence of a Praetorian præfect; and four
consulars, three presidents, were appointed to administer the
seven provinces under his civil jurisdiction. The number of their
subordinate officers, clerks, messengers, or assistants, was
minutely expressed; three hundred and ninety-six for the præfect
himself, fifty for each of his vicegerents; and the rigid
definition of their fees and salaries was more effectual to
confirm the right than to prevent the abuse. These magistrates
might be oppressive, but they were not idle; and the subtile
questions of justice and revenue were infinitely propagated under
the new government, which professed to revive the freedom and
equity of the Roman republic. The conqueror was solicitous to
extract a prompt and plentiful supply from his African subjects;
and he allowed them to claim, even in the third degree, and from
the collateral line, the houses and lands of which their families
had been unjustly despoiled by the Vandals. After the departure
of Belisarius, who acted by a high and special commission, no
ordinary provision was made for a master-general of the forces;
but the office of Praetorian præfect was intrusted to a soldier;
the civil and military powers were united, according to the
practice of Justinian, in the chief governor; and the
representative of the emperor in Africa, as well as in Italy, was
soon distinguished by the appellation of Exarch. 27
23 (return) [ The expression of Procopius (de Edific. l. vi. c.
7.) Ceuta, which has been defaced by the Portuguese, flourished
in nobles and palaces, in agriculture and manufactures, under the
more prosperous reign of the Arabs, (l’Afrique de Marmai, tom.
ii. p. 236.)]
24 (return) [ See the second and third preambles to the Digest,
or Pandects, promulgated A.D. 533, December 16. To the titles of
Vandalicus and Africanus, Justinian, or rather Belisarius, had
acquired a just claim; Gothicus was premature, and Francicus
false, and offensive to a great nation.]
25 (return) [ See the original acts in Baronius, (A.D. 535, No.
21—54.) The emperor applauds his own clemency to the heretics,
cum sufficiat eis vivere.]
26 (return) [ Dupin (Geograph. Sacra Africana, p. lix. ad Optat.
Milav.) observes and bewails this episcopal decay. In the more
prosperous age of the church, he had noticed 690 bishoprics; but
however minute were the dioceses, it is not probable that they
all existed at the same time.]
27 (return) [ The African laws of Justinian are illustrated by
his German biographer, (Cod. l. i. tit. 27. Novell. 36, 37, 131.
Vit. Justinian, p. 349—377.)]
Yet the conquest of Africa was imperfect till her former
sovereign was delivered, either alive or dead, into the hands of
the Romans. Doubtful of the event, Gelimer had given secret
orders that a part of his treasure should be transported to
Spain, where he hoped to find a secure refuge at the court of the
king of the Visigoths. But these intentions were disappointed by
accident, treachery, and the indefatigable pursuit of his
enemies, who intercepted his flight from the sea-shore, and
chased the unfortunate monarch, with some faithful followers, to
the inaccessible mountain of Papua, 28 in the inland country of
Numidia. He was immediately besieged by Pharas, an officer whose
truth and sobriety were the more applauded, as such qualities
could seldom be found among the Heruli, the most corrupt of the
Barbarian tribes. To his vigilance Belisarius had intrusted this
important charge and, after a bold attempt to scale the mountain,
in which he lost a hundred and ten soldiers, Pharas expected,
during a winter siege, the operation of distress and famine on
the mind of the Vandal king. From the softest habits of pleasure,
from the unbounded command of industry and wealth, he was reduced
to share the poverty of the Moors, 29 supportable only to
themselves by their ignorance of a happier condition. In their
rude hovels, of mud and hurdles, which confined the smoke and
excluded the light, they promiscuously slept on the ground,
perhaps on a sheep-skin, with their wives, their children, and
their cattle. Sordid and scanty were their garments; the use of
bread and wine was unknown; and their oaten or barley cakes,
imperfectly baked in the ashes, were devoured almost in a crude
state, by the hungry savages. The health of Gelimer must have
sunk under these strange and unwonted hardships, from whatsoever
cause they had been endured; but his actual misery was imbittered
by the recollection of past greatness, the daily insolence of his
protectors, and the just apprehension, that the light and venal
Moors might be tempted to betray the rights of hospitality. The
knowledge of his situation dictated the humane and friendly
epistle of Pharas. “Like yourself,” said the chief of the Heruli,
“I am an illiterate Barbarian, but I speak the language of plain
sense and an honest heart. Why will you persist in hopeless
obstinacy? Why will you ruin yourself, your family, and nation?
The love of freedom and abhorrence of slavery? Alas! my dearest
Gelimer, are you not already the worst of slaves, the slave of
the vile nation of the Moors? Would it not be preferable to
sustain at Constantinople a life of poverty and servitude, rather
than to reign the undoubted monarch of the mountain of Papua? Do
you think it a disgrace to be the subject of Justinian?
Belisarius is his subject; and we ourselves, whose birth is not
inferior to your own, are not ashamed of our obedience to the
Roman emperor. That generous prince will grant you a rich
inheritance of lands, a place in the senate, and the dignity of
patrician: such are his gracious intentions, and you may depend
with full assurance on the word of Belisarius. So long as Heaven
has condemned us to suffer, patience is a virtue; but if we
reject the proffered deliverance, it degenerates into blind and
stupid despair.” “I am not insensible” replied the king of the
Vandals, “how kind and rational is your advice. But I cannot
persuade myself to become the slave of an unjust enemy, who has
deserved my implacable hatred. Him I had never injured either by
word or deed: yet he has sent against me, I know not from whence,
a certain Belisarius, who has cast me headlong from the throne
into his abyss of misery. Justinian is a man; he is a prince;
does he not dread for himself a similar reverse of fortune? I can
write no more: my grief oppresses me. Send me, I beseech you, my
dear Pharas, send me, a lyre, 30 a sponge, and a loaf of bread.”
From the Vandal messenger, Pharas was informed of the motives of
this singular request. It was long since the king of Africa had
tasted bread; a defluxion had fallen on his eyes, the effect of
fatigue or incessant weeping; and he wished to solace the
melancholy hours, by singing to the lyre the sad story of his own
misfortunes. The humanity of Pharas was moved; he sent the three
extraordinary gifts; but even his humanity prompted him to
redouble the vigilance of his guard, that he might sooner compel
his prisoner to embrace a resolution advantageous to the Romans,
but salutary to himself. The obstinacy of Gelimer at length
yielded to reason and necessity; the solemn assurances of safety
and honorable treatment were ratified in the emperor’s name, by
the ambassador of Belisarius; and the king of the Vandals
descended from the mountain. The first public interview was in
one of the suburbs of Carthage; and when the royal captive
accosted his conqueror, he burst into a fit of laughter. The
crowd might naturally believe, that extreme grief had deprived
Gelimer of his senses: but in this mournful state, unseasonable
mirth insinuated to more intelligent observers, that the vain and
transitory scenes of human greatness are unworthy of a serious
thought. 31
28 (return) [ Mount Papua is placed by D’Anville (tom. iii. p.
92, and Tabul. Imp. Rom. Occident.) near Hippo Regius and the
sea; yet this situation ill agrees with the long pursuit beyond
Hippo, and the words of Procopius, (l. ii.c.4,). * Note: Compare
Lord Mahon, 120. conceive Gibbon to be right—M.]
29 (return) [ Shaw (Travels, p. 220) most accurately represents
the manners of the Bedoweens and Kabyles, the last of whom, by
their language, are the remnant of the Moors; yet how changed—how
civilized are these modern savages!—provisions are plenty among
them and bread is common.]
30 (return) [ By Procopius it is styled a lyre; perhaps harp
would have been more national. The instruments of music are thus
distinguished by Venantius Fortunatus:— Romanusque lyra tibi
plaudat, Barbarus harpa.]
31 (return) [ Herodotus elegantly describes the strange effects
of grief in another royal captive, Psammetichus of Egypt, who
wept at the lesser and was silent at the greatest of his
calamities, (l. iii. c. 14.) In the interview of Paulus Aemilius
and Perses, Belisarius might study his part; but it is probable
that he never read either Livy or Plutarch; and it is certain
that his generosity did not need a tutor.]
Their contempt was soon justified by a new example of a vulgar
truth; that flattery adheres to power, and envy to superior
merit. The chiefs of the Roman army presumed to think themselves
the rivals of a hero. Their private despatches maliciously
affirmed, that the conqueror of Africa, strong in his reputation
and the public love, conspired to seat himself on the throne of
the Vandals. Justinian listened with too patient an ear; and his
silence was the result of jealousy rather than of confidence. An
honorable alternative, of remaining in the province, or of
returning to the capital, was indeed submitted to the discretion
of Belisarius; but he wisely concluded, from intercepted letters
and the knowledge of his sovereign’s temper, that he must either
resign his head, erect his standard, or confound his enemies by
his presence and submission. Innocence and courage decided his
choice; his guards, captives, and treasures, were diligently
embarked; and so prosperous was the navigation, that his arrival
at Constantinople preceded any certain account of his departure
from the port of Carthage. Such unsuspecting loyalty removed the
apprehensions of Justinian; envy was silenced and inflamed by the
public gratitude; and the third Africanus obtained the honors of
a triumph, a ceremony which the city of Constantine had never
seen, and which ancient Rome, since the reign of Tiberius, had
reserved for the auspicious arms of the Caesars.32 From the
palace of Belisarius, the procession was conducted through the
principal streets to the hippodrome; and this memorable day
seemed to avenge the injuries of Genseric, and to expiate the
shame of the Romans. The wealth of nations was displayed, the
trophies of martial or effeminate luxury; rich armor, golden
thrones, and the chariots of state which had been used by the
Vandal queen; the massy furniture of the royal banquet, the
splendor of precious stones, the elegant forms of statues and
vases, the more substantial treasure of gold, and the holy
vessels of the Jewish temple, which after their long
peregrination were respectfully deposited in the Christian church
of Jerusalem. A long train of the noblest Vandals reluctantly
exposed their lofty stature and manly countenance. Gelimer slowly
advanced: he was clad in a purple robe, and still maintained the
majesty of a king. Not a tear escaped from his eyes, not a sigh
was heard; but his pride or piety derived some secret consolation
from the words of Solomon, 33 which he repeatedly pronounced,
Vanity! vanity! all is vanity! Instead of ascending a triumphal
car drawn by four horses or elephants, the modest conqueror
marched on foot at the head of his brave companions; his prudence
might decline an honor too conspicuous for a subject; and his
magnanimity might justly disdain what had been so often sullied
by the vilest of tyrants. The glorious procession entered the
gate of the hippodrome; was saluted by the acclamations of the
senate and people; and halted before the throne where Justinian
and Theodora were seated to receive homage of the captive monarch
and the victorious hero. They both performed the customary
adoration; and falling prostrate on the ground, respectfully
touched the footstool of a prince who had not unsheathed his
sword, and of a prostitute who had danced on the theatre; some
gentle violence was used to bend the stubborn spirit of the
grandson of Genseric; and however trained to servitude, the
genius of Belisarius must have secretly rebelled. He was
immediately declared consul for the ensuing year, and the day of
his inauguration resembled the pomp of a second triumph: his
curule chair was borne aloft on the shoulders of captive Vandals;
and the spoils of war, gold cups, and rich girdles, were
profusely scattered among the populace.
32 (return) [ After the title of imperator had lost the old
military sense, and the Roman auspices were abolished by
Christianity, (see La Bleterie, Mem. de l’Academie, tom. xxi. p.
302—332,) a triumph might be given with less inconsistency to a
private general.]
33 (return) [ If the Ecclesiastes be truly a work of Solomon, and
not, like Prior’s poem, a pious and moral composition of more
recent times, in his name, and on the subject of his repentance.
The latter is the opinion of the learned and free-spirited
Grotius, (Opp. Theolog. tom. i. p. 258;) and indeed the
Ecclesiastes and Proverbs display a larger compass of thought and
experience than seem to belong either to a Jew or a king. * Note:
Rosenmüller, arguing from the difference of style from that of
the greater part of the book of Proverbs, and from its nearer
approximation to the Aramaic dialect than any book of the Old
Testament, assigns the Ecclesiastes to some period between
Nehemiah and Alexander the Great. Schol. in Vet. Test. ix.
Proemium ad Eccles. p. 19.—M.]
But the purest reward of Belisarius was in the faithful execution
of a treaty for which his honor had been pledged to the king of
the Vandals. The religious scruples of Gelimer, who adhered to
the Arian heresy, were incompatible with the dignity of senator
or patrician: but he received from the emperor an ample estate in
the province of Galatia, where the abdicated monarch retired,
with his family and friends, to a life of peace, of affluence,
and perhaps of content.34 The daughters of Hilderic were
entertained with the respectful tenderness due to their age and
misfortune; and Justinian and Theodora accepted the honor of
educating and enriching the female descendants of the great
Theodosius. The bravest of the Vandal youth were distributed into
five squadrons of cavalry, which adopted the name of their
benefactor, and supported in the Persian wars the glory of their
ancestors. But these rare exceptions, the reward of birth or
valor, are insufficient to explain the fate of a nation, whose
numbers before a short and bloodless war, amounted to more than
six hundred thousand persons. After the exile of their king and
nobles, the servile crowd might purchase their safety by abjuring
their character, religion, and language; and their degenerate
posterity would be insensibly mingled with the common herd of
African subjects. Yet even in the present age, and in the heart
of the Moorish tribes, a curious traveller has discovered the
white complexion and long flaxen hair of a northern race;35 and
it was formerly believed, that the boldest of the Vandals fled
beyond the power, or even the knowledge, of the Romans, to enjoy
their solitary freedom on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.36
Africa had been their empire, it became their prison; nor could
they entertain a hope, or even a wish, of returning to the banks
of the Elbe, where their brethren, of a spirit less adventurous,
still wandered in their native forests. It was impossible for
cowards to surmount the barriers of unknown seas and hostile
Barbarians; it was impossible for brave men to expose their
nakedness and defeat before the eyes of their countrymen, to
describe the kingdoms which they had lost, and to claim a share
of the humble inheritance, which, in a happier hour, they had
almost unanimously renounced.37 In the country between the Elbe
and the Oder, several populous villages of Lusatia are inhabited
by the Vandals: they still preserve their language, their
customs, and the purity of their blood; support, with some
impatience, the Saxon or Prussian yoke; and serve, with secret
and voluntary allegiance, the descendant of their ancient kings,
who in his garb and present fortune is confounded with the
meanest of his vassals.38 The name and situation of this unhappy
people might indicate their descent from one common stock with
the conquerors of Africa. But the use of a Sclavonian dialect
more clearly represent them as the last remnant of the new
colonies, who succeeded to the genuine Vandals, already scattered
or destroyed in the age of Procopius.39
34 (return) [ In the Bélisaire of Marmontel, the king and the
conqueror of Africa meet, sup, and converse, without recollecting
each other. It is surely a fault of that romance, that not only
the hero, but all to whom he had been so conspicuously known,
appear to have lost their eyes or their memory.]
35 (return) [ Shaw, p. 59. Yet since Procopius (l. ii. c. 13)
speaks of a people of Mount Atlas, as already distinguished by
white bodies and yellow hair, the phenomenon (which is likewise
visible in the Andes of Peru, Buffon, tom. iii p. 504), may
naturally be ascribed to the elevation of the ground and the
temperature of the air.]
36 (return) [ The geographer of Ravenna (l. iii. c. xi. pp. 129,
130, 131, Paris, 1688) describes the Mauritania _Gaditana_
(opposite to Cadiz) ubi gens Vandalorum, a Belisario devicta in
Africâ, fugit, et nunquam comparuit.]
37 (return) [ A single voice had protested, and Genseric
dismissed, without a formal answer, the Vandals of Germany: but
those of Africa derided his prudence, and affected to despise the
poverty of their forests (Procopius, Vandal. l. i. c. 22)]
38 (return) [ From the mouth of the great elector (in 1687)
Tollius describes the secret royalty and rebellious spirit of the
Vandals of Brandenburgh. who could muster five or six thousand
soldiers who had procured some cannon, &c. (Itinerar. Hungar. p.
42, apud Dubos. Hist, de la Monarchie Françoise, tom. i. pp. 182,
183.) The veracity, not of the elector, but of Tollius himself,
may justly be suspected. * Note: The Wendish population of
Brandenburgh are now better known, but the Wends are clearly of
the Sclavonian race; the Vandals most probably Teutonic, and
nearly allied to the Goths.—M.]
39 (return) [ Procopius (l i. c. 22) was in total darkness— οὒτε
μνήμη τις οὒτε ὂνομα ἐς ἐμε σωζέται. Under the reign of Dagobert
(A.D. 630) the Sclavonian tribes of the Sorbi and Venedi already
bordered on Thuringia (Mascou Hist. of the Germans, xv. 3, 4,
5).]
If Belisarius had been tempted to hesitate in his allegiance, he
might have urged, even against the emperor himself, the
indispensable duty of saving Africa from an enemy more barbarous
than the Vandals. The origin of the Moors is involved in
darkness; they were ignorant of the use of letters.40 Their
limits cannot be precisely defined; a boundless continent was
open to the Libyan shepherds; the change of seasons and pastures
regulated their motions; and their rude huts and slender
furniture were transported with the same case as their arms,
their families, and their cattle, which consisted of sheep, oxen,
and camels.41 During the vigor of the Roman power, they observed
a respectful distance from Carthage and the sea-shore: under the
feeble reign of the Vandals, they invaded the cities of Numidia,
occupied the sea-coast from Tangier to Cæsarea, and pitched their
camps, with impunity, in the fertile province of Byzacium. The
formidable strength and artful conduct of Belisarius secured the
neutrality of the Moorish princes, whose vanity aspired to
receive, in the emperor's name, the ensigns of their regal
dignity.42 They were astonished by the rapid event, and trembled
in the presence of their conqueror. But his approaching departure
soon relieved the apprehensions of a savage and superstitious
people; the number of their wives allowed them to disregard the
safety of their infant hostages; and when the Roman general
hoisted sail in the port of Carthage, he heard the cries, and
almost beheld the flames, of the desolated province. Yet he
persisted in his resolution, and leaving only a part of his
guards to reënforce the feeble garrisons, he intrusted the
command of Africa to the eunuch Solomon,43 who proved himself not
unworthy to be the successor of Belisarius. In the first
invasion, some detachments, with two officers of merit, were
surprised and intercepted; but Solomon speedily assembled his
troops, marched from Carthage into the heart of the country, and
in two great battles destroyed sixty thousand of the Barbarians.
The Moors depended on their multitude, their swiftness, and their
inaccessible mountains; and the aspect and smell of their camels
are said to have produced some confusion in the Roman cavalry.44
But as soon as they were commanded to dismount, they derided this
contemptible obstacle: as soon as the columns ascended the hills,
the naked and disorderly crowd was dazzled by glittering arms and
regular evolutions; and the menace of their female prophets was
repeatedly fulfilled, that the Moors should be discomfited by a
_beardless_ antagonist. The victorious eunuch advanced thirteen
days journey from Carthage, to besiege Mount Aurasius,45 the
citadel, and at the same time the garden, of Numidia. That range
of hills, a branch of the great Atlas, contains, within a
circumference of one hundred and twenty miles, a rare variety of
soil and climate; the intermediate valleys and elevated plains
abound with rich pastures, perpetual streams, and fruits of a
delicious taste and uncommon magnitude. This fair solitude is
decorated with the ruins of Lambesa, a Roman city, once the seat
of a legion, and the residence of forty thousand inhabitants. The
Ionic temple of Æsculapius is encompassed with Moorish huts; and
the cattle now graze in the midst of an amphitheatre, under the
shade of Corinthian columns. A sharp perpendicular rock rises
above the level of the mountain, where the African princes
deposited their wives and treasure; and a proverb is familiar to
the Arabs, that the man may eat fire who dares to attack the
craggy cliffs and inhospitable natives of Mount Aurasius. This
hardy enterprise was twice attempted by the eunuch Solomon: from
the first, he retreated with some disgrace; and in the second,
his patience and provisions were almost exhausted; and he must
again have retired, if he had not yielded to the impetuous
courage of his troops, who audaciously scaled, to the
astonishment of the Moors, the mountain, the hostile camp, and
the summit of the Geminian rock. A citadel was erected to secure
this important conquest, and to remind the Barbarians of their
defeat; and as Solomon pursued his march to the west, the
long-lost province of Mauritanian Sitifi was again annexed to the
Roman empire. The Moorish war continued several years after the
departure of Belisarius; but the laurels which he resigned to a
faithful lieutenant may be justly ascribed to his own triumph.
40 (return) [ Sallust represents the Moors as a remnant of the
army of Heracles (de Bell. Jugurth. c. 21), and Procopius
(Vandal. l. ii. c. 10), as the posterity of the Cananæans who
fled from the robber Joshua, (ληστὴς) He quotes two columns, with
a Phœnician inscription. I believe in the columns—I doubt the
inscription—and I reject the pedigree. * Note: It has been
supposed that Procopius is the only, or at least the most ancient
author who has spoken of this strange inscription, of which one
may be tempted to attribute the invention to Procopius himself.
Yet it is mentioned in the Armenian history of Moses of Chorene,
(l. i. c. 18,) who lived and wrote more than a century before
Procopius. This is sufficient to show that an earlier date must
be assigned to this tradition. The same inscription is mentioned
by Suidas, (sub voc. Χανάαν), no doubt from Procopius. According
to most of the Arabian writers, who adopted a nearly similar
tradition, the indigenes of Northern Africa were the people of
Palestine expelled by David, who passed into Africa, under the
guidance of Goliath, whom they call Djalout. It is impossible to
admit traditions which bear a character so fabulous. St. Martin,
t. xi. p. 324.—Unless my memory greatly deceives me, I have read
in the works of Lightfoot a similar Jewish tradition; but I have
mislaid the reference, and cannot recover the passage.—M.]
41 (return) [ Virgil (Georgic. iii. 339) and Pomponius Mela (i.
8) describe the wandering life of the African shepherds, similar
to that of the Arabs and Tartars; and Shaw (p. 222) is the best
commentator on the poet and the geographer.]
42 (return) [ The customary gifts were a sceptre, a crown or cap,
a white cloak, a figured tunic and shoes, all adorned with gold
and silver; nor were these precious metals less acceptable in the
shape of coin, (Procop. Vandal. l. i. c. 25).]
43 (return) [ See the African government and warfare of Solomon,
in Procopius (Vandal. l. ii. c. 10, 11, 12, 13, 19, 20). He was
recalled, and again restored; and his last victory dates in the
xiiith year of Justinian (A.D. 539). An accident in his childhood
had rendered him a eunuch (l. l. c. 11): the other Roman generals
were amply furnished with beards πώγωνος ἐμπιπλάμενοι (l. ii. c.
8).]
44 (return) [ This natural antipathy of the horse for the camel
is affirmed by the ancients (Xenophon. Cyropæd. l. vi. p. 488, l.
vii. pp. 483, 492, edit. Hutchinson. Polyæn. Stratagem, vii. 6,
Plin. Hist. Nat. viii. 26, Ælian, de Natur. Annal. l. iii. c. 7);
but it is disproved by daily experience, and derided by the best
judges, the Orientals (Voyage d’Olearius, p. 553).]
45 (return) [ Procopius is the first who describes Mount Aurasius
(Vandal. l. ii. c. 13. De Edific. l. vi. c. 7). He may be
compared with Leo Africanus (dell’ Africa, parte v., in Ramusio,
tom. i. fol. 77, recto). Marmol (tom. ii. p. 430), and Shaw (pp.
56-59).]
The experience of past faults, which may sometimes correct the
mature age of an individual, is seldom profitable to the
successive generations of mankind. The nations of antiquity,
careless of each other's safety, were separately vanquished and
enslaved by the Romans. This awful lesson might have instructed
the Barbarians of the West to oppose, with timely counsels and
confederate arms, the unbounded ambition of Justinian. Yet the
same error was repeated, the same consequences were felt, and the
Goths, both of Italy and Spain, insensible of their approaching
danger, beheld with indifference, and even with joy, the rapid
downfall of the Vandals. After the failure of the royal line,
Theudes, a valiant and powerful chief, ascended the throne of
Spain, which he had formerly administered in the name of
Theodoric and his infant grandson. Under his command, the
Visigoths besieged the fortress of Ceuta on the African coast:
but, while they spent the Sabbath day in peace and devotion, the
pious security of their camp was invaded by a sally from the
town; and the king himself, with some difficulty and danger,
escaped from the hands of a sacrilegious enemy.46 It was not long
before his pride and resentment were gratified by a suppliant
embassy from the unfortunate Gelimer, who implored, in his
distress, the aid of the Spanish monarch. But instead of
sacrificing these unworthy passions to the dictates of generosity
and prudence, Theudes amused the ambassadors till he was secretly
informed of the loss of Carthage, and then dismissed them with
obscure and contemptuous advice, to seek in their native country
a true knowledge of the state of the Vandals.47 The long
continuance of the Italian war delayed the punishment of the
Visigoths; and the eyes of Theudes were closed before they tasted
the fruits of his mistaken policy. After his death, the sceptre
of Spain was disputed by a civil war. The weaker candidate
solicited the protection of Justinian, and ambitiously subscribed
a treaty of alliance, which deeply wounded the independence and
happiness of his country. Several cities, both on the ocean and
the Mediterranean, were ceded to the Roman troops, who afterwards
refused to evacuate those pledges, as it should seem, either of
safety or payment; and as they were fortified by perpetual
supplies from Africa, they maintained their impregnable stations,
for the mischievous purpose of inflaming the civil and religious
factions of the Barbarians. Seventy years elapsed before this
painful thorn could be extirpated from the bosom of the monarchy;
and as long as the emperors retained any share of these remote
and useless possessions, their vanity might number Spain in the
list of their provinces, and the successors of Alaric in the rank
of their vassals.48
46 (return) [ Isidor. Chron. p. 722, edit. Grot. Mariana, Hist.
Hispan. l. v. c. 8, p. 173. Yet, according to Isidore, the siege
of Ceuta, and the death of Theudes, happened, A. Æ. H. 586—A.D.
548; and the place was defended, not by the Vandals, but by the
Romans.]
47 (return) [ Procopius. Vandal. l. i, c. 24.]
48 (return) [ See the original Chronicle of Isidore, and the vth
and vith books of the History of Spain by Mariana. The Romans
were finally expelled by Suintila, king of the Visigoths (A.D.
621–620), after their reunion to the Catholic church.]
The error of the Goths who reigned in Italy was less excusable
than that of their Spanish brethren, and their punishment was
still more immediate and terrible. From a motive of private
revenge, they enabled their most dangerous enemy to destroy their
most valuable ally. A sister of the great Theodoric had been
given in marriage to Thrasimond, the African king:49 on this
occasion, the fortress of Lilybæum50 in Sicily was resigned to
the Vandals; and the princess Amalafrida was attended by a
martial train of one thousand nobles, and five thousand Gothic
soldiers, who signalized their valor in the Moorish wars. Their
merit was overrated by themselves, and perhaps neglected by the
Vandals; they viewed the country with envy, and the conquerors
with disdain; but their real or fictitious conspiracy was
prevented by a massacre; the Goths were oppressed, and the
captivity of Amalafrida was soon followed by her secret and
suspicious death. The eloquent pen of Cassiodorus was employed to
reproach the Vandal court with the cruel violation of every
social and public duty; but the vengeance which he threatened in
the name of his sovereign might be derided with impunity, as long
as Africa was protected by the sea, and the Goths were destitute
of a navy. In the blind impotence of grief and indignation, they
joyfully saluted the approach of the Romans, entertained the
fleet of Belisarius in the ports of Sicily, and were speedily
delighted or alarmed by the surprising intelligence, that their
revenge was executed beyond the measure of their hopes, or
perhaps of their wishes. To their friendship the emperor was
indebted for the kingdom of Africa, and the Goths might
reasonably think, that they were entitled to resume the
possession of a barren rock, so recently separated as a nuptial
gift from the island of Sicily. They were soon undeceived by the
haughty mandate of Belisarius, which excited their tardy and
unavailing repentance. “The city and promontory of Lilybæum,”
said the Roman general, “belonged to the Vandals, and I claim
them by the right of conquest. Your submission may deserve the
favor of the emperor; your obstinacy will provoke his
displeasure, and must kindle a war, that can terminate only in
your utter ruin. If you compel us to take up arms, we shall
contend, not to regain the possession of a single city, but to
deprive you of all the provinces which you unjustly withhold from
their lawful sovereign.” A nation of two hundred thousand
soldiers might have smiled at the vain menace of Justinian and
his lieutenant: but a spirit of discord and disaffection
prevailed in Italy, and the Goths supported, with reluctance, the
indignity of a female reign.51
49 (return) [ See the marriage and fate of Amalafrida in
Procopius (Vandal. l. i. c. 8, 9), and in Cassiodorus (Var. ix.
1) the expostulation of her royal brother. Compare likewise the
Chronicle of Victor Tunnunensis.]
50 (return) [ Lilybæum was built by the Carthaginians, Olymp.
xcv. 4; and in the first Punic war, a strong situation, and
excellent harbor, rendered that place an important object to both
nations.]
51 (return) [ Compare the different passages of Procopius
(Vandal. l. ii. c. 5, Gothic, l. i c. 3).]
The birth of Amalasontha, the regent and queen of Italy,52 united
the two most illustrious families of the Barbarians. Her mother,
the sister of Clovis, was descended from the long-haired kings of
the _Merovingian_ race;53 and the regal succession of the _Amali_
was illustrated in the eleventh generation, by her father, the
great Theodoric, whose merit might have ennobled a plebeian
origin. The sex of his daughter excluded her from the Gothic
throne; but his vigilant tenderness for his family and his people
discovered the last heir of the royal line, whose ancestors had
taken refuge in Spain; and the fortunate Eutharic was suddenly
exalted to the rank of a consul and a prince. He enjoyed only a
short time the charms of Amalasontha, and the hopes of the
succession; and his widow, after the death of her husband and
father, was left the guardian of her son Athalaric, and the
kingdom of Italy. At the age of about twenty-eight years, the
endowments of her mind and person had attained their perfect
maturity. Her beauty, which, in the apprehension of Theodora
herself, might have disputed the conquest of an emperor, was
animated by manly sense, activity, and resolution. Education and
experience had cultivated her talents; her philosophic studies
were exempt from vanity; and, though she expressed herself with
equal elegance and ease in the Greek, the Latin, and the Gothic
tongue, the daughter of Theodoric maintained in her counsels a
discreet and impenetrable silence. By a faithful imitation of the
virtues, she revived the prosperity, of his reign; while she
strove, with pious care, to expiate the faults, and to obliterate
the darker memory of his declining age. The children of Boethius
and Symmachus were restored to their paternal inheritance; her
extreme lenity never consented to inflict any corporal or
pecuniary penalties on her Roman subjects; and she generously
despised the clamors of the Goths, who, at the end of forty
years, still considered the people of Italy as their slaves or
their enemies. Her salutary measures were directed by the wisdom,
and celebrated by the eloquence, of Cassiodorus; she solicited
and deserved the friendship of the emperor; and the kingdoms of
Europe respected, both in peace and war, the majesty of the
Gothic throne. But the future happiness of the queen and of Italy
depended on the education of her son; who was destined, by his
birth, to support the different and almost incompatible
characters of the chief of a Barbarian camp, and the first
magistrate of a civilized nation. From the age of ten years,54
Athalaric was diligently instructed in the arts and sciences,
either useful or ornamental for a Roman prince; and three
venerable Goths were chosen to instil the principles of honor and
virtue into the mind of their young king. But the pupil who is
insensible of the benefits, must abhor the restraints, of
education; and the solicitude of the queen, which affection
rendered anxious and severe, offended the untractable nature of
her son and his subjects. On a solemn festival, when the Goths
were assembled in the palace of Ravenna, the royal youth escaped
from his mother's apartment, and, with tears of pride and anger,
complained of a blow which his stubborn disobedience had provoked
her to inflict. The Barbarians resented the indignity which had
been offered to their king; accused the regent of conspiring
against his life and crown; and imperiously demanded, that the
grandson of Theodoric should be rescued from the dastardly
discipline of women and pedants, and educated, like a valiant
Goth, in the society of his equals and the glorious ignorance of
his ancestors. To this rude clamor, importunately urged as the
voice of the nation, Amalasontha was compelled to yield her
reason, and the dearest wishes of her heart. The king of Italy
was abandoned to wine, to women, and to rustic sports; and the
indiscreet contempt of the ungrateful youth betrayed the
mischievous designs of his favorites and her enemies. Encompassed
with domestic foes, she entered into a secret negotiation with
the emperor Justinian; obtained the assurance of a friendly
reception, and had actually deposited at Dyrachium, in Epirus, a
treasure of forty thousand pounds of gold. Happy would it have
been for her fame and safety, if she had calmly retired from
barbarous faction to the peace and splendor of Constantinople.
But the mind of Amalasontha was inflamed by ambition and revenge;
and while her ships lay at anchor in the port, she waited for the
success of a crime which her passions excused or applauded as an
act of justice. Three of the most dangerous malcontents had been
separately removed under the pretence of trust and command, to
the frontiers of Italy: they were assassinated by her private
emissaries; and the blood of these noble Goths rendered the
queen-mother absolute in the court of Ravenna, and justly odious
to a free people. But if she had lamented the disorders of her
son she soon wept his irreparable loss; and the death of
Athalaric, who, at the age of sixteen, was consumed by premature
intemperance, left her destitute of any firm support or legal
authority. Instead of submitting to the laws of her country which
held as a fundamental maxim, that the succession could never pass
from the lance to the distaff, the daughter of Theodoric
conceived the impracticable design of sharing, with one of her
cousins, the regal title, and of reserving in her own hands the
substance of supreme power. He received the proposal with
profound respect and affected gratitude; and the eloquent
Cassiodorus announced to the senate and the emperor, that
Amalasontha and Theodatus had ascended the throne of Italy. His
birth (for his mother was the sister of Theodoric) might be
considered as an imperfect title; and the choice of Amalasontha
was more strongly directed by her contempt of his avarice and
pusillanimity which had deprived him of the love of the Italians,
and the esteem of the Barbarians. But Theodatus was exasperated
by the contempt which he deserved: her justice had repressed and
reproached the oppression which he exercised against his Tuscan
neighbors; and the principal Goths, united by common guilt and
resentment, conspired to instigate his slow and timid
disposition. The letters of congratulation were scarcely
despatched before the queen of Italy was imprisoned in a small
island of the Lake of Bolsena,55 where, after a short
confinement, she was strangled in the bath, by the order, or with
the connivance of the new king, who instructed his turbulent
subjects to shed the blood of their sovereigns.
52 (return) [ For the reign and character of Amalasontha, see
Procopius (Gothic, l. i. c. 2, 3, 4, and Anecdot. c. 16, with the
Notes of Alemannus), Cassiodorus (Var. viii. ix. x. and xi, 1),
and Jornandes (De Rebus Geticis, c. 59, and De Successione
Regnorum. in Muratori, tom. i, p. 24).]
53 (return) [ The marriage of Theodoric with Audefleda, the
sister of Clovis, may be placed in the year 495, soon after the
conquest of Italy (De Buat, Hist, des Peuples, tom. ix. p. 213).
The nuptials of Eutharic and Amalasontha were celebrated in 515
(Cassiodor. in Chron. p. 453).]
54 (return) [ At the death of Theodoric, his grandson Athalaric
is described by Procopius as a boy about eight years old—ὀκτὼ
γεγονὼς ἔτη. Cassiodorus, with authority and reason, adds two
years to his age—infantulum adhuc vix decennem.]
55 (return) [ The lake, from the neighboring towns of Etruria,
was styled either Vulsiniensis (now of Bolsena) or Tarquiniensis.
It is surrounded with white rocks, and stored with fish and
wild-fowl. The younger Pliny (Epist. ii. 96) celebrates two woody
islands that floated on its waters: if a fable, how credulous the
ancients! if a fact, how careless the moderns! Yet, since Pliny,
the island may have been fixed by new and gradual accessions.]
Justinian beheld with joy the dissensions of the Goths; and the
mediation of an ally concealed and promoted the ambitious views
of the conqueror. His ambassadors, in their public audience,
demanded the fortress of Lilybæum, ten Barbarian fugitives, and a
just compensation for the pillage of a small town on the Illyrian
borders; but they secretly negotiated with Theodatus to betray
the province of Tuscany, and tempted Amalasontha to extricate
herself from danger and perplexity, by a free surrender of the
kingdom of Italy. A false and servile epistle was subscribed, by
the reluctant hand of the captive queen: but the confession of
the Roman senators, who were sent to Constantinople, revealed the
truth of her deplorable situation; and Justinian, by the voice of
a new ambassador, most powerfully interceded for her life and
liberty.55a Yet the secret instructions of the same minister were
adapted to serve the cruel jealousy of Theodora, who dreaded the
presence and superior charms of a rival: he prompted, with artful
and ambiguous hints, the execution of a crime so useful to the
Romans;56 received the intelligence of her death with grief and
indignation, and denounced, in his master's name, immortal war
against the perfidious assassin. In Italy, as well as in Africa,
the guilt of a usurper appeared to justify the arms of Justinian;
but the forces which he prepared, were insufficient for the
subversion of a mighty kingdom, if their feeble numbers had not
been multiplied by the name, the spirit, and the conduct, of a
hero. A chosen troop of guards, who served on horseback, and were
armed with lances and bucklers, attended the person of
Belisarius; his cavalry was composed of two hundred Huns, three
hundred Moors, and four thousand _confederates_, and the infantry
consisted of only three thousand Isaurians. Steering the same
course as in his former expedition, the Roman consul cast anchor
before Catana in Sicily, to survey the strength of the island,
and to decide whether he should attempt the conquest, or
peaceably pursue his voyage for the African coast. He found a
fruitful land and a friendly people. Notwithstanding the decay of
agriculture, Sicily still supplied the granaries of Rome: the
farmers were graciously exempted from the oppression of military
quarters; and the Goths, who trusted the defence of the island to
the inhabitants, had some reason to complain, that their
confidence was ungratefully betrayed. Instead of soliciting and
expecting the aid of the king of Italy, they yielded to the first
summons a cheerful obedience; and this province, the first fruits
of the Punic war, was again, after a long separation, united to
the Roman empire.57 The Gothic garrison of Palermo, which alone
attempted to resist, was reduced, after a short siege, by a
singular stratagem. Belisarius introduced his ships into the
deepest recess of the harbor; their boats were laboriously
hoisted with ropes and pulleys to the top-mast head, and he
filled them with archers, who, from that superior station,
commanded the ramparts of the city. After this easy, though
successful campaign, the conqueror entered Syracuse in triumph,
at the head of his victorious bands, distributing gold medals to
the people, on the day which so gloriously terminated the year of
the consulship. He passed the winter season in the palace of
ancient kings, amidst the ruins of a Grecian colony, which once
extended to a circumference of two-and-twenty miles:58 but in the
spring, about the festival of Easter, the prosecution of his
designs was interrupted by a dangerous revolt of the African
forces. Carthage was saved by the presence of Belisarius, who
suddenly landed with a thousand guards.58a Two thousand soldiers
of doubtful faith returned to the standard of their old
commander: and he marched, without hesitation, above fifty miles,
to seek an enemy whom he affected to pity and despise. Eight
thousand rebels trembled at his approach; they were routed at the
first onset, by the dexterity of their master: and this ignoble
victory would have restored the peace of Africa, if the conqueror
had not been hastily recalled to Sicily, to appease a sedition
which was kindled during his absence in his own camp.59 Disorder
and disobedience were the common malady of the times; the genius
to command, and the virtue to obey, resided only in the mind of
Belisarius.
55a (return) [ Amalasontha was not alive when this new
ambassador, Peter of Thessalonica, arrived in Italy: he could not
then secretly contribute to her death. “But (says M. de Sainte
Croix) it is not beyond probability that Theodora had entered
into some criminal intrigue with Gundelina: for that wife of
Theodatus wrote to implore her protection, reminding her of the
confidence which she and her husband had always placed in her
former promises.” See on Amalasontha and the authors of her death
an excellent dissertation of M. de Sainte Croix in the Archives
Littéraires published by M. Vaudenbourg, No. 50, t. xvii. p.
216.—G.]
56 (return) [ Yet Procopius discredits his own evidence (Anecdot.
c. 16) by confessing that in his public history he had not spoken
the truth. See the epistles from Queen Gundelina to the Empress
Theodora (Var. x. 20, 21, 23, and observe a suspicious word, de
illâ personà, &c.), with the elaborate Commentary of Buat (tom.
x. pp. 177–185).]
57 (return) [ For the conquest of Sicily, compare the narrative
of Procopius with the complaints of Totila (Gothic. l. i. c. 5.
l. iii. c. 16). The Gothic queen had lately relieved that
thankless island (Var. ix. 10, 11).]
58 (return) [ The ancient magnitude and splendor of the five
quarters of Syracuse are delineated by Cicero (in Verrem. actio
ii. l. iv. c. 52, 53), Strabo (l. vi. p. 415), and D’Orville
Sicula (tom. ii. pp. 174–202). The new city, restored by
Augustus, shrunk towards the island.]
58a (return) [ A hundred (there was no room on board for more).
Gibbon has again been misled by Cousin’s translation. Lord Mahon,
p. 157—M.]
59 (return) [ Procopius (Vandal. l. ii. c. 14, 15) so clearly
relates the return of Belirarius into Sicily (p. 146, edit.
Hoeschelii), that I am astonished at the strange misapprehension
and reproaches of a learned critic (Œuvres de la Mothe le Vayer,
tom, viii. pp. 162, 163).]
Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Character Of Balisarius.—Part III.
Although Theodatus descended from a race of heroes, he was
ignorant of the art, and averse to the dangers, of war. Although
he had studied the writings of Plato and Tully, philosophy was
incapable of purifying his mind from the basest passions, avarice
and fear. He had purchased a sceptre by ingratitude and murder:
at the first menace of an enemy, he degraded his own majesty and
that of a nation, which already disdained their unworthy
sovereign. Astonished by the recent example of Gelimer, he saw
himself dragged in chains through the streets of Constantinople:
the terrors which Belisarius inspired were heightened by the
eloquence of Peter, the Byzantine ambassador; and that bold and
subtle advocate persuaded him to sign a treaty, too ignominious
to become the foundation of a lasting peace. It was stipulated,
that in the acclamations of the Roman people, the name of the
emperor should be always proclaimed before that of the Gothic
king; and that as often as the statue of Theodatus was erected in
brass on marble, the divine image of Justinian should be placed
on its right hand. Instead of conferring, the king of Italy was
reduced to solicit, the honors of the senate; and the consent of
the emperor was made indispensable before he could execute,
against a priest or senator, the sentence either of death or
confiscation. The feeble monarch resigned the possession of
Sicily; offered, as the annual mark of his dependence, a crown of
gold of the weight of three hundred pounds; and promised to
supply, at the requisition of his sovereign, three thousand
Gothic auxiliaries, for the service of the empire. Satisfied with
these extraordinary concessions, the successful agent of
Justinian hastened his journey to Constantinople; but no sooner
had he reached the Alban villa, 60 than he was recalled by the
anxiety of Theodatus; and the dialogue which passed between the
king and the ambassador deserves to be represented in its
original simplicity. “Are you of opinion that the emperor will
ratify this treaty? Perhaps. If he refuses, what consequence will
ensue? War. Will such a war, be just or reasonable? Most
assuredly: every to his character. What is your meaning? You are
a philosopher—Justinian is emperor of the Romans: it would all
become the disciple of Plato to shed the blood of thousands in
his private quarrel: the successor of Augustus should vindicate
his rights, and recover by arms the ancient provinces of his
empire.” This reasoning might not convince, but it was sufficient
to alarm and subdue the weakness of Theodatus; and he soon
descended to his last offer, that for the poor equivalent of a
pension of forty-eight thousand pounds sterling, he would resign
the kingdom of the Goths and Italians, and spend the remainder of
his days in the innocent pleasures of philosophy and agriculture.
Both treaties were intrusted to the hands of the ambassador, on
the frail security of an oath not to produce the second till the
first had been positively rejected. The event may be easily
foreseen: Justinian required and accepted the abdication of the
Gothic king. His indefatigable agent returned from Constantinople
to Ravenna, with ample instructions; and a fair epistle, which
praised the wisdom and generosity of the royal philosopher,
granted his pension, with the assurance of such honors as a
subject and a Catholic might enjoy; and wisely referred the final
execution of the treaty to the presence and authority of
Belisarius. But in the interval of suspense, two Roman generals,
who had entered the province of Dalmatia, were defeated and slain
by the Gothic troops. From blind and abject despair, Theodatus
capriciously rose to groundless and fatal presumption, 61 and
dared to receive, with menace and contempt, the ambassador of
Justinian; who claimed his promise, solicited the allegiance of
his subjects, and boldly asserted the inviolable privilege of his
own character. The march of Belisarius dispelled this visionary
pride; and as the first campaign 62 was employed in the reduction
of Sicily, the invasion of Italy is applied by Procopius to the
second year of the Gothic war. 63
60 (return) [ The ancient Alba was ruined in the first age of
Rome. On the same spot, or at least in the neighborhood,
successively arose. 1. The villa of Pompey, &c.; 2. A camp of the
Praetorian cohorts; 3. The modern episcopal city of Albanum or
Albano. (Procop. Goth. l. ii. c. 4 Oluver. Ital. Antiq tom. ii.
p. 914.)]
61 (return) [ A Sibylline oracle was ready to pronounce—Africa
capta munitus cum nato peribit; a sentence of portentous
ambiguity, (Gothic. l. i. c. 7,) which has been published in
unknown characters by Opsopaeus, an editor of the oracles. The
Pere Maltret has promised a commentary; but all his promises have
been vain and fruitless.]
62 (return) [ In his chronology, imitated, in some degree, from
Thucydides, Procopius begins each spring the years of Justinian
and of the Gothic war; and his first aera coincides with the
first of April, 535, and not 536, according to the Annals of
Baronius, (Pagi, Crit. tom. ii. p. 555, who is followed by
Muratori and the editors of Sigonius.) Yet, in some passages, we
are at a loss to reconcile the dates of Procopius with himself,
and with the Chronicle of Marcellinus.]
63 (return) [ The series of the first Gothic war is represented
by Procopius (l. i. c. 5—29, l. ii. c. l—30, l. iii. c. l) till
the captivity of Vitigas. With the aid of Sigonius (Opp. tom. i.
de Imp. Occident. l. xvii. xviii.) and Muratori, (Annali d’Itaia,
tom. v.,) I have gleaned some few additional facts.]
After Belisarius had left sufficient garrisons in Palermo and
Syracuse, he embarked his troops at Messina, and landed them,
without resistance, on the opposite shores of Rhegium. A Gothic
prince, who had married the daughter of Theodatus, was stationed
with an army to guard the entrance of Italy; but he imitated,
without scruple, the example of a sovereign faithless to his
public and private duties. The perfidious Ebermor deserted with
his followers to the Roman camp, and was dismissed to enjoy the
servile honors of the Byzantine court. 64 From Rhegium to Naples,
the fleet and army of Belisarius, almost always in view of each
other, advanced near three hundred miles along the sea-coast. The
people of Bruttium, Lucania, and Campania, who abhorred the name
and religion of the Goths, embraced the specious excuse, that
their ruined walls were incapable of defence: the soldiers paid a
just equivalent for a plentiful market; and curiosity alone
interrupted the peaceful occupations of the husbandman or
artificer. Naples, which has swelled to a great and populous
capital, long cherished the language and manners of a Grecian
colony; 65 and the choice of Virgil had ennobled this elegant
retreat, which attracted the lovers of repose and study, from the
noise, the smoke, and the laborious opulence of Rome.66 As soon
as the place was invested by sea and land, Belisarius gave
audience to the deputies of the people, who exhorted him to
disregard a conquest unworthy of his arms, to seek the Gothic
king in a field of battle, and, after his victory, to claim, as
the sovereign of Rome, the allegiance of the dependent cities.
“When I treat with my enemies,” replied the Roman chief, with a
haughty smile, “I am more accustomed to give than to receive
counsel; but I hold in one hand inevitable ruin, and in the other
peace and freedom, such as Sicily now enjoys.” The impatience of
delay urged him to grant the most liberal terms; his honor
secured their performance: but Naples was divided into two
factions; and the Greek democracy was inflamed by their orators,
who, with much spirit and some truth, represented to the
multitude that the Goths would punish their defection, and that
Belisarius himself must esteem their loyalty and valor. Their
deliberations, however, were not perfectly free: the city was
commanded by eight hundred Barbarians, whose wives and children
were detained at Ravenna as the pledge of their fidelity; and
even the Jews, who were rich and numerous, resisted, with
desperate enthusiasm, the intolerant laws of Justinian. In a much
later period, the circumference of Naples 67 measured only two
thousand three hundred and sixty three paces: 68 the
fortifications were defended by precipices or the sea; when the
aqueducts were intercepted, a supply of water might be drawn from
wells and fountains; and the stock of provisions was sufficient
to consume the patience of the besiegers. At the end of twenty
days, that of Belisarius was almost exhausted, and he had
reconciled himself to the disgrace of abandoning the siege, that
he might march, before the winter season, against Rome and the
Gothic king. But his anxiety was relieved by the bold curiosity
of an Isaurian, who explored the dry channel of an aqueduct, and
secretly reported, that a passage might be perforated to
introduce a file of armed soldiers into the heart of the city.
When the work had been silently executed, the humane general
risked the discovery of his secret by a last and fruitless
admonition of the impending danger. In the darkness of the night,
four hundred Romans entered the aqueduct, raised themselves by a
rope, which they fastened to an olive-tree, into the house or
garden of a solitary matron, sounded their trumpets, surprised
the sentinels, and gave admittance to their companions, who on
all sides scaled the walls, and burst open the gates of the city.
Every crime which is punished by social justice was practised as
the rights of war; the Huns were distinguished by cruelty and
sacrilege, and Belisarius alone appeared in the streets and
churches of Naples to moderate the calamities which he predicted.
“The gold and silver,” he repeatedly exclaimed, “are the just
rewards of your valor. But spare the inhabitants; they are
Christians, they are suppliants, they are now your
fellow-subjects. Restore the children to their parents, the wives
to their husbands; and show them by your generosity of what
friends they have obstinately deprived themselves.” The city was
saved by the virtue and authority of its conqueror; 69 and when
the Neapolitans returned to their houses, they found some
consolation in the secret enjoyment of their hidden treasures.
The Barbarian garrison enlisted in the service of the emperor;
Apulia and Calabria, delivered from the odious presence of the
Goths, acknowledged his dominion; and the tusks of the Calydonian
boar, which were still shown at Beneventum, are curiously
described by the historian of Belisarius. 70
64 (return) [ Jornandes, de Rebus Geticis, c. 60, p. 702, edit.
Grot., and tom. i. p. 221. Muratori, de Success, Regn. p. 241.]
65 (return) [ Nero (says Tacitus, Annal. xv. 35) Neapolim quasi
Graecam urbem delegit. One hundred and fifty years afterwards, in
the time of Septimius Severus, the Hellenism of the Neapolitans
is praised by Philostratus. (Icon. l. i. p. 763, edit. Olear.)]
66 (return) [ The otium of Naples is praised by the Roman poets,
by Virgil, Horace, Silius Italicus, and Statius, (Cluver. Ital.
Ant. l. iv. p. 1149, 1150.) In an elegant epistles, (Sylv. l.
iii. 5, p. 94—98, edit. Markland,) Statius undertakes the
difficult task of drawing his wife from the pleasures of Rome to
that calm retreat.]
67 (return) [ This measure was taken by Roger l., after the
conquest of Naples, (A.D. 1139,) which he made the capital of his
new kingdom, (Giannone, Istoria Civile, tom. ii. p. 169.) That
city, the third in Christian Europe, is now at least twelve miles
in circumference, (Jul. Caesar. Capaccii Hist. Neapol. l. i. p.
47,) and contains more inhabitants (350,000) in a given space,
than any other spot in the known world.]
68 (return) [ Not geometrical, but common, paces or steps, of 22
French inches, (D’ Anville, Mesures Itineraires, p. 7, 8.) The
2363 do not take an English mile.]
69 (return) [ Belisarius was reproved by Pope Silverius for the
massacre. He repeopled Naples, and imported colonies of African
captives into Sicily, Calabria, and Apulia, (Hist. Miscell. l.
xvi. in Muratori, tom. i. p. 106, 107.)]
70 (return) [ Beneventum was built by Diomede, the nephew of
Meleager (Cluver. tom. ii. p. 1195, 1196.) The Calydonian hunt is
a picture of savage life, (Ovid, Metamorph. l. viii.) Thirty or
forty heroes were leagued against a hog: the brutes (not the hog)
quarrelled with lady for the head.]
The faithful soldiers and citizens of Naples had expected their
deliverance from a prince, who remained the inactive and almost
indifferent spectator of their ruin. Theodatus secured his person
within the walls of Rome, whilst his cavalry advanced forty miles
on the Appian way, and encamped in the Pomptine marshes; which,
by a canal of nineteen miles in length, had been recently drained
and converted into excellent pastures. 71 But the principal
forces of the Goths were dispersed in Dalmatia, Venetia, and
Gaul; and the feeble mind of their king was confounded by the
unsuccessful event of a divination, which seemed to presage the
downfall of his empire. 72 The most abject slaves have arraigned
the guilt or weakness of an unfortunate master. The character of
Theodatus was rigorously scrutinized by a free and idle camp of
Barbarians, conscious of their privilege and power: he was
declared unworthy of his race, his nation, and his throne; and
their general Vitiges, whose valor had been signalized in the
Illyrian war, was raised with unanimous applause on the bucklers
of his companions. On the first rumor, the abdicated monarch fled
from the justice of his country; but he was pursued by private
revenge. A Goth, whom he had injured in his love, overtook
Theodatus on the Flaminian way, and, regardless of his unmanly
cries, slaughtered him, as he lay, prostrate on the ground, like
a victim (says the historian) at the foot of the altar. The
choice of the people is the best and purest title to reign over
them; yet such is the prejudice of every age, that Vitiges
impatiently wished to return to Ravenna, where he might seize,
with the reluctant hand of the daughter of Amalasontha, some
faint shadow of hereditary right. A national council was
immediately held, and the new monarch reconciled the impatient
spirit of the Barbarians to a measure of disgrace, which the
misconduct of his predecessor rendered wise and indispensable.
The Goths consented to retreat in the presence of a victorious
enemy; to delay till the next spring the operations of offensive
war; to summon their scattered forces; to relinquish their
distant possessions, and to trust even Rome itself to the faith
of its inhabitants. Leuderis, an ancient warrior, was left in the
capital with four thousand soldiers; a feeble garrison, which
might have seconded the zeal, though it was incapable of opposing
the wishes, of the Romans. But a momentary enthusiasm of religion
and patriotism was kindled in their minds. They furiously
exclaimed, that the apostolic throne should no longer be profaned
by the triumph or toleration of Arianism; that the tombs of the
Caesars should no longer be trampled by the savages of the North;
and, without reflecting, that Italy must sink into a province of
Constantinople, they fondly hailed the restoration of a Roman
emperor as a new aera of freedom and prosperity. The deputies of
the pope and clergy, of the senate and people, invited the
lieutenant of Justinian to accept their voluntary allegiance, and
to enter the city, whose gates would be thrown open for his
reception. As soon as Belisarius had fortified his new conquests,
Naples and Cumae, he advanced about twenty miles to the banks of
the Vulturnus, contemplated the decayed grandeur of Capua, and
halted at the separation of the Latin and Appian ways. The work
of the censor, after the incessant use of nine centuries, still
preserved its primaeval beauty, and not a flaw could be
discovered in the large polished stones, of which that solid,
though narrow road, was so firmly compacted. 73 Belisarius,
however, preferred the Latin way, which, at a distance from the
sea and the marshes, skirted in a space of one hundred and twenty
miles along the foot of the mountains. His enemies had
disappeared: when he made his entrance through the Asinarian
gate, the garrison departed without molestation along the
Flaminian way; and the city, after sixty years’ servitude, was
delivered from the yoke of the Barbarians. Leuderis alone, from a
motive of pride or discontent, refused to accompany the
fugitives; and the Gothic chief, himself a trophy of the victory,
was sent with the keys of Rome to the throne of the emperor
Justinian. 74
71 (return) [ The Decennovium is strangely confounded by
Cluverius (tom. ii. p. 1007) with the River Ufens. It was in
truth a canal of nineteen miles, from Forum Appii to Terracina,
on which Horace embarked in the night. The Decennovium, which is
mentioned by Lucan, Dion Cassius, and Cassiodorus, has been
sufficiently ruined, restored, and obliterated, (D’Anville,
Anayse de l’Italie, p. 185, &c.)]
72 (return) [ A Jew, gratified his contempt and hatred for all
the Christians, by enclosing three bands, each of ten hogs, and
discriminated by the names of Goths, Greeks, and Romans. Of the
first, almost all were found dead; almost all the second were
alive: of the third, half died, and the rest lost their bristles.
No unsuitable emblem of the event]
73 (return) [ Bergier (Hist. des Grands Chemins des Romains, tom.
i. p. 221-228, 440-444) examines the structure and materials,
while D’Anville (Analyse d’Italie, p. 200—123) defines the
geographical line.]
74 (return) [ Of the first recovery of Rome, the year (536) is
certain, from the series of events, rather than from the corrupt,
or interpolated, text of Procopius. The month (December) is
ascertained by Evagrius, (l. iv. v. 19;) and the day (the tenth)
may be admitted on the slight evidence of Nicephorus Callistus,
(l. xvii. c. 13.) For this accurate chronology, we are indebted
to the diligence and judgment of Pagi, (tom, ii. p. 659, 560.)
Note: Compare Maltret’s note, in the edition of Dindorf the ninth
is the day, according to his reading,—M.]
The first days, which coincided with the old Saturnalia, were
devoted to mutual congratulation and the public joy; and the
Catholics prepared to celebrate, without a rival, the approaching
festival of the nativity of Christ. In the familiar conversation
of a hero, the Romans acquired some notion of the virtues which
history ascribed to their ancestors; they were edified by the
apparent respect of Belisarius for the successor of St. Peter,
and his rigid discipline secured in the midst of war the
blessings of tranquillity and justice. They applauded the rapid
success of his arms, which overran the adjacent country, as far
as Narni, Perusia, and Spoleto; but they trembled, the senate,
the clergy, and the unwarlike people, as soon as they understood
that he had resolved, and would speedily be reduced, to sustain a
siege against the powers of the Gothic monarchy. The designs of
Vitiges were executed, during the winter season, with diligence
and effect. From their rustic habitations, from their distant
garrisons, the Goths assembled at Ravenna for the defence of
their country; and such were their numbers, that, after an army
had been detached for the relief of Dalmatia, one hundred and
fifty thousand fighting men marched under the royal standard.
According to the degrees of rank or merit, the Gothic king
distributed arms and horses, rich gifts, and liberal promises; he
moved along the Flaminian way, declined the useless sieges of
Perusia and Spoleto, respected he impregnable rock of Narni, and
arrived within two miles of Rome at the foot of the Milvian
bridge. The narrow passage was fortified with a tower, and
Belisarius had computed the value of the twenty days which must
be lost in the construction of another bridge. But the
consternation of the soldiers of the tower, who either fled or
deserted, disappointed his hopes, and betrayed his person into
the most imminent danger. At the head of one thousand horse, the
Roman general sallied from the Flaminian gate to mark the ground
of an advantageous position, and to survey the camp of the
Barbarians; but while he still believed them on the other side of
the Tyber, he was suddenly encompassed and assaulted by their
numerous squadrons. The fate of Italy depended on his life; and
the deserters pointed to the conspicuous horse a bay, 75 with a
white face, which he rode on that memorable day. “Aim at the bay
horse,” was the universal cry. Every bow was bent, every javelin
was directed, against that fatal object, and the command was
repeated and obeyed by thousands who were ignorant of its real
motive. The bolder Barbarians advanced to the more honorable
combat of swords and spears; and the praise of an enemy has
graced the fall of Visandus, the standard-bearer, 76 who
maintained his foremost station, till he was pierced with
thirteen wounds, perhaps by the hand of Belisarius himself. The
Roman general was strong, active, and dexterous; on every side he
discharged his weighty and mortal strokes: his faithful guards
imitated his valor, and defended his person; and the Goths, after
the loss of a thousand men, fled before the arms of a hero. They
were rashly pursued to their camp; and the Romans, oppressed by
multitudes, made a gradual, and at length a precipitate retreat
to the gates of the city: the gates were shut against the
fugitives; and the public terror was increased, by the report
that Belisarius was slain. His countenance was indeed disfigured
by sweat, dust, and blood; his voice was hoarse, his strength was
almost exhausted; but his unconquerable spirit still remained; he
imparted that spirit to his desponding companions; and their last
desperate charge was felt by the flying Barbarians, as if a new
army, vigorous and entire, had been poured from the city. The
Flaminian gate was thrown open to a real triumph; but it was not
before Belisarius had visited every post, and provided for the
public safety, that he could be persuaded, by his wife and
friends, to taste the needful refreshments of food and sleep. In
the more improved state of the art of war, a general is seldom
required, or even permitted to display the personal prowess of a
soldier; and the example of Belisarius may be added to the rare
examples of Henry IV., of Pyrrhus, and of Alexander.
75 (return) [ A horse of a bay or red color was styled by the
Greeks, balan by the Barbarians, and spadix by the Romans.
Honesti spadices, says Virgil, (Georgic. l. iii. 72, with the
Observations of Martin and Heyne.) It signifies a branch of the
palm-tree, whose name is synonymous to red, (Aulus Gellius, ii.
26.)]
76 (return) [ I interpret it, not as a proper, name, but an
office, standard-bearer, from bandum, (vexillum,) a Barbaric word
adopted by the Greeks and Romans, (Paul Diacon. l. i. c. 20, p.
760. Grot. Nomina Hethica, p. 575. Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. i.
p. 539, 540.)]
After this first and unsuccessful trial of their enemies, the
whole army of the Goths passed the Tyber, and formed the siege of
the city, which continued above a year, till their final
departure. Whatever fancy may conceive, the severe compass of the
geographer defines the circumference of Rome within a line of
twelve miles and three hundred and forty-five paces; and that
circumference, except in the Vatican, has invariably been the
same from the triumph of Aurelian to the peaceful but obscure
reign of the modern popes. 77 But in the day of her greatness,
the space within her walls was crowded with habitations and
inhabitants; and the populous suburbs, that stretched along the
public roads, were darted like so many rays from one common
centre. Adversity swept away these extraneous ornaments, and left
naked and desolate a considerable part even of the seven hills.
Yet Rome in its present state could send into the field about
thirty thousand males of a military age; 78 and, notwithstanding
the want of discipline and exercise, the far greater part, inured
to the hardships of poverty, might be capable of bearing arms for
the defence of their country and religion. The prudence of
Belisarius did not neglect this important resource. His soldiers
were relieved by the zeal and diligence of the people, who
watched while they slept, and labored while they reposed: he
accepted the voluntary service of the bravest and most indigent
of the Roman youth; and the companies of townsmen sometimes
represented, in a vacant post, the presence of the troops which
had been drawn away to more essential duties. But his just
confidence was placed in the veterans who had fought under his
banner in the Persian and African wars; and although that gallant
band was reduced to five thousand men, he undertook, with such
contemptible numbers, to defend a circle of twelve miles, against
an army of one hundred and fifty thousand Barbarians. In the
walls of Rome, which Belisarius constructed or restored, the
materials of ancient architecture may be discerned; 79 and the
whole fortification was completed, except in a chasm still extant
between the Pincian and Flaminian gates, which the prejudices of
the Goths and Romans left under the effectual guard of St. Peter
the apostle. 80
77 (return) [ M. D’Anville has given, in the Memoirs of the
Academy for the year 1756, (tom. xxx. p. 198—236,) a plan of Rome
on a smaller scale, but far more accurate than that which he had
delineated in 1738 for Rollin’s history. Experience had improved
his knowledge and instead of Rossi’s topography, he used the new
and excellent map of Nolli. Pliny’s old measure of thirteen must
be reduced to eight miles. It is easier to alter a text, than to
remove hills or buildings. * Note: Compare Gibbon, ch. xi. note
43, and xxxi. 67, and ch. lxxi. “It is quite clear,” observes Sir
J. Hobhouse, “that all these measurements differ, (in the first
and second it is 21, in the text 12 and 345 paces, in the last
10,) yet it is equally clear that the historian avers that they
are all the same.” The present extent, 12 3/4 nearly agrees with
the second statement of Gibbon. Sir. J. Hobhouse also observes
that the walls were enlarged by Constantine; but there can be no
doubt that the circuit has been much changed. Illust. of Ch.
Harold, p. 180.—M.]
78 (return) [ In the year 1709, Labat (Voyages en Italie, tom.
iii. p. 218) reckoned 138,568 Christian souls, besides 8000 or
10,000 Jews—without souls? In the year 1763, the numbers exceeded
160,000.]
79 (return) [ The accurate eye of Nardini (Roma Antica, l. i. c.
viii. p. 31) could distinguish the tumultuarie opere di
Belisario.]
80 (return) [ The fissure and leaning in the upper part of the
wall, which Procopius observed, (Goth. l. i. c. 13,) is visible
to the present hour, (Douat. Roma Vetus, l. i. c. 17, p. 53,
54.)]
The battlements or bastions were shaped in sharp angles; a ditch,
broad and deep, protected the foot of the rampart; and the
archers on the rampart were assisted by military engines; the
balistri, a powerful cross-bow, which darted short but massy
arrows; the onagri, or wild asses, which, on the principle of a
sling, threw stones and bullets of an enormous size. 81 A chain
was drawn across the Tyber; the arches of the aqueducts were made
impervious, and the mole or sepulchre of Hadrian 82 was
converted, for the first time, to the uses of a citadel. That
venerable structure, which contained the ashes of the Antonines,
was a circular turret rising from a quadrangular basis; it was
covered with the white marble of Paros, and decorated by the
statues of gods and heroes; and the lover of the arts must read
with a sigh, that the works of Praxiteles or Lysippus were torn
from their lofty pedestals, and hurled into the ditch on the
heads of the besiegers. 83 To each of his lieutenants Belisarius
assigned the defence of a gate, with the wise and peremptory
instruction, that, whatever might be the alarm, they should
steadily adhere to their respective posts, and trust their
general for the safety of Rome. The formidable host of the Goths
was insufficient to embrace the ample measure of the city, of the
fourteen gates, seven only were invested from the Proenestine to
the Flaminian way; and Vitiges divided his troops into six camps,
each of which was fortified with a ditch and rampart. On the
Tuscan side of the river, a seventh encampment was formed in the
field or circus of the Vatican, for the important purpose of
commanding the Milvian bridge and the course of the Tyber; but
they approached with devotion the adjacent church of St. Peter;
and the threshold of the holy apostles was respected during the
siege by a Christian enemy. In the ages of victory, as often as
the senate decreed some distant conquest, the consul denounced
hostilities, by unbarring, in solemn pomp, the gates of the
temple of Janus. 84 Domestic war now rendered the admonition
superfluous, and the ceremony was superseded by the establishment
of a new religion. But the brazen temple of Janus was left
standing in the forum; of a size sufficient only to contain the
statue of the god, five cubits in height, of a human form, but
with two faces directed to the east and west. The double gates
were likewise of brass; and a fruitless effort to turn them on
their rusty hinges revealed the scandalous secret that some
Romans were still attached to the superstition of their
ancestors.
81 (return) [ Lipsius (Opp. tom. iii. Poliorcet, l. iii.) was
ignorant of this clear and conspicuous passage of Procopius,
(Goth. l. i. c. 21.) The engine was named the wild ass, a
calcitrando, (Hen. Steph. Thesaur. Linguae Graec. tom. ii. p.
1340, 1341, tom. iii. p. 877.) I have seen an ingenious model,
contrived and executed by General Melville, which imitates or
surpasses the art of antiquity.]
82 (return) [ The description of this mausoleum, or mole, in
Procopius, (l. i. c. 25.) is the first and best. The height above
the walls. On Nolli’s great plan, the sides measure 260 English
feet. * Note: Donatus and Nardini suppose that Hadrian’s tomb was
fortified by Honorius; it was united to the wall by men of old,
(Procop in loc.) Gibbon has mistaken the breadth for the height
above the walls Hobhouse, Illust. of Childe Harold, p. 302.—M.]
83 (return) [ Praxiteles excelled in Fauns, and that of Athens
was his own masterpiece. Rome now contains about thirty of the
same character. When the ditch of St. Angelo was cleansed under
Urban VIII., the workmen found the sleeping Faun of the Barberini
palace; but a leg, a thigh, and the right arm, had been broken
from that beautiful statue, (Winkelman, Hist. de l’Art, tom. ii.
p. 52, 53, tom iii. p. 265.)]
84 (return) [ Procopius has given the best description of the
temple of Janus a national deity of Latium, (Heyne, Excurs. v. ad
l. vii. Aeneid.) It was once a gate in the primitive city of
Romulus and Numa, (Nardini, p. 13, 256, 329.) Virgil has
described the ancient rite like a poet and an antiquarian.]
Eighteen days were employed by the besiegers, to provide all the
instruments of attack which antiquity had invented. Fascines were
prepared to fill the ditches, scaling-ladders to ascend the
walls. The largest trees of the forest supplied the timbers of
four battering-rams: their heads were armed with iron; they were
suspended by ropes, and each of them was worked by the labor of
fifty men. The lofty wooden turrets moved on wheels or rollers,
and formed a spacious platform of the level of the rampart. On
the morning of the nineteenth day, a general attack was made from
the Praenestine gate to the Vatican: seven Gothic columns, with
their military engines, advanced to the assault; and the Romans,
who lined the ramparts, listened with doubt and anxiety to the
cheerful assurances of their commander. As soon as the enemy
approached the ditch, Belisarius himself drew the first arrow;
and such was his strength and dexterity, that he transfixed the
foremost of the Barbarian leaders.
A shout of applause and victory was reechoed along the wall. He
drew a second arrow, and the stroke was followed with the same
success and the same acclamation. The Roman general then gave the
word, that the archers should aim at the teams of oxen; they were
instantly covered with mortal wounds; the towers which they drew
remained useless and immovable, and a single moment disconcerted
the laborious projects of the king of the Goths. After this
disappointment, Vitiges still continued, or feigned to continue,
the assault of the Salarian gate, that he might divert the
attention of his adversary, while his principal forces more
strenuously attacked the Praenestine gate and the sepulchre of
Hadrian, at the distance of three miles from each other. Near the
former, the double walls of the Vivarium 85 were low or broken;
the fortifications of the latter were feebly guarded: the vigor
of the Goths was excited by the hope of victory and spoil; and if
a single post had given way, the Romans, and Rome itself, were
irrecoverably lost. This perilous day was the most glorious in
the life of Belisarius. Amidst tumult and dismay, the whole plan
of the attack and defence was distinctly present to his mind; he
observed the changes of each instant, weighed every possible
advantage, transported his person to the scenes of danger, and
communicated his spirit in calm and decisive orders. The contest
was fiercely maintained from the morning to the evening; the
Goths were repulsed on all sides; and each Roman might boast that
he had vanquished thirty Barbarians, if the strange disproportion
of numbers were not counterbalanced by the merit of one man.
Thirty thousand Goths, according to the confession of their own
chiefs, perished in this bloody action; and the multitude of the
wounded was equal to that of the slain. When they advanced to the
assault, their close disorder suffered not a javelin to fall
without effect; and as they retired, the populace of the city
joined the pursuit, and slaughtered, with impunity, the backs of
their flying enemies. Belisarius instantly sallied from the
gates; and while the soldiers chanted his name and victory, the
hostile engines of war were reduced to ashes. Such was the loss
and consternation of the Goths, that, from this day, the siege of
Rome degenerated into a tedious and indolent blockade; and they
were incessantly harassed by the Roman general, who, in frequent
skirmishes, destroyed above five thousand of their bravest
troops. Their cavalry was unpractised in the use of the bow;
their archers served on foot; and this divided force was
incapable of contending with their adversaries, whose lances and
arrows, at a distance, or at hand, were alike formidable. The
consummate skill of Belisarius embraced the favorable
opportunities; and as he chose the ground and the moment, as he
pressed the charge or sounded the retreat, 86 the squadrons which
he detached were seldom unsuccessful. These partial advantages
diffused an impatient ardor among the soldiers and people, who
began to feel the hardships of a siege, and to disregard the
dangers of a general engagement. Each plebeian conceived himself
to be a hero, and the infantry, who, since the decay of
discipline, were rejected from the line of battle, aspired to the
ancient honors of the Roman legion. Belisarius praised the spirit
of his troops, condemned their presumption, yielded to their
clamors, and prepared the remedies of a defeat, the possibility
of which he alone had courage to suspect. In the quarter of the
Vatican, the Romans prevailed; and if the irreparable moments had
not been wasted in the pillage of the camp, they might have
occupied the Milvian bridge, and charged in the rear of the
Gothic host. On the other side of the Tyber, Belisarius advanced
from the Pincian and Salarian gates. But his army, four thousand
soldiers perhaps, was lost in a spacious plain; they were
encompassed and oppressed by fresh multitudes, who continually
relieved the broken ranks of the Barbarians. The valiant leaders
of the infantry were unskilled to conquer; they died: the retreat
(a hasty retreat) was covered by the prudence of the general, and
the victors started back with affright from the formidable aspect
of an armed rampart. The reputation of Belisarius was unsullied
by a defeat; and the vain confidence of the Goths was not less
serviceable to his designs than the repentance and modesty of the
Roman troops.
85 (return) [ Vivarium was an angle in the new wall enclosed for
wild beasts, (Procopius, Goth. l. i. c. 23.) The spot is still
visible in Nardini (l iv. c. 2, p. 159, 160,) and Nolli’s great
plan of Rome.]
86 (return) [ For the Roman trumpet, and its various notes,
consult Lipsius de Militia Romana, (Opp. tom. iii. l. iv. Dialog.
x. p. 125-129.) A mode of distinguishing the charge by the
horse-trumpet of solid brass, and the retreat by the foot-trumpet
of leather and light wood, was recommended by Procopius, and
adopted by Belisarius.]
Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Character Of Balisarius.—Part IV.
From the moment that Belisarius had determined to sustain a
siege, his assiduous care provided Rome against the danger of
famine, more dreadful than the Gothic arms. An extraordinary
supply of corn was imported from Sicily: the harvests of Campania
and Tuscany were forcibly swept for the use of the city; and the
rights of private property were infringed by the strong plea of
the public safety. It might easily be foreseen that the enemy
would intercept the aqueducts; and the cessation of the
water-mills was the first inconvenience, which was speedily
removed by mooring large vessels, and fixing mill-stones in the
current of the river. The stream was soon embarrassed by the
trunks of trees, and polluted with dead bodies; yet so effectual
were the precautions of the Roman general, that the waters of the
Tyber still continued to give motion to the mills and drink to
the inhabitants: the more distant quarters were supplied from
domestic wells; and a besieged city might support, without
impatience, the privation of her public baths. A large portion of
Rome, from the Praenestine gate to the church of St. Paul, was
never invested by the Goths; their excursions were restrained by
the activity of the Moorish troops: the navigation of the Tyber,
and the Latin, Appian, and Ostian ways, were left free and
unmolested for the introduction of corn and cattle, or the
retreat of the inhabitants, who sought refuge in Campania or
Sicily. Anxious to relieve himself from a useless and devouring
multitude, Belisarius issued his peremptory orders for the
instant departure of the women, the children, and slaves;
required his soldiers to dismiss their male and female
attendants, and regulated their allowance that one moiety should
be given in provisions, and the other in money. His foresight was
justified by the increase of the public distress, as soon as the
Goths had occupied two important posts in the neighborhood of
Rome. By the loss of the port, or, as it is now called, the city
of Porto, he was deprived of the country on the right of the
Tyber, and the best communication with the sea; and he reflected,
with grief and anger, that three hundred men, could he have
spared such a feeble band, might have defended its impregnable
works. Seven miles from the capital, between the Appian and the
Latin ways, two principal aqueducts crossing, and again crossing
each other: enclosed within their solid and lofty arches a
fortified space, 87 where Vitiges established a camp of seven
thousand Goths to intercept the convoy of Sicily and Campania.
The granaries of Rome were insensibly exhausted, the adjacent
country had been wasted with fire and sword; such scanty supplies
as might yet be obtained by hasty excursions were the reward of
valor, and the purchase of wealth: the forage of the horses, and
the bread of the soldiers, never failed: but in the last months
of the siege, the people were exposed to the miseries of
scarcity, unwholesome food, 88 and contagious disorders.
Belisarius saw and pitied their sufferings; but he had foreseen,
and he watched the decay of their loyalty, and the progress of
their discontent. Adversity had awakened the Romans from the
dreams of grandeur and freedom, and taught them the humiliating
lesson, that it was of small moment to their real happiness,
whether the name of their master was derived from the Gothic or
the Latin language. The lieutenant of Justinian listened to their
just complaints, but he rejected with disdain the idea of flight
or capitulation; repressed their clamorous impatience for battle;
amused them with the prospect of a sure and speedy relief; and
secured himself and the city from the effects of their despair or
treachery. Twice in each month he changed the station of the
officers to whom the custody of the gates was committed: the
various precautions of patroles, watch words, lights, and music,
were repeatedly employed to discover whatever passed on the
ramparts; out-guards were posted beyond the ditch, and the trusty
vigilance of dogs supplied the more doubtful fidelity of mankind.
A letter was intercepted, which assured the king of the Goths
that the Asinarian gate, adjoining to the Lateran church, should
be secretly opened to his troops. On the proof or suspicion of
treason, several senators were banished, and the pope Sylverius
was summoned to attend the representative of his sovereign, at
his head-quarters in the Pincian palace. 89 The ecclesiastics,
who followed their bishop, were detained in the first or second
apartment, 90 and he alone was admitted to the presence of
Belisarius. The conqueror of Rome and Carthage was modestly
seated at the feet of Antonina, who reclined on a stately couch:
the general was silent, but the voice of reproach and menace
issued from the mouth of his imperious wife. Accused by credible
witnesses, and the evidence of his own subscription, the
successor of St. Peter was despoiled of his pontifical ornaments,
clad in the mean habit of a monk, and embarked, without delay,
for a distant exile in the East. 9011 At the emperor’s command,
the clergy of Rome proceeded to the choice of a new bishop; and
after a solemn invocation of the Holy Ghost, elected the deacon
Vigilius, who had purchased the papal throne by a bribe of two
hundred pounds of gold. The profit, and consequently the guilt,
of this simony, was imputed to Belisarius: but the hero obeyed
the orders of his wife; Antonina served the passions of the
empress; and Theodora lavished her treasures, in the vain hope of
obtaining a pontiff hostile or indifferent to the council of
Chalcedon. 91
87 (return) [ Procopius (Goth. l. ii. c. 3) has forgot to name
these aqueducts nor can such a double intersection, at such a
distance from Rome, be clearly ascertained from the writings of
Frontinus, Fabretti, and Eschinard, de Aquis and de Agro Romano,
or from the local maps of Lameti and Cingolani. Seven or eight
miles from the city, (50 stadia,) on the road to Albano, between
the Latin and Appian ways, I discern the remains of an aqueduct,
(probably the Septimian,) a series (630 paces) of arches
twenty-five feet high.]
88 (return) [ They made sausages of mule’s flesh; unwholesome, if
the animals had died of the plague. Otherwise, the famous Bologna
sausages are said to be made of ass flesh, (Voyages de Labat,
tom. ii. p. 218.)]
89 (return) [ The name of the palace, the hill, and the adjoining
gate, were all derived from the senator Pincius. Some recent
vestiges of temples and churches are now smoothed in the garden
of the Minims of the Trinita del Monte, (Nardini, l. iv. c. 7, p.
196. Eschinard, p. 209, 210, the old plan of Buffalino, and the
great plan of Nolli.) Belisarius had fixed his station between
the Pincian and Salarian gates, (Procop. Goth. l. i. c. 15.)]
90 (return) [ From the mention of the primum et secundum velum,
it should seem that Belisarius, even in a siege, represented the
emperor, and maintained the proud ceremonial of the Byzantine
palace.]
9011 (return) [ De Beau, as a good Catholic, makes the Pope the
victim of a dark intrigue. Lord Mahon, (p. 225.) with whom I
concur, summed up against him.—M.]
91 (return) [ Of this act of sacrilege, Procopius (Goth. l. i. c.
25) is a dry and reluctant witness. The narratives of Liberatus
(Breviarium, c. 22) and Anastasius (de Vit. Pont. p. 39) are
characteristic, but passionate. Hear the execrations of Cardinal
Baronius, (A.D. 536, No. 123 A.D. 538, No. 4—20:) portentum,
facinus omni execratione dignum.]
The epistle of Belisarius to the emperor announced his victory,
his danger, and his resolution. “According to your commands, we
have entered the dominions of the Goths, and reduced to your
obedience Sicily, Campania, and the city of Rome; but the loss of
these conquests will be more disgraceful than their acquisition
was glorious. Hitherto we have successfully fought against the
multitudes of the Barbarians, but their multitudes may finally
prevail. Victory is the gift of Providence, but the reputation of
kings and generals depends on the success or the failure of their
designs. Permit me to speak with freedom: if you wish that we
should live, send us subsistence; if you desire that we should
conquer, send us arms, horses, and men. The Romans have received
us as friends and deliverers: but in our present distress, they
will be either betrayed by their confidence, or we shall be
oppressed by their treachery and hatred. For myself, my life is
consecrated to your service: it is yours to reflect, whether my
death in this situation will contribute to the glory and
prosperity of your reign.” Perhaps that reign would have been
equally prosperous if the peaceful master of the East had
abstained from the conquest of Africa and Italy: but as Justinian
was ambitious of fame, he made some efforts (they were feeble and
languid) to support and rescue his victorious general. A
reenforcement of sixteen hundred Sclavonians and Huns was led by
Martin and Valerian; and as they reposed during the winter season
in the harbors of Greece, the strength of the men and horses was
not impaired by the fatigues of a sea-voyage; and they
distinguished their valor in the first sally against the
besiegers. About the time of the summer solstice, Euthalius
landed at Terracina with large sums of money for the payment of
the troops: he cautiously proceeded along the Appian way, and
this convoy entered Rome through the gate Capena, 92 while
Belisarius, on the other side, diverted the attention of the
Goths by a vigorous and successful skirmish. These seasonable
aids, the use and reputation of which were dexterously managed by
the Roman general, revived the courage, or at least the hopes, of
the soldiers and people. The historian Procopius was despatched
with an important commission to collect the troops and provisions
which Campania could furnish, or Constantinople had sent; and the
secretary of Belisarius was soon followed by Antonina herself, 93
who boldly traversed the posts of the enemy, and returned with
the Oriental succors to the relief of her husband and the
besieged city. A fleet of three thousand Isaurians cast anchor in
the Bay of Naples and afterwards at Ostia. Above two thousand
horse, of whom a part were Thracians, landed at Tarentum; and,
after the junction of five hundred soldiers of Campania, and a
train of wagons laden with wine and flour, they directed their
march on the Appian way, from Capua to the neighborhood of Rome.
The forces that arrived by land and sea were united at the mouth
of the Tyber. Antonina convened a council of war: it was resolved
to surmount, with sails and oars, the adverse stream of the
river; and the Goths were apprehensive of disturbing, by any rash
hostilities, the negotiation to which Belisarius had craftily
listened. They credulously believed that they saw no more than
the vanguard of a fleet and army, which already covered the
Ionian Sea and the plains of Campania; and the illusion was
supported by the haughty language of the Roman general, when he
gave audience to the ambassadors of Vitiges. After a specious
discourse to vindicate the justice of his cause, they declared,
that, for the sake of peace, they were disposed to renounce the
possession of Sicily. “The emperor is not less generous,” replied
his lieutenant, with a disdainful smile, “in return for a gift
which you no longer possess: he presents you with an ancient
province of the empire; he resigns to the Goths the sovereignty
of the British island.” Belisarius rejected with equal firmness
and contempt the offer of a tribute; but he allowed the Gothic
ambassadors to seek their fate from the mouth of Justinian
himself; and consented, with seeming reluctance, to a truce of
three months, from the winter solstice to the equinox of spring.
Prudence might not safely trust either the oaths or hostages of
the Barbarians, and the conscious superiority of the Roman chief
was expressed in the distribution of his troops. As soon as fear
or hunger compelled the Goths to evacuate Alba, Porto, and
Centumcellae, their place was instantly supplied; the garrisons
of Narni, Spoleto, and Perusia, were reenforced, and the seven
camps of the besiegers were gradually encompassed with the
calamities of a siege. The prayers and pilgrimage of Datius,
bishop of Milan, were not without effect; and he obtained one
thousand Thracians and Isaurians, to assist the revolt of Liguria
against her Arian tyrant. At the same time, John the Sanguinary,
94 the nephew of Vitalian, was detached with two thousand chosen
horse, first to Alba, on the Fucine Lake, and afterwards to the
frontiers of Picenum, on the Hadriatic Sea. “In the province,”
said Belisarius, “the Goths have deposited their families and
treasures, without a guard or the suspicion of danger. Doubtless
they will violate the truce: let them feel your presence, before
they hear of your motions. Spare the Italians; suffer not any
fortified places to remain hostile in your rear; and faithfully
reserve the spoil for an equal and common partition. It would not
be reasonable,” he added with a laugh, “that whilst we are
toiling to the destruction of the drones, our more fortunate
brethren should rifle and enjoy the honey.”
92 (return) [ The old Capena was removed by Aurelian to, or near,
the modern gate of St. Sebastian, (see Nolli’s plan.) That
memorable spot has been consecrated by the Egerian grove, the
memory of Numa two umphal arches, the sepulchres of the Scipios,
Metelli, &c.]
93 (return) [ The expression of Procopius has an invidious cast,
(Goth. l. ii. c. 4.) Yet he is speaking of a woman.]
94 (return) [ Anastasius (p. 40) has preserved this epithet of
Sanguinarius which might do honor to a tiger.]
The whole nation of the Ostrogoths had been assembled for the
attack, and was almost entirely consumed in the siege of Rome. If
any credit be due to an intelligent spectator, one third at least
of their enormous host was destroyed, in frequent and bloody
combats under the walls of the city. The bad fame and pernicious
qualities of the summer air might already be imputed to the decay
of agriculture and population; and the evils of famine and
pestilence were aggravated by their own licentiousness, and the
unfriendly disposition of the country. While Vitiges struggled
with his fortune, while he hesitated between shame and ruin, his
retreat was hastened by domestic alarms. The king of the Goths
was informed by trembling messengers, that John the Sanguinary
spread the devastations of war from the Apennine to the
Hadriatic; that the rich spoils and innumerable captives of
Picenum were lodged in the fortifications of Rimini; and that
this formidable chief had defeated his uncle, insulted his
capital, and seduced, by secret correspondence, the fidelity of
his wife, the imperious daughter of Amalasontha. Yet, before he
retired, Vitiges made a last effort, either to storm or to
surprise the city. A secret passage was discovered in one of the
aqueducts; two citizens of the Vatican were tempted by bribes to
intoxicate the guards of the Aurelian gate; an attack was
meditated on the walls beyond the Tyber, in a place which was not
fortified with towers; and the Barbarians advanced, with torches
and scaling-ladders, to the assault of the Pincian gate. But
every attempt was defeated by the intrepid vigilance of
Belisarius and his band of veterans, who, in the most perilous
moments, did not regret the absence of their companions; and the
Goths, alike destitute of hope and subsistence, clamorously urged
their departure before the truce should expire, and the Roman
cavalry should again be united. One year and nine days after the
commencement of the siege, an army, so lately strong and
triumphant, burnt their tents, and tumultuously repassed the
Milvian bridge. They repassed not with impunity: their thronging
multitudes, oppressed in a narrow passage, were driven headlong
into the Tyber, by their own fears and the pursuit of the enemy;
and the Roman general, sallying from the Pincian gate, inflicted
a severe and disgraceful wound on their retreat. The slow length
of a sickly and desponding host was heavily dragged along the
Flaminian way; from whence the Barbarians were sometimes
compelled to deviate, lest they should encounter the hostile
garrisons that guarded the high road to Rimini and Ravenna. Yet
so powerful was this flying army, that Vitiges spared ten
thousand men for the defence of the cities which he was most
solicitous to preserve, and detached his nephew Uraias, with an
adequate force, for the chastisement of rebellious Milan. At the
head of his principal army, he besieged Rimini, only thirty-three
miles distant from the Gothic capital. A feeble rampart, and a
shallow ditch, were maintained by the skill and valor of John the
Sanguinary, who shared the danger and fatigue of the meanest
soldier, and emulated, on a theatre less illustrious, the
military virtues of his great commander. The towers and
battering-engines of the Barbarians were rendered useless; their
attacks were repulsed; and the tedious blockade, which reduced
the garrison to the last extremity of hunger, afforded time for
the union and march of the Roman forces. A fleet, which had
surprised Ancona, sailed along the coast of the Hadriatic, to the
relief of the besieged city. The eunuch Narses landed in Picenum
with two thousand Heruli and five thousand of the bravest troops
of the East. The rock of the Apennine was forced; ten thousand
veterans moved round the foot of the mountains, under the command
of Belisarius himself; and a new army, whose encampment blazed
with innumerable lights, appeared to advance along the Flaminian
way. Overwhelmed with astonishment and despair, the Goths
abandoned the siege of Rimini, their tents, their standards, and
their leaders; and Vitiges, who gave or followed the example of
flight, never halted till he found a shelter within the walls and
morasses of Ravenna. To these walls, and to some fortresses
destitute of any mutual support, the Gothic monarchy was now
reduced. The provinces of Italy had embraced the party of the
emperor and his army, gradually recruited to the number of twenty
thousand men, must have achieved an easy and rapid conquest, if
their invincible powers had not been weakened by the discord of
the Roman chiefs. Before the end of the siege, an act of blood,
ambiguous and indiscreet, sullied the fair fame of Belisarius.
Presidius, a loyal Italian, as he fled from Ravenna to Rome, was
rudely stopped by Constantine, the military governor of Spoleto,
and despoiled, even in a church, of two daggers richly inlaid
with gold and precious stones. As soon as the public danger had
subsided, Presidius complained of the loss and injury: his
complaint was heard, but the order of restitution was disobeyed
by the pride and avarice of the offender. Exasperated by the
delay, Presidius boldly arrested the general’s horse as he passed
through the forum; and, with the spirit of a citizen, demanded
the common benefit of the Roman laws. The honor of Belisarius was
engaged; he summoned a council; claimed the obedience of his
subordinate officer; and was provoked, by an insolent reply, to
call hastily for the presence of his guards. Constantine, viewing
their entrance as the signal of death, drew his sword, and rushed
on the general, who nimbly eluded the stroke, and was protected
by his friends; while the desperate assassin was disarmed,
dragged into a neighboring chamber, and executed, or rather
murdered, by the guards, at the arbitrary command of Belisarius.
95 In this hasty act of violence, the guilt of Constantine was no
longer remembered; the despair and death of that valiant officer
were secretly imputed to the revenge of Antonina; and each of his
colleagues, conscious of the same rapine, was apprehensive of the
same fate. The fear of a common enemy suspended the effects of
their envy and discontent; but in the confidence of approaching
victory, they instigated a powerful rival to oppose the conqueror
of Rome and Africa. From the domestic service of the palace, and
the administration of the private revenue, Narses the eunuch was
suddenly exalted to the head of an army; and the spirit of a
hero, who afterwards equalled the merit and glory of Belisarius,
served only to perplex the operations of the Gothic war. To his
prudent counsels, the relief of Rimini was ascribed by the
leaders of the discontented faction, who exhorted Narses to
assume an independent and separate command. The epistle of
Justinian had indeed enjoined his obedience to the general; but
the dangerous exception, “as far as may be advantageous to the
public service,” reserved some freedom of judgment to the
discreet favorite, who had so lately departed from the sacred and
familiar conversation of his sovereign. In the exercise of this
doubtful right, the eunuch perpetually dissented from the
opinions of Belisarius; and, after yielding with reluctance to
the siege of Urbino, he deserted his colleague in the night, and
marched away to the conquest of the Aemilian province. The fierce
and formidable bands of the Heruli were attached to the person of
Narses; 96 ten thousand Romans and confederates were persuaded to
march under his banners; every malcontent embraced the fair
opportunity of revenging his private or imaginary wrongs; and the
remaining troops of Belisarius were divided and dispersed from
the garrisons of Sicily to the shores of the Hadriatic. His skill
and perseverance overcame every obstacle: Urbino was taken, the
sieges of Faesulae Orvieto, and Auximum, were undertaken and
vigorously prosecuted; and the eunuch Narses was at length
recalled to the domestic cares of the palace. All dissensions
were healed, and all opposition was subdued, by the temperate
authority of the Roman general, to whom his enemies could not
refuse their esteem; and Belisarius inculcated the salutary
lesson that the forces of the state should compose one body, and
be animated by one soul. But in the interval of discord, the
Goths were permitted to breathe; an important season was lost,
Milan was destroyed, and the northern provinces of Italy were
afflicted by an inundation of the Franks.
95 (return) [ This transaction is related in the public history
(Goth. l. ii. c. 8) with candor or caution; in the Anecdotes (c.
7) with malevolence or freedom; but Marcellinus, or rather his
continuator, (in Chron.,) casts a shade of premeditated
assassination over the death of Constantine. He had performed
good service at Rome and Spoleto, (Procop. Goth l. i. c. 7, 14;)
but Alemannus confounds him with a Constantianus comes stabuli.]
96 (return) [ They refused to serve after his departure; sold
their captives and cattle to the Goths; and swore never to fight
against them. Procopius introduces a curious digression on the
manners and adventures of this wandering nation, a part of whom
finally emigrated to Thule or Scandinavia. (Goth. l. ii. c. 14,
15.)]
When Justinian first meditated the conquest of Italy, he sent
ambassadors to the kings of the Franks, and adjured them, by the
common ties of alliance and religion, to join in the holy
enterprise against the Arians. The Goths, as their wants were
more urgent, employed a more effectual mode of persuasion, and
vainly strove, by the gift of lands and money, to purchase the
friendship, or at least the neutrality, of a light and perfidious
nation.97 But the arms of Belisarius, and the revolt of the
Italians, had no sooner shaken the Gothic monarchy, than
Theodebert of Austrasia, the most powerful and warlike of the
Merovingian kings, was persuaded to succor their distress by an
indirect and seasonable aid. Without expecting the consent of
their sovereign, ten thousand Burgundians, his recent subjects,
descended from the Alps, and joined the troops which Vitiges had
sent to chastise the revolt of Milan. After an obstinate siege,
the capital of Liguria was reduced by famine; but no capitulation
could be obtained, except for the safe retreat of the Roman
garrison. Datius, the orthodox bishop, who had seduced his
countrymen to rebellion 98 and ruin, escaped to the luxury and
honors of the Byzantine court; 99 but the clergy, perhaps the
Arian clergy, were slaughtered at the foot of their own altars by
the defenders of the Catholic faith. Three hundred thousand males
were reported to be slain; 100 the female sex, and the more
precious spoil, was resigned to the Burgundians; and the houses,
or at least the walls, of Milan, were levelled with the ground.
The Goths, in their last moments, were revenged by the
destruction of a city, second only to Rome in size and opulence,
in the splendor of its buildings, or the number of its
inhabitants; and Belisarius sympathized alone in the fate of his
deserted and devoted friends. Encouraged by this successful
inroad, Theodebert himself, in the ensuing spring, invaded the
plains of Italy with an army of one hundred thousand Barbarians.
101 The king, and some chosen followers, were mounted on
horseback, and armed with lances; the infantry, without bows or
spears, were satisfied with a shield, a sword, and a double-edged
battle-axe, which, in their hands, became a deadly and unerring
weapon. Italy trembled at the march of the Franks; and both the
Gothic prince and the Roman general, alike ignorant of their
designs, solicited, with hope and terror, the friendship of these
dangerous allies. Till he had secured the passage of the Po on
the bridge of Pavia, the grandson of Clovis dissembled his
intentions, which he at length declared, by assaulting, almost at
the same instant, the hostile camps of the Romans and Goths.
Instead of uniting their arms, they fled with equal
precipitation; and the fertile, though desolate provinces of
Liguria and Aemilia, were abandoned to a licentious host of
Barbarians, whose rage was not mitigated by any thoughts of
settlement or conquest. Among the cities which they ruined,
Genoa, not yet constructed of marble, is particularly enumerated;
and the deaths of thousands, according to the regular practice of
war, appear to have excited less horror than some idolatrous
sacrifices of women and children, which were performed with
impunity in the camp of the most Christian king. If it were not a
melancholy truth, that the first and most cruel sufferings must
be the lot of the innocent and helpless, history might exult in
the misery of the conquerors, who, in the midst of riches, were
left destitute of bread or wine, reduced to drink the waters of
the Po, and to feed on the flesh of distempered cattle. The
dysentery swept away one third of their army; and the clamors of
his subjects, who were impatient to pass the Alps, disposed
Theodebert to listen with respect to the mild exhortations of
Belisarius. The memory of this inglorious and destructive warfare
was perpetuated on the medals of Gaul; and Justinian, without
unsheathing his sword, assumed the title of conqueror of the
Franks. The Merovingian prince was offended by the vanity of the
emperor; he affected to pity the fallen fortunes of the Goths;
and his insidious offer of a federal union was fortified by the
promise or menace of descending from the Alps at the head of five
hundred thousand men. His plans of conquest were boundless, and
perhaps chimerical. The king of Austrasia threatened to chastise
Justinian, and to march to the gates of Constantinople: 102 he
was overthrown and slain 103 by a wild bull, 104 as he hunted in
the Belgic or German forests.
97 (return) [ This national reproach of perfidy (Procop. Goth. l.
ii. c. 25) offends the ear of La Mothe le Vayer, (tom. viii. p.
163—165,) who criticizes, as if he had not read, the Greek
historian.]
98 (return) [ Baronius applauds his treason, and justifies the
Catholic bishops—qui ne sub heretico principe degant omnem
lapidem movent—a useful caution. The more rational Muratori
(Annali d’Italia, tom. v. p. 54) hints at the guilt of perjury,
and blames at least the imprudence of Datius.]
99 (return) [ St. Datius was more successful against devils than
against Barbarians. He travelled with a numerons retinue, and
occupied at Corinth a large house. (Baronius, A.D. 538, No. 89,
A.D. 539, No. 20.)]
100 (return) [ (Compare Procopius, Goth. l. ii. c. 7, 21.) Yet
such population is incredible; and the second or third city of
Italy need not repine if we only decimate the numbers of the
present text Both Milan and Genoa revived in less than thirty
years, (Paul Diacon de Gestis Langobard. l. ii. c. 38.) Note:
Procopius says distinctly that Milan was the second city of the
West. Which did Gibbon suppose could compete with it, Ravenna or
Naples; the next page he calls it the second.—M.]
101 (return) [ Besides Procopius, perhaps too Roman, see the
Chronicles of Marius and Marcellinus, Jornandes, (in Success.
Regn. in Muratori, tom. i. p. 241,) and Gregory of Tours, (l.
iii. c. 32, in tom. ii. of the Historians of France.) Gregory
supposes a defeat of Belisarius, who, in Aimoin, (de Gestis
Franc. l. ii. c. 23, in tom. iii. p. 59,) is slain by the
Franks.]
102 (return) [ Agathias, l. i. p. 14, 15. Could he have seduced
or subdued the Gepidae or Lombards of Pannonia, the Greek
historian is confident that he must have been destroyed in
Thrace.]
103 (return) [ The king pointed his spear—the bull overturned a
tree on his head—he expired the same day. Such is the story of
Agathias; but the original historians of France (tom. ii. p. 202,
403, 558, 667) impute his death to a fever.]
104 (return) [ Without losing myself in a labyrinth of species
and names—the aurochs, urus, bisons, bubalus, bonasus, buffalo,
&c., (Buffon. Hist. Nat. tom. xi., and Supplement, tom. iii.
vi.,) it is certain, that in the sixth century a large wild
species of horned cattle was hunted in the great forests of the
Vosges in Lorraine, and the Ardennes, (Greg. Turon. tom. ii. l.
x. c. 10, p. 369.)]
Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Character Of Balisarius.—Part V.
As soon as Belisarius was delivered from his foreign and domestic
enemies, he seriously applied his forces to the final reduction
of Italy. In the siege of Osimo, the general was nearly
transpierced with an arrow, if the mortal stroke had not been
intercepted by one of his guards, who lost, in that pious office,
the use of his hand. The Goths of Osimo, 1041 four thousand
warriors, with those of Faesulae and the Cottian Alps, were among
the last who maintained their independence; and their gallant
resistance, which almost tired the patience, deserved the esteem,
of the conqueror. His prudence refused to subscribe the safe
conduct which they asked, to join their brethren of Ravenna; but
they saved, by an honorable capitulation, one moiety at least of
their wealth, with the free alternative of retiring peaceably to
their estates, or enlisting to serve the emperor in his Persian
wars. The multitudes which yet adhered to the standard of Vitiges
far surpassed the number of the Roman troops; but neither prayers
nor defiance, nor the extreme danger of his most faithful
subjects, could tempt the Gothic king beyond the fortifications
of Ravenna. These fortifications were, indeed, impregnable to the
assaults of art or violence; and when Belisarius invested the
capital, he was soon convinced that famine only could tame the
stubborn spirit of the Barbarians. The sea, the land, and the
channels of the Po, were guarded by the vigilance of the Roman
general; and his morality extended the rights of war to the
practice of poisoning the waters, 105 and secretly firing the
granaries 106 of a besieged city. 107 While he pressed the
blockade of Ravenna, he was surprised by the arrival of two
ambassadors from Constantinople, with a treaty of peace, which
Justinian had imprudently signed, without deigning to consult the
author of his victory. By this disgraceful and precarious
agreement, Italy and the Gothic treasure were divided, and the
provinces beyond the Po were left with the regal title to the
successor of Theodoric. The ambassadors were eager to accomplish
their salutary commission; the captive Vitiges accepted, with
transport, the unexpected offer of a crown; honor was less
prevalent among the Goths, than the want and appetite of food;
and the Roman chiefs, who murmured at the continuance of the war,
professed implicit submission to the commands of the emperor. If
Belisarius had possessed only the courage of a soldier, the
laurel would have been snatched from his hand by timid and
envious counsels; but in this decisive moment, he resolved, with
the magnanimity of a statesman, to sustain alone the danger and
merit of generous disobedience. Each of his officers gave a
written opinion that the siege of Ravenna was impracticable and
hopeless: the general then rejected the treaty of partition, and
declared his own resolution of leading Vitiges in chains to the
feet of Justinian. The Goths retired with doubt and dismay: this
peremptory refusal deprived them of the only signature which they
could trust, and filled their minds with a just apprehension,
that a sagacious enemy had discovered the full extent of their
deplorable state. They compared the fame and fortune of
Belisarius with the weakness of their ill-fated king; and the
comparison suggested an extraordinary project, to which Vitiges,
with apparent resignation, was compelled to acquiesce. Partition
would ruin the strength, exile would disgrace the honor, of the
nation; but they offered their arms, their treasures, and the
fortifications of Ravenna, if Belisarius would disclaim the
authority of a master, accept the choice of the Goths, and
assume, as he had deserved, the kingdom of Italy. If the false
lustre of a diadem could have tempted the loyalty of a faithful
subject, his prudence must have foreseen the inconstancy of the
Barbarians, and his rational ambition would prefer the safe and
honorable station of a Roman general. Even the patience and
seeming satisfaction with which he entertained a proposal of
treason, might be susceptible of a malignant interpretation. But
the lieutenant of Justinian was conscious of his own rectitude;
he entered into a dark and crooked path, as it might lead to the
voluntary submission of the Goths; and his dexterous policy
persuaded them that he was disposed to comply with their wishes,
without engaging an oath or a promise for the performance of a
treaty which he secretly abhorred. The day of the surrender of
Ravenna was stipulated by the Gothic ambassadors: a fleet, laden
with provisions, sailed as a welcome guest into the deepest
recess of the harbor: the gates were opened to the fancied king
of Italy; and Belisarius, without meeting an enemy, triumphantly
marched through the streets of an impregnable city. 108 The
Romans were astonished by their success; the multitudes of tall
and robust Barbarians were confounded by the image of their own
patience and the masculine females, spitting in the faces of
their sons and husbands, most bitterly reproached them for
betraying their dominion and freedom to these pygmies of the
south, contemptible in their numbers, diminutive in their
stature. Before the Goths could recover from the first surprise,
and claim the accomplishment of their doubtful hopes, the victor
established his power in Ravenna, beyond the danger of repentance
and revolt.
1041 (return) [ Auximum, p. 175.—M.]
105 (return) [ In the siege of Auximum, he first labored to
demolish an old aqueduct, and then cast into the stream, 1. dead
bodies; 2. mischievous herbs; and 3. quicklime. (says Procopius,
l. ii. c. 27) Yet both words are used as synonymous in Galen,
Dioscorides, and Lucian, (Hen. Steph. Thesaur. Ling. Graec. tom.
iii. p. 748.)]
106 (return) [ The Goths suspected Mathasuintha as an accomplice
in the mischief, which perhaps was occasioned by accidental
lightning.]
107 (return) [ In strict philosophy, a limitation of the rights
of war seems to imply nonsense and contradiction. Grotius himself
is lost in an idle distinction between the jus naturae and the
jus gentium, between poison and infection. He balances in one
scale the passages of Homer (Odyss. A 259, &c.) and Florus, (l.
ii. c. 20, No. 7, ult.;) and in the other, the examples of Solon
(Pausanias, l. x. c. 37) and Belisarius. See his great work De
Jure Belli et Pacis, (l. iii. c. 4, s. 15, 16, 17, and in
Barbeyrac’s version, tom. ii. p. 257, &c.) Yet I can understand
the benefit and validity of an agreement, tacit or express,
mutually to abstain from certain modes of hostility. See the
Amphictyonic oath in Aeschines, de falsa Legatione.]
108 (return) [ Ravenna was taken, not in the year 540, but in the
latter end of 539; and Pagi (tom. ii. p. 569) is rectified by
Muratori. (Annali d’Italia, tom. v. p. 62,) who proves from an
original act on papyrus, (Antiquit. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. ii.
dissert. xxxii. p. 999—1007,) Maffei, (Istoria Diplomat. p.
155-160,) that before the third of January, 540, peace and free
correspondence were restored between Ravenna and Faenza.]
Vitiges, who perhaps had attempted to escape, was honorably
guarded in his palace; 109 the flower of the Gothic youth was
selected for the service of the emperor; the remainder of the
people was dismissed to their peaceful habitations in the
southern provinces; and a colony of Italians was invited to
replenish the depopulated city. The submission of the capital was
imitated in the towns and villages of Italy, which had not been
subdued, or even visited, by the Romans; and the independent
Goths, who remained in arms at Pavia and Verona, were ambitious
only to become the subjects of Belisarius. But his inflexible
loyalty rejected, except as the substitute of Justinian, their
oaths of allegiance; and he was not offended by the reproach of
their deputies, that he rather chose to be a slave than a king.
109 (return) [ He was seized by John the Sanguinary, but an oath
or sacrament was pledged for his safety in the Basilica Julii,
(Hist. Miscell. l. xvii. in Muratori, tom. i. p. 107.) Anastasius
(in Vit. Pont. p. 40) gives a dark but probable account.
Montfaucon is quoted by Mascou (Hist. of the Germans, xii. 21)
for a votive shield representing the captivity of Vitiges and now
in the collection of Signor Landi at Rome.]
After the second victory of Belisarius, envy again whispered,
Justinian listened, and the hero was recalled. “The remnant of
the Gothic war was no longer worthy of his presence: a gracious
sovereign was impatient to reward his services, and to consult
his wisdom; and he alone was capable of defending the East
against the innumerable armies of Persia.” Belisarius understood
the suspicion, accepted the excuse, embarked at Ravenna his
spoils and trophies; and proved, by his ready obedience, that
such an abrupt removal from the government of Italy was not less
unjust than it might have been indiscreet. The emperor received
with honorable courtesy both Vitiges and his more noble consort;
and as the king of the Goths conformed to the Athanasian faith,
he obtained, with a rich inheritance of land in Asia, the rank of
senator and patrician.110 Every spectator admired, without peril,
the strength and stature of the young Barbarians: they adored the
majesty of the throne, and promised to shed their blood in the
service of their benefactor. Justinian deposited in the Byzantine
palace the treasures of the Gothic monarchy. A flattering senate
was sometime admitted to gaze on the magnificent spectacle; but
it was enviously secluded from the public view: and the conqueror
of Italy renounced, without a murmur, perhaps without a sigh, the
well-earned honors of a second triumph. His glory was indeed
exalted above all external pomp; and the faint and hollow praises
of the court were supplied, even in a servile age, by the respect
and admiration of his country. Whenever he appeared in the
streets and public places of Constantinople, Belisarius attracted
and satisfied the eyes of the people. His lofty stature and
majestic countenance fulfilled their expectations of a hero; the
meanest of his fellow-citizens were emboldened by his gentle and
gracious demeanor; and the martial train which attended his
footsteps left his person more accessible than in a day of
battle. Seven thousand horsemen, matchless for beauty and valor,
were maintained in the service, and at the private expense, of
the general. 111 Their prowess was always conspicuous in single
combats, or in the foremost ranks; and both parties confessed
that in the siege of Rome, the guards of Belisarius had alone
vanquished the Barbarian host. Their numbers were continually
augmented by the bravest and most faithful of the enemy; and his
fortunate captives, the Vandals, the Moors, and the Goths,
emulated the attachment of his domestic followers. By the union
of liberality and justice, he acquired the love of the soldiers,
without alienating the affections of the people. The sick and
wounded were relieved with medicines and money; and still more
efficaciously, by the healing visits and smiles of their
commander. The loss of a weapon or a horse was instantly
repaired, and each deed of valor was rewarded by the rich and
honorable gifts of a bracelet or a collar, which were rendered
more precious by the judgment of Belisarius. He was endeared to
the husbandmen by the peace and plenty which they enjoyed under
the shadow of his standard. Instead of being injured, the country
was enriched by the march of the Roman armies; and such was the
rigid discipline of their camp, that not an apple was gathered
from the tree, not a path could be traced in the fields of corn.
Belisarius was chaste and sober. In the license of a military
life, none could boast that they had seen him intoxicated with
wine: the most beautiful captives of Gothic or Vandal race were
offered to his embraces; but he turned aside from their charms,
and the husband of Antonina was never suspected of violating the
laws of conjugal fidelity. The spectator and historian of his
exploits has observed, that amidst the perils of war, he was
daring without rashness, prudent without fear, slow or rapid
according to the exigencies of the moment; that in the deepest
distress he was animated by real or apparent hope, but that he
was modest and humble in the most prosperous fortune. By these
virtues, he equalled or excelled the ancient masters of the
military art. Victory, by sea and land, attended his arms. He
subdued Africa, Italy, and the adjacent islands; led away
captives the successors of Genseric and Theodoric; filled
Constantinople with the spoils of their palaces; and in the space
of six years recovered half the provinces of the Western empire.
In his fame and merit, in wealth and power, he remained without a
rival, the first of the Roman subjects; the voice of envy could
only magnify his dangerous importance; and the emperor might
applaud his own discerning spirit, which had discovered and
raised the genius of Belisarius.
110 (return) [ Vitiges lived two years at Constantinople, and
imperatoris in affectû _convictus_ (or conjunctus) rebus excessit
humanis. His widow _Mathasuenta_, the wife and mother of the
patricians, the elder and younger Germanus, united the streams of
Anician and Amali blood, (Jornandes, c. 60, p. 221, in Muratori,
tom. i.)]
111 (return) [ Procopius, Goth. l. iii. c. 1. Aimoin, a French
monk of the xith century, who had obtained, and has disfigured,
some authentic information of Belisarius, mentions, in his name,
12,000, _pueri_ or slaves—quos propriis alimus stipendiis—besides
18,000 soldiers, (Historians of France, tom. iii. De Gestis
Franc. l. ii. c. 6, p. 48.)]
It was the custom of the Roman triumphs, that a slave should be
placed behind the chariot to remind the conqueror of the
instability of fortune, and the infirmities of human nature.
Procopius, in his Anecdotes, has assumed that servile and
ungrateful office. The generous reader may cast away the libel,
but the evidence of facts will adhere to his memory; and he will
reluctantly confess, that the fame, and even the virtue, of
Belisarius, were polluted by the lust and cruelty of his wife;
and that hero deserved an appellation which may not drop from the
pen of the decent historian. The mother of Antonina 112 was a
theatrical prostitute, and both her father and grandfather
exercised, at Thessalonica and Constantinople, the vile, though
lucrative, profession of charioteers. In the various situations
of their fortune she became the companion, the enemy, the
servant, and the favorite of the empress Theodora: these loose
and ambitious females had been connected by similar pleasures;
they were separated by the jealousy of vice, and at length
reconciled by the partnership of guilt. Before her marriage with
Belisarius, Antonina had one husband and many lovers: Photius,
the son of her former nuptials, was of an age to distinguish
himself at the siege of Naples; and it was not till the autumn of
her age and beauty 113 that she indulged a scandalous attachment
to a Thracian youth. Theodosius had been educated in the Eunomian
heresy; the African voyage was consecrated by the baptism and
auspicious name of the first soldier who embarked; and the
proselyte was adopted into the family of his spiritual parents,
114 Belisarius and Antonina. Before they touched the shores of
Africa, this holy kindred degenerated into sensual love: and as
Antonina soon overleaped the bounds of modesty and caution, the
Roman general was alone ignorant of his own dishonor. During
their residence at Carthage, he surprised the two lovers in a
subterraneous chamber, solitary, warm, and almost naked. Anger
flashed from his eyes. “With the help of this young man,” said
the unblushing Antonina, “I was secreting our most precious
effects from the knowledge of Justinian.” The youth resumed his
garments, and the pious husband consented to disbelieve the
evidence of his own senses. From this pleasing and perhaps
voluntary delusion, Belisarius was awakened at Syracuse, by the
officious information of Macedonia; and that female attendant,
after requiring an oath for her security, produced two
chamberlains, who, like herself, had often beheld the adulteries
of Antonina. A hasty flight into Asia saved Theodosius from the
justice of an injured husband, who had signified to one of his
guards the order of his death; but the tears of Antonina, and her
artful seductions, assured the credulous hero of her innocence:
and he stooped, against his faith and judgment, to abandon those
imprudent friends, who had presumed to accuse or doubt the
chastity of his wife. The revenge of a guilty woman is implacable
and bloody: the unfortunate Macedonia, with the two witnesses,
were secretly arrested by the minister of her cruelty; their
tongues were cut out, their bodies were hacked into small pieces,
and their remains were cast into the Sea of Syracuse. A rash
though judicious saying of Constantine, “I would sooner have
punished the adulteress than the boy,” was deeply remembered by
Antonina; and two years afterwards, when despair had armed that
officer against his general, her sanguinary advice decided and
hastened his execution. Even the indignation of Photius was not
forgiven by his mother; the exile of her son prepared the recall
of her lover; and Theodosius condescended to accept the pressing
and humble invitation of the conqueror of Italy. In the absolute
direction of his household, and in the important commissions of
peace and war, 115 the favorite youth most rapidly acquired a
fortune of four hundred thousand pounds sterling; and after their
return to Constantinople, the passion of Antonina, at least,
continued ardent and unabated. But fear, devotion, and lassitude
perhaps, inspired Theodosius with more serious thoughts. He
dreaded the busy scandal of the capital, and the indiscreet
fondness of the wife of Belisarius; escaped from her embraces,
and retiring to Ephesus, shaved his head, and took refuge in the
sanctuary of a monastic life. The despair of the new Ariadne
could scarcely have been excused by the death of her husband. She
wept, she tore her hair, she filled the palace with her cries;
“she had lost the dearest of friends, a tender, a faithful, a
laborious friend!” But her warm entreaties, fortified by the
prayers of Belisarius, were insufficient to draw the holy monk
from the solitude of Ephesus. It was not till the general moved
forward for the Persian war, that Theodosius could be tempted to
return to Constantinople; and the short interval before the
departure of Antonina herself was boldly devoted to love and
pleasure.
112 (return) [The diligence of Alemannus could add but little to
the four first and most curious chapters of the Anecdotes. Of
these strange Anecdotes, a part may be true, because probable—and
a part true, because improbable. Procopius must have known the
former, and the latter he could scarcely invent. Note: The malice
of court scandal is proverbially inventive; and of such scandal
the “Anecdota” may be an embellished record.—M.]
113 (return) [ Procopius intimates (Anecdot. c. 4) that when
Belisarius returned to Italy, (A.D. 543,) Antonina was sixty
years of age. A forced, but more polite construction, which
refers that date to the moment when he was writing, (A.D. 559,)
would be compatible with the manhood of Photius, (Gothic. l. i.
c. 10) in 536.]
114 (return) [ Gompare the Vandalic War (l. i. c. 12) with the
Anecdotes (c. i.) and Alemannus, (p. 2, 3.) This mode of
baptismal adoption was revived by Leo the philosopher.]
115 (return) [ In November, 537, Photius arrested the pope,
(Liberat. Brev. c. 22. Pagi, tom. ii. p. 562) About the end of
539, Belisarius sent Theodosius on an important and lucrative
commission to Ravenna, (Goth. l. ii. c. 18.)]
A philosopher may pity and forgive the infirmities of female
nature, from which he receives no real injury: but contemptible
is the husband who feels, and yet endures, his own infamy in that
of his wife. Antonina pursued her son with implacable hatred; and
the gallant Photius 116 was exposed to her secret persecutions in
the camp beyond the Tigris. Enraged by his own wrongs, and by the
dishonor of his blood, he cast away in his turn the sentiments of
nature, and revealed to Belisarius the turpitude of a woman who
had violated all the duties of a mother and a wife. From the
surprise and indignation of the Roman general, his former
credulity appears to have been sincere: he embraced the knees of
the son of Antonina, adjured him to remember his obligations
rather than his birth, and confirmed at the altar their holy vows
of revenge and mutual defence. The dominion of Antonina was
impaired by absence; and when she met her husband, on his return
from the Persian confines, Belisarius, in his first and transient
emotions, confined her person, and threatened her life. Photius
was more resolved to punish, and less prompt to pardon: he flew
to Ephesus; extorted from a trusty eunuch of his mother the full
confession of her guilt; arrested Theodosius and his treasures in
the church of St. John the Apostle, and concealed his captives,
whose execution was only delayed, in a secure and sequestered
fortress of Cilicia. Such a daring outrage against public justice
could not pass with impunity; and the cause of Antonina was
espoused by the empress, whose favor she had deserved by the
recent services of the disgrace of a præfect, and the exile and
murder of a pope. At the end of the campaign, Belisarius was
recalled; he complied, as usual, with the Imperial mandate. His
mind was not prepared for rebellion: his obedience, however
adverse to the dictates of honor, was consonant to the wishes of
his heart; and when he embraced his wife, at the command, and
perhaps in the presence, of the empress, the tender husband was
disposed to forgive or to be forgiven. The bounty of Theodora
reserved for her companion a more precious favor. “I have found,”
she said, “my dearest patrician, a pearl of inestimable value; it
has not yet been viewed by any mortal eye; but the sight and the
possession of this jewel are destined for my friend.” 1161 As
soon as the curiosity and impatience of Antonina were kindled,
the door of a bed-chamber was thrown open, and she beheld her
lover, whom the diligence of the eunuchs had discovered in his
secret prison. Her silent wonder burst into passionate
exclamations of gratitude and joy, and she named Theodora her
queen, her benefactress, and her savior. The monk of Ephesus was
nourished in the palace with luxury and ambition; but instead of
assuming, as he was promised, the command of the Roman armies,
Theodosius expired in the first fatigues of an amorous interview.
1162 The grief of Antonina could only be assuaged by the
sufferings of her son. A youth of consular rank, and a sickly
constitution, was punished, without a trial, like a malefactor
and a slave: yet such was the constancy of his mind, that Photius
sustained the tortures of the scourge and the rack, 1163 without
violating the faith which he had sworn to Belisarius. After this
fruitless cruelty, the son of Antonina, while his mother feasted
with the empress, was buried in her subterraneous prisons, which
admitted not the distinction of night and day. He twice escaped
to the most venerable sanctuaries of Constantinople, the churches
of St. Sophia, and of the Virgin: but his tyrants were insensible
of religion as of pity; and the helpless youth, amidst the
clamors of the clergy and people, was twice dragged from the
altar to the dungeon. His third attempt was more successful. At
the end of three years, the prophet Zachariah, or some mortal
friend, indicated the means of an escape: he eluded the spies and
guards of the empress, reached the holy sepulchre of Jerusalem,
embraced the profession of a monk; and the abbot Photius was
employed, after the death of Justinian, to reconcile and regulate
the churches of Egypt. The son of Antonina suffered all that an
enemy can inflict: her patient husband imposed on himself the
more exquisite misery of violating his promise and deserting his
friend.
116 (return) [ Theophanes (Chronograph. p. 204) styles him
Photinus, the son-in-law of Belisarius; and he is copied by the
Historia Miscella and Anastasius.]
1161 (return) [ This and much of the private scandal in the
“Anecdota” is liable to serious doubt. Who reported all these
private conversations, and how did they reach the ears of
Procopius?—M.]
1162 (return) [ This is a strange misrepresentation—he died of a
dysentery; nor does it appear that it was immediately after this
scene. Antonina proposed to raise him to the generalship of the
army. Procop. Anecd. p. 14. The sudden change from the abstemious
diet of a monk to the luxury of the court is a much more probable
cause of his death.—M.]
1163 (return) [ The expression of Procopius does not appear to me
to mean this kind of torture. Ibid.—M.]
In the succeeding campaign, Belisarius was again sent against the
Persians: he saved the East, but he offended Theodora, and
perhaps the emperor himself. The malady of Justinian had
countenanced the rumor of his death; and the Roman general, on
the supposition of that probable event spoke the free language of
a citizen and a soldier. His colleague Buzes, who concurred in
the same sentiments, lost his rank, his liberty, and his health,
by the persecution of the empress: but the disgrace of Belisarius
was alleviated by the dignity of his own character, and the
influence of his wife, who might wish to humble, but could not
desire to ruin, the partner of her fortunes. Even his removal was
colored by the assurance, that the sinking state of Italy would
be retrieved by the single presence of its conqueror.
But no sooner had he returned, alone and defenceless, than a
hostile commission was sent to the East, to seize his treasures
and criminate his actions; the guards and veterans, who followed
his private banner, were distributed among the chiefs of the
army, and even the eunuchs presumed to cast lots for the
partition of his martial domestics. When he passed with a small
and sordid retinue through the streets of Constantinople, his
forlorn appearance excited the amazement and compassion of the
people. Justinian and Theodora received him with cold
ingratitude; the servile crowd, with insolence and contempt; and
in the evening he retired with trembling steps to his deserted
palace. An indisposition, feigned or real, had confined Antonina
to her apartment; and she walked disdainfully silent in the
adjacent portico, while Belisarius threw himself on his bed, and
expected, in an agony of grief and terror, the death which he had
so often braved under the walls of Rome. Long after sunset a
messenger was announced from the empress: he opened, with anxious
curiosity, the letter which contained the sentence of his fate.
“You cannot be ignorant how much you have deserved my
displeasure. I am not insensible of the services of Antonina. To
her merits and intercession I have granted your life, and permit
you to retain a part of your treasures, which might be justly
forfeited to the state. Let your gratitude, where it is due, be
displayed, not in words, but in your future behavior.” I know not
how to believe or to relate the transports with which the hero is
said to have received this ignominious pardon. He fell prostrate
before his wife, he kissed the feet of his savior, and he
devoutly promised to live the grateful and submissive slave of
Antonina. A fine of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds
sterling was levied on the fortunes of Belisarius; and with the
office of count, or master of the royal stables, he accepted the
conduct of the Italian war. At his departure from Constantinople,
his friends, and even the public, were persuaded that as soon as
he regained his freedom, he would renounce his dissimulation, and
that his wife, Theodora, and perhaps the emperor himself, would
be sacrificed to the just revenge of a virtuous rebel. Their
hopes were deceived; and the unconquerable patience and loyalty
of Belisarius appear either below or above the character of a
man. 117
117 (return) [ The continuator of the Chronicle of Marcellinus
gives, in a few decent words, the substance of the Anecdotes:
Belisarius de Oriente evocatus, in offensam periculumque
incurrens grave, et invidiae subeacens rursus remittitur in
Italiam, (p. 54.)]
Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part I.
State Of The Barbaric World.—Establishment Of The Lombards On the
Danube.—Tribes And Inroads Of The Sclavonians.—Origin, Empire, And
Embassies Of The Turks.—The Flight Of The Avars.—Chosroes I, Or
Nushirvan, King Of Persia.—His Prosperous Reign And Wars With The
Romans.—The Colchian Or Lazic War.—The Æthiopians.
Our estimate of personal merit, is relative to the common
faculties of mankind. The aspiring efforts of genius, or virtue,
either in active or speculative life, are measured, not so much
by their real elevation, as by the height to which they ascend
above the level of their age and country; and the same stature,
which in a people of giants would pass unnoticed, must appear
conspicuous in a race of pygmies. Leonidas, and his three hundred
companions, devoted their lives at Thermopylae; but the education
of the infant, the boy, and the man, had prepared, and almost
insured, this memorable sacrifice; and each Spartan would
approve, rather than admire, an act of duty, of which himself and
eight thousand of his fellow-citizens were equally capable. 1 The
great Pompey might inscribe on his trophies, that he had defeated
in battle two millions of enemies, and reduced fifteen hundred
cities from the Lake Maeotis to the Red Sea: 2 but the fortune of
Rome flew before his eagles; the nations were oppressed by their
own fears, and the invincible legions which he commanded, had
been formed by the habits of conquest and the discipline of ages.
In this view, the character of Belisarius may be deservedly
placed above the heroes of the ancient republics. His
imperfections flowed from the contagion of the times; his virtues
were his own, the free gift of nature or reflection; he raised
himself without a master or a rival; and so inadequate were the
arms committed to his hand, that his sole advantage was derived
from the pride and presumption of his adversaries. Under his
command, the subjects of Justinian often deserved to be called
Romans: but the unwarlike appellation of Greeks was imposed as a
term of reproach by the haughty Goths; who affected to blush,
that they must dispute the kingdom of Italy with a nation of
tragedians, pantomimes, and pirates. 3 The climate of Asia has
indeed been found less congenial than that of Europe to military
spirit: those populous countries were enervated by luxury,
despotism, and superstition; and the monks were more expensive
and more numerous than the soldiers of the East. The regular
force of the empire had once amounted to six hundred and
forty-five thousand men: it was reduced, in the time of
Justinian, to one hundred and fifty thousand; and this number,
large as it may seem, was thinly scattered over the sea and land;
in Spain and Italy, in Africa and Egypt, on the banks of the
Danube, the coast of the Euxine, and the frontiers of Persia. The
citizen was exhausted, yet the soldier was unpaid; his poverty
was mischievously soothed by the privilege of rapine and
indolence; and the tardy payments were detained and intercepted
by the fraud of those agents who usurp, without courage or
danger, the emoluments of war. Public and private distress
recruited the armies of the state; but in the field, and still
more in the presence of the enemy, their numbers were always
defective. The want of national spirit was supplied by the
precarious faith and disorderly service of Barbarian mercenaries.
Even military honor, which has often survived the loss of virtue
and freedom, was almost totally extinct. The generals, who were
multiplied beyond the example of former times, labored only to
prevent the success, or to sully the reputation of their
colleagues; and they had been taught by experience, that if merit
sometimes provoked the jealousy, error, or even guilt, would
obtain the indulgence, of a gracious emperor. 4 In such an age,
the triumphs of Belisarius, and afterwards of Narses, shine with
incomparable lustre; but they are encompassed with the darkest
shades of disgrace and calamity. While the lieutenant of
Justinian subdued the kingdoms of the Goths and Vandals, the
emperor, 5 timid, though ambitious, balanced the forces of the
Barbarians, fomented their divisions by flattery and falsehood,
and invited by his patience and liberality the repetition of
injuries. 6 The keys of Carthage, Rome, and Ravenna, were
presented to their conqueror, while Antioch was destroyed by the
Persians, and Justinian trembled for the safety of
Constantinople.
1 (return) [ It will be a pleasure, not a task, to read
Herodotus, (l. vii. c. 104, 134, p. 550, 615.) The conversation
of Xerxes and Demaratus at Thermopylae is one of the most
interesting and moral scenes in history. It was the torture of
the royal Spartan to behold, with anguish and remorse, the virtue
of his country.]
2 (return) [ See this proud inscription in Pliny, (Hist. Natur.
vii. 27.) Few men have more exquisitely tasted of glory and
disgrace; nor could Juvenal (Satir. x.) produce a more striking
example of the vicissitudes of fortune, and the vanity of human
wishes.]
3 (return) [ This last epithet of Procopius is too nobly
translated by pirates; naval thieves is the proper word;
strippers of garments, either for injury or insult, (Demosthenes
contra Conon Reiske, Orator, Graec. tom. ii. p. 1264.)]
4 (return) [ See the third and fourth books of the Gothic War:
the writer of the Anecdotes cannot aggravate these abuses.]
5 (return) [ Agathias, l. v. p. 157, 158. He confines this
weakness of the emperor and the empire to the old age of
Justinian; but alas! he was never young.]
6 (return) [ This mischievous policy, which Procopius (Anecdot.
c. 19) imputes to the emperor, is revealed in his epistle to a
Scythian prince, who was capable of understanding it.]
Even the Gothic victories of Belisarius were prejudicial to the
state, since they abolished the important barrier of the Upper
Danube, which had been so faithfully guarded by Theodoric and his
daughter. For the defence of Italy, the Goths evacuated Pannonia
and Noricum, which they left in a peaceful and flourishing
condition: the sovereignty was claimed by the emperor of the
Romans; the actual possession was abandoned to the boldness of
the first invader. On the opposite banks of the Danube, the
plains of Upper Hungary and the Transylvanian hills were
possessed, since the death of Attila, by the tribes of the
Gepidae, who respected the Gothic arms, and despised, not indeed
the gold of the Romans, but the secret motive of their annual
subsidies. The vacant fortifications of the river were instantly
occupied by these Barbarians; their standards were planted on the
walls of Sirmium and Belgrade; and the ironical tone of their
apology aggravated this insult on the majesty of the empire. “So
extensive, O Caesar, are your dominions, so numerous are your
cities, that you are continually seeking for nations to whom,
either in peace or in war, you may relinquish these useless
possessions. The Gepidae are your brave and faithful allies; and
if they have anticipated your gifts, they have shown a just
confidence in your bounty.” Their presumption was excused by the
mode of revenge which Justinian embraced. Instead of asserting
the rights of a sovereign for the protection of his subjects, the
emperor invited a strange people to invade and possess the Roman
provinces between the Danube and the Alps and the ambition of the
Gepidae was checked by the rising power and fame of the Lombards.
7 This corrupt appellation has been diffused in the thirteenth
century by the merchants and bankers, the Italian posterity of
these savage warriors: but the original name of Langobards is
expressive only of the peculiar length and fashion of their
beards. I am not disposed either to question or to justify their
Scandinavian origin; 8 nor to pursue the migrations of the
Lombards through unknown regions and marvellous adventures. About
the time of Augustus and Trajan, a ray of historic light breaks
on the darkness of their antiquities, and they are discovered,
for the first time, between the Elbe and the Oder. Fierce, beyond
the example of the Germans, they delighted to propagate the
tremendous belief, that their heads were formed like the heads of
dogs, and that they drank the blood of their enemies, whom they
vanquished in battle. The smallness of their numbers was
recruited by the adoption of their bravest slaves; and alone,
amidst their powerful neighbors, they defended by arms their
high-spirited independence. In the tempests of the north, which
overwhelmed so many names and nations, this little bark of the
Lombards still floated on the surface: they gradually descended
towards the south and the Danube, and, at the end of four hundred
years, they again appear with their ancient valor and renown.
Their manners were not less ferocious. The assassination of a
royal guest was executed in the presence, and by the command, of
the king’s daughter, who had been provoked by some words of
insult, and disappointed by his diminutive stature; and a
tribute, the price of blood, was imposed on the Lombards, by his
brother the king of the Heruli. Adversity revived a sense of
moderation and justice, and the insolence of conquest was
chastised by the signal defeat and irreparable dispersion of the
Heruli, who were seated in the southern provinces of Poland. 9
The victories of the Lombards recommended them to the friendship
of the emperors; and at the solicitations of Justinian, they
passed the Danube, to reduce, according to their treaty, the
cities of Noricum and the fortresses of Pannonia. But the spirit
of rapine soon tempted them beyond these ample limits; they
wandered along the coast of the Hadriatic as far as Dyrrachium,
and presumed, with familiar rudeness to enter the towns and
houses of their Roman allies, and to seize the captives who had
escaped from their audacious hands. These acts of hostility, the
sallies, as it might be pretended, of some loose adventurers,
were disowned by the nation, and excused by the emperor; but the
arms of the Lombards were more seriously engaged by a contest of
thirty years, which was terminated only by the extirpation of the
Gepidae. The hostile nations often pleaded their cause before the
throne of Constantinople; and the crafty Justinian, to whom the
Barbarians were almost equally odious, pronounced a partial and
ambiguous sentence, and dexterously protracted the war by slow
and ineffectual succors. Their strength was formidable, since the
Lombards, who sent into the field several myriads of soldiers,
still claimed, as the weaker side, the protection of the Romans.
Their spirit was intrepid; yet such is the uncertainty of
courage, that the two armies were suddenly struck with a panic;
they fled from each other, and the rival kings remained with
their guards in the midst of an empty plain. A short truce was
obtained; but their mutual resentment again kindled; and the
remembrance of their shame rendered the next encounter more
desperate and bloody. Forty thousand of the Barbarians perished
in the decisive battle, which broke the power of the Gepidae,
transferred the fears and wishes of Justinian, and first
displayed the character of Alboin, the youthful prince of the
Lombards, and the future conqueror of Italy. 10
7 (return) [ Gens Germana feritate ferocior, says Velleius
Paterculus of the Lombards, (ii. 106.) Langobardos paucitas
nobilitat. Plurimis ac valentissimis nationibus cincti non per
obsequium, sed praeliis et perilitando, tuti sunt, (Tacit. de
Moribus German. c. 40.) See likewise Strabo, (l. viii. p. 446.)
The best geographers place them beyond the Elbe, in the bishopric
of Magdeburgh and the middle march of Brandenburgh; and their
situation will agree with the patriotic remark of the count de
Hertzberg, that most of the Barbarian conquerors issued from the
same countries which still produce the armies of Prussia. * Note:
See Malte Brun, vol. i. p 402.—M]
8 (return) [ The Scandinavian origin of the Goths and Lombards,
as stated by Paul Warnefrid, surnamed the deacon, is attacked by
Cluverius, (Germania, Antiq. l. iii. c. 26, p. 102, &c.,) a
native of Prussia, and defended by Grotius, (Prolegom. ad Hist.
Goth. p. 28, &c.,) the Swedish Ambassador.]
9 (return) [ Two facts in the narrative of Paul Diaconus (l. i.
c. 20) are expressive of national manners: 1. Dum ad tabulam
luderet—while he played at draughts. 2. Camporum viridantia lina.
The cultivation of flax supposes property, commerce, agriculture,
and manufactures]
10 (return) [ I have used, without undertaking to reconcile, the
facts in Procopius, (Goth. l. ii. c. 14, l. iii. c. 33, 34, l.
iv. c. 18, 25,) Paul Diaconus, (de Gestis Langobard, l. i. c.
1-23, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. i. p. 405-419,)
and Jornandes, (de Success. Regnorum, p. 242.) The patient reader
may draw some light from Mascou (Hist. of the Germans, and
Annotat. xxiii.) and De Buat, (Hist. des Peuples, &c., tom. ix.
x. xi.)]
The wild people who dwelt or wandered in the plains of Russia,
Lithuania, and Poland, might be reduced, in the age of Justinian,
under the two great families of the Bulgarians 11 and the
Sclavonians. According to the Greek writers, the former, who
touched the Euxine and the Lake Maeotis, derived from the Huns
their name or descent; and it is needless to renew the simple and
well-known picture of Tartar manners. They were bold and
dexterous archers, who drank the milk, and feasted on the flesh,
of their fleet and indefatigable horses; whose flocks and herds
followed, or rather guided, the motions of their roving camps; to
whose inroads no country was remote or impervious, and who were
practised in flight, though incapable of fear. The nation was
divided into two powerful and hostile tribes, who pursued each
other with fraternal hatred. They eagerly disputed the
friendship, or rather the gifts, of the emperor; and the
distinctions which nature had fixed between the faithful dog and
the rapacious wolf was applied by an ambassador who received only
verbal instructions from the mouth of his illiterate prince. 12
The Bulgarians, of whatsoever species, were equally attracted by
Roman wealth: they assumed a vague dominion over the Sclavonian
name, and their rapid marches could only be stopped by the Baltic
Sea, or the extreme cold and poverty of the north. But the same
race of Sclavonians appears to have maintained, in every age, the
possession of the same countries. Their numerous tribes, however
distant or adverse, used one common language (it was harsh and
irregular), and were known by the resemblance of their form,
which deviated from the swarthy Tartar, and approached without
attaining the lofty stature and fair complexion of the German.
Four thousand six hundred villages 13 were scattered over the
provinces of Russia and Poland, and their huts were hastily built
of rough timber, in a country deficient both in stone and iron.
Erected, or rather concealed, in the depth of forests, on the
banks of rivers, or the edges of morasses, we may not perhaps,
without flattery, compare them to the architecture of the beaver;
which they resembled in a double issue, to the land and water,
for the escape of the savage inhabitant, an animal less cleanly,
less diligent, and less social, than that marvellous quadruped.
The fertility of the soil, rather than the labor of the natives,
supplied the rustic plenty of the Sclavonians. Their sheep and
horned cattle were large and numerous, and the fields which they
sowed with millet or panic 14 afforded, in place of bread, a
coarse and less nutritive food. The incessant rapine of their
neighbors compelled them to bury this treasure in the earth; but
on the appearance of a stranger, it was freely imparted by a
people, whose unfavorable character is qualified by the epithets
of chaste, patient, and hospitable. As their supreme god, they
adored an invisible master of the thunder. The rivers and the
nymphs obtained their subordinate honors, and the popular worship
was expressed in vows and sacrifice. The Sclavonians disdained to
obey a despot, a prince, or even a magistrate; but their
experience was too narrow, their passions too headstrong, to
compose a system of equal law or general defence. Some voluntary
respect was yielded to age and valor; but each tribe or village
existed as a separate republic, and all must be persuaded where
none could be compelled. They fought on foot, almost naked, and
except an unwieldy shield, without any defensive armor; their
weapons of offence were a bow, a quiver of small poisoned arrows,
and a long rope, which they dexterously threw from a distance,
and entangled their enemy in a running noose. In the field, the
Sclavonian infantry was dangerous by their speed, agility, and
hardiness: they swam, they dived, they remained under water,
drawing their breath through a hollow cane; and a river or lake
was often the scene of their unsuspected ambuscade. But these
were the achievements of spies or stragglers; the military art
was unknown to the Sclavonians; their name was obscure, and their
conquests were inglorious. 15
11 (return) [ I adopt the appellation of Bulgarians from
Ennodius, (in Panegyr. Theodorici, Opp. Sirmond, tom. i. p. 1598,
1599,) Jornandes, (de Rebus Geticis, c. 5, p. 194, et de Regn.
Successione, p. 242,) Theophanes, (p. 185,) and the Chronicles of
Cassiodorus and Marcellinus. The name of Huns is too vague; the
tribes of the Cutturgurians and Utturgurians are too minute and
too harsh. * Note: The Bulgarians are first mentioned among the
writers of the West in the Panegyric on Theodoric by Ennodius,
Bishop of Pavia. Though they perhaps took part in the conquests
of the Huns, they did not advance to the Danube till after the
dismemberment of that monarchy on the death of Attila. But the
Bulgarians are mentioned much earlier by the Armenian writers.
Above 600 years before Christ, a tribe of Bulgarians, driven from
their native possessions beyond the Caspian, occupied a part of
Armenia, north of the Araxes. They were of the Finnish race; part
of the nation, in the fifth century, moved westward, and reached
the modern Bulgaria; part remained along the Volga, which is
called Etel, Etil, or Athil, in all the Tartar languages, but
from the Bulgarians, the Volga. The power of the eastern
Bulgarians was broken by Batou, son of Tchingiz Khan; that of the
western will appear in the course of the history. From St.
Martin, vol. vii p. 141. Malte-Brun, on the contrary, conceives
that the Bulgarians took their name from the river. According to
the Byzantine historians they were a branch of the Ougres,
(Thunmann, Hist. of the People to the East of Europe,) but they
have more resemblance to the Turks. Their first country, Great
Bulgaria, was washed by the Volga. Some remains of their capital
are still shown near Kasan. They afterwards dwelt in Kuban, and
finally on the Danube, where they subdued (about the year 500)
the Slavo-Servians established on the Lower Danube. Conquered in
their turn by the Avars, they freed themselves from that yoke in
635; their empire then comprised the Cutturgurians, the remains
of the Huns established on the Palus Maeotis. The Danubian
Bulgaria, a dismemberment of this vast state, was long formidable
to the Byzantine empire. Malte-Brun, Prec. de Geog Univ. vol. i.
p. 419.—M. ——According to Shafarik, the Danubian Bulgaria was
peopled by a Slavo Bulgarian race. The Slavish population was
conquered by the Bulgarian (of Uralian and Finnish descent,) and
incorporated with them. This mingled race are the Bulgarians
bordering on the Byzantine empire. Shafarik, ii 152, et seq.—M.
1845]
12 (return) [ Procopius, (Goth. l. iv. c. 19.) His verbal message
(he owns him self an illiterate Barbarian) is delivered as an
epistle. The style is savage, figurative, and original.]
13 (return) [ This sum is the result of a particular list, in a
curious Ms. fragment of the year 550, found in the library of
Milan. The obscure geography of the times provokes and exercises
the patience of the count de Buat, (tom. xi. p. 69—189.) The
French minister often loses himself in a wilderness which
requires a Saxon and Polish guide.]
14 (return) [ Panicum, milium. See Columella, l. ii. c. 9, p.
430, edit. Gesner. Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 24, 25. The
Samaritans made a pap of millet, mingled with mare’s milk or
blood. In the wealth of modern husbandry, our millet feeds
poultry, and not heroes. See the dictionaries of Bomare and
Miller.]
15 (return) [ For the name and nation, the situation and manners,
of the Sclavonians, see the original evidence of the vith
century, in Procopius, (Goth. l. ii. c. 26, l. iii. c. 14,) and
the emperor Mauritius or Maurice (Stratagemat. l. ii. c. 5, apud
Mascon Annotat. xxxi.) The stratagems of Maurice have been
printed only, as I understand, at the end of Scheffer’s edition
of Arrian’s Tactics, at Upsal, 1664, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. l.
iv. c. 8, tom. iii. p. 278,) a scarce, and hitherto, to me, an
inaccessible book.]
I have marked the faint and general outline of the Sclavonians
and Bulgarians, without attempting to define their intermediate
boundaries, which were not accurately known or respected by the
Barbarians themselves. Their importance was measured by their
vicinity to the empire; and the level country of Moldavia and
Wallachia was occupied by the Antes, 16 a Sclavonian tribe, which
swelled the titles of Justinian with an epithet of conquest. 17
Against the Antes he erected the fortifications of the Lower
Danube; and labored to secure the alliance of a people seated in
the direct channel of northern inundation, an interval of two
hundred miles between the mountains of Transylvania and the
Euxine Sea. But the Antes wanted power and inclination to stem
the fury of the torrent; and the light-armed Sclavonians, from a
hundred tribes, pursued with almost equal speed the footsteps of
the Bulgarian horse. The payment of one piece of gold for each
soldier procured a safe and easy retreat through the country of
the Gepidae, who commanded the passage of the Upper Danube. 18
The hopes or fears of the Barbarians; their intense union or
discord; the accident of a frozen or shallow stream; the prospect
of harvest or vintage; the prosperity or distress of the Romans;
were the causes which produced the uniform repetition of annual
visits, 19 tedious in the narrative, and destructive in the
event. The same year, and possibly the same month, in which
Ravenna surrendered, was marked by an invasion of the Huns or
Bulgarians, so dreadful, that it almost effaced the memory of
their past inroads. They spread from the suburbs of
Constantinople to the Ionian Gulf, destroyed thirty-two cities or
castles, erased Potidaea, which Athens had built, and Philip had
besieged, and repassed the Danube, dragging at their horses’
heels one hundred and twenty thousand of the subjects of
Justinian. In a subsequent inroad they pierced the wall of the
Thracian Chersonesus, extirpated the habitations and the
inhabitants, boldly traversed the Hellespont, and returned to
their companions, laden with the spoils of Asia. Another party,
which seemed a multitude in the eyes of the Romans, penetrated,
without opposition, from the Straits of Thermopylae to the
Isthmus of Corinth; and the last ruin of Greece has appeared an
object too minute for the attention of history. The works which
the emperor raised for the protection, but at the expense of his
subjects, served only to disclose the weakness of some neglected
part; and the walls, which by flattery had been deemed
impregnable, were either deserted by the garrison, or scaled by
the Barbarians. Three thousand Sclavonians, who insolently
divided themselves into two bands, discovered the weakness and
misery of a triumphant reign. They passed the Danube and the
Hebrus, vanquished the Roman generals who dared to oppose their
progress, and plundered, with impunity, the cities of Illyricum
and Thrace, each of which had arms and numbers to overwhelm their
contemptible assailants. Whatever praise the boldness of the
Sclavonians may deserve, it is sullied by the wanton and
deliberate cruelty which they are accused of exercising on their
prisoners. Without distinction of rank, or age, or sex, the
captives were impaled or flayed alive, or suspended between four
posts, and beaten with clubs till they expired, or enclosed in
some spacious building, and left to perish in the flames with the
spoil and cattle which might impede the march of these savage
victors. 20 Perhaps a more impartial narrative would reduce the
number, and qualify the nature, of these horrid acts; and they
might sometimes be excused by the cruel laws of retaliation. In
the siege of Topirus, 21 whose obstinate defence had enraged the
Sclavonians, they massacred fifteen thousand males; but they
spared the women and children; the most valuable captives were
always reserved for labor or ransom; the servitude was not
rigorous, and the terms of their deliverance were speedy and
moderate. But the subject, or the historian of Justinian, exhaled
his just indignation in the language of complaint and reproach;
and Procopius has confidently affirmed, that in a reign of
thirty-two years, each annual inroad of the Barbarians consumed
two hundred thousand of the inhabitants of the Roman empire. The
entire population of Turkish Europe, which nearly corresponds
with the provinces of Justinian, would perhaps be incapable of
supplying six millions of persons, the result of this incredible
estimate. 22
16 (return) [ Antes corum fortissimi.... Taysis qui rapidus et
vorticosus in Histri fluenta furens devolvitur, (Jornandes, c. 5,
p. 194, edit. Murator. Procopius, Goth. l. iii. c. 14, et de
Edific. l iv. c. 7.) Yet the same Procopius mentions the Goths
and Huns as neighbors to the Danube, (de Edific. l. v. c. 1.)]
17 (return) [ The national title of Anticus, in the laws and
inscriptions of Justinian, was adopted by his successors, and is
justified by the pious Ludewig (in Vit. Justinian. p. 515.) It
had strangely puzzled the civilians of the middle age.]
18 (return) [ Procopius, Goth. l. iv. c. 25.]
19 (return) [ An inroad of the Huns is connected, by Procopius,
with a comet perhaps that of 531, (Persic. l. ii. c. 4.) Agathias
(l. v. p. 154, 155) borrows from his predecessors some early
facts.]
20 (return) [ The cruelties of the Sclavonians are related or
magnified by Procopius, (Goth. l. iii. c. 29, 38.) For their mild
and liberal behavior to their prisoners, we may appeal to the
authority, somewhat more recent of the emperor Maurice,
(Stratagem. l. ii. c. 5.)]
21 (return) [ Topirus was situate near Philippi in Thrace, or
Macedonia, opposite to the Isle of Thasos, twelve days’ journey
from Constantinople (Cellarius, tom. i. p. 676, 846.)]
22 (return) [ According to the malevolent testimony of the
Anecdotes, (c. 18,) these inroads had reduced the provinces south
of the Danube to the state of a Scythian wilderness.]
In the midst of these obscure calamities, Europe felt the shock
of revolution, which first revealed to the world the name and
nation of the Turks. 2211 Like Romulus, the founder 2212 of that
martial people was suckled by a she-wolf, who afterwards made him
the father of a numerous progeny; and the representation of that
animal in the banners of the Turks preserved the memory, or
rather suggested the idea, of a fable, which was invented,
without any mutual intercourse, by the shepherds of Latium and
those of Scythia. At the equal distance of two thousand miles
from the Caspian, the Icy, the Chinese, and the Bengal Seas, a
ridge of mountains is conspicuous, the centre, and perhaps the
summit, of Asia; which, in the language of different nations, has
been styled Imaus, and Caf, 23 and Altai, and the Golden
Mountains, 2311 and the Girdle of the Earth. The sides of the
hills were productive of minerals; and the iron forges, 24 for
the purpose of war, were exercised by the Turks, the most
despised portion of the slaves of the great khan of the Geougen.
But their servitude could only last till a leader, bold and
eloquent, should arise to persuade his countrymen that the same
arms which they forged for their masters, might become, in their
own hands, the instruments of freedom and victory. They sallied
from the mountains; 25 a sceptre was the reward of his advice;
and the annual ceremony, in which a piece of iron was heated in
the fire, and a smith’s hammer 2511 was successively handled by
the prince and his nobles, recorded for ages the humble
profession and rational pride of the Turkish nation. Bertezena,
2512 their first leader, signalized their valor and his own in
successful combats against the neighboring tribes; but when he
presumed to ask in marriage the daughter of the great khan, the
insolent demand of a slave and a mechanic was contemptuously
rejected. The disgrace was expiated by a more noble alliance with
a princess of China; and the decisive battle which almost
extirpated the nation of the Geougen, established in Tartary the
new and more powerful empire of the Turks. 2513 They reigned over
the north; but they confessed the vanity of conquest, by their
faithful attachment to the mountain of their fathers. The royal
encampment seldom lost sight of Mount Altai, from whence the
River Irtish descends to water the rich pastures of the Calmucks,
26 which nourish the largest sheep and oxen in the world. The
soil is fruitful, and the climate mild and temperate: the happy
region was ignorant of earthquake and pestilence; the emperor’s
throne was turned towards the East, and a golden wolf on the top
of a spear seemed to guard the entrance of his tent. One of the
successors of Bertezena was tempted by the luxury and
superstition of China; but his design of building cities and
temples was defeated by the simple wisdom of a Barbarian
counsellor. “The Turks,” he said, “are not equal in number to one
hundredth part of the inhabitants of China. If we balance their
power, and elude their armies, it is because we wander without
any fixed habitations in the exercise of war and hunting. Are we
strong? we advance and conquer: are we feeble? we retire and are
concealed. Should the Turks confine themselves within the walls
of cities, the loss of a battle would be the destruction of their
empire. The bonzes preach only patience, humility, and the
renunciation of the world. Such, O king! is not the religion of
heroes.” They entertained, with less reluctance, the doctrines of
Zoroaster; but the greatest part of the nation acquiesced,
without inquiry, in the opinions, or rather in the practice, of
their ancestors. The honors of sacrifice were reserved for the
supreme deity; they acknowledged, in rude hymns, their
obligations to the air, the fire, the water, and the earth; and
their priests derived some profit from the art of divination.
Their unwritten laws were rigorous and impartial: theft was
punished with a tenfold restitution; adultery, treason, and
murder, with death; and no chastisement could be inflicted too
severe for the rare and inexpiable guilt of cowardice. As the
subject nations marched under the standard of the Turks, their
cavalry, both men and horses, were proudly computed by millions;
one of their effective armies consisted of four hundred thousand
soldiers, and in less than fifty years they were connected in
peace and war with the Romans, the Persians, and the Chinese. In
their northern limits, some vestige may be discovered of the form
and situation of Kamptchatka, of a people of hunters and
fishermen, whose sledges were drawn by dogs, and whose
habitations were buried in the earth. The Turks were ignorant of
astronomy; but the observation taken by some learned Chinese,
with a gnomon of eight feet, fixes the royal camp in the latitude
of forty-nine degrees, and marks their extreme progress within
three, or at least ten degrees, of the polar circle. 27 Among
their southern conquests the most splendid was that of the
Nephthalites, or white Huns, a polite and warlike people, who
possessed the commercial cities of Bochara and Samarcand, who had
vanquished the Persian monarch, and carried their victorious arms
along the banks, and perhaps to the mouth, of the Indus. On the
side of the West, the Turkish cavalry advanced to the Lake
Maeotis. They passed that lake on the ice. The khan who dwelt at
the foot of Mount Altai issued his commands for the siege of
Bosphorus, 28 a city the voluntary subject of Rome, and whose
princes had formerly been the friends of Athens. 29 To the east,
the Turks invaded China, as often as the vigor of the government
was relaxed: and I am taught to read in the history of the times,
that they mowed down their patient enemies like hemp or grass;
and that the mandarins applauded the wisdom of an emperor who
repulsed these Barbarians with golden lances. This extent of
savage empire compelled the Turkish monarch to establish three
subordinate princes of his own blood, who soon forgot their
gratitude and allegiance. The conquerors were enervated by
luxury, which is always fatal except to an industrious people;
the policy of China solicited the vanquished nations to resume
their independence and the power of the Turks was limited to a
period of two hundred years. The revival of their name and
dominion in the southern countries of Asia are the events of a
later age; and the dynasties, which succeeded to their native
realms, may sleep in oblivion; since their history bears no
relation to the decline and fall of the Roman empire. 30
2211 (return) [ It must be remembered that the name of Turks is
extended to a whole family of the Asiatic races, and not confined
to the Assena, or Turks of the Altai.—M.]
2212 (return) [ Assena (the wolf) was the name of this chief.
Klaproth, Tabl. Hist. de l’Asie p. 114.—M.]
23 (return) [ From Caf to Caf; which a more rational geography
would interpret, from Imaus, perhaps, to Mount Atlas. According
to the religious philosophy of the Mahometans, the basis of Mount
Caf is an emerald, whose reflection produces the azure of the
sky. The mountain is endowed with a sensitive action in its roots
or nerves; and their vibration, at the command of God, is the
cause of earthquakes. (D’Herbelot, p. 230, 231.)]
2311 (return) [ Altai, i. e. Altun Tagh, the Golden Mountain. Von
Hammer Osman Geschichte, vol. i. p. 2.—M.]
24 (return) [ The Siberian iron is the best and most plentiful in
the world; and in the southern parts, above sixty mines are now
worked by the industry of the Russians, (Strahlenberg, Hist. of
Siberia, p. 342, 387. Voyage en Siberie, par l’Abbe Chappe
d’Auteroche, p. 603—608, edit in 12mo. Amsterdam. 1770.) The
Turks offered iron for sale; yet the Roman ambassadors, with
strange obstinacy, persisted in believing that it was all a
trick, and that their country produced none, (Menander in
Excerpt. Leg. p. 152.)]
25 (return) [ Of Irgana-kon, (Abulghazi Khan, Hist. Genealogique
des Tatars, P ii. c. 5, p. 71—77, c. 15, p. 155.) The tradition
of the Moguls, of the 450 years which they passed in the
mountains, agrees with the Chinese periods of the history of the
Huns and Turks, (De Guignes, tom. i. part ii. p. 376,) and the
twenty generations, from their restoration to Zingis.]
2511 (return) [ The Mongol Temugin is also, though erroneously,
explained by Rubruquis, a smith. Schmidt, p 876.—M.]
2512 (return) [ There appears the same confusion here. Bertezena
(Berte-Scheno) is claimed as the founder of the Mongol race. The
name means the gray (blauliche) wolf. In fact, the same tradition
of the origin from a wolf seems common to the Mongols and the
Turks. The Mongol Berte-Scheno, of the very curious Mongol
History, published and translated by M. Schmidt of Petersburg, is
brought from Thibet. M. Schmidt considers this tradition of the
Thibetane descent of the royal race of the Mongols to be much
earlier than their conversion to Lamaism, yet it seems very
suspicious. See Klaproth, Tabl. de l’Asie, p. 159. The Turkish
Bertezena is called Thou-men by Klaproth, p. 115. In 552,
Thou-men took the title of Kha-Khan, and was called Il Khan.—M.]
2513 (return) [ Great Bucharia is called Turkistan: see Hammer,
2. It includes all the last steppes at the foot of the Altai. The
name is the same with that of the Turan of Persian poetic
legend.—M.]
26 (return) [ The country of the Turks, now of the Calmucks, is
well described in the Genealogical History, p. 521—562. The
curious notes of the French translator are enlarged and digested
in the second volume of the English version.]
27 (return) [ Visdelou, p. 141, 151. The fact, though it strictly
belongs to a subordinate and successive tribe, may be introduced
here.]
28 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 12, l. ii. c. 3.
Peyssonel, Observations sur les Peuples Barbares, p. 99, 100,
defines the distance between Caffa and the old Bosphorus at xvi.
long Tartar leagues.]
29 (return) [ See, in a Memoire of M. de Boze, (Mem. de
l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. vi. p. 549—565,) the ancient
kings and medals of the Cimmerian Bosphorus; and the gratitude of
Athens, in the Oration of Demosthenes against Leptines, (in
Reiske, Orator. Graec. tom. i. p. 466, 187.)]
30 (return) [ For the origin and revolutions of the first Turkish
empire, the Chinese details are borrowed from De Guignes (Hist.
des Huns, tom. P. ii. p. 367—462) and Visdelou, (Supplement a la
Bibliotheque Orient. d’Herbelot, p. 82—114.) The Greek or Roman
hints are gathered in Menander (p. 108—164) and Theophylact
Simocatta, (l. vii. c. 7, 8.)]
Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part II.
In the rapid career of conquest, the Turks attacked and subdued
the nation of the Ogors or Varchonites 3011 on the banks of the
River Til, which derived the epithet of Black from its dark water
or gloomy forests. 31 The khan of the Ogors was slain with three
hundred thousand of his subjects, and their bodies were scattered
over the space of four days’ journey: their surviving countrymen
acknowledged the strength and mercy of the Turks; and a small
portion, about twenty thousand warriors, preferred exile to
servitude. They followed the well-known road of the Volga,
cherished the error of the nations who confounded them with the
Avars, and spread the terror of that false though famous
appellation, which had not, however, saved its lawful proprietors
from the yoke of the Turks. 32 After a long and victorious march,
the new Avars arrived at the foot of Mount Caucasus, in the
country of the Alani 33 and Circassians, where they first heard
of the splendor and weakness of the Roman empire. They humbly
requested their confederate, the prince of the Alani, to lead
them to this source of riches; and their ambassador, with the
permission of the governor of Lazica, was transported by the
Euxine Sea to Constantinople. The whole city was poured forth to
behold with curiosity and terror the aspect of a strange people:
their long hair, which hung in tresses down their backs, was
gracefully bound with ribbons, but the rest of their habit
appeared to imitate the fashion of the Huns. When they were
admitted to the audience of Justinian, Candish, the first of the
ambassadors, addressed the Roman emperor in these terms: “You see
before you, O mighty prince, the representatives of the strongest
and most populous of nations, the invincible, the irresistible
Avars. We are willing to devote ourselves to your service: we are
able to vanquish and destroy all the enemies who now disturb your
repose. But we expect, as the price of our alliance, as the
reward of our valor, precious gifts, annual subsidies, and
fruitful possessions.” At the time of this embassy, Justinian had
reigned above thirty, he had lived above seventy-five years: his
mind, as well as his body, was feeble and languid; and the
conqueror of Africa and Italy, careless of the permanent interest
of his people, aspired only to end his days in the bosom even of
inglorious peace. In a studied oration, he imparted to the senate
his resolution to dissemble the insult, and to purchase the
friendship of the Avars; and the whole senate, like the mandarins
of China, applauded the incomparable wisdom and foresight of
their sovereign. The instruments of luxury were immediately
prepared to captivate the Barbarians; silken garments, soft and
splendid beds, and chains and collars incrusted with gold. The
ambassadors, content with such liberal reception, departed from
Constantinople, and Valentin, one of the emperor’s guards, was
sent with a similar character to their camp at the foot of Mount
Caucasus. As their destruction or their success must be alike
advantageous to the empire, he persuaded them to invade the
enemies of Rome; and they were easily tempted, by gifts and
promises, to gratify their ruling inclinations. These fugitives,
who fled before the Turkish arms, passed the Tanais and
Borysthenes, and boldly advanced into the heart of Poland and
Germany, violating the law of nations, and abusing the rights of
victory. Before ten years had elapsed, their camps were seated on
the Danube and the Elbe, many Bulgarian and Sclavonian names were
obliterated from the earth, and the remainder of their tribes are
found, as tributaries and vassals, under the standard of the
Avars. The chagan, the peculiar title of their king, still
affected to cultivate the friendship of the emperor; and
Justinian entertained some thoughts of fixing them in Pannonia,
to balance the prevailing power of the Lombards. But the virtue
or treachery of an Avar betrayed the secret enmity and ambitious
designs of their countrymen; and they loudly complained of the
timid, though jealous policy, of detaining their ambassadors, and
denying the arms which they had been allowed to purchase in the
capital of the empire. 34
3011 (return) [ The Ogors or Varchonites, from Var. a river,
(obviously connected with the name Avar,) must not be confounded
with the Uigours, the eastern Turks, (v. Hammer, Osmanische
Geschichte, vol. i. p. 3,) who speak a language the parent of the
more modern Turkish dialects. Compare Klaproth, page 121. They
are the ancestors of the Usbeck Turks. These Ogors were of the
same Finnish race with the Huns; and the 20,000 families which
fled towards the west, after the Turkish invasion, were of the
same race with those which remained to the east of the Volga, the
true Avars of Theophy fact.—M.]
31 (return) [ The River Til, or Tula, according to the geography
of De Guignes, (tom. i. part ii. p. lviii. and 352,) is a small,
though grateful, stream of the desert, that falls into the Orhon,
Selinga, &c. See Bell, Journey from Petersburg to Pekin, (vol.
ii. p. 124;) yet his own description of the Keat, down which he
sailed into the Oby, represents the name and attributes of the
black river, (p. 139.) * Note: M. Klaproth, (Tableaux Historiques
de l’Asie, p. 274) supposes this river to be an eastern affluent
of the Volga, the Kama, which, from the color of its waters,
might be called black. M. Abel Remusat (Recherchea sur les
Langues Tartares, vol. i. p. 320) and M. St. Martin (vol. ix. p.
373) consider it the Volga, which is called Atel or Etel by all
the Turkish tribes. It is called Attilas by Menander, and Ettilia
by the monk Ruysbreek (1253.) See Klaproth, Tabl. Hist. p. 247.
This geography is much more clear and simple than that adopted by
Gibbon from De Guignes, or suggested from Bell.—M.]
32 (return) [ Theophylact, l. vii. c. 7, 8. And yet his true
Avars are invisible even to the eyes of M. de Guignes; and what
can be more illustrious than the false? The right of the fugitive
Ogors to that national appellation is confessed by the Turks
themselves, (Menander, p. 108.)]
33 (return) [ The Alani are still found in the Genealogical
History of the Tartars, (p. 617,) and in D’Anville’s maps. They
opposed the march of the generals of Zingis round the Caspian
Sea, and were overthrown in a great battle, (Hist. de Gengiscan,
l. iv. c. 9, p. 447.)]
34 (return) [ The embassies and first conquests of the Avars may
be read in Menander, (Excerpt. Legat. p. 99, 100, 101, 154, 155,)
Theophanes, (p. 196,) the Historia Miscella, (l. xvi. p. 109,)
and Gregory of Tours, (L iv. c. 23, 29, in the Historians of
France, tom. ii. p. 214, 217.)]
Perhaps the apparent change in the dispositions of the emperors
may be ascribed to the embassy which was received from the
conquerors of the Avars. 35 The immense distance which eluded
their arms could not extinguish their resentment: the Turkish
ambassadors pursued the footsteps of the vanquished to the Jaik,
the Volga, Mount Caucasus, the Euxine and Constantinople, and at
length appeared before the successor of Constantine, to request
that he would not espouse the cause of rebels and fugitives. Even
commerce had some share in this remarkable negotiation: and the
Sogdoites, who were now the tributaries of the Turks, embraced
the fair occasion of opening, by the north of the Caspian, a new
road for the importation of Chinese silk into the Roman empire.
The Persian, who preferred the navigation of Ceylon, had stopped
the caravans of Bochara and Samarcand: their silk was
contemptuously burnt: some Turkish ambassadors died in Persia,
with a suspicion of poison; and the great khan permitted his
faithful vassal Maniach, the prince of the Sogdoites, to propose,
at the Byzantine court, a treaty of alliance against their common
enemies. Their splendid apparel and rich presents, the fruit of
Oriental luxury, distinguished Maniach and his colleagues from
the rude savages of the North: their letters, in the Scythian
character and language, announced a people who had attained the
rudiments of science: 36 they enumerated the conquests, they
offered the friendship and military aid of the Turks; and their
sincerity was attested by direful imprecations (if they were
guilty of falsehood) against their own head, and the head of
Disabul their master. The Greek prince entertained with
hospitable regard the ambassadors of a remote and powerful
monarch: the sight of silk-worms and looms disappointed the hopes
of the Sogdoites; the emperor renounced, or seemed to renounce,
the fugitive Avars, but he accepted the alliance of the Turks;
and the ratification of the treaty was carried by a Roman
minister to the foot of Mount Altai. Under the successors of
Justinian, the friendship of the two nations was cultivated by
frequent and cordial intercourse; the most favored vassals were
permitted to imitate the example of the great khan, and one
hundred and six Turks, who, on various occasions, had visited
Constantinople, departed at the same time for their native
country. The duration and length of the journey from the
Byzantine court to Mount Altai are not specified: it might have
been difficult to mark a road through the nameless deserts, the
mountains, rivers, and morasses of Tartary; but a curious account
has been preserved of the reception of the Roman ambassadors at
the royal camp. After they had been purified with fire and
incense, according to a rite still practised under the sons of
Zingis, 3611 they were introduced to the presence of Disabul. In
a valley of the Golden Mountain, they found the great khan in his
tent, seated in a chair with wheels, to which a horse might be
occasionally harnessed. As soon as they had delivered their
presents, which were received by the proper officers, they
exposed, in a florid oration, the wishes of the Roman emperor,
that victory might attend the arms of the Turks, that their reign
might be long and prosperous, and that a strict alliance, without
envy or deceit, might forever be maintained between the two most
powerful nations of the earth. The answer of Disabul corresponded
with these friendly professions, and the ambassadors were seated
by his side, at a banquet which lasted the greatest part of the
day: the tent was surrounded with silk hangings, and a Tartar
liquor was served on the table, which possessed at least the
intoxicating qualities of wine. The entertainment of the
succeeding day was more sumptuous; the silk hangings of the
second tent were embroidered in various figures; and the royal
seat, the cups, and the vases, were of gold. A third pavilion was
supported by columns of gilt wood; a bed of pure and massy gold
was raised on four peacocks of the same metal: and before the
entrance of the tent, dishes, basins, and statues of solid
silver, and admirable art, were ostentatiously piled in wagons,
the monuments of valor rather than of industry. When Disabul led
his armies against the frontiers of Persia, his Roman allies
followed many days the march of the Turkish camp, nor were they
dismissed till they had enjoyed their precedency over the envoy
of the great king, whose loud and intemperate clamors interrupted
the silence of the royal banquet. The power and ambition of
Chosroes cemented the union of the Turks and Romans, who touched
his dominions on either side: but those distant nations,
regardless of each other, consulted the dictates of interest,
without recollecting the obligations of oaths and treaties. While
the successor of Disabul celebrated his father’s obsequies, he
was saluted by the ambassadors of the emperor Tiberius, who
proposed an invasion of Persia, and sustained, with firmness, the
angry and perhaps the just reproaches of that haughty Barbarian.
“You see my ten fingers,” said the great khan, and he applied
them to his mouth. “You Romans speak with as many tongues, but
they are tongues of deceit and perjury. To me you hold one
language, to my subjects another; and the nations are
successively deluded by your perfidious eloquence. You
precipitate your allies into war and danger, you enjoy their
labors, and you neglect your benefactors. Hasten your return,
inform your master that a Turk is incapable of uttering or
forgiving falsehood, and that he shall speedily meet the
punishment which he deserves. While he solicits my friendship
with flattering and hollow words, he is sunk to a confederate of
my fugitive Varchonites. If I condescend to march against those
contemptible slaves, they will tremble at the sound of our whips;
they will be trampled, like a nest of ants, under the feet of my
innumerable cavalry. I am not ignorant of the road which they
have followed to invade your empire; nor can I be deceived by the
vain pretence, that Mount Caucasus is the impregnable barrier of
the Romans. I know the course of the Niester, the Danube, and the
Hebrus; the most warlike nations have yielded to the arms of the
Turks; and from the rising to the setting sun, the earth is my
inheritance.” Notwithstanding this menace, a sense of mutual
advantage soon renewed the alliance of the Turks and Romans: but
the pride of the great khan survived his resentment; and when he
announced an important conquest to his friend the emperor
Maurice, he styled himself the master of the seven races, and the
lord of the seven climates of the world. 37
35 (return) [ Theophanes, (Chron. p. 204,) and the Hist.
Miscella, (l. xvi. p. 110,) as understood by De Guignes, (tom. i.
part ii. p. 354,) appear to speak of a Turkish embassy to
Justinian himself; but that of Maniach, in the fourth year of his
successor Justin, is positively the first that reached
Constantinople, (Menander p. 108.)]
36 (return) [ The Russians have found characters, rude
hieroglyphics, on the Irtish and Yenisei, on medals, tombs,
idols, rocks, obelisks, &c., (Strahlenberg, Hist. of Siberia, p.
324, 346, 406, 429.) Dr. Hyde (de Religione Veterum Persarum, p.
521, &c.) has given two alphabets of Thibet and of the Eygours. I
have long harbored a suspicion, that all the Scythian, and some,
perhaps much, of the Indian science, was derived from the Greeks
of Bactriana. * Note: Modern discoveries give no confirmation to
this suspicion. The character of Indian science, as well as of
their literature and mythology, indicates an original source.
Grecian art may have occasionally found its way into India. One
or two of the sculptures in Col. Tod’s account of the Jain
temples, if correct, show a finer outline, and purer sense of
beauty, than appears native to India, where the monstrous always
predominated over simple nature.—M.]
3611 (return) [ This rite is so curious, that I have subjoined
the description of it:— When these (the exorcisers, the Shamans)
approached Zemarchus, they took all our baggage and placed it in
the centre. Then, kindling a fire with branches of frankincense,
lowly murmuring certain barbarous words in the Scythian language,
beating on a kind of bell (a gong) and a drum, they passed over
the baggage the leaves of the frankincense, crackling with the
fire, and at the same time themselves becoming frantic, and
violently leaping about, seemed to exorcise the evil spirits.
Having thus as they thought, averted all evil, they led Zemarchus
himself through the fire. Menander, in Niebuhr’s Bryant. Hist. p.
381. Compare Carpini’s Travels. The princes of the race of Zingis
Khan condescended to receive the ambassadors of the king of
France, at the end of the 13th century without their submitting
to this humiliating rite. See Correspondence published by Abel
Remusat, Nouv. Mem. de l’Acad des Inscrip. vol. vii. On the
embassy of Zemarchus, compare Klaproth, Tableaux de l’Asie p.
116.—M.]
37 (return) [ All the details of these Turkish and Roman
embassies, so curious in the history of human manners, are drawn
from the extracts of Menander, (p. 106—110, 151—154, 161-164,) in
which we often regret the want of order and connection.]
Disputes have often arisen between the sovereigns of Asia for the
title of king of the world; while the contest has proved that it
could not belong to either of the competitors. The kingdom of the
Turks was bounded by the Oxus or Gihon; and Touran was separated
by that great river from the rival monarchy of Iran, or Persia,
which in a smaller compass contained perhaps a larger measure of
power and population. The Persians, who alternately invaded and
repulsed the Turks and the Romans, were still ruled by the house
of Sassan, which ascended the throne three hundred years before
the accession of Justinian. His contemporary, Cabades, or Kobad,
had been successful in war against the emperor Anastasius; but
the reign of that prince was distracted by civil and religious
troubles. A prisoner in the hands of his subjects, an exile among
the enemies of Persia, he recovered his liberty by prostituting
the honor of his wife, and regained his kingdom with the
dangerous and mercenary aid of the Barbarians, who had slain his
father. His nobles were suspicious that Kobad never forgave the
authors of his expulsion, or even those of his restoration. The
people was deluded and inflamed by the fanaticism of Mazdak, 38
who asserted the community of women, 39 and the equality of
mankind, whilst he appropriated the richest lands and most
beautiful females to the use of his sectaries. The view of these
disorders, which had been fomented by his laws and example, 40
imbittered the declining age of the Persian monarch; and his
fears were increased by the consciousness of his design to
reverse the natural and customary order of succession, in favor
of his third and most favored son, so famous under the names of
Chosroes and Nushirvan. To render the youth more illustrious in
the eyes of the nations, Kobad was desirous that he should be
adopted by the emperor Justin: 4011 the hope of peace inclined
the Byzantine court to accept this singular proposal; and
Chosroes might have acquired a specious claim to the inheritance
of his Roman parent. But the future mischief was diverted by the
advice of the quaestor Proclus: a difficulty was started, whether
the adoption should be performed as a civil or military rite; 41
the treaty was abruptly dissolved; and the sense of this
indignity sunk deep into the mind of Chosroes, who had already
advanced to the Tigris on his road to Constantinople. His father
did not long survive the disappointment of his wishes: the
testament of their deceased sovereign was read in the assembly of
the nobles; and a powerful faction, prepared for the event, and
regardless of the priority of age, exalted Chosroes to the throne
of Persia. He filled that throne during a prosperous period of
forty-eight years; 42 and the Justice of Nushirvan is celebrated
as the theme of immortal praise by the nations of the East.
38 (return) [ See D’Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orient. p. 568, 929;)
Hyde, (de Religione Vet. Persarum, c. 21, p. 290, 291;) Pocock,
(Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 70, 71;) Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p.
176;) Texeira, (in Stevens, Hist. of Persia, l. i. c. 34.) *
Note: Mazdak was an Archimagus, born, according to Mirkhond,
(translated by De Sacy, p. 353, and Malcolm, vol. i. p. 104,) at
Istakhar or Persepolis, according to an inedited and anonymous
history, (the Modjmal-alte-warikh in the Royal Library at Paris,
quoted by St. Martin, vol. vii. p. 322) at Wischapour in
Chorasan: his father’s name was Bamdadam. He announces himself as
a reformer of Zoroastrianism, and carried the doctrine of the two
principles to a much greater height. He preached the absolute
indifference of human action, perfect equality of rank, community
of property and of women, marriages between the nearest kindred;
he interdicted the use of animal food, proscribed the killing of
animals for food, enforced a vegetable diet. See St. Martin, vol.
vii. p. 322. Malcolm, vol. i. p. 104. Mirkhond translated by De
Sacy. It is remarkable that the doctrine of Mazdak spread into
the West. Two inscriptions found in Cyrene, in 1823, and
explained by M. Gesenius, and by M. Hamaker of Leyden, prove
clearly that his doctrines had been eagerly embraced by the
remains of the ancient Gnostics; and Mazdak was enrolled with
Thoth, Saturn, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Epicurus, John, and Christ,
as the teachers of true Gnostic wisdom. See St. Martin, vol. vii.
p. 338. Gesenius de Inscriptione Phoenicio-Graeca in Cyrenaica
nuper reperta, Halle, 1825. Hamaker, Lettre a M. Raoul Rochette,
Leyden, 1825.—M.]
39 (return) [ The fame of the new law for the community of women
was soon propagated in Syria (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. iii.
p. 402) and Greece, (Procop. Persic. l. i. c. 5.)]
40 (return) [ He offered his own wife and sister to the prophet;
but the prayers of Nushirvan saved his mother, and the indignant
monarch never forgave the humiliation to which his filial piety
had stooped: pedes tuos deosculatus (said he to Mazdak,) cujus
foetor adhuc nares occupat, (Pocock, Specimen Hist. Arab. p.
71.)]
4011 (return) [ St. Martin questions this adoption: he urges its
improbability; and supposes that Procopius, perverting some
popular traditions, or the remembrance of some fruitless
negotiations which took place at that time, has mistaken, for a
treaty of adoption some treaty of guaranty or protection for the
purpose of insuring the crown, after the death of Kobad, to his
favorite son Chosroes, vol. viii. p. 32. Yet the Greek historians
seem unanimous as to the proposal: the Persians might be expected
to maintain silence on such a subject.—M.]
41 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 11. Was not Proclus
over-wise? Was not the danger imaginary?—The excuse, at least,
was injurious to a nation not ignorant of letters. Whether any
mode of adoption was practised in Persia, I much doubt.]
42 (return) [ From Procopius and Agathias, Pagi (tom. ii. p. 543,
626) has proved that Chosroes Nushirvan ascended the throne in
the fifth year of Justinian, (A.D. 531, April 1.—A.D. 532, April
1.) But the true chronology, which harmonizes with the Greeks and
Orientals, is ascertained by John Malala, (tom. ii. 211.)
Cabades, or Kobad, after a reign of forty-three years and two
months, sickened the 8th, and died the 13th of September, A.D.
531, aged eighty-two years. According to the annals of Eutychius,
Nushirvan reigned forty seven years and six months; and his death
must consequently be placed in March, A.D. 579.]
But the justice of kings is understood by themselves, and even by
their subjects, with an ample indulgence for the gratification of
passion and interest. The virtue of Chosroes was that of a
conqueror, who, in the measures of peace and war, is excited by
ambition, and restrained by prudence; who confounds the greatness
with the happiness of a nation, and calmly devotes the lives of
thousands to the fame, or even the amusement, of a single man. In
his domestic administration, the just Nushirvan would merit in
our feelings the appellation of a tyrant. His two elder brothers
had been deprived of their fair expectations of the diadem: their
future life, between the supreme rank and the condition of
subjects, was anxious to themselves and formidable to their
master: fear as well as revenge might tempt them to rebel: the
slightest evidence of a conspiracy satisfied the author of their
wrongs; and the repose of Chosroes was secured by the death of
these unhappy princes, with their families and adherents. One
guiltless youth was saved and dismissed by the compassion of a
veteran general; and this act of humanity, which was revealed by
his son, overbalanced the merit of reducing twelve nations to the
obedience of Persia. The zeal and prudence of Mebodes had fixed
the diadem on the head of Chosroes himself; but he delayed to
attend the royal summons, till he had performed the duties of a
military review: he was instantly commanded to repair to the iron
tripod, which stood before the gate of the palace, 43 where it
was death to relieve or approach the victim; and Mebodes
languished several days before his sentence was pronounced, by
the inflexible pride and calm ingratitude of the son of Kobad.
But the people, more especially in the East, is disposed to
forgive, and even to applaud, the cruelty which strikes at the
loftiest heads; at the slaves of ambition, whose voluntary choice
has exposed them to live in the smiles, and to perish by the
frown, of a capricious monarch. In the execution of the laws
which he had no temptation to violate; in the punishment of
crimes which attacked his own dignity, as well as the happiness
of individuals; Nushirvan, or Chosroes, deserved the appellation
of just. His government was firm, rigorous, and impartial. It was
the first labor of his reign to abolish the dangerous theory of
common or equal possessions: the lands and women which the
sectaries of Mazdak has usurped were restored to their lawful
owners; and the temperate 4311 chastisement of the fanatics or
impostors confirmed the domestic rights of society. Instead of
listening with blind confidence to a favorite minister, he
established four viziers over the four great provinces of his
empire, Assyria, Media, Persia, and Bactriana. In the choice of
judges, præfects, and counsellors, he strove to remove the mask
which is always worn in the presence of kings: he wished to
substitute the natural order of talents for the accidental
distinctions of birth and fortune; he professed, in specious
language, his intention to prefer those men who carried the poor
in their bosoms, and to banish corruption from the seat of
justice, as dogs were excluded from the temples of the Magi. The
code of laws of the first Artaxerxes was revived and published as
the rule of the magistrates; but the assurance of speedy
punishment was the best security of their virtue. Their behavior
was inspected by a thousand eyes, their words were overheard by a
thousand ears, the secret or public agents of the throne; and the
provinces, from the Indian to the Arabian confines, were
enlightened by the frequent visits of a sovereign, who affected
to emulate his celestial brother in his rapid and salutary
career. Education and agriculture he viewed as the two objects
most deserving of his care. In every city of Persia orphans, and
the children of the poor, were maintained and instructed at the
public expense; the daughters were given in marriage to the
richest citizens of their own rank, and the sons, according to
their different talents, were employed in mechanic trades, or
promoted to more honorable service. The deserted villages were
relieved by his bounty; to the peasants and farmers who were
found incapable of cultivating their lands, he distributed
cattle, seed, and the instruments of husbandry; and the rare and
inestimable treasure of fresh water was parsimoniously managed,
and skilfully dispersed over the arid territory of Persia. 44 The
prosperity of that kingdom was the effect and evidence of his
virtues; his vices are those of Oriental despotism; but in the
long competition between Chosroes and Justinian, the advantage
both of merit and fortune is almost always on the side of the
Barbarian. 45
43 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 23. Brisson, de Regn.
Pers. p. 494. The gate of the palace of Ispahan is, or was, the
fatal scene of disgrace or death, (Chardin, Voyage en Perse, tom.
iv. p. 312, 313.)]
4311 (return) [ This is a strange term. Nushirvan employed a
stratagem similar to that of Jehu, 2 Kings, x. 18—28, to separate
the followers of Mazdak from the rest of his subjects, and with a
body of his troops cut them all in pieces. The Greek writers
concur with the Persian in this representation of Nushirvan’s
temperate conduct. Theophanes, p. 146. Mirkhond. p. 362.
Eutychius, Ann. vol. ii. p. 179. Abulfeda, in an unedited part,
consulted by St. Martin as well as in a passage formerly cited.
Le Beau vol. viii. p. 38. Malcolm vol l p. 109.—M.]
44 (return) [ In Persia, the prince of the waters is an officer
of state. The number of wells and subterraneous channels is much
diminished, and with it the fertility of the soil: 400 wells have
been recently lost near Tauris, and 42,000 were once reckoned in
the province of Khorasan (Chardin, tom. iii. p. 99, 100.
Tavernier, tom. i. p. 416.)]
45 (return) [ The character and government of Nushirvan is
represented some times in the words of D’Herbelot, (Bibliot.
Orient. p. 680, &c., from Khondemir,) Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii.
p. 179, 180,—very rich,) Abulpharagius, (Dynast. vii. p. 94,
95,—very poor,) Tarikh Schikard, (p. 144—150,) Texeira, (in
Stevens, l. i. c. 35,) Asseman, (Bibliot Orient. tom. iii. p.
404-410,) and the Abbe Fourmont, (Hist. de l’Acad. des
Inscriptions, tom. vii. p. 325—334,) who has translated a
spurious or genuine testament of Nushirvan.]
To the praise of justice Nushirvan united the reputation of
knowledge; and the seven Greek philosophers, who visited his
court, were invited and deceived by the strange assurance, that a
disciple of Plato was seated on the Persian throne. Did they
expect, that a prince, strenuously exercised in the toils of war
and government, should agitate, with dexterity like their own,
the abstruse and profound questions which amused the leisure of
the schools of Athens? Could they hope that the precepts of
philosophy should direct the life, and control the passions, of a
despot, whose infancy had been taught to consider his absolute
and fluctuating will as the only rule of moral obligation? 46 The
studies of Chosroes were ostentatious and superficial: but his
example awakened the curiosity of an ingenious people, and the
light of science was diffused over the dominions of Persia. 47 At
Gondi Sapor, in the neighborhood of the royal city of Susa, an
academy of physic was founded, which insensibly became a liberal
school of poetry, philosophy, and rhetoric. 48 The annals of the
monarchy 49 were composed; and while recent and authentic history
might afford some useful lessons both to the prince and people,
the darkness of the first ages was embellished by the giants, the
dragons, and the fabulous heroes of Oriental romance. 50 Every
learned or confident stranger was enriched by the bounty, and
flattered by the conversation, of the monarch: he nobly rewarded
a Greek physician, 51 by the deliverance of three thousand
captives; and the sophists, who contended for his favor, were
exasperated by the wealth and insolence of Uranius, their more
successful rival. Nushirvan believed, or at least respected, the
religion of the Magi; and some traces of persecution may be
discovered in his reign. 52 Yet he allowed himself freely to
compare the tenets of the various sects; and the theological
disputes, in which he frequently presided, diminished the
authority of the priest, and enlightened the minds of the people.
At his command, the most celebrated writers of Greece and India
were translated into the Persian language; a smooth and elegant
idiom, recommended by Mahomet to the use of paradise; though it
is branded with the epithets of savage and unmusical, by the
ignorance and presumption of Agathias. 53 Yet the Greek historian
might reasonably wonder that it should be found possible to
execute an entire version of Plato and Aristotle in a foreign
dialect, which had not been framed to express the spirit of
freedom and the subtilties of philosophic disquisition. And, if
the reason of the Stagyrite might be equally dark, or equally
intelligible in every tongue, the dramatic art and verbal
argumentation of the disciple of Socrates, 54 appear to be
indissolubly mingled with the grace and perfection of his Attic
style. In the search of universal knowledge, Nushirvan was
informed, that the moral and political fables of Pilpay, an
ancient Brachman, were preserved with jealous reverence among the
treasures of the kings of India. The physician Perozes was
secretly despatched to the banks of the Ganges, with instructions
to procure, at any price, the communication of this valuable
work. His dexterity obtained a transcript, his learned diligence
accomplished the translation; and the fables of Pilpay 55 were
read and admired in the assembly of Nushirvan and his nobles. The
Indian original, and the Persian copy, have long since
disappeared; but this venerable monument has been saved by the
curiosity of the Arabian caliphs, revived in the modern Persic,
the Turkish, the Syriac, the Hebrew, and the Greek idioms, and
transfused through successive versions into the modern languages
of Europe. In their present form, the peculiar character, the
manners and religion of the Hindoos, are completely obliterated;
and the intrinsic merit of the fables of Pilpay is far inferior
to the concise elegance of Phaedrus, and the native graces of La
Fontaine. Fifteen moral and political sentences are illustrated
in a series of apologues: but the composition is intricate, the
narrative prolix, and the precept obvious and barren. Yet the
Brachman may assume the merit of inventing a pleasing fiction,
which adorns the nakedness of truth, and alleviates, perhaps, to
a royal ear, the harshness of instruction. With a similar design,
to admonish kings that they are strong only in the strength of
their subjects, the same Indians invented the game of chess,
which was likewise introduced into Persia under the reign of
Nushirvan. 56
46 (return) [ A thousand years before his birth, the judges of
Persia had given a solemn opinion, (Herodot. l. iii. c. 31, p.
210, edit. Wesseling.) Nor had this constitutional maxim been
neglected as a useless and barren theory.]
47 (return) [ On the literary state of Persia, the Greek
versions, philosophers, sophists, the learning or ignorance of
Chosroes, Agathias (l. ii. c. 66—71) displays much information
and strong prejudices.]
48 (return) [ Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. iv. p. DCCXLV. vi.
vii.]
49 (return) [ The Shah Nameh, or Book of Kings, is perhaps the
original record of history which was translated into Greek by the
interpreter Sergius, (Agathias, l. v. p. 141,) preserved after
the Mahometan conquest, and versified in the year 994, by the
national poet Ferdoussi. See D’Anquetil (Mem. de l’Academie, tom.
xxxi. p. 379) and Sir William Jones, (Hist. of Nadir Shah, p.
161.)]
50 (return) [ In the fifth century, the name of Restom, or
Rostam, a hero who equalled the strength of twelve elephants, was
familiar to the Armenians, (Moses Chorenensis, Hist. Armen. l.
ii. c. 7, p. 96, edit. Whiston.) In the beginning of the seventh,
the Persian Romance of Rostam and Isfendiar was applauded at
Mecca, (Sale’s Koran, c. xxxi. p. 335.) Yet this exposition of
ludicrum novae historiae is not given by Maracci, (Refutat.
Alcoran. p. 544—548.)]
51 (return) [ Procop. (Goth. l. iv. c. 10.) Kobad had a favorite
Greek physician, Stephen of Edessa, (Persic. l. ii. c. 26.) The
practice was ancient; and Herodotus relates the adventures of
Democedes of Crotona, (l. iii p. 125—137.)]
52 (return) [ See Pagi, tom. ii. p. 626. In one of the treaties
an honorable article was inserted for the toleration and burial
of the Catholics, (Menander, in Excerpt. Legat. p. 142.)
Nushizad, a son of Nushirvan, was a Christian, a rebel, and—a
martyr? (D’Herbelot, p. 681.)]
53 (return) [ On the Persian language, and its three dialects,
consult D’Anquetil (p. 339—343) and Jones, (p. 153—185:) is the
character which Agathias (l. ii. p. 66) ascribes to an idiom
renowned in the East for poetical softness.]
54 (return) [ Agathias specifies the Gorgias, Phaedon,
Parmenides, and Timaeus. Renaudot (Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec.
tom. xii. p. 246—261) does not mention this Barbaric version of
Aristotle.]
55 (return) [ Of these fables, I have seen three copies in three
different languages: 1. In Greek, translated by Simeon Seth (A.D.
1100) from the Arabic, and published by Starck at Berlin in 1697,
in 12mo. 2. In Latin, a version from the Greek Sapientia Indorum,
inserted by Pere Poussin at the end of his edition of Pachymer,
(p. 547—620, edit. Roman.) 3. In French, from the Turkish,
dedicated, in 1540, to Sultan Soliman Contes et Fables Indiennes
de Bidpai et de Lokman, par Mm. Galland et Cardonne, Paris, 1778,
3 vols. in 12mo. Mr. Warton (History of English Poetry, vol. i.
p. 129—131) takes a larger scope. * Note: The oldest Indian
collection extant is the Pancha-tantra, (the five collections,)
analyzed by Mr. Wilson in the Transactions of the Royal Asiat.
Soc. It was translated into Persian by Barsuyah, the physician of
Nushirvan, under the name of the Fables of Bidpai, (Vidyapriya,
the Friend of Knowledge, or, as the Oriental writers understand
it, the Friend of Medicine.) It was translated into Arabic by
Abdolla Ibn Mokaffa, under the name of Kalila and Dimnah. From
the Arabic it passed into the European languages. Compare Wilson,
in Trans. As. Soc. i. 52. dohlen, das alte Indien, ii. p. 386.
Silvestre de Sacy, Memoire sur Kalila vs Dimnah.—M.]
56 (return) [ See the Historia Shahiludii of Dr. Hyde, (Syntagm.
Dissertat. tom. ii. p. 61—69.)]
Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part III.
The son of Kobad found his kingdom involved in a war with the
successor of Constantine; and the anxiety of his domestic
situation inclined him to grant the suspension of arms, which
Justinian was impatient to purchase. Chosroes saw the Roman
ambassadors at his feet. He accepted eleven thousand pounds of
gold, as the price of an endless or indefinite peace: 57 some
mutual exchanges were regulated; the Persian assumed the guard of
the gates of Caucasus, and the demolition of Dara was suspended,
on condition that it should never be made the residence of the
general of the East. This interval of repose had been solicited,
and was diligently improved, by the ambition of the emperor: his
African conquests were the first fruits of the Persian treaty;
and the avarice of Chosroes was soothed by a large portion of the
spoils of Carthage, which his ambassadors required in a tone of
pleasantry and under the color of friendship. 58 But the trophies
of Belisarius disturbed the slumbers of the great king; and he
heard with astonishment, envy, and fear, that Sicily, Italy, and
Rome itself, had been reduced, in three rapid campaigns, to the
obedience of Justinian. Unpractised in the art of violating
treaties, he secretly excited his bold and subtle vassal
Almondar. That prince of the Saracens, who resided at Hira, 59
had not been included in the general peace, and still waged an
obscure war against his rival Arethas, the chief of the tribe of
Gassan, and confederate of the empire. The subject of their
dispute was an extensive sheep-walk in the desert to the south of
Palmyra. An immemorial tribute for the license of pasture
appeared to attest the rights of Almondar, while the Gassanite
appealed to the Latin name of strata, a paved road, as an
unquestionable evidence of the sovereignty and labors of the
Romans. 60 The two monarchs supported the cause of their
respective vassals; and the Persian Arab, without expecting the
event of a slow and doubtful arbitration, enriched his flying
camp with the spoil and captives of Syria. Instead of repelling
the arms, Justinian attempted to seduce the fidelity of Almondar,
while he called from the extremities of the earth the nations of
Aethiopia and Scythia to invade the dominions of his rival. But
the aid of such allies was distant and precarious, and the
discovery of this hostile correspondence justified the complaints
of the Goths and Armenians, who implored, almost at the same
time, the protection of Chosroes. The descendants of Arsaces, who
were still numerous in Armenia, had been provoked to assert the
last relics of national freedom and hereditary rank; and the
ambassadors of Vitiges had secretly traversed the empire to
expose the instant, and almost inevitable, danger of the kingdom
of Italy. Their representations were uniform, weighty, and
effectual. “We stand before your throne, the advocates of your
interest as well as of our own. The ambitious and faithless
Justinian aspires to be the sole master of the world. Since the
endless peace, which betrayed the common freedom of mankind, that
prince, your ally in words, your enemy in actions, has alike
insulted his friends and foes, and has filled the earth with
blood and confusion. Has he not violated the privileges of
Armenia, the independence of Colchos, and the wild liberty of the
Tzanian mountains? Has he not usurped, with equal avidity, the
city of Bosphorus on the frozen Maeotis, and the vale of
palm-trees on the shores of the Red Sea? The Moors, the Vandals,
the Goths, have been successively oppressed, and each nation has
calmly remained the spectator of their neighbor’s ruin. Embrace,
O king! the favorable moment; the East is left without defence,
while the armies of Justinian and his renowned general are
detained in the distant regions of the West. If you hesitate or
delay, Belisarius and his victorious troops will soon return from
the Tyber to the Tigris, and Persia may enjoy the wretched
consolation of being the last devoured.” 61 By such arguments,
Chosroes was easily persuaded to imitate the example which he
condemned: but the Persian, ambitious of military fame, disdained
the inactive warfare of a rival, who issued his sanguinary
commands from the secure station of the Byzantine palace.
57 (return) [ The endless peace (Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 21)
was concluded or ratified in the vith year, and iiid consulship,
of Justinian, (A.D. 533, between January 1 and April 1. Pagi,
tom. ii. p. 550.) Marcellinus, in his Chronicle, uses the style
of Medes and Persians.]
58 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 26.]
59 (return) [ Almondar, king of Hira, was deposed by Kobad, and
restored by Nushirvan. His mother, from her beauty, was surnamed
Celestial Water, an appellation which became hereditary, and was
extended for a more noble cause (liberality in famine) to the
Arab princes of Syria, (Pocock, Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 69, 70.)]
60 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. ii. c. 1. We are ignorant of
the origin and object of this strata, a paved road of ten days’
journey from Auranitis to Babylonia. (See a Latin note in
Delisle’s Map Imp. Orient.) Wesseling and D’Anville are silent.]
61 (return) [ I have blended, in a short speech, the two orations
of the Arsacides of Armenia and the Gothic ambassadors.
Procopius, in his public history, feels, and makes us feel, that
Justinian was the true author of the war, (Persic. l. ii. c. 2,
3.)]
Whatever might be the provocations of Chosroes, he abused the
confidence of treaties; and the just reproaches of dissimulation
and falsehood could only be concealed by the lustre of his
victories. 62 The Persian army, which had been assembled in the
plains of Babylon, prudently declined the strong cities of
Mesopotamia, and followed the western bank of the Euphrates, till
the small, though populous, town of Dura 6211 presumed to arrest
the progress of the great king. The gates of Dura, by treachery
and surprise, were burst open; and as soon as Chosroes had
stained his cimeter with the blood of the inhabitants, he
dismissed the ambassador of Justinian to inform his master in
what place he had left the enemy of the Romans. The conqueror
still affected the praise of humanity and justice; and as he
beheld a noble matron with her infant rudely dragged along the
ground, he sighed, he wept, and implored the divine justice to
punish the author of these calamities. Yet the herd of twelve
thousand captives was ransomed for two hundred pounds of gold;
the neighboring bishop of Sergiopolis pledged his faith for the
payment: and in the subsequent year the unfeeling avarice of
Chosroes exacted the penalty of an obligation which it was
generous to contract and impossible to discharge. He advanced
into the heart of Syria: but a feeble enemy, who vanished at his
approach, disappointed him of the honor of victory; and as he
could not hope to establish his dominion, the Persian king
displayed in this inroad the mean and rapacious vices of a
robber. Hierapolis, Berrhaea or Aleppo, Apamea and Chalcis, were
successively besieged: they redeemed their safety by a ransom of
gold or silver, proportioned to their respective strength and
opulence; and their new master enforced, without observing, the
terms of capitulation. Educated in the religion of the Magi, he
exercised, without remorse, the lucrative trade of sacrilege;
and, after stripping of its gold and gems a piece of the true
cross, he generously restored the naked relic to the devotion of
the Christians of Apamea. No more than fourteen years had elapsed
since Antioch was ruined by an earthquake; 6212 but the queen of
the East, the new Theopolis, had been raised from the ground by
the liberality of Justinian; and the increasing greatness of the
buildings and the people already erased the memory of this recent
disaster. On one side, the city was defended by the mountain, on
the other by the River Orontes; but the most accessible part was
commanded by a superior eminence: the proper remedies were
rejected, from the despicable fear of discovering its weakness to
the enemy; and Germanus, the emperor’s nephew, refused to trust
his person and dignity within the walls of a besieged city. The
people of Antioch had inherited the vain and satirical genius of
their ancestors: they were elated by a sudden reenforcement of
six thousand soldiers; they disdained the offers of an easy
capitulation and their intemperate clamors insulted from the
ramparts the majesty of the great king. Under his eye the Persian
myriads mounted with scaling-ladders to the assault; the Roman
mercenaries fled through the opposite gate of Daphne; and the
generous assistance of the youth of Antioch served only to
aggravate the miseries of their country. As Chosroes, attended by
the ambassadors of Justinian, was descending from the mountain,
he affected, in a plaintive voice, to deplore the obstinacy and
ruin of that unhappy people; but the slaughter still raged with
unrelenting fury; and the city, at the command of a Barbarian,
was delivered to the flames. The cathedral of Antioch was indeed
preserved by the avarice, not the piety, of the conqueror: a more
honorable exemption was granted to the church of St. Julian, and
the quarter of the town where the ambassadors resided; some
distant streets were saved by the shifting of the wind, and the
walls still subsisted to protect, and soon to betray, their new
inhabitants. Fanaticism had defaced the ornaments of Daphne, but
Chosroes breathed a purer air amidst her groves and fountains;
and some idolaters in his train might sacrifice with impunity to
the nymphs of that elegant retreat. Eighteen miles below Antioch,
the River Orontes falls into the Mediterranean. The haughty
Persian visited the term of his conquests; and, after bathing
alone in the sea, he offered a solemn sacrifice of thanksgiving
to the sun, or rather to the Creator of the sun, whom the Magi
adored. If this act of superstition offended the prejudices of
the Syrians, they were pleased by the courteous and even eager
attention with which he assisted at the games of the circus; and
as Chosroes had heard that the blue faction was espoused by the
emperor, his peremptory command secured the victory of the green
charioteer. From the discipline of his camp the people derived
more solid consolation; and they interceded in vain for the life
of a soldier who had too faithfully copied the rapine of the just
Nushirvan. At length, fatigued, though unsatiated, with the spoil
of Syria, 6213 he slowly moved to the Euphrates, formed a
temporary bridge in the neighborhood of Barbalissus, and defined
the space of three days for the entire passage of his numerous
host. After his return, he founded, at the distance of one day’s
journey from the palace of Ctesiphon, a new city, which
perpetuated the joint names of Chosroes and of Antioch. The
Syrian captives recognized the form and situation of their native
abodes: baths and a stately circus were constructed for their
use; and a colony of musicians and charioteers revived in Assyria
the pleasures of a Greek capital. By the munificence of the royal
founder, a liberal allowance was assigned to these fortunate
exiles; and they enjoyed the singular privilege of bestowing
freedom on the slaves whom they acknowledged as their kinsmen.
Palestine, and the holy wealth of Jerusalem, were the next
objects that attracted the ambition, or rather the avarice, of
Chosroes. Constantinople, and the palace of the Caesars, no
longer appeared impregnable or remote; and his aspiring fancy
already covered Asia Minor with the troops, and the Black Sea
with the navies, of Persia.
62 (return) [ The invasion of Syria, the ruin of Antioch, &c.,
are related in a full and regular series by Procopius, (Persic.
l. ii. c. 5—14.) Small collateral aid can be drawn from the
Orientals: yet not they, but D’Herbelot himself, (p. 680,) should
blush when he blames them for making Justinian and Nushirvan
contemporaries. On the geography of the seat of war, D’Anville
(l’Euphrate et le Tigre) is sufficient and satisfactory.]
6211 (return) [ It is Sura in Procopius. Is it a misprint in
Gibbon?—M.]
6212 (return) [ Joannes Lydus attributes the easy capture of
Antioch to the want of fortifications which had not been restored
since the earthquake, l. iii. c. 54. p. 246.—M.]
6213 (return) [ Lydus asserts that he carried away all the
statues, pictures, and marbles which adorned the city, l. iii. c.
54, p. 246.—M.]
These hopes might have been realized, if the conqueror of Italy
had not been seasonably recalled to the defence of the East. 63
While Chosroes pursued his ambitious designs on the coast of the
Euxine, Belisarius, at the head of an army without pay or
discipline, encamped beyond the Euphrates, within six miles of
Nisibis. He meditated, by a skilful operation, to draw the
Persians from their impregnable citadel, and improving his
advantage in the field, either to intercept their retreat, or
perhaps to enter the gates with the flying Barbarians. He
advanced one day’s journey on the territories of Persia, reduced
the fortress of Sisaurane, and sent the governor, with eight
hundred chosen horsemen, to serve the emperor in his Italian
wars. He detached Arethas and his Arabs, supported by twelve
hundred Romans, to pass the Tigris, and to ravage the harvests of
Assyria, a fruitful province, long exempt from the calamities of
war. But the plans of Belisarius were disconcerted by the
untractable spirit of Arethas, who neither returned to the camp,
nor sent any intelligence of his motions. The Roman general was
fixed in anxious expectation to the same spot; the time of action
elapsed, the ardent sun of Mesopotamia inflamed with fevors the
blood of his European soldiers; and the stationary troops and
officers of Syria affected to tremble for the safety of their
defenceless cities. Yet this diversion had already succeeded in
forcing Chosroes to return with loss and precipitation; and if
the skill of Belisarius had been seconded by discipline and
valor, his success might have satisfied the sanguine wishes of
the public, who required at his hands the conquest of Ctesiphon,
and the deliverance of the captives of Antioch. At the end of the
campaign, he was recalled to Constantinople by an ungrateful
court, but the dangers of the ensuing spring restored his
confidence and command; and the hero, almost alone, was
despatched, with the speed of post-horses, to repel, by his name
and presence, the invasion of Syria. He found the Roman generals,
among whom was a nephew of Justinian, imprisoned by their fears
in the fortifications of Hierapolis. But instead of listening to
their timid counsels, Belisarius commanded them to follow him to
Europus, where he had resolved to collect his forces, and to
execute whatever God should inspire him to achieve against the
enemy. His firm attitude on the banks of the Euphrates restrained
Chosroes from advancing towards Palestine; and he received with
art and dignity the ambassadors, or rather spies, of the Persian
monarch. The plain between Hierapolis and the river was covered
with the squadrons of cavalry, six thousand hunters, tall and
robust, who pursued their game without the apprehension of an
enemy. On the opposite bank the ambassadors descried a thousand
Armenian horse, who appeared to guard the passage of the
Euphrates. The tent of Belisarius was of the coarsest linen, the
simple equipage of a warrior who disdained the luxury of the
East. Around his tent, the nations who marched under his standard
were arranged with skilful confusion. The Thracians and Illyrians
were posted in the front, the Heruli and Goths in the centre; the
prospect was closed by the Moors and Vandals, and their loose
array seemed to multiply their numbers. Their dress was light and
active; one soldier carried a whip, another a sword, a third a
bow, a fourth, perhaps, a battle axe, and the whole picture
exhibited the intrepidity of the troops and the vigilance of the
general. Chosroes was deluded by the address, and awed by the
genius, of the lieutenant of Justinian. Conscious of the merit,
and ignorant of the force, of his antagonist, he dreaded a
decisive battle in a distant country, from whence not a Persian
might return to relate the melancholy tale. The great king
hastened to repass the Euphrates; and Belisarius pressed his
retreat, by affecting to oppose a measure so salutary to the
empire, and which could scarcely have been prevented by an army
of a hundred thousand men. Envy might suggest to ignorance and
pride, that the public enemy had been suffered to escape: but the
African and Gothic triumphs are less glorious than this safe and
bloodless victory, in which neither fortune, nor the valor of the
soldiers, can subtract any part of the general’s renown. The
second removal of Belisarius from the Persian to the Italian war
revealed the extent of his personal merit, which had corrected or
supplied the want of discipline and courage. Fifteen generals,
without concert or skill, led through the mountains of Armenia an
army of thirty thousand Romans, inattentive to their signals,
their ranks, and their ensigns. Four thousand Persians,
intrenched in the camp of Dubis, vanquished, almost without a
combat, this disorderly multitude; their useless arms were
scattered along the road, and their horses sunk under the fatigue
of their rapid flight. But the Arabs of the Roman party prevailed
over their brethren; the Armenians returned to their allegiance;
the cities of Dara and Edessa resisted a sudden assault and a
regular siege, and the calamities of war were suspended by those
of pestilence. A tacit or formal agreement between the two
sovereigns protected the tranquillity of the Eastern frontier;
and the arms of Chosroes were confined to the Colchian or Lazic
war, which has been too minutely described by the historians of
the times. 64
63 (return) [ In the public history of Procopius, (Persic. l. ii.
c. 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28;) and, with some slight
exceptions, we may reasonably shut our ears against the
malevolent whisper of the Anecdotes, (c. 2, 3, with the Notes, as
usual, of Alemannus.)]
64 (return) [ The Lazic war, the contest of Rome and Persia on
the Phasis, is tediously spun through many a page of Procopius
(Persic. l. ii. c. 15, 17, 28, 29, 30.) Gothic. (l. iv. c. 7—16)
and Agathias, (l. ii. iii. and iv. p. 55—132, 141.)]
The extreme length of the Euxine Sea 65 from Constantinople to
the mouth of the Phasis, may be computed as a voyage of nine
days, and a measure of seven hundred miles. From the Iberian
Caucasus, the most lofty and craggy mountains of Asia, that river
descends with such oblique vehemence, that in a short space it is
traversed by one hundred and twenty bridges. Nor does the stream
become placid and navigable, till it reaches the town of
Sarapana, five days’ journey from the Cyrus, which flows from the
same hills, but in a contrary direction to the Caspian Lake. The
proximity of these rivers has suggested the practice, or at least
the idea, of wafting the precious merchandise of India down the
Oxus, over the Caspian, up the Cyrus, and with the current of the
Phasis into the Euxine and Mediterranean Seas. As it successively
collects the streams of the plain of Colchos, the Phasis moves
with diminished speed, though accumulated weight. At the mouth it
is sixty fathom deep, and half a league broad, but a small woody
island is interposed in the midst of the channel; the water, so
soon as it has deposited an earthy or metallic sediment, floats
on the surface of the waves, and is no longer susceptible of
corruption. In a course of one hundred miles, forty of which are
navigable for large vessels, the Phasis divides the celebrated
region of Colchos, 66 or Mingrelia, 67 which, on three sides, is
fortified by the Iberian and Armenian mountains, and whose
maritime coast extends about two hundred miles from the
neighborhood of Trebizond to Dioscurias and the confines of
Circassia. Both the soil and climate are relaxed by excessive
moisture: twenty-eight rivers, besides the Phasis and his
dependent streams, convey their waters to the sea; and the
hollowness of the ground appears to indicate the subterraneous
channels between the Euxine and the Caspian. In the fields where
wheat or barley is sown, the earth is too soft to sustain the
action of the plough; but the gom, a small grain, not unlike the
millet or coriander seed, supplies the ordinary food of the
people; and the use of bread is confined to the prince and his
nobles. Yet the vintage is more plentiful than the harvest; and
the bulk of the stems, as well as the quality of the wine,
display the unassisted powers of nature. The same powers
continually tend to overshadow the face of the country with thick
forests; the timber of the hills, and the flax of the plains,
contribute to the abundance of naval stores; the wild and tame
animals, the horse, the ox, and the hog, are remarkably prolific,
and the name of the pheasant is expressive of his native
habitation on the banks of the Phasis. The gold mines to the
south of Trebizond, which are still worked with sufficient
profit, were a subject of national dispute between Justinian and
Chosroes; and it is not unreasonable to believe, that a vein of
precious metal may be equally diffused through the circle of the
hills, although these secret treasures are neglected by the
laziness, or concealed by the prudence, of the Mingrelians. The
waters, impregnated with particles of gold, are carefully
strained through sheep-skins or fleeces; but this expedient, the
groundwork perhaps of a marvellous fable, affords a faint image
of the wealth extracted from a virgin earth by the power and
industry of ancient kings. Their silver palaces and golden
chambers surpass our belief; but the fame of their riches is said
to have excited the enterprising avarice of the Argonauts. 68
Tradition has affirmed, with some color of reason, that Egypt
planted on the Phasis a learned and polite colony, 69 which
manufactured linen, built navies, and invented geographical maps.
The ingenuity of the moderns has peopled, with flourishing cities
and nations, the isthmus between the Euxine and the Caspian; 70
and a lively writer, observing the resemblance of climate, and,
in his apprehension, of trade, has not hesitated to pronounce
Colchos the Holland of antiquity. 71
65 (return) [ The Periplus, or circumnavigation of the Euxine
Sea, was described in Latin by Sallust, and in Greek by Arrian:
I. The former work, which no longer exists, has been restored by
the singular diligence of M. de Brosses, first president of the
parliament of Dijon, (Hist. de la Republique Romaine, tom. ii. l.
iii. p. 199—298,) who ventures to assume the character of the
Roman historian. His description of the Euxine is ingeniously
formed of all the fragments of the original, and of all the
Greeks and Latins whom Sallust might copy, or by whom he might be
copied; and the merit of the execution atones for the whimsical
design. 2. The Periplus of Arrian is addressed to the emperor
Hadrian, (in Geograph. Minor. Hudson, tom. i.,) and contains
whatever the governor of Pontus had seen from Trebizond to
Dioscurias; whatever he had heard from Dioscurias to the Danube;
and whatever he knew from the Danube to Trebizond.]
66 (return) [ Besides the many occasional hints from the poets,
historians &c., of antiquity, we may consult the geographical
descriptions of Colchos, by Strabo (l. xi. p. 760—765) and Pliny,
(Hist. Natur. vi. 5, 19, &c.)]
67 (return) [ I shall quote, and have used, three modern
descriptions of Mingrelia and the adjacent countries. 1. Of the
Pere Archangeli Lamberti, (Relations de Thevenot, part i. p.
31-52, with a map,) who has all the knowledge and prejudices of a
missionary. 2. Of Chardia, (Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 54,
68-168.) His observations are judicious and his own adventures in
the country are still more instructive than his observations. 3.
Of Peyssonel, (Observations sur les Peuples Barbares, p. 49, 50,
51, 58 62, 64, 65, 71, &c., and a more recent treatise, Sur le
Commerce de la Mer Noire, tom. ii. p. 1—53.) He had long resided
at Caffa, as consul of France; and his erudition is less valuable
than his experience.]
68 (return) [ Pliny, Hist. Natur. l. xxxiii. 15. The gold and
silver mines of Colchos attracted the Argonauts, (Strab. l. i. p.
77.) The sagacious Chardin could find no gold in mines, rivers,
or elsewhere. Yet a Mingrelian lost his hand and foot for showing
some specimens at Constantinople of native gold]
69 (return) [ Herodot. l. ii. c. 104, 105, p. 150, 151. Diodor.
Sicul. l. i. p. 33, edit. Wesseling. Dionys. Perieget. 689, and
Eustath. ad loc. Schohast ad Apollonium Argonaut. l. iv.
282-291.]
70 (return) [ Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xxi. c. 6.
L’Isthme... couvero de villes et nations qui ne sont plus.]
71 (return) [ Bougainville, Memoires de l’Academie des
Inscriptions, tom. xxvi. p. 33, on the African voyage of Hanno
and the commerce of antiquity.]
But the riches of Colchos shine only through the darkness of
conjecture or tradition; and its genuine history presents a
uniform scene of rudeness and poverty. If one hundred and thirty
languages were spoken in the market of Dioscurias, 72 they were
the imperfect idioms of so many savage tribes or families,
sequestered from each other in the valleys of Mount Caucasus; and
their separation, which diminished the importance, must have
multiplied the number, of their rustic capitals. In the present
state of Mingrelia, a village is an assemblage of huts within a
wooden fence; the fortresses are seated in the depths of forests;
the princely town of Cyta, or Cotatis, consists of two hundred
houses, and a stone edifice appertains only to the magnificence
of kings. Twelve ships from Constantinople, and about sixty
barks, laden with the fruits of industry, annually cast anchor on
the coast; and the list of Colchian exports is much increased,
since the natives had only slaves and hides to offer in exchange
for the corn and salt which they purchased from the subjects of
Justinian. Not a vestige can be found of the art, the knowledge,
or the navigation, of the ancient Colchians: few Greeks desired
or dared to pursue the footsteps of the Argonauts; and even the
marks of an Egyptian colony are lost on a nearer approach. The
rite of circumcision is practised only by the Mahometans of the
Euxine; and the curled hair and swarthy complexion of Africa no
longer disfigure the most perfect of the human race. It is in the
adjacent climates of Georgia, Mingrelia, and Circassia, that
nature has placed, at least to our eyes, the model of beauty in
the shape of the limbs, the color of the skin, the symmetry of
the features, and the expression of the countenance. 73 According
to the destination of the two sexes, the men seemed formed for
action, the women for love; and the perpetual supply of females
from Mount Caucasus has purified the blood, and improved the
breed, of the southern nations of Asia. The proper district of
Mingrelia, a portion only of the ancient Colchos, has long
sustained an exportation of twelve thousand slaves. The number of
prisoners or criminals would be inadequate to the annual demand;
but the common people are in a state of servitude to their lords;
the exercise of fraud or rapine is unpunished in a lawless
community; and the market is continually replenished by the abuse
of civil and paternal authority. Such a trade, 74 which reduces
the human species to the level of cattle, may tend to encourage
marriage and population, since the multitude of children enriches
their sordid and inhuman parent. But this source of impure wealth
must inevitably poison the national manners, obliterate the sense
of honor and virtue, and almost extinguish the instincts of
nature: the Christians of Georgia and Mingrelia are the most
dissolute of mankind; and their children, who, in a tender age,
are sold into foreign slavery, have already learned to imitate
the rapine of the father and the prostitution of the mother. Yet,
amidst the rudest ignorance, the untaught natives discover a
singular dexterity both of mind and hand; and although the want
of union and discipline exposes them to their more powerful
neighbors, a bold and intrepid spirit has animated the Colchians
of every age. In the host of Xerxes, they served on foot; and
their arms were a dagger or a javelin, a wooden casque, and a
buckler of raw hides. But in their own country the use of cavalry
has more generally prevailed: the meanest of the peasants
disdained to walk; the martial nobles are possessed, perhaps, of
two hundred horses; and above five thousand are numbered in the
train of the prince of Mingrelia. The Colchian government has
been always a pure and hereditary kingdom; and the authority of
the sovereign is only restrained by the turbulence of his
subjects. Whenever they were obedient, he could lead a numerous
army into the field; but some faith is requisite to believe, that
the single tribe of the Suanians as composed of two hundred
thousand soldiers, or that the population of Mingrelia now
amounts to four millions of inhabitants. 75
72 (return) [ A Greek historian, Timosthenes, had affirmed, in
eam ccc. nationes dissimilibus linguis descendere; and the modest
Pliny is content to add, et postea a nostris cxxx. interpretibus
negotia ibi gesta, (vi. 5) But the words nunc deserta cover a
multitude of past fictions.]
73 (return) [ Buffon (Hist. Nat. tom. iii. p. 433—437) collects
the unanimous suffrage of naturalists and travellers. If, in the
time of Herodotus, they were, (and he had observed them with
care,) this precious fact is an example of the influence of
climate on a foreign colony.]
74 (return) [ The Mingrelian ambassador arrived at Constantinople
with two hundred persons; but he ate (sold) them day by day, till
his retinue was diminished to a secretary and two valets,
(Tavernier, tom. i. p. 365.) To purchase his mistress, a
Mingrelian gentleman sold twelve priests and his wife to the
Turks, (Chardin, tom. i. p. 66.)]
75 (return) [ Strabo, l. xi. p. 765. Lamberti, Relation de la
Mingrelie. Yet we must avoid the contrary extreme of Chardin, who
allows no more than 20,000 inhabitants to supply an annual
exportation of 12,000 slaves; an absurdity unworthy of that
judicious traveller.]
Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part IV.
It was the boast of the Colchians, that their ancestors had
checked the victories of Sesostris; and the defeat of the
Egyptian is less incredible than his successful progress as far
as the foot of Mount Caucasus. They sunk without any memorable
effort, under the arms of Cyrus; followed in distant wars the
standard of the great king, and presented him every fifth year
with one hundred boys, and as many virgins, the fairest produce
of the land. 76 Yet he accepted this gift like the gold and ebony
of India, the frankincense of the Arabs, or the negroes and ivory
of Aethiopia: the Colchians were not subject to the dominion of a
satrap, and they continued to enjoy the name as well as substance
of national independence. 77 After the fall of the Persian
empire, Mithridates, king of Pontus, added Colchos to the wide
circle of his dominions on the Euxine; and when the natives
presumed to request that his son might reign over them, he bound
the ambitious youth in chains of gold, and delegated a servant in
his place. In pursuit of Mithridates, the Romans advanced to the
banks of the Phasis, and their galleys ascended the river till
they reached the camp of Pompey and his legions. 78 But the
senate, and afterwards the emperors, disdained to reduce that
distant and useless conquest into the form of a province. The
family of a Greek rhetorician was permitted to reign in Colchos
and the adjacent kingdoms from the time of Mark Antony to that of
Nero; and after the race of Polemo 79 was extinct, the eastern
Pontus, which preserved his name, extended no farther than the
neighborhood of Trebizond. Beyond these limits the fortifications
of Hyssus, of Apsarus, of the Phasis, of Dioscurias or
Sebastopolis, and of Pityus, were guarded by sufficient
detachments of horse and foot; and six princes of Colchos
received their diadems from the lieutenants of Caesar. One of
these lieutenants, the eloquent and philosophic Arrian, surveyed,
and has described, the Euxine coast, under the reign of Hadrian.
The garrison which he reviewed at the mouth of the Phasis
consisted of four hundred chosen legionaries; the brick walls and
towers, the double ditch, and the military engines on the
rampart, rendered this place inaccessible to the Barbarians: but
the new suburbs which had been built by the merchants and
veterans, required, in the opinion of Arrian, some external
defence. 80 As the strength of the empire was gradually impaired,
the Romans stationed on the Phasis were neither withdrawn nor
expelled; and the tribe of the Lazi, 81 whose posterity speak a
foreign dialect, and inhabit the sea coast of Trebizond, imposed
their name and dominion on the ancient kingdom of Colchos. Their
independence was soon invaded by a formidable neighbor, who had
acquired, by arms and treaties, the sovereignty of Iberia. The
dependent king of Lazica received his sceptre at the hands of the
Persian monarch, and the successors of Constantine acquiesced in
this injurious claim, which was proudly urged as a right of
immemorial prescription. In the beginning of the sixth century,
their influence was restored by the introduction of Christianity,
which the Mingrelians still profess with becoming zeal, without
understanding the doctrines, or observing the precepts, of their
religion. After the decease of his father, Zathus was exalted to
the regal dignity by the favor of the great king; but the pious
youth abhorred the ceremonies of the Magi, and sought, in the
palace of Constantinople, an orthodox baptism, a noble wife, and
the alliance of the emperor Justin. The king of Lazica was
solemnly invested with the diadem, and his cloak and tunic of
white silk, with a gold border, displayed, in rich embroidery,
the figure of his new patron; who soothed the jealousy of the
Persian court, and excused the revolt of Colchos, by the
venerable names of hospitality and religion. The common interest
of both empires imposed on the Colchians the duty of guarding the
passes of Mount Caucasus, where a wall of sixty miles is now
defended by the monthly service of the musketeers of Mingrelia.
82
76 (return) [ Herodot. l. iii. c. 97. See, in l. vii. c. 79,
their arms and service in the expedition of Xerxes against
Greece.]
77 (return) [ Xenophon, who had encountered the Colchians in his
retreat, (Anabasis, l. iv. p. 320, 343, 348, edit. Hutchinson;
and Foster’s Dissertation, p. liii.—lviii., in Spelman’s English
version, vol. ii.,) styled them. Before the conquest of
Mithridates, they are named by Appian, (de Bell. Mithridatico, c.
15, tom. i. p. 661, of the last and best edition, by John
Schweighaeuser. Lipsae, 1785 8 vols. largo octavo.)]
78 (return) [ The conquest of Colchos by Mithridates and Pompey
is marked by Appian (de Bell. Mithridat.) and Plutarch, (in Vit.
Pomp.)]
79 (return) [ We may trace the rise and fall of the family of
Polemo, in Strabo, (l. xi. p. 755, l. xii. p. 867,) Dion Cassius,
or Xiphilin, (p. 588, 593, 601, 719, 754, 915, 946, edit.
Reimar,) Suetonius, (in Neron. c. 18, in Vespasian, c. 8,)
Eutropius, (vii. 14,) Josephus, (Antiq. Judaic. l. xx. c. 7, p.
970, edit. Havercamp,) and Eusebius, (Chron. with Scaliger,
Animadvers. p. 196.)]
80 (return) [ In the time of Procopius, there were no Roman forts
on the Phasis. Pityus and Sebastopolis were evacuated on the
rumor of the Persians, (Goth. l. iv. c. 4;) but the latter was
afterwards restored by Justinian, (de Edif. l. iv. c. 7.)]
81 (return) [ In the time of Pliny, Arrian, and Ptolemy, the Lazi
were a particular tribe on the northern skirts of Colchos,
(Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 222.) In the age of
Justinian, they spread, or at least reigned, over the whole
country. At present, they have migrated along the coast towards
Trebizond, and compose a rude sea-faring people, with a peculiar
language, (Chardin, p. 149. Peyssonel p. 64.)]
82 (return) [ John Malala, Chron. tom. ii. p. 134—137 Theophanes,
p. 144. Hist. Miscell. l. xv. p. 103. The fact is authentic, but
the date seems too recent. In speaking of their Persian alliance,
the Lazi contemporaries of Justinian employ the most obsolete
words, &c. Could they belong to a connection which had not been
dissolved above twenty years?]
But this honorable connection was soon corrupted by the avarice
and ambition of the Romans. Degraded from the rank of allies, the
Lazi were incessantly reminded, by words and actions, of their
dependent state. At the distance of a day’s journey beyond the
Apsarus, they beheld the rising fortress of Petra, 83 which
commanded the maritime country to the south of the Phasis.
Instead of being protected by the valor, Colchos was insulted by
the licentiousness, of foreign mercenaries; the benefits of
commerce were converted into base and vexatious monopoly; and
Gubazes, the native prince, was reduced to a pageant of royalty,
by the superior influence of the officers of Justinian.
Disappointed in their expectations of Christian virtue, the
indignant Lazi reposed some confidence in the justice of an
unbeliever. After a private assurance that their ambassadors
should not be delivered to the Romans, they publicly solicited
the friendship and aid of Chosroes. The sagacious monarch
instantly discerned the use and importance of Colchos; and
meditated a plan of conquest, which was renewed at the end of a
thousand years by Shah Abbas, the wisest and most powerful of his
successors. 84 His ambition was fired by the hope of launching a
Persian navy from the Phasis, of commanding the trade and
navigation of the Euxine Sea, of desolating the coast of Pontus
and Bithynia, of distressing, perhaps of attacking,
Constantinople, and of persuading the Barbarians of Europe to
second his arms and counsels against the common enemy of mankind.
Under the pretence of a Scythian war, he silently led his troops
to the frontiers of Iberia; the Colchian guides were prepared to
conduct them through the woods and along the precipices of Mount
Caucasus; and a narrow path was laboriously formed into a safe
and spacious highway, for the march of cavalry, and even of
elephants. Gubazes laid his person and diadem at the feet of the
king of Persia; his Colchians imitated the submission of their
prince; and after the walls of Petra had been shaken, the Roman
garrison prevented, by a capitulation, the impending fury of the
last assault. But the Lazi soon discovered, that their impatience
had urged them to choose an evil more intolerable than the
calamities which they strove to escape. The monopoly of salt and
corn was effectually removed by the loss of those valuable
commodities. The authority of a Roman legislator, was succeeded
by the pride of an Oriental despot, who beheld, with equal
disdain, the slaves whom he had exalted, and the kings whom he
had humbled before the footstool of his throne. The adoration of
fire was introduced into Colchos by the zeal of the Magi: their
intolerant spirit provoked the fervor of a Christian people; and
the prejudice of nature or education was wounded by the impious
practice of exposing the dead bodies of their parents, on the
summit of a lofty tower, to the crows and vultures of the air. 85
Conscious of the increasing hatred, which retarded the execution
of his great designs, the just Nashirvan had secretly given
orders to assassinate the king of the Lazi, to transplant the
people into some distant land, and to fix a faithful and warlike
colony on the banks of the Phasis. The watchful jealousy of the
Colchians foresaw and averted the approaching ruin. Their
repentance was accepted at Constantinople by the prudence, rather
than clemency, of Justinian; and he commanded Dagisteus, with
seven thousand Romans, and one thousand of the Zani, 8511 to
expel the Persians from the coast of the Euxine.
83 (return) [ The sole vestige of Petra subsists in the writings
of Procopius and Agathias. Most of the towns and castles of
Lazica may be found by comparing their names and position with
the map of Mingrelia, in Lamberti.]
84 (return) [ See the amusing letters of Pietro della Valle, the
Roman traveler, (Viaggi, tom. ii. 207, 209, 213, 215, 266, 286,
300, tom. iii. p. 54, 127.) In the years 1618, 1619, and 1620, he
conversed with Shah Abbas, and strongly encouraged a design which
might have united Persia and Europe against their common enemy
the Turk.]
85 (return) [ See Herodotus, (l. i. c. 140, p. 69,) who speaks
with diffidence, Larcher, (tom. i. p. 399—401, Notes sur
Herodote,) Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 11,) and Agathias, (l.
ii. p. 61, 62.) This practice, agreeable to the Zendavesta,
(Hyde, de Relig. Pers. c. 34, p. 414—421,) demonstrates that the
burial of the Persian kings, (Xenophon, Cyropaed. l. viii. p.
658,) is a Greek fiction, and that their tombs could be no more
than cenotaphs.]
8511 (return) [ These seem the same people called Suanians, p.
328.—M.]
The siege of Petra, which the Roman general, with the aid of the
Lazi, immediately undertook, is one of the most remarkable
actions of the age. The city was seated on a craggy rock, which
hung over the sea, and communicated by a steep and narrow path
with the land. Since the approach was difficult, the attack might
be deemed impossible: the Persian conqueror had strengthened the
fortifications of Justinian; and the places least inaccessible
were covered by additional bulwarks. In this important fortress,
the vigilance of Chosroes had deposited a magazine of offensive
and defensive arms, sufficient for five times the number, not
only of the garrison, but of the besiegers themselves. The stock
of flour and salt provisions was adequate to the consumption of
five years; the want of wine was supplied by vinegar; and of
grain from whence a strong liquor was extracted, and a triple
aqueduct eluded the diligence, and even the suspicions, of the
enemy. But the firmest defence of Petra was placed in the valor
of fifteen hundred Persians, who resisted the assaults of the
Romans, whilst, in a softer vein of earth, a mine was secretly
perforated. The wall, supported by slender and temporary props,
hung tottering in the air; but Dagisteus delayed the attack till
he had secured a specific recompense; and the town was relieved
before the return of his messenger from Constantinople. The
Persian garrison was reduced to four hundred men, of whom no more
than fifty were exempt from sickness or wounds; yet such had been
their inflexible perseverance, that they concealed their losses
from the enemy, by enduring, without a murmur, the sight and
putrefying stench of the dead bodies of their eleven hundred
companions. After their deliverance, the breaches were hastily
stopped with sand-bags; the mine was replenished with earth; a
new wall was erected on a frame of substantial timber; and a
fresh garrison of three thousand men was stationed at Petra to
sustain the labors of a second siege. The operations, both of the
attack and defence, were conducted with skilful obstinacy; and
each party derived useful lessons from the experience of their
past faults. A battering-ram was invented, of light construction
and powerful effect: it was transported and worked by the hands
of forty soldiers; and as the stones were loosened by its
repeated strokes, they were torn with long iron hooks from the
wall. From those walls, a shower of darts was incessantly poured
on the heads of the assailants; but they were most dangerously
annoyed by a fiery composition of sulphur and bitumen, which in
Colchos might with some propriety be named the oil of Medea. Of
six thousand Romans who mounted the scaling-ladders, their
general Bessas was the first, a gallant veteran of seventy years
of age: the courage of their leader, his fall, and extreme
danger, animated the irresistible effort of his troops; and their
prevailing numbers oppressed the strength, without subduing the
spirit, of the Persian garrison. The fate of these valiant men
deserves to be more distinctly noticed. Seven hundred had
perished in the siege, two thousand three hundred survived to
defend the breach. One thousand and seventy were destroyed with
fire and sword in the last assault; and if seven hundred and
thirty were made prisoners, only eighteen among them were found
without the marks of honorable wounds. The remaining five hundred
escaped into the citadel, which they maintained without any hopes
of relief, rejecting the fairest terms of capitulation and
service, till they were lost in the flames. They died in
obedience to the commands of their prince; and such examples of
loyalty and valor might excite their countrymen to deeds of equal
despair and more prosperous event. The instant demolition of the
works of Petra confessed the astonishment and apprehension of the
conqueror. A Spartan would have praised and pitied the virtue of
these heroic slaves; but the tedious warfare and alternate
success of the Roman and Persian arms cannot detain the attention
of posterity at the foot of Mount Caucasus. The advantages
obtained by the troops of Justinian were more frequent and
splendid; but the forces of the great king were continually
supplied, till they amounted to eight elephants and seventy
thousand men, including twelve thousand Scythian allies, and
above three thousand Dilemites, who descended by their free
choice from the hills of Hyrcania, and were equally formidable in
close or in distant combat. The siege of Archaeopolis, a name
imposed or corrupted by the Greeks, was raised with some loss and
precipitation; but the Persians occupied the passes of Iberia:
Colchos was enslaved by their forts and garrisons; they devoured
the scanty sustenance of the people; and the prince of the Lazi
fled into the mountains. In the Roman camp, faith and discipline
were unknown; and the independent leaders, who were invested with
equal power, disputed with each other the preeminence of vice and
corruption. The Persians followed, without a murmur, the commands
of a single chief, who implicitly obeyed the instructions of
their supreme lord. Their general was distinguished among the
heroes of the East by his wisdom in council, and his valor in the
field. The advanced age of Mermeroes, and the lameness of both
his feet, could not diminish the activity of his mind, or even of
his body; and, whilst he was carried in a litter in the front of
battle, he inspired terror to the enemy, and a just confidence to
the troops, who, under his banners, were always successful. After
his death, the command devolved to Nacoragan, a proud satrap,
who, in a conference with the Imperial chiefs, had presumed to
declare that he disposed of victory as absolutely as of the ring
on his finger. Such presumption was the natural cause and
forerunner of a shameful defeat. The Romans had been gradually
repulsed to the edge of the sea-shore; and their last camp, on
the ruins of the Grecian colony of Phasis, was defended on all
sides by strong intrenchments, the river, the Euxine, and a fleet
of galleys. Despair united their counsels and invigorated their
arms: they withstood the assault of the Persians and the flight
of Nacoragan preceded or followed the slaughter of ten thousand
of his bravest soldiers. He escaped from the Romans to fall into
the hands of an unforgiving master who severely chastised the
error of his own choice: the unfortunate general was flayed
alive, and his skin, stuffed into the human form, was exposed on
a mountain; a dreadful warning to those who might hereafter be
intrusted with the fame and fortune of Persia. 86 Yet the
prudence of Chosroes insensibly relinquished the prosecution of
the Colchian war, in the just persuasion, that it is impossible
to reduce, or, at least, to hold a distant country against the
wishes and efforts of its inhabitants. The fidelity of Gubazes
sustained the most rigorous trials. He patiently endured the
hardships of a savage life, and rejected with disdain, the
specious temptations of the Persian court. 8611 The king of the
Lazi had been educated in the Christian religion; his mother was
the daughter of a senator; during his youth he had served ten
years a silentiary of the Byzantine palace, 87 and the arrears of
an unpaid salary were a motive of attachment as well as of
complaint. But the long continuance of his sufferings extorted
from him a naked representation of the truth; and truth was an
unpardonable libel on the lieutenants of Justinian, who, amidst
the delays of a ruinous war, had spared his enemies and trampled
on his allies. Their malicious information persuaded the emperor
that his faithless vassal already meditated a second defection:
an order was surprised to send him prisoner to Constantinople; a
treacherous clause was inserted, that he might be lawfully killed
in case of resistance; and Gubazes, without arms, or suspicion of
danger, was stabbed in the security of a friendly interview. In
the first moments of rage and despair, the Colchians would have
sacrificed their country and religion to the gratification of
revenge. But the authority and eloquence of the wiser few
obtained a salutary pause: the victory of the Phasis restored the
terror of the Roman arms, and the emperor was solicitous to
absolve his own name from the imputation of so foul a murder. A
judge of senatorial rank was commissioned to inquire into the
conduct and death of the king of the Lazi. He ascended a stately
tribunal, encompassed by the ministers of justice and punishment:
in the presence of both nations, this extraordinary cause was
pleaded, according to the forms of civil jurisprudence, and some
satisfaction was granted to an injured people, by the sentence
and execution of the meaner criminals. 88
86 (return) [ The punishment of flaying alive could not be
introduced into Persia by Sapor, (Brisson, de Regn. Pers. l. ii.
p. 578,) nor could it be copied from the foolish tale of Marsyas,
the Phrygian piper, most foolishly quoted as a precedent by
Agathias, (l. iv. p. 132, 133.)]
8611 (return) [ According to Agathias, the death of Gubazos
preceded the defeat of Nacoragan. The trial took place after the
battle.—M.]
87 (return) [ In the palace of Constantinople there were thirty
silentiaries, who were styled hastati, ante fores cubiculi, an
honorable title which conferred the rank, without imposing the
duties, of a senator, (Cod. Theodos. l. vi. tit. 23. Gothofred.
Comment. tom. ii. p. 129.)]
88 (return) [ On these judicial orations, Agathias (l. iii. p.
81-89, l. iv. p. 108—119) lavishes eighteen or twenty pages of
false and florid rhetoric. His ignorance or carelessness
overlooks the strongest argument against the king of Lazica—his
former revolt. * Note: The Orations in the third book of Agathias
are not judicial, nor delivered before the Roman tribunal: it is
a deliberative debate among the Colchians on the expediency of
adhering to the Roman, or embracing the Persian alliance.—M.]
In peace, the king of Persia continually sought the pretences of
a rupture: but no sooner had he taken up arms, than he expressed
his desire of a safe and honorable treaty. During the fiercest
hostilities, the two monarchs entertained a deceitful
negotiation; and such was the superiority of Chosroes, that
whilst he treated the Roman ministers with insolence and
contempt, he obtained the most unprecedented honors for his own
ambassadors at the Imperial court. The successor of Cyrus assumed
the majesty of the Eastern sun, and graciously permitted his
younger brother Justinian to reign over the West, with the pale
and reflected splendor of the moon. This gigantic style was
supported by the pomp and eloquence of Isdigune, one of the royal
chamberlains. His wife and daughters, with a train of eunuchs and
camels, attended the march of the ambassador: two satraps with
golden diadems were numbered among his followers: he was guarded
by five hundred horse, the most valiant of the Persians; and the
Roman governor of Dara wisely refused to admit more than twenty
of this martial and hostile caravan. When Isdigune had saluted
the emperor, and delivered his presents, he passed ten months at
Constantinople without discussing any serious affairs. Instead of
being confined to his palace, and receiving food and water from
the hands of his keepers, the Persian ambassador, without spies
or guards, was allowed to visit the capital; and the freedom of
conversation and trade enjoyed by his domestics, offended the
prejudices of an age which rigorously practised the law of
nations, without confidence or courtesy. 89 By an unexampled
indulgence, his interpreter, a servant below the notice of a
Roman magistrate, was seated, at the table of Justinian, by the
side of his master: and one thousand pounds of gold might be
assigned for the expense of his journey and entertainment. Yet
the repeated labors of Isdigune could procure only a partial and
imperfect truce, which was always purchased with the treasures,
and renewed at the solicitation, of the Byzantine court. Many
years of fruitless desolation elapsed before Justinian and
Chosroes were compelled, by mutual lassitude, to consult the
repose of their declining age. At a conference held on the
frontier, each party, without expecting to gain credit, displayed
the power, the justice, and the pacific intentions, of their
respective sovereigns; but necessity and interest dictated the
treaty of peace, which was concluded for a term of fifty years,
diligently composed in the Greek and Persian languages, and
attested by the seals of twelve interpreters. The liberty of
commerce and religion was fixed and defined; the allies of the
emperor and the great king were included in the same benefits and
obligations; and the most scrupulous precautions were provided to
prevent or determine the accidental disputes that might arise on
the confines of two hostile nations. After twenty years of
destructive though feeble war, the limits still remained without
alteration; and Chosroes was persuaded to renounce his dangerous
claim to the possession or sovereignty of Colchos and its
dependent states. Rich in the accumulated treasures of the East,
he extorted from the Romans an annual payment of thirty thousand
pieces of gold; and the smallness of the sum revealed the
disgrace of a tribute in its naked deformity. In a previous
debate, the chariot of Sesostris, and the wheel of fortune, were
applied by one of the ministers of Justinian, who observed that
the reduction of Antioch, and some Syrian cities, had elevated
beyond measure the vain and ambitious spirit of the Barbarian.
“You are mistaken,” replied the modest Persian: “the king of
kings, the lord of mankind, looks down with contempt on such
petty acquisitions; and of the ten nations, vanquished by his
invincible arms, he esteems the Romans as the least formidable.”
90 According to the Orientals, the empire of Nushirvan extended
from Ferganah, in Transoxiana, to Yemen or Arabia Faelix. He
subdued the rebels of Hyrcania, reduced the provinces of Cabul
and Zablestan on the banks of the Indus, broke the power of the
Euthalites, terminated by an honorable treaty the Turkish war,
and admitted the daughter of the great khan into the number of
his lawful wives. Victorious and respected among the princes of
Asia, he gave audience, in his palace of Madain, or Ctesiphon, to
the ambassadors of the world. Their gifts or tributes, arms, rich
garments, gems, slaves or aromatics, were humbly presented at the
foot of his throne; and he condescended to accept from the king
of India ten quintals of the wood of aloes, a maid seven cubits
in height, and a carpet softer than silk, the skin, as it was
reported, of an extraordinary serpent. 91
89 (return) [ Procopius represents the practice of the Gothic
court of Ravenna (Goth. l. i. c. 7;) and foreign ambassadors have
been treated with the same jealousy and rigor in Turkey,
(Busbequius, epist. iii. p. 149, 242, &c.,) Russia, (Voyage
D’Olearius,) and China, (Narrative of A. de Lange, in Bell’s
Travels, vol. ii. p. 189—311.)]
90 (return) [ The negotiations and treaties between Justinian and
Chosroes are copiously explained by Procopius, (Persie, l. ii. c.
10, 13, 26, 27, 28. Gothic. l. ii. c. 11, 15,) Agathias, (l. iv.
p. 141, 142,) and Menander, (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 132—147.)
Consult Barbeyrac, Hist. des Anciens Traites, tom. ii. p. 154,
181—184, 193—200.]
91 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 680, 681, 294,
295.]
Justinian had been reproached for his alliance with the
Aethiopians, as if he attempted to introduce a people of savage
negroes into the system of civilized society. But the friends of
the Roman empire, the Axumites, or Abyssinians, may be always
distinguished from the original natives of Africa. 92 The hand of
nature has flattened the noses of the negroes, covered their
heads with shaggy wool, and tinged their skin with inherent and
indelible blackness. But the olive complexion of the Abyssinians,
their hair, shape, and features, distinctly mark them as a colony
of Arabs; and this descent is confirmed by the resemblance of
language and manners the report of an ancient emigration, and the
narrow interval between the shores of the Red Sea. Christianity
had raised that nation above the level of African barbarism: 93
their intercourse with Egypt, and the successors of Constantine,
94 had communicated the rudiments of the arts and sciences; their
vessels traded to the Isle of Ceylon, 95 and seven kingdoms
obeyed the Negus or supreme prince of Abyssinia. The independence
of the Homerites, 9511 who reigned in the rich and happy Arabia,
was first violated by an Aethiopian conqueror: he drew his
hereditary claim from the queen of Sheba, 96 and his ambition was
sanctified by religious zeal. The Jews, powerful and active in
exile, had seduced the mind of Dunaan, prince of the Homerites.
They urged him to retaliate the persecution inflicted by the
Imperial laws on their unfortunate brethren: some Roman merchants
were injuriously treated; and several Christians of Negra 97 were
honored with the crown of martyrdom. 98 The churches of Arabia
implored the protection of the Abyssinian monarch. The Negus
passed the Red Sea with a fleet and army, deprived the Jewish
proselyte of his kingdom and life, and extinguished a race of
princes, who had ruled above two thousand years the sequestered
region of myrrh and frankincense. The conqueror immediately
announced the victory of the gospel, requested an orthodox
patriarch, and so warmly professed his friendship to the Roman
empire, that Justinian was flattered by the hope of diverting the
silk trade through the channel of Abyssinia, and of exciting the
forces of Arabia against the Persian king. Nonnosus, descended
from a family of ambassadors, was named by the emperor to execute
this important commission. He wisely declined the shorter, but
more dangerous, road, through the sandy deserts of Nubia;
ascended the Nile, embarked on the Red Sea, and safely landed at
the African port of Adulis. From Adulis to the royal city of
Axume is no more than fifty leagues, in a direct line; but the
winding passes of the mountains detained the ambassador fifteen
days; and as he traversed the forests, he saw, and vaguely
computed, about five thousand wild elephants. The capital,
according to his report, was large and populous; and the village
of Axume is still conspicuous by the regal coronations, by the
ruins of a Christian temple, and by sixteen or seventeen obelisks
inscribed with Grecian characters. 99 But the Negus 9911 gave
audience in the open field, seated on a lofty chariot, which was
drawn by four elephants, superbly caparisoned, and surrounded by
his nobles and musicians. He was clad in a linen garment and cap,
holding in his hand two javelins and a light shield; and,
although his nakedness was imperfectly covered, he displayed the
Barbaric pomp of gold chains, collars, and bracelets, richly
adorned with pearls and precious stones. The ambassador of
Justinian knelt; the Negus raised him from the ground, embraced
Nonnosus, kissed the seal, perused the letter, accepted the Roman
alliance, and, brandishing his weapons, denounced implacable war
against the worshipers of fire. But the proposal of the silk
trade was eluded; and notwithstanding the assurances, and perhaps
the wishes, of the Abyssinians, these hostile menaces evaporated
without effect. The Homerites were unwilling to abandon their
aromatic groves, to explore a sandy desert, and to encounter,
after all their fatigues, a formidable nation from whom they had
never received any personal injuries. Instead of enlarging his
conquests, the king of Aethiopia was incapable of defending his
possessions. Abrahah, 9912 the slave of a Roman merchant of
Adulis, assumed the sceptre of the Homerites,; the troops of
Africa were seduced by the luxury of the climate; and Justinian
solicited the friendship of the usurper, who honored with a
slight tribute the supremacy of his prince. After a long series
of prosperity, the power of Abrahah was overthrown before the
gates of Mecca; and his children were despoiled by the Persian
conqueror; and the Aethiopians were finally expelled from the
continent of Asia. This narrative of obscure and remote events is
not foreign to the decline and fall of the Roman empire. If a
Christian power had been maintained in Arabia, Mahomet must have
been crushed in his cradle, and Abyssinia would have prevented a
revolution which has changed the civil and religious state of the
world. 100 1001
92 (return) [ See Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. iii. p. 449. This
Arab cast of features and complexion, which has continued 3400
years (Ludolph. Hist. et Comment. Aethiopic. l. i. c. 4) in the
colony of Abyssinia, will justify the suspicion, that race, as
well as climate, must have contributed to form the negroes of the
adjacent and similar regions. * Note: Mr. Salt (Travels, vol. ii.
p. 458) considers them to be distinct from the Arabs—“in feature,
color, habit, and manners.”—M.]
93 (return) [ The Portuguese missionaries, Alvarez, (Ramusio,
tom. i. fol. 204, rect. 274, vers.) Bermudez, (Purchas’s
Pilgrims, vol. ii. l. v. c. 7, p. 1149—1188,) Lobo, (Relation,
&c., par M. le Grand, with xv. Dissertations, Paris, 1728,) and
Tellez (Relations de Thevenot, part iv.) could only relate of
modern Abyssinia what they had seen or invented. The erudition of
Ludolphus, (Hist. Aethiopica, Francofurt, 1681. Commentarius,
1691. Appendix, 1694,) in twenty-five languages, could add little
concerning its ancient history. Yet the fame of Caled, or
Ellisthaeus, the conqueror of Yemen, is celebrated in national
songs and legends.]
94 (return) [ The negotiations of Justinian with the Axumites, or
Aethiopians, are recorded by Procopius (Persic. l. i. c. 19, 20)
and John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 163—165, 193—196.) The historian of
Antioch quotes the original narrative of the ambassador Nonnosus,
of which Photius (Bibliot. Cod. iii.) has preserved a curious
extract.]
95 (return) [ The trade of the Axumites to the coast of India and
Africa, and the Isle of Ceylon, is curiously represented by
Cosmas Indicopleustes, (Topograph. Christian. l. ii. p. 132, 138,
139, 140, l. xi. p. 338, 339.)]
9511 (return) [ It appears by the important inscription
discovered by Mr. Salt at Axoum, and from a law of Constantius,
(16th Jan. 356, inserted in the Theodosian Code, l. 12, c. 12,)
that in the middle of the fourth century of our era the princes
of the Axumites joined to their titles that of king of the
Homerites. The conquests which they made over the Arabs in the
sixth century were only a restoration of the ancient order of
things. St. Martin vol. viii. p. 46—M.]
96 (return) [ Ludolph. Hist. et Comment. Aethiop. l. ii. c. 3.]
97 (return) [ The city of Negra, or Nag’ran, in Yemen, is
surrounded with palm-trees, and stands in the high road between
Saana, the capital, and Mecca; from the former ten, from the
latter twenty days’ journey of a caravan of camels, (Abulfeda,
Descript. Arabiae, p. 52.)]
98 (return) [ The martyrdom of St. Arethas, prince of Negra, and
his three hundred and forty companions, is embellished in the
legends of Metaphrastes and Nicephorus Callistus, copied by
Baronius, (A. D 522, No. 22—66, A.D. 523, No. 16—29,) and refuted
with obscure diligence, by Basnage, (Hist. des Juifs, tom. viii.
l. xii. c. ii. p. 333—348,) who investigates the state of the
Jews in Arabia and Aethiopia. * Note: According to Johannsen,
(Hist. Yemanae, Praef. p. 89,) Dunaan (Ds Nowas) massacred 20,000
Christians, and threw them into a pit, where they were burned.
They are called in the Koran the companions of the pit (socii
foveae.)—M.]
99 (return) [ Alvarez (in Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 219, vers. 221,
vers.) saw the flourishing state of Axume in the year
1520—luogomolto buono e grande. It was ruined in the same century
by the Turkish invasion. No more than 100 houses remain; but the
memory of its past greatness is preserved by the regal
coronation, (Ludolph. Hist. et Comment. l. ii. c. 11.) * Note:
Lord Valentia’s and Mr. Salt’s Travels give a high notion of the
ruins of Axum.—M.]
9911 (return) [ The Negus is differently called Elesbaan,
Elesboas, Elisthaeus, probably the same name, or rather
appellation. See St. Martin, vol. viii. p. 49.—M.]
9912 (return) [ According to the Arabian authorities, (Johannsen,
Hist. Yemanae, p. 94, Bonn, 1828,) Abrahah was an Abyssinian, the
rival of Ariathus, the brother of the Abyssinian king: he
surprised and slew Ariathus, and by his craft appeased the
resentment of Nadjash, the Abyssinian king. Abrahah was a
Christian; he built a magnificent church at Sana, and dissuaded
his subjects from their accustomed pilgrimages to Mecca. The
church was defiled, it was supposed, by the Koreishites, and
Abrahah took up arms to revenge himself on the temple at Mecca.
He was repelled by miracle: his elephant would not advance, but
knelt down before the sacred place; Abrahah fled, discomfited and
mortally wounded, to Sana—M.]
100 (return) [ The revolutions of Yemen in the sixth century must
be collected from Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 19, 20,)
Theophanes Byzant., (apud Phot. cod. lxiii. p. 80,) St.
Theophanes, (in Chronograph. p. 144, 145, 188, 189, 206, 207, who
is full of strange blunders,) Pocock, (Specimen Hist. Arab. p.
62, 65,) D’Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 12, 477,) and Sale’s
Preliminary Discourse and Koran, (c. 105.) The revolt of Abrahah
is mentioned by Procopius; and his fall, though clouded with
miracles, is an historical fact. Note: To the authors who have
illustrated the obscure history of the Jewish and Abyssinian
kingdoms in Homeritis may be added Schultens, Hist. Joctanidarum;
Walch, Historia rerum in Homerite gestarum, in the 4th vol. of
the Gottingen Transactions; Salt’s Travels, vol. ii. p. 446, &c.:
Sylvestre de Sacy, vol. i. Acad. des Inscrip. Jost, Geschichte
der Israeliter; Johannsen, Hist. Yemanae; St. Martin’s notes to
Le Beau, t. vii p. 42.—M.]
1001 (return) [ A period of sixty-seven years is assigned by most
of the Arabian authorities to the Abyssinian kingdoms in
Homeritis.—M.]
Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death Of
Justinian.—Part I.
Rebellions Of Africa.—Restoration Of The Gothic Kingdom By Totila.—Loss
And Recovery Of Rome.—Final Conquest Of Italy By Narses.—Extinction Of
The Ostrogoths.—Defeat Of The Franks And Alemanni.—Last Victory,
Disgrace, And Death Of Belisarius.—Death And Character Of
Justinian.—Comet, Earthquakes, And Plague.
The review of the nations from the Danube to the Nile has
exposed, on every side, the weakness of the Romans; and our
wonder is reasonably excited that they should presume to enlarge
an empire whose ancient limits they were incapable of defending.
But the wars, the conquests, and the triumphs of Justinian, are
the feeble and pernicious efforts of old age, which exhaust the
remains of strength, and accelerate the decay of the powers of
life. He exulted in the glorious act of restoring Africa and
Italy to the republic; but the calamities which followed the
departure of Belisarius betrayed the impotence of the conqueror,
and accomplished the ruin of those unfortunate countries.
From his new acquisitions, Justinian expected that his avarice,
as well as pride, should be richly gratified. A rapacious
minister of the finances closely pursued the footsteps of
Belisarius; and as the old registers of tribute had been burnt by
the Vandals, he indulged his fancy in a liberal calculation and
arbitrary assessment of the wealth of Africa. 1 The increase of
taxes, which were drawn away by a distant sovereign, and a
general resumption of the patrimony or crown lands, soon
dispelled the intoxication of the public joy: but the emperor was
insensible to the modest complaints of the people, till he was
awakened and alarmed by the clamors of military discontent. Many
of the Roman soldiers had married the widows and daughters of the
Vandals. As their own, by the double right of conquest and
inheritance, they claimed the estates which Genseric had assigned
to his victorious troops. They heard with disdain the cold and
selfish representations of their officers, that the liberality of
Justinian had raised them from a savage or servile condition;
that they were already enriched by the spoils of Africa, the
treasure, the slaves, and the movables of the vanquished
Barbarians; and that the ancient and lawful patrimony of the
emperors would be applied only to the support of that government
on which their own safety and reward must ultimately depend. The
mutiny was secretly inflamed by a thousand soldiers, for the most
part Heruli, who had imbibed the doctrines, and were instigated
by the clergy, of the Arian sect; and the cause of perjury and
rebellion was sanctified by the dispensing powers of fanaticism.
The Arians deplored the ruin of their church, triumphant above a
century in Africa; and they were justly provoked by the laws of
the conqueror, which interdicted the baptism of their children,
and the exercise of all religious worship. Of the Vandals chosen
by Belisarius, the far greater part, in the honors of the Eastern
service, forgot their country and religion. But a generous band
of four hundred obliged the mariners, when they were in sight of
the Isle of Lesbos, to alter their course: they touched on
Peloponnesus, ran ashore on a desert coast of Africa, and boldly
erected, on Mount Aurasius, the standard of independence and
revolt. While the troops of the provinces disclaimed the commands
of their superiors, a conspiracy was formed at Carthage against
the life of Solomon, who filled with honor the place of
Belisarius; and the Arians had piously resolved to sacrifice the
tyrant at the foot of the altar, during the awful mysteries of
the festival of Easter. Fear or remorse restrained the daggers of
the assassins, but the patience of Solomon emboldened their
discontent; and, at the end of ten days, a furious sedition was
kindled in the Circus, which desolated Africa above ten years.
The pillage of the city, and the indiscriminate slaughter of its
inhabitants, were suspended only by darkness, sleep, and
intoxication: the governor, with seven companions, among whom was
the historian Procopius, escaped to Sicily: two thirds of the
army were involved in the guilt of treason; and eight thousand
insurgents, assembling in the field of Bulla, elected Stoza for
their chief, a private soldier, who possessed in a superior
degree the virtues of a rebel. Under the mask of freedom, his
eloquence could lead, or at least impel, the passions of his
equals. He raised himself to a level with Belisarius, and the
nephew of the emperor, by daring to encounter them in the field;
and the victorious generals were compelled to acknowledge that
Stoza deserved a purer cause, and a more legitimate command.
Vanquished in battle, he dexterously employed the arts of
negotiation; a Roman army was seduced from their allegiance, and
the chiefs who had trusted to his faithless promise were murdered
by his order in a church of Numidia. When every resource, either
of force or perfidy, was exhausted, Stoza, with some desperate
Vandals, retired to the wilds of Mauritania, obtained the
daughter of a Barbarian prince, and eluded the pursuit of his
enemies, by the report of his death. The personal weight of
Belisarius, the rank, the spirit, and the temper, of Germanus,
the emperor’s nephew, and the vigor and success of the second
administration of the eunuch Solomon, restored the modesty of the
camp, and maintained for a while the tranquillity of Africa. But
the vices of the Byzantine court were felt in that distant
province; the troops complained that they were neither paid nor
relieved, and as soon as the public disorders were sufficiently
mature, Stoza was again alive, in arms, and at the gates of
Carthage. He fell in a single combat, but he smiled in the
agonies of death, when he was informed that his own javelin had
reached the heart of his antagonist. 1001 The example of Stoza,
and the assurance that a fortunate soldier had been the first
king, encouraged the ambition of Gontharis, and he promised, by a
private treaty, to divide Africa with the Moors, if, with their
dangerous aid, he should ascend the throne of Carthage. The
feeble Areobindus, unskilled in the affairs of peace and war, was
raised, by his marriage with the niece of Justinian, to the
office of exarch. He was suddenly oppressed by a sedition of the
guards, and his abject supplications, which provoked the
contempt, could not move the pity, of the inexorable tyrant.
After a reign of thirty days, Gontharis himself was stabbed at a
banquet by the hand of Artaban; 1002 and it is singular enough,
that an Armenian prince, of the royal family of Arsaces, should
reestablish at Carthage the authority of the Roman empire. In the
conspiracy which unsheathed the dagger of Brutus against the life
of Caesar, every circumstance is curious and important to the
eyes of posterity; but the guilt or merit of these loyal or
rebellious assassins could interest only the contemporaries of
Procopius, who, by their hopes and fears, their friendship or
resentment, were personally engaged in the revolutions of Africa.
2
1 (return) [ For the troubles of Africa, I neither have nor
desire another guide than Procopius, whose eye contemplated the
image, and whose ear collected the reports, of the memorable
events of his own times. In the second book of the Vandalic war
he relates the revolt of Stoza, (c. 14—24,) the return of
Belisarius, (c. 15,) the victory of Germanus, (c. 16, 17, 18,)
the second administration of Solomon, (c. 19, 20, 21,) the
government of Sergius, (c. 22, 23,) of Areobindus, (c. 24,) the
tyranny and death of Gontharis, (c. 25, 26, 27, 28;) nor can I
discern any symptoms of flattery or malevolence in his various
portraits.]
1001 (return) [ Corippus gives a different account of the death
of Stoza; he was transfixed by an arrow from the hand of John,
(not the hero of his poem) who broke desperately through the
victorious troops of the enemy. Stoza repented, says the poet, of
his treasonous rebellion, and anticipated—another
Cataline—eternal torments as his punishment.
Reddam, improba, pœnas Quas merui. Furiis socius Catilina cruentis
Exagitatus adest. Video jam Tartara, fundo Flammarumque globos, et
clara incendia volvi.
—Johannidos, book iv. line 211.
All the other authorities confirm Gibbon’s account of the death
of John by the hand of Stoza. This poem of Corippus, unknown to
Gibbon, was first published by Mazzuchelli during the present
century, and is reprinted in the new edition of the Byzantine
writers.—M]
1002 (return) [ This murder was prompted to the Armenian
(according to Corippus) by Athanasius, (then præfect of Africa.)
Hunc placidus canâ gravitate coegit
Inumitera mactare virum.—Corripus, vol. iv. p. 237—M.]
2 (return) [ Yet I must not refuse him the merit of painting, in
lively colors, the murder of Gontharis. One of the assassins
uttered a sentiment not unworthy of a Roman patriot: “If I fail,”
said Artasires, “in the first stroke, kill me on the spot, lest
the rack should extort a discovery of my accomplices.”]
That country was rapidly sinking into the state of barbarism from
whence it had been raised by the Phœnician colonies and Roman
laws; and every step of intestine discord was marked by some
deplorable victory of savage man over civilized society. The
Moors, 3 though ignorant of justice, were impatient of
oppression: their vagrant life and boundless wilderness
disappointed the arms, and eluded the chains, of a conqueror; and
experience had shown, that neither oaths nor obligations could
secure the fidelity of their attachment. The victory of Mount
Auras had awed them into momentary submission; but if they
respected the character of Solomon, they hated and despised the
pride and luxury of his two nephews, Cyrus and Sergius, on whom
their uncle had imprudently bestowed the provincial governments
of Tripoli and Pentapolis. A Moorish tribe encamped under the
walls of Leptis, to renew their alliance, and receive from the
governor the customary gifts. Fourscore of their deputies were
introduced as friends into the city; but on the dark suspicion of
a conspiracy, they were massacred at the table of Sergius, and
the clamor of arms and revenge was reechoed through the valleys
of Mount Atlas from both the Syrtes to the Atlantic Ocean. A
personal injury, the unjust execution or murder of his brother,
rendered Antalas the enemy of the Romans. The defeat of the
Vandals had formerly signalized his valor; the rudiments of
justice and prudence were still more conspicuous in a Moor; and
while he laid Adrumetum in ashes, he calmly admonished the
emperor that the peace of Africa might be secured by the recall
of Solomon and his unworthy nephews. The exarch led forth his
troops from Carthage: but, at the distance of six days’ journey,
in the neighborhood of Tebeste, 4 he was astonished by the
superior numbers and fierce aspect of the Barbarians. He proposed
a treaty; solicited a reconciliation; and offered to bind himself
by the most solemn oaths. “By what oaths can he bind himself?”
interrupted the indignant Moors. “Will he swear by the Gospels,
the divine books of the Christians? It was on those books that
the faith of his nephew Sergius was pledged to eighty of our
innocent and unfortunate brethren. Before we trust them a second
time, let us try their efficacy in the chastisement of perjury
and the vindication of their own honor.” Their honor was
vindicated in the field of Tebeste, by the death of Solomon, and
the total loss of his army. 411 The arrival of fresh troops and
more skilful commanders soon checked the insolence of the Moors:
seventeen of their princes were slain in the same battle; and the
doubtful and transient submission of their tribes was celebrated
with lavish applause by the people of Constantinople. Successive
inroads had reduced the province of Africa to one third of the
measure of Italy; yet the Roman emperors continued to reign above
a century over Carthage and the fruitful coast of the
Mediterranean. But the victories and the losses of Justinian were
alike pernicious to mankind; and such was the desolation of
Africa, that in many parts a stranger might wander whole days
without meeting the face either of a friend or an enemy. The
nation of the Vandals had disappeared: they once amounted to a
hundred and sixty thousand warriors, without including the
children, the women, or the slaves. Their numbers were infinitely
surpassed by the number of the Moorish families extirpated in a
relentless war; and the same destruction was retaliated on the
Romans and their allies, who perished by the climate, their
mutual quarrels, and the rage of the Barbarians. When Procopius
first landed, he admired the populousness of the cities and
country, strenuously exercised in the labors of commerce and
agriculture. In less than twenty years, that busy scene was
converted into a silent solitude; the wealthy citizens escaped to
Sicily and Constantinople; and the secret historian has
confidently affirmed, that five millions of Africans were
consumed by the wars and government of the emperor Justinian. 5
3 (return) [ The Moorish wars are occasionally introduced into
the narrative of Procopius, (Vandal. l. ii. c. 19—23, 25, 27, 28.
Gothic. l. iv. c. 17;) and Theophanes adds some prosperous and
adverse events in the last years of Justinian.]
4 (return) [ Now Tibesh, in the kingdom of Algiers. It is watered
by a river, the Sujerass, which falls into the Mejerda,
(Bagradas.) Tibesh is still remarkable for its walls of large
stones, (like the Coliseum of Rome,) a fountain, and a grove of
walnut-trees: the country is fruitful, and the neighboring
Bereberes are warlike. It appears from an inscription, that,
under the reign of Adrian, the road from Carthage to Tebeste was
constructed by the third legion, (Marmol, Description de
l’Afrique, tom. ii. p. 442, 443. Shaw’s Travels, p. 64, 65, 66.)]
411 (return) [ Corripus (Johannidos lib. iii. 417—441) describes
the defeat and death of Solomon.—M.]
5 (return) [ Procopius, Anecdot. c. 18. The series of the African
history attests this melancholy truth.]
The jealousy of the Byzantine court had not permitted Belisarius
to achieve the conquest of Italy; and his abrupt departure
revived the courage of the Goths, 6 who respected his genius, his
virtue, and even the laudable motive which had urged the servant
of Justinian to deceive and reject them. They had lost their king
(an inconsiderable loss,) their capital, their treasures, the
provinces from Sicily to the Alps, and the military force of two
hundred thousand Barbarians, magnificently equipped with horses
and arms. Yet all was not lost, as long as Pavia was defended by
one thousand Goths, inspired by a sense of honor, the love of
freedom, and the memory of their past greatness. The supreme
command was unanimously offered to the brave Uraias; and it was
in his eyes alone that the disgrace of his uncle Vitiges could
appear as a reason of exclusion. His voice inclined the election
in favor of Hildibald, whose personal merit was recommended by
the vain hope that his kinsman Theudes, the Spanish monarch,
would support the common interest of the Gothic nation. The
success of his arms in Liguria and Venetia seemed to justify
their choice; but he soon declared to the world that he was
incapable of forgiving or commanding his benefactor. The consort
of Hildibald was deeply wounded by the beauty, the riches, and
the pride, of the wife of Uraias; and the death of that virtuous
patriot excited the indignation of a free people. A bold assassin
executed their sentence by striking off the head of Hildibald in
the midst of a banquet; the Rugians, a foreign tribe, assumed the
privilege of election: and Totila, 611 the nephew of the late
king, was tempted, by revenge, to deliver himself and the
garrison of Trevigo into the hands of the Romans.
But the gallant and accomplished youth was easily persuaded to
prefer the Gothic throne before the service of Justinian; and as
soon as the palace of Pavia had been purified from the Rugian
usurper, he reviewed the national force of five thousand
soldiers, and generously undertook the restoration of the kingdom
of Italy.
6 (return) [ In the second (c. 30) and third books, (c. 1—40,)
Procopius continues the history of the Gothic war from the fifth
to the fifteenth year of Justinian. As the events are less
interesting than in the former period, he allots only half the
space to double the time. Jornandes, and the Chronicle of
Marcellinus, afford some collateral hints Sigonius, Pagi,
Muratori, Mascou, and De Buat, are useful, and have been used.]
611 (return) [ His real name, as appears by medals, was Baduilla,
or Badiula. Totila signifies immortal: tod (in German) is death.
Todilas, deathless. Compare St Martin, vol. ix. p. 37.—M.]
The successors of Belisarius, eleven generals of equal rank,
neglected to crush the feeble and disunited Goths, till they were
roused to action by the progress of Totila and the reproaches of
Justinian. The gates of Verona were secretly opened to Artabazus,
at the head of one hundred Persians in the service of the empire.
The Goths fled from the city. At the distance of sixty furlongs
the Roman generals halted to regulate the division of the spoil.
While they disputed, the enemy discovered the real number of the
victors: the Persians were instantly overpowered, and it was by
leaping from the wall that Artabazus preserved a life which he
lost in a few days by the lance of a Barbarian, who had defied
him to single combat. Twenty thousand Romans encountered the
forces of Totila, near Faenza, and on the hills of Mugello, of
the Florentine territory. The ardor of freedmen, who fought to
regain their country, was opposed to the languid temper of
mercenary troops, who were even destitute of the merits of strong
and well-disciplined servitude. On the first attack, they
abandoned their ensigns, threw down their arms, and dispersed on
all sides with an active speed, which abated the loss, whilst it
aggravated the shame, of their defeat. The king of the Goths, who
blushed for the baseness of his enemies, pursued with rapid steps
the path of honor and victory. Totila passed the Po, 6112
traversed the Apennine, suspended the important conquest of
Ravenna, Florence, and Rome, and marched through the heart of
Italy, to form the siege or rather the blockade, of Naples. The
Roman chiefs, imprisoned in their respective cities, and accusing
each other of the common disgrace, did not presume to disturb his
enterprise. But the emperor, alarmed by the distress and danger
of his Italian conquests, despatched to the relief of Naples a
fleet of galleys and a body of Thracian and Armenian soldiers.
They landed in Sicily, which yielded its copious stores of
provisions; but the delays of the new commander, an unwarlike
magistrate, protracted the sufferings of the besieged; and the
succors, which he dropped with a timid and tardy hand, were
successively intercepted by the armed vessels stationed by Totila
in the Bay of Naples. The principal officer of the Romans was
dragged, with a rope round his neck, to the foot of the wall,
from whence, with a trembling voice, he exhorted the citizens to
implore, like himself, the mercy of the conqueror. They requested
a truce, with a promise of surrendering the city, if no effectual
relief should appear at the end of thirty days. Instead of one
month, the audacious Barbarian granted them three, in the just
confidence that famine would anticipate the term of their
capitulation. After the reduction of Naples and Cumae, the
provinces of Lucania, Apulia, and Calabria, submitted to the king
of the Goths. Totila led his army to the gates of Rome, pitched
his camp at Tibur, or Tivoli, within twenty miles of the capital,
and calmly exhorted the senate and people to compare the tyranny
of the Greeks with the blessings of the Gothic reign.
6112 (return) [ This is not quite correct: he had crossed the Po
before the battle of Faenza.—M.]
The rapid success of Totila may be partly ascribed to the
revolution which three years’ experience had produced in the
sentiments of the Italians. At the command, or at least in the
name, of a Catholic emperor, the pope, 7 their spiritual father,
had been torn from the Roman church, and either starved or
murdered on a desolate island. 8 The virtues of Belisarius were
replaced by the various or uniform vices of eleven chiefs, at
Rome, Ravenna, Florence, Perugia, Spoleto, &c., who abused their
authority for the indulgence of lust or avarice. The improvement
of the revenue was committed to Alexander, a subtle scribe, long
practised in the fraud and oppression of the Byzantine schools,
and whose name of Psalliction, the scissors, 9 was drawn from the
dexterous artifice with which he reduced the size without
defacing the figure, of the gold coin. Instead of expecting the
restoration of peace and industry, he imposed a heavy assessment
on the fortunes of the Italians. Yet his present or future
demands were less odious than a prosecution of arbitrary rigor
against the persons and property of all those who, under the
Gothic kings, had been concerned in the receipt and expenditure
of the public money. The subjects of Justinian, who escaped these
partial vexations, were oppressed by the irregular maintenance of
the soldiers, whom Alexander defrauded and despised; and their
hasty sallies in quest of wealth, or subsistence, provoked the
inhabitants of the country to await or implore their deliverance
from the virtues of a Barbarian. Totila 10 was chaste and
temperate; and none were deceived, either friends or enemies, who
depended on his faith or his clemency. To the husbandmen of Italy
the Gothic king issued a welcome proclamation, enjoining them to
pursue their important labors, and to rest assured, that, on the
payment of the ordinary taxes, they should be defended by his
valor and discipline from the injuries of war. The strong towns
he successively attacked; and as soon as they had yielded to his
arms, he demolished the fortifications, to save the people from
the calamities of a future siege, to deprive the Romans of the
arts of defence, and to decide the tedious quarrel of the two
nations, by an equal and honorable conflict in the field of
battle. The Roman captives and deserters were tempted to enlist
in the service of a liberal and courteous adversary; the slaves
were attracted by the firm and faithful promise, that they should
never be delivered to their masters; and from the thousand
warriors of Pavia, a new people, under the same appellation of
Goths, was insensibly formed in the camp of Totila. He sincerely
accomplished the articles of capitulation, without seeking or
accepting any sinister advantage from ambiguous expressions or
unforeseen events: the garrison of Naples had stipulated that
they should be transported by sea; the obstinacy of the winds
prevented their voyage, but they were generously supplied with
horses, provisions, and a safe-conduct to the gates of Rome. The
wives of the senators, who had been surprised in the villas of
Campania, were restored, without a ransom, to their husbands; the
violation of female chastity was inexorably chastised with death;
and in the salutary regulation of the edict of the famished
Neapolitans, the conqueror assumed the office of a humane and
attentive physician. The virtues of Totila are equally laudable,
whether they proceeded from true policy, religious principle, or
the instinct of humanity: he often harangued his troops; and it
was his constant theme, that national vice and ruin are
inseparably connected; that victory is the fruit of moral as well
as military virtue; and that the prince, and even the people, are
responsible for the crimes which they neglect to punish.
7 (return) [Sylverius, bishop of Rome, was first transported to
Patara, in Lycia, and at length starved (sub eorum custodia
inedia confectus) in the Isle of Palmaria, A.D. 538, June 20,
(Liberat. in Breviar. c. 22. Anastasius, in Sylverio. Baronius,
A.D. 540, No. 2, 3. Pagi, in Vit. Pont. tom. i. p. 285, 286.)
Procopius (Anecdot. c. 1) accuses only the empress and Antonina.]
8 (return) [ Palmaria, a small island, opposite to Terracina and
the coast of the Volsci, (Cluver. Ital. Antiq. l. iii. c. 7, p.
1014.)]
9 (return) [ As the Logothete Alexander, and most of his civil
and military colleagues, were either disgraced or despised, the
ink of the Anecdotes (c. 4, 5, 18) is scarcely blacker than that
of the Gothic History (l. iii. c. 1, 3, 4, 9, 20, 21, &c.)]
10 (return) [ Procopius (l. iii. c. 2, 8, &c.,) does ample and
willing justice to the merit of Totila. The Roman historians,
from Sallust and Tacitus were happy to forget the vices of their
countrymen in the contemplation of Barbaric virtue.]
The return of Belisarius to save the country which he had
subdued, was pressed with equal vehemence by his friends and
enemies; and the Gothic war was imposed as a trust or an exile on
the veteran commander. A hero on the banks of the Euphrates, a
slave in the palace of Constantinople, he accepted with
reluctance the painful task of supporting his own reputation, and
retrieving the faults of his successors. The sea was open to the
Romans: the ships and soldiers were assembled at Salona, near the
palace of Diocletian: he refreshed and reviewed his troops at
Pola in Istria, coasted round the head of the Adriatic, entered
the port of Ravenna, and despatched orders rather than supplies
to the subordinate cities. His first public oration was addressed
to the Goths and Romans, in the name of the emperor, who had
suspended for a while the conquest of Persia, and listened to the
prayers of his Italian subjects. He gently touched on the causes
and the authors of the recent disasters; striving to remove the
fear of punishment for the past, and the hope of impunity for the
future, and laboring, with more zeal than success, to unite all
the members of his government in a firm league of affection and
obedience. Justinian, his gracious master, was inclined to pardon
and reward; and it was their interest, as well as duty, to
reclaim their deluded brethren, who had been seduced by the arts
of the usurper. Not a man was tempted to desert the standard of
the Gothic king. Belisarius soon discovered, that he was sent to
remain the idle and impotent spectator of the glory of a young
Barbarian; and his own epistle exhibits a genuine and lively
picture of the distress of a noble mind. “Most excellent prince,
we are arrived in Italy, destitute of all the necessary
implements of war, men, horses, arms, and money. In our late
circuit through the villages of Thrace and Illyricum, we have
collected, with extreme difficulty, about four thousand recruits,
naked, and unskilled in the use of weapons and the exercises of
the camp. The soldiers already stationed in the province are
discontented, fearful, and dismayed; at the sound of an enemy,
they dismiss their horses, and cast their arms on the ground. No
taxes can be raised, since Italy is in the hands of the
Barbarians; the failure of payment has deprived us of the right
of command, or even of admonition. Be assured, dread Sir, that
the greater part of your troops have already deserted to the
Goths. If the war could be achieved by the presence of Belisarius
alone, your wishes are satisfied; Belisarius is in the midst of
Italy. But if you desire to conquer, far other preparations are
requisite: without a military force, the title of general is an
empty name. It would be expedient to restore to my service my own
veteran and domestic guards. Before I can take the field, I must
receive an adequate supply of light and heavy armed troops; and
it is only with ready money that you can procure the
indispensable aid of a powerful body of the cavalry of the Huns.”
11 An officer in whom Belisarius confided was sent from Ravenna
to hasten and conduct the succors; but the message was neglected,
and the messenger was detained at Constantinople by an
advantageous marriage. After his patience had been exhausted by
delay and disappointment, the Roman general repassed the
Adriatic, and expected at Dyrrachium the arrival of the troops,
which were slowly assembled among the subjects and allies of the
empire. His powers were still inadequate to the deliverance of
Rome, which was closely besieged by the Gothic king. The Appian
way, a march of forty days, was covered by the Barbarians; and as
the prudence of Belisarius declined a battle, he preferred the
safe and speedy navigation of five days from the coast of Epirus
to the mouth of the Tyber.
11 (return) [ Procopius, l. iii. c. 12. The soul of a hero is
deeply impressed on the letter; nor can we confound such genuine
and original acts with the elaborate and often empty speeches of
the Byzantine historians]
After reducing, by force, or treaty, the towns of inferior note
in the midland provinces of Italy, Totila proceeded, not to
assault, but to encompass and starve, the ancient capital. Rome
was afflicted by the avarice, and guarded by the valor, of
Bessas, a veteran chief of Gothic extraction, who filled, with a
garrison of three thousand soldiers, the spacious circle of her
venerable walls. From the distress of the people he extracted a
profitable trade, and secretly rejoiced in the continuance of the
siege. It was for his use that the granaries had been
replenished: the charity of Pope Vigilius had purchased and
embarked an ample supply of Sicilian corn; but the vessels which
escaped the Barbarians were seized by a rapacious governor, who
imparted a scanty sustenance to the soldiers, and sold the
remainder to the wealthy Romans. The medimnus, or fifth part of
the quarter of wheat, was exchanged for seven pieces of gold;
fifty pieces were given for an ox, a rare and accidental prize;
the progress of famine enhanced this exorbitant value, and the
mercenaries were tempted to deprive themselves of the allowance
which was scarcely sufficient for the support of life. A
tasteless and unwholesome mixture, in which the bran thrice
exceeded the quantity of flour, appeased the hunger of the poor;
they were gradually reduced to feed on dead horses, dogs, cats,
and mice, and eagerly to snatch the grass, and even the nettles,
which grew among the ruins of the city. A crowd of spectres, pale
and emaciated, their bodies oppressed with disease, and their
minds with despair, surrounded the palace of the governor, urged,
with unavailing truth, that it was the duty of a master to
maintain his slaves, and humbly requested that he would provide
for their subsistence, to permit their flight, or command their
immediate execution. Bessas replied, with unfeeling tranquillity,
that it was impossible to feed, unsafe to dismiss, and unlawful
to kill, the subjects of the emperor. Yet the example of a
private citizen might have shown his countrymen that a tyrant
cannot withhold the privilege of death. Pierced by the cries of
five children, who vainly called on their father for bread, he
ordered them to follow his steps, advanced with calm and silent
despair to one of the bridges of the Tyber, and, covering his
face, threw himself headlong into the stream, in the presence of
his family and the Roman people. To the rich and pusillammous,
Bessas 12 sold the permission of departure; but the greatest part
of the fugitives expired on the public highways, or were
intercepted by the flying parties of Barbarians. In the mean
while, the artful governor soothed the discontent, and revived
the hopes of the Romans, by the vague reports of the fleets and
armies which were hastening to their relief from the extremities
of the East. They derived more rational comfort from the
assurance that Belisarius had landed at the port; and, without
numbering his forces, they firmly relied on the humanity, the
courage, and the skill of their great deliverer.
12 (return) [ The avarice of Bessas is not dissembled by
Procopius, (l. iii. c. 17, 20.) He expiated the loss of Rome by
the glorious conquest of Petraea, (Goth. l. iv. c. 12;) but the
same vices followed him from the Tyber to the Phasis, (c. 13;)
and the historian is equally true to the merits and defects of
his character. The chastisement which the author of the romance
of Belisaire has inflicted on the oppressor of Rome is more
agreeable to justice than to history.]
Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death OF
Justinian.—Part II.
The foresight of Totila had raised obstacles worthy of such an
antagonist. Ninety furlongs below the city, in the narrowest part
of the river, he joined the two banks by strong and solid timbers
in the form of a bridge, on which he erected two lofty towers,
manned by the bravest of his Goths, and profusely stored with
missile weapons and engines of offence. The approach of the
bridge and towers was covered by a strong and massy chain of
iron; and the chain, at either end, on the opposite sides of the
Tyber, was defended by a numerous and chosen detachment of
archers. But the enterprise of forcing these barriers, and
relieving the capital, displays a shining example of the boldness
and conduct of Belisarius. His cavalry advanced from the port
along the public road, to awe the motions, and distract the
attention of the enemy. His infantry and provisions were
distributed in two hundred large boats; and each boat was
shielded by a high rampart of thick planks, pierced with many
small holes for the discharge of missile weapons. In the front,
two large vessels were linked together to sustain a floating
castle, which commanded the towers of the bridge, and contained a
magazine of fire, sulphur, and bitumen. The whole fleet, which
the general led in person, was laboriously moved against the
current of the river. The chain yielded to their weight, and the
enemies who guarded the banks were either slain or scattered. As
soon as they touched the principal barrier, the fire-ship was
instantly grappled to the bridge; one of the towers, with two
hundred Goths, was consumed by the flames; the assailants shouted
victory; and Rome was saved, if the wisdom of Belisarius had not
been defeated by the misconduct of his officers. He had
previously sent orders to Bessas to second his operations by a
timely sally from the town; and he had fixed his lieutenant,
Isaac, by a peremptory command, to the station of the port. But
avarice rendered Bessas immovable; while the youthful ardor of
Isaac delivered him into the hands of a superior enemy. The
exaggerated rumor of his defeat was hastily carried to the ears
of Belisarius: he paused; betrayed in that single moment of his
life some emotions of surprise and perplexity; and reluctantly
sounded a retreat to save his wife Antonina, his treasures, and
the only harbor which he possessed on the Tuscan coast. The
vexation of his mind produced an ardent and almost mortal fever;
and Rome was left without protection to the mercy or indignation
of Totila. The continuance of hostilities had imbittered the
national hatred: the Arian clergy was ignominiously driven from
Rome; Pelagius, the archdeacon, returned without success from an
embassy to the Gothic camp; and a Sicilian bishop, the envoy or
nuncio of the pope, was deprived of both his hands, for daring to
utter falsehoods in the service of the church and state.
Famine had relaxed the strength and discipline of the garrison of
Rome. They could derive no effectual service from a dying people;
and the inhuman avarice of the merchant at length absorbed the
vigilance of the governor. Four Isaurian sentinels, while their
companions slept, and their officers were absent, descended by a
rope from the wall, and secretly proposed to the Gothic king to
introduce his troops into the city. The offer was entertained
with coldness and suspicion; they returned in safety; they twice
repeated their visit; the place was twice examined; the
conspiracy was known and disregarded; and no sooner had Totila
consented to the attempt, than they unbarred the Asinarian gate,
and gave admittance to the Goths. Till the dawn of day, they
halted in order of battle, apprehensive of treachery or ambush;
but the troops of Bessas, with their leader, had already escaped;
and when the king was pressed to disturb their retreat, he
prudently replied, that no sight could be more grateful than that
of a flying enemy. The patricians, who were still possessed of
horses, Decius, Basilius, &c. accompanied the governor; their
brethren, among whom Olybrius, Orestes, and Maximus, are named by
the historian, took refuge in the church of St. Peter: but the
assertion, that only five hundred persons remained in the
capital, inspires some doubt of the fidelity either of his
narrative or of his text. As soon as daylight had displayed the
entire victory of the Goths, their monarch devoutly visited the
tomb of the prince of the apostles; but while he prayed at the
altar, twenty-five soldiers, and sixty citizens, were put to the
sword in the vestibule of the temple. The archdeacon Pelagius 13
stood before him, with the Gospels in his hand. “O Lord, be
merciful to your servant.” “Pelagius,” said Totila, with an
insulting smile, “your pride now condescends to become a
suppliant.” “I am a suppliant,” replied the prudent archdeacon;
“God has now made us your subjects, and as your subjects, we are
entitled to your clemency.” At his humble prayer, the lives of
the Romans were spared; and the chastity of the maids and matrons
was preserved inviolate from the passions of the hungry soldiers.
But they were rewarded by the freedom of pillage, after the most
precious spoils had been reserved for the royal treasury. The
houses of the senators were plentifully stored with gold and
silver; and the avarice of Bessas had labored with so much guilt
and shame for the benefit of the conqueror. In this revolution,
the sons and daughters of Roman consuls tasted the misery which
they had spurned or relieved, wandered in tattered garments
through the streets of the city and begged their bread, perhaps
without success, before the gates of their hereditary mansions.
The riches of Rusticiana, the daughter of Symmachus and widow of
Boethius, had been generously devoted to alleviate the calamities
of famine. But the Barbarians were exasperated by the report,
that she had prompted the people to overthrow the statues of the
great Theodoric; and the life of that venerable matron would have
been sacrificed to his memory, if Totila had not respected her
birth, her virtues, and even the pious motive of her revenge. The
next day he pronounced two orations, to congratulate and admonish
his victorious Goths, and to reproach the senate, as the vilest
of slaves, with their perjury, folly, and ingratitude; sternly
declaring, that their estates and honors were justly forfeited to
the companions of his arms. Yet he consented to forgive their
revolt; and the senators repaid his clemency by despatching
circular letters to their tenants and vassals in the provinces of
Italy, strictly to enjoin them to desert the standard of the
Greeks, to cultivate their lands in peace, and to learn from
their masters the duty of obedience to a Gothic sovereign.
Against the city which had so long delayed the course of his
victories, he appeared inexorable: one third of the walls, in
different parts, were demolished by his command; fire and engines
prepared to consume or subvert the most stately works of
antiquity; and the world was astonished by the fatal decree, that
Rome should be changed into a pasture for cattle. The firm and
temperate remonstrance of Belisarius suspended the execution; he
warned the Barbarian not to sully his fame by the destruction of
those monuments which were the glory of the dead, and the delight
of the living; and Totila was persuaded, by the advice of an
enemy, to preserve Rome as the ornament of his kingdom, or the
fairest pledge of peace and reconciliation. When he had signified
to the ambassadors of Belisarius his intention of sparing the
city, he stationed an army at the distance of one hundred and
twenty furlongs, to observe the motions of the Roman general.
With the remainder of his forces he marched into Lucania and
Apulia, and occupied on the summit of Mount Garganus 14 one of
the camps of Hannibal. 15 The senators were dragged in his train,
and afterwards confined in the fortresses of Campania: the
citizens, with their wives and children, were dispersed in exile;
and during forty days Rome was abandoned to desolate and dreary
solitude. 16
13 (return) [ During the long exile, and after the death of
Vigilius, the Roman church was governed, at first by the
archdeacon, and at length (A. D 655) by the pope Pelagius, who
was not thought guiltless of the sufferings of his predecessor.
See the original lives of the popes under the name of Anastasius,
(Muratori, Script. Rer. Italicarum, tom. iii. P. i. p. 130, 131,)
who relates several curious incidents of the sieges of Rome and
the wars of Italy.]
14 (return) [ Mount Garganus, now Monte St. Angelo, in the
kingdom of Naples, runs three hundred stadia into the Adriatic
Sea, (Strab.—vi. p. 436,) and in the darker ages was illustrated
by the apparition, miracles, and church, of St. Michael the
archangel. Horace, a native of Apulia or Lucania, had seen the
elms and oaks of Garganus laboring and bellowing with the north
wind that blew on that lofty coast, (Carm. ii. 9, Epist. ii. i.
201.)]
15 (return) [ I cannot ascertain this particular camp of
Hannibal; but the Punic quarters were long and often in the
neighborhood of Arpi, (T. Liv. xxii. 9, 12, xxiv. 3, &c.)]
16 (return) [ Totila.... Romam ingreditur.... ac evertit muros,
domos aliquantas igni comburens, ac omnes Romanorum res in
praedam ac cepit, hos ipsos Romanos in Campaniam captivos
abduxit. Post quam devastationem, xl. autamp lius dies, Roma fuit
ita desolata, ut nemo ibi hominum, nisi (nulloe?) bestiae
morarentur, (Marcellin. in Chron. p. 54.)]
The loss of Rome was speedily retrieved by an action, to which,
according to the event, the public opinion would apply the names
of rashness or heroism. After the departure of Totila, the Roman
general sallied from the port at the head of a thousand horse,
cut in pieces the enemy who opposed his progress, and visited
with pity and reverence the vacant space of the eternal city.
Resolved to maintain a station so conspicuous in the eyes of
mankind, he summoned the greatest part of his troops to the
standard which he erected on the Capitol: the old inhabitants
were recalled by the love of their country and the hopes of food;
and the keys of Rome were sent a second time to the emperor
Justinian. The walls, as far as they had been demolished by the
Goths, were repaired with rude and dissimilar materials; the
ditch was restored; iron spikes 17 were profusely scattered in
the highways to annoy the feet of the horses; and as new gates
could not suddenly be procured, the entrance was guarded by a
Spartan rampart of his bravest soldiers. At the expiration of
twenty-five days, Totila returned by hasty marches from Apulia to
avenge the injury and disgrace. Belisarius expected his approach.
The Goths were thrice repulsed in three general assaults; they
lost the flower of their troops; the royal standard had almost
fallen into the hands of the enemy, and the fame of Totila sunk,
as it had risen, with the fortune of his arms. Whatever skill and
courage could achieve, had been performed by the Roman general:
it remained only that Justinian should terminate, by a strong and
seasonable effort, the war which he had ambitiously undertaken.
The indolence, perhaps the impotence, of a prince who despised
his enemies, and envied his servants, protracted the calamities
of Italy. After a long silence, Belisarius was commanded to leave
a sufficient garrison at Rome, and to transport himself into the
province of Lucania, whose inhabitants, inflamed by Catholic
zeal, had cast away the yoke of their Arian conquerors. In this
ignoble warfare, the hero, invincible against the power of the
Barbarians, was basely vanquished by the delay, the disobedience,
and the cowardice of his own officers. He reposed in his winter
quarters of Crotona, in the full assurance, that the two passes
of the Lucanian hills were guarded by his cavalry. They were
betrayed by treachery or weakness; and the rapid march of the
Goths scarcely allowed time for the escape of Belisarius to the
coast of Sicily. At length a fleet and army were assembled for
the relief of Ruscianum, or Rossano, 18 a fortress sixty furlongs
from the ruins of Sybaris, where the nobles of Lucania had taken
refuge. In the first attempt, the Roman forces were dissipated by
a storm. In the second, they approached the shore; but they saw
the hills covered with archers, the landing-place defended by a
line of spears, and the king of the Goths impatient for battle.
The conqueror of Italy retired with a sigh, and continued to
languish, inglorious and inactive, till Antonina, who had been
sent to Constantinople to solicit succors, obtained, after the
death of the empress, the permission of his return.
17 (return) [ The tribuli are small engines with four spikes, one
fixed in the ground, the three others erect or adverse,
(Procopius, Gothic. l. iii. c. 24. Just. Lipsius, Poliorcetwv, l.
v. c. 3.) The metaphor was borrowed from the tribuli,
(land-caltrops,) an herb with a prickly fruit, commex in Italy.
(Martin, ad Virgil. Georgic. i. 153 vol. ii. p. 33.)]
18 (return) [ Ruscia, the navale Thuriorum, was transferred to
the distance of sixty stadia to Ruscianum, Rossano, an
archbishopric without suffragans. The republic of Sybaris is now
the estate of the duke of Corigliano. (Riedesel, Travels into
Magna Graecia and Sicily, p. 166—171.)]
The five last campaigns of Belisarius might abate the envy of his
competitors, whose eyes had been dazzled and wounded by the blaze
of his former glory. Instead of delivering Italy from the Goths,
he had wandered like a fugitive along the coast, without daring
to march into the country, or to accept the bold and repeated
challenge of Totila. Yet, in the judgment of the few who could
discriminate counsels from events, and compare the instruments
with the execution, he appeared a more consummate master of the
art of war, than in the season of his prosperity, when he
presented two captive kings before the throne of Justinian. The
valor of Belisarius was not chilled by age: his prudence was
matured by experience; but the moral virtues of humanity and
justice seem to have yielded to the hard necessity of the times.
The parsimony or poverty of the emperor compelled him to deviate
from the rule of conduct which had deserved the love and
confidence of the Italians. The war was maintained by the
oppression of Ravenna, Sicily, and all the faithful subjects of
the empire; and the rigorous prosecution of Herodian provoked
that injured or guilty officer to deliver Spoleto into the hands
of the enemy. The avarice of Antonina, which had been some times
diverted by love, now reigned without a rival in her breast.
Belisarius himself had always understood, that riches, in a
corrupt age, are the support and ornament of personal merit. And
it cannot be presumed that he should stain his honor for the
public service, without applying a part of the spoil to his
private emolument. The hero had escaped the sword of the
Barbarians. But the dagger of conspiracy 19 awaited his return.
In the midst of wealth and honors, Artaban, who had chastised the
African tyrant, complained of the ingratitude of courts. He
aspired to Praejecta, the emperor’s niece, who wished to reward
her deliverer; but the impediment of his previous marriage was
asserted by the piety of Theodora. The pride of royal descent was
irritated by flattery; and the service in which he gloried had
proved him capable of bold and sanguinary deeds. The death of
Justinian was resolved, but the conspirators delayed the
execution till they could surprise Belisarius disarmed, and
naked, in the palace of Constantinople. Not a hope could be
entertained of shaking his long-tried fidelity; and they justly
dreaded the revenge, or rather the justice, of the veteran
general, who might speedily assemble an army in Thrace to punish
the assassins, and perhaps to enjoy the fruits of their crime.
Delay afforded time for rash communications and honest
confessions: Artaban and his accomplices were condemned by the
senate, but the extreme clemency of Justinian detained them in
the gentle confinement of the palace, till he pardoned their
flagitious attempt against his throne and life. If the emperor
forgave his enemies, he must cordially embrace a friend whose
victories were alone remembered, and who was endeared to his
prince by the recent circumstances of their common danger.
Belisarius reposed from his toils, in the high station of general
of the East and count of the domestics; and the older consuls and
patricians respectfully yielded the precedency of rank to the
peerless merit of the first of the Romans. 20 The first of the
Romans still submitted to be the slave of his wife; but the
servitude of habit and affection became less disgraceful when the
death of Theodora had removed the baser influence of fear.
Joannina, their daughter, and the sole heiress of their fortunes,
was betrothed to Anastasius, the grandson, or rather the nephew,
of the empress, 21 whose kind interposition forwarded the
consummation of their youthful loves. But the power of Theodora
expired, the parents of Joannina returned, and her honor, perhaps
her happiness, were sacrificed to the revenge of an unfeeling
mother, who dissolved the imperfect nuptials before they had been
ratified by the ceremonies of the church. 22
19 (return) [ This conspiracy is related by Procopius (Gothic. l.
iii. c. 31, 32) with such freedom and candor, that the liberty of
the Anecdotes gives him nothing to add.]
20 (return) [ The honors of Belisarius are gladly commemorated by
his secretary, (Procop. Goth. l. iii. c. 35, l. iv. c. 21.) This
title is ill translated, at least in this instance, by præfectus
praetorio; and to a military character, magister militum is more
proper and applicable, (Ducange, Gloss. Graec. p. 1458, 1459.)]
21 (return) [ Alemannus, (ad Hist. Arcanum, p. 68,) Ducange,
(Familiae Byzant. p. 98,) and Heineccius, (Hist. Juris Civilis,
p. 434,) all three represent Anastasius as the son of the
daughter of Theodora; and their opinion firmly reposes on the
unambiguous testimony of Procopius, (Anecdot. c. 4, 5,—twice
repeated.) And yet I will remark, 1. That in the year 547,
Theodora could sarcely have a grandson of the age of puberty; 2.
That we are totally ignorant of this daughter and her husband;
and, 3. That Theodora concealed her bastards, and that her
grandson by Justinian would have been heir apparent of the
empire.]
22 (return) [ The sins of the hero in Italy and after his return,
are manifested, and most probably swelled, by the author of the
Anecdotes, (c. 4, 5.) The designs of Antonina were favored by the
fluctuating jurisprudence of Justinian. On the law of marriage
and divorce, that emperor was trocho versatilior, (Heineccius,
Element Juris Civil. ad Ordinem Pandect. P. iv. No. 233.)]
Before the departure of Belisarius, Perusia was besieged, and few
cities were impregnable to the Gothic arms. Ravenna, Ancona, and
Crotona, still resisted the Barbarians; and when Totila asked in
marriage one of the daughters of France, he was stung by the just
reproach that the king of Italy was unworthy of his title till it
was acknowledged by the Roman people. Three thousand of the
bravest soldiers had been left to defend the capital. On the
suspicion of a monopoly, they massacred the governor, and
announced to Justinian, by a deputation of the clergy, that
unless their offence was pardoned, and their arrears were
satisfied, they should instantly accept the tempting offers of
Totila. But the officer who succeeded to the command (his name
was Diogenes) deserved their esteem and confidence; and the
Goths, instead of finding an easy conquest, encountered a
vigorous resistance from the soldiers and people, who patiently
endured the loss of the port and of all maritime supplies. The
siege of Rome would perhaps have been raised, if the liberality
of Totila to the Isaurians had not encouraged some of their venal
countrymen to copy the example of treason. In a dark night, while
the Gothic trumpets sounded on another side, they silently opened
the gate of St. Paul: the Barbarians rushed into the city; and
the flying garrison was intercepted before they could reach the
harbor of Centumcellae. A soldier trained in the school of
Belisarius, Paul of Cilicia, retired with four hundred men to the
mole of Hadrian. They repelled the Goths; but they felt the
approach of famine; and their aversion to the taste of
horse-flesh confirmed their resolution to risk the event of a
desperate and decisive sally. But their spirit insensibly stooped
to the offers of capitulation; they retrieved their arrears of
pay, and preserved their arms and horses, by enlisting in the
service of Totila; their chiefs, who pleaded a laudable
attachment to their wives and children in the East, were
dismissed with honor; and above four hundred enemies, who had
taken refuge in the sanctuaries, were saved by the clemency of
the victor. He no longer entertained a wish of destroying the
edifices of Rome, 23 which he now respected as the seat of the
Gothic kingdom: the senate and people were restored to their
country; the means of subsistence were liberally provided; and
Totila, in the robe of peace, exhibited the equestrian games of
the circus. Whilst he amused the eyes of the multitude, four
hundred vessels were prepared for the embarkation of his troops.
The cities of Rhegium and Tarentum were reduced: he passed into
Sicily, the object of his implacable resentment; and the island
was stripped of its gold and silver, of the fruits of the earth,
and of an infinite number of horses, sheep, and oxen. Sardinia
and Corsica obeyed the fortune of Italy; and the sea-coast of
Greece was visited by a fleet of three hundred galleys. 24 The
Goths were landed in Corcyra and the ancient continent of Epirus;
they advanced as far as Nicopolis, the trophy of Augustus, and
Dodona, 25 once famous by the oracle of Jove. In every step of
his victories, the wise Barbarian repeated to Justinian the
desire of peace, applauded the concord of their predecessors, and
offered to employ the Gothic arms in the service of the empire.
23 (return) [ The Romans were still attached to the monuments of
their ancestors; and according to Procopius, (Goth. l. iv. c.
22,) the gallery of Aeneas, of a single rank of oars, 25 feet in
breadth, 120 in length, was preserved entire in the navalia, near
Monte Testaceo, at the foot of the Aventine, (Nardini, Roma
Antica, l. vii. c. 9, p. 466. Donatus, Rom Antiqua, l. iv. c. 13,
p. 334) But all antiquity is ignorant of relic.]
24 (return) [ In these seas Procopius searched without success
for the Isle of Calypso. He was shown, at Phaeacia, or Cocyra,
the petrified ship of Ulysses, (Odyss. xiii. 163;) but he found
it a recent fabric of many stones, dedicated by a merchant to
Jupiter Cassius, (l. iv. c. 22.) Eustathius had supposed it to be
the fanciful likeness of a rock.]
25 (return) [ M. D’Anville (Memoires de l’Acad. tom. xxxii. p.
513—528) illustrates the Gulf of Ambracia; but he cannot
ascertain the situation of Dodona. A country in sight of Italy is
less known than the wilds of America. Note: On the site of Dodona
compare Walpole’s Travels in the East, vol. ii. p. 473; Col.
Leake’s Northern Greece, vol. iv. p. 163; and a dissertation by
the present bishop of Lichfield (Dr. Butler) in the appendix to
Hughes’s Travels, vol. i. p. 511.—M.]
Justinian was deaf to the voice of peace: but he neglected the
prosecution of war; and the indolence of his temper disappointed,
in some degree, the obstinacy of his passions. From this salutary
slumber the emperor was awakened by the pope Vigilius and the
patrician Cethegus, who appeared before his throne, and adjured
him, in the name of God and the people, to resume the conquest
and deliverance of Italy. In the choice of the generals, caprice,
as well as judgment, was shown. A fleet and army sailed for the
relief of Sicily, under the conduct of Liberius; but his youth
2511 and want of experience were afterwards discovered, and
before he touched the shores of the island he was overtaken by
his successor. In the place of Liberius, the conspirator Artaban
was raised from a prison to military honors; in the pious
presumption, that gratitude would animate his valor and fortify
his allegiance. Belisarius reposed in the shade of his laurels,
but the command of the principal army was reserved for Germanus,
26 the emperor’s nephew, whose rank and merit had been long
depressed by the jealousy of the court. Theodora had injured him
in the rights of a private citizen, the marriage of his children,
and the testament of his brother; and although his conduct was
pure and blameless, Justinian was displeased that he should be
thought worthy of the confidence of the malcontents. The life of
Germanus was a lesson of implicit obedience: he nobly refused to
prostitute his name and character in the factions of the circus:
the gravity of his manners was tempered by innocent cheerfulness;
and his riches were lent without interest to indigent or
deserving friends. His valor had formerly triumphed over the
Sclavonians of the Danube and the rebels of Africa: the first
report of his promotion revived the hopes of the Italians; and he
was privately assured, that a crowd of Roman deserters would
abandon, on his approach, the standard of Totila. His second
marriage with Malasontha, the granddaughter of Theodoric endeared
Germanus to the Goths themselves; and they marched with
reluctance against the father of a royal infant the last
offspring of the line of Amali. 27 A splendid allowance was
assigned by the emperor: the general contributed his private
fortune: his two sons were popular and active and he surpassed,
in the promptitude and success of his levies the expectation of
mankind. He was permitted to select some squadrons of Thracian
cavalry: the veterans, as well as the youth of Constantinople and
Europe, engaged their voluntary service; and as far as the heart
of Germany, his fame and liberality attracted the aid of the
Barbarians. 2711 The Romans advanced to Sardica; an army of
Sclavonians fled before their march; but within two days of their
final departure, the designs of Germanus were terminated by his
malady and death. Yet the impulse which he had given to the
Italian war still continued to act with energy and effect. The
maritime towns Ancona, Crotona, Centumcellae, resisted the
assaults of Totila. Sicily was reduced by the zeal of Artaban,
and the Gothic navy was defeated near the coast of the Adriatic.
The two fleets were almost equal, forty-seven to fifty galleys:
the victory was decided by the knowledge and dexterity of the
Greeks; but the ships were so closely grappled, that only twelve
of the Goths escaped from this unfortunate conflict. They
affected to depreciate an element in which they were unskilled;
but their own experience confirmed the truth of a maxim, that the
master of the sea will always acquire the dominion of the land.
28
2511 (return) [ This is a singular mistake. Gibbon must have
hastily caught at his inexperience, and concluded that it must
have been from youth. Lord Mahon has pointed out this error, p.
401. I should add that in the last 4to. edition, corrected by
Gibbon, it stands “want of youth and experience;”—but Gibbon can
scarcely have intended such a phrase.—M.]
26 (return) [ See the acts of Germanus in the public (Vandal. l.
ii, c. 16, 17, 18 Goth. l. iii. c. 31, 32) and private history,
(Anecdot. c. 5,) and those of his son Justin, in Agathias, (l.
iv. p. 130, 131.) Notwithstanding an ambiguous expression of
Jornandes, fratri suo, Alemannus has proved that he was the son
of the emperor’s brother.]
27 (return) [ Conjuncta Aniciorum gens cum Amala stirpe spem
adhuc utii usque generis promittit, (Jornandes, c. 60, p. 703.)
He wrote at Ravenna before the death of Totila]
2711 (return) [ See note 31, p. 268.—M.]
28 (return) [ The third book of Procopius is terminated by the
death of Germanus, (Add. l. iv. c. 23, 24, 25, 26.)]
After the loss of Germanus, the nations were provoked to smile,
by the strange intelligence, that the command of the Roman armies
was given to a eunuch. But the eunuch Narses 29 is ranked among
the few who have rescued that unhappy name from the contempt and
hatred of mankind. A feeble, diminutive body concealed the soul
of a statesman and a warrior. His youth had been employed in the
management of the loom and distaff, in the cares of the
household, and the service of female luxury; but while his hands
were busy, he secretly exercised the faculties of a vigorous and
discerning mind. A stranger to the schools and the camp, he
studied in the palace to dissemble, to flatter, and to persuade;
and as soon as he approached the person of the emperor, Justinian
listened with surprise and pleasure to the manly counsels of his
chamberlain and private treasurer. 30 The talents of Narses were
tried and improved in frequent embassies: he led an army into
Italy, acquired a practical knowledge of the war and the country,
and presumed to strive with the genius of Belisarius. Twelve
years after his return, the eunuch was chosen to achieve the
conquest which had been left imperfect by the first of the Roman
generals. Instead of being dazzled by vanity or emulation, he
seriously declared that, unless he were armed with an adequate
force, he would never consent to risk his own glory and that of
his sovereign. Justinian granted to the favorite what he might
have denied to the hero: the Gothic war was rekindled from its
ashes, and the preparations were not unworthy of the ancient
majesty of the empire. The key of the public treasure was put
into his hand, to collect magazines, to levy soldiers, to
purchase arms and horses, to discharge the arrears of pay, and to
tempt the fidelity of the fugitives and deserters. The troops of
Germanus were still in arms; they halted at Salona in the
expectation of a new leader; and legions of subjects and allies
were created by the well-known liberality of the eunuch Narses.
The king of the Lombards 31 satisfied or surpassed the
obligations of a treaty, by lending two thousand two hundred of
his bravest warriors, 3111 who were followed by three thousand of
their martial attendants. Three thousand Heruli fought on
horseback under Philemuth, their native chief; and the noble
Aratus, who adopted the manners and discipline of Rome, conducted
a band of veterans of the same nation. Dagistheus was released
from prison to command the Huns; and Kobad, the grandson and
nephew of the great king, was conspicuous by the regal tiara at
the head of his faithful Persians, who had devoted themselves to
the fortunes of their prince. 32 Absolute in the exercise of his
authority, more absolute in the affection of his troops, Narses
led a numerous and gallant army from Philippopolis to Salona,
from whence he coasted the eastern side of the Adriatic as far as
the confines of Italy. His progress was checked. The East could
not supply vessels capable of transporting such multitudes of men
and horses. The Franks, who, in the general confusion, had
usurped the greater part of the Venetian province, refused a free
passage to the friends of the Lombards. The station of Verona was
occupied by Teias, with the flower of the Gothic forces; and that
skilful commander had overspread the adjacent country with the
fall of woods and the inundation of waters. 33 In this
perplexity, an officer of experience proposed a measure, secure
by the appearance of rashness; that the Roman army should
cautiously advance along the seashore, while the fleet preceded
their march, and successively cast a bridge of boats over the
mouths of the rivers, the Timavus, the Brenta, the Adige, and the
Po, that fall into the Adriatic to the north of Ravenna. Nine
days he reposed in the city, collected the fragments of the
Italian army, and marching towards Rimini to meet the defiance of
an insulting enemy.
29 (return) [ Procopius relates the whole series of this second
Gothic war and the victory of Narses, (l. iv. c. 21, 26—35.) A
splendid scene. Among the six subjects of epic poetry which Tasso
revolved in his mind, he hesitated between the conquests of Italy
by Belisarius and by Narses, (Hayley’s Works, vol. iv. p. 70.)]
30 (return) [ The country of Narses is unknown, since he must not
be confounded with the Persarmenian. Procopius styles him (see
Goth. l. ii. c. 13); Paul Warnefrid, (l. ii. c. 3, p. 776,)
Chartularius: Marcellinus adds the name of Cubicularius. In an
inscription on the Salarian bridge he is entitled Ex-consul,
Ex-praepositus, Cubiculi Patricius, (Mascou, Hist. of the
Germans, (l. xiii. c. 25.) The law of Theodosius against ennuchs
was obsolete or abolished, Annotation xx.,) but the foolish
prophecy of the Romans subsisted in full vigor, (Procop. l. iv.
c. 21.) * Note: Lord Mahon supposes them both to have been
Persarmenians. Note, p. 256.—M.]
31 (return) [ Paul Warnefrid, the Lombard, records with
complacency the succor, service, and honorable dismission of his
countrymen—reipublicae Romanae adversus aemulos adjutores
fuerant, (l. ii. c. i. p. 774, edit. Grot.) I am surprised that
Alboin, their martial king, did not lead his subjects in person.
* Note: The Lombards were still at war with the Gepidae. See
Procop. Goth. lib. iv. p. 25.—M.]
3111 (return) [ Gibbon has blindly followed the translation of
Maltretus: Bis mille ducentos—while the original Greek says
expressly something else, (Goth. lib. iv. c. 26.) In like manner,
(p. 266,) he draws volunteers from Germany, on the authority of
Cousin, who, in one place, has mistaken Germanus for Germania.
Yet only a few pages further we find Gibbon loudly condemning the
French and Latin readers of Procopius. Lord Mahon, p. 403. The
first of these errors remains uncorrected in the new edition of
the Byzantines.—M.]
32 (return) [ He was, if not an impostor, the son of the blind
Zames, saved by compassion, and educated in the Byzantine court
by the various motives of policy, pride, and generosity, (Procop.
Persic. l. i. c. 23.)]
33 (return) [ In the time of Augustus, and in the middle ages,
the whole waste from Aquileia to Ravenna was covered with woods,
lakes, and morasses. Man has subdued nature, and the land has
been cultivated since the waters are confined and embanked. See
the learned researches of Muratori, (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii
Aevi. tom. i. dissert xxi. p. 253, 254,) from Vitruvius, Strabo,
Herodian, old charters, and local knowledge.]
Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death Of
Justinian.—Part III.
The prudence of Narses impelled him to speedy and decisive
action. His powers were the last effort of the state; the cost of
each day accumulated the enormous account; and the nations,
untrained to discipline or fatigue, might be rashly provoked to
turn their arms against each other, or against their benefactor.
The same considerations might have tempered the ardor of Totila.
But he was conscious that the clergy and people of Italy aspired
to a second revolution: he felt or suspected the rapid progress
of treason; and he resolved to risk the Gothic kingdom on the
chance of a day, in which the valiant would be animated by
instant danger and the disaffected might be awed by mutual
ignorance. In his march from Ravenna, the Roman general chastised
the garrison of Rimini, traversed in a direct line the hills of
Urbino, and reentered the Flaminian way, nine miles beyond the
perforated rock, an obstacle of art and nature which might have
stopped or retarded his progress. 34 The Goths were assembled in
the neighborhood of Rome, they advanced without delay to seek a
superior enemy, and the two armies approached each other at the
distance of one hundred furlongs, between Tagina 35 and the
sepulchres of the Gauls. 36 The haughty message of Narses was an
offer, not of peace, but of pardon. The answer of the Gothic king
declared his resolution to die or conquer. “What day,” said the
messenger, “will you fix for the combat?” “The eighth day,”
replied Totila; but early the next morning he attempted to
surprise a foe, suspicious of deceit, and prepared for battle.
Ten thousand Heruli and Lombards, of approved valor and doubtful
faith, were placed in the centre. Each of the wings was composed
of eight thousand Romans; the right was guarded by the cavalry of
the Huns, the left was covered by fifteen hundred chosen horse,
destined, according to the emergencies of action, to sustain the
retreat of their friends, or to encompass the flank of the enemy.
From his proper station at the head of the right wing, the eunuch
rode along the line, expressing by his voice and countenance the
assurance of victory; exciting the soldiers of the emperor to
punish the guilt and madness of a band of robbers; and exposing
to their view gold chains, collars, and bracelets, the rewards of
military virtue. From the event of a single combat they drew an
omen of success; and they beheld with pleasure the courage of
fifty archers, who maintained a small eminence against three
successive attacks of the Gothic cavalry. At the distance only of
two bow-shots, the armies spent the morning in dreadful suspense,
and the Romans tasted some necessary food, without unloosing the
cuirass from their breast, or the bridle from their horses.
Narses awaited the charge; and it was delayed by Totila till he
had received his last succors of two thousand Goths. While he
consumed the hours in fruitless treaty, the king exhibited in a
narrow space the strength and agility of a warrior. His armor was
enchased with gold; his purple banner floated with the wind: he
cast his lance into the air; caught it with the right hand;
shifted it to the left; threw himself backwards; recovered his
seat; and managed a fiery steed in all the paces and evolutions
of the equestrian school. As soon as the succors had arrived, he
retired to his tent, assumed the dress and arms of a private
soldier, and gave the signal of a battle. The first line of
cavalry advanced with more courage than discretion, and left
behind them the infantry of the second line. They were soon
engaged between the horns of a crescent, into which the adverse
wings had been insensibly curved, and were saluted from either
side by the volleys of four thousand archers. Their ardor, and
even their distress, drove them forwards to a close and unequal
conflict, in which they could only use their lances against an
enemy equally skilled in all the instruments of war. A generous
emulation inspired the Romans and their Barbarian allies; and
Narses, who calmly viewed and directed their efforts, doubted to
whom he should adjudge the prize of superior bravery. The Gothic
cavalry was astonished and disordered, pressed and broken; and
the line of infantry, instead of presenting their spears, or
opening their intervals, were trampled under the feet of the
flying horse. Six thousand of the Goths were slaughtered without
mercy in the field of Tagina. Their prince, with five attendants,
was overtaken by Asbad, of the race of the Gepidae. “Spare the
king of Italy,” 3611 cried a loyal voice, and Asbad struck his
lance through the body of Totila. The blow was instantly revenged
by the faithful Goths: they transported their dying monarch seven
miles beyond the scene of his disgrace; and his last moments were
not imbittered by the presence of an enemy. Compassion afforded
him the shelter of an obscure tomb; but the Romans were not
satisfied of their victory, till they beheld the corpse of the
Gothic king. His hat, enriched with gems, and his bloody robe,
were presented to Justinian by the messengers of triumph. 37
34 (return) [ The Flaminian way, as it is corrected from the
Itineraries, and the best modern maps, by D’Anville, (Analyse de
l’Italie, p. 147—162,) may be thus stated: Rome to Narni, 51
Roman miles; Terni, 57; Spoleto, 75; Foligno, 88; Nocera, 103;
Cagli, 142; Intercisa, 157; Fossombrone, 160; Fano, 176; Pesaro,
184; Rimini, 208—about 189 English miles. He takes no notice of
the death of Totila; but West selling (Itinerar. p. 614)
exchanges, for the field of Taginas, the unknown appellation of
Ptanias, eight miles from Nocera.]
35 (return) [ Taginae, or rather Tadinae, is mentioned by Pliny;
but the bishopric of that obscure town, a mile from Gualdo, in
the plain, was united, in the year 1007, with that of Nocera. The
signs of antiquity are preserved in the local appellations,
Fossato, the camp; Capraia, Caprea; Bastia, Busta Gallorum. See
Cluverius, (Italia Antiqua, l. ii. c. 6, p. 615, 616, 617,) Lucas
Holstenius, (Annotat. ad Cluver. p. 85, 86,) Guazzesi,
(Dissertat. p. 177—217, a professed inquiry,) and the maps of the
ecclesiastical state and the march of Ancona, by Le Maire and
Magini.]
36 (return) [ The battle was fought in the year of Rome 458; and
the consul Decius, by devoting his own life, assured the triumph
of his country and his colleague Fabius, (T. Liv. x. 28, 29.)
Procopius ascribes to Camillus the victory of the Busta Gallorum;
and his error is branded by Cluverius with the national reproach
of Graecorum nugamenta.]
3611 (return) [ “Dog, wilt thou strike thy Lord?” was the more
characteristic exclamation of the Gothic youth. Procop. lib. iv.
p. 32.—M.]
37 (return) [ Theophanes, Chron. p. 193. Hist. Miscell. l. xvi.
p. 108.]
As soon as Narses had paid his devotions to the Author of
victory, and the blessed Virgin, his peculiar patroness, 38 he
praised, rewarded, and dismissed the Lombards. The villages had
been reduced to ashes by these valiant savages; they ravished
matrons and virgins on the altar; their retreat was diligently
watched by a strong detachment of regular forces, who prevented a
repetition of the like disorders. The victorious eunuch pursued
his march through Tuscany, accepted the submission of the Goths,
heard the acclamations, and often the complaints, of the
Italians, and encompassed the walls of Rome with the remainder of
his formidable host. Round the wide circumference, Narses
assigned to himself, and to each of his lieutenants, a real or a
feigned attack, while he silently marked the place of easy and
unguarded entrance. Neither the fortifications of Hadrian’s mole,
nor of the port, could long delay the progress of the conqueror;
and Justinian once more received the keys of Rome, which, under
his reign, had been five times taken and recovered. 39 But the
deliverance of Rome was the last calamity of the Roman people.
The Barbarian allies of Narses too frequently confounded the
privileges of peace and war. The despair of the flying Goths
found some consolation in sanguinary revenge; and three hundred
youths of the noblest families, who had been sent as hostages
beyond the Po, were inhumanly slain by the successor of Totila.
The fate of the senate suggests an awful lesson of the
vicissitude of human affairs. Of the senators whom Totila had
banished from their country, some were rescued by an officer of
Belisarius, and transported from Campania to Sicily; while others
were too guilty to confide in the clemency of Justinian, or too
poor to provide horses for their escape to the sea-shore. Their
brethren languished five years in a state of indigence and exile:
the victory of Narses revived their hopes; but their premature
return to the metropolis was prevented by the furious Goths; and
all the fortresses of Campania were stained with patrician 40
blood. After a period of thirteen centuries, the institution of
Romulus expired; and if the nobles of Rome still assumed the
title of senators, few subsequent traces can be discovered of a
public council, or constitutional order. Ascend six hundred
years, and contemplate the kings of the earth soliciting an
audience, as the slaves or freedmen of the Roman senate! 41
38 (return) [ Evagrius, l. iv. c. 24. The inspiration of the
Virgin revealed to Narses the day, and the word, of battle, (Paul
Diacon. l. ii. c. 3, p. 776)]
39 (return) [ (Procop. Goth. lib. iv. p. 33.) In the year 536 by
Belisarius, in 546 by Totila, in 547 by Belisarius, in 549 by
Totila, and in 552 by Narses. Maltretus had inadvertently
translated sextum; a mistake which he afterwards retracts; out
the mischief was done; and Cousin, with a train of French and
Latin readers, have fallen into the snare.]
40 (return) [ Compare two passages of Procopius, (l. iii. c. 26,
l. iv. c. 24,) which, with some collateral hints from Marcellinus
and Jornandes, illustrate the state of the expiring senate.]
41 (return) [ See, in the example of Prusias, as it is delivered
in the fragments of Polybius, (Excerpt. Legat. xcvii. p. 927,
928,) a curious picture of a royal slave.]
The Gothic war was yet alive. The bravest of the nation retired
beyond the Po; and Teias was unanimously chosen to succeed and
revenge their departed hero. The new king immediately sent
ambassadors to implore, or rather to purchase, the aid of the
Franks, and nobly lavished, for the public safety, the riches
which had been deposited in the palace of Pavia. The residue of
the royal treasure was guarded by his brother Aligern, at Cumaea,
in Campania; but the strong castle which Totila had fortified was
closely besieged by the arms of Narses. From the Alps to the foot
of Mount Vesuvius, the Gothic king, by rapid and secret marches,
advanced to the relief of his brother, eluded the vigilance of
the Roman chiefs, and pitched his camp on the banks of the Sarnus
or Draco, 42 which flows from Nuceria into the Bay of Naples. The
river separated the two armies: sixty days were consumed in
distant and fruitless combats, and Teias maintained this
important post till he was deserted by his fleet and the hope of
subsistence. With reluctant steps he ascended the Lactarian
mount, where the physicians of Rome, since the time of Galen, had
sent their patients for the benefit of the air and the milk. 43
But the Goths soon embraced a more generous resolution: to
descend the hill, to dismiss their horses, and to die in arms,
and in the possession of freedom. The king marched at their head,
bearing in his right hand a lance, and an ample buckler in his
left: with the one he struck dead the foremost of the assailants;
with the other he received the weapons which every hand was
ambitious to aim against his life. After a combat of many hours,
his left arm was fatigued by the weight of twelve javelins which
hung from his shield. Without moving from his ground, or
suspending his blows, the hero called aloud on his attendants for
a fresh buckler; but in the moment while his side was uncovered,
it was pierced by a mortal dart. He fell; and his head, exalted
on a spear, proclaimed to the nations that the Gothic kingdom was
no more. But the example of his death served only to animate the
companions who had sworn to perish with their leader. They fought
till darkness descended on the earth. They reposed on their arms.
The combat was renewed with the return of light, and maintained
with unabated vigor till the evening of the second day. The
repose of a second night, the want of water, and the loss of
their bravest champions, determined the surviving Goths to accept
the fair capitulation which the prudence of Narses was inclined
to propose. They embraced the alternative of residing in Italy,
as the subjects and soldiers of Justinian, or departing with a
portion of their private wealth, in search of some independent
country. 44 Yet the oath of fidelity or exile was alike rejected
by one thousand Goths, who broke away before the treaty was
signed, and boldly effected their retreat to the walls of Pavia.
The spirit, as well as the situation, of Aligern prompted him to
imitate rather than to bewail his brother: a strong and dexterous
archer, he transpierced with a single arrow the armor and breast
of his antagonist; and his military conduct defended Cumae 45
above a year against the forces of the Romans.
Their industry had scooped the Sibyl’s cave 46 into a prodigious
mine; combustible materials were introduced to consume the
temporary props: the wall and the gate of Cumae sunk into the
cavern, but the ruins formed a deep and inaccessible precipice.
On the fragment of a rock Aligern stood alone and unshaken, till
he calmly surveyed the hopeless condition of his country, and
judged it more honorable to be the friend of Narses, than the
slave of the Franks. After the death of Teias, the Roman general
separated his troops to reduce the cities of Italy; Lucca
sustained a long and vigorous siege: and such was the humanity or
the prudence of Narses, that the repeated perfidy of the
inhabitants could not provoke him to exact the forfeit lives of
their hostages. These hostages were dismissed in safety; and
their grateful zeal at length subdued the obstinacy of their
countrymen. 47
42 (return) [ The item of Procopius (Goth. l. iv. c. 35) is
evidently the Sarnus. The text is accused or altered by the rash
violence of Cluverius (l. iv. c. 3. p. 1156:) but Camillo
Pellegrini of Naples (Discorsi sopra la Campania Felice, p. 330,
331) has proved from old records, that as early as the year 822
that river was called the Dracontio, or Draconcello.]
43 (return) [ Galen (de Method. Medendi, l. v. apud Cluver. l.
iv. c. 3, p. 1159, 1160) describes the lofty site, pure air, and
rich milk, of Mount Lactarius, whose medicinal benefits were
equally known and sought in the time of Symmachus (l. vi. epist.
18) and Cassiodorus, (Var. xi. 10.) Nothing is now left except
the name of the town of Lettere.]
44 (return) [ Buat (tom. xi. p. 2, &c.) conveys to his favorite
Bavaria this remnant of Goths, who by others are buried in the
mountains of Uri, or restored to their native isle of Gothland,
(Mascou, Annot. xxi.)]
45 (return) [ I leave Scaliger (Animadvers. in Euseb. p. 59) and
Salmasius (Exercitat. Plinian. p. 51, 52) to quarrel about the
origin of Cumae, the oldest of the Greek colonies in Italy,
(Strab. l. v. p. 372, Velleius Paterculus, l. i. c. 4,) already
vacant in Juvenal’s time, (Satir. iii.,) and now in ruins.]
46 (return) [ Agathias (l. i. c. 21) settles the Sibyl’s cave
under the wall of Cumae: he agrees with Servius, (ad. l. vi.
Aeneid.;) nor can I perceive why their opinion should be rejected
by Heyne, the excellent editor of Virgil, (tom. ii. p. 650, 651.)
In urbe media secreta religio! But Cumae was not yet built; and
the lines (l. vi. 96, 97) would become ridiculous, if Aeneas were
actually in a Greek city.]
47 (return) [ There is some difficulty in connecting the 35th
chapter of the fourth book of the Gothic war of Procopius with
the first book of the history of Agathias. We must now relinquish
the statesman and soldier, to attend the footsteps of a poet and
rhetorician, (l. i. p. 11, l. ii. p. 51, edit. Lonvre.)]
Before Lucca had surrendered, Italy was overwhelmed by a new
deluge of Barbarians. A feeble youth, the grandson of Clovis,
reigned over the Austrasians or oriental Franks. The guardians of
Theodebald entertained with coldness and reluctance the
magnificent promises of the Gothic ambassadors. But the spirit of
a martial people outstripped the timid counsels of the court: two
brothers, Lothaire and Buccelin, 48 the dukes of the Alemanni,
stood forth as the leaders of the Italian war; and seventy-five
thousand Germans descended in the autumn from the Rhaetian Alps
into the plain of Milan. The vanguard of the Roman army was
stationed near the Po, under the conduct of Fulcaris, a bold
Herulian, who rashly conceived that personal bravery was the sole
duty and merit of a commander. As he marched without order or
precaution along the Aemilian way, an ambuscade of Franks
suddenly rose from the amphitheatre of Parma; his troops were
surprised and routed; but their leader refused to fly; declaring
to the last moment, that death was less terrible than the angry
countenance of Narses. 4811 The death of Fulcaris, and the
retreat of the surviving chiefs, decided the fluctuating and
rebellious temper of the Goths; they flew to the standard of
their deliverers, and admitted them into the cities which still
resisted the arms of the Roman general. The conqueror of Italy
opened a free passage to the irresistible torrent of Barbarians.
They passed under the walls of Cesena, and answered by threats
and reproaches the advice of Aligern, 4812 that the Gothic
treasures could no longer repay the labor of an invasion. Two
thousand Franks were destroyed by the skill and valor of Narses
himself, who sailed from Rimini at the head of three hundred
horse, to chastise the licentious rapine of their march. On the
confines of Samnium the two brothers divided their forces. With
the right wing, Buccelin assumed the spoil of Campania, Lucania,
and Bruttium; with the left, Lothaire accepted the plunder of
Apulia and Calabria. They followed the coast of the Mediterranean
and the Adriatic, as far as Rhegium and Otranto, and the extreme
lands of Italy were the term of their destructive progress. The
Franks, who were Christians and Catholics, contented themselves
with simple pillage and occasional murder. But the churches which
their piety had spared, were stripped by the sacrilegious hands
of the Alamanni, who sacrificed horses’ heads to their native
deities of the woods and rivers; 49 they melted or profaned the
consecrated vessels, and the ruins of shrines and altars were
stained with the blood of the faithful. Buccelin was actuated by
ambition, and Lothaire by avarice. The former aspired to restore
the Gothic kingdom; the latter, after a promise to his brother of
speedy succors, returned by the same road to deposit his treasure
beyond the Alps. The strength of their armies was already wasted
by the change of climate and contagion of disease: the Germans
revelled in the vintage of Italy; and their own intemperance
avenged, in some degree, the miseries of a defenceless people.
4911
48 (return) [ Among the fabulous exploits of Buccelin, he
discomfited and slew Belisarius, subdued Italy and Sicily, &c.
See in the Historians of France, Gregory of Tours, (tom. ii. l.
iii. c. 32, p. 203,) and Aimoin, (tom. iii. l. ii. de Gestis
Francorum, c. 23, p. 59.)]
4811 (return) [.... Agathius.]
4812 (return) [ Aligern, after the surrender of Cumae, had been
sent to Cesent by Narses. Agathias.—M.]
49 (return) [ Agathias notices their superstition in a
philosophic tone, (l. i. p. 18.) At Zug, in Switzerland, idolatry
still prevailed in the year 613: St. Columban and St. Gaul were
the apostles of that rude country; and the latter founded a
hermitage, which has swelled into an ecclesiastical principality
and a populous city, the seat of freedom and commerce.]
4911 (return) [ A body of Lothaire’s troops was defeated near
Fano, some were driven down precipices into the sea, others fled
to the camp; many prisoners seized the opportunity of making
their escape; and the Barbarians lost most of their booty in
their precipitate retreat. Agathias.—M.]
At the entrance of the spring, the Imperial troops, who had
guarded the cities, assembled, to the number of eighteen thousand
men, in the neighborhood of Rome. Their winter hours had not been
consumed in idleness. By the command, and after the example, of
Narses, they repeated each day their military exercise on foot
and on horseback, accustomed their ear to obey the sound of the
trumpet, and practised the steps and evolutions of the Pyrrhic
dance. From the Straits of Sicily, Buccelin, with thirty thousand
Franks and Alamanni, slowly moved towards Capua, occupied with a
wooden tower the bridge of Casilinum, covered his right by the
stream of the Vulturnus, and secured the rest of his encampment
by a rampart of sharp stakes, and a circle of wagons, whose
wheels were buried in the earth. He impatiently expected the
return of Lothaire; ignorant, alas! that his brother could never
return, and that the chief and his army had been swept away by a
strange disease 50 on the banks of the Lake Benacus, between
Trent and Verona. The banners of Narses soon approached the
Vulturnus, and the eyes of Italy were anxiously fixed on the
event of this final contest. Perhaps the talents of the Roman
general were most conspicuous in the calm operations which
precede the tumult of a battle. His skilful movements intercepted
the subsistence of the Barbarian, deprived him of the advantage
of the bridge and river, and in the choice of the ground and
moment of action reduced him to comply with the inclination of
his enemy. On the morning of the important day, when the ranks
were already formed, a servant, for some trivial fault, was
killed by his master, one of the leaders of the Heruli. The
justice or passion of Narses was awakened: he summoned the
offender to his presence, and without listening to his excuses,
gave the signal to the minister of death. If the cruel master had
not infringed the laws of his nation, this arbitrary execution
was not less unjust than it appears to have been imprudent. The
Heruli felt the indignity; they halted: but the Roman general,
without soothing their rage, or expecting their resolution,
called aloud, as the trumpets sounded, that unless they hastened
to occupy their place, they would lose the honor of the victory.
His troops were disposed 51 in a long front, the cavalry on the
wings; in the centre, the heavy-armed foot; the archers and
slingers in the rear. The Germans advanced in a sharp-pointed
column, of the form of a triangle or solid wedge. They pierced
the feeble centre of Narses, who received them with a smile into
the fatal snare, and directed his wings of cavalry insensibly to
wheel on their flanks and encompass their rear. The host of the
Franks and Alamanni consisted of infantry: a sword and buckler
hung by their side; and they used, as their weapons of offence, a
weighty hatchet and a hooked javelin, which were only formidable
in close combat, or at a short distance. The flower of the Roman
archers, on horseback, and in complete armor, skirmished without
peril round this immovable phalanx; supplied by active speed the
deficiency of number; and aimed their arrows against a crowd of
Barbarians, who, instead of a cuirass and helmet, were covered by
a loose garment of fur or linen. They paused, they trembled,
their ranks were confounded, and in the decisive moment the
Heruli, preferring glory to revenge, charged with rapid violence
the head of the column. Their leader, Sinbal, and Aligern, the
Gothic prince, deserved the prize of superior valor; and their
example excited the victorious troops to achieve with swords and
spears the destruction of the enemy. Buccelin, and the greatest
part of his army, perished on the field of battle, in the waters
of the Vulturnus, or by the hands of the enraged peasants: but it
may seem incredible, that a victory, 52 which no more than five
of the Alamanni survived, could be purchased with the loss of
fourscore Romans. Seven thousand Goths, the relics of the war,
defended the fortress of Campsa till the ensuing spring; and
every messenger of Narses announced the reduction of the Italian
cities, whose names were corrupted by the ignorance or vanity of
the Greeks. 53 After the battle of Casilinum, Narses entered the
capital; the arms and treasures of the Goths, the Franks, and the
Alamanni, were displayed; his soldiers, with garlands in their
hands, chanted the praises of the conqueror; and Rome, for the
last time, beheld the semblance of a triumph.
50 (return) [ See the death of Lothaire in Agathias (l. ii. p.
38) and Paul Warnefrid, surnamed Diaconus, (l. ii. c. 3, 775.)
The Greek makes him rave and tear his flesh. He had plundered
churches.]
51 (return) [ Pere Daniel (Hist. de la Milice Francoise, tom. i.
p. 17—21) has exhibited a fanciful representation of this battle,
somewhat in the manner of the Chevalier Folard, the once famous
editor of Polybius, who fashioned to his own habits and opinions
all the military operations of antiquity.]
52 (return) [ Agathias (l. ii. p. 47) has produced a Greek
epigram of six lines on this victory of Narses, which a favorably
compared to the battles of Marathon and Plataea. The chief
difference is indeed in their consequences—so trivial in the
former instance—so permanent and glorious in the latter. Note:
Not in the epigram, but in the previous observations—M.]
53 (return) [ The Beroia and Brincas of Theophanes or his
transcriber (p. 201) must be read or understood Verona and
Brixia.]
After a reign of sixty years, the throne of the Gothic kings was
filled by the exarchs of Ravenna, the representatives in peace
and war of the emperor of the Romans. Their jurisdiction was soon
reduced to the limits of a narrow province: but Narses himself,
the first and most powerful of the exarchs, administered above
fifteen years the entire kingdom of Italy. Like Belisarius, he
had deserved the honors of envy, calumny, and disgrace: but the
favorite eunuch still enjoyed the confidence of Justinian; or the
leader of a victorious army awed and repressed the ingratitude of
a timid court. Yet it was not by weak and mischievous indulgence
that Narses secured the attachment of his troops. Forgetful of
the past, and regardless of the future, they abused the present
hour of prosperity and peace. The cities of Italy resounded with
the noise of drinking and dancing; the spoils of victory were
wasted in sensual pleasures; and nothing (says Agathias) remained
unless to exchange their shields and helmets for the soft lute
and the capacious hogshead. 54 In a manly oration, not unworthy
of a Roman censor, the eunuch reproved these disorderly vices,
which sullied their fame, and endangered their safety. The
soldiers blushed and obeyed; discipline was confirmed; the
fortifications were restored; a duke was stationed for the
defence and military command of each of the principal cities; 55
and the eye of Narses pervaded the ample prospect from Calabria
to the Alps. The remains of the Gothic nation evacuated the
country, or mingled with the people; the Franks, instead of
revenging the death of Buccelin, abandoned, without a struggle,
their Italian conquests; and the rebellious Sinbal, chief of the
Heruli, was subdued, taken and hung on a lofty gallows by the
inflexible justice of the exarch. 56 The civil state of Italy,
after the agitation of a long tempest, was fixed by a pragmatic
sanction, which the emperor promulgated at the request of the
pope. Justinian introduced his own jurisprudence into the schools
and tribunals of the West; he ratified the acts of Theodoric and
his immediate successors, but every deed was rescinded and
abolished which force had extorted, or fear had subscribed, under
the usurpation of Totila. A moderate theory was framed to
reconcile the rights of property with the safety of prescription,
the claims of the state with the poverty of the people, and the
pardon of offences with the interest of virtue and order of
society. Under the exarchs of Ravenna, Rome was degraded to the
second rank. Yet the senators were gratified by the permission of
visiting their estates in Italy, and of approaching, without
obstacle, the throne of Constantinople: the regulation of weights
and measures was delegated to the pope and senate; and the
salaries of lawyers and physicians, of orators and grammarians,
were destined to preserve, or rekindle, the light of science in
the ancient capital. Justinian might dictate benevolent edicts,
57 and Narses might second his wishes by the restoration of
cities, and more especially of churches. But the power of kings
is most effectual to destroy; and the twenty years of the Gothic
war had consummated the distress and depopulation of Italy. As
early as the fourth campaign, under the discipline of Belisarius
himself, fifty thousand laborers died of hunger 58 in the narrow
region of Picenum; 59 and a strict interpretation of the evidence
of Procopius would swell the loss of Italy above the total sum of
her present inhabitants. 60
54 (return) [ (Agathias, l. ii. p. 48.) In the first scene of
Richard III. our English poet has beautifully enlarged on this
idea, for which, however, he was not indebted to the Byzantine
historian.]
55 (return) [ Maffei has proved, (Verona Illustrata. P. i. l. x.
p. 257, 289,) against the common opinion, that the dukes of Italy
were instituted before the conquest of the Lombards, by Narses
himself. In the Pragmatic Sanction, (No. 23,) Justinian restrains
the judices militares.]
56 (return) [ See Paulus Diaconus, liii. c. 2, p. 776. Menander
in (Excerp Legat. p. 133) mentions some risings in Italy by the
Franks, and Theophanes (p. 201) hints at some Gothic rebellions.]
57 (return) [ The Pragmatic Sanction of Justinian, which restores
and regulates the civil state of Italy, consists of xxvii.
articles: it is dated August 15, A.D. 554; is addressed to
Narses, V. J. Praepositus Sacri Cubiculi, and to Antiochus,
Præfectus Praetorio Italiae; and has been preserved by Julian
Antecessor, and in the Corpus Juris Civilis, after the novels and
edicts of Justinian, Justin, and Tiberius.]
58 (return) [ A still greater number was consumed by famine in
the southern provinces, without the Ionian Gulf. Acorns were used
in the place of bread. Procopius had seen a deserted orphan
suckled by a she-goat. Seventeen passengers were lodged,
murdered, and eaten, by two women, who were detected and slain by
the eighteenth, &c. * Note: Denina considers that greater evil
was inflicted upon Italy by the Urocian conquest than by any
other invasion. Reveluz. d’ Italia, t. i. l. v. p. 247.—M.]
59 (return) [ Quinta regio Piceni est; quondam uberrimae
multitudinis, ccclx. millia Picentium in fidem P. R. venere,
(Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 18.) In the time of Vespasian, this
ancient population was already diminished.]
60 (return) [ Perhaps fifteen or sixteen millions. Procopius
(Anecdot. c. 18) computes that Africa lost five millions, that
Italy was thrice as extensive, and that the depopulation was in a
larger proportion. But his reckoning is inflamed by passion, and
clouded with uncertainty.]
I desire to believe, but I dare not affirm, that Belisarius
sincerely rejoiced in the triumph of Narses. Yet the
consciousness of his own exploits might teach him to esteem
without jealousy the merit of a rival; and the repose of the aged
warrior was crowned by a last victory, which saved the emperor
and the capital. The Barbarians, who annually visited the
provinces of Europe, were less discouraged by some accidental
defeats, than they were excited by the double hope of spoil and
of subsidy. In the thirty-second winter of Justinian’s reign, the
Danube was deeply frozen: Zabergan led the cavalry of the
Bulgarians, and his standard was followed by a promiscuous
multitude of Sclavonians. 6011 The savage chief passed, without
opposition, the river and the mountains, spread his troops over
Macedonia and Thrace, and advanced with no more than seven
thousand horse to the long wall, which should have defended the
territory of Constantinople. But the works of man are impotent
against the assaults of nature: a recent earthquake had shaken
the foundations of the wall; and the forces of the empire were
employed on the distant frontiers of Italy, Africa, and Persia.
The seven schools, 61 or companies of the guards or domestic
troops, had been augmented to the number of five thousand five
hundred men, whose ordinary station was in the peaceful cities of
Asia. But the places of the brave Armenians were insensibly
supplied by lazy citizens, who purchased an exemption from the
duties of civil life, without being exposed to the dangers of
military service. Of such soldiers, few could be tempted to sally
from the gates; and none could be persuaded to remain in the
field, unless they wanted strength and speed to escape from the
Bulgarians. The report of the fugitives exaggerated the numbers
and fierceness of an enemy, who had polluted holy virgins, and
abandoned new-born infants to the dogs and vultures; a crowd of
rustics, imploring food and protection, increased the
consternation of the city, and the tents of Zabergan were pitched
at the distance of twenty miles, 62 on the banks of a small
river, which encircles Melanthias, and afterwards falls into the
Propontis. 63 Justinian trembled: and those who had only seen the
emperor in his old age, were pleased to suppose, that he had lost
the alacrity and vigor of his youth. By his command the vessels
of gold and silver were removed from the churches in the
neighborhood, and even the suburbs, of Constantinople; the
ramparts were lined with trembling spectators; the golden gate
was crowded with useless generals and tribunes, and the senate
shared the fatigues and the apprehensions of the populace.
6011 (return) [ Zabergan was king of the Cutrigours, a tribe of
Huns, who were neither Bulgarians nor Sclavonians. St. Martin,
vol. ix. p. 408—420.—M]
61 (return) [ In the decay of these military schools, the satire
of Procopius (Anecdot. c. 24, Aleman. p. 102, 103) is confirmed
and illustrated by Agathias, (l. v. p. 159,) who cannot be
rejected as a hostile witness.]
62 (return) [ The distance from Constantinople to Melanthias,
Villa Caesariana, (Ammian. Marcellin. xxx. 11,) is variously
fixed at 102 or 140 stadia, (Suidas, tom. ii. p. 522, 523.
Agathias, l. v. p. 158,) or xviii. or xix. miles, (Itineraria, p.
138, 230, 323, 332, and Wesseling’s Observations.) The first xii.
miles, as far as Rhegium, were paved by Justinian, who built a
bridge over a morass or gullet between a lake and the sea,
(Procop. de Edif. l. iv. c. 8.)]
63 (return) [ The Atyras, (Pompon. Mela, l. ii. c. 2, p. 169,
edit. Voss.) At the river’s mouth, a town or castle of the same
name was fortified by Justinian, (Procop. de Edif. l. iv. c. 2.
Itinerar. p. 570, and Wesseling.)]
But the eyes of the prince and people were directed to a feeble
veteran, who was compelled by the public danger to resume the
armor in which he had entered Carthage and defended Rome. The
horses of the royal stables, of private citizens, and even of the
circus, were hastily collected; the emulation of the old and
young was roused by the name of Belisarius, and his first
encampment was in the presence of a victorious enemy. His
prudence, and the labor of the friendly peasants, secured, with a
ditch and rampart, the repose of the night; innumerable fires,
and clouds of dust, were artfully contrived to magnify the
opinion of his strength; his soldiers suddenly passed from
despondency to presumption; and, while ten thousand voices
demanded the battle, Belisarius dissembled his knowledge, that in
the hour of trial he must depend on the firmness of three hundred
veterans. The next morning the Bulgarian cavalry advanced to the
charge. But they heard the shouts of multitudes, they beheld the
arms and discipline of the front; they were assaulted on the
flanks by two ambuscades which rose from the woods; their
foremost warriors fell by the hand of the aged hero and his
guards; and the swiftness of their evolutions was rendered
useless by the close attack and rapid pursuit of the Romans. In
this action (so speedy was their flight) the Bulgarians lost only
four hundred horse; but Constantinople was saved; and Zabergan,
who felt the hand of a master, withdrew to a respectful distance.
But his friends were numerous in the councils of the emperor, and
Belisarius obeyed with reluctance the commands of envy and
Justinian, which forbade him to achieve the deliverance of his
country. On his return to the city, the people, still conscious
of their danger, accompanied his triumph with acclamations of joy
and gratitude, which were imputed as a crime to the victorious
general. But when he entered the palace, the courtiers were
silent, and the emperor, after a cold and thankless embrace,
dismissed him to mingle with the train of slaves. Yet so deep was
the impression of his glory on the minds of men, that Justinian,
in the seventy-seventh year of his age, was encouraged to advance
near forty miles from the capital, and to inspect in person the
restoration of the long wall. The Bulgarians wasted the summer in
the plains of Thrace; but they were inclined to peace by the
failure of their rash attempts on Greece and the Chersonesus. A
menace of killing their prisoners quickened the payment of heavy
ransoms; and the departure of Zabergan was hastened by the
report, that double-prowed vessels were built on the Danube to
intercept his passage. The danger was soon forgotten; and a vain
question, whether their sovereign had shown more wisdom or
weakness, amused the idleness of the city. 64
64 (return) [ The Bulgarian war, and the last victory of
Belisarius, are imperfectly represented in the prolix declamation
of Agathias. (l. 5, p. 154-174,) and the dry Chronicle of
Theophanes, (p. 197 198.)]
Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death Of
Justinian.—Part IV.
About two years after the last victory of Belisarius, the emperor
returned from a Thracian journey of health, or business, or
devotion. Justinian was afflicted by a pain in his head; and his
private entry countenanced the rumor of his death. Before the
third hour of the day, the bakers’ shops were plundered of their
bread, the houses were shut, and every citizen, with hope or
terror, prepared for the impending tumult. The senators
themselves, fearful and suspicious, were convened at the ninth
hour; and the præfect received their commands to visit every
quarter of the city, and proclaim a general illumination for the
recovery of the emperor’s health. The ferment subsided; but every
accident betrayed the impotence of the government, and the
factious temper of the people: the guards were disposed to mutiny
as often as their quarters were changed, or their pay was
withheld: the frequent calamities of fires and earthquakes
afforded the opportunities of disorder; the disputes of the blues
and greens, of the orthodox and heretics, degenerated into bloody
battles; and, in the presence of the Persian ambassador,
Justinian blushed for himself and for his subjects. Capricious
pardon and arbitrary punishment imbittered the irksomeness and
discontent of a long reign: a conspiracy was formed in the
palace; and, unless we are deceived by the names of Marcellus and
Sergius, the most virtuous and the most profligate of the
courtiers were associated in the same designs. They had fixed the
time of the execution; their rank gave them access to the royal
banquet; and their black slaves 65 were stationed in the
vestibule and porticos, to announce the death of the tyrant, and
to excite a sedition in the capital. But the indiscretion of an
accomplice saved the poor remnant of the days of Justinian. The
conspirators were detected and seized, with daggers hidden under
their garments: Marcellus died by his own hand, and Sergius was
dragged from the sanctuary. 66 Pressed by remorse, or tempted by
the hopes of safety, he accused two officers of the household of
Belisarius; and torture forced them to declare that they had
acted according to the secret instructions of their patron. 67
Posterity will not hastily believe that a hero who, in the vigor
of life, had disdained the fairest offers of ambition and
revenge, should stoop to the murder of his prince, whom he could
not long expect to survive. His followers were impatient to fly;
but flight must have been supported by rebellion, and he had
lived enough for nature and for glory. Belisarius appeared before
the council with less fear than indignation: after forty years’
service, the emperor had prejudged his guilt; and injustice was
sanctified by the presence and authority of the patriarch. The
life of Belisarius was graciously spared; but his fortunes were
sequestered, and, from December to July, he was guarded as a
prisoner in his own palace. At length his innocence was
acknowledged; his freedom and honor were restored; and death,
which might be hastened by resentment and grief, removed him from
the world in about eight months after his deliverance. The name
of Belisarius can never die but instead of the funeral, the
monuments, the statues, so justly due to his memory, I only read,
that his treasures, the spoil of the Goths and Vandals, were
immediately confiscated by the emperor. Some decent portion was
reserved, however for the use of his widow: and as Antonina had
much to repent, she devoted the last remains of her life and
fortune to the foundation of a convent. Such is the simple and
genuine narrative of the fall of Belisarius and the ingratitude
of Justinian. 68 That he was deprived of his eyes, and reduced by
envy to beg his bread, 6811 “Give a penny to Belisarius the
general!” is a fiction of later times, 69 which has obtained
credit, or rather favor, as a strange example of the vicissitudes
of fortune. 70
65 (return) [ They could scarcely be real Indians; and the
Aethiopians, sometimes known by that name, were never used by the
ancients as guards or followers: they were the trifling, though
costly objects of female and royal luxury, (Terent. Eunuch. act.
i. scene ii Sueton. in August. c. 83, with a good note of
Casaubon, in Caligula, c. 57.)]
66 (return) [ The Sergius (Vandal. l. ii. c. 21, 22, Anecdot. c.
5) and Marcellus (Goth. l. iii. c. 32) are mentioned by
Procopius. See Theophanes, p. 197, 201. * Note: Some words, “the
acts of,” or “the crimes cf,” appear to have false from the text.
The omission is in all the editions I have consulted.—M.]
67 (return) [ Alemannus, (p. quotes an old Byzantian Ms., which
has been printed in the Imperium Orientale of Banduri.)]
68 (return) [ Of the disgrace and restoration of Belisarius, the
genuine original record is preserved in the Fragment of John
Malala (tom. ii. p. 234—243) and the exact Chronicle of
Theophanes, (p. 194—204.) Cedrenus (Compend. p. 387, 388) and
Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 69) seem to hesitate between the
obsolete truth and the growing falsehood.]
6811 (return) [ Le Beau, following Allemannus, conceives that
Belisarius was confounded with John of Cappadocia, who was thus
reduced to beggary, (vol. ix. p. 58, 449.) Lord Mahon has, with
considerable learning, and on the authority of a yet unquoted
writer of the eleventh century, endeavored to reestablish the old
tradition. I cannot acknowledge that I have been convinced, and
am inclined to subscribe to the theory of Le Beau.—M.]
69 (return) [ The source of this idle fable may be derived from a
miscellaneous work of the xiith century, the Chiliads of John
Tzetzes, a monk, (Basil. 1546, ad calcem Lycophront. Colon.
Allobrog. 1614, in Corp. Poet. Graec.) He relates the blindness
and beggary of Belisarius in ten vulgar or political verses,
(Chiliad iii. No. 88, 339—348, in Corp. Poet. Graec. tom. ii. p.
311.) This moral or romantic tale was imported into Italy with
the language and manuscripts of Greece; repeated before the end
of the xvth century by Crinitus, Pontanus, and Volaterranus,
attacked by Alciat, for the honor of the law; and defended by
Baronius, (A.D. 561, No. 2, &c.,) for the honor of the church.
Yet Tzetzes himself had read in other chronicles, that Belisarius
did not lose his sight, and that he recovered his fame and
fortunes. * Note: I know not where Gibbon found Tzetzes to be a
monk; I suppose he considered his bad verses a proof of his
monachism. Compare to Gerbelius in Kiesling’s edition of
Tzetzes.—M.]
70 (return) [ The statue in the villa Borghese at Rome, in a
sitting posture, with an open hand, which is vulgarly given to
Belisarius, may be ascribed with more dignity to Augustus in the
act of propitiating Nemesis, (Winckelman, Hist. de l’Art, tom.
iii. p. 266.) Ex nocturno visu etiam stipem, quotannis, die
certo, emendicabat a populo, cavana manum asses porrigentibus
praebens, (Sueton. in August. c. 91, with an excellent note of
Casaubon.) * Note: Lord Mahon abandons the statue, as altogether
irreconcilable with the state of the arts at this period, (p.
472.)—M.]
If the emperor could rejoice in the death of Belisarius, he
enjoyed the base satisfaction only eight months, the last period
of a reign of thirty-eight years, and a life of eighty-three
years. It would be difficult to trace the character of a prince
who is not the most conspicuous object of his own times: but the
confessions of an enemy may be received as the safest evidence of
his virtues. The resemblance of Justinian to the bust of
Domitian, is maliciously urged; 71 with the acknowledgment,
however, of a well-proportioned figure, a ruddy complexion, and a
pleasing countenance. The emperor was easy of access, patient of
hearing, courteous and affable in discourse, and a master of the
angry passions which rage with such destructive violence in the
breast of a despot. Procopius praises his temper, to reproach him
with calm and deliberate cruelty: but in the conspiracies which
attacked his authority and person, a more candid judge will
approve the justice, or admire the clemency, of Justinian. He
excelled in the private virtues of chastity and temperance: but
the impartial love of beauty would have been less mischievous
than his conjugal tenderness for Theodora; and his abstemious
diet was regulated, not by the prudence of a philosopher, but the
superstition of a monk. His repasts were short and frugal: on
solemn fasts, he contented himself with water and vegetables; and
such was his strength, as well as fervor, that he frequently
passed two days, and as many nights, without tasting any food.
The measure of his sleep was not less rigorous: after the repose
of a single hour, the body was awakened by the soul, and, to the
astonishment of his chamberlain, Justinian walked or studied till
the morning light. Such restless application prolonged his time
for the acquisition of knowledge 72 and the despatch of business;
and he might seriously deserve the reproach of confounding, by
minute and preposterous diligence, the general order of his
administration. The emperor professed himself a musician and
architect, a poet and philosopher, a lawyer and theologian; and
if he failed in the enterprise of reconciling the Christian
sects, the review of the Roman jurisprudence is a noble monument
of his spirit and industry. In the government of the empire, he
was less wise, or less successful: the age was unfortunate; the
people was oppressed and discontented; Theodora abused her power;
a succession of bad ministers disgraced his judgment; and
Justinian was neither beloved in his life, nor regretted at his
death. The love of fame was deeply implanted in his breast, but
he condescended to the poor ambition of titles, honors, and
contemporary praise; and while he labored to fix the admiration,
he forfeited the esteem and affection, of the Romans.
The design of the African and Italian wars was boldly conceived
and executed; and his penetration discovered the talents of
Belisarius in the camp, of Narses in the palace. But the name of
the emperor is eclipsed by the names of his victorious generals;
and Belisarius still lives, to upbraid the envy and ingratitude
of his sovereign. The partial favor of mankind applauds the
genius of a conqueror, who leads and directs his subjects in the
exercise of arms. The characters of Philip the Second and of
Justinian are distinguished by the cold ambition which delights
in war, and declines the dangers of the field. Yet a colossal
statue of bronze represented the emperor on horseback, preparing
to march against the Persians in the habit and armor of Achilles.
In the great square before the church of St. Sophia, this
monument was raised on a brass column and a stone pedestal of
seven steps; and the pillar of Theodosius, which weighed seven
thousand four hundred pounds of silver, was removed from the same
place by the avarice and vanity of Justinian. Future princes were
more just or indulgent to his memory; the elder Andronicus, in
the beginning of the fourteenth century, repaired and beautified
his equestrian statue: since the fall of the empire it has been
melted into cannon by the victorious Turks. 73
71 (return) [ The rubor of Domitian is stigmatized, quaintly
enough, by the pen of Tacitus, (in Vit. Agricol. c. 45;) and has
been likewise noticed by the younger Pliny, (Panegyr. c. 48,) and
Suetonius, (in Domitian, c. 18, and Casaubon ad locum.) Procopius
(Anecdot. c. 8) foolishly believes that only one bust of Domitian
had reached the vith century.]
72 (return) [ The studies and science of Justinian are attested
by the confession (Anecdot. c. 8, 13) still more than by the
praises (Gothic. l. iii. c. 31, de Edific. l. i. Proem. c. 7) of
Procopius. Consult the copious index of Alemannus, and read the
life of Justinian by Ludewig, (p. 135—142.)]
73 (return) [ See in the C. P. Christiana of Ducange (l. i. c.
24, No. 1) a chain of original testimonies, from Procopius in the
vith, to Gyllius in the xvith century.]
I shall conclude this chapter with the comets, the earthquakes,
and the plague, which astonished or afflicted the age of
Justinian. I. In the fifth year of his reign, and in the month of
September, a comet 74 was seen during twenty days in the western
quarter of the heavens, and which shot its rays into the north.
Eight years afterwards, while the sun was in Capricorn, another
comet appeared to follow in the Sagittary; the size was gradually
increasing; the head was in the east, the tail in the west, and
it remained visible above forty days. The nations, who gazed with
astonishment, expected wars and calamities from their baleful
influence; and these expectations were abundantly fulfilled. The
astronomers dissembled their ignorance of the nature of these
blazing stars, which they affected to represent as the floating
meteors of the air; and few among them embraced the simple notion
of Seneca and the Chaldeans, that they are only planets of a
longer period and more eccentric motion. 75 Time and science have
justified the conjectures and predictions of the Roman sage: the
telescope has opened new worlds to the eyes of astronomers; 76
and, in the narrow space of history and fable, one and the same
comet is already found to have revisited the earth in seven equal
revolutions of five hundred and seventy-five years. The first, 77
which ascends beyond the Christian aera one thousand seven
hundred and sixty-seven years, is coeval with Ogyges, the father
of Grecian antiquity. And this appearance explains the tradition
which Varro has preserved, that under his reign the planet Venus
changed her color, size, figure, and course; a prodigy without
example either in past or succeeding ages. 78 The second visit,
in the year eleven hundred and ninety-three, is darkly implied in
the fable of Electra, the seventh of the Pleiads, who have been
reduced to six since the time of the Trojan war. That nymph, the
wife of Dardanus, was unable to support the ruin of her country:
she abandoned the dances of her sister orbs, fled from the zodiac
to the north pole, and obtained, from her dishevelled locks, the
name of the comet. The third period expires in the year six
hundred and eighteen, a date that exactly agrees with the
tremendous comet of the Sibyl, and perhaps of Pliny, which arose
in the West two generations before the reign of Cyrus. The fourth
apparition, forty-four years before the birth of Christ, is of
all others the most splendid and important. After the death of
Caesar, a long-haired star was conspicuous to Rome and to the
nations, during the games which were exhibited by young Octavian
in honor of Venus and his uncle. The vulgar opinion, that it
conveyed to heaven the divine soul of the dictator, was cherished
and consecrated by the piety of a statesman; while his secret
superstition referred the comet to the glory of his own times. 79
The fifth visit has been already ascribed to the fifth year of
Justinian, which coincides with the five hundred and thirty-first
of the Christian aera. And it may deserve notice, that in this,
as in the preceding instance, the comet was followed, though at a
longer interval, by a remarkable paleness of the sun. The sixth
return, in the year eleven hundred and six, is recorded by the
chronicles of Europe and China: and in the first fervor of the
crusades, the Christians and the Mahometans might surmise, with
equal reason, that it portended the destruction of the Infidels.
The seventh phenomenon, of one thousand six hundred and eighty,
was presented to the eyes of an enlightened age. 80 The
philosophy of Bayle dispelled a prejudice which Milton’s muse had
so recently adorned, that the comet, “from its horrid hair shakes
pestilence and war.” 81 Its road in the heavens was observed with
exquisite skill by Flamstead and Cassini: and the mathematical
science of Bernoulli, Newton 8111, and Halley, investigated the
laws of its revolutions. At the eighth period, in the year two
thousand three hundred and fifty-five, their calculations may
perhaps be verified by the astronomers of some future capital in
the Siberian or American wilderness.
74 (return) [ The first comet is mentioned by John Malala (tom.
ii. p. 190, 219) and Theophanes, (p. 154;) the second by
Procopius, (Persic. l. ii. 4.) Yet I strongly suspect their
identity. The paleness of the sun sum Vandal. (l. ii. c. 14) is
applied by Theophanes (p. 158) to a different year. Note: See
Lydus de Ostentis, particularly c 15, in which the author begins
to show the signification of comets according to the part of the
heavens in which they appear, and what fortunes they
prognosticate to the Roman empire and their Persian enemies. The
chapter, however, is imperfect. (Edit. Neibuhr, p. 290.)—M.]
75 (return) [ Seneca’s viith book of Natural Questions displays,
in the theory of comets, a philosophic mind. Yet should we not
too candidly confound a vague prediction, a venient tempus, &c.,
with the merit of real discoveries.]
76 (return) [ Astronomers may study Newton and Halley. I draw my
humble science from the article Comete, in the French
Encyclopedie, by M. d’Alembert.]
77 (return) [ Whiston, the honest, pious, visionary Whiston, had
fancied for the aera of Noah’s flood (2242 years before Christ) a
prior apparition of the same comet which drowned the earth with
its tail.]
78 (return) [ A Dissertation of Freret (Memoires de l’Academie
des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 357-377) affords a happy union of
philosophy and erudition. The phenomenon in the time of Ogyges
was preserved by Varro, (Apud Augustin. de Civitate Dei, xxi. 8,)
who quotes Castor, Dion of Naples, and Adastrus of
Cyzicus—nobiles mathematici. The two subsequent periods are
preserved by the Greek mythologists and the spurious books of
Sibylline verses.]
79 (return) [ Pliny (Hist. Nat. ii. 23) has transcribed the
original memorial of Augustus. Mairan, in his most ingenious
letters to the P. Parennin, missionary in China, removes the
games and the comet of September, from the year 44 to the year
43, before the Christian aera; but I am not totally subdued by
the criticism of the astronomer, (Opuscules, p. 275 )]
80 (return) [ This last comet was visible in the month of
December, 1680. Bayle, who began his Pensees sur la Comete in
January, 1681, (Oeuvres, tom. iii.,) was forced to argue that a
supernatural comet would have confirmed the ancients in their
idolatry. Bernoulli (see his Eloge, in Fontenelle, tom. v. p. 99)
was forced to allow that the tail though not the head, was a sign
of the wrath of God.]
81 (return) [ Paradise Lost was published in the year 1667; and
the famous lines (l. ii. 708, &c.) which startled the licenser,
may allude to the recent comet of 1664, observed by Cassini at
Rome in the presence of Queen Christina, (Fontenelle, in his
Eloge, tom. v. p. 338.) Had Charles II. betrayed any symptoms of
curiosity or fear?]
8111 (return) [ Compare Pingre, Histoire des Cometes.—M.]
II. The near approach of a comet may injure or destroy the globe
which we inhabit; but the changes on its surface have been
hitherto produced by the action of volcanoes and earthquakes. 82
The nature of the soil may indicate the countries most exposed to
these formidable concussions, since they are caused by
subterraneous fires, and such fires are kindled by the union and
fermentation of iron and sulphur. But their times and effects
appear to lie beyond the reach of human curiosity; and the
philosopher will discreetly abstain from the prediction of
earthquakes, till he has counted the drops of water that silently
filtrate on the inflammable mineral, and measured the caverns
which increase by resistance the explosion of the imprisoned air.
Without assigning the cause, history will distinguish the periods
in which these calamitous events have been rare or frequent, and
will observe, that this fever of the earth raged with uncommon
violence during the reign of Justinian. 83 Each year is marked by
the repetition of earthquakes, of such duration, that
Constantinople has been shaken above forty days; of such extent,
that the shock has been communicated to the whole surface of the
globe, or at least of the Roman empire. An impulsive or vibratory
motion was felt: enormous chasms were opened, huge and heavy
bodies were discharged into the air, the sea alternately advanced
and retreated beyond its ordinary bounds, and a mountain was torn
from Libanus, 84 and cast into the waves, where it protected, as
a mole, the new harbor of Botrys 85 in Phoenicia. The stroke that
agitates an ant-hill may crush the insect-myriads in the dust;
yet truth must extort confession that man has industriously
labored for his own destruction. The institution of great cities,
which include a nation within the limits of a wall, almost
realizes the wish of Caligula, that the Roman people had but one
neck. Two hundred and fifty thousand persons are said to have
perished in the earthquake of Antioch, whose domestic multitudes
were swelled by the conflux of strangers to the festival of the
Ascension. The loss of Berytus 86 was of smaller account, but of
much greater value. That city, on the coast of Phoenicia, was
illustrated by the study of the civil law, which opened the
surest road to wealth and dignity: the schools of Berytus were
filled with the rising spirits of the age, and many a youth was
lost in the earthquake, who might have lived to be the scourge or
the guardian of his country. In these disasters, the architect
becomes the enemy of mankind. The hut of a savage, or the tent of
an Arab, may be thrown down without injury to the inhabitant; and
the Peruvians had reason to deride the folly of their Spanish
conquerors, who with so much cost and labor erected their own
sepulchres. The rich marbles of a patrician are dashed on his own
head: a whole people is buried under the ruins of public and
private edifices, and the conflagration is kindled and propagated
by the innumerable fires which are necessary for the subsistence
and manufactures of a great city. Instead of the mutual sympathy
which might comfort and assist the distressed, they dreadfully
experience the vices and passions which are released from the
fear of punishment: the tottering houses are pillaged by intrepid
avarice; revenge embraces the moment, and selects the victim; and
the earth often swallows the assassin, or the ravisher, in the
consummation of their crimes. Superstition involves the present
danger with invisible terrors; and if the image of death may
sometimes be subservient to the virtue or repentance of
individuals, an affrighted people is more forcibly moved to
expect the end of the world, or to deprecate with servile homage
the wrath of an avenging Deity.
82 (return) [ For the cause of earthquakes, see Buffon, (tom. i.
p. 502—536 Supplement a l’Hist. Naturelle, tom. v. p. 382-390,
edition in 4to., Valmont de Bomare, Dictionnaire d’Histoire
Naturelle, Tremblemen de Terre, Pyrites,) Watson, (Chemical
Essays, tom. i. p. 181—209.)]
83 (return) [ The earthquakes that shook the Roman world in the
reign of Justinian are described or mentioned by Procopius,
(Goth. l. iv. c. 25 Anecdot. c. 18,) Agathias, (l. ii. p. 52, 53,
54, l. v. p. 145-152,) John Malala, (Chron. tom. ii. p. 140-146,
176, 177, 183, 193, 220, 229, 231, 233, 234,) and Theophanes, (p.
151, 183, 189, 191-196.) * Note *: Compare Daubeny on
Earthquakes, and Lyell’s Geology, vol. ii. p. 161 et seq.—M]
84 (return) [ An abrupt height, a perpendicular cape, between
Aradus and Botrys (Polyb. l. v. p. 411. Pompon. Mela, l. i. c.
12, p. 87, cum Isaac. Voss. Observat. Maundrell, Journey, p. 32,
33. Pocock’s Description, vol. ii. p. 99.)]
85 (return) [ Botrys was founded (ann. ante Christ. 935—903) by
Ithobal, king of Tyre, (Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 387, 388.) Its
poor representative, the village of Patrone, is now destitute of
a harbor.]
86 (return) [ The university, splendor, and ruin of Berytus are
celebrated by Heineccius (p. 351—356) as an essential part of the
history of the Roman law. It was overthrown in the xxvth year of
Justinian, A. D 551, July 9, (Theophanes, p. 192;) but Agathias
(l. ii. p. 51, 52) suspends the earthquake till he has achieved
the Italian war.]
III. Aethiopia and Egypt have been stigmatized, in every age, as
the original source and seminary of the plague. 87 In a damp,
hot, stagnating air, this African fever is generated from the
putrefaction of animal substances, and especially from the swarms
of locusts, not less destructive to mankind in their death than
in their lives. The fatal disease which depopulated the earth in
the time of Justinian and his successors, 88 first appeared in
the neighborhood of Pelusium, between the Serbonian bog and the
eastern channel of the Nile. From thence, tracing as it were a
double path, it spread to the East, over Syria, Persia, and the
Indies, and penetrated to the West, along the coast of Africa,
and over the continent of Europe. In the spring of the second
year, Constantinople, during three or four months, was visited by
the pestilence; and Procopius, who observed its progress and
symptoms with the eyes of a physician, 89 has emulated the skill
and diligence of Thucydides in the description of the plague of
Athens. 90 The infection was sometimes announced by the visions
of a distempered fancy, and the victim despaired as soon as he
had heard the menace and felt the stroke of an invisible spectre.
But the greater number, in their beds, in the streets, in their
usual occupation, were surprised by a slight fever; so slight,
indeed, that neither the pulse nor the color of the patient gave
any signs of the approaching danger. The same, the next, or the
succeeding day, it was declared by the swelling of the glands,
particularly those of the groin, of the armpits, and under the
ear; and when these buboes or tumors were opened, they were found
to contain a coal, or black substance, of the size of a lentil.
If they came to a just swelling and suppuration, the patient was
saved by this kind and natural discharge of the morbid humor. But
if they continued hard and dry, a mortification quickly ensued,
and the fifth day was commonly the term of his life. The fever
was often accompanied with lethargy or delirium; the bodies of
the sick were covered with black pustules or carbuncles, the
symptoms of immediate death; and in the constitutions too feeble
to produce an irruption, the vomiting of blood was followed by a
mortification of the bowels. To pregnant women the plague was
generally mortal: yet one infant was drawn alive from his dead
mother, and three mothers survived the loss of their infected
foetus. Youth was the most perilous season; and the female sex
was less susceptible than the male: but every rank and profession
was attacked with indiscriminate rage, and many of those who
escaped were deprived of the use of their speech, without being
secure from a return of the disorder. 91 The physicians of
Constantinople were zealous and skilful; but their art was
baffled by the various symptoms and pertinacious vehemence of the
disease: the same remedies were productive of contrary effects,
and the event capriciously disappointed their prognostics of
death or recovery. The order of funerals, and the right of
sepulchres, were confounded: those who were left without friends
or servants, lay unburied in the streets, or in their desolate
houses; and a magistrate was authorized to collect the
promiscuous heaps of dead bodies, to transport them by land or
water, and to inter them in deep pits beyond the precincts of the
city. Their own danger, and the prospect of public distress,
awakened some remorse in the minds of the most vicious of
mankind: the confidence of health again revived their passions
and habits; but philosophy must disdain the observation of
Procopius, that the lives of such men were guarded by the
peculiar favor of fortune or Providence. He forgot, or perhaps he
secretly recollected, that the plague had touched the person of
Justinian himself; but the abstemious diet of the emperor may
suggest, as in the case of Socrates, a more rational and
honorable cause for his recovery. 92 During his sickness, the
public consternation was expressed in the habits of the citizens;
and their idleness and despondence occasioned a general scarcity
in the capital of the East.
87 (return) [ I have read with pleasure Mead’s short, but
elegant, treatise concerning Pestilential Disorders, the viiith
edition, London, 1722.]
88 (return) [ The great plague which raged in 542 and the
following years (Pagi, Critica, tom. ii. p. 518) must be traced
in Procopius, (Persic. l. ii. c. 22, 23,) Agathias, (l. v. p.
153, 154,) Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 29,) Paul Diaconus, (l. ii. c.
iv. p. 776, 777,) Gregory of Tours, (tom. ii. l. iv. c. 5, p
205,) who styles it Lues Inguinaria, and the Chronicles of Victor
Tunnunensis, (p. 9, in Thesaur. Temporum,) of Marcellinus, (p.
54,) and of Theophanes, (p. 153.)]
89 (return) [ Dr. Friend (Hist. Medicin. in Opp. p. 416—420,
Lond. 1733) is satisfied that Procopius must have studied physic,
from his knowledge and use of the technical words. Yet many words
that are now scientific were common and popular in the Greek
idiom.]
90 (return) [ See Thucydides, l. ii. c. 47—54, p. 127—133, edit.
Duker, and the poetical description of the same plague by
Lucretius. (l. vi. 1136—1284.) I was indebted to Dr. Hunter for
an elaborate commentary on this part of Thucydides, a quarto of
600 pages, (Venet. 1603, apud Juntas,) which was pronounced in
St. Mark’s Library by Fabius Paullinus Utinensis, a physician and
philosopher.]
91 (return) [ Thucydides (c. 51) affirms, that the infection
could only be once taken; but Evagrius, who had family experience
of the plague, observes, that some persons, who had escaped the
first, sunk under the second attack; and this repetition is
confirmed by Fabius Paullinus, (p. 588.) I observe, that on this
head physicians are divided; and the nature and operation of the
disease may not always be similar.]
92 (return) [ It was thus that Socrates had been saved by his
temperance, in the plague of Athens, (Aul. Gellius, Noct. Attic.
ii. l.) Dr. Mead accounts for the peculiar salubrity of religious
houses, by the two advantages of seclusion and abstinence, (p.
18, 19.)]
Contagion is the inseparable symptom of the plague; which, by
mutual respiration, is transfused from the infected persons to
the lungs and stomach of those who approach them. While
philosophers believe and tremble, it is singular, that the
existence of a real danger should have been denied by a people
most prone to vain and imaginary terrors. 93 Yet the
fellow-citizens of Procopius were satisfied, by some short and
partial experience, that the infection could not be gained by the
closest conversation: 94 and this persuasion might support the
assiduity of friends or physicians in the care of the sick, whom
inhuman prudence would have condemned to solitude and despair.
But the fatal security, like the predestination of the Turks,
must have aided the progress of the contagion; and those salutary
precautions to which Europe is indebted for her safety, were
unknown to the government of Justinian. No restraints were
imposed on the free and frequent intercourse of the Roman
provinces: from Persia to France, the nations were mingled and
infected by wars and emigrations; and the pestilential odor which
lurks for years in a bale of cotton was imported, by the abuse of
trade, into the most distant regions. The mode of its propagation
is explained by the remark of Procopius himself, that it always
spread from the sea-coast to the inland country: the most
sequestered islands and mountains were successively visited; the
places which had escaped the fury of its first passage were alone
exposed to the contagion of the ensuing year. The winds might
diffuse that subtile venom; but unless the atmosphere be
previously disposed for its reception, the plague would soon
expire in the cold or temperate climates of the earth. Such was
the universal corruption of the air, that the pestilence which
burst forth in the fifteenth year of Justinian was not checked or
alleviated by any difference of the seasons. In time, its first
malignity was abated and dispersed; the disease alternately
languished and revived; but it was not till the end of a
calamitous period of fifty-two years, that mankind recovered
their health, or the air resumed its pure and salubrious quality.
No facts have been preserved to sustain an account, or even a
conjecture, of the numbers that perished in this extraordinary
mortality. I only find, that during three months, five, and at
length ten, thousand persons died each day at Constantinople;
that many cities of the East were left vacant, and that in
several districts of Italy the harvest and the vintage withered
on the ground. The triple scourge of war, pestilence, and famine,
afflicted the subjects of Justinian; and his reign is disgraced
by the visible decrease of the human species, which has never
been repaired in some of the fairest countries of the globe. 95
93 (return) [ Mead proves that the plague is contagious from
Thucydides, Lacretius, Aristotle, Galen, and common experience,
(p. 10—20;) and he refutes (Preface, p. 2—13) the contrary
opinion of the French physicians who visited Marseilles in the
year 1720. Yet these were the recent and enlightened spectators
of a plague which, in a few months, swept away 50,000 inhabitants
(sur le Peste de Marseille, Paris, 1786) of a city that, in the
present hour of prosperity and trade contains no more then 90,000
souls, (Necker, sur les Finances, tom. i. p. 231.)]
94 (return) [ The strong assertions of Procopius are overthrown
by the subsequent experience of Evagrius.]
95 (return) [ After some figures of rhetoric, the sands of the
sea, &c., Procopius (Anecdot. c. 18) attempts a more definite
account; that it had been exterminated under the reign of the
Imperial demon. The expression is obscure in grammar and
arithmetic and a literal interpretation would produce several
millions of millions Alemannus (p. 80) and Cousin (tom. iii. p.
178) translate this passage, “two hundred millions:” but I am
ignorant of their motives. The remaining myriad of myriads, would
furnish one hundred millions, a number not wholly inadmissible.]
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part I.
Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—The Laws Of The Kings—The Twelve Of
The Decemvirs.—The Laws Of The People.—The Decrees Of The Senate.—The
Edicts Of The Magistrates And Emperors—Authority Of The
Civilians.—Code, Pandects, Novels, And Institutes Of Justinian:—I.
Rights Of Persons.—II. Rights Of Things.—III. Private Injuries And
Actions.—IV. Crimes And Punishments.
Note: In the notes to this important chapter, which is received
as the text-book on Civil Law in some of the foreign
universities, I have consulted,
I. the newly-discovered Institutes of Gaius, (Gaii Institutiones,
ed. Goeschen, Berlin, 1824,) with some other fragments of the
Roman law, (Codicis Theodosiani Fragmenta inedita, ab Amadeo
Peyron. Turin, 1824.)
II. The History of the Roman Law, by Professor Hugo, in the
French translation of M. Jourdan. Paris, 1825.
III. Savigny, Geschichte des Romischen Rechts im Mittelalter, 6
bande, Heidelberg, 1815.
IV. Walther, Romische Rechts-Geschichte, Bonn. 1834. But I am
particularly indebted to an edition of the French translation of
this chapter, with additional notes, by one of the most learned
civilians of Europe, Professor Warnkonig, published at Liege,
1821. I have inserted almost the whole of these notes, which are
distinguished by the letter W.—M. The vain titles of the
victories of Justinian are crumbled into dust; but the name of
the legislator is inscribed on a fair and everlasting monument.
Under his reign, and by his care, the civil jurisprudence was
digested in the immortal works of the Code, the Pandects, and the
Institutes: 1 the public reason of the Romans has been silently
or studiously transfused into the domestic institutions of
Europe, 2, and the laws of Justinian still command the respect or
obedience of independent nations. Wise or fortunate is the prince
who connects his own reputation with the honor or interest of a
perpetual order of men. The defence of their founder is the first
cause, which in every age has exercised the zeal and industry of
the civilians. They piously commemorate his virtues; dissemble or
deny his failings; and fiercely chastise the guilt or folly of
the rebels, who presume to sully the majesty of the purple. The
idolatry of love has provoked, as it usually happens, the rancor
of opposition; the character of Justinian has been exposed to the
blind vehemence of flattery and invective; and the injustice of a
sect (the Anti-Tribonians,) has refused all praise and merit to
the prince, his ministers, and his laws. 3 Attached to no party,
interested only for the truth and candor of history, and directed
by the most temperate and skilful guides, 4 I enter with just
diffidence on the subject of civil law, which has exhausted so
many learned lives, and clothed the walls of such spacious
libraries. In a single, if possible in a short, chapter, I shall
trace the Roman jurisprudence from Romulus to Justinian, 5
appreciate the labors of that emperor, and pause to contemplate
the principles of a science so important to the peace and
happiness of society. The laws of a nation form the most
instructive portion of its history; and although I have devoted
myself to write the annals of a declining monarchy, I shall
embrace the occasion to breathe the pure and invigorating air of
the republic.
1 (return) [ The civilians of the darker ages have established an
absurd and incomprehensible mode of quotation, which is supported
by authority and custom. In their references to the Code, the
Pandects, and the Institutes, they mention the number, not of the
book, but only of the law; and content themselves with reciting
the first words of the title to which it belongs; and of these
titles there are more than a thousand. Ludewig (Vit. Justiniani,
p. 268) wishes to shake off this pendantic yoke; and I have dared
to adopt the simple and rational method of numbering the book,
the title, and the law. Note: The example of Gibbon has been
followed by M Hugo and other civilians.—M]
2 (return) [ Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Poland, and Scotland,
have received them as common law or reason; in France, Italy,
&c., they possess a direct or indirect influence; and they were
respected in England, from Stephen to Edward I. our national
Justinian, (Duck. de Usu et Auctoritate Juris Civilis, l. ii. c.
1, 8—15. Heineccius, Hist. Juris Germanici, c. 3, 4, No. 55-124,
and the legal historians of each country.) * Note: Although the
restoration of the Roman law, introduced by the revival of this
study in Italy, is one of the most important branches of history,
it had been treated but imperfectly when Gibbon wrote his work.
That of Arthur Duck is but an insignificant performance. But the
researches of the learned have thrown much light upon the matter.
The Sarti, the Tiraboschi, the Fantuzzi, the Savioli, had made
some very interesting inquiries; but it was reserved for M. de
Savigny, in a work entitled “The History of the Roman Law during
the Middle Ages,” to cast the strongest right on this part of
history. He demonstrates incontestably the preservation of the
Roman law from Justinian to the time of the Glossators, who by
their indefatigable zeal, propagated the study of the Roman
jurisprudence in all the countries of Europe. It is much to be
desired that the author should continue this interesting work,
and that the learned should engage in the inquiry in what manner
the Roman law introduced itself into their respective countries,
and the authority which it progressively acquired. For Belgium,
there exists, on this subject, (proposed by the Academy of
Brussels in 1781,) a Collection of Memoirs, printed at Brussels
in 4to., 1783, among which should be distinguished those of M. de
Berg. M. Berriat Saint Prix has given us hopes of the speedy
appearance of a work in which he will discuss this question,
especially in relation to France. M. Spangenberg, in his
Introduction to the Study of the Corpus Juris Civilis Hanover,
1817, 1 vol. 8vo. p. 86, 116, gives us a general sketch of the
history of the Roman law in different parts of Europe. We cannot
avoid mentioning an elementary work by M. Hugo, in which he
treats of the History of the Roman Law from Justinian to the
present Time, 2d edit. Berlin 1818 W.]
3 (return) [ Francis Hottoman, a learned and acute lawyer of the
xvith century, wished to mortify Cujacius, and to please the
Chancellor de l’Hopital. His Anti-Tribonianus (which I have never
been able to procure) was published in French in 1609; and his
sect was propagated in Germany, (Heineccius, Op. tom. iii.
sylloge iii. p. 171—183.) * Note: Though there have always been
many detractors of the Roman law, no sect of Anti-Tribonians has
ever existed under that name, as Gibbon seems to suppose.—W.]
4 (return) [ At the head of these guides I shall respectfully
place the learned and perspicuous Heineccius, a German professor,
who died at Halle in the year 1741, (see his Eloge in the
Nouvelle Bibliotheque Germanique, tom. ii. p. 51—64.) His ample
works have been collected in eight volumes in 4to. Geneva,
1743-1748. The treatises which I have separately used are, 1.
Historia Juris Romani et Germanici, Lugd. Batav. 1740, in 8 vo.
2. Syntagma Antiquitatum Romanam Jurisprudentiam illustrantium, 2
vols. in 8 vo. Traject. ad Rhenum. 3. Elementa Juris Civilis
secundum Ordinem Institutionum, Lugd. Bat. 1751, in 8 vo. 4.
Elementa J. C. secundum Ordinem Pandectarum Traject. 1772, in
8vo. 2 vols. * Note: Our author, who was not a lawyer, was
necessarily obliged to content himself with following the
opinions of those writers who were then of the greatest
authority; but as Heineccius, notwithstanding his high reputation
for the study of the Roman law, knew nothing of the subject on
which he treated, but what he had learned from the compilations
of various authors, it happened that, in following the sometimes
rash opinions of these guides, Gibbon has fallen into many
errors, which we shall endeavor in succession to correct. The
work of Bach on the History of the Roman Jurisprudence, with
which Gibbon was not acquainted, is far superior to that of
Heineccius and since that time we have new obligations to the
modern historic civilians, whose indefatigable researches have
greatly enlarged the sphere of our knowledge in this important
branch of history. We want a pen like that of Gibbon to give to
the more accurate notions which we have acquired since his time,
the brilliancy, the vigor, and the animation which Gibbon has
bestowed on the opinions of Heineccius and his contemporaries.—W]
5 (return) [ Our original text is a fragment de Origine Juris
(Pandect. l. i. tit. ii.) of Pomponius, a Roman lawyer, who lived
under the Antonines, (Heinecc. tom. iii. syl. iii. p. 66—126.) It
has been abridged, and probably corrupted, by Tribonian, and
since restored by Bynkershoek (Opp. tom. i. p. 279—304.)]
The primitive government of Rome 6 was composed, with some
political skill, of an elective king, a council of nobles, and a
general assembly of the people. War and religion were
administered by the supreme magistrate; and he alone proposed the
laws, which were debated in the senate, and finally ratified or
rejected by a majority of votes in the thirty curiae or parishes
of the city. Romulus, Numa, and Servius Tullius, are celebrated
as the most ancient legislators; and each of them claims his
peculiar part in the threefold division of jurisprudence. 7 The
laws of marriage, the education of children, and the authority of
parents, which may seem to draw their origin from nature itself,
are ascribed to the untutored wisdom of Romulus. The law of
nations and of religious worship, which Numa introduced, was
derived from his nocturnal converse with the nymph Egeria. The
civil law is attributed to the experience of Servius: he balanced
the rights and fortunes of the seven classes of citizens; and
guarded, by fifty new regulations, the observance of contracts
and the punishment of crimes. The state, which he had inclined
towards a democracy, was changed by the last Tarquin into a
lawless despotism; and when the kingly office was abolished, the
patricians engrossed the benefits of freedom. The royal laws
became odious or obsolete; the mysterious deposit was silently
preserved by the priests and nobles; and at the end of sixty
years, the citizens of Rome still complained that they were ruled
by the arbitrary sentence of the magistrates. Yet the positive
institutions of the kings had blended themselves with the public
and private manners of the city, some fragments of that venerable
jurisprudence 8 were compiled by the diligence of antiquarians, 9
and above twenty texts still speak the rudeness of the Pelasgic
idiom of the Latins. 10
6 (return) [ The constitutional history of the kings of Rome may
be studied in the first book of Livy, and more copiously in
Dionysius Halicarnassensis, (l. li. p. 80—96, 119—130, l. iv. p.
198—220,) who sometimes betrays the character of a rhetorician
and a Greek. * Note: M. Warnkonig refers to the work of Beaufort,
on the Uncertainty of the Five First Ages of the Roman History,
with which Gibbon was probably acquainted, to Niebuhr, and to the
less known volume of Wachsmuth, “Aeltere Geschichte des Rom.
Staats.” To these I would add A. W. Schlegel’s Review of Niebuhr,
and my friend Dr. Arnold’s recently published volume, of which
the chapter on the Law of the XII. Tables appears to me one of
the most valuable, if not the most valuable, chapter.—M.]
7 (return) [ This threefold division of the law was applied to
the three Roman kings by Justus Lipsius, (Opp. tom. iv. p. 279;)
is adopted by Gravina, (Origines Juris Civilis, p. 28, edit.
Lips. 1737:) and is reluctantly admitted by Mascou, his German
editor. * Note: Whoever is acquainted with the real notions of
the Romans on the jus naturale, gentium et civile, cannot but
disapprove of this explanation which has no relation to them, and
might be taken for a pleasantry. It is certainly unnecessary to
increase the confusion which already prevails among modern
writers on the true sense of these ideas. Hugo.—W]
8 (return) [ The most ancient Code or Digest was styled Jus
Papirianum, from the first compiler, Papirius, who flourished
somewhat before or after the Regifugium, (Pandect. l. i. tit.
ii.) The best judicial critics, even Bynkershoek (tom. i. p. 284,
285) and Heineccius, (Hist. J. C. R. l. i. c. 16, 17, and Opp.
tom. iii. sylloge iv. p. 1—8,) give credit to this tale of
Pomponius, without sufficiently adverting to the value and rarity
of such a monument of the third century, of the illiterate city.
I much suspect that the Caius Papirius, the Pontifex Maximus, who
revived the laws of Numa (Dionys. Hal. l. iii. p. 171) left only
an oral tradition; and that the Jus Papirianum of Granius Flaccus
(Pandect. l. L. tit. xvi. leg. 144) was not a commentary, but an
original work, compiled in the time of Caesar, (Censorin. de Die
Natali, l. iii. p. 13, Duker de Latinitate J. C. p. 154.) Note:
Niebuhr considers the Jus Papirianum, adduced by Verrius Fiaccus,
to be of undoubted authenticity. Rom. Geschichte, l. 257.—M.
Compare this with the work of M. Hugo.—W.]
9 (return) [ A pompous, though feeble attempt to restore the
original, is made in the Histoire de la Jurisprudence Romaine of
Terasson, p. 22—72, Paris, 1750, in folio; a work of more promise
than performance.]
10 (return) [ In the year 1444, seven or eight tables of brass
were dug up between Cortona and Gubio. A part of these (for the
rest is Etruscan) represents the primitive state of the Pelasgic
letters and language, which are ascribed by Herodotus to that
district of Italy, (l. i. c. 56, 57, 58;) though this difficult
passage may be explained of a Crestona in Thrace, (Notes de
Larcher, tom. i. p. 256—261.) The savage dialect of the Eugubine
tables has exercised, and may still elude, the divination of
criticism; but the root is undoubtedly Latin, of the same age and
character as the Saliare Carmen, which, in the time of Horace,
none could understand. The Roman idiom, by an infusion of Doric
and Aeolic Greek, was gradually ripened into the style of the
xii. tables, of the Duillian column, of Ennius, of Terence, and
of Cicero, (Gruter. Inscript. tom. i. p. cxlii. Scipion Maffei,
Istoria Diplomatica, p. 241—258. Bibliotheque Italique, tom. iii.
p. 30—41, 174—205. tom. xiv. p. 1—52.) * Note: The Eugubine
Tables have exercised the ingenuity of the Italian and German
critics; it seems admitted (O. Muller, die Etrusker, ii. 313)
that they are Tuscan. See the works of Lanzi, Passeri, Dempster,
and O. Muller.—M]
I shall not repeat the well-known story of the Decemvirs, 11 who
sullied by their actions the honor of inscribing on brass, or
wood, or ivory, the Twelve Tables of the Roman laws. 12 They were
dictated by the rigid and jealous spirit of an aristocracy, which
had yielded with reluctance to the just demands of the people.
But the substance of the Twelve Tables was adapted to the state
of the city; and the Romans had emerged from Barbarism, since
they were capable of studying and embracing the institutions of
their more enlightened neighbors. 1211 A wise Ephesian was driven
by envy from his native country: before he could reach the shores
of Latium, he had observed the various forms of human nature and
civil society: he imparted his knowledge to the legislators of
Rome, and a statue was erected in the forum to the perpetual
memory of Hermodorus. 13 The names and divisions of the copper
money, the sole coin of the infant state, were of Dorian origin:
14 the harvests of Campania and Sicily relieved the wants of a
people whose agriculture was often interrupted by war and
faction; and since the trade was established, 15 the deputies who
sailed from the Tyber might return from the same harbors with a
more precious cargo of political wisdom. The colonies of Great
Greece had transported and improved the arts of their mother
country. Cumae and Rhegium, Crotona and Tarentum, Agrigentum and
Syracuse, were in the rank of the most flourishing cities. The
disciples of Pythagoras applied philosophy to the use of
government; the unwritten laws of Charondas accepted the aid of
poetry and music, 16 and Zaleucus framed the republic of the
Locrians, which stood without alteration above two hundred years.
17 From a similar motive of national pride, both Livy and
Dionysius are willing to believe, that the deputies of Rome
visited Athens under the wise and splendid administration of
Pericles; and the laws of Solon were transfused into the twelve
tables. If such an embassy had indeed been received from the
Barbarians of Hesperia, the Roman name would have been familiar
to the Greeks before the reign of Alexander; 18 and the faintest
evidence would have been explored and celebrated by the curiosity
of succeeding times. But the Athenian monuments are silent; nor
will it seem credible that the patricians should undertake a long
and perilous navigation to copy the purest model of democracy. In
the comparison of the tables of Solon with those of the
Decemvirs, some casual resemblance may be found; some rules which
nature and reason have revealed to every society; some proofs of
a common descent from Egypt or Phoenicia. 19 But in all the great
lines of public and private jurisprudence, the legislators of
Rome and Athens appear to be strangers or adverse at each other.
11 (return) [ Compare Livy (l. iii. c. 31—59) with Dionysius
Halicarnassensis, (l. x. p. 644—xi. p. 691.) How concise and
animated is the Roman—how prolix and lifeless the Greek! Yet he
has admirably judged the masters, and defined the rules, of
historical composition.]
12 (return) [ From the historians, Heineccius (Hist. J. R. l. i.
No. 26) maintains that the twelve tables were of brass—aereas; in
the text of Pomponius we read eboreas; for which Scaliger has
substituted roboreas, (Bynkershoek, p. 286.) Wood, brass, and
ivory, might be successively employed. Note: Compare Niebuhr,
vol. ii. p. 349, &c.—M.]
1211 (return) [ Compare Niebuhr, 355, note 720.—M. It is a most
important question whether the twelve tables in fact include laws
imported from Greece. The negative opinion maintained by our
author, is now almost universally adopted, particularly by Mm.
Niebuhr, Hugo, and others. See my Institutiones Juris Romani
privati Leodii, 1819, p. 311, 312.—W. Dr. Arnold, p. 255, seems
to incline to the opposite opinion. Compare some just and
sensible observations in the Appendix to Mr. Travers Twiss’s
Epitome of Niebuhr, p. 347, Oxford, 1836.—M.]
13 (return) [ His exile is mentioned by Cicero, (Tusculan.
Quaestion. v. 36; his statue by Pliny, (Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 11.)
The letter, dream, and prophecy of Heraclitus, are alike
spurious, (Epistolae Graec. Divers. p. 337.) * Note: Compare
Niebuhr, ii. 209.—M. See the Mem de l’Academ. des Inscript. xxii.
p. 48. It would be difficult to disprove, that a certain
Hermodorus had some share in framing the Laws of the Twelve
Tables. Pomponius even says that this Hermodorus was the author
of the last two tables. Pliny calls him the Interpreter of the
Decemvirs, which may lead us to suppose that he labored with them
in drawing up that law. But it is astonishing that in his
Dissertation, (De Hermodoro vero XII. Tabularum Auctore, Annales
Academiae Groninganae anni 1817, 1818,) M. Gratama has ventured
to advance two propositions entirely devoid of proof: “Decem
priores tabulas ab ipsis Romanis non esse profectas, tota
confirma Decemviratus Historia,” et “Hermodorum legum
decemviralium ceri nominis auctorem esse, qui eas composuerit
suis ordinibus, disposuerit, suaque fecerit auctoritate, ut a
decemviris reciperentur.” This truly was an age in which the
Roman Patricians would allow their laws to be dictated by a
foreign Exile! Mr. Gratama does not attempt to prove the
authenticity of the supposititious letter of Heraclitus. He
contents himself with expressing his astonishment that M. Bonamy
(as well as Gibbon) will be receive it as genuine.—W.]
14 (return) [ This intricate subject of the Sicilian and Roman
money, is ably discussed by Dr. Bentley, (Dissertation on the
Epistles of Phalaris, p. 427—479,) whose powers in this
controversy were called forth by honor and resentment.]
15 (return) [ The Romans, or their allies, sailed as far as the
fair promontory of Africa, (Polyb. l. iii. p. 177, edit.
Casaubon, in folio.) Their voyages to Cumae, &c., are noticed by
Livy and Dionysius.]
16 (return) [ This circumstance would alone prove the antiquity
of Charondas, the legislator of Rhegium and Catana, who, by a
strange error of Diodorus Siculus (tom. i. l. xii. p. 485—492) is
celebrated long afterwards as the author of the policy of
Thurium.]
17 (return) [ Zaleucus, whose existence has been rashly attacked,
had the merit and glory of converting a band of outlaws (the
Locrians) into the most virtuous and orderly of the Greek
republics. (See two Memoirs of the Baron de St. Croix, sur la
Legislation de la Grande Grece Mem. de l’Academie, tom. xlii. p.
276—333.) But the laws of Zaleucus and Charondas, which imposed
on Diodorus and Stobaeus, are the spurious composition of a
Pythagorean sophist, whose fraud has been detected by the
critical sagacity of Bentley, p. 335—377.]
18 (return) [ I seize the opportunity of tracing the progress of
this national intercourse 1. Herodotus and Thucydides (A. U. C.
300—350) appear ignorant of the name and existence of Rome,
(Joseph. contra Appion tom. ii. l. i. c. 12, p. 444, edit.
Havercamp.) 2. Theopompus (A. U. C. 400, Plin. iii. 9) mentions
the invasion of the Gauls, which is noticed in looser terms by
Heraclides Ponticus, (Plutarch in Camillo, p. 292, edit. H.
Stephan.) 3. The real or fabulous embassy of the Romans to
Alexander (A. U. C. 430) is attested by Clitarchus, (Plin. iii.
9,) by Aristus and Asclepiades, (Arrian. l. vii. p. 294, 295,)
and by Memnon of Heraclea, (apud Photium, cod. ccxxiv. p. 725,)
though tacitly denied by Livy. 4. Theophrastus (A. U. C. 440)
primus externorum aliqua de Romanis diligentius scripsit, (Plin.
iii. 9.) 5. Lycophron (A. U. C. 480—500) scattered the first seed
of a Trojan colony and the fable of the Aeneid, (Cassandra,
1226—1280.) A bold prediction before the end of the first Punic
war! * Note: Compare Niebuhr throughout. Niebuhr has written a
dissertation (Kleine Schriften, i. p. 438,) arguing from this
prediction, and on the other conclusive grounds, that the
Lycophron, the author of the Cassandra, is not the Alexandrian
poet. He had been anticipated in this sagacious criticism, as he
afterwards discovered, by a writer of no less distinction than
Charles James Fox.—Letters to Wakefield. And likewise by the
author of the extraordinary translation of this poem, that most
promising scholar, Lord Royston. See the Remains of Lord Royston,
by the Rev. Henry Pepys, London, 1838.]
19 (return) [ The tenth table, de modo sepulturae, was borrowed
from Solon, (Cicero de Legibus, ii. 23—26:) the furtem per lancem
et licium conceptum, is derived by Heineccius from the manners of
Athens, (Antiquitat. Rom. tom. ii. p. 167—175.) The right of
killing a nocturnal thief was declared by Moses, Solon, and the
Decemvirs, (Exodus xxii. 3. Demosthenes contra Timocratem, tom.
i. p. 736, edit. Reiske. Macrob. Saturnalia, l. i. c. 4. Collatio
Legum Mosaicarum et Romanatum, tit, vii. No. i. p. 218, edit.
Cannegieter.) *Note: Are not the same points of similarity
discovered in the legislation of all actions in the infancy of
their civilization?—W.]
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part II.
Whatever might be the origin or the merit of the twelve tables,
20 they obtained among the Romans that blind and partial
reverence which the lawyers of every country delight to bestow on
their municipal institutions. The study is recommended by Cicero
21 as equally pleasant and instructive. “They amuse the mind by
the remembrance of old words and the portrait of ancient manners;
they inculcate the soundest principles of government and morals;
and I am not afraid to affirm, that the brief composition of the
Decemvirs surpasses in genuine value the libraries of Grecian
philosophy. How admirable,” says Tully, with honest or affected
prejudice, “is the wisdom of our ancestors! We alone are the
masters of civil prudence, and our superiority is the more
conspicuous, if we deign to cast our eyes on the rude and almost
ridiculous jurisprudence of Draco, of Solon, and of Lycurgus.”
The twelve tables were committed to the memory of the young and
the meditation of the old; they were transcribed and illustrated
with learned diligence; they had escaped the flames of the Gauls,
they subsisted in the age of Justinian, and their subsequent loss
has been imperfectly restored by the labors of modern critics. 22
But although these venerable monuments were considered as the
rule of right and the fountain of justice, 23 they were
overwhelmed by the weight and variety of new laws, which, at the
end of five centuries, became a grievance more intolerable than
the vices of the city. 24 Three thousand brass plates, the acts
of the senate of the people, were deposited in the Capitol: 25
and some of the acts, as the Julian law against extortion,
surpassed the number of a hundred chapters. 26 The Decemvirs had
neglected to import the sanction of Zaleucus, which so long
maintained the integrity of his republic. A Locrian, who proposed
any new law, stood forth in the assembly of the people with a
cord round his neck, and if the law was rejected, the innovator
was instantly strangled.
20 (return) [ It is the praise of Diodorus, (tom. i. l. xii. p.
494,) which may be fairly translated by the eleganti atque
absoluta brevitate verborum of Aulus Gellius, (Noct. Attic. xxi.
1.)]
21 (return) [ Listen to Cicero (de Legibus, ii. 23) and his
representative Crassus, (de Oratore, i. 43, 44.)]
22 (return) [ See Heineccius, (Hist. J. R. No. 29—33.) I have
followed the restoration of the xii. tables by Gravina (Origines
J. C. p. 280—307) and Terrasson, (Hist. de la Jurisprudence
Romaine, p. 94—205.) Note: The wish expressed by Warnkonig, that
the text and the conjectural emendations on the fragments of the
xii. tables should be submitted to rigid criticism, has been
fulfilled by Dirksen, Uebersicht der bisherigen Versuche Leipzig
Kritik und Herstellung des Textes der Zwolf-Tafel-Fragmente,
Leipzug, 1824.—M.]
23 (return) [ Finis aequi juris, (Tacit. Annal. iii. 27.) Fons
omnis publici et privati juris, (T. Liv. iii. 34.) * Note: From
the context of the phrase in Tacitus, “Nam secutae leges etsi
alquando in maleficos ex delicto; saepius tamen dissensione
ordinum * * * latae sunt,” it is clear that Gibbon has rendered
this sentence incorrectly. Hugo, Hist. p. 62.—M.]
24 (return) [ De principiis juris, et quibus modis ad hanc
multitudinem infinitam ac varietatem legum perventum sit altius
disseram, (Tacit. Annal. iii. 25.) This deep disquisition fills
only two pages, but they are the pages of Tacitus. With equal
sense, but with less energy, Livy (iii. 34) had complained, in
hoc immenso aliarum super alias acervatarum legum cumulo, &c.]
25 (return) [ Suetonius in Vespasiano, c. 8.]
26 (return) [ Cicero ad Familiares, viii. 8.]
The Decemvirs had been named, and their tables were approved, by
an assembly of the centuries, in which riches preponderated
against numbers. To the first class of Romans, the proprietors of
one hundred thousand pounds of copper, 27 ninety-eight votes were
assigned, and only ninety-five were left for the six inferior
classes, distributed according to their substance by the artful
policy of Servius. But the tribunes soon established a more
specious and popular maxim, that every citizen has an equal right
to enact the laws which he is bound to obey. Instead of the
centuries, they convened the tribes; and the patricians, after an
impotent struggle, submitted to the decrees of an assembly, in
which their votes were confounded with those of the meanest
plebeians. Yet as long as the tribes successively passed over
narrow bridges 28 and gave their voices aloud, the conduct of
each citizen was exposed to the eyes and ears of his friends and
countrymen. The insolvent debtor consulted the wishes of his
creditor; the client would have blushed to oppose the views of
his patron; the general was followed by his veterans, and the
aspect of a grave magistrate was a living lesson to the
multitude. A new method of secret ballot abolished the influence
of fear and shame, of honor and interest, and the abuse of
freedom accelerated the progress of anarchy and despotism. 29 The
Romans had aspired to be equal; they were levelled by the
equality of servitude; and the dictates of Augustus were
patiently ratified by the formal consent of the tribes or
centuries. Once, and once only, he experienced a sincere and
strenuous opposition. His subjects had resigned all political
liberty; they defended the freedom of domestic life. A law which
enforced the obligation, and strengthened the bonds of marriage,
was clamorously rejected; Propertius, in the arms of Delia,
applauded the victory of licentious love; and the project of
reform was suspended till a new and more tractable generation had
arisen in the world. 30 Such an example was not necessary to
instruct a prudent usurper of the mischief of popular assemblies;
and their abolition, which Augustus had silently prepared, was
accomplished without resistance, and almost without notice, on
the accession of his successor. 31 Sixty thousand plebeian
legislators, whom numbers made formidable, and poverty secure,
were supplanted by six hundred senators, who held their honors,
their fortunes, and their lives, by the clemency of the emperor.
The loss of executive power was alleviated by the gift of
legislative authority; and Ulpian might assert, after the
practice of two hundred years, that the decrees of the senate
obtained the force and validity of laws. In the times of freedom,
the resolves of the people had often been dictated by the passion
or error of the moment: the Cornelian, Pompeian, and Julian laws
were adapted by a single hand to the prevailing disorders; but
the senate, under the reign of the Caesars, was composed of
magistrates and lawyers, and in questions of private
jurisprudence, the integrity of their judgment was seldom
perverted by fear or interest. 32
27 (return) [ Dionysius, with Arbuthnot, and most of the moderns,
(except Eisenschmidt de Ponderibus, &c., p. 137—140,) represent
the 100,000 asses by 10,000 Attic drachmae, or somewhat more than
300 pounds sterling. But their calculation can apply only to the
latter times, when the as was diminished to 1-24th of its ancient
weight: nor can I believe that in the first ages, however
destitute of the precious metals, a single ounce of silver could
have been exchanged for seventy pounds of copper or brass. A more
simple and rational method is to value the copper itself
according to the present rate, and, after comparing the mint and
the market price, the Roman and avoirdupois weight, the primitive
as or Roman pound of copper may be appreciated at one English
shilling, and the 100,000 asses of the first class amounted to
5000 pounds sterling. It will appear from the same reckoning,
that an ox was sold at Rome for five pounds, a sheep for ten
shillings, and a quarter of wheat for one pound ten shillings,
(Festus, p. 330, edit. Dacier. Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 4:) nor
do I see any reason to reject these consequences, which moderate
our ideas of the poverty of the first Romans. * Note: Compare
Niebuhr, English translation, vol. i. p. 448, &c.—M.]
28 (return) [ Consult the common writers on the Roman Comitia,
especially Sigonius and Beaufort. Spanheim (de Praestantia et Usu
Numismatum, tom. ii. dissert. x. p. 192, 193) shows, on a curious
medal, the Cista, Pontes, Septa, Diribitor, &c.]
29 (return) [ Cicero (de Legibus, iii. 16, 17, 18) debates this
constitutional question, and assigns to his brother Quintus the
most unpopular side.]
30 (return) [ Prae tumultu recusantium perferre non potuit,
(Sueton. in August. c. 34.) See Propertius, l. ii. eleg. 6.
Heineccius, in a separate history, has exhausted the whole
subject of the Julian and Papian Poppaean laws, (Opp. tom. vii.
P. i. p. 1—479.)]
31 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. i. 15. Lipsius, Excursus E. in
Tacitum. Note: This error of Gibbon has been long detected. The
senate, under Tiberius did indeed elect the magistrates, who
before that emperor were elected in the comitia. But we find laws
enacted by the people during his reign, and that of Claudius. For
example; the Julia-Norbana, Vellea, and Claudia de tutela
foeminarum. Compare the Hist. du Droit Romain, by M. Hugo, vol.
ii. p. 55, 57. The comitia ceased imperceptibly as the republic
gradually expired.—W.]
32 (return) [ Non ambigitur senatum jus facere posse, is the
decision of Ulpian, (l. xvi. ad Edict. in Pandect. l. i. tit.
iii. leg. 9.) Pomponius taxes the comitia of the people as a
turba hominum, (Pandect. l. i. tit. ii. leg 9.) * Note: The
author adopts the opinion, that under the emperors alone the
senate had a share in the legislative power. They had
nevertheless participated in it under the Republic, since
senatus-consulta relating to civil rights have been preserved,
which are much earlier than the reigns of Augustus or Tiberius.
It is true that, under the emperors, the senate exercised this
right more frequently, and that the assemblies of the people had
become much more rare, though in law they were still permitted,
in the time of Ulpian. (See the fragments of Ulpian.) Bach has
clearly demonstrated that the senate had the same power in the
time of the Republic. It is natural that the senatus-consulta
should have been more frequent under the emperors, because they
employed those means of flattering the pride of the senators, by
granting them the right of deliberating on all affairs which did
not intrench on the Imperial power. Compare the discussions of M.
Hugo, vol. i. p. 284, et seq.—W.]
The silence or ambiguity of the laws was supplied by the
occasional edicts 3211 of those magistrates who were invested
with the honors of the state. 33 This ancient prerogative of the
Roman kings was transferred, in their respective offices, to the
consuls and dictators, the censors and praetors; and a similar
right was assumed by the tribunes of the people, the ediles, and
the proconsuls. At Rome, and in the provinces, the duties of the
subject, and the intentions of the governor, were proclaimed; and
the civil jurisprudence was reformed by the annual edicts of the
supreme judge, the praetor of the city. 3311 As soon as he
ascended his tribunal, he announced by the voice of the crier,
and afterwards inscribed on a white wall, the rules which he
proposed to follow in the decision of doubtful cases, and the
relief which his equity would afford from the precise rigor of
ancient statutes. A principle of discretion more congenial to
monarchy was introduced into the republic: the art of respecting
the name, and eluding the efficacy, of the laws, was improved by
successive praetors; subtleties and fictions were invented to
defeat the plainest meaning of the Decemvirs, and where the end
was salutary, the means were frequently absurd. The secret or
probable wish of the dead was suffered to prevail over the order
of succession and the forms of testaments; and the claimant, who
was excluded from the character of heir, accepted with equal
pleasure from an indulgent praetor the possession of the goods of
his late kinsman or benefactor. In the redress of private wrongs,
compensations and fines were substituted to the obsolete rigor of
the Twelve Tables; time and space were annihilated by fanciful
suppositions; and the plea of youth, or fraud, or violence,
annulled the obligation, or excused the performance, of an
inconvenient contract. A jurisdiction thus vague and arbitrary
was exposed to the most dangerous abuse: the substance, as well
as the form, of justice were often sacrificed to the prejudices
of virtue, the bias of laudable affection, and the grosser
seductions of interest or resentment. But the errors or vices of
each praetor expired with his annual office; such maxims alone as
had been approved by reason and practice were copied by
succeeding judges; the rule of proceeding was defined by the
solution of new cases; and the temptations of injustice were
removed by the Cornelian law, which compelled the praetor of the
year to adhere to the spirit and letter of his first
proclamation. 34 It was reserved for the curiosity and learning
of Adrian, to accomplish the design which had been conceived by
the genius of Caesar; and the praetorship of Salvius Julian, an
eminent lawyer, was immortalized by the composition of the
Perpetual Edict. This well-digested code was ratified by the
emperor and the senate; the long divorce of law and equity was at
length reconciled; and, instead of the Twelve Tables, the
perpetual edict was fixed as the invariable standard of civil
jurisprudence. 35
3211 (return) [ There is a curious passage from Aurelius, a
writer on Law, on the Praetorian Præfect, quoted in Lydus de
Magistratibus, p. 32, edit. Hase. The Praetorian præfect was to
the emperor what the master of the horse was to the dictator
under the Republic. He was the delegate, therefore, of the full
Imperial authority; and no appeal could be made or exception
taken against his edicts. I had not observed this passage, when
the third volume, where it would have been more appropriately
placed, passed through the press.—M]
33 (return) [ The jus honorarium of the praetors and other
magistrates is strictly defined in the Latin text to the
Institutes, (l. i. tit. ii. No. 7,) and more loosely explained in
the Greek paraphrase of Theophilus, (p. 33—38, edit. Reitz,) who
drops the important word honorarium. * Note: The author here
follows the opinion of Heineccius, who, according to the idea of
his master Thomasius, was unwilling to suppose that magistrates
exercising a judicial could share in the legislative power. For
this reason he represents the edicts of the praetors as absurd.
(See his work, Historia Juris Romani, 69, 74.) But Heineccius had
altogether a false notion of this important institution of the
Romans, to which we owe in a great degree the perfection of their
jurisprudence. Heineccius, therefore, in his own days had many
opponents of his system, among others the celebrated Ritter,
professor at Wittemberg, who contested it in notes appended to
the work of Heineccius, and retained in all subsequent editions
of that book. After Ritter, the learned Bach undertook to
vindicate the edicts of the praetors in his Historia Jurisprud.
Rom. edit. 6, p. 218, 224. But it remained for a civilian of our
own days to throw light on the spirit and true character of this
institution. M. Hugo has completely demonstrated that the
praetorian edicts furnished the salutary means of perpetually
harmonizing the legislation with the spirit of the times. The
praetors were the true organs of public opinion. It was not
according to their caprice that they framed their regulations,
but according to the manners and to the opinions of the great
civil lawyers of their day. We know from Cicero himself, that it
was esteemed a great honor among the Romans to publish an edict,
well conceived and well drawn. The most distinguished lawyers of
Rome were invited by the praetor to assist in framing this annual
law, which, according to its principle, was only a declaration
which the praetor made to the public, to announce the manner in
which he would judge, and to guard against every charge of
partiality. Those who had reason to fear his opinions might delay
their cause till the following year. The praetor was responsible
for all the faults which he committed. The tribunes could lodge
an accusation against the praetor who issued a partial edict. He
was bound strictly to follow and to observe the regulations
published by him at the commencement of his year of office,
according to the Cornelian law, by which these edicts were called
perpetual, and he could make no change in a regulation once
published. The praetor was obliged to submit to his own edict,
and to judge his own affairs according to its provisions. These
magistrates had no power of departing from the fundamental laws,
or the laws of the Twelve Tables. The people held them in such
consideration, that they rarely enacted laws contrary to their
provisions; but as some provisions were found inefficient, others
opposed to the manners of the people, and to the spirit of
subsequent ages, the praetors, still maintaining respect for the
laws, endeavored to bring them into accordance with the
necessities of the existing time, by such fictions as best suited
the nature of the case. In what legislation do we not find these
fictions, which even yet exist, absurd and ridiculous as they
are, among the ancient laws of modern nations? These always
variable edicts at length comprehended the whole of the Roman
legislature, and became the subject of the commentaries of the
most celebrated lawyers. They must therefore be considered as the
basis of all the Roman jurisprudence comprehended in the Digest
of Justinian. ——It is in this sense that M. Schrader has written
on this important institution, proposing it for imitation as far
as may be consistent with our manners, and agreeable to our
political institutions, in order to avoid immature legislation
becoming a permanent evil. See the History of the Roman Law by M.
Hugo, vol. i. p. 296, &c., vol. ii. p. 30, et seq., 78. et seq.,
and the note in my elementary book on the Industries, p. 313.
With regard to the works best suited to give information on the
framing and the form of these edicts, see Haubold, Institutiones
Literariae, tom. i. p. 321, 368. All that Heineccius says about
the usurpation of the right of making these edicts by the
praetors is false, and contrary to all historical testimony. A
multitude of authorities proves that the magistrates were under
an obligation to publish these edicts.—W. ——With the utmost
deference for these excellent civilians, I cannot but consider
this confusion of the judicial and legislative authority as a
very perilous constitutional precedent. It might answer among a
people so singularly trained as the Romans were by habit and
national character in reverence for legal institutions, so as to
be an aristocracy, if not a people, of legislators; but in most
nations the investiture of a magistrate in such authority,
leaving to his sole judgment the lawyers he might consult, and
the view of public opinion which he might take, would be a very
insufficient guaranty for right legislation.—M.]
3311 (return) [ Compare throughout the brief but admirable sketch
of the progress and growth of the Roman jurisprudence, the
necessary operation of the jusgentium, when Rome became the
sovereign of nations, upon the jus civile of the citizens of
Rome, in the first chapter of Savigny. Geschichte des Romischen
Rechts im Mittelalter.—M.]
34 (return) [ Dion Cassius (tom. i. l. xxxvi. p. 100) fixes the
perpetual edicts in the year of Rome, 686. Their institution,
however, is ascribed to the year 585 in the Acta Diurna, which
have been published from the papers of Ludovicus Vives. Their
authenticity is supported or allowed by Pighius, (Annal. Rom.
tom. ii. p. 377, 378,) Graevius, (ad Sueton. p. 778,) Dodwell,
(Praelection. Cambden, p. 665,) and Heineccius: but a single
word, Scutum Cimbricum, detects the forgery, (Moyle’s Works, vol.
i. p. 303.)]
35 (return) [ The history of edicts is composed, and the text of
the perpetual edict is restored, by the master-hand of
Heineccius, (Opp. tom. vii. P. ii. p. 1—564;) in whose researches
I might safely acquiesce. In the Academy of Inscriptions, M.
Bouchaud has given a series of memoirs to this interesting
subject of law and literature. * Note: This restoration was only
the commencement of a work found among the papers of Heineccius,
and published after his death.—G. ——Note: Gibbon has here fallen
into an error, with Heineccius, and almost the whole literary
world, concerning the real meaning of what is called the
perpetual edict of Hadrian. Since the Cornelian law, the edicts
were perpetual, but only in this sense, that the praetor could
not change them during the year of his magistracy. And although
it appears that under Hadrian, the civilian Julianus made, or
assisted in making, a complete collection of the edicts, (which
certainly had been done likewise before Hadrian, for example, by
Ofilius, qui diligenter edictum composuit,) we have no sufficient
proof to admit the common opinion, that the Praetorian edict was
declared perpetually unalterable by Hadrian. The writers on law
subsequent to Hadrian (and among the rest Pomponius, in his
Summary of the Roman Jurisprudence) speak of the edict as it
existed in the time of Cicero. They would not certainly have
passed over in silence so remarkable a change in the most
important source of the civil law. M. Hugo has conclusively shown
that the various passages in authors, like Eutropius, are not
sufficient to establish the opinion introduced by Heineccius.
Compare Hugo, vol. ii. p. 78. A new proof of this is found in the
Institutes of Gaius, who, in the first books of his work,
expresses himself in the same manner, without mentioning any
change made by Hadrian. Nevertheless, if it had taken place, he
must have noticed it, as he does l. i. 8, the responsa prudentum,
on the occasion of a rescript of Hadrian. There is no lacuna in
the text. Why then should Gaius maintain silence concerning an
innovation so much more important than that of which he speaks?
After all, this question becomes of slight interest, since, in
fact, we find no change in the perpetual edict inserted in the
Digest, from the time of Hadrian to the end of that epoch, except
that made by Julian, (compare Hugo, l. c.) The latter lawyers
appear to follow, in their commentaries, the same texts as their
predecessors. It is natural to suppose, that, after the labors of
so many men distinguished in jurisprudence, the framing of the
edict must have attained such perfection that it would have been
difficult to have made any innovation. We nowhere find that the
jurists of the Pandects disputed concerning the words, or the
drawing up of the edict. What difference would, in fact, result
from this with regard to our codes, and our modern legislation?
Compare the learned Dissertation of M. Biener, De Salvii Juliani
meritis in Edictum Praetorium recte aestimandis. Lipsae, 1809,
4to.—W.]
From Augustus to Trajan, the modest Caesars were content to
promulgate their edicts in the various characters of a Roman
magistrate; 3511 and, in the decrees of the senate, the epistles
and orations of the prince were respectfully inserted. Adrian 36
appears to have been the first who assumed, without disguise, the
plenitude of legislative power. And this innovation, so agreeable
to his active mind, was countenanced by the patience of the
times, and his long absence from the seat of government. The same
policy was embraced by succeeding monarchs, and, according to the
harsh metaphor of Tertullian, “the gloomy and intricate forest of
ancient laws was cleared away by the axe of royal mandates and
constitutions.” 37 During four centuries, from Adrian to
Justinian the public and private jurisprudence was moulded by the
will of the sovereign; and few institutions, either human or
divine, were permitted to stand on their former basis. The origin
of Imperial legislation was concealed by the darkness of ages and
the terrors of armed despotism; and a double tiction was
propagated by the servility, or perhaps the ignorance, of the
civilians, who basked in the sunshine of the Roman and Byzantine
courts. 1. To the prayer of the ancient Caesars, the people or
the senate had sometimes granted a personal exemption from the
obligation and penalty of particular statutes; and each
indulgence was an act of jurisdiction exercised by the republic
over the first of her citizens. His humble privilege was at
length transformed into the prerogative of a tyrant; and the
Latin expression of “released from the laws” 38 was supposed to
exalt the emperor above all human restraints, and to leave his
conscience and reason as the sacred measure of his conduct. 2. A
similar dependence was implied in the decrees of the senate,
which, in every reign, defined the titles and powers of an
elective magistrate. But it was not before the ideas, and even
the language, of the Romans had been corrupted, that a royal law,
39 and an irrevocable gift of the people, were created by the
fancy of Ulpian, or more probably of Tribonian himself; 40 and
the origin of Imperial power, though false in fact, and slavish
in its consequence, was supported on a principle of freedom and
justice. “The pleasure of the emperor has the vigor and effect of
law, since the Roman people, by the royal law, have transferred
to their prince the full extent of their own power and
sovereignty.” 41 The will of a single man, of a child perhaps,
was allowed to prevail over the wisdom of ages and the
inclinations of millions; and the degenerate Greeks were proud to
declare, that in his hands alone the arbitrary exercise of
legislation could be safely deposited. “What interest or
passion,” exclaims Theophilus in the court of Justinian, “can
reach the calm and sublime elevation of the monarch? He is
already master of the lives and fortunes of his subjects; and
those who have incurred his displeasure are already numbered with
the dead.” 42 Disdaining the language of flattery, the historian
may confess, that in questions of private jurisprudence, the
absolute sovereign of a great empire can seldom be influenced by
any personal considerations. Virtue, or even reason, will suggest
to his impartial mind, that he is the guardian of peace and
equity, and that the interest of society is inseparably connected
with his own. Under the weakest and most vicious reign, the seat
of justice was filled by the wisdom and integrity of Papinian and
Ulpian; 43 and the purest materials of the Code and Pandects are
inscribed with the names of Caracalla and his ministers. 44 The
tyrant of Rome was sometimes the benefactor of the provinces. A
dagger terminated the crimes of Domitian; but the prudence of
Nerva confirmed his acts, which, in the joy of their deliverance,
had been rescinded by an indignant senate. 45 Yet in the
rescripts, 46 replies to the consultations of the magistrates,
the wisest of princes might be deceived by a partial exposition
of the case. And this abuse, which placed their hasty decisions
on the same level with mature and deliberate acts of legislation,
was ineffectually condemned by the sense and example of Trajan.
The rescripts of the emperor, his grants and decrees, his edicts
and pragmatic sanctions, were subscribed in purple ink, 47 and
transmitted to the provinces as general or special laws, which
the magistrates were bound to execute, and the people to obey.
But as their number continually multiplied, the rule of obedience
became each day more doubtful and obscure, till the will of the
sovereign was fixed and ascertained in the Gregorian, the
Hermogenian, and the Theodosian codes. 4711 The two first, of
which some fragments have escaped, were framed by two private
lawyers, to preserve the constitutions of the Pagan emperors from
Adrian to Constantine. The third, which is still extant, was
digested in sixteen books by the order of the younger Theodosius
to consecrate the laws of the Christian princes from Constantine
to his own reign. But the three codes obtained an equal authority
in the tribunals; and any act which was not included in the
sacred deposit might be disregarded by the judge as epurious or
obsolete. 48
3511 (return) [ It is an important question in what manner the
emperors were invested with this legislative power. The newly
discovered Gaius distinctly states that it was in virtue of a
law—Nec unquam dubitatum est, quin id legis vicem obtineat, cum
ipse imperator per legem imperium accipiat. But it is still
uncertain whether this was a general law, passed on the
transition of the government from a republican to a monarchical
form, or a law passed on the accession of each emperor. Compare
Hugo, Hist. du Droit Romain, (French translation,) vol. ii. p.
8.—M.]
36 (return) [ His laws are the first in the code. See Dodwell,
(Praelect. Cambden, p. 319—340,) who wanders from the subject in
confused reading and feeble paradox. * Note: This is again an
error which Gibbon shares with Heineccius, and the generality of
authors. It arises from having mistaken the insignificant edict
of Hadrian, inserted in the Code of Justinian, (lib. vi, tit.
xxiii. c. 11,) for the first constitutio principis, without
attending to the fact, that the Pandects contain so many
constitutions of the emperors, from Julius Caesar, (see l. i.
Digest 29, l) M. Hugo justly observes, that the acta of Sylla,
approved by the senate, were the same thing with the
constitutions of those who after him usurped the sovereign power.
Moreover, we find that Pliny, and other ancient authors, report a
multitude of rescripts of the emperors from the time of Augustus.
See Hugo, Hist. du Droit Romain, vol. ii. p. 24-27.—W.]
37 (return) [ Totam illam veterem et squalentem sylvam legum
novis principalium rescriptorum et edictorum securibus truncatis
et caeditis; (Apologet. c. 4, p. 50, edit. Havercamp.) He
proceeds to praise the recent firmness of Severus, who repealed
the useless or pernicious laws, without any regard to their age
or authority.]
38 (return) [ The constitutional style of Legibus Solutus is
misinterpreted by the art or ignorance of Dion Cassius, (tom. i.
l. liii. p. 713.) On this occasion, his editor, Reimer, joins the
universal censure which freedom and criticism have pronounced
against that slavish historian.]
39 (return) [ The word (Lex Regia) was still more recent than the
thing. The slaves of Commodus or Caracalla would have started at
the name of royalty. Note: Yet a century before, Domitian was
called not only by Martial but even in public documents, Dominus
et Deus Noster. Sueton. Domit. cap. 13. Hugo.—W.]
40 (return) [ See Gravina (Opp. p. 501—512) and Beaufort,
(Republique Romaine, tom. i. p. 255—274.) He has made a proper
use of two dissertations by John Frederic Gronovius and Noodt,
both translated, with valuable notes, by Barbeyrac, 2 vols. in
12mo. 1731.]
41 (return) [ Institut. l. i. tit. ii. No. 6. Pandect. l. i. tit.
iv. leg. 1. Cod. Justinian, l. i. tit. xvii. leg. 1, No. 7. In
his Antiquities and Elements, Heineccius has amply treated de
constitutionibus principum, which are illustrated by Godefroy
(Comment. ad Cod. Theodos. l. i. tit. i. ii. iii.) and Gravina,
(p. 87—90.) ——Note: Gaius asserts that the Imperial edict or
rescript has and always had, the force of law, because the
Imperial authority rests upon law. Constitutio principis est,
quod imperator decreto vel edicto, vel epistola constituit, nee
unquam dubitatum, quin id legis, vicem obtineat, cum ipse
imperator per legem imperium accipiat. Gaius, 6 Instit. i. 2.—M.]
42 (return) [ Theophilus, in Paraphras. Graec. Institut. p. 33,
34, edit. Reitz For his person, time, writings, see the
Theophilus of J. H. Mylius, Excurs. iii. p. 1034—1073.]
43 (return) [ There is more envy than reason in the complaint of
Macrinus (Jul. Capitolin. c. 13:) Nefas esse leges videri Commodi
et Caracalla at hominum imperitorum voluntates. Commodus was made
a Divus by Severus, (Dodwell, Praelect. viii. p. 324, 325.) Yet
he occurs only twice in the Pandects.]
44 (return) [ Of Antoninus Caracalla alone 200 constitutions are
extant in the Code, and with his father 160. These two princes
are quoted fifty times in the Pandects, and eight in the
Institutes, (Terasson, p. 265.)]
45 (return) [ Plin. Secund. Epistol. x. 66. Sueton. in Domitian.
c. 23.]
46 (return) [ It was a maxim of Constantine, contra jus rescripta
non valeant, (Cod. Theodos. l. i. tit. ii. leg. 1.) The emperors
reluctantly allow some scrutiny into the law and the fact, some
delay, petition, &c.; but these insufficient remedies are too
much in the discretion and at the peril of the judge.]
47 (return) [ A compound of vermilion and cinnabar, which marks
the Imperial diplomas from Leo I. (A.D. 470) to the fall of the
Greek empire, (Bibliotheque Raisonnee de la Diplomatique, tom. i.
p. 504—515 Lami, de Eruditione Apostolorum, tom. ii. p.
720-726.)]
4711 (return) [ Savigny states the following as the authorities
for the Roman law at the commencement of the fifth century:— 1.
The writings of the jurists, according to the regulations of the
Constitution of Valentinian III., first promulgated in the West,
but by its admission into the Theodosian Code established
likewise in the East. (This Constitution established the
authority of the five great jurists, Papinian, Paulus, Caius,
Ulpian, and Modestinus as interpreters of the ancient law. * * *
In case of difference of opinion among these five, a majority
decided the case; where they were equal, the opinion of Papinian,
where he was silent, the judge; but see p. 40, and Hugo, vol. ii.
p. 89.) 2. The Gregorian and Hermogenian Collection of the
Imperial Rescripts. 3. The Code of Theodosius II. 4. The
particular Novellae, as additions and Supplements to this Code
Savigny. vol. i. p 10.—M.]
48 (return) [ Schulting, Jurisprudentia Ante-Justinianea, p.
681-718. Cujacius assigned to Gregory the reigns from Hadrian to
Gallienus. and the continuation to his fellow-laborer Hermogenes.
This general division may be just, but they often trespassed on
each other’s ground]
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part III.
Among savage nations, the want of letters is imperfectly supplied
by the use of visible signs, which awaken attention, and
perpetuate the remembrance of any public or private transaction.
The jurisprudence of the first Romans exhibited the scenes of a
pantomime; the words were adapted to the gestures, and the
slightest error or neglect in the forms of proceeding was
sufficient to annul the substance of the fairest claim. The
communion of the marriage-life was denoted by the necessary
elements of fire and water; 49 and the divorced wife resigned the
bunch of keys, by the delivery of which she had been invested
with the government of the family. The manumission of a son, or a
slave, was performed by turning him round with a gentle blow on
the cheek; a work was prohibited by the casting of a stone;
prescription was interrupted by the breaking of a branch; the
clinched fist was the symbol of a pledge or deposit; the right
hand was the gift of faith and confidence. The indenture of
covenants was a broken straw; weights and scales were introduced
into every payment, and the heir who accepted a testament was
sometimes obliged to snap his fingers, to cast away his garments,
and to leap or dance with real or affected transport. 50 If a
citizen pursued any stolen goods into a neighbor’s house, he
concealed his nakedness with a linen towel, and hid his face with
a mask or basin, lest he should encounter the eyes of a virgin or
a matron. 51 In a civil action the plaintiff touched the ear of
his witness, seized his reluctant adversary by the neck, and
implored, in solemn lamentation, the aid of his fellow-citizens.
The two competitors grasped each other’s hand as if they stood
prepared for combat before the tribunal of the praetor; he
commanded them to produce the object of the dispute; they went,
they returned with measured steps, and a clod of earth was cast
at his feet to represent the field for which they contended. This
occult science of the words and actions of law was the
inheritance of the pontiffs and patricians. Like the Chaldean
astrologers, they announced to their clients the days of business
and repose; these important trifles were interwoven with the
religion of Numa; and after the publication of the Twelve Tables,
the Roman people was still enslaved by the ignorance of judicial
proceedings. The treachery of some plebeian officers at length
revealed the profitable mystery: in a more enlightened age, the
legal actions were derided and observed; and the same antiquity
which sanctified the practice, obliterated the use and meaning of
this primitive language. 52
49 (return) [ Scaevola, most probably Q. Cervidius Scaevola; the
master of Papinian considers this acceptance of fire and water as
the essence of marriage, (Pandect. l. xxiv. tit. 1, leg. 66. See
Heineccius, Hist. J. R. No. 317.)]
50 (return) [ Cicero (de Officiis, iii. 19) may state an ideal
case, but St. Am brose (de Officiis, iii. 2,) appeals to the
practice of his own times, which he understood as a lawyer and a
magistrate, (Schulting ad Ulpian, Fragment. tit. xxii. No. 28, p.
643, 644.) * Note: In this passage the author has endeavored to
collect all the examples of judicial formularies which he could
find. That which he adduces as the form of cretio haereditatis is
absolutely false. It is sufficient to glance at the passage in
Cicero which he cites, to see that it has no relation to it. The
author appeals to the opinion of Schulting, who, in the passage
quoted, himself protests against the ridiculous and absurd
interpretation of the passage in Cicero, and observes that
Graevius had already well explained the real sense. See in Gaius
the form of cretio haereditatis Inst. l. ii. p. 166.—W.]
51 (return) [ The furtum lance licioque conceptum was no longer
understood in the time of the Antonines, (Aulus Gellius, xvi.
10.) The Attic derivation of Heineccius, (Antiquitat. Rom. l. iv.
tit. i. No. 13—21) is supported by the evidence of Aristophanes,
his scholiast, and Pollux. * Note: Nothing more is known of this
ceremony; nevertheless we find that already in his own days Gaius
turned it into ridicule. He says, (lib. iii. et p. 192, Sections
293,) prohibiti actio quadrupli ex edicto praetoris introducta
est; lex autem eo nomine nullam poenam constituit. Hoc solum
praecepit, ut qui quaerere velit, nudus quaerat, linteo cinctus,
lancem habens; qui si quid invenerit. jubet id lex furtum
manifestum esse. Quid sit autem linteum? quaesitum est. Sed
verius est consuti genus esse, quo necessariae partes tegerentur.
Quare lex tota ridicula est. Nam qui vestitum quaerere prohibet,
is et nudum quaerere prohibiturus est; eo magis, quod invenerit
ibi imponat, neutrum eorum procedit, si id quod quaeratur, ejus
magnitudinis aut naturae sit ut neque subjici, neque ibi imponi
possit. Certe non dubitatur, cujuscunque materiae sit ea lanx,
satis legi fieri. We see moreover, from this passage, that the
basin, as most authors, resting on the authority of Festus, have
supposed, was not used to cover the figure.—W. Gibbon says the
face, though equally inaccurately. This passage of Gaius, I must
observe, as well as others in M. Warnkonig’s work, is very
inaccurately printed.—M.]
52 (return) [ In his Oration for Murena, (c. 9—13,) Cicero turns
into ridicule the forms and mysteries of the civilians, which are
represented with more candor by Aulus Gellius, (Noct. Attic. xx.
10,) Gravina, (Opp p. 265, 266, 267,) and Heineccius,
(Antiquitat. l. iv. tit. vi.) * Note: Gibbon had conceived
opinions too decided against the forms of procedure in use among
the Romans. Yet it is on these solemn forms that the certainty of
laws has been founded among all nations. Those of the Romans were
very intimately allied with the ancient religion, and must of
necessity have disappeared as Rome attained a higher degree of
civilization. Have not modern nations, even the most civilized,
overloaded their laws with a thousand forms, often absurd, almost
always trivial? How many examples are afforded by the English
law! See, on the nature of these forms, the work of M. de Savigny
on the Vocation of our Age for Legislation and Jurisprudence,
Heidelberg, 1814, p. 9, 10.—W. This work of M. Savigny has been
translated into English by Mr. Hayward.—M.]
A more liberal art was cultivated, however, by the sages of Rome,
who, in a stricter sense, may be considered as the authors of the
civil law. The alteration of the idiom and manners of the Romans
rendered the style of the Twelve Tables less familiar to each
rising generation, and the doubtful passages were imperfectly
explained by the study of legal antiquarians. To define the
ambiguities, to circumscribe the latitude, to apply the
principles, to extend the consequences, to reconcile the real or
apparent contradictions, was a much nobler and more important
task; and the province of legislation was silently invaded by the
expounders of ancient statutes. Their subtle interpretations
concurred with the equity of the praetor, to reform the tyranny
of the darker ages: however strange or intricate the means, it
was the aim of artificial jurisprudence to restore the simple
dictates of nature and reason, and the skill of private citizens
was usefully employed to undermine the public institutions of
their country. 521 The revolution of almost one thousand years,
from the Twelve Tables to the reign of Justinian, may be divided
into three periods, almost equal in duration, and distinguished
from each other by the mode of instruction and the character of
the civilians. 53 Pride and ignorance contributed, during the
first period, to confine within narrow limits the science of the
Roman law. On the public days of market or assembly, the masters
of the art were seen walking in the forum ready to impart the
needful advice to the meanest of their fellow-citizens, from
whose votes, on a future occasion, they might solicit a grateful
return. As their years and honors increased, they seated
themselves at home on a chair or throne, to expect with patient
gravity the visits of their clients, who at the dawn of day, from
the town and country, began to thunder at their door. The duties
of social life, and the incidents of judicial proceeding, were
the ordinary subject of these consultations, and the verbal or
written opinion of the juris-consults was framed according to the
rules of prudence and law. The youths of their own order and
family were permitted to listen; their children enjoyed the
benefit of more private lessons, and the Mucian race was long
renowned for the hereditary knowledge of the civil law. The
second period, the learned and splendid age of jurisprudence, may
be extended from the birth of Cicero to the reign of Severus
Alexander. A system was formed, schools were instituted, books
were composed, and both the living and the dead became
subservient to the instruction of the student. The tripartite of
Aelius Paetus, surnamed Catus, or the Cunning, was preserved as
the oldest work of Jurisprudence. Cato the censor derived some
additional fame from his legal studies, and those of his son: the
kindred appellation of Mucius Scaevola was illustrated by three
sages of the law; but the perfection of the science was ascribed
to Servius Sulpicius, their disciple, and the friend of Tully;
and the long succession, which shone with equal lustre under the
republic and under the Caesars, is finally closed by the
respectable characters of Papinian, of Paul, and of Ulpian. Their
names, and the various titles of their productions, have been
minutely preserved, and the example of Labeo may suggest some
idea of their diligence and fecundity. That eminent lawyer of the
Augustan age divided the year between the city and country,
between business and composition; and four hundred books are
enumerated as the fruit of his retirement. Of the collection of
his rival Capito, the two hundred and fifty-ninth book is
expressly quoted; and few teachers could deliver their opinions
in less than a century of volumes. In the third period, between
the reigns of Alexander and Justinian, the oracles of
jurisprudence were almost mute. The measure of curiosity had been
filled: the throne was occupied by tyrants and Barbarians, the
active spirits were diverted by religious disputes, and the
professors of Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus, were humbly
content to repeat the lessons of their more enlightened
predecessors. From the slow advances and rapid decay of these
legal studies, it may be inferred, that they require a state of
peace and refinement. From the multitude of voluminous civilians
who fill the intermediate space, it is evident that such studies
may be pursued, and such works may be performed, with a common
share of judgment, experience, and industry. The genius of Cicero
and Virgil was more sensibly felt, as each revolving age had been
found incapable of producing a similar or a second: but the most
eminent teachers of the law were assured of leaving disciples
equal or superior to themselves in merit and reputation.
521 (return) [ Compare, on the Responsa Prudentum, Warnkonig,
Histoire Externe du Droit Romain Bruxelles, 1836, p. 122.—M.]
53 (return) [ The series of the civil lawyers is deduced by
Pomponius, (de Origine Juris Pandect. l. i. tit. ii.) The moderns
have discussed, with learning and criticism, this branch of
literary history; and among these I have chiefly been guided by
Gravina (p. 41—79) and Hei neccius, (Hist. J. R. No. 113-351.)
Cicero, more especially in his books de Oratore, de Claris
Oratoribus, de Legibus, and the Clavie Ciceroniana of Ernesti
(under the names of Mucius, &c.) afford much genuine and pleasing
information. Horace often alludes to the morning labors of the
civilians, (Serm. I. i. 10, Epist. II. i. 103, &c)
Agricolam laudat juris legumque peritus
Sub galli cantum, consultor ubi ostia pulsat.
——————
Romæ dulce diu fuit et solemne, reclusâ
Mane domo vigilare, clienti promere jura.
* Note: It is particularly in this division of the history of the
Roman jurisprudence into epochs, that Gibbon displays his
profound knowledge of the laws of this people. M. Hugo, adopting
this division, prefaced these three periods with the history of
the times anterior to the Law of the Twelve Tables, which are, as
it were, the infancy of the Roman law.—W]
The jurisprudence which had been grossly adapted to the wants of
the first Romans, was polished and improved in the seventh
century of the city, by the alliance of Grecian philosophy. The
Scaevolas had been taught by use and experience; but Servius
Sulpicius 5311 was the first civilian who established his art on
a certain and general theory. 54 For the discernment of truth and
falsehood he applied, as an infallible rule, the logic of
Aristotle and the stoics, reduced particular cases to general
principles, and diffused over the shapeless mass the light of
order and eloquence. Cicero, his contemporary and friend,
declined the reputation of a professed lawyer; but the
jurisprudence of his country was adorned by his incomparable
genius, which converts into gold every object that it touches.
After the example of Plato, he composed a republic; and, for the
use of his republic, a treatise of laws; in which he labors to
deduce from a celestial origin the wisdom and justice of the
Roman constitution. The whole universe, according to his sublime
hypothesis, forms one immense commonwealth: gods and men, who
participate of the same essence, are members of the same
community; reason prescribes the law of nature and nations; and
all positive institutions, however modified by accident or
custom, are drawn from the rule of right, which the Deity has
inscribed on every virtuous mind. From these philosophical
mysteries, he mildly excludes the sceptics who refuse to believe,
and the epicureans who are unwilling to act. The latter disdain
the care of the republic: he advises them to slumber in their
shady gardens. But he humbly entreats that the new academy would
be silent, since her bold objections would too soon destroy the
fair and well ordered structure of his lofty system. 55 Plato,
Aristotle, and Zeno, he represents as the only teachers who arm
and instruct a citizen for the duties of social life. Of these,
the armor of the stoics 56 was found to be of the firmest temper;
and it was chiefly worn, both for use and ornament, in the
schools of jurisprudence. From the portico, the Roman civilians
learned to live, to reason, and to die: but they imbibed in some
degree the prejudices of the sect; the love of paradox, the
pertinacious habits of dispute, and a minute attachment to words
and verbal distinctions. The superiority of form to matter was
introduced to ascertain the right of property: and the equality
of crimes is countenanced by an opinion of Trebatius, 57 that he
who touches the ear, touches the whole body; and that he who
steals from a heap of corn, or a hogshead of wine, is guilty of
the entire theft. 58
5311 (return) [ M. Hugo thinks that the ingenious system of the
Institutes adopted by a great number of the ancient lawyers, and
by Justinian himself, dates from Severus Sulpicius. Hist du Droit
Romain, vol.iii.p. 119.—W.]
54 (return) [ Crassus, or rather Cicero himself, proposes (de
Oratore, i. 41, 42) an idea of the art or science of
jurisprudence, which the eloquent, but illiterate, Antonius (i.
58) affects to deride. It was partly executed by Servius
Sulpicius, (in Bruto, c. 41,) whose praises are elegantly varied
in the classic Latinity of the Roman Gravina, (p. 60.)]
55 (return) [ Perturbatricem autem omnium harum rerum academiam,
hanc ab Arcesila et Carneade recentem, exoremus ut sileat, nam si
invaserit in haec, quae satis scite instructa et composita
videantur, nimis edet ruinas, quam quidem ego placare cupio,
submovere non audeo. (de Legibus, i. 13.) From this passage
alone, Bentley (Remarks on Free-thinking, p. 250) might have
learned how firmly Cicero believed in the specious doctrines
which he has adorned.]
56 (return) [ The stoic philosophy was first taught at Rome by
Panaetius, the friend of the younger Scipio, (see his life in the
Mem. de l’Academis des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 75—89.)]
57 (return) [ As he is quoted by Ulpian, (leg.40, 40, ad Sabinum
in Pandect. l. xlvii. tit. ii. leg. 21.) Yet Trebatius, after he
was a leading civilian, que qui familiam duxit, became an
epicurean, (Cicero ad Fam. vii. 5.) Perhaps he was not constant
or sincere in his new sect. * Note: Gibbon had entirely
misunderstood this phrase of Cicero. It was only since his time
that the real meaning of the author was apprehended. Cicero, in
enumerating the qualifications of Trebatius, says, Accedit etiam,
quod familiam ducit in jure civili, singularis memoria, summa
scientia, which means that Trebatius possessed a still further
most important qualification for a student of civil law, a
remarkable memory, &c. This explanation, already conjectured by
G. Menage, Amaenit. Juris Civilis, c. 14, is found in the
dictionary of Scheller, v. Familia, and in the History of the
Roman Law by M. Hugo. Many authors have asserted, without any
proof sufficient to warrant the conjecture, that Trebatius was of
the school of Epicurus—W.]
58 (return) [ See Gravina (p. 45—51) and the ineffectual cavils
of Mascou. Heineccius (Hist. J. R. No. 125) quotes and approves a
dissertation of Everard Otto, de Stoica Jurisconsultorum
Philosophia.]
Arms, eloquence, and the study of the civil law, promoted a
citizen to the honors of the Roman state; and the three
professions were sometimes more conspicuous by their union in the
same character. In the composition of the edict, a learned
praetor gave a sanction and preference to his private sentiments;
the opinion of a censor, or a counsel, was entertained with
respect; and a doubtful interpretation of the laws might be
supported by the virtues or triumphs of the civilian. The
patrician arts were long protected by the veil of mystery; and in
more enlightened times, the freedom of inquiry established the
general principles of jurisprudence. Subtile and intricate cases
were elucidated by the disputes of the forum: rules, axioms, and
definitions, 59 were admitted as the genuine dictates of reason;
and the consent of the legal professors was interwoven into the
practice of the tribunals. But these interpreters could neither
enact nor execute the laws of the republic; and the judges might
disregard the authority of the Scaevolas themselves, which was
often overthrown by the eloquence or sophistry of an ingenious
pleader. 60 Augustus and Tiberius were the first to adopt, as a
useful engine, the science of the civilians; and their servile
labors accommodated the old system to the spirit and views of
despotism. Under the fair pretence of securing the dignity of the
art, the privilege of subscribing legal and valid opinions was
confined to the sages of senatorian or equestrian rank, who had
been previously approved by the judgment of the prince; and this
monopoly prevailed, till Adrian restored the freedom of the
profession to every citizen conscious of his abilities and
knowledge. The discretion of the praetor was now governed by the
lessons of his teachers; the judges were enjoined to obey the
comment as well as the text of the law; and the use of codicils
was a memorable innovation, which Augustus ratified by the advice
of the civilians. 61 6111
59 (return) [ We have heard of the Catonian rule, the Aquilian
stipulation, and the Manilian forms, of 211 maxims, and of 247
definitions, (Pandect. l. i. tit. xvi. xvii.)]
60 (return) [ Read Cicero, l. i. de Oratore, Topica, pro Murena.]
61 (return) [ See Pomponius, (de Origine Juris Pandect. l. i.
tit. ii. leg. 2, No 47,) Heineccius, (ad Institut. l. i. tit. ii.
No. 8, l. ii. tit. xxv. in Element et Antiquitat.,) and Gravina,
(p. 41—45.) Yet the monopoly of Augustus, a harsh measure, would
appear with some softening in contemporary evidence; and it was
probably veiled by a decree of the senate]
6111 (return) [ The author here follows the then generally
received opinion of Heineccius. The proofs which appear to
confirm it are l. 2 47, D. I. 2, and 8. Instit. I. 2. The first
of these passages speaks expressly of a privilege granted to
certain lawyers, until the time of Adrian, publice respondendi
jus ante Augusti tempora non dabatur. Primus Divus ut major juris
auctoritas haberetur, constituit, ut ex auctoritate ejus
responderent. The passage of the Institutes speaks of the
different opinions of those, quibus est permissum jura condere.
It is true that the first of these passages does not say that the
opinion of these privileged lawyers had the force of a law for
the judges. For this reason M. Hugo altogether rejects the
opinion adopted by Heineccius, by Bach, and in general by all the
writers who preceded him. He conceives that the 8 of the
Institutes referred to the constitution of Valentinian III.,
which regulated the respective authority to be ascribed to the
different writings of the great civilians. But we have now the
following passage in the Institutes of Gaius: Responsa prudentum
sunt sententiae et opiniones eorum, quibus permissum est jura
condere; quorum omnium si in unum sententiae concorrupt, id quod
ita sentiunt, legis vicem obtinet, si vero dissentiunt, judici
licet, quam velit sententiam sequi, idque rescripto Divi Hadrian
signiticatur. I do not know, how in opposition to this passage,
the opinion of M. Hugo can be maintained. We must add to this the
passage quoted from Pomponius and from such strong proofs, it
seems incontestable that the emperors had granted some kind of
privilege to certain civilians, quibus permissum erat jura
condere. Their opinion had sometimes the force of law, legis
vicem. M. Hugo, endeavoring to reconcile this phrase with his
system, gives it a forced interpretation, which quite alters the
sense; he supposes that the passage contains no more than what is
evident of itself, that the authority of the civilians was to be
respected, thus making a privilege of that which was free to all
the world. It appears to me almost indisputable, that the
emperors had sanctioned certain provisions relative to the
authority of these civilians, consulted by the judges. But how
far was their advice to be respected? This is a question which it
is impossible to answer precisely, from the want of historic
evidence. Is it not possible that the emperors established an
authority to be consulted by the judges? and in this case this
authority must have emanated from certain civilians named for
this purpose by the emperors. See Hugo, l. c. Moreover, may not
the passage of Suetonius, in the Life of Caligula, where he says
that the emperor would no longer permit the civilians to give
their advice, mean that Caligula entertained the design of
suppressing this institution? See on this passage the Themis,
vol. xi. p. 17, 36. Our author not being acquainted with the
opinions opposed to Heineccius has not gone to the bottom of the
subject.—W.]
The most absolute mandate could only require that the judges
should agree with the civilians, if the civilians agreed among
themselves. But positive institutions are often the result of
custom and prejudice; laws and language are ambiguous and
arbitrary; where reason is incapable of pronouncing, the love of
argument is inflamed by the envy of rivals, the vanity of
masters, the blind attachment of their disciples; and the Roman
jurisprudence was divided by the once famous sects of the
Proculians and Sabinians. 62 Two sages of the law, Ateius Capito
and Antistius Labeo, 63 adorned the peace of the Augustan age;
the former distinguished by the favor of his sovereign; the
latter more illustrious by his contempt of that favor, and his
stern though harmless opposition to the tyrant of Rome. Their
legal studies were influenced by the various colors of their
temper and principles. Labeo was attached to the form of the old
republic; his rival embraced the more profitable substance of the
rising monarchy. But the disposition of a courtier is tame and
submissive; and Capito seldom presumed to deviate from the
sentiments, or at least from the words, of his predecessors;
while the bold republican pursued his independent ideas without
fear of paradox or innovations. The freedom of Labeo was
enslaved, however, by the rigor of his own conclusions, and he
decided, according to the letter of the law, the same questions
which his indulgent competitor resolved with a latitude of equity
more suitable to the common sense and feelings of mankind. If a
fair exchange had been substituted to the payment of money,
Capito still considered the transaction as a legal sale; 64 and
he consulted nature for the age of puberty, without confining his
definition to the precise period of twelve or fourteen years. 65
This opposition of sentiments was propagated in the writings and
lessons of the two founders; the schools of Capito and Labeo
maintained their inveterate conflict from the age of Augustus to
that of Adrian; 66 and the two sects derived their appellations
from Sabinus and Proculus, their most celebrated teachers. The
names of Cassians and Pegasians were likewise applied to the same
parties; but, by a strange reverse, the popular cause was in the
hands of Pegasus, 67 a timid slave of Domitian, while the
favorite of the Caesars was represented by Cassius, 68 who
gloried in his descent from the patriot assassin. By the
perpetual edict, the controversies of the sects were in a great
measure determined. For that important work, the emperor Adrian
preferred the chief of the Sabinians: the friends of monarchy
prevailed; but the moderation of Salvius Julian insensibly
reconciled the victors and the vanquished. Like the contemporary
philosophers, the lawyers of the age of the Antonines disclaimed
the authority of a master, and adopted from every system the most
probable doctrines. 69 But their writings would have been less
voluminous, had their choice been more unanimous. The conscience
of the judge was perplexed by the number and weight of discordant
testimonies, and every sentence that his passion or interest
might pronounce was justified by the sanction of some venerable
name. An indulgent edict of the younger Theodosius excused him
from the labor of comparing and weighing their arguments. Five
civilians, Caius, Papinian, Paul, Ulpian, and Modestinus, were
established as the oracles of jurisprudence: a majority was
decisive: but if their opinions were equally divided, a casting
vote was ascribed to the superior wisdom of Papinian. 70
62 (return) [ I have perused the Diatribe of Gotfridus Mascovius,
the learned Mascou, de Sectis Jurisconsultorum, (Lipsiae, 1728,
in 12mo., p. 276,) a learned treatise on a narrow and barren
ground.]
63 (return) [ See the character of Antistius Labeo in Tacitus,
(Annal. iii. 75,) and in an epistle of Ateius Capito, (Aul.
Gellius, xiii. 12,) who accuses his rival of libertas nimia et
vecors. Yet Horace would not have lashed a virtuous and
respectable senator; and I must adopt the emendation of Bentley,
who reads Labieno insanior, (Serm. I. iii. 82.) See Mascou, de
Sectis, (c. i. p. 1—24.)]
64 (return) [ Justinian (Institut. l. iii. tit. 23, and Theophil.
Vers. Graec. p. 677, 680) has commemorated this weighty dispute,
and the verses of Homer that were alleged on either side as legal
authorities. It was decided by Paul, (leg. 33, ad Edict. in
Pandect. l. xviii. tit. i. leg. 1,) since, in a simple exchange,
the buyer could not be discriminated from the seller.]
65 (return) [ This controversy was likewise given for the
Proculians, to supersede the indecency of a search, and to comply
with the aphorism of Hippocrates, who was attached to the
septenary number of two weeks of years, or 700 of days,
(Institut. l. i. tit. xxii.) Plutarch and the Stoics (de Placit.
Philosoph. l. v. c. 24) assign a more natural reason. Fourteen
years is the age. See the vestigia of the sects in Mascou, c. ix.
p. 145—276.]
66 (return) [ The series and conclusion of the sects are
described by Mascou, (c. ii.—vii. p. 24—120;) and it would be
almost ridiculous to praise his equal justice to these obsolete
sects. * Note: The work of Gaius, subsequent to the time of
Adrian, furnishes us with some information on this subject. The
disputes which rose between these two sects appear to have been
very numerous. Gaius avows himself a disciple of Sabinus and of
Caius. Compare Hugo, vol. ii. p. 106.—W.]
67 (return) [ At the first summons he flies to the
turbot-council; yet Juvenal (Satir. iv. 75—81) styles the præfect
or bailiff of Rome sanctissimus legum interpres. From his
science, says the old scholiast, he was called, not a man, but a
book. He derived the singular name of Pegasus from the galley
which his father commanded.]
68 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xvii. 7. Sueton. in Nerone, c.
xxxvii.]
69 (return) [ Mascou, de Sectis, c. viii. p. 120—144 de
Herciscundis, a legal term which was applied to these eclectic
lawyers: herciscere is synonymous to dividere. * Note: This word
has never existed. Cujacius is the author of it, who read me
words terris condi in Servius ad Virg. herciscundi, to which he
gave an erroneous interpretation.—W.]
70 (return) [ See the Theodosian Code, l. i. tit. iv. with
Godefroy’s Commentary, tom. i. p. 30—35. [! This decree might
give occasion to Jesuitical disputes like those in the Lettres
Provinciales, whether a Judge was obliged to follow the opinion
of Papinian, or of a majority, against his judgment, against his
conscience, &c. Yet a legislator might give that opinion, however
false, the validity, not of truth, but of law. Note: We possess
(since 1824) some interesting information as to the framing of
the Theodosian Code, and its ratification at Rome, in the year
438. M. Closius, now professor at Dorpat in Russia, and M.
Peyron, member of the Academy of Turin, have discovered, the one
at Milan, the other at Turin, a great part of the five first
books of the Code which were wanting, and besides this, the
reports (gesta) of the sitting of the senate at Rome, in which
the Code was published, in the year after the marriage of
Valentinian III. Among these pieces are the constitutions which
nominate commissioners for the formation of the Code; and though
there are many points of considerable obscurity in these
documents, they communicate many facts relative to this
legislation. 1. That Theodosius designed a great reform in the
legislation; to add to the Gregorian and Hermogenian codes all
the new constitutions from Constantine to his own day; and to
frame a second code for common use with extracts from the three
codes, and from the works of the civil lawyers. All laws either
abrogated or fallen into disuse were to be noted under their
proper heads. 2. An Ordinance was issued in 429 to form a
commission for this purpose of nine persons, of which Antiochus,
as quaestor and præfectus, was president. A second commission of
sixteen members was issued in 435 under the same president. 3. A
code, which we possess under the name of Codex Theodosianus, was
finished in 438, published in the East, in an ordinance addressed
to the Praetorian præfect, Florentinus, and intended to be
published in the West. 4. Before it was published in the West,
Valentinian submitted it to the senate. There is a report of the
proceedings of the senate, which closed with loud acclamations
and gratulations.—From Warnkonig, Histoire du Droit Romain, p.
169-Wenck has published this work, Codicis Theodosiani libri
priores. Leipzig, 1825.—M.] * Note *: Closius of Tubingen
communicated to M.Warnkonig the two following constitutions of
the emperor Constantine, which he discovered in the Ambrosian
library at Milan:— 1. Imper. Constantinus Aug. ad Maximium Praef.
Praetorio. Perpetuas prudentum contentiones eruere cupientes,
Ulpiani ac Pauli, in Papinianum notas, qui dum ingenii laudem
sectantur, non tam corrigere eum quam depravere maluerunt,
aboleri praecepimus. Dat. III. Kalend. Octob. Const. Cons. et
Crispi, (321.) Idem. Aug. ad Maximium Praef Praet. Universa, quae
scriptura Pauli continentur, recepta auctoritate firmanda runt,
et omni veneratione celebranda. Ideoque sententiarum libros
plepissima luce et perfectissima elocutione et justissima juris
ratione succinctos in judiciis prolatos valere minimie dubitatur.
Dat. V. Kalend. Oct. Trovia Coust. et Max. Coss. (327.)—W]
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part IV.
When Justinian ascended the throne, the reformation of the Roman
jurisprudence was an arduous but indispensable task. In the space
of ten centuries, the infinite variety of laws and legal opinions
had filled many thousand volumes, which no fortune could purchase
and no capacity could digest. Books could not easily be found;
and the judges, poor in the midst of riches, were reduced to the
exercise of their illiterate discretion. The subjects of the
Greek provinces were ignorant of the language that disposed of
their lives and properties; and the barbarous dialect of the
Latins was imperfectly studied in the academies of Berytus and
Constantinople. As an Illyrian soldier, that idiom was familiar
to the infancy of Justinian; his youth had been instructed by the
lessons of jurisprudence, and his Imperial choice selected the
most learned civilians of the East, to labor with their sovereign
in the work of reformation. 71 The theory of professors was
assisted by the practice of advocates, and the experience of
magistrates; and the whole undertaking was animated by the spirit
of Tribonian. 72 This extraordinary man, the object of so much
praise and censure, was a native of Side in Pamphylia; and his
genius, like that of Bacon, embraced, as his own, all the
business and knowledge of the age. Tribonian composed, both in
prose and verse, on a strange diversity of curious and abstruse
subjects: 73 a double panegyric of Justinian and the life of the
philosopher Theodotus; the nature of happiness and the duties of
government; Homer’s catalogue and the four-and-twenty sorts of
metre; the astronomical canon of Ptolemy; the changes of the
months; the houses of the planets; and the harmonic system of the
world. To the literature of Greece he added the use of the Latin
tongue; the Roman civilians were deposited in his library and in
his mind; and he most assiduously cultivated those arts which
opened the road of wealth and preferment. From the bar of the
Praetorian præfects, he raised himself to the honors of quaestor,
of consul, and of master of the offices: the council of Justinian
listened to his eloquence and wisdom; and envy was mitigated by
the gentleness and affability of his manners. The reproaches of
impiety and avarice have stained the virtue or the reputation of
Tribonian. In a bigoted and persecuting court, the principal
minister was accused of a secret aversion to the Christian faith,
and was supposed to entertain the sentiments of an Atheist and a
Pagan, which have been imputed, inconsistently enough, to the
last philosophers of Greece. His avarice was more clearly proved
and more sensibly felt. If he were swayed by gifts in the
administration of justice, the example of Bacon will again occur;
nor can the merit of Tribonian atone for his baseness, if he
degraded the sanctity of his profession; and if laws were every
day enacted, modified, or repealed, for the base consideration of
his private emolument. In the sedition of Constantinople, his
removal was granted to the clamors, perhaps to the just
indignation, of the people: but the quaestor was speedily
restored, and, till the hour of his death, he possessed, above
twenty years, the favor and confidence of the emperor. His
passive and dutiful submission had been honored with the praise
of Justinian himself, whose vanity was incapable of discerning
how often that submission degenerated into the grossest
adulation. Tribonian adored the virtues of his gracious master:
the earth was unworthy of such a prince; and he affected a pious
fear, that Justinian, like Elijah or Romulus, would be snatched
into the air, and translated alive to the mansions of celestial
glory. 74
71 (return) [ For the legal labors of Justinian, I have studied
the Preface to the Institutes; the 1st, 2d, and 3d Prefaces to
the Pandects; the 1st and 2d Preface to the Code; and the Code
itself, (l. i. tit. xvii. de Veteri Jure enucleando.) After these
original testimonies, I have consulted, among the moderns,
Heineccius, (Hist. J. R. No. 383—404,) Terasson. (Hist. de la
Jurisprudence Romaine, p. 295—356,) Gravina, (Opp. p. 93-100,)
and Ludewig, in his Life of Justinian, (p.19—123, 318-321; for
the Code and Novels, p. 209—261; for the Digest or Pandects, p.
262—317.)]
72 (return) [ For the character of Tribonian, see the testimonies
of Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 23, 24. Anecdot. c. 13, 20,) and
Suidas, (tom. iii. p. 501, edit. Kuster.) Ludewig (in Vit.
Justinian, p. 175—209) works hard, very hard, to whitewash—the
blackamoor.]
73 (return) [ I apply the two passages of Suidas to the same man;
every circumstance so exactly tallies. Yet the lawyers appear
ignorant; and Fabricius is inclined to separate the two
characters, (Bibliot. Grae. tom. i. p. 341, ii. p. 518, iii. p.
418, xii. p. 346, 353, 474.)]
74 (return) [ This story is related by Hesychius, (de Viris
Illustribus,) Procopius, (Anecdot. c. 13,) and Suidas, (tom. iii.
p. 501.) Such flattery is incredible! —Nihil est quod credere de
se Non possit, cum laudatur Diis aequa potestas. Fontenelle (tom.
i. p. 32—39) has ridiculed the impudence of the modest Virgil.
But the same Fontenelle places his king above the divine
Augustus; and the sage Boileau has not blushed to say, “Le destin
a ses yeux n’oseroit balancer” Yet neither Augustus nor Louis
XIV. were fools.]
If Caesar had achieved the reformation of the Roman law, his
creative genius, enlightened by reflection and study, would have
given to the world a pure and original system of jurisprudence.
Whatever flattery might suggest, the emperor of the East was
afraid to establish his private judgment as the standard of
equity: in the possession of legislative power, he borrowed the
aid of time and opinion; and his laborious compilations are
guarded by the sages and legislature of past times. Instead of a
statue cast in a simple mould by the hand of an artist, the works
of Justinian represent a tessellated pavement of antique and
costly, but too often of incoherent, fragments. In the first year
of his reign, he directed the faithful Tribonian, and nine
learned associates, to revise the ordinances of his predecessors,
as they were contained, since the time of Adrian, in the
Gregorian Hermogenian, and Theodosian codes; to purge the errors
and contradictions, to retrench whatever was obsolete or
superfluous, and to select the wise and salutary laws best
adapted to the practice of the tribunals and the use of his
subjects. The work was accomplished in fourteen months; and the
twelve books or tables, which the new decemvirs produced, might
be designed to imitate the labors of their Roman predecessors.
The new Code of Justinian was honored with his name, and
confirmed by his royal signature: authentic transcripts were
multiplied by the pens of notaries and scribes; they were
transmitted to the magistrates of the European, the Asiatic, and
afterwards the African provinces; and the law of the empire was
proclaimed on solemn festivals at the doors of churches. A more
arduous operation was still behind—to extract the spirit of
jurisprudence from the decisions and conjectures, the questions
and disputes, of the Roman civilians. Seventeen lawyers, with
Tribonian at their head, were appointed by the emperor to
exercise an absolute jurisdiction over the works of their
predecessors. If they had obeyed his commands in ten years,
Justinian would have been satisfied with their diligence; and the
rapid composition of the Digest of Pandects, 75 in three years,
will deserve praise or censure, according to the merit of the
execution. From the library of Tribonian, they chose forty, the
most eminent civilians of former times: 76 two thousand treatises
were comprised in an abridgment of fifty books; and it has been
carefully recorded, that three millions of lines or sentences, 77
were reduced, in this abstract, to the moderate number of one
hundred and fifty thousand. The edition of this great work was
delayed a month after that of the Institutes; and it seemed
reasonable that the elements should precede the digest of the
Roman law. As soon as the emperor had approved their labors, he
ratified, by his legislative power, the speculations of these
private citizens: their commentaries, on the twelve tables, the
perpetual edict, the laws of the people, and the decrees of the
senate, succeeded to the authority of the text; and the text was
abandoned, as a useless, though venerable, relic of antiquity.
The Code, the Pandects, and the Institutes, were declared to be
the legitimate system of civil jurisprudence; they alone were
admitted into the tribunals, and they alone were taught in the
academies of Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus. Justinian
addressed to the senate and provinces his eternal oracles; and
his pride, under the mask of piety, ascribed the consummation of
this great design to the support and inspiration of the Deity.
75 (return) [ General receivers was a common title of the Greek
miscellanies, (Plin. Praefat. ad Hist. Natur.) The Digesta of
Scaevola, Marcellinus, Celsus, were already familiar to the
civilians: but Justinian was in the wrong when he used the two
appellations as synonymous. Is the word Pandects Greek or
Latin—masculine or feminine? The diligent Brenckman will not
presume to decide these momentous controversies, (Hist. Pandect.
Florentine. p. 200—304.) Note: The word was formerly in common
use. See the preface is Aulus Gellius—W]
76 (return) [ Angelus Politianus (l. v. Epist. ult.) reckons
thirty-seven (p. 192—200) civilians quoted in the Pandects—a
learned, and for his times, an extraordinary list. The Greek
index to the Pandects enumerates thirty-nine, and forty are
produced by the indefatigable Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. tom.
iii. p. 488—502.) Antoninus Augustus (de Nominibus Propriis
Pandect. apud Ludewig, p. 283) is said to have added fifty-four
names; but they must be vague or second-hand references.]
77 (return) [ The item of the ancient Mss. may be strictly
defined as sentences or periods of a complete sense, which, on
the breadth of the parchment rolls or volumes, composed as many
lines of unequal length. The number in each book served as a
check on the errors of the scribes, (Ludewig, p. 211—215; and his
original author Suicer. Thesaur. Ecclesiast. tom. i. p
1021-1036).]
Since the emperor declined the fame and envy of original
composition, we can only require, at his hands, method, choice,
and fidelity, the humble, though indispensable, virtues of a
compiler. Among the various combinations of ideas, it is
difficult to assign any reasonable preference; but as the order
of Justinian is different in his three works, it is possible that
all may be wrong; and it is certain that two cannot be right. In
the selection of ancient laws, he seems to have viewed his
predecessors without jealousy, and with equal regard: the series
could not ascend above the reign of Adrian, and the narrow
distinction of Paganism and Christianity, introduced by the
superstition of Theodosius, had been abolished by the consent of
mankind. But the jurisprudence of the Pandects is circumscribed
within a period of a hundred years, from the perpetual edict to
the death of Severus Alexander: the civilians who lived under the
first Caesars are seldom permitted to speak, and only three names
can be attributed to the age of the republic. The favorite of
Justinian (it has been fiercely urged) was fearful of
encountering the light of freedom and the gravity of Roman sages.
Tribonian condemned to oblivion the genuine and native wisdom of
Cato, the Scaevolas, and Sulpicius; while he invoked spirits more
congenial to his own, the Syrians, Greeks, and Africans, who
flocked to the Imperial court to study Latin as a foreign tongue,
and jurisprudence as a lucrative profession. But the ministers of
Justinian, 78 were instructed to labor, not for the curiosity of
antiquarians, but for the immediate benefit of his subjects. It
was their duty to select the useful and practical parts of the
Roman law; and the writings of the old republicans, however
curious or excellent, were no longer suited to the new system of
manners, religion, and government. Perhaps, if the preceptors and
friends of Cicero were still alive, our candor would acknowledge,
that, except in purity of language, 79 their intrinsic merit was
excelled by the school of Papinian and Ulpian. The science of the
laws is the slow growth of time and experience, and the advantage
both of method and materials, is naturally assumed by the most
recent authors. The civilians of the reign of the Antonines had
studied the works of their predecessors: their philosophic spirit
had mitigated the rigor of antiquity, simplified the forms of
proceeding, and emerged from the jealousy and prejudice of the
rival sects. The choice of the authorities that compose the
Pandects depended on the judgment of Tribonian: but the power of
his sovereign could not absolve him from the sacred obligations
of truth and fidelity. As the legislator of the empire, Justinian
might repeal the acts of the Antonines, or condemn, as seditious,
the free principles, which were maintained by the last of the
Roman lawyers. 80 But the existence of past facts is placed
beyond the reach of despotism; and the emperor was guilty of
fraud and forgery, when he corrupted the integrity of their text,
inscribed with their venerable names the words and ideas of his
servile reign, 81 and suppressed, by the hand of power, the pure
and authentic copies of their sentiments. The changes and
interpolations of Tribonian and his colleagues are excused by the
pretence of uniformity: but their cares have been insufficient,
and the antinomies, or contradictions of the Code and Pandects,
still exercise the patience and subtilty of modern civilians. 82
78 (return) [ An ingenious and learned oration of Schultingius
(Jurisprudentia Ante-Justinianea, p. 883—907) justifies the
choice of Tribonian, against the passionate charges of Francis
Hottoman and his sectaries.]
79 (return) [ Strip away the crust of Tribonian, and allow for
the use of technical words, and the Latin of the Pandects will be
found not unworthy of the silver age. It has been vehemently
attacked by Laurentius Valla, a fastidious grammarian of the xvth
century, and by his apologist Floridus Sabinus. It has been
defended by Alciat, and a name less advocate, (most probably
James Capellus.) Their various treatises are collected by Duker,
(Opuscula de Latinitate veterum Jurisconsultorum, Lugd. Bat.
1721, in 12mo.) Note: Gibbon is mistaken with regard to Valla,
who, though he inveighs against the barbarous style of the
civilians of his own day, lavishes the highest praise on the
admirable purity of the language of the ancient writers on civil
law. (M. Warnkonig quotes a long passage of Valla in
justification of this observation.) Since his time, this truth
has been recognized by men of the highest eminence, such as
Erasmus, David Hume and Runkhenius.—W.]
80 (return) [ Nomina quidem veteribus servavimus, legum autem
veritatem nostram fecimus. Itaque siquid erat in illis
seditiosum, multa autem talia erant ibi reposita, hoc decisum est
et definitum, et in perspicuum finem deducta est quaeque lex,
(Cod. Justinian. l. i. tit. xvii. leg. 3, No 10.) A frank
confession! * Note: Seditiosum, in the language of Justinian,
means not seditious, but discounted.—W.]
81 (return) [ The number of these emblemata (a polite name for
forgeries) is much reduced by Bynkershoek, (in the four last
books of his Observations,) who poorly maintains the right of
Justinian and the duty of Tribonian.]
82 (return) [ The antinomies, or opposite laws of the Code and
Pandects, are sometimes the cause, and often the excuse, of the
glorious uncertainty of the civil law, which so often affords
what Montaigne calls “Questions pour l’Ami.” See a fine passage
of Franciscus Balduinus in Justinian, (l. ii. p. 259, &c., apud
Ludewig, p. 305, 306.)]
A rumor devoid of evidence has been propagated by the enemies of
Justinian; that the jurisprudence of ancient Rome was reduced to
ashes by the author of the Pandects, from the vain persuasion,
that it was now either false or superfluous. Without usurping an
office so invidious, the emperor might safely commit to ignorance
and time the accomplishments of this destructive wish. Before the
invention of printing and paper, the labor and the materials of
writing could be purchased only by the rich; and it may
reasonably be computed, that the price of books was a hundred
fold their present value. 83 Copies were slowly multiplied and
cautiously renewed: the hopes of profit tempted the sacrilegious
scribes to erase the characters of antiquity, 8311 and Sophocles
or Tacitus were obliged to resign the parchment to missals,
homilies, and the golden legend. 84 If such was the fate of the
most beautiful compositions of genius, what stability could be
expected for the dull and barren works of an obsolete science?
The books of jurisprudence were interesting to few, and
entertaining to none: their value was connected with present use,
and they sunk forever as soon as that use was superseded by the
innovations of fashion, superior merit, or public authority. In
the age of peace and learning, between Cicero and the last of the
Antonines, many losses had been already sustained, and some
luminaries of the school, or forum, were known only to the
curious by tradition and report. Three hundred and sixty years of
disorder and decay accelerated the progress of oblivion; and it
may fairly be presumed, that of the writings, which Justinian is
accused of neglecting, many were no longer to be found in the
libraries of the East. 85 The copies of Papinian, or Ulpian,
which the reformer had proscribed, were deemed unworthy of future
notice: the Twelve Tables and praetorian edicts insensibly
vanished, and the monuments of ancient Rome were neglected or
destroyed by the envy and ignorance of the Greeks. Even the
Pandects themselves have escaped with difficulty and danger from
the common shipwreck, and criticism has pronounced that all the
editions and manuscripts of the West are derived from one
original. 86 It was transcribed at Constantinople in the
beginning of the seventh century, 87 was successively transported
by the accidents of war and commerce to Amalphi, 88 Pisa, 89 and
Florence, 90 and is now deposited as a sacred relic 91 in the
ancient palace of the republic. 92
83 (return) [ When Faust, or Faustus, sold at Paris his first
printed Bibles as manuscripts, the price of a parchment copy was
reduced from four or five hundred to sixty, fifty, and forty
crowns. The public was at first pleased with the cheapness, and
at length provoked by the discovery of the fraud, (Mattaire,
Annal. Typograph. tom. i. p. 12; first edit.)]
8311 (return) [ Among the works which have been recovered, by the
persevering and successful endeavors of M. Mai and his followers
to trace the imperfectly erased characters of the ancient writers
on these Palimpsests, Gibbon at this period of his labors would
have hailed with delight the recovery of the Institutes of Gaius,
and the fragments of the Theodosian Code, published by M Keyron
of Turin.—M.]
84 (return) [ This execrable practice prevailed from the viiith,
and more especially from the xiith, century, when it became
almost universal (Montfaucon, in the Memoires de l’Academie, tom.
vi. p. 606, &c. Bibliotheque Raisonnee de la Diplomatique, tom.
i. p. 176.)]
85 (return) [ Pomponius (Pandect. l. i. tit. ii. leg. 2)
observes, that of the three founders of the civil law, Mucius,
Brutus, and Manilius, extant volumina, scripta Manilii monumenta;
that of some old republican lawyers, haec versantur eorum scripta
inter manus hominum. Eight of the Augustan sages were reduced to
a compendium: of Cascellius, scripta non extant sed unus liber,
&c.; of Trebatius, minus frequentatur; of Tubero, libri parum
grati sunt. Many quotations in the Pandects are derived from
books which Tribonian never saw; and in the long period from the
viith to the xiiith century of Rome, the apparent reading of the
moderns successively depends on the knowledge and veracity of
their predecessors.]
86 (return) [ All, in several instances, repeat the errors of the
scribe and the transpositions of some leaves in the Florentine
Pandects. This fact, if it be true, is decisive. Yet the Pandects
are quoted by Ivo of Chartres, (who died in 1117,) by Theobald,
archbishop of Canterbury, and by Vacarius, our first professor,
in the year 1140, (Selden ad Fletam, c. 7, tom. ii. p.
1080—1085.) Have our British Mss. of the Pandects been collated?]
87 (return) [ See the description of this original in Brenckman,
(Hist. Pandect. Florent. l. i. c. 2, 3, p. 4—17, and l. ii.)
Politian, an enthusiast, revered it as the authentic standard of
Justinian himself, (p. 407, 408;) but this paradox is refuted by
the abbreviations of the Florentine Ms. (l. ii. c. 3, p.
117-130.) It is composed of two quarto volumes, with large
margins, on a thin parchment, and the Latin characters betray the
band of a Greek scribe.]
88 (return) [ Brenckman, at the end of his history, has inserted
two dissertations on the republic of Amalphi, and the Pisan war
in the year 1135, &c.]
89 (return) [ The discovery of the Pandects at Amalphi (A. D
1137) is first noticed (in 1501) by Ludovicus Bologninus,
(Brenckman, l. i. c. 11, p. 73, 74, l. iv. c. 2, p. 417—425,) on
the faith of a Pisan chronicle, (p. 409, 410,) without a name or
a date. The whole story, though unknown to the xiith century,
embellished by ignorant ages, and suspected by rigid criticism,
is not, however, destitute of much internal probability, (l. i.
c. 4—8, p. 17—50.) The Liber Pandectarum of Pisa was undoubtedly
consulted in the xivth century by the great Bartolus, (p. 406,
407. See l. i. c. 9, p. 50—62.) Note: Savigny (vol. iii. p. 83,
89) examines and rejects the whole story. See likewise Hallam
vol. iii. p. 514.—M.]
90 (return) [ Pisa was taken by the Florentines in the year 1406;
and in 1411 the Pandects were transported to the capital. These
events are authentic and famous.]
91 (return) [ They were new bound in purple, deposited in a rich
casket, and shown to curious travellers by the monks and
magistrates bareheaded, and with lighted tapers, (Brenckman, l.
i. c. 10, 11, 12, p. 62—93.)]
92 (return) [ After the collations of Politian, Bologninus, and
Antoninus Augustinus, and the splendid edition of the Pandects by
Taurellus, (in 1551,) Henry Brenckman, a Dutchman, undertook a
pilgrimage to Florence, where he employed several years in the
study of a single manuscript. His Historia Pandectarum
Florentinorum, (Utrecht, 1722, in 4to.,) though a monument of
industry, is a small portion of his original design.]
It is the first care of a reformer to prevent any future
reformation. To maintain the text of the Pandects, the
Institutes, and the Code, the use of ciphers and abbreviations
was rigorously proscribed; and as Justinian recollected, that the
perpetual edict had been buried under the weight of commentators,
he denounced the punishment of forgery against the rash civilians
who should presume to interpret or pervert the will of their
sovereign. The scholars of Accursius, of Bartolus, of Cujacius,
should blush for their accumulated guilt, unless they dare to
dispute his right of binding the authority of his successors, and
the native freedom of the mind. But the emperor was unable to fix
his own inconstancy; and, while he boasted of renewing the
exchange of Diomede, of transmuting brass into gold, 93
discovered the necessity of purifying his gold from the mixture
of baser alloy. Six years had not elapsed from the publication of
the Code, before he condemned the imperfect attempt, by a new and
more accurate edition of the same work; which he enriched with
two hundred of his own laws, and fifty decisions of the darkest
and most intricate points of jurisprudence. Every year, or,
according to Procopius, each day, of his long reign, was marked
by some legal innovation. Many of his acts were rescinded by
himself; many were rejected by his successors; many have been
obliterated by time; but the number of sixteen Edicts, and one
hundred and sixty-eight Novels, 94 has been admitted into the
authentic body of the civil jurisprudence. In the opinion of a
philosopher superior to the prejudices of his profession, these
incessant, and, for the most part, trifling alterations, can be
only explained by the venal spirit of a prince, who sold without
shame his judgments and his laws. 95 The charge of the secret
historian is indeed explicit and vehement; but the sole instance,
which he produces, may be ascribed to the devotion as well as to
the avarice of Justinian. A wealthy bigot had bequeathed his
inheritance to the church of Emesa; and its value was enhanced by
the dexterity of an artist, who subscribed confessions of debt
and promises of payment with the names of the richest Syrians.
They pleaded the established prescription of thirty or forty
years; but their defence was overruled by a retrospective edict,
which extended the claims of the church to the term of a century;
an edict so pregnant with injustice and disorder, that, after
serving this occasional purpose, it was prudently abolished in
the same reign. 96 If candor will acquit the emperor himself, and
transfer the corruption to his wife and favorites, the suspicion
of so foul a vice must still degrade the majesty of his laws; and
the advocates of Justinian may acknowledge, that such levity,
whatsoever be the motive, is unworthy of a legislator and a man.
93 (return) [ Apud Homerum patrem omnis virtutis, (1st Praefat.
ad Pandect.) A line of Milton or Tasso would surprise us in an
act of parliament. Quae omnia obtinere sancimus in omne aevum. Of
the first Code, he says, (2d Praefat.,) in aeternum valiturum.
Man and forever!]
94 (return) [ Novellae is a classic adjective, but a barbarous
substantive, (Ludewig, p. 245.) Justinian never collected them
himself; the nine collations, the legal standard of modern
tribunals, consist of ninety-eight Novels; but the number was
increased by the diligence of Julian, Haloander, and Contius,
(Ludewig, p. 249, 258 Aleman. Not in Anecdot. p. 98.)]
95 (return) [ Montesquieu, Considerations sur la Grandeur et la
Decadence des Romains, c. 20, tom. iii. p. 501, in 4to. On this
occasion he throws aside the gown and cap of a President a
Mortier.]
96 (return) [ Procopius, Anecdot. c. 28. A similar privilege was
granted to the church of Rome, (Novel. ix.) For the general
repeal of these mischievous indulgences, see Novel. cxi. and
Edict. v.]
Monarchs seldom condescend to become the preceptors of their
subjects; and some praise is due to Justinian, by whose command
an ample system was reduced to a short and elementary treatise.
Among the various institutes of the Roman law, 97 those of Caius
98 were the most popular in the East and West; and their use may
be considered as an evidence of their merit. They were selected
by the Imperial delegates, Tribonian, Theophilus, and Dorotheus;
and the freedom and purity of the Antonines was incrusted with
the coarser materials of a degenerate age. The same volume which
introduced the youth of Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus, to the
gradual study of the Code and Pandects, is still precious to the
historian, the philosopher, and the magistrate. The Institutes of
Justinian are divided into four books: they proceed, with no
contemptible method, from, I. Persons, to, II. Things, and from
things, to, III. Actions; and the article IV., of Private Wrongs,
is terminated by the principles of Criminal Law. 9811
97 (return) [ Lactantius, in his Institutes of Christianity, an
elegant and specious work, proposes to imitate the title and
method of the civilians. Quidam prudentes et arbitri aequitatis
Institutiones Civilis Juris compositas ediderunt, (Institut.
Divin. l. i. c. 1.) Such as Ulpian, Paul, Florentinus, Marcian.]
98 (return) [ The emperor Justinian calls him suum, though he
died before the end of the second century. His Institutes are
quoted by Servius, Boethius, Priscian, &c.; and the Epitome by
Arrian is still extant. (See the Prolegomena and notes to the
edition of Schulting, in the Jurisprudentia Ante-Justinianea,
Lugd. Bat. 1717. Heineccius, Hist. J R No. 313. Ludewig, in Vit.
Just. p. 199.)]
9811 (return) [ Gibbon, dividing the Institutes into four parts,
considers the appendix of the criminal law in the last title as a
fourth part.—W.]
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part V.
The distinction of ranks and persons is the firmest basis of a
mixed and limited government. In France, the remains of liberty
are kept alive by the spirit, the honors, and even the
prejudices, of fifty thousand nobles. 99 Two hundred families
9911 supply, in lineal descent, the second branch of English
legislature, which maintains, between the king and commons, the
balance of the constitution. A gradation of patricians and
plebeians, of strangers and subjects, has supported the
aristocracy of Genoa, Venice, and ancient Rome. The perfect
equality of men is the point in which the extremes of democracy
and despotism are confounded; since the majesty of the prince or
people would be offended, if any heads were exalted above the
level of their fellow-slaves or fellow-citizens. In the decline
of the Roman empire, the proud distinctions of the republic were
gradually abolished, and the reason or instinct of Justinian
completed the simple form of an absolute monarchy. The emperor
could not eradicate the popular reverence which always waits on
the possession of hereditary wealth, or the memory of famous
ancestors. He delighted to honor, with titles and emoluments, his
generals, magistrates, and senators; and his precarious
indulgence communicated some rays of their glory to the persons
of their wives and children. But in the eye of the law, all Roman
citizens were equal, and all subjects of the empire were citizens
of Rome. That inestimable character was degraded to an obsolete
and empty name. The voice of a Roman could no longer enact his
laws, or create the annual ministers of his power: his
constitutional rights might have checked the arbitrary will of a
master: and the bold adventurer from Germany or Arabia was
admitted, with equal favor, to the civil and military command,
which the citizen alone had been once entitled to assume over the
conquests of his fathers. The first Caesars had scrupulously
guarded the distinction of ingenuous and servile birth, which was
decided by the condition of the mother; and the candor of the
laws was satisfied, if her freedom could be ascertained, during a
single moment, between the conception and the delivery. The
slaves, who were liberated by a generous master, immediately
entered into the middle class of libertines or freedmen; but they
could never be enfranchised from the duties of obedience and
gratitude; whatever were the fruits of their industry, their
patron and his family inherited the third part; or even the whole
of their fortune, if they died without children and without a
testament. Justinian respected the rights of patrons; but his
indulgence removed the badge of disgrace from the two inferior
orders of freedmen; whoever ceased to be a slave, obtained,
without reserve or delay, the station of a citizen; and at length
the dignity of an ingenuous birth, which nature had refused, was
created, or supposed, by the omnipotence of the emperor. Whatever
restraints of age, or forms, or numbers, had been formerly
introduced to check the abuse of manumissions, and the too rapid
increase of vile and indigent Romans, he finally abolished; and
the spirit of his laws promoted the extinction of domestic
servitude. Yet the eastern provinces were filled, in the time of
Justinian, with multitudes of slaves, either born or purchased
for the use of their masters; and the price, from ten to seventy
pieces of gold, was determined by their age, their strength, and
their education. 100 But the hardships of this dependent state
were continually diminished by the influence of government and
religion: and the pride of a subject was no longer elated by his
absolute dominion over the life and happiness of his bondsman.
101
99 (return) [ See the Annales Politiques de l’Abbe de St. Pierre,
tom. i. p. 25 who dates in the year 1735. The most ancient
families claim the immemorial possession of arms and fiefs. Since
the Crusades, some, the most truly respectable, have been created
by the king, for merit and services. The recent and vulgar crowd
is derived from the multitude of venal offices without trust or
dignity, which continually ennoble the wealthy plebeians.]
9911 (return) [ Since the time of Gibbon, the House of Peers has
been more than doubled: it is above 400, exclusive of the
spiritual peers—a wise policy to increase the patrician order in
proportion to the general increase of the nation.—M.]
100 (return) [ If the option of a slave was bequeathed to several
legatees, they drew lots, and the losers were entitled to their
share of his value; ten pieces of gold for a common servant or
maid under ten years: if above that age, twenty; if they knew a
trade, thirty; notaries or writers, fifty; midwives or
physicians, sixty; eunuchs under ten years, thirty pieces; above,
fifty; if tradesmen, seventy, (Cod. l. vi. tit. xliii. leg. 3.)
These legal prices are generally below those of the market.]
101 (return) [ For the state of slaves and freedmen, see
Institutes, l. i. tit. iii.—viii. l. ii. tit. ix. l. iii. tit.
viii. ix. Pandects or Digest, l. i. tit. v. vi. l. xxxviii. tit.
i.—iv., and the whole of the xlth book. Code, l. vi. tit. iv. v.
l. vii. tit. i.—xxiii. Be it henceforward understood that, with
the original text of the Institutes and Pandects, the
correspondent articles in the Antiquities and Elements of
Heineccius are implicitly quoted; and with the xxvii. first books
of the Pandects, the learned and rational Commentaries of Gerard
Noodt, (Opera, tom. ii. p. 1—590, the end. Lugd. Bat. 1724.)]
The law of nature instructs most animals to cherish and educate
their infant progeny. The law of reason inculcates to the human
species the returns of filial piety. But the exclusive, absolute,
and perpetual dominion of the father over his children, is
peculiar to the Roman jurisprudence, 102 and seems to be coeval
with the foundation of the city. 103 The paternal power was
instituted or confirmed by Romulus himself; and, after the
practice of three centuries, it was inscribed on the fourth table
of the Decemvirs. In the forum, the senate, or the camp, the
adult son of a Roman citizen enjoyed the public and private
rights of a person: in his father’s house he was a mere thing;
1031 confounded by the laws with the movables, the cattle, and
the slaves, whom the capricious master might alienate or destroy,
without being responsible to any earthly tribunal. The hand which
bestowed the daily sustenance might resume the voluntary gift,
and whatever was acquired by the labor or fortune of the son was
immediately lost in the property of the father. His stolen goods
(his oxen or his children) might be recovered by the same action
of theft; 104 and if either had been guilty of a trespass, it was
in his own option to compensate the damage, or resign to the
injured party the obnoxious animal. At the call of indigence or
avarice, the master of a family could dispose of his children or
his slaves. But the condition of the slave was far more
advantageous, since he regained, by the first manumission, his
alienated freedom: the son was again restored to his unnatural
father; he might be condemned to servitude a second and a third
time, and it was not till after the third sale and deliverance,
105 that he was enfranchised from the domestic power which had
been so repeatedly abused. According to his discretion, a father
might chastise the real or imaginary faults of his children, by
stripes, by imprisonment, by exile, by sending them to the
country to work in chains among the meanest of his servants. The
majesty of a parent was armed with the power of life and death;
106 and the examples of such bloody executions, which were
sometimes praised and never punished, may be traced in the annals
of Rome beyond the times of Pompey and Augustus. Neither age, nor
rank, nor the consular office, nor the honors of a triumph, could
exempt the most illustrious citizen from the bonds of filial
subjection: 107 his own descendants were included in the family
of their common ancestor; and the claims of adoption were not
less sacred or less rigorous than those of nature. Without fear,
though not without danger of abuse, the Roman legislators had
reposed an unbounded confidence in the sentiments of paternal
love; and the oppression was tempered by the assurance that each
generation must succeed in its turn to the awful dignity of
parent and master.
102 (return) [ See the patria potestas in the Institutes, (l. i.
tit. ix.,) the Pandects, (l. i. tit. vi. vii.,) and the Code, (l.
viii. tit. xlvii. xlviii. xlix.) Jus potestatis quod in liberos
habemus proprium est civium Romanorum. Nulli enim alii sunt
homines, qui talem in liberos habeant potestatem qualem nos
habemus. * Note: The newly-discovered Institutes of Gaius name
one nation in which the same power was vested in the parent. Nec
me praeterit Galatarum gentem credere, in potestate parentum
liberos esse. Gaii Instit. edit. 1824, p. 257.—M.]
103 (return) [ Dionysius Hal. l. ii. p. 94, 95. Gravina (Opp. p.
286) produces the words of the xii. tables. Papinian (in
Collatione Legum Roman et Mosaicarum, tit. iv. p. 204) styles
this patria potestas, lex regia: Ulpian (ad Sabin. l. xxvi. in
Pandect. l. i. tit. vi. leg. 8) says, jus potestatis moribus
receptum; and furiosus filium in potestate habebit How sacred—or
rather, how absurd! * Note: All this is in strict accordance with
the Roman character.—W.]
1031 (return) [ This parental power was strictly confined to the
Roman citizen. The foreigner, or he who had only jus Latii, did
not possess it. If a Roman citizen unknowingly married a Latin or
a foreign wife, he did not possess this power over his son,
because the son, following the legal condition of the mother, was
not a Roman citizen. A man, however, alleging sufficient cause
for his ignorance, might raise both mother and child to the
rights of citizenship. Gaius. p. 30.—M.]
104 (return) [ Pandect. l. xlvii. tit. ii. leg. 14, No. 13, leg.
38, No. 1. Such was the decision of Ulpian and Paul.]
105 (return) [ The trina mancipatio is most clearly defined by
Ulpian, (Fragment. x. p. 591, 592, edit. Schulting;) and best
illustrated in the Antiquities of Heineccius. * Note: The son of
a family sold by his father did not become in every respect a
slave, he was statu liber; that is to say, on paying the price
for which he was sold, he became entirely free. See Hugo, Hist.
Section 61—W.]
106 (return) [ By Justinian, the old law, the jus necis of the
Roman father (Institut. l. iv. tit. ix. No. 7) is reported and
reprobated. Some legal vestiges are left in the Pandects (l.
xliii. tit. xxix. leg. 3, No. 4) and the Collatio Legum Romanarum
et Mosaicarum, (tit. ii. No. 3, p. 189.)]
107 (return) [ Except on public occasions, and in the actual
exercise of his office. In publicis locis atque muneribus, atque
actionibus patrum, jura cum filiorum qui in magistratu sunt
potestatibus collata interquiescere paullulum et connivere, &c.,
(Aul. Gellius, Noctes Atticae, ii. 2.) The Lessons of the
philosopher Taurus were justified by the old and memorable
example of Fabius; and we may contemplate the same story in the
style of Livy (xxiv. 44) and the homely idiom of Claudius Quadri
garius the annalist.]
The first limitation of paternal power is ascribed to the justice
and humanity of Numa; and the maid who, with his father’s
consent, had espoused a freeman, was protected from the disgrace
of becoming the wife of a slave. In the first ages, when the city
was pressed, and often famished, by her Latin and Tuscan
neighbors, the sale of children might be a frequent practice; but
as a Roman could not legally purchase the liberty of his
fellow-citizen, the market must gradually fail, and the trade
would be destroyed by the conquests of the republic. An imperfect
right of property was at length communicated to sons; and the
threefold distinction of profectitious, adventitious, and
professional was ascertained by the jurisprudence of the Code and
Pandects. 108 Of all that proceeded from the father, he imparted
only the use, and reserved the absolute dominion; yet if his
goods were sold, the filial portion was excepted, by a favorable
interpretation, from the demands of the creditors. In whatever
accrued by marriage, gift, or collateral succession, the property
was secured to the son; but the father, unless he had been
specially excluded, enjoyed the usufruct during his life. As a
just and prudent reward of military virtue, the spoils of the
enemy were acquired, possessed, and bequeathed by the soldier
alone; and the fair analogy was extended to the emoluments of any
liberal profession, the salary of public service, and the sacred
liberality of the emperor or empress. The life of a citizen was
less exposed than his fortune to the abuse of paternal power. Yet
his life might be adverse to the interest or passions of an
unworthy father: the same crimes that flowed from the corruption,
were more sensibly felt by the humanity, of the Augustan age; and
the cruel Erixo, who whipped his son till he expired, was saved
by the emperor from the just fury of the multitude. 109 The Roman
father, from the license of servile dominion, was reduced to the
gravity and moderation of a judge. The presence and opinion of
Augustus confirmed the sentence of exile pronounced against an
intentional parricide by the domestic tribunal of Arius. Adrian
transported to an island the jealous parent, who, like a robber,
had seized the opportunity of hunting, to assassinate a youth,
the incestuous lover of his step-mother. 110 A private
jurisdiction is repugnant to the spirit of monarchy; the parent
was again reduced from a judge to an accuser; and the magistrates
were enjoined by Severus Alexander to hear his complaints and
execute his sentence. He could no longer take the life of a son
without incurring the guilt and punishment of murder; and the
pains of parricide, from which he had been excepted by the
Pompeian law, were finally inflicted by the justice of
Constantine. 111 The same protection was due to every period of
existence; and reason must applaud the humanity of Paulus, for
imputing the crime of murder to the father who strangles, or
starves, or abandons his new-born infant; or exposes him in a
public place to find the mercy which he himself had denied. But
the exposition of children was the prevailing and stubborn vice
of antiquity: it was sometimes prescribed, often permitted,
almost always practised with impunity, by the nations who never
entertained the Roman ideas of paternal power; and the dramatic
poets, who appeal to the human heart, represent with indifference
a popular custom which was palliated by the motives of economy
and compassion. 112 If the father could subdue his own feelings,
he might escape, though not the censure, at least the
chastisement, of the laws; and the Roman empire was stained with
the blood of infants, till such murders were included, by
Valentinian and his colleagues, in the letter and spirit of the
Cornelian law. The lessons of jurisprudence 113 and Christianity
had been insufficient to eradicate this inhuman practice, till
their gentle influence was fortified by the terrors of capital
punishment. 114
108 (return) [ See the gradual enlargement and security of the
filial peculium in the Institutes, (l. ii. tit. ix.,) the
Pandects, (l. xv. tit. i. l. xli. tit. i.,) and the Code, (l. iv.
tit. xxvi. xxvii.)]
109 (return) [ The examples of Erixo and Arius are related by
Seneca, (de Clementia, i. 14, 15,) the former with horror, the
latter with applause.]
110 (return) [ Quod latronis magis quam patris jure eum
interfecit, nam patria potestas in pietate debet non in
atrocitate consistere, (Marcian. Institut. l. xix. in Pandect. l.
xlviii. tit. ix. leg.5.)]
111 (return) [ The Pompeian and Cornelian laws de sicariis and
parricidis are repeated, or rather abridged, with the last
supplements of Alexander Severus, Constantine, and Valentinian,
in the Pandects (l. xlviii. tit. viii ix,) and Code, (l. ix. tit.
xvi. xvii.) See likewise the Theodosian Code, (l. ix. tit. xiv.
xv.,) with Godefroy’s Commentary, (tom. iii. p. 84—113) who pours
a flood of ancient and modern learning over these penal laws.]
112 (return) [ When the Chremes of Terence reproaches his wife
for not obeying his orders and exposing their infant, he speaks
like a father and a master, and silences the scruples of a
foolish woman. See Apuleius, (Metamorph. l. x. p. 337, edit.
Delphin.)]
113 (return) [ The opinion of the lawyers, and the discretion of
the magistrates, had introduced, in the time of Tacitus, some
legal restraints, which might support his contrast of the boni
mores of the Germans to the bonae leges alibi—that is to say, at
Rome, (de Moribus Germanorum, c. 19.) Tertullian (ad Nationes, l.
i. c. 15) refutes his own charges, and those of his brethren,
against the heathen jurisprudence.]
114 (return) [ The wise and humane sentence of the civilian Paul
(l. ii. Sententiarum in Pandect, 1. xxv. tit. iii. leg. 4) is
represented as a mere moral precept by Gerard Noodt, (Opp. tom.
i. in Julius Paulus, p. 567—558, and Amica Responsio, p.
591-606,) who maintains the opinion of Justus Lipsius, (Opp. tom.
ii. p. 409, ad Belgas. cent. i. epist. 85,) and as a positive
binding law by Bynkershoek, (de Jure occidendi Liberos, Opp. tom.
i. p. 318—340. Curae Secundae, p. 391—427.) In a learned out
angry controversy, the two friends deviated into the opposite
extremes.]
Experience has proved, that savages are the tyrants of the female
sex, and that the condition of women is usually softened by the
refinements of social life. In the hope of a robust progeny,
Lycurgus had delayed the season of marriage: it was fixed by Numa
at the tender age of twelve years, that the Roman husband might
educate to his will a pure and obedient virgin. 115 According to
the custom of antiquity, he bought his bride of her parents, and
she fulfilled the coemption by purchasing, with three pieces of
copper, a just introduction to his house and household deities. A
sacrifice of fruits was offered by the pontiffs in the presence
of ten witnesses; the contracting parties were seated on the same
sheep-skin; they tasted a salt cake of far or rice; and this
confarreation, 116 which denoted the ancient food of Italy,
served as an emblem of their mystic union of mind and body. But
this union on the side of the woman was rigorous and unequal; and
she renounced the name and worship of her father’s house, to
embrace a new servitude, decorated only by the title of adoption,
a fiction of the law, neither rational nor elegant, bestowed on
the mother of a family 117 (her proper appellation) the strange
characters of sister to her own children, and of daughter to her
husband or master, who was invested with the plenitude of
paternal power. By his judgment or caprice her behavior was
approved, or censured, or chastised; he exercised the
jurisdiction of life and death; and it was allowed, that in the
cases of adultery or drunkenness, 118 the sentence might be
properly inflicted. She acquired and inherited for the sole
profit of her lord; and so clearly was woman defined, not as a
person, but as a thing, that, if the original title were
deficient, she might be claimed, like other movables, by the use
and possession of an entire year. The inclination of the Roman
husband discharged or withheld the conjugal debt, so scrupulously
exacted by the Athenian and Jewish laws: 119 but as polygamy was
unknown, he could never admit to his bed a fairer or a more
favored partner.
115 (return) [ Dionys. Hal. l. ii. p. 92, 93. Plutarch, in Numa,
p. 140-141.]
116 (return) [ Among the winter frunenta, the triticum, or
bearded wheat; the siligo, or the unbearded; the far, adorea,
oryza, whose description perfectly tallies with the rice of Spain
and Italy. I adopt this identity on the credit of M. Paucton in
his useful and laborious Metrologie, (p. 517—529.)]
117 (return) [ Aulus Gellius (Noctes Atticae, xviii. 6) gives a
ridiculous definition of Aelius Melissus, Matrona, quae semel
materfamilias quae saepius peperit, as porcetra and scropha in
the sow kind. He then adds the genuine meaning, quae in
matrimonium vel in manum convenerat.]
118 (return) [ It was enough to have tasted wine, or to have
stolen the key of the cellar, (Plin. Hist. Nat. xiv. 14.)]
119 (return) [ Solon requires three payments per month. By the
Misna, a daily debt was imposed on an idle, vigorous, young
husband; twice a week on a citizen; once on a peasant; once in
thirty days on a camel-driver; once in six months on a seaman.
But the student or doctor was free from tribute; and no wife, if
she received a weekly sustenance, could sue for a divorce; for
one week a vow of abstinence was allowed. Polygamy divided,
without multiplying, the duties of the husband, (Selden, Uxor
Ebraica, l. iii. c 6, in his works, vol ii. p. 717—720.)]
After the Punic triumphs, the matrons of Rome aspired to the
common benefits of a free and opulent republic: their wishes were
gratified by the indulgence of fathers and lovers, and their
ambition was unsuccessfully resisted by the gravity of Cato the
Censor. 120 They declined the solemnities of the old nuptiais;
defeated the annual prescription by an absence of three days;
and, without losing their name or independence, subscribed the
liberal and definite terms of a marriage contract. Of their
private fortunes, they communicated the use, and secured the
property: the estates of a wife could neither be alienated nor
mortgaged by a prodigal husband; their mutual gifts were
prohibited by the jealousy of the laws; and the misconduct of
either party might afford, under another name, a future subject
for an action of theft. To this loose and voluntary compact,
religious and civil rights were no longer essential; and, between
persons of a similar rank, the apparent community of life was
allowed as sufficient evidence of their nuptials. The dignity of
marriage was restored by the Christians, who derived all
spiritual grace from the prayers of the faithful and the
benediction of the priest or bishop. The origin, validity, and
duties of the holy institution were regulated by the tradition of
the synagogue, the precepts of the gospel, and the canons of
general or provincial synods; 121 and the conscience of the
Christians was awed by the decrees and censures of their
ecclesiastical rulers. Yet the magistrates of Justinian were not
subject to the authority of the church: the emperor consulted the
unbelieving civilians of antiquity, and the choice of matrimonial
laws in the Code and Pandects, is directed by the earthly motives
of justice, policy, and the natural freedom of both sexes. 122
120 (return) [ On the Oppian law we may hear the mitigating
speech of Vaerius Flaccus, and the severe censorial oration of
the elder Cato, (Liv. xxxiv. l—8.) But we shall rather hear the
polished historian of the eighth, than the rough orators of the
sixth, century of Rome. The principles, and even the style, of
Cato are more accurately preserved by Aulus Gellius, (x. 23.)]
121 (return) [ For the system of Jewish and Catholic matrimony,
see Selden, (Uxor Ebraica, Opp. vol. ii. p. 529—860,) Bingham,
(Christian Antiquities, l. xxii.,) and Chardon, (Hist. des
Sacremens, tom. vi.)]
122 (return) [ The civil laws of marriage are exposed in the
Institutes, (l. i. tit. x.,) the Pandects, (l. xxiii. xxiv.
xxv.,) and the Code, (l. v.;) but as the title de ritu nuptiarum
is yet imperfect, we are obliged to explore the fragments of
Ulpian (tit. ix. p. 590, 591,) and the Collatio Legum Mosaicarum,
(tit. xvi. p. 790, 791,) with the notes of Pithaeus and
Schulting. They find in the Commentary of Servius (on the 1st
Georgia and the 4th Aeneid) two curious passages.]
Besides the agreement of the parties, the essence of every
rational contract, the Roman marriage required the previous
approbation of the parents. A father might be forced by some
recent laws to supply the wants of a mature daughter; but even
his insanity was not gradually allowed to supersede the necessity
of his consent. The causes of the dissolution of matrimony have
varied among the Romans; 123 but the most solemn sacrament, the
confarreation itself, might always be done away by rites of a
contrary tendency. In the first ages, the father of a family
might sell his children, and his wife was reckoned in the number
of his children: the domestic judge might pronounce the death of
the offender, or his mercy might expel her from his bed and
house; but the slavery of the wretched female was hopeless and
perpetual, unless he asserted for his own convenience the manly
prerogative of divorce. 1231 The warmest applause has been
lavished on the virtue of the Romans, who abstained from the
exercise of this tempting privilege above five hundred years: 124
but the same fact evinces the unequal terms of a connection in
which the slave was unable to renounce her tyrant, and the tyrant
was unwilling to relinquish his slave. When the Roman matrons
became the equal and voluntary companions of their lords, a new
jurisprudence was introduced, that marriage, like other
partnerships, might be dissolved by the abdication of one of the
associates. In three centuries of prosperity and corruption, this
principle was enlarged to frequent practice and pernicious abuse.
Passion, interest, or caprice, suggested daily motives for the
dissolution of marriage; a word, a sign, a message, a letter, the
mandate of a freedman, declared the separation; the most tender
of human connections was degraded to a transient society of
profit or pleasure. According to the various conditions of life,
both sexes alternately felt the disgrace and injury: an
inconstant spouse transferred her wealth to a new family,
abandoning a numerous, perhaps a spurious, progeny to the
paternal authority and care of her late husband; a beautiful
virgin might be dismissed to the world, old, indigent, and
friendless; but the reluctance of the Romans, when they were
pressed to marriage by Augustus, sufficiently marks, that the
prevailing institutions were least favorable to the males. A
specious theory is confuted by this free and perfect experiment,
which demonstrates, that the liberty of divorce does not
contribute to happiness and virtue. The facility of separation
would destroy all mutual confidence, and inflame every trifling
dispute: the minute difference between a husband and a stranger,
which might so easily be removed, might still more easily be
forgotten; and the matron, who in five years can submit to the
embraces of eight husbands, must cease to reverence the chastity
of her own person. 125
123 (return) [ According to Plutarch, (p. 57,) Romulus allowed
only three grounds of a divorce—drunkenness, adultery, and false
keys. Otherwise, the husband who abused his supremacy forfeited
half his goods to the wife, and half to the goddess Ceres, and
offered a sacrifice (with the remainder?) to the terrestrial
deities. This strange law was either imaginary or transient.]
1231 (return) [ Montesquieu relates and explains this fact in a
different marnes Esprit des Loix, l. xvi. c. 16.—G.]
124 (return) [ In the year of Rome 523, Spurius Carvilius Ruga
repudiated a fair, a good, but a barren, wife, (Dionysius Hal. l.
ii. p. 93. Plutarch, in Numa, p. 141; Valerius Maximus, l. ii. c.
1; Aulus Gellius, iv. 3.) He was questioned by the censors, and
hated by the people; but his divorce stood unimpeached in law.]
125 (return) [—Sic fiunt octo mariti Quinque per autumnos.
Juvenal, Satir. vi. 20.—A rapid succession, which may yet be
credible, as well as the non consulum numero, sed maritorum annos
suos computant, of Seneca, (de Beneficiis, iii. 16.) Jerom saw at
Rome a triumphant husband bury his twenty-first wife, who had
interred twenty-two of his less sturdy predecessors, (Opp. tom.
i. p. 90, ad Gerontiam.) But the ten husbands in a month of the
poet Martial, is an extravagant hyperbole, (l. 71. epigram 7.)]
Insufficient remedies followed with distant and tardy steps the
rapid progress of the evil. The ancient worship of the Romans
afforded a peculiar goddess to hear and reconcile the complaints
of a married life; but her epithet of Viriplaca, 126 the appeaser
of husbands, too clearly indicates on which side submission and
repentance were always expected. Every act of a citizen was
subject to the judgment of the censors; the first who used the
privilege of divorce assigned, at their command, the motives of
his conduct; 127 and a senator was expelled for dismissing his
virgin spouse without the knowledge or advice of his friends.
Whenever an action was instituted for the recovery of a marriage
portion, the proetor, as the guardian of equity, examined the
cause and the characters, and gently inclined the scale in favor
of the guiltless and injured party. Augustus, who united the
powers of both magistrates, adopted their different modes of
repressing or chastising the license of divorce. 128 The presence
of seven Roman witnesses was required for the validity of this
solemn and deliberate act: if any adequate provocation had been
given by the husband, instead of the delay of two years, he was
compelled to refund immediately, or in the space of six months;
but if he could arraign the manners of his wife, her guilt or
levity was expiated by the loss of the sixth or eighth part of
her marriage portion. The Christian princes were the first who
specified the just causes of a private divorce; their
institutions, from Constantine to Justinian, appear to fluctuate
between the custom of the empire and the wishes of the church,
129 and the author of the Novels too frequently reforms the
jurisprudence of the Code and Pandects. In the most rigorous
laws, a wife was condemned to support a gamester, a drunkard, or
a libertine, unless he were guilty of homicide, poison, or
sacrilege, in which cases the marriage, as it should seem, might
have been dissolved by the hand of the executioner. But the
sacred right of the husband was invariably maintained, to deliver
his name and family from the disgrace of adultery: the list of
mortal sins, either male or female, was curtailed and enlarged by
successive regulations, and the obstacles of incurable impotence,
long absence, and monastic profession, were allowed to rescind
the matrimonial obligation. Whoever transgressed the permission
of the law, was subject to various and heavy penalties. The woman
was stripped of her wealth and ornaments, without excepting the
bodkin of her hair: if the man introduced a new bride into his
bed, her fortune might be lawfully seized by the vengeance of his
exiled wife. Forfeiture was sometimes commuted to a fine; the
fine was sometimes aggravated by transportation to an island, or
imprisonment in a monastery; the injured party was released from
the bonds of marriage; but the offender, during life, or a term
of years, was disabled from the repetition of nuptials. The
successor of Justinian yielded to the prayers of his unhappy
subjects, and restored the liberty of divorce by mutual consent:
the civilians were unanimous, 130 the theologians were divided,
131 and the ambiguous word, which contains the precept of Christ,
is flexible to any interpretation that the wisdom of a legislator
can demand.
126 (return) [ Sacellum Viriplacae, (Valerius Maximus, l. ii. c.
1,) in the Palatine region, appears in the time of Theodosius, in
the description of Rome by Publius Victor.]
127 (return) [ Valerius Maximus, l. ii. c. 9. With some propriety
he judges divorce more criminal than celibacy: illo namque
conjugalia sacre spreta tantum, hoc etiam injuriose tractata.]
128 (return) [ See the laws of Augustus and his successors, in
Heineccius, ad Legem Papiam-Poppaeam, c. 19, in Opp. tom. vi. P.
i. p. 323—333.]
129 (return) [ Aliae sunt leges Caesarum, aliae Christi; aliud
Papinianus, aliud Paulus nocter praecipit, (Jerom. tom. i. p.
198. Selden, Uxor Ebraica l. iii. c. 31 p. 847—853.)]
130 (return) [ The Institutes are silent; but we may consult the
Codes of Theodosius (l. iii. tit. xvi., with Godefroy’s
Commentary, tom. i. p. 310—315) and Justinian, (l. v. tit.
xvii.,) the Pandects (l. xxiv. tit. ii.) and the Novels, (xxii.
cxvii. cxxvii. cxxxiv. cxl.) Justinian fluctuated to the last
between civil and ecclesiastical law.]
131 (return) [ In pure Greek, it is not a common word; nor can
the proper meaning, fornication, be strictly applied to
matrimonial sin. In a figurative sense, how far, and to what
offences, may it be extended? Did Christ speak the Rabbinical or
Syriac tongue? Of what original word is the translation? How
variously is that Greek word translated in the versions ancient
and modern! There are two (Mark, x. 11, Luke, xvi. 18) to one
(Matthew, xix. 9) that such ground of divorce was not excepted by
Jesus. Some critics have presumed to think, by an evasive answer,
he avoided the giving offence either to the school of Sammai or
to that of Hillel, (Selden, Uxor Ebraica, l. iii. c. 18—22, 28,
31.) * Note: But these had nothing to do with the question of a
divorce made by judicial authority.—Hugo.]
The freedom of love and marriage was restrained among the Romans
by natural and civil impediments. An instinct, almost innate and
universal, appears to prohibit the incestuous commerce 132 of
parents and children in the infinite series of ascending and
descending generations. Concerning the oblique and collateral
branches, nature is indifferent, reason mute, and custom various
and arbitrary. In Egypt, the marriage of brothers and sisters was
admitted without scruple or exception: a Spartan might espouse
the daughter of his father, an Athenian, that of his mother; and
the nuptials of an uncle with his niece were applauded at Athens
as a happy union of the dearest relations. The profane lawgivers
of Rome were never tempted by interest or superstition to
multiply the forbidden degrees: but they inflexibly condemned the
marriage of sisters and brothers, hesitated whether first cousins
should be touched by the same interdict; revered the parental
character of aunts and uncles, 1321 and treated affinity and
adoption as a just imitation of the ties of blood. According to
the proud maxims of the republic, a legal marriage could only be
contracted by free citizens; an honorable, at least an ingenuous
birth, was required for the spouse of a senator: but the blood of
kings could never mingle in legitimate nuptials with the blood of
a Roman; and the name of Stranger degraded Cleopatra and
Berenice, 133 to live the concubines of Mark Antony and Titus.
134 This appellation, indeed, so injurious to the majesty, cannot
without indulgence be applied to the manners, of these Oriental
queens. A concubine, in the strict sense of the civilians, was a
woman of servile or plebeian extraction, the sole and faithful
companion of a Roman citizen, who continued in a state of
celibacy. Her modest station, below the honors of a wife, above
the infamy of a prostitute, was acknowledged and approved by the
laws: from the age of Augustus to the tenth century, the use of
this secondary marriage prevailed both in the West and East; and
the humble virtues of a concubine were often preferred to the
pomp and insolence of a noble matron. In this connection, the two
Antonines, the best of princes and of men, enjoyed the comforts
of domestic love: the example was imitated by many citizens
impatient of celibacy, but regardful of their families. If at any
time they desired to legitimate their natural children, the
conversion was instantly performed by the celebration of their
nuptials with a partner whose faithfulness and fidelity they had
already tried. 1341 By this epithet of natural, the offspring of
the concubine were distinguished from the spurious brood of
adultery, prostitution, and incest, to whom Justinian reluctantly
grants the necessary aliments of life; and these natural children
alone were capable of succeeding to a sixth part of the
inheritance of their reputed father. According to the rigor of
law, bastards were entitled only to the name and condition of
their mother, from whom they might derive the character of a
slave, a stranger, or a citizen. The outcasts of every family
were adopted without reproach as the children of the state. 135
1351
132 (return) [ The principles of the Roman jurisprudence are
exposed by Justinian, (Institut. t. i. tit. x.;) and the laws and
manners of the different nations of antiquity concerning
forbidden degrees, &c., are copiously explained by Dr. Taylor in
his Elements of Civil Law, (p. 108, 314—339,) a work of amusing,
though various reading; but which cannot be praised for
philosophical precision.]
1321 (return) [ According to the earlier law, (Gaii Instit. p.
27,) a man might marry his niece on the brother’s, not on the
sister’s, side. The emperor Claudius set the example of the
former. In the Institutes, this distinction was abolished and
both declared illegal.—M.]
133 (return) [ When her father Agrippa died, (A.D. 44,) Berenice
was sixteen years of age, (Joseph. tom. i. Antiquit. Judaic. l.
xix. c. 9, p. 952, edit. Havercamp.) She was therefore above
fifty years old when Titus (A.D. 79) invitus invitam invisit.
This date would not have adorned the tragedy or pastoral of the
tender Racine.]
134 (return) [ The Aegyptia conjux of Virgil (Aeneid, viii. 688)
seems to be numbered among the monsters who warred with Mark
Antony against Augustus, the senate, and the gods of Italy.]
1341 (return) [ The Edict of Constantine first conferred this
right; for Augustus had prohibited the taking as a concubine a
woman who might be taken as a wife; and if marriage took place
afterwards, this marriage made no change in the rights of the
children born before it; recourse was then had to adoption,
properly called arrogation.—G.]
135 (return) [ The humble but legal rights of concubines and
natural children are stated in the Institutes, (l. i. tit. x.,)
the Pandects, (l. i. tit. vii.,) the Code, (l. v. tit. xxv.,) and
the Novels, (lxxiv. lxxxix.) The researches of Heineccius and
Giannone, (ad Legem Juliam et Papiam-Poppaeam, c. iv. p. 164-175.
Opere Posthume, p. 108—158) illustrate this interesting and
domestic subject.]
1351 (return) [ See, however, the two fragments of laws in the
newly discovered extracts from the Theodosian Code, published by
M. A. Peyron, at Turin. By the first law of Constantine, the
legitimate offspring could alone inherit; where there were no
near legitimate relatives, the inheritance went to the fiscus.
The son of a certain Licinianus, who had inherited his father’s
property under the supposition that he was legitimate, and had
been promoted to a place of dignity, was to be degraded, his
property confiscated, himself punished with stripes and
imprisonment. By the second, all persons, even of the highest
rank, senators, perfectissimi, decemvirs, were to be declared
infamous, and out of the protection of the Roman law, if born ex
ancilla, vel ancillae filia, vel liberta, vel libertae filia,
sive Romana facta, seu Latina, vel scaenicae filia, vel ex
tabernaria, vel ex tabernariae filia, vel humili vel abjecta, vel
lenonis, aut arenarii filia, vel quae mercimoniis publicis
praefuit. Whatever a fond father had conferred on such children
was revoked, and either restored to the legitimate children, or
confiscated to the state; the mothers, who were guilty of thus
poisoning the minds of the fathers, were to be put to the torture
(tormentis subici jubemus.) The unfortunate son of Licinianus, it
appears from this second law, having fled, had been taken, and
was ordered to be kept in chains to work in the Gynaeceum at
Carthage. Cod. Theodor ab. A. Person, 87—90.—M.]
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part VI.
The relation of guardian and ward, or in Roman words of tutor and
pupil, which covers so many titles of the Institutes and
Pandects, 136 is of a very simple and uniform nature. The person
and property of an orphan must always be trusted to the custody
of some discreet friend. If the deceased father had not signified
his choice, the agnats, or paternal kindred of the nearest
degree, were compelled to act as the natural guardians: the
Athenians were apprehensive of exposing the infant to the power
of those most interested in his death; but an axiom of Roman
jurisprudence has pronounced, that the charge of tutelage should
constantly attend the emolument of succession. If the choice of
the father, and the line of consanguinity, afforded no efficient
guardian, the failure was supplied by the nomination of the
praetor of the city, or the president of the province. But the
person whom they named to this public office might be legally
excused by insanity or blindness, by ignorance or inability, by
previous enmity or adverse interest, by the number of children or
guardianships with which he was already burdened, and by the
immunities which were granted to the useful labors of
magistrates, lawyers, physicians, and professors. Till the infant
could speak, and think, he was represented by the tutor, whose
authority was finally determined by the age of puberty. Without
his consent, no act of the pupil could bind himself to his own
prejudice, though it might oblige others for his personal
benefit. It is needless to observe, that the tutor often gave
security, and always rendered an account, and that the want of
diligence or integrity exposed him to a civil and almost criminal
action for the violation of his sacred trust. The age of puberty
had been rashly fixed by the civilians at fourteen; 1361 but as
the faculties of the mind ripen more slowly than those of the
body, a curator was interposed to guard the fortunes of a Roman
youth from his own inexperience and headstrong passions. Such a
trustee had been first instituted by the praetor, to save a
family from the blind havoc of a prodigal or madman; and the
minor was compelled, by the laws, to solicit the same protection,
to give validity to his acts till he accomplished the full period
of twenty-five years. Women were condemned to the perpetual
tutelage of parents, husbands, or guardians; a sex created to
please and obey was never supposed to have attained the age of
reason and experience. Such, at least, was the stern and haughty
spirit of the ancient law, which had been insensibly mollified
before the time of Justinian.
136 (return) [ See the article of guardians and wards in the
Institutes, (l. i. tit. xiii.—xxvi.,) the Pandects, (l. xxvi.
xxvii.,) and the Code, (l. v. tit. xxviii.—lxx.)]
1361 (return) [ Gibbon accuses the civilians of having “rashly
fixed the age of puberty at twelve or fourteen years.” It was not
so; before Justinian, no law existed on this subject. Ulpian
relates the discussions which took place on this point among the
different sects of civilians. See the Institutes, l. i. tit. 22,
and the fragments of Ulpian. Nor was the curatorship obligatory
for all minors.—W.]
II. The original right of property can only be justified by the
accident or merit of prior occupancy; and on this foundation it
is wisely established by the philosophy of the civilians. 137 The
savage who hollows a tree, inserts a sharp stone into a wooden
handle, or applies a string to an elastic branch, becomes in a
state of nature the just proprietor of the canoe, the bow, or the
hatchet. The materials were common to all, the new form, the
produce of his time and simple industry, belongs solely to
himself. His hungry brethren cannot, without a sense of their own
injustice, extort from the hunter the game of the forest
overtaken or slain by his personal strength and dexterity. If his
provident care preserves and multiplies the tame animals, whose
nature is tractable to the arts of education, he acquires a
perpetual title to the use and service of their numerous progeny,
which derives its existence from him alone. If he encloses and
cultivates a field for their sustenance and his own, a barren
waste is converted into a fertile soil; the seed, the manure, the
labor, create a new value, and the rewards of harvest are
painfully earned by the fatigues of the revolving year. In the
successive states of society, the hunter, the shepherd, the
husbandman, may defend their possessions by two reasons which
forcibly appeal to the feelings of the human mind: that whatever
they enjoy is the fruit of their own industry; and that every man
who envies their felicity, may purchase similar acquisitions by
the exercise of similar diligence. Such, in truth, may be the
freedom and plenty of a small colony cast on a fruitful island.
But the colony multiplies, while the space still continues the
same; the common rights, the equal inheritance of mankind, are
engrossed by the bold and crafty; each field and forest is
circumscribed by the landmarks of a jealous master; and it is the
peculiar praise of the Roman jurisprudence, that it asserts the
claim of the first occupant to the wild animals of the earth, the
air, and the waters. In the progress from primitive equity to
final injustice, the steps are silent, the shades are almost
imperceptible, and the absolute monopoly is guarded by positive
laws and artificial reason. The active, insatiate principle of
self-love can alone supply the arts of life and the wages of
industry; and as soon as civil government and exclusive property
have been introduced, they become necessary to the existence of
the human race. Except in the singular institutions of Sparta,
the wisest legislators have disapproved an agrarian law as a
false and dangerous innovation. Among the Romans, the enormous
disproportion of wealth surmounted the ideal restraints of a
doubtful tradition, and an obsolete statute; a tradition that the
poorest follower of Romulus had been endowed with the perpetual
inheritance of two jugera; 138 a statute which confined the
richest citizen to the measure of five hundred jugera, or three
hundred and twelve acres of land. The original territory of Rome
consisted only of some miles of wood and meadow along the banks
of the Tyber; and domestic exchange could add nothing to the
national stock. But the goods of an alien or enemy were lawfully
exposed to the first hostile occupier; the city was enriched by
the profitable trade of war; and the blood of her sons was the
only price that was paid for the Volscian sheep, the slaves of
Briton, or the gems and gold of Asiatic kingdoms. In the language
of ancient jurisprudence, which was corrupted and forgotten
before the age of Justinian, these spoils were distinguished by
the name of manceps or manicipium, taken with the hand; and
whenever they were sold or emancipated, the purchaser required
some assurance that they had been the property of an enemy, and
not of a fellow-citizen. 139 A citizen could only forfeit his
rights by apparent dereliction, and such dereliction of a
valuable interest could not easily be presumed. Yet, according to
the Twelve Tables, a prescription of one year for movables, and
of two years for immovables, abolished the claim of the ancient
master, if the actual possessor had acquired them by a fair
transaction from the person whom he believed to be the lawful
proprietor. 140 Such conscientious injustice, without any mixture
of fraud or force could seldom injure the members of a small
republic; but the various periods of three, of ten, or of twenty
years, determined by Justinian, are more suitable to the latitude
of a great empire. It is only in the term of prescription that
the distinction of real and personal fortune has been remarked by
the civilians; and their general idea of property is that of
simple, uniform, and absolute dominion. The subordinate
exceptions of use, of usufruct, 141 of servitude, 142 imposed for
the benefit of a neighbor on lands and houses, are abundantly
explained by the professors of jurisprudence. The claims of
property, as far as they are altered by the mixture, the
division, or the transformation of substances, are investigated
with metaphysical subtilty by the same civilians.
137 (return) [ Institut. l. ii. tit i. ii. Compare the pure and
precise reasoning of Caius and Heineccius (l. ii. tit. i. p.
69-91) with the loose prolixity of Theophilus, (p. 207—265.) The
opinions of Ulpian are preserved in the Pandects, (l. i. tit.
viii. leg. 41, No. 1.)]
138 (return) [ The heredium of the first Romans is defined by
Varro, (de Re Rustica, l. i. c. ii. p. 141, c. x. p. 160, 161,
edit. Gesner,) and clouded by Pliny’s declamation, (Hist. Natur.
xviii. 2.) A just and learned comment is given in the
Administration des Terres chez les Romains, (p. 12—66.) Note: On
the duo jugera, compare Niebuhr, vol. i. p. 337.—M.]
139 (return) [ The res mancipi is explained from faint and remote
lights by Ulpian (Fragment. tit. xviii. p. 618, 619) and
Bynkershoek, (Opp tom. i. p. 306—315.) The definition is somewhat
arbitrary; and as none except myself have assigned a reason, I am
diffident of my own.]
140 (return) [ From this short prescription, Hume (Essays, vol.
i. p. 423) infers that there could not then be more order and
settlement in Italy than now amongst the Tartars. By the civilian
of his adversary Wallace, he is reproached, and not without
reason, for overlooking the conditions, (Institut. l. ii. tit.
vi.) * Note: Gibbon acknowledges, in the former note, the
obscurity of his views with regard to the res mancipi. The
interpreters, who preceded him, are not agreed on this point, one
of the most difficult in the ancient Roman law. The conclusions
of Hume, of which the author here speaks, are grounded on false
assumptions. Gibbon had conceived very inaccurate notions of
Property among the Romans, and those of many authors in the
present day are not less erroneous. We think it right, in this
place, to develop the system of property among the Romans, as the
result of the study of the extant original authorities on the
ancient law, and as it has been demonstrated, recognized, and
adopted by the most learned expositors of the Roman law. Besides
the authorities formerly known, such as the Fragments of Ulpian,
t. xix. and t. i. 16. Theoph. Paraph. i. 5, 4, may be consulted
the Institutes of Gaius, i. 54, and ii. 40, et seq. The Roman
laws protected all property acquired in a lawful manner. They
imposed on those who had invaded it, the obligation of making
restitution and reparation of all damage caused by that invasion;
they punished it moreover, in many cases, by a pecuniary fine.
But they did not always grant a recovery against the third
person, who had become bona fide possessed of the property. He
who had obtained possession of a thing belonging to another,
knowing nothing of the prior rights of that person, maintained
the possession. The law had expressly determined those cases, in
which it permitted property to be reclaimed from an innocent
possessor. In these cases possession had the characters of
absolute proprietorship, called mancipium, jus Quiritium. To
possess this right, it was not sufficient to have entered into
possession of the thing in any manner; the acquisition was bound
to have that character of publicity, which was given by the
observation of solemn forms, prescribed by the laws, or the
uninterrupted exercise of proprietorship during a certain time:
the Roman citizen alone could acquire this proprietorship. Every
other kind of possession, which might be named imperfect
proprietorship, was called “in bonis habere.” It was not till
after the time of Cicero that the general name of Dominium was
given to all proprietorship. It was then the publicity which
constituted the distinctive character of absolute dominion. This
publicity was grounded on the mode of acquisition, which the
moderns have called Civil, (Modi adquirendi Civiles.) These modes
of acquisition were, 1. Mancipium or mancipatio, which was
nothing but the solemn delivering over of the thing in the
presence of a determinate number of witnesses and a public
officer; it was from this probably that proprietorship was named,
2. In jure cessio, which was a solemn delivering over before the
praetor. 3. Adjudicatio, made by a judge, in a case of partition.
4. Lex, which comprehended modes of acquiring in particular cases
determined by law; probably the law of the xii. tables; for
instance, the sub corona emptio and the legatum. 5. Usna, called
afterwards usacapio, and by the moderns prescription. This was
only a year for movables; two years for things not movable. Its
primary object was altogether different from that of prescription
in the present day. It was originally introduced in order to
transform the simple possession of a thing (in bonis habere) into
Roman proprietorship. The public and uninterrupted possession of
a thing, enjoyed for the space of one or two years, was
sufficient to make known to the inhabitants of the city of Rome
to whom the thing belonged. This last mode of acquisition
completed the system of civil acquisitions. by legalizing. as it
were, every other kind of acquisition which was not conferred,
from the commencement, by the Jus Quiritium. V. Ulpian. Fragm. i.
16. Gaius, ii. 14. We believe, according to Gaius, 43, that this
usucaption was extended to the case where a thing had been
acquired from a person not the real proprietor; and that
according to the time prescribed, it gave to the possessor the
Roman proprietorship. But this does not appear to have been the
original design of this Institution. Caeterum etiam earum rerum
usucapio nobis competit, quae non a domino nobis tradita fuerint,
si modo eas bona fide acceperimus Gaius, l ii. 43. As to things
of smaller value, or those which it was difficult to distinguish
from each other, the solemnities of which we speak were not
requisite to obtain legal proprietorship. In this case simple
delivery was sufficient. In proportion to the aggrandizement of
the Republic, this latter principle became more important from
the increase of the commerce and wealth of the state. It was
necessary to know what were those things of which absolute
property might be acquired by simple delivery, and what, on the
contrary, those, the acquisition of which must be sanctioned by
these solemnities. This question was necessarily to be decided by
a general rule; and it is this rule which establishes the
distinction between res mancipi and nec mancipi, a distinction
about which the opinions of modern civilians differ so much that
there are above ten conflicting systems on the subject. The
system which accords best with a sound interpretation of the
Roman laws, is that proposed by M. Trekel of Hamburg, and still
further developed by M. Hugo, who has extracted it in the
Magazine of Civil Law, vol. ii. p. 7. This is the system now
almost universally adopted. Res mancipi (by contraction for
mancipii) were things of which the absolute property (Jus
Quiritium) might be acquired only by the solemnities mentioned
above, at least by that of mancipation, which was, without doubt,
the most easy and the most usual. Gaius, ii. 25. As for other
things, the acquisition of which was not subject to these forms,
in order to confer absolute right, they were called res nec
mancipi. See Ulpian, Fragm. xix. 1. 3, 7. Ulpian and Varro
enumerate the different kinds of res mancipi. Their enumerations
do not quite agree; and various methods of reconciling them have
been attempted. The authority of Ulpian, however, who wrote as a
civilian, ought to have the greater weight on this subject. But
why are these things alone res mancipi? This is one of the
questions which have been most frequently agitated, and on which
the opinions of civilians are most divided. M. Hugo has resolved
it in the most natural and satisfactory manner. “All things which
were easily known individually, which were of great value, with
which the Romans were acquainted, and which they highly
appreciated, were res mancipi. Of old mancipation or some other
solemn form was required for the acquisition of these things, an
account of their importance. Mancipation served to prove their
acquisition, because they were easily distinguished one from the
other.” On this great historical discussion consult the Magazine
of Civil Law by M. Hugo, vol. ii. p. 37, 38; the dissertation of
M. J. M. Zachariae, de Rebus Mancipi et nec Mancipi Conjecturae,
p. 11. Lipsiae, 1807; the History of Civil Law by M. Hugo; and my
Institutiones Juris Romani Privati p. 108, 110. As a general
rule, it may be said that all things are res nec mancipi; the res
mancipi are the exception to this principle. The praetors changed
the system of property by allowing a person, who had a thing in
bonis, the right to recover before the prescribed term of
usucaption had conferred absolute proprietorship. (Pauliana in
rem actio.) Justinian went still further, in times when there was
no longer any distinction between a Roman citizen and a stranger.
He granted the right of recovering all things which had been
acquired, whether by what were called civil or natural modes of
acquisition, Cod. l. vii. t. 25, 31. And he so altered the theory
of Gaius in his Institutes, ii. 1, that no trace remains of the
doctrine taught by that civilian.—W.]
141 (return) [ See the Institutes (l. i. tit. iv. v.) and the
Pandects, (l. vii.) Noodt has composed a learned and distinct
treatise de Usufructu, (Opp. tom. i. p. 387—478.)]
142 (return) [ The questions de Servitutibus are discussed in the
Institutes (l. ii. tit. iii.) and Pandects, (l. viii.) Cicero
(pro Murena, c. 9) and Lactantius (Institut. Divin. l. i. c. i.)
affect to laugh at the insignificant doctrine, de aqua de pluvia
arcenda, &c. Yet it might be of frequent use among litigious
neighbors, both in town and country.]
The personal title of the first proprietor must be determined by
his death: but the possession, without any appearance of change,
is peaceably continued in his children, the associates of his
toil, and the partners of his wealth. This natural inheritance
has been protected by the legislators of every climate and age,
and the father is encouraged to persevere in slow and distant
improvements, by the tender hope, that a long posterity will
enjoy the fruits of his labor. The principle of hereditary
succession is universal; but the order has been variously
established by convenience or caprice, by the spirit of national
institutions, or by some partial example which was originally
decided by fraud or violence. The jurisprudence of the Romans
appear to have deviated from the inequality of nature much less
than the Jewish, 143 the Athenian, 144 or the English
institutions. 145 On the death of a citizen, all his descendants,
unless they were already freed from his paternal power, were
called to the inheritance of his possessions. The insolent
prerogative of primogeniture was unknown; the two sexes were
placed on a just level; all the sons and daughters were entitled
to an equal portion of the patrimonial estate; and if any of the
sons had been intercepted by a premature death, his person was
represented, and his share was divided, by his surviving
children. On the failure of the direct line, the right of
succession must diverge to the collateral branches. The degrees
of kindred 146 are numbered by the civilians, ascending from the
last possessor to a common parent, and descending from the common
parent to the next heir: my father stands in the first degree, my
brother in the second, his children in the third, and the
remainder of the series may be conceived by a fancy, or pictured
in a genealogical table. In this computation, a distinction was
made, essential to the laws and even the constitution of Rome;
the agnats, or persons connected by a line of males, were called,
as they stood in the nearest degree, to an equal partition; but a
female was incapable of transmitting any legal claims; and the
cognats of every rank, without excepting the dear relation of a
mother and a son, were disinherited by the Twelve Tables, as
strangers and aliens. Among the Romans agens or lineage was
united by a common name and domestic rites; the various cognomens
or surnames of Scipio, or Marcellus, distinguished from each
other the subordinate branches or families of the Cornelian or
Claudian race: the default of the agnats, of the same surname,
was supplied by the larger denomination of gentiles; and the
vigilance of the laws maintained, in the same name, the perpetual
descent of religion and property. A similar principle dictated
the Voconian law, 147 which abolished the right of female
inheritance. As long as virgins were given or sold in marriage,
the adoption of the wife extinguished the hopes of the daughter.
But the equal succession of independent matrons supported their
pride and luxury, and might transport into a foreign house the
riches of their fathers.
While the maxims of Cato 148 were revered, they tended to
perpetuate in each family a just and virtuous mediocrity: till
female blandishments insensibly triumphed; and every salutary
restraint was lost in the dissolute greatness of the republic.
The rigor of the decemvirs was tempered by the equity of the
praetors. Their edicts restored and emancipated posthumous
children to the rights of nature; and upon the failure of the
agnats, they preferred the blood of the cognats to the name of
the gentiles whose title and character were insensibly covered
with oblivion. The reciprocal inheritance of mothers and sons was
established in the Tertullian and Orphitian decrees by the
humanity of the senate. A new and more impartial order was
introduced by the Novels of Justinian, who affected to revive the
jurisprudence of the Twelve Tables. The lines of masculine and
female kindred were confounded: the descending, ascending, and
collateral series was accurately defined; and each degree,
according to the proximity of blood and affection, succeeded to
the vacant possessions of a Roman citizen. 149
143 (return) [ Among the patriarchs, the first-born enjoyed a
mystic and spiritual primogeniture, (Genesis, xxv. 31.) In the
land of Canaan, he was entitled to a double portion of
inheritance, (Deuteronomy, xxi. 17, with Le Clerc’s judicious
Commentary.)]
144 (return) [ At Athens, the sons were equal; but the poor
daughters were endowed at the discretion of their brothers. See
the pleadings of Isaeus, (in the viith volume of the Greek
Orators,) illustrated by the version and comment of Sir William
Jones, a scholar, a lawyer, and a man of genius.]
145 (return) [ In England, the eldest son also inherits all the
land; a law, says the orthodox Judge Blackstone, (Commentaries on
the Laws of England, vol. ii. p. 215,) unjust only in the opinion
of younger brothers. It may be of some political use in
sharpening their industry.]
146 (return) [ Blackstone’s Tables (vol. ii. p. 202) represent
and compare the decrees of the civil with those of the canon and
common law. A separate tract of Julius Paulus, de gradibus et
affinibus, is inserted or abridged in the Pandects, (l. xxxviii.
tit. x.) In the viith degrees he computes (No. 18) 1024 persons.]
147 (return) [ The Voconian law was enacted in the year of Rome
584. The younger Scipio, who was then 17 years of age,
(Frenshemius, Supplement. Livian. xlvi. 40,) found an occasion of
exercising his generosity to his mother, sisters, &c. (Polybius,
tom. ii. l. xxxi. p. 1453—1464, edit Gronov., a domestic
witness.)]
148 (return) [ Legem Voconiam (Ernesti, Clavis Ciceroniana) magna
voce bonis lateribus (at lxv. years of age) suasissem, says old
Cato, (de Senectute, c. 5,) Aulus Gellius (vii. 13, xvii. 6) has
saved some passages.]
149 (return) [ See the law of succession in the Institutes of
Caius, (l. ii. tit. viii. p. 130—144,) and Justinian, (l. iii.
tit. i.—vi., with the Greek version of Theophilus, p. 515-575,
588—600,) the Pandects, (l. xxxviii. tit. vi.—xvii.,) the Code,
(l. vi. tit. lv.—lx.,) and the Novels, (cxviii.)]
The order of succession is regulated by nature, or at least by
the general and permanent reason of the lawgiver: but this order
is frequently violated by the arbitrary and partial wills, which
prolong the dominion of the testator beyond the grave. 150 In the
simple state of society, this last use or abuse of the right of
property is seldom indulged: it was introduced at Athens by the
laws of Solon; and the private testaments of the father of a
family are authorized by the Twelve Tables. Before the time of
the decemvirs, 151 a Roman citizen exposed his wishes and motives
to the assembly of the thirty curiae or parishes, and the general
law of inheritance was suspended by an occasional act of the
legislature. After the permission of the decemvirs, each private
lawgiver promulgated his verbal or written testament in the
presence of five citizens, who represented the five classes of
the Roman people; a sixth witness attested their concurrence; a
seventh weighed the copper money, which was paid by an imaginary
purchaser; and the estate was emancipated by a fictitious sale
and immediate release. This singular ceremony, 152 which excited
the wonder of the Greeks, was still practised in the age of
Severus; but the praetors had already approved a more simple
testament, for which they required the seals and signatures of
seven witnesses, free from all legal exception, and purposely
summoned for the execution of that important act. A domestic
monarch, who reigned over the lives and fortunes of his children,
might distribute their respective shares according to the degrees
of their merit or his affection; his arbitrary displeasure
chastised an unworthy son by the loss of his inheritance, and the
mortifying preference of a stranger. But the experience of
unnatural parents recommended some limitations of their
testamentary powers. A son, or, by the laws of Justinian, even a
daughter, could no longer be disinherited by their silence: they
were compelled to name the criminal, and to specify the offence;
and the justice of the emperor enumerated the sole causes that
could justify such a violation of the first principles of nature
and society. 153 Unless a legitimate portion, a fourth part, had
been reserved for the children, they were entitled to institute
an action or complaint of inofficious testament; to suppose that
their father’s understanding was impaired by sickness or age; and
respectfully to appeal from his rigorous sentence to the
deliberate wisdom of the magistrate. In the Roman jurisprudence,
an essential distinction was admitted between the inheritance and
the legacies. The heirs who succeeded to the entire unity, or to
any of the twelve fractions of the substance of the testator,
represented his civil and religious character, asserted his
rights, fulfilled his obligations, and discharged the gifts of
friendship or liberality, which his last will had bequeathed
under the name of legacies. But as the imprudence or prodigality
of a dying man might exhaust the inheritance, and leave only risk
and labor to his successor, he was empowered to retain the
Falcidian portion; to deduct, before the payment of the legacies,
a clear fourth for his own emolument. A reasonable time was
allowed to examine the proportion between the debts and the
estate, to decide whether he should accept or refuse the
testament; and if he used the benefit of an inventory, the
demands of the creditors could not exceed the valuation of the
effects. The last will of a citizen might be altered during his
life, or rescinded after his death: the persons whom he named
might die before him, or reject the inheritance, or be exposed to
some legal disqualification. In the contemplation of these
events, he was permitted to substitute second and third heirs, to
replace each other according to the order of the testament; and
the incapacity of a madman or an infant to bequeath his property
might be supplied by a similar substitution. 154 But the power of
the testator expired with the acceptance of the testament: each
Roman of mature age and discretion acquired the absolute dominion
of his inheritance, and the simplicity of the civil law was never
clouded by the long and intricate entails which confine the
happiness and freedom of unborn generations.
150 (return) [ That succession was the rule, testament the
exception, is proved by Taylor, (Elements of Civil Law, p.
519-527,) a learned, rambling, spirited writer. In the iid and
iiid books, the method of the Institutes is doubtless
preposterous; and the Chancellor Daguesseau (Oeuvres, tom. i. p.
275) wishes his countryman Domat in the place of Tribonian. Yet
covenants before successions is not surely the natural order of
civil laws.]
151 (return) [ Prior examples of testaments are perhaps fabulous.
At Athens a childless father only could make a will, (Plutarch,
in Solone, tom. i. p. 164. See Isaeus and Jones.)]
152 (return) [ The testament of Augustus is specified by
Suetonius, (in August, c. 101, in Neron. c. 4,) who may be
studied as a code of Roman antiquities. Plutarch (Opuscul. tom.
ii. p. 976) is surprised. The language of Ulpian (Fragment. tit.
xx. p. 627, edit. Schulting) is almost too exclusive—solum in usu
est.]
153 (return) [ Justinian (Novell. cxv. No. 3, 4) enumerates only
the public and private crimes, for which a son might likewise
disinherit his father. Note: Gibbon has singular notions on the
provisions of Novell. cxv. 3, 4, which probably he did not
clearly understand.—W]
154 (return) [ The substitutions of fidei-commissaires of the
modern civil law is a feudal idea grafted on the Roman
jurisprudence, and bears scarcely any resemblance to the ancient
fidei-commissa, (Institutions du Droit Francois, tom. i. p.
347-383. Denissart, Decisions de Jurisprudence, tom. iv. p.
577-604.) They were stretched to the fourth degree by an abuse of
the clixth Novel; a partial, perplexed, declamatory law.]
Conquest and the formalities of law established the use of
codicils. If a Roman was surprised by death in a remote province
of the empire, he addressed a short epistle to his legitimate or
testamentary heir; who fulfilled with honor, or neglected with
impunity, this last request, which the judges before the age of
Augustus were not authorized to enforce. A codicil might be
expressed in any mode, or in any language; but the subscription
of five witnesses must declare that it was the genuine
composition of the author. His intention, however laudable, was
sometimes illegal; and the invention of fidei-commissa, or
trusts, arose from the struggle between natural justice and
positive jurisprudence. A stranger of Greece or Africa might be
the friend or benefactor of a childless Roman, but none, except a
fellow-citizen, could act as his heir. The Voconian law, which
abolished female succession, restrained the legacy or inheritance
of a woman to the sum of one hundred thousand sesterces; 155 and
an only daughter was condemned almost as an alien in her father’s
house. The zeal of friendship, and parental affection, suggested
a liberal artifice: a qualified citizen was named in the
testament, with a prayer or injunction that he would restore the
inheritance to the person for whom it was truly intended. Various
was the conduct of the trustees in this painful situation: they
had sworn to observe the laws of their country, but honor
prompted them to violate their oath; and if they preferred their
interest under the mask of patriotism, they forfeited the esteem
of every virtuous mind. The declaration of Augustus relieved
their doubts, gave a legal sanction to confidential testaments
and codicils, and gently unravelled the forms and restraints of
the republican jurisprudence. 156 But as the new practice of
trusts degenerated into some abuse, the trustee was enabled, by
the Trebellian and Pegasian decrees, to reserve one fourth of the
estate, or to transfer on the head of the real heir all the debts
and actions of the succession. The interpretation of testaments
was strict and literal; but the language of trusts and codicils
was delivered from the minute and technical accuracy of the
civilians. 157
155 (return) [ Dion Cassius (tom. ii. l. lvi. p. 814, with
Reimar’s Notes) specifies in Greek money the sum of 25,000
drachms.]
156 (return) [ The revolutions of the Roman laws of inheritance
are finely, though sometimes fancifully, deduced by Montesquieu,
(Esprit des Loix, l. xxvii.)]
157 (return) [ Of the civil jurisprudence of successions,
testaments, codicils, legacies, and trusts, the principles are
ascertained in the Institutes of Caius, (l. ii. tit. ii.—ix. p.
91—144,) Justinian, (l. ii. tit. x.—xxv.,) and Theophilus, (p.
328—514;) and the immense detail occupies twelve books
(xxviii.—xxxix.) of the Pandects.] III. The general duties of
mankind are imposed by their public and private relations: but
their specific obligations to each other can only be the effect
of, 1. a promise, 2. a benefit, or 3. an injury: and when these
obligations are ratified by law, the interested party may compel
the performance by a judicial action. On this principle, the
civilians of every country have erected a similar jurisprudence,
the fair conclusion of universal reason and justice. 158
158 (return) [ The Institutes of Caius, (l. ii. tit. ix. x. p.
144—214,) of Justinian, (l. iii. tit. xiv.—xxx. l. iv. tit.
i.—vi.,) and of Theophilus, (p. 616—837,) distinguish four sorts
of obligations—aut re, aut verbis, aut literis aut consensu: but
I confess myself partial to my own division. Note: It is not at
all applicable to the Roman system of contracts, even if I were
allowed to be good.—M.]
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part VII.
1. The goddess of faith (of human and social faith) was
worshipped, not only in her temples, but in the lives of the
Romans; and if that nation was deficient in the more amiable
qualities of benevolence and generosity, they astonished the
Greeks by their sincere and simple performance of the most
burdensome engagements. 159 Yet among the same people, according
to the rigid maxims of the patricians and decemvirs, a naked
pact, a promise, or even an oath, did not create any civil
obligation, unless it was confirmed by the legal form of a
stipulation. Whatever might be the etymology of the Latin word,
it conveyed the idea of a firm and irrevocable contract, which
was always expressed in the mode of a question and answer. Do you
promise to pay me one hundred pieces of gold? was the solemn
interrogation of Seius. I do promise, was the reply of
Sempronius. The friends of Sempronius, who answered for his
ability and inclination, might be separately sued at the option
of Seius; and the benefit of partition, or order of reciprocal
actions, insensibly deviated from the strict theory of
stipulation. The most cautious and deliberate consent was justly
required to sustain the validity of a gratuitous promise; and the
citizen who might have obtained a legal security, incurred the
suspicion of fraud, and paid the forfeit of his neglect. But the
ingenuity of the civilians successfully labored to convert simple
engagements into the form of solemn stipulations. The praetors,
as the guardians of social faith, admitted every rational
evidence of a voluntary and deliberate act, which in their
tribunal produced an equitable obligation, and for which they
gave an action and a remedy. 160
159 (return) [ How much is the cool, rational evidence of
Polybius (l. vi. p. 693, l. xxxi. p. 1459, 1460) superior to
vague, indiscriminate applause—omnium maxime et praecipue fidem
coluit, (A. Gellius, xx. l.)]
160 (return) [ The Jus Praetorium de Pactis et Transactionibus is
a separate and satisfactory treatise of Gerard Noodt, (Opp. tom.
i. p. 483—564.) And I will here observe, that the universities of
Holland and Brandenburg, in the beginning of the present century,
appear to have studied the civil law on the most just and liberal
principles. * Note: Simple agreements (pacta) formed as valid an
obligation as a solemn contract. Only an action, or the right to
a direct judicial prosecution, was not permitted in every case of
compact. In all other respects, the judge was bound to maintain
an agreement made by pactum. The stipulation was a form common to
every kind of agreement, by which the right of action was given
to this.—W.]
2. The obligations of the second class, as they were contracted
by the delivery of a thing, are marked by the civilians with the
epithet of real. 161 A grateful return is due to the author of a
benefit; and whoever is intrusted with the property of another,
has bound himself to the sacred duty of restitution. In the case
of a friendly loan, the merit of generosity is on the side of the
lender only; in a deposit, on the side of the receiver; but in a
pledge, and the rest of the selfish commerce of ordinary life,
the benefit is compensated by an equivalent, and the obligation
to restore is variously modified by the nature of the
transaction. The Latin language very happily expresses the
fundamental difference between the commodatum and the mutuum,
which our poverty is reduced to confound under the vague and
common appellation of a loan. In the former, the borrower was
obliged to restore the same individual thing with which he had
been accommodated for the temporary supply of his wants; in the
latter, it was destined for his use and consumption, and he
discharged this mutual engagement, by substituting the same
specific value according to a just estimation of number, of
weight, and of measure. In the contract of sale, the absolute
dominion is transferred to the purchaser, and he repays the
benefit with an adequate sum of gold or silver, the price and
universal standard of all earthly possessions. The obligation of
another contract, that of location, is of a more complicated
kind. Lands or houses, labor or talents, may be hired for a
definite term; at the expiration of the time, the thing itself
must be restored to the owner, with an additional reward for the
beneficial occupation and employment. In these lucrative
contracts, to which may be added those of partnership and
commissions, the civilians sometimes imagine the delivery of the
object, and sometimes presume the consent of the parties. The
substantial pledge has been refined into the invisible rights of
a mortgage or hypotheca; and the agreement of sale, for a certain
price, imputes, from that moment, the chances of gain or loss to
the account of the purchaser. It may be fairly supposed, that
every man will obey the dictates of his interest; and if he
accepts the benefit, he is obliged to sustain the expense, of the
transaction. In this boundless subject, the historian will
observe the location of land and money, the rent of the one and
the interest of the other, as they materially affect the
prosperity of agriculture and commerce. The landlord was often
obliged to advance the stock and instruments of husbandry, and to
content himself with a partition of the fruits. If the feeble
tenant was oppressed by accident, contagion, or hostile violence,
he claimed a proportionable relief from the equity of the laws:
five years were the customary term, and no solid or costly
improvements could be expected from a farmer, who, at each moment
might be ejected by the sale of the estate. 162 Usury, 163 the
inveterate grievance of the city, had been discouraged by the
Twelve Tables, 164 and abolished by the clamors of the people. It
was revived by their wants and idleness, tolerated by the
discretion of the praetors, and finally determined by the Code of
Justinian. Persons of illustrious rank were confined to the
moderate profit of four per cent.; six was pronounced to be the
ordinary and legal standard of interest; eight was allowed for
the convenience of manufactures and merchants; twelve was granted
to nautical insurance, which the wiser ancients had not attempted
to define; but, except in this perilous adventure, the practice
of exorbitant usury was severely restrained. 165 The most simple
interest was condemned by the clergy of the East and West; 166
but the sense of mutual benefit, which had triumphed over the law
of the republic, has resisted with equal firmness the decrees of
the church, and even the prejudices of mankind. 167
161 (return) [ The nice and various subject of contracts by
consent is spread over four books (xvii.—xx.) of the Pandects,
and is one of the parts best deserving of the attention of an
English student. * Note: This is erroneously called “benefits.”
Gibbon enumerates various kinds of contracts, of which some alone
are properly called benefits.—W.]
162 (return) [ The covenants of rent are defined in the Pandects
(l. xix.) and the Code, (l. iv. tit. lxv.) The quinquennium, or
term of five years, appears to have been a custom rather than a
law; but in France all leases of land were determined in nine
years. This limitation was removed only in the year 1775,
(Encyclopedie Methodique, tom. i. de la Jurisprudence, p. 668,
669;) and I am sorry to observe that it yet prevails in the
beauteous and happy country where I am permitted to reside.]
163 (return) [ I might implicitly acquiesce in the sense and
learning of the three books of G. Noodt, de foenore et usuris.
(Opp. tom. i. p. 175—268.) The interpretation of the asses or
centesimoe usuroe at twelve, the unciarioe at one per cent., is
maintained by the best critics and civilians: Noodt, (l. ii. c.
2, p. 207,) Gravina, (Opp. p. 205, &c., 210,) Heineccius,
(Antiquitat. ad Institut. l. iii. tit. xv.,) Montesquieu, (Esprit
des Loix, l. xxii. c. 22, tom. ii. p. 36). Defense de l’Esprit
des Loix, (tom. iii. p. 478, &c.,) and above all, John Frederic
Gronovius (de Pecunia Veteri, l. iii. c. 13, p. 213—227,) and his
three Antexegeses, (p. 455—655), the founder, or at least the
champion, of this probable opinion; which is, however, perplexed
with some difficulties.]
164 (return) [ Primo xii. Tabulis sancitum est ne quis unciario
foenore amplius exerceret, (Tacit. Annal. vi. 16.) Pour peu (says
Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xxii. 22) qu’on soit verse dans
l’histoire de Rome, on verra qu’une pareille loi ne devoit pas
etre l’ouvrage des decemvirs. Was Tacitus ignorant—or stupid? But
the wiser and more virtuous patricians might sacrifice their
avarice to their ambition, and might attempt to check the odious
practice by such interest as no lender would accept, and such
penalties as no debtor would incur. * Note: The real nature of
the foenus unciarium has been proved; it amounted in a year of
twelve months to ten per cent. See, in the Magazine for Civil
Law, by M. Hugo, vol. v. p. 180, 184, an article of M. Schrader,
following up the conjectures of Niebuhr, Hist. Rom. tom. ii. p.
431.—W. Compare a very clear account of this question in the
appendix to Mr. Travers Twiss’s Epitome of Niebuhr, vol. ii. p.
257.—M.]
165 (return) [ Justinian has not condescended to give usury a
place in his Institutes; but the necessary rules and restrictions
are inserted in the Pandects (l. xxii. tit. i. ii.) and the Code,
(l. iv. tit. xxxii. xxxiii.)]
166 (return) [ The Fathers are unanimous, (Barbeyrac, Morale des
Peres, p. 144. &c.:) Cyprian, Lactantius, Basil, Chrysostom, (see
his frivolous arguments in Noodt, l. i. c. 7, p. 188,) Gregory of
Nyssa, Ambrose, Jerom, Augustin, and a host of councils and
casuists.]
167 (return) [ Cato, Seneca, Plutarch, have loudly condemned the
practice or abuse of usury. According to the etymology of foenus,
the principal is supposed to generate the interest: a breed of
barren metal, exclaims Shakespeare—and the stage is the echo of
the public voice.]
3. Nature and society impose the strict obligation of repairing
an injury; and the sufferer by private injustice acquires a
personal right and a legitimate action. If the property of
another be intrusted to our care, the requisite degree of care
may rise and fall according to the benefit which we derive from
such temporary possession; we are seldom made responsible for
inevitable accident, but the consequences of a voluntary fault
must always be imputed to the author. 168 A Roman pursued and
recovered his stolen goods by a civil action of theft; they might
pass through a succession of pure and innocent hands, but nothing
less than a prescription of thirty years could extinguish his
original claim. They were restored by the sentence of the
praetor, and the injury was compensated by double, or threefold,
or even quadruple damages, as the deed had been perpetrated by
secret fraud or open rapine, as the robber had been surprised in
the fact, or detected by a subsequent research. The Aquilian law
169 defended the living property of a citizen, his slaves and
cattle, from the stroke of malice or negligence: the highest
price was allowed that could be ascribed to the domestic animal
at any moment of the year preceding his death; a similar latitude
of thirty days was granted on the destruction of any other
valuable effects. A personal injury is blunted or sharpened by
the manners of the times and the sensibility of the individual:
the pain or the disgrace of a word or blow cannot easily be
appreciated by a pecuniary equivalent. The rude jurisprudence of
the decemvirs had confounded all hasty insults, which did not
amount to the fracture of a limb, by condemning the aggressor to
the common penalty of twenty-five asses. But the same
denomination of money was reduced, in three centuries, from a
pound to the weight of half an ounce: and the insolence of a
wealthy Roman indulged himself in the cheap amusement of breaking
and satisfying the law of the twelve tables. Veratius ran through
the streets striking on the face the inoffensive passengers, and
his attendant purse-bearer immediately silenced their clamors by
the legal tender of twenty-five pieces of copper, about the value
of one shilling. 170 The equity of the praetors examined and
estimated the distinct merits of each particular complaint. In
the adjudication of civil damages, the magistrate assumed a right
to consider the various circumstances of time and place, of age
and dignity, which may aggravate the shame and sufferings of the
injured person; but if he admitted the idea of a fine, a
punishment, an example, he invaded the province, though, perhaps,
he supplied the defects, of the criminal law.
168 (return) Sir William Jones has given an ingenious and
rational Essay on the law of Bailment, (London, 1781, p. 127, in
8vo.) He is perhaps the only lawyer equally conversant with the
year-books of Westminster, the Commentaries of Ulpian, the Attic
pleadings of Isaeus, and the sentences of Arabian and Persian
cadhis.]
169 (return) [ Noodt (Opp. tom. i. p. 137—172) has composed a
separate treatise, ad Legem Aquilian, (Pandect. l. ix. tit. ii.)]
170 (return) [ Aulus Gellius (Noct. Attic. xx. i.) borrowed this
story from the Commentaries of Q. Labeo on the xii. tables.]
The execution of the Alban dictator, who was dismembered by eight
horses, is represented by Livy as the first and the fast instance
of Roman cruelty in the punishment of the most atrocious crimes.
171 But this act of justice, or revenge, was inflicted on a
foreign enemy in the heat of victory, and at the command of a
single man. The twelve tables afford a more decisive proof of the
national spirit, since they were framed by the wisest of the
senate, and accepted by the free voices of the people; yet these
laws, like the statutes of Draco, 172 are written in characters
of blood. 173 They approve the inhuman and unequal principle of
retaliation; and the forfeit of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a
tooth, a limb for a limb, is rigorously exacted, unless the
offender can redeem his pardon by a fine of three hundred pounds
of copper. The decemvirs distributed with much liberality the
slighter chastisements of flagellation and servitude; and nine
crimes of a very different complexion are adjudged worthy of
death.
1. Any act of treason against the state, or of correspondence
with the public enemy. The mode of execution was painful and
ignominious: the head of the degenerate Roman was shrouded in a
veil, his hands were tied behind his back, and after he had been
scourged by the lictor, he was suspended in the midst of the
forum on a cross, or inauspicious tree.
2. Nocturnal meetings in the city; whatever might be the
pretence, of pleasure, or religion, or the public good.
3. The murder of a citizen; for which the common feelings of
mankind demand the blood of the murderer. Poison is still more
odious than the sword or dagger; and we are surprised to
discover, in two flagitious events, how early such subtle
wickedness had infected the simplicity of the republic, and the
chaste virtues of the Roman matrons. 174 The parricide, who
violated the duties of nature and gratitude, was cast into the
river or the sea, enclosed in a sack; and a cock, a viper, a dog,
and a monkey, were successively added, as the most suitable
companions. 175 Italy produces no monkeys; but the want could
never be felt, till the middle of the sixth century first
revealed the guilt of a parricide. 176
4. The malice of an incendiary. After the previous ceremony of
whipping, he himself was delivered to the flames; and in this
example alone our reason is tempted to applaud the justice of
retaliation.
5. Judicial perjury. The corrupt or malicious witness was thrown
headlong from the Tarpeian rock, to expiate his falsehood, which
was rendered still more fatal by the severity of the penal laws,
and the deficiency of written evidence.
6. The corruption of a judge, who accepted bribes to pronounce an
iniquitous sentence.
7. Libels and satires, whose rude strains sometimes disturbed the
peace of an illiterate city. The author was beaten with clubs, a
worthy chastisement, but it is not certain that he was left to
expire under the blows of the executioner. 177
8. The nocturnal mischief of damaging or destroying a neighbor’s
corn. The criminal was suspended as a grateful victim to Ceres.
But the sylvan deities were less implacable, and the extirpation
of a more valuable tree was compensated by the moderate fine of
twenty-five pounds of copper.
9. Magical incantations; which had power, in the opinion of the
Latin shepherds, to exhaust the strength of an enemy, to
extinguish his life, and to remove from their seats his
deep-rooted plantations.
The cruelty of the twelve tables against insolvent debtors still
remains to be told; and I shall dare to prefer the literal sense
of antiquity to the specious refinements of modern criticism. 178
1781 After the judicial proof or confession of the debt, thirty
days of grace were allowed before a Roman was delivered into the
power of his fellow-citizen. In this private prison, twelve
ounces of rice were his daily food; he might be bound with a
chain of fifteen pounds weight; and his misery was thrice exposed
in the market place, to solicit the compassion of his friends and
countrymen. At the expiration of sixty days, the debt was
discharged by the loss of liberty or life; the insolvent debtor
was either put to death, or sold in foreign slavery beyond the
Tyber: but, if several creditors were alike obstinate and
unrelenting, they might legally dismember his body, and satiate
their revenge by this horrid partition. The advocates for this
savage law have insisted, that it must strongly operate in
deterring idleness and fraud from contracting debts which they
were unable to discharge; but experience would dissipate this
salutary terror, by proving that no creditor could be found to
exact this unprofitable penalty of life or limb. As the manners
of Rome were insensibly polished, the criminal code of the
decemvirs was abolished by the humanity of accusers, witnesses,
and judges; and impunity became the consequence of immoderate
rigor. The Porcian and Valerian laws prohibited the magistrates
from inflicting on a free citizen any capital, or even corporal,
punishment; and the obsolete statutes of blood were artfully, and
perhaps truly, ascribed to the spirit, not of patrician, but of
regal, tyranny.
171 (return) [ The narrative of Livy (i. 28) is weighty and
solemn. At tu, Albane, maneres, is a harsh reflection, unworthy
of Virgil’s humanity, (Aeneid, viii. 643.) Heyne, with his usual
good taste, observes that the subject was too horrid for the
shield of Aencas, (tom. iii. p. 229.)]
172 (return) [ The age of Draco (Olympiad xxxix. l) is fixed by
Sir John Marsham (Canon Chronicus, p. 593—596) and Corsini,
(Fasti Attici, tom. iii. p. 62.) For his laws, see the writers on
the government of Athens, Sigonius, Meursius, Potter, &c.]
173 (return) [ The viith, de delictis, of the xii. tables is
delineated by Gravina, (Opp. p. 292, 293, with a commentary, p.
214—230.) Aulus Gellius (xx. 1) and the Collatio Legum Mosaicarum
et Romanarum afford much original information.]
174 (return) [ Livy mentions two remarkable and flagitious aeras,
of 3000 persons accused, and of 190 noble matrons convicted, of
the crime of poisoning, (xl. 43, viii. 18.) Mr. Hume
discriminates the ages of private and public virtue, (Essays,
vol. i. p. 22, 23.) I would rather say that such ebullitions of
mischief (as in France in the year 1680) are accidents and
prodigies which leave no marks on the manners of a nation.]
175 (return) [ The xii. tables and Cicero (pro Roscio Amerino, c.
25, 26) are content with the sack; Seneca (Excerpt. Controvers. v
4) adorns it with serpents; Juvenal pities the guiltless monkey
(innoxia simia—156.) Adrian (apud Dositheum Magistrum, l. iii. c.
p. 874—876, with Schulting’s Note,) Modestinus, (Pandect. xlviii.
tit. ix. leg. 9,) Constantine, (Cod. l. ix. tit. xvii.,) and
Justinian, (Institut. l. iv. tit. xviii.,) enumerate all the
companions of the parricide. But this fanciful execution was
simplified in practice. Hodie tamen viv exuruntur vel ad bestias
dantur, (Paul. Sentent. Recept. l. v. tit. xxiv p. 512, edit.
Schulting.)]
176 (return) [ The first parricide at Rome was L. Ostius, after
the second Punic war, (Plutarch, in Romulo, tom. i. p. 54.)
During the Cimbric, P. Malleolus was guilty of the first
matricide, (Liv. Epitom. l. lxviii.)]
177 (return) [ Horace talks of the formidine fustis, (l. ii.
epist. ii. 154,) but Cicero (de Republica, l. iv. apud Augustin.
de Civitat. Dei, ix. 6, in Fragment. Philosoph. tom. iii. p. 393,
edit. Olivet) affirms that the decemvirs made libels a capital
offence: cum perpaucas res capite sanxisent—perpaucus!]
178 (return) [ Bynkershoek (Observat. Juris Rom. l. i. c. 1, in
Opp. tom. i. p. 9, 10, 11) labors to prove that the creditors
divided not the body, but the price, of the insolvent debtor. Yet
his interpretation is one perpetual harsh metaphor; nor can he
surmount the Roman authorities of Quintilian, Caecilius,
Favonius, and Tertullian. See Aulus Gellius, Noct. Attic. xxi.]
1781 (return) [ Hugo (Histoire du Droit Romain, tom. i. p. 234)
concurs with Gibbon See Niebuhr, vol. ii. p. 313.—M.]
In the absence of penal laws, and the insufficiency of civil
actions, the peace and justice of the city were imperfectly
maintained by the private jurisdiction of the citizens. The
malefactors who replenish our jails are the outcasts of society,
and the crimes for which they suffer may be commonly ascribed to
ignorance, poverty, and brutal appetite. For the perpetration of
similar enormities, a vile plebeian might claim and abuse the
sacred character of a member of the republic: but, on the proof
or suspicion of guilt, the slave, or the stranger, was nailed to
a cross; and this strict and summary justice might be exercised
without restraint over the greatest part of the populace of Rome.
Each family contained a domestic tribunal, which was not
confined, like that of the praetor, to the cognizance of external
actions: virtuous principles and habits were inculcated by the
discipline of education; and the Roman father was accountable to
the state for the manners of his children, since he disposed,
without appeal, of their life, their liberty, and their
inheritance. In some pressing emergencies, the citizen was
authorized to avenge his private or public wrongs. The consent of
the Jewish, the Athenian, and the Roman laws approved the
slaughter of the nocturnal thief; though in open daylight a
robber could not be slain without some previous evidence of
danger and complaint. Whoever surprised an adulterer in his
nuptial bed might freely exercise his revenge; 179 the most
bloody and wanton outrage was excused by the provocation; 180 nor
was it before the reign of Augustus that the husband was reduced
to weigh the rank of the offender, or that the parent was
condemned to sacrifice his daughter with her guilty seducer.
After the expulsion of the kings, the ambitious Roman, who should
dare to assume their title or imitate their tyranny, was devoted
to the infernal gods: each of his fellow-citizens was armed with
the sword of justice; and the act of Brutus, however repugnant to
gratitude or prudence, had been already sanctified by the
judgment of his country. 181 The barbarous practice of wearing
arms in the midst of peace, 182 and the bloody maxims of honor,
were unknown to the Romans; and, during the two purest ages, from
the establishment of equal freedom to the end of the Punic wars,
the city was never disturbed by sedition, and rarely polluted
with atrocious crimes. The failure of penal laws was more
sensibly felt, when every vice was inflamed by faction at home
and dominion abroad. In the time of Cicero, each private citizen
enjoyed the privilege of anarchy; each minister of the republic
was exalted to the temptations of regal power, and their virtues
are entitled to the warmest praise, as the spontaneous fruits of
nature or philosophy. After a triennial indulgence of lust,
rapine, and cruelty, Verres, the tyrant of Sicily, could only be
sued for the pecuniary restitution of three hundred thousand
pounds sterling; and such was the temper of the laws, the judges,
and perhaps the accuser himself, 183 that, on refunding a
thirteenth part of his plunder, Verres could retire to an easy
and luxurious exile. 184
179 (return) [ The first speech of Lysias (Reiske, Orator. Graec.
tom. v. p. 2—48) is in defence of a husband who had killed the
adulterer. The rights of husbands and fathers at Rome and Athens
are discussed with much learning by Dr. Taylor, (Lectiones
Lysiacae, c. xi. in Reiske, tom. vi. p. 301—308.)]
180 (return) [ See Casaubon ad Athenaeum, l. i. c. 5, p. 19.
Percurrent raphanique mugilesque, (Catull. p. 41, 42, edit.
Vossian.) Hunc mugilis intrat, (Juvenal. Satir. x. 317.) Hunc
perminxere calones, (Horat l. i. Satir. ii. 44.) Familiae
stuprandum dedit.. fraudi non fuit, (Val. Maxim. l. vi. c. l, No.
13.)]
181 (return) [ This law is noticed by Livy (ii. 8) and Plutarch,
(in Publiccla, tom. i. p. 187,) and it fully justifies the public
opinion on the death of Caesar which Suetonius could publish
under the Imperial government. Jure caesus existimatur, (in
Julio, c. 76.) Read the letters that passed between Cicero and
Matius a few months after the ides of March (ad Fam. xi. 27,
28.)]
182 (return) [ Thucydid. l. i. c. 6 The historian who considers
this circumstance as the test of civilization, would disdain the
barbarism of a European court]
183 (return) [ He first rated at millies (800,000 L.) the damages
of Sicily, (Divinatio in Caecilium, c. 5,) which he afterwards
reduced to quadringenties, (320,000 L.—1 Actio in Verrem, c. 18,)
and was finally content with tricies, (24,000l L.) Plutarch (in
Ciceron. tom. iii. p. 1584) has not dissembled the popular
suspicion and report.]
184 (return) [ Verres lived near thirty years after his trial,
till the second triumvirate, when he was proscribed by the taste
of Mark Antony for the sake of his Corinthian plate, (Plin. Hist.
Natur. xxxiv. 3.)]
The first imperfect attempt to restore the proportion of crimes
and punishments was made by the dictator Sylla, who, in the midst
of his sanguinary triumph, aspired to restrain the license,
rather than to oppress the liberty, of the Romans. He gloried in
the arbitrary proscription of four thousand seven hundred
citizens. 185 But, in the character of a legislator, he respected
the prejudices of the times; and, instead of pronouncing a
sentence of death against the robber or assassin, the general who
betrayed an army, or the magistrate who ruined a province, Sylla
was content to aggravate the pecuniary damages by the penalty of
exile, or, in more constitutional language, by the interdiction
of fire and water. The Cornelian, and afterwards the Pompeian and
Julian, laws introduced a new system of criminal jurisprudence;
186 and the emperors, from Augustus to Justinian, disguised their
increasing rigor under the names of the original authors. But the
invention and frequent use of extraordinary pains proceeded from
the desire to extend and conceal the progress of despotism. In
the condemnation of illustrious Romans, the senate was always
prepared to confound, at the will of their masters, the judicial
and legislative powers. It was the duty of the governors to
maintain the peace of their province, by the arbitrary and rigid
administration of justice; the freedom of the city evaporated in
the extent of empire, and the Spanish malefactor, who claimed the
privilege of a Roman, was elevated by the command of Galba on a
fairer and more lofty cross. 187 Occasional rescripts issued from
the throne to decide the questions which, by their novelty or
importance, appeared to surpass the authority and discernment of
a proconsul. Transportation and beheading were reserved for
honorable persons; meaner criminals were either hanged, or burnt,
or buried in the mines, or exposed to the wild beasts of the
amphitheatre. Armed robbers were pursued and extirpated as the
enemies of society; the driving away horses or cattle was made a
capital offence; 188 but simple theft was uniformly considered as
a mere civil and private injury. The degrees of guilt, and the
modes of punishment, were too often determined by the discretion
of the rulers, and the subject was left in ignorance of the legal
danger which he might incur by every action of his life.
185 (return) [ Such is the number assigned by Valer’us Maximus,
(l. ix. c. 2, No. 1,) Florus (iv. 21) distinguishes 2000 senators
and knights. Appian (de Bell. Civil. l. i. c. 95, tom. ii. p.
133, edit. Schweighauser) more accurately computes forty victims
of the senatorian rank, and 1600 of the equestrian census or
order.]
186 (return) [ For the penal laws (Leges Corneliae, Pompeiae,
Julae, of Sylla, Pompey, and the Caesars) see the sentences of
Paulus, (l. iv. tit. xviii.—xxx. p. 497—528, edit. Schulting,)
the Gregorian Code, (Fragment. l. xix. p. 705, 706, in
Schulting,) the Collatio Legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum, (tit.
i.—xv.,) the Theodosian Code, (l. ix.,) the Code of Justinian,
(l. ix.,) the Pandects, (xlviii.,) the Institutes, (l. iv. tit.
xviii.,) and the Greek version of Theophilus, (p. 917—926.)]
187 (return) [ It was a guardian who had poisoned his ward. The
crime was atrocious: yet the punishment is reckoned by Suetonius
(c. 9) among the acts in which Galba showed himself acer,
vehemens, et in delictis coercendis immodicus.]
188 (return) [ The abactores or abigeatores, who drove one horse,
or two mares or oxen, or five hogs, or ten goats, were subject to
capital punishment, (Paul, Sentent. Recept. l. iv. tit. xviii. p.
497, 498.) Hadrian, (ad Concil. Baeticae,) most severe where the
offence was most frequent, condemns the criminals, ad gladium,
ludi damnationem, (Ulpian, de Officio Proconsulis, l. viii. in
Collatione Legum Mosaic. et Rom. tit. xi p. 235.)]
A sin, a vice, a crime, are the objects of theology, ethics, and
jurisprudence. Whenever their judgments agree, they corroborate
each other; but, as often as they differ, a prudent legislator
appreciates the guilt and punishment according to the measure of
social injury. On this principle, the most daring attack on the
life and property of a private citizen is judged less atrocious
than the crime of treason or rebellion, which invades the majesty
of the republic: the obsequious civilians unanimously pronounced,
that the republic is contained in the person of its chief; and
the edge of the Julian law was sharpened by the incessant
diligence of the emperors. The licentious commerce of the sexes
may be tolerated as an impulse of nature, or forbidden as a
source of disorder and corruption; but the fame, the fortunes,
the family of the husband, are seriously injured by the adultery
of the wife. The wisdom of Augustus, after curbing the freedom of
revenge, applied to this domestic offence the animadversion of
the laws: and the guilty parties, after the payment of heavy
forfeitures and fines, were condemned to long or perpetual exile
in two separate islands. 189 Religion pronounces an equal censure
against the infidelity of the husband; but, as it is not
accompanied by the same civil effects, the wife was never
permitted to vindicate her wrongs; 190 and the distinction of
simple or double adultery, so familiar and so important in the
canon law, is unknown to the jurisprudence of the Code and the
Pandects. I touch with reluctance, and despatch with impatience,
a more odious vice, of which modesty rejects the name, and nature
abominates the idea. The primitive Romans were infected by the
example of the Etruscans 191 and Greeks: 192 and in the mad abuse
of prosperity and power, every pleasure that is innocent was
deemed insipid; and the Scatinian law, 193 which had been
extorted by an act of violence, was insensibly abolished by the
lapse of time and the multitude of criminals. By this law, the
rape, perhaps the seduction, of an ingenuous youth, was
compensated, as a personal injury, by the poor damages of ten
thousand sesterces, or fourscore pounds; the ravisher might be
slain by the resistance or revenge of chastity; and I wish to
believe, that at Rome, as in Athens, the voluntary and effeminate
deserter of his sex was degraded from the honors and the rights
of a citizen. 194 But the practice of vice was not discouraged by
the severity of opinion: the indelible stain of manhood was
confounded with the more venial transgressions of fornication and
adultery, nor was the licentious lover exposed to the same
dishonor which he impressed on the male or female partner of his
guilt. From Catullus to Juvenal, 195 the poets accuse and
celebrate the degeneracy of the times; and the reformation of
manners was feebly attempted by the reason and authority of the
civilians till the most virtuous of the Caesars proscribed the
sin against nature as a crime against society. 196
189 (return) [ Till the publication of the Julius Paulus of
Schulting, (l. ii. tit. xxvi. p. 317—323,) it was affirmed and
believed that the Julian laws punished adultery with death; and
the mistake arose from the fraud or error of Tribonian. Yet
Lipsius had suspected the truth from the narratives of Tacitus,
(Annal. ii. 50, iii. 24, iv. 42,) and even from the practice of
Augustus, who distinguished the treasonable frailties of his
female kindred.]
190 (return) [ In cases of adultery, Severus confined to the
husband the right of public accusation, (Cod. Justinian, l. ix.
tit. ix. leg. 1.) Nor is this privilege unjust—so different are
the effects of male or female infidelity.]
191 (return) [ Timon (l. i.) and Theopompus (l. xliii. apud
Athenaeum, l. xii. p. 517) describe the luxury and lust of the
Etruscans. About the same period (A. U. C. 445) the Roman youth
studied in Etruria, (liv. ix. 36.)]
192 (return) [ The Persians had been corrupted in the same
school, (Herodot. l. i. c. 135.) A curious dissertation might be
formed on the introduction of paederasty after the time of Homer,
its progress among the Greeks of Asia and Europe, the vehemence
of their passions, and the thin device of virtue and friendship
which amused the philosophers of Athens. But scelera ostendi
oportet dum puniuntur, abscondi flagitia.]
193 (return) [ The name, the date, and the provisions of this law
are equally doubtful, (Gravina, Opp. p. 432, 433. Heineccius,
Hist. Jur. Rom. No. 108. Ernesti, Clav. Ciceron. in Indice
Legum.) But I will observe that the nefanda Venus of the honest
German is styled aversa by the more polite Italian.]
194 (return) [ See the oration of Aeschines against the catamite
Timarchus, (in Reiske, Orator. Graec. tom. iii. p. 21—184.)]
195 (return) [ A crowd of disgraceful passages will force
themselves on the memory of the classic reader: I will only
remind him of the cool declaration of Ovid:— Odi concubitus qui
non utrumque resolvant. Hoc est quod puerum tangar amore minus.]
196 (return) [ Aelius Lampridius, in Vit. Heliogabal. in Hist.
August p. 112 Aurelius Victor, in Philippo, Codex Theodos. l. ix.
tit. vii. leg. 7, and Godefroy’s Commentary, tom. iii. p. 63.
Theodosius abolished the subterraneous brothels of Rome, in which
the prostitution of both sexes was acted with impunity.]
Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part VIII.
A new spirit of legislation, respectable even in its error, arose
in the empire with the religion of Constantine. 197 The laws of
Moses were received as the divine original of justice, and the
Christian princes adapted their penal statutes to the degrees of
moral and religious turpitude. Adultery was first declared to be
a capital offence: the frailty of the sexes was assimilated to
poison or assassination, to sorcery or parricide; the same
penalties were inflicted on the passive and active guilt of
paederasty; and all criminals of free or servile condition were
either drowned or beheaded, or cast alive into the avenging
flames. The adulterers were spared by the common sympathy of
mankind; but the lovers of their own sex were pursued by general
and pious indignation: the impure manners of Greece still
prevailed in the cities of Asia, and every vice was fomented by
the celibacy of the monks and clergy. Justinian relaxed the
punishment at least of female infidelity: the guilty spouse was
only condemned to solitude and penance, and at the end of two
years she might be recalled to the arms of a forgiving husband.
But the same emperor declared himself the implacable enemy of
unmanly lust, and the cruelty of his persecution can scarcely be
excused by the purity of his motives. 198 In defiance of every
principle of justice, he stretched to past as well as future
offences the operations of his edicts, with the previous
allowance of a short respite for confession and pardon. A painful
death was inflicted by the amputation of the sinful instrument,
or the insertion of sharp reeds into the pores and tubes of most
exquisite sensibility; and Justinian defended the propriety of
the execution, since the criminals would have lost their hands,
had they been convicted of sacrilege. In this state of disgrace
and agony, two bishops, Isaiah of Rhodes and Alexander of
Diospolis, were dragged through the streets of Constantinople,
while their brethren were admonished, by the voice of a crier, to
observe this awful lesson, and not to pollute the sanctity of
their character. Perhaps these prelates were innocent. A sentence
of death and infamy was often founded on the slight and
suspicious evidence of a child or a servant: the guilt of the
green faction, of the rich, and of the enemies of Theodora, was
presumed by the judges, and paederasty became the crime of those
to whom no crime could be imputed. A French philosopher 199 has
dared to remark that whatever is secret must be doubtful, and
that our natural horror of vice may be abused as an engine of
tyranny. But the favorable persuasion of the same writer, that a
legislator may confide in the taste and reason of mankind, is
impeached by the unwelcome discovery of the antiquity and extent
of the disease. 200
197 (return) [ See the laws of Constantine and his successors
against adultery, sodomy &c., in the Theodosian, (l. ix. tit.
vii. leg. 7, l. xi. tit. xxxvi leg. 1, 4) and Justinian Codes,
(l. ix. tit. ix. leg. 30, 31.) These princes speak the language
of passion as well as of justice, and fraudulently ascribe their
own severity to the first Caesars.]
198 (return) [ Justinian, Novel. lxxvii. cxxxiv. cxli. Procopius
in Anecdot. c. 11, 16, with the notes of Alemannus. Theophanes,
p. 151. Cedrenus. p. 688. Zonaras, l. xiv. p. 64.]
199 (return) [ Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xii. c. 6. That
eloquent philosopher conciliates the rights of liberty and of
nature, which should never be placed in opposition to each
other.]
200 (return) [ For the corruption of Palestine, 2000 years before
the Christian aera, see the history and laws of Moses. Ancient
Gaul is stigmatized by Diodorus Siculus, (tom. i. l. v. p. 356,)
China by the Mahometar and Christian travellers, (Ancient
Relations of India and China, p. 34 translated by Renaudot, and
his bitter critic the Pere Premare, Lettres Edifiantes, tom. xix.
p. 435,) and native America by the Spanish historians,
(Garcilasso de la Vega, l. iii. c. 13, Rycaut’s translation; and
Dictionnaire de Bayle, tom. iii. p. 88.) I believe, and hope,
that the negroes, in their own country, were exempt from this
moral pestilence.]
The free citizens of Athens and Rome enjoyed, in all criminal
cases, the invaluable privilege of being tried by their country.
201 1. The administration of justice is the most ancient office
of a prince: it was exercised by the Roman kings, and abused by
Tarquin; who alone, without law or council, pronounced his
arbitrary judgments. The first consuls succeeded to this regal
prerogative; but the sacred right of appeal soon abolished the
jurisdiction of the magistrates, and all public causes were
decided by the supreme tribunal of the people. But a wild
democracy, superior to the forms, too often disdains the
essential principles, of justice: the pride of despotism was
envenomed by plebeian envy, and the heroes of Athens might
sometimes applaud the happiness of the Persian, whose fate
depended on the caprice of a single tyrant. Some salutary
restraints, imposed by the people or their own passions, were at
once the cause and effect of the gravity and temperance of the
Romans. The right of accusation was confined to the magistrates.
A vote of the thirty five tribes could inflict a fine; but the
cognizance of all capital crimes was reserved by a fundamental
law to the assembly of the centuries, in which the weight of
influence and property was sure to preponderate. Repeated
proclamations and adjournments were interposed, to allow time for
prejudice and resentment to subside: the whole proceeding might
be annulled by a seasonable omen, or the opposition of a tribune;
and such popular trials were commonly less formidable to
innocence than they were favorable to guilt. But this union of
the judicial and legislative powers left it doubtful whether the
accused party was pardoned or acquitted; and, in the defence of
an illustrious client, the orators of Rome and Athens address
their arguments to the policy and benevolence, as well as to the
justice, of their sovereign. 2. The task of convening the
citizens for the trial of each offender became more difficult, as
the citizens and the offenders continually multiplied; and the
ready expedient was adopted of delegating the jurisdiction of the
people to the ordinary magistrates, or to extraordinary
inquisitors. In the first ages these questions were rare and
occasional. In the beginning of the seventh century of Rome they
were made perpetual: four praetors were annually empowered to sit
in judgment on the state offences of treason, extortion,
peculation, and bribery; and Sylla added new praetors and new
questions for those crimes which more directly injure the safety
of individuals. By these inquisitors the trial was prepared and
directed; but they could only pronounce the sentence of the
majority of judges, who with some truth, and more prejudice, have
been compared to the English juries. 202 To discharge this
important, though burdensome office, an annual list of ancient
and respectable citizens was formed by the praetor. After many
constitutional struggles, they were chosen in equal numbers from
the senate, the equestrian order, and the people; four hundred
and fifty were appointed for single questions; and the various
rolls or decuries of judges must have contained the names of some
thousand Romans, who represented the judicial authority of the
state. In each particular cause, a sufficient number was drawn
from the urn; their integrity was guarded by an oath; the mode of
ballot secured their independence; the suspicion of partiality
was removed by the mutual challenges of the accuser and
defendant; and the judges of Milo, by the retrenchment of fifteen
on each side, were reduced to fifty-one voices or tablets, of
acquittal, of condemnation, or of favorable doubt. 203 3. In his
civil jurisdiction, the praetor of the city was truly a judge,
and almost a legislator; but, as soon as he had prescribed the
action of law, he often referred to a delegate the determination
of the fact. With the increase of legal proceedings, the tribunal
of the centumvirs, in which he presided, acquired more weight and
reputation. But whether he acted alone, or with the advice of his
council, the most absolute powers might be trusted to a
magistrate who was annually chosen by the votes of the people.
The rules and precautions of freedom have required some
explanation; the order of despotism is simple and inanimate.
Before the age of Justinian, or perhaps of Diocletian, the
decuries of Roman judges had sunk to an empty title: the humble
advice of the assessors might be accepted or despised; and in
each tribunal the civil and criminal jurisdiction was
administered by a single magistrate, who was raised and disgraced
by the will of the emperor.
201 (return) [The important subject of the public questions and
judgments at Rome, is explained with much learning, and in a
classic style, by Charles Sigonius, (l. iii. de Judiciis, in Opp.
tom. iii. p. 679—864;) and a good abridgment may be found in the
Republique Romaine of Beaufort, (tom. ii. l. v. p. 1—121.) Those
who wish for more abstruse law may study Noodt, (de Jurisdictione
et Imperio Libri duo, tom. i. p. 93—134,) Heineccius, (ad
Pandect. l. i. et ii. ad Institut. l. iv. tit. xvii Element. ad
Antiquitat.) and Gravina (Opp. 230—251.)]
202 (return) [ The office, both at Rome and in England, must be
considered as an occasional duty, and not a magistracy, or
profession. But the obligation of a unanimous verdict is peculiar
to our laws, which condemn the jurymen to undergo the torture
from whence they have exempted the criminal.]
203 (return) [ We are indebted for this interesting fact to a
fragment of Asconius Pedianus, who flourished under the reign of
Tiberius. The loss of his Commentaries on the Orations of Cicero
has deprived us of a valuable fund of historical and legal
knowledge.]
A Roman accused of any capital crime might prevent the sentence
of the law by voluntary exile, or death. Till his guilt had been
legally proved, his innocence was presumed, and his person was
free: till the votes of the last century had been counted and
declared, he might peaceably secede to any of the allied cities
of Italy, or Greece, or Asia. 204 His fame and fortunes were
preserved, at least to his children, by this civil death; and he
might still be happy in every rational and sensual enjoyment, if
a mind accustomed to the ambitious tumult of Rome could support
the uniformity and silence of Rhodes or Athens. A bolder effort
was required to escape from the tyranny of the Caesars; but this
effort was rendered familiar by the maxims of the stoics, the
example of the bravest Romans, and the legal encouragements of
suicide. The bodies of condemned criminals were exposed to public
ignominy, and their children, a more serious evil, were reduced
to poverty by the confiscation of their fortunes. But, if the
victims of Tiberius and Nero anticipated the decree of the prince
or senate, their courage and despatch were recompensed by the
applause of the public, the decent honors of burial, and the
validity of their testaments. 205 The exquisite avarice and
cruelty of Domitian appear to have deprived the unfortunate of
this last consolation, and it was still denied even by the
clemency of the Antonines. A voluntary death, which, in the case
of a capital offence, intervened between the accusation and the
sentence, was admitted as a confession of guilt, and the spoils
of the deceased were seized by the inhuman claims of the
treasury. 206 Yet the civilians have always respected the natural
right of a citizen to dispose of his life; and the posthumous
disgrace invented by Tarquin, 207 to check the despair of his
subjects, was never revived or imitated by succeeding tyrants.
The powers of this world have indeed lost their dominion over him
who is resolved on death; and his arm can only be restrained by
the religious apprehension of a future state. Suicides are
enumerated by Virgil among the unfortunate, rather than the
guilty; 208 and the poetical fables of the infernal shades could
not seriously influence the faith or practice of mankind. But the
precepts of the gospel, or the church, have at length imposed a
pious servitude on the minds of Christians, and condemn them to
expect, without a murmur, the last stroke of disease or the
executioner.
204 (return) [Footnote 204: Polyb. l. vi. p. 643. The extension
of the empire and city of Rome obliged the exile to seek a more
distant place of retirement.]
205 (return) [ Qui de se statuebant, humabanta corpora, manebant
testamenta; pretium festinandi. Tacit. Annal. vi. 25, with the
Notes of Lipsius.]
206 (return) [ Julius Paulus, (Sentent. Recept. l. v. tit. xii.
p. 476,) the Pandects, (xlviii. tit. xxi.,) the Code, (l. ix.
tit. l.,) Bynkershoek, (tom. i. p. 59, Observat. J. C. R. iv. 4,)
and Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxix. c. ix.,) define the
civil limitations of the liberty and privileges of suicide. The
criminal penalties are the production of a later and darker age.]
207 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxvi. 24. When he fatigued his
subjects in building the Capitol, many of the laborers were
provoked to despatch themselves: he nailed their dead bodies to
crosses.]
208 (return) [ The sole resemblance of a violent and premature
death has engaged Virgil (Aeneid, vi. 434—439) to confound
suicides with infants, lovers, and persons unjustly condemned.
Heyne, the best of his editors, is at a loss to deduce the idea,
or ascertain the jurisprudence, of the Roman poet.]
The penal statutes form a very small proportion of the sixty-two
books of the Code and Pandects; and in all judicial proceedings,
the life or death of a citizen is determined with less caution or
delay than the most ordinary question of covenant or inheritance.
This singular distinction, though something may be allowed for
the urgent necessity of defending the peace of society, is
derived from the nature of criminal and civil jurisprudence. Our
duties to the state are simple and uniform: the law by which he
is condemned is inscribed not only on brass or marble, but on the
conscience of the offender, and his guilt is commonly proved by
the testimony of a single fact. But our relations to each other
are various and infinite; our obligations are created, annulled,
and modified, by injuries, benefits, and promises; and the
interpretation of voluntary contracts and testaments, which are
often dictated by fraud or ignorance, affords a long and
laborious exercise to the sagacity of the judge. The business of
life is multiplied by the extent of commerce and dominion, and
the residence of the parties in the distant provinces of an
empire is productive of doubt, delay, and inevitable appeals from
the local to the supreme magistrate. Justinian, the Greek emperor
of Constantinople and the East, was the legal successor of the
Latin shepherd who had planted a colony on the banks of the
Tyber. In a period of thirteen hundred years, the laws had
reluctantly followed the changes of government and manners; and
the laudable desire of conciliating ancient names with recent
institutions destroyed the harmony, and swelled the magnitude, of
the obscure and irregular system. The laws which excuse, on any
occasions, the ignorance of their subjects, confess their own
imperfections: the civil jurisprudence, as it was abridged by
Justinian, still continued a mysterious science, and a profitable
trade, and the innate perplexity of the study was involved in
tenfold darkness by the private industry of the practitioners.
The expense of the pursuit sometimes exceeded the value of the
prize, and the fairest rights were abandoned by the poverty or
prudence of the claimants. Such costly justice might tend to
abate the spirit of litigation, but the unequal pressure serves
only to increase the influence of the rich, and to aggravate the
misery of the poor. By these dilatory and expensive proceedings,
the wealthy pleader obtains a more certain advantage than he
could hope from the accidental corruption of his judge. The
experience of an abuse, from which our own age and country are
not perfectly exempt, may sometimes provoke a generous
indignation, and extort the hasty wish of exchanging our
elaborate jurisprudence for the simple and summary decrees of a
Turkish cadhi. Our calmer reflection will suggest, that such
forms and delays are necessary to guard the person and property
of the citizen; that the discretion of the judge is the first
engine of tyranny; and that the laws of a free people should
foresee and determine every question that may probably arise in
the exercise of power and the transactions of industry. But the
government of Justinian united the evils of liberty and
servitude; and the Romans were oppressed at the same time by the
multiplicity of their laws and the arbitrary will of their
master.
Chapter XLV: State Of Italy Under The Lombards.—Part I.
Reign Of The Younger Justin.—Embassy Of The Avars.—Their Settlement On
The Danube.—Conquest Of Italy By The Lombards.—Adoption And Reign Of
Tiberius.—Of Maurice.—State Of Italy Under The Lombards And The
Exarchs.—Of Ravenna.—Distress Of Rome.—Character And Pontificate Of
Gregory The First.
During the last years of Justinian, his infirm mind was devoted
to heavenly contemplation, and he neglected the business of the
lower world. His subjects were impatient of the long continuance
of his life and reign: yet all who were capable of reflection
apprehended the moment of his death, which might involve the
capital in tumult, and the empire in civil war. Seven nephews 1
of the childless monarch, the sons or grandsons of his brother
and sister, had been educated in the splendor of a princely
fortune; they had been shown in high commands to the provinces
and armies; their characters were known, their followers were
zealous, and, as the jealousy of age postponed the declaration of
a successor, they might expect with equal hopes the inheritance
of their uncle. He expired in his palace, after a reign of
thirty-eight years; and the decisive opportunity was embraced by
the friends of Justin, the son of Vigilantia. 2 At the hour of
midnight, his domestics were awakened by an importunate crowd,
who thundered at his door, and obtained admittance by revealing
themselves to be the principal members of the senate. These
welcome deputies announced the recent and momentous secret of the
emperor’s decease; reported, or perhaps invented, his dying
choice of the best beloved and most deserving of his nephews, and
conjured Justin to prevent the disorders of the multitude, if
they should perceive, with the return of light, that they were
left without a master. After composing his countenance to
surprise, sorrow, and decent modesty, Justin, by the advice of
his wife Sophia, submitted to the authority of the senate. He was
conducted with speed and silence to the palace; the guards
saluted their new sovereign; and the martial and religious rites
of his coronation were diligently accomplished. By the hands of
the proper officers he was invested with the Imperial garments,
the red buskins, white tunic, and purple robe.
A fortunate soldier, whom he instantly promoted to the rank of
tribune, encircled his neck with a military collar; four robust
youths exalted him on a shield; he stood firm and erect to
receive the adoration of his subjects; and their choice was
sanctified by the benediction of the patriarch, who imposed the
diadem on the head of an orthodox prince. The hippodrome was
already filled with innumerable multitudes; and no sooner did the
emperor appear on his throne, than the voices of the blue and the
green factions were confounded in the same loyal acclamations. In
the speeches which Justin addressed to the senate and people, he
promised to correct the abuses which had disgraced the age of his
predecessor, displayed the maxims of a just and beneficent
government, and declared that, on the approaching calends of
January, 3 he would revive in his own person the name and liberty
of a Roman consul. The immediate discharge of his uncle’s debts
exhibited a solid pledge of his faith and generosity: a train of
porters, laden with bags of gold, advanced into the midst of the
hippodrome, and the hopeless creditors of Justinian accepted this
equitable payment as a voluntary gift. Before the end of three
years, his example was imitated and surpassed by the empress
Sophia, who delivered many indigent citizens from the weight of
debt and usury: an act of benevolence the best entitled to
gratitude, since it relieves the most intolerable distress; but
in which the bounty of a prince is the most liable to be abused
by the claims of prodigality and fraud. 4
1 (return) [ See the family of Justin and Justinian in the
Familiae Byzantine of Ducange, p. 89—101. The devout civilians,
Ludewig (in Vit. Justinian. p. 131) and Heineccius (Hist. Juris.
Roman. p. 374) have since illustrated the genealogy of their
favorite prince.]
2 (return) [ In the story of Justin’s elevation I have translated
into simple and concise prose the eight hundred verses of the two
first books of Corippus, de Laudibus Justini Appendix Hist.
Byzant. p. 401—416 Rome 1777.]
3 (return) [ It is surprising how Pagi (Critica. in Annal. Baron.
tom. ii. p 639) could be tempted by any chronicles to contradict
the plain and decisive text of Corippus, (vicina dona, l. ii.
354, vicina dies, l. iv. 1,) and to postpone, till A.D. 567, the
consulship of Justin.]
4 (return) [ Theophan. Chronograph. p. 205. Whenever Cedrenus or
Zonaras are mere transcribers, it is superfluous to allege their
testimony.]
On the seventh day of his reign, Justin gave audience to the
ambassadors of the Avars, and the scene was decorated to impress
the Barbarians with astonishment, veneration, and terror. From
the palace gate, the spacious courts and long porticos were lined
with the lofty crests and gilt bucklers of the guards, who
presented their spears and axes with more confidence than they
would have shown in a field of battle. The officers who exercised
the power, or attended the person, of the prince, were attired in
their richest habits, and arranged according to the military and
civil order of the hierarchy. When the veil of the sanctuary was
withdrawn, the ambassadors beheld the emperor of the East on his
throne, beneath a canopy, or dome, which was supported by four
columns, and crowned with a winged figure of Victory. In the
first emotions of surprise, they submitted to the servile
adoration of the Byzantine court; but as soon as they rose from
the ground, Targetius, the chief of the embassy, expressed the
freedom and pride of a Barbarian. He extolled, by the tongue of
his interpreter, the greatness of the chagan, by whose clemency
the kingdoms of the South were permitted to exist, whose
victorious subjects had traversed the frozen rivers of Scythia,
and who now covered the banks of the Danube with innumerable
tents. The late emperor had cultivated, with annual and costly
gifts, the friendship of a grateful monarch, and the enemies of
Rome had respected the allies of the Avars. The same prudence
would instruct the nephew of Justinian to imitate the liberality
of his uncle, and to purchase the blessings of peace from an
invincible people, who delighted and excelled in the exercise of
war. The reply of the emperor was delivered in the same strain of
haughty defiance, and he derived his confidence from the God of
the Christians, the ancient glory of Rome, and the recent
triumphs of Justinian. “The empire,” said he, “abounds with men
and horses, and arms sufficient to defend our frontiers, and to
chastise the Barbarians. You offer aid, you threaten hostilities:
we despise your enmity and your aid. The conquerors of the Avars
solicit our alliance; shall we dread their fugitives and exiles?
5 The bounty of our uncle was granted to your misery, to your
humble prayers. From us you shall receive a more important
obligation, the knowledge of your own weakness. Retire from our
presence; the lives of ambassadors are safe; and, if you return
to implore our pardon, perhaps you will taste of our
benevolence.” 6 On the report of his ambassadors, the chagan was
awed by the apparent firmness of a Roman emperor of whose
character and resources he was ignorant. Instead of executing his
threats against the Eastern empire, he marched into the poor and
savage countries of Germany, which were subject to the dominion
of the Franks. After two doubtful battles, he consented to
retire, and the Austrasian king relieved the distress of his camp
with an immediate supply of corn and cattle. 7 Such repeated
disappointments had chilled the spirit of the Avars, and their
power would have dissolved away in the Sarmatian desert, if the
alliance of Alboin, king of the Lombards, had not given a new
object to their arms, and a lasting settlement to their wearied
fortunes.
5 (return) [ Corippus, l. iii. 390. The unquestionable sense
relates to the Turks, the conquerors of the Avars; but the word
scultor has no apparent meaning, and the sole Ms. of Corippus,
from whence the first edition (1581, apud Plantin) was printed,
is no longer visible. The last editor, Foggini of Rome, has
inserted the conjectural emendation of soldan: but the proofs of
Ducange, (Joinville, Dissert. xvi. p. 238—240,) for the early use
of this title among the Turks and Persians, are weak or
ambiguous. And I must incline to the authority of D’Herbelot,
(Bibliotheque Orient. p. 825,) who ascribes the word to the
Arabic and Chaldaean tongues, and the date to the beginning of
the xith century, when it was bestowed by the khalif of Bagdad on
Mahmud, prince of Gazna, and conqueror of India.]
6 (return) [ For these characteristic speeches, compare the verse
of Corippus (l. iii. 251—401) with the prose of Menander,
(Excerpt. Legation. p 102, 103.) Their diversity proves that they
did not copy each other their resemblance, that they drew from a
common original.]
7 (return) [ For the Austrasian war, see Menander (Excerpt.
Legat. p. 110,) Gregory of Tours, (Hist. Franc. l. iv. c 29,) and
Paul the deacon, (de Gest. Langobard. l. ii. c. 10.)]
While Alboin served under his father’s standard, he encountered
in battle, and transpierced with his lance, the rival prince of
the Gepidae. The Lombards, who applauded such early prowess,
requested his father, with unanimous acclamations, that the
heroic youth, who had shared the dangers of the field, might be
admitted to the feast of victory. “You are not unmindful,”
replied the inflexible Audoin, “of the wise customs of our
ancestors. Whatever may be his merit, a prince is incapable of
sitting at table with his father till he has received his arms
from a foreign and royal hand.” Alboin bowed with reverence to
the institutions of his country, selected forty companions, and
boldly visited the court of Turisund, king of the Gepidae, who
embraced and entertained, according to the laws of hospitality,
the murderer of his son. At the banquet, whilst Alboin occupied
the seat of the youth whom he had slain, a tender remembrance
arose in the mind of Turisund. “How dear is that place! how
hateful is that person!” were the words that escaped, with a
sigh, from the indignant father. His grief exasperated the
national resentment of the Gepidae; and Cunimund, his surviving
son, was provoked by wine, or fraternal affection, to the desire
of vengeance. “The Lombards,” said the rude Barbarian, “resemble,
in figure and in smell, the mares of our Sarmatian plains.” And
this insult was a coarse allusion to the white bands which
enveloped their legs. “Add another resemblance,” replied an
audacious Lombard; “you have felt how strongly they kick. Visit
the plain of Asfield, and seek for the bones of thy brother: they
are mingled with those of the vilest animals.” The Gepidae, a
nation of warriors, started from their seats, and the fearless
Alboin, with his forty companions, laid their hands on their
swords. The tumult was appeased by the venerable interposition of
Turisund. He saved his own honor, and the life of his guest; and,
after the solemn rites of investiture, dismissed the stranger in
the bloody arms of his son; the gift of a weeping parent. Alboin
returned in triumph; and the Lombards, who celebrated his
matchless intrepidity, were compelled to praise the virtues of an
enemy. 8 In this extraordinary visit he had probably seen the
daughter of Cunimund, who soon after ascended the throne of the
Gepidae. Her name was Rosamond, an appellation expressive of
female beauty, and which our own history or romance has
consecrated to amorous tales. The king of the Lombards (the
father of Alboin no longer lived) was contracted to the
granddaughter of Clovis; but the restraints of faith and policy
soon yielded to the hope of possessing the fair Rosamond, and of
insulting her family and nation. The arts of persuasion were
tried without success; and the impatient lover, by force and
stratagem, obtained the object of his desires. War was the
consequence which he foresaw and solicited; but the Lombards
could not long withstand the furious assault of the Gepidae, who
were sustained by a Roman army. And, as the offer of marriage was
rejected with contempt, Alboin was compelled to relinquish his
prey, and to partake of the disgrace which he had inflicted on
the house of Cunimund. 9
8 (return) [ Paul Warnefrid, the deacon of Friuli, de Gest.
Langobard. l. i. c. 23, 24. His pictures of national manners,
though rudely sketched are more lively and faithful than those of
Bede, or Gregory of Tours]
9 (return) [ The story is told by an impostor, (Theophylact.
Simocat. l. vi. c. 10;) but he had art enough to build his
fictions on public and notorious facts.]
When a public quarrel is envenomed by private injuries, a blow
that is not mortal or decisive can be productive only of a short
truce, which allows the unsuccessful combatant to sharpen his
arms for a new encounter. The strength of Alboin had been found
unequal to the gratification of his love, ambition, and revenge:
he condescended to implore the formidable aid of the chagan; and
the arguments that he employed are expressive of the art and
policy of the Barbarians. In the attack of the Gepidae, he had
been prompted by the just desire of extirpating a people whom
their alliance with the Roman empire had rendered the common
enemies of the nations, and the personal adversaries of the
chagan. If the forces of the Avars and the Lombards should unite
in this glorious quarrel, the victory was secure, and the reward
inestimable: the Danube, the Hebrus, Italy, and Constantinople,
would be exposed, without a barrier, to their invincible arms.
But, if they hesitated or delayed to prevent the malice of the
Romans, the same spirit which had insulted would pursue the Avars
to the extremity of the earth. These specious reasons were heard
by the chagan with coldness and disdain: he detained the Lombard
ambassadors in his camp, protracted the negotiation, and by turns
alleged his want of inclination, or his want of ability, to
undertake this important enterprise. At length he signified the
ultimate price of his alliance, that the Lombards should
immediately present him with a tithe of their cattle; that the
spoils and captives should be equally divided; but that the lands
of the Gepidae should become the sole patrimony of the Avars.
Such hard conditions were eagerly accepted by the passions of
Alboin; and, as the Romans were dissatisfied with the ingratitude
and perfidy of the Gepidae, Justin abandoned that incorrigible
people to their fate, and remained the tranquil spectator of this
unequal conflict. The despair of Cunimund was active and
dangerous. He was informed that the Avars had entered his
confines; but, on the strong assurance that, after the defeat of
the Lombards, these foreign invaders would easily be repelled, he
rushed forwards to encounter the implacable enemy of his name and
family. But the courage of the Gepidae could secure them no more
than an honorable death. The bravest of the nation fell in the
field of battle; the king of the Lombards contemplated with
delight the head of Cunimund; and his skull was fashioned into a
cup to satiate the hatred of the conqueror, or, perhaps, to
comply with the savage custom of his country. 10 After this
victory, no further obstacle could impede the progress of the
confederates, and they faithfully executed the terms of their
agreement. 11 The fair countries of Walachia, Moldavia,
Transylvania, and the other parts of Hungary beyond the Danube,
were occupied, without resistance, by a new colony of Scythians;
and the Dacian empire of the chagans subsisted with splendor
above two hundred and thirty years. The nation of the Gepidae was
dissolved; but, in the distribution of the captives, the slaves
of the Avars were less fortunate than the companions of the
Lombards, whose generosity adopted a valiant foe, and whose
freedom was incompatible with cool and deliberate tyranny. One
moiety of the spoil introduced into the camp of Alboin more
wealth than a Barbarian could readily compute. The fair Rosamond
was persuaded, or compelled, to acknowledge the rights of her
victorious lover; and the daughter of Cunimund appeared to
forgive those crimes which might be imputed to her own
irresistible charms.
10 (return) [ It appears from Strabo, Pliny, and Ammianus
Marcellinus, that the same practice was common among the Scythian
tribes, (Muratori, Scriptores Rer. Italic. tom. i. p. 424.) The
scalps of North America are likewise trophies of valor. The skull
of Cunimund was preserved above two hundred years among the
Lombards; and Paul himself was one of the guests to whom Duke
Ratchis exhibited this cup on a high festival, (l. ii. c. 28.)]
11 (return) [ Paul, l. i. c. 27. Menander, in Excerpt Legat. p.
110, 111.]
The destruction of a mighty kingdom established the fame of
Alboin. In the days of Charlemagne, the Bavarians, the Saxons,
and the other tribes of the Teutonic language, still repeated the
songs which described the heroic virtues, the valor, liberality,
and fortune of the king of the Lombards. 12 But his ambition was
yet unsatisfied; and the conqueror of the Gepidae turned his eyes
from the Danube to the richer banks of the Po, and the Tyber.
Fifteen years had not elapsed, since his subjects, the
confederates of Narses, had visited the pleasant climate of
Italy: the mountains, the rivers, the highways, were familiar to
their memory: the report of their success, perhaps the view of
their spoils, had kindled in the rising generation the flame of
emulation and enterprise. Their hopes were encouraged by the
spirit and eloquence of Alboin: and it is affirmed, that he spoke
to their senses, by producing at the royal feast, the fairest and
most exquisite fruits that grew spontaneously in the garden of
the world. No sooner had he erected his standard, than the native
strength of the Lombard was multiplied by the adventurous youth
of Germany and Scythia. The robust peasantry of Noricum and
Pannonia had resumed the manners of Barbarians; and the names of
the Gepidae, Bulgarians, Sarmatians, and Bavarians, may be
distinctly traced in the provinces of Italy. 13 Of the Saxons,
the old allies of the Lombards, twenty thousand warriors, with
their wives and children, accepted the invitation of Alboin.
Their bravery contributed to his success; but the accession or
the absence of their numbers was not sensibly felt in the
magnitude of his host. Every mode of religion was freely
practised by its respective votaries. The king of the Lombards
had been educated in the Arian heresy; but the Catholics, in
their public worship, were allowed to pray for his conversion;
while the more stubborn Barbarians sacrificed a she-goat, or
perhaps a captive, to the gods of their fathers. 14 The Lombards,
and their confederates, were united by their common attachment to
a chief, who excelled in all the virtues and vices of a savage
hero; and the vigilance of Alboin provided an ample magazine of
offensive and defensive arms for the use of the expedition. The
portable wealth of the Lombards attended the march: their lands
they cheerfully relinquished to the Avars, on the solemn promise,
which was made and accepted without a smile, that if they failed
in the conquest of Italy, these voluntary exiles should be
reinstated in their former possessions.
12 (return) [ Ut hactenus etiam tam apud Bajoarior um gentem,
quam et Saxmum, sed et alios ejusdem linguae homines..... in
eorum carmini bus celebretur. Paul, l. i. c. 27. He died A.D.
799, (Muratori, in Praefat. tom. i. p. 397.) These German songs,
some of which might be as old as Tacitus, (de Moribus Germ. c.
2,) were compiled and transcribed by Charlemagne. Barbara et
antiquissima carmina, quibus veterum regum actus et bella
canebantur scripsit memoriaeque mandavit, (Eginard, in Vit.
Carol. Magn. c. 29, p. 130, 131.) The poems, which Goldast
commends, (Animadvers. ad Eginard. p. 207,) appear to be recent
and contemptible romances.]
13 (return) [ The other nations are rehearsed by Paul, (l. ii. c.
6, 26,) Muratori (Antichita Italiane, tom. i. dissert. i. p. 4)
has discovered the village of the Bavarians, three miles from
Modena.]
14 (return) [ Gregory the Roman (Dialog. l. i. iii. c. 27, 28,
apud Baron. Annal Eccles. A.D. 579, No. 10) supposes that they
likewise adored this she-goat. I know but of one religion in
which the god and the victim are the same.]
They might have failed, if Narses had been the antagonist of the
Lombards; and the veteran warriors, the associates of his Gothic
victory, would have encountered with reluctance an enemy whom
they dreaded and esteemed. But the weakness of the Byzantine
court was subservient to the Barbarian cause; and it was for the
ruin of Italy, that the emperor once listened to the complaints
of his subjects. The virtues of Narses were stained with avarice;
and, in his provincial reign of fifteen years, he accumulated a
treasure of gold and silver which surpassed the modesty of a
private fortune. His government was oppressive or unpopular, and
the general discontent was expressed with freedom by the deputies
of Rome. Before the throne of Justinian they boldly declared,
that their Gothic servitude had been more tolerable than the
despotism of a Greek eunuch; and that, unless their tyrant were
instantly removed, they would consult their own happiness in the
choice of a master. The apprehension of a revolt was urged by the
voice of envy and detraction, which had so recently triumphed
over the merit of Belisarius. A new exarch, Longinus, was
appointed to supersede the conqueror of Italy, and the base
motives of his recall were revealed in the insulting mandate of
the empress Sophia, “that he should leave to men the exercise of
arms, and return to his proper station among the maidens of the
palace, where a distaff should be again placed in the hand of the
eunuch.” “I will spin her such a thread as she shall not easily
unravel!” is said to have been the reply which indignation and
conscious virtue extorted from the hero. Instead of attending, a
slave and a victim, at the gate of the Byzantine palace, he
retired to Naples, from whence (if any credit is due to the
belief of the times) Narses invited the Lombards to chastise the
ingratitude of the prince and people. 15 But the passions of the
people are furious and changeable, and the Romans soon
recollected the merits, or dreaded the resentment, of their
victorious general. By the mediation of the pope, who undertook a
special pilgrimage to Naples, their repentance was accepted; and
Narses, assuming a milder aspect and a more dutiful language,
consented to fix his residence in the Capitol. His death, 16
though in the extreme period of old age, was unseasonable and
premature, since his genius alone could have repaired the last
and fatal error of his life. The reality, or the suspicion, of a
conspiracy disarmed and disunited the Italians. The soldiers
resented the disgrace, and bewailed the loss, of their general.
They were ignorant of their new exarch; and Longinus was himself
ignorant of the state of the army and the province. In the
preceding years Italy had been desolated by pestilence and
famine, and a disaffected people ascribed the calamities of
nature to the guilt or folly of their rulers. 17
15 (return) [ The charge of the deacon against Narses (l. ii. c.
5) may be groundless; but the weak apology of the Cardinal
(Baron. Annal Eccles. A.D. 567, No. 8—12) is rejected by the best
critics—Pagi (tom. ii. p. 639, 640,) Muratori, (Annali d’ Italia,
tom. v. p. 160—163,) and the last editors, Horatius Blancus,
(Script. Rerum Italic. tom. i. p. 427, 428,) and Philip
Argelatus, (Sigon. Opera, tom. ii. p. 11, 12.) The Narses who
assisted at the coronation of Justin (Corippus, l. iii. 221) is
clearly understood to be a different person.]
16 (return) [ The death of Narses is mentioned by Paul, l. ii. c.
11. Anastas. in Vit. Johan. iii. p. 43. Agnellus, Liber
Pontifical. Raven. in Script. Rer. Italicarum, tom. ii. part i.
p. 114, 124. Yet I cannot believe with Agnellus that Narses was
ninety-five years of age. Is it probable that all his exploits
were performed at fourscore?]
17 (return) [ The designs of Narses and of the Lombards for the
invasion of Italy are exposed in the last chapter of the first
book, and the seven last chapters of the second book, of Paul the
deacon.]
Whatever might be the grounds of his security, Alboin neither
expected nor encountered a Roman army in the field. He ascended
the Julian Alps, and looked down with contempt and desire on the
fruitful plains to which his victory communicated the perpetual
appellation of Lombardy. A faithful chieftain, and a select band,
were stationed at Forum Julii, the modern Friuli, to guard the
passes of the mountains. The Lombards respected the strength of
Pavia, and listened to the prayers of the Trevisans: their slow
and heavy multitudes proceeded to occupy the palace and city of
Verona; and Milan, now rising from her ashes, was invested by the
powers of Alboin five months after his departure from Pannonia.
Terror preceded his march: he found every where, or he left, a
dreary solitude; and the pusillanimous Italians presumed, without
a trial, that the stranger was invincible. Escaping to lakes, or
rocks, or morasses, the affrighted crowds concealed some
fragments of their wealth, and delayed the moment of their
servitude. Paulinus, the patriarch of Aquileia, removed his
treasures, sacred and profane, to the Isle of Grado, 18 and his
successors were adopted by the infant republic of Venice, which
was continually enriched by the public calamities. Honoratus, who
filled the chair of St. Ambrose, had credulously accepted the
faithless offers of a capitulation; and the archbishop, with the
clergy and nobles of Milan, were driven by the perfidy of Alboin
to seek a refuge in the less accessible ramparts of Genoa. Along
the maritime coast, the courage of the inhabitants was supported
by the facility of supply, the hopes of relief, and the power of
escape; but from the Trentine hills to the gates of Ravenna and
Rome the inland regions of Italy became, without a battle or a
siege, the lasting patrimony of the Lombards. The submission of
the people invited the Barbarian to assume the character of a
lawful sovereign, and the helpless exarch was confined to the
office of announcing to the emperor Justin the rapid and
irretrievable loss of his provinces and cities. 19 One city,
which had been diligently fortified by the Goths, resisted the
arms of a new invader; and while Italy was subdued by the flying
detachments of the Lombards, the royal camp was fixed above three
years before the western gate of Ticinum, or Pavia. The same
courage which obtains the esteem of a civilized enemy provokes
the fury of a savage, and the impatient besieger had bound
himself by a tremendous oath, that age, and sex, and dignity,
should be confounded in a general massacre. The aid of famine at
length enabled him to execute his bloody vow; but, as Alboin
entered the gate, his horse stumbled, fell, and could not be
raised from the ground. One of his attendants was prompted by
compassion, or piety, to interpret this miraculous sign of the
wrath of Heaven: the conqueror paused and relented; he sheathed
his sword, and peacefully reposing himself in the palace of
Theodoric, proclaimed to the trembling multitude that they should
live and obey. Delighted with the situation of a city which was
endeared to his pride by the difficulty of the purchase, the
prince of the Lombards disdained the ancient glories of Milan;
and Pavia, during some ages, was respected as the capital of the
kingdom of Italy. 20
18 (return) [ Which from this translation was called New
Aquileia, (Chron. Venet. p. 3.) The patriarch of Grado soon
became the first citizen of the republic, (p. 9, &c.,) but his
seat was not removed to Venice till the year 1450. He is now
decorated with titles and honors; but the genius of the church
has bowed to that of the state, and the government of a Catholic
city is strictly Presbyterian. Thomassin, Discipline de l’Eglise,
tom. i. p. 156, 157, 161—165. Amelot de la Houssaye, Gouvernement
de Venise, tom. i. p. 256—261.]
19 (return) [ Paul has given a description of Italy, as it was
then divided into eighteen regions, (l. ii. c. 14—24.) The
Dissertatio Chorographica de Italia Medii Aevi, by Father
Beretti, a Benedictine monk, and regius professor at Pavia, has
been usefully consulted.]
20 (return) [ For the conquest of Italy, see the original
materials of Paul, (l. p. 7—10, 12, 14, 25, 26, 27,) the eloquent
narrative of Sigonius, (tom. il. de Regno Italiae, l. i. p.
13—19,) and the correct and critical review el Muratori, (Annali
d’ Italia, tom. v. p. 164—180.)]
The reign of the founder was splendid and transient; and, before
he could regulate his new conquests, Alboin fell a sacrifice to
domestic treason and female revenge. In a palace near Verona,
which had not been erected for the Barbarians, he feasted the
companions of his arms; intoxication was the reward of valor, and
the king himself was tempted by appetite, or vanity, to exceed
the ordinary measure of his intemperance. After draining many
capacious bowls of Rhaetian or Falernian wine, he called for the
skull of Cunimund, the noblest and most precious ornament of his
sideboard. The cup of victory was accepted with horrid applause
by the circle of the Lombard chiefs. “Fill it again with wine,”
exclaimed the inhuman conqueror, “fill it to the brim: carry this
goblet to the queen, and request in my name that she would
rejoice with her father.” In an agony of grief and rage, Rosamond
had strength to utter, “Let the will of my lord be obeyed!” and,
touching it with her lips, pronounced a silent imprecation, that
the insult should be washed away in the blood of Alboin. Some
indulgence might be due to the resentment of a daughter, if she
had not already violated the duties of a wife. Implacable in her
enmity, or inconstant in her love, the queen of Italy had stooped
from the throne to the arms of a subject, and Helmichis, the
king’s armor-bearer, was the secret minister of her pleasure and
revenge. Against the proposal of the murder, he could no longer
urge the scruples of fidelity or gratitude; but Helmichis
trembled when he revolved the danger as well as the guilt, when
he recollected the matchless strength and intrepidity of a
warrior whom he had so often attended in the field of battle. He
pressed and obtained, that one of the bravest champions of the
Lombards should be associated to the enterprise; but no more than
a promise of secrecy could be drawn from the gallant Peredeus,
and the mode of seduction employed by Rosamond betrays her
shameless insensibility both to honor and love. She supplied the
place of one of her female attendants who was beloved by
Peredeus, and contrived some excuse for darkness and silence,
till she could inform her companion that he had enjoyed the queen
of the Lombards, and that his own death, or the death of Alboin,
must be the consequence of such treasonable adultery. In this
alternative he chose rather to be the accomplice than the victim
of Rosamond, 21 whose undaunted spirit was incapable of fear or
remorse. She expected and soon found a favorable moment, when the
king, oppressed with wine, had retired from the table to his
afternoon slumbers. His faithless spouse was anxious for his
health and repose: the gates of the palace were shut, the arms
removed, the attendants dismissed, and Rosamond, after lulling
him to rest by her tender caresses, unbolted the chamber door,
and urged the reluctant conspirators to the instant execution of
the deed. On the first alarm, the warrior started from his couch:
his sword, which he attempted to draw, had been fastened to the
scabbard by the hand of Rosamond; and a small stool, his only
weapon, could not long protect him from the spears of the
assassins. The daughter of Cunimund smiled in his fall: his body
was buried under the staircase of the palace; and the grateful
posterity of the Lombards revered the tomb and the memory of
their victorious leader.
21 (return) [ The classical reader will recollect the wife and
murder of Candaules, so agreeably told in the first book of
Herodotus. The choice of Gyges, may serve as the excuse of
Peredeus; and this soft insinuation of an odious idea has been
imitated by the best writers of antiquity, (Graevius, ad Ciceron.
Orat. pro Miloue c. 10)]
Chapter XLV: State Of Italy Under The Lombards.—Part II.
The ambitious Rosamond aspired to reign in the name of her lover;
the city and palace of Verona were awed by her power; and a
faithful band of her native Gepidae was prepared to applaud the
revenge, and to second the wishes, of their sovereign. But the
Lombard chiefs, who fled in the first moments of consternation
and disorder, had resumed their courage and collected their
powers; and the nation, instead of submitting to her reign,
demanded, with unanimous cries, that justice should be executed
on the guilty spouse and the murderers of their king. She sought
a refuge among the enemies of her country; and a criminal who
deserved the abhorrence of mankind was protected by the selfish
policy of the exarch. With her daughter, the heiress of the
Lombard throne, her two lovers, her trusty Gepidae, and the
spoils of the palace of Verona, Rosamond descended the Adige and
the Po, and was transported by a Greek vessel to the safe harbor
of Ravenna. Longinus beheld with delight the charms and the
treasures of the widow of Alboin: her situation and her past
conduct might justify the most licentious proposals; and she
readily listened to the passion of a minister, who, even in the
decline of the empire, was respected as the equal of kings. The
death of a jealous lover was an easy and grateful sacrifice; and,
as Helmichis issued from the bath, he received the deadly potion
from the hand of his mistress. The taste of the liquor, its
speedy operation, and his experience of the character of
Rosamond, convinced him that he was poisoned: he pointed his
dagger to her breast, compelled her to drain the remainder of the
cup, and expired in a few minutes, with the consolation that she
could not survive to enjoy the fruits of her wickedness. The
daughter of Alboin and Rosamond, with the richest spoils of the
Lombards, was embarked for Constantinople: the surprising
strength of Peredeus amused and terrified the Imperial court:
2111 his blindness and revenge exhibited an imperfect copy of the
adventures of Samson. By the free suffrage of the nation, in the
assembly of Pavia, Clepho, one of their noblest chiefs, was
elected as the successor of Alboin. Before the end of eighteen
months, the throne was polluted by a second murder: Clepho was
stabbed by the hand of a domestic; the regal office was suspended
above ten years during the minority of his son Autharis; and
Italy was divided and oppressed by a ducal aristocracy of thirty
tyrants. 22
2111 (return) [ He killed a lion. His eyes were put out by the
timid Justin. Peredeus requesting an interview, Justin
substituted two patricians, whom the blinded Barbarian stabbed to
the heart with two concealed daggers. See Le Beau, vol. x. p.
99.—M.]
22 (return) [ See the history of Paul, l. ii. c. 28—32. I have
borrowed some interesting circumstances from the Liber
Pontificalis of Agnellus, in Script. Rer. Ital. tom. ii. p. 124.
Of all chronological guides, Muratori is the safest.]
When the nephew of Justinian ascended the throne, he proclaimed a
new aera of happiness and glory. The annals of the second Justin
23 are marked with disgrace abroad and misery at home. In the
West, the Roman empire was afflicted by the loss of Italy, the
desolation of Africa, and the conquests of the Persians.
Injustice prevailed both in the capital and the provinces: the
rich trembled for their property, the poor for their safety, the
ordinary magistrates were ignorant or venal, the occasional
remedies appear to have been arbitrary and violent, and the
complaints of the people could no longer be silenced by the
splendid names of a legislator and a conqueror. The opinion which
imputes to the prince all the calamities of his times may be
countenanced by the historian as a serious truth or a salutary
prejudice. Yet a candid suspicion will arise, that the sentiments
of Justin were pure and benevolent, and that he might have filled
his station without reproach, if the faculties of his mind had
not been impaired by disease, which deprived the emperor of the
use of his feet, and confined him to the palace, a stranger to
the complaints of the people and the vices of the government. The
tardy knowledge of his own impotence determined him to lay down
the weight of the diadem; and, in the choice of a worthy
substitute, he showed some symptoms of a discerning and even
magnanimous spirit. The only son of Justin and Sophia died in his
infancy; their daughter Arabia was the wife of Baduarius, 24
superintendent of the palace, and afterwards commander of the
Italian armies, who vainly aspired to confirm the rights of
marriage by those of adoption. While the empire appeared an
object of desire, Justin was accustomed to behold with jealousy
and hatred his brothers and cousins, the rivals of his hopes; nor
could he depend on the gratitude of those who would accept the
purple as a restitution, rather than a gift. Of these
competitors, one had been removed by exile, and afterwards by
death; and the emperor himself had inflicted such cruel insults
on another, that he must either dread his resentment or despise
his patience. This domestic animosity was refined into a generous
resolution of seeking a successor, not in his family, but in the
republic; and the artful Sophia recommended Tiberius, 25 his
faithful captain of the guards, whose virtues and fortune the
emperor might cherish as the fruit of his judicious choice. The
ceremony of his elevation to the rank of Caesar, or Augustus, was
performed in the portico of the palace, in the presence of the
patriarch and the senate. Justin collected the remaining strength
of his mind and body; but the popular belief that his speech was
inspired by the Deity betrays a very humble opinion both of the
man and of the times. 26 “You behold,” said the emperor, “the
ensigns of supreme power. You are about to receive them, not from
my hand, but from the hand of God. Honor them, and from them you
will derive honor. Respect the empress your mother: you are now
her son; before, you were her servant. Delight not in blood;
abstain from revenge; avoid those actions by which I have
incurred the public hatred; and consult the experience, rather
than the example, of your predecessor. As a man, I have sinned;
as a sinner, even in this life, I have been severely punished:
but these servants, (and he pointed to his ministers,) who have
abused my confidence, and inflamed my passions, will appear with
me before the tribunal of Christ. I have been dazzled by the
splendor of the diadem: be thou wise and modest; remember what
you have been, remember what you are. You see around us your
slaves, and your children: with the authority, assume the
tenderness, of a parent. Love your people like yourself;
cultivate the affections, maintain the discipline, of the army;
protect the fortunes of the rich, relieve the necessities of the
poor.” 27 The assembly, in silence and in tears, applauded the
counsels, and sympathized with the repentance, of their prince
the patriarch rehearsed the prayers of the church; Tiberius
received the diadem on his knees; and Justin, who in his
abdication appeared most worthy to reign, addressed the new
monarch in the following words: “If you consent, I live; if you
command, I die: may the God of heaven and earth infuse into your
heart whatever I have neglected or forgotten.” The four last
years of the emperor Justin were passed in tranquil obscurity:
his conscience was no longer tormented by the remembrance of
those duties which he was incapable of discharging; and his
choice was justified by the filial reverence and gratitude of
Tiberius.
23 (return) [ The original authors for the reign of Justin the
younger are Evagrius, Hist. Eccles. l. v. c. 1—12; Theophanes, in
Chonograph. p. 204—210; Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 70-72;
Cedrenus, in Compend. p. 388—392.]
24 (return) [ Dispositorque novus sacrae Baduarius aulae.
Successor soceri mox factus Cura-palati.—Cerippus. Baduarius is
enumerated among the descendants and allies of the house of
Justinian. A family of noble Venetians (Casa Badoero) built
churches and gave dukes to the republic as early as the ninth
century; and, if their descent be admitted, no kings in Europe
can produce a pedigree so ancient and illustrious. Ducange, Fam.
Byzantin, p. 99 Amelot de la Houssaye, Gouvernement de Venise,
tom. ii. p. 555.]
25 (return) [ The praise bestowed on princes before their
elevation is the purest and most weighty. Corippus has celebrated
Tiberius at the time of the accession of Justin, (l. i. 212—222.)
Yet even a captain of the guards might attract the flattery of an
African exile.]
26 (return) [ Evagrius (l. v. c. 13) has added the reproach to
his ministers He applies this speech to the ceremony when
Tiberius was invested with the rank of Caesar. The loose
expression, rather than the positive error, of Theophanes, &c.,
has delayed it to his Augustan investitura immediately before the
death of Justin.]
27 (return) [ Theophylact Simocatta (l. iii. c. 11) declares that
he shall give to posterity the speech of Justin as it was
pronounced, without attempting to correct the imperfections of
language or rhetoric. Perhaps the vain sophist would have been
incapable of producing such sentiments.]
Among the virtues of Tiberius, 28 his beauty (he was one of the
tallest and most comely of the Romans) might introduce him to the
favor of Sophia; and the widow of Justin was persuaded, that she
should preserve her station and influence under the reign of a
second and more youthful husband. But, if the ambitious candidate
had been tempted to flatter and dissemble, it was no longer in
his power to fulfil her expectations, or his own promise. The
factions of the hippodrome demanded, with some impatience, the
name of their new empress: both the people and Sophia were
astonished by the proclamation of Anastasia, the secret, though
lawful, wife of the emperor Tiberius. Whatever could alleviate
the disappointment of Sophia, Imperial honors, a stately palace,
a numerous household, was liberally bestowed by the piety of her
adopted son; on solemn occasions he attended and consulted the
widow of his benefactor; but her ambition disdained the vain
semblance of royalty, and the respectful appellation of mother
served to exasperate, rather than appease, the rage of an injured
woman. While she accepted, and repaid with a courtly smile, the
fair expressions of regard and confidence, a secret alliance was
concluded between the dowager empress and her ancient enemies;
and Justinian, the son of Germanus, was employed as the
instrument of her revenge. The pride of the reigning house
supported, with reluctance, the dominion of a stranger: the youth
was deservedly popular; his name, after the death of Justin, had
been mentioned by a tumultuous faction; and his own submissive
offer of his head with a treasure of sixty thousand pounds, might
be interpreted as an evidence of guilt, or at least of fear.
Justinian received a free pardon, and the command of the eastern
army. The Persian monarch fled before his arms; and the
acclamations which accompanied his triumph declared him worthy of
the purple. His artful patroness had chosen the month of the
vintage, while the emperor, in a rural solitude, was permitted to
enjoy the pleasures of a subject. On the first intelligence of
her designs, he returned to Constantinople, and the conspiracy
was suppressed by his presence and firmness. From the pomp and
honors which she had abused, Sophia was reduced to a modest
allowance: Tiberius dismissed her train, intercepted her
correspondence, and committed to a faithful guard the custody of
her person. But the services of Justinian were not considered by
that excellent prince as an aggravation of his offences: after a
mild reproof, his treason and ingratitude were forgiven; and it
was commonly believed, that the emperor entertained some thoughts
of contracting a double alliance with the rival of his throne.
The voice of an angel (such a fable was propagated) might reveal
to the emperor, that he should always triumph over his domestic
foes; but Tiberius derived a firmer assurance from the innocence
and generosity of his own mind.
28 (return) [ For the character and reign of Tiberius, see
Evagrius, l v. c. 13. Theophylact, l. iii. c. 12, &c. Theophanes,
in Chron. p. 2 0—213. Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 72. Cedrenus,
p. 392. Paul Warnefrid, de Gestis Langobard. l. iii. c. 11, 12.
The deacon of Forum Juli appears to have possessed some curious
and authentic facts.]
With the odious name of Tiberius, he assumed the more popular
appellation of Constantine, and imitated the purer virtues of the
Antonines. After recording the vice or folly of so many Roman
princes, it is pleasing to repose, for a moment, on a character
conspicuous by the qualities of humanity, justice, temperance,
and fortitude; to contemplate a sovereign affable in his palace,
pious in the church, impartial on the seat of judgment, and
victorious, at least by his generals, in the Persian war. The
most glorious trophy of his victory consisted in a multitude of
captives, whom Tiberius entertained, redeemed, and dismissed to
their native homes with the charitable spirit of a Christian
hero. The merit or misfortunes of his own subjects had a dearer
claim to his beneficence, and he measured his bounty not so much
by their expectations as by his own dignity. This maxim, however
dangerous in a trustee of the public wealth, was balanced by a
principle of humanity and justice, which taught him to abhor, as
of the basest alloy, the gold that was extracted from the tears
of the people. For their relief, as often as they had suffered by
natural or hostile calamities, he was impatient to remit the
arrears of the past, or the demands of future taxes: he sternly
rejected the servile offerings of his ministers, which were
compensated by tenfold oppression; and the wise and equitable
laws of Tiberius excited the praise and regret of succeeding
times. Constantinople believed that the emperor had discovered a
treasure: but his genuine treasure consisted in the practice of
liberal economy, and the contempt of all vain and superfluous
expense. The Romans of the East would have been happy, if the
best gift of Heaven, a patriot king, had been confirmed as a
proper and permanent blessing. But in less than four years after
the death of Justin, his worthy successor sunk into a mortal
disease, which left him only sufficient time to restore the
diadem, according to the tenure by which he held it, to the most
deserving of his fellow-citizens. He selected Maurice from the
crowd, a judgment more precious than the purple itself: the
patriarch and senate were summoned to the bed of the dying
prince: he bestowed his daughter and the empire; and his last
advice was solemnly delivered by the voice of the quaestor.
Tiberius expressed his hope that the virtues of his son and
successor would erect the noblest mausoleum to his memory. His
memory was embalmed by the public affliction; but the most
sincere grief evaporates in the tumult of a new reign, and the
eyes and acclamations of mankind were speedily directed to the
rising sun. The emperor Maurice derived his origin from ancient
Rome; 29 but his immediate parents were settled at Arabissus in
Cappadocia, and their singular felicity preserved them alive to
behold and partake the fortune of their august son. The youth of
Maurice was spent in the profession of arms: Tiberius promoted
him to the command of a new and favorite legion of twelve
thousand confederates; his valor and conduct were signalized in
the Persian war; and he returned to Constantinople to accept, as
his just reward, the inheritance of the empire. Maurice ascended
the throne at the mature age of forty-three years; and he reigned
above twenty years over the East and over himself; 30 expelling
from his mind the wild democracy of passions, and establishing
(according to the quaint expression of Evagrius) a perfect
aristocracy of reason and virtue. Some suspicion will degrade the
testimony of a subject, though he protests that his secret praise
should never reach the ear of his sovereign, 31 and some failings
seem to place the character of Maurice below the purer merit of
his predecessor. His cold and reserved demeanor might be imputed
to arrogance; his justice was not always exempt from cruelty, nor
his clemency from weakness; and his rigid economy too often
exposed him to the reproach of avarice. But the rational wishes
of an absolute monarch must tend to the happiness of his people.
Maurice was endowed with sense and courage to promote that
happiness, and his administration was directed by the principles
and example of Tiberius. The pusillanimity of the Greeks had
introduced so complete a separation between the offices of king
and of general, that a private soldier, who had deserved and
obtained the purple, seldom or never appeared at the head of his
armies. Yet the emperor Maurice enjoyed the glory of restoring
the Persian monarch to his throne; his lieutenants waged a
doubtful war against the Avars of the Danube; and he cast an eye
of pity, of ineffectual pity, on the abject and distressful state
of his Italian provinces.
29 (return) [ It is therefore singular enough that Paul (l. iii.
c. 15) should distinguish him as the first Greek emperor—primus
ex Graecorum genere in Imperio constitutus. His immediate
predecessors had in deed been born in the Latin provinces of
Europe: and a various reading, in Graecorum Imperio, would apply
the expression to the empire rather than the prince.]
30 (return) [ Consult, for the character and reign of Maurice,
the fifth and sixth books of Evagrius, particularly l. vi. c. l;
the eight books of his prolix and florid history by Theophylact
Simocatta; Theophanes, p. 213, &c.; Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiv. p.
73; Cedrenus, p. 394.]
31 (return) [ Evagrius composed his history in the twelfth year
of Maurice; and he had been so wisely indiscreet that the emperor
know and rewarded his favorable opinion, (l. vi. c. 24.)]
From Italy the emperors were incessantly tormented by tales of
misery and demands of succor, which extorted the humiliating
confession of their own weakness. The expiring dignity of Rome
was only marked by the freedom and energy of her complaints: “If
you are incapable,” she said, “of delivering us from the sword of
the Lombards, save us at least from the calamity of famine.”
Tiberius forgave the reproach, and relieved the distress: a
supply of corn was transported from Egypt to the Tyber; and the
Roman people, invoking the name, not of Camillus, but of St.
Peter repulsed the Barbarians from their walls. But the relief
was accidental, the danger was perpetual and pressing; and the
clergy and senate, collecting the remains of their ancient
opulence, a sum of three thousand pounds of gold, despatched the
patrician Pamphronius to lay their gifts and their complaints at
the foot of the Byzantine throne. The attention of the court, and
the forces of the East, were diverted by the Persian war: but the
justice of Tiberius applied the subsidy to the defence of the
city; and he dismissed the patrician with his best advice, either
to bribe the Lombard chiefs, or to purchase the aid of the kings
of France. Notwithstanding this weak invention, Italy was still
afflicted, Rome was again besieged, and the suburb of Classe,
only three miles from Ravenna, was pillaged and occupied by the
troops of a simple duke of Spoleto. Maurice gave audience to a
second deputation of priests and senators: the duties and the
menaces of religion were forcibly urged in the letters of the
Roman pontiff; and his nuncio, the deacon Gregory, was alike
qualified to solicit the powers either of heaven or of the earth.
The emperor adopted, with stronger effect, the measures of his
predecessor: some formidable chiefs were persuaded to embrace the
friendship of the Romans; and one of them, a mild and faithful
Barbarian, lived and died in the service of the exarchs: the
passes of the Alps were delivered to the Franks; and the pope
encouraged them to violate, without scruple, their oaths and
engagements to the misbelievers. Childebert, the great-grandson
of Clovis, was persuaded to invade Italy by the payment of fifty
thousand pieces; but, as he had viewed with delight some
Byzantine coin of the weight of one pound of gold, the king of
Austrasia might stipulate, that the gift should be rendered more
worthy of his acceptance, by a proper mixture of these
respectable medals. The dukes of the Lombards had provoked by
frequent inroads their powerful neighbors of Gaul. As soon as
they were apprehensive of a just retaliation, they renounced
their feeble and disorderly independence: the advantages of real
government, union, secrecy, and vigor, were unanimously
confessed; and Autharis, the son of Clepho, had already attained
the strength and reputation of a warrior. Under the standard of
their new king, the conquerors of Italy withstood three
successive invasions, one of which was led by Childebert himself,
the last of the Merovingian race who descended from the Alps. The
first expedition was defeated by the jealous animosity of the
Franks and Alemanni. In the second they were vanquished in a
bloody battle, with more loss and dishonor than they had
sustained since the foundation of their monarchy. Impatient for
revenge, they returned a third time with accumulated force, and
Autharis yielded to the fury of the torrent. The troops and
treasures of the Lombards were distributed in the walled towns
between the Alps and the Apennine. A nation, less sensible of
danger than of fatigue and delay, soon murmured against the folly
of their twenty commanders; and the hot vapors of an Italian sun
infected with disease those tramontane bodies which had already
suffered the vicissitudes of intemperance and famine. The powers
that were inadequate to the conquest, were more than sufficient
for the desolation, of the country; nor could the trembling
natives distinguish between their enemies and their deliverers.
If the junction of the Merovingian and Imperial forces had been
effected in the neighborhood of Milan, perhaps they might have
subverted the throne of the Lombards; but the Franks expected six
days the signal of a flaming village, and the arms of the Greeks
were idly employed in the reduction of Modena and Parma, which
were torn from them after the retreat of their transalpine
allies. The victorious Autharis asserted his claim to the
dominion of Italy. At the foot of the Rhaetian Alps, he subdued
the resistance, and rifled the hidden treasures, of a sequestered
island in the Lake of Comum. At the extreme point of the
Calabria, he touched with his spear a column on the sea-shore of
Rhegium, 32 proclaiming that ancient landmark to stand the
immovable boundary of his kingdom. 33
32 (return) [ The Columna Rhegina, in the narrowest part of the
Faro of Messina, one hundred stadia from Rhegium itself, is
frequently mentioned in ancient geography. Cluver. Ital. Antiq.
tom. ii. p. 1295. Lucas Holsten. Annotat. ad Cluver. p. 301.
Wesseling, Itinerar. p. 106.]
33 (return) [ The Greek historians afford some faint hints of the
wars of Italy (Menander, in Excerpt. Legat. p. 124, 126.
Theophylact, l. iii. c. 4.) The Latins are more satisfactory; and
especially Paul Warnefrid, (l iii. c. 13—34,) who had read the
more ancient histories of Secundus and Gregory of Tours. Baronius
produces some letters of the popes, &c.; and the times are
measured by the accurate scale of Pagi and Muratori.]
During a period of two hundred years, Italy was unequally divided
between the kingdom of the Lombards and the exarchate of Ravenna.
The offices and professions, which the jealousy of Constantine
had separated, were united by the indulgence of Justinian; and
eighteen successive exarchs were invested, in the decline of the
empire, with the full remains of civil, of military, and even of
ecclesiastical, power. Their immediate jurisdiction, which was
afterwards consecrated as the patrimony of St. Peter, extended
over the modern Romagna, the marshes or valleys of Ferrara and
Commachio, 34 five maritime cities from Rimini to Ancona, and a
second inland Pentapolis, between the Adriatic coast and the
hills of the Apennine. Three subordinate provinces, of Rome, of
Venice, and of Naples, which were divided by hostile lands from
the palace of Ravenna, acknowledged, both in peace and war, the
supremacy of the exarch. The duchy of Rome appears to have
included the Tuscan, Sabine, and Latin conquests, of the first
four hundred years of the city, and the limits may be distinctly
traced along the coast, from Civita Vecchia to Terracina, and
with the course of the Tyber from Ameria and Narni to the port of
Ostia. The numerous islands from Grado to Chiozza composed the
infant dominion of Venice: but the more accessible towns on the
Continent were overthrown by the Lombards, who beheld with
impotent fury a new capital rising from the waves. The power of
the dukes of Naples was circumscribed by the bay and the adjacent
isles, by the hostile territory of Capua, and by the Roman colony
of Amalphi, 35 whose industrious citizens, by the invention of
the mariner’s compass, have unveiled the face of the globe. The
three islands of Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily, still adhered to
the empire; and the acquisition of the farther Calabria removed
the landmark of Autharis from the shore of Rhegium to the Isthmus
of Consentia. In Sardinia, the savage mountaineers preserved the
liberty and religion of their ancestors; and the husbandmen of
Sicily were chained to their rich and cultivated soil. Rome was
oppressed by the iron sceptre of the exarchs, and a Greek,
perhaps a eunuch, insulted with impunity the ruins of the
Capitol. But Naples soon acquired the privilege of electing her
own dukes: 36 the independence of Amalphi was the fruit of
commerce; and the voluntary attachment of Venice was finally
ennobled by an equal alliance with the Eastern empire. On the map
of Italy, the measure of the exarchate occupies a very inadequate
space, but it included an ample proportion of wealth, industry,
and population. The most faithful and valuable subjects escaped
from the Barbarian yoke; and the banners of Pavia and Verona, of
Milan and Padua, were displayed in their respective quarters by
the new inhabitants of Ravenna. The remainder of Italy was
possessed by the Lombards; and from Pavia, the royal seat, their
kingdom was extended to the east, the north, and the west, as far
as the confines of the Avars, the Bavarians, and the Franks of
Austrasia and Burgundy. In the language of modern geography, it
is now represented by the Terra Firma of the Venetian republic,
Tyrol, the Milanese, Piedmont, the coast of Genoa, Mantua, Parma,
and Modena, the grand duchy of Tuscany, and a large portion of
the ecclesiastical state from Perugia to the Adriatic. The dukes,
and at length the princes, of Beneventum, survived the monarchy,
and propagated the name of the Lombards. From Capua to Tarentum,
they reigned near five hundred years over the greatest part of
the present kingdom of Naples. 37
34 (return) [ The papal advocates, Zacagni and Fontanini, might
justly claim the valley or morass of Commachio as a part of the
exarchate. But the ambition of including Modena, Reggio, Parma,
and Placentia, has darkened a geographical question somewhat
doubtful and obscure Even Muratori, as the servant of the house
of Este, is not free from partiality and prejudice.]
35 (return) [ See Brenckman, Dissert. Ima de Republica
Amalphitana, p. 1—42, ad calcem Hist. Pandect. Florent.]
36 (return) [ Gregor. Magn. l. iii. epist. 23, 25.]
37 (return) [ I have described the state of Italy from the
excellent Dissertation of Beretti. Giannone (Istoria Civile, tom.
i. p. 374—387) has followed the learned Camillo Pellegrini in the
geography of the kingdom of Naples. After the loss of the true
Calabria, the vanity of the Greeks substituted that name instead
of the more ignoble appellation of Bruttium; and the change
appears to have taken place before the time of Charlemagne,
(Eginard, p. 75.)]
In comparing the proportion of the victorious and the vanquished
people, the change of language will afford the most probably
inference. According to this standard, it will appear, that the
Lombards of Italy, and the Visigoths of Spain, were less numerous
than the Franks or Burgundians; and the conquerors of Gaul must
yield, in their turn, to the multitude of Saxons and Angles who
almost eradicated the idioms of Britain. The modern Italian has
been insensibly formed by the mixture of nations: the awkwardness
of the Barbarians in the nice management of declensions and
conjugations reduced them to the use of articles and auxiliary
verbs; and many new ideas have been expressed by Teutonic
appellations. Yet the principal stock of technical and familiar
words is found to be of Latin derivation; 38 and, if we were
sufficiently conversant with the obsolete, the rustic, and the
municipal dialects of ancient Italy, we should trace the origin
of many terms which might, perhaps, be rejected by the classic
purity of Rome. A numerous army constitutes but a small nation,
and the powers of the Lombards were soon diminished by the
retreat of twenty thousand Saxons, who scorned a dependent
situation, and returned, after many bold and perilous adventures,
to their native country. 39 The camp of Alboin was of formidable
extent, but the extent of a camp would be easily circumscribed
within the limits of a city; and its martial inhabitants must be
thinly scattered over the face of a large country. When Alboin
descended from the Alps, he invested his nephew, the first duke
of Friuli, with the command of the province and the people: but
the prudent Gisulf would have declined the dangerous office,
unless he had been permitted to choose, among the nobles of the
Lombards, a sufficient number of families 40 to form a perpetual
colony of soldiers and subjects. In the progress of conquest, the
same option could not be granted to the dukes of Brescia or
Bergamo, or Pavia or Turin, of Spoleto or Beneventum; but each of
these, and each of their colleagues, settled in his appointed
district with a band of followers who resorted to his standard in
war and his tribunal in peace. Their attachment was free and
honorable: resigning the gifts and benefits which they had
accepted, they might emigrate with their families into the
jurisdiction of another duke; but their absence from the kingdom
was punished with death, as a crime of military desertion. 41 The
posterity of the first conquerors struck a deeper root into the
soil, which, by every motive of interest and honor, they were
bound to defend. A Lombard was born the soldier of his king and
his duke; and the civil assemblies of the nation displayed the
banners, and assumed the appellation, of a regular army. Of this
army, the pay and the rewards were drawn from the conquered
provinces; and the distribution, which was not effected till
after the death of Alboin, is disgraced by the foul marks of
injustice and rapine. Many of the most wealthy Italians were
slain or banished; the remainder were divided among the
strangers, and a tributary obligation was imposed (under the name
of hospitality) of paying to the Lombards a third part of the
fruits of the earth. Within less than seventy years, this
artificial system was abolished by a more simple and solid
tenure. 42 Either the Roman landlord was expelled by his strong
and insolent guest, or the annual payment, a third of the
produce, was exchanged by a more equitable transaction for an
adequate proportion of landed property. Under these foreign
masters, the business of agriculture, in the cultivation of corn,
wines, and olives, was exercised with degenerate skill and
industry by the labor of the slaves and natives. But the
occupations of a pastoral life were more pleasing to the idleness
of the Barbarian. In the rich meadows of Venetia, they restored
and improved the breed of horses, for which that province had
once been illustrious; 43 and the Italians beheld with
astonishment a foreign race of oxen or buffaloes. 44 The
depopulation of Lombardy, and the increase of forests, afforded
an ample range for the pleasures of the chase. 45 That marvellous
art which teaches the birds of the air to acknowledge the voice,
and execute the commands, of their master, had been unknown to
the ingenuity of the Greeks and Romans. 46 Scandinavia and
Scythia produce the boldest and most tractable falcons: 47 they
were tamed and educated by the roving inhabitants, always on
horseback and in the field. This favorite amusement of our
ancestors was introduced by the Barbarians into the Roman
provinces; and the laws of Italy esteemed the sword and the hawk
as of equal dignity and importance in the hands of a noble
Lombard. 48
38 (return) [ Maffei (Verona Illustrata, part i. p. 310—321) and
Muratori (Antichita Italiane, tom. ii. Dissertazione xxxii.
xxxiii. p. 71—365) have asserted the native claims of the Italian
idiom; the former with enthusiasm, the latter with discretion;
both with learning, ingenuity, and truth. Note: Compare the
admirable sketch of the degeneracy of the Latin language and the
formation of the Italian in Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. iii. p. 317
329.—M.]
39 (return) [ Paul, de Gest. Langobard. l. iii. c. 5, 6, 7.]
40 (return) [ Paul, l. ii. c. 9. He calls these families or
generations by the Teutonic name of Faras, which is likewise used
in the Lombard laws. The humble deacon was not insensible of the
nobility of his own race. See l. iv. c. 39.]
41 (return) [ Compare No. 3 and 177 of the Laws of Rotharis.]
42 (return) [ Paul, l. ii. c. 31, 32, l. iii. c. 16. The Laws of
Rotharis, promulgated A.D. 643, do not contain the smallest
vestige of this payment of thirds; but they preserve many curious
circumstances of the state of Italy and the manners of the
Lombards.]
43 (return) [ The studs of Dionysius of Syracuse, and his
frequent victories in the Olympic games, had diffused among the
Greeks the fame of the Venetian horses; but the breed was extinct
in the time of Strabo, (l. v. p. 325.) Gisulf obtained from his
uncle generosarum equarum greges. Paul, l. ii. c. 9. The Lombards
afterwards introduced caballi sylvatici—wild horses. Paul, l. iv.
c. 11.]
44 (return) [ Tunc (A.D. 596) primum, bubali in Italiam delati
Italiae populis miracula fuere, (Paul Warnefrid, l. iv. c. 11.)
The buffaloes, whose native climate appears to be Africa and
India, are unknown to Europe, except in Italy, where they are
numerous and useful. The ancients were ignorant of these animals,
unless Aristotle (Hist. Anim. l. ii. c. 1, p. 58, Paris, 1783)
has described them as the wild oxen of Arachosia. See Buffon,
Hist. Naturelle, tom. xi. and Supplement, tom. vi. Hist. Generale
des Voyages, tom. i. p. 7, 481, ii. 105, iii. 291, iv. 234, 461,
v. 193, vi. 491, viii. 400, x. 666. Pennant’s Quadrupedes, p. 24.
Dictionnaire d’Hist. Naturelle, par Valmont de Bomare, tom. ii.
p. 74. Yet I must not conceal the suspicion that Paul, by a
vulgar error, may have applied the name of bubalus to the
aurochs, or wild bull, of ancient Germany.]
45 (return) [ Consult the xxist Dissertation of Muratori.]
46 (return) [ Their ignorance is proved by the silence even of
those who professedly treat of the arts of hunting and the
history of animals. Aristotle, (Hist. Animal. l. ix. c. 36, tom.
i. p. 586, and the Notes of his last editor, M. Camus, tom. ii.
p. 314,) Pliny, (Hist. Natur. l. x. c. 10,) Aelian (de Natur.
Animal. l. ii. c. 42,) and perhaps Homer, (Odyss. xxii. 302-306,)
describe with astonishment a tacit league and common chase
between the hawks and the Thracian fowlers.]
47 (return) [ Particularly the gerfaut, or gyrfalcon, of the size
of a small eagle. See the animated description of M. de Buffon,
Hist. Naturelle, tom. xvi. p. 239, &c.]
48 (return) [ Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. i. part ii. p. 129.
This is the xvith law of the emperor Lewis the Pious. His father
Charlemagne had falconers in his household as well as huntsmen,
(Memoires sur l’ancienne Chevalerie, par M. de St. Palaye, tom.
iii. p. 175.) I observe in the laws of Rotharis a more early
mention of the art of hawking, (No. 322;) and in Gaul, in the
fifth century, it is celebrated by Sidonius Apollinaris among the
talents of Avitus, (202—207.) * Note: See Beckman, Hist. of
Inventions, vol. i. p. 319—M.]
Chapter XLV: State Of Italy Under The Lombards.—Part III.
So rapid was the influence of climate and example, that the
Lombards of the fourth generation surveyed with curiosity and
affright the portraits of their savage forefathers. 49 Their
heads were shaven behind, but the shaggy locks hung over their
eyes and mouth, and a long beard represented the name and
character of the nation. Their dress consisted of loose linen
garments, after the fashion of the Anglo-Saxons, which were
decorated, in their opinion, with broad stripes or variegated
colors. The legs and feet were clothed in long hose, and open
sandals; and even in the security of peace a trusty sword was
constantly girt to their side. Yet this strange apparel, and
horrid aspect, often concealed a gentle and generous disposition;
and as soon as the rage of battle had subsided, the captives and
subjects were sometimes surprised by the humanity of the victor.
The vices of the Lombards were the effect of passion, of
ignorance, of intoxication; their virtues are the more laudable,
as they were not affected by the hypocrisy of social manners, nor
imposed by the rigid constraint of laws and education. I should
not be apprehensive of deviating from my subject, if it were in
my power to delineate the private life of the conquerors of
Italy; and I shall relate with pleasure the adventurous gallantry
of Autharis, which breathes the true spirit of chivalry and
romance. 50 After the loss of his promised bride, a Merovingian
princess, he sought in marriage the daughter of the king of
Bavaria; and Garribald accepted the alliance of the Italian
monarch. Impatient of the slow progress of negotiation, the
ardent lover escaped from his palace, and visited the court of
Bavaria in the train of his own embassy. At the public audience,
the unknown stranger advanced to the throne, and informed
Garribald that the ambassador was indeed the minister of state,
but that he alone was the friend of Autharis, who had trusted him
with the delicate commission of making a faithful report of the
charms of his spouse. Theudelinda was summoned to undergo this
important examination; and, after a pause of silent rapture, he
hailed her as the queen of Italy, and humbly requested that,
according to the custom of the nation, she would present a cup of
wine to the first of her new subjects. By the command of her
father she obeyed: Autharis received the cup in his turn, and, in
restoring it to the princess, he secretly touched her hand, and
drew his own finger over his face and lips. In the evening,
Theudelinda imparted to her nurse the indiscreet familiarity of
the stranger, and was comforted by the assurance, that such
boldness could proceed only from the king her husband, who, by
his beauty and courage, appeared worthy of her love. The
ambassadors were dismissed: no sooner did they reach the confines
of Italy than Autharis, raising himself on his horse, darted his
battle-axe against a tree with incomparable strength and
dexterity. “Such,” said he to the astonished Bavarians, “such are
the strokes of the king of the Lombards.” On the approach of a
French army, Garribald and his daughter took refuge in the
dominions of their ally; and the marriage was consummated in the
palace of Verona. At the end of one year, it was dissolved by the
death of Autharis: but the virtues of Theudelinda 51 had endeared
her to the nation, and she was permitted to bestow, with her
hand, the sceptre of the Italian kingdom.
49 (return) [ The epitaph of Droctulf (Paul, l. iii. c. 19) may
be applied to many of his countrymen:— Terribilis visu facies,
sed corda benignus Longaque robusto pectore barba fuit. The
portraits of the old Lombards might still be seen in the palace
of Monza, twelve miles from Milan, which had been founded or
restored by Queen Theudelinda, (l. iv. 22, 23.) See Muratori,
tom. i. disserta, xxiii. p. 300.]
50 (return) [ The story of Autharis and Theudelinda is related by
Paul, l. iii. 29, 34; and any fragment of Bavarian antiquity
excites the indefatigable diligence of the count de Buat, Hist.
des Peuples de l’Europe, ton. xi. p. 595—635, tom. xii. p. 1-53.]
51 (return) [ Giannone (Istoria Civile de Napoli, tom. i. p. 263)
has justly censured the impertinence of Boccaccio, (Gio. iii.
Novel. 2,) who, without right, or truth, or pretence, has given
the pious queen Theudelinda to the arms of a muleteer.]
From this fact, as well as from similar events, 52 it is certain
that the Lombards possessed freedom to elect their sovereign, and
sense to decline the frequent use of that dangerous privilege.
The public revenue arose from the produce of land and the profits
of justice. When the independent dukes agreed that Autharis
should ascend the throne of his father, they endowed the regal
office with a fair moiety of their respective domains. The
proudest nobles aspired to the honors of servitude near the
person of their prince: he rewarded the fidelity of his vassals
by the precarious gift of pensions and benefices; and atoned for
the injuries of war by the rich foundation of monasteries and
churches. In peace a judge, a leader in war, he never usurped the
powers of a sole and absolute legislator. The king of Italy
convened the national assemblies in the palace, or more probably
in the fields, of Pavia: his great council was composed of the
persons most eminent by their birth and dignities; but the
validity, as well as the execution, of their decrees depended on
the approbation of the faithful people, the fortunate army of the
Lombards. About fourscore years after the conquest of Italy,
their traditional customs were transcribed in Teutonic Latin, 53
and ratified by the consent of the prince and people: some new
regulations were introduced, more suitable to their present
condition; the example of Rotharis was imitated by the wisest of
his successors; and the laws of the Lombards have been esteemed
the least imperfect of the Barbaric codes. 54 Secure by their
courage in the possession of liberty, these rude and hasty
legislators were incapable of balancing the powers of the
constitution, or of discussing the nice theory of political
government. Such crimes as threatened the life of the sovereign,
or the safety of the state, were adjudged worthy of death; but
their attention was principally confined to the defence of the
person and property of the subject. According to the strange
jurisprudence of the times, the guilt of blood might be redeemed
by a fine; yet the high price of nine hundred pieces of gold
declares a just sense of the value of a simple citizen. Less
atrocious injuries, a wound, a fracture, a blow, an opprobrious
word, were measured with scrupulous and almost ridiculous
diligence; and the prudence of the legislator encouraged the
ignoble practice of bartering honor and revenge for a pecuniary
compensation. The ignorance of the Lombards in the state of
Paganism or Christianity gave implicit credit to the malice and
mischief of witchcraft, but the judges of the seventeenth century
might have been instructed and confounded by the wisdom of
Rotharis, who derides the absurd superstition, and protects the
wretched victims of popular or judicial cruelty. 55 The same
spirit of a legislator, superior to his age and country, may be
ascribed to Luitprand, who condemns, while he tolerates, the
impious and inveterate abuse of duels, 56 observing, from his own
experience, that the juster cause had often been oppressed by
successful violence. Whatever merit may be discovered in the laws
of the Lombards, they are the genuine fruit of the reason of the
Barbarians, who never admitted the bishops of Italy to a seat in
their legislative councils. But the succession of their kings is
marked with virtue and ability; the troubled series of their
annals is adorned with fair intervals of peace, order, and
domestic happiness; and the Italians enjoyed a milder and more
equitable government, than any of the other kingdoms which had
been founded on the ruins of the Western empire. 57
52 (return) [ Paul, l. iii. c. 16. The first dissertations of
Muratori, and the first volume of Giannone’s history, may be
consulted for the state of the kingdom of Italy.]
53 (return) [ The most accurate edition of the Laws of the
Lombards is to be found in the Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom.
i. part ii. p. 1—181, collated from the most ancient Mss. and
illustrated by the critical notes of Muratori.]
54 (return) [ Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xxviii. c. 1. Les
loix des Bourguignons sont assez judicieuses; celles de Rotharis
et des autres princes Lombards le sont encore plus.]
55 (return) [ See Leges Rotharis, No. 379, p. 47. Striga is used
as the name of a witch. It is of the purest classic origin,
(Horat. epod. v. 20. Petron. c. 134;) and from the words of
Petronius, (quae striges comederunt nervos tuos?) it may be
inferred that the prejudice was of Italian rather than Barbaric
extraction.]
56 (return) [ Quia incerti sumus de judicio Dei, et multos
audivimus per pugnam sine justa causa suam causam perdere. Sed
propter consuetudinom gentem nostram Langobardorum legem impiam
vetare non possumus. See p. 74, No. 65, of the Laws of Luitprand,
promulgated A.D. 724.]
57 (return) [ Read the history of Paul Warnefrid; particularly l.
iii. c. 16. Baronius rejects the praise, which appears to
contradict the invectives of Pope Gregory the Great; but Muratori
(Annali d’ Italia, tom. v. p. 217) presumes to insinuate that the
saint may have magnified the faults of Arians and enemies.]
Amidst the arms of the Lombards, and under the despotism of the
Greeks, we again inquire into the fate of Rome, 58 which had
reached, about the close of the sixth century, the lowest period
of her depression. By the removal of the seat of empire, and the
successive loss of the provinces, the sources of public and
private opulence were exhausted: the lofty tree, under whose
shade the nations of the earth had reposed, was deprived of its
leaves and branches, and the sapless trunk was left to wither on
the ground. The ministers of command, and the messengers of
victory, no longer met on the Appian or Flaminian way; and the
hostile approach of the Lombards was often felt, and continually
feared. The inhabitants of a potent and peaceful capital, who
visit without an anxious thought the garden of the adjacent
country, will faintly picture in their fancy the distress of the
Romans: they shut or opened their gates with a trembling hand,
beheld from the walls the flames of their houses, and heard the
lamentations of their brethren, who were coupled together like
dogs, and dragged away into distant slavery beyond the sea and
the mountains. Such incessant alarms must annihilate the
pleasures and interrupt the labors of a rural life; and the
Campagna of Rome was speedily reduced to the state of a dreary
wilderness, in which the land is barren, the waters are impure,
and the air is infectious. Curiosity and ambition no longer
attracted the nations to the capital of the world: but, if chance
or necessity directed the steps of a wandering stranger, he
contemplated with horror the vacancy and solitude of the city,
and might be tempted to ask, Where is the senate, and where are
the people? In a season of excessive rains, the Tyber swelled
above its banks, and rushed with irresistible violence into the
valleys of the seven hills. A pestilential disease arose from the
stagnation of the deluge, and so rapid was the contagion, that
fourscore persons expired in an hour in the midst of a solemn
procession, which implored the mercy of Heaven. 59 A society in
which marriage is encouraged and industry prevails soon repairs
the accidental losses of pestilence and war: but, as the far
greater part of the Romans was condemned to hopeless indigence
and celibacy, the depopulation was constant and visible, and the
gloomy enthusiasts might expect the approaching failure of the
human race. 60 Yet the number of citizens still exceeded the
measure of subsistence: their precarious food was supplied from
the harvests of Sicily or Egypt; and the frequent repetition of
famine betrays the inattention of the emperor to a distant
province. The edifices of Rome were exposed to the same ruin and
decay: the mouldering fabrics were easily overthrown by
inundations, tempests, and earthquakes: and the monks, who had
occupied the most advantageous stations, exulted in their base
triumph over the ruins of antiquity. 61 It is commonly believed,
that Pope Gregory the First attacked the temples and mutilated
the statues of the city; that, by the command of the Barbarian,
the Palatine library was reduced to ashes, and that the history
of Livy was the peculiar mark of his absurd and mischievous
fanaticism. The writings of Gregory himself reveal his implacable
aversion to the monuments of classic genius; and he points his
severest censure against the profane learning of a bishop, who
taught the art of grammar, studied the Latin poets, and
pronounced with the same voice the praises of Jupiter and those
of Christ. But the evidence of his destructive rage is doubtful
and recent: the Temple of Peace, or the theatre of Marcellus,
have been demolished by the slow operation of ages, and a formal
proscription would have multiplied the copies of Virgil and Livy
in the countries which were not subject to the ecclesiastical
dictator. 62
58 (return) [ The passages of the homilies of Gregory, which
represent the miserable state of the city and country, are
transcribed in the Annals of Baronius, A.D. 590, No. 16, A.D.
595, No. 2, &c., &c.]
59 (return) [ The inundation and plague were reported by a
deacon, whom his bishop, Gregory of Tours, had despatched to Rome
for some relics The ingenious messenger embellished his tale and
the river with a great dragon and a train of little serpents,
(Greg. Turon. l. x. c. 1.)]
60 (return) [ Gregory of Rome (Dialog. l. ii. c. 15) relates a
memorable prediction of St. Benedict. Roma a Gentilibus non
exterminabitur sed tempestatibus, coruscis turbinibus ac terrae
motu in semetipsa marces cet. Such a prophecy melts into true
history, and becomes the evidence of the fact after which it was
invented.]
61 (return) [ Quia in uno se ore cum Jovis laudibus, Christi
laudes non capiunt, et quam grave nefandumque sit episcopis
canere quod nec laico religioso conveniat, ipse considera, (l.
ix. ep. 4.) The writings of Gregory himself attest his innocence
of any classic taste or literature]
62 (return) [ Bayle, (Dictionnaire Critique, tom. ii. 598, 569,)
in a very good article of Gregoire I., has quoted, for the
buildings and statues, Platina in Gregorio I.; for the Palatine
library, John of Salisbury, (de Nugis Curialium, l. ii. c. 26;)
and for Livy, Antoninus of Florence: the oldest of the three
lived in the xiith century.]
Like Thebes, or Babylon, or Carthage, the names of Rome might
have been erased from the earth, if the city had not been
animated by a vital principle, which again restored her to honor
and dominion. A vague tradition was embraced, that two Jewish
teachers, a tent-maker and a fisherman, had formerly been
executed in the circus of Nero, and at the end of five hundred
years, their genuine or fictitious relics were adored as the
Palladium of Christian Rome. The pilgrims of the East and West
resorted to the holy threshold; but the shrines of the apostles
were guarded by miracles and invisible terrors; and it was not
without fear that the pious Catholic approached the object of his
worship. It was fatal to touch, it was dangerous to behold, the
bodies of the saints; and those who, from the purest motives,
presumed to disturb the repose of the sanctuary, were affrighted
by visions, or punished with sudden death. The unreasonable
request of an empress, who wished to deprive the Romans of their
sacred treasure, the head of St. Paul, was rejected with the
deepest abhorrence; and the pope asserted, most probably with
truth, that a linen which had been sanctified in the neighborhood
of his body, or the filings of his chain, which it was sometimes
easy and sometimes impossible to obtain, possessed an equal
degree of miraculous virtue. 63 But the power as well as virtue
of the apostles resided with living energy in the breast of their
successors; and the chair of St. Peter was filled under the reign
of Maurice by the first and greatest of the name of Gregory. 64
His grandfather Felix had himself been pope, and as the bishops
were already bound by the laws of celibacy, his consecration must
have been preceded by the death of his wife. The parents of
Gregory, Sylvia, and Gordian, were the noblest of the senate, and
the most pious of the church of Rome; his female relations were
numbered among the saints and virgins; and his own figure, with
those of his father and mother, were represented near three
hundred years in a family portrait, 65 which he offered to the
monastery of St. Andrew. The design and coloring of this picture
afford an honorable testimony that the art of painting was
cultivated by the Italians of the sixth century; but the most
abject ideas must be entertained of their taste and learning,
since the epistles of Gregory, his sermons, and his dialogues,
are the work of a man who was second in erudition to none of his
contemporaries: 66 his birth and abilities had raised him to the
office of præfect of the city, and he enjoyed the merit of
renouncing the pomps and vanities of this world. His ample
patrimony was dedicated to the foundation of seven monasteries,
67 one in Rome, 68 and six in Sicily; and it was the wish of
Gregory that he might be unknown in this life, and glorious only
in the next. Yet his devotion (and it might be sincere) pursued
the path which would have been chosen by a crafty and ambitious
statesman. The talents of Gregory, and the splendor which
accompanied his retreat, rendered him dear and useful to the
church; and implicit obedience has always been inculcated as the
first duty of a monk. As soon as he had received the character of
deacon, Gregory was sent to reside at the Byzantine court, the
nuncio or minister of the apostolic see; and he boldly assumed,
in the name of St. Peter, a tone of independent dignity, which
would have been criminal and dangerous in the most illustrious
layman of the empire. He returned to Rome with a just increase of
reputation, and, after a short exercise of the monastic virtues,
he was dragged from the cloister to the papal throne, by the
unanimous voice of the clergy, the senate, and the people. He
alone resisted, or seemed to resist, his own elevation; and his
humble petition, that Maurice would be pleased to reject the
choice of the Romans, could only serve to exalt his character in
the eyes of the emperor and the public. When the fatal mandate
was proclaimed, Gregory solicited the aid of some friendly
merchants to convey him in a basket beyond the gates of Rome, and
modestly concealed himself some days among the woods and
mountains, till his retreat was discovered, as it is said, by a
celestial light.
63 (return) [Gregor. l. iii. epist. 24, edict. 12, &c. From the
epistles of Gregory, and the viiith volume of the Annals of
Baronius, the pious reader may collect the particles of holy iron
which were inserted in keys or crosses of gold, and distributed
in Britain, Gaul, Spain, Africa, Constantinople, and Egypt. The
pontifical smith who handled the file must have understood the
miracles which it was in his own power to operate or withhold; a
circumstance which abates the superstition of Gregory at the
expense of his veracity.]
64 (return) [ Besides the epistles of Gregory himself, which are
methodized by Dupin, (Bibliotheque Eccles. tom. v. p. 103—126,)
we have three lives of the pope; the two first written in the
viiith and ixth centuries, (de Triplici Vita St. Greg. Preface to
the ivth volume of the Benedictine edition,) by the deacons Paul
(p. 1—18) and John, (p. 19—188,) and containing much original,
though doubtful, evidence; the third, a long and labored
compilation by the Benedictine editors, (p. 199—305.) The annals
of Baronius are a copious but partial history. His papal
prejudices are tempered by the good sense of Fleury, (Hist.
Eccles. tom. viii.,) and his chronology has been rectified by the
criticism of Pagi and Muratori.]
65 (return) [ John the deacon has described them like an
eye-witness, (l. iv. c. 83, 84;) and his description is
illustrated by Angelo Rocca, a Roman antiquary, (St. Greg. Opera,
tom. iv. p. 312—326;) who observes that some mosaics of the popes
of the viith century are still preserved in the old churches of
Rome, (p. 321—323) The same walls which represented Gregory’s
family are now decorated with the martyrdom of St. Andrew, the
noble contest of Dominichino and Guido.]
66 (return) [ Disciplinis vero liberalibus, hoc est grammatica,
rhetorica, dialectica ita apuero est institutus, ut quamvis eo
tempore florerent adhuc Romæ studia literarum, tamen nulli in
urbe ipsa secundus putaretur. Paul. Diacon. in Vit. St. Gregor.
c. 2.]
67 (return) [ The Benedictines (Vit. Greg. l. i. p. 205—208)
labor to reduce the monasteries of Gregory within the rule of
their own order; but, as the question is confessed to be
doubtful, it is clear that these powerful monks are in the wrong.
See Butler’s Lives of the Saints, vol. iii. p. 145; a work of
merit: the sense and learning belong to the author—his prejudices
are those of his profession.]
68 (return) [ Monasterium Gregorianum in ejusdem Beati Gregorii
aedibus ad clivum Scauri prope ecclesiam SS. Johannis et Pauli in
honorem St. Andreae, (John, in Vit. Greg. l. i. c. 6. Greg. l.
vii. epist. 13.) This house and monastery were situate on the
side of the Caelian hill which fronts the Palatine; they are now
occupied by the Camaldoli: San Gregorio triumphs, and St. Andrew
has retired to a small chapel Nardini, Roma Antica, l. iii. c. 6,
p. 100. Descrizzione di Roma, tom. i. p. 442—446.]
The pontificate of Gregory the Great, which lasted thirteen
years, six months, and ten days, is one of the most edifying
periods of the history of the church. His virtues, and even his
faults, a singular mixture of simplicity and cunning, of pride
and humility, of sense and superstition, were happily suited to
his station and to the temper of the times. In his rival, the
patriarch of Constantinople, he condemned the anti-Christian
title of universal bishop, which the successor of St. Peter was
too haughty to concede, and too feeble to assume; and the
ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Gregory was confined to the triple
character of Bishop of Rome, Primate of Italy, and Apostle of the
West. He frequently ascended the pulpit, and kindled, by his
rude, though pathetic, eloquence, the congenial passions of his
audience: the language of the Jewish prophets was interpreted and
applied; and the minds of a people, depressed by their present
calamities, were directed to the hopes and fears of the invisible
world. His precepts and example defined the model of the Roman
liturgy; 69 the distribution of the parishes, the calendar of the
festivals, the order of processions, the service of the priests
and deacons, the variety and change of sacerdotal garments. Till
the last days of his life, he officiated in the canon of the
mass, which continued above three hours: the Gregorian chant 70
has preserved the vocal and instrumental music of the theatre,
and the rough voices of the Barbarians attempted to imitate the
melody of the Roman school. 71 Experience had shown him the
efficacy of these solemn and pompous rites, to soothe the
distress, to confirm the faith, to mitigate the fierceness, and
to dispel the dark enthusiasm of the vulgar, and he readily
forgave their tendency to promote the reign of priesthood and
superstition. The bishops of Italy and the adjacent islands
acknowledged the Roman pontiff as their special metropolitan.
Even the existence, the union, or the translation of episcopal
seats was decided by his absolute discretion: and his successful
inroads into the provinces of Greece, of Spain, and of Gaul,
might countenance the more lofty pretensions of succeeding popes.
He interposed to prevent the abuses of popular elections; his
jealous care maintained the purity of faith and discipline; and
the apostolic shepherd assiduously watched over the faith and
discipline of the subordinate pastors. Under his reign, the
Arians of Italy and Spain were reconciled to the Catholic church,
and the conquest of Britain reflects less glory on the name of
Caesar, than on that of Gregory the First. Instead of six
legions, forty monks were embarked for that distant island, and
the pontiff lamented the austere duties which forbade him to
partake the perils of their spiritual warfare. In less than two
years, he could announce to the archbishop of Alexandria, that
they had baptized the king of Kent with ten thousand of his
Anglo-Saxons, and that the Roman missionaries, like those of the
primitive church, were armed only with spiritual and supernatural
powers. The credulity or the prudence of Gregory was always
disposed to confirm the truths of religion by the evidence of
ghosts, miracles, and resurrections; 72 and posterity has paid to
his memory the same tribute which he freely granted to the virtue
of his own or the preceding generation. The celestial honors have
been liberally bestowed by the authority of the popes, but
Gregory is the last of their own order whom they have presumed to
inscribe in the calendar of saints.
69 (return) [ The Lord’s Prayer consists of half a dozen lines;
the Sacramentarius and Antiphonarius of Gregory fill 880 folio
pages, (tom. iii. p. i. p. 1—880;) yet these only constitute a
part of the Ordo Romanus, which Mabillon has illustrated and
Fleury has abridged, (Hist. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 139—152.)]
70 (return) [ I learn from the Abbe Dobos, (Reflexions sur la
Poesie et la Peinture, tom. iii. p. 174, 175,) that the
simplicity of the Ambrosian chant was confined to four modes,
while the more perfect harmony of the Gregorian comprised the
eight modes or fifteen chords of the ancient music. He observes
(p. 332) that the connoisseurs admire the preface and many
passages of the Gregorian office.]
71 (return) [ John the deacon (in Vit. Greg. l. ii. c. 7)
expresses the early contempt of the Italians for tramontane
singing. Alpina scilicet corpora vocum suarum tonitruis altisone
perstrepentia, susceptae modulationis dulcedinem proprie non
resultant: quia bibuli gutturis barbara feritas dum inflexionibus
et repercussionibus mitem nititur edere cantilenam, naturali
quodam fragore, quasi plaustra per gradus confuse sonantia,
rigidas voces jactat, &c. In the time of Charlemagne, the Franks,
though with some reluctance, admitted the justice of the
reproach. Muratori, Dissert. xxv.]
72 (return) [ A French critic (Petrus Gussanvillus, Opera, tom.
ii. p. 105—112) has vindicated the right of Gregory to the entire
nonsense of the Dialogues. Dupin (tom. v. p. 138) does not think
that any one will vouch for the truth of all these miracles: I
should like to know how many of them he believed himself.]
Their temporal power insensibly arose from the calamities of the
times: and the Roman bishops, who have deluged Europe and Asia
with blood, were compelled to reign as the ministers of charity
and peace. I. The church of Rome, as it has been formerly
observed, was endowed with ample possessions in Italy, Sicily,
and the more distant provinces; and her agents, who were commonly
sub-deacons, had acquired a civil, and even criminal,
jurisdiction over their tenants and husbandmen. The successor of
St. Peter administered his patrimony with the temper of a
vigilant and moderate landlord; 73 and the epistles of Gregory
are filled with salutary instructions to abstain from doubtful or
vexatious lawsuits; to preserve the integrity of weights and
measures; to grant every reasonable delay; and to reduce the
capitation of the slaves of the glebe, who purchased the right of
marriage by the payment of an arbitrary fine. 74 The rent or the
produce of these estates was transported to the mouth of the
Tyber, at the risk and expense of the pope: in the use of wealth
he acted like a faithful steward of the church and the poor, and
liberally applied to their wants the inexhaustible resources of
abstinence and order. The voluminous account of his receipts and
disbursements was kept above three hundred years in the Lateran,
as the model of Christian economy. On the four great festivals,
he divided their quarterly allowance to the clergy, to his
domestics, to the monasteries, the churches, the places of
burial, the almshouses, and the hospitals of Rome, and the rest
of the diocese. On the first day of every month, he distributed
to the poor, according to the season, their stated portion of
corn, wine, cheese, vegetables, oil, fish, fresh provisions,
clothes, and money; and his treasurers were continually summoned
to satisfy, in his name, the extraordinary demands of indigence
and merit. The instant distress of the sick and helpless, of
strangers and pilgrims, was relieved by the bounty of each day,
and of every hour; nor would the pontiff indulge himself in a
frugal repast, till he had sent the dishes from his own table to
some objects deserving of his compassion. The misery of the times
had reduced the nobles and matrons of Rome to accept, without a
blush, the benevolence of the church: three thousand virgins
received their food and raiment from the hand of their
benefactor; and many bishops of Italy escaped from the Barbarians
to the hospitable threshold of the Vatican. Gregory might justly
be styled the Father of his Country; and such was the extreme
sensibility of his conscience, that, for the death of a beggar
who had perished in the streets, he interdicted himself during
several days from the exercise of sacerdotal functions. II. The
misfortunes of Rome involved the apostolical pastor in the
business of peace and war; and it might be doubtful to himself,
whether piety or ambition prompted him to supply the place of his
absent sovereign. Gregory awakened the emperor from a long
slumber; exposed the guilt or incapacity of the exarch and his
inferior ministers; complained that the veterans were withdrawn
from Rome for the defence of Spoleto; encouraged the Italians to
guard their cities and altars; and condescended, in the crisis of
danger, to name the tribunes, and to direct the operations, of
the provincial troops. But the martial spirit of the pope was
checked by the scruples of humanity and religion: the imposition
of tribute, though it was employed in the Italian war, he freely
condemned as odious and oppressive; whilst he protected, against
the Imperial edicts, the pious cowardice of the soldiers who
deserted a military for a monastic life. If we may credit his own
declarations, it would have been easy for Gregory to exterminate
the Lombards by their domestic factions, without leaving a king,
a duke, or a count, to save that unfortunate nation from the
vengeance of their foes. As a Christian bishop, he preferred the
salutary offices of peace; his mediation appeased the tumult of
arms: but he was too conscious of the arts of the Greeks, and the
passions of the Lombards, to engage his sacred promise for the
observance of the truce. Disappointed in the hope of a general
and lasting treaty, he presumed to save his country without the
consent of the emperor or the exarch. The sword of the enemy was
suspended over Rome; it was averted by the mild eloquence and
seasonable gifts of the pontiff, who commanded the respect of
heretics and Barbarians. The merits of Gregory were treated by
the Byzantine court with reproach and insult; but in the
attachment of a grateful people, he found the purest reward of a
citizen, and the best right of a sovereign. 75
73 (return) [ Baronius is unwilling to expatiate on the care of
the patrimonies, lest he should betray that they consisted not of
kingdoms, but farms. The French writers, the Benedictine editors,
(tom. iv. l. iii. p. 272, &c.,) and Fleury, (tom. viii. p. 29,
&c.,) are not afraid of entering into these humble, though
useful, details; and the humanity of Fleury dwells on the social
virtues of Gregory.]
74 (return) [ I much suspect that this pecuniary fine on the
marriages of villains produced the famous, and often fabulous
right, de cuissage, de marquette, &c. With the consent of her
husband, a handsome bride might commute the payment in the arms
of a young landlord, and the mutual favor might afford a
precedent of local rather than legal tyranny]
75 (return) [ The temporal reign of Gregory I. is ably exposed by
Sigonius in the first book, de Regno Italiae. See his works, tom.
ii. p. 44—75]
Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part I.
Revolutions On Persia After The Death Of Chosroes On Nushirvan.—His Son
Hormouz, A Tyrant, Is Deposed.—Usurpation Of Baharam.—Flight And
Restoration Of Chosroes II.—His Gratitude To The Romans.—The Chagan Of
The Avars.—Revolt Of The Army Against Maurice.—His Death.—Tyranny Of
Phocas.—Elevation Of Heraclius.—The Persian War.—Chosroes Subdues
Syria, Egypt, And Asia Minor.—Siege Of Constantinople By The Persians
And Avars.—Persian Expeditions.—Victories And Triumph Of Heraclius.
The conflict of Rome and Persia was prolonged from the death of
Craesus to the reign of Heraclius. An experience of seven hundred
years might convince the rival nations of the impossibility of
maintaining their conquests beyond the fatal limits of the Tigris
and Euphrates. Yet the emulation of Trajan and Julian was
awakened by the trophies of Alexander, and the sovereigns of
Persia indulged the ambitious hope of restoring the empire of
Cyrus. 1 Such extraordinary efforts of power and courage will
always command the attention of posterity; but the events by
which the fate of nations is not materially changed, leave a
faint impression on the page of history, and the patience of the
reader would be exhausted by the repetition of the same
hostilities, undertaken without cause, prosecuted without glory,
and terminated without effect. The arts of negotiation, unknown
to the simple greatness of the senate and the Caesars, were
assiduously cultivated by the Byzantine princes; and the
memorials of their perpetual embassies 2 repeat, with the same
uniform prolixity, the language of falsehood and declamation, the
insolence of the Barbarians, and the servile temper of the
tributary Greeks. Lamenting the barren superfluity of materials,
I have studied to compress the narrative of these uninteresting
transactions: but the just Nushirvan is still applauded as the
model of Oriental kings, and the ambition of his grandson
Chosroes prepared the revolution of the East, which was speedily
accomplished by the arms and the religion of the successors of
Mahomet.
1 (return) [ Missis qui... reposcerent... veteres Persarum ac
Macedonum terminos, seque invasurum possessa Cyro et post
Alexandro, per vaniloquentiam ac minas jaciebat. Tacit. Annal.
vi. 31. Such was the language of the Arsacides. I have repeatedly
marked the lofty claims of the Sassanians.]
2 (return) [ See the embassies of Menander, extracted and
preserved in the tenth century by the order of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus.]
In the useless altercations, that precede and justify the
quarrels of princes, the Greeks and the Barbarians accused each
other of violating the peace which had been concluded between the
two empires about four years before the death of Justinian. The
sovereign of Persia and India aspired to reduce under his
obedience the province of Yemen or Arabia 3 Felix; the distant
land of myrrh and frankincense, which had escaped, rather than
opposed, the conquerors of the East. After the defeat of Abrahah
under the walls of Mecca, the discord of his sons and brothers
gave an easy entrance to the Persians: they chased the strangers
of Abyssinia beyond the Red Sea; and a native prince of the
ancient Homerites was restored to the throne as the vassal or
viceroy of the great Nushirvan. 4 But the nephew of Justinian
declared his resolution to avenge the injuries of his Christian
ally the prince of Abyssinia, as they suggested a decent pretence
to discontinue the annual tribute, which was poorly disguised by
the name of pension. The churches of Persarmenia were oppressed
by the intolerant spirit of the Magi; 411 they secretly invoked
the protector of the Christians, and, after the pious murder of
their satraps, the rebels were avowed and supported as the
brethren and subjects of the Roman emperor. The complaints of
Nushirvan were disregarded by the Byzantine court; Justin yielded
to the importunities of the Turks, who offered an alliance
against the common enemy; and the Persian monarchy was threatened
at the same instant by the united forces of Europe, of Aethiopia,
and of Scythia. At the age of fourscore the sovereign of the East
would perhaps have chosen the peaceful enjoyment of his glory and
greatness; but as soon as war became inevitable, he took the
field with the alacrity of youth, whilst the aggressor trembled
in the palace of Constantinople. Nushirvan, or Chosroes,
conducted in person the siege of Dara; and although that
important fortress had been left destitute of troops and
magazines, the valor of the inhabitants resisted above five
months the archers, the elephants, and the military engines of
the Great King. In the mean while his general Adarman advanced
from Babylon, traversed the desert, passed the Euphrates,
insulted the suburbs of Antioch, reduced to ashes the city of
Apamea, and laid the spoils of Syria at the feet of his master,
whose perseverance in the midst of winter at length subverted the
bulwark of the East. But these losses, which astonished the
provinces and the court, produced a salutary effect in the
repentance and abdication of the emperor Justin: a new spirit
arose in the Byzantine councils; and a truce of three years was
obtained by the prudence of Tiberius. That seasonable interval
was employed in the preparations of war; and the voice of rumor
proclaimed to the world, that from the distant countries of the
Alps and the Rhine, from Scythia, Maesia, Pannonia, Illyricum,
and Isauria, the strength of the Imperial cavalry was reenforced
with one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers. Yet the king of
Persia, without fear, or without faith, resolved to prevent the
attack of the enemy; again passed the Euphrates, and dismissing
the ambassadors of Tiberius, arrogantly commanded them to await
his arrival at Caesarea, the metropolis of the Cappadocian
provinces. The two armies encountered each other in the battle of
Melitene: 412 the Barbarians, who darkened the air with a cloud
of arrows, prolonged their line, and extended their wings across
the plain; while the Romans, in deep and solid bodies, expected
to prevail in closer action, by the weight of their swords and
lances. A Scythian chief, who commanded their right wing,
suddenly turned the flank of the enemy, attacked their rear-guard
in the presence of Chosroes, penetrated to the midst of the camp,
pillaged the royal tent, profaned the eternal fire, loaded a
train of camels with the spoils of Asia, cut his way through the
Persian host, and returned with songs of victory to his friends,
who had consumed the day in single combats, or ineffectual
skirmishes. The darkness of the night, and the separation of the
Romans, afforded the Persian monarch an opportunity of revenge;
and one of their camps was swept away by a rapid and impetuous
assault. But the review of his loss, and the consciousness of his
danger, determined Chosroes to a speedy retreat: he burnt, in his
passage, the vacant town of Melitene; and, without consulting the
safety of his troops, boldly swam the Euphrates on the back of an
elephant. After this unsuccessful campaign, the want of
magazines, and perhaps some inroad of the Turks, obliged him to
disband or divide his forces; the Romans were left masters of the
field, and their general Justinian, advancing to the relief of
the Persarmenian rebels, erected his standard on the banks of the
Araxes. The great Pompey had formerly halted within three days’
march of the Caspian: 5 that inland sea was explored, for the
first time, by a hostile fleet, 6 and seventy thousand captives
were transplanted from Hyrcania to the Isle of Cyprus. On the
return of spring, Justinian descended into the fertile plains of
Assyria; the flames of war approached the residence of Nushirvan;
the indignant monarch sunk into the grave; and his last edict
restrained his successors from exposing their person in battle
against the Romans. 611 Yet the memory of this transient affront
was lost in the glories of a long reign; and his formidable
enemies, after indulging their dream of conquest, again solicited
a short respite from the calamities of war. 7
3 (return) [ The general independence of the Arabs, which cannot
be admitted without many limitations, is blindly asserted in a
separate dissertation of the authors of the Universal History,
vol. xx. p. 196—250. A perpetual miracle is supposed to have
guarded the prophecy in favor of the posterity of Ishmael; and
these learned bigots are not afraid to risk the truth of
Christianity on this frail and slippery foundation. * Note: It
certainly appears difficult to extract a prediction of the
perpetual independence of the Arabs from the text in Genesis,
which would have received an ample fulfilment during centuries of
uninvaded freedom. But the disputants appear to forget the
inseparable connection in the prediction between the wild, the
Bedoween habits of the Ismaelites, with their national
independence. The stationary and civilized descendant of Ismael
forfeited, as it were, his birthright, and ceased to be a genuine
son of the “wild man” The phrase, “dwelling in the presence of
his brethren,” is interpreted by Rosenmüller (in loc.) and
others, according to the Hebrew geography, “to the East” of his
brethren, the legitimate race of Abraham—M.]
4 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Biblioth. Orient. p. 477. Pocock,
Specimen Hist. Arabum, p. 64, 65. Father Pagi (Critica, tom. ii.
p. 646) has proved that, after ten years’ peace, the Persian war,
which continued twenty years, was renewed A.D. 571. Mahomet was
born A.D. 569, in the year of the elephant, or the defeat of
Abrahah, (Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 89, 90, 98;) and
this account allows two years for the conquest of Yemen. * Note:
Abrahah, according to some accounts, was succeeded by his son
Taksoum, who reigned seventeen years; his brother Mascouh, who
was slain in battle against the Persians, twelve. But this
chronology is irreconcilable with the Arabian conquests of
Nushirvan the Great. Either Seif, or his son Maadi Karb, was the
native prince placed on the throne by the Persians. St. Martin,
vol. x. p. 78. See likewise Johannsen, Hist. Yemanae.—M.]
411 (return) [ Persarmenia was long maintained in peace by the
tolerant administration of Mejej, prince of the Gnounians. On his
death he was succeeded by a persecutor, a Persian, named
Ten-Schahpour, who attempted to propagate Zoroastrianism by
violence. Nushirvan, on an appeal to the throne by the Armenian
clergy, replaced Ten-Schahpour, in 552, by Veschnas-Vahram. The
new marzban, or governor, was instructed to repress the bigoted
Magi in their persecutions of the Armenians, but the Persian
converts to Christianity were still exposed to cruel sufferings.
The most distinguished of them, Izdbouzid, was crucified at Dovin
in the presence of a vast multitude. The fame of this martyr
spread to the West. Menander, the historian, not only, as appears
by a fragment published by Mai, related this event in his
history, but, according to M. St. Martin, wrote a tragedy on the
subject. This, however, is an unwarrantable inference from the
phrase which merely means that he related the tragic event in his
history. An epigram on the same subject, preserved in the
Anthology, Jacob’s Anth. Palat. i. 27, belongs to the historian.
Yet Armenia remained in peace under the government of
Veschnas-Vahram and his successor Varazdat. The tyranny of his
successor Surena led to the insurrection under Vartan, the
Mamigonian, who revenged the death of his brother on the marzban
Surena, surprised Dovin, and put to the sword the governor, the
soldiers, and the Magians. From St. Martin, vol x. p. 79—89.—M.]
412 (return) [ Malathiah. It was in the lesser Armenia.—M.]
5 (return) [ He had vanquished the Albanians, who brought into
the field 12,000 horse and 60,000 foot; but he dreaded the
multitude of venomous reptiles, whose existence may admit of some
doubt, as well as that of the neighboring Amazons. Plutarch, in
Pompeio, tom. ii. p. 1165, 1166.]
6 (return) [ In the history of the world I can only perceive two
navies on the Caspian: 1. Of the Macedonians, when Patrocles, the
admiral of the kings of Syria, Seleucus and Antiochus, descended
most probably the River Oxus, from the confines of India, (Plin.
Hist. Natur. vi. 21.) 2. Of the Russians, when Peter the First
conducted a fleet and army from the neighborhood of Moscow to the
coast of Persia, (Bell’s Travels, vol. ii. p. 325—352.) He justly
observes, that such martial pomp had never been displayed on the
Volga.]
611 (return) [ This circumstance rests on the statements of
Evagrius and Theophylaci Simocatta. They are not of sufficient
authority to establish a fact so improbable. St. Martin, vol. x.
p. 140.—M.]
7 (return) [ For these Persian wars and treaties, see Menander,
in Excerpt. Legat. p. 113—125. Theophanes Byzant. apud Photium,
cod. lxiv p. 77, 80, 81. Evagrius, l. v. c. 7—15. Theophylact, l.
iii. c. 9—16 Agathias, l. iv. p. 140.]
The throne of Chosroes Nushirvan was filled by Hormouz, or
Hormisdas, the eldest or the most favored of his sons. With the
kingdoms of Persia and India, he inherited the reputation and
example of his father, the service, in every rank, of his wise
and valiant officers, and a general system of administration,
harmonized by time and political wisdom to promote the happiness
of the prince and people. But the royal youth enjoyed a still
more valuable blessing, the friendship of a sage who had presided
over his education, and who always preferred the honor to the
interest of his pupil, his interest to his inclination. In a
dispute with the Greek and Indian philosophers, Buzurg 8 had once
maintained, that the most grievous misfortune of life is old age
without the remembrance of virtue; and our candor will presume
that the same principle compelled him, during three years, to
direct the councils of the Persian empire. His zeal was rewarded
by the gratitude and docility of Hormouz, who acknowledged
himself more indebted to his preceptor than to his parent: but
when age and labor had impaired the strength, and perhaps the
faculties, of this prudent counsellor, he retired from court, and
abandoned the youthful monarch to his own passions and those of
his favorites. By the fatal vicissitude of human affairs, the
same scenes were renewed at Ctesiphon, which had been exhibited
at Rome after the death of Marcus Antoninus. The ministers of
flattery and corruption, who had been banished by his father,
were recalled and cherished by the son; the disgrace and exile of
the friends of Nushirvan established their tyranny; and virtue
was driven by degrees from the mind of Hormouz, from his palace,
and from the government of the state. The faithful agents, the
eyes and ears of the king, informed him of the progress of
disorder, that the provincial governors flew to their prey with
the fierceness of lions and eagles, and that their rapine and
injustice would teach the most loyal of his subjects to abhor the
name and authority of their sovereign. The sincerity of this
advice was punished with death; the murmurs of the cities were
despised, their tumults were quelled by military execution: the
intermediate powers between the throne and the people were
abolished; and the childish vanity of Hormouz, who affected the
daily use of the tiara, was fond of declaring, that he alone
would be the judge as well as the master of his kingdom.
In every word, and in every action, the son of Nushirvan
degenerated from the virtues of his father. His avarice defrauded
the troops; his jealous caprice degraded the satraps; the palace,
the tribunals, the waters of the Tigris, were stained with the
blood of the innocent, and the tyrant exulted in the sufferings
and execution of thirteen thousand victims. As the excuse of his
cruelty, he sometimes condescended to observe, that the fears of
the Persians would be productive of hatred, and that their hatred
must terminate in rebellion but he forgot that his own guilt and
folly had inspired the sentiments which he deplored, and prepared
the event which he so justly apprehended. Exasperated by long and
hopeless oppression, the provinces of Babylon, Susa, and
Carmania, erected the standard of revolt; and the princes of
Arabia, India, and Scythia, refused the customary tribute to the
unworthy successor of Nushirvan. The arms of the Romans, in slow
sieges and frequent inroads, afflicted the frontiers of
Mesopotamia and Assyria: one of their generals professed himself
the disciple of Scipio; and the soldiers were animated by a
miraculous image of Christ, whose mild aspect should never have
been displayed in the front of battle. 9 At the same time, the
eastern provinces of Persia were invaded by the great khan, who
passed the Oxus at the head of three or four hundred thousand
Turks. The imprudent Hormouz accepted their perfidious and
formidable aid; the cities of Khorassan or Bactriana were
commanded to open their gates; the march of the Barbarians
towards the mountains of Hyrcania revealed the correspondence of
the Turkish and Roman arms; and their union must have subverted
the throne of the house of Sassan.
8 (return) [ Buzurg Mihir may be considered, in his character and
station, as the Seneca of the East; but his virtues, and perhaps
his faults, are less known than those of the Roman, who appears
to have been much more loquacious. The Persian sage was the
person who imported from India the game of chess and the fables
of Pilpay. Such has been the fame of his wisdom and virtues, that
the Christians claim him as a believer in the gospel; and the
Mahometans revere Buzurg as a premature Mussulman. D’Herbelot,
Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 218.]
9 (return) [ See the imitation of Scipio in Theophylact, l. i. c.
14; the image of Christ, l. ii. c. 3. Hereafter I shall speak
more amply of the Christian images—I had almost said idols. This,
if I am not mistaken, is the oldest of divine manufacture; but in
the next thousand years, many others issued from the same
workshop.]
Persia had been lost by a king; it was saved by a hero. After his
revolt, Varanes or Bahram is stigmatized by the son of Hormouz as
an ungrateful slave; the proud and ambiguous reproach of
despotism, since he was truly descended from the ancient princes
of Rei, 10 one of the seven families whose splendid, as well as
substantial, prerogatives exalted them above the heads of the
Persian nobility. 11 At the siege of Dara, the valor of Bahram
was signalized under the eyes of Nushirvan, and both the father
and son successively promoted him to the command of armies, the
government of Media, and the superintendence of the palace. The
popular prediction which marked him as the deliverer of Persia,
might be inspired by his past victories and extraordinary figure:
the epithet Giubin 1111 is expressive of the quality of dry wood:
he had the strength and stature of a giant; and his savage
countenance was fancifully compared to that of a wild cat. While
the nation trembled, while Hormouz disguised his terror by the
name of suspicion, and his servants concealed their disloyalty
under the mask of fear, Bahram alone displayed his undaunted
courage and apparent fidelity: and as soon as he found that no
more than twelve thousand soldiers would follow him against the
enemy; he prudently declared, that to this fatal number Heaven
had reserved the honors of the triumph. 1112 The steep and narrow
descent of the Pule Rudbar, 12 or Hyrcanian rock, is the only
pass through which an army can penetrate into the territory of
Rei and the plains of Media. From the commanding heights, a band
of resolute men might overwhelm with stones and darts the myriads
of the Turkish host: their emperor and his son were transpierced
with arrows; and the fugitives were left, without counsel or
provisions, to the revenge of an injured people. The patriotism
of the Persian general was stimulated by his affection for the
city of his forefathers: in the hour of victory, every peasant
became a soldier, and every soldier a hero; and their ardor was
kindled by the gorgeous spectacle of beds, and thrones, and
tables of massy gold, the spoils of Asia, and the luxury of the
hostile camp. A prince of a less malignant temper could not
easily have forgiven his benefactor; and the secret hatred of
Hormouz was envenomed by a malicious report, that Bahram had
privately retained the most precious fruits of his Turkish
victory. But the approach of a Roman army on the side of the
Araxes compelled the implacable tyrant to smile and to applaud;
and the toils of Bahram were rewarded with the permission of
encountering a new enemy, by their skill and discipline more
formidable than a Scythian multitude. Elated by his recent
success, he despatched a herald with a bold defiance to the camp
of the Romans, requesting them to fix a day of battle, and to
choose whether they would pass the river themselves, or allow a
free passage to the arms of the great king. The lieutenant of the
emperor Maurice preferred the safer alternative; and this local
circumstance, which would have enhanced the victory of the
Persians, rendered their defeat more bloody and their escape more
difficult. But the loss of his subjects, and the danger of his
kingdom, were overbalanced in the mind of Hormouz by the disgrace
of his personal enemy; and no sooner had Bahram collected and
reviewed his forces, than he received from a royal messenger the
insulting gift of a distaff, a spinning-wheel, and a complete
suit of female apparel. Obedient to the will of his sovereign he
showed himself to the soldiers in this unworthy disguise: they
resented his ignominy and their own; a shout of rebellion ran
through the ranks; and the general accepted their oath of
fidelity and vows of revenge. A second messenger, who had been
commanded to bring the rebel in chains, was trampled under the
feet of an elephant, and manifestos were diligently circulated,
exhorting the Persians to assert their freedom against an odious
and contemptible tyrant. The defection was rapid and universal;
his loyal slaves were sacrificed to the public fury; the troops
deserted to the standard of Bahram; and the provinces again
saluted the deliverer of his country.
10 (return) [ Ragae, or Rei, is mentioned in the Apocryphal book
of Tobit as already flourishing, 700 years before Christ, under
the Assyrian empire. Under the foreign names of Europus and
Arsacia, this city, 500 stadia to the south of the Caspian gates,
was successively embellished by the Macedonians and Parthians,
(Strabo, l. xi. p. 796.) Its grandeur and populousness in the
ixth century are exaggerated beyond the bounds of credibility;
but Rei has been since ruined by wars and the unwholesomeness of
the air. Chardin, Voyage en Perse, tom. i. p. 279, 280.
D’Herbelot, Biblioth. Oriental. p. 714.]
11 (return) [ Theophylact. l. iii. c. 18. The story of the seven
Persians is told in the third book of Herodotus; and their noble
descendants are often mentioned, especially in the fragments of
Ctesias. Yet the independence of Otanes (Herodot. l. iii. c. 83,
84) is hostile to the spirit of despotism, and it may not seem
probable that the seven families could survive the revolutions of
eleven hundred years. They might, however, be represented by the
seven ministers, (Brisson, de Regno Persico, l. i. p. 190;) and
some Persian nobles, like the kings of Pontus (Polyb l. v. p.
540) and Cappadocia, (Diodor. Sicul. l. xxxi. tom. ii. p. 517,)
might claim their descent from the bold companions of Darius.]
1111 (return) [ He is generally called Baharam Choubeen, Baharam,
the stick-like, probably from his appearance. Malcolm, vol. i. p.
120.—M.]
1112 (return) [ The Persian historians say, that Hormouz
entreated his general to increase his numbers; but Baharam
replied, that experience had taught him that it was the quality,
not the number of soldiers, which gave success. * * * No man in
his army was under forty years, and none above fifty. Malcolm,
vol. i. p. 121—M.]
12 (return) [ See an accurate description of this mountain by
Olearius, (Voyage en Perse, p. 997, 998,) who ascended it with
much difficulty and danger in his return from Ispahan to the
Caspian Sea.]
As the passes were faithfully guarded, Hormouz could only compute
the number of his enemies by the testimony of a guilty
conscience, and the daily defection of those who, in the hour of
his distress, avenged their wrongs, or forgot their obligations.
He proudly displayed the ensigns of royalty; but the city and
palace of Modain had already escaped from the hand of the tyrant.
Among the victims of his cruelty, Bindoes, a Sassanian prince,
had been cast into a dungeon; his fetters were broken by the zeal
and courage of a brother; and he stood before the king at the
head of those trusty guards, who had been chosen as the ministers
of his confinement, and perhaps of his death. Alarmed by the
hasty intrusion and bold reproaches of the captive, Hormouz
looked round, but in vain, for advice or assistance; discovered
that his strength consisted in the obedience of others; and
patiently yielded to the single arm of Bindoes, who dragged him
from the throne to the same dungeon in which he himself had been
so lately confined. At the first tumult, Chosroes, the eldest of
the sons of Hormouz, escaped from the city; he was persuaded to
return by the pressing and friendly invitation of Bindoes, who
promised to seat him on his father’s throne, and who expected to
reign under the name of an inexperienced youth. In the just
assurance, that his accomplices could neither forgive nor hope to
be forgiven, and that every Persian might be trusted as the judge
and enemy of the tyrant, he instituted a public trial without a
precedent and without a copy in the annals of the East. The son
of Nushirvan, who had requested to plead in his own defence, was
introduced as a criminal into the full assembly of the nobles and
satraps. 13 He was heard with decent attention as long as he
expatiated on the advantages of order and obedience, the danger
of innovation, and the inevitable discord of those who had
encouraged each other to trample on their lawful and hereditary
sovereign. By a pathetic appeal to their humanity, he extorted
that pity which is seldom refused to the fallen fortunes of a
king; and while they beheld the abject posture and squalid
appearance of the prisoner, his tears, his chains, and the marks
of ignominious stripes, it was impossible to forget how recently
they had adored the divine splendor of his diadem and purple. But
an angry murmur arose in the assembly as soon as he presumed to
vindicate his conduct, and to applaud the victories of his reign.
He defined the duties of a king, and the Persian nobles listened
with a smile of contempt; they were fired with indignation when
he dared to vilify the character of Chosroes; and by the
indiscreet offer of resigning the sceptre to the second of his
sons, he subscribed his own condemnation, and sacrificed the life
of his own innocent favorite. The mangled bodies of the boy and
his mother were exposed to the people; the eyes of Hormouz were
pierced with a hot needle; and the punishment of the father was
succeeded by the coronation of his eldest son. Chosroes had
ascended the throne without guilt, and his piety strove to
alleviate the misery of the abdicated monarch; from the dungeon
he removed Hormouz to an apartment of the palace, supplied with
liberality the consolations of sensual enjoyment, and patiently
endured the furious sallies of his resentment and despair. He
might despise the resentment of a blind and unpopular tyrant, but
the tiara was trembling on his head, till he could subvert the
power, or acquire the friendship, of the great Bahram, who
sternly denied the justice of a revolution, in which himself and
his soldiers, the true representatives of Persia, had never been
consulted. The offer of a general amnesty, and of the second rank
in his kingdom, was answered by an epistle from Bahram, friend of
the gods, conqueror of men, and enemy of tyrants, the satrap of
satraps, general of the Persian armies, and a prince adorned with
the title of eleven virtues. 14 He commands Chosroes, the son of
Hormouz, to shun the example and fate of his father, to confine
the traitors who had been released from their chains, to deposit
in some holy place the diadem which he had usurped, and to accept
from his gracious benefactor the pardon of his faults and the
government of a province. The rebel might not be proud, and the
king most assuredly was not humble; but the one was conscious of
his strength, the other was sensible of his weakness; and even
the modest language of his reply still left room for treaty and
reconciliation. Chosroes led into the field the slaves of the
palace and the populace of the capital: they beheld with terror
the banners of a veteran army; they were encompassed and
surprised by the evolutions of the general; and the satraps who
had deposed Hormouz, received the punishment of their revolt, or
expiated their first treason by a second and more criminal act of
disloyalty. The life and liberty of Chosroes were saved, but he
was reduced to the necessity of imploring aid or refuge in some
foreign land; and the implacable Bindoes, anxious to secure an
unquestionable title, hastily returned to the palace, and ended,
with a bowstring, the wretched existence of the son of Nushirvan.
15
13 (return) [ The Orientals suppose that Bahram convened this
assembly and proclaimed Chosroes; but Theophylact is, in this
instance, more distinct and credible. * Note: Yet Theophylact
seems to have seized the opportunity to indulge his propensity
for writing orations; and the orations read rather like those of
a Grecian sophist than of an Eastern assembly.—M.]
14 (return) [ See the words of Theophylact, l. iv. c. 7., &c. In
answer, Chosroes styles himself in genuine Oriental bombast.]
15 (return) [ Theophylact (l. iv. c. 7) imputes the death of
Hormouz to his son, by whose command he was beaten to death with
clubs. I have followed the milder account of Khondemir and
Eutychius, and shall always be content with the slightest
evidence to extenuate the crime of parricide. Note: Malcolm
concurs in ascribing his death to Bundawee, (Bindoes,) vol. i. p.
123. The Eastern writers generally impute the crime to the uncle
St. Martin, vol. x. p. 300.—M.]
While Chosroes despatched the preparations of his retreat, he
deliberated with his remaining friends, 16 whether he should lurk
in the valleys of Mount Caucasus, or fly to the tents of the
Turks, or solicit the protection of the emperor. The long
emulation of the successors of Artaxerxes and Constantine
increased his reluctance to appear as a suppliant in a rival
court; but he weighed the forces of the Romans, and prudently
considered that the neighborhood of Syria would render his escape
more easy and their succors more effectual. Attended only by his
concubines, and a troop of thirty guards, he secretly departed
from the capital, followed the banks of the Euphrates, traversed
the desert, and halted at the distance of ten miles from
Circesium. About the third watch of the night, the Roman præfect
was informed of his approach, and he introduced the royal
stranger to the fortress at the dawn of day. From thence the king
of Persia was conducted to the more honorable residence of
Hierapolis; and Maurice dissembled his pride, and displayed his
benevolence, at the reception of the letters and ambassadors of
the grandson of Nushirvan. They humbly represented the
vicissitudes of fortune and the common interest of princes,
exaggerated the ingratitude of Bahram, the agent of the evil
principle, and urged, with specious argument, that it was for the
advantage of the Romans themselves to support the two monarchies
which balance the world, the two great luminaries by whose
salutary influence it is vivified and adorned. The anxiety of
Chosroes was soon relieved by the assurance, that the emperor had
espoused the cause of justice and royalty; but Maurice prudently
declined the expense and delay of his useless visit to
Constantinople. In the name of his generous benefactor, a rich
diadem was presented to the fugitive prince, with an inestimable
gift of jewels and gold; a powerful army was assembled on the
frontiers of Syria and Armenia, under the command of the valiant
and faithful Narses, 17 and this general, of his own nation, and
his own choice, was directed to pass the Tigris, and never to
sheathe his sword till he had restored Chosroes to the throne of
his ancestors. 1711 The enterprise, however splendid, was less
arduous than it might appear. Persia had already repented of her
fatal rashness, which betrayed the heir of the house of Sassan to
the ambition of a rebellious subject: and the bold refusal of the
Magi to consecrate his usurpation, compelled Bahram to assume the
sceptre, regardless of the laws and prejudices of the nation. The
palace was soon distracted with conspiracy, the city with tumult,
the provinces with insurrection; and the cruel execution of the
guilty and the suspected served to irritate rather than subdue
the public discontent. No sooner did the grandson of Nushirvan
display his own and the Roman banners beyond the Tigris, than he
was joined, each day, by the increasing multitudes of the
nobility and people; and as he advanced, he received from every
side the grateful offerings of the keys of his cities and the
heads of his enemies. As soon as Modain was freed from the
presence of the usurper, the loyal inhabitants obeyed the first
summons of Mebodes at the head of only two thousand horse, and
Chosroes accepted the sacred and precious ornaments of the palace
as the pledge of their truth and the presage of his approaching
success. After the junction of the Imperial troops, which Bahram
vainly struggled to prevent, the contest was decided by two
battles on the banks of the Zab, and the confines of Media. The
Romans, with the faithful subjects of Persia, amounted to sixty
thousand, while the whole force of the usurper did not exceed
forty thousand men: the two generals signalized their valor and
ability; but the victory was finally determined by the prevalence
of numbers and discipline. With the remnant of a broken army,
Bahram fled towards the eastern provinces of the Oxus: the enmity
of Persia reconciled him to the Turks; but his days were
shortened by poison, perhaps the most incurable of poisons; the
stings of remorse and despair, and the bitter remembrance of lost
glory. Yet the modern Persians still commemorate the exploits of
Bahram; and some excellent laws have prolonged the duration of
his troubled and transitory reign.
16 (return) [ After the battle of Pharsalia, the Pompey of Lucan
(l. viii. 256—455) holds a similar debate. He was himself
desirous of seeking the Parthians: but his companions abhorred
the unnatural alliance and the adverse prejudices might operate
as forcibly on Chosroes and his companions, who could describe,
with the same vehemence, the contrast of laws, religion, and
manners, between the East and West.]
17 (return) [ In this age there were three warriors of the name
of Narses, who have been often confounded, (Pagi, Critica, tom.
ii. p. 640:) 1. A Persarmenian, the brother of Isaac and
Armatius, who, after a successful action against Belisarius,
deserted from his Persian sovereign, and afterwards served in the
Italian war.—2. The eunuch who conquered Italy.—3. The restorer
of Chosroes, who is celebrated in the poem of Corippus (l. iii.
220—327) as excelsus super omnia vertico agmina.... habitu
modestus.... morum probitate placens, virtute verendus;
fulmineus, cautus, vigilans, &c.]
1711 (return) [ The Armenians adhered to Chosroes. St. Martin,
vol. x. p. 312.—M. ——According to Mivkhond and the Oriental
writers, Bahram received the daughter of the Khakan in marriage,
and commanded a body of Turks in an invasion of Persia. Some say
that he was assassinated; Malcolm adopts the opinion that he was
poisoned. His sister Gourdieh, the companion of his flight, is
celebrated in the Shah Nameh. She was afterwards one of the wives
of Chosroes. St. Martin. vol. x. p. 331.—M.]
The restoration of Chosroes was celebrated with feasts and
executions; and the music of the royal banquet was often
disturbed by the groans of dying or mutilated criminals. A
general pardon might have diffused comfort and tranquillity
through a country which had been shaken by the late revolutions;
yet, before the sanguinary temper of Chosroes is blamed, we
should learn whether the Persians had not been accustomed either
to dread the rigor, or to despise the weakness, of their
sovereign. The revolt of Bahram, and the conspiracy of the
satraps, were impartially punished by the revenge or justice of
the conqueror; the merits of Bindoes himself could not purify his
hand from the guilt of royal blood: and the son of Hormouz was
desirous to assert his own innocence, and to vindicate the
sanctity of kings. During the vigor of the Roman power, several
princes were seated on the throne of Persia by the arms and the
authority of the first Caesars. But their new subjects were soon
disgusted with the vices or virtues which they had imbibed in a
foreign land; the instability of their dominion gave birth to a
vulgar observation, that the choice of Rome was solicited and
rejected with equal ardor by the capricious levity of Oriental
slaves. But the glory of Maurice was conspicuous in the long and
fortunate reign of his son and his ally. A band of a thousand
Romans, who continued to guard the person of Chosroes, proclaimed
his confidence in the fidelity of the strangers; his growing
strength enabled him to dismiss this unpopular aid, but he
steadily professed the same gratitude and reverence to his
adopted father; and till the death of Maurice, the peace and
alliance of the two empires were faithfully maintained. 18 Yet
the mercenary friendship of the Roman prince had been purchased
with costly and important gifts; the strong cities of
Martyropolis and Dara 1811 were restored, and the Persarmenians
became the willing subjects of an empire, whose eastern limit was
extended, beyond the example of former times, as far as the banks
of the Araxes, and the neighborhood of the Caspian. A pious hope
was indulged, that the church as well as the state might triumph
in this revolution: but if Chosroes had sincerely listened to the
Christian bishops, the impression was erased by the zeal and
eloquence of the Magi: if he was armed with philosophic
indifference, he accommodated his belief, or rather his
professions, to the various circumstances of an exile and a
sovereign. The imaginary conversion of the king of Persia was
reduced to a local and superstitious veneration for Sergius, 19
one of the saints of Antioch, who heard his prayers and appeared
to him in dreams; he enriched the shrine with offerings of gold
and silver, and ascribed to this invisible patron the success of
his arms, and the pregnancy of Sira, a devout Christian and the
best beloved of his wives. 20 The beauty of Sira, or Schirin, 21
her wit, her musical talents, are still famous in the history, or
rather in the romances, of the East: her own name is expressive,
in the Persian tongue, of sweetness and grace; and the epithet of
Parviz alludes to the charms of her royal lover. Yet Sira never
shared the passions which she inspired, and the bliss of Chosroes
was tortured by a jealous doubt, that while he possessed her
person, she had bestowed her affections on a meaner favorite. 22
18 (return) [ Experimentis cognitum est Barbaros malle Roma
petere reges quam habere. These experiments are admirably
represented in the invitation and expulsion of Vonones, (Annal.
ii. 1—3,) Tiridates, (Annal. vi. 32-44,) and Meherdates, (Annal.
xi. 10, xii. 10-14.) The eye of Tacitus seems to have
transpierced the camp of the Parthians and the walls of the
harem.]
1811 (return) [ Concerning Nisibis, see St. Martin and his
Armenian authorities, vol. x p. 332, and Memoires sur l’Armenie,
tom. i. p. 25.—M.]
19 (return) [ Sergius and his companion Bacchus, who are said to
have suffered in the persecution of Maximian, obtained divine
honor in France, Italy, Constantinople, and the East. Their tomb
at Rasaphe was famous for miracles, and that Syrian town acquired
the more honorable name of Sergiopolis. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles.
tom. v. p. 481—496. Butler’s Saints, vol. x. p. 155.]
20 (return) [ Evagrius (l. vi. c. 21) and Theophylact (l. v. c.
13, 14) have preserved the original letters of Chosroes, written
in Greek, signed with his own hand, and afterwards inscribed on
crosses and tables of gold, which were deposited in the church of
Sergiopolis. They had been sent to the bishop of Antioch, as
primate of Syria. * Note: St. Martin thinks that they were first
written in Syriac, and then translated into the bad Greek in
which they appear, vol. x. p. 334.—M.]
21 (return) [ The Greeks only describe her as a Roman by birth, a
Christian by religion: but she is represented as the daughter of
the emperor Maurice in the Persian and Turkish romances which
celebrate the love of Khosrou for Schirin, of Schirin for Ferhad,
the most beautiful youth of the East, D’Herbelot, Biblioth.
Orient. p. 789, 997, 998. * Note: Compare M. von Hammer’s preface
to, and poem of, Schirin in which he gives an account of the
various Persian poems, of which he has endeavored to extract the
essence in his own work.—M.]
22 (return) [ The whole series of the tyranny of Hormouz, the
revolt of Bahram, and the flight and restoration of Chosroes, is
related by two contemporary Greeks—more concisely by Evagrius,
(l. vi. c. 16, 17, 18, 19,) and most diffusely by Theophylact
Simocatta, (l. iii. c. 6—18, l. iv. c. 1—16, l. v. c. 1-15:)
succeeding compilers, Zonaras and Cedrenus, can only transcribe
and abridge. The Christian Arabs, Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p.
200—208) and Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 96—98) appear to have
consulted some particular memoirs. The great Persian historians
of the xvth century, Mirkhond and Khondemir, are only known to me
by the imperfect extracts of Schikard, (Tarikh, p. 150—155,)
Texeira, or rather Stevens, (Hist. of Persia, p. 182—186,) a
Turkish Ms. translated by the Abbe Fourmount, (Hist. de
l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. vii. p. 325—334,) and
D’Herbelot, (aux mots Hormouz, p. 457—459. Bahram, p. 174.
Khosrou Parviz, p. 996.) Were I perfectly satisfied of their
authority, I could wish these Oriental materials had been more
copious.]
Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part II.
While the majesty of the Roman name was revived in the East, the
prospect of Europe is less pleasing and less glorious. By the
departure of the Lombards, and the ruin of the Gepidae, the
balance of power was destroyed on the Danube; and the Avars
spread their permanent dominion from the foot of the Alps to the
sea-coast of the Euxine. The reign of Baian is the brightest aera
of their monarchy; their chagan, who occupied the rustic palace
of Attila, appears to have imitated his character and policy; 23
but as the same scenes were repeated in a smaller circle, a
minute representation of the copy would be devoid of the
greatness and novelty of the original. The pride of the second
Justin, of Tiberius, and Maurice, was humbled by a proud
Barbarian, more prompt to inflict, than exposed to suffer, the
injuries of war; and as often as Asia was threatened by the
Persian arms, Europe was oppressed by the dangerous inroads, or
costly friendship, of the Avars. When the Roman envoys approached
the presence of the chagan, they were commanded to wait at the
door of his tent, till, at the end perhaps of ten or twelve days,
he condescended to admit them. If the substance or the style of
their message was offensive to his ear, he insulted, with real or
affected fury, their own dignity, and that of their prince; their
baggage was plundered, and their lives were only saved by the
promise of a richer present and a more respectful address. But
his sacred ambassadors enjoyed and abused an unbounded license in
the midst of Constantinople: they urged, with importunate
clamors, the increase of tribute, or the restitution of captives
and deserters: and the majesty of the empire was almost equally
degraded by a base compliance, or by the false and fearful
excuses with which they eluded such insolent demands. The chagan
had never seen an elephant; and his curiosity was excited by the
strange, and perhaps fabulous, portrait of that wonderful animal.
At his command, one of the largest elephants of the Imperial
stables was equipped with stately caparisons, and conducted by a
numerous train to the royal village in the plains of Hungary. He
surveyed the enormous beast with surprise, with disgust, and
possibly with terror; and smiled at the vain industry of the
Romans, who, in search of such useless rarities, could explore
the limits of the land and sea. He wished, at the expense of the
emperor, to repose in a golden bed. The wealth of Constantinople,
and the skilful diligence of her artists, were instantly devoted
to the gratification of his caprice; but when the work was
finished, he rejected with scorn a present so unworthy the
majesty of a great king. 24 These were the casual sallies of his
pride; but the avarice of the chagan was a more steady and
tractable passion: a rich and regular supply of silk apparel,
furniture, and plate, introduced the rudiments of art and luxury
among the tents of the Scythians; their appetite was stimulated
by the pepper and cinnamon of India; 25 the annual subsidy or
tribute was raised from fourscore to one hundred and twenty
thousand pieces of gold; and after each hostile interruption, the
payment of the arrears, with exorbitant interest, was always made
the first condition of the new treaty. In the language of a
Barbarian, without guile, the prince of the Avars affected to
complain of the insincerity of the Greeks; 26 yet he was not
inferior to the most civilized nations in the refinement of
dissimulation and perfidy. As the successor of the Lombards, the
chagan asserted his claim to the important city of Sirmium, the
ancient bulwark of the Illyrian provinces. 27 The plains of the
Lower Hungary were covered with the Avar horse and a fleet of
large boats was built in the Hercynian wood, to descend the
Danube, and to transport into the Save the materials of a bridge.
But as the strong garrison of Singidunum, which commanded the
conflux of the two rivers, might have stopped their passage and
baffled his designs, he dispelled their apprehensions by a solemn
oath that his views were not hostile to the empire. He swore by
his sword, the symbol of the god of war, that he did not, as the
enemy of Rome, construct a bridge upon the Save. “If I violate my
oath,” pursued the intrepid Baian, “may I myself, and the last of
my nation, perish by the sword! May the heavens, and fire, the
deity of the heavens, fall upon our heads! May the forests and
mountains bury us in their ruins! and the Save returning, against
the laws of nature, to his source, overwhelm us in his angry
waters!” After this barbarous imprecation, he calmly inquired,
what oath was most sacred and venerable among the Christians,
what guilt or perjury it was most dangerous to incur. The bishop
of Singidunum presented the gospel, which the chagan received
with devout reverence. “I swear,” said he, “by the God who has
spoken in this holy book, that I have neither falsehood on my
tongue, nor treachery in my heart.” As soon as he rose from his
knees, he accelerated the labor of the bridge, and despatched an
envoy to proclaim what he no longer wished to conceal. “Inform
the emperor,” said the perfidious Baian, “that Sirmium is
invested on every side. Advise his prudence to withdraw the
citizens and their effects, and to resign a city which it is now
impossible to relieve or defend.” Without the hope of relief, the
defence of Sirmium was prolonged above three years: the walls
were still untouched; but famine was enclosed within the walls,
till a merciful capitulation allowed the escape of the naked and
hungry inhabitants. Singidunum, at the distance of fifty miles,
experienced a more cruel fate: the buildings were razed, and the
vanquished people was condemned to servitude and exile. Yet the
ruins of Sirmium are no longer visible; the advantageous
situation of Singidunum soon attracted a new colony of
Sclavonians, and the conflux of the Save and Danube is still
guarded by the fortifications of Belgrade, or the White City, so
often and so obstinately disputed by the Christian and Turkish
arms. 28 From Belgrade to the walls of Constantinople a line may
be measured of six hundred miles: that line was marked with
flames and with blood; the horses of the Avars were alternately
bathed in the Euxine and the Adriatic; and the Roman pontiff,
alarmed by the approach of a more savage enemy, 29 was reduced to
cherish the Lombards, as the protectors of Italy. The despair of
a captive, whom his country refused to ransom, disclosed to the
Avars the invention and practice of military engines. 30 But in
the first attempts they were rudely framed, and awkwardly
managed; and the resistance of Diocletianopolis and Beraea, of
Philippopolis and Adrianople, soon exhausted the skill and
patience of the besiegers. The warfare of Baian was that of a
Tartar; yet his mind was susceptible of a humane and generous
sentiment: he spared Anchialus, whose salutary waters had
restored the health of the best beloved of his wives; and the
Romans confessed, that their starving army was fed and dismissed
by the liberality of a foe. His empire extended over Hungary,
Poland, and Prussia, from the mouth of the Danube to that of the
Oder; 31 and his new subjects were divided and transplanted by
the jealous policy of the conqueror. 32 The eastern regions of
Germany, which had been left vacant by the emigration of the
Vandals, were replenished with Sclavonian colonists; the same
tribes are discovered in the neighborhood of the Adriatic and of
the Baltic, and with the name of Baian himself, the Illyrian
cities of Neyss and Lissa are again found in the heart of
Silesia. In the disposition both of his troops and provinces the
chagan exposed the vassals, whose lives he disregarded, 33 to the
first assault; and the swords of the enemy were blunted before
they encountered the native valor of the Avars.
23 (return) [ A general idea of the pride and power of the chagan
may be taken from Menander (Excerpt. Legat. p. 118, &c.) and
Theophylact, (l. i. c. 3, l. vii. c. 15,) whose eight books are
much more honorable to the Avar than to the Roman prince. The
predecessors of Baian had tasted the liberality of Rome, and he
survived the reign of Maurice, (Buat, Hist. des Peuples Barbares,
tom. xi. p. 545.) The chagan who invaded Italy, A.D. 611,
(Muratori, Annali, tom. v. p. 305,) was then invenili aetate
florentem, (Paul Warnefrid, de Gest. Langobard. l v c 38,) the
son, perhaps, or the grandson, of Baian.]
24 (return) [ Theophylact, l. i. c. 5, 6.]
25 (return) [ Even in the field, the chagan delighted in the use
of these aromatics. He solicited, as a gift, and received.
Theophylact, l. vii. c. 13. The Europeans of the ruder ages
consumed more spices in their meat and drink than is compatible
with the delicacy of a modern palate. Vie Privee des Francois,
tom. ii. p. 162, 163.]
26 (return) [ Theophylact, l. vi. c. 6, l. vii. c. 15. The Greek
historian confesses the truth and justice of his reproach]
27 (return) [ Menander (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 126—132, 174, 175)
describes the perjury of Baian and the surrender of Sirmium. We
have lost his account of the siege, which is commended by
Theophylact, l. i. c. 3. * Note: Compare throughout Schlozer
Nordische Geschichte, p. 362—373—M.]
28 (return) [ See D’Anville, in the Memoires de l’Acad. des
Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 412—443. The Sclavonic name of
Belgrade is mentioned in the xth century by Constantine
Porphyrogenitus: the Latin appellation of Alba Croeca is used by
the Franks in the beginning of the ixth, (p. 414.)]
29 (return) [ Baron. Annal. Eccles. A. B. 600, No. 1. Paul
Warnefrid (l. iv. c. 38) relates their irruption into Friuli, and
(c. 39) the captivity of his ancestors, about A.D. 632. The
Sclavi traversed the Adriatic cum multitudine navium, and made a
descent in the territory of Sipontum, (c. 47.)]
30 (return) [ Even the helepolis, or movable turret. Theophylact,
l. ii. 16, 17.]
31 (return) [ The arms and alliances of the chagan reached to the
neighborhood of a western sea, fifteen months’ journey from
Constantinople. The emperor Maurice conversed with some itinerant
harpers from that remote country, and only seems to have mistaken
a trade for a nation Theophylact, l. vi. c. 2.]
32 (return) [ This is one of the most probable and luminous
conjectures of the learned count de Buat, (Hist. des Peuples
Barbares, tom. xi. p. 546—568.) The Tzechi and Serbi are found
together near Mount Caucasus, in Illyricum, and on the lower
Elbe. Even the wildest traditions of the Bohemians, &c., afford
some color to his hypothesis.]
33 (return) [ See Fredegarius, in the Historians of France, tom.
ii. p. 432. Baian did not conceal his proud insensibility.]
The Persian alliance restored the troops of the East to the
defence of Europe: and Maurice, who had supported ten years the
insolence of the chagan, declared his resolution to march in
person against the Barbarians. In the space of two centuries,
none of the successors of Theodosius had appeared in the field:
their lives were supinely spent in the palace of Constantinople;
and the Greeks could no longer understand, that the name of
emperor, in its primitive sense, denoted the chief of the armies
of the republic. The martial ardor of Maurice was opposed by the
grave flattery of the senate, the timid superstition of the
patriarch, and the tears of the empress Constantina; and they all
conjured him to devolve on some meaner general the fatigues and
perils of a Scythian campaign. Deaf to their advice and entreaty,
the emperor boldly advanced 34 seven miles from the capital; the
sacred ensign of the cross was displayed in the front; and
Maurice reviewed, with conscious pride, the arms and numbers of
the veterans who had fought and conquered beyond the Tigris.
Anchialus was the last term of his progress by sea and land; he
solicited, without success, a miraculous answer to his nocturnal
prayers; his mind was confounded by the death of a favorite
horse, the encounter of a wild boar, a storm of wind and rain,
and the birth of a monstrous child; and he forgot that the best
of omens is to unsheathe our sword in the defence of our country.
35 Under the pretence of receiving the ambassadors of Persia, the
emperor returned to Constantinople, exchanged the thoughts of war
for those of devotion, and disappointed the public hope by his
absence and the choice of his lieutenants. The blind partiality
of fraternal love might excuse the promotion of his brother
Peter, who fled with equal disgrace from the Barbarians, from his
own soldiers and from the inhabitants of a Roman city. That city,
if we may credit the resemblance of name and character, was the
famous Azimuntium, 36 which had alone repelled the tempest of
Attila. The example of her warlike youth was propagated to
succeeding generations; and they obtained, from the first or the
second Justin, an honorable privilege, that their valor should be
always reserved for the defence of their native country. The
brother of Maurice attempted to violate this privilege, and to
mingle a patriot band with the mercenaries of his camp; they
retired to the church, he was not awed by the sanctity of the
place; the people rose in their cause, the gates were shut, the
ramparts were manned; and the cowardice of Peter was found equal
to his arrogance and injustice. The military fame of Commentiolus
37 is the object of satire or comedy rather than of serious
history, since he was even deficient in the vile and vulgar
qualification of personal courage. His solemn councils, strange
evolutions, and secret orders, always supplied an apology for
flight or delay. If he marched against the enemy, the pleasant
valleys of Mount Haemus opposed an insuperable barrier; but in
his retreat, he explored, with fearless curiosity, the most
difficult and obsolete paths, which had almost escaped the memory
of the oldest native. The only blood which he lost was drawn, in
a real or affected malady, by the lancet of a surgeon; and his
health, which felt with exquisite sensibility the approach of the
Barbarians, was uniformly restored by the repose and safety of
the winter season. A prince who could promote and support this
unworthy favorite must derive no glory from the accidental merit
of his colleague Priscus. 38 In five successive battles, which
seem to have been conducted with skill and resolution, seventeen
thousand two hundred Barbarians were made prisoners: near sixty
thousand, with four sons of the chagan, were slain: the Roman
general surprised a peaceful district of the Gepidae, who slept
under the protection of the Avars; and his last trophies were
erected on the banks of the Danube and the Teyss. Since the death
of Trajan the arms of the empire had not penetrated so deeply
into the old Dacia: yet the success of Priscus was transient and
barren; and he was soon recalled by the apprehension that Baian,
with dauntless spirit and recruited forces, was preparing to
avenge his defeat under the walls of Constantinople. 39
34 (return) [ See the march and return of Maurice, in
Theophylact, l. v. c. 16 l. vi. c. 1, 2, 3. If he were a writer
of taste or genius, we might suspect him of an elegant irony: but
Theophylact is surely harmless.]
35 (return) [ Iliad, xii. 243. This noble verse, which unites the
spirit of a hero with the reason of a sage, may prove that Homer
was in every light superior to his age and country.]
36 (return) [ Theophylact, l. vii. c. 3. On the evidence of this
fact, which had not occurred to my memory, the candid reader will
correct and excuse a note in Chapter XXXIV., note 86 of this
History, which hastens the decay of Asimus, or Azimuntium;
another century of patriotism and valor is cheaply purchased by
such a confession.]
37 (return) [ See the shameful conduct of Commentiolus, in
Theophylact, l. ii. c. 10—15, l. vii. c. 13, 14, l. viii. c. 2,
4.]
38 (return) [ See the exploits of Priscus, l. viii. c. 23.]
39 (return) [ The general detail of the war against the Avars may
be traced in the first, second, sixth, seventh, and eighth books
of the history of the emperor Maurice, by Theophylact Simocatta.
As he wrote in the reign of Heraclius, he had no temptation to
flatter; but his want of judgment renders him diffuse in trifles,
and concise in the most interesting facts.]
The theory of war was not more familiar to the camps of Caesar
and Trajan, than to those of Justinian and Maurice. 40 The iron
of Tuscany or Pontus still received the keenest temper from the
skill of the Byzantine workmen. The magazines were plentifully
stored with every species of offensive and defensive arms. In the
construction and use of ships, engines, and fortifications, the
Barbarians admired the superior ingenuity of a people whom they
had so often vanquished in the field. The science of tactics, the
order, evolutions, and stratagems of antiquity, was transcribed
and studied in the books of the Greeks and Romans. But the
solitude or degeneracy of the provinces could no longer supply a
race of men to handle those weapons, to guard those walls, to
navigate those ships, and to reduce the theory of war into bold
and successful practice. The genius of Belisarius and Narses had
been formed without a master, and expired without a disciple.
Neither honor, nor patriotism, nor generous superstition, could
animate the lifeless bodies of slaves and strangers, who had
succeeded to the honors of the legions: it was in the camp alone
that the emperor should have exercised a despotic command; it was
only in the camps that his authority was disobeyed and insulted:
he appeased and inflamed with gold the licentiousness of the
troops; but their vices were inherent, their victories were
accidental, and their costly maintenance exhausted the substance
of a state which they were unable to defend. After a long and
pernicious indulgence, the cure of this inveterate evil was
undertaken by Maurice; but the rash attempt, which drew
destruction on his own head, tended only to aggravate the
disease. A reformer should be exempt from the suspicion of
interest, and he must possess the confidence and esteem of those
whom he proposes to reclaim. The troops of Maurice might listen
to the voice of a victorious leader; they disdained the
admonitions of statesmen and sophists; and, when they received an
edict which deducted from their pay the price of their arms and
clothing, they execrated the avarice of a prince insensible of
the dangers and fatigues from which he had escaped.
The camps both of Asia and Europe were agitated with frequent and
furious seditions; 41 the enraged soldiers of Edessa pursued with
reproaches, with threats, with wounds, their trembling generals;
they overturned the statues of the emperor, cast stones against
the miraculous image of Christ, and either rejected the yoke of
all civil and military laws, or instituted a dangerous model of
voluntary subordination. The monarch, always distant and often
deceived, was incapable of yielding or persisting, according to
the exigence of the moment. But the fear of a general revolt
induced him too readily to accept any act of valor, or any
expression of loyalty, as an atonement for the popular offence;
the new reform was abolished as hastily as it had been announced,
and the troops, instead of punishment and restraint, were
agreeably surprised by a gracious proclamation of immunities and
rewards. But the soldiers accepted without gratitude the tardy
and reluctant gifts of the emperor: their insolence was elated by
the discovery of his weakness and their own strength; and their
mutual hatred was inflamed beyond the desire of forgiveness or
the hope of reconciliation. The historians of the times adopt the
vulgar suspicion, that Maurice conspired to destroy the troops
whom he had labored to reform; the misconduct and favor of
Commentiolus are imputed to this malevolent design; and every age
must condemn the inhumanity of avarice 42 of a prince, who, by
the trifling ransom of six thousand pieces of gold, might have
prevented the massacre of twelve thousand prisoners in the hands
of the chagan. In the just fervor of indignation, an order was
signified to the army of the Danube, that they should spare the
magazines of the province, and establish their winter quarters in
the hostile country of the Avars. The measure of their grievances
was full: they pronounced Maurice unworthy to reign, expelled or
slaughtered his faithful adherents, and, under the command of
Phocas, a simple centurion, returned by hasty marches to the
neighborhood of Constantinople. After a long series of legal
succession, the military disorders of the third century were
again revived; yet such was the novelty of the enterprise, that
the insurgents were awed by their own rashness. They hesitated to
invest their favorite with the vacant purple; and, while they
rejected all treaty with Maurice himself, they held a friendly
correspondence with his son Theodosius, and with Germanus, the
father-in-law of the royal youth. So obscure had been the former
condition of Phocas, that the emperor was ignorant of the name
and character of his rival; but as soon as he learned, that the
centurion, though bold in sedition, was timid in the face of
danger, “Alas!” cried the desponding prince, “if he is a coward,
he will surely be a murderer.”
40 (return) [ Maurice himself composed xii books on the military
art, which are still extant, and have been published (Upsal,
1664) by John Schaeffer, at the end of the Tactics of Arrian,
(Fabricius, Bibliot Graeca, l. iv. c. 8, tom. iii. p. 278,) who
promises to speak more fully of his work in its proper place.]
41 (return) [ See the mutinies under the reign of Maurice, in
Theophylact l iii c. 1—4,.vi. c. 7, 8, 10, l. vii. c. 1 l. viii.
c. 6, &c.]
42 (return) [ Theophylact and Theophanes seem ignorant of the
conspiracy and avarice of Maurice. These charges, so unfavorable
to the memory of that emperor, are first mentioned by the author
of the Paschal Chronicle, (p. 379, 280;) from whence Zonaras
(tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 77, 78) has transcribed them. Cedrenus (p.
399) has followed another computation of the ransom.]
Yet if Constantinople had been firm and faithful, the murderer
might have spent his fury against the walls; and the rebel army
would have been gradually consumed or reconciled by the prudence
of the emperor. In the games of the Circus, which he repeated
with unusual pomp, Maurice disguised, with smiles of confidence,
the anxiety of his heart, condescended to solicit the applause of
the factions, and flattered their pride by accepting from their
respective tribunes a list of nine hundred blues and fifteen
hundred greens, whom he affected to esteem as the solid pillars
of his throne Their treacherous or languid support betrayed his
weakness and hastened his fall: the green faction were the secret
accomplices of the rebels, and the blues recommended lenity and
moderation in a contest with their Roman brethren. The rigid and
parsimonious virtues of Maurice had long since alienated the
hearts of his subjects: as he walked barefoot in a religious
procession, he was rudely assaulted with stones, and his guards
were compelled to present their iron maces in the defence of his
person. A fanatic monk ran through the streets with a drawn
sword, denouncing against him the wrath and the sentence of God;
and a vile plebeian, who represented his countenance and apparel,
was seated on an ass, and pursued by the imprecations of the
multitude. 43 The emperor suspected the popularity of Germanus
with the soldiers and citizens: he feared, he threatened, but he
delayed to strike; the patrician fled to the sanctuary of the
church; the people rose in his defence, the walls were deserted
by the guards, and the lawless city was abandoned to the flames
and rapine of a nocturnal tumult. In a small bark, the
unfortunate Maurice, with his wife and nine children, escaped to
the Asiatic shore; but the violence of the wind compelled him to
land at the church of St. Autonomus, 44 near Chalcedon, from
whence he despatched Theodosius, he eldest son, to implore the
gratitude and friendship of the Persian monarch. For himself, he
refused to fly: his body was tortured with sciatic pains, 45 his
mind was enfeebled by superstition; he patiently awaited the
event of the revolution, and addressed a fervent and public
prayer to the Almighty, that the punishment of his sins might be
inflicted in this world rather than in a future life. After the
abdication of Maurice, the two factions disputed the choice of an
emperor; but the favorite of the blues was rejected by the
jealousy of their antagonists, and Germanus himself was hurried
along by the crowds who rushed to the palace of Hebdomon, seven
miles from the city, to adore the majesty of Phocas the
centurion. A modest wish of resigning the purple to the rank and
merit of Germanus was opposed by his resolution, more obstinate
and equally sincere; the senate and clergy obeyed his summons;
and, as soon as the patriarch was assured of his orthodox belief,
he consecrated the successful usurper in the church of St. John
the Baptist. On the third day, amidst the acclamations of a
thoughtless people, Phocas made his public entry in a chariot
drawn by four white horses: the revolt of the troops was rewarded
by a lavish donative; and the new sovereign, after visiting the
palace, beheld from his throne the games of the hippodrome. In a
dispute of precedency between the two factions, his partial
judgment inclined in favor of the greens. “Remember that Maurice
is still alive,” resounded from the opposite side; and the
indiscreet clamor of the blues admonished and stimulated the
cruelty of the tyrant. The ministers of death were despatched to
Chalcedon: they dragged the emperor from his sanctuary; and the
five sons of Maurice were successively murdered before the eyes
of their agonizing parent. At each stroke, which he felt in his
heart, he found strength to rehearse a pious ejaculation: “Thou
art just, O Lord! and thy judgments are righteous.” And such, in
the last moments, was his rigid attachment to truth and justice,
that he revealed to the soldiers the pious falsehood of a nurse
who presented her own child in the place of a royal infant. 46
The tragic scene was finally closed by the execution of the
emperor himself, in the twentieth year of his reign, and the
sixty-third of his age. The bodies of the father and his five
sons were cast into the sea; their heads were exposed at
Constantinople to the insults or pity of the multitude; and it
was not till some signs of putrefaction had appeared, that Phocas
connived at the private burial of these venerable remains. In
that grave, the faults and errors of Maurice were kindly
interred. His fate alone was remembered; and at the end of twenty
years, in the recital of the history of Theophylact, the mournful
tale was interrupted by the tears of the audience. 47
43 (return) [ In their clamors against Maurice, the people of
Constantinople branded him with the name of Marcionite or
Marcionist; a heresy (says Theophylact, l. viii. c. 9). Did they
only cast out a vague reproach—or had the emperor really listened
to some obscure teacher of those ancient Gnostics?]
44 (return) [ The church of St. Autonomous (whom I have not the
honor to know) was 150 stadia from Constantinople, (Theophylact,
l. viii. c. 9.) The port of Eutropius, where Maurice and his
children were murdered, is described by Gyllius (de Bosphoro
Thracio, l. iii. c. xi.) as one of the two harbors of Chalcedon.]
45 (return) [ The inhabitants of Constantinople were generally
subject; and Theophylact insinuates, (l. viii. c. 9,) that if it
were consistent with the rules of history, he could assign the
medical cause. Yet such a digression would not have been more
impertinent than his inquiry (l. vii. c. 16, 17) into the annual
inundations of the Nile, and all the opinions of the Greek
philosophers on that subject.]
46 (return) [ From this generous attempt, Corneille has deduced
the intricate web of his tragedy of Heraclius, which requires
more than one representation to be clearly understood, (Corneille
de Voltaire, tom. v. p. 300;) and which, after an interval of
some years, is said to have puzzled the author himself,
(Anecdotes Dramatiques, tom. i. p. 422.)]
47 (return) [ The revolt of Phocas and death of Maurice are told
by Theophylact Simocatta, (l. viii. c. 7—12,) the Paschal
Chronicle, (p. 379, 380,) Theophanes, (Chronograph. p. 238-244,)
Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 77—80,) and Cedrenus, (p.
399—404.)]
Such tears must have flowed in secret, and such compassion would
have been criminal, under the reign of Phocas, who was peaceably
acknowledged in the provinces of the East and West. The images of
the emperor and his wife Leontia were exposed in the Lateran to
the veneration of the clergy and senate of Rome, and afterwards
deposited in the palace of the Caesars, between those of
Constantine and Theodosius. As a subject and a Christian, it was
the duty of Gregory to acquiesce in the established government;
but the joyful applause with which he salutes the fortune of the
assassin, has sullied, with indelible disgrace, the character of
the saint. The successor of the apostles might have inculcated
with decent firmness the guilt of blood, and the necessity of
repentance; he is content to celebrate the deliverance of the
people and the fall of the oppressor; to rejoice that the piety
and benignity of Phocas have been raised by Providence to the
Imperial throne; to pray that his hands may be strengthened
against all his enemies; and to express a wish, perhaps a
prophecy, that, after a long and triumphant reign, he may be
transferred from a temporal to an everlasting kingdom. 48 I have
already traced the steps of a revolution so pleasing, in
Gregory’s opinion, both to heaven and earth; and Phocas does not
appear less hateful in the exercise than in the acquisition of
power. The pencil of an impartial historian has delineated the
portrait of a monster: 49 his diminutive and deformed person, the
closeness of his shaggy eyebrows, his red hair, his beardless
chin, and his cheek disfigured and discolored by a formidable
scar. Ignorant of letters, of laws, and even of arms, he indulged
in the supreme rank a more ample privilege of lust and
drunkenness; and his brutal pleasures were either injurious to
his subjects or disgraceful to himself. Without assuming the
office of a prince, he renounced the profession of a soldier; and
the reign of Phocas afflicted Europe with ignominious peace, and
Asia with desolating war. His savage temper was inflamed by
passion, hardened by fear, and exasperated by resistance or
reproach. The flight of Theodosius to the Persian court had been
intercepted by a rapid pursuit, or a deceitful message: he was
beheaded at Nice, and the last hours of the young prince were
soothed by the comforts of religion and the consciousness of
innocence. Yet his phantom disturbed the repose of the usurper: a
whisper was circulated through the East, that the son of Maurice
was still alive: the people expected their avenger, and the widow
and daughters of the late emperor would have adopted as their son
and brother the vilest of mankind. In the massacre of the
Imperial family, 50 the mercy, or rather the discretion, of
Phocas had spared these unhappy females, and they were decently
confined to a private house. But the spirit of the empress
Constantina, still mindful of her father, her husband, and her
sons, aspired to freedom and revenge. At the dead of night, she
escaped to the sanctuary of St. Sophia; but her tears, and the
gold of her associate Germanus, were insufficient to provoke an
insurrection. Her life was forfeited to revenge, and even to
justice: but the patriarch obtained and pledged an oath for her
safety: a monastery was allotted for her prison, and the widow of
Maurice accepted and abused the lenity of his assassin. The
discovery or the suspicion of a second conspiracy, dissolved the
engagements, and rekindled the fury, of Phocas. A matron who
commanded the respect and pity of mankind, the daughter, wife,
and mother of emperors, was tortured like the vilest malefactor,
to force a confession of her designs and associates; and the
empress Constantina, with her three innocent daughters, was
beheaded at Chalcedon, on the same ground which had been stained
with the blood of her husband and five sons. After such an
example, it would be superfluous to enumerate the names and
sufferings of meaner victims. Their condemnation was seldom
preceded by the forms of trial, and their punishment was
embittered by the refinements of cruelty: their eyes were
pierced, their tongues were torn from the root, the hands and
feet were amputated; some expired under the lash, others in the
flames; others again were transfixed with arrows; and a simple
speedy death was mercy which they could rarely obtain. The
hippodrome, the sacred asylum of the pleasures and the liberty of
the Romans, was polluted with heads and limbs, and mangled
bodies; and the companions of Phocas were the most sensible, that
neither his favor, nor their services, could protect them from a
tyrant, the worthy rival of the Caligulas and Domitians of the
first age of the empire. 51
48 (return) [ Gregor. l. xi. epist. 38, indict. vi. Benignitatem
vestrae pietatis ad Imperiale fastigium pervenisse gaudemus.
Laetentur coeli et exultet terra, et de vestris benignis actibus
universae republicae populus nunc usque vehementer afflictus
hilarescat, &c. This base flattery, the topic of Protestant
invective, is justly censured by the philosopher Bayle,
(Dictionnaire Critique, Gregoire I. Not. H. tom. ii. p. 597 598.)
Cardinal Baronius justifies the pope at the expense of the fallen
emperor.]
49 (return) [ The images of Phocas were destroyed; but even the
malice of his enemies would suffer one copy of such a portrait or
caricature (Cedrenus, p. 404) to escape the flames.]
50 (return) [ The family of Maurice is represented by Ducange,
(Familiae By zantinae, p. 106, 107, 108;) his eldest son
Theodosius had been crowned emperor, when he was no more than
four years and a half old, and he is always joined with his
father in the salutations of Gregory. With the Christian
daughters, Anastasia and Theocteste, I am surprised to find the
Pagan name of Cleopatra.]
51 (return) [ Some of the cruelties of Phocas are marked by
Theophylact, l. viii. c. 13, 14, 15. George of Pisidia, the poet
of Heraclius, styles him (Bell. Avaricum, p. 46, Rome, 1777). The
latter epithet is just—but the corrupter of life was easily
vanquished.]
Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part III.
A daughter of Phocas, his only child, was given in marriage to
the patrician Crispus, 52 and the royal images of the bride and
bridegroom were indiscreetly placed in the circus, by the side of
the emperor. The father must desire that his posterity should
inherit the fruit of his crimes, but the monarch was offended by
this premature and popular association: the tribunes of the green
faction, who accused the officious error of their sculptors, were
condemned to instant death: their lives were granted to the
prayers of the people; but Crispus might reasonably doubt,
whether a jealous usurper could forget and pardon his involuntary
competition. The green faction was alienated by the ingratitude
of Phocas and the loss of their privileges; every province of the
empire was ripe for rebellion; and Heraclius, exarch of Africa,
persisted above two years in refusing all tribute and obedience
to the centurion who disgraced the throne of Constantinople. By
the secret emissaries of Crispus and the senate, the independent
exarch was solicited to save and to govern his country; but his
ambition was chilled by age, and he resigned the dangerous
enterprise to his son Heraclius, and to Nicetas, the son of
Gregory, his friend and lieutenant. The powers of Africa were
armed by the two adventurous youths; they agreed that the one
should navigate the fleet from Carthage to Constantinople, that
the other should lead an army through Egypt and Asia, and that
the Imperial purple should be the reward of diligence and
success. A faint rumor of their undertaking was conveyed to the
ears of Phocas, and the wife and mother of the younger Heraclius
were secured as the hostages of his faith: but the treacherous
heart of Crispus extenuated the distant peril, the means of
defence were neglected or delayed, and the tyrant supinely slept
till the African navy cast anchor in the Hellespont. Their
standard was joined at Abidus by the fugitives and exiles who
thirsted for revenge; the ships of Heraclius, whose lofty masts
were adorned with the holy symbols of religion, 53 steered their
triumphant course through the Propontis; and Phocas beheld from
the windows of the palace his approaching and inevitable fate.
The green faction was tempted, by gifts and promises, to oppose a
feeble and fruitless resistance to the landing of the Africans:
but the people, and even the guards, were determined by the
well-timed defection of Crispus; and the tyrant was seized by a
private enemy, who boldly invaded the solitude of the palace.
Stripped of the diadem and purple, clothed in a vile habit, and
loaded with chains, he was transported in a small boat to the
Imperial galley of Heraclius, who reproached him with the crimes
of his abominable reign. “Wilt thou govern better?” were the last
words of the despair of Phocas. After suffering each variety of
insult and torture, his head was severed from his body, the
mangled trunk was cast into the flames, and the same treatment
was inflicted on the statues of the vain usurper, and the
seditious banner of the green faction. The voice of the clergy,
the senate, and the people, invited Heraclius to ascend the
throne which he had purified from guilt and ignominy; after some
graceful hesitation, he yielded to their entreaties. His
coronation was accompanied by that of his wife Eudoxia; and their
posterity, till the fourth generation, continued to reign over
the empire of the East. The voyage of Heraclius had been easy and
prosperous; the tedious march of Nicetas was not accomplished
before the decision of the contest: but he submitted without a
murmur to the fortune of his friend, and his laudable intentions
were rewarded with an equestrian statue, and a daughter of the
emperor. It was more difficult to trust the fidelity of Crispus,
whose recent services were recompensed by the command of the
Cappadocian army. His arrogance soon provoked, and seemed to
excuse, the ingratitude of his new sovereign. In the presence of
the senate, the son-in-law of Phocas was condemned to embrace the
monastic life; and the sentence was justified by the weighty
observation of Heraclius, that the man who had betrayed his
father could never be faithful to his friend. 54
52 (return) [ In the writers, and in the copies of those writers,
there is such hesitation between the names of Priscus and
Crispus, (Ducange, Fam Byzant. p. 111,) that I have been tempted
to identify the son-in-law of Phocas with the hero five times
victorious over the Avars.]
53 (return) [ According to Theophanes. Cedrenus adds, which
Heraclius bore as a banner in the first Persian expedition. See
George Pisid. Acroas L 140. The manufacture seems to have
flourished; but Foggini, the Roman editor, (p. 26,) is at a loss
to determine whether this picture was an original or a copy.]
54 (return) [ See the tyranny of Phocas and the elevation of
Heraclius, in Chron. Paschal. p. 380—383. Theophanes, p. 242-250.
Nicephorus, p. 3—7. Cedrenus, p. 404—407. Zonaras, tom. ii. l.
xiv. p. 80—82.]
Even after his death the republic was afflicted by the crimes of
Phocas, which armed with a pious cause the most formidable of her
enemies. According to the friendly and equal forms of the
Byzantine and Persian courts, he announced his exaltation to the
throne; and his ambassador Lilius, who had presented him with the
heads of Maurice and his sons, was the best qualified to describe
the circumstances of the tragic scene. 55 However it might be
varnished by fiction or sophistry, Chosroes turned with horror
from the assassin, imprisoned the pretended envoy, disclaimed the
usurper, and declared himself the avenger of his father and
benefactor. The sentiments of grief and resentment, which
humanity would feel, and honor would dictate, promoted on this
occasion the interest of the Persian king; and his interest was
powerfully magnified by the national and religious prejudices of
the Magi and satraps. In a strain of artful adulation, which
assumed the language of freedom, they presumed to censure the
excess of his gratitude and friendship for the Greeks; a nation
with whom it was dangerous to conclude either peace or alliance;
whose superstition was devoid of truth and justice, and who must
be incapable of any virtue, since they could perpetrate the most
atrocious of crimes, the impious murder of their sovereign. 56
For the crime of an ambitious centurion, the nation which he
oppressed was chastised with the calamities of war; and the same
calamities, at the end of twenty years, were retaliated and
redoubled on the heads of the Persians. 57 The general who had
restored Chosroes to the throne still commanded in the East; and
the name of Narses was the formidable sound with which the
Assyrian mothers were accustomed to terrify their infants. It is
not improbable, that a native subject of Persia should encourage
his master and his friend to deliver and possess the provinces of
Asia. It is still more probable, that Chosroes should animate his
troops by the assurance that the sword which they dreaded the
most would remain in its scabbard, or be drawn in their favor.
The hero could not depend on the faith of a tyrant; and the
tyrant was conscious how little he deserved the obedience of a
hero. Narses was removed from his military command; he reared an
independent standard at Hierapolis, in Syria: he was betrayed by
fallacious promises, and burnt alive in the market-place of
Constantinople. Deprived of the only chief whom they could fear
or esteem, the bands which he had led to victory were twice
broken by the cavalry, trampled by the elephants, and pierced by
the arrows of the Barbarians; and a great number of the captives
were beheaded on the field of battle by the sentence of the
victor, who might justly condemn these seditious mercenaries as
the authors or accomplices of the death of Maurice. Under the
reign of Phocas, the fortifications of Merdin, Dara, Amida, and
Edessa, were successively besieged, reduced, and destroyed, by
the Persian monarch: he passed the Euphrates, occupied the Syrian
cities, Hierapolis, Chalcis, and Berrhaea or Aleppo, and soon
encompassed the walls of Antioch with his irresistible arms. The
rapid tide of success discloses the decay of the empire, the
incapacity of Phocas, and the disaffection of his subjects; and
Chosroes provided a decent apology for their submission or
revolt, by an impostor, who attended his camp as the son of
Maurice 58 and the lawful heir of the monarchy.
55 (return) [ Theophylact, l. viii. c. 15. The life of Maurice
was composed about the year 628 (l. viii. c. 13) by Theophylact
Simocatta, ex-præfect, a native of Egypt. Photius, who gives an
ample extract of the work, (cod. lxv. p. 81—100,) gently reproves
the affectation and allegory of the style. His preface is a
dialogue between Philosophy and History; they seat themselves
under a plane-tree, and the latter touches her lyre.]
56 (return) [ Christianis nec pactum esse, nec fidem nec foedus
..... quod si ulla illis fides fuisset, regem suum non
occidissent. Eutych. Annales tom. ii. p. 211, vers. Pocock.]
57 (return) [ We must now, for some ages, take our leave of
contemporary historians, and descend, if it be a descent, from
the affectation of rhetoric to the rude simplicity of chronicles
and abridgments. Those of Theophanes (Chronograph. p. 244—279)
and Nicephorus (p. 3—16) supply a regular, but imperfect, series
of the Persian war; and for any additional facts I quote my
special authorities. Theophanes, a courtier who became a monk,
was born A.D. 748; Nicephorus patriarch of Constantinople, who
died A.D. 829, was somewhat younger: they both suffered in the
cause of images Hankius, de Scriptoribus Byzantinis, p. 200-246.]
58 (return) [ The Persian historians have been themselves
deceived: but Theophanes (p. 244) accuses Chosroes of the fraud
and falsehood; and Eutychius believes (Annal. tom. ii. p. 212)
that the son of Maurice, who was saved from the assassins, lived
and died a monk on Mount Sinai.]
The first intelligence from the East which Heraclius received, 59
was that of the loss of Antioch; but the aged metropolis, so
often overturned by earthquakes, and pillaged by the enemy, could
supply but a small and languid stream of treasure and blood. The
Persians were equally successful, and more fortunate, in the sack
of Caesarea, the capital of Cappadocia; and as they advanced
beyond the ramparts of the frontier, the boundary of ancient war,
they found a less obstinate resistance and a more plentiful
harvest. The pleasant vale of Damascus has been adorned in every
age with a royal city: her obscure felicity has hitherto escaped
the historian of the Roman empire: but Chosroes reposed his
troops in the paradise of Damascus before he ascended the hills
of Libanus, or invaded the cities of the Phœnician coast. The
conquest of Jerusalem, 60 which had been meditated by Nushirvan,
was achieved by the zeal and avarice of his grandson; the ruin of
the proudest monument of Christianity was vehemently urged by the
intolerant spirit of the Magi; and he could enlist for this holy
warfare with an army of six-and-twenty thousand Jews, whose
furious bigotry might compensate, in some degree, for the want of
valor and discipline. 6011 After the reduction of Galilee, and
the region beyond the Jordan, whose resistance appears to have
delayed the fate of the capital, Jerusalem itself was taken by
assault. The sepulchre of Christ, and the stately churches of
Helena and Constantine, were consumed, or at least damaged, by
the flames; the devout offerings of three hundred years were
rifled in one sacrilegious day; the Patriarch Zachariah, and the
true cross, were transported into Persia; and the massacre of
ninety thousand Christians is imputed to the Jews and Arabs, who
swelled the disorder of the Persian march. The fugitives of
Palestine were entertained at Alexandria by the charity of John
the Archbishop, who is distinguished among a crowd of saints by
the epithet of almsgiver: 61 and the revenues of the church, with
a treasure of three hundred thousand pounds, were restored to the
true proprietors, the poor of every country and every
denomination. But Egypt itself, the only province which had been
exempt, since the time of Diocletian, from foreign and domestic
war, was again subdued by the successors of Cyrus. Pelusium, the
key of that impervious country, was surprised by the cavalry of
the Persians: they passed, with impunity, the innumerable
channels of the Delta, and explored the long valley of the Nile,
from the pyramids of Memphis to the confines of Aethiopia.
Alexandria might have been relieved by a naval force, but the
archbishop and the præfect embarked for Cyprus; and Chosroes
entered the second city of the empire, which still preserved a
wealthy remnant of industry and commerce. His western trophy was
erected, not on the walls of Carthage, 62 but in the neighborhood
of Tripoli; the Greek colonies of Cyrene were finally extirpated;
and the conqueror, treading in the footsteps of Alexander,
returned in triumph through the sands of the Libyan desert. In
the same campaign, another army advanced from the Euphrates to
the Thracian Bosphorus; Chalcedon surrendered after a long siege,
and a Persian camp was maintained above ten years in the presence
of Constantinople. The sea-coast of Pontus, the city of Ancyra,
and the Isle of Rhodes, are enumerated among the last conquests
of the great king; and if Chosroes had possessed any maritime
power, his boundless ambition would have spread slavery and
desolation over the provinces of Europe.
59 (return) [ Eutychius dates all the losses of the empire under
the reign of Phocas; an error which saves the honor of Heraclius,
whom he brings not from Carthage, but Salonica, with a fleet
laden with vegetables for the relief of Constantinople, (Annal.
tom. ii. p. 223, 224.) The other Christians of the East,
Barhebraeus, (apud Asseman, Bibliothec. Oriental. tom. iii. p.
412, 413,) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 13—16,) Abulpharagius,
(Dynast. p. 98, 99,) are more sincere and accurate. The years of
the Persian war are disposed in the chronology of Pagi.]
60 (return) [ On the conquest of Jerusalem, an event so
interesting to the church, see the Annals of Eutychius, (tom. ii.
p. 212—223,) and the lamentations of the monk Antiochus, (apud
Baronium, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 614, No. 16—26,) whose one hundred
and twenty-nine homilies are still extant, if what no one reads
may be said to be extant.]
6011 (return) [ See Hist. of Jews, vol. iii. p. 240.—M.]
61 (return) [ The life of this worthy saint is composed by
Leontius, a contemporary bishop; and I find in Baronius (Annal.
Eccles. A.D. 610, No. 10, &c.) and Fleury (tom. viii. p. 235-242)
sufficient extracts of this edifying work.]
62 (return) [ The error of Baronius, and many others who have
carried the arms of Chosroes to Carthage instead of Chalcedon, is
founded on the near resemblance of the Greek words, in the text
of Theophanes, &c., which have been sometimes confounded by
transcribers, and sometimes by critics.]
From the long-disputed banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, the
reign of the grandson of Nushirvan was suddenly extended to the
Hellespont and the Nile, the ancient limits of the Persian
monarchy. But the provinces, which had been fashioned by the
habits of six hundred years to the virtues and vices of the Roman
government, supported with reluctance the yoke of the Barbarians.
The idea of a republic was kept alive by the institutions, or at
least by the writings, of the Greeks and Romans, and the subjects
of Heraclius had been educated to pronounce the words of liberty
and law. But it has always been the pride and policy of Oriental
princes to display the titles and attributes of their
omnipotence; to upbraid a nation of slaves with their true name
and abject condition, and to enforce, by cruel and insolent
threats, the rigor of their absolute commands. The Christians of
the East were scandalized by the worship of fire, and the impious
doctrine of the two principles: the Magi were not less intolerant
than the bishops; and the martyrdom of some native Persians, who
had deserted the religion of Zoroaster, 63 was conceived to be
the prelude of a fierce and general persecution. By the
oppressive laws of Justinian, the adversaries of the church were
made the enemies of the state; the alliance of the Jews,
Nestorians, and Jacobites, had contributed to the success of
Chosroes, and his partial favor to the sectaries provoked the
hatred and fears of the Catholic clergy. Conscious of their fear
and hatred, the Persian conqueror governed his new subjects with
an iron sceptre; and, as if he suspected the stability of his
dominion, he exhausted their wealth by exorbitant tributes and
licentious rapine despoiled or demolished the temples of the
East; and transported to his hereditary realms the gold, the
silver, the precious marbles, the arts, and the artists of the
Asiatic cities. In the obscure picture of the calamities of the
empire, 64 it is not easy to discern the figure of Chosroes
himself, to separate his actions from those of his lieutenants,
or to ascertain his personal merit in the general blaze of glory
and magnificence. He enjoyed with ostentation the fruits of
victory, and frequently retired from the hardships of war to the
luxury of the palace. But in the space of twenty-four years, he
was deterred by superstition or resentment from approaching the
gates of Ctesiphon: and his favorite residence of Artemita, or
Dastagerd, was situate beyond the Tigris, about sixty miles to
the north of the capital. 65 The adjacent pastures were covered
with flocks and herds: the paradise or park was replenished with
pheasants, peacocks, ostriches, roebucks, and wild boars, and the
noble game of lions and tigers was sometimes turned loose for the
bolder pleasures of the chase. Nine hundred and sixty elephants
were maintained for the use or splendor of the great king: his
tents and baggage were carried into the field by twelve thousand
great camels and eight thousand of a smaller size; 66 and the
royal stables were filled with six thousand mules and horses,
among whom the names of Shebdiz and Barid are renowned for their
speed or beauty. 6611 Six thousand guards successively mounted
before the palace gate; the service of the interior apartments
was performed by twelve thousand slaves, and in the number of
three thousand virgins, the fairest of Asia, some happy concubine
might console her master for the age or the indifference of Sira.
The various treasures of gold, silver, gems, silks, and
aromatics, were deposited in a hundred subterraneous vaults and
the chamber Badaverd denoted the accidental gift of the winds
which had wafted the spoils of Heraclius into one of the Syrian
harbors of his rival. The vice of flattery, and perhaps of
fiction, is not ashamed to compute the thirty thousand rich
hangings that adorned the walls; the forty thousand columns of
silver, or more probably of marble, and plated wood, that
supported the roof; and the thousand globes of gold suspended in
the dome, to imitate the motions of the planets and the
constellations of the zodiac. 67 While the Persian monarch
contemplated the wonders of his art and power, he received an
epistle from an obscure citizen of Mecca, inviting him to
acknowledge Mahomet as the apostle of God. He rejected the
invitation, and tore the epistle. “It is thus,” exclaimed the
Arabian prophet, “that God will tear the kingdom, and reject the
supplications of Chosroes.” 68 6811 Placed on the verge of the
two great empires of the East, Mahomet observed with secret joy
the progress of their mutual destruction; and in the midst of the
Persian triumphs, he ventured to foretell, that before many years
should elapse, victory should again return to the banners of the
Romans. 69
63 (return) [ The genuine acts of St. Anastasius are published in
those of the with general council, from whence Baronius (Annal.
Eccles. A.D. 614, 626, 627) and Butler (Lives of the Saints, vol.
i. p. 242—248) have taken their accounts. The holy martyr
deserted from the Persian to the Roman army, became a monk at
Jerusalem, and insulted the worship of the Magi, which was then
established at Caesarea in Palestine.]
64 (return) [ Abulpharagius, Dynast. p. 99. Elmacin, Hist.
Saracen. p. 14.]
65 (return) [ D’Anville, Mem. de l’Academie des Inscriptions,
tom. xxxii. p. 568—571.]
66 (return) [ The difference between the two races consists in
one or two humps; the dromedary has only one; the size of the
proper camel is larger; the country he comes from, Turkistan or
Bactriana; the dromedary is confined to Arabia and Africa.
Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. xi. p. 211, &c. Aristot. Hist.
Animal. tom. i. l. ii. c. 1, tom. ii. p. 185.]
6611 (return) [ The ruins of these scenes of Khoosroo’s
magnificence have been visited by Sir R. K. Porter. At the ruins
of Tokht i Bostan, he saw a gorgeous picture of a hunt,
singularly illustrative of this passage. Travels, vol. ii. p.
204. Kisra Shirene, which he afterwards examined, appears to have
been the palace of Dastagerd. Vol. ii. p. 173—175.—M.]
67 (return) [ Theophanes, Chronograph. p. 268. D’Herbelot,
Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 997. The Greeks describe the decay,
the Persians the splendor, of Dastagerd; but the former speak
from the modest witness of the eye, the latter from the vague
report of the ear.]
68 (return) [ The historians of Mahomet, Abulfeda (in Vit.
Mohammed, p. 92, 93) and Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. ii. p.
247,) date this embassy in the viith year of the Hegira, which
commences A.D. 628, May 11. Their chronology is erroneous, since
Chosroes died in the month of February of the same year, (Pagi,
Critica, tom. ii. p. 779.) The count de Boulainvilliers (Vie de
Mahomed, p. 327, 328) places this embassy about A.D. 615, soon
after the conquest of Palestine. Yet Mahomet would scarcely have
ventured so soon on so bold a step.]
6811 (return) [ Khoosroo Purveez was encamped on the banks of the
Karasoo River when he received the letter of Mahomed. He tore the
letter and threw it into the Karasoo. For this action, the
moderate author of the Zeenut-ul-Tuarikh calls him a wretch, and
rejoices in all his subsequent misfortunes. These impressions
still exist. I remarked to a Persian, when encamped near the
Karasoo, in 1800, that the banks were very high, which must make
it difficult to apply its waters to irrigation. “It once
fertilized the whole country,” said the zealous Mahomedan, “but
its channel sunk with honor from its banks, when that madman,
Khoosroo, threw our holy Prophet’s letter into its stream; which
has ever since been accursed and useless.” Malcolm’s Persia, vol.
i. p. 126—M.]
69 (return) [ See the xxxth chapter of the Koran, entitled the
Greeks. Our honest and learned translator, Sale, (p. 330, 331,)
fairly states this conjecture, guess, wager, of Mahomet; but
Boulainvilliers, (p. 329—344,) with wicked intentions, labors to
establish this evident prophecy of a future event, which must, in
his opinion, embarrass the Christian polemics.]
At the time when this prediction is said to have been delivered,
no prophecy could be more distant from its accomplishment, since
the first twelve years of Heraclius announced the approaching
dissolution of the empire. If the motives of Chosroes had been
pure and honorable, he must have ended the quarrel with the death
of Phocas, and he would have embraced, as his best ally, the
fortunate African who had so generously avenged the injuries of
his benefactor Maurice. The prosecution of the war revealed the
true character of the Barbarian; and the suppliant embassies of
Heraclius to beseech his clemency, that he would spare the
innocent, accept a tribute, and give peace to the world, were
rejected with contemptuous silence or insolent menace. Syria,
Egypt, and the provinces of Asia, were subdued by the Persian
arms, while Europe, from the confines of Istria to the long wall
of Thrace, was oppressed by the Avars, unsatiated with the blood
and rapine of the Italian war. They had coolly massacred their
male captives in the sacred field of Pannonia; the women and
children were reduced to servitude, and the noblest virgins were
abandoned to the promiscuous lust of the Barbarians. The amorous
matron who opened the gates of Friuli passed a short night in the
arms of her royal lover; the next evening, Romilda was condemned
to the embraces of twelve Avars, and the third day the Lombard
princess was impaled in the sight of the camp, while the chagan
observed with a cruel smile, that such a husband was the fit
recompense of her lewdness and perfidy. 70 By these implacable
enemies, Heraclius, on either side, was insulted and besieged:
and the Roman empire was reduced to the walls of Constantinople,
with the remnant of Greece, Italy, and Africa, and some maritime
cities, from Tyre to Trebizond, of the Asiatic coast. After the
loss of Egypt, the capital was afflicted by famine and
pestilence; and the emperor, incapable of resistance, and
hopeless of relief, had resolved to transfer his person and
government to the more secure residence of Carthage. His ships
were already laden with the treasures of the palace; but his
flight was arrested by the patriarch, who armed the powers of
religion in the defence of his country; led Heraclius to the
altar of St. Sophia, and extorted a solemn oath, that he would
live and die with the people whom God had intrusted to his care.
The chagan was encamped in the plains of Thrace; but he
dissembled his perfidious designs, and solicited an interview
with the emperor near the town of Heraclea. Their reconciliation
was celebrated with equestrian games; the senate and people, in
their gayest apparel, resorted to the festival of peace; and the
Avars beheld, with envy and desire, the spectacle of Roman
luxury. On a sudden the hippodrome was encompassed by the
Scythian cavalry, who had pressed their secret and nocturnal
march: the tremendous sound of the chagan’s whip gave the signal
of the assault, and Heraclius, wrapping his diadem round his arm,
was saved with extreme hazard, by the fleetness of his horse. So
rapid was the pursuit, that the Avars almost entered the golden
gate of Constantinople with the flying crowds: 71 but the plunder
of the suburbs rewarded their treason, and they transported
beyond the Danube two hundred and seventy thousand captives. On
the shore of Chalcedon, the emperor held a safer conference with
a more honorable foe, who, before Heraclius descended from his
galley, saluted with reverence and pity the majesty of the
purple. The friendly offer of Sain, the Persian general, to
conduct an embassy to the presence of the great king, was
accepted with the warmest gratitude, and the prayer for pardon
and peace was humbly presented by the Praetorian præfect, the
præfect of the city, and one of the first ecclesiastics of the
patriarchal church. 72 But the lieutenant of Chosroes had fatally
mistaken the intentions of his master. “It was not an embassy,”
said the tyrant of Asia, “it was the person of Heraclius, bound
in chains, that he should have brought to the foot of my throne.
I will never give peace to the emperor of Rome, till he had
abjured his crucified God, and embraced the worship of the sun.”
Sain was flayed alive, according to the inhuman practice of his
country; and the separate and rigorous confinement of the
ambassadors violated the law of nations, and the faith of an
express stipulation. Yet the experience of six years at length
persuaded the Persian monarch to renounce the conquest of
Constantinople, and to specify the annual tribute or ransom of
the Roman empire; a thousand talents of gold, a thousand talents
of silver, a thousand silk robes, a thousand horses, and a
thousand virgins. Heraclius subscribed these ignominious terms;
but the time and space which he obtained to collect such
treasures from the poverty of the East, was industriously
employed in the preparations of a bold and desperate attack.
70 (return) [Footnote 70: Paul Warnefrid, de Gestis
Langobardorum, l. iv. c. 38, 42. Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom.
v. p. 305, &c.]
71 (return) [ The Paschal Chronicle, which sometimes introduces
fragments of history into a barren list of names and dates, gives
the best account of the treason of the Avars, p. 389, 390. The
number of captives is added by Nicephorus.]
72 (return) [ Some original pieces, such as the speech or letter
of the Roman ambassadors, (p. 386—388,) likewise constitute the
merit of the Paschal Chronicle, which was composed, perhaps at
Alexandria, under the reign of Heraclius.]
Of the characters conspicuous in history, that of Heraclius is
one of the most extraordinary and inconsistent. In the first and
last years of a long reign, the emperor appears to be the slave
of sloth, of pleasure, or of superstition, the careless and
impotent spectator of the public calamities. But the languid
mists of the morning and evening are separated by the brightness
of the meridian sun; the Arcadius of the palace arose the Caesar
of the camp; and the honor of Rome and Heraclius was gloriously
retrieved by the exploits and trophies of six adventurous
campaigns. It was the duty of the Byzantine historians to have
revealed the causes of his slumber and vigilance. At this
distance we can only conjecture, that he was endowed with more
personal courage than political resolution; that he was detained
by the charms, and perhaps the arts, of his niece Martina, with
whom, after the death of Eudocia, he contracted an incestuous
marriage; 73 and that he yielded to the base advice of the
counsellors, who urged, as a fundamental law, that the life of
the emperor should never be exposed in the field. 74 Perhaps he
was awakened by the last insolent demand of the Persian
conqueror; but at the moment when Heraclius assumed the spirit of
a hero, the only hopes of the Romans were drawn from the
vicissitudes of fortune, which might threaten the proud
prosperity of Chosroes, and must be favorable to those who had
attained the lowest period of depression. 75 To provide for the
expenses of war, was the first care of the emperor; and for the
purpose of collecting the tribute, he was allowed to solicit the
benevolence of the eastern provinces. But the revenue no longer
flowed in the usual channels; the credit of an arbitrary prince
is annihilated by his power; and the courage of Heraclius was
first displayed in daring to borrow the consecrated wealth of
churches, under the solemn vow of restoring, with usury, whatever
he had been compelled to employ in the service of religion and
the empire. The clergy themselves appear to have sympathized with
the public distress; and the discreet patriarch of Alexandria,
without admitting the precedent of sacrilege, assisted his
sovereign by the miraculous or seasonable revelation of a secret
treasure. 76 Of the soldiers who had conspired with Phocas, only
two were found to have survived the stroke of time and of the
Barbarians; 77 the loss, even of these seditious veterans, was
imperfectly supplied by the new levies of Heraclius, and the gold
of the sanctuary united, in the same camp, the names, and arms,
and languages of the East and West. He would have been content
with the neutrality of the Avars; and his friendly entreaty, that
the chagan would act, not as the enemy, but as the guardian, of
the empire, was accompanied with a more persuasive donative of
two hundred thousand pieces of gold. Two days after the festival
of Easter, the emperor, exchanging his purple for the simple garb
of a penitent and warrior, 78 gave the signal of his departure.
To the faith of the people Heraclius recommended his children;
the civil and military powers were vested in the most deserving
hands, and the discretion of the patriarch and senate was
authorized to save or surrender the city, if they should be
oppressed in his absence by the superior forces of the enemy.
73 (return) [Nicephorus, (p. 10, 11,) is happy to observe, that
of two sons, its incestuous fruit, the elder was marked by
Providence with a stiff neck, the younger with the loss of
hearing.]
74 (return) [ George of Pisidia, (Acroas. i. 112—125, p. 5,) who
states the opinions, acquits the pusillanimous counsellors of any
sinister views. Would he have excused the proud and contemptuous
admonition of Crispus?]
75 (return) [ George Pisid. Acroas. i. 51, &c. p: 4. The
Orientals are not less fond of remarking this strange
vicissitude; and I remember some story of Khosrou Parviz, not
very unlike the ring of Polycrates of Samos.]
76 (return) [ Baronius gravely relates this discovery, or rather
transmutation, of barrels, not of honey, but of gold, (Annal.
Eccles. A.D. 620, No. 3, &c.) Yet the loan was arbitrary, since
it was collected by soldiers, who were ordered to leave the
patriarch of Alexandria no more than one hundred pounds of gold.
Nicephorus, (p. 11,) two hundred years afterwards, speaks with
ill humor of this contribution, which the church of
Constantinople might still feel.]
77 (return) [ Theophylact Symocatta, l. viii. c. 12. This
circumstance need not excite our surprise. The muster-roll of a
regiment, even in time of peace, is renewed in less than twenty
or twenty-five years.]
78 (return) [ He changed his purple for black, buckskins, and
dyed them red in the blood of the Persians, (Georg. Pisid.
Acroas. iii. 118, 121, 122 See the notes of Foggini, p. 35.)]
The neighboring heights of Chalcedon were covered with tents and
arms: but if the new levies of Heraclius had been rashly led to
the attack, the victory of the Persians in the sight of
Constantinople might have been the last day of the Roman empire.
As imprudent would it have been to advance into the provinces of
Asia, leaving their innumerable cavalry to intercept his convoys,
and continually to hang on the lassitude and disorder of his
rear. But the Greeks were still masters of the sea; a fleet of
galleys, transports, and store-ships, was assembled in the
harbor; the Barbarians consented to embark; a steady wind carried
them through the Hellespont the western and southern coast of
Asia Minor lay on their left hand; the spirit of their chief was
first displayed in a storm, and even the eunuchs of his train
were excited to suffer and to work by the example of their
master. He landed his troops on the confines of Syria and
Cilicia, in the Gulf of Scanderoon, where the coast suddenly
turns to the south; 79 and his discernment was expressed in the
choice of this important post. 80 From all sides, the scattered
garrisons of the maritime cities and the mountains might repair
with speed and safety to his Imperial standard. The natural
fortifications of Cilicia protected, and even concealed, the camp
of Heraclius, which was pitched near Issus, on the same ground
where Alexander had vanquished the host of Darius. The angle
which the emperor occupied was deeply indented into a vast
semicircle of the Asiatic, Armenian, and Syrian provinces; and to
whatsoever point of the circumference he should direct his
attack, it was easy for him to dissemble his own motions, and to
prevent those of the enemy. In the camp of Issus, the Roman
general reformed the sloth and disorder of the veterans, and
educated the new recruits in the knowledge and practice of
military virtue. Unfolding the miraculous image of Christ, he
urged them to revenge the holy altars which had been profaned by
the worshippers of fire; addressing them by the endearing
appellations of sons and brethren, he deplored the public and
private wrongs of the republic. The subjects of a monarch were
persuaded that they fought in the cause of freedom; and a similar
enthusiasm was communicated to the foreign mercenaries, who must
have viewed with equal indifference the interest of Rome and of
Persia. Heraclius himself, with the skill and patience of a
centurion, inculcated the lessons of the school of tactics, and
the soldiers were assiduously trained in the use of their
weapons, and the exercises and evolutions of the field. The
cavalry and infantry in light or heavy armor were divided into
two parties; the trumpets were fixed in the centre, and their
signals directed the march, the charge, the retreat or pursuit;
the direct or oblique order, the deep or extended phalanx; to
represent in fictitious combat the operations of genuine war.
Whatever hardships the emperor imposed on the troops, he
inflicted with equal severity on himself; their labor, their
diet, their sleep, were measured by the inflexible rules of
discipline; and, without despising the enemy, they were taught to
repose an implicit confidence in their own valor and the wisdom
of their leader. Cilicia was soon encompassed with the Persian
arms; but their cavalry hesitated to enter the defiles of Mount
Taurus, till they were circumvented by the evolutions of
Heraclius, who insensibly gained their rear, whilst he appeared
to present his front in order of battle. By a false motion, which
seemed to threaten Armenia, he drew them, against their wishes,
to a general action. They were tempted by the artful disorder of
his camp; but when they advanced to combat, the ground, the sun,
and the expectation of both armies, were unpropitious to the
Barbarians; the Romans successfully repeated their tactics in a
field of battle, 81 and the event of the day declared to the
world, that the Persians were not invincible, and that a hero was
invested with the purple. Strong in victory and fame, Heraclius
boldly ascended the heights of Mount Taurus, directed his march
through the plains of Cappadocia, and established his troops, for
the winter season, in safe and plentiful quarters on the banks of
the River Halys. 82 His soul was superior to the vanity of
entertaining Constantinople with an imperfect triumph; but the
presence of the emperor was indispensably required to soothe the
restless and rapacious spirit of the Avars.
79 (return) [ George of Pisidia, (Acroas. ii. 10, p. 8) has fixed
this important point of the Syrian and Cilician gates. They are
elegantly described by Xenophon, who marched through them a
thousand years before. A narrow pass of three stadia between
steep, high rocks, and the Mediterranean, was closed at each end
by strong gates, impregnable to the land, accessible by sea,
(Anabasis, l. i. p. 35, 36, with Hutchinson’s Geographical
Dissertation, p. vi.) The gates were thirty-five parasangs, or
leagues, from Tarsus, (Anabasis, l. i. p. 33, 34,) and eight or
ten from Antioch. Compare Itinerar. Wesseling, p. 580, 581.
Schultens, Index Geograph. ad calcem Vit. Saladin. p. 9. Voyage
en Turquie et en Perse, par M. Otter, tom. i. p. 78, 79.]
80 (return) [ Heraclius might write to a friend in the modest
words of Cicero: “Castra habuimus ea ipsa quae contra Darium
habuerat apud Issum Alexander, imperator haud paulo melior quam
aut tu aut ego.” Ad Atticum, v. 20. Issus, a rich and flourishing
city in the time of Xenophon, was ruined by the prosperity of
Alexandria or Scanderoon, on the other side of the bay.]
81 (return) [ Foggini (Annotat. p. 31) suspects that the Persians
were deceived by the of Aelian, (Tactic. c. 48,) an intricate
spiral motion of the army. He observes (p. 28) that the military
descriptions of George of Pisidia are transcribed in the Tactics
of the emperor Leo.]
82 (return) [ George of Pisidia, an eye-witness, (Acroas. ii.
122, &c.,) described in three acroaseis, or cantos, the first
expedition of Heraclius. The poem has been lately (1777)
published at Rome; but such vague and declamatory praise is far
from corresponding with the sanguine hopes of Pagi, D’Anville,
&c.]
Since the days of Scipio and Hannibal, no bolder enterprise has
been attempted than that which Heraclius achieved for the
deliverance of the empire. 83 He permitted the Persians to
oppress for a while the provinces, and to insult with impunity
the capital of the East; while the Roman emperor explored his
perilous way through the Black Sea, 84 and the mountains of
Armenia, penetrated into the heart of Persia, 85 and recalled the
armies of the great king to the defence of their bleeding
country. With a select band of five thousand soldiers, Heraclius
sailed from Constantinople to Trebizond; assembled his forces
which had wintered in the Pontic regions; and, from the mouth of
the Phasis to the Caspian Sea, encouraged his subjects and allies
to march with the successor of Constantine under the faithful and
victorious banner of the cross. When the legions of Lucullus and
Pompey first passed the Euphrates, they blushed at their easy
victory over the natives of Armenia. But the long experience of
war had hardened the minds and bodies of that effeminate peeple;
their zeal and bravery were approved in the service of a
declining empire; they abhorred and feared the usurpation of the
house of Sassan, and the memory of persecution envenomed their
pious hatred of the enemies of Christ. The limits of Armenia, as
it had been ceded to the emperor Maurice, extended as far as the
Araxes: the river submitted to the indignity of a bridge, 86 and
Heraclius, in the footsteps of Mark Antony, advanced towards the
city of Tauris or Gandzaca, 87 the ancient and modern capital of
one of the provinces of Media. At the head of forty thousand men,
Chosroes himself had returned from some distant expedition to
oppose the progress of the Roman arms; but he retreated on the
approach of Heraclius, declining the generous alternative of
peace or of battle. Instead of half a million of inhabitants,
which have been ascribed to Tauris under the reign of the Sophys,
the city contained no more than three thousand houses; but the
value of the royal treasures was enhanced by a tradition, that
they were the spoils of Croesus, which had been transported by
Cyrus from the citadel of Sardes. The rapid conquests of
Heraclius were suspended only by the winter season; a motive of
prudence, or superstition, 88 determined his retreat into the
province of Albania, along the shores of the Caspian; and his
tents were most probably pitched in the plains of Mogan, 89 the
favorite encampment of Oriental princes. In the course of this
successful inroad, he signalized the zeal and revenge of a
Christian emperor: at his command, the soldiers extinguished the
fire, and destroyed the temples, of the Magi; the statues of
Chosroes, who aspired to divine honors, were abandoned to the
flames; and the ruins of Thebarma or Ormia, 90 which had given
birth to Zoroaster himself, made some atonement for the injuries
of the holy sepulchre. A purer spirit of religion was shown in
the relief and deliverance of fifty thousand captives. Heraclius
was rewarded by their tears and grateful acclamations; but this
wise measure, which spread the fame of his benevolence, diffused
the murmurs of the Persians against the pride and obstinacy of
their own sovereign.
83 (return) [Footnote 83: Theophanes (p. 256) carries Heraclius
swiftly into Armenia. Nicephorus, (p. 11,) though he confounds
the two expeditions, defines the province of Lazica. Eutychius
(Annal. tom. ii. p. 231) has given the 5000 men, with the more
probable station of Trebizond.]
84 (return) [ From Constantinople to Trebizond, with a fair wind,
four or five days; from thence to Erzerom, five; to Erivan,
twelve; to Taurus, ten; in all, thirty-two. Such is the Itinerary
of Tavernier, (Voyages, tom. i. p. 12—56,) who was perfectly
conversant with the roads of Asia. Tournefort, who travelled with
a pacha, spent ten or twelve days between Trebizond and Erzerom,
(Voyage du Levant, tom. iii. lettre xviii.;) and Chardin
(Voyages, tom. i. p. 249—254) gives the more correct distance of
fifty-three parasangs, each of 5000 paces, (what paces?) between
Erivan and Tauris.]
85 (return) [ The expedition of Heraclius into Persia is finely
illustrated by M. D’Anville, (Memoires de l’Academie des
Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 559—573.) He discovers the
situation of Gandzaca, Thebarma, Dastagerd, &c., with admirable
skill and learning; but the obscure campaign of 624 he passes
over in silence.]
86 (return) [ Et pontem indignatus Araxes.—Virgil, Aeneid, viii.
728. The River Araxes is noisy, rapid, vehement, and, with the
melting of the snows, irresistible: the strongest and most massy
bridges are swept away by the current; and its indignation is
attested by the ruins of many arches near the old town of Zulfa.
Voyages de Chardin, tom. i. p. 252.]
87 (return) [ Chardin, tom. i. p. 255—259. With the Orientals,
(D’Herbelot, Biblioth. Orient. p. 834,) he ascribes the
foundation of Tauris, or Tebris, to Zobeide, the wife of the
famous Khalif Haroun Alrashid; but it appears to have been more
ancient; and the names of Gandzaca, Gazaca, Gaza, are expressive
of the royal treasure. The number of 550,000 inhabitants is
reduced by Chardin from 1,100,000, the popular estimate.]
88 (return) [ He opened the gospel, and applied or interpreted
the first casual passage to the name and situation of Albania.
Theophanes, p. 258.]
89 (return) [ The heath of Mogan, between the Cyrus and the
Araxes, is sixty parasangs in length and twenty in breadth,
(Olearius, p. 1023, 1024,) abounding in waters and fruitful
pastures, (Hist. de Nadir Shah, translated by Mr. Jones from a
Persian Ms., part ii. p. 2, 3.) See the encampments of Timur,
(Hist. par Sherefeddin Ali, l. v. c. 37, l. vi. c. 13,) and the
coronation of Nadir Shah, (Hist. Persanne, p. 3—13 and the
English Life by Mr. Jones, p. 64, 65.)]
90 (return) [ Thebarma and Ormia, near the Lake Spauta, are
proved to be the same city by D’Anville, (Memoires de l’Academie,
tom. xxviii. p. 564, 565.) It is honored as the birthplace of
Zoroaster, according to the Persians, (Schultens, Index Geograph.
p. 48;) and their tradition is fortified by M. Perron d’Anquetil,
(Mem. de l’Acad. des Inscript. tom. xxxi. p. 375,) with some
texts from his, or their, Zendavesta. * Note: D’Anville (Mem. de
l’Acad. des Inscript. tom. xxxii. p. 560) labored to prove the
identity of these two cities; but according to M. St. Martin,
vol. xi. p. 97, not with perfect success. Ourmiah. called Ariema
in the ancient Pehlvi books, is considered, both by the followers
of Zoroaster and by the Mahometans, as his birthplace. It is
situated in the southern part of Aderbidjan.—M.]
Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part IV.
Amidst the glories of the succeeding campaign, Heraclius is
almost lost to our eyes, and to those of the Byzantine
historians. 91 From the spacious and fruitful plains of Albania,
the emperor appears to follow the chain of Hyrcanian Mountains,
to descend into the province of Media or Irak, and to carry his
victorious arms as far as the royal cities of Casbin and Ispahan,
which had never been approached by a Roman conqueror. Alarmed by
the danger of his kingdom, the powers of Chosroes were already
recalled from the Nile and the Bosphorus, and three formidable
armies surrounded, in a distant and hostile land, the camp of the
emperor. The Colchian allies prepared to desert his standard; and
the fears of the bravest veterans were expressed, rather than
concealed, by their desponding silence. “Be not terrified,” said
the intrepid Heraclius, “by the multitude of your foes. With the
aid of Heaven, one Roman may triumph over a thousand Barbarians.
But if we devote our lives for the salvation of our brethren, we
shall obtain the crown of martyrdom, and our immortal reward will
be liberally paid by God and posterity.” These magnanimous
sentiments were supported by the vigor of his actions. He
repelled the threefold attack of the Persians, improved the
divisions of their chiefs, and, by a well-concerted train of
marches, retreats, and successful actions, finally chased them
from the field into the fortified cities of Media and Assyria. In
the severity of the winter season, Sarbaraza deemed himself
secure in the walls of Salban: he was surprised by the activity
of Heraclius, who divided his troops, and performed a laborious
march in the silence of the night. The flat roofs of the houses
were defended with useless valor against the darts and torches of
the Romans: the satraps and nobles of Persia, with their wives
and children, and the flower of their martial youth, were either
slain or made prisoners. The general escaped by a precipitate
flight, but his golden armor was the prize of the conqueror; and
the soldiers of Heraclius enjoyed the wealth and repose which
they had so nobly deserved. On the return of spring, the emperor
traversed in seven days the mountains of Curdistan, and passed
without resistance the rapid stream of the Tigris. Oppressed by
the weight of their spoils and captives, the Roman army halted
under the walls of Amida; and Heraclius informed the senate of
Constantinople of his safety and success, which they had already
felt by the retreat of the besiegers. The bridges of the
Euphrates were destroyed by the Persians; but as soon as the
emperor had discovered a ford, they hastily retired to defend the
banks of the Sarus, 92 in Cilicia. That river, an impetuous
torrent, was about three hundred feet broad; the bridge was
fortified with strong turrets; and the banks were lined with
Barbarian archers. After a bloody conflict, which continued till
the evening, the Romans prevailed in the assault; and a Persian
of gigantic size was slain and thrown into the Sarus by the hand
of the emperor himself. The enemies were dispersed and dismayed;
Heraclius pursued his march to Sebaste in Cappadocia; and at the
expiration of three years, the same coast of the Euxine applauded
his return from a long and victorious expedition. 93
91 (return) [ I cannot find, and (what is much more,) M.
D’Anville does not attempt to seek, the Salban, Tarantum,
territory of the Huns, &c., mentioned by Theophanes, (p.
260-262.) Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 231, 232,) an
insufficient author, names Asphahan; and Casbin is most probably
the city of Sapor. Ispahan is twenty-four days’ journey from
Tauris, and Casbin half way between, them (Voyages de Tavernier,
tom. i. p. 63—82.)]
92 (return) [ At ten parasangs from Tarsus, the army of the
younger Cyrus passed the Sarus, three plethra in breadth: the
Pyramus, a stadium in breadth, ran five parasangs farther to the
east, (Xenophon, Anabas. l. i. p 33, 34.) Note: Now the
Sihan.—M.]
93 (return) [ George of Pisidia (Bell. Abaricum, 246—265, p. 49)
celebrates with truth the persevering courage of the three
campaigns against the Persians.]
Instead of skirmishing on the frontier, the two monarchs who
disputed the empire of the East aimed their desperate strokes at
the heart of their rival. The military force of Persia was wasted
by the marches and combats of twenty years, and many of the
veterans, who had survived the perils of the sword and the
climate, were still detained in the fortresses of Egypt and
Syria. But the revenge and ambition of Chosroes exhausted his
kingdom; and the new levies of subjects, strangers, and slaves,
were divided into three formidable bodies. 94 The first army of
fifty thousand men, illustrious by the ornament and title of the
golden spears, was destined to march against Heraclius; the
second was stationed to prevent his junction with the troops of
his brother Theodorus; and the third was commanded to besiege
Constantinople, and to second the operations of the chagan, with
whom the Persian king had ratified a treaty of alliance and
partition. Sarbar, the general of the third army, penetrated
through the provinces of Asia to the well-known camp of
Chalcedon, and amused himself with the destruction of the sacred
and profane buildings of the Asiatic suburbs, while he
impatiently waited the arrival of his Scythian friends on the
opposite side of the Bosphorus. On the twenty-ninth of June,
thirty thousand Barbarians, the vanguard of the Avars, forced the
long wall, and drove into the capital a promiscuous crowd of
peasants, citizens, and soldiers. Fourscore thousand 95 of his
native subjects, and of the vassal tribes of Gepidae, Russians,
Bulgarians, and Sclavonians, advanced under the standard of the
chagan; a month was spent in marches and negotiations, but the
whole city was invested on the thirty-first of July, from the
suburbs of Pera and Galata to the Blachernae and seven towers;
and the inhabitants descried with terror the flaming signals of
the European and Asiatic shores. In the mean while, the
magistrates of Constantinople repeatedly strove to purchase the
retreat of the chagan; but their deputies were rejected and
insulted; and he suffered the patricians to stand before his
throne, while the Persian envoys, in silk robes, were seated by
his side. “You see,” said the haughty Barbarian, “the proofs of
my perfect union with the great king; and his lieutenant is ready
to send into my camp a select band of three thousand warriors.
Presume no longer to tempt your master with a partial and
inadequate ransom: your wealth and your city are the only
presents worthy of my acceptance. For yourselves, I shall permit
you to depart, each with an under-garment and a shirt; and, at my
entreaty, my friend Sarbar will not refuse a passage through his
lines. Your absent prince, even now a captive or a fugitive, has
left Constantinople to its fate; nor can you escape the arms of
the Avars and Persians, unless you could soar into the air like
birds, unless like fishes you could dive into the waves.” 96
During ten successive days, the capital was assaulted by the
Avars, who had made some progress in the science of attack; they
advanced to sap or batter the wall, under the cover of the
impenetrable tortoise; their engines discharged a perpetual
volley of stones and darts; and twelve lofty towers of wood
exalted the combatants to the height of the neighboring ramparts.
But the senate and people were animated by the spirit of
Heraclius, who had detached to their relief a body of twelve
thousand cuirassiers; the powers of fire and mechanics were used
with superior art and success in the defence of Constantinople;
and the galleys, with two and three ranks of oars, commanded the
Bosphorus, and rendered the Persians the idle spectators of the
defeat of their allies. The Avars were repulsed; a fleet of
Sclavonian canoes was destroyed in the harbor; the vassals of the
chagan threatened to desert, his provisions were exhausted, and
after burning his engines, he gave the signal of a slow and
formidable retreat. The devotion of the Romans ascribed this
signal deliverance to the Virgin Mary; but the mother of Christ
would surely have condemned their inhuman murder of the Persian
envoys, who were entitled to the rights of humanity, if they were
not protected by the laws of nations. 97
94 (return) [ Petavius (Annotationes ad Nicephorum, p. 62, 63,
64) discriminates the names and actions of five Persian generals
who were successively sent against Heraclius.]
95 (return) [ This number of eight myriads is specified by George
of Pisidia, (Bell. Abar. 219.) The poet (50—88) clearly indicates
that the old chagan lived till the reign of Heraclius, and that
his son and successor was born of a foreign mother. Yet Foggini
(Annotat. p. 57) has given another interpretation to this
passage.]
96 (return) [ A bird, a frog, a mouse, and five arrows, had been
the present of the Scythian king to Darius, (Herodot. l. iv. c.
131, 132.) Substituez une lettre a ces signes (says Rousseau,
with much good taste) plus elle sera menacante moins elle
effrayera; ce ne sera qu’une fanfarronade dont Darius n’eut fait
que rire, (Emile, tom. iii. p. 146.) Yet I much question whether
the senate and people of Constantinople laughed at this message
of the chagan.]
97 (return) [ The Paschal Chronicle (p. 392—397) gives a minute
and authentic narrative of the siege and deliverance of
Constantinople Theophanes (p. 264) adds some circumstances; and a
faint light may be obtained from the smoke of George of Pisidia,
who has composed a poem (de Bello Abarico, p. 45—54) to
commemorate this auspicious event.]
After the division of his army, Heraclius prudently retired to
the banks of the Phasis, from whence he maintained a defensive
war against the fifty thousand gold spears of Persia. His anxiety
was relieved by the deliverance of Constantinople; his hopes were
confirmed by a victory of his brother Theodorus; and to the
hostile league of Chosroes with the Avars, the Roman emperor
opposed the useful and honorable alliance of the Turks. At his
liberal invitation, the horde of Chozars 98 transported their
tents from the plains of the Volga to the mountains of Georgia;
Heraclius received them in the neighborhood of Teflis, and the
khan with his nobles dismounted from their horses, if we may
credit the Greeks, and fell prostrate on the ground, to adore the
purple of the Caesars. Such voluntary homage and important aid
were entitled to the warmest acknowledgments; and the emperor,
taking off his own diadem, placed it on the head of the Turkish
prince, whom he saluted with a tender embrace and the appellation
of son. After a sumptuous banquet, he presented Ziebel with the
plate and ornaments, the gold, the gems, and the silk, which had
been used at the Imperial table, and, with his own hand,
distributed rich jewels and ear-rings to his new allies. In a
secret interview, he produced the portrait of his daughter
Eudocia, 99 condescended to flatter the Barbarian with the
promise of a fair and august bride; obtained an immediate succor
of forty thousand horse, and negotiated a strong diversion of the
Turkish arms on the side of the Oxus. 100 The Persians, in their
turn, retreated with precipitation; in the camp of Edessa,
Heraclius reviewed an army of seventy thousand Romans and
strangers; and some months were successfully employed in the
recovery of the cities of Syria, Mesopotamia and Armenia, whose
fortifications had been imperfectly restored. Sarbar still
maintained the important station of Chalcedon; but the jealousy
of Chosroes, or the artifice of Heraclius, soon alienated the
mind of that powerful satrap from the service of his king and
country. A messenger was intercepted with a real or fictitious
mandate to the cadarigan, or second in command, directing him to
send, without delay, to the throne, the head of a guilty or
unfortunate general. The despatches were transmitted to Sarbar
himself; and as soon as he read the sentence of his own death, he
dexterously inserted the names of four hundred officers,
assembled a military council, and asked the cadarigan whether he
was prepared to execute the commands of their tyrant. The
Persians unanimously declared, that Chosroes had forfeited the
sceptre; a separate treaty was concluded with the government of
Constantinople; and if some considerations of honor or policy
restrained Sarbar from joining the standard of Heraclius, the
emperor was assured that he might prosecute, without
interruption, his designs of victory and peace.
98 (return) [ The power of the Chozars prevailed in the viith,
viiith, and ixth centuries. They were known to the Greeks, the
Arabs, and under the name of Kosa, to the Chinese themselves. De
Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. part ii. p. 507—509. * Note:
Moses of Chorene speaks of an invasion of Armenia by the Khazars
in the second century, l. ii. c. 62. M. St. Martin suspects them
to be the same with the Hunnish nation of the Acatires or
Agazzires. They are called by the Greek historians Eastern Turks;
like the Madjars and other Hunnish or Finnish tribes, they had
probably received some admixture from the genuine Turkish races.
Ibn. Hankal (Oriental Geography) says that their language was
like the Bulgarian, and considers them a people of Finnish or
Hunnish race. Klaproth, Tabl. Hist. p. 268-273. Abel Remusat,
Rech. sur les Langues Tartares, tom. i. p. 315, 316. St. Martin,
vol. xi. p. 115.—M]
99 (return) [ Epiphania, or Eudocia, the only daughter of
Heraclius and his first wife Eudocia, was born at Constantinople
on the 7th of July, A.D. 611, baptized the 15th of August, and
crowned (in the oratory of St. Stephen in the palace) the 4th of
October of the same year. At this time she was about fifteen.
Eudocia was afterwards sent to her Turkish husband, but the news
of his death stopped her journey, and prevented the consummation,
(Ducange, Familiae Byzantin. p. 118.)]
100 (return) [ Elmcain (Hist. Saracen. p. 13—16) gives some
curious and probable facts; but his numbers are rather too
high—300,000 Romans assembled at Edessa—500,000 Persians killed
at Nineveh. The abatement of a cipher is scarcely enough to
restore his sanity]
Deprived of his firmest support, and doubtful of the fidelity of
his subjects, the greatness of Chosroes was still conspicuous in
its ruins. The number of five hundred thousand may be interpreted
as an Oriental metaphor, to describe the men and arms, the horses
and elephants, that covered Media and Assyria against the
invasion of Heraclius. Yet the Romans boldly advanced from the
Araxes to the Tigris, and the timid prudence of Rhazates was
content to follow them by forced marches through a desolate
country, till he received a peremptory mandate to risk the fate
of Persia in a decisive battle. Eastward of the Tigris, at the
end of the bridge of Mosul, the great Nineveh had formerly been
erected: 101 the city, and even the ruins of the city, had long
since disappeared; 102 the vacant space afforded a spacious field
for the operations of the two armies. But these operations are
neglected by the Byzantine historians, and, like the authors of
epic poetry and romance, they ascribe the victory, not to the
military conduct, but to the personal valor, of their favorite
hero. On this memorable day, Heraclius, on his horse Phallas,
surpassed the bravest of his warriors: his lip was pierced with a
spear; the steed was wounded in the thigh; but he carried his
master safe and victorious through the triple phalanx of the
Barbarians. In the heat of the action, three valiant chiefs were
successively slain by the sword and lance of the emperor: among
these was Rhazates himself; he fell like a soldier, but the sight
of his head scattered grief and despair through the fainting
ranks of the Persians. His armor of pure and massy gold, the
shield of one hundred and twenty plates, the sword and belt, the
saddle and cuirass, adorned the triumph of Heraclius; and if he
had not been faithful to Christ and his mother, the champion of
Rome might have offered the fourth opime spoils to the Jupiter of
the Capitol. 103 In the battle of Nineveh, which was fiercely
fought from daybreak to the eleventh hour, twenty-eight
standards, besides those which might be broken or torn, were
taken from the Persians; the greatest part of their army was cut
in pieces, and the victors, concealing their own loss, passed the
night on the field. They acknowledged, that on this occasion it
was less difficult to kill than to discomfit the soldiers of
Chosroes; amidst the bodies of their friends, no more than two
bow-shot from the enemy the remnant of the Persian cavalry stood
firm till the seventh hour of the night; about the eighth hour
they retired to their unrifled camp, collected their baggage, and
dispersed on all sides, from the want of orders rather than of
resolution. The diligence of Heraclius was not less admirable in
the use of victory; by a march of forty-eight miles in
four-and-twenty hours, his vanguard occupied the bridges of the
great and the lesser Zab; and the cities and palaces of Assyria
were open for the first time to the Romans. By a just gradation
of magnificent scenes, they penetrated to the royal seat of
Dastagerd, 1031 and, though much of the treasure had been
removed, and much had been expended, the remaining wealth appears
to have exceeded their hopes, and even to have satiated their
avarice. Whatever could not be easily transported, they consumed
with fire, that Chosroes might feel the anguish of those wounds
which he had so often inflicted on the provinces of the empire:
and justice might allow the excuse, if the desolation had been
confined to the works of regal luxury, if national hatred,
military license, and religious zeal, had not wasted with equal
rage the habitations and the temples of the guiltless subject.
The recovery of three hundred Roman standards, and the
deliverance of the numerous captives of Edessa and Alexandria,
reflect a purer glory on the arms of Heraclius. From the palace
of Dastagerd, he pursued his march within a few miles of Modain
or Ctesiphon, till he was stopped, on the banks of the Arba, by
the difficulty of the passage, the rigor of the season, and
perhaps the fame of an impregnable capital. The return of the
emperor is marked by the modern name of the city of Sherhzour: he
fortunately passed Mount Zara, before the snow, which fell
incessantly thirty-four days; and the citizens of Gandzca, or
Tauris, were compelled to entertain the soldiers and their horses
with a hospitable reception. 104
101 (return) [ Ctesias (apud Didor. Sicul. tom. i. l. ii. p. 115,
edit. Wesseling) assigns 480 stadia (perhaps only 32 miles) for
the circumference of Nineveh. Jonas talks of three days’ journey:
the 120,000 persons described by the prophet as incapable of
discerning their right hand from their left, may afford about
700,000 persons of all ages for the inhabitants of that ancient
capital, (Goguet, Origines des Loix, &c., tom. iii. part i. p.
92, 93,) which ceased to exist 600 years before Christ. The
western suburb still subsisted, and is mentioned under the name
of Mosul in the first age of the Arabian khalifs.]
102 (return) [ Niebuhr (Voyage en Arabie, &c., tom. ii. p. 286)
passed over Nineveh without perceiving it. He mistook for a ridge
of hills the old rampart of brick or earth. It is said to have
been 100 feet high, flanked with 1500 towers, each of the height
of 200 feet.]
103 (return) [ Rex regia arma fero (says Romulus, in the first
consecration).... bina postea (continues Livy, i. 10) inter tot
bella, opima parta sunt spolia, adeo rara ejus fortuna decoris.
If Varro (apud Pomp Festum, p. 306, edit. Dacier) could justify
his liberality in granting the opime spoils even to a common
soldier who had slain the king or general of the enemy, the honor
would have been much more cheap and common]
1031 (return) [ Macdonald Kinneir places Dastagerd at Kasr e
Shirin, the palace of Sira on the banks of the Diala between
Holwan and Kanabee. Kinnets Geograph. Mem. p. 306.—M.]
104 (return) [ In describing this last expedition of Heraclius,
the facts, the places, and the dates of Theophanes (p. 265—271)
are so accurate and authentic, that he must have followed the
original letters of the emperor, of which the Paschal Chronicle
has preserved (p. 398—402) a very curious specimen.]
When the ambition of Chosroes was reduced to the defence of his
hereditary kingdom, the love of glory, or even the sense of
shame, should have urged him to meet his rival in the field. In
the battle of Nineveh, his courage might have taught the Persians
to vanquish, or he might have fallen with honor by the lance of a
Roman emperor. The successor of Cyrus chose rather, at a secure
distance, to expect the event, to assemble the relics of the
defeat, and to retire, by measured steps, before the march of
Heraclius, till he beheld with a sigh the once loved mansions of
Dastagerd. Both his friends and enemies were persuaded, that it
was the intention of Chosroes to bury himself under the ruins of
the city and palace: and as both might have been equally adverse
to his flight, the monarch of Asia, with Sira, 1041 and three
concubines, escaped through a hole in the wall nine days before
the arrival of the Romans. The slow and stately procession in
which he showed himself to the prostrate crowd, was changed to a
rapid and secret journey; and the first evening he lodged in the
cottage of a peasant, whose humble door would scarcely give
admittance to the great king. 105 His superstition was subdued by
fear: on the third day, he entered with joy the fortifications of
Ctesiphon; yet he still doubted of his safety till he had opposed
the River Tigris to the pursuit of the Romans. The discovery of
his flight agitated with terror and tumult the palace, the city,
and the camp of Dastagerd: the satraps hesitated whether they had
most to fear from their sovereign or the enemy; and the females
of the harem were astonished and pleased by the sight of mankind,
till the jealous husband of three thousand wives again confined
them to a more distant castle. At his command, the army of
Dastagerd retreated to a new camp: the front was covered by the
Arba, and a line of two hundred elephants; the troops of the more
distant provinces successively arrived, and the vilest domestics
of the king and satraps were enrolled for the last defence of the
throne. It was still in the power of Chosroes to obtain a
reasonable peace; and he was repeatedly pressed by the messengers
of Heraclius to spare the blood of his subjects, and to relieve a
humane conqueror from the painful duty of carrying fire and sword
through the fairest countries of Asia. But the pride of the
Persian had not yet sunk to the level of his fortune; he derived
a momentary confidence from the retreat of the emperor; he wept
with impotent rage over the ruins of his Assyrian palaces, and
disregarded too long the rising murmurs of the nation, who
complained that their lives and fortunes were sacrificed to the
obstinacy of an old man. That unhappy old man was himself
tortured with the sharpest pains both of mind and body; and, in
the consciousness of his approaching end, he resolved to fix the
tiara on the head of Merdaza, the most favored of his sons. But
the will of Chosroes was no longer revered, and Siroes, 1051 who
gloried in the rank and merit of his mother Sira, had conspired
with the malcontents to assert and anticipate the rights of
primogeniture. 106 Twenty-two satraps (they styled themselves
patriots) were tempted by the wealth and honors of a new reign:
to the soldiers, the heir of Chosroes promised an increase of
pay; to the Christians, the free exercise of their religion; to
the captives, liberty and rewards; and to the nation, instant
peace and the reduction of taxes. It was determined by the
conspirators, that Siroes, with the ensigns of royalty, should
appear in the camp; and if the enterprise should fail, his escape
was contrived to the Imperial court. But the new monarch was
saluted with unanimous acclamations; the flight of Chosroes (yet
where could he have fled?) was rudely arrested, eighteen sons
were massacred 1061 before his face, and he was thrown into a
dungeon, where he expired on the fifth day. The Greeks and modern
Persians minutely describe how Chosroes was insulted, and
famished, and tortured, by the command of an inhuman son, who so
far surpassed the example of his father: but at the time of his
death, what tongue would relate the story of the parricide? what
eye could penetrate into the tower of darkness? According to the
faith and mercy of his Christian enemies, he sunk without hope
into a still deeper abyss; 107 and it will not be denied, that
tyrants of every age and sect are the best entitled to such
infernal abodes. The glory of the house of Sassan ended with the
life of Chosroes: his unnatural son enjoyed only eight months the
fruit of his crimes: and in the space of four years, the regal
title was assumed by nine candidates, who disputed, with the
sword or dagger, the fragments of an exhausted monarchy. Every
province, and each city of Persia, was the scene of independence,
of discord, and of blood; and the state of anarchy prevailed
about eight years longer, 1071 till the factions were silenced
and united under the common yoke of the Arabian caliphs. 108
1041 (return) [ The Schirin of Persian poetry. The love of Chosru
and Schirin rivals in Persian romance that of Joseph with Zuleika
the wife of Potiphar, of Solomon with the queen of Sheba, and
that of Mejnoun and Leila. The number of Persian poems on the
subject may be seen in M. von Hammer’s preface to his poem of
Schirin.—M]
105 (return) [ The words of Theophanes are remarkable. Young
princes who discover a propensity to war should repeatedly
transcribe and translate such salutary texts.]
1051 (return) [ His name was Kabad (as appears from an official
letter in the Paschal Chronicle, p. 402.) St. Martin considers
the name Siroes, Schirquieh of Schirwey, derived from the word
schir, royal. St. Martin, xi. 153.—M.]
106 (return) [ The authentic narrative of the fall of Chosroes is
contained in the letter of Heraclius (Chron. Paschal. p. 398) and
the history of Theophanes, (p. 271.)]
1061 (return) [ According to Le Beau, this massacre was
perpetrated at Mahuza in Babylonia, not in the presence of
Chosroes. The Syrian historian, Thomas of Maraga, gives Chosroes
twenty-four sons; Mirkhond, (translated by De Sacy,) fifteen; the
inedited Modjmel-alte-warikh, agreeing with Gibbon, eighteen,
with their names. Le Beau and St. Martin, xi. 146.—M.]
107 (return) [ On the first rumor of the death of Chosroes, an
Heracliad in two cantos was instantly published at Constantinople
by George of Pisidia, (p. 97—105.) A priest and a poet might very
properly exult in the damnation of the public enemy but such mean
revenge is unworthy of a king and a conqueror; and I am sorry to
find so much black superstition in the letter of Heraclius: he
almost applauds the parricide of Siroes as an act of piety and
justice. * Note: The Mahometans show no more charity towards the
memory of Chosroes or Khoosroo Purveez. All his reverses are
ascribed to the just indignation of God, upon a monarch who had
dared, with impious and accursed hands, to tear the letter of the
Holy Prophet Mahomed. Compare note, p. 231.—M.]
1071 (return) [ Yet Gibbon himself places the flight and death of
Yesdegird Ill., the last king of Persia, in 651. The famous era
of Yesdegird dates from his accession, June 16 632.—M.]
108 (return) [ The best Oriental accounts of this last period of
the Sassanian kings are found in Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p.
251—256,) who dissembles the parricide of Siroes, D’Herbelot
(Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 789,) and Assemanni, (Bibliothec.
Oriental. tom. iii. p. 415—420.)]
As soon as the mountains became passable, the emperor received
the welcome news of the success of the conspiracy, the death of
Chosroes, and the elevation of his eldest son to the throne of
Persia. The authors of the revolution, eager to display their
merits in the court or camp of Tauris, preceded the ambassadors
of Siroes, who delivered the letters of their master to his
brother the emperor of the Romans. 109 In the language of the
usurpers of every age, he imputes his own crimes to the Deity,
and, without degrading his equal majesty, he offers to reconcile
the long discord of the two nations, by a treaty of peace and
alliance more durable than brass or iron. The conditions of the
treaty were easily defined and faithfully executed. In the
recovery of the standards and prisoners which had fallen into the
hands of the Persians, the emperor imitated the example of
Augustus: their care of the national dignity was celebrated by
the poets of the times, but the decay of genius may be measured
by the distance between Horace and George of Pisidia: the
subjects and brethren of Heraclius were redeemed from
persecution, slavery, and exile; but, instead of the Roman
eagles, the true wood of the holy cross was restored to the
importunate demands of the successor of Constantine. The victor
was not ambitious of enlarging the weakness of the empire; the
son of Chosroes abandoned without regret the conquests of his
father; the Persians who evacuated the cities of Syria and Egypt
were honorably conducted to the frontier, and a war which had
wounded the vitals of the two monarchies, produced no change in
their external and relative situation. The return of Heraclius
from Tauris to Constantinople was a perpetual triumph; and after
the exploits of six glorious campaigns, he peaceably enjoyed the
Sabbath of his toils. After a long impatience, the senate, the
clergy, and the people, went forth to meet their hero, with tears
and acclamations, with olive branches and innumerable lamps; he
entered the capital in a chariot drawn by four elephants; and as
soon as the emperor could disengage himself from the tumult of
public joy, he tasted more genuine satisfaction in the embraces
of his mother and his son. 110
109 (return) [ The letter of Siroes in the Paschal Chronicle (p.
402) unfortunately ends before he proceeds to business. The
treaty appears in its execution in the histories of Theophanes
and Nicephorus. * Note: M. Mai. Script. Vet. Nova Collectio, vol.
i. P. 2, p. 223, has added some lines, but no clear sense can be
made out of the fragment.—M.]
110 (return) [ The burden of Corneille’s song, “Montrez Heraclius
au peuple qui l’attend,” is much better suited to the present
occasion. See his triumph in Theophanes (p. 272, 273) and
Nicephorus, (p. 15, 16.) The life of the mother and tenderness of
the son are attested by George of Pisidia, (Bell. Abar. 255, &c.,
p. 49.) The metaphor of the Sabbath is used somewhat profanely by
these Byzantine Christians.]
The succeeding year was illustrated by a triumph of a very
different kind, the restitution of the true cross to the holy
sepulchre. Heraclius performed in person the pilgrimage of
Jerusalem, the identity of the relic was verified by the discreet
patriarch, 111 and this august ceremony has been commemorated by
the annual festival of the exaltation of the cross. Before the
emperor presumed to tread the consecrated ground, he was
instructed to strip himself of the diadem and purple, the pomp
and vanity of the world: but in the judgment of his clergy, the
persecution of the Jews was more easily reconciled with the
precepts of the gospel. 1113 He again ascended his throne to
receive the congratulations of the ambassadors of France and
India: and the fame of Moses, Alexander, and Hercules, 112 was
eclipsed in the popular estimation, by the superior merit and
glory of the great Heraclius. Yet the deliverer of the East was
indigent and feeble. Of the Persian spoils, the most valuable
portion had been expended in the war, distributed to the
soldiers, or buried, by an unlucky tempest, in the waves of the
Euxine. The conscience of the emperor was oppressed by the
obligation of restoring the wealth of the clergy, which he had
borrowed for their own defence: a perpetual fund was required to
satisfy these inexorable creditors; the provinces, already wasted
by the arms and avarice of the Persians, were compelled to a
second payment of the same taxes; and the arrears of a simple
citizen, the treasurer of Damascus, were commuted to a fine of
one hundred thousand pieces of gold. The loss of two hundred
thousand soldiers 113 who had fallen by the sword, was of less
fatal importance than the decay of arts, agriculture, and
population, in this long and destructive war: and although a
victorious army had been formed under the standard of Heraclius,
the unnatural effort appears to have exhausted rather than
exercised their strength. While the emperor triumphed at
Constantinople or Jerusalem, an obscure town on the confines of
Syria was pillaged by the Saracens, and they cut in pieces some
troops who advanced to its relief; an ordinary and trifling
occurrence, had it not been the prelude of a mighty revolution.
These robbers were the apostles of Mahomet; their fanatic valor
had emerged from the desert; and in the last eight years of his
reign, Heraclius lost to the Arabs the same provinces which he
had rescued from the Persians.
111 (return) [ See Baronius, (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 628, No. 1-4,)
Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 240—248,) Nicephorus, (Brev. p.
15.) The seals of the case had never been broken; and this
preservation of the cross is ascribed (under God) to the devotion
of Queen Sira.]
1113 (return) [ If the clergy imposed upon the kneeling and
penitent emperor the persecution of the Jews, it must be
acknowledge that provocation was not wanting; for how many of
them had been eye-witnesses of, perhaps sufferers in, the
horrible atrocities committed on the capture of the city! Yet we
have no authentic account of great severities exercised by
Heraclius. The law of Hadrian was reenacted, which prohibited the
Jews from approaching within three miles of the city—a law,
which, in the present exasperated state of the Christians, might
be a measure of security of mercy, rather than of oppression.
Milman, Hist. of the Jews, iii. 242.—M.]
112 (return) [ George of Pisidia, Acroas. iii. de Expedit. contra
Persas, 415, &c., and Heracleid. Acroas. i. 65—138. I neglect the
meaner parallels of Daniel, Timotheus, &c.; Chosroes and the
chagan were of course compared to Belshazzar, Pharaoh, the old
serpent, &c.]
113 (return) [ Suidas (in Excerpt. Hist. Byzant. p. 46) gives
this number; but either the Persian must be read for the Isaurian
war, or this passage does not belong to the emperor Heraclius.]
Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part I.
Theological History Of The Doctrine Of The Incarnation.—The Human And
Divine Nature Of Christ.—Enmity Of The Patriarchs Of Alexandria And
Constantinople.—St. Cyril And Nestorius. —Third General Council Of
Ephesus.—Heresy Of Eutyches.—Fourth General Council Of Chalcedon.—Civil
And Ecclesiastical Discord.—Intolerance Of Justinian.—The Three
Chapters.—The Monothelite Controversy.—State Of The Oriental Sects:—I.
The Nestorians.—II. The Jacobites.—III. The Maronites.—IV. The
Armenians.—V. The Copts And Abyssinians.
After the extinction of paganism, the Christians in peace and
piety might have enjoyed their solitary triumph. But the
principle of discord was alive in their bosom, and they were more
solicitous to explore the nature, than to practice the laws, of
their founder. I have already observed, that the disputes of the
Trinity were succeeded by those of the Incarnation; alike
scandalous to the church, alike pernicious to the state, still
more minute in their origin, still more durable in their effects.
It is my design to comprise in the present chapter a religious
war of two hundred and fifty years, to represent the
ecclesiastical and political schism of the Oriental sects, and to
introduce their clamorous or sanguinary contests, by a modest
inquiry into the doctrines of the primitive church. 1
1 (return) [ By what means shall I authenticate this previous
inquiry, which I have studied to circumscribe and compress?—If I
persist in supporting each fact or reflection by its proper and
special evidence, every line would demand a string of
testimonies, and every note would swell to a critical
dissertation. But the numberless passages of antiquity which I
have seen with my own eyes, are compiled, digested and
illustrated by Petavius and Le Clerc, by Beausobre and Mosheim. I
shall be content to fortify my narrative by the names and
characters of these respectable guides; and in the contemplation
of a minute or remote object, I am not ashamed to borrow the aid
of the strongest glasses: 1. The Dogmata Theologica of Petavius
are a work of incredible labor and compass; the volumes which
relate solely to the Incarnation (two folios, vth and vith, of
837 pages) are divided into xvi. books—the first of history, the
remainder of controversy and doctrine. The Jesuit’s learning is
copious and correct; his Latinity is pure, his method clear, his
argument profound and well connected; but he is the slave of the
fathers, the scourge of heretics, and the enemy of truth and
candor, as often as they are inimical to the Catholic cause. 2.
The Arminian Le Clerc, who has composed in a quarto volume
(Amsterdam, 1716) the ecclesiastical history of the two first
centuries, was free both in his temper and situation; his sense
is clear, but his thoughts are narrow; he reduces the reason or
folly of ages to the standard of his private judgment, and his
impartiality is sometimes quickened, and sometimes tainted by his
opposition to the fathers. See the heretics (Cerinthians, lxxx.
Ebionites, ciii. Carpocratians, cxx. Valentiniins, cxxi.
Basilidians, cxxiii. Marcionites, cxli., &c.) under their proper
dates. 3. The Histoire Critique du Manicheisme (Amsterdam, 1734,
1739, in two vols. in 4to., with a posthumous dissertation sur
les Nazarenes, Lausanne, 1745) of M. de Beausobre is a treasure
of ancient philosophy and theology. The learned historian spins
with incomparable art the systematic thread of opinion, and
transforms himself by turns into the person of a saint, a sage,
or a heretic. Yet his refinement is sometimes excessive; he
betrays an amiable partiality in favor of the weaker side, and,
while he guards against calumny, he does not allow sufficient
scope for superstition and fanaticism. A copious table of
contents will direct the reader to any point that he wishes to
examine. 4. Less profound than Petavius, less independent than Le
Clerc, less ingenious than Beausobre, the historian Mosheim is
full, rational, correct, and moderate. In his learned work, De
Rebus Christianis ante Constantinum (Helmstadt 1753, in 4to.,)
see the Nazarenes and Ebionites, p. 172—179, 328—332. The
Gnostics in general, p. 179, &c. Cerinthus, p. 196—202.
Basilides, p. 352—361. Carpocrates, p. 363—367. Valentinus, p.
371—389 Marcion, p. 404—410. The Manichaeans, p. 829-837, &c.]
I. A laudable regard for the honor of the first proselyte has
countenanced the belief, the hope, the wish, that the Ebionites,
or at least the Nazarenes, were distinguished only by their
obstinate perseverance in the practice of the Mosaic rites.
Their churches have disappeared, their books are obliterated:
their obscure freedom might allow a latitude of faith, and the
softness of their infant creed would be variously moulded by the
zeal or prudence of three hundred years. Yet the most charitable
criticism must refuse these sectaries any knowledge of the pure
and proper divinity of Christ. Educated in the school of Jewish
prophecy and prejudice, they had never been taught to elevate
their hopes above a human and temporal Messiah. 2 If they had
courage to hail their king when he appeared in a plebeian garb,
their grosser apprehensions were incapable of discerning their
God, who had studiously disguised his celestial character under
the name and person of a mortal. 3 The familiar companions of
Jesus of Nazareth conversed with their friend and countryman,
who, in all the actions of rational and animal life, appeared of
the same species with themselves. His progress from infancy to
youth and manhood was marked by a regular increase in stature and
wisdom; and after a painful agony of mind and body, he expired on
the cross. He lived and died for the service of mankind: but the
life and death of Socrates had likewise been devoted to the cause
of religion and justice; and although the stoic or the hero may
disdain the humble virtues of Jesus, the tears which he shed over
his friend and country may be esteemed the purest evidence of his
humanity. The miracles of the gospel could not astonish a people
who held with intrepid faith the more splendid prodigies of the
Mosaic law. The prophets of ancient days had cured diseases,
raised the dead, divided the sea, stopped the sun, and ascended
to heaven in a fiery chariot. And the metaphorical style of the
Hebrews might ascribe to a saint and martyr the adoptive title of
Son of God.
2 (return) [ Jew Tryphon, (Justin. Dialog. p. 207) in the name of
his countrymen, and the modern Jews, the few who divert their
thoughts from money to religion, still hold the same language,
and allege the literal sense of the prophets. * Note: See on this
passage Bp. Kaye, Justin Martyr, p. 25.—M. Note: Most of the
modern writers, who have closely examined this subject, and who
will not be suspected of any theological bias, Rosenmüller on
Isaiah ix. 5, and on Psalm xlv. 7, and Bertholdt, Christologia
Judaeorum, c. xx., rightly ascribe much higher notions of the
Messiah to the Jews. In fact, the dispute seems to rest on the
notion that there was a definite and authorized notion of the
Messiah, among the Jews, whereas it was probably so vague, as to
admit every shade of difference, from the vulgar expectation of a
mere temporal king, to the philosophic notion of an emanation
from the Deity.—M.]
3 (return) [ Chrysostom (Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, tom. v. c. 9,
p. 183) and Athanasius (Petav. Dogmat. Theolog. tom. v. l. i. c.
2, p. 3) are obliged to confess that the Divinity of Christ is
rarely mentioned by himself or his apostles.]
Yet in the insufficient creed of the Nazarenes and the Ebionites,
a distinction is faintly noticed between the heretics, who
confounded the generation of Christ in the common order of
nature, and the less guilty schismatics, who revered the
virginity of his mother, and excluded the aid of an earthly
father. The incredulity of the former was countenanced by the
visible circumstances of his birth, the legal marriage of the
reputed parents, Joseph and Mary, and his lineal claim to the
kingdom of David and the inheritance of Judah. But the secret and
authentic history has been recorded in several copies of the
Gospel according to St. Matthew, 4 which these sectaries long
preserved in the original Hebrew, 5 as the sole evidence of their
faith. The natural suspicions of the husband, conscious of his
own chastity, were dispelled by the assurance (in a dream) that
his wife was pregnant of the Holy Ghost: and as this distant and
domestic prodigy could not fall under the personal observation of
the historian, he must have listened to the same voice which
dictated to Isaiah the future conception of a virgin. The son of
a virgin, generated by the ineffable operation of the Holy
Spirit, was a creature without example or resemblance, superior
in every attribute of mind and body to the children of Adam.
Since the introduction of the Greek or Chaldean philosophy, 6 the
Jews 7 were persuaded of the preexistence, transmigration, and
immortality of souls; and providence was justified by a
supposition, that they were confined in their earthly prisons to
expiate the stains which they had contracted in a former state. 8
But the degrees of purity and corruption are almost immeasurable.
It might be fairly presumed, that the most sublime and virtuous
of human spirits was infused into the offspring of Mary and the
Holy Ghost; 9 that his abasement was the result of his voluntary
choice; and that the object of his mission was, to purify, not
his own, but the sins of the world. On his return to his native
skies, he received the immense reward of his obedience; the
everlasting kingdom of the Messiah, which had been darkly
foretold by the prophets, under the carnal images of peace, of
conquest, and of dominion. Omnipotence could enlarge the human
faculties of Christ to the extend of is celestial office. In the
language of antiquity, the title of God has not been severely
confined to the first parent, and his incomparable minister, his
only-begotten son, might claim, without presumption, the
religious, though secondary, worship of a subject of a subject
world.
4 (return) [ The two first chapters of St. Matthew did not exist
in the Ebionite copies, (Epiphan. Haeres. xxx. 13;) and the
miraculous conception is one of the last articles which Dr.
Priestley has curtailed from his scanty creed. * Note: The
distinct allusion to the facts related in the two first chapters
of the Gospel, in a work evidently written about the end of the
reign of Nero, the Ascensio Isaiae, edited by Archbishop
Lawrence, seems convincing evidence that they are integral parts
of the authentic Christian history.—M.]
5 (return) [ It is probable enough that the first of the Gospels
for the use of the Jewish converts was composed in the Hebrew or
Syriac idiom: the fact is attested by a chain of fathers—Papias,
Irenaeus, Origen, Jerom, &c. It is devoutly believed by the
Catholics, and admitted by Casaubon, Grotius, and Isaac Vossius,
among the Protestant critics. But this Hebrew Gospel of St.
Matthew is most unaccountably lost; and we may accuse the
diligence or fidelity of the primitive churches, who have
preferred the unauthorized version of some nameless Greek.
Erasmus and his followers, who respect our Greek text as the
original Gospel, deprive themselves of the evidence which
declares it to be the work of an apostle. See Simon, Hist.
Critique, &c., tom. iii. c. 5—9, p. 47—101, and the Prolegomena
of Mill and Wetstein to the New Testament. * Note: Surely the
extinction of the Judaeo-Christian community related from Mosheim
by Gibbon himself (c. xv.) accounts both simply and naturally for
the loss of a composition, which had become of no use—nor does it
follow that the Greek Gospel of St. Matthew is unauthorized.—M.]
6 (return) [ The metaphysics of the soul are disengaged by Cicero
(Tusculan. l. i.) and Maximus of Tyre (Dissertat. xvi.) from the
intricacies of dialogue, which sometimes amuse, and often
perplex, the readers of the Phoedrus, the Phoedon, and the Laws
of Plato.]
7 (return) [ The disciples of Jesus were persuaded that a man
might have sinned before he was born, (John, ix. 2,) and the
Pharisees held the transmigration of virtuous souls, (Joseph. de
Bell. Judaico, l. ii. c. 7;) and a modern Rabbi is modestly
assured, that Hermes, Pythagoras, Plato, &c., derived their
metaphysics from his illustrious countrymen.]
8 (return) [ Four different opinions have been entertained
concerning the origin of human souls: 1. That they are eternal
and divine. 2. That they were created in a separate state of
existence, before their union with the body. 3. That they have
been propagated from the original stock of Adam, who contained in
himself the mental as well as the corporeal seed of his
posterity. 4. That each soul is occasionally created and embodied
in the moment of conception.—The last of these sentiments appears
to have prevailed among the moderns; and our spiritual history is
grown less sublime, without becoming more intelligible.]
9 (return) [ It was one of the fifteen heresies imputed to
Origen, and denied by his apologist, (Photius, Bibliothec. cod.
cxvii. p. 296.) Some of the Rabbis attribute one and the same
soul to the persons of Adam, David, and the Messiah.]
II. The seeds of the faith, which had slowly arisen in the rocky
and ungrateful soil of Judea, were transplanted, in full
maturity, to the happier climes of the Gentiles; and the
strangers of Rome or Asia, who never beheld the manhood, were the
more readily disposed to embrace the divinity, of Christ. The
polytheist and the philosopher, the Greek and the Barbarian, were
alike accustomed to conceive a long succession, an infinite chain
of angels or daemons, or deities, or aeons, or emanations,
issuing from the throne of light. Nor could it seem strange or
incredible, that the first of these aeons, the Logos, or Word of
God, of the same substance with the Father, should descend upon
earth, to deliver the human race from vice and error, and to
conduct them in the paths of life and immortality. But the
prevailing doctrine of the eternity and inherent pravity of
matter infected the primitive churches of the East. Many among
the Gentile proselytes refused to believe that a celestial
spirit, an undivided portion of the first essence, had been
personally united with a mass of impure and contaminated flesh;
and, in their zeal for the divinity, they piously abjured the
humanity, of Christ. While his blood was still recent on Mount
Calvary, 10 the Docetes, a numerous and learned sect of Asiatics,
invented the phantastic system, which was afterwards propagated
by the Marcionites, the Manichaeans, and the various names of the
Gnostic heresy. 11 They denied the truth and authenticity of the
Gospels, as far as they relate the conception of Mary, the birth
of Christ, and the thirty years that preceded the exercise of his
ministry. He first appeared on the banks of the Jordan in the
form of perfect manhood; but it was a form only, and not a
substance; a human figure created by the hand of Omnipotence to
imitate the faculties and actions of a man, and to impose a
perpetual illusion on the senses of his friends and enemies.
Articulate sounds vibrated on the ears of the disciples; but the
image which was impressed on their optic nerve eluded the more
stubborn evidence of the touch; and they enjoyed the spiritual,
not the corporeal, presence of the Son of God. The rage of the
Jews was idly wasted against an impassive phantom; and the mystic
scenes of the passion and death, the resurrection and ascension,
of Christ were represented on the theatre of Jerusalem for the
benefit of mankind. If it were urged, that such ideal mimicry,
such incessant deception, was unworthy of the God of truth, the
Docetes agreed with too many of their orthodox brethren in the
justification of pious falsehood. In the system of the Gnostics,
the Jehovah of Israel, the Creator of this lower world, was a
rebellious, or at least an ignorant, spirit. The Son of God
descended upon earth to abolish his temple and his law; and, for
the accomplishment of this salutary end, he dexterously
transferred to his own person the hope and prediction of a
temporal Messiah.
10 (return) [ Apostolis adhuc in seculo superstitibus, apud
Judaeam Christi sanguine recente, Phantasma domini corpus
asserebatur. Hieronym, advers. Lucifer. c. 8. The epistle of
Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, and even the Gospel according to St.
John, are levelled against the growing error of the Docetes, who
had obtained too much credit in the world, (1 John, iv. 1—5.)]
11 (return) [ About the year 200 of the Christian aera, Irenaeus
and Hippolytus efuted the thirty-two sects, which had multiplied
to fourscore in the time of Epiphanius, (Phot. Biblioth. cod.
cxx. cxxi. cxxii.) The five books of Irenaeus exist only in
barbarous Latin; but the original might perhaps be found in some
monastery of Greece.]
One of the most subtile disputants of the Manichaean school has
pressed the danger and indecency of supposing, that the God of
the Christians, in the state of a human foetus, emerged at the
end of nine months from a female womb. The pious horror of his
antagonists provoked them to disclaim all sensual circumstances
of conception and delivery; to maintain that the divinity passed
through Mary like a sunbeam through a plate of glass; and to
assert, that the seal of her virginity remained unbroken even at
the moment when she became the mother of Christ. But the rashness
of these concessions has encouraged a milder sentiment of those
of the Docetes, who taught, not that Christ was a phantom, but
that he was clothed with an impassible and incorruptible body.
Such, indeed, in the more orthodox system, he has acquired since
his resurrection, and such he must have always possessed, if it
were capable of pervading, without resistance or injury, the
density of intermediate matter. Devoid of its most essential
properties, it might be exempt from the attributes and
infirmities of the flesh. A foetus that could increase from an
invisible point to its full maturity; a child that could attain
the stature of perfect manhood without deriving any nourishment
from the ordinary sources, might continue to exist without
repairing a daily waste by a daily supply of external matter.
Jesus might share the repasts of his disciples without being
subject to the calls of thirst or hunger; and his virgin purity
was never sullied by the involuntary stains of sensual
concupiscence. Of a body thus singularly constituted, a question
would arise, by what means, and of what materials, it was
originally framed; and our sounder theology is startled by an
answer which was not peculiar to the Gnostics, that both the form
and the substance proceeded from the divine essence. The idea of
pure and absolute spirit is a refinement of modern philosophy:
the incorporeal essence, ascribed by the ancients to human souls,
celestial beings, and even the Deity himself, does not exclude
the notion of extended space; and their imagination was satisfied
with a subtile nature of air, or fire, or aether, incomparably
more perfect than the grossness of the material world. If we
define the place, we must describe the figure, of the Deity. Our
experience, perhaps our vanity, represents the powers of reason
and virtue under a human form. The Anthropomorphites, who swarmed
among the monks of Egypt and the Catholics of Africa, could
produce the express declaration of Scripture, that man was made
after the image of his Creator. 12 The venerable Serapion, one of
the saints of the Nitrian deserts, relinquished, with many a
tear, his darling prejudice; and bewailed, like an infant, his
unlucky conversion, which had stolen away his God, and left his
mind without any visible object of faith or devotion. 13
12 (return) [ The pilgrim Cassian, who visited Egypt in the
beginning of the vth century, observes and laments the reign of
anthropomorphism among the monks, who were not conscious that
they embraced the system of Epicurus, (Cicero, de Nat. Deorum, i.
18, 34.) Ab universo propemodum genere monachorum, qui per totam
provinciam Egyptum morabantur, pro simplicitatis errore susceptum
est, ut e contraric memoratum pontificem (Theophilus) velut
haeresi gravissima depravatum, pars maxima seniorum ab universo
fraternitatis corpore decerneret detestandum, (Cassian,
Collation. x. 2.) As long as St. Augustin remained a Manichaean,
he was scandalized by the anthropomorphism of the vulgar
Catholics.]
13 (return) [ Ita est in oratione senex mente confusus, eo quod
illam imaginem Deitatis, quam proponere sibi in oratione
consueverat, aboleri de suo corde sentiret, ut in amarissimos
fletus, crebrosque singultus repente prorumpens, in terram
prostratus, cum ejulatu validissimo proclamaret; “Heu me miserum!
tulerunt a me Deum meum, et quem nunc teneam non habeo, vel quem
adorem, aut interpallam am nescio.” Cassian, Collat. x. 2.]
III. Such were the fleeting shadows of the Docetes. A more
substantial, though less simple, hypothesis, was contrived by
Cerinthus of Asia, 14 who dared to oppose the last of the
apostles. Placed on the confines of the Jewish and Gentile world,
he labored to reconcile the Gnostic with the Ebionite, by
confessing in the same Messiah the supernatural union of a man
and a God; and this mystic doctrine was adopted with many
fanciful improvements by Carpocrates, Basilides, and Valentine,
15 the heretics of the Egyptian school. In their eyes, Jesus of
Nazareth was a mere mortal, the legitimate son of Joseph and
Mary: but he was the best and wisest of the human race, selected
as the worthy instrument to restore upon earth the worship of the
true and supreme Deity. When he was baptized in the Jordan, the
Christ, the first of the aeons, the Son of God himself, descended
on Jesus in the form of a dove, to inhabit his mind, and direct
his actions during the allotted period of his ministry. When the
Messiah was delivered into the hands of the Jews, the Christ, an
immortal and impassible being, forsook his earthly tabernacle,
flew back to the pleroma or world of spirits, and left the
solitary Jesus to suffer, to complain, and to expire. But the
justice and generosity of such a desertion are strongly
questionable; and the fate of an innocent martyr, at first
impelled, and at length abandoned, by his divine companion, might
provoke the pity and indignation of the profane. Their murmurs
were variously silenced by the sectaries who espoused and
modified the double system of Cerinthus. It was alleged, that
when Jesus was nailed to the cross, he was endowed with a
miraculous apathy of mind and body, which rendered him insensible
of his apparent sufferings. It was affirmed, that these
momentary, though real, pangs would be abundantly repaid by the
temporal reign of a thousand years reserved for the Messiah in
his kingdom of the new Jerusalem. It was insinuated, that if he
suffered, he deserved to suffer; that human nature is never
absolutely perfect; and that the cross and passion might serve to
expiate the venial transgressions of the son of Joseph, before
his mysterious union with the Son of God. 16
14 (return) [ St. John and Cerinthus (A.D. 80. Cleric. Hist.
Eccles. p. 493) accidentally met in the public bath of Ephesus;
but the apostle fled from the heretic, lest the building should
tumble on their heads. This foolish story, reprobated by Dr.
Middleton, (Miscellaneous Works, vol. ii.,) is related, however,
by Irenaeus, (iii. 3,) on the evidence of Polycarp, and was
probably suited to the time and residence of Cerinthus. The
obsolete, yet probably the true, reading of 1 John, iv. 3 alludes
to the double nature of that primitive heretic. * Note: Griesbach
asserts that all the Greek Mss., all the translators, and all the
Greek fathers, support the common reading.—Nov. Test. in loc.—M]
15 (return) [ The Valentinians embraced a complex, and almost
incoherent, system. 1. Both Christ and Jesus were aeons, though
of different degrees; the one acting as the rational soul, the
other as the divine spirit of the Savior. 2. At the time of the
passion, they both retired, and left only a sensitive soul and a
human body. 3. Even that body was aethereal, and perhaps
apparent.—Such are the laborious conclusions of Mosheim. But I
much doubt whether the Latin translator understood Irenaeus, and
whether Irenaeus and the Valetinians understood themselves.]
16 (return) [ The heretics abused the passionate exclamation of
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Rousseau, who has
drawn an eloquent, but indecent, parallel between Christ and
Socrates, forgets that not a word of impatience or despair
escaped from the mouth of the dying philosopher. In the Messiah,
such sentiments could be only apparent; and such ill-sounding
words were properly explained as the application of a psalm and
prophecy.]
IV. All those who believe the immateriality of the soul, a
specious and noble tenet, must confess, from their present
experience, the incomprehensible union of mind and matter. A
similar union is not inconsistent with a much higher, or even
with the highest, degree of mental faculties; and the incarnation
of an aeon or archangel, the most perfect of created spirits,
does not involve any positive contradiction or absurdity. In the
age of religious freedom, which was determined by the council of
Nice, the dignity of Christ was measured by private judgment
according to the indefinite rule of Scripture, or reason, or
tradition. But when his pure and proper divinity had been
established on the ruins of Arianism, the faith of the Catholics
trembled on the edge of a precipice where it was impossible to
recede, dangerous to stand, dreadful to fall and the manifold
inconveniences of their creed were aggravated by the sublime
character of their theology. They hesitated to pronounce; that
God himself, the second person of an equal and consubstantial
trinity, was manifested in the flesh; 17 that a being who
pervades the universe, had been confined in the womb of Mary;
that his eternal duration had been marked by the days, and
months, and years of human existence; that the Almighty had been
scourged and crucified; that his impassible essence had felt pain
and anguish; that his omniscience was not exempt from ignorance;
and that the source of life and immortality expired on Mount
Calvary. These alarming consequences were affirmed with
unblushing simplicity by Apollinaris, 18 bishop of Laodicea, and
one of the luminaries of the church. The son of a learned
grammarian, he was skilled in all the sciences of Greece;
eloquence, erudition, and philosophy, conspicuous in the volumes
of Apollinaris, were humbly devoted to the service of religion.
The worthy friend of Athanasius, the worthy antagonist of Julian,
he bravely wrestled with the Arians and Polytheists, and though
he affected the rigor of geometrical demonstration, his
commentaries revealed the literal and allegorical sense of the
Scriptures. A mystery, which had long floated in the looseness of
popular belief, was defined by his perverse diligence in a
technical form; and he first proclaimed the memorable words, “One
incarnate nature of Christ,” which are still reechoed with
hostile clamors in the churches of Asia, Egypt, and Aethiopia. He
taught that the Godhead was united or mingled with the body of a
man; and that the Logos, the eternal wisdom, supplied in the
flesh the place and office of a human soul. Yet as the profound
doctor had been terrified at his own rashness, Apollinaris was
heard to mutter some faint accents of excuse and explanation. He
acquiesced in the old distinction of the Greek philosophers
between the rational and sensitive soul of man; that he might
reserve the Logos for intellectual functions, and employ the
subordinate human principle in the meaner actions of animal life.
With the moderate Docetes, he revered Mary as the spiritual,
rather than as the carnal, mother of Christ, whose body either
came from heaven, impassible and incorruptible, or was absorbed,
and as it were transformed, into the essence of the Deity. The
system of Apollinaris was strenuously encountered by the Asiatic
and Syrian divines whose schools are honored by the names of
Basil, Gregory and Chrysostom, and tainted by those of Diodorus,
Theodore, and Nestorius. But the person of the aged bishop of
Laedicea, his character and dignity, remained inviolate; and his
rivals, since we may not suspect them of the weakness of
toleration, were astonished, perhaps, by the novelty of the
argument, and diffident of the final sentence of the Catholic
church. Her judgment at length inclined in their favor; the
heresy of Apollinaris was condemned, and the separate
congregations of his disciples were proscribed by the Imperial
laws. But his principles were secretly entertained in the
monasteries of Egypt, and his enemies felt the hatred of
Theophilus and Cyril, the successive patriarchs of Alexandria.
17 (return) [ This strong expression might be justified by the
language of St. Paul, (1 Tim. iii. 16;) but we are deceived by
our modern Bibles. The word which was altered to God at
Constantinople in the beginning of the vith century: the true
reading, which is visible in the Latin and Syriac versions, still
exists in the reasoning of the Greek, as well as of the Latin
fathers; and this fraud, with that of the three witnesses of St.
John, is admirably detected by Sir Isaac Newton. (See his two
letters translated by M. de Missy, in the Journal Britannique,
tom. xv. p. 148—190, 351—390.) I have weighed the arguments, and
may yield to the authority of the first of philosophers, who was
deeply skilled in critical and theological studies. Note: It
should be Griesbach in loc. The weight of authority is so much
against the common reading in both these points, that they are no
longer urged by prudent controversialists. Would Gibbon’s
deference for the first of philosophers have extended to all his
theological conclusions?—M.]
18 (return) [ For Apollinaris and his sect, see Socrates, l. ii.
c. 46, l. iii. c. 16 Sazomen, l. v. c. 18, 1. vi. c. 25, 27.
Theodoret, l. v. 3, 10, 11. Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiastiques,
tom. vii. p. 602—638. Not. p. 789—794, in 4to. Venise, 1732. The
contemporary saint always mentions the bishop of Laodicea as a
friend and brother. The style of the more recent historians is
harsh and hostile: yet Philostorgius compares him (l. viii. c.
11-15) to Basil and Gregory.]
V. The grovelling Ebionite, and the fantastic Docetes, were
rejected and forgotten: the recent zeal against the errors of
Apollinaris reduced the Catholics to a seeming agreement with the
double nature of Cerinthus. But instead of a temporary and
occasional alliance, they established, and we still embrace, the
substantial, indissoluble, and everlasting union of a perfect God
with a perfect man, of the second person of the trinity with a
reasonable soul and human flesh. In the beginning of the fifth
century, the unity of the two natures was the prevailing doctrine
of the church. On all sides, it was confessed, that the mode of
their coexistence could neither be represented by our ideas, nor
expressed by our language. Yet a secret and incurable discord was
cherished, between those who were most apprehensive of
confounding, and those who were most fearful of separating, the
divinity, and the humanity, of Christ. Impelled by religious
frenzy, they fled with adverse haste from the error which they
mutually deemed most destructive of truth and salvation. On
either hand they were anxious to guard, they were jealous to
defend, the union and the distinction of the two natures, and to
invent such forms of speech, such symbols of doctrine, as were
least susceptible of doubt or ambiguity. The poverty of ideas and
language tempted them to ransack art and nature for every
possible comparison, and each comparison misled their fancy in
the explanation of an incomparable mystery. In the polemic
microscope, an atom is enlarged to a monster, and each party was
skilful to exaggerate the absurd or impious conclusions that
might be extorted from the principles of their adversaries. To
escape from each other, they wandered through many a dark and
devious thicket, till they were astonished by the horrid phantoms
of Cerinthus and Apollinaris, who guarded the opposite issues of
the theological labyrinth. As soon as they beheld the twilight of
sense and heresy, they started, measured back their steps, and
were again involved in the gloom of impenetrable orthodoxy. To
purge themselves from the guilt or reproach of damnable error,
they disavowed their consequences, explained their principles,
excused their indiscretions, and unanimously pronounced the
sounds of concord and faith. Yet a latent and almost invisible
spark still lurked among the embers of controversy: by the breath
of prejudice and passion, it was quickly kindled to a mighty
flame, and the verbal disputes 19 of the Oriental sects have
shaken the pillars of the church and state.
19 (return) [ I appeal to the confession of two Oriental
prelates, Gregory Abulpharagius the Jacobite primate of the East,
and Elias the Nestorian metropolitan of Damascus, (see Asseman,
Bibliothec. Oriental. tom. ii. p. 291, tom. iii. p. 514, &c.,)
that the Melchites, Jacobites, Nestorians, &c., agree in the
doctrine, and differ only in the expression. Our most learned and
rational divines—Basnage, Le Clerc, Beausobre, La Croze, Mosheim,
Jablonski—are inclined to favor this charitable judgment; but the
zeal of Petavius is loud and angry, and the moderation of Dupin
is conveyed in a whisper.]
The name of Cyril of Alexandria is famous in controversial story,
and the title of saint is a mark that his opinions and his party
have finally prevailed. In the house of his uncle, the archbishop
Theophilus, he imbibed the orthodox lessons of zeal and dominion,
and five years of his youth were profitably spent in the adjacent
monasteries of Nitria. Under the tuition of the abbot Serapion,
he applied himself to ecclesiastical studies, with such
indefatigable ardor, that in the course of one sleepless night,
he has perused the four Gospels, the Catholic Epistles, and the
Epistle to the Romans. Origen he detested; but the writings of
Clemens and Dionysius, of Athanasius and Basil, were continually
in his hands: by the theory and practice of dispute, his faith
was confirmed and his wit was sharpened; he extended round his
cell the cobwebs of scholastic theology, and meditated the works
of allegory and metaphysics, whose remains, in seven verbose
folios, now peaceably slumber by the side of their rivals. 20
Cyril prayed and fasted in the desert, but his thoughts (it is
the reproach of a friend) 21 were still fixed on the world; and
the call of Theophilus, who summoned him to the tumult of cities
and synods, was too readily obeyed by the aspiring hermit. With
the approbation of his uncle, he assumed the office, and acquired
the fame, of a popular preacher. His comely person adorned the
pulpit; the harmony of his voice resounded in the cathedral; his
friends were stationed to lead or second the applause of the
congregation; 22 and the hasty notes of the scribes preserved his
discourses, which in their effect, though not in their
composition, might be compared with those of the Athenian
orators. The death of Theophilus expanded and realized the hopes
of his nephew. The clergy of Alexandria was divided; the soldiers
and their general supported the claims of the archdeacon; but a
resistless multitude, with voices and with hands, asserted the
cause of their favorite; and after a period of thirty-nine years,
Cyril was seated on the throne of Athanasius. 23
20 (return) [ La Croze (Hist. du Christianisme des Indes, tom. i.
p. 24) avows his contempt for the genius and writings of Cyril.
De tous les on vrages des anciens, il y en a peu qu’on lise avec
moins d’utilite: and Dupin, (Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom.
iv. p. 42—52,) in words of respect, teaches us to despise them.]
21 (return) [ Of Isidore of Pelusium, (l. i. epist. 25, p. 8.) As
the letter is not of the most creditable sort, Tillemont, less
sincere than the Bollandists, affects a doubt whether this Cyril
is the nephew of Theophilus, (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 268.)]
22 (return) [ A grammarian is named by Socrates (l. vii. c. 13).]
23 (return) [ See the youth and promotion of Cyril, in Socrates,
(l. vii. c. 7) and Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarchs. Alexandrin. p.
106, 108.) The Abbe Renaudot drew his materials from the Arabic
history of Severus, bishop of Hermopolis Magma, or Ashmunein, in
the xth century, who can never be trusted, unless our assent is
extorted by the internal evidence of facts.]
Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part II.
The prize was not unworthy of his ambition. At a distance from
the court, and at the head of an immense capital, the patriarch,
as he was now styled, of Alexandria had gradually usurped the
state and authority of a civil magistrate. The public and private
charities of the city were blindly obeyed by his numerous and
fanatic parabolani, 24 familiarized in their daily office with
scenes of death; and the præfects of Egypt were awed or provoked
by the temporal power of these Christian pontiffs. Ardent in the
prosecution of heresy, Cyril auspiciously opened his reign by
oppressing the Novatians, the most innocent and harmless of the
sectaries. The interdiction of their religious worship appeared
in his eyes a just and meritorious act; and he confiscated their
holy vessels, without apprehending the guilt of sacrilege. The
toleration, and even the privileges of the Jews, who had
multiplied to the number of forty thousand, were secured by the
laws of the Caesars and Ptolemies, and a long prescription of
seven hundred years since the foundation of Alexandria. Without
any legal sentence, without any royal mandate, the patriarch, at
the dawn of day, led a seditious multitude to the attack of the
synagogues. Unarmed and unprepared, the Jews were incapable of
resistance; their houses of prayer were levelled with the ground,
and the episcopal warrior, after rewarding his troops with the
plunder of their goods, expelled from the city the remnant of the
unbelieving nation. Perhaps he might plead the insolence of their
prosperity, and their deadly hatred of the Christians, whose
blood they had recently shed in a malicious or accidental tumult.
Such crimes would have deserved the animadversion of the
magistrate; but in this promiscuous outrage, the innocent were
confounded with the guilty, and Alexandria was impoverished by
the loss of a wealthy and industrious colony. The zeal of Cyril
exposed him to the penalties of the Julian law; but in a feeble
government and a superstitious age, he was secure of impunity,
and even of praise. Orestes complained; but his just complaints
were too quickly forgotten by the ministers of Theodosius, and
too deeply remembered by a priest who affected to pardon, and
continued to hate, the præfect of Egypt. As he passed through the
streets, his chariot was assaulted by a band of five hundred of
the Nitrian monks; his guards fled from the wild beasts of the
desert; his protestations that he was a Christian and a Catholic
were answered by a volley of stones, and the face of Orestes was
covered with blood. The loyal citizens of Alexandria hastened to
his rescue; he instantly satisfied his justice and revenge
against the monk by whose hand he had been wounded, and Ammonius
expired under the rod of the lictor. At the command of Cyril his
body was raised from the ground, and transported, in solemn
procession, to the cathedral; the name of Ammonius was changed to
that of Thaumasius the wonderful; his tomb was decorated with the
trophies of martyrdom, and the patriarch ascended the pulpit to
celebrate the magnanimity of an assassin and a rebel. Such honors
might incite the faithful to combat and die under the banners of
the saint; and he soon prompted, or accepted, the sacrifice of a
virgin, who professed the religion of the Greeks, and cultivated
the friendship of Orestes. Hypatia, the daughter of Theon the
mathematician, 25 was initiated in her father’s studies; her
learned comments have elucidated the geometry of Apollonius and
Diophantus, and she publicly taught, both at Athens and
Alexandria, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. In the bloom
of beauty, and in the maturity of wisdom, the modest maid refused
her lovers and instructed her disciples; the persons most
illustrious for their rank or merit were impatient to visit the
female philosopher; and Cyril beheld, with a jealous eye, the
gorgeous train of horses and slaves who crowded the door of her
academy. A rumor was spread among the Christians, that the
daughter of Theon was the only obstacle to the reconciliation of
the præfect and the archbishop; and that obstacle was speedily
removed. On a fatal day, in the holy season of Lent, Hypatia was
torn from her chariot, stripped naked, dragged to the church, and
inhumanly butchered by the hands of Peter the reader, and a troop
of savage and merciless fanatics: her flesh was scraped from her
bones with sharp cyster shells, 26 and her quivering limbs were
delivered to the flames. The just progress of inquiry and
punishment was stopped by seasonable gifts; but the murder of
Hypatia has imprinted an indelible stain on the character and
religion of Cyril of Alexandria. 27
24 (return) [ The Parabolani of Alexandria were a charitable
corporation, instituted during the plague of Gallienus, to visit
the sick and to bury the dead. They gradually enlarged, abused,
and sold the privileges of their order. Their outrageous conduct
during the reign of Cyril provoked the emperor to deprive the
patriarch of their nomination, and to restrain their number to
five or six hundred. But these restraints were transient and
ineffectual. See the Theodosian Code, l. xvi. tit. ii. and
Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 276—278.]
25 (return) [ For Theon and his daughter Hypatia. see Fabricius,
Bibliothec. tom. viii. p. 210, 211. Her article in the Lexicon of
Suidas is curious and original. Hesychius (Meursii Opera, tom.
vii. p. 295, 296) observes, that he was persecuted; and an
epigram in the Greek Anthology (l. i. c. 76, p. 159, edit.
Brodaei) celebrates her knowledge and eloquence. She is honorably
mentioned (Epist. 10, 15 16, 33—80, 124, 135, 153) by her friend
and disciple the philosophic bishop Synesius.]
26 (return) [ Oyster shells were plentifully strewed on the
sea-beach before the Caesareum. I may therefore prefer the
literal sense, without rejecting the metaphorical version of
tegulae, tiles, which is used by M. de Valois ignorant, and the
assassins were probably regardless, whether their victim was yet
alive.]
27 (return) [ These exploits of St. Cyril are recorded by
Socrates, (l. vii. c. 13, 14, 15;) and the most reluctant bigotry
is compelled to copy an historian who coolly styles the murderers
of Hypatia. At the mention of that injured name, I am pleased to
observe a blush even on the cheek of Baronius, (A.D. 415, No.
48.)]
Superstition, perhaps, would more gently expiate the blood of a
virgin, than the banishment of a saint; and Cyril had accompanied
his uncle to the iniquitous synod of the Oak. When the memory of
Chrysostom was restored and consecrated, the nephew of
Theophilus, at the head of a dying faction, still maintained the
justice of his sentence; nor was it till after a tedious delay
and an obstinate resistance, that he yielded to the consent of
the Catholic world. 28 His enmity to the Byzantine pontiffs 29
was a sense of interest, not a sally of passion: he envied their
fortunate station in the sunshine of the Imperial court; and he
dreaded their upstart ambition. which oppressed the metropolitans
of Europe and Asia, invaded the provinces of Antioch and
Alexandria, and measured their diocese by the limits of the
empire. The long moderation of Atticus, the mild usurper of the
throne of Chrysostom, suspended the animosities of the Eastern
patriarchs; but Cyril was at length awakened by the exaltation of
a rival more worthy of his esteem and hatred. After the short and
troubled reign of Sisinnius, bishop of Constantinople, the
factions of the clergy and people were appeased by the choice of
the emperor, who, on this occasion, consulted the voice of fame,
and invited the merit of a stranger.
Nestorius, 30 native of Germanicia, and a monk of Antioch, was
recommended by the austerity of his life, and the eloquence of
his sermons; but the first homily which he preached before the
devout Theodosius betrayed the acrimony and impatience of his
zeal. “Give me, O Caesar!” he exclaimed, “give me the earth
purged of heretics, and I will give you in exchange the kingdom
of heaven. Exterminate with me the heretics; and with you I will
exterminate the Persians.” On the fifth day as if the treaty had
been already signed, the patriarch of Constantinople discovered,
surprised, and attacked a secret conventicle of the Arians: they
preferred death to submission; the flames that were kindled by
their despair, soon spread to the neighboring houses, and the
triumph of Nestorius was clouded by the name of incendiary. On
either side of the Hellespont his episcopal vigor imposed a rigid
formulary of faith and discipline; a chronological error
concerning the festival of Easter was punished as an offence
against the church and state. Lydia and Caria, Sardes and
Miletus, were purified with the blood of the obstinate
Quartodecimans; and the edict of the emperor, or rather of the
patriarch, enumerates three-and-twenty degrees and denominations
in the guilt and punishment of heresy. 31 But the sword of
persecution which Nestorius so furiously wielded was soon turned
against his own breast. Religion was the pretence; but, in the
judgment of a contemporary saint, ambition was the genuine motive
of episcopal warfare. 32
28 (return) [ He was deaf to the entreaties of Atticus of
Constantinople, and of Isidore of Pelusium, and yielded only (if
we may believe Nicephorus, l. xiv. c. 18) to the personal
intercession of the Virgin. Yet in his last years he still
muttered that John Chrysostom had been justly condemned,
(Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 278—282. Baronius Annal.
Eccles. A.D. 412, No. 46—64.)]
29 (return) [ See their characters in the history of Socrates,
(l. vii. c. 25—28;) their power and pretensions, in the huge
compilation of Thomassin, (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. p.
80-91.)]
30 (return) [ His elevation and conduct are described by
Socrates, (l. vii. c. 29 31;) and Marcellinus seems to have
applied the eloquentiae satis, sapi entiae parum, of Sallust.]
31 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. v. leg. 65, with the
illustrations of Baronius, (A.D. 428, No. 25, &c.,) Godefroy, (ad
locum,) and Pagi, Critica, (tom. ii. p. 208.)]
32 (return) [ Isidore of Pelusium, (l. iv. Epist. 57.) His words
are strong and scandalous. Isidore is a saint, but he never
became a bishop; and I half suspect that the pride of Diogenes
trampled on the pride of Plato.]
In the Syrian school, Nestorius had been taught to abhor the
confusion of the two natures, and nicely to discriminate the
humanity of his master Christ from the divinity of the Lord
Jesus. 33 The Blessed Virgin he revered as the mother of Christ,
but his ears were offended with the rash and recent title of
mother of God, 34 which had been insensibly adopted since the
origin of the Arian controversy. From the pulpit of
Constantinople, a friend of the patriarch, and afterwards the
patriarch himself, repeatedly preached against the use, or the
abuse, of a word 35 unknown to the apostles, unauthorized by the
church, and which could only tend to alarm the timorous, to
misled the simple, to amuse the profane, and to justify, by a
seeming resemblance, the old genealogy of Olympus. 36 In his
calmer moments Nestorius confessed, that it might be tolerated or
excused by the union of the two natures, and the communication of
their idioms: 37 but he was exasperated, by contradiction, to
disclaim the worship of a new-born, an infant Deity, to draw his
inadequate similes from the conjugal or civil partnerships of
life, and to describe the manhood of Christ as the robe, the
instrument, the tabernacle of his Godhead. At these blasphemous
sounds, the pillars of the sanctuary were shaken. The
unsuccessful competitors of Nestorius indulged their pious or
personal resentment, the Byzantine clergy was secretly displeased
with the intrusion of a stranger: whatever is superstitious or
absurd, might claim the protection of the monks; and the people
were interested in the glory of their virgin patroness. 38 The
sermons of the archbishop, and the service of the altar, were
disturbed by seditious clamor; his authority and doctrine were
renounced by separate congregations; every wind scattered round
the empire the leaves of controversy; and the voice of the
combatants on a sonorous theatre reechoed in the cells of
Palestine and Egypt. It was the duty of Cyril to enlighten the
zeal and ignorance of his innumerable monks: in the school of
Alexandria, he had imbibed and professed the incarnation of one
nature; and the successor of Athanasius consulted his pride and
ambition, when he rose in arms against another Arius, more
formidable and more guilty, on the second throne of the
hierarchy. After a short correspondence, in which the rival
prelates disguised their hatred in the hollow language of respect
and charity, the patriarch of Alexandria denounced to the prince
and people, to the East and to the West, the damnable errors of
the Byzantine pontiff. From the East, more especially from
Antioch, he obtained the ambiguous counsels of toleration and
silence, which were addressed to both parties while they favored
the cause of Nestorius. But the Vatican received with open arms
the messengers of Egypt. The vanity of Celestine was flattered by
the appeal; and the partial version of a monk decided the faith
of the pope, who with his Latin clergy was ignorant of the
language, the arts, and the theology of the Greeks. At the head
of an Italian synod, Celestine weighed the merits of the cause,
approved the creed of Cyril, condemned the sentiments and person
of Nestorius, degraded the heretic from his episcopal dignity,
allowed a respite of ten days for recantation and penance, and
delegated to his enemy the execution of this rash and illegal
sentence. But the patriarch of Alexandria, while he darted the
thunders of a god, exposed the errors and passions of a mortal;
and his twelve anathemas 39 still torture the orthodox slaves,
who adore the memory of a saint, without forfeiting their
allegiance to the synod of Chalcedon. These bold assertions are
indelibly tinged with the colors of the Apollinarian heresy; but
the serious, and perhaps the sincere professions of Nestorius
have satisfied the wiser and less partial theologians of the
present times. 40
33 (return) [ La Croze (Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p.
44-53. Thesaurus Epistolicus, La Crozianus, tom. iii. p. 276—280)
has detected the use, which, in the ivth, vth, and vith
centuries, discriminates the school of Diodorus of Tarsus and his
Nestorian disciples.]
34 (return) [ Deipara; as in zoology we familiarly speak of
oviparous and viviparous animals. It is not easy to fix the
invention of this word, which La Croze (Christianisme des Indes,
tom. i. p. 16) ascribes to Eusebius of Caesarea and the Arians.
The orthodox testimonies are produced by Cyril and Petavius,
(Dogmat. Theolog. tom. v. l. v. c. 15, p. 254, &c.;) but the
veracity of the saint is questionable, and the epithet so easily
slides from the margin to the text of a Catholic Ms]
35 (return) [ Basnage, in his Histoire de l’Eglise, a work of
controversy, (tom l. p. 505,) justifies the mother, by the blood,
of God, (Acts, xx. 28, with Mill’s various readings.) But the
Greek Mss. are far from unanimous; and the primitive style of the
blood of Christ is preserved in the Syriac version, even in those
copies which were used by the Christians of St. Thomas on the
coast of Malabar, (La Croze, Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p.
347.) The jealousy of the Nestorians and Monophysites has guarded
the purity of their text.]
36 (return) [ The Pagans of Egypt already laughed at the new
Cybele of the Christians, (Isidor. l. i. epist. 54;) a letter was
forged in the name of Hypatia, to ridicule the theology of her
assassin, (Synodicon, c. 216, in iv. tom. Concil. p. 484.) In the
article of Nestorius, Bayle has scattered some loose philosophy
on the worship of the Virgin Mary.]
37 (return) [ The item of the Greeks, a mutual loan or transfer
of the idioms or properties of each nature to the other—of
infinity to man, passibility to God, &c. Twelve rules on this
nicest of subjects compose the Theological Grammar of Petavius,
(Dogmata Theolog. tom. v. l. iv. c. 14, 15, p 209, &c.)]
38 (return) [ See Ducange, C. P. Christiana, l. i. p. 30, &c.]
39 (return) [ Concil. tom. iii. p. 943. They have never been
directly approved by the church, (Tillemont. Mem. Eccles. tom.
xiv. p. 368—372.) I almost pity the agony of rage and sophistry
with which Petavius seems to be agitated in the vith book of his
Dogmata Theologica]
40 (return) [ Such as the rational Basnage (ad tom. i. Variar.
Lection. Canisine in Praefat. c. 2, p. 11—23) and La Croze, the
universal scholar, (Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 16—20. De
l’Ethiopie, p. 26, 27. The saur. Epist. p. 176, &c., 283, 285.)
His free sentence is confirmed by that of his friends Jablonski
(Thesaur. Epist. tom. i. p. 193—201) and Mosheim, (idem. p. 304,
Nestorium crimine caruisse est et mea sententia;) and three more
respectable judges will not easily be found. Asseman, a learned
and modest slave, can hardly discern (Bibliothec. Orient. tom.
iv. p. 190—224) the guilt and error of the Nestorians.]
Yet neither the emperor nor the primate of the East were disposed
to obey the mandate of an Italian priest; and a synod of the
Catholic, or rather of the Greek church, was unanimously demanded
as the sole remedy that could appease or decide this
ecclesiastical quarrel. 41 Ephesus, on all sides accessible by
sea and land, was chosen for the place, the festival of Pentecost
for the day, of the meeting; a writ of summons was despatched to
each metropolitan, and a guard was stationed to protect and
confine the fathers till they should settle the mysteries of
heaven, and the faith of the earth. Nestorius appeared not as a
criminal, but as a judge; he depended on the weight rather than
the number of his prelates, and his sturdy slaves from the baths
of Zeuxippus were armed for every service of injury or defence.
But his adversary Cyril was more powerful in the weapons both of
the flesh and of the spirit. Disobedient to the letter, or at
least to the meaning, of the royal summons, he was attended by
fifty Egyptian bishops, who expected from their patriarch’s nod
the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. He had contracted an intimate
alliance with Memnon, bishop of Ephesus. The despotic primate of
Asia disposed of the ready succors of thirty or forty episcopal
votes: a crowd of peasants, the slaves of the church, was poured
into the city to support with blows and clamors a metaphysical
argument; and the people zealously asserted the honor of the
Virgin, whose body reposed within the walls of Ephesus. 42 The
fleet which had transported Cyril from Alexandria was laden with
the riches of Egypt; and he disembarked a numerous body of
mariners, slaves, and fanatics, enlisted with blind obedience
under the banner of St. Mark and the mother of God. The fathers,
and even the guards, of the council were awed by this martial
array; the adversaries of Cyril and Mary were insulted in the
streets, or threatened in their houses; his eloquence and
liberality made a daily increase in the number of his adherents;
and the Egyptian soon computed that he might command the
attendance and the voices of two hundred bishops. 43 But the
author of the twelve anathemas foresaw and dreaded the opposition
of John of Antioch, who, with a small, but respectable, train of
metropolitans and divines, was advancing by slow journeys from
the distant capital of the East. Impatient of a delay, which he
stigmatized as voluntary and culpable, 44 Cyril announced the
opening of the synod sixteen days after the festival of
Pentecost. Nestorius, who depended on the near approach of his
Eastern friends, persisted, like his predecessor Chrysostom, to
disclaim the jurisdiction, and to disobey the summons, of his
enemies: they hastened his trial, and his accuser presided in the
seat of judgment. Sixty-eight bishops, twenty-two of metropolitan
rank, defended his cause by a modest and temperate protest: they
were excluded from the councils of their brethren. Candidian, in
the emperor’s name, requested a delay of four days; the profane
magistrate was driven with outrage and insult from the assembly
of the saints. The whole of this momentous transaction was
crowded into the compass of a summer’s day: the bishops delivered
their separate opinions; but the uniformity of style reveals the
influence or the hand of a master, who has been accused of
corrupting the public evidence of their acts and subscriptions.
45 Without a dissenting voice, they recognized in the epistles of
Cyril the Nicene creed and the doctrine of the fathers: but the
partial extracts from the letters and homilies of Nestorius were
interrupted by curses and anathemas: and the heretic was degraded
from his episcopal and ecclesiastical dignity. The sentence,
maliciously inscribed to the new Judas, was affixed and
proclaimed in the streets of Ephesus: the weary prelates, as they
issued from the church of the mother of God, were saluted as her
champions; and her victory was celebrated by the illuminations,
the songs, and the tumult of the night.
41 (return) [ The origin and progress of the Nestorian
controversy, till the synod of Ephesus, may be found in Socrates,
(l. vii. c. 32,) Evagrius, (l. i. c. 1, 2,) Liberatus, (Brev. c.
1—4,) the original Acts, (Concil. tom. iii. p. 551—991, edit.
Venice, 1728,) the Annals of Baronius and Pagi, and the faithful
collections of Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv p. 283—377.)]
42 (return) [ The Christians of the four first centuries were
ignorant of the death and burial of Mary. The tradition of
Ephesus is affirmed by the synod, (Concil. tom. iii. p. 1102;)
yet it has been superseded by the claim of Jerusalem; and her
empty sepulchre, as it was shown to the pilgrims, produced the
fable of her resurrection and assumption, in which the Greek and
Latin churches have piously acquiesced. See Baronius (Annal.
Eccles. A.D. 48, No. 6, &c.) and Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. i.
p. 467—477.)]
43 (return) [ The Acts of Chalcedon (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1405,
1408) exhibit a lively picture of the blind, obstinate servitude
of the bishops of Egypt to their patriarch.]
44 (return) [ Civil or ecclesiastical business detained the
bishops at Antioch till the 18th of May. Ephesus was at the
distance of thirty days’ journey; and ten days more may be fairly
allowed for accidents and repose. The march of Xenophon over the
same ground enumerates above 260 parasangs or leagues; and this
measure might be illustrated from ancient and modern itineraries,
if I knew how to compare the speed of an army, a synod, and a
caravan. John of Antioch is reluctantly acquitted by Tillemont
himself, (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 386—389.)]
45 (return) [ Evagrius, l. i. c. 7. The same imputation was urged
by Count Irenaeus, (tom. iii. p. 1249;) and the orthodox critics
do not find it an easy task to defend the purity of the Greek or
Latin copies of the Acts.]
On the fifth day, the triumph was clouded by the arrival and
indignation of the Eastern bishops. In a chamber of the inn,
before he had wiped the dust from his shoes, John of Antioch gave
audience to Candidian, the Imperial minister; who related his
ineffectual efforts to prevent or to annul the hasty violence of
the Egyptian. With equal haste and violence, the Oriental synod
of fifty bishops degraded Cyril and Memnon from their episcopal
honors, condemned, in the twelve anathemas, the purest venom of
the Apollinarian heresy, and described the Alexandrian primate as
a monster, born and educated for the destruction of the church.
46 His throne was distant and inaccessible; but they instantly
resolved to bestow on the flock of Ephesus the blessing of a
faithful shepherd. By the vigilance of Memnon, the churches were
shut against them, and a strong garrison was thrown into the
cathedral. The troops, under the command of Candidian, advanced
to the assault; the outguards were routed and put to the sword,
but the place was impregnable: the besiegers retired; their
retreat was pursued by a vigorous sally; they lost their horses,
and many of their soldiers were dangerously wounded with clubs
and stones. Ephesus, the city of the Virgin, was defiled with
rage and clamor, with sedition and blood; the rival synods darted
anathemas and excommunications from their spiritual engines; and
the court of Theodosius was perplexed by the adverse and
contradictory narratives of the Syrian and Egyptian factions.
During a busy period of three months, the emperor tried every
method, except the most effectual means of indifference and
contempt, to reconcile this theological quarrel. He attempted to
remove or intimidate the leaders by a common sentence, of
acquittal or condemnation; he invested his representatives at
Ephesus with ample power and military force; he summoned from
either party eight chosen deputies to a free and candid
conference in the neighborhood of the capital, far from the
contagion of popular frenzy. But the Orientals refused to yield,
and the Catholics, proud of their numbers and of their Latin
allies, rejected all terms of union or toleration. The patience
of the meek Theodosius was provoked; and he dissolved in anger
this episcopal tumult, which at the distance of thirteen
centuries assumes the venerable aspect of the third oecumenical
council. 47 “God is my witness,” said the pious prince, “that I
am not the author of this confusion. His providence will discern
and punish the guilty. Return to your provinces, and may your
private virtues repair the mischief and scandal of your meeting.”
They returned to their provinces; but the same passions which had
distracted the synod of Ephesus were diffused over the Eastern
world. After three obstinate and equal campaigns, John of Antioch
and Cyril of Alexandria condescended to explain and embrace: but
their seeming reunion must be imputed rather to prudence than to
reason, to the mutual lassitude rather than to the Christian
charity of the patriarchs.
46 (return) [ After the coalition of John and Cyril these
invectives were mutually forgotten. The style of declamation must
never be confounded with the genuine sense which respectable
enemies entertain of each other’s merit, (Concil tom. iii. p.
1244.)]
47 (return) [ See the acts of the synod of Ephesus in the
original Greek, and a Latin version almost contemporary, (Concil.
tom. iii. p. 991—1339, with the Synodicon adversus Tragoediam
Irenaei, tom. iv. p. 235—497,) the Ecclesiastical Histories of
Socrates (l. vii. c. 34) and Evagrius, (l i. c. 3, 4, 5,) and the
Breviary of Liberatus, (in Concil. tom. vi. p. 419—459, c. 5, 6,)
and the Memoires Eccles. of Tillemont, (tom. xiv p. 377-487.)]
The Byzantine pontiff had instilled into the royal ear a baleful
prejudice against the character and conduct of his Egyptian
rival. An epistle of menace and invective, 48 which accompanied
the summons, accused him as a busy, insolent, and envious priest,
who perplexed the simplicity of the faith, violated the peace of
the church and state, and, by his artful and separate addresses
to the wife and sister of Theodosius, presumed to suppose, or to
scatter, the seeds of discord in the Imperial family. At the
stern command of his sovereign, Cyril had repaired to Ephesus,
where he was resisted, threatened, and confined, by the
magistrates in the interest of Nestorius and the Orientals; who
assembled the troops of Lydia and Ionia to suppress the fanatic
and disorderly train of the patriarch. Without expecting the
royal license, he escaped from his guards, precipitately
embarked, deserted the imperfect synod, and retired to his
episcopal fortress of safety and independence. But his artful
emissaries, both in the court and city, successfully labored to
appease the resentment, and to conciliate the favor, of the
emperor. The feeble son of Arcadius was alternately swayed by his
wife and sister, by the eunuchs and women of the palace:
superstition and avarice were their ruling passions; and the
orthodox chiefs were assiduous in their endeavors to alarm the
former, and to gratify the latter. Constantinople and the suburbs
were sanctified with frequent monasteries, and the holy abbots,
Dalmatius and Eutyches, 49 had devoted their zeal and fidelity to
the cause of Cyril, the worship of Mary, and the unity of Christ.
From the first moment of their monastic life, they had never
mingled with the world, or trod the profane ground of the city.
But in this awful moment of the danger of the church, their vow
was superseded by a more sublime and indispensable duty. At the
head of a long order of monks and hermits, who carried burning
tapers in their hands, and chanted litanies to the mother of God,
they proceeded from their monasteries to the palace. The people
was edified and inflamed by this extraordinary spectacle, and the
trembling monarch listened to the prayers and adjurations of the
saints, who boldly pronounced, that none could hope for
salvation, unless they embraced the person and the creed of the
orthodox successor of Athanasius. At the same time, every avenue
of the throne was assaulted with gold. Under the decent names of
eulogies and benedictions, the courtiers of both sexes were
bribed according to the measure of their power and rapaciousness.
But their incessant demands despoiled the sanctuaries of
Constantinople and Alexandria; and the authority of the patriarch
was unable to silence the just murmur of his clergy, that a debt
of sixty thousand pounds had already been contracted to support
the expense of this scandalous corruption. 50 Pulcheria, who
relieved her brother from the weight of an empire, was the
firmest pillar of orthodoxy; and so intimate was the alliance
between the thunders of the synod and the whispers of the court,
that Cyril was assured of success if he could displace one
eunuch, and substitute another in the favor of Theodosius. Yet
the Egyptian could not boast of a glorious or decisive victory.
The emperor, with unaccustomed firmness, adhered to his promise
of protecting the innocence of the Oriental bishops; and Cyril
softened his anathemas, and confessed, with ambiguity and
reluctance, a twofold nature of Christ, before he was permitted
to satiate his revenge against the unfortunate Nestorius. 51
48 (return) [ I should be curious to know how much Nestorius paid
for these expressions, so mortifying to his rival.]
49 (return) [ Eutyches, the heresiarch Eutyches, is honorably
named by Cyril as a friend, a saint, and the strenuous defender
of the faith. His brother, the abbot Dalmatus, is likewise
employed to bind the emperor and all his chamberlains terribili
conjuratione. Synodicon. c. 203, in Concil. tom. iv p. 467.]
50 (return) [ Clerici qui hic sunt contristantur, quod ecclesia
Alexandrina nudata sit hujus causa turbelae: et debet praeter
illa quae hinc transmissa sint auri libras mille quingentas. Et
nunc ei scriptum est ut praestet; sed de tua ecclesia praesta
avaritiae quorum nosti, &c. This curious and original letter,
from Cyril’s archdeacon to his creature the new bishop of
Constantinople, has been unaccountably preserved in an old Latin
version, (Synodicon, c. 203, Concil. tom. iv. p. 465—468.) The
mask is almost dropped, and the saints speak the honest language
of interest and confederacy.]
51 (return) [ The tedious negotiations that succeeded the synod
of Ephesus are diffusely related in the original acts, (Concil.
tom. iii. p. 1339—1771, ad fin. vol. and the Synodicon, in tom.
iv.,) Socrates, (l. vii. c. 28, 35, 40, 41,) Evagrius, (l. i. c.
6, 7, 8, 12,) Liberatus, (c. 7—10, 7-10,) Tillemont, (Mem.
Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 487—676.) The most patient reader will thank
me for compressing so much nonsense and falsehood in a few
lines.]
The rash and obstinate Nestorius, before the end of the synod,
was oppressed by Cyril, betrayed by the court, and faintly
supported by his Eastern friends. A sentiment of fear or
indignation prompted him, while it was yet time, to affect the
glory of a voluntary abdication: 52 his wish, or at least his
request, was readily granted; he was conducted with honor from
Ephesus to his old monastery of Antioch; and, after a short
pause, his successors, Maximian and Proclus, were acknowledged as
the lawful bishops of Constantinople. But in the silence of his
cell, the degraded patriarch could no longer resume the innocence
and security of a private monk. The past he regretted, he was
discontented with the present, and the future he had reason to
dread: the Oriental bishops successively disengaged their cause
from his unpopular name, and each day decreased the number of the
schismatics who revered Nestorius as the confessor of the faith.
After a residence at Antioch of four years, the hand of
Theodosius subscribed an edict, 53 which ranked him with Simon
the magician, proscribed his opinions and followers, condemned
his writings to the flames, and banished his person first to
Petra, in Arabia, and at length to Oasis, one of the islands of
the Libyan desert. 54 Secluded from the church and from the
world, the exile was still pursued by the rage of bigotry and
war. A wandering tribe of the Blemmyes or Nubians invaded his
solitary prison: in their retreat they dismissed a crowd of
useless captives: but no sooner had Nestorius reached the banks
of the Nile, than he would gladly have escaped from a Roman and
orthodox city, to the milder servitude of the savages. His flight
was punished as a new crime: the soul of the patriarch inspired
the civil and ecclesiastical powers of Egypt; the magistrates,
the soldiers, the monks, devoutly tortured the enemy of Christ
and St. Cyril; and, as far as the confines of Aethiopia, the
heretic was alternately dragged and recalled, till his aged body
was broken by the hardships and accidents of these reiterated
journeys. Yet his mind was still independent and erect; the
president of Thebais was awed by his pastoral letters; he
survived the Catholic tyrant of Alexandria, and, after sixteen
years’ banishment, the synod of Chalcedon would perhaps have
restored him to the honors, or at least to the communion, of the
church. The death of Nestorius prevented his obedience to their
welcome summons; 55 and his disease might afford some color to
the scandalous report, that his tongue, the organ of blasphemy,
had been eaten by the worms. He was buried in a city of Upper
Egypt, known by the names of Chemnis, or Panopolis, or Akmim; 56
but the immortal malice of the Jacobites has persevered for ages
to cast stones against his sepulchre, and to propagate the
foolish tradition, that it was never watered by the rain of
heaven, which equally descends on the righteous and the ungodly.
57 Humanity may drop a tear on the fate of Nestorius; yet justice
must observe, that he suffered the persecution which he had
approved and inflicted. 58
52 (return) [ Evagrius, l. i. c. 7. The original letters in the
Synodicon (c. 15, 24, 25, 26) justify the appearance of a
voluntary resignation, which is asserted by Ebed-Jesu, a
Nestorian writer, apud Asseman. Bibliot. Oriental. tom. iii. p.
299, 302.]
53 (return) [ See the Imperial letters in the Acts of the Synod
of Ephesus, (Concil. tom. iii. p. 1730—1735.) The odious name of
Simonians, which was affixed to the disciples of this. Yet these
were Christians! who differed only in names and in shadows.]
54 (return) [ The metaphor of islands is applied by the grave
civilians (Pandect. l. xlviii. tit. 22, leg. 7) to those happy
spots which are discriminated by water and verdure from the
Libyan sands. Three of these under the common name of Oasis, or
Alvahat: 1. The temple of Jupiter Ammon. 2. The middle Oasis,
three days’ journey to the west of Lycopolis. 3. The southern,
where Nestorius was banished in the first climate, and only three
days’ journey from the confines of Nubia. See a learned note of
Michaelis, (ad Descript. Aegypt. Abulfedae, p. 21-34.) * Note: 1.
The Oasis of Sivah has been visited by Mons. Drovetti and Mr.
Browne. 2. The little Oasis, that of El Kassar, was visited and
described by Belzoni. 3. The great Oasis, and its splendid ruins,
have been well described in the travels of Sir A. Edmonstone. To
these must be added another Western Oasis also visited by Sir A.
Edmonstone.—M.]
55 (return) [ The invitation of Nestorius to the synod of
Chalcedon, is related by Zacharias, bishop of Melitene (Evagrius,
l. ii. c. 2. Asseman. Biblioth. Orient. tom. ii. p. 55,) and the
famous Xenaias or Philoxenus, bishop of Hierapolis, (Asseman.
Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 40, &c.,) denied by Evagrius and
Asseman, and stoutly maintained by La Croze, (Thesaur. Epistol.
tom. iii. p. 181, &c.) The fact is not improbable; yet it was the
interest of the Monophysites to spread the invidious report, and
Eutychius (tom. ii. p. 12) affirms, that Nestorius died after an
exile of seven years, and consequently ten years before the synod
of Chalcedon.]
56 (return) [ Consult D’Anville, (Memoire sur l’Egypte, p. 191,)
Pocock. (Description of the East, vol. i. p. 76,) Abulfeda,
(Descript. Aegypt, p. 14,) and his commentator Michaelis, (Not.
p. 78—83,) and the Nubian Geographer, (p. 42,) who mentions, in
the xiith century, the ruins and the sugar-canes of Akmim.]
57 (return) [ Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p. 12) and Gregory
Bar-Hebraeus, of Abulpharagius, (Asseman, tom. ii. p. 316,)
represent the credulity of the xth and xiith centuries.]
58 (return) [ We are obliged to Evagrius (l. i. c. 7) for some
extracts from the letters of Nestorius; but the lively picture of
his sufferings is treated with insult by the hard and stupid
fanatic.]
Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part III.
The death of the Alexandrian primate, after a reign of thirty-two
years, abandoned the Catholics to the intemperance of zeal and
the abuse of victory. 59 The monophysite doctrine (one incarnate
nature) was rigorously preached in the churches of Egypt and the
monasteries of the East; the primitive creed of Apollinarius was
protected by the sanctity of Cyril; and the name of Eutyches, his
venerable friend, has been applied to the sect most adverse to
the Syrian heresy of Nestorius. His rival Eutyches was the abbot,
or archimandrite, or superior of three hundred monks, but the
opinions of a simple and illiterate recluse might have expired in
the cell, where he had slept above seventy years, if the
resentment or indiscretion of Flavian, the Byzantine pontiff, had
not exposed the scandal to the eyes of the Christian world. His
domestic synod was instantly convened, their proceedings were
sullied with clamor and artifice, and the aged heretic was
surprised into a seeming confession, that Christ had not derived
his body from the substance of the Virgin Mary. From their
partial decree, Eutyches appealed to a general council; and his
cause was vigorously asserted by his godson Chrysaphius, the
reigning eunuch of the palace, and his accomplice Dioscorus, who
had succeeded to the throne, the creed, the talents, and the
vices, of the nephew of Theophilus. By the special summons of
Theodosius, the second synod of Ephesus was judiciously composed
of ten metropolitans and ten bishops from each of the six
dioceses of the Eastern empire: some exceptions of favor or merit
enlarged the number to one hundred and thirty-five; and the
Syrian Barsumas, as the chief and representative of the monks,
was invited to sit and vote with the successors of the apostles.
But the despotism of the Alexandrian patriarch again oppressed
the freedom of debate: the same spiritual and carnal weapons were
again drawn from the arsenals of Egypt: the Asiatic veterans, a
band of archers, served under the orders of Dioscorus; and the
more formidable monks, whose minds were inaccessible to reason or
mercy, besieged the doors of the cathedral. The general, and, as
it should seem, the unconstrained voice of the fathers, accepted
the faith and even the anathemas of Cyril; and the heresy of the
two natures was formally condemned in the persons and writings of
the most learned Orientals. “May those who divide Christ be
divided with the sword, may they be hewn in pieces, may they be
burned alive!” were the charitable wishes of a Christian synod.
60 The innocence and sanctity of Eutyches were acknowledged
without hesitation; but the prelates, more especially those of
Thrace and Asia, were unwilling to depose their patriarch for the
use or even the abuse of his lawful jurisdiction. They embraced
the knees of Dioscorus, as he stood with a threatening aspect on
the footstool of his throne, and conjured him to forgive the
offences, and to respect the dignity, of his brother. “Do you
mean to raise a sedition?” exclaimed the relentless tyrant.
“Where are the officers?” At these words a furious multitude of
monks and soldiers, with staves, and swords, and chains, burst
into the church; the trembling bishops hid themselves behind the
altar, or under the benches, and as they were not inspired with
the zeal of martyrdom, they successively subscribed a blank
paper, which was afterwards filled with the condemnation of the
Byzantine pontiff. Flavian was instantly delivered to the wild
beasts of this spiritual amphitheatre: the monks were stimulated
by the voice and example of Barsumas to avenge the injuries of
Christ: it is said that the patriarch of Alexandria reviled, and
buffeted, and kicked, and trampled his brother of Constantinople:
61 it is certain, that the victim, before he could reach the
place of his exile, expired on the third day of the wounds and
bruises which he had received at Ephesus. This second synod has
been justly branded as a gang of robbers and assassins; yet the
accusers of Dioscorus would magnify his violence, to alleviate
the cowardice and inconstancy of their own behavior.
59 (return) [ Dixi Cyrillum dum viveret, auctoritate sua
effecisse, ne Eutychianismus et Monophysitarum error in nervum
erumperet: idque verum puto...aliquo... honesto modo cecinerat.
The learned but cautious Jablonski did not always speak the whole
truth. Cum Cyrillo lenius omnino egi, quam si tecum aut cum aliis
rei hujus probe gnaris et aequis rerum aestimatoribus sermones
privatos conferrem, (Thesaur. Epistol. La Crozian. tom. i. p.
197, 198) an excellent key to his dissertations on the Nestorian
controversy!]
60 (return) [ At the request of Dioscorus, those who were not
able to roar, stretched out their hands. At Chalcedon, the
Orientals disclaimed these exclamations: but the Egyptians more
consistently declared. (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1012.)]
61 (return) [ (Eusebius, bishop of Dorylaeum): and this testimony
of Evagrius (l. ii. c. 2) is amplified by the historian Zonaras,
(tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 44,) who affirms that Dioscorus kicked like
a wild ass. But the language of Liberatus (Brev. c. 12, in
Concil. tom. vi. p. 438) is more cautious; and the Acts of
Chalcedon, which lavish the names of homicide, Cain, &c., do not
justify so pointed a charge. The monk Barsumas is more
particularly accused, (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1418.)]
The faith of Egypt had prevailed: but the vanquished party was
supported by the same pope who encountered without fear the
hostile rage of Attila and Genseric. The theology of Leo, his
famous tome or epistle on the mystery of the incarnation, had
been disregarded by the synod of Ephesus: his authority, and that
of the Latin church, was insulted in his legates, who escaped
from slavery and death to relate the melancholy tale of the
tyranny of Dioscorus and the martyrdom of Flavian. His provincial
synod annulled the irregular proceedings of Ephesus; but as this
step was itself irregular, he solicited the convocation of a
general council in the free and orthodox provinces of Italy. From
his independent throne, the Roman bishop spoke and acted without
danger as the head of the Christians, and his dictates were
obsequiously transcribed by Placidia and her son Valentinian; who
addressed their Eastern colleague to restore the peace and unity
of the church. But the pageant of Oriental royalty was moved with
equal dexterity by the hand of the eunuch; and Theodosius could
pronounce, without hesitation, that the church was already
peaceful and triumphant, and that the recent flame had been
extinguished by the just punishment of the Nestorians. Perhaps
the Greeks would be still involved in the heresy of the
Monophysites, if the emperor’s horse had not fortunately
stumbled; Theodosius expired; his orthodox sister Pulcheria, with
a nominal husband, succeeded to the throne; Chrysaphius was
burnt, Dioscorus was disgraced, the exiles were recalled, and the
tome of Leo was subscribed by the Oriental bishops. Yet the pope
was disappointed in his favorite project of a Latin council: he
disdained to preside in the Greek synod, which was speedily
assembled at Nice in Bithynia; his legates required in a
peremptory tone the presence of the emperor; and the weary
fathers were transported to Chalcedon under the immediate eye of
Marcian and the senate of Constantinople. A quarter of a mile
from the Thracian Bosphorus, the church of St. Euphemia was built
on the summit of a gentle though lofty ascent: the triple
structure was celebrated as a prodigy of art, and the boundless
prospect of the land and sea might have raised the mind of a
sectary to the contemplation of the God of the universe. Six
hundred and thirty bishops were ranged in order in the nave of
the church; but the patriarchs of the East were preceded by the
legates, of whom the third was a simple priest; and the place of
honor was reserved for twenty laymen of consular or senatorian
rank. The gospel was ostentatiously displayed in the centre, but
the rule of faith was defined by the Papal and Imperial
ministers, who moderated the thirteen sessions of the council of
Chalcedon. 62 Their partial interposition silenced the
intemperate shouts and execrations, which degraded the episcopal
gravity; but, on the formal accusation of the legates, Dioscorus
was compelled to descend from his throne to the rank of a
criminal, already condemned in the opinion of his judges. The
Orientals, less adverse to Nestorius than to Cyril, accepted the
Romans as their deliverers: Thrace, and Pontus, and Asia, were
exasperated against the murderer of Flavian, and the new
patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch secured their places by
the sacrifice of their benefactor. The bishops of Palestine,
Macedonia, and Greece, were attached to the faith of Cyril; but
in the face of the synod, in the heat of the battle, the leaders,
with their obsequious train, passed from the right to the left
wing, and decided the victory by this seasonable desertion. Of
the seventeen suffragans who sailed from Alexandria, four were
tempted from their allegiance, and the thirteen, falling
prostrate on the ground, implored the mercy of the council, with
sighs and tears, and a pathetic declaration, that, if they
yielded, they should be massacred, on their return to Egypt, by
the indignant people. A tardy repentance was allowed to expiate
the guilt or error of the accomplices of Dioscorus: but their
sins were accumulated on his head; he neither asked nor hoped for
pardon, and the moderation of those who pleaded for a general
amnesty was drowned in the prevailing cry of victory and revenge.
To save the reputation of his late adherents, some personal
offences were skilfully detected; his rash and illegal
excommunication of the pope, and his contumacious refusal (while
he was detained a prisoner) to attend to the summons of the
synod. Witnesses were introduced to prove the special facts of
his pride, avarice, and cruelty; and the fathers heard with
abhorrence, that the alms of the church were lavished on the
female dancers, that his palace, and even his bath, was open to
the prostitutes of Alexandria, and that the infamous Pansophia,
or Irene, was publicly entertained as the concubine of the
patriarch. 63
62 (return) [ The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon (Concil. tom.
iv. p. 761—2071) comprehend those of Ephesus, (p. 890—1189,)
which again comprise the synod of Constantinople under Flavian,
(p. 930—1072;) and at requires some attention to disengage this
double involution. The whole business of Eutyches, Flavian, and
Dioscorus, is related by Evagrius (l. i. c. 9—12, and l. ii. c.
1, 2, 3, 4,) and Liberatus, (Brev. c. 11, 12, 13, 14.) Once more,
and almost for the last time, I appeal to the diligence of
Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. xv. p. 479-719.) The annals of
Baronius and Pagi will accompany me much further on my long and
laborious journey.]
63 (return) [ (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1276.) A specimen of the wit
and malice of the people is preserved in the Greek Anthology, (l.
ii. c. 5, p. 188, edit. Wechel,) although the application was
unknown to the editor Brodaeus. The nameless epigrammatist raises
a tolerable pun, by confounding the episcopal salutation of
“Peace be to all!” with the genuine or corrupted name of the
bishop’s concubine: I am ignorant whether the patriarch, who
seems to have been a jealous lover, is the Cimon of a preceding
epigram, was viewed with envy and wonder by Priapus himself.]
For these scandalous offences, Dioscorus was deposed by the
synod, and banished by the emperor; but the purity of his faith
was declared in the presence, and with the tacit approbation, of
the fathers. Their prudence supposed rather than pronounced the
heresy of Eutyches, who was never summoned before their tribunal;
and they sat silent and abashed, when a bold Monophysite casting
at their feet a volume of Cyril, challenged them to anathematize
in his person the doctrine of the saint. If we fairly peruse the
acts of Chalcedon as they are recorded by the orthodox party, 64
we shall find that a great majority of the bishops embraced the
simple unity of Christ; and the ambiguous concession that he was
formed Of or From two natures, might imply either their previous
existence, or their subsequent confusion, or some dangerous
interval between the conception of the man and the assumption of
the God. The Roman theology, more positive and precise, adopted
the term most offensive to the ears of the Egyptians, that Christ
existed In two natures; and this momentous particle 65 (which the
memory, rather than the understanding, must retain) had almost
produced a schism among the Catholic bishops. The tome of Leo had
been respectfully, perhaps sincerely, subscribed; but they
protested, in two successive debates, that it was neither
expedient nor lawful to transgress the sacred landmarks which had
been fixed at Nice, Constantinople, and Ephesus, according to the
rule of Scripture and tradition. At length they yielded to the
importunities of their masters; but their infallible decree,
after it had been ratified with deliberate votes and vehement
acclamations, was overturned in the next session by the
opposition of the legates and their Oriental friends. It was in
vain that a multitude of episcopal voices repeated in chorus,
“The definition of the fathers is orthodox and immutable! The
heretics are now discovered! Anathema to the Nestorians! Let them
depart from the synod! Let them repair to Rome.” 66 The legates
threatened, the emperor was absolute, and a committee of eighteen
bishops prepared a new decree, which was imposed on the reluctant
assembly. In the name of the fourth general council, the Christ
in one person, but in two natures, was announced to the Catholic
world: an invisible line was drawn between the heresy of
Apollinaris and the faith of St. Cyril; and the road to paradise,
a bridge as sharp as a razor, was suspended over the abyss by the
master-hand of the theological artist. During ten centuries of
blindness and servitude, Europe received her religious opinions
from the oracle of the Vatican; and the same doctrine, already
varnished with the rust of antiquity, was admitted without
dispute into the creed of the reformers, who disclaimed the
supremacy of the Roman pontiff. The synod of Chalcedon still
triumphs in the Protestant churches; but the ferment of
controversy has subsided, and the most pious Christians of the
present day are ignorant, or careless, of their own belief
concerning the mystery of the incarnation.
64 (return) [ Those who reverence the infallibility of synods,
may try to ascertain their sense. The leading bishops were
attended by partial or careless scribes, who dispersed their
copies round the world. Our Greek Mss. are sullied with the false
and prescribed reading of (Concil. tom. iii. p. 1460:) the
authentic translation of Pope Leo I. does not seem to have been
executed, and the old Latin versions materially differ from the
present Vulgate, which was revised (A.D. 550) by Rusticus, a
Roman priest, from the best Mss. at Constantinople, (Ducange, C.
P. Christiana, l. iv. p. 151,) a famous monastery of Latins,
Greeks, and Syrians. See Concil. tom. iv. p. 1959—2049, and Pagi,
Critica, tom. ii. p. 326, &c.]
65 (return) [ It is darkly represented in the microscope of
Petavius, (tom. v. l. iii. c. 5;) yet the subtle theologian is
himself afraid—ne quis fortasse supervacaneam, et nimis anxiam
putet hujusmodi vocularum inquisitionem, et ab instituti
theologici gravitate alienam, (p. 124.)]
66 (return) [ (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1449.) Evagrius and Liberatus
present only the placid face of the synod, and discreetly slide
over these embers, suppositos cineri doloso.]
Far different was the temper of the Greeks and Egyptians under
the orthodox reigns of Leo and Marcian. Those pious emperors
enforced with arms and edicts the symbol of their faith; 67 and
it was declared by the conscience or honor of five hundred
bishops, that the decrees of the synod of Chalcedon might be
lawfully supported, even with blood. The Catholics observed with
satisfaction, that the same synod was odious both to the
Nestorians and the Monophysites; 68 but the Nestorians were less
angry, or less powerful, and the East was distracted by the
obstinate and sanguinary zeal of the Monophysites. Jerusalem was
occupied by an army of monks; in the name of the one incarnate
nature, they pillaged, they burnt, they murdered; the sepulchre
of Christ was defiled with blood; and the gates of the city were
guarded in tumultuous rebellion against the troops of the
emperor. After the disgrace and exile of Dioscorus, the Egyptians
still regretted their spiritual father; and detested the
usurpation of his successor, who was introduced by the fathers of
Chalcedon. The throne of Proterius was supported by a guard of
two thousand soldiers: he waged a five years’ war against the
people of Alexandria; and on the first intelligence of the death
of Marcian, he became the victim of their zeal. On the third day
before the festival of Easter, the patriarch was besieged in the
cathedral, and murdered in the baptistery. The remains of his
mangled corpse were delivered to the flames, and his ashes to the
wind; and the deed was inspired by the vision of a pretended
angel: an ambitious monk, who, under the name of Timothy the Cat,
69 succeeded to the place and opinions of Dioscorus. This deadly
superstition was inflamed, on either side, by the principle and
the practice of retaliation: in the pursuit of a metaphysical
quarrel, many thousands 70 were slain, and the Christians of
every degree were deprived of the substantial enjoyments of
social life, and of the invisible gifts of baptism and the holy
communion. Perhaps an extravagant fable of the times may conceal
an allegorical picture of these fanatics, who tortured each other
and themselves. “Under the consulship of Venantius and Celer,”
says a grave bishop, “the people of Alexandria, and all Egypt,
were seized with a strange and diabolical frenzy: great and
small, slaves and freedmen, monks and clergy, the natives of the
land, who opposed the synod of Chalcedon, lost their speech and
reason, barked like dogs, and tore, with their own teeth the
flesh from their hands and arms.” 71
67 (return) [ See, in the Appendix to the Acts of Chalcedon, the
confirmation of the Synod by Marcian, (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1781,
1783;) his letters to the monks of Alexandria, (p. 1791,) of
Mount Sinai, (p. 1793,) of Jerusalem and Palestine, (p. 1798;)
his laws against the Eutychians, (p. 1809, 1811, 1831;) the
correspondence of Leo with the provincial synods on the
revolution of Alexandria, (p. 1835—1930.)]
68 (return) [ Photius (or rather Eulogius of Alexandria)
confesses, in a fine passage, the specious color of this double
charge against Pope Leo and his synod of Chalcedon, (Bibliot.
cod. ccxxv. p. 768.) He waged a double war against the enemies of
the church, and wounded either foe with the darts of his
adversary. Against Nestorius he seemed to introduce Monophysites;
against Eutyches he appeared to countenance the Nestorians. The
apologist claims a charitable interpretation for the saints: if
the same had been extended to the heretics, the sound of the
controversy would have been lost in the air]
69 (return) [ From his nocturnal expeditions. In darkness and
disguise he crept round the cells of the monastery, and whispered
the revelation to his slumbering brethren, (Theodor. Lector. l.
i.)]
70 (return) [ Such is the hyperbolic language of the Henoticon.]
71 (return) [ See the Chronicle of Victor Tunnunensis, in the
Lectiones Antiquae of Canisius, republished by Basnage, tom.
326.]
The disorders of thirty years at length produced the famous
Henoticon 72 of the emperor Zeno, which in his reign, and in that
of Anastasius, was signed by all the bishops of the East, under
the penalty of degradation and exile, if they rejected or
infringed this salutary and fundamental law. The clergy may smile
or groan at the presumption of a layman who defines the articles
of faith; yet if he stoops to the humiliating task, his mind is
less infected by prejudice or interest, and the authority of the
magistrate can only be maintained by the concord of the people.
It is in ecclesiastical story, that Zeno appears least
contemptible; and I am not able to discern any Manichaean or
Eutychian guilt in the generous saying of Anastasius. That it was
unworthy of an emperor to persecute the worshippers of Christ and
the citizens of Rome. The Henoticon was most pleasing to the
Egyptians; yet the smallest blemish has not been described by the
jealous, and even jaundiced eyes of our orthodox schoolmen, and
it accurately represents the Catholic faith of the incarnation,
without adopting or disclaiming the peculiar terms of tenets of
the hostile sects. A solemn anathema is pronounced against
Nestorius and Eutyches; against all heretics by whom Christ is
divided, or confounded, or reduced to a phantom. Without defining
the number or the article of the word nature, the pure system of
St. Cyril, the faith of Nice, Constantinople, and Ephesus, is
respectfully confirmed; but, instead of bowing at the name of the
fourth council, the subject is dismissed by the censure of all
contrary doctrines, if any such have been taught either elsewhere
or at Chalcedon. Under this ambiguous expression, the friends and
the enemies of the last synod might unite in a silent embrace.
The most reasonable Christians acquiesced in this mode of
toleration; but their reason was feeble and inconstant, and their
obedience was despised as timid and servile by the vehement
spirit of their brethren. On a subject which engrossed the
thoughts and discourses of men, it was difficult to preserve an
exact neutrality; a book, a sermon, a prayer, rekindled the flame
of controversy; and the bonds of communion were alternately
broken and renewed by the private animosity of the bishops. The
space between Nestorius and Eutyches was filled by a thousand
shades of language and opinion; the acephali 73 of Egypt, and the
Roman pontiffs, of equal valor, though of unequal strength, may
be found at the two extremities of the theological scale. The
acephali, without a king or a bishop, were separated above three
hundred years from the patriarchs of Alexandria, who had accepted
the communion of Constantinople, without exacting a formal
condemnation of the synod of Chalcedon. For accepting the
communion of Alexandria, without a formal approbation of the same
synod, the patriarchs of Constantinople were anathematized by the
popes. Their inflexible despotism involved the most orthodox of
the Greek churches in this spiritual contagion, denied or doubted
the validity of their sacraments, 74 and fomented, thirty-five
years, the schism of the East and West, till they finally
abolished the memory of four Byzantine pontiffs, who had dared to
oppose the supremacy of St. Peter. 75 Before that period, the
precarious truce of Constantinople and Egypt had been violated by
the zeal of the rival prelates. Macedonius, who was suspected of
the Nestorian heresy, asserted, in disgrace and exile, the synod
of Chalcedon, while the successor of Cyril would have purchased
its overthrow with a bribe of two thousand pounds of gold.
72 (return) [The Henoticon is transcribed by Evagrius, (l. iii.
c. 13,) and translated by Liberatus, (Brev. c. 18.) Pagi
(Critica, tom. ii. p. 411) and (Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 343)
are satisfied that it is free from heresy; but Petavius (Dogmat.
Theolog. tom. v. l. i. c. 13, p. 40) most unaccountably affirms
Chalcedonensem ascivit. An adversary would prove that he had
never read the Henoticon.]
73 (return) [ See Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 123, 131,
145, 195, 247.) They were reconciled by the care of Mark I. (A.D.
799—819;) he promoted their chiefs to the bishoprics of Athribis
and Talba, (perhaps Tava. See D’Anville, p. 82,) and supplied the
sacraments, which had failed for want of an episcopal
ordination.]
74 (return) [ De his quos baptizavit, quos ordinavit Acacius,
majorum traditione confectam et veram, praecipue religiosae
solicitudini congruam praebemus sine difficultate medicinam,
(Galacius, in epist. i. ad Euphemium, Concil. tom. v. 286.) The
offer of a medicine proves the disease, and numbers must have
perished before the arrival of the Roman physician. Tillemont
himself (Mem. Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 372, 642, &c.) is shocked at
the proud, uncharitable temper of the popes; they are now glad,
says he, to invoke St. Flavian of Antioch, St. Elias of
Jerusalem, &c., to whom they refused communion whilst upon earth.
But Cardinal Baronius is firm and hard as the rock of St. Peter.]
75 (return) [ Their names were erased from the diptych of the
church: ex venerabili diptycho, in quo piae memoriae transitum ad
coelum habentium episcoporum vocabula continentur, (Concil. tom.
iv. p. 1846.) This ecclesiastical record was therefore equivalent
to the book of life.]
In the fever of the times, the sense, or rather the sound of a
syllable, was sufficient to disturb the peace of an empire. The
Trisagion 76 (thrice holy,) “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of
Hosts!” is supposed, by the Greeks, to be the identical hymn
which the angels and cherubim eternally repeat before the throne
of God, and which, about the middle of the fifth century, was
miraculously revealed to the church of Constantinople. The
devotion of Antioch soon added, “who was crucified for us!” and
this grateful address, either to Christ alone, or to the whole
Trinity, may be justified by the rules of theology, and has been
gradually adopted by the Catholics of the East and West. But it
had been imagined by a Monophysite bishop; 77 the gift of an
enemy was at first rejected as a dire and dangerous blasphemy,
and the rash innovation had nearly cost the emperor Anastasius
his throne and his life. 78 The people of Constantinople was
devoid of any rational principles of freedom; but they held, as a
lawful cause of rebellion, the color of a livery in the races, or
the color of a mystery in the schools. The Trisagion, with and
without this obnoxious addition, was chanted in the cathedral by
two adverse choirs, and when their lungs were exhausted, they had
recourse to the more solid arguments of sticks and stones; the
aggressors were punished by the emperor, and defended by the
patriarch; and the crown and mitre were staked on the event of
this momentous quarrel. The streets were instantly crowded with
innumerable swarms of men, women, and children; the legions of
monks, in regular array, marched, and shouted, and fought at
their head, “Christians! this is the day of martyrdom: let us not
desert our spiritual father; anathema to the Manichaean tyrant!
he is unworthy to reign.” Such was the Catholic cry; and the
galleys of Anastasius lay upon their oars before the palace, till
the patriarch had pardoned his penitent, and hushed the waves of
the troubled multitude. The triumph of Macedonius was checked by
a speedy exile; but the zeal of his flock was again exasperated
by the same question, “Whether one of the Trinity had been
crucified?” On this momentous occasion, the blue and green
factions of Constantinople suspended their discord, and the civil
and military powers were annihilated in their presence. The keys
of the city, and the standards of the guards, were deposited in
the forum of Constantine, the principal station and camp of the
faithful. Day and night they were incessantly busied either in
singing hymns to the honor of their God, or in pillaging and
murdering the servants of their prince. The head of his favorite
monk, the friend, as they styled him, of the enemy of the Holy
Trinity, was borne aloft on a spear; and the firebrands, which
had been darted against heretical structures, diffused the
undistinguishing flames over the most orthodox buildings. The
statues of the emperor were broken, and his person was concealed
in a suburb, till, at the end of three days, he dared to implore
the mercy of his subjects. Without his diadem, and in the posture
of a suppliant, Anastasius appeared on the throne of the circus.
The Catholics, before his face, rehearsed their genuine
Trisagion; they exulted in the offer, which he proclaimed by the
voice of a herald, of abdicating the purple; they listened to the
admonition, that, since all could not reign, they should
previously agree in the choice of a sovereign; and they accepted
the blood of two unpopular ministers, whom their master, without
hesitation, condemned to the lions. These furious but transient
seditions were encouraged by the success of Vitalian, who, with
an army of Huns and Bulgarians, for the most part idolaters,
declared himself the champion of the Catholic faith. In this
pious rebellion he depopulated Thrace, besieged Constantinople,
exterminated sixty-five thousand of his fellow-Christians, till
he obtained the recall of the bishops, the satisfaction of the
pope, and the establishment of the council of Chalcedon, an
orthodox treaty, reluctantly signed by the dying Anastasius, and
more faithfully performed by the uncle of Justinian. And such was
the event of the first of the religious wars which have been
waged in the name and by the disciples, of the God of peace. 79
76 (return) [ Petavius (Dogmat. Theolog. tom. v. l. v. c. 2, 3,
4, p. 217-225) and Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 713, &c.,
799) represent the history and doctrine of the Trisagion. In the
twelve centuries between Isaiah and St. Proculs’s boy, who was
taken up into heaven before the bishop and people of
Constantinople, the song was considerably improved. The boy heard
the angels sing, “Holy God! Holy strong! Holy immortal!”]
77 (return) [ Peter Gnapheus, the fuller, (a trade which he had
exercised in his monastery,) patriarch of Antioch. His tedious
story is discussed in the Annals of Pagi (A.D. 477—490) and a
dissertation of M. de Valois at the end of his Evagrius.]
78 (return) [ The troubles under the reign of Anastasius must be
gathered from the Chronicles of Victor, Marcellinus, and
Theophanes. As the last was not published in the time of
Baronius, his critic Pagi is more copious, as well as more
correct.]
79 (return) [ The general history, from the council of Chalcedon
to the death of Anastasius, may be found in the Breviary of
Liberatus, (c. 14—19,) the iid and iiid books of Evagrius, the
abstract of the two books of Theodore the Reader, the Acts of the
Synods, and the Epistles of the Pope, (Concil. tom. v.) The
series is continued with some disorder in the xvth and xvith
tomes of the Memoires Ecclesiastiques of Tillemont. And here I
must take leave forever of that incomparable guide—whose bigotry
is overbalanced by the merits of erudition, diligence, veracity,
and scrupulous minuteness. He was prevented by death from
completing, as he designed, the vith century of the church and
empire.]
Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part IV.
Justinian has been already seen in the various lights of a
prince, a conqueror, and a lawgiver: the theologian 80 still
remains, and it affords an unfavorable prejudice, that his
theology should form a very prominent feature of his portrait.
The sovereign sympathized with his subjects in their
superstitious reverence for living and departed saints: his Code,
and more especially his Novels, confirm and enlarge the
privileges of the clergy; and in every dispute between a monk and
a layman, the partial judge was inclined to pronounce, that
truth, and innocence, and justice, were always on the side of the
church. In his public and private devotions, the emperor was
assiduous and exemplary; his prayers, vigils, and fasts,
displayed the austere penance of a monk; his fancy was amused by
the hope, or belief, of personal inspiration; he had secured the
patronage of the Virgin and St. Michael the archangel; and his
recovery from a dangerous disease was ascribed to the miraculous
succor of the holy martyrs Cosmas and Damian. The capital and the
provinces of the East were decorated with the monuments of his
religion; 81 and though the far greater part of these costly
structures may be attributed to his taste or ostentation, the
zeal of the royal architect was probably quickened by a genuine
sense of love and gratitude towards his invisible benefactors.
Among the titles of Imperial greatness, the name of Pious was
most pleasing to his ear; to promote the temporal and spiritual
interest of the church was the serious business of his life; and
the duty of father of his country was often sacrificed to that of
defender of the faith. The controversies of the times were
congenial to his temper and understanding and the theological
professors must inwardly deride the diligence of a stranger, who
cultivated their art and neglected his own. “What can ye fear,”
said a bold conspirator to his associates, “from your bigoted
tyrant? Sleepless and unarmed, he sits whole nights in his
closet, debating with reverend graybeards, and turning over the
pages of ecclesiastical volumes.” 82 The fruits of these
lucubrations were displayed in many a conference, where Justinian
might shine as the loudest and most subtile of the disputants; in
many a sermon, which, under the name of edicts and epistles,
proclaimed to the empire the theology of their master. While the
Barbarians invaded the provinces, while the victorious legion
marched under the banners of Belisarius and Narses, the successor
of Trajan, unknown to the camp, was content to vanquish at the
head of a synod. Had he invited to these synods a disinterested
and rational spectator, Justinian might have learned, “that
religious controversy is the offspring of arrogance and folly;
that true piety is most laudably expressed by silence and
submission; that man, ignorant of his own nature, should not
presume to scrutinize the nature of his God; and that it is
sufficient for us to know, that power and benevolence are the
perfect attributes of the Deity.” 83
80 (return) [ The strain of the Anecdotes of Procopius, (c. 11,
13, 18, 27, 28,) with the learned remarks of Alemannus, is
confirmed, rather than contradicted, by the Acts of the Councils,
the fourth book of Evagrius, and the complaints of the African
Facundus, in his xiith book—de tribus capitulis, “cum videri
doctus appetit importune...spontaneis quaestionibus ecclesiam
turbat.” See Procop. de Bell. Goth. l. iii. c. 35.]
81 (return) [ Procop. de Edificiis, l. i. c. 6, 7, &c., passim.]
82 (return) [ Procop. de Bell. Goth. l. iii. c. 32. In the life
of St. Eutychius (apud Aleman. ad Procop. Arcan. c. 18) the same
character is given with a design to praise Justinian.]
83 (return) [ For these wise and moderate sentiments, Procopius
(de Bell. Goth. l. i. c. 3) is scourged in the preface of
Alemannus, who ranks him among the political Christians—sed longe
verius haeresium omnium sentinas, prorsusque Atheos—abominable
Atheists, who preached the imitation of God’s mercy to man, (ad
Hist. Arcan. c. 13.)]
Toleration was not the virtue of the times, and indulgence to
rebels has seldom been the virtue of princes. But when the prince
descends to the narrow and peevish character of a disputant, he
is easily provoked to supply the defect of argument by the
plenitude of power, and to chastise without mercy the perverse
blindness of those who wilfully shut their eyes against the light
of demonstration. The reign of Justinian was a uniform yet
various scene of persecution; and he appears to have surpassed
his indolent predecessors, both in the contrivance of his laws
and the rigor of their execution. The insufficient term of three
months was assigned for the conversion or exile of all heretics;
84 and if he still connived at their precarious stay, they were
deprived, under his iron yoke, not only of the benefits of
society, but of the common birth-right of men and Christians. At
the end of four hundred years, the Montanists of Phrygia 85 still
breathed the wild enthusiasm of perfection and prophecy which
they had imbibed from their male and female apostles, the special
organs of the Paraclete. On the approach of the Catholic priests
and soldiers, they grasped with alacrity the crown of martyrdom
the conventicle and the congregation perished in the flames, but
these primitive fanatics were not extinguished three hundred
years after the death of their tyrant. Under the protection of
their Gothic confederates, the church of the Arians at
Constantinople had braved the severity of the laws: their clergy
equalled the wealth and magnificence of the senate; and the gold
and silver which were seized by the rapacious hand of Justinian
might perhaps be claimed as the spoils of the provinces, and the
trophies of the Barbarians. A secret remnant of Pagans, who still
lurked in the most refined and most rustic conditions of mankind,
excited the indignation of the Christians, who were perhaps
unwilling that any strangers should be the witnesses of their
intestine quarrels. A bishop was named as the inquisitor of the
faith, and his diligence soon discovered, in the court and city,
the magistrates, lawyers, physicians, and sophists, who still
cherished the superstition of the Greeks. They were sternly
informed that they must choose without delay between the
displeasure of Jupiter or Justinian, and that their aversion to
the gospel could no longer be distinguished under the scandalous
mask of indifference or impiety. The patrician Photius, perhaps,
alone was resolved to live and to die like his ancestors: he
enfranchised himself with the stroke of a dagger, and left his
tyrant the poor consolation of exposing with ignominy the
lifeless corpse of the fugitive. His weaker brethren submitted to
their earthly monarch, underwent the ceremony of baptism, and
labored, by their extraordinary zeal, to erase the suspicion, or
to expiate the guilt, of idolatry. The native country of Homer,
and the theatre of the Trojan war, still retained the last sparks
of his mythology: by the care of the same bishop, seventy
thousand Pagans were detected and converted in Asia, Phrygia,
Lydia, and Caria; ninety-six churches were built for the new
proselytes; and linen vestments, Bibles, and liturgies, and vases
of gold and silver, were supplied by the pious munificence of
Justinian. 86 The Jews, who had been gradually stripped of their
immunities, were oppressed by a vexatious law, which compelled
them to observe the festival of Easter the same day on which it
was celebrated by the Christians. 87 And they might complain with
the more reason, since the Catholics themselves did not agree
with the astronomical calculations of their sovereign: the people
of Constantinople delayed the beginning of their Lent a whole
week after it had been ordained by authority; and they had the
pleasure of fasting seven days, while meat was exposed for sale
by the command of the emperor. The Samaritans of Palestine 88
were a motley race, an ambiguous sect, rejected as Jews by the
Pagans, by the Jews as schismatics, and by the Christians as
idolaters. The abomination of the cross had already been planted
on their holy mount of Garizim, 89 but the persecution of
Justinian offered only the alternative of baptism or rebellion.
They chose the latter: under the standard of a desperate leader,
they rose in arms, and retaliated their wrongs on the lives, the
property, and the temples, of a defenceless people. The
Samaritans were finally subdued by the regular forces of the
East: twenty thousand were slain, twenty thousand were sold by
the Arabs to the infidels of Persia and India, and the remains of
that unhappy nation atoned for the crime of treason by the sin of
hypocrisy. It has been computed that one hundred thousand Roman
subjects were extirpated in the Samaritan war, 90 which converted
the once fruitful province into a desolate and smoking
wilderness. But in the creed of Justinian, the guilt of murder
could not be applied to the slaughter of unbelievers; and he
piously labored to establish with fire and sword the unity of the
Christian faith. 91
84 (return) [ This alternative, a precious circumstance, is
preserved by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 63, edit. Venet. 1733,)
who deserves more credit as he draws towards his end. After
numbering the heretics, Nestorians, Eutychians, &c., ne
expectent, says Justinian, ut digni venia judicen tur: jubemus,
enim ut...convicti et aperti haeretici justae et idoneae
animadversioni subjiciantur. Baronius copies and applauds this
edict of the Code, (A.D. 527, No. 39, 40.)]
85 (return) [ See the character and principles of the Montanists,
in Mosheim, Rebus Christ. ante Constantinum, p. 410—424.]
86 (return) [ Theophan. Chron. p. 153. John, the Monophysite
bishop of Asia, is a more authentic witness of this transaction,
in which he was himself employed by the emperor, (Asseman. Bib.
Orient. tom. ii. p. 85.)]
87 (return) [ Compare Procopius (Hist. Arcan. c. 28, and Aleman’s
Notes) with Theophanes, (Chron. p. 190.) The council of Nice has
intrusted the patriarch, or rather the astronomers, of
Alexandria, with the annual proclamation of Easter; and we still
read, or rather we do not read, many of the Paschal epistles of
St. Cyril. Since the reign of Monophytism in Egypt, the Catholics
were perplexed by such a foolish prejudice as that which so long
opposed, among the Protestants, the reception of the Gregorian
style.]
88 (return) [ For the religion and history of the Samaritans,
consult Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, a learned and impartial
work.]
89 (return) [ Sichem, Neapolis, Naplous, the ancient and modern
seat of the Samaritans, is situate in a valley between the barren
Ebal, the mountain of cursing to the north, and the fruitful
Garizim, or mountain of cursing to the south, ten or eleven
hours’ travel from Jerusalem. See Maundrel, Journey from Aleppo
&c.]
90 (return) [ Procop. Anecdot. c. 11. Theophan. Chron. p. 122.
John Malala Chron. tom. ii. p. 62. I remember an observation,
half philosophical. half superstitious, that the province which
had been ruined by the bigotry of Justinian, was the same through
which the Mahometans penetrated into the empire.]
91 (return) [ The expression of Procopius is remarkable. Anecdot.
c. 13.]
With these sentiments, it was incumbent on him, at least, to be
always in the right. In the first years of his administration, he
signalized his zeal as the disciple and patron of orthodoxy: the
reconciliation of the Greeks and Latins established the tome of
St. Leo as the creed of the emperor and the empire; the
Nestorians and Eutychians were exposed, on either side, to the
double edge of persecution; and the four synods of Nice,
Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, were ratified by the code
of a Catholic lawgiver. 92 But while Justinian strove to maintain
the uniformity of faith and worship, his wife Theodora, whose
vices were not incompatible with devotion, had listened to the
Monophysite teachers; and the open or clandestine enemies of the
church revived and multiplied at the smile of their gracious
patroness. The capital, the palace, the nuptial bed, were torn by
spiritual discord; yet so doubtful was the sincerity of the royal
consorts, that their seeming disagreement was imputed by many to
a secret and mischievous confederacy against the religion and
happiness of their people. 93 The famous dispute of the Three
Chapters, 94 which has filled more volumes than it deserves
lines, is deeply marked with this subtile and disingenuous
spirit. It was now three hundred years since the body of Origen
95 had been eaten by the worms: his soul, of which he held the
preexistence, was in the hands of its Creator; but his writings
were eagerly perused by the monks of Palestine. In these
writings, the piercing eye of Justinian descried more than ten
metaphysical errors; and the primitive doctor, in the company of
Pythagoras and Plato, was devoted by the clergy to the eternity
of hell-fire, which he had presumed to deny. Under the cover of
this precedent, a treacherous blow was aimed at the council of
Chalcedon. The fathers had listened without impatience to the
praise of Theodore of Mopsuestia; 96 and their justice or
indulgence had restored both Theodore of Cyrrhus, and Ibas of
Edessa, to the communion of the church. But the characters of
these Oriental bishops were tainted with the reproach of heresy;
the first had been the master, the two others were the friends,
of Nestorius; their most suspicious passages were accused under
the title of the three chapters; and the condemnation of their
memory must involve the honor of a synod, whose name was
pronounced with sincere or affected reverence by the Catholic
world. If these bishops, whether innocent or guilty, were
annihilated in the sleep of death, they would not probably be
awakened by the clamor which, after a hundred years, was raised
over their grave. If they were already in the fangs of the
daemon, their torments could neither be aggravated nor assuaged
by human industry. If in the company of saints and angels they
enjoyed the rewards of piety, they must have smiled at the idle
fury of the theological insects who still crawled on the surface
of the earth. The foremost of these insects, the emperor of the
Romans, darted his sting, and distilled his venom, perhaps
without discerning the true motives of Theodora and her
ecclesiastical faction. The victims were no longer subject to his
power, and the vehement style of his edicts could only proclaim
their damnation, and invite the clergy of the East to join in a
full chorus of curses and anathemas. The East, with some
hesitation, consented to the voice of her sovereign: the fifth
general council, of three patriarchs and one hundred and
sixty-five bishops, was held at Constantinople; and the authors,
as well as the defenders, of the three chapters were separated
from the communion of the saints, and solemnly delivered to the
prince of darkness. But the Latin churches were more jealous of
the honor of Leo and the synod of Chalcedon: and if they had
fought as they usually did under the standard of Rome, they might
have prevailed in the cause of reason and humanity. But their
chief was a prisoner in the hands of the enemy; the throne of St.
Peter, which had been disgraced by the simony, was betrayed by
the cowardice, of Vigilius, who yielded, after a long and
inconsistent struggle, to the despotism of Justinian and the
sophistry of the Greeks. His apostasy provoked the indignation of
the Latins, and no more than two bishops could be found who would
impose their hands on his deacon and successor Pelagius. Yet the
perseverance of the popes insensibly transferred to their
adversaries the appellation of schismatics; the Illyrian,
African, and Italian churches were oppressed by the civil and
ecclesiastical powers, not without some effort of military force;
97 the distant Barbarians transcribed the creed of the Vatican,
and, in the period of a century, the schism of the three chapters
expired in an obscure angle of the Venetian province. 98 But the
religious discontent of the Italians had already promoted the
conquests of the Lombards, and the Romans themselves were
accustomed to suspect the faith and to detest the government of
their Byzantine tyrant.
92 (return) [ See the Chronicle of Victor, p. 328, and the
original evidence of the laws of Justinian. During the first
years of his reign, Baronius himself is in extreme good humor
with the emperor, who courted the popes, till he got them into
his power.]
93 (return) [ Procopius, Anecdot. c. 13. Evagrius, l. iv. c. 10.
If the ecclesiastical never read the secret historian, their
common suspicion proves at least the general hatred.]
94 (return) [ On the subject of the three chapters, the original
acts of the vth general council of Constantinople supply much
useless, though authentic, knowledge, (Concil. tom. vi. p.
1-419.) The Greek Evagrius is less copious and correct (l. iv. c.
38) than the three zealous Africans, Facundus, (in his twelve
books, de tribus capitulis, which are most correctly published by
Sirmond,) Liberatus, (in his Breviarium, c. 22, 23, 24,) and
Victor Tunnunensis in his Chronicle, (in tom. i. Antiq. Lect.
Canisii, 330—334.) The Liber Pontificalis, or Anastasius, (in
Vigilio, Pelagio, &c.,) is original Italian evidence. The modern
reader will derive some information from Dupin (Bibliot. Eccles.
tom. v. p. 189—207) and Basnage, (Hist. de l’Eglise, tom. i. p.
519—541;) yet the latter is too firmly resolved to depreciate the
authority and character of the popes.]
95 (return) [ Origen had indeed too great a propensity to imitate
the old philosophers, (Justinian, ad Mennam, in Concil. tom. vi.
p. 356.) His moderate opinions were too repugnant to the zeal of
the church, and he was found guilty of the heresy of reason.]
96 (return) [ Basnage (Praefat. p. 11—14, ad tom. i. Antiq. Lect.
Canis.) has fairly weighed the guilt and innocence of Theodore of
Mopsuestia. If he composed 10,000 volumes, as many errors would
be a charitable allowance. In all the subsequent catalogues of
heresiarchs, he alone, without his two brethren, is included; and
it is the duty of Asseman (Bibliot. Orient. tom. iv. p. 203—207)
to justify the sentence.]
97 (return) [ See the complaints of Liberatus and Victor, and the
exhortations of Pope Pelagius to the conqueror and exarch of
Italy. Schisma.. per potestates publicas opprimatur, &c.,
(Concil. tom. vi. p. 467, &c.) An army was detained to suppress
the sedition of an Illyrian city. See Procopius, (de Bell. Goth.
l. iv. c. 25:). He seems to promise an ecclesiastical history. It
would have been curious and impartial.]
98 (return) [ The bishops of the patriarchate of Aquileia were
reconciled by Pope Honorius, A.D. 638, (Muratori, Annali d’
Italia, tom. v. p. 376;) but they again relapsed, and the schism
was not finally extinguished till 698. Fourteen years before, the
church of Spain had overlooked the vth general council with
contemptuous silence, (xiii. Concil. Toretan. in Concil. tom.
vii. p. 487—494.)]
Justinian was neither steady nor consistent in the nice process
of fixing his volatile opinions and those of his subjects. In his
youth he was offended by the slightest deviation from the
orthodox line; in his old age he transgressed the measure of
temperate heresy, and the Jacobites, not less than the Catholics,
were scandalized by his declaration, that the body of Christ was
incorruptible, and that his manhood was never subject to any
wants and infirmities, the inheritance of our mortal flesh. This
fantastic opinion was announced in the last edicts of Justinian;
and at the moment of his seasonable departure, the clergy had
refused to subscribe, the prince was prepared to persecute, and
the people were resolved to suffer or resist. A bishop of Treves,
secure beyond the limits of his power, addressed the monarch of
the East in the language of authority and affection. “Most
gracious Justinian, remember your baptism and your creed. Let not
your gray hairs be defiled with heresy. Recall your fathers from
exile, and your followers from perdition. You cannot be ignorant,
that Italy and Gaul, Spain and Africa, already deplore your fall,
and anathematize your name. Unless, without delay, you destroy
what you have taught; unless you exclaim with a loud voice, I
have erred, I have sinned, anathema to Nestorius, anathema to
Eutyches, you deliver your soul to the same flames in which they
will eternally burn.” He died and made no sign. 99 His death
restored in some degree the peace of the church, and the reigns
of his four successors, Justin Tiberius, Maurice, and Phocas, are
distinguished by a rare, though fortunate, vacancy in the
ecclesiastical history of the East. 100
99 (return) [ Nicetus, bishop of Treves, (Concil. tom. vi. p.
511-513:) he himself, like most of the Gallican prelates,
(Gregor. Epist. l. vii. 5 in Concil. tom. vi. p. 1007,) was
separated from the communion of the four patriarchs by his
refusal to condemn the three chapters. Baronius almost pronounces
the damnation of Justinian, (A.D. 565, No. 6.)]
100 (return) [ After relating the last heresy of Justinian, (l.
iv. c. 39, 40, 41,) and the edict of his successor, (l. v. c. 3,)
the remainder of the history of Evagrius is filled with civil,
instead of ecclesiastical events.]
The faculties of sense and reason are least capable of acting on
themselves; the eye is most inaccessible to the sight, the soul
to the thought; yet we think, and even feel, that one will, a
sole principle of action, is essential to a rational and
conscious being. When Heraclius returned from the Persian war,
the orthodox hero consulted his bishops, whether the Christ whom
he adored, of one person, but of two natures, was actuated by a
single or a double will. They replied in the singular, and the
emperor was encouraged to hope that the Jacobites of Egypt and
Syria might be reconciled by the profession of a doctrine, most
certainly harmless, and most probably true, since it was taught
even by the Nestorians themselves. 101 The experiment was tried
without effect, and the timid or vehement Catholics condemned
even the semblance of a retreat in the presence of a subtle and
audacious enemy. The orthodox (the prevailing) party devised new
modes of speech, and argument, and interpretation: to either
nature of Christ they speciously applied a proper and distinct
energy; but the difference was no longer visible when they
allowed that the human and the divine will were invariably the
same. 102 The disease was attended with the customary symptoms:
but the Greek clergy, as if satiated with the endless controversy
of the incarnation, instilled a healing counsel into the ear of
the prince and people. They declared themselves Monothelites
(asserters of the unity of will), but they treated the words as
new, the questions as superfluous; and recommended a religious
silence as the most agreeable to the prudence and charity of the
gospel. This law of silence was successively imposed by the
ecthesis or exposition of Heraclius, the type or model of his
grandson Constans; 103 and the Imperial edicts were subscribed
with alacrity or reluctance by the four patriarchs of Rome,
Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch. But the bishop and monks
of Jerusalem sounded the alarm: in the language, or even in the
silence, of the Greeks, the Latin churches detected a latent
heresy: and the obedience of Pope Honorius to the commands of his
sovereign was retracted and censured by the bolder ignorance of
his successors. They condemned the execrable and abominable
heresy of the Monothelites, who revived the errors of Manes,
Apollinaris, Eutyches, &c.; they signed the sentence of
excommunication on the tomb of St. Peter; the ink was mingled
with the sacramental wine, the blood of Christ; and no ceremony
was omitted that could fill the superstitious mind with horror
and affright. As the representative of the Western church, Pope
Martin and his Lateran synod anathematized the perfidious and
guilty silence of the Greeks: one hundred and five bishops of
Italy, for the most part the subjects of Constans, presumed to
reprobate his wicked type, and the impious ecthesis of his
grandfather; and to confound the authors and their adherents with
the twenty-one notorious heretics, the apostates from the church,
and the organs of the devil. Such an insult under the tamest
reign could not pass with impunity. Pope Martin ended his days on
the inhospitable shore of the Tauric Chersonesus, and his oracle,
the abbot Maximus, was inhumanly chastised by the amputation of
his tongue and his right hand. 104 But the same invincible spirit
survived in their successors; and the triumph of the Latins
avenged their recent defeat, and obliterated the disgrace of the
three chapters. The synods of Rome were confirmed by the sixth
general council of Constantinople, in the palace and the presence
of a new Constantine, a descendant of Heraclius. The royal
convert converted the Byzantine pontiff and a majority of the
bishops; 105 the dissenters, with their chief, Macarius of
Antioch, were condemned to the spiritual and temporal pains of
heresy; the East condescended to accept the lessons of the West;
and the creed was finally settled, which teaches the Catholics of
every age, that two wills or energies are harmonized in the
person of Christ. The majesty of the pope and the Roman synod was
represented by two priests, one deacon, and three bishops; but
these obscure Latins had neither arms to compel, nor treasures to
bribe, nor language to persuade; and I am ignorant by what arts
they could determine the lofty emperor of the Greeks to abjure
the catechism of his infancy, and to persecute the religion of
his fathers. Perhaps the monks and people of Constantinople 106
were favorable to the Lateran creed, which is indeed the least
reasonable of the two: and the suspicion is countenanced by the
unnatural moderation of the Greek clergy, who appear in this
quarrel to be conscious of their weakness. While the synod
debated, a fanatic proposed a more summary decision, by raising a
dead man to life: the prelates assisted at the trial; but the
acknowledged failure may serve to indicate, that the passions and
prejudices of the multitude were not enlisted on the side of the
Monothelites. In the next generation, when the son of Constantine
was deposed and slain by the disciple of Macarius, they tasted
the feast of revenge and dominion: the image or monument of the
sixth council was defaced, and the original acts were committed
to the flames. But in the second year, their patron was cast
headlong from the throne, the bishops of the East were released
from their occasional conformity, the Roman faith was more firmly
replanted by the orthodox successors of Bardanes, and the fine
problems of the incarnation were forgotten in the more popular
and visible quarrel of the worship of images. 107
101 (return) [ This extraordinary, and perhaps inconsistent,
doctrine of the Nestorians, had been observed by La Croze,
(Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 19, 20,) and is more fully
exposed by Abulpharagius, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 292.
Hist. Dynast. p. 91, vers. Latin. Pocock.) and Asseman himself,
(tom. iv. p. 218.) They seem ignorant that they might allege the
positive authority of the ecthesis. (the common reproach of the
Monophysites) (Concil. tom. vii. p. 205.)]
102 (return) [ See the Orthodox faith in Petavius, (Dogmata
Theolog. tom. v. l. ix. c. 6—10, p. 433—447:) all the depths of
this controversy in the Greek dialogue between Maximus and
Pyrrhus, (acalcem tom. viii. Annal. Baron. p. 755—794,) which
relates a real conference, and produced as short-lived a
conversion.]
103 (return) [ Impiissimam ecthesim.... scelerosum typum (Concil.
tom. vii p. 366) diabolicae operationis genimina, (fors. germina,
or else the Greek in the original. Concil. p. 363, 364,) are the
expressions of the xviiith anathema. The epistle of Pope Martin
to Amandus, Gallican bishop, stigmatizes the Monothelites and
their heresy with equal virulence, (p. 392.)]
104 (return) [ The sufferings of Martin and Maximus are described
with simplicity in their original letters and acts, (Concil. tom.
vii. p. 63—78. Baron. Annal. Eccles. A.D. 656, No. 2, et annos
subsequent.) Yet the chastisement of their disobedience had been
previously announced in the Type of Constans, (Concil. tom. vii.
p. 240.)]
105 (return) [ Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p. 368) most
erroneously supposes that the 124 bishops of the Roman synod
transported themselves to Constantinople; and by adding them to
the 168 Greeks, thus composes the sixth council of 292 fathers.]
106 (return) [ The Monothelite Constans was hated by all, (says
Theophanes, Chron. p. 292). When the Monothelite monk failed in
his miracle, the people shouted, (Concil. tom. vii. p. 1032.) But
this was a natural and transient emotion; and I much fear that
the latter is an anticipation of the good people of
Constantinople.]
107 (return) [ The history of Monothelitism may be found in the
Acts of the Synods of Rome (tom. vii. p. 77—395, 601—608) and
Constantinople, (p. 609—1429.) Baronius extracted some original
documents from the Vatican library; and his chronology is
rectified by the diligence of Pagi. Even Dupin (Bibliotheque
Eccles. tom. vi. p. 57—71) and Basnage (Hist. de l’Eglise, tom.
i. p. 451—555) afford a tolerable abridgment.]
Before the end of the seventh century, the creed of the
incarnation, which had been defined at Rome and Constantinople,
was uniformly preached in the remote islands of Britain and
Ireland; 108 the same ideas were entertained, or rather the same
words were repeated, by all the Christians whose liturgy was
performed in the Greek or the Latin tongue. Their numbers, and
visible splendor, bestowed an imperfect claim to the appellation
of Catholics: but in the East, they were marked with the less
honorable name of Melchites, or Royalists; 109 of men, whose
faith, instead of resting on the basis of Scripture, reason, or
tradition, had been established, and was still maintained, by the
arbitrary power of a temporal monarch. Their adversaries might
allege the words of the fathers of Constantinople, who profess
themselves the slaves of the king; and they might relate, with
malicious joy, how the decrees of Chalcedon had been inspired and
reformed by the emperor Marcian and his virgin bride. The
prevailing faction will naturally inculcate the duty of
submission, nor is it less natural that dissenters should feel
and assert the principles of freedom. Under the rod of
persecution, the Nestorians and Monophysites degenerated into
rebels and fugitives; and the most ancient and useful allies of
Rome were taught to consider the emperor not as the chief, but as
the enemy of the Christians. Language, the leading principle
which unites or separates the tribes of mankind, soon
discriminated the sectaries of the East, by a peculiar and
perpetual badge, which abolished the means of intercourse and the
hope of reconciliation. The long dominion of the Greeks, their
colonies, and, above all, their eloquence, had propagated a
language doubtless the most perfect that has been contrived by
the art of man. Yet the body of the people, both in Syria and
Egypt, still persevered in the use of their national idioms; with
this difference, however, that the Coptic was confined to the
rude and illiterate peasants of the Nile, while the Syriac, 110
from the mountains of Assyria to the Red Sea, was adapted to the
higher topics of poetry and argument. Armenia and Abyssinia were
infected by the speech or learning of the Greeks; and their
Barbaric tongues, which have been revived in the studies of
modern Europe, were unintelligible to the inhabitants of the
Roman empire. The Syriac and the Coptic, the Armenian and the
Aethiopic, are consecrated in the service of their respective
churches: and their theology is enriched by domestic versions 111
both of the Scriptures and of the most popular fathers. After a
period of thirteen hundred and sixty years, the spark of
controversy, first kindled by a sermon of Nestorius, still burns
in the bosom of the East, and the hostile communions still
maintain the faith and discipline of their founders. In the most
abject state of ignorance, poverty, and servitude, the Nestorians
and Monophysites reject the spiritual supremacy of Rome, and
cherish the toleration of their Turkish masters, which allows
them to anathematize, on the one hand, St. Cyril and the synod of
Ephesus: on the other, Pope Leo and the council of Chalcedon. The
weight which they cast into the downfall of the Eastern empire
demands our notice, and the reader may be amused with the various
prospect of, I. The Nestorians; II. The Jacobites; 112 III. The
Maronites; IV. The Armenians; V. The Copts; and, VI. The
Abyssinians. To the three former, the Syriac is common; but of
the latter, each is discriminated by the use of a national idiom.
Yet the modern natives of Armenia and Abyssinia would be
incapable of conversing with their ancestors; and the Christians
of Egypt and Syria, who reject the religion, have adopted the
language of the Arabians. The lapse of time has seconded the
sacerdotal arts; and in the East, as well as in the West, the
Deity is addressed in an obsolete tongue, unknown to the majority
of the congregation.
108 (return) [ In the Lateran synod of 679, Wilfred, an
Anglo-Saxon bishop, subscribed pro omni Aquilonari parte
Britanniae et Hiberniae, quae ab Anglorum et Britonum, necnon
Scotorum et Pictorum gentibus colebantur, (Eddius, in Vit. St.
Wilfrid. c. 31, apud Pagi, Critica, tom. iii. p. 88.) Theodore
(magnae insulae Britanniae archiepiscopus et philosophus) was
long expected at Rome, (Concil. tom. vii. p. 714,) but he
contented himself with holding (A.D. 680) his provincial synod of
Hatfield, in which he received the decrees of Pope Martin and the
first Lateran council against the Monothelites, (Concil. tom.
vii. p. 597, &c.) Theodore, a monk of Tarsus in Cilicia, had been
named to the primacy of Britain by Pope Vitalian, (A.D. 688; see
Baronius and Pagi,) whose esteem for his learning and piety was
tainted by some distrust of his national character—ne quid
contrarium veritati fidei, Graecorum more, in ecclesiam cui
praeesset introduceret. The Cilician was sent from Rome to
Canterbury under the tuition of an African guide, (Bedae Hist.
Eccles. Anglorum. l. iv. c. 1.) He adhered to the Roman doctrine;
and the same creed of the incarnation has been uniformly
transmitted from Theodore to the modern primates, whose sound
understanding is perhaps seldom engaged with that abstruse
mystery.]
109 (return) [ This name, unknown till the xth century, appears
to be of Syriac origin. It was invented by the Jacobites, and
eagerly adopted by the Nestorians and Mahometans; but it was
accepted without shame by the Catholics, and is frequently used
in the Annals of Eutychius, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii.
p. 507, &c., tom. iii. p. 355. Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch.
Alexandrin. p. 119.), was the acclamation of the fathers of
Constantinople, (Concil. tom. vii. p. 765.)]
110 (return) [ The Syriac, which the natives revere as the
primitive language, was divided into three dialects. 1. The
Aramoean, as it was refined at Edessa and the cities of
Mesopotamia. 2. The Palestine, which was used in Jerusalem,
Damascus, and the rest of Syria. 3. The Nabathoean, the rustic
idiom of the mountains of Assyria and the villages of Irak,
(Gregor, Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast. p. 11.) On the Syriac, sea
Ebed-Jesu, (Asseman. tom. iii. p. 326, &c.,) whose prejudice
alone could prefer it to the Arabic.]
111 (return) [ I shall not enrich my ignorance with the spoils of
Simon, Walton, Mill, Wetstein, Assemannus, Ludolphus, La Croze,
whom I have consulted with some care. It appears, 1. That, of all
the versions which are celebrated by the fathers, it is doubtful
whether any are now extant in their pristine integrity. 2. That
the Syriac has the best claim, and that the consent of the
Oriental sects is a proof that it is more ancient than their
schism.]
112 (return) [ In the account of the Monophysites and Nestorians,
I am deeply indebted to the Bibliotheca Orientalis
Clementino-Vaticana of Joseph Simon Assemannus. That learned
Maronite was despatched, in the year 1715, by Pope Clement XI. to
visit the monasteries of Egypt and Syria, in search of Mss. His
four folio volumes, published at Rome 1719—1728, contain a part
only, though perhaps the most valuable, of his extensive project.
As a native and as a scholar, he possessed the Syriac literature;
and though a dependent of Rome, he wishes to be moderate and
candid.]
Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part V.
I. Both in his native and his episcopal province, the heresy of
the unfortunate Nestorius was speedily obliterated. The Oriental
bishops, who at Ephesus had resisted to his face the arrogance of
Cyril, were mollified by his tardy concessions. The same
prelates, or their successors, subscribed, not without a murmur,
the decrees of Chalcedon; the power of the Monophysites
reconciled them with the Catholics in the conformity of passion,
of interest, and, insensibly, of belief; and their last reluctant
sigh was breathed in the defence of the three chapters. Their
dissenting brethren, less moderate, or more sincere, were crushed
by the penal laws; and, as early as the reign of Justinian, it
became difficult to find a church of Nestorians within the limits
of the Roman empire. Beyond those limits they had discovered a
new world, in which they might hope for liberty, and aspire to
conquest. In Persia, notwithstanding the resistance of the Magi,
Christianity had struck a deep root, and the nations of the East
reposed under its salutary shade. The catholic, or primate,
resided in the capital: in his synods, and in their dioceses, his
metropolitans, bishops, and clergy, represented the pomp and
order of a regular hierarchy: they rejoiced in the increase of
proselytes, who were converted from the Zendavesta to the gospel,
from the secular to the monastic life; and their zeal was
stimulated by the presence of an artful and formidable enemy. The
Persian church had been founded by the missionaries of Syria; and
their language, discipline, and doctrine, were closely interwoven
with its original frame. The catholics were elected and ordained
by their own suffragans; but their filial dependence on the
patriarchs of Antioch is attested by the canons of the Oriental
church. 113 In the Persian school of Edessa, 114 the rising
generations of the faithful imbibed their theological idiom: they
studied in the Syriac version the ten thousand volumes of
Theodore of Mopsuestia; and they revered the apostolic faith and
holy martyrdom of his disciple Nestorius, whose person and
language were equally unknown to the nations beyond the Tigris.
The first indelible lesson of Ibas, bishop of Edessa, taught them
to execrate the Egyptians, who, in the synod of Ephesus, had
impiously confounded the two natures of Christ. The flight of the
masters and scholars, who were twice expelled from the Athens of
Syria, dispersed a crowd of missionaries inflamed by the double
zeal of religion and revenge. And the rigid unity of the
Monophysites, who, under the reigns of Zeno and Anastasius, had
invaded the thrones of the East, provoked their antagonists, in a
land of freedom, to avow a moral, rather than a physical, union
of the two persons of Christ. Since the first preaching of the
gospel, the Sassanian kings beheld with an eye of suspicion a
race of aliens and apostates, who had embraced the religion, and
who might favor the cause, of the hereditary foes of their
country. The royal edicts had often prohibited their dangerous
correspondence with the Syrian clergy: the progress of the schism
was grateful to the jealous pride of Perozes, and he listened to
the eloquence of an artful prelate, who painted Nestorius as the
friend of Persia, and urged him to secure the fidelity of his
Christian subjects, by granting a just preference to the victims
and enemies of the Roman tyrant. The Nestorians composed a large
majority of the clergy and people: they were encouraged by the
smile, and armed with the sword, of despotism; yet many of their
weaker brethren were startled at the thought of breaking loose
from the communion of the Christian world, and the blood of seven
thousand seven hundred Monophysites, or Catholics, confirmed the
uniformity of faith and discipline in the churches of Persia. 115
Their ecclesiastical institutions are distinguished by a liberal
principle of reason, or at least of policy: the austerity of the
cloister was relaxed and gradually forgotten; houses of charity
were endowed for the education of orphans and foundlings; the law
of celibacy, so forcibly recommended to the Greeks and Latins,
was disregarded by the Persian clergy; and the number of the
elect was multiplied by the public and reiterated nuptials of the
priests, the bishops, and even the patriarch himself. To this
standard of natural and religious freedom, myriads of fugitives
resorted from all the provinces of the Eastern empire; the narrow
bigotry of Justinian was punished by the emigration of his most
industrious subjects; they transported into Persia the arts both
of peace and war: and those who deserved the favor, were promoted
in the service, of a discerning monarch. The arms of Nushirvan,
and his fiercer grandson, were assisted with advice, and money,
and troops, by the desperate sectaries who still lurked in their
native cities of the East: their zeal was rewarded with the gift
of the Catholic churches; but when those cities and churches were
recovered by Heraclius, their open profession of treason and
heresy compelled them to seek a refuge in the realm of their
foreign ally. But the seeming tranquillity of the Nestorians was
often endangered, and sometimes overthrown. They were involved in
the common evils of Oriental despotism: their enmity to Rome
could not always atone for their attachment to the gospel: and a
colony of three hundred thousand Jacobites, the captives of
Apamea and Antioch, was permitted to erect a hostile altar in the
face of the catholic, and in the sunshine of the court. In his
last treaty, Justinian introduced some conditions which tended to
enlarge and fortify the toleration of Christianity in Persia. The
emperor, ignorant of the rights of conscience, was incapable of
pity or esteem for the heretics who denied the authority of the
holy synods: but he flattered himself that they would gradually
perceive the temporal benefits of union with the empire and the
church of Rome; and if he failed in exciting their gratitude, he
might hope to provoke the jealousy of their sovereign. In a later
age the Lutherans have been burnt at Paris, and protected in
Germany, by the superstition and policy of the most Christian
king.
113 (return) [ See the Arabic canons of Nice in the translation
of Abraham Ecchelensis, No. 37, 38, 39, 40. Concil. tom. ii. p.
335, 336, edit. Venet. These vulgar titles, Nicene and Arabic,
are both apocryphal. The council of Nice enacted no more than
twenty canons, (Theodoret. Hist. Eccles. l. i. c. 8;) and the
remainder, seventy or eighty, were collected from the synods of
the Greek church. The Syriac edition of Maruthas is no longer
extant, (Asseman. Bibliot. Oriental. tom. i. p. 195, tom. iii. p.
74,) and the Arabic version is marked with many recent
interpolations. Yet this Code contains many curious relics of
ecclesiastical discipline; and since it is equally revered by all
the Eastern communions, it was probably finished before the
schism of the Nestorians and Jacobites, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec.
tom. xi. p. 363—367.)]
114 (return) [ Theodore the Reader (l. ii. c. 5, 49, ad calcem
Hist. Eccles.) has noticed this Persian school of Edessa. Its
ancient splendor, and the two aeras of its downfall, (A.D. 431
and 489) are clearly discussed by Assemanni, (Biblioth. Orient.
tom. ii. p. 402, iii. p. 376, 378, iv. p. 70, 924.)]
115 (return) [ A dissertation on the state of the Nestorians has
swelled in the bands of Assemanni to a folio volume of 950 pages,
and his learned researches are digested in the most lucid order.
Besides this ivth volume of the Bibliotheca Orientalis, the
extracts in the three preceding tomes (tom. i. p. 203, ii. p.
321-463, iii. 64—70, 378—395, &c., 405—408, 580—589) may be
usefully consulted.]
The desire of gaining souls for God and subjects for the church,
has excited in every age the diligence of the Christian priests.
From the conquest of Persia they carried their spiritual arms to
the north, the east, and the south; and the simplicity of the
gospel was fashioned and painted with the colors of the Syriac
theology. In the sixth century, according to the report of a
Nestorian traveller, 116 Christianity was successfully preached
to the Bactrians, the Huns, the Persians, the Indians, the
Persarmenians, the Medes, and the Elamites: the Barbaric
churches, from the Gulf of Persia to the Caspian Sea, were almost
infinite; and their recent faith was conspicuous in the number
and sanctity of their monks and martyrs. The pepper coast of
Malabar, and the isles of the ocean, Socotora and Ceylon, were
peopled with an increasing multitude of Christians; and the
bishops and clergy of those sequestered regions derived their
ordination from the Catholic of Babylon. In a subsequent age the
zeal of the Nestorians overleaped the limits which had confined
the ambition and curiosity both of the Greeks and Persians. The
missionaries of Balch and Samarcand pursued without fear the
footsteps of the roving Tartar, and insinuated themselves into
the camps of the valleys of Imaus and the banks of the Selinga.
They exposed a metaphysical creed to those illiterate shepherds:
to those sanguinary warriors, they recommended humanity and
repose. Yet a khan, whose power they vainly magnified, is said to
have received at their hands the rites of baptism, and even of
ordination; and the fame of Prester or Presbyter John 117 has
long amused the credulity of Europe. The royal convert was
indulged in the use of a portable altar; but he despatched an
embassy to the patriarch, to inquire how, in the season of Lent,
he should abstain from animal food, and how he might celebrate
the Eucharist in a desert that produced neither corn nor wine. In
their progress by sea and land, the Nestorians entered China by
the port of Canton and the northern residence of Sigan. Unlike
the senators of Rome, who assumed with a smile the characters of
priests and augurs, the mandarins, who affect in public the
reason of philosophers, are devoted in private to every mode of
popular superstition. They cherished and they confounded the gods
of Palestine and of India; but the propagation of Christianity
awakened the jealousy of the state, and, after a short
vicissitude of favor and persecution, the foreign sect expired in
ignorance and oblivion. 118 Under the reign of the caliphs, the
Nestorian church was diffused from China to Jerusalem and Cyrus;
and their numbers, with those of the Jacobites, were computed to
surpass the Greek and Latin communions. 119 Twenty-five
metropolitans or archbishops composed their hierarchy; but
several of these were dispensed, by the distance and danger of
the way, from the duty of personal attendance, on the easy
condition that every six years they should testify their faith
and obedience to the catholic or patriarch of Babylon, a vague
appellation which has been successively applied to the royal
seats of Seleucia, Ctesiphon, and Bagdad. These remote branches
are long since withered; and the old patriarchal trunk 120 is now
divided by the Elijahs of Mosul, the representatives almost on
lineal descent of the genuine and primitive succession; the
Josephs of Amida, who are reconciled to the church of Rome: 121
and the Simeons of Van or Ormia, whose revolt, at the head of
forty thousand families, was promoted in the sixteenth century by
the Sophis of Persia. The number of three hundred thousand is
allowed for the whole body of the Nestorians, who, under the name
of Chaldeans or Assyrians, are confounded with the most learned
or the most powerful nation of Eastern antiquity.
116 (return) [ See the Topographia Christiana of Cosmas, surnamed
Indicopleustes, or the Indian navigator, l. iii. p. 178, 179, l.
xi. p. 337. The entire work, of which some curious extracts may
be found in Photius, (cod. xxxvi. p. 9, 10, edit. Hoeschel,)
Thevenot, (in the 1st part of his Relation des Voyages, &c.,) and
Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. l. iii. c. 25, tom. ii. p. 603-617,)
has been published by Father Montfaucon at Paris, 1707, in the
Nova Collectio Patrum, (tom. ii. p. 113—346.) It was the design
of the author to confute the impious heresy of those who
maintained that the earth is a globe, and not a flat, oblong
table, as it is represented in the Scriptures, (l. ii. p. 138.)
But the nonsense of the monk is mingled with the practical
knowledge of the traveller, who performed his voyage A.D. 522,
and published his book at Alexandria, A.D. 547, (l. ii. p. 140,
141. Montfaucon, Praefat. c. 2.) The Nestorianism of Cosmas,
unknown to his learned editor, was detected by La Croze,
(Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 40—55,) and is confirmed by
Assemanni, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. iv. p. 605, 606.)]
117 (return) [ In its long progress to Mosul, Jerusalem, Rome,
&c., the story of Prester John evaporated in a monstrous fable,
of which some features have been borrowed from the Lama of
Thibet, (Hist. Genealogique des Tartares, P. ii. p. 42. Hist. de
Gengiscan, p. 31, &c.,) and were ignorantly transferred by the
Portuguese to the emperor of Abyssinia, (Ludolph. Hist. Aethiop.
Comment. l. ii. c. 1.) Yet it is probable that in the xith and
xiith centuries, Nestorian Christianity was professed in the
horde of the Keraites, (D’Herbelot, p. 256, 915, 959. Assemanni,
tom. iv. p. 468—504.) Note: The extent to which Nestorian
Christianity prevailed among the Tartar tribes is one of the most
curious questions in Oriental history. M. Schmidt (Geschichte der
Ost Mongolen, notes, p. 383) appears to question the Christianity
of Ong Chaghan, and his Keraite subjects.—M.]
118 (return) [ The Christianity of China, between the seventh and
the thirteenth century, is invincibly proved by the consent of
Chinese, Arabian, Syriac, and Latin evidence, (Assemanni,
Biblioth. Orient. tom. iv. p. 502—552. Mem. de l’Academie des
Inscript. tom. xxx. p. 802—819.) The inscription of Siganfu which
describes the fortunes of the Nestorian church, from the first
mission, A.D. 636, to the current year 781, is accused of forgery
by La Croze, Voltaire, &c., who become the dupes of their own
cunning, while they are afraid of a Jesuitical fraud. * Note:
This famous monument, the authenticity of which many have
attempted to impeach, rather from hatred to the Jesuits, by whom
it was made known, than by a candid examination of its contents,
is now generally considered above all suspicion. The Chinese text
and the facts which it relates are equally strong proofs of its
authenticity. This monument was raised as a memorial of the
establishment of Christianity in China. It is dated the year 1092
of the era of the Greeks, or the Seleucidae, A.D. 781, in the
time of the Nestorian patriarch Anan-jesu. It was raised by
Iezdbouzid, priest and chorepiscopus of Chumdan, that is, of the
capital of the Chinese empire, and the son of a priest who came
from Balkh in Tokharistan. Among the various arguments which may
be urged in favor of the authenticity of this monument, and which
has not yet been advanced, may be reckoned the name of the priest
by whom it was raised. The name is Persian, and at the time the
monument was discovered, it would have been impossible to have
imagined it; for there was no work extant from whence the
knowledge of it could be derived. I do not believe that ever
since this period, any book has been published in which it can be
found a second time. It is very celebrated amongst the Armenians,
and is derived from a martyr, a Persian by birth, of the royal
race, who perished towards the middle of the seventh century, and
rendered his name celebrated among the Christian nations of the
East. St. Martin, vol. i. p. 69. M. Remusat has also strongly
expressed his conviction of the authenticity of this monument.
Melanges Asiatiques, P. i. p. 33. Yet M. Schmidt (Geschichte der
Ost Mongolen, p. 384) denies that there is any satisfactory proof
that much a monument was ever found in China, or that it was not
manufactured in Europe. But if the Jesuits had attempted such a
forgery, would it not have been more adapted to further their
peculiar views?—M.]
119 (return) [ Jacobitae et Nestorianae plures quam Graeci et
Latini Jacob a Vitriaco, Hist. Hierosol. l. ii. c. 76, p. 1093,
in the Gesta Dei per Francos. The numbers are given by Thomassin,
Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. p. 172.]
120 (return) [ The division of the patriarchate may be traced in
the Bibliotheca Orient. of Assemanni, tom. i. p. 523—549, tom.
ii. p. 457, &c., tom. iii. p. 603, p. 621—623, tom. iv. p.
164-169, p. 423, p. 622—629, &c.]
121 (return) [ The pompous language of Rome on the submission of
a Nestorian patriarch, is elegantly represented in the viith book
of Fra Paola, Babylon, Nineveh, Arbela, and the trophies of
Alexander, Tauris, and Ecbatana, the Tigris and Indus.]
According to the legend of antiquity, the gospel was preached in
India by St. Thomas. 122 At the end of the ninth century, his
shrine, perhaps in the neighborhood of Madras, was devoutly
visited by the ambassadors of Alfred; and their return with a
cargo of pearls and spices rewarded the zeal of the English
monarch, who entertained the largest projects of trade and
discovery. 123 When the Portuguese first opened the navigation of
India, the Christians of St. Thomas had been seated for ages on
the coast of Malabar, and the difference of their character and
color attested the mixture of a foreign race. In arms, in arts,
and possibly in virtue, they excelled the natives of Hindostan;
the husbandmen cultivated the palm-tree, the merchants were
enriched by the pepper trade, the soldiers preceded the nairs or
nobles of Malabar, and their hereditary privileges were respected
by the gratitude or the fear of the king of Cochin and the
Zamorin himself. They acknowledged a Gentoo of sovereign, but
they were governed, even in temporal concerns, by the bishop of
Angamala. He still asserted his ancient title of metropolitan of
India, but his real jurisdiction was exercised in fourteen
hundred churches, and he was intrusted with the care of two
hundred thousand souls. Their religion would have rendered them
the firmest and most cordial allies of the Portuguese; but the
inquisitors soon discerned in the Christians of St. Thomas the
unpardonable guilt of heresy and schism. Instead of owning
themselves the subjects of the Roman pontiff, the spiritual and
temporal monarch of the globe, they adhered, like their
ancestors, to the communion of the Nestorian patriarch; and the
bishops whom he ordained at Mosul, traversed the dangers of the
sea and land to reach their diocese on the coast of Malabar. In
their Syriac liturgy the names of Theodore and Nestorius were
piously commemorated: they united their adoration of the two
persons of Christ; the title of Mother of God was offensive to
their ear, and they measured with scrupulous avarice the honors
of the Virgin Mary, whom the superstition of the Latins had
almost exalted to the rank of a goddess. When her image was first
presented to the disciples of St. Thomas, they indignantly
exclaimed, “We are Christians, not idolaters!” and their simple
devotion was content with the veneration of the cross. Their
separation from the Western world had left them in ignorance of
the improvements, or corruptions, of a thousand years; and their
conformity with the faith and practice of the fifth century would
equally disappoint the prejudices of a Papist or a Protestant. It
was the first care of the ministers of Rome to intercept all
correspondence with the Nestorian patriarch, and several of his
bishops expired in the prisons of the holy office.
The flock, without a shepherd, was assaulted by the power of the
Portuguese, the arts of the Jesuits, and the zeal of Alexis de
Menezes, archbishop of Goa, in his personal visitation of the
coast of Malabar. The synod of Diamper, at which he presided,
consummated the pious work of the reunion; and rigorously imposed
the doctrine and discipline of the Roman church, without
forgetting auricular confession, the strongest engine of
ecclesiastical torture. The memory of Theodore and Nestorius was
condemned, and Malabar was reduced under the dominion of the
pope, of the primate, and of the Jesuits who invaded the see of
Angamala or Cranganor. Sixty years of servitude and hypocrisy
were patiently endured; but as soon as the Portuguese empire was
shaken by the courage and industry of the Dutch, the Nestorians
asserted, with vigor and effect, the religion of their fathers.
The Jesuits were incapable of defending the power which they had
abused; the arms of forty thousand Christians were pointed
against their falling tyrants; and the Indian archdeacon assumed
the character of bishop till a fresh supply of episcopal gifts
and Syriac missionaries could be obtained from the patriarch of
Babylon. Since the expulsion of the Portuguese, the Nestorian
creed is freely professed on the coast of Malabar. The trading
companies of Holland and England are the friends of toleration;
but if oppression be less mortifying than contempt, the
Christians of St. Thomas have reason to complain of the cold and
silent indifference of their brethren of Europe. 124
122 (return) [ The Indian missionary, St. Thomas, an apostle, a
Manichaean, or an Armenian merchant, (La Croze, Christianisme des
Indes, tom. i. p. 57—70,) was famous, however, as early as the
time of Jerom, (ad Marcellam, epist. 148.) Marco-Polo was
informed on the spot that he suffered martyrdom in the city of
Malabar, or Meliapour, a league only from Madras, (D’Anville,
Eclaircissemens sur l’Inde, p. 125,) where the Portuguese founded
an episcopal church under the name of St. Thome, and where the
saint performed an annual miracle, till he was silenced by the
profane neighborhood of the English, (La Croze, tom. ii. p.
7-16.)]
123 (return) [ Neither the author of the Saxon Chronicle (A.D.
833) not William of Malmesbury (de Gestis Regum Angliae, l. ii.
c. 4, p. 44) were capable, in the twelfth century, of inventing
this extraordinary fact; they are incapable of explaining the
motives and measures of Alfred; and their hasty notice serves
only to provoke our curiosity. William of Malmesbury feels the
difficulty of the enterprise, quod quivis in hoc saeculo miretur;
and I almost suspect that the English ambassadors collected their
cargo and legend in Egypt. The royal author has not enriched his
Orosius (see Barrington’s Miscellanies) with an Indian, as well
as a Scandinavian, voyage.]
124 (return) [ Concerning the Christians of St. Thomas, see
Assemann. Bibliot Orient. tom. iv. p. 391—407, 435—451; Geddes’s
Church History of Malabar; and, above all, La Croze, Histoire du
Christianisme des Indes, in 2 vols. 12mo., La Haye, 1758, a
learned and agreeable work. They have drawn from the same source,
the Portuguese and Italian narratives; and the prejudices of the
Jesuits are sufficiently corrected by those of the Protestants.
Note: The St. Thome Christians had excited great interest in the
ancient mind of the admirable Bishop Heber. See his curious and,
to his friends, highly characteristic letter to Mar Athanasius,
Appendix to Journal. The arguments of his friend and coadjutor,
Mr. Robinson, (Last Days of Bishop Heber,) have not convinced me
that the Christianity of India is older than the Nestorian
dispersion.—M]
II. The history of the Monophysites is less copious and
interesting than that of the Nestorians. Under the reigns of Zeno
and Anastasius, their artful leaders surprised the ear of the
prince, usurped the thrones of the East, and crushed on its
native soil the school of the Syrians. The rule of the
Monophysite faith was defined with exquisite discretion by
Severus, patriarch of Antioch: he condemned, in the style of the
Henoticon, the adverse heresies of Nestorius; and Eutyches
maintained against the latter the reality of the body of Christ,
and constrained the Greeks to allow that he was a liar who spoke
truth. 125 But the approximation of ideas could not abate the
vehemence of passion; each party was the more astonished that
their blind antagonist could dispute on so trifling a difference;
the tyrant of Syria enforced the belief of his creed, and his
reign was polluted with the blood of three hundred and fifty
monks, who were slain, not perhaps without provocation or
resistance, under the walls of Apamea. 126 The successor of
Anastasius replanted the orthodox standard in the East; Severus
fled into Egypt; and his friend, the eloquent Xenaias, 127 who
had escaped from the Nestorians of Persia, was suffocated in his
exile by the Melchites of Paphlagonia. Fifty-four bishops were
swept from their thrones, eight hundred ecclesiastics were cast
into prison, 128 and notwithstanding the ambiguous favor of
Theodora, the Oriental flocks, deprived of their shepherds, must
insensibly have been either famished or poisoned. In this
spiritual distress, the expiring faction was revived, and united,
and perpetuated, by the labors of a monk; and the name of James
Baradaeus 129 has been preserved in the appellation of Jacobites,
a familiar sound, which may startle the ear of an English reader.
From the holy confessors in their prison of Constantinople, he
received the powers of bishop of Edessa and apostle of the East,
and the ordination of fourscore thousand bishops, priests, and
deacons, is derived from the same inexhaustible source. The speed
of the zealous missionary was promoted by the fleetest
dromedaries of a devout chief of the Arabs; the doctrine and
discipline of the Jacobites were secretly established in the
dominions of Justinian; and each Jacobite was compelled to
violate the laws and to hate the Roman legislator. The successors
of Severus, while they lurked in convents or villages, while they
sheltered their proscribed heads in the caverns of hermits, or
the tents of the Saracens, still asserted, as they now assert,
their indefeasible right to the title, the rank, and the
prerogatives of patriarch of Antioch: under the milder yoke of
the infidels, they reside about a league from Merdin, in the
pleasant monastery of Zapharan, which they have embellished with
cells, aqueducts, and plantations. The secondary, though
honorable, place is filled by the maphrian, who, in his station
at Mosul itself, defies the Nestorian catholic with whom he
contests the primacy of the East. Under the patriarch and the
maphrian, one hundred and fifty archbishops and bishops have been
counted in the different ages of the Jacobite church; but the
order of the hierarchy is relaxed or dissolved, and the greater
part of their dioceses is confined to the neighborhood of the
Euphrates and the Tigris. The cities of Aleppo and Amida, which
are often visited by the patriarch, contain some wealthy
merchants and industrious mechanics, but the multitude derive
their scanty sustenance from their daily labor: and poverty, as
well as superstition, may impose their excessive fasts: five
annual lents, during which both the clergy and laity abstain not
only from flesh or eggs, but even from the taste of wine, of oil,
and of fish. Their present numbers are esteemed from fifty to
fourscore thousand souls, the remnant of a populous church, which
was gradually decreased under the impression of twelve centuries.
Yet in that long period, some strangers of merit have been
converted to the Monophysite faith, and a Jew was the father of
Abulpharagius, 130 primate of the East, so truly eminent both in
his life and death. In his life he was an elegant writer of the
Syriac and Arabic tongues, a poet, physician, and historian, a
subtile philosopher, and a moderate divine. In his death, his
funeral was attended by his rival the Nestorian patriarch, with a
train of Greeks and Armenians, who forgot their disputes, and
mingled their tears over the grave of an enemy. The sect which
was honored by the virtues of Abulpharagius appears, however, to
sink below the level of their Nestorian brethren. The
superstition of the Jacobites is more abject, their fasts more
rigid, 131 their intestine divisions are more numerous, and their
doctors (as far as I can measure the degrees of nonsense) are
more remote from the precincts of reason. Something may possibly
be allowed for the rigor of the Monophysite theology; much more
for the superior influence of the monastic order. In Syria, in
Egypt, in Ethiopia, the Jacobite monks have ever been
distinguished by the austerity of their penance and the absurdity
of their legends. Alive or dead, they are worshipped as the
favorites of the Deity; the crosier of bishop and patriarch is
reserved for their venerable hands; and they assume the
government of men, while they are yet reeking with the habits and
prejudices of the cloister. 132
125 (return) [ Is the expression of Theodore, in his Treatise of
the Incarnation, p. 245, 247, as he is quoted by La Croze, (Hist.
du Christianisme d’Ethiopie et d’Armenie, p. 35,) who exclaims,
perhaps too hastily, “Quel pitoyable raisonnement!” Renaudot has
touched (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 127—138) the Oriental accounts
of Severus; and his authentic creed may be found in the epistle
of John the Jacobite patriarch of Antioch, in the xth century, to
his brother Mannas of Alexandria, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom.
ii. p. 132—141.)]
126 (return) [ Epist. Archimandritarum et Monachorum Syriae
Secundae ad Papam Hormisdam, Concil. tom. v. p. 598—602. The
courage of St. Sabas, ut leo animosus, will justify the suspicion
that the arms of these monks were not always spiritual or
defensive, (Baronius, A.D. 513, No. 7, &c.)]
127 (return) [ Assemanni (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 10—46) and
La Croze (Christianisme d’Ethiopie, p. 36—40) will supply the
history of Xenaias, or Philoxenus, bishop of Mabug, or
Hierapolis, in Syria. He was a perfect master of the Syriac
language, and the author or editor of a version of the New
Testament.]
128 (return) [ The names and titles of fifty-four bishops who
were exiled by Justin, are preserved in the Chronicle of
Dionysius, (apud Asseman. tom. ii. p. 54.) Severus was personally
summoned to Constantinople—for his trial, says Liberatus (Brev.
c. 19)—that his tongue might be cut out, says Evagrius, (l. iv.
c. iv.) The prudent patriarch did not stay to examine the
difference. This ecclesiastical revolution is fixed by Pagi to
the month of September of the year 518, (Critica, tom. ii. p.
506.)]
129 (return) [ The obscure history of James or Jacobus Baradaeus,
or Zanzalust may be gathered from Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p.
144, 147,) Renau dot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 133,) and
Assemannus, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 424, tom. ii. p. 62-69,
324—332, 414, tom. iii. p. 385—388.) He seems to be unknown to
the Greeks. The Jacobites themselves had rather deduce their name
and pedigree from St. James the apostle.]
130 (return) [ The account of his person and writings is perhaps
the most curious article in the Bibliotheca of Assemannus, (tom.
ii. p. 244—321, under the name of Gregorius Bar-Hebroeus.) La
Croze (Christianisme d’Ethiopie, p. 53—63) ridicules the
prejudice of the Spaniards against the Jewish blood which
secretly defiles their church and state.]
131 (return) [ This excessive abstinence is censured by La Croze,
(p. 352,) and even by the Syrian Assemannus, (tom. i. p. 226,
tom. ii. p. 304, 305.)]
132 (return) [ The state of the Monophysites is excellently
illustrated in a dissertation at the beginning of the iid volume
of Assemannus, which contains 142 pages. The Syriac Chronicle of
Gregory Bar-Hebraeus, or Abulpharagius, (Bibliot. Orient. tom.
ii. p. 321—463,) pursues the double series of the Nestorian
Catholics and the Maphrians of the Jacobites.]
III. In the style of the Oriental Christians, the Monothelites of
every age are described under the appellation of Maronites, 133 a
name which has been insensibly transferred from a hermit to a
monastery, from a monastery to a nation. Maron, a saint or savage
of the fifth century, displayed his religious madness in Syria;
the rival cities of Apamea and Emesa disputed his relics, a
stately church was erected on his tomb, and six hundred of his
disciples united their solitary cells on the banks of the
Orontes. In the controversies of the incarnation they nicely
threaded the orthodox line between the sects of Nestorians and
Eutyches; but the unfortunate question of one will or operation
in the two natures of Christ, was generated by their curious
leisure. Their proselyte, the emperor Heraclius, was rejected as
a Maronite from the walls of Emesa, he found a refuge in the
monastery of his brethren; and their theological lessons were
repaid with the gift a spacious and wealthy domain. The name and
doctrine of this venerable school were propagated among the
Greeks and Syrians, and their zeal is expressed by Macarius,
patriarch of Antioch, who declared before the synod of
Constantinople, that sooner than subscribe the two wills of
Christ, he would submit to be hewn piecemeal and cast into the
sea. 134 A similar or a less cruel mode of persecution soon
converted the unresisting subjects of the plain, while the
glorious title of Mardaites, 135 or rebels, was bravely
maintained by the hardy natives of Mount Libanus. John Maron, one
of the most learned and popular of the monks, assumed the
character of patriarch of Antioch; his nephew, Abraham, at the
head of the Maronites, defended their civil and religious freedom
against the tyrants of the East. The son of the orthodox
Constantine pursued with pious hatred a people of soldiers, who
might have stood the bulwark of his empire against the common
foes of Christ and of Rome. An army of Greeks invaded Syria; the
monastery of St. Maron was destroyed with fire; the bravest
chieftains were betrayed and murdered, and twelve thousand of
their followers were transplanted to the distant frontiers of
Armenia and Thrace. Yet the humble nation of the Maronites had
survived the empire of Constantinople, and they still enjoy,
under their Turkish masters, a free religion and a mitigated
servitude. Their domestic governors are chosen among the ancient
nobility: the patriarch, in his monastery of Canobin, still
fancies himself on the throne of Antioch: nine bishops compose
his synod, and one hundred and fifty priests, who retain the
liberty of marriage, are intrusted with the care of one hundred
thousand souls. Their country extends from the ridge of Mount
Libanus to the shores of Tripoli; and the gradual descent
affords, in a narrow space, each variety of soil and climate,
from the Holy Cedars, erect under the weight of snow, 136 to the
vine, the mulberry, and the olive-trees of the fruitful valley.
In the twelfth century, the Maronites, abjuring the Monothelite
error were reconciled to the Latin churches of Antioch and Rome,
137 and the same alliance has been frequently renewed by the
ambition of the popes and the distress of the Syrians. But it may
reasonably be questioned, whether their union has ever been
perfect or sincere; and the learned Maronites of the college of
Rome have vainly labored to absolve their ancestors from the
guilt of heresy and schism. 138
133 (return) [ The synonymous use of the two words may be proved
from Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 191, 267, 332,) and many
similar passages which may be found in the methodical table of
Pocock. He was not actuated by any prejudice against the
Maronites of the xth century; and we may believe a Melchite,
whose testimony is confirmed by the Jacobites and Latins.]
134 (return) [ Concil. tom. vii. p. 780. The Monothelite cause
was supported with firmness and subtilty by Constantine, a Syrian
priest of Apamea, (p. 1040, &c.)]
135 (return) [ Theophanes (Chron. p. 295, 296, 300, 302, 306) and
Cedrenus (p. 437, 440) relates the exploits of the Mardaites: the
name (Mard, in Syriac, rebellavit) is explained by La Roque,
(Voyage de la Syrie, tom. ii. p. 53;) and dates are fixed by
Pagi, (A.D. 676, No. 4—14, A.D. 685, No. 3, 4;) and even the
obscure story of the patriarch John Maron (Asseman. Bibliot.
Orient. tom. i. p. 496—520) illustrates from the year 686 to 707,
the troubles of Mount Libanus. * Note: Compare on the Mardaites
Anquetil du Perron, in the fiftieth volume of the Mem. de l’Acad.
des Inscriptions; and Schlosser, Bildersturmendes Kaiser, p.
100.—M]
136 (return) [ In the last century twenty large cedars still
remained, (Voyage de la Roque, tom. i. p. 68—76;) at present they
are reduced to four or five, (Volney, tom. i. p. 264.) These
trees, so famous in Scripture, were guarded by excommunication:
the wood was sparingly borrowed for small crosses, &c.; an annual
mass was chanted under their shade; and they were endowed by the
Syrians with a sensitive power of erecting their branches to
repel the snow, to which Mount Libanus is less faithful than it
is painted by Tacitus: inter ardores opacum fidumque nivibus—a
daring metaphor, (Hist. v. 6.) Note: Of the oldest and best
looking trees, I counted eleven or twelve twenty-five very large
ones; and about fifty of middling size; and more than three
hundred smaller and young ones. Burckhardt’s Travels in Syria p.
19.—M]
137 (return) [ The evidence of William of Tyre (Hist. in Gestis
Dei per Francos, l. xxii. c. 8, p. 1022) is copied or confirmed
by Jacques de Vitra, (Hist. Hierosolym. l. ii. c. 77, p. 1093,
1094.) But this unnatural league expired with the power of the
Franks; and Abulpharagius (who died in 1286) considers the
Maronites as a sect of Monothelites, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii.
p. 292.)]
138 (return) [ I find a description and history of the Maronites
in the Voyage de la Syrie et du Mont Liban par la Roque, (2 vols.
in 12mo., Amsterdam, 1723; particularly tom. i. p. 42—47, p.
174—184, tom. ii. p. 10—120.) In the ancient part, he copies the
prejudices of Nairon and the other Maronites of Rome, which
Assemannus is afraid to renounce and ashamed to support.
Jablonski, (Institut. Hist. Christ. tom. iii. p. 186.) Niebuhr,
(Voyage de l’Arabie, &c., tom. ii. p. 346, 370—381,) and, above
all, the judicious Volney, (Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie, tom.
ii. p. 8—31, Paris, 1787,) may be consulted.]
IV. Since the age of Constantine, the Armenians 139 had
signalized their attachment to the religion and empire of the
Christians. 1391 The disorders of their country, and their
ignorance of the Greek tongue, prevented their clergy from
assisting at the synod of Chalcedon, and they floated eighty-four
years 140 in a state of indifference or suspense, till their
vacant faith was finally occupied by the missionaries of Julian
of Halicarnassus, 141 who in Egypt, their common exile, had been
vanquished by the arguments or the influence of his rival
Severus, the Monophysite patriarch of Antioch. The Armenians
alone are the pure disciples of Eutyches, an unfortunate parent,
who has been renounced by the greater part of his spiritual
progeny. They alone persevere in the opinion, that the manhood of
Christ was created, or existed without creation, of a divine and
incorruptible substance. Their adversaries reproach them with the
adoration of a phantom; and they retort the accusation, by
deriding or execrating the blasphemy of the Jacobites, who impute
to the Godhead the vile infirmities of the flesh, even the
natural effects of nutrition and digestion. The religion of
Armenia could not derive much glory from the learning or the
power of its inhabitants. The royalty expired with the origin of
their schism; and their Christian kings, who arose and fell in
the thirteenth century on the confines of Cilicia, were the
clients of the Latins and the vassals of the Turkish sultan of
Iconium. The helpless nation has seldom been permitted to enjoy
the tranquillity of servitude. From the earliest period to the
present hour, Armenia has been the theatre of perpetual war: the
lands between Tauris and Erivan were dispeopled by the cruel
policy of the Sophis; and myriads of Christian families were
transplanted, to perish or to propagate in the distant provinces
of Persia. Under the rod of oppression, the zeal of the Armenians
is fervent and intrepid; they have often preferred the crown of
martyrdom to the white turban of Mahomet; they devoutly hate the
error and idolatry of the Greeks; and their transient union with
the Latins is not less devoid of truth, than the thousand
bishops, whom their patriarch offered at the feet of the Roman
pontiff. 142 The catholic, or patriarch, of the Armenians resides
in the monastery of Ekmiasin, three leagues from Erivan.
Forty-seven archbishops, each of whom may claim the obedience of
four or five suffragans, are consecrated by his hand; but the far
greater part are only titular prelates, who dignify with their
presence and service the simplicity of his court. As soon as they
have performed the liturgy, they cultivate the garden; and our
bishops will hear with surprise, that the austerity of their life
increases in just proportion to the elevation of their rank.
In the fourscore thousand towns or villages of his spiritual
empire, the patriarch receives a small and voluntary tax from
each person above the age of fifteen; but the annual amount of
six hundred thousand crowns is insufficient to supply the
incessant demands of charity and tribute. Since the beginning of
the last century, the Armenians have obtained a large and
lucrative share of the commerce of the East: in their return from
Europe, the caravan usually halts in the neighborhood of Erivan,
the altars are enriched with the fruits of their patient
industry; and the faith of Eutyches is preached in their recent
congregations of Barbary and Poland. 143
139 (return) [ The religion of the Armenians is briefly described
by La Croze, (Hist. du Christ. de l’Ethiopie et de l’Armenie, p.
269—402.) He refers to the great Armenian History of Galanus, (3
vols. in fol. Rome, 1650—1661,) and commends the state of Armenia
in the iiid volume of the Nouveaux Memoires des Missions du
Levant. The work of a Jesuit must have sterling merit when it is
praised by La Croze.]
1391 (return) [ See vol. iii. ch. xx. p. 271.—M.]
140 (return) [ The schism of the Armenians is placed 84 years
after the council of Chalcedon, (Pagi, Critica, ad A.D. 535.) It
was consummated at the end of seventeen years; and it is from the
year of Christ 552 that we date the aera of the Armenians, (L’Art
de verifier les Dates, p. xxxv.)]
141 (return) [ The sentiments and success of Julian of
Halicarnassus may be seen in Liberatus, (Brev. c. 19,) Renaudot,
(Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 132, 303,) and Assemannus, (Bibliot.
Orient. tom. ii. Dissertat. Monophysitis, l. viii. p. 286.)]
142 (return) [ See a remarkable fact of the xiith century in the
History of Nicetas Choniates, (p. 258.) Yet three hundred years
before, Photius (Epistol. ii. p. 49, edit. Montacut.) had gloried
in the conversion of the Armenians.]
143 (return) [ The travelling Armenians are in the way of every
traveller, and their mother church is on the high road between
Constantinople and Ispahan; for their present state, see
Fabricius, (Lux Evangelii, &c., c. xxxviii. p. 40—51,) Olearius,
(l. iv. c. 40,) Chardin, (vol. ii. p. 232,) Teurnefort, (lettre
xx.,) and, above all, Tavernier, (tom. i. p. 28—37, 510-518,)
that rambling jeweller, who had read nothing, but had seen so
much and so well]
V. In the rest of the Roman empire, the despotism of the prince
might eradicate or silence the sectaries of an obnoxious creed.
But the stubborn temper of the Egyptians maintained their
opposition to the synod of Chalcedon, and the policy of Justinian
condescended to expect and to seize the opportunity of discord.
The Monophysite church of Alexandria 144 was torn by the disputes
of the corruptibles and incorruptibles, and on the death of the
patriarch, the two factions upheld their respective candidates.
145 Gaian was the disciple of Julian, Theodosius had been the
pupil of Severus: the claims of the former were supported by the
consent of the monks and senators, the city and the province; the
latter depended on the priority of his ordination, the favor of
the empress Theodora, and the arms of the eunuch Narses, which
might have been used in more honorable warfare. The exile of the
popular candidate to Carthage and Sardinia inflamed the ferment
of Alexandria; and after a schism of one hundred and seventy
years, the Gaianites still revered the memory and doctrine of
their founder. The strength of numbers and of discipline was
tried in a desperate and bloody conflict; the streets were filled
with the dead bodies of citizens and soldiers; the pious women,
ascending the roofs of their houses, showered down every sharp or
ponderous utensil on the heads of the enemy; and the final
victory of Narses was owing to the flames, with which he wasted
the third capital of the Roman world. But the lieutenant of
Justinian had not conquered in the cause of a heretic; Theodosius
himself was speedily, though gently, removed; and Paul of Tanis,
an orthodox monk, was raised to the throne of Athanasius. The
powers of government were strained in his support; he might
appoint or displace the dukes and tribunes of Egypt; the
allowance of bread, which Diocletian had granted, was suppressed,
the churches were shut, and a nation of schismatics was deprived
at once of their spiritual and carnal food. In his turn, the
tyrant was excommunicated by the zeal and revenge of the people:
and none except his servile Melchites would salute him as a man,
a Christian, or a bishop. Yet such is the blindness of ambition,
that, when Paul was expelled on a charge of murder, he solicited,
with a bribe of seven hundred pounds of gold, his restoration to
the same station of hatred and ignominy. His successor
Apollinaris entered the hostile city in military array, alike
qualified for prayer or for battle. His troops, under arms, were
distributed through the streets; the gates of the cathedral were
guarded, and a chosen band was stationed in the choir, to defend
the person of their chief. He stood erect on his throne, and,
throwing aside the upper garment of a warrior, suddenly appeared
before the eyes of the multitude in the robes of patriarch of
Alexandria. Astonishment held them mute; but no sooner had
Apollinaris begun to read the tome of St. Leo, than a volley of
curses, and invectives, and stones, assaulted the odious minister
of the emperor and the synod. A charge was instantly sounded by
the successor of the apostles; the soldiers waded to their knees
in blood; and two hundred thousand Christians are said to have
fallen by the sword: an incredible account, even if it be
extended from the slaughter of a day to the eighteen years of the
reign of Apollinaris. Two succeeding patriarchs, Eulogius 146 and
John, 147 labored in the conversion of heretics, with arms and
arguments more worthy of their evangelical profession. The
theological knowledge of Eulogius was displayed in many a volume,
which magnified the errors of Eutyches and Severus, and attempted
to reconcile the ambiguous language of St. Cyril with the
orthodox creed of Pope Leo and the fathers of Chalcedon. The
bounteous alms of John the eleemosynary were dictated by
superstition, or benevolence, or policy. Seven thousand five
hundred poor were maintained at his expense; on his accession he
found eight thousand pounds of gold in the treasury of the
church; he collected ten thousand from the liberality of the
faithful; yet the primate could boast in his testament, that he
left behind him no more than the third part of the smallest of
the silver coins. The churches of Alexandria were delivered to
the Catholics, the religion of the Monophysites was proscribed in
Egypt, and a law was revived which excluded the natives from the
honors and emoluments of the state.
144 (return) [ The history of the Alexandrian patriarchs, from
Dioscorus to Benjamin, is taken from Renaudot, (p. 114—164,) and
the second tome of the Annals of Eutychius.]
145 (return) [ Liberat. Brev. c. 20, 23. Victor. Chron. p. 329
330. Procop. Anecdot. c. 26, 27.]
146 (return) [ Eulogius, who had been a monk of Antioch, was more
conspicuous for subtilty than eloquence. He proves that the
enemies of the faith, the Gaianites and Theodosians, ought not to
be reconciled; that the same proposition may be orthodox in the
mouth of St. Cyril, heretical in that of Severus; that the
opposite assertions of St. Leo are equally true, &c. His writings
are no longer extant except in the Extracts of Photius, who had
perused them with care and satisfaction, ccviii. ccxxv. ccxxvi.
ccxxvii. ccxxx. cclxxx.]
147 (return) [ See the Life of John the eleemosynary by his
contemporary Leontius, bishop of Neapolis in Cyrus, whose Greek
text, either lost or hidden, is reflected in the Latin version of
Baronius, (A.D. 610, No.9, A.D. 620, No. 8.) Pagi (Critica, tom.
ii. p. 763) and Fabricius (l. v c. 11, tom. vii. p. 454) have
made some critical observations]
Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part VI.
A more important conquest still remained, of the patriarch, the
oracle and leader of the Egyptian church. Theodosius had resisted
the threats and promises of Justinian with the spirit of an
apostle or an enthusiast. “Such,” replied the patriarch, “were
the offers of the tempter when he showed the kingdoms of the
earth. But my soul is far dearer to me than life or dominion. The
churches are in the hands of a prince who can kill the body; but
my conscience is my own; and in exile, poverty, or chains, I will
steadfastly adhere to the faith of my holy predecessors,
Athanasius, Cyril, and Dioscorus. Anathema to the tome of Leo and
the synod of Chalcedon! Anathema to all who embrace their creed!
Anathema to them now and forevermore! Naked came I out of my
mother’s womb, naked shall I descend into the grave. Let those
who love God follow me and seek their salvation.” After
comforting his brethren, he embarked for Constantinople, and
sustained, in six successive interviews, the almost irresistible
weight of the royal presence. His opinions were favorably
entertained in the palace and the city; the influence of Theodora
assured him a safe conduct and honorable dismission; and he ended
his days, though not on the throne, yet in the bosom, of his
native country. On the news of his death, Apollinaris indecently
feasted the nobles and the clergy; but his joy was checked by the
intelligence of a new election; and while he enjoyed the wealth
of Alexandria, his rivals reigned in the monasteries of Thebais,
and were maintained by the voluntary oblations of the people. A
perpetual succession of patriarchs arose from the ashes of
Theodosius; and the Monophysite churches of Syria and Egypt were
united by the name of Jacobites and the communion of the faith.
But the same faith, which has been confined to a narrow sect of
the Syrians, was diffused over the mass of the Egyptian or Coptic
nation; who, almost unanimously, rejected the decrees of the
synod of Chalcedon. A thousand years were now elapsed since Egypt
had ceased to be a kingdom, since the conquerors of Asia and
Europe had trampled on the ready necks of a people, whose ancient
wisdom and power ascend beyond the records of history. The
conflict of zeal and persecution rekindled some sparks of their
national spirit. They abjured, with a foreign heresy, the manners
and language of the Greeks: every Melchite, in their eyes, was a
stranger, every Jacobite a citizen; the alliance of marriage, the
offices of humanity, were condemned as a deadly sin; the natives
renounced all allegiance to the emperor; and his orders, at a
distance from Alexandria, were obeyed only under the pressure of
military force. A generous effort might have redeemed the
religion and liberty of Egypt, and her six hundred monasteries
might have poured forth their myriads of holy warriors, for whom
death should have no terrors, since life had no comfort or
delight. But experience has proved the distinction of active and
passive courage; the fanatic who endures without a groan the
torture of the rack or the stake, would tremble and fly before
the face of an armed enemy. The pusillanimous temper of the
Egyptians could only hope for a change of masters; the arms of
Chosroes depopulated the land, yet under his reign the Jacobites
enjoyed a short and precarious respite. The victory of Heraclius
renewed and aggravated the persecution, and the patriarch again
escaped from Alexandria to the desert. In his flight, Benjamin
was encouraged by a voice, which bade him expect, at the end of
ten years, the aid of a foreign nation, marked, like the
Egyptians themselves, with the ancient rite of circumcision. The
character of these deliverers, and the nature of the deliverance,
will be hereafter explained; and I shall step over the interval
of eleven centuries to observe the present misery of the
Jacobites of Egypt. The populous city of Cairo affords a
residence, or rather a shelter, for their indigent patriarch, and
a remnant of ten bishops; forty monasteries have survived the
inroads of the Arabs; and the progress of servitude and apostasy
has reduced the Coptic nation to the despicable number of
twenty-five or thirty thousand families; 148 a race of illiterate
beggars, whose only consolation is derived from the superior
wretchedness of the Greek patriarch and his diminutive
congregation. 149
148 (return) [ This number is taken from the curious Recherches
sur les Egyptiens et les Chinois, (tom. ii. p. 192, 193,) and
appears more probable than the 600,000 ancient, or 15,000 modern,
Copts of Gemelli Carreri Cyril Lucar, the Protestant patriarch of
Constantinople, laments that those heretics were ten times more
numerous than his orthodox Greeks, ingeniously applying Homer,
(Iliad, ii. 128,) the most perfect expression of contempt,
(Fabric. Lux Evangelii, 740.)]
149 (return) [ The history of the Copts, their religion, manners,
&c., may be found in the Abbe Renaudot’s motley work, neither a
translation nor an original; the Chronicon Orientale of Peter, a
Jacobite; in the two versions of Abraham Ecchellensis, Paris,
1651; and John Simon Asseman, Venet. 1729. These annals descend
no lower than the xiiith century. The more recent accounts must
be searched for in the travellers into Egypt and the Nouveaux
Memoires des Missions du Levant. In the last century, Joseph
Abudacnus, a native of Cairo, published at Oxford, in thirty
pages, a slight Historia Jacobitarum, 147, post p.150]
VI. The Coptic patriarch, a rebel to the Caesars, or a slave to
the khalifs, still gloried in the filial obedience of the kings
of Nubia and Aethiopia. He repaid their homage by magnifying
their greatness; and it was boldly asserted that they could bring
into the field a hundred thousand horse, with an equal number of
camels; 150 that their hand could pour out or restrain the waters
of the Nile; 151 and the peace and plenty of Egypt was obtained,
even in this world, by the intercession of the patriarch. In
exile at Constantinople, Theodosius recommended to his patroness
the conversion of the black nations of Nubia, from the tropic of
Cancer to the confines of Abyssinia. 152 Her design was suspected
and emulated by the more orthodox emperor. The rival
missionaries, a Melchite and a Jacobite, embarked at the same
time; but the empress, from a motive of love or fear, was more
effectually obeyed; and the Catholic priest was detained by the
president of Thebais, while the king of Nubia and his court were
hastily baptized in the faith of Dioscorus. The tardy envoy of
Justinian was received and dismissed with honor: but when he
accused the heresy and treason of the Egyptians, the negro
convert was instructed to reply that he would never abandon his
brethren, the true believers, to the persecuting ministers of the
synod of Chalcedon. 153 During several ages, the bishops of Nubia
were named and consecrated by the Jacobite patriarch of
Alexandria: as late as the twelfth century, Christianity
prevailed; and some rites, some ruins, are still visible in the
savage towns of Sennaar and Dongola. 154 But the Nubians at
length executed their threats of returning to the worship of
idols; the climate required the indulgence of polygamy, and they
have finally preferred the triumph of the Koran to the abasement
of the Cross. A metaphysical religion may appear too refined for
the capacity of the negro race: yet a black or a parrot might be
taught to repeat the words of the Chalcedonian or Monophysite
creed.
150 (return) [ About the year 737. See Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch.
Alex p. 221, 222. Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 99.]
151 (return) [ Ludolph. Hist. Aethiopic. et Comment. l. i. c. 8.
Renaudot Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 480, &c. This opinion,
introduced into Egypt and Europe by the artifice of the Copts,
the pride of the Abyssinians, the fear and ignorance of the Turks
and Arabs, has not even the semblance of truth. The rains of
Aethiopia do not, in the increase of the Nile, consult the will
of the monarch. If the river approaches at Napata within three
days’ journey of the Red Sea (see D’Anville’s Maps,) a canal that
should divert its course would demand, and most probably surpass,
the power of the Caesars.]
152 (return) [ The Abyssinians, who still preserve the features
and olive complexion of the Arabs, afford a proof that two
thousand years are not sufficient to change the color of the
human race. The Nubians, an African race, are pure negroes, as
black as those of Senegal or Congo, with flat noses, thick lips,
and woolly hair, (Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. v. p. 117, 143,
144, 166, 219, edit. in 12mo., Paris, 1769.) The ancients beheld,
without much attention, the extraordinary phenomenon which has
exercised the philosophers and theologians of modern times]
153 (return) [ Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 329.]
154 (return) [ The Christianity of the Nubians (A.D. 1153) is
attested by the sheriff al Edrisi, falsely described under the
name of the Nubian geographer, (p. 18,) who represents them as a
nation of Jacobites. The rays of historical light that twinkle in
the history of Ranaudot (p. 178, 220—224, 281—286, 405, 434, 451,
464) are all previous to this aera. See the modern state in the
Lettres Edifiantes (Recueil, iv.) and Busching, (tom. ix. p.
152—139, par Berenger.)]
Christianity was more deeply rooted in the Abyssinian empire;
and, although the correspondence has been sometimes interrupted
above seventy or a hundred years, the mother-church of Alexandria
retains her colony in a state of perpetual pupilage. Seven
bishops once composed the Aethiopic synod: had their number
amounted to ten, they might have elected an independent primate;
and one of their kings was ambitious of promoting his brother to
the ecclesiastical throne. But the event was foreseen, the
increase was denied: the episcopal office has been gradually
confined to the abuna, 155 the head and author of the Abyssinian
priesthood; the patriarch supplies each vacancy with an Egyptian
monk; and the character of a stranger appears more venerable in
the eyes of the people, less dangerous in those of the monarch.
In the sixth century, when the schism of Egypt was confirmed, the
rival chiefs, with their patrons, Justinian and Theodora, strove
to outstrip each other in the conquest of a remote and
independent province. The industry of the empress was again
victorious, and the pious Theodora has established in that
sequestered church the faith and discipline of the Jacobites. 156
Encompassed on all sides by the enemies of their religion, the
Aethiopians slept near a thousand years, forgetful of the world,
by whom they were forgotten. They were awakened by the
Portuguese, who, turning the southern promontory of Africa,
appeared in India and the Red Sea, as if they had descended
through the air from a distant planet. In the first moments of
their interview, the subjects of Rome and Alexandria observed the
resemblance, rather than the difference, of their faith; and each
nation expected the most important benefits from an alliance with
their Christian brethren. In their lonely situation, the
Aethiopians had almost relapsed into the savage life. Their
vessels, which had traded to Ceylon, scarcely presumed to
navigate the rivers of Africa; the ruins of Axume were deserted,
the nation was scattered in villages, and the emperor, a pompous
name, was content, both in peace and war, with the immovable
residence of a camp. Conscious of their own indigence, the
Abyssinians had formed the rational project of importing the arts
and ingenuity of Europe; 157 and their ambassadors at Rome and
Lisbon were instructed to solicit a colony of smiths, carpenters,
tilers, masons, printers, surgeons, and physicians, for the use
of their country. But the public danger soon called for the
instant and effectual aid of arms and soldiers, to defend an
unwarlike people from the Barbarians who ravaged the inland
country and the Turks and Arabs who advanced from the sea-coast
in more formidable array. Aethiopia was saved by four hundred and
fifty Portuguese, who displayed in the field the native valor of
Europeans, and the artificial power of the musket and cannon. In
a moment of terror, the emperor had promised to reconcile himself
and his subjects to the Catholic faith; a Latin patriarch
represented the supremacy of the pope: 158 the empire, enlarged
in a tenfold proportion, was supposed to contain more gold than
the mines of America; and the wildest hopes of avarice and zeal
were built on the willing submission of the Christians of Africa.
155 (return) [ The abuna is improperly dignified by the Latins
with the title of patriarch. The Abyssinians acknowledge only the
four patriarchs, and their chief is no more than a metropolitan
or national primate, (Ludolph. Hist. Aethiopic. et Comment. l.
iii. c. 7.) The seven bishops of Renaudot, (p. 511,) who existed
A.D. 1131, are unknown to the historian.]
156 (return) [ I know not why Assemannus (Bibliot. Orient. tom.
ii. p. 384) should call in question these probable missions of
Theodora into Nubia and Aethiopia. The slight notices of
Abyssinia till the year 1500 are supplied by Renaudot (p.
336-341, 381, 382, 405, 443, &c., 452, 456, 463, 475, 480, 511,
525, 559—564) from the Coptic writers. The mind of Ludolphus was
a perfect blank.]
157 (return) [ Ludolph. Hist. Aethiop. l. iv. c. 5. The most
necessary arts are now exercised by the Jews, and the foreign
trade is in the hands of the Armenians. What Gregory principally
admired and envied was the industry of Europe—artes et opificia.]
158 (return) [ John Bermudez, whose relation, printed at Lisbon,
1569, was translated into English by Purchas, (Pilgrims, l. vii.
c. 7, p. 1149, &c.,) and from thence into French by La Croze,
(Christianisme d’Ethiopie, p. 92—265.) The piece is curious; but
the author may be suspected of deceiving Abyssinia, Rome, and
Portugal. His title to the rank of patriarch is dark and
doubtful, (Ludolph. Comment. No. 101, p. 473.)]
But the vows which pain had extorted were forsworn on the return
of health. The Abyssinians still adhered with unshaken constancy
to the Monophysite faith; their languid belief was inflamed by
the exercise of dispute; they branded the Latins with the names
of Arians and Nestorians, and imputed the adoration of four gods
to those who separated the two natures of Christ. Fremona, a
place of worship, or rather of exile, was assigned to the Jesuit
missionaries. Their skill in the liberal and mechanic arts, their
theological learning, and the decency of their manners, inspired
a barren esteem; but they were not endowed with the gift of
miracles, 159 and they vainly solicited a reenforcement of
European troops. The patience and dexterity of forty years at
length obtained a more favorable audience, and two emperors of
Abyssinia were persuaded that Rome could insure the temporal and
everlasting happiness of her votaries. The first of these royal
converts lost his crown and his life; and the rebel army was
sanctified by the abuna, who hurled an anathema at the apostate,
and absolved his subjects from their oath of fidelity. The fate
of Zadenghel was revenged by the courage and fortune of Susneus,
who ascended the throne under the name of Segued, and more
vigorously prosecuted the pious enterprise of his kinsman. After
the amusement of some unequal combats between the Jesuits and his
illiterate priests, the emperor declared himself a proselyte to
the synod of Chalcedon, presuming that his clergy and people
would embrace without delay the religion of their prince. The
liberty of choice was succeeded by a law, which imposed, under
pain of death, the belief of the two natures of Christ: the
Abyssinians were enjoined to work and to play on the Sabbath; and
Segued, in the face of Europe and Africa, renounced his
connection with the Alexandrian church. A Jesuit, Alphonso
Mendez, the Catholic patriarch of Aethiopia, accepted, in the
name of Urban VIII., the homage and abjuration of the penitent.
“I confess,” said the emperor on his knees, “I confess that the
pope is the vicar of Christ, the successor of St. Peter, and the
sovereign of the world. To him I swear true obedience, and at his
feet I offer my person and kingdom.” A similar oath was repeated
by his son, his brother, the clergy, the nobles, and even the
ladies of the court: the Latin patriarch was invested with honors
and wealth; and his missionaries erected their churches or
citadels in the most convenient stations of the empire. The
Jesuits themselves deplore the fatal indiscretion of their chief,
who forgot the mildness of the gospel and the policy of his
order, to introduce with hasty violence the liturgy of Rome and
the inquisition of Portugal. He condemned the ancient practice of
circumcision, which health, rather than superstition, had first
invented in the climate of Aethiopia. 160 A new baptism, a new
ordination, was inflicted on the natives; and they trembled with
horror when the most holy of the dead were torn from their
graves, when the most illustrious of the living were
excommunicated by a foreign priest. In the defense of their
religion and liberty, the Abyssinians rose in arms, with
desperate but unsuccessful zeal. Five rebellions were
extinguished in the blood of the insurgents: two abunas were
slain in battle, whole legions were slaughtered in the field, or
suffocated in their caverns; and neither merit, nor rank, nor
sex, could save from an ignominious death the enemies of Rome.
But the victorious monarch was finally subdued by the constancy
of the nation, of his mother, of his son, and of his most
faithful friends. Segued listened to the voice of pity, of
reason, perhaps of fear: and his edict of liberty of conscience
instantly revealed the tyranny and weakness of the Jesuits. On
the death of his father, Basilides expelled the Latin patriarch,
and restored to the wishes of the nation the faith and the
discipline of Egypt. The Monophysite churches resounded with a
song of triumph, “that the sheep of Aethiopia were now delivered
from the hyaenas of the West;” and the gates of that solitary
realm were forever shut against the arts, the science, and the
fanaticism of Europe. 161
159 (return) [ Religio Romana...nec precibus patrum nec miraculis
ab ipsis editis suffulciebatur, is the uncontradicted assurance
of the devout emperor Susneus to his patriarch Mendez, (Ludolph.
Comment. No. 126, p. 529;) and such assurances should be
preciously kept, as an antidote against any marvellous legends.]
160 (return) [ I am aware how tender is the question of
circumcision. Yet I will affirm, 1. That the Aethiopians have a
physical reason for the circumcision of males, and even of
females, (Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains, tom. ii.)
2. That it was practised in Aethiopia long before the
introduction of Judaism or Christianity, (Herodot. l. ii. c. 104.
Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 72, 73.) “Infantes circumcidunt ob
consuetudinemn, non ob Judaismum,” says Gregory the Abyssinian
priest, (apud Fabric. Lux Christiana, p. 720.) Yet in the heat of
dispute, the Portuguese were sometimes branded with the name of
uncircumcised, (La Croze, p. 90. Ludolph. Hist. and Comment. l.
iii. c. l.)]
161 (return) [ The three Protestant historians, Ludolphus, (Hist.
Aethiopica, Francofurt. 1681; Commentarius, 1691; Relatio Nova,
&c., 1693, in folio,) Geddes, (Church History of Aethiopia,
London, 1696, in 8vo..) and La Croze, (Hist. du Christianisme
d’Ethiopie et d’Armenie, La Haye, 1739, in 12mo.,) have drawn
their principal materials from the Jesuits, especially from the
General History of Tellez, published in Portuguese at Coimbra,
1660. We might be surprised at their frankness; but their most
flagitious vice, the spirit of persecution, was in their eyes the
most meritorious virtue. Ludolphus possessed some, though a
slight, advantage from the Aethiopic language, and the personal
conversation of Gregory, a free-spirited Abyssinian priest, whom
he invited from Rome to the court of Saxe-Gotha. See the
Theologia Aethiopica of Gregory, in (Fabric. Lux Evangelii, p.
716—734.) * Note: The travels of Bruce, illustrated by those of
Mr. Salt, and the narrative of Nathaniel Pearce, have brought us
again acquainted with this remote region. Whatever may be their
speculative opinions the barbarous manners of the Ethiopians seem
to be gaining more and more the ascendency over the practice of
Christianity.—M.]
Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part
I.
Plan Of The Two Last Volumes.—Succession And Characters Of The Greek
Emperors Of Constantinople, From The Time Of Heraclius To The Latin
Conquest.
I have now deduced from Trajan to Constantine, from Constantine
to Heraclius, the regular series of the Roman emperors; and
faithfully exposed the prosperous and adverse fortunes of their
reigns. Five centuries of the decline and fall of the empire have
already elapsed; but a period of more than eight hundred years
still separates me from the term of my labors, the taking of
Constantinople by the Turks. Should I persevere in the same
course, should I observe the same measure, a prolix and slender
thread would be spun through many a volume, nor would the patient
reader find an adequate reward of instruction or amusement. At
every step, as we sink deeper in the decline and fall of the
Eastern empire, the annals of each succeeding reign would impose
a more ungrateful and melancholy task. These annals must continue
to repeat a tedious and uniform tale of weakness and misery; the
natural connection of causes and events would be broken by
frequent and hasty transitions, and a minute accumulation of
circumstances must destroy the light and effect of those general
pictures which compose the use and ornament of a remote history.
From the time of Heraclius, the Byzantine theatre is contracted
and darkened: the line of empire, which had been defined by the
laws of Justinian and the arms of Belisarius, recedes on all
sides from our view; the Roman name, the proper subject of our
inquiries, is reduced to a narrow corner of Europe, to the lonely
suburbs of Constantinople; and the fate of the Greek empire has
been compared to that of the Rhine, which loses itself in the
sands, before its waters can mingle with the ocean. The scale of
dominion is diminished to our view by the distance of time and
place; nor is the loss of external splendor compensated by the
nobler gifts of virtue and genius. In the last moments of her
decay, Constantinople was doubtless more opulent and populous
than Athens at her most flourishing aera, when a scanty sum of
six thousand talents, or twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling
was possessed by twenty-one thousand male citizens of an adult
age. But each of these citizens was a freeman, who dared to
assert the liberty of his thoughts, words, and actions, whose
person and property were guarded by equal law; and who exercised
his independent vote in the government of the republic. Their
numbers seem to be multiplied by the strong and various
discriminations of character; under the shield of freedom, on the
wings of emulation and vanity, each Athenian aspired to the level
of the national dignity; from this commanding eminence, some
chosen spirits soared beyond the reach of a vulgar eye; and the
chances of superior merit in a great and populous kingdom, as
they are proved by experience, would excuse the computation of
imaginary millions. The territories of Athens, Sparta, and their
allies, do not exceed a moderate province of France or England;
but after the trophies of Salamis and Platea, they expand in our
fancy to the gigantic size of Asia, which had been trampled under
the feet of the victorious Greeks. But the subjects of the
Byzantine empire, who assume and dishonor the names both of
Greeks and Romans, present a dead uniformity of abject vices,
which are neither softened by the weakness of humanity, nor
animated by the vigor of memorable crimes. The freemen of
antiquity might repeat with generous enthusiasm the sentence of
Homer, “that on the first day of his servitude, the captive is
deprived of one half of his manly virtue.” But the poet had only
seen the effects of civil or domestic slavery, nor could he
foretell that the second moiety of manhood must be annihilated by
the spiritual despotism which shackles not only the actions, but
even the thoughts, of the prostrate votary. By this double yoke,
the Greeks were oppressed under the successors of Heraclius; the
tyrant, a law of eternal justice, was degraded by the vices of
his subjects; and on the throne, in the camp, in the schools, we
search, perhaps with fruitless diligence, the names and
characters that may deserve to be rescued from oblivion. Nor are
the defects of the subject compensated by the skill and variety
of the painters. Of a space of eight hundred years, the four
first centuries are overspread with a cloud interrupted by some
faint and broken rays of historic light: in the lives of the
emperors, from Maurice to Alexius, Basil the Macedonian has alone
been the theme of a separate work; and the absence, or loss, or
imperfection of contemporary evidence, must be poorly supplied by
the doubtful authority of more recent compilers. The four last
centuries are exempt from the reproach of penury; and with the
Comnenian family, the historic muse of Constantinople again
revives, but her apparel is gaudy, her motions are without
elegance or grace. A succession of priests, or courtiers, treads
in each other’s footsteps in the same path of servitude and
superstition: their views are narrow, their judgment is feeble or
corrupt; and we close the volume of copious barrenness, still
ignorant of the causes of events, the characters of the actors,
and the manners of the times which they celebrate or deplore. The
observation which has been applied to a man, may be extended to a
whole people, that the energy of the sword is communicated to the
pen; and it will be found by experience, that the tone of history
will rise or fall with the spirit of the age.
From these considerations, I should have abandoned without regret
the Greek slaves and their servile historians, had I not
reflected that the fate of the Byzantine monarchy is passively
connected with the most splendid and important revolutions which
have changed the state of the world. The space of the lost
provinces was immediately replenished with new colonies and
rising kingdoms: the active virtues of peace and war deserted
from the vanquished to the victorious nations; and it is in their
origin and conquests, in their religion and government, that we
must explore the causes and effects of the decline and fall of
the Eastern empire. Nor will this scope of narrative, the riches
and variety of these materials, be incompatible with the unity of
design and composition. As, in his daily prayers, the Mussulman
of Fez or Delhi still turns his face towards the temple of Mecca,
the historian’s eye shall be always fixed on the city of
Constantinople. The excursive line may embrace the wilds of
Arabia and Tartary, but the circle will be ultimately reduced to
the decreasing limit of the Roman monarchy.
On this principle I shall now establish the plan of the last two
volumes of the present work. The first chapter will contain, in a
regular series, the emperors who reigned at Constantinople during
a period of six hundred years, from the days of Heraclius to the
Latin conquest; a rapid abstract, which may be supported by a
general appeal to the order and text of the original historians.
In this introduction, I shall confine myself to the revolutions
of the throne, the succession of families, the personal
characters of the Greek princes, the mode of their life and
death, the maxims and influence of their domestic government, and
the tendency of their reign to accelerate or suspend the downfall
of the Eastern empire. Such a chronological review will serve to
illustrate the various argument of the subsequent chapters; and
each circumstance of the eventful story of the Barbarians will
adapt itself in a proper place to the Byzantine annals. The
internal state of the empire, and the dangerous heresy of the
Paulicians, which shook the East and enlightened the West, will
be the subject of two separate chapters; but these inquiries must
be postponed till our further progress shall have opened the view
of the world in the ninth and tenth centuries of the Christian
area. After this foundation of Byzantine history, the following
nations will pass before our eyes, and each will occupy the space
to which it may be entitled by greatness or merit, or the degree
of connection with the Roman world and the present age. I. The
Franks; a general appellation which includes all the Barbarians
of France, Italy, and Germany, who were united by the sword and
sceptre of Charlemagne. The persecution of images and their
votaries separated Rome and Italy from the Byzantine throne, and
prepared the restoration of the Roman empire in the West. II. The
Arabs or Saracens. Three ample chapters will be devoted to this
curious and interesting object. In the first, after a picture of
the country and its inhabitants, I shall investigate the
character of Mahomet; the character, religion, and success of the
prophet. In the second, I shall lead the Arabs to the conquest of
Syria, Egypt, and Africa, the provinces of the Roman empire; nor
can I check their victorious career till they have overthrown the
monarchies of Persia and Spain. In the third, I shall inquire how
Constantinople and Europe were saved by the luxury and arts, the
division and decay, of the empire of the caliphs. A single
chapter will include, III. The Bulgarians, IV. Hungarians, and,
V. Russians, who assaulted by sea or by land the provinces and
the capital; but the last of these, so important in their present
greatness, will excite some curiosity in their origin and
infancy. VI. The Normans; or rather the private adventurers of
that warlike people, who founded a powerful kingdom in Apulia and
Sicily, shook the throne of Constantinople, displayed the
trophies of chivalry, and almost realized the wonders of romance.
VII. The Latins; the subjects of the pope, the nations of the
West, who enlisted under the banner of the cross for the recovery
or relief of the holy sepulchre. The Greek emperors were
terrified and preserved by the myriads of pilgrims who marched to
Jerusalem with Godfrey of Bouillon and the peers of Christendom.
The second and third crusades trod in the footsteps of the first:
Asia and Europe were mingled in a sacred war of two hundred
years; and the Christian powers were bravely resisted, and
finally expelled by Saladin and the Mamelukes of Egypt. In these
memorable crusades, a fleet and army of French and Venetians were
diverted from Syria to the Thracian Bosphorus: they assaulted the
capital, they subverted the Greek monarchy: and a dynasty of
Latin princes was seated near threescore years on the throne of
Constantine. VII. The Greeks themselves, during this period of
captivity and exile, must be considered as a foreign nation; the
enemies, and again the sovereigns of Constantinople. Misfortune
had rekindled a spark of national virtue; and the Imperial series
may be continued with some dignity from their restoration to the
Turkish conquest. IX. The Moguls and Tartars. By the arms of
Zingis and his descendants, the globe was shaken from China to
Poland and Greece: the sultans were overthrown: the caliphs fell,
and the Caesars trembled on their throne. The victories of Timour
suspended above fifty years the final ruin of the Byzantine
empire. X. I have already noticed the first appearance of the
Turks; and the names of the fathers, of Seljuk and Othman,
discriminate the two successive dynasties of the nation, which
emerged in the eleventh century from the Scythian wilderness. The
former established a splendid and potent kingdom from the banks
of the Oxus to Antioch and Nice; and the first crusade was
provoked by the violation of Jerusalem and the danger of
Constantinople. From an humble origin, the Ottomans arose, the
scourge and terror of Christendom. Constantinople was besieged
and taken by Mahomet II., and his triumph annihilates the
remnant, the image, the title, of the Roman empire in the East.
The schism of the Greeks will be connected with their last
calamities, and the restoration of learning in the Western world.
I shall return from the captivity of the new, to the ruins of
ancient Rome; and the venerable name, the interesting theme, will
shed a ray of glory on the conclusion of my labors.
The emperor Heraclius had punished a tyrant and ascended his
throne; and the memory of his reign is perpetuated by the
transient conquest, and irreparable loss, of the Eastern
provinces. After the death of Eudocia, his first wife, he
disobeyed the patriarch, and violated the laws, by his second
marriage with his niece Martina; and the superstition of the
Greeks beheld the judgment of Heaven in the diseases of the
father and the deformity of his offspring. But the opinion of an
illegitimate birth is sufficient to distract the choice, and
loosen the obedience, of the people: the ambition of Martina was
quickened by maternal love, and perhaps by the envy of a
step-mother; and the aged husband was too feeble to withstand the
arts of conjugal allurements. Constantine, his eldest son,
enjoyed in a mature age the title of Augustus; but the weakness
of his constitution required a colleague and a guardian, and he
yielded with secret reluctance to the partition of the empire.
The senate was summoned to the palace to ratify or attest the
association of Heracleonas, the son of Martina: the imposition of
the diadem was consecrated by the prayer and blessing of the
patriarch; the senators and patricians adored the majesty of the
great emperor and the partners of his reign; and as soon as the
doors were thrown open, they were hailed by the tumultuary but
important voice of the soldiers. After an interval of five
months, the pompous ceremonies which formed the essence of the
Byzantine state were celebrated in the cathedral and the
hippodrome; the concord of the royal brothers was affectedly
displayed by the younger leaning on the arm of the elder; and the
name of Martina was mingled in the reluctant or venal
acclamations of the people. Heraclius survived this association
about two years: his last testimony declared his two sons the
equal heirs of the Eastern empire, and commanded them to honor
his widow Martina as their mother and their sovereign.
When Martina first appeared on the throne with the name and
attributes of royalty, she was checked by a firm, though
respectful, opposition; and the dying embers of freedom were
kindled by the breath of superstitious prejudice. “We reverence,”
exclaimed the voice of a citizen, “we reverence the mother of our
princes; but to those princes alone our obedience is due; and
Constantine, the elder emperor, is of an age to sustain, in his
own hands, the weight of the sceptre. Your sex is excluded by
nature from the toils of government. How could you combat, how
could you answer, the Barbarians, who, with hostile or friendly
intentions, may approach the royal city? May Heaven avert from
the Roman republic this national disgrace, which would provoke
the patience of the slaves of Persia!” Martina descended from the
throne with indignation, and sought a refuge in the female
apartment of the palace. The reign of Constantine the Third
lasted only one hundred and three days: he expired in the
thirtieth year of his age, and, although his life had been a long
malady, a belief was entertained that poison had been the means,
and his cruel step-mother the author, of his untimely fate.
Martina reaped indeed the harvest of his death, and assumed the
government in the name of the surviving emperor; but the
incestuous widow of Heraclius was universally abhorred; the
jealousy of the people was awakened, and the two orphans whom
Constantine had left became the objects of the public care. It
was in vain that the son of Martina, who was no more than fifteen
years of age, was taught to declare himself the guardian of his
nephews, one of whom he had presented at the baptismal font: it
was in vain that he swore on the wood of the true cross, to
defend them against all their enemies. On his death-bed, the late
emperor had despatched a trusty servant to arm the troops and
provinces of the East in the defence of his helpless children:
the eloquence and liberality of Valentin had been successful, and
from his camp of Chalcedon, he boldly demanded the punishment of
the assassins, and the restoration of the lawful heir. The
license of the soldiers, who devoured the grapes and drank the
wine of their Asiatic vineyards, provoked the citizens of
Constantinople against the domestic authors of their calamities,
and the dome of St. Sophia reechoed, not with prayers and hymns,
but with the clamors and imprecations of an enraged multitude. At
their imperious command, Heracleonas appeared in the pulpit with
the eldest of the royal orphans; Constans alone was saluted as
emperor of the Romans, and a crown of gold, which had been taken
from the tomb of Heraclius, was placed on his head, with the
solemn benediction of the patriarch.
But in the tumult of joy and indignation, the church was
pillaged, the sanctuary was polluted by a promiscuous crowd of
Jews and Barbarians; and the Monothelite Pyrrhus, a creature of
the empress, after dropping a protestation on the altar, escaped
by a prudent flight from the zeal of the Catholics. A more
serious and bloody task was reserved for the senate, who derived
a temporary strength from the consent of the soldiers and people.
The spirit of Roman freedom revived the ancient and awful
examples of the judgment of tyrants, and the Imperial culprits
were deposed and condemned as the authors of the death of
Constantine. But the severity of the conscript fathers was
stained by the indiscriminate punishment of the innocent and the
guilty: Martina and Heracleonas were sentenced to the amputation,
the former of her tongue, the latter of his nose; and after this
cruel execution, they consumed the remainder of their days in
exile and oblivion. The Greeks who were capable of reflection
might find some consolation for their servitude, by observing the
abuse of power when it was lodged for a moment in the hands of an
aristocracy.
We shall imagine ourselves transported five hundred years
backwards to the age of the Antonines, if we listen to the
oration which Constans II. pronounced in the twelfth year of his
age before the Byzantine senate. After returning his thanks for
the just punishment of the assassins, who had intercepted the
fairest hopes of his father’s reign, “By the divine Providence,”
said the young emperor, “and by your righteous decree, Martina
and her incestuous progeny have been cast headlong from the
throne. Your majesty and wisdom have prevented the Roman state
from degenerating into lawless tyranny. I therefore exhort and
beseech you to stand forth as the counsellors and judges of the
common safety.” The senators were gratified by the respectful
address and liberal donative of their sovereign; but these
servile Greeks were unworthy and regardless of freedom; and in
his mind, the lesson of an hour was quickly erased by the
prejudices of the age and the habits of despotism. He retained
only a jealous fear lest the senate or people should one day
invade the right of primogeniture, and seat his brother
Theodosius on an equal throne. By the imposition of holy orders,
the grandson of Heraclius was disqualified for the purple; but
this ceremony, which seemed to profane the sacraments of the
church, was insufficient to appease the suspicions of the tyrant,
and the death of the deacon Theodosius could alone expiate the
crime of his royal birth. 1111 His murder was avenged by the
imprecations of the people, and the assassin, in the fullness of
power, was driven from his capital into voluntary and perpetual
exile. Constans embarked for Greece and, as if he meant to retort
the abhorrence which he deserved he is said, from the Imperial
galley, to have spit against the walls of his native city. After
passing the winter at Athens, he sailed to Tarentum in Italy,
visited Rome, 1112 and concluded a long pilgrimage of disgrace
and sacrilegious rapine, by fixing his residence at Syracuse. But
if Constans could fly from his people, he could not fly from
himself. The remorse of his conscience created a phantom who
pursued him by land and sea, by day and by night; and the
visionary Theodosius, presenting to his lips a cup of blood,
said, or seemed to say, “Drink, brother, drink;” a sure emblem of
the aggravation of his guilt, since he had received from the
hands of the deacon the mystic cup of the blood of Christ. Odious
to himself and to mankind, Constans perished by domestic, perhaps
by episcopal, treason, in the capital of Sicily. A servant who
waited in the bath, after pouring warm water on his head, struck
him violently with the vase. He fell, stunned by the blow, and
suffocated by the water; and his attendants, who wondered at the
tedious delay, beheld with indifference the corpse of their
lifeless emperor. The troops of Sicily invested with the purple
an obscure youth, whose inimitable beauty eluded, and it might
easily elude, the declining art of the painters and sculptors of
the age.
1111 (return) [ His soldiers (according to Abulfaradji. Chron.
Syr. p. 112) called him another Cain. St. Martin, t. xi. p.
379.—M.]
1112 (return) [ He was received in Rome, and pillaged the
churches. He carried off the brass roof of the Pantheon to
Syracuse, or, as Schlosser conceives, to Constantinople Schlosser
Geschichte der bilder-sturmenden Kaiser p. 80—M.]
Constans had left in the Byzantine palace three sons, the eldest
of whom had been clothed in his infancy with the purple. When the
father summoned them to attend his person in Sicily, these
precious hostages were detained by the Greeks, and a firm refusal
informed him that they were the children of the state. The news
of his murder was conveyed with almost supernatural speed from
Syracuse to Constantinople; and Constantine, the eldest of his
sons, inherited his throne without being the heir of the public
hatred. His subjects contributed, with zeal and alacrity, to
chastise the guilt and presumption of a province which had
usurped the rights of the senate and people; the young emperor
sailed from the Hellespont with a powerful fleet; and the legions
of Rome and Carthage were assembled under his standard in the
harbor of Syracuse. The defeat of the Sicilian tyrant was easy,
his punishment just, and his beauteous head was exposed in the
hippodrome: but I cannot applaud the clemency of a prince, who,
among a crowd of victims, condemned the son of a patrician, for
deploring with some bitterness the execution of a virtuous
father. The youth was castrated: he survived the operation, and
the memory of this indecent cruelty is preserved by the elevation
of Germanus to the rank of a patriarch and saint. After pouring
this bloody libation on his father’s tomb, Constantine returned
to his capital; and the growth of his young beard during the
Sicilian voyage was announced, by the familiar surname of
Pogonatus, to the Grecian world. But his reign, like that of his
predecessor, was stained with fraternal discord. On his two
brothers, Heraclius and Tiberius, he had bestowed the title of
Augustus; an empty title, for they continued to languish, without
trust or power, in the solitude of the palace. At their secret
instigation, the troops of the Anatolian theme or province
approached the city on the Asiatic side, demanded for the royal
brothers the partition or exercise of sovereignty, and supported
their seditious claim by a theological argument. They were
Christians, (they cried,) and orthodox Catholics; the sincere
votaries of the holy and undivided Trinity. Since there are three
equal persons in heaven, it is reasonable there should be three
equal persons upon earth. The emperor invited these learned
divines to a friendly conference, in which they might propose
their arguments to the senate: they obeyed the summons, but the
prospect of their bodies hanging on the gibbet in the suburb of
Galata reconciled their companions to the unity of the reign of
Constantine. He pardoned his brothers, and their names were still
pronounced in the public acclamations: but on the repetition or
suspicion of a similar offence, the obnoxious princes were
deprived of their titles and noses, 1113 in the presence of the
Catholic bishops who were assembled at Constantinople in the
sixth general synod. In the close of his life, Pogonatus was
anxious only to establish the right of primogeniture: the heir of
his two sons, Justinian and Heraclius, was offered on the shrine
of St. Peter, as a symbol of their spiritual adoption by the
pope; but the elder was alone exalted to the rank of Augustus,
and the assurance of the empire.
1113 (return) [ Schlosser (Geschichte der bilder sturmenden
Kaiser, p. 90) supposed that the young princes were mutilated
after the first insurrection; that after this the acts were still
inscribed with their names, the princes being closely secluded in
the palace. The improbability of this circumstance may be weighed
against Gibbon’s want of authority for his statement.—M.]
After the decease of his father, the inheritance of the Roman
world devolved to Justinian II.; and the name of a triumphant
lawgiver was dishonored by the vices of a boy, who imitated his
namesake only in the expensive luxury of building. His passions
were strong; his understanding was feeble; and he was intoxicated
with a foolish pride, that his birth had given him the command of
millions, of whom the smallest community would not have chosen
him for their local magistrate. His favorite ministers were two
beings the least susceptible of human sympathy, a eunuch and a
monk: to the one he abandoned the palace, to the other the
finances; the former corrected the emperor’s mother with a
scourge, the latter suspended the insolvent tributaries, with
their heads downwards, over a slow and smoky fire. Since the days
of Commodus and Caracalla, the cruelty of the Roman princes had
most commonly been the effect of their fear; but Justinian, who
possessed some vigor of character, enjoyed the sufferings, and
braved the revenge, of his subjects, about ten years, till the
measure was full, of his crimes and of their patience. In a dark
dungeon, Leontius, a general of reputation, had groaned above
three years, with some of the noblest and most deserving of the
patricians: he was suddenly drawn forth to assume the government
of Greece; and this promotion of an injured man was a mark of the
contempt rather than of the confidence of his prince. As he was
followed to the port by the kind offices of his friends, Leontius
observed, with a sigh, that he was a victim adorned for
sacrifice, and that inevitable death would pursue his footsteps.
They ventured to reply, that glory and empire might be the
recompense of a generous resolution; that every order of men
abhorred the reign of a monster; and that the hands of two
hundred thousand patriots expected only the voice of a leader.
The night was chosen for their deliverance; and in the first
effort of the conspirators, the præfect was slain, and the
prisons were forced open: the emissaries of Leontius proclaimed
in every street, “Christians, to St. Sophia!” and the seasonable
text of the patriarch, “This is the day of the Lord!” was the
prelude of an inflammatory sermon. From the church the people
adjourned to the hippodrome: Justinian, in whose cause not a
sword had been drawn, was dragged before these tumultuary judges,
and their clamors demanded the instant death of the tyrant. But
Leontius, who was already clothed with the purple, cast an eye of
pity on the prostrate son of his own benefactor and of so many
emperors. The life of Justinian was spared; the amputation of his
nose, perhaps of his tongue, was imperfectly performed: the happy
flexibility of the Greek language could impose the name of
Rhinotmetus; and the mutilated tyrant was banished to Chersonae
in Crim-Tartary, a lonely settlement, where corn, wine, and oil,
were imported as foreign luxuries.
On the edge of the Scythian wilderness, Justinian still cherished
the pride of his birth, and the hope of his restoration. After
three years’ exile, he received the pleasing intelligence that
his injury was avenged by a second revolution, and that Leontius
in his turn had been dethroned and mutilated by the rebel
Apsimar, who assumed the more respectable name of Tiberius. But
the claim of lineal succession was still formidable to a plebeian
usurper; and his jealousy was stimulated by the complaints and
charges of the Chersonites, who beheld the vices of the tyrant in
the spirit of the exile. With a band of followers, attached to
his person by common hope or common despair, Justinian fled from
the inhospitable shore to the horde of the Chozars, who pitched
their tents between the Tanais and Borysthenes. The khan
entertained with pity and respect the royal suppliant:
Phanagoria, once an opulent city, on the Asiatic side of the lake
Moeotis, was assigned for his residence; and every Roman
prejudice was stifled in his marriage with the sister of the
Barbarian, who seems, however, from the name of Theodora, to have
received the sacrament of baptism. But the faithless Chozar was
soon tempted by the gold of Constantinople: and had not the
design been revealed by the conjugal love of Theodora, her
husband must have been assassinated or betrayed into the power of
his enemies. After strangling, with his own hands, the two
emissaries of the khan, Justinian sent back his wife to her
brother, and embarked on the Euxine in search of new and more
faithful allies. His vessel was assaulted by a violent tempest;
and one of his pious companions advised him to deserve the mercy
of God by a vow of general forgiveness, if he should be restored
to the throne. “Of forgiveness?” replied the intrepid tyrant:
“may I perish this instant—may the Almighty whelm me in the
waves—if I consent to spare a single head of my enemies!” He
survived this impious menace, sailed into the mouth of the
Danube, trusted his person in the royal village of the
Bulgarians, and purchased the aid of Terbelis, a pagan conqueror,
by the promise of his daughter and a fair partition of the
treasures of the empire. The Bulgarian kingdom extended to the
confines of Thrace; and the two princes besieged Constantinople
at the head of fifteen thousand horse. Apsimar was dismayed by
the sudden and hostile apparition of his rival whose head had
been promised by the Chozar, and of whose evasion he was yet
ignorant. After an absence of ten years, the crimes of Justinian
were faintly remembered, and the birth and misfortunes of their
hereditary sovereign excited the pity of the multitude, ever
discontented with the ruling powers; and by the active diligence
of his adherents, he was introduced into the city and palace of
Constantine.
Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part
II.
In rewarding his allies, and recalling his wife, Justinian
displayed some sense of honor and gratitude; 1114 and Terbelis
retired, after sweeping away a heap of gold coin, which he
measured with his Scythian whip. But never was vow more
religiously performed than the sacred oath of revenge which he
had sworn amidst the storms of the Euxine. The two usurpers (for
I must reserve the name of tyrant for the conqueror) were dragged
into the hippodrome, the one from his prison, the other from his
palace. Before their execution, Leontius and Apsimar were cast
prostrate in chains beneath the throne of the emperor; and
Justinian, planting a foot on each of their necks, contemplated
above an hour the chariot-race, while the inconstant people
shouted, in the words of the Psalmist, “Thou shalt trample on the
asp and basilisk, and on the lion and dragon shalt thou set thy
foot!” The universal defection which he had once experienced
might provoke him to repeat the wish of Caligula, that the Roman
people had but one head. Yet I shall presume to observe, that
such a wish is unworthy of an ingenious tyrant, since his revenge
and cruelty would have been extinguished by a single blow,
instead of the slow variety of tortures which Justinian inflicted
on the victims of his anger. His pleasures were inexhaustible:
neither private virtue nor public service could expiate the guilt
of active, or even passive, obedience to an established
government; and, during the six years of his new reign, he
considered the axe, the cord, and the rack, as the only
instruments of royalty. But his most implacable hatred was
pointed against the Chersonites, who had insulted his exile and
violated the laws of hospitality. Their remote situation afforded
some means of defence, or at least of escape; and a grievous tax
was imposed on Constantinople, to supply the preparations of a
fleet and army. “All are guilty, and all must perish,” was the
mandate of Justinian; and the bloody execution was intrusted to
his favorite Stephen, who was recommended by the epithet of the
savage. Yet even the savage Stephen imperfectly accomplished the
intentions of his sovereign. The slowness of his attack allowed
the greater part of the inhabitants to withdraw into the country;
and the minister of vengeance contented himself with reducing the
youth of both sexes to a state of servitude, with roasting alive
seven of the principal citizens, with drowning twenty in the sea,
and with reserving forty-two in chains to receive their doom from
the mouth of the emperor. In their return, the fleet was driven
on the rocky shores of Anatolia; and Justinian applauded the
obedience of the Euxine, which had involved so many thousands of
his subjects and enemies in a common shipwreck: but the tyrant
was still insatiate of blood; and a second expedition was
commanded to extirpate the remains of the proscribed colony. In
the short interval, the Chersonites had returned to their city,
and were prepared to die in arms; the khan of the Chozars had
renounced the cause of his odious brother; the exiles of every
province were assembled in Tauris; and Bardanes, under the name
of Philippicus, was invested with the purple. The Imperial
troops, unwilling and unable to perpetrate the revenge of
Justinian, escaped his displeasure by abjuring his allegiance:
the fleet, under their new sovereign, steered back a more
auspicious course to the harbors of Sinope and Constantinople;
and every tongue was prompt to pronounce, every hand to execute,
the death of the tyrant. Destitute of friends, he was deserted by
his Barbarian guards; and the stroke of the assassin was praised
as an act of patriotism and Roman virtue. His son Tiberius had
taken refuge in a church; his aged grandmother guarded the door;
and the innocent youth, suspending round his neck the most
formidable relics, embraced with one hand the altar, with the
other the wood of the true cross. But the popular fury that dares
to trample on superstition, is deaf to the cries of humanity; and
the race of Heraclius was extinguished after a reign of one
hundred years
1114 (return) [ Of fear rather than of more generous motives.
Compare Le Beau vol. xii. p. 64.—M.]
Between the fall of the Heraclian and the rise of the Isaurian
dynasty, a short interval of six years is divided into three
reigns. Bardanes, or Philippicus, was hailed at Constantinople as
a hero who had delivered his country from a tyrant; and he might
taste some moments of happiness in the first transports of
sincere and universal joy. Justinian had left behind him an ample
treasure, the fruit of cruelty and rapine: but this useful fund
was soon and idly dissipated by his successor. On the festival of
his birthday, Philippicus entertained the multitude with the
games of the hippodrome; from thence he paraded through the
streets with a thousand banners and a thousand trumpets;
refreshed himself in the baths of Zeuxippus, and returning to the
palace, entertained his nobles with a sumptuous banquet. At the
meridian hour he withdrew to his chamber, intoxicated with
flattery and wine, and forgetful that his example had made every
subject ambitious, and that every ambitious subject was his
secret enemy. Some bold conspirators introduced themselves in the
disorder of the feast; and the slumbering monarch was surprised,
bound, blinded, and deposed, before he was sensible of his
danger. Yet the traitors were deprived of their reward; and the
free voice of the senate and people promoted Artemius from the
office of secretary to that of emperor: he assumed the title of
Anastasius the Second, and displayed in a short and troubled
reign the virtues both of peace and war. But after the extinction
of the Imperial line, the rule of obedience was violated, and
every change diffused the seeds of new revolutions. In a mutiny
of the fleet, an obscure and reluctant officer of the revenue was
forcibly invested with the purple: after some months of a naval
war, Anastasius resigned the sceptre; and the conqueror,
Theodosius the Third, submitted in his turn to the superior
ascendant of Leo, the general and emperor of the Oriental troops.
His two predecessors were permitted to embrace the ecclesiastical
profession: the restless impatience of Anastasius tempted him to
risk and to lose his life in a treasonable enterprise; but the
last days of Theodosius were honorable and secure. The single
sublime word, “Health,” which he inscribed on his tomb, expresses
the confidence of philosophy or religion; and the fame of his
miracles was long preserved among the people of Ephesus. This
convenient shelter of the church might sometimes impose a lesson
of clemency; but it may be questioned whether it is for the
public interest to diminish the perils of unsuccessful ambition.
I have dwelt on the fall of a tyrant; I shall briefly represent
the founder of a new dynasty, who is known to posterity by the
invectives of his enemies, and whose public and private life is
involved in the ecclesiastical story of the Iconoclasts. Yet in
spite of the clamors of superstition, a favorable prejudice for
the character of Leo the Isaurian may be reasonably drawn from
the obscurity of his birth, and the duration of his reign.—I. In
an age of manly spirit, the prospect of an Imperial reward would
have kindled every energy of the mind, and produced a crowd of
competitors as deserving as they were desirous to reign. Even in
the corruption and debility of the modern Greeks, the elevation
of a plebeian from the last to the first rank of society,
supposes some qualifications above the level of the multitude. He
would probably be ignorant and disdainful of speculative science;
and, in the pursuit of fortune, he might absolve himself from the
obligations of benevolence and justice; but to his character we
may ascribe the useful virtues of prudence and fortitude, the
knowledge of mankind, and the important art of gaining their
confidence and directing their passions. It is agreed that Leo
was a native of Isauria, and that Conon was his primitive name.
The writers, whose awkward satire is praise, describe him as an
itinerant pedler, who drove an ass with some paltry merchandise
to the country fairs; and foolishly relate that he met on the
road some Jewish fortune-tellers, who promised him the Roman
empire, on condition that he should abolish the worship of idols.
A more probable account relates the migration of his father from
Asia Minor to Thrace, where he exercised the lucrative trade of a
grazier; and he must have acquired considerable wealth, since the
first introduction of his son was procured by a supply of five
hundred sheep to the Imperial camp. His first service was in the
guards of Justinian, where he soon attracted the notice, and by
degrees the jealousy, of the tyrant. His valor and dexterity were
conspicuous in the Colchian war: from Anastasius he received the
command of the Anatolian legions, and by the suffrage of the
soldiers he was raised to the empire with the general applause of
the Roman world.—II. In this dangerous elevation, Leo the Third
supported himself against the envy of his equals, the discontent
of a powerful faction, and the assaults of his foreign and
domestic enemies. The Catholics, who accuse his religious
innovations, are obliged to confess that they were undertaken
with temper and conducted with firmness. Their silence respects
the wisdom of his administration and the purity of his manners.
After a reign of twenty-four years, he peaceably expired in the
palace of Constantinople; and the purple which he had acquired
was transmitted by the right of inheritance to the third
generation. 1115
1115 (return) [ During the latter part of his reign, the
hostilities of the Saracens, who invested a Pergamenian, named
Tiberius, with the purple, and proclaimed him as the son of
Justinian, and an earthquake, which destroyed the walls of
Constantinople, compelled Leo greatly to increase the burdens of
taxation upon his subjects. A twelfth was exacted in addition to
every aurena as a wall tax. Theophanes p. 275 Schlosser, Bilder
eturmeud Kaiser, p. 197.—M.]
In a long reign of thirty-four years, the son and successor of
Leo, Constantine the Fifth, surnamed Copronymus, attacked with
less temperate zeal the images or idols of the church. Their
votaries have exhausted the bitterness of religious gall, in
their portrait of this spotted panther, this antichrist, this
flying dragon of the serpent’s seed, who surpassed the vices of
Elagabalus and Nero. His reign was a long butchery of whatever
was most noble, or holy, or innocent, in his empire. In person,
the emperor assisted at the execution of his victims, surveyed
their agonies, listened to their groans, and indulged, without
satiating, his appetite for blood: a plate of noses was accepted
as a grateful offering, and his domestics were often scourged or
mutilated by the royal hand. His surname was derived from his
pollution of his baptismal font. The infant might be excused; but
the manly pleasures of Copronymus degraded him below the level of
a brute; his lust confounded the eternal distinctions of sex and
species, and he seemed to extract some unnatural delight from the
objects most offensive to human sense. In his religion the
Iconoclast was a Heretic, a Jew, a Mahometan, a Pagan, and an
Atheist; and his belief of an invisible power could be discovered
only in his magic rites, human victims, and nocturnal sacrifices
to Venus and the daemons of antiquity. His life was stained with
the most opposite vices, and the ulcers which covered his body,
anticipated before his death the sentiment of hell-tortures. Of
these accusations, which I have so patiently copied, a part is
refuted by its own absurdity; and in the private anecdotes of the
life of the princes, the lie is more easy as the detection is
more difficult. Without adopting the pernicious maxim, that where
much is alleged, something must be true, I can however discern,
that Constantine the Fifth was dissolute and cruel. Calumny is
more prone to exaggerate than to invent; and her licentious
tongue is checked in some measure by the experience of the age
and country to which she appeals. Of the bishops and monks, the
generals and magistrates, who are said to have suffered under his
reign, the numbers are recorded, the names were conspicuous, the
execution was public, the mutilation visible and permanent. 1116
The Catholics hated the person and government of Copronymus; but
even their hatred is a proof of their oppression. They dissembled
the provocations which might excuse or justify his rigor, but
even these provocations must gradually inflame his resentment and
harden his temper in the use or the abuse of despotism. Yet the
character of the fifth Constantine was not devoid of merit, nor
did his government always deserve the curses or the contempt of
the Greeks. From the confession of his enemies, I am informed of
the restoration of an ancient aqueduct, of the redemption of two
thousand five hundred captives, of the uncommon plenty of the
times, and of the new colonies with which he repeopled
Constantinople and the Thracian cities. They reluctantly praise
his activity and courage; he was on horseback in the field at the
head of his legions; and, although the fortune of his arms was
various, he triumphed by sea and land, on the Euphrates and the
Danube, in civil and Barbarian war. Heretical praise must be cast
into the scale to counterbalance the weight of orthodox
invective. The Iconoclasts revered the virtues of the prince:
forty years after his death they still prayed before the tomb of
the saint. A miraculous vision was propagated by fanaticism or
fraud: and the Christian hero appeared on a milk-white steed,
brandishing his lance against the Pagans of Bulgaria: “An absurd
fable,” says the Catholic historian, “since Copronymus is chained
with the daemons in the abyss of hell.”
1116 (return) [ He is accused of burning the library of
Constantinople, founded by Julian, with its president and twelve
professors. This eastern Sorbonne had discomfited the Imperial
theologians on the great question of image worship. Schlosser
observes that this accidental fire took place six years after the
emperor had laid the question of image-worship before the
professors. Bilder sturmand Kaiser, p. 294. Compare Le Heau. vol.
xl. p. 156.—M.]
Leo the Fourth, the son of the fifth and the father of the sixth
Constantine, was of a feeble constitution both of mind 1117 and
body, and the principal care of his reign was the settlement of
the succession. The association of the young Constantine was
urged by the officious zeal of his subjects; and the emperor,
conscious of his decay, complied, after a prudent hesitation,
with their unanimous wishes. The royal infant, at the age of five
years, was crowned with his mother Irene; and the national
consent was ratified by every circumstance of pomp and solemnity,
that could dazzle the eyes or bind the conscience of the Greeks.
An oath of fidelity was administered in the palace, the church,
and the hippodrome, to the several orders of the state, who
adjured the holy names of the Son, and mother of God. “Be
witness, O Christ! that we will watch over the safety of
Constantine the son of Leo, expose our lives in his service, and
bear true allegiance to his person and posterity.” They pledged
their faith on the wood of the true cross, and the act of their
engagement was deposited on the altar of St. Sophia. The first to
swear, and the first to violate their oath, were the five sons of
Copronymus by a second marriage; and the story of these princes
is singular and tragic. The right of primogeniture excluded them
from the throne; the injustice of their elder brother defrauded
them of a legacy of about two millions sterling; some vain titles
were not deemed a sufficient compensation for wealth and power;
and they repeatedly conspired against their nephew, before and
after the death of his father. Their first attempt was pardoned;
for the second offence 1118 they were condemned to the
ecclesiastical state; and for the third treason, Nicephorus, the
eldest and most guilty, was deprived of his eyes, and his four
brothers, Christopher, Nicetas, Anthemeus, and Eudoxas, were
punished, as a milder sentence, by the amputation of their
tongues. After five years’ confinement, they escaped to the
church of St. Sophia, and displayed a pathetic spectacle to the
people. “Countrymen and Christians,” cried Nicephorus for himself
and his mute brethren, “behold the sons of your emperor, if you
can still recognize our features in this miserable state. A life,
an imperfect life, is all that the malice of our enemies has
spared. It is now threatened, and we now throw ourselves on your
compassion.” The rising murmur might have produced a revolution,
had it not been checked by the presence of a minister, who
soothed the unhappy princes with flattery and hope, and gently
drew them from the sanctuary to the palace. They were speedily
embarked for Greece, and Athens was allotted for the place of
their exile. In this calm retreat, and in their helpless
condition, Nicephorus and his brothers were tormented by the
thirst of power, and tempted by a Sclavonian chief, who offered
to break their prison, and to lead them in arms, and in the
purple, to the gates of Constantinople. But the Athenian people,
ever zealous in the cause of Irene, prevented her justice or
cruelty; and the five sons of Copronymus were plunged in eternal
darkness and oblivion.
1117 (return) [ Schlosser thinks more highly of Leo’s mind; but
his only proof of his superiority is the successes of his
generals against the Saracens, Schlosser, p. 256.—M.]
1118 (return) [ The second offence was on the accession of the
young Constantine—M.]
For himself, that emperor had chosen a Barbarian wife, the
daughter of the khan of the Chozars; but in the marriage of his
heir, he preferred an Athenian virgin, an orphan, seventeen years
old, whose sole fortune must have consisted in her personal
accomplishments. The nuptials of Leo and Irene were celebrated
with royal pomp; she soon acquired the love and confidence of a
feeble husband, and in his testament he declared the empress
guardian of the Roman world, and of their son Constantine the
Sixth, who was no more than ten years of age. During his
childhood, Irene most ably and assiduously discharged, in her
public administration, the duties of a faithful mother; and her
zeal in the restoration of images has deserved the name and
honors of a saint, which she still occupies in the Greek
calendar. But the emperor attained the maturity of youth; the
maternal yoke became more grievous; and he listened to the
favorites of his own age, who shared his pleasures, and were
ambitious of sharing his power. Their reasons convinced him of
his right, their praises of his ability, to reign; and he
consented to reward the services of Irene by a perpetual
banishment to the Isle of Sicily. But her vigilance and
penetration easily disconcerted their rash projects: a similar,
or more severe, punishment was retaliated on themselves and their
advisers; and Irene inflicted on the ungrateful prince the
chastisement of a boy. After this contest, the mother and the son
were at the head of two domestic factions; and instead of mild
influence and voluntary obedience, she held in chains a captive
and an enemy. The empress was overthrown by the abuse of victory;
the oath of fidelity, which she exacted to herself alone, was
pronounced with reluctant murmurs; and the bold refusal of the
Armenian guards encouraged a free and general declaration, that
Constantine the Sixth was the lawful emperor of the Romans. In
this character he ascended his hereditary throne, and dismissed
Irene to a life of solitude and repose. But her haughty spirit
condescended to the arts of dissimulation: she flattered the
bishops and eunuchs, revived the filial tenderness of the prince,
regained his confidence, and betrayed his credulity. The
character of Constantine was not destitute of sense or spirit;
but his education had been studiously neglected; and the
ambitious mother exposed to the public censure the vices which
she had nourished, and the actions which she had secretly
advised: his divorce and second marriage offended the prejudices
of the clergy, and by his imprudent rigor he forfeited the
attachment of the Armenian guards. A powerful conspiracy was
formed for the restoration of Irene; and the secret, though
widely diffused, was faithfully kept above eight months, till the
emperor, suspicious of his danger, escaped from Constantinople,
with the design of appealing to the provinces and armies. By this
hasty flight, the empress was left on the brink of the precipice;
yet before she implored the mercy of her son, Irene addressed a
private epistle to the friends whom she had placed about his
person, with a menace, that unless they accomplished, she would
reveal, their treason. Their fear rendered them intrepid; they
seized the emperor on the Asiatic shore, and he was transported
to the porphyry apartment of the palace, where he had first seen
the light. In the mind of Irene, ambition had stifled every
sentiment of humanity and nature; and it was decreed in her
bloody council, that Constantine should be rendered incapable of
the throne: her emissaries assaulted the sleeping prince, and
stabbed their daggers with such violence and precipitation into
his eyes as if they meant to execute a mortal sentence. An
ambiguous passage of Theophanes persuaded the annalist of the
church that death was the immediate consequence of this barbarous
execution. The Catholics have been deceived or subdued by the
authority of Baronius; and Protestant zeal has reechoed the words
of a cardinal, desirous, as it should seem, to favor the
patroness of images. 1119 Yet the blind son of Irene survived
many years, oppressed by the court and forgotten by the world;
the Isaurian dynasty was silently extinguished; and the memory of
Constantine was recalled only by the nuptials of his daughter
Euphrosyne with the emperor Michael the Second.
1119 (return) [ Gibbon has been attacked on account of this
statement, but is successfully defended by Schlosser. B S. Kaiser
p. 327. Compare Le Beau, c. xii p. 372.—M.]
The most bigoted orthodoxy has justly execrated the unnatural
mother, who may not easily be paralleled in the history of
crimes. To her bloody deed superstition has attributed a
subsequent darkness of seventeen days; during which many vessels
in midday were driven from their course, as if the sun, a globe
of fire so vast and so remote, could sympathize with the atoms of
a revolving planet. On earth, the crime of Irene was left five
years unpunished; her reign was crowned with external splendor;
and if she could silence the voice of conscience, she neither
heard nor regarded the reproaches of mankind. The Roman world
bowed to the government of a female; and as she moved through the
streets of Constantinople, the reins of four milk-white steeds
were held by as many patricians, who marched on foot before the
golden chariot of their queen. But these patricians were for the
most part eunuchs; and their black ingratitude justified, on this
occasion, the popular hatred and contempt. Raised, enriched,
intrusted with the first dignities of the empire, they basely
conspired against their benefactress; the great treasurer
Nicephorus was secretly invested with the purple; her successor
was introduced into the palace, and crowned at St. Sophia by the
venal patriarch. In their first interview, she recapitulated with
dignity the revolutions of her life, gently accused the perfidy
of Nicephorus, insinuated that he owed his life to her
unsuspicious clemency, and for the throne and treasures which she
resigned, solicited a decent and honorable retreat. His avarice
refused this modest compensation; and, in her exile of the Isle
of Lesbos, the empress earned a scanty subsistence by the labors
of her distaff.
Many tyrants have reigned undoubtedly more criminal than
Nicephorus, but none perhaps have more deeply incurred the
universal abhorrence of their people. His character was stained
with the three odious vices of hypocrisy, ingratitude, and
avarice: his want of virtue was not redeemed by any superior
talents, nor his want of talents by any pleasing qualifications.
Unskilful and unfortunate in war, Nicephorus was vanquished by
the Saracens, and slain by the Bulgarians; and the advantage of
his death overbalanced, in the public opinion, the destruction of
a Roman army. 1011 His son and heir Stauracius escaped from the
field with a mortal wound; yet six months of an expiring life
were sufficient to refute his indecent, though popular
declaration, that he would in all things avoid the example of his
father. On the near prospect of his decease, Michael, the great
master of the palace, and the husband of his sister Procopia, was
named by every person of the palace and city, except by his
envious brother. Tenacious of a sceptre now falling from his
hand, he conspired against the life of his successor, and
cherished the idea of changing to a democracy the Roman empire.
But these rash projects served only to inflame the zeal of the
people and to remove the scruples of the candidate: Michael the
First accepted the purple, and before he sunk into the grave the
son of Nicephorus implored the clemency of his new sovereign. Had
Michael in an age of peace ascended an hereditary throne, he
might have reigned and died the father of his people: but his
mild virtues were adapted to the shade of private life, nor was
he capable of controlling the ambition of his equals, or of
resisting the arms of the victorious Bulgarians. While his want
of ability and success exposed him to the contempt of the
soldiers, the masculine spirit of his wife Procopia awakened
their indignation. Even the Greeks of the ninth century were
provoked by the insolence of a female, who, in the front of the
standards, presumed to direct their discipline and animate their
valor; and their licentious clamors advised the new Semiramis to
reverence the majesty of a Roman camp. After an unsuccessful
campaign, the emperor left, in their winter-quarters of Thrace, a
disaffected army under the command of his enemies; and their
artful eloquence persuaded the soldiers to break the dominion of
the eunuchs, to degrade the husband of Procopia, and to assert
the right of a military election. They marched towards the
capital: yet the clergy, the senate, and the people of
Constantinople, adhered to the cause of Michael; and the troops
and treasures of Asia might have protracted the mischiefs of
civil war. But his humanity (by the ambitious it will be termed
his weakness) protested that not a drop of Christian blood should
be shed in his quarrel, and his messengers presented the
conquerors with the keys of the city and the palace. They were
disarmed by his innocence and submission; his life and his eyes
were spared; and the Imperial monk enjoyed the comforts of
solitude and religion above thirty-two years after he had been
stripped of the purple and separated from his wife.
1011 (return) [ The Syrian historian Aboulfaradj. Chron. Syr. p.
133, 139, speaks of him as a brave, prudent, and pious prince,
formidable to the Arabs. St. Martin, c. xii. p. 402. Compare
Schlosser, p. 350.—M.]
A rebel, in the time of Nicephorus, the famous and unfortunate
Bardanes, had once the curiosity to consult an Asiatic prophet,
who, after prognosticating his fall, announced the fortunes of
his three principal officers, Leo the Armenian, Michael the
Phrygian, and Thomas the Cappadocian, the successive reigns of
the two former, the fruitless and fatal enterprise of the third.
This prediction was verified, or rather was produced, by the
event. Ten years afterwards, when the Thracian camp rejected the
husband of Procopia, the crown was presented to the same Leo, the
first in military rank and the secret author of the mutiny. As he
affected to hesitate, “With this sword,” said his companion
Michael, “I will open the gates of Constantinople to your
Imperial sway; or instantly plunge it into your bosom, if you
obstinately resist the just desires of your fellow-soldiers.” The
compliance of the Armenian was rewarded with the empire, and he
reigned seven years and a half under the name of Leo the Fifth.
Educated in a camp, and ignorant both of laws and letters, he
introduced into his civil government the rigor and even cruelty
of military discipline; but if his severity was sometimes
dangerous to the innocent, it was always formidable to the
guilty. His religious inconstancy was taxed by the epithet of
Chameleon, but the Catholics have acknowledged by the voice of a
saint and confessors, that the life of the Iconoclast was useful
to the republic. The zeal of his companion Michael was repaid
with riches, honors, and military command; and his subordinate
talents were beneficially employed in the public service. Yet the
Phrygian was dissatisfied at receiving as a favor a scanty
portion of the Imperial prize which he had bestowed on his equal;
and his discontent, which sometimes evaporated in hasty
discourse, at length assumed a more threatening and hostile
aspect against a prince whom he represented as a cruel tyrant.
That tyrant, however, repeatedly detected, warned, and dismissed
the old companion of his arms, till fear and resentment prevailed
over gratitude; and Michael, after a scrutiny into his actions
and designs, was convicted of treason, and sentenced to be burnt
alive in the furnace of the private baths. The devout humanity of
the empress Theophano was fatal to her husband and family. A
solemn day, the twenty-fifth of December, had been fixed for the
execution: she urged, that the anniversary of the Savior’s birth
would be profaned by this inhuman spectacle, and Leo consented
with reluctance to a decent respite. But on the vigil of the
feast his sleepless anxiety prompted him to visit at the dead of
night the chamber in which his enemy was confined: he beheld him
released from his chain, and stretched on his jailer’s bed in a
profound slumber. Leo was alarmed at these signs of security and
intelligence; but though he retired with silent steps, his
entrance and departure were noticed by a slave who lay concealed
in a corner of the prison. Under the pretence of requesting the
spiritual aid of a confessor, Michael informed the conspirators,
that their lives depended on his discretion, and that a few hours
were left to assure their own safety, by the deliverance of their
friend and country. On the great festivals, a chosen band of
priests and chanters was admitted into the palace by a private
gate to sing matins in the chapel; and Leo, who regulated with
the same strictness the discipline of the choir and of the camp,
was seldom absent from these early devotions. In the
ecclesiastical habit, but with their swords under their robes,
the conspirators mingled with the procession, lurked in the
angles of the chapel, and expected, as the signal of murder, the
intonation of the first psalm by the emperor himself. The
imperfect light, and the uniformity of dress, might have favored
his escape, whilst their assault was pointed against a harmless
priest; but they soon discovered their mistake, and encompassed
on all sides the royal victim. Without a weapon and without a
friend, he grasped a weighty cross, and stood at bay against the
hunters of his life; but as he asked for mercy, “This is the
hour, not of mercy, but of vengeance,” was the inexorable reply.
The stroke of a well-aimed sword separated from his body the
right arm and the cross, and Leo the Armenian was slain at the
foot of the altar. A memorable reverse of fortune was displayed
in Michael the Second, who from a defect in his speech was
surnamed the Stammerer. He was snatched from the fiery furnace to
the sovereignty of an empire; and as in the tumult a smith could
not readily be found, the fetters remained on his legs several
hours after he was seated on the throne of the Caesars. The royal
blood which had been the price of his elevation, was unprofitably
spent: in the purple he retained the ignoble vices of his origin;
and Michael lost his provinces with as supine indifference as if
they had been the inheritance of his fathers. His title was
disputed by Thomas, the last of the military triumvirate, who
transported into Europe fourscore thousand Barbarians from the
banks of the Tigris and the shores of the Caspian. He formed the
siege of Constantinople; but the capital was defended with
spiritual and carnal weapons; a Bulgarian king assaulted the camp
of the Orientals, and Thomas had the misfortune, or the weakness,
to fall alive into the power of the conqueror. The hands and feet
of the rebel were amputated; he was placed on an ass, and, amidst
the insults of the people, was led through the streets, which he
sprinkled with his blood. The depravation of manners, as savage
as they were corrupt, is marked by the presence of the emperor
himself. Deaf to the lamentation of a fellow-soldier, he
incessantly pressed the discovery of more accomplices, till his
curiosity was checked by the question of an honest or guilty
minister: “Would you give credit to an enemy against the most
faithful of your friends?” After the death of his first wife, the
emperor, at the request of the senate, drew from her monastery
Euphrosyne, the daughter of Constantine the Sixth. Her august
birth might justify a stipulation in the marriage-contract, that
her children should equally share the empire with their elder
brother. But the nuptials of Michael and Euphrosyne were barren;
and she was content with the title of mother of Theophilus, his
son and successor.
The character of Theophilus is a rare example in which religious
zeal has allowed, and perhaps magnified, the virtues of a heretic
and a persecutor. His valor was often felt by the enemies, and
his justice by the subjects, of the monarchy; but the valor of
Theophilus was rash and fruitless, and his justice arbitrary and
cruel. He displayed the banner of the cross against the Saracens;
but his five expeditions were concluded by a signal overthrow:
Amorium, the native city of his ancestors, was levelled with the
ground and from his military toils he derived only the surname of
the Unfortunate. The wisdom of a sovereign is comprised in the
institution of laws and the choice of magistrates, and while he
seems without action, his civil government revolves round his
centre with the silence and order of the planetary system. But
the justice of Theophilus was fashioned on the model of the
Oriental despots, who, in personal and irregular acts of
authority, consult the reason or passion of the moment, without
measuring the sentence by the law, or the penalty by the offense.
A poor woman threw herself at the emperor’s feet to complain of a
powerful neighbor, the brother of the empress, who had raised his
palace-wall to such an inconvenient height, that her humble
dwelling was excluded from light and air! On the proof of the
fact, instead of granting, like an ordinary judge, sufficient or
ample damages to the plaintiff, the sovereign adjudged to her use
and benefit the palace and the ground. Nor was Theophilus content
with this extravagant satisfaction: his zeal converted a civil
trespass into a criminal act; and the unfortunate patrician was
stripped and scourged in the public place of Constantinople. For
some venial offenses, some defect of equity or vigilance, the
principal ministers, a præfect, a quaestor, a captain of the
guards, were banished or mutilated, or scalded with boiling
pitch, or burnt alive in the hippodrome; and as these dreadful
examples might be the effects of error or caprice, they must have
alienated from his service the best and wisest of the citizens.
But the pride of the monarch was flattered in the exercise of
power, or, as he thought, of virtue; and the people, safe in
their obscurity, applauded the danger and debasement of their
superiors. This extraordinary rigor was justified, in some
measure, by its salutary consequences; since, after a scrutiny of
seventeen days, not a complaint or abuse could be found in the
court or city; and it might be alleged that the Greeks could be
ruled only with a rod of iron, and that the public interest is
the motive and law of the supreme judge. Yet in the crime, or the
suspicion, of treason, that judge is of all others the most
credulous and partial. Theophilus might inflict a tardy vengeance
on the assassins of Leo and the saviors of his father; but he
enjoyed the fruits of their crime; and his jealous tyranny
sacrificed a brother and a prince to the future safety of his
life. A Persian of the race of the Sassanides died in poverty and
exile at Constantinople, leaving an only son, the issue of a
plebeian marriage. At the age of twelve years, the royal birth of
Theophobus was revealed, and his merit was not unworthy of his
birth. He was educated in the Byzantine palace, a Christian and a
soldier; advanced with rapid steps in the career of fortune and
glory; received the hand of the emperor’s sister; and was
promoted to the command of thirty thousand Persians, who, like
his father, had fled from the Mahometan conquerors. These troops,
doubly infected with mercenary and fanatic vices, were desirous
of revolting against their benefactor, and erecting the standard
of their native king but the loyal Theophobus rejected their
offers, disconcerted their schemes, and escaped from their hands
to the camp or palace of his royal brother. A generous confidence
might have secured a faithful and able guardian for his wife and
his infant son, to whom Theophilus, in the flower of his age, was
compelled to leave the inheritance of the empire. But his
jealousy was exasperated by envy and disease; he feared the
dangerous virtues which might either support or oppress their
infancy and weakness; and the dying emperor demanded the head of
the Persian prince. With savage delight he recognized the
familiar features of his brother: “Thou art no longer
Theophobus,” he said; and, sinking on his couch, he added, with a
faltering voice, “Soon, too soon, I shall be no more Theophilus!”
Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part
III.
The Russians, who have borrowed from the Greeks the greatest part
of their civil and ecclesiastical policy, preserved, till the
last century, a singular institution in the marriage of the Czar.
They collected, not the virgins of every rank and of every
province, a vain and romantic idea, but the daughters of the
principal nobles, who awaited in the palace the choice of their
sovereign. It is affirmed, that a similar method was adopted in
the nuptials of Theophilus. With a golden apple in his hand, he
slowly walked between two lines of contending beauties: his eye
was detained by the charms of Icasia, and in the awkwardness of a
first declaration, the prince could only observe, that, in this
world, women had been the cause of much evil; “And surely, sir,”
she pertly replied, “they have likewise been the occasion of much
good.” This affectation of unseasonable wit displeased the
Imperial lover: he turned aside in disgust; Icasia concealed her
mortification in a convent; and the modest silence of Theodora
was rewarded with the golden apple. She deserved the love, but
did not escape the severity, of her lord. From the palace garden
he beheld a vessel deeply laden, and steering into the port: on
the discovery that the precious cargo of Syrian luxury was the
property of his wife, he condemned the ship to the flames, with a
sharp reproach, that her avarice had degraded the character of an
empress into that of a merchant. Yet his last choice intrusted
her with the guardianship of the empire and her son Michael, who
was left an orphan in the fifth year of his age. The restoration
of images, and the final extirpation of the Iconoclasts, has
endeared her name to the devotion of the Greeks; but in the
fervor of religious zeal, Theodora entertained a grateful regard
for the memory and salvation of her husband. After thirteen years
of a prudent and frugal administration, she perceived the decline
of her influence; but the second Irene imitated only the virtues
of her predecessor. Instead of conspiring against the life or
government of her son, she retired, without a struggle, though
not without a murmur, to the solitude of private life, deploring
the ingratitude, the vices, and the inevitable ruin, of the
worthless youth. Among the successors of Nero and Elagabalus, we
have not hitherto found the imitation of their vices, the
character of a Roman prince who considered pleasure as the object
of life, and virtue as the enemy of pleasure. Whatever might have
been the maternal care of Theodora in the education of Michael
the Third, her unfortunate son was a king before he was a man. If
the ambitious mother labored to check the progress of reason, she
could not cool the ebullition of passion; and her selfish policy
was justly repaid by the contempt and ingratitude of the
headstrong youth. At the age of eighteen, he rejected her
authority, without feeling his own incapacity to govern the
empire and himself. With Theodora, all gravity and wisdom retired
from the court; their place was supplied by the alternate
dominion of vice and folly; and it was impossible, without
forfeiting the public esteem, to acquire or preserve the favor of
the emperor. The millions of gold and silver which had been
accumulated for the service of the state, were lavished on the
vilest of men, who flattered his passions and shared his
pleasures; and in a reign of thirteen years, the richest of
sovereigns was compelled to strip the palace and the churches of
their precious furniture. Like Nero, he delighted in the
amusements of the theatre, and sighed to be surpassed in the
accomplishments in which he should have blushed to excel. Yet the
studies of Nero in music and poetry betrayed some symptoms of a
liberal taste; the more ignoble arts of the son of Theophilus
were confined to the chariot-race of the hippodrome. The four
factions which had agitated the peace, still amused the idleness,
of the capital: for himself, the emperor assumed the blue livery;
the three rival colors were distributed to his favorites, and in
the vile though eager contention he forgot the dignity of his
person and the safety of his dominions. He silenced the messenger
of an invasion, who presumed to divert his attention in the most
critical moment of the race; and by his command, the importunate
beacons were extinguished, that too frequently spread the alarm
from Tarsus to Constantinople. The most skilful charioteers
obtained the first place in his confidence and esteem; their
merit was profusely rewarded; the emperor feasted in their
houses, and presented their children at the baptismal font; and
while he applauded his own popularity, he affected to blame the
cold and stately reserve of his predecessors. The unnatural lusts
which had degraded even the manhood of Nero, were banished from
the world; yet the strength of Michael was consumed by the
indulgence of love and intemperance. 1012 In his midnight revels,
when his passions were inflamed by wine, he was provoked to issue
the most sanguinary commands; and if any feelings of humanity
were left, he was reduced, with the return of sense, to approve
the salutary disobedience of his servants. But the most
extraordinary feature in the character of Michael, is the profane
mockery of the religion of his country. The superstition of the
Greeks might indeed excite the smile of a philosopher; but his
smile would have been rational and temperate, and he must have
condemned the ignorant folly of a youth who insulted the objects
of public veneration. A buffoon of the court was invested in the
robes of the patriarch: his twelve metropolitans, among whom the
emperor was ranked, assumed their ecclesiastical garments: they
used or abused the sacred vessels of the altar; and in their
bacchanalian feasts, the holy communion was administered in a
nauseous compound of vinegar and mustard. Nor were these impious
spectacles concealed from the eyes of the city. On the day of a
solemn festival, the emperor, with his bishops or buffoons, rode
on asses through the streets, encountered the true patriarch at
the head of his clergy; and by their licentious shouts and
obscene gestures, disordered the gravity of the Christian
procession. The devotion of Michael appeared only in some offence
to reason or piety: he received his theatrical crowns from the
statue of the Virgin; and an Imperial tomb was violated for the
sake of burning the bones of Constantine the Iconoclast. By this
extravagant conduct, the son of Theophilus became as contemptible
as he was odious: every citizen was impatient for the deliverance
of his country; and even the favorites of the moment were
apprehensive that a caprice might snatch away what a caprice had
bestowed. In the thirtieth year of his age, and in the hour of
intoxication and sleep, Michael the Third was murdered in his
chamber by the founder of a new dynasty, whom the emperor had
raised to an equality of rank and power.
1012 (return) [ In a campaign against the Saracens, he betrayed
both imbecility and cowardice. Genesius, c. iv. p. 94.—M.]
The genealogy of Basil the Macedonian (if it be not the spurious
offspring of pride and flattery) exhibits a genuine picture of
the revolution of the most illustrious families. The Arsacides,
the rivals of Rome, possessed the sceptre of the East near four
hundred years: a younger branch of these Parthian kings continued
to reign in Armenia; and their royal descendants survived the
partition and servitude of that ancient monarchy. Two of these,
Artabanus and Chlienes, escaped or retired to the court of Leo
the First: his bounty seated them in a safe and hospitable exile,
in the province of Macedonia: Adrianople was their final
settlement. During several generations they maintained the
dignity of their birth; and their Roman patriotism rejected the
tempting offers of the Persian and Arabian powers, who recalled
them to their native country. But their splendor was insensibly
clouded by time and poverty; and the father of Basil was reduced
to a small farm, which he cultivated with his own hands: yet he
scorned to disgrace the blood of the Arsacides by a plebeian
alliance: his wife, a widow of Adrianople, was pleased to count
among her ancestors the great Constantine; and their royal infant
was connected by some dark affinity of lineage or country with
the Macedonian Alexander. No sooner was he born, than the cradle
of Basil, his family, and his city, were swept away by an
inundation of the Bulgarians: he was educated a slave in a
foreign land; and in this severe discipline, he acquired the
hardiness of body and flexibility of mind which promoted his
future elevation. In the age of youth or manhood he shared the
deliverance of the Roman captives, who generously broke their
fetters, marched through Bulgaria to the shores of the Euxine,
defeated two armies of Barbarians, embarked in the ships which
had been stationed for their reception, and returned to
Constantinople, from whence they were distributed to their
respective homes. But the freedom of Basil was naked and
destitute: his farm was ruined by the calamities of war: after
his father’s death, his manual labor, or service, could no longer
support a family of orphans and he resolved to seek a more
conspicuous theatre, in which every virtue and every vice may
lead to the paths of greatness. The first night of his arrival at
Constantinople, without friends or money, the weary pilgrim slept
on the steps of the church of St. Diomede: he was fed by the
casual hospitality of a monk; and was introduced to the service
of a cousin and namesake of the emperor Theophilus; who, though
himself of a diminutive person, was always followed by a train of
tall and handsome domestics. Basil attended his patron to the
government of Peloponnesus; eclipsed, by his personal merit the
birth and dignity of Theophilus, and formed a useful connection
with a wealthy and charitable matron of Patras. Her spiritual or
carnal love embraced the young adventurer, whom she adopted as
her son. Danielis presented him with thirty slaves; and the
produce of her bounty was expended in the support of his
brothers, and the purchase of some large estates in Macedonia.
His gratitude or ambition still attached him to the service of
Theophilus; and a lucky accident recommended him to the notice of
the court. A famous wrestler, in the train of the Bulgarian
ambassadors, had defied, at the royal banquet, the boldest and
most robust of the Greeks. The strength of Basil was praised; he
accepted the challenge; and the Barbarian champion was overthrown
at the first onset. A beautiful but vicious horse was condemned
to be hamstrung: it was subdued by the dexterity and courage of
the servant of Theophilus; and his conqueror was promoted to an
honorable rank in the Imperial stables. But it was impossible to
obtain the confidence of Michael, without complying with his
vices; and his new favorite, the great chamberlain of the palace,
was raised and supported by a disgraceful marriage with a royal
concubine, and the dishonor of his sister, who succeeded to her
place. The public administration had been abandoned to the Caesar
Bardas, the brother and enemy of Theodora; but the arts of female
influence persuaded Michael to hate and to fear his uncle: he was
drawn from Constantinople, under the pretence of a Cretan
expedition, and stabbed in the tent of audience, by the sword of
the chamberlain, and in the presence of the emperor. About a
month after this execution, Basil was invested with the title of
Augustus and the government of the empire. He supported this
unequal association till his influence was fortified by popular
esteem. His life was endangered by the caprice of the emperor;
and his dignity was profaned by a second colleague, who had rowed
in the galleys. Yet the murder of his benefactor must be
condemned as an act of ingratitude and treason; and the churches
which he dedicated to the name of St. Michael were a poor and
puerile expiation of his guilt. The different ages of Basil the
First may be compared with those of Augustus. The situation of
the Greek did not allow him in his earliest youth to lead an army
against his country; or to proscribe the nobles of her sons; but
his aspiring genius stooped to the arts of a slave; he dissembled
his ambition and even his virtues, and grasped, with the bloody
hand of an assassin, the empire which he ruled with the wisdom
and tenderness of a parent.
A private citizen may feel his interest repugnant to his duty;
but it must be from a deficiency of sense or courage, that an
absolute monarch can separate his happiness from his glory, or
his glory from the public welfare. The life or panegyric of Basil
has indeed been composed and published under the long reign of
his descendants; but even their stability on the throne may be
justly ascribed to the superior merit of their ancestor. In his
character, his grandson Constantine has attempted to delineate a
perfect image of royalty: but that feeble prince, unless he had
copied a real model, could not easily have soared so high above
the level of his own conduct or conceptions. But the most solid
praise of Basil is drawn from the comparison of a ruined and a
flourishing monarchy, that which he wrested from the dissolute
Michael, and that which he bequeathed to the Mecedonian dynasty.
The evils which had been sanctified by time and example, were
corrected by his master-hand; and he revived, if not the national
spirit, at least the order and majesty of the Roman empire. His
application was indefatigable, his temper cool, his understanding
vigorous and decisive; and in his practice he observed that rare
and salutary moderation, which pursues each virtue, at an equal
distance between the opposite vices. His military service had
been confined to the palace: nor was the emperor endowed with the
spirit or the talents of a warrior. Yet under his reign the Roman
arms were again formidable to the Barbarians. As soon as he had
formed a new army by discipline and exercise, he appeared in
person on the banks of the Euphrates, curbed the pride of the
Saracens, and suppressed the dangerous though just revolt of the
Manichaeans. His indignation against a rebel who had long eluded
his pursuit, provoked him to wish and to pray, that, by the grace
of God, he might drive three arrows into the head of Chrysochir.
That odious head, which had been obtained by treason rather than
by valor, was suspended from a tree, and thrice exposed to the
dexterity of the Imperial archer; a base revenge against the
dead, more worthy of the times than of the character of Basil.
But his principal merit was in the civil administration of the
finances and of the laws. To replenish an exhausted treasury, it
was proposed to resume the lavish and ill-placed gifts of his
predecessor: his prudence abated one moiety of the restitution;
and a sum of twelve hundred thousand pounds was instantly
procured to answer the most pressing demands, and to allow some
space for the mature operations of economy. Among the various
schemes for the improvement of the revenue, a new mode was
suggested of capitation, or tribute, which would have too much
depended on the arbitrary discretion of the assessors. A
sufficient list of honest and able agents was instantly produced
by the minister; but on the more careful scrutiny of Basil
himself, only two could be found, who might be safely intrusted
with such dangerous powers; but they justified his esteem by
declining his confidence. But the serious and successful
diligence of the emperor established by degrees the equitable
balance of property and payment, of receipt and expenditure; a
peculiar fund was appropriated to each service; and a public
method secured the interest of the prince and the property of the
people. After reforming the luxury, he assigned two patrimonial
estates to supply the decent plenty, of the Imperial table: the
contributions of the subject were reserved for his defence; and
the residue was employed in the embellishment of the capital and
provinces. A taste for building, however costly, may deserve some
praise and much excuse: from thence industry is fed, art is
encouraged, and some object is attained of public emolument or
pleasure: the use of a road, an aqueduct, or a hospital, is
obvious and solid; and the hundred churches that arose by the
command of Basil were consecrated to the devotion of the age. In
the character of a judge he was assiduous and impartial; desirous
to save, but not afraid to strike: the oppressors of the people
were severely chastised; but his personal foes, whom it might be
unsafe to pardon, were condemned, after the loss of their eyes,
to a life of solitude and repentance. The change of language and
manners demanded a revision of the obsolete jurisprudence of
Justinian: the voluminous body of his Institutes, Pandects, Code,
and Novels, was digested under forty titles, in the Greek idiom;
and the Basilics, which were improved and completed by his son
and grandson, must be referred to the original genius of the
founder of their race. This glorious reign was terminated by an
accident in the chase. A furious stag entangled his horns in the
belt of Basil, and raised him from his horse: he was rescued by
an attendant, who cut the belt and slew the animal; but the fall,
or the fever, exhausted the strength of the aged monarch, and he
expired in the palace amidst the tears of his family and people.
If he struck off the head of the faithful servant for presuming
to draw his sword against his sovereign, the pride of despotism,
which had lain dormant in his life, revived in the last moments
of despair, when he no longer wanted or valued the opinion of
mankind.
Of the four sons of the emperor, Constantine died before his
father, whose grief and credulity were amused by a flattering
impostor and a vain apparition. Stephen, the youngest, was
content with the honors of a patriarch and a saint; both Leo and
Alexander were alike invested with the purple, but the powers of
government were solely exercised by the elder brother. The name
of Leo the Sixth has been dignified with the title of
philosopher; and the union of the prince and the sage, of the
active and speculative virtues, would indeed constitute the
perfection of human nature. But the claims of Leo are far short
of this ideal excellence. Did he reduce his passions and
appetites under the dominion of reason? His life was spent in the
pomp of the palace, in the society of his wives and concubines;
and even the clemency which he showed, and the peace which he
strove to preserve, must be imputed to the softness and indolence
of his character. Did he subdue his prejudices, and those of his
subjects? His mind was tinged with the most puerile superstition;
the influence of the clergy, and the errors of the people, were
consecrated by his laws; and the oracles of Leo, which reveal, in
prophetic style, the fates of the empire, are founded on the arts
of astrology and divination. If we still inquire the reason of
his sage appellation, it can only be replied, that the son of
Basil was less ignorant than the greater part of his
contemporaries in church and state; that his education had been
directed by the learned Photius; and that several books of
profane and ecclesiastical science were composed by the pen, or
in the name, of the Imperial philosopher. But the reputation of
his philosophy and religion was overthrown by a domestic vice,
the repetition of his nuptials. The primitive ideas of the merit
and holiness of celibacy were preached by the monks and
entertained by the Greeks. Marriage was allowed as a necessary
means for the propagation of mankind; after the death of either
party, the survivor might satisfy, by a second union, the
weakness or the strength of the flesh: but a third marriage was
censured as a state of legal fornication; and a fourth was a sin
or scandal as yet unknown to the Christians of the East. In the
beginning of his reign, Leo himself had abolished the state of
concubines, and condemned, without annulling, third marriages:
but his patriotism and love soon compelled him to violate his own
laws, and to incur the penance, which in a similar case he had
imposed on his subjects. In his three first alliances, his
nuptial bed was unfruitful; the emperor required a female
companion, and the empire a legitimate heir. The beautiful Zoe
was introduced into the palace as a concubine; and after a trial
of her fecundity, and the birth of Constantine, her lover
declared his intention of legitimating the mother and the child,
by the celebration of his fourth nuptials. But the patriarch
Nicholas refused his blessing: the Imperial baptism of the young
prince was obtained by a promise of separation; and the
contumacious husband of Zoe was excluded from the communion of
the faithful. Neither the fear of exile, nor the desertion of his
brethren, nor the authority of the Latin church, nor the danger
of failure or doubt in the succession to the empire, could bend
the spirit of the inflexible monk. After the death of Leo, he was
recalled from exile to the civil and ecclesiastical
administration; and the edict of union which was promulgated in
the name of Constantine, condemned the future scandal of fourth
marriages, and left a tacit imputation on his own birth. In the
Greek language, purple and porphyry are the same word: and as the
colors of nature are invariable, we may learn, that a dark deep
red was the Tyrian dye which stained the purple of the ancients.
An apartment of the Byzantine palace was lined with porphyry: it
was reserved for the use of the pregnant empresses; and the royal
birth of their children was expressed by the appellation of
porphyrogenite, or born in the purple. Several of the Roman
princes had been blessed with an heir; but this peculiar surname
was first applied to Constantine the Seventh. His life and
titular reign were of equal duration; but of fifty-four years,
six had elapsed before his father’s death; and the son of Leo was
ever the voluntary or reluctant subject of those who oppressed
his weakness or abused his confidence. His uncle Alexander, who
had long been invested with the title of Augustus, was the first
colleague and governor of the young prince: but in a rapid career
of vice and folly, the brother of Leo already emulated the
reputation of Michael; and when he was extinguished by a timely
death, he entertained a project of castrating his nephew, and
leaving the empire to a worthless favorite. The succeeding years
of the minority of Constantine were occupied by his mother Zoe,
and a succession or council of seven regents, who pursued their
interest, gratified their passions, abandoned the republic,
supplanted each other, and finally vanished in the presence of a
soldier. From an obscure origin, Romanus Lecapenus had raised
himself to the command of the naval armies; and in the anarchy of
the times, had deserved, or at least had obtained, the national
esteem. With a victorious and affectionate fleet, he sailed from
the mouth of the Danube into the harbor of Constantinople, and
was hailed as the deliverer of the people, and the guardian of
the prince. His supreme office was at first defined by the new
appellation of father of the emperor; but Romanus soon disdained
the subordinate powers of a minister, and assumed with the titles
of Caesar and Augustus, the full independence of royalty, which
he held near five-and-twenty years. His three sons, Christopher,
Stephen, and Constantine were successively adorned with the same
honors, and the lawful emperor was degraded from the first to the
fifth rank in this college of princes. Yet, in the preservation
of his life and crown, he might still applaud his own fortune and
the clemency of the usurper. The examples of ancient and modern
history would have excused the ambition of Romanus: the powers
and the laws of the empire were in his hand; the spurious birth
of Constantine would have justified his exclusion; and the grave
or the monastery was open to receive the son of the concubine.
But Lecapenus does not appear to have possessed either the
virtues or the vices of a tyrant. The spirit and activity of his
private life dissolved away in the sunshine of the throne; and in
his licentious pleasures, he forgot the safety both of the
republic and of his family. Of a mild and religious character, he
respected the sanctity of oaths, the innocence of the youth, the
memory of his parents, and the attachment of the people. The
studious temper and retirement of Constantine disarmed the
jealousy of power: his books and music, his pen and his pencil,
were a constant source of amusement; and if he could improve a
scanty allowance by the sale of his pictures, if their price was
not enhanced by the name of the artist, he was endowed with a
personal talent, which few princes could employ in the hour of
adversity.
The fall of Romanus was occasioned by his own vices and those of
his children. After the decease of Christopher, his eldest son,
the two surviving brothers quarrelled with each other, and
conspired against their father. At the hour of noon, when all
strangers were regularly excluded from the palace, they entered
his apartment with an armed force, and conveyed him, in the habit
of a monk, to a small island in the Propontis, which was peopled
by a religious community. The rumor of this domestic revolution
excited a tumult in the city; but Porphyrogenitus alone, the true
and lawful emperor, was the object of the public care; and the
sons of Lecapenus were taught, by tardy experience, that they had
achieved a guilty and perilous enterprise for the benefit of
their rival. Their sister Helena, the wife of Constantine,
revealed, or supposed, their treacherous design of assassinating
her husband at the royal banquet. His loyal adherents were
alarmed, and the two usurpers were prevented, seized, degraded
from the purple, and embarked for the same island and monastery
where their father had been so lately confined. Old Romanus met
them on the beach with a sarcastic smile, and, after a just
reproach of their folly and ingratitude, presented his Imperial
colleagues with an equal share of his water and vegetable diet.
In the fortieth year of his reign, Constantine the Seventh
obtained the possession of the Eastern world, which he ruled or
seemed to rule, near fifteen years. But he was devoid of that
energy of character which could emerge into a life of action and
glory; and the studies, which had amused and dignified his
leisure, were incompatible with the serious duties of a
sovereign. The emperor neglected the practice to instruct his son
Romanus in the theory of government; while he indulged the habits
of intemperance and sloth, he dropped the reins of the
administration into the hands of Helena his wife; and, in the
shifting scene of her favor and caprice, each minister was
regretted in the promotion of a more worthless successor. Yet the
birth and misfortunes of Constantine had endeared him to the
Greeks; they excused his failings; they respected his learning,
his innocence, and charity, his love of justice; and the ceremony
of his funeral was mourned with the unfeigned tears of his
subjects. The body, according to ancient custom, lay in state in
the vestibule of the palace; and the civil and military officers,
the patricians, the senate, and the clergy approached in due
order to adore and kiss the inanimate corpse of their sovereign.
Before the procession moved towards the Imperial sepulchre, a
herald proclaimed this awful admonition: “Arise, O king of the
world, and obey the summons of the King of kings!”
The death of Constantine was imputed to poison; and his son
Romanus, who derived that name from his maternal grandfather,
ascended the throne of Constantinople. A prince who, at the age
of twenty, could be suspected of anticipating his inheritance,
must have been already lost in the public esteem; yet Romanus was
rather weak than wicked; and the largest share of the guilt was
transferred to his wife, Theophano, a woman of base origin
masculine spirit, and flagitious manners. The sense of personal
glory and public happiness, the true pleasures of royalty, were
unknown to the son of Constantine; and, while the two brothers,
Nicephorus and Leo, triumphed over the Saracens, the hours which
the emperor owed to his people were consumed in strenuous
idleness. In the morning he visited the circus; at noon he
feasted the senators; the greater part of the afternoon he spent
in the sphoeristerium, or tennis-court, the only theatre of his
victories; from thence he passed over to the Asiatic side of the
Bosphorus, hunted and killed four wild boars of the largest size,
and returned to the palace, proudly content with the labors of
the day. In strength and beauty he was conspicuous above his
equals: tall and straight as a young cypress, his complexion was
fair and florid, his eyes sparkling, his shoulders broad, his
nose long and aquiline. Yet even these perfections were
insufficient to fix the love of Theophano; and, after a reign of
four 1013 years, she mingled for her husband the same deadly
draught which she had composed for his father.
1013 (return) [ Three years and five months. Leo Diaconus in
Niebuhr. Byz p. 50—M.]
By his marriage with this impious woman, Romanus the younger left
two sons, Basil the Second and Constantine the Ninth, and two
daughters, Theophano and Anne. The eldest sister was given to
Otho the Second, emperor of the West; the younger became the wife
of Wolodomir, great duke and apostle of russia, and by the
marriage of her granddaughter with Henry the First, king of
France, the blood of the Macedonians, and perhaps of the
Arsacides, still flows in the veins of the Bourbon line. After
the death of her husband, the empress aspired to reign in the
name of her sons, the elder of whom was five, and the younger
only two, years of age; but she soon felt the instability of a
throne which was supported by a female who could not be esteemed,
and two infants who could not be feared. Theophano looked around
for a protector, and threw herself into the arms of the bravest
soldier; her heart was capacious; but the deformity of the new
favorite rendered it more than probable that interest was the
motive and excuse of her love. Nicephorus Phocus united, in the
popular opinion, the double merit of a hero and a saint. In the
former character, his qualifications were genuine and splendid:
the descendant of a race illustrious by their military exploits,
he had displayed in every station and in every province the
courage of a soldier and the conduct of a chief; and Nicephorus
was crowned with recent laurels, from the important conquest of
the Isle of Crete. His religion was of a more ambiguous cast; and
his hair-cloth, his fasts, his pious idiom, and his wish to
retire from the business of the world, were a convenient mask for
his dark and dangerous ambition. Yet he imposed on a holy
patriarch, by whose influence, and by a decree of the senate, he
was intrusted, during the minority of the young princes, with the
absolute and independent command of the Oriental armies. As soon
as he had secured the leaders and the troops, he boldly marched
to Constantinople, trampled on his enemies, avowed his
correspondence with the empress, and without degrading her sons,
assumed, with the title of Augustus, the preeminence of rank and
the plenitude of power. But his marriage with Theophano was
refused by the same patriarch who had placed the crown on his
head: by his second nuptials he incurred a year of canonical
penance; 1014 a bar of spiritual affinity was opposed to their
celebration; and some evasion and perjury were required to
silence the scruples of the clergy and people. The popularity of
the emperor was lost in the purple: in a reign of six years he
provoked the hatred of strangers and subjects: and the hypocrisy
and avarice of the first Nicephorus were revived in his
successor. Hypocrisy I shall never justify or palliate; but I
will dare to observe, that the odious vice of avarice is of all
others most hastily arraigned, and most unmercifully condemned.
In a private citizen, our judgment seldom expects an accurate
scrutiny into his fortune and expense; and in a steward of the
public treasure, frugality is always a virtue, and the increase
of taxes too often an indispensable duty. In the use of his
patrimony, the generous temper of Nicephorus had been proved; and
the revenue was strictly applied to the service of the state:
each spring the emperor marched in person against the Saracens;
and every Roman might compute the employment of his taxes in
triumphs, conquests, and the security of the Eastern barrier.
1015
1014 (return) [ The canonical objection to the marriage was his
relation of Godfather sons. Leo Diac. p. 50.—M.]
1015 (return) [ He retook Antioch, and brought home as a trophy
the sword of “the most unholy and impious Mahomet.” Leo Diac. p.
76.—M.]
Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part
IV.
Among the warriors who promoted his elevation, and served under
his standard, a noble and valiant Armenian had deserved and
obtained the most eminent rewards. The stature of John Zimisces
was below the ordinary standard: but this diminutive body was
endowed with strength, beauty, and the soul of a hero. By the
jealousy of the emperor’s brother, he was degraded from the
office of general of the East, to that of director of the posts,
and his murmurs were chastised with disgrace and exile. But
Zimisces was ranked among the numerous lovers of the empress: on
her intercession, he was permitted to reside at Chalcedon, in the
neighborhood of the capital: her bounty was repaid in his
clandestine and amorous visits to the palace; and Theophano
consented, with alacrity, to the death of an ugly and penurious
husband. Some bold and trusty conspirators were concealed in her
most private chambers: in the darkness of a winter night,
Zimisces, with his principal companions, embarked in a small
boat, traversed the Bosphorus, landed at the palace stairs, and
silently ascended a ladder of ropes, which was cast down by the
female attendants. Neither his own suspicions, nor the warnings
of his friends, nor the tardy aid of his brother Leo, nor the
fortress which he had erected in the palace, could protect
Nicephorus from a domestic foe, at whose voice every door was
open to the assassins. As he slept on a bear-skin on the ground,
he was roused by their noisy intrusion, and thirty daggers
glittered before his eyes. It is doubtful whether Zimisces
imbrued his hands in the blood of his sovereign; but he enjoyed
the inhuman spectacle of revenge. 1016 The murder was protracted
by insult and cruelty: and as soon as the head of Nicephorus was
shown from the window, the tumult was hushed, and the Armenian
was emperor of the East. On the day of his coronation, he was
stopped on the threshold of St. Sophia, by the intrepid
patriarch; who charged his conscience with the deed of treason
and blood; and required, as a sign of repentance, that he should
separate himself from his more criminal associate. This sally of
apostolic zeal was not offensive to the prince, since he could
neither love nor trust a woman who had repeatedly violated the
most sacred obligations; and Theophano, instead of sharing his
imperial fortune, was dismissed with ignominy from his bed and
palace. In their last interview, she displayed a frantic and
impotent rage; accused the ingratitude of her lover; assaulted,
with words and blows, her son Basil, as he stood silent and
submissive in the presence of a superior colleague; and avowed
her own prostitution in proclaiming the illegitimacy of his
birth. The public indignation was appeased by her exile, and the
punishment of the meaner accomplices: the death of an unpopular
prince was forgiven; and the guilt of Zimisces was forgotten in
the splendor of his virtues. Perhaps his profusion was less
useful to the state than the avarice of Nicephorus; but his
gentle and generous behavior delighted all who approached his
person; and it was only in the paths of victory that he trod in
the footsteps of his predecessor. The greatest part of his reign
was employed in the camp and the field: his personal valor and
activity were signalized on the Danube and the Tigris, the
ancient boundaries of the Roman world; and by his double triumph
over the Russians and the Saracens, he deserved the titles of
savior of the empire, and conqueror of the East. In his last
return from Syria, he observed that the most fruitful lands of
his new provinces were possessed by the eunuchs. “And is it for
them,” he exclaimed, with honest indignation, “that we have
fought and conquered? Is it for them that we shed our blood, and
exhaust the treasures of our people?” The complaint was reechoed
to the palace, and the death of Zimisces is strongly marked with
the suspicion of poison.
1016 (return) [ According to Leo Diaconus, Zimisces, after
ordering the wounded emperor to be dragged to his feet, and
heaping him with insult, to which the miserable man only replied
by invoking the name of the “mother of God,” with his own hand
plucked his beard, while his accomplices beat out his teeth with
the hilts of their swords, and then trampling him to the ground,
drove his sword into his skull. Leo Diac, in Niebuhr Byz. Hist. l
vii. c. 8. p. 88.—M.]
Under this usurpation, or regency, of twelve years, the two
lawful emperors, Basil and Constantine, had silently grown to the
age of manhood. Their tender years had been incapable of
dominion: the respectful modesty of their attendance and
salutation was due to the age and merit of their guardians; the
childless ambition of those guardians had no temptation to
violate their right of succession: their patrimony was ably and
faithfully administered; and the premature death of Zimisces was
a loss, rather than a benefit, to the sons of Romanus. Their want
of experience detained them twelve years longer the obscure and
voluntary pupils of a minister, who extended his reign by
persuading them to indulge the pleasures of youth, and to disdain
the labors of government. In this silken web, the weakness of
Constantine was forever entangled; but his elder brother felt the
impulse of genius and the desire of action; he frowned, and the
minister was no more. Basil was the acknowledged sovereign of
Constantinople and the provinces of Europe; but Asia was
oppressed by two veteran generals, Phocas and Sclerus, who,
alternately friends and enemies, subjects and rebels, maintained
their independence, and labored to emulate the example of
successful usurpation. Against these domestic enemies the son of
Romanus first drew his sword, and they trembled in the presence
of a lawful and high-spirited prince. The first, in the front of
battle, was thrown from his horse, by the stroke of poison, or an
arrow; the second, who had been twice loaded with chains, 1017
and twice invested with the purple, was desirous of ending in
peace the small remainder of his days. As the aged suppliant
approached the throne, with dim eyes and faltering steps, leaning
on his two attendants, the emperor exclaimed, in the insolence of
youth and power, “And is this the man who has so long been the
object of our terror?” After he had confirmed his own authority,
and the peace of the empire, the trophies of Nicephorus and
Zimisces would not suffer their royal pupil to sleep in the
palace. His long and frequent expeditions against the Saracens
were rather glorious than useful to the empire; but the final
destruction of the kingdom of Bulgaria appears, since the time of
Belisarius, the most important triumph of the Roman arms. Yet,
instead of applauding their victorious prince, his subjects
detested the rapacious and rigid avarice of Basil; and in the
imperfect narrative of his exploits, we can only discern the
courage, patience, and ferociousness of a soldier. A vicious
education, which could not subdue his spirit, had clouded his
mind; he was ignorant of every science; and the remembrance of
his learned and feeble grandsire might encourage his real or
affected contempt of laws and lawyers, of artists and arts. Of
such a character, in such an age, superstition took a firm and
lasting possession; after the first license of his youth, Basil
the Second devoted his life, in the palace and the camp, to the
penance of a hermit, wore the monastic habit under his robes and
armor, observed a vow of continence, and imposed on his appetites
a perpetual abstinence from wine and flesh. In the sixty-eighth
year of his age, his martial spirit urged him to embark in person
for a holy war against the Saracens of Sicily; he was prevented
by death, and Basil, surnamed the Slayer of the Bulgarians, was
dismissed from the world with the blessings of the clergy and the
curse of the people. After his decease, his brother Constantine
enjoyed, about three years, the power, or rather the pleasures,
of royalty; and his only care was the settlement of the
succession. He had enjoyed sixty-six years the title of Augustus;
and the reign of the two brothers is the longest, and most
obscure, of the Byzantine history.
1017 (return) [ Once by the caliph, once by his rival Phocas.
Compare De Beau l. p. 176.—M.]
A lineal succession of five emperors, in a period of one hundred
and sixty years, had attached the loyalty of the Greeks to the
Macedonian dynasty, which had been thrice respected by the
usurpers of their power. After the death of Constantine the
Ninth, the last male of the royal race, a new and broken scene
presents itself, and the accumulated years of twelve emperors do
not equal the space of his single reign. His elder brother had
preferred his private chastity to the public interest, and
Constantine himself had only three daughters; Eudocia, who took
the veil, and Zoe and Theodora, who were preserved till a mature
age in a state of ignorance and virginity. When their marriage
was discussed in the council of their dying father, the cold or
pious Theodora refused to give an heir to the empire, but her
sister Zoe presented herself a willing victim at the altar.
Romanus Argyrus, a patrician of a graceful person and fair
reputation, was chosen for her husband, and, on his declining
that honor, was informed, that blindness or death was the second
alternative. The motive of his reluctance was conjugal affection
but his faithful wife sacrificed her own happiness to his safety
and greatness; and her entrance into a monastery removed the only
bar to the Imperial nuptials. After the decease of Constantine,
the sceptre devolved to Romanus the Third; but his labors at home
and abroad were equally feeble and fruitless; and the mature age,
the forty-eight years of Zoe, were less favorable to the hopes of
pregnancy than to the indulgence of pleasure. Her favorite
chamberlain was a handsome Paphlagonian of the name of Michael,
whose first trade had been that of a money-changer; and Romanus,
either from gratitude or equity, connived at their criminal
intercourse, or accepted a slight assurance of their innocence.
But Zoe soon justified the Roman maxim, that every adulteress is
capable of poisoning her husband; and the death of Romanus was
instantly followed by the scandalous marriage and elevation of
Michael the Fourth. The expectations of Zoe were, however,
disappointed: instead of a vigorous and grateful lover, she had
placed in her bed a miserable wretch, whose health and reason
were impaired by epileptic fits, and whose conscience was
tormented by despair and remorse. The most skilful physicians of
the mind and body were summoned to his aid; and his hopes were
amused by frequent pilgrimages to the baths, and to the tombs of
the most popular saints; the monks applauded his penance, and,
except restitution, (but to whom should he have restored?)
Michael sought every method of expiating his guilt. While he
groaned and prayed in sackcloth and ashes, his brother, the
eunuch John, smiled at his remorse, and enjoyed the harvest of a
crime of which himself was the secret and most guilty author. His
administration was only the art of satiating his avarice, and Zoe
became a captive in the palace of her fathers, and in the hands
of her slaves. When he perceived the irretrievable decline of his
brother’s health, he introduced his nephew, another Michael, who
derived his surname of Calaphates from his father’s occupation in
the careening of vessels: at the command of the eunuch, Zoe
adopted for her son the son of a mechanic; and this fictitious
heir was invested with the title and purple of the Caesars, in
the presence of the senate and clergy. So feeble was the
character of Zoe, that she was oppressed by the liberty and power
which she recovered by the death of the Paphlagonian; and at the
end of four days, she placed the crown on the head of Michael the
Fifth, who had protested, with tears and oaths, that he should
ever reign the first and most obedient of her subjects.
The only act of his short reign was his base ingratitude to his
benefactors, the eunuch and the empress. The disgrace of the
former was pleasing to the public: but the murmurs, and at length
the clamors, of Constantinople deplored the exile of Zoe, the
daughter of so many emperors; her vices were forgotten, and
Michael was taught, that there is a period in which the patience
of the tamest slaves rises into fury and revenge. The citizens of
every degree assembled in a formidable tumult which lasted three
days; they besieged the palace, forced the gates, recalled their
mothers, Zoe from her prison, Theodora from her monastery, and
condemned the son of Calaphates to the loss of his eyes or of his
life. For the first time the Greeks beheld with surprise the two
royal sisters seated on the same throne, presiding in the senate,
and giving audience to the ambassadors of the nations. But the
singular union subsisted no more than two months; the two
sovereigns, their tempers, interests, and adherents, were
secretly hostile to each other; and as Theodora was still averse
to marriage, the indefatigable Zoe, at the age of sixty,
consented, for the public good, to sustain the embraces of a
third husband, and the censures of the Greek church. His name and
number were Constantine the Tenth, and the epithet of Monomachus,
the single combatant, must have been expressive of his valor and
victory in some public or private quarrel. But his health was
broken by the tortures of the gout, and his dissolute reign was
spent in the alternative of sickness and pleasure. A fair and
noble widow had accompanied Constantine in his exile to the Isle
of Lesbos, and Sclerena gloried in the appellation of his
mistress. After his marriage and elevation, she was invested with
the title and pomp of Augusta, and occupied a contiguous
apartment in the palace. The lawful consort (such was the
delicacy or corruption of Zoe) consented to this strange and
scandalous partition; and the emperor appeared in public between
his wife and his concubine. He survived them both; but the last
measures of Constantine to change the order of succession were
prevented by the more vigilant friends of Theodora; and after his
decease, she resumed, with the general consent, the possession of
her inheritance. In her name, and by the influence of four
eunuchs, the Eastern world was peaceably governed about nineteen
months; and as they wished to prolong their dominion, they
persuaded the aged princess to nominate for her successor Michael
the Sixth. The surname of Stratioticus declares his military
profession; but the crazy and decrepit veteran could only see
with the eyes, and execute with the hands, of his ministers.
Whilst he ascended the throne, Theodora sunk into the grave; the
last of the Macedonian or Basilian dynasty. I have hastily
reviewed, and gladly dismiss, this shameful and destructive
period of twenty-eight years, in which the Greeks, degraded below
the common level of servitude, were transferred like a herd of
cattle by the choice or caprice of two impotent females.
From this night of slavery, a ray of freedom, or at least of
spirit, begins to emerge: the Greeks either preserved or revived
the use of surnames, which perpetuate the fame of hereditary
virtue: and we now discern the rise, succession, and alliances of
the last dynasties of Constantinople and Trebizond. The Comneni,
who upheld for a while the fate of the sinking empire, assumed
the honor of a Roman origin: but the family had been long since
transported from Italy to Asia. Their patrimonial estate was
situate in the district of Castamona, in the neighborhood of the
Euxine; and one of their chiefs, who had already entered the
paths of ambition, revisited with affection, perhaps with regret,
the modest though honorable dwelling of his fathers. The first of
their line was the illustrious Manuel, who in the reign of the
second Basil, contributed by war and treaty to appease the
troubles of the East: he left, in a tender age, two sons, Isaac
and John, whom, with the consciousness of desert, he bequeathed
to the gratitude and favor of his sovereign. The noble youths
were carefully trained in the learning of the monastery, the arts
of the palace, and the exercises of the camp: and from the
domestic service of the guards, they were rapidly promoted to the
command of provinces and armies. Their fraternal union doubled
the force and reputation of the Comneni, and their ancient
nobility was illustrated by the marriage of the two brothers,
with a captive princess of Bulgaria, and the daughter of a
patrician, who had obtained the name of Charon from the number of
enemies whom he had sent to the infernal shades. The soldiers had
served with reluctant loyalty a series of effeminate masters; the
elevation of Michael the Sixth was a personal insult to the more
deserving generals; and their discontent was inflamed by the
parsimony of the emperor and the insolence of the eunuchs. They
secretly assembled in the sanctuary of St. Sophia, and the votes
of the military synod would have been unanimous in favor of the
old and valiant Catacalon, if the patriotism or modesty of the
veteran had not suggested the importance of birth as well as
merit in the choice of a sovereign. Isaac Comnenus was approved
by general consent, and the associates separated without delay to
meet in the plains of Phrygia at the head of their respective
squadrons and detachments. The cause of Michael was defended in a
single battle by the mercenaries of the Imperial guard, who were
aliens to the public interest, and animated only by a principle
of honor and gratitude. After their defeat, the fears of the
emperor solicited a treaty, which was almost accepted by the
moderation of the Comnenian. But the former was betrayed by his
ambassadors, and the latter was prevented by his friends. The
solitary Michael submitted to the voice of the people; the
patriarch annulled their oath of allegiance; and as he shaved the
head of the royal monk, congratulated his beneficial exchange of
temporal royalty for the kingdom of heaven; an exchange, however,
which the priest, on his own account, would probably have
declined. By the hands of the same patriarch, Isaac Comnenus was
solemnly crowned; the sword which he inscribed on his coins might
be an offensive symbol, if it implied his title by conquest; but
this sword would have been drawn against the foreign and domestic
enemies of the state. The decline of his health and vigor
suspended the operation of active virtue; and the prospect of
approaching death determined him to interpose some moments
between life and eternity. But instead of leaving the empire as
the marriage portion of his daughter, his reason and inclination
concurred in the preference of his brother John, a soldier, a
patriot, and the father of five sons, the future pillars of an
hereditary succession. His first modest reluctance might be the
natural dictates of discretion and tenderness, but his obstinate
and successful perseverance, however it may dazzle with the show
of virtue, must be censured as a criminal desertion of his duty,
and a rare offence against his family and country. The purple
which he had refused was accepted by Constantine Ducas, a friend
of the Comnenian house, and whose noble birth was adorned with
the experience and reputation of civil policy. In the monastic
habit, Isaac recovered his health, and survived two years his
voluntary abdication. At the command of his abbot, he observed
the rule of St. Basil, and executed the most servile offices of
the convent: but his latent vanity was gratified by the frequent
and respectful visits of the reigning monarch, who revered in his
person the character of a benefactor and a saint. If Constantine
the Eleventh were indeed the subject most worthy of empire, we
must pity the debasement of the age and nation in which he was
chosen. In the labor of puerile declamations he sought, without
obtaining, the crown of eloquence, more precious, in his opinion,
than that of Rome; and in the subordinate functions of a judge,
he forgot the duties of a sovereign and a warrior. Far from
imitating the patriotic indifference of the authors of his
greatness, Ducas was anxious only to secure, at the expense of
the republic, the power and prosperity of his children. His three
sons, Michael the Seventh, Andronicus the First, and Constantine
the Twelfth, were invested, in a tender age, with the equal title
of Augustus; and the succession was speedily opened by their
father’s death. His widow, Eudocia, was intrusted with the
administration; but experience had taught the jealousy of the
dying monarch to protect his sons from the danger of her second
nuptials; and her solemn engagement, attested by the principal
senators, was deposited in the hands of the patriarch. Before the
end of seven months, the wants of Eudocia, or those of the state,
called aloud for the male virtues of a soldier; and her heart had
already chosen Romanus Diogenes, whom she raised from the
scaffold to the throne. The discovery of a treasonable attempt
had exposed him to the severity of the laws: his beauty and valor
absolved him in the eyes of the empress; and Romanus, from a mild
exile, was recalled on the second day to the command of the
Oriental armies.
Her royal choice was yet unknown to the public; and the promise
which would have betrayed her falsehood and levity, was stolen by
a dexterous emissary from the ambition of the patriarch. Xiphilin
at first alleged the sanctity of oaths, and the sacred nature of
a trust; but a whisper, that his brother was the future emperor,
relaxed his scruples, and forced him to confess that the public
safety was the supreme law. He resigned the important paper; and
when his hopes were confounded by the nomination of Romanus, he
could no longer regain his security, retract his declarations,
nor oppose the second nuptials of the empress. Yet a murmur was
heard in the palace; and the Barbarian guards had raised their
battle-axes in the cause of the house of Lucas, till the young
princes were soothed by the tears of their mother and the solemn
assurances of the fidelity of their guardian, who filled the
Imperial station with dignity and honor. Hereafter I shall relate
his valiant, but unsuccessful, efforts to resist the progress of
the Turks. His defeat and captivity inflicted a deadly wound on
the Byzantine monarchy of the East; and after he was released
from the chains of the sultan, he vainly sought his wife and his
subjects. His wife had been thrust into a monastery, and the
subjects of Romanus had embraced the rigid maxim of the civil
law, that a prisoner in the hands of the enemy is deprived, as by
the stroke of death, of all the public and private rights of a
citizen. In the general consternation, the Caesar John asserted
the indefeasible right of his three nephews: Constantinople
listened to his voice: and the Turkish captive was proclaimed in
the capital, and received on the frontier, as an enemy of the
republic. Romanus was not more fortunate in domestic than in
foreign war: the loss of two battles compelled him to yield, on
the assurance of fair and honorable treatment; but his enemies
were devoid of faith or humanity; and, after the cruel extinction
of his sight, his wounds were left to bleed and corrupt, till in
a few days he was relieved from a state of misery. Under the
triple reign of the house of Ducas, the two younger brothers were
reduced to the vain honors of the purple; but the eldest, the
pusillanimous Michael, was incapable of sustaining the Roman
sceptre; and his surname of Parapinaces denotes the reproach
which he shared with an avaricious favorite, who enhanced the
price, and diminished the measure, of wheat. In the school of
Psellus, and after the example of his mother, the son of Eudocia
made some proficiency in philosophy and rhetoric; but his
character was degraded, rather than ennobled, by the virtues of a
monk and the learning of a sophist. Strong in the contempt of
their sovereign and their own esteem, two generals, at the head
of the European and Asiatic legions, assumed the purple at
Adrianople and Nice. Their revolt was in the same months; they
bore the same name of Nicephorus; but the two candidates were
distinguished by the surnames of Bryennius and Botaniates; the
former in the maturity of wisdom and courage, the latter
conspicuous only by the memory of his past exploits. While
Botaniates advanced with cautious and dilatory steps, his active
competitor stood in arms before the gates of Constantinople. The
name of Bryennius was illustrious; his cause was popular; but his
licentious troops could not be restrained from burning and
pillaging a suburb; and the people, who would have hailed the
rebel, rejected and repulsed the incendiary of his country. This
change of the public opinion was favorable to Botaniates, who at
length, with an army of Turks, approached the shores of
Chalcedon. A formal invitation, in the name of the patriarch, the
synod, and the senate, was circulated through the streets of
Constantinople; and the general assembly, in the dome of St.
Sophia, debated, with order and calmness, on the choice of their
sovereign. The guards of Michael would have dispersed this
unarmed multitude; but the feeble emperor, applauding his own
moderation and clemency, resigned the ensigns of royalty, and was
rewarded with the monastic habit, and the title of Archbishop of
Ephesus. He left a son, a Constantine, born and educated in the
purple; and a daughter of the house of Ducas illustrated the
blood, and confirmed the succession, of the Comnenian dynasty.
John Comnenus, the brother of the emperor Isaac, survived in
peace and dignity his generous refusal of the sceptre. By his
wife Anne, a woman of masculine spirit and a policy, he left
eight children: the three daughters multiplied the Comnenian
alliance with the noblest of the Greeks: of the five sons, Manuel
was stopped by a premature death; Isaac and Alexius restored the
Imperial greatness of their house, which was enjoyed without toil
or danger by the two younger brethren, Adrian and Nicephorus.
Alexius, the third and most illustrious of the brothers was
endowed by nature with the choicest gifts both of mind and body:
they were cultivated by a liberal education, and exercised in the
school of obedience and adversity. The youth was dismissed from
the perils of the Turkish war, by the paternal care of the
emperor Romanus: but the mother of the Comneni, with her aspiring
face, was accused of treason, and banished, by the sons of Ducas,
to an island in the Propontis. The two brothers soon emerged into
favor and action, fought by each other’s side against the rebels
and Barbarians, and adhered to the emperor Michael, till he was
deserted by the world and by himself. In his first interview with
Botaniates, “Prince,” said Alexius with a noble frankness, “my
duty rendered me your enemy; the decrees of God and of the people
have made me your subject. Judge of my future loyalty by my past
opposition.” The successor of Michael entertained him with esteem
and confidence: his valor was employed against three rebels, who
disturbed the peace of the empire, or at least of the emperors.
Ursel, Bryennius, and Basilacius, were formidable by their
numerous forces and military fame: they were successively
vanquished in the field, and led in chains to the foot of the
throne; and whatever treatment they might receive from a timid
and cruel court, they applauded the clemency, as well as the
courage, of their conqueror. But the loyalty of the Comneni was
soon tainted by fear and suspicion; nor is it easy to settle
between a subject and a despot, the debt of gratitude, which the
former is tempted to claim by a revolt, and the latter to
discharge by an executioner. The refusal of Alexius to march
against a fourth rebel, the husband of his sister, destroyed the
merit or memory of his past services: the favorites of Botaniates
provoked the ambition which they apprehended and accused; and the
retreat of the two brothers might be justified by the defence of
their life and liberty. The women of the family were deposited in
a sanctuary, respected by tyrants: the men, mounted on horseback,
sallied from the city, and erected the standard of civil war. The
soldiers who had been gradually assembled in the capital and the
neighborhood, were devoted to the cause of a victorious and
injured leader: the ties of common interest and domestic alliance
secured the attachment of the house of Ducas; and the generous
dispute of the Comneni was terminated by the decisive resolution
of Isaac, who was the first to invest his younger brother with
the name and ensigns of royalty. They returned to Constantinople,
to threaten rather than besiege that impregnable fortress; but
the fidelity of the guards was corrupted; a gate was surprised,
and the fleet was occupied by the active courage of George
Palaeologus, who fought against his father, without foreseeing
that he labored for his posterity. Alexius ascended the throne;
and his aged competitor disappeared in a monastery. An army of
various nations was gratified with the pillage of the city; but
the public disorders were expiated by the tears and fasts of the
Comneni, who submitted to every penance compatible with the
possession of the empire. The life of the emperor Alexius has
been delineated by a favorite daughter, who was inspired by a
tender regard for his person and a laudable zeal to perpetuate
his virtues. Conscious of the just suspicions of her readers, the
princess Anna Comnena repeatedly protests, that, besides her
personal knowledge, she had searched the discourses and writings
of the most respectable veterans: and after an interval of thirty
years, forgotten by, and forgetful of, the world, her mournful
solitude was inaccessible to hope and fear; and that truth, the
naked perfect truth, was more dear and sacred than the memory of
her parent. Yet, instead of the simplicity of style and narrative
which wins our belief, an elaborate affectation of rhetoric and
science betrays in every page the vanity of a female author. The
genuine character of Alexius is lost in a vague constellation of
virtues; and the perpetual strain of panegyric and apology
awakens our jealousy, to question the veracity of the historian
and the merit of the hero. We cannot, however, refuse her
judicious and important remark, that the disorders of the times
were the misfortune and the glory of Alexius; and that every
calamity which can afflict a declining empire was accumulated on
his reign by the justice of Heaven and the vices of his
predecessors. In the East, the victorious Turks had spread, from
Persia to the Hellespont, the reign of the Koran and the
Crescent: the West was invaded by the adventurous valor of the
Normans; and, in the moments of peace, the Danube poured forth
new swarms, who had gained, in the science of war, what they had
lost in the ferociousness of manners. The sea was not less
hostile than the land; and while the frontiers were assaulted by
an open enemy, the palace was distracted with secret treason and
conspiracy. On a sudden, the banner of the Cross was displayed by
the Latins; Europe was precipitated on Asia; and Constantinople
had almost been swept away by this impetuous deluge. In the
tempest, Alexius steered the Imperial vessel with dexterity and
courage. At the head of his armies, he was bold in action,
skilful in stratagem, patient of fatigue, ready to improve his
advantages, and rising from his defeats with inexhaustible vigor.
The discipline of the camp was revived, and a new generation of
men and soldiers was created by the example and precepts of their
leader. In his intercourse with the Latins, Alexius was patient
and artful: his discerning eye pervaded the new system of an
unknown world and I shall hereafter describe the superior policy
with which he balanced the interests and passions of the
champions of the first crusade. In a long reign of thirty-seven
years, he subdued and pardoned the envy of his equals: the laws
of public and private order were restored: the arts of wealth and
science were cultivated: the limits of the empire were enlarged
in Europe and Asia; and the Comnenian sceptre was transmitted to
his children of the third and fourth generation. Yet the
difficulties of the times betrayed some defects in his character;
and have exposed his memory to some just or ungenerous reproach.
The reader may possibly smile at the lavish praise which his
daughter so often bestows on a flying hero: the weakness or
prudence of his situation might be mistaken for a want of
personal courage; and his political arts are branded by the
Latins with the names of deceit and dissimulation. The increase
of the male and female branches of his family adorned the throne,
and secured the succession; but their princely luxury and pride
offended the patricians, exhausted the revenue, and insulted the
misery of the people. Anna is a faithful witness that his
happiness was destroyed, and his health was broken, by the cares
of a public life; the patience of Constantinople was fatigued by
the length and severity of his reign; and before Alexius expired,
he had lost the love and reverence of his subjects. The clergy
could not forgive his application of the sacred riches to the
defence of the state; but they applauded his theological learning
and ardent zeal for the orthodox faith, which he defended with
his tongue, his pen, and his sword. His character was degraded by
the superstition of the Greeks; and the same inconsistent
principle of human nature enjoined the emperor to found a
hospital for the poor and infirm, and to direct the execution of
a heretic, who was burned alive in the square of St. Sophia. Even
the sincerity of his moral and religious virtues was suspected by
the persons who had passed their lives in his familiar
confidence. In his last hours, when he was pressed by his wife
Irene to alter the succession, he raised his head, and breathed a
pious ejaculation on the vanity of this world. The indignant
reply of the empress may be inscribed as an epitaph on his tomb,
“You die, as you have lived—A Hypocrite!”
It was the wish of Irene to supplant the eldest of her surviving
sons, in favor of her daughter the princess Anne whose philosophy
would not have refused the weight of a diadem. But the order of
male succession was asserted by the friends of their country; the
lawful heir drew the royal signet from the finger of his
insensible or conscious father and the empire obeyed the master
of the palace. Anna Comnena was stimulated by ambition and
revenge to conspire against the life of her brother, and when the
design was prevented by the fears or scruples of her husband, she
passionately exclaimed that nature had mistaken the two sexes,
and had endowed Bryennius with the soul of a woman. The two sons
of Alexius, John and Isaac, maintained the fraternal concord, the
hereditary virtue of their race, and the younger brother was
content with the title of Sebastocrator, which approached the
dignity, without sharing the power, of the emperor. In the same
person the claims of primogeniture and merit were fortunately
united; his swarthy complexion, harsh features, and diminutive
stature, had suggested the ironical surname of Calo-Johannes, or
John the Handsome, which his grateful subjects more seriously
applied to the beauties of his mind. After the discovery of her
treason, the life and fortune of Anne were justly forfeited to
the laws. Her life was spared by the clemency of the emperor; but
he visited the pomp and treasures of her palace, and bestowed the
rich confiscation on the most deserving of his friends. That
respectable friend Axuch, a slave of Turkish extraction, presumed
to decline the gift, and to intercede for the criminal: his
generous master applauded and imitated the virtue of his
favorite, and the reproach or complaint of an injured brother was
the only chastisement of the guilty princess. After this example
of clemency, the remainder of his reign was never disturbed by
conspiracy or rebellion: feared by his nobles, beloved by his
people, John was never reduced to the painful necessity of
punishing, or even of pardoning, his personal enemies. During his
government of twenty-five years, the penalty of death was
abolished in the Roman empire, a law of mercy most delightful to
the humane theorist, but of which the practice, in a large and
vicious community, is seldom consistent with the public safety.
Severe to himself, indulgent to others, chaste, frugal,
abstemious, the philosophic Marcus would not have disdained the
artless virtues of his successor, derived from his heart, and not
borrowed from the schools. He despised and moderated the stately
magnificence of the Byzantine court, so oppressive to the people,
so contemptible to the eye of reason. Under such a prince,
innocence had nothing to fear, and merit had every thing to hope;
and, without assuming the tyrannic office of a censor, he
introduced a gradual though visible reformation in the public and
private manners of Constantinople. The only defect of this
accomplished character was the frailty of noble minds, the love
of arms and military glory. Yet the frequent expeditions of John
the Handsome may be justified, at least in their principle, by
the necessity of repelling the Turks from the Hellespont and the
Bosphorus. The sultan of Iconium was confined to his capital, the
Barbarians were driven to the mountains, and the maritime
provinces of Asia enjoyed the transient blessings of their
deliverance. From Constantinople to Antioch and Aleppo, he
repeatedly marched at the head of a victorious army, and in the
sieges and battles of this holy war, his Latin allies were
astonished by the superior spirit and prowess of a Greek. As he
began to indulge the ambitious hope of restoring the ancient
limits of the empire, as he revolved in his mind, the Euphrates
and Tigris, the dominion of Syria, and the conquest of Jerusalem,
the thread of his life and of the public felicity was broken by a
singular accident. He hunted the wild boar in the valley of
Anazarbus, and had fixed his javelin in the body of the furious
animal; but in the struggle a poisoned arrow dropped from his
quiver, and a slight wound in his hand, which produced a
mortification, was fatal to the best and greatest of the
Comnenian princes.
Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part
V.
A premature death had swept away the two eldest sons of John the
Handsome; of the two survivors, Isaac and Manuel, his judgment or
affection preferred the younger; and the choice of their dying
prince was ratified by the soldiers, who had applauded the valor
of his favorite in the Turkish war. The faithful Axuch hastened
to the capital, secured the person of Isaac in honorable
confinement, and purchased, with a gift of two hundred pounds of
silver, the leading ecclesiastics of St. Sophia, who possessed a
decisive voice in the consecration of an emperor. With his
veteran and affectionate troops, Manuel soon visited
Constantinople; his brother acquiesced in the title of
Sebastocrator; his subjects admired the lofty stature and martial
graces of their new sovereign, and listened with credulity to the
flattering promise, that he blended the wisdom of age with the
activity and vigor of youth. By the experience of his government,
they were taught, that he emulated the spirit, and shared the
talents, of his father whose social virtues were buried in the
grave. A reign of thirty seven years is filled by a perpetual
though various warfare against the Turks, the Christians, and the
hordes of the wilderness beyond the Danube. The arms of Manuel
were exercised on Mount Taurus, in the plains of Hungary, on the
coast of Italy and Egypt, and on the seas of Sicily and Greece:
the influence of his negotiations extended from Jerusalem to Rome
and Russia; and the Byzantine monarchy, for a while, became an
object of respect or terror to the powers of Asia and Europe.
Educated in the silk and purple of the East, Manuel possessed the
iron temper of a soldier, which cannot easily be paralleled,
except in the lives of Richard the First of England, and of
Charles the Twelfth of Sweden. Such was his strength and exercise
in arms, that Raymond, surnamed the Hercules of Antioch, was
incapable of wielding the lance and buckler of the Greek emperor.
In a famous tournament, he entered the lists on a fiery courser,
and overturned in his first career two of the stoutest of the
Italian knights. The first in the charge, the last in the
retreat, his friends and his enemies alike trembled, the former
for his safety, and the latter for their own. After posting an
ambuscade in a wood, he rode forwards in search of some perilous
adventure, accompanied only by his brother and the faithful
Axuch, who refused to desert their sovereign. Eighteen horsemen,
after a short combat, fled before them: but the numbers of the
enemy increased; the march of the reenforcement was tardy and
fearful, and Manuel, without receiving a wound, cut his way
through a squadron of five hundred Turks. In a battle against the
Hungarians, impatient of the slowness of his troops, he snatched
a standard from the head of the column, and was the first, almost
alone, who passed a bridge that separated him from the enemy. In
the same country, after transporting his army beyond the Save, he
sent back the boats, with an order under pain of death, to their
commander, that he should leave him to conquer or die on that
hostile land. In the siege of Corfu, towing after him a captive
galley, the emperor stood aloft on the poop, opposing against the
volleys of darts and stones, a large buckler and a flowing sail;
nor could he have escaped inevitable death, had not the Sicilian
admiral enjoined his archers to respect the person of a hero. In
one day, he is said to have slain above forty of the Barbarians
with his own hand; he returned to the camp, dragging along four
Turkish prisoners, whom he had tied to the rings of his saddle:
he was ever the foremost to provoke or to accept a single combat;
and the gigantic champions, who encountered his arm, were
transpierced by the lance, or cut asunder by the sword, of the
invincible Manuel. The story of his exploits, which appear as a
model or a copy of the romances of chivalry, may induce a
reasonable suspicion of the veracity of the Greeks: I will not,
to vindicate their credit, endanger my own: yet I may observe,
that, in the long series of their annals, Manuel is the only
prince who has been the subject of similar exaggeration. With the
valor of a soldier, he did not unite the skill or prudence of a
general; his victories were not productive of any permanent or
useful conquest; and his Turkish laurels were blasted in his last
unfortunate campaign, in which he lost his army in the mountains
of Pisidia, and owed his deliverance to the generosity of the
sultan. But the most singular feature in the character of Manuel,
is the contrast and vicissitude of labor and sloth, of hardiness
and effeminacy. In war he seemed ignorant of peace, in peace he
appeared incapable of war. In the field he slept in the sun or in
the snow, tired in the longest marches the strength of his men
and horses, and shared with a smile the abstinence or diet of the
camp. No sooner did he return to Constantinople, than he resigned
himself to the arts and pleasures of a life of luxury: the
expense of his dress, his table, and his palace, surpassed the
measure of his predecessors, and whole summer days were idly
wasted in the delicious isles of the Propontis, in the incestuous
love of his niece Theodora. The double cost of a warlike and
dissolute prince exhausted the revenue, and multiplied the taxes;
and Manuel, in the distress of his last Turkish campaign, endured
a bitter reproach from the mouth of a desperate soldier. As he
quenched his thirst, he complained that the water of a fountain
was mingled with Christian blood. “It is not the first time,”
exclaimed a voice from the crowd, “that you have drank, O
emperor, the blood of your Christian subjects.” Manuel Comnenus
was twice married, to the virtuous Bertha or Irene of Germany,
and to the beauteous Maria, a French or Latin princess of
Antioch. The only daughter of his first wife was destined for
Bela, a Hungarian prince, who was educated at Constantinople
under the name of Alexius; and the consummation of their nuptials
might have transferred the Roman sceptre to a race of free and
warlike Barbarians. But as soon as Maria of Antioch had given a
son and heir to the empire, the presumptive rights of Bela were
abolished, and he was deprived of his promised bride; but the
Hungarian prince resumed his name and the kingdom of his fathers,
and displayed such virtues as might excite the regret and envy of
the Greeks. The son of Maria was named Alexius; and at the age of
ten years he ascended the Byzantine throne, after his father’s
decease had closed the glories of the Comnenian line.
The fraternal concord of the two sons of the great Alexius had
been sometimes clouded by an opposition of interest and passion.
By ambition, Isaac the Sebastocrator was excited to flight and
rebellion, from whence he was reclaimed by the firmness and
clemency of John the Handsome. The errors of Isaac, the father of
the emperors of Trebizond, were short and venial; but John, the
elder of his sons, renounced forever his religion. Provoked by a
real or imaginary insult of his uncle, he escaped from the Roman
to the Turkish camp: his apostasy was rewarded with the sultan’s
daughter, the title of Chelebi, or noble, and the inheritance of
a princely estate; and in the fifteenth century, Mahomet the
Second boasted of his Imperial descent from the Comnenian family.
Andronicus, the younger brother of John, son of Isaac, and
grandson of Alexius Comnenus, is one of the most conspicuous
characters of the age; and his genuine adventures might form the
subject of a very singular romance. To justify the choice of
three ladies of royal birth, it is incumbent on me to observe,
that their fortunate lover was cast in the best proportions of
strength and beauty; and that the want of the softer graces was
supplied by a manly countenance, a lofty stature, athletic
muscles, and the air and deportment of a soldier. The
preservation, in his old age, of health and vigor, was the reward
of temperance and exercise. A piece of bread and a draught of
water was often his sole and evening repast; and if he tasted of
a wild boar or a stag, which he had roasted with his own hands,
it was the well-earned fruit of a laborious chase. Dexterous in
arms, he was ignorant of fear; his persuasive eloquence could
bend to every situation and character of life, his style, though
not his practice, was fashioned by the example of St. Paul; and,
in every deed of mischief, he had a heart to resolve, a head to
contrive, and a hand to execute. In his youth, after the death of
the emperor John, he followed the retreat of the Roman army; but,
in the march through Asia Minor, design or accident tempted him
to wander in the mountains: the hunter was encompassed by the
Turkish huntsmen, and he remained some time a reluctant or
willing captive in the power of the sultan. His virtues and vices
recommended him to the favor of his cousin: he shared the perils
and the pleasures of Manuel; and while the emperor lived in
public incest with his niece Theodora, the affections of her
sister Eudocia were seduced and enjoyed by Andronicus. Above the
decencies of her sex and rank, she gloried in the name of his
concubine; and both the palace and the camp could witness that
she slept, or watched, in the arms of her lover. She accompanied
him to his military command of Cilicia, the first scene of his
valor and imprudence. He pressed, with active ardor, the siege of
Mopsuestia: the day was employed in the boldest attacks; but the
night was wasted in song and dance; and a band of Greek comedians
formed the choicest part of his retinue. Andronicus was surprised
by the sally of a vigilant foe; but, while his troops fled in
disorder, his invincible lance transpierced the thickest ranks of
the Armenians. On his return to the Imperial camp in Macedonia,
he was received by Manuel with public smiles and a private
reproof; but the duchies of Naissus, Braniseba, and Castoria,
were the reward or consolation of the unsuccessful general.
Eudocia still attended his motions: at midnight, their tent was
suddenly attacked by her angry brothers, impatient to expiate her
infamy in his blood: his daring spirit refused her advice, and
the disguise of a female habit; and, boldly starting from his
couch, he drew his sword, and cut his way through the numerous
assassins. It was here that he first betrayed his ingratitude and
treachery: he engaged in a treasonable correspondence with the
king of Hungary and the German emperor; approached the royal tent
at a suspicious hour with a drawn sword, and under the mask of a
Latin soldier, avowed an intention of revenge against a mortal
foe; and imprudently praised the fleetness of his horse as an
instrument of flight and safety. The monarch dissembled his
suspicions; but, after the close of the campaign, Andronicus was
arrested and strictly confined in a tower of the palace of
Constantinople.
In this prison he was left about twelve years; a most painful
restraint, from which the thirst of action and pleasure
perpetually urged him to escape. Alone and pensive, he perceived
some broken bricks in a corner of the chamber, and gradually
widened the passage, till he had explored a dark and forgotten
recess. Into this hole he conveyed himself, and the remains of
his provisions, replacing the bricks in their former position,
and erasing with care the footsteps of his retreat. At the hour
of the customary visit, his guards were amazed by the silence and
solitude of the prison, and reported, with shame and fear, his
incomprehensible flight. The gates of the palace and city were
instantly shut: the strictest orders were despatched into the
provinces, for the recovery of the fugitive; and his wife, on the
suspicion of a pious act, was basely imprisoned in the same
tower. At the dead of night she beheld a spectre; she recognized
her husband: they shared their provisions; and a son was the
fruit of these stolen interviews, which alleviated the
tediousness of their confinement. In the custody of a woman, the
vigilance of the keepers was insensibly relaxed; and the captive
had accomplished his real escape, when he was discovered, brought
back to Constantinople, and loaded with a double chain. At length
he found the moment, and the means, of his deliverance. A boy,
his domestic servant, intoxicated the guards, and obtained in wax
the impression of the keys. By the diligence of his friends, a
similar key, with a bundle of ropes, was introduced into the
prison, in the bottom of a hogshead. Andronicus employed, with
industry and courage, the instruments of his safety, unlocked the
doors, descended from the tower, concealed himself all day among
the bushes, and scaled in the night the garden-wall of the
palace. A boat was stationed for his reception: he visited his
own house, embraced his children, cast away his chain, mounted a
fleet horse, and directed his rapid course towards the banks of
the Danube. At Anchialus in Thrace, an intrepid friend supplied
him with horses and money: he passed the river, traversed with
speed the desert of Moldavia and the Carpathian hills, and had
almost reached the town of Halicz, in the Polish Russia, when he
was intercepted by a party of Walachians, who resolved to convey
their important captive to Constantinople. His presence of mind
again extricated him from danger. Under the pretence of sickness,
he dismounted in the night, and was allowed to step aside from
the troop: he planted in the ground his long staff, clothed it
with his cap and upper garment; and, stealing into the wood, left
a phantom to amuse, for some time, the eyes of the Walachians.
From Halicz he was honorably conducted to Kiow, the residence of
the great duke: the subtle Greek soon obtained the esteem and
confidence of Ieroslaus; his character could assume the manners
of every climate; and the Barbarians applauded his strength and
courage in the chase of the elks and bears of the forest. In this
northern region he deserved the forgiveness of Manuel, who
solicited the Russian prince to join his arms in the invasion of
Hungary. The influence of Andronicus achieved this important
service: his private treaty was signed with a promise of fidelity
on one side, and of oblivion on the other; and he marched, at the
head of the Russian cavalry, from the Borysthenes to the Danube.
In his resentment Manuel had ever sympathized with the martial
and dissolute character of his cousin; and his free pardon was
sealed in the assault of Zemlin, in which he was second, and
second only, to the valor of the emperor.
No sooner was the exile restored to freedom and his country, than
his ambition revived, at first to his own, and at length to the
public, misfortune. A daughter of Manuel was a feeble bar to the
succession of the more deserving males of the Comnenian blood;
her future marriage with the prince of Hungary was repugnant to
the hopes or prejudices of the princes and nobles. But when an
oath of allegiance was required to the presumptive heir,
Andronicus alone asserted the honor of the Roman name, declined
the unlawful engagement, and boldly protested against the
adoption of a stranger. His patriotism was offensive to the
emperor, but he spoke the sentiments of the people, and was
removed from the royal presence by an honorable banishment, a
second command of the Cilician frontier, with the absolute
disposal of the revenues of Cyprus. In this station the Armenians
again exercised his courage and exposed his negligence; and the
same rebel, who baffled all his operations, was unhorsed, and
almost slain by the vigor of his lance. But Andronicus soon
discovered a more easy and pleasing conquest, the beautiful
Philippa, sister of the empress Maria, and daughter of Raymond of
Poitou, the Latin prince of Antioch. For her sake he deserted his
station, and wasted the summer in balls and tournaments: to his
love she sacrificed her innocence, her reputation, and the offer
of an advantageous marriage. But the resentment of Manuel for
this domestic affront interrupted his pleasures: Andronicus left
the indiscreet princess to weep and to repent; and, with a band
of desperate adventurers, undertook the pilgrimage of Jerusalem.
His birth, his martial renown, and professions of zeal, announced
him as the champion of the Cross: he soon captivated both the
clergy and the king; and the Greek prince was invested with the
lordship of Berytus, on the coast of Phoenicia.
In his neighborhood resided a young and handsome queen, of his
own nation and family, great-granddaughter of the emperor Alexis,
and widow of Baldwin the Third, king of Jerusalem. She visited
and loved her kinsman. Theodora was the third victim of his
amorous seduction; and her shame was more public and scandalous
than that of her predecessors. The emperor still thirsted for
revenge; and his subjects and allies of the Syrian frontier were
repeatedly pressed to seize the person, and put out the eyes, of
the fugitive. In Palestine he was no longer safe; but the tender
Theodora revealed his danger, and accompanied his flight. The
queen of Jerusalem was exposed to the East, his obsequious
concubine; and two illegitimate children were the living
monuments of her weakness. Damascus was his first refuge; and, in
the characters of the great Noureddin and his servant Saladin,
the superstitious Greek might learn to revere the virtues of the
Mussulmans. As the friend of Noureddin he visited, most probably,
Bagdad, and the courts of Persia; and, after a long circuit round
the Caspian Sea and the mountains of Georgia, he finally settled
among the Turks of Asia Minor, the hereditary enemies of his
country. The sultan of Colonia afforded a hospitable retreat to
Andronicus, his mistress, and his band of outlaws: the debt of
gratitude was paid by frequent inroads in the Roman province of
Trebizond; and he seldom returned without an ample harvest of
spoil and of Christian captives. In the story of his adventures,
he was fond of comparing himself to David, who escaped, by a long
exile, the snares of the wicked. But the royal prophet (he
presumed to add) was content to lurk on the borders of Judaea, to
slay an Amalekite, and to threaten, in his miserable state, the
life of the avaricious Nabal. The excursions of the Comnenian
prince had a wider range; and he had spread over the Eastern
world the glory of his name and religion.
By a sentence of the Greek church, the licentious rover had been
separated from the faithful; but even this excommunication may
prove, that he never abjured the profession of Chistianity.
His vigilance had eluded or repelled the open and secret
persecution of the emperor; but he was at length insnared by the
captivity of his female companion. The governor of Trebizond
succeeded in his attempt to surprise the person of Theodora: the
queen of Jerusalem and her two children were sent to
Constantinople, and their loss imbittered the tedious solitude of
banishment. The fugitive implored and obtained a final pardon,
with leave to throw himself at the feet of his sovereign, who was
satisfied with the submission of this haughty spirit. Prostrate
on the ground, he deplored with tears and groans the guilt of his
past rebellion; nor would he presume to arise, unless some
faithful subject would drag him to the foot of the throne, by an
iron chain with which he had secretly encircled his neck. This
extraordinary penance excited the wonder and pity of the
assembly; his sins were forgiven by the church and state; but the
just suspicion of Manuel fixed his residence at a distance from
the court, at Oenoe, a town of Pontus, surrounded with rich
vineyards, and situate on the coast of the Euxine. The death of
Manuel, and the disorders of the minority, soon opened the
fairest field to his ambition. The emperor was a boy of twelve or
fourteen years of age, without vigor, or wisdom, or experience:
his mother, the empress Mary, abandoned her person and government
to a favorite of the Comnenian name; and his sister, another
Mary, whose husband, an Italian, was decorated with the title of
Caesar, excited a conspiracy, and at length an insurrection,
against her odious step-mother. The provinces were forgotten, the
capital was in flames, and a century of peace and order was
overthrown in the vice and weakness of a few months. A civil war
was kindled in Constantinople; the two factions fought a bloody
battle in the square of the palace, and the rebels sustained a
regular siege in the cathedral of St. Sophia. The patriarch
labored with honest zeal to heal the wounds of the republic, the
most respectable patriots called aloud for a guardian and
avenger, and every tongue repeated the praise of the talents and
even the virtues of Andronicus. In his retirement, he affected to
revolve the solemn duties of his oath: “If the safety or honor of
the Imperial family be threatened, I will reveal and oppose the
mischief to the utmost of my power.” His correspondence with the
patriarch and patricians was seasoned with apt quotations from
the Psalms of David and the epistles of St. Paul; and he
patiently waited till he was called to her deliverance by the
voice of his country. In his march from Oenoe to Constantinople,
his slender train insensibly swelled to a crowd and an army: his
professions of religion and loyalty were mistaken for the
language of his heart; and the simplicity of a foreign dress,
which showed to advantage his majestic stature, displayed a
lively image of his poverty and exile. All opposition sunk before
him; he reached the straits of the Thracian Bosphorus; the
Byzantine navy sailed from the harbor to receive and transport
the savior of the empire: the torrent was loud and irresistible,
and the insects who had basked in the sunshine of royal favor
disappeared at the blast of the storm. It was the first care of
Andronicus to occupy the palace, to salute the emperor, to
confine his mother, to punish her minister, and to restore the
public order and tranquillity. He then visited the sepulchre of
Manuel: the spectators were ordered to stand aloof, but as he
bowed in the attitude of prayer, they heard, or thought they
heard, a murmur of triumph or revenge: “I no longer fear thee, my
old enemy, who hast driven me a vagabond to every climate of the
earth. Thou art safely deposited under a seven-fold dome, from
whence thou canst never arise till the signal of the last
trumpet. It is now my turn, and speedily will I trample on thy
ashes and thy posterity.” From his subsequent tyranny we may
impute such feelings to the man and the moment; but it is not
extremely probable that he gave an articulate sound to his secret
thoughts. In the first months of his administration, his designs
were veiled by a fair semblance of hypocrisy, which could delude
only the eyes of the multitude; the coronation of Alexius was
performed with due solemnity, and his perfidious guardian,
holding in his hands the body and blood of Christ, most fervently
declared that he lived, and was ready to die, for the service of
his beloved pupil. But his numerous adherents were instructed to
maintain, that the sinking empire must perish in the hands of a
child, that the Romans could only be saved by a veteran prince,
bold in arms, skilful in policy, and taught to reign by the long
experience of fortune and mankind; and that it was the duty of
every citizen to force the reluctant modesty of Andronicus to
undertake the burden of the public care. The young emperor was
himself constrained to join his voice to the general acclamation,
and to solicit the association of a colleague, who instantly
degraded him from the supreme rank, secluded his person, and
verified the rash declaration of the patriarch, that Alexius
might be considered as dead, so soon as he was committed to the
custody of his guardian. But his death was preceded by the
imprisonment and execution of his mother. After blackening her
reputation, and inflaming against her the passions of the
multitude, the tyrant accused and tried the empress for a
treasonable correspondence with the king of Hungary. His own son,
a youth of honor and humanity, avowed his abhorrence of this
flagitious act, and three of the judges had the merit of
preferring their conscience to their safety: but the obsequious
tribunal, without requiring any reproof, or hearing any defence,
condemned the widow of Manuel; and her unfortunate son subscribed
the sentence of her death. Maria was strangled, her corpse was
buried in the sea, and her memory was wounded by the insult most
offensive to female vanity, a false and ugly representation of
her beauteous form. The fate of her son was not long deferred: he
was strangled with a bowstring; and the tyrant, insensible to
pity or remorse, after surveying the body of the innocent youth,
struck it rudely with his foot: “Thy father,” he cried, “was a
knave, thy mother a whore, and thyself a fool!”
The Roman sceptre, the reward of his crimes, was held by
Andronicus about three years and a half as the guardian or
sovereign of the empire. His government exhibited a singular
contrast of vice and virtue. When he listened to his passions, he
was the scourge; when he consulted his reason, the father, of his
people. In the exercise of private justice, he was equitable and
rigorous: a shameful and pernicious venality was abolished, and
the offices were filled with the most deserving candidates, by a
prince who had sense to choose, and severity to punish. He
prohibited the inhuman practice of pillaging the goods and
persons of shipwrecked mariners; the provinces, so long the
objects of oppression or neglect, revived in prosperity and
plenty; and millions applauded the distant blessings of his
reign, while he was cursed by the witnesses of his daily
cruelties. The ancient proverb, That bloodthirsty is the man who
returns from banishment to power, had been applied, with too much
truth, to Marius and Tiberius; and was now verified for the third
time in the life of Andronicus. His memory was stored with a
black list of the enemies and rivals, who had traduced his merit,
opposed his greatness, or insulted his misfortunes; and the only
comfort of his exile was the sacred hope and promise of revenge.
The necessary extinction of the young emperor and his mother
imposed the fatal obligation of extirpating the friends, who
hated, and might punish, the assassin; and the repetition of
murder rendered him less willing, and less able, to forgive. 1018
A horrid narrative of the victims whom he sacrificed by poison or
the sword, by the sea or the flames, would be less expressive of
his cruelty than the appellation of the halcyon days, which was
applied to a rare and bloodless week of repose: the tyrant strove
to transfer, on the laws and the judges, some portion of his
guilt; but the mask was fallen, and his subjects could no longer
mistake the true author of their calamities. The noblest of the
Greeks, more especially those who, by descent or alliance, might
dispute the Comnenian inheritance, escaped from the monster’s
den: Nice and Prusa, Sicily or Cyprus, were their places of
refuge; and as their flight was already criminal, they aggravated
their offence by an open revolt, and the Imperial title. Yet
Andronicus resisted the daggers and swords of his most formidable
enemies: Nice and Prusa were reduced and chastised: the Sicilians
were content with the sack of Thessalonica; and the distance of
Cyprus was not more propitious to the rebel than to the tyrant.
His throne was subverted by a rival without merit, and a people
without arms. Isaac Angelus, a descendant in the female line from
the great Alexius, was marked as a victim by the prudence or
superstition of the emperor. 1019 In a moment of despair, Angelus
defended his life and liberty, slew the executioner, and fled to
the church of St. Sophia. The sanctuary was insensibly filled
with a curious and mournful crowd, who, in his fate,
prognosticated their own. But their lamentations were soon turned
to curses, and their curses to threats: they dared to ask, “Why
do we fear? why do we obey? We are many, and he is one: our
patience is the only bond of our slavery.” With the dawn of day
the city burst into a general sedition, the prisons were thrown
open, the coldest and most servile were roused to the defence of
their country, and Isaac, the second of the name, was raised from
the sanctuary to the throne. Unconscious of his danger, the
tyrant was absent; withdrawn from the toils of state, in the
delicious islands of the Propontis. He had contracted an indecent
marriage with Alice, or Agnes, daughter of Lewis the Seventh, of
France, and relict of the unfortunate Alexius; and his society,
more suitable to his temper than to his age, was composed of a
young wife and a favorite concubine. On the first alarm, he
rushed to Constantinople, impatient for the blood of the guilty;
but he was astonished by the silence of the palace, the tumult of
the city, and the general desertion of mankind. Andronicus
proclaimed a free pardon to his subjects; they neither desired,
nor would grant, forgiveness; he offered to resign the crown to
his son Manuel; but the virtues of the son could not expiate his
father’s crimes. The sea was still open for his retreat; but the
news of the revolution had flown along the coast; when fear had
ceased, obedience was no more: the Imperial galley was pursued
and taken by an armed brigantine; and the tyrant was dragged to
the presence of Isaac Angelus, loaded with fetters, and a long
chain round his neck. His eloquence, and the tears of his female
companions, pleaded in vain for his life; but, instead of the
decencies of a legal execution, the new monarch abandoned the
criminal to the numerous sufferers, whom he had deprived of a
father, a husband, or a friend. His teeth and hair, an eye and a
hand, were torn from him, as a poor compensation for their loss:
and a short respite was allowed, that he might feel the
bitterness of death. Astride on a camel, without any danger of a
rescue, he was carried through the city, and the basest of the
populace rejoiced to trample on the fallen majesty of their
prince. After a thousand blows and outrages, Andronicus was hung
by the feet, between two pillars, that supported the statues of a
wolf and an a sow; and every hand that could reach the public
enemy, inflicted on his body some mark of ingenious or brutal
cruelty, till two friendly or furious Italians, plunging their
swords into his body, released him from all human punishment. In
this long and painful agony, “Lord, have mercy upon me!” and “Why
will you bruise a broken reed?” were the only words that escaped
from his mouth. Our hatred for the tyrant is lost in pity for the
man; nor can we blame his pusillanimous resignation, since a
Greek Christian was no longer master of his life.
1018 (return) [ Fallmerayer (Geschichte des Kaiserthums von
Trapezunt, p. 29, 33) has highly drawn the character of
Andronicus. In his view the extermination of the Byzantine
factions and dissolute nobility was part of a deep-laid and
splendid plan for the regeneration of the empire. It was
necessary for the wise and benevolent schemes of the father of
his people to lop off those limbs which were infected with
irremediable pestilence— “and with necessity, The tyrant’s plea,
excused his devilish deeds!!”—Still the fall of Andronicus was a
fatal blow to the Byzantine empire.—M.]
1019 (return) [ According to Nicetas, (p. 444,) Andronicus
despised the imbecile Isaac too much to fear him; he was arrested
by the officious zeal of Stephen, the instrument of the Emperor’s
cruelties.—M.]
I have been tempted to expatiate on the extraordinary character
and adventures of Andronicus; but I shall here terminate the
series of the Greek emperors since the time of Heraclius. The
branches that sprang from the Comnenian trunk had insensibly
withered; and the male line was continued only in the posterity
of Andronicus himself, who, in the public confusion, usurped the
sovereignty of Trebizond, so obscure in history, and so famous in
romance. A private citizen of Philadelphia, Constantine Angelus,
had emerged to wealth and honors, by his marriage with a daughter
of the emperor Alexius. His son Andronicus is conspicuous only by
his cowardice. His grandson Isaac punished and succeeded the
tyrant; but he was dethroned by his own vices, and the ambition
of his brother; and their discord introduced the Latins to the
conquest of Constantinople, the first great period in the fall of
the Eastern empire.
If we compute the number and duration of the reigns, it will be
found, that a period of six hundred years is filled by sixty
emperors, including in the Augustan list some female sovereigns;
and deducting some usurpers who were never acknowledged in the
capital, and some princes who did not live to possess their
inheritance. The average proportion will allow ten years for each
emperor, far below the chronological rule of Sir Isaac Newton,
who, from the experience of more recent and regular monarchies,
has defined about eighteen or twenty years as the term of an
ordinary reign. The Byzantine empire was most tranquil and
prosperous when it could acquiesce in hereditary succession; five
dynasties, the Heraclian, Isaurian, Amorian, Basilian, and
Comnenian families, enjoyed and transmitted the royal patrimony
during their respective series of five, four, three, six, and
four generations; several princes number the years of their reign
with those of their infancy; and Constantine the Seventh and his
two grandsons occupy the space of an entire century. But in the
intervals of the Byzantine dynasties, the succession is rapid and
broken, and the name of a successful candidate is speedily erased
by a more fortunate competitor. Many were the paths that led to
the summit of royalty: the fabric of rebellion was overthrown by
the stroke of conspiracy, or undermined by the silent arts of
intrigue: the favorites of the soldiers or people, of the senate
or clergy, of the women and eunuchs, were alternately clothed
with the purple: the means of their elevation were base, and
their end was often contemptible or tragic. A being of the nature
of man, endowed with the same faculties, but with a longer
measure of existence, would cast down a smile of pity and
contempt on the crimes and follies of human ambition, so eager,
in a narrow span, to grasp at a precarious and shortlived
enjoyment. It is thus that the experience of history exalts and
enlarges the horizon of our intellectual view. In a composition
of some days, in a perusal of some hours, six hundred years have
rolled away, and the duration of a life or reign is contracted to
a fleeting moment: the grave is ever beside the throne: the
success of a criminal is almost instantly followed by the loss of
his prize and our immortal reason survives and disdains the sixty
phantoms of kings who have passed before our eyes, and faintly
dwell on our remembrance. The observation that, in every age and
climate, ambition has prevailed with the same commanding energy,
may abate the surprise of a philosopher: but while he condemns
the vanity, he may search the motive, of this universal desire to
obtain and hold the sceptre of dominion. To the greater part of
the Byzantine series, we cannot reasonably ascribe the love of
fame and of mankind. The virtue alone of John Comnenus was
beneficent and pure: the most illustrious of the princes, who
procede or follow that respectable name, have trod with some
dexterity and vigor the crooked and bloody paths of a selfish
policy: in scrutinizing the imperfect characters of Leo the
Isaurian, Basil the First, and Alexius Comnenus, of Theophilus,
the second Basil, and Manuel Comnenus, our esteem and censure are
almost equally balanced; and the remainder of the Imperial crowd
could only desire and expect to be forgotten by posterity. Was
personal happiness the aim and object of their ambition? I shall
not descant on the vulgar topics of the misery of kings; but I
may surely observe, that their condition, of all others, is the
most pregnant with fear, and the least susceptible of hope. For
these opposite passions, a larger scope was allowed in the
revolutions of antiquity, than in the smooth and solid temper of
the modern world, which cannot easily repeat either the triumph
of Alexander or the fall of Darius. But the peculiar infelicity
of the Byzantine princes exposed them to domestic perils, without
affording any lively promise of foreign conquest. From the
pinnacle of greatness, Andronicus was precipitated by a death
more cruel and shameful than that of the malefactor; but the most
glorious of his predecessors had much more to dread from their
subjects than to hope from their enemies. The army was licentious
without spirit, the nation turbulent without freedom: the
Barbarians of the East and West pressed on the monarchy, and the
loss of the provinces was terminated by the final servitude of
the capital.
The entire series of Roman emperors, from the first of the
Caesars to the last of the Constantines, extends above fifteen
hundred years: and the term of dominion, unbroken by foreign
conquest, surpasses the measure of the ancient monarchies; the
Assyrians or Medes, the successors of Cyrus, or those of
Alexander.
VOLUME FIVE
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part I.
Introduction, Worship, And Persecution Of Images.—Revolt Of Italy
And Rome.—Temporal Dominion Of The Popes.—Conquest Of Italy By The
Franks.—Establishment Of Images.—Character And Coronation Of
Charlemagne.—Restoration And Decay Of The Roman Empire In The
West.—Independence Of Italy.— Constitution Of The Germanic Body.
In the connection of the church and state, I have considered the
former as subservient only, and relative, to the latter; a
salutary maxim, if in fact, as well as in narrative, it had ever
been held sacred. The Oriental philosophy of the Gnostics, the
dark abyss of predestination and grace, and the strange
transformation of the Eucharist from the sign to the substance of
Christ’s body, 1 I have purposely abandoned to the curiosity of
speculative divines. But I have reviewed, with diligence and
pleasure, the objects of ecclesiastical history, by which the
decline and fall of the Roman empire were materially affected,
the propagation of Christianity, the constitution of the Catholic
church, the ruin of Paganism, and the sects that arose from the
mysterious controversies concerning the Trinity and incarnation.
At the head of this class, we may justly rank the worship of
images, so fiercely disputed in the eighth and ninth centuries;
since a question of popular superstition produced the revolt of
Italy, the temporal power of the popes, and the restoration of
the Roman empire in the West.
1 (return) [ The learned Selden has given the history of
transubstantiation in a comprehensive and pithy sentence: “This
opinion is only rhetoric turned into logic,” (his Works, vol.
iii. p. 2037, in his Table-Talk.)]
The primitive Christians were possessed with an unconquerable
repugnance to the use and abuse of images; and this aversion may
be ascribed to their descent from the Jews, and their enmity to
the Greeks. The Mosaic law had severely proscribed all
representations of the Deity; and that precept was firmly
established in the principles and practice of the chosen people.
The wit of the Christian apologists was pointed against the
foolish idolaters, who bowed before the workmanship of their own
hands; the images of brass and marble, which, had they been
endowed with sense and motion, should have started rather from
the pedestal to adore the creative powers of the artist. 2
Perhaps some recent and imperfect converts of the Gnostic tribe
might crown the statues of Christ and St. Paul with the profane
honors which they paid to those of Aristotle and Pythagoras; 3
but the public religion of the Catholics was uniformly simple and
spiritual; and the first notice of the use of pictures is in the
censure of the council of Illiberis, three hundred years after
the Christian aera. Under the successors of Constantine, in the
peace and luxury of the triumphant church, the more prudent
bishops condescended to indulge a visible superstition, for the
benefit of the multitude; and, after the ruin of Paganism, they
were no longer restrained by the apprehension of an odious
parallel. The first introduction of a symbolic worship was in the
veneration of the cross, and of relics. The saints and martyrs,
whose intercession was implored, were seated on the right hand of
God; but the gracious and often supernatural favors, which, in
the popular belief, were showered round their tomb, conveyed an
unquestionable sanction of the devout pilgrims, who visited, and
touched, and kissed these lifeless remains, the memorials of
their merits and sufferings. 4 But a memorial, more interesting
than the skull or the sandals of a departed worthy, is the
faithful copy of his person and features, delineated by the arts
of painting or sculpture. In every age, such copies, so congenial
to human feelings, have been cherished by the zeal of private
friendship, or public esteem: the images of the Roman emperors
were adored with civil, and almost religious, honors; a reverence
less ostentatious, but more sincere, was applied to the statues
of sages and patriots; and these profane virtues, these splendid
sins, disappeared in the presence of the holy men, who had died
for their celestial and everlasting country. At first, the
experiment was made with caution and scruple; and the venerable
pictures were discreetly allowed to instruct the ignorant, to
awaken the cold, and to gratify the prejudices of the heathen
proselytes. By a slow though inevitable progression, the honors
of the original were transferred to the copy: the devout
Christian prayed before the image of a saint; and the Pagan rites
of genuflection, luminaries, and incense, again stole into the
Catholic church. The scruples of reason, or piety, were silenced
by the strong evidence of visions and miracles; and the pictures
which speak, and move, and bleed, must be endowed with a divine
energy, and may be considered as the proper objects of religious
adoration. The most audacious pencil might tremble in the rash
attempt of defining, by forms and colors, the infinite Spirit,
the eternal Father, who pervades and sustains the universe. 5 But
the superstitious mind was more easily reconciled to paint and to
worship the angels, and, above all, the Son of God, under the
human shape, which, on earth, they have condescended to assume.
The second person of the Trinity had been clothed with a real and
mortal body; but that body had ascended into heaven: and, had not
some similitude been presented to the eyes of his disciples, the
spiritual worship of Christ might have been obliterated by the
visible relics and representations of the saints. A similar
indulgence was requisite and propitious for the Virgin Mary: the
place of her burial was unknown; and the assumption of her soul
and body into heaven was adopted by the credulity of the Greeks
and Latins. The use, and even the worship, of images was firmly
established before the end of the sixth century: they were fondly
cherished by the warm imagination of the Greeks and Asiatics: the
Pantheon and Vatican were adorned with the emblems of a new
superstition; but this semblance of idolatry was more coldly
entertained by the rude Barbarians and the Arian clergy of the
West. The bolder forms of sculpture, in brass or marble, which
peopled the temples of antiquity, were offensive to the fancy or
conscience of the Christian Greeks: and a smooth surface of
colors has ever been esteemed a more decent and harmless mode of
imitation. 6
2 (return) [ Nec intelligunt homines ineptissimi, quod si sentire
simulacra et moveri possent, adoratura hominem fuissent a quo
sunt expolita. (Divin. Institut. l. ii. c. 2.) Lactantius is the
last, as well as the most eloquent, of the Latin apologists.
Their raillery of idols attacks not only the object, but the form
and matter.]
3 (return) [ See Irenaeus, Epiphanius, and Augustin, (Basnage,
Hist. des Eglises Reformees, tom. ii. p. 1313.) This Gnostic
practice has a singular affinity with the private worship of
Alexander Severus, (Lampridius, c. 29. Lardner, Heathen
Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 34.)]
4 (return) [ See this History, vol. ii. p. 261; vol. ii. p. 434;
vol. iii. p. 158-163.]
5 (return) [ (Concilium Nicenum, ii. in Collect. Labb. tom. viii.
p. 1025, edit. Venet.) Il seroit peut-etre a-propos de ne point
souffrir d’images de la Trinite ou de la Divinite; les defenseurs
les plus zeles des images ayant condamne celles-ci, et le concile
de Trente ne parlant que des images de Jesus Christ et des
Saints, (Dupin, Bibliot. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 154.)]
6 (return) [ This general history of images is drawn from the
xxiid book of the Hist. des Eglises Reformees of Basnage, tom.
ii. p. 1310-1337. He was a Protestant, but of a manly spirit; and
on this head the Protestants are so notoriously in the right,
that they can venture to be impartial. See the perplexity of poor
Friar Pagi, Critica, tom. i. p. 42.]
The merit and effect of a copy depends on its resemblance with
the original; but the primitive Christians were ignorant of the
genuine features of the Son of God, his mother, and his apostles:
the statue of Christ at Paneas in Palestine 7 was more probably
that of some temporal savior; the Gnostics and their profane
monuments were reprobated; and the fancy of the Christian artists
could only be guided by the clandestine imitation of some heathen
model. In this distress, a bold and dexterous invention assured
at once the likeness of the image and the innocence of the
worship. A new super structure of fable was raised on the popular
basis of a Syrian legend, on the correspondence of Christ and
Abgarus, so famous in the days of Eusebius, so reluctantly
deserted by our modern advocates. The bishop of Caesarea 8
records the epistle, 9 but he most strangely forgets the picture
of Christ; 10 the perfect impression of his face on a linen, with
which he gratified the faith of the royal stranger who had
invoked his healing power, and offered the strong city of Edessa
to protect him against the malice of the Jews. The ignorance of
the primitive church is explained by the long imprisonment of the
image in a niche of the wall, from whence, after an oblivion of
five hundred years, it was released by some prudent bishop, and
seasonably presented to the devotion of the times. Its first and
most glorious exploit was the deliverance of the city from the
arms of Chosroes Nushirvan; and it was soon revered as a pledge
of the divine promise, that Edessa should never be taken by a
foreign enemy. It is true, indeed, that the text of Procopius
ascribes the double deliverance of Edessa to the wealth and valor
of her citizens, who purchased the absence and repelled the
assaults of the Persian monarch. He was ignorant, the profane
historian, of the testimony which he is compelled to deliver in
the ecclesiastical page of Evagrius, that the Palladium was
exposed on the rampart, and that the water which had been
sprinkled on the holy face, instead of quenching, added new fuel
to the flames of the besieged. After this important service, the
image of Edessa was preserved with respect and gratitude; and if
the Armenians rejected the legend, the more credulous Greeks
adored the similitude, which was not the work of any mortal
pencil, but the immediate creation of the divine original. The
style and sentiments of a Byzantine hymn will declare how far
their worship was removed from the grossest idolatry. “How can we
with mortal eyes contemplate this image, whose celestial splendor
the host of heaven presumes not to behold? He who dwells in
heaven, condescends this day to visit us by his venerable image;
He who is seated on the cherubim, visits us this day by a
picture, which the Father has delineated with his immaculate
hand, which he has formed in an ineffable manner, and which we
sanctify by adoring it with fear and love.” Before the end of the
sixth century, these images, made without hands, (in Greek it is
a single word, 11 were propagated in the camps and cities of the
Eastern empire: 12 they were the objects of worship, and the
instruments of miracles; and in the hour of danger or tumult,
their venerable presence could revive the hope, rekindle the
courage, or repress the fury, of the Roman legions. Of these
pictures, the far greater part, the transcripts of a human
pencil, could only pretend to a secondary likeness and improper
title: but there were some of higher descent, who derived their
resemblance from an immediate contact with the original, endowed,
for that purpose, with a miraculous and prolific virtue. The most
ambitious aspired from a filial to a fraternal relation with the
image of Edessa; and such is the veronica of Rome, or Spain, or
Jerusalem, which Christ in his agony and bloody sweat applied to
his face, and delivered to a holy matron. The fruitful precedent
was speedily transferred to the Virgin Mary, and the saints and
martyrs. In the church of Diospolis, in Palestine, the features
of the Mother of God 13 were deeply inscribed in a marble column;
the East and West have been decorated by the pencil of St. Luke;
and the Evangelist, who was perhaps a physician, has been forced
to exercise the occupation of a painter, so profane and odious in
the eyes of the primitive Christians. The Olympian Jove, created
by the muse of Homer and the chisel of Phidias, might inspire a
philosophic mind with momentary devotion; but these Catholic
images were faintly and flatly delineated by monkish artists in
the last degeneracy of taste and genius. 14
7 (return) [ After removing some rubbish of miracle and
inconsistency, it may be allowed, that as late as the year 300,
Paneas in Palestine was decorated with a bronze statue,
representing a grave personage wrapped in a cloak, with a
grateful or suppliant female kneeling before him, and that an
inscription was perhaps inscribed on the pedestal. By the
Christians, this group was foolishly explained of their founder
and the poor woman whom he had cured of the bloody flux, (Euseb.
vii. 18, Philostorg. vii. 3, &c.) M. de Beausobre more reasonably
conjectures the philosopher Apollonius, or the emperor Vespasian:
in the latter supposition, the female is a city, a province, or
perhaps the queen Berenice, (Bibliotheque Germanique, tom. xiii.
p. 1-92.)]
8 (return) [ Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. i. c. 13. The learned
Assemannus has brought up the collateral aid of three Syrians,
St. Ephrem, Josua Stylites, and James bishop of Sarug; but I do
not find any notice of the Syriac original or the archives of
Edessa, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 318, 420, 554;) their vague
belief is probably derived from the Greeks.]
9 (return) [ The evidence for these epistles is stated and
rejected by the candid Lardner, (Heathen Testimonies, vol. i. p.
297-309.) Among the herd of bigots who are forcibly driven from
this convenient, but untenable, post, I am ashamed, with the
Grabes, Caves, Tillemonts, &c., to discover Mr. Addison, an
English gentleman, (his Works, vol. i. p. 528, Baskerville’s
edition;) but his superficial tract on the Christian religion
owes its credit to his name, his style, and the interested
applause of our clergy.]
10 (return) [ From the silence of James of Sarug, (Asseman.
Bibliot. Orient. p. 289, 318,) and the testimony of Evagrius,
(Hist. Eccles. l. iv. c. 27,) I conclude that this fable was
invented between the years 521 and 594, most probably after the
siege of Edessa in 540, (Asseman. tom. i. p. 416. Procopius, de
Bell. Persic. l. ii.) It is the sword and buckler of, Gregory
II., (in Epist. i. ad. Leon. Isaur. Concil. tom. viii. p. 656,
657,) of John Damascenus, (Opera, tom. i. p. 281, edit. Lequien,)
and of the second Nicene Council, (Actio v. p. 1030.) The most
perfect edition may be found in Cedrenus, (Compend. p. 175-178.)]
11 (return) [ See Ducange, in Gloss. Graec. et Lat. The subject
is treated with equal learning and bigotry by the Jesuit Gretser,
(Syntagma de Imaginibus non Manu factis, ad calcem Codini de
Officiis, p. 289-330,) the ass, or rather the fox, of
Ingoldstadt, (see the Scaligerana;) with equal reason and wit by
the Protestant Beausobre, in the ironical controversy which he
has spread through many volumes of the Bibliotheque Germanique,
(tom. xviii. p. 1-50, xx. p. 27-68, xxv. p. 1-36, xxvii. p.
85-118, xxviii. p. 1-33, xxxi. p. 111-148, xxxii. p. 75-107,
xxxiv. p. 67-96.)]
12 (return) [ Theophylact Simocatta (l. ii. c. 3, p. 34, l. iii.
c. 1, p. 63) celebrates it; yet it was no more than a copy, since
he adds (of Edessa). See Pagi, tom. ii. A.D. 588 No. 11.]
13 (return) [ See, in the genuine or supposed works of John
Damascenus, two passages on the Virgin and St. Luke, which have
not been noticed by Gretser, nor consequently by Beausobre,
(Opera Joh. Damascen. tom. i. p. 618, 631.)]
14 (return) [ “Your scandalous figures stand quite out from the
canvass: they are as bad as a group of statues!” It was thus that
the ignorance and bigotry of a Greek priest applauded the
pictures of Titian, which he had ordered, and refused to accept.]
The worship of images had stolen into the church by insensible
degrees, and each petty step was pleasing to the superstitious
mind, as productive of comfort, and innocent of sin. But in the
beginning of the eighth century, in the full magnitude of the
abuse, the more timorous Greeks were awakened by an apprehension,
that under the mask of Christianity, they had restored the
religion of their fathers: they heard, with grief and impatience,
the name of idolaters; the incessant charge of the Jews and
Mahometans, 15 who derived from the Law and the Koran an immortal
hatred to graven images and all relative worship. The servitude
of the Jews might curb their zeal, and depreciate their
authority; but the triumphant Mussulmans, who reigned at
Damascus, and threatened Constantinople, cast into the scale of
reproach the accumulated weight of truth and victory. The cities
of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt had been fortified with the images
of Christ, his mother, and his saints; and each city presumed on
the hope or promise of miraculous defence. In a rapid conquest of
ten years, the Arabs subdued those cities and these images; and,
in their opinion, the Lord of Hosts pronounced a decisive
judgment between the adoration and contempt of these mute and
inanimate idols. 1511 For a while Edessa had braved the Persian
assaults; but the chosen city, the spouse of Christ, was involved
in the common ruin; and his divine resemblance became the slave
and trophy of the infidels. After a servitude of three hundred
years, the Palladium was yielded to the devotion of
Constantinople, for a ransom of twelve thousand pounds of silver,
the redemption of two hundred Mussulmans, and a perpetual truce
for the territory of Edessa. 16 In this season of distress and
dismay, the eloquence of the monks was exercised in the defence
of images; and they attempted to prove, that the sin and schism
of the greatest part of the Orientals had forfeited the favor,
and annihilated the virtue, of these precious symbols. But they
were now opposed by the murmurs of many simple or rational
Christians, who appealed to the evidence of texts, of facts, and
of the primitive times, and secretly desired the reformation of
the church. As the worship of images had never been established
by any general or positive law, its progress in the Eastern
empire had been retarded, or accelerated, by the differences of
men and manners, the local degrees of refinement, and the
personal characters of the bishops. The splendid devotion was
fondly cherished by the levity of the capital, and the inventive
genius of the Byzantine clergy; while the rude and remote
districts of Asia were strangers to this innovation of sacred
luxury. Many large congregations of Gnostics and Arians
maintained, after their conversion, the simple worship which had
preceded their separation; and the Armenians, the most warlike
subjects of Rome, were not reconciled, in the twelfth century, to
the sight of images. 17 These various denominations of men
afforded a fund of prejudice and aversion, of small account in
the villages of Anatolia or Thrace, but which, in the fortune of
a soldier, a prelate, or a eunuch, might be often connected with
the powers of the church and state.
15 (return) [ By Cedrenus, Zonaras, Glycas, and Manasses, the
origin of the Aconoclcasts is imprinted to the caliph Yezid and
two Jews, who promised the empire to Leo; and the reproaches of
these hostile sectaries are turned into an absurd conspiracy for
restoring the purity of the Christian worship, (see Spanheim,
Hist. Imag. c. 2.)]
1511 (return) [ Yezid, ninth caliph of the race of the Ommiadae,
caused all the images in Syria to be destroyed about the year
719; hence the orthodox reproaches the sectaries with following
the example of the Saracens and the Jews Fragm. Mon. Johan.
Jerosylym. Script. Byzant. vol. xvi. p. 235. Hist. des Repub.
Ital. par M. Sismondi, vol. i. p. 126.—G.]
16 (return) [ See Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 267,)
Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 201,) and Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p.
264,), and the criticisms of Pagi, (tom. iii. A.D. 944.) The
prudent Franciscan refuses to determine whether the image of
Edessa now reposes at Rome or Genoa; but its repose is
inglorious, and this ancient object of worship is no longer
famous or fashionable.]
17 (return) [ (Nicetas, l. ii. p. 258.) The Armenian churches are
still content with the Cross, (Missions du Levant, tom. iii. p.
148;) but surely the superstitious Greek is unjust to the
superstition of the Germans of the xiith century.]
Of such adventurers, the most fortunate was the emperor Leo the
Third, 18 who, from the mountains of Isauria, ascended the throne
of the East. He was ignorant of sacred and profane letters; but
his education, his reason, perhaps his intercourse with the Jews
and Arabs, had inspired the martial peasant with a hatred of
images; and it was held to be the duty of a prince to impose on
his subjects the dictates of his own conscience. But in the
outset of an unsettled reign, during ten years of toil and
danger, Leo submitted to the meanness of hypocrisy, bowed before
the idols which he despised, and satisfied the Roman pontiff with
the annual professions of his orthodoxy and zeal. In the
reformation of religion, his first steps were moderate and
cautious: he assembled a great council of senators and bishops,
and enacted, with their consent, that all the images should be
removed from the sanctuary and altar to a proper height in the
churches where they might be visible to the eyes, and
inaccessible to the superstition, of the people. But it was
impossible on either side to check the rapid through adverse
impulse of veneration and abhorrence: in their lofty position,
the sacred images still edified their votaries, and reproached
the tyrant. He was himself provoked by resistance and invective;
and his own party accused him of an imperfect discharge of his
duty, and urged for his imitation the example of the Jewish king,
who had broken without scruple the brazen serpent of the temple.
By a second edict, he proscribed the existence as well as the use
of religious pictures; the churches of Constantinople and the
provinces were cleansed from idolatry; the images of Christ, the
Virgin, and the saints, were demolished, or a smooth surface of
plaster was spread over the walls of the edifice. The sect of the
Iconoclasts was supported by the zeal and despotism of six
emperors, and the East and West were involved in a noisy conflict
of one hundred and twenty years. It was the design of Leo the
Isaurian to pronounce the condemnation of images as an article of
faith, and by the authority of a general council: but the
convocation of such an assembly was reserved for his son
Constantine; 19 and though it is stigmatized by triumphant
bigotry as a meeting of fools and atheists, their own partial and
mutilated acts betray many symptoms of reason and piety. The
debates and decrees of many provincial synods introduced the
summons of the general council which met in the suburbs of
Constantinople, and was composed of the respectable number of
three hundred and thirty-eight bishops of Europe and Anatolia;
for the patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria were the slaves of
the caliph, and the Roman pontiff had withdrawn the churches of
Italy and the West from the communion of the Greeks. This
Byzantine synod assumed the rank and powers of the seventh
general council; yet even this title was a recognition of the six
preceding assemblies, which had laboriously built the structure
of the Catholic faith. After a serious deliberation of six
months, the three hundred and thirty-eight bishops pronounced and
subscribed a unanimous decree, that all visible symbols of
Christ, except in the Eucharist, were either blasphemous or
heretical; that image-worship was a corruption of Christianity
and a renewal of Paganism; that all such monuments of idolatry
should be broken or erased; and that those who should refuse to
deliver the objects of their private superstition, were guilty of
disobedience to the authority of the church and of the emperor.
In their loud and loyal acclamations, they celebrated the merits
of their temporal redeemer; and to his zeal and justice they
intrusted the execution of their spiritual censures. At
Constantinople, as in the former councils, the will of the prince
was the rule of episcopal faith; but on this occasion, I am
inclined to suspect that a large majority of the prelates
sacrificed their secret conscience to the temptations of hope and
fear. In the long night of superstition, the Christians had
wandered far away from the simplicity of the gospel: nor was it
easy for them to discern the clew, and tread back the mazes, of
the labyrinth. The worship of images was inseparably blended, at
least to a pious fancy, with the Cross, the Virgin, the Saints
and their relics; the holy ground was involved in a cloud of
miracles and visions; and the nerves of the mind, curiosity and
scepticism, were benumbed by the habits of obedience and belief.
Constantine himself is accused of indulging a royal license to
doubt, or deny, or deride the mysteries of the Catholics, 20 but
they were deeply inscribed in the public and private creed of his
bishops; and the boldest Iconoclast might assault with a secret
horror the monuments of popular devotion, which were consecrated
to the honor of his celestial patrons. In the reformation of the
sixteenth century, freedom and knowledge had expanded all the
faculties of man: the thirst of innovation superseded the
reverence of antiquity; and the vigor of Europe could disdain
those phantoms which terrified the sickly and servile weakness of
the Greeks.
18 (return) [ Our original, but not impartial, monuments of the
Iconoclasts must be drawn from the Acts of the Councils, tom.
viii. and ix. Collect. Labbe, edit. Venet. and the historical
writings of Theophanes, Nicephorus, Manasses, Cedrenus, Zonoras,
&c. Of the modern Catholics, Baronius, Pagi, Natalis Alexander,
(Hist. Eccles. Seculum viii. and ix.,) and Maimbourg, (Hist. des
Iconoclasts,) have treated the subject with learning, passion,
and credulity. The Protestant labors of Frederick Spanheim
(Historia Imaginum restituta) and James Basnage (Hist. des
Eglises Reformees, tom. ii. l. xxiiii. p. 1339-1385) are cast
into the Iconoclast scale. With this mutual aid, and opposite
tendency, it is easy for us to poise the balance with philosophic
indifference. * Note: Compare Schlosser, Geschichte der
Bilder-sturmender Kaiser, Frankfurt am-Main 1812 a book of
research and impartiality—M.]
19 (return) [ Some flowers of rhetoric. By Damascenus is styled
(Opera, tom. i. p. 623.) Spanheim’s Apology for the Synod of
Constantinople (p. 171, &c.) is worked up with truth and
ingenuity, from such materials as he could find in the Nicene
Acts, (p. 1046, &c.) The witty John of Damascus converts it into
slaves of their belly, &c. Opera, tom. i. p. 806]
20 (return) [ He is accused of proscribing the title of saint;
styling the Virgin, Mother of Christ; comparing her after her
delivery to an empty purse of Arianism, Nestorianism, &c. In his
defence, Spanheim (c. iv. p. 207) is somewhat embarrassed between
the interest of a Protestant and the duty of an orthodox divine.]
The scandal of an abstract heresy can be only proclaimed to the
people by the blast of the ecclesiastical trumpet; but the most
ignorant can perceive, the most torpid must feel, the profanation
and downfall of their visible deities. The first hostilities of
Leo were directed against a lofty Christ on the vestibule, and
above the gate, of the palace. A ladder had been planted for the
assault, but it was furiously shaken by a crowd of zealots and
women: they beheld, with pious transport, the ministers of
sacrilege tumbling from on high and dashed against the pavement:
and the honors of the ancient martyrs were prostituted to these
criminals, who justly suffered for murder and rebellion. 21 The
execution of the Imperial edicts was resisted by frequent tumults
in Constantinople and the provinces: the person of Leo was
endangered, his officers were massacred, and the popular
enthusiasm was quelled by the strongest efforts of the civil and
military power. Of the Archipelago, or Holy Sea, the numerous
islands were filled with images and monks: their votaries
abjured, without scruple, the enemy of Christ, his mother, and
the saints; they armed a fleet of boats and galleys, displayed
their consecrated banners, and boldly steered for the harbor of
Constantinople, to place on the throne a new favorite of God and
the people. They depended on the succor of a miracle: but their
miracles were inefficient against the Greek fire; and, after the
defeat and conflagration of the fleet, the naked islands were
abandoned to the clemency or justice of the conqueror. The son of
Leo, in the first year of his reign, had undertaken an expedition
against the Saracens: during his absence, the capital, the
palace, and the purple, were occupied by his kinsman Artavasdes,
the ambitious champion of the orthodox faith. The worship of
images was triumphantly restored: the patriarch renounced his
dissimulation, or dissembled his sentiments and the righteous
claims of the usurper was acknowledged, both in the new, and in
ancient, Rome. Constantine flew for refuge to his paternal
mountains; but he descended at the head of the bold and
affectionate Isaurians; and his final victory confounded the arms
and predictions of the fanatics. His long reign was distracted
with clamor, sedition, conspiracy, and mutual hatred, and
sanguinary revenge; the persecution of images was the motive or
pretence, of his adversaries; and, if they missed a temporal
diadem, they were rewarded by the Greeks with the crown of
martyrdom. In every act of open and clandestine treason, the
emperor felt the unforgiving enmity of the monks, the faithful
slaves of the superstition to which they owed their riches and
influence. They prayed, they preached, they absolved, they
inflamed, they conspired; the solitude of Palestine poured forth
a torrent of invective; and the pen of St. John Damascenus, 22
the last of the Greek fathers, devoted the tyrant’s head, both in
this world and the next. 23 2311 I am not at leisure to examine
how far the monks provoked, nor how much they have exaggerated,
their real and pretended sufferings, nor how many lost their
lives or limbs, their eyes or their beards, by the cruelty of the
emperor. 2312 From the chastisement of individuals, he proceeded
to the abolition of the order; and, as it was wealthy and
useless, his resentment might be stimulated by avarice, and
justified by patriotism. The formidable name and mission of the
Dragon, 24 his visitor-general, excited the terror and abhorrence
of the black nation: the religious communities were dissolved,
the buildings were converted into magazines, or barracks; the
lands, movables, and cattle were confiscated; and our modern
precedents will support the charge, that much wanton or malicious
havoc was exercised against the relics, and even the books of the
monasteries. With the habit and profession of monks, the public
and private worship of images was rigorously proscribed; and it
should seem, that a solemn abjuration of idolatry was exacted
from the subjects, or at least from the clergy, of the Eastern
empire. 25
21 (return) [ The holy confessor Theophanes approves the
principle of their rebellion, (p. 339.) Gregory II. (in Epist. i.
ad Imp. Leon. Concil. tom. viii. p. 661, 664) applauds the zeal
of the Byzantine women who killed the Imperial officers.]
22 (return) [ John, or Mansur, was a noble Christian of Damascus,
who held a considerable office in the service of the caliph. His
zeal in the cause of images exposed him to the resentment and
treachery of the Greek emperor; and on the suspicion of a
treasonable correspondence, he was deprived of his right hand,
which was miraculously restored by the Virgin. After this
deliverance, he resigned his office, distributed his wealth, and
buried himself in the monastery of St. Sabas, between Jerusalem
and the Dead Sea. The legend is famous; but his learned editor,
Father Lequien, has a unluckily proved that St. John Damascenus
was already a monk before the Iconoclast dispute, (Opera, tom. i.
Vit. St. Joan. Damascen. p. 10-13, et Notas ad loc.)]
23 (return) [ After sending Leo to the devil, he introduces his
heir, (Opera, Damascen. tom. i. p. 625.) If the authenticity of
this piece be suspicious, we are sure that in other works, no
longer extant, Damascenus bestowed on Constantine the titles.
(tom. i. p. 306.)]
2311 (return) [ The patriarch Anastasius, an Iconoclast under
Leo, an image worshipper under Artavasdes, was scourged, led
through the streets on an ass, with his face to the tail; and,
reinvested in his dignity, became again the obsequious minister
of Constantine in his Iconoclastic persecutions. See Schlosser p.
211.—M.]
2312 (return) [ Compare Schlosser, p. 228-234.—M.]
24 (return) [ In the narrative of this persecution from
Theophanes and Cedreves, Spanheim (p. 235-238) is happy to
compare the Draco of Leo with the dragoons (Dracones) of Louis
XIV.; and highly solaces himself with the controversial pun.]
25 (return) [ (Damascen. Op. tom. i. p. 625.) This oath and
subscription I do not remember to have seen in any modern
compilation]
The patient East abjured, with reluctance, her sacred images;
they were fondly cherished, and vigorously defended, by the
independent zeal of the Italians. In ecclesiastical rank and
jurisdiction, the patriarch of Constantinople and the pope of
Rome were nearly equal. But the Greek prelate was a domestic
slave under the eye of his master, at whose nod he alternately
passed from the convent to the throne, and from the throne to the
convent. A distant and dangerous station, amidst the Barbarians
of the West, excited the spirit and freedom of the Latin bishops.
Their popular election endeared them to the Romans: the public
and private indigence was relieved by their ample revenue; and
the weakness or neglect of the emperors compelled them to
consult, both in peace and war, the temporal safety of the city.
In the school of adversity the priest insensibly imbibed the
virtues and the ambition of a prince; the same character was
assumed, the same policy was adopted, by the Italian, the Greek,
or the Syrian, who ascended the chair of St. Peter; and, after
the loss of her legions and provinces, the genius and fortune of
the popes again restored the supremacy of Rome. It is agreed,
that in the eighth century, their dominion was founded on
rebellion, and that the rebellion was produced, and justified, by
the heresy of the Iconoclasts; but the conduct of the second and
third Gregory, in this memorable contest, is variously
interpreted by the wishes of their friends and enemies. The
Byzantine writers unanimously declare, that, after a fruitless
admonition, they pronounced the separation of the East and West,
and deprived the sacrilegious tyrant of the revenue and
sovereignty of Italy. Their excommunication is still more clearly
expressed by the Greeks, who beheld the accomplishment of the
papal triumphs; and as they are more strongly attached to their
religion than to their country, they praise, instead of blaming,
the zeal and orthodoxy of these apostolical men. 26 The modern
champions of Rome are eager to accept the praise and the
precedent: this great and glorious example of the deposition of
royal heretics is celebrated by the cardinals Baronius and
Bellarmine; 27 and if they are asked, why the same thunders were
not hurled against the Neros and Julians of antiquity, they
reply, that the weakness of the primitive church was the sole
cause of her patient loyalty. 28 On this occasion the effects of
love and hatred are the same; and the zealous Protestants, who
seek to kindle the indignation, and to alarm the fears, of
princes and magistrates, expatiate on the insolence and treason
of the two Gregories against their lawful sovereign. 29 They are
defended only by the moderate Catholics, for the most part, of
the Gallican church, 30 who respect the saint, without approving
the sin. These common advocates of the crown and the mitre
circumscribe the truth of facts by the rule of equity, Scripture,
and tradition, and appeal to the evidence of the Latins, 31 and
the lives 32 and epistles of the popes; themselves.
26 (return) [ Theophanes. (Chronograph. p. 343.) For this Gregory
is styled by Cedrenus. (p. 450.) Zonaras specifies the thunder,
(tom. ii. l. xv. p. 104, 105.) It may be observed, that the
Greeks are apt to confound the times and actions of two
Gregories.]
27 (return) [ See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 730, No. 4, 5;
dignum exemplum! Bellarmin. de Romano Pontifice, l. v. c. 8:
mulctavit eum parte imperii. Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, l. iii.
Opera, tom. ii. p. 169. Yet such is the change of Italy, that
Sigonius is corrected by the editor of Milan, Philipus Argelatus,
a Bolognese, and subject of the pope.]
28 (return) [ Quod si Christiani olim non deposuerunt Neronem aut
Julianum, id fuit quia deerant vires temporales Christianis,
(honest Bellarmine, de Rom. Pont. l. v. c. 7.) Cardinal Perron
adds a distinction more honorable to the first Christians, but
not more satisfactory to modern princes—the treason of heretics
and apostates, who break their oath, belie their coin, and
renounce their allegiance to Christ and his vicar, (Perroniana,
p. 89.)]
29 (return) [ Take, as a specimen, the cautious Basnage (Hist.
d’Eglise, p. 1350, 1351) and the vehement Spanheim, (Hist.
Imaginum,) who, with a hundred more, tread in the footsteps of
the centuriators of Magdeburgh.]
30 (return) [ See Launoy, (Opera, tom. v. pars ii. epist. vii. 7,
p. 456-474,) Natalis Alexander, (Hist. Nov. Testamenti, secul.
viii. dissert. i. p. 92-98,) Pagi, (Critica, tom. iii. p. 215,
216,) and Giannone, (Istoria Civile Napoli, tom. i. p. 317-320,)
a disciple of the Gallican school In the field of controversy I
always pity the moderate party, who stand on the open middle
ground exposed to the fire of both sides.]
31 (return) [ They appeal to Paul Warnefrid, or Diaconus, (de
Gestis Langobard. l. vi. c. 49, p. 506, 507, in Script. Ital.
Muratori, tom. i. pars i.,) and the nominal Anastasius, (de Vit.
Pont. in Muratori, tom. iii. pars i. Gregorius II. p. 154.
Gregorius III. p. 158. Zacharias, p. 161. Stephanus III. p. 165.;
Paulus, p. 172. Stephanus IV. p. 174. Hadrianus, p. 179. Leo III.
p. 195.) Yet I may remark, that the true Anastasius (Hist.
Eccles. p. 134, edit. Reg.) and the Historia Miscella, (l. xxi.
p. 151, in tom. i. Script. Ital.,) both of the ixth century,
translate and approve the Greek text of Theophanes.]
32 (return) [ With some minute difference, the most learned
critics, Lucas Holstenius, Schelestrate, Ciampini, Bianchini,
Muratori, (Prolegomena ad tom. iii. pars i.,) are agreed that the
Liber Pontificalis was composed and continued by the apostolic
librarians and notaries of the viiith and ixth centuries; and
that the last and smallest part is the work of Anastasius, whose
name it bears. The style is barbarous, the narrative partial, the
details are trifling—yet it must be read as a curious and
authentic record of the times. The epistles of the popes are
dispersed in the volumes of Councils.]
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part II.
Two original epistles, from Gregory the Second to the emperor
Leo, are still extant; 33 and if they cannot be praised as the
most perfect models of eloquence and logic, they exhibit the
portrait, or at least the mask, of the founder of the papal
monarchy. “During ten pure and fortunate years,” says Gregory to
the emperor, “we have tasted the annual comfort of your royal
letters, subscribed in purple ink, with your own hand, the sacred
pledges of your attachment to the orthodox creed of our fathers.
How deplorable is the change! how tremendous the scandal! You now
accuse the Catholics of idolatry; and, by the accusation, you
betray your own impiety and ignorance. To this ignorance we are
compelled to adapt the grossness of our style and arguments: the
first elements of holy letters are sufficient for your confusion;
and were you to enter a grammar-school, and avow yourself the
enemy of our worship, the simple and pious children would be
provoked to cast their horn-books at your head.” After this
decent salutation, the pope attempts the usual distinction
between the idols of antiquity and the Christian images. The
former were the fanciful representations of phantoms or daemons,
at a time when the true God had not manifested his person in any
visible likeness. The latter are the genuine forms of Christ, his
mother, and his saints, who had approved, by a crowd of miracles,
the innocence and merit of this relative worship. He must indeed
have trusted to the ignorance of Leo, since he could assert the
perpetual use of images, from the apostolic age, and their
venerable presence in the six synods of the Catholic church. A
more specious argument is drawn from present possession and
recent practice the harmony of the Christian world supersedes the
demand of a general council; and Gregory frankly confesses, than
such assemblies can only be useful under the reign of an orthodox
prince. To the impudent and inhuman Leo, more guilty than a
heretic, he recommends peace, silence, and implicit obedience to
his spiritual guides of Constantinople and Rome. The limits of
civil and ecclesiastical powers are defined by the pontiff. To
the former he appropriates the body; to the latter, the soul: the
sword of justice is in the hands of the magistrate: the more
formidable weapon of excommunication is intrusted to the clergy;
and in the exercise of their divine commission a zealous son will
not spare his offending father: the successor of St. Peter may
lawfully chastise the kings of the earth. “You assault us, O
tyrant! with a carnal and military hand: unarmed and naked we can
only implore the Christ, the prince of the heavenly host, that he
will send unto you a devil, for the destruction of your body and
the salvation of your soul. You declare, with foolish arrogance,
I will despatch my orders to Rome: I will break in pieces the
image of St. Peter; and Gregory, like his predecessor Martin,
shall be transported in chains, and in exile, to the foot of the
Imperial throne. Would to God that I might be permitted to tread
in the footsteps of the holy Martin! but may the fate of Constans
serve as a warning to the persecutors of the church! After his
just condemnation by the bishops of Sicily, the tyrant was cut
off, in the fullness of his sins, by a domestic servant: the
saint is still adored by the nations of Scythia, among whom he
ended his banishment and his life. But it is our duty to live for
the edification and support of the faithful people; nor are we
reduced to risk our safety on the event of a combat. Incapable as
you are of defending your Roman subjects, the maritime situation
of the city may perhaps expose it to your depredation but we can
remove to the distance of four-and-twenty stadia, to the first
fortress of the Lombards, and then—you may pursue the winds. 34
Are you ignorant that the popes are the bond of union, the
mediators of peace, between the East and West? The eyes of the
nations are fixed on our humility; and they revere, as a God upon
earth, the apostle St. Peter, whose image you threaten to
destroy. 35 The remote and interior kingdoms of the West present
their homage to Christ and his vicegerent; and we now prepare to
visit one of their most powerful monarchs, who desires to receive
from our hands the sacrament of baptism. 36 The Barbarians have
submitted to the yoke of the gospel, while you alone are deaf to
the voice of the shepherd. These pious Barbarians are kindled
into rage: they thirst to avenge the persecution of the East.
Abandon your rash and fatal enterprise; reflect, tremble, and
repent. If you persist, we are innocent of the blood that will be
spilt in the contest; may it fall on your own head!”
33 (return) [ The two epistles of Gregory II. have been preserved
in the Acta of the Nicene Council, (tom. viii. p. 651-674.) They
are without a date, which is variously fixed, by Baronius in the
year 726, by Muratori (Annali d’Italia, tom. vi. p. 120) in 729,
and by Pagi in 730. Such is the force of prejudice, that some
papists have praised the good sense and moderation of these
letters.]
34 (return) [ (Epist. i. p. 664.) This proximity of the Lombards
is hard of digestion. Camillo Pellegrini (Dissert. iv. de Ducatu
Beneventi, in the Script. Ital. tom. v. p. 172, 173) forcibly
reckons the xxivth stadia, not from Rome, but from the limits of
the Roman duchy, to the first fortress, perhaps Sora, of the
Lombards. I rather believe that Gregory, with the pedantry of the
age, employs stadia for miles, without much inquiry into the
genuine measure.]
35 (return) [ {Greek}]
36 (return) [ (p. 665.) The pope appears to have imposed on the
ignorance of the Greeks: he lived and died in the Lateran; and in
his time all the kingdoms of the West had embraced Christianity.
May not this unknown Septetus have some reference to the chief of
the Saxon Heptarchy, to Ina king of Wessex, who, in the
pontificate of Gregory the Second, visited Rome for the purpose,
not of baptism, but of pilgrimage! (Pagi. A., 89, No. 2. A.D.
726, No. 15.)]
The first assault of Leo against the images of Constantinople had
been witnessed by a crowd of strangers from Italy and the West,
who related with grief and indignation the sacrilege of the
emperor. But on the reception of his proscriptive edict, they
trembled for their domestic deities: the images of Christ and the
Virgin, of the angels, martyrs, and saints, were abolished in all
the churches of Italy; and a strong alternative was proposed to
the Roman pontiff, the royal favor as the price of his
compliance, degradation and exile as the penalty of his
disobedience. Neither zeal nor policy allowed him to hesitate;
and the haughty strain in which Gregory addressed the emperor
displays his confidence in the truth of his doctrine or the
powers of resistance. Without depending on prayers or miracles,
he boldly armed against the public enemy, and his pastoral
letters admonished the Italians of their danger and their duty.
37 At this signal, Ravenna, Venice, and the cities of the
Exarchate and Pentapolis, adhered to the cause of religion; their
military force by sea and land consisted, for the most part, of
the natives; and the spirit of patriotism and zeal was transfused
into the mercenary strangers. The Italians swore to live and die
in the defence of the pope and the holy images; the Roman people
was devoted to their father, and even the Lombards were ambitious
to share the merit and advantage of this holy war. The most
treasonable act, but the most obvious revenge, was the
destruction of the statues of Leo himself: the most effectual and
pleasing measure of rebellion, was the withholding the tribute of
Italy, and depriving him of a power which he had recently abused
by the imposition of a new capitation. 38 A form of
administration was preserved by the election of magistrates and
governors; and so high was the public indignation, that the
Italians were prepared to create an orthodox emperor, and to
conduct him with a fleet and army to the palace of
Constantinople. In that palace, the Roman bishops, the second and
third Gregory, were condemned as the authors of the revolt, and
every attempt was made, either by fraud or force, to seize their
persons, and to strike at their lives. The city was repeatedly
visited or assaulted by captains of the guards, and dukes and
exarchs of high dignity or secret trust; they landed with foreign
troops, they obtained some domestic aid, and the superstition of
Naples may blush that her fathers were attached to the cause of
heresy. But these clandestine or open attacks were repelled by
the courage and vigilance of the Romans; the Greeks were
overthrown and massacred, their leaders suffered an ignominious
death, and the popes, however inclined to mercy, refused to
intercede for these guilty victims. At Ravenna, 39 the several
quarters of the city had long exercised a bloody and hereditary
feud; in religious controversy they found a new aliment of
faction: but the votaries of images were superior in numbers or
spirit, and the exarch, who attempted to stem the torrent, lost
his life in a popular sedition. To punish this flagitious deed,
and restore his dominion in Italy, the emperor sent a fleet and
army into the Adriatic Gulf. After suffering from the winds and
waves much loss and delay, the Greeks made their descent in the
neighborhood of Ravenna: they threatened to depopulate the guilty
capital, and to imitate, perhaps to surpass, the example of
Justinian the Second, who had chastised a former rebellion by the
choice and execution of fifty of the principal inhabitants. The
women and clergy, in sackcloth and ashes, lay prostrate in
prayer: the men were in arms for the defence of their country;
the common danger had united the factions, and the event of a
battle was preferred to the slow miseries of a siege. In a
hard-fought day, as the two armies alternately yielded and
advanced, a phantom was seen, a voice was heard, and Ravenna was
victorious by the assurance of victory. The strangers retreated
to their ships, but the populous sea-coast poured forth a
multitude of boats; the waters of the Po were so deeply infected
with blood, that during six years the public prejudice abstained
from the fish of the river; and the institution of an annual
feast perpetuated the worship of images, and the abhorrence of
the Greek tyrant. Amidst the triumph of the Catholic arms, the
Roman pontiff convened a synod of ninety-three bishops against
the heresy of the Iconoclasts. With their consent, he pronounced
a general excommunication against all who by word or deed should
attack the tradition of the fathers and the images of the saints:
in this sentence the emperor was tacitly involved, 40 but the
vote of a last and hopeless remonstrance may seem to imply that
the anathema was yet suspended over his guilty head. No sooner
had they confirmed their own safety, the worship of images, and
the freedom of Rome and Italy, than the popes appear to have
relaxed of their severity, and to have spared the relics of the
Byzantine dominion. Their moderate councils delayed and prevented
the election of a new emperor, and they exhorted the Italians not
to separate from the body of the Roman monarchy. The exarch was
permitted to reside within the walls of Ravenna, a captive rather
than a master; and till the Imperial coronation of Charlemagne,
the government of Rome and Italy was exercised in the name of the
successors of Constantine. 41
37 (return) [ I shall transcribe the important and decisive
passage of the Liber Pontificalis. Respiciens ergo pius vir
profanam principis jussionem, jam contra Imperatorem quasi contra
hostem se armavit, renuens haeresim ejus, scribens ubique se
cavere Christianos, eo quod orta fuisset impietas talis. Igitur
permoti omnes Pentapolenses, atque Venetiarum exercitus contra
Imperatoris jussionem restiterunt; dicentes se nunquam in ejusdem
pontificis condescendere necem, sed pro ejus magis defensione
viriliter decertare, (p. 156.)]
38 (return) [ A census, or capitation, says Anastasius, (p. 156;)
a most cruel tax, unknown to the Saracens themselves, exclaims
the zealous Maimbourg, (Hist. des Iconoclastes, l. i.,) and
Theophanes, (p. 344,) who talks of Pharaoh’s numbering the male
children of Israel. This mode of taxation was familiar to the
Saracens; and, most unluckily for the historians, it was imposed
a few years afterwards in France by his patron Louis XIV.]
39 (return) [ See the Liber Pontificalis of Agnellus, (in the
Scriptores Rerum Italicarum of Muratori, tom. ii. pars i.,) whose
deeper shade of barbarism marks the difference between Rome and
Ravenna. Yet we are indebted to him for some curious and domestic
facts—the quarters and factions of Ravenna, (p. 154,) the revenge
of Justinian II, (p. 160, 161,) the defeat of the Greeks, (p.
170, 171,) &c.]
40 (return) [ Yet Leo was undoubtedly comprised in the si quis
.... imaginum sacrarum.... destructor.... extiterit, sit extorris
a cor pore D. N. Jesu Christi vel totius ecclesiae unitate. The
canonists may decide whether the guilt or the name constitutes
the excommunication; and the decision is of the last importance
to their safety, since, according to the oracle (Gratian, Caus.
xxiii. q. 5, 47, apud Spanheim, Hist. Imag. p. 112) homicidas non
esse qui excommunicatos trucidant.]
41 (return) [ Compescuit tale consilium Pontifex, sperans
conversionem principis, (Anastas. p. 156.) Sed ne desisterent ab
amore et fide R. J. admonebat, (p. 157.) The popes style Leo and
Constantine Copronymus, Imperatores et Domini, with the strange
epithet of Piissimi. A famous Mosaic of the Lateran (A.D. 798)
represents Christ, who delivers the keys to St. Peter and the
banner to Constantine V. (Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom. vi. p.
337.)]
The liberty of Rome, which had been oppressed by the arms and
arts of Augustus, was rescued, after seven hundred and fifty
years of servitude, from the persecution of Leo the Isaurian. By
the Caesars, the triumphs of the consuls had been annihilated: in
the decline and fall of the empire, the god Terminus, the sacred
boundary, had insensibly receded from the ocean, the Rhine, the
Danube, and the Euphrates; and Rome was reduced to her ancient
territory from Viterbo to Terracina, and from Narni to the mouth
of the Tyber. 42 When the kings were banished, the republic
reposed on the firm basis which had been founded by their wisdom
and virtue. Their perpetual jurisdiction was divided between two
annual magistrates: the senate continued to exercise the powers
of administration and counsel; and the legislative authority was
distributed in the assemblies of the people, by a
well-proportioned scale of property and service. Ignorant of the
arts of luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the science of
government and war: the will of the community was absolute: the
rights of individuals were sacred: one hundred and thirty
thousand citizens were armed for defence or conquest; and a band
of robbers and outlaws was moulded into a nation deserving of
freedom and ambitious of glory. 43 When the sovereignty of the
Greek emperors was extinguished, the ruins of Rome presented the
sad image of depopulation and decay: her slavery was a habit, her
liberty an accident; the effect of superstition, and the object
of her own amazement and terror. The last vestige of the
substance, or even the forms, of the constitution, was
obliterated from the practice and memory of the Romans; and they
were devoid of knowledge, or virtue, again to build the fabric of
a commonwealth. Their scanty remnant, the offspring of slaves and
strangers, was despicable in the eyes of the victorious
Barbarians. As often as the Franks or Lombards expressed their
most bitter contempt of a foe, they called him a Roman; “and in
this name,” says the bishop Liutprand, “we include whatever is
base, whatever is cowardly, whatever is perfidious, the extremes
of avarice and luxury, and every vice that can prostitute the
dignity of human nature.” 44 441 By the necessity of their
situation, the inhabitants of Rome were cast into the rough model
of a republican government: they were compelled to elect some
judges in peace, and some leaders in war: the nobles assembled to
deliberate, and their resolves could not be executed without the
union and consent of the multitude. The style of the Roman senate
and people was revived, 45 but the spirit was fled; and their new
independence was disgraced by the tumultuous conflict of
vicentiousness and oppression. The want of laws could only be
supplied by the influence of religion, and their foreign and
domestic counsels were moderated by the authority of the bishop.
His alms, his sermons, his correspondence with the kings and
prelates of the West, his recent services, their gratitude, and
oath, accustomed the Romans to consider him as the first
magistrate or prince of the city. The Christian humility of the
popes was not offended by the name of Dominus, or Lord; and their
face and inscription are still apparent on the most ancient
coins. 46 Their temporal dominion is now confirmed by the
reverence of a thousand years; and their noblest title is the
free choice of a people, whom they had redeemed from slavery.
42 (return) [ I have traced the Roman duchy according to the
maps, and the maps according to the excellent dissertation of
father Beretti, (de Chorographia Italiae Medii Aevi, sect. xx. p.
216-232.) Yet I must nicely observe, that Viterbo is of Lombard
foundation, (p. 211,) and that Terracina was usurped by the
Greeks.]
43 (return) [ On the extent, population, &c., of the Roman
kingdom, the reader may peruse, with pleasure, the Discours
Preliminaire to the Republique Romaine of M. de Beaufort, (tom.
i.,) who will not be accused of too much credulity for the early
ages of Rome.]
44 (return) [ Quos (Romanos) nos, Longobardi scilicet, Saxones,
Franci, Locharingi, Bajoarii, Suevi, Burgundiones, tanto
dedignamur ut inimicos nostros commoti, nil aliud contumeliarum
nisi Romane, dicamus: hoc solo, id est Romanorum nomine, quicquid
ignobilitatis, quicquid timiditatis, quicquid avaritiae, quicquid
luxuriae, quicquid mendacii, immo quicquid vitiorum est
comprehendentes, (Liutprand, in Legat Script. Ital. tom. ii. para
i. p. 481.) For the sins of Cato or Tully Minos might have
imposed as a fit penance the daily perusal of this barbarous
passage.]
441 (return) [ Yet this contumelious sentence, quoted by
Robertson (Charles V note 2) as well as Gibbon, was applied by
the angry bishop to the Byzantine Romans, whom, indeed, he admits
to be the genuine descendants of Romulus.—M.]
45 (return) [ Pipino regi Francorum, omnis senatus, atque
universa populi generalitas a Deo servatae Romanae urbis. Codex
Carolin. epist. 36, in Script. Ital. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 160.
The names of senatus and senator were never totally extinct,
(Dissert. Chorograph. p. 216, 217;) but in the middle ages they
signified little more than nobiles, optimates, &c., (Ducange,
Gloss. Latin.)]
46 (return) [ See Muratori, Antiquit. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom.
ii. Dissertat xxvii. p. 548. On one of these coins we read
Hadrianus Papa (A.D. 772;) on the reverse, Vict. Ddnn. with the
word Conob, which the Pere Joubert (Science des Medailles, tom.
ii. p. 42) explains by Constantinopoli Officina B (secunda.)]
In the quarrels of ancient Greece, the holy people of Elis
enjoyed a perpetual peace, under the protection of Jupiter, and
in the exercise of the Olympic games. 47 Happy would it have been
for the Romans, if a similar privilege had guarded the patrimony
of St. Peter from the calamities of war; if the Christians, who
visited the holy threshold, would have sheathed their swords in
the presence of the apostle and his successor. But this mystic
circle could have been traced only by the wand of a legislator
and a sage: this pacific system was incompatible with the zeal
and ambition of the popes; the Romans were not addicted, like the
inhabitants of Elis, to the innocent and placid labors of
agriculture; and the Barbarians of Italy, though softened by the
climate, were far below the Grecian states in the institutions of
public and private life. A memorable example of repentance and
piety was exhibited by Liutprand, king of the Lombards. In arms,
at the gate of the Vatican, the conqueror listened to the voice
of Gregory the Second, 48 withdrew his troops, resigned his
conquests, respectfully visited the church of St. Peter, and
after performing his devotions, offered his sword and dagger, his
cuirass and mantle, his silver cross, and his crown of gold, on
the tomb of the apostle. But this religious fervor was the
illusion, perhaps the artifice, of the moment; the sense of
interest is strong and lasting; the love of arms and rapine was
congenial to the Lombards; and both the prince and people were
irresistibly tempted by the disorders of Italy, the nakedness of
Rome, and the unwarlike profession of her new chief. On the first
edicts of the emperor, they declared themselves the champions of
the holy images: Liutprand invaded the province of Romagna, which
had already assumed that distinctive appellation; the Catholics
of the Exarchate yielded without reluctance to his civil and
military power; and a foreign enemy was introduced for the first
time into the impregnable fortress of Ravenna. That city and
fortress were speedily recovered by the active diligence and
maritime forces of the Venetians; and those faithful subjects
obeyed the exhortation of Gregory himself, in separating the
personal guilt of Leo from the general cause of the Roman empire.
49 The Greeks were less mindful of the service, than the Lombards
of the injury: the two nations, hostile in their faith, were
reconciled in a dangerous and unnatural alliance: the king and
the exarch marched to the conquest of Spoleto and Rome: the storm
evaporated without effect, but the policy of Liutprand alarmed
Italy with a vexatious alternative of hostility and truce. His
successor Astolphus declared himself the equal enemy of the
emperor and the pope: Ravenna was subdued by force or treachery,
50 and this final conquest extinguished the series of the
exarchs, who had reigned with a subordinate power since the time
of Justinian and the ruin of the Gothic kingdom. Rome was
summoned to acknowledge the victorious Lombard as her lawful
sovereign; the annual tribute of a piece of gold was fixed as the
ransom of each citizen, and the sword of destruction was
unsheathed to exact the penalty of her disobedience. The Romans
hesitated; they entreated; they complained; and the threatening
Barbarians were checked by arms and negotiations, till the popes
had engaged the friendship of an ally and avenger beyond the
Alps. 51
47 (return) [ See West’s Dissertation on the Olympic Games,
(Pindar. vol. ii. p. 32-36, edition in 12mo.,) and the judicious
reflections of Polybius (tom. i. l. iv. p. 466, edit Gronov.)]
48 (return) [ The speech of Gregory to the Lombard is finely
composed by Sigonius, (de Regno Italiae, l. iii. Opera, tom. ii.
p. 173,) who imitates the license and the spirit of Sallust or
Livy.]
49 (return) [ The Venetian historians, John Sagorninus, (Chron.
Venet. p. 13,) and the doge Andrew Dandolo, (Scriptores Rer.
Ital. tom. xii. p. 135,) have preserved this epistle of Gregory.
The loss and recovery of Ravenna are mentioned by Paulus
Diaconus, (de Gest. Langobard, l. vi. c. 42, 54, in Script. Ital.
tom. i. pars i. p. 506, 508;) but our chronologists, Pagi,
Muratori, &c., cannot ascertain the date or circumstances]
50 (return) [ The option will depend on the various readings of
the Mss. of Anastasius—deceperat, or decerpserat, (Script. Ital.
tom. iii. pars i. p. 167.)]
51 (return) [ The Codex Carolinus is a collection of the epistles
of the popes to Charles Martel, (whom they style Subregulus,)
Pepin, and Charlemagne, as far as the year 791, when it was
formed by the last of these princes. His original and authentic
Ms. (Bibliothecae Cubicularis) is now in the Imperial library of
Vienna, and has been published by Lambecius and Muratori,
(Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 75, &c.)]
In his distress, the first 511 Gregory had implored the aid of
the hero of the age, of Charles Martel, who governed the French
monarchy with the humble title of mayor or duke; and who, by his
signal victory over the Saracens, had saved his country, and
perhaps Europe, from the Mahometan yoke. The ambassadors of the
pope were received by Charles with decent reverence; but the
greatness of his occupations, and the shortness of his life,
prevented his interference in the affairs of Italy, except by a
friendly and ineffectual mediation. His son Pepin, the heir of
his power and virtues, assumed the office of champion of the
Roman church; and the zeal of the French prince appears to have
been prompted by the love of glory and religion. But the danger
was on the banks of the Tyber, the succor on those of the Seine,
and our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
Amidst the tears of the city, Stephen the Third embraced the
generous resolution of visiting in person the courts of Lombardy
and France, to deprecate the injustice of his enemy, or to excite
the pity and indignation of his friend. After soothing the public
despair by litanies and orations, he undertook this laborious
journey with the ambassadors of the French monarch and the Greek
emperor. The king of the Lombards was inexorable; but his threats
could not silence the complaints, nor retard the speed of the
Roman pontiff, who traversed the Pennine Alps, reposed in the
abbey of St. Maurice, and hastened to grasp the right hand of his
protector; a hand which was never lifted in vain, either in war
or friendship. Stephen was entertained as the visible successor
of the apostle; at the next assembly, the field of March or of
May, his injuries were exposed to a devout and warlike nation,
and he repassed the Alps, not as a suppliant, but as a conqueror,
at the head of a French army, which was led by the king in
person. The Lombards, after a weak resistance, obtained an
ignominious peace, and swore to restore the possessions, and to
respect the sanctity, of the Roman church. But no sooner was
Astolphus delivered from the presence of the French arms, than he
forgot his promise and resented his disgrace. Rome was again
encompassed by his arms; and Stephen, apprehensive of fatiguing
the zeal of his Transalpine allies enforced his complaint and
request by an eloquent letter in the name and person of St. Peter
himself. 52 The apostle assures his adopted sons, the king, the
clergy, and the nobles of France, that, dead in the flesh, he is
still alive in the spirit; that they now hear, and must obey, the
voice of the founder and guardian of the Roman church; that the
Virgin, the angels, the saints, and the martyrs, and all the host
of heaven, unanimously urge the request, and will confess the
obligation; that riches, victory, and paradise, will crown their
pious enterprise, and that eternal damnation will be the penalty
of their neglect, if they suffer his tomb, his temple, and his
people, to fall into the hands of the perfidious Lombards. The
second expedition of Pepin was not less rapid and fortunate than
the first: St. Peter was satisfied, Rome was again saved, and
Astolphus was taught the lessons of justice and sincerity by the
scourge of a foreign master. After this double chastisement, the
Lombards languished about twenty years in a state of languor and
decay. But their minds were not yet humbled to their condition;
and instead of affecting the pacific virtues of the feeble, they
peevishly harassed the Romans with a repetition of claims,
evasions, and inroads, which they undertook without reflection,
and terminated without glory. On either side, their expiring
monarchy was pressed by the zeal and prudence of Pope Adrian the
First, the genius, the fortune, and greatness of Charlemagne, the
son of Pepin; these heroes of the church and state were united in
public and domestic friendship, and while they trampled on the
prostrate, they varnished their proceedings with the fairest
colors of equity and moderation. 53 The passes of the Alps, and
the walls of Pavia, were the only defence of the Lombards; the
former were surprised, the latter were invested, by the son of
Pepin; and after a blockade of two years, 531 Desiderius, the
last of their native princes, surrendered his sceptre and his
capital.
Under the dominion of a foreign king, but in the possession of
their national laws, the Lombards became the brethren, rather
than the subjects, of the Franks; who derived their blood, and
manners, and language, from the same Germanic origin. 54
511 (return) [ Gregory I. had been dead above a century; read
Gregory III.—M]
52 (return) [ See this most extraordinary letter in the Codex
Carolinus, epist iii. p. 92. The enemies of the popes have
charged them with fraud and blasphemy; yet they surely meant to
persuade rather than deceive. This introduction of the dead, or
of immortals, was familiar to the ancient orators, though it is
executed on this occasion in the rude fashion of the age.]
53 (return) [ Except in the divorce of the daughter of
Desiderius, whom Charlemagne repudiated sine aliquo crimine. Pope
Stephen IV. had most furiously opposed the alliance of a noble
Frank—cum perfida, horrida nec dicenda, foetentissima natione
Longobardorum—to whom he imputes the first stain of leprosy,
(Cod. Carolin. epist. 45, p. 178, 179.) Another reason against
the marriage was the existence of a first wife, (Muratori, Annali
d’Italia, tom. vi. p. 232, 233, 236, 237.) But Charlemagne
indulged himself in the freedom of polygamy or concubinage.]
531 (return) [ Of fifteen months. James, Life of Charlemagne, p.
187.—M.]
54 (return) [ See the Annali d’Italia of Muratori, tom. vi., and
the three first Dissertations of his Antiquitates Italiae Medii
Aevi, tom. i.]
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part III.
The mutual obligations of the popes and the Carlovingian family
form the important link of ancient and modern, of civil and
ecclesiastical, history. In the conquest of Italy, the champions
of the Roman church obtained a favorable occasion, a specious
title, the wishes of the people, the prayers and intrigues of the
clergy. But the most essential gifts of the popes to the
Carlovingian race were the dignities of king of France, 55 and of
patrician of Rome. I. Under the sacerdotal monarchy of St. Peter,
the nations began to resume the practice of seeking, on the banks
of the Tyber, their kings, their laws, and the oracles of their
fate. The Franks were perplexed between the name and substance of
their government. All the powers of royalty were exercised by
Pepin, mayor of the palace; and nothing, except the regal title,
was wanting to his ambition. His enemies were crushed by his
valor; his friends were multiplied by his liberality; his father
had been the savior of Christendom; and the claims of personal
merit were repeated and ennobled in a descent of four
generations. The name and image of royalty was still preserved in
the last descendant of Clovis, the feeble Childeric; but his
obsolete right could only be used as an instrument of sedition:
the nation was desirous of restoring the simplicity of the
constitution; and Pepin, a subject and a prince, was ambitious to
ascertain his own rank and the fortune of his family. The mayor
and the nobles were bound, by an oath of fidelity, to the royal
phantom: the blood of Clovis was pure and sacred in their eyes;
and their common ambassadors addressed the Roman pontiff, to
dispel their scruples, or to absolve their promise. The interest
of Pope Zachary, the successor of the two Gregories, prompted him
to decide, and to decide in their favor: he pronounced that the
nation might lawfully unite in the same person the title and
authority of king; and that the unfortunate Childeric, a victim
of the public safety, should be degraded, shaved, and confined in
a monastery for the remainder of his days. An answer so agreeable
to their wishes was accepted by the Franks as the opinion of a
casuist, the sentence of a judge, or the oracle of a prophet: the
Merovingian race disappeared from the earth; and Pepin was
exalted on a buckler by the suffrage of a free people, accustomed
to obey his laws and to march under his standard. His coronation
was twice performed, with the sanction of the popes, by their
most faithful servant St. Boniface, the apostle of Germany, and
by the grateful hands of Stephen the Third, who, in the monastery
of St. Denys placed the diadem on the head of his benefactor. The
royal unction of the kings of Israel was dexterously applied: 56
the successor of St. Peter assumed the character of a divine
ambassador: a German chieftain was transformed into the Lord’s
anointed; and this Jewish rite has been diffused and maintained
by the superstition and vanity of modern Europe. The Franks were
absolved from their ancient oath; but a dire anathema was
thundered against them and their posterity, if they should dare
to renew the same freedom of choice, or to elect a king, except
in the holy and meritorious race of the Carlovingian princes.
Without apprehending the future danger, these princes gloried in
their present security: the secretary of Charlemagne affirms,
that the French sceptre was transferred by the authority of the
popes; 57 and in their boldest enterprises, they insist, with
confidence, on this signal and successful act of temporal
jurisdiction.
55 (return) [ Besides the common historians, three French
critics, Launoy, (Opera, tom. v. pars ii. l. vii. epist. 9, p.
477-487,) Pagi, (Critica, A.D. 751, No. 1-6, A.D. 752, No. 1-10,)
and Natalis Alexander, (Hist. Novi Testamenti, dissertat, ii. p.
96-107,) have treated this subject of the deposition of Childeric
with learning and attention, but with a strong bias to save the
independence of the crown. Yet they are hard pressed by the texts
which they produce of Eginhard, Theophanes, and the old annals,
Laureshamenses, Fuldenses, Loisielani]
56 (return) [ Not absolutely for the first time. On a less
conspicuous theatre it had been used, in the vith and viith
centuries, by the provincial bishops of Britain and Spain. The
royal unction of Constantinople was borrowed from the Latins in
the last age of the empire. Constantine Manasses mentions that of
Charlemagne as a foreign, Jewish, incomprehensible ceremony. See
Selden’s Titles of Honor, in his Works, vol. iii. part i. p.
234-249.]
57 (return) [ See Eginhard, in Vita Caroli Magni, c. i. p. 9,
&c., c. iii. p. 24. Childeric was deposed—jussu, the
Carlovingians were established—auctoritate, Pontificis Romani.
Launoy, &c., pretend that these strong words are susceptible of a
very soft interpretation. Be it so; yet Eginhard understood the
world, the court, and the Latin language.]
II. In the change of manners and language the patricians of Rome
58 were far removed from the senate of Romulus, or the palace of
Constantine, from the free nobles of the republic, or the
fictitious parents of the emperor. After the recovery of Italy
and Africa by the arms of Justinian, the importance and danger of
those remote provinces required the presence of a supreme
magistrate; he was indifferently styled the exarch or the
patrician; and these governors of Ravenna, who fill their place
in the chronology of princes, extended their jurisdiction over
the Roman city. Since the revolt of Italy and the loss of the
Exarchate, the distress of the Romans had exacted some sacrifice
of their independence. Yet, even in this act, they exercised the
right of disposing of themselves; and the decrees of the senate
and people successively invested Charles Martel and his posterity
with the honors of patrician of Rome. The leaders of a powerful
nation would have disdained a servile title and subordinate
office; but the reign of the Greek emperors was suspended; and,
in the vacancy of the empire, they derived a more glorious
commission from the pope and the republic. The Roman ambassadors
presented these patricians with the keys of the shrine of St.
Peter, as a pledge and symbol of sovereignty; with a holy banner
which it was their right and duty to unfurl in the defence of the
church and city. 59 In the time of Charles Martel and of Pepin,
the interposition of the Lombard kingdom covered the freedom,
while it threatened the safety, of Rome; and the patriciate
represented only the title, the service, the alliance, of these
distant protectors. The power and policy of Charlemagne
annihilated an enemy, and imposed a master. In his first visit to
the capital, he was received with all the honors which had
formerly been paid to the exarch, the representative of the
emperor; and these honors obtained some new decorations from the
joy and gratitude of Pope Adrian the First. 60 No sooner was he
informed of the sudden approach of the monarch, than he
despatched the magistrates and nobles of Rome to meet him, with
the banner, about thirty miles from the city. At the distance of
one mile, the Flaminian way was lined with the schools, or
national communities, of Greeks, Lombards, Saxons, &c.: the Roman
youth were under arms; and the children of a more tender age,
with palms and olive branches in their hands, chanted the praises
of their great deliverer. At the aspect of the holy crosses, and
ensigns of the saints, he dismounted from his horse, led the
procession of his nobles to the Vatican, and, as he ascended the
stairs, devoutly kissed each step of the threshold of the
apostles. In the portico, Adrian expected him at the head of his
clergy: they embraced, as friends and equals; but in their march
to the altar, the king or patrician assumed the right hand of the
pope. Nor was the Frank content with these vain and empty
demonstrations of respect. In the twenty-six years that elapsed
between the conquest of Lombardy and his Imperial coronation,
Rome, which had been delivered by the sword, was subject, as his
own, to the sceptre of Charlemagne. The people swore allegiance
to his person and family: in his name money was coined, and
justice was administered; and the election of the popes was
examined and confirmed by his authority. Except an original and
self-inherent claim of sovereignty, there was not any prerogative
remaining, which the title of emperor could add to the patrician
of Rome. 61
58 (return) [ For the title and powers of patrician of Rome, see
Ducange, (Gloss. Latin. tom. v. p. 149-151,) Pagi, (Critica, A.D.
740, No. 6-11,) Muratori, (Annali d’Italia, tom. vi. p. 308-329,)
and St. Marc, (Abrege Chronologique d’Italie, tom. i. p.
379-382.) Of these the Franciscan Pagi is the most disposed to
make the patrician a lieutenant of the church, rather than of the
empire.]
59 (return) [ The papal advocates can soften the symbolic meaning
of the banner and the keys; but the style of ad regnum dimisimus,
or direximus, (Codex Carolin. epist. i. tom. iii. pars ii. p.
76,) seems to allow of no palliation or escape. In the Ms. of the
Vienna library, they read, instead of regnum, rogum, prayer or
request (see Ducange;) and the royalty of Charles Martel is
subverted by this important correction, (Catalani, in his
Critical Prefaces, Annali d’Italia, tom. xvii. p. 95-99.)]
60 (return) [ In the authentic narrative of this reception, the
Liber Pontificalis observes—obviam illi ejus sanctitas dirigens
venerabiles cruces, id est signa; sicut mos est ad exarchum, aut
patricium suscipiendum, sum cum ingenti honore suscipi fecit,
(tom. iii. pars i. p. 185.)]
61 (return) [ Paulus Diaconus, who wrote before the empire of
Charlemagne describes Rome as his subject city—vestrae civitates
(ad Pompeium Festum) suis addidit sceptris, (de Metensis
Ecclesiae Episcopis.) Some Carlovingian medals, struck at Rome,
have engaged Le Blanc to write an elaborate, though partial,
dissertation on their authority at Rome, both as patricians and
emperors, (Amsterdam, 1692, in 4to.)]
The gratitude of the Carlovingians was adequate to these
obligations, and their names are consecrated, as the saviors and
benefactors of the Roman church. Her ancient patrimony of farms
and houses was transformed by their bounty into the temporal
dominion of cities and provinces; and the donation of the
Exarchate was the first-fruits of the conquests of Pepin. 62
Astolphus with a sigh relinquished his prey; the keys and the
hostages of the principal cities were delivered to the French
ambassador; and, in his master’s name, he presented them before
the tomb of St. Peter. The ample measure of the Exarchate 63
might comprise all the provinces of Italy which had obeyed the
emperor and his vicegerent; but its strict and proper limits were
included in the territories of Ravenna, Bologna, and Ferrara: its
inseparable dependency was the Pentapolis, which stretched along
the Adriatic from Rimini to Ancona, and advanced into the
midland-country as far as the ridges of the Apennine. In this
transaction, the ambition and avarice of the popes have been
severely condemned. Perhaps the humility of a Christian priest
should have rejected an earthly kingdom, which it was not easy
for him to govern without renouncing the virtues of his
profession. Perhaps a faithful subject, or even a generous enemy,
would have been less impatient to divide the spoils of the
Barbarian; and if the emperor had intrusted Stephen to solicit in
his name the restitution of the Exarchate, I will not absolve the
pope from the reproach of treachery and falsehood. But in the
rigid interpretation of the laws, every one may accept, without
injury, whatever his benefactor can bestow without injustice. The
Greek emperor had abdicated, or forfeited, his right to the
Exarchate; and the sword of Astolphus was broken by the stronger
sword of the Carlovingian. It was not in the cause of the
Iconoclast that Pepin has exposed his person and army in a double
expedition beyond the Alps: he possessed, and might lawfully
alienate, his conquests: and to the importunities of the Greeks
he piously replied that no human consideration should tempt him
to resume the gift which he had conferred on the Roman Pontiff
for the remission of his sins, and the salvation of his soul. The
splendid donation was granted in supreme and absolute dominion,
and the world beheld for the first time a Christian bishop
invested with the prerogatives of a temporal prince; the choice
of magistrates, the exercise of justice, the imposition of taxes,
and the wealth of the palace of Ravenna. In the dissolution of
the Lombard kingdom, the inhabitants of the duchy of Spoleto 64
sought a refuge from the storm, shaved their heads after the
Roman fashion, declared themselves the servants and subjects of
St. Peter, and completed, by this voluntary surrender, the
present circle of the ecclesiastical state. That mysterious
circle was enlarged to an indefinite extent, by the verbal or
written donation of Charlemagne, 65 who, in the first transports
of his victory, despoiled himself and the Greek emperor of the
cities and islands which had formerly been annexed to the
Exarchate. But, in the cooler moments of absence and reflection,
he viewed, with an eye of jealousy and envy, the recent greatness
of his ecclesiastical ally. The execution of his own and his
father’s promises was respectfully eluded: the king of the Franks
and Lombards asserted the inalienable rights of the empire; and,
in his life and death, Ravenna, 66 as well as Rome, was numbered
in the list of his metropolitan cities. The sovereignty of the
Exarchate melted away in the hands of the popes; they found in
the archbishops of Ravenna a dangerous and domestic rival: 67 the
nobles and people disdained the yoke of a priest; and in the
disorders of the times, they could only retain the memory of an
ancient claim, which, in a more prosperous age, they have revived
and realized.
62 (return) [ Mosheim (Institution, Hist. Eccles. p. 263) weighs
this donation with fair and deliberate prudence. The original act
has never been produced; but the Liber Pontificalis represents,
(p. 171,) and the Codex Carolinus supposes, this ample gift. Both
are contemporary records and the latter is the more authentic,
since it has been preserved, not in the Papal, but the Imperial,
library.]
63 (return) [ Between the exorbitant claims, and narrow
concessions, of interest and prejudice, from which even Muratori
(Antiquitat. tom. i. p. 63-68) is not exempt, I have been guided,
in the limits of the Exarchate and Pentapolis, by the Dissertatio
Chorographica Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. x. p. 160-180.]
64 (return) [ Spoletini deprecati sunt, ut eos in servitio B.
Petri receperet et more Romanorum tonsurari faceret, (Anastasius,
p. 185.) Yet it may be a question whether they gave their own
persons or their country.]
65 (return) [ The policy and donations of Charlemagne are
carefully examined by St. Marc, (Abrege, tom. i. p. 390-408,) who
has well studied the Codex Carolinus. I believe, with him, that
they were only verbal. The most ancient act of donation that
pretends to be extant, is that of the emperor Lewis the Pious,
(Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, l. iv. Opera, tom. ii. p. 267-270.)
Its authenticity, or at least its integrity, are much questioned,
(Pagi, A.D. 817, No. 7, &c. Muratori, Annali, tom. vi. p. 432,
&c. Dissertat. Chorographica, p. 33, 34;) but I see no reasonable
objection to these princes so freely disposing of what was not
their own.]
66 (return) [ Charlemagne solicited and obtained from the
proprietor, Hadrian I., the mosaics of the palace of Ravenna, for
the decoration of Aix-la-Chapelle, (Cod. Carolin. epist. 67, p.
223.)]
67 (return) [ The popes often complain of the usurpations of Leo
of Ravenna, (Codex Carolin, epist. 51, 52, 53, p. 200-205.) Sir
corpus St. Andreae fratris germani St. Petri hic humasset,
nequaquam nos Romani pontifices sic subjugassent, (Agnellus,
Liber Pontificalis, in Scriptores Rerum Ital. tom. ii. pars. i.
p. 107.)]
Fraud is the resource of weakness and cunning; and the strong,
though ignorant, Barbarian was often entangled in the net of
sacerdotal policy. The Vatican and Lateran were an arsenal and
manufacture, which, according to the occasion, have produced or
concealed a various collection of false or genuine, of corrupt or
suspicious, acts, as they tended to promote the interest of the
Roman church. Before the end of the eighth century, some
apostolic scribe, perhaps the notorious Isidore, composed the
decretals, and the donation of Constantine, the two magic pillars
of the spiritual and temporal monarchy of the popes. This
memorable donation was introduced to the world by an epistle of
Adrian the First, who exhorts Charlemagne to imitate the
liberality, and revive the name, of the great Constantine. 68
According to the legend, the first of the Christian emperors was
healed of the leprosy, and purified in the waters of baptism, by
St. Silvester, the Roman bishop; and never was physician more
gloriously recompensed. His royal proselyte withdrew from the
seat and patrimony of St. Peter; declared his resolution of
founding a new capital in the East; and resigned to the popes;
the free and perpetual sovereignty of Rome, Italy, and the
provinces of the West. 69 This fiction was productive of the most
beneficial effects. The Greek princes were convicted of the guilt
of usurpation; and the revolt of Gregory was the claim of his
lawful inheritance. The popes were delivered from their debt of
gratitude; and the nominal gifts of the Carlovingians were no
more than the just and irrevocable restitution of a scanty
portion of the ecclesiastical state. The sovereignty of Rome no
longer depended on the choice of a fickle people; and the
successors of St. Peter and Constantine were invested with the
purple and prerogatives of the Caesars. So deep was the ignorance
and credulity of the times, that the most absurd of fables was
received, with equal reverence, in Greece and in France, and is
still enrolled among the decrees of the canon law. 70 The
emperors, and the Romans, were incapable of discerning a forgery,
that subverted their rights and freedom; and the only opposition
proceeded from a Sabine monastery, which, in the beginning of the
twelfth century, disputed the truth and validity of the donation
of Constantine. 71 In the revival of letters and liberty, this
fictitious deed was transpierced by the pen of Laurentius Valla,
the pen of an eloquent critic and a Roman patriot. 72 His
contemporaries of the fifteenth century were astonished at his
sacrilegious boldness; yet such is the silent and irresistible
progress of reason, that, before the end of the next age, the
fable was rejected by the contempt of historians 73 and poets, 74
and the tacit or modest censure of the advocates of the Roman
church. 75 The popes themselves have indulged a smile at the
credulity of the vulgar; 76 but a false and obsolete title still
sanctifies their reign; and, by the same fortune which has
attended the decretals and the Sibylline oracles, the edifice has
subsisted after the foundations have been undermined.
68 (return) [ Piissimo Constantino magno, per ejus largitatem S.
R. Ecclesia elevata et exaltata est, et potestatem in his
Hesperiae partibus largiri olignatus est.... Quia ecce novus
Constantinus his temporibus, &c., (Codex Carolin. epist. 49, in
tom. iii. part ii. p. 195.) Pagi (Critica, A.D. 324, No. 16)
ascribes them to an impostor of the viiith century, who borrowed
the name of St. Isidore: his humble title of Peccator was
ignorantly, but aptly, turned into Mercator: his merchandise was
indeed profitable, and a few sheets of paper were sold for much
wealth and power.]
69 (return) [ Fabricius (Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 4-7) has
enumerated the several editions of this Act, in Greek and Latin.
The copy which Laurentius Valla recites and refutes, appears to
be taken either from the spurious Acts of St. Silvester or from
Gratian’s Decree, to which, according to him and others, it has
been surreptitiously tacked.]
70 (return) [ In the year 1059, it was believed (was it
believed?) by Pope Leo IX. Cardinal Peter Damianus, &c. Muratori
places (Annali d’Italia, tom. ix. p. 23, 24) the fictitious
donations of Lewis the Pious, the Othos, &c., de Donatione
Constantini. See a Dissertation of Natalis Alexander, seculum iv.
diss. 25, p. 335-350.]
71 (return) [ See a large account of the controversy (A.D. 1105)
which arose from a private lawsuit, in the Chronicon Farsense,
(Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. ii. pars ii. p. 637, &c.,) a
copious extract from the archives of that Benedictine abbey. They
were formerly accessible to curious foreigners, (Le Blanc and
Mabillon,) and would have enriched the first volume of the
Historia Monastica Italiae of Quirini. But they are now
imprisoned (Muratori, Scriptores R. I. tom. ii. pars ii. p. 269)
by the timid policy of the court of Rome; and the future cardinal
yielded to the voice of authority and the whispers of ambition,
(Quirini, Comment. pars ii. p. 123-136.)]
72 (return) [ I have read in the collection of Schardius (de
Potestate Imperiali Ecclesiastica, p. 734-780) this animated
discourse, which was composed by the author, A.D. 1440, six years
after the flight of Pope Eugenius IV. It is a most vehement party
pamphlet: Valla justifies and animates the revolt of the Romans,
and would even approve the use of a dagger against their
sacerdotal tyrant. Such a critic might expect the persecution of
the clergy; yet he made his peace, and is buried in the Lateran,
(Bayle, Dictionnaire Critique, Valla; Vossius, de Historicis
Latinis, p. 580.)]
73 (return) [ See Guicciardini, a servant of the popes, in that
long and valuable digression, which has resumed its place in the
last edition, correctly published from the author’s Ms. and
printed in four volumes in quarto, under the name of Friburgo,
1775, (Istoria d’Italia, tom. i. p. 385-395.)]
74 (return) [ The Paladin Astolpho found it in the moon, among
the things that were lost upon earth, (Orlando Furioso, xxxiv.
80.) Di vari fiore ad un grand monte passa, Ch’ebbe gia buono
odore, or puzza forte: Questo era il dono (se pero dir lece) Che
Constantino al buon Silvestro fece. Yet this incomparable poem
has been approved by a bull of Leo X.]
75 (return) [ See Baronius, A.D. 324, No. 117-123, A.D. 1191, No.
51, &c. The cardinal wishes to suppose that Rome was offered by
Constantine, and refused by Silvester. The act of donation he
considers strangely enough, as a forgery of the Greeks.]
76 (return) [ Baronius n’en dit guerres contre; encore en a-t’il
trop dit, et l’on vouloit sans moi, (Cardinal du Perron,) qui
l’empechai, censurer cette partie de son histoire. J’en devisai
un jour avec le Pape, et il ne me repondit autre chose “che
volete? i Canonici la tengono,” il le disoit en riant,
(Perroniana, p. 77.)]
While the popes established in Italy their freedom and dominion,
the images, the first cause of their revolt, were restored in the
Eastern empire. 77 Under the reign of Constantine the Fifth, the
union of civil and ecclesiastical power had overthrown the tree,
without extirpating the root, of superstition. The idols (for
such they were now held) were secretly cherished by the order and
the sex most prone to devotion; and the fond alliance of the
monks and females obtained a final victory over the reason and
authority of man. Leo the Fourth maintained with less rigor the
religion of his father and grandfather; but his wife, the fair
and ambitious Irene, had imbibed the zeal of the Athenians, the
heirs of the Idolatry, rather than the philosophy, of their
ancestors. During the life of her husband, these sentiments were
inflamed by danger and dissimulation, and she could only labor to
protect and promote some favorite monks whom she drew from their
caverns, and seated on the metropolitan thrones of the East. But
as soon as she reigned in her own name and that of her son, Irene
more seriously undertook the ruin of the Iconoclasts; and the
first step of her future persecution was a general edict for
liberty of conscience.
In the restoration of the monks, a thousand images were exposed
to the public veneration; a thousand legends were inverted of
their sufferings and miracles. By the opportunities of death or
removal, the episcopal seats were judiciously filled; the most
eager competitors for earthly or celestial favor anticipated and
flattered the judgment of their sovereign; and the promotion of
her secretary Tarasius gave Irene the patriarch of
Constantinople, and the command of the Oriental church. But the
decrees of a general council could only be repealed by a similar
assembly: 78 the Iconoclasts whom she convened were bold in
possession, and averse to debate; and the feeble voice of the
bishops was reechoed by the more formidable clamor of the
soldiers and people of Constantinople. The delay and intrigues of
a year, the separation of the disaffected troops, and the choice
of Nice for a second orthodox synod, removed these obstacles; and
the episcopal conscience was again, after the Greek fashion, in
the hands of the prince. No more than eighteen days were allowed
for the consummation of this important work: the Iconoclasts
appeared, not as judges, but as criminals or penitents: the scene
was decorated by the legates of Pope Adrian and the Eastern
patriarchs, 79 the decrees were framed by the president Taracius,
and ratified by the acclamations and subscriptions of three
hundred and fifty bishops. They unanimously pronounced, that the
worship of images is agreeable to Scripture and reason, to the
fathers and councils of the church: but they hesitate whether
that worship be relative or direct; whether the Godhead, and the
figure of Christ, be entitled to the same mode of adoration. Of
this second Nicene council the acts are still extant; a curious
monument of superstition and ignorance, of falsehood and folly. I
shall only notice the judgment of the bishops on the comparative
merit of image-worship and morality. A monk had concluded a truce
with the daemon of fornication, on condition of interrupting his
daily prayers to a picture that hung in his cell. His scruples
prompted him to consult the abbot. “Rather than abstain from
adoring Christ and his Mother in their holy images, it would be
better for you,” replied the casuist, “to enter every brothel,
and visit every prostitute, in the city.” 80 For the honor of
orthodoxy, at least the orthodoxy of the Roman church, it is
somewhat unfortunate, that the two princes who convened the two
councils of Nice are both stained with the blood of their sons.
The second of these assemblies was approved and rigorously
executed by the despotism of Irene, and she refused her
adversaries the toleration which at first she had granted to her
friends. During the five succeeding reigns, a period of
thirty-eight years, the contest was maintained, with unabated
rage and various success, between the worshippers and the
breakers of the images; but I am not inclined to pursue with
minute diligence the repetition of the same events. Nicephorus
allowed a general liberty of speech and practice; and the only
virtue of his reign is accused by the monks as the cause of his
temporal and eternal perdition. Superstition and weakness formed
the character of Michael the First, but the saints and images
were incapable of supporting their votary on the throne. In the
purple, Leo the Fifth asserted the name and religion of an
Armenian; and the idols, with their seditious adherents, were
condemned to a second exile. Their applause would have sanctified
the murder of an impious tyrant, but his assassin and successor,
the second Michael, was tainted from his birth with the Phrygian
heresies: he attempted to mediate between the contending parties;
and the intractable spirit of the Catholics insensibly cast him
into the opposite scale. His moderation was guarded by timidity;
but his son Theophilus, alike ignorant of fear and pity, was the
last and most cruel of the Iconoclasts. The enthusiasm of the
times ran strongly against them; and the emperors who stemmed the
torrent were exasperated and punished by the public hatred. After
the death of Theophilus, the final victory of the images was
achieved by a second female, his widow Theodora, whom he left the
guardian of the empire. Her measures were bold and decisive. The
fiction of a tardy repentance absolved the fame and the soul of
her deceased husband; the sentence of the Iconoclast patriarch
was commuted from the loss of his eyes to a whipping of two
hundred lashes: the bishops trembled, the monks shouted, and the
festival of orthodoxy preserves the annual memory of the triumph
of the images. A single question yet remained, whether they are
endowed with any proper and inherent sanctity; it was agitated by
the Greeks of the eleventh century; 81 and as this opinion has
the strongest recommendation of absurdity, I am surprised that it
was not more explicitly decided in the affirmative. In the West,
Pope Adrian the First accepted and announced the decrees of the
Nicene assembly, which is now revered by the Catholics as the
seventh in rank of the general councils. Rome and Italy were
docile to the voice of their father; but the greatest part of the
Latin Christians were far behind in the race of superstition. The
churches of France, Germany, England, and Spain, steered a middle
course between the adoration and the destruction of images, which
they admitted into their temples, not as objects of worship, but
as lively and useful memorials of faith and history. An angry
book of controversy was composed and published in the name of
Charlemagne: 82 under his authority a synod of three hundred
bishops was assembled at Frankfort: 83 they blamed the fury of
the Iconoclasts, but they pronounced a more severe censure
against the superstition of the Greeks, and the decrees of their
pretended council, which was long despised by the Barbarians of
the West. 84 Among them the worship of images advanced with a
silent and insensible progress; but a large atonement is made for
their hesitation and delay, by the gross idolatry of the ages
which precede the reformation, and of the countries, both in
Europe and America, which are still immersed in the gloom of
superstition.
77 (return) [ The remaining history of images, from Irene to
Theodora, is collected, for the Catholics, by Baronius and Pagi,
(A.D. 780-840.) Natalis Alexander, (Hist. N. T. seculum viii.
Panoplia adversus Haereticos p. 118-178,) and Dupin, (Bibliot.
Eccles. tom. vi. p. 136-154;) for the Protestants, by Spanheim,
(Hist. Imag. p. 305-639.) Basnage, (Hist. de l’Eglise, tom. i. p.
556-572, tom. ii. p. 1362-1385,) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist.
Eccles. secul. viii. et ix.) The Protestants, except Mosheim, are
soured with controversy; but the Catholics, except Dupin, are
inflamed by the fury and superstition of the monks; and even Le
Beau, (Hist. du Bas Empire,) a gentleman and a scholar, is
infected by the odious contagion.]
78 (return) [ See the Acts, in Greek and Latin, of the second
Council of Nice, with a number of relative pieces, in the viiith
volume of the Councils, p. 645-1600. A faithful version, with
some critical notes, would provoke, in different readers, a sigh
or a smile.]
79 (return) [ The pope’s legates were casual messengers, two
priests without any special commission, and who were disavowed on
their return. Some vagabond monks were persuaded by the Catholics
to represent the Oriental patriarchs. This curious anecdote is
revealed by Theodore Studites, (epist. i. 38, in Sirmond. Opp.
tom. v. p. 1319,) one of the warmest Iconoclasts of the age.]
80 (return) [ These visits could not be innocent since the daemon
of fornication, &c. Actio iv. p. 901, Actio v. p. 1081]
81 (return) [ See an account of this controversy in the Alexius
of Anna Compena, (l. v. p. 129,) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist.
Eccles. p. 371, 372.)]
82 (return) [ The Libri Carolini, (Spanheim, p. 443-529,)
composed in the palace or winter quarters of Charlemagne, at
Worms, A.D. 790, and sent by Engebert to Pope Hadrian I., who
answered them by a grandis et verbosa epistola, (Concil. tom.
vii. p. 1553.) The Carolines propose 120 objections against the
Nicene synod and such words as these are the flowers of their
rhetoric—Dementiam.... priscae Gentilitatis obsoletum errorem
.... argumenta insanissima et absurdissima.... derisione dignas
naenias, &c., &c.]
83 (return) [ The assemblies of Charlemagne were political, as
well as ecclesiastical; and the three hundred members, (Nat.
Alexander, sec. viii. p. 53,) who sat and voted at Frankfort,
must include not only the bishops, but the abbots, and even the
principal laymen.]
84 (return) [ Qui supra sanctissima patres nostri (episcopi et
sacerdotes) omnimodis servitium et adorationem imaginum renuentes
contempserunt, atque consentientes condemnaverunt, (Concil. tom.
ix. p. 101, Canon. ii. Franckfurd.) A polemic must be
hard-hearted indeed, who does not pity the efforts of Baronius,
Pagi, Alexander, Maimbourg, &c., to elude this unlucky sentence.]
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part IV.
It was after the Nycene synod, and under the reign of the pious
Irene, that the popes consummated the separation of Rome and
Italy, by the translation of the empire to the less orthodox
Charlemagne. They were compelled to choose between the rival
nations: religion was not the sole motive of their choice; and
while they dissembled the failings of their friends, they beheld,
with reluctance and suspicion, the Catholic virtues of their
foes. The difference of language and manners had perpetuated the
enmity of the two capitals; and they were alienated from each
other by the hostile opposition of seventy years. In that schism
the Romans had tasted of freedom, and the popes of sovereignty:
their submission would have exposed them to the revenge of a
jealous tyrant; and the revolution of Italy had betrayed the
impotence, as well as the tyranny, of the Byzantine court. The
Greek emperors had restored the images, but they had not restored
the Calabrian estates 85 and the Illyrian diocese, 86 which the
Iconociasts had torn away from the successors of St. Peter; and
Pope Adrian threatens them with a sentence of excommunication
unless they speedily abjure this practical heresy. 87 The Greeks
were now orthodox; but their religion might be tainted by the
breath of the reigning monarch: the Franks were now contumacious;
but a discerning eye might discern their approaching conversion,
from the use, to the adoration, of images. The name of
Charlemagne was stained by the polemic acrimony of his scribes;
but the conqueror himself conformed, with the temper of a
statesman, to the various practice of France and Italy. In his
four pilgrimages or visits to the Vatican, he embraced the popes
in the communion of friendship and piety; knelt before the tomb,
and consequently before the image, of the apostle; and joined,
without scruple, in all the prayers and processions of the Roman
liturgy. Would prudence or gratitude allow the pontiffs to
renounce their benefactor? Had they a right to alienate his gift
of the Exarchate? Had they power to abolish his government of
Rome? The title of patrician was below the merit and greatness of
Charlemagne; and it was only by reviving the Western empire that
they could pay their obligations or secure their establishment.
By this decisive measure they would finally eradicate the claims
of the Greeks; from the debasement of a provincial town, the
majesty of Rome would be restored: the Latin Christians would be
united, under a supreme head, in their ancient metropolis; and
the conquerors of the West would receive their crown from the
successors of St. Peter. The Roman church would acquire a zealous
and respectable advocate; and, under the shadow of the
Carlovingian power, the bishop might exercise, with honor and
safety, the government of the city. 88
85 (return) [ Theophanes (p. 343) specifies those of Sicily and
Calabria, which yielded an annual rent of three talents and a
half of gold, (perhaps 7000 L. sterling.) Liutprand more
pompously enumerates the patrimonies of the Roman church in
Greece, Judaea, Persia, Mesopotamia Babylonia, Egypt, and Libya,
which were detained by the injustice of the Greek emperor,
(Legat. ad Nicephorum, in Script. Rerum Italica rum, tom. ii.
pars i. p. 481.)]
86 (return) [ The great diocese of the Eastern Illyricum, with
Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, (Thomassin, Discipline de l’Eglise,
tom. i. p. 145: ) by the confession of the Greeks, the patriarch
of Constantinople had detached from Rome the metropolitans of
Thessalonica, Athens Corinth, Nicopolis, and Patrae, (Luc.
Holsten. Geograph. Sacra, p. 22) and his spiritual conquests
extended to Naples and Amalphi (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. i.
p. 517-524, Pagi, A. D 780, No. 11.)]
87 (return) [ In hoc ostenditur, quia ex uno capitulo ab errore
reversis, in aliis duobus, in eodem (was it the same?) permaneant
errore.... de diocessi S. R. E. seu de patrimoniis iterum
increpantes commonemus, ut si ea restituere noluerit hereticum
eum pro hujusmodi errore perseverantia decernemus, (Epist.
Hadrian. Papae ad Carolum Magnum, in Concil. tom. viii. p. 1598;)
to which he adds a reason, most directly opposite to his conduct,
that he preferred the salvation of souls and rule of faith to the
goods of this transitory world.]
88 (return) [ Fontanini considers the emperors as no more than
the advocates of the church, (advocatus et defensor S. R. E. See
Ducange, Gloss Lat. tom. i. p. 297.) His antagonist Muratori
reduces the popes to be no more than the exarchs of the emperor.
In the more equitable view of Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles.
p. 264, 265,) they held Rome under the empire as the most
honorable species of fief or benefice—premuntur nocte
caliginosa!]
Before the ruin of Paganism in Rome, the competition for a
wealthy bishopric had often been productive of tumult and
bloodshed. The people was less numerous, but the times were more
savage, the prize more important, and the chair of St. Peter was
fiercely disputed by the leading ecclesiastics who aspired to the
rank of sovereign. The reign of Adrian the First 89 surpasses the
measure of past or succeeding ages; 90 the walls of Rome, the
sacred patrimony, the ruin of the Lombards, and the friendship of
Charlemagne, were the trophies of his fame: he secretly edified
the throne of his successors, and displayed in a narrow space the
virtues of a great prince. His memory was revered; but in the
next election, a priest of the Lateran, Leo the Third, was
preferred to the nephew and the favorite of Adrian, whom he had
promoted to the first dignities of the church. Their acquiescence
or repentance disguised, above four years, the blackest intention
of revenge, till the day of a procession, when a furious band of
conspirators dispersed the unarmed multitude, and assaulted with
blows and wounds the sacred person of the pope. But their
enterprise on his life or liberty was disappointed, perhaps by
their own confusion and remorse. Leo was left for dead on the
ground: on his revival from the swoon, the effect of his loss of
blood, he recovered his speech and sight; and this natural event
was improved to the miraculous restoration of his eyes and
tongue, of which he had been deprived, twice deprived, by the
knife of the assassins. 91 From his prison he escaped to the
Vatican: the duke of Spoleto hastened to his rescue, Charlemagne
sympathized in his injury, and in his camp of Paderborn in
Westphalia accepted, or solicited, a visit from the Roman
pontiff. Leo repassed the Alps with a commission of counts and
bishops, the guards of his safety and the judges of his
innocence; and it was not without reluctance, that the conqueror
of the Saxons delayed till the ensuing year the personal
discharge of this pious office. In his fourth and last
pilgrimage, he was received at Rome with the due honors of king
and patrician: Leo was permitted to purge himself by oath of the
crimes imputed to his charge: his enemies were silenced, and the
sacrilegious attempt against his life was punished by the mild
and insufficient penalty of exile. On the festival of Christmas,
the last year of the eighth century, Charlemagne appeared in the
church of St. Peter; and, to gratify the vanity of Rome, he had
exchanged the simple dress of his country for the habit of a
patrician. 92 After the celebration of the holy mysteries, Leo
suddenly placed a precious crown on his head, 93 and the dome
resounded with the acclamations of the people, “Long life and
victory to Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by God the
great and pacific emperor of the Romans!” The head and body of
Charlemagne were consecrated by the royal unction: after the
example of the Caesars, he was saluted or adored by the pontiff:
his coronation oath represents a promise to maintain the faith
and privileges of the church; and the first-fruits were paid in
his rich offerings to the shrine of his apostle. In his familiar
conversation, the emperor protested the ignorance of the
intentions of Leo, which he would have disappointed by his
absence on that memorable day. But the preparations of the
ceremony must have disclosed the secret; and the journey of
Charlemagne reveals his knowledge and expectation: he had
acknowledged that the Imperial title was the object of his
ambition, and a Roman synod had pronounced, that it was the only
adequate reward of his merit and services. 94
89 (return) [ His merits and hopes are summed up in an epitaph of
thirty-eight-verses, of which Charlemagne declares himself the
author, (Concil. tom. viii. p. 520.) Post patrem lacrymans
Carolus haec carmina scripsi. Tu mihi dulcis amor, te modo plango
pater... Nomina jungo simul titulis, clarissime, nostra Adrianus,
Carolus, rex ego, tuque pater. The poetry might be supplied by
Alcuin; but the tears, the most glorious tribute, can only belong
to Charlemagne.]
90 (return) [ Every new pope is admonished—“Sancte Pater, non
videbis annos Petri,” twenty-five years. On the whole series the
average is about eight years—a short hope for an ambitious
cardinal.]
91 (return) [ The assurance of Anastasius (tom. iii. pars i. p.
197, 198) is supported by the credulity of some French annalists;
but Eginhard, and other writers of the same age, are more natural
and sincere. “Unus ei oculus paullulum est laesus,” says John the
deacon of Naples, (Vit. Episcop. Napol. in Scriptores Muratori,
tom. i. pars ii. p. 312.) Theodolphus, a contemporary bishop of
Orleans, observes with prudence (l. iii. carm. 3.) Reddita sunt?
mirum est: mirum est auferre nequtsse. Est tamen in dubio, hinc
mirer an inde magis.]
92 (return) [ Twice, at the request of Hadrian and Leo, he
appeared at Rome,—longa tunica et chlamyde amictus, et
calceamentis quoque Romano more formatis. Eginhard (c. xxiii. p.
109-113) describes, like Suetonius the simplicity of his dress,
so popular in the nation, that when Charles the Bald returned to
France in a foreign habit, the patriotic dogs barked at the
apostate, (Gaillard, Vie de Charlemagne, tom. iv. p. 109.)]
93 (return) [ See Anastasius (p. 199) and Eginhard, (c.xxviii. p.
124-128.) The unction is mentioned by Theophanes, (p. 399,) the
oath by Sigonius, (from the Ordo Romanus,) and the Pope’s
adoration more antiquorum principum, by the Annales Bertiniani,
(Script. Murator. tom. ii. pars ii. p. 505.)]
94 (return) [ This great event of the translation or restoration
of the empire is related and discussed by Natalis Alexander,
(secul. ix. dissert. i. p. 390-397,) Pagi, (tom. iii. p. 418,)
Muratori, (Annali d’Italia, tom. vi. p. 339-352,) Sigonius, (de
Regno Italiae, l. iv. Opp. tom. ii. p. 247-251,) Spanheim, (de
ficta Translatione Imperii,) Giannone, (tom. i. p. 395-405,) St.
Marc, (Abrege Chronologique, tom. i. p. 438-450,) Gaillard,
(Hist. de Charlemagne, tom. ii. p. 386-446.) Almost all these
moderns have some religious or national bias.]
The appellation of great has been often bestowed, and sometimes
deserved; but Charlemagne is the only prince in whose favor the
title has been indissolubly blended with the name. That name,
with the addition of saint, is inserted in the Roman calendar;
and the saint, by a rare felicity, is crowned with the praises of
the historians and philosophers of an enlightened age. 95 His
real merit is doubtless enhanced by the barbarism of the nation
and the times from which he emerged: but the apparent magnitude
of an object is likewise enlarged by an unequal comparison; and
the ruins of Palmyra derive a casual splendor from the nakedness
of the surrounding desert. Without injustice to his fame, I may
discern some blemishes in the sanctity and greatness of the
restorer of the Western empire. Of his moral virtues, chastity is
not the most conspicuous: 96 but the public happiness could not
be materially injured by his nine wives or concubines, the
various indulgence of meaner or more transient amours, the
multitude of his bastards whom he bestowed on the church, and the
long celibacy and licentious manners of his daughters, 97 whom
the father was suspected of loving with too fond a passion. 971 I
shall be scarcely permitted to accuse the ambition of a
conqueror; but in a day of equal retribution, the sons of his
brother Carloman, the Merovingian princes of Aquitain, and the
four thousand five hundred Saxons who were beheaded on the same
spot, would have something to allege against the justice and
humanity of Charlemagne. His treatment of the vanquished Saxons
98 was an abuse of the right of conquest; his laws were not less
sanguinary than his arms, and in the discussion of his motives,
whatever is subtracted from bigotry must be imputed to temper.
The sedentary reader is amazed by his incessant activity of mind
and body; and his subjects and enemies were not less astonished
at his sudden presence, at the moment when they believed him at
the most distant extremity of the empire; neither peace nor war,
nor summer nor winter, were a season of repose; and our fancy
cannot easily reconcile the annals of his reign with the
geography of his expeditions. 981 But this activity was a
national, rather than a personal, virtue; the vagrant life of a
Frank was spent in the chase, in pilgrimage, in military
adventures; and the journeys of Charlemagne were distinguished
only by a more numerous train and a more important purpose. His
military renown must be tried by the scrutiny of his troops, his
enemies, and his actions. Alexander conquered with the arms of
Philip, but the two heroes who preceded Charlemagne bequeathed
him their name, their examples, and the companions of their
victories. At the head of his veteran and superior armies, he
oppressed the savage or degenerate nations, who were incapable of
confederating for their common safety: nor did he ever encounter
an equal antagonist in numbers, in discipline, or in arms The
science of war has been lost and revived with the arts of peace;
but his campaigns are not illustrated by any siege or battle of
singular difficulty and success; and he might behold, with envy,
the Saracen trophies of his grandfather. After the Spanish
expedition, his rear-guard was defeated in the Pyrenaean
mountains; and the soldiers, whose situation was irretrievable,
and whose valor was useless, might accuse, with their last
breath, the want of skill or caution of their general. 99 I touch
with reverence the laws of Charlemagne, so highly applauded by a
respectable judge. They compose not a system, but a series, of
occasional and minute edicts, for the correction of abuses, the
reformation of manners, the economy of his farms, the care of his
poultry, and even the sale of his eggs. He wished to improve the
laws and the character of the Franks; and his attempts, however
feeble and imperfect, are deserving of praise: the inveterate
evils of the times were suspended or mollified by his government;
100 but in his institutions I can seldom discover the general
views and the immortal spirit of a legislator, who survives
himself for the benefit of posterity. The union and stability of
his empire depended on the life of a single man: he imitated the
dangerous practice of dividing his kingdoms among his sons; and
after his numerous diets, the whole constitution was left to
fluctuate between the disorders of anarchy and despotism. His
esteem for the piety and knowledge of the clergy tempted him to
intrust that aspiring order with temporal dominion and civil
jurisdiction; and his son Lewis, when he was stripped and
degraded by the bishops, might accuse, in some measure, the
imprudence of his father. His laws enforced the imposition of
tithes, because the daemons had proclaimed in the air that the
default of payment had been the cause of the last scarcity. 101
The literary merits of Charlemagne are attested by the foundation
of schools, the introduction of arts, the works which were
published in his name, and his familiar connection with the
subjects and strangers whom he invited to his court to educate
both the prince and people. His own studies were tardy,
laborious, and imperfect; if he spoke Latin, and understood
Greek, he derived the rudiments of knowledge from conversation,
rather than from books; and, in his mature age, the emperor
strove to acquire the practice of writing, which every peasant
now learns in his infancy. 102 The grammar and logic, the music
and astronomy, of the times, were only cultivated as the
handmaids of superstition; but the curiosity of the human mind
must ultimately tend to its improvement, and the encouragement of
learning reflects the purest and most pleasing lustre on the
character of Charlemagne. 103 The dignity of his person, 104 the
length of his reign, the prosperity of his arms, the vigor of his
government, and the reverence of distant nations, distinguish him
from the royal crowd; and Europe dates a new aera from his
restoration of the Western empire.
95 (return) [ By Mably, (Observations sur l’Histoire de France,)
Voltaire, (Histoire Generale,) Robertson, (History of Charles
V.,) and Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxxi. c. 18.) In the
year 1782, M. Gaillard published his Histoire de Charlemagne, (in
4 vols. in 12mo.,) which I have freely and profitably used. The
author is a man of sense and humanity; and his work is labored
with industry and elegance. But I have likewise examined the
original monuments of the reigns of Pepin and Charlemagne, in the
5th volume of the Historians of France.]
96 (return) [ The vision of Weltin, composed by a monk, eleven
years after the death of Charlemagne, shows him in purgatory,
with a vulture, who is perpetually gnawing the guilty member,
while the rest of his body, the emblem of his virtues, is sound
and perfect, (see Gaillard tom. ii. p. 317-360.)]
97 (return) [ The marriage of Eginhard with Imma, daughter of
Charlemagne, is, in my opinion, sufficiently refuted by the
probum and suspicio that sullied these fair damsels, without
excepting his own wife, (c. xix. p. 98-100, cum Notis Schmincke.)
The husband must have been too strong for the historian.]
971 (return) [ This charge of incest, as Mr. Hallam justly
observes, “seems to have originated in a misinterpreted passage
of Eginhard.” Hallam’s Middle Ages, vol.i. p. 16.—M.]
98 (return) [ Besides the massacres and transmigrations, the pain
of death was pronounced against the following crimes: 1. The
refusal of baptism. 2. The false pretence of baptism. 3. A
relapse to idolatry. 4. The murder of a priest or bishop. 5.
Human sacrifices. 6. Eating meat in Lent. But every crime might
be expiated by baptism or penance, (Gaillard, tom. ii. p.
241-247;) and the Christian Saxons became the friends and equals
of the Franks, (Struv. Corpus Hist. Germanicae, p.133.)]
981 (return) [ M. Guizot (Cours d’Histoire Moderne, p. 270, 273)
has compiled the following statement of Charlemagne’s military
campaigns:—
1. Against the Aquitanians.
18. ” the Saxons.
5. ” the Lombards.
7. ” the Arabs in Spain.
1. ” the Thuringians.
4. ” the Avars.
2. ” the Bretons.
1. ” the Bavarians.
4. ” the Slaves beyond the Elbe
5. ” the Saracens in Italy.
3. ” the Danes.
2. ” the Greeks. ___
53 total.—M.]
99 (return) [ In this action the famous Rutland, Rolando,
Orlando, was slain—cum compluribus aliis. See the truth in
Eginhard, (c. 9, p. 51-56,) and the fable in an ingenious
Supplement of M. Gaillard, (tom. iii. p. 474.) The Spaniards are
too proud of a victory, which history ascribes to the Gascons,
and romance to the Saracens. * Note: In fact, it was a sudden
onset of the Gascons, assisted by the Beaure mountaineers, and
possibly a few Navarrese.—M.]
100 (return) [ Yet Schmidt, from the best authorities, represents
the interior disorders and oppression of his reign, (Hist. des
Allemands, tom. ii. p. 45-49.)]
101 (return) [ Omnis homo ex sua proprietate legitimam decimam ad
ecclesiam conferat. Experimento enim didicimus, in anno, quo illa
valida fames irrepsit, ebullire vacuas annonas a daemonibus
devoratas, et voces exprobationis auditas. Such is the decree and
assertion of the great Council of Frankfort, (canon xxv. tom. ix.
p. 105.) Both Selden (Hist. of Tithes; Works, vol. iii. part ii.
p. 1146) and Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xxxi. c. 12)
represent Charlemagne as the first legal author of tithes. Such
obligations have country gentlemen to his memory!]
102 (return) [ Eginhard (c. 25, p. 119) clearly affirms, tentabat
et scribere... sed parum prospere successit labor praeposterus et
sero inchoatus. The moderns have perverted and corrected this
obvious meaning, and the title of M. Gaillard’s dissertation
(tom. iii. p. 247-260) betrays his partiality. * Note: This point
has been contested; but Mr. Hallam and Monsieur Sismondl concur
with Gibbon. See Middle Ages, iii. 330, Histoire de Francais,
tom. ii. p. 318. The sensible observations of the latter are
quoted in the Quarterly Review, vol. xlviii. p. 451. Fleury, I
may add, quotes from Mabillon a remarkable evidence that
Charlemagne “had a mark to himself like an honest, plain-dealing
man.” Ibid.—M.]
103 (return) [ See Gaillard, tom. iii. p. 138-176, and Schmidt,
tom. ii. p. 121-129.]
104 (return) [ M. Gaillard (tom. iii. p. 372) fixes the true
stature of Charlemagne (see a Dissertation of Marquard Freher ad
calcem Eginhart, p. 220, &c.) at five feet nine inches of French,
about six feet one inch and a fourth English, measure. The
romance writers have increased it to eight feet, and the giant
was endowed with matchless strength and appetite: at a single
stroke of his good sword Joyeuse, he cut asunder a horseman and
his horse; at a single repast, he devoured a goose, two fowls, a
quarter of mutton, &c.]
That empire was not unworthy of its title; 105 and some of the
fairest kingdoms of Europe were the patrimony or conquest of a
prince, who reigned at the same time in France, Spain, Italy,
Germany, and Hungary. 106 I. The Roman province of Gaul had been
transformed into the name and monarchy of France; but, in the
decay of the Merovingian line, its limits were contracted by the
independence of the Britons and the revolt of Aquitain.
Charlemagne pursued, and confined, the Britons on the shores of
the ocean; and that ferocious tribe, whose origin and language
are so different from the French, was chastised by the imposition
of tribute, hostages, and peace. After a long and evasive
contest, the rebellion of the dukes of Aquitain was punished by
the forfeiture of their province, their liberty, and their lives.
Harsh and rigorous would have been such treatment of ambitious
governors, who had too faithfully copied the mayors of the
palace. But a recent discovery 107 has proved that these unhappy
princes were the last and lawful heirs of the blood and sceptre
of Clovis, and younger branch, from the brother of Dagobert, of
the Merovingian house. Their ancient kingdom was reduced to the
duchy of Gascogne, to the counties of Fesenzac and Armagnac, at
the foot of the Pyrenees: their race was propagated till the
beginning of the sixteenth century; and after surviving their
Carlovingian tyrants, they were reserved to feel the injustice,
or the favors, of a third dynasty. By the reunion of Aquitain,
France was enlarged to its present boundaries, with the additions
of the Netherlands and Spain, as far as the Rhine. II.
The Saracens had been expelled from France by the grandfather and
father of Charlemagne; but they still possessed the greatest part
of Spain, from the rock of Gibraltar to the Pyrenees. Amidst
their civil divisions, an Arabian emir of Saragossa implored his
protection in the diet of Paderborn. Charlemagne undertook the
expedition, restored the emir, and, without distinction of faith,
impartially crushed the resistance of the Christians, and
rewarded the obedience and services of the Mahometans. In his
absence he instituted the Spanish march, 108 which extended from
the Pyrenees to the River Ebro: Barcelona was the residence of
the French governor: he possessed the counties of Rousillon and
Catalonia; and the infant kingdoms of Navarre and Arragon were
subject to his jurisdiction. III. As king of the Lombards, and
patrician of Rome, he reigned over the greatest part of Italy,
109 a tract of a thousand miles from the Alps to the borders of
Calabria. The duchy of Beneventum, a Lombard fief, had spread, at
the expense of the Greeks, over the modern kingdom of Naples. But
Arrechis, the reigning duke, refused to be included in the
slavery of his country; assumed the independent title of prince;
and opposed his sword to the Carlovingian monarchy. His defence
was firm, his submission was not inglorious, and the emperor was
content with an easy tribute, the demolition of his fortresses,
and the acknowledgement, on his coins, of a supreme lord. The
artful flattery of his son Grimoald added the appellation of
father, but he asserted his dignity with prudence, and Benventum
insensibly escaped from the French yoke. 110 IV. Charlemagne was
the first who united Germany under the same sceptre. The name of
Oriental France is preserved in the circle of Franconia; and the
people of Hesse and Thuringia were recently incorporated with the
victors, by the conformity of religion and government. The
Alemanni, so formidable to the Romans, were the faithful vassals
and confederates of the Franks; and their country was inscribed
within the modern limits of Alsace, Swabia, and Switzerland. The
Bavarians, with a similar indulgence of their laws and manners,
were less patient of a master: the repeated treasons of Tasillo
justified the abolition of their hereditary dukes; and their
power was shared among the counts, who judged and guarded that
important frontier. But the north of Germany, from the Rhine and
beyond the Elbe, was still hostile and Pagan; nor was it till
after a war of thirty-three years that the Saxons bowed under the
yoke of Christ and of Charlemagne. The idols and their votaries
were extirpated: the foundation of eight bishoprics, of Munster,
Osnaburgh, Paderborn, and Minden, of Bremen, Verden, Hildesheim,
and Halberstadt, define, on either side of the Weser, the bounds
of ancient Saxony these episcopal seats were the first schools
and cities of that savage land; and the religion and humanity of
the children atoned, in some degree, for the massacre of the
parents. Beyond the Elbe, the Slavi, or Sclavonians, of similar
manners and various denominations, overspread the modern
dominions of Prussia, Poland, and Bohemia, and some transient
marks of obedience have tempted the French historian to extend
the empire to the Baltic and the Vistula. The conquest or
conversion of those countries is of a more recent age; but the
first union of Bohemia with the Germanic body may be justly
ascribed to the arms of Charlemagne. V. He retaliated on the
Avars, or Huns of Pannonia, the same calamities which they had
inflicted on the nations. Their rings, the wooden fortifications
which encircled their districts and villages, were broken down by
the triple effort of a French army, that was poured into their
country by land and water, through the Carpathian mountains and
along the plain of the Danube. After a bloody conflict of eight
years, the loss of some French generals was avenged by the
slaughter of the most noble Huns: the relics of the nation
submitted the royal residence of the chagan was left desolate and
unknown; and the treasures, the rapine of two hundred and fifty
years, enriched the victorious troops, or decorated the churches
of Italy and Gaul. 111 After the reduction of Pannonia, the
empire of Charlemagne was bounded only by the conflux of the
Danube with the Teyss and the Save: the provinces of Istria,
Liburnia, and Dalmatia, were an easy, though unprofitable,
accession; and it was an effect of his moderation, that he left
the maritime cities under the real or nominal sovereignty of the
Greeks. But these distant possessions added more to the
reputation than to the power of the Latin emperor; nor did he
risk any ecclesiastical foundations to reclaim the Barbarians
from their vagrant life and idolatrous worship. Some canals of
communication between the rivers, the Saone and the Meuse, the
Rhine and the Danube, were faintly attempted. 112 Their execution
would have vivified the empire; and more cost and labor were
often wasted in the structure of a cathedral. 1121
105 (return) [ See the concise, but correct and original, work of
D’Anville, (Etats Formes en Europe apres la Chute de l’Empire
Romain en Occident, Paris, 1771, in 4to.,) whose map includes the
empire of Charlemagne; the different parts are illustrated, by
Valesius (Notitia Galliacum) for France, Beretti (Dissertatio
Chorographica) for Italy, De Marca (Marca Hispanica) for Spain.
For the middle geography of Germany, I confess myself poor and
destitute.]
106 (return) [ After a brief relation of his wars and conquests,
(Vit. Carol. c. 5-14,) Eginhard recapitulates, in a few words,
(c. 15,) the countries subject to his empire. Struvius, (Corpus
Hist. German. p. 118-149) was inserted in his Notes the texts of
the old Chronicles.]
107 (return) [ On a charter granted to the monastery of Alaon
(A.D. 845) by Charles the Bald, which deduces this royal
pedigree. I doubt whether some subsequent links of the ixth and
xth centuries are equally firm; yet the whole is approved and
defended by M. Gaillard, (tom. ii. p.60-81, 203-206,) who affirms
that the family of Montesquiou (not of the President de
Montesquieu) is descended, in the female line, from Clotaire and
Clovis—an innocent pretension!]
108 (return) [ The governors or counts of the Spanish march
revolted from Charles the Simple about the year 900; and a poor
pittance, the Rousillon, has been recovered in 1642 by the kings
of France, (Longuerue, Description de la France, tom i. p.
220-222.) Yet the Rousillon contains 188,900 subjects, and
annually pays 2,600,000 livres, (Necker, Administration des
Finances, tom. i. p. 278, 279;) more people, perhaps, and
doubtless more money than the march of Charlemagne.]
109 (return) [ Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, tom. ii. p. 200,
&c.]
110 (return) [ See Giannone, tom. i. p 374, 375, and the Annals
of Muratori.]
111 (return) [ Quot praelia in eo gesta! quantum sanguinis
effusum sit! Testatur vacua omni habitatione Pannonia, et locus
in quo regia Cagani fuit ita desertus, ut ne vestigium quidem
humanae habitationis appareat. Tota in hoc bello Hunnorum
nobilitas periit, tota gloria decidit, omnis pecunia et congesti
ex longo tempore thesauri direpti sunt. Eginhard, cxiii.]
112 (return) [ The junction of the Rhine and Danube was
undertaken only for the service of the Pannonian war, (Gaillard,
Vie de Charlemagne, tom. ii. p. 312-315.) The canal, which would
have been only two leagues in length, and of which some traces
are still extant in Swabia, was interrupted by excessive rains,
military avocations, and superstitious fears, (Schaepflin, Hist.
de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xviii. p. 256. Molimina
fluviorum, &c., jungendorum, p. 59-62.)]
1121 (return) [ I should doubt this in the time of Charlemagne,
even if the term “expended” were substituted for “wasted.”—M.]
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part V.
If we retrace the outlines of this geographical picture, it will
be seen that the empire of the Franks extended, between east and
west, from the Ebro to the Elbe or Vistula; between the north and
south, from the duchy of Beneventum to the River Eyder, the
perpetual boundary of Germany and Denmark. The personal and
political importance of Charlemagne was magnified by the distress
and division of the rest of Europe. The islands of Great Britain
and Ireland were disputed by a crowd of princes of Saxon or
Scottish origin: and, after the loss of Spain, the Christian and
Gothic kingdom of Alphonso the Chaste was confined to the narrow
range of the Asturian mountains. These petty sovereigns revered
the power or virtue of the Carlovingian monarch, implored the
honor and support of his alliance, and styled him their common
parent, the sole and supreme emperor of the West. 113 He
maintained a more equal intercourse with the caliph Harun al
Rashid, 114 whose dominion stretched from Africa to India, and
accepted from his ambassadors a tent, a water-clock, an elephant,
and the keys of the Holy Sepulchre. It is not easy to conceive
the private friendship of a Frank and an Arab, who were strangers
to each other’s person, and language, and religion: but their
public correspondence was founded on vanity, and their remote
situation left no room for a competition of interest. Two thirds
of the Western empire of Rome were subject to Charlemagne, and
the deficiency was amply supplied by his command of the
inaccessible or invincible nations of Germany. But in the choice
of his enemies, 1141 we may be reasonably surprised that he so
often preferred the poverty of the north to the riches of the
south. The three-and-thirty campaigns laboriously consumed in the
woods and morasses of Germany would have sufficed to assert the
amplitude of his title by the expulsion of the Greeks from Italy
and the Saracens from Spain. The weakness of the Greeks would
have insured an easy victory; and the holy crusade against the
Saracens would have been prompted by glory and revenge, and
loudly justified by religion and policy. Perhaps, in his
expeditions beyond the Rhine and the Elbe, he aspired to save his
monarchy from the fate of the Roman empire, to disarm the enemies
of civilized society, and to eradicate the seed of future
emigrations. But it has been wisely observed, that, in a light of
precaution, all conquest must be ineffectual, unless it could be
universal, since the increasing circle must be involved in a
larger sphere of hostility. 115 The subjugation of Germany
withdrew the veil which had so long concealed the continent or
islands of Scandinavia from the knowledge of Europe, and awakened
the torpid courage of their barbarous natives. The fiercest of
the Saxon idolaters escaped from the Christian tyrant to their
brethren of the North; the Ocean and Mediterranean were covered
with their piratical fleets; and Charlemagne beheld with a sigh
the destructive progress of the Normans, who, in less than
seventy years, precipitated the fall of his race and monarchy.
113 (return) [ See Eginhard, c. 16, and Gaillard, tom. ii. p.
361-385, who mentions, with a loose reference, the intercourse of
Charlemagne and Egbert, the emperor’s gift of his own sword, and
the modest answer of his Saxon disciple. The anecdote, if
genuine, would have adorned our English histories.]
114 (return) [ The correspondence is mentioned only in the French
annals, and the Orientals are ignorant of the caliph’s friendship
for the Christian dog—a polite appellation, which Harun bestows
on the emperor of the Greeks.]
1141 (return) [ Had he the choice? M. Guizot has eloquently
described the position of Charlemagne towards the Saxons. Il y
fit face par le conquete; la guerre defensive prit la forme
offensive: il transporta la lutte sur le territoire des peuples
qui voulaient envahir le sien: il travailla a asservir les races
etrangeres, et extirper les croyances ennemies. De la son mode de
gouvernement et la fondation de son empire: la guerre offensive
et la conquete voulaient cette vaste et redoutable unite. Compare
observations in the Quarterly Review, vol. xlviii., and James’s
Life of Charlemagne.—M.]
115 (return) [ Gaillard, tom. ii. p. 361-365, 471-476, 492. I
have borrowed his judicious remarks on Charlemagne’s plan of
conquest, and the judicious distinction of his enemies of the
first and the second enceinte, (tom. ii. p. 184, 509, &c.)]
Had the pope and the Romans revived the primitive constitution,
the titles of emperor and Augustus were conferred on Charlemagne
for the term of his life; and his successors, on each vacancy,
must have ascended the throne by a formal or tacit election. But
the association of his son Lewis the Pious asserts the
independent right of monarchy and conquest, and the emperor seems
on this occasion to have foreseen and prevented the latent claims
of the clergy. The royal youth was commanded to take the crown
from the altar, and with his own hands to place it on his head,
as a gift which he held from God, his father, and the nation. 116
The same ceremony was repeated, though with less energy, in the
subsequent associations of Lothaire and Lewis the Second: the
Carlovingian sceptre was transmitted from father to son in a
lineal descent of four generations; and the ambition of the popes
was reduced to the empty honor of crowning and anointing these
hereditary princes, who were already invested with their power
and dominions. The pious Lewis survived his brothers, and
embraced the whole empire of Charlemagne; but the nations and the
nobles, his bishops and his children, quickly discerned that this
mighty mass was no longer inspired by the same soul; and the
foundations were undermined to the centre, while the external
surface was yet fair and entire. After a war, or battle, which
consumed one hundred thousand Franks, the empire was divided by
treaty between his three sons, who had violated every filial and
fraternal duty. The kingdoms of Germany and France were forever
separated; the provinces of Gaul, between the Rhone and the Alps,
the Meuse and the Rhine, were assigned, with Italy, to the
Imperial dignity of Lothaire. In the partition of his share,
Lorraine and Arles, two recent and transitory kingdoms, were
bestowed on the younger children; and Lewis the Second, his
eldest son, was content with the realm of Italy, the proper and
sufficient patrimony of a Roman emperor. On his death without any
male issue, the vacant throne was disputed by his uncles and
cousins, and the popes most dexterously seized the occasion of
judging the claims and merits of the candidates, and of bestowing
on the most obsequious, or most liberal, the Imperial office of
advocate of the Roman church. The dregs of the Carlovingian race
no longer exhibited any symptoms of virtue or power, and the
ridiculous epithets of the bard, the stammerer, the fat, and the
simple, distinguished the tame and uniform features of a crowd of
kings alike deserving of oblivion. By the failure of the
collateral branches, the whole inheritance devolved to Charles
the Fat, the last emperor of his family: his insanity authorized
the desertion of Germany, Italy, and France: he was deposed in a
diet, and solicited his daily bread from the rebels by whose
contempt his life and liberty had been spared. According to the
measure of their force, the governors, the bishops, and the
lords, usurped the fragments of the falling empire; and some
preference was shown to the female or illegitimate blood of
Charlemagne. Of the greater part, the title and possession were
alike doubtful, and the merit was adequate to the contracted
scale of their dominions. Those who could appear with an army at
the gates of Rome were crowned emperors in the Vatican; but their
modesty was more frequently satisfied with the appellation of
kings of Italy: and the whole term of seventy-four years may be
deemed a vacancy, from the abdication of Charles the Fat to the
establishment of Otho the First.
116 (return) [ Thegan, the biographer of Lewis, relates this
coronation: and Baronius has honestly transcribed it, (A.D. 813,
No. 13, &c. See Gaillard, tom. ii. p. 506, 507, 508,) howsoever
adverse to the claims of the popes. For the series of the
Carlovingians, see the historians of France, Italy, and Germany;
Pfeffel, Schmidt, Velly, Muratori, and even Voltaire, whose
pictures are sometimes just, and always pleasing.]
Otho 117 was of the noble race of the dukes of Saxony; and if he
truly descended from Witikind, the adversary and proselyte of
Charlemagne, the posterity of a vanquished people was exalted to
reign over their conquerors. His father, Henry the Fowler, was
elected, by the suffrage of the nation, to save and institute the
kingdom of Germany. Its limits 118 were enlarged on every side by
his son, the first and greatest of the Othos. A portion of Gaul,
to the west of the Rhine, along the banks of the Meuse and the
Moselle, was assigned to the Germans, by whose blood and language
it has been tinged since the time of Caesar and Tacitus.
Between the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Alps, the successors of
Otho acquired a vain supremacy over the broken kingdoms of
Burgundy and Arles. In the North, Christianity was propagated by
the sword of Otho, the conqueror and apostle of the Slavic
nations of the Elbe and Oder: the marches of Brandenburgh and
Sleswick were fortified with German colonies; and the king of
Denmark, the dukes of Poland and Bohemia, confessed themselves
his tributary vassals. At the head of a victorious army, he
passed the Alps, subdued the kingdom of Italy, delivered the
pope, and forever fixed the Imperial crown in the name and nation
of Germany. From that memorable aera, two maxims of public
jurisprudence were introduced by force and ratified by time. I.
That the prince, who was elected in the German diet, acquired,
from that instant, the subject kingdoms of Italy and Rome. II.
But that he might not legally assume the titles of emperor and
Augustus, till he had received the crown from the hands of the
Roman pontiff. 119
117 (return) [ He was the son of Otho, the son of Ludolph, in
whose favor the Duchy of Saxony had been instituted, A.D. 858.
Ruotgerus, the biographer of a St. Bruno, (Bibliot. Bunavianae
Catalog. tom. iii. vol. ii. p. 679,) gives a splendid character
of his family. Atavorum atavi usque ad hominum memoriam omnes
nobilissimi; nullus in eorum stirpe ignotus, nullus degener
facile reperitur, (apud Struvium, Corp. Hist. German. p. 216.)
Yet Gundling (in Henrico Aucupe) is not satisfied of his descent
from Witikind.]
118 (return) [ See the treatise of Conringius, (de Finibus
Imperii Germanici, Francofurt. 1680, in 4to.: ) he rejects the
extravagant and improper scale of the Roman and Carlovingian
empires, and discusses with moderation the rights of Germany, her
vassals, and her neighbors.]
119 (return) [ The power of custom forces me to number Conrad I.
and Henry I., the Fowler, in the list of emperors, a title which
was never assumed by those kings of Germany. The Italians,
Muratori for instance, are more scrupulous and correct, and only
reckon the princes who have been crowned at Rome.]
The Imperial dignity of Charlemagne was announced to the East by
the alteration of his style; and instead of saluting his fathers,
the Greek emperors, he presumed to adopt the more equal and
familiar appellation of brother. 120 Perhaps in his connection
with Irene he aspired to the name of husband: his embassy to
Constantinople spoke the language of peace and friendship, and
might conceal a treaty of marriage with that ambitious princess,
who had renounced the most sacred duties of a mother. The nature,
the duration, the probable consequences of such a union between
two distant and dissonant empires, it is impossible to
conjecture; but the unanimous silence of the Latins may teach us
to suspect, that the report was invented by the enemies of Irene,
to charge her with the guilt of betraying the church and state to
the strangers of the West. 121 The French ambassadors were the
spectators, and had nearly been the victims, of the conspiracy of
Nicephorus, and the national hatred. Constantinople was
exasperated by the treason and sacrilege of ancient Rome: a
proverb, “That the Franks were good friends and bad neighbors,”
was in every one’s mouth; but it was dangerous to provoke a
neighbor who might be tempted to reiterate, in the church of St.
Sophia, the ceremony of his Imperial coronation. After a tedious
journey of circuit and delay, the ambassadors of Nicephorus found
him in his camp, on the banks of the River Sala; and Charlemagne
affected to confound their vanity by displaying, in a Franconian
village, the pomp, or at least the pride, of the Byzantine
palace. 122 The Greeks were successively led through four halls
of audience: in the first they were ready to fall prostrate
before a splendid personage in a chair of state, till he informed
them that he was only a servant, the constable, or master of the
horse, of the emperor. The same mistake, and the same answer,
were repeated in the apartments of the count palatine, the
steward, and the chamberlain; and their impatience was gradually
heightened, till the doors of the presence-chamber were thrown
open, and they beheld the genuine monarch, on his throne,
enriched with the foreign luxury which he despised, and encircled
with the love and reverence of his victorious chiefs. A treaty of
peace and alliance was concluded between the two empires, and the
limits of the East and West were defined by the right of present
possession. But the Greeks 123 soon forgot this humiliating
equality, or remembered it only to hate the Barbarians by whom it
was extorted. During the short union of virtue and power, they
respectfully saluted the august Charlemagne, with the
acclamations of basileus, and emperor of the Romans. As soon as
these qualities were separated in the person of his pious son,
the Byzantine letters were inscribed, “To the king, or, as he
styles himself, the emperor of the Franks and Lombards.” When
both power and virtue were extinct, they despoiled Lewis the
Second of his hereditary title, and with the barbarous
appellation of rex or rega, degraded him among the crowd of Latin
princes. His reply 124 is expressive of his weakness: he proves,
with some learning, that, both in sacred and profane history, the
name of king is synonymous with the Greek word basileus: if, at
Constantinople, it were assumed in a more exclusive and imperial
sense, he claims from his ancestors, and from the popes, a just
participation of the honors of the Roman purple. The same
controversy was revived in the reign of the Othos; and their
ambassador describes, in lively colors, the insolence of the
Byzantine court. 125 The Greeks affected to despise the poverty
and ignorance of the Franks and Saxons; and in their last decline
refused to prostitute to the kings of Germany the title of Roman
emperors.
120 (return) [ Invidiam tamen suscepti nominis (C. P.
imperatoribus super hoc indignantibus) magna tulit patientia,
vicitque eorum contumaciam... mittendo ad eos crebras legationes,
et in epistolis fratres eos appellando. Eginhard, c. 28, p. 128.
Perhaps it was on their account that, like Augustus, he affected
some reluctance to receive the empire.]
121 (return) [ Theophanes speaks of the coronation and unction of
Charles (Chronograph. p. 399,) and of his treaty of marriage with
Irene, (p. 402,) which is unknown to the Latins. Gaillard relates
his transactions with the Greek empire, (tom. ii. p. 446-468.)]
122 (return) [ Gaillard very properly observes, that this pageant
was a farce suitable to children only; but that it was indeed
represented in the presence, and for the benefit, of children of
a larger growth.]
123 (return) [ Compare, in the original texts collected by Pagi,
(tom. iii. A.D. 812, No. 7, A.D. 824, No. 10, &c.,) the contrast
of Charlemagne and his son; to the former the ambassadors of
Michael (who were indeed disavowed) more suo, id est lingua
Graeca laudes dixerunt, imperatorem eum et appellantes; to the
latter, Vocato imperatori Francorum, &c.]
124 (return) [ See the epistle, in Paralipomena, of the anonymous
writer of Salerno, (Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars ii. p. 243-254,
c. 93-107,) whom Baronius (A.D. 871, No. 51-71) mistook for
Erchempert, when he transcribed it in his Annals.]
125 (return) [ Ipse enim vos, non imperatorem, id est sua lingua,
sed ob indignationem, id est regem nostra vocabat, Liutprand, in
Legat. in Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 479. The pope had
exhorted Nicephorus, emperor of the Greeks, to make peace with
Otho, the august emperor of the Romans—quae inscriptio secundum
Graecos peccatoria et temeraria... imperatorem inquiunt,
universalem, Romanorum, Augustum, magnum, solum, Nicephorum, (p.
486.)]
These emperors, in the election of the popes, continued to
exercise the powers which had been assumed by the Gothic and
Grecian princes; and the importance of this prerogative increased
with the temporal estate and spiritual jurisdiction of the Roman
church. In the Christian aristocracy, the principal members of
the clergy still formed a senate to assist the administration,
and to supply the vacancy, of the bishop. Rome was divided into
twenty-eight parishes, and each parish was governed by a cardinal
priest, or presbyter, a title which, however common or modest in
its origin, has aspired to emulate the purple of kings. Their
number was enlarged by the association of the seven deacons of
the most considerable hospitals, the seven palatine judges of the
Lateran, and some dignitaries of the church. This ecclesiastical
senate was directed by the seven cardinal-bishops of the Roman
province, who were less occupied in the suburb dioceses of Ostia,
Porto, Velitrae, Tusculum, Praeneste, Tibur, and the Sabines,
than by their weekly service in the Lateran, and their superior
share in the honors and authority of the apostolic see. On the
death of the pope, these bishops recommended a successor to the
suffrage of the college of cardinals, 126 and their choice was
ratified or rejected by the applause or clamor of the Roman
people. But the election was imperfect; nor could the pontiff be
legally consecrated till the emperor, the advocate of the church,
had graciously signified his approbation and consent. The royal
commissioner examined, on the spot, the form and freedom of the
proceedings; nor was it till after a previous scrutiny into the
qualifications of the candidates, that he accepted an oath of
fidelity, and confirmed the donations which had successively
enriched the patrimony of St. Peter. In the frequent schisms, the
rival claims were submitted to the sentence of the emperor; and
in a synod of bishops he presumed to judge, to condemn, and to
punish, the crimes of a guilty pontiff. Otho the First imposed a
treaty on the senate and people, who engaged to prefer the
candidate most acceptable to his majesty: 127 his successors
anticipated or prevented their choice: they bestowed the Roman
benefice, like the bishoprics of Cologne or Bamberg, on their
chancellors or preceptors; and whatever might be the merit of a
Frank or Saxon, his name sufficiently attests the interposition
of foreign power. These acts of prerogative were most speciously
excused by the vices of a popular election. The competitor who
had been excluded by the cardinals appealed to the passions or
avarice of the multitude; the Vatican and the Lateran were
stained with blood; and the most powerful senators, the marquises
of Tuscany and the counts of Tusculum, held the apostolic see in
a long and disgraceful servitude. The Roman pontiffs, of the
ninth and tenth centuries, were insulted, imprisoned, and
murdered, by their tyrants; and such was their indigence, after
the loss and usurpation of the ecclesiastical patrimonies, that
they could neither support the state of a prince, nor exercise
the charity of a priest. 128 The influence of two sister
prostitutes, Marozia and Theodora, was founded on their wealth
and beauty, their political and amorous intrigues: the most
strenuous of their lovers were rewarded with the Roman mitre, and
their reign 129 may have suggested to the darker ages 130 the
fable 131 of a female pope. 132 The bastard son, the grandson,
and the great-grandson of Marozia, a rare genealogy, were seated
in the chair of St. Peter, and it was at the age of nineteen
years that the second of these became the head of the Latin
church. 1321 His youth and manhood were of a suitable complexion;
and the nations of pilgrims could bear testimony to the charges
that were urged against him in a Roman synod, and in the presence
of Otho the Great. As John XII. had renounced the dress and
decencies of his profession, the soldier may not perhaps be
dishonored by the wine which he drank, the blood that he spilt,
the flames that he kindled, or the licentious pursuits of gaming
and hunting. His open simony might be the consequence of
distress; and his blasphemous invocation of Jupiter and Venus, if
it be true, could not possibly be serious. But we read, with some
surprise, that the worthy grandson of Marozia lived in public
adultery with the matrons of Rome; that the Lateran palace was
turned into a school for prostitution, and that his rapes of
virgins and widows had deterred the female pilgrims from visiting
the tomb of St. Peter, lest, in the devout act, they should be
violated by his successor. 133 The Protestants have dwelt with
malicious pleasure on these characters of Antichrist; but to a
philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less dangerous
than their virtues. After a long series of scandal, the apostolic
see was reformed and exalted by the austerity and zeal of Gregory
VII. That ambitious monk devoted his life to the execution of two
projects. I. To fix in the college of cardinals the freedom and
independence of election, and forever to abolish the right or
usurpation of the emperors and the Roman people. II. To bestow
and resume the Western empire as a fief or benefice 134 of the
church, and to extend his temporal dominion over the kings and
kingdoms of the earth. After a contest of fifty years, the first
of these designs was accomplished by the firm support of the
ecclesiastical order, whose liberty was connected with that of
their chief. But the second attempt, though it was crowned with
some partial and apparent success, has been vigorously resisted
by the secular power, and finally extinguished by the improvement
of human reason.
126 (return) [ The origin and progress of the title of cardinal
may be found in Themassin, (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. p.
1261-1298,) Muratori, (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. vi.
Dissert. lxi. p. 159-182,) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles.
p. 345-347,) who accurately remarks the form and changes of the
election. The cardinal-bishops so highly exalted by Peter
Damianus, are sunk to a level with the rest of the sacred
college.]
127 (return) [ Firmiter jurantes, nunquam se papam electuros aut
audinaturos, praeter consensum et electionem Othonis et filii
sui. (Liutprand, l. vi. c. 6, p. 472.) This important concession
may either supply or confirm the decree of the clergy and people
of Rome, so fiercely rejected by Baronius, Pagi, and Muratori,
(A.D. 964,) and so well defended and explained by St. Marc,
(Abrege, tom. ii. p. 808-816, tom. iv. p. 1167-1185.) Consult the
historical critic, and the Annals of Muratori, for for the
election and confirmation of each pope.]
128 (return) [ The oppression and vices of the Roman church, in
the xth century, are strongly painted in the history and legation
of Liutprand, (see p. 440, 450, 471-476, 479, &c.;) and it is
whimsical enough to observe Muratori tempering the invectives of
Baronius against the popes. But these popes had been chosen, not
by the cardinals, but by lay-patrons.]
129 (return) [ The time of Pope Joan (papissa Joanna) is placed
somewhat earlier than Theodora or Marozia; and the two years of
her imaginary reign are forcibly inserted between Leo IV. and
Benedict III. But the contemporary Anastasius indissolubly links
the death of Leo and the elevation of Benedict, (illico, mox, p.
247;) and the accurate chronology of Pagi, Muratori, and
Leibnitz, fixes both events to the year 857.]
130 (return) [ The advocates for Pope Joan produce one hundred
and fifty witnesses, or rather echoes, of the xivth, xvth, and
xvith centuries. They bear testimony against themselves and the
legend, by multiplying the proof that so curious a story must
have been repeated by writers of every description to whom it was
known. On those of the ixth and xth centuries, the recent event
would have flashed with a double force. Would Photius have spared
such a reproach? Could Liutprand have missed such scandal? It is
scarcely worth while to discuss the various readings of Martinus
Polonus, Sigeber of Gamblours, or even Marianus Scotus; but a
most palpable forgery is the passage of Pope Joan, which has been
foisted into some Mss. and editions of the Roman Anastasius.]
131 (return) [ As false, it deserves that name; but I would not
pronounce it incredible. Suppose a famous French chevalier of our
own times to have been born in Italy, and educated in the church,
instead of the army: her merit or fortune might have raised her
to St. Peter’s chair; her amours would have been natural: her
delivery in the streets unlucky, but not improbable.]
132 (return) [ Till the reformation the tale was repeated and
believed without offence: and Joan’s female statue long occupied
her place among the popes in the cathedral of Sienna, (Pagi,
Critica, tom. iii. p. 624-626.) She has been annihilated by two
learned Protestants, Blondel and Bayle, (Dictionnaire Critique,
Papesse, Polonus, Blondel;) but their brethren were scandalized
by this equitable and generous criticism. Spanheim and Lenfant
attempt to save this poor engine of controversy, and even Mosheim
condescends to cherish some doubt and suspicion, (p. 289.)]
1321 (return) [ John XI. was the son of her husband Alberic, not
of her lover, Pope Sergius III., as Muratori has distinctly
proved, Ann. ad ann. 911, tom. p. 268. Her grandson Octavian,
otherwise called John XII., was pope; but a great-grandson cannot
be discovered in any of the succeeding popes; nor does our
historian himself, in his subsequent narration, (p. 202,) seem to
know of one. Hobhouse, Illustrations of Childe Harold, p.
309.—M.]
133 (return) [ Lateranense palatium... prostibulum meretricum ...
Testis omnium gentium, praeterquam Romanorum, absentia mulierum,
quae sanctorum apostolorum limina orandi gratia timent visere,
cum nonnullas ante dies paucos, hunc audierint conjugatas,
viduas, virgines vi oppressisse, (Liutprand, Hist. l. vi. c. 6,
p. 471. See the whole affair of John XII., p. 471-476.)]
134 (return) [ A new example of the mischief of equivocation is
the beneficium (Ducange, tom. i. p. 617, &c.,) which the pope
conferred on the emperor Frederic I., since the Latin word may
signify either a legal fief, or a simple favor, an obligation,
(we want the word bienfait.) (See Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands,
tom. iii. p. 393-408. Pfeffel, Abrege Chronologique, tom. i. p.
229, 296, 317, 324, 420, 430, 500, 505, 509, &c.)]
In the revival of the empire of empire of Rome, neither the
bishop nor the people could bestow on Charlemagne or Otho the
provinces which were lost, as they had been won, by the chance of
arms. But the Romans were free to choose a master for themselves;
and the powers which had been delegated to the patrician, were
irrevocably granted to the French and Saxon emperors of the West.
The broken records of the times 135 preserve some remembrance of
their palace, their mint, their tribunal, their edicts, and the
sword of justice, which, as late as the thirteenth century, was
derived from Caesar to the praefect of the city. 136 Between the
arts of the popes and the violence of the people, this supremacy
was crushed and annihilated. Content with the titles of emperor
and Augustus, the successors of Charlemagne neglected to assert
this local jurisdiction. In the hour of prosperity, their
ambition was diverted by more alluring objects; and in the decay
and division of the empire, they were oppressed by the defence of
their hereditary provinces. Amidst the ruins of Italy, the famous
Marozia invited one of the usurpers to assume the character of
her third husband; and Hugh, king of Burgundy was introduced by
her faction into the mole of Hadrian or Castle of St. Angelo,
which commands the principal bridge and entrance of Rome. Her son
by the first marriage, Alberic, was compelled to attend at the
nuptial banquet; but his reluctant and ungraceful service was
chastised with a blow by his new father. The blow was productive
of a revolution. “Romans,” exclaimed the youth, “once you were
the masters of the world, and these Burgundians the most abject
of your slaves. They now reign, these voracious and brutal
savages, and my injury is the commencement of your servitude.”
137 The alarum bell rang to arms in every quarter of the city:
the Burgundians retreated with haste and shame; Marozia was
imprisoned by her victorious son, and his brother, Pope John XI.,
was reduced to the exercise of his spiritual functions. With the
title of prince, Alberic possessed above twenty years the
government of Rome; and he is said to have gratified the popular
prejudice, by restoring the office, or at least the title, of
consuls and tribunes. His son and heir Octavian assumed, with the
pontificate, the name of John XII.: like his predecessor, he was
provoked by the Lombard princes to seek a deliverer for the
church and republic; and the services of Otho were rewarded with
the Imperial dignity. But the Saxon was imperious, the Romans
were impatient, the festival of the coronation was disturbed by
the secret conflict of prerogative and freedom, and Otho
commanded his sword-bearer not to stir from his person, lest he
should be assaulted and murdered at the foot of the altar. 138
Before he repassed the Alps, the emperor chastised the revolt of
the people and the ingratitude of John XII. The pope was degraded
in a synod; the praefect was mounted on an ass, whipped through
the city, and cast into a dungeon; thirteen of the most guilty
were hanged, others were mutilated or banished; and this severe
process was justified by the ancient laws of Theodosius and
Justinian. The voice of fame has accused the second Otho of a
perfidious and bloody act, the massacre of the senators, whom he
had invited to his table under the fair semblance of hospitality
and friendship. 139 In the minority of his son Otho the Third,
Rome made a bold attempt to shake off the Saxon yoke, and the
consul Crescentius was the Brutus of the republic. From the
condition of a subject and an exile, he twice rose to the command
of the city, oppressed, expelled, and created the popes, and
formed a conspiracy for restoring the authority of the Greek
emperors. 1391 In the fortress of St. Angelo, he maintained an
obstinate siege, till the unfortunate consul was betrayed by a
promise of safety: his body was suspended on a gibbet, and his
head was exposed on the battlements of the castle. By a reverse
of fortune, Otho, after separating his troops, was besieged three
days, without food, in his palace; and a disgraceful escape saved
him from the justice or fury of the Romans. The senator Ptolemy
was the leader of the people, and the widow of Crescentius
enjoyed the pleasure or the fame of revenging her husband, by a
poison which she administered to her Imperial lover. It was the
design of Otho the Third to abandon the ruder countries of the
North, to erect his throne in Italy, and to revive the
institutions of the Roman monarchy. But his successors only once
in their lives appeared on the banks of the Tyber, to receive
their crown in the Vatican. 140 Their absence was contemptible,
their presence odious and formidable. They descended from the
Alps, at the head of their barbarians, who were strangers and
enemies to the country; and their transient visit was a scene of
tumult and bloodshed. 141 A faint remembrance of their ancestors
still tormented the Romans; and they beheld with pious
indignation the succession of Saxons, Franks, Swabians, and
Bohemians, who usurped the purple and prerogatives of the
Caesars.
135 (return) [ For the history of the emperors in Rome and Italy,
see Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, Opp. tom. ii., with the Notes of
Saxius, and the Annals of Muratori, who might refer more
distinctly to the authors of his great collection.]
136 (return) [ See the Dissertations of Le Blanc at the end of
his treatise des Monnoyes de France, in which he produces some
Roman coins of the French emperors.]
137 (return) [ Romanorum aliquando servi, scilicet Burgundiones,
Romanis imperent?.... Romanae urbis dignitas ad tantam est
stultitiam ducta, ut meretricum etiam imperio pareat? (Liutprand,
l. iii. c. 12, p. 450.) Sigonius (l. vi. p. 400) positively
affirms the renovation of the consulship; but in the old writers
Albericus is more frequently styled princeps Romanorum.]
138 (return) [ Ditmar, p. 354, apud Schmidt, tom. iii. p. 439.]
139 (return) [ This bloody feast is described in Leonine verse in
the Pantheon of Godfrey of Viterbo, (Script. Ital. tom. vii. p.
436, 437,) who flourished towards the end of the xiith century,
(Fabricius Bibliot. Latin. Med. et Infimi Aevi, tom. iii. p. 69,
edit. Mansi;) but his evidence, which imposed on Sigonius, is
reasonably suspected by Muratori (Annali, tom. viii. p. 177.)]
1391 (return) [ The Marquis Maffei’s gallery contained a medal
with Imp. Caes August. P. P. Crescentius. Hence Hobhouse infers
that he affected the empire. Hobhouse, Illustrations of Childe
Harold, p. 252.—M.]
140 (return) [ The coronation of the emperor, and some original
ceremonies of the xth century are preserved in the Panegyric on
Berengarius, (Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 405-414,)
illustrated by the Notes of Hadrian Valesius and Leibnitz.
Sigonius has related the whole process of the Roman expedition,
in good Latin, but with some errors of time and fact, (l. vii. p.
441-446.)]
141 (return) [ In a quarrel at the coronation of Conrad II.
Muratori takes leave to observe—doveano ben essere allora,
indisciplinati, Barbari, e bestials Tedeschi. Annal. tom. viii.
p. 368.]
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part VI.
There is nothing perhaps more adverse to nature and reason than
to hold in obedience remote countries and foreign nations, in
opposition to their inclination and interest. A torrent of
Barbarians may pass over the earth, but an extensive empire must
be supported by a refined system of policy and oppression; in the
centre, an absolute power, prompt in action and rich in
resources; a swift and easy communication with the extreme parts;
fortifications to check the first effort of rebellion; a regular
administration to protect and punish; and a well-disciplined army
to inspire fear, without provoking discontent and despair. Far
different was the situation of the German Caesars, who were
ambitious to enslave the kingdom of Italy. Their patrimonial
estates were stretched along the Rhine, or scattered in the
provinces; but this ample domain was alienated by the imprudence
or distress of successive princes; and their revenue, from minute
and vexatious prerogative, was scarcely sufficient for the
maintenance of their household. Their troops were formed by the
legal or voluntary service of their feudal vassals, who passed
the Alps with reluctance, assumed the license of rapine and
disorder, and capriciously deserted before the end of the
campaign. Whole armies were swept away by the pestilential
influence of the climate: the survivors brought back the bones of
their princes and nobles, 142 and the effects of their own
intemperance were often imputed to the treachery and malice of
the Italians, who rejoiced at least in the calamities of the
Barbarians. This irregular tyranny might contend on equal terms
with the petty tyrants of Italy; nor can the people, or the
reader, be much interested in the event of the quarrel. But in
the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Lombards rekindled the
flame of industry and freedom; and the generous example was at
length imitated by the republics of Tuscany. 1421 In the Italian
cities a municipal government had never been totally abolished;
and their first privileges were granted by the favor and policy
of the emperors, who were desirous of erecting a plebeian barrier
against the independence of the nobles. But their rapid progress,
the daily extension of their power and pretensions, were founded
on the numbers and spirit of these rising communities. 143 Each
city filled the measure of her diocese or district: the
jurisdiction of the counts and bishops, of the marquises and
counts, was banished from the land; and the proudest nobles were
persuaded or compelled to desert their solitary castles, and to
embrace the more honorable character of freemen and magistrates.
The legislative authority was inherent in the general assembly;
but the executive powers were intrusted to three consuls,
annually chosen from the three orders of captains, valvassors,
144 and commons, into which the republic was divided. Under the
protection of equal law, the labors of agriculture and commerce
were gradually revived; but the martial spirit of the Lombards
was nourished by the presence of danger; and as often as the bell
was rung, or the standard 145 erected, the gates of the city
poured forth a numerous and intrepid band, whose zeal in their
own cause was soon guided by the use and discipline of arms. At
the foot of these popular ramparts, the pride of the Caesars was
overthrown; and the invincible genius of liberty prevailed over
the two Frederics, the greatest princes of the middle age; the
first, superior perhaps in military prowess; the second, who
undoubtedly excelled in the softer accomplishments of peace and
learning.
142 (return) [ After boiling away the flesh. The caldrons for
that purpose were a necessary piece of travelling furniture; and
a German who was using it for his brother, promised it to a
friend, after it should have been employed for himself, (Schmidt,
tom. iii. p. 423, 424.) The same author observes that the whole
Saxon line was extinguished in Italy, (tom. ii. p. 440.)]
1421 (return) [ Compare Sismondi, Histoire des Republiques
Italiannes. Hallam Middle Ages. Raumer, Geschichte der
Hohenstauffen. Savigny, Geschichte des Romischen Rechts, vol.
iii. p. 19 with the authors quoted.—M.]
143 (return) [ Otho, bishop of Frisingen, has left an important
passage on the Italian cities, (l. ii. c. 13, in Script. Ital.
tom. vi. p. 707-710: ) and the rise, progress, and government of
these republics are perfectly illustrated by Muratori,
(Antiquitat. Ital. Medii Aevi, tom. iv. dissert xlv.—lii. p.
1-675. Annal. tom. viii. ix. x.)]
144 (return) [ For these titles, see Selden, (Titles of Honor,
vol. iii. part 1 p. 488.) Ducange, (Gloss. Latin. tom. ii. p.
140, tom. vi. p. 776,) and St. Marc, (Abrege Chronologique, tom.
ii. p. 719.)]
145 (return) [ The Lombards invented and used the carocium, a
standard planted on a car or wagon, drawn by a team of oxen,
(Ducange, tom. ii. p. 194, 195. Muratori Antiquitat tom. ii. dis.
xxvi. p. 489-493.)]
Ambitious of restoring the splendor of the purple, Frederic the
First invaded the republics of Lombardy, with the arts of a
statesman, the valor of a soldier, and the cruelty of a tyrant.
The recent discovery of the Pandects had renewed a science most
favorable to despotism; and his venal advocates proclaimed the
emperor the absolute master of the lives and properties of his
subjects. His royal prerogatives, in a less odious sense, were
acknowledged in the diet of Roncaglia; and the revenue of Italy
was fixed at thirty thousand pounds of silver, 146 which were
multiplied to an indefinite demand by the rapine of the fiscal
officers. The obstinate cities were reduced by the terror or the
force of his arms: his captives were delivered to the
executioner, or shot from his military engines; and. after the
siege and surrender of Milan, the buildings of that stately
capital were razed to the ground, three hundred hostages were
sent into Germany, and the inhabitants were dispersed in four
villages, under the yoke of the inflexible conqueror. 147 But
Milan soon rose from her ashes; and the league of Lombardy was
cemented by distress: their cause was espoused by Venice, Pope
Alexander the Third, and the Greek emperor: the fabric of
oppression was overturned in a day; and in the treaty of
Constance, Frederic subscribed, with some reservations, the
freedom of four-and-twenty cities. His grandson contended with
their vigor and maturity; but Frederic the Second 148 was endowed
with some personal and peculiar advantages. His birth and
education recommended him to the Italians; and in the implacable
discord of the two factions, the Ghibelins were attached to the
emperor, while the Guelfs displayed the banner of liberty and the
church. The court of Rome had slumbered, when his father Henry
the Sixth was permitted to unite with the empire the kingdoms of
Naples and Sicily; and from these hereditary realms the son
derived an ample and ready supply of troops and treasure. Yet
Frederic the Second was finally oppressed by the arms of the
Lombards and the thunders of the Vatican: his kingdom was given
to a stranger, and the last of his family was beheaded at Naples
on a public scaffold. During sixty years, no emperor appeared in
Italy, and the name was remembered only by the ignominious sale
of the last relics of sovereignty.
146 (return) [ Gunther Ligurinus, l. viii. 584, et seq., apud
Schmidt, tom. iii. p. 399.]
147 (return) [ Solus imperator faciem suam firmavit ut petram,
(Burcard. de Excidio Mediolani, Script. Ital. tom. vi. p. 917.)
This volume of Muratori contains the originals of the history of
Frederic the First, which must be compared with due regard to the
circumstances and prejudices of each German or Lombard writer. *
Note: Von Raumer has traced the fortunes of the Swabian house in
one of the ablest historical works of modern times. He may be
compared with the spirited and independent Sismondi.—M.]
148 (return) [ For the history of Frederic II. and the house of
Swabia at Naples, see Giannone, Istoria Civile, tom. ii. l. xiv.
-xix.]
The Barbarian conquerors of the West were pleased to decorate
their chief with the title of emperor; but it was not their
design to invest him with the despotism of Constantine and
Justinian. The persons of the Germans were free, their conquests
were their own, and their national character was animated by a
spirit which scorned the servile jurisprudence of the new or the
ancient Rome. It would have been a vain and dangerous attempt to
impose a monarch on the armed freemen, who were impatient of a
magistrate; on the bold, who refused to obey; on the powerful,
who aspired to command. The empire of Charlemagne and Otho was
distributed among the dukes of the nations or provinces, the
counts of the smaller districts, and the margraves of the marches
or frontiers, who all united the civil and military authority as
it had been delegated to the lieutenants of the first Caesars.
The Roman governors, who, for the most part, were soldiers of
fortune, seduced their mercenary legions, assumed the Imperial
purple, and either failed or succeeded in their revolt, without
wounding the power and unity of government. If the dukes,
margraves, and counts of Germany, were less audacious in their
claims, the consequences of their success were more lasting and
pernicious to the state. Instead of aiming at the supreme rank,
they silently labored to establish and appropriate their
provincial independence. Their ambition was seconded by the
weight of their estates and vassals, their mutual example and
support, the common interest of the subordinate nobility, the
change of princes and families, the minorities of Otho the Third
and Henry the Fourth, the ambition of the popes, and the vain
pursuit of the fugitive crowns of Italy and Rome. All the
attributes of regal and territorial jurisdiction were gradually
usurped by the commanders of the provinces; the right of peace
and war, of life and death, of coinage and taxation, of foreign
alliance and domestic economy. Whatever had been seized by
violence, was ratified by favor or distress, was granted as the
price of a doubtful vote or a voluntary service; whatever had
been granted to one could not, without injury, be denied to his
successor or equal; and every act of local or temporary
possession was insensibly moulded into the constitution of the
Germanic kingdom. In every province, the visible presence of the
duke or count was interposed between the throne and the nobles;
the subjects of the law became the vassals of a private chief;
and the standard which he received from his sovereign, was often
raised against him in the field. The temporal power of the clergy
was cherished and exalted by the superstition or policy of the
Carlovingian and Saxon dynasties, who blindly depended on their
moderation and fidelity; and the bishoprics of Germany were made
equal in extent and privilege, superior in wealth and population,
to the most ample states of the military order. As long as the
emperors retained the prerogative of bestowing on every vacancy
these ecclesiastic and secular benefices, their cause was
maintained by the gratitude or ambition of their friends and
favorites. But in the quarrel of the investitures, they were
deprived of their influence over the episcopal chapters; the
freedom of election was restored, and the sovereign was reduced,
by a solemn mockery, to his first prayers, the recommendation,
once in his reign, to a single prebend in each church. The
secular governors, instead of being recalled at the will of a
superior, could be degraded only by the sentence of their peers.
In the first age of the monarchy, the appointment of the son to
the duchy or county of his father, was solicited as a favor; it
was gradually obtained as a custom, and extorted as a right: the
lineal succession was often extended to the collateral or female
branches; the states of the empire (their popular, and at length
their legal, appellation) were divided and alienated by testament
and sale; and all idea of a public trust was lost in that of a
private and perpetual inheritance. The emperor could not even be
enriched by the casualties of forfeiture and extinction: within
the term of a year, he was obliged to dispose of the vacant fief;
and, in the choice of the candidate, it was his duty to consult
either the general or the provincial diet.
After the death of Frederic the Second, Germany was left a
monster with a hundred heads. A crowd of princes and prelates
disputed the ruins of the empire: the lords of innumerable
castles were less prone to obey, than to imitate, their
superiors; and, according to the measure of their strength, their
incessant hostilities received the names of conquest or robbery.
Such anarchy was the inevitable consequence of the laws and
manners of Europe; and the kingdoms of France and Italy were
shivered into fragments by the violence of the same tempest. But
the Italian cities and the French vassals were divided and
destroyed, while the union of the Germans has produced, under the
name of an empire, a great system of a federative republic. In
the frequent and at last the perpetual institution of diets, a
national spirit was kept alive, and the powers of a common
legislature are still exercised by the three branches or colleges
of the electors, the princes, and the free and Imperial cities of
Germany. I. Seven of the most powerful feudatories were permitted
to assume, with a distinguished name and rank, the exclusive
privilege of choosing the Roman emperor; and these electors were
the king of Bohemia, the duke of Saxony, the margrave of
Brandenburgh, the count palatine of the Rhine, and the three
archbishops of Mentz, of Treves, and of Cologne. II. The college
of princes and prelates purged themselves of a promiscuous
multitude: they reduced to four representative votes the long
series of independent counts, and excluded the nobles or
equestrian order, sixty thousand of whom, as in the Polish diets,
had appeared on horseback in the field of election. III. The
pride of birth and dominion, of the sword and the mitre, wisely
adopted the commons as the third branch of the legislature, and,
in the progress of society, they were introduced about the same
aera into the national assemblies of France England, and Germany.
The Hanseatic League commanded the trade and navigation of the
north: the confederates of the Rhine secured the peace and
intercourse of the inland country; the influence of the cities
has been adequate to their wealth and policy, and their negative
still invalidates the acts of the two superior colleges of
electors and princes. 149
149 (return) [ In the immense labyrinth of the jus publicum of
Germany, I must either quote one writer or a thousand; and I had
rather trust to one faithful guide, than transcribe, on credit, a
multitude of names and passages. That guide is M. Pfeffel, the
author of the best legal and constitutional history that I know
of any country, (Nouvel Abrege Chronologique de l’Histoire et du
Droit public Allemagne; Paris, 1776, 2 vols. in 4to.) His
learning and judgment have discerned the most interesting facts;
his simple brevity comprises them in a narrow space. His
chronological order distributes them under the proper dates; and
an elaborate index collects them under their respective heads. To
this work, in a less perfect state, Dr. Robertson was gratefully
indebted for that masterly sketch which traces even the modern
changes of the Germanic body. The Corpus Historiae Germanicae of
Struvius has been likewise consulted, the more usefully, as that
huge compilation is fortified in every page with the original
texts. * Note: For the rise and progress of the Hanseatic League,
consult the authoritative history by Sartorius; Geschichte des
Hanseatischen Bandes & Theile, Gottingen, 1802. New and improved
edition by Lappenberg Elamburg, 1830. The original Hanseatic
League comprehended Cologne and many of the great cities in the
Netherlands and on the Rhine.—M.]
It is in the fourteenth century that we may view in the strongest
light the state and contrast of the Roman empire of Germany,
which no longer held, except on the borders of the Rhine and
Danube, a single province of Trajan or Constantine. Their
unworthy successors were the counts of Hapsburgh, of Nassau, of
Luxemburgh, and Schwartzenburgh: the emperor Henry the Seventh
procured for his son the crown of Bohemia, and his grandson
Charles the Fourth was born among a people strange and barbarous
in the estimation of the Germans themselves. 150 After the
excommunication of Lewis of Bavaria, he received the gift or
promise of the vacant empire from the Roman pontiffs, who, in the
exile and captivity of Avignon, affected the dominion of the
earth. The death of his competitors united the electoral college,
and Charles was unanimously saluted king of the Romans, and
future emperor; a title which, in the same age, was prostituted
to the Caesars of Germany and Greece. The German emperor was no
more than the elective and impotent magistrate of an aristocracy
of princes, who had not left him a village that he might call his
own. His best prerogative was the right of presiding and
proposing in the national senate, which was convened at his
summons; and his native kingdom of Bohemia, less opulent than the
adjacent city of Nuremberg, was the firmest seat of his power and
the richest source of his revenue. The army with which he passed
the Alps consisted of three hundred horse. In the cathedral of
St. Ambrose, Charles was crowned with the iron crown, which
tradition ascribed to the Lombard monarchy; but he was admitted
only with a peaceful train; the gates of the city were shut upon
him; and the king of Italy was held a captive by the arms of the
Visconti, whom he confirmed in the sovereignty of Milan. In the
Vatican he was again crowned with the golden crown of the empire;
but, in obedience to a secret treaty, the Roman emperor
immediately withdrew, without reposing a single night within the
walls of Rome. The eloquent Petrarch, 151 whose fancy revived the
visionary glories of the Capitol, deplores and upbraids the
ignominious flight of the Bohemian; and even his contemporaries
could observe, that the sole exercise of his authority was in the
lucrative sale of privileges and titles. The gold of Italy
secured the election of his son; but such was the shameful
poverty of the Roman emperor, that his person was arrested by a
butcher in the streets of Worms, and was detained in the public
inn, as a pledge or hostage for the payment of his expenses.
150 (return) [ Yet, personally, Charles IV. must not be
considered as a Barbarian. After his education at Paris, he
recovered the use of the Bohemian, his native, idiom; and the
emperor conversed and wrote with equal facility in French, Latin,
Italian, and German, (Struvius, p. 615, 616.) Petrarch always
represents him as a polite and learned prince.]
151 (return) [ Besides the German and Italian historians, the
expedition of Charles IV. is painted in lively and original
colors in the curious Memoires sur la Vie de Petrarque, tom. iii.
p. 376-430, by the Abbe de Sade, whose prolixity has never been
blamed by any reader of taste and curiosity.]
From this humiliating scene, let us turn to the apparent majesty
of the same Charles in the diets of the empire. The golden bull,
which fixes the Germanic constitution, is promulgated in the
style of a sovereign and legislator. A hundred princes bowed
before his throne, and exalted their own dignity by the voluntary
honors which they yielded to their chief or minister. At the
royal banquet, the hereditary great officers, the seven electors,
who in rank and title were equal to kings, performed their solemn
and domestic service of the palace. The seals of the triple
kingdom were borne in state by the archbishops of Mentz, Cologne,
and Treves, the perpetual arch-chancellors of Germany, Italy, and
Arles. The great marshal, on horseback, exercised his function
with a silver measure of oats, which he emptied on the ground,
and immediately dismounted to regulate the order of the guests.
The great steward, the count palatine of the Rhine, place the
dishes on the table. The great chamberlain, the margrave of
Brandenburgh, presented, after the repast, the golden ewer and
basin, to wash. The king of Bohemia, as great cup-bearer, was
represented by the emperor’s brother, the duke of Luxemburgh and
Brabant; and the procession was closed by the great huntsmen, who
introduced a boar and a stag, with a loud chorus of horns and
hounds. 152 Nor was the supremacy of the emperor confined to
Germany alone: the hereditary monarchs of Europe confessed the
preeminence of his rank and dignity: he was the first of the
Christian princes, the temporal head of the great republic of the
West: 153 to his person the title of majesty was long
appropriated; and he disputed with the pope the sublime
prerogative of creating kings and assembling councils. The oracle
of the civil law, the learned Bartolus, was a pensioner of
Charles the Fourth; and his school resounded with the doctrine,
that the Roman emperor was the rightful sovereign of the earth,
from the rising to the setting sun. The contrary opinion was
condemned, not as an error, but as a heresy, since even the
gospel had pronounced, “And there went forth a decree from Caesar
Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.” 154
152 (return) [ See the whole ceremony in Struvius, p. 629]
153 (return) [ The republic of Europe, with the pope and emperor
at its head, was never represented with more dignity than in the
council of Constance. See Lenfant’s History of that assembly.]
154 (return) [ Gravina, Origines Juris Civilis, p. 108.]
If we annihilate the interval of time and space between Augustus
and Charles, strong and striking will be the contrast between the
two Caesars; the Bohemian who concealed his weakness under the
mask of ostentation, and the Roman, who disguised his strength
under the semblance of modesty. At the head of his victorious
legions, in his reign over the sea and land, from the Nile and
Euphrates to the Atlantic Ocean, Augustus professed himself the
servant of the state and the equal of his fellow-citizens. The
conqueror of Rome and her provinces assumed a popular and legal
form of a censor, a consul, and a tribune. His will was the law
of mankind, but in the declaration of his laws he borrowed the
voice of the senate and people; and from their decrees their
master accepted and renewed his temporary commission to
administer the republic. In his dress, his domestics, 155 his
titles, in all the offices of social life, Augustus maintained
the character of a private Roman; and his most artful flatterers
respected the secret of his absolute and perpetual monarchy.
155 (return) [ Six thousand urns have been discovered of the
slaves and freedmen of Augustus and Livia. So minute was the
division of office, that one slave was appointed to weigh the
wool which was spun by the empress’s maids, another for the care
of her lap-dog, &c., (Camera Sepolchrale, by Bianchini. Extract
of his work in the Bibliotheque Italique, tom. iv. p. 175. His
Eloge, by Fontenelle, tom. vi. p. 356.) But these servants were
of the same rank, and possibly not more numerous than those of
Pollio or Lentulus. They only prove the general riches of the
city.]
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part I.
Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Birth, Character, And
Doctrine Of Mahomet.—He Preaches At Mecca.— Flies To
Medina.—Propagates His Religion By The Sword.— Voluntary Or
Reluctant Submission Of The Arabs.—His Death And Successors.—The
Claims And Fortunes Of Ali And His Descendants.
After pursuing above six hundred years the fleeting Caesars of
Constantinople and Germany, I now descend, in the reign of
Heraclius, on the eastern borders of the Greek monarchy. While
the state was exhausted by the Persian war, and the church was
distracted by the Nestorian and Monophysite sects, Mahomet, with
the sword in one hand and the Koran in the other, erected his
throne on the ruins of Christianity and of Rome. The genius of
the Arabian prophet, the manners of his nation, and the spirit of
his religion, involve the causes of the decline and fall of the
Eastern empire; and our eyes are curiously intent on one of the
most memorable revolutions, which have impressed a new and
lasting character on the nations of the globe. 1
1 (return) [ As in this and the following chapter I shall display
much Arabic learning, I must profess my total ignorance of the
Oriental tongues, and my gratitude to the learned interpreters,
who have transfused their science into the Latin, French, and
English languages. Their collections, versions, and histories, I
shall occasionally notice.]
In the vacant space between Persia, Syria, Egypt, and Aethiopia,
the Arabian peninsula 2 may be conceived as a triangle of
spacious but irregular dimensions. From the northern point of
Beles 3 on the Euphrates, a line of fifteen hundred miles is
terminated by the Straits of Bebelmandel and the land of
frankincense. About half this length may be allowed for the
middle breadth, from east to west, from Bassora to Suez, from the
Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. 4 The sides of the triangle are
gradually enlarged, and the southern basis presents a front of a
thousand miles to the Indian Ocean. The entire surface of the
peninsula exceeds in a fourfold proportion that of Germany or
France; but the far greater part has been justly stigmatized with
the epithets of the stony and the sandy. Even the wilds of
Tartary are decked, by the hand of nature, with lofty trees and
luxuriant herbage; and the lonesome traveller derives a sort of
comfort and society from the presence of vegetable life. But in
the dreary waste of Arabia, a boundless level of sand is
intersected by sharp and naked mountains; and the face of the
desert, without shade or shelter, is scorched by the direct and
intense rays of a tropical sun. Instead of refreshing breezes,
the winds, particularly from the south-west, diffuse a noxious
and even deadly vapor; the hillocks of sand which they
alternately raise and scatter, are compared to the billows of the
ocean, and whole caravans, whole armies, have been lost and
buried in the whirlwind. The common benefits of water are an
object of desire and contest; and such is the scarcity of wood,
that some art is requisite to preserve and propagate the element
of fire. Arabia is destitute of navigable rivers, which fertilize
the soil, and convey its produce to the adjacent regions: the
torrents that fall from the hills are imbibed by the thirsty
earth: the rare and hardy plants, the tamarind or the acacia,
that strike their roots into the clefts of the rocks, are
nourished by the dews of the night: a scanty supply of rain is
collected in cisterns and aqueducts: the wells and springs are
the secret treasure of the desert; and the pilgrim of Mecca, 5
after many a dry and sultry march, is disgusted by the taste of
the waters which have rolled over a bed of sulphur or salt. Such
is the general and genuine picture of the climate of Arabia. The
experience of evil enhances the value of any local or partial
enjoyments. A shady grove, a green pasture, a stream of fresh
water, are sufficient to attract a colony of sedentary Arabs to
the fortunate spots which can afford food and refreshment to
themselves and their cattle, and which encourage their industry
in the cultivation of the palmtree and the vine. The high lands
that border on the Indian Ocean are distinguished by their
superior plenty of wood and water; the air is more temperate, the
fruits are more delicious, the animals and the human race more
numerous: the fertility of the soil invites and rewards the toil
of the husbandman; and the peculiar gifts of frankincense 6 and
coffee have attracted in different ages the merchants of the
world. If it be compared with the rest of the peninsula, this
sequestered region may truly deserve the appellation of the
happy; and the splendid coloring of fancy and fiction has been
suggested by contrast, and countenanced by distance. It was for
this earthly paradise that Nature had reserved her choicest
favors and her most curious workmanship: the incompatible
blessings of luxury and innocence were ascribed to the natives:
the soil was impregnated with gold 7 and gems, and both the land
and sea were taught to exhale the odors of aromatic sweets. This
division of the sandy, the stony, and the happy, so familiar to
the Greeks and Latins, is unknown to the Arabians themselves; and
it is singular enough, that a country, whose language and
inhabitants have ever been the same, should scarcely retain a
vestige of its ancient geography. The maritime districts of
Bahrein and Oman are opposite to the realm of Persia. The kingdom
of Yemen displays the limits, or at least the situation, of
Arabia Felix: the name of Neged is extended over the inland
space; and the birth of Mahomet has illustrated the province of
Hejaz along the coast of the Red Sea. 8
2 (return) [ The geographers of Arabia may be divided into three
classes: 1. The Greeks and Latins, whose progressive knowledge
may be traced in Agatharcides, (de Mari Rubro, in Hudson,
Geograph. Minor. tom. i.,) Diodorus Siculus, (tom. i. l. ii. p.
159-167, l. iii. p. 211-216, edit. Wesseling,) Strabo, (l. xvi.
p. 1112-1114, from Eratosthenes, p. 1122-1132, from Artemidorus,)
Dionysius, (Periegesis, 927-969,) Pliny, (Hist. Natur. v. 12, vi.
32,) and Ptolemy, (Descript. et Tabulae Urbium, in Hudson, tom.
iii.) 2. The Arabic writers, who have treated the subject with
the zeal of patriotism or devotion: the extracts of Pocock
(Specimen Hist. Arabum, p. 125-128) from the Geography of the
Sherif al Edrissi, render us still more dissatisfied with the
version or abridgment (p. 24-27, 44-56, 108, &c., 119, &c.) which
the Maronites have published under the absurd title of Geographia
Nubiensis, (Paris, 1619;) but the Latin and French translators,
Greaves (in Hudson, tom. iii.) and Galland, (Voyage de la
Palestine par La Roque, p. 265-346,) have opened to us the Arabia
of Abulfeda, the most copious and correct account of the
peninsula, which may be enriched, however, from the Bibliotheque
Orientale of D’Herbelot, p. 120, et alibi passim. 3. The European
travellers; among whom Shaw (p. 438-455) and Niebuhr
(Description, 1773; Voyages, tom. i. 1776) deserve an honorable
distinction: Busching (Geographie par Berenger, tom. viii. p.
416-510) has compiled with judgment, and D’Anville’s Maps (Orbis
Veteribus Notus, and 1re Partie de l’Asie) should lie before the
reader, with his Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 208-231. *
Note: Of modern travellers may be mentioned the adventurer who
called himself Ali Bey; but above all, the intelligent, the
enterprising the accurate Burckhardt.—M.]
3 (return) [ Abulfed. Descript. Arabiae, p. 1. D’Anville,
l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 19, 20. It was in this place, the
paradise or garden of a satrap, that Xenophon and the Greeks
first passed the Euphrates, (Anabasis, l. i. c. 10, p. 29, edit.
Wells.)]
4 (return) [ Reland has proved, with much superfluous learning,
1. That our Red Sea (the Arabian Gulf) is no more than a part of
the Mare Rubrum, which was extended to the indefinite space of
the Indian Ocean.
2. That the synonymous words, allude to the color of the blacks
or negroes, (Dissert Miscell. tom. i. p. 59-117.)]
5 (return) [ In the thirty days, or stations, between Cairo and
Mecca, there are fifteen destitute of good water. See the route
of the Hadjees, in Shaw’s Travels, p. 477.]
6 (return) [ The aromatics, especially the thus, or frankincense,
of Arabia, occupy the xiith book of Pliny. Our great poet
(Paradise Lost, l. iv.) introduces, in a simile, the spicy odors
that are blown by the north-east wind from the Sabaean
coast:——Many a league, Pleased with the grateful scent, old Ocean
smiles. (Plin. Hist. Natur. xii. 42.)]
7 (return) [ Agatharcides affirms, that lumps of pure gold were
found, from the size of an olive to that of a nut; that iron was
twice, and silver ten times, the value of gold, (de Mari Rubro,
p. 60.) These real or imaginary treasures are vanished; and no
gold mines are at present known in Arabia, (Niebuhr, Description,
p. 124.) * Note: A brilliant passage in the geographical poem of
Dionysius Periegetes embodies the notions of the ancients on the
wealth and fertility of Yemen. Greek mythology, and the
traditions of the “gorgeous east,” of India as well as Arabia,
are mingled together in indiscriminate splendor. Compare on the
southern coast of Arabia, the recent travels of Lieut.
Wellsted—M.]
8 (return) [ Consult, peruse, and study the Specimen Hostoriae
Arabum of Pocock, (Oxon. 1650, in 4to.) The thirty pages of text
and version are extracted from the Dynasties of Gregory
Abulpharagius, which Pocock afterwards translated, (Oxon. 1663,
in 4to.;) the three hundred and fifty-eight notes form a classic
and original work on the Arabian antiquities.]
The measure of population is regulated by the means of
subsistence; and the inhabitants of this vast peninsula might be
outnumbered by the subjects of a fertile and industrious
province. Along the shores of the Persian Gulf, of the ocean, and
even of the Red Sea, the Icthyophagi, 9 or fish eaters, continued
to wander in quest of their precarious food. In this primitive
and abject state, which ill deserves the name of society, the
human brute, without arts or laws, almost without sense or
language, is poorly distinguished from the rest of the animal
creation. Generations and ages might roll away in silent
oblivion, and the helpless savage was restrained from multiplying
his race by the wants and pursuits which confined his existence
to the narrow margin of the seacoast. But in an early period of
antiquity the great body of the Arabs had emerged from this scene
of misery; and as the naked wilderness could not maintain a
people of hunters, they rose at once to the more secure and
plentiful condition of the pastoral life. The same life is
uniformly pursued by the roving tribes of the desert; and in the
portrait of the modern Bedoweens, we may trace the features of
their ancestors, 10 who, in the age of Moses or Mahomet, dwelt
under similar tents, and conducted their horses, and camels, and
sheep, to the same springs and the same pastures. Our toil is
lessened, and our wealth is increased, by our dominion over the
useful animals; and the Arabian shepherd had acquired the
absolute possession of a faithful friend and a laborious slave.
11 Arabia, in the opinion of the naturalist, is the genuine and
original country of the horse; the climate most propitious, not
indeed to the size, but to the spirit and swiftness, of that
generous animal. The merit of the Barb, the Spanish, and the
English breed, is derived from a mixture of Arabian blood: 12 the
Bedoweens preserve, with superstitious care, the honors and the
memory of the purest race: the males are sold at a high price,
but the females are seldom alienated; and the birth of a noble
foal was esteemed among the tribes, as a subject of joy and
mutual congratulation. These horses are educated in the tents,
among the children of the Arabs, with a tender familiarity, which
trains them in the habits of gentleness and attachment. They are
accustomed only to walk and to gallop: their sensations are not
blunted by the incessant abuse of the spur and the whip: their
powers are reserved for the moments of flight and pursuit: but no
sooner do they feel the touch of the hand or the stirrup, than
they dart away with the swiftness of the wind; and if their
friend be dismounted in the rapid career, they instantly stop
till he has recovered his seat. In the sands of Africa and
Arabia, the camel is a sacred and precious gift. That strong and
patient beast of burden can perform, without eating or drinking,
a journey of several days; and a reservoir of fresh water is
preserved in a large bag, a fifth stomach of the animal, whose
body is imprinted with the marks of servitude: the larger breed
is capable of transporting a weight of a thousand pounds; and the
dromedary, of a lighter and more active frame, outstrips the
fleetest courser in the race. Alive or dead, almost every part of
the camel is serviceable to man: her milk is plentiful and
nutritious: the young and tender flesh has the taste of veal: 13
a valuable salt is extracted from the urine: the dung supplies
the deficiency of fuel; and the long hair, which falls each year
and is renewed, is coarsely manufactured into the garments, the
furniture, and the tents of the Bedoweens. In the rainy seasons,
they consume the rare and insufficient herbage of the desert:
during the heats of summer and the scarcity of winter, they
remove their encampments to the sea-coast, the hills of Yemen, or
the neighborhood of the Euphrates, and have often extorted the
dangerous license of visiting the banks of the Nile, and the
villages of Syria and Palestine. The life of a wandering Arab is
a life of danger and distress; and though sometimes, by rapine or
exchange, he may appropriate the fruits of industry, a private
citizen in Europe is in the possession of more solid and pleasing
luxury than the proudest emir, who marches in the field at the
head of ten thousand horse.
9 (return) [ Arrian remarks the Icthyophagi of the coast of
Hejez, (Periplus Maris Erythraei, p. 12,) and beyond Aden, (p.
15.) It seems probable that the shores of the Red Sea (in the
largest sense) were occupied by these savages in the time,
perhaps, of Cyrus; but I can hardly believe that any cannibals
were left among the savages in the reign of Justinian. (Procop.
de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 19.)]
10 (return) [ See the Specimen Historiae Arabum of Pocock, p. 2,
5, 86, &c. The journey of M. d’Arvieux, in 1664, to the camp of
the emir of Mount Carmel, (Voyage de la Palestine, Amsterdam,
1718,) exhibits a pleasing and original picture of the life of
the Bedoweens, which may be illustrated from Niebuhr (Description
de l’Arabie, p. 327-344) and Volney, (tom. i. p. 343-385,) the
last and most judicious of our Syrian travellers.]
11 (return) [ Read (it is no unpleasing task) the incomparable
articles of the Horse and the Camel, in the Natural History of M.
de Buffon.]
12 (return) [ For the Arabian horses, see D’Arvieux (p. 159-173)
and Niebuhr, (p. 142-144.) At the end of the xiiith century, the
horses of Neged were esteemed sure-footed, those of Yemen strong
and serviceable, those of Hejaz most noble. The horses of Europe,
the tenth and last class, were generally despised as having too
much body and too little spirit, (D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p.
339: ) their strength was requisite to bear the weight of the
knight and his armor]
13 (return) [ Qui carnibus camelorum vesci solent odii tenaces
sunt, was the opinion of an Arabian physician, (Pocock, Specimen,
p. 88.) Mahomet himself, who was fond of milk, prefers the cow,
and does not even mention the camel; but the diet of Mecca and
Medina was already more luxurious, (Gagnier Vie de Mahomet, tom.
iii. p. 404.)]
Yet an essential difference may be found between the hordes of
Scythia and the Arabian tribes; since many of the latter were
collected into towns, and employed in the labors of trade and
agriculture. A part of their time and industry was still devoted
to the management of their cattle: they mingled, in peace and
war, with their brethren of the desert; and the Bedoweens derived
from their useful intercourse some supply of their wants, and
some rudiments of art and knowledge. Among the forty-two cities
of Arabia, 14 enumerated by Abulfeda, the most ancient and
populous were situate in the happy Yemen: the towers of Saana, 15
and the marvellous reservoir of Merab, 16 were constructed by the
kings of the Homerites; but their profane lustre was eclipsed by
the prophetic glories of Medina 17 and Mecca, 18 near the Red
Sea, and at the distance from each other of two hundred and
seventy miles. The last of these holy places was known to the
Greeks under the name of Macoraba; and the termination of the
word is expressive of its greatness, which has not, indeed, in
the most flourishing period, exceeded the size and populousness
of Marseilles. Some latent motive, perhaps of superstition, must
have impelled the founders, in the choice of a most unpromising
situation. They erected their habitations of mud or stone, in a
plain about two miles long and one mile broad, at the foot of
three barren mountains: the soil is a rock; the water even of the
holy well of Zemzem is bitter or brackish; the pastures are
remote from the city; and grapes are transported above seventy
miles from the gardens of Tayef. The fame and spirit of the
Koreishites, who reigned in Mecca, were conspicuous among the
Arabian tribes; but their ungrateful soil refused the labors of
agriculture, and their position was favorable to the enterprises
of trade. By the seaport of Gedda, at the distance only of forty
miles, they maintained an easy correspondence with Abyssinia; and
that Christian kingdom afforded the first refuge to the disciples
of Mahomet. The treasures of Africa were conveyed over the
Peninsula to Gerrha or Katif, in the province of Bahrein, a city
built, as it is said, of rock-salt, by the Chaldaean exiles; 19
and from thence with the native pearls of the Persian Gulf, they
were floated on rafts to the mouth of the Euphrates. Mecca is
placed almost at an equal distance, a month’s journey, between
Yemen on the right, and Syria on the left hand. The former was
the winter, the latter the summer, station of her caravans; and
their seasonable arrival relieved the ships of India from the
tedious and troublesome navigation of the Red Sea. In the markets
of Saana and Merab, in the harbors of Oman and Aden, the camels
of the Koreishites were laden with a precious cargo of aromatics;
a supply of corn and manufactures was purchased in the fairs of
Bostra and Damascus; the lucrative exchange diffused plenty and
riches in the streets of Mecca; and the noblest of her sons
united the love of arms with the profession of merchandise. 20
14 (return) [ Yet Marcian of Heraclea (in Periplo, p. 16, in tom.
i. Hudson, Minor. Geograph.) reckons one hundred and sixty-four
towns in Arabia Felix. The size of the towns might be small—the
faith of the writer might be large.]
15 (return) [ It is compared by Abulfeda (in Hudson, tom. ii. p.
54) to Damascus, and is still the residence of the Imam of Yemen,
(Voyages de Niebuhr, tom. i. p. 331-342.) Saana is twenty-four
parasangs from Dafar, (Abulfeda, p. 51,) and sixty-eight from
Aden, (p. 53.)]
16 (return) [ Pocock, Specimen, p. 57. Geograph. Nubiensis, p.
52. Meriaba, or Merab, six miles in circumference, was destroyed
by the legions of Augustus, (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 32,) and had
not revived in the xivth century, (Abulfed. Descript. Arab. p.
58.) * Note: See note 2 to chap. i. The destruction of Meriaba by
the Romans is doubtful. The town never recovered the inundation
which took place from the bursting of a large reservoir of
water—an event of great importance in the Arabian annals, and
discussed at considerable length by modern Orientalists.—M.]
17 (return) [ The name of city, Medina, was appropriated, to
Yatreb. (the Iatrippa of the Greeks,) the seat of the prophet.
The distances from Medina are reckoned by Abulfeda in stations,
or days’ journey of a caravan, (p. 15: ) to Bahrein, xv.; to
Bassora, xviii.; to Cufah, xx.; to Damascus or Palestine, xx.; to
Cairo, xxv.; to Mecca. x.; from Mecca to Saana, (p. 52,) or Aden,
xxx.; to Cairo, xxxi. days, or 412 hours, (Shaw’s Travels, p.
477;) which, according to the estimate of D’Anville, (Mesures
Itineraires, p. 99,) allows about twenty-five English miles for a
day’s journey. From the land of frankincense (Hadramaut, in
Yemen, between Aden and Cape Fartasch) to Gaza in Syria, Pliny
(Hist. Nat. xii. 32) computes lxv. mansions of camels. These
measures may assist fancy and elucidate facts.]
18 (return) [ Our notions of Mecca must be drawn from the
Arabians, (D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 368-371.
Pocock, Specimen, p. 125-128. Abulfeda, p. 11-40.) As no
unbeliever is permitted to enter the city, our travellers are
silent; and the short hints of Thevenot (Voyages du Levant, part
i. p. 490) are taken from the suspicious mouth of an African
renegado. Some Persians counted 6000 houses, (Chardin. tom. iv.
p. 167.) * Note: Even in the time of Gibbon, Mecca had not been
so inaccessible to Europeans. It had been visited by Ludovico
Barthema, and by one Joseph Pitts, of Exeter, who was taken
prisoner by the Moors, and forcibly converted to Mahometanism.
His volume is a curious, though plain, account of his sufferings
and travels. Since that time Mecca has been entered, and the
ceremonies witnessed, by Dr. Seetzen, whose papers were
unfortunately lost; by the Spaniard, who called himself Ali Bey;
and, lastly, by Burckhardt, whose description leaves nothing
wanting to satisfy the curiosity.—M.]
19 (return) [ Strabo, l. xvi. p. 1110. See one of these salt
houses near Bassora, in D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 6.]
20 (return) [ Mirum dictu ex innumeris populis pars aequa in
commerciis aut in latrociniis degit, (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 32.)
See Sale’s Koran, Sura. cvi. p. 503. Pocock, Specimen, p. 2.
D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 361. Prideaux’s Life of Mahomet,
p. 5. Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 72, 120, 126, &c.]
The perpetual independence of the Arabs has been the theme of
praise among strangers and natives; and the arts of controversy
transform this singular event into a prophecy and a miracle, in
favor of the posterity of Ismael. 21 Some exceptions, that can
neither be dismissed nor eluded, render this mode of reasoning as
indiscreet as it is superfluous; the kingdom of Yemen has been
successively subdued by the Abyssinians, the Persians, the
sultans of Egypt, 22 and the Turks; 23 the holy cities of Mecca
and Medina have repeatedly bowed under a Scythian tyrant; and the
Roman province of Arabia 24 embraced the peculiar wilderness in
which Ismael and his sons must have pitched their tents in the
face of their brethren. Yet these exceptions are temporary or
local; the body of the nation has escaped the yoke of the most
powerful monarchies: the arms of Sesostris and Cyrus, of Pompey
and Trajan, could never achieve the conquest of Arabia; the
present sovereign of the Turks 25 may exercise a shadow of
jurisdiction, but his pride is reduced to solicit the friendship
of a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to
attack. The obvious causes of their freedom are inscribed on the
character and country of the Arabs. Many ages before Mahomet, 26
their intrepid valor had been severely felt by their neighbors in
offensive and defensive war. The patient and active virtues of a
soldier are insensibly nursed in the habits and discipline of a
pastoral life. The care of the sheep and camels is abandoned to
the women of the tribe; but the martial youth, under the banner
of the emir, is ever on horseback, and in the field, to practise
the exercise of the bow, the javelin, and the cimeter. The long
memory of their independence is the firmest pledge of its
perpetuity and succeeding generations are animated to prove their
descent, and to maintain their inheritance. Their domestic feuds
are suspended on the approach of a common enemy; and in their
last hostilities against the Turks, the caravan of Mecca was
attacked and pillaged by fourscore thousand of the confederates.
When they advance to battle, the hope of victory is in the front;
in the rear, the assurance of a retreat. Their horses and camels,
who, in eight or ten days, can perform a march of four or five
hundred miles, disappear before the conqueror; the secret waters
of the desert elude his search, and his victorious troops are
consumed with thirst, hunger, and fatigue, in the pursuit of an
invisible foe, who scorns his efforts, and safely reposes in the
heart of the burning solitude. The arms and deserts of the
Bedoweens are not only the safeguards of their own freedom, but
the barriers also of the happy Arabia, whose inhabitants, remote
from war, are enervated by the luxury of the soil and climate.
The legions of Augustus melted away in disease and lassitude; 27
and it is only by a naval power that the reduction of Yemen has
been successfully attempted. When Mahomet erected his holy
standard, 28 that kingdom was a province of the Persian empire;
yet seven princes of the Homerites still reigned in the
mountains; and the vicegerent of Chosroes was tempted to forget
his distant country and his unfortunate master. The historians of
the age of Justinian represent the state of the independent
Arabs, who were divided by interest or affection in the long
quarrel of the East: the tribe of Gassan was allowed to encamp on
the Syrian territory: the princes of Hira were permitted to form
a city about forty miles to the southward of the ruins of
Babylon. Their service in the field was speedy and vigorous; but
their friendship was venal, their faith inconstant, their enmity
capricious: it was an easier task to excite than to disarm these
roving barbarians; and, in the familiar intercourse of war, they
learned to see, and to despise, the splendid weakness both of
Rome and of Persia. From Mecca to the Euphrates, the Arabian
tribes 29 were confounded by the Greeks and Latins, under the
general appellation of Saracens, 30 a name which every Christian
mouth has been taught to pronounce with terror and abhorrence.
21 (return) [ A nameless doctor (Universal Hist. vol. xx. octavo
edition) has formally demonstrated the truth of Christianity by
the independence of the Arabs. A critic, besides the exceptions
of fact, might dispute the meaning of the text (Gen. xvi. 12,)
the extent of the application, and the foundation of the
pedigree. * Note: See note 3 to chap. xlvi. The atter point is
probably the least contestable of the three.—M.]
22 (return) [ It was subdued, A.D. 1173, by a brother of the
great Saladin, who founded a dynasty of Curds or Ayoubites,
(Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 425. D’Herbelot, p. 477.)]
23 (return) [ By the lieutenant of Soliman I. (A.D. 1538) and
Selim II., (1568.) See Cantemir’s Hist. of the Othman Empire, p.
201, 221. The pacha, who resided at Saana, commanded twenty-one
beys; but no revenue was ever remitted to the Porte, (Marsigli,
Stato Militare dell’ Imperio Ottomanno, p. 124,) and the Turks
were expelled about the year 1630, (Niebuhr, p. 167, 168.)]
24 (return) [ Of the Roman province, under the name of Arabia and
the third Palestine, the principal cities were Bostra and Petra,
which dated their aera from the year 105, when they were subdued
by Palma, a lieutenant of Trajan, (Dion. Cassius, l. lxviii.)
Petra was the capital of the Nabathaeans; whose name is derived
from the eldest of the sons of Ismael, (Gen. xxv. 12, &c., with
the Commentaries of Jerom, Le Clerc, and Calmet.) Justinian
relinquished a palm country of ten days’ journey to the south of
Aelah, (Procop. de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 19,) and the Romans
maintained a centurion and a custom-house, (Arrian in Periplo
Maris Erythraei, p. 11, in Hudson, tom. i.,) at a place (Pagus
Albus, Hawara) in the territory of Medina, (D’Anville, Memoire
sur l’Egypte, p. 243.) These real possessions, and some naval
inroads of Trajan, (Peripl. p. 14, 15,) are magnified by history
and medals into the Roman conquest of Arabia. * Note: On the
ruins of Petra, see the travels of Messrs. Irby and Mangles, and
of Leon de Laborde.—M.]
25 (return) [ Niebuhr (Description de l’Arabie, p. 302, 303,
329-331) affords the most recent and authentic intelligence of
the Turkish empire in Arabia. * Note: Niebuhr’s, notwithstanding
the multitude of later travellers, maintains its ground, as the
classical work on Arabia.—M.]
26 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus (tom. ii. l. xix. p. 390-393,
edit. Wesseling) has clearly exposed the freedom of the
Nabathaean Arabs, who resisted the arms of Antigonus and his
son.]
27 (return) [ Strabo, l. xvi. p. 1127-1129. Plin. Hist. Natur.
vi. 32. Aelius Gallus landed near Medina, and marched near a
thousand miles into the part of Yemen between Mareb and the
Ocean. The non ante devictis Sabeae regibus, (Od. i. 29,) and the
intacti Arabum thesanri (Od. iii. 24) of Horace, attest the
virgin purity of Arabia.]
28 (return) [ See the imperfect history of Yemen in Pocock,
Specimen, p. 55-66, of Hira, p. 66-74, of Gassan, p. 75-78, as
far as it could be known or preserved in the time of ignorance. *
Note: Compare the Hist. Yemanae, published by Johannsen at Bonn
1880 particularly the translator’s preface.—M.]
29 (return) [ They are described by Menander, (Excerpt. Legation
p. 149,) Procopius, (de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 17, 19, l. ii. c.
10,) and, in the most lively colors, by Ammianus Marcellinus, (l.
xiv. c. 4,) who had spoken of them as early as the reign of
Marcus.]
30 (return) [ The name which, used by Ptolemy and Pliny in a more
confined, by Ammianus and Procopius in a larger, sense, has been
derived, ridiculously, from Sarah, the wife of Abraham, obscurely
from the village of Saraka, (Stephan. de Urbibus,) more plausibly
from the Arabic words, which signify a thievish character, or
Oriental situation, (Hottinger, Hist. Oriental. l. i. c. i. p. 7,
8. Pocock, Specimen, p. 33, 35. Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom.
iv. p. 567.) Yet the last and most popular of these etymologies
is refuted by Ptolemy, (Arabia, p. 2, 18, in Hudson, tom. iv.,)
who expressly remarks the western and southern position of the
Saracens, then an obscure tribe on the borders of Egypt. The
appellation cannot therefore allude to any national character;
and, since it was imposed by strangers, it must be found, not in
the Arabic, but in a foreign language. * Note: Dr. Clarke,
(Travels, vol. ii. p. 491,) after expressing contemptuous pity
for Gibbon’s ignorance, derives the word from Zara, Zaara, Sara,
the Desert, whence Saraceni, the children of the Desert. De
Marles adopts the derivation from Sarrik, a robber, (Hist. des
Arabes, vol. i. p. 36, S.L. Martin from Scharkioun, or Sharkun,
Eastern, vol. xi. p. 55.)—M.]
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part II.
The slaves of domestic tyranny may vainly exult in their national
independence: but the Arab is personally free; and he enjoys, in
some degree, the benefits of society, without forfeiting the
prerogatives of nature. In every tribe, superstition, or
gratitude, or fortune, has exalted a particular family above the
heads of their equals. The dignities of sheick and emir
invariably descend in this chosen race; but the order of
succession is loose and precarious; and the most worthy or aged
of the noble kinsmen are preferred to the simple, though
important, office of composing disputes by their advice, and
guiding valor by their example. Even a female of sense and spirit
has been permitted to command the countrymen of Zenobia. 31 The
momentary junction of several tribes produces an army: their more
lasting union constitutes a nation; and the supreme chief, the
emir of emirs, whose banner is displayed at their head, may
deserve, in the eyes of strangers, the honors of the kingly name.
If the Arabian princes abuse their power, they are quickly
punished by the desertion of their subjects, who had been
accustomed to a mild and parental jurisdiction. Their spirit is
free, their steps are unconfined, the desert is open, and the
tribes and families are held together by a mutual and voluntary
compact. The softer natives of Yemen supported the pomp and
majesty of a monarch; but if he could not leave his palace
without endangering his life, 32 the active powers of government
must have been devolved on his nobles and magistrates. The cities
of Mecca and Medina present, in the heart of Asia, the form, or
rather the substance, of a commonwealth. The grandfather of
Mahomet, and his lineal ancestors, appear in foreign and domestic
transactions as the princes of their country; but they reigned,
like Pericles at Athens, or the Medici at Florence, by the
opinion of their wisdom and integrity; their influence was
divided with their patrimony; and the sceptre was transferred
from the uncles of the prophet to a younger branch of the tribe
of Koreish. On solemn occasions they convened the assembly of the
people; and, since mankind must be either compelled or persuaded
to obey, the use and reputation of oratory among the ancient
Arabs is the clearest evidence of public freedom. 33 But their
simple freedom was of a very different cast from the nice and
artificial machinery of the Greek and Roman republics, in which
each member possessed an undivided share of the civil and
political rights of the community. In the more simple state of
the Arabs, the nation is free, because each of her sons disdains
a base submission to the will of a master. His breast is
fortified by the austere virtues of courage, patience, and
sobriety; the love of independence prompts him to exercise the
habits of self-command; and the fear of dishonor guards him from
the meaner apprehension of pain, of danger, and of death. The
gravity and firmness of the mind is conspicuous in his outward
demeanor; his speech is low, weighty, and concise; he is seldom
provoked to laughter; his only gesture is that of stroking his
beard, the venerable symbol of manhood; and the sense of his own
importance teaches him to accost his equals without levity, and
his superiors without awe. 34 The liberty of the Saracens
survived their conquests: the first caliphs indulged the bold and
familiar language of their subjects; they ascended the pulpit to
persuade and edify the congregation; nor was it before the seat
of empire was removed to the Tigris, that the Abbasides adopted
the proud and pompous ceremonial of the Persian and Byzantine
courts.
31 (return) [ Saraceni... mulieres aiunt in eos regnare,
(Expositio totius Mundi, p. 3, in Hudson, tom. iii.) The reign of
Mavia is famous in ecclesiastical story Pocock, Specimen, p. 69,
83.]
32 (return) [ The report of Agatharcides, (de Mari Rubro, p. 63,
64, in Hudson, tom. i.) Diodorus Siculus, (tom. i. l. iii. c. 47,
p. 215,) and Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 1124.) But I much suspect that
this is one of the popular tales, or extraordinary accidents,
which the credulity of travellers so often transforms into a
fact, a custom, and a law.]
33 (return) [ Non gloriabantur antiquitus Arabes, nisi gladio,
hospite, et eloquentia (Sephadius apud Pocock, Specimen, p. 161,
162.) This gift of speech they shared only with the Persians; and
the sententious Arabs would probably have disdained the simple
and sublime logic of Demosthenes.]
34 (return) [ I must remind the reader that D’Arvieux,
D’Herbelot, and Niebuhr, represent, in the most lively colors,
the manners and government of the Arabs, which are illustrated by
many incidental passages in the Life of Mahomet. * Note: See,
likewise the curious romance of Antar, the most vivid and
authentic picture of Arabian manners.—M.]
In the study of nations and men, we may observe the causes that
render them hostile or friendly to each other, that tend to
narrow or enlarge, to mollify or exasperate, the social
character. The separation of the Arabs from the rest of mankind
has accustomed them to confound the ideas of stranger and enemy;
and the poverty of the land has introduced a maxim of
jurisprudence, which they believe and practise to the present
hour. They pretend, that, in the division of the earth, the rich
and fertile climates were assigned to the other branches of the
human family; and that the posterity of the outlaw Ismael might
recover, by fraud or force, the portion of inheritance of which
he had been unjustly deprived. According to the remark of Pliny,
the Arabian tribes are equally addicted to theft and merchandise;
the caravans that traverse the desert are ransomed or pillaged;
and their neighbors, since the remote times of Job and Sesostris,
35 have been the victims of their rapacious spirit. If a Bedoween
discovers from afar a solitary traveller, he rides furiously
against him, crying, with a loud voice, “Undress thyself, thy
aunt (my wife) is without a garment.” A ready submission entitles
him to mercy; resistance will provoke the aggressor, and his own
blood must expiate the blood which he presumes to shed in
legitimate defence. A single robber, or a few associates, are
branded with their genuine name; but the exploits of a numerous
band assume the character of lawful and honorable war. The temper
of a people thus armed against mankind was doubly inflamed by the
domestic license of rapine, murder, and revenge. In the
constitution of Europe, the right of peace and war is now
confined to a small, and the actual exercise to a much smaller,
list of respectable potentates; but each Arab, with impunity and
renown, might point his javelin against the life of his
countrymen. The union of the nation consisted only in a vague
resemblance of language and manners; and in each community, the
jurisdiction of the magistrate was mute and impotent. Of the time
of ignorance which preceded Mahomet, seventeen hundred battles 36
are recorded by tradition: hostility was imbittered with the
rancor of civil faction; and the recital, in prose or verse, of
an obsolete feud, was sufficient to rekindle the same passions
among the descendants of the hostile tribes. In private life
every man, at least every family, was the judge and avenger of
his own cause. The nice sensibility of honor, which weighs the
insult rather than the injury, sheds its deadly venom on the
quarrels of the Arabs: the honor of their women, and of their
beards, is most easily wounded; an indecent action, a
contemptuous word, can be expiated only by the blood of the
offender; and such is their patient inveteracy, that they expect
whole months and years the opportunity of revenge. A fine or
compensation for murder is familiar to the Barbarians of every
age: but in Arabia the kinsmen of the dead are at liberty to
accept the atonement, or to exercise with their own hands the law
of retaliation. The refined malice of the Arabs refuses even the
head of the murderer, substitutes an innocent for the guilty
person, and transfers the penalty to the best and most
considerable of the race by whom they have been injured. If he
falls by their hands, they are exposed, in their turn, to the
danger of reprisals, the interest and principal of the bloody
debt are accumulated: the individuals of either family lead a
life of malice and suspicion, and fifty years may sometimes
elapse before the account of vengeance be finally settled. 37
This sanguinary spirit, ignorant of pity or forgiveness, has been
moderated, however, by the maxims of honor, which require in
every private encounter some decent equality of age and strength,
of numbers and weapons. An annual festival of two, perhaps of
four, months, was observed by the Arabs before the time of
Mahomet, during which their swords were religiously sheathed both
in foreign and domestic hostility; and this partial truce is more
strongly expressive of the habits of anarchy and warfare. 38
35 (return) [ Observe the first chapter of Job, and the long wall
of 1500 stadia which Sesostris built from Pelusium to Heliopolis,
(Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. i. p. 67.) Under the name of Hycsos,
the shepherd kings, they had formerly subdued Egypt, (Marsham,
Canon. Chron. p. 98-163) &c.) * Note: This origin of the Hycsos,
though probable, is by no means so certain here is some reason
for supposing them Scythians.—M]
36 (return) [ Or, according to another account, 1200,
(D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 75: ) the two historians
who wrote of the Ayam al Arab, the battles of the Arabs, lived in
the 9th and 10th century. The famous war of Dahes and Gabrah was
occasioned by two horses, lasted forty years, and ended in a
proverb, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 48.)]
37 (return) [ The modern theory and practice of the Arabs in the
revenge of murder are described by Niebuhr, (Description, p.
26-31.) The harsher features of antiquity may be traced in the
Koran, c. 2, p. 20, c. 17, p. 230, with Sale’s Observations.]
38 (return) [ Procopius (de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 16) places the
two holy months about the summer solstice. The Arabians
consecrate four months of the year—the first, seventh, eleventh,
and twelfth; and pretend, that in a long series of ages the truce
was infringed only four or six times, (Sale’s Preliminary
Discourse, p. 147-150, and Notes on the ixth chapter of the
Koran, p. 154, &c. Casiri, Bibliot. Hispano-Arabica, tom. ii. p.
20, 21.)]
But the spirit of rapine and revenge was attempered by the milder
influence of trade and literature. The solitary peninsula is
encompassed by the most civilized nations of the ancient world;
the merchant is the friend of mankind; and the annual caravans
imported the first seeds of knowledge and politeness into the
cities, and even the camps of the desert. Whatever may be the
pedigree of the Arabs, their language is derived from the same
original stock with the Hebrew, the Syriac, and the Chaldaean
tongues; the independence of the tribes was marked by their
peculiar dialects; 39 but each, after their own, allowed a just
preference to the pure and perspicuous idiom of Mecca. In Arabia,
as well as in Greece, the perfection of language outstripped the
refinement of manners; and her speech could diversify the
fourscore names of honey, the two hundred of a serpent, the five
hundred of a lion, the thousand of a sword, at a time when this
copious dictionary was intrusted to the memory of an illiterate
people. The monuments of the Homerites were inscribed with an
obsolete and mysterious character; but the Cufic letters, the
groundwork of the present alphabet, were invented on the banks of
the Euphrates; and the recent invention was taught at Mecca by a
stranger who settled in that city after the birth of Mahomet. The
arts of grammar, of metre, and of rhetoric, were unknown to the
freeborn eloquence of the Arabians; but their penetration was
sharp, their fancy luxuriant, their wit strong and sententious,
40 and their more elaborate compositions were addressed with
energy and effect to the minds of their hearers. The genius and
merit of a rising poet was celebrated by the applause of his own
and the kindred tribes. A solemn banquet was prepared, and a
chorus of women, striking their tymbals, and displaying the pomp
of their nuptials, sung in the presence of their sons and
husbands the felicity of their native tribe; that a champion had
now appeared to vindicate their rights; that a herald had raised
his voice to immortalize their renown. The distant or hostile
tribes resorted to an annual fair, which was abolished by the
fanaticism of the first Moslems; a national assembly that must
have contributed to refine and harmonize the Barbarians. Thirty
days were employed in the exchange, not only of corn and wine,
but of eloquence and poetry. The prize was disputed by the
generous emulation of the bards; the victorious performance was
deposited in the archives of princes and emirs; and we may read
in our own language, the seven original poems which were
inscribed in letters of gold, and suspended in the temple of
Mecca. 41 The Arabian poets were the historians and moralists of
the age; and if they sympathized with the prejudices, they
inspired and crowned the virtues, of their countrymen. The
indissoluble union of generosity and valor was the darling theme
of their song; and when they pointed their keenest satire against
a despicable race, they affirmed, in the bitterness of reproach,
that the men knew not how to give, nor the women to deny. 42 The
same hospitality, which was practised by Abraham, and celebrated
by Homer, is still renewed in the camps of the Arabs. The
ferocious Bedoweens, the terror of the desert, embrace, without
inquiry or hesitation, the stranger who dares to confide in their
honor and to enter their tent. His treatment is kind and
respectful: he shares the wealth, or the poverty, of his host;
and, after a needful repose, he is dismissed on his way, with
thanks, with blessings, and perhaps with gifts. The heart and
hand are more largely expanded by the wants of a brother or a
friend; but the heroic acts that could deserve the public
applause, must have surpassed the narrow measure of discretion
and experience. A dispute had arisen, who, among the citizens of
Mecca, was entitled to the prize of generosity; and a successive
application was made to the three who were deemed most worthy of
the trial. Abdallah, the son of Abbas, had undertaken a distant
journey, and his foot was in the stirrup when he heard the voice
of a suppliant, “O son of the uncle of the apostle of God, I am a
traveller, and in distress!” He instantly dismounted to present
the pilgrim with his camel, her rich caparison, and a purse of
four thousand pieces of gold, excepting only the sword, either
for its intrinsic value, or as the gift of an honored kinsman.
The servant of Kais informed the second suppliant that his master
was asleep: but he immediately added, “Here is a purse of seven
thousand pieces of gold, (it is all we have in the house,) and
here is an order, that will entitle you to a camel and a slave;”
the master, as soon as he awoke, praised and enfranchised his
faithful steward, with a gentle reproof, that by respecting his
slumbers he had stinted his bounty. The third of these heroes,
the blind Arabah, at the hour of prayer, was supporting his steps
on the shoulders of two slaves. “Alas!” he replied, “my coffers
are empty! but these you may sell; if you refuse, I renounce
them.” At these words, pushing away the youths, he groped along
the wall with his staff.
The character of Hatem is the perfect model of Arabian virtue: 43
he was brave and liberal, an eloquent poet, and a successful
robber; forty camels were roasted at his hospitable feast; and at
the prayer of a suppliant enemy he restored both the captives and
the spoil. The freedom of his countrymen disdained the laws of
justice; they proudly indulged the spontaneous impulse of pity
and benevolence.
39 (return) [ Arrian, in the second century, remarks (in Periplo
Maris Erythraei, p. 12) the partial or total difference of the
dialects of the Arabs. Their language and letters are copiously
treated by Pocock, (Specimen, p. 150-154,) Casiri, (Bibliot.
Hispano-Arabica, tom. i. p. 1, 83, 292, tom. ii. p. 25, &c.,) and
Niebuhr, (Description de l’Arabie, p. 72-36) I pass slightly; I
am not fond of repeating words like a parrot.]
40 (return) [ A familiar tale in Voltaire’s Zadig (le Chien et le
Cheval) is related, to prove the natural sagacity of the Arabs,
(D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 120, 121. Gagnier, Vie de
Mahomet, tom. i. p. 37-46: ) but D’Arvieux, or rather La Roque,
(Voyage de Palestine, p. 92,) denies the boasted superiority of
the Bedoweens. The one hundred and sixty-nine sentences of Ali
(translated by Ockley, London, 1718) afford a just and favorable
specimen of Arabian wit. * Note: Compare the Arabic proverbs
translated by Burckhardt. London. 1830—M.]
41 (return) [ Pocock (Specimen, p. 158-161) and Casiri (Bibliot.
Hispano-Arabica, tom. i. p. 48, 84, &c., 119, tom. ii. p. 17,
&c.) speak of the Arabian poets before Mahomet; the seven poems
of the Caaba have been published in English by Sir William Jones;
but his honorable mission to India has deprived us of his own
notes, far more interesting than the obscure and obsolete text.]
42 (return) [ Sale’s Preliminary Discourse, p. 29, 30]
43 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 458. Gagnier, Vie
de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 118. Caab and Hesnus (Pocock, Specimen,
p. 43, 46, 48) were likewise conspicuous for their liberality;
and the latter is elegantly praised by an Arabian poet: “Videbis
eum cum accesseris exultantem, ac si dares illi quod ab illo
petis.” * Note: See the translation of the amusing Persian
romance of Hatim Tai, by Duncan Forbes, Esq., among the works
published by the Oriental Translation Fund.—M.]
The religion of the Arabs, 44 as well as of the Indians,
consisted in the worship of the sun, the moon, and the fixed
stars; a primitive and specious mode of superstition. The bright
luminaries of the sky display the visible image of a Deity: their
number and distance convey to a philosophic, or even a vulgar,
eye, the idea of boundless space: the character of eternity is
marked on these solid globes, that seem incapable of corruption
or decay: the regularity of their motions may be ascribed to a
principle of reason or instinct; and their real, or imaginary,
influence encourages the vain belief that the earth and its
inhabitants are the object of their peculiar care. The science of
astronomy was cultivated at Babylon; but the school of the Arabs
was a clear firmament and a naked plain. In their nocturnal
marches, they steered by the guidance of the stars: their names,
and order, and daily station, were familiar to the curiosity and
devotion of the Bedoween; and he was taught by experience to
divide, in twenty-eight parts, the zodiac of the moon, and to
bless the constellations who refreshed, with salutary rains, the
thirst of the desert. The reign of the heavenly orbs could not be
extended beyond the visible sphere; and some metaphysical powers
were necessary to sustain the transmigration of souls and the
resurrection of bodies: a camel was left to perish on the grave,
that he might serve his master in another life; and the
invocation of departed spirits implies that they were still
endowed with consciousness and power. I am ignorant, and I am
careless, of the blind mythology of the Barbarians; of the local
deities, of the stars, the air, and the earth, of their sex or
titles, their attributes or subordination. Each tribe, each
family, each independent warrior, created and changed the rites
and the object of his fantastic worship; but the nation, in every
age, has bowed to the religion, as well as to the language, of
Mecca. The genuine antiquity of the Caaba ascends beyond the
Christian aera; in describing the coast of the Red Sea, the Greek
historian Diodorus 45 has remarked, between the Thamudites and
the Sabaeans, a famous temple, whose superior sanctity was
revered by all the Arabians; the linen or silken veil, which is
annually renewed by the Turkish emperor, was first offered by a
pious king of the Homerites, who reigned seven hundred years
before the time of Mahomet. 46 A tent, or a cavern, might suffice
for the worship of the savages, but an edifice of stone and clay
has been erected in its place; and the art and power of the
monarchs of the East have been confined to the simplicity of the
original model. 47 A spacious portico encloses the quadrangle of
the Caaba; a square chapel, twenty-four cubits long, twenty-three
broad, and twenty-seven high: a door and a window admit the
light; the double roof is supported by three pillars of wood; a
spout (now of gold) discharges the rain-water, and the well
Zemzen is protected by a dome from accidental pollution. The
tribe of Koreish, by fraud and force, had acquired the custody of
the Caaba: the sacerdotal office devolved through four lineal
descents to the grandfather of Mahomet; and the family of the
Hashemites, from whence he sprung, was the most respectable and
sacred in the eyes of their country. 48 The precincts of Mecca
enjoyed the rights of sanctuary; and, in the last month of each
year, the city and the temple were crowded with a long train of
pilgrims, who presented their vows and offerings in the house of
God. The same rites which are now accomplished by the faithful
Mussulman, were invented and practised by the superstition of the
idolaters. At an awful distance they cast away their garments:
seven times, with hasty steps, they encircled the Caaba, and
kissed the black stone: seven times they visited and adored the
adjacent mountains; seven times they threw stones into the valley
of Mina; and the pilgrimage was achieved, as at the present hour,
by a sacrifice of sheep and camels, and the burial of their hair
and nails in the consecrated ground. Each tribe either found or
introduced in the Caaba their domestic worship: the temple was
adorned, or defiled, with three hundred and sixty idols of men,
eagles, lions, and antelopes; and most conspicuous was the statue
of Hebal, of red agate, holding in his hand seven arrows, without
heads or feathers, the instruments and symbols of profane
divination. But this statue was a monument of Syrian arts: the
devotion of the ruder ages was content with a pillar or a tablet;
and the rocks of the desert were hewn into gods or altars, in
imitation of the black stone 49 of Mecca, which is deeply tainted
with the reproach of an idolatrous origin. From Japan to Peru,
the use of sacrifice has universally prevailed; and the votary
has expressed his gratitude, or fear, by destroying or consuming,
in honor of the gods, the dearest and most precious of their
gifts. The life of a man 50 is the most precious oblation to
deprecate a public calamity: the altars of Phoenicia and Egypt,
of Rome and Carthage, have been polluted with human gore: the
cruel practice was long preserved among the Arabs; in the third
century, a boy was annually sacrificed by the tribe of the
Dumatians; 51 and a royal captive was piously slaughtered by the
prince of the Saracens, the ally and soldier of the emperor
Justinian. 52 A parent who drags his son to the altar, exhibits
the most painful and sublime effort of fanaticism: the deed, or
the intention, was sanctified by the example of saints and
heroes; and the father of Mahomet himself was devoted by a rash
vow, and hardly ransomed for the equivalent of a hundred camels.
In the time of ignorance, the Arabs, like the Jews and Egyptians,
abstained from the taste of swine’s flesh; 53 they circumcised 54
their children at the age of puberty: the same customs, without
the censure or the precept of the Koran, have been silently
transmitted to their posterity and proselytes. It has been
sagaciously conjectured, that the artful legislator indulged the
stubborn prejudices of his countrymen. It is more simple to
believe that he adhered to the habits and opinions of his youth,
without foreseeing that a practice congenial to the climate of
Mecca might become useless or inconvenient on the banks of the
Danube or the Volga.
44 (return) [ Whatever can now be known of the idolatry of the
ancient Arabians may be found in Pocock, (Specimen, p. 89-136,
163, 164.) His profound erudition is more clearly and concisely
interpreted by Sale, (Preliminary Discourse, p. 14-24;) and
Assemanni (Bibliot. Orient tom. iv. p. 580-590) has added some
valuable remarks.]
45 (return) [ (Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. iii. p. 211.) The
character and position are so correctly apposite, that I am
surprised how this curious passage should have been read without
notice or application. Yet this famous temple had been overlooked
by Agatharcides, (de Mari Rubro, p. 58, in Hudson, tom. i.,) whom
Diodorus copies in the rest of the description. Was the Sicilian
more knowing than the Egyptian? Or was the Caaba built between
the years of Rome 650 and 746, the dates of their respective
histories? (Dodwell, in Dissert. ad tom. i. Hudson, p. 72.
Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec. tom. ii. p. 770.) * Note: Mr. Forster
(Geography of Arabia, vol. ii. p. 118, et seq.) has raised an
objection, as I think, fatal to this hypothesis of Gibbon. The
temple, situated in the country of the Banizomeneis, was not
between the Thamudites and the Sabaeans, but higher up than the
coast inhabited by the former. Mr. Forster would place it as far
north as Moiiah. I am not quite satisfied that this will agree
with the whole description of Diodorus—M. 1845.]
46 (return) [ Pocock, Specimen, p. 60, 61. From the death of
Mahomet we ascend to 68, from his birth to 129, years before the
Christian aera. The veil or curtain, which is now of silk and
gold, was no more than a piece of Egyptian linen, (Abulfeda, in
Vit. Mohammed. c. 6, p. 14.)]
47 (return) [ The original plan of the Caaba (which is servilely
copied in Sale, the Universal History, &c.) was a Turkish
draught, which Reland (de Religione Mohammedica, p. 113-123) has
corrected and explained from the best authorities. For the
description and legend of the Caaba, consult Pocock, (Specimen,
p. 115-122,) the Bibliotheque Orientale of D’Herbelot, (Caaba,
Hagir, Zemzem, &c.,) and Sale (Preliminary Discourse, p.
114-122.)]
48 (return) [ Cosa, the fifth ancestor of Mahomet, must have
usurped the Caaba A.D. 440; but the story is differently told by
Jannabi, (Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 65-69,) and by
Abulfeda, (in Vit. Moham. c. 6, p. 13.)]
49 (return) [ In the second century, Maximus of Tyre attributes
to the Arabs the worship of a stone, (Dissert. viii. tom. i. p.
142, edit. Reiske;) and the reproach is furiously reechoed by the
Christians, (Clemens Alex. in Protreptico, p. 40. Arnobius contra
Gentes, l. vi. p. 246.) Yet these stones were no other than of
Syria and Greece, so renowned in sacred and profane antiquity,
(Euseb. Praep. Evangel. l. i. p. 37. Marsham, Canon. Chron. p.
54-56.)]
50 (return) [ The two horrid subjects are accurately discussed by
the learned Sir John Marsham, (Canon. Chron. p. 76-78, 301-304.)
Sanchoniatho derives the Phoenician sacrifices from the example
of Chronus; but we are ignorant whether Chronus lived before, or
after, Abraham, or indeed whether he lived at all.]
51 (return) [ The reproach of Porphyry; but he likewise imputes
to the Roman the same barbarous custom, which, A. U. C. 657, had
been finally abolished. Dumaetha, Daumat al Gendai, is noticed by
Ptolemy (Tabul. p. 37, Arabia, p. 9-29) and Abulfeda, (p. 57,)
and may be found in D’Anville’s maps, in the mid-desert between
Chaibar and Tadmor.]
52 (return) [ Prcoopius, (de Bell. Persico, l. i. c. 28,)
Evagrius, (l. vi. c. 21,) and Pocock, (Specimen, p. 72, 86,)
attest the human sacrifices of the Arabs in the vith century. The
danger and escape of Abdallah is a tradition rather than a fact,
(Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 82-84.)]
53 (return) [ Suillis carnibus abstinent, says Solinus,
(Polyhistor. c. 33,) who copies Pliny (l. viii. c. 68) in the
strange supposition, that hogs can not live in Arabia. The
Egyptians were actuated by a natural and superstitious horror for
that unclean beast, (Marsham, Canon. p. 205.) The old Arabians
likewise practised, post coitum, the rite of ablution, (Herodot.
l. i. c. 80,) which is sanctified by the Mahometan law, (Reland,
p. 75, &c., Chardin, or rather the Mollah of Shah Abbas, tom. iv.
p. 71, &c.)]
54 (return) [ The Mahometan doctors are not fond of the subject;
yet they hold circumcision necessary to salvation, and even
pretend that Mahomet was miraculously born without a foreskin,
(Pocock, Specimen, p. 319, 320. Sale’s Preliminary Discourse, p.
106, 107.)]
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part III.
Arabia was free: the adjacent kingdoms were shaken by the storms
of conquest and tyranny, and the persecuted sects fled to the
happy land where they might profess what they thought, and
practise what they professed. The religions of the Sabians and
Magians, of the Jews and Christians, were disseminated from the
Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. In a remote period of antiquity,
Sabianism was diffused over Asia by the science of the Chaldaeans
55 and the arms of the Assyrians. From the observations of two
thousand years, the priests and astronomers of Babylon 56 deduced
the eternal laws of nature and providence. They adored the seven
gods or angels, who directed the course of the seven planets, and
shed their irresistible influence on the earth. The attributes of
the seven planets, with the twelve signs of the zodiac, and the
twenty-four constellations of the northern and southern
hemisphere, were represented by images and talismans; the seven
days of the week were dedicated to their respective deities; the
Sabians prayed thrice each day; and the temple of the moon at
Haran was the term of their pilgrimage. 57 But the flexible
genius of their faith was always ready either to teach or to
learn: in the tradition of the creation, the deluge, and the
patriarchs, they held a singular agreement with their Jewish
captives; they appealed to the secret books of Adam, Seth, and
Enoch; and a slight infusion of the gospel has transformed the
last remnant of the Polytheists into the Christians of St. John,
in the territory of Bassora. 58 The altars of Babylon were
overturned by the Magians; but the injuries of the Sabians were
revenged by the sword of Alexander; Persia groaned above five
hundred years under a foreign yoke; and the purest disciples of
Zoroaster escaped from the contagion of idolatry, and breathed
with their adversaries the freedom of the desert. 59 Seven
hundred years before the death of Mahomet, the Jews were settled
in Arabia; and a far greater multitude was expelled from the Holy
Land in the wars of Titus and Hadrian. The industrious exiles
aspired to liberty and power: they erected synagogues in the
cities, and castles in the wilderness, and their Gentile converts
were confounded with the children of Israel, whom they resembled
in the outward mark of circumcision. The Christian missionaries
were still more active and successful: the Catholics asserted
their universal reign; the sects whom they oppressed,
successively retired beyond the limits of the Roman empire; the
Marcionites and Manichaeans dispersed their fantastic opinions
and apocryphal gospels; the churches of Yemen, and the princes of
Hira and Gassan, were instructed in a purer creed by the Jacobite
and Nestorian bishops. 60 The liberty of choice was presented to
the tribes: each Arab was free to elect or to compose his private
religion: and the rude superstition of his house was mingled with
the sublime theology of saints and philosophers. A fundamental
article of faith was inculcated by the consent of the learned
strangers; the existence of one supreme God who is exalted above
the powers of heaven and earth, but who has often revealed
himself to mankind by the ministry of his angels and prophets,
and whose grace or justice has interrupted, by seasonable
miracles, the order of nature. The most rational of the Arabs
acknowledged his power, though they neglected his worship; 61 and
it was habit rather than conviction that still attached them to
the relics of idolatry. The Jews and Christians were the people
of the Book; the Bible was already translated into the Arabic
language, 62 and the volume of the Old Testament was accepted by
the concord of these implacable enemies. In the story of the
Hebrew patriarchs, the Arabs were pleased to discover the fathers
of their nation. They applauded the birth and promises of Ismael;
revered the faith and virtue of Abraham; traced his pedigree and
their own to the creation of the first man, and imbibed, with
equal credulity, the prodigies of the holy text, and the dreams
and traditions of the Jewish rabbis.
55 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus (tom. i. l. ii. p. 142-145) has
cast on their religion the curious but superficial glance of a
Greek. Their astronomy would be far more valuable: they had
looked through the telescope of reason, since they could doubt
whether the sun were in the number of the planets or of the fixed
stars.]
56 (return) [ Simplicius, (who quotes Porphyry,) de Coelo, l. ii.
com. xlvi p. 123, lin. 18, apud Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 474,
who doubts the fact, because it is adverse to his systems. The
earliest date of the Chaldaean observations is the year 2234
before Christ. After the conquest of Babylon by Alexander, they
were communicated at the request of Aristotle, to the astronomer
Hipparchus. What a moment in the annals of science!]
57 (return) [ Pocock, (Specimen, p. 138-146,) Hottinger, (Hist.
Orient. p. 162-203,) Hyde, (de Religione Vet. Persarum, p. 124,
128, &c.,) D’Herbelot, (Sabi, p. 725, 726,) and Sale,
(Preliminary Discourse, p. 14, 15,) rather excite than gratify
our curiosity; and the last of these writers confounds Sabianism
with the primitive religion of the Arabs.]
58 (return) [ D’Anville (l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 130-137) will
fix the position of these ambiguous Christians; Assemannus
(Bibliot. Oriental. tom. iv. p. 607-614) may explain their
tenets. But it is a slippery task to ascertain the creed of an
ignorant people afraid and ashamed to disclose their secret
traditions. * Note: The Codex Nasiraeus, their sacred book, has
been published by Norberg whose researches contain almost all
that is known of this singular people. But their origin is almost
as obscure as ever: if ancient, their creed has been so corrupted
with mysticism and Mahometanism, that its native lineaments are
very indistinct.—M.]
59 (return) [ The Magi were fixed in the province of Bhrein,
(Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 114,) and mingled with the
old Arabians, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 146-150.)]
60 (return) [ The state of the Jews and Christians in Arabia is
described by Pocock from Sharestani, &c., (Specimen, p. 60, 134,
&c.,) Hottinger, (Hist. Orient. p. 212-238,) D’Herbelot,
(Bibliot. Orient. p. 474-476,) Basnage, (Hist. des Juifs, tom.
vii. p. 185, tom. viii. p. 280,) and Sale, (Preliminary
Discourse, p. 22, &c., 33, &c.)]
61 (return) [ In their offerings, it was a maxim to defraud God
for the profit of the idol, not a more potent, but a more
irritable, patron, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 108, 109.)]
62 (return) [ Our versions now extant, whether Jewish or
Christian, appear more recent than the Koran; but the existence
of a prior translation may be fairly inferred,—1. From the
perpetual practice of the synagogue of expounding the Hebrew
lesson by a paraphrase in the vulgar tongue of the country; 2.
From the analogy of the Armenian, Persian, Aethiopic versions,
expressly quoted by the fathers of the fifth century, who assert
that the Scriptures were translated into all the Barbaric
languages, (Walton, Prolegomena ad Biblia Polyglot, p. 34, 93-97.
Simon, Hist. Critique du V. et du N. Testament, tom. i. p. 180,
181, 282-286, 293, 305, 306, tom. iv. p. 206.)]
The base and plebeian origin of Mahomet is an unskilful calumny
of the Christians, 63 who exalt instead of degrading the merit of
their adversary. His descent from Ismael was a national privilege
or fable; but if the first steps of the pedigree 64 are dark and
doubtful, he could produce many generations of pure and genuine
nobility: he sprung from the tribe of Koreish and the family of
Hashem, the most illustrious of the Arabs, the princes of Mecca,
and the hereditary guardians of the Caaba. The grandfather of
Mahomet was Abdol Motalleb, the son of Hashem, a wealthy and
generous citizen, who relieved the distress of famine with the
supplies of commerce. Mecca, which had been fed by the liberality
of the father, was saved by the courage of the son. The kingdom
of Yemen was subject to the Christian princes of Abyssinia; their
vassal Abrahah was provoked by an insult to avenge the honor of
the cross; and the holy city was invested by a train of elephants
and an army of Africans. A treaty was proposed; and, in the first
audience, the grandfather of Mahomet demanded the restitution of
his cattle. “And why,” said Abrahah, “do you not rather implore
my clemency in favor of your temple, which I have threatened to
destroy?” “Because,” replied the intrepid chief, “the cattle is
my own; the Caaba belongs to the gods, and they will defend their
house from injury and sacrilege.” The want of provisions, or the
valor of the Koreish, compelled the Abyssinians to a disgraceful
retreat: their discomfiture has been adorned with a miraculous
flight of birds, who showered down stones on the heads of the
infidels; and the deliverance was long commemorated by the aera
of the elephant. 65 The glory of Abdol Motalleb was crowned with
domestic happiness; his life was prolonged to the age of one
hundred and ten years; and he became the father of six daughters
and thirteen sons. His best beloved Abdallah was the most
beautiful and modest of the Arabian youth; and in the first
night, when he consummated his marriage with Amina, 651 of the
noble race of the Zahrites, two hundred virgins are said to have
expired of jealousy and despair. Mahomet, or more properly
Mohammed, the only son of Abdallah and Amina, was born at Mecca,
four years after the death of Justinian, and two months after the
defeat of the Abyssinians, 66 whose victory would have introduced
into the Caaba the religion of the Christians. In his early
infancy, he was deprived of his father, his mother, and his
grandfather; his uncles were strong and numerous; and, in the
division of the inheritance, the orphan’s share was reduced to
five camels and an Aethiopian maid-servant. At home and abroad,
in peace and war, Abu Taleb, the most respectable of his uncles,
was the guide and guardian of his youth; in his twenty-fifth
year, he entered into the service of Cadijah, a rich and noble
widow of Mecca, who soon rewarded his fidelity with the gift of
her hand and fortune. The marriage contract, in the simple style
of antiquity, recites the mutual love of Mahomet and Cadijah;
describes him as the most accomplished of the tribe of Koreish;
and stipulates a dowry of twelve ounces of gold and twenty
camels, which was supplied by the liberality of his uncle. 67 By
this alliance, the son of Abdallah was restored to the station of
his ancestors; and the judicious matron was content with his
domestic virtues, till, in the fortieth year of his age, 68 he
assumed the title of a prophet, and proclaimed the religion of
the Koran.
63 (return) [ In eo conveniunt omnes, ut plebeio vilique genere
ortum, &c, (Hottinger, Hist. Orient. p. 136.) Yet Theophanes, the
most ancient of the Greeks, and the father of many a lie,
confesses that Mahomet was of the race of Ismael, (Chronograph.
p. 277.)]
64 (return) [ Abulfeda (in Vit. Mohammed. c. 1, 2) and Gagnier
(Vie de Mahomet, p. 25-97) describe the popular and approved
genealogy of the prophet. At Mecca, I would not dispute its
authenticity: at Lausanne, I will venture to observe, 1. That
from Ismael to Mahomet, a period of 2500 years, they reckon
thirty, instead of seventy five, generations: 2. That the modern
Bedoweens are ignorant of their history, and careless of their
pedigree, (Voyage de D’Arvieux p. 100, 103.) * Note: The most
orthodox Mahometans only reckon back the ancestry of the prophet
for twenty generations, to Adnan. Weil, Mohammed der Prophet, p.
1.—M. 1845.]
65 (return) [ The seed of this history, or fable, is contained in
the cvth chapter of the Koran; and Gagnier (in Praefat. ad Vit.
Moham. p. 18, &c.) has translated the historical narrative of
Abulfeda, which may be illustrated from D’Herbelot (Bibliot.
Orientale, p. 12) and Pocock, (Specimen, p. 64.) Prideaux (Life
of Mahomet, p. 48) calls it a lie of the coinage of Mahomet; but
Sale, (Koran, p. 501-503,) who is half a Mussulman, attacks the
inconsistent faith of the Doctor for believing the miracles of
the Delphic Apollo. Maracci (Alcoran, tom. i. part ii. p. 14,
tom. ii. p. 823) ascribes the miracle to the devil, and extorts
from the Mahometans the confession, that God would not have
defended against the Christians the idols of the Caaba. * Note:
Dr. Weil says that the small-pox broke out in the army of
Abrahah, but he does not give his authority, p. 10.—M. 1845.]
651 (return) [ Amina, or Emina, was of Jewish birth. V. Hammer,
Geschichte der Assass. p. 10.—M.]
66 (return) [ The safest aeras of Abulfeda, (in Vit. c. i. p. 2,)
of Alexander, or the Greeks, 882, of Bocht Naser, or Nabonassar,
1316, equally lead us to the year 569. The old Arabian calendar
is too dark and uncertain to support the Benedictines, (Art. de
Verifer les Dates, p. 15,) who, from the day of the month and
week, deduce a new mode of calculation, and remove the birth of
Mahomet to the year of Christ 570, the 10th of November. Yet this
date would agree with the year 882 of the Greeks, which is
assigned by Elmacin (Hist. Saracen. p. 5) and Abulpharagius,
(Dynast. p. 101, and Errata, Pocock’s version.) While we refine
our chronology, it is possible that the illiterate prophet was
ignorant of his own age. * Note: The date of the birth of Mahomet
is not yet fixed with precision. It is only known from Oriental
authors that he was born on a Monday, the 10th Reby 1st, the
third month of the Mahometan year; the year 40 or 42 of Chosroes
Nushirvan, king of Persia; the year 881 of the Seleucidan aera;
the year 1316 of the aera of Nabonassar. This leaves the point
undecided between the years 569, 570, 571, of J. C. See the
Memoir of M. Silv. de Sacy, on divers events in the history of
the Arabs before Mahomet, Mem. Acad. des Loscript. vol. xlvii. p.
527, 531. St. Martin, vol. xi. p. 59.—M. ——Dr. Weil decides on
A.D. 571. Mahomet died in 632, aged 63; but the Arabs reckoned
his life by lunar years, which reduces his life nearly to 61 (p.
21.)—M. 1845]
67 (return) [ I copy the honorable testimony of Abu Taleb to his
family and nephew. Laus Dei, qui nos a stirpe Abrahami et semine
Ismaelis constituit, et nobis regionem sacram dedit, et nos
judices hominibus statuit. Porro Mohammed filius Abdollahi
nepotis mei (nepos meus) quo cum ex aequo librabitur e
Koraishidis quispiam cui non praeponderaturus est, bonitate et
excellentia, et intellectu et gloria, et acumine etsi opum inops
fuerit, (et certe opes umbra transiens sunt et depositum quod
reddi debet,) desiderio Chadijae filiae Chowailedi tenetur, et
illa vicissim ipsius, quicquid autem dotis vice petieritis, ego
in me suscipiam, (Pocock, Specimen, e septima parte libri Ebn
Hamduni.)]
68 (return) [ The private life of Mahomet, from his birth to his
mission, is preserved by Abulfeda, (in Vit. c. 3-7,) and the
Arabian writers of genuine or apocryphal note, who are alleged by
Hottinger, (Hist. Orient. p. 204-211) Maracci, (tom. i. p.
10-14,) and Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 97-134.)]
According to the tradition of his companions, Mahomet 69 was
distinguished by the beauty of his person, an outward gift which
is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.
Before he spoke, the orator engaged on his side the affections of
a public or private audience. They applauded his commanding
presence, his majestic aspect, his piercing eye, his gracious
smile, his flowing beard, his countenance that painted every
sensation of the soul, and his gestures that enforced each
expression of the tongue. In the familiar offices of life he
scrupulously adhered to the grave and ceremonious politeness of
his country: his respectful attention to the rich and powerful
was dignified by his condescension and affability to the poorest
citizens of Mecca: the frankness of his manner concealed the
artifice of his views; and the habits of courtesy were imputed to
personal friendship or universal benevolence. His memory was
capacious and retentive; his wit easy and social; his imagination
sublime; his judgment clear, rapid, and decisive. He possessed
the courage both of thought and action; and, although his designs
might gradually expand with his success, the first idea which he
entertained of his divine mission bears the stamp of an original
and superior genius. The son of Abdallah was educated in the
bosom of the noblest race, in the use of the purest dialect of
Arabia; and the fluency of his speech was corrected and enhanced
by the practice of discreet and seasonable silence. With these
powers of eloquence, Mahomet was an illiterate Barbarian: his
youth had never been instructed in the arts of reading and
writing; 70 the common ignorance exempted him from shame or
reproach, but he was reduced to a narrow circle of existence, and
deprived of those faithful mirrors, which reflect to our mind the
minds of sages and heroes. Yet the book of nature and of man was
open to his view; and some fancy has been indulged in the
political and philosophical observations which are ascribed to
the Arabian traveller. 71 He compares the nations and the regions
of the earth; discovers the weakness of the Persian and Roman
monarchies; beholds, with pity and indignation, the degeneracy of
the times; and resolves to unite under one God and one king the
invincible spirit and primitive virtues of the Arabs. Our more
accurate inquiry will suggest, that, instead of visiting the
courts, the camps, the temples, of the East, the two journeys of
Mahomet into Syria were confined to the fairs of Bostra and
Damascus; that he was only thirteen years of age when he
accompanied the caravan of his uncle; and that his duty compelled
him to return as soon as he had disposed of the merchandise of
Cadijah. In these hasty and superficial excursions, the eye of
genius might discern some objects invisible to his grosser
companions; some seeds of knowledge might be cast upon a fruitful
soil; but his ignorance of the Syriac language must have checked
his curiosity; and I cannot perceive, in the life or writings of
Mahomet, that his prospect was far extended beyond the limits of
the Arabian world. From every region of that solitary world, the
pilgrims of Mecca were annually assembled, by the calls of
devotion and commerce: in the free concourse of multitudes, a
simple citizen, in his native tongue, might study the political
state and character of the tribes, the theory and practice of the
Jews and Christians. Some useful strangers might be tempted, or
forced, to implore the rights of hospitality; and the enemies of
Mahomet have named the Jew, the Persian, and the Syrian monk,
whom they accuse of lending their secret aid to the composition
of the Koran. 72 Conversation enriches the understanding, but
solitude is the school of genius; and the uniformity of a work
denotes the hand of a single artist. From his earliest youth
Mahomet was addicted to religious contemplation; each year,
during the month of Ramadan, he withdrew from the world, and from
the arms of Cadijah: in the cave of Hera, three miles from Mecca,
73 he consulted the spirit of fraud or enthusiasm, whose abode is
not in the heavens, but in the mind of the prophet. The faith
which, under the name of Islam, he preached to his family and
nation, is compounded of an eternal truth, and a necessary
fiction, That there is only one God, and that Mahomet is the
apostle of God.
69 (return) [ Abulfeda, in Vit. c. lxv. lxvi. Gagnier, Vie de
Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 272-289. The best traditions of the person
and conversation of the prophet are derived from Ayesha, Ali, and
Abu Horaira, (Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 267. Ockley’s Hist. of the
Saracens, vol. ii. p. 149,) surnamed the Father of a Cat, who
died in the year 59 of the Hegira. * Note: Compare, likewise, the
new Life of Mahomet (Mohammed der prophet) by Dr. Weil,
(Stuttgart, 1843.) Dr. Weil has a new tradition, that Mahomet was
at one time a shepherd. This assimilation to the life of Moses,
instead of giving probability to the story, as Dr. Weil suggests,
makes it more suspicious. Note, p. 34.—M. 1845.]
70 (return) [ Those who believe that Mahomet could read or write
are incapable of reading what is written with another pen, in the
Suras, or chapters of the Koran, vii. xxix. xcvi. These texts,
and the tradition of the Sonna, are admitted, without doubt, by
Abulfeda, (in Vit. vii.,) Gagnier, (Not. ad Abulfed. p. 15,)
Pocock, (Specimen, p. 151,) Reland, (de Religione Mohammedica, p.
236,) and Sale, (Preliminary Discourse, p. 42.) Mr. White, almost
alone, denies the ignorance, to accuse the imposture, of the
prophet. His arguments are far from satisfactory. Two short
trading journeys to the fairs of Syria were surely not sufficient
to infuse a science so rare among the citizens of Mecca: it was
not in the cool, deliberate act of treaty, that Mahomet would
have dropped the mask; nor can any conclusion be drawn from the
words of disease and delirium. The lettered youth, before he
aspired to the prophetic character, must have often exercised, in
private life, the arts of reading and writing; and his first
converts, of his own family, would have been the first to detect
and upbraid his scandalous hypocrisy, (White’s Sermons, p. 203,
204, Notes, p. xxxvi.—xxxviii.) * Note: (Academ. des Inscript. I.
p. 295) has observed that the text of the seveth Sura implies
that Mahomet could read, the tradition alone denies it, and,
according to Dr. Weil, (p. 46,) there is another reading of the
tradition, that “he could not read well.” Dr. Weil is not quite
so successful in explaining away Sura xxix. It means, he thinks
that he had not read any books, from which he could have
borrowed.—M. 1845.]
71 (return) [ The count de Boulainvilliers (Vie de Mahomet, p.
202-228) leads his Arabian pupil, like the Telemachus of Fenelon,
or the Cyrus of Ramsay. His journey to the court of Persia is
probably a fiction nor can I trace the origin of his exclamation,
“Les Grecs sont pour tant des hommes.” The two Syrian journeys
are expressed by almost all the Arabian writers, both Mahometans
and Christians, (Gagnier Abulfed. p. 10.)]
72 (return) [ I am not at leisure to pursue the fables or
conjectures which name the strangers accused or suspected by the
infidels of Mecca, (Koran, c. 16, p. 223, c. 35, p. 297, with
Sale’s Remarks. Prideaux’s Life of Mahomet, p. 22-27. Gagnier,
Not. ad Abulfed. p. 11, 74. Maracci, tom. ii. p. 400.) Even
Prideaux has observed, that the transaction must have been
secret, and that the scene lay in the heart of Arabia.]
73 (return) [ Abulfeda in Vit. c. 7, p. 15. Gagnier, tom. i. p.
133, 135. The situation of Mount Hera is remarked by Abulfeda
(Geograph. Arab p. 4.) Yet Mahomet had never read of the cave of
Egeria, ubi nocturnae Numa constituebat amicae, of the Idaean
Mount, where Minos conversed with Jove, &c.]
It is the boast of the Jewish apologists, that while the learned
nations of antiquity were deluded by the fables of polytheism,
their simple ancestors of Palestine preserved the knowledge and
worship of the true God. The moral attributes of Jehovah may not
easily be reconciled with the standard of human virtue: his
metaphysical qualities are darkly expressed; but each page of the
Pentateuch and the Prophets is an evidence of his power: the
unity of his name is inscribed on the first table of the law; and
his sanctuary was never defiled by any visible image of the
invisible essence. After the ruin of the temple, the faith of the
Hebrew exiles was purified, fixed, and enlightened, by the
spiritual devotion of the synagogue; and the authority of Mahomet
will not justify his perpetual reproach, that the Jews of Mecca
or Medina adored Ezra as the son of God. 74 But the children of
Israel had ceased to be a people; and the religions of the world
were guilty, at least in the eyes of the prophet, of giving sons,
or daughters, or companions, to the supreme God. In the rude
idolatry of the Arabs, the crime is manifest and audacious: the
Sabians are poorly excused by the preeminence of the first
planet, or intelligence, in their celestial hierarchy; and in the
Magian system the conflict of the two principles betrays the
imperfection of the conqueror. The Christians of the seventh
century had insensibly relapsed into a semblance of Paganism:
their public and private vows were addressed to the relics and
images that disgraced the temples of the East: the throne of the
Almighty was darkened by a cloud of martyrs, and saints, and
angels, the objects of popular veneration; and the Collyridian
heretics, who flourished in the fruitful soil of Arabia, invested
the Virgin Mary with the name and honors of a goddess. 75 The
mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation appear to contradict the
principle of the divine unity. In their obvious sense, they
introduce three equal deities, and transform the man Jesus into
the substance of the Son of God: 76 an orthodox commentary will
satisfy only a believing mind: intemperate curiosity and zeal had
torn the veil of the sanctuary; and each of the Oriental sects
was eager to confess that all, except themselves, deserved the
reproach of idolatry and polytheism. The creed of Mahomet is free
from suspicion or ambiguity; and the Koran is a glorious
testimony to the unity of God. The prophet of Mecca rejected the
worship of idols and men, of stars and planets, on the rational
principle that whatever rises must set, that whatever is born
must die, that whatever is corruptible must decay and perish. 77
In the Author of the universe, his rational enthusiasm confessed
and adored an infinite and eternal being, without form or place,
without issue or similitude, present to our most secret thoughts,
existing by the necessity of his own nature, and deriving from
himself all moral and intellectual perfection. These sublime
truths, thus announced in the language of the prophet, 78 are
firmly held by his disciples, and defined with metaphysical
precision by the interpreters of the Koran. A philosophic theist
might subscribe the popular creed of the Mahometans; 79 a creed
too sublime, perhaps, for our present faculties. What object
remains for the fancy, or even the understanding, when we have
abstracted from the unknown substance all ideas of time and
space, of motion and matter, of sensation and reflection? The
first principle of reason and revolution was confirmed by the
voice of Mahomet: his proselytes, from India to Morocco, are
distinguished by the name of Unitarians; and the danger of
idolatry has been prevented by the interdiction of images. The
doctrine of eternal decrees and absolute predestination is
strictly embraced by the Mahometans; and they struggle, with the
common difficulties, how to reconcile the prescience of God with
the freedom and responsibility of man; how to explain the
permission of evil under the reign of infinite power and infinite
goodness.
74 (return) [ Koran, c. 9, p. 153. Al Beidawi, and the other
commentators quoted by Sale, adhere to the charge; but I do not
understand that it is colored by the most obscure or absurd
tradition of the Talmud.]
75 (return) [ Hottinger, Hist. Orient. p. 225-228. The
Collyridian heresy was carried from Thrace to Arabia by some
women, and the name was borrowed from the cake, which they
offered to the goddess. This example, that of Beryllus bishop of
Bostra, (Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. vi. c. 33,) and several others,
may excuse the reproach, Arabia haerese haersewn ferax.]
76 (return) [ The three gods in the Koran (c. 4, p. 81, c. 5, p.
92) are obviously directed against our Catholic mystery: but the
Arabic commentators understand them of the Father, the Son, and
the Virgin Mary, an heretical Trinity, maintained, as it is said,
by some Barbarians at the Council of Nice, (Eutych. Annal. tom.
i. p. 440.) But the existence of the Marianites is denied by the
candid Beausobre, (Hist. de Manicheisme, tom. i. p. 532;) and he
derives the mistake from the word Roxah, the Holy Ghost, which in
some Oriental tongues is of the feminine gender, and is
figuratively styled the mother of Christ in the Gospel of the
Nazarenes.]
77 (return) [ This train of thought is philosophically
exemplified in the character of Abraham, who opposed in Chaldaea
the first introduction of idolatry, (Koran, c. 6, p. 106.
D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 13.)]
78 (return) [ See the Koran, particularly the second, (p. 30,)
the fifty-seventh, (p. 437,) the fifty-eighth (p. 441) chapters,
which proclaim the omnipotence of the Creator.]
79 (return) [ The most orthodox creeds are translated by Pocock,
(Specimen, p. 274, 284-292,) Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens, vol.
ii. p. lxxxii.—xcv.,) Reland, (de Religion. Moham. l. i. p.
7-13,) and Chardin, (Voyages en Perse, tom. iv. p. 4-28.) The
great truth, that God is without similitude, is foolishly
criticized by Maracci, (Alcoran, tom. i. part iii. p. 87-94,)
because he made man after his own image.]
The God of nature has written his existence on all his works, and
his law in the heart of man. To restore the knowledge of the one,
and the practice of the other, has been the real or pretended aim
of the prophets of every age: the liberality of Mahomet allowed
to his predecessors the same credit which he claimed for himself;
and the chain of inspiration was prolonged from the fall of Adam
to the promulgation of the Koran. 80 During that period, some
rays of prophetic light had been imparted to one hundred and
twenty-four thousand of the elect, discriminated by their
respective measure of virtue and grace; three hundred and
thirteen apostles were sent with a special commission to recall
their country from idolatry and vice; one hundred and four
volumes have been dictated by the Holy Spirit; and six
legislators of transcendent brightness have announced to mankind
the six successive revelations of various rites, but of one
immutable religion. The authority and station of Adam, Noah,
Abraham, Moses, Christ, and Mahomet, rise in just gradation above
each other; but whosoever hates or rejects any one of the
prophets is numbered with the infidels. The writings of the
patriarchs were extant only in the apocryphal copies of the
Greeks and Syrians: 81 the conduct of Adam had not entitled him
to the gratitude or respect of his children; the seven precepts
of Noah were observed by an inferior and imperfect class of the
proselytes of the synagogue; 82 and the memory of Abraham was
obscurely revered by the Sabians in his native land of Chaldaea:
of the myriads of prophets, Moses and Christ alone lived and
reigned; and the remnant of the inspired writings was comprised
in the books of the Old and the New Testament. The miraculous
story of Moses is consecrated and embellished in the Koran; 83
and the captive Jews enjoy the secret revenge of imposing their
own belief on the nations whose recent creeds they deride. For
the author of Christianity, the Mahometans are taught by the
prophet to entertain a high and mysterious reverence. 84 “Verily,
Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, is the apostle of God, and his
word, which he conveyed unto Mary, and a Spirit proceeding from
him; honorable in this world, and in the world to come, and one
of those who approach near to the presence of God.” 85 The
wonders of the genuine and apocryphal gospels 86 are profusely
heaped on his head; and the Latin church has not disdained to
borrow from the Koran the immaculate conception 87 of his virgin
mother. Yet Jesus was a mere mortal; and, at the day of judgment,
his testimony will serve to condemn both the Jews, who reject him
as a prophet, and the Christians, who adore him as the Son of
God. The malice of his enemies aspersed his reputation, and
conspired against his life; but their intention only was guilty;
a phantom or a criminal was substituted on the cross; and the
innocent saint was translated to the seventh heaven. 88 During
six hundred years the gospel was the way of truth and salvation;
but the Christians insensibly forgot both the laws and example of
their founder; and Mahomet was instructed by the Gnostics to
accuse the church, as well as the synagogue, of corrupting the
integrity of the sacred text. 89 The piety of Moses and of Christ
rejoiced in the assurance of a future prophet, more illustrious
than themselves: the evangelical promise of the Paraclete, or
Holy Ghost, was prefigured in the name, and accomplished in the
person, of Mahomet, 90 the greatest and the last of the apostles
of God.
80 (return) [ Reland, de Relig. Moham. l. i. p. 17-47. Sale’s
Preliminary Discourse, p. 73-76. Voyage de Chardin, tom. iv. p.
28-37, and 37-47, for the Persian addition, “Ali is the vicar of
God!” Yet the precise number of the prophets is not an article of
faith.]
81 (return) [ For the apocryphal books of Adam, see Fabricius,
Codex Pseudepigraphus V. T. p. 27-29; of Seth, p. 154-157; of
Enoch, p. 160-219. But the book of Enoch is consecrated, in some
measure, by the quotation of the apostle St. Jude; and a long
legendary fragment is alleged by Syncellus and Scaliger. * Note:
The whole book has since been recovered in the Ethiopic
language,—and has been edited and translated by Archbishop
Lawrence, Oxford, 1881—M.]
82 (return) [ The seven precepts of Noah are explained by
Marsham, (Canon Chronicus, p. 154-180,) who adopts, on this
occasion, the learning and credulity of Selden.]
83 (return) [ The articles of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, &c., in
the Bibliotheque of D’Herbelot, are gayly bedecked with the
fanciful legends of the Mahometans, who have built on the
groundwork of Scripture and the Talmud.]
84 (return) [ Koran, c. 7, p. 128, &c., c. 10, p. 173, &c.
D’Herbelot, p. 647, &c.]
85 (return) [ Koran, c. 3, p. 40, c. 4. p. 80. D’Herbelot, p.
399, &c.]
86 (return) [ See the Gospel of St. Thomas, or of the Infancy, in
the Codex Apocryphus N. T. of Fabricius, who collects the various
testimonies concerning it, (p. 128-158.) It was published in
Greek by Cotelier, and in Arabic by Sike, who thinks our present
copy more recent than Mahomet. Yet his quotations agree with the
original about the speech of Christ in his cradle, his living
birds of clay, &c. (Sike, c. i. p. 168, 169, c. 36, p. 198, 199,
c. 46, p. 206. Cotelier, c. 2, p. 160, 161.)]
87 (return) [ It is darkly hinted in the Koran, (c. 3, p. 39,)
and more clearly explained by the tradition of the Sonnites,
(Sale’s Note, and Maracci, tom. ii. p. 112.) In the xiith
century, the immaculate conception was condemned by St. Bernard
as a presumptuous novelty, (Fra Paolo, Istoria del Concilio di
Trento, l. ii.)]
88 (return) [ See the Koran, c. 3, v. 53, and c. 4, v. 156, of
Maracci’s edition. Deus est praestantissimus dolose agentium (an
odd praise)... nec crucifixerunt eum, sed objecta est eis
similitudo; an expression that may suit with the system of the
Docetes; but the commentators believe (Maracci, tom. ii. p.
113-115, 173. Sale, p. 42, 43, 79) that another man, a friend or
an enemy, was crucified in the likeness of Jesus; a fable which
they had read in the Gospel of St. Barnabus, and which had been
started as early as the time of Irenaeus, by some Ebionite
heretics, (Beausobre, Hist. du Manicheisme, tom. ii. p. 25,
Mosheim. de Reb. Christ. p. 353.)]
89 (return) [ This charge is obscurely urged in the Koran, (c. 3,
p. 45;) but neither Mahomet, nor his followers, are sufficiently
versed in languages and criticism to give any weight or color to
their suspicions. Yet the Arians and Nestorians could relate some
stories, and the illiterate prophet might listen to the bold
assertions of the Manichaeans. See Beausobre, tom. i. p.
291-305.]
90 (return) [ Among the prophecies of the Old and New Testament,
which are perverted by the fraud or ignorance of the Mussulmans,
they apply to the prophet the promise of the Paraclete, or
Comforter, which had been already usurped by the Montanists and
Manichaeans, (Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, tom. i.
p. 263, &c.;) and the easy change of letters affords the
etymology of the name of Mohammed, (Maracci, tom. i. part i. p.
15-28.)]
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part IV.
The communication of ideas requires a similitude of thought and
language: the discourse of a philosopher would vibrate without
effect on the ear of a peasant; yet how minute is the distance of
their understandings, if it be compared with the contact of an
infinite and a finite mind, with the word of God expressed by the
tongue or the pen of a mortal! The inspiration of the Hebrew
prophets, of the apostles and evangelists of Christ, might not be
incompatible with the exercise of their reason and memory; and
the diversity of their genius is strongly marked in the style and
composition of the books of the Old and New Testament. But
Mahomet was content with a character, more humble, yet more
sublime, of a simple editor; the substance of the Koran, 91
according to himself or his disciples, is uncreated and eternal;
subsisting in the essence of the Deity, and inscribed with a pen
of light on the table of his everlasting decrees. A paper copy,
in a volume of silk and gems, was brought down to the lowest
heaven by the angel Gabriel, who, under the Jewish economy, had
indeed been despatched on the most important errands; and this
trusty messenger successively revealed the chapters and verses to
the Arabian prophet. Instead of a perpetual and perfect measure
of the divine will, the fragments of the Koran were produced at
the discretion of Mahomet; each revelation is suited to the
emergencies of his policy or passion; and all contradiction is
removed by the saving maxim, that any text of Scripture is
abrogated or modified by any subsequent passage. The word of God,
and of the apostle, was diligently recorded by his disciples on
palm-leaves and the shoulder-bones of mutton; and the pages,
without order or connection, were cast into a domestic chest, in
the custody of one of his wives. Two years after the death of
Mahomet, the sacred volume was collected and published by his
friend and successor Abubeker: the work was revised by the caliph
Othman, in the thirtieth year of the Hegira; and the various
editions of the Koran assert the same miraculous privilege of a
uniform and incorruptible text. In the spirit of enthusiasm or
vanity, the prophet rests the truth of his mission on the merit
of his book; audaciously challenges both men and angels to
imitate the beauties of a single page; and presumes to assert
that God alone could dictate this incomparable performance. 92
This argument is most powerfully addressed to a devout Arabian,
whose mind is attuned to faith and rapture; whose ear is
delighted by the music of sounds; and whose ignorance is
incapable of comparing the productions of human genius. 93 The
harmony and copiousness of style will not reach, in a version,
the European infidel: he will peruse with impatience the endless
incoherent rhapsody of fable, and precept, and declamation, which
seldom excites a sentiment or an idea, which sometimes crawls in
the dust, and is sometimes lost in the clouds. The divine
attributes exalt the fancy of the Arabian missionary; but his
loftiest strains must yield to the sublime simplicity of the book
of Job, composed in a remote age, in the same country, and in the
same language. 94 If the composition of the Koran exceed the
faculties of a man to what superior intelligence should we
ascribe the Iliad of Homer, or the Philippics of Demosthenes? In
all religions, the life of the founder supplies the silence of
his written revelation: the sayings of Mahomet were so many
lessons of truth; his actions so many examples of virtue; and the
public and private memorials were preserved by his wives and
companions. At the end of two hundred years, the Sonna, or oral
law, was fixed and consecrated by the labors of Al Bochari, who
discriminated seven thousand two hundred and seventy-five genuine
traditions, from a mass of three hundred thousand reports, of a
more doubtful or spurious character. Each day the pious author
prayed in the temple of Mecca, and performed his ablutions with
the water of Zemzem: the pages were successively deposited on the
pulpit and the sepulchre of the apostle; and the work has been
approved by the four orthodox sects of the Sonnites. 95
91 (return) [ For the Koran, see D’Herbelot, p. 85-88. Maracci,
tom. i. in Vit. Mohammed. p. 32-45. Sale, Preliminary Discourse,
p. 58-70.]
92 (return) [ Koran, c. 17, v. 89. In Sale, p. 235, 236. In
Maracci, p. 410. * Note: Compare Von Hammer Geschichte der
Assassinen p. 11.-M.]
93 (return) [ Yet a sect of Arabians was persuaded, that it might
be equalled or surpassed by a human pen, (Pocock, Specimen, p.
221, &c.;) and Maracci (the polemic is too hard for the
translator) derides the rhyming affectation of the most applauded
passage, (tom. i. part ii. p. 69-75.)]
94 (return) [ Colloquia (whether real or fabulous) in media
Arabia atque ab Arabibus habita, (Lowth, de Poesi Hebraeorum.
Praelect. xxxii. xxxiii. xxxiv, with his German editor,
Michaelis, Epimetron iv.) Yet Michaelis (p. 671-673) has detected
many Egyptian images, the elephantiasis, papyrus, Nile,
crocodile, &c. The language is ambiguously styled
Arabico-Hebraea. The resemblance of the sister dialects was much
more visible in their childhood, than in their mature age,
(Michaelis, p. 682. Schultens, in Praefat. Job.) * Note: The age
of the book of Job is still and probably will still be disputed.
Rosenmuller thus states his own opinion: “Certe serioribus
reipublicae temporibus assignandum esse librum, suadere videtur
ad Chaldaismum vergens sermo.” Yet the observations of
Kosegarten, which Rosenmuller has given in a note, and common
reason, suggest that this Chaldaism may be the native form of a
much earlier dialect; or the Chaldaic may have adopted the
poetical archaisms of a dialect, differing from, but not less
ancient than, the Hebrew. See Rosenmuller, Proleg. on Job, p. 41.
The poetry appears to me to belong to a much earlier period.—M.]
95 (return) [ Ali Bochari died A. H. 224. See D’Herbelot, p. 208,
416, 827. Gagnier, Not. ad Abulfed. c. 19, p. 33.]
The mission of the ancient prophets, of Moses and of Jesus had
been confirmed by many splendid prodigies; and Mahomet was
repeatedly urged, by the inhabitants of Mecca and Medina, to
produce a similar evidence of his divine legation; to call down
from heaven the angel or the volume of his revelation, to create
a garden in the desert, or to kindle a conflagration in the
unbelieving city. As often as he is pressed by the demands of the
Koreish, he involves himself in the obscure boast of vision and
prophecy, appeals to the internal proofs of his doctrine, and
shields himself behind the providence of God, who refuses those
signs and wonders that would depreciate the merit of faith, and
aggravate the guilt of infidelity But the modest or angry tone of
his apologies betrays his weakness and vexation; and these
passages of scandal established, beyond suspicion, the integrity
of the Koran. 96 The votaries of Mahomet are more assured than
himself of his miraculous gifts; and their confidence and
credulity increase as they are farther removed from the time and
place of his spiritual exploits. They believe or affirm that
trees went forth to meet him; that he was saluted by stones; that
water gushed from his fingers; that he fed the hungry, cured the
sick, and raised the dead; that a beam groaned to him; that a
camel complained to him; that a shoulder of mutton informed him
of its being poisoned; and that both animate and inanimate nature
were equally subject to the apostle of God. 97 His dream of a
nocturnal journey is seriously described as a real and corporeal
transaction. A mysterious animal, the Borak, conveyed him from
the temple of Mecca to that of Jerusalem: with his companion
Gabriel he successively ascended the seven heavens, and received
and repaid the salutations of the patriarchs, the prophets, and
the angels, in their respective mansions. Beyond the seventh
heaven, Mahomet alone was permitted to proceed; he passed the
veil of unity, approached within two bow-shots of the throne, and
felt a cold that pierced him to the heart, when his shoulder was
touched by the hand of God. After this familiar, though important
conversation, he again descended to Jerusalem, remounted the
Borak, returned to Mecca, and performed in the tenth part of a
night the journey of many thousand years. 98 According to another
legend, the apostle confounded in a national assembly the
malicious challenge of the Koreish. His resistless word split
asunder the orb of the moon: the obedient planet stooped from her
station in the sky, accomplished the seven revolutions round the
Caaba, saluted Mahomet in the Arabian tongue, and, suddenly
contracting her dimensions, entered at the collar, and issued
forth through the sleeve, of his shirt. 99 The vulgar are amused
with these marvellous tales; but the gravest of the Mussulman
doctors imitate the modesty of their master, and indulge a
latitude of faith or interpretation. 100 They might speciously
allege, that in preaching the religion it was needless to violate
the harmony of nature; that a creed unclouded with mystery may be
excused from miracles; and that the sword of Mahomet was not less
potent than the rod of Moses.
96 (return) [ See, more remarkably, Koran, c. 2, 6, 12, 13, 17.
Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 18, 19) has confounded the
impostor. Maracci, with a more learned apparatus, has shown that
the passages which deny his miracles are clear and positive,
(Alcoran, tom. i. part ii. p. 7-12,) and those which seem to
assert them are ambiguous and insufficient, (p. 12-22.)]
97 (return) [ See the Specimen Hist. Arabum, the text of
Abulpharagius, p. 17, the notes of Pocock, p. 187-190.
D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 76, 77. Voyages de
Chardin, tom. iv. p. 200-203. Maracci (Alcoran, tom. i. p. 22-64)
has most laboriously collected and confuted the miracles and
prophecies of Mahomet, which, according to some writers, amount
to three thousand.]
98 (return) [ The nocturnal journey is circumstantially related
by Abulfeda (in Vit. Mohammed, c. 19, p. 33,) who wishes to think
it a vision; by Prideaux, (p. 31-40,) who aggravates the
absurdities; and by Gagnier (tom. i. p. 252-343,) who declares,
from the zealous Al Jannabi, that to deny this journey, is to
disbelieve the Koran. Yet the Koran without naming either heaven,
or Jerusalem, or Mecca, has only dropped a mysterious hint: Laus
illi qui transtulit servum suum ab oratorio Haram ad oratorium
remotissimum, (Koran, c. 17, v. 1; in Maracci, tom. ii. p. 407;
for Sale’s version is more licentious.) A slender basis for the
aerial structure of tradition.]
99 (return) [ In the prophetic style, which uses the present or
past for the future, Mahomet had said, Appropinquavit hora, et
scissa est luna, (Koran, c. 54, v. 1; in Maracci, tom. ii. p.
688.) This figure of rhetoric has been converted into a fact,
which is said to be attested by the most respectable
eye-witnesses, (Maracci, tom. ii. p. 690.) The festival is still
celebrated by the Persians, (Chardin, tom. iv. p. 201;) and the
legend is tediously spun out by Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. i.
p. 183-234,) on the faith, as it should seem, of the credulous Al
Jannabi. Yet a Mahometan doctor has arraigned the credit of the
principal witness, (apud Pocock, Specimen, p. 187;) the best
interpreters are content with the simple sense of the Koran. (Al
Beidawi, apud Hottinger, Hist. Orient. l. ii. p. 302;) and the
silence of Abulfeda is worthy of a prince and a philosopher. *
Note: Compare Hamaker Notes to Inc. Auct. Lib. de Exped.
Memphides, p. 62—M.]
100 (return) [ Abulpharagius, in Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 17; and
his scepticism is justified in the notes of Pocock, p. 190-194,
from the purest authorities.]
The polytheist is oppressed and distracted by the variety of
superstition: a thousand rites of Egyptian origin were interwoven
with the essence of the Mosaic law; and the spirit of the gospel
had evaporated in the pageantry of the church. The prophet of
Mecca was tempted by prejudice, or policy, or patriotism, to
sanctify the rites of the Arabians, and the custom of visiting
the holy stone of the Caaba. But the precepts of Mahomet himself
inculcates a more simple and rational piety: prayer, fasting, and
alms, are the religious duties of a Mussulman; and he is
encouraged to hope, that prayer will carry him half way to God,
fasting will bring him to the door of his palace, and alms will
gain him admittance. 101 I. According to the tradition of the
nocturnal journey, the apostle, in his personal conference with
the Deity, was commanded to impose on his disciples the daily
obligation of fifty prayers. By the advice of Moses, he applied
for an alleviation of this intolerable burden; the number was
gradually reduced to five; without any dispensation of business
or pleasure, or time or place: the devotion of the faithful is
repeated at daybreak, at noon, in the afternoon, in the evening,
and at the first watch of the night; and in the present decay of
religious fervor, our travellers are edified by the profound
humility and attention of the Turks and Persians. Cleanliness is
the key of prayer: the frequent lustration of the hands, the
face, and the body, which was practised of old by the Arabs, is
solemnly enjoined by the Koran; and a permission is formally
granted to supply with sand the scarcity of water. The words and
attitudes of supplication, as it is performed either sitting, or
standing, or prostrate on the ground, are prescribed by custom or
authority; but the prayer is poured forth in short and fervent
ejaculations; the measure of zeal is not exhausted by a tedious
liturgy; and each Mussulman for his own person is invested with
the character of a priest. Among the theists, who reject the use
of images, it has been found necessary to restrain the wanderings
of the fancy, by directing the eye and the thought towards a
kebla, or visible point of the horizon. The prophet was at first
inclined to gratify the Jews by the choice of Jerusalem; but he
soon returned to a more natural partiality; and five times every
day the eyes of the nations at Astracan, at Fez, at Delhi, are
devoutly turned to the holy temple of Mecca. Yet every spot for
the service of God is equally pure: the Mahometans indifferently
pray in their chamber or in the street. As a distinction from the
Jews and Christians, the Friday in each week is set apart for the
useful institution of public worship: the people is assembled in
the mosch; and the imam, some respectable elder, ascends the
pulpit, to begin the prayer and pronounce the sermon. But the
Mahometan religion is destitute of priesthood or sacrifice; and
the independent spirit of fanaticism looks down with contempt on
the ministers and the slaves of superstition. 1011
II. The voluntary 102 penance of the ascetics, the torment and
glory of their lives, was odious to a prophet who censured in his
companions a rash vow of abstaining from flesh, and women, and
sleep; and firmly declared, that he would suffer no monks in his
religion. 103 Yet he instituted, in each year, a fast of thirty
days; and strenuously recommended the observance as a discipline
which purifies the soul and subdues the body, as a salutary
exercise of obedience to the will of God and his apostle. During
the month of Ramadan, from the rising to the setting of the sun,
the Mussulman abstains from eating, and drinking, and women, and
baths, and perfumes; from all nourishment that can restore his
strength, from all pleasure that can gratify his senses. In the
revolution of the lunar year, the Ramadan coincides, by turns,
with the winter cold and the summer heat; and the patient martyr,
without assuaging his thirst with a drop of water, must expect
the close of a tedious and sultry day. The interdiction of wine,
peculiar to some orders of priests or hermits, is converted by
Mahomet alone into a positive and general law; 104 and a
considerable portion of the globe has abjured, at his command,
the use of that salutary, though dangerous, liquor. These painful
restraints are, doubtless, infringed by the libertine, and eluded
by the hypocrite; but the legislator, by whom they are enacted,
cannot surely be accused of alluring his proselytes by the
indulgence of their sensual appetites. III. The charity of the
Mahometans descends to the animal creation; and the Koran
repeatedly inculcates, not as a merit, but as a strict and
indispensable duty, the relief of the indigent and unfortunate.
Mahomet, perhaps, is the only lawgiver who has defined the
precise measure of charity: the standard may vary with the degree
and nature of property, as it consists either in money, in corn
or cattle, in fruits or merchandise; but the Mussulman does not
accomplish the law, unless he bestows a tenth of his revenue; and
if his conscience accuses him of fraud or extortion, the tenth,
under the idea of restitution, is enlarged to a fifth. 105
Benevolence is the foundation of justice, since we are forbid to
injure those whom we are bound to assist. A prophet may reveal
the secrets of heaven and of futurity; but in his moral precepts
he can only repeat the lessons of our own hearts.
101 (return) [ The most authentic account of these precepts,
pilgrimage, prayer, fasting, alms, and ablutions, is extracted
from the Persian and Arabian theologians by Maracci, (Prodrom.
part iv. p. 9-24,) Reland, (in his excellent treatise de
Religione Mohammedica, Utrecht, 1717, p. 67-123,) and Chardin,
(Voyages in Perse, tom. iv. p. 47-195.) Marace is a partial
accuser; but the jeweller, Chardin, had the eyes of a
philosopher; and Reland, a judicious student, had travelled over
the East in his closet at Utrecht. The xivth letter of Tournefort
(Voyage du Levont, tom. ii. p. 325-360, in octavo) describes what
he had seen of the religion of the Turks.]
1011 (return) [ Such is Mahometanism beyond the precincts of the
Holy City. But Mahomet retained, and the Koran sanctions, (Sale’s
Koran, c. 5, in inlt. c. 22, vol. ii. p. 171, 172,) the sacrifice
of sheep and camels (probably according to the old Arabian rites)
at Mecca; and the pilgrims complete their ceremonial with
sacrifices, sometimes as numerous and costly as those of King
Solomon. Compare note, vol. iv. c. xxiii. p. 96, and Forster’s
Mahometanism Unveiled, vol. i. p. 420. This author quotes the
questionable authority of Benjamin of Tudela, for the sacrifice
of a camel by the caliph at Bosra; but sacrifice undoubtedly
forms no part of the ordinary Mahometan ritual; nor will the
sanctity of the caliph, as the earthly representative of the
prophet, bear any close analogy to the priesthood of the Mosaic
or Gentila religions.—M.]
102 (return) [ Mahomet (Sale’s Koran, c. 9, p. 153) reproaches
the Christians with taking their priests and monks for their
lords, besides God. Yet Maracci (Prodromus, part iii. p. 69, 70)
excuses the worship, especially of the pope, and quotes, from the
Koran itself, the case of Eblis, or Satan, who was cast from
heaven for refusing to adore Adam.]
103 (return) [ Koran, c. 5, p. 94, and Sale’s note, which refers
to the authority of Jallaloddin and Al Beidawi. D’Herbelot
declares, that Mahomet condemned la vie religieuse; and that the
first swarms of fakirs, dervises, &c., did not appear till after
the year 300 of the Hegira, (Bibliot. Orient. p. 292, 718.)]
104 (return) [ See the double prohibition, (Koran, c. 2, p. 25,
c. 5, p. 94;) the one in the style of a legislator, the other in
that of a fanatic. The public and private motives of Mahomet are
investigated by Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 62-64) and Sale,
(Preliminary Discourse, p. 124.)]
105 (return) [ The jealousy of Maracci (Prodromus, part iv. p.
33) prompts him to enumerate the more liberal alms of the
Catholics of Rome. Fifteen great hospitals are open to many
thousand patients and pilgrims; fifteen hundred maidens are
annually portioned; fifty-six charity schools are founded for
both sexes; one hundred and twenty confraternities relieve the
wants of their brethren, &c. The benevolence of London is still
more extensive; but I am afraid that much more is to be ascribed
to the humanity, than to the religion, of the people.]
The two articles of belief, and the four practical duties, of
Islam, are guarded by rewards and punishments; and the faith of
the Mussulman is devoutly fixed on the event of the judgment and
the last day. The prophet has not presumed to determine the
moment of that awful catastrophe, though he darkly announces the
signs, both in heaven and earth, which will precede the universal
dissolution, when life shall be destroyed, and the order of
creation shall be confounded in the primitive chaos. At the blast
of the trumpet, new worlds will start into being: angels, genii,
and men will arise from the dead, and the human soul will again
be united to the body. The doctrine of the resurrection was first
entertained by the Egyptians; 106 and their mummies were
embalmed, their pyramids were constructed, to preserve the
ancient mansion of the soul, during a period of three thousand
years. But the attempt is partial and unavailing; and it is with
a more philosophic spirit that Mahomet relies on the omnipotence
of the Creator, whose word can reanimate the breathless clay, and
collect the innumerable atoms, that no longer retain their form
or substance. 107 The intermediate state of the soul it is hard
to decide; and those who most firmly believe her immaterial
nature, are at a loss to understand how she can think or act
without the agency of the organs of sense.
106 (return) [ See Herodotus (l. ii. c. 123) and our learned
countryman Sir John Marsham, (Canon. Chronicus, p. 46.) The same
writer (p. 254-274) is an elaborate sketch of the infernal
regions, as they were painted by the fancy of the Egyptians and
Greeks, of the poets and philosophers of antiquity.]
107 (return) [ The Koran (c. 2, p. 259, &c.; of Sale, p. 32; of
Maracci, p. 97) relates an ingenious miracle, which satisfied the
curiosity, and confirmed the faith, of Abraham.]
The reunion of the soul and body will be followed by the final
judgment of mankind; and in his copy of the Magian picture, the
prophet has too faithfully represented the forms of proceeding,
and even the slow and successive operations, of an earthly
tribunal. By his intolerant adversaries he is upbraided for
extending, even to themselves, the hope of salvation, for
asserting the blackest heresy, that every man who believes in
God, and accomplishes good works, may expect in the last day a
favorable sentence. Such rational indifference is ill adapted to
the character of a fanatic; nor is it probable that a messenger
from heaven should depreciate the value and necessity of his own
revelation. In the idiom of the Koran, 108 the belief of God is
inseparable from that of Mahomet: the good works are those which
he has enjoined, and the two qualifications imply the profession
of Islam, to which all nations and all sects are equally invited.
Their spiritual blindness, though excused by ignorance and
crowned with virtue, will be scourged with everlasting torments;
and the tears which Mahomet shed over the tomb of his mother for
whom he was forbidden to pray, display a striking contrast of
humanity and enthusiasm. 109 The doom of the infidels is common:
the measure of their guilt and punishment is determined by the
degree of evidence which they have rejected, by the magnitude of
the errors which they have entertained: the eternal mansions of
the Christians, the Jews, the Sabians, the Magians, and
idolaters, are sunk below each other in the abyss; and the lowest
hell is reserved for the faithless hypocrites who have assumed
the mask of religion. After the greater part of mankind has been
condemned for their opinions, the true believers only will be
judged by their actions. The good and evil of each Mussulman will
be accurately weighed in a real or allegorical balance; and a
singular mode of compensation will be allowed for the payment of
injuries: the aggressor will refund an equivalent of his own good
actions, for the benefit of the person whom he has wronged; and
if he should be destitute of any moral property, the weight of
his sins will be loaded with an adequate share of the demerits of
the sufferer. According as the shares of guilt or virtue shall
preponderate, the sentence will be pronounced, and all, without
distinction, will pass over the sharp and perilous bridge of the
abyss; but the innocent, treading in the footsteps of Mahomet,
will gloriously enter the gates of paradise, while the guilty
will fall into the first and mildest of the seven hells. The term
of expiation will vary from nine hundred to seven thousand years;
but the prophet has judiciously promised, that all his disciples,
whatever may be their sins, shall be saved, by their own faith
and his intercession from eternal damnation. It is not surprising
that superstition should act most powerfully on the fears of her
votaries, since the human fancy can paint with more energy the
misery than the bliss of a future life. With the two simple
elements of darkness and fire, we create a sensation of pain,
which may be aggravated to an infinite degree by the idea of
endless duration. But the same idea operates with an opposite
effect on the continuity of pleasure; and too much of our present
enjoyments is obtained from the relief, or the comparison, of
evil. It is natural enough that an Arabian prophet should dwell
with rapture on the groves, the fountains, and the rivers of
paradise; but instead of inspiring the blessed inhabitants with a
liberal taste for harmony and science, conversation and
friendship, he idly celebrates the pearls and diamonds, the robes
of silk, palaces of marble, dishes of gold, rich wines,
artificial dainties, numerous attendants, and the whole train of
sensual and costly luxury, which becomes insipid to the owner,
even in the short period of this mortal life. Seventy-two Houris,
or black-eyed girls, of resplendent beauty, blooming youth,
virgin purity, and exquisite sensibility, will be created for the
use of the meanest believer; a moment of pleasure will be
prolonged to a thousand years; and his faculties will be
increased a hundred fold, to render him worthy of his felicity.
Notwithstanding a vulgar prejudice, the gates of heaven will be
open to both sexes; but Mahomet has not specified the male
companions of the female elect, lest he should either alarm the
jealousy of their former husbands, or disturb their felicity, by
the suspicion of an everlasting marriage. This image of a carnal
paradise has provoked the indignation, perhaps the envy, of the
monks: they declaim against the impure religion of Mahomet; and
his modest apologists are driven to the poor excuse of figures
and allegories. But the sounder and more consistent party adhere
without shame, to the literal interpretation of the Koran:
useless would be the resurrection of the body, unless it were
restored to the possession and exercise of its worthiest
faculties; and the union of sensual and intellectual enjoyment is
requisite to complete the happiness of the double animal, the
perfect man. Yet the joys of the Mahometan paradise will not be
confined to the indulgence of luxury and appetite; and the
prophet has expressly declared that all meaner happiness will be
forgotten and despised by the saints and martyrs, who shall be
admitted to the beatitude of the divine vision. 110
108 (return) [ The candid Reland has demonstrated, that Mahomet
damns all unbelievers, (de Religion. Moham. p. 128-142;) that
devils will not be finally saved, (p. 196-199;) that paradise
will not solely consist of corporeal delights, (p. 199-205;) and
that women’s souls are immortal. (p. 205-209.)]
109 (return) [ A Beidawi, apud Sale. Koran, c. 9, p. 164. The
refusal to pray for an unbelieving kindred is justified,
according to Mahomet, by the duty of a prophet, and the example
of Abraham, who reprobated his own father as an enemy of God. Yet
Abraham (he adds, c. 9, v. 116. Maracci, tom. ii. p. 317) fuit
sane pius, mitis.]
110 (return) [ For the day of judgment, hell, paradise, &c.,
consult the Koran, (c. 2, v. 25, c. 56, 78, &c.;) with Maracci’s
virulent, but learned, refutation, (in his notes, and in the
Prodromus, part iv. p. 78, 120, 122, &c.;) D’Herbelot,
(Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 368, 375;) Reland, (p. 47-61;) and
Sale, (p. 76-103.) The original ideas of the Magi are darkly and
doubtfully explored by their apologist, Dr. Hyde, (Hist.
Religionis Persarum, c. 33, p. 402-412, Oxon. 1760.) In the
article of Mahomet, Bayle has shown how indifferently wit and
philosophy supply the absence of genuine information.]
The first and most arduous conquests of Mahomet 111 were those of
his wife, his servant, his pupil, and his friend; 112 since he
presented himself as a prophet to those who were most conversant
with his infirmities as a man. Yet Cadijah believed the words,
and cherished the glory, of her husband; the obsequious and
affectionate Zeid was tempted by the prospect of freedom; the
illustrious Ali, the son of Abu Taleb, embraced the sentiments of
his cousin with the spirit of a youthful hero; and the wealth,
the moderation, the veracity of Abubeker confirmed the religion
of the prophet whom he was destined to succeed. By his
persuasion, ten of the most respectable citizens of Mecca were
introduced to the private lessons of Islam; they yielded to the
voice of reason and enthusiasm; they repeated the fundamental
creed, “There is but one God, and Mahomet is the apostle of God;”
and their faith, even in this life, was rewarded with riches and
honors, with the command of armies and the government of
kingdoms. Three years were silently employed in the conversion of
fourteen proselytes, the first-fruits of his mission; but in the
fourth year he assumed the prophetic office, and resolving to
impart to his family the light of divine truth, he prepared a
banquet, a lamb, as it is said, and a bowl of milk, for the
entertainment of forty guests of the race of Hashem. “Friends and
kinsmen,” said Mahomet to the assembly, “I offer you, and I alone
can offer, the most precious of gifts, the treasures of this
world and of the world to come. God has commanded me to call you
to his service. Who among you will support my burden? Who among
you will be my companion and my vizier?” 113 No answer was
returned, till the silence of astonishment, and doubt, and
contempt, was at length broken by the impatient courage of Ali, a
youth in the fourteenth year of his age. “O prophet, I am the
man: whosoever rises against thee, I will dash out his teeth,
tear out his eyes, break his legs, rip up his belly. O prophet, I
will be thy vizier over them.” Mahomet accepted his offer with
transport, and Abu Taled was ironically exhorted to respect the
superior dignity of his son. In a more serious tone, the father
of Ali advised his nephew to relinquish his impracticable design.
“Spare your remonstrances,” replied the intrepid fanatic to his
uncle and benefactor; “if they should place the sun on my right
hand, and the moon on my left, they should not divert me from my
course.” He persevered ten years in the exercise of his mission;
and the religion which has overspread the East and the West
advanced with a slow and painful progress within the walls of
Mecca. Yet Mahomet enjoyed the satisfaction of beholding the
increase of his infant congregation of Unitarians, who revered
him as a prophet, and to whom he seasonably dispensed the
spiritual nourishment of the Koran. The number of proselytes may
be esteemed by the absence of eighty-three men and eighteen
women, who retired to Aethiopia in the seventh year of his
mission; and his party was fortified by the timely conversion of
his uncle Hamza, and of the fierce and inflexible Omar, who
signalized in the cause of Islam the same zeal, which he had
exerted for its destruction. Nor was the charity of Mahomet
confined to the tribe of Koreish, or the precincts of Mecca: on
solemn festivals, in the days of pilgrimage, he frequented the
Caaba, accosted the strangers of every tribe, and urged, both in
private converse and public discourse, the belief and worship of
a sole Deity. Conscious of his reason and of his weakness, he
asserted the liberty of conscience, and disclaimed the use of
religious violence: 114 but he called the Arabs to repentance,
and conjured them to remember the ancient idolaters of Ad and
Thamud, whom the divine justice had swept away from the face of
the earth. 115
111 (return) [ Before I enter on the history of the prophet, it
is incumbent on me to produce my evidence. The Latin, French, and
English versions of the Koran are preceded by historical
discourses, and the three translators, Maracci, (tom. i. p.
10-32,) Savary, (tom. i. p. 1-248,) and Sale, (Preliminary
Discourse, p. 33-56,) had accurately studied the language and
character of their author. Two professed Lives of Mahomet have
been composed by Dr. Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, seventh edition,
London, 1718, in octavo) and the count de Boulainvilliers, (Vie
de Mahomed, Londres, 1730, in octavo: ) but the adverse wish of
finding an impostor or a hero, has too often corrupted the
learning of the doctor and the ingenuity of the count. The
article in D’Herbelot (Bibliot. Orient. p. 598-603) is chiefly
drawn from Novairi and Mirkond; but the best and most authentic
of our guides is M. Gagnier, a Frenchman by birth, and professor
at Oxford of the Oriental tongues. In two elaborate works,
(Ismael Abulfeda de Vita et Rebus gestis Mohammedis, &c. Latine
vertit, Praefatione et Notis illustravit Johannes Gagnier, Oxon.
1723, in folio. La Vie de Mahomet traduite et compilee de
l’Alcoran, des Traditions Authentiques de la Sonna et des
meilleurs Auteurs Arabes; Amsterdam, 1748, 3 vols. in 12mo.,) he
has interpreted, illustrated, and supplied the Arabic text of
Abulfeda and Al Jannabi; the first, an enlightened prince who
reigned at Hamah, in Syria, A.D. 1310-1332, (see Gagnier Praefat.
ad Abulfed.;) the second, a credulous doctor, who visited Mecca
A.D. 1556. (D’Herbelot, p. 397. Gagnier, tom. iii. p. 209, 210.)
These are my general vouchers, and the inquisitive reader may
follow the order of time, and the division of chapters. Yet I
must observe that both Abulfeda and Al Jannabi are modern
historians, and that they cannot appeal to any writers of the
first century of the Hegira. * Note: A new Life, by Dr. Weil,
(Stuttgart. 1843,) has added some few traditions unknown in
Europe. Of Dr. Weil’s Arabic scholarship, which professes to
correct many errors in Gagnier, in Maracci, and in M. von Hammer,
I am no judge. But it is remarkable that he does not seem
acquainted with the passage of Tabari, translated by Colonel Vans
Kennedy, in the Bombay Transactions, (vol. iii.,) the earliest
and most important addition made to the traditionary Life of
Mahomet. I am inclined to think Colonel Vans Kennedy’s
appreciation of the prophet’s character, which may be overlooked
in a criticism on Voltaire’s Mahomet, the most just which I have
ever read. The work of Dr. Weil appears to me most valuable in
its dissection and chronological view of the Koran.—M. 1845]
112 (return) [ After the Greeks, Prideaux (p. 8) discloses the
secret doubts of the wife of Mahomet. As if he had been a privy
counsellor of the prophet, Boulainvilliers (p. 272, &c.) unfolds
the sublime and patriotic views of Cadijah and the first
disciples.]
113 (return) [ Vezirus, portitor, bajulus, onus ferens; and this
plebeian name was transferred by an apt metaphor to the pillars
of the state, (Gagnier, Not. ad Abulfed. p. 19.) I endeavor to
preserve the Arabian idiom, as far as I can feel it myself in a
Latin or French translation.]
114 (return) [ The passages of the Koran in behalf of toleration
are strong and numerous: c. 2, v. 257, c. 16, 129, c. 17, 54, c.
45, 15, c. 50, 39, c. 88, 21, &c., with the notes of Maracci and
Sale. This character alone may generally decide the doubts of the
learned, whether a chapter was revealed at Mecca or Medina.]
115 (return) [ See the Koran, (passim, and especially c. 7, p.
123, 124, &c.,) and the tradition of the Arabs, (Pocock,
Specimen, p. 35-37.) The caverns of the tribe of Thamud, fit for
men of the ordinary stature, were shown in the midway between
Medina and Damascus. (Abulfed Arabiae Descript. p. 43, 44,) and
may be probably ascribed to the Throglodytes of the primitive
world, (Michaelis, ad Lowth de Poesi Hebraeor. p. 131-134.
Recherches sur les Egyptiens, tom. ii. p. 48, &c.)]
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part V.
The people of Mecca were hardened in their unbelief by
superstition and envy. The elders of the city, the uncles of the
prophet, affected to despise the presumption of an orphan, the
reformer of his country: the pious orations of Mahomet in the
Caaba were answered by the clamors of Abu Taleb. “Citizens and
pilgrims, listen not to the tempter, hearken not to his impious
novelties. Stand fast in the worship of Al Lata and Al Uzzah.”
Yet the son of Abdallah was ever dear to the aged chief: and he
protected the fame and person of his nephew against the assaults
of the Koreishites, who had long been jealous of the preeminence
of the family of Hashem. Their malice was colored with the
pretence of religion: in the age of Job, the crime of impiety was
punished by the Arabian magistrate; 116 and Mahomet was guilty of
deserting and denying the national deities. But so loose was the
policy of Mecca, that the leaders of the Koreish, instead of
accusing a criminal, were compelled to employ the measures of
persuasion or violence. They repeatedly addressed Abu Taleb in
the style of reproach and menace. “Thy nephew reviles our
religion; he accuses our wise forefathers of ignorance and folly;
silence him quickly, lest he kindle tumult and discord in the
city. If he persevere, we shall draw our swords against him and
his adherents, and thou wilt be responsible for the blood of thy
fellow-citizens.” The weight and moderation of Abu Taleb eluded
the violence of religious faction; the most helpless or timid of
the disciples retired to Aethiopia, and the prophet withdrew
himself to various places of strength in the town and country. As
he was still supported by his family, the rest of the tribe of
Koreish engaged themselves to renounce all intercourse with the
children of Hashem, neither to buy nor sell, neither to marry not
to give in marriage, but to pursue them with implacable enmity,
till they should deliver the person of Mahomet to the justice of
the gods. The decree was suspended in the Caaba before the eyes
of the nation; the messengers of the Koreish pursued the
Mussulman exiles in the heart of Africa: they besieged the
prophet and his most faithful followers, intercepted their water,
and inflamed their mutual animosity by the retaliation of
injuries and insults. A doubtful truce restored the appearances
of concord till the death of Abu Taleb abandoned Mahomet to the
power of his enemies, at the moment when he was deprived of his
domestic comforts by the loss of his faithful and generous
Cadijah. Abu Sophian, the chief of the branch of Ommiyah,
succeeded to the principality of the republic of Mecca. A zealous
votary of the idols, a mortal foe of the line of Hashem, he
convened an assembly of the Koreishites and their allies, to
decide the fate of the apostle. His imprisonment might provoke
the despair of his enthusiasm; and the exile of an eloquent and
popular fanatic would diffuse the mischief through the provinces
of Arabia. His death was resolved; and they agreed that a sword
from each tribe should be buried in his heart, to divide the
guilt of his blood, and baffle the vengeance of the Hashemites.
An angel or a spy revealed their conspiracy; and flight was the
only resource of Mahomet. 117 At the dead of night, accompanied
by his friend Abubeker, he silently escaped from his house: the
assassins watched at the door; but they were deceived by the
figure of Ali, who reposed on the bed, and was covered with the
green vestment of the apostle. The Koreish respected the piety of
the heroic youth; but some verses of Ali, which are still extant,
exhibit an interesting picture of his anxiety, his tenderness,
and his religious confidence. Three days Mahomet and his
companion were concealed in the cave of Thor, at the distance of
a league from Mecca; and in the close of each evening, they
received from the son and daughter of Abubeker a secret supply of
intelligence and food. The diligence of the Koreish explored
every haunt in the neighborhood of the city: they arrived at the
entrance of the cavern; but the providential deceit of a spider’s
web and a pigeon’s nest is supposed to convince them that the
place was solitary and inviolate. “We are only two,” said the
trembling Abubeker. “There is a third,” replied the prophet; “it
is God himself.” No sooner was the pursuit abated than the two
fugitives issued from the rock, and mounted their camels: on the
road to Medina, they were overtaken by the emissaries of the
Koreish; they redeemed themselves with prayers and promises from
their hands. In this eventful moment, the lance of an Arab might
have changed the history of the world. The flight of the prophet
from Mecca to Medina has fixed the memorable aera of the Hegira,
118 which, at the end of twelve centuries, still discriminates
the lunar years of the Mahometan nations. 119
116 (return) [ In the time of Job, the crime of impiety was
punished by the Arabian magistrate, (c. 21, v. 26, 27, 28.) I
blush for a respectable prelate (de Poesi Hebraeorum, p. 650,
651, edit. Michaelis; and letter of a late professor in the
university of Oxford, p. 15-53,) who justifies and applauds this
patriarchal inquisition.]
117 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 445. He quotes a
particular history of the flight of Mahomet.]
118 (return) [ The Hegira was instituted by Omar, the second
caliph, in imitation of the aera of the martyrs of the
Christians, (D’Herbelot, p. 444;) and properly commenced
sixty-eight days before the flight of Mahomet, with the first of
Moharren, or first day of that Arabian year which coincides with
Friday, July 16th, A.D. 622, (Abulfeda, Vit Moham, c. 22, 23, p.
45-50; and Greaves’s edition of Ullug Beg’s Epochae Arabum, &c.,
c. 1, p. 8, 10, &c.) * Note: Chronologists dispute between the
15th and 16th of July. St. Martin inclines to the 8th, ch. xi. p.
70.—M.]
119 (return) [ Mahomet’s life, from his mission to the Hegira,
may be found in Abulfeda (p. 14-45) and Gagnier, (tom. i. p.
134-251, 342-383.) The legend from p. 187-234 is vouched by Al
Jannabi, and disdained by Abulfeda.]
The religion of the Koran might have perished in its cradle, had
not Medina embraced with faith and reverence the holy outcasts of
Mecca. Medina, or the city, known under the name of Yathreb,
before it was sanctified by the throne of the prophet, was
divided between the tribes of the Charegites and the Awsites,
whose hereditary feud was rekindled by the slightest
provocations: two colonies of Jews, who boasted a sacerdotal
race, were their humble allies, and without converting the Arabs,
they introduced the taste of science and religion, which
distinguished Medina as the city of the Book. Some of her noblest
citizens, in a pilgrimage to the Canaba, were converted by the
preaching of Mahomet; on their return, they diffused the belief
of God and his prophet, and the new alliance was ratified by
their deputies in two secret and nocturnal interviews on a hill
in the suburbs of Mecca. In the first, ten Charegites and two
Awsites united in faith and love, protested, in the name of their
wives, their children, and their absent brethren, that they would
forever profess the creed, and observe the precepts, of the
Koran. The second was a political association, the first vital
spark of the empire of the Saracens. 120 Seventy-three men and
two women of Medina held a solemn conference with Mahomet, his
kinsman, and his disciples; and pledged themselves to each other
by a mutual oath of fidelity. They promised, in the name of the
city, that if he should be banished, they would receive him as a
confederate, obey him as a leader, and defend him to the last
extremity, like their wives and children. “But if you are
recalled by your country,” they asked with a flattering anxiety,
“will you not abandon your new allies?” “All things,” replied
Mahomet with a smile, “are now common between us; your blood is
as my blood, your ruin as my ruin. We are bound to each other by
the ties of honor and interest. I am your friend, and the enemy
of your foes.” “But if we are killed in your service, what,”
exclaimed the deputies of Medina, “will be our reward?”
“Paradise,” replied the prophet. “Stretch forth thy hand.” He
stretched it forth, and they reiterated the oath of allegiance
and fidelity. Their treaty was ratified by the people, who
unanimously embraced the profession of Islam; they rejoiced in
the exile of the apostle, but they trembled for his safety, and
impatiently expected his arrival. After a perilous and rapid
journey along the sea-coast, he halted at Koba, two miles from
the city, and made his public entry into Medina, sixteen days
after his flight from Mecca. Five hundred of the citizens
advanced to meet him; he was hailed with acclamations of loyalty
and devotion; Mahomet was mounted on a she-camel, an umbrella
shaded his head, and a turban was unfurled before him to supply
the deficiency of a standard. His bravest disciples, who had been
scattered by the storm, assembled round his person; and the
equal, though various, merit of the Moslems was distinguished by
the names of Mohagerians and Ansars, the fugitives of Mecca, and
the auxiliaries of Medina. To eradicate the seeds of jealousy,
Mahomet judiciously coupled his principal followers with the
rights and obligations of brethren; and when Ali found himself
without a peer, the prophet tenderly declared, that he would be
the companion and brother of the noble youth. The expedient was
crowned with success; the holy fraternity was respected in peace
and war, and the two parties vied with each other in a generous
emulation of courage and fidelity. Once only the concord was
slightly ruffled by an accidental quarrel: a patriot of Medina
arraigned the insolence of the strangers, but the hint of their
expulsion was heard with abhorrence; and his own son most eagerly
offered to lay at the apostle’s feet the head of his father.
120 (return) [ The triple inauguration of Mahomet is described by
Abulfeda (p. 30, 33, 40, 86) and Gagnier, (tom. i. p. 342, &c.,
349, &c., tom. ii. p. 223 &c.)]
From his establishment at Medina, Mahomet assumed the exercise of
the regal and sacerdotal office; and it was impious to appeal
from a judge whose decrees were inspired by the divine wisdom. A
small portion of ground, the patrimony of two orphans, was
acquired by gift or purchase; 121 on that chosen spot he built a
house and a mosch, more venerable in their rude simplicity than
the palaces and temples of the Assyrian caliphs. His seal of
gold, or silver, was inscribed with the apostolic title; when he
prayed and preached in the weekly assembly, he leaned against the
trunk of a palm-tree; and it was long before he indulged himself
in the use of a chair or pulpit of rough timber. 122 After a
reign of six years, fifteen hundred Moslems, in arms and in the
field, renewed their oath of allegiance; and their chief repeated
the assurance of protection till the death of the last member, or
the final dissolution of the party. It was in the same camp that
the deputy of Mecca was astonished by the attention of the
faithful to the words and looks of the prophet, by the eagerness
with which they collected his spittle, a hair that dropped on the
ground, the refuse water of his lustrations, as if they
participated in some degree of the prophetic virtue. “I have
seen,” said he, “the Chosroes of Persia and the Caesar of Rome,
but never did I behold a king among his subjects like Mahomet
among his companions.” The devout fervor of enthusiasm acts with
more energy and truth than the cold and formal servility of
courts.
121 (return) [ Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 44) reviles the
wickedness of the impostor, who despoiled two poor orphans, the
sons of a carpenter; a reproach which he drew from the Disputatio
contra Saracenos, composed in Arabic before the year 1130; but
the honest Gagnier (ad Abulfed. p. 53) has shown that they were
deceived by the word Al Nagjar, which signifies, in this place,
not an obscure trade, but a noble tribe of Arabs. The desolate
state of the ground is described by Abulfeda; and his worthy
interpreter has proved, from Al Bochari, the offer of a price;
from Al Jannabi, the fair purchase; and from Ahmeq Ben Joseph,
the payment of the money by the generous Abubeker On these
grounds the prophet must be honorably acquitted.]
122 (return) [ Al Jannabi (apud Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 246, 324)
describes the seal and pulpit, as two venerable relics of the
apostle of God; and the portrait of his court is taken from
Abulfeda, (c. 44, p. 85.)]
In the state of nature, every man has a right to defend, by force
of arms, his person and his possessions; to repel, or even to
prevent, the violence of his enemies, and to extend his
hostilities to a reasonable measure of satisfaction and
retaliation. In the free society of the Arabs, the duties of
subject and citizen imposed a feeble restraint; and Mahomet, in
the exercise of a peaceful and benevolent mission, had been
despoiled and banished by the injustice of his countrymen. The
choice of an independent people had exalted the fugitive of Mecca
to the rank of a sovereign; and he was invested with the just
prerogative of forming alliances, and of waging offensive or
defensive war. The imperfection of human rights was supplied and
armed by the plenitude of divine power: the prophet of Medina
assumed, in his new revelations, a fiercer and more sanguinary
tone, which proves that his former moderation was the effect of
weakness: 123 the means of persuasion had been tried, the season
of forbearance was elapsed, and he was now commanded to propagate
his religion by the sword, to destroy the monuments of idolatry,
and, without regarding the sanctity of days or months, to pursue
the unbelieving nations of the earth. The same bloody precepts,
so repeatedly inculcated in the Koran, are ascribed by the author
to the Pentateuch and the Gospel. But the mild tenor of the
evangelic style may explain an ambiguous text, that Jesus did not
bring peace on the earth, but a sword: his patient and humble
virtues should not be confounded with the intolerant zeal of
princes and bishops, who have disgraced the name of his
disciples. In the prosecution of religious war, Mahomet might
appeal with more propriety to the example of Moses, of the
Judges, and the kings of Israel. The military laws of the Hebrews
are still more rigid than those of the Arabian legislator. 124
The Lord of hosts marched in person before the Jews: if a city
resisted their summons, the males, without distinction, were put
to the sword: the seven nations of Canaan were devoted to
destruction; and neither repentance nor conversion, could shield
them from the inevitable doom, that no creature within their
precincts should be left alive. 1241 The fair option of
friendship, or submission, or battle, was proposed to the enemies
of Mahomet. If they professed the creed of Islam, they were
admitted to all the temporal and spiritual benefits of his
primitive disciples, and marched under the same banner to extend
the religion which they had embraced. The clemency of the prophet
was decided by his interest: yet he seldom trampled on a
prostrate enemy; and he seems to promise, that on the payment of
a tribute, the least guilty of his unbelieving subjects might be
indulged in their worship, or at least in their imperfect faith.
In the first months of his reign he practised the lessons of holy
warfare, and displayed his white banner before the gates of
Medina: the martial apostle fought in person at nine battles or
sieges; 125 and fifty enterprises of war were achieved in ten
years by himself or his lieutenants. The Arab continued to unite
the professions of a merchant and a robber; and his petty
excursions for the defence or the attack of a caravan insensibly
prepared his troops for the conquest of Arabia. The distribution
of the spoil was regulated by a divine law: 126 the whole was
faithfully collected in one common mass: a fifth of the gold and
silver, the prisoners and cattle, the movables and immovables,
was reserved by the prophet for pious and charitable uses; the
remainder was shared in adequate portions by the soldiers who had
obtained the victory or guarded the camp: the rewards of the
slain devolved to their widows and orphans; and the increase of
cavalry was encouraged by the allotment of a double share to the
horse and to the man. From all sides the roving Arabs were
allured to the standard of religion and plunder: the apostle
sanctified the license of embracing the female captives as their
wives or concubines, and the enjoyment of wealth and beauty was a
feeble type of the joys of paradise prepared for the valiant
martyrs of the faith. “The sword,” says Mahomet, “is the key of
heaven and of hell; a drop of blood shed in the cause of God, a
night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting
or prayer: whosoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven: at
the day of judgment his wounds shall be resplendent as vermilion,
and odoriferous as musk; and the loss of his limbs shall be
supplied by the wings of angels and cherubim.” The intrepid souls
of the Arabs were fired with enthusiasm: the picture of the
invisible world was strongly painted on their imagination; and
the death which they had always despised became an object of hope
and desire. The Koran inculcates, in the most absolute sense, the
tenets of fate and predestination, which would extinguish both
industry and virtue, if the actions of man were governed by his
speculative belief. Yet their influence in every age has exalted
the courage of the Saracens and Turks. The first companions of
Mahomet advanced to battle with a fearless confidence: there is
no danger where there is no chance: they were ordained to perish
in their beds; or they were safe and invulnerable amidst the
darts of the enemy. 127
123 (return) [ The viiith and ixth chapters of the Koran are the
loudest and most vehement; and Maracci (Prodromus, part iv. p.
59-64) has inveighed with more justice than discretion against
the double dealing of the impostor.]
124 (return) [ The xth and xxth chapters of Deuteronomy, with the
practical comments of Joshua, David, &c., are read with more awe
than satisfaction by the pious Christians of the present age. But
the bishops, as well as the rabbis of former times, have beat the
drum-ecclesiastic with pleasure and success. (Sale’s Preliminary
Discourse, p. 142, 143.)]
1241 (return) [ The editor’s opinions on this subject may be read
in the History of the Jews vol. i. p. 137.—M]
125 (return) [ Abulfeda, in Vit. Moham. p. 156. The private
arsenal of the apostle consisted of nine swords, three lances,
seven pikes or half-pikes, a quiver and three bows, seven
cuirasses, three shields, and two helmets, (Gagnier, tom. iii. p.
328-334,) with a large white standard, a black banner, (p. 335,)
twenty horses, (p. 322, &c.) Two of his martial sayings are
recorded by tradition, (Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 88, 334.)]
126 (return) [ The whole subject de jure belli Mohammedanorum is
exhausted in a separate dissertation by the learned Reland,
(Dissertationes Miscellaneae, tom. iii. Dissertat. x. p. 3-53.)]
127 (return) [ The doctrine of absolute predestination, on which
few religions can reproach each other, is sternly exposed in the
Koran, (c. 3, p. 52, 53, c. 4, p. 70, &c., with the notes of
Sale, and c. 17, p. 413, with those of Maracci.) Reland (de
Relig. Moham. p. 61-64) and Sale (Prelim. Discourse, p. 103)
represent the opinions of the doctors, and our modern travellers
the confidence, the fading confidence, of the Turks]
Perhaps the Koreish would have been content with the dight of
Mahomet, had they not been provoked and alarmed by the vengeance
of an enemy, who could intercept their Syrian trade as it passed
and repassed through the territory of Medina. Abu Sophian
himself, with only thirty or forty followers, conducted a wealthy
caravan of a thousand camels; the fortune or dexterity of his
march escaped the vigilance of Mahomet; but the chief of the
Koreish was informed that the holy robbers were placed in ambush
to await his return. He despatched a messenger to his brethren of
Mecca, and they were roused, by the fear of losing their
merchandise and their provisions, unless they hastened to his
relief with the military force of the city. The sacred band of
Mahomet was formed of three hundred and thirteen Moslems, of whom
seventy-seven were fugitives, and the rest auxiliaries; they
mounted by turns a train of seventy camels, (the camels of
Yathreb were formidable in war;) but such was the poverty of his
first disciples, that only two could appear on horseback in the
field. 128 In the fertile and famous vale of Beder, 129 three
stations from Medina, he was informed by his scouts of the
caravan that approached on one side; of the Koreish, one hundred
horse, eight hundred and fifty foot, who advanced on the other.
After a short debate, he sacrificed the prospect of wealth to the
pursuit of glory and revenge, and a slight intrenchment was
formed, to cover his troops, and a stream of fresh water, that
glided through the valley. “O God,” he exclaimed, as the numbers
of the Koreish descended from the hills, “O God, if these are
destroyed, by whom wilt thou be worshipped on the earth?—Courage,
my children; close your ranks; discharge your arrows, and the day
is your own.” At these words he placed himself, with Abubeker, on
a throne or pulpit, 130 and instantly demanded the succor of
Gabriel and three thousand angels. His eye was fixed on the field
of battle: the Mussulmans fainted and were pressed: in that
decisive moment the prophet started from his throne, mounted his
horse, and cast a handful of sand into the air: “Let their faces
be covered with confusion.” Both armies heard the thunder of his
voice: their fancy beheld the angelic warriors: 131 the Koreish
trembled and fled: seventy of the bravest were slain; and seventy
captives adorned the first victory of the faithful. The dead
bodies of the Koreish were despoiled and insulted: two of the
most obnoxious prisoners were punished with death; and the ransom
of the others, four thousand drams of silver, compensated in some
degree the escape of the caravan. But it was in vain that the
camels of Abu Sophian explored a new road through the desert and
along the Euphrates: they were overtaken by the diligence of the
Mussulmans; and wealthy must have been the prize, if twenty
thousand drams could be set apart for the fifth of the apostle.
The resentment of the public and private loss stimulated Abu
Sophian to collect a body of three thousand men, seven hundred of
whom were armed with cuirasses, and two hundred were mounted on
horseback; three thousand camels attended his march; and his wife
Henda, with fifteen matrons of Mecca, incessantly sounded their
timbrels to animate the troops, and to magnify the greatness of
Hobal, the most popular deity of the Caaba. The standard of God
and Mahomet was upheld by nine hundred and fifty believers: the
disproportion of numbers was not more alarming than in the field
of Beder; and their presumption of victory prevailed against the
divine and human sense of the apostle. The second battle was
fought on Mount Ohud, six miles to the north of Medina; 132 the
Koreish advanced in the form of a crescent; and the right wing of
cavalry was led by Caled, the fiercest and most successful of the
Arabian warriors. The troops of Mahomet were skilfully posted on
the declivity of the hill; and their rear was guarded by a
detachment of fifty archers. The weight of their charge impelled
and broke the centre of the idolaters: but in the pursuit they
lost the advantage of their ground: the archers deserted their
station: the Mussulmans were tempted by the spoil, disobeyed
their general, and disordered their ranks. The intrepid Caled,
wheeling his cavalry on their flank and rear, exclaimed, with a
loud voice, that Mahomet was slain. He was indeed wounded in the
face with a javelin: two of his teeth were shattered with a
stone; yet, in the midst of tumult and dismay, he reproached the
infidels with the murder of a prophet; and blessed the friendly
hand that stanched his blood, and conveyed him to a place of
safety. Seventy martyrs died for the sins of the people; they
fell, said the apostle, in pairs, each brother embracing his
lifeless companion; 133 their bodies were mangled by the inhuman
females of Mecca; and the wife of Abu Sophian tasted the entrails
of Hamza, the uncle of Mahomet. They might applaud their
superstition, and satiate their fury; but the Mussulmans soon
rallied in the field, and the Koreish wanted strength or courage
to undertake the siege of Medina. It was attacked the ensuing
year by an army of ten thousand enemies; and this third
expedition is variously named from the nations, which marched
under the banner of Abu Sophian, from the ditch which was drawn
before the city, and a camp of three thousand Mussulmans. The
prudence of Mahomet declined a general engagement: the valor of
Ali was signalized in single combat; and the war was protracted
twenty days, till the final separation of the confederates. A
tempest of wind, rain, and hail, overturned their tents: their
private quarrels were fomented by an insidious adversary; and the
Koreish, deserted by their allies, no longer hoped to subvert the
throne, or to check the conquests, of their invincible exile. 134
128 (return) [ Al Jannabi (apud Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 9) allows
him seventy or eighty horse; and on two other occasions, prior to
the battle of Ohud, he enlists a body of thirty (p. 10) and of
500 (p. 66) troopers. Yet the Mussulmans, in the field of Ohud,
had no more than two horses, according to the better sense of
Abulfeda, (in Vit. Moham. c. xxxi. p. 65.) In the Stony province,
the camels were numerous; but the horse appears to have been less
numerous than in the Happy or the Desert Arabia.]
129 (return) [ Bedder Houneene, twenty miles from Medina, and
forty from Mecca, is on the high road of the caravan of Egypt;
and the pilgrims annually commemorate the prophet’s victory by
illuminations, rockets, &c. Shaw’s Travels, p. 477.]
130 (return) [ The place to which Mahomet retired during the
action is styled by Gagnier (in Abulfeda, c. 27, p. 58. Vie de
Mahomet, tom. ii. p. 30, 33) Umbraculum, une loge de bois avec
une porte. The same Arabic word is rendered by Reiske (Annales
Moslemici Abulfedae, p. 23) by Solium, Suggestus editior; and the
difference is of the utmost moment for the honor both of the
interpreter and of the hero. I am sorry to observe the pride and
acrimony with which Reiske chastises his fellow-laborer. Saepi
sic vertit, ut integrae paginae nequeant nisi una litura corrigi
Arabice non satis callebat, et carebat judicio critico. J. J.
Reiske, Prodidagmata ad Hagji Chalisae Tabulas, p. 228, ad
calcero Abulfedae Syriae Tabulae; Lipsiae, 1766, in 4to.]
131 (return) [ The loose expressions of the Koran (c. 3, p. 124,
125, c. 8, p. 9) allow the commentators to fluctuate between the
numbers of 1000, 3000, or 9000 angels; and the smallest of these
might suffice for the slaughter of seventy of the Koreish,
(Maracci, Alcoran, tom. ii. p. 131.) Yet the same scholiasts
confess that this angelic band was not visible to any mortal eye,
(Maracci, p. 297.) They refine on the words (c. 8, 16) “not thou,
but God,” &c. (D’Herbelot. Bibliot. Orientale p. 600, 601.)]
132 (return) [ Geograph. Nubiensis, p. 47.]
133 (return) [ In the iiid chapter of the Koran, (p. 50-53) with
Sale’s notes, the prophet alleges some poor excuses for the
defeat of Ohud. * Note: Dr. Weil has added some curious
circumstances, which he gives as on good traditional authority,
on the rescue of Mahomet. The prophet was attacked by Ubeijj Ibn
Challaf, whom he struck on the neck with a mortal wound. This was
the only time, it is added, that Mahomet personally engaged in
battle. (p. 128.)—M. 1845.]
134 (return) [ For the detail of the three Koreish wars, of
Beder, of Ohud, and of the ditch, peruse Abulfeda, (p. 56-61,
64-69, 73-77,) Gagnier (tom. i. p. 23-45, 70-96, 120-139,) with
the proper articles of D’Herbelot, and the abridgments of Elmacin
(Hist. Saracen. p. 6, 7) and Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 102.)]
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part VI.
The choice of Jerusalem for the first kebla of prayer discovers
the early propensity of Mahomet in favor of the Jews; and happy
would it have been for their temporal interest, had they
recognized, in the Arabian prophet, the hope of Israel and the
promised Messiah. Their obstinacy converted his friendship into
implacable hatred, with which he pursued that unfortunate people
to the last moment of his life; and in the double character of an
apostle and a conqueror, his persecution was extended to both
worlds. 135 The Kainoka dwelt at Medina under the protection of
the city; he seized the occasion of an accidental tumult, and
summoned them to embrace his religion, or contend with him in
battle. “Alas!” replied the trembling Jews, “we are ignorant of
the use of arms, but we persevere in the faith and worship of our
fathers; why wilt thou reduce us to the necessity of a just
defence?” The unequal conflict was terminated in fifteen days;
and it was with extreme reluctance that Mahomet yielded to the
importunity of his allies, and consented to spare the lives of
the captives. But their riches were confiscated, their arms
became more effectual in the hands of the Mussulmans; and a
wretched colony of seven hundred exiles was driven, with their
wives and children, to implore a refuge on the confines of Syria.
The Nadhirites were more guilty, since they conspired, in a
friendly interview, to assassinate the prophet. He besieged their
castle, three miles from Medina; but their resolute defence
obtained an honorable capitulation; and the garrison, sounding
their trumpets and beating their drums, was permitted to depart
with the honors of war. The Jews had excited and joined the war
of the Koreish: no sooner had the nations retired from the ditch,
than Mahomet, without laying aside his armor, marched on the same
day to extirpate the hostile race of the children of Koraidha.
After a resistance of twenty-five days, they surrendered at
discretion. They trusted to the intercession of their old allies
of Medina; they could not be ignorant that fanaticism obliterates
the feelings of humanity. A venerable elder, to whose judgment
they appealed, pronounced the sentence of their death; seven
hundred Jews were dragged in chains to the market-place of the
city; they descended alive into the grave prepared for their
execution and burial; and the apostle beheld with an inflexible
eye the slaughter of his helpless enemies. Their sheep and camels
were inherited by the Mussulmans: three hundred cuirasses, five
hundred pikes, a thousand lances, composed the most useful
portion of the spoil. Six days’ journey to the north-east of
Medina, the ancient and wealthy town of Chaibar was the seat of
the Jewish power in Arabia: the territory, a fertile spot in the
desert, was covered with plantations and cattle, and protected by
eight castles, some of which were esteemed of impregnable
strength. The forces of Mahomet consisted of two hundred horse
and fourteen hundred foot: in the succession of eight regular and
painful sieges they were exposed to danger, and fatigue, and
hunger; and the most undaunted chiefs despaired of the event. The
apostle revived their faith and courage by the example of Ali, on
whom he bestowed the surname of the Lion of God: perhaps we may
believe that a Hebrew champion of gigantic stature was cloven to
the chest by his irresistible cimeter; but we cannot praise the
modesty of romance, which represents him as tearing from its
hinges the gate of a fortress and wielding the ponderous buckler
in his left hand. 136 After the reduction of the castles, the
town of Chaibar submitted to the yoke. The chief of the tribe was
tortured, in the presence of Mahomet, to force a confession of
his hidden treasure: the industry of the shepherds and husbandmen
was rewarded with a precarious toleration: they were permitted,
so long as it should please the conqueror, to improve their
patrimony, in equal shares, for his emolument and their own.
Under the reign of Omar, the Jews of Chaibar were transported to
Syria; and the caliph alleged the injunction of his dying master;
that one and the true religion should be professed in his native
land of Arabia. 137
135 (return) [ The wars of Mahomet against the Jewish tribes of
Kainoka, the Nadhirites, Koraidha, and Chaibar, are related by
Abulfeda (p. 61, 71, 77, 87, &c.) and Gagnier, (tom. ii. p.
61-65, 107-112, 139-148, 268-294.)]
136 (return) [ Abu Rafe, the servant of Mahomet, is said to
affirm that he himself, and seven other men, afterwards tried,
without success, to move the same gate from the ground,
(Abulfeda, p. 90.) Abu Rafe was an eye-witness, but who will be
witness for Abu Rafe?]
137 (return) [ The banishment of the Jews is attested by Elmacin
(Hist. Saracen, p. 9) and the great Al Zabari, (Gagnier, tom. ii.
p. 285.) Yet Niebuhr (Description de l’Arabie, p. 324) believes
that the Jewish religion, and Karaite sect, are still professed
by the tribe of Chaibar; and that, in the plunder of the
caravans, the disciples of Moses are the confederates of those of
Mahomet.]
Five times each day the eyes of Mahomet were turned towards
Mecca, 138 and he was urged by the most sacred and powerful
motives to revisit, as a conqueror, the city and the temple from
whence he had been driven as an exile. The Caaba was present to
his waking and sleeping fancy: an idle dream was translated into
vision and prophecy; he unfurled the holy banner; and a rash
promise of success too hastily dropped from the lips of the
apostle. His march from Medina to Mecca displayed the peaceful
and solemn pomp of a pilgrimage: seventy camels, chosen and
bedecked for sacrifice, preceded the van; the sacred territory
was respected; and the captives were dismissed without ransom to
proclaim his clemency and devotion. But no sooner did Mahomet
descend into the plain, within a day’s journey of the city, than
he exclaimed, “They have clothed themselves with the skins of
tigers:” the numbers and resolution of the Koreish opposed his
progress; and the roving Arabs of the desert might desert or
betray a leader whom they had followed for the hopes of spoil.
The intrepid fanatic sunk into a cool and cautious politician: he
waived in the treaty his title of apostle of God; concluded with
the Koreish and their allies a truce of ten years; engaged to
restore the fugitives of Mecca who should embrace his religion;
and stipulated only, for the ensuing year, the humble privilege
of entering the city as a friend, and of remaining three days to
accomplish the rites of the pilgrimage. A cloud of shame and
sorrow hung on the retreat of the Mussulmans, and their
disappointment might justly accuse the failure of a prophet who
had so often appealed to the evidence of success. The faith and
hope of the pilgrims were rekindled by the prospect of Mecca:
their swords were sheathed; 1381 seven times in the footsteps of
the apostle they encompassed the Caaba: the Koreish had retired
to the hills, and Mahomet, after the customary sacrifice,
evacuated the city on the fourth day. The people was edified by
his devotion; the hostile chiefs were awed, or divided, or
seduced; and both Kaled and Amrou, the future conquerors of Syria
and Egypt, most seasonably deserted the sinking cause of
idolatry. The power of Mahomet was increased by the submission of
the Arabian tribes; ten thousand soldiers were assembled for the
conquest of Mecca; and the idolaters, the weaker party, were
easily convicted of violating the truce. Enthusiasm and
discipline impelled the march, and preserved the secret till the
blaze of ten thousand fires proclaimed to the astonished Koreish
the design, the approach, and the irresistible force of the
enemy. The haughty Abu Sophian presented the keys of the city,
admired the variety of arms and ensigns that passed before him in
review; observed that the son of Abdallah had acquired a mighty
kingdom, and confessed, under the cimeter of Omar, that he was
the apostle of the true God. The return of Marius and Scylla was
stained with the blood of the Romans: the revenge of Mahomet was
stimulated by religious zeal, and his injured followers were
eager to execute or to prevent the order of a massacre. Instead
of indulging their passions and his own, 139 the victorious exile
forgave the guilt, and united the factions, of Mecca. His troops,
in three divisions, marched into the city: eight-and-twenty of
the inhabitants were slain by the sword of Caled; eleven men and
six women were proscribed by the sentence of Mahomet; but he
blamed the cruelty of his lieutenant; and several of the most
obnoxious victims were indebted for their lives to his clemency
or contempt. The chiefs of the Koreish were prostrate at his
feet. “What mercy can you expect from the man whom you have
wronged?” “We confide in the generosity of our kinsman.” “And you
shall not confide in vain: begone! you are safe, you are free”
The people of Mecca deserved their pardon by the profession of
Islam; and after an exile of seven years, the fugitive missionary
was enthroned as the prince and prophet of his native country.
140 But the three hundred and sixty idols of the Caaba were
ignominiously broken: the house of God was purified and adorned:
as an example to future times, the apostle again fulfilled the
duties of a pilgrim; and a perpetual law was enacted that no
unbeliever should dare to set his foot on the territory of the
holy city. 141
138 (return) [ The successive steps of the reduction of Mecca are
related by Abulfeda (p. 84-87, 97-100, 102-111) and Gagnier,
(tom. ii. p. 202-245, 309-322, tom. iii. p. 1-58,) Elmacin,
(Hist. Saracen. p. 8, 9, 10,) Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 103.)]
1381 (return) [ This peaceful entrance into Mecca took place,
according to the treaty the following year. Weil, p. 202—M.
1845.]
139 (return) [ After the conquest of Mecca, the Mahomet of
Voltaire imagines and perpetuates the most horrid crimes. The
poet confesses, that he is not supported by the truth of history,
and can only allege, que celui qui fait la guerre a sa patrie au
nom de Dieu, est capable de tout, (Oeuvres de Voltaire, tom. xv.
p. 282.) The maxim is neither charitable nor philosophic; and
some reverence is surely due to the fame of heroes and the
religion of nations. I am informed that a Turkish ambassador at
Paris was much scandalized at the representation of this
tragedy.]
140 (return) [ The Mahometan doctors still dispute, whether Mecca
was reduced by force or consent, (Abulfeda, p. 107, et Gagnier ad
locum;) and this verbal controversy is of as much moment as our
own about William the Conqueror.]
141 (return) [ In excluding the Christians from the peninsula of
Arabia, the province of Hejaz, or the navigation of the Red Sea,
Chardin (Voyages en Perse, tom. iv. p. 166) and Reland
(Dissertat. Miscell. tom. iii. p. 61) are more rigid than the
Mussulmans themselves. The Christians are received without
scruple into the ports of Mocha, and even of Gedda; and it is
only the city and precincts of Mecca that are inaccessible to the
profane, (Niebuhr, Description de l’Arabie, p. 308, 309, Voyage
en Arabie, tom. i. p. 205, 248, &c.)]
The conquest of Mecca determined the faith and obedience of the
Arabian tribes; 142 who, according to the vicissitudes of
fortune, had obeyed, or disregarded, the eloquence or the arms of
the prophet. Indifference for rites and opinions still marks the
character of the Bedoweens; and they might accept, as loosely as
they hold, the doctrine of the Koran. Yet an obstinate remnant
still adhered to the religion and liberty of their ancestors, and
the war of Honain derived a proper appellation from the idols,
whom Mahomet had vowed to destroy, and whom the confederates of
Tayef had sworn to defend. 143 Four thousand Pagans advanced with
secrecy and speed to surprise the conqueror: they pitied and
despised the supine negligence of the Koreish, but they depended
on the wishes, and perhaps the aid, of a people who had so lately
renounced their gods, and bowed beneath the yoke of their enemy.
The banners of Medina and Mecca were displayed by the prophet; a
crowd of Bedoweens increased the strength or numbers of the army,
and twelve thousand Mussulmans entertained a rash and sinful
presumption of their invincible strength. They descended without
precaution into the valley of Honain: the heights had been
occupied by the archers and slingers of the confederates; their
numbers were oppressed, their discipline was confounded, their
courage was appalled, and the Koreish smiled at their impending
destruction. The prophet, on his white mule, was encompassed by
the enemies: he attempted to rush against their spears in search
of a glorious death: ten of his faithful companions interposed
their weapons and their breasts; three of these fell dead at his
feet: “O my brethren,” he repeatedly cried, with sorrow and
indignation, “I am the son of Abdallah, I am the apostle of
truth! O man, stand fast in the faith! O God, send down thy
succor!” His uncle Abbas, who, like the heroes of Homer, excelled
in the loudness of his voice, made the valley resound with the
recital of the gifts and promises of God: the flying Moslems
returned from all sides to the holy standard; and Mahomet
observed with pleasure that the furnace was again rekindled: his
conduct and example restored the battle, and he animated his
victorious troops to inflict a merciless revenge on the authors
of their shame. From the field of Honain, he marched without
delay to the siege of Tayef, sixty miles to the south-east of
Mecca, a fortress of strength, whose fertile lands produce the
fruits of Syria in the midst of the Arabian desert. A friendly
tribe, instructed (I know not how) in the art of sieges, supplied
him with a train of battering-rams and military engines, with a
body of five hundred artificers. But it was in vain that he
offered freedom to the slaves of Tayef; that he violated his own
laws by the extirpation of the fruit-trees; that the ground was
opened by the miners; that the breach was assaulted by the
troops. After a siege of twenty-days, the prophet sounded a
retreat; but he retreated with a song of devout triumph, and
affected to pray for the repentance and safety of the unbelieving
city. The spoils of this fortunate expedition amounted to six
thousand captives, twenty-four thousand camels, forty thousand
sheep, and four thousand ounces of silver: a tribe who had fought
at Hoinan redeemed their prisoners by the sacrifice of their
idols; but Mahomet compensated the loss, by resigning to the
soldiers his fifth of the plunder, and wished, for their sake,
that he possessed as many head of cattle as there were trees in
the province of Tehama. Instead of chastising the disaffection of
the Koreish, he endeavored to cut out their tongues, (his own
expression,) and to secure their attachment by a superior measure
of liberality: Abu Sophian alone was presented with three hundred
camels and twenty ounces of silver; and Mecca was sincerely
converted to the profitable religion of the Koran.
142 (return) [ Abulfeda, p. 112-115. Gagnier, tom. iii. p. 67-88.
D’Herbelot, Mohammed.]
143 (return) [ The siege of Tayef, division of the spoil, &c.,
are related by Abulfeda (p. 117-123) and Gagnier, (tom. iii. p.
88-111.) It is Al Jannabi who mentions the engines and engineers
of the tribe of Daws. The fertile spot of Tayef was supposed to
be a piece of the land of Syria detached and dropped in the
general deluge]
The fugitives and auxiliaries complained, that they who had borne
the burden were neglected in the season of victory “Alas!”
replied their artful leader, “suffer me to conciliate these
recent enemies, these doubtful proselytes, by the gift of some
perishable goods. To your guard I intrust my life and fortunes.
You are the companions of my exile, of my kingdom, of my
paradise.” He was followed by the deputies of Tayef, who dreaded
the repetition of a siege. “Grant us, O apostle of God! a truce
of three years, with the toleration of our ancient worship.” “Not
a month, not an hour.” “Excuse us at least from the obligation of
prayer.” “Without prayer religion is of no avail.” They submitted
in silence: their temples were demolished, and the same sentence
of destruction was executed on all the idols of Arabia. His
lieutenants, on the shores of the Red Sea, the Ocean, and the
Gulf of Persia, were saluted by the acclamations of a faithful
people; and the ambassadors, who knelt before the throne of
Medina, were as numerous (says the Arabian proverb) as the dates
that fall from the maturity of a palm-tree. The nation submitted
to the God and the sceptre of Mahomet: the opprobrious name of
tribute was abolished: the spontaneous or reluctant oblations of
arms and tithes were applied to the service of religion; and one
hundred and fourteen thousand Moslems accompanied the last
pilgrimage of the apostle. 144
144 (return) [ The last conquests and pilgrimage of Mahomet are
contained in Abulfeda, (p. 121, 133,) Gagnier, (tom. iii. p.
119-219,) Elmacin, (p. 10, 11,) Abulpharagius, (p. 103.) The ixth
of the Hegira was styled the Year of Embassies, (Gagnier, Not. ad
Abulfed. p. 121.)]
When Heraclius returned in triumph from the Persian war, he
entertained, at Emesa, one of the ambassadors of Mahomet, who
invited the princes and nations of the earth to the profession of
Islam. On this foundation the zeal of the Arabians has supposed
the secret conversion of the Christian emperor: the vanity of the
Greeks has feigned a personal visit of the prince of Medina, who
accepted from the royal bounty a rich domain, and a secure
retreat, in the province of Syria. 145 But the friendship of
Heraclius and Mahomet was of short continuance: the new religion
had inflamed rather than assuaged the rapacious spirit of the
Saracens, and the murder of an envoy afforded a decent pretence
for invading, with three thousand soldiers, the territory of
Palestine, that extends to the eastward of the Jordan. The holy
banner was intrusted to Zeid; and such was the discipline or
enthusiasm of the rising sect, that the noblest chiefs served
without reluctance under the slave of the prophet. On the event
of his decease, Jaafar and Abdallah were successively substituted
to the command; and if the three should perish in the war, the
troops were authorized to elect their general. The three leaders
were slain in the battle of Muta, 146 the first military action,
which tried the valor of the Moslems against a foreign enemy.
Zeid fell, like a soldier, in the foremost ranks: the death of
Jaafar was heroic and memorable: he lost his right hand: he
shifted the standard to his left: the left was severed from his
body: he embraced the standard with his bleeding stumps, till he
was transfixed to the ground with fifty honorable wounds. 1461
“Advance,” cried Abdallah, who stepped into the vacant place,
“advance with confidence: either victory or paradise is our own.”
The lance of a Roman decided the alternative; but the falling
standard was rescued by Caled, the proselyte of Mecca: nine
swords were broken in his hand; and his valor withstood and
repulsed the superior numbers of the Christians. In the nocturnal
council of the camp he was chosen to command: his skilful
evolutions of the ensuing day secured either the victory or the
retreat of the Saracens; and Caled is renowned among his brethren
and his enemies by the glorious appellation of the Sword of God.
In the pulpit, Mahomet described, with prophetic rapture, the
crowns of the blessed martyrs; but in private he betrayed the
feelings of human nature: he was surprised as he wept over the
daughter of Zeid: “What do I see?” said the astonished votary.
“You see,” replied the apostle, “a friend who is deploring the
loss of his most faithful friend.” After the conquest of Mecca,
the sovereign of Arabia affected to prevent the hostile
preparations of Heraclius; and solemnly proclaimed war against
the Romans, without attempting to disguise the hardships and
dangers of the enterprise. 147 The Moslems were discouraged: they
alleged the want of money, or horses, or provisions; the season
of harvest, and the intolerable heat of the summer: “Hell is much
hotter,” said the indignant prophet. He disdained to compel their
service: but on his return he admonished the most guilty, by an
excommunication of fifty days. Their desertion enhanced the merit
of Abubeker, Othman, and the faithful companions who devoted
their lives and fortunes; and Mahomet displayed his banner at the
head of ten thousand horse and twenty thousand foot. Painful
indeed was the distress of the march: lassitude and thirst were
aggravated by the scorching and pestilential winds of the desert:
ten men rode by turns on one camel; and they were reduced to the
shameful necessity of drinking the water from the belly of that
useful animal. In the mid-way, ten days’ journey from Medina and
Damascus, they reposed near the grove and fountain of Tabuc.
Beyond that place Mahomet declined the prosecution of the war: he
declared himself satisfied with the peaceful intentions, he was
more probably daunted by the martial array, of the emperor of the
East. But the active and intrepid Caled spread around the terror
of his name; and the prophet received the submission of the
tribes and cities, from the Euphrates to Ailah, at the head of
the Red Sea. To his Christian subjects, Mahomet readily granted
the security of their persons, the freedom of their trade, the
property of their goods, and the toleration of their worship. 148
The weakness of their Arabian brethren had restrained them from
opposing his ambition; the disciples of Jesus were endeared to
the enemy of the Jews; and it was the interest of a conqueror to
propose a fair capitulation to the most powerful religion of the
earth.
145 (return) [ Compare the bigoted Al Jannabi (apud Gagnier, tom.
ii. p. 232-255) with the no less bigoted Greeks, Theophanes, (p.
276-227,) Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 86,) and Cedrenus, (p.
421.)]
146 (return) [ For the battle of Muta, and its consequences, see
Abulfeda (p 100-102) and Gagnier, (tom. ii. p. 327-343.).]
1461 (return) [ To console the afflicted relatives of his kinsman
Jauffer, he (Mahomet) represented that, in Paradise, in exchange
for the arms which he had lost, he had been furnished with a pair
of wings, resplendent with the blushing glories of the ruby, and
with which he was become the inseparable companion of the
archangal Gabriel, in his volitations through the regions of
eternal bliss. Hence, in the catalogue of the martyrs, he has
been denominated Jauffer teyaur, the winged Jauffer. Price,
Chronological Retrospect of Mohammedan History, vol. i. p. 5.-M.]
147 (return) [ The expedition of Tabuc is recorded by our
ordinary historians Abulfeda (Vit. Moham. p. 123-127) and
Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 147-163: ) but we have the
advantage of appealing to the original evidence of the Koran, (c.
9, p. 154, 165,) with Sale’s learned and rational notes.]
148 (return) [ The Diploma securitatis Ailensibus is attested by
Ahmed Ben Joseph, and the author Libri Splendorum, (Gagnier, Not.
ad Abulfe dam, p. 125;) but Abulfeda himself, as well as Elmacin,
(Hist. Saracen. p. 11,) though he owns Mahomet’s regard for the
Christians, (p 13,) only mentions peace and tribute. In the year
1630, Sionita published at Paris the text and version of
Mahomet’s patent in favor of the Christians; which was admitted
and reprobated by the opposite taste of Salmasius and Grotius,
(Bayle, Mahomet, Rem. Aa.) Hottinger doubts of its authenticity,
(Hist. Orient. p. 237;) Renaudot urges the consent of the
Mohametans, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 169;) but Mosheim (Hist.
Eccles. p. 244) shows the futility of their opinion and inclines
to believe it spurious. Yet Abulpharagius quotes the impostor’s
treaty with the Nestorian patriarch, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient.
tom. ii. p. 418;) but Abulpharagius was primate of the
Jacobites.]
Till the age of sixty-three years, the strength of Mahomet was
equal to the temporal and spiritual fatigues of his mission. His
epileptic fits, an absurd calumny of the Greeks, would be an
object of pity rather than abhorrence; 149 but he seriously
believed that he was poisoned at Chaibar by the revenge of a
Jewish female. 150 During four years, the health of the prophet
declined; his infirmities increased; but his mortal disease was a
fever of fourteen days, which deprived him by intervals of the
use of reason. As soon as he was conscious of his danger, he
edified his brethren by the humility of his virtue or penitence.
“If there be any man,” said the apostle from the pulpit, “whom I
have unjustly scourged, I submit my own back to the lash of
retaliation. Have I aspersed the reputation of a Mussulman? let
him proclaim my thoughts in the face of the congregation. Has any
one been despoiled of his goods? the little that I possess shall
compensate the principal and the interest of the debt.” “Yes,”
replied a voice from the crowd, “I am entitled to three drams of
silver.” Mahomet heard the complaint, satisfied the demand, and
thanked his creditor for accusing him in this world rather than
at the day of judgment. He beheld with temperate firmness the
approach of death; enfranchised his slaves (seventeen men, as
they are named, and eleven women;) minutely directed the order of
his funeral, and moderated the lamentations of his weeping
friends, on whom he bestowed the benediction of peace. Till the
third day before his death, he regularly performed the function
of public prayer: the choice of Abubeker to supply his place,
appeared to mark that ancient and faithful friend as his
successor in the sacerdotal and regal office; but he prudently
declined the risk and envy of a more explicit nomination. At a
moment when his faculties were visibly impaired, he called for
pen and ink to write, or, more properly, to dictate, a divine
book, the sum and accomplishment of all his revelations: a
dispute arose in the chamber, whether he should be allowed to
supersede the authority of the Koran; and the prophet was forced
to reprove the indecent vehemence of his disciples. If the
slightest credit may be afforded to the traditions of his wives
and companions, he maintained, in the bosom of his family, and to
the last moments of his life, the dignity 1501 of an apostle, and
the faith of an enthusiast; described the visits of Gabriel, who
bade an everlasting farewell to the earth, and expressed his
lively confidence, not only of the mercy, but of the favor, of
the Supreme Being. In a familiar discourse he had mentioned his
special prerogative, that the angel of death was not allowed to
take his soul till he had respectfully asked the permission of
the prophet. The request was granted; and Mahomet immediately
fell into the agony of his dissolution: his head was reclined on
the lap of Ayesha, the best beloved of all his wives; he fainted
with the violence of pain; recovering his spirits, he raised his
eyes towards the roof of the house, and, with a steady look,
though a faltering voice, uttered the last broken, though
articulate, words: “O God!..... pardon my sins....... Yes, ......
I come,...... among my fellow-citizens on high;” and thus
peaceably expired on a carpet spread upon the floor. An
expedition for the conquest of Syria was stopped by this mournful
event; the army halted at the gates of Medina; the chiefs were
assembled round their dying master. The city, more especially the
house, of the prophet, was a scene of clamorous sorrow of silent
despair: fanaticism alone could suggest a ray of hope and
consolation. “How can he be dead, our witness, our intercessor,
our mediator, with God? By God he is not dead: like Moses and
Jesus, he is wrapped in a holy trance, and speedily will he
return to his faithful people.” The evidence of sense was
disregarded; and Omar, unsheathing his cimeter, threatened to
strike off the heads of the infidels, who should dare to affirm
that the prophet was no more. The tumult was appeased by the
weight and moderation of Abubeker. “Is it Mahomet,” said he to
Omar and the multitude, “or the God of Mahomet, whom you worship?
The God of Mahomet liveth forever; but the apostle was a mortal
like ourselves, and according to his own prediction, he has
experienced the common fate of mortality.” He was piously
interred by the hands of his nearest kinsman, on the same spot on
which he expired: 151 Medina has been sanctified by the death and
burial of Mahomet; and the innumerable pilgrims of Mecca often
turn aside from the way, to bow, in voluntary devotion, 152
before the simple tomb of the prophet. 153
149 (return) [ The epilepsy, or falling-sickness, of Mahomet is
asserted by Theophanes, Zonaras, and the rest of the Greeks; and
is greedily swallowed by the gross bigotry of Hottinger, (Hist.
Orient. p. 10, 11,) Prideaux, (Life of Mahomet, p. 12,) and
Maracci, (tom. ii. Alcoran, p. 762, 763.) The titles (the
wrapped-up, the covered) of two chapters of the Koran, (73, 74)
can hardly be strained to such an interpretation: the silence,
the ignorance of the Mahometan commentators, is more conclusive
than the most peremptory denial; and the charitable side is
espoused by Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens, tom. i. p. 301,)
Gagnier, (ad Abulfedam, p. 9. Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 118,)
and Sale, (Koran, p. 469-474.) * Note: Dr Weil believes in the
epilepsy, and adduces strong evidence for it; and surely it may
be believed, in perfect charity; and that the prophet’s visions
were connected, as they appear to have been, with these fits. I
have little doubt that he saw and believed these visions, and
visions they were. Weil, p. 43.—M. 1845.]
150 (return) [ This poison (more ignominious since it was offered
as a test of his prophetic knowledge) is frankly confessed by his
zealous votaries, Abulfeda (p. 92) and Al Jannabi, (apud Gagnier,
tom. ii. p. 286-288.)]
1501 (return) [ Major Price, who writes with the authority of one
widely conversant with the original sources of Eastern knowledge,
and in a very candid tone, takes a very different view of the
prophet’s death. “In tracing the circumstances of Mahommed’s
illness, we look in vain for any proofs of that meek and heroic
firmness which might be expected to dignify and embellish the
last moments of the apostle of God. On some occasions he betrayed
such want of fortitude, such marks of childish impatience, as are
in general to be found in men only of the most ordinary stamp;
and such as extorted from his wife Ayesha, in particular, the
sarcastic remark, that in herself, or any of her family, a
similar demeanor would long since have incurred his severe
displeasure. * * * He said that the acuteness and violence of his
sufferings were necessarily in the proportion of those honors
with which it had ever pleased the hand of Omnipotence to
distinguish its peculiar favorites.” Price, vol. i. p. 13.—M]
151 (return) [ The Greeks and Latins have invented and propagated
the vulgar and ridiculous story, that Mahomet’s iron tomb is
suspended in the air at Mecca, (Laonicus Chalcondyles, de Rebus
Turcicis, l. iii. p. 66,) by the action of equal and potent
loadstones, (Dictionnaire de Bayle, Mahomet, Rem. Ee. Ff.)
Without any philosophical inquiries, it may suffice, that, 1. The
prophet was not buried at Mecca; and, 2. That his tomb at Medina,
which has been visited by millions, is placed on the ground,
(Reland, de Relig. Moham. l. ii. c. 19, p. 209-211. Gagnier, Vie
de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 263-268.) * Note: According to the
testimony of all the Eastern authors, Mahomet died on Monday the
12th Reby 1st, in the year 11 of the Hegira, which answers in
reality to the 8th June, 632, of J. C. We find in Ockley (Hist.
of Saracens) that it was on Monday the 6th June, 632. This is a
mistake; for the 6th June of that year was a Saturday, not a
Monday; the 8th June, therefore, was a Monday. It is easy to
discover that the lunar year, in this calculation has been
confounded with the solar. St. Martin vol. xi. p. 186.—M.]
152 (return) [ Al Jannabi enumerates (Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii.
p. 372-391) the multifarious duties of a pilgrim who visits the
tombs of the prophet and his companions; and the learned casuist
decides, that this act of devotion is nearest in obligation and
merit to a divine precept. The doctors are divided which, of
Mecca or Medina, be the most excellent, (p. 391-394.)]
153 (return) [ The last sickness, death, and burial of Mahomet,
are described by Abulfeda and Gagnier, (Vit. Moham. p. 133-142.
—Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 220-271.) The most private and
interesting circumstances were originally received from Ayesha,
Ali, the sons of Abbas, &c.; and as they dwelt at Medina, and
survived the prophet many years, they might repeat the pious tale
to a second or third generation of pilgrims.]
At the conclusion of the life of Mahomet, it may perhaps be
expected, that I should balance his faults and virtues, that I
should decide whether the title of enthusiast or impostor more
properly belongs to that extraordinary man. Had I been intimately
conversant with the son of Abdallah, the task would still be
difficult, and the success uncertain: at the distance of twelve
centuries, I darkly contemplate his shade through a cloud of
religious incense; and could I truly delineate the portrait of an
hour, the fleeting resemblance would not equally apply to the
solitary of Mount Hera, to the preacher of Mecca, and to the
conqueror of Arabia. The author of a mighty revolution appears to
have been endowed with a pious and contemplative disposition: so
soon as marriage had raised him above the pressure of want, he
avoided the paths of ambition and avarice; and till the age of
forty he lived with innocence, and would have died without a
name. The unity of God is an idea most congenial to nature and
reason; and a slight conversation with the Jews and Christians
would teach him to despise and detest the idolatry of Mecca. It
was the duty of a man and a citizen to impart the doctrine of
salvation, to rescue his country from the dominion of sin and
error. The energy of a mind incessantly bent on the same object,
would convert a general obligation into a particular call; the
warm suggestions of the understanding or the fancy would be felt
as the inspirations of Heaven; the labor of thought would expire
in rapture and vision; and the inward sensation, the invisible
monitor, would be described with the form and attributes of an
angel of God. 154 From enthusiasm to imposture, the step is
perilous and slippery: the daemon of Socrates 155 affords a
memorable instance, how a wise man may deceive himself, how a
good man may deceive others, how the conscience may slumber in a
mixed and middle state between self-illusion and voluntary fraud.
Charity may believe that the original motives of Mahomet were
those of pure and genuine benevolence; but a human missionary is
incapable of cherishing the obstinate unbelievers who reject his
claims despise his arguments, and persecute his life; he might
forgive his personal adversaries, he may lawfully hate the
enemies of God; the stern passions of pride and revenge were
kindled in the bosom of Mahomet, and he sighed, like the prophet
of Nineveh, for the destruction of the rebels whom he had
condemned. The injustice of Mecca and the choice of Medina,
transformed the citizen into a prince, the humble preacher into
the leader of armies; but his sword was consecrated by the
example of the saints; and the same God who afflicts a sinful
world with pestilence and earthquakes, might inspire for their
conversion or chastisement the valor of his servants. In the
exercise of political government, he was compelled to abate of
the stern rigor of fanaticism, to comply in some measure with the
prejudices and passions of his followers, and to employ even the
vices of mankind as the instruments of their salvation. The use
of fraud and perfidy, of cruelty and injustice, were often
subservient to the propagation of the faith; and Mahomet
commanded or approved the assassination of the Jews and idolaters
who had escaped from the field of battle. By the repetition of
such acts, the character of Mahomet must have been gradually
stained; and the influence of such pernicious habits would be
poorly compensated by the practice of the personal and social
virtues which are necessary to maintain the reputation of a
prophet among his sectaries and friends. Of his last years,
ambition was the ruling passion; and a politician will suspect,
that he secretly smiled (the victorious impostor!) at the
enthusiasm of his youth, and the credulity of his proselytes. 156
A philosopher will observe, that their credulity and his success
would tend more strongly to fortify the assurance of his divine
mission, that his interest and religion were inseparably
connected, and that his conscience would be soothed by the
persuasion, that he alone was absolved by the Deity from the
obligation of positive and moral laws. If he retained any vestige
of his native innocence, the sins of Mahomet may be allowed as an
evidence of his sincerity. In the support of truth, the arts of
fraud and fiction may be deemed less criminal; and he would have
started at the foulness of the means, had he not been satisfied
of the importance and justice of the end. Even in a conqueror or
a priest, I can surprise a word or action of unaffected humanity;
and the decree of Mahomet, that, in the sale of captives, the
mothers should never be separated from their children, may
suspend, or moderate, the censure of the historian. 157
154 (return) [ The Christians, rashly enough, have assigned to
Mahomet a tame pigeon, that seemed to descend from heaven and
whisper in his ear. As this pretended miracle is urged by
Grotius, (de Veritate Religionis Christianae,) his Arabic
translator, the learned Pocock, inquired of him the names of his
authors; and Grotius confessed, that it is unknown to the
Mahometans themselves. Lest it should provoke their indignation
and laughter, the pious lie is suppressed in the Arabic version;
but it has maintained an edifying place in the numerous editions
of the Latin text, (Pocock, Specimen, Hist. Arabum, p. 186, 187.
Reland, de Religion. Moham. l. ii. c. 39, p. 259-262.)]
155 (return) [ (Plato, in Apolog. Socrat. c. 19, p. 121, 122,
edit. Fischer.) The familiar examples, which Socrates urges in
his Dialogue with Theages, (Platon. Opera, tom. i. p. 128, 129,
edit. Hen. Stephan.) are beyond the reach of human foresight; and
the divine inspiration of the philosopher is clearly taught in
the Memorabilia of Xenophon. The ideas of the most rational
Platonists are expressed by Cicero, (de Divinat. i. 54,) and in
the xivth and xvth Dissertations of Maximus of Tyre, (p. 153-172,
edit. Davis.)]
156 (return) [ In some passage of his voluminous writings,
Voltaire compares the prophet, in his old age, to a fakir, “qui
detache la chaine de son cou pour en donner sur les oreilles a
ses confreres.”]
157 (return) [ Gagnier relates, with the same impartial pen, this
humane law of the prophet, and the murders of Caab, and Sophian,
which he prompted and approved, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. ii. p. 69,
97, 208.)]
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part VII.
The good sense of Mahomet 158 despised the pomp of royalty: the
apostle of God submitted to the menial offices of the family: he
kindled the fire, swept the floor, milked the ewes, and mended
with his own hands his shoes and his woollen garment. Disdaining
the penance and merit of a hermit, he observed, without effort or
vanity, the abstemious diet of an Arab and a soldier. On solemn
occasions he feasted his companions with rustic and hospitable
plenty; but in his domestic life, many weeks would elapse without
a fire being kindled on the hearth of the prophet. The
interdiction of wine was confirmed by his example; his hunger was
appeased with a sparing allowance of barley-bread: he delighted
in the taste of milk and honey; but his ordinary food consisted
of dates and water. Perfumes and women were the two sensual
enjoyments which his nature required, and his religion did not
forbid; and Mahomet affirmed, that the fervor of his devotion was
increased by these innocent pleasures. The heat of the climate
inflames the blood of the Arabs; and their libidinous complexion
has been noticed by the writers of antiquity. 159 Their
incontinence was regulated by the civil and religious laws of the
Koran: their incestuous alliances were blamed; the boundless
license of polygamy was reduced to four legitimate wives or
concubines; their rights both of bed and of dowry were equitably
determined; the freedom of divorce was discouraged, adultery was
condemned as a capital offence; and fornication, in either sex,
was punished with a hundred stripes. 160 Such were the calm and
rational precepts of the legislator: but in his private conduct,
Mahomet indulged the appetites of a man, and abused the claims of
a prophet. A special revelation dispensed him from the laws which
he had imposed on his nation: the female sex, without reserve,
was abandoned to his desires; and this singular prerogative
excited the envy, rather than the scandal, the veneration, rather
than the envy, of the devout Mussulmans. If we remember the seven
hundred wives and three hundred concubines of the wise Solomon,
we shall applaud the modesty of the Arabian, who espoused no more
than seventeen or fifteen wives; eleven are enumerated who
occupied at Medina their separate apartments round the house of
the apostle, and enjoyed in their turns the favor of his conjugal
society. What is singular enough, they were all widows, excepting
only Ayesha, the daughter of Abubeker. She was doubtless a
virgin, since Mahomet consummated his nuptials (such is the
premature ripeness of the climate) when she was only nine years
of age. The youth, the beauty, the spirit of Ayesha, gave her a
superior ascendant: she was beloved and trusted by the prophet;
and, after his death, the daughter of Abubeker was long revered
as the mother of the faithful. Her behavior had been ambiguous
and indiscreet: in a nocturnal march she was accidentally left
behind; and in the morning Ayesha returned to the camp with a
man. The temper of Mahomet was inclined to jealousy; but a divine
revelation assured him of her innocence: he chastised her
accusers, and published a law of domestic peace, that no woman
should be condemned unless four male witnesses had seen her in
the act of adultery. 161 In his adventures with Zeineb, the wife
of Zeid, and with Mary, an Egyptian captive, the amorous prophet
forgot the interest of his reputation. At the house of Zeid, his
freedman and adopted son, he beheld, in a loose undress, the
beauty of Zeineb, and burst forth into an ejaculation of devotion
and desire. The servile, or grateful, freedman understood the
hint, and yielded without hesitation to the love of his
benefactor. But as the filial relation had excited some doubt and
scandal, the angel Gabriel descended from heaven to ratify the
deed, to annul the adoption, and gently to reprove the apostle
for distrusting the indulgence of his God. One of his wives,
Hafna, the daughter of Omar, surprised him on her own bed, in the
embraces of his Egyptian captive: she promised secrecy and
forgiveness, he swore that he would renounce the possession of
Mary. Both parties forgot their engagements; and Gabriel again
descended with a chapter of the Koran, to absolve him from his
oath, and to exhort him freely to enjoy his captives and
concubines, without listening to the clamors of his wives. In a
solitary retreat of thirty days, he labored, alone with Mary, to
fulfil the commands of the angel. When his love and revenge were
satiated, he summoned to his presence his eleven wives,
reproached their disobedience and indiscretion, and threatened
them with a sentence of divorce, both in this world and in the
next; a dreadful sentence, since those who had ascended the bed
of the prophet were forever excluded from the hope of a second
marriage. Perhaps the incontinence of Mahomet may be palliated by
the tradition of his natural or preternatural gifts; 162 he
united the manly virtue of thirty of the children of Adam: and
the apostle might rival the thirteenth labor 163 of the Grecian
Hercules. 164 A more serious and decent excuse may be drawn from
his fidelity to Cadijah. During the twenty-four years of their
marriage, her youthful husband abstained from the right of
polygamy, and the pride or tenderness of the venerable matron was
never insulted by the society of a rival. After her death, he
placed her in the rank of the four perfect women, with the sister
of Moses, the mother of Jesus, and Fatima, the best beloved of
his daughters. “Was she not old?” said Ayesha, with the insolence
of a blooming beauty; “has not God given you a better in her
place?” “No, by God,” said Mahomet, with an effusion of honest
gratitude, “there never can be a better! She believed in me when
men despised me; she relieved my wants, when I was poor and
persecuted by the world.” 165
158 (return) [ For the domestic life of Mahomet, consult Gagnier,
and the corresponding chapters of Abulfeda; for his diet, (tom.
iii. p. 285-288;) his children, (p. 189, 289;) his wives, (p.
290-303;) his marriage with Zeineb, (tom. ii. p. 152-160;) his
amour with Mary, (p. 303-309;) the false accusation of Ayesha,
(p. 186-199.) The most original evidence of the three last
transactions is contained in the xxivth, xxxiiid, and lxvith
chapters of the Koran, with Sale’s Commentary. Prideaux (Life of
Mahomet, p. 80-90) and Maracci (Prodrom. Alcoran, part iv. p.
49-59) have maliciously exaggerated the frailties of Mahomet.]
159 (return) [ Incredibile est quo ardore apud eos in Venerem
uterque solvitur sexus, (Ammian. Marcellin. l. xiv. c. 4.)]
160 (return) [ Sale (Preliminary Discourse, p. 133-137) has
recapitulated the laws of marriage, divorce, &c.; and the curious
reader of Selden’s Uror Hebraica will recognize many Jewish
ordinances.]
161 (return) [ In a memorable case, the Caliph Omar decided that
all presumptive evidence was of no avail; and that all the four
witnesses must have actually seen stylum in pyxide, (Abulfedae
Annales Moslemici, p. 71, vers. Reiske.)]
162 (return) [ Sibi robur ad generationem, quantum triginta viri
habent, inesse jacteret: ita ut unica hora posset undecim
foeminis satisfacere, ut ex Arabum libris refert Stus. Petrus
Paschasius, c. 2., (Maracci, Prodromus Alcoran, p. iv. p. 55. See
likewise Observations de Belon, l. iii. c. 10, fol. 179, recto.)
Al Jannabi (Gagnier, tom. iii. p. 287) records his own testimony,
that he surpassed all men in conjugal vigor; and Abulfeda
mentions the exclamation of Ali, who washed the body after his
death, “O propheta, certe penis tuus coelum versus erectus est,”
in Vit. Mohammed, p. 140.]
163 (return) [ I borrow the style of a father of the church,
(Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 108.)]
164 (return) [ The common and most glorious legend includes, in a
single night the fifty victories of Hercules over the virgin
daughters of Thestius, (Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. iv. p. 274.
Pausanias, l. ix. p. 763. Statius Sylv. l. i. eleg. iii. v. 42.)
But Athenaeus allows seven nights, (Deipnosophist, l. xiii. p.
556,) and Apollodorus fifty, for this arduous achievement of
Hercules, who was then no more than eighteen years of age,
(Bibliot. l. ii. c. 4, p. 111, cum notis Heyne, part i. p. 332.)]
165 (return) [ Abulfeda in Vit. Moham. p. 12, 13, 16, 17, cum
Notis Gagnier]
In the largest indulgence of polygamy, the founder of a religion
and empire might aspire to multiply the chances of a numerous
posterity and a lineal succession. The hopes of Mahomet were
fatally disappointed. The virgin Ayesha, and his ten widows of
mature age and approved fertility, were barren in his potent
embraces. The four sons of Cadijah died in their infancy. Mary,
his Egyptian concubine, was endeared to him by the birth of
Ibrahim. At the end of fifteen months the prophet wept over his
grave; but he sustained with firmness the raillery of his
enemies, and checked the adulation or credulity of the Moslems,
by the assurance that an eclipse of the sun was not occasioned by
the death of the infant. Cadijah had likewise given him four
daughters, who were married to the most faithful of his
disciples: the three eldest died before their father; but Fatima,
who possessed his confidence and love, became the wife of her
cousin Ali, and the mother of an illustrious progeny. The merit
and misfortunes of Ali and his descendants will lead me to
anticipate, in this place, the series of the Saracen caliphs, a
title which describes the commanders of the faithful as the
vicars and successors of the apostle of God. 166
166 (return) [ This outline of the Arabian history is drawn from
the Bibliotheque Orientale of D’Herbelot, (under the names of
Aboubecre, Omar Othman, Ali, &c.;) from the Annals of Abulfeda,
Abulpharagius, and Elmacin, (under the proper years of the
Hegira,) and especially from Ockley’s History of the Saracens,
(vol. i. p. 1-10, 115-122, 229, 249, 363-372, 378-391, and almost
the whole of the second volume.) Yet we should weigh with caution
the traditions of the hostile sects; a stream which becomes still
more muddy as it flows farther from the source. Sir John Chardin
has too faithfully copied the fables and errors of the modern
Persians, (Voyages, tom. ii. p. 235-250, &c.)]
The birth, the alliance, the character of Ali, which exalted him
above the rest of his countrymen, might justify his claim to the
vacant throne of Arabia. The son of Abu Taleb was, in his own
right, the chief of the family of Hashem, and the hereditary
prince or guardian of the city and temple of Mecca. The light of
prophecy was extinct; but the husband of Fatima might expect the
inheritance and blessing of her father: the Arabs had sometimes
been patient of a female reign; and the two grandsons of the
prophet had often been fondled in his lap, and shown in his
pulpit as the hope of his age, and the chief of the youth of
paradise. The first of the true believers might aspire to march
before them in this world and in the next; and if some were of a
graver and more rigid cast, the zeal and virtue of Ali were never
outstripped by any recent proselyte. He united the qualifications
of a poet, a soldier, and a saint: his wisdom still breathes in a
collection of moral and religious sayings; 167 and every
antagonist, in the combats of the tongue or of the sword, was
subdued by his eloquence and valor. From the first hour of his
mission to the last rites of his funeral, the apostle was never
forsaken by a generous friend, whom he delighted to name his
brother, his vicegerent, and the faithful Aaron of a second
Moses. The son of Abu Taleb was afterwards reproached for
neglecting to secure his interest by a solemn declaration of his
right, which would have silenced all competition, and sealed his
succession by the decrees of Heaven. But the unsuspecting hero
confided in himself: the jealousy of empire, and perhaps the fear
of opposition, might suspend the resolutions of Mahomet; and the
bed of sickness was besieged by the artful Ayesha, the daughter
of Abubeker, and the enemy of Ali. 1671
167 (return) [ Ockley (at the end of his second volume) has given
an English version of 169 sentences, which he ascribes, with some
hesitation, to Ali, the son of Abu Taleb. His preface is colored
by the enthusiasm of a translator; yet these sentences delineate
a characteristic, though dark, picture of human life.]
1671 (return) [ Gibbon wrote chiefly from the Arabic or Sunnite
account of these transactions, the only sources accessible at the
time when he composed his History. Major Price, writing from
Persian authorities, affords us the advantage of comparing
throughout what may be fairly considered the Shiite Version. The
glory of Ali is the constant burden of their strain. He was
destined, and, according to some accounts, designated, for the
caliphate by the prophet; but while the others were fiercely
pushing their own interests, Ali was watching the remains of
Mahomet with pious fidelity. His disinterested magnanimity, on
each separate occasion, declined the sceptre, and gave the noble
example of obedience to the appointed caliph. He is described, in
retirement, on the throne, and in the field of battle, as
transcendently pious, magnanimous, valiant, and humane. He lost
his empire through his excess of virtue and love for the faithful
his life through his confidence in God, and submission to the
decrees of fate. Compare the curious account of this apathy in
Price, chapter ii. It is to be regretted, I must add, that Major
Price has contented himself with quoting the names of the Persian
works which he follows, without any account of their character,
age, and authority.—M.]
The silence and death of the prophet restored the liberty of the
people; and his companions convened an assembly to deliberate on
the choice of his successor. The hereditary claim and lofty
spirit of Ali were offensive to an aristocracy of elders,
desirous of bestowing and resuming the sceptre by a free and
frequent election: the Koreish could never be reconciled to the
proud preeminence of the line of Hashem; the ancient discord of
the tribes was rekindled, the fugitives of Mecca and the
auxiliaries of Medina asserted their respective merits; and the
rash proposal of choosing two independent caliphs would have
crushed in their infancy the religion and empire of the Saracens.
The tumult was appeased by the disinterested resolution of Omar,
who, suddenly renouncing his own pretensions, stretched forth his
hand, and declared himself the first subject of the mild and
venerable Abubeker. 1672 The urgency of the moment, and the
acquiescence of the people, might excuse this illegal and
precipitate measure; but Omar himself confessed from the pulpit,
that if any Mulsulman should hereafter presume to anticipate the
suffrage of his brethren, both the elector and the elected would
be worthy of death. 168 After the simple inauguration of
Abubeker, he was obeyed in Medina, Mecca, and the provinces of
Arabia: the Hashemites alone declined the oath of fidelity; and
their chief, in his own house, maintained, above six months, a
sullen and independent reserve; without listening to the threats
of Omar, who attempted to consume with fire the habitation of the
daughter of the apostle. The death of Fatima, and the decline of
his party, subdued the indignant spirit of Ali: he condescended
to salute the commander of the faithful, accepted his excuse of
the necessity of preventing their common enemies, and wisely
rejected his courteous offer of abdicating the government of the
Arabians. After a reign of two years, the aged caliph was
summoned by the angel of death. In his testament, with the tacit
approbation of his companions, he bequeathed the sceptre to the
firm and intrepid virtue of Omar. “I have no occasion,” said the
modest candidate, “for the place.” “But the place has occasion
for you,” replied Abubeker; who expired with a fervent prayer,
that the God of Mahomet would ratify his choice, and direct the
Mussulmans in the way of concord and obedience. The prayer was
not ineffectual, since Ali himself, in a life of privacy and
prayer, professed to revere the superior worth and dignity of his
rival; who comforted him for the loss of empire, by the most
flattering marks of confidence and esteem. In the twelfth year of
his reign, Omar received a mortal wound from the hand of an
assassin: he rejected with equal impartiality the names of his
son and of Ali, refused to load his conscience with the sins of
his successor, and devolved on six of the most respectable
companions the arduous task of electing a commander of the
faithful. On this occasion, Ali was again blamed by his friends
169 for submitting his right to the judgment of men, for
recognizing their jurisdiction by accepting a place among the six
electors. He might have obtained their suffrage, had he deigned
to promise a strict and servile conformity, not only to the Koran
and tradition, but likewise to the determinations of two seniors.
170 With these limitations, Othman, the secretary of Mahomet,
accepted the government; nor was it till after the third caliph,
twenty-four years after the death of the prophet, that Ali was
invested, by the popular choice, with the regal and sacerdotal
office. The manners of the Arabians retained their primitive
simplicity, and the son of Abu Taleb despised the pomp and vanity
of this world. At the hour of prayer, he repaired to the mosch of
Medina, clothed in a thin cotton gown, a coarse turban on his
head, his slippers in one hand, and his bow in the other, instead
of a walking-staff. The companions of the prophet, and the chiefs
of the tribes, saluted their new sovereign, and gave him their
right hands as a sign of fealty and allegiance.
1672 (return) [ Abubeker, the father of the virgin Ayesha. St.
Martin, vol. XL, p. 88—M.]
168 (return) [ Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 5, 6,)
from an Arabian Ms., represents Ayesha as adverse to the
substitution of her father in the place of the apostle. This
fact, so improbable in itself, is unnoticed by Abulfeda, Al
Jannabi, and Al Bochari, the last of whom quotes the tradition of
Ayesha herself, (Vit. Mohammed, p. 136 Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii.
p. 236.)]
169 (return) [ Particularly by his friend and cousin Abdallah,
the son of Abbas, who died A.D. 687, with the title of grand
doctor of the Moslems. In Abulfeda he recapitulates the important
occasions in which Ali had neglected his salutary advice, (p. 76,
vers. Reiske;) and concludes, (p. 85,) O princeps fidelium,
absque controversia tu quidem vere fortis es, at inops boni
consilii, et rerum gerendarum parum callens.]
170 (return) [ I suspect that the two seniors (Abulpharagius, p.
115. Ockley, tom. i. p. 371,) may signify not two actual
counsellors, but his two predecessors, Abubeker and Omar.]
The mischiefs that flow from the contests of ambition are usually
confined to the times and countries in which they have been
agitated. But the religious discord of the friends and enemies of
Ali has been renewed in every age of the Hegira, and is still
maintained in the immortal hatred of the Persians and Turks. 171
The former, who are branded with the appellation of Shiites or
sectaries, have enriched the Mahometan creed with a new article
of faith; and if Mahomet be the apostle, his companion Ali is the
vicar, of God. In their private converse, in their public
worship, they bitterly execrate the three usurpers who
intercepted his indefeasible right to the dignity of Imam and
Caliph; and the name of Omar expresses in their tongue the
perfect accomplishment of wickedness and impiety. 172 The
Sonnites, who are supported by the general consent and orthodox
tradition of the Mussulmans, entertain a more impartial, or at
least a more decent, opinion. They respect the memory of
Abubeker, Omar, Othman, and Ali, the holy and legitimate
successors of the prophet. But they assign the last and most
humble place to the husband of Fatima, in the persuasion that the
order of succession was determined by the decrees of sanctity.
173 An historian who balances the four caliphs with a hand
unshaken by superstition, will calmly pronounce that their
manners were alike pure and exemplary; that their zeal was
fervent, and probably sincere; and that, in the midst of riches
and power, their lives were devoted to the practice of moral and
religious duties. But the public virtues of Abubeker and Omar,
the prudence of the first, the severity of the second, maintained
the peace and prosperity of their reigns. The feeble temper and
declining age of Othman were incapable of sustaining the weight
of conquest and empire. He chose, and he was deceived; he
trusted, and he was betrayed: the most deserving of the faithful
became useless or hostile to his government, and his lavish
bounty was productive only of ingratitude and discontent. The
spirit of discord went forth in the provinces: their deputies
assembled at Medina; and the Charegites, the desperate fanatics
who disclaimed the yoke of subordination and reason, were
confounded among the free-born Arabs, who demanded the redress of
their wrongs and the punishment of their oppressors. From Cufa,
from Bassora, from Egypt, from the tribes of the desert, they
rose in arms, encamped about a league from Medina, and despatched
a haughty mandate to their sovereign, requiring him to execute
justice, or to descend from the throne. His repentance began to
disarm and disperse the insurgents; but their fury was rekindled
by the arts of his enemies; and the forgery of a perfidious
secretary was contrived to blast his reputation and precipitate
his fall. The caliph had lost the only guard of his predecessors,
the esteem and confidence of the Moslems: during a siege of six
weeks his water and provisions were intercepted, and the feeble
gates of the palace were protected only by the scruples of the
more timorous rebels. Forsaken by those who had abused his
simplicity, the hopeless and venerable caliph expected the
approach of death: the brother of Ayesha marched at the head of
the assassins; and Othman, with the Koran in his lap, was pierced
with a multitude of wounds. 1731 A tumultuous anarchy of five
days was appeased by the inauguration of Ali: his refusal would
have provoked a general massacre. In this painful situation he
supported the becoming pride of the chief of the Hashemites;
declared that he had rather serve than reign; rebuked the
presumption of the strangers; and required the formal, if not the
voluntary, assent of the chiefs of the nation. He has never been
accused of prompting the assassin of Omar; though Persia
indiscreetly celebrates the festival of that holy martyr. The
quarrel between Othman and his subjects was assuaged by the early
mediation of Ali; and Hassan, the eldest of his sons, was
insulted and wounded in the defence of the caliph. Yet it is
doubtful whether the father of Hassan was strenuous and sincere
in his opposition to the rebels; and it is certain that he
enjoyed the benefit of their crime. The temptation was indeed of
such magnitude as might stagger and corrupt the most obdurate
virtue. The ambitious candidate no longer aspired to the barren
sceptre of Arabia; the Saracens had been victorious in the East
and West; and the wealthy kingdoms of Persia, Syria, and Egypt
were the patrimony of the commander of the faithful.
171 (return) [ The schism of the Persians is explained by all our
travellers of the last century, especially in the iid and ivth
volumes of their master, Chardin. Niebuhr, though of inferior
merit, has the advantage of writing so late as the year 1764,
(Voyages en Arabie, &c., tom. ii. p. 208-233,) since the
ineffectual attempt of Nadir Shah to change the religion of the
nation, (see his Persian History translated into French by Sir
William Jones, tom. ii. p. 5, 6, 47, 48, 144-155.)]
172 (return) [ Omar is the name of the devil; his murderer is a
saint. When the Persians shoot with the bow, they frequently cry,
“May this arrow go to the heart of Omar!” (Voyages de Chardin,
tom. ii. p 239, 240, 259, &c.)]
173 (return) [ This gradation of merit is distinctly marked in a
creed illustrated by Reland, (de Relig. Mohamm. l. i. p. 37;) and
a Sonnite argument inserted by Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens,
tom. ii. p. 230.) The practice of cursing the memory of Ali was
abolished, after forty years, by the Ommiades themselves,
(D’Herbelot, p. 690;) and there are few among the Turks who
presume to revile him as an infidel, (Voyages de Chardin, tom.
iv. p. 46.)]
1731 (return) [ Compare Price, p. 180.—M.]
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part VIII.
A life of prayer and contemplation had not chilled the martial
activity of Ali; but in a mature age, after a long experience of
mankind, he still betrayed in his conduct the rashness and
indiscretion of youth. 1732 In the first days of his reign, he
neglected to secure, either by gifts or fetters, the doubtful
allegiance of Telha and Zobeir, two of the most powerful of the
Arabian chiefs. They escaped from Medina to Mecca, and from
thence to Bassora; erected the standard of revolt; and usurped
the government of Irak, or Assyria, which they had vainly
solicited as the reward of their services. The mask of patriotism
is allowed to cover the most glaring inconsistencies; and the
enemies, perhaps the assassins, of Othman now demanded vengeance
for his blood. They were accompanied in their flight by Ayesha,
the widow of the prophet, who cherished, to the last hour of her
life, an implacable hatred against the husband and the posterity
of Fatima. The most reasonable Moslems were scandalized, that the
mother of the faithful should expose in a camp her person and
character; 1733 but the superstitious crowd was confident that
her presence would sanctify the justice, and assure the success,
of their cause. At the head of twenty thousand of his loyal
Arabs, and nine thousand valiant auxiliaries of Cufa, the caliph
encountered and defeated the superior numbers of the rebels under
the walls of Bassora. 1734 Their leaders, Telha and Zobeir, 1735
were slain in the first battle that stained with civil blood the
arms of the Moslems. 1736 After passing through the ranks to
animate the troops, Ayesha had chosen her post amidst the dangers
of the field. In the heat of the action, seventy men, who held
the bridle of her camel, were successively killed or wounded; and
the cage or litter, in which she sat, was stuck with javelins and
darts like the quills of a porcupine. The venerable captive
sustained with firmness the reproaches of the conqueror, and was
speedily dismissed to her proper station at the tomb of Mahomet,
with the respect and tenderness that was still due to the widow
of the apostle. 1737 After this victory, which was styled the Day
of the Camel, Ali marched against a more formidable adversary;
against Moawiyah, the son of Abu Sophian, who had assumed the
title of caliph, and whose claim was supported by the forces of
Syria and the interest of the house of Ommiyah. From the passage
of Thapsacus, the plain of Siffin 174 extends along the western
bank of the Euphrates. On this spacious and level theatre, the
two competitors waged a desultory war of one hundred and ten
days. In the course of ninety actions or skirmishes, the loss of
Ali was estimated at twenty-five, that of Moawiyah at forty-five,
thousand soldiers; and the list of the slain was dignified with
the names of five-and-twenty veterans who had fought at Beder
under the standard of Mahomet. In this sanguinary contest the
lawful caliph displayed a superior character of valor and
humanity. 1741 His troops were strictly enjoined to await the
first onset of the enemy, to spare their flying brethren, and to
respect the bodies of the dead, and the chastity of the female
captives. He generously proposed to save the blood of the Moslems
by a single combat; but his trembling rival declined the
challenge as a sentence of inevitable death. The ranks of the
Syrians were broken by the charge of a hero who was mounted on a
piebald horse, and wielded with irresistible force his ponderous
and two-edged sword. As often as he smote a rebel, he shouted the
Allah Acbar, “God is victorious!” and in the tumult of a
nocturnal battle, he was heard to repeat four hundred times that
tremendous exclamation. The prince of Damascus already meditated
his flight; but the certain victory was snatched from the grasp
of Ali by the disobedience and enthusiasm of his troops. Their
conscience was awed by the solemn appeal to the books of the
Koran which Moawiyah exposed on the foremost lances; and Ali was
compelled to yield to a disgraceful truce and an insidious
compromise. He retreated with sorrow and indignation to Cufa; his
party was discouraged; the distant provinces of Persia, of Yemen,
and of Egypt, were subdued or seduced by his crafty rival; and
the stroke of fanaticism, which was aimed against the three
chiefs of the nation, was fatal only to the cousin of Mahomet. In
the temple of Mecca, three Charegites or enthusiasts discoursed
of the disorders of the church and state: they soon agreed, that
the deaths of Ali, of Moawiyah, and of his friend Amrou, the
viceroy of Egypt, would restore the peace and unity of religion.
Each of the assassins chose his victim, poisoned his dagger,
devoted his life, and secretly repaired to the scene of action.
Their resolution was equally desperate: but the first mistook the
person of Amrou, and stabbed the deputy who occupied his seat;
the prince of Damascus was dangerously hurt by the second; the
lawful caliph, in the mosch of Cufa, received a mortal wound from
the hand of the third. He expired in the sixty-third year of his
age, and mercifully recommended to his children, that they would
despatch the murderer by a single stroke. 1742 The sepulchre of
Ali 175 was concealed from the tyrants of the house of Ommiyah;
176 but in the fourth age of the Hegira, a tomb, a temple, a
city, arose near the ruins of Cufa. 177 Many thousands of the
Shiites repose in holy ground at the feet of the vicar of God;
and the desert is vivified by the numerous and annual visits of
the Persians, who esteem their devotion not less meritorious than
the pilgrimage of Mecca.
1732 (return) [ Ali had determined to supersede all the
lieutenants in the different provinces. Price, p. 191. Compare,
on the conduct of Telha and Zobeir, p. 193—M.]
1733 (return) [ See the very curious circumstances which took
place before and during her flight. Price, p. 196.—M.]
1734 (return) [ The reluctance of Ali to shed the blood of true
believers is strikingly described by Major Price’s Persian
historians. Price, p. 222.—M.]
1735 (return) [ See (in Price) the singular adventures of Zobeir.
He was murdered after having abandoned the army of the
insurgents. Telha was about to do the same, when his leg was
pierced with an arrow by one of his own party The wound was
mortal. Price, p. 222.—M.]
1736 (return) [ According to Price, two hundred and eighty of the
Benni Beianziel alone lost a right hand in this service, (p.
225.)—M]
1737 (return) [ She was escorted by a guard of females disguised
as soldiers. When she discovered this, Ayesha was as much
gratified by the delicacy of the arrangement, as she had been
offended by the familiar approach of so many men. Price, p.
229.—M.]
174 (return) [ The plain of Siffin is determined by D’Anville
(l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 29) to be the Campus Barbaricus of
Procopius.]
1741 (return) [ The Shiite authors have preserved a noble
instance of Ali’s magnanimity. The superior generalship of
Moawiyah had cut off the army of Ali from the Euphrates; his
soldiers were perishing from want of water. Ali sent a message to
his rival to request free access to the river, declaring that
under the same circumstances he would not allow any of the
faithful, though his adversaries, to perish from thirst. After
some debate, Moawiyah determined to avail himself of the
advantage of his situation, and to reject the demand of Ali. The
soldiers of Ali became desperate; forced their way through that
part of the hostile army which commanded the river, and in their
turn entirely cut off the troops of Moawiyah from the water.
Moawiyah was reduced to make the same supplication to Ali. The
generous caliph instantly complied; and both armies, with their
cattle enjoyed free and unmolested access to the river. Price,
vol. i. p. 268, 272—M.]
1742 (return) [ His son Hassan was recognized as caliph in Arabia
and Irak; but voluntarily abdicated the throne, after six or
seven months, in favor of Moawiyah St. Martin, vol. xi. p
375.—M.]
175 (return) [ Abulfeda, a moderate Sonnite, relates the
different opinions concerning the burial of Ali, but adopts the
sepulchre of Cufa, hodie fama numeroque religiose frequentantium
celebratum. This number is reckoned by Niebuhr to amount annually
to 2000 of the dead, and 5000 of the living, (tom. ii. p. 208,
209.)]
176 (return) [ All the tyrants of Persia, from Adhad el Dowlat
(A.D. 977, D’Herbelot, p. 58, 59, 95) to Nadir Shah, (A.D. 1743,
Hist. de Nadir Shah, tom. ii. p. 155,) have enriched the tomb of
Ali with the spoils of the people. The dome is copper, with a
bright and massy gilding, which glitters to the sun at the
distance of many a mile.]
177 (return) [ The city of Meshed Ali, five or six miles from the
ruins of Cufa, and one hundred and twenty to the south of Bagdad,
is of the size and form of the modern Jerusalem. Meshed Hosein,
larger and more populous, is at the distance of thirty miles.]
The persecutors of Mahomet usurped the inheritance of his
children; and the champions of idolatry became the supreme heads
of his religion and empire. The opposition of Abu Sophian had
been fierce and obstinate; his conversion was tardy and
reluctant; his new faith was fortified by necessity and interest;
he served, he fought, perhaps he believed; and the sins of the
time of ignorance were expiated by the recent merits of the
family of Ommiyah. Moawiyah, the son of Abu Sophian, and of the
cruel Henda, was dignified, in his early youth, with the office
or title of secretary of the prophet: the judgment of Omar
intrusted him with the government of Syria; and he administered
that important province above forty years, either in a
subordinate or supreme rank. Without renouncing the fame of valor
and liberality, he affected the reputation of humanity and
moderation: a grateful people was attached to their benefactor;
and the victorious Moslems were enriched with the spoils of
Cyprus and Rhodes. The sacred duty of pursuing the assassins of
Othman was the engine and pretence of his ambition. The bloody
shirt of the martyr was exposed in the mosch of Damascus: the
emir deplored the fate of his injured kinsman; and sixty thousand
Syrians were engaged in his service by an oath of fidelity and
revenge. Amrou, the conqueror of Egypt, himself an army, was the
first who saluted the new monarch, and divulged the dangerous
secret, that the Arabian caliphs might be created elsewhere than
in the city of the prophet. 178 The policy of Moawiyah eluded the
valor of his rival; and, after the death of Ali, he negotiated
the abdication of his son Hassan, whose mind was either above or
below the government of the world, and who retired without a sigh
from the palace of Cufa to an humble cell near the tomb of his
grandfather. The aspiring wishes of the caliph were finally
crowned by the important change of an elective to an hereditary
kingdom. Some murmurs of freedom or fanaticism attested the
reluctance of the Arabs, and four citizens of Medina refused the
oath of fidelity; but the designs of Moawiyah were conducted with
vigor and address; and his son Yezid, a feeble and dissolute
youth, was proclaimed as the commander of the faithful and the
successor of the apostle of God.
178 (return) [ I borrow, on this occasion, the strong sense and
expression of Tacitus, (Hist. i. 4: ) Evulgato imperii arcano
posse imperatorem alni quam Romae fieri.]
A familiar story is related of the benevolence of one of the sons
of Ali. In serving at table, a slave had inadvertently dropped a
dish of scalding broth on his master: the heedless wretch fell
prostrate, to deprecate his punishment, and repeated a verse of
the Koran: “Paradise is for those who command their anger: “—“I
am not angry: “—“and for those who pardon offences: “—“I pardon
your offence: “—“and for those who return good for evil: “—”I
give you your liberty and four hundred pieces of silver.” With an
equal measure of piety, Hosein, the younger brother of Hassan,
inherited a remnant of his father’s spirit, and served with honor
against the Christians in the siege of Constantinople. The
primogeniture of the line of Hashem, and the holy character of
grandson of the apostle, had centred in his person, and he was at
liberty to prosecute his claim against Yezid, the tyrant of
Damascus, whose vices he despised, and whose title he had never
deigned to acknowledge. A list was secretly transmitted from Cufa
to Medina, of one hundred and forty thousand Moslems, who
professed their attachment to his cause, and who were eager to
draw their swords so soon as he should appear on the banks of the
Euphrates. Against the advice of his wisest friends, he resolved
to trust his person and family in the hands of a perfidious
people. He traversed the desert of Arabia with a timorous retinue
of women and children; but as he approached the confines of Irak
he was alarmed by the solitary or hostile face of the country,
and suspected either the defection or ruin of his party. His
fears were just: Obeidollah, the governor of Cufa, had
extinguished the first sparks of an insurrection; and Hosein, in
the plain of Kerbela, was encompassed by a body of five thousand
horse, who intercepted his communication with the city and the
river. He might still have escaped to a fortress in the desert,
that had defied the power of Caesar and Chosroes, and confided in
the fidelity of the tribe of Tai, which would have armed ten
thousand warriors in his defence.
In a conference with the chief of the enemy, he proposed the
option of three honorable conditions: that he should be allowed
to return to Medina, or be stationed in a frontier garrison
against the Turks, or safely conducted to the presence of Yezid.
But the commands of the caliph, or his lieutenant, were stern and
absolute; and Hosein was informed that he must either submit as a
captive and a criminal to the commander of the faithful, or
expect the consequences of his rebellion. “Do you think,” replied
he, “to terrify me with death?” And, during the short respite of
a night, 1781 he prepared with calm and solemn resignation to
encounter his fate. He checked the lamentations of his sister
Fatima, who deplored the impending ruin of his house. “Our
trust,” said Hosein, “is in God alone. All things, both in heaven
and earth, must perish and return to their Creator. My brother,
my father, my mother, were better than me, and every Mussulman
has an example in the prophet.” He pressed his friends to consult
their safety by a timely flight: they unanimously refused to
desert or survive their beloved master: and their courage was
fortified by a fervent prayer and the assurance of paradise. On
the morning of the fatal day, he mounted on horseback, with his
sword in one hand and the Koran in the other: his generous band
of martyrs consisted only of thirty-two horse and forty foot; but
their flanks and rear were secured by the tent-ropes, and by a
deep trench which they had filled with lighted fagots, according
to the practice of the Arabs. The enemy advanced with reluctance,
and one of their chiefs deserted, with thirty followers, to claim
the partnership of inevitable death. In every close onset, or
single combat, the despair of the Fatimites was invincible; but
the surrounding multitudes galled them from a distance with a
cloud of arrows, and the horses and men were successively slain;
a truce was allowed on both sides for the hour of prayer; and the
battle at length expired by the death of the last companions of
Hosein. Alone, weary, and wounded, he seated himself at the door
of his tent. As he tasted a drop of water, he was pierced in the
mouth with a dart; and his son and nephew, two beautiful youths,
were killed in his arms. He lifted his hands to heaven; they were
full of blood; and he uttered a funeral prayer for the living and
the dead. In a transport of despair his sister issued from the
tent, and adjured the general of the Cufians, that he would not
suffer Hosein to be murdered before his eyes: a tear trickled
down his venerable beard; and the boldest of his soldiers fell
back on every side as the dying hero threw himself among them.
The remorseless Shamer, a name detested by the faithful,
reproached their cowardice; and the grandson of Mahomet was slain
with three-and-thirty strokes of lances and swords. After they
had trampled on his body, they carried his head to the castle of
Cufa, and the inhuman Obeidollah struck him on the mouth with a
cane: “Alas,” exclaimed an aged Mussulman, “on these lips have I
seen the lips of the apostle of God!” In a distant age and
climate, the tragic scene of the death of Hosein will awaken the
sympathy of the coldest reader. 179 1791 On the annual festival
of his martyrdom, in the devout pilgrimage to his sepulchre, his
Persian votaries abandon their souls to the religious frenzy of
sorrow and indignation. 180
1781 (return) [ According to Major Price’s authorities a much
longer time elapsed (p. 198 &c.)—M.]
179 (return) [ I have abridged the interesting narrative of
Ockley, (tom. ii. p. 170-231.) It is long and minute: but the
pathetic, almost always, consists in the detail of little
circumstances.]
1791 (return) [ The account of Hosein’s death, in the Persian
Tarikh Tebry, is much longer; in some circumstances, more
pathetic, than that of Ockley, followed by Gibbon. His family,
after his defenders were all slain, perished in succession before
his eyes. They had been cut off from the water, and suffered all
the agonies of thirst. His eldest son, Ally Akbar, after ten
different assaults on the enemy, in each of which he slew two or
three, complained bitterly of his sufferings from heat and
thirst. “His father arose, and introducing his own tongue within
the parched lips of his favorite child, thus endeavored to
alleviate his sufferings by the only means of which his enemies
had not yet been able to deprive him.” Ally was slain and cut to
pieces in his sight: this wrung from him his first and only cry;
then it was that his sister Zeyneb rushed from the tent. The
rest, including his nephew, fell in succession. Hosein’s horse
was wounded—he fell to the ground. The hour of prayer, between
noon and sunset, had arrived; the Imaun began the religious
duties:—as Hosein prayed, he heard the cries of his infant child
Abdallah, only twelve months old. The child was, at his desire,
placed on his bosom: as he wept over it, it was transfixed by an
arrow. Hosein dragged himself to the Euphrates: as he slaked his
burning thirst, his mouth was pierced by an arrow: he drank his
own blood. Wounded in four-and-thirty places, he still gallantly
resisted. A soldier named Zeraiah gave the fatal wound: his head
was cut off by Ziliousheng. Price, p. 402, 410.—M.]
180 (return) [ Niebuhr the Dane (Voyages en Arabie, &c., tom. ii.
p. 208, &c.) is, perhaps, the only European traveller who has
dared to visit Meshed Ali and Meshed Hosein. The two sepulchres
are in the hands of the Turks, who tolerate and tax the devotion
of the Persian heretics. The festival of the death of Hosein is
amply described by Sir John Chardin, a traveller whom I have
often praised.]
When the sisters and children of Ali were brought in chains to
the throne of Damascus, the caliph was advised to extirpate the
enmity of a popular and hostile race, whom he had injured beyond
the hope of reconciliation. But Yezid preferred the councils of
mercy; and the mourning family was honorably dismissed to mingle
their tears with their kindred at Medina. The glory of martyrdom
superseded the right of primogeniture; and the twelve imams, 181
or pontiffs, of the Persian creed, are Ali, Hassan, Hosein, and
the lineal descendants of Hosein to the ninth generation. Without
arms, or treasures, or subjects, they successively enjoyed the
veneration of the people, and provoked the jealousy of the
reigning caliphs: their tombs, at Mecca or Medina, on the banks
of the Euphrates, or in the province of Chorasan, are still
visited by the devotion of their sect. Their names were often the
pretence of sedition and civil war; but these royal saints
despised the pomp of the world: submitted to the will of God and
the injustice of man; and devoted their innocent lives to the
study and practice of religion. The twelfth and last of the
Imams, conspicuous by the title of Mahadi, or the Guide,
surpassed the solitude and sanctity of his predecessors. He
concealed himself in a cavern near Bagdad: the time and place of
his death are unknown; and his votaries pretend that he still
lives, and will appear before the day of judgment to overthrow
the tyranny of Dejal, or the Antichrist. 182 In the lapse of two
or three centuries, the posterity of Abbas, the uncle of Mahomet,
had multiplied to the number of thirty-three thousand: 183 the
race of Ali might be equally prolific: the meanest individual was
above the first and greatest of princes; and the most eminent
were supposed to excel the perfection of angels. But their
adverse fortune, and the wide extent of the Mussulman empire,
allowed an ample scope for every bold and artful imposture, who
claimed affinity with the holy seed: the sceptre of the
Almohades, in Spain and Africa; of the Fatimites, in Egypt and
Syria; 184 of the Sultans of Yemen; and of the Sophis of Persia;
185 has been consecrated by this vague and ambiguous title. Under
their reigns it might be dangerous to dispute the legitimacy of
their birth; and one of the Fatimite caliphs silenced an
indiscreet question by drawing his cimeter: “This,” said Moez,
“is my pedigree; and these,” casting a handful of gold to his
soldiers,—“and these are my kindred and my children.” In the
various conditions of princes, or doctors, or nobles, or
merchants, or beggars, a swarm of the genuine or fictitious
descendants of Mahomet and Ali is honored with the appellation of
sheiks, or sherifs, or emirs. In the Ottoman empire they are
distinguished by a green turban; receive a stipend from the
treasury; are judged only by their chief; and, however debased by
fortune or character, still assert the proud preeminence of their
birth. A family of three hundred persons, the pure and orthodox
branch of the caliph Hassan, is preserved without taint or
suspicion in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and still
retains, after the revolutions of twelve centuries, the custody
of the temple, and the sovereignty of their native land. The fame
and merit of Mahomet would ennoble a plebeian race, and the
ancient blood of the Koreish transcends the recent majesty of the
kings of the earth. 186
181 (return) [ The general article of Imam, in D’Herbelot’s
Bibliotheque, will indicate the succession; and the lives of the
twelve are given under their respective names.]
182 (return) [ The name of Antichrist may seem ridiculous, but
the Mahometans have liberally borrowed the fables of every
religion, (Sale’s Preliminary Discourse, p. 80, 82.) In the royal
stable of Ispahan, two horses were always kept saddled, one for
the Mahadi himself, the other for his lieutenant, Jesus the son
of Mary.]
183 (return) [ In the year of the Hegira 200, (A.D. 815.) See
D’Herbelot, p. 146]
184 (return) [ D’Herbelot, p. 342. The enemies of the Fatimites
disgraced them by a Jewish origin. Yet they accurately deduced
their genealogy from Jaafar, the sixth Imam; and the impartial
Abulfeda allows (Annal. Moslem. p. 230) that they were owned by
many, qui absque controversia genuini sunt Alidarum, homines
propaginum suae gentis exacte callentes. He quotes some lines
from the celebrated Scherif or Rahdi, Egone humilitatem induam in
terris hostium? (I suspect him to be an Edrissite of Sicily,) cum
in Aegypto sit Chalifa de gente Alii, quocum ego communem habeo
patrem et vindicem.]
185 (return) [ The kings of Persia in the last century are
descended from Sheik Sefi, a saint of the xivth century, and
through him, from Moussa Cassem, the son of Hosein, the son of
Ali, (Olearius, p. 957. Chardin, tom. iii. p. 288.) But I cannot
trace the intermediate degrees in any genuine or fabulous
pedigree. If they were truly Fatimites, they might draw their
origin from the princes of Mazanderan, who reigned in the ixth
century, (D’Herbelot, p. 96.)]
186 (return) [ The present state of the family of Mahomet and Ali
is most accurately described by Demetrius Cantemir (Hist. of the
Othmae Empire, p. 94) and Niebuhr, (Description de l’Arabie, p.
9-16, 317 &c.) It is much to be lamented, that the Danish
traveller was unable to purchase the chronicles of Arabia.]
The talents of Mahomet are entitled to our applause; but his
success has, perhaps, too strongly attracted our admiration. Are
we surprised that a multitude of proselytes should embrace the
doctrine and the passions of an eloquent fanatic? In the heresies
of the church, the same seduction has been tried and repeated
from the time of the apostles to that of the reformers. Does it
seem incredible that a private citizen should grasp the sword and
the sceptre, subdue his native country, and erect a monarchy by
his victorious arms? In the moving picture of the dynasties of
the East, a hundred fortunate usurpers have arisen from a baser
origin, surmounted more formidable obstacles, and filled a larger
scope of empire and conquest. Mahomet was alike instructed to
preach and to fight; and the union of these opposite qualities,
while it enhanced his merit, contributed to his success: the
operation of force and persuasion, of enthusiasm and fear,
continually acted on each other, till every barrier yielded to
their irresistible power. His voice invited the Arabs to freedom
and victory, to arms and rapine, to the indulgence of their
darling passions in this world and the other: the restraints
which he imposed were requisite to establish the credit of the
prophet, and to exercise the obedience of the people; and the
only objection to his success was his rational creed of the unity
and perfections of God. It is not the propagation, but the
permanency, of his religion, that deserves our wonder: the same
pure and perfect impression which he engraved at Mecca and
Medina, is preserved, after the revolutions of twelve centuries,
by the Indian, the African, and the Turkish proselytes of the
Koran. If the Christian apostles, St. Peter or St. Paul, could
return to the Vatican, they might possibly inquire the name of
the Deity who is worshipped with such mysterious rites in that
magnificent temple: at Oxford or Geneva, they would experience
less surprise; but it might still be incumbent on them to peruse
the catechism of the church, and to study the orthodox
commentators on their own writings and the words of their Master.
But the Turkish dome of St. Sophia, with an increase of splendor
and size, represents the humble tabernacle erected at Medina by
the hands of Mahomet. The Mahometans have uniformly withstood the
temptation of reducing the object of their faith and devotion to
a level with the senses and imagination of man. “I believe in one
God, and Mahomet the apostle of God,” is the simple and
invariable profession of Islam. The intellectual image of the
Deity has never been degraded by any visible idol; the honors of
the prophet have never transgressed the measure of human virtue;
and his living precepts have restrained the gratitude of his
disciples within the bounds of reason and religion. The votaries
of Ali have, indeed, consecrated the memory of their hero, his
wife, and his children; and some of the Persian doctors pretend
that the divine essence was incarnate in the person of the Imams;
but their superstition is universally condemned by the Sonnites;
and their impiety has afforded a seasonable warning against the
worship of saints and martyrs. The metaphysical questions on the
attributes of God, and the liberty of man, have been agitated in
the schools of the Mahometans, as well as in those of the
Christians; but among the former they have never engaged the
passions of the people, or disturbed the tranquillity of the
state. The cause of this important difference may be found in the
separation or union of the regal and sacerdotal characters. It
was the interest of the caliphs, the successors of the prophet
and commanders of the faithful, to repress and discourage all
religious innovations: the order, the discipline, the temporal
and spiritual ambition of the clergy, are unknown to the Moslems;
and the sages of the law are the guides of their conscience and
the oracles of their faith. From the Atlantic to the Ganges, the
Koran is acknowledged as the fundamental code, not only of
theology, but of civil and criminal jurisprudence; and the laws
which regulate the actions and the property of mankind are
guarded by the infallible and immutable sanction of the will of
God. This religious servitude is attended with some practical
disadvantage; the illiterate legislator had been often misled by
his own prejudices and those of his country; and the institutions
of the Arabian desert may be ill adapted to the wealth and
numbers of Ispahan and Constantinople. On these occasions, the
Cadhi respectfully places on his head the holy volume, and
substitutes a dexterous interpretation more apposite to the
principles of equity, and the manners and policy of the times.
His beneficial or pernicious influence on the public happiness is
the last consideration in the character of Mahomet. The most
bitter or most bigoted of his Christian or Jewish foes will
surely allow that he assumed a false commission to inculcate a
salutary doctrine, less perfect only than their own. He piously
supposed, as the basis of his religion, the truth and sanctity of
their prior revolutions, the virtues and miracles of their
founders. The idols of Arabia were broken before the throne of
God; the blood of human victims was expiated by prayer, and
fasting, and alms, the laudable or innocent arts of devotion; and
his rewards and punishments of a future life were painted by the
images most congenial to an ignorant and carnal generation.
Mahomet was, perhaps, incapable of dictating a moral and
political system for the use of his countrymen: but he breathed
among the faithful a spirit of charity and friendship;
recommended the practice of the social virtues; and checked, by
his laws and precepts, the thirst of revenge, and the oppression
of widows and orphans. The hostile tribes were united in faith
and obedience, and the valor which had been idly spent in
domestic quarrels was vigorously directed against a foreign
enemy. Had the impulse been less powerful, Arabia, free at home
and formidable abroad, might have flourished under a succession
of her native monarchs. Her sovereignty was lost by the extent
and rapidity of conquest. The colonies of the nation were
scattered over the East and West, and their blood was mingled
with the blood of their converts and captives. After the reign of
three caliphs, the throne was transported from Medina to the
valley of Damascus and the banks of the Tigris; the holy cities
were violated by impious war; Arabia was ruled by the rod of a
subject, perhaps of a stranger; and the Bedoweens of the desert,
awakening from their dream of dominion, resumed their old and
solitary independence. 187
187 (return) [ The writers of the Modern Universal History (vols.
i. and ii.) have compiled, in 850 folio pages, the life of
Mahomet and the annals of the caliphs. They enjoyed the advantage
of reading, and sometimes correcting, the Arabic text; yet,
notwithstanding their high-sounding boasts, I cannot find, after
the conclusion of my work, that they have afforded me much (if
any) additional information. The dull mass is not quickened by a
spark of philosophy or taste; and the compilers indulge the
criticism of acrimonious bigotry against Boulainvilliers, Sale,
Gagnier, and all who have treated Mahomet with favor, or even
justice.]
Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part I.
The Conquest Of Persia, Syria, Egypt, Africa, And Spain, By The
Arabs Or Saracens.—Empire Of The Caliphs, Or Successors Of
Mahomet.—State Of The Christians, &c., Under Their Government.
The revolution of Arabia had not changed the character of the
Arabs: the death of Mahomet was the signal of independence; and
the hasty structure of his power and religion tottered to its
foundations. A small and faithful band of his primitive disciples
had listened to his eloquence, and shared his distress; had fled
with the apostle from the persecution of Mecca, or had received
the fugitive in the walls of Medina. The increasing myriads, who
acknowledged Mahomet as their king and prophet, had been
compelled by his arms, or allured by his prosperity. The
polytheists were confounded by the simple idea of a solitary and
invisible God; the pride of the Christians and Jews disdained the
yoke of a mortal and contemporary legislator. The habits of faith
and obedience were not sufficiently confirmed; and many of the
new converts regretted the venerable antiquity of the law of
Moses, or the rites and mysteries of the Catholic church; or the
idols, the sacrifices, the joyous festivals, of their Pagan
ancestors. The jarring interests and hereditary feuds of the
Arabian tribes had not yet coalesced in a system of union and
subordination; and the Barbarians were impatient of the mildest
and most salutary laws that curbed their passions, or violated
their customs. They submitted with reluctance to the religious
precepts of the Koran, the abstinence from wine, the fast of the
Ramadan, and the daily repetition of five prayers; and the alms
and tithes, which were collected for the treasury of Medina,
could be distinguished only by a name from the payment of a
perpetual and ignominious tribute. The example of Mahomet had
excited a spirit of fanaticism or imposture, and several of his
rivals presumed to imitate the conduct, and defy the authority,
of the living prophet. At the head of the fugitives and
auxiliaries, the first caliph was reduced to the cities of Mecca,
Medina, and Tayef; and perhaps the Koreish would have restored
the idols of the Caaba, if their levity had not been checked by a
seasonable reproof. “Ye men of Mecca, will ye be the last to
embrace, and the first to abandon, the religion of Islam?” After
exhorting the Moslems to confide in the aid of God and his
apostle, Abubeker resolved, by a vigorous attack, to prevent the
junction of the rebels. The women and children were safely lodged
in the cavities of the mountains: the warriors, marching under
eleven banners, diffused the terror of their arms; and the
appearance of a military force revived and confirmed the loyalty
of the faithful. The inconstant tribes accepted, with humble
repentance, the duties of prayer, and fasting, and alms; and,
after some examples of success and severity, the most daring
apostates fell prostrate before the sword of the Lord and of
Caled. In the fertile province of Yemanah, 1 between the Red Sea
and the Gulf of Persia, in a city not inferior to Medina itself,
a powerful chief (his name was Moseilama) had assumed the
character of a prophet, and the tribe of Hanifa listened to his
voice. A female prophetess 1111 was attracted by his reputation;
the decencies of words and actions were spurned by these
favorites of Heaven; 2 and they employed several days in mystic
and amorous converse. An obscure sentence of his Koran, or book,
is yet extant; 3 and in the pride of his mission, Moseilama
condescended to offer a partition of the earth. The proposal was
answered by Mahomet with contempt; but the rapid progress of the
impostor awakened the fears of his successor: forty thousand
Moslems were assembled under the standard of Caled; and the
existence of their faith was resigned to the event of a decisive
battle. 3111 In the first action they were repulsed by the loss
of twelve hundred men; but the skill and perseverance of their
general prevailed; their defeat was avenged by the slaughter of
ten thousand infidels; and Moseilama himself was pierced by an
Aethiopian slave with the same javelin which had mortally wounded
the uncle of Mahomet. The various rebels of Arabia without a
chief or a cause, were speedily suppressed by the power and
discipline of the rising monarchy; and the whole nation again
professed, and more steadfastly held, the religion of the Koran.
The ambition of the caliphs provided an immediate exercise for
the restless spirit of the Saracens: their valor was united in
the prosecution of a holy war; and their enthusiasm was equally
confirmed by opposition and victory.
1 (return) [ See the description of the city and country of Al
Yamanah, in Abulfeda, Descript. Arabiae, p. 60, 61. In the xiiith
century, there were some ruins, and a few palms; but in the
present century, the same ground is occupied by the visions and
arms of a modern prophet, whose tenets are imperfectly known,
(Niebuhr, Description de l’Arabie, p. 296-302.)]
1111 (return) [ This extraordinary woman was a Christian; she was
at the head of a numerous and flourishing sect; Moseilama
professed to recognize her inspiration. In a personal interview
he proposed their marriage and the union of their sects. The
handsome person, the impassioned eloquence, and the arts of
Moseilama, triumphed over the virtue of the prophetesa who was
rejected with scorn by her lover, and by her notorious unchastity
ost her influence with her own followers. Gibbon, with that
propensity too common, especially in his later volumes, has
selected only the grosser part of this singular adventure.—M.]
2 (return) [ The first salutation may be transcribed, but cannot
be translated. It was thus that Moseilama said or sung:—
Surge tandem itaque strenue permolenda; nam stratus tibi thorus est.
Aut in propatulo tentorio si velis, aut in abditiore cubiculo si
malis; Aut supinam te humi exporrectam fustigabo, si velis, Aut si
malis manibus pedibusque nixam. Aut si velis ejus (Priapi) gemino
triente aut si malis totus veniam. Imo, totus venito, O Apostole Dei,
clamabat foemina. Id ipsum, dicebat Moseilama, mihi quoque suggessit
Deus.
The prophetess Segjah, after the fall of her lover, returned to
idolatry; but under the reign of Moawiyah, she became a
Mussulman, and died at Bassora, (Abulfeda, Annal. vers. Reiske,
p. 63.)]
3 (return) [ See this text, which demonstrates a God from the
work of generation, in Abulpharagius (Specimen Hist. Arabum, p.
13, and Dynast. p. 103) and Abulfeda, (Annal. p. 63.)]
3111 (return) [ Compare a long account of this battle in Price,
p. 42.—M.]
From the rapid conquests of the Saracens a presumption will
naturally arise, that the caliphs 311 commanded in person the
armies of the faithful, and sought the crown of martyrdom in the
foremost ranks of the battle. The courage of Abubeker, 4 Omar, 5
and Othman, 6 had indeed been tried in the persecution and wars
of the prophet; and the personal assurance of paradise must have
taught them to despise the pleasures and dangers of the present
world. But they ascended the throne in a venerable or mature age;
and esteemed the domestic cares of religion and justice the most
important duties of a sovereign. Except the presence of Omar at
the siege of Jerusalem, their longest expeditions were the
frequent pilgrimage from Medina to Mecca; and they calmly
received the tidings of victory as they prayed or preached before
the sepulchre of the prophet. The austere and frugal measure of
their lives was the effect of virtue or habit, and the pride of
their simplicity insulted the vain magnificence of the kings of
the earth. When Abubeker assumed the office of caliph, he
enjoined his daughter Ayesha to take a strict account of his
private patrimony, that it might be evident whether he were
enriched or impoverished by the service of the state. He thought
himself entitled to a stipend of three pieces of gold, with the
sufficient maintenance of a single camel and a black slave; but
on the Friday of each week he distributed the residue of his own
and the public money, first to the most worthy, and then to the
most indigent, of the Moslems. The remains of his wealth, a
coarse garment, and five pieces of gold, were delivered to his
successor, who lamented with a modest sigh his own inability to
equal such an admirable model. Yet the abstinence and humility of
Omar were not inferior to the virtues of Abubeker: his food
consisted of barley bread or dates; his drink was water; he
preached in a gown that was torn or tattered in twelve places;
and the Persian satrap, who paid his homage to the conqueror,
found him asleep among the beggars on the steps of the mosch of
Medina. Oeeconomy is the source of liberality, and the increase
of the revenue enabled Omar to establish a just and perpetual
reward for the past and present services of the faithful.
Careless of his own emolument, he assigned to Abbas, the uncle of
the prophet, the first and most ample allowance of twenty-five
thousand drachms or pieces of silver. Five thousand were allotted
to each of the aged warriors, the relics of the field of Beder;
and the last and meanest of the companions of Mahomet was
distinguished by the annual reward of three thousand pieces. One
thousand was the stipend of the veterans who had fought in the
first battles against the Greeks and Persians; and the decreasing
pay, as low as fifty pieces of silver, was adapted to the
respective merit and seniority of the soldiers of Omar. Under his
reign, and that of his predecessor, the conquerors of the East
were the trusty servants of God and the people; the mass of the
public treasure was consecrated to the expenses of peace and war;
a prudent mixture of justice and bounty maintained the discipline
of the Saracens, and they united, by a rare felicity, the
despatch and execution of despotism with the equal and frugal
maxims of a republican government. The heroic courage of Ali, 7
the consummate prudence of Moawiyah, 8 excited the emulation of
their subjects; and the talents which had been exercised in the
school of civil discord were more usefully applied to propagate
the faith and dominion of the prophet. In the sloth and vanity of
the palace of Damascus, the succeeding princes of the house of
Ommiyah were alike destitute of the qualifications of statesmen
and of saints. 9 Yet the spoils of unknown nations were
continually laid at the foot of their throne, and the uniform
ascent of the Arabian greatness must be ascribed to the spirit of
the nation rather than the abilities of their chiefs. A large
deduction must be allowed for the weakness of their enemies. The
birth of Mahomet was fortunately placed in the most degenerate
and disorderly period of the Persians, the Romans, and the
Barbarians of Europe: the empires of Trajan, or even of
Constantine or Charlemagne, would have repelled the assault of
the naked Saracens, and the torrent of fanaticism might have been
obscurely lost in the sands of Arabia.
311 (return) [ In Arabic, “successors.” V. Hammer Geschichte der
Assas. p. 14—M.]
4 (return) [ His reign in Eutychius, tom. ii. p. 251. Elmacin, p.
18. Abulpharagius, p. 108. Abulfeda, p. 60. D’Herbelot, p. 58.]
5 (return) [ His reign in Eutychius, p. 264. Elmacin, p. 24.
Abulpharagius, p. 110. Abulfeda, p. 66. D’Herbelot, p. 686.]
6 (return) [ His reign in Eutychius, p. 323. Elmacin, p. 36.
Abulpharagius, p. 115. Abulfeda, p. 75. D’Herbelot, p. 695.]
7 (return) [ His reign in Eutychius, p. 343. Elmacin, p. 51.
Abulpharagius, p. 117. Abulfeda, p. 83. D’Herbelot, p. 89.]
8 (return) [ His reign in Eutychius, p. 344. Elmacin, p. 54.
Abulpharagius, p. 123. Abulfeda, p. 101. D’Herbelot, p. 586.]
9 (return) [ Their reigns in Eutychius, tom. ii. p. 360-395.
Elmacin, p. 59-108. Abulpharagius, Dynast. ix. p. 124-139.
Abulfeda, p. 111-141. D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 691,
and the particular articles of the Ommiades.]
In the victorious days of the Roman republic, it had been the aim
of the senate to confine their councils and legions to a single
war, and completely to suppress a first enemy before they
provoked the hostilities of a second. These timid maxims of
policy were disdained by the magnanimity or enthusiasm of the
Arabian caliphs. With the same vigor and success they invaded the
successors of Augustus and those of Artaxerxes; and the rival
monarchies at the same instant became the prey of an enemy whom
they had been so long accustomed to despise. In the ten years of
the administration of Omar, the Saracens reduced to his obedience
thirty-six thousand cities or castles, destroyed four thousand
churches or temples of the unbelievers, and edified fourteen
hundred moschs for the exercise of the religion of Mahomet. One
hundred years after his flight from Mecca, the arms and the reign
of his successors extended from India to the Atlantic Ocean, over
the various and distant provinces, which may be comprised under
the names of, I. Persia; II. Syria; III. Egypt; IV. Africa; and,
V. Spain. Under this general division, I shall proceed to unfold
these memorable transactions; despatching with brevity the remote
and less interesting conquests of the East, and reserving a
fuller narrative for those domestic countries which had been
included within the pale of the Roman empire. Yet I must excuse
my own defects by a just complaint of the blindness and
insufficiency of my guides. The Greeks, so loquacious in
controversy, have not been anxious to celebrate the triumphs of
their enemies. 10 After a century of ignorance, the first annals
of the Mussulmans were collected in a great measure from the
voice of tradition. 11 Among the numerous productions of Arabic
and Persian literature, 12 our interpreters have selected the
imperfect sketches of a more recent age. 13 The art and genius of
history have ever been unknown to the Asiatics; 14 they are
ignorant of the laws of criticism; and our monkish chronicle of
the same period may be compared to their most popular works,
which are never vivified by the spirit of philosophy and freedom.
The Oriental library of a Frenchman 15 would instruct the most
learned mufti of the East; and perhaps the Arabs might not find
in a single historian so clear and comprehensive a narrative of
their own exploits as that which will be deduced in the ensuing
sheets.
10 (return) [ For the viith and viiith century, we have scarcely
any original evidence of the Byzantine historians, except the
chronicles of Theophanes (Theophanis Confessoris Chronographia,
Gr. et Lat. cum notis Jacobi Goar. Paris, 1665, in folio) and the
Abridgment of Nicephorus, (Nicephori Patriarchae C. P. Breviarium
Historicum, Gr. et Lat. Paris, 1648, in folio,) who both lived in
the beginning of the ixth century, (see Hanckius de Scriptor.
Byzant. p. 200-246.) Their contemporary, Photius, does not seem
to be more opulent. After praising the style of Nicephorus, he
adds, and only complains of his extreme brevity, (Phot. Bibliot.
Cod. lxvi. p. 100.) Some additions may be gleaned from the more
recent histories of Cedrenus and Zonaras of the xiith century.]
11 (return) [ Tabari, or Al Tabari, a native of Taborestan, a
famous Imam of Bagdad, and the Livy of the Arabians, finished his
general history in the year of the Hegira 302, (A.D. 914.) At the
request of his friends, he reduced a work of 30,000 sheets to a
more reasonable size. But his Arabic original is known only by
the Persian and Turkish versions. The Saracenic history of Ebn
Amid, or Elmacin, is said to be an abridgment of the great
Tabari, (Ockley’s Hist. of the Saracens, vol. ii. preface, p.
xxxix. and list of authors, D’Herbelot, p. 866, 870, 1014.)]
12 (return) [ Besides the list of authors framed by Prideaux,
(Life of Mahomet, p. 179-189,) Ockley, (at the end of his second
volume,) and Petit de la Croix, (Hist. de Gengiscan, p. 525-550,)
we find in the Bibliotheque Orientale Tarikh, a catalogue of two
or three hundred histories or chronicles of the East, of which
not more than three or four are older than Tabari. A lively
sketch of Oriental literature is given by Reiske, (in his
Prodidagmata ad Hagji Chalifae librum memorialem ad calcem
Abulfedae Tabulae Syriae, Lipsiae, 1776;) but his project and the
French version of Petit de la Croix (Hist. de Timur Bec, tom. i.
preface, p. xlv.) have fallen to the ground.]
13 (return) [ The particular historians and geographers will be
occasionally introduced. The four following titles represent the
Annals which have guided me in this general narrative. 1. Annales
Eutychii, Patriarchoe Alexandrini, ab Edwardo Pocockio, Oxon.
1656, 2 vols. in 4to. A pompous edition of an indifferent author,
translated by Pocock to gratify the Presbyterian prejudices of
his friend Selden. 2. Historia Saracenica Georgii Elmacini, opera
et studio Thomae Erpenii, in 4to., Lugd. Batavorum, 1625. He is
said to have hastily translated a corrupt Ms., and his version is
often deficient in style and sense. 3. Historia compendiosa
Dynastiarum a Gregorio Abulpharagio, interprete Edwardo Pocockio,
in 4to., Oxon. 1663. More useful for the literary than the civil
history of the East. 4. Abulfedoe Annales Moslemici ad Ann.
Hegiroe ccccvi. a Jo. Jac. Reiske, in 4to., Lipsioe, 1754. The
best of our chronicles, both for the original and version, yet
how far below the name of Abulfeda! We know that he wrote at
Hamah in the xivth century. The three former were Christians of
the xth, xiith, and xiiith centuries; the two first, natives of
Egypt; a Melchite patriarch, and a Jacobite scribe.]
14 (return) [ M. D. Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. pref. p.
xix. xx.) has characterized, with truth and knowledge, the two
sorts of Arabian historians—the dry annalist, and the tumid and
flowery orator.]
15 (return) [ Bibliotheque Orientale, par M. D’Herbelot, in
folio, Paris, 1697. For the character of the respectable author,
consult his friend Thevenot, (Voyages du Levant, part i. chap.
1.) His work is an agreeable miscellany, which must gratify every
taste; but I never can digest the alphabetical order; and I find
him more satisfactory in the Persian than the Arabic history. The
recent supplement from the papers of Mm. Visdelou, and Galland,
(in folio, La Haye, 1779,) is of a different cast, a medley of
tales, proverbs, and Chinese antiquities.]
I. In the first year of the first caliph, his lieutenant Caled,
the Sword of God, and the scourge of the infidels, advanced to
the banks of the Euphrates, and reduced the cities of Anbar and
Hira. Westward of the ruins of Babylon, a tribe of sedentary
Arabs had fixed themselves on the verge of the desert; and Hira
was the seat of a race of kings who had embraced the Christian
religion, and reigned above six hundred years under the shadow of
the throne of Persia. 16 The last of the Mondars 1611 was
defeated and slain by Caled; his son was sent a captive to
Medina; his nobles bowed before the successor of the prophet; the
people was tempted by the example and success of their
countrymen; and the caliph accepted as the first-fruits of
foreign conquest an annual tribute of seventy thousand pieces of
gold. The conquerors, and even their historians, were astonished
by the dawn of their future greatness: “In the same year,” says
Elmacin, “Caled fought many signal battles: an immense multitude
of the infidels was slaughtered; and spoils infinite and
innumerable were acquired by the victorious Moslems.” 17 But the
invincible Caled was soon transferred to the Syrian war: the
invasion of the Persian frontier was conducted by less active or
less prudent commanders: the Saracens were repulsed with loss in
the passage of the Euphrates; and, though they chastised the
insolent pursuit of the Magians, their remaining forces still
hovered in the desert of Babylon. 1711
16 (return) [ Pocock will explain the chronology, (Specimen Hist.
Arabum, p. 66-74,) and D’Anville the geography, (l’Euphrate, et
le Tigre, p. 125,) of the dynasty of the Almondars. The English
scholar understood more Arabic than the mufti of Aleppo, (Ockley,
vol. ii. p. 34: ) the French geographer is equally at home in
every age and every climate of the world.]
1611 (return) [ Eichhorn and Silvestre de Sacy have written on
the obscure history of the Mondars.—M.]
17 (return) [ Fecit et Chaled plurima in hoc anno praelia, in
quibus vicerunt Muslimi, et infidelium immensa multitudine occisa
spolia infinita et innumera sunt nacti, (Hist. Saracenica, p.
20.) The Christian annalist slides into the national and
compendious term of infidels, and I often adopt (I hope without
scandal) this characteristic mode of expression.]
1711 (return) [ Compare throughout Malcolm, vol. ii. p. 136.—M.]
The indignation and fears of the Persians suspended for a moment
their intestine divisions. By the unanimous sentence of the
priests and nobles, their queen Arzema was deposed; the sixth of
the transient usurpers, who had arisen and vanished in three or
four years since the death of Chosroes, and the retreat of
Heraclius. Her tiara was placed on the head of Yezdegerd, the
grandson of Chosroes; and the same aera, which coincides with an
astronomical period, 18 has recorded the fall of the Sassanian
dynasty and the religion of Zoroaster. 19 The youth and
inexperience of the prince (he was only fifteen years of age)
declined a perilous encounter: the royal standard was delivered
into the hands of his general Rustam; and a remnant of thirty
thousand regular troops was swelled in truth, or in opinion, to
one hundred and twenty thousand subjects, or allies, of the great
king. The Moslems, whose numbers were reenforced from twelve to
thirty thousand, had pitched their camp in the plains of Cadesia:
20 and their line, though it consisted of fewer men, could
produce more soldiers, than the unwieldy host of the infidels. I
shall here observe, what I must often repeat, that the charge of
the Arabs was not, like that of the Greeks and Romans, the effort
of a firm and compact infantry: their military force was chiefly
formed of cavalry and archers; and the engagement, which was
often interrupted and often renewed by single combats and flying
skirmishes, might be protracted without any decisive event to the
continuance of several days. The periods of the battle of Cadesia
were distinguished by their peculiar appellations. The first,
from the well-timed appearance of six thousand of the Syrian
brethren, was denominated the day of succor. The day of
concussion might express the disorder of one, or perhaps of both,
of the contending armies. The third, a nocturnal tumult, received
the whimsical name of the night of barking, from the discordant
clamors, which were compared to the inarticulate sounds of the
fiercest animals. The morning of the succeeding day 2011
determined the fate of Persia; and a seasonable whirlwind drove a
cloud of dust against the faces of the unbelievers. The clangor
of arms was reechoed to the tent of Rustam, who, far unlike the
ancient hero of his name, was gently reclining in a cool and
tranquil shade, amidst the baggage of his camp, and the train of
mules that were laden with gold and silver. On the sound of
danger he started from his couch; but his flight was overtaken by
a valiant Arab, who caught him by the foot, struck off his head,
hoisted it on a lance, and instantly returning to the field of
battle, carried slaughter and dismay among the thickest ranks of
the Persians. The Saracens confess a loss of seven thousand five
hundred men; 2012 and the battle of Cadesia is justly described
by the epithets of obstinate and atrocious. 21 The standard of
the monarchy was overthrown and captured in the field—a leathern
apron of a blacksmith, who in ancient times had arisen the
deliverer of Persia; but this badge of heroic poverty was
disguised, and almost concealed, by a profusion of precious gems.
22 After this victory, the wealthy province of Irak, or Assyria,
submitted to the caliph, and his conquests were firmly
established by the speedy foundation of Bassora, 23 a place which
ever commands the trade and navigation of the Persians. As the
distance of fourscore miles from the Gulf, the Euphrates and
Tigris unite in a broad and direct current, which is aptly styled
the river of the Arabs. In the midway, between the junction and
the mouth of these famous streams, the new settlement was planted
on the western bank: the first colony was composed of eight
hundred Moslems; but the influence of the situation soon reared a
flourishing and populous capital. The air, though excessively
hot, is pure and healthy: the meadows are filled with palm-trees
and cattle; and one of the adjacent valleys has been celebrated
among the four paradises or gardens of Asia. Under the first
caliphs the jurisdiction of this Arabian colony extended over the
southern provinces of Persia: the city has been sanctified by the
tombs of the companions and martyrs; and the vessels of Europe
still frequent the port of Bassora, as a convenient station and
passage of the Indian trade.
18 (return) [ A cycle of 120 years, the end of which an
intercalary month of 30 days supplied the use of our Bissextile,
and restored the integrity of the solar year. In a great
revolution of 1440 years this intercalation was successively
removed from the first to the twelfth month; but Hyde and Freret
are involved in a profound controversy, whether the twelve, or
only eight of these changes were accomplished before the aera of
Yezdegerd, which is unanimously fixed to the 16th of June, A.D.
632. How laboriously does the curious spirit of Europe explore
the darkest and most distant antiquities! (Hyde de Religione
Persarum, c. 14-18, p. 181-211. Freret in the Mem. de l’Academie
des Inscriptions, tom. xvi. p. 233-267.)]
19 (return) [ Nine days after the death of Mahomet (7th June,
A.D. 632) we find the aera of Yezdegerd, (16th June, A.D. 632,)
and his accession cannot be postponed beyond the end of the first
year. His predecessors could not therefore resist the arms of the
caliph Omar; and these unquestionable dates overthrow the
thoughtless chronology of Abulpharagius. See Ockley’s Hist. of
the Saracens, vol. i. p. 130. * Note: The Rezont Uzzuffa (Price,
p. 105) has a strange account of an embassy to Yezdegerd. The
Oriental historians take great delight in these embassies, which
give them an opportunity of displaying their Asiatic
eloquence—M.]
20 (return) [ Cadesia, says the Nubian geographer, (p. 121,) is
in margine solitudinis, 61 leagues from Bagdad, and two stations
from Cufa. Otter (Voyage, tom. i. p. 163) reckons 15 leagues, and
observes, that the place is supplied with dates and water.]
2011 (return) [ The day of cormorants, or according to another
reading the day of reinforcements. It was the night which was
called the night of snarling. Price, p. 114.—M.]
2012 (return) [ According to Malcolm’s authorities, only three
thousand; but he adds “This is the report of Mahomedan
historians, who have a great disposition of the wonderful, in
relating the first actions of the faithful” Vol. i. p. 39.—M.]
21 (return) [ Atrox, contumax, plus semel renovatum, are the
well-chosen expressions of the translator of Abulfeda, (Reiske,
p. 69.)]
22 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 297, 348.]
23 (return) [ The reader may satisfy himself on the subject of
Bassora by consulting the following writers: Geograph, Nubiens.
p. 121. D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 192. D’Anville,
l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 130, 133, 145. Raynal, Hist.
Philosophique des deux Indes, tom. ii. p. 92-100. Voyages di
Pietro della Valle, tom. iv. p. 370-391. De Tavernier, tom. i. p.
240-247. De Thevenot, tom. ii. p. 545-584. D Otter, tom. ii. p.
45-78. De Niebuhr, tom. ii. p. 172-199.]
Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part II.
After the defeat of Cadesia, a country intersected by rivers and
canals might have opposed an insuperable barrier to the
victorious cavalry; and the walls of Ctesiphon or Madayn, which
had resisted the battering-rams of the Romans, would not have
yielded to the darts of the Saracens. But the flying Persians
were overcome by the belief, that the last day of their religion
and empire was at hand; the strongest posts were abandoned by
treachery or cowardice; and the king, with a part of his family
and treasures, escaped to Holwan at the foot of the Median hills.
In the third month after the battle, Said, the lieutenant of
Omar, passed the Tigris without opposition; the capital was taken
by assault; and the disorderly resistance of the people gave a
keener edge to the sabres of the Moslems, who shouted with
religious transport, “This is the white palace of Chosroes; this
is the promise of the apostle of God!” The naked robbers of the
desert were suddenly enriched beyond the measure of their hope or
knowledge. Each chamber revealed a new treasure secreted with
art, or ostentatiously displayed; the gold and silver, the
various wardrobes and precious furniture, surpassed (says
Abulfeda) the estimate of fancy or numbers; and another historian
defines the untold and almost infinite mass, by the fabulous
computation of three thousands of thousands of thousands of
pieces of gold. 24 Some minute though curious facts represent the
contrast of riches and ignorance. From the remote islands of the
Indian Ocean a large provision of camphire 25 had been imported,
which is employed with a mixture of wax to illuminate the palaces
of the East. Strangers to the name and properties of that
odoriferous gum, the Saracens, mistaking it for salt, mingled the
camphire in their bread, and were astonished at the bitterness of
the taste. One of the apartments of the palace was decorated with
a carpet of silk, sixty cubits in length, and as many in breadth:
a paradise or garden was depictured on the ground: the flowers,
fruits, and shrubs, were imitated by the figures of the gold
embroidery, and the colors of the precious stones; and the ample
square was encircled by a variegated and verdant border. 251 The
Arabian general persuaded his soldiers to relinquish their claim,
in the reasonable hope that the eyes of the caliph would be
delighted with the splendid workmanship of nature and industry.
Regardless of the merit of art, and the pomp of royalty, the
rigid Omar divided the prize among his brethren of Medina: the
picture was destroyed; but such was the intrinsic value of the
materials, that the share of Ali alone was sold for twenty
thousand drams. A mule that carried away the tiara and cuirass,
the belt and bracelets of Chosroes, was overtaken by the
pursuers; the gorgeous trophy was presented to the commander of
the faithful; and the gravest of the companions condescended to
smile when they beheld the white beard, the hairy arms, and
uncouth figure of the veteran, who was invested with the spoils
of the Great King. 26 The sack of Ctesiphon was followed by its
desertion and gradual decay. The Saracens disliked the air and
situation of the place, and Omar was advised by his general to
remove the seat of government to the western side of the
Euphrates. In every age, the foundation and ruin of the Assyrian
cities has been easy and rapid: the country is destitute of stone
and timber; and the most solid structures 27 are composed of
bricks baked in the sun, and joined by a cement of the native
bitumen. The name of Cufa 28 describes a habitation of reeds and
earth; but the importance of the new capital was supported by the
numbers, wealth, and spirit, of a colony of veterans; and their
licentiousness was indulged by the wisest caliphs, who were
apprehensive of provoking the revolt of a hundred thousand
swords: “Ye men of Cufa,” said Ali, who solicited their aid, “you
have been always conspicuous by your valor. You conquered the
Persian king, and scattered his forces, till you had taken
possession of his inheritance.” This mighty conquest was achieved
by the battles of Jalula and Nehavend. After the loss of the
former, Yezdegerd fled from Holwan, and concealed his shame and
despair in the mountains of Farsistan, from whence Cyrus had
descended with his equal and valiant companions. The courage of
the nation survived that of the monarch: among the hills to the
south of Ecbatana or Hamadan, one hundred and fifty thousand
Persians made a third and final stand for their religion and
country; and the decisive battle of Nehavend was styled by the
Arabs the victory of victories. If it be true that the flying
general of the Persians was stopped and overtaken in a crowd of
mules and camels laden with honey, the incident, however slight
and singular, will denote the luxurious impediments of an
Oriental army. 29
24 (return) [ Mente vix potest numerove comprehendi quanta spolia
nostris cesserint. Abulfeda, p. 69. Yet I still suspect, that the
extravagant numbers of Elmacin may be the error, not of the text,
but of the version. The best translators from the Greek, for
instance, I find to be very poor arithmeticians. * Note: Ockley
(Hist. of Saracens, vol. i. p. 230) translates in the same manner
three thousand million of ducats. See Forster’s Mahometanism
Unveiled, vol. ii. p. 462; who makes this innocent doubt of
Gibbon, in which, is to the amount of the plunder, I venture to
concur, a grave charge of inaccuracy and disrespect to the memory
of Erpenius. The Persian authorities of Price (p. 122) make the
booty worth three hundred and thirty millions sterling!—M]
25 (return) [ The camphire-tree grows in China and Japan; but
many hundred weight of those meaner sorts are exchanged for a
single pound of the more precious gum of Borneo and Sumatra,
(Raynal, Hist. Philosoph. tom. i. p. 362-365. Dictionnaire
d’Hist. Naturelle par Bomare Miller’s Gardener’s Dictionary.)
These may be the islands of the first climate from whence the
Arabians imported their camphire (Geograph. Nub. p. 34, 35.
D’Herbelot, p. 232.)]
251 (return) [ Compare Price, p. 122.—M.]
26 (return) [ See Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 376, 377. I
may credit the fact, without believing the prophecy.]
27 (return) [ The most considerable ruins of Assyria are the
tower of Belus, at Babylon, and the hall of Chosroes, at
Ctesiphon: they have been visited by that vain and curious
traveller Pietro della Valle, (tom. i. p. 713-718, 731-735.) *
Note: The best modern account is that of Claudius Rich Esq. Two
Memoirs of Babylon. London, 1818.—M.]
28 (return) [ Consult the article of Coufah in the Bibliotheque
of D’Herbelot ( p. 277, 278,) and the second volume of Ockley’s
History, particularly p. 40 and 153.]
29 (return) [ See the article of Nehavend, in D’Herbelot, p. 667,
668; and Voyages en Turquie et en Perse, par Otter, tom. i. 191.
* Note: Malcolm vol. i. p. 141.—M.]
The geography of Persia is darkly delineated by the Greeks and
Latins; but the most illustrious of her cities appear to be more
ancient than the invasion of the Arabs. By the reduction of
Hamadan and Ispahan, of Caswin, Tauris, and Rei, they gradually
approached the shores of the Caspian Sea: and the orators of
Mecca might applaud the success and spirit of the faithful, who
had already lost sight of the northern bear, and had almost
transcended the bounds of the habitable world. 30 Again, turning
towards the West and the Roman empire, they repassed the Tigris
over the bridge of Mosul, and, in the captive provinces of
Armenia and Mesopotamia, embraced their victorious brethren of
the Syrian army. From the palace of Madayn their Eastern progress
was not less rapid or extensive. They advanced along the Tigris
and the Gulf; penetrated through the passes of the mountains into
the valley of Estachar or Persepolis, and profaned the last
sanctuary of the Magian empire. The grandson of Chosroes was
nearly surprised among the falling columns and mutilated figures;
a sad emblem of the past and present fortune of Persia: 31 he
fled with accelerated haste over the desert of Kirman, implored
the aid of the warlike Segestans, and sought an humble refuge on
the verge of the Turkish and Chinese power. But a victorious army
is insensible of fatigue: the Arabs divided their forces in the
pursuit of a timorous enemy; and the caliph Othman promised the
government of Chorasan to the first general who should enter that
large and populous country, the kingdom of the ancient Bactrians.
The condition was accepted; the prize was deserved; the standard
of Mahomet was planted on the walls of Herat, Merou, and Balch;
and the successful leader neither halted nor reposed till his
foaming cavalry had tasted the waters of the Oxus. In the public
anarchy, the independent governors of the cities and castles
obtained their separate capitulations: the terms were granted or
imposed by the esteem, the prudence, or the compassion, of the
victors; and a simple profession of faith established the
distinction between a brother and a slave. After a noble defence,
Harmozan, the prince or satrap of Ahwaz and Susa, was compelled
to surrender his person and his state to the discretion of the
caliph; and their interview exhibits a portrait of the Arabian
manners. In the presence, and by the command, of Omar, the gay
Barbarian was despoiled of his silken robes embroidered with
gold, and of his tiara bedecked with rubies and emeralds: “Are
you now sensible,” said the conqueror to his naked captive—“are
you now sensible of the judgment of God, and of the different
rewards of infidelity and obedience?” “Alas!” replied Harmozan,
“I feel them too deeply. In the days of our common ignorance, we
fought with the weapons of the flesh, and my nation was superior.
God was then neuter: since he has espoused your quarrel, you have
subverted our kingdom and religion.” Oppressed by this painful
dialogue, the Persian complained of intolerable thirst, but
discovered some apprehension lest he should be killed whilst he
was drinking a cup of water. “Be of good courage,” said the
caliph; “your life is safe till you have drunk this water:” the
crafty satrap accepted the assurance, and instantly dashed the
vase against the ground. Omar would have avenged the deceit, but
his companions represented the sanctity of an oath; and the
speedy conversion of Harmozan entitled him not only to a free
pardon, but even to a stipend of two thousand pieces of gold. The
administration of Persia was regulated by an actual survey of the
people, the cattle, and the fruits of the earth; 32 and this
monument, which attests the vigilance of the caliphs, might have
instructed the philosophers of every age. 33
30 (return) [ It is in such a style of ignorance and wonder that
the Athenian orator describes the Arctic conquests of Alexander,
who never advanced beyond the shores of the Caspian. Aeschines
contra Ctesiphontem, tom. iii. p. 554, edit. Graec. Orator.
Reiske. This memorable cause was pleaded at Athens, Olymp. cxii.
3, (before Christ 330,) in the autumn, (Taylor, praefat. p. 370,
&c.,) about a year after the battle of Arbela; and Alexander, in
the pursuit of Darius, was marching towards Hyrcania and
Bactriana.]
31 (return) [ We are indebted for this curious particular to the
Dynasties of Abulpharagius, p. 116; but it is needless to prove
the identity of Estachar and Persepolis, (D’Herbelot, p. 327;)
and still more needless to copy the drawings and descriptions of
Sir John Chardin, or Corneillo le Bruyn.]
32 (return) [ After the conquest of Persia, Theophanes adds,
(Chronograph p. 283.)]
33 (return) [ Amidst our meagre relations, I must regret that
D’Herbelot has not found and used a Persian translation of
Tabari, enriched, as he says, with many extracts from the native
historians of the Ghebers or Magi, (Bibliotheque Orientale, p.
1014.)]
The flight of Yezdegerd had carried him beyond the Oxus, and as
far as the Jaxartes, two rivers 34 of ancient and modern renown,
which descend from the mountains of India towards the Caspian
Sea. He was hospitably entertained by Takhan, prince of Fargana,
35 a fertile province on the Jaxartes: the king of Samarcand,
with the Turkish tribes of Sogdiana and Scythia, were moved by
the lamentations and promises of the fallen monarch; and he
solicited, by a suppliant embassy, the more solid and powerful
friendship of the emperor of China. 36 The virtuous Taitsong, 37
the first of the dynasty of the Tang may be justly compared with
the Antonines of Rome: his people enjoyed the blessings of
prosperity and peace; and his dominion was acknowledged by
forty-four hordes of the Barbarians of Tartary. His last
garrisons of Cashgar and Khoten maintained a frequent intercourse
with their neighbors of the Jaxartes and Oxus; a recent colony of
Persians had introduced into China the astronomy of the Magi; and
Taitsong might be alarmed by the rapid progress and dangerous
vicinity of the Arabs. The influence, and perhaps the supplies,
of China revived the hopes of Yezdegerd and the zeal of the
worshippers of fire; and he returned with an army of Turks to
conquer the inheritance of his fathers. The fortunate Moslems,
without unsheathing their swords, were the spectators of his ruin
and death. The grandson of Chosroes was betrayed by his servant,
insulted by the seditious inhabitants of Merou, and oppressed,
defeated, and pursued by his Barbarian allies. He reached the
banks of a river, and offered his rings and bracelets for an
instant passage in a miller’s boat. Ignorant or insensible of
royal distress, the rustic replied, that four drams of silver
were the daily profit of his mill, and that he would not suspend
his work unless the loss were repaid. In this moment of
hesitation and delay, the last of the Sassanian kings was
overtaken and slaughtered by the Turkish cavalry, in the
nineteenth year of his unhappy reign. 38 3811 His son Firuz, an
humble client of the Chinese emperor, accepted the station of
captain of his guards; and the Magian worship was long preserved
by a colony of loyal exiles in the province of Bucharia. 3812 His
grandson inherited the regal name; but after a faint and
fruitless enterprise, he returned to China, and ended his days in
the palace of Sigan. The male line of the Sassanides was extinct;
but the female captives, the daughters of Persia, were given to
the conquerors in servitude, or marriage; and the race of the
caliphs and imams was ennobled by the blood of their royal
mothers. 39
34 (return) [ The most authentic accounts of the two rivers, the
Sihon (Jaxartes) and the Gihon, (Oxus,) may be found in Sherif al
Edrisi (Geograph. Nubiens. p. 138,) Abulfeda, (Descript.
Chorasan. in Hudson, tom. iii. p. 23,) Abulghazi Khan, who
reigned on their banks, (Hist. Genealogique des Tatars, p. 32,
57, 766,) and the Turkish Geographer, a MS. in the king of
France’s library, (Examen Critique des Historiens d’Alexandre, p.
194-360.)]
35 (return) [ The territory of Fergana is described by Abulfeda,
p. 76, 77.]
36 (return) [ Eo redegit angustiarum eundem regem exsulem, ut
Turcici regis, et Sogdiani, et Sinensis, auxilia missis literis
imploraret, (Abulfed. Annal. p. 74) The connection of the Persian
and Chinese history is illustrated by Freret (Mem. de l’Academie,
tom. xvi. p. 245-255) and De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p.
54-59,) and for the geography of the borders, tom. ii. p. 1-43.]
37 (return) [ Hist. Sinica, p. 41-46, in the iiid part of the
Relations Curieuses of Thevenot.]
38 (return) [ I have endeavored to harmonize the various
narratives of Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 37,) Abulpharagius,
(Dynast. p. 116,) Abulfeda, (Annal. p. 74, 79,) and D’Herbelot,
(p. 485.) The end of Yezdegerd, was not only unfortunate but
obscure.]
3811 (return) [ The account of Yezdegerd’s death in the Habeib
‘usseyr and Rouzut uzzuffa (Price, p. 162) is much more probable.
On the demand of the few dhirems, he offered to the miller his
sword, and royal girdle, of inesturable value. This awoke the
cupidity of the miller, who murdered him, and threw the body into
the stream.—M.]
3812 (return) [ Firouz died leaving a son called Ni-ni-cha by the
Chinese, probably Narses. Yezdegerd had two sons, Firouz and
Bahram St. Martin, vol. xi. p. 318.—M.]
39 (return) [ The two daughters of Yezdegerd married Hassan, the
son of Ali, and Mohammed, the son of Abubeker; and the first of
these was the father of a numerous progeny. The daughter of
Phirouz became the wife of the caliph Walid, and their son Yezid
derived his genuine or fabulous descent from the Chosroes of
Persia, the Caesars of Rome, and the Chagans of the Turks or
Avars, (D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orientale, p. 96, 487.)]
After the fall of the Persian kingdom, the River Oxus divided the
territories of the Saracens and of the Turks. This narrow
boundary was soon overleaped by the spirit of the Arabs; the
governors of Chorasan extended their successive inroads; and one
of their triumphs was adorned with the buskin of a Turkish queen,
which she dropped in her precipitate flight beyond the hills of
Bochara. 40 But the final conquest of Transoxiana, 41 as well as
of Spain, was reserved for the glorious reign of the inactive
Walid; and the name of Catibah, the camel driver, declares the
origin and merit of his successful lieutenant. While one of his
colleagues displayed the first Mahometan banner on the banks of
the Indus, the spacious regions between the Oxus, the Jaxartes,
and the Caspian Sea, were reduced by the arms of Catibah to the
obedience of the prophet and of the caliph. 42 A tribute of two
millions of pieces of gold was imposed on the infidels; their
idols were burnt or broken; the Mussulman chief pronounced a
sermon in the new mosch of Carizme; after several battles, the
Turkish hordes were driven back to the desert; and the emperors
of China solicited the friendship of the victorious Arabs. To
their industry, the prosperity of the province, the Sogdiana of
the ancients, may in a great measure be ascribed; but the
advantages of the soil and climate had been understood and
cultivated since the reign of the Macedonian kings. Before the
invasion of the Saracens, Carizme, Bochara, and Samarcand were
rich and populous under the yoke of the shepherds of the north.
4211 These cities were surrounded with a double wall; and the
exterior fortification, of a larger circumference, enclosed the
fields and gardens of the adjacent district. The mutual wants of
India and Europe were supplied by the diligence of the Sogdian
merchants; and the inestimable art of transforming linen into
paper has been diffused from the manufacture of Samarcand over
the western world. 43
40 (return) [ It was valued at 2000 pieces of gold, and was the
prize of Obeidollah, the son of Ziyad, a name afterwards infamous
by the murder of Hosein, (Ockley’s History of the Saracens, vol.
ii. p. 142, 143,) His brother Salem was accompanied by his wife,
the first Arabian woman (A.D. 680) who passed the Oxus: she
borrowed, or rather stole, the crown and jewels of the princess
of the Sogdians, (p. 231, 232.)]
41 (return) [ A part of Abulfeda’s geography is translated by
Greaves, inserted in Hudson’s collection of the minor
geographers, (tom. iii.,) and entitled Descriptio Chorasmiae et
Mawaralnahroe, id est, regionum extra fluvium, Oxum, p. 80. The
name of Transoxiana, softer in sound, equivalent in sense, is
aptly used by Petit de la Croix, (Hist. de Gengiscan, &c.,) and
some modern Orientalists, but they are mistaken in ascribing it
to the writers of antiquity.]
42 (return) [ The conquests of Catibah are faintly marked by
Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 84,) D’Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orient.
Catbah, Samarcand Valid.,) and De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom.
i. p. 58, 59.)]
4211 (return) [ The manuscripts Arabian and Persian writers in
the royal library contain very circumstantial details on the
contest between the Persians and Arabians. M. St. Martin declined
this addition to the work of Le Beau, as extending to too great a
length. St. Martin vol. xi. p. 320.—M.]
43 (return) [ A curious description of Samarcand is inserted in
the Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana, tom. i. p. 208, &c. The
librarian Casiri (tom. ii. 9) relates, from credible testimony,
that paper was first imported from China to Samarcand, A. H. 30,
and invented, or rather introduced, at Mecca, A. H. 88. The
Escurial library contains paper Mss. as old as the ivth or vth
century of the Hegira.]
II. No sooner had Abubeker restored the unity of faith and
government, than he despatched a circular letter to the Arabian
tribes. “In the name of the most merciful God, to the rest of the
true believers. Health and happiness, and the mercy and blessing
of God, be upon you. I praise the most high God, and I pray for
his prophet Mahomet. This is to acquaint you, that I intend to
send the true believers into Syria 44 to take it out of the hands
of the infidels. And I would have you know, that the fighting for
religion is an act of obedience to God.” His messengers returned
with the tidings of pious and martial ardor which they had
kindled in every province; and the camp of Medina was
successively filled with the intrepid bands of the Saracens, who
panted for action, complained of the heat of the season and the
scarcity of provisions, and accused with impatient murmurs the
delays of the caliph. As soon as their numbers were complete,
Abubeker ascended the hill, reviewed the men, the horses, and the
arms, and poured forth a fervent prayer for the success of their
undertaking. In person, and on foot, he accompanied the first
day’s march; and when the blushing leaders attempted to dismount,
the caliph removed their scruples by a declaration, that those
who rode, and those who walked, in the service of religion, were
equally meritorious. His instructions 45 to the chiefs of the
Syrian army were inspired by the warlike fanaticism which
advances to seize, and affects to despise, the objects of earthly
ambition. “Remember,” said the successor of the prophet, “that
you are always in the presence of God, on the verge of death, in
the assurance of judgment, and the hope of paradise. Avoid
injustice and oppression; consult with your brethren, and study
to preserve the love and confidence of your troops. When you
fight the battles of the Lord, acquit yourselves like men,
without turning your backs; but let not your victory be stained
with the blood of women or children. Destroy no palm-trees, nor
burn any fields of corn. Cut down no fruit-trees, nor do any
mischief to cattle, only such as you kill to eat. When you make
any covenant or article, stand to it, and be as good as your
word. As you go on, you will find some religious persons who live
retired in monasteries, and propose to themselves to serve God
that way: let them alone, and neither kill them nor destroy their
monasteries: 46 And you will find another sort of people, that
belong to the synagogue of Satan, who have shaven crowns; 47 be
sure you cleave their skulls, and give them no quarter till they
either turn Mahometans or pay tribute.” All profane or frivolous
conversation, all dangerous recollection of ancient quarrels, was
severely prohibited among the Arabs: in the tumult of a camp, the
exercises of religion were assiduously practised; and the
intervals of action were employed in prayer, meditation, and the
study of the Koran. The abuse, or even the use, of wine was
chastised by fourscore strokes on the soles of the feet, and in
the fervor of their primitive zeal, many secret sinners revealed
their fault, and solicited their punishment. After some
hesitation, the command of the Syrian army was delegated to Abu
Obeidah, one of the fugitives of Mecca, and companions of
Mahomet; whose zeal and devotion was assuaged, without being
abated, by the singular mildness and benevolence of his temper.
But in all the emergencies of war, the soldiers demanded the
superior genius of Caled; and whoever might be the choice of the
prince, the Sword of God was both in fact and fame the foremost
leader of the Saracens. He obeyed without reluctance; 4711 he was
consulted without jealousy; and such was the spirit of the man,
or rather of the times, that Caled professed his readiness to
serve under the banner of the faith, though it were in the hands
of a child or an enemy. Glory, and riches, and dominion, were
indeed promised to the victorious Mussulman; but he was carefully
instructed, that if the goods of this life were his only
incitement, they likewise would be his only reward.
44 (return) [ A separate history of the conquest of Syria has
been composed by Al Wakidi, cadi of Bagdad, who was born A.D.
748, and died A.D. 822; he likewise wrote the conquest of Egypt,
of Diarbekir, &c. Above the meagre and recent chronicles of the
Arabians, Al Wakidi has the double merit of antiquity and
copiousness. His tales and traditions afford an artless picture
of the men and the times. Yet his narrative is too often
defective, trifling, and improbable. Till something better shall
be found, his learned and spiritual interpreter (Ockley, in his
History of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 21-342) will not deserve the
petulant animadversion of Reiske, (Prodidagmata ad Magji Chalifae
Tabulas, p. 236.) I am sorry to think that the labors of Ockley
were consummated in a jail, (see his two prefaces to the 1st A.D.
1708, to the 2d, 1718, with the list of authors at the end.) *
Note: M. Hamaker has clearly shown that neither of these works
can be inscribed to Al Wakidi: they are not older than the end of
the xith century or later than the middle of the xivth. Praefat.
in Inc. Auct. LIb. de Expugnatione Memphidis, c. ix. x.—M.]
45 (return) [ The instructions, &c., of the Syrian war are
described by Al Wakidi and Ockley, tom. i. p. 22-27, &c. In the
sequel it is necessary to contract, and needless to quote, their
circumstantial narrative. My obligations to others shall be
noticed.]
46 (return) [ Notwithstanding this precept, M. Pauw (Recherches
sur les Egyptiens, tom. ii. p. 192, edit. Lausanne) represents
the Bedoweens as the implacable enemies of the Christian monks.
For my own part, I am more inclined to suspect the avarice of the
Arabian robbers, and the prejudices of the German philosopher. *
Note: Several modern travellers (Mr. Fazakerley, in Walpole’s
Travels in the East, vol. xi. 371) give very amusing accounts of
the terms on which the monks of Mount Sinai live with the
neighboring Bedoweens. Such, probably, was their relative state
in older times, wherever the Arab retained his Bedoween
habits.—M.]
47 (return) [ Even in the seventh century, the monks were
generally laymen: They wore their hair long and dishevelled, and
shaved their heads when they were ordained priests. The circular
tonsure was sacred and mysterious; it was the crown of thorns;
but it was likewise a royal diadem, and every priest was a king,
&c., (Thomassin, Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. p. 721-758,
especially p. 737, 738.)]
4711 (return) [ Compare Price, p. 90.—M.]
Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part III.
One of the fifteen provinces of Syria, the cultivated lands to
the eastward of the Jordan, had been decorated by Roman vanity
with the name of _Arabia_; and the first arms of the Saracens
were justified by the semblance of a national right. The country
was enriched by the various benefits of trade; by the vigilance
of the emperors it was covered with a line of forts; and the
populous cities of Gerasa, Philadelphia, and Bosra, were secure,
at least from a surprise, by the solid structure of their walls.
The last of these cities was the eighteenth station from Medina:
the road was familiar to the caravans of Hejaz and Irak, who
annually visited this plenteous market of the province and the
desert: the perpetual jealousy of the Arabs had trained the
inhabitants to arms; and twelve thousand horse could sally from
the gates of Bosra, an appellation which signifies, in the Syriac
language, a strong tower of defence. Encouraged by their first
success against the open towns and flying parties of the borders,
a detachment of four thousand Moslems presumed to summon and
attack the fortress of Bosra. They were oppressed by the numbers
of the Syrians; they were saved by the presence of Caled, with
fifteen hundred horse: he blamed the enterprise, restored the
battle, and rescued his friend, the venerable Serjabil, who had
vainly invoked the unity of God and the promises of the apostle.
After a short repose, the Moslems performed their ablutions with
sand instead of water; and the morning prayer was recited by
Caled before they mounted on horseback. Confident in their
strength, the people of Bosra threw open their gates, drew their
forces into the plain, and swore to die in the defence of their
religion. But a religion of peace was incapable of withstanding
the fanatic cry of “Fight, fight! Paradise, paradise!” that
reechoed in the ranks of the Saracens; and the uproar of the
town, the ringing of bells, and the exclamations of the priests
and monks increased the dismay and disorder of the Christians.
With the loss of two hundred and thirty men, the Arabs remained
masters of the field; and the ramparts of Bosra, in expectation
of human or divine aid, were crowded with holy crosses and
consecrated banners. The governor Romanus had recommended an
early submission: despised by the people, and degraded from his
office, he still retained the desire and opportunity of revenge.
In a nocturnal interview, he informed the enemy of a
subterraneous passage from his house under the wall of the city;
the son of the caliph, with a hundred volunteers, were committed
to the faith of this new ally, and their successful intrepidity
gave an easy entrance to their companions. After Caled had
imposed the terms of servitude and tribute, the apostate or
convert avowed in the assembly of the people his meritorious
treason: “I renounce your society,” said Romanus, “both in this
world and the world to come. And I deny him that was crucified,
and whosoever worships him. And I choose God for my Lord, Islam
for my faith, Mecca for my temple, the Moslems for my brethren,
and Mahomet for my prophet; who was sent to lead us into the
right way, and to exalt the true religion in spite of those who
join partners with God.”
The conquest of Bosra, four days’ journey from Damascus,
encouraged the Arabs to besiege the ancient capital of Syria. At
some distance from the walls, they encamped among the groves and
fountains of that delicious territory, and the usual option of
the Mahometan faith, of tribute or of war, was proposed to the
resolute citizens, who had been lately strengthened by a
reenforcement of five thousand Greeks. In the decline, as in the
infancy, of the military art, a hostile defiance was frequently
offered and accepted by the generals themselves: many a lance was
shivered in the plain of Damascus, and the personal prowess of
Caled was signalized in the first sally of the besieged. After an
obstinate combat, he had overthrown and made prisoner one of the
Christian leaders, a stout and worthy antagonist. He instantly
mounted a fresh horse, the gift of the governor of Palmyra, and
pushed forwards to the front of the battle. “Repose yourself for
a moment,” said his friend Derar, “and permit me to supply your
place: you are fatigued with fighting with this dog.” “O Dear!”
replied the indefatigable Saracen, “we shall rest in the world to
come. He that labors to-day shall rest to-morrow.” With the same
unabated ardor, Caled answered, encountered, and vanquished a
second champion; and the heads of his two captives who refused to
abandon their religion were indignantly hurled into the midst of
the city. The event of some general and partial actions reduced
the Damascenes to a closer defence: but a messenger, whom they
dropped from the walls, returned with the promise of speedy and
powerful succor, and their tumultuous joy conveyed the
intelligence to the camp of the Arabs. After some debate, it was
resolved by the generals to raise, or rather to suspend, the
siege of Damascus, till they had given battle to the forces of
the emperor. In the retreat, Caled would have chosen the more
perilous station of the rear-guard; he modestly yielded to the
wishes of Abu Obeidah. But in the hour of danger he flew to the
rescue of his companion, who was rudely pressed by a sally of six
thousand horse and ten thousand foot, and few among the
Christians could relate at Damascus the circumstances of their
defeat. The importance of the contest required the junction of
the Saracens, who were dispersed on the frontiers of Syria and
Palestine; and I shall transcribe one of the circular mandates
which was addressed to Amrou, the future conqueror of Egypt. “In
the name of the most merciful God: from Caled to Amrou, health
and happiness. Know that thy brethren the Moslems design to march
to Aiznadin, where there is an army of seventy thousand Greeks,
who purpose to come against us, _that they may extinguish the
light of God with their mouths; but God preserveth his light in
spite of the infidels_. As soon therefore as this letter of mine
shall be delivered to thy hands, come with those that are with
thee to Aiznadin, where thou shalt find us if it please the most
high God.” The summons was cheerfully obeyed, and the forty-five
thousand Moslems, who met on the same day, on the same spot
ascribed to the blessing of Providence the effects of their
activity and zeal.
About four years after the triumph of the Persian war, the repose
of Heraclius and the empire was again disturbed by a new enemy,
the power of whose religion was more strongly felt, than it was
clearly understood, by the Christians of the East. In his palace
of Constantinople or Antioch, he was awakened by the invasion of
Syria, the loss of Bosra, and the danger of Damascus. An army of
seventy thousand veterans, or new levies, was assembled at Hems
or Emesa, under the command of his general Werdan: and these
troops consisting chiefly of cavalry, might be indifferently
styled either Syrians, or Greeks, or Romans: _Syrians_, from the
place of their birth or warfare; _Greeks_ from the religion and
language of their sovereign; and _Romans_, from the proud
appellation which was still profaned by the successors of
Constantine. On the plain of Aiznadin, as Werdan rode on a white
mule decorated with gold chains, and surrounded with ensigns and
standards, he was surprised by the near approach of a fierce and
naked warrior, who had undertaken to view the state of the enemy.
The adventurous valor of Derar was inspired, and has perhaps been
adorned, by the enthusiasm of his age and country. The hatred of
the Christians, the love of spoil, and the contempt of danger,
were the ruling passions of the audacious Saracen; and the
prospect of instant death could never shake his religious
confidence, or ruffle the calmness of his resolution, or even
suspend the frank and martial pleasantry of his humor. In the
most hopeless enterprises, he was bold, and prudent, and
fortunate: after innumerable hazards, after being thrice a
prisoner in the hands of the infidels, he still survived to
relate the achievements, and to enjoy the rewards, of the Syrian
conquest. On this occasion, his single lance maintained a flying
fight against thirty Romans, who were detached by Werdan; and,
after killing or unhorsing seventeen of their number, Derar
returned in safety to his applauding brethren. When his rashness
was mildly censured by the general, he excused himself with the
simplicity of a soldier. “Nay,” said Derar, “I did not begin
first: but they came out to take me, and I was afraid that God
should see me turn my back: and indeed I fought in good earnest,
and without doubt God assisted me against them; and had I not
been apprehensive of disobeying your orders, I should not have
come away as I did; and I perceive already that they will fall
into our hands.” In the presence of both armies, a venerable
Greek advanced from the ranks with a liberal offer of peace; and
the departure of the Saracens would have been purchased by a gift
to each soldier, of a turban, a robe, and a piece of gold; ten
robes and a hundred pieces to their leader; one hundred robes and
a thousand pieces to the caliph. A smile of indignation expressed
the refusal of Caled. “Ye Christian dogs, you know your option;
the Koran, the tribute, or the sword. We are a people whose
delight is in war, rather than in peace: and we despise your
pitiful alms, since we shall be speedily masters of your wealth,
your families, and your persons.” Notwithstanding this apparent
disdain, he was deeply conscious of the public danger: those who
had been in Persia, and had seen the armies of Chosroes confessed
that they never beheld a more formidable array. From the
superiority of the enemy, the artful Saracen derived a fresh
incentive of courage: “You see before you,” said he, “the united
force of the Romans; you cannot hope to escape, but you may
conquer Syria in a single day. The event depends on your
discipline and patience. Reserve yourselves till the evening. It
was in the evening that the Prophet was accustomed to vanquish.”
During two successive engagements, his temperate firmness
sustained the darts of the enemy, and the murmurs of his troops.
At length, when the spirits and quivers of the adverse line were
almost exhausted, Caled gave the signal of onset and victory. The
remains of the Imperial army fled to Antioch, or Cæsarea, or
Damascus; and the death of four hundred and seventy Moslems was
compensated by the opinion that they had sent to hell above fifty
thousand of the infidels. The spoil was inestimable; many banners
and crosses of gold and silver, precious stones, silver and gold
chains, and innumerable suits of the richest armor and apparel.
The general distribution was postponed till Damascus should be
taken; but the seasonable supply of arms became the instrument of
new victories. The glorious intelligence was transmitted to the
throne of the caliph; and the Arabian tribes, the coldest or most
hostile to the prophet’s mission, were eager and importunate to
share the harvest of Syria.
The sad tidings were carried to Damascus by the speed of grief
and terror; and the inhabitants beheld from their walls the
return of the heroes of Aiznadin. Amrou led the van at the head
of nine thousand horse: the bands of the Saracens succeeded each
other in formidable review; and the rear was closed by Caled in
person, with the standard of the black eagle. To the activity of
Derar he intrusted the commission of patrolling round the city
with two thousand horse, of scouring the plain, and of
intercepting all succor or intelligence. The rest of the Arabian
chiefs were fixed in their respective stations before the seven
gates of Damascus; and the siege was renewed with fresh vigor and
confidence. The art, the labor, the military engines, of the
Greeks and Romans are seldom to be found in the simple, though
successful, operations of the Saracens: it was sufficient for
them to invest a city with arms, rather than with trenches; to
repel the allies of the besieged; to attempt a stratagem or an
assault; or to expect the progress of famine and discontent.
Damascus would have acquiesced in the trial of Aiznadin, as a
final and peremptory sentence between the emperor and the caliph;
her courage was rekindled by the example and authority of Thomas,
a noble Greek, illustrious in a private condition by the alliance
of Heraclius. The tumult and illumination of the night proclaimed
the design of the morning sally; and the Christian hero, who
affected to despise the enthusiasm of the Arabs, employed the
resource of a similar superstition. At the principal gate, in the
sight of both armies, a lofty crucifix was erected; the bishop,
with his clergy, accompanied the march, and laid the volume of
the New Testament before the image of Jesus; and the contending
parties were scandalized or edified by a prayer that the Son of
God would defend his servants and vindicate his truth. The battle
raged with incessant fury; and the dexterity of Thomas, an
incomparable archer, was fatal to the boldest Saracens, till
their death was revenged by a female heroine. The wife of Aban,
who had followed him to the holy war, embraced her expiring
husband. “Happy,” said she, “happy art thou, my dear: thou art
gone to thy Lord, who first joined us together, and then parted
us asunder. I will revenge thy death, and endeavor to the utmost
of my power to come to the place where thou art, because I love
thee. Henceforth shall no man ever touch me more, for I have
dedicated myself to the service of God.” Without a groan, without
a tear, she washed the corpse of her husband, and buried him with
the usual rites. Then grasping the manly weapons, which in her
native land she was accustomed to wield, the intrepid widow of
Aban sought the place where his murderer fought in the thickest
of the battle. Her first arrow pierced the hand of his
standard-bearer; her second wounded Thomas in the eye; and the
fainting Christians no longer beheld their ensign or their
leader. Yet the generous champion of Damascus refused to withdraw
to his palace: his wound was dressed on the rampart; the fight
was continued till the evening; and the Syrians rested on their
arms. In the silence of the night, the signal was given by a
stroke on the great bell; the gates were thrown open, and each
gate discharged an impetuous column on the sleeping camp of the
Saracens. Caled was the first in arms: at the head of four
hundred horse he flew to the post of danger, and the tears
trickled down his iron cheeks, as he uttered a fervent
ejaculation; “O God, who never sleepest, look upon they servants,
and do not deliver them into the hands of their enemies.” The
valor and victory of Thomas were arrested by the presence of the
_Sword of God_; with the knowledge of the peril, the Moslems
recovered their ranks, and charged the assailants in the flank
and rear. After the loss of thousands, the Christian general
retreated with a sigh of despair, and the pursuit of the Saracens
was checked by the military engines of the rampart.
After a siege of seventy days, the patience, and perhaps the
provisions, of the Damascenes were exhausted; and the bravest of
their chiefs submitted to the hard dictates of necessity. In the
occurrences of peace and war, they had been taught to dread the
fierceness of Caled, and to revere the mild virtues of Abu
Obeidah. At the hour of midnight, one hundred chosen deputies of
the clergy and people were introduced to the tent of that
venerable commander. He received and dismissed them with
courtesy. They returned with a written agreement, on the faith of
a companion of Mahomet, that all hostilities should cease; that
the voluntary emigrants might depart in safety, with as much as
they could carry away of their effects; and that the tributary
subjects of the caliph should enjoy their lands and houses, with
the use and possession of seven churches. On these terms, the
most respectable hostages, and the gate nearest to his camp, were
delivered into his hands: his soldiers imitated the moderation of
their chief; and he enjoyed the submissive gratitude of a people
whom he had rescued from destruction. But the success of the
treaty had relaxed their vigilance, and in the same moment the
opposite quarter of the city was betrayed and taken by assault. A
party of a hundred Arabs had opened the eastern gate to a more
inexorable foe. “No quarter,” cried the rapacious and sanguinary
Caled, “no quarter to the enemies of the Lord:” his trumpets
sounded, and a torrent of Christian blood was poured down the
streets of Damascus. When he reached the church of St. Mary, he
was astonished and provoked by the peaceful aspect of his
companions; their swords were in the scabbard, and they were
surrounded by a multitude of priests and monks. Abu Obeidah
saluted the general: “God,” said he, “has delivered the city into
my hands by way of surrender, and has saved the believers the
trouble of fighting.” “And am I not,” replied the indignant
Caled, “am I not the lieutenant of the commander of the faithful?
Have I not taken the city by storm? The unbelievers shall perish
by the sword. Fall on.” The hungry and cruel Arabs would have
obeyed the welcome command; and Damascus was lost, if the
benevolence of Abu Obeidah had not been supported by a decent and
dignified firmness. Throwing himself between the trembling
citizens and the most eager of the Barbarians, he adjured them,
by the holy name of God, to respect his promise, to suspend their
fury, and to wait the determination of their chiefs. The chiefs
retired into the church of St. Mary; and after a vehement debate,
Caled submitted in some measure to the reason and authority of
his colleague; who urged the sanctity of a covenant, the
advantage as well as the honor which the Moslems would derive
from the punctual performance of their word, and the obstinate
resistance which they must encounter from the distrust and
despair of the rest of the Syrian cities. It was agreed that the
sword should be sheathed, that the part of Damascus which had
surrendered to Abu Obeidah, should be immediately entitled to the
benefit of his capitulation, and that the final decision should
be referred to the justice and wisdom of the caliph. A large
majority of the people accepted the terms of toleration and
tribute; and Damascus is still peopled by twenty thousand
Christians. But the valiant Thomas, and the free-born patriots
who had fought under his banner, embraced the alternative of
poverty and exile. In the adjacent meadow, a numerous encampment
was formed of priests and laymen, of soldiers and citizens, of
women and children: they collected, with haste and terror, their
most precious movables; and abandoned, with loud lamentations, or
silent anguish, their native homes, and the pleasant banks of the
Pharpar. The inflexible soul of Caled was not touched by the
spectacle of their distress: he disputed with the Damascenes the
property of a magazine of corn; endeavored to exclude the
garrison from the benefit of the treaty; consented, with
reluctance, that each of the fugitives should arm himself with a
sword, or a lance, or a bow; and sternly declared, that, after a
respite of three days, they might be pursued and treated as the
enemies of the Moslems.
The passion of a Syrian youth completed the ruin of the exiles of
Damascus. A nobleman of the city, of the name of Jonas, was
betrothed to a wealthy maiden; but her parents delayed the
consummation of his nuptials, and their daughter was persuaded to
escape with the man whom she had chosen. They corrupted the
nightly watchmen of the gate Keisan; the lover, who led the way,
was encompassed by a squadron of Arabs; but his exclamation in
the Greek tongue, “The bird is taken,” admonished his mistress to
hasten her return. In the presence of Caled, and of death, the
unfortunate Jonas professed his belief in one God and his apostle
Mahomet; and continued, till the season of his martyrdom, to
discharge the duties of a brave and sincere Mussulman. When the
city was taken, he flew to the monastery, where Eudocia had taken
refuge; but the lover was forgotten; the apostate was scorned;
she preferred her religion to her country; and the justice of
Caled, though deaf to mercy, refused to detain by force a male or
female inhabitant of Damascus. Four days was the general confined
to the city by the obligation of the treaty, and the urgent cares
of his new conquest. His appetite for blood and rapine would have
been extinguished by the hopeless computation of time and
distance; but he listened to the importunities of Jonas, who
assured him that the weary fugitives might yet be overtaken. At
the head of four thousand horse, in the disguise of Christian
Arabs, Caled undertook the pursuit. They halted only for the
moments of prayer; and their guide had a perfect knowledge of the
country. For a long way the footsteps of the Damascenes were
plain and conspicuous: they vanished on a sudden; but the
Saracens were comforted by the assurance that the caravan had
turned aside into the mountains, and must speedily fall into
their hands. In traversing the ridges of the Libanus, they
endured intolerable hardships, and the sinking spirits of the
veteran fanatics were supported and cheered by the unconquerable
ardor of a lover. From a peasant of the country, they were
informed that the emperor had sent orders to the colony of exiles
to pursue without delay the road of the sea-coast, and of
Constantinople, apprehensive, perhaps, that the soldiers and
people of Antioch might be discouraged by the sight and the story
of their sufferings. The Saracens were conducted through the
territories of Gabala and Laodicea, at a cautious distance from
the walls of the cities; the rain was incessant, the night was
dark, a single mountain separated them from the Roman army; and
Caled, ever anxious for the safety of his brethren, whispered an
ominous dream in the ear of his companion. With the dawn of day,
the prospect again cleared, and they saw before them, in a
pleasant valley, the tents of Damascus. After a short interval of
repose and prayer, Caled divided his cavalry into four squadrons,
committing the first to his faithful Derar, and reserving the
last for himself. They successively rushed on the promiscuous
multitude, insufficiently provided with arms, and already
vanquished by sorrow and fatigue. Except a captive, who was
pardoned and dismissed, the Arabs enjoyed the satisfaction of
believing that not a Christian of either sex escaped the edge of
their cimeters. The gold and silver of Damascus was scattered
over the camp, and a royal wardrobe of three hundred load of silk
might clothe an army of naked Barbarians. In the tumult of the
battle, Jonas sought and found the object of his pursuit: but her
resentment was inflamed by the last act of his perfidy; and as
Eudocia struggled in his hateful embraces, she struck a dagger to
her heart. Another female, the widow of Thomas, and the real or
supposed daughter of Heraclius, was spared and released without a
ransom; but the generosity of Caled was the effect of his
contempt; and the haughty Saracen insulted, by a message of
defiance, the throne of the Cæsars. Caled had penetrated above a
hundred and fifty miles into the heart of the Roman province: he
returned to Damascus with the same secrecy and speed On the
accession of Omar, the _Sword of God_ was removed from the
command; but the caliph, who blamed the rashness, was compelled
to applaud the vigor and conduct, of the enterprise.
Another expedition of the conquerors of Damascus will equally
display their avidity and their contempt for the riches of the
present world. They were informed that the produce and
manufactures of the country were annually collected in the fair
of Abyla, 64 about thirty miles from the city; that the cell of a
devout hermit was visited at the same time by a multitude of
pilgrims; and that the festival of trade and superstition would
be ennobled by the nuptials of the daughter of the governor of
Tripoli. Abdallah, the son of Jaafar, a glorious and holy martyr,
undertook, with a banner of five hundred horse, the pious and
profitable commission of despoiling the infidels. As he
approached the fair of Abyla, he was astonished by the report of
this mighty concourse of Jews and Christians, Greeks, and
Armenians, of natives of Syria and of strangers of Egypt, to the
number of ten thousand, besides a guard of five thousand horse
that attended the person of the bride. The Saracens paused: “For
my own part,” said Abdallah, “I dare not go back: our foes are
many, our danger is great, but our reward is splendid and secure,
either in this life or in the life to come. Let every man,
according to his inclination, advance or retire.” Not a Mussulman
deserted his standard. “Lead the way,” said Abdallah to his
Christian guide, “and you shall see what the companions of the
prophet can perform.” They charged in five squadrons; but after
the first advantage of the surprise, they were encompassed and
almost overwhelmed by the multitude of their enemies; and their
valiant band is fancifully compared to a white spot in the skin
of a black camel. 65 About the hour of sunset, when their weapons
dropped from their hands, when they panted on the verge of
eternity, they discovered an approaching cloud of dust; they
heard the welcome sound of the tecbir, 66 and they soon perceived
the standard of Caled, who flew to their relief with the utmost
speed of his cavalry. The Christians were broken by his attack,
and slaughtered in their flight, as far as the river of Tripoli.
They left behind them the various riches of the fair; the
merchandises that were exposed for sale, the money that was
brought for purchase, the gay decorations of the nuptials, and
the governor’s daughter, with forty of her female attendants.
The fruits, provisions, and furniture, the money, plate, and
jewels, were diligently laden on the backs of horses, asses, and
mules; and the holy robbers returned in triumph to Damascus. The
hermit, after a short and angry controversy with Caled, declined
the crown of martyrdom, and was left alive in the solitary scene
of blood and devastation.
64 (return) [ Dair Abil Kodos. After retrenching the last word,
the epithet, holy, I discover the Abila of Lysanias between
Damascus and Heliopolis: the name (Abil signifies a vineyard)
concurs with the situation to justify my conjecture, (Reland,
Palestin. tom. i. p 317, tom. ii. p. 526, 527.)]
65 (return) [ I am bolder than Mr. Ockley, (vol. i. p. 164,) who
dares not insert this figurative expression in the text, though
he observes in a marginal note, that the Arabians often borrow
their similes from that useful and familiar animal. The reindeer
may be equally famous in the songs of the Laplanders.]
66 (return) [ We hear the tecbir; so the Arabs call Their shout
of onset, when with loud appeal They challenge heaven, as if
demanding conquest. This word, so formidable in their holy wars,
is a verb active, (says Ockley in his index,) of the second
conjugation, from Kabbara, which signifies saying Alla Acbar, God
is most mighty!]
Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part IV.
Syria, 67 one of the countries that have been improved by the
most early cultivation, is not unworthy of the preference. 68 The
heat of the climate is tempered by the vicinity of the sea and
mountains, by the plenty of wood and water; and the produce of a
fertile soil affords the subsistence, and encourages the
propagation, of men and animals. From the age of David to that of
Heraclius, the country was overspread with ancient and
flourishing cities: the inhabitants were numerous and wealthy;
and, after the slow ravage of despotism and superstition, after
the recent calamities of the Persian war, Syria could still
attract and reward the rapacious tribes of the desert. A plain,
of ten days’ journey, from Damascus to Aleppo and Antioch, is
watered, on the western side, by the winding course of the
Orontes. The hills of Libanus and Anti-Libanus are planted from
north to south, between the Orontes and the Mediterranean; and
the epithet of hollow (Coelesyria) was applied to a long and
fruitful valley, which is confined in the same direction, by the
two ridges of snowy mountains. 69 Among the cities, which are
enumerated by Greek and Oriental names in the geography and
conquest of Syria, we may distinguish Emesa or Hems, Heliopolis
or Baalbec, the former as the metropolis of the plain, the latter
as the capital of the valley. Under the last of the Caesars, they
were strong and populous; the turrets glittered from afar: an
ample space was covered with public and private buildings; and
the citizens were illustrious by their spirit, or at least by
their pride; by their riches, or at least by their luxury. In the
days of Paganism, both Emesa and Heliopolis were addicted to the
worship of Baal, or the sun; but the decline of their
superstition and splendor has been marked by a singular variety
of fortune. Not a vestige remains of the temple of Emesa, which
was equalled in poetic style to the summits of Mount Libanus, 70
while the ruins of Baalbec, invisible to the writers of
antiquity, excite the curiosity and wonder of the European
traveller. 71 The measure of the temple is two hundred feet in
length, and one hundred in breadth: the front is adorned with a
double portico of eight columns; fourteen may be counted on
either side; and each column, forty-five feet in height, is
composed of three massy blocks of stone or marble. The
proportions and ornaments of the Corinthian order express the
architecture of the Greeks: but as Baalbec has never been the
seat of a monarch, we are at a loss to conceive how the expense
of these magnificent structures could be supplied by private or
municipal liberality. 72 From the conquest of Damascus the
Saracens proceeded to Heliopolis and Emesa: but I shall decline
the repetition of the sallies and combats which have been already
shown on a larger scale. In the prosecution of the war, their
policy was not less effectual than their sword. By short and
separate truces they dissolved the union of the enemy; accustomed
the Syrians to compare their friendship with their enmity;
familiarized the idea of their language, religion, and manners;
and exhausted, by clandestine purchase, the magazines and
arsenals of the cities which they returned to besiege. They
aggravated the ransom of the more wealthy, or the more obstinate;
and Chalcis alone was taxed at five thousand ounces of gold, five
thousand ounces of silver, two thousand robes of silk, and as
many figs and olives as would load five thousand asses. But the
terms of truce or capitulation were faithfully observed; and the
lieutenant of the caliph, who had promised not to enter the walls
of the captive Baalbec, remained tranquil and immovable in his
tent till the jarring factions solicited the interposition of a
foreign master. The conquest of the plain and valley of Syria was
achieved in less than two years. Yet the commander of the
faithful reproved the slowness of their progress; and the
Saracens, bewailing their fault with tears of rage and
repentance, called aloud on their chiefs to lead them forth to
fight the battles of the Lord. In a recent action, under the
walls of Emesa, an Arabian youth, the cousin of Caled, was heard
aloud to exclaim, “Methinks I see the black-eyed girls looking
upon me; one of whom, should she appear in this world, all
mankind would die for love of her. And I see in the hand of one
of them a handkerchief of green silk, and a cap of precious
stones, and she beckons me, and calls out, Come hither quickly,
for I love thee.” With these words, charging the Christians, he
made havoc wherever he went, till, observed at length by the
governor of Hems, he was struck through with a javelin.
67 (return) [ In the Geography of Abulfeda, the description of
Syria, his native country, is the most interesting and authentic
portion. It was published in Arabic and Latin, Lipsiae, 1766, in
quarto, with the learned notes of Kochler and Reiske, and some
extracts of geography and natural history from Ibn Ol Wardii.
Among the modern travels, Pocock’s Description of the East (of
Syria and Mesopotamia, vol. ii. p. 88-209) is a work of superior
learning and dignity; but the author too often confounds what he
had seen and what he had read.]
68 (return) [ The praises of Dionysius are just and lively.
Syria, (in Periegesi, v. 902, in tom. iv. Geograph. Minor.
Hudson.) In another place he styles the country differently, (v.
898.) This poetical geographer lived in the age of Augustus, and
his description of the world is illustrated by the Greek
commentary of Eustathius, who paid the same compliment to Homer
and Dionysius, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. l. iv. c. 2, tom. iii. p.
21, &c.)]
69 (return) [ The topography of the Libanus and Anti-Libanus is
excellently described by the learning and sense of Reland,
(Palestin. tom. i. p. 311-326)]
70 (return) [
—Emesae fastigia celsa renident. Nam diffusa solo latus explicat; ac
subit auras Turribus in coelum nitentibus: incola claris Cor studiis
acuit... Denique flammicomo devoti pectora soli Vitam agitant.
Libanus frondosa cacumina turget. Et tamen his certant celsi fastigia
templi.
These verses of the Latin version of Rufus Avienus are wanting in
the Greek original of Dionysius; and since they are likewise
unnoticed by Eustathius, I must, with Fabricius, (Bibliot. Latin.
tom. iii. p. 153, edit. Ernesti,) and against Salmasius, (ad
Vopiscum, p. 366, 367, in Hist. August.,) ascribed them to the
fancy, rather than the Mss., of Avienus.]
71 (return) [ I am much better satisfied with Maundrell’s slight
octavo, (Journey, p. 134-139), than with the pompous folio of Dr.
Pocock, (Description of the East, vol. ii. p. 106-113;) but every
preceding account is eclipsed by the magnificent description and
drawings of Mm. Dawkins and Wood, who have transported into
England the ruins of Pamyra and Baalbec.]
72 (return) [ The Orientals explain the prodigy by a
never-failing expedient. The edifices of Baalbec were constructed
by the fairies or the genii, (Hist. de Timour Bec, tom. iii. l.
v. c. 23, p. 311, 312. Voyage d’Otter, tom. i. p. 83.) With less
absurdity, but with equal ignorance, Abulfeda and Ibn Chaukel
ascribe them to the Sabaeans or Aadites Non sunt in omni Syria
aedificia magnificentiora his, (Tabula Syria p. 108.)]
It was incumbent on the Saracens to exert the full powers of
their valor and enthusiasm against the forces of the emperor, who
was taught, by repeated losses, that the rovers of the desert had
undertaken, and would speedily achieve, a regular and permanent
conquest. From the provinces of Europe and Asia, fourscore
thousand soldiers were transported by sea and land to Antioch and
Caesarea: the light troops of the army consisted of sixty
thousand Christian Arabs of the tribe of Gassan. Under the banner
of Jabalah, the last of their princes, they marched in the van;
and it was a maxim of the Greeks, that for the purpose of cutting
diamond, a diamond was the most effectual. Heraclius withheld his
person from the dangers of the field; but his presumption, or
perhaps his despondency, suggested a peremptory order, that the
fate of the province and the war should be decided by a single
battle. The Syrians were attached to the standard of Rome and of
the cross: but the noble, the citizen, the peasant, were
exasperated by the injustice and cruelty of a licentious host,
who oppressed them as subjects, and despised them as strangers
and aliens. 73 A report of these mighty preparations was conveyed
to the Saracens in their camp of Emesa, and the chiefs, though
resolved to fight, assembled a council: the faith of Abu Obeidah
would have expected on the same spot the glory of martyrdom; the
wisdom of Caled advised an honorable retreat to the skirts of
Palestine and Arabia, where they might await the succors of their
friends, and the attack of the unbelievers. A speedy messenger
soon returned from the throne of Medina, with the blessings of
Omar and Ali, the prayers of the widows of the prophet, and a
reenforcement of eight thousand Moslems. In their way they
overturned a detachment of Greeks, and when they joined at Yermuk
the camp of their brethren, they found the pleasing intelligence,
that Caled had already defeated and scattered the Christian Arabs
of the tribe of Gassan. In the neighborhood of Bosra, the springs
of Mount Hermon descend in a torrent to the plain of Decapolis,
or ten cities; and the Hieromax, a name which has been corrupted
to Yermuk, is lost, after a short course, in the Lake of
Tiberias. 74 The banks of this obscure stream were illustrated by
a long and bloody encounter. 7411 On this momentous occasion, the
public voice, and the modesty of Abu Obeidah, restored the
command to the most deserving of the Moslems. Caled assumed his
station in the front, his colleague was posted in the rear, that
the disorder of the fugitive might be checked by his venerable
aspect, and the sight of the yellow banner which Mahomet had
displayed before the walls of Chaibar. The last line was occupied
by the sister of Derar, with the Arabian women who had enlisted
in this holy war, who were accustomed to wield the bow and the
lance, and who in a moment of captivity had defended, against the
uncircumcised ravishers, their chastity and religion. 75 The
exhortation of the generals was brief and forcible: “Paradise is
before you, the devil and hell-fire in your rear.” Yet such was
the weight of the Roman cavalry, that the right wing of the Arabs
was broken and separated from the main body. Thrice did they
retreat in disorder, and thrice were they driven back to the
charge by the reproaches and blows of the women. In the intervals
of action, Abu Obeidah visited the tents of his brethren,
prolonged their repose by repeating at once the prayers of two
different hours, bound up their wounds with his own hands, and
administered the comfortable reflection, that the infidels
partook of their sufferings without partaking of their reward.
Four thousand and thirty of the Moslems were buried in the field
of battle; and the skill of the Armenian archers enabled seven
hundred to boast that they had lost an eye in that meritorious
service. The veterans of the Syrian war acknowledged that it was
the hardest and most doubtful of the days which they had seen.
But it was likewise the most decisive: many thousands of the
Greeks and Syrians fell by the swords of the Arabs; many were
slaughtered, after the defeat, in the woods and mountains; many,
by mistaking the ford, were drowned in the waters of the Yermuk;
and however the loss may be magnified, 76 the Christian writers
confess and bewail the bloody punishment of their sins. 77
Manuel, the Roman general, was either killed at Damascus, or took
refuge in the monastery of Mount Sinai. An exile in the Byzantine
court, Jabalah lamented the manners of Arabia, and his unlucky
preference of the Christian cause. 78 He had once inclined to the
profession of Islam; but in the pilgrimage of Mecca, Jabalah was
provoked to strike one of his brethren, and fled with amazement
from the stern and equal justice of the caliph. These victorious
Saracens enjoyed at Damascus a month of pleasure and repose: the
spoil was divided by the discretion of Abu Obeidah: an equal
share was allotted to a soldier and to his horse, and a double
portion was reserved for the noble coursers of the Arabian breed.
73 (return) [ I have read somewhere in Tacitus, or Grotius,
Subjectos habent tanquam suos, viles tanquam alienos. Some Greek
officers ravished the wife, and murdered the child, of their
Syrian landlord; and Manuel smiled at his undutiful complaint.]
74 (return) [ See Reland, Palestin. tom. i. p. 272, 283, tom. ii.
p. 773, 775. This learned professor was equal to the task of
describing the Holy Land, since he was alike conversant with
Greek and Latin, with Hebrew and Arabian literature. The Yermuk,
or Hieromax, is noticed by Cellarius (Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii.
p. 392) and D’Anville, (Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 185.)
The Arabs, and even Abulfeda himself, do not seem to recognize
the scene of their victory.]
7411 (return) [ Compare Price, p. 79. The army of the Romans is
swoller to 400,000 men of which 70,000 perished.—M.]
75 (return) [ These women were of the tribe of the Hamyarites,
who derived their origin from the ancient Amalekites. Their
females were accustomed to ride on horseback, and to fight like
the Amazons of old, (Ockley, vol. i. p. 67.)]
76 (return) [ We killed of them, says Abu Obeidah to the caliph,
one hundred and fifty thousand, and made prisoners forty
thousand, (Ockley vol. i. p. 241.) As I cannot doubt his
veracity, nor believe his computation, I must suspect that the
Arabic historians indulge themselves in the practice of comparing
speeches and letters for their heroes.]
77 (return) [ After deploring the sins of the Christians,
Theophanes, adds, (Chronograph. p. 276,) does he mean Aiznadin?
His account is brief and obscure, but he accuses the numbers of
the enemy, the adverse wind, and the cloud of dust. (Chronograph.
p. 280.)]
78 (return) [ See Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p. 70, 71,) who
transcribes the poetical complaint of Jabalah himself, and some
panegyrical strains of an Arabian poet, to whom the chief of
Gassan sent from Constantinople a gift of five hundred pieces of
gold by the hands of the ambassador of Omar.]
After the battle of Yermuk, the Roman army no longer appeared in
the field; and the Saracens might securely choose, among the
fortified towns of Syria, the first object of their attack. They
consulted the caliph whether they should march to Caesarea or
Jerusalem; and the advice of Ali determined the immediate siege
of the latter. To a profane eye, Jerusalem was the first or
second capital of Palestine; but after Mecca and Medina, it was
revered and visited by the devout Moslems, as the temple of the
Holy Land which had been sanctified by the revelation of Moses,
of Jesus, and of Mahomet himself. The son of Abu Sophian was sent
with five thousand Arabs to try the first experiment of surprise
or treaty; but on the eleventh day, the town was invested by the
whole force of Abu Obeidah. He addressed the customary summons to
the chief commanders and people of Aelia. 79
79 (return) [ In the name of the city, the profane prevailed over
the sacred Jerusalem was known to the devout Christians, (Euseb.
de Martyr Palest. c xi.;) but the legal and popular appellation
of Aelia (the colony of Aelius Hadrianus) has passed from the
Romans to the Arabs. (Reland, Palestin. tom. i. p. 207, tom. ii.
p. 835. D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, Cods, p. 269, Ilia,
p. 420.) The epithet of Al Cods, the Holy, is used as the proper
name of Jerusalem.]
“Health and happiness to every one that follows the right way! We
require of you to testify that there is but one God, and that
Mahomet is his apostle. If you refuse this, consent to pay
tribute, and be under us forthwith. Otherwise I shall bring men
against you who love death better than you do the drinking of
wine or eating hog’s flesh. Nor will I ever stir from you, if it
please God, till I have destroyed those that fight for you, and
made slaves of your children.” But the city was defended on every
side by deep valleys and steep ascents; since the invasion of
Syria, the walls and towers had been anxiously restored; the
bravest of the fugitives of Yermuk had stopped in the nearest
place of refuge; and in the defence of the sepulchre of Christ,
the natives and strangers might feel some sparks of the
enthusiasm, which so fiercely glowed in the bosoms of the
Saracens. The siege of Jerusalem lasted four months; not a day
was lost without some action of sally or assault; the military
engines incessantly played from the ramparts; and the inclemency
of the winter was still more painful and destructive to the
Arabs. The Christians yielded at length to the perseverance of
the besiegers. The patriarch Sophronius appeared on the walls,
and by the voice of an interpreter demanded a conference. 7911
After a vain attempt to dissuade the lieutenant of the caliph
from his impious enterprise, he proposed, in the name of the
people, a fair capitulation, with this extraordinary clause, that
the articles of security should be ratified by the authority and
presence of Omar himself. The question was debated in the council
of Medina; the sanctity of the place, and the advice of Ali,
persuaded the caliph to gratify the wishes of his soldiers and
enemies; and the simplicity of his journey is more illustrious
than the royal pageants of vanity and oppression. The conqueror
of Persia and Syria was mounted on a red camel, which carried,
besides his person, a bag of corn, a bag of dates, a wooden dish,
and a leathern bottle of water. Wherever he halted, the company,
without distinction, was invited to partake of his homely fare,
and the repast was consecrated by the prayer and exhortation of
the commander of the faithful. 80 But in this expedition or
pilgrimage, his power was exercised in the administration of
justice: he reformed the licentious polygamy of the Arabs,
relieved the tributaries from extortion and cruelty, and
chastised the luxury of the Saracens, by despoiling them of their
rich silks, and dragging them on their faces in the dirt. When he
came within sight of Jerusalem, the caliph cried with a loud
voice, “God is victorious. O Lord, give us an easy conquest!”
and, pitching his tent of coarse hair, calmly seated himself on
the ground. After signing the capitulation, he entered the city
without fear or precaution; and courteously discoursed with the
patriarch concerning its religious antiquities. 81 Sophronius
bowed before his new master, and secretly muttered, in the words
of Daniel, “The abomination of desolation is in the holy place.”
82 At the hour of prayer they stood together in the church of the
resurrection; but the caliph refused to perform his devotions,
and contented himself with praying on the steps of the church of
Constantine. To the patriarch he disclosed his prudent and
honorable motive. “Had I yielded,” said Omar, “to your request,
the Moslems of a future age would have infringed the treaty under
color of imitating my example.” By his command the ground of the
temple of Solomon was prepared for the foundation of a mosch; 83
and, during a residence of ten days, he regulated the present and
future state of his Syrian conquests. Medina might be jealous,
lest the caliph should be detained by the sanctity of Jerusalem
or the beauty of Damascus; her apprehensions were dispelled by
his prompt and voluntary return to the tomb of the apostle. 84
7911 (return) [ See the explanation of this in Price, with the
prophecy which was hereby fulfilled, p 85.—M]
80 (return) [ The singular journey and equipage of Omar are
described (besides Ockley, vol. i. p. 250) by Murtadi,
(Merveilles de l’Egypte, p. 200-202.)]
81 (return) [ The Arabs boast of an old prophecy preserved at
Jerusalem, and describing the name, the religion, and the person
of Omar, the future conqueror. By such arts the Jews are said to
have soothed the pride of their foreign masters, Cyrus and
Alexander, (Joseph. Ant. Jud. l. xi c. 1, 8, p. 447, 579-582.)]
82 (return) [ Theophan. Chronograph. p. 281. This prediction,
which had already served for Antiochus and the Romans, was again
refitted for the present occasion, by the economy of Sophronius,
one of the deepest theologians of the Monothelite controversy.]
83 (return) [ According to the accurate survey of D’Anville,
(Dissertation sun l’ancienne Jerusalem, p. 42-54,) the mosch of
Omar, enlarged and embellished by succeeding caliphs, covered the
ground of the ancient temple, (says Phocas,) a length of 215, a
breadth of 172, toises. The Nubian geographer declares, that this
magnificent structure was second only in size and beauty to the
great mosch of Cordova, (p. 113,) whose present state Mr.
Swinburne has so elegantly represented, (Travels into Spain, p.
296-302.)]
84 (return) [ Of the many Arabic tarikhs or chronicles of
Jerusalem, (D’Herbelot, p. 867,) Ockley found one among the
Pocock Mss. of Oxford, (vol. i. p. 257,) which he has used to
supply the defective narrative of Al Wakidi.]
To achieve what yet remained of the Syrian war the caliph had
formed two separate armies; a chosen detachment, under Amrou and
Yezid, was left in the camp of Palestine; while the larger
division, under the standard of Abu Obeidah and Caled, marched
away to the north against Antioch and Aleppo. The latter of
these, the Beraea of the Greeks, was not yet illustrious as the
capital of a province or a kingdom; and the inhabitants, by
anticipating their submission and pleading their poverty,
obtained a moderate composition for their lives and religion. But
the castle of Aleppo, 85 distinct from the city, stood erect on a
lofty artificial mound; the sides were sharpened to a precipice,
and faced with free-stone; and the breadth of the ditch might be
filled with water from the neighboring springs. After the loss of
three thousand men, the garrison was still equal to the defence;
and Youkinna, their valiant and hereditary chief, had murdered
his brother, a holy monk, for daring to pronounce the name of
peace. In a siege of four or five months, the hardest of the
Syrian war, great numbers of the Saracens were killed and
wounded: their removal to the distance of a mile could not seduce
the vigilance of Youkinna; nor could the Christians be terrified
by the execution of three hundred captives, whom they beheaded
before the castle wall. The silence, and at length the
complaints, of Abu Obeidah informed the caliph that their hope
and patience were consumed at the foot of this impregnable
fortress. “I am variously affected,” replied Omar, “by the
difference of your success; but I charge you by no means to raise
the siege of the castle. Your retreat would diminish the
reputation of our arms, and encourage the infidels to fall upon
you on all sides. Remain before Aleppo till God shall determine
the event, and forage with your horse round the adjacent
country.” The exhortation of the commander of the faithful was
fortified by a supply of volunteers from all the tribes of
Arabia, who arrived in the camp on horses or camels. Among these
was Dames, of a servile birth, but of gigantic size and intrepid
resolution. The forty-seventh day of his service he proposed,
with only thirty men, to make an attempt on the castle. The
experience and testimony of Caled recommended his offer; and Abu
Obeidah admonished his brethren not to despise the baser origin
of Dames, since he himself, could he relinquish the public care,
would cheerfully serve under the banner of the slave. His design
was covered by the appearance of a retreat; and the camp of the
Saracens was pitched about a league from Aleppo. The thirty
adventurers lay in ambush at the foot of the hill; and Dames at
length succeeded in his inquiries, though he was provoked by the
ignorance of his Greek captives. “God curse these dogs,” said the
illiterate Arab; “what a strange barbarous language they speak!”
At the darkest hour of the night, he scaled the most accessible
height, which he had diligently surveyed, a place where the
stones were less entire, or the slope less perpendicular, or the
guard less vigilant. Seven of the stoutest Saracens mounted on
each other’s shoulders, and the weight of the column was
sustained on the broad and sinewy back of the gigantic slave. The
foremost in this painful ascent could grasp and climb the lowest
part of the battlements; they silently stabbed and cast down the
sentinels; and the thirty brethren, repeating a pious
ejaculation, “O apostle of God, help and deliver us!” were
successively drawn up by the long folds of their turbans. With
bold and cautious footsteps, Dames explored the palace of the
governor, who celebrated, in riotous merriment, the festival of
his deliverance. From thence, returning to his companions, he
assaulted on the inside the entrance of the castle. They
overpowered the guard, unbolted the gate, let down the
drawbridge, and defended the narrow pass, till the arrival of
Caled, with the dawn of day, relieved their danger and assured
their conquest. Youkinna, a formidable foe, became an active and
useful proselyte; and the general of the Saracens expressed his
regard for the most humble merit, by detaining the army at Aleppo
till Dames was cured of his honorable wounds. The capital of
Syria was still covered by the castle of Aazaz and the iron
bridge of the Orontes. After the loss of those important posts,
and the defeat of the last of the Roman armies, the luxury of
Antioch 86 trembled and obeyed. Her safety was ransomed with
three hundred thousand pieces of gold; but the throne of the
successors of Alexander, the seat of the Roman government of the
East, which had been decorated by Caesar with the titles of free,
and holy, and inviolate was degraded under the yoke of the
caliphs to the secondary rank of a provincial town. 87
85 (return) [ The Persian historian of Timur (tom. iii. l. v. c.
21, p. 300) describes the castle of Aleppo as founded on a rock
one hundred cubits in height; a proof, says the French
translator, that he had never visited the place. It is now in the
midst of the city, of no strength with a single gate; the circuit
is about 500 or 600 paces, and the ditch half full of stagnant
water, (Voyages de Tavernier, tom. i. p. 149 Pocock, vol. ii.
part i. p. 150.) The fortresses of the East are contemptible to a
European eye.]
86 (return) [ The date of the conquest of Antioch by the Arabs is
of some importance. By comparing the years of the world in the
chronography of Theophanes with the years of the Hegira in the
history of Elmacin, we shall determine, that it was taken between
January 23d and September 1st of the year of Christ 638, (Pagi,
Critica, in Baron. Annal. tom. ii. p. 812, 813.) Al Wakidi
(Ockley, vol. i. p. 314) assigns that event to Tuesday, August
21st, an inconsistent date; since Easter fell that year on April
5th, the 21st of August must have been a Friday, (see the Tables
of the Art de Verifier les Dates.)]
87 (return) [ His bounteous edict, which tempted the grateful
city to assume the victory of Pharsalia for a perpetual aera, is
given. John Malala, in Chron. p. 91, edit. Venet. We may
distinguish his authentic information of domestic facts from his
gross ignorance of general history.]
In the life of Heraclius, the glories of the Persian war are
clouded on either hand by the disgrace and weakness of his more
early and his later days. When the successors of Mahomet
unsheathed the sword of war and religion, he was astonished at
the boundless prospect of toil and danger; his nature was
indolent, nor could the infirm and frigid age of the emperor be
kindled to a second effort. The sense of shame, and the
importunities of the Syrians, prevented the hasty departure from
the scene of action; but the hero was no more; and the loss of
Damascus and Jerusalem, the bloody fields of Aiznadin and Yermuk,
may be imputed in some degree to the absence or misconduct of the
sovereign. Instead of defending the sepulchre of Christ, he
involved the church and state in a metaphysical controversy for
the unity of his will; and while Heraclius crowned the offspring
of his second nuptials, he was tamely stripped of the most
valuable part of their inheritance. In the cathedral of Antioch,
in the presence of the bishops, at the foot of the crucifix, he
bewailed the sins of the prince and people; but his confession
instructed the world, that it was vain, and perhaps impious, to
resist the judgment of God. The Saracens were invincible in fact,
since they were invincible in opinion; and the desertion of
Youkinna, his false repentance and repeated perfidy, might
justify the suspicion of the emperor, that he was encompassed by
traitors and apostates, who conspired to betray his person and
their country to the enemies of Christ. In the hour of adversity,
his superstition was agitated by the omens and dreams of a
falling crown; and after bidding an eternal farewell to Syria, he
secretly embarked with a few attendants, and absolved the faith
of his subjects. 88 Constantine, his eldest son, had been
stationed with forty thousand men at Caesarea, the civil
metropolis of the three provinces of Palestine. But his private
interest recalled him to the Byzantine court; and, after the
flight of his father, he felt himself an unequal champion to the
united force of the caliph. His vanguard was boldly attacked by
three hundred Arabs and a thousand black slaves, who, in the
depth of winter, had climbed the snowy mountains of Libanus, and
who were speedily followed by the victorious squadrons of Caled
himself. From the north and south the troops of Antioch and
Jerusalem advanced along the sea-shore till their banners were
joined under the walls of the Phoenician cities: Tripoli and Tyre
were betrayed; and a fleet of fifty transports, which entered
without distrust the captive harbors, brought a seasonable supply
of arms and provisions to the camp of the Saracens. Their labors
were terminated by the unexpected surrender of Caesarea: the
Roman prince had embarked in the night; 89 and the defenceless
citizens solicited their pardon with an offering of two hundred
thousand pieces of gold. The remainder of the province, Ramlah,
Ptolemais or Acre, Sichem or Neapolis, Gaza, Ascalon, Berytus,
Sidon, Gabala, Laodicea, Apamea, Hierapolis, no longer presumed
to dispute the will of the conqueror; and Syria bowed under the
sceptre of the caliphs seven hundred years after Pompey had
despoiled the last of the Macedonian kings. 90
88 (return) [ See Ockley, (vol. i. p. 308, 312,) who laughs at
the credulity of his author. When Heraclius bade farewell to
Syria, Vale Syria et ultimum vale, he prophesied that the Romans
should never reenter the province till the birth of an
inauspicious child, the future scourge of the empire. Abulfeda,
p. 68. I am perfectly ignorant of the mystic sense, or nonsense,
of this prediction.]
89 (return) [ In the loose and obscure chronology of the times, I
am guided by an authentic record, (in the book of ceremonies of
Constantine Porphyrogenitus,) which certifies that, June 4, A.D.
638, the emperor crowned his younger son Heraclius, in the
presence of his eldest, Constantine, and in the palace of
Constantinople; that January 1, A.D. 639, the royal procession
visited the great church, and on the 4th of the same month, the
hippodrome.]
90 (return) [ Sixty-five years before Christ, Syria Pontusque
monumenta sunt Cn. Pompeii virtutis, (Vell. Patercul. ii. 38,)
rather of his fortune and power: he adjudged Syria to be a Roman
province, and the last of the Seleucides were incapable of
drawing a sword in the defence of their patrimony (see the
original texts collected by Usher, Annal. p. 420)]
Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part V.
The sieges and battles of six campaigns had consumed many
thousands of the Moslems. They died with the reputation and the
cheerfulness of martyrs; and the simplicity of their faith may be
expressed in the words of an Arabian youth, when he embraced, for
the last time, his sister and mother: “It is not,” said he, “the
delicacies of Syria, or the fading delights of this world, that
have prompted me to devote my life in the cause of religion. But
I seek the favor of God and his apostle; and I have heard, from
one of the companions of the prophet, that the spirits of the
martyrs will be lodged in the crops of green birds, who shall
taste the fruits, and drink of the rivers, of paradise. Farewell,
we shall meet again among the groves and fountains which God has
provided for his elect.” The faithful captives might exercise a
passive and more arduous resolution; and a cousin of Mahomet is
celebrated for refusing, after an abstinence of three days, the
wine and pork, the only nourishment that was allowed by the
malice of the infidels. The frailty of some weaker brethren
exasperated the implacable spirit of fanaticism; and the father
of Amer deplored, in pathetic strains, the apostasy and damnation
of a son, who had renounced the promises of God, and the
intercession of the prophet, to occupy, with the priests and
deacons, the lowest mansions of hell. The more fortunate Arabs,
who survived the war and persevered in the faith, were restrained
by their abstemious leader from the abuse of prosperity. After a
refreshment of three days, Abu Obeidah withdrew his troops from
the pernicious contagion of the luxury of Antioch, and assured
the caliph that their religion and virtue could only be preserved
by the hard discipline of poverty and labor. But the virtue of
Omar, however rigorous to himself, was kind and liberal to his
brethren. After a just tribute of praise and thanksgiving, he
dropped a tear of compassion; and sitting down on the ground,
wrote an answer, in which he mildly censured the severity of his
lieutenant: “God,” said the successor of the prophet, “has not
forbidden the use of the good things of this worl to faithful
men, and such as have performed good works. Therefore you ought
to have given them leave to rest themselves, and partake freely
of those good things which the country affordeth. If any of the
Saracens have no family in Arabia, they may marry in Syria; and
whosoever of them wants any female slaves, he may purchase as
many as he hath occasion for.” The conquerors prepared to use, or
to abuse, this gracious permission; but the year of their triumph
was marked by a mortality of men and cattle; and twenty-five
thousand Saracens were snatched away from the possession of
Syria. The death of Abu Obeidah might be lamented by the
Christians; but his brethren recollected that he was one of the
ten elect whom the prophet had named as the heirs of paradise. 91
Caled survived his brethren about three years: and the tomb of
the Sword of God is shown in the neighborhood of Emesa. His
valor, which founded in Arabia and Syria the empire of the
caliphs, was fortified by the opinion of a special providence;
and as long as he wore a cap, which had been blessed by Mahomet,
he deemed himself invulnerable amidst the darts of the infidels.
9111
91 (return) [ Abulfeda, Annal. Moslem. p. 73. Mahomet could
artfully vary the praises of his disciples. Of Omar he was
accustomed to say, that if a prophet could arise after himself,
it would be Omar; and that in a general calamity, Omar would be
accepted by the divine justice, (Ockley, vol. i. p. 221.)]
9111 (return) [ Khaled, according to the Rouzont Uzzuffa, (Price,
p. 90,) after having been deprived of his ample share of the
plunder of Syria by the jealousy of Omar, died, possessed only of
his horse, his arms, and a single slave. Yet Omar was obliged to
acknowledge to his lamenting parent. that never mother had
produced a son like Khaled.—M.]
The place of the first conquerors was supplied by a new
generation of their children and countrymen: Syria became the
seat and support of the house of Ommiyah; and the revenue, the
soldiers, the ships of that powerful kingdom were consecrated to
enlarge on every side the empire of the caliphs. But the Saracens
despise a superfluity of fame; and their historians scarcely
condescend to mention the subordinate conquests which are lost in
the splendor and rapidity of their victorious career.
To the north of Syria, they passed Mount Taurus, and reduced to
their obedience the province of Cilicia, with its capital Tarsus,
the ancient monument of the Assyrian kings. Beyond a second ridge
of the same mountains, they spread the flame of war, rather than
the light of religion, as far as the shores of the Euxine, and
the neighborhood of Constantinople. To the east they advanced to
the banks and sources of the Euphrates and Tigris: 92 the long
disputed barrier of Rome and Persia was forever confounded; the
walls of Edessa and Amida, of Dara and Nisibis, which had
resisted the arms and engines of Sapor or Nushirvan, were
levelled in the dust; and the holy city of Abgarus might vainly
produce the epistle or the image of Christ to an unbelieving
conqueror. To the west the Syrian kingdom is bounded by the sea:
and the ruin of Aradus, a small island or peninsula on the coast,
was postponed during ten years. But the hills of Libanus abounded
in timber; the trade of Phoenicia was populous in mariners; and a
fleet of seventeen hundred barks was equipped and manned by the
natives of the desert. The Imperial navy of the Romans fled
before them from the Pamphylian rocks to the Hellespont; but the
spirit of the emperor, a grandson of Heraclius, had been subdued
before the combat by a dream and a pun. 93 The Saracens rode
masters of the sea; and the islands of Cyprus, Rhodes, and the
Cyclades, were successively exposed to their rapacious visits.
Three hundred years before the Christian aera, the memorable
though fruitless siege of Rhodes 94 by Demetrius had furnished
that maritime republic with the materials and the subject of a
trophy. A gigantic statue of Apollo, or the sun, seventy cubits
in height, was erected at the entrance of the harbor, a monument
of the freedom and the arts of Greece. After standing fifty-six
years, the colossus of Rhodes was overthrown by an earthquake;
but the massy trunk, and huge fragments, lay scattered eight
centuries on the ground, and are often described as one of the
wonders of the ancient world. They were collected by the
diligence of the Saracens, and sold to a Jewish merchant of
Edessa, who is said to have laden nine hundred camels with the
weight of the brass metal; an enormous weight, though we should
include the hundred colossal figures, 95 and the three thousand
statues, which adorned the prosperity of the city of the sun.
92 (return) [ Al Wakidi had likewise written a history of the
conquest of Diarbekir, or Mesopotamia, (Ockley, at the end of the
iid vol.,) which our interpreters do not appear to have seen. The
Chronicle of Dionysius of Telmar, the Jacobite patriarch, records
the taking of Edessa A.D. 637, and of Dara A.D. 641, (Asseman.
Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 103;) and the attentive may glean
some doubtful information from the Chronography of Theophanes,
(p. 285-287.) Most of the towns of Mesopotamia yielded by
surrender, (Abulpharag. p. 112.) * Note: It has been published in
Arabic by M. Ewald St. Martin, vol. xi p 248; but its
authenticity is doubted.—M.]
93 (return) [ He dreamt that he was at Thessalonica, a harmless
and unmeaning vision; but his soothsayer, or his cowardice,
understood the sure omen of a defeat concealed in that
inauspicious word, Give to another the victory, (Theoph. p. 286.
Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 88.)]
94 (return) [ Every passage and every fact that relates to the
isle, the city, and the colossus of Rhodes, are compiled in the
laborious treatise of Meursius, who has bestowed the same
diligence on the two larger islands of the Crete and Cyprus. See,
in the iiid vol. of his works, the Rhodus of Meursius, (l. i. c.
15, p. 715-719.) The Byzantine writers, Theophanes and
Constantine, have ignorantly prolonged the term to 1360 years,
and ridiculously divide the weight among 30,000 camels.]
95 (return) [ Centum colossi alium nobilitaturi locum, says
Pliny, with his usual spirit. Hist. Natur. xxxiv. 18.]
III. The conquest of Egypt may be explained by the character of
the victorious Saracen, one of the first of his nation, in an age
when the meanest of the brethren was exalted above his nature by
the spirit of enthusiasm. The birth of Amrou was at once base and
illustrious; his mother, a notorious prostitute, was unable to
decide among five of the Koreish; but the proof of resemblance
adjudged the child to Aasi, the oldest of her lovers. 96 The
youth of Amrou was impelled by the passions and prejudices of his
kindred: his poetic genius was exercised in satirical verses
against the person and doctrine of Mahomet; his dexterity was
employed by the reigning faction to pursue the religious exiles
who had taken refuge in the court of the Aethiopian king. 97 Yet
he returned from this embassy a secret proselyte; his reason or
his interest determined him to renounce the worship of idols; he
escaped from Mecca with his friend Caled; and the prophet of
Medina enjoyed at the same moment the satisfaction of embracing
the two firmest champions of his cause. The impatience of Amrou
to lead the armies of the faithful was checked by the reproof of
Omar, who advised him not to seek power and dominion, since he
who is a subject to-day, may be a prince to-morrow. Yet his merit
was not overlooked by the two first successors of Mahomet; they
were indebted to his arms for the conquest of Palestine; and in
all the battles and sieges of Syria, he united with the temper of
a chief the valor of an adventurous soldier. In a visit to
Medina, the caliph expressed a wish to survey the sword which had
cut down so many Christian warriors; the son of Aasi unsheathed a
short and ordinary cimeter; and as he perceived the surprise of
Omar, “Alas,” said the modest Saracen, “the sword itself, without
the arm of its master, is neither sharper nor more weighty than
the sword of Pharezdak the poet.” 98 After the conquest of Egypt,
he was recalled by the jealousy of the caliph Othman; but in the
subsequent troubles, the ambition of a soldier, a statesman, and
an orator, emerged from a private station. His powerful support,
both in council and in the field, established the throne of the
Ommiades; the administration and revenue of Egypt were restored
by the gratitude of Moawiyah to a faithful friend who had raised
himself above the rank of a subject; and Amrou ended his days in
the palace and city which he had founded on the banks of the
Nile. His dying speech to his children is celebrated by the
Arabians as a model of eloquence and wisdom: he deplored the
errors of his youth but if the penitent was still infected by the
vanity of a poet, he might exaggerate the venom and mischief of
his impious compositions. 99
96 (return) [ We learn this anecdote from a spirited old woman,
who reviled to their faces, the caliph and his friend. She was
encouraged by the silence of Amrou and the liberality of
Moawiyah, (Abulfeda, Annal Moslem. p. 111.)]
97 (return) [ Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. ii. p. 46, &c., who
quotes the Abyssinian history, or romance of Abdel Balcides. Yet
the fact of the embassy and ambassador may be allowed.]
98 (return) [ This saying is preserved by Pocock, (Not. ad Carmen
Tograi, p 184,) and justly applauded by Mr. Harris,
(Philosophical Arrangements, p. 850.)]
99 (return) [ For the life and character of Amrou, see Ockley
(Hist. of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 28, 63, 94, 328, 342, 344, and
to the end of the volume; vol. ii. p. 51, 55, 57, 74, 110-112,
162) and Otter, (Mem. de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxi.
p. 131, 132.) The readers of Tacitus may aptly compare Vespasian
and Mucianus with Moawiyah and Amrou. Yet the resemblance is
still more in the situation, than in the characters, of the men.]
From his camp in Palestine, Amrou had surprised or anticipated
the caliph’s leave for the invasion of Egypt. 100 The magnanimous
Omar trusted in his God and his sword, which had shaken the
thrones of Chosroes and Caesar: but when he compared the slender
force of the Moslems with the greatness of the enterprise, he
condemned his own rashness, and listened to his timid companions.
The pride and the greatness of Pharaoh were familiar to the
readers of the Koran; and a tenfold repetition of prodigies had
been scarcely sufficient to effect, not the victory, but the
flight, of six hundred thousand of the children of Israel: the
cities of Egypt were many and populous; their architecture was
strong and solid; the Nile, with its numerous branches, was alone
an insuperable barrier; and the granary of the Imperial city
would be obstinately defended by the Roman powers. In this
perplexity, the commander of the faithful resigned himself to the
decision of chance, or, in his opinion, of Providence. At the
head of only four thousand Arabs, the intrepid Amrou had marched
away from his station of Gaza when he was overtaken by the
messenger of Omar. “If you are still in Syria,” said the
ambiguous mandate, “retreat without delay; but if, at the receipt
of this epistle, you have already reached the frontiers of Egypt,
advance with confidence, and depend on the succor of God and of
your brethren.” The experience, perhaps the secret intelligence,
of Amrou had taught him to suspect the mutability of courts; and
he continued his march till his tents were unquestionably pitched
on Egyptian ground. He there assembled his officers, broke the
seal, perused the epistle, gravely inquired the name and
situation of the place, and declared his ready obedience to the
commands of the caliph. After a siege of thirty days, he took
possession of Farmah or Pelusium; and that key of Egypt, as it
has been justly named, unlocked the entrance of the country as
far as the ruins of Heliopolis and the neighborhood of the modern
Cairo.
100 (return) [ Al Wakidi had likewise composed a separate history
of the conquest of Egypt, which Mr. Ockley could never procure;
and his own inquiries (vol. i. 344-362) have added very little to
the original text of Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 296-323,
vers. Pocock,) the Melchite patriarch of Alexandria, who lived
three hundred years after the revolution.]
On the Western side of the Nile, at a small distance to the east
of the Pyramids, at a small distance to the south of the Delta,
Memphis, one hundred and fifty furlongs in circumference,
displayed the magnificence of ancient kings. Under the reign of
the Ptolemies and Caesars, the seat of government was removed to
the sea-coast; the ancient capital was eclipsed by the arts and
opulence of Alexandria; the palaces, and at length the temples,
were reduced to a desolate and ruinous condition: yet, in the age
of Augustus, and even in that of Constantine, Memphis was still
numbered among the greatest and most populous of the provincial
cities. 101 The banks of the Nile, in this place of the breadth
of three thousand feet, were united by two bridges of sixty and
of thirty boats, connected in the middle stream by the small
island of Rouda, which was covered with gardens and habitations.
102 The eastern extremity of the bridge was terminated by the
town of Babylon and the camp of a Roman legion, which protected
the passage of the river and the second capital of Egypt. This
important fortress, which might fairly be described as a part of
Memphis or Misrah, was invested by the arms of the lieutenant of
Omar: a reenforcement of four thousand Saracens soon arrived in
his camp; and the military engines, which battered the walls, may
be imputed to the art and labor of his Syrian allies. Yet the
siege was protracted to seven months; and the rash invaders were
encompassed and threatened by the inundation of the Nile. 103
Their last assault was bold and successful: they passed the
ditch, which had been fortified with iron spikes, applied their
scaling ladders, entered the fortress with the shout of “God is
victorious!” and drove the remnant of the Greeks to their boats
and the Isle of Rouda. The spot was afterwards recommended to the
conqueror by the easy communication with the gulf and the
peninsula of Arabia; the remains of Memphis were deserted; the
tents of the Arabs were converted into permanent habitations; and
the first mosch was blessed by the presence of fourscore
companions of Mahomet. 104 A new city arose in their camp, on the
eastward bank of the Nile; and the contiguous quarters of Babylon
and Fostat are confounded in their present decay by the
appellation of old Misrah, or Cairo, of which they form an
extensive suburb. But the name of Cairo, the town of victory,
more strictly belongs to the modern capital, which was founded in
the tenth century by the Fatimite caliphs. 105 It has gradually
receded from the river; but the continuity of buildings may be
traced by an attentive eye from the monuments of Sesostris to
those of Saladin. 106
101 (return) [ Strabo, an accurate and attentive spectator,
observes of Heliopolis, (Geograph. l. xvii. p. 1158;) but of
Memphis he notices, however, the mixture of inhabitants, and the
ruin of the palaces. In the proper Egypt, Ammianus enumerates
Memphis among the four cities, maximis urbibus quibus provincia
nitet, (xxii. 16;) and the name of Memphis appears with
distinction in the Roman Itinerary and episcopal lists.]
102 (return) [ These rare and curious facts, the breadth (2946
feet) and the bridge of the Nile, are only to be found in the
Danish traveller and the Nubian geographer, (p. 98.)]
103 (return) [ From the month of April, the Nile begins
imperceptibly to rise; the swell becomes strong and visible in
the moon after the summer solstice, (Plin. Hist. Nat. v. 10,) and
is usually proclaimed at Cairo on St. Peter’s day, (June 29.) A
register of thirty successive years marks the greatest height of
the waters between July 25 and August 18, (Maillet, Description
de l’Egypte, lettre xi. p. 67, &c. Pocock’s Description of the
East, vol. i. p. 200. Shaw’s Travels, p. 383.)]
104 (return) [ Murtadi, Merveilles de l’Egypte, 243, 259. He
expatiates on the subject with the zeal and minuteness of a
citizen and a bigot, and his local traditions have a strong air
of truth and accuracy.]
105 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 233.]
106 (return) [ The position of New and of Old Cairo is well
known, and has been often described. Two writers, who were
intimately acquainted with ancient and modern Egypt, have fixed,
after a learned inquiry, the city of Memphis at Gizeh, directly
opposite the Old Cairo, (Sicard, Nouveaux Memoires des Missions
du Levant, tom. vi. p. 5, 6. Shaw’s Observations and Travels, p.
296-304.) Yet we may not disregard the authority or the arguments
of Pocock, (vol. i. p. 25-41,) Niebuhr, (Voyage, tom. i. p.
77-106,) and above all, of D’Anville, (Description de l’Egypte,
p. 111, 112, 130-149,) who have removed Memphis towards the
village of Mohannah, some miles farther to the south. In their
heat, the disputants have forgot that the ample space of a
metropolis covers and annihilates the far greater part of the
controversy.]
Yet the Arabs, after a glorious and profitable enterprise, must
have retreated to the desert, had they not found a powerful
alliance in the heart of the country. The rapid conquest of
Alexander was assisted by the superstition and revolt of the
natives: they abhorred their Persian oppressors, the disciples of
the Magi, who had burnt the temples of Egypt, and feasted with
sacrilegious appetite on the flesh of the god Apis. 107 After a
period of ten centuries, the same revolution was renewed by a
similar cause; and in the support of an incomprehensible creed,
the zeal of the Coptic Christians was equally ardent. I have
already explained the origin and progress of the Monophysite
controversy, and the persecution of the emperors, which converted
a sect into a nation, and alienated Egypt from their religion and
government. The Saracens were received as the deliverers of the
Jacobite church; and a secret and effectual treaty was opened
during the siege of Memphis between a victorious army and a
people of slaves. A rich and noble Egyptian, of the name of
Mokawkas, had dissembled his faith to obtain the administration
of his province: in the disorders of the Persian war he aspired
to independence: the embassy of Mahomet ranked him among princes;
but he declined, with rich gifts and ambiguous compliments, the
proposal of a new religion. 108 The abuse of his trust exposed
him to the resentment of Heraclius: his submission was delayed by
arrogance and fear; and his conscience was prompted by interest
to throw himself on the favor of the nation and the support of
the Saracens. In his first conference with Amrou, he heard
without indignation the usual option of the Koran, the tribute,
or the sword. “The Greeks,” replied Mokawkas, “are determined to
abide the determination of the sword; but with the Greeks I
desire no communion, either in this world or in the next, and I
abjure forever the Byzantine tyrant, his synod of Chalcedon, and
his Melchite slaves. For myself and my brethren, we are resolved
to live and die in the profession of the gospel and unity of
Christ. It is impossible for us to embrace the revelations of
your prophet; but we are desirous of peace, and cheerfully submit
to pay tribute and obedience to his temporal successors.” The
tribute was ascertained at two pieces of gold for the head of
every Christian; but old men, monks, women, and children, of both
sexes, under sixteen years of age, were exempted from this
personal assessment: the Copts above and below Memphis swore
allegiance to the caliph, and promised a hospitable entertainment
of three days to every Mussulman who should travel through their
country. By this charter of security, the ecclesiastical and
civil tyranny of the Melchites was destroyed: 109 the anathemas
of St. Cyril were thundered from every pulpit; and the sacred
edifices, with the patrimony of the church, were restored to the
national communion of the Jacobites, who enjoyed without
moderation the moment of triumph and revenge. At the pressing
summons of Amrou, their patriarch Benjamin emerged from his
desert; and after the first interview, the courteous Arab
affected to declare that he had never conversed with a Christian
priest of more innocent manners and a more venerable aspect. 110
In the march from Memphis to Alexandria, the lieutenant of Omar
intrusted his safety to the zeal and gratitude of the Egyptians:
the roads and bridges were diligently repaired; and in every step
of his progress, he could depend on a constant supply of
provisions and intelligence. The Greeks of Egypt, whose numbers
could scarcely equal a tenth of the natives, were overwhelmed by
the universal defection: they had ever been hated, they were no
longer feared: the magistrate fled from his tribunal, the bishop
from his altar; and the distant garrisons were surprised or
starved by the surrounding multitudes. Had not the Nile afforded
a safe and ready conveyance to the sea, not an individual could
have escaped, who by birth, or language, or office, or religion,
was connected with their odious name.
107 (return) [ See Herodotus, l. iii. c. 27, 28, 29. Aelian,
Hist. Var. l. iv. c. 8. Suidas in, tom. ii. p. 774. Diodor.
Sicul. tom. ii. l. xvii. p. 197, edit. Wesseling. Says the last
of these historians.]
108 (return) [ Mokawkas sent the prophet two Coptic damsels, with
two maids and one eunuch, an alabaster vase, an ingot of pure
gold, oil, honey, and the finest white linen of Egypt, with a
horse, a mule, and an ass, distinguished by their respective
qualifications. The embassy of Mahomet was despatched from Medina
in the seventh year of the Hegira, (A.D. 628.) See Gagnier, (Vie
de Mahomet, tom. ii. p. 255, 256, 303,) from Al Jannabi.]
109 (return) [ The praefecture of Egypt, and the conduct of the
war, had been trusted by Heraclius to the patriarch Cyrus,
(Theophan. p. 280, 281.) “In Spain,” said James II., “do you not
consult your priests?” “We do,” replied the Catholic ambassador,
“and our affairs succeed accordingly.” I know not how to relate
the plans of Cyrus, of paying tribute without impairing the
revenue, and of converting Omar by his marriage with the
Emperor’s daughter, (Nicephor. Breviar. p. 17, 18.)]
110 (return) [ See the life of Benjamin, in Renaudot, (Hist.
Patriarch. Alexandrin. p. 156-172,) who has enriched the conquest
of Egypt with some facts from the Arabic text of Severus the
Jacobite historian]
By the retreat of the Greeks from the provinces of Upper Egypt, a
considerable force was collected in the Island of Delta; the
natural and artificial channels of the Nile afforded a succession
of strong and defensible posts; and the road to Alexandria was
laboriously cleared by the victory of the Saracens in
two-and-twenty days of general or partial combat. In their annals
of conquest, the siege of Alexandria 111 is perhaps the most
arduous and important enterprise. The first trading city in the
world was abundantly replenished with the means of subsistence
and defence. Her numerous inhabitants fought for the dearest of
human rights, religion and property; and the enmity of the
natives seemed to exclude them from the common benefit of peace
and toleration. The sea was continually open; and if Heraclius
had been awake to the public distress, fresh armies of Romans and
Barbarians might have been poured into the harbor to save the
second capital of the empire. A circumference of ten miles would
have scattered the forces of the Greeks, and favored the
stratagems of an active enemy; but the two sides of an oblong
square were covered by the sea and the Lake Maraeotis, and each
of the narrow ends exposed a front of no more than ten furlongs.
The efforts of the Arabs were not inadequate to the difficulty of
the attempt and the value of the prize. From the throne of
Medina, the eyes of Omar were fixed on the camp and city: his
voice excited to arms the Arabian tribes and the veterans of
Syria; and the merit of a holy war was recommended by the
peculiar fame and fertility of Egypt. Anxious for the ruin or
expulsion of their tyrants, the faithful natives devoted their
labors to the service of Amrou: some sparks of martial spirit
were perhaps rekindled by the example of their allies; and the
sanguine hopes of Mokawkas had fixed his sepulchre in the church
of St. John of Alexandria. Eutychius the patriarch observes, that
the Saracens fought with the courage of lions: they repulsed the
frequent and almost daily sallies of the besieged, and soon
assaulted in their turn the walls and towers of the city. In
every attack, the sword, the banner of Amrou, glittered in the
van of the Moslems. On a memorable day, he was betrayed by his
imprudent valor: his followers who had entered the citadel were
driven back; and the general, with a friend and slave, remained a
prisoner in the hands of the Christians. When Amrou was conducted
before the praefect, he remembered his dignity, and forgot his
situation: a lofty demeanor, and resolute language, revealed the
lieutenant of the caliph, and the battle-axe of a soldier was
already raised to strike off the head of the audacious captive.
His life was saved by the readiness of his slave, who instantly
gave his master a blow on the face, and commanded him, with an
angry tone, to be silent in the presence of his superiors. The
credulous Greek was deceived: he listened to the offer of a
treaty, and his prisoners were dismissed in the hope of a more
respectable embassy, till the joyful acclamations of the camp
announced the return of their general, and insulted the folly of
the infidels. At length, after a siege of fourteen months, 112
and the loss of three-and-twenty thousand men, the Saracens
prevailed: the Greeks embarked their dispirited and diminished
numbers, and the standard of Mahomet was planted on the walls of
the capital of Egypt. “I have taken,” said Amrou to the caliph,
“the great city of the West. It is impossible for me to enumerate
the variety of its riches and beauty; and I shall content myself
with observing, that it contains four thousand palaces, four
thousand baths, four hundred theatres or places of amusement,
twelve thousand shops for the sale of vegetable food, and forty
thousand tributary Jews. The town has been subdued by force of
arms, without treaty or capitulation, and the Moslems are
impatient to seize the fruits of their victory.” 113 The
commander of the faithful rejected with firmness the idea of
pillage, and directed his lieutenant to reserve the wealth and
revenue of Alexandria for the public service and the propagation
of the faith: the inhabitants were numbered; a tribute was
imposed, the zeal and resentment of the Jacobites were curbed,
and the Melchites who submitted to the Arabian yoke were indulged
in the obscure but tranquil exercise of their worship. The
intelligence of this disgraceful and calamitous event afflicted
the declining health of the emperor; and Heraclius died of a
dropsy about seven weeks after the loss of Alexandria. 114 Under
the minority of his grandson, the clamors of a people, deprived
of their daily sustenance, compelled the Byzantine court to
undertake the recovery of the capital of Egypt. In the space of
four years, the harbor and fortifications of Alexandria were
twice occupied by a fleet and army of Romans. They were twice
expelled by the valor of Amrou, who was recalled by the domestic
peril from the distant wars of Tripoli and Nubia. But the
facility of the attempt, the repetition of the insult, and the
obstinacy of the resistance, provoked him to swear, that if a
third time he drove the infidels into the sea, he would render
Alexandria as accessible on all sides as the house of a
prostitute. Faithful to his promise, he dismantled several parts
of the walls and towers; but the people was spared in the
chastisement of the city, and the mosch of Mercy was erected on
the spot where the victorious general had stopped the fury of his
troops.
111 (return) [ The local description of Alexandria is perfectly
ascertained by the master hand of the first of geographers,
(D’Anville, Memoire sur l’Egypte, p. 52-63;) but we may borrow
the eyes of the modern travellers, more especially of Thevenot,
(Voyage au Levant, part i. p. 381-395,) Pocock, (vol. i. p.
2-13,) and Niebuhr, (Voyage en Arabie, tom. i. p. 34-43.) Of the
two modern rivals, Savary and Volmey, the one may amuse, the
other will instruct.]
112 (return) [ Both Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p. 319) and
Elmacin (Hist. Saracen. p. 28) concur in fixing the taking of
Alexandria to Friday of the new moon of Moharram of the twentieth
year of the Hegira, (December 22, A.D. 640.) In reckoning
backwards fourteen months spent before Alexandria, seven months
before Babylon, &c., Amrou might have invaded Egypt about the end
of the year 638; but we are assured that he entered the country
the 12th of Bayni, 6th of June, (Murtadi, Merveilles de l’Egypte,
p. 164. Severus, apud Renaudot, p. 162.) The Saracen, and
afterwards Lewis IX. of France, halted at Pelusium, or Damietta,
during the season of the inundation of the Nile.]
113 (return) [ Eutych. Annal. tom. ii. p. 316, 319.]
114 (return) [ Notwithstanding some inconsistencies of Theophanes
and Cedrenus, the accuracy of Pagi (Critica, tom. ii. p. 824) has
extracted from Nicephorus and the Chronicon Orientale the true
date of the death of Heraclius, February 11th, A.D. 641, fifty
days after the loss of Alexandria. A fourth of that time was
sufficient to convey the intelligence.]
Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part VI.
I should deceive the expectation of the reader, if I passed in
silence the fate of the Alexandrian library, as it is described
by the learned Abulpharagius. The spirit of Amrou was more
curious and liberal than that of his brethren, and in his leisure
hours, the Arabian chief was pleased with the conversation of
John, the last disciple of Ammonius, and who derived the surname
of Philoponus from his laborious studies of grammar and
philosophy. 115 Emboldened by this familiar intercourse,
Philoponus presumed to solicit a gift, inestimable in his
opinion, contemptible in that of the Barbarians—the royal
library, which alone, among the spoils of Alexandria, had not
been appropriated by the visit and the seal of the conqueror.
Amrou was inclined to gratify the wish of the grammarian, but his
rigid integrity refused to alienate the minutest object without
the consent of the caliph; and the well-known answer of Omar was
inspired by the ignorance of a fanatic. “If these writings of the
Greeks agree with the book of God, they are useless, and need not
be preserved: if they disagree, they are pernicious, and ought to
be destroyed.” The sentence was executed with blind obedience:
the volumes of paper or parchment were distributed to the four
thousand baths of the city; and such was their incredible
multitude, that six months were barely sufficient for the
consumption of this precious fuel. Since the Dynasties of
Abulpharagius 116 have been given to the world in a Latin
version, the tale has been repeatedly transcribed; and every
scholar, with pious indignation, has deplored the irreparable
shipwreck of the learning, the arts, and the genius, of
antiquity. For my own part, I am strongly tempted to deny both
the fact and the consequences. 1161 The fact is indeed
marvellous. “Read and wonder!” says the historian himself: and
the solitary report of a stranger who wrote at the end of six
hundred years on the confines of Media, is overbalanced by the
silence of two annalist of a more early date, both Christians,
both natives of Egypt, and the most ancient of whom, the
patriarch Eutychius, has amply described the conquest of
Alexandria. 117 The rigid sentence of Omar is repugnant to the
sound and orthodox precept of the Mahometan casuists they
expressly declare, that the religious books of the Jews and
Christians, which are acquired by the right of war, should never
be committed to the flames; and that the works of profane
science, historians or poets, physicians or philosophers, may be
lawfully applied to the use of the faithful. 118 A more
destructive zeal may perhaps be attributed to the first
successors of Mahomet; yet in this instance, the conflagration
would have speedily expired in the deficiency of materials. I
should not recapitulate the disasters of the Alexandrian library,
the involuntary flame that was kindled by Caesar in his own
defence, 119 or the mischievous bigotry of the Christians, who
studied to destroy the monuments of idolatry. 120 But if we
gradually descend from the age of the Antonines to that of
Theodosius, we shall learn from a chain of contemporary
witnesses, that the royal palace and the temple of Serapis no
longer contained the four, or the seven, hundred thousand
volumes, which had been assembled by the curiosity and
magnificence of the Ptolemies. 121 Perhaps the church and seat of
the patriarchs might be enriched with a repository of books; but
if the ponderous mass of Arian and Monophysite controversy were
indeed consumed in the public baths, 122 a philosopher may allow,
with a smile, that it was ultimately devoted to the benefit of
mankind. I sincerely regret the more valuable libraries which
have been involved in the ruin of the Roman empire; but when I
seriously compute the lapse of ages, the waste of ignorance, and
the calamities of war, our treasures, rather than our losses, are
the objects of my surprise. Many curious and interesting facts
are buried in oblivion: the three great historians of Rome have
been transmitted to our hands in a mutilated state, and we are
deprived of many pleasing compositions of the lyric, iambic, and
dramatic poetry of the Greeks. Yet we should gratefully remember,
that the mischances of time and accident have spared the classic
works to which the suffrage of antiquity 123 had adjudged the
first place of genius and glory: the teachers of ancient
knowledge, who are still extant, had perused and compared the
writings of their predecessors; 124 nor can it fairly be presumed
that any important truth, any useful discovery in art or nature,
has been snatched away from the curiosity of modern ages.
115 (return) [ Many treatises of this lover of labor are still
extant, but for readers of the present age, the printed and
unpublished are nearly in the same predicament. Moses and
Aristotle are the chief objects of his verbose commentaries, one
of which is dated as early as May 10th, A.D. 617, (Fabric.
Bibliot. Graec. tom. ix. p. 458-468.) A modern, (John Le Clerc,)
who sometimes assumed the same name was equal to old Philoponus
in diligence, and far superior in good sense and real knowledge.]
116 (return) [ Abulpharag. Dynast. p. 114, vers. Pocock. Audi
quid factum sit et mirare. It would be endless to enumerate the
moderns who have wondered and believed, but I may distinguish
with honor the rational scepticism of Renaudot, (Hist. Alex.
Patriarch, p. 170: ) historia... habet aliquid ut Arabibus
familiare est.]
1161 (return) [ Since this period several new Mahometan
authorities have been adduced to support the authority of
Abulpharagius. That of, I. Abdollatiph by Professor White: II. Of
Makrizi; I have seen a Ms. extract from this writer: III. Of Ibn
Chaledun: and after them Hadschi Chalfa. See Von Hammer,
Geschichte der Assassinen, p. 17. Reinhard, in a German
Dissertation, printed at Gottingen, 1792, and St. Croix, (Magasin
Encyclop. tom. iv. p. 433,) have examined the question. Among
Oriental scholars, Professor White, M. St. Martin, Von Hammer.
and Silv. de Sacy, consider the fact of the burning the library,
by the command of Omar, beyond question. Compare St. Martin’s
note. vol. xi. p. 296. A Mahometan writer brings a similar charge
against the Crusaders. The library of Tripoli is said to have
contained the incredible number of three millions of volumes. On
the capture of the city, Count Bertram of St. Giles, entering the
first room, which contained nothing but the Koran, ordered the
whole to be burnt, as the works of the false prophet of Arabia.
See Wilken. Gesch der Kreux zuge, vol. ii. p. 211.—M.]
117 (return) [ This curious anecdote will be vainly sought in the
annals of Eutychius, and the Saracenic history of Elmacin. The
silence of Abulfeda, Murtadi, and a crowd of Moslems, is less
conclusive from their ignorance of Christian literature.]
118 (return) [ See Reland, de Jure Militari Mohammedanorum, in
his iiid volume of Dissertations, p. 37. The reason for not
burning the religious books of the Jews or Christians, is derived
from the respect that is due to the name of God.]
119 (return) [ Consult the collections of Frensheim (Supplement.
Livian, c. 12, 43) and Usher, (Anal. p. 469.) Livy himself had
styled the Alexandrian library, elegantiae regum curaeque
egregium opus; a liberal encomium, for which he is pertly
criticized by the narrow stoicism of Seneca, (De Tranquillitate
Animi, c. 9,) whose wisdom, on this occasion, deviates into
nonsense.]
120 (return) [ See this History, vol. iii. p. 146.]
121 (return) [ Aulus Gellius, (Noctes Atticae, vi. 17,) Ammianus
Marcellinua, (xxii. 16,) and Orosius, (l. vi. c. 15.) They all
speak in the past tense, and the words of Ammianus are remarkably
strong: fuerunt Bibliothecae innumerabiles; et loquitum
monumentorum veterum concinens fides, &c.]
122 (return) [ Renaudot answers for versions of the Bible,
Hexapla, Catenoe Patrum, Commentaries, &c., (p. 170.) Our
Alexandrian Ms., if it came from Egypt, and not from
Constantinople or Mount Athos, (Wetstein, Prolegom. ad N. T. p.
8, &c.,) might possibly be among them.]
123 (return) [ I have often perused with pleasure a chapter of
Quintilian, (Institut. Orator. x. i.,) in which that judicious
critic enumerates and appreciates the series of Greek and Latin
classics.]
124 (return) [ Such as Galen, Pliny, Aristotle, &c. On this
subject Wotton (Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning, p.
85-95) argues, with solid sense, against the lively exotic
fancies of Sir William Temple. The contempt of the Greeks for
Barbaric science would scarcely admit the Indian or Aethiopic
books into the library of Alexandria; nor is it proved that
philosophy has sustained any real loss from their exclusion.]
In the administration of Egypt, 125 Amrou balanced the demands of
justice and policy; the interest of the people of the law, who
were defended by God; and of the people of the alliance, who were
protected by man. In the recent tumult of conquest and
deliverance, the tongue of the Copts and the sword of the Arabs
were most adverse to the tranquillity of the province. To the
former, Amrou declared, that faction and falsehood would be
doubly chastised; by the punishment of the accusers, whom he
should detest as his personal enemies, and by the promotion of
their innocent brethren, whom their envy had labored to injure
and supplant. He excited the latter by the motives of religion
and honor to sustain the dignity of their character, to endear
themselves by a modest and temperate conduct to God and the
caliph, to spare and protect a people who had trusted to their
faith, and to content themselves with the legitimate and splendid
rewards of their victory. In the management of the revenue, he
disapproved the simple but oppressive mode of a capitation, and
preferred with reason a proportion of taxes deducted on every
branch from the clear profits of agriculture and commerce. A
third part of the tribute was appropriated to the annual repairs
of the dikes and canals, so essential to the public welfare.
Under his administration, the fertility of Egypt supplied the
dearth of Arabia; and a string of camels, laden with corn and
provisions, covered almost without an interval the long road from
Memphis to Medina. 126 But the genius of Amrou soon renewed the
maritime communication which had been attempted or achieved by
the Pharaohs the Ptolemies, or the Caesars; and a canal, at least
eighty miles in length, was opened from the Nile to the Red Sea.
1261 This inland navigation, which would have joined the
Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, was soon discontinued as
useless and dangerous: the throne was removed from Medina to
Damascus, and the Grecian fleets might have explored a passage to
the holy cities of Arabia. 127
125 (return) [ This curious and authentic intelligence of Murtadi
(p. 284-289) has not been discovered either by Mr. Ockley, or by
the self-sufficient compilers of the Modern Universal History.]
126 (return) [ Eutychius, Annal. tom. ii. p. 320. Elmacin, Hist.
Saracen. p. 35.]
1261 (return) [ Many learned men have doubted the existence of a
communication by water between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean
by the Nile. Yet the fact is positively asserted by the ancients.
Diodorus Siculus (l. i. p. 33) speaks of it in the most distinct
manner as existing in his time. So, also, Strabo, (l. xvii. p.
805.) Pliny (vol. vi. p. 29) says that the canal which united the
two seas was navigable, (alveus navigabilis.) The indications
furnished by Ptolemy and by the Arabic historian, Makrisi, show
that works were executed under the reign of Hadrian to repair the
canal and extend the navigation; it then received the name of the
River of Trajan Lucian, (in his Pseudomantis, p. 44,) says that
he went by water from Alexandria to Clysma, on the Red Sea.
Testimonies of the 6th and of the 8th century show that the
communication was not interrupted at that time. See the French
translation of Strabo, vol. v. p. 382. St. Martin vol. xi. p.
299.—M.]
127 (return) [ On these obscure canals, the reader may try to
satisfy himself from D’Anville, (Mem. sur l’Egypte, p. 108-110,
124, 132,) and a learned thesis, maintained and printed at
Strasburg in the year 1770, (Jungendorum marium fluviorumque
molimina, p. 39-47, 68-70.) Even the supine Turks have agitated
the old project of joining the two seas. (Memoires du Baron de
Tott, tom. iv.)]
Of his new conquest, the caliph Omar had an imperfect knowledge
from the voice of fame and the legends of the Koran. He requested
that his lieutenant would place before his eyes the realm of
Pharaoh and the Amalekites; and the answer of Amrou exhibits a
lively and not unfaithful picture of that singular country. 128
“O commander of the faithful, Egypt is a compound of black earth
and green plants, between a pulverized mountain and a red sand.
The distance from Syene to the sea is a month’s journey for a
horseman. Along the valley descends a river, on which the
blessing of the Most High reposes both in the evening and
morning, and which rises and falls with the revolutions of the
sun and moon. When the annual dispensation of Providence unlocks
the springs and fountains that nourish the earth, the Nile rolls
his swelling and sounding waters through the realm of Egypt: the
fields are overspread by the salutary flood; and the villages
communicate with each other in their painted barks. The retreat
of the inundation deposits a fertilizing mud for the reception of
the various seeds: the crowds of husbandmen who blacken the land
may be compared to a swarm of industrious ants; and their native
indolence is quickened by the lash of the task-master, and the
promise of the flowers and fruits of a plentiful increase. Their
hope is seldom deceived; but the riches which they extract from
the wheat, the barley, and the rice, the legumes, the
fruit-trees, and the cattle, are unequally shared between those
who labor and those who possess. According to the vicissitudes of
the seasons, the face of the country is adorned with a silver
wave, a verdant emerald, and the deep yellow of a golden
harvest.” 129 Yet this beneficial order is sometimes interrupted;
and the long delay and sudden swell of the river in the first
year of the conquest might afford some color to an edifying
fable. It is said, that the annual sacrifice of a virgin 130 had
been interdicted by the piety of Omar; and that the Nile lay
sullen and inactive in his shallow bed, till the mandate of the
caliph was cast into the obedient stream, which rose in a single
night to the height of sixteen cubits. The admiration of the
Arabs for their new conquest encouraged the license of their
romantic spirit. We may read, in the gravest authors, that Egypt
was crowded with twenty thousand cities or villages: 131 that,
exclusive of the Greeks and Arabs, the Copts alone were found, on
the assessment, six millions of tributary subjects, 132 or twenty
millions of either sex, and of every age: that three hundred
millions of gold or silver were annually paid to the treasury of
the caliphs. 133 Our reason must be startled by these extravagant
assertions; and they will become more palpable, if we assume the
compass and measure the extent of habitable ground: a valley from
the tropic to Memphis seldom broader than twelve miles, and the
triangle of the Delta, a flat surface of two thousand one hundred
square leagues, compose a twelfth part of the magnitude of
France. 134 A more accurate research will justify a more
reasonable estimate. The three hundred millions, created by the
error of a scribe, are reduced to the decent revenue of four
millions three hundred thousand pieces of gold, of which nine
hundred thousand were consumed by the pay of the soldiers. 135
Two authentic lists, of the present and of the twelfth century,
are circumscribed within the respectable number of two thousand
seven hundred villages and towns. 136 After a long residence at
Cairo, a French consul has ventured to assign about four millions
of Mahometans, Christians, and Jews, for the ample, though not
incredible, scope of the population of Egypt. 137
128 (return) [ A small volume, des Merveilles, &c., de l’Egypte,
composed in the xiiith century by Murtadi of Cairo, and
translated from an Arabic Ms. of Cardinal Mazarin, was published
by Pierre Vatier, Paris, 1666. The antiquities of Egypt are wild
and legendary; but the writer deserves credit and esteem for his
account of the conquest and geography of his native country, (see
the correspondence of Amrou and Omar, p. 279-289.)]
129 (return) [ In a twenty years’ residence at Cairo, the consul
Maillet had contemplated that varying scene, the Nile, (lettre
ii. particularly p. 70, 75;) the fertility of the land, (lettre
ix.) From a college at Cambridge, the poetic eye of Gray had seen
the same objects with a keener glance:—
What wonder in the sultry climes that spread,
Where Nile, redundant o’er his summer bed,
From his broad bosom life and verdure flings,
And broods o’er Egypt with his watery wings:
If with adventurous oar, and ready sail,
The dusky people drive before the gale:
Or on frail floats to neighboring cities ride.
That rise and glitter o’er the ambient tide.
(Mason’s Works and Memoirs of Gray, p. 199, 200.)]
130 (return) [ Murtadi, p. 164-167. The reader will not easily
credit a human sacrifice under the Christian emperors, or a
miracle of the successors of Mahomet.]
131 (return) [ Maillet, Description de l’Egypte, p. 22. He
mentions this number as the common opinion; and adds, that the
generality of these villages contain two or three thousand
persons, and that many of them are more populous than our large
cities.]
132 (return) [ Eutych. Annal. tom. ii. p. 308, 311. The twenty
millions are computed from the following data: one twelfth of
mankind above sixty, one third below sixteen, the proportion of
men to women as seventeen or sixteen, (Recherches sur la
Population de la France, p. 71, 72.) The president Goguet
(Origine des Arts, &c., tom. iii. p. 26, &c.) Bestows
twenty-seven millions on ancient Egypt, because the seventeen
hundred companions of Sesostris were born on the same day.]
133 (return) [ Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 218; and this gross
lump is swallowed without scruple by D’Herbelot, (Bibliot.
Orient. p. 1031,) Ar. buthnot, (Tables of Ancient Coins, p. 262,)
and De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 135.) They might
allege the not less extravagant liberality of Appian in favor of
the Ptolemies (in praefat.) of seventy four myriads, 740,000
talents, an annual income of 185, or near 300 millions of pounds
sterling, according as we reckon by the Egyptian or the
Alexandrian talent, (Bernard, de Ponderibus Antiq. p. 186.)]
134 (return) [ See the measurement of D’Anville, (Mem. sur
l’Egypte, p. 23, &c.) After some peevish cavils, M. Pauw
(Recherches sur les Egyptiens, tom. i. p. 118-121) can only
enlarge his reckoning to 2250 square leagues.]
135 (return) [ Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alexand. p. 334, who
calls the common reading or version of Elmacin, error librarii.
His own emendation, of 4,300,000 pieces, in the ixth century,
maintains a probable medium between the 3,000,000 which the Arabs
acquired by the conquest of Egypt, (idem, p. 168.) and the
2,400,000 which the sultan of Constantinople levied in the last
century, (Pietro della Valle, tom. i. p. 352 Thevenot, part i. p.
824.) Pauw (Recherches, tom. ii. p. 365-373) gradually raises the
revenue of the Pharaohs, the Ptolemies, and the Caesars, from six
to fifteen millions of German crowns.]
136 (return) [ The list of Schultens (Index Geograph. ad calcem
Vit. Saladin. p. 5) contains 2396 places; that of D’Anville,
(Mem. sur l’Egypte, p. 29,) from the divan of Cairo, enumerates
2696.]
137 (return) [ See Maillet, (Description de l’Egypte, p. 28,) who
seems to argue with candor and judgment. I am much better
satisfied with the observations than with the reading of the
French consul. He was ignorant of Greek and Latin literature, and
his fancy is too much delighted with the fictions of the Arabs.
Their best knowledge is collected by Abulfeda, (Descript. Aegypt.
Arab. et Lat. a Joh. David Michaelis, Gottingae, in 4to., 1776;)
and in two recent voyages into Egypt, we are amused by Savary,
and instructed by Volney. I wish the latter could travel over the
globe.]
IV. The conquest of Africa, from the Nile to the Atlantic Ocean,
138 was first attempted by the arms of the caliph Othman.
The pious design was approved by the companions of Mahomet and
the chiefs of the tribes; and twenty thousand Arabs marched from
Medina, with the gifts and the blessing of the commander of the
faithful. They were joined in the camp of Memphis by twenty
thousand of their countrymen; and the conduct of the war was
intrusted to Abdallah, 139 the son of Said and the foster-brother
of the caliph, who had lately supplanted the conqueror and
lieutenant of Egypt. Yet the favor of the prince, and the merit
of his favorite, could not obliterate the guilt of his apostasy.
The early conversion of Abdallah, and his skilful pen, had
recommended him to the important office of transcribing the
sheets of the Koran: he betrayed his trust, corrupted the text,
derided the errors which he had made, and fled to Mecca to escape
the justice, and expose the ignorance, of the apostle. After the
conquest of Mecca, he fell prostrate at the feet of Mahomet; his
tears, and the entreaties of Othman, extorted a reluctant pardon;
but the prophet declared that he had so long hesitated, to allow
time for some zealous disciple to avenge his injury in the blood
of the apostate. With apparent fidelity and effective merit, he
served the religion which it was no longer his interest to
desert: his birth and talents gave him an honorable rank among
the Koreish; and, in a nation of cavalry, Abdallah was renowned
as the boldest and most dexterous horseman of Arabia. At the head
of forty thousand Moslems, he advanced from Egypt into the
unknown countries of the West. The sands of Barca might be
impervious to a Roman legion but the Arabs were attended by their
faithful camels; and the natives of the desert beheld without
terror the familiar aspect of the soil and climate. After a
painful march, they pitched their tents before the walls of
Tripoli, 140 a maritime city in which the name, the wealth, and
the inhabitants of the province had gradually centred, and which
now maintains the third rank among the states of Barbary. A
reenforcement of Greeks was surprised and cut in pieces on the
sea-shore; but the fortifications of Tripoli resisted the first
assaults; and the Saracens were tempted by the approach of the
praefect Gregory 141 to relinquish the labors of the siege for
the perils and the hopes of a decisive action. If his standard
was followed by one hundred and twenty thousand men, the regular
bands of the empire must have been lost in the naked and
disorderly crowd of Africans and Moors, who formed the strength,
or rather the numbers, of his host. He rejected with indignation
the option of the Koran or the tribute; and during several days
the two armies were fiercely engaged from the dawn of light to
the hour of noon, when their fatigue and the excessive heat
compelled them to seek shelter and refreshment in their
respective camps. The daughter of Gregory, a maid of incomparable
beauty and spirit, is said to have fought by his side: from her
earliest youth she was trained to mount on horseback, to draw the
bow, and to wield the cimeter; and the richness of her arms and
apparel were conspicuous in the foremost ranks of the battle. Her
hand, with a hundred thousand pieces of gold, was offered for the
head of the Arabian general, and the youths of Africa were
excited by the prospect of the glorious prize. At the pressing
solicitation of his brethren, Abdallah withdrew his person from
the field; but the Saracens were discouraged by the retreat of
their leader, and the repetition of these equal or unsuccessful
conflicts.
138 (return) [ My conquest of Africa is drawn from two French
interpreters of Arabic literature, Cardonne (Hist. de l’Afrique
et de l’Espagne sous la Domination des Arabes, tom. i. p. 8-55)
and Otter, (Hist. de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxi. p.
111-125, and 136.) They derive their principal information from
Novairi, who composed, A.D. 1331 an Encyclopaedia in more than
twenty volumes. The five general parts successively treat of, 1.
Physics; 2. Man; 3. Animals; 4. Plants; and, 5. History; and the
African affairs are discussed in the vith chapter of the vth
section of this last part, (Reiske, Prodidagmata ad Hagji
Chalifae Tabulas, p. 232-234.) Among the older historians who are
quoted by Navairi we may distinguish the original narrative of a
soldier who led the van of the Moslems.]
139 (return) [ See the history of Abdallah, in Abulfeda (Vit.
Mohammed. p. 108) and Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii.
45-48.)]
140 (return) [ The province and city of Tripoli are described by
Leo Africanus (in Navigatione et Viaggi di Ramusio, tom. i.
Venetia, 1550, fol. 76, verso) and Marmol, (Description de
l’Afrique, tom. ii. p. 562.) The first of these writers was a
Moor, a scholar, and a traveller, who composed or translated his
African geography in a state of captivity at Rome, where he had
assumed the name and religion of Pope Leo X. In a similar
captivity among the Moors, the Spaniard Marmol, a soldier of
Charles V., compiled his Description of Africa, translated by
D’Ablancourt into French, (Paris, 1667, 3 vols. in 4to.) Marmol
had read and seen, but he is destitute of the curious and
extensive observation which abounds in the original work of Leo
the African.]
141 (return) [ Theophanes, who mentions the defeat, rather than
the death, of Gregory. He brands the praefect with the name: he
had probably assumed the purple, (Chronograph. p. 285.)]
A noble Arabian, who afterwards became the adversary of Ali, and
the father of a caliph, had signalized his valor in Egypt, and
Zobeir 142 was the first who planted the scaling-ladder against
the walls of Babylon. In the African war he was detached from the
standard of Abdallah. On the news of the battle, Zobeir, with
twelve companions, cut his way through the camp of the Greeks,
and pressed forwards, without tasting either food or repose, to
partake of the dangers of his brethren. He cast his eyes round
the field: “Where,” said he, “is our general?” “In his tent.” “Is
the tent a station for the general of the Moslems?” Abdallah
represented with a blush the importance of his own life, and the
temptation that was held forth by the Roman praefect. “Retort,”
said Zobeir, “on the infidels their ungenerous attempt. Proclaim
through the ranks that the head of Gregory shall be repaid with
his captive daughter, and the equal sum of one hundred thousand
pieces of gold.” To the courage and discretion of Zobeir the
lieutenant of the caliph intrusted the execution of his own
stratagem, which inclined the long-disputed balance in favor of
the Saracens. Supplying by activity and artifice the deficiency
of numbers, a part of their forces lay concealed in their tents,
while the remainder prolonged an irregular skirmish with the
enemy till the sun was high in the heavens. On both sides they
retired with fainting steps: their horses were unbridled, their
armor was laid aside, and the hostile nations prepared, or seemed
to prepare, for the refreshment of the evening, and the encounter
of the ensuing day. On a sudden the charge was sounded; the
Arabian camp poured forth a swarm of fresh and intrepid warriors;
and the long line of the Greeks and Africans was surprised,
assaulted, overturned, by new squadrons of the faithful, who, to
the eye of fanaticism, might appear as a band of angels
descending from the sky. The praefect himself was slain by the
hand of Zobeir: his daughter, who sought revenge and death, was
surrounded and made prisoner; and the fugitives involved in their
disaster the town of Sufetula, to which they escaped from the
sabres and lances of the Arabs. Sufetula was built one hundred
and fifty miles to the south of Carthage: a gentle declivity is
watered by a running stream, and shaded by a grove of
juniper-trees; and, in the ruins of a triumpha arch, a portico,
and three temples of the Corinthian order, curiosity may yet
admire the magnificence of the Romans. 143 After the fall of this
opulent city, the provincials and Barbarians implored on all
sides the mercy of the conqueror. His vanity or his zeal might be
flattered by offers of tribute or professions of faith: but his
losses, his fatigues, and the progress of an epidemical disease,
prevented a solid establishment; and the Saracens, after a
campaign of fifteen months, retreated to the confines of Egypt,
with the captives and the wealth of their African expedition. The
caliph’s fifth was granted to a favorite, on the nominal payment
of five hundred thousand pieces of gold; 144 but the state was
doubly injured by this fallacious transaction, if each
foot-soldier had shared one thousand, and each horseman three
thousand, pieces, in the real division of the plunder. The author
of the death of Gregory was expected to have claimed the most
precious reward of the victory: from his silence it might be
presumed that he had fallen in the battle, till the tears and
exclamations of the praefect’s daughter at the sight of Zobeir
revealed the valor and modesty of that gallant soldier. The
unfortunate virgin was offered, and almost rejected as a slave,
by her father’s murderer, who coolly declared that his sword was
consecrated to the service of religion; and that he labored for a
recompense far above the charms of mortal beauty, or the riches
of this transitory life. A reward congenial to his temper was the
honorable commission of announcing to the caliph Othman the
success of his arms. The companions the chiefs, and the people,
were assembled in the mosch of Medina, to hear the interesting
narrative of Zobeir; and as the orator forgot nothing except the
merit of his own counsels and actions, the name of Abdallah was
joined by the Arabians with the heroic names of Caled and Amrou.
145
142 (return) [ See in Ockley (Hist. of the Saracens, vol. ii. p.
45) the death of Zobeir, which was honored with the tears of Ali,
against whom he had rebelled. His valor at the siege of Babylon,
if indeed it be the same person, is mentioned by Eutychius,
(Annal. tom. ii. p. 308)]
143 (return) [ Shaw’s Travels, p. 118, 119.]
144 (return) [ Mimica emptio, says Abulfeda, erat haec, et mira
donatio; quandoquidem Othman, ejus nomine nummos ex aerario prius
ablatos aerario praestabat, (Annal. Moslem. p. 78.) Elmacin (in
his cloudy version, p. 39) seems to report the same job. When the
Arabs be sieged the palace of Othman, it stood high in their
catalogue of grievances.`]
145 (return) [ Theophan. Chronograph. p. 235 edit. Paris. His
chronology is loose and inaccurate.]
[A. D. 665-689.] The western conquests of the Saracens were
suspended near twenty years, till their dissensions were composed
by the establishment of the house of Ommiyah; and the caliph
Moawiyah was invited by the cries of the Africans themselves. The
successors of Heraclius had been informed of the tribute which
they had been compelled to stipulate with the Arabs; but instead
of being moved to pity and relieve their distress, they imposed,
as an equivalent or a fine, a second tribute of a similar amount.
The ears of the zantine ministers were shut against the
complaints of their poverty and ruin their despair was reduced to
prefer the dominion of a single master; and the extortions of the
patriarch of Carthage, who was invested with civil and military
power, provoked the sectaries, and even the Catholics, of the
Roman province to abjure the religion as well as the authority of
their tyrants. The first lieutenant of Moawiyah acquired a just
renown, subdued an important city, defeated an army of thirty
thousand Greeks, swept away fourscore thousand captives, and
enriched with their spoils the bold adventurers of Syria and
Egypt.146 But the title of conqueror of Africa is more justly due
to his successor Akbah. He marched from Damascus at the head of
ten thousand of the bravest Arabs; and the genuine force of the
Moslems was enlarged by the doubtful aid and conversion of many
thousand Barbarians. It would be difficult, nor is it necessary,
to trace the accurate line of the progress of Akbah. The interior
regions have been peopled by the Orientals with fictitious armies
and imaginary citadels. In the warlike province of Zab or
Numidia, fourscore thousand of the natives might assemble in
arms; but the number of three hundred and sixty towns is
incompatible with the ignorance or decay of husbandry;147 and a
circumference of three leagues will not be justified by the ruins
of Erbe or Lambesa, the ancient metropolis of that inland
country. As we approach the seacoast, the well-known titles of
Bugia,148 and Tangier149 define the more certain limits of the
Saracen victories. A remnant of trade still adheres to the
commodious harbour of Bugia, which, in a more prosperous age, is
said to have contained about twenty thousand houses; and the
plenty of iron which is dug from the adjacent mountains might
have supplied a braver people with the instruments of defence.
The remote position and venerable antiquity of Tingi, or Tangier,
have been decorated by the Greek and Arabian fables; but the
figurative expressions of the latter, that the walls were
constructed of brass, and that the roofs were covered with gold
and silver, may be interpreted as the emblems of strength and
opulence.
146 (return) [ Theophanes (in Chronograph. p. 293.) inserts the
vague rumours that might reach Constantinople, of the western
conquests of the Arabs; and I learn from Paul Warnefrid, deacon
of Aquileia (de Gestis Langobard. 1. v. c. 13), that at this time
they sent a fleet from Alexandria into the Sicilian and African
seas.]
147 (return) [ See Novairi (apud Otter, p. 118), Leo Africanus
(fol. 81, verso), who reckoned only cinque citta e infinite
casal, Marmol (Description de l’Afrique, tom. iii. p. 33,) and
Shaw (Travels, p. 57, 65-68)]
148 (return) [ Leo African. fol. 58, verso, 59, recto. Marmol,
tom. ii. p. 415. Shaw, p. 43]
149 (return) [ Leo African. fol. 52. Marmol, tom. ii. p. 228.]
The province of Mauritania Tingitana,150 which assumed the name
of the capital had been imperfectly discovered and settled by the
Romans; the five colonies were confined to a narrow pale, and the
more southern parts were seldom explored except by the agents of
luxury, who searched the forests for ivory and the citron
wood,151 and the shores of the ocean for the purple shellfish.
The fearless Akbah plunged into the heart of the country,
traversed the wilderness in which his successors erected the
splendid capitals of Fez and Morocco,152 and at length penetrated
to the verge of the Atlantic and the great desert. The river Suz
descends from the western sides of mount Atlas, fertilizes, like
the Nile, the adjacent soil, and falls into the sea at a moderate
distance from the Canary, or adjacent islands. Its banks were
inhabited by the last of the Moors, a race of savages, without
laws, or discipline, or religion: they were astonished by the
strange and irresistible terrors of the Oriental arms; and as
they possessed neither gold nor silver, the richest spoil was the
beauty of the female captives, some of whom were afterward sold
for a thousand pieces of gold. The career, though not the zeal,
of Akbah was checked by the prospect of a boundless ocean. He
spurred his horse into the waves, and raising his eyes to heaven,
exclaimed with the tone of a fanatic: “Great God! if my course
were not stopped by this sea, I would still go on, to the unknown
kingdoms of the West, preaching the unity of thy holy name, and
putting to the sword the rebellious nations who worship another
gods than thee.” 153 Yet this Mahometan Alexander, who sighed for
new worlds, was unable to preserve his recent conquests. By the
universal defection of the Greeks and Africans he was recalled
from the shores of the Atlantic, and the surrounding multitudes
left him only the resource of an honourable death. The last scene
was dignified by an example of national virtue. An ambitious
chief, who had disputed the command and failed in the attempt,
was led about as a prisoner in the camp of the Arabian general.
The insurgents had trusted to his discontent and revenge; he
disdained their offers and revealed their designs. In the hour of
danger, the grateful Akbah unlocked his fetters, and advised him
to retire; he chose to die under the banner of his rival.
Embracing as friends and martyrs, they unsheathed their
scimeters, broke their scabbards, and maintained an obstinate
combat, till they fell by each other’s side on the last of their
slaughtered countrymen. The third general or governor of Africa,
Zuheir, avenged and encountered the fate of his predecessor. He
vanquished the natives in many battles; he was overthrown by a
powerful army, which Constantinople had sent to the relief of
Carthage.
150 (return) [ Regio ignobilis, et vix quicquam illustre sortita,
parvis oppidis habitatur, parva flumina emittit, solo quam viris
meleor et segnitie gentis obscura. Pomponius Mela, i. 5, iii. 10.
Mela deserves the more credit, since his own Phoenician ancestors
had migrated from Tingitana to Spain (see, in ii. 6, a passage of
that geographer so cruelly tortured by Salmasius, Isaac Vossius,
and the most virulent of critics, James Gronovius). He lived at
the time of the final reduction of that country by the emperor
Claudius: yet almost thirty years afterward, Pliny (Hist. Nat. v.
i.) complains of his authors, to lazy to inquire, too proud to
confess their ignorance of that wild and remote province.]
151 (return) [ The foolish fashion of this citron wood prevailed
at Rome among the men, as much as the taste for pearls among the
women. A round board or table, four or five feet in diameter,
sold for the price of an estate (latefundii taxatione), eight,
ten, or twelve thousand pounds sterling (Plin. Hist. Natur. xiii.
29). I conceive that I must not confound the tree citrus, with
that of the fruit citrum. But I am not botanist enough to define
the former (it is like the wild cypress) by the vulgar or
Linnaean name; nor will I decide whether the citrum be the orange
or the lemon. Salmasius appears to exhaust the subject, but he
too often involves himself in the web of his disorderly
erudition. (Flinian. Exercitat. tom. ii. p 666, &c.)]
152 (return) [ Leo African. fol. 16, verso. Marmol, tom. ii. p.
28. This province, the first scene of the exploits and greatness
of the cherifs is often mentioned in the curious history of that
dynasty at the end of the third volume of Marmol, Description de
l’Afrique. The third vol. of The Recherches Historiques sur les
Maures (lately published at Paris) illustrates the history and
geography of the kingdoms of Fez and Morocco.]
153 (return) [ Otter (p. 119,) has given the strong tone of
fanaticism to this exclamation, which Cardonne (p. 37,) has
softened to a pious wish of preaching the Koran. Yet they had
both the same text of Novairi before their eyes.]
[A. D. 670-675.] It had been the frequent practice of the Moorish
tribes to join the invaders, to share the plunder, to profess the
faith, and to revolt in their savage state of independence and
idolatry, on the first retreat or misfortune of the Moslems. The
prudence of Akbah had proposed to found an Arabian colony in the
heart of Africa; a citadel that might curb the levity of the
Barbarians, a place of refuge to secure, against the accidents of
war, the wealth and the families of the Saracens. With this view,
and under the modest title of the station of a caravan, he
planted this colony in the fiftieth year of the Hegira. In its
present decay, Cairoan154 still holds the second rank in the
kingdom of Tunis, from which it is distant about fifty miles to
the south;155 its inland situation, twelve miles westward of the
sea, has protected the city from the Greek and Sicilian fleets.
When the wild beasts and serpents were extirpated, when the
forest, or rather wilderness, was cleared, the vestiges of a
Roman town were discovered in a sandy plain: the vegetable food
of Cairoan is brought from afar; and the scarcity of springs
constrains the inhabitants to collect in cisterns and reservoirs
a precarious supply of rain water. These obstacles were subdued
by the industry of Akbah; he traced a circumference of three
thousand and six hundred paces, which he encompassed with a brick
wall; in the space of five years, the governor’s palace was
surrounded with a sufficient number of private habitations; a
spacious mosque was supported by five hundred columns of granite,
porphyry, and Numidian marble; and Cairoan became the seat of
learning as well as of empire. But these were the glories of a
later age; the new colony was shaken by the successive defeats of
Akbah and Zuheir, and the western expeditions were again
interrupted by the civil discord of the Arabian monarchy. The son
of the valiant Zobeir maintained a war of twelve years, a siege
of seven months against the house of Ommiyah. Abdallah was said
to unite the fierceness of the lion with the subtlety of the fox;
but if he inherited the courage, he was devoid of the generosity,
of his father.156
[A. D. 692-698.] The return of domestic peace allowed the caliph
Abdalmalek to resume the conquest of Africa; the standard was
delivered to Hassan governor of Egypt, and the revenue of that
kingdom, with an army of forty thousand men, was consecrated to
the important service. In the vicissitudes of war, the interior
provinces had been alternately won and lost by the Saracens. But
the seacoast still remained in the hands of the Greeks; the
predecessors of Hassan had respected the name and fortifications
of Carthage; and the number of its defenders was recruited by the
fugitives of Cabes and Tripoli. The arms of Hassan were bolder
and more fortunate: he reduced and pillaged the metropolis of
Africa; and the mention of scaling-ladders may justify the
suspicion, that he anticipated, by a sudden assault, the more
tedious operations of a regular siege. But the joy of the
conquerors was soon disturbed by the appearance of the Christian
succours. The praefect and patrician John, a general of
experience and renown, embarked at Constantinople the forces of
the Eastern empire;157 they were joined by the ships and soldiers
of Sicily, and a powerful reinforcement of Goths158 was obtained
from the fears and religion of the Spanish monarch.
154 (return) [ The foundation of Cairoan is mentioned by Ockley
(Hist. of the Saracens, vol. ii. p. 129, 130); and the situation,
mosque, &c. of the city are described by Leo Africanus (fol. 75),
Marmol (tom. ii. p. 532), and Shaw (p. 115).]
155 (return) [ A portentous, though frequent mistake, has been
the confounding, from a slight similitude of name, the Cyrene of
the Greeks, and the Cairoan of the Arabs, two cities which are
separated by an interval of a thousand miles along the seacoast.
The great Thuanus has not escaped this fault, the less excusable
as it is connected with a formal and elaborate description of
Africa (Historiar. l. vii. c. 2, in tom. i. p. 240, edit.
Buckley).]
156 (return) [ Besides the Arabic Chronicles of Abulfeda,
Elmacin, and Abulpharagius, under the lxxiiid year of the Hegira,
we may consult nd’Herbelot (Bibliot. Orient. p. 7,) and Ockley
(Hist. of the Saracens, vol. ii. p. 339-349). The latter has
given the last and pathetic dialogue between Abdallah and his
mother; but he has forgot a physical effect of her grief for his
death, the return, at the age of ninety, and fatal consequences
of her menses.]
157 (return) [ The patriarch of Constantinople, with Theophanes
(Chronograph. p. 309,) have slightly mentioned this last attempt
for the relief or Africa. Pagi (Critica, tom. iii. p. 129. 141,)
has nicely ascertained the chronology by a strict comparison of
the Arabic and Byzantine historians, who often disagree both in
time and fact. See likewise a note of Otter (p. 121).]
158 (return) [ Dove s’erano ridotti i nobili Romani e i Gotti;
and afterward, i Romani suggirono e i Gotti lasciarono
Carthagine. (Leo African. for. 72, recto) I know not from what
Arabic writer the African derived his Goths; but the fact, though
new, is so interesting and so probable, that I will accept it on
the slightest authority.]
The weight of the confederate navy broke the chain that guarded
the entrance of the harbour; the Arabs retired to Cairoan, or
Tripoli; the Christians landed; the citizens hailed the ensign of
the cross, and the winter was idly wasted in the dream of victory
or deliverance. But Africa was irrecoverably lost: the zeal and
resentment of the commander of the faithful159 prepared in the
ensuing spring a more numerous armament by sea and land; and the
patrician in his turn was compelled to evacuate the post and
fortifications of Carthage. A second battle was fought in the
neighbourhood of Utica; and the Greeks and Goths were again
defeated; and their timely embarkation saved them from the sword
of Hassan, who had invested the slight and insufficient rampart
of their camp. Whatever yet remained of Carthage was delivered to
the flames, and the colony of Dido160 and Cesar lay desolate
above two hundred years, till a part, perhaps a twentieth, of the
old circumference was repeopled by the first of the Fatimite
caliphs. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the second
capital of the West was represented by a mosque, a college
without students, twenty-five or thirty shops, and the huts of
five hundred peasants, who, in their abject poverty, displayed
the arrogance of the Punic senators. Even that paltry village was
swept away by the Spaniards whom Charles the Fifth had stationed
in the fortress of the Goletta. The ruins of Carthage have
perished; and the place might be unknown if some broken arches of
an aqueduct did not guide the footsteps of the inquisitive
traveller.161
[A. D. 698-709.] The Greeks were expelled, but the Arabians were
not yet masters of the country. In the interior provinces the
Moors or Berbers,162 so feeble under the first Cesars, so
formidable to the Byzantine princes, maintained a disorderly
resistance to the religion and power of the successors of
Mahomet. Under the standard of their queen Cahina, the
independent tribes acquired some degree of union and discipline;
and as the Moors respected in their females the character of a
prophetess, they attacked the invaders with an enthusiasm similar
to their own. The veteran bands of Hassan were inadequate to the
defence of Africa: the conquests of an age were lost in a single
day; and the Arabian chief, overwhelmed by the torrent, retired
to the confines of Egypt, and expected, five years, the promised
succours of the caliph. After the retreat of the Saracens, the
victorious prophetess assembled the Moorish chiefs, and
recommended a measure of strange and savage policy. “Our cities,”
said she, “and the gold and silver which they contain,
perpetually attract the arms of the Arabs. These vile metals are
not the objects of OUR ambition; we content ourselves with the
simple productions of the earth. Let us destroy these cities; let
us bury in their ruins those pernicious treasures; and when the
avarice of our foes shall be destitute of temptation, perhaps
they will cease to disturb the tranquillity of a warlike people.”
The proposal was accepted with unanimous applause. From Tangier
to Tripoli the buildings, or at least the fortifications, were
demolished, the fruit-trees were cut down, the means of
subsistence were extirpated, a fertile and populous garden was
changed into a desert, and the historians of a more recent period
could discern the frequent traces of the prosperity and
devastation of their ancestors.
159 (return) [ This commander is styled by Nicephorus, ———— a
vague though not improper definition of the caliph. Theophanes
introduces the strange appellation of —————, which his
interpreter Goar explains by Vizir Azem. They may approach the
truth, in assigning the active part to the minister, rather than
the prince; but they forget that the Ommiades had only a kaleb,
or secretary, and that the office of Vizir was not revived or
instituted till the 132d year of the Hegira (d’Herbelot, 912).]
160 (return) [ According to Solinus (1.27, p. 36, edit. Salmas),
the Carthage of Dido stood either 677 or 737 years; a various
reading, which proceeds from the difference of MSS. or editions
(Salmas, Plinian. Exercit tom i. p. 228) The former of these
accounts, which gives 823 years before Christ, is more consistent
with the well-weighed testimony of Velleius Paterculus: but the
latter is preferred by our chronologists (Marsham, Canon. Chron.
p. 398,) as more agreeable to the Hebrew and Syrian annals.]
161 (return) [ Leo African. fo1. 71, verso; 72, recto. Marmol,
tom. ii. p.445-447. Shaw, p.80.]
162 (return) [ The history of the word Barbar may be classed
under four periods, 1. In the time of Homer, when the Greeks and
Asiatics might probably use a common idiom, the imitative sound
of Barbar was applied to the ruder tribes, whose pronunciation
was most harsh, whose grammar was most defective. 2. From the
time, at least, of Herodotus, it was extended to all the nations
who were strangers to the language and manners of the Greeks. 3.
In the age, of Plautus, the Romans submitted to the insult
(Pompeius Festus, l. ii. p. 48, edit. Dacier), and freely gave
themselves the name of Barbarians. They insensibly claimed an
exemption for Italy, and her subject provinces; and at length
removed the disgraceful appellation to the savage or hostile
nations beyond the pale of the empire. 4. In every sense, it was
due to the Moors; the familiar word was borrowed from the Latin
Provincials by the Arabian conquerors, and has justly settled as
a local denomination (Barbary) along the northern coast of
Africa.]
Such is the tale of the modern Arabians. Yet I strongly suspect
that their ignorance of antiquity, the love of the marvellous,
and the fashion of extolling the philosophy of Barbarians, has
induced them to describe, as one voluntary act, the calamities of
three hundred years since the first fury of the Donatists and
Vandals. In the progress of the revolt, Cahina had most probably
contributed her share of destruction; and the alarm of universal
ruin might terrify and alienate the cities that had reluctantly
yielded to her unworthy yoke. They no longer hoped, perhaps they
no longer wished, the return of their Byzantine sovereigns: their
present servitude was not alleviated by the benefits of order and
justice; and the most zealous Catholic must prefer the imperfect
truths of the Koran to the blind and rude idolatry of the Moors.
The general of the Saracens was again received as the saviour of
the province; the friends of civil society conspired against the
savages of the land; and the royal prophetess was slain in the
first battle which overturned the baseless fabric of her
superstition and empire. The same spirit revived under the
successor of Hassan; it was finally quelled by the activity of
Musa and his two sons; but the number of the rebels may be
presumed from that of three hundred thousand captives; sixty
thousand of whom, the caliph’s fifth, were sold for the profit of
thee public treasury. Thirty thousand of the Barbarian youth were
enlisted in the troops; and the pious labours of Musa to
inculcate the knowledge and practice of the Koran, accustomed the
Africans to obey the apostle of God and the commander of the
faithful. In their climate and government, their diet and
habitation, the wandering Moors resembled the Bedoweens of the
desert. With the religion, they were proud to adopt the language,
name, and origin of Arabs: the blood of the strangers and natives
was insensibly mingled; and from the Euphrates to the Atlantic
the same nation might seem to be diffused over the sandy plains
of Asia and Africa. Yet I will not deny that fifty thousand tents
of pure Arabians might be transported over the Nile, and
scattered through the Lybian desert: and I am not ignorant that
five of the Moorish tribes still retain their barbarous idiom,
with the appellation and character of white Africans.163
[A. D. 709.] V. In the progress of conquest from the north and
south, the Goths and the Saracens encountered each other on the
confines of Europe and Africa. In the opinion of the latter, the
difference of religion is a reasonable ground of enmity and
warfare.164 As early as the time of Othman165 their piratical
squadrons had ravaged the coast of Andalusia;166 nor had they
forgotten the relief of Carthage by the Gothic succours. In that
age, as well as in the present, the kings of Spain were possessed
of the fortress of Ceuta; one of the columns of Hercules, which
is divided by a narrow strait from the opposite pillar or point
of Europe. A small portion of Mauritania was still wanting to the
African conquest; but Musa, in the pride of victory, was repulsed
from the walls of Ceuta, by the vigilance and courage of count
Julian, the general of the Goths. From his disappointment and
perplexity, Musa was relieved by an unexpected message of the
Christian chief, who offered his place, his person, and his
sword, to the successors of Mahomet, and solicited the
disgraceful honour of introducing their arms into the heart of
Spain.167
163 (return) [ The first book of Leo Africanus, and the
observations of Dr. Shaw (p. 220. 223. 227. 247, &c.) will throw
some light on the roving tribes of Barbary, of Arabian or Moorish
descent. But Shaw had seen these savages with distant terror; and
Leo, a captive in the Vatican, appears to have lost more of his
Arabic, than he could acquire of Greek or Roman, learning. Many
of his gross mistakes might be detected in the first period of
the Mahometan history.]
164 (return) [ In a conference with a prince of the Greeks, Amrou
observed that their religion was different; upon which score it
was lawful for brothers to quarrel. Ockley’s History of the
Saracens, vol. i. p. 328.]
165 (return) [ Abulfeda, Annal. Moslem. p 78, vers. Reiske.]
166 (return) [ The name of Andalusia is applied by the Arabs not
only to the modern province, but to the whole peninsula of Spain
(Geograph. Nub. p. 151, d’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 114,
115). The etymology has been most improbably deduced from
Vandalusia, country of the Vandals. (d’Anville Etats de l’Europe,
p. 146, 147, &c.) But the Handalusia of Casiri, which signifies,
in Arabic, the region of the evening, of the West, in a word, the
Hesperia of the Greeks, is perfectly apposite. (Bibliot.
Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 327, &c.)]
167 (return) [ The fall and resurrection of the Gothic monarchy
are related by Mariana (tom. l. p. 238-260, l. vi. c. 19-26, l.
vii. c. 1, 2). That historian has infused into his noble work
(Historic de Rebus Hispaniae, libri xxx. Hagae Comitum 1733, in
four volumes, folio, with the continuation of Miniana), the style
and spirit of a Roman classic; and after the twelfth century, his
knowledge and judgment may be safely trusted. But the Jesuit is
not exempt from the prejudices of his order; he adopts and
adorns, like his rival Buchanan, the most absurd of the national
legends; he is too careless of criticism and chronology, and
supplies, from a lively fancy, the chasms of historical evidence.
These chasms are large and frequent; Roderic archbishop of
Toledo, the father of the Spanish history, lived five hundred
years after the conquest of the Arabs; and the more early
accounts are comprised in some meagre lines of the blind
chronicles of Isidore of Badajoz (Pacensis,) and of Alphonso III.
king of Leon, which I have seen only in the Annals of Pagi.]
If we inquire into the cause of this treachery, the Spaniards
will repeat the popular story of his daughter Cava;168 of a
virgin who was seduced, or ravished, by her sovereign; of a
father who sacrificed his religion and country to the thirst of
revenge. The passions of princes have often been licentious and
destructive; but this well-known tale, romantic in itself, is
indifferently supported by external evidence; and the history of
Spain will suggest some motives of interest and policy more
congenial to the breast of a veteran statesman.169 After the
decease or deposition of Witiza, his two sons were supplanted by
the ambition of Roderic, a noble Goth, whose father, the duke or
governor of a province, had fallen a victim to the preceding
tyranny. The monarchy was still elective; but the sons of Witiza,
educated on the steps of the throne, were impatient of a private
station. Their resentment was the more dangerous, as it was
varnished with the dissimulation of courts: their followers were
excited by the remembrance of favours and the promise of a
revolution: and their uncle Oppas, archbishop of Toledo and
Seville, was the first person in the church, and the second in
the state. It is probable that Julian was involved in the
disgrace of the unsuccessful faction, that he had little to hope
and much to fear from the new reign; and that the imprudent king
could not forget or forgive the injuries which Roderic and his
family had sustained. The merit and influence of the count
rendered him a useful or formidable subject: his estates were
ample, his followers bold and numerous, and it was too fatally
shown that, by his Andalusian and Mauritanian commands, he held
in his hands the keys of the Spanish monarchy. Too feeble,
however, to meet his sovereign in arms, he sought the aid of a
foreign power; and his rash invitation of the Moors and Arabs
produced the calamities of eight hundred years. In his epistles,
or in a personal interview, he revealed the wealth and nakedness
of his country; the weakness of an unpopular prince; the
degeneracy of an effeminate people. The Goths were no longer the
victorious Barbarians, who had humbled the pride of Rome,
despoiled the queen of nations, and penetrated from the Danube to
the Atlantic ocean. Secluded from the world by the Pyrenean
mountains, the successors of Alaric had slumbered in a long
peace: the walls of the city were mouldered into dust: the youth
had abandoned the exercise of arms; and the presumption of their
ancient renown would expose them in a field of battle to the
first assault of the invaders. The ambitious Saracen was fired by
the ease and importance of the attempt; but the execution was
delayed till he had consulted the commander of the faithful; and
his messenger returned with the permission of Walid to annex the
unknown kingdoms of the West to the religion and throne of the
caliphs. In his residence of Tangier, Musa, with secrecy and
caution, continued his correspondence and hastened his
preparations. But the remorse of the conspirators was soothed by
the fallacious assurance that he should content himself with the
glory and spoil, without aspiring to establish the Moslems beyond
the sea that separates Africa from Europe.170
168 (return) [ Le viol (says Voltaire) est aussi difficile a
faire qu’a prouver. Des Eveques se seroient ils lignes pour une
fille? (Hist. Generale, c. xxvi.) His argument is not logically
conclusive.]
169 (return) [ In the story of Cava, Mariana (I. vi. c. 21, p.
241, 242,) seems to vie with the Lucretia of Livy. Like the
ancients, he seldom quotes; and the oldest testimony of Baronius
(Annal. Eccles. A.D. 713, No. 19), that of Lucus Tudensis, a
Gallician deacon of the thirteenth century, only says, Cava quam
pro concubina utebatur.]
170 (return) [ The Orientals, Elmacin, Abulpharagins, Abolfeda,
pass over the conquest of Spain in silence, or with a single
word. The text of Novairi, and the other Arabian writers, is
represented, though with some foreign alloy, by M. de Cardonne
(Hist. de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne sous la Domination des
Arabes, Paris, 1765, 3 vols. 12mo. tom. i. p. 55-114), and more
concisely by M. de Guignes (Hist. des Hune. tom. i. p. 347-350).
The librarian of the Escurial has not satisfied my hopes: yet he
appears to have searched with diligence his broken materials; and
the history of the conquest is illustrated by some valuable
fragments of the genuine Razis (who wrote at. Corduba, A. H.
300), of Ben Hazil, &c. See Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p.
32. 105, 106. 182. 252. 315-332. On this occasion, the industry
of Pagi has been aided by the Arabic learning of his friend the
Abbe de Longuerue, and to their joint labours I am deeply
indebted.]
[A. D. 710.] Before Musa would trust an army of the faithful to
the traitors and infidels of a foreign land, he made a less
dangerous trial of their strength and veracity. One hundred Arabs
and four hundred Africans, passed over, in four vessels, from
Tangier or Ceuta; the place of their descent on the opposite
shore of the strait, is marked by the name of Tarif their chief;
and the date of this memorable event171 is fixed to the month of
Ramandan, of the ninety-first year of the Hegira, to the month of
July, seven hundred and forty-eight years from the Spanish era of
Cesar,172 seven hundred and ten after the birth of Christ. From
their first station, they marched eighteen miles through a hilly
country to the castle and town of Julian;173 on which (it is
still called Algezire) they bestowed the name of the Green
Island, from a verdant cape that advances into the sea. Their
hospitable entertainment, the Christians who joined their
standard, their inroad into a fertile and unguarded province, the
richness of their spoil and the safety of their return, announced
to their brethren the most favourable omens of victory. In the
ensuing spring, five thousand veterans and volunteers were
embarked under the command of Tarik, a dauntless and skilful
soldier, who surpassed the expectation of his chief; and the
necessary transports were provided by the industry of their too
faithful ally. The Saracens landed174 at the pillar or point of
Europe; the corrupt and familiar appellation of Gibraltar (Gebel
el Tarik) describes the mountain of Tarik; and the intrenchments
of his camp were the first outline of those fortifications,
which, in the hands of our countrymen, have resisted the art and
power of the house of Bourbon. The adjacent governors informed
the court of Toledo of the descent and progress of the Arabs; and
the defeat of his lieutenant Edeco, who had been commanded to
seize and bind the presumptuous strangers, admonished Roderic of
the magnitude of the danger. At the royal summons, the dukes and
counts, the bishops and nobles of the Gothic monarchy assembled
at the head of their followers; and the title of king of the
Romans, which is employed by an Arabic historian, may be excused
by the close affinity of language, religion, and manners, between
the nations of Spain. His army consisted of ninety or a hundred
thousand men: a formidable power, if their fidelity and
discipline had been adequate to their numbers. The troops of
Tarik had been augmented to twelve thousand Saracens; but the
Christian malcontents were attracted by the influence of Julian,
and a crowd of Africans most greedily tasted the temporal
blessings of the Koran. In the neighbourhood of Cadiz, the town
of Xeres175 has been illustrated by the encounter which
determined the fate of the kingdom; the stream of the Guadalete,
which falls into the bay, divided the two camps, and marked the
advancing and retreating skirmishes of three successive and
bloody days.
171 (return) [ A mistake of Roderic of Toledo, in comparing the
lunar years of the Hegira with the Julian years of the Era, has
determined Baronius, Mariana, and the crowd of Spanish
historians, to place the first invasion in the year 713, and the
battle of Xeres in November, 714. This anachronism of three years
has been detected by the more correct industry of modern
chronologists, above all, of Pagi (Critics, tom. iii. p. 164.
171-174), who have restored the genuine state of the revolution.
At the present time, an Arabian scholar, like Cardonne, who
adopts the ancient error (tom. i. p. 75), is inexcusably ignorant
or careless.]
172 (return) [ The Era of Cesar, which in Spain was in legal and
popular use till the xivth century, begins thirty-eight years
before the birth of Christ. I would refer the origin to the
general peace by sea and land, which confirmed the power and
partition of the triumvirs. (Dion. Cassius, l. xlviii. p. 547.
553. Appian de Bell. Civil. l. v. p. 1034, edit. fol.) Spain was
a province of Cesar Octavian; and Tarragona, which raised the
first temple to Augustus (Tacit Annal. i. 78), might borrow from
the orientals this mode of flattery.]
173 (return) [ The road, the country, the old castle of count
Julian, and the superstitious belief of the Spaniards of hidden
treasures, &c. are described by Pere Labat (Voyages en Espagne et
en Italie, tom i. p. 207-217), with his usual pleasantry.]
174 (return) [ The Nubian geographer (p. 154,) explains the
topography of the war; but it is highly incredible that the
lieutenant of Musa should execute the desperate and useless
measure of burning his ships.]
175 (return) [ Xeres (the Roman colony of Asta Regia) is only two
leagues from Cadiz. In the xvith century It was a granary of
corn; and the wine of Xeres is familiar to the nations of Europe
(Lud. Nonii Hispania, c. 13, p. 54-56, a work of correct and
concise knowledge; d’Anville, Etats de l’Europe &c p 154).]
On the fourth day, the two armies joined a more serious and
decisive issue; but Alaric would have blushed at the sight of his
unworthy successor, sustaining on his head a diadem of pearls,
encumbered with a flowing robe of gold and silken embroidery, and
reclining on a litter, or car of ivory, drawn by two white mules.
Notwithstanding the valour of the Saracens, they fainted under
the weight of multitudes, and the plain of Xeres was overspread
with sixteen thousand of their dead bodies. “My brethren,” said
Tarik to his surviving companions, “the enemy is before you, the
sea is behind; whither would ye fly? Follow your general I am
resolved either to lose my life, or to trample on the prostrate
king of the Romans.” Besides the resource of despair, he confided
in the secret correspondence and nocturnal interviews of count
Julian, with the sons and the brother of Witiza. The two princes
and the archbishop of Toledo occupied the most important post;
their well-timed defection broke the ranks of the Christians;
each warrior was prompted by fear or suspicion to consult his
personal safety; and the remains of the Gothic army were
scattered or destroyed to the flight and pursuit of the three
following days. Amidst the general disorder, Roderic started from
his car, and mounted Orelia, the fleetest of his Horses; but he
escaped from a soldier’s death to perish more ignobly in the
waters of the Boetis or Guadalquiver. His diadem, his robes, and
his courser, were found on the bank; but as the body of the
Gothic prince was lost in the waves, the pride and ignorance of
the caliph must have been gratified with some meaner head, which
was exposed in triumph before the palace of Damascus. “And such,”
continues a valiant historian of the Arabs, “is the fate of those
kings who withdraw themselves from a field of battle.” 176
[A. D. 711.] Count Julian had plunged so deep into guilt and
infamy, that his only hope was in the ruin of his country. After
the battle of Xeres he recommended the most effectual measures to
the victorious Saracens. “The king of the Goths is slain; their
princes are fled before you, the army is routed, the nation is
astonished. Secure with sufficient detachments the cities of
Boetica; but in person and without delay, march to the royal city
of Toledo, and allow not the distracted Christians either time or
tranquillity for the election of a new monarch.” Tarik listened
to his advice. A Roman captive and proselyte, who had been
enfranchised by the caliph himself, assaulted Cordova with seven
hundred horse: he swam the river, surprised the town, and drove
the Christians into the great church, where they defended
themselves above three months. Another detachment reduced the
seacoast of Boetica, which in the last period of the Moorish
power has comprised in a narrow space the populous kingdom of
Grenada. The march of Tarik from the Boetis to the Tagus,177 was
directed through the Sierra Morena, that separates Andalusia and
Castille, till he appeared in arms under the walls of Toledo.178
The most zealous of the Catholics had escaped with the relics of
their saints; and if the gates were shut, it was only till the
victor had subscribed a fair and reasonable capitulation. The
voluntary exiles were allowed to depart with their effects; seven
churches were appropriated to the Christian worship; the
archbishop and his clergy were at liberty to exercise their
functions, the monks to practise or neglect their penance; and
the Goths and Romans were left in all civil or criminal cases to
the subordinate jurisdiction of their own laws and magistrates.
But if the justice of Tarik protected the Christians, his
gratitude and policy rewarded the Jews, to whose secret or open
aid he was indebted for his most important acquisitions.
Persecuted by the kings and synods of Spain, who had often
pressed the alternative of banishment or baptism, that outcast
nation embraced the moment of revenge: the comparison of their
past and present state was the pledge of their fidelity; and the
alliance between the disciples of Moses and those of Mahomet, was
maintained till the final era of their common expulsion.
176 (return) [ Id sane infortunii regibus pedem ex acie
referentibus saepe contingit. Den Hazil of Grenada, in Bibliot.
Arabico-Hispana. tom. ii. p. 337. Some credulous Spaniards
believe that king Roderic, or Rodrigo, escaped to a hermit’s
cell; and others, that he was cast alive into a tub full of
serpents, from whence he exclaimed with a lamentable voice, “they
devour the part with which I have so grievously sinned.” (Don
Quixote, part ii. l. iii. c. 1.)]
177 (return) [ The direct road from Corduba to Toledo was
measured by Mr. Swinburne’s mules in 72 1/2 hours: but a larger
computation must be adopted for the slow and devious marches of
an army. The Arabs traversed the province of La Mancha, which the
pen of Cervantes has transformed into classic ground to the
reader of every nation.]
178 (return) [ The antiquities of Toledo, Urbs Parva in the Punic
wars, Urbs Regia in the sixth century, are briefly described by
Nonius (Hispania, c. 59, p. 181-136). He borrows from Roderic the
fatale palatium of Moorish portraits; but modestly insinuates,
that it was no more than a Roman amphitheatre.]
From the royal seat of Toledo, the Arabian leader spread his
conquests to the north, over the modern realms of Castille and
Leon; but it is heedless to enumerate the cities that yielded on
his approach, or again to describe the table of emerald,179
transported from the East by the Romans, acquired by the Goths
among the spoils of Rome, and presented by the Arabs to the
throne of Damascus. Beyond the Asturian mountains, the maritime
town of Gijon was the term180 of the lieutenant of Musa, who had
performed with the speed of a traveller, his victorious march of
seven hundred miles, from the rock of Gibraltar to the bay of
Biscay. The failure of land compelled him to retreat: and he was
recalled to Toledo, to excuse his presumption of subduing a
kingdom in the absence of his general. Spain, which in a more
savage and disorderly state, had resisted, two hundred years, the
arms of the Romans, was overrun in a few months by those of the
Saracens; and such was the eagerness of submission and treaty,
that the governor of Cordova is recorded as the only chief who
fell, without conditions, a prisoner into their hands. The cause
of the Goths had been irrevocably judged in the field of Xeres;
and in the national dismay, each part of the monarchy declined a
contest with the antagonist who had vanquished the united
strength of the whole.181 That strength had been wasted by two
successive seasons of famine and pestilence; and the governors,
who were impatient to surrender, might exaggerate the difficulty
of collecting the provisions of a siege. To disarm the
Christians, superstition likewise contributed her terrors: and
the subtle Arab encouraged the report of dreams, omens, and
prophecies, and of the portraits of the destined conquerors of
Spain, that were discovered on the breaking open an apartment of
the royal palace. Yet a spark of the vital flame was still alive;
some invincible fugitives preferred a life of poverty and freedom
in the Asturian valleys; the hardy mountaineers repulsed the
slaves of the caliph; and the sword of Pelagius has been
transformed into the sceptre of the Catholic kings.182
179 (return) [ In the Historia Arabum (c. 9, p. 17, ad calcem
Elmacin), Roderic of Toledo describes the emerald tables, and
inserts the name of Medinat Ahneyda in Arabic words and letters.
He appears to be conversant with the Mahometan writers; but I
cannot agree with M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 350)
that he had read and transcribed Novairi; because he was dead a
hundred years before Novairi composed his history. This mistake
is founded on a still grosser error. M. de Guignes confounds the
governed historian Roderic Ximines, archbishop of Toledo, in the
xiiith century, with cardinal Ximines, who governed Spain in the
beginning of the xvith, and was the subject, not the author, of
historical compositions.]
180 (return) [ Tarik might have inscribed on the last rock, the
boast of Regnard and his companions in their Lapland journey,
“Hic tandem stetimus, nobis ubi defuit orbis.”]
181 (return) [ Such was the argument of the traitor Oppas, and
every chief to whom it was addressed did not answer with the
spirit of Pelagius; Omnis Hispania dudum sub uno regimine
Gothorum, omnis exercitus Hispaniae in uno congregatus
Ismaelitarum non valuit sustinere impetum. Chron. Alphonsi Regis,
apud Pagi, tom. iii. p. 177.]
182 (return) [ The revival of tire Gothic kingdom in the Asturias
is distinctly though concisely noticed by d’Anville (Etats de
l’Europe, p. 159)]
Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part VII.
On the intelligence of this rapid success, the applause of Musa
degenerated into envy; and he began, not to complain, but to
fear, that Tarik would leave him nothing to subdue. At the head
of ten thousand Arabs and eight thousand Africans, he passed over
in person from Mauritania to Spain: the first of his companions
were the noblest of the Koreish; his eldest son was left in the
command of Africa; the three younger brethren were of an age and
spirit to second the boldest enterprises of their father. At his
landing in Algezire, he was respectfully entertained by Count
Julian, who stifled his inward remorse, and testified, both in
words and actions, that the victory of the Arabs had not impaired
his attachment to their cause. Some enemies yet remained for the
sword of Musa. The tardy repentance of the Goths had compared
their own numbers and those of the invaders; the cities from
which the march of Tarik had declined considered themselves as
impregnable; and the bravest patriots defended the fortifications
of Seville and Merida. They were successively besieged and
reduced by the labor of Musa, who transported his camp from the
Boetis to the Anas, from the Guadalquivir to the Guadiana. When
he beheld the works of Roman magnificence, the bridge, the
aqueducts, the triumphal arches, and the theatre, of the ancient
metropolis of Lusitania, “I should imagine,” said he to his four
companions, “that the human race must have united their art and
power in the foundation of this city: happy is the man who shall
become its master!” He aspired to that happiness, but the
Emeritans sustained on this occasion the honor of their descent
from the veteran legionaries of Augustus 183 Disdaining the
confinement of their walls, they gave battle to the Arabs on the
plain; but an ambuscade rising from the shelter of a quarry, or a
ruin, chastised their indiscretion, and intercepted their return.
The wooden turrets of assault were rolled forwards to the foot of
the rampart; but the defence of Merida was obstinate and long;
and the castle of the martyrs was a perpetual testimony of the
losses of the Moslems. The constancy of the besieged was at
length subdued by famine and despair; and the prudent victor
disguised his impatience under the names of clemency and esteem.
The alternative of exile or tribute was allowed; the churches
were divided between the two religions; and the wealth of those
who had fallen in the siege, or retired to Gallicia, was
confiscated as the reward of the faithful. In the midway between
Merida and Toledo, the lieutenant of Musa saluted the vicegerent
of the caliph, and conducted him to the palace of the Gothic
kings. Their first interview was cold and formal: a rigid account
was exacted of the treasures of Spain: the character of Tarik was
exposed to suspicion and obloquy; and the hero was imprisoned,
reviled, and ignominiously scourged by the hand, or the command,
of Musa. Yet so strict was the discipline, so pure the zeal, or
so tame the spirit, of the primitive Moslems, that, after this
public indignity, Tarik could serve and be trusted in the
reduction of the Tarragonest province. A mosch was erected at
Saragossa, by the liberality of the Koreish: the port of
Barcelona was opened to the vessels of Syria; and the Goths were
pursued beyond the Pyrenaean mountains into their Gallic province
of Septimania or Languedoc. 184 In the church of St. Mary at
Carcassone, Musa found, but it is improbable that he left, seven
equestrian statues of massy silver; and from his term or column
of Narbonne, he returned on his footsteps to the Gallician and
Lusitanian shores of the ocean. During the absence of the father,
his son Abdelaziz chastised the insurgents of Seville, and
reduced, from Malaga to Valentia, the sea-coast of the
Mediterranean: his original treaty with the discreet and valiant
Theodemir 185 will represent the manners and policy of the times.
“The conditions of peace agreed and sworn between Abdelaziz, the
son of Musa, the son of Nassir, and Theodemir prince of the
Goths. In the name of the most merciful God, Abdelaziz makes
peace on these conditions: that Theodemir shall not be disturbed
in his principality; nor any injury be offered to the life or
property, the wives and children, the religion and temples, of
the Christians: that Theodemir shall freely deliver his seven
1851 cities, Orihuela, Valentola, Alicanti Mola, Vacasora,
Bigerra, (now Bejar,) Ora, (or Opta,) and Lorca: that he shall
not assist or entertain the enemies of the caliph, but shall
faithfully communicate his knowledge of their hostile designs:
that himself, and each of the Gothic nobles, shall annually pay
one piece of gold, four measures of wheat, as many of barley,
with a certain proportion of honey, oil, and vinegar; and that
each of their vassals shall be taxed at one moiety of the said
imposition. Given the fourth of Regeb, in the year of the Hegira
ninety-four, and subscribed with the names of four Mussulman
witnesses.” 186 Theodemir and his subjects were treated with
uncommon lenity; but the rate of tribute appears to have
fluctuated from a tenth to a fifth, according to the submission
or obstinacy of the Christians. 187 In this revolution, many
partial calamities were inflicted by the carnal or religious
passions of the enthusiasts: some churches were profaned by the
new worship: some relics or images were confounded with idols:
the rebels were put to the sword; and one town (an obscure place
between Cordova and Seville) was razed to its foundations. Yet if
we compare the invasion of Spain by the Goths, or its recovery by
the kings of Castile and Arragon, we must applaud the moderation
and discipline of the Arabian conquerors.
183 (return) [ The honorable relics of the Cantabrian war (Dion
Cassius, l. liii p. 720) were planted in this metropolis of
Lusitania, perhaps of Spain, (submittit cui tota suos Hispania
fasces.) Nonius (Hispania, c. 31, p. 106-110) enumerates the
ancient structures, but concludes with a sigh: Urbs haec olim
nobilissima ad magnam incolarum infrequentiam delapsa est, et
praeter priscae claritatis ruinas nihil ostendit.]
184 (return) [ Both the interpreters of Novairi, De Guignes
(Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 349) and Cardonne, (Hist. de
l’Afrique et de l’Espagne, tom. i. p. 93, 94, 104, 135,) lead
Musa into the Narbonnese Gaul. But I find no mention of this
enterprise, either in Roderic of Toledo, or the Mss. of the
Escurial, and the invasion of the Saracens is postponed by a
French chronicle till the ixth year after the conquest of Spain,
A.D. 721, (Pagi, Critica, tom. iii. p. 177, 195. Historians of
France, tom. iii.) I much question whether Musa ever passed the
Pyrenees.]
185 (return) [ Four hundred years after Theodemir, his
territories of Murcia and Carthagena retain in the Nubian
geographer Edrisi (p, 154, 161) the name of Tadmir, (D’Anville,
Etats de l’Europe, p. 156. Pagi, tom. iii. p. 174.) In the
present decay of Spanish agriculture, Mr. Swinburne (Travels into
Spain, p. 119) surveyed with pleasure the delicious valley from
Murcia to Orihuela, four leagues and a half of the finest corn
pulse, lucerne, oranges, &c.]
1851 (return) [ Gibbon has made eight cities: in Conde’s
translation Bigera does not appear.—M.]
186 (return) [ See the treaty in Arabic and Latin, in the
Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 105, 106. It is signed
the 4th of the month of Regeb, A. H. 94, the 5th of April, A.D.
713; a date which seems to prolong the resistance of Theodemir,
and the government of Musa.]
187 (return) [ From the history of Sandoval, p. 87. Fleury (Hist.
Eccles. tom. ix. p. 261) has given the substance of another
treaty concluded A Ae. C. 782, A.D. 734, between an Arabian chief
and the Goths and Romans, of the territory of Conimbra in
Portugal. The tax of the churches is fixed at twenty-five pounds
of gold; of the monasteries, fifty; of the cathedrals, one
hundred; the Christians are judged by their count, but in capital
cases he must consult the alcaide. The church doors must be shut,
and they must respect the name of Mahomet. I have not the
original before me; it would confirm or destroy a dark suspicion,
that the piece has been forged to introduce the immunity of a
neighboring convent.]
The exploits of Musa were performed in the evening of life,
though he affected to disguise his age by coloring with a red
powder the whiteness of his beard. But in the love of action and
glory, his breast was still fired with the ardor of youth; and
the possession of Spain was considered only as the first step to
the monarchy of Europe. With a powerful armament by sea and land,
he was preparing to repass the Pyrenees, to extinguish in Gaul
and Italy the declining kingdoms of the Franks and Lombards, and
to preach the unity of God on the altar of the Vatican. From
thence, subduing the Barbarians of Germany, he proposed to follow
the course of the Danube from its source to the Euxine Sea, to
overthrow the Greek or Roman empire of Constantinople, and
returning from Europe to Asia, to unite his new acquisitions with
Antioch and the provinces of Syria. 188 But his vast enterprise,
perhaps of easy execution, must have seemed extravagant to vulgar
minds; and the visionary conqueror was soon reminded of his
dependence and servitude. The friends of Tarik had effectually
stated his services and wrongs: at the court of Damascus, the
proceedings of Musa were blamed, his intentions were suspected,
and his delay in complying with the first invitation was
chastised by a harsher and more peremptory summons. An intrepid
messenger of the caliph entered his camp at Lugo in Gallicia, and
in the presence of the Saracens and Christians arrested the
bridle of his horse. His own loyalty, or that of his troops,
inculcated the duty of obedience: and his disgrace was alleviated
by the recall of his rival, and the permission of investing with
his two governments his two sons, Abdallah and Abdelaziz. His
long triumph from Ceuta to Damascus displayed the spoils of
Africa and the treasures of Spain: four hundred Gothic nobles,
with gold coronets and girdles, were distinguished in his train;
and the number of male and female captives, selected for their
birth or beauty, was computed at eighteen, or even at thirty,
thousand persons. As soon as he reached Tiberias in Palestine, he
was apprised of the sickness and danger of the caliph, by a
private message from Soliman, his brother and presumptive heir;
who wished to reserve for his own reign the spectacle of victory.
Had Walid recovered, the delay of Musa would have been criminal:
he pursued his march, and found an enemy on the throne. In his
trial before a partial judge against a popular antagonist, he was
convicted of vanity and falsehood; and a fine of two hundred
thousand pieces of gold either exhausted his poverty or proved
his rapaciousness. The unworthy treatment of Tarik was revenged
by a similar indignity; and the veteran commander, after a public
whipping, stood a whole day in the sun before the palace gate,
till he obtained a decent exile, under the pious name of a
pilgrimage to Mecca. The resentment of the caliph might have been
satiated with the ruin of Musa; but his fears demanded the
extirpation of a potent and injured family. A sentence of death
was intimated with secrecy and speed to the trusty servants of
the throne both in Africa and Spain; and the forms, if not the
substance, of justice were superseded in this bloody execution.
In the mosch or palace of Cordova, Abdelaziz was slain by the
swords of the conspirators; they accused their governor of
claiming the honors of royalty; and his scandalous marriage with
Egilona, the widow of Roderic, offended the prejudices both of
the Christians and Moslems. By a refinement of cruelty, the head
of the son was presented to the father, with an insulting
question, whether he acknowledged the features of the rebel? “I
know his features,” he exclaimed with indignation: “I assert his
innocence; and I imprecate the same, a juster fate, against the
authors of his death.” The age and despair of Musa raised him
above the power of kings; and he expired at Mecca of the anguish
of a broken heart. His rival was more favorably treated: his
services were forgiven; and Tarik was permitted to mingle with
the crowd of slaves. 189 I am ignorant whether Count Julian was
rewarded with the death which he deserved indeed, though not from
the hands of the Saracens; but the tale of their ingratitude to
the sons of Witiza is disproved by the most unquestionable
evidence. The two royal youths were reinstated in the private
patrimony of their father; but on the decease of Eba, the elder,
his daughter was unjustly despoiled of her portion by the
violence of her uncle Sigebut. The Gothic maid pleaded her cause
before the caliph Hashem, and obtained the restitution of her
inheritance; but she was given in marriage to a noble Arabian,
and their two sons, Isaac and Ibrahim, were received in Spain
with the consideration that was due to their origin and riches.
188 (return) [ This design, which is attested by several Arabian
historians, (Cardonne, tom. i. p. 95, 96,) may be compared with
that of Mithridates, to march from the Crimaea to Rome; or with
that of Caesar, to conquer the East, and return home by the
North; and all three are perhaps surpassed by the real and
successful enterprise of Hannibal.]
189 (return) [ I much regret our loss, or my ignorance, of two
Arabic works of the viiith century, a Life of Musa, and a poem on
the exploits of Tarik. Of these authentic pieces, the former was
composed by a grandson of Musa, who had escaped from the massacre
of his kindred; the latter, by the vizier of the first
Abdalrahman, caliph of Spain, who might have conversed with some
of the veterans of the conqueror, (Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom.
ii. p. 36, 139.)]
A province is assimilated to the victorious state by the
introduction of strangers and the imitative spirit of the
natives; and Spain, which had been successively tinctured with
Punic, and Roman, and Gothic blood, imbibed, in a few
generations, the name and manners of the Arabs. The first
conquerors, and the twenty successive lieutenants of the caliphs,
were attended by a numerous train of civil and military
followers, who preferred a distant fortune to a narrow home: the
private and public interest was promoted by the establishment of
faithful colonies; and the cities of Spain were proud to
commemorate the tribe or country of their Eastern progenitors.
The victorious though motley bands of Tarik and Musa asserted, by
the name of Spaniards, their original claim of conquest; yet they
allowed their brethren of Egypt to share their establishments of
Murcia and Lisbon. The royal legion of Damascus was planted at
Cordova; that of Emesa at Seville; that of Kinnisrin or Chalcis
at Jaen; that of Palestine at Algezire and Medina Sidonia. The
natives of Yemen and Persia were scattered round Toledo and the
inland country, and the fertile seats of Grenada were bestowed on
ten thousand horsemen of Syria and Irak, the children of the
purest and most noble of the Arabian tribes. 190 A spirit of
emulation, sometimes beneficial, more frequently dangerous, was
nourished by these hereditary factions. Ten years after the
conquest, a map of the province was presented to the caliph: the
seas, the rivers, and the harbors, the inhabitants and cities,
the climate, the soil, and the mineral productions of the earth.
191 In the space of two centuries, the gifts of nature were
improved by the agriculture, 192 the manufactures, and the
commerce, of an industrious people; and the effects of their
diligence have been magnified by the idleness of their fancy. The
first of the Ommiades who reigned in Spain solicited the support
of the Christians; and in his edict of peace and protection, he
contents himself with a modest imposition of ten thousand ounces
of gold, ten thousand pounds of silver, ten thousand horses, as
many mules, one thousand cuirasses, with an equal number of
helmets and lances. 193 The most powerful of his successors
derived from the same kingdom the annual tribute of twelve
millions and forty-five thousand dinars or pieces of gold, about
six millions of sterling money; 194 a sum which, in the tenth
century, most probably surpassed the united revenues of the
Christians monarchs. His royal seat of Cordova contained six
hundred moschs, nine hundred baths, and two hundred thousand
houses; he gave laws to eighty cities of the first, to three
hundred of the second and third order; and the fertile banks of
the Guadalquivir were adorned with twelve thousand villages and
hamlets. The Arabs might exaggerate the truth, but they created
and they describe the most prosperous aera of the riches, the
cultivation, and the populousness of Spain. 195
190 (return) [ Bibliot. Arab. Hispana, tom. ii. p. 32, 252. The
former of these quotations is taken from a Biographia Hispanica,
by an Arabian of Valentia, (see the copious Extracts of Casiri,
tom. ii. p. 30-121;) and the latter from a general Chronology of
the Caliphs, and of the African and Spanish Dynasties, with a
particular History of the kingdom of Grenada, of which Casiri has
given almost an entire version, (Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom.
ii. p. 177-319.) The author, Ebn Khateb, a native of Grenada, and
a contemporary of Novairi and Abulfeda, (born A.D. 1313, died
A.D. 1374,) was an historian, geographer, physician, poet, &c.,
(tom. ii. p. 71, 72.)]
191 (return) [ Cardonne, Hist. de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne, tom.
i. p. 116, 117.]
192 (return) [ A copious treatise of husbandry, by an Arabian of
Seville, in the xiith century, is in the Escurial library, and
Casiri had some thoughts of translating it. He gives a list of
the authors quoted, Arabs as well as Greeks, Latins, &c.; but it
is much if the Andalusian saw these strangers through the medium
of his countryman Columella, (Casiri, Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana,
tom. i. p. 323-338.)]
193 (return) [ Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 104. Casiri
translates the original testimony of the historian Rasis, as it
is alleged in the Arabic Biographia Hispanica, pars ix. But I am
most exceedingly surprised at the address, Principibus
caeterisque Christianis, Hispanis suis Castellae. The name of
Castellae was unknown in the viiith century; the kingdom was not
erected till the year 1022, a hundred years after the time of
Rasis, (Bibliot. tom. ii. p. 330,) and the appellation was always
expressive, not of a tributary province, but of a line of castles
independent of the Moorish yoke, (D’Anville, Etats de l’Europe,
p. 166-170.) Had Casiri been a critic, he would have cleared a
difficulty, perhaps of his own making.]
194 (return) [ Cardonne, tom. i. p. 337, 338. He computes the
revenue at 130,000,000 of French livres. The entire picture of
peace and prosperity relieves the bloody uniformity of the
Moorish annals.]
195 (return) [ I am happy enough to possess a splendid and
interesting work which has only been distributed in presents by
the court of Madrid Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana Escurialensis,
opera et studio Michaelis Casiri, Syro Maronitoe. Matriti, in
folio, tomus prior, 1760, tomus posterior, 1770. The execution of
this work does honor to the Spanish press; the Mss., to the
number of MDCCCLI., are judiciously classed by the editor, and
his copious extracts throw some light on the Mahometan literature
and history of Spain. These relics are now secure, but the task
has been supinely delayed, till, in the year 1671, a fire
consumed the greatest part of the Escurial library, rich in the
spoils of Grenada and Morocco. * Note: Compare the valuable work
of Conde, Historia de la Dominacion de las Arabes en Espana.
Madrid, 1820.—M.]
The wars of the Moslems were sanctified by the prophet; but among
the various precepts and examples of his life, the caliphs
selected the lessons of toleration that might tend to disarm the
resistance of the unbelievers. Arabia was the temple and
patrimony of the God of Mahomet; but he beheld with less jealousy
and affection the nations of the earth. The polytheists and
idolaters, who were ignorant of his name, might be lawfully
extirpated by his votaries; 196 but a wise policy supplied the
obligation of justice; and after some acts of intolerant zeal,
the Mahometan conquerors of Hindostan have spared the pagodas of
that devout and populous country. The disciples of Abraham, of
Moses, and of Jesus, were solemnly invited to accept the more
perfect revelation of Mahomet; but if they preferred the payment
of a moderate tribute, they were entitled to the freedom of
conscience and religious worship. 197 In a field of battle the
forfeit lives of the prisoners were redeemed by the profession of
Islam; the females were bound to embrace the religion of their
masters, and a race of sincere proselytes was gradually
multiplied by the education of the infant captives. But the
millions of African and Asiatic converts, who swelled the native
band of the faithful Arabs, must have been allured, rather than
constrained, to declare their belief in one God and the apostle
of God. By the repetition of a sentence and the loss of a
foreskin, the subject or the slave, the captive or the criminal,
arose in a moment the free and equal companion of the victorious
Moslems. Every sin was expiated, every engagement was dissolved:
the vow of celibacy was superseded by the indulgence of nature;
the active spirits who slept in the cloister were awakened by the
trumpet of the Saracens; and in the convulsion of the world,
every member of a new society ascended to the natural level of
his capacity and courage. The minds of the multitude were tempted
by the invisible as well as temporal blessings of the Arabian
prophet; and charity will hope that many of his proselytes
entertained a serious conviction of the truth and sanctity of his
revelation. In the eyes of an inquisitive polytheist, it must
appear worthy of the human and the divine nature. More pure than
the system of Zoroaster, more liberal than the law of Moses, the
religion of Mahomet might seem less inconsistent with reason than
the creed of mystery and superstition, which, in the seventh
century, disgraced the simplicity of the gospel.
196 (return) [ The Harbii, as they are styled, qui tolerari
nequeunt, are, 1. Those who, besides God, worship the sun, moon,
or idols. 2. Atheists, Utrique, quamdiu princeps aliquis inter
Mohammedanos superest, oppugnari debent donec religionem
amplectantur, nec requies iis concedenda est, nec pretium
acceptandum pro obtinenda conscientiae libertate, (Reland,
Dissertat. x. de Jure Militari Mohammedan. tom. iii. p. 14;) a
rigid theory!]
197 (return) [ The distinction between a proscribed and a
tolerated sect, between the Harbii and the people of the Book,
the believers in some divine revelation, is correctly defined in
the conversation of the caliph Al Mamum with the idolaters or
Sabaeans of Charrae, (Hottinger, Hist. Orient. p. 107, 108.)]
In the extensive provinces of Persia and Africa, the national
religion has been eradicated by the Mahometan faith. The
ambiguous theology of the Magi stood alone among the sects of the
East; but the profane writings of Zoroaster 198 might, under the
reverend name of Abraham, be dexterously connected with the chain
of divine revelation. Their evil principle, the daemon Ahriman,
might be represented as the rival, or as the creature, of the God
of light. The temples of Persia were devoid of images; but the
worship of the sun and of fire might be stigmatized as a gross
and criminal idolatry. 199 The milder sentiment was consecrated
by the practice of Mahomet 200 and the prudence of the caliphs;
the Magians or Ghebers were ranked with the Jews and Christians
among the people of the written law; 201 and as late as the third
century of the Hegira, the city of Herat will afford a lively
contrast of private zeal and public toleration. 202 Under the
payment of an annual tribute, the Mahometan law secured to the
Ghebers of Herat their civil and religious liberties: but the
recent and humble mosch was overshadowed by the antique splendor
of the adjoining temple of fire. A fanatic Imam deplored, in his
sermons, the scandalous neighborhood, and accused the weakness or
indifference of the faithful. Excited by his voice, the people
assembled in tumult; the two houses of prayer were consumed by
the flames, but the vacant ground was immediately occupied by the
foundations of a new mosch. The injured Magi appealed to the
sovereign of Chorasan; he promised justice and relief; when,
behold! four thousand citizens of Herat, of a grave character and
mature age, unanimously swore that the idolatrous fane had never
existed; the inquisition was silenced and their conscience was
satisfied (says the historian Mirchond 203 with this holy and
meritorious perjury. 204 But the greatest part of the temples of
Persia were ruined by the insensible and general desertion of
their votaries.
It was insensible, since it is not accompanied with any memorial
of time or place, of persecution or resistance. It was general,
since the whole realm, from Shiraz to Samarcand, imbibed the
faith of the Koran; and the preservation of the native tongue
reveals the descent of the Mahometans of Persia. 205 In the
mountains and deserts, an obstinate race of unbelievers adhered
to the superstition of their fathers; and a faint tradition of
the Magian theology is kept alive in the province of Kirman,
along the banks of the Indus, among the exiles of Surat, and in
the colony which, in the last century, was planted by Shaw Abbas
at the gates of Ispahan. The chief pontiff has retired to Mount
Elbourz, eighteen leagues from the city of Yezd: the perpetual
fire (if it continues to burn) is inaccessible to the profane;
but his residence is the school, the oracle, and the pilgrimage
of the Ghebers, whose hard and uniform features attest the
unmingled purity of their blood. Under the jurisdiction of their
elders, eighty thousand families maintain an innocent and
industrious life: their subsistence is derived from some curious
manufactures and mechanic trades; and they cultivate the earth
with the fervor of a religious duty. Their ignorance withstood
the despotism of Shaw Abbas, who demanded with threats and
tortures the prophetic books of Zoroaster; and this obscure
remnant of the Magians is spared by the moderation or contempt of
their present sovereigns. 206
198 (return) [ The Zend or Pazend, the bible of the Ghebers, is
reckoned by themselves, or at least by the Mahometans, among the
ten books which Abraham received from heaven; and their religion
is honorably styled the religion of Abraham, (D’Herblot, Bibliot.
Orient. p. 701; Hyde, de Religione veterum Persarum, c, iii. p.
27, 28, &c.) I much fear that we do not possess any pure and free
description of the system of Zoroaster. 1981 Dr. Prideaux
(Connection, vol. i. p. 300, octavo) adopts the opinion, that he
had been the slave and scholar of some Jewish prophet in the
captivity of Babylon. Perhaps the Persians, who have been the
masters of the Jews, would assert the honor, a poor honor, of
being their masters.]
1981 (return) [ Whatever the real age of the Zendavesta,
published by Anquetil du Perron, whether of the time of Ardeschir
Babeghan, according to Mr. Erskine, or of much higher antiquity,
it may be considered, I conceive, both a “pure and a free,”
though imperfect, description of Zoroastrianism; particularly
with the illustrations of the original translator, and of the
German Kleuker—M.]
199 (return) [ The Arabian Nights, a faithful and amusing picture
of the Oriental world, represent in the most odious colors of the
Magians, or worshippers of fire, to whom they attribute the
annual sacrifice of a Mussulman. The religion of Zoroaster has
not the least affinity with that of the Hindoos, yet they are
often confounded by the Mahometans; and the sword of Timour was
sharpened by this mistake, (Hist. de Timour Bec, par Cherefeddin
Ali Yezdi, l. v.)]
200 (return) [ Vie de Mahomet, par Gagnier, (tom. iii. p. 114,
115.)]
201 (return) [ Hae tres sectae, Judaei, Christiani, et qui inter
Persas Magorum institutis addicti sunt, populi libri dicuntur,
(Reland, Dissertat. tom. iii. p. 15.) The caliph Al Mamun
confirms this honorable distinction in favor of the three sects,
with the vague and equivocal religion of the Sabaeans, under
which the ancient polytheists of Charrae were allowed to shelter
their idolatrous worship, (Hottinger, Hist. Orient p. 167, 168.)]
202 (return) [ This singular story is related by D’Herbelot,
(Bibliot. Orient. p 448, 449,) on the faith of Khondemir, and by
Mirchond himself, (Hist priorum Regum Persarum, &c., p. 9, 10,
not. p. 88, 89.)]
203 (return) [ Mirchond, (Mohammed Emir Khoondah Shah,) a native
of Herat, composed in the Persian language a general history of
the East, from the creation to the year of the Hegira 875, (A.D.
1471.) In the year 904 (A.D. 1498) the historian obtained the
command of a princely library, and his applauded work, in seven
or twelve parts, was abbreviated in three volumes by his son
Khondemir, A. H. 927, A.D. 1520. The two writers, most accurately
distinguished by Petit de la Croix, (Hist. de Genghizcan, p.537,
538, 544, 545,) are loosely confounded by D’Herbelot, (p. 358,
410, 994, 995: ) but his numerous extracts, under the improper
name of Khondemir, belong to the father rather than the son. The
historian of Genghizcan refers to a Ms. of Mirchond, which he
received from the hands of his friend D’Herbelot himself. A
curious fragment (the Taherian and Soffarian Dynasties) has been
lately published in Persic and Latin, (Viennae, 1782, in 4to.,
cum notis Bernard de Jenisch;) and the editor allows us to hope
for a continuation of Mirchond.]
204 (return) [ Quo testimonio boni se quidpiam praestitisse
opinabantur. Yet Mirchond must have condemned their zeal, since
he approved the legal toleration of the Magi, cui (the fire
temple) peracto singulis annis censu uti sacra Mohammedis lege
cautum, ab omnibus molestiis ac oneribus libero esse licuit.]
205 (return) [ The last Magian of name and power appears to be
Mardavige the Dilemite, who, in the beginning of the 10th
century, reigned in the northern provinces of Persia, near the
Caspian Sea, (D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 355.) But his
soldiers and successors, the Bowides either professed or embraced
the Mahometan faith; and under their dynasty (A.D. 933-1020) I
should say the fall of the religion of Zoroaster.]
206 (return) [ The present state of the Ghebers in Persia is
taken from Sir John Chardin, not indeed the most learned, but the
most judicious and inquisitive of our modern travellers, (Voyages
en Perse, tom. ii. p. 109, 179-187, in 4to.) His brethren, Pietro
della Valle, Olearius, Thevenot, Tavernier, &c., whom I have
fruitlessly searched, had neither eyes nor attention for this
interesting people.]
The Northern coast of Africa is the only land in which the light
of the gospel, after a long and perfect establishment, has been
totally extinguished. The arts, which had been taught by Carthage
and Rome, were involved in a cloud of ignorance; the doctrine of
Cyprian and Augustin was no longer studied. Five hundred
episcopal churches were overturned by the hostile fury of the
Donatists, the Vandals, and the Moors. The zeal and numbers of
the clergy declined; and the people, without discipline, or
knowledge, or hope, submissively sunk under the yoke of the
Arabian prophet. Within fifty years after the expulsion of the
Greeks, a lieutenant of Africa informed the caliph that the
tribute of the infidels was abolished by their conversion; 207
and, though he sought to disguise his fraud and rebellion, his
specious pretence was drawn from the rapid and extensive progress
of the Mahometan faith. In the next age, an extraordinary mission
of five bishops was detached from Alexandria to Cairoan. They
were ordained by the Jacobite patriarch to cherish and revive the
dying embers of Christianity: 208 but the interposition of a
foreign prelate, a stranger to the Latins, an enemy to the
Catholics, supposes the decay and dissolution of the African
hierarchy. It was no longer the time when the successor of St.
Cyprian, at the head of a numerous synod, could maintain an equal
contest with the ambition of the Roman pontiff. In the eleventh
century, the unfortunate priest who was seated on the ruins of
Carthage implored the arms and the protection of the Vatican; and
he bitterly complains that his naked body had been scourged by
the Saracens, and that his authority was disputed by the four
suffragans, the tottering pillars of his throne. Two epistles of
Gregory the Seventh 209 are destined to soothe the distress of
the Catholics and the pride of a Moorish prince. The pope assures
the sultan that they both worship the same God, and may hope to
meet in the bosom of Abraham; but the complaint that three
bishops could no longer be found to consecrate a brother,
announces the speedy and inevitable ruin of the episcopal order.
The Christians of Africa and Spain had long since submitted to
the practice of circumcision and the legal abstinence from wine
and pork; and the name of Mozarabes 210 (adoptive Arabs) was
applied to their civil or religious conformity. 211 About the
middle of the twelfth century, the worship of Christ and the
succession of pastors were abolished along the coast of Barbary,
and in the kingdoms of Cordova and Seville, of Valencia and
Grenada. 212 The throne of the Almohades, or Unitarians, was
founded on the blindest fanaticism, and their extraordinary rigor
might be provoked or justified by the recent victories and
intolerant zeal of the princes of Sicily and Castille, of Arragon
and Portugal. The faith of the Mozarabes was occasionally revived
by the papal missionaries; and, on the landing of Charles the
Fifth, some families of Latin Christians were encouraged to rear
their heads at Tunis and Algiers. But the seed of the gospel was
quickly eradicated, and the long province from Tripoli to the
Atlantic has lost all memory of the language and religion of
Rome. 213
207 (return) [ The letter of Abdoulrahman, governor or tyrant of
Africa, to the caliph Aboul Abbas, the first of the Abbassides,
is dated A. H. 132 Cardonne, (Hist. de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne,
tom. i. p. 168.)]
208 (return) [ Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 66. Renaudot, Hist.
Patriarch. Alex. p. 287, 288.]
209 (return) [ Among the Epistles of the Popes, see Leo IX.
epist. 3; Gregor. VII. l. i. epist. 22, 23, l. iii. epist. 19,
20, 21; and the criticisms of Pagi, (tom. iv. A.D. 1053, No. 14,
A.D. 1073, No. 13,) who investigates the name and family of the
Moorish prince, with whom the proudest of the Roman pontiffs so
politely corresponds.]
210 (return) [ Mozarabes, or Mostarabes, adscititii, as it is
interpreted in Latin, (Pocock, Specimen Hist. Arabum, p. 39, 40.
Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 18.) The Mozarabic liturgy,
the ancient ritual of the church of Toledo, has been attacked by
the popes, and exposed to the doubtful trials of the sword and of
fire, (Marian. Hist. Hispan. tom. i. l. ix. c. 18, p. 378.) It
was, or rather it is, in the Latin tongue; yet in the xith
century it was found necessary (A. Ae. C. 1687, A.D. 1039) to
transcribe an Arabic version of the canons of the councils of
Spain, (Bibliot. Arab. Hisp. tom. i. p. 547,) for the use of the
bishops and clergy in the Moorish kingdoms.]
211 (return) [ About the middle of the xth century, the clergy of
Cordova was reproached with this criminal compliance, by the
intrepid envoy of the Emperor Otho I., (Vit. Johan. Gorz, in
Secul. Benedict. V. No. 115, apud Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xii.
p. 91.)]
212 (return) [ Pagi, Critica, tom. iv. A.D. 1149, No. 8, 9. He
justly observes, that when Seville, &c., were retaken by
Ferdinand of Castille, no Christians, except captives, were found
in the place; and that the Mozarabic churches of Africa and
Spain, described by James a Vitriaco, A.D. 1218, (Hist. Hierosol.
c. 80, p. 1095, in Gest. Dei per Francos,) are copied from some
older book. I shall add, that the date of the Hegira 677 (A.D.
1278) must apply to the copy, not the composition, of a treatise
of a jurisprudence, which states the civil rights of the
Christians of Cordova, (Bibliot. Arab. Hisp. tom. i. p. 471;) and
that the Jews were the only dissenters whom Abul Waled, king of
Grenada, (A.D. 1313,) could either discountenance or tolerate,
(tom. ii. p. 288.)]
213 (return) [ Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 288. Leo
Africanus would have flattered his Roman masters, could he have
discovered any latent relics of the Christianity of Africa.]
After the revolution of eleven centuries, the Jews and Christians
of the Turkish empire enjoy the liberty of conscience which was
granted by the Arabian caliphs. During the first age of the
conquest, they suspected the loyalty of the Catholics, whose name
of Melchites betrayed their secret attachment to the Greek
emperor, while the Nestorians and Jacobites, his inveterate
enemies, approved themselves the sincere and voluntary friends of
the Mahometan government. 214 Yet this partial jealousy was
healed by time and submission; the churches of Egypt were shared
with the Catholics; 215 and all the Oriental sects were included
in the common benefits of toleration. The rank, the immunities,
the domestic jurisdiction of the patriarchs, the bishops, and the
clergy, were protected by the civil magistrate: the learning of
individuals recommended them to the employments of secretaries
and physicians: they were enriched by the lucrative collection of
the revenue; and their merit was sometimes raised to the command
of cities and provinces. A caliph of the house of Abbas was heard
to declare that the Christians were most worthy of trust in the
administration of Persia. “The Moslems,” said he, “will abuse
their present fortune; the Magians regret their fallen greatness;
and the Jews are impatient for their approaching deliverance.”
216 But the slaves of despotism are exposed to the alternatives
of favor and disgrace. The captive churches of the East have been
afflicted in every age by the avarice or bigotry of their rulers;
and the ordinary and legal restraints must be offensive to the
pride, or the zeal, of the Christians. 217 About two hundred
years after Mahomet, they were separated from their
fellow-subjects by a turban or girdle of a less honorable color;
instead of horses or mules. they were condemned to ride on asses,
in the attitude of women. Their public and private building were
measured by a diminutive standard; in the streets or the baths it
is their duty to give way or bow down before the meanest of the
people; and their testimony is rejected, if it may tend to the
prejudice of a true believer. The pomp of processions, the sound
of bells or of psalmody, is interdicted in their worship; a
decent reverence for the national faith is imposed on their
sermons and conversations; and the sacrilegious attempt to enter
a mosch, or to seduce a Mussulman, will not be suffered to escape
with impunity. In a time, however, of tranquillity and justice,
the Christians have never been compelled to renounce the Gospel,
or to embrace the Koran; but the punishment of death is inflicted
upon the apostates who have professed and deserted the law of
Mahomet. The martyrs of Cordova provoked the sentence of the
cadhi, by the public confession of their inconstancy, or their
passionate invectives against the person and religion of the
prophet. 218
214 (return) [ Absit (said the Catholic to the vizier of Bagdad)
ut pari loco habeas Nestorianos, quorum praeter Arabas nullus
alius rex est, et Graecos quorum reges amovendo Arabibus bello
non desistunt, &c. See in the Collections of Assemannus (Bibliot.
Orient. tom. iv. p. 94-101) the state of the Nestorians under the
caliphs. That of the Jacobites is more concisely exposed in the
Preliminary Dissertation of the second volume of Assemannus.]
215 (return) [ Eutych. Annal. tom. ii. p. 384, 387, 388.
Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 205, 206, 257, 332. A taint
of the Monothelite heresy might render the first of these Greek
patriarchs less loyal to the emperors and less obnoxious to the
Arabs.]
216 (return) [ Motadhed, who reigned from A.D. 892 to 902. The
Magians still held their name and rank among the religions of the
empire, (Assemanni, Bibliot. Orient. tom. iv. p. 97.)]
217 (return) [ Reland explains the general restraints of the
Mahometan policy and jurisprudence, (Dissertat. tom. iii. p.
16-20.) The oppressive edicts of the caliph Motawakkel, (A.D.
847-861,) which are still in force, are noticed by Eutychius,
(Annal. tom. ii. p. 448,) and D’Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orient. p.
640.) A persecution of the caliph Omar II. is related, and most
probably magnified, by the Greek Theophanes (Chron p. 334.)]
218 (return) [ The martyrs of Cordova (A.D. 850, &c.) are
commemorated and justified by St. Eulogius, who at length fell a
victim himself. A synod, convened by the caliph, ambiguously
censured their rashness. The moderate Fleury cannot reconcile
their conduct with the discipline of antiquity, toutefois
l’autorite de l’eglise, &c. (Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. x. p.
415-522, particularly p. 451, 508, 509.) Their authentic acts
throw a strong, though transient, light on the Spanish church in
the ixth century.]
At the end of the first century of the Hegira, the caliphs were
the most potent and absolute monarchs of the globe. Their
prerogative was not circumscribed, either in right or in fact, by
the power of the nobles, the freedom of the commons, the
privileges of the church, the votes of a senate, or the memory of
a free constitution. The authority of the companions of Mahomet
expired with their lives; and the chiefs or emirs of the Arabian
tribes left behind, in the desert, the spirit of equality and
independence. The regal and sacerdotal characters were united in
the successors of Mahomet; and if the Koran was the rule of their
actions, they were the supreme judges and interpreters of that
divine book. They reigned by the right of conquest over the
nations of the East, to whom the name of liberty was unknown, and
who were accustomed to applaud in their tyrants the acts of
violence and severity that were exercised at their own expense.
Under the last of the Ommiades, the Arabian empire extended two
hundred days’ journey from east to west, from the confines of
Tartary and India to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. And if we
retrench the sleeve of the robe, as it is styled by their
writers, the long and narrow province of Africa, the solid and
compact dominion from Fargana to Aden, from Tarsus to Surat, will
spread on every side to the measure of four or five months of the
march of a caravan. 219 We should vainly seek the indissoluble
union and easy obedience that pervaded the government of Augustus
and the Antonines; but the progress of the Mahometan religion
diffused over this ample space a general resemblance of manners
and opinions. The language and laws of the Koran were studied
with equal devotion at Samarcand and Seville: the Moor and the
Indian embraced as countrymen and brothers in the pilgrimage of
Mecca; and the Arabian language was adopted as the popular idiom
in all the provinces to the westward of the Tigris. 220
219 (return) [ See the article Eslamiah, (as we say Christendom,)
in the Bibliotheque Orientale, (p. 325.) This chart of the
Mahometan world is suited by the author, Ebn Alwardi, to the year
of the Hegira 385 (A.D. 995.) Since that time, the losses in
Spain have been overbalanced by the conquests in India, Tartary,
and the European Turkey.]
220 (return) [ The Arabic of the Koran is taught as a dead
language in the college of Mecca. By the Danish traveller, this
ancient idiom is compared to the Latin; the vulgar tongue of
Hejaz and Yemen to the Italian; and the Arabian dialects of
Syria, Egypt, Africa, &c., to the Provencal, Spanish, and
Portuguese, (Niebuhr, Description de l’Arabie, p. 74, &c.)]
Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part I.
The Two Sieges Of Constantinople By The Arabs.—Their Invasion Of
France, And Defeat By Charles Martel.—Civil War Of The Ommiades
And Abbassides.—Learning Of The Arabs.— Luxury Of The
Caliphs.—Naval Enterprises On Crete, Sicily, And Rome.—Decay And
Division Of The Empire Of The Caliphs. —Defeats And Victories Of
The Greek Emperors.
When the Arabs first issued from the desert, they must have been
surprised at the ease and rapidity of their own success. But when
they advanced in the career of victory to the banks of the Indus
and the summit of the Pyrenees; when they had repeatedly tried
the edge of their cimeters and the energy of their faith, they
might be equally astonished that any nation could resist their
invincible arms; that any boundary should confine the dominion of
the successor of the prophet. The confidence of soldiers and
fanatics may indeed be excused, since the calm historian of the
present hour, who strives to follow the rapid course of the
Saracens, must study to explain by what means the church and
state were saved from this impending, and, as it should seem,
from this inevitable, danger. The deserts of Scythia and Sarmatia
might be guarded by their extent, their climate, their poverty,
and the courage of the northern shepherds; China was remote and
inaccessible; but the greatest part of the temperate zone was
subject to the Mahometan conquerors, the Greeks were exhausted by
the calamities of war and the loss of their fairest provinces,
and the Barbarians of Europe might justly tremble at the
precipitate fall of the Gothic monarchy. In this inquiry I shall
unfold the events that rescued our ancestors of Britain, and our
neighbors of Gaul, from the civil and religious yoke of the
Koran; that protected the majesty of Rome, and delayed the
servitude of Constantinople; that invigorated the defence of the
Christians, and scattered among their enemies the seeds of
division and decay.
Forty-six years after the flight of Mahomet from Mecca, his
disciples appeared in arms under the walls of Constantinople. 1
They were animated by a genuine or fictitious saying of the
prophet, that, to the first army which besieged the city of the
Caesars, their sins were forgiven: the long series of Roman
triumphs would be meritoriously transferred to the conquerors of
New Rome; and the wealth of nations was deposited in this
well-chosen seat of royalty and commerce. No sooner had the
caliph Moawiyah suppressed his rivals and established his throne,
than he aspired to expiate the guilt of civil blood, by the
success and glory of this holy expedition; 2 his preparations by
sea and land were adequate to the importance of the object; his
standard was intrusted to Sophian, a veteran warrior, but the
troops were encouraged by the example and presence of Yezid, the
son and presumptive heir of the commander of the faithful. The
Greeks had little to hope, nor had their enemies any reason of
fear, from the courage and vigilance of the reigning emperor, who
disgraced the name of Constantine, and imitated only the
inglorious years of his grandfather Heraclius. Without delay or
opposition, the naval forces of the Saracens passed through the
unguarded channel of the Hellespont, which even now, under the
feeble and disorderly government of the Turks, is maintained as
the natural bulwark of the capital. 3 The Arabian fleet cast
anchor, and the troops were disembarked near the palace of
Hebdomon, seven miles from the city. During many days, from the
dawn of light to the evening, the line of assault was extended
from the golden gate to the eastern promontory and the foremost
warriors were impelled by the weight and effort of the succeeding
columns. But the besiegers had formed an insufficient estimate of
the strength and resources of Constantinople. The solid and lofty
walls were guarded by numbers and discipline: the spirit of the
Romans was rekindled by the last danger of their religion and
empire: the fugitives from the conquered provinces more
successfully renewed the defence of Damascus and Alexandria; and
the Saracens were dismayed by the strange and prodigious effects
of artificial fire. This firm and effectual resistance diverted
their arms to the more easy attempt of plundering the European
and Asiatic coasts of the Propontis; and, after keeping the sea
from the month of April to that of September, on the approach of
winter they retreated fourscore miles from the capital, to the
Isle of Cyzicus, in which they had established their magazine of
spoil and provisions. So patient was their perseverance, or so
languid were their operations, that they repeated in the six
following summers the same attack and retreat, with a gradual
abatement of hope and vigor, till the mischances of shipwreck and
disease, of the sword and of fire, compelled them to relinquish
the fruitless enterprise. They might bewail the loss, or
commemorate the martyrdom, of thirty thousand Moslems, who fell
in the siege of Constantinople; and the solemn funeral of Abu
Ayub, or Job, excited the curiosity of the Christians themselves.
That venerable Arab, one of the last of the companions of
Mahomet, was numbered among the ansars, or auxiliaries, of
Medina, who sheltered the head of the flying prophet. In his
youth he fought, at Beder and Ohud, under the holy standard: in
his mature age he was the friend and follower of Ali; and the
last remnant of his strength and life was consumed in a distant
and dangerous war against the enemies of the Koran. His memory
was revered; but the place of his burial was neglected and
unknown, during a period of seven hundred and eighty years, till
the conquest of Constantinople by Mahomet the Second. A
seasonable vision (for such are the manufacture of every
religion) revealed the holy spot at the foot of the walls and the
bottom of the harbor; and the mosch of Ayub has been deservedly
chosen for the simple and martial inauguration of the Turkish
sultans. 4
1 (return) [ Theophanes places the seven years of the siege of
Constantinople in the year of our Christian aera, 673 (of the
Alexandrian 665, Sept. 1,) and the peace of the Saracens, four
years afterwards; a glaring inconsistency! which Petavius, Goar,
and Pagi, (Critica, tom. iv. p. 63, 64,) have struggled to
remove. Of the Arabians, the Hegira 52 (A.D. 672, January 8) is
assigned by Elmacin, the year 48 (A.D. 688, Feb. 20) by Abulfeda,
whose testimony I esteem the most convenient and credible.]
2 (return) [ For this first siege of Constantinople, see
Nicephorus, (Breviar. p. 21, 22;) Theophanes, (Chronograph. p.
294;) Cedrenus, (Compend. p. 437;) Zonaras, (Hist. tom. ii. l.
xiv. p. 89;) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 56, 57;) Abulfeda,
(Annal. Moslem. p. 107, 108, vers. Reiske;) D’Herbelot, (Bibliot.
Orient. Constantinah;) Ockley’s History of the Saracens, vol. ii.
p. 127, 128.]
3 (return) [ The state and defence of the Dardanelles is exposed
in the Memoirs of the Baron de Tott, (tom. iii. p. 39-97,) who
was sent to fortify them against the Russians. From a principal
actor, I should have expected more accurate details; but he seems
to write for the amusement, rather than the instruction, of his
reader. Perhaps, on the approach of the enemy, the minister of
Constantine was occupied, like that of Mustapha, in finding two
Canary birds who should sing precisely the same note.]
4 (return) [ Demetrius Cantemir’s Hist. of the Othman Empire, p.
105, 106. Rycaut’s State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 10, 11.
Voyages of Thevenot, part i. p. 189. The Christians, who suppose
that the martyr Abu Ayub is vulgarly confounded with the
patriarch Job, betray their own ignorance rather than that of the
Turks.]
The event of the siege revived, both in the East and West, the
reputation of the Roman arms, and cast a momentary shade over the
glories of the Saracens. The Greek ambassador was favorably
received at Damascus, a general council of the emirs or Koreish:
a peace, or truce, of thirty years was ratified between the two
empires; and the stipulation of an annual tribute, fifty horses
of a noble breed, fifty slaves, and three thousand pieces of
gold, degraded the majesty of the commander of the faithful. 5
The aged caliph was desirous of possessing his dominions, and
ending his days in tranquillity and repose: while the Moors and
Indians trembled at his name, his palace and city of Damascus was
insulted by the Mardaites, or Maronites, of Mount Libanus, the
firmest barrier of the empire, till they were disarmed and
transplanted by the suspicious policy of the Greeks. 6 After the
revolt of Arabia and Persia, the house of Ommiyah was reduced to
the kingdoms of Syria and Egypt: their distress and fear enforced
their compliance with the pressing demands of the Christians; and
the tribute was increased to a slave, a horse, and a thousand
pieces of gold, for each of the three hundred and sixty-five days
of the solar year. But as soon as the empire was again united by
the arms and policy of Abdalmalek, he disclaimed a badge of
servitude not less injurious to his conscience than to his pride;
he discontinued the payment of the tribute; and the resentment of
the Greeks was disabled from action by the mad tyranny of the
second Justinian, the just rebellion of his subjects, and the
frequent change of his antagonists and successors. 7 Till the
reign of Abdalmalek, the Saracens had been content with the free
possession of the Persian and Roman treasures, in the coins of
Chosroes and Caesar. By the command of that caliph, a national
mint was established, both for silver and gold, and the
inscription of the Dinar, though it might be censured by some
timorous casuists, proclaimed the unity of the God of Mahomet. 8
Under the reign of the caliph Walid, the Greek language and
characters were excluded from the accounts of the public revenue.
9 If this change was productive of the invention or familiar use
of our present numerals, the Arabic or Indian ciphers, as they
are commonly styled, a regulation of office has promoted the most
important discoveries of arithmetic, algebra, and the
mathematical sciences. 10
5 (return) [ Theophanes, though a Greek, deserves credit for
these tributes, (Chronograph. p. 295, 296, 300, 301,) which are
confirmed, with some variation, by the Arabic History of
Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 128, vers. Pocock.)]
6 (return) [ The censure of Theophanes is just and pointed,
(Chronograph. p. 302, 303.) The series of these events may be
traced in the Annals of Theophanes, and in the Abridgment of the
patriarch Nicephorus, p. 22, 24.]
7 (return) [ These domestic revolutions are related in a clear
and natural style, in the second volume of Ockley’s History of
the Saracens, p. 253-370. Besides our printed authors, he draws
his materials from the Arabic Mss. of Oxford, which he would have
more deeply searched had he been confined to the Bodleian library
instead of the city jail a fate how unworthy of the man and of
his country!]
8 (return) [ Elmacin, who dates the first coinage A. H. 76, A.D.
695, five or six years later than the Greek historians, has
compared the weight of the best or common gold dinar to the
drachm or dirhem of Egypt, (p. 77,) which may be equal to two
pennies (48 grains) of our Troy weight, (Hooper’s Inquiry into
Ancient Measures, p. 24-36,) and equivalent to eight shillings of
our sterling money. From the same Elmacin and the Arabian
physicians, some dinars as high as two dirhems, as low as half a
dirhem, may be deduced. The piece of silver was the dirhem, both
in value and weight; but an old, though fair coin, struck at
Waset, A. H. 88, and preserved in the Bodleian library, wants
four grains of the Cairo standard, (see the Modern Universal
History, tom. i. p. 548 of the French translation.) * Note: Up to
this time the Arabs had used the Roman or the Persian coins or
had minted others which resembled them. Nevertheless, it has been
admitted of late years, that the Arabians, before this epoch, had
caused coin to be minted, on which, preserving the Roman or the
Persian dies, they added Arabian names or inscriptions. Some of
these exist in different collections. We learn from Makrizi, an
Arabian author of great learning and judgment, that in the year
18 of the Hegira, under the caliphate of Omar, the Arabs had
coined money of this description. The same author informs us that
the caliph Abdalmalek caused coins to be struck representing
himself with a sword by his side. These types, so contrary to the
notions of the Arabs, were disapproved by the most influential
persons of the time, and the caliph substituted for them, after
the year 76 of the Hegira, the Mahometan coins with which we are
acquainted. Consult, on the question of Arabic numismatics, the
works of Adler, of Fraehn, of Castiglione, and of Marsden, who
have treated at length this interesting point of historic
antiquities. See, also, in the Journal Asiatique, tom. ii. p.
257, et seq., a paper of M. Silvestre de Sacy, entitled Des
Monnaies des Khalifes avant l’An 75 de l’Hegire. See, also the
translation of a German paper on the Arabic medals of the
Chosroes, by M. Fraehn. in the same Journal Asiatique tom. iv. p.
331-347. St. Martin, vol. xii. p. 19, —M.]
9 (return) [ Theophan. Chronograph. p. 314. This defect, if it
really existed, must have stimulated the ingenuity of the Arabs
to invent or borrow.]
10 (return) [ According to a new, though probable, notion,
maintained by M de Villoison, (Anecdota Graeca, tom. ii. p.
152-157,) our ciphers are not of Indian or Arabic invention. They
were used by the Greek and Latin arithmeticians long before the
age of Boethius. After the extinction of science in the West,
they were adopted by the Arabic versions from the original Mss.,
and restored to the Latins about the xith century. * Note:
Compare, on the Introduction of the Arabic numerals, Hallam’s
Introduction to the Literature of Europe, p. 150, note, and the
authors quoted therein.—M.]
Whilst the caliph Walid sat idle on the throne of Damascus,
whilst his lieutenants achieved the conquest of Transoxiana and
Spain, a third army of Saracens overspread the provinces of Asia
Minor, and approached the borders of the Byzantine capital. But
the attempt and disgrace of the second siege was reserved for his
brother Soliman, whose ambition appears to have been quickened by
a more active and martial spirit. In the revolutions of the Greek
empire, after the tyrant Justinian had been punished and avenged,
an humble secretary, Anastasius or Artemius, was promoted by
chance or merit to the vacant purple. He was alarmed by the sound
of war; and his ambassador returned from Damascus with the
tremendous news, that the Saracens were preparing an armament by
sea and land, such as would transcend the experience of the past,
or the belief of the present age. The precautions of Anastasius
were not unworthy of his station, or of the impending danger. He
issued a peremptory mandate, that all persons who were not
provided with the means of subsistence for a three years’ siege
should evacuate the city: the public granaries and arsenals were
abundantly replenished; the walls were restored and strengthened;
and the engines for casting stones, or darts, or fire, were
stationed along the ramparts, or in the brigantines of war, of
which an additional number was hastily constructed. To prevent is
safer, as well as more honorable, than to repel, an attack; and a
design was meditated, above the usual spirit of the Greeks, of
burning the naval stores of the enemy, the cypress timber that
had been hewn in Mount Libanus, and was piled along the sea-shore
of Phoenicia, for the service of the Egyptian fleet. This
generous enterprise was defeated by the cowardice or treachery of
the troops, who, in the new language of the empire, were styled
of the Obsequian Theme. 11 They murdered their chief, deserted
their standard in the Isle of Rhodes, dispersed themselves over
the adjacent continent, and deserved pardon or reward by
investing with the purple a simple officer of the revenue. The
name of Theodosius might recommend him to the senate and people;
but, after some months, he sunk into a cloister, and resigned, to
the firmer hand of Leo the Isaurian, the urgent defence of the
capital and empire. The most formidable of the Saracens,
Moslemah, the brother of the caliph, was advancing at the head of
one hundred and twenty thousand Arabs and Persians, the greater
part mounted on horses or camels; and the successful sieges of
Tyana, Amorium, and Pergamus, were of sufficient duration to
exercise their skill and to elevate their hopes. At the
well-known passage of Abydus, on the Hellespont, the Mahometan
arms were transported, for the first time, 1111 from Asia to
Europe. From thence, wheeling round the Thracian cities of the
Propontis, Moslemah invested Constantinople on the land side,
surrounded his camp with a ditch and rampart, prepared and
planted his engines of assault, and declared, by words and
actions, a patient resolution of expecting the return of
seed-time and harvest, should the obstinacy of the besieged prove
equal to his own. 1112 The Greeks would gladly have ransomed
their religion and empire, by a fine or assessment of a piece of
gold on the head of each inhabitant of the city; but the liberal
offer was rejected with disdain, and the presumption of Moslemah
was exalted by the speedy approach and invincible force of the
natives of Egypt and Syria. They are said to have amounted to
eighteen hundred ships: the number betrays their inconsiderable
size; and of the twenty stout and capacious vessels, whose
magnitude impeded their progress, each was manned with no more
than one hundred heavy-armed soldiers. This huge armada proceeded
on a smooth sea, and with a gentle gale, towards the mouth of the
Bosphorus; the surface of the strait was overshadowed, in the
language of the Greeks, with a moving forest, and the same fatal
night had been fixed by the Saracen chief for a general assault
by sea and land. To allure the confidence of the enemy, the
emperor had thrown aside the chain that usually guarded the
entrance of the harbor; but while they hesitated whether they
should seize the opportunity, or apprehend the snare, the
ministers of destruction were at hand. The fire-ships of the
Greeks were launched against them; the Arabs, their arms, and
vessels, were involved in the same flames; the disorderly
fugitives were dashed against each other or overwhelmed in the
waves; and I no longer find a vestige of the fleet, that had
threatened to extirpate the Roman name. A still more fatal and
irreparable loss was that of the caliph Soliman, who died of an
indigestion, 12 in his camp near Kinnisrin or Chalcis in Syria,
as he was preparing to lead against Constantinople the remaining
forces of the East. The brother of Moslemah was succeeded by a
kinsman and an enemy; and the throne of an active and able prince
was degraded by the useless and pernicious virtues of a bigot.
1211 While he started and satisfied the scruples of a blind
conscience, the siege was continued through the winter by the
neglect, rather than by the resolution of the caliph Omar. 13 The
winter proved uncommonly rigorous: above a hundred days the
ground was covered with deep snow, and the natives of the sultry
climes of Egypt and Arabia lay torpid and almost lifeless in
their frozen camp. They revived on the return of spring; a second
effort had been made in their favor; and their distress was
relieved by the arrival of two numerous fleets, laden with corn,
and arms, and soldiers; the first from Alexandria, of four
hundred transports and galleys; the second of three hundred and
sixty vessels from the ports of Africa. But the Greek fires were
again kindled; and if the destruction was less complete, it was
owing to the experience which had taught the Moslems to remain at
a safe distance, or to the perfidy of the Egyptian mariners, who
deserted with their ships to the emperor of the Christians. The
trade and navigation of the capital were restored; and the
produce of the fisheries supplied the wants, and even the luxury,
of the inhabitants. But the calamities of famine and disease were
soon felt by the troops of Moslemah, and as the former was
miserably assuaged, so the latter was dreadfully propagated, by
the pernicious nutriment which hunger compelled them to extract
from the most unclean or unnatural food. The spirit of conquest,
and even of enthusiasm, was extinct: the Saracens could no longer
struggle, beyond their lines, either single or in small parties,
without exposing themselves to the merciless retaliation of the
Thracian peasants.
An army of Bulgarians was attracted from the Danube by the gifts
and promises of Leo; and these savage auxiliaries made some
atonement for the evils which they had inflicted on the empire,
by the defeat and slaughter of twenty-two thousand Asiatics. A
report was dexterously scattered, that the Franks, the unknown
nations of the Latin world, were arming by sea and land in the
defence of the Christian cause, and their formidable aid was
expected with far different sensations in the camp and city. At
length, after a siege of thirteen months, 14 the hopeless
Moslemah received from the caliph the welcome permission of
retreat. 1411 The march of the Arabian cavalry over the
Hellespont and through the provinces of Asia, was executed
without delay or molestation; but an army of their brethren had
been cut in pieces on the side of Bithynia, and the remains of
the fleet were so repeatedly damaged by tempest and fire, that
only five galleys entered the port of Alexandria to relate the
tale of their various and almost incredible disasters. 15
11 (return) [ In the division of the Themes, or provinces
described by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, (de Thematibus, l. i.
p. 9, 10,) the Obsequium, a Latin appellation of the army and
palace, was the fourth in the public order. Nice was the
metropolis, and its jurisdiction extended from the Hellespont
over the adjacent parts of Bithynia and Phrygia, (see the two
maps prefixed by Delisle to the Imperium Orientale of Banduri.)]
1111 (return) [ Compare page 274. It is singular that Gibbon
should thus contradict himself in a few pages. By his own account
this was the second time.—M.]
1112 (return) [ The account of this siege in the Tarikh Tebry is
a very unfavorable specimen of Asiatic history, full of absurd
fables, and written with total ignorance of the circumstances of
time and place. Price, vol. i. p. 498—M.]
12 (return) [ The caliph had emptied two baskets of eggs and of
figs, which he swallowed alternately, and the repast was
concluded with marrow and sugar. In one of his pilgrimages to
Mecca, Soliman ate, at a single meal, seventy pomegranates, a
kid, six fowls, and a huge quantity of the grapes of Tayef. If
the bill of fare be correct, we must admire the appetite, rather
than the luxury, of the sovereign of Asia, (Abulfeda, Annal.
Moslem. p. 126.) * Note: The Tarikh Tebry ascribes the death of
Soliman to a pleurisy. The same gross gluttony in which Soliman
indulged, though not fatal to the life, interfered with the
military duties, of his brother Moslemah. Price, vol. i. p.
511.—M.]
1211 (return) [ Major Price’s estimate of Omar’s character is
much more favorable. Among a race of sanguinary tyrants, Omar was
just and humane. His virtues as well as his bigotry were
active.—M.]
13 (return) [ See the article of Omar Ben Abdalaziz, in the
Bibliotheque Orientale, (p. 689, 690,) praeferens, says Elmacin,
(p. 91,) religionem suam rebus suis mundanis. He was so desirous
of being with God, that he would not have anointed his ear (his
own saying) to obtain a perfect cure of his last malady. The
caliph had only one shirt, and in an age of luxury, his annual
expense was no more than two drachms, (Abulpharagius, p. 131.)
Haud diu gavisus eo principe fuit urbis Muslemus, (Abulfeda, p.
127.)]
14 (return) [ Both Nicephorus and Theophanes agree that the siege
of Constantinople was raised the 15th of August, (A.D. 718;) but
as the former, our best witness, affirms that it continued
thirteen months, the latter must be mistaken in supposing that it
began on the same day of the preceding year. I do not find that
Pagi has remarked this inconsistency.]
1411 (return) [ The Tarikh Tebry embellishes the retreat of
Moslemah with some extraordinary and incredible circumstances.
Price, p. 514.—M.]
15 (return) [ In the second siege of Constantinople, I have
followed Nicephorus, (Brev. p. 33-36,) Theophanes, (Chronograph,
p. 324-334,) Cedrenus, (Compend. p. 449-452,) Zonaras, (tom. ii.
p. 98-102,) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen, p. 88,) Abulfeda, (Annal.
Moslem. p. 126,) and Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 130,) the most
satisfactory of the Arabs.]
In the two sieges, the deliverance of Constantinople may be
chiefly ascribed to the novelty, the terrors, and the real
efficacy of the Greek fire. 16 The important secret of
compounding and directing this artificial flame was imparted by
Callinicus, a native of Heliopolis in Syria, who deserted from
the service of the caliph to that of the emperor. 17 The skill of
a chemist and engineer was equivalent to the succor of fleets and
armies; and this discovery or improvement of the military art was
fortunately reserved for the distressful period, when the
degenerate Romans of the East were incapable of contending with
the warlike enthusiasm and youthful vigor of the Saracens. The
historian who presumes to analyze this extraordinary composition
should suspect his own ignorance and that of his Byzantine
guides, so prone to the marvellous, so careless, and, in this
instance, so jealous of the truth. From their obscure, and
perhaps fallacious, hints it should seem that the principal
ingredient of the Greek fire was the naphtha, 18 or liquid
bitumen, a light, tenacious, and inflammable oil, 19 which
springs from the earth, and catches fire as soon as it comes in
contact with the air. The naphtha was mingled, I know not by what
methods or in what proportions, with sulphur and with the pitch
that is extracted from evergreen firs. 20 From this mixture,
which produced a thick smoke and a loud explosion, proceeded a
fierce and obstinate flame, which not only rose in perpendicular
ascent, but likewise burnt with equal vehemence in descent or
lateral progress; instead of being extinguished, it was nourished
and quickened by the element of water; and sand, urine, or
vinegar, were the only remedies that could damp the fury of this
powerful agent, which was justly denominated by the Greeks the
liquid, or the maritime, fire. For the annoyance of the enemy, it
was employed with equal effect, by sea and land, in battles or in
sieges. It was either poured from the rampart in large boilers,
or launched in red-hot balls of stone and iron, or darted in
arrows and javelins, twisted round with flax and tow, which had
deeply imbibed the inflammable oil; sometimes it was deposited in
fire-ships, the victims and instruments of a more ample revenge,
and was most commonly blown through long tubes of copper which
were planted on the prow of a galley, and fancifully shaped into
the mouths of savage monsters, that seemed to vomit a stream of
liquid and consuming fire. This important art was preserved at
Constantinople, as the palladium of the state: the galleys and
artillery might occasionally be lent to the allies of Rome; but
the composition of the Greek fire was concealed with the most
jealous scruple, and the terror of the enemies was increased and
prolonged by their ignorance and surprise. In the treaties of the
administration of the empire, the royal author 21 suggests the
answers and excuses that might best elude the indiscreet
curiosity and importunate demands of the Barbarians. They should
be told that the mystery of the Greek fire had been revealed by
an angel to the first and greatest of the Constantines, with a
sacred injunction, that this gift of Heaven, this peculiar
blessing of the Romans, should never be communicated to any
foreign nation; that the prince and the subject were alike bound
to religious silence under the temporal and spiritual penalties
of treason and sacrilege; and that the impious attempt would
provoke the sudden and supernatural vengeance of the God of the
Christians. By these precautions, the secret was confined, above
four hundred years, to the Romans of the East; and at the end of
the eleventh century, the Pisans, to whom every sea and every art
were familiar, suffered the effects, without understanding the
composition, of the Greek fire. It was at length either
discovered or stolen by the Mahometans; and, in the holy wars of
Syria and Egypt, they retorted an invention, contrived against
themselves, on the heads of the Christians. A knight, who
despised the swords and lances of the Saracens, relates, with
heartfelt sincerity, his own fears, and those of his companions,
at the sight and sound of the mischievous engine that discharged
a torrent of the Greek fire, the feu Gregeois, as it is styled by
the more early of the French writers. It came flying through the
air, says Joinville, 22 like a winged long-tailed dragon, about
the thickness of a hogshead, with the report of thunder and the
velocity of lightning; and the darkness of the night was
dispelled by this deadly illumination. The use of the Greek, or,
as it might now be called, of the Saracen fire, was continued to
the middle of the fourteenth century, 23 when the scientific or
casual compound of nitre, sulphur, and charcoal, effected a new
revolution in the art of war and the history of mankind. 24
16 (return) [ Our sure and indefatigable guide in the middle ages
and Byzantine history, Charles du Fresne du Cange, has treated in
several places of the Greek fire, and his collections leave few
gleanings behind. See particularly Glossar. Med. et Infim.
Graecitat. p. 1275, sub voce. Glossar. Med. et Infim. Latinitat.
Ignis Groecus. Observations sur Villehardouin, p. 305, 306.
Observations sur Joinville, p. 71, 72.]
17 (return) [ Theophanes styles him, (p. 295.) Cedrenus (p. 437)
brings this artist from (the ruins of) Heliopolis in Egypt; and
chemistry was indeed the peculiar science of the Egyptians.]
18 (return) [ The naphtha, the oleum incendiarium of the history
of Jerusalem, (Gest. Dei per Francos, p. 1167,) the Oriental
fountain of James de Vitry, (l. iii. c. 84,) is introduced on
slight evidence and strong probability. Cinanmus (l. vi. p. 165)
calls the Greek fire: and the naphtha is known to abound between
the Tigris and the Caspian Sea. According to Pliny, (Hist. Natur.
ii. 109,) it was subservient to the revenge of Medea, and in
either etymology, (Procop. de Bell. Gothic. l. iv. c. 11,) may
fairly signify this liquid bitumen. * Note: It is remarkable that
the Syrian historian Michel gives the name of naphtha to the
newly-invented Greek fire, which seems to indicate that this
substance formed the base of the destructive compound. St.
Martin, tom. xi. p. 420.—M.]
19 (return) [ On the different sorts of oils and bitumens, see
Dr. Watson’s (the present bishop of Llandaff’s) Chemical Essays,
vol. iii. essay i., a classic book, the best adapted to infuse
the taste and knowledge of chemistry. The less perfect ideas of
the ancients may be found in Strabo (Geograph. l. xvi. p. 1078)
and Pliny, (Hist. Natur. ii. 108, 109.) Huic (Naphthae) magna
cognatio est ignium, transiliuntque protinus in eam undecunque
visam. Of our travellers I am best pleased with Otter, (tom. i.
p. 153, 158.)]
20 (return) [ Anna Comnena has partly drawn aside the curtain.
(Alexiad. l. xiii. p. 383.) Elsewhere (l. xi. p. 336) she
mentions the property of burning. Leo, in the xixth chapter of
his Tactics, (Opera Meursii, tom. vi. p. 843, edit. Lami,
Florent. 1745,) speaks of the new invention. These are genuine
and Imperial testimonies.]
21 (return) [ Constantin. Porphyrogenit. de Administrat. Imperii,
c. xiii. p. 64, 65.]
22 (return) [ Histoire de St. Louis, p. 39. Paris, 1668, p. 44.
Paris, de l’Imprimerie Royale, 1761. The former of these editions
is precious for the observations of Ducange; the latter for the
pure and original text of Joinville. We must have recourse to
that text to discover, that the feu Gregeois was shot with a pile
or javelin, from an engine that acted like a sling.]
23 (return) [ The vanity, or envy, of shaking the established
property of Fame, has tempted some moderns to carry gunpowder
above the xivth, (see Sir William Temple, Dutens, &c.,) and the
Greek fire above the viith century, (see the Saluste du President
des Brosses, tom. ii. p. 381.) But their evidence, which precedes
the vulgar aera of the invention, is seldom clear or
satisfactory, and subsequent writers may be suspected of fraud or
credulity. In the earliest sieges, some combustibles of oil and
sulphur have been used, and the Greek fire has some affinities
with gunpowder both in its nature and effects: for the antiquity
of the first, a passage of Procopius, (de Bell. Goth. l. iv. c.
11,) for that of the second, some facts in the Arabic history of
Spain, (A.D. 1249, 1312, 1332. Bibliot. Arab. Hisp. tom. ii. p.
6, 7, 8,) are the most difficult to elude.]
24 (return) [ That extraordinary man, Friar Bacon, reveals two of
the ingredients, saltpetre and sulphur, and conceals the third in
a sentence of mysterious gibberish, as if he dreaded the
consequences of his own discovery, (Biog. Brit. vol. i. p. 430,
new edition.)]
Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part II.
Constantinople and the Greek fire might exclude the Arabs from
the eastern entrance of Europe; but in the West, on the side of
the Pyrenees, the provinces of Gaul were threatened and invaded
by the conquerors of Spain. 25 The decline of the French monarchy
invited the attack of these insatiate fanatics. The descendants
of Clovis had lost the inheritance of his martial and ferocious
spirit; and their misfortune or demerit has affixed the epithet
of lazy to the last kings of the Merovingian race. 26 They
ascended the throne without power, and sunk into the grave
without a name. A country palace, in the neighborhood of
Compiegne 27 was allotted for their residence or prison: but each
year, in the month of March or May, they were conducted in a
wagon drawn by oxen to the assembly of the Franks, to give
audience to foreign ambassadors, and to ratify the acts of the
mayor of the palace. That domestic officer was become the
minister of the nation and the master of the prince. A public
employment was converted into the patrimony of a private family:
the elder Pepin left a king of mature years under the
guardianship of his own widow and her child; and these feeble
regents were forcibly dispossessed by the most active of his
bastards. A government, half savage and half corrupt, was almost
dissolved; and the tributary dukes, and provincial counts, and
the territorial lords, were tempted to despise the weakness of
the monarch, and to imitate the ambition of the mayor. Among
these independent chiefs, one of the boldest and most successful
was Eudes, duke of Aquitain, who in the southern provinces of
Gaul usurped the authority, and even the title of king. The
Goths, the Gascons, and the Franks, assembled under the standard
of this Christian hero: he repelled the first invasion of the
Saracens; and Zama, lieutenant of the caliph, lost his army and
his life under the walls of Thoulouse. The ambition of his
successors was stimulated by revenge; they repassed the Pyrenees
with the means and the resolution of conquest. The advantageous
situation which had recommended Narbonne 28 as the first Roman
colony, was again chosen by the Moslems: they claimed the
province of Septimania or Languedoc as a just dependence of the
Spanish monarchy: the vineyards of Gascony and the city of
Bourdeaux were possessed by the sovereign of Damascus and
Samarcand; and the south of France, from the mouth of the Garonne
to that of the Rhone, assumed the manners and religion of Arabia.
25 (return) [ For the invasion of France and the defeat of the
Arabs by Charles Martel, see the Historia Arabum (c. 11, 12, 13,
14) of Roderic Ximenes, archbishop of Toledo, who had before him
the Christian chronicle of Isidore Pacensis, and the Mahometan
history of Novairi. The Moslems are silent or concise in the
account of their losses; but M Cardonne (tom. i. p. 129, 130,
131) has given a pure and simple account of all that he could
collect from Ibn Halikan, Hidjazi, and an anonymous writer. The
texts of the chronicles of France, and lives of saints, are
inserted in the Collection of Bouquet, (tom. iii.,) and the
Annals of Pagi, who (tom. iii. under the proper years) has
restored the chronology, which is anticipated six years in the
Annals of Baronius. The Dictionary of Bayle (Abderame and Munuza)
has more merit for lively reflection than original research.]
26 (return) [ Eginhart, de Vita Caroli Magni, c. ii. p. 13-78,
edit. Schmink, Utrecht, 1711. Some modern critics accuse the
minister of Charlemagne of exaggerating the weakness of the
Merovingians; but the general outline is just, and the French
reader will forever repeat the beautiful lines of Boileau’s
Lutrin.]
27 (return) [ Mamaccae, on the Oyse, between Compiegne and Noyon,
which Eginhart calls perparvi reditus villam, (see the notes, and
the map of ancient France for Dom. Bouquet’s Collection.)
Compendium, or Compiegne, was a palace of more dignity, (Hadrian.
Valesii Notitia Galliarum, p. 152,) and that laughing
philosopher, the Abbe Galliani, (Dialogues sur le Commerce des
Bleds,) may truly affirm, that it was the residence of the rois
tres Chretiens en tres chevelus.]
28 (return) [ Even before that colony, A. U. C. 630, (Velleius
Patercul. i. 15,) In the time of Polybius, (Hist. l. iii. p. 265,
edit. Gronov.) Narbonne was a Celtic town of the first eminence,
and one of the most northern places of the known world,
(D’Anville, Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule, p. 473.)]
But these narrow limits were scorned by the spirit of Abdalraman,
or Abderame, who had been restored by the caliph Hashem to the
wishes of the soldiers and people of Spain. That veteran and
daring commander adjudged to the obedience of the prophet
whatever yet remained of France or of Europe; and prepared to
execute the sentence, at the head of a formidable host, in the
full confidence of surmounting all opposition either of nature or
of man. His first care was to suppress a domestic rebel, who
commanded the most important passes of the Pyrenees: Manuza, a
Moorish chief, had accepted the alliance of the duke of Aquitain;
and Eudes, from a motive of private or public interest, devoted
his beauteous daughter to the embraces of the African
misbeliever. But the strongest fortresses of Cerdagne were
invested by a superior force; the rebel was overtaken and slain
in the mountains; and his widow was sent a captive to Damascus,
to gratify the desires, or more probably the vanity, of the
commander of the faithful. From the Pyrenees, Abderame proceeded
without delay to the passage of the Rhone and the siege of Arles.
An army of Christians attempted the relief of the city: the tombs
of their leaders were yet visible in the thirteenth century; and
many thousands of their dead bodies were carried down the rapid
stream into the Mediterranean Sea. The arms of Abderame were not
less successful on the side of the ocean. He passed without
opposition the Garonne and Dordogne, which unite their waters in
the Gulf of Bourdeaux; but he found, beyond those rivers, the
camp of the intrepid Eudes, who had formed a second army and
sustained a second defeat, so fatal to the Christians, that,
according to their sad confession, God alone could reckon the
number of the slain. The victorious Saracen overran the provinces
of Aquitain, whose Gallic names are disguised, rather than lost,
in the modern appellations of Perigord, Saintonge, and Poitou:
his standards were planted on the walls, or at least before the
gates, of Tours and of Sens; and his detachments overspread the
kingdom of Burgundy as far as the well-known cities of Lyons and
Besançon. The memory of these devastations (for Abderame did not
spare the country or the people) was long preserved by tradition;
and the invasion of France by the Moors or Mahometans affords the
groundwork of those fables, which have been so wildly disfigured
in the romances of chivalry, and so elegantly adorned by the
Italian muse. In the decline of society and art, the deserted
cities could supply a slender booty to the Saracens; their
richest spoil was found in the churches and monasteries, which
they stripped of their ornaments and delivered to the flames: and
the tutelar saints, both Hilary of Poitiers and Martin of Tours,
forgot their miraculous powers in the defence of their own
sepulchres. 29 A victorious line of march had been prolonged
above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of
the Loire; the repetition of an equal space would have carried
the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of
Scotland; the Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or
Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a
naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the
interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of
Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people
the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet. 30
29 (return) [ With regard to the sanctuary of St. Martin of
Tours, Roderic Ximenes accuses the Saracens of the deed. Turonis
civitatem, ecclesiam et palatia vastatione et incendio simili
diruit et consumpsit. The continuator of Fredegarius imputes to
them no more than the intention. Ad domum beatissimi Martini
evertendam destinant. At Carolus, &c. The French annalist was
more jealous of the honor of the saint.]
30 (return) [ Yet I sincerely doubt whether the Oxford mosch
would have produced a volume of controversy so elegant and
ingenious as the sermons lately preached by Mr. White, the Arabic
professor, at Mr. Bampton’s lecture. His observations on the
character and religion of Mahomet are always adapted to his
argument, and generally founded in truth and reason. He sustains
the part of a lively and eloquent advocate; and sometimes rises
to the merit of an historian and philosopher.]
From such calamities was Christendom delivered by the genius and
fortune of one man. Charles, the illegitimate son of the elder
Pepin, was content with the titles of mayor or duke of the
Franks; but he deserved to become the father of a line of kings.
In a laborious administration of twenty-four years, he restored
and supported the dignity of the throne, and the rebels of
Germany and Gaul were successively crushed by the activity of a
warrior, who, in the same campaign, could display his banner on
the Elbe, the Rhone, and the shores of the ocean. In the public
danger he was summoned by the voice of his country; and his
rival, the duke of Aquitain, was reduced to appear among the
fugitives and suppliants. “Alas!” exclaimed the Franks, “what a
misfortune! what an indignity! We have long heard of the name and
conquests of the Arabs: we were apprehensive of their attack from
the East; they have now conquered Spain, and invade our country
on the side of the West. Yet their numbers, and (since they have
no buckler) their arms, are inferior to our own.” “If you follow
my advice,” replied the prudent mayor of the palace, “you will
not interrupt their march, nor precipitate your attack. They are
like a torrent, which it is dangerous to stem in its career. The
thirst of riches, and the consciousness of success, redouble
their valor, and valor is of more avail than arms or numbers. Be
patient till they have loaded themselves with the encumbrance of
wealth. The possession of wealth will divide their councils and
assure your victory.” This subtile policy is perhaps a refinement
of the Arabian writers; and the situation of Charles will suggest
a more narrow and selfish motive of procrastination—the secret
desire of humbling the pride and wasting the provinces of the
rebel duke of Aquitain. It is yet more probable, that the delays
of Charles were inevitable and reluctant. A standing army was
unknown under the first and second race; more than half the
kingdom was now in the hands of the Saracens: according to their
respective situation, the Franks of Neustria and Austrasia were
to conscious or too careless of the impending danger; and the
voluntary aids of the Gepidae and Germans were separated by a
long interval from the standard of the Christian general. No
sooner had he collected his forces, than he sought and found the
enemy in the centre of France, between Tours and Poitiers. His
well-conducted march was covered with a range of hills, and
Abderame appears to have been surprised by his unexpected
presence. The nations of Asia, Africa, and Europe, advanced with
equal ardor to an encounter which would change the history of the
world. In the six first days of desultory combat, the horsemen
and archers of the East maintained their advantage: but in the
closer onset of the seventh day, the Orientals were oppressed by
the strength and stature of the Germans, who, with stout hearts
and iron hands, 31 asserted the civil and religious freedom of
their posterity. The epithet of Martel, the Hammer, which has
been added to the name of Charles, is expressive of his weighty
and irresistible strokes: the valor of Eudes was excited by
resentment and emulation; and their companions, in the eye of
history, are the true Peers and Paladins of French chivalry.
After a bloody field, in which Abderame was slain, the Saracens,
in the close of the evening, retired to their camp. In the
disorder and despair of the night, the various tribes of Yemen
and Damascus, of Africa and Spain, were provoked to turn their
arms against each other: the remains of their host were suddenly
dissolved, and each emir consulted his safety by a hasty and
separate retreat. At the dawn of the day, the stillness of a
hostile camp was suspected by the victorious Christians: on the
report of their spies, they ventured to explore the riches of the
vacant tents; but if we except some celebrated relics, a small
portion of the spoil was restored to the innocent and lawful
owners. The joyful tidings were soon diffused over the Catholic
world, and the monks of Italy could affirm and believe that three
hundred and fifty, or three hundred and seventy-five, thousand of
the Mahometans had been crushed by the hammer of Charles, 32
while no more than fifteen hundred Christians were slain in the
field of Tours. But this incredible tale is sufficiently
disproved by the caution of the French general, who apprehended
the snares and accidents of a pursuit, and dismissed his German
allies to their native forests.
The inactivity of a conqueror betrays the loss of strength and
blood, and the most cruel execution is inflicted, not in the
ranks of battle, but on the backs of a flying enemy. Yet the
victory of the Franks was complete and final; Aquitain was
recovered by the arms of Eudes; the Arabs never resumed the
conquest of Gaul, and they were soon driven beyond the Pyrenees
by Charles Martel and his valiant race. 33 It might have been
expected that the savior of Christendom would have been
canonized, or at least applauded, by the gratitude of the clergy,
who are indebted to his sword for their present existence. But in
the public distress, the mayor of the palace had been compelled
to apply the riches, or at least the revenues, of the bishops and
abbots, to the relief of the state and the reward of the
soldiers. His merits were forgotten, his sacrilege alone was
remembered, and, in an epistle to a Carlovingian prince, a Gallic
synod presumes to declare that his ancestor was damned; that on
the opening of his tomb, the spectators were affrighted by a
smell of fire and the aspect of a horrid dragon; and that a saint
of the times was indulged with a pleasant vision of the soul and
body of Charles Martel, burning, to all eternity, in the abyss of
hell. 34
31 (return) [ Gens Austriae membrorum pre-eminentia valida, et
gens Germana corde et corpore praestantissima, quasi in ictu
oculi, manu ferrea, et pectore arduo, Arabes extinxerunt,
(Roderic. Toletan. c. xiv.)]
32 (return) [ These numbers are stated by Paul Warnefrid, the
deacon of Aquileia, (de Gestis Langobard. l. vi. p. 921, edit.
Grot.,) and Anastasius, the librarian of the Roman church, (in
Vit. Gregorii II.,) who tells a miraculous story of three
consecrated sponges, which rendered invulnerable the French
soldiers, among whom they had been shared It should seem, that in
his letters to the pope, Eudes usurped the honor of the victory,
from which he is chastised by the French annalists, who, with
equal falsehood, accuse him of inviting the Saracens.]
33 (return) [ Narbonne, and the rest of Septimania, was recovered
by Pepin the son of Charles Martel, A.D. 755, (Pagi, Critica,
tom. iii. p. 300.) Thirty-seven years afterwards, it was pillaged
by a sudden inroad of the Arabs, who employed the captives in the
construction of the mosch of Cordova, (De Guignes, Hist. des
Huns, tom. i. p. 354.)]
34 (return) [ This pastoral letter, addressed to Lewis the
Germanic, the grandson of Charlemagne, and most probably composed
by the pen of the artful Hincmar, is dated in the year 858, and
signed by the bishops of the provinces of Rheims and Rouen,
(Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 741. Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. x.
p. 514-516.) Yet Baronius himself, and the French critics, reject
with contempt this episcopal fiction.]
The loss of an army, or a province, in the Western world, was
less painful to the court of Damascus, than the rise and progress
of a domestic competitor. Except among the Syrians, the caliphs
of the house of Ommiyah had never been the objects of the public
favor. The life of Mahomet recorded their perseverance in
idolatry and rebellion: their conversion had been reluctant,
their elevation irregular and factious, and their throne was
cemented with the most holy and noble blood of Arabia. The best
of their race, the pious Omar, was dissatisfied with his own
title: their personal virtues were insufficient to justify a
departure from the order of succession; and the eyes and wishes
of the faithful were turned towards the line of Hashem, and the
kindred of the apostle of God. Of these the Fatimites were either
rash or pusillanimous; but the descendants of Abbas cherished,
with courage and discretion, the hopes of their rising fortunes.
From an obscure residence in Syria, they secretly despatched
their agents and missionaries, who preached in the Eastern
provinces their hereditary indefeasible right; and Mohammed, the
son of Ali, the son of Abdallah, the son of Abbas, the uncle of
the prophet, gave audience to the deputies of Chorasan, and
accepted their free gift of four hundred thousand pieces of gold.
After the death of Mohammed, the oath of allegiance was
administered in the name of his son Ibrahim to a numerous band of
votaries, who expected only a signal and a leader; and the
governor of Chorasan continued to deplore his fruitless
admonitions and the deadly slumber of the caliphs of Damascus,
till he himself, with all his adherents, was driven from the city
and palace of Meru, by the rebellious arms of Abu Moslem. 35 That
maker of kings, the author, as he is named, of the call of the
Abbassides, was at length rewarded for his presumption of merit
with the usual gratitude of courts. A mean, perhaps a foreign,
extraction could not repress the aspiring energy of Abu Moslem.
Jealous of his wives, liberal of his wealth, prodigal of his own
blood and of that of others, he could boast with pleasure, and
possibly with truth, that he had destroyed six hundred thousand
of his enemies; and such was the intrepid gravity of his mind and
countenance, that he was never seen to smile except on a day of
battle. In the visible separation of parties, the green was
consecrated to the Fatimites; the Ommiades were distinguished by
the white; and the black, as the most adverse, was naturally
adopted by the Abbassides. Their turbans and garments were
stained with that gloomy color: two black standards, on pike
staves nine cubits long, were borne aloft in the van of Abu
Moslem; and their allegorical names of the night and the shadow
obscurely represented the indissoluble union and perpetual
succession of the line of Hashem. From the Indus to the
Euphrates, the East was convulsed by the quarrel of the white and
the black factions: the Abbassides were most frequently
victorious; but their public success was clouded by the personal
misfortune of their chief. The court of Damascus, awakening from
a long slumber, resolved to prevent the pilgrimage of Mecca,
which Ibrahim had undertaken with a splendid retinue, to
recommend himself at once to the favor of the prophet and of the
people. A detachment of cavalry intercepted his march and
arrested his person; and the unhappy Ibrahim, snatched away from
the promise of untasted royalty, expired in iron fetters in the
dungeons of Haran. His two younger brothers, Saffah 3511 and
Almansor, eluded the search of the tyrant, and lay concealed at
Cufa, till the zeal of the people and the approach of his Eastern
friends allowed them to expose their persons to the impatient
public. On Friday, in the dress of a caliph, in the colors of the
sect, Saffah proceeded with religious and military pomp to the
mosch: ascending the pulpit, he prayed and preached as the lawful
successor of Mahomet; and after his departure, his kinsmen bound
a willing people by an oath of fidelity. But it was on the banks
of the Zab, and not in the mosch of Cufa, that this important
controversy was determined. Every advantage appeared to be on the
side of the white faction: the authority of established
government; an army of a hundred and twenty thousand soldiers,
against a sixth part of that number; and the presence and merit
of the caliph Mervan, the fourteenth and last of the house of
Ommiyah. Before his accession to the throne, he had deserved, by
his Georgian warfare, the honorable epithet of the ass of
Mesopotamia; 36 and he might have been ranked amongst the
greatest princes, had not, says Abulfeda, the eternal order
decreed that moment for the ruin of his family; a decree against
which all human fortitude and prudence must struggle in vain. The
orders of Mervan were mistaken, or disobeyed: the return of his
horse, from which he had dismounted on a necessary occasion,
impressed the belief of his death; and the enthusiasm of the
black squadrons was ably conducted by Abdallah, the uncle of his
competitor. After an irretrievab defeat, the caliph escaped to
Mosul; but the colors of the Abbassides were displayed from the
rampart; he suddenly repassed the Tigris, cast a melancholy look
on his palace of Haran, crossed the Euphrates, abandoned the
fortifications of Damascus, and, without halting in Palestine,
pitched his last and fatal camp at Busir, on the banks of the
Nile. 37 His speed was urged by the incessant diligence of
Abdallah, who in every step of the pursuit acquired strength and
reputation: the remains of the white faction were finally
vanquished in Egypt; and the lance, which terminated the life and
anxiety of Mervan, was not less welcome perhaps to the
unfortunate than to the victorious chief. The merciless
inquisition of the conqueror eradicated the most distant branches
of the hostile race: their bones were scattered, their memory was
accursed, and the martyrdom of Hossein was abundantly revenged on
the posterity of his tyrants. Fourscore of the Ommiades, who had
yielded to the faith or clemency of their foes, were invited to a
banquet at Damascus. The laws of hospitality were violated by a
promiscuous massacre: the board was spread over their fallen
bodies; and the festivity of the guests was enlivened by the
music of their dying groans. By the event of the civil war, the
dynasty of the Abbassides was firmly established; but the
Christians only could triumph in the mutual hatred and common
loss of the disciples of Mahomet. 38
35 (return) [ The steed and the saddle which had carried any of
his wives were instantly killed or burnt, lest they should
afterwards be mounted by a male. Twelve hundred mules or camels
were required for his kitchen furniture; and the daily
consumption amounted to three thousand cakes, a hundred sheep,
besides oxen, poultry, &c., (Abul pharagius, Hist. Dynast. p.
140.)]
3511 (return) [ He is called Abdullah or Abul Abbas in the Tarikh
Tebry. Price vol. i. p. 600. Saffah or Saffauh (the Sanguinary)
was a name which be required after his bloody reign, (vol. ii. p.
1.)—M.]
36 (return) [ Al Hemar. He had been governor of Mesopotamia, and
the Arabic proverb praises the courage of that warlike breed of
asses who never fly from an enemy. The surname of Mervan may
justify the comparison of Homer, (Iliad, A. 557, &c.,) and both
will silence the moderns, who consider the ass as a stupid and
ignoble emblem, (D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 558.)]
37 (return) [ Four several places, all in Egypt, bore the name of
Busir, or Busiris, so famous in Greek fable. The first, where
Mervan was slain was to the west of the Nile, in the province of
Fium, or Arsinoe; the second in the Delta, in the Sebennytic
nome; the third near the pyramids; the fourth, which was
destroyed by Dioclesian, (see above, vol. ii. p. 130,) in the
Thebais. I shall here transcribe a note of the learned and
orthodox Michaelis: Videntur in pluribus Aegypti superioris
urbibus Busiri Coptoque arma sumpsisse Christiani, libertatemque
de religione sentiendi defendisse, sed succubuisse quo in bello
Coptus et Busiris diruta, et circa Esnam magna strages edita.
Bellum narrant sed causam belli ignorant scriptores Byzantini,
alioqui Coptum et Busirim non rebellasse dicturi, sed causam
Christianorum suscepturi, (Not. 211, p. 100.) For the geography
of the four Busirs, see Abulfeda, (Descript. Aegypt. p. 9, vers.
Michaelis, Gottingae, 1776, in 4to.,) Michaelis, (Not. 122-127,
p. 58-63,) and D’Anville, (Memoire sua l’Egypte, p. 85, 147,
205.)]
38 (return) [ See Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p. 136-145,)
Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 392, vers. Pocock,) Elmacin,
(Hist. Saracen. p. 109-121,) Abulpharagius, (Hist. Dynast. p.
134-140,) Roderic of Toledo, (Hist. Arabum, c. xviii. p. 33,)
Theophanes, (Chronograph. p. 356, 357, who speaks of the
Abbassides) and the Bibliotheque of D’Herbelot, in the articles
Ommiades, Abbassides, Moervan, Ibrahim, Saffah, Abou Moslem.]
Yet the thousands who were swept away by the sword of war might
have been speedily retrieved in the succeeding generation, if the
consequences of the revolution had not tended to dissolve the
power and unity of the empire of the Saracens. In the
proscription of the Ommiades, a royal youth of the name of
Abdalrahman alone escaped the rage of his enemies, who hunted the
wandering exile from the banks of the Euphrates to the valleys of
Mount Atlas. His presence in the neighborhood of Spain revived
the zeal of the white faction. The name and cause of the
Abbassides had been first vindicated by the Persians: the West
had been pure from civil arms; and the servants of the abdicated
family still held, by a precarious tenure, the inheritance of
their lands and the offices of government. Strongly prompted by
gratitude, indignation, and fear, they invited the grandson of
the caliph Hashem to ascend the throne of his ancestors; and, in
his desperate condition, the extremes of rashness and prudence
were almost the same. The acclamations of the people saluted his
landing on the coast of Andalusia: and, after a successful
struggle, Abdalrahman established the throne of Cordova, and was
the father of the Ommiades of Spain, who reigned above two
hundred and fifty years from the Atlantic to the Pyrenees. 39 He
slew in battle a lieutenant of the Abbassides, who had invaded
his dominions with a fleet and army: the head of Ala, in salt and
camphire, was suspended by a daring messenger before the palace
of Mecca; and the caliph Almansor rejoiced in his safety, that he
was removed by seas and lands from such a formidable adversary.
Their mutual designs or declarations of offensive war evaporated
without effect; but instead of opening a door to the conquest of
Europe, Spain was dissevered from the trunk of the monarchy,
engaged in perpetual hostility with the East, and inclined to
peace and friendship with the Christian sovereigns of
Constantinople and France. The example of the Ommiades was
imitated by the real or fictitious progeny of Ali, the Edrissites
of Mauritania, and the more powerful fatimites of Africa and
Egypt. In the tenth century, the chair of Mahomet was disputed by
three caliphs or commanders of the faithful, who reigned at
Bagdad, Cairoan, and Cordova, excommunicating each other, and
agreed only in a principle of discord, that a sectary is more
odious and criminal than an unbeliever. 40
39 (return) [ For the revolution of Spain, consult Roderic of
Toledo, (c. xviii. p. 34, &c.,) the Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana,
(tom. ii. p. 30, 198,) and Cardonne, (Hist. de l’Afrique et de
l’Espagne, tom. i. p. 180-197, 205, 272, 323, &c.)]
40 (return) [ I shall not stop to refute the strange errors and
fancies of Sir William Temple (his Works, vol. iii. p. 371-374,
octavo edition) and Voltaire (Histoire Generale, c. xxviii. tom.
ii. p. 124, 125, edition de Lausanne) concerning the division of
the Saracen empire. The mistakes of Voltaire proceeded from the
want of knowledge or reflection; but Sir William was deceived by
a Spanish impostor, who has framed an apocryphal history of the
conquest of Spain by the Arabs.]
Mecca was the patrimony of the line of Hashem, yet the Abbassides
were never tempted to reside either in the birthplace or the city
of the prophet. Damascus was disgraced by the choice, and
polluted with the blood, of the Ommiades; and, after some
hesitation, Almansor, the brother and successor of Saffah, laid
the foundations of Bagdad, 41 the Imperial seat of his posterity
during a reign of five hundred years. 42 The chosen spot is on
the eastern bank of the Tigris, about fifteen miles above the
ruins of Modain: the double wall was of a circular form; and such
was the rapid increase of a capital, now dwindled to a provincial
town, that the funeral of a popular saint might be attended by
eight hundred thousand men and sixty thousand women of Bagdad and
the adjacent villages. In this city of peace, 43 amidst the
riches of the East, the Abbassides soon disdained the abstinence
and frugality of the first caliphs, and aspired to emulate the
magnificence of the Persian kings. After his wars and buildings,
Almansor left behind him in gold and silver about thirty millions
sterling: 44 and this treasure was exhausted in a few years by
the vices or virtues of his children. His son Mahadi, in a single
pilgrimage to Mecca, expended six millions of dinars of gold. A
pious and charitable motive may sanctify the foundation of
cisterns and caravanseras, which he distributed along a measured
road of seven hundred miles; but his train of camels, laden with
snow, could serve only to astonish the natives of Arabia, and to
refresh the fruits and liquors of the royal banquet. 45 The
courtiers would surely praise the liberality of his grandson
Almamon, who gave away four fifths of the income of a province, a
sum of two millions four hundred thousand gold dinars, before he
drew his foot from the stirrup. At the nuptials of the same
prince, a thousand pearls of the largest size were showered on
the head of the bride, 46 and a lottery of lands and houses
displayed the capricious bounty of fortune. The glories of the
court were brightened, rather than impaired, in the decline of
the empire, and a Greek ambassador might admire, or pity, the
magnificence of the feeble Moctader. “The caliph’s whole army,”
says the historian Abulfeda, “both horse and foot, was under
arms, which together made a body of one hundred and sixty
thousand men. His state officers, the favorite slaves, stood near
him in splendid apparel, their belts glittering with gold and
gems. Near them were seven thousand eunuchs, four thousand of
them white, the remainder black. The porters or door-keepers were
in number seven hundred. Barges and boats, with the most superb
decorations, were seen swimming upon the Tigris. Nor was the
palace itself less splendid, in which were hung up thirty-eight
thousand pieces of tapestry, twelve thousand five hundred of
which were of silk embroidered with gold. The carpets on the
floor were twenty-two thousand. A hundred lions were brought out,
with a keeper to each lion. 47 Among the other spectacles of rare
and stupendous luxury was a tree of gold and silver spreading
into eighteen large branches, on which, and on the lesser boughs,
sat a variety of birds made of the same precious metals, as well
as the leaves of the tree. While the machinery affected
spontaneous motions, the several birds warbled their natural
harmony. Through this scene of magnificence, the Greek ambassador
was led by the vizier to the foot of the caliph’s throne.” 48 In
the West, the Ommiades of Spain supported, with equal pomp, the
title of commander of the faithful. Three miles from Cordova, in
honor of his favorite sultana, the third and greatest of the
Abdalrahmans constructed the city, palace, and gardens of Zehra.
Twenty-five years, and above three millions sterling, were
employed by the founder: his liberal taste invited the artists of
Constantinople, the most skilful sculptors and architects of the
age; and the buildings were sustained or adorned by twelve
hundred columns of Spanish and African, of Greek and Italian
marble. The hall of audience was incrusted with gold and pearls,
and a great basin in the centre was surrounded with the curious
and costly figures of birds and quadrupeds. In a lofty pavilion
of the gardens, one of these basins and fountains, so delightful
in a sultry climate, was replenished not with water, but with the
purest quicksilver. The seraglio of Abdalrahman, his wives,
concubines, and black eunuchs, amounted to six thousand three
hundred persons: and he was attended to the field by a guard of
twelve thousand horse, whose belts and cimeters were studded with
gold. 49
41 (return) [ The geographer D’Anville, (l’Euphrate et le Tigre,
p. 121-123,) and the Orientalist D’Herbelot, (Bibliotheque, p.
167, 168,) may suffice for the knowledge of Bagdad. Our
travellers, Pietro della Valle, (tom. i. p. 688-698,) Tavernier,
(tom. i. p. 230-238,) Thevenot, (part ii. p. 209-212,) Otter,
(tom. i. p. 162-168,) and Niebuhr, (Voyage en Arabie, tom. ii. p.
239-271,) have seen only its decay; and the Nubian geographer,
(p. 204,) and the travelling Jew, Benjamin of Tuleda
(Itinerarium, p. 112-123, a Const. l’Empereur, apud Elzevir,
1633,) are the only writers of my acquaintance, who have known
Bagdad under the reign of the Abbassides.]
42 (return) [ The foundations of Bagdad were laid A. H. 145, A.D.
762. Mostasem, the last of the Abbassides, was taken and put to
death by the Tartars, A. H. 656, A.D. 1258, the 20th of
February.]
43 (return) [ Medinat al Salem, Dar al Salem. Urbs pacis, or, as
it is more neatly compounded by the Byzantine writers,
(Irenopolis.) There is some dispute concerning the etymology of
Bagdad, but the first syllable is allowed to signify a garden in
the Persian tongue; the garden of Dad, a Christian hermit, whose
cell had been the only habitation on the spot.]
44 (return) [ Reliquit in aerario sexcenties millies mille
stateres. et quater et vicies millies mille aureos aureos.
Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 126. I have reckoned the gold pieces
at eight shillings, and the proportion to the silver as twelve to
one. But I will never answer for the numbers of Erpenius; and the
Latins are scarcely above the savages in the language of
arithmetic.]
45 (return) [ D’Herbelot, p. 530. Abulfeda, p. 154. Nivem Meccam
apportavit, rem ibi aut nunquam aut rarissime visam.]
46 (return) [ Abulfeda (p. 184, 189) describes the splendor and
liberality of Almamon. Milton has alluded to this Oriental
custom:—
Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
Showers on her kings Barbaric pearls and gold.
I have used the modern word lottery to express the word of the
Roman emperors, which entitled to some prize the person who
caught them, as they were thrown among the crowd.]
47 (return) [ When Bell of Antermony (Travels, vol. i. p. 99)
accompanied the Russian ambassador to the audience of the
unfortunate Shah Hussein of Persia, two lions were introduced, to
denote the power of the king over the fiercest animals.]
48 (return) [ Abulfeda, p. 237. D’Herbelot, p. 590. This embassy
was received at Bagdad, A. H. 305, A.D. 917. In the passage of
Abulfeda, I have used, with some variations, the English
translation of the learned and amiable Mr. Harris of Salisbury,
(Philological Enquiries p. 363, 364.)]
49 (return) [ Cardonne, Histoire de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne,
tom. i. p. 330-336. A just idea of the taste and architecture of
the Arabians of Spain may be conceived from the description and
plates of the Alhambra of Grenada, (Swinburne’s Travels, p.
171-188.)]
Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part III.
In a private condition, our desires are perpetually repressed by
poverty and subordination; but the lives and labors of millions
are devoted to the service of a despotic prince, whose laws are
blindly obeyed, and whose wishes are instantly gratified. Our
imagination is dazzled by the splendid picture; and whatever may
be the cool dictates of reason, there are few among us who would
obstinately refuse a trial of the comforts and the cares of
royalty. It may therefore be of some use to borrow the experience
of the same Abdalrahman, whose magnificence has perhaps excited
our admiration and envy, and to transcribe an authentic memorial
which was found in the closet of the deceased caliph. “I have now
reigned above fifty years in victory or peace; beloved by my
subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies.
Riches and honors, power and pleasure, have waited on my call,
nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my
felicity. In this situation, I have diligently numbered the days
of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot: they
amount to Fourteen:—O man! place not thy confidence in this
present world!” 50 The luxury of the caliphs, so useless to their
private happiness, relaxed the nerves, and terminated the
progress, of the Arabian empire. Temporal and spiritual conquest
had been the sole occupation of the first successors of Mahomet;
and after supplying themselves with the necessaries of life, the
whole revenue was scrupulously devoted to that salutary work. The
Abbassides were impoverished by the multitude of their wants, and
their contempt of oeconomy. Instead of pursuing the great object
of ambition, their leisure, their affections, the powers of their
mind, were diverted by pomp and pleasure: the rewards of valor
were embezzled by women and eunuchs, and the royal camp was
encumbered by the luxury of the palace. A similar temper was
diffused among the subjects of the caliph. Their stern enthusiasm
was softened by time and prosperity. they sought riches in the
occupations of industry, fame in the pursuits of literature, and
happiness in the tranquillity of domestic life. War was no longer
the passion of the Saracens; and the increase of pay, the
repetition of donatives, were insufficient to allure the
posterity of those voluntary champions who had crowded to the
standard of Abubeker and Omar for the hopes of spoil and of
paradise.
50 (return) [ Cardonne, tom. i. p. 329, 330. This confession, the
complaints of Solomon of the vanity of this world, (read Prior’s
verbose but eloquent poem,) and the happy ten days of the emperor
Seghed, (Rambler, No. 204, 205,) will be triumphantly quoted by
the detractors of human life. Their expectations are commonly
immoderate, their estimates are seldom impartial. If I may speak
of myself, (the only person of whom I can speak with certainty,)
my happy hours have far exceeded, and far exceed, the scanty
numbers of the caliph of Spain; and I shall not scruple to add,
that many of them are due to the pleasing labor of the present
composition.]
Under the reign of the Ommiades, the studies of the Moslems were
confined to the interpretation of the Koran, and the eloquence
and poetry of their native tongue. A people continually exposed
to the dangers of the field must esteem the healing powers of
medicine, or rather of surgery; but the starving physicians of
Arabia murmured a complaint that exercise and temperance deprived
them of the greatest part of their practice. 51 After their civil
and domestic wars, the subjects of the Abbassides, awakening from
this mental lethargy, found leisure and felt curiosity for the
acquisition of profane science. This spirit was first encouraged
by the caliph Almansor, who, besides his knowledge of the
Mahometan law, had applied himself with success to the study of
astronomy. But when the sceptre devolved to Almamon, the seventh
of the Abbassides, he completed the designs of his grandfather,
and invited the muses from their ancient seats. His ambassadors
at Constantinople, his agents in Armenia, Syria, and Egypt,
collected the volumes of Grecian science; at his command they
were translated by the most skilful interpreters into the Arabic
language: his subjects were exhorted assiduously to peruse these
instructive writings; and the successor of Mahomet assisted with
pleasure and modesty at the assemblies and disputations of the
learned. “He was not ignorant,” says Abulpharagius, “that they
are the elect of God, his best and most useful servants, whose
lives are devoted to the improvement of their rational faculties.
The mean ambition of the Chinese or the Turks may glory in the
industry of their hands or the indulgence of their brutal
appetites. Yet these dexterous artists must view, with hopeless
emulation, the hexagons and pyramids of the cells of a beehive:
52 these fortitudinous heroes are awed by the superior fierceness
of the lions and tigers; and in their amorous enjoyments they are
much inferior to the vigor of the grossest and most sordid
quadrupeds. The teachers of wisdom are the true luminaries and
legislators of a world, which, without their aid, would again
sink in ignorance and barbarism.” 53 The zeal and curiosity of
Almamon were imitated by succeeding princes of the line of Abbas:
their rivals, the Fatimites of Africa and the Ommiades of Spain,
were the patrons of the learned, as well as the commanders of the
faithful; the same royal prerogative was claimed by their
independent emirs of the provinces; and their emulation diffused
the taste and the rewards of science from Samarcand and Bochara
to Fez and Cordova. The vizier of a sultan consecrated a sum of
two hundred thousand pieces of gold to the foundation of a
college at Bagdad, which he endowed with an annual revenue of
fifteen thousand dinars. The fruits of instruction were
communicated, perhaps at different times, to six thousand
disciples of every degree, from the son of the noble to that of
the mechanic: a sufficient allowance was provided for the
indigent scholars; and the merit or industry of the professors
was repaid with adequate stipends. In every city the productions
of Arabic literature were copied and collected by the curiosity
of the studious and the vanity of the rich. A private doctor
refused the invitation of the sultan of Bochara, because the
carriage of his books would have required four hundred camels.
The royal library of the Fatimites consisted of one hundred
thousand manuscripts, elegantly transcribed and splendidly bound,
which were lent, without jealousy or avarice, to the students of
Cairo. Yet this collection must appear moderate, if we can
believe that the Ommiades of Spain had formed a library of six
hundred thousand volumes, forty-four of which were employed in
the mere catalogue. Their capital, Cordova, with the adjacent
towns of Malaga, Almeria, and Murcia, had given birth to more
than three hundred writers, and above seventy public libraries
were opened in the cities of the Andalusian kingdom. The age of
Arabian learning continued about five hundred years, till the
great eruption of the Moguls, and was coeval with the darkest and
most slothful period of European annals; but since the sun of
science has arisen in the West, it should seem that the Oriental
studies have languished and declined. 54
51 (return) [ The Guliston (p. 29) relates the conversation of
Mahomet and a physician, (Epistol. Renaudot. in Fabricius,
Bibliot. Graec. tom. i. p. 814.) The prophet himself was skilled
in the art of medicine; and Gagnier (Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p.
394-405) has given an extract of the aphorisms which are extant
under his name.]
52 (return) [ See their curious architecture in Reaumur (Hist.
des Insectes, tom. v. Memoire viii.) These hexagons are closed by
a pyramid; the angles of the three sides of a similar pyramid,
such as would accomplish the given end with the smallest quantity
possible of materials, were determined by a mathematician, at
109] degrees 26 minutes for the larger, 70 degrees 34 minutes for
the smaller. The actual measure is 109 degrees 28 minutes, 70
degrees 32 minutes. Yet this perfect harmony raises the work at
the expense of the artist he bees are not masters of transcendent
geometry.]
53 (return) [ Saed Ebn Ahmed, cadhi of Toledo, who died A. H.
462, A.D. 069, has furnished Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 160) with
this curious passage, as well as with the text of Pocock’s
Specimen Historiae Arabum. A number of literary anecdotes of
philosophers, physicians, &c., who have flourished under each
caliph, form the principal merit of the Dynasties of
Abulpharagius.]
54 (return) [ These literary anecdotes are borrowed from the
Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana, (tom. ii. p. 38, 71, 201, 202,) Leo
Africanus, (de Arab. Medicis et Philosophis, in Fabric. Bibliot.
Graec. tom. xiii. p. 259-293, particularly p. 274,) and Renaudot,
(Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 274, 275, 536, 537,) besides the
chronological remarks of Abulpharagius.]
In the libraries of the Arabians, as in those of Europe, the far
greater part of the innumerable volumes were possessed only of
local value or imaginary merit. 55 The shelves were crowded with
orators and poets, whose style was adapted to the taste and
manners of their countrymen; with general and partial histories,
which each revolving generation supplied with a new harvest of
persons and events; with codes and commentaries of jurisprudence,
which derived their authority from the law of the prophet; with
the interpreters of the Koran, and orthodox tradition; and with
the whole theological tribe, polemics, mystics, scholastics, and
moralists, the first or the last of writers, according to the
different estimates of sceptics or believers. The works of
speculation or science may be reduced to the four classes of
philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and physic. The sages of
Greece were translated and illustrated in the Arabic language,
and some treatises, now lost in the original, have been recovered
in the versions of the East, 56 which possessed and studied the
writings of Aristotle and Plato, of Euclid and Apollonius, of
Ptolemy, Hippocrates, and Galen. 57 Among the ideal systems which
have varied with the fashion of the times, the Arabians adopted
the philosophy of the Stagirite, alike intelligible or alike
obscure for the readers of every age. Plato wrote for the
Athenians, and his allegorical genius is too closely blended with
the language and religion of Greece. After the fall of that
religion, the Peripatetics, emerging from their obscurity,
prevailed in the controversies of the Oriental sects, and their
founder was long afterwards restored by the Mahometans of Spain
to the Latin schools. 58 The physics, both of the Academy and the
Lycaeum, as they are built, not on observation, but on argument,
have retarded the progress of real knowledge. The metaphysics of
infinite, or finite, spirit, have too often been enlisted in the
service of superstition. But the human faculties are fortified by
the art and practice of dialectics; the ten predicaments of
Aristotle collect and methodize our ideas, 59 and his syllogism
is the keenest weapon of dispute. It was dexterously wielded in
the schools of the Saracens, but as it is more effectual for the
detection of error than for the investigation of truth, it is not
surprising that new generations of masters and disciples should
still revolve in the same circle of logical argument. The
mathematics are distinguished by a peculiar privilege, that, in
the course of ages, they may always advance, and can never
recede. But the ancient geometry, if I am not misinformed, was
resumed in the same state by the Italians of the fifteenth
century; and whatever may be the origin of the name, the science
of algebra is ascribed to the Grecian Diophantus by the modest
testimony of the Arabs themselves. 60 They cultivated with more
success the sublime science of astronomy, which elevates the mind
of man to disdain his diminutive planet and momentary existence.
The costly instruments of observation were supplied by the caliph
Almamon, and the land of the Chaldaeans still afforded the same
spacious level, the same unclouded horizon. In the plains of
Sinaar, and a second time in those of Cufa, his mathematicians
accurately measured a degree of the great circle of the earth,
and determined at twenty-four thousand miles the entire
circumference of our globe. 61 From the reign of the Abbassides
to that of the grandchildren of Tamerlane, the stars, without the
aid of glasses, were diligently observed; and the astronomical
tables of Bagdad, Spain, and Samarcand, 62 correct some minute
errors, without daring to renounce the hypothesis of Ptolemy,
without advancing a step towards the discovery of the solar
system. In the Eastern courts, the truths of science could be
recommended only by ignorance and folly, and the astronomer would
have been disregarded, had he not debased his wisdom or honesty
by the vain predictions of astrology. 63 But in the science of
medicine, the Arabians have been deservedly applauded. The names
of Mesua and Geber, of Razis and Avicenna, are ranked with the
Grecian masters; in the city of Bagdad, eight hundred and sixty
physicians were licensed to exercise their lucrative profession:
64 in Spain, the life of the Catholic princes was intrusted to
the skill of the Saracens, 65 and the school of Salerno, their
legitimate offspring, revived in Italy and Europe the precepts of
the healing art. 66 The success of each professor must have been
influenced by personal and accidental causes; but we may form a
less fanciful estimate of their general knowledge of anatomy, 67
botany, 68 and chemistry, 69 the threefold basis of their theory
and practice. A superstitious reverence for the dead confined
both the Greeks and the Arabians to the dissection of apes and
quadrupeds; the more solid and visible parts were known in the
time of Galen, and the finer scrutiny of the human frame was
reserved for the microscope and the injections of modern artists.
Botany is an active science, and the discoveries of the torrid
zone might enrich the herbal of Dioscorides with two thousand
plants. Some traditionary knowledge might be secreted in the
temples and monasteries of Egypt; much useful experience had been
acquired in the practice of arts and manufactures; but the
science of chemistry owes its origin and improvement to the
industry of the Saracens. They first invented and named the
alembic for the purposes of distillation, analyzed the substances
of the three kingdoms of nature, tried the distinction and
affinities of alcalis and acids, and converted the poisonous
minerals into soft and salutary medicines. But the most eager
search of Arabian chemistry was the transmutation of metals, and
the elixir of immortal health: the reason and the fortunes of
thousands were evaporated in the crucibles of alchemy, and the
consummation of the great work was promoted by the worthy aid of
mystery, fable, and superstition.
55 (return) [ The Arabic catalogue of the Escurial will give a
just idea of the proportion of the classes. In the library of
Cairo, the Mss of astronomy and medicine amounted to 6500, with
two fair globes, the one of brass, the other of silver, (Bibliot.
Arab. Hisp. tom. i. p. 417.)]
56 (return) [ As, for instance, the fifth, sixth, and seventh
books (the eighth is still wanting) of the Conic Sections of
Apollonius Pergaeus, which were printed from the Florence Ms.
1661, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. ii. p. 559.) Yet the fifth
book had been previously restored by the mathematical divination
of Viviani, (see his Eloge in Fontenelle, tom. v. p. 59, &c.)]
57 (return) [ The merit of these Arabic versions is freely
discussed by Renaudot, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. i. p.
812-816,) and piously defended by Casiri, (Bibliot. Arab.
Hispana, tom. i. p. 238-240.) Most of the versions of Plato,
Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen, &c., are ascribed to Honain, a
physician of the Nestorian sect, who flourished at Bagdad in the
court of the caliphs, and died A.D. 876. He was at the head of a
school or manufacture of translations, and the works of his sons
and disciples were published under his name. See Abulpharagius,
(Dynast. p. 88, 115, 171-174, and apud Asseman. Bibliot. Orient.
tom. ii. p. 438,) D’Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 456,)
Asseman. (Bibliot. Orient. tom. iii. p. 164,) and Casiri,
(Bibliot. Arab. Hispana, tom. i. p. 238, &c. 251, 286-290, 302,
304, &c.)]
58 (return) [ See Mosheim, Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 181, 214,
236, 257, 315, 388, 396, 438, &c.]
59 (return) [ The most elegant commentary on the Categories or
Predicaments of Aristotle may be found in the Philosophical
Arrangements of Mr. James Harris, (London, 1775, in octavo,) who
labored to revive the studies of Grecian literature and
philosophy.]
60 (return) [ Abulpharagius, Dynast. p. 81, 222. Bibliot. Arab.
Hisp. tom. i. p. 370, 371. In quem (says the primate of the
Jacobites) si immiserit selector, oceanum hoc in genere
(algebrae) inveniet. The time of Diophantus of Alexandria is
unknown; but his six books are still extant, and have been
illustrated by the Greek Planudes and the Frenchman Meziriac,
(Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. iv. p. 12-15.)]
61 (return) [ Abulfeda (Annal. Moslem. p. 210, 211, vers. Reiske)
describes this operation according to Ibn Challecan, and the best
historians. This degree most accurately contains 200,000 royal or
Hashemite cubits which Arabia had derived from the sacred and
legal practice both of Palestine and Egypt. This ancient cubit is
repeated 400 times in each basis of the great pyramid, and seems
to indicate the primitive and universal measures of the East. See
the Metrologie of the laborions. M. Paucton, p. 101-195.]
62 (return) [ See the Astronomical Tables of Ulugh Begh, with the
preface of Dr. Hyde in the first volume of his Syntagma
Dissertationum, Oxon. 1767.]
63 (return) [ The truth of astrology was allowed by Albumazar,
and the best of the Arabian astronomers, who drew their most
certain predictions, not from Venus and Mercury, but from Jupiter
and the sun, (Abulpharag. Dynast. p. 161-163.) For the state and
science of the Persian astronomers, see Chardin, (Voyages en
Perse, tom. iii. p. 162-203.)]
64 (return) [ Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. i. p. 438. The
original relates a pleasant tale of an ignorant, but harmless,
practitioner.]
65 (return) [ In the year 956, Sancho the Fat, king of Leon, was
cured by the physicians of Cordova, (Mariana, l. viii. c. 7, tom.
i. p. 318.)]
66 (return) [ The school of Salerno, and the introduction of the
Arabian sciences into Italy, are discussed with learning and
judgment by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. iii.
p. 932-940) and Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. ii. p.
119-127.)]
67 (return) [ See a good view of the progress of anatomy in
Wotton, (Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning, p. 208-256.)
His reputation has been unworthily depreciated by the wits in the
controversy of Boyle and Bentley.]
68 (return) [ Bibliot. Arab. Hispana, tom. i. p. 275. Al Beithar,
of Malaga, their greatest botanist, had travelled into Africa,
Persia, and India.]
69 (return) [ Dr. Watson, (Elements of Chemistry, vol. i. p. 17,
&c.) allows the original merit of the Arabians. Yet he quotes the
modest confession of the famous Geber of the ixth century,
(D’Herbelot, p. 387,) that he had drawn most of his science,
perhaps the transmutation of metals, from the ancient sages.
Whatever might be the origin or extent of their knowledge, the
arts of chemistry and alchemy appear to have been known in Egypt
at least three hundred years before Mahomet, (Wotton’s
Reflections, p. 121-133. Pauw, Recherches sur les Egyptiens et
les Chinois, tom. i. p. 376-429.) * Note: Mr. Whewell (Hist. of
Inductive Sciences, vol. i. p. 336) rejects the claim of the
Arabians as inventors of the science of chemistry. “The formation
and realization of the notions of analysis and affinity were
important steps in chemical science; which, as I shall hereafter
endeavor to show it remained for the chemists of Europe to make
at a much later period.”—M.]
But the Moslems deprived themselves of the principal benefits of
a familiar intercourse with Greece and Rome, the knowledge of
antiquity, the purity of taste, and the freedom of thought.
Confident in the riches of their native tongue, the Arabians
disdained the study of any foreign idiom. The Greek interpreters
were chosen among their Christian subjects; they formed their
translations, sometimes on the original text, more frequently
perhaps on a Syriac version; and in the crowd of astronomers and
physicians, there is no example of a poet, an orator, or even an
historian, being taught to speak the language of the Saracens. 70
The mythology of Homer would have provoked the abhorrence of
those stern fanatics: they possessed in lazy ignorance the
colonies of the Macedonians, and the provinces of Carthage and
Rome: the heroes of Plutarch and Livy were buried in oblivion;
and the history of the world before Mahomet was reduced to a
short legend of the patriarchs, the prophets, and the Persian
kings. Our education in the Greek and Latin schools may have
fixed in our minds a standard of exclusive taste; and I am not
forward to condemn the literature and judgment of nations, of
whose language I am ignorant. Yet I know that the classics have
much to teach, and I believe that the Orientals have much to
learn; the temperate dignity of style, the graceful proportions
of art, the forms of visible and intellectual beauty, the just
delineation of character and passion, the rhetoric of narrative
and argument, the regular fabric of epic and dramatic poetry. 71
The influence of truth and reason is of a less ambiguous
complexion. The philosophers of Athens and Rome enjoyed the
blessings, and asserted the rights, of civil and religious
freedom. Their moral and political writings might have gradually
unlocked the fetters of Eastern despotism, diffused a liberal
spirit of inquiry and toleration, and encouraged the Arabian
sages to suspect that their caliph was a tyrant, and their
prophet an impostor. 72 The instinct of superstition was alarmed
by the introduction even of the abstract sciences; and the more
rigid doctors of the law condemned the rash and pernicious
curiosity of Almamon. 73 To the thirst of martyrdom, the vision
of paradise, and the belief of predestination, we must ascribe
the invincible enthusiasm of the prince and people. And the sword
of the Saracens became less formidable when their youth was drawn
away from the camp to the college, when the armies of the
faithful presumed to read and to reflect. Yet the foolish vanity
of the Greeks was jealous of their studies, and reluctantly
imparted the sacred fire to the Barbarians of the East. 74
70 (return) [ Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 26, 148) mentions a
Syriac version of Homer’s two poems, by Theophilus, a Christian
Maronite of Mount Libanus, who professed astronomy at Roha or
Edessa towards the end of the viiith century. His work would be a
literary curiosity. I have read somewhere, but I do not believe,
that Plutarch’s Lives were translated into Turkish for the use of
Mahomet the Second.]
71 (return) [ I have perused, with much pleasure, Sir William
Jones’s Latin Commentary on Asiatic Poetry, (London, 1774, in
octavo,) which was composed in the youth of that wonderful
linguist. At present, in the maturity of his taste and judgment,
he would perhaps abate of the fervent, and even partial, praise
which he has bestowed on the Orientals.]
72 (return) [ Among the Arabian philosophers, Averroes has been
accused of despising the religions of the Jews, the Christians,
and the Mahometans, (see his article in Bayle’s Dictionary.) Each
of these sects would agree, that in two instances out of three,
his contempt was reasonable.]
73 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque, Orientale, p. 546.]
74 (return) [ Cedrenus, p. 548, who relates how manfully the
emperor refused a mathematician to the instances and offers of
the caliph Almamon. This absurd scruple is expressed almost in
the same words by the continuator of Theophanes, (Scriptores post
Theophanem, p. 118.)]
In the bloody conflict of the Ommiades and Abbassides, the Greeks
had stolen the opportunity of avenging their wrongs and enlarging
their limits. But a severe retribution was exacted by Mohadi, the
third caliph of the new dynasty, who seized, in his turn, the
favorable opportunity, while a woman and a child, Irene and
Constantine, were seated on the Byzantine throne. An army of
ninety-five thousand Persians and Arabs was sent from the Tigris
to the Thracian Bosphorus, under the command of Harun, 75 or
Aaron, the second son of the commander of the faithful. His
encampment on the opposite heights of Chrysopolis, or Scutari,
informed Irene, in her palace of Constantinople, of the loss of
her troops and provinces. With the consent or connivance of their
sovereign, her ministers subscribed an ignominious peace; and the
exchange of some royal gifts could not disguise the annual
tribute of seventy thousand dinars of gold, which was imposed on
the Roman empire. The Saracens had too rashly advanced into the
midst of a distant and hostile land: their retreat was solicited
by the promise of faithful guides and plentiful markets; and not
a Greek had courage to whisper, that their weary forces might be
surrounded and destroyed in their necessary passage between a
slippery mountain and the River Sangarius. Five years after this
expedition, Harun ascended the throne of his father and his elder
brother; the most powerful and vigorous monarch of his race,
illustrious in the West, as the ally of Charlemagne, and familiar
to the most childish readers, as the perpetual hero of the
Arabian tales. His title to the name of Al Rashid (the Just) is
sullied by the extirpation of the generous, perhaps the innocent,
Barmecides; yet he could listen to the complaint of a poor widow
who had been pillaged by his troops, and who dared, in a passage
of the Koran, to threaten the inattentive despot with the
judgment of God and posterity. His court was adorned with luxury
and science; but, in a reign of three-and-twenty years, Harun
repeatedly visited his provinces from Chorasan to Egypt; nine
times he performed the pilgrimage of Mecca; eight times he
invaded the territories of the Romans; and as often as they
declined the payment of the tribute, they were taught to feel
that a month of depredation was more costly than a year of
submission. But when the unnatural mother of Constantine was
deposed and banished, her successor, Nicephorus, resolved to
obliterate this badge of servitude and disgrace. The epistle of
the emperor to the caliph was pointed with an allusion to the
game of chess, which had already spread from Persia to Greece.
“The queen (he spoke of Irene) considered you as a rook, and
herself as a pawn. That pusillanimous female submitted to pay a
tribute, the double of which she ought to have exacted from the
Barbarians. Restore therefore the fruits of your injustice, or
abide the determination of the sword.” At these words the
ambassadors cast a bundle of swords before the foot of the
throne. The caliph smiled at the menace, and drawing his cimeter,
samsamah, a weapon of historic or fabulous renown, he cut asunder
the feeble arms of the Greeks, without turning the edge, or
endangering the temper, of his blade. He then dictated an epistle
of tremendous brevity: “In the name of the most merciful God,
Harun al Rashid, commander of the faithful, to Nicephorus, the
Roman dog. I have read thy letter, O thou son of an unbelieving
mother. Thou shalt not hear, thou shalt behold, my reply.” It was
written in characters of blood and fire on the plains of Phrygia;
and the warlike celerity of the Arabs could only be checked by
the arts of deceit and the show of repentance.
The triumphant caliph retired, after the fatigues of the
campaign, to his favorite palace of Racca on the Euphrates: 76
but the distance of five hundred miles, and the inclemency of the
season, encouraged his adversary to violate the peace. Nicephorus
was astonished by the bold and rapid march of the commander of
the faithful, who repassed, in the depth of winter, the snows of
Mount Taurus: his stratagems of policy and war were exhausted;
and the perfidious Greek escaped with three wounds from a field
of battle overspread with forty thousand of his subjects. Yet the
emperor was ashamed of submission, and the caliph was resolved on
victory. One hundred and thirty-five thousand regular soldiers
received pay, and were inscribed in the military roll; and above
three hundred thousand persons of every denomination marched
under the black standard of the Abbassides. They swept the
surface of Asia Minor far beyond Tyana and Ancyra, and invested
the Pontic Heraclea, 77 once a flourishing state, now a paltry
town; at that time capable of sustaining, in her antique walls, a
month’s siege against the forces of the East. The ruin was
complete, the spoil was ample; but if Harun had been conversant
with Grecian story, he would have regretted the statue of
Hercules, whose attributes, the club, the bow, the quiver, and
the lion’s hide, were sculptured in massy gold. The progress of
desolation by sea and land, from the Euxine to the Isle of
Cyprus, compelled the emperor Nicephorus to retract his haughty
defiance. In the new treaty, the ruins of Heraclea were left
forever as a lesson and a trophy; and the coin of the tribute was
marked with the image and superscription of Harun and his three
sons. 78 Yet this plurality of lords might contribute to remove
the dishonor of the Roman name. After the death of their father,
the heirs of the caliph were involved in civil discord, and the
conqueror, the liberal Almamon, was sufficiently engaged in the
restoration of domestic peace and the introduction of foreign
science.
75 (return) [ See the reign and character of Harun Al Rashid, in
the Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 431-433, under his proper title;
and in the relative articles to which M. D’Herbelot refers. That
learned collector has shown much taste in stripping the Oriental
chronicles of their instructive and amusing anecdotes.]
76 (return) [ For the situation of Racca, the old Nicephorium,
consult D’Anville, (l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 24-27.) The
Arabian Nights represent Harun al Rashid as almost stationary in
Bagdad. He respected the royal seat of the Abbassides: but the
vices of the inhabitants had driven him from the city, (Abulfed.
Annal. p. 167.)]
77 (return) [ M. de Tournefort, in his coasting voyage from
Constantinople to Trebizond, passed a night at Heraclea or
Eregri. His eye surveyed the present state, his reading collected
the antiquities, of the city (Voyage du Levant, tom. iii. lettre
xvi. p. 23-35.) We have a separate history of Heraclea in the
fragments of Memnon, which are preserved by Photius.]
78 (return) [ The wars of Harun al Rashid against the Roman
empire are related by Theophanes, (p. 384, 385, 391, 396, 407,
408.) Zonaras, (tom. iii. l. xv. p. 115, 124,) Cedrenus, (p. 477,
478,) Eutycaius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 407,) Elmacin, (Hist.
Saracen. p. 136, 151, 152,) Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 147, 151,)
and Abulfeda, (p. 156, 166-168.)]
Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part IV.
Under the reign of Almamon at Bagdad, of Michael the Stammerer at
Constantinople, the islands of Crete 79 and Sicily were subdued
by the Arabs. The former of these conquests is disdained by their
own writers, who were ignorant of the fame of Jupiter and Minos,
but it has not been overlooked by the Byzantine historians, who
now begin to cast a clearer light on the affairs of their own
times. 80 A band of Andalusian volunteers, discontented with the
climate or government of Spain, explored the adventures of the
sea; but as they sailed in no more than ten or twenty galleys,
their warfare must be branded with the name of piracy. As the
subjects and sectaries of the white party, they might lawfully
invade the dominions of the black caliphs. A rebellious faction
introduced them into Alexandria; 81 they cut in pieces both
friends and foes, pillaged the churches and the moschs, sold
above six thousand Christian captives, and maintained their
station in the capital of Egypt, till they were oppressed by the
forces and the presence of Almamon himself. From the mouth of the
Nile to the Hellespont, the islands and sea-coasts both of the
Greeks and Moslems were exposed to their depredations; they saw,
they envied, they tasted the fertility of Crete, and soon
returned with forty galleys to a more serious attack. The
Andalusians wandered over the land fearless and unmolested; but
when they descended with their plunder to the sea-shore, their
vessels were in flames, and their chief, Abu Caab, confessed
himself the author of the mischief. Their clamors accused his
madness or treachery. “Of what do you complain?” replied the
crafty emir. “I have brought you to a land flowing with milk and
honey. Here is your true country; repose from your toils, and
forget the barren place of your nativity.” “And our wives and
children?” “Your beauteous captives will supply the place of your
wives, and in their embraces you will soon become the fathers of
a new progeny.” The first habitation was their camp, with a ditch
and rampart, in the Bay of Suda; but an apostate monk led them to
a more desirable position in the eastern parts; and the name of
Candax, their fortress and colony, has been extended to the whole
island, under the corrupt and modern appellation of Candia. The
hundred cities of the age of Minos were diminished to thirty; and
of these, only one, most probably Cydonia, had courage to retain
the substance of freedom and the profession of Christianity. The
Saracens of Crete soon repaired the loss of their navy; and the
timbers of Mount Ida were launched into the main. During a
hostile period of one hundred and thirty-eight years, the princes
of Constantinople attacked these licentious corsairs with
fruitless curses and ineffectual arms.
79 (return) [ The authors from whom I have learned the most of
the ancient and modern state of Crete, are Belon, (Observations,
&c., c. 3-20, Paris, 1555,) Tournefort, (Voyage du Levant, tom.
i. lettre ii. et iii.,) and Meursius, (Creta, in his works, tom.
iii. p. 343-544.) Although Crete is styled by Homer, by
Dionysius, I cannot conceive that mountainous island to surpass,
or even to equal, in fertility the greater part of Spain.]
80 (return) [ The most authentic and circumstantial intelligence
is obtained from the four books of the Continuation of
Theophanes, compiled by the pen or the command of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, with the Life of his father Basil, the
Macedonian, (Scriptores post Theophanem, p. 1-162, a Francisc.
Combefis, Paris, 1685.) The loss of Crete and Sicily is related,
l. ii. p. 46-52. To these we may add the secondary evidence of
Joseph Genesius, (l. ii. p. 21, Venet. 1733,) George Cedrenus,
(Compend. p. 506-508,) and John Scylitzes Curopalata, (apud
Baron. Annal. Eccles. A.D. 827, No. 24, &c.) But the modern
Greeks are such notorious plagiaries, that I should only quote a
plurality of names.]
81 (return) [ Renaudot (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 251-256,
268-270) had described the ravages of the Andalusian Arabs in
Egypt, but has forgot to connect them with the conquest of
Crete.]
The loss of Sicily 82 was occasioned by an act of superstitious
rigor. An amorous youth, who had stolen a nun from her cloister,
was sentenced by the emperor to the amputation of his tongue.
Euphemius appealed to the reason and policy of the Saracens of
Africa; and soon returned with the Imperial purple, a fleet of
one hundred ships, and an army of seven hundred horse and ten
thousand foot. They landed at Mazara near the ruins of the
ancient Selinus; but after some partial victories, Syracuse 83
was delivered by the Greeks, the apostate was slain before her
walls, and his African friends were reduced to the necessity of
feeding on the flesh of their own horses. In their turn they were
relieved by a powerful reenforcement of their brethren of
Andalusia; the largest and western part of the island was
gradually reduced, and the commodious harbor of Palermo was
chosen for the seat of the naval and military power of the
Saracens. Syracuse preserved about fifty years the faith which
she had sworn to Christ and to Caesar. In the last and fatal
siege, her citizens displayed some remnant of the spirit which
had formerly resisted the powers of Athens and Carthage. They
stood above twenty days against the battering-rams and
catapultoe, the mines and tortoises of the besiegers; and the
place might have been relieved, if the mariners of the Imperial
fleet had not been detained at Constantinople in building a
church to the Virgin Mary. The deacon Theodosius, with the bishop
and clergy, was dragged in chains from the altar to Palermo, cast
into a subterraneous dungeon, and exposed to the hourly peril of
death or apostasy. His pathetic, and not inelegant, complaint may
be read as the epitaph of his country. 84 From the Roman conquest
to this final calamity, Syracuse, now dwindled to the primitive
Isle of Ortygea, had insensibly declined. Yet the relics were
still precious; the plate of the cathedral weighed five thousand
pounds of silver; the entire spoil was computed at one million of
pieces of gold, (about four hundred thousand pounds sterling,)
and the captives must outnumber the seventeen thousand
Christians, who were transported from the sack of Tauromenium
into African servitude. In Sicily, the religion and language of
the Greeks were eradicated; and such was the docility of the
rising generation, that fifteen thousand boys were circumcised
and clothed on the same day with the son of the Fatimite caliph.
The Arabian squadrons issued from the harbors of Palermo,
Biserta, and Tunis; a hundred and fifty towns of Calabria and
Campania were attacked and pillaged; nor could the suburbs of
Rome be defended by the name of the Caesars and apostles. Had the
Mahometans been united, Italy must have fallen an easy and
glorious accession to the empire of the prophet. But the caliphs
of Bagdad had lost their authority in the West; the Aglabites and
Fatimites usurped the provinces of Africa, their emirs of Sicily
aspired to independence; and the design of conquest and dominion
was degraded to a repetition of predatory inroads. 85
82 (return) [ Theophanes, l. ii. p. 51. This history of the loss
of Sicily is no longer extant. Muratori (Annali d’ Italia, tom.
vii. p. 719, 721, &c.) has added some circumstances from the
Italian chronicles.]
83 (return) [ The splendid and interesting tragedy of Tancrede
would adapt itself much better to this epoch, than to the date
(A.D. 1005) which Voltaire himself has chosen. But I must gently
reproach the poet for infusing into the Greek subjects the spirit
of modern knights and ancient republicans.]
84 (return) [ The narrative or lamentation of Theodosius is
transcribed and illustrated by Pagi, (Critica, tom. iii. p. 719,
&c.) Constantine Porphyrogenitus (in Vit. Basil, c. 69, 70, p.
190-192) mentions the loss of Syracuse and the triumph of the
demons.]
85 (return) [ The extracts from the Arabic histories of Sicily
are given in Abulfeda, (Annal’ Moslem. p. 271-273,) and in the
first volume of Muratori’s Scriptores Rerum Italicarum. M. de
Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 363, 364) has added some
important facts.]
In the sufferings of prostrate Italy, the name of Rome awakens a
solemn and mournful recollection. A fleet of Saracens from the
African coast presumed to enter the mouth of the Tyber, and to
approach a city which even yet, in her fallen state, was revered
as the metropolis of the Christian world. The gates and ramparts
were guarded by a trembling people; but the tombs and temples of
St. Peter and St. Paul were left exposed in the suburbs of the
Vatican and of the Ostian way. Their invisible sanctity had
protected them against the Goths, the Vandals, and the Lombards;
but the Arabs disdained both the gospel and the legend; and their
rapacious spirit was approved and animated by the precepts of the
Koran. The Christian idols were stripped of their costly
offerings; a silver altar was torn away from the shrine of St.
Peter; and if the bodies or the buildings were left entire, their
deliverance must be imputed to the haste, rather than the
scruples, of the Saracens. In their course along the Appian way,
they pillaged Fundi and besieged Gayeta; but they had turned
aside from the walls of Rome, and by their divisions, the Capitol
was saved from the yoke of the prophet of Mecca. The same danger
still impended on the heads of the Roman people; and their
domestic force was unequal to the assault of an African emir.
They claimed the protection of their Latin sovereign; but the
Carlovingian standard was overthrown by a detachment of the
Barbarians: they meditated the restoration of the Greek emperors;
but the attempt was treasonable, and the succor remote and
precarious. 86 Their distress appeared to receive some
aggravation from the death of their spiritual and temporal chief;
but the pressing emergency superseded the forms and intrigues of
an election; and the unanimous choice of Pope Leo the Fourth 87
was the safety of the church and city. This pontiff was born a
Roman; the courage of the first ages of the republic glowed in
his breast; and, amidst the ruins of his country, he stood erect,
like one of the firm and lofty columns that rear their heads
above the fragments of the Roman forum. The first days of his
reign were consecrated to the purification and removal of relics,
to prayers and processions, and to all the solemn offices of
religion, which served at least to heal the imagination, and
restore the hopes, of the multitude. The public defence had been
long neglected, not from the presumption of peace, but from the
distress and poverty of the times. As far as the scantiness of
his means and the shortness of his leisure would allow, the
ancient walls were repaired by the command of Leo; fifteen
towers, in the most accessible stations, were built or renewed;
two of these commanded on either side of the Tyber; and an iron
chain was drawn across the stream to impede the ascent of a
hostile navy. The Romans were assured of a short respite by the
welcome news, that the siege of Gayeta had been raised, and that
a part of the enemy, with their sacrilegious plunder, had
perished in the waves.
86 (return) [ One of the most eminent Romans (Gratianus, magister
militum et Romani palatii superista) was accused of declaring,
Quia Franci nihil nobis boni faciunt, neque adjutorium praebent,
sed magis quae nostra sunt violenter tollunt. Quare non advocamus
Graecos, et cum eis foedus pacis componentes, Francorum regem et
gentem de nostro regno et dominatione expellimus? Anastasius in
Leone IV. p. 199.]
87 (return) [ Voltaire (Hist. Generale, tom. ii. c. 38, p. 124)
appears to be remarkably struck with the character of Pope Leo
IV. I have borrowed his general expression, but the sight of the
forum has furnished me with a more distinct and lively image.]
But the storm, which had been delayed, soon burst upon them with
redoubled violence. The Aglabite, 88 who reigned in Africa, had
inherited from his father a treasure and an army: a fleet of
Arabs and Moors, after a short refreshment in the harbors of
Sardinia, cast anchor before the mouth of the Tyber, sixteen
miles from the city: and their discipline and numbers appeared to
threaten, not a transient inroad, but a serious design of
conquest and dominion. But the vigilance of Leo had formed an
alliance with the vassals of the Greek empire, the free and
maritime states of Gayeta, Naples, and Amalfi; and in the hour of
danger, their galleys appeared in the port of Ostia under the
command of Caesarius, the son of the Neapolitan duke, a noble and
valiant youth, who had already vanquished the fleets of the
Saracens. With his principal companions, Caesarius was invited to
the Lateran palace, and the dexterous pontiff affected to inquire
their errand, and to accept with joy and surprise their
providential succor. The city bands, in arms, attended their
father to Ostia, where he reviewed and blessed his generous
deliverers. They kissed his feet, received the communion with
martial devotion, and listened to the prayer of Leo, that the
same God who had supported St. Peter and St. Paul on the waves of
the sea, would strengthen the hands of his champions against the
adversaries of his holy name. After a similar prayer, and with
equal resolution, the Moslems advanced to the attack of the
Christian galleys, which preserved their advantageous station
along the coast. The victory inclined to the side of the allies,
when it was less gloriously decided in their favor by a sudden
tempest, which confounded the skill and courage of the stoutest
mariners. The Christians were sheltered in a friendly harbor,
while the Africans were scattered and dashed in pieces among the
rocks and islands of a hostile shore. Those who escaped from
shipwreck and hunger neither found, nor deserved, mercy at the
hands of their implacable pursuers. The sword and the gibbet
reduced the dangerous multitude of captives; and the remainder
was more usefully employed, to restore the sacred edifices which
they had attempted to subvert. The pontiff, at the head of the
citizens and allies, paid his grateful devotion at the shrines of
the apostles; and, among the spoils of this naval victory,
thirteen Arabian bows of pure and massy silver were suspended
round the altar of the fishermen of Galilee. The reign of Leo the
Fourth was employed in the defence and ornament of the Roman
state. The churches were renewed and embellished: near four
thousand pounds of silver were consecrated to repair the losses
of St. Peter; and his sanctuary was decorated with a plate of
gold of the weight of two hundred and sixteen pounds, embossed
with the portraits of the pope and emperor, and encircled with a
string of pearls. Yet this vain magnificence reflects less glory
on the character of Leo than the paternal care with which he
rebuilt the walls of Horta and Ameria; and transported the
wandering inhabitants of Centumcellae to his new foundation of
Leopolis, twelve miles from the sea-shore. 89 By his liberality,
a colony of Corsicans, with their wives and children, was planted
in the station of Porto, at the mouth of the Tyber: the falling
city was restored for their use, the fields and vineyards were
divided among the new settlers: their first efforts were assisted
by a gift of horses and cattle; and the hardy exiles, who
breathed revenge against the Saracens, swore to live and die
under the standard of St. Peter. The nations of the West and
North who visited the threshold of the apostles had gradually
formed the large and populous suburb of the Vatican, and their
various habitations were distinguished, in the language of the
times, as the schools of the Greeks and Goths, of the Lombards
and Saxons. But this venerable spot was still open to
sacrilegious insult: the design of enclosing it with walls and
towers exhausted all that authority could command, or charity
would supply: and the pious labor of four years was animated in
every season, and at every hour, by the presence of the
indefatigable pontiff. The love of fame, a generous but worldly
passion, may be detected in the name of the Leonine city, which
he bestowed on the Vatican; yet the pride of the dedication was
tempered with Christian penance and humility. The boundary was
trod by the bishop and his clergy, barefoot, in sackcloth and
ashes; the songs of triumph were modulated to psalms and
litanies; the walls were besprinkled with holy water; and the
ceremony was concluded with a prayer, that, under the guardian
care of the apostles and the angelic host, both the old and the
new Rome might ever be preserved pure, prosperous, and
impregnable. 90
88 (return) [ De Guignes, Hist. Generale des Huns, tom. i. p.
363, 364. Cardonne, Hist. de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne, sous la
Domination des Arabs, tom. ii. p. 24, 25. I observe, and cannot
reconcile, the difference of these writers in the succession of
the Aglabites.]
89 (return) [ Beretti (Chorographia Italiae Medii Evi, p. 106,
108) has illustrated Centumcellae, Leopolis, Civitas Leonina, and
the other places of the Roman duchy.]
90 (return) [ The Arabs and the Greeks are alike silent
concerning the invasion of Rome by the Africans. The Latin
chronicles do not afford much instruction, (see the Annals of
Baronius and Pagi.) Our authentic and contemporary guide for the
popes of the ixth century is Anastasius, librarian of the Roman
church. His Life of Leo IV, contains twenty-four pages, (p.
175-199, edit. Paris;) and if a great part consist of
superstitious trifles, we must blame or command his hero, who was
much oftener in a church than in a camp.]
The emperor Theophilus, son of Michael the Stammerer, was one of
the most active and high-spirited princes who reigned at
Constantinople during the middle age. In offensive or defensive
war, he marched in person five times against the Saracens,
formidable in his attack, esteemed by the enemy in his losses and
defeats. In the last of these expeditions he penetrated into
Syria, and besieged the obscure town of Sozopetra; the casual
birthplace of the caliph Motassem, whose father Harun was
attended in peace or war by the most favored of his wives and
concubines. The revolt of a Persian impostor employed at that
moment the arms of the Saracen, and he could only intercede in
favor of a place for which he felt and acknowledged some degree
of filial affection. These solicitations determined the emperor
to wound his pride in so sensible a part. Sozopetra was levelled
with the ground, the Syrian prisoners were marked or mutilated
with ignominious cruelty, and a thousand female captives were
forced away from the adjacent territory. Among these a matron of
the house of Abbas invoked, in an agony of despair, the name of
Motassem; and the insults of the Greeks engaged the honor of her
kinsman to avenge his indignity, and to answer her appeal. Under
the reign of the two elder brothers, the inheritance of the
youngest had been confined to Anatolia, Armenia, Georgia, and
Circassia; this frontier station had exercised his military
talents; and among his accidental claims to the name of Octonary,
91 the most meritorious are the eight battles which he gained or
fought against the enemies of the Koran. In this personal
quarrel, the troops of Irak, Syria, and Egypt, were recruited
from the tribes of Arabia and the Turkish hordes; his cavalry
might be numerous, though we should deduct some myriads from the
hundred and thirty thousand horses of the royal stables; and the
expense of the armament was computed at four millions sterling,
or one hundred thousand pounds of gold. From Tarsus, the place of
assembly, the Saracens advanced in three divisions along the high
road of Constantinople: Motassem himself commanded the centre,
and the vanguard was given to his son Abbas, who, in the trial of
the first adventures, might succeed with the more glory, or fail
with the least reproach. In the revenge of his injury, the caliph
prepared to retaliate a similar affront. The father of Theophilus
was a native of Amorium 92 in Phrygia: the original seat of the
Imperial house had been adorned with privileges and monuments;
and, whatever might be the indifference of the people,
Constantinople itself was scarcely of more value in the eyes of
the sovereign and his court. The name of Amorium was inscribed on
the shields of the Saracens; and their three armies were again
united under the walls of the devoted city. It had been proposed
by the wisest counsellors, to evacuate Amorium, to remove the
inhabitants, and to abandon the empty structures to the vain
resentment of the Barbarians. The emperor embraced the more
generous resolution of defending, in a siege and battle, the
country of his ancestors. When the armies drew near, the front of
the Mahometan line appeared to a Roman eye more closely planted
with spears and javelins; but the event of the action was not
glorious on either side to the national troops. The Arabs were
broken, but it was by the swords of thirty thousand Persians, who
had obtained service and settlement in the Byzantine empire. The
Greeks were repulsed and vanquished, but it was by the arrows of
the Turkish cavalry; and had not their bowstrings been damped and
relaxed by the evening rain, very few of the Christians could
have escaped with the emperor from the field of battle. They
breathed at Dorylaeum, at the distance of three days; and
Theophilus, reviewing his trembling squadrons, forgave the common
flight both of the prince and people. After this discovery of his
weakness, he vainly hoped to deprecate the fate of Amorium: the
inexorable caliph rejected with contempt his prayers and
promises; and detained the Roman ambassadors to be the witnesses
of his great revenge. They had nearly been the witnesses of his
shame. The vigorous assaults of fifty-five days were encountered
by a faithful governor, a veteran garrison, and a desperate
people; and the Saracens must have raised the siege, if a
domestic traitor had not pointed to the weakest part of the wall,
a place which was decorated with the statues of a lion and a
bull. The vow of Motassem was accomplished with unrelenting
rigor: tired, rather than satiated, with destruction, he returned
to his new palace of Samara, in the neighborhood of Bagdad, while
the unfortunate 93 Theophilus implored the tardy and doubtful aid
of his Western rival the emperor of the Franks. Yet in the siege
of Amorium about seventy thousand Moslems had perished: their
loss had been revenged by the slaughter of thirty thousand
Christians, and the sufferings of an equal number of captives,
who were treated as the most atrocious criminals. Mutual
necessity could sometimes extort the exchange or ransom of
prisoners: 94 but in the national and religious conflict of the
two empires, peace was without confidence, and war without mercy.
Quarter was seldom given in the field; those who escaped the edge
of the sword were condemned to hopeless servitude, or exquisite
torture; and a Catholic emperor relates, with visible
satisfaction, the execution of the Saracens of Crete, who were
flayed alive, or plunged into caldrons of boiling oil. 95 To a
point of honor Motassem had sacrificed a flourishing city, two
hundred thousand lives, and the property of millions. The same
caliph descended from his horse, and dirtied his robe, to relieve
the distress of a decrepit old man, who, with his laden ass, had
tumbled into a ditch. On which of these actions did he reflect
with the most pleasure, when he was summoned by the angel of
death? 96
91 (return) [ The same number was applied to the following
circumstance in the life of Motassem: he was the eight of the
Abbassides; he reigned eight years, eight months, and eight days;
left eight sons, eight daughters, eight thousand slaves, eight
millions of gold.]
92 (return) [ Amorium is seldom mentioned by the old geographers,
and to tally forgotten in the Roman Itineraries. After the vith
century, it became an episcopal see, and at length the metropolis
of the new Galatia, (Carol. Scto. Paulo, Geograph. Sacra, p.
234.) The city rose again from its ruins, if we should read
Ammeria, not Anguria, in the text of the Nubian geographer. (p.
236.)]
93 (return) [ In the East he was styled, (Continuator Theophan.
l. iii. p. 84;) but such was the ignorance of the West, that his
ambassadors, in public discourse, might boldly narrate, de
victoriis, quas adversus exteras bellando gentes coelitus fuerat
assecutus, (Annalist. Bertinian. apud Pagi, tom. iii. p. 720.)]
94 (return) [ Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 167, 168) relates one of
these singular transactions on the bridge of the River Lamus in
Cilicia, the limit of the two empires, and one day’s journey
westward of Tarsus, (D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p.
91.) Four thousand four hundred and sixty Moslems, eight hundred
women and children, one hundred confederates, were exchanged for
an equal number of Greeks. They passed each other in the middle
of the bridge, and when they reached their respective friends,
they shouted Allah Acbar, and Kyrie Eleison. Many of the
prisoners of Amorium were probably among them, but in the same
year, (A. H. 231,) the most illustrious of them, the forty two
martyrs, were beheaded by the caliph’s order.]
95 (return) [ Constantin. Porphyrogenitus, in Vit. Basil. c. 61,
p. 186. These Saracens were indeed treated with peculiar severity
as pirates and renegadoes.]
96 (return) [ For Theophilus, Motassem, and the Amorian war, see
the Continuator of Theophanes, (l. iii. p. 77-84,) Genesius (l.
iii. p. 24-34.) Cedrenus, (p. 528-532,) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen,
p. 180,) Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 165, 166,) Abulfeda, (Annal.
Moslem. p. 191,) D’Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 639, 640.)]
With Motassem, the eighth of the Abbassides, the glory of his
family and nation expired. When the Arabian conquerors had spread
themselves over the East, and were mingled with the servile
crowds of Persia, Syria, and Egypt, they insensibly lost the
freeborn and martial virtues of the desert. The courage of the
South is the artificial fruit of discipline and prejudice; the
active power of enthusiasm had decayed, and the mercenary forces
of the caliphs were recruited in those climates of the North, of
which valor is the hardy and spontaneous production. Of the Turks
97 who dwelt beyond the Oxus and Jaxartes, the robust youths,
either taken in war or purchased in trade, were educated in the
exercises of the field, and the profession of the Mahometan
faith. The Turkish guards stood in arms round the throne of their
benefactor, and their chiefs usurped the dominion of the palace
and the provinces. Motassem, the first author of this dangerous
example, introduced into the capital above fifty thousand Turks:
their licentious conduct provoked the public indignation, and the
quarrels of the soldiers and people induced the caliph to retire
from Bagdad, and establish his own residence and the camp of his
Barbarian favorites at Samara on the Tigris, about twelve leagues
above the city of Peace. 98 His son Motawakkel was a jealous and
cruel tyrant: odious to his subjects, he cast himself on the
fidelity of the strangers, and these strangers, ambitious and
apprehensive, were tempted by the rich promise of a revolution.
At the instigation, or at least in the cause of his son, they
burst into his apartment at the hour of supper, and the caliph
was cut into seven pieces by the same swords which he had
recently distributed among the guards of his life and throne. To
this throne, yet streaming with a father’s blood, Montasser was
triumphantly led; but in a reign of six months, he found only the
pangs of a guilty conscience. If he wept at the sight of an old
tapestry which represented the crime and punishment of the son of
Chosroes, if his days were abridged by grief and remorse, we may
allow some pity to a parricide, who exclaimed, in the bitterness
of death, that he had lost both this world and the world to come.
After this act of treason, the ensigns of royalty, the garment
and walking-staff of Mahomet, were given and torn away by the
foreign mercenaries, who in four years created, deposed, and
murdered, three commanders of the faithful. As often as the Turks
were inflamed by fear, or rage, or avarice, these caliphs were
dragged by the feet, exposed naked to the scorching sun, beaten
with iron clubs, and compelled to purchase, by the abdication of
their dignity, a short reprieve of inevitable fate. 99 At length,
however, the fury of the tempest was spent or diverted: the
Abbassides returned to the less turbulent residence of Bagdad;
the insolence of the Turks was curbed with a firmer and more
skilful hand, and their numbers were divided and destroyed in
foreign warfare. But the nations of the East had been taught to
trample on the successors of the prophet; and the blessings of
domestic peace were obtained by the relaxation of strength and
discipline. So uniform are the mischiefs of military despotism,
that I seem to repeat the story of the praetorians of Rome. 100
97 (return) [ M. de Guignes, who sometimes leaps, and sometimes
stumbles, in the gulf between Chinese and Mahometan story, thinks
he can see, that these Turks are the Hoei-ke, alias the Kao-tche,
or high-wagons; that they were divided into fifteen hordes, from
China and Siberia to the dominions of the caliphs and Samanides,
&c., (Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 1-33, 124-131.)]
98 (return) [ He changed the old name of Sumera, or Samara, into
the fanciful title of Sermen-rai, that which gives pleasure at
first sight, (D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 808.
D’Anville, l’Euphrate et le Tigre p. 97, 98.)]
99 (return) [ Take a specimen, the death of the caliph Motaz:
Correptum pedibus pertrahunt, et sudibus probe permulcant, et
spoliatum laceris vestibus in sole collocant, prae cujus acerrimo
aestu pedes alternos attollebat et demittebat. Adstantium aliquis
misero colaphos continuo ingerebat, quos ille objectis manibus
avertere studebat..... Quo facto traditus tortori fuit, totoque
triduo cibo potuque prohibitus..... Suffocatus, &c. (Abulfeda, p.
206.) Of the caliph Mohtadi, he says, services ipsi perpetuis
ictibus contundebant, testiculosque pedibus conculcabant, (p.
208.)]
100 (return) [ See under the reigns of Motassem, Motawakkel,
Montasser, Mostain, Motaz, Mohtadi, and Motamed, in the
Bibliotheque of D’Herbelot, and the now familiar Annals of
Elmacin, Abulpharagius, and Abulfeda.]
While the flame of enthusiasm was damped by the business, the
pleasure, and the knowledge, of the age, it burnt with
concentrated heat in the breasts of the chosen few, the congenial
spirits, who were ambitious of reigning either in this world or
in the next. How carefully soever the book of prophecy had been
sealed by the apostle of Mecca, the wishes, and (if we may
profane the word) even the reason, of fanaticism might believe
that, after the successive missions of Adam, Noah, Abraham,
Moses, Jesus, and Mahomet, the same God, in the fulness of time,
would reveal a still more perfect and permanent law. In the two
hundred and seventy-seventh year of the Hegira, and in the
neighborhood of Cufa, an Arabian preacher, of the name of
Carmath, assumed the lofty and incomprehensible style of the
Guide, the Director, the Demonstration, the Word, the Holy Ghost,
the Camel, the Herald of the Messiah, who had conversed with him
in a human shape, and the representative of Mohammed the son of
Ali, of St. John the Baptist, and of the angel Gabriel. In his
mystic volume, the precepts of the Koran were refined to a more
spiritual sense: he relaxed the duties of ablution, fasting, and
pilgrimage; allowed the indiscriminate use of wine and forbidden
food; and nourished the fervor of his disciples by the daily
repetition of fifty prayers. The idleness and ferment of the
rustic crowd awakened the attention of the magistrates of Cufa; a
timid persecution assisted the progress of the new sect; and the
name of the prophet became more revered after his person had been
withdrawn from the world. His twelve apostles dispersed
themselves among the Bedoweens, “a race of men,” says Abulfeda,
“equally devoid of reason and of religion;” and the success of
their preaching seemed to threaten Arabia with a new revolution.
The Carmathians were ripe for rebellion, since they disclaimed
the title of the house of Abbas, and abhorred the worldly pomp of
the caliphs of Bagdad. They were susceptible of discipline, since
they vowed a blind and absolute submission to their Imam, who was
called to the prophetic office by the voice of God and the
people. Instead of the legal tithes, he claimed the fifth of
their substance and spoil; the most flagitious sins were no more
than the type of disobedience; and the brethren were united and
concealed by an oath of secrecy. After a bloody conflict, they
prevailed in the province of Bahrein, along the Persian Gulf: far
and wide, the tribes of the desert were subject to the sceptre,
or rather to the sword of Abu Said and his son Abu Taher; and
these rebellious imams could muster in the field a hundred and
seven thousand fanatics. The mercenaries of the caliph were
dismayed at the approach of an enemy who neither asked nor
accepted quarter; and the difference between, them in fortitude
and patience, is expressive of the change which three centuries
of prosperity had effected in the character of the Arabians. Such
troops were discomfited in every action; the cities of Racca and
Baalbec, of Cufa and Bassora, were taken and pillaged; Bagdad was
filled with consternation; and the caliph trembled behind the
veils of his palace. In a daring inroad beyond the Tigris, Abu
Taher advanced to the gates of the capital with no more than five
hundred horse. By the special order of Moctader, the bridges had
been broken down, and the person or head of the rebel was
expected every hour by the commander of the faithful. His
lieutenant, from a motive of fear or pity, apprised Abu Taher of
his danger, and recommended a speedy escape. “Your master,” said
the intrepid Carmathian to the messenger, “is at the head of
thirty thousand soldiers: three such men as these are wanting in
his host:” at the same instant, turning to three of his
companions, he commanded the first to plunge a dagger into his
breast, the second to leap into the Tigris, and the third to cast
himself headlong down a precipice. They obeyed without a murmur.
“Relate,” continued the imam, “what you have seen: before the
evening your general shall be chained among my dogs.” Before the
evening, the camp was surprised, and the menace was executed. The
rapine of the Carmathians was sanctified by their aversion to the
worship of Mecca: they robbed a caravan of pilgrims, and twenty
thousand devout Moslems were abandoned on the burning sands to a
death of hunger and thirst. Another year they suffered the
pilgrims to proceed without interruption; but, in the festival of
devotion, Abu Taher stormed the holy city, and trampled on the
most venerable relics of the Mahometan faith. Thirty thousand
citizens and strangers were put to the sword; the sacred
precincts were polluted by the burial of three thousand dead
bodies; the well of Zemzem overflowed with blood; the golden
spout was forced from its place; the veil of the Caaba was
divided among these impious sectaries; and the black stone, the
first monument of the nation, was borne away in triumph to their
capital. After this deed of sacrilege and cruelty, they continued
to infest the confines of Irak, Syria, and Egypt: but the vital
principle of enthusiasm had withered at the root. Their scruples,
or their avarice, again opened the pilgrimage of Mecca, and
restored the black stone of the Caaba; and it is needless to
inquire into what factions they were broken, or by whose swords
they were finally extirpated. The sect of the Carmathians may be
considered as the second visible cause of the decline and fall of
the empire of the caliphs. 101
101 (return) [ For the sect of the Carmathians, consult Elmacin,
(Hist. Sara cen, p. 219, 224, 229, 231, 238, 241, 243,)
Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 179-182,) Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p.
218, 219, &c., 245, 265, 274.) and D’Herbelot, (Bibliotheque
Orientale, p. 256-258, 635.) I find some inconsistencies of
theology and chronology, which it would not be easy nor of much
importance to reconcile. * Note: Compare Von Hammer, Geschichte
der Assassinen, p. 44, &c.—M.]
Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.—Part V.
The third and most obvious cause was the weight and magnitude of
the empire itself. The caliph Almamon might proudly assert, that
it was easier for him to rule the East and the West, than to
manage a chess-board of two feet square: 102 yet I suspect that
in both those games he was guilty of many fatal mistakes; and I
perceive, that in the distant provinces the authority of the
first and most powerful of the Abbassides was already impaired.
The analogy of despotism invests the representative with the full
majesty of the prince; the division and balance of powers might
relax the habits of obedience, might encourage the passive
subject to inquire into the origin and administration of civil
government. He who is born in the purple is seldom worthy to
reign; but the elevation of a private man, of a peasant, perhaps,
or a slave, affords a strong presumption of his courage and
capacity. The viceroy of a remote kingdom aspires to secure the
property and inheritance of his precarious trust; the nations
must rejoice in the presence of their sovereign; and the command
of armies and treasures are at once the object and the instrument
of his ambition. A change was scarcely visible as long as the
lieutenants of the caliph were content with their vicarious
title; while they solicited for themselves or their sons a
renewal of the Imperial grant, and still maintained on the coin
and in the public prayers the name and prerogative of the
commander of the faithful. But in the long and hereditary
exercise of power, they assumed the pride and attributes of
royalty; the alternative of peace or war, of reward or
punishment, depended solely on their will; and the revenues of
their government were reserved for local services or private
magnificence. Instead of a regular supply of men and money, the
successors of the prophet were flattered with the ostentatious
gift of an elephant, or a cast of hawks, a suit of silk hangings,
or some pounds of musk and amber. 103
102 (return) [ Hyde, Syntagma Dissertat. tom. ii. p. 57, in Hist.
Shahiludii.]
103 (return) [ The dynasties of the Arabian empire may be studied
in the Annals of Elmacin, Abulpharagius, and Abulfeda, under the
proper years, in the dictionary of D’Herbelot, under the proper
names. The tables of M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. i.)
exhibit a general chronology of the East, interspersed with some
historical anecdotes; but his attachment to national blood has
sometimes confounded the order of time and place.]
After the revolt of Spain from the temporal and spiritual
supremacy of the Abbassides, the first symptoms of disobedience
broke forth in the province of Africa. Ibrahim, the son of Aglab,
the lieutenant of the vigilant and rigid Harun, bequeathed to the
dynasty of the Aglabites the inheritance of his name and power.
The indolence or policy of the caliphs dissembled the injury and
loss, and pursued only with poison the founder of the Edrisites,
104 who erected the kingdom and city of Fez on the shores of the
Western ocean. 105 In the East, the first dynasty was that of the
Taherites; 106 the posterity of the valiant Taher, who, in the
civil wars of the sons of Harun, had served with too much zeal
and success the cause of Almamon, the younger brother. He was
sent into honorable exile, to command on the banks of the Oxus;
and the independence of his successors, who reigned in Chorasan
till the fourth generation, was palliated by their modest and
respectful demeanor, the happiness of their subjects and the
security of their frontier. They were supplanted by one of those
adventures so frequent in the annals of the East, who left his
trade of a brazier (from whence the name of Soffarides) for the
profession of a robber. In a nocturnal visit to the treasure of
the prince of Sistan, Jacob, the son of Leith, stumbled over a
lump of salt, which he unwarily tasted with his tongue. Salt,
among the Orientals, is the symbol of hospitality, and the pious
robber immediately retired without spoil or damage. The discovery
of this honorable behavior recommended Jacob to pardon and trust;
he led an army at first for his benefactor, at last for himself,
subdued Persia, and threatened the residence of the Abbassides.
On his march towards Bagdad, the conqueror was arrested by a
fever. He gave audience in bed to the ambassador of the caliph;
and beside him on a table were exposed a naked cimeter, a crust
of brown bread, and a bunch of onions. “If I die,” said he, “your
master is delivered from his fears. If I live, this must
determine between us. If I am vanquished, I can return without
reluctance to the homely fare of my youth.” From the height where
he stood, the descent would not have been so soft or harmless: a
timely death secured his own repose and that of the caliph, who
paid with the most lavish concessions the retreat of his brother
Amrou to the palaces of Shiraz and Ispahan. The Abbassides were
too feeble to contend, too proud to forgive: they invited the
powerful dynasty of the Samanides, who passed the Oxus with ten
thousand horse so poor, that their stirrups were of wood: so
brave, that they vanquished the Soffarian army, eight times more
numerous than their own. The captive Amrou was sent in chains, a
grateful offering to the court of Bagdad; and as the victor was
content with the inheritance of Transoxiana and Chorasan, the
realms of Persia returned for a while to the allegiance of the
caliphs. The provinces of Syria and Egypt were twice dismembered
by their Turkish slaves of the race of Toulon and Ilkshid. 107
These Barbarians, in religion and manners the countrymen of
Mahomet, emerged from the bloody factions of the palace to a
provincial command and an independent throne: their names became
famous and formidable in their time; but the founders of these
two potent dynasties confessed, either in words or actions, the
vanity of ambition. The first on his death-bed implored the mercy
of God to a sinner, ignorant of the limits of his own power: the
second, in the midst of four hundred thousand soldiers and eight
thousand slaves, concealed from every human eye the chamber where
he attempted to sleep. Their sons were educated in the vices of
kings; and both Egypt and Syria were recovered and possessed by
the Abbassides during an interval of thirty years. In the decline
of their empire, Mesopotamia, with the important cities of Mosul
and Aleppo, was occupied by the Arabian princes of the tribe of
Hamadan. The poets of their court could repeat without a blush,
that nature had formed their countenances for beauty, their
tongues for eloquence, and their hands for liberality and valor:
but the genuine tale of the elevation and reign of the
Hamadanites exhibits a scene of treachery, murder, and parricide.
At the same fatal period, the Persian kingdom was again usurped
by the dynasty of the Bowides, by the sword of three brothers,
who, under various names, were styled the support and columns of
the state, and who, from the Caspian Sea to the ocean, would
suffer no tyrants but themselves. Under their reign, the language
and genius of Persia revived, and the Arabs, three hundred and
four years after the death of Mahomet, were deprived of the
sceptre of the East.
104 (return) [ The Aglabites and Edrisites are the professed
subject of M. de Cardonne, (Hist. de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne
sous la Domination des Arabes, tom. ii. p. 1-63.)]
105 (return) [ To escape the reproach of error, I must criticize
the inaccuracies of M. de Guignes (tom. i. p. 359) concerning the
Edrisites. 1. The dynasty and city of Fez could not be founded in
the year of the Hegira 173, since the founder was a posthumous
child of a descendant of Ali, who fled from Mecca in the year
168. 2. This founder, Edris, the son of Edris, instead of living
to the improbable age of 120 years, A. H. 313, died A. H. 214, in
the prime of manhood. 3. The dynasty ended A. H. 307,
twenty-three years sooner than it is fixed by the historian of
the Huns. See the accurate Annals of Abulfeda p. 158, 159, 185,
238.]
106 (return) [ The dynasties of the Taherites and Soffarides,
with the rise of that of the Samanines, are described in the
original history and Latin version of Mirchond: yet the most
interesting facts had already been drained by the diligence of M.
D’Herbelot.]
107 (return) [ M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p.
124-154) has exhausted the Toulunides and Ikshidites of Egypt,
and thrown some light on the Carmathians and Hamadanites.]
Rahadi, the twentieth of the Abbassides, and the thirty-ninth of
the successors of Mahomet, was the last who deserved the title of
commander of the faithful; 108 the last (says Abulfeda) who spoke
to the people, or conversed with the learned; the last who, in
the expense of his household, represented the wealth and
magnificence of the ancient caliphs. After him, the lords of the
Eastern world were reduced to the most abject misery, and exposed
to the blows and insults of a servile condition. The revolt of
the provinces circumscribed their dominions within the walls of
Bagdad: but that capital still contained an innumerable
multitude, vain of their past fortune, discontented with their
present state, and oppressed by the demands of a treasury which
had formerly been replenished by the spoil and tribute of
nations. Their idleness was exercised by faction and controversy.
Under the mask of piety, the rigid followers of Hanbal 109
invaded the pleasures of domestic life, burst into the houses of
plebeians and princes, the wine, broke the instruments, beat the
musicians, and dishonored, with infamous suspicions, the
associates of every handsome youth. In each profession, which
allowed room for two persons, the one was a votary, the other an
antagonist, of Ali; and the Abbassides were awakened by the
clamorous grief of the sectaries, who denied their title, and
cursed their progenitors. A turbulent people could only be
repressed by a military force; but who could satisfy the avarice
or assert the discipline of the mercenaries themselves? The
African and the Turkish guards drew their swords against each
other, and the chief commanders, the emirs al Omra, 110
imprisoned or deposed their sovereigns, and violated the
sanctuary of the mosch and harem. If the caliphs escaped to the
camp or court of any neighboring prince, their deliverance was a
change of servitude, till they were prompted by despair to invite
the Bowides, the sultans of Persia, who silenced the factions of
Bagdad by their irresistible arms. The civil and military powers
were assumed by Moezaldowlat, the second of the three brothers,
and a stipend of sixty thousand pounds sterling was assigned by
his generosity for the private expense of the commander of the
faithful. But on the fortieth day, at the audience of the
ambassadors of Chorasan, and in the presence of a trembling
multitude, the caliph was dragged from his throne to a dungeon,
by the command of the stranger, and the rude hands of his
Dilamites. His palace was pillaged, his eyes were put out, and
the mean ambition of the Abbassides aspired to the vacant station
of danger and disgrace. In the school of adversity, the luxurious
caliphs resumed the grave and abstemious virtues of the primitive
times. Despoiled of their armor and silken robes, they fasted,
they prayed, they studied the Koran and the tradition of the
Sonnites: they performed, with zeal and knowledge, the functions
of their ecclesiastical character. The respect of nations still
waited on the successors of the apostle, the oracles of the law
and conscience of the faithful; and the weakness or division of
their tyrants sometimes restored the Abbassides to the
sovereignty of Bagdad. But their misfortunes had been imbittered
by the triumph of the Fatimites, the real or spurious progeny of
Ali. Arising from the extremity of Africa, these successful
rivals extinguished, in Egypt and Syria, both the spiritual and
temporal authority of the Abbassides; and the monarch of the Nile
insulted the humble pontiff on the banks of the Tigris.
108 (return) [ Hic est ultimus chalifah qui multum atque saepius
pro concione peroraret.... Fuit etiam ultimus qui otium cum
eruditis et facetis hominibus fallere hilariterque agere soleret.
Ultimus tandem chalifarum cui sumtus, stipendia, reditus, et
thesauri, culinae, caeteraque omnis aulica pompa priorum
chalifarum ad instar comparata fuerint. Videbimus enim paullo
post quam indignis et servilibius ludibriis exagitati, quam ad
humilem fortunam altimumque contemptum abjecti fuerint hi quondam
potentissimi totius terrarum Orientalium orbis domini. Abulfed.
Annal. Moslem. p. 261. I have given this passage as the manner
and tone of Abulfeda, but the cast of Latin eloquence belongs
more properly to Reiske. The Arabian historian (p. 255, 257,
261-269, 283, &c.) has supplied me with the most interesting
facts of this paragraph.]
109 (return) [ Their master, on a similar occasion, showed
himself of a more indulgent and tolerating spirit. Ahmed Ebn
Hanbal, the head of one of the four orthodox sects, was born at
Bagdad A. H. 164, and died there A. H. 241. He fought and
suffered in the dispute concerning the creation of the Koran.]
110 (return) [ The office of vizier was superseded by the emir al
Omra, Imperator Imperatorum, a title first instituted by Radhi,
and which merged at length in the Bowides and Seljukides:
vectigalibus, et tributis, et curiis per omnes regiones
praefecit, jussitque in omnibus suggestis nominis ejus in
concionibus mentionem fieri, (Abulpharagius, Dynart. p 199.) It
is likewise mentioned by Elmacin, (p. 254, 255.)]
In the declining age of the caliphs, in the century which elapsed
after the war of Theophilus and Motassem, the hostile
transactions of the two nations were confined to some inroads by
sea and land, the fruits of their close vicinity and indelible
hatred. But when the Eastern world was convulsed and broken, the
Greeks were roused from their lethargy by the hopes of conquest
and revenge. The Byzantine empire, since the accession of the
Basilian race, had reposed in peace and dignity; and they might
encounter with their entire strength the front of some petty
emir, whose rear was assaulted and threatened by his national
foes of the Mahometan faith. The lofty titles of the morning
star, and the death of the Saracens, 111 were applied in the
public acclamations to Nicephorus Phocas, a prince as renowned in
the camp, as he was unpopular in the city. In the subordinate
station of great domestic, or general of the East, he reduced the
Island of Crete, and extirpated the nest of pirates who had so
long defied, with impunity, the majesty of the empire. 112 His
military genius was displayed in the conduct and success of the
enterprise, which had so often failed with loss and dishonor. The
Saracens were confounded by the landing of his troops on safe and
level bridges, which he cast from the vessels to the shore. Seven
months were consumed in the siege of Candia; the despair of the
native Cretans was stimulated by the frequent aid of their
brethren of Africa and Spain; and after the massy wall and double
ditch had been stormed by the Greeks a hopeless conflict was
still maintained in the streets and houses of the city. 1121 The
whole island was subdued in the capital, and a submissive people
accepted, without resistance, the baptism of the conqueror. 113
Constantinople applauded the long-forgotten pomp of a triumph;
but the Imperial diadem was the sole reward that could repay the
services, or satisfy the ambition, of Nicephorus.
111 (return) [ Liutprand, whose choleric temper was imbittered by
his uneasy situation, suggests the names of reproach and contempt
more applicable to Nicephorus than the vain titles of the Greeks,
Ecce venit stella matutina, surgit Eous, reverberat obtutu solis
radios, pallida Saracenorum mors, Nicephorus.]
112 (return) [ Notwithstanding the insinuation of Zonaras, &c.,
(tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 197,) it is an undoubted fact, that Crete
was completely and finally subdued by Nicephorus Phocas, (Pagi,
Critica, tom. iii. p. 873-875. Meursius, Creta, l. iii. c. 7,
tom. iii. p. 464, 465.)]
1121 (return) [ The Acroases of Theodorus, de expugnatione
Cretae, miserable iambics, relate the whole campaign. Whoever
would fairly estimate the merit of the poetic deacon, may read
the description of the slinging a jackass into the famishing
city. The poet is in a transport at the wit of the general, and
revels in the luxury of antithesis. Theodori Acroases, lib. iii.
172, in Niebuhr’s Byzant. Hist.—M.]
113 (return) [ A Greek Life of St. Nicon the Armenian was found
in the Sforza library, and translated into Latin by the Jesuit
Sirmond, for the use of Cardinal Baronius. This contemporary
legend casts a ray of light on Crete and Peloponnesus in the 10th
century. He found the newly-recovered island, foedis detestandae
Agarenorum superstitionis vestigiis adhuc plenam ac refertam....
but the victorious missionary, perhaps with some carnal aid, ad
baptismum omnes veraeque fidei disciplinam pepulit. Ecclesiis per
totam insulam aedificatis, &c., (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 961.)]
After the death of the younger Romanus, the fourth in lineal
descent of the Basilian race, his widow Theophania successively
married Nicephorus Phocas and his assassin John Zimisces, the two
heroes of the age. They reigned as the guardians and colleagues
of her infant sons; and the twelve years of their military
command form the most splendid period of the Byzantine annals.
The subjects and confederates, whom they led to war, appeared, at
least in the eyes of an enemy, two hundred thousand strong; and
of these about thirty thousand were armed with cuirasses: 114 a
train of four thousand mules attended their march; and their
evening camp was regularly fortified with an enclosure of iron
spikes. A series of bloody and undecisive combats is nothing more
than an anticipation of what would have been effected in a few
years by the course of nature; but I shall briefly prosecute the
conquests of the two emperors from the hills of Cappadocia to the
desert of Bagdad. The sieges of Mopsuestia and Tarsus, in
Cilicia, first exercised the skill and perseverance of their
troops, on whom, at this moment, I shall not hesitate to bestow
the name of Romans. In the double city of Mopsuestia, which is
divided by the River Sarus, two hundred thousand Moslems were
predestined to death or slavery, 115 a surprising degree of
population, which must at least include the inhabitants of the
dependent districts. They were surrounded and taken by assault;
but Tarsus was reduced by the slow progress of famine; and no
sooner had the Saracens yielded on honorable terms than they were
mortified by the distant and unprofitable view of the naval
succors of Egypt. They were dismissed with a safe-conduct to the
confines of Syria: a part of the old Christians had quietly lived
under their dominion; and the vacant habitations were replenished
by a new colony. But the mosch was converted into a stable; the
pulpit was delivered to the flames; many rich crosses of gold and
gems, the spoils of Asiatic churches, were made a grateful
offering to the piety or avarice of the emperor; and he
transported the gates of Mopsuestia and Tarsus, which were fixed
in the walls of Constantinople, an eternal monument of his
victory. After they had forced and secured the narrow passes of
Mount Amanus, the two Roman princes repeatedly carried their arms
into the heart of Syria. Yet, instead of assaulting the walls of
Antioch, the humanity or superstition of Nicephorus appeared to
respect the ancient metropolis of the East: he contented himself
with drawing round the city a line of circumvallation; left a
stationary army; and instructed his lieutenant to expect, without
impatience, the return of spring. But in the depth of winter, in
a dark and rainy night, an adventurous subaltern, with three
hundred soldiers, approached the rampart, applied his
scaling-ladders, occupied two adjacent towers, stood firm against
the pressure of multitudes, and bravely maintained his post till
he was relieved by the tardy, though effectual, support of his
reluctant chief. The first tumult of slaughter and rapine
subsided; the reign of Caesar and of Christ was restored; and the
efforts of a hundred thousand Saracens, of the armies of Syria
and the fleets of Africa, were consumed without effect before the
walls of Antioch. The royal city of Aleppo was subject to
Seifeddowlat, of the dynasty of Hamadan, who clouded his past
glory by the precipitate retreat which abandoned his kingdom and
capital to the Roman invaders. In his stately palace, that stood
without the walls of Aleppo, they joyfully seized a
well-furnished magazine of arms, a stable of fourteen hundred
mules, and three hundred bags of silver and gold. But the walls
of the city withstood the strokes of their battering-rams: and
the besiegers pitched their tents on the neighboring mountain of
Jaushan. Their retreat exasperated the quarrel of the townsmen
and mercenaries; the guard of the gates and ramparts was
deserted; and while they furiously charged each other in the
market-place, they were surprised and destroyed by the sword of a
common enemy. The male sex was exterminated by the sword; ten
thousand youths were led into captivity; the weight of the
precious spoil exceeded the strength and number of the beasts of
burden; the superfluous remainder was burnt; and, after a
licentious possession of ten days, the Romans marched away from
the naked and bleeding city. In their Syrian inroads they
commanded the husbandmen to cultivate their lands, that they
themselves, in the ensuing season, might reap the benefit; more
than a hundred cities were reduced to obedience; and eighteen
pulpits of the principal moschs were committed to the flames to
expiate the sacrilege of the disciples of Mahomet. The classic
names of Hierapolis, Apamea, and Emesa, revive for a moment in
the list of conquest: the emperor Zimisces encamped in the
paradise of Damascus, and accepted the ransom of a submissive
people; and the torrent was only stopped by the impregnable
fortress of Tripoli, on the sea-coast of Phoenicia. Since the
days of Heraclius, the Euphrates, below the passage of Mount
Taurus, had been impervious, and almost invisible, to the Greeks.
The river yielded a free passage to the victorious Zimisces; and
the historian may imitate the speed with which he overran the
once famous cities of Samosata, Edessa, Martyropolis, Amida, 116
and Nisibis, the ancient limit of the empire in the neighborhood
of the Tigris. His ardor was quickened by the desire of grasping
the virgin treasures of Ecbatana, 117 a well-known name, under
which the Byzantine writer has concealed the capital of the
Abbassides. The consternation of the fugitives had already
diffused the terror of his name; but the fancied riches of Bagdad
had already been dissipated by the avarice and prodigality of
domestic tyrants. The prayers of the people, and the stern
demands of the lieutenant of the Bowides, required the caliph to
provide for the defence of the city. The helpless Mothi replied,
that his arms, his revenues, and his provinces, had been torn
from his hands, and that he was ready to abdicate a dignity which
he was unable to support. The emir was inexorable; the furniture
of the palace was sold; and the paltry price of forty thousand
pieces of gold was instantly consumed in private luxury. But the
apprehensions of Bagdad were relieved by the retreat of the
Greeks: thirst and hunger guarded the desert of Mesopotamia; and
the emperor, satiated with glory, and laden with Oriental spoils,
returned to Constantinople, and displayed, in his triumph, the
silk, the aromatics, and three hundred myriads of gold and
silver. Yet the powers of the East had been bent, not broken, by
this transient hurricane. After the departure of the Greeks, the
fugitive princes returned to their capitals; the subjects
disclaimed their involuntary oaths of allegiance; the Moslems
again purified their temples, and overturned the idols of the
saints and martyrs; the Nestorians and Jacobites preferred a
Saracen to an orthodox master; and the numbers and spirit of the
Melchites were inadequate to the support of the church and state.
Of these extensive conquests, Antioch, with the cities of Cilicia
and the Isle of Cyprus, was alone restored, a permanent and
useful accession to the Roman empire. 118
114 (return) [ Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 278, 279. Liutprand was
disposed to depreciate the Greek power, yet he owns that
Nicephorus led against Assyria an army of eighty thousand men.]
115 (return) [ Ducenta fere millia hominum numerabat urbs
(Abulfeda, Annal. Moslem. p. 231) of Mopsuestia, or Masifa,
Mampsysta, Mansista, Mamista, as it is corruptly, or perhaps more
correctly, styled in the middle ages, (Wesseling, Itinerar. p.
580.) Yet I cannot credit this extreme populousness a few years
after the testimony of the emperor Leo, (Tactica, c. xviii. in
Meursii Oper. tom. vi. p. 817.)]
116 (return) [ The text of Leo the deacon, in the corrupt names
of Emeta and Myctarsim, reveals the cities of Amida and
Martyropolis, (Mia farekin. See Abulfeda, Geograph. p. 245, vers.
Reiske.) Of the former, Leo observes, urbus munita et illustris;
of the latter, clara atque conspicua opibusque et pecore,
reliquis ejus provinciis urbibus atque oppidis longe praestans.]
117 (return) [ Ut et Ecbatana pergeret Agarenorumque regiam
everteret.... aiunt enim urbium quae usquam sunt ac toto orbe
existunt felicissimam esse auroque ditissimam, (Leo Diacon. apud
Pagium, tom. iv. p. 34.) This splendid description suits only
with Bagdad, and cannot possibly apply either to Hamadan, the
true Ecbatana, (D’Anville, Geog. Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 237,) or
Tauris, which has been commonly mistaken for that city. The name
of Ecbatana, in the same indefinite sense, is transferred by a
more classic authority (Cicero pro Lego Manilia, c. 4) to the
royal seat of Mithridates, king of Pontus.]
118 (return) [ See the Annals of Elmacin, Abulpharagius, and
Abulfeda, from A. H. 351 to A. H. 361; and the reigns of
Nicephorus Phocas and John Zimisces, in the Chronicles of Zonaras
(tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 199—l. xvii. 215) and Cedrenus, (Compend. p.
649-684.) Their manifold defects are partly supplied by the Ms.
history of Leo the deacon, which Pagi obtained from the
Benedictines, and has inserted almost entire, in a Latin version,
(Critica, tom. iii. p. 873, tom. iv. 37.) * Note: The whole
original work of Leo the Deacon has been published by Hase, and
is inserted in the new edition of the Byzantine historians. M
Lassen has added to the Arabian authorities of this period some
extracts from Kemaleddin’s account of the treaty for the
surrender of Aleppo.—M.]
Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part I.
Fate Of The Eastern Empire In The Tenth Century.—Extent And
Division.—Wealth And Revenue.—Palace Of Constantinople.— Titles
And Offices.—Pride And Power Of The Emperors.— Tactics Of The
Greeks, Arabs, And Franks.—Loss Of The Latin Tongue.—Studies And
Solitude Of The Greeks.
A ray of historic light seems to beam from the darkness of the
tenth century. We open with curiosity and respect the royal
volumes of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, 1 which he composed at a
mature age for the instruction of his son, and which promise to
unfold the state of the eastern empire, both in peace and war,
both at home and abroad. In the first of these works he minutely
describes the pompous ceremonies of the church and palace of
Constantinople, according to his own practice, and that of his
predecessors. 2 In the second, he attempts an accurate survey of
the provinces, the themes, as they were then denominated, both of
Europe and Asia. 3 The system of Roman tactics, the discipline
and order of the troops, and the military operations by land and
sea, are explained in the third of these didactic collections,
which may be ascribed to Constantine or his father Leo. 4 In the
fourth, of the administration of the empire, he reveals the
secrets of the Byzantine policy, in friendly or hostile
intercourse with the nations of the earth. The literary labors of
the age, the practical systems of law, agriculture, and history,
might redound to the benefit of the subject and the honor of the
Macedonian princes. The sixty books of the Basilics, 5 the code
and pandects of civil jurisprudence, were gradually framed in the
three first reigns of that prosperous dynasty. The art of
agriculture had amused the leisure, and exercised the pens, of
the best and wisest of the ancients; and their chosen precepts
are comprised in the twenty books of the Geoponics 6 of
Constantine. At his command, the historical examples of vice and
virtue were methodized in fifty-three books, 7 and every citizen
might apply, to his contemporaries or himself, the lesson or the
warning of past times. From the august character of a legislator,
the sovereign of the East descends to the more humble office of a
teacher and a scribe; and if his successors and subjects were
regardless of his paternal cares, we may inherit and enjoy the
everlasting legacy.
1 (return) [ The epithet of Porphyrogenitus, born in the purple,
is elegantly defined by Claudian:— Ardua privatos nescit fortuna
Penates; Et regnum cum luce dedit. Cognata potestas Excepit Tyrio
venerabile pignus in ostro.
And Ducange, in his Greek and Latin Glossaries, produces many
passages expressive of the same idea.]
2 (return) [ A splendid Ms. of Constantine, de Caeremoniis Aulae
et Ecclesiae Byzantinae, wandered from Constantinople to Buda,
Frankfort, and Leipsic, where it was published in a splendid
edition by Leich and Reiske, (A.D. 1751, in folio,) with such
lavish praise as editors never fail to bestow on the worthy or
worthless object of their toil.]
3 (return) [ See, in the first volume of Banduri’s Imperium
Orientale, Constantinus de Thematibus, p. 1-24, de Administrando
Imperio, p. 45-127, edit. Venet. The text of the old edition of
Meursius is corrected from a Ms. of the royal library of Paris,
which Isaac Casaubon had formerly seen, (Epist. ad Polybium, p.
10,) and the sense is illustrated by two maps of William
Deslisle, the prince of geographers till the appearance of the
greater D’Anville.]
4 (return) [ The Tactics of Leo and Constantine are published
with the aid of some new Mss. in the great edition of the works
of Meursius, by the learned John Lami, (tom. vi. p. 531-920,
1211-1417, Florent. 1745,) yet the text is still corrupt and
mutilated, the version is still obscure and faulty. The Imperial
library of Vienna would afford some valuable materials to a new
editor, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 369, 370.)]
5 (return) [ On the subject of the Basilics, Fabricius, (Bibliot.
Graec. tom. xii. p. 425-514,) and Heineccius, (Hist. Juris
Romani, p. 396-399,) and Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli,
tom. i. p. 450-458,) as historical civilians, may be usefully
consulted: xli. books of this Greek code have been published,
with a Latin version, by Charles Annibal Frabrottus, (Paris,
1647,) in seven tomes in folio; iv. other books have been since
discovered, and are inserted in Gerard Meerman’s Novus Thesaurus
Juris Civ. et Canon. tom. v. Of the whole work, the sixty books,
John Leunclavius has printed, (Basil, 1575,) an eclogue or
synopsis. The cxiii. novels, or new laws, of Leo, may be found in
the Corpus Juris Civilis.]
6 (return) [ I have used the last and best edition of the
Geoponics, (by Nicolas Niclas, Leipsic, 1781, 2 vols. in octavo.)
I read in the preface, that the same emperor restored the
long-forgotten systems of rhetoric and philosophy; and his two
books of Hippiatrica, or Horse-physic, were published at Paris,
1530, in folio, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 493-500.)]
7 (return) [ Of these LIII. books, or titles, only two have been
preserved and printed, de Legationibus (by Fulvius Ursinus,
Antwerp, 1582, and Daniel Hoeschelius, August. Vindel. 1603) and
de Virtutibus et Vitiis, (by Henry Valesius, or de Valois, Paris,
1634.)]
A closer survey will indeed reduce the value of the gift, and the
gratitude of posterity: in the possession of these Imperial
treasures we may still deplore our poverty and ignorance; and the
fading glories of their authors will be obliterated by
indifference or contempt. The Basilics will sink to a broken
copy, a partial and mutilated version, in the Greek language, of
the laws of Justinian; but the sense of the old civilians is
often superseded by the influence of bigotry: and the absolute
prohibition of divorce, concubinage, and interest for money,
enslaves the freedom of trade and the happiness of private life.
In the historical book, a subject of Constantine might admire the
inimitable virtues of Greece and Rome: he might learn to what a
pitch of energy and elevation the human character had formerly
aspired. But a contrary effect must have been produced by a new
edition of the lives of the saints, which the great logothete, or
chancellor of the empire, was directed to prepare; and the dark
fund of superstition was enriched by the fabulous and florid
legends of Simon the Metaphrast. 8 The merits and miracles of the
whole calendar are of less account in the eyes of a sage, than
the toil of a single husbandman, who multiplies the gifts of the
Creator, and supplies the food of his brethren. Yet the royal
authors of the Geoponics were more seriously employed in
expounding the precepts of the destroying art, which had been
taught since the days of Xenophon, 9 as the art of heroes and
kings. But the Tactics of Leo and Constantine are mingled with
the baser alloy of the age in which they lived. It was destitute
of original genius; they implicitly transcribe the rules and
maxims which had been confirmed by victories. It was unskilled in
the propriety of style and method; they blindly confound the most
distant and discordant institutions, the phalanx of Sparta and
that of Macedon, the legions of Cato and Trajan, of Augustus and
Theodosius. Even the use, or at least the importance, of these
military rudiments may be fairly questioned: their general theory
is dictated by reason; but the merit, as well as difficulty,
consists in the application. The discipline of a soldier is
formed by exercise rather than by study: the talents of a
commander are appropriated to those calm, though rapid, minds,
which nature produces to decide the fate of armies and nations:
the former is the habit of a life, the latter the glance of a
moment; and the battles won by lessons of tactics may be numbered
with the epic poems created from the rules of criticism. The book
of ceremonies is a recital, tedious yet imperfect, of the
despicable pageantry which had infected the church and state
since the gradual decay of the purity of the one and the power of
the other. A review of the themes or provinces might promise such
authentic and useful information, as the curiosity of government
only can obtain, instead of traditionary fables on the origin of
the cities, and malicious epigrams on the vices of their
inhabitants. 10 Such information the historian would have been
pleased to record; nor should his silence be condemned if the
most interesting objects, the population of the capital and
provinces, the amount of the taxes and revenues, the numbers of
subjects and strangers who served under the Imperial standard,
have been unnoticed by Leo the philosopher, and his son
Constantine. His treatise of the public administration is stained
with the same blemishes; yet it is discriminated by peculiar
merit; the antiquities of the nations may be doubtful or
fabulous; but the geography and manners of the Barbaric world are
delineated with curious accuracy. Of these nations, the Franks
alone were qualified to observe in their turn, and to describe,
the metropolis of the East. The ambassador of the great Otho, a
bishop of Cremona, has painted the state of Constantinople about
the middle of the tenth century: his style is glowing, his
narrative lively, his observation keen; and even the prejudices
and passions of Liutprand are stamped with an original character
of freedom and genius. 11 From this scanty fund of foreign and
domestic materials, I shall investigate the form and substance of
the Byzantine empire; the provinces and wealth, the civil
government and military force, the character and literature, of
the Greeks in a period of six hundred years, from the reign of
Heraclius to his successful invasion of the Franks or Latins.
8 (return) [ The life and writings of Simon Metaphrastes are
described by Hankius, (de Scriptoribus Byzant. p. 418-460.) This
biographer of the saints indulged himself in a loose paraphrase
of the sense or nonsense of more ancient acts. His Greek rhetoric
is again paraphrased in the Latin version of Surius, and scarcely
a thread can be now visible of the original texture.]
9 (return) [ According to the first book of the Cyropaedia,
professors of tactics, a small part of the science of war, were
already instituted in Persia, by which Greece must be understood.
A good edition of all the Scriptores Tactici would be a task not
unworthy of a scholar. His industry might discover some new Mss.,
and his learning might illustrate the military history of the
ancients. But this scholar should be likewise a soldier; and
alas! Quintus Icilius is no more. * Note: M. Guichardt, author of
Memoires Militaires sur les Grecs et sur les Romains. See
Gibbon’s Extraits Raisonnees de mes Lectures, Misc. Works vol. v.
p. 219.—M]
10 (return) [ After observing that the demerit of the
Cappadocians rose in proportion to their rank and riches, he
inserts a more pointed epigram, which is ascribed to Demodocus.
The sting is precisely the same with the French epigram against
Freron: Un serpent mordit Jean Freron—Eh bien? Le serpent en
mourut. But as the Paris wits are seldom read in the Anthology, I
should be curious to learn, through what channel it was conveyed
for their imitation, (Constantin. Porphyrogen. de Themat. c. ii.
Brunck Analect. Graec. tom. ii. p. 56. Brodaei Anthologia, l. ii.
p. 244.)]
11 (return) [ The Legatio Liutprandi Episcopi Cremonensis ad
Nicephorum Phocam is inserted in Muratori, Scriptores Rerum
Italicarum, tom. ii. pars i.]
After the final division between the sons of Theodosius, the
swarms of Barbarians from Scythia and Germany over-spread the
provinces and extinguished the empire of ancient Rome. The
weakness of Constantinople was concealed by extent of dominion:
her limits were inviolate, or at least entire; and the kingdom of
Justinian was enlarged by the splendid acquisition of Africa and
Italy. But the possession of these new conquests was transient
and precarious; and almost a moiety of the Eastern empire was
torn away by the arms of the Saracens. Syria and Egypt were
oppressed by the Arabian caliphs; and, after the reduction of
Africa, their lieutenants invaded and subdued the Roman province
which had been changed into the Gothic monarchy of Spain. The
islands of the Mediterranean were not inaccessible to their naval
powers; and it was from their extreme stations, the harbors of
Crete and the fortresses of Cilicia, that the faithful or rebel
emirs insulted the majesty of the throne and capital. The
remaining provinces, under the obedience of the emperors, were
cast into a new mould; and the jurisdiction of the presidents,
the consulars, and the counts were superseded by the institution
of the themes, 12 or military governments, which prevailed under
the successors of Heraclius, and are described by the pen of the
royal author. Of the twenty-nine themes, twelve in Europe and
seventeen in Asia, the origin is obscure, the etymology doubtful
or capricious: the limits were arbitrary and fluctuating; but
some particular names, that sound the most strangely to our ear,
were derived from the character and attributes of the troops that
were maintained at the expense, and for the guard, of the
respective divisions. The vanity of the Greek princes most
eagerly grasped the shadow of conquest and the memory of lost
dominion. A new Mesopotamia was created on the western side of
the Euphrates: the appellation and praetor of Sicily were
transferred to a narrow slip of Calabria; and a fragment of the
duchy of Beneventum was promoted to the style and title of the
theme of Lombardy. In the decline of the Arabian empire, the
successors of Constantine might indulge their pride in more solid
advantages. The victories of Nicephorus, John Zimisces, and Basil
the Second, revived the fame, and enlarged the boundaries, of the
Roman name: the province of Cilicia, the metropolis of Antioch,
the islands of Crete and Cyprus, were restored to the allegiance
of Christ and Caesar: one third of Italy was annexed to the
throne of Constantinople: the kingdom of Bulgaria was destroyed;
and the last sovereigns of the Macedonian dynasty extended their
sway from the sources of the Tigris to the neighborhood of Rome.
In the eleventh century, the prospect was again clouded by new
enemies and new misfortunes: the relics of Italy were swept away
by the Norman adventures; and almost all the Asiatic branches
were dissevered from the Roman trunk by the Turkish conquerors.
After these losses, the emperors of the Comnenian family
continued to reign from the Danube to Peloponnesus, and from
Belgrade to Nice, Trebizond, and the winding stream of the
Meander. The spacious provinces of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece,
were obedient to their sceptre; the possession of Cyprus, Rhodes,
and Crete, was accompanied by the fifty islands of the Aegean or
Holy Sea; 13 and the remnant of their empire transcends the
measure of the largest of the European kingdoms.
12 (return) [ See Constantine de Thematibus, in Banduri, tom. i.
p. 1-30. It is used by Maurice (Strata gem. l. ii. c. 2) for a
legion, from whence the name was easily transferred to its post
or province, (Ducange, Gloss. Graec. tom. i. p. 487-488.) Some
etymologies are attempted for the Opiscian, Optimatian,
Thracesian, themes.]
13 (return) [ It is styled by the modern Greeks, from which the
corrupt names of Archipelago, l’Archipel, and the Arches, have
been transformed by geographers and seamen, (D’Anville,
Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 281. Analyse de la Carte de la
Greece, p. 60.) The numbers of monks or caloyers in all the
islands and the adjacent mountain of Athos, (Observations de
Belon, fol. 32, verso,) monte santo, might justify the epithet of
holy, a slight alteration from the original, imposed by the
Dorians, who, in their dialect, gave the figurative name of
goats, to the bounding waves, (Vossius, apud Cellarium, Geograph.
Antiq. tom. i. p. 829.)]
The same princes might assert, with dignity and truth, that of
all the monarchs of Christendom they possessed the greatest city,
14 the most ample revenue, the most flourishing and populous
state. With the decline and fall of the empire, the cities of the
West had decayed and fallen; nor could the ruins of Rome, or the
mud walls, wooden hovels, and narrow precincts of Paris and
London, prepare the Latin stranger to contemplate the situation
and extent of Constantinople, her stately palaces and churches,
and the arts and luxury of an innumerable people. Her treasures
might attract, but her virgin strength had repelled, and still
promised to repel, the audacious invasion of the Persian and
Bulgarian, the Arab and the Russian. The provinces were less
fortunate and impregnable; and few districts, few cities, could
be discovered which had not been violated by some fierce
Barbarian, impatient to despoil, because he was hopeless to
possess. From the age of Justinian the Eastern empire was sinking
below its former level; the powers of destruction were more
active than those of improvement; and the calamities of war were
imbittered by the more permanent evils of civil and
ecclesiastical tyranny. The captive who had escaped from the
Barbarians was often stripped and imprisoned by the ministers of
his sovereign: the Greek superstition relaxed the mind by prayer,
and emaciated the body by fasting; and the multitude of convents
and festivals diverted many hands and many days from the temporal
service of mankind. Yet the subjects of the Byzantine empire were
still the most dexterous and diligent of nations; their country
was blessed by nature with every advantage of soil, climate, and
situation; and, in the support and restoration of the arts, their
patient and peaceful temper was more useful than the warlike
spirit and feudal anarchy of Europe. The provinces that still
adhered to the empire were repeopled and enriched by the
misfortunes of those which were irrecoverably lost. From the yoke
of the caliphs, the Catholics of Syria, Egypt, and Africa retired
to the allegiance of their prince, to the society of their
brethren: the movable wealth, which eludes the search of
oppression, accompanied and alleviated their exile, and
Constantinople received into her bosom the fugitive trade of
Alexandria and Tyre. The chiefs of Armenia and Scythia, who fled
from hostile or religious persecution, were hospitably
entertained: their followers were encouraged to build new cities
and to cultivate waste lands; and many spots, both in Europe and
Asia, preserved the name, the manners, or at least the memory, of
these national colonies. Even the tribes of Barbarians, who had
seated themselves in arms on the territory of the empire, were
gradually reclaimed to the laws of the church and state; and as
long as they were separated from the Greeks, their posterity
supplied a race of faithful and obedient soldiers. Did we possess
sufficient materials to survey the twenty-nine themes of the
Byzantine monarchy, our curiosity might be satisfied with a
chosen example: it is fortunate enough that the clearest light
should be thrown on the most interesting province, and the name
of Peloponnesus will awaken the attention of the classic reader.
14 (return) [ According to the Jewish traveller who had visited
Europe and Asia, Constantinople was equalled only by Bagdad, the
great city of the Ismaelites, (Voyage de Benjamin de Tudele, par
Baratier, tom. l. c. v. p. 46.)]
As early as the eighth century, in the troubled reign of the
Iconoclasts, Greece, and even Peloponnesus, 15 were overrun by
some Sclavonian bands who outstripped the royal standard of
Bulgaria. The strangers of old, Cadmus, and Danaus, and Pelops,
had planted in that fruitful soil the seeds of policy and
learning; but the savages of the north eradicated what yet
remained of their sickly and withered roots. In this irruption,
the country and the inhabitants were transformed; the Grecian
blood was contaminated; and the proudest nobles of Peloponnesus
were branded with the names of foreigners and slaves. By the
diligence of succeeding princes, the land was in some measure
purified from the Barbarians; and the humble remnant was bound by
an oath of obedience, tribute, and military service, which they
often renewed and often violated. The siege of Patras was formed
by a singular concurrence of the Sclavonians of Peloponnesus and
the Saracens of Africa. In their last distress, a pious fiction
of the approach of the praetor of Corinth revived the courage of
the citizens. Their sally was bold and successful; the strangers
embarked, the rebels submitted, and the glory of the day was
ascribed to a phantom or a stranger, who fought in the foremost
ranks under the character of St. Andrew the Apostle. The shrine
which contained his relics was decorated with the trophies of
victory, and the captive race was forever devoted to the service
and vassalage of the metropolitan church of Patras. By the revolt
of two Sclavonian tribes, in the neighborhood of Helos and
Lacedaemon, the peace of the peninsula was often disturbed. They
sometimes insulted the weakness, and sometimes resisted the
oppression, of the Byzantine government, till at length the
approach of their hostile brethren extorted a golden bull to
define the rites and obligations of the Ezzerites and Milengi,
whose annual tribute was defined at twelve hundred pieces of
gold. From these strangers the Imperial geographer has accurately
distinguished a domestic, and perhaps original, race, who, in
some degree, might derive their blood from the much-injured
Helots. The liberality of the Romans, and especially of Augustus,
had enfranchised the maritime cities from the dominion of Sparta;
and the continuance of the same benefit ennobled them with the
title of Eleuthero, or Free-Laconians. 16 In the time of
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, they had acquired the name of
Mainotes, under which they dishonor the claim of liberty by the
inhuman pillage of all that is shipwrecked on their rocky shores.
Their territory, barren of corn, but fruitful of olives, extended
to the Cape of Malea: they accepted a chief or prince from the
Byzantine praetor, and a light tribute of four hundred pieces of
gold was the badge of their immunity, rather than of their
dependence. The freemen of Laconia assumed the character of
Romans, and long adhered to the religion of the Greeks. By the
zeal of the emperor Basil, they were baptized in the faith of
Christ: but the altars of Venus and Neptune had been crowned by
these rustic votaries five hundred years after they were
proscribed in the Roman world. In the theme of Peloponnesus, 17
forty cities were still numbered, and the declining state of
Sparta, Argos, and Corinth, may be suspended in the tenth
century, at an equal distance, perhaps, between their antique
splendor and their present desolation. The duty of military
service, either in person or by substitute, was imposed on the
lands or benefices of the province; a sum of five pieces of gold
was assessed on each of the substantial tenants; and the same
capitation was shared among several heads of inferior value. On
the proclamation of an Italian war, the Peloponnesians excused
themselves by a voluntary oblation of one hundred pounds of gold,
(four thousand pounds sterling,) and a thousand horses with their
arms and trappings. The churches and monasteries furnished their
contingent; a sacrilegious profit was extorted from the sale of
ecclesiastical honors; and the indigent bishop of Leucadia 18 was
made responsible for a pension of one hundred pieces of gold. 19
15 (return) [ Says Constantine, (Thematibus, l. ii. c. vi. p.
25,) in a style as barbarous as the idea, which he confirms, as
usual, by a foolish epigram. The epitomizer of Strabo likewise
observes, (l. vii. p. 98, edit. Hudson. edit. Casaub. 1251;) a
passage which leads Dodwell a weary dance (Geograph, Minor. tom.
ii. dissert. vi. p. 170-191) to enumerate the inroads of the
Sclavi, and to fix the date (A.D. 980) of this petty geographer.]
16 (return) [ Strabon. Geograph. l. viii. p. 562. Pausanius,
Graec. Descriptio, l. c 21, p. 264, 265. Pliny, Hist. Natur. l.
iv. c. 8.]
17 (return) [ Constantin. de Administrando Imperio, l. ii. c. 50,
51, 52.]
18 (return) [ The rock of Leucate was the southern promontory of
his island and diocese. Had he been the exclusive guardian of the
Lover’s Leap so well known to the readers of Ovid (Epist. Sappho)
and the Spectator, he might have been the richest prelate of the
Greek church.]
19 (return) [ Leucatensis mihi juravit episcopus, quotannis
ecclesiam suam debere Nicephoro aureos centum persolvere,
similiter et ceteras plus minusve secundum vires suos, (Liutprand
in Legat. p. 489.)]
But the wealth of the province, and the trust of the revenue,
were founded on the fair and plentiful produce of trade and
manufacturers; and some symptoms of liberal policy may be traced
in a law which exempts from all personal taxes the mariners of
Peloponnesus, and the workmen in parchment and purple. This
denomination may be fairly applied or extended to the
manufacturers of linen, woollen, and more especially of silk: the
two former of which had flourished in Greece since the days of
Homer; and the last was introduced perhaps as early as the reign
of Justinian. These arts, which were exercised at Corinth,
Thebes, and Argos, afforded food and occupation to a numerous
people: the men, women, and children were distributed according
to their age and strength; and, if many of these were domestic
slaves, their masters, who directed the work and enjoyed the
profit, were of a free and honorable condition. The gifts which a
rich and generous matron of Peloponnesus presented to the emperor
Basil, her adopted son, were doubtless fabricated in the Grecian
looms. Danielis bestowed a carpet of fine wool, of a pattern
which imitated the spots of a peacock’s tail, of a magnitude to
overspread the floor of a new church, erected in the triple name
of Christ, of Michael the archangel, and of the prophet Elijah.
She gave six hundred pieces of silk and linen, of various use and
denomination: the silk was painted with the Tyrian dye, and
adorned by the labors of the needle; and the linen was so
exquisitely fine, that an entire piece might be rolled in the
hollow of a cane. 20 In his description of the Greek
manufactures, an historian of Sicily discriminates their price,
according to the weight and quality of the silk, the closeness of
the texture, the beauty of the colors, and the taste and
materials of the embroidery. A single, or even a double or treble
thread was thought sufficient for ordinary sale; but the union of
six threads composed a piece of stronger and more costly
workmanship. Among the colors, he celebrates, with affectation of
eloquence, the fiery blaze of the scarlet, and the softer lustre
of the green. The embroidery was raised either in silk or gold:
the more simple ornament of stripes or circles was surpassed by
the nicer imitation of flowers: the vestments that were
fabricated for the palace or the altar often glittered with
precious stones; and the figures were delineated in strings of
Oriental pearls. 21 Till the twelfth century, Greece alone, of
all the countries of Christendom, was possessed of the insect who
is taught by nature, and of the workmen who are instructed by
art, to prepare this elegant luxury. But the secret had been
stolen by the dexterity and diligence of the Arabs: the caliphs
of the East and West scorned to borrow from the unbelievers their
furniture and apparel; and two cities of Spain, Almeria and
Lisbon, were famous for the manufacture, the use, and, perhaps,
the exportation, of silk. It was first introduced into Sicily by
the Normans; and this emigration of trade distinguishes the
victory of Roger from the uniform and fruitless hostilities of
every age. After the sack of Corinth, Athens, and Thebes, his
lieutenant embarked with a captive train of weavers and
artificers of both sexes, a trophy glorious to their master, and
disgraceful to the Greek emperor. 22 The king of Sicily was not
insensible of the value of the present; and, in the restitution
of the prisoners, he excepted only the male and female
manufacturers of Thebes and Corinth, who labor, says the
Byzantine historian, under a barbarous lord, like the old
Eretrians in the service of Darius. 23 A stately edifice, in the
palace of Palermo, was erected for the use of this industrious
colony; 24 and the art was propagated by their children and
disciples to satisfy the increasing demand of the western world.
The decay of the looms of Sicily may be ascribed to the troubles
of the island, and the competition of the Italian cities. In the
year thirteen hundred and fourteen, Lucca alone, among her sister
republics, enjoyed the lucrative monopoly. 25 A domestic
revolution dispersed the manufacturers to Florence, Bologna,
Venice, Milan, and even the countries beyond the Alps; and
thirteen years after this event the statutes of Modena enjoin the
planting of mulberry-trees, and regulate the duties on raw silk.
26 The northern climates are less propitious to the education of
the silkworm; but the industry of France and England 27 is
supplied and enriched by the productions of Italy and China.
20 (return) [ See Constantine, (in Vit. Basil. c. 74, 75, 76, p.
195, 197, in Script. post Theophanem,) who allows himself to use
many technical or barbarous words: barbarous, says he. Ducange
labors on some: but he was not a weaver.]
21 (return) [ The manufactures of Palermo, as they are described
by Hugo Falcandus, (Hist. Sicula in proem. in Muratori Script.
Rerum Italicarum, tom. v. p. 256,) is a copy of those of Greece.
Without transcribing his declamatory sentences, which I have
softened in the text, I shall observe, that in this passage the
strange word exarentasmata is very properly changed for
exanthemata by Carisius, the first editor Falcandus lived about
the year 1190.]
22 (return) [ Inde ad interiora Graeciae progressi, Corinthum,
Thebas, Athenas, antiqua nobilitate celebres, expugnant; et,
maxima ibidem praeda direpta, opifices etiam, qui sericos pannos
texere solent, ob ignominiam Imperatoris illius, suique principis
gloriam, captivos deducunt. Quos Rogerius, in Palermo Siciliae,
metropoli collocans, artem texendi suos edocere praecepit; et
exhinc praedicta ars illa, prius a Graecis tantum inter
Christianos habita, Romanis patere coepit ingeniis, (Otho
Frisingen. de Gestis Frederici I. l. i. c. 33, in Muratori
Script. Ital. tom. vi. p. 668.) This exception allows the bishop
to celebrate Lisbon and Almeria in sericorum pannorum opificio
praenobilissimae, (in Chron. apud Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom.
ix. p. 415.)]
23 (return) [ Nicetas in Manuel, l. ii. c. 8. p. 65. He describes
these Greeks as skilled.]
24 (return) [ Hugo Falcandus styles them nobiles officinas. The
Arabs had not introduced silk, though they had planted canes and
made sugar in the plain of Palermo.]
25 (return) [ See the Life of Castruccio Casticani, not by
Machiavel, but by his more authentic biographer Nicholas Tegrimi.
Muratori, who has inserted it in the xith volume of his
Scriptores, quotes this curious passage in his Italian
Antiquities, (tom. i. dissert. xxv. p. 378.)]
26 (return) [ From the Ms. statutes, as they are quoted by
Muratori in his Italian Antiquities, (tom. ii. dissert. xxv. p.
46-48.)]
27 (return) [ The broad silk manufacture was established in
England in the year 1620, (Anderson’s Chronological Deduction,
vol. ii. p. 4: ) but it is to the revocation of the edict of
Nantes that we owe the Spitalfields colony.]
Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part II.
I must repeat the complaint that the vague and scanty memorials
of the times will not afford any just estimate of the taxes, the
revenue, and the resources of the Greek empire. From every
province of Europe and Asia the rivulets of gold and silver
discharged into the Imperial reservoir a copious and perennial
stream. The separation of the branches from the trunk increased
the relative magnitude of Constantinople; and the maxims of
despotism contracted the state to the capital, the capital to the
palace, and the palace to the royal person. A Jewish traveller,
who visited the East in the twelfth century, is lost in his
admiration of the Byzantine riches. “It is here,” says Benjamin
of Tudela, “in the queen of cities, that the tributes of the
Greek empire are annually deposited and the lofty towers are
filled with precious magazines of silk, purple, and gold. It is
said, that Constantinople pays each day to her sovereign twenty
thousand pieces of gold; which are levied on the shops, taverns,
and markets, on the merchants of Persia and Egypt, of Russia and
Hungary, of Italy and Spain, who frequent the capital by sea and
land.” 28 In all pecuniary matters, the authority of a Jew is
doubtless respectable; but as the three hundred and sixty-five
days would produce a yearly income exceeding seven millions
sterling, I am tempted to retrench at least the numerous
festivals of the Greek calendar. The mass of treasure that was
saved by Theodora and Basil the Second will suggest a splendid,
though indefinite, idea of their supplies and resources. The
mother of Michael, before she retired to a cloister, attempted to
check or expose the prodigality of her ungrateful son, by a free
and faithful account of the wealth which he inherited; one
hundred and nine thousand pounds of gold, and three hundred
thousand of silver, the fruits of her own economy and that of her
deceased husband. 29 The avarice of Basil is not less renowned
than his valor and fortune: his victorious armies were paid and
rewarded without breaking into the mass of two hundred thousand
pounds of gold, (about eight millions sterling,) which he had
buried in the subterraneous vaults of the palace. 30 Such
accumulation of treasure is rejected by the theory and practice
of modern policy; and we are more apt to compute the national
riches by the use and abuse of the public credit. Yet the maxims
of antiquity are still embraced by a monarch formidable to his
enemies; by a republic respectable to her allies; and both have
attained their respective ends of military power and domestic
tranquillity.
28 (return) [ Voyage de Benjamin de Tudele, tom. i. c. 5, p.
44-52. The Hebrew text has been translated into French by that
marvellous child Baratier, who has added a volume of crude
learning. The errors and fictions of the Jewish rabbi are not a
sufficient ground to deny the reality of his travels. * Note: I
am inclined, with Buegnot (Les Juifs d’Occident, part iii. p. 101
et seqq.) and Jost (Geschichte der Israeliter, vol. vi. anhang.
p. 376) to consider this work a mere compilation, and to doubt
the reality of the travels.—M.]
29 (return) [ See the continuator of Theophanes, (l. iv. p. 107,)
Cedremis, (p. 544,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 157.)]
30 (return) [ Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xvii. p. 225,) instead of
pounds, uses the more classic appellation of talents, which, in a
literal sense and strict computation, would multiply sixty fold
the treasure of Basil.]
Whatever might be consumed for the present wants, or reserved for
the future use, of the state, the first and most sacred demand
was for the pomp and pleasure of the emperor, and his discretion
only could define the measure of his private expense. The princes
of Constantinople were far removed from the simplicity of nature;
yet, with the revolving seasons, they were led by taste or
fashion to withdraw to a purer air, from the smoke and tumult of
the capital. They enjoyed, or affected to enjoy, the rustic
festival of the vintage: their leisure was amused by the exercise
of the chase and the calmer occupation of fishing, and in the
summer heats, they were shaded from the sun, and refreshed by the
cooling breezes from the sea. The coasts and islands of Asia and
Europe were covered with their magnificent villas; but, instead
of the modest art which secretly strives to hide itself and to
decorate the scenery of nature, the marble structure of their
gardens served only to expose the riches of the lord, and the
labors of the architect. The successive casualties of inheritance
and forfeiture had rendered the sovereign proprietor of many
stately houses in the city and suburbs, of which twelve were
appropriated to the ministers of state; but the great palace, 31
the centre of the Imperial residence, was fixed during eleven
centuries to the same position, between the hippodrome, the
cathedral of St. Sophia, and the gardens, which descended by many
a terrace to the shores of the Propontis. The primitive edifice
of the first Constantine was a copy, or rival, of ancient Rome;
the gradual improvements of his successors aspired to emulate the
wonders of the old world, 32 and in the tenth century, the
Byzantine palace excited the admiration, at least of the Latins,
by an unquestionable preeminence of strength, size, and
magnificence. 33 But the toil and treasure of so many ages had
produced a vast and irregular pile: each separate building was
marked with the character of the times and of the founder; and
the want of space might excuse the reigning monarch, who
demolished, perhaps with secret satisfaction, the works of his
predecessors. The economy of the emperor Theophilus allowed a
more free and ample scope for his domestic luxury and splendor. A
favorite ambassador, who had astonished the Abbassides themselves
by his pride and liberality, presented on his return the model of
a palace, which the caliph of Bagdad had recently constructed on
the banks of the Tigris. The model was instantly copied and
surpassed: the new buildings of Theophilus 34 were accompanied
with gardens, and with five churches, one of which was
conspicuous for size and beauty: it was crowned with three domes,
the roof of gilt brass reposed on columns of Italian marble, and
the walls were incrusted with marbles of various colors. In the
face of the church, a semicircular portico, of the figure and
name of the Greek sigma, was supported by fifteen columns of
Phrygian marble, and the subterraneous vaults were of a similar
construction. The square before the sigma was decorated with a
fountain, and the margin of the basin was lined and encompassed
with plates of silver. In the beginning of each season, the
basin, instead of water, was replenished with the most exquisite
fruits, which were abandoned to the populace for the
entertainment of the prince. He enjoyed this tumultuous spectacle
from a throne resplendent with gold and gems, which was raised by
a marble staircase to the height of a lofty terrace. Below the
throne were seated the officers of his guards, the magistrates,
the chiefs of the factions of the circus; the inferior steps were
occupied by the people, and the place below was covered with
troops of dancers, singers, and pantomimes. The square was
surrounded by the hall of justice, the arsenal, and the various
offices of business and pleasure; and the purple chamber was
named from the annual distribution of robes of scarlet and purple
by the hand of the empress herself. The long series of the
apartments was adapted to the seasons, and decorated with marble
and porphyry, with painting, sculpture, and mosaics, with a
profusion of gold, silver, and precious stones. His fanciful
magnificence employed the skill and patience of such artists as
the times could afford: but the taste of Athens would have
despised their frivolous and costly labors; a golden tree, with
its leaves and branches, which sheltered a multitude of birds
warbling their artificial notes, and two lions of massy gold, and
of natural size, who looked and roared like their brethren of the
forest. The successors of Theophilus, of the Basilian and
Comnenian dynasties, were not less ambitious of leaving some
memorial of their residence; and the portion of the palace most
splendid and august was dignified with the title of the golden
triclinium. 35 With becoming modesty, the rich and noble Greeks
aspired to imitate their sovereign, and when they passed through
the streets on horseback, in their robes of silk and embroidery,
they were mistaken by the children for kings. 36 A matron of
Peloponnesus, 37 who had cherished the infant fortunes of Basil
the Macedonian, was excited by tenderness or vanity to visit the
greatness of her adopted son. In a journey of five hundred miles
from Patras to Constantinople, her age or indolence declined the
fatigue of a horse or carriage: the soft litter or bed of
Danielis was transported on the shoulders of ten robust slaves;
and as they were relieved at easy distances, a band of three
hundred were selected for the performance of this service. She
was entertained in the Byzantine palace with filial reverence,
and the honors of a queen; and whatever might be the origin of
her wealth, her gifts were not unworthy of the regal dignity. I
have already described the fine and curious manufactures of
Peloponnesus, of linen, silk, and woollen; but the most
acceptable of her presents consisted in three hundred beautiful
youths, of whom one hundred were eunuchs; 38 “for she was not
ignorant,” says the historian, “that the air of the palace is
more congenial to such insects, than a shepherd’s dairy to the
flies of the summer.” During her lifetime, she bestowed the
greater part of her estates in Peloponnesus, and her testament
instituted Leo, the son of Basil, her universal heir. After the
payment of the legacies, fourscore villas or farms were added to
the Imperial domain; and three thousand slaves of Danielis were
enfranchised by their new lord, and transplanted as a colony to
the Italian coast. From this example of a private matron, we may
estimate the wealth and magnificence of the emperors. Yet our
enjoyments are confined by a narrow circle; and, whatsoever may
be its value, the luxury of life is possessed with more innocence
and safety by the master of his own, than by the steward of the
public, fortune.
31 (return) [ For a copious and minute description of the
Imperial palace, see the Constantinop. Christiana (l. ii. c. 4,
p. 113-123) of Ducange, the Tillemont of the middle ages. Never
has laborious Germany produced two antiquarians more laborious
and accurate than these two natives of lively France.]
32 (return) [ The Byzantine palace surpasses the Capitol, the
palace of Pergamus, the Rufinian wood, the temple of Adrian at
Cyzicus, the pyramids, the Pharus, &c., according to an epigram
(Antholog. Graec. l. iv. p. 488, 489. Brodaei, apud Wechel)
ascribed to Julian, ex-praefect of Egypt. Seventy-one of his
epigrams, some lively, are collected in Brunck, (Analect. Graec.
tom. ii. p. 493-510; but this is wanting.]
33 (return) [ Constantinopolitanum Palatium non pulchritudine
solum, verum stiam fortitudine, omnibus quas unquam videram
munitionibus praestat, (Liutprand, Hist. l. v. c. 9, p. 465.)]
34 (return) [ See the anonymous continuator of Theophanes, (p.
59, 61, 86,) whom I have followed in the neat and concise
abstract of Le Beau, (Hint. du Bas Empire, tom. xiv. p. 436,
438.)]
35 (return) [ In aureo triclinio quae praestantior est pars
potentissimus (the usurper Romanus) degens caeteras partes
(filiis) distribuerat, (Liutprand. Hist. l. v. c. 9, p. 469.) For
this last signification of Triclinium see Ducange (Gloss. Graec.
et Observations sur Joinville, p. 240) and Reiske, (ad
Constantinum de Ceremoniis, p. 7.)]
36 (return) [ In equis vecti (says Benjamin of Tudela) regum
filiis videntur persimiles. I prefer the Latin version of
Constantine l’Empereur (p. 46) to the French of Baratier, (tom.
i. p. 49.)]
37 (return) [ See the account of her journey, munificence, and
testament, in the life of Basil, by his grandson Constantine, (p.
74, 75, 76, p. 195-197.)]
38 (return) [ Carsamatium. Graeci vocant, amputatis virilibus et
virga, puerum eunuchum quos Verdunenses mercatores obinmensum
lucrum facere solent et in Hispaniam ducere, (Liutprand, l. vi.
c. 3, p. 470.)—The last abomination of the abominable
slave-trade! Yet I am surprised to find, in the xth century, such
active speculations of commerce in Lorraine.]
In an absolute government, which levels the distinctions of noble
and plebeian birth, the sovereign is the sole fountain of honor;
and the rank, both in the palace and the empire, depends on the
titles and offices which are bestowed and resumed by his
arbitrary will. Above a thousand years, from Vespasian to Alexius
Comnenus, 39 the Caesar was the second person, or at least the
second degree, after the supreme title of Augustus was more
freely communicated to the sons and brothers of the reigning
monarch. To elude without violating his promise to a powerful
associate, the husband of his sister, and, without giving himself
an equal, to reward the piety of his brother Isaac, the crafty
Alexius interposed a new and supereminent dignity. The happy
flexibility of the Greek tongue allowed him to compound the names
of Augustus and Emperor (Sebastos and Autocrator,) and the union
produces the sonorous title of Sebastocrator. He was exalted
above the Caesar on the first step of the throne: the public
acclamations repeated his name; and he was only distinguished
from the sovereign by some peculiar ornaments of the head and
feet. The emperor alone could assume the purple or red buskins,
and the close diadem or tiara, which imitated the fashion of the
Persian kings. 40 It was a high pyramidal cap of cloth or silk,
almost concealed by a profusion of pearls and jewels: the crown
was formed by a horizontal circle and two arches of gold: at the
summit, the point of their intersection, was placed a globe or
cross, and two strings or lappets of pearl depended on either
cheek. Instead of red, the buskins of the Sebastocrator and
Caesar were green; and on their open coronets or crowns, the
precious gems were more sparingly distributed. Beside and below
the Caesar the fancy of Alexius created the Panhypersebastos and
the Protosebastos, whose sound and signification will satisfy a
Grecian ear. They imply a superiority and a priority above the
simple name of Augustus; and this sacred and primitive title of
the Roman prince was degraded to the kinsmen and servants of the
Byzantine court. The daughter of Alexius applauds, with fond
complacency, this artful gradation of hopes and honors; but the
science of words is accessible to the meanest capacity; and this
vain dictionary was easily enriched by the pride of his
successors. To their favorite sons or brothers, they imparted the
more lofty appellation of Lord or Despot, which was illustrated
with new ornaments, and prerogatives, and placed immediately
after the person of the emperor himself. The five titles of, 1.
Despot; 2. Sebastocrator; 3. Caesar; 4. Panhypersebastos; and, 5.
Protosebastos; were usually confined to the princes of his blood:
they were the emanations of his majesty; but as they exercised no
regular functions, their existence was useless, and their
authority precarious.
39 (return) [ See the Alexiad (l. iii. p. 78, 79) of Anna
Comnena, who, except in filial piety, may be compared to
Mademoiselle de Montpensier. In her awful reverence for titles
and forms, she styles her father, the inventor of this royal
art.]
40 (return) [ See Reiske, and Ceremoniale, p. 14, 15. Ducange has
given a learned dissertation on the crowns of Constantinople,
Rome, France, &c., (sur Joinville, xxv. p. 289-303;) but of his
thirty-four models, none exactly tally with Anne’s description.]
But in every monarchy the substantial powers of government must
be divided and exercised by the ministers of the palace and
treasury, the fleet and army. The titles alone can differ; and in
the revolution of ages, the counts and praefects, the praetor and
quaestor, insensibly descended, while their servants rose above
their heads to the first honors of the state. 1. In a monarchy,
which refers every object to the person of the prince, the care
and ceremonies of the palace form the most respectable
department. The Curopalata, 41 so illustrious in the age of
Justinian, was supplanted by the Protovestiare, whose primitive
functions were limited to the custody of the wardrobe. From
thence his jurisdiction was extended over the numerous menials of
pomp and luxury; and he presided with his silver wand at the
public and private audience. 2. In the ancient system of
Constantine, the name of Logothete, or accountant, was applied to
the receivers of the finances: the principal officers were
distinguished as the Logothetes of the domain, of the posts, the
army, the private and public treasure; and the great Logothete,
the supreme guardian of the laws and revenues, is compared with
the chancellor of the Latin monarchies. 42 His discerning eye
pervaded the civil administration; and he was assisted, in due
subordination, by the eparch or praefect of the city, the first
secretary, and the keepers of the privy seal, the archives, and
the red or purple ink which was reserved for the sacred signature
of the emperor alone. 43 The introductor and interpreter of
foreign ambassadors were the great Chiauss 44 and the Dragoman,
45 two names of Turkish origin, and which are still familiar to
the Sublime Porte. 3. From the humble style and service of
guards, the Domestics insensibly rose to the station of generals;
the military themes of the East and West, the legions of Europe
and Asia, were often divided, till the great Domestic was finally
invested with the universal and absolute command of the land
forces. The Protostrator, in his original functions, was the
assistant of the emperor when he mounted on horseback: he
gradually became the lieutenant of the great Domestic in the
field; and his jurisdiction extended over the stables, the
cavalry, and the royal train of hunting and hawking. The
Stratopedarch was the great judge of the camp: the Protospathaire
commanded the guards; the Constable, 46 the great Aeteriarch, and
the Acolyth, were the separate chiefs of the Franks, the
Barbarians, and the Varangi, or English, the mercenary strangers,
who, at the decay of the national spirit, formed the nerve of the
Byzantine armies. 4. The naval powers were under the command of
the great Duke; in his absence they obeyed the great Drungaire of
the fleet; and, in his place, the Emir, or Admiral, a name of
Saracen extraction, 47 but which has been naturalized in all the
modern languages of Europe. Of these officers, and of many more
whom it would be useless to enumerate, the civil and military
hierarchy was framed. Their honors and emoluments, their dress
and titles, their mutual salutations and respective preeminence,
were balanced with more exquisite labor than would have fixed the
constitution of a free people; and the code was almost perfect
when this baseless fabric, the monument of pride and servitude,
was forever buried in the ruins of the empire. 48
41 (return) [ Par exstans curis, solo diademate dispar, Ordine
pro rerum vocitatus Cura-Palati, says the African Corippus, (de
Laudibus Justini, l. i. 136,) and in the same century (the vith)
Cassiodorus represents him, who, virga aurea decoratus, inter
numerosa obsequia primus ante pedes regis incederet (Variar. vii.
5.) But this great officer, (unknown,) exercising no function,
was cast down by the modern Greeks to the xvth rank, (Codin. c.
5, p. 65.)]
42 (return) [ Nicetas (in Manuel, l. vii. c. 1) defines him. Yet
the epithet was added by the elder Andronicus, (Ducange, tom. i.
p. 822, 823.)]
43 (return) [ From Leo I. (A.D. 470) the Imperial ink, which is
still visible on some original acts, was a mixture of vermilion
and cinnabar, or purple. The emperor’s guardians, who shared in
this prerogative, always marked in green ink the indiction and
the month. See the Dictionnaire Diplomatique, (tom. i. p.
511-513) a valuable abridgment.]
44 (return) [ The sultan sent to Alexius, (Anna Comnena, l. vi.
p. 170. Ducange ad loc.;) and Pachymer often speaks, (l. vii. c.
1, l. xii. c. 30, l. xiii. c. 22.) The Chiaoush basha is now at
the head of 700 officers, (Rycaut’s Ottoman Empire, p. 349,
octavo edition.)]
45 (return) [ Tagerman is the Arabic name of an interpreter,
(D’Herbelot, p. 854, 855;), says Codinus, (c. v. No. 70, p. 67.)
See Villehardouin, (No. 96,) Bus, (Epist. iv. p. 338,) and
Ducange, (Observations sur Villehardouin, and Gloss. Graec. et
Latin)]
46 (return) [ A corruption from the Latin Comes stabuli, or the
French Connetable. In a military sense, it was used by the Greeks
in the eleventh century, at least as early as in France.]
47 (return) [ It was directly borrowed from the Normans. In the
xiith century, Giannone reckons the admiral of Sicily among the
great officers.]
48 (return) [ This sketch of honors and offices is drawn from
George Cordinus Curopalata, who survived the taking of
Constantinople by the Turks: his elaborate, though trifling, work
(de Officiis Ecclesiae et Aulae C. P.) has been illustrated by
the notes of Goar, and the three books of Gretser, a learned
Jesuit.]
Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part III.
The most lofty titles, and the most humble postures, which
devotion has applied to the Supreme Being, have been prostituted
by flattery and fear to creatures of the same nature with
ourselves. The mode of adoration, 49 of falling prostrate on the
ground, and kissing the feet of the emperor, was borrowed by
Diocletian from Persian servitude; but it was continued and
aggravated till the last age of the Greek monarchy. Excepting
only on Sundays, when it was waived, from a motive of religious
pride, this humiliating reverence was exacted from all who
entered the royal presence, from the princes invested with the
diadem and purple, and from the ambassadors who represented their
independent sovereigns, the caliphs of Asia, Egypt, or Spain, the
kings of France and Italy, and the Latin emperors of ancient
Rome. In his transactions of business, Liutprand, bishop of
Cremona, 50 asserted the free spirit of a Frank and the dignity
of his master Otho. Yet his sincerity cannot disguise the
abasement of his first audience. When he approached the throne,
the birds of the golden tree began to warble their notes, which
were accompanied by the roarings of the two lions of gold. With
his two companions Liutprand was compelled to bow and to fall
prostrate; and thrice to touch the ground with his forehead. He
arose, but in the short interval, the throne had been hoisted
from the floor to the ceiling, the Imperial figure appeared in
new and more gorgeous apparel, and the interview was concluded in
haughty and majestic silence. In this honest and curious
narrative, the Bishop of Cremona represents the ceremonies of the
Byzantine court, which are still practised in the Sublime Porte,
and which were preserved in the last age by the dukes of Muscovy
or Russia. After a long journey by sea and land, from Venice to
Constantinople, the ambassador halted at the golden gate, till he
was conducted by the formal officers to the hospitable palace
prepared for his reception; but this palace was a prison, and his
jealous keepers prohibited all social intercourse either with
strangers or natives. At his first audience, he offered the gifts
of his master, slaves, and golden vases, and costly armor. The
ostentatious payment of the officers and troops displayed before
his eyes the riches of the empire: he was entertained at a royal
banquet, 51 in which the ambassadors of the nations were
marshalled by the esteem or contempt of the Greeks: from his own
table, the emperor, as the most signal favor, sent the plates
which he had tasted; and his favorites were dismissed with a robe
of honor. 52 In the morning and evening of each day, his civil
and military servants attended their duty in the palace; their
labors were repaid by the sight, perhaps by the smile, of their
lord; his commands were signified by a nod or a sign: but all
earthly greatness stood silent and submissive in his presence. In
his regular or extraordinary processions through the capital, he
unveiled his person to the public view: the rites of policy were
connected with those of religion, and his visits to the principal
churches were regulated by the festivals of the Greek calendar.
On the eve of these processions, the gracious or devout intention
of the monarch was proclaimed by the heralds. The streets were
cleared and purified; the pavement was strewed with flowers; the
most precious furniture, the gold and silver plate, and silken
hangings, were displayed from the windows and balconies, and a
severe discipline restrained and silenced the tumult of the
populace. The march was opened by the military officers at the
head of their troops: they were followed in long order by the
magistrates and ministers of the civil government: the person of
the emperor was guarded by his eunuchs and domestics, and at the
church door he was solemnly received by the patriarch and his
clergy. The task of applause was not abandoned to the rude and
spontaneous voices of the crowd. The most convenient stations
were occupied by the bands of the blue and green factions of the
circus; and their furious conflicts, which had shaken the
capital, were insensibly sunk to an emulation of servitude. From
either side they echoed in responsive melody the praises of the
emperor; their poets and musicians directed the choir, and long
life 53 and victory were the burden of every song. The same
acclamations were performed at the audience, the banquet, and the
church; and as an evidence of boundless sway, they were repeated
in the Latin, 54 Gothic, Persian, French, and even English
language, 55 by the mercenaries who sustained the real or
fictitious character of those nations. By the pen of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, this science of form and flattery has been
reduced into a pompous and trifling volume, 56 which the vanity
of succeeding times might enrich with an ample supplement. Yet
the calmer reflection of a prince would surely suggest that the
same acclamations were applied to every character and every
reign: and if he had risen from a private rank, he might
remember, that his own voice had been the loudest and most eager
in applause, at the very moment when he envied the fortune, or
conspired against the life, of his predecessor. 57
49 (return) [ The respectful salutation of carrying the hand to
the mouth, ad os, is the root of the Latin word adoro, adorare.
See our learned Selden, (vol. iii. p. 143-145, 942,) in his
Titles of Honor. It seems, from the 1st book of Herodotus, to be
of Persian origin.]
50 (return) [ The two embassies of Liutprand to Constantinople,
all that he saw or suffered in the Greek capital, are pleasantly
described by himself (Hist. l. vi. c. 1-4, p. 469-471. Legatio ad
Nicephorum Phocam, p. 479-489.)]
51 (return) [ Among the amusements of the feast, a boy balanced,
on his forehead, a pike, or pole, twenty-four feet long, with a
cross bar of two cubits a little below the top. Two boys, naked,
though cinctured, (campestrati,) together, and singly, climbed,
stood, played, descended, &c., ita me stupidum reddidit: utrum
mirabilius nescio, (p. 470.) At another repast a homily of
Chrysostom on the Acts of the Apostles was read elata voce non
Latine, (p. 483.)]
52 (return) [ Gala is not improbably derived from Cala, or
Caloat, in Arabic a robe of honor, (Reiske, Not. in Ceremon. p.
84.)]
53 (return) [ It is explained, (Codin, c. 7. Ducange, Gloss.
Graec. tom. i. p. 1199.)]
54 (return) [ (Ceremon. c. 75, p. 215.) The want of the Latin ‘V’
obliged the Greeks to employ their ‘beta’; nor do they regard
quantity. Till he recollected the true language, these strange
sentences might puzzle a professor.]
55 (return) [ (Codin.p. 90.) I wish he had preserved the words,
however corrupt, of their English acclamation.]
56 (return) [ For all these ceremonies, see the professed work of
Constantine Porphyrogenitus with the notes, or rather
dissertations, of his German editors, Leich and Reiske. For the
rank of standing courtiers, p. 80, not. 23, 62; for the
adoration, except on Sundays, p. 95, 240, not. 131; the
processions, p. 2, &c., not. p. 3, &c.; the acclamations passim
not. 25 &c.; the factions and Hippodrome, p. 177-214, not. 9, 93,
&c.; the Gothic games, p. 221, not. 111; vintage, p. 217, not
109: much more information is scattered over the work.]
57 (return) [ Et privato Othoni et nuper eadem dicenti nota
adulatio, (Tacit. Hist. 1,85.)]
The princes of the North, of the nations, says Constantine,
without faith or fame, were ambitious of mingling their blood
with the blood of the Caesars, by their marriage with a royal
virgin, or by the nuptials of their daughters with a Roman
prince. 58 The aged monarch, in his instructions to his son,
reveals the secret maxims of policy and pride; and suggests the
most decent reasons for refusing these insolent and unreasonable
demands. Every animal, says the discreet emperor, is prompted by
the distinction of language, religion, and manners. A just regard
to the purity of descent preserves the harmony of public and
private life; but the mixture of foreign blood is the fruitful
source of disorder and discord. Such had ever been the opinion
and practice of the sage Romans: their jurisprudence proscribed
the marriage of a citizen and a stranger: in the days of freedom
and virtue, a senator would have scorned to match his daughter
with a king: the glory of Mark Antony was sullied by an Egyptian
wife: 59 and the emperor Titus was compelled, by popular censure,
to dismiss with reluctance the reluctant Berenice. 60 This
perpetual interdict was ratified by the fabulous sanction of the
great Constantine. The ambassadors of the nations, more
especially of the unbelieving nations, were solemnly admonished,
that such strange alliances had been condemned by the founder of
the church and city. The irrevocable law was inscribed on the
altar of St. Sophia; and the impious prince who should stain the
majesty of the purple was excluded from the civil and
ecclesiastical communion of the Romans. If the ambassadors were
instructed by any false brethren in the Byzantine history, they
might produce three memorable examples of the violation of this
imaginary law: the marriage of Leo, or rather of his father
Constantine the Fourth, with the daughter of the king of the
Chozars, the nuptials of the granddaughter of Romanus with a
Bulgarian prince, and the union of Bertha of France or Italy with
young Romanus, the son of Constantine Porphyrogenitus himself. To
these objections three answers were prepared, which solved the
difficulty and established the law. I.
The deed and the guilt of Constantine Copronymus were
acknowledged. The Isaurian heretic, who sullied the baptismal
font, and declared war against the holy images, had indeed
embraced a Barbarian wife. By this impious alliance he
accomplished the measure of his crimes, and was devoted to the
just censure of the church and of posterity. II. Romanus could
not be alleged as a legitimate emperor; he was a plebeian
usurper, ignorant of the laws, and regardless of the honor, of
the monarchy. His son Christopher, the father of the bride, was
the third in rank in the college of princes, at once the subject
and the accomplice of a rebellious parent. The Bulgarians were
sincere and devout Christians; and the safety of the empire, with
the redemption of many thousand captives, depended on this
preposterous alliance. Yet no consideration could dispense from
the law of Constantine: the clergy, the senate, and the people,
disapproved the conduct of Romanus; and he was reproached, both
in his life and death, as the author of the public disgrace. III.
For the marriage of his own son with the daughter of Hugo, king
of Italy, a more honorable defence is contrived by the wise
Porphyrogenitus. Constantine, the great and holy, esteemed the
fidelity and valor of the Franks; 61 and his prophetic spirit
beheld the vision of their future greatness. They alone were
excepted from the general prohibition: Hugo, king of France, was
the lineal descendant of Charlemagne; 62 and his daughter Bertha
inherited the prerogatives of her family and nation. The voice of
truth and malice insensibly betrayed the fraud or error of the
Imperial court. The patrimonial estate of Hugo was reduced from
the monarchy of France to the simple county of Arles; though it
was not denied, that, in the confusion of the times, he had
usurped the sovereignty of Provence, and invaded the kingdom of
Italy. His father was a private noble; and if Bertha derived her
female descent from the Carlovingian line, every step was
polluted with illegitimacy or vice. The grandmother of Hugo was
the famous Valdrada, the concubine, rather than the wife, of the
second Lothair; whose adultery, divorce, and second nuptials, had
provoked against him the thunders of the Vatican. His mother, as
she was styled, the great Bertha, was successively the wife of
the count of Arles and of the marquis of Tuscany: France and
Italy were scandalized by her gallantries; and, till the age of
threescore, her lovers, of every degree, were the zealous
servants of her ambition. The example of maternal incontinence
was copied by the king of Italy; and the three favorite
concubines of Hugo were decorated with the classic names of
Venus, Juno, and Semele. 63 The daughter of Venus was granted to
the solicitations of the Byzantine court: her name of Bertha was
changed to that of Eudoxia; and she was wedded, or rather
betrothed, to young Romanus, the future heir of the empire of the
East. The consummation of this foreign alliance was suspended by
the tender age of the two parties; and, at the end of five years,
the union was dissolved by the death of the virgin spouse. The
second wife of the emperor Romanus was a maiden of plebeian, but
of Roman, birth; and their two daughters, Theophano and Anne,
were given in marriage to the princes of the earth. The eldest
was bestowed, as the pledge of peace, on the eldest son of the
great Otho, who had solicited this alliance with arms and
embassies. It might legally be questioned how far a Saxon was
entitled to the privilege of the French nation; but every scruple
was silenced by the fame and piety of a hero who had restored the
empire of the West. After the death of her father-in-law and
husband, Theophano governed Rome, Italy, and Germany, during the
minority of her son, the third Otho; and the Latins have praised
the virtues of an empress, who sacrificed to a superior duty the
remembrance of her country. 64 In the nuptials of her sister
Anne, every prejudice was lost, and every consideration of
dignity was superseded, by the stronger argument of necessity and
fear. A Pagan of the North, Wolodomir, great prince of Russia,
aspired to a daughter of the Roman purple; and his claim was
enforced by the threats of war, the promise of conversion, and
the offer of a powerful succor against a domestic rebel. A victim
of her religion and country, the Grecian princess was torn from
the palace of her fathers, and condemned to a savage reign, and a
hopeless exile on the banks of the Borysthenes, or in the
neighborhood of the Polar circle. 65 Yet the marriage of Anne was
fortunate and fruitful: the daughter of her grandson Joroslaus
was recommended by her Imperial descent; and the king of France,
Henry I., sought a wife on the last borders of Europe and
Christendom. 66
58 (return) [ The xiiith chapter, de Administratione Imperii, may
be explained and rectified by the Familiae Byzantinae of
Ducange.]
59 (return) [ Sequiturque nefas Aegyptia conjux, (Virgil, Aeneid,
viii. 688.) Yet this Egyptian wife was the daughter of a long
line of kings. Quid te mutavit (says Antony in a private letter
to Augustus) an quod reginam ineo? Uxor mea est, (Sueton. in
August. c. 69.) Yet I much question (for I cannot stay to
inquire) whether the triumvir ever dared to celebrate his
marriage either with Roman or Egyptian rites.]
60 (return) [ Berenicem invitus invitam dimisit, (Suetonius in
Tito, c. 7.) Have I observed elsewhere, that this Jewish beauty
was at this time above fifty years of age? The judicious Racine
has most discreetly suppressed both her age and her country.]
61 (return) [ Constantine was made to praise the the Franks, with
whom he claimed a private and public alliance. The French writers
(Isaac Casaubon in Dedicat. Polybii) are highly delighted with
these compliments.]
62 (return) [ Constantine Porphyrogenitus (de Administrat. Imp.
c. 36) exhibits a pedigree and life of the illustrious King Hugo.
A more correct idea may be formed from the Criticism of Pagi, the
Annals of Muratori, and the Abridgment of St. Marc, A.D.
925-946.]
63 (return) [ After the mention of the three goddesses, Luitprand
very naturally adds, et quoniam non rex solus iis abutebatur,
earum nati ex incertis patribus originera ducunt, (Hist. l. iv.
c. 6: ) for the marriage of the younger Bertha, see Hist. l. v.
c. 5; for the incontinence of the elder, dulcis exercipio
Hymenaei, l. ii. c. 15; for the virtues and vices of Hugo, l.
iii. c. 5. Yet it must not be forgot, that the bishop of Cremona
was a lover of scandal.]
64 (return) [ Licet illa Imperatrix Graeca sibi et aliis fuisset
satis utilis, et optima, &c., is the preamble of an inimical
writer, apud Pagi, tom. iv. A.D. 989, No. 3. Her marriage and
principal actions may be found in Muratori, Pagi, and St. Marc,
under the proper years.]
65 (return) [ Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 699. Zonaras, tom. i. p. 221.
Elmacin, Hist. Saracenica, l. iii. c. 6. Nestor apud Levesque,
tom. ii. p. 112 Pagi, Critica, A.D. 987, No. 6: a singular
concourse! Wolodomir and Anne are ranked among the saints of the
Russian church. Yet we know his vices, and are ignorant of her
virtues.]
66 (return) [ Henricus primus duxit uxorem Scythicam, Russam,
filiam regis Jeroslai. An embassy of bishops was sent into
Russia, and the father gratanter filiam cum multis donis misit.
This event happened in the year 1051. See the passages of the
original chronicles in Bouquet’s Historians of France, (tom. xi.
p. 29, 159, 161, 319, 384, 481.) Voltaire might wonder at this
alliance; but he should not have owned his ignorance of the
country, religion, &c., of Jeroslaus—a name so conspicuous in the
Russian annals.]
In the Byzantine palace, the emperor was the first slave of the
ceremonies which he imposed, of the rigid forms which regulated
each word and gesture, besieged him in the palace, and violated
the leisure of his rural solitude. But the lives and fortunes of
millions hung on his arbitrary will; and the firmest minds,
superior to the allurements of pomp and luxury, may be seduced by
the more active pleasure of commanding their equals. The
legislative and executive powers were centred in the person of
the monarch, and the last remains of the authority of the senate
were finally eradicated by Leo the philosopher. 67 A lethargy of
servitude had benumbed the minds of the Greeks: in the wildest
tumults of rebellion they never aspired to the idea of a free
constitution; and the private character of the prince was the
only source and measure of their public happiness. Superstition
rivetted their chains; in the church of St. Sophia he was
solemnly crowned by the patriarch; at the foot of the altar, they
pledged their passive and unconditional obedience to his
government and family. On his side he engaged to abstain as much
as possible from the capital punishments of death and mutilation;
his orthodox creed was subscribed with his own hand, and he
promised to obey the decrees of the seven synods, and the canons
of the holy church. 68 But the assurance of mercy was loose and
indefinite: he swore, not to his people, but to an invisible
judge; and except in the inexpiable guilt of heresy, the
ministers of heaven were always prepared to preach the
indefeasible right, and to absolve the venial transgressions, of
their sovereign. The Greek ecclesiastics were themselves the
subjects of the civil magistrate: at the nod of a tyrant, the
bishops were created, or transferred, or deposed, or punished
with an ignominious death: whatever might be their wealth or
influence, they could never succeed like the Latin clergy in the
establishment of an independent republic; and the patriarch of
Constantinople condemned, what he secretly envied, the temporal
greatness of his Roman brother. Yet the exercise of boundless
despotism is happily checked by the laws of nature and necessity.
In proportion to his wisdom and virtue, the master of an empire
is confined to the path of his sacred and laborious duty. In
proportion to his vice and folly, he drops the sceptre too
weighty for his hands; and the motions of the royal image are
ruled by the imperceptible thread of some minister or favorite,
who undertakes for his private interest to exercise the task of
the public oppression. In some fatal moment, the most absolute
monarch may dread the reason or the caprice of a nation of
slaves; and experience has proved, that whatever is gained in the
extent, is lost in the safety and solidity, of regal power.
67 (return) [ A constitution of Leo the Philosopher (lxxviii.) ne
senatus consulta amplius fiant, speaks the language of naked
despotism.]
68 (return) [ Codinus (de Officiis, c. xvii. p. 120, 121) gives
an idea of this oath so strong to the church, so weak to the
people.]
Whatever titles a despot may assume, whatever claims he may
assert, it is on the sword that he must ultimately depend to
guard him against his foreign and domestic enemies. From the age
of Charlemagne to that of the Crusades, the world (for I overlook
the remote monarchy of China) was occupied and disputed by the
three great empires or nations of the Greeks, the Saracens, and
the Franks. Their military strength may be ascertained by a
comparison of their courage, their arts and riches, and their
obedience to a supreme head, who might call into action all the
energies of the state. The Greeks, far inferior to their rivals
in the first, were superior to the Franks, and at least equal to
the Saracens, in the second and third of these warlike
qualifications.
The wealth of the Greeks enabled them to purchase the service of
the poorer nations, and to maintain a naval power for the
protection of their coasts and the annoyance of their enemies. 69
A commerce of mutual benefit exchanged the gold of Constantinople
for the blood of Sclavonians and Turks, the Bulgarians and
Russians: their valor contributed to the victories of Nicephorus
and Zimisces; and if a hostile people pressed too closely on the
frontier, they were recalled to the defence of their country, and
the desire of peace, by the well-managed attack of a more distant
tribe. 70 The command of the Mediterranean, from the mouth of the
Tanais to the columns of Hercules, was always claimed, and often
possessed, by the successors of Constantine. Their capital was
filled with naval stores and dexterous artificers: the situation
of Greece and Asia, the long coasts, deep gulfs, and numerous
islands, accustomed their subjects to the exercise of navigation;
and the trade of Venice and Amalfi supplied a nursery of seamen
to the Imperial fleet. 71 Since the time of the Peloponnesian and
Punic wars, the sphere of action had not been enlarged; and the
science of naval architecture appears to have declined. The art
of constructing those stupendous machines which displayed three,
or six, or ten, ranges of oars, rising above, or falling behind,
each other, was unknown to the ship-builders of Constantinople,
as well as to the mechanicians of modern days. 72 The Dromones,
73 or light galleys of the Byzantine empire, were content with
two tier of oars; each tier was composed of five-and-twenty
benches; and two rowers were seated on each bench, who plied
their oars on either side of the vessel. To these we must add the
captain or centurion, who, in time of action, stood erect with
his armor-bearer on the poop, two steersmen at the helm, and two
officers at the prow, the one to manage the anchor, the other to
point and play against the enemy the tube of liquid fire. The
whole crew, as in the infancy of the art, performed the double
service of mariners and soldiers; they were provided with
defensive and offensive arms, with bows and arrows, which they
used from the upper deck, with long pikes, which they pushed
through the portholes of the lower tier. Sometimes, indeed, the
ships of war were of a larger and more solid construction; and
the labors of combat and navigation were more regularly divided
between seventy soldiers and two hundred and thirty mariners. But
for the most part they were of the light and manageable size; and
as the Cape of Malea in Peloponnesus was still clothed with its
ancient terrors, an Imperial fleet was transported five miles
over land across the Isthmus of Corinth. 74 The principles of
maritime tactics had not undergone any change since the time of
Thucydides: a squadron of galleys still advanced in a crescent,
charged to the front, and strove to impel their sharp beaks
against the feeble sides of their antagonists. A machine for
casting stones and darts was built of strong timbers, in the
midst of the deck; and the operation of boarding was effected by
a crane that hoisted baskets of armed men. The language of
signals, so clear and copious in the naval grammar of the
moderns, was imperfectly expressed by the various positions and
colors of a commanding flag. In the darkness of the night, the
same orders to chase, to attack, to halt, to retreat, to break,
to form, were conveyed by the lights of the leading galley. By
land, the fire-signals were repeated from one mountain to
another; a chain of eight stations commanded a space of five
hundred miles; and Constantinople in a few hours was apprised of
the hostile motions of the Saracens of Tarsus. 75 Some estimate
may be formed of the power of the Greek emperors, by the curious
and minute detail of the armament which was prepared for the
reduction of Crete. A fleet of one hundred and twelve galleys,
and seventy-five vessels of the Pamphylian style, was equipped in
the capital, the islands of the Aegean Sea, and the seaports of
Asia, Macedonia, and Greece. It carried thirty-four thousand
mariners, seven thousand three hundred and forty soldiers, seven
hundred Russians, and five thousand and eighty-seven Mardaites,
whose fathers had been transplanted from the mountains of
Libanus. Their pay, most probably of a month, was computed at
thirty-four centenaries of gold, about one hundred and thirty-six
thousand pounds sterling. Our fancy is bewildered by the endless
recapitulation of arms and engines, of clothes and linen, of
bread for the men and forage for the horses, and of stores and
utensils of every description, inadequate to the conquest of a
petty island, but amply sufficient for the establishment of a
flourishing colony. 76
69 (return) [ If we listen to the threats of Nicephorus to the
ambassador of Otho, Nec est in mari domino tuo classium numerus.
Navigantium fortitudo mihi soli inest, qui eum classibus
aggrediar, bello maritimas ejus civitates demoliar; et quae
fluminibus sunt vicina redigam in favillam. (Liutprand in Legat.
ad Nicephorum Phocam, in Muratori Scriptores Rerum Italicarum,
tom. ii. pars i. p. 481.) He observes in another place, qui
caeteris praestant Venetici sunt et Amalphitani.]
70 (return) [ Nec ipsa capiet eum (the emperor Otho) in qua ortus
est pauper et pellicea Saxonia: pecunia qua pollemus omnes
nationes super eum invitabimus: et quasi Keramicum confringemus,
(Liutprand in Legat. p. 487.) The two books, de Administrando
Imperio, perpetually inculcate the same policy.]
71 (return) [ The xixth chapter of the Tactics of Leo, (Meurs.
Opera, tom. vi. p. 825-848,) which is given more correct from a
manuscript of Gudius, by the laborious Fabricius, (Bibliot.
Graec. tom. vi. p. 372-379,) relates to the Naumachia, or naval
war.]
72 (return) [ Even of fifteen and sixteen rows of oars, in the
navy of Demetrius Poliorcetes. These were for real use: the forty
rows of Ptolemy Philadelphus were applied to a floating palace,
whose tonnage, according to Dr. Arbuthnot, (Tables of Ancient
Coins, &c., p. 231-236,) is compared as 4 1/2 to 1 with an
English 100 gun ship.]
73 (return) [ The Dromones of Leo, &c., are so clearly described
with two tier of oars, that I must censure the version of
Meursius and Fabricius, who pervert the sense by a blind
attachment to the classic appellation of Triremes. The Byzantine
historians are sometimes guilty of the same inaccuracy.]
74 (return) [ Constantin. Porphyrogen. in Vit. Basil. c. lxi. p.
185. He calmly praises the stratagem; but the sailing round
Peloponnesus is described by his terrified fancy as a
circumnavigation of a thousand miles.]
75 (return) [ The continuator of Theophanes (l. iv. p. 122, 123)
names the successive stations, the castle of Lulum near Tarsus,
Mount Argaeus Isamus, Aegilus, the hill of Mamas, Cyrisus,
Mocilus, the hill of Auxentius, the sun-dial of the Pharus of the
great palace. He affirms that the news were transmitted in an
indivisible moment of time. Miserable amplification, which, by
saying too much, says nothing. How much more forcible and
instructive would have been the definition of three, or six, or
twelve hours!]
76 (return) [ See the Ceremoniale of Constantine Porphyrogenitus,
l. ii. c. 44, p. 176-192. A critical reader will discern some
inconsistencies in different parts of this account; but they are
not more obscure or more stubborn than the establishment and
effectives, the present and fit for duty, the rank and file and
the private, of a modern return, which retain in proper hands the
knowledge of these profitable mysteries.]
The invention of the Greek fire did not, like that of gun powder,
produce a total revolution in the art of war. To these liquid
combustibles the city and empire of Constantine owed their
deliverance; and they were employed in sieges and sea-fights with
terrible effect. But they were either less improved, or less
susceptible of improvement: the engines of antiquity, the
catapultae, balistae, and battering-rams, were still of most
frequent and powerful use in the attack and defence of
fortifications; nor was the decision of battles reduced to the
quick and heavy fire of a line of infantry, whom it were
fruitless to protect with armor against a similar fire of their
enemies. Steel and iron were still the common instruments of
destruction and safety; and the helmets, cuirasses, and shields,
of the tenth century did not, either in form or substance,
essentially differ from those which had covered the companions of
Alexander or Achilles. 77 But instead of accustoming the modern
Greeks, like the legionaries of old, to the constant and easy use
of this salutary weight, their armor was laid aside in light
chariots, which followed the march, till, on the approach of an
enemy, they resumed with haste and reluctance the unusual
encumbrance. Their offensive weapons consisted of swords,
battle-axes, and spears; but the Macedonian pike was shortened a
fourth of its length, and reduced to the more convenient measure
of twelve cubits or feet. The sharpness of the Scythian and
Arabian arrows had been severely felt; and the emperors lament
the decay of archery as a cause of the public misfortunes, and
recommend, as an advice and a command, that the military youth,
till the age of forty, should assiduously practise the exercise
of the bow. 78 The bands, or regiments, were usually three
hundred strong; and, as a medium between the extremes of four and
sixteen, the foot soldiers of Leo and Constantine were formed
eight deep; but the cavalry charged in four ranks, from the
reasonable consideration, that the weight of the front could not
be increased by any pressure of the hindmost horses. If the ranks
of the infantry or cavalry were sometimes doubled, this cautious
array betrayed a secret distrust of the courage of the troops,
whose numbers might swell the appearance of the line, but of whom
only a chosen band would dare to encounter the spears and swords
of the Barbarians. The order of battle must have varied according
to the ground, the object, and the adversary; but their ordinary
disposition, in two lines and a reserve, presented a succession
of hopes and resources most agreeable to the temper as well as
the judgment of the Greeks. 79 In case of a repulse, the first
line fell back into the intervals of the second; and the reserve,
breaking into two divisions, wheeled round the flanks to improve
the victory or cover the retreat. Whatever authority could enact
was accomplished, at least in theory, by the camps and marches,
the exercises and evolutions, the edicts and books, of the
Byzantine monarch. 80 Whatever art could produce from the forge,
the loom, or the laboratory, was abundantly supplied by the
riches of the prince, and the industry of his numerous workmen.
But neither authority nor art could frame the most important
machine, the soldier himself; and if the ceremonies of
Constantine always suppose the safe and triumphal return of the
emperor, 81 his tactics seldom soar above the means of escaping a
defeat, and procrastinating the war. 82 Notwithstanding some
transient success, the Greeks were sunk in their own esteem and
that of their neighbors. A cold hand and a loquacious tongue was
the vulgar description of the nation: the author of the tactics
was besieged in his capital; and the last of the Barbarians, who
trembled at the name of the Saracens, or Franks, could proudly
exhibit the medals of gold and silver which they had extorted
from the feeble sovereign of Constantinople. What spirit their
government and character denied, might have been inspired in some
degree by the influence of religion; but the religion of the
Greeks could only teach them to suffer and to yield. The emperor
Nicephorus, who restored for a moment the discipline and glory of
the Roman name, was desirous of bestowing the honors of martyrdom
on the Christians who lost their lives in a holy war against the
infidels. But this political law was defeated by the opposition
of the patriarch, the bishops, and the principal senators; and
they strenuously urged the canons of St. Basil, that all who were
polluted by the bloody trade of a soldier should be separated,
during three years, from the communion of the faithful. 83
77 (return) [ See the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters, and, in
the Tactics of Leo, with the corresponding passages in those of
Constantine.]
78 (return) [ (Leo, Tactic. p. 581 Constantin. p 1216.) Yet such
were not the maxims of the Greeks and Romans, who despised the
loose and distant practice of archery.]
79 (return) [ Compare the passages of the Tactics, p. 669 and
721, and the xiith with the xviiith chapter.]
80 (return) [ In the preface to his Tactics, Leo very freely
deplores the loss of discipline and the calamities of the times,
and repeats, without scruple, (Proem. p. 537,) the reproaches,
nor does it appear that the same censures were less deserved in
the next generation by the disciples of Constantine.]
81 (return) [ See in the Ceremonial (l. ii. c. 19, p. 353) the
form of the emperor’s trampling on the necks of the captive
Saracens, while the singers chanted, “Thou hast made my enemies
my footstool!” and the people shouted forty times the kyrie
eleison.]
82 (return) [ Leo observes (Tactic. p. 668) that a fair open
battle against any nation whatsoever: the words are strong, and
the remark is true: yet if such had been the opinion of the old
Romans, Leo had never reigned on the shores of the Thracian
Bosphorus.]
83 (return) [ Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 202, 203) and
Cedrenus, (Compend p. 668,) who relate the design of Nicephorus,
most unfortunately apply the epithet to the opposition of the
patriarch.]
These scruples of the Greeks have been compared with the tears of
the primitive Moslems when they were held back from battle; and
this contrast of base superstition and high-spirited enthusiasm,
unfolds to a philosophic eye the history of the rival nations.
The subjects of the last caliphs 84 had undoubtedly degenerated
from the zeal and faith of the companions of the prophet. Yet
their martial creed still represented the Deity as the author of
war: 85 the vital though latent spark of fanaticism still glowed
in the heart of their religion, and among the Saracens, who dwelt
on the Christian borders, it was frequently rekindled to a lively
and active flame. Their regular force was formed of the valiant
slaves who had been educated to guard the person and accompany
the standard of their lord: but the Mussulman people of Syria and
Cilicia, of Africa and Spain, was awakened by the trumpet which
proclaimed a holy war against the infidels. The rich were
ambitious of death or victory in the cause of God; the poor were
allured by the hopes of plunder; and the old, the infirm, and the
women, assumed their share of meritorious service by sending
their substitutes, with arms and horses, into the field. These
offensive and defensive arms were similar in strength and temper
to those of the Romans, whom they far excelled in the management
of the horse and the bow: the massy silver of their belts, their
bridles, and their swords, displayed the magnificence of a
prosperous nation; and except some black archers of the South,
the Arabs disdained the naked bravery of their ancestors. Instead
of wagons, they were attended by a long train of camels, mules,
and asses: the multitude of these animals, whom they bedecked
with flags and streamers, appeared to swell the pomp and
magnitude of their host; and the horses of the enemy were often
disordered by the uncouth figure and odious smell of the camels
of the East. Invincible by their patience of thirst and heat,
their spirits were frozen by a winter’s cold, and the
consciousness of their propensity to sleep exacted the most
rigorous precautions against the surprises of the night. Their
order of battle was a long square of two deep and solid lines;
the first of archers, the second of cavalry. In their engagements
by sea and land, they sustained with patient firmness the fury of
the attack, and seldom advanced to the charge till they could
discern and oppress the lassitude of their foes. But if they were
repulsed and broken, they knew not how to rally or renew the
combat; and their dismay was heightened by the superstitious
prejudice, that God had declared himself on the side of their
enemies. The decline and fall of the caliphs countenanced this
fearful opinion; nor were there wanting, among the Mahometans and
Christians, some obscure prophecies 86 which prognosticated their
alternate defeats. The unity of the Arabian empire was dissolved,
but the independent fragments were equal to populous and powerful
kingdoms; and in their naval and military armaments, an emir of
Aleppo or Tunis might command no despicable fund of skill, and
industry, and treasure. In their transactions of peace and war
with the Saracens, the princes of Constantinople too often felt
that these Barbarians had nothing barbarous in their discipline;
and that if they were destitute of original genius, they had been
endowed with a quick spirit of curiosity and imitation. The model
was indeed more perfect than the copy; their ships, and engines,
and fortifications, were of a less skilful construction; and they
confess, without shame, that the same God who has given a tongue
to the Arabians, had more nicely fashioned the hands of the
Chinese, and the heads of the Greeks. 87
84 (return) [ The xviith chapter of the tactics of the different
nations is the most historical and useful of the whole collection
of Leo. The manners and arms of the Saracens (Tactic. p. 809-817,
and a fragment from the Medicean Ms. in the preface of the vith
volume of Meursius) the Roman emperor was too frequently called
upon to study.]
85 (return) [ Leon. Tactic. p. 809.]
86 (return) [ Liutprand (p. 484, 485) relates and interprets the
oracles of the Greeks and Saracens, in which, after the fashion
of prophecy, the past is clear and historical, the future is
dark, enigmatical, and erroneous. From this boundary of light and
shade an impartial critic may commonly determine the date of the
composition.]
87 (return) [ The sense of this distinction is expressed by
Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 2, 62, 101;) but I cannot recollect the
passage in which it is conveyed by this lively apothegm.]
Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part IV.
A name of some German tribes between the Rhine and the Weser had
spread its victorious influence over the greatest part of Gaul,
Germany, and Italy; and the common appellation of Franks 88 was
applied by the Greeks and Arabians to the Christians of the Latin
church, the nations of the West, who stretched beyond their
knowledge to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. The vast body had
been inspired and united by the soul of Charlemagne; but the
division and degeneracy of his race soon annihilated the Imperial
power, which would have rivalled the Caesars of Byzantium, and
revenged the indignities of the Christian name. The enemies no
longer feared, nor could the subjects any longer trust, the
application of a public revenue, the labors of trade and
manufactures in the military service, the mutual aid of provinces
and armies, and the naval squadrons which were regularly
stationed from the mouth of the Elbe to that of the Tyber. In the
beginning of the tenth century, the family of Charlemagne had
almost disappeared; his monarchy was broken into many hostile and
independent states; the regal title was assumed by the most
ambitious chiefs; their revolt was imitated in a long
subordination of anarchy and discord, and the nobles of every
province disobeyed their sovereign, oppressed their vassals, and
exercised perpetual hostilities against their equals and
neighbors. Their private wars, which overturned the fabric of
government, fomented the martial spirit of the nation. In the
system of modern Europe, the power of the sword is possessed, at
least in fact, by five or six mighty potentates; their operations
are conducted on a distant frontier, by an order of men who
devote their lives to the study and practice of the military art:
the rest of the country and community enjoys in the midst of war
the tranquillity of peace, and is only made sensible of the
change by the aggravation or decrease of the public taxes. In the
disorders of the tenth and eleventh centuries, every peasant was
a soldier, and every village a fortification; each wood or valley
was a scene of murder and rapine; and the lords of each castle
were compelled to assume the character of princes and warriors.
To their own courage and policy they boldly trusted for the
safety of their family, the protection of their lands, and the
revenge of their injuries; and, like the conquerors of a larger
size, they were too apt to transgress the privilege of defensive
war. The powers of the mind and body were hardened by the
presence of danger and necessity of resolution: the same spirit
refused to desert a friend and to forgive an enemy; and, instead
of sleeping under the guardian care of a magistrate, they proudly
disdained the authority of the laws. In the days of feudal
anarchy, the instruments of agriculture and art were converted
into the weapons of bloodshed: the peaceful occupations of civil
and ecclesiastical society were abolished or corrupted; and the
bishop who exchanged his mitre for a helmet, was more forcibly
urged by the manners of the times than by the obligation of his
tenure. 89
88 (return) [ Ex Francis, quo nomine tam Latinos quam Teutones
comprehendit, ludum habuit, (Liutprand in Legat ad Imp.
Nicephorum, p. 483, 484.) This extension of the name may be
confirmed from Constantine (de Administrando Imperio, l. 2, c.
27, 28) and Eutychius, (Annal. tom. i. p. 55, 56,) who both lived
before the Crusades. The testimonies of Abulpharagius (Dynast. p.
69) and Abulfeda (Praefat. ad Geograph.) are more recent]
89 (return) [ On this subject of ecclesiastical and beneficiary
discipline, Father Thomassin, (tom. iii. l. i. c. 40, 45, 46, 47)
may be usefully consulted. A general law of Charlemagne exempted
the bishops from personal service; but the opposite practice,
which prevailed from the ixth to the xvth century, is
countenanced by the example or silence of saints and doctors....
You justify your cowardice by the holy canons, says Ratherius of
Verona; the canons likewise forbid you to whore, and yet—]
The love of freedom and of arms was felt, with conscious pride,
by the Franks themselves, and is observed by the Greeks with some
degree of amazement and terror. “The Franks,” says the emperor
Constantine, “are bold and valiant to the verge of temerity; and
their dauntless spirit is supported by the contempt of danger and
death. In the field and in close onset, they press to the front,
and rush headlong against the enemy, without deigning to compute
either his numbers or their own. Their ranks are formed by the
firm connections of consanguinity and friendship; and their
martial deeds are prompted by the desire of saving or revenging
their dearest companions. In their eyes, a retreat is a shameful
flight; and flight is indelible infamy.” 90 A nation endowed with
such high and intrepid spirit, must have been secure of victory
if these advantages had not been counter-balanced by many weighty
defects. The decay of their naval power left the Greeks and
Saracens in possession of the sea, for every purpose of annoyance
and supply. In the age which preceded the institution of
knighthood, the Franks were rude and unskilful in the service of
cavalry; 91 and in all perilous emergencies, their warriors were
so conscious of their ignorance, that they chose to dismount from
their horses and fight on foot. Unpractised in the use of pikes,
or of missile weapons, they were encumbered by the length of
their swords, the weight of their armor, the magnitude of their
shields, and, if I may repeat the satire of the meagre Greeks, by
their unwieldy intemperance. Their independent spirit disdained
the yoke of subordination, and abandoned the standard of their
chief, if he attempted to keep the field beyond the term of their
stipulation or service. On all sides they were open to the snares
of an enemy less brave but more artful than themselves. They
might be bribed, for the Barbarians were venal; or surprised in
the night, for they neglected the precautions of a close
encampment or vigilant sentinels. The fatigues of a summer’s
campaign exhausted their strength and patience, and they sunk in
despair if their voracious appetite was disappointed of a
plentiful supply of wine and of food. This general character of
the Franks was marked with some national and local shades, which
I should ascribe to accident rather than to climate, but which
were visible both to natives and to foreigners. An ambassador of
the great Otho declared, in the palace of Constantinople, that
the Saxons could dispute with swords better than with pens, and
that they preferred inevitable death to the dishonor of turning
their backs to an enemy. 92 It was the glory of the nobles of
France, that, in their humble dwellings, war and rapine were the
only pleasure, the sole occupation, of their lives. They affected
to deride the palaces, the banquets, the polished manner of the
Italians, who in the estimate of the Greeks themselves had
degenerated from the liberty and valor of the ancient Lombards.
93
90 (return) [ In the xviiith chapter of his Tactics, the emperor
Leo has fairly stated the military vices and virtues of the
Franks (whom Meursius ridiculously translates by Galli) and the
Lombards or Langobards. See likewise the xxvith Dissertation of
Muratori de Antiquitatibus Italiae Medii Aevi.]
91 (return) [ Domini tui milites (says the proud Nicephorus)
equitandi ignari pedestris pugnae sunt inscii: scutorum
magnitudo, loricarum gravitudo, ensium longitudo galearumque
pondus neutra parte pugnare cossinit; ac subridens, impedit,
inquit, et eos gastrimargia, hoc est ventris ingluvies, &c.
Liutprand in Legat. p. 480 481]
92 (return) [ In Saxonia certe scio.... decentius ensibus pugnare
quam calanis, et prius mortem obire quam hostibus terga dare,
(Liutprand, p 482.)]
93 (return) [ Leonis Tactica, c. 18, p. 805. The emperor Leo died
A.D. 911: an historical poem, which ends in 916, and appears to
have been composed in 910, by a native of Venetia, discriminates
in these verses the manners of Italy and France:
—Quid inertia bello
Pectora (Ubertus ait) duris praetenditis armis,
O Itali? Potius vobis sacra pocula cordi;
Saepius et stomachum nitidis laxare saginis
Elatasque domos rutilo fulcire metallo.
Non eadem Gallos similis vel cura remordet:
Vicinas quibus est studium devincere terras,
Depressumque larem spoliis hinc inde coactis
Sustentare—
(Anonym. Carmen Panegyricum de Laudibus Berengarii Augusti, l. n.
in Muratori Script. Rerum Italic. tom. ii. pars i. p. 393.)]
By the well-known edict of Caracalla, his subjects, from Britain
to Egypt, were entitled to the name and privileges of Romans, and
their national sovereign might fix his occasional or permanent
residence in any province of their common country. In the
division of the East and West, an ideal unity was scrupulously
observed, and in their titles, laws, and statutes, the successors
of Arcadius and Honorius announced themselves as the inseparable
colleagues of the same office, as the joint sovereigns of the
Roman world and city, which were bounded by the same limits.
After the fall of the Western monarchy, the majesty of the purple
resided solely in the princes of Constantinople; and of these,
Justinian was the first who, after a divorce of sixty years,
regained the dominion of ancient Rome, and asserted, by the right
of conquest, the august title of Emperor of the Romans. 94 A
motive of vanity or discontent solicited one of his successors,
Constans the Second, to abandon the Thracian Bosphorus, and to
restore the pristine honors of the Tyber: an extravagant project,
(exclaims the malicious Byzantine,) as if he had despoiled a
beautiful and blooming virgin, to enrich, or rather to expose,
the deformity of a wrinkled and decrepit matron. 95 But the sword
of the Lombards opposed his settlement in Italy: he entered Rome
not as a conqueror, but as a fugitive, and, after a visit of
twelve days, he pillaged, and forever deserted, the ancient
capital of the world. 96 The final revolt and separation of Italy
was accomplished about two centuries after the conquests of
Justinian, and from his reign we may date the gradual oblivion of
the Latin tongue. That legislator had composed his Institutes,
his Code, and his Pandects, in a language which he celebrates as
the proper and public style of the Roman government, the
consecrated idiom of the palace and senate of Constantinople, of
the campus and tribunals of the East. 97 But this foreign dialect
was unknown to the people and soldiers of the Asiatic provinces,
it was imperfectly understood by the greater part of the
interpreters of the laws and the ministers of the state. After a
short conflict, nature and habit prevailed over the obsolete
institutions of human power: for the general benefit of his
subjects, Justinian promulgated his novels in the two languages:
the several parts of his voluminous jurisprudence were
successively translated; 98 the original was forgotten, the
version was studied, and the Greek, whose intrinsic merit
deserved indeed the preference, obtained a legal, as well as
popular establishment in the Byzantine monarchy. The birth and
residence of succeeding princes estranged them from the Roman
idiom: Tiberius by the Arabs, 99 and Maurice by the Italians, 100
are distinguished as the first of the Greek Caesars, as the
founders of a new dynasty and empire: the silent revolution was
accomplished before the death of Heraclius; and the ruins of the
Latin speech were darkly preserved in the terms of jurisprudence
and the acclamations of the palace. After the restoration of the
Western empire by Charlemagne and the Othos, the names of Franks
and Latins acquired an equal signification and extent; and these
haughty Barbarians asserted, with some justice, their superior
claim to the language and dominion of Rome. They insulted the
alien of the East who had renounced the dress and idiom of
Romans; and their reasonable practice will justify the frequent
appellation of Greeks. 101 But this contemptuous appellation was
indignantly rejected by the prince and people to whom it was
applied. Whatsoever changes had been introduced by the lapse of
ages, they alleged a lineal and unbroken succession from Augustus
and Constantine; and, in the lowest period of degeneracy and
decay, the name of Romans adhered to the last fragments of the
empire of Constantinople. 102
94 (return) [ Justinian, says the historian Agathias, (l. v. p.
157,). Yet the specific title of Emperor of the Romans was not
used at Constantinople, till it had been claimed by the French
and German emperors of old Rome.]
95 (return) [ Constantine Manasses reprobates this design in his
barbarous verse, and it is confirmed by Theophanes, Zonaras,
Cedrenus, and the Historia Miscella: voluit in urbem Romam
Imperium transferre, (l. xix. p. 157 in tom. i. pars i. of the
Scriptores Rer. Ital. of Muratori.)]
96 (return) [ Paul. Diacon. l. v. c. 11, p. 480. Anastasius in
Vitis Pontificum, in Muratori’s Collection, tom. iii. pars i. p.
141.]
97 (return) [ Consult the preface of Ducange, (ad Gloss, Graec.
Medii Aevi) and the Novels of Justinian, (vii. lxvi.)]
98 (return) [ (Matth. Blastares, Hist. Juris, apud Fabric.
Bibliot. Graec. tom. xii. p. 369.) The Code and Pandects (the
latter by Thalelaeus) were translated in the time of Justinian,
(p. 358, 366.) Theophilus one of the original triumvirs, has left
an elegant, though diffuse, paraphrase of the Institutes. On the
other hand, Julian, antecessor of Constantinople, (A.D. 570,)
cxx. Novellas Graecas eleganti Latinitate donavit (Heineccius,
Hist. J. R. p. 396) for the use of Italy and Africa.]
99 (return) [ Abulpharagius assigns the viith Dynasty to the
Franks or Romans, the viiith to the Greeks, the ixth to the
Arabs. A tempore Augusti Caesaris donec imperaret Tiberius Caesar
spatio circiter annorum 600 fuerunt Imperatores C. P. Patricii,
et praecipua pars exercitus Romani: extra quod, conciliarii,
scribae et populus, omnes Graeci fuerunt: deinde regnum etiam
Graecanicum factum est, (p. 96, vers. Pocock.) The Christian and
ecclesiastical studies of Abulpharagius gave him some advantage
over the more ignorant Moslems.]
100 (return) [ Primus ex Graecorum genere in Imperio confirmatus
est; or according to another Ms. of Paulus Diaconus, (l. iii. c.
15, p. 443,) in Orasorum Imperio.]
101 (return) [ Quia linguam, mores, vestesque mutastis, putavit
Sanctissimus Papa. (an audacious irony,) ita vos (vobis)
displicere Romanorum nomen. His nuncios, rogabant Nicephorum
Imperatorem Graecorum, ut cum Othone Imperatore Romanorum
amicitiam faceret, (Liutprand in Legatione, p. 486.) * Note:
Sicut et vestem. These words follow in the text of Liutprand,
(apud Murat. Script. Ital. tom. ii. p. 486, to which Gibbon
refers.) But with some inaccuracy or confusion, which rarely
occurs in Gibbon’s references, the rest of the quotation, which
as it stands is unintelligible, does not appear—M.]
102 (return) [ By Laonicus Chalcocondyles, who survived the last
siege of Constantinople, the account is thus stated, (l. i. p.
3.) Constantine transplanted his Latins of Italy to a Greek city
of Thrace: they adopted the language and manners of the natives,
who were confounded with them under the name of Romans. The kings
of Constantinople, says the historian.]
While the government of the East was transacted in Latin, the
Greek was the language of literature and philosophy; nor could
the masters of this rich and perfect idiom be tempted to envy the
borrowed learning and imitative taste of their Roman disciples.
After the fall of Paganism, the loss of Syria and Egypt, and the
extinction of the schools of Alexandria and Athens, the studies
of the Greeks insensibly retired to some regular monasteries, and
above all, to the royal college of Constantinople, which was
burnt in the reign of Leo the Isaurian. 103 In the pompous style
of the age, the president of that foundation was named the Sun of
Science: his twelve associates, the professors in the different
arts and faculties, were the twelve signs of the zodiac; a
library of thirty-six thousand five hundred volumes was open to
their inquiries; and they could show an ancient manuscript of
Homer, on a roll of parchment one hundred and twenty feet in
length, the intestines, as it was fabled, of a prodigious
serpent. 104 But the seventh and eight centuries were a period of
discord and darkness: the library was burnt, the college was
abolished, the Iconoclasts are represented as the foes of
antiquity; and a savage ignorance and contempt of letters has
disgraced the princes of the Heraclean and Isaurian dynasties.
105
103 (return) [ See Ducange, (C. P. Christiana, l. ii. p. 150,
151,) who collects the testimonies, not of Theophanes, but at
least of Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xv. p. 104,) Cedrenus, (p. 454,)
Michael Glycas, (p. 281,) Constantine Manasses, (p. 87.) After
refuting the absurd charge against the emperor, Spanheim, (Hist.
Imaginum, p. 99-111,) like a true advocate, proceeds to doubt or
deny the reality of the fire, and almost of the library.]
104 (return) [ According to Malchus, (apud Zonar. l. xiv. p. 53,)
this Homer was burnt in the time of Basiliscus. The Ms. might be
renewed—But on a serpent’s skin? Most strange and incredible!]
105 (return) [ The words of Zonaras, and of Cedrenus, are strong
words, perhaps not ill suited to those reigns.]
In the ninth century we trace the first dawnings of the
restoration of science. 106 After the fanaticism of the Arabs had
subsided, the caliphs aspired to conquer the arts, rather than
the provinces, of the empire: their liberal curiosity rekindled
the emulation of the Greeks, brushed away the dust from their
ancient libraries, and taught them to know and reward the
philosophers, whose labors had been hitherto repaid by the
pleasure of study and the pursuit of truth. The Caesar Bardas,
the uncle of Michael the Third, was the generous protector of
letters, a title which alone has preserved his memory and excused
his ambition. A particle of the treasures of his nephew was
sometimes diverted from the indulgence of vice and folly; a
school was opened in the palace of Magnaura; and the presence of
Bardas excited the emulation of the masters and students. At
their head was the philosopher Leo, archbishop of Thessalonica:
his profound skill in astronomy and the mathematics was admired
by the strangers of the East; and this occult science was
magnified by vulgar credulity, which modestly supposes that all
knowledge superior to its own must be the effect of inspiration
or magic. At the pressing entreaty of the Caesar, his friend, the
celebrated Photius, 107 renounced the freedom of a secular and
studious life, ascended the patriarchal throne, and was
alternately excommunicated and absolved by the synods of the East
and West. By the confession even of priestly hatred, no art or
science, except poetry, was foreign to this universal scholar,
who was deep in thought, indefatigable in reading, and eloquent
in diction. Whilst he exercised the office of protospathaire or
captain of the guards, Photius was sent ambassador to the caliph
of Bagdad. 108 The tedious hours of exile, perhaps of
confinement, were beguiled by the hasty composition of his
Library, a living monument of erudition and criticism. Two
hundred and fourscore writers, historians, orators, philosophers,
theologians, are reviewed without any regular method: he abridges
their narrative or doctrine, appreciates their style and
character, and judges even the fathers of the church with a
discreet freedom, which often breaks through the superstition of
the times. The emperor Basil, who lamented the defects of his own
education, intrusted to the care of Photius his son and
successor, Leo the philosopher; and the reign of that prince and
of his son Constantine Porphyrogenitus forms one of the most
prosperous aeras of the Byzantine literature. By their
munificence the treasures of antiquity were deposited in the
Imperial library; by their pens, or those of their associates,
they were imparted in such extracts and abridgments as might
amuse the curiosity, without oppressing the indolence, of the
public. Besides the Basilics, or code of laws, the arts of
husbandry and war, of feeding or destroying the human species,
were propagated with equal diligence; and the history of Greece
and Rome was digested into fifty-three heads or titles, of which
two only (of embassies, and of virtues and vices) have escaped
the injuries of time. In every station, the reader might
contemplate the image of the past world, apply the lesson or
warning of each page, and learn to admire, perhaps to imitate,
the examples of a brighter period. I shall not expatiate on the
works of the Byzantine Greeks, who, by the assiduous study of the
ancients, have deserved, in some measure, the remembrance and
gratitude of the moderns. The scholars of the present age may
still enjoy the benefit of the philosophical commonplace book of
Stobaeus, the grammatical and historical lexicon of Suidas, the
Chiliads of Tzetzes, which comprise six hundred narratives in
twelve thousand verses, and the commentaries on Homer of
Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica, who, from his horn of
plenty, has poured the names and authorities of four hundred
writers. From these originals, and from the numerous tribe of
scholiasts and critics, 109 some estimate may be formed of the
literary wealth of the twelfth century: Constantinople was
enlightened by the genius of Homer and Demosthenes, of Aristotle
and Plato: and in the enjoyment or neglect of our present riches,
we must envy the generation that could still peruse the history
of Theopompus, the orations of Hyperides, the comedies of
Menander, 110 and the odes of Alcaeus and Sappho. The frequent
labor of illustration attests not only the existence, but the
popularity, of the Grecian classics: the general knowledge of the
age may be deduced from the example of two learned females, the
empress Eudocia, and the princess Anna Comnena, who cultivated,
in the purple, the arts of rhetoric and philosophy. 111 The
vulgar dialect of the city was gross and barbarous: a more
correct and elaborate style distinguished the discourse, or at
least the compositions, of the church and palace, which sometimes
affected to copy the purity of the Attic models.
106 (return) [ See Zonaras (l. xvi. p. 160, 161) and Cedrenus,
(p. 549, 550.) Like Friar Bacon, the philosopher Leo has been
transformed by ignorance into a conjurer; yet not so
undeservedly, if he be the author of the oracles more commonly
ascribed to the emperor of the same name. The physics of Leo in
Ms. are in the library of Vienna, (Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec.
tom. vi. p 366, tom. xii. p. 781.) Qui serant!]
107 (return) [ The ecclesiastical and literary character of
Photius is copiously discussed by Hanckius (de Scriptoribus
Byzant. p. 269, 396) and Fabricius.]
108 (return) [ It can only mean Bagdad, the seat of the caliphs
and the relation of his embassy might have been curious and
instructive. But how did he procure his books? A library so
numerous could neither be found at Bagdad, nor transported with
his baggage, nor preserved in his memory. Yet the last, however
incredible, seems to be affirmed by Photius himself. Camusat
(Hist. Critique des Journaux, p. 87-94) gives a good account of
the Myriobiblon.]
109 (return) [ Of these modern Greeks, see the respective
articles in the Bibliotheca Graeca of Fabricius—a laborious work,
yet susceptible of a better method and many improvements; of
Eustathius, (tom. i. p. 289-292, 306-329,) of the Pselli, (a
diatribe of Leo Allatius, ad calcem tom. v., of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, tom. vi. p. 486-509) of John Stobaeus, (tom.
viii., 665-728,) of Suidas, (tom. ix. p. 620-827,) John Tzetzes,
(tom. xii. p. 245-273.) Mr. Harris, in his Philological
Arrangements, opus senile, has given a sketch of this Byzantine
learning, (p. 287-300.)]
110 (return) [ From the obscure and hearsay evidence, Gerard
Vossius (de Poetis Graecis, c. 6) and Le Clerc (Bibliotheque
Choisie, tom. xix. p. 285) mention a commentary of Michael
Psellus on twenty-four plays of Menander, still extant in Ms. at
Constantinople. Yet such classic studies seem incompatible with
the gravity or dulness of a schoolman, who pored over the
categories, (de Psellis, p. 42;) and Michael has probably been
confounded with Homerus Sellius, who wrote arguments to the
comedies of Menander. In the xth century, Suidas quotes fifty
plays, but he often transcribes the old scholiast of
Aristophanes.]
111 (return) [ Anna Comnena may boast of her Greek style, and
Zonaras her contemporary, but not her flatterer, may add with
truth. The princess was conversant with the artful dialogues of
Plato; and had studied quadrivium of astrology, geometry,
arithmetic, and music, (see he preface to the Alexiad, with
Ducange’s notes)]
In our modern education, the painful though necessary attainment
of two languages, which are no longer living, may consume the
time and damp the ardor of the youthful student. The poets and
orators were long imprisoned in the barbarous dialects of our
Western ancestors, devoid of harmony or grace; and their genius,
without precept or example, was abandoned to the rule and native
powers of their judgment and fancy. But the Greeks of
Constantinople, after purging away the impurities of their vulgar
speech, acquired the free use of their ancient language, the most
happy composition of human art, and a familiar knowledge of the
sublime masters who had pleased or instructed the first of
nations. But these advantages only tend to aggravate the reproach
and shame of a degenerate people. They held in their lifeless
hands the riches of their fathers, without inheriting the spirit
which had created and improved that sacred patrimony: they read,
they praised, they compiled, but their languid souls seemed alike
incapable of thought and action. In the revolution of ten
centuries, not a single discovery was made to exalt the dignity
or promote the happiness of mankind. Not a single idea has been
added to the speculative systems of antiquity, and a succession
of patient disciples became in their turn the dogmatic teachers
of the next servile generation. Not a single composition of
history, philosophy, or literature, has been saved from oblivion
by the intrinsic beauties of style or sentiment, of original
fancy, or even of successful imitation. In prose, the least
offensive of the Byzantine writers are absolved from censure by
their naked and unpresuming simplicity: but the orators, most
eloquent 112 in their own conceit, are the farthest removed from
the models whom they affect to emulate. In every page our taste
and reason are wounded by the choice of gigantic and obsolete
words, a stiff and intricate phraseology, the discord of images,
the childish play of false or unseasonable ornament, and the
painful attempt to elevate themselves, to astonish the reader,
and to involve a trivial meaning in the smoke of obscurity and
exaggeration. Their prose is soaring to the vicious affectation
of poetry: their poetry is sinking below the flatness and
insipidity of prose. The tragic, epic, and lyric muses, were
silent and inglorious: the bards of Constantinople seldom rose
above a riddle or epigram, a panegyric or tale; they forgot even
the rules of prosody; and with the melody of Homer yet sounding
in their ears, they confound all measure of feet and syllables in
the impotent strains which have received the name of political or
city verses. 113 The minds of the Greek were bound in the fetters
of a base and imperious superstition which extends her dominion
round the circle of profane science. Their understandings were
bewildered in metaphysical controversy: in the belief of visions
and miracles, they had lost all principles of moral evidence, and
their taste was vitiated by the homilies of the monks, an absurd
medley of declamation and Scripture. Even these contemptible
studies were no longer dignified by the abuse of superior
talents: the leaders of the Greek church were humbly content to
admire and copy the oracles of antiquity, nor did the schools of
pulpit produce any rivals of the fame of Athanasius and
Chrysostom. 114
112 (return) [ To censure the Byzantine taste. Ducange (Praefat.
Gloss. Graec. p. 17) strings the authorities of Aulus Gellius,
Jerom, Petronius George Hamartolus, Longinus; who give at once
the precept and the example.]
113 (return) [ The versus politici, those common prostitutes, as,
from their easiness, they are styled by Leo Allatius, usually
consist of fifteen syllables. They are used by Constantine
Manasses, John Tzetzes, &c. (Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. iii. p.
i. p. 345, 346, edit. Basil, 1762.)]
114 (return) [ As St. Bernard of the Latin, so St. John
Damascenus in the viiith century is revered as the last father of
the Greek, church.]
In all the pursuits of active and speculative life, the emulation
of states and individuals is the most powerful spring of the
efforts and improvements of mankind. The cities of ancient Greece
were cast in the happy mixture of union and independence, which
is repeated on a larger scale, but in a looser form, by the
nations of modern Europe; the union of language, religion, and
manners, which renders them the spectators and judges of each
other’s merit; 115 the independence of government and interest,
which asserts their separate freedom, and excites them to strive
for preeminence in the career of glory. The situation of the
Romans was less favorable; yet in the early ages of the republic,
which fixed the national character, a similar emulation was
kindled among the states of Latium and Italy; and in the arts and
sciences, they aspired to equal or surpass their Grecian masters.
The empire of the Caesars undoubtedly checked the activity and
progress of the human mind; its magnitude might indeed allow some
scope for domestic competition; but when it was gradually
reduced, at first to the East and at last to Greece and
Constantinople, the Byzantine subjects were degraded to an abject
and languid temper, the natural effect of their solitary and
insulated state. From the North they were oppressed by nameless
tribes of Barbarians, to whom they scarcely imparted the
appellation of men. The language and religion of the more
polished Arabs were an insurmountable bar to all social
intercourse. The conquerors of Europe were their brethren in the
Christian faith; but the speech of the Franks or Latins was
unknown, their manners were rude, and they were rarely connected,
in peace or war, with the successors of Heraclius. Alone in the
universe, the self-satisfied pride of the Greeks was not
disturbed by the comparison of foreign merit; and it is no wonder
if they fainted in the race, since they had neither competitors
to urge their speed, nor judges to crown their victory. The
nations of Europe and Asia were mingled by the expeditions to the
Holy Land; and it is under the Comnenian dynasty that a faint
emulation of knowledge and military virtue was rekindled in the
Byzantine empire.
115 (return) [Hume’s Essays, vol. i. p. 125]
Chapter LIV: Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.—Part I.
Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.—Their Persecution By The
Greek Emperors.—Revolt In Armenia &c.—Transplantation Into
Thrace.—Propagation In The West.—The Seeds, Character, And
Consequences Of The Reformation.
In the profession of Christianity, the variety of national
characters may be clearly distinguished. The natives of Syria and
Egypt abandoned their lives to lazy and contemplative devotion:
Rome again aspired to the dominion of the world; and the wit of
the lively and loquacious Greeks was consumed in the disputes of
metaphysical theology. The incomprehensible mysteries of the
Trinity and Incarnation, instead of commanding their silent
submission, were agitated in vehement and subtile controversies,
which enlarged their faith at the expense, perhaps, of their
charity and reason. From the council of Nice to the end of the
seventh century, the peace and unity of the church was invaded by
these spiritual wars; and so deeply did they affect the decline
and fall of the empire, that the historian has too often been
compelled to attend the synods, to explore the creeds, and to
enumerate the sects, of this busy period of ecclesiastical
annals. From the beginning of the eighth century to the last ages
of the Byzantine empire, the sound of controversy was seldom
heard: curiosity was exhausted, zeal was fatigued, and, in the
decrees of six councils, the articles of the Catholic faith had
been irrevocably defined. The spirit of dispute, however vain and
pernicious, requires some energy and exercise of the mental
faculties; and the prostrate Greeks were content to fast, to
pray, and to believe in blind obedience to the patriarch and his
clergy. During a long dream of superstition, the Virgin and the
Saints, their visions and miracles, their relics and images, were
preached by the monks, and worshipped by the people; and the
appellation of people might be extended, without injustice, to
the first ranks of civil society. At an unseasonable moment, the
Isaurian emperors attempted somewhat rudely to awaken their
subjects: under their influence reason might obtain some
proselytes, a far greater number was swayed by interest or fear;
but the Eastern world embraced or deplored their visible deities,
and the restoration of images was celebrated as the feast of
orthodoxy. In this passive and unanimous state the ecclesiastical
rulers were relieved from the toil, or deprived of the pleasure,
of persecution. The Pagans had disappeared; the Jews were silent
and obscure; the disputes with the Latins were rare and remote
hostilities against a national enemy; and the sects of Egypt and
Syria enjoyed a free toleration under the shadow of the Arabian
caliphs. About the middle of the seventh century, a branch of
Manichaeans was selected as the victims of spiritual tyranny;
their patience was at length exasperated to despair and
rebellion; and their exile has scattered over the West the seeds
of reformation. These important events will justify some inquiry
into the doctrine and story of the Paulicians; 1 and, as they
cannot plead for themselves, our candid criticism will magnify
the good, and abate or suspect the evil, that is reported by
their adversaries.
1 (return) [ The errors and virtues of the Paulicians are
weighed, with his usual judgment and candor, by the learned
Mosheim, (Hist. Ecclesiast. seculum ix. p. 311, &c.) He draws his
original intelligence from Photius (contra Manichaeos, l. i.) and
Peter Siculus, (Hist. Manichaeorum.) The first of these accounts
has not fallen into my hands; the second, which Mosheim prefers,
I have read in a Latin version inserted in the Maxima Bibliotheca
Patrum, (tom. xvi. p. 754-764,) from the edition of the Jesuit
Raderus, (Ingolstadii, 1604, in 4to.) * Note: Compare Hallam’s
Middle Ages, p. 461-471. Mr. Hallam justly observes that this
chapter “appears to be accurate as well as luminous, and is at
least far superior to any modern work on the subject.”—M.]
The Gnostics, who had distracted the infancy, were oppressed by
the greatness and authority, of the church. Instead of emulating
or surpassing the wealth, learning, and numbers of the Catholics,
their obscure remnant was driven from the capitals of the East
and West, and confined to the villages and mountains along the
borders of the Euphrates. Some vestige of the Marcionites may be
detected in the fifth century; 2 but the numerous sects were
finally lost in the odious name of the Manichaeans; and these
heretics, who presumed to reconcile the doctrines of Zoroaster
and Christ, were pursued by the two religions with equal and
unrelenting hatred. Under the grandson of Heraclius, in the
neighborhood of Samosata, more famous for the birth of Lucian
than for the title of a Syrian kingdom, a reformer arose,
esteemed by the Paulicians as the chosen messenger of truth. In
his humble dwelling of Mananalis, Constantine entertained a
deacon, who returned from Syrian captivity, and received the
inestimable gift of the New Testament, which was already
concealed from the vulgar by the prudence of the Greek, and
perhaps of the Gnostic, clergy. 3 These books became the measure
of his studies and the rule of his faith; and the Catholics, who
dispute his interpretation, acknowledge that his text was genuine
and sincere. But he attached himself with peculiar devotion to
the writings and character of St. Paul: the name of the
Paulicians is derived by their enemies from some unknown and
domestic teacher; but I am confident that they gloried in their
affinity to the apostle of the Gentiles. His disciples, Titus,
Timothy, Sylvanus, Tychicus, were represented by Constantine and
his fellow-laborers: the names of the apostolic churches were
applied to the congregations which they assembled in Armenia and
Cappadocia; and this innocent allegory revived the example and
memory of the first ages. In the Gospel, and the Epistles of St.
Paul, his faithful follower investigated the Creed of primitive
Christianity; and, whatever might be the success, a Protestant
reader will applaud the spirit, of the inquiry. But if the
Scriptures of the Paulicians were pure, they were not perfect.
Their founders rejected the two Epistles of St. Peter, 4 the
apostle of the circumcision, whose dispute with their favorite
for the observance of the law could not easily be forgiven. 5
They agreed with their Gnostic brethren in the universal contempt
for the Old Testament, the books of Moses and the prophets, which
have been consecrated by the decrees of the Catholic church. With
equal boldness, and doubtless with more reason, Constantine, the
new Sylvanus, disclaimed the visions, which, in so many bulky and
splendid volumes, had been published by the Oriental sects; 6 the
fabulous productions of the Hebrew patriarchs and the sages of
the East; the spurious gospels, epistles, and acts, which in the
first age had overwhelmed the orthodox code; the theology of
Manes, and the authors of the kindred heresies; and the thirty
generations, or aeons, which had been created by the fruitful
fancy of Valentine. The Paulicians sincerely condemned the memory
and opinions of the Manichaean sect, and complained of the
injustice which impressed that invidious name on the simple
votaries of St. Paul and of Christ.
2 (return) [ In the time of Theodoret, the diocese of Cyrrhus, in
Syria, contained eight hundred villages. Of these, two were
inhabited by Arians and Eunomians, and eight by Marcionites, whom
the laborious bishop reconciled to the Catholic church, (Dupin,
Bibliot. Ecclesiastique, tom. iv. p. 81, 82.)]
3 (return) [ Nobis profanis ista (sacra Evangelia) legere non
licet sed sacerdotibus duntaxat, was the first scruple of a
Catholic when he was advised to read the Bible, (Petr. Sicul. p.
761.)]
4 (return) [ In rejecting the second Epistle of St. Peter, the
Paulicians are justified by some of the most respectable of the
ancients and moderns, (see Wetstein ad loc., Simon, Hist.
Critique du Nouveau Testament, c. 17.) They likewise overlooked
the Apocalypse, (Petr. Sicul. p. 756;) but as such neglect is not
imputed as a crime, the Greeks of the ixth century must have been
careless of the credit and honor of the Revelations.]
5 (return) [ This contention, which has not escaped the malice of
Porphyry, supposes some error and passion in one or both of the
apostles. By Chrysostom, Jerome, and Erasmus, it is represented
as a sham quarrel a pious fraud, for the benefit of the Gentiles
and the correction of the Jews, (Middleton’s Works, vol. ii. p.
1-20.)]
6 (return) [ Those who are curious of this heterodox library, may
consult the researches of Beausobre, (Hist. Critique du
Manicheisme, tom. i. p. 305-437.) Even in Africa, St. Austin
could describe the Manichaean books, tam multi, tam grandes, tam
pretiosi codices, (contra Faust. xiii. 14;) but he adds, without
pity, Incendite omnes illas membranas: and his advice had been
rigorously followed.]
Of the ecclesiastical chain, many links had been broken by the
Paulician reformers; and their liberty was enlarged, as they
reduced the number of masters, at whose voice profane reason must
bow to mystery and miracle. The early separation of the Gnostics
had preceded the establishment of the Catholic worship; and
against the gradual innovations of discipline and doctrine they
were as strongly guarded by habit and aversion, as by the silence
of St. Paul and the evangelists. The objects which had been
transformed by the magic of superstition, appeared to the eyes of
the Paulicians in their genuine and naked colors. An image made
without hands was the common workmanship of a mortal artist, to
whose skill alone the wood and canvas must be indebted for their
merit or value. The miraculous relics were a heap of bones and
ashes, destitute of life or virtue, or of any relation, perhaps,
with the person to whom they were ascribed. The true and
vivifying cross was a piece of sound or rotten timber, the body
and blood of Christ, a loaf of bread and a cup of wine, the gifts
of nature and the symbols of grace. The mother of God was
degraded from her celestial honors and immaculate virginity; and
the saints and angels were no longer solicited to exercise the
laborious office of mediation in heaven, and ministry upon earth.
In the practice, or at least in the theory, of the sacraments,
the Paulicians were inclined to abolish all visible objects of
worship, and the words of the gospel were, in their judgment, the
baptism and communion of the faithful. They indulged a convenient
latitude for the interpretation of Scripture: and as often as
they were pressed by the literal sense, they could escape to the
intricate mazes of figure and allegory. Their utmost diligence
must have been employed to dissolve the connection between the
Old and the New Testament; since they adored the latter as the
oracles of God, and abhorred the former as the fabulous and
absurd invention of men or daemons. We cannot be surprised, that
they should have found in the Gospel the orthodox mystery of the
Trinity: but, instead of confessing the human nature and
substantial sufferings of Christ, they amused their fancy with a
celestial body that passed through the virgin like water through
a pipe; with a fantastic crucifixion, that eluded the vain and
important malice of the Jews. A creed thus simple and spiritual
was not adapted to the genius of the times; 7 and the rational
Christian, who might have been contented with the light yoke and
easy burden of Jesus and his apostles, was justly offended, that
the Paulicians should dare to violate the unity of God, the first
article of natural and revealed religion. Their belief and their
trust was in the Father, of Christ, of the human soul, and of the
invisible world.
But they likewise held the eternity of matter; a stubborn and
rebellious substance, the origin of a second principle of an
active being, who has created this visible world, and exercises
his temporal reign till the final consummation of death and sin.
8 The appearances of moral and physical evil had established the
two principles in the ancient philosophy and religion of the
East; from whence this doctrine was transfused to the various
swarms of the Gnostics. A thousand shades may be devised in the
nature and character of Ahriman, from a rival god to a
subordinate daemon, from passion and frailty to pure and perfect
malevolence: but, in spite of our efforts, the goodness, and the
power, of Ormusd are placed at the opposite extremities of the
line; and every step that approaches the one must recede in equal
proportion from the other. 9
7 (return) [ The six capital errors of the Paulicians are defined
by Peter (p. 756,) with much prejudice and passion.]
8 (return) [ Primum illorum axioma est, duo rerum esse principia;
Deum malum et Deum bonum, aliumque hujus mundi conditorem et
princi pem, et alium futuri aevi, (Petr. Sicul. 765.)]
9 (return) [ Two learned critics, Beausobre (Hist. Critique du
Manicheisme, l. i. iv. v. vi.) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist.
Eccles. and de Rebus Christianis ante Constantinum, sec. i. ii.
iii.,) have labored to explore and discriminate the various
systems of the Gnostics on the subject of the two principles.]
The apostolic labors of Constantine Sylvanus soon multiplied the
number of his disciples, the secret recompense of spiritual
ambition. The remnant of the Gnostic sects, and especially the
Manichaeans of Armenia, were united under his standard; many
Catholics were converted or seduced by his arguments; and he
preached with success in the regions of Pontus 10 and Cappadocia,
which had long since imbibed the religion of Zoroaster. The
Paulician teachers were distinguished only by their Scriptural
names, by the modest title of Fellow-pilgrims, by the austerity
of their lives, their zeal or knowledge, and the credit of some
extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit. But they were incapable
of desiring, or at least of obtaining, the wealth and honors of
the Catholic prelacy; such anti-Christian pride they bitterly
censured; and even the rank of elders or presbyters was condemned
as an institution of the Jewish synagogue. The new sect was
loosely spread over the provinces of Asia Minor to the westward
of the Euphrates; six of their principal congregations
represented the churches to which St. Paul had addressed his
epistles; and their founder chose his residence in the
neighborhood of Colonia, 11 in the same district of Pontus which
had been celebrated by the altars of Bellona 12 and the miracles
of Gregory. 13 After a mission of twenty-seven years, Sylvanus,
who had retired from the tolerating government of the Arabs, fell
a sacrifice to Roman persecution. The laws of the pious emperors,
which seldom touched the lives of less odious heretics,
proscribed without mercy or disguise the tenets, the books, and
the persons of the Montanists and Manichaeans: the books were
delivered to the flames; and all who should presume to secrete
such writings, or to profess such opinions, were devoted to an
ignominious death. 14 A Greek minister, armed with legal and
military powers, appeared at Colonia to strike the shepherd, and
to reclaim, if possible, the lost sheep. By a refinement of
cruelty, Simeon placed the unfortunate Sylvanus before a line of
his disciples, who were commanded, as the price of their pardon
and the proof of their repentance, to massacre their spiritual
father. They turned aside from the impious office; the stones
dropped from their filial hands, and of the whole number, only
one executioner could be found, a new David, as he is styled by
the Catholics, who boldly overthrew the giant of heresy. This
apostate (Justin was his name) again deceived and betrayed his
unsuspecting brethren, and a new conformity to the acts of St.
Paul may be found in the conversion of Simeon: like the apostle,
he embraced the doctrine which he had been sent to persecute,
renounced his honors and fortunes, and required among the
Paulicians the fame of a missionary and a martyr. They were not
ambitious of martyrdom, 15 but in a calamitous period of one
hundred and fifty years, their patience sustained whatever zeal
could inflict; and power was insufficient to eradicate the
obstinate vegetation of fanaticism and reason. From the blood and
ashes of the first victims, a succession of teachers and
congregations repeatedly arose: amidst their foreign hostilities,
they found leisure for domestic quarrels: they preached, they
disputed, they suffered; and the virtues, the apparent virtues,
of Sergius, in a pilgrimage of thirty-three years, are
reluctantly confessed by the orthodox historians. 16 The native
cruelty of Justinian the Second was stimulated by a pious cause;
and he vainly hoped to extinguish, in a single conflagration, the
name and memory of the Paulicians. By their primitive simplicity,
their abhorrence of popular superstition, the Iconoclast princes
might have been reconciled to some erroneous doctrines; but they
themselves were exposed to the calumnies of the monks, and they
chose to be the tyrants, lest they should be accused as the
accomplices, of the Manichaeans. Such a reproach has sullied the
clemency of Nicephorus, who relaxed in their favor the severity
of the penal statutes, nor will his character sustain the honor
of a more liberal motive. The feeble Michael the First, the rigid
Leo the Armenian, were foremost in the race of persecution; but
the prize must doubtless be adjudged to the sanguinary devotion
of Theodora, who restored the images to the Oriental church. Her
inquisitors explored the cities and mountains of the Lesser Asia,
and the flatterers of the empress have affirmed that, in a short
reign, one hundred thousand Paulicians were extirpated by the
sword, the gibbet, or the flames. Her guilt or merit has perhaps
been stretched beyond the measure of truth: but if the account be
allowed, it must be presumed that many simple Iconoclasts were
punished under a more odious name; and that some who were driven
from the church, unwillingly took refuge in the bosom of heresy.
10 (return) [ The countries between the Euphrates and the Halys
were possessed above 350 years by the Medes (Herodot. l. i. c.
103) and Persians; and the kings of Pontus were of the royal race
of the Achaemenides, (Sallust. Fragment. l. iii. with the French
supplement and notes of the president de Brosses.)]
11 (return) [ Most probably founded by Pompey after the conquest
of Pontus. This Colonia, on the Lycus, above Neo-Caesarea, is
named by the Turks Coulei-hisar, or Chonac, a populous town in a
strong country, (D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 34.
Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, tom. iii. lettre xxi. p. 293.)]
12 (return) [ The temple of Bellona, at Comana in Pontus was a
powerful and wealthy foundation, and the high priest was
respected as the second person in the kingdom. As the sacerdotal
office had been occupied by his mother’s family, Strabo (l. xii.
p. 809, 835, 836, 837) dwells with peculiar complacency on the
temple, the worship, and festival, which was twice celebrated
every year. But the Bellona of Pontus had the features and
character of the goddess, not of war, but of love.]
13 (return) [ Gregory, bishop of Neo-Caesarea, (A.D. 240-265,)
surnamed Thaumaturgus, or the Wonder-worker. An hundred years
afterwards, the history or romance of his life was composed by
Gregory of Nyssa, his namesake and countryman, the brother of the
great St. Basil.]
14 (return) [ Hoc caeterum ad sua egregia facinora, divini atque
orthodoxi Imperatores addiderunt, ut Manichaeos Montanosque
capitali puniri sententia juberent, eorumque libros, quocunque in
loco inventi essent, flammis tradi; quod siquis uspiam eosdem
occultasse deprehenderetur, hunc eundem mortis poenae addici,
ejusque bona in fiscum inferri, (Petr. Sicul. p. 759.) What more
could bigotry and persecution desire?]
15 (return) [ It should seem, that the Paulicians allowed
themselves some latitude of equivocation and mental reservation;
till the Catholics discovered the pressing questions, which
reduced them to the alternative of apostasy or martyrdom, (Petr.
Sicul. p. 760.)]
16 (return) [ The persecution is told by Petrus Siculus (p.
579-763) with satisfaction and pleasantry. Justus justa
persolvit. See likewise Cedrenus, (p. 432-435.)]
The most furious and desperate of rebels are the sectaries of a
religion long persecuted, and at length provoked. In a holy cause
they are no longer susceptible of fear or remorse: the justice of
their arms hardens them against the feelings of humanity; and
they revenge their fathers’ wrongs on the children of their
tyrants. Such have been the Hussites of Bohemia and the
Calvinists of France, and such, in the ninth century, were the
Paulicians of Armenia and the adjacent provinces. 17 They were
first awakened to the massacre of a governor and bishop, who
exercised the Imperial mandate of converting or destroying the
heretics; and the deepest recesses of Mount Argaeus protected
their independence and revenge. A more dangerous and consuming
flame was kindled by the persecution of Theodora, and the revolt
of Carbeas, a valiant Paulician, who commanded the guards of the
general of the East. His father had been impaled by the Catholic
inquisitors; and religion, or at least nature, might justify his
desertion and revenge. Five thousand of his brethren were united
by the same motives; they renounced the allegiance of
anti-Christian Rome; a Saracen emir introduced Carbeas to the
caliph; and the commander of the faithful extended his sceptre to
the implacable enemy of the Greeks. In the mountains between
Siwas and Trebizond he founded or fortified the city of Tephrice,
18 which is still occupied by a fierce or licentious people, and
the neighboring hills were covered with the Paulician fugitives,
who now reconciled the use of the Bible and the sword. During
more than thirty years, Asia was afflicted by the calamities of
foreign and domestic war; in their hostile inroads, the disciples
of St. Paul were joined with those of Mahomet; and the peaceful
Christians, the aged parent and tender virgin, who were delivered
into barbarous servitude, might justly accuse the intolerant
spirit of their sovereign. So urgent was the mischief, so
intolerable the shame, that even the dissolute Michael, the son
of Theodora, was compelled to march in person against the
Paulicians: he was defeated under the walls of Samosata; and the
Roman emperor fled before the heretics whom his mother had
condemned to the flames. The Saracens fought under the same
banners, but the victory was ascribed to Carbeas; and the captive
generals, with more than a hundred tribunes, were either released
by his avarice, or tortured by his fanaticism. The valor and
ambition of Chrysocheir, 19 his successor, embraced a wider
circle of rapine and revenge. In alliance with his faithful
Moslems, he boldly penetrated into the heart of Asia; the troops
of the frontier and the palace were repeatedly overthrown; the
edicts of persecution were answered by the pillage of Nice and
Nicomedia, of Ancyra and Ephesus; nor could the apostle St. John
protect from violation his city and sepulchre. The cathedral of
Ephesus was turned into a stable for mules and horses; and the
Paulicians vied with the Saracens in their contempt and
abhorrence of images and relics. It is not unpleasing to observe
the triumph of rebellion over the same despotism which had
disdained the prayers of an injured people. The emperor Basil,
the Macedonian, was reduced to sue for peace, to offer a ransom
for the captives, and to request, in the language of moderation
and charity, that Chrysocheir would spare his fellow-Christians,
and content himself with a royal donative of gold and silver and
silk garments. “If the emperor,” replied the insolent fanatic,
“be desirous of peace, let him abdicate the East, and reign
without molestation in the West. If he refuse, the servants of
the Lord will precipitate him from the throne.” The reluctant
Basil suspended the treaty, accepted the defiance, and led his
army into the land of heresy, which he wasted with fire and
sword. The open country of the Paulicians was exposed to the same
calamities which they had inflicted; but when he had explored the
strength of Tephrice, the multitude of the Barbarians, and the
ample magazines of arms and provisions, he desisted with a sigh
from the hopeless siege. On his return to Constantinople, he
labored, by the foundation of convents and churches, to secure
the aid of his celestial patrons, of Michael the archangel and
the prophet Elijah; and it was his daily prayer that he might
live to transpierce, with three arrows, the head of his impious
adversary. Beyond his expectations, the wish was accomplished:
after a successful inroad, Chrysocheir was surprised and slain in
his retreat; and the rebel’s head was triumphantly presented at
the foot of the throne. On the reception of this welcome trophy,
Basil instantly called for his bow, discharged three arrows with
unerring aim, and accepted the applause of the court, who hailed
the victory of the royal archer. With Chrysocheir, the glory of
the Paulicians faded and withered: 20 on the second expedition of
the emperor, the impregnable Tephrice, was deserted by the
heretics, who sued for mercy or escaped to the borders. The city
was ruined, but the spirit of independence survived in the
mountains: the Paulicians defended, above a century, their
religion and liberty, infested the Roman limits, and maintained
their perpetual alliance with the enemies of the empire and the
gospel.
17 (return) [ Petrus Siculus, (p. 763, 764,) the continuator of
Theophanes, (l. iv. c. 4, p. 103, 104,) Cedrenus, (p. 541, 542,
545,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 156,) describe the revolt
and exploits of Carbeas and his Paulicians.]
18 (return) [ Otter (Voyage en Turquie et en Perse, tom. ii.) is
probably the only Frank who has visited the independent
Barbarians of Tephrice now Divrigni, from whom he fortunately
escaped in the train of a Turkish officer.]
19 (return) [ In the history of Chrysocheir, Genesius (Chron. p.
67-70, edit. Venet.) has exposed the nakedness of the empire.
Constantine Porphyrogenitus (in Vit. Basil. c. 37-43, p. 166-171)
has displayed the glory of his grandfather. Cedrenus (p. 570-573)
is without their passions or their knowledge.]
20 (return) [ How elegant is the Greek tongue, even in the mouth
of Cedrenus!]
Chapter LIV: Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.—Part II.
About the middle of the eight century, Constantine, surnamed
Copronymus by the worshippers of images, had made an expedition
into Armenia, and found, in the cities of Melitene and
Theodosiopolis, a great number of Paulicians, his kindred
heretics. As a favor, or punishment, he transplanted them from
the banks of the Euphrates to Constantinople and Thrace; and by
this emigration their doctrine was introduced and diffused in
Europe. 21 If the sectaries of the metropolis were soon mingled
with the promiscuous mass, those of the country struck a deep
root in a foreign soil. The Paulicians of Thrace resisted the
storms of persecution, maintained a secret correspondence with
their Armenian brethren, and gave aid and comfort to their
preachers, who solicited, not without success, the infant faith
of the Bulgarians. 22 In the tenth century, they were restored
and multiplied by a more powerful colony, which John Zimisces 23
transported from the Chalybian hills to the valleys of Mount
Haemus. The Oriental clergy who would have preferred the
destruction, impatiently sighed for the absence, of the
Manichaeans: the warlike emperor had felt and esteemed their
valor: their attachment to the Saracens was pregnant with
mischief; but, on the side of the Danube, against the Barbarians
of Scythia, their service might be useful, and their loss would
be desirable. Their exile in a distant land was softened by a
free toleration: the Paulicians held the city of Philippopolis
and the keys of Thrace; the Catholics were their subjects; the
Jacobite emigrants their associates: they occupied a line of
villages and castles in Macedonia and Epirus; and many native
Bulgarians were associated to the communion of arms and heresy.
As long as they were awed by power and treated with moderation,
their voluntary bands were distinguished in the armies of the
empire; and the courage of these dogs, ever greedy of war, ever
thirsty of human blood, is noticed with astonishment, and almost
with reproach, by the pusillanimous Greeks. The same spirit
rendered them arrogant and contumacious: they were easily
provoked by caprice or injury; and their privileges were often
violated by the faithless bigotry of the government and clergy.
In the midst of the Norman war, two thousand five hundred
Manichaeans deserted the standard of Alexius Comnenus, 24 and
retired to their native homes. He dissembled till the moment of
revenge; invited the chiefs to a friendly conference; and
punished the innocent and guilty by imprisonment, confiscation,
and baptism. In an interval of peace, the emperor undertook the
pious office of reconciling them to the church and state: his
winter quarters were fixed at Philippopolis; and the thirteenth
apostle, as he is styled by his pious daughter, consumed whole
days and nights in theological controversy. His arguments were
fortified, their obstinacy was melted, by the honors and rewards
which he bestowed on the most eminent proselytes; and a new city,
surrounded with gardens, enriched with immunities, and dignified
with his own name, was founded by Alexius for the residence of
his vulgar converts. The important station of Philippopolis was
wrested from their hands; the contumacious leaders were secured
in a dungeon, or banished from their country; and their lives
were spared by the prudence, rather than the mercy, of an
emperor, at whose command a poor and solitary heretic was burnt
alive before the church of St. Sophia. 25 But the proud hope of
eradicating the prejudices of a nation was speedily overturned by
the invincible zeal of the Paulicians, who ceased to dissemble or
refused to obey. After the departure and death of Alexius, they
soon resumed their civil and religious laws. In the beginning of
the thirteenth century, their pope or primate (a manifest
corruption) resided on the confines of Bulgaria, Croatia, and
Dalmatia, and governed, by his vicars, the filial congregations
of Italy and France. 26 From that aera, a minute scrutiny might
prolong and perpetuate the chain of tradition. At the end of the
last age, the sect or colony still inhabited the valleys of Mount
Haemus, where their ignorance and poverty were more frequently
tormented by the Greek clergy than by the Turkish government. The
modern Paulicians have lost all memory of their origin; and their
religion is disgraced by the worship of the cross, and the
practice of bloody sacrifice, which some captives have imported
from the wilds of Tartary. 27
21 (return) [ Copronymus transported his heretics; and thus says
Cedrenus, (p. 463,) who has copied the annals of Theophanes.]
22 (return) [ Petrus Siculus, who resided nine months at Tephrice
(A.D. 870) for the ransom of captives, (p. 764,) was informed of
their intended mission, and addressed his preservative, the
Historia Manichaeorum to the new archbishop of the Bulgarians,
(p. 754.)]
23 (return) [ The colony of Paulicians and Jacobites transplanted
by John Zimisces (A.D. 970) from Armenia to Thrace, is mentioned
by Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xvii. p. 209) and Anna Comnena, (Alexiad,
l. xiv. p. 450, &c.)]
24 (return) [ The Alexiad of Anna Comnena (l. v. p. 131, l. vi.
p. 154, 155, l. xiv. p. 450-457, with the Annotations of Ducange)
records the transactions of her apostolic father with the
Manichaeans, whose abominable heresy she was desirous of
refuting.]
25 (return) [ Basil, a monk, and the author of the Bogomiles, a
sect of Gnostics, who soon vanished, (Anna Comnena, Alexiad, l.
xv. p. 486-494 Mosheim, Hist. Ecclesiastica, p. 420.)]
26 (return) [ Matt. Paris, Hist. Major, p. 267. This passage of
our English historian is alleged by Ducange in an excellent note
on Villehardouin (No. 208,) who found the Paulicians at
Philippopolis the friends of the Bulgarians.]
27 (return) [ See Marsigli, Stato Militare dell’ Imperio
Ottomano, p. 24.]
In the West, the first teachers of the Manichaean theology had
been repulsed by the people, or suppressed by the prince. The
favor and success of the Paulicians in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries must be imputed to the strong, though secret,
discontent which armed the most pious Christians against the
church of Rome. Her avarice was oppressive, her despotism odious;
less degenerate perhaps than the Greeks in the worship of saints
and images, her innovations were more rapid and scandalous: she
had rigorously defined and imposed the doctrine of
transubstantiation: the lives of the Latin clergy were more
corrupt, and the Eastern bishops might pass for the successors of
the apostles, if they were compared with the lordly prelates, who
wielded by turns the crosier, the sceptre, and the sword. Three
different roads might introduce the Paulicians into the heart of
Europe. After the conversion of Hungary, the pilgrims who visited
Jerusalem might safely follow the course of the Danube: in their
journey and return they passed through Philippopolis; and the
sectaries, disguising their name and heresy, might accompany the
French or German caravans to their respective countries. The
trade and dominion of Venice pervaded the coast of the Adriatic,
and the hospitable republic opened her bosom to foreigners of
every climate and religion. Under the Byzantine standard, the
Paulicians were often transported to the Greek provinces of Italy
and Sicily: in peace and war, they freely conversed with
strangers and natives, and their opinions were silently
propagated in Rome, Milan, and the kingdoms beyond the Alps. 28
It was soon discovered, that many thousand Catholics of every
rank, and of either sex, had embraced the Manichaean heresy; and
the flames which consumed twelve canons of Orleans was the first
act and signal of persecution. The Bulgarians, 29 a name so
innocent in its origin, so odious in its application, spread
their branches over the face of Europe. United in common hatred
of idolatry and Rome, they were connected by a form of episcopal
and presbyterian government; their various sects were
discriminated by some fainter or darker shades of theology; but
they generally agreed in the two principles, the contempt of the
Old Testament and the denial of the body of Christ, either on the
cross or in the eucharist. A confession of simple worship and
blameless manners is extorted from their enemies; and so high was
their standard of perfection, that the increasing congregations
were divided into two classes of disciples, of those who
practised, and of those who aspired. It was in the country of the
Albigeois, 30 in the southern provinces of France, that the
Paulicians were most deeply implanted; and the same vicissitudes
of martyrdom and revenge which had been displayed in the
neighborhood of the Euphrates, were repeated in the thirteenth
century on the banks of the Rhone. The laws of the Eastern
emperors were revived by Frederic the Second. The insurgents of
Tephrice were represented by the barons and cities of Languedoc:
Pope Innocent III. surpassed the sanguinary fame of Theodora. It
was in cruelty alone that her soldiers could equal the heroes of
the Crusades, and the cruelty of her priests was far excelled by
the founders of the Inquisition; 31 an office more adapted to
confirm, than to refute, the belief of an evil principle. The
visible assemblies of the Paulicians, or Albigeois, were
extirpated by fire and sword; and the bleeding remnant escaped by
flight, concealment, or Catholic conformity. But the invincible
spirit which they had kindled still lived and breathed in the
Western world. In the state, in the church, and even in the
cloister, a latent succession was preserved of the disciples of
St. Paul; who protested against the tyranny of Rome, embraced the
Bible as the rule of faith, and purified their creed from all the
visions of the Gnostic theology. 3111 The struggles of Wickliff
in England, of Huss in Bohemia, were premature and ineffectual;
but the names of Zuinglius, Luther, and Calvin, are pronounced
with gratitude as the deliverers of nations.
28 (return) [ The introduction of the Paulicians into Italy and
France is amply discussed by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii
Aevi, tom. v. dissert. lx. p. 81-152) and Mosheim, (p. 379-382,
419-422.) Yet both have overlooked a curious passage of William
the Apulian, who clearly describes them in a battle between the
Greeks and Normans, A.D. 1040, (in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital.
tom. v. p. 256:)
Cum Graecis aderant quidam, quos pessimus error
Fecerat amentes, et ab ipso nomen habebant.
But he is so ignorant of their doctrine as to make them a kind of
Sabellians or Patripassians.]
29 (return) [ Bulgari, Boulgres, Bougres, a national appellation,
has been applied by the French as a term of reproach to usurers
and unnatural sinners. The Paterini, or Patelini, has been made
to signify a smooth and flattering hypocrite, such as l’Avocat
Patelin of that original and pleasant farce, (Ducange, Gloss.
Latinitat. Medii et Infimi Aevi.) The Manichaeans were likewise
named Cathari or the pure, by corruption. Gazari, &c.]
30 (return) [ Of the laws, crusade, and persecution against the
Albigeois, a just, though general, idea is expressed by Mosheim,
(p. 477-481.) The detail may be found in the ecclesiastical
historians, ancient and modern, Catholics and Protestants; and
amongst these Fleury is the most impartial and moderate.]
31 (return) [ The Acts (Liber Sententiarum) of the Inquisition of
Tholouse (A.D. 1307-1323) have been published by Limborch,
(Amstelodami, 1692,) with a previous History of the Inquisition
in general. They deserved a more learned and critical editor. As
we must not calumniate even Satan, or the Holy Office, I will
observe, that of a list of criminals which fills nineteen folio
pages, only fifteen men and four women were delivered to the
secular arm.]
3111 (return) [ The popularity of “Milner’s History of the
Church” with some readers, may make it proper to observe, that
his attempt to exculpate the Paulicians from the charge of
Gnosticism or Manicheism is in direct defiance, if not in
ignorance, of all the original authorities. Gibbon himself, it
appears, was not acquainted with the work of Photius, “Contra
Manicheos Repullulantes,” the first book of which was edited by
Montfaucon, Bibliotheca Coisliniana, pars ii. p. 349, 375, the
whole by Wolf, in his Anecdota Graeca. Hamburg 1722. Compare a
very sensible tract. Letter to Rev. S. R. Maitland, by J G.
Dowling, M. A. London, 1835.—M.]
A philosopher, who calculates the degree of their merit and the
value of their reformation, will prudently ask from what articles
of faith, above or against our reason, they have enfranchised the
Christians; for such enfranchisement is doubtless a benefit so
far as it may be compatible with truth and piety. After a fair
discussion, we shall rather be surprised by the timidity, than
scandalized by the freedom, of our first reformers. 32 With the
Jews, they adopted the belief and defence of all the Hebrew
Scriptures, with all their prodigies, from the garden of Eden to
the visions of the prophet Daniel; and they were bound, like the
Catholics, to justify against the Jews the abolition of a divine
law. In the great mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation the
reformers were severely orthodox: they freely adopted the
theology of the four, or the six first councils; and with the
Athanasian creed, they pronounced the eternal damnation of all
who did not believe the Catholic faith. Transubstantiation, the
invisible change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of
Christ, is a tenet that may defy the power of argument and
pleasantry; but instead of consulting the evidence of their
senses, of their sight, their feeling, and their taste, the first
Protestants were entangled in their own scruples, and awed by the
words of Jesus in the institution of the sacrament. Luther
maintained a corporeal, and Calvin a real, presence of Christ in
the eucharist; and the opinion of Zuinglius, that it is no more
than a spiritual communion, a simple memorial, has slowly
prevailed in the reformed churches. 33 But the loss of one
mystery was amply compensated by the stupendous doctrines of
original sin, redemption, faith, grace, and predestination, which
have been strained from the epistles of St. Paul. These subtile
questions had most assuredly been prepared by the fathers and
schoolmen; but the final improvement and popular use may be
attributed to the first reformers, who enforced them as the
absolute and essential terms of salvation. Hitherto the weight of
supernatural belief inclines against the Protestants; and many a
sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God, than that
God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.
32 (return) [ The opinions and proceedings of the reformers are
exposed in the second part of the general history of Mosheim; but
the balance, which he has held with so clear an eye, and so
steady a hand, begins to incline in favor of his Lutheran
brethren.]
33 (return) [ Under Edward VI. our reformation was more bold and
perfect, but in the fundamental articles of the church of
England, a strong and explicit declaration against the real
presence was obliterated in the original copy, to please the
people or the Lutherans, or Queen Elizabeth, (Burnet’s History of
the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 82, 128, 302.)]
Yet the services of Luther and his rivals are solid and
important; and the philosopher must own his obligations to these
fearless enthusiasts. 34 I. By their hands the lofty fabric of
superstition, from the abuse of indulgences to the intercesson of
the Virgin, has been levelled with the ground. Myriads of both
sexes of the monastic profession were restored to the liberty and
labors of social life. A hierarchy of saints and angels, of
imperfect and subordinate deities, were stripped of their
temporal power, and reduced to the enjoyment of celestial
happiness; their images and relics were banished from the church;
and the credulity of the people was no longer nourished with the
daily repetition of miracles and visions. The imitation of
Paganism was supplied by a pure and spiritual worship of prayer
and thanksgiving, the most worthy of man, the least unworthy of
the Deity. It only remains to observe, whether such sublime
simplicity be consistent with popular devotion; whether the
vulgar, in the absence of all visible objects, will not be
inflamed by enthusiasm, or insensibly subside in languor and
indifference. II. The chain of authority was broken, which
restrains the bigot from thinking as he pleases, and the slave
from speaking as he thinks: the popes, fathers, and councils,
were no longer the supreme and infallible judges of the world;
and each Christian was taught to acknowledge no law but the
Scriptures, no interpreter but his own conscience. This freedom,
however, was the consequence, rather than the design, of the
Reformation. The patriot reformers were ambitious of succeeding
the tyrants whom they had dethroned. They imposed with equal
rigor their creeds and confessions; they asserted the right of
the magistrate to punish heretics with death. The pious or
personal animosity of Calvin proscribed in Servetus 35 the guilt
of his own rebellion; 36 and the flames of Smithfield, in which
he was afterwards consumed, had been kindled for the Anabaptists
by the zeal of Cranmer. 37 The nature of the tiger wa s the same,
but he was gradually deprived of his teeth and fangs. A spiritual
and temporal kingdom was possessed by the Roman pontiff; the
Protestant doctors were subjects of an humble rank, without
revenue or jurisdiction. His decrees were consecrated by the
antiquity of the Catholic church: their arguments and disputes
were submitted to the people; and their appeal to private
judgment was accepted beyond their wishes, by curiosity and
enthusiasm. Since the days of Luther and Calvin, a secret
reformation has been silently working in the bosom of the
reformed churches; many weeds of prejudice were eradicated; and
the disciples of Erasmus 38 diffused a spirit of freedom and
moderation. The liberty of conscience has been claimed as a
common benefit, an inalienable right: 39 the free governments of
Holland 40 and England 41 introduced the practice of toleration;
and the narrow allowance of the laws has been enlarged by the
prudence and humanity of the times. In the exercise, the mind has
understood the limits of its powers, and the words and shadows
that might amuse the child can no longer satisfy his manly
reason. The volumes of controversy are overspread with cobwebs:
the doctrine of a Protestant church is far removed from the
knowledge or belief of its private members; and the forms of
orthodoxy, the articles of faith, are subscribed with a sigh, or
a smile, by the modern clergy. Yet the friends of Christianity
are alarmed at the boundless impulse of inquiry and scepticism.
The predictions of the Catholics are accomplished: the web of
mystery is unravelled by the Arminians, Arians, and Socinians,
whose number must not be computed from their separate
congregations; and the pillars of Revelation are shaken by those
men who preserve the name without the substance of religion, who
indulge the license without the temper of philosophy. 42 4211
34 (return) [ “Had it not been for such men as Luther and
myself,” said the fanatic Whiston to Halley the philosopher, “you
would now be kneeling before an image of St. Winifred.”]
35 (return) [ The article of Servet in the Dictionnaire Critique
of Chauffepie is the best account which I have seen of this
shameful transaction. See likewise the Abbe d’Artigny, Nouveaux
Memoires d’Histoire, &c., tom. ii. p. 55-154.]
36 (return) [ I am more deeply scandalized at the single
execution of Servetus, than at the hecatombs which have blazed in
the Auto de Fes of Spain and Portugal. 1. The zeal of Calvin
seems to have been envenomed by personal malice, and perhaps
envy. He accused his adversary before their common enemies, the
judges of Vienna, and betrayed, for his destruction, the sacred
trust of a private correspondence. 2. The deed of cruelty was not
varnished by the pretence of danger to the church or state. In
his passage through Geneva, Servetus was a harmless stranger, who
neither preached, nor printed, nor made proselytes. 3. A Catholic
inquisition yields the same obedience which he requires, but
Calvin violated the golden rule of doing as he would be done by;
a rule which I read in a moral treatise of Isocrates (in Nicocle,
tom. i. p. 93, edit. Battie) four hundred years before the
publication of the Gospel. * Note: Gibbon has not accurately
rendered the sense of this passage, which does not contain the
maxim of charity Do unto others as you would they should do unto
you, but simply the maxim of justice, Do not to others the which
would offend you if they should do it to you.—G.]
37 (return) [ See Burnet, vol. ii. p. 84-86. The sense and
humanity of the young king were oppressed by the authority of the
primate.]
38 (return) [ Erasmus may be considered as the father of rational
theology. After a slumber of a hundred years, it was revived by
the Arminians of Holland, Grotius, Limborch, and Le Clerc; in
England by Chillingworth, the latitudinarians of Cambridge,
(Burnet, Hist. of Own Times, vol. i. p. 261-268, octavo edition.)
Tillotson, Clarke, Hoadley, &c.]
39 (return) [ I am sorry to observe, that the three writers of
the last age, by whom the rights of toleration have been so nobly
defended, Bayle, Leibnitz, and Locke, are all laymen and
philosophers.]
40 (return) [ See the excellent chapter of Sir William Temple on
the Religion of the United Provinces. I am not satisfied with
Grotius, (de Rebus Belgicis, Annal. l. i. p. 13, 14, edit. in
12mo.,) who approves the Imperial laws of persecution, and only
condemns the bloody tribunal of the inquisition.]
41 (return) [ Sir William Blackstone (Commentaries, vol. iv. p.
53, 54) explains the law of England as it was fixed at the
Revolution. The exceptions of Papists, and of those who deny the
Trinity, would still have a tolerable scope for persecution if
the national spirit were not more effectual than a hundred
statutes.]
42 (return) [ I shall recommend to public animadversion two
passages in Dr. Priestley, which betray the ultimate tendency of
his opinions. At the first of these (Hist. of the Corruptions of
Christianity, vol. i. p. 275, 276) the priest, at the second
(vol. ii. p. 484) the magistrate, may tremble!]
4211 (return) [ There is something ludicrous, if it were not
offensive, in Gibbon holding up to “public animadversion” the
opinions of any believer in Christianity, however imperfect his
creed. The observations which the whole of this passage on the
effects of the reformation, in which much truth and justice is
mingled with much prejudice, would suggest, could not possibly be
compressed into a note; and would indeed embrace the whole
religious and irreligious history of the time which has elapsed
since Gibbon wrote.—M.]
Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part
I.
The Bulgarians.—Origin, Migrations, And Settlement Of The
Hungarians.—Their Inroads In The East And West.—The Monarchy Of
Russia.—Geography And Trade.—Wars Of The Russians Against The
Greek Empire.—Conversion Of The Barbarians.
Under the reign of Constantine the grandson of Heraclius, the
ancient barrier of the Danube, so often violated and so often
restored, was irretrievably swept away by a new deluge of
Barbarians. Their progress was favored by the caliphs, their
unknown and accidental auxiliaries: the Roman legions were
occupied in Asia; and after the loss of Syria, Egypt, and Africa,
the Caesars were twice reduced to the danger and disgrace of
defending their capital against the Saracens. If, in the account
of this interesting people, I have deviated from the strict and
original line of my undertaking, the merit of the subject will
hide my transgression, or solicit my excuse. In the East, in the
West, in war, in religion, in science, in their prosperity, and
in their decay, the Arabians press themselves on our curiosity:
the first overthrow of the church and empire of the Greeks may be
imputed to their arms; and the disciples of Mahomet still hold
the civil and religious sceptre of the Oriental world. But the
same labor would be unworthily bestowed on the swarms of savages,
who, between the seventh and the twelfth century, descended from
the plains of Scythia, in transient inroad or perpetual
emigration. 1 Their names are uncouth, their origins doubtful,
their actions obscure, their superstition was blind, their valor
brutal, and the uniformity of their public and private lives was
neither softened by innocence nor refined by policy. The majesty
of the Byzantine throne repelled and survived their disorderly
attacks; the greater part of these Barbarians has disappeared
without leaving any memorial of their existence, and the
despicable remnant continues, and may long continue, to groan
under the dominion of a foreign tyrant. From the antiquities of,
I. Bulgarians, II. Hungarians, and, III. Russians, I shall
content myself with selecting such facts as yet deserve to be
remembered. The conquests of the, IV. Normans, and the monarchy
of the, V. Turks, will naturally terminate in the memorable
Crusades to the Holy Land, and the double fall of the city and
empire of Constantine.
1 (return) [ All the passages of the Byzantine history which
relate to the Barbarians are compiled, methodized, and
transcribed, in a Latin version, by the laborious John Gotthelf
Stritter, in his “Memoriae Populorum, ad Danubium, Pontum
Euxinum, Paludem Maeotidem, Caucasum, Mare Caspium, et inde Magis
ad Septemtriones incolentium.” Petropoli, 1771-1779; in four
tomes, or six volumes, in 4to. But the fashion has not enhanced
the price of these raw materials.]
I. In his march to Italy, Theodoric 2 the Ostrogoth had trampled
on the arms of the Bulgarians. After this defeat, the name and
the nation are lost during a century and a half; and it may be
suspected that the same or a similar appellation was revived by
strange colonies from the Borysthenes, the Tanais, or the Volga.
A king of the ancient Bulgaria, 3 bequeathed to his five sons a
last lesson of moderation and concord. It was received as youth
has ever received the counsels of age and experience: the five
princes buried their father; divided his subjects and cattle;
forgot his advice; separated from each other; and wandered in
quest of fortune till we find the most adventurous in the heart
of Italy, under the protection of the exarch of Ravenna. 4 But
the stream of emigration was directed or impelled towards the
capital. The modern Bulgaria, along the southern banks of the
Danube, was stamped with the name and image which it has retained
to the present hour: the new conquerors successively acquired, by
war or treaty, the Roman provinces of Dardania, Thessaly, and the
two Epirus; 5 the ecclesiastical supremacy was translated from
the native city of Justinian; and, in their prosperous age, the
obscure town of Lychnidus, or Achrida, was honored with the
throne of a king and a patriarch. 6 The unquestionable evidence
of language attests the descent of the Bulgarians from the
original stock of the Sclavonian, or more properly Slavonian,
race; 7 and the kindred bands of Servians, Bosnians, Rascians,
Croatians, Walachians, 8 &c., followed either the standard or the
example of the leading tribe. From the Euxine to the Adriatic, in
the state of captives, or subjects, or allies, or enemies, of the
Greek empire, they overspread the land; and the national
appellation of the slaves 9 has been degraded by chance or malice
from the signification of glory to that of servitude. 10 Among
these colonies, the Chrobatians, 11 or Croats, who now attend the
motions of an Austrian army, are the descendants of a mighty
people, the conquerors and sovereigns of Dalmatia. The maritime
cities, and of these the infant republic of Ragusa, implored the
aid and instructions of the Byzantine court: they were advised by
the magnanimous Basil to reserve a small acknowledgment of their
fidelity to the Roman empire, and to appease, by an annual
tribute, the wrath of these irresistible Barbarians. The kingdom
of Crotia was shared by eleven Zoupans, or feudatory lords; and
their united forces were numbered at sixty thousand horse and one
hundred thousand foot. A long sea-coast, indented with capacious
harbors, covered with a string of islands, and almost in sight of
the Italian shores, disposed both the natives and strangers to
the practice of navigation. The boats or brigantines of the
Croats were constructed after the fashion of the old Liburnians:
one hundred and eighty vessels may excite the idea of a
respectable navy; but our seamen will smile at the allowance of
ten, or twenty, or forty, men for each of these ships of war.
They were gradually converted to the more honorable service of
commerce; yet the Sclavonian pirates were still frequent and
dangerous; and it was not before the close of the tenth century
that the freedom and sovereignty of the Gulf were effectually
vindicated by the Venetian republic. 12 The ancestors of these
Dalmatian kings were equally removed from the use and abuse of
navigation: they dwelt in the White Croatia, in the inland
regions of Silesia and Little Poland, thirty days’ journey,
according to the Greek computation, from the sea of darkness.
2 (return) [ Hist. vol. iv. p. 11.]
3 (return) [ Theophanes, p. 296-299. Anastasius, p. 113.
Nicephorus, C. P. p. 22, 23. Theophanes places the old Bulgaria
on the banks of the Atell or Volga; but he deprives himself of
all geographical credit by discharging that river into the Euxine
Sea.]
4 (return) [ Paul. Diacon. de Gestis Langobard. l. v. c. 29, p.
881, 882. The apparent difference between the Lombard historian
and the above-mentioned Greeks, is easily reconciled by Camillo
Pellegrino (de Ducatu Beneventano, dissert. vii. in the
Scriptores Rerum Ital. (tom. v. p. 186, 187) and Beretti,
(Chorograph. Italiae Medii Aevi, p. 273, &c. This Bulgarian
colony was planted in a vacant district of Samnium, and learned
the Latin, without forgetting their native language.]
5 (return) [ These provinces of the Greek idiom and empire are
assigned to the Bulgarian kingdom in the dispute of
ecclesiastical jurisdiction between the patriarchs of Rome and
Constantinople, (Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 869, No. 75.)]
6 (return) [ The situation and royalty of Lychnidus, or Achrida,
are clearly expressed in Cedrenus, (p. 713.) The removal of an
archbishop or patriarch from Justinianea prima to Lychnidus, and
at length to Ternovo, has produced some perplexity in the ideas
or language of the Greeks, (Nicephorus Gregoras, l. ii. c. 2, p.
14, 15. Thomassin, Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. l. i. c. 19,
23;) and a Frenchman (D’Anville) is more accurately skilled in
the geography of their own country, (Hist. de l’Academie des
Inscriptions, tom. xxxi.)]
7 (return) [ Chalcocondyles, a competent judge, affirms the
identity of the language of the Dalmatians, Bosnians, Servians,
Bulgarians, Poles, (de Rebus Turcicis, l. x. p. 283,) and
elsewhere of the Bohemians, (l. ii. p. 38.) The same author has
marked the separate idiom of the Hungarians. * Note: The
Slavonian languages are no doubt Indo-European, though an
original branch of that great family, comprehending the various
dialects named by Gibbon and others. Shafarik, t. 33.—M. 1845.]
8 (return) [ See the work of John Christopher de Jordan, de
Originibus Sclavicis, Vindobonae, 1745, in four parts, or two
volumes in folio. His collections and researches are useful to
elucidate the antiquities of Bohemia and the adjacent countries;
but his plan is narrow, his style barbarous, his criticism
shallow, and the Aulic counsellor is not free from the prejudices
of a Bohemian. * Note: We have at length a profound and
satisfactory work on the Slavonian races. Shafarik, Slawische
Alterthumer. B. 2, Leipzig, 1843.—M. 1845.]
9 (return) [ Jordan subscribes to the well-known and probable
derivation from Slava, laus, gloria, a word of familiar use in
the different dialects and parts of speech, and which forms the
termination of the most illustrious names, (de Originibus
Sclavicis, pars. i. p. 40, pars. iv. p. 101, 102)]
10 (return) [ This conversion of a national into an appellative
name appears to have arisen in the viiith century, in the
Oriental France, where the princes and bishops were rich in
Sclavonian captives, not of the Bohemian, (exclaims Jordan,) but
of Sorabian race. From thence the word was extended to the
general use, to the modern languages, and even to the style of
the last Byzantines, (see the Greek and Latin Glossaries and
Ducange.) The confusion of the Servians with the Latin Servi, was
still more fortunate and familiar, (Constant. Porphyr. de
Administrando, Imperio, c. 32, p. 99.)]
11 (return) [ The emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, most
accurate for his own times, most fabulous for preceding ages,
describes the Sclavonians of Dalmatia, (c. 29-36.)]
12 (return) [ See the anonymous Chronicle of the xith century,
ascribed to John Sagorninus, (p. 94-102,) and that composed in
the xivth by the Doge Andrew Dandolo, (Script. Rerum. Ital. tom.
xii. p. 227-230,) the two oldest monuments of the history of
Venice.]
The glory of the Bulgarians 13 was confined to a narrow scope
both of time and place. In the ninth and tenth centuries, they
reigned to the south of the Danube; but the more powerful nations
that had followed their emigration repelled all return to the
north and all progress to the west. Yet in the obscure catalogue
of their exploits, they might boast an honor which had hitherto
been appropriated to the Goths: that of slaying in battle one of
the successors of Augustus and Constantine. The emperor
Nicephorus had lost his fame in the Arabian, he lost his life in
the Sclavonian, war. In his first operations he advanced with
boldness and success into the centre of Bulgaria, and burnt the
royal court, which was probably no more than an edifice and
village of timber. But while he searched the spoil and refused
all offers of treaty, his enemies collected their spirits and
their forces: the passes of retreat were insuperably barred; and
the trembling Nicephorus was heard to exclaim, “Alas, alas!
unless we could assume the wings of birds, we cannot hope to
escape.” Two days he waited his fate in the inactivity of
despair; but, on the morning of the third, the Bulgarians
surprised the camp, and the Roman prince, with the great officers
of the empire, were slaughtered in their tents. The body of
Valens had been saved from insult; but the head of Nicephorus was
exposed on a spear, and his skull, enchased with gold, was often
replenished in the feasts of victory. The Greeks bewailed the
dishonor of the throne; but they acknowledged the just punishment
of avarice and cruelty. This savage cup was deeply tinctured with
the manners of the Scythian wilderness; but they were softened
before the end of the same century by a peaceful intercourse with
the Greeks, the possession of a cultivated region, and the
introduction of the Christian worship. The nobles of Bulgaria
were educated in the schools and palace of Constantinople; and
Simeon, 14 a youth of the royal line, was instructed in the
rhetoric of Demosthenes and the logic of Aristotle. He
relinquished the profession of a monk for that of a king and
warrior; and in his reign of more than forty years, Bulgaria
assumed a rank among the civilized powers of the earth. The
Greeks, whom he repeatedly attacked, derived a faint consolation
from indulging themselves in the reproaches of perfidy and
sacrilege. They purchased the aid of the Pagan Turks; but Simeon,
in a second battle, redeemed the loss of the first, at a time
when it was esteemed a victory to elude the arms of that
formidable nation. The Servians were overthrown, made captive and
dispersed; and those who visited the country before their
restoration could discover no more than fifty vagrants, without
women or children, who extorted a precarious subsistence from the
chase. On classic ground, on the banks of Achelous, the greeks
were defeated; their horn was broken by the strength of the
Barbaric Hercules. 15 He formed the siege of Constantinople; and,
in a personal conference with the emperor, Simeon imposed the
conditions of peace. They met with the most jealous precautions:
the royal gallery was drawn close to an artificial and
well-fortified platform; and the majesty of the purple was
emulated by the pomp of the Bulgarian. “Are you a Christian?”
said the humble Romanus: “it is your duty to abstain from the
blood of your fellow-Christians. Has the thirst of riches seduced
you from the blessings of peace? Sheathe your sword, open your
hand, and I will satiate the utmost measure of your desires.” The
reconciliation was sealed by a domestic alliance; the freedom of
trade was granted or restored; the first honors of the court were
secured to the friends of Bulgaria, above the ambassadors of
enemies or strangers; 16 and her princes were dignified with the
high and invidious title of Basileus, or emperor. But this
friendship was soon disturbed: after the death of Simeon, the
nations were again in arms; his feeble successors were divided
and extinguished; and, in the beginning of the eleventh century,
the second Basil, who was born in the purple, deserved the
appellation of conqueror of the Bulgarians. His avarice was in
some measure gratified by a treasure of four hundred thousand
pounds sterling, (ten thousand pounds’ weight of gold,) which he
found in the palace of Lychnidus. His cruelty inflicted a cool
and exquisite vengeance on fifteen thousand captives who had been
guilty of the defence of their country. They were deprived of
sight; but to one of each hundred a single eye was left, that he
might conduct his blind century to the presence of their king.
Their king is said to have expired of grief and horror; the
nation was awed by this terrible example; the Bulgarians were
swept away from their settlements, and circumscribed within a
narrow province; the surviving chiefs bequeathed to their
children the advice of patience and the duty of revenge.
13 (return) [ The first kingdom of the Bulgarians may be found,
under the proper dates, in the Annals of Cedrenus and Zonaras.
The Byzantine materials are collected by Stritter, (Memoriae
Populorum, tom. ii. pars ii. p. 441-647;) and the series of their
kings is disposed and settled by Ducange, (Fam. Byzant. p.
305-318.]
14 (return) [ Simeonem semi-Graecum esse aiebant, eo quod a
pueritia Byzantii Demosthenis rhetoricam et Aristotelis
syllogismos didicerat, (Liutprand, l. iii. c. 8.) He says in
another place, Simeon, fortis bella tor, Bulgariae praeerat;
Christianus, sed vicinis Graecis valde inimicus, (l. i. c. 2.)]
15 (return) [—Rigidum fera dextera cornu Dum tenet, infregit,
truncaque a fronte revellit. Ovid (Metamorph. ix. 1-100) has
boldly painted the combat of the river god and the hero; the
native and the stranger.]
16 (return) [ The ambassador of Otho was provoked by the Greek
excuses, cum Christophori filiam Petrus Bulgarorum Vasileus
conjugem duceret, Symphona, id est consonantia scripto juramento
firmata sunt, ut omnium gentium Apostolis, id est nunciis, penes
nos Bulgarorum Apostoli praeponantur, honorentur, diligantur,
(Liutprand in Legatione, p. 482.) See the Ceremoniale of
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, tom. i. p. 82, tom. ii. p. 429, 430,
434, 435, 443, 444, 446, 447, with the annotations of Reiske.]
II. When the black swarm of Hungarians first hung over Europe,
above nine hundred years after the Christian aera, they were
mistaken by fear and superstition for the Gog and Magog of the
Scriptures, the signs and forerunners of the end of the world. 17
Since the introduction of letters, they have explored their own
antiquities with a strong and laudable impulse of patriotic
curiosity. 18 Their rational criticism can no longer be amused
with a vain pedigree of Attila and the Huns; but they complain
that their primitive records have perished in the Tartar war;
that the truth or fiction of their rustic songs is long since
forgotten; and that the fragments of a rude chronicle 19 must be
painfully reconciled with the contemporary though foreign
intelligence of the imperial geographer. 20 Magiar is the
national and oriental denomination of the Hungarians; but, among
the tribes of Scythia, they are distinguished by the Greeks under
the proper and peculiar name of Turks, as the descendants of that
mighty people who had conquered and reigned from China to the
Volga. The Pannonian colony preserved a correspondence of trade
and amity with the eastern Turks on the confines of Persia and
after a separation of three hundred and fifty years, the
missionaries of the king of Hungary discovered and visited their
ancient country near the banks of the Volga. They were hospitably
entertained by a people of Pagans and Savages who still bore the
name of Hungarians; conversed in their native tongue, recollected
a tradition of their long-lost brethren, and listened with
amazement to the marvellous tale of their new kingdom and
religion. The zeal of conversion was animated by the interest of
consanguinity; and one of the greatest of their princes had
formed the generous, though fruitless, design of replenishing the
solitude of Pannonia by this domestic colony from the heart of
Tartary. 21 From this primitive country they were driven to the
West by the tide of war and emigration, by the weight of the more
distant tribes, who at the same time were fugitives and
conquerors. 2111 Reason or fortune directed their course towards
the frontiers of the Roman empire: they halted in the usual
stations along the banks of the great rivers; and in the
territories of Moscow, Kiow, and Moldavia, some vestiges have
been discovered of their temporary residence. In this long and
various peregrination, they could not always escape the dominion
of the stronger; and the purity of their blood was improved or
sullied by the mixture of a foreign race: from a motive of
compulsion, or choice, several tribes of the Chazars were
associated to the standard of their ancient vassals; introduced
the use of a second language; and obtained by their superior
renown the most honorable place in the front of battle. The
military force of the Turks and their allies marched in seven
equal and artificial divisions; each division was formed of
thirty thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven warriors, and the
proportion of women, children, and servants, supposes and
requires at least a million of emigrants. Their public counsels
were directed by seven vayvods, or hereditary chiefs; but the
experience of discord and weakness recommended the more simple
and vigorous administration of a single person. The sceptre,
which had been declined by the modest Lebedias, was granted to
the birth or merit of Almus and his son Arpad, and the authority
of the supreme khan of the Chazars confirmed the engagement of
the prince and people; of the people to obey his commands, of the
prince to consult their happiness and glory.
17 (return) [ A bishop of Wurtzburgh submitted his opinion to a
reverend abbot; but he more gravely decided, that Gog and Magog
were the spiritual persecutors of the church; since Gog signifies
the root, the pride of the Heresiarchs, and Magog what comes from
the root, the propagation of their sects. Yet these men once
commanded the respect of mankind, (Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xi.
p. 594, &c.)]
18 (return) [ The two national authors, from whom I have derived
the mos assistance, are George Pray (Dissertationes and Annales
veterum Hun garorum, &c., Vindobonae, 1775, in folio) and Stephen
Katona, (Hist. Critica Ducum et Regum Hungariae Stirpis
Arpadianae, Paestini, 1778-1781, 5 vols. in octavo.) The first
embraces a large and often conjectural space; the latter, by his
learning, judgment, and perspicuity, deserves the name of a
critical historian. * Note: Compare Engel Geschichte des
Ungrischen Reichs und seiner Neben lander, Halle, 1797, and
Mailath, Geschichte der Magyaren, Wien, 1828. In an appendix to
the latter work will be found a brief abstract of the
speculations (for it is difficult to consider them more) which
have been advanced by the learned, on the origin of the Magyar
and Hungarian names. Compare vol. vi. p. 35, note.—M.]
19 (return) [ The author of this Chronicle is styled the notary
of King Bela. Katona has assigned him to the xiith century, and
defends his character against the hypercriticism of Pray. This
rude annalist must have transcribed some historical records,
since he could affirm with dignity, rejectis falsis fabulis
rusticorum, et garrulo cantu joculatorum. In the xvth century,
these fables were collected by Thurotzius, and embellished by the
Italian Bonfinius. See the Preliminary Discourse in the Hist.
Critica Ducum, p. 7-33.]
20 (return) [ See Constantine de Administrando Imperio, c. 3, 4,
13, 38-42, Katona has nicely fixed the composition of this work
to the years 949, 950, 951, (p. 4-7.) The critical historian (p.
34-107) endeavors to prove the existence, and to relate the
actions, of a first duke Almus the father of Arpad, who is
tacitly rejected by Constantine.]
21 (return) [ Pray (Dissert. p. 37-39, &c.) produces and
illustrates the original passages of the Hungarian missionaries,
Bonfinius and Aeneas Sylvius.]
2111 (return) [ In the deserts to the south-east of Astrakhan
have been found the ruins of a city named Madchar, which proves
the residence of the Hungarians or Magiar in those regions.
Precis de la Geog. Univ. par Malte Brun, vol. i. p. 353.—G.——This
is contested by Klaproth in his Travels, c. xxi. Madschar, (he
states) in old Tartar, means “stone building.” This was a Tartar
city mentioned by the Mahometan writers.—M.]
With this narrative we might be reasonably content, if the
penetration of modern learning had not opened a new and larger
prospect of the antiquities of nations. The Hungarian language
stands alone, and as it were insulated, among the Sclavonian
dialects; but it bears a close and clear affinity to the idioms
of the Fennic race, 22 of an obsolete and savage race, which
formerly occupied the northern regions of Asia and Europe. 2211
The genuine appellation of Ugri or Igours is found on the western
confines of China; 23 their migration to the banks of the Irtish
is attested by Tartar evidence; 24 a similar name and language
are detected in the southern parts of Siberia; 25 and the remains
of the Fennic tribes are widely, though thinly scattered from the
sources of the Oby to the shores of Lapland. 26 The consanguinity
of the Hungarians and Laplanders would display the powerful
energy of climate on the children of a common parent; the lively
contrast between the bold adventurers who are intoxicated with
the wines of the Danube, and the wretched fugitives who are
immersed beneath the snows of the polar circle.
Arms and freedom have ever been the ruling, though too often the
unsuccessful, passion of the Hungarians, who are endowed by
nature with a vigorous constitution of soul and body. 27 Extreme
cold has diminished the stature and congealed the faculties of
the Laplanders; and the arctic tribes, alone among the sons of
men, are ignorant of war, and unconscious of human blood; a happy
ignorance, if reason and virtue were the guardians of their
peace! 28
22 (return) [ Fischer in the Quaestiones Petropolitanae, de
Origine Ungrorum, and Pray, Dissertat. i. ii. iii. &c., have
drawn up several comparative tables of the Hungarian with the
Fennic dialects. The affinity is indeed striking, but the lists
are short; the words are purposely chosen; and I read in the
learned Bayer, (Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. x. p. 374,) that
although the Hungarian has adopted many Fennic words, (innumeras
voces,) it essentially differs toto genio et natura.]
2211 (return) [ The connection between the Magyar language and
that of the Finns is now almost generally admitted. Klaproth,
Asia Polyglotta, p. 188, &c. Malte Bran, tom. vi. p. 723, &c.—M.]
23 (return) [ In the religion of Turfan, which is clearly and
minutely described by the Chinese Geographers, (Gaubil, Hist. du
Grand Gengiscan, 13; De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 31,
&c.)]
24 (return) [ Hist. Genealogique des Tartars, par Abulghazi
Bahadur Khan partie ii. p. 90-98.]
25 (return) [ In their journey to Pekin, both Isbrand Ives
(Harris’s Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. ii. p. 920,
921) and Bell (Travels, vol. i p. 174) found the Vogulitz in the
neighborhood of Tobolsky. By the tortures of the etymological
art, Ugur and Vogul are reduced to the same name; the
circumjacent mountains really bear the appellation of Ugrian; and
of all the Fennic dialects, the Vogulian is the nearest to the
Hungarian, (Fischer, Dissert. i. p. 20-30. Pray. Dissert. ii. p.
31-34.)]
26 (return) [ The eight tribes of the Fennic race are described
in the curious work of M. Leveque, (Hist. des Peuples soumis a la
Domination de la Russie, tom. ii. p. 361-561.)]
27 (return) [ This picture of the Hungarians and Bulgarians is
chiefly drawn from the Tactics of Leo, p. 796-801, and the Latin
Annals, which are alleged by Baronius, Pagi, and Muratori, A.D.
889, &c.]
28 (return) [ Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. v. p. 6, in 12mo.
Gustavus Adolphus attempted, without success, to form a regiment
of Laplanders. Grotius says of these arctic tribes, arma arcus et
pharetra, sed adversus feras, (Annal. l. iv. p. 236;) and
attempts, after the manner of Tacitus, to varnish with philosophy
their brutal ignorance.]
Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part
II.
It is the observation of the Imperial author of the Tactics, 29
that all the Scythian hordes resembled each other in their
pastoral and military life, that they all practised the same
means of subsistence, and employed the same instruments of
destruction. But he adds, that the two nations of Bulgarians and
Hungarians were superior to their brethren, and similar to each
other in the improvements, however rude, of their discipline and
government: their visible likeness determines Leo to confound his
friends and enemies in one common description; and the picture
may be heightened by some strokes from their contemporaries of
the tenth century. Except the merit and fame of military prowess,
all that is valued by mankind appeared vile and contemptible to
these Barbarians, whose native fierceness was stimulated by the
consciousness of numbers and freedom. The tents of the Hungarians
were of leather, their garments of fur; they shaved their hair,
and scarified their faces: in speech they were slow, in action
prompt, in treaty perfidious; and they shared the common reproach
of Barbarians, too ignorant to conceive the importance of truth,
too proud to deny or palliate the breach of their most solemn
engagements. Their simplicity has been praised; yet they
abstained only from the luxury they had never known; whatever
they saw they coveted; their desires were insatiate, and their
sole industry was the hand of violence and rapine. By the
definition of a pastoral nation, I have recalled a long
description of the economy, the warfare, and the government that
prevail in that state of society; I may add, that to fishing, as
well as to the chase, the Hungarians were indebted for a part of
their subsistence; and since they seldom cultivated the ground,
they must, at least in their new settlements, have sometimes
practised a slight and unskilful husbandry. In their emigrations,
perhaps in their expeditions, the host was accompanied by
thousands of sheep and oxen which increased the cloud of
formidable dust, and afforded a constant and wholesale supply of
milk and animal food. A plentiful command of forage was the first
care of the general, and if the flocks and herds were secure of
their pastures, the hardy warrior was alike insensible of danger
and fatigue. The confusion of men and cattle that overspread the
country exposed their camp to a nocturnal surprise, had not a
still wider circuit been occupied by their light cavalry,
perpetually in motion to discover and delay the approach of the
enemy. After some experience of the Roman tactics, they adopted
the use of the sword and spear, the helmet of the soldier, and
the iron breastplate of his steed: but their native and deadly
weapon was the Tartar bow: from the earliest infancy their
children and servants were exercised in the double science of
archery and horsemanship; their arm was strong; their aim was
sure; and in the most rapid career, they were taught to throw
themselves backwards, and to shoot a volley of arrows into the
air. In open combat, in secret ambush, in flight, or pursuit,
they were equally formidable; an appearance of order was
maintained in the foremost ranks, but their charge was driven
forwards by the impatient pressure of succeeding crowds. They
pursued, headlong and rash, with loosened reins and horrific
outcries; but, if they fled, with real or dissembled fear, the
ardor of a pursuing foe was checked and chastised by the same
habits of irregular speed and sudden evolution. In the abuse of
victory, they astonished Europe, yet smarting from the wounds of
the Saracen and the Dane: mercy they rarely asked, and more
rarely bestowed: both sexes if accused is equally inaccessible to
pity, and their appetite for raw flesh might countenance the
popular tale, that they drank the blood, and feasted on the
hearts of the slain. Yet the Hungarians were not devoid of those
principles of justice and humanity, which nature has implanted in
every bosom. The license of public and private injuries was
restrained by laws and punishments; and in the security of an
open camp, theft is the most tempting and most dangerous offence.
Among the Barbarians there were many, whose spontaneous virtue
supplied their laws and corrected their manners, who performed
the duties, and sympathized with the affections, of social life.
29 (return) [ Leo has observed, that the government of the Turks
was monarchical, and that their punishments were rigorous,
(Tactic. p. 896) Rhegino (in Chron. A.D. 889) mentions theft as a
capital crime, and his jurisprudence is confirmed by the original
code of St. Stephen, (A.D. 1016.) If a slave were guilty, he was
chastised, for the first time, with the loss of his nose, or a
fine of five heifers; for the second, with the loss of his ears,
or a similar fine; for the third, with death; which the freeman
did not incur till the fourth offence, as his first penalty was
the loss of liberty, (Katona, Hist. Regum Hungar tom. i. p. 231,
232.)]
After a long pilgrimage of flight or victory, the Turkish hordes
approached the common limits of the French and Byzantine empires.
Their first conquests and final settlements extended on either
side of the Danube above Vienna, below Belgrade, and beyond the
measure of the Roman province of Pannonia, or the modern kingdom
of Hungary. 30 That ample and fertile land was loosely occupied
by the Moravians, a Sclavonian name and tribe, which were driven
by the invaders into the compass of a narrow province.
Charlemagne had stretched a vague and nominal empire as far as
the edge of Transylvania; but, after the failure of his
legitimate line, the dukes of Moravia forgot their obedience and
tribute to the monarchs of Oriental France. The bastard Arnulph
was provoked to invite the arms of the Turks: they rushed through
the real or figurative wall, which his indiscretion had thrown
open; and the king of Germany has been justly reproached as a
traitor to the civil and ecclesiastical society of the
Christians. During the life of Arnulph, the Hungarians were
checked by gratitude or fear; but in the infancy of his son Lewis
they discovered and invaded Bavaria; and such was their Scythian
speed, that in a single day a circuit of fifty miles was stripped
and consumed. In the battle of Augsburgh the Christians
maintained their advantage till the seventh hour of the day, they
were deceived and vanquished by the flying stratagems of the
Turkish cavalry. The conflagration spread over the provinces of
Bavaria, Swabia, and Franconia; and the Hungarians 31 promoted
the reign of anarchy, by forcing the stoutest barons to
discipline their vassals and fortify their castles. The origin of
walled towns is ascribed to this calamitous period; nor could any
distance be secure against an enemy, who, almost at the same
instant, laid in ashes the Helvetian monastery of St. Gall, and
the city of Bremen, on the shores of the northern ocean. Above
thirty years the Germanic empire, or kingdom, was subject to the
ignominy of tribute; and resistance was disarmed by the menace,
the serious and effectual menace of dragging the women and
children into captivity, and of slaughtering the males above the
age of ten years. I have neither power nor inclination to follow
the Hungarians beyond the Rhine; but I must observe with
surprise, that the southern provinces of France were blasted by
the tempest, and that Spain, behind her Pyrenees, was astonished
at the approach of these formidable strangers. 32 The vicinity of
Italy had tempted their early inroads; but from their camp on the
Brenta, they beheld with some terror the apparent strength and
populousness of the new discovered country. They requested leave
to retire; their request was proudly rejected by the Italian
king; and the lives of twenty thousand Christians paid the
forfeit of his obstinacy and rashness. Among the cities of the
West, the royal Pavia was conspicuous in fame and splendor; and
the preeminence of Rome itself was only derived from the relics
of the apostles. The Hungarians appeared; Pavia was in flames;
forty-three churches were consumed; and, after the massacre of
the people, they spared about two hundred wretches who had
gathered some bushels of gold and silver (a vague exaggeration)
from the smoking ruins of their country. In these annual
excursions from the Alps to the neighborhood of Rome and Capua,
the churches, that yet escaped, resounded with a fearful litany:
“O, save and deliver us from the arrows of the Hungarians!” But
the saints were deaf or inexorable; and the torrent rolled
forwards, till it was stopped by the extreme land of Calabria. 33
A composition was offered and accepted for the head of each
Italian subject; and ten bushels of silver were poured forth in
the Turkish camp. But falsehood is the natural antagonist of
violence; and the robbers were defrauded both in the numbers of
the assessment and the standard of the metal. On the side of the
East, the Hungarians were opposed in doubtful conflict by the
equal arms of the Bulgarians, whose faith forbade an alliance
with the Pagans, and whose situation formed the barrier of the
Byzantine empire. The barrier was overturned; the emperor of
Constantinople beheld the waving banners of the Turks; and one of
their boldest warriors presumed to strike a battle-axe into the
golden gate. The arts and treasures of the Greeks diverted the
assault; but the Hungarians might boast, in their retreat, that
they had imposed a tribute on the spirit of Bulgaria and the
majesty of the Caesars. 34 The remote and rapid operations of the
same campaign appear to magnify the power and numbers of the
Turks; but their courage is most deserving of praise, since a
light troop of three or four hundred horse would often attempt
and execute the most daring inroads to the gates of Thessalonica
and Constantinople. At this disastrous aera of the ninth and
tenth centuries, Europe was afflicted by a triple scourge from
the North, the East, and the South: the Norman, the Hungarian,
and the Saracen, sometimes trod the same ground of desolation;
and these savage foes might have been compared by Homer to the
two lions growling over the carcass of a mangled stag. 35
30 (return) [ See Katona, Hist. Ducum Hungar. p. 321-352.]
31 (return) [ Hungarorum gens, cujus omnes fere nationes expertae
saevitium &c., is the preface of Liutprand, (l. i. c. 2,) who
frequently expatiated on the calamities of his own times. See l.
i. c. 5, l. ii. c. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7; l. iii. c. 1, &c., l. v. c.
8, 15, in Legat. p. 485. His colors are glaring but his
chronology must be rectified by Pagi and Muratori.]
32 (return) [ The three bloody reigns of Arpad, Zoltan, and
Toxus, are critically illustrated by Katona, (Hist. Ducum, &c. p.
107-499.) His diligence has searched both natives and foreigners;
yet to the deeds of mischief, or glory, I have been able to add
the destruction of Bremen, (Adam Bremensis, i. 43.)]
33 (return) [ Muratori has considered with patriotic care the
danger and resources of Modena. The citizens besought St.
Geminianus, their patron, to avert, by his intercession, the
rabies, flagellum, &c. Nunc te rogamus, licet servi pessimi, Ab
Ungerorum nos defendas jaculis.The bishop erected walls for the
public defence, not contra dominos serenos, (Antiquitat. Ital.
Med. Aevi, tom. i. dissertat. i. p. 21, 22,) and the song of the
nightly watch is not without elegance or use, (tom. iii. dis. xl.
p. 709.) The Italian annalist has accurately traced the series of
their inroads, (Annali d’ Italia, tom. vii. p. 365, 367, 398,
401, 437, 440, tom. viii. p. 19, 41, 52, &c.)]
34 (return) [ Both the Hungarian and Russian annals suppose, that
they besieged, or attacked, or insulted Constantinople, (Pray,
dissertat. x. p. 239. Katona, Hist. Ducum, p. 354-360;) and the
fact is almost confessed by the Byzantine historians, (Leo
Grammaticus, p. 506. Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 629: ) yet, however
glorious to the nation, it is denied or doubted by the critical
historian, and even by the notary of Bela. Their scepticism is
meritorious; they could not safely transcribe or believe the
rusticorum fabulas: but Katona might have given due attention to
the evidence of Liutprand, Bulgarorum gentem atque daecorum
tributariam fecerant, (Hist. l. ii. c. 4, p. 435.)]
35 (return) [—Iliad, xvi. 756.]
The deliverance of Germany and Christendom was achieved by the
Saxon princes, Henry the Fowler and Otho the Great, who, in two
memorable battles, forever broke the power of the Hungarians. 36
The valiant Henry was roused from a bed of sickness by the
invasion of his country; but his mind was vigorous and his
prudence successful. “My companions,” said he, on the morning of
the combat, “maintain your ranks, receive on your bucklers the
first arrows of the Pagans, and prevent their second discharge by
the equal and rapid career of your lances.” They obeyed and
conquered: and the historical picture of the castle of Merseburgh
expressed the features, or at least the character, of Henry, who,
in an age of ignorance, intrusted to the finer arts the
perpetuity of his name. 37 At the end of twenty years, the
children of the Turks who had fallen by his sword invaded the
empire of his son; and their force is defined, in the lowest
estimate, at one hundred thousand horse. They were invited by
domestic faction; the gates of Germany were treacherously
unlocked; and they spread, far beyond the Rhine and the Meuse,
into the heart of Flanders. But the vigor and prudence of Otho
dispelled the conspiracy; the princes were made sensible that
unless they were true to each other, their religion and country
were irrecoverably lost; and the national powers were reviewed in
the plains of Augsburgh. They marched and fought in eight
legions, according to the division of provinces and tribes; the
first, second, and third, were composed of Bavarians; the fourth,
of Franconians; the fifth, of Saxons, under the immediate command
of the monarch; the sixth and seventh consisted of Swabians; and
the eighth legion, of a thousand Bohemians, closed the rear of
the host. The resources of discipline and valor were fortified by
the arts of superstition, which, on this occasion, may deserve
the epithets of generous and salutary. The soldiers were purified
with a fast; the camp was blessed with the relics of saints and
martyrs; and the Christian hero girded on his side the sword of
Constantine, grasped the invincible spear of Charlemagne, and
waved the banner of St. Maurice, the praefect of the Thebaean
legion. But his firmest confidence was placed in the holy lance,
38 whose point was fashioned of the nails of the cross, and which
his father had extorted from the king of Burgundy, by the threats
of war, and the gift of a province. The Hungarians were expected
in the front; they secretly passed the Lech, a river of Bavaria
that falls into the Danube; turned the rear of the Christian
army; plundered the baggage, and disordered the legion of Bohemia
and Swabia. The battle was restored by the Franconians, whose
duke, the valiant Conrad, was pierced with an arrow as he rested
from his fatigues: the Saxons fought under the eyes of their
king; and his victory surpassed, in merit and importance, the
triumphs of the last two hundred years. The loss of the
Hungarians was still greater in the flight than in the action;
they were encompassed by the rivers of Bavaria; and their past
cruelties excluded them from the hope of mercy. Three captive
princes were hanged at Ratisbon, the multitude of prisoners was
slain or mutilated, and the fugitives, who presumed to appear in
the face of their country, were condemned to everlasting poverty
and disgrace. 39 Yet the spirit of the nation was humbled, and
the most accessible passes of Hungary were fortified with a ditch
and rampart. Adversity suggested the counsels of moderation and
peace: the robbers of the West acquiesced in a sedentary life;
and the next generation was taught, by a discerning prince, that
far more might be gained by multiplying and exchanging the
produce of a fruitful soil. The native race, the Turkish or
Fennic blood, was mingled with new colonies of Scythian or
Sclavonian origin; 40 many thousands of robust and industrious
captives had been imported from all the countries of Europe; 41
and after the marriage of Geisa with a Bavarian princess, he
bestowed honors and estates on the nobles of Germany. 42 The son
of Geisa was invested with the regal title, and the house of
Arpad reigned three hundred years in the kingdom of Hungary. But
the freeborn Barbarians were not dazzled by the lustre of the
diadem, and the people asserted their indefeasible right of
choosing, deposing, and punishing the hereditary servant of the
state.
36 (return) [ They are amply and critically discussed by Katona,
(Hist. Dacum, p. 360-368, 427-470.) Liutprand (l. ii. c. 8, 9) is
the best evidence for the former, and Witichind (Annal. Saxon. l.
iii.) of the latter; but the critical historian will not even
overlook the horn of a warrior, which is said to be preserved at
Jaz-berid.]
37 (return) [ Hunc vero triumphum, tam laude quam memoria dignum,
ad Meresburgum rex in superiori coenaculo domus per Zeus, id est,
picturam, notari praecepit, adeo ut rem veram potius quam
verisimilem videas: a high encomium, (Liutprand, l. ii. c. 9.)
Another palace in Germany had been painted with holy subjects by
the order of Charlemagne; and Muratori may justly affirm, nulla
saecula fuere in quibus pictores desiderati fuerint, (Antiquitat.
Ital. Medii Aevi, tom. ii. dissert. xxiv. p. 360, 361.) Our
domestic claims to antiquity of ignorance and original
imperfection (Mr. Walpole’s lively words) are of a much more
recent date, (Anecdotes of Painting, vol. i. p. 2, &c.)]
38 (return) [ See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 929, No. 2-5. The
lance of Christ is taken from the best evidence, Liutprand, (l.
iv. c. 12,) Sigebert, and the Acts of St. Gerard: but the other
military relics depend on the faith of the Gesta Anglorum post
Bedam, l. ii. c. 8.]
39 (return) [ Katona, Hist. Ducum Hungariae, p. 500, &c.]
40 (return) [ Among these colonies we may distinguish, 1. The
Chazars, or Cabari, who joined the Hungarians on their march,
(Constant. de Admin. Imp. c. 39, 40, p. 108, 109.) 2. The
Jazyges, Moravians, and Siculi, whom they found in the land; the
last were perhaps a remnant of the Huns of Attila, and were
intrusted with the guard of the borders. 3. The Russians, who,
like the Swiss in France, imparted a general name to the royal
porters. 4. The Bulgarians, whose chiefs (A.D. 956) were invited,
cum magna multitudine Hismahelitarum. Had any of those
Sclavonians embraced the Mahometan religion? 5. The Bisseni and
Cumans, a mixed multitude of Patzinacites, Uzi, Chazars, &c., who
had spread to the Lower Danube. The last colony of 40,000 Cumans,
A.D. 1239, was received and converted by the kings of Hungary,
who derived from that tribe a new regal appellation, (Pray,
Dissert. vi. vii. p. 109-173. Katona, Hist. Ducum, p. 95-99,
259-264, 476, 479-483, &c.)]
41 (return) [ Christiani autem, quorum pars major populi est, qui
ex omni parte mundi illuc tracti sunt captivi, &c. Such was the
language of Piligrinus, the first missionary who entered Hungary,
A.D. 973. Pars major is strong. Hist. Ducum, p. 517.]
42 (return) [ The fideles Teutonici of Geisa are authenticated in
old charters: and Katona, with his usual industry, has made a
fair estimate of these colonies, which had been so loosely
magnified by the Italian Ranzanus, (Hist. Critic. Ducum. p,
667-681.)]
III. The name of Russians 43 was first divulged, in the ninth
century, by an embassy of Theophilus, emperor of the East, to the
emperor of the West, Lewis, the son of Charlemagne. The Greeks
were accompanied by the envoys of the great duke, or chagan, or
czar, of the Russians. In their journey to Constantinople, they
had traversed many hostile nations; and they hoped to escape the
dangers of their return, by requesting the French monarch to
transport them by sea to their native country. A closer
examination detected their origin: they were the brethren of the
Swedes and Normans, whose name was already odious and formidable
in France; and it might justly be apprehended, that these Russian
strangers were not the messengers of peace, but the emissaries of
war. They were detained, while the Greeks were dismissed; and
Lewis expected a more satisfactory account, that he might obey
the laws of hospitality or prudence, according to the interest of
both empires. 44 This Scandinavian origin of the people, or at
least the princes, of Russia, may be confirmed and illustrated by
the national annals 45 and the general history of the North. The
Normans, who had so long been concealed by a veil of impenetrable
darkness, suddenly burst forth in the spirit of naval and
military enterprise. The vast, and, as it is said, the populous
regions of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, were crowded with
independent chieftains and desperate adventurers, who sighed in
the laziness of peace, and smiled in the agonies of death. Piracy
was the exercise, the trade, the glory, and the virtue, of the
Scandinavian youth. Impatient of a bleak climate and narrow
limits, they started from the banquet, grasped their arms,
sounded their horn, ascended their vessels, and explored every
coast that promised either spoil or settlement. The Baltic was
the first scene of their naval achievements they visited the
eastern shores, the silent residence of Fennic and Sclavonic
tribes, and the primitive Russians of the Lake Ladoga paid a
tribute, the skins of white squirrels, to these strangers, whom
they saluted with the title of Varangians 46 or Corsairs. Their
superiority in arms, discipline, and renown, commanded the fear
and reverence of the natives. In their wars against the more
inland savages, the Varangians condescended to serve as friends
and auxiliaries, and gradually, by choice or conquest, obtained
the dominion of a people whom they were qualified to protect.
Their tyranny was expelled, their valor was again recalled, till
at length Ruric, a Scandinavian chief, became the father of a
dynasty which reigned above seven hundred years. His brothers
extended his influence: the example of service and usurpation was
imitated by his companions in the southern provinces of Russia;
and their establishments, by the usual methods of war and
assassination, were cemented into the fabric of a powerful
monarchy.
43 (return) [ Among the Greeks, this national appellation has a
singular form, as an undeclinable word, of which many fanciful
etymologies have been suggested. I have perused, with pleasure
and profit, a dissertation de Origine Russorum (Comment. Academ.
Petropolitanae, tom. viii. p. 388-436) by Theophilus Sigefrid
Bayer, a learned German, who spent his life and labors in the
service of Russia. A geographical tract of D’Anville, de l’Empire
de Russie, son Origine, et ses Accroissemens, (Paris, 1772, in
12mo.,) has likewise been of use. * Note: The later antiquarians
of Russia and Germany appear to aquiesce in the authority of the
monk Nestor, the earliest annalist of Russia, who derives the
Russians, or Vareques, from Scandinavia. The names of the first
founders of the Russian monarchy are Scandinavian or Norman.
Their language (according to Const. Porphyrog. de Administrat.
Imper. c. 9) differed essentially from the Sclavonian. The author
of the Annals of St. Bertin, who first names the Russians (Rhos)
in the year 839 of his Annals, assigns them Sweden for their
country. So Liutprand calls the Russians the same people as the
Normans. The Fins, Laplanders, and Esthonians, call the Swedes,
to the present day, Roots, Rootsi, Ruotzi, Rootslaue. See
Thunman, Untersuchungen uber der Geschichte des Estlichen
Europaischen Volker, p. 374. Gatterer, Comm. Societ. Regbcient.
Gotting. xiii. p. 126. Schlozer, in his Nestor. Koch. Revolut. de
‘Europe, vol. i. p. 60. Malte-Brun, Geograph. vol. vi. p.
378.—M.]
44 (return) [ See the entire passage (dignum, says Bayer, ut
aureis in tabulis rigatur) in the Annales Bertiniani Francorum,
(in Script. Ital. Muratori, tom. ii. pars i. p. 525,) A.D. 839,
twenty-two years before the aera of Ruric. In the xth century,
Liutprand (Hist. l. v. c. 6) speaks of the Russians and Normans
as the same Aquilonares homines of a red complexion.]
45 (return) [ My knowledge of these annals is drawn from M.
Leveque, Histoire de Russie. Nestor, the first and best of these
ancient annalists, was a monk of Kiow, who died in the beginning
of the xiith century; but his Chronicle was obscure, till it was
published at Petersburgh, 1767, in 4to. Leveque, Hist. de Russie,
tom. i. p. xvi. Coxe’s Travels, vol. ii. p. 184. * Note: The late
M. Schlozer has translated and added a commentary to the Annals
of Nestor; and his work is the mine from which henceforth the
history of the North must be drawn.—G.]
46 (return) [ Theophil. Sig. Bayer de Varagis, (for the name is
differently spelt,) in Comment. Academ. Petropolitanae, tom. iv.
p. 275-311.]
As long as the descendants of Ruric were considered as aliens and
conquerors, they ruled by the sword of the Varangians,
distributed estates and subjects to their faithful captains, and
supplied their numbers with fresh streams of adventurers from the
Baltic coast. 47 But when the Scandinavian chiefs had struck a
deep and permanent root into the soil, they mingled with the
Russians in blood, religion, and language, and the first
Waladimir had the merit of delivering his country from these
foreign mercenaries. They had seated him on the throne; his
riches were insufficient to satisfy their demands; but they
listened to his pleasing advice, that they should seek, not a
more grateful, but a more wealthy, master; that they should
embark for Greece, where, instead of the skins of squirrels, silk
and gold would be the recompense of their service. At the same
time, the Russian prince admonished his Byzantine ally to
disperse and employ, to recompense and restrain, these impetuous
children of the North. Contemporary writers have recorded the
introduction, name, and character, of the Varangians: each day
they rose in confidence and esteem; the whole body was assembled
at Constantinople to perform the duty of guards; and their
strength was recruited by a numerous band of their countrymen
from the Island of Thule. On this occasion, the vague appellation
of Thule is applied to England; and the new Varangians were a
colony of English and Danes who fled from the yoke of the Norman
conqueror. The habits of pilgrimage and piracy had approximated
the countries of the earth; these exiles were entertained in the
Byzantine court; and they preserved, till the last age of the
empire, the inheritance of spotless loyalty, and the use of the
Danish or English tongue. With their broad and double-edged
battle-axes on their shoulders, they attended the Greek emperor
to the temple, the senate, and the hippodrome; he slept and
feasted under their trusty guard; and the keys of the palace, the
treasury, and the capital, were held by the firm and faithful
hands of the Varangians. 48
47 (return) [ Yet, as late as the year 1018, Kiow and Russia were
still guarded ex fugitivorum servorum robore, confluentium et
maxime Danorum. Bayer, who quotes (p. 292) the Chronicle of
Dithmar of Merseburgh, observes, that it was unusual for the
Germans to enlist in a foreign service.]
48 (return) [ Ducange has collected from the original authors the
state and history of the Varangi at Constantinople, (Glossar.
Med. et Infimae Graecitatis, sub voce. Med. et Infimae
Latinitatis, sub voce Vagri. Not. ad Alexiad. Annae Comnenae, p.
256, 257, 258. Notes sur Villehardouin, p. 296-299.) See likewise
the annotations of Reiske to the Ceremoniale Aulae Byzant. of
Constantine, tom. ii. p. 149, 150. Saxo Grammaticus affirms that
they spoke Danish; but Codinus maintains them till the fifteenth
century in the use of their native English.]
In the tenth century, the geography of Scythia was extended far
beyond the limits of ancient knowledge; and the monarchy of the
Russians obtains a vast and conspicuous place in the map of
Constantine. 49 The sons of Ruric were masters of the spacious
province of Wolodomir, or Moscow; and, if they were confined on
that side by the hordes of the East, their western frontier in
those early days was enlarged to the Baltic Sea and the country
of the Prussians. Their northern reign ascended above the
sixtieth degree of latitude over the Hyperborean regions, which
fancy had peopled with monsters, or clouded with eternal
darkness. To the south they followed the course of the
Borysthenes, and approached with that river the neighborhood of
the Euxine Sea. The tribes that dwelt, or wandered, in this ample
circuit were obedient to the same conqueror, and insensibly
blended into the same nation. The language of Russia is a dialect
of the Sclavonian; but in the tenth century, these two modes of
speech were different from each other; and, as the Sclavonian
prevailed in the South, it may be presumed that the original
Russians of the North, the primitive subjects of the Varangian
chief, were a portion of the Fennic race. With the emigration,
union, or dissolution, of the wandering tribes, the loose and
indefinite picture of the Scythian desert has continually
shifted. But the most ancient map of Russia affords some places
which still retain their name and position; and the two capitals,
Novogorod 50 and Kiow, 51 are coeval with the first age of the
monarchy. Novogorod had not yet deserved the epithet of great,
nor the alliance of the Hanseatic League, which diffused the
streams of opulence and the principles of freedom. Kiow could not
yet boast of three hundred churches, an innumerable people, and a
degree of greatness and splendor which was compared with
Constantinople by those who had never seen the residence of the
Caesars. In their origin, the two cities were no more than camps
or fairs, the most convenient stations in which the Barbarians
might assemble for the occasional business of war or trade. Yet
even these assemblies announce some progress in the arts of
society; a new breed of cattle was imported from the southern
provinces; and the spirit of commercial enterprise pervaded the
sea and land, from the Baltic to the Euxine, from the mouth of
the Oder to the port of Constantinople. In the days of idolatry
and barbarism, the Sclavonic city of Julin was frequented and
enriched by the Normans, who had prudently secured a free mart of
purchase and exchange. 52 From this harbor, at the entrance of
the Oder, the corsair, or merchant, sailed in forty-three days to
the eastern shores of the Baltic, the most distant nations were
intermingled, and the holy groves of Curland are said to have
been decorated with Grecian and Spanish gold. 53 Between the sea
and Novogorod an easy intercourse was discovered; in the summer,
through a gulf, a lake, and a navigable river; in the winter
season, over the hard and level surface of boundless snows. From
the neighborhood of that city, the Russians descended the streams
that fall into the Borysthenes; their canoes, of a single tree,
were laden with slaves of every age, furs of every species, the
spoil of their beehives, and the hides of their cattle; and the
whole produce of the North was collected and discharged in the
magazines of Kiow. The month of June was the ordinary season of
the departure of the fleet: the timber of the canoes was framed
into the oars and benches of more solid and capacious boats; and
they proceeded without obstacle down the Borysthenes, as far as
the seven or thirteen ridges of rocks, which traverse the bed,
and precipitate the waters, of the river. At the more shallow
falls it was sufficient to lighten the vessels; but the deeper
cataracts were impassable; and the mariners, who dragged their
vessels and their slaves six miles over land, were exposed in
this toilsome journey to the robbers of the desert. 54 At the
first island below the falls, the Russians celebrated the
festival of their escape: at a second, near the mouth of the
river, they repaired their shattered vessels for the longer and
more perilous voyage of the Black Sea. If they steered along the
coast, the Danube was accessible; with a fair wind they could
reach in thirty-six or forty hours the opposite shores of
Anatolia; and Constantinople admitted the annual visit of the
strangers of the North. They returned at the stated season with a
rich cargo of corn, wine, and oil, the manufactures of Greece,
and the spices of India. Some of their countrymen resided in the
capital and provinces; and the national treaties protected the
persons, effects, and privileges, of the Russian merchant. 55
49 (return) [ The original record of the geography and trade of
Russia is produced by the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus,
(de Administrat. Imperii, c. 2, p. 55, 56, c. 9, p. 59-61, c. 13,
p. 63-67, c. 37, p. 106, c. 42, p. 112, 113,) and illustrated by
the diligence of Bayer, (de Geographia Russiae vicinarumque
Regionum circiter A. C. 948, in Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom.
ix. p. 367-422, tom. x. p. 371-421,) with the aid of the
chronicles and traditions of Russia, Scandinavia, &c.]
50 (return) [ The haughty proverb, “Who can resist God and the
great Novogorod?” is applied by M. Leveque (Hist. de Russie, tom.
i. p. 60) even to the times that preceded the reign of Ruric. In
the course of his history he frequently celebrates this republic,
which was suppressed A.D. 1475, (tom. ii. p. 252-266.) That
accurate traveller Adam Olearius describes (in 1635) the remains
of Novogorod, and the route by sea and land of the Holstein
ambassadors, tom. i. p. 123-129.]
51 (return) [ In hac magna civitate, quae est caput regni, plus
trecentae ecclesiae habentur et nundinae octo, populi etiam
ignota manus (Eggehardus ad A.D. 1018, apud Bayer, tom. ix. p.
412.) He likewise quotes (tom. x. p. 397) the words of the Saxon
annalist, Cujus (Russioe) metropolis est Chive, aemula sceptri
Constantinopolitani, quae est clarissimum decus Graeciae. The
fame of Kiow, especially in the xith century, had reached the
German and Arabian geographers.]
52 (return) [ In Odorae ostio qua Scythicas alluit paludes,
nobilissima civitas Julinum, celeberrimam, Barbaris et Graecis
qui sunt in circuitu, praestans stationem, est sane maxima omnium
quas Europa claudit civitatum, (Adam Bremensis, Hist. Eccles. p.
19;) a strange exaggeration even in the xith century. The trade
of the Baltic, and the Hanseatic League, are carefully treated in
Anderson’s Historical Deduction of Commerce; at least, in our
language, I am not acquainted with any book so satisfactory. *
Note: The book of authority is the “Geschichte des Hanseatischen
Bundes,” by George Sartorius, Gottingen, 1803, or rather the
later edition of that work by M. Lappenberg, 2 vols. 4to.,
Hamburgh, 1830.—M. 1845.]
53 (return) [ According to Adam of Bremen, (de Situ Daniae, p.
58,) the old Curland extended eight days’ journey along the
coast; and by Peter Teutoburgicus, (p. 68, A.D. 1326,) Memel is
defined as the common frontier of Russia, Curland, and Prussia.
Aurum ibi plurimum, (says Adam,) divinis auguribus atque
necromanticis omnes domus sunt plenae.... a toto orbe ibi
responsa petuntur, maxime ab Hispanis (forsan Zupanis, id est
regulis Lettoviae) et Graecis. The name of Greeks was applied to
the Russians even before their conversion; an imperfect
conversion, if they still consulted the wizards of Curland,
(Bayer, tom. x. p. 378, 402, &c. Grotius, Prolegomen. ad Hist.
Goth. p. 99.)]
54 (return) [ Constantine only reckons seven cataracts, of which
he gives the Russian and Sclavonic names; but thirteen are
enumerated by the Sieur de Beauplan, a French engineer, who had
surveyed the course and navigation of the Dnieper, or
Borysthenes, (Description de l’Ukraine, Rouen, 1660, a thin
quarto;) but the map is unluckily wanting in my copy.]
55 (return) [ Nestor, apud Leveque, Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p.
78-80. From the Dnieper, or Borysthenes, the Russians went to
Black Bulgaria, Chazaria, and Syria. To Syria, how? where? when?
The alteration is slight; the position of Suania, between
Chazaria and Lazica, is perfectly suitable; and the name was
still used in the xith century, (Cedren. tom. ii. p. 770.)]
Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part
III.
But the same communication which had been opened for the benefit,
was soon abused for the injury, of mankind. In a period of one
hundred and ninety years, the Russians made four attempts to
plunder the treasures of Constantinople: the event was various,
but the motive, the means, and the object, were the same in these
naval expeditions. 56 The Russian traders had seen the
magnificence, and tasted the luxury of the city of the Caesars. A
marvellous tale, and a scanty supply, excited the desires of
their savage countrymen: they envied the gifts of nature which
their climate denied; they coveted the works of art, which they
were too lazy to imitate and too indigent to purchase; the
Varangian princes unfurled the banners of piratical adventure,
and their bravest soldiers were drawn from the nations that dwelt
in the northern isles of the ocean. 57 The image of their naval
armaments was revived in the last century, in the fleets of the
Cossacks, which issued from the Borysthenes, to navigate the same
seas for a similar purpose. 58 The Greek appellation of monoxyla,
or single canoes, might justly be applied to the bottom of their
vessels. It was scooped out of the long stem of a beech or
willow, but the slight and narrow foundation was raised and
continued on either side with planks, till it attained the length
of sixty, and the height of about twelve, feet. These boats were
built without a deck, but with two rudders and a mast; to move
with sails and oars; and to contain from forty to seventy men,
with their arms, and provisions of fresh water and salt fish. The
first trial of the Russians was made with two hundred boats; but
when the national force was exerted, they might arm against
Constantinople a thousand or twelve hundred vessels. Their fleet
was not much inferior to the royal navy of Agamemnon, but it was
magnified in the eyes of fear to ten or fifteen times the real
proportion of its strength and numbers. Had the Greek emperors
been endowed with foresight to discern, and vigor to prevent,
perhaps they might have sealed with a maritime force the mouth of
the Borysthenes. Their indolence abandoned the coast of Anatolia
to the calamities of a piratical war, which, after an interval of
six hundred years, again infested the Euxine; but as long as the
capital was respected, the sufferings of a distant province
escaped the notice both of the prince and the historian. The
storm which had swept along from the Phasis and Trebizond, at
length burst on the Bosphorus of Thrace; a strait of fifteen
miles, in which the rude vessels of the Russians might have been
stopped and destroyed by a more skilful adversary. In their first
enterprise 59 under the princes of Kiow, they passed without
opposition, and occupied the port of Constantinople in the
absence of the emperor Michael, the son of Theophilus. Through a
crowd of perils, he landed at the palace-stairs, and immediately
repaired to a church of the Virgin Mary. 60 By the advice of the
patriarch, her garment, a precious relic, was drawn from the
sanctuary and dipped in the sea; and a seasonable tempest, which
determined the retreat of the Russians, was devoutly ascribed to
the mother of God. 61 The silence of the Greeks may inspire some
doubt of the truth, or at least of the importance, of the second
attempt by Oleg, the guardian of the sons of Ruric. 62 A strong
barrier of arms and fortifications defended the Bosphorus: they
were eluded by the usual expedient of drawing the boats over the
isthmus; and this simple operation is described in the national
chronicles, as if the Russian fleet had sailed over dry land with
a brisk and favorable gale. The leader of the third armament,
Igor, the son of Ruric, had chosen a moment of weakness and
decay, when the naval powers of the empire were employed against
the Saracens. But if courage be not wanting, the instruments of
defence are seldom deficient. Fifteen broken and decayed galleys
were boldly launched against the enemy; but instead of the single
tube of Greek fire usually planted on the prow, the sides and
stern of each vessel were abundantly supplied with that liquid
combustible. The engineers were dexterous; the weather was
propitious; many thousand Russians, who chose rather to be
drowned than burnt, leaped into the sea; and those who escaped to
the Thracian shore were inhumanly slaughtered by the peasants and
soldiers. Yet one third of the canoes escaped into shallow water;
and the next spring Igor was again prepared to retrieve his
disgrace and claim his revenge. 63 After a long peace, Jaroslaus,
the great grandson of Igor, resumed the same project of a naval
invasion. A fleet, under the command of his son, was repulsed at
the entrance of the Bosphorus by the same artificial flames. But
in the rashness of pursuit, the vanguard of the Greeks was
encompassed by an irresistible multitude of boats and men; their
provision of fire was probably exhausted; and twenty-four galleys
were either taken, sunk, or destroyed. 64
56 (return) [ The wars of the Russians and Greeks in the ixth,
xth, and xith centuries, are related in the Byzantine annals,
especially those of Zonaras and Cedrenus; and all their
testimonies are collected in the Russica of Stritter, tom. ii.
pars ii. p. 939-1044.]
57 (return) [ Cedrenus in Compend. p. 758]
58 (return) [ See Beauplan, (Description de l’Ukraine, p. 54-61:
) his descriptions are lively, his plans accurate, and except the
circumstances of fire-arms, we may read old Russians for modern
Cosacks.]
59 (return) [ It is to be lamented, that Bayer has only given a
Dissertation de Russorum prima Expeditione Constantinopolitana,
(Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. vi. p. 265-391.) After
disentangling some chronological intricacies, he fixes it in the
years 864 or 865, a date which might have smoothed some doubts
and difficulties in the beginning of M. Leveque’s history.]
60 (return) [ When Photius wrote his encyclic epistle on the
conversion of the Russians, the miracle was not yet sufficiently
ripe.]
61 (return) [ Leo Grammaticus, p. 463, 464. Constantini
Continuator in Script. post Theophanem, p. 121, 122. Symeon
Logothet. p. 445, 446. Georg. Monach. p. 535, 536. Cedrenus, tom.
ii. p. 551. Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 162.]
62 (return) [ See Nestor and Nicon, in Leveque’s Hist. de Russie,
tom. i. p. 74-80. Katona (Hist. Ducum, p. 75-79) uses his
advantage to disprove this Russian victory, which would cloud the
siege of Kiow by the Hungarians.]
63 (return) [ Leo Grammaticus, p. 506, 507. Incert. Contin. p.
263, 264 Symeon Logothet. p. 490, 491. Georg. Monach. p. 588,
589. Cedren tom. ii. p. 629. Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 190, 191, and
Liutprand, l. v. c. 6, who writes from the narratives of his
father-in-law, then ambassador at Constantinople, and corrects
the vain exaggeration of the Greeks.]
64 (return) [ I can only appeal to Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 758,
759) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. p. 253, 254;) but they grow more
weighty and credible as they draw near to their own times.]
Yet the threats or calamities of a Russian war were more
frequently diverted by treaty than by arms. In these naval
hostilities, every disadvantage was on the side of the Greeks;
their savage enemy afforded no mercy: his poverty promised no
spoil; his impenetrable retreat deprived the conqueror of the
hopes of revenge; and the pride or weakness of empire indulged an
opinion, that no honor could be gained or lost in the intercourse
with Barbarians. At first their demands were high and
inadmissible, three pounds of gold for each soldier or mariner of
the fleet: the Russian youth adhered to the design of conquest
and glory; but the counsels of moderation were recommended by the
hoary sages. “Be content,” they said, “with the liberal offers of
Caesar; is it not far better to obtain without a combat the
possession of gold, silver, silks, and all the objects of our
desires? Are we sure of victory? Can we conclude a treaty with
the sea? We do not tread on the land; we float on the abyss of
water, and a common death hangs over our heads.” 65 The memory of
these Arctic fleets that seemed to descend from the polar circle
left deep impression of terror on the Imperial city. By the
vulgar of every rank, it was asserted and believed, that an
equestrian statue in the square of Taurus was secretly inscribed
with a prophecy, how the Russians, in the last days, should
become masters of Constantinople. 66 In our own time, a Russian
armament, instead of sailing from the Borysthenes, has
circumnavigated the continent of Europe; and the Turkish capital
has been threatened by a squadron of strong and lofty ships of
war, each of which, with its naval science and thundering
artillery, could have sunk or scattered a hundred canoes, such as
those of their ancestors. Perhaps the present generation may yet
behold the accomplishment of the prediction, of a rare
prediction, of which the style is unambiguous and the date
unquestionable.
65 (return) [ Nestor, apud Leveque, Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p.
87.]
66 (return) [ This brazen statue, which had been brought from
Antioch, and was melted down by the Latins, was supposed to
represent either Joshua or Bellerophon, an odd dilemma. See
Nicetas Choniates, (p. 413, 414,) Codinus, (de Originibus C. P.
p. 24,) and the anonymous writer de Antiquitat. C. P. (Banduri,
Imp. Orient. tom. i. p. 17, 18,) who lived about the year 1100.
They witness the belief of the prophecy the rest is immaterial.]
By land the Russians were less formidable than by sea; and as
they fought for the most part on foot, their irregular legions
must often have been broken and overthrown by the cavalry of the
Scythian hordes. Yet their growing towns, however slight and
imperfect, presented a shelter to the subject, and a barrier to
the enemy: the monarchy of Kiow, till a fatal partition, assumed
the dominion of the North; and the nations from the Volga to the
Danube were subdued or repelled by the arms of Swatoslaus, 67 the
son of Igor, the son of Oleg, the son of Ruric. The vigor of his
mind and body was fortified by the hardships of a military and
savage life. Wrapped in a bear-skin, Swatoslaus usually slept on
the ground, his head reclining on a saddle; his diet was coarse
and frugal, and, like the heroes of Homer, 68 his meat (it was
often horse-flesh) was broiled or roasted on the coals. The
exercise of war gave stability and discipline to his army; and it
may be presumed, that no soldier was permitted to transcend the
luxury of his chief. By an embassy from Nicephorus, the Greek
emperor, he was moved to undertake the conquest of Bulgaria; and
a gift of fifteen hundred pounds of gold was laid at his feet to
defray the expense, or reward the toils, of the expedition. An
army of sixty thousand men was assembled and embarked; they
sailed from the Borysthenes to the Danube; their landing was
effected on the Maesian shore; and, after a sharp encounter, the
swords of the Russians prevailed against the arrows of the
Bulgarian horse. The vanquished king sunk into the grave; his
children were made captive; and his dominions, as far as Mount
Haemus, were subdued or ravaged by the northern invaders. But
instead of relinquishing his prey, and performing his
engagements, the Varangian prince was more disposed to advance
than to retire; and, had his ambition been crowned with success,
the seat of empire in that early period might have been
transferred to a more temperate and fruitful climate. Swatoslaus
enjoyed and acknowledged the advantages of his new position, in
which he could unite, by exchange or rapine, the various
productions of the earth. By an easy navigation he might draw
from Russia the native commodities of furs, wax, and hydromed:
Hungary supplied him with a breed of horses and the spoils of the
West; and Greece abounded with gold, silver, and the foreign
luxuries, which his poverty had affected to disdain. The bands of
Patzinacites, Chozars, and Turks, repaired to the standard of
victory; and the ambassador of Nicephorus betrayed his trust,
assumed the purple, and promised to share with his new allies the
treasures of the Eastern world. From the banks of the Danube the
Russian prince pursued his march as far as Adrianople; a formal
summons to evacuate the Roman province was dismissed with
contempt; and Swatoslaus fiercely replied, that Constantinople
might soon expect the presence of an enemy and a master.
67 (return) [ The life of Swatoslaus, or Sviatoslaf, or
Sphendosthlabus, is extracted from the Russian Chronicles by M.
Levesque, (Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. 94-107.)]
68 (return) [ This resemblance may be clearly seen in the ninth
book of the Iliad, (205-221,) in the minute detail of the cookery
of Achilles. By such a picture, a modern epic poet would disgrace
his work, and disgust his reader; but the Greek verses are
harmonious—a dead language can seldom appear low or familiar; and
at the distance of two thousand seven hundred years, we are
amused with the primitive manners of antiquity.]
Nicephorus could no longer expel the mischief which he had
introduced; but his throne and wife were inherited by John
Zimisces, 69 who, in a diminutive body, possessed the spirit and
abilities of a hero. The first victory of his lieutenants
deprived the Russians of their foreign allies, twenty thousand of
whom were either destroyed by the sword, or provoked to revolt,
or tempted to desert. Thrace was delivered, but seventy thousand
Barbarians were still in arms; and the legions that had been
recalled from the new conquests of Syria, prepared, with the
return of the spring, to march under the banners of a warlike
prince, who declared himself the friend and avenger of the
injured Bulgaria. The passes of Mount Haemus had been left
unguarded; they were instantly occupied; the Roman vanguard was
formed of the immortals, (a proud imitation of the Persian
style;) the emperor led the main body of ten thousand five
hundred foot; and the rest of his forces followed in slow and
cautious array, with the baggage and military engines. The first
exploit of Zimisces was the reduction of Marcianopolis, or
Peristhlaba, 70 in two days; the trumpets sounded; the walls were
scaled; eight thousand five hundred Russians were put to the
sword; and the sons of the Bulgarian king were rescued from an
ignominious prison, and invested with a nominal diadem. After
these repeated losses, Swatoslaus retired to the strong post of
Drista, on the banks of the Danube, and was pursued by an enemy
who alternately employed the arms of celerity and delay. The
Byzantine galleys ascended the river, the legions completed a
line of circumvallation; and the Russian prince was encompassed,
assaulted, and famished, in the fortifications of the camp and
city. Many deeds of valor were performed; several desperate
sallies were attempted; nor was it till after a siege of
sixty-five days that Swatoslaus yielded to his adverse fortune.
The liberal terms which he obtained announce the prudence of the
victor, who respected the valor, and apprehended the despair, of
an unconquered mind. The great duke of Russia bound himself, by
solemn imprecations, to relinquish all hostile designs; a safe
passage was opened for his return; the liberty of trade and
navigation was restored; a measure of corn was distributed to
each of his soldiers; and the allowance of twenty-two thousand
measures attests the loss and the remnant of the Barbarians.
After a painful voyage, they again reached the mouth of the
Borysthenes; but their provisions were exhausted; the season was
unfavorable; they passed the winter on the ice; and, before they
could prosecute their march, Swatoslaus was surprised and
oppressed by the neighboring tribes with whom the Greeks
entertained a perpetual and useful correspondence. 71 Far
different was the return of Zimisces, who was received in his
capital like Camillus or Marius, the saviors of ancient Rome. But
the merit of the victory was attributed by the pious emperor to
the mother of God; and the image of the Virgin Mary, with the
divine infant in her arms, was placed on a triumphal car, adorned
with the spoils of war, and the ensigns of Bulgarian royalty.
Zimisces made his public entry on horseback; the diadem on his
head, a crown of laurel in his hand; and Constantinople was
astonished to applaud the martial virtues of her sovereign. 72
69 (return) [ This singular epithet is derived from the Armenian
language. As I profess myself equally ignorant of these words, I
may be indulged in the question in the play, “Pray, which of you
is the interpreter?” From the context, they seem to signify
Adolescentulus, (Leo Diacon l. iv. Ms. apud Ducange, Glossar.
Graec. p. 1570.) * Note: Cerbied. the learned Armenian, gives
another derivation. There is a city called Tschemisch-gaizag,
which means a bright or purple sandal, such as women wear in the
East. He was called Tschemisch-ghigh, (for so his name is written
in Armenian, from this city, his native place.) Hase. Note to Leo
Diac. p. 454, in Niebuhr’s Byzant. Hist.—M.]
70 (return) [ In the Sclavonic tongue, the name of Peristhlaba
implied the great or illustrious city, says Anna Comnena,
(Alexiad, l. vii. p. 194.) From its position between Mount Haemus
and the Lower Danube, it appears to fill the ground, or at least
the station, of Marcianopolis. The situation of Durostolus, or
Dristra, is well known and conspicuous, (Comment. Academ.
Petropol. tom. ix. p. 415, 416. D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne,
tom. i. p. 307, 311.)]
71 (return) [ The political management of the Greeks, more
especially with the Patzinacites, is explained in the seven first
chapters, de Administratione Imperii.]
72 (return) [ In the narrative of this war, Leo the Deacon (apud
Pagi, Critica, tom. iv. A.D. 968-973) is more authentic and
circumstantial than Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 660-683) and Zonaras,
(tom. ii. p. 205-214.) These declaimers have multiplied to
308,000 and 330,000 men, those Russian forces, of which the
contemporary had given a moderate and consistent account.]
Photius of Constantinople, a patriarch, whose ambition was equal
to his curiosity, congratulates himself and the Greek church on
the conversion of the Russians. 73 Those fierce and bloody
Barbarians had been persuaded, by the voice of reason and
religion, to acknowledge Jesus for their God, the Christian
missionaries for their teachers, and the Romans for their friends
and brethren. His triumph was transient and premature. In the
various fortune of their piratical adventures, some Russian
chiefs might allow themselves to be sprinkled with the waters of
baptism; and a Greek bishop, with the name of metropolitan, might
administer the sacraments in the church of Kiow, to a
congregation of slaves and natives. But the seed of the gospel
was sown on a barren soil: many were the apostates, the converts
were few; and the baptism of Olga may be fixed as the aera of
Russian Christianity. 74 A female, perhaps of the basest origin,
who could revenge the death, and assume the sceptre, of her
husband Igor, must have been endowed with those active virtues
which command the fear and obedience of Barbarians. In a moment
of foreign and domestic peace, she sailed from Kiow to
Constantinople; and the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus has
described, with minute diligence, the ceremonial of her reception
in his capital and palace. The steps, the titles, the
salutations, the banquet, the presents, were exquisitely adjusted
to gratify the vanity of the stranger, with due reverence to the
superior majesty of the purple. 75 In the sacrament of baptism,
she received the venerable name of the empress Helena; and her
conversion might be preceded or followed by her uncle, two
interpreters, sixteen damsels of a higher, and eighteen of a
lower rank, twenty-two domestics or ministers, and forty-four
Russian merchants, who composed the retinue of the great princess
Olga. After her return to Kiow and Novogorod, she firmly
persisted in her new religion; but her labors in the propagation
of the gospel were not crowned with success; and both her family
and nation adhered with obstinacy or indifference to the gods of
their fathers. Her son Swatoslaus was apprehensive of the scorn
and ridicule of his companions; and her grandson Wolodomir
devoted his youthful zeal to multiply and decorate the monuments
of ancient worship. The savage deities of the North were still
propitiated with human sacrifices: in the choice of the victim, a
citizen was preferred to a stranger, a Christian to an idolater;
and the father, who defended his son from the sacerdotal knife,
was involved in the same doom by the rage of a fanatic tumult.
Yet the lessons and example of the pious Olga had made a deep,
though secret, impression in the minds of the prince and people:
the Greek missionaries continued to preach, to dispute, and to
baptize: and the ambassadors or merchants of Russia compared the
idolatry of the woods with the elegant superstition of
Constantinople. They had gazed with admiration on the dome of St.
Sophia: the lively pictures of saints and martyrs, the riches of
the altar, the number and vestments of the priests, the pomp and
order of the ceremonies; they were edified by the alternate
succession of devout silence and harmonious song; nor was it
difficult to persuade them, that a choir of angels descended each
day from heaven to join in the devotion of the Christians. 76 But
the conversion of Wolodomir was determined, or hastened, by his
desire of a Roman bride. At the same time, and in the city of
Cherson, the rites of baptism and marriage were celebrated by the
Christian pontiff: the city he restored to the emperor Basil, the
brother of his spouse; but the brazen gates were transported, as
it is said, to Novogorod, and erected before the first church as
a trophy of his victory and faith. 77 At his despotic command,
Peround, the god of thunder, whom he had so long adored, was
dragged through the streets of Kiow; and twelve sturdy Barbarians
battered with clubs the misshapen image, which was indignantly
cast into the waters of the Borysthenes. The edict of Wolodomir
had proclaimed, that all who should refuse the rites of baptism
would be treated as the enemies of God and their prince; and the
rivers were instantly filled with many thousands of obedient
Russians, who acquiesced in the truth and excellence of a
doctrine which had been embraced by the great duke and his
boyars. In the next generation, the relics of Paganism were
finally extirpated; but as the two brothers of Wolodomir had died
without baptism, their bones were taken from the grave, and
sanctified by an irregular and posthumous sacrament.
73 (return) [ Phot. Epistol. ii. No. 35, p. 58, edit. Montacut.
It was unworthy of the learning of the editor to mistake the
Russian nation, for a war-cry of the Bulgarians, nor did it
become the enlightened patriarch to accuse the Sclavonian
idolaters. They were neither Greeks nor Atheists.]
74 (return) [ M. Levesque has extracted, from old chronicles and
modern researches, the most satisfactory account of the religion
of the Slavi, and the conversion of Russia, (Hist. de Russie,
tom. i. p. 35-54, 59, 92, 92, 113-121, 124-129, 148, 149, &c.)]
75 (return) [ See the Ceremoniale Aulae Byzant. tom. ii. c. 15,
p. 343-345: the style of Olga, or Elga. For the chief of
Barbarians the Greeks whimsically borrowed the title of an
Athenian magistrate, with a female termination, which would have
astonished the ear of Demosthenes.]
76 (return) [ See an anonymous fragment published by Banduri,
(Imperium Orientale, tom. ii. p. 112, 113, de Conversione
Russorum.)]
77 (return) [ Cherson, or Corsun, is mentioned by Herberstein
(apud Pagi tom. iv. p. 56) as the place of Wolodomir’s baptism
and marriage; and both the tradition and the gates are still
preserved at Novogorod. Yet an observing traveller transports the
brazen gates from Magdeburgh in Germany, (Coxe’s Travels into
Russia, &c., vol. i. p. 452;) and quotes an inscription, which
seems to justify his opinion. The modern reader must not confound
this old Cherson of the Tauric or Crimaean peninsula, with a new
city of the same name, which has arisen near the mouth of the
Borysthenes, and was lately honored by the memorable interview of
the empress of Russia with the emperor of the West.]
In the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries of the Christian
aera, the reign of the gospel and of the church was extended over
Bulgaria, Hungary, Bohemia, Saxony, Denmark, Norway, Sweden,
Poland, and Russia. 78 The triumphs of apostolic zeal were
repeated in the iron age of Christianity; and the northern and
eastern regions of Europe submitted to a religion, more different
in theory than in practice, from the worship of their native
idols. A laudable ambition excited the monks both of Germany and
Greece, to visit the tents and huts of the Barbarians: poverty,
hardships, and dangers, were the lot of the first missionaries;
their courage was active and patient; their motive pure and
meritorious; their present reward consisted in the testimony of
their conscience and the respect of a grateful people; but the
fruitful harvest of their toils was inherited and enjoyed by the
proud and wealthy prelates of succeeding times. The first
conversions were free and spontaneous: a holy life and an
eloquent tongue were the only arms of the missionaries; but the
domestic fables of the Pagans were silenced by the miracles and
visions of the strangers; and the favorable temper of the chiefs
was accelerated by the dictates of vanity and interest. The
leaders of nations, who were saluted with the titles of kings and
saints, 79 held it lawful and pious to impose the Catholic faith
on their subjects and neighbors; the coast of the Baltic, from
Holstein to the Gulf of Finland, was invaded under the standard
of the cross; and the reign of idolatry was closed by the
conversion of Lithuania in the fourteenth century. Yet truth and
candor must acknowledge, that the conversion of the North
imparted many temporal benefits both to the old and the new
Christians. The rage of war, inherent to the human species, could
not be healed by the evangelic precepts of charity and peace; and
the ambition of Catholic princes has renewed in every age the
calamities of hostile contention. But the admission of the
Barbarians into the pale of civil and ecclesiastical society
delivered Europe from the depredations, by sea and land, of the
Normans, the Hungarians, and the Russians, who learned to spare
their brethren and cultivate their possessions. 80 The
establishment of law and order was promoted by the influence of
the clergy; and the rudiments of art and science were introduced
into the savage countries of the globe. The liberal piety of the
Russian princes engaged in their service the most skilful of the
Greeks, to decorate the cities and instruct the inhabitants: the
dome and the paintings of St. Sophia were rudely copied in the
churches of Kiow and Novogorod: the writings of the fathers were
translated into the Sclavonic idiom; and three hundred noble
youths were invited or compelled to attend the lessons of the
college of Jaroslaus. It should appear that Russia might have
derived an early and rapid improvement from her peculiar
connection with the church and state of Constantinople, which at
that age so justly despised the ignorance of the Latins. But the
Byzantine nation was servile, solitary, and verging to a hasty
decline: after the fall of Kiow, the navigation of the
Borysthenes was forgotten; the great princes of Wolodomir and
Moscow were separated from the sea and Christendom; and the
divided monarchy was oppressed by the ignominy and blindness of
Tartar servitude. 81 The Sclavonic and Scandinavian kingdoms,
which had been converted by the Latin missionaries, were exposed,
it is true, to the spiritual jurisdiction and temporal claims of
the popes; 82 but they were united in language and religious
worship, with each other, and with Rome; they imbibed the free
and generous spirit of the European republic, and gradually
shared the light of knowledge which arose on the western world.
78 (return) [ Consult the Latin text, or English version, of
Mosheim’s excellent History of the Church, under the first head
or section of each of these centuries.]
79 (return) [ In the year 1000, the ambassadors of St. Stephen
received from Pope Silvester the title of King of Hungary, with a
diadem of Greek workmanship. It had been designed for the duke of
Poland: but the Poles, by their own confession, were yet too
barbarous to deserve an angelical and apostolical crown. (Katona,
Hist. Critic Regum Stirpis Arpadianae, tom. i. p. 1-20.)]
80 (return) [ Listen to the exultations of Adam of Bremen, (A.D.
1080,) of which the substance is agreeable to truth: Ecce illa
ferocissima Danorum, &c., natio..... jamdudum novit in Dei
laudibus Alleluia resonare..... Ecce populus ille piraticus .....
suis nunc finibus contentus est. Ecce patria horribilis semper
inaccessa propter cultum idolorum... praedicatores veritatis
ubique certatim admittit, &c., &c., (de Situ Daniae, &c., p. 40,
41, edit. Elzevir; a curious and original prospect of the north
of Europe, and the introduction of Christianity.)]
81 (return) [ The great princes removed in 1156 from Kiow, which
was ruined by the Tartars in 1240. Moscow became the seat of
empire in the xivth century. See the 1st and 2d volumes of
Levesque’s History, and Mr. Coxe’s Travels into the North, tom.
i. p. 241, &c.]
82 (return) [ The ambassadors of St. Stephen had used the
reverential expressions of regnum oblatum, debitam obedientiam,
&c., which were most rigorously interpreted by Gregory VII.; and
the Hungarian Catholics are distressed between the sanctity of
the pope and the independence of the crown, (Katona, Hist.
Critica, tom. i. p. 20-25, tom. ii. p. 304, 346, 360, &c.)]
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part I.
The Saracens, Franks, And Greeks, In Italy.—First Adventures And
Settlement Of The Normans.—Character And Conquest Of Robert
Guiscard, Duke Of Apulia—Deliverance Of Sicily By His Brother
Roger.—Victories Of Robert Over The Emperors Of The East And
West.—Roger, King Of Sicily, Invades Africa And Greece.—The
Emperor Manuel Comnenus.— Wars Of The Greeks And
Normans.—Extinction Of The Normans.
The three great nations of the world, the Greeks, the Saracens,
and the Franks, encountered each other on the theatre of Italy. 1
The southern provinces, which now compose the kingdom of Naples,
were subject, for the most part, to the Lombard dukes and princes
of Beneventum; 2 so powerful in war, that they checked for a
moment the genius of Charlemagne; so liberal in peace, that they
maintained in their capital an academy of thirty-two philosophers
and grammarians. The division of this flourishing state produced
the rival principalities of Benevento, Salerno, and Capua; and
the thoughtless ambition or revenge of the competitors invited
the Saracens to the ruin of their common inheritance. During a
calamitous period of two hundred years, Italy was exposed to a
repetition of wounds, which the invaders were not capable of
healing by the union and tranquility of a perfect conquest. Their
frequent and almost annual squadrons issued from the port of
Palermo, and were entertained with too much indulgence by the
Christians of Naples: the more formidable fleets were prepared on
the African coast; and even the Arabs of Andalusia were sometimes
tempted to assist or oppose the Moslems of an adverse sect. In
the revolution of human events, a new ambuscade was concealed in
the Caudine Forks, the fields of Cannae were bedewed a second
time with the blood of the Africans, and the sovereign of Rome
again attacked or defended the walls of Capua and Tarentum. A
colony of Saracens had been planted at Bari, which commands the
entrance of the Adriatic Gulf; and their impartial depredations
provoked the resentment, and conciliated the union of the two
emperors. An offensive alliance was concluded between Basil the
Macedonian, the first of his race, and Lewis the great-grandson
of Charlemagne; 3 and each party supplied the deficiencies of his
associate. It would have been imprudent in the Byzantine monarch
to transport his stationary troops of Asia to an Italian
campaign; and the Latin arms would have been insufficient if his
superior navy had not occupied the mouth of the Gulf. The
fortress of Bari was invested by the infantry of the Franks, and
by the cavalry and galleys of the Greeks; and, after a defence of
four years, the Arabian emir submitted to the clemency of Lewis,
who commanded in person the operations of the siege. This
important conquest had been achieved by the concord of the East
and West; but their recent amity was soon imbittered by the
mutual complaints of jealousy and pride. The Greeks assumed as
their own the merit of the conquest and the pomp of the triumph;
extolled the greatness of their powers, and affected to deride
the intemperance and sloth of the handful of Barbarians who
appeared under the banners of the Carlovingian prince. His reply
is expressed with the eloquence of indignation and truth: “We
confess the magnitude of your preparation,” says the
great-grandson of Charlemagne. “Your armies were indeed as
numerous as a cloud of summer locusts, who darken the day, flap
their wings, and, after a short flight, tumble weary and
breathless to the ground. Like them, ye sunk after a feeble
effort; ye were vanquished by your own cowardice; and withdrew
from the scene of action to injure and despoil our Christian
subjects of the Sclavonian coast. We were few in number, and why
were we few? Because, after a tedious expectation of your
arrival, I had dismissed my host, and retained only a chosen band
of warriors to continue the blockade of the city. If they
indulged their hospitable feasts in the face of danger and death,
did these feasts abate the vigor of their enterprise? Is it by
your fasting that the walls of Bari have been overturned? Did not
these valiant Franks, diminished as they were by languor and
fatigue, intercept and vanish the three most powerful emirs of
the Saracens? and did not their defeat precipitate the fall of
the city? Bari is now fallen; Tarentum trembles; Calabria will be
delivered; and, if we command the sea, the Island of Sicily may
be rescued from the hands of the infidels. My brother,”
accelerate (a name most offensive to the vanity of the Greek,)
“accelerate your naval succors, respect your allies, and distrust
your flatterers.” 4
1 (return) [ For the general history of Italy in the ixth and xth
centuries, I may properly refer to the vth, vith, and viith books
of Sigonius de Regno Italiae, (in the second volume of his works,
Milan, 1732;) the Annals of Baronius, with the criticism of Pagi;
the viith and viiith books of the Istoria Civile del Regno di
Napoli of Giannone; the viith and viiith volumes (the octavo
edition) of the Annali d’ Italia of Muratori, and the 2d volume
of the Abrege Chronologique of M. de St. Marc, a work which,
under a superficial title, contains much genuine learning and
industry. But my long-accustomed reader will give me credit for
saying, that I myself have ascended to the fountain head, as
often as such ascent could be either profitable or possible; and
that I have diligently turned over the originals in the first
volumes of Muratori’s great collection of the Scriptores Rerum
Italicarum.]
2 (return) [ Camillo Pellegrino, a learned Capuan of the last
century, has illustrated the history of the duchy of Beneventum,
in his two books Historia Principum Longobardorum, in the
Scriptores of Muratori tom. ii. pars i. p. 221-345, and tom. v. p
159-245.]
3 (return) [ See Constantin. Porphyrogen. de Thematibus, l. ii. c
xi. in Vit Basil. c. 55, p. 181.]
4 (return) [ The oriental epistle of the emperor Lewis II. to the
emperor Basil, a curious record of the age, was first published
by Baronius, (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 871, No. 51-71,) from the
Vatican Ms. of Erchempert, or rather of the anonymous historian
of Salerno.] These lofty hopes were soon extinguished by the
death of Lewis, and the decay of the Carlovingian house; and
whoever might deserve the honor, the Greek emperors, Basil, and
his son Leo, secured the advantage, of the reduction of Bari. The
Italians of Apulia and Calabria were persuaded or compelled to
acknowledge their supremacy, and an ideal line from Mount
Garganus to the Bay of Salerno, leaves the far greater part of
the kingdom of Naples under the dominion of the Eastern empire.
Beyond that line, the dukes or republics of Amalfi 5 and Naples,
who had never forfeited their voluntary allegiance, rejoiced in
the neighborhood of their lawful sovereign; and Amalfi was
enriched by supplying Europe with the produce and manufactures of
Asia. But the Lombard princes of Benevento, Salerno, and Capua, 6
were reluctantly torn from the communion of the Latin world, and
too often violated their oaths of servitude and tribute. The city
of Bari rose to dignity and wealth, as the metropolis of the new
theme or province of Lombardy: the title of patrician, and
afterwards the singular name of Catapan, 7 was assigned to the
supreme governor; and the policy both of the church and state was
modelled in exact subordination to the throne of Constantinople.
As long as the sceptre was disputed by the princes of Italy,
their efforts were feeble and adverse; and the Greeks resisted or
eluded the forces of Germany, which descended from the Alps under
the Imperial standard of the Othos. The first and greatest of
those Saxon princes was compelled to relinquish the siege of
Bari: the second, after the loss of his stoutest bishops and
barons, escaped with honor from the bloody field of Crotona. On
that day the scale of war was turned against the Franks by the
valor of the Saracens. 8 These corsairs had indeed been driven by
the Byzantine fleets from the fortresses and coasts of Italy; but
a sense of interest was more prevalent than superstition or
resentment, and the caliph of Egypt had transported forty
thousand Moslems to the aid of his Christian ally. The successors
of Basil amused themselves with the belief, that the conquest of
Lombardy had been achieved, and was still preserved by the
justice of their laws, the virtues of their ministers, and the
gratitude of a people whom they had rescued from anarchy and
oppression. A series of rebellions might dart a ray of truth into
the palace of Constantinople; and the illusions of flattery were
dispelled by the easy and rapid success of the Norman
adventurers.
5 (return) [ See an excellent Dissertation de Republica
Amalphitana, in the Appendix (p. 1-42) of Henry Brencman’s
Historia Pandectarum, (Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1722, in 4to.)]
6 (return) [ Your master, says Nicephorus, has given aid and
protection prinminibus Capuano et Beneventano, servis meis, quos
oppugnare dispono.... Nova (potius nota) res est quod eorum
patres et avi nostro Imperio tributa dederunt, (Liutprand, in
Legat. p. 484.) Salerno is not mentioned, yet the prince changed
his party about the same time, and Camillo Pellegrino (Script.
Rer. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 285) has nicely discerned this
change in the style of the anonymous Chronicle. On the rational
ground of history and language, Liutprand (p. 480) had asserted
the Latin claim to Apulia and Calabria.]
7 (return) [ See the Greek and Latin Glossaries of Ducange
(catapanus,) and his notes on the Alexias, (p. 275.) Against the
contemporary notion, which derives it from juxta omne, he treats
it as a corruption of the Latin capitaneus. Yet M. de St. Marc
has accurately observed (Abrege Chronologique, tom. ii. p. 924)
that in this age the capitanei were not captains, but only nobles
of the first rank, the great valvassors of Italy.]
8 (return) [ (the Lombards), (Leon. Tactic. c. xv. p. 741.) The
little Chronicle of Beneventum (tom. ii. pars i. p. 280) gives a
far different character of the Greeks during the five years (A.D.
891-896) that Leo was master of the city.]
The revolution of human affairs had produced in Apulia and
Calabria a melancholy contrast between the age of Pythagoras and
the tenth century of the Christian aera. At the former period,
the coast of Great Greece (as it was then styled) was planted
with free and opulent cities: these cities were peopled with
soldiers, artists, and philosophers; and the military strength of
Tarentum; Sybaris, or Crotona, was not inferior to that of a
powerful kingdom. At the second aera, these once flourishing
provinces were clouded with ignorance impoverished by tyranny,
and depopulated by Barbarian war; nor can we severely accuse the
exaggeration of a contemporary, that a fair and ample district
was reduced to the same desolation which had covered the earth
after the general deluge. 9 Among the hostilities of the Arabs,
the Franks, and the Greeks, in the southern Italy, I shall select
two or three anecdotes expressive of their national manners. 1.
It was the amusement of the Saracens to profane, as well as to
pillage, the monasteries and churches. At the siege of Salerno, a
Mussulman chief spread his couch on the communion-table, and on
that altar sacrificed each night the virginity of a Christian
nun. As he wrestled with a reluctant maid, a beam in the roof was
accidentally or dexterously thrown down on his head; and the
death of the lustful emir was imputed to the wrath of Christ,
which was at length awakened to the defence of his faithful
spouse. 10 2. The Saracens besieged the cities of Beneventum and
Capua: after a vain appeal to the successors of Charlemagne, the
Lombards implored the clemency and aid of the Greek emperor. 11 A
fearless citizen dropped from the walls, passed the
intrenchments, accomplished his commission, and fell into the
hands of the Barbarians as he was returning with the welcome
news. They commanded him to assist their enterprise, and deceive
his countrymen, with the assurance that wealth and honors should
be the reward of his falsehood, and that his sincerity would be
punished with immediate death. He affected to yield, but as soon
as he was conducted within hearing of the Christians on the
rampart, “Friends and brethren,” he cried with a loud voice, “be
bold and patient, maintain the city; your sovereign is informed
of your distress, and your deliverers are at hand. I know my
doom, and commit my wife and children to your gratitude.” The
rage of the Arabs confirmed his evidence; and the self-devoted
patriot was transpierced with a hundred spears. He deserves to
live in the memory of the virtuous, but the repetition of the
same story in ancient and modern times, may sprinkle some doubts
on the reality of this generous deed. 12 3. The recital of a
third incident may provoke a smile amidst the horrors of war.
Theobald, marquis of Camerino and Spoleto, 13 supported the
rebels of Beneventum; and his wanton cruelty was not incompatible
in that age with the character of a hero. His captives of the
Greek nation or party were castrated without mercy, and the
outrage was aggravated by a cruel jest, that he wished to present
the emperor with a supply of eunuchs, the most precious ornaments
of the Byzantine court. The garrison of a castle had been
defeated in a sally, and the prisoners were sentenced to the
customary operation. But the sacrifice was disturbed by the
intrusion of a frantic female, who, with bleeding cheeks
dishevelled hair, and importunate clamors, compelled the marquis
to listen to her complaint. “Is it thus,” she cried, “ye
magnanimous heroes, that ye wage war against women, against women
who have never injured ye, and whose only arms are the distaff
and the loom?” Theobald denied the charge, and protested that,
since the Amazons, he had never heard of a female war. “And how,”
she furiously exclaimed, “can you attack us more directly, how
can you wound us in a more vital part, than by robbing our
husbands of what we most dearly cherish, the source of our joys,
and the hope of our posterity? The plunder of our flocks and
herds I have endured without a murmur, but this fatal injury,
this irreparable loss, subdues my patience, and calls aloud on
the justice of heaven and earth.” A general laugh applauded her
eloquence; the savage Franks, inaccessible to pity, were moved by
her ridiculous, yet rational despair; and with the deliverance of
the captives, she obtained the restitution of her effects. As she
returned in triumph to the castle, she was overtaken by a
messenger, to inquire, in the name of Theobald, what punishment
should be inflicted on her husband, were he again taken in arms.
“Should such,” she answered without hesitation, “be his guilt and
misfortune, he has eyes, and a nose, and hands, and feet. These
are his own, and these he may deserve to forfeit by his personal
offences. But let my lord be pleased to spare what his little
handmaid presumes to claim as her peculiar and lawful property.”
14
9 (return) [ Calabriam adeunt, eamque inter se divisam
reperientes funditus depopulati sunt, (or depopularunt,) ita ut
deserta sit velut in diluvio. Such is the text of Herempert, or
Erchempert, according to the two editions of Carraccioli (Rer.
Italic. Script. tom. v. p. 23) and of Camillo Pellegrino, (tom.
ii. pars i. p. 246.) Both were extremely scarce, when they were
reprinted by Muratori.]
10 (return) [ Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 874, No. 2) has drawn
this story from a Ms. of Erchempert, who died at Capua only
fifteen years after the event. But the cardinal was deceived by a
false title, and we can only quote the anonymous Chronicle of
Salerno, (Paralipomena, c. 110,) composed towards the end of the
xth century, and published in the second volume of Muratori’s
Collection. See the Dissertations of Camillo Pellegrino, tom. ii.
pars i. p. 231-281, &c.]
11 (return) [ Constantine Porphyrogenitus (in Vit. Basil. c. 58,
p. 183) is the original author of this story. He places it under
the reigns of Basil and Lewis II.; yet the reduction of
Beneventum by the Greeks is dated A.D. 891, after the decease of
both of those princes.]
12 (return) [ In the year 663, the same tragedy is described by
Paul the Deacon, (de Gestis Langobard. l. v. c. 7, 8, p. 870,
871, edit. Grot.,) under the walls of the same city of
Beneventum. But the actors are different, and the guilt is
imputed to the Greeks themselves, which in the Byzantine edition
is applied to the Saracens. In the late war in Germany, M.
D’Assas, a French officer of the regiment of Auvergne, is said to
have devoted himself in a similar manner. His behavior is the
more heroic, as mere silence was required by the enemy who had
made him prisoner, (Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XV. c. 33, tom. ix.
p. 172.)]
13 (return) [ Theobald, who is styled Heros by Liutprand, was
properly duke of Spoleto and marquis of Camerino, from the year
926 to 935. The title and office of marquis (commander of the
march or frontier) was introduced into Italy by the French
emperors, (Abrege Chronologique, tom. ii. p. 545-732 &c.)]
14 (return) [ Liutprand, Hist. l. iv. c. iv. in the Rerum Italic.
Script. tom. i. pars i. p. 453, 454. Should the licentiousness of
the tale be questioned, I may exclaim, with poor Sterne, that it
is hard if I may not transcribe with caution what a bishop could
write without scruple What if I had translated, ut viris certetis
testiculos amputare, in quibus nostri corporis refocillatio,
&c.?]
The establishment of the Normans in the kingdoms of Naples and
Sicily 15 is an event most romantic in its origin, and in its
consequences most important both to Italy and the Eastern empire.
The broken provinces of the Greeks, Lombards, and Saracens, were
exposed to every invader, and every sea and land were invaded by
the adventurous spirit of the Scandinavian pirates. After a long
indulgence of rapine and slaughter, a fair and ample territory
was accepted, occupied, and named, by the Normans of France: they
renounced their gods for the God of the Christians; 16 and the
dukes of Normandy acknowledged themselves the vassals of the
successors of Charlemagne and Capet. The savage fierceness which
they had brought from the snowy mountains of Norway was refined,
without being corrupted, in a warmer climate; the companions of
Rollo insensibly mingled with the natives; they imbibed the
manners, language, 17 and gallantry, of the French nation; and in
a martial age, the Normans might claim the palm of valor and
glorious achievements. Of the fashionable superstitions, they
embraced with ardor the pilgrimages of Rome, Italy, and the Holy
Land. 171 In this active devotion, the minds and bodies were
invigorated by exercise: danger was the incentive, novelty the
recompense; and the prospect of the world was decorated by
wonder, credulity, and ambitious hope. They confederated for
their mutual defence; and the robbers of the Alps, who had been
allured by the garb of a pilgrim, were often chastised by the arm
of a warrior. In one of these pious visits to the cavern of Mount
Garganus in Apulia, which had been sanctified by the apparition
of the archangel Michael, 18 they were accosted by a stranger in
the Greek habit, but who soon revealed himself as a rebel, a
fugitive, and a mortal foe of the Greek empire. His name was
Melo; a noble citizen of Bari, who, after an unsuccessful revolt,
was compelled to seek new allies and avengers of his country. The
bold appearance of the Normans revived his hopes and solicited
his confidence: they listened to the complaints, and still more
to the promises, of the patriot. The assurance of wealth
demonstrated the justice of his cause; and they viewed, as the
inheritance of the brave, the fruitful land which was oppressed
by effeminate tyrants. On their return to Normandy, they kindled
a spark of enterprise, and a small but intrepid band was freely
associated for the deliverance of Apulia. They passed the Alps by
separate roads, and in the disguise of pilgrims; but in the
neighborhood of Rome they were saluted by the chief of Bari, who
supplied the more indigent with arms and horses, and instantly
led them to the field of action. In the first conflict, their
valor prevailed; but in the second engagement they were
overwhelmed by the numbers and military engines of the Greeks,
and indignantly retreated with their faces to the enemy. 1811 The
unfortunate Melo ended his life a suppliant at the court of
Germany: his Norman followers, excluded from their native and
their promised land, wandered among the hills and valleys of
Italy, and earned their daily subsistence by the sword. To that
formidable sword the princes of Capua, Beneventum, Salerno, and
Naples, alternately appealed in their domestic quarrels; the
superior spirit and discipline of the Normans gave victory to the
side which they espoused; and their cautious policy observed the
balance of power, lest the preponderance of any rival state
should render their aid less important, and their service less
profitable. Their first asylum was a strong camp in the depth of
the marshes of Campania: but they were soon endowed by the
liberality of the duke of Naples with a more plentiful and
permanent seat. Eight miles from his residence, as a bulwark
against Capua, the town of Aversa was built and fortified for
their use; and they enjoyed as their own the corn and fruits, the
meadows and groves, of that fertile district. The report of their
success attracted every year new swarms of pilgrims and soldiers:
the poor were urged by necessity; the rich were excited by hope;
and the brave and active spirits of Normandy were impatient of
ease and ambitious of renown. The independent standard of Aversa
afforded shelter and encouragement to the outlaws of the
province, to every fugitive who had escaped from the injustice or
justice of his superiors; and these foreign associates were
quickly assimilated in manners and language to the Gallic colony.
The first leader of the Normans was Count Rainulf; and, in the
origin of society, preeminence of rank is the reward and the
proof of superior merit. 19 1911
15 (return) [ The original monuments of the Normans in Italy are
collected in the vth volume of Muratori; and among these we may
distinguish the poems of William Appulus (p. 245-278) and the
history of Galfridus (Jeffrey) Malaterra, (p. 537-607.) Both were
natives of France, but they wrote on the spot, in the age of the
first conquerors (before A.D. 1100,) and with the spirit of
freemen. It is needless to recapitulate the compilers and critics
of Italian history, Sigonius, Baronius, Pagi, Giannone, Muratori,
St. Marc, &c., whom I have always consulted, and never copied. *
Note: M. Goutier d’Arc has discovered a translation of the
Chronicle of Aime, monk of Mont Cassino, a contemporary of the
first Norman invaders of Italy. He has made use of it in his
Histoire des Conquetes des Normands, and added a summary of its
contents. This work was quoted by later writers, but was supposed
to have been entirely lost.—M.]
16 (return) [ Some of the first converts were baptized ten or
twelve times, for the sake of the white garment usually given at
this ceremony. At the funeral of Rollo, the gifts to monasteries
for the repose of his soul were accompanied by a sacrifice of one
hundred captives. But in a generation or two, the national change
was pure and general.]
17 (return) [ The Danish language was still spoken by the Normans
of Bayeux on the sea-coast, at a time (A.D. 940) when it was
already forgotten at Rouen, in the court and capital. Quem
(Richard I.) confestim pater Baiocas mittens Botoni militiae suae
principi nutriendum tradidit, ut, ibi lingua eruditus Danica,
suis exterisque hominibus sciret aperte dare responsa, (Wilhelm.
Gemeticensis de Ducibus Normannis, l. iii. c. 8, p. 623, edit.
Camden.) Of the vernacular and favorite idiom of William the
Conqueror, (A.D. 1035,) Selden (Opera, tom. ii. p. 1640-1656) has
given a specimen, obsolete and obscure even to antiquarians and
lawyers.]
171 (return) [ A band of Normans returning from the Holy Land had
rescued the city of Salerno from the attack of a numerous fleet
of Saracens. Gainar, the Lombard prince of Salerno wished to
retain them in his service and take them into his pay. They
answered, “We fight for our religion, and not for money.” Gaimar
entreated them to send some Norman knights to his court. This
seems to have been the origin of the connection of the Normans
with Italy. See Histoire des Conquetes des Normands par Goutier
d’Arc, l. i. c. i., Paris, 1830.—M.]
18 (return) [ See Leandro Alberti (Descrizione d’Italia, p. 250)
and Baronius, (A.D. 493, No. 43.) If the archangel inherited the
temple and oracle, perhaps the cavern, of old Calchas the
soothsayer, (Strab. Geograph l. vi. p. 435, 436,) the Catholics
(on this occasion) have surpassed the Greeks in the elegance of
their superstition.]
1811 (return) [ Nine out of ten perished in the field. Chronique
d’Aime, tom. i. p. 21 quoted by M Goutier d’Arc, p. 42.—M.]
19 (return) [ See the first book of William Appulus. His words
are applicable to every swarm of Barbarians and freebooters:—
Si vicinorum quis pernitiosus ad illos
Confugiebat eum gratanter suscipiebant:
Moribus et lingua quoscumque venire videbant
Informant propria; gens efficiatur ut una.
And elsewhere, of the native adventurers of Normandy:—
Pars parat, exiguae vel opes aderant quia nullae:
Pars, quia de magnis majora subire volebant.]
1911 (return) [ This account is not accurate. After the retreat
of the emperor Henry II. the Normans, united under the command of
Rainulf, had taken possession of Aversa, then a small castle in
the duchy of Naples. They had been masters of it a few years when
Pandulf IV., prince of Capua, found means to take Naples by
surprise. Sergius, master of the soldiers, and head of the
republic, with the principal citizens, abandoned a city in which
he could not behold, without horror, the establishment of a
foreign dominion he retired to Aversa; and when, with the
assistance of the Greeks and that of the citizens faithful to
their country, he had collected money enough to satisfy the
rapacity of the Norman adventurers, he advanced at their head to
attack the garrison of the prince of Capua, defeated it, and
reentered Naples. It was then that he confirmed the Normans in
the possession of Aversa and its territory, which he raised into
a count’s fief, and granted the investiture to Rainulf. Hist. des
Rep. Ital. tom. i. p. 267]
Since the conquest of Sicily by the Arabs, the Grecian emperors
had been anxious to regain that valuable possession; but their
efforts, however strenuous, had been opposed by the distance and
the sea. Their costly armaments, after a gleam of success, added
new pages of calamity and disgrace to the Byzantine annals:
twenty thousand of their best troops were lost in a single
expedition; and the victorious Moslems derided the policy of a
nation which intrusted eunuchs not only with the custody of their
women, but with the command of their men 20 After a reign of two
hundred years, the Saracens were ruined by their divisions. 21
The emir disclaimed the authority of the king of Tunis; the
people rose against the emir; the cities were usurped by the
chiefs; each meaner rebel was independent in his village or
castle; and the weaker of two rival brothers implored the
friendship of the Christians. In every service of danger the
Normans were prompt and useful; and five hundred knights, or
warriors on horseback, were enrolled by Arduin, the agent and
interpreter of the Greeks, under the standard of Maniaces,
governor of Lombardy. Before their landing, the brothers were
reconciled; the union of Sicily and Africa was restored; and the
island was guarded to the water’s edge. The Normans led the van
and the Arabs of Messina felt the valor of an untried foe. In a
second action the emir of Syracuse was unhorsed and transpierced
by the iron arm of William of Hauteville. In a third engagement,
his intrepid companions discomfited the host of sixty thousand
Saracens, and left the Greeks no more than the labor of the
pursuit: a splendid victory; but of which the pen of the
historian may divide the merit with the lance of the Normans. It
is, however, true, that they essentially promoted the success of
Maniaces, who reduced thirteen cities, and the greater part of
Sicily, under the obedience of the emperor. But his military fame
was sullied by ingratitude and tyranny. In the division of the
spoils, the deserts of his brave auxiliaries were forgotten; and
neither their avarice nor their pride could brook this injurious
treatment. They complained by the mouth of their interpreter:
their complaint was disregarded; their interpreter was scourged;
the sufferings were his; the insult and resentment belonged to
those whose sentiments he had delivered. Yet they dissembled till
they had obtained, or stolen, a safe passage to the Italian
continent: their brethren of Aversa sympathized in their
indignation, and the province of Apulia was invaded as the
forfeit of the debt. 22 Above twenty years after the first
emigration, the Normans took the field with no more than seven
hundred horse and five hundred foot; and after the recall of the
Byzantine legions 23 from the Sicilian war, their numbers are
magnified to the amount of threescore thousand men. Their herald
proposed the option of battle or retreat; “of battle,” was the
unanimous cry of the Normans; and one of their stoutest warriors,
with a stroke of his fist, felled to the ground the horse of the
Greek messenger. He was dismissed with a fresh horse; the insult
was concealed from the Imperial troops; but in two successive
battles they were more fatally instructed of the prowess of their
adversaries. In the plains of Cannae, the Asiatics fled before
the adventurers of France; the duke of Lombardy was made
prisoner; the Apulians acquiesced in a new dominion; and the four
places of Bari, Otranto, Brundusium, and Tarentum, were alone
saved in the shipwreck of the Grecian fortunes. From this aera we
may date the establishment of the Norman power, which soon
eclipsed the infant colony of Aversa. Twelve counts 24 were
chosen by the popular suffrage; and age, birth, and merit, were
the motives of their choice. The tributes of their peculiar
districts were appropriated to their use; and each count erected
a fortress in the midst of his lands, and at the head of his
vassals. In the centre of the province, the common habitation of
Melphi was reserved as the metropolis and citadel of the
republic; a house and separate quarter was allotted to each of
the twelve counts: and the national concerns were regulated by
this military senate. The first of his peers, their president and
general, was entitled count of Apulia; and this dignity was
conferred on William of the iron arm, who, in the language of the
age, is styled a lion in battle, a lamb in society, and an angel
in council. 25 The manners of his countrymen are fairly
delineated by a contemporary and national historian. 26 “The
Normans,” says Malaterra, “are a cunning and revengeful people;
eloquence and dissimulation appear to be their hereditary
qualities: they can stoop to flatter; but unless they are curbed
by the restraint of law, they indulge the licentiousness of
nature and passion. Their princes affect the praises of popular
munificence; the people observe the medium, or rather blond the
extremes, of avarice and prodigality; and in their eager thirst
of wealth and dominion, they despise whatever they possess, and
hope whatever they desire. Arms and horses, the luxury of dress,
the exercises of hunting and hawking 27 are the delight of the
Normans; but, on pressing occasions, they can endure with
incredible patience the inclemency of every climate, and the toil
and absence of a military life.” 28
20 (return) [ Liutprand, in Legatione, p. 485. Pagi has
illustrated this event from the Ms. history of the deacon Leo,
(tom. iv. A.D. 965, No. 17-19.)]
21 (return) [ See the Arabian Chronicle of Sicily, apud Muratori,
Script. Rerum Ital. tom. i. p. 253.]
22 (return) [ Jeffrey Malaterra, who relates the Sicilian war,
and the conquest of Apulia, (l. i. c. 7, 8, 9, 19.) The same
events are described by Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 741-743, 755, 756)
and Zonaras, (tom. ii. p. 237, 238;) and the Greeks are so
hardened to disgrace, that their narratives are impartial
enough.]
23 (return) [ Lydia: consult Constantine de Thematibus, i. 3, 4,
with Delisle’s map.]
24 (return) [ Omnes conveniunt; et bis sex nobiliores,
Quos genus et gravitas morum decorabat et aetas,
Elegere duces. Provectis ad comitatum
His alii parent. Comitatus nomen honoris
Quo donantur erat. Hi totas undique terras
Divisere sibi, ni sors inimica repugnet;
Singula proponunt loca quae contingere sorte
Cuique duci debent, et quaeque tributa locorum.
And after speaking of Melphi, William Appulus adds,
Pro numero comitum bis sex statuere plateas,
Atque domus comitum totidem fabricantur in urbe.
Leo Ostiensis (l. ii. c. 67) enumerates the divisions of the
Apulian cities, which it is needless to repeat.]
25 (return) [ Gulielm. Appulus, l. ii. c 12, according to the
reference of Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. ii. p.
31,) which I cannot verify in the original. The Apulian praises
indeed his validas vires, probitas animi, and vivida virtus; and
declares that, had he lived, no poet could have equalled his
merits, (l. i. p. 258, l. ii. p. 259.) He was bewailed by the
Normans, quippe qui tanti consilii virum, (says Malaterra, l. i.
c. 12, p. 552,) tam armis strenuum, tam sibi munificum,
affabilem, morigeratum, ulterius se habere diffidebant.]
26 (return) [ The gens astutissima, injuriarum ultrix.... adulari
sciens.... eloquentiis inserviens, of Malaterra, (l. i. c. 3, p.
550,) are expressive of the popular and proverbial character of
the Normans.]
27 (return) [ The hunting and hawking more properly belong to the
descendants of the Norwegian sailors; though they might import
from Norway and Iceland the finest casts of falcons.]
28 (return) [ We may compare this portrait with that of William
of Malmsbury, (de Gestis Anglorum, l. iii. p. 101, 102,) who
appreciates, like a philosophic historian, the vices and virtues
of the Saxons and Normans. England was assuredly a gainer by the
conquest.]
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part II.
The Normans of Apulia were seated on the verge of the two
empires; and, according to the policy of the hour, they accepted
the investiture of their lands, from the sovereigns of Germany or
Constantinople. But the firmest title of these adventurers was
the right of conquest: they neither loved nor trusted; they were
neither trusted nor beloved: the contempt of the princes was
mixed with fear, and the fear of the natives was mingled with
hatred and resentment. Every object of desire, a horse, a woman,
a garden, tempted and gratified the rapaciousness of the
strangers; 29 and the avarice of their chiefs was only colored by
the more specious names of ambition and glory. The twelve counts
were sometimes joined in the league of injustice: in their
domestic quarrels they disputed the spoils of the people: the
virtues of William were buried in his grave; and Drogo, his
brother and successor, was better qualified to lead the valor,
than to restrain the violence, of his peers. Under the reign of
Constantine Monomachus, the policy, rather than benevolence, of
the Byzantine court, attempted to relieve Italy from this
adherent mischief, more grievous than a flight of Barbarians; 30
and Argyrus, the son of Melo, was invested for this purpose with
the most lofty titles 31 and the most ample commission. The
memory of his father might recommend him to the Normans; and he
had already engaged their voluntary service to quell the revolt
of Maniaces, and to avenge their own and the public injury. It
was the design of Constantine to transplant the warlike colony
from the Italian provinces to the Persian war; and the son of
Melo distributed among the chiefs the gold and manufactures of
Greece, as the first-fruits of the Imperial bounty. But his arts
were baffled by the sense and spirit of the conquerors of Apulia:
his gifts, or at least his proposals, were rejected; and they
unanimously refused to relinquish their possessions and their
hopes for the distant prospect of Asiatic fortune. After the
means of persuasion had failed, Argyrus resolved to compel or to
destroy: the Latin powers were solicited against the common
enemy; and an offensive alliance was formed of the pope and the
two emperors of the East and West. The throne of St. Peter was
occupied by Leo the Ninth, a simple saint, 32 of a temper most
apt to deceive himself and the world, and whose venerable
character would consecrate with the name of piety the measures
least compatible with the practice of religion. His humanity was
affected by the complaints, perhaps the calumnies, of an injured
people: the impious Normans had interrupted the payment of
tithes; and the temporal sword might be lawfully unsheathed
against the sacrilegious robbers, who were deaf to the censures
of the church. As a German of noble birth and royal kindred, Leo
had free access to the court and confidence of the emperor Henry
the Third; and in search of arms and allies, his ardent zeal
transported him from Apulia to Saxony, from the Elbe to the
Tyber. During these hostile preparations, Argyrus indulged
himself in the use of secret and guilty weapons: a crowd of
Normans became the victims of public or private revenge; and the
valiant Drogo was murdered in a church. But his spirit survived
in his brother Humphrey, the third count of Apulia. The assassins
were chastised; and the son of Melo, overthrown and wounded, was
driven from the field, to hide his shame behind the walls of
Bari, and to await the tardy succor of his allies.
29 (return) [ The biographer of St. Leo IX. pours his holy venom
on the Normans. Videns indisciplinatam et alienam gentem
Normannorum, crudeli et inaudita rabie, et plusquam Pagana
impietate, adversus ecclesias Dei insurgere, passim Christianos
trucidare, &c., (Wibert, c. 6.) The honest Apulian (l. ii. p.
259) says calmly of their accuser, Veris commiscens fallacia.]
30 (return) [ The policy of the Greeks, revolt of Maniaces, &c.,
must be collected from Cedrenus, (tom. ii. p. 757, 758,) William
Appulus, (l. i. p 257, 258, l. ii. p. 259,) and the two
Chronicles of Bari, by Lupus Protospata, (Muratori, Script. Ital.
tom. v. p. 42, 43, 44,) and an anonymous writer, (Antiquitat,
Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. i. p 31-35.) This last is a fragment of
some value.]
31 (return) [ Argyrus received, says the anonymous Chronicle of
Bari, Imperial letters, Foederatus et Patriciatus, et Catapani et
Vestatus. In his Annals, Muratori (tom. viii. p. 426) very
properly reads, or interprets, Sevestatus, the title of Sebastos
or Augustus. But in his Antiquities, he was taught by Ducange to
make it a palatine office, master of the wardrobe.]
32 (return) [ A Life of St. Leo IX., deeply tinged with the
passions and prejudices of the age, has been composed by Wibert,
printed at Paris, 1615, in octavo, and since inserted in the
Collections of the Bollandists, of Mabillon, and of Muratori. The
public and private history of that pope is diligently treated by
M. de St. Marc. (Abrege, tom. ii. p. 140-210, and p. 25-95,
second column.)]
But the power of Constantine was distracted by a Turkish war; the
mind of Henry was feeble and irresolute; and the pope, instead of
repassing the Alps with a German army, was accompanied only by a
guard of seven hundred Swabians and some volunteers of Lorraine.
In his long progress from Mantua to Beneventum, a vile and
promiscuous multitude of Italians was enlisted under the holy
standard: 33 the priest and the robber slept in the same tent;
the pikes and crosses were intermingled in the front; and the
martial saint repeated the lessons of his youth in the order of
march, of encampment, and of combat. The Normans of Apulia could
muster in the field no more than three thousand horse, with a
handful of infantry: the defection of the natives intercepted
their provisions and retreat; and their spirit, incapable of
fear, was chilled for a moment by superstitious awe. On the
hostile approach of Leo, they knelt without disgrace or
reluctance before their spiritual father. But the pope was
inexorable; his lofty Germans affected to deride the diminutive
stature of their adversaries; and the Normans were informed that
death or exile was their only alternative. Flight they disdained,
and, as many of them had been three days without tasting food,
they embraced the assurance of a more easy and honorable death.
They climbed the hill of Civitella, descended into the plain, and
charged in three divisions the army of the pope. On the left, and
in the centre, Richard count of Aversa, and Robert the famous
Guiscard, attacked, broke, routed, and pursued the Italian
multitudes, who fought without discipline, and fled without
shame. A harder trial was reserved for the valor of Count
Humphrey, who led the cavalry of the right wing. The Germans 34
have been described as unskillful in the management of the horse
and the lance, but on foot they formed a strong and impenetrable
phalanx; and neither man, nor steed, nor armor, could resist the
weight of their long and two-handed swords. After a severe
conflict, they were encompassed by the squadrons returning from
the pursuit; and died in the ranks with the esteem of their foes,
and the satisfaction of revenge. The gates of Civitella were shut
against the flying pope, and he was overtaken by the pious
conquerors, who kissed his feet, to implore his blessing and the
absolution of their sinful victory. The soldiers beheld in their
enemy and captive the vicar of Christ; and, though we may suppose
the policy of the chiefs, it is probable that they were infected
by the popular superstition. In the calm of retirement, the
well-meaning pope deplored the effusion of Christian blood, which
must be imputed to his account: he felt, that he had been the
author of sin and scandal; and as his undertaking had failed, the
indecency of his military character was universally condemned. 35
With these dispositions, he listened to the offers of a
beneficial treaty; deserted an alliance which he had preached as
the cause of God; and ratified the past and future conquests of
the Normans. By whatever hands they had been usurped, the
provinces of Apulia and Calabria were a part of the donation of
Constantine and the patrimony of St. Peter: the grant and the
acceptance confirmed the mutual claims of the pontiff and the
adventurers. They promised to support each other with spiritual
and temporal arms; a tribute or quitrent of twelve pence was
afterwards stipulated for every ploughland; and since this
memorable transaction, the kingdom of Naples has remained above
seven hundred years a fief of the Holy See. 36
33 (return) [ See the expedition of Leo XI. against the Normans.
See William Appulus (l. ii. p. 259-261) and Jeffrey Malaterra (l.
i. c. 13, 14, 15, p. 253.) They are impartial, as the national is
counterbalanced by the clerical prejudice]
34 (return) [ Teutonici, quia caesaries et forma decoros
Fecerat egregie proceri corporis illos
Corpora derident Normannica quae breviora
Esse videbantur.
The verses of the Apulian are commonly in this strain, though he
heats himself a little in the battle. Two of his similes from
hawking and sorcery are descriptive of manners.]
35 (return) [ Several respectable censures or complaints are
produced by M. de St. Marc, (tom. ii. p. 200-204.) As Peter
Damianus, the oracle of the times, has denied the popes the right
of making war, the hermit (lugens eremi incola) is arraigned by
the cardinal, and Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 1053, No. 10-17)
most strenuously asserts the two swords of St. Peter.]
36 (return) [ The origin and nature of the papal investitures are
ably discussed by Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. ii.
p. 37-49, 57-66,) as a lawyer and antiquarian. Yet he vainly
strives to reconcile the duties of patriot and Catholic, adopts
an empty distinction of “Ecclesia Romana non dedit, sed accepit,”
and shrinks from an honest but dangerous confession of the
truth.]
The pedigree of Robert of Guiscard 37 is variously deduced from
the peasants and the dukes of Normandy: from the peasants, by the
pride and ignorance of a Grecian princess; 38 from the dukes, by
the ignorance and flattery of the Italian subjects. 39 His
genuine descent may be ascribed to the second or middle order of
private nobility. 40 He sprang from a race of valvassors or
bannerets, of the diocese of Coutances, in the Lower Normandy:
the castle of Hauteville was their honorable seat: his father
Tancred was conspicuous in the court and army of the duke; and
his military service was furnished by ten soldiers or knights.
Two marriages, of a rank not unworthy of his own, made him the
father of twelve sons, who were educated at home by the impartial
tenderness of his second wife. But a narrow patrimony was
insufficient for this numerous and daring progeny; they saw
around the neighborhood the mischiefs of poverty and discord, and
resolved to seek in foreign wars a more glorious inheritance. Two
only remained to perpetuate the race, and cherish their father’s
age: their ten brothers, as they successfully attained the vigor
of manhood, departed from the castle, passed the Alps, and joined
the Apulian camp of the Normans. The elder were prompted by
native spirit; their success encouraged their younger brethren,
and the three first in seniority, William, Drogo, and Humphrey,
deserved to be the chiefs of their nation and the founders of the
new republic. Robert was the eldest of the seven sons of the
second marriage; and even the reluctant praise of his foes has
endowed him with the heroic qualities of a soldier and a
statesman. His lofty stature surpassed the tallest of his army:
his limbs were cast in the true proportion of strength and
gracefulness; and to the decline of life, he maintained the
patient vigor of health and the commanding dignity of his form.
His complexion was ruddy, his shoulders were broad, his hair and
beard were long and of a flaxen color, his eyes sparkled with
fire, and his voice, like that of Achilles, could impress
obedience and terror amidst the tumult of battle. In the ruder
ages of chivalry, such qualifications are not below the notice of
the poet or historians: they may observe that Robert, at once,
and with equal dexterity, could wield in the right hand his
sword, his lance in the left; that in the battle of Civitella he
was thrice unhorsed; and that in the close of that memorable day
he was adjudged to have borne away the prize of valor from the
warriors of the two armies. 41 His boundless ambition was founded
on the consciousness of superior worth: in the pursuit of
greatness, he was never arrested by the scruples of justice, and
seldom moved by the feelings of humanity: though not insensible
of fame, the choice of open or clandestine means was determined
only by his present advantage. The surname of Guiscard 42 was
applied to this master of political wisdom, which is too often
confounded with the practice of dissimulation and deceit; and
Robert is praised by the Apulian poet for excelling the cunning
of Ulysses and the eloquence of Cicero. Yet these arts were
disguised by an appearance of military frankness: in his highest
fortune, he was accessible and courteous to his fellow-soldiers;
and while he indulged the prejudices of his new subjects, he
affected in his dress and manners to maintain the ancient fashion
of his country. He grasped with a rapacious, that he might
distribute with a liberal, hand: his primitive indigence had
taught the habits of frugality; the gain of a merchant was not
below his attention; and his prisoners were tortured with slow
and unfeeling cruelty, to force a discovery of their secret
treasure. According to the Greeks, he departed from Normandy with
only five followers on horseback and thirty on foot; yet even
this allowance appears too bountiful: the sixth son of Tancred of
Hauteville passed the Alps as a pilgrim; and his first military
band was levied among the adventurers of Italy. His brothers and
countrymen had divided the fertile lands of Apulia; but they
guarded their shares with the jealousy of avarice; the aspiring
youth was driven forwards to the mountains of Calabria, and in
his first exploits against the Greeks and the natives, it is not
easy to discriminate the hero from the robber. To surprise a
castle or a convent, to ensnare a wealthy citizen, to plunder the
adjacent villages for necessary food, were the obscure labors
which formed and exercised the powers of his mind and body. The
volunteers of Normandy adhered to his standard; and, under his
command, the peasants of Calabria assumed the name and character
of Normans.
37 (return) [ The birth, character, and first actions of Robert
Guiscard, may be found in Jeffrey Malaterra, (l. i. c. 3, 4, 11,
16, 17, 18, 38, 39, 40,) William Appulus, (l. ii. p. 260-262,)
William Gemeticensis, or of Jumieges, (l. xi. c. 30, p. 663, 664,
edit. Camden,) and Anna Comnena, (Alexiad, l. i. p. 23-27, l. vi.
p. 165, 166,) with the annotations of Ducange, (Not. in Alexiad,
p. 230-232, 320,) who has swept all the French and Latin
Chronicles for supplemental intelligence.]
38 (return) [ (a Greek corruption), and elsewhere, (l. iv. p.
84,). Anna Comnena was born in the purple; yet her father was no
more than a private though illustrious subject, who raised
himself to the empire.]
39 (return) [ Giannone, (tom. ii. p. 2) forgets all his original
authors, and rests this princely descent on the credit of
Inveges, an Augustine monk of Palermo in the last century. They
continue the succession of dukes from Rollo to William II. the
Bastard or Conqueror, whom they hold (communemente si tiene) to
be the father of Tancred of Hauteville; a most strange and
stupendous blunder! The sons of Tancred fought in Apulia, before
William II. was three years old, (A.D. 1037.)]
40 (return) [ The judgment of Ducange is just and moderate: Certe
humilis fuit ac tenuis Roberti familia, si ducalem et regium
spectemus apicem, ad quem postea pervenit; quae honesta tamen et
praeter nobilium vulgarium statum et conditionem illustris habita
est, “quae nec humi reperet nec altum quid tumeret.” (Wilhem.
Malmsbur. de Gestis Anglorum, l. iii. p. 107. Not. ad Alexiad. p.
230.)]
41 (return) [ I shall quote with pleasure some of the best lines
of the Apulian, (l. ii. p. 270.)
Pugnat utraque manu, nec lancea cassa, nec ensis
Cassus erat, quocunque manu deducere vellet.
Ter dejectus equo, ter viribus ipse resumptis
Major in arma redit: stimulos furor ipse ministrat.
Ut Leo cum frendens, &c.
- — — — — — -
Nullus in hoc bello sicuti post bella probatum est
Victor vel victus, tam magnos edidit ictus.]
42 (return) [ The Norman writers and editors most conversant with
their own idiom interpret Guiscard or Wiscard, by Callidus, a
cunning man. The root (wise) is familiar to our ear; and in the
old word Wiseacre, I can discern something of a similar sense and
termination. It is no bad translation of the surname and
character of Robert.]
As the genius of Robert expanded with his fortune, he awakened
the jealousy of his elder brother, by whom, in a transient
quarrel, his life was threatened and his liberty restrained.
After the death of Humphrey, the tender age of his sons excluded
them from the command; they were reduced to a private estate, by
the ambition of their guardian and uncle; and Guiscard was
exalted on a buckler, and saluted count of Apulia and general of
the republic. With an increase of authority and of force, he
resumed the conquest of Calabria, and soon aspired to a rank that
should raise him forever above the heads of his equals.
By some acts of rapine or sacrilege, he had incurred a papal
excommunication; but Nicholas the Second was easily persuaded
that the divisions of friends could terminate only in their
mutual prejudice; that the Normans were the faithful champions of
the Holy See; and it was safer to trust the alliance of a prince
than the caprice of an aristocracy. A synod of one hundred
bishops was convened at Melphi; and the count interrupted an
important enterprise to guard the person and execute the decrees
of the Roman pontiff. His gratitude and policy conferred on
Robert and his posterity the ducal title, 43 with the investiture
of Apulia, Calabria, and all the lands, both in Italy and Sicily,
which his sword could rescue from the schismatic Greeks and the
unbelieving Saracens. 44 This apostolic sanction might justify
his arms; but the obedience of a free and victorious people could
not be transferred without their consent; and Guiscard dissembled
his elevation till the ensuing campaign had been illustrated by
the conquest of Consenza and Reggio. In the hour of triumph, he
assembled his troops, and solicited the Normans to confirm by
their suffrage the judgment of the vicar of Christ: the soldiers
hailed with joyful acclamations their valiant duke; and the
counts, his former equals, pronounced the oath of fidelity with
hollow smiles and secret indignation. After this inauguration,
Robert styled himself, “By the grace of God and St. Peter, duke
of Apulia, Calabria, and hereafter of Sicily;” and it was the
labor of twenty years to deserve and realize these lofty
appellations. Such sardy progress, in a narrow space, may seem
unworthy of the abilities of the chief and the spirit of the
nation; but the Normans were few in number; their resources were
scanty; their service was voluntary and precarious. The bravest
designs of the duke were sometimes opposed by the free voice of
his parliament of barons: the twelve counts of popular election
conspired against his authority; and against their perfidious
uncle, the sons of Humphrey demanded justice and revenge. By his
policy and vigor, Guiscard discovered their plots, suppressed
their rebellions, and punished the guilty with death or exile:
but in these domestic feuds, his years, and the national
strength, were unprofitably consumed. After the defeat of his
foreign enemies, the Greeks, Lombards, and Saracens, their broken
forces retreated to the strong and populous cities of the
sea-coast. They excelled in the arts of fortification and
defence; the Normans were accustomed to serve on horseback in the
field, and their rude attempts could only succeed by the efforts
of persevering courage. The resistance of Salerno was maintained
above eight months; the siege or blockade of Bari lasted near
four years. In these actions the Norman duke was the foremost in
every danger; in every fatigue the last and most patient. As he
pressed the citadel of Salerno, a huge stone from the rampart
shattered one of his military engines; and by a splinter he was
wounded in the breast. Before the gates of Bari, he lodged in a
miserable hut or barrack, composed of dry branches, and thatched
with straw; a perilous station, on all sides open to the
inclemency of the winter and the spears of the enemy. 45
43 (return) [ The acquisition of the ducal title by Robert
Guiscard is a nice and obscure business. With the good advice of
Giannone, Muratori, and St. Marc, I have endeavored to form a
consistent and probable narrative.]
44 (return) [ Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 1059, No. 69) has
published the original act. He professes to have copied it from
the Liber Censuum, a Vatican Ms. Yet a Liber Censuum of the xiith
century has been printed by Muratori, (Antiquit. Medii Aevi, tom.
v. p. 851-908;) and the names of Vatican and Cardinal awaken the
suspicions of a Protestant, and even of a philosopher.]
45 (return) [ Read the life of Guiscard in the second and third
books of the Apulian, the first and second books of Malaterra.]
The Italian conquests of Robert correspond with the limits of the
present kingdom of Naples; and the countries united by his arms
have not been dissevered by the revolutions of seven hundred
years. 46 The monarchy has been composed of the Greek provinces
of Calabria and Apulia, of the Lombard principality of Salerno,
the republic of Amalphi, and the inland dependencies of the large
and ancient duchy of Beneventum. Three districts only were
exempted from the common law of subjection; the first forever,
the two last till the middle of the succeeding century. The city
and immediate territory of Benevento had been transferred, by
gift or exchange, from the German emperor to the Roman pontiff;
and although this holy land was sometimes invaded, the name of
St. Peter was finally more potent than the sword of the Normans.
Their first colony of Aversa subdued and held the state of Capua;
and her princes were reduced to beg their bread before the palace
of their fathers. The dukes of Naples, the present metropolis,
maintained the popular freedom, under the shadow of the Byzantine
empire. Among the new acquisitions of Guiscard, the science of
Salerno, 47 and the trade of Amalphi, 48 may detain for a moment
the curiosity of the reader. I. Of the learned faculties,
jurisprudence implies the previous establishment of laws and
property; and theology may perhaps be superseded by the full
light of religion and reason. But the savage and the sage must
alike implore the assistance of physic; and, if our diseases are
inflamed by luxury, the mischiefs of blows and wounds would be
more frequent in the ruder ages of society. The treasures of
Grecian medicine had been communicated to the Arabian colonies of
Africa, Spain, and Sicily; and in the intercourse of peace and
war, a spark of knowledge had been kindled and cherished at
Salerno, an illustrious city, in which the men were honest and
the women beautiful. 49 A school, the first that arose in the
darkness of Europe, was consecrated to the healing art: the
conscience of monks and bishops was reconciled to that salutary
and lucrative profession; and a crowd of patients, of the most
eminent rank, and most distant climates, invited or visited the
physicians of Salerno. They were protected by the Norman
conquerors; and Guiscard, though bred in arms, could discern the
merit and value of a philosopher. After a pilgrimage of
thirty-nine years, Constantine, an African Christian, returned
from Bagdad, a master of the language and learning of the
Arabians; and Salerno was enriched by the practice, the lessons,
and the writings of the pupil of Avicenna. The school of medicine
has long slept in the name of a university; but her precepts are
abridged in a string of aphorisms, bound together in the Leonine
verses, or Latin rhymes, of the twelfth century. 50 II. Seven
miles to the west of Salerno, and thirty to the south of Naples,
the obscure town of Amalphi displayed the power and rewards of
industry. The land, however fertile, was of narrow extent; but
the sea was accessible and open: the inhabitants first assumed
the office of supplying the western world with the manufactures
and productions of the East; and this useful traffic was the
source of their opulence and freedom. The government was popular,
under the administration of a duke and the supremacy of the Greek
emperor. Fifty thousand citizens were numbered in the walls of
Amalphi; nor was any city more abundantly provided with gold,
silver, and the objects of precious luxury. The mariners who
swarmed in her port, excelled in the theory and practice of
navigation and astronomy: and the discovery of the compass, which
has opened the globe, is owing to their ingenuity or good
fortune. Their trade was extended to the coasts, or at least to
the commodities, of Africa, Arabia, and India: and their
settlements in Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and
Alexandria, acquired the privileges of independent colonies. 51
After three hundred years of prosperity, Amalphi was oppressed by
the arms of the Normans, and sacked by the jealousy of Pisa; but
the poverty of one thousand 5111 fisherman is yet dignified by
the remains of an arsenal, a cathedral, and the palaces of royal
merchants.
46 (return) [ The conquests of Robert Guiscard and Roger I., the
exemption of Benevento and the xii provinces of the kingdom, are
fairly exposed by Giannone in the second volume of his Istoria
Civile, l. ix. x. xi and l. xvii. p. 460-470. This modern
division was not established before the time of Frederic II.]
47 (return) [ Giannone, (tom. ii. p. 119-127,) Muratori,
(Antiquitat. Medii Aevi, tom. iii. dissert. xliv. p. 935, 936,)
and Tiraboschi, (Istoria della Letteratura Italiana,) have given
an historical account of these physicians; their medical
knowledge and practice must be left to our physicians.]
48 (return) [ At the end of the Historia Pandectarum of Henry
Brenckmann, (Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1722, in 4to.,) the
indefatigable author has inserted two dissertations, de Republica
Amalphitana, and de Amalphi a Pisanis direpta, which are built on
the testimonies of one hundred and forty writers. Yet he has
forgotten two most important passages of the embassy of
Liutprand, (A.D. 939,) which compare the trade and navigation of
Amalphi with that of Venice.]
49 (return) [ Urbs Latii non est hac delitiosior urbe,
Frugibus, arboribus, vinoque redundat; et unde
Non tibi poma, nuces, non pulchra palatia desunt,
Non species muliebris abest probitasque virorum.
—Gulielmus Appulus, l. iii. p. 367]
50 (return) [ Muratori carries their antiquity above the year
(1066) of the death of Edward the Confessor, the rex Anglorum to
whom they are addressed. Nor is this date affected by the
opinion, or rather mistake, of Pasquier (Recherches de la France,
l. vii. c. 2) and Ducange, (Glossar. Latin.) The practice of
rhyming, as early as the viith century, was borrowed from the
languages of the North and East, (Muratori, Antiquitat. tom. iii.
dissert. xl. p. 686-708.)]
51 (return) [ The description of Amalphi, by William the Apulian,
(l. iii. p. 267,) contains much truth and some poetry, and the
third line may be applied to the sailor’s compass:—
Nulla magis locuples argento, vestibus, auro
Partibus innumeris: hac plurimus urbe moratur
Nauta maris Caelique vias aperire peritus.
Huc et Alexandri diversa feruntur ab urbe
Regis, et Antiochi. Gens haec freta plurima transit.
His Arabes, Indi, Siculi nascuntur et Afri.
Haec gens est totum proore nobilitata per orbem,
Et mercando forens, et amans mercata referre.]
5111 (return) [ Amalfi had only one thousand inhabitants at the
commencement of the 18th century, when it was visited by
Brenckmann, (Brenckmann de Rep. Amalph. Diss. i. c. 23.) At
present it has six or eight thousand Hist. des Rep. tom. i. p.
304.—G.]
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part III.
Roger, the twelfth and last of the sons of Tancred, had been long
detained in Normandy by his own and his father’s age. He accepted
the welcome summons; hastened to the Apulian camp; and deserved
at first the esteem, and afterwards the envy, of his elder
brother. Their valor and ambition were equal; but the youth, the
beauty, the elegant manners, of Roger engaged the disinterested
love of the soldiers and people. So scanty was his allowance for
himself and forty followers, that he descended from conquest to
robbery, and from robbery to domestic theft; and so loose were
the notions of property, that, by his own historian, at his
special command, he is accused of stealing horses from a stable
at Melphi. 52 His spirit emerged from poverty and disgrace: from
these base practices he rose to the merit and glory of a holy
war; and the invasion of Sicily was seconded by the zeal and
policy of his brother Guiscard. After the retreat of the Greeks,
the idolaters, a most audacious reproach of the Catholics, had
retrieved their losses and possessions; but the deliverance of
the island, so vainly undertaken by the forces of the Eastern
empire, was achieved by a small and private band of adventurers.
53 In the first attempt, Roger braved, in an open boat, the real
and fabulous dangers of Scylla and Charybdis; landed with only
sixty soldiers on a hostile shore; drove the Saracens to the
gates of Messina and safely returned with the spoils of the
adjacent country. In the fortress of Trani, his active and
patient courage were equally conspicuous. In his old age he
related with pleasure, that, by the distress of the siege,
himself, and the countess his wife, had been reduced to a single
cloak or mantle, which they wore alternately; that in a sally his
horse had been slain, and he was dragged away by the Saracens;
but that he owed his rescue to his good sword, and had retreated
with his saddle on his back, lest the meanest trophy might be
left in the hands of the miscreants. In the siege of Trani, three
hundred Normans withstood and repulsed the forces of the island.
In the field of Ceramio, fifty thousand horse and foot were
overthrown by one hundred and thirty-six Christian soldiers,
without reckoning St. George, who fought on horseback in the
foremost ranks. The captive banners, with four camels, were
reserved for the successor of St. Peter; and had these barbaric
spoils been exposed, not in the Vatican, but in the Capitol, they
might have revived the memory of the Punic triumphs. These
insufficient numbers of the Normans most probably denote their
knights, the soldiers of honorable and equestrian rank, each of
whom was attended by five or six followers in the field; 54 yet,
with the aid of this interpretation, and after every fair
allowance on the side of valor, arms, and reputation, the
discomfiture of so many myriads will reduce the prudent reader to
the alternative of a miracle or a fable. The Arabs of Sicily
derived a frequent and powerful succor from their countrymen of
Africa: in the siege of Palermo, the Norman cavalry was assisted
by the galleys of Pisa; and, in the hour of action, the envy of
the two brothers was sublimed to a generous and invincible
emulation. After a war of thirty years, 55 Roger, with the title
of great count, obtained the sovereignty of the largest and most
fruitful island of the Mediterranean; and his administration
displays a liberal and enlightened mind, above the limits of his
age and education. The Moslems were maintained in the free
enjoyment of their religion and property: 56 a philosopher and
physician of Mazara, of the race of Mahomet, harangued the
conqueror, and was invited to court; his geography of the seven
climates was translated into Latin; and Roger, after a diligent
perusal, preferred the work of the Arabian to the writings of the
Grecian Ptolemy. 57 A remnant of Christian natives had promoted
the success of the Normans: they were rewarded by the triumph of
the cross. The island was restored to the jurisdiction of the
Roman pontiff; new bishops were planted in the principal cities;
and the clergy was satisfied by a liberal endowment of churches
and monasteries. Yet the Catholic hero asserted the rights of the
civil magistrate. Instead of resigning the investiture of
benefices, he dexterously applied to his own profit the papal
claims: the supremacy of the crown was secured and enlarged, by
the singular bull, which declares the princes of Sicily
hereditary and perpetual legates of the Holy See. 58
52 (return) [ Latrocinio armigerorum suorum in multis
sustentabatur, quod quidem ad ejus ignominiam non dicimus; sed
ipso ita praecipiente adhuc viliora et reprehensibiliora dicturi
sumus ut pluribus patescat, quam laboriose et cum quanta angustia
a profunda paupertate ad summum culmen divitiarum vel honoris
attigerit. Such is the preface of Malaterra (l. i. c. 25) to the
horse-stealing. From the moment (l. i. c. 19) that he has
mentioned his patron Roger, the elder brother sinks into the
second character. Something similar in Velleius Paterculus may be
observed of Augustus and Tiberius.]
53 (return) [ Duo sibi proficua deputans animae scilicet et
corporis si terran: Idolis deditam ad cultum divinum revocaret,
(Galfrid Malaterra, l. ii. c. 1.) The conquest of Sicily is
related in the three last books, and he himself has given an
accurate summary of the chapters, (p. 544-546.)]
54 (return) [ See the word Milites in the Latin Glossary of
Ducange.]
55 (return) [ Of odd particulars, I learn from Malaterra, that
the Arabs had introduced into Sicily the use of camels (l. i. c.
33) and of carrier-pigeons, (c. 42;) and that the bite of the
tarantula provokes a windy disposition, quae per anum inhoneste
crepitando emergit; a symptom most ridiculously felt by the whole
Norman army in their camp near Palermo, (c. 36.) I shall add an
etymology not unworthy of the xith century: Messana is divided
from Messis, the place from whence the harvests of the isle were
sent in tribute to Rome, (l. ii. c. 1.)]
56 (return) [ See the capitulation of Palermo in Malaterra, l.
ii. c. 45, and Giannone, who remarks the general toleration of
the Saracens, (tom ii. p. 72.)]
57 (return) [ John Leo Afer, de Medicis et Philosophus Arabibus,
c. 14, apud Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. xiii. p. 278, 279. This
philosopher is named Esseriph Essachalli, and he died in Africa,
A. H. 516, A.D. 1122. Yet this story bears a strange resemblance
to the Sherif al Edrissi, who presented his book (Geographia
Nubiensis, see preface p. 88, 90, 170) to Roger, king of Sicily,
A. H. 541, A.D. 1153, (D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p.
786. Prideaux’s Life of Mahomet, p. 188. Petit de la Croix, Hist.
de Gengiscan, p. 535, 536. Casiri, Bibliot. Arab. Hispan. tom.
ii. p. 9-13;) and I am afraid of some mistake.]
58 (return) [ Malaterra remarks the foundation of the bishoprics,
(l. iv. c. 7,) and produces the original of the bull, (l. iv. c.
29.) Giannone gives a rational idea of this privilege, and the
tribunal of the monarchy of Sicily, (tom. ii. p. 95-102;) and St.
Marc (Abrege, tom. iii. p. 217-301, 1st column) labors the case
with the diligence of a Sicilian lawyer.]
To Robert Guiscard, the conquest of Sicily was more glorious than
beneficial: the possession of Apulia and Calabria was inadequate
to his ambition; and he resolved to embrace or create the first
occasion of invading, perhaps of subduing, the Roman empire of
the East. 59 From his first wife, the partner of his humble
fortune, he had been divorced under the pretence of
consanguinity; and her son Bohemond was destined to imitate,
rather than to succeed, his illustrious father. The second wife
of Guiscard was the daughter of the princes of Salerno; the
Lombards acquiesced in the lineal succession of their son Roger;
their five daughters were given in honorable nuptials, 60 and one
of them was betrothed, in a tender age, to Constantine, a
beautiful youth, the son and heir of the emperor Michael. 61 But
the throne of Constantinople was shaken by a revolution: the
Imperial family of Ducas was confined to the palace or the
cloister; and Robert deplored, and resented, the disgrace of his
daughter and the expulsion of his ally. A Greek, who styled
himself the father of Constantine, soon appeared at Salerno, and
related the adventures of his fall and flight. That unfortunate
friend was acknowledged by the duke, and adorned with the pomp
and titles of Imperial dignity: in his triumphal progress through
Apulia and Calabria, Michael 62 was saluted with the tears and
acclamations of the people; and Pope Gregory the Seventh exhorted
the bishops to preach, and the Catholics to fight, in the pious
work of his restoration. His conversations with Robert were
frequent and familiar; and their mutual promises were justified
by the valor of the Normans and the treasures of the East. Yet
this Michael, by the confession of the Greeks and Latins, was a
pageant and an impostor; a monk who had fled from his convent, or
a domestic who had served in the palace. The fraud had been
contrived by the subtle Guiscard; and he trusted, that after this
pretender had given a decent color to his arms, he would sink, at
the nod of the conqueror, into his primitive obscurity. But
victory was the only argument that could determine the belief of
the Greeks; and the ardor of the Latins was much inferior to
their credulity: the Norman veterans wished to enjoy the harvest
of their toils, and the unwarlike Italians trembled at the known
and unknown dangers of a transmarine expedition. In his new
levies, Robert exerted the influence of gifts and promises, the
terrors of civil and ecclesiastical authority; and some acts of
violence might justify the reproach, that age and infancy were
pressed without distinction into the service of their unrelenting
prince. After two years’ incessant preparations the land and
naval forces were assembled at Otranto, at the heel, or extreme
promontory, of Italy; and Robert was accompanied by his wife, who
fought by his side, his son Bohemond, and the representative of
the emperor Michael. Thirteen hundred knights 63 of Norman race
or discipline, formed the sinews of the army, which might be
swelled to thirty thousand 64 followers of every denomination.
The men, the horses, the arms, the engines, the wooden towers,
covered with raw hides, were embarked on board one hundred and
fifty vessels: the transports had been built in the ports of
Italy, and the galleys were supplied by the alliance of the
republic of Ragusa.
59 (return) [ In the first expedition of Robert against the
Greeks, I follow Anna Comnena, (the ist, iiid, ivth, and vth
books of the Alexiad,) William Appulus, (l. ivth and vth, p.
270-275,) and Jeffrey Malaterra, (l. iii. c. 13, 14, 24-29, 39.)
Their information is contemporary and authentic, but none of them
were eye-witnesses of the war.]
60 (return) [ One of them was married to Hugh, the son of Azzo,
or Axo, a marquis of Lombardy, rich, powerful, and noble,
(Gulielm. Appul. l. iii. p. 267,) in the xith century, and whose
ancestors in the xth and ixth are explored by the critical
industry of Leibnitz and Muratori. From the two elder sons of the
marquis Azzo are derived the illustrious lines of Brunswick and
Este. See Muratori, Antichita Estense.]
61 (return) [ Anna Comnena, somewhat too wantonly, praises and
bewails that handsome boy, who, after the rupture of his barbaric
nuptials, (l. i. p. 23,) was betrothed as her husband. (p. 27.)
Elsewhere she describes the red and white of his skin, his hawk’s
eyes, &c., l. iii. p. 71.]
62 (return) [ Anna Comnena, l. i. p. 28, 29. Gulielm. Appul. l.
iv p. 271. Galfrid Malaterra, l. iii. c. 13, p. 579, 580.
Malaterra is more cautious in his style; but the Apulian is bold
and positive.—Mentitus se Michaelem Venerata Danais quidam
seductor ad illum. As Gregory VII had believed, Baronius almost
alone, recognizes the emperor Michael. (A.D. No. 44.)]
63 (return) [ Ipse armatae militiae non plusquam MCCC milites
secum habuisse, ab eis qui eidem negotio interfuerunt attestatur,
(Malaterra, l. iii. c. 24, p. 583.) These are the same whom the
Apulian (l. iv. p. 273) styles the equestris gens ducis, equites
de gente ducis.]
64 (return) [ Anna Comnena (Alexias, l. i. p. 37;) and her
account tallies with the number and lading of the ships. Ivit in
Dyrrachium cum xv. millibus hominum, says the Chronicon Breve
Normannicum, (Muratori, Scriptores, tom. v. p. 278.) I have
endeavored to reconcile these reckonings.]
At the mouth of the Adriatic Gulf, the shores of Italy and Epirus
incline towards each other. The space between Brundusium and
Durazzo, the Roman passage, is no more than one hundred miles; 65
at the last station of Otranto, it is contracted to fifty; 66 and
this narrow distance had suggested to Pyrrhus and Pompey the
sublime or extravagant idea of a bridge. Before the general
embarkation, the Norman duke despatched Bohemond with fifteen
galleys to seize or threaten the Isle of Corfu, to survey the
opposite coast, and to secure a harbor in the neighborhood of
Vallona for the landing of the troops. They passed and landed
without perceiving an enemy; and this successful experiment
displayed the neglect and decay of the naval power of the Greeks.
The islands of Epirus and the maritime towns were subdued by the
arms or the name of Robert, who led his fleet and army from Corfu
(I use the modern appellation) to the siege of Durazzo. That
city, the western key of the empire, was guarded by ancient
renown, and recent fortifications, by George Palaeologus, a
patrician, victorious in the Oriental wars, and a numerous
garrison of Albanians and Macedonians, who, in every age, have
maintained the character of soldiers. In the prosecution of his
enterprise, the courage of Guiscard was assailed by every form of
danger and mischance. In the most propitious season of the year,
as his fleet passed along the coast, a storm of wind and snow
unexpectedly arose: the Adriatic was swelled by the raging blast
of the south, and a new shipwreck confirmed the old infamy of the
Acroceraunian rocks. 67 The sails, the masts, and the oars, were
shattered or torn away; the sea and shore were covered with the
fragments of vessels, with arms and dead bodies; and the greatest
part of the provisions were either drowned or damaged. The ducal
galley was laboriously rescued from the waves, and Robert halted
seven days on the adjacent cape, to collect the relics of his
loss, and revive the drooping spirits of his soldiers. The
Normans were no longer the bold and experienced mariners who had
explored the ocean from Greenland to Mount Atlas, and who smiled
at the petty dangers of the Mediterranean. They had wept during
the tempest; they were alarmed by the hostile approach of the
Venetians, who had been solicited by the prayers and promises of
the Byzantine court. The first day’s action was not
disadvantageous to Bohemond, a beardless youth, 68 who led the
naval powers of his father. All night the galleys of the republic
lay on their anchors in the form of a crescent; and the victory
of the second day was decided by the dexterity of their
evolutions, the station of their archers, the weight of their
javelins, and the borrowed aid of the Greek fire. The Apulian and
Ragusian vessels fled to the shore, several were cut from their
cables, and dragged away by the conqueror; and a sally from the
town carried slaughter and dismay to the tents of the Norman
duke. A seasonable relief was poured into Durazzo, and as soon as
the besiegers had lost the command of the sea, the islands and
maritime towns withdrew from the camp the supply of tribute and
provision. That camp was soon afflicted with a pestilential
disease; five hundred knights perished by an inglorious death;
and the list of burials (if all could obtain a decent burial)
amounted to ten thousand persons. Under these calamities, the
mind of Guiscard alone was firm and invincible; and while he
collected new forces from Apulia and Sicily, he battered, or
scaled, or sapped, the walls of Durazzo. But his industry and
valor were encountered by equal valor and more perfect industry.
A movable turret, of a size and capacity to contain five hundred
soldiers, had been rolled forwards to the foot of the rampart:
but the descent of the door or drawbridge was checked by an
enormous beam, and the wooden structure was constantly consumed
by artificial flames.
65 (return) [ The Itinerary of Jerusalem (p. 609, edit.
Wesseling) gives a true and reasonable space of a thousand stadia
or one hundred miles which is strangely doubled by Strabo (l. vi.
p. 433) and Pliny, (Hist. Natur. iii. 16.)]
66 (return) [ Pliny (Hist. Nat. iii. 6, 16) allows quinquaginta
millia for this brevissimus cursus, and agrees with the real
distance from Otranto to La Vallona, or Aulon, (D’Anville,
Analyse de sa Carte des Cotes de la Grece, &c., p. 3-6.)
Hermolaus Barbarus, who substitutes centum. (Harduin, Not. lxvi.
in Plin. l. iii.,) might have been corrected by every Venetian
pilot who had sailed out of the gulf.]
67 (return) [ Infames scopulos Acroceraunia, Horat. carm. i. 3.
The praecipitem Africum decertantem Aquilonibus, et rabiem Noti
and the monstra natantia of the Adriatic, are somewhat enlarged;
but Horace trembling for the life of Virgil, is an interesting
moment in the history of poetry and friendship.]
68 (return) [ (Alexias, l. iv. p. 106.) Yet the Normans shaved,
and the Venetians wore, their beards: they must have derided the
no beard of Bohemond; a harsh interpretation. (Duncanga ad
Alexiad. p. 283.)]
While the Roman empire was attacked by the Turks in the East,
east, and the Normans in the West, the aged successor of Michael
surrendered the sceptre to the hands of Alexius, an illustrious
captain, and the founder of the Comnenian dynasty. The princess
Anne, his daughter and historian, observes, in her affected
style, that even Hercules was unequal to a double combat; and, on
this principle, she approves a hasty peace with the Turks, which
allowed her father to undertake in person the relief of Durazzo.
On his accession, Alexius found the camp without soldiers, and
the treasury without money; yet such were the vigor and activity
of his measures, that in six months he assembled an army of
seventy thousand men, 69 and performed a march of five hundred
miles. His troops were levied in Europe and Asia, from
Peloponnesus to the Black Sea; his majesty was displayed in the
silver arms and rich trappings of the companies of Horse-guards;
and the emperor was attended by a train of nobles and princes,
some of whom, in rapid succession, had been clothed with the
purple, and were indulged by the lenity of the times in a life of
affluence and dignity. Their youthful ardor might animate the
multitude; but their love of pleasure and contempt of
subordination were pregnant with disorder and mischief; and their
importunate clamors for speedy and decisive action disconcerted
the prudence of Alexius, who might have surrounded and starved
the besieging army. The enumeration of provinces recalls a sad
comparison of the past and present limits of the Roman world: the
raw levies were drawn together in haste and terror; and the
garrisons of Anatolia, or Asia Minor, had been purchased by the
evacuation of the cities which were immediately occupied by the
Turks. The strength of the Greek army consisted in the
Varangians, the Scandinavian guards, whose numbers were recently
augmented by a colony of exiles and volunteers from the British
Island of Thule. Under the yoke of the Norman conqueror, the
Danes and English were oppressed and united; a band of
adventurous youths resolved to desert a land of slavery; the sea
was open to their escape; and, in their long pilgrimage, they
visited every coast that afforded any hope of liberty and
revenge. They were entertained in the service of the Greek
emperor; and their first station was in a new city on the Asiatic
shore: but Alexius soon recalled them to the defence of his
person and palace; and bequeathed to his successors the
inheritance of their faith and valor. 70 The name of a Norman
invader revived the memory of their wrongs: they marched with
alacrity against the national foe, and panted to regain in Epirus
the glory which they had lost in the battle of Hastings. The
Varangians were supported by some companies of Franks or Latins;
and the rebels, who had fled to Constantinople from the tyranny
of Guiscard, were eager to signalize their zeal and gratify their
revenge. In this emergency, the emperor had not disdained the
impure aid of the Paulicians or Manichaeans of Thrace and
Bulgaria; and these heretics united with the patience of
martyrdom the spirit and discipline of active valor. 71 The
treaty with the sultan had procured a supply of some thousand
Turks; and the arrows of the Scythian horse were opposed to the
lances of the Norman cavalry. On the report and distant prospect
of these formidable numbers, Robert assembled a council of his
principal officers. “You behold,” said he, “your danger: it is
urgent and inevitable. The hills are covered with arms and
standards; and the emperor of the Greeks is accustomed to wars
and triumphs. Obedience and union are our only safety; and I am
ready to yield the command to a more worthy leader.” The vote and
acclamation even of his secret enemies, assured him, in that
perilous moment, of their esteem and confidence; and the duke
thus continued: “Let us trust in the rewards of victory, and
deprive cowardice of the means of escape. Let us burn our vessels
and our baggage, and give battle on this spot, as if it were the
place of our nativity and our burial.” The resolution was
unanimously approved; and, without confining himself to his
lines, Guiscard awaited in battle-array the nearer approach of
the enemy. His rear was covered by a small river; his right wing
extended to the sea; his left to the hills: nor was he conscious,
perhaps, that on the same ground Caesar and Pompey had formerly
disputed the empire of the world. 72
69 (return) [ Muratori (Annali d’ Italia, tom. ix. p. 136, 137)
observes, that some authors (Petrus Diacon. Chron. Casinen. l.
iii. c. 49) compose the Greek army of 170,000 men, but that the
hundred may be struck off, and that Malaterra reckons only
70,000; a slight inattention. The passage to which he alludes is
in the Chronicle of Lupus Protospata, (Script. Ital. tom. v. p.
45.) Malaterra (l. iv. c. 27) speaks in high, but indefinite
terms of the emperor, cum copiisinnumerabilbus: like the Apulian
poet, (l. iv. p. 272:) —More locustarum montes et pianna
teguntur.]
70 (return) [ See William of Malmsbury, de Gestis Anglorum, l.
ii. p. 92. Alexius fidem Anglorum suspiciens praecipuis
familiaritatibus suis eos applicabat, amorem eorum filio
transcribens. Odericus Vitalis (Hist. Eccles. l. iv. p. 508, l.
vii. p. 641) relates their emigration from England, and their
service in Greece.]
71 (return) [ See the Apulian, (l. i. p. 256.) The character and
the story of these Manichaeans has been the subject of the livth
chapter.]
72 (return) [ See the simple and masterly narrative of Caesar
himself, (Comment. de Bell. Civil. iii. 41-75.) It is a pity that
Quintus Icilius (M. Guichard) did not live to analyze these
operations, as he has done the campaigns of Africa and Spain.]
Against the advice of his wisest captains, Alexius resolved to
risk the event of a general action, and exhorted the garrison of
Durazzo to assist their own deliverance by a well-timed sally
from the town. He marched in two columns to surprise the Normans
before daybreak on two different sides: his light cavalry was
scattered over the plain; the archers formed the second line; and
the Varangians claimed the honors of the vanguard. In the first
onset, the battle-axes of the strangers made a deep and bloody
impression on the army of Guiscard, which was now reduced to
fifteen thousand men. The Lombards and Calabrians ignominiously
turned their backs; they fled towards the river and the sea; but
the bridge had been broken down to check the sally of the
garrison, and the coast was lined with the Venetian galleys, who
played their engines among the disorderly throng. On the verge of
ruin, they were saved by the spirit and conduct of their chiefs.
Gaita, the wife of Robert, is painted by the Greeks as a warlike
Amazon, a second Pallas; less skilful in arts, but not less
terrible in arms, than the Athenian goddess: 73 though wounded by
an arrow, she stood her ground, and strove, by her exhortation
and example, to rally the flying troops. 74 Her female voice was
seconded by the more powerful voice and arm of the Norman duke,
as calm in action as he was magnanimous in council: “Whither,” he
cried aloud, “whither do ye fly? Your enemy is implacable; and
death is less grievous than servitude.” The moment was decisive:
as the Varangians advanced before the line, they discovered the
nakedness of their flanks: the main battle of the duke, of eight
hundred knights, stood firm and entire; they couched their
lances, and the Greeks bore the furious and irresistible shock of
the French cavalry. 75 Alexius was not deficient in the duties of
a soldier or a general; but he no sooner beheld the slaughter of
the Varangians, and the flight of the Turks, than he despised his
subjects, and despaired of his fortune. The princess Anne, who
drops a tear on this melancholy event, is reduced to praise the
strength and swiftness of her father’s horse, and his vigorous
struggle when he was almost overthrown by the stroke of a lance,
which had shivered the Imperial helmet. His desperate valor broke
through a squadron of Franks who opposed his flight; and after
wandering two days and as many nights in the mountains, he found
some repose, of body, though not of mind, in the walls of
Lychnidus. The victorious Robert reproached the tardy and feeble
pursuit which had suffered the escape of so illustrious a prize:
but he consoled his disappointment by the trophies and standards
of the field, the wealth and luxury of the Byzantine camp, and
the glory of defeating an army five times more numerous than his
own. A multitude of Italians had been the victims of their own
fears; but only thirty of his knights were slain in this
memorable day. In the Roman host, the loss of Greeks, Turks, and
English, amounted to five or six thousand: 76 the plain of
Durazzo was stained with noble and royal blood; and the end of
the impostor Michael was more honorable than his life.
73 (return) [ It is very properly translated by the President
Cousin, (Hist. de Constantinople, tom. iv. p. 131, in 12mo.,) qui
combattoit comme une Pallas, quoiqu’elle ne fut pas aussi savante
que celle d’Athenes. The Grecian goddess was composed of two
discordant characters, of Neith, the workwoman of Sais in Egypt,
and of a virgin Amazon of the Tritonian lake in Libya, (Banier,
Mythologie, tom. iv. p. 1-31, in 12mo.)]
74 (return) [ Anna Comnena (l. iv. p. 116) admires, with some
degree of terror, her masculine virtues. They were more familiar
to the Latins and though the Apulian (l. iv. p. 273) mentions her
presence and her wound, he represents her as far less intrepid.
Uxor in hoc bello Roberti forte sagitta
Quadam laesa fuit: quo vulnere territa nullam.
Dum sperabat opem, se poene subegerat hosti.
The last is an unlucky word for a female prisoner.]
75 (return) [ (Anna, l. v. p. 133;) and elsewhere, (p. 140.) The
pedantry of the princess in the choice of classic appellations
encouraged Ducange to apply to his countrymen the characters of
the ancient Gauls.]
76 (return) [ Lupus Protospata (tom. iii. p. 45) says 6000:
William the Apulian more than 5000, (l. iv. p. 273.) Their
modesty is singular and laudable: they might with so little
trouble have slain two or three myriads of schismatics and
infidels!]
It is more than probable that Guiscard was not afflicted by the
loss of a costly pageant, which had merited only the contempt and
derision of the Greeks. After their defeat, they still persevered
in the defence of Durazzo; and a Venetian commander supplied the
place of George Palaeologus, who had been imprudently called away
from his station. The tents of the besiegers were converted into
barracks, to sustain the inclemency of the winter; and in answer
to the defiance of the garrison, Robert insinuated, that his
patience was at least equal to their obstinacy. 77 Perhaps he
already trusted to his secret correspondence with a Venetian
noble, who sold the city for a rich and honorable marriage. At
the dead of night, several rope-ladders were dropped from the
walls; the light Calabrians ascended in silence; and the Greeks
were awakened by the name and trumpets of the conqueror. Yet they
defended the streets three days against an enemy already master
of the rampart; and near seven months elapsed between the first
investment and the final surrender of the place. From Durazzo,
the Norman duke advanced into the heart of Epirus or Albania;
traversed the first mountains of Thessaly; surprised three
hundred English in the city of Castoria; approached Thessalonica;
and made Constantinople tremble. A more pressing duty suspended
the prosecution of his ambitious designs. By shipwreck,
pestilence, and the sword, his army was reduced to a third of the
original numbers; and instead of being recruited from Italy, he
was informed, by plaintive epistles, of the mischiefs and dangers
which had been produced by his absence: the revolt of the cities
and barons of Apulia; the distress of the pope; and the approach
or invasion of Henry king of Germany. Highly presuming that his
person was sufficient for the public safety, he repassed the sea
in a single brigantine, and left the remains of the army under
the command of his son and the Norman counts, exhorting Bohemond
to respect the freedom of his peers, and the counts to obey the
authority of their leader. The son of Guiscard trod in the
footsteps of his father; and the two destroyers are compared, by
the Greeks, to the caterpillar and the locust, the last of whom
devours whatever has escaped the teeth of the former. 78 After
winning two battles against the emperor, he descended into the
plain of Thessaly, and besieged Larissa, the fabulous realm of
Achilles, 79 which contained the treasure and magazines of the
Byzantine camp. Yet a just praise must not be refused to the
fortitude and prudence of Alexius, who bravely struggled with the
calamities of the times. In the poverty of the state, he presumed
to borrow the superfluous ornaments of the churches: the
desertion of the Manichaeans was supplied by some tribes of
Moldavia: a reenforcement of seven thousand Turks replaced and
revenged the loss of their brethren; and the Greek soldiers were
exercised to ride, to draw the bow, and to the daily practice of
ambuscades and evolutions. Alexius had been taught by experience,
that the formidable cavalry of the Franks on foot was unfit for
action, and almost incapable of motion; 80 his archers were
directed to aim their arrows at the horse rather than the man;
and a variety of spikes and snares were scattered over the ground
on which he might expect an attack. In the neighborhood of
Larissa the events of war were protracted and balanced. The
courage of Bohemond was always conspicuous, and often successful;
but his camp was pillaged by a stratagem of the Greeks; the city
was impregnable; and the venal or discontented counts deserted
his standard, betrayed their trusts, and enlisted in the service
of the emperor. Alexius returned to Constantinople with the
advantage, rather than the honor, of victory. After evacuating
the conquests which he could no longer defend, the son of
Guiscard embarked for Italy, and was embraced by a father who
esteemed his merit, and sympathized in his misfortune.
77 (return) [ The Romans had changed the inauspicious name of
Epidamnus to Dyrrachium, (Plin. iii. 26;) and the vulgar
corruption of Duracium (see Malaterra) bore some affinity to
hardness. One of Robert’s names was Durand, a durando: poor wit!
(Alberic. Monach. in Chron. apud Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom.
ix. p. 137.)]
78 (return) [ (Anna, l. i. p. 35.) By these similes, so different
from those of Homer she wishes to inspire contempt as well as
horror for the little noxious animal, a conqueror. Most
unfortunately, the common sense, or common nonsense, of mankind,
resists her laudable design.]
79 (return) [ Prodiit hac auctor Trojanae cladis Achilles. The
supposition of the Apulian (l. v. p. 275) may be excused by the
more classic poetry of Virgil, (Aeneid. ii. 197,) Larissaeus
Achilles, but it is not justified by the geography of Homer.]
80 (return) [ The items which encumbered the knights on foot,
have been ignorantly translated spurs, (Anna Comnena, Alexias, l.
v. p. 140.) Ducange has explained the true sense by a ridiculous
and inconvenient fashion, which lasted from the xith to the xvth
century. These peaks, in the form of a scorpion, were sometimes
two feet and fastened to the knee with a silver chain.]
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part IV.
Of the Latin princes, the allies of Alexius and enemies of
Robert, the most prompt and powerful was Henry the Third or
Fourth, king of Germany and Italy, and future emperor of the
West. The epistle of the Greek monarch 81 to his brother is
filled with the warmest professions of friendship, and the most
lively desire of strengthening their alliance by every public and
private tie. He congratulates Henry on his success in a just and
pious war; and complains that the prosperity of his own empire is
disturbed by the audacious enterprises of the Norman Robert. The
lists of his presents expresses the manners of the age—a radiated
crown of gold, a cross set with pearls to hang on the breast, a
case of relics, with the names and titles of the saints, a vase
of crystal, a vase of sardonyx, some balm, most probably of
Mecca, and one hundred pieces of purple. To these he added a more
solid present, of one hundred and forty-four thousand Byzantines
of gold, with a further assurance of two hundred and sixteen
thousand, so soon as Henry should have entered in arms the
Apulian territories, and confirmed by an oath the league against
the common enemy. The German, 82 who was already in Lombardy at
the head of an army and a faction, accepted these liberal offers,
and marched towards the south: his speed was checked by the sound
of the battle of Durazzo; but the influence of his arms, or name,
in the hasty return of Robert, was a full equivalent for the
Grecian bribe. Henry was the severe adversary of the Normans, the
allies and vassals of Gregory the Seventh, his implacable foe.
The long quarrel of the throne and mitre had been recently
kindled by the zeal and ambition of that haughty priest: 83 the
king and the pope had degraded each other; and each had seated a
rival on the temporal or spiritual throne of his antagonist.
After the defeat and death of his Swabian rebel, Henry descended
into Italy, to assume the Imperial crown, and to drive from the
Vatican the tyrant of the church. 84 But the Roman people adhered
to the cause of Gregory: their resolution was fortified by
supplies of men and money from Apulia; and the city was thrice
ineffectually besieged by the king of Germany. In the fourth year
he corrupted, as it is said, with Byzantine gold, the nobles of
Rome, whose estates and castles had been ruined by the war. The
gates, the bridges, and fifty hostages, were delivered into his
hands: the anti-pope, Clement the Third, was consecrated in the
Lateran: the grateful pontiff crowned his protector in the
Vatican; and the emperor Henry fixed his residence in the
Capitol, as the lawful successor of Augustus and Charlemagne. The
ruins of the Septizonium were still defended by the nephew of
Gregory: the pope himself was invested in the castle of St.
Angelo; and his last hope was in the courage and fidelity of his
Norman vassal. Their friendship had been interrupted by some
reciprocal injuries and complaints; but, on this pressing
occasion, Guiscard was urged by the obligation of his oath, by
his interest, more potent than oaths, by the love of fame, and
his enmity to the two emperors. Unfurling the holy banner, he
resolved to fly to the relief of the prince of the apostles: the
most numerous of his armies, six thousand horse, and thirty
thousand foot, was instantly assembled; and his march from
Salerno to Rome was animated by the public applause and the
promise of the divine favor. Henry, invincible in sixty-six
battles, trembled at his approach; recollected some indispensable
affairs that required his presence in Lombardy; exhorted the
Romans to persevere in their allegiance; and hastily retreated
three days before the entrance of the Normans. In less than three
years, the son of Tancred of Hauteville enjoyed the glory of
delivering the pope, and of compelling the two emperors, of the
East and West, to fly before his victorious arms. 85 But the
triumph of Robert was clouded by the calamities of Rome. By the
aid of the friends of Gregory, the walls had been perforated or
scaled; but the Imperial faction was still powerful and active;
on the third day, the people rose in a furious tumult; and a
hasty word of the conqueror, in his defence or revenge, was the
signal of fire and pillage. 86 The Saracens of Sicily, the
subjects of Roger, and auxiliaries of his brother, embraced this
fair occasion of rifling and profaning the holy city of the
Christians: many thousands of the citizens, in the sight, and by
the allies, of their spiritual father were exposed to violation,
captivity, or death; and a spacious quarter of the city, from the
Lateran to the Coliseum, was consumed by the flames, and devoted
to perpetual solitude. 87 From a city, where he was now hated,
and might be no longer feared, Gregory retired to end his days in
the palace of Salerno. The artful pontiff might flatter the
vanity of Guiscard with the hope of a Roman or Imperial crown;
but this dangerous measure, which would have inflamed the
ambition of the Norman, must forever have alienated the most
faithful princes of Germany.
81 (return) [ The epistle itself (Alexias, l. iii. p. 93, 94, 95)
well deserves to be read. There is one expression which Ducange
does not understand. I have endeavored to grope out a tolerable
meaning: The first word is a golden crown; the second is
explained by Simon Portius, (in Lexico Graeco-Barbar.,) by a
flash of lightning.]
82 (return) [ For these general events I must refer to the
general historians Sigonius, Baronius, Muratori, Mosheim, St.
Marc, &c.]
83 (return) [ The lives of Gregory VII. are either legends or
invectives, (St. Marc, Abrege, tom. iii. p. 235, &c.;) and his
miraculous or magical performances are alike incredible to a
modern reader. He will, as usual, find some instruction in Le
Clerc, (Vie de Hildebrand, Bibliot, ancienne et moderne, tom.
viii.,) and much amusement in Bayle, (Dictionnaire Critique,
Gregoire VII.) That pope was undoubtedly a great man, a second
Athanasius, in a more fortunate age of the church. May I presume
to add, that the portrait of Athanasius is one of the passages of
my history (vol. ii. p. 332, &c.) with which I am the least
dissatisfied? * Note: There is a fair life of Gregory VII. by
Voigt, (Weimar. 1815,) which has been translated into French. M.
Villemain, it is understood, has devoted much time to the study
of this remarkable character, to whom his eloquence may do
justice. There is much valuable information on the subject in the
accurate work of Stenzel, Geschichte Deutschlands unter den
Frankischen Kaisern—the History of Germany under the Emperors of
the Franconian Race.—M.]
84 (return) [ Anna, with the rancor of a Greek schismatic, calls
him (l. i. p. 32,) a pope, or priest, worthy to be spit upon and
accuses him of scourging, shaving, and perhaps of castrating the
ambassadors of Henry, (p. 31, 33.) But this outrage is improbable
and doubtful, (see the sensible preface of Cousin.)]
85 (return) [
Sic uno tempore victi
Sunt terrae Domini duo: rex Alemannicus iste,
Imperii rector Romani maximus ille.
Alter ad arma ruens armis superatur; et alter
Nominis auditi sola formidine cessit.
It is singular enough, that the Apulian, a Latin, should
distinguish the Greek as the ruler of the Roman empire, (l. iv.
p. 274.)]
86 (return) [ The narrative of Malaterra (l. iii. c. 37, p. 587,
588) is authentic, circumstantial, and fair. Dux ignem exclamans
urbe incensa, &c. The Apulian softens the mischief, (inde
quibusdam aedibus exustis,) which is again exaggerated in some
partial chronicles, (Muratori, Annali, tom. ix. p. 147.)]
87 (return) [ After mentioning this devastation, the Jesuit
Donatus (de Roma veteri et nova, l. iv. c. 8, p. 489) prettily
adds, Duraret hodieque in Coelio monte, interque ipsum et
capitolium, miserabilis facies prostrates urbis, nisi in hortorum
vinetorumque amoenitatem Roma resurrexisset, ut perpetua
viriditate contegeret vulnera et ruinas suas.]
The deliverer and scourge of Rome might have indulged himself in
a season of repose; but in the same year of the flight of the
German emperor, the indefatigable Robert resumed the design of
his eastern conquests. The zeal or gratitude of Gregory had
promised to his valor the kingdoms of Greece and Asia; 88 his
troops were assembled in arms, flushed with success, and eager
for action. Their numbers, in the language of Homer, are compared
by Anna to a swarm of bees; 89 yet the utmost and moderate limits
of the powers of Guiscard have been already defined; they were
contained on this second occasion in one hundred and twenty
vessels; and as the season was far advanced, the harbor of
Brundusium 90 was preferred to the open road of Otranto. Alexius,
apprehensive of a second attack, had assiduously labored to
restore the naval forces of the empire; and obtained from the
republic of Venice an important succor of thirty-six transports,
fourteen galleys, and nine galiots or ships of extra-ordinary
strength and magnitude. Their services were liberally paid by the
license or monopoly of trade, a profitable gift of many shops and
houses in the port of Constantinople, and a tribute to St. Mark,
the more acceptable, as it was the produce of a tax on their
rivals at Amalphi. By the union of the Greeks and Venetians, the
Adriatic was covered with a hostile fleet; but their own neglect,
or the vigilance of Robert, the change of a wind, or the shelter
of a mist, opened a free passage; and the Norman troops were
safely disembarked on the coast of Epirus. With twenty strong and
well-appointed galleys, their intrepid duke immediately sought
the enemy, and though more accustomed to fight on horseback, he
trusted his own life, and the lives of his brother and two sons,
to the event of a naval combat. The dominion of the sea was
disputed in three engagements, in sight of the Isle of Corfu: in
the two former, the skill and numbers of the allies were
superior; but in the third, the Normans obtained a final and
complete victory. 91 The light brigantines of the Greeks were
scattered in ignominious flight: the nine castles of the
Venetians maintained a more obstinate conflict; seven were sunk,
two were taken; two thousand five hundred captives implored in
vain the mercy of the victor; and the daughter of Alexius
deplores the loss of thirteen thousand of his subjects or allies.
The want of experience had been supplied by the genius of
Guiscard; and each evening, when he had sounded a retreat, he
calmly explored the causes of his repulse, and invented new
methods how to remedy his own defects, and to baffle the
advantages of the enemy. The winter season suspended his
progress: with the return of spring he again aspired to the
conquest of Constantinople; but, instead of traversing the hills
of Epirus, he turned his arms against Greece and the islands,
where the spoils would repay the labor, and where the land and
sea forces might pursue their joint operations with vigor and
effect. But, in the Isle of Cephalonia, his projects were fatally
blasted by an epidemical disease: Robert himself, in the
seventieth year of his age, expired in his tent; and a suspicion
of poison was imputed, by public rumor, to his wife, or to the
Greek emperor. 92 This premature death might allow a boundless
scope for the imagination of his future exploits; and the event
sufficiently declares, that the Norman greatness was founded on
his life. 93 Without the appearance of an enemy, a victorious
army dispersed or retreated in disorder and consternation; and
Alexius, who had trembled for his empire, rejoiced in his
deliverance. The galley which transported the remains of Guiscard
was ship-wrecked on the Italian shore; but the duke’s body was
recovered from the sea, and deposited in the sepulchre of
Venusia, 94 a place more illustrious for the birth of Horace 95
than for the burial of the Norman heroes. Roger, his second son
and successor, immediately sunk to the humble station of a duke
of Apulia: the esteem or partiality of his father left the
valiant Bohemond to the inheritance of his sword.
The national tranquillity was disturbed by his claims, till the
first crusade against the infidels of the East opened a more
splendid field of glory and conquest. 96
88 (return) [ The royalty of Robert, either promised or bestowed
by the pope, (Anna, l. i. p. 32,) is sufficiently confirmed by
the Apulian, (l. iv. p. 270.) —Romani regni sibi promisisse
coronam Papa ferebatur. Nor can I understand why Gretser, and the
other papal advocates, should be displeased with this new
instance of apostolic jurisdiction.]
89 (return) [ See Homer, Iliad, B. (I hate this pedantic mode of
quotation by letters of the Greek alphabet) 87, &c. His bees are
the image of a disorderly crowd: their discipline and public
works seem to be the ideas of a later age, (Virgil. Aeneid. l.
i.)]
90 (return) [ Gulielm. Appulus, l. v. p. 276.) The admirable port
of Brundusium was double; the outward harbor was a gulf covered
by an island, and narrowing by degrees, till it communicated by a
small gullet with the inner harbor, which embraced the city on
both sides. Caesar and nature have labored for its ruin; and
against such agents what are the feeble efforts of the Neapolitan
government? (Swinburne’s Travels in the Two Sicilies, vol. i. p.
384-390.]
91 (return) [ William of Apulia (l. v. p. 276) describes the
victory of the Normans, and forgets the two previous defeats,
which are diligently recorded by Anna Comnena, (l. vi. p. 159,
160, 161.) In her turn, she invents or magnifies a fourth action,
to give the Venetians revenge and rewards. Their own feelings
were far different, since they deposed their doge, propter
excidium stoli, (Dandulus in Chron in Muratori, Script. Rerum
Italicarum, tom. xii. p. 249.)]
92 (return) [ The most authentic writers, William of Apulia. (l.
v. 277,) Jeffrey Malaterra, (l. iii. c. 41, p. 589,) and Romuald
of Salerno, (Chron. in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. vii.,)
are ignorant of this crime, so apparent to our countrymen William
of Malmsbury (l. iii. p. 107) and Roger de Hoveden, (p. 710, in
Script. post Bedam) and the latter can tell, how the just Alexius
married, crowned, and burnt alive, his female accomplice. The
English historian is indeed so blind, that he ranks Robert
Guiscard, or Wiscard, among the knights of Henry I, who ascended
the throne fifteen years after the duke of Apulia’s death.]
93 (return) [ The joyful Anna Comnena scatters some flowers over
the grave of an enemy, (Alexiad, l. v. p. 162-166;) and his best
praise is the esteem and envy of William the Conqueror, the
sovereign of his family Graecia (says Malaterra) hostibus
recedentibus libera laeta quievit: Apulia tota sive Calabria
turbatur.]
94 (return) [ Urbs Venusina nitet tantis decorata sepulchris, is
one of the last lines of the Apulian’s poems, (l. v. p. 278.)
William of Malmsbury (l. iii. p. 107) inserts an epitaph on
Guiscard, which is not worth transcribing.]
95 (return) [ Yet Horace had few obligations to Venusia; he was
carried to Rome in his childhood, (Serm. i. 6;) and his repeated
allusions to the doubtful limit of Apulia and Lucania (Carm. iii.
4, Serm. ii. I) are unworthy of his age and genius.]
96 (return) [ See Giannone (tom. ii. p. 88-93) and the historians
of the fire crusade.]
Of human life, the most glorious or humble prospects are alike
and soon bounded by the sepulchre. The male line of Robert
Guiscard was extinguished, both in Apulia and at Antioch, in the
second generation; but his younger brother became the father of a
line of kings; and the son of the great count was endowed with
the name, the conquests, and the spirit, of the first Roger. 97
The heir of that Norman adventurer was born in Sicily; and, at
the age of only four years, he succeeded to the sovereignty of
the island, a lot which reason might envy, could she indulge for
a moment the visionary, though virtuous wish of dominion. Had
Roger been content with his fruitful patrimony, a happy and
grateful people might have blessed their benefactor; and if a
wise administration could have restored the prosperous times of
the Greek colonies, 98 the opulence and power of Sicily alone
might have equalled the widest scope that could be acquired and
desolated by the sword of war. But the ambition of the great
count was ignorant of these noble pursuits; it was gratified by
the vulgar means of violence and artifice. He sought to obtain
the undivided possession of Palermo, of which one moiety had been
ceded to the elder branch; struggled to enlarge his Calabrian
limits beyond the measure of former treaties; and impatiently
watched the declining health of his cousin William of Apulia, the
grandson of Robert. On the first intelligence of his premature
death, Roger sailed from Palermo with seven galleys, cast anchor
in the Bay of Salerno, received, after ten days’ negotiation, an
oath of fidelity from the Norman capital, commanded the
submission of the barons, and extorted a legal investiture from
the reluctant popes, who could not long endure either the
friendship or enmity of a powerful vassal. The sacred spot of
Benevento was respectfully spared, as the patrimony of St. Peter;
but the reduction of Capua and Naples completed the design of his
uncle Guiscard; and the sole inheritance of the Norman conquests
was possessed by the victorious Roger. A conscious superiority of
power and merit prompted him to disdain the titles of duke and of
count; and the Isle of Sicily, with a third perhaps of the
continent of Italy, might form the basis of a kingdom 99 which
would only yield to the monarchies of France and England. The
chiefs of the nation who attended his coronation at Palermo might
doubtless pronounce under what name he should reign over them;
but the example of a Greek tyrant or a Saracen emir was
insufficient to justify his regal character; and the nine kings
of the Latin world 100 might disclaim their new associate, unless
he were consecrated by the authority of the supreme pontiff. The
pride of Anacletus was pleased to confer a title, which the pride
of the Norman had stooped to solicit; 101 but his own legitimacy
was attacked by the adverse election of Innocent the Second; and
while Anacletus sat in the Vatican, the successful fugitive was
acknowledged by the nations of Europe. The infant monarchy of
Roger was shaken, and almost overthrown, by the unlucky choice of
an ecclesiastical patron; and the sword of Lothaire the Second of
Germany, the excommunications of Innocent, the fleets of Pisa,
and the zeal of St. Bernard, were united for the ruin of the
Sicilian robber. After a gallant resistance, the Norman prince
was driven from the continent of Italy: a new duke of Apulia was
invested by the pope and the emperor, each of whom held one end
of the gonfanon, or flagstaff, as a token that they asserted
their right, and suspended their quarrel. But such jealous
friendship was of short and precarious duration: the German
armies soon vanished in disease and desertion: 102 the Apulian
duke, with all his adherents, was exterminated by a conqueror who
seldom forgave either the dead or the living; like his
predecessor Leo the Ninth, the feeble though haughty pontiff
became the captive and friend of the Normans; and their
reconciliation was celebrated by the eloquence of Bernard, who
now revered the title and virtues of the king of Sicily.
97 (return) [ The reign of Roger, and the Norman kings of Sicily,
fills books of the Istoria Civile of Giannone, (tom. ii. l.
xi.-xiv. p. 136-340,) and is spread over the ixth and xth volumes
of the Italian Annals of Muratori. In the Bibliotheque Italique
(tom. i. p. 175-122,) I find a useful abstract of Capacelatro, a
modern Neapolitan, who has composed, in two volumes, the history
of his country from Roger Frederic II. inclusive.]
98 (return) [ According to the testimony of Philistus and
Diodorus, the tyrant Dionysius of Syracuse could maintain a
standing force of 10,000 horse, 100,000 foot, and 400 galleys.
Compare Hume, (Essays, vol. i. p. 268, 435,) and his adversary
Wallace, (Numbers of Mankind, p. 306, 307.) The ruins of
Agrigentum are the theme of every traveller, D’Orville, Reidesel,
Swinburne, &c.]
99 (return) [ A contemporary historian of the acts of Roger from
the year 1127 to 1135, founds his title on merit and power, the
consent of the barons, and the ancient royalty of Sicily and
Palermo, without introducing Pope Anacletus, (Alexand. Coenobii
Telesini Abbatis de Rebus gestis Regis Rogerii, lib. iv. in
Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. v. p. 607-645)]
100 (return) [ The kings of France, England, Scotland, Castille,
Arragon, Navarre, Sweden, Denmark, and Hungary. The three first
were more ancient than Charlemagne; the three next were created
by their sword; the three last by their baptism; and of these the
king of Hungary alone was honored or debased by a papal crown.]
101 (return) [ Fazellus, and a crowd of Sicilians, had imagined a
more early and independent coronation, (A.D. 1130, May 1,) which
Giannone unwillingly rejects, (tom. ii. p. 137-144.) This fiction
is disproved by the silence of contemporaries; nor can it be
restored by a spurious character of Messina, (Muratori, Annali d’
Italia, tom. ix. p. 340. Pagi, Critica, tom. iv. p. 467, 468.)]
102 (return) [ Roger corrupted the second person of Lothaire’s
army, who sounded, or rather cried, a retreat; for the Germans
(says Cinnamus, l. iii. c. i. p. 51) are ignorant of the use of
trumpets. Most ignorant himself! * Note: Cinnamus says nothing of
their ignorance.—M]
As a penance for his impious war against the successor of St.
Peter, that monarch might have promised to display the banner of
the cross, and he accomplished with ardor a vow so propitious to
his interest and revenge. The recent injuries of Sicily might
provoke a just retaliation on the heads of the Saracens: the
Normans, whose blood had been mingled with so many subject
streams, were encouraged to remember and emulate the naval
trophies of their fathers, and in the maturity of their strength
they contended with the decline of an African power. When the
Fatimite caliph departed for the conquest of Egypt, he rewarded
the real merit and apparent fidelity of his servant Joseph with a
gift of his royal mantle, and forty Arabian horses, his palace
with its sumptuous furniture, and the government of the kingdoms
of Tunis and Algiers. The Zeirides, 103 the descendants of
Joseph, forgot their allegiance and gratitude to a distant
benefactor, grasped and abused the fruits of prosperity; and
after running the little course of an Oriental dynasty, were now
fainting in their own weakness. On the side of the land, they
were pressed by the Almohades, the fanatic princes of Morocco,
while the sea-coast was open to the enterprises of the Greeks and
Franks, who, before the close of the eleventh century, had
extorted a ransom of two hundred thousand pieces of gold. By the
first arms of Roger, the island or rock of Malta, which has been
since ennobled by a military and religious colony, was
inseparably annexed to the crown of Sicily. Tripoli, 104 a strong
and maritime city, was the next object of his attack; and the
slaughter of the males, the captivity of the females, might be
justified by the frequent practice of the Moslems themselves. The
capital of the Zeirides was named Africa from the country, and
Mahadia 105 from the Arabian founder: it is strongly built on a
neck of land, but the imperfection of the harbor is not
compensated by the fertility of the adjacent plain. Mahadia was
besieged by George the Sicilian admiral, with a fleet of one
hundred and fifty galleys, amply provided with men and the
instruments of mischief: the sovereign had fled, the Moorish
governor refused to capitulate, declined the last and
irresistible assault, and secretly escaping with the Moslem
inhabitants abandoned the place and its treasures to the
rapacious Franks. In successive expeditions, the king of Sicily
or his lieutenants reduced the cities of Tunis, Safax, Capsia,
Bona, and a long tract of the sea-coast; 106 the fortresses were
garrisoned, the country was tributary, and a boast that it held
Africa in subjection might be inscribed with some flattery on the
sword of Roger. 107 After his death, that sword was broken; and
these transmarine possessions were neglected, evacuated, or lost,
under the troubled reign of his successor. 108 The triumphs of
Scipio and Belisarius have proved, that the African continent is
neither inaccessible nor invincible; yet the great princes and
powers of Christendom have repeatedly failed in their armaments
against the Moors, who may still glory in the easy conquest and
long servitude of Spain.
103 (return) [ See De Guignes, Hist. Generate des Huns, tom. i.
p. 369-373 and Cardonne, Hist. de l’Afrique, &c., sous la
Domination des Arabes tom. ii. p. 70-144. Their common original
appears to be Novairi.]
104 (return) [ Tripoli (says the Nubian geographer, or more
properly the Sherif al Edrisi) urbs fortis, saxeo muro vallata,
sita prope littus maris Hanc expugnavit Rogerius, qui mulieribus
captivis ductis, viros pere mit.]
105 (return) [ See the geography of Leo Africanus, (in Ramusio
tom. i. fol. 74 verso. fol. 75, recto,) and Shaw’s Travels, (p.
110,) the viith book of Thuanus, and the xith of the Abbe de
Vertot. The possession and defence of the place was offered by
Charles V. and wisely declined by the knights of Malta.]
106 (return) [ Pagi has accurately marked the African conquests
of Roger and his criticism was supplied by his friend the Abbe de
Longuerue with some Arabic memorials, (A.D. 1147, No. 26, 27,
A.D. 1148, No. 16, A.D. 1153, No. 16.)]
107 (return) [ Appulus et Calaber, Siculus mihi servit et Afer. A
proud inscription, which denotes, that the Norman conquerors were
still discriminated from their Christian and Moslem subjects.]
108 (return) [ Hugo Falcandus (Hist. Sicula, in Muratori, Script.
tom. vii. p. 270, 271) ascribes these losses to the neglect or
treachery of the admiral Majo.]
Since the decease of Robert Guiscard, the Normans had
relinquished, above sixty years, their hostile designs against
the empire of the East. The policy of Roger solicited a public
and private union with the Greek princes, whose alliance would
dignify his regal character: he demanded in marriage a daughter
of the Comnenian family, and the first steps of the treaty seemed
to promise a favorable event. But the contemptuous treatment of
his ambassadors exasperated the vanity of the new monarch; and
the insolence of the Byzantine court was expiated, according to
the laws of nations, by the sufferings of a guiltless people. 109
With the fleet of seventy galleys, George, the admiral of Sicily,
appeared before Corfu; and both the island and city were
delivered into his hands by the disaffected inhabitants, who had
yet to learn that a siege is still more calamitous than a
tribute. In this invasion, of some moment in the annals of
commerce, the Normans spread themselves by sea, and over the
provinces of Greece; and the venerable age of Athens, Thebes, and
Corinth, was violated by rapine and cruelty. Of the wrongs of
Athens, no memorial remains. The ancient walls, which
encompassed, without guarding, the opulence of Thebes, were
scaled by the Latin Christians; but their sole use of the gospel
was to sanctify an oath, that the lawful owners had not secreted
any relic of their inheritance or industry. On the approach of
the Normans, the lower town of Corinth was evacuated; the Greeks
retired to the citadel, which was seated on a lofty eminence,
abundantly watered by the classic fountain of Pirene; an
impregnable fortress, if the want of courage could be balanced by
any advantages of art or nature. As soon as the besiegers had
surmounted the labor (their sole labor) of climbing the hill,
their general, from the commanding eminence, admired his own
victory, and testified his gratitude to Heaven, by tearing from
the altar the precious image of Theodore, the tutelary saint. The
silk weavers of both sexes, whom George transported to Sicily,
composed the most valuable part of the spoil; and in comparing
the skilful industry of the mechanic with the sloth and cowardice
of the soldier, he was heard to exclaim that the distaff and loom
were the only weapons which the Greeks were capable of using. The
progress of this naval armament was marked by two conspicuous
events, the rescue of the king of France, and the insult of the
Byzantine capital. In his return by sea from an unfortunate
crusade, Louis the Seventh was intercepted by the Greeks, who
basely violated the laws of honor and religion. The fortunate
encounter of the Norman fleet delivered the royal captive; and
after a free and honorable entertainment in the court of Sicily,
Louis continued his journey to Rome and Paris. 110 In the absence
of the emperor, Constantinople and the Hellespont were left
without defence and without the suspicion of danger. The clergy
and people (for the soldiers had followed the standard of Manuel)
were astonished and dismayed at the hostile appearance of a line
of galleys, which boldly cast anchor in the front of the Imperial
city. The forces of the Sicilian admiral were inadequate to the
siege or assault of an immense and populous metropolis; but
George enjoyed the glory of humbling the Greek arrogance, and of
marking the path of conquest to the navies of the West. He landed
some soldiers to rifle the fruits of the royal gardens, and
pointed with silver, or most probably with fire, the arrows which
he discharged against the palace of the Caesars. 111 This playful
outrage of the pirates of Sicily, who had surprised an unguarded
moment, Manuel affected to despise, while his martial spirit, and
the forces of the empire, were awakened to revenge. The
Archipelago and Ionian Sea were covered with his squadrons and
those of Venice; but I know not by what favorable allowance of
transports, victuallers, and pinnaces, our reason, or even our
fancy, can be reconciled to the stupendous account of fifteen
hundred vessels, which is proposed by a Byzantine historian.
These operations were directed with prudence and energy: in his
homeward voyage George lost nineteen of his galleys, which were
separated and taken: after an obstinate defence, Corfu implored
the clemency of her lawful sovereign; nor could a ship, a
soldier, of the Norman prince, be found, unless as a captive,
within the limits of the Eastern empire. The prosperity and the
health of Roger were already in a declining state: while he
listened in his palace of Palermo to the messengers of victory or
defeat, the invincible Manuel, the foremost in every assault, was
celebrated by the Greeks and Latins as the Alexander or the
Hercules of the age.
109 (return) [ The silence of the Sicilian historians, who end
too soon, or begin too late, must be supplied by Otho of
Frisingen, a German, (de Gestis Frederici I. l. i. c. 33, in
Muratori, Script. tom. vi. p. 668,) the Venetian Andrew Dandulus,
(Id. tom. xii. p. 282, 283) and the Greek writers Cinnamus (l.
iii. c. 2-5) and Nicetas, (in Manuel. l. iii. c. 1-6.)]
110 (return) [ To this imperfect capture and speedy rescue I
apply Cinnamus, l. ii. c. 19, p. 49. Muratori, on tolerable
evidence, (Annali d’Italia, tom. ix. p. 420, 421,) laughs at the
delicacy of the French, who maintain, marisque nullo impediente
periculo ad regnum proprium reversum esse; yet I observe that
their advocate, Ducange, is less positive as the commentator on
Cinnamus, than as the editor of Joinville.]
111 (return) [ In palatium regium sagittas igneas injecit, says
Dandulus; but Nicetas (l. ii. c. 8, p. 66) transforms them, and
adds, that Manuel styled this insult. These arrows, by the
compiler, Vincent de Beauvais, are again transmuted into gold.]
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part V.
A prince of such a temper could not be satisfied with having
repelled the insolence of a Barbarian. It was the right and duty,
it might be the interest and glory, of Manuel to restore the
ancient majesty of the empire, to recover the provinces of Italy
and Sicily, and to chastise this pretended king, the grandson of
a Norman vassal. 112 The natives of Calabria were still attached
to the Greek language and worship, which had been inexorably
proscribed by the Latin clergy: after the loss of her dukes,
Apulia was chained as a servile appendage to the crown of Sicily;
the founder of the monarchy had ruled by the sword; and his death
had abated the fear, without healing the discontent, of his
subjects: the feudal government was always pregnant with the
seeds of rebellion; and a nephew of Roger himself invited the
enemies of his family and nation. The majesty of the purple, and
a series of Hungarian and Turkish wars, prevented Manuel from
embarking his person in the Italian expedition. To the brave and
noble Palaeologus, his lieutenant, the Greek monarch intrusted a
fleet and army: the siege of Bari was his first exploit; and, in
every operation, gold as well as steel was the instrument of
victory. Salerno, and some places along the western coast,
maintained their fidelity to the Norman king; but he lost in two
campaigns the greater part of his continental possessions; and
the modest emperor, disdaining all flattery and falsehood, was
content with the reduction of three hundred cities or villages of
Apulia and Calabria, whose names and titles were inscribed on all
the walls of the palace. The prejudices of the Latins were
gratified by a genuine or fictitious donation under the seal of
the German Caesars; 113 but the successor of Constantine soon
renounced this ignominious pretence, claimed the indefeasible
dominion of Italy, and professed his design of chasing the
Barbarians beyond the Alps. By the artful speeches, liberal
gifts, and unbounded promises, of their Eastern ally, the free
cities were encouraged to persevere in their generous struggle
against the despotism of Frederic Barbarossa: the walls of Milan
were rebuilt by the contributions of Manuel; and he poured, says
the historian, a river of gold into the bosom of Ancona, whose
attachment to the Greeks was fortified by the jealous enmity of
the Venetians. 114 The situation and trade of Ancona rendered it
an important garrison in the heart of Italy: it was twice
besieged by the arms of Frederic; the imperial forces were twice
repulsed by the spirit of freedom; that spirit was animated by
the ambassador of Constantinople; and the most intrepid patriots,
the most faithful servants, were rewarded by the wealth and
honors of the Byzantine court. 115 The pride of Manuel disdained
and rejected a Barbarian colleague; his ambition was excited by
the hope of stripping the purple from the German usurpers, and of
establishing, in the West, as in the East, his lawful title of
sole emperor of the Romans. With this view, he solicited the
alliance of the people and the bishop of Rome. Several of the
nobles embraced the cause of the Greek monarch; the splendid
nuptials of his niece with Odo Frangipani secured the support of
that powerful family, 116 and his royal standard or image was
entertained with due reverence in the ancient metropolis. 117
During the quarrel between Frederic and Alexander the Third, the
pope twice received in the Vatican the ambassadors of
Constantinople. They flattered his piety by the long-promised
union of the two churches, tempted the avarice of his venal
court, and exhorted the Roman pontiff to seize the just
provocation, the favorable moment, to humble the savage insolence
of the Alemanni and to acknowledge the true representative of
Constantine and Augustus. 118
112 (return) [ For the invasion of Italy, which is almost
overlooked by Nicetas see the more polite history of Cinnamus,
(l. iv. c. 1-15, p. 78-101,) who introduces a diffuse narrative
by a lofty profession, iii. 5.]
113 (return) [ The Latin, Otho, (de Gestis Frederici I. l. ii. c.
30, p. 734,) attests the forgery; the Greek, Cinnamus, (l. iv. c.
1, p. 78,) claims a promise of restitution from Conrad and
Frederic. An act of fraud is always credible when it is told of
the Greeks.]
114 (return) [ Quod Ancontiani Graecum imperium nimis diligerent
... Veneti speciali odio Anconam oderunt. The cause of love,
perhaps of envy, were the beneficia, flumen aureum of the
emperor; and the Latin narrative is confirmed by Cinnamus, (l.
iv. c. 14, p. 98.)]
115 (return) [ Muratori mentions the two sieges of Ancona; the
first, in 1167, against Frederic I. in person (Annali, tom. x. p.
39, &c.;) the second, in 1173, against his lieutenant Christian,
archbishop of Mentz, a man unworthy of his name and office, (p.
76, &c.) It is of the second siege that we possess an original
narrative, which he has published in his great collection, (tom.
vi. p. 921-946.)]
116 (return) [ We derive this anecdote from an anonymous
chronicle of Fossa Nova, published by Muratori, (Script. Ital.
tom. vii. p. 874.)]
117 (return) [ Cinnamus (l. iv. c. 14, p. 99) is susceptible of
this double sense. A standard is more Latin, an image more
Greek.]
118 (return) [ Nihilominus quoque petebat, ut quia occasio justa
et tempos opportunum et acceptabile se obtulerant, Romani corona
imperii a sancto apostolo sibi redderetur; quoniam non ad
Frederici Alemanni, sed ad suum jus asseruit pertinere, (Vit.
Alexandri III. a Cardinal. Arragoniae, in Script. Rerum Ital.
tom. iii. par. i. p. 458.) His second embassy was accompanied cum
immensa multitudine pecuniarum.]
But these Italian conquests, this universal reign, soon escaped
from the hand of the Greek emperor. His first demands were eluded
by the prudence of Alexander the Third, who paused on this deep
and momentous revolution; 119 nor could the pope be seduced by a
personal dispute to renounce the perpetual inheritance of the
Latin name. After the reunion with Frederic, he spoke a more
peremptory language, confirmed the acts of his predecessors,
excommunicated the adherents of Manuel, and pronounced the final
separation of the churches, or at least the empires, of
Constantinople and Rome. 120 The free cities of Lombardy no
longer remembered their foreign benefactor, and without
preserving the friendship of Ancona, he soon incurred the enmity
of Venice. 121 By his own avarice, or the complaints of his
subjects, the Greek emperor was provoked to arrest the persons,
and confiscate the effects, of the Venetian merchants. This
violation of the public faith exasperated a free and commercial
people: one hundred galleys were launched and armed in as many
days; they swept the coasts of Dalmatia and Greece: but after
some mutual wounds, the war was terminated by an agreement,
inglorious to the empire, insufficient for the republic; and a
complete vengeance of these and of fresh injuries was reserved
for the succeeding generation. The lieutenant of Manuel had
informed his sovereign that he was strong enough to quell any
domestic revolt of Apulia and Calabria; but that his forces were
inadequate to resist the impending attack of the king of Sicily.
His prophecy was soon verified: the death of Palaeologus devolved
the command on several chiefs, alike eminent in rank, alike
defective in military talents; the Greeks were oppressed by land
and sea; and a captive remnant that escaped the swords of the
Normans and Saracens, abjured all future hostility against the
person or dominions of their conqueror. 122 Yet the king of
Sicily esteemed the courage and constancy of Manuel, who had
landed a second army on the Italian shore; he respectfully
addressed the new Justinian; solicited a peace or truce of thirty
years, accepted as a gift the regal title; and acknowledged
himself the military vassal of the Roman empire. 123 The
Byzantine Caesars acquiesced in this shadow of dominion, without
expecting, perhaps without desiring, the service of a Norman
army; and the truce of thirty years was not disturbed by any
hostilities between Sicily and Constantinople. About the end of
that period, the throne of Manuel was usurped by an inhuman
tyrant, who had deserved the abhorrence of his country and
mankind: the sword of William the Second, the grandson of Roger,
was drawn by a fugitive of the Comnenian race; and the subjects
of Andronicus might salute the strangers as friends, since they
detested their sovereign as the worst of enemies. The Latin
historians 124 expatiate on the rapid progress of the four counts
who invaded Romania with a fleet and army, and reduced many
castles and cities to the obedience of the king of Sicily. The
Greeks 125 accuse and magnify the wanton and sacrilegious
cruelties that were perpetrated in the sack of Thessalonica, the
second city of the empire. The former deplore the fate of those
invincible but unsuspecting warriors who were destroyed by the
arts of a vanquished foe. The latter applaud, in songs of
triumph, the repeated victories of their countrymen on the Sea of
Marmora or Propontis, on the banks of the Strymon, and under the
walls of Durazzo. A revolution which punished the crimes of
Andronicus, had united against the Franks the zeal and courage of
the successful insurgents: ten thousand were slain in battle, and
Isaac Angelus, the new emperor, might indulge his vanity or
vengeance in the treatment of four thousand captives. Such was
the event of the last contest between the Greeks and Normans:
before the expiration of twenty years, the rival nations were
lost or degraded in foreign servitude; and the successors of
Constantine did not long survive to insult the fall of the
Sicilian monarchy.
119 (return) [ Nimis alta et perplexa sunt, (Vit. Alexandri III.
p. 460, 461,) says the cautious pope.]
120 (return) [ (Cinnamus, l. iv. c. 14, p. 99.)]
121 (return) [ In his vith book, Cinnamus describes the Venetian
war, which Nicetas has not thought worthy of his attention. The
Italian accounts, which do not satisfy our curiosity, are
reported by the annalist Muratori, under the years 1171, &c.]
122 (return) [ This victory is mentioned by Romuald of Salerno,
(in Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. vii. p. 198.) It is whimsical
enough, that in the praise of the king of Sicily, Cinnamus (l.
iv. c. 13, p. 97, 98) is much warmer and copious than Falcandus,
(p. 268, 270.) But the Greek is fond of description, and the
Latin historian is not fond of William the Bad.]
123 (return) [ For the epistle of William I. see Cinnamus (l. iv.
c. 15, p. 101, 102) and Nicetas, (l. ii. c. 8.) It is difficult
to affirm, whether these Greeks deceived themselves, or the
public, in these flattering portraits of the grandeur of the
empire.]
124 (return) [ I can only quote, of original evidence, the poor
chronicles of Sicard of Cremona, (p. 603,) and of Fossa Nova, (p.
875,) as they are published in the viith tome of Muratori’s
historians. The king of Sicily sent his troops contra nequitiam
Andronici.... ad acquirendum imperium C. P. They were.... decepti
captique, by Isaac.]
125 (return) [ By the failure of Cinnamus to Nicetas (in
Andronico, l.. c. 7, 8, 9, l. ii. c. 1, in Isaac Angelo, l. i. c.
1-4,) who now becomes a respectable contemporary. As he survived
the emperor and the empire, he is above flattery; but the fall of
Constantinople exasperated his prejudices against the Latins. For
the honor of learning I shall observe that Homer’s great
commentator, Eustathias archbishop of Thessalonica, refused to
desert his flock.]
The sceptre of Roger successively devolved to his son and
grandson: they might be confounded under the name of William:
they are strongly discriminated by the epithets of the bad and
the good; but these epithets, which appear to describe the
perfection of vice and virtue, cannot strictly be applied to
either of the Norman princes. When he was roused to arms by
danger and shame, the first William did not degenerate from the
valor of his race; but his temper was slothful; his manners were
dissolute; his passions headstrong and mischievous; and the
monarch is responsible, not only for his personal vices, but for
those of Majo, the great admiral, who abused the confidence, and
conspired against the life, of his benefactor. From the Arabian
conquest, Sicily had imbibed a deep tincture of Oriental manners;
the despotism, the pomp, and even the harem, of a sultan; and a
Christian people was oppressed and insulted by the ascendant of
the eunuchs, who openly professed, or secretly cherished, the
religion of Mahomet. An eloquent historian of the times 126 has
delineated the misfortunes of his country: 127 the ambition and
fall of the ungrateful Majo; the revolt and punishment of his
assassins; the imprisonment and deliverance of the king himself;
the private feuds that arose from the public confusion; and the
various forms of calamity and discord which afflicted Palermo,
the island, and the continent, during the reign of William the
First, and the minority of his son. The youth, innocence, and
beauty of William the Second, 128 endeared him to the nation: the
factions were reconciled; the laws were revived; and from the
manhood to the premature death of that amiable prince, Sicily
enjoyed a short season of peace, justice, and happiness, whose
value was enhanced by the remembrance of the past and the dread
of futurity. The legitimate male posterity of Tancred of
Hauteville was extinct in the person of the second William; but
his aunt, the daughter of Roger, had married the most powerful
prince of the age; and Henry the Sixth, the son of Frederic
Barbarossa, descended from the Alps to claim the Imperial crown
and the inheritance of his wife. Against the unanimous wish of a
free people, this inheritance could only be acquired by arms; and
I am pleased to transcribe the style and sense of the historian
Falcandus, who writes at the moment, and on the spot, with the
feelings of a patriot, and the prophetic eye of a statesman.
“Constantia, the daughter of Sicily, nursed from her cradle in
the pleasures and plenty, and educated in the arts and manners,
of this fortunate isle, departed long since to enrich the
Barbarians with our treasures, and now returns, with her savage
allies, to contaminate the beauties of her venerable parent.
Already I behold the swarms of angry Barbarians: our opulent
cities, the places flourishing in a long peace, are shaken with
fear, desolated by slaughter, consumed by rapine, and polluted by
intemperance and lust. I see the massacre or captivity of our
citizens, the rapes of our virgins and matrons. 129 In this
extremity (he interrogates a friend) how must the Sicilians act?
By the unanimous election of a king of valor and experience,
Sicily and Calabria might yet be preserved; 130 for in the levity
of the Apulians, ever eager for new revolutions, I can repose
neither confidence nor hope. 131 Should Calabria be lost, the
lofty towers, the numerous youth, and the naval strength, of
Messina, 132 might guard the passage against a foreign invader.
If the savage Germans coalesce with the pirates of Messina; if
they destroy with fire the fruitful region, so often wasted by
the fires of Mount Aetna, 133 what resource will be left for the
interior parts of the island, these noble cities which should
never be violated by the hostile footsteps of a Barbarian? 134
Catana has again been overwhelmed by an earthquake: the ancient
virtue of Syracuse expires in poverty and solitude; 135 but
Palermo is still crowned with a diadem, and her triple walls
enclose the active multitudes of Christians and Saracens. If the
two nations, under one king, can unite for their common safety,
they may rush on the Barbarians with invincible arms. But if the
Saracens, fatigued by a repetition of injuries, should now retire
and rebel; if they should occupy the castles of the mountains and
sea-coast, the unfortunate Christians, exposed to a double
attack, and placed as it were between the hammer and the anvil,
must resign themselves to hopeless and inevitable servitude.” 136
We must not forget, that a priest here prefers his country to his
religion; and that the Moslems, whose alliance he seeks, were
still numerous and powerful in the state of Sicily.
126 (return) [ The Historia Sicula of Hugo Falcandus, which
properly extends from 1154 to 1169, is inserted in the viiith
volume of Muratori’s Collection, (tom. vii. p. 259-344,) and
preceded by a eloquent preface or epistle, (p. 251-258, de
Calamitatibus Siciliae.) Falcandus has been styled the Tacitus of
Sicily; and, after a just, but immense, abatement, from the ist
to the xiith century, from a senator to a monk, I would not strip
him of his title: his narrative is rapid and perspicuous, his
style bold and elegant, his observation keen; he had studied
mankind, and feels like a man. I can only regret the narrow and
barren field on which his labors have been cast.]
127 (return) [ The laborious Benedictines (l’Art de verifier les
Dates, p. 896) are of opinion, that the true name of Falcandus is
Fulcandus, or Foucault. According to them, Hugues Foucalt, a
Frenchman by birth, and at length abbot of St. Denys, had
followed into Sicily his patron Stephen de la Perche, uncle to
the mother of William II., archbishop of Palermo, and great
chancellor of the kingdom. Yet Falcandus has all the feelings of
a Sicilian; and the title of Alumnus (which he bestows on
himself) appears to indicate that he was born, or at least
educated, in the island.]
128 (return) [ Falcand. p. 303. Richard de St. Germano begins his
history from the death and praises of William II. After some
unmeaning epithets, he thus continues: Legis et justitiae cultus
tempore suo vigebat in regno; sua erat quilibet sorte contentus;
(were they mortals?) abique pax, ubique securitas, nec latronum
metuebat viator insidias, nec maris nauta offendicula piratarum,
(Script. Rerum Ital. tom. vii p 939.)]
129 (return) [ Constantia, primis a cunabulis in deliciarun
tuarum affluentia diutius educata, tuisque institutis, doctrinus
et moribus informata, tandem opibus tuis Barbaros delatura
discessit: et nunc cum imgentibus copiis revertitur, ut
pulcherrima nutricis ornamenta barbarica foeditate contaminet
.... Intuari mihi jam videor turbulentas bar barorum acies....
civitates opulentas et loca diuturna pace florentia, metu
concutere, caede vastare, rapinis atterere, et foedare luxuria
hinc cives aut gladiis intercepti, aut servitute depressi,
virgines constupratae, matronae, &c.]
130 (return) [ Certe si regem non dubiae virtutis elegerint, nec
a Saracenis Christiani dissentiant, poterit rex creatus rebus
licet quasi desperatis et perditis subvenire, et incursus
hostium, si prudenter egerit, propulsare.]
131 (return) [ In Apulis, qui, semper novitate gaudentes, novarum
rerum studiis aguntur, nihil arbitror spei aut fiduciae
reponendum.]
132 (return) [ Si civium tuorum virtutem et audaciam attendas,
.... muriorum etiam ambitum densis turribus circumseptum.]
133 (return) [ Cum erudelitate piratica Theutonum confligat
atrocitas, et inter aucbustos lapides, et Aethnae flagrant’s
incendia, &c.]
134 (return) [ Eam partem, quam nobilissimarum civitatum fulgor
illustrat, quae et toti regno singulari meruit privilegio
praeminere, nefarium esset.... vel barbarorum ingressu pollui. I
wish to transcribe his florid, but curious, description, of the
palace, city, and luxuriant plain of Palermo.]
135 (return) [ Vires non suppetunt, et conatus tuos tam inopia
civium, quam paucitas bellatorum elidunt.]
136 (return) [ The Normans and Sicilians appear to be
confounded.]
The hopes, or at least the wishes, of Falcandus were at first
gratified by the free and unanimous election of Tancred, the
grandson of the first king, whose birth was illegitimate, but
whose civil and military virtues shone without a blemish. During
four years, the term of his life and reign, he stood in arms on
the farthest verge of the Apulian frontier, against the powers of
Germany; and the restitution of a royal captive, of Constantia
herself, without injury or ransom, may appear to surpass the most
liberal measure of policy or reason. After his decease, the
kingdom of his widow and infant son fell without a struggle; and
Henry pursued his victorious march from Capua to Palermo. The
political balance of Italy was destroyed by his success; and if
the pope and the free cities had consulted their obvious and real
interest, they would have combined the powers of earth and heaven
to prevent the dangerous union of the German empire with the
kingdom of Sicily. But the subtle policy, for which the Vatican
has so often been praised or arraigned, was on this occasion
blind and inactive; and if it were true that Celestine the Third
had kicked away the Imperial crown from the head of the prostrate
Henry, 137 such an act of impotent pride could serve only to
cancel an obligation and provoke an enemy. The Genoese, who
enjoyed a beneficial trade and establishment in Sicily, listened
to the promise of his boundless gratitude and speedy departure:
138 their fleet commanded the straits of Messina, and opened the
harbor of Palermo; and the first act of his government was to
abolish the privileges, and to seize the property, of these
imprudent allies. The last hope of Falcandus was defeated by the
discord of the Christians and Mahometans: they fought in the
capital; several thousands of the latter were slain; but their
surviving brethren fortified the mountains, and disturbed above
thirty years the peace of the island. By the policy of Frederic
the Second, sixty thousand Saracens were transplanted to Nocera
in Apulia. In their wars against the Roman church, the emperor
and his son Mainfroy were strengthened and disgraced by the
service of the enemies of Christ; and this national colony
maintained their religion and manners in the heart of Italy, till
they were extirpated, at the end of the thirteenth century, by
the zeal and revenge of the house of Anjou. 139 All the
calamities which the prophetic orator had deplored were surpassed
by the cruelty and avarice of the German conqueror. He violated
the royal sepulchres, 1391 and explored the secret treasures of
the palace, Palermo, and the whole kingdom: the pearls and
jewels, however precious, might be easily removed; but one
hundred and sixty horses were laden with the gold and silver of
Sicily. 140 The young king, his mother and sisters, and the
nobles of both sexes, were separately confined in the fortresses
of the Alps; and, on the slightest rumor of rebellion, the
captives were deprived of life, of their eyes, or of the hope of
posterity. Constantia herself was touched with sympathy for the
miseries of her country; and the heiress of the Norman line might
struggle to check her despotic husband, and to save the patrimony
of her new-born son, of an emperor so famous in the next age
under the name of Frederic the Second. Ten years after this
revolution, the French monarchs annexed to their crown the duchy
of Normandy: the sceptre of her ancient dukes had been
transmitted, by a granddaughter of William the Conqueror, to the
house of Plantagenet; and the adventurous Normans, who had raised
so many trophies in France, England, and Ireland, in Apulia,
Sicily, and the East, were lost, either in victory or servitude,
among the vanquished nations.
137 (return) [ The testimony of an Englishman, of Roger de
Hoveden, (p. 689,) will lightly weigh against the silence of
German and Italian history, (Muratori, Annali d’ Italia, tom. x.
p. 156.) The priests and pilgrims, who returned from Rome,
exalted, by every tale, the omnipotence of the holy father.]
138 (return) [ Ego enim in eo cum Teutonicis manere non debeo,
(Caffari, Annal. Genuenses, in Muratori, Script. Rerum
Italicarum, tom vi. p. 367, 368.)]
139 (return) [ For the Saracens of Sicily and Nocera, see the
Annals of Muratori, (tom. x. p. 149, and A.D. 1223, 1247,)
Giannone, (tom ii. p. 385,) and of the originals, in Muratori’s
Collection, Richard de St. Germano, (tom. vii. p. 996,) Matteo
Spinelli de Giovenazzo, (tom. vii. p. 1064,) Nicholas de
Jamsilla, (tom. x. p. 494,) and Matreo Villani, (tom. xiv l. vii.
p. 103.) The last of these insinuates that, in reducing the
Saracens of Nocera, Charles II. of Anjou employed rather artifice
than violence.]
1391 (return) [ It is remarkable that at the same time the tombs
of the Roman emperors, even of Constantine himself, were violated
and ransacked by their degenerate successor Alexius Comnenus, in
order to enable him to pay the “German” tribute exacted by the
menaces of the emperor Henry. See the end of the first book of
the Life of Alexius, in Nicetas, p. 632, edit.—M.]
140 (return) [ Muratori quotes a passage from Arnold of Lubec,
(l. iv. c. 20:) Reperit thesauros absconditos, et omnem lapidum
pretiosorum et gemmarum gloriam, ita ut oneratis 160 somariis,
gloriose ad terram suam redierit. Roger de Hoveden, who mentions
the violation of the royal tombs and corpses, computes the spoil
of Salerno at 200,000 ounces of gold, (p. 746.) On these
occasions, I am almost tempted to exclaim with the listening maid
in La Fontaine, “Je voudrois bien avoir ce qui manque.”]
Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part I.
The Turks Of The House Of Seljuk.—Their Revolt Against Mahmud
Conqueror Of Hindostan.—Togrul Subdues Persia, And Protects The
Caliphs.—Defeat And Captivity Of The Emperor Romanus Diogenes By
Alp Arslan.—Power And Magnificence Of Malek Shah.—Conquest Of Asia
Minor And Syria.—State And Oppression Of Jerusalem.—Pilgrimages To
The Holy Sepulchre.
From the Isle of Sicily, the reader must transport himself beyond
the Caspian Sea, to the original seat of the Turks or Turkmans,
against whom the first crusade was principally directed. Their
Scythian empire of the sixth century was long since dissolved;
but the name was still famous among the Greeks and Orientals; and
the fragments of the nation, each a powerful and independent
people, were scattered over the desert from China to the Oxus and
the Danube: the colony of Hungarians was admitted into the
republic of Europe, and the thrones of Asia were occupied by
slaves and soldiers of Turkish extraction. While Apulia and
Sicily were subdued by the Norman lance, a swarm of these
northern shepherds overspread the kingdoms of Persia; their
princes of the race of Seljuk erected a splendid and solid empire
from Samarcand to the confines of Greece and Egypt; and the Turks
have maintained their dominion in Asia Minor, till the victorious
crescent has been planted on the dome of St. Sophia.
One of the greatest of the Turkish princes was Mahmood or Mahmud,
1 the Gaznevide, who reigned in the eastern provinces of Persia,
one thousand years after the birth of Christ. His father
Sebectagi was the slave of the slave of the slave of the
commander of the faithful. But in this descent of servitude, the
first degree was merely titular, since it was filled by the
sovereign of Transoxiana and Chorasan, who still paid a nominal
allegiance to the caliph of Bagdad. The second rank was that of a
minister of state, a lieutenant of the Samanides, 2 who broke, by
his revolt, the bonds of political slavery. But the third step
was a state of real and domestic servitude in the family of that
rebel; from which Sebectagi, by his courage and dexterity,
ascended to the supreme command of the city and provinces of
Gazna, 3 as the son-in-law and successor of his grateful master.
The falling dynasty of the Samanides was at first protected, and
at last overthrown, by their servants; and, in the public
disorders, the fortune of Mahmud continually increased. From him
the title of Sultan 4 was first invented; and his kingdom was
enlarged from Transoxiana to the neighborhood of Ispahan, from
the shores of the Caspian to the mouth of the Indus. But the
principal source of his fame and riches was the holy war which he
waged against the Gentoos of Hindostan. In this foreign narrative
I may not consume a page; and a volume would scarcely suffice to
recapitulate the battles and sieges of his twelve expeditions.
Never was the Mussulman hero dismayed by the inclemency of the
seasons, the height of the mountains, the breadth of the rivers,
the barrenness of the desert, the multitudes of the enemy, or the
formidable array of their elephants of war. 5 The sultan of Gazna
surpassed the limits of the conquests of Alexander: after a march
of three months, over the hills of Cashmir and Thibet, he reached
the famous city of Kinnoge, 6 on the Upper Ganges; and, in a
naval combat on one of the branches of the Indus, he fought and
vanquished four thousand boats of the natives. Delhi, Lahor, and
Multan, were compelled to open their gates: the fertile kingdom
of Guzarat attracted his ambition and tempted his stay; and his
avarice indulged the fruitless project of discovering the golden
and aromatic isles of the Southern Ocean. On the payment of a
tribute, the rajahs preserved their dominions; the people, their
lives and fortunes; but to the religion of Hindostan the zealous
Mussulman was cruel and inexorable: many hundred temples, or
pagodas, were levelled with the ground; many thousand idols were
demolished; and the servants of the prophet were stimulated and
rewarded by the precious materials of which they were composed.
The pagoda of Sumnat was situate on the promontory of Guzarat, in
the neighborhood of Diu, one of the last remaining possessions of
the Portuguese. 7 It was endowed with the revenue of two thousand
villages; two thousand Brahmins were consecrated to the service
of the Deity, whom they washed each morning and evening in water
from the distant Ganges: the subordinate ministers consisted of
three hundred musicians, three hundred barbers, and five hundred
dancing girls, conspicuous for their birth or beauty. Three sides
of the temple were protected by the ocean, the narrow isthmus was
fortified by a natural or artificial precipice; and the city and
adjacent country were peopled by a nation of fanatics. They
confessed the sins and the punishment of Kinnoge and Delhi; but
if the impious stranger should presume to approach their holy
precincts, he would surely be overwhelmed by a blast of the
divine vengeance. By this challenge, the faith of Mahmud was
animated to a personal trial of the strength of this Indian
deity. Fifty thousand of his worshippers were pierced by the
spear of the Moslems; the walls were scaled; the sanctuary was
profaned; and the conqueror aimed a blow of his iron mace at the
head of the idol. The trembling Brahmins are said to have offered
ten millions 711 sterling for his ransom; and it was urged by the
wisest counsellors, that the destruction of a stone image would
not change the hearts of the Gentoos; and that such a sum might
be dedicated to the relief of the true believers. “Your reasons,”
replied the sultan, “are specious and strong; but never in the
eyes of posterity shall Mahmud appear as a merchant of idols.”
712 He repeated his blows, and a treasure of pearls and rubies,
concealed in the belly of the statue, explained in some degree
the devout prodigality of the Brahmins. The fragments of the idol
were distributed to Gazna, Mecca, and Medina. Bagdad listened to
the edifying tale; and Mahmud was saluted by the caliph with the
title of guardian of the fortune and faith of Mahomet.
1 (return) [ I am indebted for his character and history to
D’Herbelot, (Bibliotheque Orientale, Mahmud, p. 533-537,) M. De
Guignes, (Histoire des Huns, tom. iii. p. 155-173,) and our
countryman Colonel Alexander Dow, (vol. i. p. 23-83.) In the two
first volumes of his History of Hindostan, he styles himself the
translator of the Persian Ferishta; but in his florid text, it is
not easy to distinguish the version and the original. * Note: The
European reader now possesses a more accurate version of
Ferishta, that of Col. Briggs. Of Col. Dow’s work, Col. Briggs
observes, “that the author’s name will be handed down to
posterity as one of the earliest and most indefatigable of our
Oriental scholars. Instead of confining himself, however, to mere
translation, he has filled his work with his own observations,
which have been so embodied in the text that Gibbon declares it
impossible to distinguish the translator from the original
author.” Preface p. vii.—M.]
2 (return) [ The dynasty of the Samanides continued 125 years,
A.D. 847-999, under ten princes. See their succession and ruin,
in the Tables of M. De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p.
404-406.) They were followed by the Gaznevides, A.D. 999-1183,
(see tom. i. p. 239, 240.) His divisions of nations often
disturbs the series of time and place.]
3 (return) [ Gaznah hortos non habet: est emporium et domicilium
mercaturae Indicae. Abulfedae Geograph. Reiske, tab. xxiii. p.
349. D’Herbelot, p. 364. It has not been visited by any modern
traveller.]
4 (return) [ By the ambassador of the caliph of Bagdad, who
employed an Arabian or Chaldaic word that signifies lord and
master, (D’Herbelot, p. 825.) It is interpreted by the Byzantine
writers of the eleventh century; and the name (Soldanus) is
familiarly employed in the Greek and Latin languages, after it
had passed from the Gaznevides to the Seljukides, and other emirs
of Asia and Egypt. Ducange (Dissertation xvi. sur Joinville, p.
238-240. Gloss. Graec. et Latin.) labors to find the title of
Sultan in the ancient kingdom of Persia: but his proofs are mere
shadows; a proper name in the Themes of Constantine, (ii. 11,) an
anticipation of Zonaras, &c., and a medal of Kai Khosrou, not (as
he believes) the Sassanide of the vith, but the Seljukide of
Iconium of the xiiith century, (De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom.
i. p. 246.)]
5 (return) [ Ferishta (apud Dow, Hist. of Hindostan, vol. i. p.
49) mentions the report of a gun in the Indian army. But as I am
slow in believing this premature (A.D. 1008) use of artillery, I
must desire to scrutinize first the text, and then the authority
of Ferishta, who lived in the Mogul court in the last century. *
Note: This passage is differently written in the various
manuscripts I have seen; and in some the word tope (gun) has been
written for nupth, (naphtha, and toofung) (musket) for khudung,
(arrow.) But no Persian or Arabic history speaks of gunpowder
before the time usually assigned for its invention, (A.D. 1317;)
long after which, it was first applied to the purposes of war.
Briggs’s Ferishta, vol. i. p. 47, note.—M.]
6 (return) [ Kinnouge, or Canouge, (the old Palimbothra) is
marked in latitude 27 Degrees 3 Minutes, longitude 80 Degrees 13
Minutes. See D’Anville, (Antiquite de l’Inde, p. 60-62,)
corrected by the local knowledge of Major Rennel (in his
excellent Memoir on his Map of Hindostan, p. 37-43: ) 300]
jewellers, 30,000 shops for the arreca nut, 60,000 bands of
musicians, &c. (Abulfed. Geograph. tab. xv. p. 274. Dow, vol. i.
p. 16,) will allow an ample deduction. * Note: Mr. Wilson (Hindu
Drama, vol. iii. p. 12) and Schlegel (Indische Bibliothek, vol.
ii. p. 394) concur in identifying Palimbothra with the Patalipara
of the Indians; the Patna of the moderns.—M.]
7 (return) [ The idolaters of Europe, says Ferishta, (Dow, vol.
i. p. 66.) Consult Abulfeda, (p. 272,) and Rennel’s Map of
Hindostan.]
711 (return) [ Ferishta says, some “crores of gold.” Dow says, in
a note at the bottom of the page, “ten millions,” which is the
explanation of the word “crore.” Mr. Gibbon says rashly that the
sum offered by the Brahmins was ten millions sterling. Note to
Mill’s India, vol. ii. p. 222. Col. Briggs’s translation is “a
quantity of gold.” The treasure found in the temple, “perhaps in
the image,” according to Major Price’s authorities, was twenty
millions of dinars of gold, above nine millions sterling; but
this was a hundred-fold the ransom offered by the Brahmins.
Price, vol. ii. p. 290.—M.]
712 (return) [ Rather than the idol broker, he chose to be called
Mahmud the idol breaker. Price, vol. ii. p. 289—M]
From the paths of blood (and such is the history of nations) I
cannot refuse to turn aside to gather some flowers of science or
virtue. The name of Mahmud the Gaznevide is still venerable in
the East: his subjects enjoyed the blessings of prosperity and
peace; his vices were concealed by the veil of religion; and two
familiar examples will testify his justice and magnanimity.
I. As he sat in the Divan, an unhappy subject bowed before the
throne to accuse the insolence of a Turkish soldier who had
driven him from his house and bed. “Suspend your clamors,” said
Mahmud; “inform me of his next visit, and ourself in person will
judge and punish the offender.” The sultan followed his guide,
invested the house with his guards, and extinguishing the
torches, pronounced the death of the criminal, who had been
seized in the act of rapine and adultery. After the execution of
his sentence, the lights were rekindled, Mahmud fell prostrate in
prayer, and rising from the ground, demanded some homely fare,
which he devoured with the voraciousness of hunger. The poor man,
whose injury he had avenged, was unable to suppress his
astonishment and curiosity; and the courteous monarch
condescended to explain the motives of this singular behavior. “I
had reason to suspect that none, except one of my sons, could
dare to perpetrate such an outrage; and I extinguished the
lights, that my justice might be blind and inexorable. My prayer
was a thanksgiving on the discovery of the offender; and so
painful was my anxiety, that I had passed three days without food
since the first moment of your complaint.”
II. The sultan of Gazna had declared war against the dynasty of
the Bowides, the sovereigns of the western Persia: he was
disarmed by an epistle of the sultana mother, and delayed his
invasion till the manhood of her son. 8 “During the life of my
husband,” said the artful regent, “I was ever apprehensive of
your ambition: he was a prince and a soldier worthy of your arms.
He is now no more; his sceptre has passed to a woman and a child,
and you dare not attack their infancy and weakness. How
inglorious would be your conquest, how shameful your defeat! and
yet the event of war is in the hand of the Almighty.” Avarice was
the only defect that tarnished the illustrious character of
Mahmud; and never has that passion been more richly satiated. 811
The Orientals exceed the measure of credibility in the account of
millions of gold and silver, such as the avidity of man has never
accumulated; in the magnitude of pearls, diamonds, and rubies,
such as have never been produced by the workmanship of nature. 9
Yet the soil of Hindostan is impregnated with precious minerals:
her trade, in every age, has attracted the gold and silver of the
world; and her virgin spoils were rifled by the first of the
Mahometan conquerors. His behavior, in the last days of his life,
evinces the vanity of these possessions, so laboriously won, so
dangerously held, and so inevitably lost. He surveyed the vast
and various chambers of the treasury of Gazna, burst into tears,
and again closed the doors, without bestowing any portion of the
wealth which he could no longer hope to preserve. The following
day he reviewed the state of his military force; one hundred
thousand foot, fifty-five thousand horse, and thirteen hundred
elephants of battle. 10 He again wept the instability of human
greatness; and his grief was imbittered by the hostile progress
of the Turkmans, whom he had introduced into the heart of his
Persian kingdom.
8 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 527. Yet
these letters apothegms, &c., are rarely the language of the
heart, or the motives of public action.]
811 (return) [ Compare Price, vol. ii. p. 295.—M]
9 (return) [ For instance, a ruby of four hundred and fifty
miskals, (Dow, vol. i. p. 53,) or six pounds three ounces: the
largest in the treasury of Delhi weighed seventeen miskals,
(Voyages de Tavernier, partie ii. p. 280.) It is true, that in
the East all colored stones are calied rubies, (p. 355,) and that
Tavernier saw three larger and more precious among the jewels de
notre grand roi, le plus puissant et plus magnifique de tous les
rois de la terre, (p. 376.)]
10 (return) [ Dow, vol. i. p. 65. The sovereign of Kinoge is said
to have possessed 2500 elephants, (Abulfed. Geograph. tab. xv. p.
274.) From these Indian stories, the reader may correct a note in
my first volume, (p. 245;) or from that note he may correct these
stories.]
In the modern depopulation of Asia, the regular operation of
government and agriculture is confined to the neighborhood of
cities; and the distant country is abandoned to the pastoral
tribes of Arabs, Curds, and Turkmans. 11 Of the last-mentioned
people, two considerable branches extend on either side of the
Caspian Sea: the western colony can muster forty thousand
soldiers; the eastern, less obvious to the traveller, but more
strong and populous, has increased to the number of one hundred
thousand families. In the midst of civilized nations, they
preserve the manners of the Scythian desert, remove their
encampments with a change of seasons, and feed their cattle among
the ruins of palaces and temples. Their flocks and herds are
their only riches; their tents, either black or white, according
to the color of the banner, are covered with felt, and of a
circular form; their winter apparel is a sheep-skin; a robe of
cloth or cotton their summer garment: the features of the men are
harsh and ferocious; the countenance of their women is soft and
pleasing. Their wandering life maintains the spirit and exercise
of arms; they fight on horseback; and their courage is displayed
in frequent contests with each other and with their neighbors.
For the license of pasture they pay a slight tribute to the
sovereign of the land; but the domestic jurisdiction is in the
hands of the chiefs and elders. The first emigration of the
Eastern Turkmans, the most ancient of the race, may be ascribed
to the tenth century of the Christian aera. 12 In the decline of
the caliphs, and the weakness of their lieutenants, the barrier
of the Jaxartes was often violated; in each invasion, after the
victory or retreat of their countrymen, some wandering tribe,
embracing the Mahometan faith, obtained a free encampment in the
spacious plains and pleasant climate of Transoxiana and Carizme.
The Turkish slaves who aspired to the throne encouraged these
emigrations which recruited their armies, awed their subjects and
rivals, and protected the frontier against the wilder natives of
Turkestan; and this policy was abused by Mahmud the Gaznevide
beyond the example of former times. He was admonished of his
error by the chief of the race of Seljuk, who dwelt in the
territory of Bochara. The sultan had inquired what supply of men
he could furnish for military service. “If you send,” replied
Ismael, “one of these arrows into our camp, fifty thousand of
your servants will mount on horseback.”—“And if that number,”
continued Mahmud, “should not be sufficient?”—“Send this second
arrow to the horde of Balik, and you will find fifty thousand
more.”—“But,” said the Gaznevide, dissembling his anxiety, “if I
should stand in need of the whole force of your kindred
tribes?”—“Despatch my bow,” was the last reply of Ismael, “and as
it is circulated around, the summons will be obeyed by two
hundred thousand horse.” The apprehension of such formidable
friendship induced Mahmud to transport the most obnoxious tribes
into the heart of Chorasan, where they would be separated from
their brethren of the River Oxus, and enclosed on all sides by
the walls of obedient cities. But the face of the country was an
object of temptation rather than terror; and the vigor of
government was relaxed by the absence and death of the sultan of
Gazna. The shepherds were converted into robbers; the bands of
robbers were collected into an army of conquerors: as far as
Ispahan and the Tigris, Persia was afflicted by their predatory
inroads; and the Turkmans were not ashamed or afraid to measure
their courage and numbers with the proudest sovereigns of Asia.
Massoud, the son and successor of Mahmud, had too long neglected
the advice of his wisest Omrahs. “Your enemies,” they repeatedly
urged, “were in their origin a swarm of ants; they are now little
snakes; and, unless they be instantly crushed, they will acquire
the venom and magnitude of serpents.” After some alternatives of
truce and hostility, after the repulse or partial success of his
lieutenants, the sultan marched in person against the Turkmans,
who attacked him on all sides with barbarous shouts and irregular
onset. “Massoud,” says the Persian historian, 13 “plunged singly
to oppose the torrent of gleaming arms, exhibiting such acts of
gigantic force and valor as never king had before displayed. A
few of his friends, roused by his words and actions, and that
innate honor which inspires the brave, seconded their lord so
well, that wheresoever he turned his fatal sword, the enemies
were mowed down, or retreated before him. But now, when victory
seemed to blow on his standard, misfortune was active behind it;
for when he looked round, be beheld almost his whole army,
excepting that body he commanded in person, devouring the paths
of flight.” The Gaznevide was abandoned by the cowardice or
treachery of some generals of Turkish race; and this memorable
day of Zendecan 14 founded in Persia the dynasty of the shepherd
kings. 15
11 (return) [ See a just and natural picture of these pastoral
manners, in the history of William archbishop of Tyre, (l. i. c.
vii. in the Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 633, 634,) and a valuable
note by the editor of the Histoire Genealogique des Tatars, p.
535-538.]
12 (return) [ The first emigration of the Turkmans, and doubtful
origin of the Seljukians, may be traced in the laborious History
of the Huns, by M. De Guignes, (tom. i. Tables Chronologiques, l.
v. tom. iii. l. vii. ix. x.) and the Bibliotheque Orientale, of
D’Herbelot, (p. 799-802, 897-901,) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p.
321-333,) and Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 221, 222.)]
13 (return) [ Dow, Hist. of Hindostan, vol. i. p. 89, 95-98. I
have copied this passage as a specimen of the Persian manner; but
I suspect that, by some odd fatality, the style of Ferishta has
been improved by that of Ossian. * Note: Gibbon’s conjecture was
well founded. Compare the more sober and genuine version of Col.
Briggs, vol. i. p. 110.-M.]
14 (return) [ The Zendekan of D’Herbelot, (p. 1028,) the Dindaka
of Dow (vol. i. p. 97,) is probably the Dandanekan of Abulfeda,
(Geograph. p. 345, Reiske,) a small town of Chorasan, two days’
journey from Maru, and renowned through the East for the
production and manufacture of cotton.]
15 (return) [ The Byzantine historians (Cedrenus, tom. ii. p.
766, 766, Zonaras tom. ii. p. 255, Nicephorus Bryennius, p. 21)
have confounded, in this revolution, the truth of time and place,
of names and persons, of causes and events. The ignorance and
errors of these Greeks (which I shall not stop to unravel) may
inspire some distrust of the story of Cyaxares and Cyrus, as it
is told by their most eloquent predecessor.]
The victorious Turkmans immediately proceeded to the election of
a king; and, if the probable tale of a Latin historian 16
deserves any credit, they determined by lot the choice of their
new master. A number of arrows were successively inscribed with
the name of a tribe, a family, and a candidate; they were drawn
from the bundle by the hand of a child; and the important prize
was obtained by Togrul Beg, the son of Michael the son of Seljuk,
whose surname was immortalized in the greatness of his posterity.
The sultan Mahmud, who valued himself on his skill in national
genealogy, professed his ignorance of the family of Seljuk; yet
the father of that race appears to have been a chief of power and
renown. 17 For a daring intrusion into the harem of his prince,
Seljuk was banished from Turkestan: with a numerous tribe of his
friends and vassals, he passed the Jaxartes, encamped in the
neighborhood of Samarcand, embraced the religion of Mahomet, and
acquired the crown of martyrdom in a war against the infidels.
His age, of a hundred and seven years, surpassed the life of his
son, and Seljuk adopted the care of his two grandsons, Togrul and
Jaafar; the eldest of whom, at the age of forty-five, was
invested with the title of Sultan, in the royal city of Nishabur.
The blind determination of chance was justified by the virtues of
the successful candidate. It would be superfluous to praise the
valor of a Turk; and the ambition of Togrul 18 was equal to his
valor. By his arms, the Gasnevides were expelled from the eastern
kingdoms of Persia, and gradually driven to the banks of the
Indus, in search of a softer and more wealthy conquest. In the
West he annihilated the dynasty of the Bowides; and the sceptre
of Irak passed from the Persian to the Turkish nation. The
princes who had felt, or who feared, the Seljukian arrows, bowed
their heads in the dust; by the conquest of Aderbijan, or Media,
he approached the Roman confines; and the shepherd presumed to
despatch an ambassador, or herald, to demand the tribute and
obedience of the emperor of Constantinople. 19 In his own
dominions, Togrul was the father of his soldiers and people; by a
firm and equal administration, Persia was relieved from the evils
of anarchy; and the same hands which had been imbrued in blood
became the guardians of justice and the public peace. The more
rustic, perhaps the wisest, portion of the Turkmans 20 continued
to dwell in the tents of their ancestors; and, from the Oxus to
the Euphrates, these military colonies were protected and
propagated by their native princes. But the Turks of the court
and city were refined by business and softened by pleasure: they
imitated the dress, language, and manners of Persia; and the
royal palaces of Nishabur and Rei displayed the order and
magnificence of a great monarchy. The most deserving of the
Arabians and Persians were promoted to the honors of the state;
and the whole body of the Turkish nation embraced, with fervor
and sincerity, the religion of Mahomet. The northern swarms of
Barbarians, who overspread both Europe and Asia, have been
irreconcilably separated by the consequences of a similar
conduct. Among the Moslems, as among the Christians, their vague
and local traditions have yielded to the reason and authority of
the prevailing system, to the fame of antiquity, and the consent
of nations. But the triumph of the Koran is more pure and
meritorious, as it was not assisted by any visible splendor of
worship which might allure the Pagans by some resemblance of
idolatry. The first of the Seljukian sultans was conspicuous by
his zeal and faith: each day he repeated the five prayers which
are enjoined to the true believers; of each week, the two first
days were consecrated by an extraordinary fast; and in every city
a mosch was completed, before Togrul presumed to lay the
foundations of a palace. 21
16 (return) [ Willerm. Tyr. l. i. c. 7, p. 633. The divination by
arrows is ancient and famous in the East.]
17 (return) [ D’Herbelot, p. 801. Yet after the fortune of his
posterity, Seljuk became the thirty-fourth in lineal descent from
the great Afrasiab, emperor of Touran, (p. 800.) The Tartar
pedigree of the house of Zingis gave a different cast to flattery
and fable; and the historian Mirkhond derives the Seljukides from
Alankavah, the virgin mother, (p. 801, col. 2.) If they be the
same as the Zalzuts of Abulghazi Bahadur Kahn, (Hist.
Genealogique, p. 148,) we quote in their favor the most weighty
evidence of a Tartar prince himself, the descendant of Zingis,
Alankavah, or Alancu, and Oguz Khan.]
18 (return) [ By a slight corruption, Togrul Beg is the
Tangroli-pix of the Greeks. His reign and character are
faithfully exhibited by D’Herbelot (Bibliotheque Orientale, p.
1027, 1028) and De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p.
189-201.)]
19 (return) [ Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 774, 775. Zonaras, tom. ii.
p. 257. With their usual knowledge of Oriental affairs, they
describe the ambassador as a sherif, who, like the syncellus of
the patriarch, was the vicar and successor of the caliph.]
20 (return) [ From William of Tyre I have borrowed this
distinction of Turks and Turkmans, which at least is popular and
convenient. The names are the same, and the addition of man is of
the same import in the Persic and Teutonic idioms. Few critics
will adopt the etymology of James de Vitry, (Hist. Hierosol. l.
i. c. 11 p. 1061,) of Turcomani, quesi Turci et Comani, a mixed
people.]
21 (return) [ Hist. Generale des Huns, tom. iii. p. 165, 166,
167. M. DeGognes Abulmahasen, an historian of Egypt.]
With the belief of the Koran, the son of Seljuk imbibed a lively
reverence for the successor of the prophet. But that sublime
character was still disputed by the caliphs of Bagdad and Egypt,
and each of the rivals was solicitous to prove his title in the
judgment of the strong, though illiterate Barbarians. Mahmud the
Gaznevide had declared himself in favor of the line of Abbas; and
had treated with indignity the robe of honor which was presented
by the Fatimite ambassador. Yet the ungrateful Hashemite had
changed with the change of fortune; he applauded the victory of
Zendecan, and named the Seljukian sultan his temporal vicegerent
over the Moslem world. As Togrul executed and enlarged this
important trust, he was called to the deliverance of the caliph
Cayem, and obeyed the holy summons, which gave a new kingdom to
his arms. 22 In the palace of Bagdad, the commander of the
faithful still slumbered, a venerable phantom. His servant or
master, the prince of the Bowides, could no longer protect him
from the insolence of meaner tyrants; and the Euphrates and
Tigris were oppressed by the revolt of the Turkish and Arabian
emirs. The presence of a conqueror was implored as a blessing;
and the transient mischiefs of fire and sword were excused as the
sharp but salutary remedies which alone could restore the health
of the republic. At the head of an irresistible force, the sultan
of Persia marched from Hamadan: the proud were crushed, the
prostrate were spared; the prince of the Bowides disappeared; the
heads of the most obstinate rebels were laid at the feet of
Togrul; and he inflicted a lesson of obedience on the people of
Mosul and Bagdad. After the chastisement of the guilty, and the
restoration of peace, the royal shepherd accepted the reward of
his labors; and a solemn comedy represented the triumph of
religious prejudice over Barbarian power. 23 The Turkish sultan
embarked on the Tigris, landed at the gate of Racca, and made his
public entry on horseback. At the palace-gate he respectfully
dismounted, and walked on foot, preceded by his emirs without
arms. The caliph was seated behind his black veil: the black
garment of the Abbassides was cast over his shoulders, and he
held in his hand the staff of the apostle of God. The conqueror
of the East kissed the ground, stood some time in a modest
posture, and was led towards the throne by the vizier and
interpreter. After Togrul had seated himself on another throne,
his commission was publicly read, which declared him the temporal
lieutenant of the vicar of the prophet. He was successively
invested with seven robes of honor, and presented with seven
slaves, the natives of the seven climates of the Arabian empire.
His mystic veil was perfumed with musk; two crowns 231 were
placed on his head; two cimeters were girded to his side, as the
symbols of a double reign over the East and West. After this
inauguration, the sultan was prevented from prostrating himself a
second time; but he twice kissed the hand of the commander of the
faithful, and his titles were proclaimed by the voice of heralds
and the applause of the Moslems. In a second visit to Bagdad, the
Seljukian prince again rescued the caliph from his enemies and
devoutly, on foot, led the bridle of his mule from the prison to
the palace. Their alliance was cemented by the marriage of
Togrul’s sister with the successor of the prophet. Without
reluctance he had introduced a Turkish virgin into his harem; but
Cayem proudly refused his daughter to the sultan, disdained to
mingle the blood of the Hashemites with the blood of a Scythian
shepherd; and protracted the negotiation many months, till the
gradual diminution of his revenue admonished him that he was
still in the hands of a master. The royal nuptials were followed
by the death of Togrul himself; 24 as he left no children, his
nephew Alp Arslan succeeded to the title and prerogatives of
sultan; and his name, after that of the caliph, was pronounced in
the public prayers of the Moslems. Yet in this revolution, the
Abbassides acquired a larger measure of liberty and power. On the
throne of Asia, the Turkish monarchs were less jealous of the
domestic administration of Bagdad; and the commanders of the
faithful were relieved from the ignominious vexations to which
they had been exposed by the presence and poverty of the Persian
dynasty.
22 (return) [ Consult the Bibliotheque Orientale, in the articles
of the Abbassides, Caher, and Caiem, and the Annals of Elmacin
and Abulpharagius.]
23 (return) [ For this curious ceremony, I am indebted to M. De
Guignes (tom. iii. p. 197, 198,) and that learned author is
obliged to Bondari, who composed in Arabic the history of the
Seljukides, tom. v. p. 365) I am ignorant of his age, country,
and character.]
231 (return) [ According to Von Hammer, “crowns” are incorrect.
They are unknown as a symbol of royalty in the East. V. Hammer,
Osmanische Geschischte, vol. i. p. 567.—M.]
24 (return) [ Eodem anno (A. H. 455) obiit princeps Togrulbecus
.... rex fuit clemens, prudens, et peritus regnandi, cujus terror
corda mortalium invaserat, ita ut obedirent ei reges atque ad
ipsum scriberent. Elma cin, Hist. Saracen. p. 342, vers. Erpenii.
* Note: He died, being 75 years old. V. Hammer.—M.]
Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part II.
Since the fall of the caliphs, the discord and degeneracy of the
Saracens respected the Asiatic provinces of Rome; which, by the
victories of Nicephorus, Zimisces, and Basil, had been extended
as far as Antioch and the eastern boundaries of Armenia.
Twenty-five years after the death of Basil, his successors were
suddenly assaulted by an unknown race of Barbarians, who united
the Scythian valor with the fanaticism of new proselytes, and the
art and riches of a powerful monarchy. 25 The myriads of Turkish
horse overspread a frontier of six hundred miles from Tauris to
Arzeroum, and the blood of one hundred and thirty thousand
Christians was a grateful sacrifice to the Arabian prophet. Yet
the arms of Togrul did not make any deep or lasting impression on
the Greek empire. The torrent rolled away from the open country;
the sultan retired without glory or success from the siege of an
Armenian city; the obscure hostilities were continued or
suspended with a vicissitude of events; and the bravery of the
Macedonian legions renewed the fame of the conqueror of Asia. 26
The name of Alp Arslan, the valiant lion, is expressive of the
popular idea of the perfection of man; and the successor of
Togrul displayed the fierceness and generosity of the royal
animal. He passed the Euphrates at the head of the Turkish
cavalry, and entered Caesarea, the metropolis of Cappadocia, to
which he had been attracted by the fame and wealth of the temple
of St. Basil. The solid structure resisted the destroyer: but he
carried away the doors of the shrine incrusted with gold and
pearls, and profaned the relics of the tutelar saint, whose
mortal frailties were now covered by the venerable rust of
antiquity. The final conquest of Armenia and Georgia was achieved
by Alp Arslan. In Armenia, the title of a kingdom, and the spirit
of a nation, were annihilated: the artificial fortifications were
yielded by the mercenaries of Constantinople; by strangers
without faith, veterans without pay or arms, and recruits without
experience or discipline. The loss of this important frontier was
the news of a day; and the Catholics were neither surprised nor
displeased, that a people so deeply infected with the Nestorian
and Eutychian errors had been delivered by Christ and his mother
into the hands of the infidels. 27 The woods and valleys of Mount
Caucasus were more strenuously defended by the native Georgians
28 or Iberians; but the Turkish sultan and his son Malek were
indefatigable in this holy war: their captives were compelled to
promise a spiritual, as well as temporal, obedience; and, instead
of their collars and bracelets, an iron horseshoe, a badge of
ignominy, was imposed on the infidels who still adhered to the
worship of their fathers. The change, however, was not sincere or
universal; and, through ages of servitude, the Georgians have
maintained the succession of their princes and bishops. But a
race of men, whom nature has cast in her most perfect mould, is
degraded by poverty, ignorance, and vice; their profession, and
still more their practice, of Christianity is an empty name; and
if they have emerged from heresy, it is only because they are too
illiterate to remember a metaphysical creed. 29
25 (return) [ For these wars of the Turks and Romans, see in
general the Byzantine histories of Zonaras and Cedrenus,
Scylitzes the continuator of Cedrenus, and Nicephorus Bryennius
Caesar. The two first of these were monks, the two latter
statesmen; yet such were the Greeks, that the difference of style
and character is scarcely discernible. For the Orientals, I draw
as usuul on the wealth of D’Herbelot (see titles of the first
Seljukides) and the accuracy of De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom.
iii. l. x.)]
26 (return) [ Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 791. The credulity of the
vulgar is always probable; and the Turks had learned from the
Arabs the history or legend of Escander Dulcarnein, (D’Herbelot,
p. 213 &c.)]
27 (return) [ (Scylitzes, ad calcem Cedreni, tom. ii. p. 834,
whose ambiguous construction shall not tempt me to suspect that
he confounded the Nestorian and Monophysite heresies,) He
familiarly talks of the qualities, as I should apprehend, very
foreign to the perfect Being; but his bigotry is forced to
confess that they were soon afterwards discharged on the orthodox
Romans.]
28 (return) [ Had the name of Georgians been known to the Greeks,
(Stritter, Memoriae Byzant. tom. iv. Iberica,) I should derive it
from their agriculture, (l. iv. c. 18, p. 289, edit. Wesseling.)
But it appears only since the crusades, among the Latins (Jac. a
Vitriaco, Hist. Hierosol. c. 79, p. 1095) and Orientals,
(D’Herbelot, p. 407,) and was devoutly borrowed from St. George
of Cappadocia.]
29 (return) [ Mosheim, Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 632. See, in
Chardin’s Travels, (tom. i. p. 171-174,) the manners and religion
of this handsome but worthless nation. See the pedigree of their
princes from Adam to the present century, in the tables of M. De
Guignes, (tom. i. p. 433-438.)]
The false or genuine magnanimity of Mahmud the Gaznevide was not
imitated by Alp Arslan; and he attacked without scruple the Greek
empress Eudocia and her children. His alarming progress compelled
her to give herself and her sceptre to the hand of a soldier; and
Romanus Diogenes was invested with the Imperial purple. His
patriotism, and perhaps his pride, urged him from Constantinople
within two months after his accession; and the next campaign he
most scandalously took the field during the holy festival of
Easter. In the palace, Diogenes was no more than the husband of
Eudocia: in the camp, he was the emperor of the Romans, and he
sustained that character with feeble resources and invincible
courage. By his spirit and success the soldiers were taught to
act, the subjects to hope, and the enemies to fear. The Turks had
penetrated into the heart of Phrygia; but the sultan himself had
resigned to his emirs the prosecution of the war; and their
numerous detachments were scattered over Asia in the security of
conquest. Laden with spoil, and careless of discipline, they were
separately surprised and defeated by the Greeks: the activity of
the emperor seemed to multiply his presence: and while they heard
of his expedition to Antioch, the enemy felt his sword on the
hills of Trebizond. In three laborious campaigns, the Turks were
driven beyond the Euphrates; in the fourth and last, Romanus
undertook the deliverance of Armenia. The desolation of the land
obliged him to transport a supply of two months’ provisions; and
he marched forwards to the siege of Malazkerd, 30 an important
fortress in the midway between the modern cities of Arzeroum and
Van. His army amounted, at the least, to one hundred thousand
men. The troops of Constantinople were reenforced by the
disorderly multitudes of Phrygia and Cappadocia; but the real
strength was composed of the subjects and allies of Europe, the
legions of Macedonia, and the squadrons of Bulgaria; the Uzi, a
Moldavian horde, who were themselves of the Turkish race; 31 and,
above all, the mercenary and adventurous bands of French and
Normans. Their lances were commanded by the valiant Ursel of
Baliol, the kinsman or father of the Scottish kings, 32 and were
allowed to excel in the exercise of arms, or, according to the
Greek style, in the practice of the Pyrrhic dance.
30 (return) [ This city is mentioned by Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, (de Administrat. Imperii, l. ii. c. 44, p. 119,)
and the Byzantines of the xith century, under the name of
Mantzikierte, and by some is confounded with Theodosiopolis; but
Delisle, in his notes and maps, has very properly fixed the
situation. Abulfeda (Geograph. tab. xviii. p. 310) describes
Malasgerd as a small town, built with black stone, supplied with
water, without trees, &c.]
31 (return) [ The Uzi of the Greeks (Stritter, Memor. Byzant.
tom. iii. p. 923-948) are the Gozz of the Orientals, (Hist. des
Huns, tom. ii. p. 522, tom. iii. p. 133, &c.) They appear on the
Danube and the Volga, and Armenia, Syria, and Chorasan, and the
name seems to have been extended to the whole Turkman race.]
32 (return) [ Urselius (the Russelius of Zonaras) is
distinguished by Jeffrey Malaterra (l. i. c. 33) among the Norman
conquerors of Sicily, and with the surname of Baliol: and our own
historians will tell how the Baliols came from Normandy to
Durham, built Bernard’s castle on the Tees, married an heiress of
Scotland, &c. Ducange (Not. ad Nicephor. Bryennium, l. ii. No. 4)
has labored the subject in honor of the president de Bailleul,
whose father had exchanged the sword for the gown.]
On the report of this bold invasion, which threatened his
hereditary dominions, Alp Arslan flew to the scene of action at
the head of forty thousand horse. 33 His rapid and skilful
evolutions distressed and dismayed the superior numbers of the
Greeks; and in the defeat of Basilacius, one of their principal
generals, he displayed the first example of his valor and
clemency. The imprudence of the emperor had separated his forces
after the reduction of Malazkerd. It was in vain that he
attempted to recall the mercenary Franks: they refused to obey
his summons; he disdained to await their return: the desertion of
the Uzi filled his mind with anxiety and suspicion; and against
the most salutary advice he rushed forwards to speedy and
decisive action. Had he listened to the fair proposals of the
sultan, Romanus might have secured a retreat, perhaps a peace;
but in these overtures he supposed the fear or weakness of the
enemy, and his answer was conceived in the tone of insult and
defiance. “If the Barbarian wishes for peace, let him evacuate
the ground which he occupies for the encampment of the Romans,
and surrender his city and palace of Rei as a pledge of his
sincerity.” Alp Arslan smiled at the vanity of the demand, but he
wept the death of so many faithful Moslems; and, after a devout
prayer, proclaimed a free permission to all who were desirous of
retiring from the field. With his own hands he tied up his
horse’s tail, exchanged his bow and arrows for a mace and
cimeter, clothed himself in a white garment, perfumed his body
with musk, and declared that if he were vanquished, that spot
should be the place of his burial. 34 The sultan himself had
affected to cast away his missile weapons: but his hopes of
victory were placed in the arrows of the Turkish cavalry, whose
squadrons were loosely distributed in the form of a crescent.
Instead of the successive lines and reserves of the Grecian
tactics, Romulus led his army in a single and solid phalanx, and
pressed with vigor and impatience the artful and yielding
resistance of the Barbarians. In this desultory and fruitless
combat he spent the greater part of a summer’s day, till prudence
and fatigue compelled him to return to his camp. But a retreat is
always perilous in the face of an active foe; and no sooner had
the standard been turned to the rear than the phalanx was broken
by the base cowardice, or the baser jealousy, of Andronicus, a
rival prince, who disgraced his birth and the purple of the
Caesars. 35 The Turkish squadrons poured a cloud of arrows on
this moment of confusion and lassitude; and the horns of their
formidable crescent were closed in the rear of the Greeks. In the
destruction of the army and pillage of the camp, it would be
needless to mention the number of the slain or captives. The
Byzantine writers deplore the loss of an inestimable pearl: they
forgot to mention, that in this fatal day the Asiatic provinces
of Rome were irretrievably sacrificed.
33 (return) [ Elmacin (p. 343, 344) assigns this probable number,
which is reduced by Abulpharagius to 15,000, (p. 227,) and by
D’Herbelot (p. 102) to 12,000 horse. But the same Elmacin gives
300,000 met to the emperor, of whom Abulpharagius says, Cum
centum hominum millibus, multisque equis et magna pompa
instructus. The Greeks abstain from any definition of numbers.]
34 (return) [ The Byzantine writers do not speak so distinctly of
the presence of the sultan: he committed his forces to a eunuch,
had retired to a distance, &c. Is it ignorance, or jealousy, or
truth?]
35 (return) [ He was the son of Caesar John Ducas, brother of the
emperor Constantine, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 165.) Nicephorus
Bryennius applauds his virtues and extenuates his faults, (l. i.
p. 30, 38. l. ii. p. 53.) Yet he owns his enmity to Romanus.
Scylitzes speaks more explicitly of his treason.]
As long as a hope survived, Romanus attempted to rally and save
the relics of his army. When the centre, the Imperial station,
was left naked on all sides, and encompassed by the victorious
Turks, he still, with desperate courage, maintained the fight
till the close of day, at the head of the brave and faithful
subjects who adhered to his standard. They fell around him; his
horse was slain; the emperor was wounded; yet he stood alone and
intrepid, till he was oppressed and bound by the strength of
multitudes. The glory of this illustrious prize was disputed by a
slave and a soldier; a slave who had seen him on the throne of
Constantinople, and a soldier whose extreme deformity had been
excused on the promise of some signal service.
Despoiled of his arms, his jewels, and his purple, Romanus spent
a dreary and perilous night on the field of battle, amidst a
disorderly crowd of the meaner Barbarians. In the morning the
royal captive was presented to Alp Arslan, who doubted of his
fortune, till the identity of the person was ascertained by the
report of his ambassadors, and by the more pathetic evidence of
Basilacius, who embraced with tears the feet of his unhappy
sovereign. The successor of Constantine, in a plebeian habit, was
led into the Turkish divan, and commanded to kiss the ground
before the lord of Asia. He reluctantly obeyed; and Alp Arslan,
starting from his throne, is said to have planted his foot on the
neck of the Roman emperor. 36 But the fact is doubtful; and if,
in this moment of insolence, the sultan complied with the
national custom, the rest of his conduct has extorted the praise
of his bigoted foes, and may afford a lesson to the most
civilized ages. He instantly raised the royal captive from the
ground; and thrice clasping his hand with tender sympathy,
assured him, that his life and dignity should be inviolate in the
hands of a prince who had learned to respect the majesty of his
equals and the vicissitudes of fortune. From the divan, Romanus
was conducted to an adjacent tent, where he was served with pomp
and reverence by the officers of the sultan, who, twice each day,
seated him in the place of honor at his own table. In a free and
familiar conversation of eight days, not a word, not a look, of
insult escaped from the conqueror; but he severely censured the
unworthy subjects who had deserted their valiant prince in the
hour of danger, and gently admonished his antagonist of some
errors which he had committed in the management of the war. In
the preliminaries of negotiation, Alp Arslan asked him what
treatment he expected to receive, and the calm indifference of
the emperor displays the freedom of his mind. “If you are cruel,”
said he, “you will take my life; if you listen to pride, you will
drag me at your chariot-wheels; if you consult your interest, you
will accept a ransom, and restore me to my country.” “And what,”
continued the sultan, “would have been your own behavior, had
fortune smiled on your arms?” The reply of the Greek betrays a
sentiment, which prudence, and even gratitude, should have taught
him to suppress. “Had I vanquished,” he fiercely said, “I would
have inflicted on thy body many a stripe.” The Turkish conqueror
smiled at the insolence of his captive; observed that the
Christian law inculcated the love of enemies and forgiveness of
injuries; and nobly declared, that he would not imitate an
example which he condemned. After mature deliberation, Alp Arslan
dictated the terms of liberty and peace, a ransom of a million,
361 an annual tribute of three hundred and sixty thousand pieces
of gold, 37 the marriage of the royal children, and the
deliverance of all the Moslems, who were in the power of the
Greeks. Romanus, with a sigh, subscribed this treaty, so
disgraceful to the majesty of the empire; he was immediately
invested with a Turkish robe of honor; his nobles and patricians
were restored to their sovereign; and the sultan, after a
courteous embrace, dismissed him with rich presents and a
military guard. No sooner did he reach the confines of the
empire, than he was informed that the palace and provinces had
disclaimed their allegiance to a captive: a sum of two hundred
thousand pieces was painfully collected; and the fallen monarch
transmitted this part of his ransom, with a sad confession of his
impotence and disgrace. The generosity, or perhaps the ambition,
of the sultan, prepared to espouse the cause of his ally; but his
designs were prevented by the defeat, imprisonment, and death, of
Romanus Diogenes. 38
36 (return) [ This circumstance, which we read and doubt in
Scylitzes and Constantine Manasses, is more prudently omitted by
Nicephorus and Zonaras.]
361 (return) [ Elmacin gives 1,500,000. Wilken, Geschichte der
Kreuz-zuge, vol. l. p. 10.—M.]
37 (return) [ The ransom and tribute are attested by reason and
the Orientals. The other Greeks are modestly silent; but
Nicephorus Bryennius dares to affirm, that the terms were bad and
that the emperor would have preferred death to a shameful
treaty.]
38 (return) [ The defeat and captivity of Romanus Diogenes may be
found in John Scylitzes ad calcem Cedreni, tom. ii. p. 835-843.
Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 281-284. Nicephorus Bryennius, l. i. p.
25-32. Glycas, p. 325-327. Constantine Manasses, p. 134. Elmacin,
Hist. Saracen. p. 343 344. Abulpharag. Dynast. p. 227.
D’Herbelot, p. 102, 103. D Guignes, tom. iii. p. 207-211. Besides
my old acquaintance Elmacin and Abulpharagius, the historian of
the Huns has consulted Abulfeda, and his epitomizer Benschounah,
a Chronicle of the Caliphs, by Abulmahasen of Egypt, and Novairi
of Africa.]
In the treaty of peace, it does not appear that Alp Arslan
extorted any province or city from the captive emperor; and his
revenge was satisfied with the trophies of his victory, and the
spoils of Anatolia, from Antioch to the Black Sea. The fairest
part of Asia was subject to his laws: twelve hundred princes, or
the sons of princes, stood before his throne; and two hundred
thousand soldiers marched under his banners. The sultan disdained
to pursue the fugitive Greeks; but he meditated the more glorious
conquest of Turkestan, the original seat of the house of Seljuk.
He moved from Bagdad to the banks of the Oxus; a bridge was
thrown over the river; and twenty days were consumed in the
passage of his troops. But the progress of the great king was
retarded by the governor of Berzem; and Joseph the Carizmian
presumed to defend his fortress against the powers of the East.
When he was produced a captive in the royal tent, the sultan,
instead of praising his valor, severely reproached his obstinate
folly: and the insolent replies of the rebel provoked a sentence,
that he should be fastened to four stakes, and left to expire in
that painful situation. At this command, the desperate Carizmian,
drawing a dagger, rushed headlong towards the throne: the guards
raised their battle-axes; their zeal was checked by Alp Arslan,
the most skilful archer of the age: he drew his bow, but his foot
slipped, the arrow glanced aside, and he received in his breast
the dagger of Joseph, who was instantly cut in pieces.
The wound was mortal; and the Turkish prince bequeathed a dying
admonition to the pride of kings. “In my youth,” said Alp Arslan,
“I was advised by a sage to humble myself before God; to distrust
my own strength; and never to despise the most contemptible foe.
I have neglected these lessons; and my neglect has been
deservedly punished. Yesterday, as from an eminence I beheld the
numbers, the discipline, and the spirit, of my armies, the earth
seemed to tremble under my feet; and I said in my heart, Surely
thou art the king of the world, the greatest and most invincible
of warriors. These armies are no longer mine; and, in the
confidence of my personal strength, I now fall by the hand of an
assassin.” 39 Alp Arslan possessed the virtues of a Turk and a
Mussulman; his voice and stature commanded the reverence of
mankind; his face was shaded with long whiskers; and his ample
turban was fashioned in the shape of a crown. The remains of the
sultan were deposited in the tomb of the Seljukian dynasty; and
the passenger might read and meditate this useful inscription: 40
“O ye who have seen the glory of Alp Arslan exalted to the
heavens, repair to Maru, and you will behold it buried in the
dust.” The annihilation of the inscription, and the tomb itself,
more forcibly proclaims the instability of human greatness.
39 (return) [ This interesting death is told by D’Herbelot, (p.
103, 104,) and M. De Guignes, (tom. iii. p. 212, 213.) from their
Oriental writers; but neither of them have transfused the spirit
of Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen p. 344, 345.)]
40 (return) [ A critic of high renown, (the late Dr. Johnson,)
who has severely scrutinized the epitaphs of Pope, might cavil in
this sublime inscription at the words “repair to Maru,” since the
reader must already be at Maru before he could peruse the
inscription.]
During the life of Alp Arslan, his eldest son had been
acknowledged as the future sultan of the Turks. On his father’s
death the inheritance was disputed by an uncle, a cousin, and a
brother: they drew their cimeters, and assembled their followers;
and the triple victory of Malek Shah 41 established his own
reputation and the right of primogeniture. In every age, and more
especially in Asia, the thirst of power has inspired the same
passions, and occasioned the same disorders; but, from the long
series of civil war, it would not be easy to extract a sentiment
more pure and magnanimous than is contained in the saying of the
Turkish prince. On the eve of the battle, he performed his
devotions at Thous, before the tomb of the Imam Riza. As the
sultan rose from the ground, he asked his vizier Nizam, who had
knelt beside him, what had been the object of his secret
petition: “That your arms may be crowned with victory,” was the
prudent, and most probably the sincere, answer of the minister.
“For my part,” replied the generous Malek, “I implored the Lord
of Hosts that he would take from me my life and crown, if my
brother be more worthy than myself to reign over the Moslems.”
The favorable judgment of heaven was ratified by the caliph; and
for the first time, the sacred title of Commander of the Faithful
was communicated to a Barbarian. But this Barbarian, by his
personal merit, and the extent of his empire, was the greatest
prince of his age. After the settlement of Persia and Syria, he
marched at the head of innumerable armies to achieve the conquest
of Turkestan, which had been undertaken by his father. In his
passage of the Oxus, the boatmen, who had been employed in
transporting some troops, complained, that their payment was
assigned on the revenues of Antioch. The sultan frowned at this
preposterous choice; but he miled at the artful flattery of his
vizier. “It was not to postpone their reward, that I selected
those remote places, but to leave a memorial to posterity, that,
under your reign, Antioch and the Oxus were subject to the same
sovereign.” But this description of his limits was unjust and
parsimonious: beyond the Oxus, he reduced to his obedience the
cities of Bochara, Carizme, and Samarcand, and crushed each
rebellious slave, or independent savage, who dared to resist.
Malek passed the Sihon or Jaxartes, the last boundary of Persian
civilization: the hordes of Turkestan yielded to his supremacy:
his name was inserted on the coins, and in the prayers of
Cashgar, a Tartar kingdom on the extreme borders of China. From
the Chinese frontier, he stretched his immediate jurisdiction or
feudatory sway to the west and south, as far as the mountains of
Georgia, the neighborhood of Constantinople, the holy city of
Jerusalem, and the spicy groves of Arabia Felix. Instead of
resigning himself to the luxury of his harem, the shepherd king,
both in peace and war, was in action and in the field. By the
perpetual motion of the royal camp, each province was
successively blessed with his presence; and he is said to have
perambulated twelve times the wide extent of his dominions, which
surpassed the Asiatic reign of Cyrus and the caliphs. Of these
expeditions, the most pious and splendid was the pilgrimage of
Mecca: the freedom and safety of the caravans were protected by
his arms; the citizens and pilgrims were enriched by the
profusion of his alms; and the desert was cheered by the places
of relief and refreshment, which he instituted for the use of his
brethren. Hunting was the pleasure, and even the passion, of the
sultan, and his train consisted of forty-seven thousand horses;
but after the massacre of a Turkish chase, for each piece of
game, he bestowed a piece of gold on the poor, a slight
atonement, at the expense of the people, for the cost and
mischief of the amusement of kings. In the peaceful prosperity of
his reign, the cities of Asia were adorned with palaces and
hospitals with moschs and colleges; few departed from his Divan
without reward, and none without justice. The language and
literature of Persia revived under the house of Seljuk; 42 and if
Malek emulated the liberality of a Turk less potent than himself,
43 his palace might resound with the songs of a hundred poets.
The sultan bestowed a more serious and learned care on the
reformation of the calendar, which was effected by a general
assembly of the astronomers of the East. By a law of the prophet,
the Moslems are confined to the irregular course of the lunar
months; in Persia, since the age of Zoroaster, the revolution of
the sun has been known and celebrated as an annual festival; 44
but after the fall of the Magian empire, the intercalation had
been neglected; the fractions of minutes and hours were
multiplied into days; and the date of the springs was removed
from the sign of Aries to that of Pisces. The reign of Malek was
illustrated by the Gelalaean aera; and all errors, either past or
future, were corrected by a computation of time, which surpasses
the Julian, and approaches the accuracy of the Gregorian, style.
45
41 (return) [ The Bibliotheque Orientale has given the text of
the reign of Malek, (p. 542, 543, 544, 654, 655;) and the
Histoire Generale des Huns (tom. iii. p. 214-224) has added the
usual measure of repetition emendation, and supplement. Without
those two learned Frenchmen I should be blind indeed in the
Eastern world.]
42 (return) [ See an excellent discourse at the end of Sir
William Jones’s History of Nadir Shah, and the articles of the
poets, Amak, Anvari, Raschidi, &c., in the Bibliotheque
Orientale. ]
43 (return) [ His name was Kheder Khan. Four bags were placed
round his sopha, and as he listened to the song, he cast handfuls
of gold and silver to the poets, (D’Herbelot, p. 107.) All this
may be true; but I do not understand how he could reign in
Transoxiana in the time of Malek Shah, and much less how Kheder
could surpass him in power and pomp. I suspect that the
beginning, not the end, of the xith century is the true aera of
his reign.]
44 (return) [ See Chardin, Voyages en Perse, tom. ii. p. 235.]
45 (return) [ The Gelalaean aera (Gelaleddin, Glory of the Faith,
was one of the names or titles of Malek Shah) is fixed to the
xvth of March, A. H. 471, A.D. 1079. Dr. Hyde has produced the
original testimonies of the Persians and Arabians, (de Religione
veterum Persarum, c. 16 p. 200-211.)]
In a period when Europe was plunged in the deepest barbarism, the
light and splendor of Asia may be ascribed to the docility rather
than the knowledge of the Turkish conquerors. An ample share of
their wisdom and virtue is due to a Persian vizier, who ruled the
empire under the reigns of Alp Arslan and his son. Nizam, one of
the most illustrious ministers of the East, was honored by the
caliph as an oracle of religion and science; he was trusted by
the sultan as the faithful vicegerent of his power and justice.
After an administration of thirty years, the fame of the vizier,
his wealth, and even his services, were transformed into crimes.
He was overthrown by the insidious arts of a woman and a rival;
and his fall was hastened by a rash declaration, that his cap and
ink-horn, the badges of his office, were connected by the divine
decree with the throne and diadem of the sultan. At the age of
ninety-three years, the venerable statesman was dismissed by his
master, accused by his enemies, and murdered by a fanatic: 451
the last words of Nizam attested his innocence, and the remainder
of Malek’s life was short and inglorious. From Ispahan, the scene
of this disgraceful transaction, the sultan moved to Bagdad, with
the design of transplanting the caliph, and of fixing his own
residence in the capital of the Moslem world. The feeble
successor of Mahomet obtained a respite of ten days; and before
the expiration of the term, the Barbarian was summoned by the
angel of death. His ambassadors at Constantinople had asked in
marriage a Roman princess; but the proposal was decently eluded;
and the daughter of Alexius, who might herself have been the
victim, expresses her abhorrence of his unnatural conjunction. 46
The daughter of the sultan was bestowed on the caliph Moctadi,
with the imperious condition, that, renouncing the society of his
wives and concubines, he should forever confine himself to this
honorable alliance.
451 (return) [ He was the first great victim of his enemy, Hassan
Sabek, founder of the Assassins. Von Hammer, Geschichte der
Assassinen, p. 95.—M.]
46 (return) [ She speaks of this Persian royalty. Anna Comnena
was only nine years old at the end of the reign of Malek Shah,
(A.D. 1092,) and when she speaks of his assassination, she
confounds the sultan with the vizier, (Alexias, l. vi. p. 177,
178.)]
Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part III.
The greatness and unity of the Turkish empire expired in the
person of Malek Shah. His vacant throne was disputed by his
brother and his four sons; 461 and, after a series of civil wars,
the treaty which reconciled the surviving candidates confirmed a
lasting separation in the Persian dynasty, the eldest and
principal branch of the house of Seljuk. The three younger
dynasties were those of Kerman, of Syria, and of Roum: the first
of these commanded an extensive, though obscure, 47 dominion on
the shores of the Indian Ocean: 48 the second expelled the
Arabian princes of Aleppo and Damascus; and the third, our
peculiar care, invaded the Roman provinces of Asia Minor. The
generous policy of Malek contributed to their elevation: he
allowed the princes of his blood, even those whom he had
vanquished in the field, to seek new kingdoms worthy of their
ambition; nor was he displeased that they should draw away the
more ardent spirits, who might have disturbed the tranquillity of
his reign. As the supreme head of his family and nation, the
great sultan of Persia commanded the obedience and tribute of his
royal brethren: the thrones of Kerman and Nice, of Aleppo and
Damascus; the Atabeks, and emirs of Syria and Mesopotamia,
erected their standards under the shadow of his sceptre: 49 and
the hordes of Turkmans overspread the plains of the Western Asia.
After the death of Malek, the bands of union and subordination
were relaxed and finally dissolved: the indulgence of the house
of Seljuk invested their slaves with the inheritance of kingdoms;
and, in the Oriental style, a crowd of princes arose from the
dust of their feet. 50
461 (return) [ See Von Hammer, Osmanische Geschichte, vol. i. p.
16. The Seljukian dominions were for a time reunited in the
person of Sandjar, one of the sons of Malek Shah, who ruled “from
Kashgar to Antioch, from the Caspian to the Straits of
Babelmandel.”—M.]
47 (return) [ So obscure, that the industry of M. De Guignes
could only copy (tom. i. p. 244, tom. iii. part i. p. 269, &c.)
the history, or rather list, of the Seljukides of Kerman, in
Bibliotheque Orientale. They were extinguished before the end of
the xiith century.]
48 (return) [ Tavernier, perhaps the only traveller who has
visited Kerman, describes the capital as a great ruinous village,
twenty-five days’ journey from Ispahan, and twenty-seven from
Ormus, in the midst of a fertile country, (Voyages en Turquie et
en Perse, p. 107, 110.)]
49 (return) [ It appears from Anna Comnena, that the Turks of
Asia Minor obeyed the signet and chiauss of the great sultan,
(Alexias, l. vi. p. 170;) and that the two sons of Soliman were
detained in his court, (p. 180.)]
50 (return) [ This expression is quoted by Petit de la Croix (Vie
de Gestis p. 160) from some poet, most probably a Persian.]
A prince of the royal line, Cutulmish, 501 the son of Izrail, the
son of Seljuk, had fallen in a battle against Alp Arslan and the
humane victor had dropped a tear over his grave. His five sons,
strong in arms, ambitious of power, and eager for revenge,
unsheathed their cimeters against the son of Alp Arslan. The two
armies expected the signal when the caliph, forgetful of the
majesty which secluded him from vulgar eyes, interposed his
venerable mediation. “Instead of shedding the blood of your
brethren, your brethren both in descent and faith, unite your
forces in a holy war against the Greeks, the enemies of God and
his apostle.” They listened to his voice; the sultan embraced his
rebellious kinsmen; and the eldest, the valiant Soliman, accepted
the royal standard, which gave him the free conquest and
hereditary command of the provinces of the Roman empire, from
Arzeroum to Constantinople, and the unknown regions of the West.
51 Accompanied by his four brothers, he passed the Euphrates; the
Turkish camp was soon seated in the neighborhood of Kutaieh in
Phrygia; and his flying cavalry laid waste the country as far as
the Hellespont and the Black Sea. Since the decline of the
empire, the peninsula of Asia Minor had been exposed to the
transient, though destructive, inroads of the Persians and
Saracens; but the fruits of a lasting conquest were reserved for
the Turkish sultan; and his arms were introduced by the Greeks,
who aspired to reign on the ruins of their country. Since the
captivity of Romanus, six years the feeble son of Eudocia had
trembled under the weight of the Imperial crown, till the
provinces of the East and West were lost in the same month by a
double rebellion: of either chief Nicephorus was the common name;
but the surnames of Bryennius and Botoniates distinguish the
European and Asiatic candidates. Their reasons, or rather their
promises, were weighed in the Divan; and, after some hesitation,
Soliman declared himself in favor of Botoniates, opened a free
passage to his troops in their march from Antioch to Nice, and
joined the banner of the Crescent to that of the Cross. After his
ally had ascended the throne of Constantinople, the sultan was
hospitably entertained in the suburb of Chrysopolis or Scutari;
and a body of two thousand Turks was transported into Europe, to
whose dexterity and courage the new emperor was indebted for the
defeat and captivity of his rival, Bryennius. But the conquest of
Europe was dearly purchased by the sacrifice of Asia:
Constantinople was deprived of the obedience and revenue of the
provinces beyond the Bosphorus and Hellespont; and the regular
progress of the Turks, who fortified the passes of the rivers and
mountains, left not a hope of their retreat or expulsion. Another
candidate implored the aid of the sultan: Melissenus, in his
purple robes and red buskins, attended the motions of the Turkish
camp; and the desponding cities were tempted by the summons of a
Roman prince, who immediately surrendered them into the hands of
the Barbarians. These acquisitions were confirmed by a treaty of
peace with the emperor Alexius: his fear of Robert compelled him
to seek the friendship of Soliman; and it was not till after the
sultan’s death that he extended as far as Nicomedia, about sixty
miles from Constantinople, the eastern boundary of the Roman
world. Trebizond alone, defended on either side by the sea and
mountains, preserved at the extremity of the Euxine the ancient
character of a Greek colony, and the future destiny of a
Christian empire.
501 (return) [ Wilken considers Cutulmish not a Turkish name.
Geschicht Kreuz-zuge, vol. i. p. 9.—M.]
51 (return) [ On the conquest of Asia Minor, M. De Guignes has
derived no assistance from the Turkish or Arabian writers, who
produce a naked list of the Seljukides of Roum. The Greeks are
unwilling to expose their shame, and we must extort some hints
from Scylitzes, (p. 860, 863,) Nicephorus Bryennius, (p. 88, 91,
92, &c., 103, 104,) and Anna Comnena (Alexias, p. 91, 92, &c.,
163, &c.)]
Since the first conquests of the caliphs, the establishment of
the Turks in Anatolia or Asia Minor was the most deplorable loss
which the church and empire had sustained. By the propagation of
the Moslem faith, Soliman deserved the name of Gazi, a holy
champion; and his new kingdoms, of the Romans, or of Roum, was
added to the tables of Oriental geography. It is described as
extending from the Euphrates to Constantinople, from the Black
Sea to the confines of Syria; pregnant with mines of silver and
iron, of alum and copper, fruitful in corn and wine, and
productive of cattle and excellent horses. 52 The wealth of
Lydia, the arts of the Greeks, the splendor of the Augustan age,
existed only in books and ruins, which were equally obscure in
the eyes of the Scythian conquerors. Yet, in the present decay,
Anatolia still contains some wealthy and populous cities; and,
under the Byzantine empire, they were far more flourishing in
numbers, size, and opulence. By the choice of the sultan, Nice,
the metropolis of Bithynia, was preferred for his palace and
fortress: the seat of the Seljukian dynasty of Roum was planted
one hundred miles from Constantinople; and the divinity of Christ
was denied and derided in the same temple in which it had been
pronounced by the first general synod of the Catholics. The unity
of God, and the mission of Mahomet, were preached in the moschs;
the Arabian learning was taught in the schools; the Cadhis judged
according to the law of the Koran; the Turkish manners and
language prevailed in the cities; and Turkman camps were
scattered over the plains and mountains of Anatolia. On the hard
conditions of tribute and servitude, the Greek Christians might
enjoy the exercise of their religion; but their most holy
churches were profaned; their priests and bishops were insulted;
53 they were compelled to suffer the triumph of the Pagans, and
the apostasy of their brethren; many thousand children were
marked by the knife of circumcision; and many thousand captives
were devoted to the service or the pleasures of their masters. 54
After the loss of Asia, Antioch still maintained her primitive
allegiance to Christ and Caesar; but the solitary province was
separated from all Roman aid, and surrounded on all sides by the
Mahometan powers. The despair of Philaretus the governor prepared
the sacrifice of his religion and loyalty, had not his guilt been
prevented by his son, who hastened to the Nicene palace, and
offered to deliver this valuable prize into the hands of Soliman.
The ambitious sultan mounted on horseback, and in twelve nights
(for he reposed in the day) performed a march of six hundred
miles. Antioch was oppressed by the speed and secrecy of his
enterprise; and the dependent cities, as far as Laodicea and the
confines of Aleppo, 55 obeyed the example of the metropolis. From
Laodicea to the Thracian Bosphorus, or arm of St. George, the
conquests and reign of Soliman extended thirty days’ journey in
length, and in breadth about ten or fifteen, between the rocks of
Lycia and the Black Sea. 56 The Turkish ignorance of navigation
protected, for a while, the inglorious safety of the emperor; but
no sooner had a fleet of two hundred ships been constructed by
the hands of the captive Greeks, than Alexius trembled behind the
walls of his capital. His plaintive epistles were dispersed over
Europe, to excite the compassion of the Latins, and to paint the
danger, the weakness, and the riches of the city of Constantine.
57
52 (return) [ Such is the description of Roum by Haiton the
Armenian, whose Tartar history may be found in the collections of
Ramusio and Bergeron, (see Abulfeda, Geograph. climat. xvii. p.
301-305.)]
53 (return) [ Dicit eos quendam abusione Sodomitica intervertisse
episcopum, (Guibert. Abbat. Hist. Hierosol. l. i. p. 468.) It is
odd enough, that we should find a parallel passage of the same
people in the present age. “Il n’est point d’horreur que ces
Turcs n’ayent commis, et semblables aux soldats effrenes, qui
dans le sac d’une ville, non contens de disposer de tout a leur
gre pretendent encore aux succes les moins desirables. Quelque
Sipahis ont porte leurs attentats sur la personne du vieux rabbi
de la synagogue, et celle de l’Archeveque Grec.” (Memoires du
Baron de Tott, tom. ii. p. 193.)]
54 (return) [ The emperor, or abbot describe the scenes of a
Turkish camp as if they had been present. Matres correptae in
conspectu filiarum multipliciter repetitis diversorum coitibus
vexabantur; (is that the true reading?) cum filiae assistentes
carmina praecinere saltando cogerentur. Mox eadem passio ad
filias, &c.]
55 (return) [ See Antioch, and the death of Soliman, in Anna
Comnena, (Alexius, l. vi. p. 168, 169,) with the notes of
Ducange.]
56 (return) [ William of Tyre (l. i. c. 9, 10, p. 635) gives the
most authentic and deplorable account of these Turkish
conquests.]
57 (return) [ In his epistle to the count of Flanders, Alexius
seems to fall too low beneath his character and dignity; yet it
is approved by Ducange, (Not. ad Alexiad. p. 335, &c.,) and
paraphrased by the Abbot Guibert, a contemporary historian. The
Greek text no longer exists; and each translator and scribe might
say with Guibert, (p. 475,) verbis vestita meis, a privilege of
most indefinite latitude.]
But the most interesting conquest of the Seljukian Turks was that
of Jerusalem, 58 which soon became the theatre of nations. In
their capitulation with Omar, the inhabitants had stipulated the
assurance of their religion and property; but the articles were
interpreted by a master against whom it was dangerous to dispute;
and in the four hundred years of the reign of the caliphs, the
political climate of Jerusalem was exposed to the vicissitudes of
storm and sunshine. 59 By the increase of proselytes and
population, the Mahometans might excuse the usurpation of three
fourths of the city: but a peculiar quarter was resolved for the
patriarch with his clergy and people; a tribute of two pieces of
gold was the price of protection; and the sepulchre of Christ,
with the church of the Resurrection, was still left in the hands
of his votaries. Of these votaries, the most numerous and
respectable portion were strangers to Jerusalem: the pilgrimages
to the Holy Land had been stimulated, rather than suppressed, by
the conquest of the Arabs; and the enthusiasm which had always
prompted these perilous journeys, was nourished by the congenial
passions of grief and indignation. A crowd of pilgrims from the
East and West continued to visit the holy sepulchre, and the
adjacent sanctuaries, more especially at the festival of Easter;
and the Greeks and Latins, the Nestorians and Jacobites, the
Copts and Abyssinians, the Armenians and Georgians, maintained
the chapels, the clergy, and the poor of their respective
communions. The harmony of prayer in so many various tongues, the
worship of so many nations in the common temple of their
religion, might have afforded a spectacle of edification and
peace; but the zeal of the Christian sects was imbittered by
hatred and revenge; and in the kingdom of a suffering Messiah,
who had pardoned his enemies, they aspired to command and
persecute their spiritual brethren. The preeminence was asserted
by the spirit and numbers of the Franks; and the greatness of
Charlemagne 60 protected both the Latin pilgrims and the
Catholics of the East. The poverty of Carthage, Alexandria, and
Jerusalem, was relieved by the alms of that pious emperor; and
many monasteries of Palestine were founded or restored by his
liberal devotion. Harun Alrashid, the greatest of the Abbassides,
esteemed in his Christian brother a similar supremacy of genius
and power: their friendship was cemented by a frequent
intercourse of gifts and embassies; and the caliph, without
resigning the substantial dominion, presented the emperor with
the keys of the holy sepulchre, and perhaps of the city of
Jerusalem. In the decline of the Carlovingian monarchy, the
republic of Amalphi promoted the interest of trade and religion
in the East. Her vessels transported the Latin pilgrims to the
coasts of Egypt and Palestine, and deserved, by their useful
imports, the favor and alliance of the Fatimite caliphs: 61 an
annual fair was instituted on Mount Calvary: and the Italian
merchants founded the convent and hospital of St. John of
Jerusalem, the cradle of the monastic and military order, which
has since reigned in the isles of Rhodes and of Malta. Had the
Christian pilgrims been content to revere the tomb of a prophet,
the disciples of Mahomet, instead of blaming, would have
imitated, their piety: but these rigid Unitarians were
scandalized by a worship which represents the birth, death, and
resurrection, of a God; the Catholic images were branded with the
name of idols; and the Moslems smiled with indignation 62 at the
miraculous flame which was kindled on the eve of Easter in the
holy sepulchre. 63 This pious fraud, first devised in the ninth
century, 64 was devoutly cherished by the Latin crusaders, and is
annually repeated by the clergy of the Greek, Armenian, and
Coptic sects, 65 who impose on the credulous spectators 66 for
their own benefit, and that of their tyrants. In every age, a
principle of toleration has been fortified by a sense of
interest: and the revenue of the prince and his emir was
increased each year, by the expense and tribute of so many
thousand strangers.
58 (return) [ Our best fund for the history of Jerusalem from
Heraclius to the crusades is contained in two large and original
passages of William archbishop of Tyre, (l. i. c. 1-10, l. xviii.
c. 5, 6,) the principal author of the Gesta Dei per Francos. M.
De Guignes has composed a very learned Memoire sur le Commerce
des Francois dans le de Levant avant les Croisades, &c. (Mem. de
l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxxvii. p. 467-500.)]
59 (return) [ Secundum Dominorum dispositionem plerumque lucida
plerum que nubila recepit intervalla, et aegrotantium more
temporum praesentium gravabatur aut respirabat qualitate, (l. i.
c. 3, p. 630.) The latinity of William of Tyre is by no means
contemptible: but in his account of 490 years, from the loss to
the recovery of Jerusalem, precedes the true account by 30
years.]
60 (return) [ For the transactions of Charlemagne with the Holy
Land, see Eginhard, (de Vita Caroli Magni, c. 16, p. 79-82,)
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, (de Administratione Imperii, l. ii.
c. 26, p. 80,) and Pagi, (Critica, tom. iii. A.D. 800, No. 13,
14, 15.)]
61 (return) [ The caliph granted his privileges, Amalphitanis
viris amicis et utilium introductoribus, (Gesta Dei, p. 934.) The
trade of Venice to Egypt and Palestine cannot produce so old a
title, unless we adopt the laughable translation of a Frenchman,
who mistook the two factions of the circus (Veneti et Prasini)
for the Venetians and Parisians.]
62 (return) [ An Arabic chronicle of Jerusalem (apud Asseman.
Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 268, tom. iv. p. 368) attests the
unbelief of the caliph and the historian; yet Cantacuzene
presumes to appeal to the Mahometans themselves for the truth of
this perpetual miracle.]
63 (return) [ In his Dissertations on Ecclesiastical History, the
learned Mosheim has separately discussed this pretended miracle,
(tom. ii. p. 214-306,) de lumine sancti sepulchri.]
64 (return) [ William of Malmsbury (l. iv. c. 2, p. 209) quotes
the Itinerary of the monk Bernard, an eye-witness, who visited
Jerusalem A.D. 870. The miracle is confirmed by another pilgrim
some years older; and Mosheim ascribes the invention to the
Franks, soon after the decease of Charlemagne.]
65 (return) [ Our travellers, Sandys, (p. 134,) Thevenot, (p.
621-627,) Maundrell, (p. 94, 95,) &c., describes this extravagant
farce. The Catholics are puzzled to decide when the miracle ended
and the trick began.]
66 (return) [ The Orientals themselves confess the fraud, and
plead necessity and edification, (Memoires du Chevalier
D’Arvieux, tom. ii. p. 140. Joseph Abudacni, Hist. Copt. c. 20;)
but I will not attempt, with Mosheim, to explain the mode. Our
travellers have failed with the blood of St. Januarius at
Naples.]
The revolution which transferred the sceptre from the Abbassides
to the Fatimites was a benefit, rather than an injury, to the
Holy Land. A sovereign resident in Egypt was more sensible of the
importance of Christian trade; and the emirs of Palestine were
less remote from the justice and power of the throne. But the
third of these Fatimite caliphs was the famous Hakem, 67 a
frantic youth, who was delivered by his impiety and despotism
from the fear either of God or man; and whose reign was a wild
mixture of vice and folly. Regardless of the most ancient customs
of Egypt, he imposed on the women an absolute confinement; the
restraint excited the clamors of both sexes; their clamors
provoked his fury; a part of Old Cairo was delivered to the
flames and the guards and citizens were engaged many days in a
bloody conflict. At first the caliph declared himself a zealous
Mussulman, the founder or benefactor of moschs and colleges:
twelve hundred and ninety copies of the Koran were transcribed at
his expense in letters of gold; and his edict extirpated the
vineyards of the Upper Egypt. But his vanity was soon flattered
by the hope of introducing a new religion; he aspired above the
fame of a prophet, and styled himself the visible image of the
Most High God, who, after nine apparitions on earth, was at
length manifest in his royal person. At the name of Hakem, the
lord of the living and the dead, every knee was bent in religious
adoration: his mysteries were performed on a mountain near Cairo:
sixteen thousand converts had signed his profession of faith; and
at the present hour, a free and warlike people, the Druses of
Mount Libanus, are persuaded of the life and divinity of a madman
and tyrant. 68 In his divine character, Hakem hated the Jews and
Christians, as the servants of his rivals; while some remains of
prejudice or prudence still pleaded in favor of the law of
Mahomet. Both in Egypt and Palestine, his cruel and wanton
persecution made some martyrs and many apostles: the common
rights and special privileges of the sectaries were equally
disregarded; and a general interdict was laid on the devotion of
strangers and natives. The temple of the Christian world, the
church of the Resurrection, was demolished to its foundations;
the luminous prodigy of Easter was interrupted, and much profane
labor was exhausted to destroy the cave in the rock which
properly constitutes the holy sepulchre. At the report of this
sacrilege, the nations of Europe were astonished and afflicted:
but instead of arming in the defence of the Holy Land, they
contented themselves with burning, or banishing, the Jews, as the
secret advisers of the impious Barbarian. 69 Yet the calamities
of Jerusalem were in some measure alleviated by the inconstancy
or repentance of Hakem himself; and the royal mandate was sealed
for the restitution of the churches, when the tyrant was
assassinated by the emissaries of his sister. The succeeding
caliphs resumed the maxims of religion and policy: a free
toleration was again granted; with the pious aid of the emperor
of Constantinople, the holy sepulchre arose from its ruins; and,
after a short abstinence, the pilgrims returned with an increase
of appetite to the spiritual feast. 70 In the sea-voyage of
Palestine, the dangers were frequent, and the opportunities rare:
but the conversion of Hungary opened a safe communication between
Germany and Greece. The charity of St. Stephen, the apostle of
his kingdom, relieved and conducted his itinerant brethren; 71
and from Belgrade to Antioch, they traversed fifteen hundred
miles of a Christian empire. Among the Franks, the zeal of
pilgrimage prevailed beyond the example of former times: and the
roads were covered with multitudes of either sex, and of every
rank, who professed their contempt of life, so soon as they
should have kissed the tomb of their Redeemer. Princes and
prelates abandoned the care of their dominions; and the numbers
of these pious caravans were a prelude to the armies which
marched in the ensuing age under the banner of the cross. About
thirty years before the first crusade, the arch bishop of Mentz,
with the bishops of Utrecht, Bamberg, and Ratisbon, undertook
this laborious journey from the Rhine to the Jordan; and the
multitude of their followers amounted to seven thousand persons.
At Constantinople, they were hospitably entertained by the
emperor; but the ostentation of their wealth provoked the assault
of the wild Arabs: they drew their swords with scrupulous
reluctance, and sustained siege in the village of Capernaum, till
they were rescued by the venal protection of the Fatimite emir.
After visiting the holy places, they embarked for Italy, but only
a remnant of two thousand arrived in safety in their native land.
Ingulphus, a secretary of William the Conqueror, was a companion
of this pilgrimage: he observes that they sailed from Normandy,
thirty stout and well-appointed horsemen; but that they repassed
the Alps, twenty miserable palmers, with the staff in their hand,
and the wallet at their back. 72
67 (return) [ See D’Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 411,)
Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 390, 397, 400, 401,)
Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 321-323,) and Marei, (p. 384-386,) an
historian of Egypt, translated by Reiske from Arabic into German,
and verbally interpreted to me by a friend.]
68 (return) [ The religion of the Druses is concealed by their
ignorance and hypocrisy. Their secret doctrines are confined to
the elect who profess a contemplative life; and the vulgar
Druses, the most indifferent of men, occasionally conform to the
worship of the Mahometans and Christians of their neighborhood.
The little that is, or deserves to be, known, may be seen in the
industrious Niebuhr, (Voyages, tom. ii. p. 354-357,) and the
second volume of the recent and instructive Travels of M. de
Volney. * Note: The religion of the Druses has, within the
present year, been fully developed from their own writings, which
have long lain neglected in the libraries of Paris and Oxford, in
the “Expose de la Religion des Druses, by M. Silvestre de Sacy.”
Deux tomes, Paris, 1838. The learned author has prefixed a life
of Hakem Biamr-Allah, which enables us to correct several errors
in the account of Gibbon. These errors chiefly arose from his
want of knowledge or of attention to the chronology of Hakem’s
life. Hakem succeeded to the throne of Egypt in the year of the
Hegira 386. He did not assume his divinity till 408. His life was
indeed “a wild mixture of vice and folly,” to which may be added,
of the most sanguinary cruelty. During his reign, 18,000 persons
were victims of his ferocity. Yet such is the god, observes M. de
Sacy, whom the Druses have worshipped for 800 years! (See p.
ccccxxix.) All his wildest and most extravagant actions were
interpreted by his followers as having a mystic and allegoric
meaning, alluding to the destruction of other religions and the
propagation of his own. It does not seem to have been the
“vanity” of Hakem which induced him to introduce a new religion.
The curious point in the new faith is that Hamza, the son of Ali,
the real founder of the Unitarian religion, (such is its boastful
title,) was content to take a secondary part. While Hakem was
God, the one Supreme, the Imam Hamza was his Intelligence. It was
not in his “divine character” that Hakem “hated the Jews and
Christians,” but in that of a Mahometan bigot, which he displayed
in the earlier years of his reign. His barbarous persecution, and
the burning of the church of the Resurrection at Jerusalem,
belong entirely to that period; and his assumption of divinity
was followed by an edict of toleration to Jews and Christians.
The Mahometans, whose religion he then treated with hostility and
contempt, being far the most numerous, were his most dangerous
enemies, and therefore the objects of his most inveterate hatred.
It is another singular fact, that the religion of Hakem was by no
means confined to Egypt and Syria. M. de Sacy quotes a letter
addressed to the chief of the sect in India; and there is
likewise a letter to the Byzantine emperor Constantine, son of
Armanous, (Romanus,) and the clergy of the empire. (Constantine
VIII., M. de Sacy supposes, but this is irreconcilable with
chronology; it must mean Constantine XI., Monomachus.) The
assassination of Hakem is, of course, disbelieved by his
sectaries. M. de Sacy seems to consider the fact obscure and
doubtful. According to his followers he disappeared, but is
hereafter to return. At his return the resurrection is to take
place; the triumph of Unitarianism, and the final discomfiture of
all other religions. The temple of Mecca is especially devoted to
destruction. It is remarkable that one of the signs of this final
consummation, and of the reappearance of Hakem, is that
Christianity shall be gaining a manifest predominance over
Mahometanism. As for the religion of the Druses, I cannot agree
with Gibbon that it does not “deserve” to be better known; and am
grateful to M. de Sacy, notwithstanding the prolixity and
occasional repetition in his two large volumes, for the full
examination of the most extraordinary religious aberration which
ever extensively affected the mind of man. The worship of a mad
tyrant is the basis of a subtle metaphysical creed, and of a
severe, and even ascetic, morality.—M.]
69 (return) [ See Glaber, l. iii. c. 7, and the Annals of
Baronius and Pagi, A.D. 1009.]
70 (return) [ Per idem tempus ex universo orbe tam innumerabilis
multitudo coepit confluere ad sepulchrum Salvatoris Hierosolymis,
quantum nullus hominum prius sperare poterat. Ordo inferioris
plebis.... mediocres.... reges et comites..... praesules .....
mulieres multae nobilis cum pauperioribus.... Pluribus enim erat
mentis desiderium mori priusquam ad propria reverterentur,
(Glaber, l. iv. c. 6, Bouquet. Historians of France, tom. x. p.
50.) * Note: Compare the first chap. of Wilken, Geschichte der
Kreuz-zuge.—M.]
71 (return) [ Glaber, l. iii. c. 1. Katona (Hist. Critic. Regum
Hungariae, tom. i. p. 304-311) examines whether St. Stephen
founded a monastery at Jerusalem.]
72 (return) [ Baronius (A.D. 1064, No. 43-56) has transcribed the
greater part of the original narratives of Ingulphus, Marianus,
and Lambertus.]
After the defeat of the Romans, the tranquillity of the Fatimite
caliphs was invaded by the Turks. 73 One of the lieutenants of
Malek Shah, Atsiz the Carizmian, marched into Syria at the head
of a powerful army, and reduced Damascus by famine and the sword.
Hems, and the other cities of the province, acknowledged the
caliph of Bagdad and the sultan of Persia; and the victorious
emir advanced without resistance to the banks of the Nile: the
Fatimite was preparing to fly into the heart of Africa; but the
negroes of his guard and the inhabitants of Cairo made a
desperate sally, and repulsed the Turk from the confines of
Egypt. In his retreat he indulged the license of slaughter and
rapine: the judge and notaries of Jerusalem were invited to his
camp; and their execution was followed by the massacre of three
thousand citizens. The cruelty or the defeat of Atsiz was soon
punished by the sultan Toucush, the brother of Malek Shah, who,
with a higher title and more formidable powers, asserted the
dominion of Syria and Palestine. The house of Seljuk reigned
about twenty years in Jerusalem; 74 but the hereditary command of
the holy city and territory was intrusted or abandoned to the
emir Ortok, the chief of a tribe of Turkmans, whose children,
after their expulsion from Palestine, formed two dynasties on the
borders of Armenia and Assyria. 75 The Oriental Christians and
the Latin pilgrims deplored a revolution, which, instead of the
regular government and old alliance of the caliphs, imposed on
their necks the iron yoke of the strangers of the North. 76 In
his court and camp the great sultan had adopted in some degree
the arts and manners of Persia; but the body of the Turkish
nation, and more especially the pastoral tribes, still breathed
the fierceness of the desert. From Nice to Jerusalem, the western
countries of Asia were a scene of foreign and domestic hostility;
and the shepherds of Palestine, who held a precarious sway on a
doubtful frontier, had neither leisure nor capacity to await the
slow profits of commercial and religious freedom. The pilgrims,
who, through innumerable perils, had reached the gates of
Jerusalem, were the victims of private rapine or public
oppression, and often sunk under the pressure of famine and
disease, before they were permitted to salute the holy sepulchre.
A spirit of native barbarism, or recent zeal, prompted the
Turkmans to insult the clergy of every sect: the patriarch was
dragged by the hair along the pavement, and cast into a dungeon,
to extort a ransom from the sympathy of his flock; and the divine
worship in the church of the Resurrection was often disturbed by
the savage rudeness of its masters. The pathetic tale excited the
millions of the West to march under the standard of the cross to
the relief of the Holy Land; and yet how trifling is the sum of
these accumulated evils, if compared with the single act of the
sacrilege of Hakem, which had been so patiently endured by the
Latin Christians! A slighter provocation inflamed the more
irascible temper of their descendants: a new spirit had arisen of
religious chivalry and papal dominion; a nerve was touched of
exquisite feeling; and the sensation vibrated to the heart of
Europe.
73 (return) [ See Elmacin (Hist. Saracen. p. 349, 350) and
Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 237, vers. Pocock.) M. De Guignes
(Hist. des Huns, tom iii. part i. p. 215, 216) adds the
testimonies, or rather the names, of Abulfeda and Novairi.]
74 (return) [ From the expedition of Isar Atsiz, (A. H. 469, A.D.
1076,) to the expulsion of the Ortokides, (A.D. 1096.) Yet
William of Tyre (l. i. c. 6, p. 633) asserts, that Jerusalem was
thirty-eight years in the hands of the Turks; and an Arabic
chronicle, quoted by Pagi, (tom. iv. p. 202) supposes that the
city was reduced by a Carizmian general to the obedience of the
caliph of Bagdad, A. H. 463, A.D. 1070. These early dates are not
very compatible with the general history of Asia; and I am sure,
that as late as A.D. 1064, the regnum Babylonicum (of Cairo)
still prevailed in Palestine, (Baronius, A.D. 1064, No. 56.)]
75 (return) [ De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 249-252. ]
76 (return) [ Willierm. Tyr. l. i. c. 8, p. 634, who strives hard
to magnify the Christian grievances. The Turks exacted an aureus
from each pilgrim! The caphar of the Franks now is fourteen
dollars: and Europe does not complain of this voluntary tax.]
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part I.
Origin And Numbers Of The First Crusade.—Characters Of The Latin
Princes.—Their March To Constantinople.—Policy Of The Greek
Emperor Alexius.—Conquest Of Nice, Antioch, And Jerusalem, By The
Franks.—Deliverance Of The Holy Sepulchre.— Godfrey Of Bouillon,
First King Of Jerusalem.—Institutions Of The French Or Latin
Kingdom.
About twenty years after the conquest of Jerusalem by the Turks,
the holy sepulchre was visited by a hermit of the name of Peter,
a native of Amiens, in the province of Picardy 1 in France. His
resentment and sympathy were excited by his own injuries and the
oppression of the Christian name; he mingled his tears with those
of the patriarch, and earnestly inquired, if no hopes of relief
could be entertained from the Greek emperors of the East. The
patriarch exposed the vices and weakness of the successors of
Constantine. “I will rouse,” exclaimed the hermit, “the martial
nations of Europe in your cause;” and Europe was obedient to the
call of the hermit. The astonished patriarch dismissed him with
epistles of credit and complaint; and no sooner did he land at
Bari, than Peter hastened to kiss the feet of the Roman pontiff.
His stature was small, his appearance contemptible; but his eye
was keen and lively; and he possessed that vehemence of speech,
which seldom fails to impart the persuasion of the soul. 2 He was
born of a gentleman’s family, (for we must now adopt a modern
idiom,) and his military service was under the neighboring counts
of Boulogne, the heroes of the first crusade. But he soon
relinquished the sword and the world; and if it be true, that his
wife, however noble, was aged and ugly, he might withdraw, with
the less reluctance, from her bed to a convent, and at length to
a hermitage. 211 In this austere solitude, his body was
emaciated, his fancy was inflamed; whatever he wished, he
believed; whatever he believed, he saw in dreams and revelations.
From Jerusalem the pilgrim returned an accomplished fanatic; but
as he excelled in the popular madness of the times, Pope Urban
the Second received him as a prophet, applauded his glorious
design, promised to support it in a general council, and
encouraged him to proclaim the deliverance of the Holy Land.
Invigorated by the approbation of the pontiff, his zealous
missionary traversed. with speed and success, the provinces of
Italy and France. His diet was abstemious, his prayers long and
fervent, and the alms which he received with one hand, he
distributed with the other: his head was bare, his feet naked,
his meagre body was wrapped in a coarse garment; he bore and
displayed a weighty crucifix; and the ass on which he rode was
sanctified, in the public eye, by the service of the man of God.
He preached to innumerable crowds in the churches, the streets,
and the highways: the hermit entered with equal confidence the
palace and the cottage; and the people (for all was people) was
impetuously moved by his call to repentance and arms. When he
painted the sufferings of the natives and pilgrims of Palestine,
every heart was melted to compassion; every breast glowed with
indignation, when he challenged the warriors of the age to defend
their brethren, and rescue their Savior: his ignorance of art and
language was compensated by sighs, and tears, and ejaculations;
and Peter supplied the deficiency of reason by loud and frequent
appeals to Christ and his mother, to the saints and angels of
paradise, with whom he had personally conversed. 212 The most
perfect orator of Athens might have envied the success of his
eloquence; the rustic enthusiast inspired the passions which he
felt, and Christendom expected with impatience the counsels and
decrees of the supreme pontiff.
1 (return) [ Whimsical enough is the origin of the name of
Picards, and from thence of Picardie, which does not date later
than A.D. 1200. It was an academical joke, an epithet first
applied to the quarrelsome humor of those students, in the
University of Paris, who came from the frontier of France and
Flanders, (Valesii Notitia Galliarum, p. 447, Longuerue.
Description de la France, p. 54.)]
2 (return) [ William of Tyre (l. i. c. 11, p. 637, 638) thus
describes the hermit: Pusillus, persona contemptibilis, vivacis
ingenii, et oculum habeas perspicacem gratumque, et sponte fluens
ei non deerat eloquium. See Albert Aquensis, p. 185. Guibert, p.
482. Anna Comnena in Alex isd, l. x. p. 284, &c., with Ducarge’s
Notes, p. 349.]
211 (return) [ Wilken considers this as doubtful, (vol. i. p.
47.)—M.]
212 (return) [ He had seen the Savior in a vision: a letter had
fallen from heaven Wilken, (vol. i. p. 49.)—M.]
The magnanimous spirit of Gregory the Seventh had already
embraced the design of arming Europe against Asia; the ardor of
his zeal and ambition still breathes in his epistles: from either
side of the Alps, fifty thousand Catholics had enlisted under the
banner of St. Peter; 3 and his successor reveals his intention of
marching at their head against the impious sectaries of Mahomet.
But the glory or reproach of executing, though not in person,
this holy enterprise, was reserved for Urban the Second, 4 the
most faithful of his disciples. He undertook the conquest of the
East, whilst the larger portion of Rome was possessed and
fortified by his rival Guibert of Ravenna, who contended with
Urban for the name and honors of the pontificate. He attempted to
unite the powers of the West, at a time when the princes were
separated from the church, and the people from their princes, by
the excommunication which himself and his predecessors had
thundered against the emperor and the king of France. Philip the
First, of France, supported with patience the censures which he
had provoked by his scandalous life and adulterous marriage.
Henry the Fourth, of Germany, asserted the right of investitures,
the prerogative of confirming his bishops by the delivery of the
ring and crosier. But the emperor’s party was crushed in Italy by
the arms of the Normans and the Countess Mathilda; and the long
quarrel had been recently envenomed by the revolt of his son
Conrad and the shame of his wife, 5 who, in the synods of
Constance and Placentia, confessed the manifold prostitutions to
which she had been exposed by a husband regardless of her honor
and his own. 6 So popular was the cause of Urban, so weighty was
his influence, that the council which he summoned at Placentia 7
was composed of two hundred bishops of Italy, France, Burgandy,
Swabia, and Bavaria. Four thousand of the clergy, and thirty
thousand of the laity, attended this important meeting; and, as
the most spacious cathedral would have been inadequate to the
multitude, the session of seven days was held in a plain adjacent
to the city. The ambassadors of the Greek emperor, Alexius
Comnenus, were introduced to plead the distress of their
sovereign, and the danger of Constantinople, which was divided
only by a narrow sea from the victorious Turks, the common
enemies of the Christian name. In their suppliant address they
flattered the pride of the Latin princes; and, appealing at once
to their policy and religion, exhorted them to repel the
Barbarians on the confines of Asia, rather than to expect them in
the heart of Europe. At the sad tale of the misery and perils of
their Eastern brethren, the assembly burst into tears; the most
eager champions declared their readiness to march; and the Greek
ambassadors were dismissed with the assurance of a speedy and
powerful succor. The relief of Constantinople was included in the
larger and most distant project of the deliverance of Jerusalem;
but the prudent Urban adjourned the final decision to a second
synod, which he proposed to celebrate in some city of France in
the autumn of the same year. The short delay would propagate the
flame of enthusiasm; and his firmest hope was in a nation of
soldiers 8 still proud of the preeminence of their name, and
ambitious to emulate their hero Charlemagne, 9 who, in the
popular romance of Turpin, 10 had achieved the conquest of the
Holy Land. A latent motive of affection or vanity might influence
the choice of Urban: he was himself a native of France, a monk of
Clugny, and the first of his countrymen who ascended the throne
of St. Peter. The pope had illustrated his family and province;
nor is there perhaps a more exquisite gratification than to
revisit, in a conspicuous dignity, the humble and laborious
scenes of our youth.
3 (return) [ Ultra quinquaginta millia, si me possunt in
expeditione pro duce et pontifice habere, armata manu volunt in
inimicos Dei insurgere et ad sepulchrum Domini ipso ducente
pervenire, (Gregor. vii. epist. ii. 31, in tom. xii. 322,
concil.)]
4 (return) [ See the original lives of Urban II. by Pandulphus
Pisanus and Bernardus Guido, in Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script. tom.
iii. pars i. p. 352, 353.]
5 (return) [ She is known by the different names of Praxes,
Eupraecia, Eufrasia, and Adelais; and was the daughter of a
Russian prince, and the widow of a margrave of Brandenburgh.
(Struv. Corpus Hist. Germanicae, p. 340.)]
6 (return) [ Henricus odio eam coepit habere: ideo incarceravit
eam, et concessit ut plerique vim ei inferrent; immo filium
hortans ut eam subagitaret, (Dodechin, Continuat. Marian. Scot.
apud Baron. A.D. 1093, No. 4.) In the synod of Constance, she is
described by Bertholdus, rerum inspector: quae se tantas et tam
inauditas fornicationum spur citias, et a tantis passam fuisse
conquesta est, &c.; and again at Placentia: satis misericorditer
suscepit, eo quod ipsam tantas spurcitias pertulisse pro certo
cognoverit papa cum sancta synodo. Apud Baron. A.D. 1093, No. 4,
1094, No. 3. A rare subject for the infallible decision of a pope
and council. These abominations are repugnant to every principle
of human nature, which is not altered by a dispute about rings
and crosiers. Yet it should seem, that the wretched woman was
tempted by the priests to relate or subscribe some infamous
stories of herself and her husband.]
7 (return) [ See the narrative and acts of the synod of
Placentia, Concil. tom. xii. p. 821, &c.]
8 (return) [ Guibert, himself a Frenchman, praises the piety and
valor of the French nation, the author and example of the
crusades: Gens nobilis, prudens, bellicosa, dapsilis et nitida
.... Quos enim Britones, Anglos, Ligures, si bonis eos moribus
videamus, non illico Francos homines appellemus? (p. 478.) He
owns, however, that the vivacity of the French degenerates into
petulance among foreigners, (p. 488.) and vain loquaciousness,
(p. 502.)]
9 (return) [ Per viam quam jamdudum Carolus Magnus mirificus rex
Francorum aptari fecit usque C. P., (Gesta Francorum, p. 1.
Robert. Monach. Hist. Hieros. l. i. p. 33, &c.)]
10 (return) [ John Tilpinus, or Turpinus, was archbishop of
Rheims, A.D. 773. After the year 1000, this romance was composed
in his name, by a monk of the borders of France and Spain; and
such was the idea of ecclesiastical merit, that he describes
himself as a fighting and drinking priest! Yet the book of lies
was pronounced authentic by Pope Calixtus II., (A.D. 1122,) and
is respectfully quoted by the abbot Suger, in the great
Chronicles of St. Denys, (Fabric Bibliot. Latin Medii Aevi, edit.
Mansi, tom. iv. p. 161.)]
It may occasion some surprise that the Roman pontiff should
erect, in the heart of France, the tribunal from whence he hurled
his anathemas against the king; but our surprise will vanish so
soon as we form a just estimate of a king of France of the
eleventh century. 11 Philip the First was the great-grandson of
Hugh Capet, the founder of the present race, who, in the decline
of Charlemagne’s posterity, added the regal title to his
patrimonial estates of Paris and Orleans. In this narrow compass,
he was possessed of wealth and jurisdiction; but in the rest of
France, Hugh and his first descendants were no more than the
feudal lords of about sixty dukes and counts, of independent and
hereditary power, 12 who disdained the control of laws and legal
assemblies, and whose disregard of their sovereign was revenged
by the disobedience of their inferior vassals. At Clermont, in
the territories of the count of Auvergne, 13 the pope might brave
with impunity the resentment of Philip; and the council which he
convened in that city was not less numerous or respectable than
the synod of Placentia. 14 Besides his court and council of Roman
cardinals, he was supported by thirteen archbishops and two
hundred and twenty-five bishops: the number of mitred prelates
was computed at four hundred; and the fathers of the church were
blessed by the saints and enlightened by the doctors of the age.
From the adjacent kingdoms, a martial train of lords and knights
of power and renown attended the council, 15 in high expectation
of its resolves; and such was the ardor of zeal and curiosity,
that the city was filled, and many thousands, in the month of
November, erected their tents or huts in the open field. A
session of eight days produced some useful or edifying canons for
the reformation of manners; a severe censure was pronounced
against the license of private war; the Truce of God 16 was
confirmed, a suspension of hostilities during four days of the
week; women and priests were placed under the safeguard of the
church; and a protection of three years was extended to
husbandmen and merchants, the defenceless victims of military
rapine. But a law, however venerable be the sanction, cannot
suddenly transform the temper of the times; and the benevolent
efforts of Urban deserve the less praise, since he labored to
appease some domestic quarrels that he might spread the flames of
war from the Atlantic to the Euphrates. From the synod of
Placentia, the rumor of his great design had gone forth among the
nations: the clergy on their return had preached in every diocese
the merit and glory of the deliverance of the Holy Land; and when
the pope ascended a lofty scaffold in the market-place of
Clermont, his eloquence was addressed to a well-prepared and
impatient audience. His topics were obvious, his exhortation was
vehement, his success inevitable. The orator was interrupted by
the shout of thousands, who with one voice, and in their rustic
idiom, exclaimed aloud, “God wills it, God wills it.” 17 “It is
indeed the will of God,” replied the pope; “and let this
memorable word, the inspiration surely of the Holy Spirit, be
forever adopted as your cry of battle, to animate the devotion
and courage of the champions of Christ. His cross is the symbol
of your salvation; wear it, a red, a bloody cross, as an external
mark, on your breasts or shoulders, as a pledge of your sacred
and irrevocable engagement.” The proposal was joyfully accepted;
great numbers, both of the clergy and laity, impressed on their
garments the sign of the cross, 18 and solicited the pope to
march at their head. This dangerous honor was declined by the
more prudent successor of Gregory, who alleged the schism of the
church, and the duties of his pastoral office, recommending to
the faithful, who were disqualified by sex or profession, by age
or infirmity, to aid, with their prayers and alms, the personal
service of their robust brethren. The name and powers of his
legate he devolved on Adhemar bishop of Puy, the first who had
received the cross at his hands. The foremost of the temporal
chiefs was Raymond count of Thoulouse, whose ambassadors in the
council excused the absence, and pledged the honor, of their
master. After the confession and absolution of their sins, the
champions of the cross were dismissed with a superfluous
admonition to invite their countrymen and friends; and their
departure for the Holy Land was fixed to the festival of the
Assumption, the fifteenth of August, of the ensuing year. 19
11 (return) [ See Etat de la France, by the Count de
Boulainvilliers, tom. i. p. 180-182, and the second volume of the
Observations sur l’Histoire de France, by the Abbe de Mably.]
12 (return) [ In the provinces to the south of the Loire, the
first Capetians were scarcely allowed a feudal supremacy. On all
sides, Normandy, Bretagne, Aquitain, Burgundy, Lorraine, and
Flanders, contracted the same and limits of the proper France.
See Hadrian Vales. Notitia Galliarum]
13 (return) [ These counts, a younger branch of the dukes of
Aquitain, were at length despoiled of the greatest part of their
country by Philip Augustus. The bishops of Clermont gradually
became princes of the city. Melanges, tires d’une grand
Bibliotheque, tom. xxxvi. p. 288, &c.]
14 (return) [ See the Acts of the council of Clermont, Concil.
tom. xii. p. 829, &c.]
15 (return) [ Confluxerunt ad concilium e multis regionibus, viri
potentes et honorati, innumeri quamvis cingulo laicalis militiae
superbi, (Baldric, an eye-witness, p. 86-88. Robert. Monach. p.
31, 32. Will. Tyr. i. 14, 15, p. 639-641. Guibert, p. 478-480.
Fulcher. Carnot. p. 382.)]
16 (return) [ The Truce of God (Treva, or Treuga Dei) was first
invented in Aquitain, A.D. 1032; blamed by some bishops as an
occasion of perjury, and rejected by the Normans as contrary to
their privileges (Ducange, Gloss Latin. tom. vi. p. 682-685.)]
17 (return) [ Deus vult, Deus vult! was the pure acclamation of
the clergy who understood Latin, (Robert. Mon. l. i. p. 32.) By
the illiterate laity, who spoke the Provincial or Limousin idiom,
it was corrupted to Deus lo volt, or Diex el volt. See Chron.
Casinense, l. iv. c. 11, p. 497, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital.
tom. iv., and Ducange, (Dissertat xi. p. 207, sur Joinville, and
Gloss. Latin. tom. ii. p. 690,) who, in his preface, produces a
very difficult specimen of the dialect of Rovergue, A.D. 1100,
very near, both in time and place, to the council of Clermont,
(p. 15, 16.)]
18 (return) [ Most commonly on their shoulders, in gold, or silk,
or cloth sewed on their garments. In the first crusade, all were
red, in the third, the French alone preserved that color, while
green crosses were adopted by the Flemings, and white by the
English, (Ducange, tom. ii. p. 651.) Yet in England, the red ever
appears the favorite, and as if were, the national, color of our
military ensigns and uniforms.]
19 (return) [ Bongarsius, who has published the original writers
of the crusades, adopts, with much complacency, the fanatic title
of Guibertus, Gesta Dei per Francos; though some critics propose
to read Gesta Diaboli per Francos, (Hanoviae, 1611, two vols. in
folio.) I shall briefly enumerate, as they stand in this
collection, the authors whom I have used for the first crusade.
I. Gesta Francorum.
II. Robertus Monachus.
III. Baldricus.
IV. Raimundus de Agiles.
V. Albertus Aquensis VI. Fulcherius Carnotensis.
VII. Guibertus.
VIII. Willielmus Tyriensis. Muratori has given us,
IX. Radulphus Cadomensis de Gestis Tancredi,
(Script. Rer. Ital. tom. v. p. 285-333,)
X. Bernardus Thesaurarius de Acquisitione Terrae Sanctae,
(tom. vii. p. 664-848.)
The last of these was unknown to a late French historian, who has
given a large and critical list of the writers of the crusades,
(Esprit des Croisades, tom. i. p. 13-141,) and most of whose
judgments my own experience will allow me to ratify. It was late
before I could obtain a sight of the French historians collected
by Duchesne. I. Petri Tudebodi Sacerdotis Sivracensis Historia de
Hierosolymitano Itinere, (tom. iv. p. 773-815,) has been
transfused into the first anonymous writer of Bongarsius. II. The
Metrical History of the first Crusade, in vii. books, (p.
890-912,) is of small value or account. * Note: Several new
documents, particularly from the East, have been collected by the
industry of the modern historians of the crusades, M. Michaud and
Wilken.—M.]
So familiar, and as it were so natural to man, is the practice of
violence, that our indulgence allows the slightest provocation,
the most disputable right, as a sufficient ground of national
hostility. But the name and nature of a holy war demands a more
rigorous scrutiny; nor can we hastily believe, that the servants
of the Prince of Peace would unsheathe the sword of destruction,
unless the motive were pure, the quarrel legitimate, and the
necessity inevitable. The policy of an action may be determined
from the tardy lessons of experience; but, before we act, our
conscience should be satisfied of the justice and propriety of
our enterprise. In the age of the crusades, the Christians, both
of the East and West, were persuaded of their lawfulness and
merit; their arguments are clouded by the perpetual abuse of
Scripture and rhetoric; but they seem to insist on the right of
natural and religious defence, their peculiar title to the Holy
Land, and the impiety of their Pagan and Mahometan foes. 20
I. The right of a just defence may fairly include our civil and
spiritual allies: it depends on the existence of danger; and that
danger must be estimated by the twofold consideration of the
malice, and the power, of our enemies. A pernicious tenet has
been imputed to the Mahometans, the duty of extirpating all other
religions by the sword. This charge of ignorance and bigotry is
refuted by the Koran, by the history of the Mussulman conquerors,
and by their public and legal toleration of the Christian
worship. But it cannot be denied, that the Oriental churches are
depressed under their iron yoke; that, in peace and war, they
assert a divine and indefeasible claim of universal empire; and
that, in their orthodox creed, the unbelieving nations are
continually threatened with the loss of religion or liberty. In
the eleventh century, the victorious arms of the Turks presented
a real and urgent apprehension of these losses. They had subdued,
in less than thirty years, the kingdoms of Asia, as far as
Jerusalem and the Hellespont; and the Greek empire tottered on
the verge of destruction. Besides an honest sympathy for their
brethren, the Latins had a right and interest in the support of
Constantinople, the most important barrier of the West; and the
privilege of defence must reach to prevent, as well as to repel,
an impending assault. But this salutary purpose might have been
accomplished by a moderate succor; and our calmer reason must
disclaim the innumerable hosts, and remote operations, which
overwhelmed Asia and depopulated Europe. 2011
20 (return) [ If the reader will turn to the first scene of the
First Part of Henry the Fourth, he will see in the text of
Shakespeare the natural feelings of enthusiasm; and in the notes
of Dr. Johnson the workings of a bigoted, though vigorous mind,
greedy of every pretence to hate and persecute those who dissent
from his creed.]
2011 (return) [ The manner in which the war was conducted surely
has little relation to the abstract question of the justice or
injustice of the war. The most just and necessary war may be
conducted with the most prodigal waste of human life, and the
wildest fanaticism; the most unjust with the coolest moderation
and consummate generalship. The question is, whether the
liberties and religion of Europe were in danger from the
aggressions of Mahometanism? If so, it is difficult to limit the
right, though it may be proper to question the wisdom, of
overwhelming the enemy with the armed population of a whole
continent, and repelling, if possible, the invading conqueror
into his native deserts. The crusades are monuments of human
folly! but to which of the more regular wars civilized. Europe,
waged for personal ambition or national jealousy, will our calmer
reason appeal as monuments either of human justice or human
wisdom?—M.]
II. Palestine could add nothing to the strength or safety of the
Latins; and fanaticism alone could pretend to justify the
conquest of that distant and narrow province. The Christians
affirmed that their inalienable title to the promised land had
been sealed by the blood of their divine Savior; it was their
right and duty to rescue their inheritance from the unjust
possessors, who profaned his sepulchre, and oppressed the
pilgrimage of his disciples. Vainly would it be alleged that the
preeminence of Jerusalem, and the sanctity of Palestine, have
been abolished with the Mosaic law; that the God of the
Christians is not a local deity, and that the recovery of Bethlem
or Calvary, his cradle or his tomb, will not atone for the
violation of the moral precepts of the gospel. Such arguments
glance aside from the leaden shield of superstition; and the
religious mind will not easily relinquish its hold on the sacred
ground of mystery and miracle.
III. But the holy wars which have been waged in every climate of
the globe, from Egypt to Livonia, and from Peru to Hindostan,
require the support of some more general and flexible tenet. It
has been often supposed, and sometimes affirmed, that a
difference of religion is a worthy cause of hostility; that
obstinate unbelievers may be slain or subdued by the champions of
the cross; and that grace is the sole fountain of dominion as
well as of mercy. 2012 Above four hundred years before the first
crusade, the eastern and western provinces of the Roman empire
had been acquired about the same time, and in the same manner, by
the Barbarians of Germany and Arabia. Time and treaties had
legitimated the conquest of the Christian Franks; but in the eyes
of their subjects and neighbors, the Mahometan princes were still
tyrants and usurpers, who, by the arms of war or rebellion, might
be lawfully driven from their unlawful possession. 21
2012 (return) [ “God,” says the abbot Guibert, “invented the
crusades as a new way for the laity to atone for their sins and
to merit salvation.” This extraordinary and characteristic
passage must be given entire. “Deus nostro tempore praelia sancta
instituit, ut ordo equestris et vulgus oberrans qui vetustae
Paganitatis exemplo in mutuas versabatur caedes, novum reperirent
salutis promerendae genus, ut nec funditus electa, ut fieri
assolet, monastica conversatione, seu religiosa qualibet
professione saeculum relinquere congerentur; sed sub consueta
licentia et habitu ex suo ipsorum officio Dei aliquantenus
gratiam consequerentur.” Guib. Abbas, p. 371. See Wilken, vol. i.
p. 63.—M.]
21 (return) [ The vith Discourse of Fleury on Ecclesiastical
History (p. 223-261) contains an accurate and rational view of
the causes and effects of the crusades.]
As the manners of the Christians were relaxed, their discipline
of penance 22 was enforced; and with the multiplication of sins,
the remedies were multiplied. In the primitive church, a
voluntary and open confession prepared the work of atonement. In
the middle ages, the bishops and priests interrogated the
criminal; compelled him to account for his thoughts, words, and
actions; and prescribed the terms of his reconciliation with God.
But as this discretionary power might alternately be abused by
indulgence and tyranny, a rule of discipline was framed, to
inform and regulate the spiritual judges. This mode of
legislation was invented by the Greeks; their penitentials 23
were translated, or imitated, in the Latin church; and, in the
time of Charlemagne, the clergy of every diocese were provided
with a code, which they prudently concealed from the knowledge of
the vulgar. In this dangerous estimate of crimes and punishments,
each case was supposed, each difference was remarked, by the
experience or penetration of the monks; some sins are enumerated
which innocence could not have suspected, and others which reason
cannot believe; and the more ordinary offences of fornication and
adultery, of perjury and sacrilege, of rapine and murder, were
expiated by a penance, which, according to the various
circumstances, was prolonged from forty days to seven years.
During this term of mortification, the patient was healed, the
criminal was absolved, by a salutary regimen of fasts and
prayers: the disorder of his dress was expressive of grief and
remorse; and he humbly abstained from all the business and
pleasure of social life. But the rigid execution of these laws
would have depopulated the palace, the camp, and the city; the
Barbarians of the West believed and trembled; but nature often
rebelled against principle; and the magistrate labored without
effect to enforce the jurisdiction of the priest. A literal
accomplishment of penance was indeed impracticable: the guilt of
adultery was multiplied by daily repetition; that of homicide
might involve the massacre of a whole people; each act was
separately numbered; and, in those times of anarchy and vice, a
modest sinner might easily incur a debt of three hundred years.
His insolvency was relieved by a commutation, or indulgence: a
year of penance was appreciated at twenty-six solidi 24 of
silver, about four pounds sterling, for the rich; at three
solidi, or nine shillings, for the indigent: and these alms were
soon appropriated to the use of the church, which derived, from
the redemption of sins, an inexhaustible source of opulence and
dominion. A debt of three hundred years, or twelve hundred
pounds, was enough to impoverish a plentiful fortune; the
scarcity of gold and silver was supplied by the alienation of
land; and the princely donations of Pepin and Charlemagne are
expressly given for the remedy of their soul. It is a maxim of
the civil law, that whosoever cannot pay with his purse, must pay
with his body; and the practice of flagellation was adopted by
the monks, a cheap, though painful equivalent. By a fantastic
arithmetic, a year of penance was taxed at three thousand lashes;
25 and such was the skill and patience of a famous hermit, St.
Dominic of the iron Cuirass, 26 that in six days he could
discharge an entire century, by a whipping of three hundred
thousand stripes. His example was followed by many penitents of
both sexes; and, as a vicarious sacrifice was accepted, a sturdy
disciplinarian might expiate on his own back the sins of his
benefactors. 27 These compensations of the purse and the person
introduced, in the eleventh century, a more honorable mode of
satisfaction. The merit of military service against the Saracens
of Africa and Spain had been allowed by the predecessors of Urban
the Second. In the council of Clermont, that pope proclaimed a
plenary indulgence to those who should enlist under the banner of
the cross; the absolution of all their sins, and a full receipt
for all that might be due of canonical penance. 28 The cold
philosophy of modern times is incapable of feeling the impression
that was made on a sinful and fanatic world. At the voice of
their pastor, the robber, the incendiary, the homicide, arose by
thousands to redeem their souls, by repeating on the infidels the
same deeds which they had exercised against their Christian
brethren; and the terms of atonement were eagerly embraced by
offenders of every rank and denomination. None were pure; none
were exempt from the guilt and penalty of sin; and those who were
the least amenable to the justice of God and the church were the
best entitled to the temporal and eternal recompense of their
pious courage. If they fell, the spirit of the Latin clergy did
not hesitate to adorn their tomb with the crown of martyrdom; 29
and should they survive, they could expect without impatience the
delay and increase of their heavenly reward. They offered their
blood to the Son of God, who had laid down his life for their
salvation: they took up the cross, and entered with confidence
into the way of the Lord. His providence would watch over their
safety; perhaps his visible and miraculous power would smooth the
difficulties of their holy enterprise. The cloud and pillar of
Jehovah had marched before the Israelites into the promised land.
Might not the Christians more reasonably hope that the rivers
would open for their passage; that the walls of their strongest
cities would fall at the sound of their trumpets; and that the
sun would be arrested in his mid career, to allow them time for
the destruction of the infidels?
22 (return) [ The penance, indulgences, &c., of the middle ages
are amply discussed by Muratori, (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi,
tom. v. dissert. lxviii. p. 709-768,) and by M. Chais, (Lettres
sur les Jubiles et les Indulgences, tom. ii. lettres 21 & 22, p.
478-556,) with this difference, that the abuses of superstition
are mildly, perhaps faintly, exposed by the learned Italian, and
peevishly magnified by the Dutch minister.]
23 (return) [ Schmidt (Histoire des Allemands, tom. ii. p.
211-220, 452-462) gives an abstract of the Penitential of Rhegino
in the ninth, and of Burchard in the tenth, century. In one year,
five-and-thirty murders were perpetrated at Worms.]
24 (return) [ Till the xiith century, we may support the clear
account of xii. denarii, or pence, to the solidus, or shilling;
and xx. solidi to the pound weight of silver, about the pound
sterling. Our money is diminished to a third, and the French to a
fiftieth, of this primitive standard.]
25 (return) [ Each century of lashes was sanctified with a
recital of a psalm, and the whole Psalter, with the accompaniment
of 15,000 stripes, was equivalent to five years.]
26 (return) [ The Life and Achievements of St. Dominic Loricatus
was composed by his friend and admirer, Peter Damianus. See
Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 96-104. Baronius, A.D. 1056,
No. 7, who observes, from Damianus, how fashionable, even among
ladies of quality, (sublimis generis,) this expiation (purgatorii
genus) was grown.]
27 (return) [ At a quarter, or even half a rial a lash, Sancho
Panza was a cheaper, and possibly not a more dishonest, workman.
I remember in Pere Labat (Voyages en Italie, tom. vii. p. 16-29)
a very lively picture of the dexterity of one of these artists.]
28 (return) [ Quicunque pro sola devotione, non pro honoris vel
pecuniae adoptione, ad liberandam ecclesiam Dei Jerusalem
profectus fuerit, iter illud pro omni poenitentia reputetur.
Canon. Concil. Claromont. ii. p. 829. Guibert styles it novum
salutis genus, (p. 471,) and is almost philosophical on the
subject. * Note: See note, page 546.—M.]
29 (return) [ Such at least was the belief of the crusaders, and
such is the uniform style of the historians, (Esprit des
Croisades, tom. iii. p. 477;) but the prayer for the repose of
their souls is inconsistent in orthodox theology with the merits
of martyrdom.]
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part II.
Of the chiefs and soldiers who marched to the holy sepulchre, I
will dare to affirm, that all were prompted by the spirit of
enthusiasm; the belief of merit, the hope of reward, and the
assurance of divine aid. But I am equally persuaded, that in many
it was not the sole, that in some it was not the leading,
principle of action. The use and abuse of religion are feeble to
stem, they are strong and irresistible to impel, the stream of
national manners. Against the private wars of the Barbarians,
their bloody tournaments, licentious love, and judicial duels,
the popes and synods might ineffectually thunder. It is a more
easy task to provoke the metaphysical disputes of the Greeks, to
drive into the cloister the victims of anarchy or despotism, to
sanctify the patience of slaves and cowards, or to assume the
merit of the humanity and benevolence of modern Christians. War
and exercise were the reigning passions of the Franks or Latins;
they were enjoined, as a penance, to gratify those passions, to
visit distant lands, and to draw their swords against the nation
of the East. Their victory, or even their attempt, would
immortalize the names of the intrepid heroes of the cross; and
the purest piety could not be insensible to the most splendid
prospect of military glory. In the petty quarrels of Europe, they
shed the blood of their friends and countrymen, for the
acquisition perhaps of a castle or a village. They could march
with alacrity against the distant and hostile nations who were
devoted to their arms; their fancy already grasped the golden
sceptres of Asia; and the conquest of Apulia and Sicily by the
Normans might exalt to royalty the hopes of the most private
adventurer. Christendom, in her rudest state, must have yielded
to the climate and cultivation of the Mahometan countries; and
their natural and artificial wealth had been magnified by the
tales of pilgrims, and the gifts of an imperfect commerce. The
vulgar, both the great and small, were taught to believe every
wonder, of lands flowing with milk and honey, of mines and
treasures, of gold and diamonds, of palaces of marble and jasper,
and of odoriferous groves of cinnamon and frankincense. In this
earthly paradise, each warrior depended on his sword to carve a
plenteous and honorable establishment, which he measured only by
the extent of his wishes. 30 Their vassals and soldiers trusted
their fortunes to God and their master: the spoils of a Turkish
emir might enrich the meanest follower of the camp; and the
flavor of the wines, the beauty of the Grecian women, 31 were
temptations more adapted to the nature, than to the profession,
of the champions of the cross. The love of freedom was a powerful
incitement to the multitudes who were oppressed by feudal or
ecclesiastical tyranny. Under this holy sign, the peasants and
burghers, who were attached to the servitude of the glebe, might
escape from a haughty lord, and transplant themselves and their
families to a land of liberty. The monk might release himself
from the discipline of his convent: the debtor might suspend the
accumulation of usury, and the pursuit of his creditors; and
outlaws and malefactors of every cast might continue to brave the
laws and elude the punishment of their crimes. 32
30 (return) [ The same hopes were displayed in the letters of the
adventurers ad animandos qui in Francia residerant. Hugh de
Reiteste could boast, that his share amounted to one abbey and
ten castles, of the yearly value of 1500 marks, and that he
should acquire a hundred castles by the conquest of Aleppo,
(Guibert, p. 554, 555.)]
31 (return) [ In his genuine or fictitious letter to the count of
Flanders, Alexius mingles with the danger of the church, and the
relics of saints, the auri et argenti amor, and pulcherrimarum
foeminarum voluptas, (p. 476;) as if, says the indignant Guibert,
the Greek women were handsomer than those of France.]
32 (return) [ See the privileges of the Crucesignati, freedom
from debt, usury injury, secular justice, &c. The pope was their
perpetual guardian (Ducange, tom. ii. p. 651, 652.)]
These motives were potent and numerous: when we have singly
computed their weight on the mind of each individual, we must add
the infinite series, the multiplying powers, of example and
fashion. The first proselytes became the warmest and most
effectual missionaries of the cross: among their friends and
countrymen they preached the duty, the merit, and the recompense,
of their holy vow; and the most reluctant hearers were insensibly
drawn within the whirlpool of persuasion and authority. The
martial youths were fired by the reproach or suspicion of
cowardice; the opportunity of visiting with an army the sepulchre
of Christ was embraced by the old and infirm, by women and
children, who consulted rather their zeal than their strength;
and those who in the evening had derided the folly of their
companions, were the most eager, the ensuing day, to tread in
their footsteps. The ignorance, which magnified the hopes,
diminished the perils, of the enterprise. Since the Turkish
conquest, the paths of pilgrimage were obliterated; the chiefs
themselves had an imperfect notion of the length of the way and
the state of their enemies; and such was the stupidity of the
people, that, at the sight of the first city or castle beyond the
limits of their knowledge, they were ready to ask whether that
was not the Jerusalem, the term and object of their labors. Yet
the more prudent of the crusaders, who were not sure that they
should be fed from heaven with a shower of quails or manna,
provided themselves with those precious metals, which, in every
country, are the representatives of every commodity. To defray,
according to their rank, the expenses of the road, princes
alienated their provinces, nobles their lands and castles,
peasants their cattle and the instruments of husbandry. The value
of property was depreciated by the eager competition of
multitudes; while the price of arms and horses was raised to an
exorbitant height by the wants and impatience of the buyers. 33
Those who remained at home, with sense and money, were enriched
by the epidemical disease: the sovereigns acquired at a cheap
rate the domains of their vassals; and the ecclesiastical
purchasers completed the payment by the assurance of their
prayers. The cross, which was commonly sewed on the garment, in
cloth or silk, was inscribed by some zealots on their skin: a hot
iron, or indelible liquor, was applied to perpetuate the mark;
and a crafty monk, who showed the miraculous impression on his
breast was repaid with the popular veneration and the richest
benefices of Palestine. 34
33 (return) [ Guibert (p. 481) paints in lively colors this
general emotion. He was one of the few contemporaries who had
genius enough to feel the astonishing scenes that were passing
before their eyes. Erat itaque videre miraculum, caro omnes
emere, atque vili vendere, &c.]
34 (return) [ Some instances of these stigmata are given in the
Esprit des Croisades, (tom. iii. p. 169 &c.,) from authors whom I
have not seen]
The fifteenth of August had been fixed in the council of Clermont
for the departure of the pilgrims; but the day was anticipated by
the thoughtless and needy crowd of plebeians, and I shall briefly
despatch the calamities which they inflicted and suffered, before
I enter on the more serious and successful enterprise of the
chiefs. Early in the spring, from the confines of France and
Lorraine, above sixty thousand of the populace of both sexes
flocked round the first missionary of the crusade, and pressed
him with clamorous importunity to lead them to the holy
sepulchre. The hermit, assuming the character, without the
talents or authority, of a general, impelled or obeyed the
forward impulse of his votaries along the banks of the Rhine and
Danube. Their wants and numbers soon compelled them to separate,
and his lieutenant, Walter the Penniless, a valiant though needy
soldier, conducted a van guard of pilgrims, whose condition may
be determined from the proportion of eight horsemen to fifteen
thousand foot. The example and footsteps of Peter were closely
pursued by another fanatic, the monk Godescal, whose sermons had
swept away fifteen or twenty thousand peasants from the villages
of Germany. Their rear was again pressed by a herd of two hundred
thousand, the most stupid and savage refuse of the people, who
mingled with their devotion a brutal license of rapine,
prostitution, and drunkenness. Some counts and gentlemen, at the
head of three thousand horse, attended the motions of the
multitude to partake in the spoil; but their genuine leaders (may
we credit such folly?) were a goose and a goat, who were carried
in the front, and to whom these worthy Christians ascribed an
infusion of the divine spirit. 35 Of these, and of other bands of
enthusiasts, the first and most easy warfare was against the
Jews, the murderers of the Son of God. In the trading cities of
the Moselle and the Rhine, their colonies were numerous and rich;
and they enjoyed, under the protection of the emperor and the
bishops, the free exercise of their religion. 36 At Verdun,
Treves, Mentz, Spires, Worms, many thousands of that unhappy
people were pillaged and massacred: 37 nor had they felt a more
bloody stroke since the persecution of Hadrian. A remnant was
saved by the firmness of their bishops, who accepted a feigned
and transient conversion; but the more obstinate Jews opposed
their fanaticism to the fanaticism of the Christians, barricadoed
their houses, and precipitating themselves, their families, and
their wealth, into the rivers or the flames, disappointed the
malice, or at least the avarice, of their implacable foes.
35 (return) [ Fuit et aliud scelus detestabile in hac
congregatione pedestris populi stulti et vesanae levitatis,
anserem quendam divino spiritu asserebant afflatum, et capellam
non minus eodem repletam, et has sibi duces secundae viae
fecerant, &c., (Albert. Aquensis, l. i. c. 31, p. 196.) Had these
peasants founded an empire, they might have introduced, as in
Egypt, the worship of animals, which their philosophic descend
ants would have glossed over with some specious and subtile
allegory. * Note: A singular “allegoric” explanation of this
strange fact has recently been broached: it is connected with the
charge of idolatry and Eastern heretical opinions subsequently
made against the Templars. “We have no doubt that they were
Manichee or Gnostic standards.” (The author says the animals
themselves were carried before the army.—M.) “The goose, in
Egyptian symbols, as every Egyptian scholar knows, meant ‘divine
Son,’ or ‘Son of God.’ The goat meant Typhon, or Devil. Thus we
have the Manichee opposing principles of good and evil, as
standards, at the head of the ignorant mob of crusading invaders.
Can any one doubt that a large portion of this host must have
been infected with the Manichee or Gnostic idolatry?” Account of
the Temple Church by R. W. Billings, p. 5 London. 1838. This is,
at all events, a curious coincidence, especially considered in
connection with the extensive dissemination of the Paulician
opinions among the common people of Europe. At any rate, in so
inexplicable a matter, we are inclined to catch at any
explanation, however wild or subtile.—M.]
36 (return) [ Benjamin of Tudela describes the state of his
Jewish brethren from Cologne along the Rhine: they were rich,
generous, learned, hospitable, and lived in the eager hope of the
Messiah, (Voyage, tom. i. p. 243-245, par Baratier.) In seventy
years (he wrote about A.D. 1170) they had recovered from these
massacres.]
37 (return) [ These massacres and depredations on the Jews, which
were renewed at each crusade, are coolly related. It is true,
that St. Bernard (epist. 363, tom. i. p. 329) admonishes the
Oriental Franks, non sunt persequendi Judaei, non sunt
trucidandi. The contrary doctrine had been preached by a rival
monk. * Note: This is an unjust sarcasm against St. Bernard. He
stood above all rivalry of this kind See note 31, c. l x.—M]
Between the frontiers of Austria and the seat of the Byzantine
monarchy, the crusaders were compelled to traverse as interval of
six hundred miles; the wild and desolate countries of Hungary 38
and Bulgaria. The soil is fruitful, and intersected with rivers;
but it was then covered with morasses and forests, which spread
to a boundless extent, whenever man has ceased to exercise his
dominion over the earth. Both nations had imbibed the rudiments
of Christianity; the Hungarians were ruled by their native
princes; the Bulgarians by a lieutenant of the Greek emperor;
but, on the slightest provocation, their ferocious nature was
rekindled, and ample provocation was afforded by the disorders of
the first pilgrims Agriculture must have been unskilful and
languid among a people, whose cities were built of reeds and
timber, which were deserted in the summer season for the tents of
hunters and shepherds. A scanty supply of provisions was rudely
demanded, forcibly seized, and greedily consumed; and on the
first quarrel, the crusaders gave a loose to indignation and
revenge. But their ignorance of the country, of war, and of
discipline, exposed them to every snare. The Greek praefect of
Bulgaria commanded a regular force; 381 at the trumpet of the
Hungarian king, the eighth or the tenth of his martial subjects
bent their bows and mounted on horseback; their policy was
insidious, and their retaliation on these pious robbers was
unrelenting and bloody. 39 About a third of the naked fugitives
(and the hermit Peter was of the number) escaped to the Thracian
mountains; and the emperor, who respected the pilgrimage and
succor of the Latins, conducted them by secure and easy journeys
to Constantinople, and advised them to await the arrival of their
brethren. For a while they remembered their faults and losses;
but no sooner were they revived by the hospitable entertainment,
than their venom was again inflamed; they stung their benefactor,
and neither gardens, nor palaces, nor churches, were safe from
their depredations. For his own safety, Alexius allured them to
pass over to the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus; but their blind
impetuosity soon urged them to desert the station which he had
assigned, and to rush headlong against the Turks, who occupied
the road to Jerusalem. The hermit, conscious of his shame, had
withdrawn from the camp to Constantinople; and his lieutenant,
Walter the Penniless, who was worthy of a better command,
attempted without success to introduce some order and prudence
among the herd of savages. They separated in quest of prey, and
themselves fell an easy prey to the arts of the sultan. By a
rumor that their foremost companions were rioting in the spoils
of his capital, Soliman 391 tempted the main body to descend into
the plain of Nice: they were overwhelmed by the Turkish arrows;
and a pyramid of bones 40 informed their companions of the place
of their defeat. Of the first crusaders, three hundred thousand
had already perished, before a single city was rescued from the
infidels, before their graver and more noble brethren had
completed the preparations of their enterprise. 41
38 (return) [ See the contemporary description of Hungary in Otho
of Frisin gen, l. ii. c. 31, in Muratori, Script. Rerum
Italicarum, tom. vi. p. 665 666.]
381 (return) [ The narrative of the first march is very
incorrect. The first party moved under Walter de Pexego and
Walter the Penniless: they passed safe through Hungary, the
kingdom of Kalmeny, and were attacked in Bulgaria. Peter followed
with 40,000 men; passed through Hungary; but seeing the clothes
of sixteen crusaders, who had been empaled on the walls of
Semlin. he attacked and stormed the city. He then marched to
Nissa, where, at first, he was hospitably received: but an
accidental quar rel taking place, he suffered a great defeat.
Wilken, vol. i. p. 84-86—M.]
39 (return) [ The old Hungarians, without excepting Turotzius,
are ill informed of the first crusade, which they involve in a
single passage. Katona, like ourselves, can only quote the
writers of France; but he compares with local science the ancient
and modern geography. Ante portam Cyperon, is Sopron or Poson;
Mallevilla, Zemlin; Fluvius Maroe, Savus; Lintax, Leith;
Mesebroch, or Merseburg, Ouar, or Moson; Tollenburg, Pragg, (de
Regibus Hungariae, tom. iii. p. 19-53.)]
391 (return) [ Soliman had been killed in 1085, in a battle
against Toutoneh, brother of Malek Schah, between Appelo and
Antioch. It was not Soliman, therefore, but his son David,
surnamed Kilidje Arslan, the “Sword of the Lion,” who reigned in
Nice. Almost all the occidental authors have fallen into this
mistake, which was detected by M. Michaud, Hist. des Crois. 4th
edit. and Extraits des Aut. Arab. rel. aux Croisades, par M.
Reinaud Paris, 1829, p. 3. His kingdom extended from the Orontes
to the Euphra tes, and as far as the Bosphorus. Kilidje Arslan
must uniformly be substituted for Soliman. Brosset note on Le
Beau, tom. xv. p. 311.—M.]
40 (return) [ Anna Comnena (Alexias, l. x. p. 287) describes this
as a mountain. In the siege of Nice, such were used by the Franks
themselves as the materials of a wall.]
41 (return) [ See table on following page.]
“To save time and space, I shall represent, in a short table, the
particular references to the great events of the first crusade.”
[See Table 1.: Events Of The First Crusade]
None of the great sovereigns of Europe embarked their persons in
the first crusade. The emperor Henry the Fourth was not disposed
to obey the summons of the pope: Philip the First of France was
occupied by his pleasures; William Rufus of England by a recent
conquest; the kin`gs of Spain were engaged in a domestic war
against the Moors; and the northern monarchs of Scotland,
Denmark, 42 Sweden, and Poland, were yet strangers to the
passions and interests of the South. The religious ardor was more
strongly felt by the princes of the second order, who held an
important place in the feudal system. Their situation will
naturally cast under four distinct heads the review of their
names and characters; but I may escape some needless repetition,
by observing at once, that courage and the exercise of arms are
the common attribute of these Christian adventurers. I. The first
rank both in war and council is justly due to Godfrey of
Bouillon; and happy would it have been for the crusaders, if they
had trusted themselves to the sole conduct of that accomplished
hero, a worthy representative of Charlemagne, from whom he was
descended in the female line. His father was of the noble race of
the counts of Boulogne: Brabant, the lower province of Lorraine,
43 was the inheritance of his mother; and by the emperor’s bounty
he was himself invested with that ducal title, which has been
improperly transferred to his lordship of Bouillon in the
Ardennes. 44 In the service of Henry the Fourth, he bore the
great standard of the empire, and pierced with his lance the
breast of Rodolph, the rebel king: Godfrey was the first who
ascended the walls of Rome; and his sickness, his vow, perhaps
his remorse for bearing arms against the pope, confirmed an early
resolution of visiting the holy sepulchre, not as a pilgrim, but
a deliverer. His valor was matured by prudence and moderation;
his piety, though blind, was sincere; and, in the tumult of a
camp, he practised the real and fictitious virtues of a convent.
Superior to the private factions of the chiefs, he reserved his
enmity for the enemies of Christ; and though he gained a kingdom
by the attempt, his pure and disinterested zeal was acknowledged
by his rivals. Godfrey of Bouillon 45 was accompanied by his two
brothers, by Eustace the elder, who had succeeded to the county
of Boulogne, and by the younger, Baldwin, a character of more
ambiguous virtue. The duke of Lorraine, was alike celebrated on
either side of the Rhine: from his birth and education, he was
equally conversant with the French and Teutonic languages: the
barons of France, Germany, and Lorraine, assembled their vassals;
and the confederate force that marched under his banner was
composed of fourscore thousand foot and about ten thousand horse.
II. In the parliament that was held at Paris, in the king’s
presence, about two months after the council of Clermont, Hugh,
count of Vermandois, was the most conspicuous of the princes who
assumed the cross. But the appellation of the Great was applied,
not so much to his merit or possessions, (though neither were
contemptible,) as to the royal birth of the brother of the king
of France. 46 Robert, duke of Normandy, was the eldest son of
William the Conqueror; but on his father’s death he was deprived
of the kingdom of England, by his own indolence and the activity
of his brother Rufus. The worth of Robert was degraded by an
excessive levity and easiness of temper: his cheerfulness seduced
him to the indulgence of pleasure; his profuse liberality
impoverished the prince and people; his indiscriminate clemency
multiplied the number of offenders; and the amiable qualities of
a private man became the essential defects of a sovereign. For
the trifling sum of ten thousand marks, he mortgaged Normandy
during his absence to the English usurper; 47 but his engagement
and behavior in the holy war announced in Robert a reformation of
manners, and restored him in some degree to the public esteem.
Another Robert was count of Flanders, a royal province, which, in
this century, gave three queens to the thrones of France,
England, and Denmark: he was surnamed the Sword and Lance of the
Christians; but in the exploits of a soldier he sometimes forgot
the duties of a general. Stephen, count of Chartres, of Blois,
and of Troyes, was one of the richest princes of the age; and the
number of his castles has been compared to the three hundred and
sixty-five days of the year. His mind was improved by literature;
and, in the council of the chiefs, the eloquent Stephen 48 was
chosen to discharge the office of their president. These four
were the principal leaders of the French, the Normans, and the
pilgrims of the British isles: but the list of the barons who
were possessed of three or four towns would exceed, says a
contemporary, the catalogue of the Trojan war. 49 III. In the
south of France, the command was assumed by Adhemar bishop of
Puy, the pope egate, and by Raymond count of St. Giles and
Thoulouse who added the prouder titles of duke of Narbonne and
marquis of Provence. The former was a respectable prelate, alike
qualified for this world and the next. The latter was a veteran
warrior, who had fought against the Saracens of Spain, and who
consecrated his declining age, not only to the deliverance, but
to the perpetual service, of the holy sepulchre. His experience
and riches gave him a strong ascendant in the Christian camp,
whose distress he was often able, and sometimes willing, to
relieve. But it was easier for him to extort the praise of the
Infidels, than to preserve the love of his subjects and
associates. His eminent qualities were clouded by a temper
haughty, envious, and obstinate; and, though he resigned an ample
patrimony for the cause of God, his piety, in the public opinion,
was not exempt from avarice and ambition. 50 A mercantile, rather
than a martial, spirit prevailed among his provincials, 51 a
common name, which included the natives of Auvergne and
Languedoc, 52 the vassals of the kingdom of Burgundy or Arles.
From the adjacent frontier of Spain he drew a band of hardy
adventurers; as he marched through Lombardy, a crowd of Italians
flocked to his standard, and his united force consisted of one
hundred thousand horse and foot. If Raymond was the first to
enlist and the last to depart, the delay may be excused by the
greatness of his preparation and the promise of an everlasting
farewell. IV. The name of Bohemond, the son of Robert Guiscard,
was already famous by his double victory over the Greek emperor;
but his father’s will had reduced him to the principality of
Tarentum, and the remembrance of his Eastern trophies, till he
was awakened by the rumor and passage of the French pilgrims. It
is in the person of this Norman chief that we may seek for the
coolest policy and ambition, with a small allay of religious
fanaticism. His conduct may justify a belief that he had secretly
directed the design of the pope, which he affected to second with
astonishment and zeal: at the siege of Amalphi, his example and
discourse inflamed the passions of a confederate army; he
instantly tore his garment to supply crosses for the numerous
candidates, and prepared to visit Constantinople and Asia at the
head of ten thousand horse and twenty thousand foot. Several
princes of the Norman race accompanied this veteran general; and
his cousin Tancred 53 was the partner, rather than the servant,
of the war.
In the accomplished character of Tancred we discover all the
virtues of a perfect knight, 54 the true spirit of chivalry,
which inspired the generous sentiments and social offices of man
far better than the base philosophy, or the baser religion, of
the times.
42 (return) [ The author of the Esprit des Croisades has doubted,
and might have disbelieved, the crusade and tragic death of
Prince Sueno, with 1500 or 15,000 Danes, who was cut off by
Sultan Soliman in Cappadocia, but who still lives in the poem of
Tasso, (tom. iv. p. 111-115.)]
43 (return) [ The fragments of the kingdoms of Lotharingia, or
Lorraine, were broken into the two duchies of the Moselle and of
the Meuse: the first has preserved its name, which in the latter
has been changed into that of Brabant, (Vales. Notit. Gall. p.
283-288.)]
44 (return) [ See, in the Description of France, by the Abbe de
Longuerue, the articles of Boulogne, part i. p. 54; Brabant, part
ii. p. 47, 48; Bouillon, p. 134. On his departure, Godfrey sold
or pawned Bouillon to the church for 1300 marks.]
45 (return) [ See the family character of Godfrey, in William of
Tyre, l. ix. c. 5-8; his previous design in Guibert, (p. 485;)
his sickness and vow in Bernard. Thesaur., (c 78.)]
46 (return) [ Anna Comnena supposes, that Hugh was proud of his
nobility riches, and power, (l. x. p. 288: ) the two last
articles appear more equivocal; but an item, which seven hundred
years ago was famous in the palace of Constantinople, attests the
ancient dignity of the Capetian family of France.]
47 (return) [ Will. Gemeticensis, l. vii. c. 7, p. 672, 673, in
Camden. Normani cis. He pawned the duchy for one hundredth part
of the present yearly revenue. Ten thousand marks may be equal to
five hundred thousand livres, and Normandy annually yields
fifty-seven millions to the king, (Necker, Administration des
Finances, tom. i. p. 287.)]
48 (return) [ His original letter to his wife is inserted in the
Spicilegium of Dom. Luc. d’Acheri, tom. iv. and quoted in the
Esprit des Croisades tom. i. p. 63.]
49 (return) [ Unius enim duum, trium seu quatuor oppidorum
dominos quis numeret? quorum tanta fuit copia, ut non vix totidem
Trojana obsidio coegisse putetur. (Ever the lively and
interesting Guibert, p. 486.)]
50 (return) [ It is singular enough, that Raymond of St. Giles, a
second character in the genuine history of the crusades, should
shine as the first of heroes in the writings of the Greeks (Anna
Comnen. Alexiad, l. x xi.) and the Arabians, (Longueruana, p.
129.)]
51 (return) [ Omnes de Burgundia, et Alvernia, et Vasconia, et
Gothi, (of Languedoc,) provinciales appellabantur, caeteri vero
Francigenae et hoc in exercitu; inter hostes autem Franci
dicebantur. Raymond des Agiles, p. 144.]
52 (return) [ The town of his birth, or first appanage, was
consecrated to St Aegidius, whose name, as early as the first
crusade, was corrupted by the French into St. Gilles, or St.
Giles. It is situate in the Iowen Languedoc, between Nismes and
the Rhone, and still boasts a collegiate church of the foundation
of Raymond, (Melanges tires d’une Grande Bibliotheque, tom.
xxxvii. p 51.)]
53 (return) [ The mother of Tancred was Emma, sister of the great
Robert Guiscard; his father, the Marquis Odo the Good. It is
singular enough, that the family and country of so illustrious a
person should be unknown; but Muratori reasonably conjectures
that he was an Italian, and perhaps of the race of the marquises
of Montferrat in Piedmont, (Script. tom. v. p. 281, 282.)]
54 (return) [ To gratify the childish vanity of the house of
Este. Tasso has inserted in his poem, and in the first crusade, a
fabulous hero, the brave and amorous Rinaldo, (x. 75, xvii.
66-94.) He might borrow his name from a Rinaldo, with the Aquila
bianca Estense, who vanquished, as the standard-bearer of the
Roman church, the emperor Frederic I., (Storia Imperiale di
Ricobaldo, in Muratori Script. Ital. tom. ix. p. 360. Ariosto,
Orlando Furioso, iii. 30.) But, 1. The distance of sixty years
between the youth of the two Rinaldos destroys their identity. 2.
The Storia Imperiale is a forgery of the Conte Boyardo, at the
end of the xvth century, (Muratori, p. 281-289.) 3. This Rinaldo,
and his exploits, are not less chimerical than the hero of Tasso,
(Muratori, Antichita Estense, tom. i. p. 350.)]
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part III.
Between the age of Charlemagne and that of the crusades, a
revolution had taken place among the Spaniards, the Normans, and
the French, which was gradually extended to the rest of Europe.
The service of the infantry was degraded to the plebeians; the
cavalry formed the strength of the armies, and the honorable name
of miles, or soldier, was confined to the gentlemen 55 who served
on horseback, and were invested with the character of knighthood.
The dukes and counts, who had usurped the rights of sovereignty,
divided the provinces among their faithful barons: the barons
distributed among their vassals the fiefs or benefices of their
jurisdiction; and these military tenants, the peers of each other
and of their lord, composed the noble or equestrian order, which
disdained to conceive the peasant or burgher as of the same
species with themselves. The dignity of their birth was preserved
by pure and equal alliances; their sons alone, who could produce
four quarters or lines of ancestry without spot or reproach,
might legally pretend to the honor of knighthood; but a valiant
plebeian was sometimes enriched and ennobled by the sword, and
became the father of a new race. A single knight could impart,
according to his judgment, the character which he received; and
the warlike sovereigns of Europe derived more glory from this
personal distinction than from the lustre of their diadem. This
ceremony, of which some traces may be found in Tacitus and the
woods of Germany, 56 was in its origin simple and profane; the
candidate, after some previous trial, was invested with the sword
and spurs; and his cheek or shoulder was touched with a slight
blow, as an emblem of the last affront which it was lawful for
him to endure. But superstition mingled in every public and
private action of life: in the holy wars, it sanctified the
profession of arms; and the order of chivalry was assimilated in
its rights and privileges to the sacred orders of priesthood. The
bath and white garment of the novice were an indecent copy of the
regeneration of baptism: his sword, which he offered on the
altar, was blessed by the ministers of religion: his solemn
reception was preceded by fasts and vigils; and he was created a
knight in the name of God, of St. George, and of St. Michael the
archangel. He swore to accomplish the duties of his profession;
and education, example, and the public opinion, were the
inviolable guardians of his oath. As the champion of God and the
ladies, (I blush to unite such discordant names,) he devoted
himself to speak the truth; to maintain the right; to protect the
distressed; to practise courtesy, a virtue less familiar to the
ancients; to pursue the infidels; to despise the allurements of
ease and safety; and to vindicate in every perilous adventure the
honor of his character. The abuse of the same spirit provoked the
illiterate knight to disdain the arts of industry and peace; to
esteem himself the sole judge and avenger of his own injuries;
and proudly to neglect the laws of civil society and military
discipline. Yet the benefits of this institution, to refine the
temper of Barbarians, and to infuse some principles of faith,
justice, and humanity, were strongly felt, and have been often
observed. The asperity of national prejudice was softened; and
the community of religion and arms spread a similar color and
generous emulation over the face of Christendom. Abroad in
enterprise and pilgrimage, at home in martial exercise, the
warriors of every country were perpetually associated; and
impartial taste must prefer a Gothic tournament to the Olympic
games of classic antiquity. 57 Instead of the naked spectacles
which corrupted the manners of the Greeks, and banished from the
stadium the virgins and matrons, the pompous decoration of the
lists was crowned with the presence of chaste and high-born
beauty, from whose hands the conqueror received the prize of his
dexterity and courage. The skill and strength that were exerted
in wrestling and boxing bear a distant and doubtful relation to
the merit of a soldier; but the tournaments, as they were
invented in France, and eagerly adopted both in the East and
West, presented a lively image of the business of the field. The
single combats, the general skirmish, the defence of a pass, or
castle, were rehearsed as in actual service; and the contest,
both in real and mimic war, was decided by the superior
management of the horse and lance. The lance was the proper and
peculiar weapon of the knight: his horse was of a large and heavy
breed; but this charger, till he was roused by the approaching
danger, was usually led by an attendant, and he quietly rode a
pad or palfrey of a more easy pace. His helmet and sword, his
greaves and buckler, it would be superfluous to describe; but I
may remark, that, at the period of the crusades, the armor was
less ponderous than in later times; and that, instead of a massy
cuirass, his breast was defended by a hauberk or coat of mail.
When their long lances were fixed in the rest, the warriors
furiously spurred their horses against the foe; and the light
cavalry of the Turks and Arabs could seldom stand against the
direct and impetuous weight of their charge. Each knight was
attended to the field by his faithful squire, a youth of equal
birth and similar hopes; he was followed by his archers and men
at arms, and four, or five, or six soldiers were computed as the
furniture of a complete lance. In the expeditions to the
neighboring kingdoms or the Holy Land, the duties of the feudal
tenure no longer subsisted; the voluntary service of the knights
and their followers were either prompted by zeal or attachment,
or purchased with rewards and promises; and the numbers of each
squadron were measured by the power, the wealth, and the fame, of
each independent chieftain. They were distinguished by his
banner, his armorial coat, and his cry of war; and the most
ancient families of Europe must seek in these achievements the
origin and proof of their nobility. In this rapid portrait of
chivalry I have been urged to anticipate on the story of the
crusades, at once an effect and a cause, of this memorable
institution. 58
55 (return) [ Of the words gentilis, gentilhomme, gentleman, two
etymologies are produced: 1. From the Barbarians of the fifth
century, the soldiers, and at length the conquerors of the Roman
empire, who were vain of their foreign nobility; and 2. From the
sense of the civilians, who consider gentilis as synonymous with
ingenuus. Selden inclines to the first but the latter is more
pure, as well as probable.]
56 (return) [ Framea scutoque juvenem ornant. Tacitus, Germania.
c. 13.]
57 (return) [ The athletic exercises, particularly the caestus
and pancratium, were condemned by Lycurgus, Philopoemen, and
Galen, a lawgiver, a general, and a physician. Against their
authority and reasons, the reader may weigh the apology of
Lucian, in the character of Solon. See West on the Olympic Games,
in his Pindar, vol. ii. p. 86-96 243-248]
58 (return) [ On the curious subjects of knighthood,
knights-service, nobility, arms, cry of war, banners, and
tournaments, an ample fund of information may be sought in
Selden, (Opera, tom. iii. part i. Titles of Honor, part ii. c. 1,
3, 5, 8,) Ducange, (Gloss. Latin. tom. iv. p. 398-412, &c.,)
Dissertations sur Joinville, (i. vi.—xii. p. 127-142, p.
161-222,) and M. de St. Palaye, (Memoires sur la Chevalerie.)]
Such were the troops, and such the leaders, who assumed the cross
for the deliverance of the holy sepulchre. As soon as they were
relieved by the absence of the plebeian multitude, they
encouraged each other, by interviews and messages, to accomplish
their vow, and hasten their departure. Their wives and sisters
were desirous of partaking the danger and merit of the
pilgrimage: their portable treasures were conveyed in bars of
silver and gold; and the princes and barons were attended by
their equipage of hounds and hawks to amuse their leisure and to
supply their table. The difficulty of procuring subsistence for
so many myriads of men and horses engaged them to separate their
forces: their choice or situation determined the road; and it was
agreed to meet in the neighborhood of Constantinople, and from
thence to begin their operations against the Turks. From the
banks of the Meuse and the Moselle, Godfrey of Bouillon followed
the direct way of Germany, Hungary, and Bulgaria; and, as long as
he exercised the sole command every step afforded some proof of
his prudence and virtue. On the confines of Hungary he was
stopped three weeks by a Christian people, to whom the name, or
at least the abuse, of the cross was justly odious. The
Hungarians still smarted with the wounds which they had received
from the first pilgrims: in their turn they had abused the right
of defence and retaliation; and they had reason to apprehend a
severe revenge from a hero of the same nation, and who was
engaged in the same cause. But, after weighing the motives and
the events, the virtuous duke was content to pity the crimes and
misfortunes of his worthless brethren; and his twelve deputies,
the messengers of peace, requested in his name a free passage and
an equal market. To remove their suspicions, Godfrey trusted
himself, and afterwards his brother, to the faith of Carloman,
581 king of Hungary, who treated them with a simple but
hospitable entertainment: the treaty was sanctified by their
common gospel; and a proclamation, under pain of death,
restrained the animosity and license of the Latin soldiers. From
Austria to Belgrade, they traversed the plains of Hungary,
without enduring or offering an injury; and the proximity of
Carloman, who hovered on their flanks with his numerous cavalry,
was a precaution not less useful for their safety than for his
own. They reached the banks of the Save; and no sooner had they
passed the river, than the king of Hungary restored the hostages,
and saluted their departure with the fairest wishes for the
success of their enterprise. With the same conduct and
discipline, Godfrey pervaded the woods of Bulgaria and the
frontiers of Thrace; and might congratulate himself that he had
almost reached the first term of his pilgrimage, without drawing
his sword against a Christian adversary. After an easy and
pleasant journey through Lombardy, from Turin to Aquileia,
Raymond and his provincials marched forty days through the savage
country of Dalmatia 59 and Sclavonia. The weather was a perpetual
fog; the land was mountainous and desolate; the natives were
either fugitive or hostile: loose in their religion and
government, they refused to furnish provisions or guides;
murdered the stragglers; and exercised by night and day the
vigilance of the count, who derived more security from the
punishment of some captive robbers than from his interview and
treaty with the prince of Scodra. 60 His march between Durazzo
and Constantinople was harassed, without being stopped, by the
peasants and soldiers of the Greek emperor; and the same faint
and ambiguous hostility was prepared for the remaining chiefs,
who passed the Adriatic from the coast of Italy. Bohemond had
arms and vessels, and foresight and discipline; and his name was
not forgotten in the provinces of Epirus and Thessaly. Whatever
obstacles he encountered were surmounted by his military conduct
and the valor of Tancred; and if the Norman prince affected to
spare the Greeks, he gorged his soldiers with the full plunder of
an heretical castle. 61 The nobles of France pressed forwards
with the vain and thoughtless ardor of which their nation has
been sometimes accused. From the Alps to Apulia the march of Hugh
the Great, of the two Roberts, and of Stephen of Chartres,
through a wealthy country, and amidst the applauding Catholics,
was a devout or triumphant progress: they kissed the feet of the
Roman pontiff; and the golden standard of St. Peter was delivered
to the brother of the French monarch. 62 But in this visit of
piety and pleasure, they neglected to secure the season, and the
means of their embarkation: the winter was insensibly lost: their
troops were scattered and corrupted in the towns of Italy. They
separately accomplished their passage, regardless of safety or
dignity; and within nine months from the feast of the Assumption,
the day appointed by Urban, all the Latin princes had reached
Constantinople. But the count of Vermandois was produced as a
captive; his foremost vessels were scattered by a tempest; and
his person, against the law of nations, was detained by the
lieutenants of Alexius. Yet the arrival of Hugh had been
announced by four-and-twenty knights in golden armor, who
commanded the emperor to revere the general of the Latin
Christians, the brother of the king of kings. 63 631
581 (return) [ Carloman (or Calmany) demanded the brother of
Godfrey as hostage but Count Baldwin refused the humiliating
submission. Godfrey shamed him into this sacrifice for the common
good by offering to surrender himself Wilken, vol. i. p. 104.—M.]
59 (return) [ The Familiae Dalmaticae of Ducange are meagre and
imperfect; the national historians are recent and fabulous, the
Greeks remote and careless. In the year 1104 Coloman reduced the
maritine country as far as Trau and Saloma, (Katona, Hist. Crit.
tom. iii. p. 195-207.)]
60 (return) [ Scodras appears in Livy as the capital and fortress
of Gentius, king of the Illyrians, arx munitissima, afterwards a
Roman colony, (Cellarius, tom. i. p. 393, 394.) It is now called
Iscodar, or Scutari, (D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p.
164.) The sanjiak (now a pacha) of Scutari, or Schendeire, was
the viiith under the Beglerbeg of Romania, and furnished 600
soldiers on a revenue of 78,787 rix dollars, (Marsigli, Stato
Militare del Imperio Ottomano, p. 128.)]
61 (return) [ In Pelagonia castrum haereticum..... spoliatum cum
suis habi tatoribus igne combussere. Nec id eis injuria contigit:
quia illorum detestabilis sermo et cancer serpebat, jamque
circumjacentes regiones suo pravo dogmate foedaverat, (Robert.
Mon. p. 36, 37.) After cooly relating the fact, the Archbishop
Baldric adds, as a praise, Omnes siquidem illi viatores, Judeos,
haereticos, Saracenos aequaliter habent exosos; quos omnes
appellant inimicos Dei, (p. 92.)]
62 (return) [ (Alexiad. l. x. p. 288.)]
63 (return) [ This Oriental pomp is extravagant in a count of
Vermandois; but the patriot Ducange repeats with much complacency
(Not. ad Alexiad. p. 352, 353. Dissert. xxvii. sur Joinville, p.
315) the passages of Matthew Paris (A.D. 1254) and Froissard,
(vol. iv. p. 201,) which style the king of France rex regum, and
chef de tous les rois Chretiens.]
631 (return) [ Hugh was taken at Durazzo, and sent by land to
Constantinople Wilken—M.]
In some oriental tale I have read the fable of a shepherd, who
was ruined by the accomplishment of his own wishes: he had prayed
for water; the Ganges was turned into his grounds, and his flock
and cottage were swept away by the inundation. Such was the
fortune, or at least the apprehension of the Greek emperor
Alexius Comnenus, whose name has already appeared in this
history, and whose conduct is so differently represented by his
daughter Anne, 64 and by the Latin writers. 65 In the council of
Placentia, his ambassadors had solicited a moderate succor,
perhaps of ten thousand soldiers, but he was astonished by the
approach of so many potent chiefs and fanatic nations. The
emperor fluctuated between hope and fear, between timidity and
courage; but in the crooked policy which he mistook for wisdom, I
cannot believe, I cannot discern, that he maliciously conspired
against the life or honor of the French heroes. The promiscuous
multitudes of Peter the Hermit were savage beasts, alike
destitute of humanity and reason: nor was it possible for Alexius
to prevent or deplore their destruction. The troops of Godfrey
and his peers were less contemptible, but not less suspicious, to
the Greek emperor. Their motives might be pure and pious: but he
was equally alarmed by his knowledge of the ambitious Bohemond,
651 and his ignorance of the Transalpine chiefs: the courage of
the French was blind and headstrong; they might be tempted by the
luxury and wealth of Greece, and elated by the view and opinion
of their invincible strength: and Jerusalem might be forgotten in
the prospect of Constantinople. After a long march and painful
abstinence, the troops of Godfrey encamped in the plains of
Thrace; they heard with indignation, that their brother, the
count of Vermandois, was imprisoned by the Greeks; and their
reluctant duke was compelled to indulge them in some freedom of
retaliation and rapine. They were appeased by the submission of
Alexius: he promised to supply their camp; and as they refused,
in the midst of winter, to pass the Bosphorus, their quarters
were assigned among the gardens and palaces on the shores of that
narrow sea. But an incurable jealousy still rankled in the minds
of the two nations, who despised each other as slaves and
Barbarians. Ignorance is the ground of suspicion, and suspicion
was inflamed into daily provocations: prejudice is blind, hunger
is deaf; and Alexius is accused of a design to starve or assault
the Latins in a dangerous post, on all sides encompassed with the
waters. 66 Godfrey sounded his trumpets, burst the net,
overspread the plain, and insulted the suburbs; but the gates of
Constantinople were strongly fortified; the ramparts were lined
with archers; and, after a doubtful conflict, both parties
listened to the voice of peace and religion. The gifts and
promises of the emperor insensibly soothed the fierce spirit of
the western strangers; as a Christian warrior, he rekindled their
zeal for the prosecution of their holy enterprise, which he
engaged to second with his troops and treasures. On the return of
spring, Godfrey was persuaded to occupy a pleasant and plentiful
camp in Asia; and no sooner had he passed the Bosphorus, than the
Greek vessels were suddenly recalled to the opposite shore. The
same policy was repeated with the succeeding chiefs, who were
swayed by the example, and weakened by the departure, of their
foremost companions. By his skill and diligence, Alexius
prevented the union of any two of the confederate armies at the
same moment under the walls of Constantinople; and before the
feast of the Pentecost not a Latin pilgrim was left on the coast
of Europe.
64 (return) [ Anna Comnena was born the 1st of December, A.D.
1083, indiction vii., (Alexiad. l. vi. p. 166, 167.) At thirteen,
the time of the first crusade, she was nubile, and perhaps
married to the younger Nicephorus Bryennius, whom she fondly
styles, (l. x. p. 295, 296.) Some moderns have imagined, that her
enmity to Bohemond was the fruit of disappointed love. In the
transactions of Constantinople and Nice, her partial accounts
(Alex. l. x. xi. p. 283-317) may be opposed to the partiality of
the Latins, but in their subsequent exploits she is brief and
ignorant.]
65 (return) [ In their views of the character and conduct of
Alexius, Maimbourg has favored the Catholic Franks, and Voltaire
has been partial to the schismatic Greeks. The prejudice of a
philosopher is less excusable than that of a Jesuit.]
651 (return) [ Wilken quotes a remarkable passage of William of
Malmsbury as to the secret motives of Urban and of Bohemond in
urging the crusade. Illud repositius propositum non ita
vulgabatur, quod Boemundi consilio, pene totam Europam in
Asiaticam expeditionem moveret, ut in tanto tumultu omnium
provinciarum facile obaeratis auxiliaribus, et Urbanus Romam et
Boemundus Illyricum et Macedoniam pervaderent. Nam eas terras et
quidquid praeterea a Dyrrachio usque ad Thessalonicam
protenditur, Guiscardus pater, super Alexium acquisierat; ideirco
illas Boemundus suo juri competere clamitabat: inops haereditatis
Apuliae, quam genitor Rogerio, minori filio delegaverat. Wilken,
vol. ii. p. 313.—M]
66 (return) [ Between the Black Sea, the Bosphorus, and the River
Barbyses, which is deep in summer, and runs fifteen miles through
a flat meadow. Its communication with Europe and Constantinople
is by the stone bridge of the Blachernoe, which in successive
ages was restored by Justinian and Basil, (Gyllius de Bosphoro
Thracio, l. ii. c. 3. Ducange O. P. Christiana, l. v. c. 2, p,
179.)]
The same arms which threatened Europe might deliver Asia, and
repel the Turks from the neighboring shores of the Bosphorus and
Hellespont. The fair provinces from Nice to Antioch were the
recent patrimony of the Roman emperor; and his ancient and
perpetual claim still embraced the kingdoms of Syria and Egypt.
In his enthusiasm, Alexius indulged, or affected, the ambitious
hope of leading his new allies to subvert the thrones of the
East; but the calmer dictates of reason and temper dissuaded him
from exposing his royal person to the faith of unknown and
lawless Barbarians. His prudence, or his pride, was content with
extorting from the French princes an oath of homage and fidelity,
and a solemn promise, that they
would either restore, or hold, their Asiatic conquests as the
humble and loyal vassals of the Roman empire. Their independent
spirit was fired at the mention of this foreign and voluntary
servitude: they successively yielded to the dexterous application
of gifts and flattery; and the first proselytes became the most
eloquent and effectual missionaries to multiply the companions of
their shame. The pride of Hugh of Vermandois was soothed by the
honors of his captivity; and in the brother of the French king,
the example of submission was prevalent and weighty. In the mind
of Godfrey of Bouillon every human consideration was subordinate
to the glory of God and the success of the crusade. He had firmly
resisted the temptations of Bohemond and Raymond, who urged the
attack and conquest of Constantinople. Alexius esteemed his
virtues, deservedly named him the champion of the empire, and
dignified his homage with the filial name and the rights of
adoption. 67 The hateful Bohemond was received as a true and
ancient ally; and if the emperor reminded him of former
hostilities, it was only to praise the valor that he had
displayed, and the glory that he had acquired, in the fields of
Durazzo and Larissa. The son of Guiscard was lodged and
entertained, and served with Imperial pomp: one day, as he passed
through the gallery of the palace, a door was carelessly left
open to expose a pile of gold and silver, of silk and gems, of
curious and costly furniture, that was heaped, in seeming
disorder, from the floor to the roof of the chamber. “What
conquests,” exclaimed the ambitious miser, “might not be achieved
by the possession of such a treasure!”—“It is your own,” replied
a Greek attendant, who watched the motions of his soul; and
Bohemond, after some hesitation, condescended to accept this
magnificent present. The Norman was flattered by the assurance of
an independent principality; and Alexius eluded, rather than
denied, his daring demand of the office of great domestic, or
general of the East. The two Roberts, the son of the conqueror of
England, and the kinsmen of three queens, 68 bowed in their turn
before the Byzantine throne. A private letter of Stephen of
Chartres attests his admiration of the emperor, the most
excellent and liberal of men, who taught him to believe that he
was a favorite, and promised to educate and establish his
youngest son. In his southern province, the count of St. Giles
and Thoulouse faintly recognized the supremacy of the king of
France, a prince of a foreign nation and language. At the head of
a hundred thousand men, he declared that he was the soldier and
servant of Christ alone, and that the Greek might be satisfied
with an equal treaty of alliance and friendship. His obstinate
resistance enhanced the value and the price of his submission;
and he shone, says the princess Anne, among the Barbarians, as
the sun amidst the stars of heaven. His disgust of the noise and
insolence of the French, his suspicions of the designs of
Bohemond, the emperor imparted to his faithful Raymond; and that
aged statesman might clearly discern, that however false in
friendship, he was sincere in his enmity. 69 The spirit of
chivalry was last subdued in the person of Tancred; and none
could deem themselves dishonored by the imitation of that gallant
knight. He disdained the gold and flattery of the Greek monarch;
assaulted in his presence an insolent patrician; escaped to Asia
in the habit of a private soldier; and yielded with a sigh to the
authority of Bohemond, and the interest of the Christian cause.
The best and most ostensible reason was the impossibility of
passing the sea and accomplishing their vow, without the license
and the vessels of Alexius; but they cherished a secret hope,
that as soon as they trod the continent of Asia, their swords
would obliterate their shame, and dissolve the engagement, which
on his side might not be very faithfully performed. The ceremony
of their homage was grateful to a people who had long since
considered pride as the substitute of power. High on his throne,
the emperor sat mute and immovable: his majesty was adored by the
Latin princes; and they submitted to kiss either his feet or his
knees, an indignity which their own writers are ashamed to
confess and unable to deny. 70
67 (return) [ There are two sorts of adoption, the one by arms,
the other by introducing the son between the shirt and skin of
his father. Ducange isur Joinville, (Diss. xxii. p. 270) supposes
Godfrey’s adoption to have been of the latter sort.]
68 (return) [ After his return, Robert of Flanders became the man
of the king of England, for a pension of four hundred marks. See
the first act in Rymer’s Foedera.]
69 (return) [ Sensit vetus regnandi, falsos in amore, odia non
fingere. Tacit. vi. 44.]
70 (return) [ The proud historians of the crusades slide and
stumble over this humiliating step. Yet, since the heroes knelt
to salute the emperor, as he sat motionless on his throne, it is
clear that they must have kissed either his feet or knees. It is
only singular, that Anna should not have amply supplied the
silence or ambiguity of the Latins. The abasement of their
princes would have added a fine chapter to the Ceremoniale Aulae
Byzantinae.]
Private or public interest suppressed the murmurs of the dukes
and counts; but a French baron (he is supposed to be Robert of
Paris 71 presumed to ascend the throne, and to place himself by
the side of Alexius. The sage reproof of Baldwin provoked him to
exclaim, in his barbarous idiom, “Who is this rustic, that keeps
his seat, while so many valiant captains are standing round him?”
The emperor maintained his silence, dissembled his indignation,
and questioned his interpreter concerning the meaning of the
words, which he partly suspected from the universal language of
gesture and countenance. Before the departure of the pilgrims, he
endeavored to learn the name and condition of the audacious
baron. “I am a Frenchman,” replied Robert, “of the purest and
most ancient nobility of my country. All that I know is, that
there is a church in my neighborhood, 72 the resort of those who
are desirous of approving their valor in single combat. Till an
enemy appears, they address their prayers to God and his saints.
That church I have frequently visited. But never have I found an
antagonist who dared to accept my defiance.” Alexius dismissed
the challenger with some prudent advice for his conduct in the
Turkish warfare; and history repeats with pleasure this lively
example of the manners of his age and country.
71 (return) [ He called himself (see Alexias, l. x. p. 301.) What
a title of noblesse of the eleventh century, if any one could now
prove his inheritance! Anna relates, with visible pleasure, that
the swelling Barbarian, was killed, or wounded, after fighting in
the front in the battle of Dorylaeum, (l. xi. p. 317.) This
circumstance may justify the suspicion of Ducange, (Not. p. 362,)
that he was no other than Robert of Paris, of the district most
peculiarly styled the Duchy or Island of France, (L’Isle de
France.)]
72 (return) [ With the same penetration, Ducange discovers his
church to be that of St. Drausus, or Drosin, of Soissons, quem
duello dimicaturi solent invocare: pugiles qui ad memoriam ejus
(his tomb) pernoctant invictos reddit, ut et de Burgundia et
Italia tali necessitate confugiatur ad eum. Joan. Sariberiensis,
epist. 139.]
The conquest of Asia was undertaken and achieved by Alexander,
with thirty-five thousand Macedonians and Greeks; 73 and his best
hope was in the strength and discipline of his phalanx of
infantry. The principal force of the crusaders consisted in their
cavalry; and when that force was mustered in the plains of
Bithynia, the knights and their martial attendants on horseback
amounted to one hundred thousand fighting men, completely armed
with the helmet and coat of mail. The value of these soldiers
deserved a strict and authentic account; and the flower of
European chivalry might furnish, in a first effort, this
formidable body of heavy horse. A part of the infantry might be
enrolled for the service of scouts, pioneers, and archers; but
the promiscuous crowd were lost in their own disorder; and we
depend not on the eyes and knowledge, but on the belief and
fancy, of a chaplain of Count Baldwin, 74 in the estimate of six
hundred thousand pilgrims able to bear arms, besides the priests
and monks, the women and children of the Latin camp. The reader
starts; and before he is recovered from his surprise, I shall
add, on the same testimony, that if all who took the cross had
accomplished their vow, above six millions would have migrated
from Europe to Asia. Under this oppression of faith, I derive
some relief from a more sagacious and thinking writer, 75 who,
after the same review of the cavalry, accuses the credulity of
the priest of Chartres, and even doubts whether the Cisalpine
regions (in the geography of a Frenchman) were sufficient to
produce and pour forth such incredible multitudes. The coolest
scepticism will remember, that of these religious volunteers
great numbers never beheld Constantinople and Nice. Of enthusiasm
the influence is irregular and transient: many were detained at
home by reason or cowardice, by poverty or weakness; and many
were repulsed by the obstacles of the way, the more insuperable
as they were unforeseen, to these ignorant fanatics. The savage
countries of Hungary and Bulgaria were whitened with their bones:
their vanguard was cut in pieces by the Turkish sultan; and the
loss of the first adventure, by the sword, or climate, or
fatigue, has already been stated at three hundred thousand men.
Yet the myriads that survived, that marched, that pressed
forwards on the holy pilgrimage, were a subject of astonishment
to themselves and to the Greeks. The copious energy of her
language sinks under the efforts of the princess Anne: 76 the
images of locusts, of leaves and flowers, of the sands of the
sea, or the stars of heaven, imperfectly represent what she had
seen and heard; and the daughter of Alexius exclaims, that Europe
was loosened from its foundations, and hurled against Asia. The
ancient hosts of Darius and Xerxes labor under the same doubt of
a vague and indefinite magnitude; but I am inclined to believe,
that a larger number has never been contained within the lines of
a single camp, than at the siege of Nice, the first operation of
the Latin princes. Their motives, their characters, and their
arms, have been already displayed. Of their troops the most
numerous portion were natives of France: the Low Countries, the
banks of the Rhine, and Apulia, sent a powerful reenforcement:
some bands of adventurers were drawn from Spain, Lombardy, and
England; 77 and from the distant bogs and mountains of Ireland or
Scotland 78 issued some naked and savage fanatics, ferocious at
home but unwarlike abroad. Had not superstition condemned the
sacrilegious prudence of depriving the poorest or weakest
Christian of the merit of the pilgrimage, the useless crowd, with
mouths but without hands, might have been stationed in the Greek
empire, till their companions had opened and secured the way of
the Lord. A small remnant of the pilgrims, who passed the
Bosphorus, was permitted to visit the holy sepulchre. Their
northern constitution was scorched by the rays, and infected by
the vapors, of a Syrian sun. They consumed, with heedless
prodigality, their stores of water and provision: their numbers
exhausted the inland country: the sea was remote, the Greeks were
unfriendly, and the Christians of every sect fled before the
voracious and cruel rapine of their brethren. In the dire
necessity of famine, they sometimes roasted and devoured the
flesh of their infant or adult captives. Among the Turks and
Saracens, the idolaters of Europe were rendered more odious by
the name and reputation of Cannibals; the spies, who introduced
themselves into the kitchen of Bohemond, were shown several human
bodies turning on the spit: and the artful Norman encouraged a
report, which increased at the same time the abhorrence and the
terror of the infidels. 79
73 (return) [ There is some diversity on the numbers of his army;
but no authority can be compared with that of Ptolemy, who states
it at five thousand horse and thirty thousand foot, (see Usher’s
Annales, p 152.)]
74 (return) [ Fulcher. Carnotensis, p. 387. He enumerates
nineteen nations of different names and languages, (p. 389;) but
I do not clearly apprehend his difference between the Franci and
Galli, Itali and Apuli. Elsewhere (p. 385) he contemptuously
brands the deserters.]
75 (return) [ Guibert, p. 556. Yet even his gentle opposition
implies an immense multitude. By Urban II., in the fervor of his
zeal, it is only rated at 300,000 pilgrims, (epist. xvi. Concil.
tom. xii. p. 731.)]
76 (return) [ Alexias, l. x. p. 283, 305. Her fastidious delicacy
complains of their strange and inarticulate names; and indeed
there is scarcely one that she has not contrived to disfigure
with the proud ignorance so dear and familiar to a polished
people. I shall select only one example, Sangeles, for the count
of St. Giles.]
77 (return) [ William of Malmsbury (who wrote about the year
1130) has inserted in his history (l. iv. p. 130-154) a narrative
of the first crusade: but I wish that, instead of listening to
the tenue murmur which had passed the British ocean, (p. 143,) he
had confined himself to the numbers, families, and adventures of
his countrymen. I find in Dugdale, that an English Norman,
Stephen earl of Albemarle and Holdernesse, led the rear-guard
with Duke Robert, at the battle of Antioch, (Baronage, part i. p.
61.)]
78 (return) [ Videres Scotorum apud se ferocium alias imbellium
cuneos, (Guibert, p. 471;) the crus intectum and hispida chlamys,
may suit the Highlanders; but the finibus uliginosis may rather
apply to the Irish bogs. William of Malmsbury expressly mentions
the Welsh and Scots, &c., (l. iv. p. 133,) who quitted, the
former venatiorem, the latter familiaritatem pulicum.]
79 (return) [ This cannibal hunger, sometimes real, more
frequently an artifice or a lie, may be found in Anna Comnena,
(Alexias, l. x. p. 288,) Guibert, (p. 546,) Radulph. Cadom., (c.
97.) The stratagem is related by the author of the Gesta
Francorum, the monk Robert Baldric, and Raymond des Agiles, in
the siege and famine of Antioch.]
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part IV.
I have expiated with pleasure on the first steps of the
crusaders, as they paint the manners and character of Europe: but
I shall abridge the tedious and uniform narrative of their blind
achievements, which were performed by strength and are described
by ignorance. From their first station in the neighborhood of
Nicomedia, they advanced in successive divisions; passed the
contracted limit of the Greek empire; opened a road through the
hills, and commenced, by the siege of his capital, their pious
warfare against the Turkish sultan. His kingdom of Roum extended
from the Hellespont to the confines of Syria, and barred the
pilgrimage of Jerusalem, his name was Kilidge-Arslan, or Soliman,
80 of the race of Seljuk, and son of the first conqueror; and in
the defence of a land which the Turks considered as their own, he
deserved the praise of his enemies, by whom alone he is known to
posterity. Yielding to the first impulse of the torrent, he
deposited his family and treasure in Nice; retired to the
mountains with fifty thousand horse; and twice descended to
assault the camps or quarters of the Christian besiegers, which
formed an imperfect circle of above six miles. The lofty and
solid walls of Nice were covered by a deep ditch, and flanked by
three hundred and seventy towers; and on the verge of
Christendom, the Moslems were trained in arms, and inflamed by
religion. Before this city, the French princes occupied their
stations, and prosecuted their attacks without correspondence or
subordination: emulation prompted their valor; but their valor
was sullied by cruelty, and their emulation degenerated into envy
and civil discord. In the siege of Nice, the arts and engines of
antiquity were employed by the Latins; the mine and the
battering-ram, the tortoise, and the belfrey or movable turret,
artificial fire, and the catapult and balist, the sling, and the
crossbow for the casting of stones and darts. 81 In the space of
seven weeks much labor and blood were expended, and some
progress, especially by Count Raymond, was made on the side of
the besiegers. But the Turks could protract their resistance and
secure their escape, as long as they were masters of the Lake 82
Ascanius, which stretches several miles to the westward of the
city. The means of conquest were supplied by the prudence and
industry of Alexius; a great number of boats was transported on
sledges from the sea to the lake; they were filled with the most
dexterous of his archers; the flight of the sultana was
intercepted; Nice was invested by land and water; and a Greek
emissary persuaded the inhabitants to accept his master’s
protection, and to save themselves, by a timely surrender, from
the rage of the savages of Europe. In the moment of victory, or
at least of hope, the crusaders, thirsting for blood and plunder,
were awed by the Imperial banner that streamed from the citadel;
821 and Alexius guarded with jealous vigilance this important
conquest. The murmurs of the chiefs were stifled by honor or
interest; and after a halt of nine days, they directed their
march towards Phrygia under the guidance of a Greek general, whom
they suspected of a secret connivance with the sultan. The
consort and the principal servants of Soliman had been honorably
restored without ransom; and the emperor’s generosity to the
miscreants 83 was interpreted as treason to the Christian cause.
80 (return) [ His Mussulman appellation of Soliman is used by the
Latins, and his character is highly embellished by Tasso. His
Turkish name of Kilidge-Arslan (A. H. 485-500, A.D. 1192-1206.
See De Guignes’s Tables, tom. i. p. 245) is employed by the
Orientals, and with some corruption by the Greeks; but little
more than his name can be found in the Mahometan writers, who are
dry and sulky on the subject of the first crusade, (De Guignes,
tom. iii. p. ii. p. 10-30.) * Note: See note, page 556. Soliman
and Kilidge-Arslan were father and son—M.]
81 (return) [ On the fortifications, engines, and sieges of the
middle ages, see Muratori, (Antiquitat. Italiae, tom. ii.
dissert. xxvi. p. 452-524.) The belfredus, from whence our
belfrey, was the movable tower of the ancients, (Ducange, tom. i.
p. 608.)]
82 (return) [ I cannot forbear remarking the resemblance between
the siege and lake of Nice, with the operations of Hernan Cortez
before Mexico. See Dr. Robertson, History of America, l. v.]
821 (return) [ See Anna Comnena.—M.]
83 (return) [ Mecreant, a word invented by the French crusaders,
and confined in that language to its primitive sense. It should
seem, that the zeal of our ancestors boiled higher, and that they
branded every unbeliever as a rascal. A similar prejudice still
lurks in the minds of many who think themselves Christians.]
Soliman was rather provoked than dismayed by the loss of his
capital: he admonished his subjects and allies of this strange
invasion of the Western Barbarians; the Turkish emirs obeyed the
call of loyalty or religion; the Turkman hordes encamped round
his standard; and his whole force is loosely stated by the
Christians at two hundred, or even three hundred and sixty
thousand horse. Yet he patiently waited till they had left behind
them the sea and the Greek frontier; and hovering on the flanks,
observed their careless and confident progress in two columns
beyond the view of each other. Some miles before they could reach
Dorylaeum in Phrygia, the left, and least numerous, division was
surprised, and attacked, and almost oppressed, by the Turkish
cavalry. 84 The heat of the weather, the clouds of arrows, and
the barbarous onset, overwhelmed the crusaders; they lost their
order and confidence, and the fainting fight was sustained by the
personal valor, rather than by the military conduct, of Bohemond,
Tancred, and Robert of Normandy. They were revived by the welcome
banners of Duke Godfrey, who flew to their succor, with the count
of Vermandois, and sixty thousand horse; and was followed by
Raymond of Tholouse, the bishop of Puy, and the remainder of the
sacred army. Without a moment’s pause, they formed in new order,
and advanced to a second battle. They were received with equal
resolution; and, in their common disdain for the unwarlike people
of Greece and Asia, it was confessed on both sides, that the
Turks and the Franks were the only nations entitled to the
appellation of soldiers. 85 Their encounter was varied, and
balanced by the contrast of arms and discipline; of the direct
charge, and wheeling evolutions; of the couched lance, and the
brandished javelin; of a weighty broadsword, and a crooked sabre;
of cumbrous armor, and thin flowing robes; and of the long Tartar
bow, and the arbalist or crossbow, a deadly weapon, yet unknown
to the Orientals. 86 As long as the horses were fresh, and the
quivers full, Soliman maintained the advantage of the day; and
four thousand Christians were pierced by the Turkish arrows. In
the evening, swiftness yielded to strength: on either side, the
numbers were equal or at least as great as any ground could hold,
or any generals could manage; but in turning the hills, the last
division of Raymond and his provincials was led, perhaps without
design on the rear of an exhausted enemy; and the long contest
was determined. Besides a nameless and unaccounted multitude,
three thousand Pagan knights were slain in the battle and
pursuit; the camp of Soliman was pillaged; and in the variety of
precious spoil, the curiosity of the Latins was amused with
foreign arms and apparel, and the new aspect of dromedaries and
camels. The importance of the victory was proved by the hasty
retreat of the sultan: reserving ten thousand guards of the
relics of his army, Soliman evacuated the kingdom of Roum, and
hastened to implore the aid, and kindle the resentment, of his
Eastern brethren. In a march of five hundred miles, the crusaders
traversed the Lesser Asia, through a wasted land and deserted
towns, without finding either a friend or an enemy. The
geographer 87 may trace the position of Dorylaeum, Antioch of
Pisidia, Iconium, Archelais, and Germanicia, and may compare
those classic appellations with the modern names of Eskishehr the
old city, Akshehr the white city, Cogni, Erekli, and Marash. As
the pilgrims passed over a desert, where a draught of water is
exchanged for silver, they were tormented by intolerable thirst;
and on the banks of the first rivulet, their haste and
intemperance were still more pernicious to the disorderly throng.
They climbed with toil and danger the steep and slippery sides of
Mount Taurus; many of the soldiers cast away their arms to secure
their footsteps; and had not terror preceded their van, the long
and trembling file might have been driven down the precipice by a
handful of resolute enemies. Two of their most respectable
chiefs, the duke of Lorraine and the count of Tholouse, were
carried in litters: Raymond was raised, as it is said by miracle,
from a hopeless malady; and Godfrey had been torn by a bear, as
he pursued that rough and perilous chase in the mountains of
Pisidia.
84 (return) [ Baronius has produced a very doubtful letter to his
brother Roger, (A.D. 1098, No. 15.) The enemies consisted of
Medes, Persians, Chaldeans: be it so. The first attack was cum
nostro incommodo; true and tender. But why Godfrey of Bouillon
and Hugh brothers! Tancred is styled filius; of whom? Certainly
not of Roger, nor of Bohemond.]
85 (return) [ Verumtamen dicunt se esse de Francorum generatione;
et quia nullus homo naturaliter debet esse miles nisi Franci et
Turci, (Gesta Francorum, p. 7.) The same community of blood and
valor is attested by Archbishop Baldric, (p. 99.)]
86 (return) [ Balista, Balestra, Arbalestre. See Muratori, Antiq.
tom. ii. p. 517-524. Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. i. p. 531, 532.
In the time of Anna Comnena, this weapon, which she describes
under the name of izangra, was unknown in the East, (l. x. p.
291.) By a humane inconsistency, the pope strove to prohibit it
in Christian wars.]
87 (return) [ The curious reader may compare the classic learning
of Cellarius and the geographical science of D’Anville. William
of Tyre is the only historian of the crusades who has any
knowledge of antiquity; and M. Otter trod almost in the footsteps
of the Franks from Constantinople to Antioch, (Voyage en Turquie
et en Perse, tom. i. p. 35-88.) * Note: The journey of Col.
Macdonald Kinneir in Asia Minor throws considerable light on the
geography of this march of the crusaders.—M.]
To improve the general consternation, the cousin of Bohemond and
the brother of Godfrey were detached from the main army with
their respective squadrons of five, and of seven, hundred
knights. They overran in a rapid career the hills and sea-coast
of Cilicia, from Cogni to the Syrian gates: the Norman standard
was first planted on the walls of Tarsus and Malmistra; but the
proud injustice of Baldwin at length provoked the patient and
generous Italian; and they turned their consecrated swords
against each other in a private and profane quarrel. Honor was
the motive, and fame the reward, of Tancred; but fortune smiled
on the more selfish enterprise of his rival. 88 He was called to
the assistance of a Greek or Armenian tyrant, who had been
suffered under the Turkish yoke to reign over the Christians of
Edessa. Baldwin accepted the character of his son and champion:
but no sooner was he introduced into the city, than he inflamed
the people to the massacre of his father, occupied the throne and
treasure, extended his conquests over the hills of Armenia and
the plain of Mesopotamia, and founded the first principality of
the Franks or Latins, which subsisted fifty-four years beyond the
Euphrates. 89
88 (return) [ This detached conquest of Edessa is best
represented by Fulcherius Carnotensis, or of Chartres, (in the
collections of Bongarsius Duchesne, and Martenne,) the valiant
chaplain of Count Baldwin (Esprit des Croisades, tom. i. p. 13,
14.) In the disputes of that prince with Tancred, his partiality
is encountered by the partiality of Radulphus Cadomensis, the
soldier and historian of the gallant marquis.]
89 (return) [ See de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 456.]
Before the Franks could enter Syria, the summer, and even the
autumn, were completely wasted: the siege of Antioch, or the
separation and repose of the army during the winter season, was
strongly debated in their council: the love of arms and the holy
sepulchre urged them to advance; and reason perhaps was on the
side of resolution, since every hour of delay abates the fame and
force of the invader, and multiplies the resources of defensive
war. The capital of Syria was protected by the River Orontes; and
the iron bridge, 891 of nine arches, derives its name from the
massy gates of the two towers which are constructed at either
end. They were opened by the sword of the duke of Normandy: his
victory gave entrance to three hundred thousand crusaders, an
account which may allow some scope for losses and desertion, but
which clearly detects much exaggeration in the review of Nice. In
the description of Antioch, 90 it is not easy to define a middle
term between her ancient magnificence, under the successors of
Alexander and Augustus, and the modern aspect of Turkish
desolation. The Tetrapolis, or four cities, if they retained
their name and position, must have left a large vacuity in a
circumference of twelve miles; and that measure, as well as the
number of four hundred towers, are not perfectly consistent with
the five gates, so often mentioned in the history of the siege.
Yet Antioch must have still flourished as a great and populous
capital. At the head of the Turkish emirs, Baghisian, a veteran
chief, commanded in the place: his garrison was composed of six
or seven thousand horse, and fifteen or twenty thousand foot: one
hundred thousand Moslems are said to have fallen by the sword;
and their numbers were probably inferior to the Greeks,
Armenians, and Syrians, who had been no more than fourteen years
the slaves of the house of Seljuk. From the remains of a solid
and stately wall, it appears to have arisen to the height of
threescore feet in the valleys; and wherever less art and labor
had been applied, the ground was supposed to be defended by the
river, the morass, and the mountains. Notwithstanding these
fortifications, the city had been repeatedly taken by the
Persians, the Arabs, the Greeks, and the Turks; so large a
circuit must have yielded many pervious points of attack; and in
a siege that was formed about the middle of October, the vigor of
the execution could alone justify the boldness of the attempt.
Whatever strength and valor could perform in the field was
abundantly discharged by the champions of the cross: in the
frequent occasions of sallies, of forage, of the attack and
defence of convoys, they were often victorious; and we can only
complain, that their exploits are sometimes enlarged beyond the
scale of probability and truth. The sword of Godfrey 91 divided a
Turk from the shoulder to the haunch; and one half of the infidel
fell to the ground, while the other was transported by his horse
to the city gate. As Robert of Normandy rode against his
antagonist, “I devote thy head,” he piously exclaimed, “to the
daemons of hell;” and that head was instantly cloven to the
breast by the resistless stroke of his descending falchion. But
the reality or the report of such gigantic prowess 92 must have
taught the Moslems to keep within their walls: and against those
walls of earth or stone, the sword and the lance were unavailing
weapons. In the slow and successive labors of a siege, the
crusaders were supine and ignorant, without skill to contrive, or
money to purchase, or industry to use, the artificial engines and
implements of assault. In the conquest of Nice, they had been
powerfully assisted by the wealth and knowledge of the Greek
emperor: his absence was poorly supplied by some Genoese and
Pisan vessels, that were attracted by religion or trade to the
coast of Syria: the stores were scanty, the return precarious,
and the communication difficult and dangerous. Indolence or
weakness had prevented the Franks from investing the entire
circuit; and the perpetual freedom of two gates relieved the
wants and recruited the garrison of the city. At the end of seven
months, after the ruin of their cavalry, and an enormous loss by
famine, desertion and fatigue, the progress of the crusaders was
imperceptible, and their success remote, if the Latin Ulysses,
the artful and ambitious Bohemond, had not employed the arms of
cunning and deceit. The Christians of Antioch were numerous and
discontented: Phirouz, a Syrian renegado, had acquired the favor
of the emir and the command of three towers; and the merit of his
repentance disguised to the Latins, and perhaps to himself, the
foul design of perfidy and treason. A secret correspondence, for
their mutual interest, was soon established between Phirouz and
the prince of Tarento; and Bohemond declared in the council of
the chiefs, that he could deliver the city into their hands. 921
But he claimed the sovereignty of Antioch as the reward of his
service; and the proposal which had been rejected by the envy,
was at length extorted from the distress, of his equals. The
nocturnal surprise was executed by the French and Norman princes,
who ascended in person the scaling-ladders that were thrown from
the walls: their new proselyte, after the murder of his too
scrupulous brother, embraced and introduced the servants of
Christ; the army rushed through the gates; and the Moslems soon
found, that although mercy was hopeless, resistance was impotent.
But the citadel still refused to surrender; and the victims
themselves were speedily encompassed and besieged by the
innumerable forces of Kerboga, prince of Mosul, who, with
twenty-eight Turkish emirs, advanced to the deliverance of
Antioch. Five-and-twenty days the Christians spent on the verge
of destruction; and the proud lieutenant of the caliph and the
sultan left them only the choice of servitude or death. 93 In
this extremity they collected the relics of their strength,
sallied from the town, and in a single memorable day, annihilated
or dispersed the host of Turks and Arabians, which they might
safely report to have consisted of six hundred thousand men. 94
Their supernatural allies I shall proceed to consider: the human
causes of the victory of Antioch were the fearless despair of the
Franks; and the surprise, the discord, perhaps the errors, of
their unskilful and presumptuous adversaries. The battle is
described with as much disorder as it was fought; but we may
observe the tent of Kerboga, a movable and spacious palace,
enriched with the luxury of Asia, and capable of holding above
two thousand persons; we may distinguish his three thousand
guards, who were cased, the horse as well as the men, in complete
steel.
891 (return) [ This bridge was over the Ifrin, not the Orontes,
at a distance of three leagues from Antioch. See Wilken, vol. i.
p. 172.—M.]
90 (return) [ For Antioch, see Pocock, (Description of the East,
vol. ii. p. i. p. 188-193,) Otter, (Voyage en Turquie, &c., tom.
i. p. 81, &c.,) the Turkish geographer, (in Otter’s notes,) the
Index Geographicus of Schultens, (ad calcem Bohadin. Vit.
Saladin.,) and Abulfeda, (Tabula Syriae, p. 115, 116, vers.
Reiske.)]
91 (return) [ Ensem elevat, eumque a sinistra parte scapularum,
tanta virtute intorsit, ut quod pectus medium disjunxit spinam et
vitalia interrupit; et sic lubricus ensis super crus dextrum
integer exivit: sicque caput integrum cum dextra parte corporis
immersit gurgite, partemque quae equo praesidebat remisit
civitati, (Robert. Mon. p. 50.) Cujus ense trajectus, Turcus duo
factus est Turci: ut inferior alter in urbem equitaret, alter
arcitenens in flumine nataret, (Radulph. Cadom. c. 53, p. 304.)
Yet he justifies the deed by the stupendis viribus of Godfrey;
and William of Tyre covers it by obstupuit populus facti novitate
.... mirabilis, (l. v. c. 6, p. 701.) Yet it must not have
appeared incredible to the knights of that age.]
92 (return) [ See the exploits of Robert, Raymond, and the modest
Tancred who imposed silence on his squire, (Randulph. Cadom. c.
53.)]
921 (return) [ See the interesting extract from Kemaleddin’s
History of Aleppo in Wilken, preface to vol. ii. p. 36. Phirouz,
or Azzerrad, the breastplate maker, had been pillaged and put to
the torture by Bagi Sejan, the prince of Antioch.—M.]
93 (return) [ After mentioning the distress and humble petition
of the Franks, Abulpharagius adds the haughty reply of Codbuka,
or Kerboga, “Non evasuri estis nisi per gladium,” (Dynast. p.
242.)]
94 (return) [ In describing the host of Kerboga, most of the
Latin historians, the author of the Gesta, (p. 17,) Robert
Monachus, (p. 56,) Baldric, (p. 111,) Fulcherius Carnotensis, (p.
392,) Guibert, (p. 512,) William of Tyre, (l. vi. c. 3, p. 714,)
Bernard Thesaurarius, (c. 39, p. 695,) are content with the vague
expressions of infinita multitudo, immensum agmen, innumerae
copiae or gentes, which correspond with Anna Comnena, (Alexias,
l. xi. p. 318-320.) The numbers of the Turks are fixed by Albert
Aquensis at 200,000, (l. iv. c. 10, p. 242,) and by Radulphus
Cadomensis at 400,000 horse, (c. 72, p. 309.)]
In the eventful period of the siege and defence of Antioch, the
crusaders were alternately exalted by victory or sunk in despair;
either swelled with plenty or emaciated with hunger. A
speculative reasoner might suppose, that their faith had a strong
and serious influence on their practice; and that the soldiers of
the cross, the deliverers of the holy sepulchre, prepared
themselves by a sober and virtuous life for the daily
contemplation of martyrdom. Experience blows away this charitable
illusion; and seldom does the history of profane war display such
scenes of intemperance and prostitution as were exhibited under
the walls of Antioch. The grove of Daphne no longer flourished;
but the Syrian air was still impregnated with the same vices; the
Christians were seduced by every temptation 95 that nature either
prompts or reprobates; the authority of the chiefs was despised;
and sermons and edicts were alike fruitless against those
scandalous disorders, not less pernicious to military discipline,
than repugnant to evangelic purity. In the first days of the
siege and the possession of Antioch, the Franks consumed with
wanton and thoughtless prodigality the frugal subsistence of
weeks and months: the desolate country no longer yielded a
supply; and from that country they were at length excluded by the
arms of the besieging Turks. Disease, the faithful companion of
want, was envenomed by the rains of the winter, the summer heats,
unwholesome food, and the close imprisonment of multitudes. The
pictures of famine and pestilence are always the same, and always
disgustful; and our imagination may suggest the nature of their
sufferings and their resources. The remains of treasure or spoil
were eagerly lavished in the purchase of the vilest nourishment;
and dreadful must have been the calamities of the poor, since,
after paying three marks of silver for a goat and fifteen for a
lean camel, 96 the count of Flanders was reduced to beg a dinner,
and Duke Godfrey to borrow a horse. Sixty thousand horse had been
reviewed in the camp: before the end of the siege they were
diminished to two thousand, and scarcely two hundred fit for
service could be mustered on the day of battle. Weakness of body
and terror of mind extinguished the ardent enthusiasm of the
pilgrims; and every motive of honor and religion was subdued by
the desire of life. 97 Among the chiefs, three heroes may be
found without fear or reproach: Godfrey of Bouillon was supported
by his magnanimous piety; Bohemond by ambition and interest; and
Tancred declared, in the true spirit of chivalry, that as long as
he was at the head of forty knights, he would never relinquish
the enterprise of Palestine. But the count of Tholouse and
Provence was suspected of a voluntary indisposition; the duke of
Normandy was recalled from the sea-shore by the censures of the
church: Hugh the Great, though he led the vanguard of the battle,
embraced an ambiguous opportunity of returning to France and
Stephen, count of Chartres, basely deserted the standard which he
bore, and the council in which he presided. The soldiers were
discouraged by the flight of William, viscount of Melun, surnamed
the Carpenter, from the weighty strokes of his axe; and the
saints were scandalized by the fall 971 of Peter the Hermit, who,
after arming Europe against Asia, attempted to escape from the
penance of a necessary fast. Of the multitude of recreant
warriors, the names (says an historian) are blotted from the book
of life; and the opprobrious epithet of the rope-dancers was
applied to the deserters who dropped in the night from the walls
of Antioch. The emperor Alexius, 98 who seemed to advance to the
succor of the Latins, was dismayed by the assurance of their
hopeless condition. They expected their fate in silent despair;
oaths and punishments were tried without effect; and to rouse the
soldiers to the defence of the walls, it was found necessary to
set fire to their quarters.
95 (return) [ See the tragic and scandalous fate of an archdeacon
of royal birth, who was slain by the Turks as he reposed in an
orchard, playing at dice with a Syrian concubine.]
96 (return) [ The value of an ox rose from five solidi, (fifteen
shillings,) at Christmas to two marks, (four pounds,) and
afterwards much higher; a kid or lamb, from one shilling to
eighteen of our present money: in the second famine, a loaf of
bread, or the head of an animal, sold for a piece of gold. More
examples might be produced; but it is the ordinary, not the
extraordinary, prices, that deserve the notice of the
philosopher.]
97 (return) [ Alli multi, quorum nomina non tenemus; quia, deleta
de libro vitae, praesenti operi non sunt inserenda, (Will. Tyr.
l. vi. c. 5, p. 715.) Guibert (p. 518, 523) attempts to excuse
Hugh the Great, and even Stephen of Chartres.]
971 (return) [ Peter fell during the siege: he went afterwards on
an embassy to Kerboga Wilken. vol. i. p. 217.—M.]
98 (return) [ See the progress of the crusade, the retreat of
Alexius, the victory of Antioch, and the conquest of Jerusalem,
in the Alexiad, l. xi. p. 317-327. Anna was so prone to
exaggeration, that she magnifies the exploits of the Latins.]
For their salvation and victory, they were indebted to the same
fanaticism which had led them to the brink of ruin. In such a
cause, and in such an army, visions, prophecies, and miracles,
were frequent and familiar. In the distress of Antioch, they were
repeated with unusual energy and success: St. Ambrose had assured
a pious ecclesiastic, that two years of trial must precede the
season of deliverance and grace; the deserters were stopped by
the presence and reproaches of Christ himself; the dead had
promised to arise and combat with their brethren; the Virgin had
obtained the pardon of their sins; and their confidence was
revived by a visible sign, the seasonable and splendid discovery
of the Holy Lance. The policy of their chiefs has on this
occasion been admired, and might surely be excused; but a pious
fraud is seldom produced by the cool conspiracy of many persons;
and a voluntary impostor might depend on the support of the wise
and the credulity of the people. Of the diocese of Marseilles,
there was a priest of low cunning and loose manners, and his name
was Peter Bartholemy. He presented himself at the door of the
council-chamber, to disclose an apparition of St. Andrew, which
had been thrice reiterated in his sleep with a dreadful menace,
if he presumed to suppress the commands of Heaven. “At Antioch,”
said the apostle, “in the church of my brother St. Peter, near
the high altar, is concealed the steel head of the lance that
pierced the side of our Redeemer. In three days that instrument
of eternal, and now of temporal, salvation, will be manifested to
his disciples. Search, and ye shall find: bear it aloft in
battle; and that mystic weapon shall penetrate the souls of the
miscreants.” The pope’s legate, the bishop of Puy, affected to
listen with coldness and distrust; but the revelation was eagerly
accepted by Count Raymond, whom his faithful subject, in the name
of the apostle, had chosen for the guardian of the holy lance.
The experiment was resolved; and on the third day after a due
preparation of prayer and fasting, the priest of Marseilles
introduced twelve trusty spectators, among whom were the count
and his chaplain; and the church doors were barred against the
impetuous multitude. The ground was opened in the appointed
place; but the workmen, who relieved each other, dug to the depth
of twelve feet without discovering the object of their search. In
the evening, when Count Raymond had withdrawn to his post, and
the weary assistants began to murmur, Bartholemy, in his shirt,
and without his shoes, boldly descended into the pit; the
darkness of the hour and of the place enabled him to secrete and
deposit the head of a Saracen lance; and the first sound, the
first gleam, of the steel was saluted with a devout rapture. The
holy lance was drawn from its recess, wrapped in a veil of silk
and gold, and exposed to the veneration of the crusaders; their
anxious suspense burst forth in a general shout of joy and hope,
and the desponding troops were again inflamed with the enthusiasm
of valor. Whatever had been the arts, and whatever might be the
sentiments of the chiefs, they skilfully improved this fortunate
revolution by every aid that discipline and devotion could
afford. The soldiers were dismissed to their quarters with an
injunction to fortify their minds and bodies for the approaching
conflict, freely to bestow their last pittance on themselves and
their horses, and to expect with the dawn of day the signal of
victory. On the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul, the gates of
Antioch were thrown open: a martial psalm, “Let the Lord arise,
and let his enemies be scattered!” was chanted by a procession of
priests and monks; the battle array was marshalled in twelve
divisions, in honor of the twelve apostles; and the holy lance,
in the absence of Raymond, was intrusted to the hands of his
chaplain. The influence of his relic or trophy, was felt by the
servants, and perhaps by the enemies, of Christ; 99 and its
potent energy was heightened by an accident, a stratagem, or a
rumor, of a miraculous complexion. Three knights, in white
garments and resplendent arms, either issued, or seemed to issue,
from the hills: the voice of Adhemar, the pope’s legate,
proclaimed them as the martyrs St. George, St. Theodore, and St.
Maurice: the tumult of battle allowed no time for doubt or
scrutiny; and the welcome apparition dazzled the eyes or the
imagination of a fanatic army. 991 In the season of danger and
triumph, the revelation of Bartholemy of Marseilles was
unanimously asserted; but as soon as the temporary service was
accomplished, the personal dignity and liberal arms which the
count of Tholouse derived from the custody of the holy lance,
provoked the envy, and awakened the reason, of his rivals. A
Norman clerk presumed to sift, with a philosophic spirit, the
truth of the legend, the circumstances of the discovery, and the
character of the prophet; and the pious Bohemond ascribed their
deliverance to the merits and intercession of Christ alone. For a
while, the Provincials defended their national palladium with
clamors and arms and new visions condemned to death and hell the
profane sceptics who presumed to scrutinize the truth and merit
of the discovery. The prevalence of incredulity compelled the
author to submit his life and veracity to the judgment of God. A
pile of dry fagots, four feet high and fourteen long, was erected
in the midst of the camp; the flames burnt fiercely to the
elevation of thirty cubits; and a narrow path of twelve inches
was left for the perilous trial. The unfortunate priest of
Marseilles traversed the fire with dexterity and speed; but the
thighs and belly were scorched by the intense heat; he expired
the next day; 992 and the logic of believing minds will pay some
regard to his dying protestations of innocence and truth. Some
efforts were made by the Provincials to substitute a cross, a
ring, or a tabernacle, in the place of the holy lance, which soon
vanished in contempt and oblivion. 100 Yet the revelation of
Antioch is gravely asserted by succeeding historians: and such is
the progress of credulity, that miracles most doubtful on the
spot, and at the moment, will be received with implicit faith at
a convenient distance of time and space.
99 (return) [ The Mahometan Aboulmahasen (apud De Guignes, tom.
ii. p. ii. p. 95) is more correct in his account of the holy
lance than the Christians, Anna Comnena and Abulpharagius: the
Greek princess confounds it with the nail of the cross, (l. xi.
p. 326;) the Jacobite primate, with St. Peter’s staff, (p. 242.)]
991 (return) [ The real cause of this victory appears to have
been the feud in Kerboga’s army Wilken, vol. ii. p. 40.—M.]
992 (return) [ The twelfth day after. He was much injured, and
his flesh torn off, from the ardor of pious congratulation with
which he was assailed by those who witnessed his escape, unhurt,
as it was first supposed. Wilken vol. i p. 263—M.]
100 (return) [ The two antagonists who express the most intimate
knowledge and the strongest conviction of the miracle, and of the
fraud, are Raymond des Agiles, and Radulphus Cadomensis, the one
attached to the count of Tholouse, the other to the Norman
prince. Fulcherius Carnotensis presumes to say, Audite fraudem et
non fraudem! and afterwards, Invenit lanceam, fallaciter
occultatam forsitan. The rest of the herd are loud and
strenuous.]
The prudence or fortune of the Franks had delayed their invasion
till the decline of the Turkish empire. 101 Under the manly
government of the three first sultans, the kingdoms of Asia were
united in peace and justice; and the innumerable armies which
they led in person were equal in courage, and superior in
discipline, to the Barbarians of the West. But at the time of the
crusade, the inheritance of Malek Shaw was disputed by his four
sons; their private ambition was insensible of the public danger;
and, in the vicissitudes of their fortune, the royal vassals were
ignorant, or regardless, of the true object of their allegiance.
The twenty-eight emirs who marched with the standard or Kerboga
were his rivals or enemies: their hasty levies were drawn from
the towns and tents of Mesopotamia and Syria; and the Turkish
veterans were employed or consumed in the civil wars beyond the
Tigris. The caliph of Egypt embraced this opportunity of weakness
and discord to recover his ancient possessions; and his sultan
Aphdal besieged Jerusalem and Tyre, expelled the children of
Ortok, and restored in Palestine the civil and ecclesiastical
authority of the Fatimites. 102 They heard with astonishment of
the vast armies of Christians that had passed from Europe to
Asia, and rejoiced in the sieges and battles which broke the
power of the Turks, the adversaries of their sect and monarchy.
But the same Christians were the enemies of the prophet; and from
the overthrow of Nice and Antioch, the motive of their
enterprise, which was gradually understood, would urge them
forwards to the banks of the Jordan, or perhaps of the Nile.
An intercourse of epistles and embassies, which rose and fell
with the events of war, was maintained between the throne of
Cairo and the camp of the Latins; and their adverse pride was the
result of ignorance and enthusiasm. The ministers of Egypt
declared in a haughty, or insinuated in a milder, tone, that
their sovereign, the true and lawful commander of the faithful,
had rescued Jerusalem from the Turkish yoke; and that the
pilgrims, if they would divide their numbers, and lay aside their
arms, should find a safe and hospitable reception at the
sepulchre of Jesus. In the belief of their lost condition, the
caliph Mostali despised their arms and imprisoned their deputies:
the conquest and victory of Antioch prompted him to solicit those
formidable champions with gifts of horses and silk robes, of
vases, and purses of gold and silver; and in his estimate of
their merit or power, the first place was assigned to Bohemond,
and the second to Godfrey. In either fortune, the answer of the
crusaders was firm and uniform: they disdained to inquire into
the private claims or possessions of the followers of Mahomet;
whatsoever was his name or nation, the usurper of Jerusalem was
their enemy; and instead of prescribing the mode and terms of
their pilgrimage, it was only by a timely surrender of the city
and province, their sacred right, that he could deserve their
alliance, or deprecate their impending and irresistible attack.
103
101 (return) [ See M. De Guignes, tom. ii. p. ii. p. 223, &c.;
and the articles of Barkidrok, Mohammed, Sangiar, in D’Herbelot.]
102 (return) [ The emir, or sultan, Aphdal, recovered Jerusalem
and Tyre, A. H. 489, (Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alexandrin. p.
478. De Guignes, tom. i. p. 249, from Abulfeda and Ben Schounah.)
Jerusalem ante adventum vestrum recuperavimus, Turcos ejecimus,
say the Fatimite ambassadors]
103 (return) [ See the transactions between the caliph of Egypt
and the crusaders in William of Tyre (l. iv. c. 24, l. vi. c. 19)
and Albert Aquensis, (l. iii. c. 59,) who are more sensible of
their importance than the contemporary writers.]
Yet this attack, when they were within the view and reach of
their glorious prize, was suspended above ten months after the
defeat of Kerboga. The zeal and courage of the crusaders were
chilled in the moment of victory; and instead of marching to
improve the consternation, they hastily dispersed to enjoy the
luxury, of Syria. The causes of this strange delay may be found
in the want of strength and subordination. In the painful and
various service of Antioch, the cavalry was annihilated; many
thousands of every rank had been lost by famine, sickness, and
desertion: the same abuse of plenty had been productive of a
third famine; and the alternative of intemperance and distress
had generated a pestilence, which swept away above fifty thousand
of the pilgrims. Few were able to command, and none were willing
to obey; the domestic feuds, which had been stifled by common
fear, were again renewed in acts, or at least in sentiments, of
hostility; the fortune of Baldwin and Bohemond excited the envy
of their companions; the bravest knights were enlisted for the
defence of their new principalities; and Count Raymond exhausted
his troops and treasures in an idle expedition into the heart of
Syria. 1031 The winter was consumed in discord and disorder; a
sense of honor and religion was rekindled in the spring; and the
private soldiers, less susceptible of ambition and jealousy,
awakened with angry clamors the indolence of their chiefs. In the
month of May, the relics of this mighty host proceeded from
Antioch to Laodicea: about forty thousand Latins, of whom no more
than fifteen hundred horse, and twenty thousand foot, were
capable of immediate service. Their easy march was continued
between Mount Libanus and the sea-shore: their wants were
liberally supplied by the coasting traders of Genoa and Pisa; and
they drew large contributions from the emirs of Tripoli, Tyre,
Sidon, Acre, and Caesarea, who granted a free passage, and
promised to follow the example of Jerusalem. From Caesarea they
advanced into the midland country; their clerks recognized the
sacred geography of Lydda, Ramla, Emmaus, and Bethlem, 1032 and
as soon as they descried the holy city, the crusaders forgot
their toils and claimed their reward. 104
1031 (return) [ This is not quite correct: he took Marra on his
road. His excursions were partly to obtain provisions for the
army and fodder for the horses Wilken, vol. i. p. 226.—M.]
1032 (return) [ Scarcely of Bethlehem, to the south of
Jerusalem.— M.]
104 (return) [ The greatest part of the march of the Franks is
traced, and most accurately traced, in Maundrell’s Journey from
Aleppo to Jerusalem, (p. 11-67;) un des meilleurs morceaux, sans
contredit qu’on ait dans ce genre, (D’Anville, Memoire sur
Jerusalem, p. 27.)]
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part V.
Jerusalem has derived some reputation from the number and
importance of her memorable sieges. It was not till after a long
and obstinate contest that Babylon and Rome could prevail against
the obstinacy of the people, the craggy ground that might
supersede the necessity of fortifications, and the walls and
towers that would have fortified the most accessible plain. 105
These obstacles were diminished in the age of the crusades. The
bulwarks had been completely destroyed and imperfectly restored:
the Jews, their nation, and worship, were forever banished; but
nature is less changeable than man, and the site of Jerusalem,
though somewhat softened and somewhat removed, was still strong
against the assaults of an enemy. By the experience of a recent
siege, and a three years’ possession, the Saracens of Egypt had
been taught to discern, and in some degree to remedy, the defects
of a place, which religion as well as honor forbade them to
resign. Aladin, or Iftikhar, the caliph’s lieutenant, was
intrusted with the defence: his policy strove to restrain the
native Christians by the dread of their own ruin and that of the
holy sepulchre; to animate the Moslems by the assurance of
temporal and eternal rewards. His garrison is said to have
consisted of forty thousand Turks and Arabians; and if he could
muster twenty thousand of the inhabitants, it must be confessed
that the besieged were more numerous than the besieging army. 106
Had the diminished strength and numbers of the Latins allowed
them to grasp the whole circumference of four thousand yards,
(about two English miles and a half, 107 to what useful purpose
should they have descended into the valley of Ben Hinnom and
torrent of Cedron, 108 or approach the precipices of the south
and east, from whence they had nothing either to hope or fear?
Their siege was more reasonably directed against the northern and
western sides of the city. Godfrey of Bouillon erected his
standard on the first swell of Mount Calvary: to the left, as far
as St. Stephen’s gate, the line of attack was continued by
Tancred and the two Roberts; and Count Raymond established his
quarters from the citadel to the foot of Mount Sion, which was no
longer included within the precincts of the city. On the fifth
day, the crusaders made a general assault, in the fanatic hope of
battering down the walls without engines, and of scaling them
without ladders. By the dint of brutal force, they burst the
first barrier; but they were driven back with shame and slaughter
to the camp: the influence of vision and prophecy was deadened by
the too frequent abuse of those pious stratagems; and time and
labor were found to be the only means of victory. The time of the
siege was indeed fulfilled in forty days, but they were forty
days of calamity and anguish. A repetition of the old complaint
of famine may be imputed in some degree to the voracious or
disorderly appetite of the Franks; but the stony soil of
Jerusalem is almost destitute of water; the scanty springs and
hasty torrents were dry in the summer season; nor was the thirst
of the besiegers relieved, as in the city, by the artificial
supply of cisterns and aqueducts. The circumjacent country is
equally destitute of trees for the uses of shade or building, but
some large beams were discovered in a cave by the crusaders: a
wood near Sichem, the enchanted grove of Tasso, 109 was cut down:
the necessary timber was transported to the camp by the vigor and
dexterity of Tancred; and the engines were framed by some Genoese
artists, who had fortunately landed in the harbor of Jaffa. Two
movable turrets were constructed at the expense, and in the
stations, of the duke of Lorraine and the count of Tholouse, and
rolled forwards with devout labor, not to the most accessible,
but to the most neglected, parts of the fortification. Raymond’s
Tower was reduced to ashes by the fire of the besieged, but his
colleague was more vigilant and successful; 1091 the enemies were
driven by his archers from the rampart; the draw-bridge was let
down; and on a Friday, at three in the afternoon, the day and
hour of the passion, Godfrey of Bouillon stood victorious on the
walls of Jerusalem. His example was followed on every side by the
emulation of valor; and about four hundred and sixty years after
the conquest of Omar, the holy city was rescued from the
Mahometan yoke. In the pillage of public and private wealth, the
adventurers had agreed to respect the exclusive property of the
first occupant; and the spoils of the great mosque, seventy lamps
and massy vases of gold and silver, rewarded the diligence, and
displayed the generosity, of Tancred. A bloody sacrifice was
offered by his mistaken votaries to the God of the Christians:
resistance might provoke but neither age nor sex could mollify,
their implacable rage: they indulged themselves three days in a
promiscuous massacre; 110 and the infection of the dead bodies
produced an epidemical disease. After seventy thousand Moslems
had been put to the sword, and the harmless Jews had been burnt
in their synagogue, they could still reserve a multitude of
captives, whom interest or lassitude persuaded them to spare. Of
these savage heroes of the cross, Tancred alone betrayed some
sentiments of compassion; yet we may praise the more selfish
lenity of Raymond, who granted a capitulation and safe-conduct to
the garrison of the citadel. 111 The holy sepulchre was now free;
and the bloody victors prepared to accomplish their vow.
Bareheaded and barefoot, with contrite hearts, and in an humble
posture, they ascended the hill of Calvary, amidst the loud
anthems of the clergy; kissed the stone which had covered the
Savior of the world; and bedewed with tears of joy and penitence
the monument of their redemption. This union of the fiercest and
most tender passions has been variously considered by two
philosophers; by the one, 112 as easy and natural; by the other,
113 as absurd and incredible. Perhaps it is too rigorously
applied to the same persons and the same hour; the example of the
virtuous Godfrey awakened the piety of his companions; while they
cleansed their bodies, they purified their minds; nor shall I
believe that the most ardent in slaughter and rapine were the
foremost in the procession to the holy sepulchre.
105 (return) [ See the masterly description of Tacitus, (Hist. v.
11, 12, 13,) who supposes that the Jewish lawgivers had provided
for a perpetual state of hostility against the rest of mankind. *
Note: This is an exaggerated inference from the words of Tacitus,
who speaks of the founders of the city, not the lawgivers.
Praeviderant conditores, ex diversitate morum, crebra bella; inde
cuncta quamvis adversus loagum obsidium.—M.]
106 (return) [ The lively scepticism of Voltaire is balanced with
sense and erudition by the French author of the Esprit des
Croisades, (tom. iv. p. 386-388,) who observes, that, according
to the Arabians, the inhabitants of Jerusalem must have exceeded
200,000; that in the siege of Titus, Josephus collects 1,300,000
Jews; that they are stated by Tacitus himself at 600,000; and
that the largest defalcation, that his accepimus can justify,
will still leave them more numerous than the Roman army.]
107 (return) [ Maundrell, who diligently perambulated the walls,
found a circuit of 4630 paces, or 4167 English yards, (p. 109,
110: ) from an authentic plan, D’Anville concludes a measure
nearly similar, of 1960 French toises, (p. 23-29,) in his scarce
and valuable tract. For the topography of Jerusalem, see Reland,
(Palestina, tom. ii. p. 832-860.)]
108 (return) [ Jerusalem was possessed only of the torrent of
Kedron, dry in summer, and of the little spring or brook of
Siloe, (Reland, tom. i. p. 294, 300.) Both strangers and natives
complain of the want of water, which, in time of war, was
studiously aggravated. Within the city, Tacitus mentions a
perennial fountain, an aqueduct and cisterns for rain water. The
aqueduct was conveyed from the rivulet Tekos or Etham, which is
likewise mentioned by Bohadin, (in Vit. Saludio p. 238.)]
109 (return) [ Gierusalomme Liberata, canto xiii. It is pleasant
enough to observe how Tasso has copied and embellished the
minutest details of the siege.]
1091 (return) [ This does not appear by Wilken’s account, (p.
294.) They fought in vair the whole of the Thursday.—M.]
110 (return) [ Besides the Latins, who are not ashamed of the
massacre, see Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 363,) Abulpharagius,
(Dynast. p. 243,) and M. De Guignes, tom. ii. p. ii. p. 99, from
Aboulmahasen.]
111 (return) [ The old tower Psephina, in the middle ages
Neblosa, was named Castellum Pisanum, from the patriarch
Daimbert. It is still the citadel, the residence of the Turkish
aga, and commands a prospect of the Dead Sea, Judea, and Arabia,
(D’Anville, p. 19-23.) It was likewise called the Tower of
David.]
112 (return) [ Hume, in his History of England, vol. i. p. 311,
312, octavo edition.]
113 (return) [ Voltaire, in his Essai sur l’Histoire Generale,
tom ii. c. 54, p 345, 346]
Eight days after this memorable event, which Pope Urban did not
live to hear, the Latin chiefs proceeded to the election of a
king, to guard and govern their conquests in Palestine. Hugh the
Great, and Stephen of Chartres, had retired with some loss of
reputation, which they strove to regain by a second crusade and
an honorable death. Baldwin was established at Edessa, and
Bohemond at Antioch; and two Roberts, the duke of Normandy 114
and the count of Flanders, preferred their fair inheritance in
the West to a doubtful competition or a barren sceptre. The
jealousy and ambition of Raymond were condemned by his own
followers, and the free, the just, the unanimous voice of the
army proclaimed Godfrey of Bouillon the first and most worthy of
the champions of Christendom. His magnanimity accepted a trust as
full of danger as of glory; but in a city where his Savior had
been crowned with thorns, the devout pilgrim rejected the name
and ensigns of royalty; and the founder of the kingdom of
Jerusalem contented himself with the modest title of Defender and
Baron of the Holy Sepulchre. His government of a single year, 115
too short for the public happiness, was interrupted in the first
fortnight by a summons to the field, by the approach of the
vizier or sultan of Egypt, who had been too slow to prevent, but
who was impatient to avenge, the loss of Jerusalem. His total
overthrow in the battle of Ascalon sealed the establishment of
the Latins in Syria, and signalized the valor of the French
princes who in this action bade a long farewell to the holy wars.
Some glory might be derived from the prodigious inequality of
numbers, though I shall not count the myriads of horse and foot
1151 on the side of the Fatimites; but, except three thousand
Ethiopians or Blacks, who were armed with flails or scourges of
iron, the Barbarians of the South fled on the first onset, and
afforded a pleasing comparison between the active valor of the
Turks and the sloth and effeminacy of the natives of Egypt. After
suspending before the holy sepulchre the sword and standard of
the sultan, the new king (he deserves the title) embraced his
departing companions, and could retain only with the gallant
Tancred three hundred knights, and two thousand foot-soldiers for
the defence of Palestine. His sovereignty was soon attacked by a
new enemy, the only one against whom Godfrey was a coward.
Adhemar, bishop of Puy, who excelled both in council and action,
had been swept away in the last plague at Antioch: the remaining
ecclesiastics preserved only the pride and avarice of their
character; and their seditious clamors had required that the
choice of a bishop should precede that of a king. The revenue and
jurisdiction of the lawful patriarch were usurped by the Latin
clergy: the exclusion of the Greeks and Syrians was justified by
the reproach of heresy or schism; 116 and, under the iron yoke of
their deliverers, the Oriental Christians regretted the
tolerating government of the Arabian caliphs. Daimbert,
archbishop of Pisa, had long been trained in the secret policy of
Rome: he brought a fleet at his countrymen to the succor of the
Holy Land, and was installed, without a competitor, the spiritual
and temporal head of the church. 1161 The new patriarch 117
immediately grasped the sceptre which had been acquired by the
toil and blood of the victorious pilgrims; and both Godfrey and
Bohemond submitted to receive at his hands the investiture of
their feudal possessions. Nor was this sufficient; Daimbert
claimed the immediate property of Jerusalem and Jaffa; instead of
a firm and generous refusal, the hero negotiated with the priest;
a quarter of either city was ceded to the church; and the modest
bishop was satisfied with an eventual reversion of the rest, on
the death of Godfrey without children, or on the future
acquisition of a new seat at Cairo or Damascus.
114 (return) [ The English ascribe to Robert of Normandy, and the
Provincials to Raymond of Tholouse, the glory of refusing the
crown; but the honest voice of tradition has preserved the memory
of the ambition and revenge (Villehardouin, No. 136) of the count
of St. Giles. He died at the siege of Tripoli, which was
possessed by his descendants.]
115 (return) [ See the election, the battle of Ascalon, &c., in
William of Tyre l. ix. c. 1-12, and in the conclusion of the
Latin historians of the first crusade.]
1151 (return) [ 20,000 Franks, 300,000 Mussulmen, according to
Wilken, (vol. ii. p. 9)—M.]
116 (return) [ Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 479.]
1161 (return) [ Arnulf was first chosen, but illegitimately, and
degraded. He was ever after the secret enemy of Daimbert or
Dagobert. Wilken, vol. i. p. 306, vol. ii. p. 52.—M]
117 (return) [ See the claims of the patriarch Daimbert, in
William of Tyre (l. ix. c. 15-18, x. 4, 7, 9,) who asserts with
marvellous candor the independence of the conquerors and kings of
Jerusalem.]
Without this indulgence, the conqueror would have almost been
stripped of his infant kingdom, which consisted only of Jerusalem
and Jaffa, with about twenty villages and towns of the adjacent
country. 118 Within this narrow verge, the Mahometans were still
lodged in some impregnable castles: and the husbandman, the
trader, and the pilgrim, were exposed to daily and domestic
hostility. By the arms of Godfrey himself, and of the two
Baldwins, his brother and cousin, who succeeded to the throne,
the Latins breathed with more ease and safety; and at length they
equalled, in the extent of their dominions, though not in the
millions of their subjects, the ancient princes of Judah and
Israel. 119 After the reduction of the maritime cities of
Laodicea, Tripoli, Tyre, and Ascalon, 120 which were powerfully
assisted by the fleets of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, and even of
Flanders and Norway, 121 the range of sea-coast from Scanderoon
to the borders of Egypt was possessed by the Christian pilgrims.
If the prince of Antioch disclaimed his supremacy, the counts of
Edessa and Tripoli owned themselves the vassals of the king of
Jerusalem: the Latins reigned beyond the Euphrates; and the four
cities of Hems, Hamah, Damascus, and Aleppo, were the only relics
of the Mahometan conquests in Syria. 122 The laws and language,
the manners and titles, of the French nation and Latin church,
were introduced into these transmarine colonies. According to the
feudal jurisprudence, the principal states and subordinate
baronies descended in the line of male and female succession: 123
but the children of the first conquerors, 124 a motley and
degenerate race, were dissolved by the luxury of the climate; the
arrival of new crusaders from Europe was a doubtful hope and a
casual event. The service of the feudal tenures 125 was performed
by six hundred and sixty-six knights, who might expect the aid of
two hundred more under the banner of the count of Tripoli; and
each knight was attended to the field by four squires or archers
on horseback. 126 Five thousand and seventy sergeants, most
probably foot-soldiers, were supplied by the churches and cities;
and the whole legal militia of the kingdom could not exceed
eleven thousand men, a slender defence against the surrounding
myriads of Saracens and Turks. 127 But the firmest bulwark of
Jerusalem was founded on the knights of the Hospital of St. John,
128 and of the temple of Solomon; 129 on the strange association
of a monastic and military life, which fanaticism might suggest,
but which policy must approve. The flower of the nobility of
Europe aspired to wear the cross, and to profess the vows, of
these respectable orders; their spirit and discipline were
immortal; and the speedy donation of twenty-eight thousand farms,
or manors, 130 enabled them to support a regular force of cavalry
and infantry for the defence of Palestine. The austerity of the
convent soon evaporated in the exercise of arms; the world was
scandalized by the pride, avarice, and corruption of these
Christian soldiers; their claims of immunity and jurisdiction
disturbed the harmony of the church and state; and the public
peace was endangered by their jealous emulation. But in their
most dissolute period, the knights of their hospital and temple
maintained their fearless and fanatic character: they neglected
to live, but they were prepared to die, in the service of Christ;
and the spirit of chivalry, the parent and offspring of the
crusades, has been transplanted by this institution from the holy
sepulchre to the Isle of Malta. 131
118 (return) [ Willerm. Tyr. l. x. 19. The Historia
Hierosolimitana of Jacobus a Vitriaco (l. i. c. 21-50) and the
Secreta Fidelium Crucis of Marinus Sanutus (l. iii. p. 1)
describe the state and conquests of the Latin kingdom of
Jerusalem.]
119 (return) [ An actual muster, not including the tribes of Levi
and Benjamin, gave David an army of 1,300,000 or 1,574,000
fighting men; which, with the addition of women, children, and
slaves, may imply a population of thirteen millions, in a country
sixty leagues in length, and thirty broad. The honest and
rational Le Clerc (Comment on 2d Samuel xxiv. and 1st Chronicles,
xxi.) aestuat angusto in limite, and mutters his suspicion of a
false transcript; a dangerous suspicion! * Note: David determined
to take a census of his vast dominions, which extended from
Lebanon to the frontiers of Egypt, from the Euphrates to the
Mediterranean. The numbers (in 2 Sam. xxiv. 9, and 1 Chron. xxi.
5) differ; but the lowest gives 800,000 men fit to bear arms in
Israel, 500,000 in Judah. Hist. of Jews, vol. i. p. 248. Gibbon
has taken the highest census in his estimate of the population,
and confined the dominions of David to Jordandic Palestine.—M.]
120 (return) [ These sieges are related, each in its proper
place, in the great history of William of Tyre, from the ixth to
the xviiith book, and more briefly told by Bernardus
Thesaurarius, (de Acquisitione Terrae Sanctae, c. 89-98, p.
732-740.) Some domestic facts are celebrated in the Chronicles of
Pisa, Genoa, and Venice, in the vith, ixth, and xiith tomes of
Muratori.]
121 (return) [ Quidam populus de insulis occidentis egressus, et
maxime de ea parte quae Norvegia dicitur. William of Tyre (l. xi.
c. 14, p. 804) marks their course per Britannicum Mare et Calpen
to the siege of Sidon.]
122 (return) [ Benelathir, apud De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom.
ii. part ii. p. 150, 151, A.D. 1127. He must speak of the inland
country.]
123 (return) [ Sanut very sensibly descants on the mischiefs of
female succession, in a land hostibus circumdata, ubi cuncta
virilia et virtuosa esse deberent. Yet, at the summons, and with
the approbation, of her feudal lord, a noble damsel was obliged
to choose a husband and champion, (Assises de Jerusalem, c. 242,
&c.) See in M. De Guignes (tom. i. p. 441-471) the accurate and
useful tables of these dynasties, which are chiefly drawn from
the Lignages d’Outremer.]
124 (return) [ They were called by derision Poullains, Pallani,
and their name is never pronounced without contempt, (Ducange,
Gloss. Latin. tom. v. p. 535; and Observations sur Joinville, p.
84, 85; Jacob. a Vitriaco Hist. Hierosol. i. c. 67, 72; and
Sanut, l. iii. p. viii. c. 2, p. 182.) Illustrium virorum, qui ad
Terrae Sanctae.... liberationem in ipsa manserunt, degeneres
filii.... in deliciis enutriti, molles et effoe minati, &c.]
125 (return) [ This authentic detail is extracted from the
Assises de Jerusalem (c. 324, 326-331.) Sanut (l. iii. p. viii.
c. 1, p. 174) reckons only 518 knights, and 5775 followers.]
126 (return) [ The sum total, and the division, ascertain the
service of the three great baronies at 100 knights each; and the
text of the Assises, which extends the number to 500, can only be
justified by this supposition.]
127 (return) [ Yet on great emergencies (says Sanut) the barons
brought a voluntary aid; decentem comitivam militum juxta statum
suum.]
128 (return) [ William of Tyre (l. xviii. c. 3, 4, 5) relates the
ignoble origin and early insolence of the Hospitallers, who soon
deserted their humble patron, St. John the Eleemosynary, for the
more august character of St. John the Baptist, (see the
ineffectual struggles of Pagi, Critica, A. D 1099, No. 14-18.)
They assumed the profession of arms about the year 1120; the
Hospital was mater; the Temple filia; the Teutonic order was
founded A.D. 1190, at the siege of Acre, (Mosheim Institut p.
389, 390.)]
129 (return) [ See St. Bernard de Laude Novae Militiae Templi,
composed A.D. 1132-1136, in Opp. tom. i. p. ii. p. 547-563, edit.
Mabillon, Venet. 1750. Such an encomium, which is thrown away on
the dead Templars, would be highly valued by the historians of
Malta.]
130 (return) [ Matthew Paris, Hist. Major, p. 544. He assigns to
the Hospitallers 19,000, to the Templars 9,000 maneria, word of
much higher import (as Ducange has rightly observed) in the
English than in the French idiom. Manor is a lordship, manoir a
dwelling.]
131 (return) [ In the three first books of the Histoire de
Chevaliers de Malthe par l’Abbe de Vertot, the reader may amuse
himself with a fair, and sometimes flattering, picture of the
order, while it was employed for the defence of Palestine. The
subsequent books pursue their emigration to Rhodes and Malta.]
The spirit of freedom, which pervades the feudal institutions,
was felt in its strongest energy by the volunteers of the cross,
who elected for their chief the most deserving of his peers.
Amidst the slaves of Asia, unconscious of the lesson or example,
a model of political liberty was introduced; and the laws of the
French kingdom are derived from the purest source of equality and
justice. Of such laws, the first and indispensable condition is
the assent of those whose obedience they require, and for whose
benefit they are designed. No sooner had Godfrey of Bouillon
accepted the office of supreme magistrate, than he solicited the
public and private advice of the Latin pilgrims, who were the
best skilled in the statutes and customs of Europe. From these
materials, with the counsel and approbation of the patriarch and
barons, of the clergy and laity, Godfrey composed the Assise of
Jerusalem, 132 a precious monument of feudal jurisprudence. The
new code, attested by the seals of the king, the patriarch, and
the viscount of Jerusalem, was deposited in the holy sepulchre,
enriched with the improvements of succeeding times, and
respectfully consulted as often as any doubtful question arose in
the tribunals of Palestine. With the kingdom and city all was
lost: 133 the fragments of the written law were preserved by
jealous tradition 134 and variable practice till the middle of
the thirteenth century: the code was restored by the pen of John
d’Ibelin, count of Jaffa, one of the principal feudatories; 135
and the final revision was accomplished in the year thirteen
hundred and sixty-nine, for the use of the Latin kingdom of
Cyprus. 136
132 (return) [ The Assises de Jerusalem, in old law French, were
printed with Beaumanoir’s Coutumes de Beauvoisis, (Bourges and
Paris, 1690, in folio,) and illustrated by Gaspard Thaumas de la
Thaumassiere, with a comment and glossary. An Italian version had
been published in 1534, at Venice, for the use of the kingdom of
Cyprus. * Note: See Wilken, vol. i. p. 17, &c.,—M.]
133 (return) [ A la terre perdue, tout fut perdu, is the vigorous
expression of the Assise, (c. 281.) Yet Jerusalem capitulated
with Saladin; the queen and the principal Christians departed in
peace; and a code so precious and so portable could not provoke
the avarice of the conquerors. I have sometimes suspected the
existence of this original copy of the Holy Sepulchre, which
might be invented to sanctify and authenticate the traditionary
customs of the French in Palestine.]
134 (return) [ A noble lawyer, Raoul de Tabarie, denied the
prayer of King Amauri, (A.D. 1195-1205,) that he would commit his
knowledged to writing, and frankly declared, que de ce qu’il
savoit ne feroit-il ja nul borjois son pareill, ne null sage
homme lettre, (c. 281.)]
135 (return) [ The compiler of this work, Jean d’Ibelin, was
count of Jaffa and Ascalon, lord of Baruth (Berytus) and Rames,
and died A.D. 1266, (Sanut, l. iii. p. ii. c. 5, 8.) The family
of Ibelin, which descended from a younger brother of a count of
Chartres in France, long flourished in Palestine and Cyprus, (see
the Lignages de deca Mer, or d’Outremer, c. 6, at the end of the
Assises de Jerusalem, an original book, which records the
pedigrees of the French adventurers.)]
136 (return) [ By sixteen commissioners chosen in the states of
the island: the work was finished the 3d of November, 1369,
sealed with four seals and deposited in the cathedral of Nicosia,
(see the preface to the Assises.)]
The justice and freedom of the constitution were maintained by
two tribunals of unequal dignity, which were instituted by
Godfrey of Bouillon after the conquest of Jerusalem. The king, in
person, presided in the upper court, the court of the barons. Of
these the four most conspicuous were the prince of Galilee, the
lord of Sidon and Caesarea, and the counts of Jaffa and Tripoli,
who, perhaps with the constable and marshal, 137 were in a
special manner the compeers and judges of each other. But all the
nobles, who held their lands immediately of the crown, were
entitled and bound to attend the king’s court; and each baron
exercised a similar jurisdiction on the subordinate assemblies of
his own feudatories. The connection of lord and vassal was
honorable and voluntary: reverence was due to the benefactor,
protection to the dependant; but they mutually pledged their
faith to each other; and the obligation on either side might be
suspended by neglect or dissolved by injury. The cognizance of
marriages and testaments was blended with religion, and usurped
by the clergy: but the civil and criminal causes of the nobles,
the inheritance and tenure of their fiefs, formed the proper
occupation of the supreme court. Each member was the judge and
guardian both of public and private rights. It was his duty to
assert with his tongue and sword the lawful claims of the lord;
but if an unjust superior presumed to violate the freedom or
property of a vassal, the confederate peers stood forth to
maintain his quarrel by word and deed. They boldly affirmed his
innocence and his wrongs; demanded the restitution of his liberty
or his lands; suspended, after a fruitless demand, their own
service; rescued their brother from prison; and employed every
weapon in his defence, without offering direct violence to the
person of their lord, which was ever sacred in their eyes. 138 In
their pleadings, replies, and rejoinders, the advocates of the
court were subtle and copious; but the use of argument and
evidence was often superseded by judicial combat; and the Assise
of Jerusalem admits in many cases this barbarous institution,
which has been slowly abolished by the laws and manners of
Europe.
137 (return) [ The cautious John D’Ibelin argues, rather than
affirms, that Tripoli is the fourth barony, and expresses some
doubt concerning the right or pretension of the constable and
marshal, (c. 323.)]
138 (return) [ Entre seignor et homme ne n’a que la foi;.... mais
tant que l’homme doit a son seignor reverence en toutes choses,
(c. 206.) Tous les hommes dudit royaume sont par ladite Assise
tenus les uns as autres.... et en celle maniere que le seignor
mette main ou face mettre au cors ou au fie d’aucun d’yaus sans
esgard et sans connoissans de court, que tous les autres doivent
venir devant le seignor, &c., (212.) The form of their
remonstrances is conceived with the noble simplicity of freedom.]
The trial by battle was established in all criminal cases which
affected the life, or limb, or honor, of any person; and in all
civil transactions, of or above the value of one mark of silver.
It appears that in criminal cases the combat was the privilege of
the accuser, who, except in a charge of treason, avenged his
personal injury, or the death of those persons whom he had a
right to represent; but wherever, from the nature of the charge,
testimony could be obtained, it was necessary for him to produce
witnesses of the fact. In civil cases, the combat was not allowed
as the means of establishing the claim of the demandant; but he
was obliged to produce witnesses who had, or assumed to have,
knowledge of the fact. The combat was then the privilege of the
defendant; because he charged the witness with an attempt by
perjury to take away his right. He came therefore to be in the
same situation as the appellant in criminal cases. It was not
then as a mode of proof that the combat was received, nor as
making negative evidence, (according to the supposition of
Montesquieu; 139 but in every case the right to offer battle was
founded on the right to pursue by arms the redress of an injury;
and the judicial combat was fought on the same principle, and
with the same spirit, as a private duel. Champions were only
allowed to women, and to men maimed or past the age of sixty. The
consequence of a defeat was death to the person accused, or to
the champion or witness, as well as to the accuser himself: but
in civil cases, the demandant was punished with infamy and the
loss of his suit, while his witness and champion suffered
ignominious death. In many cases it was in the option of the
judge to award or to refuse the combat: but two are specified, in
which it was the inevitable result of the challenge; if a
faithful vassal gave the lie to his compeer, who unjustly claimed
any portion of their lord’s demesnes; or if an unsuccessful
suitor presumed to impeach the judgment and veracity of the
court. He might impeach them, but the terms were severe and
perilous: in the same day he successively fought all the members
of the tribunal, even those who had been absent; a single defeat
was followed by death and infamy; and where none could hope for
victory, it is highly probable that none would adventure the
trial. In the Assise of Jerusalem, the legal subtlety of the
count of Jaffa is more laudably employed to elude, than to
facilitate, the judicial combat, which he derives from a
principle of honor rather than of superstition. 140
139 (return) [ See l’Esprit des Loix, l. xxviii. In the forty
years since its publication, no work has been more read and
criticized; and the spirit of inquiry which it has excited is not
the least of our obligations to the author.]
140 (return) [ For the intelligence of this obscure and obsolete
jurisprudence (c. 80-111) I am deeply indebted to the friendship
of a learned lord, who, with an accurate and discerning eye, has
surveyed the philosophic history of law. By his studies,
posterity might be enriched: the merit of the orator and the
judge can be felt only by his contemporaries.]
Among the causes which enfranchised the plebeians from the yoke
of feudal tyranny, the institution of cities and corporations is
one of the most powerful; and if those of Palestine are coeval
with the first crusade, they may be ranked with the most ancient
of the Latin world. Many of the pilgrims had escaped from their
lords under the banner of the cross; and it was the policy of the
French princes to tempt their stay by the assurance of the rights
and privileges of freemen. It is expressly declared in the Assise
of Jerusalem, that after instituting, for his knights and barons,
the court of peers, in which he presided himself, Godfrey of
Bouillon established a second tribunal, in which his person was
represented by his viscount. The jurisdiction of this inferior
court extended over the burgesses of the kingdom; and it was
composed of a select number of the most discreet and worthy
citizens, who were sworn to judge, according to the laws of the
actions and fortunes of their equals. 141 In the conquest and
settlement of new cities, the example of Jerusalem was imitated
by the kings and their great vassals; and above thirty similar
corporations were founded before the loss of the Holy Land.
Another class of subjects, the Syrians, 142 or Oriental
Christians, were oppressed by the zeal of the clergy, and
protected by the toleration of the state. Godfrey listened to
their reasonable prayer, that they might be judged by their own
national laws. A third court was instituted for their use, of
limited and domestic jurisdiction: the sworn members were
Syrians, in blood, language, and religion; but the office of the
president (in Arabic, of the rais) was sometimes exercised by the
viscount of the city. At an immeasurable distance below the
nobles, the burgesses, and the strangers, the Assise of Jerusalem
condescends to mention the villains and slaves, the peasants of
the land and the captives of war, who were almost equally
considered as the objects of property. The relief or protection
of these unhappy men was not esteemed worthy of the care of the
legislator; but he diligently provides for the recovery, though
not indeed for the punishment, of the fugitives. Like hounds, or
hawks, who had strayed from the lawful owner, they might be lost
and claimed: the slave and falcon were of the same value; but
three slaves, or twelve oxen, were accumulated to equal the price
of the war-horse; and a sum of three hundred pieces of gold was
fixed, in the age of chivalry, as the equivalent of the more
noble animal. 143
141 (return) [ Louis le Gros, who is considered as the father of
this institution in France, did not begin his reign till nine
years (A.D. 1108) after Godfrey of Bouillon, (Assises, c. 2,
324.) For its origin and effects, see the judicious remarks of
Dr. Robertson, (History of Charles V. vol. i. p. 30-36, 251-265,
quarto edition.)]
142 (return) [ Every reader conversant with the historians of the
crusades will understand by the peuple des Suriens, the Oriental
Christians, Melchites, Jacobites, or Nestorians, who had all
adopted the use of the Arabic language, (vol. iv. p. 593.)]
143 (return) [ See the Assises de Jerusalem, (310, 311, 312.)
These laws were enacted as late as the year 1350, in the kingdom
of Cyprus. In the same century, in the reign of Edward I., I
understand, from a late publication, (of his Book of Account,)
that the price of a war-horse was not less exorbitant in
England.]
VOLUME SIX
Chapter LIX: The Crusades.—Part I.
Preservation Of The Greek Empire.—Numbers, Passage, And Event, Of
The Second And Third Crusades.—St. Bernard.— Reign Of Saladin In
Egypt And Syria.—His Conquest Of Jerusalem.—Naval
Crusades.—Richard The First Of England.— Pope Innocent The Third;
And The Fourth And Fifth Crusades.— The Emperor Frederic The
Second.—Louis The Ninth Of France; And The Two Last
Crusades.—Expulsion Of The Latins Or Franks By The Mamelukes.
In a style less grave than that of history, I should perhaps
compare the emperor Alexius 1 to the jackal, who is said to
follow the steps, and to devour the leavings, of the lion.
Whatever had been his fears and toils in the passage of the first
crusade, they were amply recompensed by the subsequent benefits
which he derived from the exploits of the Franks. His dexterity
and vigilance secured their first conquest of Nice; and from this
threatening station the Turks were compelled to evacuate the
neighborhood of Constantinople. While the crusaders, with blind
valor, advanced into the midland countries of Asia, the crafty
Greek improved the favorable occasion when the emirs of the
sea-coast were recalled to the standard of the sultan. The Turks
were driven from the Isles of Rhodes and Chios: the cities of
Ephesus and Smyrna, of Sardes, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, were
restored to the empire, which Alexius enlarged from the
Hellespont to the banks of the Mæander, and the rocky shores of
Pamphylia. The churches resumed their splendor: the towns were
rebuilt and fortified; and the desert country was peopled with
colonies of Christians, who were gently removed from the more
distant and dangerous frontier. In these paternal cares, we may
forgive Alexius, if he forgot the deliverance of the holy
sepulchre; but, by the Latins, he was stigmatized with the foul
reproach of treason and desertion. They had sworn fidelity and
obedience to his throne; but _he_ had promised to assist their
enterprise in person, or, at least, with his troops and
treasures: his base retreat dissolved their obligations; and the
sword, which had been the instrument of their victory, was the
pledge and title of their just independence. It does not appear
that the emperor attempted to revive his obsolete claims over the
kingdom of Jerusalem; 2 but the borders of Cilicia and Syria were
more recent in his possession, and more accessible to his arms.
The great army of the crusaders was annihilated or dispersed; the
principality of Antioch was left without a head, by the surprise
and captivity of Bohemond; his ransom had oppressed him with a
heavy debt; and his Norman followers were insufficient to repel
the hostilities of the Greeks and Turks. In this distress,
Bohemond embraced a magnanimous resolution, of leaving the
defence of Antioch to his kinsman, the faithful Tancred; of
arming the West against the Byzantine empire; and of executing
the design which he inherited from the lessons and example of his
father Guiscard. His embarkation was clandestine: and, if we may
credit a tale of the princess Anne, he passed the hostile sea
closely secreted in a coffin. 3 But his reception in France was
dignified by the public applause, and his marriage with the
king’s daughter: his return was glorious, since the bravest
spirits of the age enlisted under his veteran command; and he
repassed the Adriatic at the head of five thousand horse and
forty thousand foot, assembled from the most remote climates of
Europe. 4 The strength of Durazzo, and prudence of Alexius, the
progress of famine and approach of winter, eluded his ambitious
hopes; and the venal confederates were seduced from his standard.
A treaty of peace 5 suspended the fears of the Greeks; and they
were finally delivered by the death of an adversary, whom neither
oaths could bind, nor dangers could appal, nor prosperity could
satiate. His children succeeded to the principality of Antioch;
but the boundaries were strictly defined, the homage was clearly
stipulated, and the cities of Tarsus and Malmistra were restored
to the Byzantine emperors. Of the coast of Anatolia, they
possessed the entire circuit from Trebizond to the Syrian gates.
The Seljukian dynasty of Roum 6 was separated on all sides from
the sea and their Mussulman brethren; the power of the sultan was
shaken by the victories and even the defeats of the Franks; and
after the loss of Nice, they removed their throne to Cogni or
Iconium, an obscure and in land town above three hundred miles
from Constantinople. 7 Instead of trembling for their capital,
the Comnenian princes waged an offensive war against the Turks,
and the first crusade prevented the fall of the declining empire.
1 (return) [ Anna Comnena relates her father’s conquests in Asia
Minor Alexiad, l. xi. p. 321—325, l. xiv. p. 419; his Cilician
war against Tancred and Bohemond, p. 328—324; the war of Epirus,
with tedious prolixity, l. xii. xiii. p. 345—406; the death of
Bohemond, l. xiv. p. 419.]
2 (return) [ The kings of Jerusalem submitted, however, to a
nominal dependence, and in the dates of their inscriptions, (one
is still legible in the church of Bethlem,) they respectfully
placed before their own the name of the reigning emperor,
(Ducange, Dissertations sur Joinville xxvii. p. 319.)]
3 (return) [ Anna Comnena adds, that, to complete the imitation,
he was shut up with a dead cock; and condescends to wonder how
the Barbarian could endure the confinement and putrefaction. This
absurd tale is unknown to the Latins. * Note: The Greek writers,
in general, Zonaras, p. 2, 303, and Glycas, p. 334 agree in this
story with the princess Anne, except in the absurd addition of
the dead cock. Ducange has already quoted some instances where a
similar stratagem had been adopted by _Norman_ princes. On this
authority Wilken inclines to believe the fact. Appendix to vol.
ii. p. 14.—M.]
4 (return) [ Ἀπὸ Θύλης, in the Byzantine geography, must mean
England; yet we are more credibly informed, that our Henry I.
would not suffer him to levy any troops in his kingdom, (Ducange,
Not. ad Alexiad. p. 41.)]
5 (return) [ The copy of the treaty (Alexiad. l. xiii. p.
406—416) is an original and curious piece, which would require,
and might afford, a good map of the principality of Antioch.]
6 (return) [ See, in the learned work of M. De Guignes, (tom. ii.
part ii.,) the history of the Seljukians of Iconium, Aleppo, and
Damascus, as far as it may be collected from the Greeks, Latins,
and Arabians. The last are ignorant or regardless of the affairs
of _Roum_.]
7 (return) [ Iconium is mentioned as a station by Xenophon, and
by Strabo, with an ambiguous title of Κωμόπολις, (Cellarius, tom.
ii. p. 121.) Yet St. Paul found in that place a multitude
(πλῆθος) of Jews and Gentiles. under the corrupt name of
_Kunijah_, it is described as a great city, with a river and
garden, three leagues from the mountains, and decorated (I know
not why) with Plato’s tomb, (Abulfeda, tabul. xvii. p. 303 vers.
Reiske; and the Index Geographicus of Schultens from Ibn Said.)]
In the twelfth century, three great emigrations marched by land
from the West for the relief of Palestine. The soldiers and
pilgrims of Lombardy, France, and Germany were excited by the
example and success of the first crusade. 8 Forty-eight years
after the deliverance of the holy sepulchre, the emperor, and the
French king, Conrad the Third and Louis the Seventh, undertook
the second crusade to support the falling fortunes of the Latins.
9 A grand division of the third crusade was led by the emperor
Frederic Barbarossa, 10 who sympathized with his brothers of
France and England in the common loss of Jerusalem. These three
expeditions may be compared in their resemblance of the greatness
of numbers, their passage through the Greek empire, and the
nature and event of their Turkish warfare, and a brief parallel
may save the repetition of a tedious narrative. However splendid
it may seem, a regular story of the crusades would exhibit the
perpetual return of the same causes and effects; and the frequent
attempts for the defence or recovery of the Holy Land would
appear so many faint and unsuccessful copies of the original.
8 (return) [ For this supplement to the first crusade, see Anna
Comnena, (Alexias, l. xi. p. 331, &c., and the viiith book of
Albert Aquensis.)]
9 (return) [ For the second crusade, of Conrad III. and Louis
VII., see William of Tyre, (l. xvi. c. 18—19,) Otho of Frisingen,
(l. i. c. 34—45 59, 60,) Matthew Paris, (Hist. Major. p. 68,)
Struvius, (Corpus Hist Germanicæ, p. 372, 373,) Scriptores Rerum
Francicarum à Duchesne tom. iv.: Nicetas, in Vit. Manuel, l. i.
c. 4, 5, 6, p. 41—48, Cinnamus l. ii. p. 41—49.]
10 (return) [ For the third crusade, of Frederic Barbarossa, see
Nicetas in Isaac Angel. l. ii. c. 3—8, p. 257—266. Struv.
(Corpus. Hist. Germ. p. 414,) and two historians, who probably
were spectators, Tagino, (in Scriptor. Freher. tom. i. p.
406—416, edit Struv.,) and the Anonymus de Expeditione Asiaticâ
Fred. I. (in Canisii Antiq. Lection. tom. iii. p. ii. p. 498—526,
edit. Basnage.)]
I. Of the swarms that so closely trod in the footsteps of the
first pilgrims, the chiefs were equal in rank, though unequal in
fame and merit, to Godfrey of Bouillon and his
fellow-adventurers. At their head were displayed the banners of
the dukes of Burgundy, Bavaria, and Aquitain; the first a
descendant of Hugh Capet, the second, a father of the Brunswick
line: the archbishop of Milan, a temporal prince, transported,
for the benefit of the Turks, the treasures and ornaments of his
church and palace; and the veteran crusaders, Hugh the Great and
Stephen of Chartres, returned to consummate their unfinished vow.
The huge and disorderly bodies of their followers moved forward
in two columns; and if the first consisted of two hundred and
sixty thousand persons, the second might possibly amount to sixty
thousand horse and one hundred thousand foot. 11 111 The armies
of the second crusade might have claimed the conquest of Asia;
the nobles of France and Germany were animated by the presence of
their sovereigns; and both the rank and personal character of
Conrad and Louis gave a dignity to their cause, and a discipline
to their force, which might be vainly expected from the feudatory
chiefs. The cavalry of the emperor, and that of the king, was
each composed of seventy thousand knights, and their immediate
attendants in the field; 12 and if the light-armed troops, the
peasant infantry, the women and children, the priests and monks,
be rigorously excluded, the full account will scarcely be
satisfied with four hundred thousand souls. The West, from Rome
to Britain, was called into action; the kings of Poland and
Bohemia obeyed the summons of Conrad; and it is affirmed by the
Greeks and Latins, that, in the passage of a strait or river, the
Byzantine agents, after a tale of nine hundred thousand, desisted
from the endless and formidable computation. 13 In the third
crusade, as the French and English preferred the navigation of
the Mediterranean, the host of Frederic Barbarossa was less
numerous. Fifteen thousand knights, and as many squires, were the
flower of the German chivalry: sixty thousand horse, and one
hundred thousand foot, were mustered by the emperor in the plains
of Hungary; and after such repetitions, we shall no longer be
startled at the six hundred thousand pilgrims, which credulity
has ascribed to this last emigration. 14 Such extravagant
reckonings prove only the astonishment of contemporaries; but
their astonishment most strongly bears testimony to the existence
of an enormous, though indefinite, multitude. The Greeks might
applaud their superior knowledge of the arts and stratagems of
war, but they confessed the strength and courage of the French
cavalry, and the infantry of the Germans; 15 and the strangers
are described as an iron race, of gigantic stature, who darted
fire from their eyes, and spilt blood like water on the ground.
Under the banners of Conrad, a troop of females rode in the
attitude and armor of men; and the chief of these Amazons, from
her gilt spurs and buskins, obtained the epithet of the
Golden-footed Dame.
11 (return) [ Anne, who states these later swarms at 40,000 horse
and 100,000 foot, calls them Normans, and places at their head
two brothers of Flanders. The Greeks were strangely ignorant of
the names, families, and possessions of the Latin princes.]
111 (return) [ It was this army of pilgrims, the first body of
which was headed by the archbishop of Milan and Count Albert of
Blandras, which set forth on the wild, yet, with a more
disciplined army, not impolitic, enterprise of striking at the
heart of the Mahometan power, by attacking the sultan in Bagdad.
For their adventures and fate, see Wilken, vol. ii. p. 120, &c.,
Michaud, book iv.—M.]
12 (return) [ William of Tyre, and Matthew Paris, reckon 70,000
loricati in each of the armies.]
13 (return) [ The imperfect enumeration is mentioned by Cinnamus,
(ennenhkonta muriadeV,) and confirmed by Odo de Diogilo apud
Ducange ad Cinnamum, with the more precise sum of 900,556. Why
must therefore the version and comment suppose the modest and
insufficient reckoning of 90,000? Does not Godfrey of Viterbo
(Pantheon, p. xix. in Muratori, tom. vii. p. 462) exclaim?
——Numerum si poscere quæras, Millia millena militis agmen erat.]
14 (return) [ This extravagant account is given by Albert of
Stade, (apud Struvium, p. 414;) my calculation is borrowed from
Godfrey of Viterbo, Arnold of Lubeck, apud eundem, and Bernard
Thesaur. (c. 169, p. 804.) The original writers are silent. The
Mahometans gave him 200,000, or 260,000, men, (Bohadin, in Vit.
Saladin, p. 110.)]
15 (return) [ I must observe, that, in the second and third
crusades, the subjects of Conrad and Frederic are styled by the
Greeks and Orientals _Alamanni_. The Lechi and Tzechi of Cinnamus
are the Poles and Bohemians; and it is for the French that he
reserves the ancient appellation of Germans. He likewise names
the Brittioi, or Britannoi. * Note: * He names both—Brittioi te
kai Britanoi.—M.]
II. The number and character of the strangers was an object of
terror to the effeminate Greeks, and the sentiment of fear is
nearly allied to that of hatred. This aversion was suspended or
softened by the apprehension of the Turkish power; and the
invectives of the Latins will not bias our more candid belief,
that the emperor Alexius dissembled their insolence, eluded their
hostilities, counselled their rashness, and opened to their ardor
the road of pilgrimage and conquest. But when the Turks had been
driven from Nice and the sea-coast, when the Byzantine princes no
longer dreaded the distant sultans of Cogni, they felt with purer
indignation the free and frequent passage of the western
Barbarians, who violated the majesty, and endangered the safety,
of the empire. The second and third crusades were undertaken
under the reign of Manuel Comnenus and Isaac Angelus. Of the
former, the passions were always impetuous, and often malevolent;
and the natural union of a cowardly and a mischievous temper was
exemplified in the latter, who, without merit or mercy, could
punish a tyrant, and occupy his throne. It was secretly, and
perhaps tacitly, resolved by the prince and people to destroy, or
at least to discourage, the pilgrims, by every species of injury
and oppression; and their want of prudence and discipline
continually afforded the pretence or the opportunity. The Western
monarchs had stipulated a safe passage and fair market in the
country of their Christian brethren; the treaty had been ratified
by oaths and hostages; and the poorest soldier of Frederic’s army
was furnished with three marks of silver to defray his expenses
on the road. But every engagement was violated by treachery and
injustice; and the complaints of the Latins are attested by the
honest confession of a Greek historian, who has dared to prefer
truth to his country. 16 Instead of a hospitable reception, the
gates of the cities, both in Europe and Asia, were closely barred
against the crusaders; and the scanty pittance of food was let
down in baskets from the walls. Experience or foresight might
excuse this timid jealousy; but the common duties of humanity
prohibited the mixture of chalk, or other poisonous ingredients,
in the bread; and should Manuel be acquitted of any foul
connivance, he is guilty of coining base money for the purpose of
trading with the pilgrims. In every step of their march they were
stopped or misled: the governors had private orders to fortify
the passes and break down the bridges against them: the
stragglers were pillaged and murdered: the soldiers and horses
were pierced in the woods by arrows from an invisible hand; the
sick were burnt in their beds; and the dead bodies were hung on
gibbets along the highways. These injuries exasperated the
champions of the cross, who were not endowed with evangelical
patience; and the Byzantine princes, who had provoked the unequal
conflict, promoted the embarkation and march of these formidable
guests. On the verge of the Turkish frontier Barbarossa spared
the guilty Philadelphia, 17 rewarded the hospitable Laodicea, and
deplored the hard necessity that had stained his sword with any
drops of Christian blood. In their intercourse with the monarchs
of Germany and France, the pride of the Greeks was exposed to an
anxious trial. They might boast that on the first interview the
seat of Louis was a low stool, beside the throne of Manuel; 18
but no sooner had the French king transported his army beyond the
Bosphorus, than he refused the offer of a second conference,
unless his brother would meet him on equal terms, either on the
sea or land. With Conrad and Frederic, the ceremonial was still
nicer and more difficult: like the successors of Constantine,
they styled themselves emperors of the Romans; 19 and firmly
maintained the purity of their title and dignity. The first of
these representatives of Charlemagne would only converse with
Manuel on horseback in the open field; the second, by passing the
Hellespont rather than the Bosphorus, declined the view of
Constantinople and its sovereign. An emperor, who had been
crowned at Rome, was reduced in the Greek epistles to the humble
appellation of _Rex_, or prince, of the Alemanni; and the vain
and feeble Angelus affected to be ignorant of the name of one of
the greatest men and monarchs of the age. While they viewed with
hatred and suspicion the Latin pilgrims the Greek emperors
maintained a strict, though secret, alliance with the Turks and
Saracens. Isaac Angelus complained, that by his friendship for
the great Saladin he had incurred the enmity of the Franks; and a
mosque was founded at Constantinople for the public exercise of
the religion of Mahomet. 20
16 (return) [ Nicetas was a child at the second crusade, but in
the third he commanded against the Franks the important post of
Philippopolis. Cinnamus is infected with national prejudice and
pride.]
17 (return) [ The conduct of the Philadelphians is blamed by
Nicetas, while the anonymous German accuses the rudeness of his
countrymen, (culpâ nostrâ.) History would be pleasant, if we were
embarrassed only by _such_ contradictions. It is likewise from
Nicetas, that we learn the pious and humane sorrow of Frederic.]
18 (return) [ Cqamalh edra, which Cinnamus translates into Latin
by the word Sellion. Ducange works very hard to save his king and
country from such ignominy, (sur Joinville, dissertat. xxvii. p.
317—320.) Louis afterwards insisted on a meeting in mari ex æquo,
not ex equo, according to the laughable readings of some MSS.]
19 (return) [ Ego Romanorum imperator sum, ille Romaniorum,
(Anonym Canis. p. 512.) The public and historical style of the
Greeks was Ριξ... _princeps_. Yet Cinnamus owns, that Ἰμπεράτορ
is synonymous to Βασιλεὺς.]
20 (return) [ In the Epistles of Innocent III., (xiii. p. 184,)
and the History of Bohadin, (p. 129, 130,) see the views of a
pope and a cadhi on this _singular_toleration.]
III. The swarms that followed the first crusade were destroyed in
Anatolia by famine, pestilence, and the Turkish arrows; and the
princes only escaped with some squadrons of horse to accomplish
their lamentable pilgrimage. A just opinion may be formed of
their knowledge and humanity; of their knowledge, from the design
of subduing Persia and Chorasan in their way to Jerusalem; 201 of
their humanity, from the massacre of the Christian people, a
friendly city, who came out to meet them with palms and crosses
in their hands. The arms of Conrad and Louis were less cruel and
imprudent; but the event of the second crusade was still more
ruinous to Christendom; and the Greek Manuel is accused by his
own subjects of giving seasonable intelligence to the sultan, and
treacherous guides to the Latin princes. Instead of crushing the
common foe, by a double attack at the same time but on different
sides, the Germans were urged by emulation, and the French were
retarded by jealousy. Louis had scarcely passed the Bosphorus
when he was met by the returning emperor, who had lost the
greater part of his army in glorious, but unsuccessful, actions
on the banks of the Mæander. The contrast of the pomp of his
rival hastened the retreat of Conrad: 202 the desertion of his
independent vassals reduced him to his hereditary troops; and he
borrowed some Greek vessels to execute by sea the pilgrimage of
Palestine. Without studying the lessons of experience, or the
nature of the war, the king of France advanced through the same
country to a similar fate. The vanguard, which bore the royal
banner and the oriflamme of St. Denys, 21 had doubled their march
with rash and inconsiderate speed; and the rear, which the king
commanded in person, no longer found their companions in the
evening camp. In darkness and disorder, they were encompassed,
assaulted, and overwhelmed, by the innumerable host of Turks,
who, in the art of war, were superior to the Christians of the
twelfth century. 211 Louis, who climbed a tree in the general
discomfiture, was saved by his own valor and the ignorance of his
adversaries; and with the dawn of day he escaped alive, but
almost alone, to the camp of the vanguard. But instead of
pursuing his expedition by land, he was rejoiced to shelter the
relics of his army in the friendly seaport of Satalia. From
thence he embarked for Antioch; but so penurious was the supply
of Greek vessels, that they could only afford room for his
knights and nobles; and the plebeian crowd of infantry was left
to perish at the foot of the Pamphylian hills. The emperor and
the king embraced and wept at Jerusalem; their martial trains,
the remnant of mighty armies, were joined to the Christian powers
of Syria, and a fruitless siege of Damascus was the final effort
of the second crusade. Conrad and Louis embarked for Europe with
the personal fame of piety and courage; but the Orientals had
braved these potent monarchs of the Franks, with whose names and
military forces they had been so often threatened. 22 Perhaps
they had still more to fear from the veteran genius of Frederic
the First, who in his youth had served in Asia under his uncle
Conrad. Forty campaigns in Germany and Italy had taught
Barbarossa to command; and his soldiers, even the princes of the
empire, were accustomed under his reign to obey. As soon as he
lost sight of Philadelphia and Laodicea, the last cities of the
Greek frontier, he plunged into the salt and barren desert, a
land (says the historian) of horror and tribulation. 23 During
twenty days, every step of his fainting and sickly march was
besieged by the innumerable hordes of Turkmans, 24 whose numbers
and fury seemed after each defeat to multiply and inflame. The
emperor continued to struggle and to suffer; and such was the
measure of his calamities, that when he reached the gates of
Iconium, no more than one thousand knights were able to serve on
horseback. By a sudden and resolute assault he defeated the
guards, and stormed the capital of the sultan, 25 who humbly sued
for pardon and peace. The road was now open, and Frederic
advanced in a career of triumph, till he was unfortunately
drowned in a petty torrent of Cilicia. 26 The remainder of his
Germans was consumed by sickness and desertion: and the emperor’s
son expired with the greatest part of his Swabian vassals at the
siege of Acre. Among the Latin heroes, Godfrey of Bouillon and
Frederic Barbarossa could alone achieve the passage of the Lesser
Asia; yet even their success was a warning; and in the last and
most experienced age of the crusades, every nation preferred the
sea to the toils and perils of an inland expedition. 27
201 (return) [ This was the design of the pilgrims under the
archbishop of Milan. See note, p. 102.—M.]
202 (return) [ Conrad had advanced with part of his army along a
central road, between that on the coast and that which led to
Iconium. He had been betrayed by the Greeks, his army destroyed
without a battle. Wilken, vol. iii. p. 165. Michaud, vol. ii. p.
156. Conrad advanced again with Louis as far as Ephesus, and from
thence, at the invitation of Manuel, returned to Constantinople.
It was Louis who, at the passage of the Mæander, was engaged in a
“glorious action.” Wilken, vol. iii. p. 179. Michaud vol. ii. p.
160. Gibbon followed Nicetas.—M.]
21 (return) [ As counts of Vexin, the kings of France were the
vassals and advocates of the monastery of St. Denys. The saint’s
peculiar banner, which they received from the abbot, was of a
square form, and a red or _flaming_ color. The _oriflamme_
appeared at the head of the French armies from the xiith to the
xvth century, (Ducange sur Joinville, Dissert. xviii. p.
244—253.)]
211 (return) [ They descended the heights to a beautiful valley
which by beneath them. The Turks seized the heights which
separated the two divisions of the army. The modern historians
represent differently the act to which Louis owed his safety,
which Gibbon has described by the undignified phrase, “he climbed
a tree.” According to Michaud, vol. ii. p. 164, the king got upon
a rock, with his back against a tree; according to Wilken, vol.
iii., he dragged himself up to the top of the rock by the roots
of a tree, and continued to defend himself till nightfall.—M.]
22 (return) [ The original French histories of the second crusade
are the Gesta Ludovici VII. published in the ivth volume of
Duchesne’s collection. The same volume contains many original
letters of the king, of Suger his minister, &c., the best
documents of authentic history.]
23 (return) [ Terram horroris et salsuginis, terram siccam
sterilem, inamnam. Anonym. Canis. p. 517. The emphatic language
of a sufferer.]
24 (return) [ Gens innumera, sylvestris, indomita, prædones sine
ductore. The sultan of Cogni might sincerely rejoice in their
defeat. Anonym. Canis. p. 517, 518.]
25 (return) [ See, in the anonymous writer in the Collection of
Canisius, Tagino and Bohadin, (Vit. Saladin. p. 119, 120,) the
ambiguous conduct of Kilidge Arslan, sultan of Cogni, who hated
and feared both Saladin and Frederic.]
26 (return) [ The desire of comparing two great men has tempted
many writers to drown Frederic in the River Cydnus, in which
Alexander so imprudently bathed, (Q. Curt. l. iii c. 4, 5.) But,
from the march of the emperor, I rather judge, that his Saleph is
the Calycadnus, a stream of less fame, but of a longer course. *
Note: * It is now called the Girama: its course is described in
M’Donald Kinneir’s Travels.—M.]
27 (return) [ Marinus Sanutus, A.D. 1321, lays it down as a
precept, Quod stolus ecclesiæ per terram nullatenus est ducenda.
He resolves, by the divine aid, the objection, or rather
exception, of the first crusade, (Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. ii.
pars ii. c. i. p. 37.)]
The enthusiasm of the first crusade is a natural and simple
event, while hope was fresh, danger untried, and enterprise
congenial to the spirit of the times. But the obstinate
perseverance of Europe may indeed excite our pity and admiration;
that no instruction should have been drawn from constant and
adverse experience; that the same confidence should have
repeatedly grown from the same failures; that six succeeding
generations should have rushed headlong down the precipice that
was open before them; and that men of every condition should have
staked their public and private fortunes on the desperate
adventure of possessing or recovering a tombstone two thousand
miles from their country. In a period of two centuries after the
council of Clermont, each spring and summer produced a new
emigration of pilgrim warriors for the defence of the Holy Land;
but the seven great armaments or crusades were excited by some
impending or recent calamity: the nations were moved by the
authority of their pontiffs, and the example of their kings:
their zeal was kindled, and their reason was silenced, by the
voice of their holy orators; and among these, Bernard, 28 the
monk, or the saint, may claim the most honorable place. 281 About
eight years before the first conquest of Jerusalem, he was born
of a noble family in Burgundy; at the age of three-and-twenty he
buried himself in the monastery of Citeaux, then in the primitive
fervor of the institution; at the end of two years he led forth
her third colony, or daughter, to the valley of Clairvaux 29 in
Champagne; and was content, till the hour of his death, with the
humble station of abbot of his own community. A philosophic age
has abolished, with too liberal and indiscriminate disdain, the
honors of these spiritual heroes. The meanest among them are
distinguished by some energies of the mind; they were at least
superior to their votaries and disciples; and, in the race of
superstition, they attained the prize for which such numbers
contended. In speech, in writing, in action, Bernard stood high
above his rivals and contemporaries; his compositions are not
devoid of wit and eloquence; and he seems to have preserved as
much reason and humanity as may be reconciled with the character
of a saint. In a secular life, he would have shared the seventh
part of a private inheritance; by a vow of poverty and penance,
by closing his eyes against the visible world, 30 by the refusal
of all ecclesiastical dignities, the abbot of Clairvaux became
the oracle of Europe, and the founder of one hundred and sixty
convents. Princes and pontiffs trembled at the freedom of his
apostolical censures: France, England, and Milan, consulted and
obeyed his judgment in a schism of the church: the debt was
repaid by the gratitude of Innocent the Second; and his
successor, Eugenius the Third, was the friend and disciple of the
holy Bernard. It was in the proclamation of the second crusade
that he shone as the missionary and prophet of God, who called
the nations to the defence of his holy sepulchre. 31 At the
parliament of Vezelay he spoke before the king; and Louis the
Seventh, with his nobles, received their crosses from his hand.
The abbot of Clairvaux then marched to the less easy conquest of
the emperor Conrad: 311 a phlegmatic people, ignorant of his
language, was transported by the pathetic vehemence of his tone
and gestures; and his progress, from Constance to Cologne, was
the triumph of eloquence and zeal. Bernard applauds his own
success in the depopulation of Europe; affirms that cities and
castles were emptied of their inhabitants; and computes, that
only one man was left behind for the consolation of seven widows.
32 The blind fanatics were desirous of electing him for their
general; but the example of the hermit Peter was before his eyes;
and while he assured the crusaders of the divine favor, he
prudently declined a military command, in which failure and
victory would have been almost equally disgraceful to his
character. 33 Yet, after the calamitous event, the abbot of
Clairvaux was loudly accused as a false prophet, the author of
the public and private mourning; his enemies exulted, his friends
blushed, and his apology was slow and unsatisfactory. He
justifies his obedience to the commands of the pope; expatiates
on the mysterious ways of Providence; imputes the misfortunes of
the pilgrims to their own sins; and modestly insinuates, that his
mission had been approved by signs and wonders. 34 Had the fact
been certain, the argument would be decisive; and his faithful
disciples, who enumerate twenty or thirty miracles in a day,
appeal to the public assemblies of France and Germany, in which
they were performed. 35 At the present hour, such prodigies will
not obtain credit beyond the precincts of Clairvaux; but in the
preternatural cures of the blind, the lame, and the sick, who
were presented to the man of God, it is impossible for us to
ascertain the separate shares of accident, of fancy, of
imposture, and of fiction.
28 (return) [ The most authentic information of St. Bernard must
be drawn from his own writings, published in a correct edition by
Père Mabillon, and reprinted at Venice, 1750, in six volumes in
folio. Whatever friendship could recollect, or superstition could
add, is contained in the two lives, by his disciples, in the vith
volume: whatever learning and criticism could ascertain, may be
found in the prefaces of the Benedictine editor.]
281 (return) [ Gibbon, whose account of the crusades is perhaps
the least accurate and satisfactory chapter in his History, has
here failed in that lucid arrangement, which in general gives
perspicuity to his most condensed and crowded narratives. He has
unaccountably, and to the great perplexity of the reader, placed
the preaching of St Bernard after the second crusade to which i
led.—M.]
29 (return) [ Clairvaux, surnamed the valley of Absynth, is
situate among the woods near Bar sur Aube in Champagne. St.
Bernard would blush at the pomp of the church and monastery; he
would ask for the library, and I know not whether he would be
much edified by a tun of 800 muids, (914 1-7 hogsheads,) which
almost rivals that of Heidelberg, (Mélanges tirés d’une Grande
Bibliothèque, tom. xlvi. p. 15—20.)]
30 (return) [ The disciples of the saint (Vit. ima, l. iii. c. 2,
p. 1232. Vit. iida, c. 16, No. 45, p. 1383) record a marvellous
example of his pious apathy. Juxta lacum etiam Lausannensem
totius diei itinere pergens, penitus non attendit aut se videre
non vidit. Cum enim vespere facto de eodem lacû socii
colloquerentur, interrogabat eos ubi lacus ille esset, et mirati
sunt universi. To admire or despise St. Bernard as he ought, the
reader, like myself, should have before the windows of his
library the beauties of that incomparable landscape.]
31 (return) [ Otho Frising. l. i. c. 4. Bernard. Epist. 363, ad
Francos Orientales Opp. tom. i. p. 328. Vit. ima, l. iii. c. 4,
tom. vi. p. 1235.]
311 (return) [ Bernard had a nobler object in his expedition into
Germany—to arrest the fierce and merciless persecution of the
Jews, which was preparing, under the monk Radulph, to renew the
frightful scenes which had preceded the first crusade, in the
flourishing cities on the banks of the Rhine. The Jews
acknowledge the Christian intervention of St. Bernard. See the
curious extract from the History of Joseph ben Meir. Wilken, vol.
iii. p. 1. and p. 63.—M.]
32 (return) [ Mandastis et obedivi.... multiplicati sunt super
numerum; vacuantur urbes et castella; et _pene_ jam non inveniunt
quem apprehendant septem mulieres unum virum; adeo ubique viduæ
vivis remanent viris. Bernard. Epist. p. 247. We must be careful
not to construe _pene_ as a substantive.]
33 (return) [ Quis ego sum ut disponam acies, ut egrediar ante
facies armatorum, aut quid tam remotum a professione meâ, si
vires, si peritia, &c. Epist. 256, tom. i. p. 259. He speaks with
contempt of the hermit Peter, vir quidam, Epist. 363.]
34 (return) [ Sic dicunt forsitan isti, unde scimus quòd a Domino
sermo egressus sit? Quæ signa tu facis ut credamus tibi? Non est
quod ad ista ipse respondeam; parcendum verecundiæ meæ, responde
tu pro me, et pro te ipso, secundum quæ vidisti et audisti, et
secundum quod te inspiraverit Deus. Consolat. l. ii. c. 1. Opp.
tom. ii. p. 421—423.]
35 (return) [ See the testimonies in Vita ima, l. iv. c. 5, 6.
Opp. tom. vi. p. 1258—1261, l. vi. c. 1—17, p. 1286—1314.]
Omnipotence itself cannot escape the murmurs of its discordant
votaries; since the same dispensation which was applauded as a
deliverance in Europe, was deplored, and perhaps arraigned, as a
calamity in Asia. After the loss of Jerusalem, the Syrian
fugitives diffused their consternation and sorrow; Bagdad mourned
in the dust; the cadhi Zeineddin of Damascus tore his beard in
the caliph’s presence; and the whole divan shed tears at his
melancholy tale. 36 But the commanders of the faithful could only
weep; they were themselves captives in the hands of the Turks:
some temporal power was restored to the last age of the
Abbassides; but their humble ambition was confined to Bagdad and
the adjacent province. Their tyrants, the Seljukian sultans, had
followed the common law of the Asiatic dynasties, the unceasing
round of valor, greatness, discord, degeneracy, and decay; their
spirit and power were unequal to the defence of religion; and, in
his distant realm of Persia, the Christians were strangers to the
name and the arms of Sangiar, the last hero of his race. 37 While
the sultans were involved in the silken web of the harem, the
pious task was undertaken by their slaves, the Atabeks, 38 a
Turkish name, which, like the Byzantine patricians, may be
translated by Father of the Prince. Ascansar, a valiant Turk, had
been the favorite of Malek Shaw, from whom he received the
privilege of standing on the right hand of the throne; but, in
the civil wars that ensued on the monarch’s death, he lost his
head and the government of Aleppo. His domestic emirs persevered
in their attachment to his son Zenghi, who proved his first arms
against the Franks in the defeat of Antioch: thirty campaigns in
the service of the caliph and sultan established his military
fame; and he was invested with the command of Mosul, as the only
champion that could avenge the cause of the prophet. The public
hope was not disappointed: after a siege of twenty-five days, he
stormed the city of Edessa, and recovered from the Franks their
conquests beyond the Euphrates: 39 the martial tribes of
Curdistan were subdued by the independent sovereign of Mosul and
Aleppo: his soldiers were taught to behold the camp as their only
country; they trusted to his liberality for their rewards; and
their absent families were protected by the vigilance of Zenghi.
At the head of these veterans, his son Noureddin gradually united
the Mahometan powers; 391 added the kingdom of Damascus to that
of Aleppo, and waged a long and successful war against the
Christians of Syria; he spread his ample reign from the Tigris to
the Nile, and the Abbassides rewarded their faithful servant with
all the titles and prerogatives of royalty. The Latins themselves
were compelled to own the wisdom and courage, and even the
justice and piety, of this implacable adversary. 40 In his life
and government the holy warrior revived the zeal and simplicity
of the first caliphs. Gold and silk were banished from his
palace; the use of wine from his dominions; the public revenue
was scrupulously applied to the public service; and the frugal
household of Noureddin was maintained from his legitimate share
of the spoil which he vested in the purchase of a private estate.
His favorite sultana sighed for some female object of expense.
“Alas,” replied the king, “I fear God, and am no more than the
treasurer of the Moslems. Their property I cannot alienate; but I
still possess three shops in the city of Hems: these you may
take; and these alone can I bestow.” His chamber of justice was
the terror of the great and the refuge of the poor. Some years
after the sultan’s death, an oppressed subject called aloud in
the streets of Damascus, “O Noureddin, Noureddin, where art thou
now? Arise, arise, to pity and protect us!” A tumult was
apprehended, and a living tyrant blushed or trembled at the name
of a departed monarch.
36 (return) [ Abulmahasen apud de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom.
ii. p. ii. p. 99.]
37 (return) [ See his _article_ in the Bibliothèque Orientale of
D’Herbelot, and De Guignes, tom. ii. p. i. p. 230—261. Such was
his valor, that he was styled the second Alexander; and such the
extravagant love of his subjects, that they prayed for the sultan
a year after his decease. Yet Sangiar might have been made
prisoner by the Franks, as well as by the Uzes. He reigned near
fifty years, (A.D. 1103—1152,) and was a munificent patron of
Persian poetry.]
38 (return) [ See the Chronology of the Atabeks of Irak and
Syria, in De Guignes, tom. i. p. 254; and the reigns of Zenghi
and Noureddin in the same writer, (tom. ii. p. ii. p. 147—221,)
who uses the Arabic text of Benelathir, Ben Schouna and Abulfeda;
the Bibliothèque Orientale, under the articles _Atabeks_ and
_Noureddin_, and the Dynasties of Abulpharagius, p. 250—267,
vers. Pocock.]
39 (return) [ William of Tyre (l. xvi. c. 4, 5, 7) describes the
loss of Edessa, and the death of Zenghi. The corruption of his
name into _Sanguin_, afforded the Latins a comfortable allusion
to his _sanguinary_ character and end, fit sanguine
sanguinolentus.]
391 (return) [ On Noureddin’s conquest of Damascus, see extracts
from Arabian writers prefixed to the second part of the third
volume of Wilken.—M.]
40 (return) [ Noradinus (says William of Tyre, l. xx. 33) maximus
nominis et fidei Christianæ persecutor; princeps tamen justus,
vafer, providus’ et secundum gentis suæ traditiones religiosus.
To this Catholic witness we may add the primate of the Jacobites,
(Abulpharag. p. 267,) quo non alter erat inter reges vitæ ratione
magis laudabili, aut quæ pluribus justitiæ experimentis
abundaret. The true praise of kings is after their death, and
from the mouth of their enemies.]
Chapter LIX: The Crusades.—Part II.
By the arms of the Turks and Franks, the Fatimites had been
deprived of Syria. In Egypt the decay of their character and
influence was still more essential. Yet they were still revered
as the descendants and successors of the prophet; they maintained
their invisible state in the palace of Cairo; and their person
was seldom violated by the profane eyes of subjects or strangers.
The Latin ambassadors 41 have described their own introduction,
through a series of gloomy passages, and glittering porticos: the
scene was enlivened by the warbling of birds and the murmur of
fountains: it was enriched by a display of rich furniture and
rare animals; of the Imperial treasures, something was shown, and
much was supposed; and the long order of unfolding doors was
guarded by black soldiers and domestic eunuchs. The sanctuary of
the presence chamber was veiled with a curtain; and the vizier,
who conducted the ambassadors, laid aside the cimeter, and
prostrated himself three times on the ground; the veil was then
removed; and they beheld the commander of the faithful, who
signified his pleasure to the first slave of the throne. But this
slave was his master: the viziers or sultans had usurped the
supreme administration of Egypt; the claims of the rival
candidates were decided by arms; and the name of the most worthy,
of the strongest, was inserted in the royal patent of command.
The factions of Dargham and Shawer alternately expelled each
other from the capital and country; and the weaker side implored
the dangerous protection of the sultan of Damascus, or the king
of Jerusalem, the perpetual enemies of the sect and monarchy of
the Fatimites. By his arms and religion the Turk was most
formidable; but the Frank, in an easy, direct march, could
advance from Gaza to the Nile; while the intermediate situation
of his realm compelled the troops of Noureddin to wheel round the
skirts of Arabia, a long and painful circuit, which exposed them
to thirst, fatigue, and the burning winds of the desert. The
secret zeal and ambition of the Turkish prince aspired to reign
in Egypt under the name of the Abbassides; but the restoration of
the suppliant Shawer was the ostensible motive of the first
expedition; and the success was intrusted to the emir Shiracouh,
a valiant and veteran commander. Dargham was oppressed and slain;
but the ingratitude, the jealousy, the just apprehensions, of his
more fortunate rival, soon provoked him to invite the king of
Jerusalem to deliver Egypt from his insolent benefactors. To this
union the forces of Shiracouh were unequal: he relinquished the
premature conquest; and the evacuation of Belbeis or Pelusium was
the condition of his safe retreat. As the Turks defiled before
the enemy, and their general closed the rear, with a vigilant
eye, and a battle axe in his hand, a Frank presumed to ask him if
he were not afraid of an attack. “It is doubtless in your power
to begin the attack,” replied the intrepid emir; “but rest
assured, that not one of my soldiers will go to paradise till he
has sent an infidel to hell.” His report of the riches of the
land, the effeminacy of the natives, and the disorders of the
government, revived the hopes of Noureddin; the caliph of Bagdad
applauded the pious design; and Shiracouh descended into Egypt a
second time with twelve thousand Turks and eleven thousand Arabs.
Yet his forces were still inferior to the confederate armies of
the Franks and Saracens; and I can discern an unusual degree of
military art, in his passage of the Nile, his retreat into
Thebais, his masterly evolutions in the battle of Babain, the
surprise of Alexandria, and his marches and countermarches in the
flats and valley of Egypt, from the tropic to the sea. His
conduct was seconded by the courage of his troops, and on the eve
of action a Mamaluke 42 exclaimed, “If we cannot wrest Egypt from
the Christian dogs, why do we not renounce the honors and rewards
of the sultan, and retire to labor with the peasants, or to spin
with the females of the harem?” Yet, after all his efforts in the
field, 43 after the obstinate defence of Alexandria 44 by his
nephew Saladin, an honorable capitulation and retreat 441
concluded the second enterprise of Shiracouh; and Noureddin
reserved his abilities for a third and more propitious occasion.
It was soon offered by the ambition and avarice of Amalric or
Amaury, king of Jerusalem, who had imbibed the pernicious maxim,
that no faith should be kept with the enemies of God. 442 A
religious warrior, the great master of the hospital, encouraged
him to proceed; the emperor of Constantinople either gave, or
promised, a fleet to act with the armies of Syria; and the
perfidious Christian, unsatisfied with spoil and subsidy, aspired
to the conquest of Egypt. In this emergency, the Moslems turned
their eyes towards the sultan of Damascus; the vizier, whom
danger encompassed on all sides, yielded to their unanimous
wishes, and Noureddin seemed to be tempted by the fair offer of
one third of the revenue of the kingdom. The Franks were already
at the gates of Cairo; but the suburbs, the old city, were burnt
on their approach; they were deceived by an insidious
negotiation, and their vessels were unable to surmount the
barriers of the Nile. They prudently declined a contest with the
Turks in the midst of a hostile country; and Amaury retired into
Palestine with the shame and reproach that always adhere to
unsuccessful injustice. After this deliverance, Shiracouh was
invested with a robe of honor, which he soon stained with the
blood of the unfortunate Shawer. For a while, the Turkish emirs
condescended to hold the office of vizier; but this foreign
conquest precipitated the fall of the Fatimites themselves; and
the bloodless change was accomplished by a message and a word.
The caliphs had been degraded by their own weakness and the
tyranny of the viziers: their subjects blushed, when the
descendant and successor of the prophet presented his naked hand
to the rude gripe of a Latin ambassador; they wept when he sent
the hair of his women, a sad emblem of their grief and terror, to
excite the pity of the sultan of Damascus. By the command of
Noureddin, and the sentence of the doctors, the holy names of
Abubeker, Omar, and Othman, were solemnly restored: the caliph
Mosthadi, of Bagdad, was acknowledged in the public prayers as
the true commander of the faithful; and the green livery of the
sons of Ali was exchanged for the black color of the Abbassides.
The last of his race, the caliph Adhed, who survived only ten
days, expired in happy ignorance of his fate; his treasures
secured the loyalty of the soldiers, and silenced the murmurs of
the sectaries; and in all subsequent revolutions, Egypt has never
departed from the orthodox tradition of the Moslems. 45
41 (return) [ From the ambassador, William of Tyre (l. xix. c.
17, 18,) describes the palace of Cairo. In the caliph’s treasure
were found a pearl as large as a pigeon’s egg, a ruby weighing
seventeen Egyptian drams, an emerald a palm and a half in length,
and many vases of crystal and porcelain of China, (Renaudot, p.
536.)]
42 (return) [ _Mamluc_, plur. _Mamalic_, is defined by Pocock,
(Prolegom. ad Abulpharag. p. 7,) and D’Herbelot, (p. 545,) servum
emptitium, seu qui pretio numerato in domini possessionem cedit.
They frequently occur in the wars of Saladin, (Bohadin, p. 236,
&c.;) and it was only the _Bahartie_ Mamalukes that were first
introduced into Egypt by his descendants.]
43 (return) [ Jacobus à Vitriaco (p. 1116) gives the king of
Jerusalem no more than 374 knights. Both the Franks and the
Moslems report the superior numbers of the enemy; a difference
which may be solved by counting or omitting the unwarlike
Egyptians.]
44 (return) [ It was the Alexandria of the Arabs, a middle term
in extent and riches between the period of the Greeks and Romans,
and that of the Turks, (Savary, Lettres sur l’Egypte, tom. i. p.
25, 26.)]
441 (return) [ The treaty stipulated that both the Christians and
the Arabs should withdraw from Egypt. Wilken, vol. iii. part ii.
p. 113.—M.]
442 (return) [ The Knights Templars, abhorring the perfidious
breach of treaty partly, perhaps, out of jealousy of the
Hospitallers, refused to join in this enterprise. Will. Tyre c.
xx. p. 5. Wilken, vol. iii. part ii. p. 117.—M.]
45 (return) [ For this great revolution of Egypt, see William of
Tyre, (l. xix. 5, 6, 7, 12—31, xx. 5—12,) Bohadin, (in Vit.
Saladin, p. 30—39,) Abulfeda, (in Excerpt. Schultens, p. 1—12,)
D’Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orient. _Adhed_, _Fathemah_, but very
incorrect,) Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 522—525,
532—537,) Vertot, (Hist. des Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. p.
141—163, in 4to.,) and M. de Guignes, (tom. ii. p. 185—215.)]
The hilly country beyond the Tigris is occupied by the pastoral
tribes of the Curds; 46 a people hardy, strong, savage impatient
of the yoke, addicted to rapine, and tenacious of the government
of their national chiefs. The resemblance of name, situation, and
manners, seems to identify them with the Carduchians of the
Greeks; 47 and they still defend against the Ottoman Porte the
antique freedom which they asserted against the successors of
Cyrus. Poverty and ambition prompted them to embrace the
profession of mercenary soldiers: the service of his father and
uncle prepared the reign of the great Saladin; 48 and the son of
Job or Ayud, a simple Curd, magnanimously smiled at his
pedigree, which flattery deduced from the Arabian caliphs. 49 So
unconscious was Noureddin of the impending ruin of his house,
that he constrained the reluctant youth to follow his uncle
Shiracouh into Egypt: his military character was established by
the defence of Alexandria; and, if we may believe the Latins, he
solicited and obtained from the Christian general the
_profane_honors of knighthood. 50 On the death of Shiracouh, the
office of grand vizier was bestowed on Saladin, as the youngest
and least powerful of the emirs; but with the advice of his
father, whom he invited to Cairo, his genius obtained the
ascendant over his equals, and attached the army to his person
and interest. While Noureddin lived, these ambitious Curds were
the most humble of his slaves; and the indiscreet murmurs of the
divan were silenced by the prudent Ayub, who loudly protested
that at the command of the sultan he himself would lead his sons
in chains to the foot of the throne. “Such language,” he added in
private, “was prudent and proper in an assembly of your rivals;
but we are now above fear and obedience; and the threats of
Noureddin shall not extort the tribute of a sugar-cane.” His
seasonable death relieved them from the odious and doubtful
conflict: his son, a minor of eleven years of age, was left for a
while to the emirs of Damascus; and the new lord of Egypt was
decorated by the caliph with every title 51 that could sanctify
his usurpation in the eyes of the people. Nor was Saladin long
content with the possession of Egypt; he despoiled the Christians
of Jerusalem, and the Atabeks of Damascus, Aleppo, and Diarbekir:
Mecca and Medina acknowledged him for their temporal protector:
his brother subdued the distant regions of Yemen, or the happy
Arabia; and at the hour of his death, his empire was spread from
the African Tripoli to the Tigris, and from the Indian Ocean to
the mountains of Armenia. In the judgment of his character, the
reproaches of treason and ingratitude strike forcibly on _our_
minds, impressed, as they are, with the principle and experience
of law and loyalty. But his ambition may in some measure be
excused by the revolutions of Asia, 52 which had erased every
notion of legitimate succession; by the recent example of the
Atabeks themselves; by his reverence to the son of his
benefactor; his humane and generous behavior to the collateral
branches; by _their_ incapacity and _his_ merit; by the
approbation of the caliph, the sole source of all legitimate
power; and, above all, by the wishes and interest of the people,
whose happiness is the first object of government. In _his_
virtues, and in those of his patron, they admired the singular
union of the hero and the saint; for both Noureddin and Saladin
are ranked among the Mahometan saints; and the constant
meditation of the holy war appears to have shed a serious and
sober color over their lives and actions. The youth of the latter
53 was addicted to wine and women: but his aspiring spirit soon
renounced the temptations of pleasure for the graver follies of
fame and dominion: the garment of Saladin was of coarse woollen;
water was his only drink; and, while he emulated the temperance,
he surpassed the chastity, of his Arabian prophet. Both in faith
and practice he was a rigid Mussulman: he ever deplored that the
defence of religion had not allowed him to accomplish the
pilgrimage of Mecca; but at the stated hours, five times each
day, the sultan devoutly prayed with his brethren: the
involuntary omission of fasting was scrupulously repaid; and his
perusal of the Koran, on horseback between the approaching
armies, may be quoted as a proof, however ostentatious, of piety
and courage. 54 The superstitious doctrine of the sect of Shafei
was the only study that he deigned to encourage: the poets were
safe in his contempt; but all profane science was the object of
his aversion; and a philosopher, who had invented some
speculative novelties, was seized and strangled by the command of
the royal saint. The justice of his divan was accessible to the
meanest suppliant against himself and his ministers; and it was
only for a kingdom that Saladin would deviate from the rule of
equity. While the descendants of Seljuk and Zenghi held his
stirrup and smoothed his garments, he was affable and patient
with the meanest of his servants. So boundless was his
liberality, that he distributed twelve thousand horses at the
siege of Acre; and, at the time of his death, no more than
forty-seven drams of silver and one piece of gold coin were found
in the treasury; yet, in a martial reign, the tributes were
diminished, and the wealthy citizens enjoyed, without fear or
danger, the fruits of their industry. Egypt, Syria, and Arabia,
were adorned by the royal foundations of hospitals, colleges, and
mosques; and Cairo was fortified with a wall and citadel; but his
works were consecrated to public use: 55 nor did the sultan
indulge himself in a garden or palace of private luxury. In a
fanatic age, himself a fanatic, the genuine virtues of Saladin
commanded the esteem of the Christians; the emperor of Germany
gloried in his friendship; 56 the Greek emperor solicited his
alliance; 57 and the conquest of Jerusalem diffused, and perhaps
magnified, his fame both in the East and West.
46 (return) [ For the Curds, see De Guignes, tom. ii. p. 416,
417, the Index Geographicus of Schultens and Tavernier, Voyages,
p. i. p. 308, 309. The Ayoubites descended from the tribe of the
Rawadiæi, one of the noblest; but as _they_ were infected with
the heresy of the Metempsychosis, the orthodox sultans insinuated
that their descent was only on the mother’s side, and that their
ancestor was a stranger who settled among the Curds.]
47 (return) [ See the ivth book of the Anabasis of Xenophon. The
ten thousand suffered more from the arrows of the free
Carduchians, than from the splendid weakness of the great king.]
48 (return) [ We are indebted to the professor Schultens (Lugd.
Bat, 1755, in folio) for the richest and most authentic
materials, a life of Saladin by his friend and minister the Cadhi
Bohadin, and copious extracts from the history of his kinsman the
prince Abulfeda of Hamah. To these we may add, the article of
_Salaheddin_ in the Bibliothèque Orientale, and all that may be
gleaned from the Dynasties of Abulpharagius.]
49 (return) [ Since Abulfeda was himself an Ayoubite, he may
share the praise, for imitating, at least tacitly, the modesty of
the founder.]
50 (return) [ Hist. Hierosol. in the Gesta Dei per Francos, p.
1152. A similar example may be found in Joinville, (p. 42,
edition du Louvre;) but the pious St. Louis refused to dignify
infidels with the order of Christian knighthood, (Ducange,
Observations, p 70.)]
51 (return) [ In these Arabic titles, _religionis_ must always be
understood; _Noureddin_, lumen r.; _Ezzodin_, decus; _Amadoddin_,
columen: our hero’s proper name was Joseph, and he was styled
_Salahoddin_, salus; _Al Malichus_, _Al Nasirus_, rex defensor;
_Abu Modaffer_, pater victoriæ, Schultens, Præfat.]
52 (return) [ Abulfeda, who descended from a brother of Saladin,
observes, from many examples, that the founders of dynasties took
the guilt for themselves, and left the reward to their innocent
collaterals, (Excerpt p. 10.)]
53 (return) [ See his life and character in Renaudot, p.
537—548.]
54 (return) [ His civil and religious virtues are celebrated in
the first chapter of Bohadin, (p. 4—30,) himself an eye-witness,
and an honest bigot.]
55 (return) [ In many works, particularly Joseph’s well in the
castle of Cairo, the Sultan and the Patriarch have been
confounded by the ignorance of natives and travellers.]
56 (return) [ Anonym. Canisii, tom. iii. p. ii. p. 504.]
57 (return) [ Bohadin, p. 129, 130.]
During its short existence, the kingdom of Jerusalem 58 was
supported by the discord of the Turks and Saracens; and both the
Fatimite caliphs and the sultans of Damascus were tempted to
sacrifice the cause of their religion to the meaner
considerations of private and present advantage. But the powers
of Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, were now united by a hero, whom
nature and fortune had armed against the Christians. All without
now bore the most threatening aspect; and all was feeble and
hollow in the internal state of Jerusalem. After the two first
Baldwins, the brother and cousin of Godfrey of Bouillon, the
sceptre devolved by female succession to Melisenda, daughter of
the second Baldwin, and her husband Fulk, count of Anjou, the
father, by a former marriage, of our English Plantagenets. Their
two sons, Baldwin the Third, and Amaury, waged a strenuous, and
not unsuccessful, war against the infidels; but the son of
Amaury, Baldwin the Fourth, was deprived, by the leprosy, a gift
of the crusades, of the faculties both of mind and body. His
sister Sybilla, the mother of Baldwin the Fifth, was his natural
heiress: after the suspicious death of her child, she crowned her
second husband, Guy of Lusignan, a prince of a handsome person,
but of such base renown, that his own brother Jeffrey was heard
to exclaim, “Since they have made _him_ a king, surely they would
have made _me_ a god!” The choice was generally blamed; and the
most powerful vassal, Raymond count of Tripoli, who had been
excluded from the succession and regency, entertained an
implacable hatred against the king, and exposed his honor and
conscience to the temptations of the sultan. Such were the
guardians of the holy city; a leper, a child, a woman, a coward,
and a traitor: yet its fate was delayed twelve years by some
supplies from Europe, by the valor of the military orders, and by
the distant or domestic avocations of their great enemy. At
length, on every side, the sinking state was encircled and
pressed by a hostile line: and the truce was violated by the
Franks, whose existence it protected. A soldier of fortune,
Reginald of Chatillon, had seized a fortress on the edge of the
desert, from whence he pillaged the caravans, insulted Mahomet,
and threatened the cities of Mecca and Medina. Saladin
condescended to complain; rejoiced in the denial of justice, and
at the head of fourscore thousand horse and foot invaded the Holy
Land. The choice of Tiberias for his first siege was suggested by
the count of Tripoli, to whom it belonged; and the king of
Jerusalem was persuaded to drain his garrison, and to arm his
people, for the relief of that important place. 59 By the advice
of the perfidious Raymond, the Christians were betrayed into a
camp destitute of water: he fled on the first onset, with the
curses of both nations: 60 Lusignan was overthrown, with the loss
of thirty thousand men; and the wood of the true cross (a dire
misfortune!) was left in the power of the infidels. 601 The royal
captive was conducted to the tent of Saladin; and as he fainted
with thirst and terror, the generous victor presented him with a
cup of sherbet, cooled in snow, without suffering his companion,
Reginald of Chatillon, to partake of this pledge of hospitality
and pardon. “The person and dignity of a king,” said the sultan,
“are sacred, but this impious robber must instantly acknowledge
the prophet, whom he has blasphemed, or meet the death which he
has so often deserved.” On the proud or conscientious refusal of
the Christian warrior, Saladin struck him on the head with his
cimeter, and Reginald was despatched by the guards. 61 The
trembling Lusignan was sent to Damascus, to an honorable prison
and speedy ransom; but the victory was stained by the execution
of two hundred and thirty knights of the hospital, the intrepid
champions and martyrs of their faith. The kingdom was left
without a head; and of the two grand masters of the military
orders, the one was slain and the other was a prisoner. From all
the cities, both of the sea-coast and the inland country, the
garrisons had been drawn away for this fatal field: Tyre and
Tripoli alone could escape the rapid inroad of Saladin; and three
months after the battle of Tiberias, he appeared in arms before
the gates of Jerusalem. 62
58 (return) [ For the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, see William of
Tyre, from the ixth to the xxiid book. Jacob a Vitriaco, Hist.
Hierosolem l i., and Sanutus Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. iii. p.
vi. vii. viii. ix.]
59 (return) [ Templarii ut apes bombabant et Hospitalarii ut
venti stridebant, et barones se exitio offerebant, et Turcopuli
(the Christian light troops) semet ipsi in ignem injiciebant,
(Ispahani de Expugnatione Kudsiticâ, p. 18, apud Schultens;) a
specimen of Arabian eloquence, somewhat different from the style
of Xenophon!]
60 (return) [ The Latins affirm, the Arabians insinuate, the
treason of Raymond; but had he really embraced their religion, he
would have been a saint and a hero in the eyes of the latter.]
601 (return) [ Raymond’s advice would have prevented the
abandonment of a secure camp abounding with water near Sepphoris.
The rash and insolent valor of the master of the order of Knights
Templars, which had before exposed the Christians to a fatal
defeat at the brook Kishon, forced the feeble king to annul the
determination of a council of war, and advance to a camp in an
enclosed valley among the mountains, near Hittin, without water.
Raymond did not fly till the battle was irretrievably lost, and
then the Saracens seem to have opened their ranks to allow him
free passage. The charge of suggesting the siege of Tiberias
appears ungrounded Raymond, no doubt, played a double part: he
was a man of strong sagacity, who foresaw the desperate nature of
the contest with Saladin, endeavored by every means to maintain
the treaty, and, though he joined both his arms and his still
more valuable counsels to the Christian army, yet kept up a kind
of amicable correspondence with the Mahometans. See Wilken, vol.
iii. part ii. p. 276, et seq. Michaud, vol. ii. p. 278, et seq.
M. Michaud is still more friendly than Wilken to the memory of
Count Raymond, who died suddenly, shortly after the battle of
Hittin. He quotes a letter written in the name of Saladin by the
caliph Alfdel, to show that Raymond was considered by the
Mahometans their most dangerous and detested enemy. “No person of
distinction among the Christians escaped, except the count, (of
Tripoli) whom God curse. God made him die shortly afterwards, and
sent him from the kingdom of death to hell.”—M.]
61 (return) [ Benaud, Reginald, or Arnold de Chatillon, is
celebrated by the Latins in his life and death; but the
circumstances of the latter are more distinctly related by
Bohadin and Abulfeda; and Joinville (Hist. de St. Louis, p. 70)
alludes to the practice of Saladin, of never putting to death a
prisoner who had tasted his bread and salt. Some of the
companions of Arnold had been slaughtered, and almost sacrificed,
in a valley of Mecca, ubi sacrificia mactantur, (Abulfeda, p.
32.)]
62 (return) [ Vertot, who well describes the loss of the kingdom
and city (Hist. des Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. l. ii. p.
226—278,) inserts two original epistles of a Knight Templar.]
He might expect that the siege of a city so venerable on earth
and in heaven, so interesting to Europe and Asia, would rekindle
the last sparks of enthusiasm; and that, of sixty thousand
Christians, every man would be a soldier, and every soldier a
candidate for martyrdom. But Queen Sybilla trembled for herself
and her captive husband; and the barons and knights, who had
escaped from the sword and chains of the Turks, displayed the
same factious and selfish spirit in the public ruin. The most
numerous portion of the inhabitants was composed of the Greek and
Oriental Christians, whom experience had taught to prefer the
Mahometan before the Latin yoke; 63 and the holy sepulchre
attracted a base and needy crowd, without arms or courage, who
subsisted only on the charity of the pilgrims. Some feeble and
hasty efforts were made for the defence of Jerusalem: but in the
space of fourteen days, a victorious army drove back the sallies
of the besieged, planted their engines, opened the wall to the
breadth of fifteen cubits, applied their scaling-ladders, and
erected on the breach twelve banners of the prophet and the
sultan. It was in vain that a barefoot procession of the queen,
the women, and the monks, implored the Son of God to save his
tomb and his inheritance from impious violation. Their sole hope
was in the mercy of the conqueror, and to their first suppliant
deputation that mercy was sternly denied. “He had sworn to avenge
the patience and long-suffering of the Moslems; the hour of
forgiveness was elapsed, and the moment was now arrived to
expiate, in blood, the innocent blood which had been spilt by
Godfrey and the first crusaders.” But a desperate and successful
struggle of the Franks admonished the sultan that his triumph was
not yet secure; he listened with reverence to a solemn adjuration
in the name of the common Father of mankind; and a sentiment of
human sympathy mollified the rigor of fanaticism and conquest. He
consented to accept the city, and to spare the inhabitants. The
Greek and Oriental Christians were permitted to live under his
dominion, but it was stipulated, that in forty days all the
Franks and Latins should evacuate Jerusalem, and be safely
conducted to the seaports of Syria and Egypt; that ten pieces of
gold should be paid for each man, five for each woman, and one
for every child; and that those who were unable to purchase their
freedom should be detained in perpetual slavery. Of some writers
it is a favorite and invidious theme to compare the humanity of
Saladin with the massacre of the first crusade. The difference
would be merely personal; but we should not forget that the
Christians had offered to capitulate, and that the Mahometans of
Jerusalem sustained the last extremities of an assault and storm.
Justice is indeed due to the fidelity with which the Turkish
conqueror fulfilled the conditions of the treaty; and he may be
deservedly praised for the glance of pity which he cast on the
misery of the vanquished. Instead of a rigorous exaction of his
debt, he accepted a sum of thirty thousand byzants, for the
ransom of seven thousand poor; two or three thousand more were
dismissed by his gratuitous clemency; and the number of slaves
was reduced to eleven or fourteen thousand persons. In this
interview with the queen, his words, and even his tears suggested
the kindest consolations; his liberal alms were distributed among
those who had been made orphans or widows by the fortune of war;
and while the knights of the hospital were in arms against him,
he allowed their more pious brethren to continue, during the term
of a year, the care and service of the sick. In these acts of
mercy the virtue of Saladin deserves our admiration and love: he
was above the necessity of dissimulation, and his stern
fanaticism would have prompted him to dissemble, rather than to
affect, this profane compassion for the enemies of the Koran.
After Jerusalem had been delivered from the presence of the
strangers, the sultan made his triumphal entry, his banners
waving in the wind, and to the harmony of martial music. The
great mosque of Omar, which had been converted into a church, was
again consecrated to one God and his prophet Mahomet: the walls
and pavement were purified with rose-water; and a pulpit, the
labor of Noureddin, was erected in the sanctuary. But when the
golden cross that glittered on the dome was cast down, and
dragged through the streets, the Christians of every sect uttered
a lamentable groan, which was answered by the joyful shouts of
the Moslems. In four ivory chests the patriarch had collected the
crosses, the images, the vases, and the relics of the holy place;
they were seized by the conqueror, who was desirous of presenting
the caliph with the trophies of Christian idolatry. He was
persuaded, however, to intrust them to the patriarch and prince
of Antioch; and the pious pledge was redeemed by Richard of
England, at the expense of fifty-two thousand byzants of gold. 64
63 (return) [ Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 545.]
64 (return) [ For the conquest of Jerusalem, Bohadin (p. 67—75)
and Abulfeda (p. 40—43) are our Moslem witnesses. Of the
Christian, Bernard Thesaurarius (c. 151—167) is the most copious
and authentic; see likewise Matthew Paris, (p. 120—124.)]
The nations might fear and hope the immediate and final expulsion
of the Latins from Syria; which was yet delayed above a century
after the death of Saladin. 65 In the career of victory, he was
first checked by the resistance of Tyre; the troops and
garrisons, which had capitulated, were imprudently conducted to
the same port: their numbers were adequate to the defence of the
place; and the arrival of Conrad of Montferrat inspired the
disorderly crowd with confidence and union. His father, a
venerable pilgrim, had been made prisoner in the battle of
Tiberias; but that disaster was unknown in Italy and Greece, when
the son was urged by ambition and piety to visit the inheritance
of his royal nephew, the infant Baldwin. The view of the Turkish
banners warned him from the hostile coast of Jaffa; and Conrad
was unanimously hailed as the prince and champion of Tyre, which
was already besieged by the conqueror of Jerusalem. The firmness
of his zeal, and perhaps his knowledge of a generous foe, enabled
him to brave the threats of the sultan, and to declare, that
should his aged parent be exposed before the walls, he himself
would discharge the first arrow, and glory in his descent from a
Christian martyr. 66 The Egyptian fleet was allowed to enter the
harbor of Tyre; but the chain was suddenly drawn, and five
galleys were either sunk or taken: a thousand Turks were slain in
a sally; and Saladin, after burning his engines, concluded a
glorious campaign by a disgraceful retreat to Damascus. He was
soon assailed by a more formidable tempest. The pathetic
narratives, and even the pictures, that represented in lively
colors the servitude and profanation of Jerusalem, awakened the
torpid sensibility of Europe: the emperor Frederic Barbarossa,
and the kings of France and England, assumed the cross; and the
tardy magnitude of their armaments was anticipated by the
maritime states of the Mediterranean and the Ocean. The skilful
and provident Italians first embarked in the ships of Genoa,
Pisa, and Venice. They were speedily followed by the most eager
pilgrims of France, Normandy, and the Western Isles. The powerful
succor of Flanders, Frise, and Denmark, filled near a hundred
vessels: and the Northern warriors were distinguished in the
field by a lofty stature and a ponderous battle-axe. 67 Their
increasing multitudes could no longer be confined within the
walls of Tyre, or remain obedient to the voice of Conrad. They
pitied the misfortunes, and revered the dignity, of Lusignan, who
was released from prison, perhaps, to divide the army of the
Franks. He proposed the recovery of Ptolemais, or Acre, thirty
miles to the south of Tyre; and the place was first invested by
two thousand horse and thirty thousand foot under his nominal
command. I shall not expatiate on the story of this memorable
siege; which lasted near two years, and consumed, in a narrow
space, the forces of Europe and Asia. Never did the flame of
enthusiasm burn with fiercer and more destructive rage; nor could
the true believers, a common appellation, who consecrated their
own martyrs, refuse some applause to the mistaken zeal and
courage of their adversaries. At the sound of the holy trumpet,
the Moslems of Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and the Oriental provinces,
assembled under the servant of the prophet: 68 his camp was
pitched and removed within a few miles of Acre; and he labored,
night and day, for the relief of his brethren and the annoyance
of the Franks. Nine battles, not unworthy of the name, were
fought in the neighborhood of Mount Carmel, with such vicissitude
of fortune, that in one attack, the sultan forced his way into
the city; that in one sally, the Christians penetrated to the
royal tent. By the means of divers and pigeons, a regular
correspondence was maintained with the besieged; and, as often as
the sea was left open, the exhausted garrison was withdrawn, and
a fresh supply was poured into the place. The Latin camp was
thinned by famine, the sword and the climate; but the tents of
the dead were replenished with new pilgrims, who exaggerated the
strength and speed of their approaching countrymen. The vulgar
was astonished by the report, that the pope himself, with an
innumerable crusade, was advanced as far as Constantinople. The
march of the emperor filled the East with more serious alarms:
the obstacles which he encountered in Asia, and perhaps in
Greece, were raised by the policy of Saladin: his joy on the
death of Barbarossa was measured by his esteem; and the
Christians were rather dismayed than encouraged at the sight of
the duke of Swabia and his way-worn remnant of five thousand
Germans. At length, in the spring of the second year, the royal
fleets of France and England cast anchor in the Bay of Acre, and
the siege was more vigorously prosecuted by the youthful
emulation of the two kings, Philip Augustus and Richard
Plantagenet. After every resource had been tried, and every hope
was exhausted, the defenders of Acre submitted to their fate; a
capitulation was granted, but their lives and liberties were
taxed at the hard conditions of a ransom of two hundred thousand
pieces of gold, the deliverance of one hundred nobles, and
fifteen hundred inferior captives, and the restoration of the
wood of the holy cross. Some doubts in the agreement, and some
delay in the execution, rekindled the fury of the Franks, and
three thousand Moslems, almost in the sultan’s view, were
beheaded by the command of the sanguinary Richard. 69 By the
conquest of Acre, the Latin powers acquired a strong town and a
convenient harbor; but the advantage was most dearly purchased.
The minister and historian of Saladin computes, from the report
of the enemy, that their numbers, at different periods, amounted
to five or six hundred thousand; that more than one hundred
thousand Christians were slain; that a far greater number was
lost by disease or shipwreck; and that a small portion of this
mighty host could return in safety to their native countries. 70
65 (return) [ The sieges of Tyre and Acre are most copiously
described by Bernard Thesaurarius, (de Acquisitione Terræ Sanctæ,
c. 167—179,) the author of the Historia Hierosolymitana, (p.
1150—1172, in Bongarsius,) Abulfeda, (p. 43—50,) and Bohadin, (p.
75—179.)]
66 (return) [ I have followed a moderate and probable
representation of the fact; by Vertot, who adopts without
reluctance a romantic tale the old marquis is actually exposed to
the darts of the besieged.]
67 (return) [ Northmanni et Gothi, et cæteri populi insularum quæ
inter occidentem et septentrionem sitæ sunt, gentes bellicosæ,
corporis proceri mortis intrepidæ, bipennibus armatæ, navibus
rotundis, quæ Ysnachiæ dicuntur, advectæ.]
68 (return) [ The historian of Jerusalem (p. 1108) adds the
nations of the East from the Tigris to India, and the swarthy
tribes of Moors and Getulians, so that Asia and Africa fought
against Europe.]
69 (return) [ Bohadin, p. 180; and this massacre is neither
denied nor blamed by the Christian historians. Alacriter jussa
complentes, (the English soldiers,) says Galfridus à Vinesauf,
(l. iv. c. 4, p. 346,) who fixes at 2700 the number of victims;
who are multiplied to 5000 by Roger Hoveden, (p. 697, 698.) The
humanity or avarice of Philip Augustus was persuaded to ransom
his prisoners, (Jacob à Vitriaco, l. i. c. 98, p. 1122.)]
70 (return) [ Bohadin, p. 14. He quotes the judgment of Balianus,
and the prince of Sidon, and adds, ex illo mundo quasi hominum
paucissimi redierunt. Among the Christians who died before St.
John d’Acre, I find the English names of De Ferrers earl of
Derby, (Dugdale, Baronage, part i. p. 260,) Mowbray, (idem, p.
124,) De Mandevil, De Fiennes, St. John, Scrope, Bigot, Talbot,
&c.]
Chapter LIX: The Crusades.—Part III.
Philip Augustus, and Richard the First, are the only kings of
France and England who have fought under the same banners; but
the holy service in which they were enlisted was incessantly
disturbed by their national jealousy; and the two factions, which
they protected in Palestine, were more averse to each other than
to the common enemy. In the eyes of the Orientals; the French
monarch was superior in dignity and power; and, in the emperor’s
absence, the Latins revered him as their temporal chief. 71 His
exploits were not adequate to his fame. Philip was brave, but the
statesman predominated in his character; he was soon weary of
sacrificing his health and interest on a barren coast: the
surrender of Acre became the signal of his departure; nor could
he justify this unpopular desertion, by leaving the duke of
Burgundy with five hundred knights and ten thousand foot, for the
service of the Holy Land. The king of England, though inferior in
dignity, surpassed his rival in wealth and military renown; 72
and if heroism be confined to brutal and ferocious valor, Richard
Plantagenet will stand high among the heroes of the age. The
memory of _Cur de Lion_, of the lion-hearted prince, was long
dear and glorious to his English subjects; and, at the distance
of sixty years, it was celebrated in proverbial sayings by the
grandsons of the Turks and Saracens, against whom he had fought:
his tremendous name was employed by the Syrian mothers to silence
their infants; and if a horse suddenly started from the way, his
rider was wont to exclaim, “Dost thou think King Richard is in
that bush?” 73 His cruelty to the Mahometans was the effect of
temper and zeal; but I cannot believe that a soldier, so free and
fearless in the use of his lance, would have descended to whet a
dagger against his valiant brother Conrad of Montferrat, who was
slain at Tyre by some secret assassins. 74 After the surrender of
Acre, and the departure of Philip, the king of England led the
crusaders to the recovery of the sea-coast; and the cities of
Cæsarea and Jaffa were added to the fragments of the kingdom of
Lusignan. A march of one hundred miles from Acre to Ascalon was a
great and perpetual battle of eleven days. In the disorder of his
troops, Saladin remained on the field with seventeen guards,
without lowering his standard, or suspending the sound of his
brazen kettle-drum: he again rallied and renewed the charge; and
his preachers or heralds called aloud on the _unitarians_,
manfully to stand up against the Christian idolaters. But the
progress of these idolaters was irresistible; and it was only by
demolishing the walls and buildings of Ascalon, that the sultan
could prevent them from occupying an important fortress on the
confines of Egypt. During a severe winter, the armies slept; but
in the spring, the Franks advanced within a day’s march of
Jerusalem, under the leading standard of the English king; and
his active spirit intercepted a convoy, or caravan, of seven
thousand camels. Saladin 75 had fixed his station in the holy
city; but the city was struck with consternation and discord: he
fasted; he prayed; he preached; he offered to share the dangers
of the siege; but his Mamalukes, who remembered the fate of their
companions at Acre, pressed the sultan with loyal or seditious
clamors, to reserve _his_ person and _their_ courage for the
future defence of the religion and empire. 76 The Moslems were
delivered by the sudden, or, as they deemed, the miraculous,
retreat of the Christians; 77 and the laurels of Richard were
blasted by the prudence, or envy, of his companions. The hero,
ascending a hill, and veiling his face, exclaimed with an
indignant voice, “Those who are unwilling to rescue, are unworthy
to view, the sepulchre of Christ!” After his return to Acre, on
the news that Jaffa was surprised by the sultan, he sailed with
some merchant vessels, and leaped foremost on the beach: the
castle was relieved by his presence; and sixty thousand Turks and
Saracens fled before his arms. The discovery of his weakness,
provoked them to return in the morning; and they found him
carelessly encamped before the gates with only seventeen knights
and three hundred archers. Without counting their numbers, he
sustained their charge; and we learn from the evidence of his
enemies, that the king of England, grasping his lance, rode
furiously along their front, from the right to the left wing,
without meeting an adversary who dared to encounter his career.
78 Am I writing the history of Orlando or Amadis?
71 (return) [ Magnus hic apud eos, interque reges eorum tum
virtute tum majestate eminens.... summus rerum arbiter, (Bohadin,
p. 159.) He does not seem to have known the names either of
Philip or Richard.]
72 (return) [ Rex Angliæ, præstrenuus.... rege Gallorum minor
apud eos censebatur ratione regni atque dignitatis; sed tum
divitiis florentior, tum bellicâ virtute multo erat celebrior,
(Bohadin, p. 161.) A stranger might admire those riches; the
national historians will tell with what lawless and wasteful
oppression they were collected.]
73 (return) [ Joinville, p. 17. Cuides-tu que ce soit le roi
Richart?]
74 (return) [ Yet he was guilty in the opinion of the Moslems,
who attest the confession of the assassins, that they were sent
by the king of England, (Bohadin, p. 225;) and his only defence
is an absurd and palpable forgery, (Hist. de l’Académie des
Inscriptions, tom. xv. p. 155—163,) a pretended letter from the
prince of the assassins, the Sheich, or old man of the mountain,
who justified Richard, by assuming to himself the guilt or merit
of the murder. *
Note: * Von Hammer (Geschichte der Assassinen, p. 202) sums up
against Richard, Wilken (vol. iv. p. 485) as strongly for
acquittal. Michaud (vol. ii. p. 420) delivers no decided opinion.
This crime was also attributed to Saladin, who is said, by an
Oriental authority, (the continuator of Tabari,) to have employed
the assassins to murder both Conrad and Richard. It is a
melancholy admission, but it must be acknowledged, that such an
act would be less inconsistent with the character of the
Christian than of the Mahometan king.—M.]
75 (return) [ See the distress and pious firmness of Saladin, as
they are described by Bohadin, (p. 7—9, 235—237,) who himself
harangued the defenders of Jerusalem; their fears were not
unknown to the enemy, (Jacob. à Vitriaco, l. i. c. 100, p. 1123.
Vinisauf, l. v. c. 50, p. 399.)]
76 (return) [ Yet unless the sultan, or an Ayoubite prince,
remained in Jerusalem, nec Curdi Turcis, nec Turci essent
obtemperaturi Curdis, (Bohadin, p. 236.) He draws aside a corner
of the political curtain.]
77 (return) [ Bohadin, (p. 237,) and even Jeffrey de Vinisauf,
(l. vi. c. 1—8, p. 403—409,) ascribe the retreat to Richard
himself; and Jacobus à Vitriaco observes, that in his impatience
to depart, in alterum virum mutatus est, (p. 1123.) Yet
Joinville, a French knight, accuses the envy of Hugh duke of
Burgundy, (p. 116,) without supposing, like Matthew Paris, that
he was bribed by Saladin.]
78 (return) [ The expeditions to Ascalon, Jerusalem, and Jaffa,
are related by Bohadin (p. 184—249) and Abulfeda, (p. 51, 52.)
The author of the Itinerary, or the monk of St. Alban’s, cannot
exaggerate the cadhi’s account of the prowess of Richard,
(Vinisauf, l. vi. c. 14—24, p. 412—421. Hist. Major, p. 137—143;)
and on the whole of this war there is a marvellous agreement
between the Christian and Mahometan writers, who mutually praise
the virtues of their enemies.]
During these hostilities, a languid and tedious negotiation 79
between the Franks and Moslems was started, and continued, and
broken, and again resumed, and again broken. Some acts of royal
courtesy, the gift of snow and fruit, the exchange of Norway
hawks and Arabian horses, softened the asperity of religious war:
from the vicissitude of success, the monarchs might learn to
suspect that Heaven was neutral in the quarrel; nor, after the
trial of each other, could either hope for a decisive victory. 80
The health both of Richard and Saladin appeared to be in a
declining state; and they respectively suffered the evils of
distant and domestic warfare: Plantagenet was impatient to punish
a perfidious rival who had invaded Normandy in his absence; and
the indefatigable sultan was subdued by the cries of the people,
who was the victim, and of the soldiers, who were the
instruments, of his martial zeal. The first demands of the king
of England were the restitution of Jerusalem, Palestine, and the
true cross; and he firmly declared, that himself and his brother
pilgrims would end their lives in the pious labor, rather than
return to Europe with ignominy and remorse. But the conscience of
Saladin refused, without some weighty compensation, to restore
the idols, or promote the idolatry, of the Christians; he
asserted, with equal firmness, his religious and civil claim to
the sovereignty of Palestine; descanted on the importance and
sanctity of Jerusalem; and rejected all terms of the
establishment, or partition of the Latins. The marriage which
Richard proposed, of his sister with the sultan’s brother, was
defeated by the difference of faith; the princess abhorred the
embraces of a Turk; and Adel, or Saphadin, would not easily
renounce a plurality of wives. A personal interview was declined
by Saladin, who alleged their mutual ignorance of each other’s
language; and the negotiation was managed with much art and delay
by their interpreters and envoys. The final agreement was equally
disapproved by the zealots of both parties, by the Roman pontiff
and the caliph of Bagdad. It was stipulated that Jerusalem and
the holy sepulchre should be open, without tribute or vexation,
to the pilgrimage of the Latin Christians; that, after the
demolition of Ascalon, they should inclusively possess the
sea-coast from Jaffa to Tyre; that the count of Tripoli and the
prince of Antioch should be comprised in the truce; and that,
during three years and three months, all hostilities should
cease. The principal chiefs of the two armies swore to the
observance of the treaty; but the monarchs were satisfied with
giving their word and their right hand; and the royal majesty was
excused from an oath, which always implies some suspicion of
falsehood and dishonor. Richard embarked for Europe, to seek a
long captivity and a premature grave; and the space of a few
months concluded the life and glories of Saladin. The Orientals
describe his edifying death, which happened at Damascus; but they
seem ignorant of the equal distribution of his alms among the
three religions, 81 or of the display of a shroud, instead of a
standard, to admonish the East of the instability of human
greatness. The unity of empire was dissolved by his death; his
sons were oppressed by the stronger arm of their uncle Saphadin;
the hostile interests of the sultans of Egypt, Damascus, and
Aleppo, 82 were again revived; and the Franks or Latins stood and
breathed, and hoped, in their fortresses along the Syrian coast.
79 (return) [ See the progress of negotiation and hostility in
Bohadin, (p. 207—260,) who was himself an actor in the treaty.
Richard declared his intention of returning with new armies to
the conquest of the Holy Land; and Saladin answered the menace
with a civil compliment, (Vinisauf l. vi. c. 28, p. 423.)]
80 (return) [ The most copious and original account of this holy
war is Galfridi à Vinisauf, Itinerarium Regis Anglorum Richardi
et aliorum in Terram Hierosolymorum, in six books, published in
the iid volume of Gale’s Scriptores Hist. Anglicanæ, (p.
247—429.) Roger Hoveden and Matthew Paris afford likewise many
valuable materials; and the former describes, with accuracy, the
discipline and navigation of the English fleet.]
81 (return) [ Even Vertot (tom. i. p. 251) adopts the foolish
notion of the indifference of Saladin, who professed the Koran
with his last breath.]
82 (return) [ See the succession of the Ayoubites, in
Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 277, &c.,) and the tables of M. De
Guignes, l’Art de Vérifier les Dates, and the Bibliothèque
Orientale.]
The noblest monument of a conqueror’s fame, and of the terror
which he inspired, is the Saladine tenth, a general tax which was
imposed on the laity, and even the clergy, of the Latin church,
for the service of the holy war. The practice was too lucrative
to expire with the occasion: and this tribute became the
foundation of all the tithes and tenths on ecclesiastical
benefices, which have been granted by the Roman pontiffs to
Catholic sovereigns, or reserved for the immediate use of the
apostolic see. 83 This pecuniary emolument must have tended to
increase the interest of the popes in the recovery of Palestine:
after the death of Saladin, they preached the crusade, by their
epistles, their legates, and their missionaries; and the
accomplishment of the pious work might have been expected from
the zeal and talents of Innocent the Third. 84 Under that young
and ambitious priest, the successors of St. Peter attained the
full meridian of their greatness: and in a reign of eighteen
years, he exercised a despotic command over the emperors and
kings, whom he raised and deposed; over the nations, whom an
interdict of months or years deprived, for the offence of their
rulers, of the exercise of Christian worship. In the council of
the Lateran he acted as the ecclesiastical, almost as the
temporal, sovereign of the East and West. It was at the feet of
his legate that John of England surrendered his crown; and
Innocent may boast of the two most signal triumphs over sense and
humanity, the establishment of transubstantiation, and the origin
of the inquisition. At his voice, two crusades, the fourth and
the fifth, were undertaken; but, except a king of Hungary, the
princes of the second order were at the head of the pilgrims: the
forces were inadequate to the design; nor did the effects
correspond with the hopes and wishes of the pope and the people.
The fourth crusade was diverted from Syria to Constantinople; and
the conquest of the Greek or Roman empire by the Latins will form
the proper and important subject of the next chapter. In the
fifth, 85 two hundred thousand Franks were landed at the eastern
mouth of the Nile. They reasonably hoped that Palestine must be
subdued in Egypt, the seat and storehouse of the sultan; and,
after a siege of sixteen months, the Moslems deplored the loss of
Damietta. But the Christian army was ruined by the pride and
insolence of the legate Pelagius, who, in the pope’s name,
assumed the character of general: the sickly Franks were
encompassed by the waters of the Nile and the Oriental forces;
and it was by the evacuation of Damietta that they obtained a
safe retreat, some concessions for the pilgrims, and the tardy
restitution of the doubtful relic of the true cross. The failure
may in some measure be ascribed to the abuse and multiplication
of the crusades, which were preached at the same time against the
Pagans of Livonia, the Moors of Spain, the Albigeois of France,
and the kings of Sicily of the Imperial family. 86 In these
meritorious services, the volunteers might acquire at home the
same spiritual indulgence, and a larger measure of temporal
rewards; and even the popes, in their zeal against a domestic
enemy, were sometimes tempted to forget the distress of their
Syrian brethren. From the last age of the crusades they derived
the occasional command of an army and revenue; and some deep
reasoners have suspected that the whole enterprise, from the
first synod of Placentia, was contrived and executed by the
policy of Rome. The suspicion is not founded, either in nature or
in fact. The successors of St. Peter appear to have followed,
rather than guided, the impulse of manners and prejudice; without
much foresight of the seasons, or cultivation of the soil, they
gathered the ripe and spontaneous fruits of the superstition of
the times. They gathered these fruits without toil or personal
danger: in the council of the Lateran, Innocent the Third
declared an ambiguous resolution of animating the crusaders by
his example; but the pilot of the sacred vessel could not abandon
the helm; nor was Palestine ever blessed with the presence of a
Roman pontiff. 87
83 (return) [ Thomassin (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. iii. p.
311—374) has copiously treated of the origin, abuses, and
restrictions of these _tenths_. A theory was started, but not
pursued, that they were rightfully due to the pope, a tenth of
the Levite’s tenth to the high priest, (Selden on Tithes; see his
Works, vol. iii. p. ii. p. 1083.)]
84 (return) [ See the Gesta Innocentii III. in Murat. Script.
Rer. Ital., (tom. iii. p. 486—568.)]
85 (return) [ See the vth crusade, and the siege of Damietta, in
Jacobus à Vitriaco, (l. iii. p. 1125—1149, in the Gesta Dei of
Bongarsius,) an eye-witness, Bernard Thesaurarius, (in Script.
Muratori, tom. vii. p. 825—846, c. 190—207,) a contemporary, and
Sanutus, (Secreta Fidel Crucis, l. iii. p. xi. c. 4—9,) a
diligent compiler; and of the Arabians Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p.
294,) and the Extracts at the end of Joinville, (p. 533, 537,
540, 547, &c.)]
86 (return) [ To those who took the cross against Mainfroy, the
pope (A.D. 1255) granted plenissimam peccatorum remissionem.
Fideles mirabantur quòd tantum eis promitteret pro sanguine
Christianorum effundendo quantum pro cruore infidelium aliquando,
(Matthew Paris p. 785.) A high flight for the reason of the
xiiith century.]
87 (return) [ This simple idea is agreeable to the good sense of
Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Ecclés. p. 332,) and the fine
philosophy of Hume, (Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 330.)]
The persons, the families, and estates of the pilgrims, were
under the immediate protection of the popes; and these spiritual
patrons soon claimed the prerogative of directing their
operations, and enforcing, by commands and censures, the
accomplishment of their vow. Frederic the Second, 88 the grandson
of Barbarossa, was successively the pupil, the enemy, and the
victim of the church. At the age of twenty-one years, and in
obedience to his guardian Innocent the Third, he assumed the
cross; the same promise was repeated at his royal and imperial
coronations; and his marriage with the heiress of Jerusalem
forever bound him to defend the kingdom of his son Conrad. But as
Frederic advanced in age and authority, he repented of the rash
engagements of his youth: his liberal sense and knowledge taught
him to despise the phantoms of superstition and the crowns of
Asia: he no longer entertained the same reverence for the
successors of Innocent: and his ambition was occupied by the
restoration of the Italian monarchy from Sicily to the Alps. But
the success of this project would have reduced the popes to their
primitive simplicity; and, after the delays and excuses of twelve
years, they urged the emperor, with entreaties and threats, to
fix the time and place of his departure for Palestine. In the
harbors of Sicily and Apulia, he prepared a fleet of one hundred
galleys, and of one hundred vessels, that were framed to
transport and land two thousand five hundred knights, with their
horses and attendants; his vassals of Naples and Germany formed a
powerful army; and the number of English crusaders was magnified
to sixty thousand by the report of fame. But the inevitable or
affected slowness of these mighty preparations consumed the
strength and provisions of the more indigent pilgrims: the
multitude was thinned by sickness and desertion; and the sultry
summer of Calabria anticipated the mischiefs of a Syrian
campaign. At length the emperor hoisted sail at Brundusium, with
a fleet and army of forty thousand men: but he kept the sea no
more than three days; and his hasty retreat, which was ascribed
by his friends to a grievous indisposition, was accused by his
enemies as a voluntary and obstinate disobedience. For suspending
his vow was Frederic excommunicated by Gregory the Ninth; for
presuming, the next year, to accomplish his vow, he was again
excommunicated by the same pope. 89 While he served under the
banner of the cross, a crusade was preached against him in Italy;
and after his return he was compelled to ask pardon for the
injuries which he had suffered. The clergy and military orders of
Palestine were previously instructed to renounce his communion
and dispute his commands; and in his own kingdom, the emperor was
forced to consent that the orders of the camp should be issued in
the name of God and of the Christian republic. Frederic entered
Jerusalem in triumph; and with his own hands (for no priest would
perform the office) he took the crown from the altar of the holy
sepulchre. But the patriarch cast an interdict on the church
which his presence had profaned; and the knights of the hospital
and temple informed the sultan how easily he might be surprised
and slain in his unguarded visit to the River Jordan. In such a
state of fanaticism and faction, victory was hopeless, and
defence was difficult; but the conclusion of an advantageous
peace may be imputed to the discord of the Mahometans, and their
personal esteem for the character of Frederic. The enemy of the
church is accused of maintaining with the miscreants an
intercourse of hospitality and friendship unworthy of a
Christian; of despising the barrenness of the land; and of
indulging a profane thought, that if Jehovah had seen the kingdom
of Naples he never would have selected Palestine for the
inheritance of his chosen people. Yet Frederic obtained from the
sultan the restitution of Jerusalem, of Bethlem and Nazareth, of
Tyre and Sidon; the Latins were allowed to inhabit and fortify
the city; an equal code of civil and religious freedom was
ratified for the sectaries of Jesus and those of Mahomet; and,
while the former worshipped at the holy sepulchre, the latter
might pray and preach in the mosque of the temple, 90 from whence
the prophet undertook his nocturnal journey to heaven. The clergy
deplored this scandalous toleration; and the weaker Moslems were
gradually expelled; but every rational object of the crusades was
accomplished without bloodshed; the churches were restored, the
monasteries were replenished; and, in the space of fifteen years,
the Latins of Jerusalem exceeded the number of six thousand. This
peace and prosperity, for which they were ungrateful to their
benefactor, was terminated by the irruption of the strange and
savage hordes of Carizmians. 91 Flying from the arms of the
Moguls, those shepherds 911 of the Caspian rolled headlong on
Syria; and the union of the Franks with the sultans of Aleppo,
Hems, and Damascus, was insufficient to stem the violence of the
torrent. Whatever stood against them was cut off by the sword, or
dragged into captivity: the military orders were almost
exterminated in a single battle; and in the pillage of the city,
in the profanation of the holy sepulchre, the Latins confess and
regret the modesty and discipline of the Turks and Saracens.
88 (return) [ The original materials for the crusade of Frederic
II. may be drawn from Richard de St. Germano (in Muratori,
Script. Rerum Ital. tom. vii. p. 1002—1013) and Matthew Paris,
(p. 286, 291, 300, 302, 304.) The most rational moderns are
Fleury, (Hist. Ecclés. tom. xvi.,) Vertot, (Chevaliers de Malthe,
tom. i. l. iii.,) Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. ii.
l. xvi.,) and Muratori, (Annali d’ Italia, tom. x.)]
89 (return) [ Poor Muratori knows what to think, but knows not
what to say: “Chino qui il capo,” &c. p. 322.]
90 (return) [ The clergy artfully confounded the mosque or church
of the temple with the holy sepulchre, and their wilful error has
deceived both Vertot and Muratori.]
91 (return) [ The irruption of the Carizmians, or Corasmins, is
related by Matthew Paris, (p. 546, 547,) and by Joinville,
Nangis, and the Arabians, (p. 111, 112, 191, 192, 528, 530.)]
911 (return) [ They were in alliance with Eyub, sultan of Syria.
Wilken vol. vi. p. 630.—M.]
Of the seven crusades, the two last were undertaken by Louis the
Ninth, king of France; who lost his liberty in Egypt, and his
life on the coast of Africa. Twenty-eight years after his death,
he was canonized at Rome; and sixty-five miracles were readily
found, and solemnly attested, to justify the claim of the royal
saint. 92 The voice of history renders a more honorable
testimony, that he united the virtues of a king, a hero, and a
man; that his martial spirit was tempered by the love of private
and public justice; and that Louis was the father of his people,
the friend of his neighbors, and the terror of the infidels.
Superstition alone, in all the extent of her baleful influence,
93 corrupted his understanding and his heart: his devotion
stooped to admire and imitate the begging friars of Francis and
Dominic: he pursued with blind and cruel zeal the enemies of the
faith; and the best of kings twice descended from his throne to
seek the adventures of a spiritual knight-errant. A monkish
historian would have been content to applaud the most despicable
part of his character; but the noble and gallant Joinville, 94
who shared the friendship and captivity of Louis, has traced with
the pencil of nature the free portrait of his virtues as well as
of his failings. From this intimate knowledge we may learn to
suspect the political views of depressing their great vassals,
which are so often imputed to the royal authors of the crusades.
Above all the princes of the middle ages, Louis the Ninth
successfully labored to restore the prerogatives of the crown;
but it was at home and not in the East, that he acquired for
himself and his posterity: his vow was the result of enthusiasm
and sickness; and if he were the promoter, he was likewise the
victim, of his holy madness. For the invasion of Egypt, France
was exhausted of her troops and treasures; he covered the sea of
Cyprus with eighteen hundred sails; the most modest enumeration
amounts to fifty thousand men; and, if we might trust his own
confession, as it is reported by Oriental vanity, he disembarked
nine thousand five hundred horse, and one hundred and thirty
thousand foot, who performed their pilgrimage under the shadow of
his power. 95
92 (return) [ Read, if you can, the Life and Miracles of St.
Louis, by the confessor of Queen Margaret, (p. 291—523.
Joinville, du Louvre.)]
93 (return) [ He believed all that mother church taught,
(Joinville, p. 10,) but he cautioned Joinville against disputing
with infidels. “L’omme lay (said he in his old language) quand il
ot medire de la loi Crestienne, ne doit pas deffendre la loi
Crestienne ne mais que de l’espée, dequoi il doit donner parmi le
ventre dedens, tant comme elle y peut entrer” (p. 12.)]
94 (return) [ I have two editions of Joinville, the one (Paris,
1668) most valuable for the observations of Ducange; the other
(Paris, au Louvre, 1761) most precious for the pure and authentic
text, a MS. of which has been recently discovered. The last
edition proves that the history of St. Louis was finished A.D.
1309, without explaining, or even admiring, the age of the
author, which must have exceeded ninety years, (Preface, p. x.
Observations de Ducange, p. 17.)]
95 (return) [ Joinville, p. 32. Arabic Extracts, p. 549. *
Note: * Compare Wilken, vol. vii. p. 94.—M.]
In complete armor, the oriflamme waving before him, Louis leaped
foremost on the beach; and the strong city of Damietta, which had
cost his predecessors a siege of sixteen months, was abandoned on
the first assault by the trembling Moslems. But Damietta was the
first and the last of his conquests; and in the fifth and sixth
crusades, the same causes, almost on the same ground, were
productive of similar calamities. 96 After a ruinous delay, which
introduced into the camp the seeds of an epidemic disease, the
Franks advanced from the sea-coast towards the capital of Egypt,
and strove to surmount the unseasonable inundation of the Nile,
which opposed their progress. Under the eye of their intrepid
monarch, the barons and knights of France displayed their
invincible contempt of danger and discipline: his brother, the
count of Artois, stormed with inconsiderate valor the town of
Massoura; and the carrier pigeons announced to the inhabitants of
Cairo that all was lost. But a soldier, who afterwards usurped
the sceptre, rallied the flying troops: the main body of the
Christians was far behind the vanguard; and Artois was
overpowered and slain. A shower of Greek fire was incessantly
poured on the invaders; the Nile was commanded by the Egyptian
galleys, the open country by the Arabs; all provisions were
intercepted; each day aggravated the sickness and famine; and
about the same time a retreat was found to be necessary and
impracticable. The Oriental writers confess, that Louis might
have escaped, if he would have deserted his subjects; he was made
prisoner, with the greatest part of his nobles; all who could not
redeem their lives by service or ransom were inhumanly massacred;
and the walls of Cairo were decorated with a circle of Christian
heads. 97 The king of France was loaded with chains; but the
generous victor, a great-grandson of the brother of Saladin, sent
a robe of honor to his royal captive, and his deliverance, with
that of his soldiers, was obtained by the restitution of Damietta
98 and the payment of four hundred thousand pieces of gold. In a
soft and luxurious climate, the degenerate children of the
companions of Noureddin and Saladin were incapable of resisting
the flower of European chivalry: they triumphed by the arms of
their slaves or Mamalukes, the hardy natives of Tartary, who at a
tender age had been purchased of the Syrian merchants, and were
educated in the camp and palace of the sultan. But Egypt soon
afforded a new example of the danger of prætorian bands; and the
rage of these ferocious animals, who had been let loose on the
strangers, was provoked to devour their benefactor. In the pride
of conquest, Touran Shaw, the last of his race, was murdered by
his Mamalukes; and the most daring of the assassins entered the
chamber of the captive king, with drawn cimeters, and their hands
imbrued in the blood of their sultan. The firmness of Louis
commanded their respect; 99 their avarice prevailed over cruelty
and zeal; the treaty was accomplished; and the king of France,
with the relics of his army, was permitted to embark for
Palestine. He wasted four years within the walls of Acre, unable
to visit Jerusalem, and unwilling to return without glory to his
native country.
96 (return) [ The last editors have enriched their Joinville with
large and curious extracts from the Arabic historians, Macrizi,
Abulfeda, &c. See likewise Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 322—325,)
who calls him by the corrupt name of _Redefrans_. Matthew Paris
(p. 683, 684) has described the rival folly of the French and
English who fought and fell at Massoura.]
97 (return) [ Savary, in his agreeable Letters sur L’Egypte, has
given a description of Damietta, (tom. i. lettre xxiii. p.
274—290,) and a narrative of the exposition of St. Louis, (xxv.
p. 306—350.)]
98 (return) [ For the ransom of St. Louis, a million of byzants
was asked and granted; but the sultan’s generosity reduced that
sum to 800,000 byzants, which are valued by Joinville at 400,000
French livres of his own time, and expressed by Matthew Paris by
100,000 marks of silver, (Ducange, Dissertation xx. sur
Joinville.)]
99 (return) [ The idea of the emirs to choose Louis for their
sultan is seriously attested by Joinville, (p. 77, 78,) and does
not appear to me so absurd as to M. de Voltaire, (Hist. Générale,
tom. ii. p. 386, 387.) The Mamalukes themselves were strangers,
rebels, and equals: they had felt his valor, they hoped his
conversion; and such a motion, which was not seconded, might be
made, perhaps by a secret Christian in their tumultuous assembly.
*
Note: * Wilken, vol. vii. p. 257, thinks the proposition could
not have been made in earnest.—M.]
The memory of his defeat excited Louis, after sixteen years of
wisdom and repose, to undertake the seventh and last of the
crusades. His finances were restored, his kingdom was enlarged; a
new generation of warriors had arisen, and he advanced with fresh
confidence at the head of six thousand horse and thirty thousand
foot. The loss of Antioch had provoked the enterprise; a wild
hope of baptizing the king of Tunis tempted him to steer for the
African coast; and the report of an immense treasure reconciled
his troops to the delay of their voyage to the Holy Land. Instead
of a proselyte, he found a siege: the French panted and died on
the burning sands: St. Louis expired in his tent; and no sooner
had he closed his eyes, than his son and successor gave the
signal of the retreat. 100 “It is thus,” says a lively writer,
“that a Christian king died near the ruins of Carthage, waging
war against the sectaries of Mahomet, in a land to which Dido had
introduced the deities of Syria.” 101
100 (return) [ See the expedition in the annals of St. Louis, by
William de Nangis, p. 270—287; and the Arabic extracts, p. 545,
555, of the Louvre edition of Joinville.]
101 (return) [ Voltaire, Hist. Générale, tom. ii. p. 391.]
A more unjust and absurd constitution cannot be devised than that
which condemns the natives of a country to perpetual servitude,
under the arbitrary dominion of strangers and slaves. Yet such
has been the state of Egypt above five hundred years. The most
illustrious sultans of the Baharite and Borgite dynasties 102
were themselves promoted from the Tartar and Circassian bands;
and the four-and-twenty beys, or military chiefs, have ever been
succeeded, not by their sons, but by their servants. They produce
the great charter of their liberties, the treaty of Selim the
First with the republic: 103 and the Othman emperor still accepts
from Egypt a slight acknowledgment of tribute and subjection.
With some breathing intervals of peace and order, the two
dynasties are marked as a period of rapine and bloodshed: 104 but
their throne, however shaken, reposed on the two pillars of
discipline and valor: their sway extended over Egypt, Nubia,
Arabia, and Syria: their Mamalukes were multiplied from eight
hundred to twenty-five thousand horse; and their numbers were
increased by a provincial militia of one hundred and seven
thousand foot, and the occasional aid of sixty-six thousand
Arabs. 105 Princes of such power and spirit could not long endure
on their coast a hostile and independent nation; and if the ruin
of the Franks was postponed about forty years, they were indebted
to the cares of an unsettled reign, to the invasion of the
Moguls, and to the occasional aid of some warlike pilgrims. Among
these, the English reader will observe the name of our first
Edward, who assumed the cross in the lifetime of his father
Henry. At the head of a thousand soldiers the future conqueror of
Wales and Scotland delivered Acre from a siege; marched as far as
Nazareth with an army of nine thousand men; emulated the fame of
his uncle Richard; extorted, by his valor, a ten years’ truce;
1051 and escaped, with a dangerous wound, from the dagger of a
fanatic _assassin_. 106 1061 Antioch, 107 whose situation had
been less exposed to the calamities of the holy war, was finally
occupied and ruined by Bondocdar, or Bibars, sultan of Egypt and
Syria; the Latin principality was extinguished; and the first
seat of the Christian name was dispeopled by the slaughter of
seventeen, and the captivity of one hundred, thousand of her
inhabitants. The maritime towns of Laodicea, Gabala, Tripoli,
Berytus, Sidon, Tyre and Jaffa, and the stronger castles of the
Hospitallers and Templars, successively fell; and the whole
existence of the Franks was confined to the city and colony of
St. John of Acre, which is sometimes described by the more
classic title of Ptolemais.
102 (return) [ The chronology of the two dynasties of Mamalukes,
the Baharites, Turks or Tartars of Kipzak, and the Borgites,
Circassians, is given by Pocock (Prolegom. ad Abulpharag. p.
6—31) and De Guignes (tom. i. p. 264—270;) their history from
Abulfeda, Macrizi, &c., to the beginning of the xvth century, by
the same M. De Guignes, (tom. iv. p. 110—328.)]
103 (return) [ Savary, Lettres sur l’Egypte, tom. ii. lettre xv.
p. 189—208. I much question the authenticity of this copy; yet it
is true, that Sultan Selim concluded a treaty with the
Circassians or Mamalukes of Egypt, and left them in possession of
arms, riches, and power. See a new Abrégé de l’Histoire Ottomane,
composed in Egypt, and translated by M. Digeon, (tom. i. p.
55—58, Paris, 1781,) a curious, authentic, and national history.]
104 (return) [ Si totum quo regnum occupârunt tempus respicias,
præsertim quod fini propius, reperies illud bellis, pugnis,
injuriis, ac rapinis refertum, (Al Jannabi, apud Pocock, p. 31.)
The reign of Mohammed (A.D. 1311—1341) affords a happy exception,
(De Guignes, tom. iv. p. 208—210.)]
105 (return) [ They are now reduced to 8500: but the expense of
each Mamaluke may be rated at a hundred louis: and Egypt groans
under the avarice and insolence of these strangers, (Voyages de
Volney, tom. i. p. 89—187.)]
1051 (return) [ Gibbon colors rather highly the success of
Edward. Wilken is more accurate vol. vii. p. 593, &c.—M.]
106 (return) [ See Carte’s History of England, vol. ii. p.
165—175, and his original authors, Thomas Wikes and Walter
Hemingford, (l. iii. c. 34, 35,) in Gale’s Collection, (tom. ii.
p. 97, 589—592.) They are both ignorant of the princess Eleanor’s
piety in sucking the poisoned wound, and saving her husband at
the risk of her own life.]
1061 (return) [ The sultan Bibars was concerned in this attempt
at assassination Wilken, vol. vii. p. 602. Ptolemæus Lucensis is
the earliest authority for the devotion of Eleanora. Ibid.
605.—M.]
107 (return) [ Sanutus, Secret. Fidelium Crucis, 1. iii. p. xii.
c. 9, and De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. p. 143, from the
Arabic historians.]
After the loss of Jerusalem, Acre, 108 which is distant about
seventy miles, became the metropolis of the Latin Christians, and
was adorned with strong and stately buildings, with aqueducts, an
artificial port, and a double wall. The population was increased
by the incessant streams of pilgrims and fugitives: in the pauses
of hostility the trade of the East and West was attracted to this
convenient station; and the market could offer the produce of
every clime and the interpreters of every tongue. But in this
conflux of nations, every vice was propagated and practised: of
all the disciples of Jesus and Mahomet, the male and female
inhabitants of Acre were esteemed the most corrupt; nor could the
abuse of religion be corrected by the discipline of law. The city
had many sovereigns, and no government. The kings of Jerusalem
and Cyprus, of the house of Lusignan, the princes of Antioch, the
counts of Tripoli and Sidon, the great masters of the hospital,
the temple, and the Teutonic order, the republics of Venice,
Genoa, and Pisa, the pope’s legate, the kings of France and
England, assumed an independent command: seventeen tribunals
exercised the power of life and death; every criminal was
protected in the adjacent quarter; and the perpetual jealousy of
the nations often burst forth in acts of violence and blood. Some
adventurers, who disgraced the ensign of the cross, compensated
their want of pay by the plunder of the Mahometan villages:
nineteen Syrian merchants, who traded under the public faith,
were despoiled and hanged by the Christians; and the denial of
satisfaction justified the arms of the sultan Khalil. He marched
against Acre, at the head of sixty thousand horse and one hundred
and forty thousand foot: his train of artillery (if I may use the
word) was numerous and weighty: the separate timbers of a single
engine were transported in one hundred wagons; and the royal
historian Abulfeda, who served with the troops of Hamah, was
himself a spectator of the holy war. Whatever might be the vices
of the Franks, their courage was rekindled by enthusiasm and
despair; but they were torn by the discord of seventeen chiefs,
and overwhelmed on all sides by the powers of the sultan. After a
siege of thirty three days, the double wall was forced by the
Moslems; the principal tower yielded to their engines; the
Mamalukes made a general assault; the city was stormed; and death
or slavery was the lot of sixty thousand Christians. The convent,
or rather fortress, of the Templars resisted three days longer;
but the great master was pierced with an arrow; and, of five
hundred knights, only ten were left alive, less happy than the
victims of the sword, if they lived to suffer on a scaffold, in
the unjust and cruel proscription of the whole order. The king of
Jerusalem, the patriarch and the great master of the hospital,
effected their retreat to the shore; but the sea was rough, the
vessels were insufficient; and great numbers of the fugitives
were drowned before they could reach the Isle of Cyprus, which
might comfort Lusignan for the loss of Palestine. By the command
of the sultan, the churches and fortifications of the Latin
cities were demolished: a motive of avarice or fear still opened
the holy sepulchre to some devout and defenceless pilgrims; and a
mournful and solitary silence prevailed along the coast which had
so long resounded with the world’s debate. 109
108 (return) [ The state of Acre is represented in all the
chronicles of te times, and most accurately in John Villani, l.
vii. c. 144, in Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. xiii.
337, 338.]
109 (return) [ See the final expulsion of the Franks, in Sanutus,
l. iii. p. xii. c. 11—22; Abulfeda, Macrizi, &c., in De Guignes,
tom. iv. p. 162, 164; and Vertot, tom. i. l. iii. p. 307—428. *
Note: * After these chapters of Gibbon, the masterly prize
composition, “Essai sur ‘Influence des Croisades sur l’Europe,”
par A H. L. Heeren: traduit de l’Allemand par Charles Villars,
Paris, 1808,’ or the original German, in Heeren’s “Vermischte
Schriften,” may be read with great advantage.—M.]
Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.—Part I.
Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.—State Of Constantinople.— Revolt
Of The Bulgarians.—Isaac Angelus Dethroned By His Brother
Alexius.—Origin Of The Fourth Crusade.—Alliance Of The French And
Venetians With The Son Of Isaac.—Their Naval Expedition To
Constantinople.—The Two Sieges And Final Conquest Of The City By
The Latins.
The restoration of the Western empire by Charlemagne was speedily
followed by the separation of the Greek and Latin churches. 1 A
religious and national animosity still divides the two largest
communions of the Christian world; and the schism of
Constantinople,
by alienating her most useful allies, and provoking her most
dangerous
enemies, has precipitated the decline and fall of the Roman
empire in the East.
1 (return) [ In the successive centuries, from the ixth to the
xviiith, Mosheim traces the schism of the Greeks with learning,
clearness, and impartiality; the _filioque_ (Institut. Hist.
Ecclés. p. 277,) Leo III. p. 303 Photius, p. 307, 308. Michael
Cerularius, p. 370, 371, &c.]
In the course of the present History, the aversion of the Greeks
for the Latins has been often visible and conspicuous. It was
originally derived from the disdain of servitude, inflamed, after
the time of Constantine, by the pride of equality or dominion;
and finally exasperated by the preference which their rebellious
subjects had given to the alliance of the Franks. In every age
the Greeks were proud of their superiority in profane and
religious knowledge: they had first received the light of
Christianity; they had pronounced the decrees of the seven
general councils; they alone possessed the language of Scripture
and philosophy; nor should the Barbarians, immersed in the
darkness of the West, 2 presume to argue on the high and
mysterious questions of theological science. Those Barbarians
despised in then turn the restless and subtile levity of the
Orientals, the authors of every heresy; and blessed their own
simplicity, which was content to hold the tradition of the
apostolic church. Yet in the seventh century, the synods of
Spain, and afterwards of France, improved or corrupted the Nicene
creed, on the mysterious subject of the third person of the
Trinity. 3 In the long controversies of the East, the nature and
generation of the Christ had been scrupulously defined; and the
well-known relation of father and son seemed to convey a faint
image to the human mind. The idea of birth was less analogous to
the Holy Spirit, who, instead of a divine gift or attribute, was
considered by the Catholics as a substance, a person, a god; he
was not begotten, but in the orthodox style he _proceeded_. Did
he proceed from the Father alone, perhaps _by_ the Son? or from
the Father _and_ the Son? The first of these opinions was
asserted by the Greeks, the second by the Latins; and the
addition to the Nicene creed of the word _filioque_, kindled the
flame of discord between the Oriental and the Gallic churches. In
the origin of the disputes the Roman pontiffs affected a
character of neutrality and moderation: 4 they condemned the
innovation, but they acquiesced in the sentiment, of their
Transalpine brethren: they seemed desirous of casting a veil of
silence and charity over the superfluous research; and in the
correspondence of Charlemagne and Leo the Third, the pope assumes
the liberality of a statesman, and the prince descends to the
passions and prejudices of a priest. 5 But the orthodoxy of Rome
spontaneously obeyed the impulse of the temporal policy; and the
_filioque_, which Leo wished to erase, was transcribed in the
symbol and chanted in the liturgy of the Vatican. The Nicene and
Athanasian creeds are held as the Catholic faith, without which
none can be saved; and both Papists and Protestants must now
sustain and return the anathemas of the Greeks, who deny the
procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, as well as from the
Father. Such articles of faith are not susceptible of treaty; but
the rules of discipline will vary in remote and independent
churches; and the reason, even of divines, might allow, that the
difference is inevitable and harmless. The craft or superstition
of Rome has imposed on her priests and deacons the rigid
obligation of celibacy; among the Greeks it is confined to the
bishops; the loss is compensated by dignity or annihilated by
age; and the parochial clergy, the papas, enjoy the conjugal
society of the wives whom they have married before their entrance
into holy orders. A question concerning the _Azyms_ was fiercely
debated in the eleventh century, and the essence of the Eucharist
was supposed in the East and West to depend on the use of
leavened or unleavened bread. Shall I mention in a serious
history the furious reproaches that were urged against the
Latins, who for a long while remained on the defensive? They
neglected to abstain, according to the apostolical decree, from
things strangled, and from blood: they fasted (a Jewish
observance!) on the Saturday of each week: during the first week
of Lent they permitted the use of milk and cheese; 6 their infirm
monks were indulged in the taste of flesh; and animal grease was
substituted for the want of vegetable oil: the holy chrism or
unction in baptism was reserved to the episcopal order: the
bishops, as the bridegrooms of their churches, were decorated
with rings; their priests shaved their faces, and baptized by a
single immersion. Such were the crimes which provoked the zeal of
the patriarchs of Constantinople; and which were justified with
equal zeal by the doctors of the Latin church. 7
2 (return) [ ''AndreV dussebeiV kai apotropaioi, andreV ek sktouV
anadunteV, thV gar 'Esperiou moiraV uphrcon gennhmata, (Phot.
Epist. p. 47, edit. Montacut.) The Oriental patriarch continues
to apply the images of thunder, earthquake, hail, wild boar,
precursors of Antichrist, &c., &c.]
3 (return) [ The mysterious subject of the procession of the Holy
Ghost is discussed in the historical, theological, and
controversial sense, or nonsense, by the Jesuit Petavius.
(Dogmata Theologica, tom. ii. l. vii. p. 362—440.)]
4 (return) [ Before the shrine of St. Peter he placed two shields
of the weight of 94 1/2 pounds of pure silver; on which he
inscribed the text of both creeds, (utroque symbolo,) pro amore
et _cautelâ_ orthodoxæ fidei, (Anastas. in Leon. III. in
Muratori, tom. iii. pars. i. p. 208.) His language most clearly
proves, that neither the _filioque_, nor the Athanasian creed
were received at Rome about the year 830.]
5 (return) [ The Missi of Charlemagne pressed him to declare,
that all who rejected the _filioque_, or at least the doctrine,
must be damned. All, replies the pope, are not capable of
reaching the altiora mysteria qui potuerit, et non voluerit,
salvus esse non potest, (Collect. Concil. tom. ix. p. 277—286.)
The _potuerit_ would leave a large loophole of salvation!]
6 (return) [ In France, after some harsher laws, the
ecclesiastical discipline is now relaxed: milk, cheese, and
butter, are become a perpetual, and eggs an annual, indulgence in
Lent, (Vie privée des François, tom. ii. p. 27—38.)]
7 (return) [ The original monuments of the schism, of the charges
of the Greeks against the Latins, are deposited in the epistles
of Photius, (Epist Encyclica, ii. p. 47—61,) and of Michael
Cerularius, (Canisii Antiq. Lectiones, tom. iii. p. i. p.
281—324, edit. Basnage, with the prolix answer of Cardinal
Humbert.)]
Bigotry and national aversion are powerful magnifiers of every
object of dispute; but the immediate cause of the schism of the
Greeks may be traced in the emulation of the leading prelates,
who maintained the supremacy of the old metropolis superior to
all, and of the reigning capital, inferior to none, in the
Christian world. About the middle of the ninth century, Photius,
8 an ambitious layman, the captain of the guards and principal
secretary, was promoted by merit and favor to the more desirable
office of patriarch of Constantinople. In science, even
ecclesiastical science, he surpassed the clergy of the age; and
the purity of his morals has never been impeached: but his
ordination was hasty, his rise was irregular; and Ignatius, his
abdicated predecessor, was yet supported by the public compassion
and the obstinacy of his adherents. They appealed to the tribunal
of Nicholas the First, one of the proudest and most aspiring of
the Roman pontiffs, who embraced the welcome opportunity of
judging and condemning his rival of the East. Their quarrel was
embittered by a conflict of jurisdiction over the king and nation
of the Bulgarians; nor was their recent conversion to
Christianity of much avail to either prelate, unless he could
number the proselytes among the subjects of his power. With the
aid of his court the Greek patriarch was victorious; but in the
furious contest he deposed in his turn the successor of St.
Peter, and involved the Latin church in the reproach of heresy
and schism. Photius sacrificed the peace of the world to a short
and precarious reign: he fell with his patron, the Cæsar Bardas;
and Basil the Macedonian performed an act of justice in the
restoration of Ignatius, whose age and dignity had not been
sufficiently respected. From his monastery, or prison, Photius
solicited the favor of the emperor by pathetic complaints and
artful flattery; and the eyes of his rival were scarcely closed,
when he was again restored to the throne of Constantinople. After
the death of Basil he experienced the vicissitudes of courts and
the ingratitude of a royal pupil: the patriarch was again
deposed, and in his last solitary hours he might regret the
freedom of a secular and studious life. In each revolution, the
breath, the nod, of the sovereign had been accepted by a
submissive clergy; and a synod of three hundred bishops was
always prepared to hail the triumph, or to stigmatize the fall,
of the holy, or the execrable, Photius. 9 By a delusive promise
of succor or reward, the popes were tempted to countenance these
various proceedings; and the synods of Constantinople were
ratified by their epistles or legates. But the court and the
people, Ignatius and Photius, were equally adverse to their
claims; their ministers were insulted or imprisoned; the
procession of the Holy Ghost was forgotten; Bulgaria was forever
annexed to the Byzantine throne; and the schism was prolonged by
their rigid censure of all the multiplied ordinations of an
irregular patriarch. The darkness and corruption of the tenth
century suspended the intercourse, without reconciling the minds,
of the two nations. But when the Norman sword restored the
churches of Apulia to the jurisdiction of Rome, the departing
flock was warned, by a petulant epistle of the Greek patriarch,
to avoid and abhor the errors of the Latins. The rising majesty
of Rome could no longer brook the insolence of a rebel; and
Michael Cerularius was excommunicated in the heart of
Constantinople by the pope’s legates. Shaking the dust from their
feet, they deposited on the altar of St. Sophia a direful
anathema, 10 which enumerates the seven mortal heresies of the
Greeks, and devotes the guilty teachers, and their unhappy
sectaries, to the eternal society of the devil and his angels.
According to the emergencies of the church and state, a friendly
correspondence was some times resumed; the language of charity
and concord was sometimes affected; but the Greeks have never
recanted their errors; the popes have never repealed their
sentence; and from this thunderbolt we may date the consummation
of the schism. It was enlarged by each ambitious step of the
Roman pontiffs: the emperors blushed and trembled at the
ignominious fate of their royal brethren of Germany; and the
people were scandalized by the temporal power and military life
of the Latin clergy. 11
8 (return) [ The xth volume of the Venice edition of the Councils
contains all the acts of the synods, and history of Photius: they
are abridged, with a faint tinge of prejudice or prudence, by
Dupin and Fleury.]
9 (return) [ The synod of Constantinople, held in the year 869,
is the viiith of the general councils, the last assembly of the
East which is recognized by the Roman church. She rejects the
synods of Constantinople of the years 867 and 879, which were,
however, equally numerous and noisy; but they were favorable to
Photius.]
10 (return) [ See this anathema in the Councils, tom. xi. p.
1457—1460.]
11 (return) [ Anna Comnena (Alexiad, l. i. p. 31—33) represents
the abhorrence, not only of the church, but of the palace, for
Gregory VII., the popes and the Latin communion. The style of
Cinnamus and Nicetas is still more vehement. Yet how calm is the
voice of history compared with that of polemics!]
The aversion of the Greeks and Latins was nourished and
manifested in the three first expeditions to the Holy Land.
Alexius Comnenus contrived the absence at least of the formidable
pilgrims: his successors, Manuel and Isaac Angelus, conspired
with the Moslems for the ruin of the greatest princes of the
Franks; and their crooked and malignant policy was seconded by
the active and voluntary obedience of every order of their
subjects. Of this hostile temper, a large portion may doubtless
be ascribed to the difference of language, dress, and manners,
which severs and alienates the nations of the globe. The pride,
as well as the prudence, of the sovereign was deeply wounded by
the intrusion of foreign armies, that claimed a right of
traversing his dominions, and passing under the walls of his
capital: his subjects were insulted and plundered by the rude
strangers of the West: and the hatred of the pusillanimous Greeks
was sharpened by secret envy of the bold and pious enterprises of
the Franks. But these profane causes of national enmity were
fortified and inflamed by the venom of religious zeal. Instead of
a kind embrace, a hospitable reception from their Christian
brethren of the East, every tongue was taught to repeat the names
of schismatic and heretic, more odious to an orthodox ear than
those of pagan and infidel: instead of being loved for the
general conformity of faith and worship, they were abhorred for
some rules of discipline, some questions of theology, in which
themselves or their teachers might differ from the Oriental
church. In the crusade of Louis the Seventh, the Greek clergy
washed and purified the altars which had been defiled by the
sacrifice of a French priest. The companions of Frederic
Barbarossa deplore the injuries which they endured, both in word
and deed, from the peculiar rancor of the bishops and monks.
Their prayers and sermons excited the people against the impious
Barbarians; and the patriarch is accused of declaring, that the
faithful might obtain the redemption of all their sins by the
extirpation of the schismatics. 12 An enthusiast, named
Dorotheus, alarmed the fears, and restored the confidence, of the
emperor, by a prophetic assurance, that the German heretic, after
assaulting the gate of Blachernes, would be made a signal example
of the divine vengeance. The passage of these mighty armies were
rare and perilous events; but the crusades introduced a frequent
and familiar intercourse between the two nations, which enlarged
their knowledge without abating their prejudices. The wealth and
luxury of Constantinople demanded the productions of every
climate; these imports were balanced by the art and labor of her
numerous inhabitants; her situation invites the commerce of the
world; and, in every period of her existence, that commerce has
been in the hands of foreigners. After the decline of Amalphi,
the Venetians, Pisans, and Genoese, introduced their factories
and settlements into the capital of the empire: their services
were rewarded with honors and immunities; they acquired the
possession of lands and houses; their families were multiplied by
marriages with the natives; and, after the toleration of a
Mahometan mosque, it was impossible to interdict the churches of
the Roman rite. 13 The two wives of Manuel Comnenus 14 were of
the race of the Franks: the first, a sister-in-law of the emperor
Conrad; the second, a daughter of the prince of Antioch: he
obtained for his son Alexius a daughter of Philip Augustus, king
of France; and he bestowed his own daughter on a marquis of
Montferrat, who was educated and dignified in the palace of
Constantinople. The Greek encountered the arms, and aspired to
the empire, of the West: he esteemed the valor, and trusted the
fidelity, of the Franks; 15 their military talents were unfitly
recompensed by the lucrative offices of judges and treasures; the
policy of Manuel had solicited the alliance of the pope; and the
popular voice accused him of a partial bias to the nation and
religion of the Latins. 16 During his reign, and that of his
successor Alexius, they were exposed at Constantinople to the
reproach of foreigners, heretics, and favorites; and this triple
guilt was severely expiated in the tumult, which announced the
return and elevation of Andronicus. 17 The people rose in arms:
from the Asiatic shore the tyrant despatched his troops and
galleys to assist the national revenge; and the hopeless
resistance of the strangers served only to justify the rage, and
sharpen the daggers, of the assassins. Neither age, nor sex, nor
the ties of friendship or kindred, could save the victims of
national hatred, and avarice, and religious zeal; the Latins were
slaughtered in their houses and in the streets; their quarter was
reduced to ashes; the clergy were burnt in their churches, and
the sick in their hospitals; and some estimate may be formed of
the slain from the clemency which sold above four thousand
Christians in perpetual slavery to the Turks. The priests and
monks were the loudest and most active in the destruction of the
schismatics; and they chanted a thanksgiving to the Lord, when
the head of a Roman cardinal, the pope’s legate, was severed from
his body, fastened to the tail of a dog, and dragged, with savage
mockery, through the city. The more diligent of the strangers had
retreated, on the first alarm, to their vessels, and escaped
through the Hellespont from the scene of blood. In their flight,
they burnt and ravaged two hundred miles of the sea-coast;
inflicted a severe revenge on the guiltless subjects of the
empire; marked the priests and monks as their peculiar enemies;
and compensated, by the accumulation of plunder, the loss of
their property and friends. On their return, they exposed to
Italy and Europe the wealth and weakness, the perfidy and malice,
of the Greeks, whose vices were painted as the genuine characters
of heresy and schism. The scruples of the first crusaders had
neglected the fairest opportunities of securing, by the
possession of Constantinople, the way to the Holy Land: domestic
revolution invited, and almost compelled, the French and
Venetians to achieve the conquest of the Roman empire of the
East.
12 (return) [ His anonymous historian (de Expedit. Asiat. Fred.
I. in Canisii Lection. Antiq. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 511, edit.
Basnage) mentions the sermons of the Greek patriarch, quomodo
Græcis injunxerat in remissionem peccatorum peregrinos occidere
et delere de terra. Tagino observes, (in Scriptores Freher. tom.
i. p. 409, edit. Struv.,) Græci hæreticos nos appellant: clerici
et monachi dictis et factis persequuntur. We may add the
declaration of the emperor Baldwin fifteen years afterwards: Hæc
est (_gens_) quæ Latinos omnes non hominum nomine, sed canum
dignabatur; quorum sanguinem effundere penè inter merita
reputabant, (Gesta Innocent. III., c. 92, in Muratori, Script.
Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. pars i. p. 536.) There may be some
exaggeration, but it was as effectual for the action and reaction
of hatred.]
13 (return) [ See Anna Comnena, (Alexiad, l. vi. p. 161, 162,)
and a remarkable passage of Nicetas, (in Manuel, l. v. c. 9,) who
observes of the Venetians, kata smhnh kai jratriaV thn
Kwnstantinou polin thV oikeiaV hllaxanto, &c.]
14 (return) [ Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 186, 187.]
15 (return) [ Nicetas in Manuel. l. vii. c. 2. Regnante enim
(Manuele).... apud eum tantam Latinus populus repererat gratiam
ut neglectis Græculis suis tanquam viris mollibus et
effminatis,.... solis Latinis grandia committeret negotia....
erga eos profusâ liberalitate abundabat.... ex omni orbe ad eum
tanquam ad benefactorem nobiles et ignobiles concurrebant.
Willelm. Tyr. xxii. c. 10.]
16 (return) [ The suspicions of the Greeks would have been
confirmed, if they had seen the political epistles of Manuel to
Pope Alexander III., the enemy of his enemy Frederic I., in which
the emperor declares his wish of uniting the Greeks and Latins as
one flock under one shepherd, &c (See Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. tom.
xv. p. 187, 213, 243.)]
17 (return) [ See the Greek and Latin narratives in Nicetas (in
Alexio Comneno, c. 10) and William of Tyre, (l. xxii. c. 10, 11,
12, 13;) the first soft and concise, the second loud, copious,
and tragical.]
In the series of the Byzantine princes, I have exhibited the
hypocrisy and ambition, the tyranny and fall, of Andronicus, the
last male of the Comnenian family who reigned at Constantinople.
The revolution, which cast him headlong from the throne, saved
and exalted Isaac Angelus, 18 who descended by the females from
the same Imperial dynasty. The successor of a second Nero might
have found it an easy task to deserve the esteem and affection of
his subjects; they sometimes had reason to regret the
administration of Andronicus. The sound and vigorous mind of the
tyrant was capable of discerning the connection between his own
and the public interest; and while he was feared by all who could
inspire him with fear, the unsuspected people, and the remote
provinces, might bless the inexorable justice of their master.
But his successor was vain and jealous of the supreme power,
which he wanted courage and abilities to exercise: his vices were
pernicious, his virtues (if he possessed any virtues) were
useless, to mankind; and the Greeks, who imputed their calamities
to his negligence, denied him the merit of any transient or
accidental benefits of the times. Isaac slept on the throne, and
was awakened only by the sound of pleasure: his vacant hours were
amused by comedians and buffoons, and even to these buffoons the
emperor was an object of contempt: his feasts and buildings
exceeded the examples of royal luxury: the number of his eunuchs
and domestics amounted to twenty thousand; and a daily sum of
four thousand pounds of silver would swell to four millions
sterling the annual expense of his household and table. His
poverty was relieved by oppression; and the public discontent was
inflamed by equal abuses in the collection, and the application,
of the revenue. While the Greeks numbered the days of their
servitude, a flattering prophet, whom he rewarded with the
dignity of patriarch, assured him of a long and victorious reign
of thirty-two years; during which he should extend his sway to
Mount Libanus, and his conquests beyond the Euphrates. But his
only step towards the accomplishment of the prediction was a
splendid and scandalous embassy to Saladin, 19 to demand the
restitution of the holy sepulchre, and to propose an offensive
and defensive league with the enemy of the Christian name. In
these unworthy hands, of Isaac and his brother, the remains of
the Greek empire crumbled into dust. The Island of Cyprus, whose
name excites the ideas of elegance and pleasure, was usurped by
his namesake, a Comnenian prince; and by a strange concatenation
of events, the sword of our English Richard bestowed that kingdom
on the house of Lusignan, a rich compensation for the loss of
Jerusalem.
18 (return) [ The history of the reign of Isaac Angelus is
composed, in three books, by the senator Nicetas, (p. 228—290;)
and his offices of logothete, or principal secretary, and judge
of the veil or palace, could not bribe the impartiality of the
historian. He wrote, it is true, after the fall and death of his
benefactor.]
19 (return) [ See Bohadin, Vit. Saladin. p. 129—131, 226, vers.
Schultens. The ambassador of Isaac was equally versed in the
Greek, French, and Arabic languages; a rare instance in those
times. His embassies were received with honor, dismissed without
effect, and reported with scandal in the West.]
The honor of the monarchy and the safety of the capital were
deeply wounded by the revolt of the Bulgarians and Walachians.
Since the victory of the second Basil, they had supported, above
a hundred and seventy years, the loose dominion of the Byzantine
princes; but no effectual measures had been adopted to impose the
yoke of laws and manners on these savage tribes. By the command
of Isaac, their sole means of subsistence, their flocks and
herds, were driven away, to contribute towards the pomp of the
royal nuptials; and their fierce warriors were exasperated by the
denial of equal rank and pay in the military service. Peter and
Asan, two powerful chiefs, of the race of the ancient kings, 20
asserted their own rights and the national freedom; their
dæmoniac impostors proclaimed to the crowd, that their glorious
patron St. Demetrius had forever deserted the cause of the
Greeks; and the conflagration spread from the banks of the Danube
to the hills of Macedonia and Thrace. After some faint efforts,
Isaac Angelus and his brother acquiesced in their independence;
and the Imperial troops were soon discouraged by the bones of
their fellow-soldiers, that were scattered along the passes of
Mount Hæmus. By the arms and policy of John or Joannices, the
second kingdom of Bulgaria was firmly established. The subtle
Barbarian sent an embassy to Innocent the Third, to acknowledge
himself a genuine son of Rome in descent and religion, 21 and
humbly received from the pope the license of coining money, the
royal title, and a Latin archbishop or patriarch. The Vatican
exulted in the spiritual conquest of Bulgaria, the first object
of the schism; and if the Greeks could have preserved the
prerogatives of the church, they would gladly have resigned the
rights of the monarchy.
20 (return) [ Ducange, Familiæ, Dalmaticæ, p. 318, 319, 320. The
original correspondence of the Bulgarian king and the Roman
pontiff is inscribed in the Gesta Innocent. III. c. 66—82, p.
513—525.]
21 (return) [ The pope acknowledges his pedigree, a nobili urbis
Romæ prosapiâ genitores tui originem traxerunt. This tradition,
and the strong resemblance of the Latin and Walachian idioms, is
explained by M. D’Anville, (Etats de l’Europe, p. 258—262.) The
Italian colonies of the Dacia of Trajan were swept away by the
tide of emigration from the Danube to the Volga, and brought back
by another wave from the Volga to the Danube. Possible, but
strange!]
The Bulgarians were malicious enough to pray for the long life of
Isaac Angelus, the surest pledge of their freedom and prosperity.
Yet their chiefs could involve in the same indiscriminate
contempt the family and nation of the emperor. “In all the
Greeks,” said Asan to his troops, “the same climate, and
character, and education, will be productive of the same fruits.
Behold my lance,” continued the warrior, “and the long streamers
that float in the wind. They differ only in color; they are
formed of the same silk, and fashioned by the same workman; nor
has the stripe that is stained in purple any superior price or
value above its fellows.” 22 Several of these candidates for the
purple successively rose and fell under the empire of Isaac; a
general, who had repelled the fleets of Sicily, was driven to
revolt and ruin by the ingratitude of the prince; and his
luxurious repose was disturbed by secret conspiracies and popular
insurrections. The emperor was saved by accident, or the merit of
his servants: he was at length oppressed by an ambitious brother,
who, for the hope of a precarious diadem, forgot the obligations
of nature, of loyalty, and of friendship. 23 While Isaac in the
Thracian valleys pursued the idle and solitary pleasures of the
chase, his brother, Alexius Angelus, was invested with the
purple, by the unanimous suffrage of the camp; the capital and
the clergy subscribed to their choice; and the vanity of the new
sovereign rejected the name of his fathers for the lofty and
royal appellation of the Comnenian race. On the despicable
character of Isaac I have exhausted the language of contempt, and
can only add, that, in a reign of eight years, the baser Alexius
24 was supported by the masculine vices of his wife Euphrosyne.
The first intelligence of his fall was conveyed to the late
emperor by the hostile aspect and pursuit of the guards, no
longer his own: he fled before them above fifty miles, as far as
Stagyra, in Macedonia; but the fugitive, without an object or a
follower, was arrested, brought back to Constantinople, deprived
of his eyes, and confined in a lonesome tower, on a scanty
allowance of bread and water. At the moment of the revolution,
his son Alexius, whom he educated in the hope of empire, was
twelve years of age. He was spared by the usurper, and reduced to
attend his triumph both in peace and war; but as the army was
encamped on the sea-shore, an Italian vessel facilitated the
escape of the royal youth; and, in the disguise of a common
sailor, he eluded the search of his enemies, passed the
Hellespont, and found a secure refuge in the Isle of Sicily.
After saluting the threshold of the apostles, and imploring the
protection of Pope Innocent the Third, Alexius accepted the kind
invitation of his sister Irene, the wife of Philip of Swabia,
king of the Romans. But in his passage through Italy, he heard
that the flower of Western chivalry was assembled at Venice for
the deliverance of the Holy Land; and a ray of hope was kindled
in his bosom, that their invincible swords might be employed in
his father’s restoration.
22 (return) [ This parable is in the best savage style; but I
wish the Walach had not introduced the classic name of Mysians,
the experiment of the magnet or loadstone, and the passage of an
old comic poet, (Nicetas in Alex. Comneno, l. i. p. 299, 300.)]
23 (return) [ The Latins aggravate the ingratitude of Alexius, by
supposing that he had been released by his brother Isaac from
Turkish captivity This pathetic tale had doubtless been repeated
at Venice and Zara but I do not readily discover its grounds in
the Greek historians.]
24 (return) [ See the reign of Alexius Angelus, or Comnenus, in
the three books of Nicetas, p. 291—352.]
About ten or twelve years after the loss of Jerusalem, the nobles
of France were again summoned to the holy war by the voice of a
third prophet, less extravagant, perhaps, than Peter the hermit,
but far below St. Bernard in the merit of an orator and a
statesman. An illiterate priest of the neighborhood of Paris,
Fulk of Neuilly, 25 forsook his parochial duty, to assume the
more flattering character of a popular and itinerant missionary.
The fame of his sanctity and miracles was spread over the land;
he declaimed, with severity and vehemence, against the vices of
the age; and his sermons, which he preached in the streets of
Paris, converted the robbers, the usurers, the prostitutes, and
even the doctors and scholars of the university. No sooner did
Innocent the Third ascend the chair of St. Peter, than he
proclaimed in Italy, Germany, and France, the obligation of a new
crusade. 26 The eloquent pontiff described the ruin of Jerusalem,
the triumph of the Pagans, and the shame of Christendom; his
liberality proposed the redemption of sins, a plenary indulgence
to all who should serve in Palestine, either a year in person, or
two years by a substitute; 27 and among his legates and orators
who blew the sacred trumpet, Fulk of Neuilly was the loudest and
most successful. The situation of the principal monarchs was
averse to the pious summons. The emperor Frederic the Second was
a child; and his kingdom of Germany was disputed by the rival
houses of Brunswick and Swabia, the memorable factions of the
Guelphs and Ghibelines. Philip Augustus of France had performed,
and could not be persuaded to renew, the perilous vow; but as he
was not less ambitious of praise than of power, he cheerfully
instituted a perpetual fund for the defence of the Holy Land.
Richard of England was satiated with the glory and misfortunes of
his first adventure; and he presumed to deride the exhortations
of Fulk of Neuilly, who was not abashed in the presence of kings.
“You advise me,” said Plantagenet, “to dismiss my three
daughters, pride, avarice, and incontinence: I bequeath them to
the most deserving; my pride to the knights templars, my avarice
to the monks of Cisteaux, and my incontinence to the prelates.”
But the preacher was heard and obeyed by the great vassals, the
princes of the second order; and Theobald, or Thibaut, count of
Champagne, was the foremost in the holy race. The valiant youth,
at the age of twenty-two years, was encouraged by the domestic
examples of his father, who marched in the second crusade, and of
his elder brother, who had ended his days in Palestine with the
title of King of Jerusalem; two thousand two hundred knights owed
service and homage to his peerage; 28 the nobles of Champagne
excelled in all the exercises of war; 29 and, by his marriage
with the heiress of Navarre, Thibaut could draw a band of hardy
Gascons from either side of the Pyrenæan mountains. His companion
in arms was Louis, count of Blois and Chartres; like himself of
regal lineage, for both the princes were nephews, at the same
time, of the kings of France and England. In a crowd of prelates
and barons, who imitated their zeal, I distinguish the birth and
merit of Matthew of Montmorency; the famous Simon of Montfort,
the scourge of the Albigeois; and a valiant noble, Jeffrey of
Villehardouin, 30 marshal of Champagne, 31 who has condescended,
in the rude idiom of his age and country, 32 to write or dictate
33 an original narrative of the councils and actions in which he
bore a memorable part. At the same time, Baldwin, count of
Flanders, who had married the sister of Thibaut, assumed the
cross at Bruges, with his brother Henry, and the principal
knights and citizens of that rich and industrious province. 34
The vow which the chiefs had pronounced in churches, they
ratified in tournaments; the operations of the war were debated
in full and frequent assemblies; and it was resolved to seek the
deliverance of Palestine in Egypt, a country, since Saladin’s
death, which was almost ruined by famine and civil war. But the
fate of so many royal armies displayed the toils and perils of a
land expedition; and if the Flemings dwelt along the ocean, the
French barons were destitute of ships and ignorant of navigation.
They embraced the wise resolution of choosing six deputies or
representatives, of whom Villehardouin was one, with a
discretionary trust to direct the motions, and to pledge the
faith, of the whole confederacy. The maritime states of Italy
were alone possessed of the means of transporting the holy
warriors with their arms and horses; and the six deputies
proceeded to Venice, to solicit, on motives of piety or interest,
the aid of that powerful republic.
25 (return) [ See Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. tom. xvi. p. 26, &c., and
Villehardouin, No. 1, with the observations of Ducange, which I
always mean to quote with the original text.]
26 (return) [ The contemporary life of Pope Innocent III.,
published by Baluze and Muratori, (Scriptores Rerum Italicarum,
tom. iii. pars i. p. 486—568), is most valuable for the important
and original documents which are inserted in the text. The bull
of the crusade may be read, c. 84, 85.]
27 (return) [ Por-ce que cil pardon, fut issi gran, si s’en
esmeurent mult li cuers des genz, et mult s’en croisierent, porce
que li pardons ere si gran. Villehardouin, No. 1. Our
philosophers may refine on the causes of the crusades, but such
were the genuine feelings of a French knight.]
28 (return) [ This number of fiefs (of which 1800 owed liege
homage) was enrolled in the church of St. Stephen at Troyes, and
attested A.D. 1213, by the marshal and butler of Champagne,
(Ducange, Observ. p. 254.)]
29 (return) [ Campania.... militiæ privilegio singularius
excellit.... in tyrociniis.... prolusione armorum, &c., Duncage,
p. 249, from the old Chronicle of Jerusalem, A.D. 1177—1199.]
30 (return) [ The name of Villehardouin was taken from a village
and castle in the diocese of Troyes, near the River Aube, between
Bar and Arcis. The family was ancient and noble; the elder branch
of our historian existed after the year 1400, the younger, which
acquired the principality of Achaia, merged in the house of
Savoy, (Ducange, p. 235—245.)]
31 (return) [ This office was held by his father and his
descendants; but Ducange has not hunted it with his usual
sagacity. I find that, in the year 1356, it was in the family of
Conflans; but these provincial have been long since eclipsed by
the national marshals of France.]
32 (return) [ This language, of which I shall produce some
specimens, is explained by Vigenere and Ducange, in a version and
glossary. The president Des Brosses (Méchanisme des Langues, tom.
ii. p. 83) gives it as the example of a language which has ceased
to be French, and is understood only by grammarians.]
33 (return) [ His age, and his own expression, moi qui ceste uvre
_dicta_, (No. 62, &c.,) may justify the suspicion (more probable
than Mr. Wood’s on Homer) that he could neither read nor write.
Yet Champagne may boast of the two first historians, the noble
authors of French prose, Villehardouin and Joinville.]
34 (return) [ The crusade and reigns of the counts of Flanders,
Baldwin and his brother Henry, are the subject of a particular
history by the Jesuit Doutremens, (Constantinopolis Belgica;
Turnaci, 1638, in 4to.,) which I have only seen with the eyes of
Ducange.]
In the invasion of Italy by Attila, I have mentioned 35 the
flight of the Venetians from the fallen cities of the continent,
and their obscure shelter in the chain of islands that line the
extremity of the Adriatic Gulf. In the midst of the waters, free,
indigent, laborious, and inaccessible, they gradually coalesced
into a republic: the first foundations of Venice were laid in the
Island of Rialto; and the annual election of the twelve tribunes
was superseded by the permanent office of a duke or doge. On the
verge of the two empires, the Venetians exult in the belief of
primitive and perpetual independence. 36 Against the Latins,
their antique freedom has been asserted by the sword, and may be
justified by the pen. Charlemagne himself resigned all claims of
sovereignty to the islands of the Adriatic Gulf: his son Pepin
was repulsed in the attacks of the _lagunas_ or canals, too deep
for the cavalry, and too shallow for the vessels; and in every
age, under the German Cæsars, the lands of the republic have been
clearly distinguished from the kingdom of Italy. But the
inhabitants of Venice were considered by themselves, by
strangers, and by their sovereigns, as an inalienable portion of
the Greek empire: 37 in the ninth and tenth centuries, the proofs
of their subjection are numerous and unquestionable; and the vain
titles, the servile honors, of the Byzantine court, so
ambitiously solicited by their dukes, would have degraded the
magistrates of a free people. But the bands of this dependence,
which was never absolute or rigid, were imperceptibly relaxed by
the ambition of Venice and the weakness of Constantinople.
Obedience was softened into respect, privilege ripened into
prerogative, and the freedom of domestic government was fortified
by the independence of foreign dominion. The maritime cities of
Istria and Dalmatia bowed to the sovereigns of the Adriatic; and
when they armed against the Normans in the cause of Alexius, the
emperor applied, not to the duty of his subjects, but to the
gratitude and generosity of his faithful allies. The sea was
their patrimony: 38 the western parts of the Mediterranean, from
Tuscany to Gibraltar, were indeed abandoned to their rivals of
Pisa and Genoa; but the Venetians acquired an early and lucrative
share of the commerce of Greece and Egypt. Their riches increased
with the increasing demand of Europe; their manufactures of silk
and glass, perhaps the institution of their bank, are of high
antiquity; and they enjoyed the fruits of their industry in the
magnificence of public and private life. To assert her flag, to
avenge her injuries, to protect the freedom of navigation, the
republic could launch and man a fleet of a hundred galleys; and
the Greeks, the Saracens, and the Normans, were encountered by
her naval arms. The Franks of Syria were assisted by the
Venetians in the reduction of the sea coast; but their zeal was
neither blind nor disinterested; and in the conquest of Tyre,
they shared the sovereignty of a city, the first seat of the
commerce of the world. The policy of Venice was marked by the
avarice of a trading, and the insolence of a maritime, power; yet
her ambition was prudent: nor did she often forget that if armed
galleys were the effect and safeguard, merchant vessels were the
cause and supply, of her greatness. In her religion, she avoided
the schisms of the Greeks, without yielding a servile obedience
to the Roman pontiff; and a free intercourse with the infidels of
every clime appears to have allayed betimes the fever of
superstition. Her primitive government was a loose mixture of
democracy and monarchy; the doge was elected by the votes of the
general assembly; as long as he was popular and successful, he
reigned with the pomp and authority of a prince; but in the
frequent revolutions of the state, he was deposed, or banished,
or slain, by the justice or injustice of the multitude. The
twelfth century produced the first rudiments of the wise and
jealous aristocracy, which has reduced the doge to a pageant, and
the people to a cipher. 39
35 (return) [ History, &c., vol. iii. p. 446, 447.]
36 (return) [ The foundation and independence of Venice, and
Pepin’s invasion, are discussed by Pagi (Critica, tom. iii. A.D.
81, No. 4, &c.) and Beretti, (Dissert. Chorograph. Italiæ Medii
Ævi, in Muratori, Script. tom. x. p. 153.) The two critics have a
slight bias, the Frenchman adverse, the Italian favorable, to the
republic.]
37 (return) [ When the son of Charlemagne asserted his right of
sovereignty, he was answered by the loyal Venetians, oti hmeiV
douloi Jelomen einai tou 'Rwmaiwn basilewV, (Constantin.
Porphyrogenit. de Administrat. Imperii, pars ii. c. 28, p. 85;)
and the report of the ixth establishes the fact of the xth
century, which is confirmed by the embassy of Liutprand of
Cremona. The annual tribute, which the emperor allows them to pay
to the king of Italy, alleviates, by doubling, their servitude;
but the hateful word douloi must be translated, as in the charter
of 827, (Laugier, Hist. de Venice, tom. i. p. 67, &c.,) by the
softer appellation of _subditi_, or _fideles_.]
38 (return) [ See the xxvth and xxxth dissertations of the
Antiquitates Medii Ævi of Muratori. From Anderson’s History of
Commerce, I understand that the Venetians did not trade to
England before the year 1323. The most flourishing state of their
wealth and commerce, in the beginning of the xvth century, is
agreeably described by the Abbé Dubos, (Hist. de la Ligue de
Cambray, tom. ii. p. 443—480.)]
39 (return) [ The Venetians have been slow in writing and
publishing their history. Their most ancient monuments are, 1.
The rude Chronicle (perhaps) of John Sagorninus, (Venezia, 1765,
in octavo,) which represents the state and manners of Venice in
the year 1008. 2. The larger history of the doge, (1342—1354,)
Andrew Dandolo, published for the first time in the xiith tom. of
Muratori, A.D. 1728. The History of Venice by the Abbé Laugier,
(Paris, 1728,) is a work of some merit, which I have chiefly used
for the constitutional part. * Note: It is scarcely necessary to
mention the valuable work of Count Daru, “History de Venise,” of
which I hear that an Italian translation has been published, with
notes defensive of the ancient republic. I have not yet seen this
work.—M.]
Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.—Part II.
When the six ambassadors of the French pilgrims arrived at
Venice, they were hospitably entertained in the palace of St.
Mark, by the reigning duke; his name was Henry Dandolo; 40 and he
shone in the last period of human life as one of the most
illustrious characters of the times. Under the weight of years,
and after the loss of his eyes, 41 Dandolo retained a sound
understanding and a manly courage: the spirit of a hero,
ambitious to signalize his reign by some memorable exploits; and
the wisdom of a patriot, anxious to build his fame on the glory
and advantage of his country. He praised the bold enthusiasm and
liberal confidence of the barons and their deputies: in such a
cause, and with such associates, he should aspire, were he a
private man, to terminate his life; but he was the servant of the
republic, and some delay was requisite to consult, on this
arduous business, the judgment of his colleagues. The proposal of
the French was first debated by the six _sages_ who had been
recently appointed to control the administration of the doge: it
was next disclosed to the forty members of the council of state;
and finally communicated to the legislative assembly of four
hundred and fifty representatives, who were annually chosen in
the six quarters of the city. In peace and war, the doge was
still the chief of the republic; his legal authority was
supported by the personal reputation of Dandolo: his arguments of
public interest were balanced and approved; and he was authorized
to inform the ambassadors of the following conditions of the
treaty. 42 It was proposed that the crusaders should assemble at
Venice, on the feast of St. John of the ensuing year; that
flat-bottomed vessels should be prepared for four thousand five
hundred horses, and nine thousand squires, with a number of ships
sufficient for the embarkation of four thousand five hundred
knights, and twenty thousand foot; that during a term of nine
months they should be supplied with provisions, and transported
to whatsoever coast the service of God and Christendom should
require; and that the republic should join the armament with a
squadron of fifty galleys. It was required, that the pilgrims
should pay, before their departure, a sum of eighty-five thousand
marks of silver; and that all conquests, by sea and land, should
be equally divided between the confederates. The terms were hard;
but the emergency was pressing, and the French barons were not
less profuse of money than of blood. A general assembly was
convened to ratify the treaty: the stately chapel and place of
St. Mark were filled with ten thousand citizens; and the noble
deputies were taught a new lesson of humbling themselves before
the majesty of the people. “Illustrious Venetians,” said the
marshal of Champagne, “we are sent by the greatest and most
powerful barons of France to implore the aid of the masters of
the sea for the deliverance of Jerusalem. They have enjoined us
to fall prostrate at your feet; nor will we rise from the ground
till you have promised to avenge with us the injuries of Christ.”
The eloquence of their words and tears, 43 their martial aspect,
and suppliant attitude, were applauded by a universal shout; as
it were, says Jeffrey, by the sound of an earthquake. The
venerable doge ascended the pulpit to urge their request by those
motives of honor and virtue, which alone can be offered to a
popular assembly: the treaty was transcribed on parchment,
attested with oaths and seals, mutually accepted by the weeping
and joyful representatives of France and Venice; and despatched
to Rome for the approbation of Pope Innocent the Third. Two
thousand marks were borrowed of the merchants for the first
expenses of the armament. Of the six deputies, two repassed the
Alps to announce their success, while their four companions made
a fruitless trial of the zeal and emulation of the republics of
Genoa and Pisa.
40 (return) [ Henry Dandolo was eighty-four at his election,
(A.D. 1192,) and ninety-seven at his death, (A.D. 1205.) See the
Observations of Ducange sur Villehardouin, No. 204. But this
_extraordinary_ longevity is not observed by the original
writers, nor does there exist another example of a hero near a
hundred years of age. Theophrastus might afford an instance of a
writer of ninety-nine; but instead of ennenhkonta, (Prom. ad
Character.,)I am much inclined to read ebdomhkonta, with his last
editor Fischer, and the first thoughts of Casaubon. It is
scarcely possible that the powers of the mind and body should
support themselves till such a period of life.]
41 (return) [ The modern Venetians (Laugier, tom. ii. p. 119)
accuse the emperor Manuel; but the calumny is refuted by
Villehardouin and the older writers, who suppose that Dandolo
lost his eyes by a wound, (No. 31, and Ducange.) * Note: The
accounts differ, both as to the extent and the cause of his
blindness According to Villehardouin and others, the sight was
totally lost; according to the Chronicle of Andrew Dandolo.
(Murat. tom. xii. p. 322,) he was vise debilis. See Wilken, vol.
v. p. 143.—M.]
42 (return) [ See the original treaty in the Chronicle of Andrew
Dandolo, p. 323—326.]
43 (return) [ A reader of Villehardouin must observe the frequent
tears of the marshal and his brother knights. Sachiez que la ot
mainte lerme plorée de pitié, (No. 17;) mult plorant, (ibid.;)
mainte lerme plorée, (No. 34;) si orent mult pitié et plorerent
mult durement, (No. 60;) i ot mainte lerme plorée de pitié, (No.
202.) They weep on every occasion of grief, joy, or devotion.]
The execution of the treaty was still opposed by unforeseen
difficulties and delays. The marshal, on his return to Troyes,
was embraced and approved by Thibaut count of Champagne, who had
been unanimously chosen general of the confederates. But the
health of that valiant youth already declined, and soon became
hopeless; and he deplored the untimely fate, which condemned him
to expire, not in a field of battle, but on a bed of sickness. To
his brave and numerous vassals, the dying prince distributed his
treasures: they swore in his presence to accomplish his vow and
their own; but some there were, says the marshal, who accepted
his gifts and forfeited their words. The more resolute champions
of the cross held a parliament at Soissons for the election of a
new general; but such was the incapacity, or jealousy, or
reluctance, of the princes of France, that none could be found
both able and willing to assume the conduct of the enterprise.
They acquiesced in the choice of a stranger, of Boniface marquis
of Montferrat, descended of a race of heroes, and himself of
conspicuous fame in the wars and negotiations of the times; 44
nor could the piety or ambition of the Italian chief decline this
honorable invitation. After visiting the French court, where he
was received as a friend and kinsman, the marquis, in the church
of Soissons, was invested with the cross of a pilgrim and the
staff of a general; and immediately repassed the Alps, to prepare
for the distant expedition of the East. About the festival of the
Pentecost he displayed his banner, and marched towards Venice at
the head of the Italians: he was preceded or followed by the
counts of Flanders and Blois, and the most respectable barons of
France; and their numbers were swelled by the pilgrims of
Germany, 45 whose object and motives were similar to their own.
The Venetians had fulfilled, and even surpassed, their
engagements: stables were constructed for the horses, and
barracks for the troops: the magazines were abundantly
replenished with forage and provisions; and the fleet of
transports, ships, and galleys, was ready to hoist sail as soon
as the republic had received the price of the freight and
armament. But that price far exceeded the wealth of the crusaders
who were assembled at Venice. The Flemings, whose obedience to
their count was voluntary and precarious, had embarked in their
vessels for the long navigation of the ocean and Mediterranean;
and many of the French and Italians had preferred a cheaper and
more convenient passage from Marseilles and Apulia to the Holy
Land. Each pilgrim might complain, that after he had furnished
his own contribution, he was made responsible for the deficiency
of his absent brethren: the gold and silver plate of the chiefs,
which they freely delivered to the treasury of St. Marks, was a
generous but inadequate sacrifice; and after all their efforts,
thirty-four thousand marks were still wanting to complete the
stipulated sum. The obstacle was removed by the policy and
patriotism of the doge, who proposed to the barons, that if they
would join their arms in reducing some revolted cities of
Dalmatia, he would expose his person in the holy war, and obtain
from the republic a long indulgence, till some wealthy conquest
should afford the means of satisfying the debt. After much
scruple and hesitation, they chose rather to accept the offer
than to relinquish the enterprise; and the first hostilities of
the fleet and army were directed against Zara, 46 a strong city
of the Sclavonian coast, which had renounced its allegiance to
Venice, and implored the protection of the king of Hungary. 47
The crusaders burst the chain or boom of the harbor; landed their
horses, troops, and military engines; and compelled the
inhabitants, after a defence of five days, to surrender at
discretion: their lives were spared, but the revolt was punished
by the pillage of their houses and the demolition of their walls.
The season was far advanced; the French and Venetians resolved to
pass the winter in a secure harbor and plentiful country; but
their repose was disturbed by national and tumultuous quarrels of
the soldiers and mariners. The conquest of Zara had scattered the
seeds of discord and scandal: the arms of the allies had been
stained in their outset with the blood, not of infidels, but of
Christians: the king of Hungary and his new subjects were
themselves enlisted under the banner of the cross; and the
scruples of the devout were magnified by the fear of lassitude of
the reluctant pilgrims. The pope had excommunicated the false
crusaders who had pillaged and massacred their brethren, 48 and
only the marquis Boniface and Simon of Montfort 481 escaped these
spiritual thunders; the one by his absence from the siege, the
other by his final departure from the camp. Innocent might
absolve the simple and submissive penitents of France; but he was
provoked by the stubborn reason of the Venetians, who refused to
confess their guilt, to accept their pardon, or to allow, in
their temporal concerns, the interposition of a priest.
44 (return) [ By a victory (A.D. 1191) over the citizens of Asti,
by a crusade to Palestine, and by an embassy from the pope to the
German princes, (Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom. x. p. 163,
202.)]
45 (return) [ See the crusade of the Germans in the Historia C.
P. of Gunther, (Canisii Antiq. Lect. tom. iv. p. v.—viii.,) who
celebrates the pilgrimage of his abbot Martin, one of the
preaching rivals of Fulk of Neuilly. His monastery, of the
Cistercian order, was situate in the diocese of Basil.]
46 (return) [ Jadera, now Zara, was a Roman colony, which
acknowledged Augustus for its parent. It is now only two miles
round, and contains five or six thousand inhabitants; but the
fortifications are strong, and it is joined to the main land by a
bridge. See the travels of the two companions, Spon and Wheeler,
(Voyage de Dalmatie, de Grèce, &c., tom. i. p. 64—70. Journey
into Greece, p. 8—14;) the last of whom, by mistaking _Sestertia_
for _Sestertii_, values an arch with statues and columns at
twelve pounds. If, in his time, there were no trees near Zara,
the cherry-trees were not yet planted which produce our
incomparable _marasquin_.]
47 (return) [ Katona (Hist. Critica Reg. Hungariæ, Stirpis Arpad.
tom. iv. p. 536—558) collects all the facts and testimonies most
adverse to the conquerors of Zara.]
48 (return) [ See the whole transaction, and the sentiments of
the pope, in the Epistles of Innocent III. Gesta, c. 86, 87, 88.]
481 (return) [ Montfort protested against the siege. Guido, the
abbot of Vaux de Sernay, in the name of the pope, interdicted the
attack on a Christian city; and the immediate surrender of the
town was thus delayed for five days of fruitless resistance.
Wilken, vol. v. p. 167. See likewise, at length, the history of
the interdict issued by the pope. Ibid.—M.]
The assembly of such formidable powers by sea and land had
revived the hopes of young 49 Alexius; and both at Venice and
Zara, he solicited the arms of the crusaders, for his own
restoration and his father’s 50 deliverance. The royal youth was
recommended by Philip king of Germany: his prayers and presence
excited the compassion of the camp; and his cause was embraced
and pleaded by the marquis of Montferrat and the doge of Venice.
A double alliance, and the dignity of Cæsar, had connected with
the Imperial family the two elder brothers of Boniface: 51 he
expected to derive a kingdom from the important service; and the
more generous ambition of Dandolo was eager to secure the
inestimable benefits of trade and dominion that might accrue to
his country. 52 Their influence procured a favorable audience for
the ambassadors of Alexius; and if the magnitude of his offers
excited some suspicion, the motives and rewards which he
displayed might justify the delay and diversion of those forces
which had been consecrated to the deliverance of Jerusalem. He
promised in his own and his father’s name, that as soon as they
should be seated on the throne of Constantinople, they would
terminate the long schism of the Greeks, and submit themselves
and their people to the lawful supremacy of the Roman church. He
engaged to recompense the labors and merits of the crusaders, by
the immediate payment of two hundred thousand marks of silver; to
accompany them in person to Egypt; or, if it should be judged
more advantageous, to maintain, during a year, ten thousand men,
and, during his life, five hundred knights, for the service of
the Holy Land. These tempting conditions were accepted by the
republic of Venice; and the eloquence of the doge and marquis
persuaded the counts of Flanders, Blois, and St. Pol, with eight
barons of France, to join in the glorious enterprise. A treaty of
offensive and defensive alliance was confirmed by their oaths and
seals; and each individual, according to his situation and
character, was swayed by the hope of public or private advantage;
by the honor of restoring an exiled monarch; or by the sincere
and probable opinion, that their efforts in Palestine would be
fruitless and unavailing, and that the acquisition of
Constantinople must precede and prepare the recovery of
Jerusalem. But they were the chiefs or equals of a valiant band
of freemen and volunteers, who thought and acted for themselves:
the soldiers and clergy were divided; and, if a large majority
subscribed to the alliance, the numbers and arguments of the
dissidents were strong and respectable. 53 The boldest hearts
were appalled by the report of the naval power and impregnable
strength of Constantinople; and their apprehensions were
disguised to the world, and perhaps to themselves, by the more
decent objections of religion and duty. They alleged the sanctity
of a vow, which had drawn them from their families and homes to
the rescue of the holy sepulchre; nor should the dark and crooked
counsels of human policy divert them from a pursuit, the event of
which was in the hands of the Almighty. Their first offence, the
attack of Zara, had been severely punished by the reproach of
their conscience and the censures of the pope; nor would they
again imbrue their hands in the blood of their fellow-Christians.
The apostle of Rome had pronounced; nor would they usurp the
right of avenging with the sword the schism of the Greeks and the
doubtful usurpation of the Byzantine monarch. On these principles
or pretences, many pilgrims, the most distinguished for their
valor and piety, withdrew from the camp; and their retreat was
less pernicious than the open or secret opposition of a
discontented party, that labored, on every occasion, to separate
the army and disappoint the enterprise.
49 (return) [ A modern reader is surprised to hear of the valet
de Constantinople, as applied to young Alexius, on account of his
youth, like the _infants_ of Spain, and the _nobilissimus puer_
of the Romans. The pages and _valets_ of the knights were as
noble as themselves, (Villehardouin and Ducange, No. 36.)]
50 (return) [ The emperor Isaac is styled by Villehardouin,
_Sursac_, (No. 35, &c.,) which may be derived from the French
_Sire_, or the Greek Kur (kurioV?) melted into his proper name;
the further corruptions of Tursac and Conserac will instruct us
what license may have been used in the old dynasties of Assyria
and Egypt.]
51 (return) [ Reinier and Conrad: the former married Maria,
daughter of the emperor Manuel Comnenus; the latter was the
husband of Theodora Angela, sister of the emperors Isaac and
Alexius. Conrad abandoned the Greek court and princess for the
glory of defending Tyre against Saladin, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant.
p. 187, 203.)]
52 (return) [ Nicetas (in Alexio Comneno, l. iii. c. 9) accuses
the doge and Venetians as the first authors of the war against
Constantinople, and considers only as a kuma epi kumati, the
arrival and shameful offers of the royal exile. * Note: He
admits, however, that the Angeli had committed depredations on
the Venetian trade, and the emperor himself had refused the
payment of part of the stipulated compensation for the seizure of
the Venetian merchandise by the emperor Manuel. Nicetas, in
loc.—M.]
53 (return) [ Villehardouin and Gunther represent the sentiments
of the two parties. The abbot Martin left the army at Zara,
proceeded to Palestine, was sent ambassador to Constantinople,
and became a reluctant witness of the second siege.]
Notwithstanding this defection, the departure of the fleet and
army was vigorously pressed by the Venetians, whose zeal for the
service of the royal youth concealed a just resentment to his
nation and family. They were mortified by the recent preference
which had been given to Pisa, the rival of their trade; they had
a long arrear of debt and injury to liquidate with the Byzantine
court; and Dandolo might not discourage the popular tale, that he
had been deprived of his eyes by the emperor Manuel, who
perfidiously violated the sanctity of an ambassador. A similar
armament, for ages, had not rode the Adriatic: it was composed of
one hundred and twenty flat-bottomed vessels or _palanders_ for
the horses; two hundred and forty transports filled with men and
arms; seventy store-ships laden with provisions; and fifty stout
galleys, well prepared for the encounter of an enemy. 54 While
the wind was favorable, the sky serene, and the water smooth,
every eye was fixed with wonder and delight on the scene of
military and naval pomp which overspread the sea. 541 The shields
of the knights and squires, at once an ornament and a defence,
were arranged on either side of the ships; the banners of the
nations and families were displayed from the stern; our modern
artillery was supplied by three hundred engines for casting
stones and darts: the fatigues of the way were cheered with the
sound of music; and the spirits of the adventurers were raised by
the mutual assurance, that forty thousand Christian heroes were
equal to the conquest of the world. 55 In the navigation 56 from
Venice and Zara, the fleet was successfully steered by the skill
and experience of the Venetian pilots: at Durazzo, the
confederates first landed on the territories of the Greek empire:
the Isle of Corfu afforded a station and repose; they doubled,
without accident, the perilous cape of Malea, the southern point
of Peloponnesus or the Morea; made a descent in the islands of
Negropont and Andros; and cast anchor at Abydus on the Asiatic
side of the Hellespont. These preludes of conquest were easy and
bloodless: the Greeks of the provinces, without patriotism or
courage, were crushed by an irresistible force: the presence of
the lawful heir might justify their obedience; and it was
rewarded by the modesty and discipline of the Latins. As they
penetrated through the Hellespont, the magnitude of their navy
was compressed in a narrow channel, and the face of the waters
was darkened with innumerable sails. They again expanded in the
basin of the Propontis, and traversed that placid sea, till they
approached the European shore, at the abbey of St. Stephen, three
leagues to the west of Constantinople. The prudent doge dissuaded
them from dispersing themselves in a populous and hostile land;
and, as their stock of provisions was reduced, it was resolved,
in the season of harvest, to replenish their store-ships in the
fertile islands of the Propontis. With this resolution, they
directed their course: but a strong gale, and their own
impatience, drove them to the eastward; and so near did they run
to the shore and the city, that some volleys of stones and darts
were exchanged between the ships and the rampart. As they passed
along, they gazed with admiration on the capital of the East, or,
as it should seem, of the earth; rising from her seven hills, and
towering over the continents of Europe and Asia. The swelling
domes and lofty spires of five hundred palaces and churches were
gilded by the sun and reflected in the waters: the walls were
crowded with soldiers and spectators, whose numbers they beheld,
of whose temper they were ignorant; and each heart was chilled by
the reflection, that, since the beginning of the world, such an
enterprise had never been undertaken by such a handful of
warriors. But the momentary apprehension was dispelled by hope
and valor; and every man, says the marshal of Champagne, glanced
his eye on the sword or lance which he must speedily use in the
glorious conflict. 57 The Latins cast anchor before Chalcedon;
the mariners only were left in the vessels: the soldiers, horses,
and arms, were safely landed; and, in the luxury of an Imperial
palace, the barons tasted the first fruits of their success. On
the third day, the fleet and army moved towards Scutari, the
Asiatic suburb of Constantinople: a detachment of five hundred
Greek horse was surprised and defeated by fourscore French
knights; and in a halt of nine days, the camp was plentifully
supplied with forage and provisions.
54 (return) [ The birth and dignity of Andrew Dandolo gave him
the motive and the means of searching in the archives of Venice
the memorable story of his ancestor. His brevity seems to accuse
the copious and more recent narratives of Sanudo, (in Muratori,
Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xxii.,) Blondus, Sabellicus, and
Rhamnusius.]
541 (return) [ This description rather belongs to the first
setting sail of the expedition from Venice, before the siege of
Zara. The armament did not return to Venice.—M.]
55 (return) [ Villehardouin, No. 62. His feelings and expressions
are original: he often weeps, but he rejoices in the glories and
perils of war with a spirit unknown to a sedentary writer.]
56 (return) [ In this voyage, almost all the geographical names
are corrupted by the Latins. The modern appellation of Chalcis,
and all Euba, is derived from its _Euripus_, _Evripo_,
_Negri-po_, _Negropont_, which dishonors our maps, (D’Anville,
Géographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 263.)]
57 (return) [ Et sachiez que il ni ot si hardi cui le cuer ne
fremist, (c. 66.).. Chascuns regardoit ses armes.... que par tems
en arons mestier, (c. 67.) Such is the honesty of courage.]
In relating the invasion of a great empire, it may seem strange
that I have not described the obstacles which should have checked
the progress of the strangers. The Greeks, in truth, were an
unwarlike people; but they were rich, industrious, and subject to
the will of a single man: had that man been capable of fear, when
his enemies were at a distance, or of courage, when they
approached his person. The first rumor of his nephew’s alliance
with the French and Venetians was despised by the usurper
Alexius: his flatterers persuaded him, that in this contempt he
was bold and sincere; and each evening, in the close of the
banquet, he thrice discomfited the Barbarians of the West. These
Barbarians had been justly terrified by the report of his naval
power; and the sixteen hundred fishing boats of Constantinople 58
could have manned a fleet, to sink them in the Adriatic, or stop
their entrance in the mouth of the Hellespont. But all force may
be annihilated by the negligence of the prince and the venality
of his ministers. The great duke, or admiral, made a scandalous,
almost a public, auction of the sails, the masts, and the
rigging: the royal forests were reserved for the more important
purpose of the chase; and the trees, says Nicetas, were guarded
by the eunuchs, like the groves of religious worship. 59 From his
dream of pride, Alexius was awakened by the siege of Zara, and
the rapid advances of the Latins; as soon as he saw the danger
was real, he thought it inevitable, and his vain presumption was
lost in abject despondency and despair. He suffered these
contemptible Barbarians to pitch their camp in the sight of the
palace; and his apprehensions were thinly disguised by the pomp
and menace of a suppliant embassy. The sovereign of the Romans
was astonished (his ambassadors were instructed to say) at the
hostile appearance of the strangers. If these pilgrims were
sincere in their vow for the deliverance of Jerusalem, his voice
must applaud, and his treasures should assist, their pious design
but should they dare to invade the sanctuary of empire, their
numbers, were they ten times more considerable, should not
protect them from his just resentment. The answer of the doge and
barons was simple and magnanimous. “In the cause of honor and
justice,” they said, “we despise the usurper of Greece, his
threats, and his offers. _Our_ friendship and _his_ allegiance
are due to the lawful heir, to the young prince, who is seated
among us, and to his father, the emperor Isaac, who has been
deprived of his sceptre, his freedom, and his eyes, by the crime
of an ungrateful brother. Let that brother confess his guilt, and
implore forgiveness, and we ourselves will intercede, that he may
be permitted to live in affluence and security. But let him not
insult us by a second message; our reply will be made in arms, in
the palace of Constantinople.”
58 (return) [ Eandem urbem plus in solis navibus piscatorum
abundare, quam illos in toto navigio. Habebat enim mille et
sexcentas piscatorias naves..... Bellicas autem sive mercatorias
habebant infinitæ multitudinis et portum tutissimum. Gunther,
Hist. C. P. c. 8, p. 10.]
59 (return) [ Kaqaper iervn alsewn, eipein de kai Jeojuteutwn
paradeiswn ejeid?onto toutwni. Nicetas in Alex. Comneno, l. iii.
c. 9, p. 348.]
On the tenth day of their encampment at Scutari, the crusaders
prepared themselves, as soldiers and as Catholics, for the
passage of the Bosphorus. Perilous indeed was the adventure; the
stream was broad and rapid: in a calm the current of the Euxine
might drive down the liquid and unextinguishable fires of the
Greeks; and the opposite shores of Europe were defended by
seventy thousand horse and foot in formidable array. On this
memorable day, which happened to be bright and pleasant, the
Latins were distributed in six battles or divisions; the first,
or vanguard, was led by the count of Flanders, one of the most
powerful of the Christian princes in the skill and number of his
crossbows. The four successive battles of the French were
commanded by his brother Henry, the counts of St. Pol and Blois,
and Matthew of Montmorency; the last of whom was honored by the
voluntary service of the marshal and nobles of Champagne. The
sixth division, the rear-guard and reserve of the army, was
conducted by the marquis of Montferrat, at the head of the
Germans and Lombards. The chargers, saddled, with their long
caparisons dragging on the ground, were embarked in the flat
_palanders_; 60 and the knights stood by the side of their
horses, in complete armor, their helmets laced, and their lances
in their hands. The numerous train of sergeants 61 and archers
occupied the transports; and each transport was towed by the
strength and swiftness of a galley. The six divisions traversed
the Bosphorus, without encountering an enemy or an obstacle: to
land the foremost was the wish, to conquer or die was the
resolution, of every division and of every soldier. Jealous of
the preeminence of danger, the knights in their heavy armor
leaped into the sea, when it rose as high as their girdle; the
sergeants and archers were animated by their valor; and the
squires, letting down the draw-bridges of the palanders, led the
horses to the shore. Before their squadrons could mount, and
form, and couch their Lances, the seventy thousand Greeks had
vanished from their sight: the timid Alexius gave the example to
his troops; and it was only by the plunder of his rich pavilions
that the Latins were informed that they had fought against an
emperor. In the first consternation of the flying enemy, they
resolved, by a double attack, to open the entrance of the harbor.
The tower of Galata, 62 in the suburb of Pera, was attacked and
stormed by the French, while the Venetians assumed the more
difficult task of forcing the boom or chain that was stretched
from that tower to the Byzantine shore. After some fruitless
attempts, their intrepid perseverance prevailed: twenty ships of
war, the relics of the Grecian navy, were either sunk or taken:
the enormous and massy links of iron were cut asunder by the
shears, or broken by the weight, of the galleys; 63 and the
Venetian fleet, safe and triumphant, rode at anchor in the port
of Constantinople. By these daring achievements, a remnant of
twenty thousand Latins solicited the license of besieging a
capital which contained above four hundred thousand inhabitants,
64 able, though not willing, to bear arms in defence of their
country. Such an account would indeed suppose a population of
near two millions; but whatever abatement may be required in the
numbers of the Greeks, the _belief_ of those numbers will equally
exalt the fearless spirit of their assailants.
60 (return) [ From the version of Vignere I adopt the
well-sounding word _palander_, which is still used, I believe, in
the Mediterranean. But had I written in French, I should have
preserved the original and expressive denomination of _vessiers_
or _huissiers_, from the _huis_ or door which was let down as a
draw-bridge; but which, at sea, was closed into the side of the
ship, (see Ducange au Villehardouin, No. 14, and Joinville. p.
27, 28, edit. du Louvre.)]
61 (return) [ To avoid the vague expressions of followers, &c., I
use, after Villehardouin, the word _sergeants_ for all horsemen
who were not knights. There were sergeants at arms, and sergeants
at law; and if we visit the parade and Westminster Hall, we may
observe the strange result of the distinction, (Ducange, Glossar.
Latin, _Servientes_, &c., tom. vi. p. 226—231.)]
62 (return) [ It is needless to observe, that on the subject of
Galata, the chain, &c., Ducange is accurate and full. Consult
likewise the proper chapters of the C. P. Christiana of the same
author. The inhabitants of Galata were so vain and ignorant, that
they applied to themselves St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians.]
63 (return) [ The vessel that broke the chain was named the
Eagle, _Aquila_, (Dandolo, Chronicon, p. 322,) which Blondus (de
Gestis Venet.) has changed into _Aquilo_, the north wind. Ducange
(Observations, No. 83) maintains the latter reading; but he had
not seen the respectable text of Dandolo, nor did he enough
consider the topography of the harbor. The south-east would have
been a more effectual wind. (Note to Wilken, vol. v. p. 215.)]
64 (return) [ Quatre cens mil homes ou plus, (Villehardouin, No.
134,) must be understood of _men_ of a military age. Le Beau
(Hist. du. Bas Empire, tom. xx. p. 417) allows Constantinople a
million of inhabitants, of whom 60,000 horse, and an infinite
number of foot-soldiers. In its present decay, the capital of the
Ottoman empire may contain 400,000 souls, (Bell’s Travels, vol.
ii. p. 401, 402;) but as the Turks keep no registers, and as
circumstances are fallacious, it is impossible to ascertain
(Niebuhr, Voyage en Arabie, tom. i. p. 18, 19) the real
populousness of their cities.]
In the choice of the attack, the French and Venetians were
divided by their habits of life and warfare. The former affirmed
with truth, that Constantinople was most accessible on the side
of the sea and the harbor. The latter might assert with honor,
that they had long enough trusted their lives and fortunes to a
frail bark and a precarious element, and loudly demanded a trial
of knighthood, a firm ground, and a close onset, either on foot
or on horseback. After a prudent compromise, of employing the two
nations by sea and land, in the service best suited to their
character, the fleet covering the army, they both proceeded from
the entrance to the extremity of the harbor: the stone bridge of
the river was hastily repaired; and the six battles of the French
formed their encampment against the front of the capital, the
basis of the triangle which runs about four miles from the port
to the Propontis. 65 On the edge of a broad ditch, at the foot of
a lofty rampart, they had leisure to contemplate the difficulties
of their enterprise. The gates to the right and left of their
narrow camp poured forth frequent sallies of cavalry and
light-infantry, which cut off their stragglers, swept the country
of provisions, sounded the alarm five or six times in the course
of each day, and compelled them to plant a palisade, and sink an
intrenchment, for their immediate safety. In the supplies and
convoys the Venetians had been too sparing, or the Franks too
voracious: the usual complaints of hunger and scarcity were
heard, and perhaps felt their stock of flour would be exhausted
in three weeks; and their disgust of salt meat tempted them to
taste the flesh of their horses. The trembling usurper was
supported by Theodore Lascaris, his son-in-law, a valiant youth,
who aspired to save and to rule his country; the Greeks,
regardless of that country, were awakened to the defence of their
religion; but their firmest hope was in the strength and spirit
of the Varangian guards, of the Danes and English, as they are
named in the writers of the times. 66 After ten days’ incessant
labor, the ground was levelled, the ditch filled, the approaches
of the besiegers were regularly made, and two hundred and fifty
engines of assault exercised their various powers to clear the
rampart, to batter the walls, and to sap the foundations. On the
first appearance of a breach, the scaling-ladders were applied:
the numbers that defended the vantage ground repulsed and
oppressed the adventurous Latins; but they admired the resolution
of fifteen knights and sergeants, who had gained the ascent, and
maintained their perilous station till they were precipitated or
made prisoners by the Imperial guards. On the side of the harbor
the naval attack was more successfully conducted by the
Venetians; and that industrious people employed every resource
that was known and practiced before the invention of gunpowder. A
double line, three bow-shots in front, was formed by the galleys
and ships; and the swift motion of the former was supported by
the weight and loftiness of the latter, whose decks, and poops,
and turret, were the platforms of military engines, that
discharged their shot over the heads of the first line. The
soldiers, who leaped from the galleys on shore, immediately
planted and ascended their scaling-ladders, while the large
ships, advancing more slowly into the intervals, and lowering a
draw-bridge, opened a way through the air from their masts to the
rampart. In the midst of the conflict, the doge, a venerable and
conspicuous form, stood aloft in complete armor on the prow of
his galley. The great standard of St. Mark was displayed before
him; his threats, promises, and exhortations, urged the diligence
of the rowers; his vessel was the first that struck; and Dandolo
was the first warrior on the shore. The nations admired the
magnanimity of the blind old man, without reflecting that his age
and infirmities diminished the price of life, and enhanced the
value of immortal glory. On a sudden, by an invisible hand, (for
the standard-bearer was probably slain,) the banner of the
republic was fixed on the rampart: twenty-five towers were
rapidly occupied; and, by the cruel expedient of fire, the Greeks
were driven from the adjacent quarter. The doge had despatched
the intelligence of his success, when he was checked by the
danger of his confederates. Nobly declaring that he would rather
die with the pilgrims than gain a victory by their destruction,
Dandolo relinquished his advantage, recalled his troops, and
hastened to the scene of action. He found the six weary
diminutive _battles_ of the French encompassed by sixty squadrons
of the Greek cavalry, the least of which was more numerous than
the largest of their divisions. Shame and despair had provoked
Alexius to the last effort of a general sally; but he was awed by
the firm order and manly aspect of the Latins; and, after
skirmishing at a distance, withdrew his troops in the close of
the evening. The silence or tumult of the night exasperated his
fears; and the timid usurper, collecting a treasure of ten
thousand pounds of gold, basely deserted his wife, his people,
and his fortune; threw himself into a bark; stole through the
Bosphorus; and landed in shameful safety in an obscure harbor of
Thrace. As soon as they were apprised of his flight, the Greek
nobles sought pardon and peace in the dungeon where the blind
Isaac expected each hour the visit of the executioner. Again
saved and exalted by the vicissitudes of fortune, the captive in
his Imperial robes was replaced on the throne, and surrounded
with prostrate slaves, whose real terror and affected joy he was
incapable of discerning. At the dawn of day, hostilities were
suspended, and the Latin chiefs were surprised by a message from
the lawful and reigning emperor, who was impatient to embrace his
son, and to reward his generous deliverers. 67
65 (return) [ On the most correct plans of Constantinople, I know
not how to measure more than 4000 paces. Yet Villehardouin
computes the space at three leagues, (No. 86.) If his eye were
not deceived, he must reckon by the old Gallic league of 1500
paces, which might still be used in Champagne.]
66 (return) [ The guards, the Varangi, are styled by
Villehardouin, (No. 89, 95) Englois et Danois avec leurs haches.
Whatever had been their origin, a French pilgrim could not be
mistaken in the nations of which they were at that time
composed.]
67 (return) [ For the first siege and conquest of Constantinople,
we may read the original letter of the crusaders to Innocent
III., Gesta, c. 91, p. 533, 534. Villehardouin, No. 75—99.
Nicetas, in Alexio Comnen. l. iii. c. 10, p. 349—352. Dandolo, in
Chron. p. 322. Gunther, and his abbot Martin, were not yet
returned from their obstinate pilgrim age to Jerusalem, or St.
John d’Acre, where the greatest part of the company had died of
the plague.]
Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.—Part III.
But these generous deliverers were unwilling to release their
hostage, till they had obtained from his father the payment, or
at least the promise, of their recompense. They chose four
ambassadors, Matthew of Montmorency, our historian the marshal of
Champagne, and two Venetians, to congratulate the emperor. The
gates were thrown open on their approach, the streets on both
sides were lined with the battle axes of the Danish and English
guard: the presence-chamber glittered with gold and jewels, the
false substitute of virtue and power: by the side of the blind
Isaac his wife was seated, the sister of the king of Hungary: and
by her appearance, the noble matrons of Greece were drawn from
their domestic retirement, and mingled with the circle of
senators and soldiers. The Latins, by the mouth of the marshal,
spoke like men conscious of their merits, but who respected the
work of their own hands; and the emperor clearly understood, that
his son’s engagements with Venice and the pilgrims must be
ratified without hesitation or delay. Withdrawing into a private
chamber with the empress, a chamberlain, an interpreter, and the
four ambassadors, the father of young Alexius inquired with some
anxiety into the nature of his stipulations. The submission of
the Eastern empire to the pope, the succor of the Holy Land, and
a present contribution of two hundred thousand marks of
silver.—“These conditions are weighty,” was his prudent reply:
“they are hard to accept, and difficult to perform. But no
conditions can exceed the measure of your services and deserts.”
After this satisfactory assurance, the barons mounted on
horseback, and introduced the heir of Constantinople to the city
and palace: his youth and marvellous adventures engaged every
heart in his favor, and Alexius was solemnly crowned with his
father in the dome of St. Sophia. In the first days of his reign,
the people, already blessed with the restoration of plenty and
peace, was delighted by the joyful catastrophe of the tragedy;
and the discontent of the nobles, their regret, and their fears,
were covered by the polished surface of pleasure and loyalty The
mixture of two discordant nations in the same capital might have
been pregnant with mischief and danger; and the suburb of Galata,
or Pera, was assigned for the quarters of the French and
Venetians. But the liberty of trade and familiar intercourse was
allowed between the friendly nations: and each day the pilgrims
were tempted by devotion or curiosity to visit the churches and
palaces of Constantinople. Their rude minds, insensible perhaps
of the finer arts, were astonished by the magnificent scenery:
and the poverty of their native towns enhanced the populousness
and riches of the first metropolis of Christendom. 68 Descending
from his state, young Alexius was prompted by interest and
gratitude to repeat his frequent and familiar visits to his Latin
allies; and in the freedom of the table, the gay petulance of the
French sometimes forgot the emperor of the East. 69 In their most
serious conferences, it was agreed, that the reunion of the two
churches must be the result of patience and time; but avarice was
less tractable than zeal; and a larger sum was instantly
disbursed to appease the wants, and silence the importunity, of
the crusaders. 70 Alexius was alarmed by the approaching hour of
their departure: their absence might have relieved him from the
engagement which he was yet incapable of performing; but his
friends would have left him, naked and alone, to the caprice and
prejudice of a perfidious nation. He wished to bribe their stay,
the delay of a year, by undertaking to defray their expense, and
to satisfy, in their name, the freight of the Venetian vessels.
The offer was agitated in the council of the barons; and, after a
repetition of their debates and scruples, a majority of votes
again acquiesced in the advice of the doge and the prayer of the
young emperor. At the price of sixteen hundred pounds of gold, he
prevailed on the marquis of Montferrat to lead him with an army
round the provinces of Europe; to establish his authority, and
pursue his uncle, while Constantinople was awed by the presence
of Baldwin and his confederates of France and Flanders. The
expedition was successful: the blind emperor exulted in the
success of his arms, and listened to the predictions of his
flatterers, that the same Providence which had raised him from
the dungeon to the throne, would heal his gout, restore his
sight, and watch over the long prosperity of his reign. Yet the
mind of the suspicious old man was tormented by the rising
glories of his son; nor could his pride conceal from his envy,
that, while his own name was pronounced in faint and reluctant
acclamations, the royal youth was the theme of spontaneous and
universal praise. 71
68 (return) [ Compare, in the rude energy of Villehardouin, (No.
66, 100,) the inside and outside views of Constantinople, and
their impression on the minds of the pilgrims: cette ville (says
he) que de toutes les autres ere souveraine. See the parallel
passages of Fulcherius Carnotensis, Hist. Hierosol. l. i. c. 4,
and Will. Tyr. ii. 3, xx. 26.]
69 (return) [ As they played at dice, the Latins took off his
diadem, and clapped on his head a woollen or hairy cap, to
megaloprepeV kai pagkleiston katerrupainen onoma, (Nicetas, p.
358.) If these merry companions were Venetians, it was the
insolence of trade and a commonwealth.]
70 (return) [ Villehardouin, No. 101. Dandolo, p. 322. The doge
affirms, that the Venetians were paid more slowly than the
French; but he owns, that the histories of the two nations
differed on that subject. Had he read Villehardouin? The Greeks
complained, however, good totius Græciæ opes transtulisset,
(Gunther, Hist. C. P. c 13) See the lamentations and invectives
of Nicetas, (p. 355.)]
71 (return) [ The reign of Alexius Comnenus occupies three books
in Nicetas, p. 291—352. The short restoration of Isaac and his
son is despatched in five chapters, p. 352—362.]
By the recent invasion, the Greeks were awakened from a dream of
nine centuries; from the vain presumption that the capital of the
Roman empire was impregnable to foreign arms. The strangers of
the West had violated the city, and bestowed the sceptre, of
Constantine: their Imperial clients soon became as unpopular as
themselves: the well-known vices of Isaac were rendered still
more contemptible by his infirmities, and the young Alexius was
hated as an apostate, who had renounced the manners and religion
of his country. His secret covenant with the Latins was divulged
or suspected; the people, and especially the clergy, were
devoutly attached to their faith and superstition; and every
convent, and every shop, resounded with the danger of the church
and the tyranny of the pope. 72 An empty treasury could ill
supply the demands of regal luxury and foreign extortion: the
Greeks refused to avert, by a general tax, the impending evils of
servitude and pillage; the oppression of the rich excited a more
dangerous and personal resentment; and if the emperor melted the
plate, and despoiled the images, of the sanctuary, he seemed to
justify the complaints of heresy and sacrilege. During the
absence of Marquis Boniface and his Imperial pupil,
Constantinople was visited with a calamity which might be justly
imputed to the zeal and indiscretion of the Flemish pilgrims. 73
In one of their visits to the city, they were scandalized by the
aspect of a mosque or synagogue, in which one God was worshipped,
without a partner or a son. Their effectual mode of controversy
was to attack the infidels with the sword, and their habitation
with fire: but the infidels, and some Christian neighbors,
presumed to defend their lives and properties; and the flames
which bigotry had kindled, consumed the most orthodox and
innocent structures. During eight days and nights, the
conflagration spread above a league in front, from the harbor to
the Propontis, over the thickest and most populous regions of the
city. It is not easy to count the stately churches and palaces
that were reduced to a smoking ruin, to value the merchandise
that perished in the trading streets, or to number the families
that were involved in the common destruction. By this outrage,
which the doge and the barons in vain affected to disclaim, the
name of the Latins became still more unpopular; and the colony of
that nation, above fifteen thousand persons, consulted their
safety in a hasty retreat from the city to the protection of
their standard in the suburb of Pera. The emperor returned in
triumph; but the firmest and most dexterous policy would have
been insufficient to steer him through the tempest, which
overwhelmed the person and government of that unhappy youth. His
own inclination, and his father’s advice, attached him to his
benefactors; but Alexius hesitated between gratitude and
patriotism, between the fear of his subjects and of his allies.
74 By his feeble and fluctuating conduct he lost the esteem and
confidence of both; and, while he invited the marquis of
Monferrat to occupy the palace, he suffered the nobles to
conspire, and the people to arm, for the deliverance of their
country. Regardless of his painful situation, the Latin chiefs
repeated their demands, resented his delays, suspected his
intentions, and exacted a decisive answer of peace or war. The
haughty summons was delivered by three French knights and three
Venetian deputies, who girded their swords, mounted their horses,
pierced through the angry multitude, and entered, with a fearful
countenance, the palace and presence of the Greek emperor. In a
peremptory tone, they recapitulated their services and his
engagements; and boldly declared, that unless their just claims
were fully and immediately satisfied, they should no longer hold
him either as a sovereign or a friend. After this defiance, the
first that had ever wounded an Imperial ear, they departed
without betraying any symptoms of fear; but their escape from a
servile palace and a furious city astonished the ambassadors
themselves; and their return to the camp was the signal of mutual
hostility.
72 (return) [ When Nicetas reproaches Alexius for his impious
league, he bestows the harshest names on the pope’s new religion,
meizon kai atopwtaton... parektrophn pistewV... tvn tou Papa
pronomiwn kainismon,... metaqesin te kai metapoihsin tvn palaivn
'RwmaioiV?eqvn, (p. 348.) Such was the sincere language of every
Greek to the last gasp of the empire.]
73 (return) [ Nicetas (p. 355) is positive in the charge, and
specifies the Flemings, (FlamioneV,) though he is wrong in
supposing it an ancient name. Villehardouin (No. 107) exculpates
the barons, and is ignorant (perhaps affectedly ignorant) of the
names of the guilty.]
74 (return) [ Compare the suspicions and complaints of Nicetas
(p. 359—362) with the blunt charges of Baldwin of Flanders,
(Gesta Innocent III. c. 92, p. 534,) cum patriarcha et mole
nobilium, nobis promises perjurus et mendax.]
Among the Greeks, all authority and wisdom were overborne by the
impetuous multitude, who mistook their rage for valor, their
numbers for strength, and their fanaticism for the support and
inspiration of Heaven. In the eyes of both nations Alexius was
false and contemptible; the base and spurious race of the Angeli
was rejected with clamorous disdain; and the people of
Constantinople encompassed the senate, to demand at their hands a
more worthy emperor. To every senator, conspicuous by his birth
or dignity, they successively presented the purple: by each
senator the deadly garment was repulsed: the contest lasted three
days; and we may learn from the historian Nicetas, one of the
members of the assembly, that fear and weaknesses were the
guardians of their loyalty. A phantom, who vanished in oblivion,
was forcibly proclaimed by the crowd: 75 but the author of the
tumult, and the leader of the war, was a prince of the house of
Ducas; and his common appellation of Alexius must be
discriminated by the epithet of Mourzoufle, 76 which in the
vulgar idiom expressed the close junction of his black and shaggy
eyebrows. At once a patriot and a courtier, the perfidious
Mourzoufle, who was not destitute of cunning and courage, opposed
the Latins both in speech and action, inflamed the passions and
prejudices of the Greeks, and insinuated himself into the favor
and confidence of Alexius, who trusted him with the office of
great chamberlain, and tinged his buskins with the colors of
royalty. At the dead of night, he rushed into the bed-chamber
with an affrighted aspect, exclaiming, that the palace was
attacked by the people and betrayed by the guards. Starting from
his couch, the unsuspecting prince threw himself into the arms of
his enemy, who had contrived his escape by a private staircase.
But that staircase terminated in a prison: Alexius was seized,
stripped, and loaded with chains; and, after tasting some days
the bitterness of death, he was poisoned, or strangled, or beaten
with clubs, at the command, or in the presence, of the tyrant.
The emperor Isaac Angelus soon followed his son to the grave; and
Mourzoufle, perhaps, might spare the superfluous crime of
hastening the extinction of impotence and blindness.
75 (return) [ His name was Nicholas Canabus: he deserved the
praise of Nicetas and the vengeance of Mourzoufle, (p. 362.)]
76 (return) [ Villehardouin (No. 116) speaks of him as a
favorite, without knowing that he was a prince of the blood,
_Angelus_ and _Ducas_. Ducange, who pries into every corner,
believes him to be the son of Isaac Ducas Sebastocrator, and
second cousin of young Alexius.]
The death of the emperors, and the usurpation of Mourzoufle, had
changed the nature of the quarrel. It was no longer the
disagreement of allies who overvalued their services, or
neglected their obligations: the French and Venetians forgot
their complaints against Alexius, dropped a tear on the untimely
fate of their companion, and swore revenge against the perfidious
nation who had crowned his assassin. Yet the prudent doge was
still inclined to negotiate: he asked as a debt, a subsidy, or a
fine, fifty thousand pounds of gold, about two millions sterling;
nor would the conference have been abruptly broken, if the zeal,
or policy, of Mourzoufle had not refused to sacrifice the Greek
church to the safety of the state. 77 Amidst the invectives of
his foreign and domestic enemies, we may discern, that he was not
unworthy of the character which he had assumed, of the public
champion: the second siege of Constantinople was far more
laborious than the first; the treasury was replenished, and
discipline was restored, by a severe inquisition into the abuses
of the former reign; and Mourzoufle, an iron mace in his hand,
visiting the posts, and affecting the port and aspect of a
warrior, was an object of terror to his soldiers, at least, and
to his kinsmen. Before and after the death of Alexius, the Greeks
made two vigorous and well-conducted attempts to burn the navy in
the harbor; but the skill and courage of the Venetians repulsed
the fire-ships; and the vagrant flames wasted themselves without
injury in the sea. 78 In a nocturnal sally the Greek emperor was
vanquished by Henry, brother of the count of Flanders: the
advantages of number and surprise aggravated the shame of his
defeat: his buckler was found on the field of battle; and the
Imperial standard, 79 a divine image of the Virgin, was
presented, as a trophy and a relic to the Cistercian monks, the
disciples of St. Bernard. Near three months, without excepting
the holy season of Lent, were consumed in skirmishes and
preparations, before the Latins were ready or resolved for a
general assault. The land fortifications had been found
impregnable; and the Venetian pilots represented, that, on the
shore of the Propontis, the anchorage was unsafe, and the ships
must be driven by the current far away to the straits of the
Hellespont; a prospect not unpleasing to the reluctant pilgrims,
who sought every opportunity of breaking the army. From the
harbor, therefore, the assault was determined by the assailants,
and expected by the besieged; and the emperor had placed his
scarlet pavilions on a neighboring height, to direct and animate
the efforts of his troops. A fearless spectator, whose mind could
entertain the ideas of pomp and pleasure, might have admired the
long array of two embattled armies, which extended above half a
league, the one on the ships and galleys, the other on the walls
and towers raised above the ordinary level by several stages of
wooden turrets. Their first fury was spent in the discharge of
darts, stones, and fire, from the engines; but the water was
deep; the French were bold; the Venetians were skilful; they
approached the walls; and a desperate conflict of swords, spears,
and battle-axes, was fought on the trembling bridges that
grappled the floating, to the stable, batteries. In more than a
hundred places, the assault was urged, and the defence was
sustained; till the superiority of ground and numbers finally
prevailed, and the Latin trumpets sounded a retreat. On the
ensuing days, the attack was renewed with equal vigor, and a
similar event; and, in the night, the doge and the barons held a
council, apprehensive only for the public danger: not a voice
pronounced the words of escape or treaty; and each warrior,
according to his temper, embraced the hope of victory, or the
assurance of a glorious death. 80 By the experience of the former
siege, the Greeks were instructed, but the Latins were animated;
and the knowledge that Constantinople might be taken, was of more
avail than the local precautions which that knowledge had
inspired for its defence. In the third assault, two ships were
linked together to double their strength; a strong north wind
drove them on the shore; the bishops of Troyes and Soissons led
the van; and the auspicious names of the _pilgrim_ and the
_paradise_ resounded along the line. 81 The episcopal banners
were displayed on the walls; a hundred marks of silver had been
promised to the first adventurers; and if their reward was
intercepted by death, their names have been immortalized by fame.
811 Four towers were scaled; three gates were burst open; and the
French knights, who might tremble on the waves, felt themselves
invincible on horseback on the solid ground. Shall I relate that
the thousands who guarded the emperor’s person fled on the
approach, and before the lance, of a single warrior? Their
ignominious flight is attested by their countryman Nicetas: an
army of phantoms marched with the French hero, and he was
magnified to a giant in the eyes of the Greeks. 82 While the
fugitives deserted their posts and cast away their arms, the
Latins entered the city under the banners of their leaders: the
streets and gates opened for their passage; and either design or
accident kindled a third conflagration, which consumed in a few
hours the measure of three of the largest cities of France. 83 In
the close of evening, the barons checked their troops, and
fortified their stations: They were awed by the extent and
populousness of the capital, which might yet require the labor of
a month, if the churches and palaces were conscious of their
internal strength. But in the morning, a suppliant procession,
with crosses and images, announced the submission of the Greeks,
and deprecated the wrath of the conquerors: the usurper escaped
through the golden gate: the palaces of Blachernæ and Boucoleon
were occupied by the count of Flanders and the marquis of
Montferrat; and the empire, which still bore the name of
Constantine, and the title of Roman, was subverted by the arms of
the Latin pilgrims. 84
77 (return) [ This negotiation, probable in itself, and attested
by Nicetas, (p 65,) is omitted as scandalous by the delicacy of
Dandolo and Villehardouin. * Note: Wilken places it before the
death of Alexius, vol. v. p. 276.—M.]
78 (return) [ Baldwin mentions both attempts to fire the fleet,
(Gest. c. 92, p. 534, 535;) Villehardouin, (No. 113—15) only
describes the first. It is remarkable that neither of these
warriors observe any peculiar properties in the Greek fire.]
79 (return) [ Ducange (No. 119) pours forth a torrent of learning
on the _Gonfanon Imperial_. This banner of the Virgin is shown at
Venice as a trophy and relic: if it be genuine the pious doge
must have cheated the monks of Citeaux.]
80 (return) [ Villehardouin (No. 126) confesses, that mult ere
grant peril; and Guntherus (Hist. C. P. c. 13) affirms, that
nulla spes victoriæ arridere poterat. Yet the knight despises
those who thought of flight, and the monk praises his countrymen
who were resolved on death.]
81 (return) [ Baldwin, and all the writers, honor the names of
these two galleys, felici auspicio.]
811 (return) [ Pietro Alberti, a Venetian noble and Andrew
d’Amboise a French knight.—M.]
82 (return) [ With an allusion to Homer, Nicetas calls him
enneorguioV, nine orgyæ, or eighteen yards high, a stature which
would, indeed, have excused the terror of the Greek. On this
occasion, the historian seems fonder of the marvellous than of
his country, or perhaps of truth. Baldwin exclaims in the words
of the psalmist, persequitur unus ex nobis centum alienos.]
83 (return) [ Villehardouin (No. 130) is again ignorant of the
authors of _this_ more legitimate fire, which is ascribed by
Gunther to a quidam comes Teutonicus, (c. 14.) They seem ashamed,
the incendiaries!]
84 (return) [ For the second siege and conquest of
Constantinople, see Villehardouin (No. 113—132,) Baldwin’s iid
Epistle to Innocent III., (Gesta c. 92, p. 534—537,) with the
whole reign of Mourzoufle, in Nicetas, (p 363—375;) and borrowed
some hints from Dandolo (Chron. Venet. p. 323—330) and Gunther,
(Hist. C. P. c. 14—18,) who added the decorations of prophecy and
vision. The former produces an oracle of the Erythræan sibyl, of
a great armament on the Adriatic, under a blind chief, against
Byzantium, &c. Curious enough, were the prediction anterior to
the fact.]
Constantinople had been taken by storm; and no restraints, except
those of religion and humanity, were imposed on the conquerors by
the laws of war. Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, still acted as
their general; and the Greeks, who revered his name as that of
their future sovereign, were heard to exclaim in a lamentable
tone, “Holy marquis-king, have mercy upon us!” His prudence or
compassion opened the gates of the city to the fugitives; and he
exhorted the soldiers of the cross to spare the lives of their
fellow-Christians. The streams of blood that flowed down the
pages of Nicetas may be reduced to the slaughter of two thousand
of his unresisting countrymen; 85 and the greater part was
massacred, not by the strangers, but by the Latins, who had been
driven from the city, and who exercised the revenge of a
triumphant faction. Yet of these exiles, some were less mindful
of injuries than of benefits; and Nicetas himself was indebted
for his safety to the generosity of a Venetian merchant. Pope
Innocent the Third accuses the pilgrims for respecting, in their
lust, neither age nor sex, nor religious profession; and bitterly
laments that the deeds of darkness, fornication, adultery, and
incest, were perpetrated in open day; and that noble matrons and
holy nuns were polluted by the grooms and peasants of the
Catholic camp. 86 It is indeed probable that the license of
victory prompted and covered a multitude of sins: but it is
certain, that the capital of the East contained a stock of venal
or willing beauty, sufficient to satiate the desires of twenty
thousand pilgrims; and female prisoners were no longer subject to
the right or abuse of domestic slavery. The marquis of Montferrat
was the patron of discipline and decency; the count of Flanders
was the mirror of chastity: they had forbidden, under pain of
death, the rape of married women, or virgins, or nuns; and the
proclamation was sometimes invoked by the vanquished 87 and
respected by the victors. Their cruelty and lust were moderated
by the authority of the chiefs, and feelings of the soldiers; for
we are no longer describing an irruption of the northern savages;
and however ferocious they might still appear, time, policy, and
religion had civilized the manners of the French, and still more
of the Italians. But a free scope was allowed to their avarice,
which was glutted, even in the holy week, by the pillage of
Constantinople. The right of victory, unshackled by any promise
or treaty, had confiscated the public and private wealth of the
Greeks; and every hand, according to its size and strength, might
lawfully execute the sentence and seize the forfeiture. A
portable and universal standard of exchange was found in the
coined and uncoined metals of gold and silver, which each captor,
at home or abroad, might convert into the possessions most
suitable to his temper and situation. Of the treasures, which
trade and luxury had accumulated, the silks, velvets, furs, the
gems, spices, and rich movables, were the most precious, as they
could not be procured for money in the ruder countries of Europe.
An order of rapine was instituted; nor was the share of each
individual abandoned to industry or chance. Under the tremendous
penalties of perjury, excommunication, and death, the Latins were
bound to deliver their plunder into the common stock: three
churches were selected for the deposit and distribution of the
spoil: a single share was allotted to a foot-soldier; two for a
sergeant on horseback; four to a knight; and larger proportions
according to the rank and merit of the barons and princes. For
violating this sacred engagement, a knight belonging to the count
of St. Paul was hanged with his shield and coat of arms round his
neck; his example might render similar offenders more artful and
discreet; but avarice was more powerful than fear; and it is
generally believed that the secret far exceeded the acknowledged
plunder. Yet the magnitude of the prize surpassed the largest
scale of experience or expectation. 88 After the whole had been
equally divided between the French and Venetians, fifty thousand
marks were deducted to satisfy the debts of the former and the
demands of the latter. The residue of the French amounted to four
hundred thousand marks of silver, 89 about eight hundred thousand
pounds sterling; nor can I better appreciate the value of that
sum in the public and private transactions of the age, than by
defining it as seven times the annual revenue of the kingdom of
England. 90
85 (return) [ Ceciderunt tamen eâ die civium quasi duo millia,
&c., (Gunther, c. 18.) Arithmetic is an excellent touchstone to
try the amplifications of passion and rhetoric.]
86 (return) [ Quidam (says Innocent III., Gesta, c. 94, p. 538)
nec religioni, nec ætati, nec sexui pepercerunt: sed
fornicationes, adulteria, et incestus in oculis omnium
exercentes, non solûm maritatas et viduas, sed et matronas et
virgines Deoque dicatas, exposuerunt spurcitiis garcionum.
Villehardouin takes no notice of these common incidents.]
87 (return) [ Nicetas saved, and afterwards married, a noble
virgin, (p. 380,) whom a soldier, eti martusi polloiV onhdon
epibrimwmenoV, had almost violated in spite of the entolai,
entalmata eu gegonotwn.]
88 (return) [ Of the general mass of wealth, Gunther observes, ut
de pauperibus et advenis cives ditissimi redderentur, (Hist. C.
P. c. 18; (Villehardouin, (No. 132,) that since the creation, ne
fu tant gaaignié dans une ville; Baldwin, (Gesta, c. 92,) ut
tantum tota non videatur possidere Latinitas.]
89 (return) [ Villehardouin, No. 133—135. Instead of 400,000,
there is a various reading of 500,000. The Venetians had offered
to take the whole booty, and to give 400 marks to each knight,
200 to each priest and horseman, and 100 to each foot-soldier:
they would have been great losers, (Le Beau, Hist. du. Bas Empire
tom. xx. p. 506. I know not from whence.)]
90 (return) [ At the council of Lyons (A.D. 1245) the English
ambassadors stated the revenue of the crown as below that of the
foreign clergy, which amounted to 60,000 marks a year, (Matthew
Paris, p. 451 Hume’s Hist. of England, vol. ii. p. 170.)]
In this great revolution we enjoy the singular felicity of
comparing the narratives of Villehardouin and Nicetas, the
opposite feelings of the marshal of Champagne and the Byzantine
senator. 91 At the first view it should seem that the wealth of
Constantinople was only transferred from one nation to another;
and that the loss and sorrow of the Greeks is exactly balanced by
the joy and advantage of the Latins. But in the miserable account
of war, the gain is never equivalent to the loss, the pleasure to
the pain; the smiles of the Latins were transient and fallacious;
the Greeks forever wept over the ruins of their country; and
their real calamities were aggravated by sacrilege and mockery.
What benefits accrued to the conquerors from the three fires
which annihilated so vast a portion of the buildings and riches
of the city? What a stock of such things, as could neither be
used nor transported, was maliciously or wantonly destroyed! How
much treasure was idly wasted in gaming, debauchery, and riot!
And what precious objects were bartered for a vile price by the
impatience or ignorance of the soldiers, whose reward was stolen
by the base industry of the last of the Greeks! These alone, who
had nothing to lose, might derive some profit from the
revolution; but the misery of the upper ranks of society is
strongly painted in the personal adventures of Nicetas himself.
His stately palace had been reduced to ashes in the second
conflagration; and the senator, with his family and friends,
found an obscure shelter in another house which he possessed near
the church of St. Sophia. It was the door of this mean habitation
that his friend, the Venetian merchant, guarded in the disguise
of a soldier, till Nicetas could save, by a precipitate flight,
the relics of his fortune and the chastity of his daughter. In a
cold, wintry season, these fugitives, nursed in the lap of
prosperity, departed on foot; his wife was with child; the
desertion of their slaves compelled them to carry their baggage
on their own shoulders; and their women, whom they placed in the
centre, were exhorted to conceal their beauty with dirt, instead
of adorning it with paint and jewels Every step was exposed to
insult and danger: the threats of the strangers were less painful
than the taunts of the plebeians, with whom they were now
levelled; nor did the exiles breathe in safety till their
mournful pilgrimage was concluded at Selymbria, above forty miles
from the capital. On the way they overtook the patriarch, without
attendance and almost without apparel, riding on an ass, and
reduced to a state of apostolical poverty, which, had it been
voluntary, might perhaps have been meritorious. In the mean
while, his desolate churches were profaned by the licentiousness
and party zeal of the Latins. After stripping the gems and
pearls, they converted the chalices into drinking-cups; their
tables, on which they gamed and feasted, were covered with the
pictures of Christ and the saints; and they trampled under foot
the most venerable objects of the Christian worship. In the
cathedral of St. Sophia, the ample veil of the sanctuary was rent
asunder for the sake of the golden fringe; and the altar, a
monument of art and riches, was broken in pieces and shared among
the captors. Their mules and horses were laden with the wrought
silver and gilt carvings, which they tore down from the doors and
pulpit; and if the beasts stumbled under the burden, they were
stabbed by their impatient drivers, and the holy pavement
streamed with their impure blood. A prostitute was seated on the
throne of the patriarch; and that daughter of Belial, as she is
styled, sung and danced in the church, to ridicule the hymns and
processions of the Orientals. Nor were the repositories of the
royal dead secure from violation: in the church of the Apostles,
the tombs of the emperors were rifled; and it is said, that after
six centuries the corpse of Justinian was found without any signs
of decay or putrefaction. In the streets, the French and Flemings
clothed themselves and their horses in painted robes and flowing
head-dresses of linen; and the coarse intemperance of their
feasts 92 insulted the splendid sobriety of the East. To expose
the arms of a people of scribes and scholars, they affected to
display a pen, an inkhorn, and a sheet of paper, without
discerning that the instruments of science and valor were _alike_
feeble and useless in the hands of the modern Greeks.
91 (return) [ The disorders of the sack of Constantinople, and
his own adventures, are feelingly described by Nicetas, p.
367—369, and in the Status Urb. C. P. p. 375—384. His complaints,
even of sacrilege, are justified by Innocent III., (Gesta, c.
92;) but Villehardouin does not betray a symptom of pity or
remorse.]
92 (return) [ If I rightly apprehend the Greek of Nicetas’s
receipts, their favorite dishes were boiled buttocks of beef,
salt pork and peas, and soup made of garlic and sharp or sour
herbs, (p. 382.)]
Their reputation and their language encouraged them, however, to
despise the ignorance and to overlook the progress of the Latins.
93 In the love of the arts, the national difference was still
more obvious and real; the Greeks preserved with reverence the
works of their ancestors, which they could not imitate; and, in
the destruction of the statues of Constantinople, we are provoked
to join in the complaints and invectives of the Byzantine
historian. 94 We have seen how the rising city was adorned by the
vanity and despotism of the Imperial founder: in the ruins of
paganism, some gods and heroes were saved from the axe of
superstition; and the forum and hippodrome were dignified with
the relics of a better age. Several of these are described by
Nicetas, 95 in a florid and affected style; and from his
descriptions I shall select some interesting particulars. _1._
The victorious charioteers were cast in bronze, at their own or
the public charge, and fitly placed in the hippodrome: they stood
aloft in their chariots, wheeling round the goal: the spectators
could admire their attitude, and judge of the resemblance; and of
these figures, the most perfect might have been transported from
the Olympic stadium. _2._ The sphinx, river-horse, and crocodile,
denote the climate and manufacture of Egypt and the spoils of
that ancient province. _3._ The she-wolf suckling Romulus and
Remus, a subject alike pleasing to the _old_ and the _new_
Romans, but which could really be treated before the decline of
the Greek sculpture. _4._ An eagle holding and tearing a serpent
in his talons, a domestic monument of the Byzantines, which they
ascribed, not to a human artist, but to the magic power of the
philosopher Apollonius, who, by this talisman, delivered the city
from such venomous reptiles. _5._ An ass and his driver, which
were erected by Augustus in his colony of Nicopolis, to
commemorate a verbal omen of the victory of Actium. _6._ An
equestrian statue which passed, in the vulgar opinion, for
Joshua, the Jewish conqueror, stretching out his hand to stop the
course of the descending sun. A more classical tradition
recognized the figures of Bellerophon and Pegasus; and the free
attitude of the steed seemed to mark that he trod on air, rather
than on the earth. _7._ A square and lofty obelisk of brass; the
sides were embossed with a variety of picturesque and rural
scenes, birds singing; rustics laboring, or playing on their
pipes; sheep bleating; lambs skipping; the sea, and a scene of
fish and fishing; little naked cupids laughing, playing, and
pelting each other with apples; and, on the summit, a female
figure, turning with the slightest breath, and thence denominated
_the wind’s attendant_. _8._ The Phrygian shepherd presenting to
Venus the prize of beauty, the apple of discord. _9._ The
incomparable statue of Helen, which is delineated by Nicetas in
the words of admiration and love: her well-turned feet, snowy
arms, rosy lips, bewitching smiles, swimming eyes, arched
eyebrows, the harmony of her shape, the lightness of her drapery,
and her flowing locks that waved in the wind; a beauty that might
have moved her Barbarian destroyers to pity and remorse. _10._
The manly or divine form of Hercules, 96 as he was restored to
life by the masterhand of Lysippus; of such magnitude, that his
thumb was equal to his waist, his leg to the stature, of a common
man: 97 his chest ample, his shoulders broad, his limbs strong
and muscular, his hair curled, his aspect commanding. Without his
bow, or quiver, or club, his lion’s skin carelessly thrown over
him, he was seated on an osier basket, his right leg and arm
stretched to the utmost, his left knee bent, and supporting his
elbow, his head reclining on his left hand, his countenance
indignant and pensive. _11._ A colossal statue of Juno, which had
once adorned her temple of Samos, the enormous head by four yoke
of oxen was laboriously drawn to the palace. _12._ Another
colossus, of Pallas or Minerva, thirty feet in height, and
representing with admirable spirit the attributes and character
of the martial maid. Before we accuse the Latins, it is just to
remark, that this Pallas was destroyed after the first siege, by
the fear and superstition of the Greeks themselves. 98 The other
statues of brass which I have enumerated were broken and melted
by the unfeeling avarice of the crusaders: the cost and labor
were consumed in a moment; the soul of genius evaporated in
smoke; and the remnant of base metal was coined into money for
the payment of the troops. Bronze is not the most durable of
monuments: from the marble forms of Phidias and Praxiteles, the
Latins might turn aside with stupid contempt; 99 but unless they
were crushed by some accidental injury, those useless stones
stood secure on their pedestals. 100 The most enlightened of the
strangers, above the gross and sensual pursuits of their
countrymen, more piously exercised the right of conquest in the
search and seizure of the relics of the saints. 101 Immense was
the supply of heads and bones, crosses and images, that were
scattered by this revolution over the churches of Europe; and
such was the increase of pilgrimage and oblation, that no branch,
perhaps, of more lucrative plunder was imported from the East.
102 Of the writings of antiquity, many that still existed in the
twelfth century, are now lost. But the pilgrims were not
solicitous to save or transport the volumes of an unknown tongue:
the perishable substance of paper or parchment can only be
preserved by the multiplicity of copies; the literature of the
Greeks had almost centred in the metropolis; and, without
computing the extent of our loss, we may drop a tear over the
libraries that have perished in the triple fire of
Constantinople. 103
93 (return) [ Nicetas uses very harsh expressions, par
agrammatoiV BarbaroiV, kai teleon analfabhtoiV, (Fragment, apud
Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 414.) This reproach, it is
true, applies most strongly to their ignorance of Greek and of
Homer. In their own language, the Latins of the xiith and xiiith
centuries were not destitute of literature. See Harris’s
Philological Inquiries, p. iii. c. 9, 10, 11.]
94 (return) [ Nicetas was of Chonæ in Phrygia, (the old Colossæ
of St. Paul:) he raised himself to the honors of senator, judge
of the veil, and great logothete; beheld the fall of the empire,
retired to Nice, and composed an elaborate history from the death
of Alexius Comnenus to the reign of Henry.]
95 (return) [ A manuscript of Nicetas in the Bodleian library
contains this curious fragment on the statues of Constantinople,
which fraud, or shame, or rather carelessness, has dropped in the
common editions. It is published by Fabricius, (Bibliot. Græc.
tom. vi. p. 405—416,) and immoderately praised by the late
ingenious Mr. Harris of Salisbury, (Philological Inquiries, p.
iii. c. 5, p. 301—312.)]
96 (return) [ To illustrate the statue of Hercules, Mr. Harris
quotes a Greek epigram, and engraves a beautiful gem, which does
not, however, copy the attitude of the statue: in the latter,
Hercules had not his club, and his right leg and arm were
extended.]
97 (return) [ I transcribe these proportions, which appear to me
inconsistent with each other; and may possibly show, that the
boasted taste of Nicetas was no more than affectation and
vanity.]
98 (return) [ Nicetas in Isaaco Angelo et Alexio, c. 3, p. 359.
The Latin editor very properly observes, that the historian, in
his bombast style, produces ex pulice elephantem.]
99 (return) [ In two passages of Nicetas (edit. Paris, p. 360.
Fabric. p. 408) the Latins are branded with the lively reproach
of oi tou kalou anerastoi barbaroi, and their avarice of brass is
clearly expressed. Yet the Venetians had the merit of removing
four bronze horses from Constantinople to the place of St. Mark,
(Sanuto, Vite del Dogi, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum,
tom. xxii. p. 534.)]
100 (return) [ Winckelman, Hist. de l’Art. tom. iii. p. 269,
270.]
101 (return) [ See the pious robbery of the abbot Martin, who
transferred a rich cargo to his monastery of Paris, diocese of
Basil, (Gunther, Hist. C. P. c. 19, 23, 24.) Yet in secreting
this booty, the saint incurred an excommunication, and perhaps
broke his oath. (Compare Wilken vol. v. p. 308.—M.)]
102 (return) [ Fleury, Hist. Eccles tom. xvi. p. 139—145.]
103 (return) [ I shall conclude this chapter with the notice of a
modern history, which illustrates the taking of Constantinople by
the Latins; but which has fallen somewhat late into my hands.
Paolo Ramusio, the son of the compiler of Voyages, was directed
by the senate of Venice to write the history of the conquest: and
this order, which he received in his youth, he executed in a
mature age, by an elegant Latin work, de Bello
Constantinopolitano et Imperatoribus Comnenis per Gallos et
Venetos restitutis, (Venet. 1635, in folio.) Ramusio, or
Rhamnusus, transcribes and translates, sequitur ad unguem, a MS.
of Villehardouin, which he possessed; but he enriches his
narrative with Greek and Latin materials, and we are indebted to
him for a correct state of the fleet, the names of the fifty
Venetian nobles who commanded the galleys of the republic, and
the patriot opposition of Pantaleon Barbus to the choice of the
doge for emperor.]
Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And
Venetians.—Part I.
Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians,—Five Latin
Emperors Of The Houses Of Flanders And Courtenay.— Their Wars
Against The Bulgarians And Greeks.—Weakness And Poverty Of The
Latin Empire.—Recovery Of Constantinople By The Greeks.—General
Consequences Of The Crusades.
After the death of the lawful princes, the French and Venetians,
confident of justice and victory, agreed to divide and regulate
their future possessions. 1 It was stipulated by treaty, that
twelve electors, six of either nation, should be nominated; that
a majority should choose the emperor of the East; and that, if
the votes were equal, the decision of chance should ascertain the
successful candidate. To him, with all the titles and
prerogatives of the Byzantine throne, they assigned the two
palaces of Boucoleon and Blachernæ, with a fourth part of the
Greek monarchy. It was defined that the three remaining portions
should be equally shared between the republic of Venice and the
barons of France; that each feudatory, with an honorable
exception for the doge, should acknowledge and perform the duties
of homage and military service to the supreme head of the empire;
that the nation which gave an emperor, should resign to their
brethren the choice of a patriarch; and that the pilgrims,
whatever might be their impatience to visit the Holy Land, should
devote another year to the conquest and defence of the Greek
provinces. After the conquest of Constantinople by the Latins,
the treaty was confirmed and executed; and the first and most
important step was the creation of an emperor. The six electors
of the French nation were all ecclesiastics, the abbot of Loces,
the archbishop elect of Acre in Palestine, and the bishops of
Troyes, Soissons, Halberstadt, and Bethlehem, the last of whom
exercised in the camp the office of pope’s legate: their
profession and knowledge were respectable; and as _they_ could
not be the objects, they were best qualified to be the authors of
the choice. The six Venetians were the principal servants of the
state, and in this list the noble families of Querini and
Contarini are still proud to discover their ancestors. The twelve
assembled in the chapel of the palace; and after the solemn
invocation of the Holy Ghost, they proceeded to deliberate and
vote. A just impulse of respect and gratitude prompted them to
crown the virtues of the doge; his wisdom had inspired their
enterprise; and the most youthful knights might envy and applaud
the exploits of blindness and age. But the patriot Dandolo was
devoid of all personal ambition, and fully satisfied that he had
been judged worthy to reign. His nomination was overruled by the
Venetians themselves: his countrymen, and perhaps his friends, 2
represented, with the eloquence of truth, the mischiefs that
might arise to national freedom and the common cause, from the
union of two incompatible characters, of the first magistrate of
a republic and the emperor of the East. The exclusion of the doge
left room for the more equal merits of Boniface and Baldwin; and
at their names all meaner candidates respectfully withdrew. The
marquis of Montferrat was recommended by his mature age and fair
reputation, by the choice of the adventurers, and the wishes of
the Greeks; nor can I believe that Venice, the mistress of the
sea, could be seriously apprehensive of a petty lord at the foot
of the Alps. 3 But the count of Flanders was the chief of a
wealthy and warlike people: he was valiant, pious, and chaste; in
the prime of life, since he was only thirty-two years of age; a
descendant of Charlemagne, a cousin of the king of France, and a
compeer of the prelates and barons who had yielded with
reluctance to the command of a foreigner. Without the chapel,
these barons, with the doge and marquis at their head, expected
the decision of the twelve electors. It was announced by the
bishop of Soissons, in the name of his colleagues: “Ye have sworn
to obey the prince whom we should choose: by our unanimous
suffrage, Baldwin count of Flanders and Hainault is now your
sovereign, and the emperor of the East.” He was saluted with loud
applause, and the proclamation was reechoed through the city by
the joy of the Latins, and the trembling adulation of the Greeks.
Boniface was the first to kiss the hand of his rival, and to
raise him on the buckler: and Baldwin was transported to the
cathedral, and solemnly invested with the purple buskins. At the
end of three weeks he was crowned by the legate, in the vacancy
of the patriarch; but the Venetian clergy soon filled the chapter
of St. Sophia, seated Thomas Morosini on the ecclesiastical
throne, and employed every art to perpetuate in their own nation
the honors and benefices of the Greek church. 4 Without delay the
successor of Constantine instructed Palestine, France, and Rome,
of this memorable revolution. To Palestine he sent, as a trophy,
the gates of Constantinople, and the chain of the harbor; 5 and
adopted, from the Assise of Jerusalem, the laws or customs best
adapted to a French colony and conquest in the East. In his
epistles, the natives of France are encouraged to swell that
colony, and to secure that conquest, to people a magnificent city
and a fertile land, which will reward the labors both of the
priest and the soldier. He congratulates the Roman pontiff on the
restoration of his authority in the East; invites him to
extinguish the Greek schism by his presence in a general council;
and implores his blessing and forgiveness for the disobedient
pilgrims. Prudence and dignity are blended in the answer of
Innocent. 6 In the subversion of the Byzantine empire, he
arraigns the vices of man, and adores the providence of God; the
conquerors will be absolved or condemned by their future conduct;
the validity of their treaty depends on the judgment of St.
Peter; but he inculcates their most sacred duty of establishing a
just subordination of obedience and tribute, from the Greeks to
the Latins, from the magistrate to the clergy, and from the
clergy to the pope.
1 (return) [ See the original treaty of partition, in the
Venetian Chronicle of Andrew Dandolo, p. 326—330, and the
subsequent election in Ville hardouin, No. 136—140, with Ducange
in his Observations, and the book of his Histoire de
Constantinople sous l’Empire des François.]
2 (return) [ After mentioning the nomination of the doge by a
French elector his kinsman Andrew Dandolo approves his exclusion,
quidam Venetorum fidelis et nobilis senex, usus oratione satis
probabili, &c., which has been embroidered by modern writers from
Blondus to Le Beau.]
3 (return) [ Nicetas, (p. 384,) with the vain ignorance of a
Greek, describes the marquis of Montferrat as a _maritime_ power.
Dampardian de oikeisqai paralion. Was he deceived by the
Byzantine theme of Lombardy which extended along the coast of
Calabria?]
4 (return) [ They exacted an oath from Thomas Morosini to appoint
no canons of St. Sophia the lawful electors, except Venetians who
had lived ten years at Venice, &c. But the foreign clergy was
envious, the pope disapproved this national monopoly, and of the
six Latin patriarchs of Constantinople, only the first and the
last were Venetians.]
5 (return) [ Nicetas, p. 383.]
6 (return) [ The Epistles of Innocent III. are a rich fund for
the ecclesiastical and civil institution of the Latin empire of
Constantinople; and the most important of these epistles (of
which the collection in 2 vols. in folio is published by Stephen
Baluze) are inserted in his Gesta, in Muratori, Script. Rerum
Italicarum, tom. iii. p. l. c. 94—105.]
In the division of the Greek provinces, 7 the share of the
Venetians was more ample than that of the Latin emperor. No more
than one fourth was appropriated to his domain; a clear moiety of
the remainder was reserved for Venice; and the other moiety was
distributed among the adventurers of France and Lombardy. The
venerable Dandolo was proclaimed despot of Romania, and invested
after the Greek fashion with the purple buskins. He ended at
Constantinople his long and glorious life; and if the prerogative
was personal, the title was used by his successors till the
middle of the fourteenth century, with the singular, though true,
addition of lords of one fourth and a half of the Roman empire. 8
The doge, a slave of state, was seldom permitted to depart from
the helm of the republic; but his place was supplied by the
_bail_, or regent, who exercised a supreme jurisdiction over the
colony of Venetians: they possessed three of the eight quarters
of the city; and his independent tribunal was composed of six
judges, four counsellors, two chamberlains two fiscal advocates,
and a constable. Their long experience of the Eastern trade
enabled them to select their portion with discernment: they had
rashly accepted the dominion and defence of Adrianople; but it
was the more reasonable aim of their policy to form a chain of
factories, and cities, and islands, along the maritime coast,
from the neighborhood of Ragusa to the Hellespont and the
Bosphorus. The labor and cost of such extensive conquests
exhausted their treasury: they abandoned their maxims of
government, adopted a feudal system, and contented themselves
with the homage of their nobles, 9 for the possessions which
these private vassals undertook to reduce and maintain. And thus
it was that the family of Sanut acquired the duchy of Naxos,
which involved the greatest part of the archipelago. For the
price of ten thousand marks, the republic purchased of the
marquis of Montferrat the fertile Island of Crete or Candia, with
the ruins of a hundred cities; 10 but its improvement was stinted
by the proud and narrow spirit of an aristocracy; 11 and the
wisest senators would confess that the sea, not the land, was the
treasury of St. Mark. In the moiety of the adventurers the
marquis Boniface might claim the most liberal reward; and,
besides the Isle of Crete, his exclusion from the throne was
compensated by the royal title and the provinces beyond the
Hellespont. But he prudently exchanged that distant and difficult
conquest for the kingdom of Thessalonica Macedonia, twelve days’
journey from the capital, where he might be supported by the
neighboring powers of his brother-in-law the king of Hungary. His
progress was hailed by the voluntary or reluctant acclamations of
the natives; and Greece, the proper and ancient Greece, again
received a Latin conqueror, 12 who trod with indifference that
classic ground. He viewed with a careless eye the beauties of the
valley of Tempe; traversed with a cautious step the straits of
Thermopylæ; occupied the unknown cities of Thebes, Athens, and
Argos; and assaulted the fortifications of Corinth and Napoli, 13
which resisted his arms. The lots of the Latin pilgrims were
regulated by chance, or choice, or subsequent exchange; and they
abused, with intemperate joy, their triumph over the lives and
fortunes of a great people. After a minute survey of the
provinces, they weighed in the scales of avarice the revenue of
each district, the advantage of the situation, and the ample or
scanty supplies for the maintenance of soldiers and horses. Their
presumption claimed and divided the long-lost dependencies of the
Roman sceptre: the Nile and Euphrates rolled through their
imaginary realms; and happy was the warrior who drew for his
prize the palace of the Turkish sultan of Iconium. 14 I shall not
descend to the pedigree of families and the rent-roll of estates,
but I wish to specify that the counts of Blois and St. Pol were
invested with the duchy of Nice and the lordship of Demotica: 15
the principal fiefs were held by the service of constable,
chamberlain, cup-bearer, butler, and chief cook; and our
historian, Jeffrey of Villehardouin, obtained a fair
establishment on the banks of the Hebrus, and united the double
office of marshal of Champagne and Romania. At the head of his
knights and archers, each baron mounted on horseback to secure
the possession of his share, and their first efforts were
generally successful. But the public force was weakened by their
dispersion; and a thousand quarrels must arise under a law, and
among men, whose sole umpire was the sword. Within three months
after the conquest of Constantinople, the emperor and the king of
Thessalonica drew their hostile followers into the field; they
were reconciled by the authority of the doge, the advice of the
marshal, and the firm freedom of their peers. 16
7 (return) [ In the treaty of partition, most of the names are
corrupted by the scribes: they might be restored, and a good map,
suited to the last age of the Byzantine empire, would be an
improvement of geography. But, alas D’Anville is no more!]
8 (return) [ Their style was dominus quartæ partis et dimidiæ
imperii Romani, till Giovanni Dolfino, who was elected doge in
the year of 1356, (Sanuto, p. 530, 641.) For the government of
Constantinople, see Ducange, Histoire de C. P. i. 37.]
9 (return) [ Ducange (Hist. de C. P. ii. 6) has marked the
conquests made by the state or nobles of Venice of the Islands of
Candia, Corfu, Cephalonia, Zante, Naxos, Paros, Melos, Andros,
Mycone, Syro, Cea, and Lemnos.]
10 (return) [ Boniface sold the Isle of Candia, August 12, A.D.
1204. See the act in Sanuto, p. 533: but I cannot understand how
it could be his mother’s portion, or how she could be the
daughter of an emperor Alexius.]
11 (return) [ In the year 1212, the doge Peter Zani sent a colony
to Candia, drawn from every quarter of Venice. But in their
savage manners and frequent rebellions, the Candiots may be
compared to the Corsicans under the yoke of Genoa; and when I
compare the accounts of Belon and Tournefort, I cannot discern
much difference between the Venetian and the Turkish island.]
12 (return) [ Villehardouin (No. 159, 160, 173—177) and Nicetas
(p. 387—394) describe the expedition into Greece of the marquis
Boniface. The Choniate might derive his information from his
brother Michael, archbishop of Athens, whom he paints as an
orator, a statesman, and a saint. His encomium of Athens, and the
description of Tempe, should be published from the Bodleian MS.
of Nicetas, (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 405,) and would
have deserved Mr. Harris’s inquiries.]
13 (return) [ Napoli de Romania, or Nauplia, the ancient seaport
of Argos, is still a place of strength and consideration, situate
on a rocky peninsula, with a good harbor, (Chandler’s Travels
into Greece, p. 227.)]
14 (return) [ I have softened the expression of Nicetas, who
strives to expose the presumption of the Franks. See the Rebus
post C. P. expugnatam, p. 375—384.]
15 (return) [ A city surrounded by the River Hebrus, and six
leagues to the south of Adrianople, received from its double wall
the Greek name of Didymoteichos, insensibly corrupted into
Demotica and Dimot. I have preferred the more convenient and
modern appellation of Demotica. This place was the last Turkish
residence of Charles XII.]
16 (return) [ Their quarrel is told by Villehardouin (No.
146—158) with the spirit of freedom. The merit and reputation of
the marshal are so acknowledged by the Greek historian (p. 387)
mega para touV tvn Dauinwn dunamenou strateumasi: unlike some
modern heroes, whose exploits are only visible in their own
memoirs. * Note: William de Champlite, brother of the count of
Dijon, assumed the title of Prince of Achaia: on the death of his
brother, he returned, with regret, to France, to assume his
paternal inheritance, and left Villehardouin his “_bailli_,” on
condition that if he did not return within a year Villehardouin
was to retain an investiture. Brosset’s Add. to Le Beau, vol.
xvii. p. 200. M. Brosset adds, from the Greek chronicler edited
by M. Buchon, the somewhat unknightly trick by which
Villehardouin disembarrassed himself from the troublesome claim
of Robert, the cousin of the count of Dijon. to the succession.
He contrived that Robert should arrive just fifteen days too
late; and with the general concurrence of the assembled knights
was himself invested with the principality. Ibid. p. 283. M.]
Two fugitives, who had reigned at Constantinople, still asserted
the title of emperor; and the subjects of their fallen throne
might be moved to pity by the misfortunes of the elder Alexius,
or excited to revenge by the spirit of Mourzoufle. A domestic
alliance, a common interest, a similar guilt, and the merit of
extinguishing his enemies, a brother and a nephew, induced the
more recent usurper to unite with the former the relics of his
power. Mourzoufle was received with smiles and honors in the camp
of his father Alexius; but the wicked can never love, and should
rarely trust, their fellow-criminals; he was seized in the bath,
deprived of his eyes, stripped of his troops and treasures, and
turned out to wander an object of horror and contempt to those
who with more propriety could hate, and with more justice could
punish, the assassin of the emperor Isaac and his son. As the
tyrant, pursued by fear or remorse, was stealing over to Asia, he
was seized by the Latins of Constantinople, and condemned, after
an open trial, to an ignominious death. His judges debated the
mode of his execution, the axe, the wheel, or the stake; and it
was resolved that Mourzoufle 17 should ascend the Theodosian
column, a pillar of white marble of one hundred and forty-seven
feet in height. 18 From the summit he was cast down headlong, and
dashed in pieces on the pavement, in the presence of innumerable
spectators, who filled the forum of Taurus, and admired the
accomplishment of an old prediction, which was explained by this
singular event. 19 The fate of Alexius is less tragical: he was
sent by the marquis a captive to Italy, and a gift to the king of
the Romans; but he had not much to applaud his fortune, if the
sentence of imprisonment and exile were changed from a fortress
in the Alps to a monastery in Asia. But his daughter, before the
national calamity, had been given in marriage to a young hero who
continued the succession, and restored the throne, of the Greek
princes. 20 The valor of Theodore Lascaris was signalized in the
two sieges of Constantinople. After the flight of Mourzoufle,
when the Latins were already in the city, he offered himself as
their emperor to the soldiers and people; and his ambition, which
might be virtuous, was undoubtedly brave. Could he have infused a
soul into the multitude, they might have crushed the strangers
under their feet: their abject despair refused his aid; and
Theodore retired to breathe the air of freedom in Anatolia,
beyond the immediate view and pursuit of the conquerors. Under
the title, at first of despot, and afterwards of emperor, he drew
to his standard the bolder spirits, who were fortified against
slavery by the contempt of life; and as every means was lawful
for the public safety implored without scruple the alliance of
the Turkish sultan Nice, where Theodore established his
residence, Prusa and Philadelphia, Smyrna and Ephesus, opened
their gates to their deliverer: he derived strength and
reputation from his victories, and even from his defeats; and the
successor of Constantine preserved a fragment of the empire from
the banks of the Mæander to the suburbs of Nicomedia, and at
length of Constantinople. Another portion, distant and obscure,
was possessed by the lineal heir of the Comneni, a son of the
virtuous Manuel, a grandson of the tyrant Andronicus. His name
was Alexius; and the epithet of great 201 was applied perhaps to
his stature, rather than to his exploits. By the indulgence of
the Angeli, he was appointed governor or duke of Trebizond: 21
211 his birth gave him ambition, the revolution independence;
and, without changing his title, he reigned in peace from Sinope
to the Phasis, along the coast of the Black Sea. His nameless son
and successor 212 is described as the vassal of the sultan, whom
he served with two hundred lances: that Comnenian prince was no
more than duke of Trebizond, and the title of emperor was first
assumed by the pride and envy of the grandson of Alexius. In the
West, a third fragment was saved from the common shipwreck by
Michael, a bastard of the house of Angeli, who, before the
revolution, had been known as a hostage, a soldier, and a rebel.
His flight from the camp of the marquis Boniface secured his
freedom; by his marriage with the governor’s daughter, he
commanded the important place of Durazzo, assumed the title of
despot, and founded a strong and conspicuous principality in
Epirus, Ætolia, and Thessaly, which have ever been peopled by a
warlike race. The Greeks, who had offered their service to their
new sovereigns, were excluded by the haughty Latins 22 from all
civil and military honors, as a nation born to tremble and obey.
Their resentment prompted them to show that they might have been
useful friends, since they could be dangerous enemies: their
nerves were braced by adversity: whatever was learned or holy,
whatever was noble or valiant, rolled away into the independent
states of Trebizond, Epirus, and Nice; and a single patrician is
marked by the ambiguous praise of attachment and loyalty to the
Franks. The vulgar herd of the cities and the country would have
gladly submitted to a mild and regular servitude; and the
transient disorders of war would have been obliterated by some
years of industry and peace. But peace was banished, and industry
was crushed, in the disorders of the feudal system. The _Roman_
emperors of Constantinople, if they were endowed with abilities,
were armed with power for the protection of their subjects: their
laws were wise, and their administration was simple. The Latin
throne was filled by a titular prince, the chief, and often the
servant, of his licentious confederates; the fiefs of the empire,
from a kingdom to a castle, were held and ruled by the sword of
the barons; and their discord, poverty, and ignorance, extended
the ramifications of tyranny to the most sequestered villages.
The Greeks were oppressed by the double weight of the priests,
who were invested with temporal power, and of the soldier, who
was inflamed by fanatic hatred; and the insuperable bar of
religion and language forever separated the stranger and the
native. As long as the crusaders were united at Constantinople,
the memory of their conquest, and the terror of their arms,
imposed silence on the captive land: their dispersion betrayed
the smallness of their numbers and the defects of their
discipline; and some failures and mischances revealed the secret,
that they were not invincible. As the fears of the Greeks abated,
their hatred increased. They murdered; they conspired; and before
a year of slavery had elapsed, they implored, or accepted, the
succor of a Barbarian, whose power they had felt, and whose
gratitude they trusted. 23
17 (return) [ See the fate of Mourzoufle in Nicetas, (p. 393,)
Villehardouin, (No. 141—145, 163,) and Guntherus, (c. 20, 21.)
Neither the marshal nor the monk afford a grain of pity for a
tyrant or rebel, whose punishment, however, was more unexampled
than his crime.]
18 (return) [ The column of Arcadius, which represents in basso
relievo his victories, or those of his father Theodosius, is
still extant at Constantinople. It is described and measured,
Gyllius, (Topograph. iv. 7,) Banduri, (ad l. i. Antiquit. C. P.
p. 507, &c.,) and Tournefort, (Voyage du Levant, tom. ii. lettre
xii. p. 231.) (Compare Wilken, note, vol. v p. 388.—M.)]
19 (return) [ The nonsense of Gunther and the modern Greeks
concerning this _columna fatidica_, is unworthy of notice; but it
is singular enough, that fifty years before the Latin conquest,
the poet Tzetzes, (Chiliad, ix. 277) relates the dream of a
matron, who saw an army in the forum, and a man sitting on the
column, clapping his hands, and uttering a loud exclamation. *
Note: We read in the “Chronicle of the Conquest of
Constantinople, and of the Establishment of the French in the
Morea,” translated by J A Buchon, Paris, 1825, p. 64 that Leo
VI., called the Philosopher, had prophesied that a perfidious
emperor should be precipitated from the top of this column. The
crusaders considered themselves under an obligation to fulfil
this prophecy. Brosset, note on Le Beau, vol. xvii. p. 180. M
Brosset announces that a complete edition of this work, of which
the original Greek of the first book only has been published by
M. Buchon in preparation, to form part of the new series of the
Byzantine historian.—M.]
20 (return) [ The dynasties of Nice, Trebizond, and Epirus (of
which Nicetas saw the origin without much pleasure or hope) are
learnedly explored, and clearly represented, in the Familiæ
Byzantinæ of Ducange.]
201 (return) [ This was a title, not a personal appellation.
Joinville speaks of the “Grant Comnenie, et sire de
Traffezzontes.” Fallmerayer, p. 82.—M.]
21 (return) [ Except some facts in Pachymer and Nicephorus
Gregoras, which will hereafter be used, the Byzantine writers
disdain to speak of the empire of Trebizond, or principality of
the _Lazi_; and among the Latins, it is conspicuous only in the
romancers of the xivth or xvth centuries. Yet the indefatigable
Ducange has dug out (Fam. Byz. p. 192) two authentic passages in
Vincent of Beauvais (l. xxxi. c. 144) and the prothonotary
Ogerius, (apud Wading, A.D. 1279, No. 4.)]
211 (return) [ On the revolutions of Trebizond under the later
empire down to this period, see Fallmerayer, Geschichte des
Kaiserthums von Trapezunt, ch. iii. The wife of Manuel fled with
her infant sons and her treasure from the relentless enmity of
Isaac Angelus. Fallmerayer conjectures that her arrival enabled
the Greeks of that region to make head against the formidable
Thamar, the Georgian queen of Teflis, p. 42. They gradually
formed a dominion on the banks of the Phasis, which the
distracted government of the Angeli neglected or were unable to
suppress. On the capture of Constantinople by the Latins, Alexius
was joined by many noble fugitives from Constantinople. He had
always retained the names of Cæsar and BasileuV. He now fixed the
seat of his empire at Trebizond; but he had never abandoned his
pretensions to the Byzantine throne, ch. iii. Fallmerayer appears
to make out a triumphant case as to the assumption of the royal
title by Alexius the First. Since the publication of M.
Fallmerayer’s work, (München, 1827,) M. Tafel has published, at
the end of the opuscula of Eustathius, a curious chronicle of
Trebizond by Michael Panaretas, (Frankfort, 1832.) It gives the
succession of the emperors, and some other curious circumstances
of their wars with the several Mahometan powers.—M.]
212 (return) [ The successor of Alexius was his son-in-law
Andronicus I., of the Comnenian family, surnamed Gidon. There
were five successions between Alexius and John, according to
Fallmerayer, p. 103. The troops of Trebizond fought in the army
of Dschelaleddin, the Karismian, against Alaleddin, the Seljukian
sultan of Roum, but as allies rather than vassals, p. 107. It was
after the defeat of Dschelaleddin that they furnished their
contingent to Alai-eddin. Fallmerayer struggles in vain to
mitigate this mark of the subjection of the Comneni to the
sultan. p. 116.—M.]
22 (return) [ The portrait of the French Latins is drawn in
Nicetas by the hand of prejudice and resentment: ouden tvn allwn
eqnvn eiV ''AreoV?rga parasumbeblhsqai sjisin hneiconto all’ oude
tiV tvn caritwn h tvn?mousvn para toiV barbaroiV toutoiV
epexenizeto, kai para touto oimai thn jusin hsan anhmeroi, kai
ton xolon eixon tou logou prstreconta. [P. 791 Ed. Bek.]
23 (return) [ I here begin to use, with freedom and confidence,
the eight books of the Histoire de C. P. sous l’Empire des
François, which Ducange has given as a supplement to
Villehardouin; and which, in a barbarous style, deserves the
praise of an original and classic work.]
The Latin conquerors had been saluted with a solemn and early
embassy from John, or Joannice, or Calo-John, the revolted chief
of the Bulgarians and Walachians. He deemed himself their
brother, as the votary of the Roman pontiff, from whom he had
received the regal title and a holy banner; and in the subversion
of the Greek monarchy, he might aspire to the name of their
friend and accomplice. But Calo-John was astonished to find, that
the Count of Flanders had assumed the pomp and pride of the
successors of Constantine; and his ambassadors were dismissed
with a haughty message, that the rebel must deserve a pardon, by
touching with his forehead the footstool of the Imperial throne.
His resentment 24 would have exhaled in acts of violence and
blood: his cooler policy watched the rising discontent of the
Greeks; affected a tender concern for their sufferings; and
promised, that their first struggles for freedom should be
supported by his person and kingdom. The conspiracy was
propagated by national hatred, the firmest band of association
and secrecy: the Greeks were impatient to sheathe their daggers
in the breasts of the victorious strangers; but the execution was
prudently delayed, till Henry, the emperor’s brother, had
transported the flower of his troops beyond the Hellespont. Most
of the towns and villages of Thrace were true to the moment and
the signal; and the Latins, without arms or suspicion, were
slaughtered by the vile and merciless revenge of their slaves.
From Demotica, the first scene of the massacre, the surviving
vassals of the count of St. Pol escaped to Adrianople; but the
French and Venetians, who occupied that city, were slain or
expelled by the furious multitude: the garrisons that could
effect their retreat fell back on each other towards the
metropolis; and the fortresses, that separately stood against the
rebels, were ignorant of each other’s and of their sovereign’s
fate. The voice of fame and fear announced the revolt of the
Greeks and the rapid approach of their Bulgarian ally; and
Calo-John, not depending on the forces of his own kingdom, had
drawn from the Scythian wilderness a body of fourteen thousand
Comans, who drank, as it was said, the blood of their captives,
and sacrificed the Christians on the altars of their gods. 25
24 (return) [ In Calo-John’s answer to the pope we may find his
claims and complaints, (Gesta Innocent III. c. 108, 109:) he was
cherished at Rome as the prodigal son.]
25 (return) [ The Comans were a Tartar or Turkman horde, which
encamped in the xiith and xiiith centuries on the verge of
Moldavia. The greater part were pagans, but some were Mahometans,
and the whole horde was converted to Christianity (A.D. 1370) by
Lewis, king of Hungary.]
Alarmed by this sudden and growing danger, the emperor despatched
a swift messenger to recall Count Henry and his troops; and had
Baldwin expected the return of his gallant brother, with a supply
of twenty thousand Armenians, he might have encountered the
invader with equal numbers and a decisive superiority of arms and
discipline. But the spirit of chivalry could seldom discriminate
caution from cowardice; and the emperor took the field with a
hundred and forty knights, and their train of archers and
sergeants. The marshal, who dissuaded and obeyed, led the
vanguard in their march to Adrianople; the main body was
commanded by the count of Blois; the aged doge of Venice followed
with the rear; and their scanty numbers were increased from all
sides by the fugitive Latins. They undertook to besiege the
rebels of Adrianople; and such was the pious tendency of the
crusades that they employed the holy week in pillaging the
country for their subsistence, and in framing engines for the
destruction of their fellow-Christians. But the Latins were soon
interrupted and alarmed by the light cavalry of the Comans, who
boldly skirmished to the edge of their imperfect lines: and a
proclamation was issued by the marshal of Romania, that, on the
trumpet’s sound, the cavalry should mount and form; but that
none, under pain of death, should abandon themselves to a
desultory and dangerous pursuit. This wise injunction was first
disobeyed by the count of Blois, who involved the emperor in his
rashness and ruin. The Comans, of the Parthian or Tartar school,
fled before their first charge; but after a career of two
leagues, when the knights and their horses were almost
breathless, they suddenly turned, rallied, and encompassed the
heavy squadrons of the Franks. The count was slain on the field;
the emperor was made prisoner; and if the one disdained to fly,
if the other refused to yield, their personal bravery made a poor
atonement for their ignorance, or neglect, of the duties of a
general. 26
26 (return) [ Nicetas, from ignorance or malice, imputes the
defeat to the cowardice of Dandolo, (p. 383;) but Villehardouin
shares his own glory with his venerable friend, qui viels home
ére et gote ne veoit, mais mult ére sages et preus et vigueros,
(No. 193.) * Note: Gibbon appears to me to have misapprehended
the passage of Nicetas. He says, “that principal and subtlest
mischief. that primary cause of all the horrible miseries
suffered by the _Romans_,” i. e. the Byzantines. It is an
effusion of malicious triumph against the Venetians, to whom he
always ascribes the capture of Constantinople.—M.]
Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And
Venetians.—Part II.
Proud of his victory and his royal prize, the Bulgarian advanced
to relieve Adrianople and achieve the destruction of the Latins.
They must inevitably have been destroyed, if the marshal of
Romania had not displayed a cool courage and consummate skill;
uncommon in all ages, but most uncommon in those times, when war
was a passion, rather than a science. His grief and fears were
poured into the firm and faithful bosom of the doge; but in the
camp he diffused an assurance of safety, which could only be
realized by the general belief. All day he maintained his
perilous station between the city and the Barbarians:
Villehardouin decamped in silence at the dead of night; and his
masterly retreat of three days would have deserved the praise of
Xenophon and the ten thousand. In the rear, the marshal supported
the weight of the pursuit; in the front, he moderated the
impatience of the fugitives; and wherever the Comans approached,
they were repelled by a line of impenetrable spears. On the third
day, the weary troops beheld the sea, the solitary town of
Rodosta, 27 and their friends, who had landed from the Asiatic
shore. They embraced, they wept; but they united their arms and
counsels; and in his brother’s absence, Count Henry assumed the
regency of the empire, at once in a state of childhood and
caducity. 28 If the Comans withdrew from the summer heats, seven
thousand Latins, in the hour of danger, deserted Constantinople,
their brethren, and their vows. Some partial success was
overbalanced by the loss of one hundred and twenty knights in the
field of Rusium; and of the Imperial domain, no more was left
than the capital, with two or three adjacent fortresses on the
shores of Europe and Asia. The king of Bulgaria was resistless
and inexorable; and Calo-John respectfully eluded the demands of
the pope, who conjured his new proselyte to restore peace and the
emperor to the afflicted Latins. The deliverance of Baldwin was
no longer, he said, in the power of man: that prince had died in
prison; and the manner of his death is variously related by
ignorance and credulity. The lovers of a tragic legend will be
pleased to hear, that the royal captive was tempted by the
amorous queen of the Bulgarians; that his chaste refusal exposed
him to the falsehood of a woman and the jealousy of a savage;
that his hands and feet were severed from his body; that his
bleeding trunk was cast among the carcasses of dogs and horses;
and that he breathed three days, before he was devoured by the
birds of prey. 29 About twenty years afterwards, in a wood of the
Netherlands, a hermit announced himself as the true Baldwin, the
emperor of Constantinople, and lawful sovereign of Flanders. He
related the wonders of his escape, his adventures, and his
penance, among a people prone to believe and to rebel; and, in
the first transport, Flanders acknowledged her long-lost
sovereign. A short examination before the French court detected
the impostor, who was punished with an ignominious death; but the
Flemings still adhered to the pleasing error; and the countess
Jane is accused by the gravest historians of sacrificing to her
ambition the life of an unfortunate father. 30
27 (return) [ The truth of geography, and the original text of
Villehardouin, (No. 194,) place Rodosto three days’ journey
(trois jornées) from Adrianople: but Vigenere, in his version,
has most absurdly substituted _trois heures_; and this error,
which is not corrected by Ducange has entrapped several moderns,
whose names I shall spare.]
28 (return) [ The reign and end of Baldwin are related by
Villehardouin and Nicetas, (p. 386—416;) and their omissions are
supplied by Ducange in his Observations, and to the end of his
first book.]
29 (return) [ After brushing away all doubtful and improbable
circumstances, we may prove the death of Baldwin, 1. By the firm
belief of the French barons, (Villehardouin, No. 230.) 2. By the
declaration of Calo-John himself, who excuses his not releasing
the captive emperor, quia debitum carnis exsolverat cum carcere
teneretur, (Gesta Innocent III. c. 109.) * Note: Compare Von
Raumer. Geschichte der Hohenstaufen, vol. ii. p. 237. Petitot, in
his preface to Villehardouin in the Collection des Mémoires,
relatifs a l’Histoire de France, tom. i. p. 85, expresses his
belief in the first part of the “tragic legend.”—M.]
30 (return) [ See the story of this impostor from the French and
Flemish writers in Ducange, Hist. de C. P. iii. 9; and the
ridiculous fables that were believed by the monks of St. Alban’s,
in Matthew Paris, Hist. Major, p. 271, 272.]
In all civilized hostility, a treaty is established for the
exchange or ransom of prisoners; and if their captivity be
prolonged, their condition is known, and they are treated
according to their rank with humanity or honor. But the savage
Bulgarian was a stranger to the laws of war: his prisons were
involved in darkness and silence; and above a year elapsed before
the Latins could be assured of the death of Baldwin, before his
brother, the regent Henry, would consent to assume the title of
emperor. His moderation was applauded by the Greeks as an act of
rare and inimitable virtue. Their light and perfidious ambition
was eager to seize or anticipate the moment of a vacancy, while a
law of succession, the guardian both of the prince and people,
was gradually defined and confirmed in the hereditary monarchies
of Europe. In the support of the Eastern empire, Henry was
gradually left without an associate, as the heroes of the crusade
retired from the world or from the war. The doge of Venice, the
venerable Dandolo, in the fulness of years and glory, sunk into
the grave. The marquis of Montferrat was slowly recalled from the
Peloponnesian war to the revenge of Baldwin and the defence of
Thessalonica. Some nice disputes of feudal homage and service
were reconciled in a personal interview between the emperor and
the king; they were firmly united by mutual esteem and the common
danger; and their alliance was sealed by the nuptials of Henry
with the daughter of the Italian prince. He soon deplored the
loss of his friend and father. At the persuasion of some faithful
Greeks, Boniface made a bold and successful inroad among the
hills of Rhodope: the Bulgarians fled on his approach; they
assembled to harass his retreat. On the intelligence that his
rear was attacked, without waiting for any defensive armor, he
leaped on horseback, couched his lance, and drove the enemies
before him; but in the rash pursuit he was pierced with a mortal
wound; and the head of the king of Thessalonica was presented to
Calo-John, who enjoyed the honors, without the merit, of victory.
It is here, at this melancholy event, that the pen or the voice
of Jeffrey of Villehardouin seems to drop or to expire; 31 and if
he still exercised his military office of marshal of Romania, his
subsequent exploits are buried in oblivion. 32 The character of
Henry was not unequal to his arduous situation: in the siege of
Constantinople, and beyond the Hellespont, he had deserved the
fame of a valiant knight and a skilful commander; and his courage
was tempered with a degree of prudence and mildness unknown to
his impetuous brother. In the double war against the Greeks of
Asia and the Bulgarians of Europe, he was ever the foremost on
shipboard or on horseback; and though he cautiously provided for
the success of his arms, the drooping Latins were often roused by
his example to save and to second their fearless emperor. But
such efforts, and some supplies of men and money from France,
were of less avail than the errors, the cruelty, and death, of
their most formidable adversary. When the despair of the Greek
subjects invited Calo-John as their deliverer, they hoped that he
would protect their liberty and adopt their laws: they were soon
taught to compare the degrees of national ferocity, and to
execrate the savage conqueror, who no longer dissembled his
intention of dispeopling Thrace, of demolishing the cities, and
of transplanting the inhabitants beyond the Danube. Many towns
and villages of Thrace were already evacuated: a heap of ruins
marked the place of Philippopolis, and a similar calamity was
expected at Demotica and Adrianople, by the first authors of the
revolt. They raised a cry of grief and repentance to the throne
of Henry; the emperor alone had the magnanimity to forgive and
trust them. No more than four hundred knights, with their
sergeants and archers, could be assembled under his banner; and
with this slender force he fought 321 and repulsed the Bulgarian,
who, besides his infantry, was at the head of forty thousand
horse. In this expedition, Henry felt the difference between a
hostile and a friendly country: the remaining cities were
preserved by his arms; and the savage, with shame and loss, was
compelled to relinquish his prey. The siege of Thessalonica was
the last of the evils which Calo-John inflicted or suffered: he
was stabbed in the night in his tent; and the general, perhaps
the assassin, who found him weltering in his blood, ascribed the
blow, with general applause, to the lance of St. Demetrius. 33
After several victories, the prudence of Henry concluded an
honorable peace with the successor of the tyrant, and with the
Greek princes of Nice and Epirus. If he ceded some doubtful
limits, an ample kingdom was reserved for himself and his
feudatories; and his reign, which lasted only ten years, afforded
a short interval of prosperity and peace. Far above the narrow
policy of Baldwin and Boniface, he freely intrusted to the Greeks
the most important offices of the state and army; and this
liberality of sentiment and practice was the more seasonable, as
the princes of Nice and Epirus had already learned to seduce and
employ the mercenary valor of the Latins. It was the aim of Henry
to unite and reward his deserving subjects, of every nation and
language; but he appeared less solicitous to accomplish the
impracticable union of the two churches. Pelagius, the pope’s
legate, who acted as the sovereign of Constantinople, had
interdicted the worship of the Greeks, and sternly imposed the
payment of tithes, the double procession of the Holy Ghost, and a
blind obedience to the Roman pontiff. As the weaker party, they
pleaded the duties of conscience, and implored the rights of
toleration: “Our bodies,” they said, “are Cæsar’s, but our souls
belong only to God.” The persecution was checked by the firmness
of the emperor: 34 and if we can believe that the same prince was
poisoned by the Greeks themselves, we must entertain a
contemptible idea of the sense and gratitude of mankind. His
valor was a vulgar attribute, which he shared with ten thousand
knights; but Henry possessed the superior courage to oppose, in a
superstitious age, the pride and avarice of the clergy. In the
cathedral of St. Sophia he presumed to place his throne on the
right hand of the patriarch; and this presumption excited the
sharpest censure of Pope Innocent the Third. By a salutary edict,
one of the first examples of the laws of mortmain, he prohibited
the alienation of fiefs: many of the Latins, desirous of
returning to Europe, resigned their estates to the church for a
spiritual or temporal reward; these holy lands were immediately
discharged from military service, and a colony of soldiers would
have been gradually transformed into a college of priests. 35
31 (return) [ Villehardouin, No. 257. I quote, with regret, this
lamentable conclusion, where we lose at once the original
history, and the rich illustrations of Ducange. The last pages
may derive some light from Henry’s two epistles to Innocent III.,
(Gesta, c. 106, 107.)]
32 (return) [ The marshal was alive in 1212, but he probably died
soon afterwards, without returning to France, (Ducange,
Observations sur Villehardouin, p. 238.) His fief of Messinople,
the gift of Boniface, was the ancient Maximianopolis, which
flourished in the time of Ammianus Marcellinus, among the cities
of Thrace, (No. 141.)]
321 (return) [ There was no battle. On the advance of the Latins,
John suddenly broke up his camp and retreated. The Latins
considered this unexpected deliverance almost a miracle. Le Beau
suggests the probability that the detection of the Comans, who
usually quitted the camp during the heats of summer, may have
caused the flight of the Bulgarians. Nicetas, c. 8 Villebardouin,
c. 225. Le Beau, vol. xvii. p. 242.—M.]
33 (return) [ The church of this patron of Thessalonica was
served by the canons of the holy sepulchre, and contained a
divine ointment which distilled daily and stupendous miracles,
(Ducange, Hist. de C. P. ii. 4.)]
34 (return) [ Acropolita (c. 17) observes the persecution of the
legate, and the toleration of Henry, ('Erh, * as he calls him)
kludwna katestorese. Note: Or rather 'ErrhV.—M.]
35 (return) [ See the reign of Henry, in Ducange, (Hist. de C. P.
l. i. c. 35—41, l. ii. c. 1—22,) who is much indebted to the
Epistles of the Popes. Le Beau (Hist. du Bas Empire, tom. xxi. p.
120—122) has found, perhaps in Doutreman, some laws of Henry,
which determined the service of fiefs, and the prerogatives of
the emperor.]
The virtuous Henry died at Thessalonica, in the defence of that
kingdom, and of an infant, the son of his friend Boniface. In the
two first emperors of Constantinople the male line of the counts
of Flanders was extinct. But their sister Yolande was the wife of
a French prince, the mother of a numerous progeny; and one of her
daughters had married Andrew king of Hungary, a brave and pious
champion of the cross. By seating him on the Byzantine throne,
the barons of Romania would have acquired the forces of a
neighboring and warlike kingdom; but the prudent Andrew revered
the laws of succession; and the princess Yolande, with her
husband Peter of Courtenay, count of Auxerre, was invited by the
Latins to assume the empire of the East. The royal birth of his
father, the noble origin of his mother, recommended to the barons
of France the first cousin of their king. His reputation was
fair, his possessions were ample, and in the bloody crusade
against the Albigeois, the soldiers and the priests had been
abundantly satisfied of his zeal and valor. Vanity might applaud
the elevation of a French emperor of Constantinople; but prudence
must pity, rather than envy, his treacherous and imaginary
greatness. To assert and adorn his title, he was reduced to sell
or mortgage the best of his patrimony. By these expedients, the
liberality of his royal kinsman Philip Augustus, and the national
spirit of chivalry, he was enabled to pass the Alps at the head
of one hundred and forty knights, and five thousand five hundred
sergeants and archers. After some hesitation, Pope Honorius the
Third was persuaded to crown the successor of Constantine: but he
performed the ceremony in a church without the walls, lest he
should seem to imply or to bestow any right of sovereignty over
the ancient capital of the empire. The Venetians had engaged to
transport Peter and his forces beyond the Adriatic, and the
empress, with her four children, to the Byzantine palace; but
they required, as the price of their service, that he should
recover Durazzo from the despot of Epirus. Michael Angelus, or
Comnenus, the first of his dynasty, had bequeathed the succession
of his power and ambition to Theodore, his legitimate brother,
who already threatened and invaded the establishments of the
Latins. After discharging his debt by a fruitless assault, the
emperor raised the siege to prosecute a long and perilous journey
over land from Durazzo to Thessalonica. He was soon lost in the
mountains of Epirus: the passes were fortified; his provisions
exhausted; he was delayed and deceived by a treacherous
negotiation; and, after Peter of Courtenay and the Roman legate
had been arrested in a banquet, the French troops, without
leaders or hopes, were eager to exchange their arms for the
delusive promise of mercy and bread. The Vatican thundered; and
the impious Theodore was threatened with the vengeance of earth
and heaven; but the captive emperor and his soldiers were
forgotten, and the reproaches of the pope are confined to the
imprisonment of his legate. No sooner was he satisfied by the
deliverance of the priests and a promise of spiritual obedience,
than he pardoned and protected the despot of Epirus. His
peremptory commands suspended the ardor of the Venetians and the
king of Hungary; and it was only by a natural or untimely death
36 that Peter of Courtenay was released from his hopeless
captivity. 37
36 (return) [ Acropolita (c. 14) affirms, that Peter of Courtenay
died by the sword, (ergon macairaV genesqai;) but from his dark
expressions, I should conclude a previous captivity, wV pantaV
ardhn desmwtaV poihsai sun pasi skeuesi. * The Chronicle of
Auxerre delays the emperor’s death till the year 1219; and
Auxerre is in the neighborhood of Courtenay. Note: Whatever may
have been the fact, this can hardly be made out from the
expressions of Acropolita.—M.]
37 (return) [ See the reign and death of Peter of Courtenay, in
Ducange, (Hist. de C. P. l. ii. c. 22—28,) who feebly strives to
excuse the neglect of the emperor by Honorius III.]
The long ignorance of his fate, and the presence of the lawful
sovereign, of Yolande, his wife or widow, delayed the
proclamation of a new emperor. Before her death, and in the midst
of her grief, she was delivered of a son, who was named Baldwin,
the last and most unfortunate of the Latin princes of
Constantinople. His birth endeared him to the barons of Romania;
but his childhood would have prolonged the troubles of a
minority, and his claims were superseded by the elder claims of
his brethren. The first of these, Philip of Courtenay, who
derived from his mother the inheritance of Namur, had the wisdom
to prefer the substance of a marquisate to the shadow of an
empire; and on his refusal, Robert, the second of the sons of
Peter and Yolande, was called to the throne of Constantinople.
Warned by his father’s mischance, he pursued his slow and secure
journey through Germany and along the Danube: a passage was
opened by his sister’s marriage with the king of Hungary; and the
emperor Robert was crowned by the patriarch in the cathedral of
St. Sophia. But his reign was an æra of calamity and disgrace;
and the colony, as it was styled, of New France yielded on all
sides to the Greeks of Nice and Epirus. After a victory, which he
owed to his perfidy rather than his courage, Theodore Angelus
entered the kingdom of Thessalonica, expelled the feeble
Demetrius, the son of the marquis Boniface, erected his standard
on the walls of Adrianople; and added, by his vanity, a third or
a fourth name to the list of rival emperors. The relics of the
Asiatic province were swept away by John Vataces, the son-in-law
and successor of Theodore Lascaris, and who, in a triumphant
reign of thirty-three years, displayed the virtues both of peace
and war. Under his discipline, the swords of the French
mercenaries were the most effectual instruments of his conquests,
and their desertion from the service of their country was at once
a symptom and a cause of the rising ascendant of the Greeks. By
the construction of a fleet, he obtained the command of the
Hellespont, reduced the islands of Lesbos and Rhodes, attacked
the Venetians of Candia, and intercepted the rare and
parsimonious succors of the West. Once, and once only, the Latin
emperor sent an army against Vataces; and in the defeat of that
army, the veteran knights, the last of the original conquerors,
were left on the field of battle. But the success of a foreign
enemy was less painful to the pusillanimous Robert than the
insolence of his Latin subjects, who confounded the weakness of
the emperor and of the empire. His personal misfortunes will
prove the anarchy of the government and the ferociousness of the
times. The amorous youth had neglected his Greek bride, the
daughter of Vataces, to introduce into the palace a beautiful
maid, of a private, though noble family of Artois; and her mother
had been tempted by the lustre of the purple to forfeit her
engagements with a gentleman of Burgundy. His love was converted
into rage; he assembled his friends, forced the palace gates,
threw the mother into the sea, and inhumanly cut off the nose and
lips of the wife or concubine of the emperor. Instead of
punishing the offender, the barons avowed and applauded the
savage deed, 38 which, as a prince and as a man, it was
impossible that Robert should forgive. He escaped from the guilty
city to implore the justice or compassion of the pope: the
emperor was coolly exhorted to return to his station; before he
could obey, he sunk under the weight of grief, shame, and
impotent resentment. 39
38 (return) [ Marinus Sanutus (Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. ii. p.
4, c. 18, p. 73) is so much delighted with this bloody deed, that
he has transcribed it in his margin as a bonum exemplum. Yet he
acknowledges the damsel for the lawful wife of Robert.]
39 (return) [ See the reign of Robert, in Ducange, (Hist. de C.
P. l. ii. c.—12.)]
It was only in the age of chivalry, that valor could ascend from
a private station to the thrones of Jerusalem and Constantinople.
The titular kingdom of Jerusalem had devolved to Mary, the
daughter of Isabella and Conrad of Montferrat, and the
granddaughter of Almeric or Amaury. She was given to John of
Brienne, of a noble family in Champagne, by the public voice, and
the judgment of Philip Augustus, who named him as the most worthy
champion of the Holy Land. 40 In the fifth crusade, he led a
hundred thousand Latins to the conquest of Egypt: by him the
siege of Damietta was achieved; and the subsequent failure was
justly ascribed to the pride and avarice of the legate. After the
marriage of his daughter with Frederic the Second, 41 he was
provoked by the emperor’s ingratitude to accept the command of
the army of the church; and though advanced in life, and
despoiled of royalty, the sword and spirit of John of Brienne
were still ready for the service of Christendom. In the seven
years of his brother’s reign, Baldwin of Courtenay had not
emerged from a state of childhood, and the barons of Romania felt
the strong necessity of placing the sceptre in the hands of a man
and a hero. The veteran king of Jerusalem might have disdained
the name and office of regent; they agreed to invest him for his
life with the title and prerogatives of emperor, on the sole
condition that Baldwin should marry his second daughter, and
succeed at a mature age to the throne of Constantinople. The
expectation, both of the Greeks and Latins, was kindled by the
renown, the choice, and the presence of John of Brienne; and they
admired his martial aspect, his green and vigorous age of more
than fourscore years, and his size and stature, which surpassed
the common measure of mankind. 42 But avarice, and the love of
ease, appear to have chilled the ardor of enterprise: 421 his
troops were disbanded, and two years rolled away without action
or honor, till he was awakened by the dangerous alliance of
Vataces emperor of Nice, and of Azan king of Bulgaria. They
besieged Constantinople by sea and land, with an army of one
hundred thousand men, and a fleet of three hundred ships of war;
while the entire force of the Latin emperor was reduced to one
hundred and sixty knights, and a small addition of sergeants and
archers. I tremble to relate, that instead of defending the city,
the hero made a sally at the head of his cavalry; and that of
forty-eight squadrons of the enemy, no more than three escaped
from the edge of his invincible sword. Fired by his example, the
infantry and the citizens boarded the vessels that anchored close
to the walls; and twenty-five were dragged in triumph into the
harbor of Constantinople. At the summons of the emperor, the
vassals and allies armed in her defence; broke through every
obstacle that opposed their passage; and, in the succeeding year,
obtained a second victory over the same enemies. By the rude
poets of the age, John of Brienne is compared to Hector, Roland,
and Judas Machabæus: 43 but their credit, and his glory, receive
some abatement from the silence of the Greeks. The empire was
soon deprived of the last of her champions; and the dying monarch
was ambitious to enter paradise in the habit of a Franciscan
friar. 44
40 (return) [ Rex igitur Franciæ, deliberatione habitâ, respondit
nuntiis, se daturum hominem Syriæ partibus aptum; in armis probum
(_preux_) in bellis securum, in agendis providum, Johannem
comitem Brennensem. Sanut. Secret. Fidelium, l. iii. p. xi. c. 4,
p. 205 Matthew Paris, p. 159.]
41 (return) [ Giannone (Istoria Civile, tom. ii. l. xvi. p.
380—385) discusses the marriage of Frederic II. with the daughter
of John of Brienne, and the double union of the crowns of Naples
and Jerusalem.]
42 (return) [ Acropolita, c. 27. The historian was at that time a
boy, and educated at Constantinople. In 1233, when he was eleven
years old, his father broke the Latin chain, left a splendid
fortune, and escaped to the Greek court of Nice, where his son
was raised to the highest honors.]
421 (return) [ John de Brienne, elected emperor 1229, wasted two
years in preparations, and did not arrive at Constantinople till
1231. Two years more glided away in inglorious inaction; he then
made some ineffective warlike expeditions. Constantinople was not
besieged till 1234.—M.]
43 (return) [ Philip Mouskes, bishop of Tournay, (A.D.
1274—1282,) has composed a poem, or rather string of verses, in
bad old Flemish French, on the Latin emperors of Constantinople,
which Ducange has published at the end of Villehardouin; see p.
38, for the prowess of John of Brienne.
N’Aie, Ector, Roll’ ne Ogiers Ne Judas Machabeus li
fiers Tant ne fit d’armes en estors Com fist li Rois
Jehans cel jors Et il defors et il dedans La paru sa
force et ses sens Et li hardiment qu’il avoit.]
44 (return) [ See the reign of John de Brienne, in Ducange, Hist.
de C. P. l. ii. c. 13—26.]
In the double victory of John of Brienne, I cannot discover the
name or exploits of his pupil Baldwin, who had attained the age
of military service, and who succeeded to the imperial dignity on
the decease of his adoptive father. 45 The royal youth was
employed on a commission more suitable to his temper; he was sent
to visit the Western courts, of the pope more especially, and of
the king of France; to excite their pity by the view of his
innocence and distress; and to obtain some supplies of men or
money for the relief of the sinking empire. He thrice repeated
these mendicant visits, in which he seemed to prolong his stay
and postpone his return; of the five-and-twenty years of his
reign, a greater number were spent abroad than at home; and in no
place did the emperor deem himself less free and secure than in
his native country and his capital. On some public occasions, his
vanity might be soothed by the title of Augustus, and by the
honors of the purple; and at the general council of Lyons, when
Frederic the Second was excommunicated and deposed, his Oriental
colleague was enthroned on the right hand of the pope. But how
often was the exile, the vagrant, the Imperial beggar, humbled
with scorn, insulted with pity, and degraded in his own eyes and
those of the nations! In his first visit to England, he was
stopped at Dover by a severe reprimand, that he should presume,
without leave, to enter an independent kingdom. After some delay,
Baldwin, however, was permitted to pursue his journey, was
entertained with cold civility, and thankfully departed with a
present of seven hundred marks. 46 From the avarice of Rome he
could only obtain the proclamation of a crusade, and a treasure
of indulgences; a coin whose currency was depreciated by too
frequent and indiscriminate abuse. His birth and misfortunes
recommended him to the generosity of his cousin Louis the Ninth;
but the martial zeal of the saint was diverted from
Constantinople to Egypt and Palestine; and the public and private
poverty of Baldwin was alleviated, for a moment, by the
alienation of the marquisate of Namur and the lordship of
Courtenay, the last remains of his inheritance. 47 By such
shameful or ruinous expedients, he once more returned to Romania,
with an army of thirty thousand soldiers, whose numbers were
doubled in the apprehension of the Greeks. His first despatches
to France and England announced his victories and his hopes: he
had reduced the country round the capital to the distance of
three days’ journey; and if he succeeded against an important,
though nameless, city, (most probably Chiorli,) the frontier
would be safe and the passage accessible. But these expectations
(if Baldwin was sincere) quickly vanished like a dream: the
troops and treasures of France melted away in his unskilful
hands; and the throne of the Latin emperor was protected by a
dishonorable alliance with the Turks and Comans. To secure the
former, he consented to bestow his niece on the unbelieving
sultan of Cogni; to please the latter, he complied with their
Pagan rites; a dog was sacrificed between the two armies; and the
contracting parties tasted each other’s blood, as a pledge of
their fidelity. 48 In the palace, or prison, of Constantinople,
the successor of Augustus demolished the vacant houses for winter
fuel, and stripped the lead from the churches for the daily
expense of his family. Some usurious loans were dealt with a
scanty hand by the merchants of Italy; and Philip, his son and
heir, was pawned at Venice as the security for a debt. 49 Thirst,
hunger, and nakedness, are positive evils: but wealth is
relative; and a prince who would be rich in a private station,
may be exposed by the increase of his wants to all the anxiety
and bitterness of poverty.
45 (return) [ See the reign of Baldwin II. till his expulsion
from Constantinople, in Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. iv. c. 1—34,
the end l. v. c. 1—33.]
46 (return) [ Matthew Paris relates the two visits of Baldwin II.
to the English court, p. 396, 637; his return to Greece armatâ
manû, p. 407 his letters of his nomen formidabile, &c., p. 481,
(a passage which has escaped Ducange;) his expulsion, p. 850.]
47 (return) [ Louis IX. disapproved and stopped the alienation of
Courtenay (Ducange, l. iv. c. 23.) It is now annexed to the royal
demesne but granted for a term (_engagé_) to the family of
Boulainvilliers. Courtenay, in the election of Nemours in the
Isle de France, is a town of 900 inhabitants, with the remains of
a castle, (Mélanges tirés d’une Grande Bibliothèque, tom. xlv. p.
74—77.)]
48 (return) [ Joinville, p. 104, edit. du Louvre. A Coman prince,
who died without baptism, was buried at the gates of
Constantinople with a live retinue of slaves and horses.]
49 (return) [ Sanut. Secret. Fidel. Crucis, l. ii. p. iv. c. 18,
p. 73.]
Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And
Venetians.—Part III.
But in this abject distress, the emperor and empire were still
possessed of an ideal treasure, which drew its fantastic value
from the superstition of the Christian world. The merit of the
true cross was somewhat impaired by its frequent division; and a
long captivity among the infidels might shed some suspicion on
the fragments that were produced in the East and West. But
another relic of the Passion was preserved in the Imperial chapel
of Constantinople; and the crown of thorns which had been placed
on the head of Christ was equally precious and authentic. It had
formerly been the practice of the Egyptian debtors to deposit, as
a security, the mummies of their parents; and both their honor
and religion were bound for the redemption of the pledge. In the
same manner, and in the absence of the emperor, the barons of
Romania borrowed the sum of thirteen thousand one hundred and
thirty-four pieces of gold 50 on the credit of the holy crown:
they failed in the performance of their contract; and a rich
Venetian, Nicholas Querini, undertook to satisfy their impatient
creditors, on condition that the relic should be lodged at
Venice, to become his absolute property, if it were not redeemed
within a short and definite term. The barons apprised their
sovereign of the hard treaty and impending loss and as the empire
could not afford a ransom of seven thousand pounds sterling,
Baldwin was anxious to snatch the prize from the Venetians, and
to vest it with more honor and emolument in the hands of the most
Christian king. 51 Yet the negotiation was attended with some
delicacy. In the purchase of relics, the saint would have started
at the guilt of simony; but if the mode of expression were
changed, he might lawfully repay the debt, accept the gift, and
acknowledge the obligation. His ambassadors, two Dominicans, were
despatched to Venice to redeem and receive the holy crown which
had escaped the dangers of the sea and the galleys of Vataces. On
opening a wooden box, they recognized the seals of the doge and
barons, which were applied on a shrine of silver; and within this
shrine the monument of the Passion was enclosed in a golden vase.
The reluctant Venetians yielded to justice and power: the emperor
Frederic granted a free and honorable passage; the court of
France advanced as far as Troyes in Champagne, to meet with
devotion this inestimable relic: it was borne in triumph through
Paris by the king himself, barefoot, and in his shirt; and a free
gift of ten thousand marks of silver reconciled Baldwin to his
loss. The success of this transaction tempted the Latin emperor
to offer with the same generosity the remaining furniture of his
chapel; 52 a large and authentic portion of the true cross; the
baby-linen of the Son of God, the lance, the sponge, and the
chain, of his Passion; the rod of Moses, and part of the skull of
St. John the Baptist. For the reception of these spiritual
treasures, twenty thousand marks were expended by St. Louis on a
stately foundation, the holy chapel of Paris, on which the muse
of Boileau has bestowed a comic immortality. The truth of such
remote and ancient relics, which cannot be proved by any human
testimony, must be admitted by those who believe in the miracles
which they have performed. About the middle of the last age, an
inveterate ulcer was touched and cured by a holy prickle of the
holy crown: 53 the prodigy is attested by the most pious and
enlightened Christians of France; nor will the fact be easily
disproved, except by those who are armed with a general antidote
against religious credulity. 54
50 (return) [ Under the words _Perparus_, _Perpera_,
_Hyperperum_, Ducange is short and vague: Monetæ genus. From a
corrupt passage of Guntherus, (Hist. C. P. c. 8, p. 10,) I guess
that the Perpera was the nummus aureus, the fourth part of a mark
of silver, or about ten shillings sterling in value. In lead it
would be too contemptible.]
51 (return) [ For the translation of the holy crown, &c., from
Constantinople to Paris, see Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. iv. c.
11—14, 24, 35) and Fleury, (Hist. Ecclés. tom. xvii. p.
201—204.)]
52 (return) [ Mélanges tirés d’une Grande Bibliothèque, tom.
xliii. p. 201—205. The Lutrin of Boileau exhibits the inside, the
soul and manners of the _Sainte Chapelle_; and many facts
relative to the institution are collected and explained by his
commentators, Brosset and De St. Marc.]
53 (return) [ It was performed A.D. 1656, March 24, on the niece
of Pascal; and that superior genius, with Arnauld, Nicole, &c.,
were on the spot, to believe and attest a miracle which
confounded the Jesuits, and saved Port Royal, (uvres de Racine,
tom. vi. p. 176—187, in his eloquent History of Port Royal.)]
54 (return) [ Voltaire (Siécle de Louis XIV. c. 37, uvres, tom.
ix. p. 178, 179) strives to invalidate the fact: but Hume,
(Essays, vol. ii. p. 483, 484,) with more skill and success,
seizes the battery, and turns the cannon against his enemies.]
The Latins of Constantinople 55 were on all sides encompassed and
pressed; their sole hope, the last delay of their ruin, was in
the division of their Greek and Bulgarian enemies; and of this
hope they were deprived by the superior arms and policy of
Vataces, emperor of Nice. From the Propontis to the rocky coast
of Pamphylia, Asia was peaceful and prosperous under his reign;
and the events of every campaign extended his influence in
Europe. The strong cities of the hills of Macedonia and Thrace
were rescued from the Bulgarians; and their kingdom was
circumscribed by its present and proper limits, along the
southern banks of the Danube. The sole emperor of the Romans
could no longer brook that a lord of Epirus, a Comnenian prince
of the West, should presume to dispute or share the honors of the
purple; and the humble Demetrius changed the color of his
buskins, and accepted with gratitude the appellation of despot.
His own subjects were exasperated by his baseness and incapacity;
they implored the protection of their supreme lord. After some
resistance, the kingdom of Thessalonica was united to the empire
of Nice; and Vataces reigned without a competitor from the
Turkish borders to the Adriatic Gulf. The princes of Europe
revered his merit and power; and had he subscribed an orthodox
creed, it should seem that the pope would have abandoned without
reluctance the Latin throne of Constantinople. But the death of
Vataces, the short and busy reign of Theodore his son, and the
helpless infancy of his grandson John, suspended the restoration
of the Greeks. In the next chapter, I shall explain their
domestic revolutions; in this place, it will be sufficient to
observe, that the young prince was oppressed by the ambition of
his guardian and colleague, Michael Palæologus, who displayed the
virtues and vices that belong to the founder of a new dynasty.
The emperor Baldwin had flattered himself, that he might recover
some provinces or cities by an impotent negotiation. His
ambassadors were dismissed from Nice with mockery and contempt.
At every place which they named, Palæologus alleged some special
reason, which rendered it dear and valuable in his eyes: in the
one he was born; in another he had been first promoted to
military command; and in a third he had enjoyed, and hoped long
to enjoy, the pleasures of the chase. “And what then do you
propose to give us?” said the astonished deputies. “Nothing,”
replied the Greek, “not a foot of land. If your master be
desirous of peace, let him pay me, as an annual tribute, the sum
which he receives from the trade and customs of Constantinople.
On these terms, I may allow him to reign. If he refuses, it is
war. I am not ignorant of the art of war, and I trust the event
to God and my sword.” 56 An expedition against the despot of
Epirus was the first prelude of his arms. If a victory was
followed by a defeat; if the race of the Comneni or Angeli
survived in those mountains his efforts and his reign; the
captivity of Villehardouin, prince of Achaia, deprived the Latins
of the most active and powerful vassal of their expiring
monarchy. The republics of Venice and Genoa disputed, in the
first of their naval wars, the command of the sea and the
commerce of the East. Pride and interest attached the Venetians
to the defence of Constantinople; their rivals were tempted to
promote the designs of her enemies, and the alliance of the
Genoese with the schismatic conqueror provoked the indignation of
the Latin church. 57
55 (return) [ The gradual losses of the Latins may be traced in
the third fourth, and fifth books of the compilation of Ducange:
but of the Greek conquests he has dropped many circumstances,
which may be recovered from the larger history of George
Acropolita, and the three first books of Nicephorus, Gregoras,
two writers of the Byzantine series, who have had the good
fortune to meet with learned editors Leo Allatius at Rome, and
John Boivin in the Academy of Inscriptions of Paris.]
56 (return) [ George Acropolita, c. 78, p. 89, 90. edit. Paris.]
57 (return) [ The Greeks, ashamed of any foreign aid, disguise
the alliance and succor of the Genoese: but the fact is proved by
the testimony of J Villani (Chron. l. vi. c. 71, in Muratori,
Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xiii. p. 202, 203) and William de
Nangis, (Annales de St. Louis, p. 248 in the Louvre Joinville,)
two impartial foreigners; and Urban IV threatened to deprive
Genoa of her archbishop.]
Intent on his great object, the emperor Michael visited in person
and strengthened the troops and fortifications of Thrace. The
remains of the Latins were driven from their last possessions: he
assaulted without success the suburb of Galata; and corresponded
with a perfidious baron, who proved unwilling, or unable, to open
the gates of the metropolis. The next spring, his favorite
general, Alexius Strategopulus, whom he had decorated with the
title of Cæsar, passed the Hellespont with eight hundred horse
and some infantry, 58 on a secret expedition. His instructions
enjoined him to approach, to listen, to watch, but not to risk
any doubtful or dangerous enterprise against the city. The
adjacent territory between the Propontis and the Black Sea was
cultivated by a hardy race of peasants and outlaws, exercised in
arms, uncertain in their allegiance, but inclined by language,
religion, and present advantage, to the party of the Greeks. They
were styled the _volunteers_; 59 and by their free service the
army of Alexius, with the regulars of Thrace and the Coman
auxiliaries, 60 was augmented to the number of five-and-twenty
thousand men. By the ardor of the volunteers, and by his own
ambition, the Cæsar was stimulated to disobey the precise orders
of his master, in the just confidence that success would plead
his pardon and reward. The weakness of Constantinople, and the
distress and terror of the Latins, were familiar to the
observation of the volunteers; and they represented the present
moment as the most propitious to surprise and conquest. A rash
youth, the new governor of the Venetian colony, had sailed away
with thirty galleys, and the best of the French knights, on a
wild expedition to Daphnusia, a town on the Black Sea, at the
distance of forty leagues; 601 and the remaining Latins were
without strength or suspicion. They were informed that Alexius
had passed the Hellespont; but their apprehensions were lulled by
the smallness of his original numbers; and their imprudence had
not watched the subsequent increase of his army. If he left his
main body to second and support his operations, he might advance
unperceived in the night with a chosen detachment. While some
applied scaling-ladders to the lowest part of the walls, they
were secure of an old Greek, who would introduce their companions
through a subterraneous passage into his house; they could soon
on the inside break an entrance through the golden gate, which
had been long obstructed; and the conqueror would be in the heart
of the city before the Latins were conscious of their danger.
After some debate, the Cæsar resigned himself to the faith of the
volunteers; they were trusty, bold, and successful; and in
describing the plan, I have already related the execution and
success. 61 But no sooner had Alexius passed the threshold of the
golden gate, than he trembled at his own rashness; he paused, he
deliberated; till the desperate volunteers urged him forwards, by
the assurance that in retreat lay the greatest and most
inevitable danger. Whilst the Cæsar kept his regulars in firm
array, the Comans dispersed themselves on all sides; an alarm was
sounded, and the threats of fire and pillage compelled the
citizens to a decisive resolution. The Greeks of Constantinople
remembered their native sovereigns; the Genoese merchants their
recent alliance and Venetian foes; every quarter was in arms; and
the air resounded with a general acclamation of “Long life and
victory to Michael and John, the august emperors of the Romans!”
Their rival, Baldwin, was awakened by the sound; but the most
pressing danger could not prompt him to draw his sword in the
defence of a city which he deserted, perhaps, with more pleasure
than regret: he fled from the palace to the seashore, where he
descried the welcome sails of the fleet returning from the vain
and fruitless attempt on Daphnusia. Constantinople was
irrecoverably lost; but the Latin emperor and the principal
families embarked on board the Venetian galleys, and steered for
the Isle of Euba, and afterwards for Italy, where the royal
fugitive was entertained by the pope and Sicilian king with a
mixture of contempt and pity. From the loss of Constantinople to
his death, he consumed thirteen years, soliciting the Catholic
powers to join in his restoration: the lesson had been familiar
to his youth; nor was his last exile more indigent or shameful
than his three former pilgrimages to the courts of Europe. His
son Philip was the heir of an ideal empire; and the pretensions
of his daughter Catherine were transported by her marriage to
Charles of Valois, the brother of Philip the Fair, king of
France. The house of Courtenay was represented in the female line
by successive alliances, till the title of emperor of
Constantinople, too bulky and sonorous for a private name,
modestly expired in silence and oblivion. 62
58 (return) [ Some precautions must be used in reconciling the
discordant numbers; the 800 soldiers of Nicetas, the 25,000 of
Spandugino, (apud Ducange, l. v. c. 24;) the Greeks and Scythians
of Acropolita; and the numerous army of Michael, in the Epistles
of Pope Urban IV. (i. 129.)]
59 (return) [ Qelhmatarioi. They are described and named by
Pachymer, (l. ii. c. 14.)]
60 (return) [ It is needless to seek these Comans in the deserts
of Tartary, or even of Moldavia. A part of the horde had
submitted to John Vataces, and was probably settled as a nursery
of soldiers on some waste lands of Thrace, (Cantacuzen. l. i. c.
2.)]
601 (return) [ According to several authorities, particularly
Abulfaradj. Chron. Arab. p. 336, this was a stratagem on the part
of the Greeks to weaken the garrison of Constantinople. The Greek
commander offered to surrender the town on the appearance of the
Venetians.—M.]
61 (return) [ The loss of Constantinople is briefly told by the
Latins: the conquest is described with more satisfaction by the
Greeks; by Acropolita, (c. 85,) Pachymer, (l. ii. c. 26, 27,)
Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. iv. c. 1, 2) See Ducange, Hist. de C. P.
l. v. c. 19—27.]
62 (return) [ See the three last books (l. v.—viii.) and the
genealogical tables of Ducange. In the year 1382, the titular
emperor of Constantinople was James de Baux, duke of Andria in
the kingdom of Naples, the son of Margaret, daughter of Catherine
de Valois, daughter of Catharine, daughter of Philip, son of
Baldwin II., (Ducange, l. viii. c. 37, 38.) It is uncertain
whether he left any posterity.]
After this narrative of the expeditions of the Latins to
Palestine and Constantinople, I cannot dismiss the subject
without resolving the general consequences on the countries that
were the scene, and on the nations that were the actors, of these
memorable crusades. 63 As soon as the arms of the Franks were
withdrawn, the impression, though not the memory, was erased in
the Mahometan realms of Egypt and Syria. The faithful disciples
of the prophet were never tempted by a profane desire to study
the laws or language of the idolaters; nor did the simplicity of
their primitive manners receive the slightest alteration from
their intercourse in peace and war with the unknown strangers of
the West. The Greeks, who thought themselves proud, but who were
only vain, showed a disposition somewhat less inflexible. In the
efforts for the recovery of their empire, they emulated the
valor, discipline, and tactics of their antagonists. The modern
literature of the West they might justly despise; but its free
spirit would instruct them in the rights of man; and some
institutions of public and private life were adopted from the
French. The correspondence of Constantinople and Italy diffused
the knowledge of the Latin tongue; and several of the fathers and
classics were at length honored with a Greek version. 64 But the
national and religious prejudices of the Orientals were inflamed
by persecution, and the reign of the Latins confirmed the
separation of the two churches.
63 (return) [ Abulfeda, who saw the conclusion of the crusades,
speaks of the kingdoms of the Franks, and those of the Negroes,
as equally unknown, (Prolegom. ad Geograph.) Had he not disdained
the Latin language, how easily might the Syrian prince have found
books and interpreters!]
64 (return) [ A short and superficial account of these versions
from Latin into Greek is given by Huet, (de Interpretatione et de
claris Interpretibus p. 131—135.) Maximus Planudes, a monk of
Constantinople, (A.D. 1327—1353) has translated Cæsar’s
Commentaries, the Somnium Scipionis, the Metamorphoses and
Heroides of Ovid, &c., (Fabric. Bib. Græc. tom. x. p. 533.)]
If we compare the æra of the crusades, the Latins of Europe with
the Greeks and Arabians, their respective degrees of knowledge,
industry, and art, our rude ancestors must be content with the
third rank in the scale of nations. Their successive improvement
and present superiority may be ascribed to a peculiar energy of
character, to an active and imitative spirit, unknown to their
more polished rivals, who at that time were in a stationary or
retrograde state. With such a disposition, the Latins should have
derived the most early and essential benefits from a series of
events which opened to their eyes the prospect of the world, and
introduced them to a long and frequent intercourse with the more
cultivated regions of the East. The first and most obvious
progress was in trade and manufactures, in the arts which are
strongly prompted by the thirst of wealth, the calls of
necessity, and the gratification of the sense or vanity. Among
the crowd of unthinking fanatics, a captive or a pilgrim might
sometimes observe the superior refinements of Cairo and
Constantinople: the first importer of windmills 65 was the
benefactor of nations; and if such blessings are enjoyed without
any grateful remembrance, history has condescended to notice the
more apparent luxuries of silk and sugar, which were transported
into Italy from Greece and Egypt. But the intellectual wants of
the Latins were more slowly felt and supplied; the ardor of
studious curiosity was awakened in Europe by different causes and
more recent events; and, in the age of the crusades, they viewed
with careless indifference the literature of the Greeks and
Arabians. Some rudiments of mathematical and medicinal knowledge
might be imparted in practice and in figures; necessity might
produce some interpreters for the grosser business of merchants
and soldiers; but the commerce of the Orientals had not diffused
the study and knowledge of their languages in the schools of
Europe. 66 If a similar principle of religion repulsed the idiom
of the Koran, it should have excited their patience and curiosity
to understand the original text of the gospel; and the same
grammar would have unfolded the sense of Plato and the beauties
of Homer. Yet in a reign of sixty years, the Latins of
Constantinople disdained the speech and learning of their
subjects; and the manuscripts were the only treasures which the
natives might enjoy without rapine or envy. Aristotle was indeed
the oracle of the Western universities, but it was a barbarous
Aristotle; and, instead of ascending to the fountain head, his
Latin votaries humbly accepted a corrupt and remote version, from
the Jews and Moors of Andalusia. The principle of the crusades
was a savage fanaticism; and the most important effects were
analogous to the cause. Each pilgrim was ambitious to return with
his sacred spoils, the relics of Greece and Palestine; 67 and
each relic was preceded and followed by a train of miracles and
visions. The belief of the Catholics was corrupted by new
legends, their practice by new superstitions; and the
establishment of the inquisition, the mendicant orders of monks
and friars, the last abuse of indulgences, and the final progress
of idolatry, flowed from the baleful fountain of the holy war.
The active spirit of the Latins preyed on the vitals of their
reason and religion; and if the ninth and tenth centuries were
the times of darkness, the thirteenth and fourteenth were the age
of absurdity and fable.
65 (return) [ Windmills, first invented in the dry country of
Asia Minor, were used in Normandy as early as the year 1105, (Vie
privée des François, tom. i. p. 42, 43. Ducange, Gloss. Latin.
tom. iv. p. 474.)]
66 (return) [ See the complaints of Roger Bacon, (Biographia
Britannica, vol. i. p. 418, Kippis’s edition.) If Bacon himself,
or Gerbert, understood _some_Greek, they were prodigies, and owed
nothing to the commerce of the East.]
67 (return) [ Such was the opinion of the great Leibnitz, (uvres
de Fontenelle, tom. v. p. 458,) a master of the history of the
middle ages. I shall only instance the pedigree of the
Carmelites, and the flight of the house of Loretto, which were
both derived from Palestine.]
Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And
Venetians.—Part IV.
In the profession of Christianity, in the cultivation of a
fertile land, the northern conquerors of the Roman empire
insensibly mingled with the provincials, and rekindled the embers
of the arts of antiquity. Their settlements about the age of
Charlemagne had acquired some degree of order and stability, when
they were overwhelmed by new swarms of invaders, the Normans,
Saracens, 68 and Hungarians, who replunged the western countries
of Europe into their former state of anarchy and barbarism. About
the eleventh century, the second tempest had subsided by the
expulsion or conversion of the enemies of Christendom: the tide
of civilization, which had so long ebbed, began to flow with a
steady and accelerated course; and a fairer prospect was opened
to the hopes and efforts of the rising generations. Great was the
increase, and rapid the progress, during the two hundred years of
the crusades; and some philosophers have applauded the propitious
influence of these holy wars, which appear to me to have checked
rather than forwarded the maturity of Europe. 69 The lives and
labors of millions, which were buried in the East, would have
been more profitably employed in the improvement of their native
country: the accumulated stock of industry and wealth would have
overflowed in navigation and trade; and the Latins would have
been enriched and enlightened by a pure and friendly
correspondence with the climates of the East. In one respect I
can indeed perceive the accidental operation of the crusades, not
so much in producing a benefit as in removing an evil. The larger
portion of the inhabitants of Europe was chained to the soil,
without freedom, or property, or knowledge; and the two orders of
ecclesiastics and nobles, whose numbers were comparatively small,
alone deserved the name of citizens and men. This oppressive
system was supported by the arts of the clergy and the swords of
the barons. The authority of the priests operated in the darker
ages as a salutary antidote: they prevented the total extinction
of letters, mitigated the fierceness of the times, sheltered the
poor and defenceless, and preserved or revived the peace and
order of civil society. But the independence, rapine, and discord
of the feudal lords were unmixed with any semblance of good; and
every hope of industry and improvement was crushed by the iron
weight of the martial aristocracy. Among the causes that
undermined that Gothic edifice, a conspicuous place must be
allowed to the crusades. The estates of the barons were
dissipated, and their race was often extinguished, in these
costly and perilous expeditions. Their poverty extorted from
their pride those charters of freedom which unlocked the fetters
of the slave, secured the farm of the peasant and the shop of the
artificer, and gradually restored a substance and a soul to the
most numerous and useful part of the community. The conflagration
which destroyed the tall and barren trees of the forest gave air
and scope to the vegetation of the smaller and nutritive plants
of the soil. 691
68 (return) [ If I rank the Saracens with the Barbarians, it is
only relative to their wars, or rather inroads, in Italy and
France, where their sole purpose was to plunder and destroy.]
69 (return) [ On this interesting subject, the progress of
society in Europe, a strong ray of philosophical light has broke
from Scotland in our own times; and it is with private, as well
as public regard, that I repeat the names of Hume, Robertson, and
Adam Smith.]
691 (return) [ On the consequences of the crusades, compare the
valuable Essay of Heeren, that of M. Choiseul d’Aillecourt, and a
chapter of Mr. Forster’s “Mahometanism Unveiled.” I may admire
this gentleman’s learning and industry, without pledging myself
to his wild theory of prophets interpretation.—M.]
_Digression On The Family Of Courtenay._
The purple of three emperors, who have reigned at Constantinople,
will authorize or excuse a digression on the origin and singular
fortunes of the house of Courtenay, 70 in the three principal
branches: I. Of Edessa; II. Of France; and III. Of England; of
which the last only has survived the revolutions of eight hundred
years.
70 (return) [ I have applied, but not confined, myself to _A
genealogical History of the noble and illustrious Family of
Courtenay, by Ezra Cleaveland, Tutor to Sir William Courtenay,
and Rector of Honiton; Exon. 1735, in folio._ The first part is
extracted from William of Tyre; the second from Bouchet’s French
history; and the third from various memorials, public,
provincial, and private, of the Courtenays of Devonshire The
rector of Honiton has more gratitude than industry, and more
industry than criticism.]
I. Before the introduction of trade, which scatters riches, and
of knowledge, which dispels prejudice, the prerogative of birth
is most strongly felt and most humbly acknowledged. In every age,
the laws and manners of the Germans have discriminated the ranks
of society; the dukes and counts, who shared the empire of
Charlemagne, converted their office to an inheritance; and to his
children, each feudal lord bequeathed his honor and his sword.
The proudest families are content to lose, in the darkness of the
middle ages, the tree of their pedigree, which, however deep and
lofty, must ultimately rise from a plebeian root; and their
historians must descend ten centuries below the Christian æra,
before they can ascertain any lineal succession by the evidence
of surnames, of arms, and of authentic records. With the first
rays of light, 71 we discern the nobility and opulence of Atho, a
French knight; his nobility, in the rank and title of a nameless
father; his opulence, in the foundation of the castle of
Courtenay in the district of Gatinois, about fifty-six miles to
the south of Paris. From the reign of Robert, the son of Hugh
Capet, the barons of Courtenay are conspicuous among the
immediate vassals of the crown; and Joscelin, the grandson of
Atho and a noble dame, is enrolled among the heroes of the first
crusade. A domestic alliance (their mothers were sisters)
attached him to the standard of Baldwin of Bruges, the second
count of Edessa; a princely fief, which he was worthy to receive,
and able to maintain, announces the number of his martial
followers; and after the departure of his cousin, Joscelin
himself was invested with the county of Edessa on both sides of
the Euphrates. By economy in peace, his territories were
replenished with Latin and Syrian subjects; his magazines with
corn, wine, and oil; his castles with gold and silver, with arms
and horses. In a holy warfare of thirty years, he was alternately
a conqueror and a captive: but he died like a soldier, in a horse
litter at the head of his troops; and his last glance beheld the
flight of the Turkish invaders who had presumed on his age and
infirmities. His son and successor, of the same name, was less
deficient in valor than in vigilance; but he sometimes forgot
that dominion is acquired and maintained by the same arms. He
challenged the hostility of the Turks, without securing the
friendship of the prince of Antioch; and, amidst the peaceful
luxury of Turbessel, in Syria, 72 Joscelin neglected the defence
of the Christian frontier beyond the Euphrates. In his absence,
Zenghi, the first of the Atabeks, besieged and stormed his
capital, Edessa, which was feebly defended by a timorous and
disloyal crowd of Orientals: the Franks were oppressed in a bold
attempt for its recovery, and Courtenay ended his days in the
prison of Aleppo. He still left a fair and ample patrimony But
the victorious Turks oppressed on all sides the weakness of a
widow and orphan; and, for the equivalent of an annual pension,
they resigned to the Greek emperor the charge of defending, and
the shame of losing, the last relics of the Latin conquest. The
countess-dowager of Edessa retired to Jerusalem with her two
children; the daughter, Agnes, became the wife and mother of a
king; the son, Joscelin the Third, accepted the office of
seneschal, the first of the kingdom, and held his new estates in
Palestine by the service of fifty knights. His name appears with
honor in the transactions of peace and war; but he finally
vanishes in the fall of Jerusalem; and the name of Courtenay, in
this branch of Edessa, was lost by the marriage of his two
daughters with a French and German baron. 73
71 (return) [ The primitive record of the family is a passage of
the continuator of Aimoin, a monk of Fleury, who wrote in the
xiith century. See his Chronicle, in the Historians of France,
(tom. xi. p. 276.)]
72 (return) [ Turbessel, or, as it is now styled, Telbesher, is
fixed by D’Anville four-and-twenty miles from the great passage
over the Euphrates at Zeugma.]
73 (return) [ His possessions are distinguished in the Assises of
Jerusalem (c. B26) among the feudal tenures of the kingdom, which
must therefore have been collected between the years 1153 and
1187. His pedigree may be found in the Lignages d’Outremer, c.
16.]
II. While Joscelin reigned beyond the Euphrates, his elder
brother Milo, the son of Joscelin, the son of Atho, continued,
near the Seine, to possess the castle of their fathers, which was
at length inherited by Rainaud, or Reginald, the youngest of his
three sons. Examples of genius or virtue must be rare in the
annals of the oldest families; and, in a remote age their pride
will embrace a deed of rapine and violence; such, however, as
could not be perpetrated without some superiority of courage, or,
at least, of power. A descendant of Reginald of Courtenay may
blush for the public robber, who stripped and imprisoned several
merchants, after they had satisfied the king’s duties at Sens and
Orleans. He will glory in the offence, since the bold offender
could not be compelled to obedience and restitution, till the
regent and the count of Champagne prepared to march against him
at the head of an army. 74 Reginald bestowed his estates on his
eldest daughter, and his daughter on the seventh son of King
Louis the Fat; and their marriage was crowned with a numerous
offspring. We might expect that a private should have merged in a
royal name; and that the descendants of Peter of France and
Elizabeth of Courtenay would have enjoyed the titles and honors
of princes of the blood. But this legitimate claim was long
neglected, and finally denied; and the causes of their disgrace
will represent the story of this second branch. _1._ Of all the
families now extant, the most ancient, doubtless, and the most
illustrious, is the house of France, which has occupied the same
throne above eight hundred years, and descends, in a clear and
lineal series of males, from the middle of the ninth century. 75
In the age of the crusades, it was already revered both in the
East and West. But from Hugh Capet to the marriage of Peter, no
more than five reigns or generations had elapsed; and so
precarious was their title, that the eldest sons, as a necessary
precaution, were previously crowned during the lifetime of their
fathers. The peers of France have long maintained their
precedency before the younger branches of the royal line, nor had
the princes of the blood, in the twelfth century, acquired that
hereditary lustre which is now diffused over the most remote
candidates for the succession. _2._ The barons of Courtenay must
have stood high in their own estimation, and in that of the
world, since they could impose on the son of a king the
obligation of adopting for himself and all his descendants the
name and arms of their daughter and his wife. In the marriage of
an heiress with her inferior or her equal, such exchange was
often required and allowed: but as they continued to diverge from
the regal stem, the sons of Louis the Fat were insensibly
confounded with their maternal ancestors; and the new Courtenays
might deserve to forfeit the honors of their birth, which a
motive of interest had tempted them to renounce. _3._ The shame
was far more permanent than the reward, and a momentary blaze was
followed by a long darkness. The eldest son of these nuptials,
Peter of Courtenay, had married, as I have already mentioned, the
sister of the counts of Flanders, the two first emperors of
Constantinople: he rashly accepted the invitation of the barons
of Romania; his two sons, Robert and Baldwin, successively held
and lost the remains of the Latin empire in the East, and the
granddaughter of Baldwin the Second again mingled her blood with
the blood of France and of Valois. To support the expenses of a
troubled and transitory reign, their patrimonial estates were
mortgaged or sold: and the last emperors of Constantinople
depended on the annual charity of Rome and Naples.
74 (return) [ The rapine and satisfaction of Reginald de
Courtenay, are preposterously arranged in the Epistles of the
abbot and regent Suger, (cxiv. cxvi.,) the best memorials of the
age, (Duchesne, Scriptores Hist. Franc. tom. iv. p. 530.)]
75 (return) [ In the beginning of the xith century, after naming
the father and grandfather of Hugh Capet, the monk Glaber is
obliged to add, cujus genus valde in-ante reperitur obscurum. Yet
we are assured that the great-grandfather of Hugh Capet was
Robert the Strong count of Anjou, (A.D. 863—873,) a noble Frank
of Neustria, Neustricus... generosæ stirpis, who was slain in the
defence of his country against the Normans, dum patriæ fines
tuebatur. Beyond Robert, all is conjecture or fable. It is a
probable conjecture, that the third race descended from the
second by Childebrand, the brother of Charles Martel. It is an
absurd fable that the second was allied to the first by the
marriage of Ansbert, a Roman senator and the ancestor of St.
Arnoul, with Blitilde, a daughter of Clotaire I. The Saxon origin
of the house of France is an ancient but incredible opinion. See
a judicious memoir of M. de Foncemagne, (Mémoires de l’Académie
des Inscriptions, tom. xx. p. 548—579.) He had promised to
declare his own opinion in a second memoir, which has never
appeared.]
While the elder brothers dissipated their wealth in romantic
adventures, and the castle of Courtenay was profaned by a
plebeian owner, the younger branches of that adopted name were
propagated and multiplied. But their splendor was clouded by
poverty and time: after the decease of Robert, great butler of
France, they descended from princes to barons; the next
generations were confounded with the simple gentry; the
descendants of Hugh Capet could no longer be visible in the rural
lords of Tanlay and of Champignelles. The more adventurous
embraced without dishonor the profession of a soldier: the least
active and opulent might sink, like their cousins of the branch
of Dreux, into the condition of peasants. Their royal descent, in
a dark period of four hundred years, became each day more
obsolete and ambiguous; and their pedigree, instead of being
enrolled in the annals of the kingdom, must be painfully searched
by the minute diligence of heralds and genealogists. It was not
till the end of the sixteenth century, on the accession of a
family almost as remote as their own, that the princely spirit of
the Courtenays again revived; and the question of the nobility
provoked them to ascertain the royalty of their blood. They
appealed to the justice and compassion of Henry the Fourth;
obtained a favorable opinion from twenty lawyers of Italy and
Germany, and modestly compared themselves to the descendants of
King David, whose prerogatives were not impaired by the lapse of
ages or the trade of a carpenter. 76 But every ear was deaf, and
every circumstance was adverse, to their lawful claims. The
Bourbon kings were justified by the neglect of the Valois; the
princes of the blood, more recent and lofty, disdained the
alliance of his humble kindred: the parliament, without denying
their proofs, eluded a dangerous precedent by an arbitrary
distinction, and established St. Louis as the first father of the
royal line. 77 A repetition of complaints and protests was
repeatedly disregarded; and the hopeless pursuit was terminated
in the present century by the death of the last male of the
family. 78 Their painful and anxious situation was alleviated by
the pride of conscious virtue: they sternly rejected the
temptations of fortune and favor; and a dying Courtenay would
have sacrificed his son, if the youth could have renounced, for
any temporal interest, the right and title of a legitimate prince
of the blood of France. 79
76 (return) [ Of the various petitions, apologies, &c., published
by the princes of Courtenay, I have seen the three following, all
in octavo: 1. De Stirpe et Origine Domus de Courtenay: addita
sunt Responsa celeberrimorum Europæ Jurisconsultorum; Paris,
1607. 2. Representation du Procedé tenû a l’instance faicte
devant le Roi, par Messieurs de Courtenay, pour la conservation
de l’Honneur et Dignité de leur Maison, branche de la royalle
Maison de France; à Paris, 1613. 3. Representation du subject qui
a porté Messieurs de Salles et de Fraville, de la Maison de
Courtenay, à se retirer hors du Royaume, 1614. It was a homicide,
for which the Courtenays expected to be pardoned, or tried, as
princes of the blood.]
77 (return) [ The sense of the parliaments is thus expressed by
Thuanus Principis nomen nusquam in Galliâ tributum, nisi iis qui
per mares e regibus nostris originem repetunt; qui nunc tantum a
Ludovico none beatæ memoriæ numerantur; nam _Cortini_ et
Drocenses, a Ludovico crasso genus ducentes, hodie inter eos
minime recensentur. A distinction of expediency rather than
justice. The sanctity of Louis IX. could not invest him with any
special prerogative, and all the descendants of Hugh Capet must
be included in his original compact with the French nation.]
78 (return) [ The last male of the Courtenays was Charles Roger,
who died in the year 1730, without leaving any sons. The last
female was Helene de Courtenay, who married Louis de Beaufremont.
Her title of Princesse du Sang Royal de France was suppressed
(February 7th, 1737) by an _arrêt_ of the parliament of Paris.]
79 (return) [ The singular anecdote to which I allude is related
in the Recueil des Pieces interessantes et peu connues,
(Maestricht, 1786, in 4 vols. 12mo.;) and the unknown editor
quotes his author, who had received it from Helene de Courtenay,
marquise de Beaufremont.]
III. According to the old register of Ford Abbey, the Courtenays
of Devonshire are descended from Prince _Florus_, the second son
of Peter, and the grandson of Louis the Fat. 80 This fable of the
grateful or venal monks was too respectfully entertained by our
antiquaries, Cambden 81 and Dugdale: 82 but it is so clearly
repugnant to truth and time, that the rational pride of the
family now refuses to accept this imaginary founder. Their most
faithful historians believe, that, after giving his daughter to
the king’s son, Reginald of Courtenay abandoned his possessions
in France, and obtained from the English monarch a second wife
and a new inheritance. It is certain, at least, that Henry the
Second distinguished in his camps and councils a Reginald, of the
name and arms, and, as it may be fairly presumed, of the genuine
race, of the Courtenays of France. The right of wardship enabled
a feudal lord to reward his vassal with the marriage and estate
of a noble heiress; and Reginald of Courtenay acquired a fair
establishment in Devonshire, where his posterity has been seated
above six hundred years. 83 From a Norman baron, Baldwin de
Brioniis, who had been invested by the Conqueror, Hawise, the
wife of Reginald, derived the honor of Okehampton, which was held
by the service of ninety-three knights; and a female might claim
the manly offices of hereditary viscount or sheriff, and of
captain of the royal castle of Exeter. Their son Robert married
the sister of the earl of Devon: at the end of a century, on the
failure of the family of Rivers, 84 his great-grandson, Hugh the
Second, succeeded to a title which was still considered as a
territorial dignity; and twelve earls of Devonshire, of the name
of Courtenay, have flourished in a period of two hundred and
twenty years. They were ranked among the chief of the barons of
the realm; nor was it till after a strenuous dispute, that they
yielded to the fief of Arundel the first place in the parliament
of England: their alliances were contracted with the noblest
families, the Veres, Despensers, St. Johns, Talbots, Bohuns, and
even the Plantagenets themselves; and in a contest with John of
Lancaster, a Courtenay, bishop of London, and afterwards
archbishop of Canterbury, might be accused of profane confidence
in the strength and number of his kindred. In peace, the earls of
Devon resided in their numerous castles and manors of the west;
their ample revenue was appropriated to devotion and hospitality;
and the epitaph of Edward, surnamed from his misfortune, the
_blind_, from his virtues, the _good_, earl, inculcates with much
ingenuity a moral sentence, which may, however, be abused by
thoughtless generosity. After a grateful commemoration of the
fifty-five years of union and happiness which he enjoyed with
Mabe his wife, the good earl thus speaks from the tomb:—
“What we gave, we have; What we spent, we had; What we left, we
lost.” 85
But their _losses_, in this sense, were far superior to their
gifts and expenses; and their heirs, not less than the poor, were
the objects of their paternal care. The sums which they paid for
livery and seizin attest the greatness of their possessions; and
several estates have remained in their family since the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In war, the Courtenays of
England fulfilled the duties, and deserved the honors, of
chivalry. They were often intrusted to levy and command the
militia of Devonshire and Cornwall; they often attended their
supreme lord to the borders of Scotland; and in foreign service,
for a stipulated price, they sometimes maintained fourscore
men-at-arms and as many archers. By sea and land they fought
under the standard of the Edwards and Henries: their names are
conspicuous in battles, in tournaments, and in the original list
of the Order of the Garter; three brothers shared the Spanish
victory of the Black Prince; and in the lapse of six generations,
the English Courtenays had learned to despise the nation and
country from which they derived their origin. In the quarrel of
the two roses, the earls of Devon adhered to the house of
Lancaster; and three brothers successively died either in the
field or on the scaffold. Their honors and estates were restored
by Henry the Seventh; a daughter of Edward the Fourth was not
disgraced by the nuptials of a Courtenay; their son, who was
created Marquis of Exeter, enjoyed the favor of his cousin Henry
the Eighth; and in the camp of Cloth of Gold, he broke a lance
against the French monarch. But the favor of Henry was the
prelude of disgrace; his disgrace was the signal of death; and of
the victims of the jealous tyrant, the marquis of Exeter is one
of the most noble and guiltless. His son Edward lived a prisoner
in the Tower, and died in exile at Padua; and the secret love of
Queen Mary, whom he slighted, perhaps for the princess Elizabeth,
has shed a romantic color on the story of this beautiful youth.
The relics of his patrimony were conveyed into strange families
by the marriages of his four aunts; and his personal honors, as
if they had been legally extinct, were revived by the patents of
succeeding princes. But there still survived a lineal descendant
of Hugh, the first earl of Devon, a younger branch of the
Courtenays, who have been seated at Powderham Castle above four
hundred years, from the reign of Edward the Third to the present
hour. Their estates have been increased by the grant and
improvement of lands in Ireland, and they have been recently
restored to the honors of the peerage. Yet the Courtenays still
retain the plaintive motto, which asserts the innocence, and
deplores the fall, of their ancient house. 86 While they sigh for
past greatness, they are doubtless sensible of present blessings:
in the long series of the Courtenay annals, the most splendid æra
is likewise the most unfortunate; nor can an opulent peer of
Britain be inclined to envy the emperors of Constantinople, who
wandered over Europe to solicit alms for the support of their
dignity and the defence of their capital.
80 (return) [ Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. i. p. 786. Yet
this fable must have been invented before the reign of Edward
III. The profuse devotion of the three first generations to Ford
Abbey was followed by oppression on one side and ingratitude on
the other; and in the sixth generation, the monks ceased to
register the births, actions, and deaths of their patrons.]
81 (return) [ In his Britannia, in the list of the earls of
Devonshire. His expression, e regio sanguine ortos, credunt,
betrays, however, some doubt or suspicion.]
82 (return) [ In his Baronage, P. i. p. 634, he refers to his own
Monasticon. Should he not have corrected the register of Ford
Abbey, and annihilated the phantom Florus, by the unquestionable
evidence of the French historians?]
83 (return) [ Besides the third and most valuable book of
Cleaveland’s History, I have consulted Dugdale, the father of our
genealogical science, (Baronage, P. i. p. 634—643.)]
84 (return) [ This great family, de Ripuariis, de Redvers, de
Rivers, ended, in Edward the Fifth’s time, in Isabella de
Fortibus, a famous and potent dowager, who long survived her
brother and husband, (Dugdale, Baronage, P i. p. 254—257.)]
85 (return) [ Cleaveland p. 142. By some it is assigned to a
Rivers earl of Devon; but the English denotes the xvth, rather
than the xiiith century.]
86 (return) [ _Ubi lapsus! Quid feci?_ a motto which was probably
adopted by the Powderham branch, after the loss of the earldom of
Devonshire, &c. The primitive arms of the Courtenays were, _Or_,
_three torteaux_, _Gules_, which seem to denote their affinity
with Godfrey of Bouillon, and the ancient counts of Boulogne.]
Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.—Part I.
The Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.—Elevation And Reign
Of Michael Palæologus.—His False Union With The Pope And The Latin
Church.—Hostile Designs Of Charles Of Anjou.—Revolt Of Sicily.—War
Of The Catalans In Asia And Greece.—Revolutions And Present State
Of Athens.
The loss of Constantinople restored a momentary vigor to the
Greeks. From their palaces, the princes and nobles were driven
into the field; and the fragments of the falling monarchy were
grasped by the hands of the most vigorous or the most skilful
candidates. In the long and barren pages of the Byzantine annals,
1 it would not be an easy task to equal the two characters of
Theodore Lascaris and John Ducas Vataces, 2 who replanted and
upheld the Roman standard at Nice in Bithynia. The difference of
their virtues was happily suited to the diversity of their
situation. In his first efforts, the fugitive Lascaris commanded
only three cities and two thousand soldiers: his reign was the
season of generous and active despair: in every military
operation he staked his life and crown; and his enemies of the
Hellespont and the Mæander, were surprised by his celerity and
subdued by his boldness. A victorious reign of eighteen years
expanded the principality of Nice to the magnitude of an empire.
The throne of his successor and son-in-law Vataces was founded on
a more solid basis, a larger scope, and more plentiful resources;
and it was the temper, as well as the interest, of Vataces to
calculate the risk, to expect the moment, and to insure the
success, of his ambitious designs. In the decline of the Latins,
I have briefly exposed the progress of the Greeks; the prudent
and gradual advances of a conqueror, who, in a reign of
thirty-three years, rescued the provinces from national and
foreign usurpers, till he pressed on all sides the Imperial city,
a leafless and sapless trunk, which must full at the first stroke
of the axe. But his interior and peaceful administration is still
more deserving of notice and praise. 3 The calamities of the
times had wasted the numbers and the substance of the Greeks; the
motives and the means of agriculture were extirpated; and the
most fertile lands were left without cultivation or inhabitants.
A portion of this vacant property was occupied and improved by
the command, and for the benefit, of the emperor: a powerful hand
and a vigilant eye supplied and surpassed, by a skilful
management, the minute diligence of a private farmer: the royal
domain became the garden and granary of Asia; and without
impoverishing the people, the sovereign acquired a fund of
innocent and productive wealth. According to the nature of the
soil, his lands were sown with corn or planted with vines; the
pastures were filled with horses and oxen, with sheep and hogs;
and when Vataces presented to the empress a crown of diamonds and
pearls, he informed her, with a smile, that this precious
ornament arose from the sale of the eggs of his innumerable
poultry. The produce of his domain was applied to the maintenance
of his palace and hospitals, the calls of dignity and
benevolence: the lesson was still more useful than the revenue:
the plough was restored to its ancient security and honor; and
the nobles were taught to seek a sure and independent revenue
from their estates, instead of adorning their splendid beggary by
the oppression of the people, or (what is almost the same) by the
favors of the court. The superfluous stock of corn and cattle was
eagerly purchased by the Turks, with whom Vataces preserved a
strict and sincere alliance; but he discouraged the importation
of foreign manufactures, the costly silks of the East, and the
curious labors of the Italian looms. “The demands of nature and
necessity,” was he accustomed to say, “are indispensable; but the
influence of fashion may rise and sink at the breath of a
monarch;” and both his precept and example recommended simplicity
of manners and the use of domestic industry. The education of
youth and the revival of learning were the most serious objects
of his care; and, without deciding the precedency, he pronounced
with truth, that a prince and a philosopher 4 are the two most
eminent characters of human society. His first wife was Irene,
the daughter of Theodore Lascaris, a woman more illustrious by
her personal merit, the milder virtues of her sex, than by the
blood of the Angeli and Comneni that flowed in her veins, and
transmitted the inheritance of the empire. After her death he was
contracted to Anne, or Constance, a natural daughter of the
emperor Frederic 499 the Second; but as the bride had not
attained the years of puberty, Vataces placed in his solitary bed
an Italian damsel of her train; and his amorous weakness bestowed
on the concubine the honors, though not the title, of a lawful
empress. His frailty was censured as a flagitious and damnable
sin by the monks; and their rude invectives exercised and
displayed the patience of the royal lover. A philosophic age may
excuse a single vice, which was redeemed by a crowd of virtues;
and in the review of his faults, and the more intemperate
passions of Lascaris, the judgment of their contemporaries was
softened by gratitude to the second founders of the empire. 5 The
slaves of the Latins, without law or peace, applauded the
happiness of their brethren who had resumed their national
freedom; and Vataces employed the laudable policy of convincing
the Greeks of every dominion that it was their interest to be
enrolled in the number of his subjects.
1 (return) [ For the reigns of the Nicene emperors, more
especially of John Vataces and his son, their minister, George
Acropolita, is the only genuine contemporary; but George Pachymer
returned to Constantinople with the Greeks at the age of
nineteen, (Hanckius de Script. Byzant. c. 33, 34, p. 564—578.
Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 448—460.) Yet the history of
Nicephorus Gregoras, though of the xivth century, is a valuable
narrative from the taking of Constantinople by the Latins.]
2 (return) [ Nicephorus Gregoras (l. ii. c. 1) distinguishes
between the oxeia ormh of Lascaris, and the eustaqeia of Vataces.
The two portraits are in a very good style.]
3 (return) [ Pachymer, l. i. c. 23, 24. Nic. Greg. l. ii. c. 6.
The reader of the Byzantines must observe how rarely we are
indulged with such precious details.]
4 (return) [ Monoi gar apantwn anqrwpwn onomastotatoi basileuV
kai jilosojoV, (Greg. Acropol. c. 32.) The emperor, in a familiar
conversation, examined and encouraged the studies of his future
logothete.]
499 (return) [ Sister of Manfred, afterwards king of Naples. Nic.
Greg. p. 45.—M.]
5 (return) [ Compare Acropolita, (c. 18, 52,) and the two first
books of Nicephorus Gregoras.]
A strong shade of degeneracy is visible between John Vataces and
his son Theodore; between the founder who sustained the weight,
and the heir who enjoyed the splendor, of the Imperial crown. 6
Yet the character of Theodore was not devoid of energy; he had
been educated in the school of his father, in the exercise of war
and hunting; Constantinople was yet spared; but in the three
years of a short reign, he thrice led his armies into the heart
of Bulgaria. His virtues were sullied by a choleric and
suspicious temper: the first of these may be ascribed to the
ignorance of control; and the second might naturally arise from a
dark and imperfect view of the corruption of mankind. On a march
in Bulgaria, he consulted on a question of policy his principal
ministers; and the Greek logothete, George Acropolita, presumed
to offend him by the declaration of a free and honest opinion.
The emperor half unsheathed his cimeter; but his more deliberate
rage reserved Acropolita for a baser punishment. One of the first
officers of the empire was ordered to dismount, stripped of his
robes, and extended on the ground in the presence of the prince
and army. In this posture he was chastised with so many and such
heavy blows from the clubs of two guards or executioners, that
when Theodore commanded them to cease, the great logothete was
scarcely able to rise and crawl away to his tent. After a
seclusion of some days, he was recalled by a peremptory mandate
to his seat in council; and so dead were the Greeks to the sense
of honor and shame, that it is from the narrative of the sufferer
himself that we acquire the knowledge of his disgrace. 7 The
cruelty of the emperor was exasperated by the pangs of sickness,
the approach of a premature end, and the suspicion of poison and
magic. The lives and fortunes, the eyes and limbs, of his kinsmen
and nobles, were sacrificed to each sally of passion; and before
he died, the son of Vataces might deserve from the people, or at
least from the court, the appellation of tyrant. A matron of the
family of the Palæologi had provoked his anger by refusing to
bestow her beauteous daughter on the vile plebeian who was
recommended by his caprice. Without regard to her birth or age,
her body, as high as the neck, was enclosed in a sack with
several cats, who were pricked with pins to irritate their fury
against their unfortunate fellow-captive. In his last hours the
emperor testified a wish to forgive and be forgiven, a just
anxiety for the fate of John his son and successor, who, at the
age of eight years, was condemned to the dangers of a long
minority. His last choice intrusted the office of guardian to the
sanctity of the patriarch Arsenius, and to the courage of George
Muzalon, the great domestic, who was equally distinguished by the
royal favor and the public hatred. Since their connection with
the Latins, the names and privileges of hereditary rank had
insinuated themselves into the Greek monarchy; and the noble
families 8 were provoked by the elevation of a worthless
favorite, to whose influence they imputed the errors and
calamities of the late reign. In the first council, after the
emperor’s death, Muzalon, from a lofty throne, pronounced a
labored apology of his conduct and intentions: his modesty was
subdued by a unanimous assurance of esteem and fidelity; and his
most inveterate enemies were the loudest to salute him as the
guardian and savior of the Romans. Eight days were sufficient to
prepare the execution of the conspiracy. On the ninth, the
obsequies of the deceased monarch were solemnized in the
cathedral of Magnesia, 9 an Asiatic city, where he expired, on
the banks of the Hermus, and at the foot of Mount Sipylus. The
holy rites were interrupted by a sedition of the guards; Muzalon,
his brothers, and his adherents, were massacred at the foot of
the altar; and the absent patriarch was associated with a new
colleague, with Michael Palæologus, the most illustrious, in
birth and merit, of the Greek nobles. 10
6 (return) [ A Persian saying, that Cyrus was the _father_ and
Darius the _master_, of his subjects, was applied to Vataces and
his son. But Pachymer (l. i. c. 23) has mistaken the mild Darius
for the cruel Cambyses, despot or tyrant of his people. By the
institution of taxes, Darius had incurred the less odious, but
more contemptible, name of KaphloV, merchant or broker,
(Herodotus, iii. 89.)]
7 (return) [ Acropolita (c. 63) seems to admire his own firmness
in sustaining a beating, and not returning to council till he was
called. He relates the exploits of Theodore, and his own
services, from c. 53 to c. 74 of his history. See the third book
of Nicephorus Gregoras.]
8 (return) [ Pachymer (l. i. c. 21) names and discriminates
fifteen or twenty Greek families, kai osoi alloi, oiV h
megalogenhV seira kai crush sugkekrothto. Does he mean, by this
decoration, a figurative or a real golden chain? Perhaps, both.]
9 (return) [ The old geographers, with Cellarius and D’Anville,
and our travellers, particularly Pocock and Chandler, will teach
us to distinguish the two Magnesias of Asia Minor, of the Mæander
and of Sipylus. The latter, our present object, is still
flourishing for a Turkish city, and lies eight hours, or leagues,
to the north-east of Smyrna, (Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, tom.
iii. lettre xxii. p. 365—370. Chandler’s Travels into Asia Minor,
p. 267.)]
10 (return) [ See Acropolita, (c. 75, 76, &c.,) who lived too
near the times; Pachymer, (l. i. c. 13—25,) Gregoras, (l. iii. c.
3, 4, 5.)]
Of those who are proud of their ancestors, the far greater part
must be content with local or domestic renown; and few there are
who dare trust the memorials of their family to the public annals
of their country. As early as the middle of the eleventh century,
the noble race of the Palæologi 11 stands high and conspicuous in
the Byzantine history: it was the valiant George Palæologus who
placed the father of the Comneni on the throne; and his kinsmen
or descendants continue, in each generation, to lead the armies
and councils of the state. The purple was not dishonored by their
alliance, and had the law of succession, and female succession,
been strictly observed, the wife of Theodore Lascaris must have
yielded to her elder sister, the mother of Michael Palæologus,
who afterwards raised his family to the throne. In his person,
the splendor of birth was dignified by the merit of the soldier
and statesman: in his early youth he was promoted to the office
of _constable_ or commander of the French mercenaries; the
private expense of a day never exceeded three pieces of gold; but
his ambition was rapacious and profuse; and his gifts were
doubled by the graces of his conversation and manners. The love
of the soldiers and people excited the jealousy of the court, and
Michael thrice escaped from the dangers in which he was involved
by his own imprudence or that of his friends. I. Under the reign
of Justice and Vataces, a dispute arose 12 between two officers,
one of whom accused the other of maintaining the hereditary right
of the Palæologi The cause was decided, according to the new
jurisprudence of the Latins, by single combat; the defendant was
overthrown; but he persisted in declaring that himself alone was
guilty; and that he had uttered these rash or treasonable
speeches without the approbation or knowledge of his patron. Yet
a cloud of suspicion hung over the innocence of the constable; he
was still pursued by the whispers of malevolence; and a subtle
courtier, the archbishop of Philadelphia, urged him to accept the
judgment of God in the fiery proof of the ordeal. 13 Three days
before the trial, the patient’s arm was enclosed in a bag, and
secured by the royal signet; and it was incumbent on him to bear
a red-hot ball of iron three times from the altar to the rails of
the sanctuary, without artifice and without injury. Palæologus
eluded the dangerous experiment with sense and pleasantry. “I am
a soldier,” said he, “and will boldly enter the lists with my
accusers; but a layman, a sinner like myself, is not endowed with
the gift of miracles. _Your_ piety, most holy prelate, may
deserve the interposition of Heaven, and from your hands I will
receive the fiery globe, the pledge of my innocence.” The
archbishop started; the emperor smiled; and the absolution or
pardon of Michael was approved by new rewards and new services.
II. In the succeeding reign, as he held the government of Nice,
he was secretly informed, that the mind of the absent prince was
poisoned with jealousy; and that death, or blindness, would be
his final reward. Instead of awaiting the return and sentence of
Theodore, the constable, with some followers, escaped from the
city and the empire; and though he was plundered by the Turkmans
of the desert, he found a hospitable refuge in the court of the
sultan. In the ambiguous state of an exile, Michael reconciled
the duties of gratitude and loyalty: drawing his sword against
the Tartars; admonishing the garrisons of the Roman limit; and
promoting, by his influence, the restoration of peace, in which
his pardon and recall were honorably included. III. While he
guarded the West against the despot of Epirus, Michael was again
suspected and condemned in the palace; and such was his loyalty
or weakness, that he submitted to be led in chains above six
hundred miles from Durazzo to Nice. The civility of the messenger
alleviated his disgrace; the emperor’s sickness dispelled his
danger; and the last breath of Theodore, which recommended his
infant son, at once acknowledged the innocence and the power of
Palæologus.
11 (return) [ The pedigree of Palæologus is explained by Ducange,
(Famil. Byzant. p. 230, &c.:) the events of his private life are
related by Pachymer (l. i. c. 7—12) and Gregoras (l. ii. 8, l.
iii. 2, 4, l. iv. 1) with visible favor to the father of the
reigning dynasty.]
12 (return) [ Acropolita (c. 50) relates the circumstances of
this curious adventure, which seem to have escaped the more
recent writers.]
13 (return) [ Pachymer, (l. i. c. 12,) who speaks with proper
contempt of this barbarous trial, affirms, that he had seen in
his youth many person who had sustained, without injury, the
fiery ordeal. As a Greek, he is credulous; but the ingenuity of
the Greeks might furnish some remedies of art or fraud against
their own superstition, or that of their tyrant.]
But his innocence had been too unworthily treated, and his power
was too strongly felt, to curb an aspiring subject in the fair
field that was opened to his ambition. 14 In the council, after
the death of Theodore, he was the first to pronounce, and the
first to violate, the oath of allegiance to Muzalon; and so
dexterous was his conduct, that he reaped the benefit, without
incurring the guilt, or at least the reproach, of the subsequent
massacre. In the choice of a regent, he balanced the interests
and passions of the candidates; turned their envy and hatred from
himself against each other, and forced every competitor to own,
that after his own claims, those of Palæologus were best entitled
to the preference. Under the title of great duke, he accepted or
assumed, during a long minority, the active powers of government;
the patriarch was a venerable name; and the factious nobles were
seduced, or oppressed, by the ascendant of his genius. The fruits
of the economy of Vataces were deposited in a strong castle on
the banks of the Hermus, in the custody of the faithful
Varangians: the constable retained his command or influence over
the foreign troops; he employed the guards to possess the
treasure, and the treasure to corrupt the guards; and whatsoever
might be the abuse of the public money, his character was above
the suspicion of private avarice. By himself, or by his
emissaries, he strove to persuade every rank of subjects, that
their own prosperity would rise in just proportion to the
establishment of his authority. The weight of taxes was
suspended, the perpetual theme of popular complaint; and he
prohibited the trials by the ordeal and judicial combat. These
Barbaric institutions were already abolished or undermined in
France 15 and England; 16 and the appeal to the sword offended
the sense of a civilized, 17 and the temper of an unwarlike,
people. For the future maintenance of their wives and children,
the veterans were grateful: the priests and the philosophers
applauded his ardent zeal for the advancement of religion and
learning; and his vague promise of rewarding merit was applied by
every candidate to his own hopes. Conscious of the influence of
the clergy, Michael successfully labored to secure the suffrage
of that powerful order. Their expensive journey from Nice to
Magnesia, afforded a decent and ample pretence: the leading
prelates were tempted by the liberality of his nocturnal visits;
and the incorruptible patriarch was flattered by the homage of
his new colleague, who led his mule by the bridle into the town,
and removed to a respectful distance the importunity of the
crowd. Without renouncing his title by royal descent, Palæologus
encouraged a free discussion into the advantages of elective
monarchy; and his adherents asked, with the insolence of triumph,
what patient would trust his health, or what merchant would
abandon his vessel, to the _hereditary_ skill of a physician or a
pilot? The youth of the emperor, and the impending dangers of a
minority, required the support of a mature and experienced
guardian; of an associate raised above the envy of his equals,
and invested with the name and prerogatives of royalty. For the
interest of the prince and people, without any selfish views for
himself or his family, the great duke consented to guard and
instruct the son of Theodore; but he sighed for the happy moment
when he might restore to his firmer hands the administration of
his patrimony, and enjoy the blessings of a private station. He
was first invested with the title and prerogatives of _despot_,
which bestowed the purple ornaments and the second place in the
Roman monarchy. It was afterwards agreed that John and Michael
should be proclaimed as joint emperors, and raised on the
buckler, but that the preeminence should be reserved for the
birthright of the former. A mutual league of amity was pledged
between the royal partners; and in case of a rupture, the
subjects were bound, by their oath of allegiance, to declare
themselves against the aggressor; an ambiguous name, the seed of
discord and civil war. Palæologus was content; but, on the day of
the coronation, and in the cathedral of Nice, his zealous
adherents most vehemently urged the just priority of his age and
merit. The unseasonable dispute was eluded by postponing to a
more convenient opportunity the coronation of John Lascaris; and
he walked with a slight diadem in the train of his guardian, who
alone received the Imperial crown from the hands of the
patriarch. It was not without extreme reluctance that Arsenius
abandoned the cause of his pupil; out the Varangians brandished
their battle-axes; a sign of assent was extorted from the
trembling youth; and some voices were heard, that the life of a
child should no longer impede the settlement of the nation. A
full harvest of honors and employments was distributed among his
friends by the grateful Palæologus. In his own family he created
a despot and two sebastocrators; Alexius Strategopulus was
decorated with the title of Cæsar; and that veteran commander
soon repaid the obligation, by restoring Constantinople to the
Greek emperor.
14 (return) [ Without comparing Pachymer to Thucydides or
Tacitus, I will praise his narrative, (l. i. c. 13—32, l. ii. c.
1—9,) which pursues the ascent of Palæologus with eloquence,
perspicuity, and tolerable freedom. Acropolita is more cautious,
and Gregoras more concise.]
15 (return) [ The judicial combat was abolished by St. Louis in
his own territories; and his example and authority were at length
prevalent in France, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxviii. c. 29.)]
16 (return) [ In civil cases Henry II. gave an option to the
defendant: Glanville prefers the proof by evidence; and that by
judicial combat is reprobated in the Fleta. Yet the trial by
battle has never been abrogated in the English law, and it was
ordered by the judges as late as the beginning of the last
century. * Note : And even demanded in the present.—M.]
17 (return) [ Yet an ingenious friend has urged to me in
mitigation of this practice, 1. _That_ in nations emerging from
barbarism, it moderates the license of private war and arbitrary
revenge. 2. _That_ it is less absurd than the trials by the
ordeal, or boiling water, or the cross, which it has contributed
to abolish. 3. _That_ it served at least as a test of personal
courage; a quality so seldom united with a base disposition, that
the danger of a trial might be some check to a malicious
prosecutor, and a useful barrier against injustice supported by
power. The gallant and unfortunate earl of Surrey might probably
have escaped his unmerited fate, had not his demand of the combat
against his accuser been overruled.]
It was in the second year of his reign, while he resided in the
palace and gardens of Nymphæum, 18 near Smyrna, that the first
messenger arrived at the dead of night; and the stupendous
intelligence was imparted to Michael, after he had been gently
waked by the tender precaution of his sister Eulogia. The man was
unknown or obscure; he produced no letters from the victorious
Cæsar; nor could it easily be credited, after the defeat of
Vataces and the recent failure of Palæologus himself, that the
capital had been surprised by a detachment of eight hundred
soldiers. As a hostage, the doubtful author was confined, with
the assurance of death or an ample recompense; and the court was
left some hours in the anxiety of hope and fear, till the
messengers of Alexius arrived with the authentic intelligence,
and displayed the trophies of the conquest, the sword and
sceptre, 19 the buskins and bonnet, 20 of the usurper Baldwin,
which he had dropped in his precipitate flight. A general
assembly of the bishops, senators, and nobles, was immediately
convened, and never perhaps was an event received with more
heartfelt and universal joy. In a studied oration, the new
sovereign of Constantinople congratulated his own and the public
fortune. “There was a time,” said he, “a far distant time, when
the Roman empire extended to the Adriatic, the Tigris, and the
confines of Æthiopia. After the loss of the provinces, our
capital itself, in these last and calamitous days, has been
wrested from our hands by the Barbarians of the West. From the
lowest ebb, the tide of prosperity has again returned in our
favor; but our prosperity was that of fugitives and exiles: and
when we were asked, which was the country of the Romans, we
indicated with a blush the climate of the globe, and the quarter
of the heavens. The divine Providence has now restored to our
arms the city of Constantine, the sacred seat of religion and
empire; and it will depend on our valor and conduct to render
this important acquisition the pledge and omen of future
victories.” So eager was the impatience of the prince and people,
that Michael made his triumphal entry into Constantinople only
twenty days after the expulsion of the Latins. The golden gate
was thrown open at his approach; the devout conqueror dismounted
from his horse; and a miraculous image of Mary the Conductress
was borne before him, that the divine Virgin in person might
appear to conduct him to the temple of her Son, the cathedral of
St. Sophia. But after the first transport of devotion and pride,
he sighed at the dreary prospect of solitude and ruin. The palace
was defiled with smoke and dirt, and the gross intemperance of
the Franks; whole streets had been consumed by fire, or were
decayed by the injuries of time; the sacred and profane edifices
were stripped of their ornaments: and, as if they were conscious
of their approaching exile, the industry of the Latins had been
confined to the work of pillage and destruction. Trade had
expired under the pressure of anarchy and distress, and the
numbers of inhabitants had decreased with the opulence of the
city. It was the first care of the Greek monarch to reinstate the
nobles in the palaces of their fathers; and the houses or the
ground which they occupied were restored to the families that
could exhibit a legal right of inheritance. But the far greater
part was extinct or lost; the vacant property had devolved to the
lord; he repeopled Constantinople by a liberal invitation to the
provinces; and the brave _volunteers_ were seated in the capital
which had been recovered by their arms. The French barons and the
principal families had retired with their emperor; but the
patient and humble crowd of Latins was attached to the country,
and indifferent to the change of masters. Instead of banishing
the factories of the Pisans, Venetians, and Genoese, the prudent
conqueror accepted their oaths of allegiance, encouraged their
industry, confirmed their privileges, and allowed them to live
under the jurisdiction of their proper magistrates. Of these
nations, the Pisans and Venetians preserved their respective
quarters in the city; but the services and power of the Genoese
deserved at the same time the gratitude and the jealousy of the
Greeks. Their independent colony was first planted at the seaport
town of Heraclea in Thrace. They were speedily recalled, and
settled in the exclusive possession of the suburb of Galata, an
advantageous post, in which they revived the commerce, and
insulted the majesty, of the Byzantine empire. 21
18 (return) [ The site of Nymphæum is not clearly defined in
ancient or modern geography. But from the last hours of Vataces,
(Acropolita, c. 52,) it is evident the palace and gardens of his
favorite residence were in the neighborhood of Smyrna. Nymphæum
might be loosely placed in Lydia, (Gregoras, l. vi. 6.)]
19 (return) [ This sceptre, the emblem of justice and power, was
a long staff, such as was used by the heroes in Homer. By the
latter Greeks it was named _Dicanice_, and the Imperial sceptre
was distinguished as usual by the red or purple color.]
20 (return) [ Acropolita affirms (c. 87,) that this “Onnet” was
after the French fashion; but from the ruby at the point or
summit, Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 28, 29) believes that it
was the high-crowned hat of the Greeks. Could Acropolita mistake
the dress of his own court?]
21 (return) [ See Pachymer, (l. ii. c. 28—33,) Acropolita, (c.
88,) Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. iv. 7,) and for the treatment of
the subject Latins, Ducange, (l. v. c. 30, 31.)]
The recovery of Constantinople was celebrated as the æra of a new
empire: the conqueror, alone, and by the right of the sword,
renewed his coronation in the church of St. Sophia; and the name
and honors of John Lascaris, his pupil and lawful sovereign, were
insensibly abolished. But his claims still lived in the minds of
the people; and the royal youth must speedily attain the years of
manhood and ambition. By fear or conscience, Palæologus was
restrained from dipping his hands in innocent and royal blood;
but the anxiety of a usurper and a parent urged him to secure his
throne by one of those imperfect crimes so familiar to the modern
Greeks. The loss of sight incapacitated the young prince for the
active business of the world; instead of the brutal violence of
tearing out his eyes, the visual nerve was destroyed by the
intense glare of a red-hot basin, 22 and John Lascaris was
removed to a distant castle, where he spent many years in privacy
and oblivion. Such cool and deliberate guilt may seem
incompatible with remorse; but if Michael could trust the mercy
of Heaven, he was not inaccessible to the reproaches and
vengeance of mankind, which he had provoked by cruelty and
treason. His cruelty imposed on a servile court the duties of
applause or silence; but the clergy had a right to speak in the
name of their invisible Master; and their holy legions were led
by a prelate, whose character was above the temptations of hope
or fear. After a short abdication of his dignity, Arsenius 23 had
consented to ascend the ecclesiastical throne of Constantinople,
and to preside in the restoration of the church. His pious
simplicity was long deceived by the arts of Palæologus; and his
patience and submission might soothe the usurper, and protect the
safety of the young prince. On the news of his inhuman treatment,
the patriarch unsheathed the spiritual sword; and superstition,
on this occasion, was enlisted in the cause of humanity and
justice. In a synod of bishops, who were stimulated by the
example of his zeal, the patriarch pronounced a sentence of
excommunication; though his prudence still repeated the name of
Michael in the public prayers. The Eastern prelates had not
adopted the dangerous maxims of ancient Rome; nor did they
presume to enforce their censures, by deposing princes, or
absolving nations from their oaths of allegiance. But the
Christian, who had been separated from God and the church, became
an object of horror; and, in a turbulent and fanatic capital,
that horror might arm the hand of an assassin, or inflame a
sedition of the people. Palæologus felt his danger, confessed his
guilt, and deprecated his judge: the act was irretrievable; the
prize was obtained; and the most rigorous penance, which he
solicited, would have raised the sinner to the reputation of a
saint. The unrelenting patriarch refused to announce any means of
atonement or any hopes of mercy; and condescended only to
pronounce, that for so great a crime, great indeed must be the
satisfaction. “Do you require,” said Michael, “that I should
abdicate the empire?” and at these words, he offered, or seemed
to offer, the sword of state. Arsenius eagerly grasped this
pledge of sovereignty; but when he perceived that the emperor was
unwilling to purchase absolution at so dear a rate, he
indignantly escaped to his cell, and left the royal sinner
kneeling and weeping before the door. 24
22 (return) [ This milder invention for extinguishing the sight
was tried by the philosopher Democritus on himself, when he
sought to withdraw his mind from the visible world: a foolish
story! The word _abacinare_, in Latin and Italian, has furnished
Ducange (Gloss. Lat.) with an opportunity to review the various
modes of blinding: the more violent were scooping, burning with
an iron, or hot vinegar, and binding the head with a strong cord
till the eyes burst from their sockets. Ingenious tyrants!]
23 (return) [ See the first retreat and restoration of Arsenius,
in Pachymer (l. ii. c. 15, l. iii. c. 1, 2) and Nicephorus
Gregoras, (l. iii. c. 1, l. iv. c. 1.) Posterity justly accused
the ajeleia and raqumia of Arsenius the virtues of a hermit, the
vices of a minister, (l. xii. c. 2.)]
24 (return) [ The crime and excommunication of Michael are fairly
told by Pachymer (l. iii. c. 10, 14, 19, &c.) and Gregoras, (l.
iv. c. 4.) His confession and penance restored their freedom.]
Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.—Part II.
The danger and scandal of this excommunication subsisted above
three years, till the popular clamor was assuaged by time and
repentance; till the brethren of Arsenius condemned his
inflexible spirit, so repugnant to the unbounded forgiveness of
the gospel. The emperor had artfully insinuated, that, if he were
still rejected at home, he might seek, in the Roman pontiff, a
more indulgent judge; but it was far more easy and effectual to
find or to place that judge at the head of the Byzantine church.
Arsenius was involved in a vague rumor of conspiracy and
disaffection; 248 some irregular steps in his ordination and
government were liable to censure; a synod deposed him from the
episcopal office; and he was transported under a guard of
soldiers to a small island of the Propontis. Before his exile, he
sullenly requested that a strict account might be taken of the
treasures of the church; boasted, that his sole riches, three
pieces of gold, had been earned by transcribing the psalms;
continued to assert the freedom of his mind; and denied, with his
last breath, the pardon which was implored by the royal sinner.
25 After some delay, Gregory, 259 bishop of Adrianople, was
translated to the Byzantine throne; but his authority was found
insufficient to support the absolution of the emperor; and
Joseph, a reverend monk, was substituted to that important
function. This edifying scene was represented in the presence of
the senate and the people; at the end of six years the humble
penitent was restored to the communion of the faithful; and
humanity will rejoice, that a milder treatment of the captive
Lascaris was stipulated as a proof of his remorse. But the spirit
of Arsenius still survived in a powerful faction of the monks and
clergy, who persevered about forty-eight years in an obstinate
schism. Their scruples were treated with tenderness and respect
by Michael and his son; and the reconciliation of the Arsenites
was the serious labor of the church and state. In the confidence
of fanaticism, they had proposed to try their cause by a miracle;
and when the two papers, that contained their own and the adverse
cause, were cast into a fiery brazier, they expected that the
Catholic verity would be respected by the flames. Alas! the two
papers were indiscriminately consumed, and this unforeseen
accident produced the union of a day, and renewed the quarrel of
an age. 26 The final treaty displayed the victory of the
Arsenites: the clergy abstained during forty days from all
ecclesiastical functions; a slight penance was imposed on the
laity; the body of Arsenius was deposited in the sanctuary; and,
in the name of the departed saint, the prince and people were
released from the sins of their fathers. 27
248 (return) [ Except the omission of a prayer for the emperor,
the charges against Arsenius were of different nature: he was
accused of having allowed the sultan of Iconium to bathe in
vessels signed with the cross, and to have admitted him to the
church, though unbaptized, during the service. It was pleaded, in
favor of Arsenius, among other proofs of the sultan’s
Christianity, that he had offered to eat ham. Pachymer, l. iv. c.
4, p. 265. It was after his exile that he was involved in a
charge of conspiracy.—M.]
25 (return) [ Pachymer relates the exile of Arsenius, (l. iv. c.
1—16:) he was one of the commissaries who visited him in the
desert island. The last testament of the unforgiving patriarch is
still extant, (Dupin, Bibliothèque Ecclésiastique, tom. x. p.
95.)]
259 (return) [ Pachymer calls him Germanus.—M.]
26 (return) [ Pachymer (l. vii. c. 22) relates this miraculous
trial like a philosopher, and treats with similar contempt a plot
of the Arsenites, to hide a revelation in the coffin of some old
saint, (l. vii. c. 13.) He compensates this incredulity by an
image that weeps, another that bleeds, (l. vii. c. 30,) and the
miraculous cures of a deaf and a mute patient, (l. xi. c. 32.)]
27 (return) [ The story of the Arsenites is spread through the
thirteen books of Pachymer. Their union and triumph are reserved
for Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. vii. c. 9,) who neither loves nor
esteems these sectaries.]
The establishment of his family was the motive, or at least the
pretence, of the crime of Palæologus; and he was impatient to
confirm the succession, by sharing with his eldest son the honors
of the purple. Andronicus, afterwards surnamed the Elder, was
proclaimed and crowned emperor of the Romans, in the fifteenth
year of his age; and, from the first æra of a prolix and
inglorious reign, he held that august title nine years as the
colleague, and fifty as the successor, of his father. Michael
himself, had he died in a private station, would have been
thought more worthy of the empire; and the assaults of his
temporal and spiritual enemies left him few moments to labor for
his own fame or the happiness of his subjects. He wrested from
the Franks several of the noblest islands of the Archipelago,
Lesbos, Chios, and Rhodes: his brother Constantine was sent to
command in Malvasia and Sparta; and the eastern side of the
Morea, from Argos and Napoli to Cape Thinners, was repossessed by
the Greeks. This effusion of Christian blood was loudly condemned
by the patriarch; and the insolent priest presumed to interpose
his fears and scruples between the arms of princes. But in the
prosecution of these western conquests, the countries beyond the
Hellespont were left naked to the Turks; and their depredations
verified the prophecy of a dying senator, that the recovery of
Constantinople would be the ruin of Asia. The victories of
Michael were achieved by his lieutenants; his sword rusted in the
palace; and, in the transactions of the emperor with the popes
and the king of Naples, his political acts were stained with
cruelty and fraud. 28
28 (return) [ Of the xiii books of Pachymer, the first six (as
the ivth and vth of Nicephorus Gregoras) contain the reign of
Michael, at the time of whose death he was forty years of age.
Instead of breaking, like his editor the Père Poussin, his
history into two parts, I follow Ducange and Cousin, who number
the xiii. books in one series.]
I. The Vatican was the most natural refuge of a Latin emperor,
who had been driven from his throne; and Pope Urban the Fourth
appeared to pity the misfortunes, and vindicate the cause, of the
fugitive Baldwin. A crusade, with plenary indulgence, was
preached by his command against the schismatic Greeks: he
excommunicated their allies and adherents; solicited Louis the
Ninth in favor of his kinsman; and demanded a tenth of the
ecclesiastical revenues of France and England for the service of
the holy war. 29 The subtle Greek, who watched the rising tempest
of the West, attempted to suspend or soothe the hostility of the
pope, by suppliant embassies and respectful letters; but he
insinuated that the establishment of peace must prepare the
reconciliation and obedience of the Eastern church. The Roman
court could not be deceived by so gross an artifice; and Michael
was admonished, that the repentance of the son should precede the
forgiveness of the father; and that _faith_ (an ambiguous word)
was the only basis of friendship and alliance. After a long and
affected delay, the approach of danger, and the importunity of
Gregory the Tenth, compelled him to enter on a more serious
negotiation: he alleged the example of the great Vataces; and the
Greek clergy, who understood the intentions of their prince, were
not alarmed by the first steps of reconciliation and respect. But
when he pressed the conclusion of the treaty, they strenuously
declared, that the Latins, though not in name, were heretics in
fact, and that they despised those strangers as the vilest and
most despicable portion of the human race. 30 It was the task of
the emperor to persuade, to corrupt, to intimidate the most
popular ecclesiastics, to gain the vote of each individual, and
alternately to urge the arguments of Christian charity and the
public welfare. The texts of the fathers and the arms of the
Franks were balanced in the theological and political scale; and
without approving the addition to the Nicene creed, the most
moderate were taught to confess, that the two hostile
propositions of proceeding from the Father by the Son, and of
proceeding from the Father and the Son, might be reduced to a
safe and Catholic sense. 31 The supremacy of the pope was a
doctrine more easy to conceive, but more painful to acknowledge:
yet Michael represented to his monks and prelates, that they
might submit to name the Roman bishop as the first of the
patriarchs; and that their distance and discretion would guard
the liberties of the Eastern church from the mischievous
consequences of the right of appeal. He protested that he would
sacrifice his life and empire rather than yield the smallest
point of orthodox faith or national independence; and this
declaration was sealed and ratified by a golden bull. The
patriarch Joseph withdrew to a monastery, to resign or resume his
throne, according to the event of the treaty: the letters of
union and obedience were subscribed by the emperor, his son
Andronicus, and thirty-five archbishops and metropolitans, with
their respective synods; and the episcopal list was multiplied by
many dioceses which were annihilated under the yoke of the
infidels. An embassy was composed of some trusty ministers and
prelates: they embarked for Italy, with rich ornaments and rare
perfumes for the altar of St. Peter; and their secret orders
authorized and recommended a boundless compliance. They were
received in the general council of Lyons, by Pope Gregory the
Tenth, at the head of five hundred bishops. 32 He embraced with
tears his long-lost and repentant children; accepted the oath of
the ambassadors, who abjured the schism in the name of the two
emperors; adorned the prelates with the ring and mitre; chanted
in Greek and Latin the Nicene creed with the addition of
_filioque_; and rejoiced in the union of the East and West, which
had been reserved for his reign. To consummate this pious work,
the Byzantine deputies were speedily followed by the pope’s
nuncios; and their instruction discloses the policy of the
Vatican, which could not be satisfied with the vain title of
supremacy. After viewing the temper of the prince and people,
they were enjoined to absolve the schismatic clergy, who should
subscribe and swear their abjuration and obedience; to establish
in all the churches the use of the perfect creed; to prepare the
entrance of a cardinal legate, with the full powers and dignity
of his office; and to instruct the emperor in the advantages
which he might derive from the temporal protection of the Roman
pontiff. 33
29 (return) [ Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 33, &c., from the
Epistles of Urban IV.]
30 (return) [ From their mercantile intercourse with the
Venetians and Genoese, they branded the Latins as kaphloi and
banausoi, (Pachymer, l. v. c. 10.) “Some are heretics in name;
others, like the Latins, in fact,” said the learned Veccus, (l.
v. c. 12,) who soon afterwards became a convert (c. 15, 16) and a
patriarch, (c. 24.)]
31 (return) [ In this class we may place Pachymer himself, whose
copious and candid narrative occupies the vth and vith books of
his history. Yet the Greek is silent on the council of Lyons, and
seems to believe that the popes always resided in Rome and Italy,
(l. v. c. 17, 21.)]
32 (return) [ See the acts of the council of Lyons in the year
1274. Fleury, Hist. Ecclésiastique, tom. xviii. p. 181—199.
Dupin, Bibliot. Ecclés. tom. x. p. 135.]
33 (return) [ This curious instruction, which has been drawn with
more or less honesty by Wading and Leo Allatius from the archives
of the Vatican, is given in an abstract or version by Fleury,
(tom. xviii. p. 252—258.)]
But they found a country without a friend, a nation in which the
names of Rome and Union were pronounced with abhorrence. The
patriarch Joseph was indeed removed: his place was filled by
Veccus, an ecclesiastic of learning and moderation; and the
emperor was still urged by the same motives, to persevere in the
same professions. But in his private language Palæologus affected
to deplore the pride, and to blame the innovations, of the
Latins; and while he debased his character by this double
hypocrisy, he justified and punished the opposition of his
subjects. By the joint suffrage of the new and the ancient Rome,
a sentence of excommunication was pronounced against the
obstinate schismatics; the censures of the church were executed
by the sword of Michael; on the failure of persuasion, he tried
the arguments of prison and exile, of whipping and mutilation;
those touchstones, says an historian, of cowards and the brave.
Two Greeks still reigned in Ætolia, Epirus, and Thessaly, with
the appellation of despots: they had yielded to the sovereign of
Constantinople, but they rejected the chains of the Roman
pontiff, and supported their refusal by successful arms. Under
their protection, the fugitive monks and bishops assembled in
hostile synods; and retorted the name of heretic with the galling
addition of apostate: the prince of Trebizond was tempted to
assume the forfeit title of emperor; 339 and even the Latins of
Negropont, Thebes, Athens, and the Morea, forgot the merits of
the convert, to join, with open or clandestine aid, the enemies
of Palæologus. His favorite generals, of his own blood, and
family, successively deserted, or betrayed, the sacrilegious
trust. His sister Eulogia, a niece, and two female cousins,
conspired against him; another niece, Mary queen of Bulgaria,
negotiated his ruin with the sultan of Egypt; and, in the public
eye, their treason was consecrated as the most sublime virtue. 34
To the pope’s nuncios, who urged the consummation of the work,
Palæologus exposed a naked recital of all that he had done and
suffered for their sake. They were assured that the guilty
sectaries, of both sexes and every rank, had been deprived of
their honors, their fortunes, and their liberty; a spreading list
of confiscation and punishment, which involved many persons, the
dearest to the emperor, or the best deserving of his favor. They
were conducted to the prison, to behold four princes of the royal
blood chained in the four corners, and shaking their fetters in
an agony of grief and rage. Two of these captives were afterwards
released; the one by submission, the other by death: but the
obstinacy of their two companions was chastised by the loss of
their eyes; and the Greeks, the least adverse to the union,
deplored that cruel and inauspicious tragedy. 35 Persecutors must
expect the hatred of those whom they oppress; but they commonly
find some consolation in the testimony of their conscience, the
applause of their party, and, perhaps, the success of their
undertaking. But the hypocrisy of Michael, which was prompted
only by political motives, must have forced him to hate himself,
to despise his followers, and to esteem and envy the rebel
champions by whom he was detested and despised. While his
violence was abhorred at Constantinople, at Rome his slowness was
arraigned, and his sincerity suspected; till at length Pope
Martin the Fourth excluded the Greek emperor from the pale of a
church, into which he was striving to reduce a schismatic people.
No sooner had the tyrant expired, than the union was dissolved,
and abjured by unanimous consent; the churches were purified; the
penitents were reconciled; and his son Andronicus, after weeping
the sins and errors of his youth most piously denied his father
the burial of a prince and a Christian. 36
339 (return) [ According to Fallmarayer he had always maintained
this title.—M.]
34 (return) [ This frank and authentic confession of Michael’s
distress is exhibited in barbarous Latin by Ogerius, who signs
himself Protonotarius Interpretum, and transcribed by Wading from
the MSS. of the Vatican, (A.D. 1278, No. 3.) His annals of the
Franciscan order, the Fratres Minores, in xvii. volumes in folio,
(Rome, 1741,) I have now accidentally seen among the waste paper
of a bookseller.]
35 (return) [ See the vith book of Pachymer, particularly the
chapters 1, 11, 16, 18, 24—27. He is the more credible, as he
speaks of this persecution with less anger than sorrow.]
36 (return) [ Pachymer, l. vii. c. 1—ii. 17. The speech of
Andronicus the Elder (lib. xii. c. 2) is a curious record, which
proves that if the Greeks were the slaves of the emperor, the
emperor was not less the slave of superstition and the clergy.]
II. In the distress of the Latins, the walls and towers of
Constantinople had fallen to decay: they were restored and
fortified by the policy of Michael, who deposited a plenteous
store of corn and salt provisions, to sustain the siege which he
might hourly expect from the resentment of the Western powers. Of
these, the sovereign of the Two Sicilies was the most formidable
neighbor: but as long as they were possessed by Mainfroy, the
bastard of Frederic the Second, his monarchy was the bulwark,
rather than the annoyance, of the Eastern empire. The usurper,
though a brave and active prince, was sufficiently employed in
the defence of his throne: his proscription by successive popes
had separated Mainfroy from the common cause of the Latins; and
the forces that might have besieged Constantinople were detained
in a crusade against the domestic enemy of Rome. The prize of her
avenger, the crown of the Two Sicilies, was won and worn by the
brother of St Louis, by Charles count of Anjou and Provence, who
led the chivalry of France on this holy expedition. 37 The
disaffection of his Christian subjects compelled Mainfroy to
enlist a colony of Saracens whom his father had planted in
Apulia; and this odious succor will explain the defiance of the
Catholic hero, who rejected all terms of accommodation. “Bear
this message,” said Charles, “to the sultan of Nocera, that God
and the sword are umpire between us; and that he shall either
send me to paradise, or I will send him to the pit of hell.” The
armies met: and though I am ignorant of Mainfroy’s doom in the
other world, in this he lost his friends, his kingdom, and his
life, in the bloody battle of Benevento. Naples and Sicily were
immediately peopled with a warlike race of French nobles; and
their aspiring leader embraced the future conquest of Africa,
Greece, and Palestine. The most specious reasons might point his
first arms against the Byzantine empire; and Palæologus,
diffident of his own strength, repeatedly appealed from the
ambition of Charles to the humanity of St. Louis, who still
preserved a just ascendant over the mind of his ferocious
brother. For a while the attention of that brother was confined
at home by the invasion of Conradin, the last heir to the
imperial house of Swabia; but the hapless boy sunk in the unequal
conflict; and his execution on a public scaffold taught the
rivals of Charles to tremble for their heads as well as their
dominions. A second respite was obtained by the last crusade of
St. Louis to the African coast; and the double motive of interest
and duty urged the king of Naples to assist, with his powers and
his presence, the holy enterprise. The death of St. Louis
released him from the importunity of a virtuous censor: the king
of Tunis confessed himself the tributary and vassal of the crown
of Sicily; and the boldest of the French knights were free to
enlist under his banner against the Greek empire. A treaty and a
marriage united his interest with the house of Courtenay; his
daughter Beatrice was promised to Philip, son and heir of the
emperor Baldwin; a pension of six hundred ounces of gold was
allowed for his maintenance; and his generous father distributed
among his aliens the kingdoms and provinces of the East,
reserving only Constantinople, and one day’s journey round the
city for the imperial domain. 38 In this perilous moment,
Palæologus was the most eager to subscribe the creed, and implore
the protection, of the Roman pontiff, who assumed, with propriety
and weight, the character of an angel of peace, the common father
of the Christians. By his voice, the sword of Charles was chained
in the scabbard; and the Greek ambassadors beheld him, in the
pope’s antechamber, biting his ivory sceptre in a transport of
fury, and deeply resenting the refusal to enfranchise and
consecrate his arms. He appears to have respected the
disinterested mediation of Gregory the Tenth; but Charles was
insensibly disgusted by the pride and partiality of Nicholas the
Third; and his attachment to his kindred, the Ursini family,
alienated the most strenuous champion from the service of the
church. The hostile league against the Greeks, of Philip the
Latin emperor, the king of the Two Sicilies, and the republic of
Venice, was ripened into execution; and the election of Martin
the Fourth, a French pope, gave a sanction to the cause. Of the
allies, Philip supplied his name; Martin, a bull of
excommunication; the Venetians, a squadron of forty galleys; and
the formidable powers of Charles consisted of forty counts, ten
thousand men at arms, a numerous body of infantry, and a fleet of
more than three hundred ships and transports. A distant day was
appointed for assembling this mighty force in the harbor of
Brindisi; and a previous attempt was risked with a detachment of
three hundred knights, who invaded Albania, and besieged the
fortress of Belgrade. Their defeat might amuse with a triumph the
vanity of Constantinople; but the more sagacious Michael,
despairing of his arms, depended on the effects of a conspiracy;
on the secret workings of a rat, who gnawed the bowstring 39 of
the Sicilian tyrant.
37 (return) [ The best accounts, the nearest the time, the most
full and entertaining, of the conquest of Naples by Charles of
Anjou, may be found in the Florentine Chronicles of Ricordano
Malespina, (c. 175—193,) and Giovanni Villani, (l. vii. c. 1—10,
25—30,) which are published by Muratori in the viiith and xiiith
volumes of the Historians of Italy. In his Annals (tom. xi. p.
56—72) he has abridged these great events which are likewise
described in the Istoria Civile of Giannone. tom. l. xix. tom.
iii. l. xx.]
38 (return) [ Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 49—56, l. vi. c.
1—13. See Pachymer, l. iv. c. 29, l. v. c. 7—10, 25 l. vi. c. 30,
32, 33, and Nicephorus Gregoras, l. iv. 5, l. v. 1, 6.]
39 (return) [ The reader of Herodotus will recollect how
miraculously the Assyrian host of Sennacherib was disarmed and
destroyed, (l. ii. c. 141.)]
Among the proscribed adherents of the house of Swabia, John of
Procida forfeited a small island of that name in the Bay of
Naples. His birth was noble, but his education was learned; and
in the poverty of exile, he was relieved by the practice of
physic, which he had studied in the school of Salerno. Fortune
had left him nothing to lose, except life; and to despise life is
the first qualification of a rebel. Procida was endowed with the
art of negotiation, to enforce his reasons and disguise his
motives; and in his various transactions with nations and men, he
could persuade each party that he labored solely for _their_
interest. The new kingdoms of Charles were afflicted by every
species of fiscal and military oppression; 40 and the lives and
fortunes of his Italian subjects were sacrificed to the greatness
of their master and the licentiousness of his followers. The
hatred of Naples was repressed by his presence; but the looser
government of his vicegerents excited the contempt, as well as
the aversion, of the Sicilians: the island was roused to a sense
of freedom by the eloquence of Procida; and he displayed to every
baron his private interest in the common cause. In the confidence
of foreign aid, he successively visited the courts of the Greek
emperor, and of Peter king of Arragon, 41 who possessed the
maritime countries of Valentia and Catalonia. To the ambitious
Peter a crown was presented, which he might justly claim by his
marriage with the sister 419 of Mainfroy, and by the dying voice
of Conradin, who from the scaffold had cast a ring to his heir
and avenger. Palæologus was easily persuaded to divert his enemy
from a foreign war by a rebellion at home; and a Greek subsidy of
twenty-five thousand ounces of gold was most profitably applied
to arm a Catalan fleet, which sailed under a holy banner to the
specious attack of the Saracens of Africa. In the disguise of a
monk or beggar, the indefatigable missionary of revolt flew from
Constantinople to Rome, and from Sicily to Saragossa: the treaty
was sealed with the signet of Pope Nicholas himself, the enemy of
Charles; and his deed of gift transferred the fiefs of St. Peter
from the house of Anjou to that of Arragon. So widely diffused
and so freely circulated, the secret was preserved above two
years with impenetrable discretion; and each of the conspirators
imbibed the maxim of Peter, who declared that he would cut off
his left hand if it were conscious of the intentions of his
right. The mine was prepared with deep and dangerous artifice;
but it may be questioned, whether the instant explosion of
Palermo were the effect of accident or design.
40 (return) [ According to Sabas Malaspina, (Hist. Sicula, l.
iii. c. 16, in Muratori, tom. viii. p. 832,) a zealous Guelph,
the subjects of Charles, who had reviled Mainfroy as a wolf,
began to regret him as a lamb; and he justifies their discontent
by the oppressions of the French government, (l. vi. c. 2, 7.)
See the Sicilian manifesto in Nicholas Specialis, (l. i. c. 11,
in Muratori, tom. x. p. 930.)]
41 (return) [ See the character and counsels of Peter, king of
Arragon, in Mariana, (Hist. Hispan. l. xiv. c. 6, tom. ii. p.
133.) The reader for gives the Jesuit’s defects, in favor, always
of his style, and often of his sense.]
419 (return) [ Daughter. See Hallam’s Middle Ages, vol. i. p.
517.—M.]
On the vigil of Easter, a procession of the disarmed citizens
visited a church without the walls; and a noble damsel was rudely
insulted by a French soldier. 42 The ravisher was instantly
punished with death; and if the people was at first scattered by
a military force, their numbers and fury prevailed: the
conspirators seized the opportunity; the flame spread over the
island; and eight thousand French were exterminated in a
promiscuous massacre, which has obtained the name of the Sicilian
Vespers. 43 From every city the banners of freedom and the church
were displayed: the revolt was inspired by the presence or the
soul of Procida and Peter of Arragon, who sailed from the African
coast to Palermo, was saluted as the king and savior of the isle.
By the rebellion of a people on whom he had so long trampled with
impunity, Charles was astonished and confounded; and in the first
agony of grief and devotion, he was heard to exclaim, “O God! if
thou hast decreed to humble me, grant me at least a gentle and
gradual descent from the pinnacle of greatness!” His fleet and
army, which already filled the seaports of Italy, were hastily
recalled from the service of the Grecian war; and the situation
of Messina exposed that town to the first storm of his revenge.
Feeble in themselves, and yet hopeless of foreign succor, the
citizens would have repented, and submitted on the assurance of
full pardon and their ancient privileges. But the pride of the
monarch was already rekindled; and the most fervent entreaties of
the legate could extort no more than a promise, that he would
forgive the remainder, after a chosen list of eight hundred
rebels had been yielded to his discretion. The despair of the
Messinese renewed their courage: Peter of Arragon approached to
their relief; 44 and his rival was driven back by the failure of
provision and the terrors of the equinox to the Calabrian shore.
At the same moment, the Catalan admiral, the famous Roger de
Loria, swept the channel with an invincible squadron: the French
fleet, more numerous in transports than in galleys, was either
burnt or destroyed; and the same blow assured the independence of
Sicily and the safety of the Greek empire. A few days before his
death, the emperor Michael rejoiced in the fall of an enemy whom
he hated and esteemed; and perhaps he might be content with the
popular judgment, that had they not been matched with each other,
Constantinople and Italy must speedily have obeyed the same
master. 45 From this disastrous moment, the life of Charles was a
series of misfortunes: his capital was insulted, his son was made
prisoner, and he sunk into the grave without recovering the Isle
of Sicily, which, after a war of twenty years, was finally
severed from the throne of Naples, and transferred, as an
independent kingdom, to a younger branch of the house of Arragon.
46
42 (return) [ After enumerating the sufferings of his country,
Nicholas Specialis adds, in the true spirit of Italian jealousy,
Quæ omnia et graviora quidem, ut arbitror, patienti animo Siculi
tolerassent, nisi (quod primum cunctis dominantibus cavendum est)
alienas fminas invasissent, (l. i. c. 2, p. 924.)]
43 (return) [ The French were long taught to remember this bloody
lesson: “If I am provoked, (said Henry the Fourth,) I will
breakfast at Milan, and dine at Naples.” “Your majesty (replied
the Spanish ambassador) may perhaps arrive in Sicily for
vespers.”]
44 (return) [ This revolt, with the subsequent victory, are
related by two national writers, Bartholemy à Neocastro (in
Muratori, tom. xiii.,) and Nicholas Specialis (in Muratori, tom.
x.,) the one a contemporary, the other of the next century. The
patriot Specialis disclaims the name of rebellion, and all
previous correspondence with Peter of Arragon, (nullo communicato
consilio,) who _happened_ to be with a fleet and army on the
African coast, (l. i. c. 4, 9.)]
45 (return) [ Nicephorus Gregoras (l. v. c. 6) admires the wisdom
of Providence in this equal balance of states and princes. For
the honor of Palæologus, I had rather this balance had been
observed by an Italian writer.]
46 (return) [ See the Chronicle of Villani, the xith volume of
the Annali d’Italia of Muratori, and the xxth and xxist books of
the Istoria Civile of Giannone.]
Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.—Part
III.
I shall not, I trust, be accused of superstition; but I must
remark that, even in this world, the natural order of events will
sometimes afford the strong appearances of moral retribution. The
first Palæologus had saved his empire by involving the kingdoms
of the West in rebellion and blood; and from these scenes of
discord uprose a generation of iron men, who assaulted and
endangered the empire of his son. In modern times our debts and
taxes are the secret poison which still corrodes the bosom of
peace: but in the weak and disorderly government of the middle
ages, it was agitated by the present evil of the disbanded
armies. Too idle to work, too proud to beg, the mercenaries were
accustomed to a life of rapine: they could rob with more dignity
and effect under a banner and a chief; and the sovereign, to whom
their service was useless, and their presence importunate,
endeavored to discharge the torrent on some neighboring
countries. After the peace of Sicily, many thousands of Genoese,
_Catalans_, 47 &c., who had fought, by sea and land, under the
standard of Anjou or Arragon, were blended into one nation by the
resemblance of their manners and interest. They heard that the
Greek provinces of Asia were invaded by the Turks: they resolved
to share the harvest of pay and plunder: and Frederic king of
Sicily most liberally contributed the means of their departure.
In a warfare of twenty years, a ship, or a camp, was become their
country; arms were their sole profession and property; valor was
the only virtue which they knew; their women had imbibed the
fearless temper of their lovers and husbands: it was reported,
that, with a stroke of their broadsword, the Catalans could
cleave a horseman and a horse; and the report itself was a
powerful weapon. Roger de Flor 477 was the most popular of their
chiefs; and his personal merit overshadowed the dignity of his
prouder rivals of Arragon. The offspring of a marriage between a
German gentleman of the court of Frederic the Second and a damsel
of Brindisi, Roger was successively a templar, an apostate, a
pirate, and at length the richest and most powerful admiral of
the Mediterranean. He sailed from Messina to Constantinople, with
eighteen galleys, four great ships, and eight thousand
adventurers; 478 and his previous treaty was faithfully
accomplished by Andronicus the elder, who accepted with joy and
terror this formidable succor. A palace was allotted for his
reception, and a niece of the emperor was given in marriage to
the valiant stranger, who was immediately created great duke or
admiral of Romania. After a decent repose, he transported his
troops over the Propontis, and boldly led them against the Turks:
in two bloody battles thirty thousand of the Moslems were slain:
he raised the siege of Philadelphia, and deserved the name of the
deliverer of Asia. But after a short season of prosperity, the
cloud of slavery and ruin again burst on that unhappy province.
The inhabitants escaped (says a Greek historian) from the smoke
into the flames; and the hostility of the Turks was less
pernicious than the friendship of the Catalans. 479 The lives and
fortunes which they had rescued they considered as their own: the
willing or reluctant maid was saved from the race of circumcision
for the embraces of a Christian soldier: the exaction of fines
and supplies was enforced by licentious rapine and arbitrary
executions; and, on the resistance of Magnesia, the great duke
besieged a city of the Roman empire. 48 These disorders he
excused by the wrongs and passions of a victorious army; nor
would his own authority or person have been safe, had he dared to
punish his faithful followers, who were defrauded of the just and
covenanted price of their services. The threats and complaints of
Andronicus disclosed the nakedness of the empire. His golden bull
had invited no more than five hundred horse and a thousand foot
soldiers; yet the crowds of volunteers, who migrated to the East,
had been enlisted and fed by his spontaneous bounty. While his
bravest allies were content with three byzants or pieces of gold,
for their monthly pay, an ounce, or even two ounces, of gold were
assigned to the Catalans, whose annual pension would thus amount
to near a hundred pounds sterling: one of their chiefs had
modestly rated at three hundred thousand crowns the value of his
_future_ merits; and above a million had been issued from the
treasury for the maintenance of these costly mercenaries. A cruel
tax had been imposed on the corn of the husbandman: one third was
retrenched from the salaries of the public officers; and the
standard of the coin was so shamefully debased, that of the
four-and-twenty parts only five were of pure gold. 49 At the
summons of the emperor, Roger evacuated a province which no
longer supplied the materials of rapine; 496 but he refused to
disperse his troops; and while his style was respectful, his
conduct was independent and hostile. He protested, that if the
emperor should march against him, he would advance forty paces to
kiss the ground before him; but in rising from this prostrate
attitude Roger had a life and sword at the service of his
friends. The great duke of Romania condescended to accept the
title and ornaments of Cæsar; but he rejected the new proposal of
the government of Asia with a subsidy of corn and money, 497 on
condition that he should reduce his troops to the harmless number
of three thousand men. Assassination is the last resource of
cowards. The Cæsar was tempted to visit the royal residence of
Adrianople; in the apartment, and before the eyes, of the empress
he was stabbed by the Alani guards; and though the deed was
imputed to their private revenge, 498 his countrymen, who dwelt
at Constantinople in the security of peace, were involved in the
same proscription by the prince or people. The loss of their
leader intimidated the crowd of adventurers, who hoisted the
sails of flight, and were soon scattered round the coasts of the
Mediterranean. But a veteran band of fifteen hundred Catalans, or
French, stood firm in the strong fortress of Gallipoli on the
Hellespont, displayed the banners of Arragon, and offered to
revenge and justify their chief, by an equal combat of ten or a
hundred warriors. Instead of accepting this bold defiance, the
emperor Michael, the son and colleague of Andronicus, resolved to
oppress them with the weight of multitudes: every nerve was
strained to form an army of thirteen thousand horse and thirty
thousand foot; and the Propontis was covered with the ships of
the Greeks and Genoese. In two battles by sea and land, these
mighty forces were encountered and overthrown by the despair and
discipline of the Catalans: the young emperor fled to the palace;
and an insufficient guard of light-horse was left for the
protection of the open country. Victory renewed the hopes and
numbers of the adventures: every nation was blended under the
name and standard of the _great company_; and three thousand
Turkish proselytes deserted from the Imperial service to join
this military association. In the possession of Gallipoli, 509
the Catalans intercepted the trade of Constantinople and the
Black Sea, while they spread their devastation on either side of
the Hellespont over the confines of Europe and Asia. To prevent
their approach, the greatest part of the Byzantine territory was
laid waste by the Greeks themselves: the peasants and their
cattle retired into the city; and myriads of sheep and oxen, for
which neither place nor food could be procured, were unprofitably
slaughtered on the same day. Four times the emperor Andronicus
sued for peace, and four times he was inflexibly repulsed, till
the want of provisions, and the discord of the chiefs, compelled
the Catalans to evacuate the banks of the Hellespont and the
neighborhood of the capital. After their separation from the
Turks, the remains of the great company pursued their march
through Macedonia and Thessaly, to seek a new establishment in
the heart of Greece. 50
47 (return) [ In this motley multitude, the Catalans and
Spaniards, the bravest of the soldiery, were styled by themselves
and the Greeks _Amogavares_. Moncada derives their origin from
the Goths, and Pachymer (l. xi. c. 22) from the Arabs; and in
spite of national and religious pride, I am afraid the latter is
in the right.]
477 (return) [ On Roger de Flor and his companions, see an
historical fragment, detailed and interesting, entitled “The
Spaniards of the Fourteenth Century,” and inserted in “L’Espagne
en 1808,” a work translated from the German, vol. ii. p. 167.
This narrative enables us to detect some slight errors which have
crept into that of Gibbon.—G.]
478 (return) [ The troops of Roger de Flor, according to his
companions Ramon de Montaner, were 1500 men at arms, 4000
Almogavares, and 1040 other foot, besides the sailors and
mariners, vol. ii. p. 137.—M.]
479 (return) [ Ramon de Montaner suppresses the cruelties and
oppressions of the Catalans, in which, perhaps, he shared.—M.]
48 (return) [ Some idea may be formed of the population of these
cities, from the 36,000 inhabitants of Tralles, which, in the
preceding reign, was rebuilt by the emperor, and ruined by the
Turks. (Pachymer, l. vi. c. 20, 21.)]
49 (return) [ I have collected these pecuniary circumstances from
Pachymer, (l. xi. c. 21, l. xii. c. 4, 5, 8, 14, 19,) who
describes the progressive degradation of the gold coin. Even in
the prosperous times of John Ducas Vataces, the byzants were
composed in equal proportions of the pure and the baser metal.
The poverty of Michael Palæologus compelled him to strike a new
coin, with nine parts, or carats, of gold, and fifteen of copper
alloy. After his death, the standard rose to ten carats, till in
the public distress it was reduced to the moiety. The prince was
relieved for a moment, while credit and commerce were forever
blasted. In France, the gold coin is of twenty-two carats, (one
twelfth alloy,) and the standard of England and Holland is still
higher.]
496 (return) [ Roger de Flor, according to Ramon de Montaner, was
recalled from Natolia, on account of the war which had arisen on
the death of Asan, king of Bulgaria. Andronicus claimed the
kingdom for his nephew, the sons of Asan by his sister. Roger de
Flor turned the tide of success in favor of the emperor of
Constantinople and made peace.—M.]
497 (return) [ Andronicus paid the Catalans in the debased money,
much to their indignation.—M.]
498 (return) [ According to Ramon de Montaner, he was murdered by
order of Kyr (kurioV) Michael, son of the emperor. p. 170.—M.]
509 (return) [ Ramon de Montaner describes his sojourn at
Gallipoli: Nous etions si riches, que nous ne semions, ni ne
labourions, ni ne faisions enver des vins ni ne cultivions les
vignes: et cependant tous les ans nous recucillions tour ce qu’il
nous fallait, en vin, froment et avoine. p. 193. This lasted for
five merry years. Ramon de Montaner is high authority, for he was
“chancelier et maitre rational de l’armée,” (commissary of
_rations_.) He was left governor; all the scribes of the army
remained with him, and with their aid he kept the books in which
were registered the number of horse and foot employed on each
expedition. According to this book the plunder was shared, of
which he had a fifth for his trouble. p. 197.—M.]
50 (return) [ The Catalan war is most copiously related by
Pachymer, in the xith, xiith, and xiiith books, till he breaks
off in the year 1308. Nicephorus Gregoras (l. vii. 3—6) is more
concise and complete. Ducange, who adopts these adventurers as
French, has hunted their footsteps with his usual diligence,
(Hist. de C. P. l. vi. c. 22—46.) He quotes an Arragonese
history, which I have read with pleasure, and which the Spaniards
extol as a model of style and composition, (Expedicion de los
Catalanes y Arragoneses contra Turcos y Griegos: Barcelona, 1623
in quarto: Madrid, 1777, in octavo.) Don Francisco de Moncada
Conde de Ossona, may imitate Cæsar or Sallust; he may transcribe
the Greek or Italian contemporaries: but he never quotes his
authorities, and I cannot discern any national records of the
exploits of his countrymen. * Note: Ramon de Montaner, one of the
Catalans, who accompanied Roger de Flor, and who was governor of
Gallipoli, has written, in Spanish, the history of this band of
adventurers, to which he belonged, and from which he separated
when it left the Thracian Chersonese to penetrate into Macedonia
and Greece.—G.——The autobiography of Ramon de Montaner has been
published in French by M. Buchon, in the great collection of
Mémoires relatifs à l’Histoire de France. I quote this
edition.—M.]
After some ages of oblivion, Greece was awakened to new
misfortunes by the arms of the Latins. In the two hundred and
fifty years between the first and the last conquest of
Constantinople, that venerable land was disputed by a multitude
of petty tyrants; without the comforts of freedom and genius, her
ancient cities were again plunged in foreign and intestine war;
and, if servitude be preferable to anarchy, they might repose
with joy under the Turkish yoke. I shall not pursue the obscure
and various dynasties, that rose and fell on the continent or in
the isles; but our silence on the fate of Athens 51 would argue a
strange ingratitude to the first and purest school of liberal
science and amusement. In the partition of the empire, the
principality of Athens and Thebes was assigned to Otho de la
Roche, a noble warrior of Burgundy, 52 with the title of great
duke, 53 which the Latins understood in their own sense, and the
Greeks more foolishly derived from the age of Constantine. 54
Otho followed the standard of the marquis of Montferrat: the
ample state which he acquired by a miracle of conduct or fortune,
55 was peaceably inherited by his son and two grandsons, till the
family, though not the nation, was changed, by the marriage of an
heiress into the elder branch of the house of Brienne. The son of
that marriage, Walter de Brienne, succeeded to the duchy of
Athens; and, with the aid of some Catalan mercenaries, whom he
invested with fiefs, reduced above thirty castles of the vassal
or neighboring lords. But when he was informed of the approach
and ambition of the great company, he collected a force of seven
hundred knights, six thousand four hundred horse, and eight
thousand foot, and boldly met them on the banks of the River
Cephisus in Botia. The Catalans amounted to no more than three
thousand five hundred horse, and four thousand foot; but the
deficiency of numbers was compensated by stratagem and order.
They formed round their camp an artificial inundation; the duke
and his knights advanced without fear or precaution on the
verdant meadow; their horses plunged into the bog; and he was cut
in pieces, with the greatest part of the French cavalry. His
family and nation were expelled; and his son Walter de Brienne,
the titular duke of Athens, the tyrant of Florence, and the
constable of France, lost his life in the field of Poitiers
Attica and Botia were the rewards of the victorious Catalans;
they married the widows and daughters of the slain; and during
fourteen years, the great company was the terror of the Grecian
states. Their factions drove them to acknowledge the sovereignty
of the house of Arragon; and during the remainder of the
fourteenth century, Athens, as a government or an appanage, was
successively bestowed by the kings of Sicily. After the French
and Catalans, the third dynasty was that of the Accaioli, a
family, plebeian at Florence, potent at Naples, and sovereign in
Greece. Athens, which they embellished with new buildings, became
the capital of a state, that extended over Thebes, Argos,
Corinth, Delphi, and a part of Thessaly; and their reign was
finally determined by Mahomet the Second, who strangled the last
duke, and educated his sons in the discipline and religion of the
seraglio.
51 (return) [ See the laborious history of Ducange, whose
accurate table of the French dynasties recapitulates the
thirty-five passages, in which he mentions the dukes of Athens.]
52 (return) [ He is twice mentioned by Villehardouin with honor,
(No. 151, 235;) and under the first passage, Ducange observes all
that can be known of his person and family.]
53 (return) [ From these Latin princes of the xivth century,
Boccace, Chaucer. and Shakspeare, have borrowed their Theseus
_duke_ of Athens. An ignorant age transfers its own language and
manners to the most distant times.]
54 (return) [ The same Constantine gave to Sicily a king, to
Russia the _magnus dapifer_ of the empire, to Thebes the
_primicerius_; and these absurd fables are properly lashed by
Ducange, (ad Nicephor. Greg. l. vii. c. 5.) By the Latins, the
lord of Thebes was styled, by corruption, the Megas Kurios, or
Grand Sire!]
55 (return) [ _Quodam miraculo_, says Alberic. He was probably
received by Michael Choniates, the archbishop who had defended
Athens against the tyrant Leo Sgurus, (Nicetas urbs capta, p.
805, ed. Bek.) Michael was the brother of the historian Nicetas;
and his encomium of Athens is still extant in MS. in the Bodleian
library, (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc tom. vi. p. 405.) * Note: Nicetas
says expressly that Michael surrendered the Acropolis to the
marquis.—M.]
Athens, 56 though no more than the shadow of her former self,
still contains about eight or ten thousand inhabitants; of these,
three fourths are Greeks in religion and language; and the Turks,
who compose the remainder, have relaxed, in their intercourse
with the citizens, somewhat of the pride and gravity of their
national character. The olive-tree, the gift of Minerva,
flourishes in Attica; nor has the honey of Mount Hymettus lost
any part of its exquisite flavor: 57 but the languid trade is
monopolized by strangers, and the agriculture of a barren land is
abandoned to the vagrant Walachians. The Athenians are still
distinguished by the subtlety and acuteness of their
understandings; but these qualities, unless ennobled by freedom,
and enlightened by study, will degenerate into a low and selfish
cunning: and it is a proverbial saying of the country, “From the
Jews of Thessalonica, the Turks of Negropont, and the Greeks of
Athens, good Lord deliver us!” This artful people has eluded the
tyranny of the Turkish bashaws, by an expedient which alleviates
their servitude and aggravates their shame. About the middle of
the last century, the Athenians chose for their protector the
Kislar Aga, or chief black eunuch of the seraglio. This Æthiopian
slave, who possesses the sultan’s ear, condescends to accept the
tribute of thirty thousand crowns: his lieutenant, the Waywode,
whom he annually confirms, may reserve for his own about five or
six thousand more; and such is the policy of the citizens, that
they seldom fail to remove and punish an oppressive governor.
Their private differences are decided by the archbishop, one of
the richest prelates of the Greek church, since he possesses a
revenue of one thousand pounds sterling; and by a tribunal of the
eight _geronti_ or elders, chosen in the eight quarters of the
city: the noble families cannot trace their pedigree above three
hundred years; but their principal members are distinguished by a
grave demeanor, a fur cap, and the lofty appellation of _archon_.
By some, who delight in the contrast, the modern language of
Athens is represented as the most corrupt and barbarous of the
seventy dialects of the vulgar Greek: 58 this picture is too
darkly colored: but it would not be easy, in the country of Plato
and Demosthenes, to find a reader or a copy of their works. The
Athenians walk with supine indifference among the glorious ruins
of antiquity; and such is the debasement of their character, that
they are incapable of admiring the genius of their predecessors.
59
56 (return) [ The modern account of Athens, and the Athenians, is
extracted from Spon, (Voyage en Grece, tom. ii. p. 79—199,) and
Wheeler, (Travels into Greece, p. 337—414,) Stuart, (Antiquities
of Athens, passim,) and Chandler, (Travels into Greece, p.
23—172.) The first of these travellers visited Greece in the year
1676; the last, 1765; and ninety years had not produced much
difference in the tranquil scene.]
57 (return) [ The ancients, or at least the Athenians, believed
that all the bees in the world had been propagated from Mount
Hymettus. They taught, that health might be preserved, and life
prolonged, by the external use of oil, and the internal use of
honey, (Geoponica, l. xv. c 7, p. 1089—1094, edit. Niclas.)]
58 (return) [ Ducange, Glossar. Græc. Præfat. p. 8, who quotes
for his author Theodosius Zygomalas, a modern grammarian. Yet
Spon (tom. ii. p. 194) and Wheeler, (p. 355,) no incompetent
judges, entertain a more favorable opinion of the Attic dialect.]
59 (return) [ Yet we must not accuse them of corrupting the name
of Athens, which they still call Athini. From the eiV thn
'Aqhnhn, we have formed our own barbarism of _Setines_. * Note:
Gibbon did not foresee a Bavarian prince on the throne of Greece,
with Athens as his capital.—M.]
Chapter LXIII: Civil Wars And The Ruin Of The Greek Empire.—Part
I.
Civil Wars, And Ruin Of The Greek Empire.—Reigns Of Andronicus,
The Elder And Younger, And John Palæologus.— Regency, Revolt,
Reign, And Abdication Of John Cantacuzene.— Establishment Of A
Genoese Colony At Pera Or Galata.—Their Wars With The Empire And
City Of Constantinople.
The long reign of Andronicus 1 the elder is chiefly memorable by
the disputes of the Greek church, the invasion of the Catalans,
and the rise of the Ottoman power. He is celebrated as the most
learned and virtuous prince of the age; but such virtue, and such
learning, contributed neither to the perfection of the
individual, nor to the happiness of society. A slave of the most
abject superstition, he was surrounded on all sides by visible
and invisible enemies; nor were the flames of hell less dreadful
to his fancy, than those of a Catalan or Turkish war. Under the
reign of the Palæologi, the choice of the patriarch was the most
important business of the state; the heads of the Greek church
were ambitious and fanatic monks; and their vices or virtues,
their learning or ignorance, were equally mischievous or
contemptible. By his intemperate discipline, the patriarch
Athanasius 2 excited the hatred of the clergy and people: he was
heard to declare, that the sinner should swallow the last dregs
of the cup of penance; and the foolish tale was propagated of his
punishing a sacrilegious ass that had tasted the lettuce of a
convent garden. Driven from the throne by the universal clamor,
Athanasius composed before his retreat two papers of a very
opposite cast. His public testament was in the tone of charity
and resignation; the private codicil breathed the direst
anathemas against the authors of his disgrace, whom he excluded
forever from the communion of the holy trinity, the angels, and
the saints. This last paper he enclosed in an earthen pot, which
was placed, by his order, on the top of one of the pillars, in
the dome of St. Sophia, in the distant hope of discovery and
revenge. At the end of four years, some youths, climbing
by a ladder in search of pigeons’ nests, detected the fatal
secret; and,
as Andronicus felt himself touched and bound by the
excommunication, he trembled on the brink of the abyss which had
been so treacherously dug under his feet. A synod of bishops was
instantly convened to debate this important question: the
rashness of these clandestine anathemas was generally condemned;
but as the knot could be untied only by the same hand, as that
hand was now deprived of the crosier, it appeared that this
posthumous decree was irrevocable by any earthly power. Some
faint testimonies of repentance and pardon were extorted from the
author of the mischief; but the conscience of the emperor was
still wounded, and he desired, with no less ardor than Athanasius
himself, the restoration of a patriarch, by whom alone he could
be healed. At the dead of night, a monk rudely knocked at the
door of the royal bed-chamber, announcing a revelation of plague
and famine, of inundations and earthquakes. Andronicus started
from his bed, and spent the night in prayer, till he felt, or
thought that he felt, a slight motion of the earth. The emperor
on foot led the bishops and monks to the cell of Athanasius; and,
after a proper resistance, the saint, from whom this message had
been sent, consented to absolve the prince, and govern the church
of Constantinople. Untamed by disgrace, and hardened by solitude,
the shepherd was again odious to the flock, and his enemies
contrived a singular, and as it proved, a successful, mode of
revenge. In the night, they stole away the footstool or
foot-cloth of his throne, which they secretly replaced with the
decoration of a satirical picture. The emperor was painted with a
bridle in his mouth, and Athanasius leading the tractable beast
to the feet of Christ. The authors of the libel were detected and
punished; but as their lives had been spared, the Christian
priest in sullen indignation retired to his cell; and the eyes of
Andronicus, which had been opened for a moment, were again closed
by his successor.
1 (return) [ Andronicus himself will justify our freedom in the
invective, (Nicephorus Gregoras, l. i. c. i.,) which he
pronounced against historic falsehood. It is true, that his
censure is more pointedly urged against calumny than against
adulation.]
2 (return) [ For the anathema in the pigeon’s nest, see Pachymer,
(l. ix. c. 24,) who relates the general history of Athanasius,
(l. viii. c. 13—16, 20, 24, l. x. c. 27—29, 31—36, l. xi. c. 1—3,
5, 6, l. xiii. c. 8, 10, 23, 35,) and is followed by Nicephorus
Gregoras, (l. vi. c. 5, 7, l. vii. c. 1, 9,) who includes the
second retreat of this second Chrysostom.]
If this transaction be one of the most curious and important of a
reign of fifty years, I cannot at least accuse the brevity of my
materials, since I reduce into some few pages the enormous folios
of Pachymer, 3 Cantacuzene, 4 and Nicephorus Gregoras, 5 who have
composed the prolix and languid story of the times. The name and
situation of the emperor John Cantacuzene might inspire the most
lively curiosity. His memorials of forty years extend from the
revolt of the younger Andronicus to his own abdication of the
empire; and it is observed, that, like Moses and Cæsar, he was
the principal actor in the scenes which he describes. But in this
eloquent work we should vainly seek the sincerity of a hero or a
penitent. Retired in a cloister from the vices and passions of
the world, he presents not a confession, but an apology, of the
life of an ambitious statesman. Instead of unfolding the true
counsels and characters of men, he displays the smooth and
specious surface of events, highly varnished with his own praises
and those of his friends. Their motives are always pure; their
ends always legitimate: they conspire and rebel without any views
of interest; and the violence which they inflict or suffer is
celebrated as the spontaneous effect of reason and virtue.
3 (return) [ Pachymer, in seven books, 377 folio pages, describes
the first twenty-six years of Andronicus the Elder; and marks the
date of his composition by the current news or lie of the day,
(A.D. 1308.) Either death or disgust prevented him from resuming
the pen.]
4 (return) [ After an interval of twelve years, from the
conclusion of Pachymer, Cantacuzenus takes up the pen; and his
first book (c. 1—59, p. 9—150) relates the civil war, and the
eight last years of the elder Andronicus. The ingenious
comparison with Moses and Cæsar is fancied by his French
translator, the president Cousin.]
5 (return) [ Nicephorus Gregoras more briefly includes the entire
life and reign of Andronicus the elder, (l. vi. c. 1, p. 96—291.)
This is the part of which Cantacuzene complains as a false and
malicious representation of his conduct.]
After the example of the first of the Palæologi, the elder
Andronicus associated his son Michael to the honors of the
purple; and from the age of eighteen to his premature death, that
prince was acknowledged, above twenty-five years, as the second
emperor of the Greeks. 6 At the head of an army, he excited
neither the fears of the enemy, nor the jealousy of the court;
his modesty and patience were never tempted to compute the years
of his father; nor was that father compelled to repent of his
liberality either by the virtues or vices of his son. The son of
Michael was named Andronicus from his grandfather, to whose early
favor he was introduced by that nominal resemblance. The blossoms
of wit and beauty increased the fondness of the elder Andronicus;
and, with the common vanity of age, he expected to realize in the
second, the hope which had been disappointed in the first,
generation. The boy was educated in the palace as an heir and a
favorite; and in the oaths and acclamations of the people, the
_august triad_ was formed by the names of the father, the son,
and the grandson. But the younger Andronicus was speedily
corrupted by his infant greatness, while he beheld with puerile
impatience the double obstacle that hung, and might long hang,
over his rising ambition. It was not to acquire fame, or to
diffuse happiness, that he so eagerly aspired: wealth and
impunity were in his eyes the most precious attributes of a
monarch; and his first indiscreet demand was the sovereignty of
some rich and fertile island, where he might lead a life of
independence and pleasure. The emperor was offended by the loud
and frequent intemperance which disturbed his capital; the sums
which his parsimony denied were supplied by the Genoese usurers
of Pera; and the oppressive debt, which consolidated the interest
of a faction, could be discharged only by a revolution. A
beautiful female, a matron in rank, a prostitute in manners, had
instructed the younger Andronicus in the rudiments of love; but
he had reason to suspect the nocturnal visits of a rival; and a
stranger passing through the street was pierced by the arrows of
his guards, who were placed in ambush at her door. That stranger
was his brother, Prince Manuel, who languished and died of his
wound; and the emperor Michael, their common father, whose health
was in a declining state, expired on the eighth day, lamenting
the loss of both his children. 7 However guiltless in his
intention, the younger Andronicus might impute a brother’s and a
father’s death to the consequence of his own vices; and deep was
the sigh of thinking and feeling men, when they perceived,
instead of sorrow and repentance, his ill-dissembled joy on the
removal of two odious competitors. By these melancholy events,
and the increase of his disorders, the mind of the elder emperor
was gradually alienated; and, after many fruitless reproofs, he
transferred on another grandson 8 his hopes and affection. The
change was announced by the new oath of allegiance to the
reigning sovereign, and the _person_ whom he should appoint for
his successor; and the acknowledged heir, after a repetition of
insults and complaints, was exposed to the indignity of a public
trial. Before the sentence, which would probably have condemned
him to a dungeon or a cell, the emperor was informed that the
palace courts were filled with the armed followers of his
grandson; the judgment was softened to a treaty of
reconciliation; and the triumphant escape of the prince
encouraged the ardor of the younger faction.
6 (return) [ He was crowned May 21st, 1295, and died October
12th, 1320, (Ducange, Fam. Byz. p. 239.) His brother Theodore, by
a second marriage, inherited the marquisate of Montferrat,
apostatized to the religion and manners of the Latins, (oti kai
gnwmh kai pistei kai schkati, kai geneiwn koura kai pasin eqesin
DatinoV hn akraijnhV. Nic. Greg. l. ix. c. 1,) and founded a
dynasty of Italian princes, which was extinguished A.D. 1533,
(Ducange, Fam. Byz. p. 249—253.)]
7 (return) [ We are indebted to Nicephorus Gregoras (l. viii. c.
1) for the knowledge of this tragic adventure; while Cantacuzene
more discreetly conceals the vices of Andronicus the Younger, of
which he was the witness and perhaps the associate, (l. i. c. 1,
&c.)]
8 (return) [ His destined heir was Michael Catharus, the bastard
of Constantine his second son. In this project of excluding his
grandson Andronicus, Nicephorus Gregoras (l. viii. c. 3) agrees
with Cantacuzene, (l. i. c. 1, 2.)]
Yet the capital, the clergy, and the senate, adhered to the
person, or at least to the government, of the old emperor; and it
was only in the provinces, by flight, and revolt, and foreign
succor, that the malecontents could hope to vindicate their cause
and subvert his throne. The soul of the enterprise was the great
domestic John Cantacuzene; the sally from Constantinople is the
first date of his actions and memorials; and if his own pen be
most descriptive of his patriotism, an unfriendly historian has
not refused to celebrate the zeal and ability which he displayed
in the service of the young emperor. 89 That prince escaped from
the capital under the pretence of hunting; erected his standard
at Adrianople; and, in a few days, assembled fifty thousand horse
and foot, whom neither honor nor duty could have armed against
the Barbarians. Such a force might have saved or commanded the
empire; but their counsels were discordant, their motions were
slow and doubtful, and their progress was checked by intrigue and
negotiation. The quarrel of the two Andronici was protracted, and
suspended, and renewed, during a ruinous period of seven years.
In the first treaty, the relics of the Greek empire were divided:
Constantinople, Thessalonica, and the islands, were left to the
elder, while the younger acquired the sovereignty of the greatest
part of Thrace, from Philippi to the Byzantine limit. By the
second treaty, he stipulated the payment of his troops, his
immediate coronation, and an adequate share of the power and
revenue of the state. The third civil war was terminated by the
surprise of Constantinople, the final retreat of the old emperor,
and the sole reign of his victorious grandson. The reasons of
this delay may be found in the characters of the men and of the
times. When the heir of the monarchy first pleaded his wrongs and
his apprehensions, he was heard with pity and applause: and his
adherents repeated on all sides the inconsistent promise, that he
would increase the pay of the soldiers and alleviate the burdens
of the people. The grievances of forty years were mingled in his
revolt; and the rising generation was fatigued by the endless
prospect of a reign, whose favorites and maxims were of other
times. The youth of Andronicus had been without spirit, his age
was without reverence: his taxes produced an unusual revenue of
five hundred thousand pounds; yet the richest of the sovereigns
of Christendom was incapable of maintaining three thousand horse
and twenty galleys, to resist the destructive progress of the
Turks. 9 “How different,” said the younger Andronicus, “is my
situation from that of the son of Philip! Alexander might
complain, that his father would leave him nothing to conquer:
alas! my grandsire will leave me nothing to lose.” But the Greeks
were soon admonished, that the public disorders could not be
healed by a civil war; and that their young favorite was not
destined to be the savior of a falling empire. On the first
repulse, his party was broken by his own levity, their intestine
discord, and the intrigues of the ancient court, which tempted
each malecontent to desert or betray the cause of the rebellion.
Andronicus the younger was touched with remorse, or fatigued with
business, or deceived by negotiation: pleasure rather than power
was his aim; and the license of maintaining a thousand hounds, a
thousand hawks, and a thousand huntsmen, was sufficient to sully
his fame and disarm his ambition.
89 (return) [ The conduct of Cantacuzene, by his own showing, was
inexplicable. He was unwilling to dethrone the old emperor, and
dissuaded the immediate march on Constantinople. The young
Andronicus, he says, entered into his views, and wrote to warn
the emperor of his danger when the march was determined.
Cantacuzenus, in Nov. Byz. Hist. Collect. vol. i. p. 104, &c.—M.]
9 (return) [ See Nicephorus Gregoras, l. viii. c. 6. The younger
Andronicus complained, that in four years and four months a sum
of 350,000 byzants of gold was due to him for the expenses of his
household, (Cantacuzen l. i. c. 48.) Yet he would have remitted
the debt, if he might have been allowed to squeeze the farmers of
the revenue.]
Let us now survey the catastrophe of this busy plot, and the
final situation of the principal actors. 10 The age of Andronicus
was consumed in civil discord; and, amidst the events of war and
treaty, his power and reputation continually decayed, till the
fatal night in which the gates of the city and palace were opened
without resistance to his grandson. His principal commander
scorned the repeated warnings of danger; and retiring to rest in
the vain security of ignorance, abandoned the feeble monarch,
with some priests and pages, to the terrors of a sleepless night.
These terrors were quickly realized by the hostile shouts, which
proclaimed the titles and victory of Andronicus the younger; and
the aged emperor, falling prostrate before an image of the
Virgin, despatched a suppliant message to resign the sceptre, and
to obtain his life at the hands of the conqueror. The answer of
his grandson was decent and pious; at the prayer of his friends,
the younger Andronicus assumed the sole administration; but the
elder still enjoyed the name and preeminence of the first
emperor, the use of the great palace, and a pension of
twenty-four thousand pieces of gold, one half of which was
assigned on the royal treasury, and the other on the fishery of
Constantinople. But his impotence was soon exposed to contempt
and oblivion; the vast silence of the palace was disturbed only
by the cattle and poultry of the neighborhood, 101 which roved
with impunity through the solitary courts; and a reduced
allowance of ten thousand pieces of gold 11 was all that he could
ask, and more than he could hope. His calamities were imbittered
by the gradual extinction of sight; his confinement was rendered
each day more rigorous; and during the absence and sickness of
his grandson, his inhuman keepers, by the threats of instant
death, compelled him to exchange the purple for the monastic
habit and profession. The monk _Antony_ had renounced the pomp of
the world; yet he had occasion for a coarse fur in the winter
season, and as wine was forbidden by his confessor, and water by
his physician, the sherbet of Egypt was his common drink. It was
not without difficulty that the late emperor could procure three
or four pieces to satisfy these simple wants; and if he bestowed
the gold to relieve the more painful distress of a friend, the
sacrifice is of some weight in the scale of humanity and
religion. Four years after his abdication, Andronicus or Antony
expired in a cell, in the seventy-fourth year of his age: and the
last strain of adulation could only promise a more splendid crown
of glory in heaven than he had enjoyed upon earth. 12 121
10 (return) [ I follow the chronology of Nicephorus Gregoras, who
is remarkably exact. It is proved that Cantacuzene has mistaken
the dates of his own actions, or rather that his text has been
corrupted by ignorant transcribers.]
101 (return) [ And the washerwomen, according to Nic. Gregoras,
p. 431.—M.]
11 (return) [ I have endeavored to reconcile the 24,000 pieces of
Cantacuzene (l. ii. c. 1) with the 10,000 of Nicephorus Gregoras,
(l. ix. c. 2;) the one of whom wished to soften, the other to
magnify, the hardships of the old emperor.]
12 (return) [ See Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. ix. 6, 7, 8, 10, 14,
l. x. c. 1.) The historian had tasted of the prosperity, and
shared the retreat, of his benefactor; and that friendship which
“waits or to the scaffold or the cell,” should not lightly be
accused as “a hireling, a prostitute to praise.” * Note: But it
may be accused of unparalleled absurdity. He compares the
extinction of the feeble old man to that of the sun: his coffin
is to be floated like Noah’s ark by a deluge of tears.—M.]
121 (return) [ Prodigies (according to Nic. Gregoras, p. 460)
announced the departure of the old and imbecile Imperial Monk
from his earthly prison.—M.]
Nor was the reign of the younger, more glorious or fortunate than
that of the elder, Andronicus. 13 He gathered the fruits of
ambition; but the taste was transient and bitter: in the supreme
station he lost the remains of his early popularity; and the
defects of his character became still more conspicuous to the
world. The public reproach urged him to march in person against
the Turks; nor did his courage fail in the hour of trial; but a
defeat and a wound were the only trophies of his expedition in
Asia, which confirmed the establishment of the Ottoman monarchy.
The abuses of the civil government attained their full maturity
and perfection: his neglect of forms, and the confusion of
national dresses, are deplored by the Greeks as the fatal
symptoms of the decay of the empire. Andronicus was old before
his time; the intemperance of youth had accelerated the
infirmities of age; and after being rescued from a dangerous
malady by nature, or physic, or the Virgin, he was snatched away
before he had accomplished his forty-fifth year. He was twice
married; and, as the progress of the Latins in arms and arts had
softened the prejudices of the Byzantine court, his two wives
were chosen in the princely houses of Germany and Italy. The
first, Agnes at home, Irene in Greece, was daughter of the duke
of Brunswick. Her father 14 was a petty lord 15 in the poor and
savage regions of the north of Germany: 16 yet he derived some
revenue from his silver mines; 17 and his family is celebrated by
the Greeks as the most ancient and noble of the Teutonic name. 18
After the death of this childish princess, Andronicus sought in
marriage Jane, the sister of the count of Savoy; 19 and his suit
was preferred to that of the French king. 20 The count respected
in his sister the superior majesty of a Roman empress: her
retinue was composed of knights and ladies; she was regenerated
and crowned in St. Sophia, under the more orthodox appellation of
Anne; and, at the nuptial feast, the Greeks and Italians vied
with each other in the martial exercises of tilts and
tournaments.
13 (return) [ The sole reign of Andronicus the younger is
described by Cantacuzene (l. ii. c. 1—40, p. 191—339) and
Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. ix c. 7—l. xi. c. 11, p. 262—361.)]
14 (return) [ Agnes, or Irene, was the daughter of Duke Henry the
Wonderful, the chief of the house of Brunswick, and the fourth in
descent from the famous Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and
Bavaria, and conqueror of the Sclavi on the Baltic coast. Her
brother Henry was surnamed the _Greek_, from his two journeys
into the East: but these journeys were subsequent to his sister’s
marriage; and I am ignorant _how_ Agnes was discovered in the
heart of Germany, and recommended to the Byzantine court.
(Rimius, Memoirs of the House of Brunswick, p. 126—137.]
15 (return) [ Henry the Wonderful was the founder of the branch
of Grubenhagen, extinct in the year 1596, (Rimius, p. 287.) He
resided in the castle of Wolfenbuttel, and possessed no more than
a sixth part of the allodial estates of Brunswick and Luneburgh,
which the Guelph family had saved from the confiscation of their
great fiefs. The frequent partitions among brothers had almost
ruined the princely houses of Germany, till that just, but
pernicious, law was slowly superseded by the right of
primogeniture. The principality of Grubenhagen, one of the last
remains of the Hercynian forest, is a woody, mountainous, and
barren tract, (Busching’s Geography, vol. vi. p. 270—286, English
translation.)]
16 (return) [ The royal author of the Memoirs of Brandenburgh
will teach us, how justly, in a much later period, the north of
Germany deserved the epithets of poor and barbarous. (Essai sur
les Murs, &c.) In the year 1306, in the woods of Luneburgh, some
wild people of the Vened race were allowed to bury alive their
infirm and useless parents. (Rimius, p. 136.)]
17 (return) [ The assertion of Tacitus, that Germany was
destitute of the precious metals, must be taken, even in his own
time, with some limitation, (Germania, c. 5. Annal. xi. 20.)
According to Spener, (Hist. Germaniæ Pragmatica, tom. i. p. 351,)
_Argentifodin_ in Hercyniis montibus, imperante Othone magno
(A.D. 968) primum apertæ, largam etiam opes augendi dederunt
copiam: but Rimius (p. 258, 259) defers till the year 1016 the
discovery of the silver mines of Grubenhagen, or the Upper Hartz,
which were productive in the beginning of the xivth century, and
which still yield a considerable revenue to the house of
Brunswick.]
18 (return) [ Cantacuzene has given a most honorable testimony,
hn d’ ek Germanvn auth Jugathr doukoV nti Mprouzouhk, (the modern
Greeks employ the nt for the d, and the mp for the b, and the
whole will read in the Italian idiom di Brunzuic,) tou par autoiV
epijanestatou, kai?iamprothti pantaV touV omojulouV
uperballontoV. The praise is just in itself, and pleasing to an
English ear.]
19 (return) [ Anne, or Jane, was one of the four daughters of
Amedée the Great, by a second marriage, and half-sister of his
successor Edward count of Savoy. (Anderson’s Tables, p. 650. See
Cantacuzene, l. i. c. 40—42.)]
20 (return) [ That king, if the fact be true, must have been
Charles the Fair who in five years (1321—1326) was married to
three wives, (Anderson, p. 628.) Anne of Savoy arrived at
Constantinople in February, 1326.]
The empress Anne of Savoy survived her husband: their son, John
Palæologus, was left an orphan and an emperor in the ninth year
of his age; and his weakness was protected by the first and most
deserving of the Greeks. The long and cordial friendship of his
father for John Cantacuzene is alike honorable to the prince and
the subject. It had been formed amidst the pleasures of their
youth: their families were almost equally noble; 21 and the
recent lustre of the purple was amply compensated by the energy
of a private education. We have seen that the young emperor was
saved by Cantacuzene from the power of his grandfather; and,
after six years of civil war, the same favorite brought him back
in triumph to the palace of Constantinople. Under the reign of
Andronicus the younger, the great domestic ruled the emperor and
the empire; and it was by his valor and conduct that the Isle of
Lesbos and the principality of Ætolia were restored to their
ancient allegiance. His enemies confess, that, among the public
robbers, Cantacuzene alone was moderate and abstemious; and the
free and voluntary account which he produces of his own wealth 22
may sustain the presumption that he was devolved by inheritance,
and not accumulated by rapine. He does not indeed specify the
value of his money, plate, and jewels; yet, after a voluntary
gift of two hundred vases of silver, after much had been secreted
by his friends and plundered by his foes, his forfeit treasures
were sufficient for the equipment of a fleet of seventy galleys.
He does not measure the size and number of his estates; but his
granaries were heaped with an incredible store of wheat and
barley; and the labor of a thousand yoke of oxen might cultivate,
according to the practice of antiquity, about sixty-two thousand
five hundred acres of arable land. 23 His pastures were stocked
with two thousand five hundred brood mares, two hundred camels,
three hundred mules, five hundred asses, five thousand horned
cattle, fifty thousand hogs, and seventy thousand sheep: 24 a
precious record of rural opulence, in the last period of the
empire, and in a land, most probably in Thrace, so repeatedly
wasted by foreign and domestic hostility. The favor of
Cantacuzene was above his fortune. In the moments of familiarity,
in the hour of sickness, the emperor was desirous to level the
distance between them and pressed his friend to accept the diadem
and purple. The virtue of the great domestic, which is attested
by his own pen, resisted the dangerous proposal; but the last
testament of Andronicus the younger named him the guardian of his
son, and the regent of the empire.
21 (return) [ The noble race of the Cantacuzeni (illustrious from
the xith century in the Byzantine annals) was drawn from the
Paladins of France, the heroes of those romances which, in the
xiiith century, were translated and read by the Greeks, (Ducange,
Fam. Byzant. p. 258.)]
22 (return) [ See Cantacuzene, (l. iii. c. 24, 30, 36.)]
23 (return) [ Saserna, in Gaul, and Columella, in Italy or Spain,
allow two yoke of oxen, two drivers, and six laborers, for two
hundred jugera (125 English acres) of arable land, and three more
men must be added if there be much underwood, (Columella de Re
Rustica, l. ii. c. 13, p 441, edit. Gesner.)]
24 (return) [ In this enumeration (l. iii. c. 30) the French
translation of the president Cousin is blotted with three
palpable and essential errors. 1. He omits the 1000 yoke of
working oxen. 2. He interprets the pentakosiai proV diaciliaiV,
by the number of fifteen hundred. * 3. He confounds myriads with
chiliads, and gives Cantacuzene no more than 5000 hogs. Put not
your trust in translations! Note: * There seems to be another
reading, ciliaiV. Niebuhr’s edit. in loc.—M.]
Had the regent found a suitable return of obedience and
gratitude, perhaps he would have acted with pure and zealous
fidelity in the service of his pupil. 25 A guard of five hundred
soldiers watched over his person and the palace; the funeral of
the late emperor was decently performed; the capital was silent
and submissive; and five hundred letters, which Cantacuzene
despatched in the first month, informed the provinces of their
loss and their duty. The prospect of a tranquil minority was
blasted by the great duke or admiral Apocaucus, and to exaggerate
_his_ perfidy, the Imperial historian is pleased to magnify his
own imprudence, in raising him to that office against the advice
of his more sagacious sovereign. Bold and subtle, rapacious and
profuse, the avarice and ambition of Apocaucus were by turns
subservient to each other; and his talents were applied to the
ruin of his country. His arrogance was heightened by the command
of a naval force and an impregnable castle, and under the mask of
oaths and flattery he secretly conspired against his benefactor.
The female court of the empress was bribed and directed; he
encouraged Anne of Savoy to assert, by the law of nature, the
tutelage of her son; the love of power was disguised by the
anxiety of maternal tenderness: and the founder of the Palæologi
had instructed his posterity to dread the example of a perfidious
guardian. The patriarch John of Apri was a proud and feeble old
man, encompassed by a numerous and hungry kindred. He produced an
obsolete epistle of Andronicus, which bequeathed the prince and
people to his pious care: the fate of his predecessor Arsenius
prompted him to prevent, rather than punish, the crimes of a
usurper; and Apocaucus smiled at the success of his own flattery,
when he beheld the Byzantine priest assuming the state and
temporal claims of the Roman pontiff. 26 Between three persons so
different in their situation and character, a private league was
concluded: a shadow of authority was restored to the senate; and
the people was tempted by the name of freedom. By this powerful
confederacy, the great domestic was assaulted at first with
clandestine, at length with open, arms. His prerogatives were
disputed; his opinions slighted; his friends persecuted; and his
safety was threatened both in the camp and city. In his absence
on the public service, he was accused of treason; proscribed as
an enemy of the church and state; and delivered with all his
adherents to the sword of justice, the vengeance of the people,
and the power of the devil; his fortunes were confiscated; his
aged mother was cast into prison; 261 all his past services were
buried in oblivion; and he was driven by injustice to perpetrate
the crime of which he was accused. 27 From the review of his
preceding conduct, Cantacuzene appears to have been guiltless of
any treasonable designs; and the only suspicion of his innocence
must arise from the vehemence of his protestations, and the
sublime purity which he ascribes to his own virtue. While the
empress and the patriarch still affected the appearances of
harmony, he repeatedly solicited the permission of retiring to a
private, and even a monastic, life. After he had been declared a
public enemy, it was his fervent wish to throw himself at the
feet of the young emperor, and to receive without a murmur the
stroke of the executioner: it was not without reluctance that he
listened to the voice of reason, which inculcated the sacred duty
of saving his family and friends, and proved that he could only
save them by drawing the sword and assuming the Imperial title.
25 (return) [ See the regency and reign of John Cantacuzenus, and
the whole progress of the civil war, in his own history, (l. iii.
c. 1—100, p. 348—700,) and in that of Nicephorus Gregoras, (l.
xii. c. 1—l. xv. c. 9, p. 353—492.)]
26 (return) [ He assumes the royal privilege of red shoes or
buskins; placed on his head a mitre of silk and gold; subscribed
his epistles with hyacinth or green ink, and claimed for the new,
whatever Constantine had given to the ancient, Rome, (Cantacuzen.
l. iii. c. 36. Nic. Gregoras, l. xiv. c. 3.)]
261 (return) [ She died there through persecution and
neglect.—M.]
27 (return) [ Nic. Gregoras (l. xii. c. 5) confesses the
innocence and virtues of Cantacuzenus, the guilt and flagitious
vices of Apocaucus; nor does he dissemble the motive of his
personal and religious enmity to the former; nun de dia kakian
allwn, aitioV o praotatoV thV tvn olwn edoxaV? eioai jqoraV.
Note: The alloi were the religious enemies and persecutors of
Nicephorus.—M.]
Chapter LXIII: Civil Wars And The Ruin Of The Greek Empire.—Part
II.
In the strong city of Demotica, his peculiar domain, the emperor
John Cantacuzenus was invested with the purple buskins: his right
leg was clothed by his noble kinsmen, the left by the Latin
chiefs, on whom he conferred the order of knighthood. But even in
this act of revolt, he was still studious of loyalty; and the
titles of John Palæologus and Anne of Savoy were proclaimed
before his own name and that of his wife Irene. Such vain
ceremony is a thin disguise of rebellion, nor are there perhaps
any personal wrongs that can authorize a subject to take arms
against his sovereign: but the want of preparation and success
may confirm the assurance of the usurper, that this decisive step
was the effect of necessity rather than of choice. Constantinople
adhered to the young emperor; the king of Bulgaria was invited to
the relief of Adrianople: the principal cities of Thrace and
Macedonia, after some hesitation, renounced their obedience to
the great domestic; and the leaders of the troops and provinces
were induced, by their private interest, to prefer the loose
dominion of a woman and a priest. 271 The army of Cantacuzene, in
sixteen divisions, was stationed on the banks of the Melas to
tempt or to intimidate the capital: it was dispersed by treachery
or fear; and the officers, more especially the mercenary Latins,
accepted the bribes, and embraced the service, of the Byzantine
court. After this loss, the rebel emperor (he fluctuated between
the two characters) took the road of Thessalonica with a chosen
remnant; but he failed in his enterprise on that important place;
and he was closely pursued by the great duke, his enemy
Apocaucus, at the head of a superior power by sea and land.
Driven from the coast, in his march, or rather flight, into the
mountains of Servia, Cantacuzene assembled his troops to
scrutinize those who were worthy and willing to accompany his
broken fortunes. A base majority bowed and retired; and his
trusty band was diminished to two thousand, and at last to five
hundred, volunteers. The _cral_, 28 or despot of the Servians
received him with general hospitality; but the ally was
insensibly degraded to a suppliant, a hostage, a captive; and in
this miserable dependence, he waited at the door of the
Barbarian, who could dispose of the life and liberty of a Roman
emperor. The most tempting offers could not persuade the cral to
violate his trust; but he soon inclined to the stronger side; and
his friend was dismissed without injury to a new vicissitude of
hopes and perils. Near six years the flame of discord burnt with
various success and unabated rage: the cities were distracted by
the faction of the nobles and the plebeians; the Cantacuzeni and
Palæologi: and the Bulgarians, the Servians, and the Turks, were
invoked on both sides as the instruments of private ambition and
the common ruin. The regent deplored the calamities, of which he
was the author and victim: and his own experience might dictate a
just and lively remark on the different nature of foreign and
civil war. “The former,” said he, “is the external warmth of
summer, always tolerable, and often beneficial; the latter is the
deadly heat of a fever, which consumes without a remedy the
vitals of the constitution.” 29
271 (return) [ Cantacuzene asserts, that in all the cities, the
populace were on the side of the emperor, the aristocracy on his.
The populace took the opportunity of rising and plundering the
wealthy as Cantacuzenites, vol. iii. c. 29 Ages of common
oppression and ruin had not extinguished these republican
factions.—M.]
28 (return) [ The princes of Servia (Ducange, Famil. Dalmaticæ,
&c., c. 2, 3, 4, 9) were styled Despots in Greek, and Cral in
their native idiom, (Ducange, Gloss. Græc. p. 751.) That title,
the equivalent of king, appears to be of Sclavonic origin, from
whence it has been borrowed by the Hungarians, the modern Greeks,
and even by the Turks, (Leunclavius, Pandect. Turc. p. 422,) who
reserve the name of Padishah for the emperor. To obtain the
latter instead of the former is the ambition of the French at
Constantinople, (Aversissement à l’Histoire de Timur Bec, p.
39.)]
29 (return) [ Nic. Gregoras, l. xii. c. 14. It is surprising that
Cantacuzene has not inserted this just and lively image in his
own writings.]
The introduction of barbarians and savages into the contests of
civilized nations, is a measure pregnant with shame and mischief;
which the interest of the moment may compel, but which is
reprobated by the best principles of humanity and reason. It is
the practice of both sides to accuse their enemies of the guilt
of the first alliances; and those who fail in their negotiations
are loudest in their censure of the example which they envy and
would gladly imitate. The Turks of Asia were less barbarous
perhaps than the shepherds of Bulgaria and Servia; but their
religion rendered them implacable foes of Rome and Christianity.
To acquire the friendship of their emirs, the two factions vied
with each other in baseness and profusion: the dexterity of
Cantacuzene obtained the preference: but the succor and victory
were dearly purchased by the marriage of his daughter with an
infidel, the captivity of many thousand Christians, and the
passage of the Ottomans into Europe, the last and fatal stroke in
the fall of the Roman empire. The inclining scale was decided in
his favor by the death of Apocaucus, the just though singular
retribution of his crimes. A crowd of nobles or plebeians, whom
he feared or hated, had been seized by his orders in the capital
and the provinces; and the old palace of Constantine was assigned
as the place of their confinement. Some alterations in raising
the walls, and narrowing the cells, had been ingeniously
contrived to prevent their escape, and aggravate their misery;
and the work was incessantly pressed by the daily visits of the
tyrant. His guards watched at the gate, and as he stood in the
inner court to overlook the architects, without fear or
suspicion, he was assaulted and laid breathless on the ground, by
two 291 resolute prisoners of the Palæologian race, 30 who were
armed with sticks, and animated by despair. On the rumor of
revenge and liberty, the captive multitude broke their fetters,
fortified their prison, and exposed from the battlements the
tyrant’s head, presuming on the favor of the people and the
clemency of the empress. Anne of Savoy might rejoice in the fall
of a haughty and ambitious minister, but while she delayed to
resolve or to act, the populace, more especially the mariners,
were excited by the widow of the great duke to a sedition, an
assault, and a massacre. The prisoners (of whom the far greater
part were guiltless or inglorious of the deed) escaped to a
neighboring church: they were slaughtered at the foot of the
altar; and in his death the monster was not less bloody and
venomous than in his life. Yet his talents alone upheld the cause
of the young emperor; and his surviving associates, suspicious of
each other, abandoned the conduct of the war, and rejected the
fairest terms of accommodation. In the beginning of the dispute,
the empress felt, and complained, that she was deceived by the
enemies of Cantacuzene: the patriarch was employed to preach
against the forgiveness of injuries; and her promise of immortal
hatred was sealed by an oath, under the penalty of
excommunication. 31 But Anne soon learned to hate without a
teacher: she beheld the misfortunes of the empire with the
indifference of a stranger: her jealousy was exasperated by the
competition of a rival empress; and on the first symptoms of a
more yielding temper, she threatened the patriarch to convene a
synod, and degrade him from his office. Their incapacity and
discord would have afforded the most decisive advantage; but the
civil war was protracted by the weakness of both parties; and the
moderation of Cantacuzene has not escaped the reproach of
timidity and indolence. He successively recovered the provinces
and cities; and the realm of his pupil was measured by the walls
of Constantinople; but the metropolis alone counterbalanced the
rest of the empire; nor could he attempt that important conquest
till he had secured in his favor the public voice and a private
correspondence. An Italian, of the name of Facciolati, 32 had
succeeded to the office of great duke: the ships, the guards, and
the golden gate, were subject to his command; but his humble
ambition was bribed to become the instrument of treachery; and
the revolution was accomplished without danger or bloodshed.
Destitute of the powers of resistance, or the hope of relief, the
inflexible Anne would have still defended the palace, and have
smiled to behold the capital in flames, rather than in the
possession of a rival. She yielded to the prayers of her friends
and enemies; and the treaty was dictated by the conqueror, who
professed a loyal and zealous attachment to the son of his
benefactor. The marriage of his daughter with John Palæologus was
at length consummated: the hereditary right of the pupil was
acknowledged; but the sole administration during ten years was
vested in the guardian. Two emperors and three empresses were
seated on the Byzantine throne; and a general amnesty quieted the
apprehensions, and confirmed the property, of the most guilty
subjects. The festival of the coronation and nuptials was
celebrated with the appearances of concord and magnificence, and
both were equally fallacious. During the late troubles, the
treasures of the state, and even the furniture of the palace, had
been alienated or embezzled; the royal banquet was served in
pewter or earthenware; and such was the proud poverty of the
times, that the absence of gold and jewels was supplied by the
paltry artifices of glass and gilt-leather. 33
291 (return) [ Nicephorus says four, p.734.]
30 (return) [ The two avengers were both Palæologi, who might
resent, with royal indignation, the shame of their chains. The
tragedy of Apocaucus may deserve a peculiar reference to
Cantacuzene (l. iii. c. 86) and Nic. Gregoras, (l. xiv. c. 10.)]
31 (return) [ Cantacuzene accuses the patriarch, and spares the
empress, the mother of his sovereign, (l. iii. 33, 34,) against
whom Nic. Gregoras expresses a particular animosity, (l. xiv. 10,
11, xv. 5.) It is true that they do not speak exactly of the same
time.]
32 (return) [ The traitor and treason are revealed by Nic.
Gregoras, (l. xv. c. 8;) but the name is more discreetly
suppressed by his great accomplice, (Cantacuzen. l. iii. c. 99.)]
33 (return) [ Nic. Greg. l. xv. 11. There were, however, some
true pearls, but very thinly sprinkled. The rest of the stones
had only pantodaphn croian proV to diaugeV.]
I hasten to conclude the personal history of John Cantacuzene. 34
He triumphed and reigned; but his reign and triumph were clouded
by the discontent of his own and the adverse faction. His
followers might style the general amnesty an act of pardon for
his enemies, and of oblivion for his friends: 35 in his cause
their estates had been forfeited or plundered; and as they
wandered naked and hungry through the streets, they cursed the
selfish generosity of a leader, who, on the throne of the empire,
might relinquish without merit his private inheritance. The
adherents of the empress blushed to hold their lives and fortunes
by the precarious favor of a usurper; and the thirst of revenge
was concealed by a tender concern for the succession, and even
the safety, of her son. They were justly alarmed by a petition of
the friends of Cantacuzene, that they might be released from
their oath of allegiance to the Palæologi, and intrusted with the
defence of some cautionary towns; a measure supported with
argument and eloquence; and which was rejected (says the Imperial
historian) “by _my_ sublime, and almost incredible virtue.” His
repose was disturbed by the sound of plots and seditions; and he
trembled lest the lawful prince should be stolen away by some
foreign or domestic enemy, who would inscribe his name and his
wrongs in the banners of rebellion. As the son of Andronicus
advanced in the years of manhood, he began to feel and to act for
himself; and his rising ambition was rather stimulated than
checked by the imitation of his father’s vices. If we may trust
his own professions, Cantacuzene labored with honest industry to
correct these sordid and sensual appetites, and to raise the mind
of the young prince to a level with his fortune. In the Servian
expedition, the two emperors showed themselves in cordial harmony
to the troops and provinces; and the younger colleague was
initiated by the elder in the mysteries of war and government.
After the conclusion of the peace, Palæologus was left at
Thessalonica, a royal residence, and a frontier station, to
secure by his absence the peace of Constantinople, and to
withdraw his youth from the temptations of a luxurious capital.
But the distance weakened the powers of control, and the son of
Andronicus was surrounded with artful or unthinking companions,
who taught him to hate his guardian, to deplore his exile, and to
vindicate his rights. A private treaty with the cral or despot of
Servia was soon followed by an open revolt; and Cantacuzene, on
the throne of the elder Andronicus, defended the cause of age and
prerogative, which in his youth he had so vigorously attacked. At
his request the empress-mother undertook the voyage of
Thessalonica, and the office of mediation: she returned without
success; and unless Anne of Savoy was instructed by adversity, we
may doubt the sincerity, or at least the fervor, of her zeal.
While the regent grasped the sceptre with a firm and vigorous
hand, she had been instructed to declare, that the ten years of
his legal administration would soon elapse; and that, after a
full trial of the vanity of the world, the emperor Cantacuzene
sighed for the repose of a cloister, and was ambitious only of a
heavenly crown. Had these sentiments been genuine, his voluntary
abdication would have restored the peace of the empire, and his
conscience would have been relieved by an act of justice.
Palæologus alone was responsible for his future government; and
whatever might be his vices, they were surely less formidable
than the calamities of a civil war, in which the Barbarians and
infidels were again invited to assist the Greeks in their mutual
destruction. By the arms of the Turks, who now struck a deep and
everlasting root in Europe, Cantacuzene prevailed in the third
contest in which he had been involved; and the young emperor,
driven from the sea and land, was compelled to take shelter among
the Latins of the Isle of Tenedos. His insolence and obstinacy
provoked the victor to a step which must render the quarrel
irreconcilable; and the association of his son Matthew, whom he
invested with the purple, established the succession in the
family of the Cantacuzeni. But Constantinople was still attached
to the blood of her ancient princes; and this last injury
accelerated the restoration of the rightful heir. A noble Genoese
espoused the cause of Palæologus, obtained a promise of his
sister, and achieved the revolution with two galleys and two
thousand five hundred auxiliaries. Under the pretence of
distress, they were admitted into the lesser port; a gate was
opened, and the Latin shout of, “Long life and victory to the
emperor, John Palæologus!” was answered by a general rising in
his favor. A numerous and loyal party yet adhered to the standard
of Cantacuzene: but he asserts in his history (does he hope for
belief?) that his tender conscience rejected the assurance of
conquest; that, in free obedience to the voice of religion and
philosophy, he descended from the throne and embraced with
pleasure the monastic habit and profession. 36 So soon as he
ceased to be a prince, his successor was not unwilling that he
should be a saint: the remainder of his life was devoted to piety
and learning; in the cells of Constantinople and Mount Athos, the
monk Joasaph was respected as the temporal and spiritual father
of the emperor; and if he issued from his retreat, it was as the
minister of peace, to subdue the obstinacy, and solicit the
pardon, of his rebellious son. 37
34 (return) [ From his return to Constantinople, Cantacuzene
continues his history and that of the empire, one year beyond the
abdication of his son Matthew, A.D. 1357, (l. iv. c. l—50, p.
705—911.) Nicephorus Gregoras ends with the synod of
Constantinople, in the year 1351, (l. xxii. c. 3, p. 660; the
rest, to the conclusion of the xxivth book, p. 717, is all
controversy;) and his fourteen last books are still MSS. in the
king of France’s library.]
35 (return) [ The emperor (Cantacuzen. l. iv. c. 1) represents
his own virtues, and Nic. Gregoras (l. xv. c. 11) the complaints
of his friends, who suffered by its effects. I have lent them the
words of our poor cavaliers after the Restoration.]
36 (return) [ The awkward apology of Cantacuzene, (l. iv. c.
39—42,) who relates, with visible confusion, his own downfall,
may be supplied by the less accurate, but more honest, narratives
of Matthew Villani (l. iv. c. 46, in the Script. Rerum Ital. tom.
xiv. p. 268) and Ducas, (c 10, 11.)]
37 (return) [ Cantacuzene, in the year 1375, was honored with a
letter from the pope, (Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. tom. xx. p. 250.)
His death is placed by a respectable authority on the 20th of
November, 1411, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 260.) But if he were of
the age of his companion Andronicus the Younger, he must have
lived 116 years; a rare instance of longevity, which in so
illustrious a person would have attracted universal notice.]
Yet in the cloister, the mind of Cantacuzene was still exercised
by theological war. He sharpened a controversial pen against the
Jews and Mahometans; 38 and in every state he defended with equal
zeal the divine light of Mount Thabor, a memorable question which
consummates the religious follies of the Greeks. The fakirs of
India, 39 and the monks of the Oriental church, were alike
persuaded, that in the total abstraction of the faculties of the
mind and body, the purer spirit may ascend to the enjoyment and
vision of the Deity. The opinion and practice of the monasteries
of Mount Athos 40 will be best represented in the words of an
abbot, who flourished in the eleventh century. “When thou art
alone in thy cell,” says the ascetic teacher, “shut thy door, and
seat thyself in a corner: raise thy mind above all things vain
and transitory; recline thy beard and chin on thy breast; turn
thy eyes and thy thoughts toward the middle of thy belly, the
region of the navel; and search the place of the heart, the seat
of the soul. At first, all will be dark and comfortless; but if
you persevere day and night, you will feel an ineffable joy; and
no sooner has the soul discovered the place of the heart, than it
is involved in a mystic and ethereal light.” This light, the
production of a distempered fancy, the creature of an empty
stomach and an empty brain, was adored by the Quietists as the
pure and perfect essence of God himself; and as long as the folly
was confined to Mount Athos, the simple solitaries were not
inquisitive how the divine essence could be a _material_
substance, or how an _immaterial_ substance could be perceived by
the eyes of the body. But in the reign of the younger Andronicus,
these monasteries were visited by Barlaam, 41 a Calabrian monk,
who was equally skilled in philosophy and theology; who possessed
the language of the Greeks and Latins; and whose versatile genius
could maintain their opposite creeds, according to the interest
of the moment. The indiscretion of an ascetic revealed to the
curious traveller the secrets of mental prayer and Barlaam
embraced the opportunity of ridiculing the Quietists, who placed
the soul in the navel; of accusing the monks of Mount Athos of
heresy and blasphemy. His attack compelled the more learned to
renounce or dissemble the simple devotion of their brethren; and
Gregory Palamas introduced a scholastic distinction between the
essence and operation of God. His inaccessible essence dwells in
the midst of an uncreated and eternal light; and this beatific
vision of the saints had been manifested to the disciples on
Mount Thabor, in the transfiguration of Christ. Yet this
distinction could not escape the reproach of polytheism; the
eternity of the light of Thabor was fiercely denied; and Barlaam
still charged the Palamites with holding two eternal substances,
a visible and an invisible God. From the rage of the monks of
Mount Athos, who threatened his life, the Calabrian retired to
Constantinople, where his smooth and specious manners introduced
him to the favor of the great domestic and the emperor. The court
and the city were involved in this theological dispute, which
flamed amidst the civil war; but the doctrine of Barlaam was
disgraced by his flight and apostasy: the Palamites triumphed;
and their adversary, the patriarch John of Apri, was deposed by
the consent of the adverse factions of the state. In the
character of emperor and theologian, Cantacuzene presided in the
synod of the Greek church, which established, as an article of
faith, the uncreated light of Mount Thabor; and, after so many
insults, the reason of mankind was slightly wounded by the
addition of a single absurdity. Many rolls of paper or parchment
have been blotted; and the impenitent sectaries, who refused to
subscribe the orthodox creed, were deprived of the honors of
Christian burial; but in the next age the question was forgotten;
nor can I learn that the axe or the fagot were employed for the
extirpation of the Barlaamite heresy. 42
38 (return) [ His four discourses, or books, were printed at
Basil, 1543, (Fabric Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 473.) He composed
them to satisfy a proselyte who was assaulted with letters from
his friends of Ispahan. Cantacuzene had read the Koran; but I
understand from Maracci that he adopts the vulgar prejudices and
fables against Mahomet and his religion.]
39 (return) [ See the Voyage de Bernier, tom. i. p. 127.]
40 (return) [ Mosheim, Institut. Hist. Ecclés. p. 522, 523.
Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. tom. xx. p. 22, 24, 107—114, &c. The former
unfolds the causes with the judgment of a philosopher, the latter
transcribes and transcribes and translates with the prejudices of
a Catholic priest.]
41 (return) [ Basnage (in Canisii Antiq. Lectiones, tom. iv. p.
363—368) has investigated the character and story of Barlaam. The
duplicity of his opinions had inspired some doubts of the
identity of his person. See likewise Fabricius, (Bibliot. Græc.
tom. x. p. 427—432.)]
42 (return) [ See Cantacuzene (l. ii. c. 39, 40, l. iv. c. 3, 23,
24, 25) and Nic. Gregoras, (l. xi. c. 10, l. xv. 3, 7, &c.,)
whose last books, from the xixth to xxivth, are almost confined
to a subject so interesting to the authors. Boivin, (in Vit. Nic.
Gregoræ,) from the unpublished books, and Fabricius, (Bibliot.
Græc. tom. x. p. 462—473,) or rather Montfaucon, from the MSS. of
the Coislin library, have added some facts and documents.]
For the conclusion of this chapter, I have reserved the Genoese
war, which shook the throne of Cantacuzene, and betrayed the
debility of the Greek empire. The Genoese, who, after the
recovery of Constantinople, were seated in the suburb of Pera or
Galata, received that honorable fief from the bounty of the
emperor. They were indulged in the use of their laws and
magistrates; but they submitted to the duties of vassals and
subjects; the forcible word of _liegemen_43 was borrowed from the
Latin jurisprudence; and their _podesta_, or chief, before he
entered on his office, saluted the emperor with loyal
acclamations and vows of fidelity. Genoa sealed a firm alliance
with the Greeks; and, in case of a defensive war, a supply of
fifty empty galleys and a succor of fifty galleys, completely
armed and manned, was promised by the republic to the empire. In
the revival of a naval force, it was the aim of Michael
Palæologus to deliver himself from a foreign aid; and his
vigorous government contained the Genoese of Galata within those
limits which the insolence of wealth and freedom provoked them to
exceed. A sailor threatened that they should soon be masters of
Constantinople, and slew the Greek who resented this national
affront; and an armed vessel, after refusing to salute the
palace, was guilty of some acts of piracy in the Black Sea. Their
countrymen threatened to support their cause; but the long and
open village of Galata was instantly surrounded by the Imperial
troops; till, in the moment of the assault, the prostrate Genoese
implored the clemency of their sovereign. The defenceless
situation which secured their obedience exposed them to the
attack of their Venetian rivals, who, in the reign of the elder
Andronicus, presumed to violate the majesty of the throne. On the
approach of their fleets, the Genoese, with their families and
effects, retired into the city: their empty habitations were
reduced to ashes; and the feeble prince, who had viewed the
destruction of his suburb, expressed his resentment, not by arms,
but by ambassadors. This misfortune, however, was advantageous to
the Genoese, who obtained, and imperceptibly abused, the
dangerous license of surrounding Galata with a strong wall; of
introducing into the ditch the waters of the sea; of erecting
lofty turrets; and of mounting a train of military engines on the
rampart. The narrow bounds in which they had been circumscribed
were insufficient for the growing colony; each day they acquired
some addition of landed property; and the adjacent hills were
covered with their villas and castles, which they joined and
protected by new fortifications. 44 The navigation and trade of
the Euxine was the patrimony of the Greek emperors, who commanded
the narrow entrance, the gates, as it were, of that inland sea.
In the reign of Michael Palæologus, their prerogative was
acknowledged by the sultan of Egypt, who solicited and obtained
the liberty of sending an annual ship for the purchase of slaves
in Circassia and the Lesser Tartary: a liberty pregnant with
mischief to the Christian cause; since these youths were
transformed by education and discipline into the formidable
Mamalukes. 45 From the colony of Pera, the Genoese engaged with
superior advantage in the lucrative trade of the Black Sea; and
their industry supplied the Greeks with fish and corn; two
articles of food almost equally important to a superstitious
people. The spontaneous bounty of nature appears to have bestowed
the harvests of Ukraine, the produce of a rude and savage
husbandry; and the endless exportation of salt fish and caviare
is annually renewed by the enormous sturgeons that are caught at
the mouth of the Don or Tanais, in their last station of the rich
mud and shallow water of the Mæotis. 46 The waters of the Oxus,
the Caspian, the Volga, and the Don, opened a rare and laborious
passage for the gems and spices of India; and after three months’
march the caravans of Carizme met the Italian vessels in the
harbors of Crimæa. 47 These various branches of trade were
monopolized by the diligence and power of the Genoese. Their
rivals of Venice and Pisa were forcibly expelled; the natives
were awed by the castles and cities, which arose on the
foundations of their humble factories; and their principal
establishment of Caffa 48 was besieged without effect by the
Tartar powers. Destitute of a navy, the Greeks were oppressed by
these haughty merchants, who fed, or famished, Constantinople,
according to their interest. They proceeded to usurp the customs,
the fishery, and even the toll, of the Bosphorus; and while they
derived from these objects a revenue of two hundred thousand
pieces of gold, a remnant of thirty thousand was reluctantly
allowed to the emperor. 49 The colony of Pera or Galata acted, in
peace and war, as an independent state; and, as it will happen in
distant settlements, the Genoese podesta too often forgot that he
was the servant of his own masters.
43 (return) [ Pachymer (l. v. c. 10) very properly explains
liziouV (_ligios_) by?lidiouV. The use of these words in the
Greek and Latin of the feudal times may be amply understood from
the Glossaries of Ducange, (Græc. p. 811, 812. Latin. tom. iv. p.
109—111.)]
44 (return) [ The establishment and progress of the Genoese at
Pera, or Galata, is described by Ducange (C. P. Christiana, l. i.
p. 68, 69) from the Byzantine historians, Pachymer, (l. ii. c.
35, l. v. 10, 30, l. ix. 15 l. xii. 6, 9,) Nicephorus Gregoras,
(l. v. c. 4, l. vi. c. 11, l. ix. c. 5, l. ix. c. 1, l. xv. c. 1,
6,) and Cantacuzene, (l. i. c. 12, l. ii. c. 29, &c.)]
45 (return) [ Both Pachymer (l. iii. c. 3, 4, 5) and Nic. Greg.
(l. iv. c. 7) understand and deplore the effects of this
dangerous indulgence. Bibars, sultan of Egypt, himself a Tartar,
but a devout Mussulman, obtained from the children of Zingis the
permission to build a stately mosque in the capital of Crimea,
(De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 343.)]
46 (return) [ Chardin (Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 48) was
assured at Caffa, that these fishes were sometimes twenty-four or
twenty-six feet long, weighed eight or nine hundred pounds, and
yielded three or four quintals of caviare. The corn of the
Bosphorus had supplied the Athenians in the time of Demosthenes.]
47 (return) [ De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 343, 344.
Viaggi di Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 400. But this land or water
carriage could only be practicable when Tartary was united under
a wise and powerful monarch.]
48 (return) [ Nic. Gregoras (l. xiii. c. 12) is judicious and
well informed on the trade and colonies of the Black Sea. Chardin
describes the present ruins of Caffa, where, in forty days, he
saw above 400 sail employed in the corn and fish trade, (Voyages
en Perse, tom. i. p. 46—48.)]
49 (return) [ See Nic. Gregoras, l. xvii. c. 1.]
These usurpations were encouraged by the weakness of the elder
Andronicus, and by the civil wars that afflicted his age and the
minority of his grandson. The talents of Cantacuzene were
employed to the ruin, rather than the restoration, of the empire;
and after his domestic victory, he was condemned to an
ignominious trial, whether the Greeks or the Genoese should reign
in Constantinople. The merchants of Pera were offended by his
refusal of some contiguous land, some commanding heights, which
they proposed to cover with new fortifications; and in the
absence of the emperor, who was detained at Demotica by sickness,
they ventured to brave the debility of a female reign. A
Byzantine vessel, which had presumed to fish at the mouth of the
harbor, was sunk by these audacious strangers; the fishermen were
murdered. Instead of suing for pardon, the Genoese demanded
satisfaction; required, in a haughty strain, that the Greeks
should renounce the exercise of navigation; and encountered with
regular arms the first sallies of the popular indignation. They
instantly occupied the debatable land; and by the labor of a
whole people, of either sex and of every age, the wall was
raised, and the ditch was sunk, with incredible speed. At the
same time, they attacked and burnt two Byzantine galleys; while
the three others, the remainder of the Imperial navy, escaped
from their hands: the habitations without the gates, or along the
shore, were pillaged and destroyed; and the care of the regent,
of the empress Irene, was confined to the preservation of the
city. The return of Cantacuzene dispelled the public
consternation: the emperor inclined to peaceful counsels; but he
yielded to the obstinacy of his enemies, who rejected all
reasonable terms, and to the ardor of his subjects, who
threatened, in the style of Scripture, to break them in pieces
like a potter’s vessel. Yet they reluctantly paid the taxes, that
he imposed for the construction of ships, and the expenses of the
war; and as the two nations were masters, the one of the land,
the other of the sea, Constantinople and Pera were pressed by the
evils of a mutual siege. The merchants of the colony, who had
believed that a few days would terminate the war, already
murmured at their losses: the succors from their mother-country
were delayed by the factions of Genoa; and the most cautious
embraced the opportunity of a Rhodian vessel to remove their
families and effects from the scene of hostility. In the spring,
the Byzantine fleet, seven galleys and a train of smaller
vessels, issued from the mouth of the harbor, and steered in a
single line along the shore of Pera; unskilfully presenting their
sides to the beaks of the adverse squadron. The crews were
composed of peasants and mechanics; nor was their ignorance
compensated by the native courage of Barbarians: the wind was
strong, the waves were rough; and no sooner did the Greeks
perceive a distant and inactive enemy, than they leaped headlong
into the sea, from a doubtful, to an inevitable peril. The troops
that marched to the attack of the lines of Pera were struck at
the same moment with a similar panic; and the Genoese were
astonished, and almost ashamed, at their double victory. Their
triumphant vessels, crowned with flowers, and dragging after them
the captive galleys, repeatedly passed and repassed before the
palace: the only virtue of the emperor was patience; and the hope
of revenge his sole consolation. Yet the distress of both parties
interposed a temporary agreement; and the shame of the empire was
disguised by a thin veil of dignity and power. Summoning the
chiefs of the colony, Cantacuzene affected to despise the trivial
object of the debate; and, after a mild reproof, most liberally
granted the lands, which had been previously resigned to the
seeming custody of his officers. 50
50 (return) [ The events of this war are related by Cantacuzene
(l. iv. c. 11 with obscurity and confusion, and by Nic. Gregoras
l. xvii. c. 1—7) in a clear and honest narrative. The priest was
less responsible than the prince for the defeat of the fleet.]
But the emperor was soon solicited to violate the treaty, and to
join his arms with the Venetians, the perpetual enemies of Genoa
and her colonies. While he compared the reasons of peace and war,
his moderation was provoked by a wanton insult of the inhabitants
of Pera, who discharged from their rampart a large stone that
fell in the midst of Constantinople. On his just complaint, they
coldly blamed the imprudence of their engineer; but the next day
the insult was repeated; and they exulted in a second proof that
the royal city was not beyond the reach of their artillery.
Cantacuzene instantly signed his treaty with the Venetians; but
the weight of the Roman empire was scarcely felt in the balance
of these opulent and powerful republics. 51 From the Straits of
Gibraltar to the mouth of the Tanais, their fleets encountered
each other with various success; and a memorable battle was
fought in the narrow sea, under the walls of Constantinople. It
would not be an easy task to reconcile the accounts of the
Greeks, the Venetians, and the Genoese; 52 and while I depend on
the narrative of an impartial historian, 53 I shall borrow from
each nation the facts that redound to their own disgrace, and the
honor of their foes. The Venetians, with their allies the
Catalans, had the advantage of number; and their fleet, with the
poor addition of eight Byzantine galleys, amounted to
seventy-five sail: the Genoese did not exceed sixty-four; but in
those times their ships of war were distinguished by the
superiority of their size and strength. The names and families of
their naval commanders, Pisani and Doria, are illustrious in the
annals of their country; but the personal merit of the former was
eclipsed by the fame and abilities of his rival. They engaged in
tempestuous weather; and the tumultuary conflict was continued
from the dawn to the extinction of light. The enemies of the
Genoese applaud their prowess; the friends of the Venetians are
dissatisfied with their behavior; but all parties agree in
praising the skill and boldness of the Catalans, 531 who, with
many wounds, sustained the brunt of the action. On the separation
of the fleets, the event might appear doubtful; but the thirteen
Genoese galleys, that had been sunk or taken, were compensated by
a double loss of the allies; of fourteen Venetians, ten Catalans,
and two Greeks; 532 and even the grief of the conquerors
expressed the assurance and habit of more decisive victories.
Pisani confessed his defeat, by retiring into a fortified harbor,
from whence, under the pretext of the orders of the senate, he
steered with a broken and flying squadron for the Isle of Candia,
and abandoned to his rivals the sovereignty of the sea. In a
public epistle, 54 addressed to the doge and senate, Petrarch
employs his eloquence to reconcile the maritime powers, the two
luminaries of Italy. The orator celebrates the valor and victory
of the Genoese, the first of men in the exercise of naval war: he
drops a tear on the misfortunes of their Venetian brethren; but
he exhorts them to pursue with fire and sword the base and
perfidious Greeks; to purge the metropolis of the East from the
heresy with which it was infected. Deserted by their friends, the
Greeks were incapable of resistance; and three months after the
battle, the emperor Cantacuzene solicited and subscribed a
treaty, which forever banished the Venetians and Catalans, and
granted to the Genoese a monopoly of trade, and almost a right of
dominion. The Roman empire (I smile in transcribing the name)
might soon have sunk into a province of Genoa, if the ambition of
the republic had not been checked by the ruin of her freedom and
naval power. A long contest of one hundred and thirty years was
determined by the triumph of Venice; and the factions of the
Genoese compelled them to seek for domestic peace under the
protection of a foreign lord, the duke of Milan, or the French
king. Yet the spirit of commerce survived that of conquest; and
the colony of Pera still awed the capital and navigated the
Euxine, till it was involved by the Turks in the final servitude
of Constantinople itself.
51 (return) [ The second war is darkly told by Cantacuzene, (l.
iv. c. 18, p. 24, 25, 28—32,) who wishes to disguise what he
dares not deny. I regret this part of Nic. Gregoras, which is
still in MS. at Paris. * Note: This part of Nicephorus Gregoras
has not been printed in the new edition of the Byzantine
Historians. The editor expresses a hope that it may be undertaken
by Hase. I should join in the regret of Gibbon, if these books
contain any historical information: if they are but a
continuation of the controversies which fill the last books in
our present copies, they may as well sleep their eternal sleep in
MS. as in print.—M.]
52 (return) [ Muratori (Annali d’ Italia, tom. xii. p. 144)
refers to the most ancient Chronicles of Venice (Caresinus, the
continuator of Andrew Dandulus, tom. xii. p. 421, 422) and Genoa,
(George Stella Annales Genuenses, tom. xvii. p. 1091, 1092;) both
which I have diligently consulted in his great Collection of the
Historians of Italy.]
53 (return) [ See the Chronicle of Matteo Villani of Florence, l.
ii. c. 59, p. 145—147, c. 74, 75, p. 156, 157, in Muratori’s
Collection, tom. xiv.]
531 (return) [ Cantacuzene praises their bravery, but imputes
their losses to their ignorance of the seas: they suffered more
by the breakers than by the enemy, vol. iii. p. 224.—M.]
532 (return) [ Cantacuzene says that the Genoese lost
twenty-eight ships with their crews, autandroi; the Venetians and
Catalans sixteen, the Imperials, none Cantacuzene accuses Pisani
of cowardice, in not following up the victory, and destroying the
Genoese. But Pisani’s conduct, and indeed Cantacuzene’s account
of the battle, betray the superiority of the Genoese.—M.]
54 (return) [ The Abbé de Sade (Mémoires sur la Vie de Petrarque,
tom. iii. p. 257—263) translates this letter, which he copied
from a MS. in the king of France’s library. Though a servant of
the duke of Milan, Petrarch pours forth his astonishment and
grief at the defeat and despair of the Genoese in the following
year, (p. 323—332.)]
Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.—Part I.
Conquests Of Zingis Khan And The Moguls From China To
Poland.—Escape Of Constantinople And The Greeks.—Origin Of The
Ottoman Turks In Bithynia.—Reigns And Victories Of Othman, Orchan,
Amurath The First, And Bajazet The First.— Foundation And Progress
Of The Turkish Monarchy In Asia And Europe.—Danger Of
Constantinople And The Greek Empire.
From the petty quarrels of a city and her suburbs, from the
cowardice and discord of the falling Greeks, I shall now ascend
to the victorious Turks; whose domestic slavery was ennobled by
martial discipline, religious enthusiasm, and the energy of the
national character. The rise and progress of the Ottomans, the
present sovereigns of Constantinople, are connected with the most
important scenes of modern history; but they are founded on a
previous knowledge of the great eruption of the Moguls 100 and
Tartars; whose rapid conquests may be compared with the primitive
convulsions of nature, which have agitated and altered the
surface of the globe. I have long since asserted my claim to
introduce the nations, the immediate or remote authors of the
fall of the Roman empire; nor can I refuse myself to those
events, which, from their uncommon magnitude, will interest a
philosophic mind in the history of blood. 1
100 (return) [ Mongol seems to approach the nearest to the proper
name of this race. The Chinese call them Mong-kou; the Mondchoux,
their neighbors, Monggo or Monggou. They called themselves also
Beda. This fact seems to have been proved by M. Schmidt against
the French Orientalists. See De Brosset. Note on Le Beau, tom.
xxii p. 402.]
1 (return) [ The reader is invited to review chapters xxii. to
xxvi., and xxiii. to xxxviii., the manners of pastoral nations,
the conquests of Attila and the Huns, which were composed at a
time when I entertained the wish, rather than the hope, of
concluding my history.]
From the spacious highlands between China, Siberia, and the
Caspian Sea, the tide of emigration and war has repeatedly been
poured. These ancient seats of the Huns and Turks were occupied
in the twelfth century by many pastoral tribes, of the same
descent and similar manners, which were united and led to
conquest by the formidable Zingis. 101 In his ascent to
greatness, that Barbarian (whose private appellation was Temugin)
had trampled on the necks of his equals. His birth was noble; but
it was the pride of victory, that the prince or people deduced
his seventh ancestor from the immaculate conception of a virgin.
His father had reigned over thirteen hordes, which composed about
thirty or forty thousand families: above two thirds refused to
pay tithes or obedience to his infant son; and at the age of
thirteen, Temugin fought a battle against his rebellious
subjects. The future conqueror of Asia was reduced to fly and to
obey; but he rose superior to his fortune, and in his fortieth
year he had established his fame and dominion over the
circumjacent tribes. In a state of society, in which policy is
rude and valor is universal, the ascendant of one man must be
founded on his power and resolution to punish his enemies and
recompense his friends. His first military league was ratified by
the simple rites of sacrificing a horse and tasting of a running
stream: Temugin pledged himself to divide with his followers the
sweets and the bitters of life; and when he had shared among them
his horses and apparel, he was rich in their gratitude and his
own hopes. After his first victory, he placed seventy caldrons on
the fire, and seventy of the most guilty rebels were cast
headlong into the boiling water. The sphere of his attraction was
continually enlarged by the ruin of the proud and the submission
of the prudent; and the boldest chieftains might tremble, when
they beheld, enchased in silver, the skull of the khan of
Keraites; 2 who, under the name of Prester John, had corresponded
with the Roman pontiff and the princes of Europe. The ambition of
Temugin condescended to employ the arts of superstition; and it
was from a naked prophet, who could ascend to heaven on a white
horse, that he accepted the title of Zingis, 3 the _most great_;
and a divine right to the conquest and dominion of the earth. In
a general _couroultai_, or diet, he was seated on a felt, which
was long afterwards revered as a relic, and solemnly proclaimed
great khan, or emperor of the Moguls 4 and Tartars. 5 Of these
kindred, though rival, names, the former had given birth to the
imperial race; and the latter has been extended by accident or
error over the spacious wilderness of the north.
101 (return) [ On the traditions of the early life of Zingis, see
D’Ohson, Hist des Mongols; Histoire des Mongols, Paris, 1824.
Schmidt, Geschichte des Ost-Mongolen, p. 66, &c., and Notes.—M.]
2 (return) [ The khans of the Keraites were most probably
incapable of reading the pompous epistles composed in their name
by the Nestorian missionaries, who endowed them with the fabulous
wonders of an Indian kingdom. Perhaps these Tartars (the
Presbyter or Priest John) had submitted to the rites of baptism
and ordination, (Asseman, Bibliot Orient tom. iii. p. ii. p.
487—503.)]
3 (return) [ Since the history and tragedy of Voltaire, Gengis,
at least in French, seems to be the more fashionable spelling;
but Abulghazi Khan must have known the true name of his ancestor.
His etymology appears just: _Zin_, in the Mogul tongue, signifies
_great_, and _gis_ is the superlative termination, (Hist.
Généalogique des Tatars, part iii. p. 194, 195.) From the same
idea of magnitude, the appellation of _Zingis_ is bestowed on the
ocean.]
4 (return) [ The name of Moguls has prevailed among the
Orientals, and still adheres to the titular sovereign, the Great
Mogul of Hindastan. * Note: M. Remusat (sur les Langues Tartares,
p. 233) justly observes, that Timour was a Turk, not a Mogul,
and, p. 242, that probably there was not Mogul in the army of
Baber, who established the Indian throne of the “Great
Mogul.”—M.]
5 (return) [ The Tartars (more properly Tatars) were descended
from Tatar Khan, the brother of Mogul Khan, (see Abulghazi, part
i. and ii.,) and once formed a horde of 70,000 families on the
borders of Kitay, (p. 103—112.) In the great invasion of Europe
(A.D. 1238) they seem to have led the vanguard; and the
similitude of the name of _Tartarei_, recommended that of Tartars
to the Latins, (Matt. Paris, p. 398, &c.) * Note: This
relationship, according to M. Klaproth, is fabulous, and invented
by the Mahometan writers, who, from religious zeal, endeavored to
connect the traditions of the nomads of Central Asia with those
of the Old Testament, as preserved in the Koran. There is no
trace of it in the Chinese writers. Tabl. de l’Asie, p. 156.—M.]
The code of laws which Zingis dictated to his subjects was
adapted to the preservation of a domestic peace, and the exercise
of foreign hostility. The punishment of death was inflicted on
the crimes of adultery, murder, perjury, and the capital thefts
of a horse or ox; and the fiercest of men were mild and just in
their intercourse with each other. The future election of the
great khan was vested in the princes of his family and the heads
of the tribes; and the regulations of the chase were essential to
the pleasures and plenty of a Tartar camp. The victorious nation
was held sacred from all servile labors, which were abandoned to
slaves and strangers; and every labor was servile except the
profession of arms. The service and discipline of the troops, who
were armed with bows, cimeters, and iron maces, and divided by
hundreds, thousands, and ten thousands, were the institutions of
a veteran commander. Each officer and soldier was made
responsible, under pain of death, for the safety and honor of his
companions; and the spirit of conquest breathed in the law, that
peace should never be granted unless to a vanquished and
suppliant enemy. But it is the religion of Zingis that best
deserves our wonder and applause. 501 The Catholic inquisitors of
Europe, who defended nonsense by cruelty, might have been
confounded by the example of a Barbarian, who anticipated the
lessons of philosophy, 6 and established by his laws a system of
pure theism and perfect toleration. His first and only article of
faith was the existence of one God, the Author of all good; who
fills by his presence the heavens and earth, which he has created
by his power. The Tartars and Moguls were addicted to the idols
of their peculiar tribes; and many of them had been converted by
the foreign missionaries to the religions of Moses, of Mahomet,
and of Christ. These various systems in freedom and concord were
taught and practised within the precincts of the same camp; and
the Bonze, the Imam, the Rabbi, the Nestorian, and the Latin
priest, enjoyed the same honorable exemption from service and
tribute: in the mosque of Bochara, the insolent victor might
trample the Koran under his horse’s feet, but the calm legislator
respected the prophets and pontiffs of the most hostile sects.
The reason of Zingis was not informed by books: the khan could
neither read nor write; and, except the tribe of the Igours, the
greatest part of the Moguls and Tartars were as illiterate as
their sovereign. 601 The memory of their exploits was preserved
by tradition: sixty-eight years after the death of Zingis, these
traditions were collected and transcribed; 7 the brevity of their
domestic annals may be supplied by the Chinese, 8 Persians, 9
Armenians, 10 Syrians, 11 Arabians, 12 Greeks, 13 Russians, 14
Poles, 15 Hungarians, 16 and Latins; 17 and each nation will
deserve credit in the relation of their own disasters and
defeats. 18
501 (return) [ Before his armies entered Thibet, he sent an
embassy to Bogdosottnam-Dsimmo, a Lama high priest, with a letter
to this effect: “I have chosen thee as high priest for myself and
my empire. Repair then to me, and promote the present and future
happiness of man: I will be thy supporter and protector: let us
establish a system of religion, and unite it with the monarchy,”
&c. The high priest accepted the invitation; and the Mongol
history literally terms this step the _period of the first
respect for religion_; because the monarch, by his public
profession, made it the religion of the state. Klaproth. “Travels
in Caucasus,” ch. 7, Eng. Trans. p. 92. Neither Dshingis nor his
son and successor Oegodah had, on account of their continual
wars, much leisure for the propagation of the religion of the
Lama. By religion they understand a distinct, independent, sacred
moral code, which has but one origin, one source, and one object.
This notion they universally propagate, and even believe that the
brutes, and all created beings, have a religion adapted to their
sphere of action. The different forms of the various religions
they ascribe to the difference of individuals, nations, and
legislators. Never do you hear of their inveighing against any
creed, even against the obviously absurd Schaman paganism, or of
their persecuting others on that account. They themselves, on the
other hand, endure every hardship, and even persecutions, with
perfect resignation, and indulgently excuse the follies of
others, nay, consider them as a motive for increased ardor in
prayer, ch. ix. p. 109.—M.]
6 (return) [ A singular conformity may be found between the
religious laws of Zingis Khan and of Mr. Locke, (Constitutions of
Carolina, in his works, vol. iv. p. 535, 4to. edition, 1777.)]
601 (return) [ See the notice on Tha-tha-toung-o, the Ouogour
minister of Tchingis, in Abel Remusat’s 2d series of Recherch.
Asiat. vol. ii. p. 61. He taught the son of Tchingis to write:
“He was the instructor of the Moguls in writing, of which they
were before ignorant;” and hence the application of the Ouigour
characters to the Mogul language cannot be placed earlier than
the year 1204 or 1205, nor so late as the time of Pà-sse-pa, who
lived under Khubilai. A new alphabet, approaching to that of
Thibet, was introduced under Khubilai.—M.]
7 (return) [ In the year 1294, by the command of Cazan, khan of
Persia, the fourth in descent from Zingis. From these traditions,
his vizier Fadlallah composed a Mogul history in the Persian
language, which has been used by Petit de la Croix, (Hist. de
Genghizcan, p. 537—539.) The Histoire Généalogique des Tatars (à
Leyde, 1726, in 12mo., 2 tomes) was translated by the Swedish
prisoners in Siberia from the Mogul MS. of Abulgasi Bahadur Khan,
a descendant of Zingis, who reigned over the Usbeks of Charasm,
or Carizme, (A.D. 1644—1663.) He is of most value and credit for
the names, pedigrees, and manners of his nation. Of his nine
parts, the ist descends from Adam to Mogul Khan; the iid, from
Mogul to Zingis; the iiid is the life of Zingis; the ivth, vth,
vith, and viith, the general history of his four sons and their
posterity; the viiith and ixth, the particular history of the
descendants of Sheibani Khan, who reigned in Maurenahar and
Charasm.]
8 (return) [ Histoire de Gentchiscan, et de toute la Dinastie des
Mongous ses Successeurs, Conquerans de la Chine; tirée de
l’Histoire de la Chine par le R. P. Gaubil, de la Société de
Jesus, Missionaire à Peking; à Paris, 1739, in 4to. This
translation is stamped with the Chinese character of domestic
accuracy and foreign ignorance.]
9 (return) [ See the Histoire du Grand Genghizcan, premier
Empereur des Moguls et Tartares, par M. Petit de la Croix, à
Paris, 1710, in 12mo.; a work of ten years’ labor, chiefly drawn
from the Persian writers, among whom Nisavi, the secretary of
Sultan Gelaleddin, has the merit and prejudices of a
contemporary. A slight air of romance is the fault of the
originals, or the compiler. See likewise the articles of
_Genghizcan_, _Mohammed_, _Gelaleddin_, &c., in the Bibliothèque
Orientale of D’Herbelot. * Note: The preface to the Hist. des
Mongols, (Paris, 1824) gives a catalogue of the Arabic and
Persian authorities.—M.]
10 (return) [ Haithonus, or Aithonus, an Armenian prince, and
afterwards a monk of Premontré, (Fabric, Bibliot. Lat. Medii Ævi,
tom. i. p. 34,) dictated in the French language, his book _de
Tartaris_, his old fellow-soldiers. It was immediately translated
into Latin, and is inserted in the Novus Orbis of Simon Grynæus,
(Basil, 1555, in folio.) * Note: A précis at the end of the new
edition of Le Beau, Hist. des Empereurs, vol. xvii., by M.
Brosset, gives large extracts from the accounts of the Armenian
historians relating to the Mogul conquests.—M.]
11 (return) [ Zingis Khan, and his first successors, occupy the
conclusion of the ixth Dynasty of Abulpharagius, (vers. Pocock,
Oxon. 1663, in 4to.;) and his xth Dynasty is that of the Moguls
of Persia. Assemannus (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii.) has extracted
some facts from his Syriac writings, and the lives of the
Jacobite maphrians, or primates of the East.]
12 (return) [ Among the Arabians, in language and religion, we
may distinguish Abulfeda, sultan of Hamah in Syria, who fought in
person, under the Mamaluke standard, against the Moguls.]
13 (return) [ Nicephorus Gregoras (l. ii. c. 5, 6) has felt the
necessity of connecting the Scythian and Byzantine histories. He
describes with truth and elegance the settlement and manners of
the Moguls of Persia, but he is ignorant of their origin, and
corrupts the names of Zingis and his sons.]
14 (return) [ M. Levesque (Histoire de Russie, tom. ii.) has
described the conquest of Russia by the Tartars, from the
patriarch Nicon, and the old chronicles.]
15 (return) [ For Poland, I am content with the Sarmatia Asiatica
et Europæa of Matthew à Michou, or De Michoviâ, a canon and
physician of Cracow, (A.D. 1506,) inserted in the Novus Orbis of
Grynæus. Fabric Bibliot. Latin. Mediæ et Infimæ Ætatis, tom. v.
p. 56.]
16 (return) [ I should quote Thuroczius, the oldest general
historian (pars ii. c. 74, p. 150) in the 1st volume of the
Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum, did not the same volume contain
the original narrative of a contemporary, an eye-witness, and a
sufferer, (M. Rogerii, Hungari, Varadiensis Capituli Canonici,
Carmen miserabile, seu Historia super Destructione Regni Hungariæ
Temporibus Belæ IV. Regis per Tartaros facta, p. 292—321;) the
best picture that I have ever seen of all the circumstances of a
Barbaric invasion.]
17 (return) [ Matthew Paris has represented, from authentic
documents, the danger and distress of Europe, (consult the word
_Tartari_ in his copious Index.) From motives of zeal and
curiosity, the court of the great khan in the xiiith century was
visited by two friars, John de Plano Carpini, and William
Rubruquis, and by Marco Polo, a Venetian gentleman. The Latin
relations of the two former are inserted in the 1st volume of
Hackluyt; the Italian original or version of the third (Fabric.
Bibliot. Latin. Medii Ævi, tom. ii. p. 198, tom. v. p. 25) may be
found in the second tome of Ramusio.]
18 (return) [ In his great History of the Huns, M. de Guignes has
most amply treated of Zingis Khan and his successors. See tom.
iii. l. xv.—xix., and in the collateral articles of the
Seljukians of Roum, tom. ii. l. xi., the Carizmians, l. xiv., and
the Mamalukes, tom. iv. l. xxi.; consult likewise the tables of
the 1st volume. He is ever learned and accurate; yet I am only
indebted to him for a general view, and some passages of
Abulfeda, which are still latent in the Arabic text. * Note: To
this catalogue of the historians of the Moguls may be added
D’Ohson, Histoire des Mongols; Histoire des Mongols, (from Arabic
and Persian authorities,) Paris, 1824. Schmidt, Geschichte der
Ost Mongolen, St. Petersburgh, 1829. This curious work, by
Ssanang Ssetsen Chungtaidschi, published in the original Mongol,
was written after the conversion of the nation to Buddhism: it is
enriched with very valuable notes by the editor and translator;
but, unfortunately, is very barren of information about the
European and even the western Asiatic conquests of the
Mongols.—M.]
Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.—Part II.
The arms of Zingis and his lieutenants successively reduced the
hordes of the desert, who pitched their tents between the wall of
China and the Volga; and the Mogul emperor became the monarch of
the pastoral world, the lord of many millions of shepherds and
soldiers, who felt their united strength, and were impatient to
rush on the mild and wealthy climates of the south. His ancestors
had been the tributaries of the Chinese emperors; and Temugin
himself had been disgraced by a title of honor and servitude. The
court of Pekin was astonished by an embassy from its former
vassal, who, in the tone of the king of nations, exacted the
tribute and obedience which he had paid, and who affected to
treat the _son of heaven_ as the most contemptible of mankind. A
haughty answer disguised their secret apprehensions; and their
fears were soon justified by the march of innumerable squadrons,
who pierced on all sides the feeble rampart of the great wall.
Ninety cities were stormed, or starved, by the Moguls; ten only
escaped; and Zingis, from a knowledge of the filial piety of the
Chinese, covered his vanguard with their captive parents; an
unworthy, and by degrees a fruitless, abuse of the virtue of his
enemies. His invasion was supported by the revolt of a hundred
thousand Khitans, who guarded the frontier: yet he listened to a
treaty; and a princess of China, three thousand horses, five
hundred youths, and as many virgins, and a tribute of gold and
silk, were the price of his retreat. In his second expedition, he
compelled the Chinese emperor to retire beyond the yellow river
to a more southern residence. The siege of Pekin 19 was long and
laborious: the inhabitants were reduced by famine to decimate and
devour their fellow-citizens; when their ammunition was spent,
they discharged ingots of gold and silver from their engines; but
the Moguls introduced a mine to the centre of the capital; and
the conflagration of the palace burnt above thirty days. China
was desolated by Tartar war and domestic faction; and the five
northern provinces were added to the empire of Zingis.
19 (return) [ More properly _Yen-king_, an ancient city, whose
ruins still appear some furlongs to the south-east of the modern
_Pekin_, which was built by Cublai Khan, (Gaubel, p. 146.)
Pe-king and Nan-king are vague titles, the courts of the north
and of the south. The identity and change of names perplex the
most skilful readers of the Chinese geography, (p. 177.) * Note:
And likewise in Chinese history—see Abel Remusat, Mel. Asiat. 2d
tom. ii. p. 5.—M.]
In the West, he touched the dominions of Mohammed, sultan of
Carizme, who reigned from the Persian Gulf to the borders of
India and Turkestan; and who, in the proud imitation of Alexander
the Great, forgot the servitude and ingratitude of his fathers to
the house of Seljuk. It was the wish of Zingis to establish a
friendly and commercial intercourse with the most powerful of the
Moslem princes: nor could he be tempted by the secret
solicitations of the caliph of Bagdad, who sacrificed to his
personal wrongs the safety of the church and state. A rash and
inhuman deed provoked and justified the Tartar arms in the
invasion of the southern Asia. 191 A caravan of three ambassadors
and one hundred and fifty merchants were arrested and murdered at
Otrar, by the command of Mohammed; nor was it till after a demand
and denial of justice, till he had prayed and fasted three nights
on a mountain, that the Mogul emperor appealed to the judgment of
God and his sword. Our European battles, says a philosophic
writer, 20 are petty skirmishes, if compared to the numbers that
have fought and fallen in the fields of Asia. Seven hundred
thousand Moguls and Tartars are said to have marched under the
standard of Zingis and his four sons. In the vast plains that
extend to the north of the Sihon or Jaxartes, they were
encountered by four hundred thousand soldiers of the sultan; and
in the first battle, which was suspended by the night, one
hundred and sixty thousand Carizmians were slain. Mohammed was
astonished by the multitude and valor of his enemies: he withdrew
from the scene of danger, and distributed his troops in the
frontier towns; trusting that the Barbarians, invincible in the
field, would be repulsed by the length and difficulty of so many
regular sieges. But the prudence of Zingis had formed a body of
Chinese engineers, skilled in the mechanic arts; informed perhaps
of the secret of gunpowder, and capable, under his discipline, of
attacking a foreign country with more vigor and success than they
had defended their own. The Persian historians will relate the
sieges and reduction of Otrar, Cogende, Bochara, Samarcand,
Carizme, Herat, Merou, Nisabour, Balch, and Candahar; and the
conquest of the rich and populous countries of Transoxiana,
Carizme, and Chorazan. 204 The destructive hostilities of Attila
and the Huns have long since been elucidated by the example of
Zingis and the Moguls; and in this more proper place I shall be
content to observe, that, from the Caspian to the Indus, they
ruined a tract of many hundred miles, which was adorned with the
habitations and labors of mankind, and that five centuries have
not been sufficient to repair the ravages of four years. The
Mogul emperor encouraged or indulged the fury of his troops: the
hope of future possession was lost in the ardor of rapine and
slaughter; and the cause of the war exasperated their native
fierceness by the pretence of justice and revenge. The downfall
and death of the sultan Mohammed, who expired, unpitied and
alone, in a desert island of the Caspian Sea, is a poor atonement
for the calamities of which he was the author. Could the
Carizmian empire have been saved by a single hero, it would have
been saved by his son Gelaleddin, whose active valor repeatedly
checked the Moguls in the career of victory. Retreating, as he
fought, to the banks of the Indus, he was oppressed by their
innumerable host, till, in the last moment of despair, Gelaleddin
spurred his horse into the waves, swam one of the broadest and
most rapid rivers of Asia, and extorted the admiration and
applause of Zingis himself. It was in this camp that the Mogul
conqueror yielded with reluctance to the murmurs of his weary and
wealthy troops, who sighed for the enjoyment of their native
land. Eucumbered with the spoils of Asia, he slowly measured back
his footsteps, betrayed some pity for the misery of the
vanquished, and declared his intention of rebuilding the cities
which had been swept away by the tempest of his arms. After he
had repassed the Oxus and Jaxartes, he was joined by two
generals, whom he had detached with thirty thousand horse, to
subdue the western provinces of Persia. They had trampled on the
nations which opposed their passage, penetrated through the gates
of Derbent, traversed the Volga and the desert, and accomplished
the circuit of the Caspian Sea, by an expedition which had never
been attempted, and has never been repeated. The return of Zingis
was signalized by the overthrow of the rebellious or independent
kingdoms of Tartary; and he died in the fulness of years and
glory, with his last breath exhorting and instructing his sons to
achieve the conquest of the Chinese empire. 205
191 (return) [ See the particular account of this transaction,
from the Kholauesut el Akbaur, in Price, vol. ii. p. 402.—M.]
20 (return) [ M. de Voltaire, Essai sur l’Histoire Générale, tom.
iii. c. 60, p. 8. His account of Zingis and the Moguls contains,
as usual, much general sense and truth, with some particular
errors.]
204 (return) [ Every where they massacred all classes, except the
artisans, whom they made slaves. Hist. des Mongols.—M.]
205 (return) [ Their first duty, which he bequeathed to them, was
to massacre the king of Tangcoute and all the inhabitants of
Ninhia, the surrender of the city being already agreed upon,
Hist. des Mongols. vol. i. p. 286.—M.]
The harem of Zingis was composed of five hundred wives and
concubines; and of his numerous progeny, four sons, illustrious
by their birth and merit, exercised under their father the
principal offices of peace and war. Toushi was his great
huntsman, Zagatai 21 his judge, Octai his minister, and Tuli his
general; and their names and actions are often conspicuous in the
history of his conquests. Firmly united for their own and the
public interest, the three brothers and their families were
content with dependent sceptres; and Octai, by general consent,
was proclaimed great khan, or emperor of the Moguls and Tartars.
He was succeeded by his son Gayuk, after whose death the empire
devolved to his cousins Mangou and Cublai, the sons of Tuli, and
the grandsons of Zingis. In the sixty-eight years of his four
first successors, the Mogul subdued almost all Asia, and a large
portion of Europe. Without confining myself to the order of time,
without expatiating on the detail of events, I shall present a
general picture of the progress of their arms; I. In the East;
II. In the South; III. In the West; and IV. In the North.
21 (return) [ Zagatai gave his name to his dominions of
Maurenahar, or Transoxiana; and the Moguls of Hindostan, who
emigrated from that country, are styled Zagatais by the Persians.
This certain etymology, and the similar example of Uzbek, Nogai,
&c., may warn us not absolutely to reject the derivations of a
national, from a personal, name. * Note: See a curious anecdote
of Tschagatai. Hist. des Mongols, p. 370.—M.]
I. Before the invasion of Zingis, China was divided into two
empires or dynasties of the North and South; 22 and the
difference of origin and interest was smoothed by a general
conformity of laws, language, and national manners. The Northern
empire, which had been dismembered by Zingis, was finally subdued
seven years after his death. After the loss of Pekin, the emperor
had fixed his residence at Kaifong, a city many leagues in
circumference, and which contained, according to the Chinese
annals, fourteen hundred thousand families of inhabitants and
fugitives. He escaped from thence with only seven horsemen, and
made his last stand in a third capital, till at length the
hopeless monarch, protesting his innocence and accusing his
fortune, ascended a funeral pile, and gave orders, that, as soon
as he had stabbed himself, the fire should be kindled by his
attendants. The dynasty of the _Song_, the native and ancient
sovereigns of the whole empire, survived about forty-five years
the fall of the Northern usurpers; and the perfect conquest was
reserved for the arms of Cublai. During this interval, the Moguls
were often diverted by foreign wars; and, if the Chinese seldom
dared to meet their victors in the field, their passive courage
presented and endless succession of cities to storm and of
millions to slaughter. In the attack and defence of places, the
engines of antiquity and the Greek fire were alternately
employed: the use of gunpowder in cannon and bombs appears as a
familiar practice; 23 and the sieges were conducted by the
Mahometans and Franks, who had been liberally invited into the
service of Cublai. After passing the great river, the troops and
artillery were conveyed along a series of canals, till they
invested the royal residence of Hamcheu, or Quinsay, in the
country of silk, the most delicious climate of China. The
emperor, a defenceless youth, surrendered his person and sceptre;
and before he was sent in exile into Tartary, he struck nine
times the ground with his forehead, to adore in prayer or
thanksgiving the mercy of the great khan. Yet the war (it was now
styled a rebellion) was still maintained in the southern
provinces from Hamcheu to Canton; and the obstinate remnant of
independence and hostility was transported from the land to the
sea. But when the fleet of the _Song_ was surrounded and
oppressed by a superior armament, their last champion leaped into
the waves with his infant emperor in his arms. “It is more
glorious,” he cried, “to die a prince, than to live a slave.” A
hundred thousand Chinese imitated his example; and the whole
empire, from Tonkin to the great wall, submitted to the dominion
of Cublai. His boundless ambition aspired to the conquest of
Japan: his fleet was twice shipwrecked; and the lives of a
hundred thousand Moguls and Chinese were sacrificed in the
fruitless expedition. But the circumjacent kingdoms, Corea,
Tonkin, Cochinchina, Pegu, Bengal, and Thibet, were reduced in
different degrees of tribute and obedience by the effort or
terror of his arms. He explored the Indian Ocean with a fleet of
a thousand ships: they sailed in sixty-eight days, most probably
to the Isle of Borneo, under the equinoctial line; and though
they returned not without spoil or glory, the emperor was
dissatisfied that the savage king had escaped from their hands.
22 (return) [ In Marco Polo, and the Oriental geographers, the
names of Cathay and Mangi distinguish the northern and southern
empires, which, from A.D. 1234 to 1279, were those of the great
khan, and of the Chinese. The search of Cathay, after China had
been found, excited and misled our navigators of the sixteenth
century, in their attempts to discover the north-east passage.]
23 (return) [ I depend on the knowledge and fidelity of the Père
Gaubil, who translates the Chinese text of the annals of the
Moguls or Yuen, (p. 71, 93, 153;) but I am ignorant at what time
these annals were composed and published. The two uncles of Marco
Polo, who served as engineers at the siege of Siengyangfou, * (l.
ii. 61, in Ramusio, tom. ii. See Gaubil, p. 155, 157) must have
felt and related the effects of this destructive powder, and
their silence is a weighty, and almost decisive objection. I
entertain a suspicion, that their recent discovery was carried
from Europe to China by the caravans of the xvth century and
falsely adopted as an old national discovery before the arrival
of the Portuguese and Jesuits in the xvith. Yet the Père Gaubil
affirms, that the use of gunpowder has been known to the Chinese
above 1600 years. ** Note: * Sou-houng-kian-lou. Abel Remusat.—M.
Note: ** La poudre à canon et d’autres compositions inflammantes,
dont ils se servent pour construire des pièces d’artifice d’un
effet suprenant, leur étaient connues depuis très long-temps, et
l’on croit que des bombardes et des pierriers, dont ils avaient
enseigné l’usage aux Tartares, ont pu donner en Europe l’idée
d’artillerie, quoique la forme des fusils et des canons dont ils
se servent actuellement, leur ait été apportée par les Francs,
ainsi que l’attestent les noms mêmes qu’ils donnent à ces sortes
d’armes. Abel Remusat, Mélanges Asiat. 2d ser. tom. i. p. 23.—M.]
II. The conquest of Hindostan by the Moguls was reserved in a
later period for the house of Timour; but that of Iran, or
Persia, was achieved by Holagou Khan, 231 the grandson of Zingis,
the brother and lieutenant of the two successive emperors, Mangou
and Cublai. I shall not enumerate the crowd of sultans, emirs,
and atabeks, whom he trampled into dust; but the extirpation of
the _Assassins_, or Ismaelians 24 of Persia, may be considered as
a service to mankind. Among the hills to the south of the
Caspian, these odious sectaries had reigned with impunity above a
hundred and sixty years; and their prince, or Imam, established
his lieutenant to lead and govern the colony of Mount Libanus, so
famous and formidable in the history of the crusades. 25 With the
fanaticism of the Koran the Ismaelians had blended the Indian
transmigration, and the visions of their own prophets; and it was
their first duty to devote their souls and bodies in blind
obedience to the vicar of God. The daggers of his missionaries
were felt both in the East and West: the Christians and the
Moslems enumerate, and persons multiply, the illustrious victims
that were sacrificed to the zeal, avarice, or resentment of _the
old man_ (as he was corruptly styled) _of the mountain_. But
these daggers, his only arms, were broken by the sword of
Holagou, and not a vestige is left of the enemies of mankind,
except the word _assassin_, which, in the most odious sense, has
been adopted in the languages of Europe. The extinction of the
Abbassides cannot be indifferent to the spectators of their
greatness and decline. Since the fall of their Seljukian tyrants
the caliphs had recovered their lawful dominion of Bagdad and the
Arabian Irak; but the city was distracted by theological
factions, and the commander of the faithful was lost in a harem
of seven hundred concubines. The invasion of the Moguls he
encountered with feeble arms and haughty embassies. “On the
divine decree,” said the caliph Mostasem, “is founded the throne
of the sons of Abbas: and their foes shall surely be destroyed in
this world and in the next. Who is this Holagou that dares to
rise against them? If he be desirous of peace, let him instantly
depart from the sacred territory; and perhaps he may obtain from
our clemency the pardon of his fault.” This presumption was
cherished by a perfidious vizier, who assured his master, that,
even if the Barbarians had entered the city, the women and
children, from the terraces, would be sufficient to overwhelm
them with stones. But when Holagou touched the phantom, it
instantly vanished into smoke. After a siege of two months,
Bagdad was stormed and sacked by the Moguls; 251 and their savage
commander pronounced the death of the caliph Mostasem, the last
of the temporal successors of Mahomet; whose noble kinsmen, of
the race of Abbas, had reigned in Asia above five hundred years.
Whatever might be the designs of the conqueror, the holy cities
of Mecca and Medina 26 were protected by the Arabian desert; but
the Moguls spread beyond the Tigris and Euphrates, pillaged
Aleppo and Damascus, and threatened to join the Franks in the
deliverance of Jerusalem. Egypt was lost, had she been defended
only by her feeble offspring; but the Mamalukes had breathed in
their infancy the keenness of a Scythian air: equal in valor,
superior in discipline, they met the Moguls in many a well-fought
field; and drove back the stream of hostility to the eastward of
the Euphrates. 261 But it overflowed with resistless violence the
kingdoms of Armenia 262 and Anatolia, of which the former was
possessed by the Christians, and the latter by the Turks. The
sultans of Iconium opposed some resistance to the Mogul arms,
till Azzadin sought a refuge among the Greeks of Constantinople,
and his feeble successors, the last of the Seljukian dynasty,
were finally extirpated by the khans of Persia. 263
231 (return) [ See the curious account of the expedition of
Holagou, translated from the Chinese, by M. Abel Remusat,
Mélanges Asiat. 2d ser. tom. i. p. 171.—M.]
24 (return) [ All that can be known of the Assassins of Persia
and Syria is poured from the copious, and even profuse, erudition
of M. Falconet, in two _Mémoires_ read before the Academy of
Inscriptions, (tom. xvii. p. 127—170.) * Note: Von Hammer’s
History of the Assassins has now thrown Falconet’s Dissertation
into the shade.—M.]
25 (return) [ The Ismaelians of Syria, 40,000 Assassins, had
acquired or founded ten castles in the hills above Tortosa. About
the year 1280, they were extirpated by the Mamalukes.]
251 (return) [ Compare Von Hammer, Geschichte der Assassinen, p.
283, 307. Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzüge, vol. vii. p. 406.
Price, Chronological Retrospect, vol. ii. p. 217—223.—M.]
26 (return) [ As a proof of the ignorance of the Chinese in
foreign transactions, I must observe, that some of their
historians extend the conquest of Zingis himself to Medina, the
country of Mahomet, (Gaubil p. 42.)]
261 (return) [ Compare Wilken, vol. vii. p. 410.—M.]
262 (return) [ On the friendly relations of the Armenians with
the Mongols see Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzüge, vol. vii. p.
402. They eagerly desired an alliance against the Mahometan
powers.—M.]
263 (return) [ Trebizond escaped, apparently by the dexterous
politics of the sovereign, but it acknowledged the Mogul
supremacy. Falmerayer, p. 172.—M.]
III. No sooner had Octai subverted the northern empire of China,
than he resolved to visit with his arms the most remote countries
of the West. Fifteen hundred thousand Moguls and Tartars were
inscribed on the military roll: of these the great khan selected
a third, which he intrusted to the command of his nephew Batou,
the son of Tuli; who reigned over his father’s conquests to the
north of the Caspian Sea. 264 After a festival of forty days,
Batou set forwards on this great expedition; and such was the
speed and ardor of his innumerable squadrons, than in less than
six years they had measured a line of ninety degrees of
longitude, a fourth part of the circumference of the globe. The
great rivers of Asia and Europe, the Volga and Kama, the Don and
Borysthenes, the Vistula and Danube, they either swam with their
horses or passed on the ice, or traversed in leathern boats,
which followed the camp, and transported their wagons and
artillery. By the first victories of Batou, the remains of
national freedom were eradicated in the immense plains of
Turkestan and Kipzak. 27 In his rapid progress, he overran the
kingdoms, as they are now styled, of Astracan and Cazan; and the
troops which he detached towards Mount Caucasus explored the most
secret recesses of Georgia and Circassia. The civil discord of
the great dukes, or princes, of Russia, betrayed their country to
the Tartars. They spread from Livonia to the Black Sea, and both
Moscow and Kiow, the modern and the ancient capitals, were
reduced to ashes; a temporary ruin, less fatal than the deep, and
perhaps indelible, mark, which a servitude of two hundred years
has imprinted on the character of the Russians. The Tartars
ravaged with equal fury the countries which they hoped to
possess, and those which they were hastening to leave. From the
permanent conquest of Russia they made a deadly, though
transient, inroad into the heart of Poland, and as far as the
borders of Germany. The cities of Lublin and Cracow were
obliterated: 271 they approached the shores of the Baltic; and in
the battle of Lignitz they defeated the dukes of Silesia, the
Polish palatines, and the great master of the Teutonic order, and
filled nine sacks with the right ears of the slain. From Lignitz,
the extreme point of their western march, they turned aside to
the invasion of Hungary; and the presence or spirit of Batou
inspired the host of five hundred thousand men: the Carpathian
hills could not be long impervious to their divided columns; and
their approach had been fondly disbelieved till it was
irresistibly felt. The king, Bela the Fourth, assembled the
military force of his counts and bishops; but he had alienated
the nation by adopting a vagrant horde of forty thousand families
of Comans, and these savage guests were provoked to revolt by the
suspicion of treachery and the murder of their prince. The whole
country north of the Danube was lost in a day, and depopulated in
a summer; and the ruins of cities and churches were overspread
with the bones of the natives, who expiated the sins of their
Turkish ancestors. An ecclesiastic, who fled from the sack of
Waradin, describes the calamities which he had seen, or suffered;
and the sanguinary rage of sieges and battles is far less
atrocious than the treatment of the fugitives, who had been
allured from the woods under a promise of peace and pardon and
who were coolly slaughtered as soon as they had performed the
labors of the harvest and vintage. In the winter the Tartars
passed the Danube on the ice, and advanced to Gran or Strigonium,
a German colony, and the metropolis of the kingdom. Thirty
engines were planted against the walls; the ditches were filled
with sacks of earth and dead bodies; and after a promiscuous
massacre, three hundred noble matrons were slain in the presence
of the khan. Of all the cities and fortresses of Hungary, three
alone survived the Tartar invasion, and the unfortunate Bata hid
his head among the islands of the Adriatic.
264 (return) [ See the curious extracts from the Mahometan
writers, Hist. des Mongols, p. 707.—M.]
27 (return) [ The _Dashté Kipzak_, or plain of Kipzak, extends on
either side of the Volga, in a boundless space towards the Jaik
and Borysthenes, and is supposed to contain the primitive name
and nation of the Cossacks.]
271 (return) [ Olmutz was gallantly and successfully defended by
Stenberg, Hist. des Mongols, p. 396.—M.]
The Latin world was darkened by this cloud of savage hostility: a
Russian fugitive carried the alarm to Sweden; and the remote
nations of the Baltic and the ocean trembled at the approach of
the Tartars, 28 whom their fear and ignorance were inclined to
separate from the human species. Since the invasion of the Arabs
in the eighth century, Europe had never been exposed to a similar
calamity: and if the disciples of Mahomet would have oppressed
her religion and liberty, it might be apprehended that the
shepherds of Scythia would extinguish her cities, her arts, and
all the institutions of civil society. The Roman pontiff
attempted to appease and convert these invincible Pagans by a
mission of Franciscan and Dominican friars; but he was astonished
by the reply of the khan, that the sons of God and of Zingis were
invested with a divine power to subdue or extirpate the nations;
and that the pope would be involved in the universal destruction,
unless he visited in person, and as a suppliant, the royal horde.
The emperor Frederic the Second embraced a more generous mode of
defence; and his letters to the kings of France and England, and
the princes of Germany, represented the common danger, and urged
them to arm their vassals in this just and rational crusade. 29
The Tartars themselves were awed by the fame and valor of the
Franks; the town of Newstadt in Austria was bravely defended
against them by fifty knights and twenty crossbows; and they
raised the siege on the appearance of a German army. After
wasting the adjacent kingdoms of Servia, Bosnia, and Bulgaria,
Batou slowly retreated from the Danube to the Volga to enjoyed
the rewards of victory in the city and palace of Serai, which
started at his command from the midst of the desert. 291
28 (return) [ In the year 1238, the inhabitants of Gothia
(_Sweden_) and Frise were prevented, by their fear of the
Tartars, from sending, as usual, their ships to the herring
fishery on the coast of England; and as there was no exportation,
forty or fifty of these fish were sold for a shilling, (Matthew
Paris, p. 396.) It is whimsical enough, that the orders of a
Mogul khan, who reigned on the borders of China, should have
lowered the price of herrings in the English market.]
29 (return) [ I shall copy his characteristic or flattering
epithets of the different countries of Europe: Furens ac fervens
ad arma Germania, strenuæ militiæ genitrix et alumna Francia,
bellicosa et audax Hispania, virtuosa viris et classe munita
fertilis Anglia, impetuosis bellatoribus referta Alemannia,
navalis Dacia, indomita Italia, pacis ignara Burgundia, inquieta
Apulia, cum maris Græci, Adriatici et Tyrrheni insulis pyraticis
et invictis, Cretâ, Cypro, Siciliâ, cum Oceano conterterminis
insulis, et regionibus, cruenta Hybernia, cum agili Wallia
palustris Scotia, glacialis Norwegia, suam electam militiam sub
vexillo Crucis destinabunt, &c. (Matthew Paris, p. 498.)]
291 (return) [ He was recalled by the death of Octai.—M.]
IV. Even the poor and frozen regions of the north attracted the
arms of the Moguls: Sheibani khan, the brother of the great
Batou, led a horde of fifteen thousand families into the wilds of
Siberia; and his descendants reigned at Tobolskoi above three
centuries, till the Russian conquest. The spirit of enterprise
which pursued the course of the Oby and Yenisei must have led to
the discovery of the icy sea. After brushing away the monstrous
fables, of men with dogs’ heads and cloven feet, we shall find,
that, fifteen years after the death of Zingis, the Moguls were
informed of the name and manners of the Samoyedes in the
neighborhood of the polar circle, who dwelt in subterraneous
huts, and derived their furs and their food from the sole
occupation of hunting. 30
30 (return) [ See Carpin’s relation in Hackluyt, vol. i. p. 30.
The pedigree of the khans of Siberia is given by Abulghazi, (part
viii. p. 485—495.) Have the Russians found no Tartar chronicles
at Tobolskoi? * Note: * See the account of the Mongol library in
Bergman, Nomadische Streifereyen, vol. iii. p. 185, 205, and
Remusat, Hist. des Langues Tartares, p. 327, and preface to
Schmidt, Geschichte der Ost-Mongolen.—M.]
While China, Syria, and Poland, were invaded at the same time by
the Moguls and Tartars, the authors of the mighty mischief were
content with the knowledge and declaration, that their word was
the sword of death. Like the first caliphs, the first successors
of Zingis seldom appeared in person at the head of their
victorious armies. On the banks of the Onon and Selinga, the
royal or _golden horde_ exhibited the contrast of simplicity and
greatness; of the roasted sheep and mare’s milk which composed
their banquets; and of a distribution in one day of five hundred
wagons of gold and silver. The ambassadors and princes of Europe
and Asia were compelled to undertake this distant and laborious
pilgrimage; and the life and reign of the great dukes of Russia,
the kings of Georgia and Armenia, the sultans of Iconium, and the
emirs of Persia, were decided by the frown or smile of the great
khan. The sons and grandsons of Zingis had been accustomed to the
pastoral life; but the village of Caracorum 31 was gradually
ennobled by their election and residence. A change of manners is
implied in the removal of Octai and Mangou from a tent to a
house; and their example was imitated by the princes of their
family and the great officers of the empire. Instead of the
boundless forest, the enclosure of a park afforded the more
indolent pleasures of the chase; their new habitations were
decorated with painting and sculpture; their superfluous
treasures were cast in fountains, and basins, and statues of
massy silver; and the artists of China and Paris vied with each
other in the service of the great khan. 32 Caracorum contained
two streets, the one of Chinese mechanics, the other of Mahometan
traders; and the places of religious worship, one Nestorian
church, two mosques, and twelve temples of various idols, may
represent in some degree the number and division of inhabitants.
Yet a French missionary declares, that the town of St. Denys,
near Paris, was more considerable than the Tartar capital; and
that the whole palace of Mangou was scarcely equal to a tenth
part of that Benedictine abbey. The conquests of Russia and Syria
might amuse the vanity of the great khans; but they were seated
on the borders of China; the acquisition of that empire was the
nearest and most interesting object; and they might learn from
their pastoral economy, that it is for the advantage of the
shepherd to protect and propagate his flock. I have already
celebrated the wisdom and virtue of a Mandarin who prevented the
desolation of five populous and cultivated provinces. In a
spotless administration of thirty years, this friend of his
country and of mankind continually labored to mitigate, or
suspend, the havoc of war; to save the monuments, and to rekindle
the flame, of science; to restrain the military commander by the
restoration of civil magistrates; and to instil the love of peace
and justice into the minds of the Moguls. He struggled with the
barbarism of the first conquerors; but his salutary lessons
produced a rich harvest in the second generation. 321 The
northern, and by degrees the southern, empire acquiesced in the
government of Cublai, the lieutenant, and afterwards the
successor, of Mangou; and the nation was loyal to a prince who
had been educated in the manners of China. He restored the forms
of her venerable constitution; and the victors submitted to the
laws, the fashions, and even the prejudices, of the vanquished
people. This peaceful triumph, which has been more than once
repeated, may be ascribed, in a great measure, to the numbers and
servitude of the Chinese. The Mogul army was dissolved in a vast
and populous country; and their emperors adopted with pleasure a
political system, which gives to the prince the solid substance
of despotism, and leaves to the subject the empty names of
philosophy, freedom, and filial obedience. 322 Under the reign of
Cublai, letters and commerce, peace and justice, were restored;
the great canal, of five hundred miles, was opened from Nankin to
the capital: he fixed his residence at Pekin; and displayed in
his court the magnificence of the greatest monarch of Asia. Yet
this learned prince declined from the pure and simple religion of
his great ancestor: he sacrificed to the idol Fo; and his blind
attachment to the lamas of Thibet and the bonzes of China 33
provoked the censure of the disciples of Confucius. His
successors polluted the palace with a crowd of eunuchs,
physicians, and astrologers, while thirteen millions of their
subjects were consumed in the provinces by famine. One hundred
and forty years after the death of Zingis, his degenerate race,
the dynasty of the Yuen, was expelled by a revolt of the native
Chinese; and the Mogul emperors were lost in the oblivion of the
desert. Before this revolution, they had forfeited their
supremacy over the dependent branches of their house, the khans
of Kipzak and Russia, the khans of Zagatai, or Transoxiana, and
the khans of Iran or Persia. By their distance and power, these
royal lieutenants had soon been released from the duties of
obedience; and after the death of Cublai, they scorned to accept
a sceptre or a title from his unworthy successors. According to
their respective situations, they maintained the simplicity of
the pastoral life, or assumed the luxury of the cities of Asia;
but the princes and their hordes were alike disposed for the
reception of a foreign worship. After some hesitation between the
Gospel and the Koran, they conformed to the religion of Mahomet;
and while they adopted for their brethren the Arabs and Persians,
they renounced all intercourse with the ancient Moguls, the
idolaters of China.
31 (return) [ The Map of D’Anville and the Chinese Itineraries
(De Guignes, tom. i. part ii. p. 57) seem to mark the position of
Holin, or Caracorum, about six hundred miles to the north-west of
Pekin. The distance between Selinginsky and Pekin is near 2000
Russian versts, between 1300 and 1400 English miles, (Bell’s
Travels, vol. ii. p. 67.)]
32 (return) [ Rubruquis found at Caracorum his _countryman
Guillaume Boucher, orfevre de Paris_, who had executed for the
khan a silver tree supported by four lions, and ejecting four
different liquors. Abulghazi (part iv. p. 366) mentions the
painters of Kitay or China.]
321 (return) [ See the interesting sketch of the life of this
minister (Yelin-Thsouthsai) in the second volume of the second
series of Recherches Asiatiques, par A Remusat, p. 64.—M.]
322 (return) [ Compare Hist. des Mongols, p. 616.—M.]
33 (return) [ The attachment of the khans, and the hatred of the
mandarins, to the bonzes and lamas (Duhalde, Hist. de la Chine,
tom. i. p. 502, 503) seems to represent them as the priests of
the same god, of the Indian _Fo_, whose worship prevails among
the sects of Hindostan Siam, Thibet, China, and Japan. But this
mysterious subject is still lost in a cloud, which the
researchers of our Asiatic Society may gradually dispel.]
Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.—Part III.
In this shipwreck of nations, some surprise may be excited by the
escape of the Roman empire, whose relics, at the time of the
Mogul invasion, were dismembered by the Greeks and Latins. Less
potent than Alexander, they were pressed, like the Macedonian,
both in Europe and Asia, by the shepherds of Scythia; and had the
Tartars undertaken the siege, Constantinople must have yielded to
the fate of Pekin, Samarcand, and Bagdad. The glorious and
voluntary retreat of Batou from the Danube was insulted by the
vain triumph of the Franks and Greeks; 34 and in a second
expedition death surprised him in full march to attack the
capital of the Cæsars. His brother Borga carried the Tartar arms
into Bulgaria and Thrace; but he was diverted from the Byzantine
war by a visit to Novogorod, in the fifty-seventh degree of
latitude, where he numbered the inhabitants and regulated the
tributes of Russia. The Mogul khan formed an alliance with the
Mamalukes against his brethren of Persia: three hundred thousand
horse penetrated through the gates of Derbend; and the Greeks
might rejoice in the first example of domestic war. After the
recovery of Constantinople, Michael Palæologus, 35 at a distance
from his court and army, was surprised and surrounded in a
Thracian castle, by twenty thousand Tartars. But the object of
their march was a private interest: they came to the deliverance
of Azzadin, the Turkish sultan; and were content with his person
and the treasure of the emperor. Their general Noga, whose name
is perpetuated in the hordes of Astracan, raised a formidable
rebellion against Mengo Timour, the third of the khans of Kipzak;
obtained in marriage Maria, the natural daughter of Palæologus;
and guarded the dominions of his friend and father. The
subsequent invasions of a Scythian cast were those of outlaws and
fugitives: and some thousands of Alani and Comans, who had been
driven from their native seats, were reclaimed from a vagrant
life, and enlisted in the service of the empire. Such was the
influence in Europe of the invasion of the Moguls. The first
terror of their arms secured, rather than disturbed, the peace of
the Roman Asia. The sultan of Iconium solicited a personal
interview with John Vataces; and his artful policy encouraged the
Turks to defend their barrier against the common enemy. 36 That
barrier indeed was soon overthrown; and the servitude and ruin of
the Seljukians exposed the nakedness of the Greeks. The
formidable Holagou threatened to march to Constantinople at the
head of four hundred thousand men; and the groundless panic of
the citizens of Nice will present an image of the terror which he
had inspired. The accident of a procession, and the sound of a
doleful litany, “From the fury of the Tartars, good Lord, deliver
us,” had scattered the hasty report of an assault and massacre.
In the blind credulity of fear, the streets of Nice were crowded
with thousands of both sexes, who knew not from what or to whom
they fled; and some hours elapsed before the firmness of the
military officers could relieve the city from this imaginary foe.
But the ambition of Holagou and his successors was fortunately
diverted by the conquest of Bagdad, and a long vicissitude of
Syrian wars; their hostility to the Moslems inclined them to
unite with the Greeks and Franks; 37 and their generosity or
contempt had offered the kingdom of Anatolia as the reward of an
Armenian vassal. The fragments of the Seljukian monarchy were
disputed by the emirs who had occupied the cities or the
mountains; but they all confessed the supremacy of the khans of
Persia; and he often interposed his authority, and sometimes his
arms, to check their depredations, and to preserve the peace and
balance of his Turkish frontier. The death of Cazan, 38 one of
the greatest and most accomplished princes of the house of
Zingis, removed this salutary control; and the decline of the
Moguls gave a free scope to the rise and progress of the Ottoman
Empire. 39
34 (return) [ Some repulse of the Moguls in Hungary (Matthew
Paris, p. 545, 546) might propagate and color the report of the
union and victory of the kings of the Franks on the confines of
Bulgaria. Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 310) after forty years,
beyond the Tigris, might be easily deceived.]
35 (return) [ See Pachymer, l. iii. c. 25, and l. ix. c. 26, 27;
and the false alarm at Nice, l. iii. c. 27. Nicephorus Gregoras,
l. iv. c. 6.]
36 (return) [ G. Acropolita, p. 36, 37. Nic. Greg. l. ii. c. 6,
l. iv. c. 5.]
37 (return) [ Abulpharagius, who wrote in the year 1284, declares
that the Moguls, since the fabulous defeat of Batou, had not
attacked either the Franks or Greeks; and of this he is a
competent witness. Hayton likewise, the Armenian prince,
celebrates their friendship for himself and his nation.]
38 (return) [ Pachymer gives a splendid character of Cazan Khan,
the rival of Cyrus and Alexander, (l. xii. c. 1.) In the
conclusion of his history (l. xiii. c. 36) he _hopes_ much from
the arrival of 30,000 Tochars, or Tartars, who were ordered by
the successor of Cazan to restrain the Turks of Bithynia, A.D.
1308.]
39 (return) [ The origin of the Ottoman dynasty is illustrated by
the critical learning of Mm. De Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. iv.
p. 329—337) and D’Anville, (Empire Turc, p. 14—22,) two
inhabitants of Paris, from whom the Orientals may learn the
history and geography of their own country. * Note: They may be
still more enlightened by the Geschichte des Osman Reiches, by M.
von Hammer Purgstall of Vienna.—M.]
After the retreat of Zingis, the sultan Gelaleddin of Carizme had
returned from India to the possession and defence of his Persian
kingdoms. In the space of eleven years, that hero fought in
person fourteen battles; and such was his activity, that he led
his cavalry in seventeen days from Teflis to Kerman, a march of a
thousand miles. Yet he was oppressed by the jealousy of the
Moslem princes, and the innumerable armies of the Moguls; and
after his last defeat, Gelaleddin perished ignobly in the
mountains of Curdistan. His death dissolved a veteran and
adventurous army, which included under the name of Carizmians or
Corasmins many Turkman hordes, that had attached themselves to
the sultan’s fortune. The bolder and more powerful chiefs invaded
Syria, and violated the holy sepulchre of Jerusalem: the more
humble engaged in the service of Aladin, sultan of Iconium; and
among these were the obscure fathers of the Ottoman line. They
had formerly pitched their tents near the southern banks of the
Oxus, in the plains of Mahan and Nesa; and it is somewhat
remarkable, that the same spot should have produced the first
authors of the Parthian and Turkish empires. At the head, or in
the rear, of a Carizmian army, Soliman Shah was drowned in the
passage of the Euphrates: his son Orthogrul became the soldier
and subject of Aladin, and established at Surgut, on the banks of
the Sangar, a camp of four hundred families or tents, whom he
governed fifty-two years both in peace and war. He was the father
of Thaman, or Athman, whose Turkish name has been melted into the
appellation of the caliph Othman; and if we describe that
pastoral chief as a shepherd and a robber, we must separate from
those characters all idea of ignominy and baseness. Othman
possessed, and perhaps surpassed, the ordinary virtues of a
soldier; and the circumstances of time and place were propitious
to his independence and success. The Seljukian dynasty was no
more; and the distance and decline of the Mogul khans soon
enfranchised him from the control of a superior. He was situate
on the verge of the Greek empire: the Koran sanctified his
_gazi_, or holy war, against the infidels; and their political
errors unlocked the passes of Mount Olympus, and invited him to
descend into the plains of Bithynia. Till the reign of
Palæologus, these passes had been vigilantly guarded by the
militia of the country, who were repaid by their own safety and
an exemption from taxes. The emperor abolished their privilege
and assumed their office; but the tribute was rigorously
collected, the custody of the passes was neglected, and the hardy
mountaineers degenerated into a trembling crowd of peasants
without spirit or discipline. It was on the twenty-seventh of
July, in the year twelve hundred and ninety-nine of the Christian
æra, that Othman first invaded the territory of Nicomedia; 40 and
the singular accuracy of the date seems to disclose some
foresight of the rapid and destructive growth of the monster. The
annals of the twenty-seven years of his reign would exhibit a
repetition of the same inroads; and his hereditary troops were
multiplied in each campaign by the accession of captives and
volunteers. Instead of retreating to the hills, he maintained the
most useful and defensive posts; fortified the towns and castles
which he had first pillaged; and renounced the pastoral life for
the baths and palaces of his infant capitals. But it was not till
Othman was oppressed by age and infirmities, that he received the
welcome news of the conquest of Prusa, which had been surrendered
by famine or treachery to the arms of his son Orchan. The glory
of Othman is chiefly founded on that of his descendants; but the
Turks have transcribed or composed a royal testament of his last
counsels of justice and moderation. 41
40 (return) [ See Pachymer, l. x. c. 25, 26, l. xiii. c. 33, 34,
36; and concerning the guard of the mountains, l. i. c. 3—6:
Nicephorus Gregoras, l. vii. c. l., and the first book of
Laonicus Chalcondyles, the Athenian.]
41 (return) [ I am ignorant whether the Turks have any writers
older than Mahomet II., * nor can I reach beyond a meagre
chronicle (Annales Turcici ad Annum 1550) translated by John
Gaudier, and published by Leunclavius, (ad calcem Laonic.
Chalcond. p. 311—350,) with copious pandects, or commentaries.
The history of the Growth and Decay (A.D. 1300—1683) of the
Othman empire was translated into English from the Latin MS. of
Demetrius Cantemir, prince of Moldavia, (London, 1734, in folio.)
The author is guilty of strange blunders in Oriental history; but
he was conversant with the language, the annals, and institutions
of the Turks. Cantemir partly draws his materials from the
Synopsis of Saadi Effendi of Larissa, dedicated in the year 1696
to Sultan Mustapha, and a valuable abridgment of the original
historians. In one of the Ramblers, Dr. Johnson praises Knolles
(a General History of the Turks to the present Year. London,
1603) as the first of historians, unhappy only in the choice of
his subject. Yet I much doubt whether a partial and verbose
compilation from Latin writers, thirteen hundred folio pages of
speeches and battles, can either instruct or amuse an enlightened
age, which requires from the historian some tincture of
philosophy and criticism. Note: * We could have wished that M.
von Hammer had given a more clear and distinct reply to this
question of Gibbon. In a note, vol. i. p. 630. M. von Hammer
shows that they had not only sheiks (religious writers) and
learned lawyers, but poets and authors on medicine. But the
inquiry of Gibbon obviously refers to historians. The oldest of
their historical works, of which V. Hammer makes use, is the
“Tarichi Aaschik Paschasade,” i. e. the History of the Great
Grandson of Aaschik Pasha, who was a dervis and celebrated
ascetic poet in the reign of Murad (Amurath) I. Ahmed, the author
of the work, lived during the reign of Bajazet II., but, he says,
derived much information from the book of Scheik Jachshi, the son
of Elias, who was Imaum to Sultan Orchan, (the second Ottoman
king) and who related, from the lips of his father, the
circumstances of the earliest Ottoman history. This book (having
searched for it in vain for five-and-twenty years) our author
found at length in the Vatican. All the other Turkish histories
on his list, as indeed this, were _written_ during the reign of
Mahomet II. It does not appear whether any of the rest cite
earlier authorities of equal value with that claimed by the
“Tarichi Aaschik Paschasade.”—M. (in Quarterly Review, vol. xlix.
p. 292.)]
From the conquest of Prusa, we may date the true æra of the
Ottoman empire. The lives and possessions of the Christian
subjects were redeemed by a tribute or ransom of thirty thousand
crowns of gold; and the city, by the labors of Orchan, assumed
the aspect of a Mahometan capital; Prusa was decorated with a
mosque, a college, and a hospital, of royal foundation; the
Seljukian coin was changed for the name and impression of the new
dynasty: and the most skilful professors, of human and divine
knowledge, attracted the Persian and Arabian students from the
ancient schools of Oriental learning. The office of vizier was
instituted for Aladin, the brother of Orchan; 411 and a different
habit distinguished the citizens from the peasants, the Moslems
from the infidels. All the troops of Othman had consisted of
loose squadrons of Turkman cavalry; who served without pay and
fought without discipline: but a regular body of infantry was
first established and trained by the prudence of his son. A great
number of volunteers was enrolled with a small stipend, but with
the permission of living at home, unless they were summoned to
the field: their rude manners, and seditious temper, disposed
Orchan to educate his young captives as his soldiers and those of
the prophet; but the Turkish peasants were still allowed to mount
on horseback, and follow his standard, with the appellation and
the hopes of _freebooters_. 412 By these arts he formed an army
of twenty-five thousand Moslems: a train of battering engines was
framed for the use of sieges; and the first successful experiment
was made on the cities of Nice and Nicomedia. Orchan granted a
safe-conduct to all who were desirous of departing with their
families and effects; but the widows of the slain were given in
marriage to the conquerors; and the sacrilegious plunder, the
books, the vases, and the images, were sold or ransomed at
Constantinople. The emperor Andronicus the Younger was vanquished
and wounded by the son of Othman: 42 421 he subdued the whole
province or kingdom of Bithynia, as far as the shores of the
Bosphorus and Hellespont; and the Christians confessed the
justice and clemency of a reign which claimed the voluntary
attachment of the Turks of Asia. Yet Orchan was content with the
modest title of emir; and in the list of his compeers, the
princes of Roum or Anatolia, 43 his military forces were
surpassed by the emirs of Ghermian and Caramania, each of whom
could bring into the field an army of forty thousand men. Their
domains were situate in the heart of the Seljukian kingdom; but
the holy warriors, though of inferior note, who formed new
principalities on the Greek empire, are more conspicuous in the
light of history. The maritime country from the Propontis to the
Mæander and the Isle of Rhodes, so long threatened and so often
pillaged, was finally lost about the thirteenth year of
Andronicus the Elder. 44 Two Turkish chieftains, Sarukhan and
Aidin, left their names to their conquests, and their conquests
to their posterity. The captivity or ruin of the _seven_ churches
of Asia was consummated; and the barbarous lords of Ionia and
Lydia still trample on the monuments of classic and Christian
antiquity. In the loss of Ephesus, the Christians deplored the
fall of the first angel, the extinction of the first candlestick,
of the Revelations; 45 the desolation is complete; and the temple
of Diana, or the church of Mary, will equally elude the search of
the curious traveller. The circus and three stately theatres of
Laodicea are now peopled with wolves and foxes; Sardes is reduced
to a miserable village; the God of Mahomet, without a rival or a
son, is invoked in the mosques of Thyatira and Pergamus; and the
populousness of Smyrna is supported by the foreign trade of the
Franks and Armenians. Philadelphia alone has been saved by
prophecy, or courage. At a distance from the sea, forgotten by
the emperors, encompassed on all sides by the Turks, her valiant
citizens defended their religion and freedom above fourscore
years; and at length capitulated with the proudest of the
Ottomans. Among the Greek colonies and churches of Asia,
Philadelphia is still erect; a column in a scene of ruins; a
pleasing example, that the paths of honor and safety may
sometimes be the same. The servitude of Rhodes was delayed about
two centuries by the establishment of the knights of St. John of
Jerusalem: 46 under the discipline of the order, that island
emerged into fame and opulence; the noble and warlike monks were
renowned by land and sea: and the bulwark of Christendom
provoked, and repelled, the arms of the Turks and Saracens.
411 (return) [ Von Hammer, Osm. Geschichte, vol. i. p. 82.—M.]
412 (return) [ Ibid. p. 91.—M.]
42 (return) [ Cantacuzene, though he relates the battle and
heroic flight of the younger Andronicus, (l. ii. c. 6, 7, 8,)
dissembles by his silence the loss of Prusa, Nice, and Nicomedia,
which are fairly confessed by Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. viii. 15,
ix. 9, 13, xi. 6.) It appears that Nice was taken by Orchan in
1330, and Nicomedia in 1339, which are somewhat different from
the Turkish dates.]
421 (return) [ For the conquests of Orchan over the ten
pachaliks, or kingdoms of the Seljukians, in Asia Minor. see V.
Hammer, vol. i. p. 112.—M.]
43 (return) [ The partition of the Turkish emirs is extracted
from two contemporaries, the Greek Nicephorus Gregoras (l. vii.
1) and the Arabian Marakeschi, (De Guignes, tom. ii. P. ii. p.
76, 77.) See likewise the first book of Laonicus Chalcondyles.]
44 (return) [ Pachymer, l. xiii. c. 13.]
45 (return) [ See the Travels of Wheeler and Spon, of Pocock and
Chandler, and more particularly Smith’s Survey of the Seven
Churches of Asia, p. 205—276. The more pious antiquaries labor to
reconcile the promises and threats of the author of the
Revelations with the _present_ state of the seven cities. Perhaps
it would be more prudent to confine his predictions to the
characters and events of his own times.]
46 (return) [ Consult the ivth book of the Histoire de l’Ordre de
Malthe, par l’Abbé de Vertot. That pleasing writer betrays his
ignorance, in supposing that Othman, a freebooter of the
Bithynian hills, could besiege Rhodes by sea and land.]
The Greeks, by their intestine divisions, were the authors of
their final ruin. During the civil wars of the elder and younger
Andronicus, the son of Othman achieved, almost without
resistance, the conquest of Bithynia; and the same disorders
encouraged the Turkish emirs of Lydia and Ionia to build a fleet,
and to pillage the adjacent islands and the sea-coast of Europe.
In the defence of his life and honor, Cantacuzene was tempted to
prevent, or imitate, his adversaries, by calling to his aid the
public enemies of his religion and country. Amir, the son of
Aidin, concealed under a Turkish garb the humanity and politeness
of a Greek; he was united with the great domestic by mutual
esteem and reciprocal services; and their friendship is compared,
in the vain rhetoric of the times, to the perfect union of
Orestes and Pylades. 47 On the report of the danger of his
friend, who was persecuted by an ungrateful court, the prince of
Ionia assembled at Smyrna a fleet of three hundred vessels, with
an army of twenty-nine thousand men; sailed in the depth of
winter, and cast anchor at the mouth of the Hebrus. From thence,
with a chosen band of two thousand Turks, he marched along the
banks of the river, and rescued the empress, who was besieged in
Demotica by the wild Bulgarians. At that disastrous moment, the
life or death of his beloved Cantacuzene was concealed by his
flight into Servia: but the grateful Irene, impatient to behold
her deliverer, invited him to enter the city, and accompanied her
message with a present of rich apparel and a hundred horses. By a
peculiar strain of delicacy, the Gentle Barbarian refused, in the
absence of an unfortunate friend, to visit his wife, or to taste
the luxuries of the palace; sustained in his tent the rigor of
the winter; and rejected the hospitable gift, that he might share
the hardships of two thousand companions, all as deserving as
himself of that honor and distinction. Necessity and revenge
might justify his predatory excursions by sea and land: he left
nine thousand five hundred men for the guard of his fleet; and
persevered in the fruitless search of Cantacuzene, till his
embarkation was hastened by a fictitious letter, the severity of
the season, the clamors of his independent troops, and the weight
of his spoil and captives. In the prosecution of the civil war,
the prince of Ionia twice returned to Europe; joined his arms
with those of the emperor; besieged Thessalonica, and threatened
Constantinople. Calumny might affix some reproach on his
imperfect aid, his hasty departure, and a bribe of ten thousand
crowns, which he accepted from the Byzantine court; but his
friend was satisfied; and the conduct of Amir is excused by the
more sacred duty of defending against the Latins his hereditary
dominions. The maritime power of the Turks had united the pope,
the king of Cyprus, the republic of Venice, and the order of St.
John, in a laudable crusade; their galleys invaded the coast of
Ionia; and Amir was slain with an arrow, in the attempt to wrest
from the Rhodian knights the citadel of Smyrna. 48 Before his
death, he generously recommended another ally of his own nation;
not more sincere or zealous than himself, but more able to afford
a prompt and powerful succor, by his situation along the
Propontis and in the front of Constantinople. By the prospect of
a more advantageous treaty, the Turkish prince of Bithynia was
detached from his engagements with Anne of Savoy; and the pride
of Orchan dictated the most solemn protestations, that if he
could obtain the daughter of Cantacuzene, he would invariably
fulfil the duties of a subject and a son. Parental tenderness was
silenced by the voice of ambition: the Greek clergy connived at
the marriage of a Christian princess with a sectary of Mahomet;
and the father of Theodora describes, with shameful satisfaction,
the dishonor of the purple. 49 A body of Turkish cavalry attended
the ambassadors, who disembarked from thirty vessels, before his
camp of Selybria. A stately pavilion was erected, in which the
empress Irene passed the night with her daughters. In the
morning, Theodora ascended a throne, which was surrounded with
curtains of silk and gold: the troops were under arms; but the
emperor alone was on horseback. At a signal the curtains were
suddenly withdrawn to disclose the bride, or the victim,
encircled by kneeling eunuchs and hymeneal torches: the sound of
flutes and trumpets proclaimed the joyful event; and her
pretended happiness was the theme of the nuptial song, which was
chanted by such poets as the age could produce. Without the rites
of the church, Theodora was delivered to her barbarous lord: but
it had been stipulated, that she should preserve her religion in
the harem of Bursa; and her father celebrates her charity and
devotion in this ambiguous situation. After his peaceful
establishment on the throne of Constantinople, the Greek emperor
visited his Turkish ally, who with four sons, by various wives,
expected him at Scutari, on the Asiatic shore. The two princes
partook, with seeming cordiality, of the pleasures of the banquet
and the chase; and Theodora was permitted to repass the
Bosphorus, and to enjoy some days in the society of her mother.
But the friendship of Orchan was subservient to his religion and
interest; and in the Genoese war he joined without a blush the
enemies of Cantacuzene.
47 (return) [ Nicephorus Gregoras has expatiated with pleasure on
this amiable character, (l. xii. 7, xiii. 4, 10, xiv. 1, 9, xvi.
6.) Cantacuzene speaks with honor and esteem of his ally, (l.
iii. c. 56, 57, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 86, 89, 95, 96;) but he seems
ignorant of his own sentimental passion for the Turks, and
indirectly denies the possibility of such unnatural friendship,
(l. iv. c. 40.)]
48 (return) [ After the conquest of Smyrna by the Latins, the
defence of this fortress was imposed by Pope Gregory XI. on the
knights of Rhodes, (see Vertot, l. v.)]
49 (return) [ See Cantacuzenus, l. iii. c. 95. Nicephorus
Gregoras, who, for the light of Mount Thabor, brands the emperor
with the names of tyrant and Herod, excuses, rather than blames,
this Turkish marriage, and alleges the passion and power of
Orchan, eggutatoV, kai th dunamo? touV kat’ auton hdh PersikouV
(Turkish) uperairwn SatrapaV, (l. xv. 5.) He afterwards
celebrates his kingdom and armies. See his reign in Cantemir, p.
24—30.]
In the treaty with the empress Anne, the Ottoman prince had
inserted a singular condition, that it should be lawful for him
to sell his prisoners at Constantinople, or transport them into
Asia. A naked crowd of Christians of both sexes and every age, of
priests and monks, of matrons and virgins, was exposed in the
public market; the whip was frequently used to quicken the
charity of redemption; and the indigent Greeks deplored the fate
of their brethren, who were led away to the worst evils of
temporal and spiritual bondage 50 Cantacuzene was reduced to
subscribe the same terms; and their execution must have been
still more pernicious to the empire: a body of ten thousand Turks
had been detached to the assistance of the empress Anne; but the
entire forces of Orchan were exerted in the service of his
father. Yet these calamities were of a transient nature; as soon
as the storm had passed away, the fugitives might return to their
habitations; and at the conclusion of the civil and foreign wars,
Europe was completely evacuated by the Moslems of Asia. It was in
his last quarrel with his pupil that Cantacuzene inflicted the
deep and deadly wound, which could never be healed by his
successors, and which is poorly expiated by his theological
dialogues against the prophet Mahomet. Ignorant of their own
history, the modern Turks confound their first and their final
passage of the Hellespont, 51 and describe the son of Orchan as a
nocturnal robber, who, with eighty companions, explores by
stratagem a hostile and unknown shore. Soliman, at the head of
ten thousand horse, was transported in the vessels, and
entertained as the friend, of the Greek emperor. In the civil
wars of Romania, he performed some service and perpetrated more
mischief; but the Chersonesus was insensibly filled with a
Turkish colony; and the Byzantine court solicited in vain the
restitution of the fortresses of Thrace. After some artful delays
between the Ottoman prince and his son, their ransom was valued
at sixty thousand crowns, and the first payment had been made
when an earthquake shook the walls and cities of the provinces;
the dismantled places were occupied by the Turks; and Gallipoli,
the key of the Hellespont, was rebuilt and repeopled by the
policy of Soliman. The abdication of Cantacuzene dissolved the
feeble bands of domestic alliance; and his last advice admonished
his countrymen to decline a rash contest, and to compare their
own weakness with the numbers and valor, the discipline and
enthusiasm, of the Moslems. His prudent counsels were despised by
the headstrong vanity of youth, and soon justified by the
victories of the Ottomans. But as he practised in the field the
exercise of the _jerid_, Soliman was killed by a fall from his
horse; and the aged Orchan wept and expired on the tomb of his
valiant son. 511
50 (return) [ The most lively and concise picture of this
captivity may be found in the history of Ducas, (c. 8,) who
fairly describes what Cantacuzene confesses with a guilty blush!]
51 (return) [ In this passage, and the first conquests in Europe,
Cantemir (p. 27, &c.) gives a miserable idea of his Turkish
guides; nor am I much better satisfied with Chalcondyles, (l. i.
p. 12, &c.) They forget to consult the most authentic record, the
ivth book of Cantacuzene. I likewise regret the last books, which
are still manuscript, of Nicephorus Gregoras. * Note: Von Hammer
excuses the silence with which the Turkish historians pass over
the earlier intercourse of the Ottomans with the European
continent, of which he enumerates sixteen different occasions, as
if they disdained those peaceful incursions by which they gained
no conquest, and established no permanent footing on the
Byzantine territory. Of the romantic account of Soliman’s first
expedition, he says, “As yet the prose of history had not
asserted its right over the poetry of tradition.” This defence
would scarcely be accepted as satisfactory by the historian of
the Decline and Fall.—M. (in Quarterly Review, vol. xlix. p.
293.)]
511 (return) [ In the 75th year of his age, the 35th of his
reign. V. Hammer. M.]
Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.—Part IV.
But the Greeks had not time to rejoice in the death of their
enemies; and the Turkish cimeter was wielded with the same spirit
by Amurath the First, the son of Orchan, and the brother of
Soliman. By the pale and fainting light of the Byzantine annals,
52 we can discern, that he subdued without resistance the whole
province of Romania or Thrace, from the Hellespont to Mount
Hæmus, and the verge of the capital; and that Adrianople was
chosen for the royal seat of his government and religion in
Europe. Constantinople, whose decline is almost coeval with her
foundation, had often, in the lapse of a thousand years, been
assaulted by the Barbarians of the East and West; but never till
this fatal hour had the Greeks been surrounded, both in Asia and
Europe, by the arms of the same hostile monarchy. Yet the
prudence or generosity of Amurath postponed for a while this easy
conquest; and his pride was satisfied with the frequent and
humble attendance of the emperor John Palæologus and his four
sons, who followed at his summons the court and camp of the
Ottoman prince. He marched against the Sclavonian nations between
the Danube and the Adriatic, the Bulgarians, Servians, Bosnians,
and Albanians; and these warlike tribes, who had so often
insulted the majesty of the empire, were repeatedly broken by his
destructive inroads. Their countries did not abound either in
gold or silver; nor were their rustic hamlets and townships
enriched by commerce or decorated by the arts of luxury. But the
natives of the soil have been distinguished in every age by their
hardiness of mind and body; and they were converted by a prudent
institution into the firmest and most faithful supporters of the
Ottoman greatness. 53 The vizier of Amurath reminded his
sovereign that, according to the Mahometan law, he was entitled
to a fifth part of the spoil and captives; and that the duty
might easily be levied, if vigilant officers were stationed in
Gallipoli, to watch the passage, and to select for his use the
stoutest and most beautiful of the Christian youth. The advice
was followed: the edict was proclaimed; many thousands of the
European captives were educated in religion and arms; and the new
militia was consecrated and named by a celebrated dervis.
Standing in the front of their ranks, he stretched the sleeve of
his gown over the head of the foremost soldier, and his blessing
was delivered in these words: “Let them be called Janizaries,
(_Yengi cheri_, or new soldiers;) may their countenance be ever
bright! their hand victorious! their sword keen! may their spear
always hang over the heads of their enemies! and wheresoever they
go, may they return with a _white face!_” 54 541 Such was the
origin of these haughty troops, the terror of the nations, and
sometimes of the sultans themselves. Their valor has declined,
their discipline is relaxed, and their tumultuary array is
incapable of contending with the order and weapons of modern
tactics; but at the time of their institution, they possessed a
decisive superiority in war; since a regular body of infantry, in
constant exercise and pay, was not maintained by any of the
princes of Christendom. The Janizaries fought with the zeal of
proselytes against their _idolatrous_ countrymen; and in the
battle of Cossova, the league and independence of the Sclavonian
tribes was finally crushed. As the conqueror walked over the
field, he observed that the greatest part of the slain consisted
of beardless youths; and listened to the flattering reply of his
vizier, that age and wisdom would have taught them not to oppose
his irresistible arms. But the sword of his Janizaries could not
defend him from the dagger of despair; a Servian soldier started
from the crowd of dead bodies, and Amurath was pierced in the
belly with a mortal wound. 542 The grandson of Othman was mild in
his temper, modest in his apparel, and a lover of learning and
virtue; but the Moslems were scandalized at his absence from
public worship; and he was corrected by the firmness of the
mufti, who dared to reject his testimony in a civil cause: a
mixture of servitude and freedom not unfrequent in Oriental
history. 55
52 (return) [ After the conclusion of Cantacuzene and Gregoras,
there follows a dark interval of a hundred years. George Phranza,
Michael Ducas, and Laonicus Chalcondyles, all three wrote after
the taking of Constantinople.]
53 (return) [ See Cantemir, p. 37—41, with his own large and
curious annotations.]
54 (return) [ _White_ and _black_ face are common and proverbial
expressions of praise and reproach in the Turkish language. Hic
_niger_ est, hunc tu Romane caveto, was likewise a Latin
sentence.]
541 (return) [ According to Von Hammer. vol. i. p. 90, Gibbon and
the European writers assign too late a date to this enrolment of
the Janizaries. It took place not in the reign of Amurath, but in
that of his predecessor Orchan.—M.]
542 (return) [ Ducas has related this as a deliberate act of
self-devotion on the part of a Servian noble who pretended to
desert, and stabbed Amurath during a conference which he had
requested. The Italian translator of Ducas, published by Bekker
in the new edition of the Byzantines, has still further
heightened the romance. See likewise in Von Hammer (Osmanische
Geschichte, vol. i. p. 138) the popular Servian account, which
resembles that of Ducas, and may have been the source of that of
his Italian translator. The Turkish account agrees more nearly
with Gibbon; but the Servian, (Milosch Kohilovisch) while he lay
among the heap of the dead, pretended to have some secret to
impart to Amurath, and stabbed him while he leaned over to
listen.—M.]
55 (return) [ See the life and death of Morad, or Amurath I., in
Cantemir, (p 33—45,) the first book of Chalcondyles, and the
Annales Turcici of Leunclavius. According to another story, the
sultan was stabbed by a Croat in his tent; and this accident was
alleged to Busbequius (Epist i. p. 98) as an excuse for the
unworthy precaution of pinioning, as if were, between two
attendants, an ambassador’s arms, when he is introduced to the
royal presence.]
The character of Bajazet, the son and successor of Amurath, is
strongly expressed in his surname of _Ilderim_, or the lightning;
and he might glory in an epithet, which was drawn from the fiery
energy of his soul and the rapidity of his destructive march. In
the fourteen years of his reign, 56 he incessantly moved at the
head of his armies, from Boursa to Adrianople, from the Danube to
the Euphrates; and, though he strenuously labored for the
propagation of the law, he invaded, with impartial ambition, the
Christian and Mahometan princes of Europe and Asia. From Angora
to Amasia and Erzeroum, the northern regions of Anatolia were
reduced to his obedience: he stripped of their hereditary
possessions his brother emirs of Ghermian and Caramania, of Aidin
and Sarukhan; and after the conquest of Iconium the ancient
kingdom of the Seljukians again revived in the Ottoman dynasty.
Nor were the conquests of Bajazet less rapid or important in
Europe. No sooner had he imposed a regular form of servitude on
the Servians and Bulgarians, than he passed the Danube to seek
new enemies and new subjects in the heart of Moldavia. 57
Whatever yet adhered to the Greek empire in Thrace, Macedonia,
and Thessaly, acknowledged a Turkish master: an obsequious bishop
led him through the gates of Thermopylæ into Greece; and we may
observe, as a singular fact, that the widow of a Spanish chief,
who possessed the ancient seat of the oracle of Delphi, deserved
his favor by the sacrifice of a beauteous daughter. The Turkish
communication between Europe and Asia had been dangerous and
doubtful, till he stationed at Gallipoli a fleet of galleys, to
command the Hellespont and intercept the Latin succors of
Constantinople. While the monarch indulged his passions in a
boundless range of injustice and cruelty, he imposed on his
soldiers the most rigid laws of modesty and abstinence; and the
harvest was peaceably reaped and sold within the precincts of his
camp. Provoked by the loose and corrupt administration of
justice, he collected in a house the judges and lawyers of his
dominions, who expected that in a few moments the fire would be
kindled to reduce them to ashes. His ministers trembled in
silence: but an Æthiopian buffoon presumed to insinuate the true
cause of the evil; and future venality was left without excuse,
by annexing an adequate salary to the office of cadhi. 58 The
humble title of emir was no longer suitable to the Ottoman
greatness; and Bajazet condescended to accept a patent of sultan
from the caliphs who served in Egypt under the yoke of the
Mamalukes: 59 a last and frivolous homage that was yielded by
force to opinion; by the Turkish conquerors to the house of Abbas
and the successors of the Arabian prophet. The ambition of the
sultan was inflamed by the obligation of deserving this august
title; and he turned his arms against the kingdom of Hungary, the
perpetual theatre of the Turkish victories and defeats.
Sigismond, the Hungarian king, was the son and brother of the
emperors of the West: his cause was that of Europe and the
church; and, on the report of his danger, the bravest knights of
France and Germany were eager to march under his standard and
that of the cross. In the battle of Nicopolis, Bajazet defeated a
confederate army of a hundred thousand Christians, who had
proudly boasted, that if the sky should fall, they could uphold
it on their lances. The far greater part were slain or driven
into the Danube; and Sigismond, escaping to Constantinople by the
river and the Black Sea, returned after a long circuit to his
exhausted kingdom. 60 In the pride of victory, Bajazet threatened
that he would besiege Buda; that he would subdue the adjacent
countries of Germany and Italy, and that he would feed his horse
with a bushel of oats on the altar of St. Peter at Rome. His
progress was checked, not by the miraculous interposition of the
apostle, not by a crusade of the Christian powers, but by a long
and painful fit of the gout. The disorders of the moral, are
sometimes corrected by those of the physical, world; and an
acrimonious humor falling on a single fibre of one man, may
prevent or suspend the misery of nations.
56 (return) [ The reign of Bajazet I., or Ilderim Bayazid, is
contained in Cantemir, (p. 46,) the iid book of Chalcondyles, and
the Annales Turcici. The surname of Ilderim, or lightning, is an
example, that the conquerors and poets of every age have _felt_
the truth of a system which derives the sublime from the
principle of terror.]
57 (return) [ Cantemir, who celebrates the victories of the great
Stephen over the Turks, (p. 47,) had composed the ancient and
modern state of his principality of Moldavia, which has been long
promised, and is still unpublished.]
58 (return) [ Leunclav. Annal. Turcici, p. 318, 319. The venality
of the cadhis has long been an object of scandal and satire; and
if we distrust the observations of our travellers, we may consult
the feeling of the Turks themselves, (D’Herbelot, Bibliot.
Orientale, p. 216, 217, 229, 230.)]
59 (return) [ The fact, which is attested by the Arabic history
of Ben Schounah, a contemporary Syrian, (De Guignes Hist. des
Huns. tom. iv. p. 336.) destroys the testimony of Saad Effendi
and Cantemir, (p. 14, 15,) of the election of Othman to the
dignity of sultan.]
60 (return) [ See the Decades Rerum Hungaricarum (Dec. iii. l.
ii. p. 379) of Bonfinius, an Italian, who, in the xvth century,
was invited into Hungary to compose an eloquent history of that
kingdom. Yet, if it be extant and accessible, I should give the
preference to some homely chronicle of the time and country.]
Such is the general idea of the Hungarian war; but the disastrous
adventure of the French has procured us some memorials which
illustrate the victory and character of Bajazet. 61 The duke of
Burgundy, sovereign of Flanders, and uncle of Charles the Sixth,
yielded to the ardor of his son, John count of Nevers; and the
fearless youth was accompanied by four princes, his _cousins_,
and those of the French monarch. Their inexperience was guided by
the Sire de Coucy, one of the best and oldest captain of
Christendom; 62 but the constable, admiral, and marshal of France
63 commanded an army which did not exceed the number of a
thousand knights and squires. 631 These splendid names were the
source of presumption and the bane of discipline. So many might
aspire to command, that none were willing to obey; their national
spirit despised both their enemies and their allies; and in the
persuasion that Bajazet _would_ fly, or _must_ fall, they began
to compute how soon they should visit Constantinople and deliver
the holy sepulchre. When their scouts announced the approach of
the Turks, the gay and thoughtless youths were at table, already
heated with wine; they instantly clasped their armor, mounted
their horses, rode full speed to the vanguard, and resented as an
affront the advice of Sigismond, which would have deprived them
of the right and honor of the foremost attack. The battle of
Nicopolis would not have been lost, if the French would have
obeyed the prudence of the Hungarians; but it might have been
gloriously won, had the Hungarians imitated the valor of the
French. They dispersed the first line, consisting of the troops
of Asia; forced a rampart of stakes, which had been planted
against the cavalry; broke, after a bloody conflict, the
Janizaries themselves; and were at length overwhelmed by the
numerous squadrons that issued from the woods, and charged on all
sides this handful of intrepid warriors. In the speed and secrecy
of his march, in the order and evolutions of the battle, his
enemies felt and admired the military talents of Bajazet. They
accuse his cruelty in the use of victory. After reserving the
count of Nevers, and four-and-twenty lords, 632 whose birth and
riches were attested by his Latin interpreters, the remainder of
the French captives, who had survived the slaughter of the day,
were led before his throne; and, as they refused to abjure their
faith, were successively beheaded in his presence. The sultan was
exasperated by the loss of his bravest Janizaries; and if it be
true, that, on the eve of the engagement, the French had
massacred their Turkish prisoners, 64 they might impute to
themselves the consequences of a just retaliation. 641 A knight,
whose life had been spared, was permitted to return to Paris,
that he might relate the deplorable tale, and solicit the ransom
of the noble captives. In the mean while, the count of Nevers,
with the princes and barons of France, were dragged along in the
marches of the Turkish camp, exposed as a grateful trophy to the
Moslems of Europe and Asia, and strictly confined at Boursa, as
often as Bajazet resided in his capital. The sultan was pressed
each day to expiate with their blood the blood of his martyrs;
but he had pronounced that they should live, and either for mercy
or destruction his word was irrevocable. He was assured of their
value and importance by the return of the messenger, and the
gifts and intercessions of the kings of France and of Cyprus.
Lusignan presented him with a gold saltcellar of curious
workmanship, and of the price of ten thousand ducats; and Charles
the Sixth despatched by the way of Hungary a cast of Norwegian
hawks, and six horse-loads of scarlet cloth, of fine linen of
Rheims, and of Arras tapestry, representing the battles of the
great Alexander. After much delay, the effect of distance rather
than of art, Bajazet agreed to accept a ransom of two hundred
thousand ducats for the count of Nevers and the surviving princes
and barons: the marshal Boucicault, a famous warrior, was of the
number of the fortunate; but the admiral of France had been slain
in battle; and the constable, with the Sire de Coucy, died in the
prison of Boursa. This heavy demand, which was doubled by
incidental costs, fell chiefly on the duke of Burgundy, or rather
on his Flemish subjects, who were bound by the feudal laws to
contribute for the knighthood and captivity of the eldest son of
their lord. For the faithful discharge of the debt, some
merchants of Genoa gave security to the amount of five times the
sum; a lesson to those warlike times, that commerce and credit
are the links of the society of nations. It had been stipulated
in the treaty, that the French captives should swear never to
bear arms against the person of their conqueror; but the
ungenerous restraint was abolished by Bajazet himself. “I
despise,” said he to the heir of Burgundy, “thy oaths and thy
arms. Thou art young, and mayest be ambitious of effacing the
disgrace or misfortune of thy first chivalry. Assemble thy
powers, proclaim thy design, and be assured that Bajazet will
rejoice to meet thee a second time in a field of battle.” Before
their departure, they were indulged in the freedom and
hospitality of the court of Boursa. The French princes admired
the magnificence of the Ottoman, whose hunting and hawking
equipage was composed of seven thousand huntsmen and seven
thousand falconers. 65 In their presence, and at his command, the
belly of one of his chamberlains was cut open, on a complaint
against him for drinking the goat’s milk of a poor woman. The
strangers were astonished by this act of justice; but it was the
justice of a sultan who disdains to balance the weight of
evidence, or to measure the degrees of guilt.
61 (return) [ I should not complain of the labor of this work, if
my materials were always derived from such books as the chronicle
of honest Froissard, (vol. iv. c. 67, 72, 74, 79—83, 85, 87, 89,)
who read little, inquired much, and believed all. The original
Mémoires of the Maréchal de Boucicault (Partie i. c. 22—28) add
some facts, but they are dry and deficient, if compared with the
pleasant garrulity of Froissard.]
62 (return) [ An accurate Memoir on the Life of Enguerrand VII.,
Sire de Coucy, has been given by the Baron de Zurlauben, (Hist.
de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxv.) His rank and
possessions were equally considerable in France and England; and,
in 1375, he led an army of adventurers into Switzerland, to
recover a large patrimony which he claimed in right of his
grandmother, the daughter of the emperor Albert I. of Austria,
(Sinner, Voyage dans la Suisse Occidentale, tom. i. p. 118—124.)]
63 (return) [ That military office, so respectable at present,
was still more conspicuous when it was divided between two
persons, (Daniel, Hist. de la Milice Françoise, tom. ii. p. 5.)
One of these, the marshal of the crusade, was the famous
Boucicault, who afterwards defended Constantinople, governed
Genoa, invaded the coast of Asia, and died in the field of
Azincour.]
631 (return) [ Daru, Hist. de Venice, vol. ii. p. 104, makes the
whole French army amount to 10,000 men, of whom 1000 were
knights. The curious volume of Schiltberger, a German of Munich,
who was taken prisoner in the battle, (edit. Munich, 1813,) and
which V. Hammer receives as authentic, gives the whole number at
6000. See Schiltberger. Reise in dem Orient. and V. Hammer, note,
p. 610.—M.]
632 (return) [ According to Schiltberger there were only twelve
French lords granted to the prayer of the “duke of Burgundy,” and
“Herr Stephan Synther, and Johann von Bodem.” Schiltberger, p.
13.—M.]
64 (return) [ For this odious fact, the Abbé de Vertot quotes the
Hist. Anonyme de St. Denys, l. xvi. c. 10, 11. (Ordre de Malthe,
tom. ii. p. 310.)]
641 (return) [ See Schiltberger’s very graphic account of the
massacre. He was led out to be slaughtered in cold blood with the
rest f the Christian prisoners, amounting to 10,000. He was
spared at the intercession of the son of Bajazet, with a few
others, on account of their extreme youth. No one under 20 years
of age was put to death. The “duke of Burgundy” was obliged to be
a spectator of this butchery which lasted from early in the
morning till four o’clock, P. M. It ceased only at the
supplication of the leaders of Bajazet’s army. Schiltberger, p.
14.—M.]
65 (return) [ Sherefeddin Ali (Hist. de Timour Bec, l. v. c. 13)
allows Bajazet a round number of 12,000 officers and servants of
the chase. A part of his spoils was afterwards displayed in a
hunting-match of Timour, l. hounds with satin housings; 2.
leopards with collars set with jewels; 3. Grecian greyhounds; and
4, dogs from Europe, as strong as African lions, (idem, l. vi. c.
15.) Bajazet was particularly fond of flying his hawks at cranes,
(Chalcondyles, l. ii. p. 85.)]
After his enfranchisement from an oppressive guardian, John
Palæologus remained thirty-six years, the helpless, and, as it
should seem, the careless spectator of the public ruin. 66 Love,
or rather lust, was his only vigorous passion; and in the
embraces of the wives and virgins of the city, the Turkish slave
forgot the dishonor of the emperor of the _Romans_ Andronicus,
his eldest son, had formed, at Adrianople, an intimate and guilty
friendship with Sauzes, the son of Amurath; and the two youths
conspired against the authority and lives of their parents. The
presence of Amurath in Europe soon discovered and dissipated
their rash counsels; and, after depriving Sauzes of his sight,
the Ottoman threatened his vassal with the treatment of an
accomplice and an enemy, unless he inflicted a similar punishment
on his own son. Palæologus trembled and obeyed; and a cruel
precaution involved in the same sentence the childhood and
innocence of John, the son of the criminal. But the operation was
so mildly, or so unskilfully, performed, that the one retained
the sight of an eye, and the other was afflicted only with the
infirmity of squinting. Thus excluded from the succession, the
two princes were confined in the tower of Anema; and the piety of
Manuel, the second son of the reigning monarch, was rewarded with
the gift of the Imperial crown. But at the end of two years, the
turbulence of the Latins and the levity of the Greeks, produced a
revolution; 661 and the two emperors were buried in the tower
from whence the two prisoners were exalted to the throne. Another
period of two years afforded Palæologus and Manuel the means of
escape: it was contrived by the magic or subtlety of a monk, who
was alternately named the angel or the devil: they fled to
Scutari; their adherents armed in their cause; and the two
Byzantine factions displayed the ambition and animosity with
which Cæsar and Pompey had disputed the empire of the world. The
Roman world was now contracted to a corner of Thrace, between the
Propontis and the Black Sea, about fifty miles in length and
thirty in breadth; a space of ground not more extensive than the
lesser principalities of Germany or Italy, if the remains of
Constantinople had not still represented the wealth and
populousness of a kingdom. To restore the public peace, it was
found necessary to divide this fragment of the empire; and while
Palæologus and Manuel were left in possession of the capital,
almost all that lay without the walls was ceded to the blind
princes, who fixed their residence at Rhodosto and Selybria. In
the tranquil slumber of royalty, the passions of John Palæologus
survived his reason and his strength: he deprived his favorite
and heir of a blooming princess of Trebizond; and while the
feeble emperor labored to consummate his nuptials, Manuel, with a
hundred of the noblest Greeks, was sent on a peremptory summons
to the Ottoman _porte_. They served with honor in the wars of
Bajazet; but a plan of fortifying Constantinople excited his
jealousy: he threatened their lives; the new works were instantly
demolished; and we shall bestow a praise, perhaps above the merit
of Palæologus, if we impute this last humiliation as the cause of
his death.
66 (return) [ For the reigns of John Palæologus and his son
Manuel, from 1354 to 1402, see Ducas, c. 9—15, Phranza, l. i. c.
16—21, and the ist and iid books of Chalcondyles, whose proper
subject is drowned in a sea of episode.]
661 (return) [ According to Von Hammer it was the power of
Bajazet, vol. i. p. 218.]
The earliest intelligence of that event was communicated to
Manuel, who escaped with speed and secrecy from the palace of
Boursa to the Byzantine throne. Bajazet affected a proud
indifference at the loss of this valuable pledge; and while he
pursued his conquests in Europe and Asia, he left the emperor to
struggle with his blind cousin John of Selybria, who, in eight
years of civil war, asserted his right of primogeniture. At
length, the ambition of the victorious sultan pointed to the
conquest of Constantinople; but he listened to the advice of his
vizier, who represented that such an enterprise might unite the
powers of Christendom in a second and more formidable crusade.
His epistle to the emperor was conceived in these words: “By the
divine clemency, our invincible cimeter has reduced to our
obedience almost all Asia, with many and large countries in
Europe, excepting only the city of Constantinople; for beyond the
walls thou hast nothing left. Resign that city; stipulate thy
reward; or tremble, for thyself and thy unhappy people, at the
consequences of a rash refusal.” But his ambassadors were
instructed to soften their tone, and to propose a treaty, which
was subscribed with submission and gratitude. A truce of ten
years was purchased by an annual tribute of thirty thousand
crowns of gold; the Greeks deplored the public toleration of the
law of Mahomet, and Bajazet enjoyed the glory of establishing a
Turkish cadhi, and founding a royal mosque in the metropolis of
the Eastern church. 67 Yet this truce was soon violated by the
restless sultan: in the cause of the prince of Selybria, the
lawful emperor, an army of Ottomans again threatened
Constantinople; and the distress of Manuel implored the
protection of the king of France. His plaintive embassy obtained
much pity and some relief; and the conduct of the succor was
intrusted to the marshal Boucicault, 68 whose religious chivalry
was inflamed by the desire of revenging his captivity on the
infidels. He sailed with four ships of war, from Aiguesmortes to
the Hellespont; forced the passage, which was guarded by
seventeen Turkish galleys; landed at Constantinople a supply of
six hundred men-at-arms and sixteen hundred archers; and reviewed
them in the adjacent plain, without condescending to number or
array the multitude of Greeks. By his presence, the blockade was
raised both by sea and land; the flying squadrons of Bajazet were
driven to a more respectful distance; and several castles in
Europe and Asia were stormed by the emperor and the marshal, who
fought with equal valor by each other’s side. But the Ottomans
soon returned with an increase of numbers; and the intrepid
Boucicault, after a year’s struggle, resolved to evacuate a
country which could no longer afford either pay or provisions for
his soldiers. The marshal offered to conduct Manuel to the French
court, where he might solicit in person a supply of men and
money; and advised, in the mean while, that, to extinguish all
domestic discord, he should leave his blind competitor on the
throne. The proposal was embraced: the prince of Selybria was
introduced to the capital; and such was the public misery, that
the lot of the exile seemed more fortunate than that of the
sovereign. Instead of applauding the success of his vassal, the
Turkish sultan claimed the city as his own; and on the refusal of
the emperor John, Constantinople was more closely pressed by the
calamities of war and famine. Against such an enemy prayers and
resistance were alike unavailing; and the savage would have
devoured his prey, if, in the fatal moment, he had not been
overthrown by another savage stronger than himself. By the
victory of Timour or Tamerlane, the fall of Constantinople was
delayed about fifty years; and this important, though accidental,
service may justly introduce the life and character of the Mogul
conqueror.
67 (return) [ Cantemir, p. 50—53. Of the Greeks, Ducas alone (c.
13, 15) acknowledges the Turkish cadhi at Constantinople. Yet
even Ducas dissembles the mosque.]
68 (return) [ Mémoires du bon Messire Jean le Maingre, dit
_Boucicault_, Maréchal de France, partie ire c. 30, 35.]
Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His
Death.—Part I.
Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane To The Throne Of Samarcand.—His
Conquests In Persia, Georgia, Tartary Russia, India, Syria, And
Anatolia.—His Turkish War.— Defeat And Captivity Of Bajazet.—Death
Of Timour.—Civil War Of The Sons Of Bajazet.—Restoration Of The
Turkish Monarchy By Mahomet The First.—Siege Of Constantinople By
Amurath The Second.
The conquest and monarchy of the world was the first object of
the ambition of Timour. To live in the memory and esteem of
future ages was the second wish of his magnanimous spirit. All
the civil and military transactions of his reign were diligently
recorded in the journals of his secretaries: 1 the authentic
narrative was revised by the persons best informed of each
particular transaction; and it is believed in the empire and
family of Timour, that the monarch himself composed the
_commentaries_ 2 of his life, and the _institutions_ 3 of his
government. 4 But these cares were ineffectual for the
preservation of his fame, and these precious memorials in the
Mogul or Persian language were concealed from the world, or, at
least, from the knowledge of Europe. The nations which he
vanquished exercised a base and impotent revenge; and ignorance
has long repeated the tale of calumny, 5 which had disfigured the
birth and character, the person, and even the name, of
_Tamerlane_. 6 Yet his real merit would be enhanced, rather than
debased, by the elevation of a peasant to the throne of Asia; nor
can his lameness be a theme of reproach, unless he had the
weakness to blush at a natural, or perhaps an honorable,
infirmity. 606
1 (return) [ These journals were communicated to Sherefeddin, or
Cherefeddin Ali, a native of Yezd, who composed in the Persian
language a history of Timour Beg, which has been translated into
French by M. Petit de la Croix, (Paris, 1722, in 4 vols. 12 mo.,)
and has always been my faithful guide. His geography and
chronology are wonderfully accurate; and he may be trusted for
public facts, though he servilely praises the virtue and fortune
of the hero. Timour’s attention to procure intelligence from his
own and foreign countries may be seen in the Institutions, p.
215, 217, 349, 351.]
2 (return) [ These Commentaries are yet unknown in Europe: but
Mr. White gives some hope that they may be imported and
translated by his friend Major Davy, who had read in the East
this “minute and faithful narrative of an interesting and
eventful period.” * Note: The manuscript of Major Davy has been
translated by Major Stewart, and published by the Oriental
Translation Committee of London. It contains the life of Timour,
from his birth to his forty-first year; but the last thirty years
of western war and conquest are wanting. Major Stewart intimates
that two manuscripts exist in this country containing the whole
work, but excuses himself, on account of his age, from
undertaking the laborious task of completing the translation. It
is to be hoped that the European public will be soon enabled to
judge of the value and authenticity of the Commentaries of the
Cæsar of the East. Major Stewart’s work commences with the Book
of Dreams and Omens—a wild, but characteristic, chronicle of
Visions and Sortes Koranicæ. Strange that a life of Timour should
awaken a reminiscence of the diary of Archbishop Laud! The early
dawn and the gradual expression of his not less splendid but more
real visions of ambition are touched with the simplicity of truth
and nature. But we long to escape from the petty feuds of the
pastoral chieftain, to the triumphs and the legislation of the
conqueror of the world.—M.]
3 (return) [ I am ignorant whether the original institution, in
the Turki or Mogul language, be still extant. The Persic version,
with an English translation, and most valuable index, was
published (Oxford, 1783, in 4to.) by the joint labors of Major
Davy and Mr. White, the Arabic professor. This work has been
since translated from the Persic into French, (Paris, 1787,) by
M. Langlès, a learned Orientalist, who has added the life of
Timour, and many curious notes.]
4 (return) [ Shaw Allum, the present Mogul, reads, values, but
cannot imitate, the institutions of his great ancestor. The
English translator relies on their internal evidence; but if any
suspicions should arise of fraud and fiction, they will not be
dispelled by Major Davy’s letter. The Orientals have never
cultivated the art of criticism; the patronage of a prince, less
honorable, perhaps, is not less lucrative than that of a
bookseller; nor can it be deemed incredible that a Persian, the
_real_ author, should renounce the credit, to raise the value and
price, of the work.]
5 (return) [ The original of the tale is found in the following
work, which is much esteemed for its florid elegance of style:
_Ahmedis Arabsiad_ (Ahmed Ebn Arabshah) _Vitæ et Rerum gestarum
Timuri. Arabice et Latine. Edidit Samuel Henricus Manger.
Franequer_, 1767, 2 tom. in 4to. This Syrian author is ever a
malicious, and often an ignorant enemy: the very titles of his
chapters are injurious; as how the wicked, as how the impious, as
how the viper, &c. The copious article of Timur, in Bibliothèque
Orientale, is of a mixed nature, as D’Herbelot indifferently
draws his materials (p. 877—888) from Khondemir Ebn Schounah, and
the Lebtarikh.]
6 (return) [ _Demir_ or _Timour_ signifies in the Turkish
language, Iron; and it is the appellation of a lord or prince. By
the change of a letter or accent, it is changed into _Lenc_, or
Lame; and a European corruption confounds the two words in the
name of Tamerlane. * Note: According to the memoirs he was so
called by a Shaikh, who, when visited by his mother on his birth,
was reading the verse of the Koran, “Are you sure that he who
dwelleth in heaven will not cause the earth to swallow you up,
and behold _it shall shake_, Tamûrn.” The Shaikh then stopped and
said, “We have named your son _Timûr_,” p. 21.—M.]
606 (return) [ He was lamed by a wound at the siege of the
capital of Sistan. Sherefeddin, lib. iii. c. 17. p. 136. See Von
Hammer, vol. i. p. 260.—M.]
In the eyes of the Moguls, who held the indefeasible succession
of the house of Zingis, he was doubtless a rebel subject; yet he
sprang from the noble tribe of Berlass: his fifth ancestor,
Carashar Nevian, had been the vizier 607 of Zagatai, in his new
realm of Transoxiana; and in the ascent of some generations, the
branch of Timour is confounded, at least by the females, 7 with
the Imperial stem. 8 He was born forty miles to the south of
Samarcand in the village of Sebzar, in the fruitful territory of
Cash, of which his fathers were the hereditary chiefs, as well as
of a toman of ten thousand horse. 9 His birth 10 was cast on one
of those periods of anarchy, which announce the fall of the
Asiatic dynasties, and open a new field to adventurous ambition.
The khans of Zagatai were extinct; the emirs aspired to
independence; and their domestic feuds could only be suspended by
the conquest and tyranny of the khans of Kashgar, who, with an
army of Getes or Calmucks, 11 invaded the Transoxian kingdom.
From the twelfth year of his age, Timour had entered the field of
action; in the twenty-fifth 111 he stood forth as the deliverer
of his country; and the eyes and wishes of the people were turned
towards a hero who suffered in their cause. The chiefs of the law
and of the army had pledged their salvation to support him with
their lives and fortunes; but in the hour of danger they were
silent and afraid; and, after waiting seven days on the hills of
Samarcand, he retreated to the desert with only sixty horsemen.
The fugitives were overtaken by a thousand Getes, whom he
repulsed with incredible slaughter, and his enemies were forced
to exclaim, “Timour is a wonderful man: fortune and the divine
favor are with him.” But in this bloody action his own followers
were reduced to ten, a number which was soon diminished by the
desertion of three Carizmians. 112 He wandered in the desert with
his wife, seven companions, and four horses; and sixty-two days
was he plunged in a loathsome dungeon, from whence he escaped by
his own courage and the remorse of the oppressor. After swimming
the broad and rapid steam of the Jihoon, or Oxus, he led, during
some months, the life of a vagrant and outlaw, on the borders of
the adjacent states. But his fame shone brighter in adversity; he
learned to distinguish the friends of his person, the associates
of his fortune, and to apply the various characters of men for
their advantage, and, above all, for his own. On his return to
his native country, Timour was successively joined by the parties
of his confederates, who anxiously sought him in the desert; nor
can I refuse to describe, in his pathetic simplicity, one of
their fortunate encounters. He presented himself as a guide to
three chiefs, who were at the head of seventy horse. “When their
eyes fell upon me,” says Timour, “they were overwhelmed with joy;
and they alighted from their horses; and they came and kneeled;
and they kissed my stirrup. I also came down from my horse, and
took each of them in my arms. And I put my turban on the head of
the first chief; and my girdle, rich in jewels and wrought with
gold, I bound on the loins of the second; and the third I clothed
in my own coat. And they wept, and I wept also; and the hour of
prayer was arrived, and we prayed. And we mounted our horses, and
came to my dwelling; and I collected my people, and made a
feast.” His trusty bands were soon increased by the bravest of
the tribes; he led them against a superior foe; and, after some
vicissitudes of war the Getes were finally driven from the
kingdom of Transoxiana. He had done much for his own glory; but
much remained to be done, much art to be exerted, and some blood
to be spilt, before he could teach his equals to obey him as
their master. The birth and power of emir Houssein compelled him
to accept a vicious and unworthy colleague, whose sister was the
best beloved of his wives. Their union was short and jealous; but
the policy of Timour, in their frequent quarrels, exposed his
rival to the reproach of injustice and perfidy; and, after a
final defeat, Houssein was slain by some sagacious friends, who
presumed, for the last time, to disobey the commands of their
lord. 113 At the age of thirty-four, 12 and in a general diet or
_couroultai_, he was invested with _Imperial_ command, but he
affected to revere the house of Zingis; and while the emir Timour
reigned over Zagatai and the East, a nominal khan served as a
private officer in the armies of his servant. A fertile kingdom,
five hundred miles in length and in breadth, might have satisfied
the ambition of a subject; but Timour aspired to the dominion of
the world; and before his death, the crown of Zagatai was one of
the twenty-seven crowns which he had placed on his head. Without
expatiating on the victories of thirty-five campaigns; without
describing the lines of march, which he repeatedly traced over
the continent of Asia; I shall briefly represent his conquests
in, I. Persia, II. Tartary, and, III. India, 13 and from thence
proceed to the more interesting narrative of his Ottoman war.
607 (return) [ In the memoirs, the title Gurgân is in one place
(p. 23) interpreted the son-in-law; in another (p. 28) as Kurkan,
great prince, generalissimo, and prime minister of Jagtai.—M.]
7 (return) [ After relating some false and foolish tales of
Timour _Lenc_, Arabshah is compelled to speak truth, and to own
him for a kinsman of Zingis, per mulieres, (as he peevishly
adds,) laqueos Satanæ, (pars i. c. i. p. 25.) The testimony of
Abulghazi Khan (P. ii. c. 5, P. v. c. 4) is clear,
unquestionable, and decisive.]
8 (return) [ According to one of the pedigrees, the fourth
ancestor of Zingis, and the ninth of Timour, were brothers; and
they agreed, that the posterity of the elder should succeed to
the dignity of khan, and that the descendants of the younger
should fill the office of their minister and general. This
tradition was at least convenient to justify the _first_ steps of
Timour’s ambition, (Institutions, p. 24, 25, from the MS.
fragments of Timour’s History.)]
9 (return) [ See the preface of Sherefeddin, and Abulfeda’s
Geography, (Chorasmiæ, &c., Descriptio, p. 60, 61,) in the iiid
volume of Hudson’s Minor Greek Geographers.]
10 (return) [ See his nativity in Dr. Hyde, (Syntagma Dissertat.
tom. ii. p. 466,) as it was cast by the astrologers of his
grandson Ulugh Beg. He was born, A.D. 1336, April 9, 11º 57'. p.
m., lat. 36. I know not whether they can prove the great
conjunction of the planets from whence, like other conquerors and
prophets, Timour derived the surname of Saheb Keran, or master of
the conjunctions, (Bibliot. Orient. p. 878.)]
11 (return) [ In the Institutions of Timour, these subjects of
the khan of Kashgar are most improperly styled Ouzbegs, or
Usbeks, a name which belongs to another branch and country of
Tartars, (Abulghazi, P. v. c. v. P. vii. c. 5.) Could I be sure
that this word is in the Turkish original, I would boldly
pronounce, that the Institutions were framed a century after the
death of Timour, since the establishment of the Usbeks in
Transoxiana. * Note: Col. Stewart observes, that the Persian
translator has sometimes made use of the name Uzbek by
anticipation. He observes, likewise, that these Jits (Getes) are
not to be confounded with the ancient Getæ: they were unconverted
Turks. Col. Tod (History of Rajasthan, vol. i. p. 166) would
identify the Jits with the ancient race.—M.]
111 (return) [ He was twenty-seven before he served his first
wars under the emir Houssein, who ruled over Khorasan and
Mawerainnehr. Von Hammer, vol. i. p. 262. Neither of these
statements agrees with the Memoirs. At twelve he was a boy. “I
fancied that I perceived in myself all the signs of greatness and
wisdom, and whoever came to visit me, I received with great
hauteur and dignity.” At seventeen he undertook the management of
the flocks and herds of the family, (p. 24.) At nineteen he
became religious, and “left off playing chess,” made a kind of
Budhist vow never to injure living thing and felt his foot
paralyzed from having accidentally trod upon an ant, (p. 30.) At
twenty, thoughts of rebellion and greatness rose in his mind; at
twenty-one, he seems to have performed his first feat of arms. He
was a practised warrior when he served, in his twenty-seventh
year, under Emir Houssein.]
112 (return) [ Compare Memoirs, page 61. The imprisonment is
there stated at fifty-three days. “At this time I made a vow to
God that I would never keep any person, whether guilty or
innocent, for any length of time, in prison or in chains.” p.
63.—M.]
113 (return) [ Timour, on one occasion, sent him this message:
“He who wishes to embrace the bride of royalty must kiss her
across the edge of the sharp sword,” p. 83. The scene of the
trial of Houssein, the resistance of Timour gradually becoming
more feeble, the vengeance of the chiefs becoming proportionably
more determined, is strikingly portrayed. Mem. p 130.—M.]
12 (return) [ The ist book of Sherefeddin is employed on the
private life of the hero: and he himself, or his secretary,
(Institutions, p. 3—77,) enlarges with pleasure on the thirteen
designs and enterprises which most truly constitute his
_personal_ merit. It even shines through the dark coloring of
Arabshah, (P. i. c. 1—12.)]
13 (return) [ The conquests of Persia, Tartary, and India, are
represented in the iid and iiid books of Sherefeddin, and by
Arabshah, (c. 13—55.) Consult the excellent Indexes to the
Institutions. * Note: Compare the seventh book of Von Hammer,
Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches.—M.]
I. For every war, a motive of safety or revenge, of honor or
zeal, of right or convenience, may be readily found in the
jurisprudence of conquerors. No sooner had Timour reunited to the
patrimony of Zagatai the dependent countries of Carizme and
Candahar, than he turned his eyes towards the kingdoms of Iran or
Persia. From the Oxus to the Tigris, that extensive country was
left without a lawful sovereign since the death of Abousaid, the
last of the descendants of the great Holacou. Peace and justice
had been banished from the land above forty years; and the Mogul
invader might seem to listen to the cries of an oppressed people.
Their petty tyrants might have opposed him with confederate arms:
they separately stood, and successively fell; and the difference
of their fate was only marked by the promptitude of submission or
the obstinacy of resistance. Ibrahim, prince of Shirwan, or
Albania, kissed the footstool of the Imperial throne. His
peace-offerings of silks, horses, and jewels, were composed,
according to the Tartar fashion, each article of nine pieces; but
a critical spectator observed, that there were only eight slaves.
“I myself am the ninth,” replied Ibrahim, who was prepared for
the remark; and his flattery was rewarded by the smile of Timour.
14 Shah Mansour, prince of Fars, or the proper Persia, was one of
the least powerful, but most dangerous, of his enemies. In a
battle under the walls of Shiraz, he broke, with three or four
thousand soldiers, the _coul_ or main body of thirty thousand
horse, where the emperor fought in person. No more than fourteen
or fifteen guards remained near the standard of Timour: he stood
firm as a rock, and received on his helmet two weighty strokes of
a cimeter: 15 the Moguls rallied; the head of Mansour was thrown
at his feet; and he declared his esteem of the valor of a foe, by
extirpating all the males of so intrepid a race. From Shiraz, his
troops advanced to the Persian Gulf; and the richness and
weakness of Ormuz 16 were displayed in an annual tribute of six
hundred thousand dinars of gold. Bagdad was no longer the city of
peace, the seat of the caliphs; but the noblest conquest of
Holacou could not be overlooked by his ambitious successor. The
whole course of the Tigris and Euphrates, from the mouth to the
sources of those rivers, was reduced to his obedience: he entered
Edessa; and the Turkmans of the black sheep were chastised for
the sacrilegious pillage of a caravan of Mecca. In the mountains
of Georgia, the native Christians still braved the law and the
sword of Mahomet, by three expeditions he obtained the merit of
the _gazie_, or holy war; and the prince of Teflis became his
proselyte and friend.
14 (return) [ The reverence of the Tartars for the mysterious
number of _nine_ is declared by Abulghazi Khan, who, for that
reason, divides his Genealogical History into nine parts.]
15 (return) [ According to Arabshah, (P. i. c. 28, p. 183,) the
coward Timour ran away to his tent, and hid himself from the
pursuit of Shah Mansour under the women’s garments. Perhaps
Sherefeddin (l. iii. c. 25) has magnified his courage.]
16 (return) [ The history of Ormuz is not unlike that of Tyre.
The old city, on the continent, was destroyed by the Tartars, and
renewed in a neighboring island, without fresh water or
vegetation. The kings of Ormuz, rich in the Indian trade and the
pearl fishery, possessed large territories both in Persia and
Arabia; but they were at first the tributaries of the sultans of
Kerman, and at last were delivered (A.D. 1505) by the Portuguese
tyrants from the tyranny of their own viziers, (Marco Polo, l. i.
c. 15, 16, fol. 7, 8. Abulfeda, Geograph. tabul. xi. p. 261, 262,
an original Chronicle of Ormuz, in Texeira, or Stevens’s History
of Persia, p. 376—416, and the Itineraries inserted in the ist
volume of Ramusio, of Ludovico Barthema, (1503,) fol. 167, of
Andrea Corsali, (1517) fol. 202, 203, and of Odoardo Barbessa,
(in 1516,) fol. 313—318.)]
II. A just retaliation might be urged for the invasion of
Turkestan, or the Eastern Tartary. The dignity of Timour could
not endure the impunity of the Getes: he passed the Sihoon,
subdued the kingdom of Kashgar, and marched seven times into the
heart of their country. His most distant camp was two months’
journey, or four hundred and eighty leagues to the north-east of
Samarcand; and his emirs, who traversed the River Irtish,
engraved in the forests of Siberia a rude memorial of their
exploits. The conquest of Kipzak, or the Western Tartary, 17 was
founded on the double motive of aiding the distressed, and
chastising the ungrateful. Toctamish, a fugitive prince, was
entertained and protected in his court: the ambassadors of Auruss
Khan were dismissed with a haughty denial, and followed on the
same day by the armies of Zagatai; and their success established
Toctamish in the Mogul empire of the North. But, after a reign of
ten years, the new khan forgot the merits and the strength of his
benefactor; the base usurper, as he deemed him, of the sacred
rights of the house of Zingis. Through the gates of Derbend, he
entered Persia at the head of ninety thousand horse: with the
innumerable forces of Kipzak, Bulgaria, Circassia, and Russia, he
passed the Sihoon, burnt the palaces of Timour, and compelled
him, amidst the winter snows, to contend for Samarcand and his
life. After a mild expostulation, and a glorious victory, the
emperor resolved on revenge; and by the east, and the west, of
the Caspian, and the Volga, he twice invaded Kipzak with such
mighty powers, that thirteen miles were measured from his right
to his left wing. In a march of five months, they rarely beheld
the footsteps of man; and their daily subsistence was often
trusted to the fortune of the chase. At length the armies
encountered each other; but the treachery of the standard-bearer,
who, in the heat of action, reversed the Imperial standard of
Kipzak, determined the victory of the Zagatais; and Toctamish (I
speak the language of the Institutions) gave the tribe of Toushi
to the wind of desolation. 18 He fled to the Christian duke of
Lithuania; again returned to the banks of the Volga; and, after
fifteen battles with a domestic rival, at last perished in the
wilds of Siberia. The pursuit of a flying enemy carried Timour
into the tributary provinces of Russia: a duke of the reigning
family was made prisoner amidst the ruins of his capital; and
Yeletz, by the pride and ignorance of the Orientals, might easily
be confounded with the genuine metropolis of the nation. Moscow
trembled at the approach of the Tartar, and the resistance would
have been feeble, since the hopes of the Russians were placed in
a miraculous image of the Virgin, to whose protection they
ascribed the casual and voluntary retreat of the conqueror.
Ambition and prudence recalled him to the South, the desolate
country was exhausted, and the Mogul soldiers were enriched with
an immense spoil of precious furs, of linen of Antioch, 19 and of
ingots of gold and silver. 20 On the banks of the Don, or Tanais,
he received an humble deputation from the consuls and merchants
of Egypt, 21 Venice, Genoa, Catalonia, and Biscay, who occupied
the commerce and city of Tana, or Azoph, at the mouth of the
river. They offered their gifts, admired his magnificence, and
trusted his royal word. But the peaceful visit of an emir, who
explored the state of the magazines and harbor, was speedily
followed by the destructive presence of the Tartars. The city was
reduced to ashes; the Moslems were pillaged and dismissed; but
all the Christians, who had not fled to their ships, were
condemned either to death or slavery. 22 Revenge prompted him to
burn the cities of Serai and Astrachan, the monuments of rising
civilization; and his vanity proclaimed, that he had penetrated
to the region of perpetual daylight, a strange phenomenon, which
authorized his Mahometan doctors to dispense with the obligation
of evening prayer. 23
17 (return) [ Arabshah had travelled into Kipzak, and acquired a
singular knowledge of the geography, cities, and revolutions, of
that northern region, (P. i. c. 45—49.)]
18 (return) [ Institutions of Timour, p. 123, 125. Mr. White, the
editor, bestows some animadversion on the superficial account of
Sherefeddin, (l. iii. c. 12, 13, 14,) who was ignorant of the
designs of Timour, and the true springs of action.]
19 (return) [ The furs of Russia are more credible than the
ingots. But the linen of Antioch has never been famous: and
Antioch was in ruins. I suspect that it was some manufacture of
Europe, which the Hanse merchants had imported by the way of
Novogorod.]
20 (return) [ M. Levesque (Hist. de Russie, tom. ii. p. 247. Vie
de Timour, p. 64—67, before the French version of the Institutes)
has corrected the error of Sherefeddin, and marked the true limit
of Timour’s conquests. His arguments are superfluous; and a
simple appeal to the Russian annals is sufficient to prove that
Moscow, which six years before had been taken by Toctamish,
escaped the arms of a more formidable invader.]
21 (return) [ An Egyptian consul from Grand Cairo is mentioned in
Barbaro’s voyage to Tana in 1436, after the city had been
rebuilt, (Ramusio, tom. ii. fol. 92.)]
22 (return) [ The sack of Azoph is described by Sherefeddin, (l.
iii. c. 55,) and much more particularly by the author of an
Italian chronicle, (Andreas de Redusiis de Quero, in Chron.
Tarvisiano, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xix. p.
802—805.) He had conversed with the Mianis, two Venetian
brothers, one of whom had been sent a deputy to the camp of
Timour, and the other had lost at Azoph three sons and 12,000
ducats.]
23 (return) [ Sherefeddin only says (l. iii. c. 13) that the rays
of the setting, and those of the rising sun, were scarcely
separated by any interval; a problem which may be solved in the
latitude of Moscow, (the 56th degree,) with the aid of the Aurora
Borealis, and a long summer twilight. But a _day_ of forty days
(Khondemir apud D’Herbelot, p. 880) would rigorously confine us
within the polar circle.]
III. When Timour first proposed to his princes and emirs the
invasion of India or Hindostan, 24 he was answered by a murmur of
discontent: “The rivers! and the mountains and deserts! and the
soldiers clad in armor! and the elephants, destroyers of men!”
But the displeasure of the emperor was more dreadful than all
these terrors; and his superior reason was convinced, that an
enterprise of such tremendous aspect was safe and easy in the
execution. He was informed by his spies of the weakness and
anarchy of Hindostan: the soubahs of the provinces had erected
the standard of rebellion; and the perpetual infancy of Sultan
Mahmoud was despised even in the harem of Delhi. The Mogul army
moved in three great divisions; and Timour observes with
pleasure, that the ninety-two squadrons of a thousand horse most
fortunately corresponded with the ninety-two names or epithets of
the prophet Mahomet. 241 Between the Jihoon and the Indus they
crossed one of the ridges of mountains, which are styled by the
Arabian geographers The Stony Girdles of the Earth. The highland
robbers were subdued or extirpated; but great numbers of men and
horses perished in the snow; the emperor himself was let down a
precipice on a portable scaffold—the ropes were one hundred and
fifty cubits in length; and before he could reach the bottom,
this dangerous operation was five times repeated. Timour crossed
the Indus at the ordinary passage of Attok; and successively
traversed, in the footsteps of Alexander, the _Punjab_, or five
rivers, 25 that fall into the master stream. From Attok to Delhi,
the high road measures no more than six hundred miles; but the
two conquerors deviated to the south-east; and the motive of
Timour was to join his grandson, who had achieved by his command
the conquest of Moultan. On the eastern bank of the Hyphasis, on
the edge of the desert, the Macedonian hero halted and wept: the
Mogul entered the desert, reduced the fortress of Batmir, and
stood in arms before the gates of Delhi, a great and flourishing
city, which had subsisted three centuries under the dominion of
the Mahometan kings. 251 The siege, more especially of the
castle, might have been a work of time; but he tempted, by the
appearance of weakness, the sultan Mahmoud and his vizier to
descend into the plain, with ten thousand cuirassiers, forty
thousand of his foot-guards, and one hundred and twenty
elephants, whose tusks are said to have been armed with sharp and
poisoned daggers. Against these monsters, or rather against the
imagination of his troops, he condescended to use some
extraordinary precautions of fire and a ditch, of iron spikes and
a rampart of bucklers; but the event taught the Moguls to smile
at their own fears; and as soon as these unwieldy animals were
routed, the inferior species (the men of India) disappeared from
the field. Timour made his triumphal entry into the capital of
Hindostan; and admired, with a view to imitate, the architecture
of the stately mosque; but the order or license of a general
pillage and massacre polluted the festival of his victory. He
resolved to purify his soldiers in the blood of the idolaters, or
Gentoos, who still surpass, in the proportion of ten to one, the
numbers of the Moslems. 252 In this pious design, he advanced one
hundred miles to the north-east of Delhi, passed the Ganges,
fought several battles by land and water, and penetrated to the
famous rock of Coupele, the statue of the cow, 253 that _seems_
to discharge the mighty river, whose source is far distant among
the mountains of Thibet. 26 His return was along the skirts of
the northern hills; nor could this rapid campaign of one year
justify the strange foresight of his emirs, that their children
in a warm climate would degenerate into a race of Hindoos.
24 (return) [ For the Indian war, see the Institutions, (p.
129—139,) the fourth book of Sherefeddin, and the history of
Ferishta, (in Dow, vol. ii. p. 1—20,) which throws a general
light on the affairs of Hindostan.]
241 (return) [ Gibbon (observes M. von Hammer) is mistaken in the
correspondence of the ninety-two squadrons of his army with the
ninety-two names of God: the names of God are ninety-nine. and
Allah is the hundredth, p. 286, note. But Gibbon speaks of the
names or epithets of Mahomet, not of God.—M.]
25 (return) [ The rivers of the Punjab, the five eastern branches
of the Indus, have been laid down for the first time with truth
and accuracy in Major Rennel’s incomparable map of Hindostan. In
this Critical Memoir he illustrates with judgment and learning
the marches of Alexander and Timour. * Note See vol. i. ch. ii.
note 1.—M.]
251 (return) [ They took, on their march, 100,000 slaves, Guebers
they were all murdered. V. Hammer, vol. i. p. 286. They are
called idolaters. Briggs’s Ferishta, vol. i. p. 491.—M.]
252 (return) [ See a curious passage on the destruction of the
Hindoo idols, Memoirs, p. 15.—M.]
253 (return) [ Consult the very striking description of the Cow’s
Mouth by Captain Hodgson, Asiat. Res. vol. xiv. p. 117. “A most
wonderful scene. The B’hagiratha or Ganges issues from under a
very low arch at the foot of the grand snow bed. My guide, an
illiterate mountaineer compared the pendent icicles to Mahodeva’s
hair.” (Compare Poems, Quarterly Rev. vol. xiv. p. 37, and at the
end of my translation of Nala.) “Hindoos of research may formerly
have been here; and if so, I cannot think of any place to which
they might more aptly give the name of a cow’s mouth than to this
extraordinary debouche.”—M.]
26 (return) [ The two great rivers, the Ganges and Burrampooter,
rise in Thibet, from the opposite ridges of the same hills,
separate from each other to the distance of 1200 miles, and,
after a winding course of 2000 miles, again meet in one point
near the Gulf of Bengal. Yet so capricious is Fame, that the
Burrampooter is a late discovery, while his brother Ganges has
been the theme of ancient and modern story Coupele, the scene of
Timour’s last victory, must be situate near Loldong, 1100 miles
from Calcutta; and in 1774, a British camp! (Rennel’s Memoir, p.
7, 59, 90, 91, 99.)]
It was on the banks of the Ganges that Timour was informed, by
his speedy messengers, of the disturbances which had arisen on
the confines of Georgia and Anatolia, of the revolt of the
Christians, and the ambitious designs of the sultan Bajazet. His
vigor of mind and body was not impaired by sixty-three years, and
innumerable fatigues; and, after enjoying some tranquil months in
the palace of Samarcand, he proclaimed a new expedition of seven
years into the western countries of Asia. 27 To the soldiers who
had served in the Indian war he granted the choice of remaining
at home, or following their prince; but the troops of all the
provinces and kingdoms of Persia were commanded to assemble at
Ispahan, and wait the arrival of the Imperial standard. It was
first directed against the Christians of Georgia, who were strong
only in their rocks, their castles, and the winter season; but
these obstacles were overcome by the zeal and perseverance of
Timour: the rebels submitted to the tribute or the Koran; and if
both religions boasted of their martyrs, that name is more justly
due to the Christian prisoners, who were offered the choice of
abjuration or death. On his descent from the hills, the emperor
gave audience to the first ambassadors of Bajazet, and opened the
hostile correspondence of complaints and menaces, which fermented
two years before the final explosion. Between two jealous and
haughty neighbors, the motives of quarrel will seldom be wanting.
The Mogul and Ottoman conquests now touched each other in the
neighborhood of Erzeroum, and the Euphrates; nor had the doubtful
limit been ascertained by time and treaty. Each of these
ambitious monarchs might accuse his rival of violating his
territory, of threatening his vassals, and protecting his rebels;
and, by the name of rebels, each understood the fugitive princes,
whose kingdoms he had usurped, and whose life or liberty he
implacably pursued. The resemblance of character was still more
dangerous than the opposition of interest; and in their
victorious career, Timour was impatient of an equal, and Bajazet
was ignorant of a superior. The first epistle 28 of the Mogul
emperor must have provoked, instead of reconciling, the Turkish
sultan, whose family and nation he affected to despise. 29 “Dost
thou not know, that the greatest part of Asia is subject to our
arms and our laws? that our invincible forces extend from one sea
to the other? that the potentates of the earth form a line before
our gate? and that we have compelled Fortune herself to watch
over the prosperity of our empire. What is the foundation of thy
insolence and folly? Thou hast fought some battles in the woods
of Anatolia; contemptible trophies! Thou hast obtained some
victories over the Christians of Europe; thy sword was blessed by
the apostle of God; and thy obedience to the precept of the
Koran, in waging war against the infidels, is the sole
consideration that prevents us from destroying thy country, the
frontier and bulwark of the Moslem world. Be wise in time;
reflect; repent; and avert the thunder of our vengeance, which is
yet suspended over thy head. Thou art no more than a pismire; why
wilt thou seek to provoke the elephants? Alas! they will trample
thee under their feet.” In his replies, Bajazet poured forth the
indignation of a soul which was deeply stung by such unusual
contempt. After retorting the basest reproaches on the thief and
rebel of the desert, the Ottoman recapitulates his boasted
victories in Iran, Touran, and the Indies; and labors to prove,
that Timour had never triumphed unless by his own perfidy and the
vices of his foes. “Thy armies are innumerable: be they so; but
what are the arrows of the flying Tartar against the cimeters and
battle-axes of my firm and invincible Janizaries? I will guard
the princes who have implored my protection: seek them in my
tents. The cities of Arzingan and Erzeroum are mine; and unless
the tribute be duly paid, I will demand the arrears under the
walls of Tauris and Sultania.” The ungovernable rage of the
sultan at length betrayed him to an insult of a more domestic
kind. “If I fly from thy arms,” said he, “may _my_ wives be
thrice divorced from my bed: but if thou hast not courage to meet
me in the field, mayest thou again receive _thy_ wives after they
have thrice endured the embraces of a stranger.” 30 Any violation
by word or deed of the secrecy of the harem is an unpardonable
offence among the Turkish nations; 31 and the political quarrel
of the two monarchs was imbittered by private and personal
resentment. Yet in his first expedition, Timour was satisfied
with the siege and destruction of Siwas or Sebaste, a strong city
on the borders of Anatolia; and he revenged the indiscretion of
the Ottoman, on a garrison of four thousand Armenians, who were
buried alive for the brave and faithful discharge of their duty.
311 As a Mussulman, he seemed to respect the pious occupation of
Bajazet, who was still engaged in the blockade of Constantinople;
and after this salutary lesson, the Mogul conqueror checked his
pursuit, and turned aside to the invasion of Syria and Egypt. In
these transactions, the Ottoman prince, by the Orientals, and
even by Timour, is styled the _Kaissar of Roum_, the Cæsar of the
Romans; a title which, by a small anticipation, might be given to
a monarch who possessed the provinces, and threatened the city,
of the successors of Constantine. 32
27 (return) [ See the Institutions, p. 141, to the end of the 1st
book, and Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 1—16,) to the entrance of Timour
into Syria.]
28 (return) [ We have three copies of these hostile epistles in
the Institutions, (p. 147,) in Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 14,) and in
Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 19 p. 183—201;) which agree with each
other in the spirit and substance rather than in the style. It is
probable, that they have been translated, with various latitude,
from the Turkish original into the Arabic and Persian tongues. *
Note: Von Hammer considers the letter which Gibbon inserted in
the text to be spurious. On the various copies of these letters,
see his note, p 116.—M.]
29 (return) [ The Mogul emir distinguishes himself and his
countrymen by the name of _Turks_, and stigmatizes the race and
nation of Bajazet with the less honorable epithet of _Turkmans_.
Yet I do not understand how the Ottomans could be descended from
a Turkman sailor; those inland shepherds were so remote from the
sea, and all maritime affairs. * Note: Price translated the word
pilot or boatman.—M.]
30 (return) [ According to the Koran, (c. ii. p. 27, and Sale’s
Discourses, p. 134,) Mussulman who had thrice divorced his wife,
(who had thrice repeated the words of a divorce,) could not take
her again, till after she had been married _to_, and repudiated
_by_, another husband; an ignominious transaction, which it is
needless to aggravate, by supposing that the first husband must
see her enjoyed by a second before his face, (Rycaut’s State of
the Ottoman Empire, l. ii. c. 21.)]
31 (return) [ The common delicacy of the Orientals, in never
speaking of their women, is ascribed in a much higher degree by
Arabshah to the Turkish nations; and it is remarkable enough,
that Chalcondyles (l. ii. p. 55) had some knowledge of the
prejudice and the insult. * Note: See Von Hammer, p. 308, and
note, p. 621.—M.]
311 (return) [ Still worse barbarities were perpetrated on these
brave men. Von Hammer, vol. i. p. 295.—M.]
32 (return) [ For the style of the Moguls, see the Institutions,
(p. 131, 147,) and for the Persians, the Bibliothèque Orientale,
(p. 882;) but I do not find that the title of Cæsar has been
applied by the Arabians, or assumed by the Ottomans themselves.]
Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His
Death.—Part II.
The military republic of the Mamalukes still reigned in Egypt and
Syria: but the dynasty of the Turks was overthrown by that of the
Circassians; 33 and their favorite Barkok, from a slave and a
prisoner, was raised and restored to the throne. In the midst of
rebellion and discord, he braved the menaces, corresponded with
the enemies, and detained the ambassadors, of the Mogul, who
patiently expected his decease, to revenge the crimes of the
father on the feeble reign of his son Farage. The Syrian emirs 34
were assembled at Aleppo to repel the invasion: they confided in
the fame and discipline of the Mamalukes, in the temper of their
swords and lances of the purest steel of Damascus, in the
strength of their walled cities, and in the populousness of sixty
thousand villages; and instead of sustaining a siege, they threw
open their gates, and arrayed their forces in the plain. But
these forces were not cemented by virtue and union; and some
powerful emirs had been seduced to desert or betray their more
loyal companions. Timour’s front was covered with a line of
Indian elephants, whose turrets were filled with archers and
Greek fire: the rapid evolutions of his cavalry completed the
dismay and disorder; the Syrian crowds fell back on each other:
many thousands were stifled or slaughtered in the entrance of the
great street; the Moguls entered with the fugitives; and after a
short defence, the citadel, the impregnable citadel of Aleppo,
was surrendered by cowardice or treachery. Among the suppliants
and captives, Timour distinguished the doctors of the law, whom
he invited to the dangerous honor of a personal conference. 35
The Mogul prince was a zealous Mussulman; but his Persian schools
had taught him to revere the memory of Ali and Hosein; and he had
imbibed a deep prejudice against the Syrians, as the enemies of
the son of the daughter of the apostle of God. To these doctors
he proposed a captious question, which the casuists of Bochara,
Samarcand, and Herat, were incapable of resolving. “Who are the
true martyrs, of those who are slain on my side, or on that of my
enemies?” But he was silenced, or satisfied, by the dexterity of
one of the cadhis of Aleppo, who replied in the words of Mahomet
himself, that the motive, not the ensign, constitutes the martyr;
and that the Moslems of either party, who fight only for the
glory of God, may deserve that sacred appellation. The true
succession of the caliphs was a controversy of a still more
delicate nature; and the frankness of a doctor, too honest for
his situation, provoked the emperor to exclaim, “Ye are as false
as those of Damascus: Moawiyah was a usurper, Yezid a tyrant, and
Ali alone is the lawful successor of the prophet.” A prudent
explanation restored his tranquillity; and he passed to a more
familiar topic of conversation. “What is your age?” said he to
the cadhi. “Fifty years.”—“It would be the age of my eldest son:
you see me here (continued Timour) a poor lame, decrepit mortal.
Yet by my arm has the Almighty been pleased to subdue the
kingdoms of Iran, Touran, and the Indies. I am not a man of
blood; and God is my witness, that in all my wars I have never
been the aggressor, and that my enemies have always been the
authors of their own calamity.” During this peaceful conversation
the streets of Aleppo streamed with blood, and reechoed with the
cries of mothers and children, with the shrieks of violated
virgins. The rich plunder that was abandoned to his soldiers
might stimulate their avarice; but their cruelty was enforced by
the peremptory command of producing an adequate number of heads,
which, according to his custom, were curiously piled in columns
and pyramids: the Moguls celebrated the feast of victory, while
the surviving Moslems passed the night in tears and in chains. I
shall not dwell on the march of the destroyer from Aleppo to
Damascus, where he was rudely encountered, and almost overthrown,
by the armies of Egypt. A retrograde motion was imputed to his
distress and despair: one of his nephews deserted to the enemy;
and Syria rejoiced in the tale of his defeat, when the sultan was
driven by the revolt of the Mamalukes to escape with
precipitation and shame to his palace of Cairo. Abandoned by
their prince, the inhabitants of Damascus still defended their
walls; and Timour consented to raise the siege, if they would
adorn his retreat with a gift or ransom; each article of nine
pieces. But no sooner had he introduced himself into the city,
under color of a truce, than he perfidiously violated the treaty;
imposed a contribution of ten millions of gold; and animated his
troops to chastise the posterity of those Syrians who had
executed, or approved, the murder of the grandson of Mahomet. A
family which had given honorable burial to the head of Hosein,
and a colony of artificers, whom he sent to labor at Samarcand,
were alone reserved in the general massacre, and after a period
of seven centuries, Damascus was reduced to ashes, because a
Tartar was moved by religious zeal to avenge the blood of an
Arab. The losses and fatigues of the campaign obliged Timour to
renounce the conquest of Palestine and Egypt; but in his return
to the Euphrates he delivered Aleppo to the flames; and justified
his pious motive by the pardon and reward of two thousand
sectaries of Ali, who were desirous to visit the tomb of his son.
I have expatiated on the personal anecdotes which mark the
character of the Mogul hero; but I shall briefly mention, 36 that
he erected on the ruins of Bagdad a pyramid of ninety thousand
heads; again visited Georgia; encamped on the banks of Araxes;
and proclaimed his resolution of marching against the Ottoman
emperor. Conscious of the importance of the war, he collected his
forces from every province: eight hundred thousand men were
enrolled on his military list; 37 but the splendid commands of
five, and ten, thousand horse, may be rather expressive of the
rank and pension of the chiefs, than of the genuine number of
effective soldiers. 38 In the pillage of Syria, the Moguls had
acquired immense riches: but the delivery of their pay and
arrears for seven years more firmly attached them to the Imperial
standard.
33 (return) [ See the reigns of Barkok and Pharadge, in M. De
Guignes, (tom. iv. l. xxii.,) who, from the Arabic texts of
Aboulmahasen, Ebn (Schounah, and Aintabi, has added some facts to
our common stock of materials.)]
34 (return) [ For these recent and domestic transactions,
Arabshah, though a partial, is a credible, witness, (tom. i. c.
64—68, tom. ii. c. 1—14.) Timour must have been odious to a
Syrian; but the notoriety of facts would have obliged him, in
some measure, to respect his enemy and himself. His bitters may
correct the luscious sweets of Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 17—29.)]
35 (return) [ These interesting conversations appear to have been
copied by Arabshah (tom. i. c. 68, p. 625—645) from the cadhi and
historian Ebn Schounah, a principal actor. Yet how could he be
alive seventy-five years afterwards? (D’Herbelot, p. 792.)]
36 (return) [ The marches and occupations of Timour between the
Syrian and Ottoman wars are represented by Sherefeddin (l. v. c.
29—43) and Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 15—18.)]
37 (return) [ This number of 800,000 was extracted by Arabshah,
or rather by Ebn Schounah, ex rationario Timuri, on the faith of
a Carizmian officer, (tom. i. c. 68, p. 617;) and it is
remarkable enough, that a Greek historian (Phranza, l. i. c. 29)
adds no more than 20,000 men. Poggius reckons 1,000,000; another
Latin contemporary (Chron. Tarvisianum, apud Muratori, tom. xix.
p. 800) 1,100,000; and the enormous sum of 1,600,000 is attested
by a German soldier, who was present at the battle of Angora,
(Leunclav. ad Chalcondyl. l. iii. p. 82.) Timour, in his
Institutions, has not deigned to calculate his troops, his
subjects, or his revenues.]
38 (return) [ A wide latitude of non-effectives was allowed by
the Great Mogul for his own pride and the benefit of his
officers. Bernier’s patron was Penge-Hazari, commander of 5000
horse; of which he maintained no more than 500, (Voyages, tom. i.
p. 288, 289.)]
During this diversion of the Mogul arms, Bajazet had two years to
collect his forces for a more serious encounter. They consisted
of four hundred thousand horse and foot, 39 whose merit and
fidelity were of an unequal complexion. We may discriminate the
Janizaries, who have been gradually raised to an establishment of
forty thousand men; a national cavalry, the Spahis of modern
times; twenty thousand cuirassiers of Europe, clad in black and
impenetrable armor; the troops of Anatolia, whose princes had
taken refuge in the camp of Timour, and a colony of Tartars, whom
he had driven from Kipzak, and to whom Bajazet had assigned a
settlement in the plains of Adrianople. The fearless confidence
of the sultan urged him to meet his antagonist; and, as if he had
chosen that spot for revenge, he displayed his banner near the
ruins of the unfortunate Suvas. In the mean while, Timour moved
from the Araxes through the countries of Armenia and Anatolia:
his boldness was secured by the wisest precautions; his speed was
guided by order and discipline; and the woods, the mountains, and
the rivers, were diligently explored by the flying squadrons, who
marked his road and preceded his standard. Firm in his plan of
fighting in the heart of the Ottoman kingdom, he avoided their
camp; dexterously inclined to the left; occupied Cæsarea;
traversed the salt desert and the River Halys; and invested
Angora: while the sultan, immovable and ignorant in his post,
compared the Tartar swiftness to the crawling of a snail; 40 he
returned on the wings of indignation to the relief of Angora: and
as both generals were alike impatient for action, the plains
round that city were the scene of a memorable battle, which has
immortalized the glory of Timour and the shame of Bajazet. For
this signal victory the Mogul emperor was indebted to himself, to
the genius of the moment, and the discipline of thirty years. He
had improved the tactics, without violating the manners, of his
nation, 41 whose force still consisted in the missile weapons,
and rapid evolutions, of a numerous cavalry. From a single troop
to a great army, the mode of attack was the same: a foremost line
first advanced to the charge, and was supported in a just order
by the squadrons of the great vanguard. The general’s eye watched
over the field, and at his command the front and rear of the
right and left wings successively moved forwards in their several
divisions, and in a direct or oblique line: the enemy was pressed
by eighteen or twenty attacks; and each attack afforded a chance
of victory. If they all proved fruitless or unsuccessful, the
occasion was worthy of the emperor himself, who gave the signal
of advancing to the standard and main body, which he led in
person. 42 But in the battle of Angora, the main body itself was
supported, on the flanks and in the rear, by the bravest
squadrons of the reserve, commanded by the sons and grandsons of
Timour. The conqueror of Hindostan ostentatiously showed a line
of elephants, the trophies, rather than the instruments, of
victory; the use of the Greek fire was familiar to the Moguls and
Ottomans; but had they borrowed from Europe the recent invention
of gunpowder and cannon, the artificial thunder, in the hands of
either nation, must have turned the fortune of the day. 43 In
that day Bajazet displayed the qualities of a soldier and a
chief: but his genius sunk under a stronger ascendant; and, from
various motives, the greatest part of his troops failed him in
the decisive moment. His rigor and avarice 431 had provoked a
mutiny among the Turks; and even his son Soliman too hastily
withdrew from the field. The forces of Anatolia, loyal in their
revolt, were drawn away to the banners of their lawful princes.
His Tartar allies had been tempted by the letters and emissaries
of Timour; 44 who reproached their ignoble servitude under the
slaves of their fathers; and offered to their hopes the dominion
of their new, or the liberty of their ancient, country. In the
right wing of Bajazet the cuirassiers of Europe charged, with
faithful hearts and irresistible arms: but these men of iron were
soon broken by an artful flight and headlong pursuit; and the
Janizaries, alone, without cavalry or missile weapons, were
encompassed by the circle of the Mogul hunters. Their valor was
at length oppressed by heat, thirst, and the weight of numbers;
and the unfortunate sultan, afflicted with the gout in his hands
and feet, was transported from the field on the fleetest of his
horses. He was pursued and taken by the titular khan of Zagatai;
and, after his capture, and the defeat of the Ottoman powers, the
kingdom of Anatolia submitted to the conqueror, who planted his
standard at Kiotahia, and dispersed on all sides the ministers of
rapine and destruction. Mirza Mehemmed Sultan, the eldest and
best beloved of his grandsons, was despatched to Boursa, with
thirty thousand horse; and such was his youthful ardor, that he
arrived with only four thousand at the gates of the capital,
after performing in five days a march of two hundred and thirty
miles. Yet fear is still more rapid in its course; and Soliman,
the son of Bajazet, had already passed over to Europe with the
royal treasure. The spoil, however, of the palace and city was
immense: the inhabitants had escaped; but the buildings, for the
most part of wood, were reduced to ashes. From Boursa, the
grandson of Timour advanced to Nice, ever yet a fair and
flourishing city; and the Mogul squadrons were only stopped by
the waves of the Propontis. The same success attended the other
mirzas and emirs in their excursions; and Smyrna, defended by the
zeal and courage of the Rhodian knights, alone deserved the
presence of the emperor himself. After an obstinate defence, the
place was taken by storm: all that breathed was put to the sword;
and the heads of the Christian heroes were launched from the
engines, on board of two carracks, or great ships of Europe, that
rode at anchor in the harbor. The Moslems of Asia rejoiced in
their deliverance from a dangerous and domestic foe; and a
parallel was drawn between the two rivals, by observing that
Timour, in fourteen days, had reduced a fortress which had
sustained seven years the siege, or at least the blockade, of
Bajazet. 45
39 (return) [ Timour himself fixes at 400,000 men the Ottoman
army, (Institutions, p. 153,) which is reduced to 150,000 by
Phranza, (l. i. c. 29,) and swelled by the German soldier to
1,400,000. It is evident that the Moguls were the more numerous.]
40 (return) [ It may not be useless to mark the distances between
Angora and the neighboring cities, by the journeys of the
caravans, each of twenty or twenty-five miles; to Smyrna xx., to
Kiotahia x., to Boursa x., to Cæsarea, viii., to Sinope x., to
Nicomedia ix., to Constantinople xii. or xiii., (see Tournefort,
Voyage au Levant, tom. ii. lettre xxi.)]
41 (return) [ See the Systems of Tactics in the Institutions,
which the English editors have illustrated with elaborate plans,
(p. 373—407.)]
42 (return) [ The sultan himself (says Timour) must then put the
foot of courage into the stirrup of patience. A Tartar metaphor,
which is lost in the English, but preserved in the French,
version of the Institutes, (p. 156, 157.)]
43 (return) [ The Greek fire, on Timour’s side, is attested by
Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 47;) but Voltaire’s strange suspicion,
that some cannon, inscribed with strange characters, must have
been sent by that monarch to Delhi, is refuted by the universal
silence of contemporaries.]
431 (return) [ See V. Hammer, vol. i. p. 310, for the singular
hints which were conveyed to him of the wisdom of unlocking his
hoarded treasures.—M.]
44 (return) [ Timour has dissembled this secret and important
negotiation with the Tartars, which is indisputably proved by the
joint evidence of the Arabian, (tom. i. c. 47, p. 391,) Turkish,
(Annal. Leunclav. p. 321,) and Persian historians, (Khondemir,
apud d’Herbelot, p. 882.)]
45 (return) [ For the war of Anatolia or Roum, I add some hints
in the Institutions, to the copious narratives of Sherefeddin (l.
v. c. 44—65) and Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 20—35.) On this part only
of Timour’s history it is lawful to quote the Turks, (Cantemir,
p. 53—55, Annal. Leunclav. p. 320—322,) and the Greeks, (Phranza,
l. i. c. 59, Ducas, c. 15—17, Chalcondyles, l. iii.)]
The _iron cage_ in which Bajazet was imprisoned by Tamerlane, so
long and so often repeated as a moral lesson, is now rejected as
a fable by the modern writers, who smile at the vulgar credulity.
46 They appeal with confidence to the Persian history of
Sherefeddin Ali, which has been given to our curiosity in a
French version, and from which I shall collect and abridge a more
specious narrative of this memorable transaction. No sooner was
Timour informed that the captive Ottoman was at the door of his
tent, than he graciously stepped forwards to receive him, seated
him by his side, and mingled with just reproaches a soothing pity
for his rank and misfortune. “Alas!” said the emperor, “the
decree of fate is now accomplished by your own fault; it is the
web which you have woven, the thorns of the tree which yourself
have planted. I wished to spare, and even to assist, the champion
of the Moslems; you braved our threats; you despised our
friendship; you forced us to enter your kingdom with our
invincible armies. Behold the event. Had you vanquished, I am not
ignorant of the fate which you reserved for myself and my troops.
But I disdain to retaliate: your life and honor are secure; and I
shall express my gratitude to God by my clemency to man.” The
royal captive showed some signs of repentance, accepted the
humiliation of a robe of honor, and embraced with tears his son
Mousa, who, at his request, was sought and found among the
captives of the field. The Ottoman princes were lodged in a
splendid pavilion; and the respect of the guards could be
surpassed only by their vigilance. On the arrival of the harem
from Boursa, Timour restored the queen Despina and her daughter
to their father and husband; but he piously required, that the
Servian princess, who had hitherto been indulged in the
profession of Christianity, should embrace without delay the
religion of the prophet. In the feast of victory, to which
Bajazet was invited, the Mogul emperor placed a crown on his head
and a sceptre in his hand, with a solemn assurance of restoring
him with an increase of glory to the throne of his ancestors. But
the effect of his promise was disappointed by the sultan’s
untimely death: amidst the care of the most skilful physicians,
he expired of an apoplexy at Akshehr, the Antioch of Pisidia,
about nine months after his defeat. The victor dropped a tear
over his grave: his body, with royal pomp, was conveyed to the
mausoleum which he had erected at Boursa; and his son Mousa,
after receiving a rich present of gold and jewels, of horses and
arms, was invested by a patent in red ink with the kingdom of
Anatolia.
46 (return) [ The scepticism of Voltaire (Essai sur l’Histoire
Générale, c. 88) is ready on this, as on every occasion, to
reject a popular tale, and to diminish the magnitude of vice and
virtue; and on most occasions his incredulity is reasonable.]
Such is the portrait of a generous conqueror, which has been
extracted from his own memorials, and dedicated to his son and
grandson, nineteen years after his decease; 47 and, at a time
when the truth was remembered by thousands, a manifest falsehood
would have implied a satire on his real conduct. Weighty indeed
is this evidence, adopted by all the Persian histories; 48 yet
flattery, more especially in the East, is base and audacious; and
the harsh and ignominious treatment of Bajazet is attested by a
chain of witnesses, some of whom shall be produced in the order
of their time and country. _1._ The reader has not forgot the
garrison of French, whom the marshal Boucicault left behind him
for the defence of Constantinople. They were on the spot to
receive the earliest and most faithful intelligence of the
overthrow of their great adversary; and it is more than probable,
that some of them accompanied the Greek embassy to the camp of
Tamerlane. From their account, the _hardships_ of the prison and
death of Bajazet are affirmed by the marshal’s servant and
historian, within the distance of seven years. 49 _2._ The name
of Poggius the Italian 50 is deservedly famous among the revivers
of learning in the fifteenth century. His elegant dialogue on the
vicissitudes of fortune 51 was composed in his fiftieth year,
twenty-eight years after the Turkish victory of Tamerlane; 52
whom he celebrates as not inferior to the illustrious Barbarians
of antiquity. Of his exploits and discipline Poggius was informed
by several ocular witnesses; nor does he forget an example so
apposite to his theme as the Ottoman monarch, whom the Scythian
confined like a wild beast in an iron cage, and exhibited a
spectacle to Asia. I might add the authority of two Italian
chronicles, perhaps of an earlier date, which would prove at
least that the same story, whether false or true, was imported
into Europe with the first tidings of the revolution. 53 _3._ At
the time when Poggius flourished at Rome, Ahmed Ebn Arabshah
composed at Damascus the florid and malevolent history of Timour,
for which he had collected materials in his journeys over Turkey
and Tartary. 54 Without any possible correspondence between the
Latin and the Arabian writer, they agree in the fact of the iron
cage; and their agreement is a striking proof of their common
veracity. Ahmed Arabshah likewise relates another outrage, which
Bajazet endured, of a more domestic and tender nature. His
indiscreet mention of women and divorces was deeply resented by
the jealous Tartar: in the feast of victory the wine was served
by female cupbearers, and the sultan beheld his own concubines
and wives confounded among the slaves, and exposed without a veil
to the eyes of intemperance. To escape a similar indignity, it is
said that his successors, except in a single instance, have
abstained from legitimate nuptials; and the Ottoman practice and
belief, at least in the sixteenth century, is asserted by the
observing Busbequius, 55 ambassador from the court of Vienna to
the great Soliman. _4._ Such is the separation of language, that
the testimony of a Greek is not less independent than that of a
Latin or an Arab. I suppress the names of Chalcondyles and Ducas,
who flourished in the latter period, and who speak in a less
positive tone; but more attention is due to George Phranza, 56
protovestiare of the last emperors, and who was born a year
before the battle of Angora. Twenty-two years after that event,
he was sent ambassador to Amurath the Second; and the historian
might converse with some veteran Janizaries, who had been made
prisoners with the sultan, and had themselves seen him in his
iron cage. 5. The last evidence, in every sense, is that of the
Turkish annals, which have been consulted or transcribed by
Leunclavius, Pocock, and Cantemir. 57 They unanimously deplore
the captivity of the iron cage; and some credit may be allowed to
national historians, who cannot stigmatize the Tartar without
uncovering the shame of their king and country.
47 (return) [ See the History of Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 49, 52,
53, 59, 60.) This work was finished at Shiraz, in the year 1424,
and dedicated to Sultan Ibrahim, the son of Sharokh, the son of
Timour, who reigned in Farsistan in his father’s lifetime.]
48 (return) [ After the perusal of Khondemir, Ebn Schounah, &c.,
the learned D’Herbelot (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 882) may affirm,
that this fable is not mentioned in the most authentic histories;
but his denial of the visible testimony of Arabshah leaves some
room to suspect his accuracy.]
49 (return) [ Et fut lui-même (Bajazet) pris, et mené en prison,
en laquelle mourut de _dure mort!_ Mémoires de Boucicault, P. i.
c. 37. These Memoirs were composed while the marshal was still
governor of Genoa, from whence he was expelled in the year 1409,
by a popular insurrection, (Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom. xii.
p. 473, 474.)]
50 (return) [ The reader will find a satisfactory account of the
life and writings of Poggius in the Poggiana, an entertaining
work of M. Lenfant, and in the Bibliotheca Latina Mediæ et Infimæ
Ætatis of Fabricius, (tom. v. p. 305—308.) Poggius was born in
the year 1380, and died in 1459.]
51 (return) [ The dialogue de Varietate Fortunæ, (of which a
complete and elegant edition has been published at Paris in 1723,
in 4to.,) was composed a short time before the death of Pope
Martin V., (p. 5,) and consequently about the end of the year
1430.]
52 (return) [ See a splendid and eloquent encomium of Tamerlane,
p. 36—39 ipse enim novi (says Poggius) qui fuere in ejus
castris.... Regem vivum cepit, caveâque in modum feræ inclusum
per omnem Asian circumtulit egregium admirandumque spectaculum
fortunæ.]
53 (return) [ The Chronicon Tarvisianum, (in Muratori, Script.
Rerum Italicarum tom. xix. p. 800,) and the Annales Estenses,
(tom. xviii. p. 974.) The two authors, Andrea de Redusiis de
Quero, and James de Delayto, were both contemporaries, and both
chancellors, the one of Trevigi, the other of Ferrara. The
evidence of the former is the most positive.]
54 (return) [ See Arabshah, tom. ii. c. 28, 34. He travelled in
regiones Rumæas, A. H. 839, (A.D. 1435, July 27,) tom. i. c. 2,
p. 13.]
55 (return) [ Busbequius in Legatione Turcicâ, epist. i. p. 52.
Yet his respectable authority is somewhat shaken by the
subsequent marriages of Amurath II. with a Servian, and of
Mahomet II. with an Asiatic, princess, (Cantemir, p. 83, 93.)]
56 (return) [ See the testimony of George Phranza, (l. i. c. 29,)
and his life in Hanckius (de Script. Byzant. P. i. c. 40.)
Chalcondyles and Ducas speak in general terms of Bajazet’s
_chains_.]
57 (return) [ Annales Leunclav. p. 321. Pocock, Prolegomen. ad
Abulpharag Dynast. Cantemir, p. 55. * Note: Von Hammer, p. 318,
cites several authorities unknown to Gibbon.—M.]
From these opposite premises, a fair and moderate conclusion may
be deduced. I am satisfied that Sherefeddin Ali has faithfully
described the first ostentatious interview, in which the
conqueror, whose spirits were harmonized by success, affected the
character of generosity. But his mind was insensibly alienated by
the unseasonable arrogance of Bajazet; the complaints of his
enemies, the Anatolian princes, were just and vehement; and
Timour betrayed a design of leading his royal captive in triumph
to Samarcand. An attempt to facilitate his escape, by digging a
mine under the tent, provoked the Mogul emperor to impose a
harsher restraint; and in his perpetual marches, an iron cage on
a wagon might be invented, not as a wanton insult, but as a
rigorous precaution. Timour had read in some fabulous history a
similar treatment of one of his predecessors, a king of Persia;
and Bajazet was condemned to represent the person, and expiate
the guilt, of the Roman Cæsar 58 581 But the strength of his mind
and body fainted under the trial, and his premature death might,
without injustice, be ascribed to the severity of Timour. He
warred not with the dead: a tear and a sepulchre were all that he
could bestow on a captive who was delivered from his power; and
if Mousa, the son of Bajazet, was permitted to reign over the
ruins of Boursa, the greatest part of the province of Anatolia
had been restored by the conqueror to their lawful sovereigns.
58 (return) [ Sapor, king of Persia, had been made prisoner, and
enclosed in the figure of a cow’s hide by Maximian or Galerius
Cæsar. Such is the fable related by Eutychius, (Annal. tom. i. p.
421, vers. Pocock). The recollection of the true history (Decline
and Fall, &c., vol. ii. p 140—152) will teach us to appreciate
the knowledge of the Orientals of the ages which precede the
Hegira.]
581 (return) [ Von Hammer’s explanation of this contested point
is both simple and satisfactory. It originates in a mistake in
the meaning of the Turkish word kafe, which means a covered
litter or palanquin drawn by two horses, and is generally used to
convey the harem of an Eastern monarch. In such a litter, with
the lattice-work made of iron, Bajazet either chose or was
constrained to travel. This was either mistaken for, or
transformed by, ignorant relaters into a cage. The European
Schiltberger, the two oldest of the Turkish historians, and the
most valuable of the later compilers, Seadeddin, describe this
litter. Seadeddin discusses the question with some degree of
historical criticism, and ascribes the choice of such a vehicle
to the indignant state of Bajazet’s mind, which would not brook
the sight of his Tartar conquerors. Von Hammer, p. 320.—M.]
From the Irtish and Volga to the Persian Gulf, and from the
Ganges to Damascus and the Archipelago, Asia was in the hand of
Timour: his armies were invincible, his ambition was boundless,
and his zeal might aspire to conquer and convert the Christian
kingdoms of the West, which already trembled at his name. He
touched the utmost verge of the land; but an insuperable, though
narrow, sea rolled between the two continents of Europe and Asia;
59 and the lord of so many _tomans_, or myriads, of horse, was
not master of a single galley. The two passages of the Bosphorus
and Hellespont, of Constantinople and Gallipoli, were possessed,
the one by the Christians, the other by the Turks. On this great
occasion, they forgot the difference of religion, to act with
union and firmness in the common cause: the double straits were
guarded with ships and fortifications; and they separately
withheld the transports which Timour demanded of either nation,
under the pretence of attacking their enemy. At the same time,
they soothed his pride with tributary gifts and suppliant
embassies, and prudently tempted him to retreat with the honors
of victory. Soliman, the son of Bajazet, implored his clemency
for his father and himself; accepted, by a red patent, the
investiture of the kingdom of Romania, which he already held by
the sword; and reiterated his ardent wish, of casting himself in
person at the feet of the king of the world. The Greek emperor 60
(either John or Manuel) submitted to pay the same tribute which
he had stipulated with the Turkish sultan, and ratified the
treaty by an oath of allegiance, from which he could absolve his
conscience so soon as the Mogul arms had retired from Anatolia.
But the fears and fancy of nations ascribed to the ambitious
Tamerlane a new design of vast and romantic compass; a design of
subduing Egypt and Africa, marching from the Nile to the Atlantic
Ocean, entering Europe by the Straits of Gibraltar, and, after
imposing his yoke on the kingdoms of Christendom, of returning
home by the deserts of Russia and Tartary. This remote, and
perhaps imaginary, danger was averted by the submission of the
sultan of Egypt: the honors of the prayer and the coin attested
at Cairo the supremacy of Timour; and a rare gift of a _giraffe_,
or camelopard, and nine ostriches, represented at Samarcand the
tribute of the African world. Our imagination is not less
astonished by the portrait of a Mogul, who, in his camp before
Smyrna, meditates, and almost accomplishes, the invasion of the
Chinese empire. 61 Timour was urged to this enterprise by
national honor and religious zeal. The torrents which he had shed
of Mussulman blood could be expiated only by an equal destruction
of the infidels; and as he now stood at the gates of paradise, he
might best secure his glorious entrance by demolishing the idols
of China, founding mosques in every city, and establishing the
profession of faith in one God, and his prophet Mahomet. The
recent expulsion of the house of Zingis was an insult on the
Mogul name; and the disorders of the empire afforded the fairest
opportunity for revenge. The illustrious Hongvou, founder of the
dynasty of _Ming_, died four years before the battle of Angora;
and his grandson, a weak and unfortunate youth, was burnt in his
palace, after a million of Chinese had perished in the civil war.
62 Before he evacuated Anatolia, Timour despatched beyond the
Sihoon a numerous army, or rather colony, of his old and new
subjects, to open the road, to subdue the Pagan Calmucks and
Mungals, and to found cities and magazines in the desert; and, by
the diligence of his lieutenant, he soon received a perfect map
and description of the unknown regions, from the source of the
Irtish to the wall of China. During these preparations, the
emperor achieved the final conquest of Georgia; passed the winter
on the banks of the Araxes; appeased the troubles of Persia; and
slowly returned to his capital, after a campaign of four years
and nine months.
59 (return) [ Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 25) describes, like a curious
traveller, the Straits of Gallipoli and Constantinople. To
acquire a just idea of these events, I have compared the
narratives and prejudices of the Moguls, Turks, Greeks, and
Arabians. The Spanish ambassador mentions this hostile union of
the Christians and Ottomans, (Vie de Timour, p. 96.)]
60 (return) [ Since the name of Cæsar had been transferred to the
sultans of Roum, the Greek princes of Constantinople
(Sherefeddin, l. v. c. 54) were confounded with the Christian
_lords_ of Gallipoli, Thessalonica, &c. under the title of
_Tekkur_, which is derived by corruption from the genitive tou
kuriou, (Cantemir, p. 51.)]
61 (return) [ See Sherefeddin, l. v. c. 4, who marks, in a just
itinerary, the road to China, which Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 33)
paints in vague and rhetorical colors.]
62 (return) [ Synopsis Hist. Sinicæ, p. 74—76, (in the ivth part
of the Relations de Thevenot,) Duhalde, Hist. de la Chine, (tom.
i. p. 507, 508, folio edition;) and for the Chronology of the
Chinese emperors, De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, (tom. i. p. 71,
72.)]
Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His
Death.—Part III.
On the throne of Samarcand, 63 he displayed, in a short repose,
his magnificence and power; listened to the complaints of the
people; distributed a just measure of rewards and punishments;
employed his riches in the architecture of palaces and temples;
and gave audience to the ambassadors of Egypt, Arabia, India,
Tartary, Russia, and Spain, the last of whom presented a suit of
tapestry which eclipsed the pencil of the Oriental artists. The
marriage of six of the emperor’s grandsons was esteemed an act of
religion as well as of paternal tenderness; and the pomp of the
ancient caliphs was revived in their nuptials. They were
celebrated in the gardens of Canighul, decorated with innumerable
tents and pavilions, which displayed the luxury of a great city
and the spoils of a victorious camp. Whole forests were cut down
to supply fuel for the kitchens; the plain was spread with
pyramids of meat, and vases of every liquor, to which thousands
of guests were courteously invited: the orders of the state, and
the nations of the earth, were marshalled at the royal banquet;
nor were the ambassadors of Europe (says the haughty Persian)
excluded from the feast; since even the _casses_, the smallest of
fish, find their place in the ocean. 64 The public joy was
testified by illuminations and masquerades; the trades of
Samarcand passed in review; and every trade was emulous to
execute some quaint device, some marvellous pageant, with the
materials of their peculiar art. After the marriage contracts had
been ratified by the cadhis, the bride-grooms and their brides
retired to the nuptial chambers: nine times, according to the
Asiatic fashion, they were dressed and undressed; and at each
change of apparel, pearls and rubies were showered on their
heads, and contemptuously abandoned to their attendants. A
general indulgence was proclaimed: every law was relaxed, every
pleasure was allowed; the people was free, the sovereign was
idle; and the historian of Timour may remark, that, after
devoting fifty years to the attainment of empire, the only happy
period of his life were the two months in which he ceased to
exercise his power. But he was soon awakened to the cares of
government and war. The standard was unfurled for the invasion of
China: the emirs made their report of two hundred thousand, the
select and veteran soldiers of Iran and Touran: their baggage and
provisions were transported by five hundred great wagons, and an
immense train of horses and camels; and the troops might prepare
for a long absence, since more than six months were employed in
the tranquil journey of a caravan from Samarcand to Pekin.
Neither age, nor the severity of the winter, could retard the
impatience of Timour; he mounted on horseback, passed the Sihoon
on the ice, marched seventy-six parasangs, three hundred miles,
from his capital, and pitched his last camp in the neighborhood
of Otrar, where he was expected by the angel of death. Fatigue,
and the indiscreet use of iced water, accelerated the progress of
his fever; and the conqueror of Asia expired in the seventieth
year of his age, thirty-five years after he had ascended the
throne of Zagatai. His designs were lost; his armies were
disbanded; China was saved; and fourteen years after his decease,
the most powerful of his children sent an embassy of friendship
and commerce to the court of Pekin. 65
63 (return) [ For the return, triumph, and death of Timour, see
Sherefeddin (l. vi. c. 1—30) and Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 36—47.)]
64 (return) [ Sherefeddin (l. vi. c. 24) mentions the ambassadors
of one of the most potent sovereigns of Europe. We know that it
was Henry III. king of Castile; and the curious relation of his
two embassies is still extant, (Mariana, Hist. Hispan. l. xix. c.
11, tom. ii. p. 329, 330. Avertissement à l’Hist. de Timur Bec,
p. 28—33.) There appears likewise to have been some
correspondence between the Mogul emperor and the court of Charles
VII. king of France, (Histoire de France, par Velly et Villaret,
tom. xii. p. 336.)]
65 (return) [ See the translation of the Persian account of their
embassy, a curious and original piece, (in the ivth part of the
Relations de Thevenot.) They presented the emperor of China with
an old horse which Timour had formerly rode. It was in the year
1419 that they departed from the court of Herat, to which place
they returned in 1422 from Pekin.]
The fame of Timour has pervaded the East and West: his posterity
is still invested with the Imperial _title_; and the admiration
of his subjects, who revered him almost as a deity, may be
justified in some degree by the praise or confession of his
bitterest enemies. 66 Although he was lame of a hand and foot,
his form and stature were not unworthy of his rank; and his
vigorous health, so essential to himself and to the world, was
corroborated by temperance and exercise. In his familiar
discourse he was grave and modest, and if he was ignorant of the
Arabic language, he spoke with fluency and elegance the Persian
and Turkish idioms. It was his delight to converse with the
learned on topics of history and science; and the amusement of
his leisure hours was the game of chess, which he improved or
corrupted with new refinements. 67 In his religion he was a
zealous, though not perhaps an orthodox, Mussulman; 68 but his
sound understanding may tempt us to believe, that a superstitious
reverence for omens and prophecies, for saints and astrologers,
was only affected as an instrument of policy. In the government
of a vast empire, he stood alone and absolute, without a rebel to
oppose his power, a favorite to seduce his affections, or a
minister to mislead his judgment. It was his firmest maxim, that
whatever might be the consequence, the word of the prince should
never be disputed or recalled; but his foes have maliciously
observed, that the commands of anger and destruction were more
strictly executed than those of beneficence and favor. His sons
and grandsons, of whom Timour left six-and-thirty at his decease,
were his first and most submissive subjects; and whenever they
deviated from their duty, they were corrected, according to the
laws of Zingis, with the bastinade, and afterwards restored to
honor and command. Perhaps his heart was not devoid of the social
virtues; perhaps he was not incapable of loving his friends and
pardoning his enemies; but the rules of morality are founded on
the public interest; and it may be sufficient to applaud the
_wisdom_ of a monarch, for the liberality by which he is not
impoverished, and for the justice by which he is strengthened and
enriched. To maintain the harmony of authority and obedience, to
chastise the proud, to protect the weak, to reward the deserving,
to banish vice and idleness from his dominions, to secure the
traveller and merchant, to restrain the depredations of the
soldier, to cherish the labors of the husbandman, to encourage
industry and learning, and, by an equal and moderate assessment,
to increase the revenue, without increasing the taxes, are indeed
the duties of a prince; but, in the discharge of these duties, he
finds an ample and immediate recompense. Timour might boast,
that, at his accession to the throne, Asia was the prey of
anarchy and rapine, whilst under his prosperous monarchy a child,
fearless and unhurt, might carry a purse of gold from the East to
the West. Such was his confidence of merit, that from this
reformation he derived an excuse for his victories, and a title
to universal dominion. The four following observations will serve
to appreciate his claim to the public gratitude; and perhaps we
shall conclude, that the Mogul emperor was rather the scourge
than the benefactor of mankind. _1._ If some partial disorders,
some local oppressions, were healed by the sword of Timour, the
remedy was far more pernicious than the disease. By their rapine,
cruelty, and discord, the petty tyrants of Persia might afflict
their subjects; but whole nations were crushed under the
footsteps of the reformer. The ground which had been occupied by
flourishing cities was often marked by his abominable trophies,
by columns, or pyramids, of human heads. Astracan, Carizme,
Delhi, Ispahan, Bagdad, Aleppo, Damascus, Boursa, Smyrna, and a
thousand others, were sacked, or burnt, or utterly destroyed, in
his presence, and by his troops: and perhaps his conscience would
have been startled, if a priest or philosopher had dared to
number the millions of victims whom he had sacrificed to the
establishment of peace and order. 69 _2._ His most destructive
wars were rather inroads than conquests. He invaded Turkestan,
Kipzak, Russia, Hindostan, Syria, Anatolia, Armenia, and Georgia,
without a hope or a desire of preserving those distant provinces.
From thence he departed laden with spoil; but he left behind him
neither troops to awe the contumacious, nor magistrates to
protect the obedient, natives. When he had broken the fabric of
their ancient government, he abandoned them to the evils which
his invasion had aggravated or caused; nor were these evils
compensated by any present or possible benefits. _3._ The
kingdoms of Transoxiana and Persia were the proper field which he
labored to cultivate and adorn, as the perpetual inheritance of
his family. But his peaceful labors were often interrupted, and
sometimes blasted, by the absence of the conqueror. While he
triumphed on the Volga or the Ganges, his servants, and even his
sons, forgot their master and their duty. The public and private
injuries were poorly redressed by the tardy rigor of inquiry and
punishment; and we must be content to praise the _Institutions_
of Timour, as the specious idea of a perfect monarchy. _4._
Whatsoever might be the blessings of his administration, they
evaporated with his life. To reign, rather than to govern, was
the ambition of his children and grandchildren; 70 the enemies of
each other and of the people. A fragment of the empire was upheld
with some glory by Sharokh, his youngest son; but after _his_
decease, the scene was again involved in darkness and blood; and
before the end of a century, Transoxiana and Persia were trampled
by the Uzbeks from the north, and the Turkmans of the black and
white sheep. The race of Timour would have been extinct, if a
hero, his descendant in the fifth degree, had not fled before the
Uzbek arms to the conquest of Hindostan. His successors (the
great Moguls 71) extended their sway from the mountains of
Cashmir to Cape Comorin, and from Candahar to the Gulf of Bengal.
Since the reign of Aurungzebe, their empire had been dissolved;
their treasures of Delhi have been rifled by a Persian robber;
and the richest of their kingdoms is now possessed by a company
of Christian merchants, of a remote island in the Northern Ocean.
66 (return) [ From Arabshah, tom. ii. c. 96. The bright or softer
colors are borrowed from Sherefeddin, D’Herbelot, and the
Institutions.]
67 (return) [ His new system was multiplied from 32 pieces and 64
squares to 56 pieces and 110 or 130 squares; but, except in his
court, the old game has been thought sufficiently elaborate. The
Mogul emperor was rather pleased than hurt with the victory of a
subject: a chess player will feel the value of this encomium!]
68 (return) [ See Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 15, 25. Arabshah tom.
ii. c. 96, p. 801, 803) approves the impiety of Timour and the
Moguls, who almost preferred to the Koran the _Yacsa_, or Law of
Zingis, (cui Deus maledicat;) nor will he believe that Sharokh
had abolished the use and authority of that Pagan code.]
69 (return) [ Besides the bloody passages of this narrative, I
must refer to an anticipation in the third volume of the Decline
and Fall, which in a single note (p. 234, note 25) accumulates
nearly 300,000 heads of the monuments of his cruelty. Except in
Rowe’s play on the fifth of November, I did not expect to hear of
Timour’s amiable moderation (White’s preface, p. 7.) Yet I can
excuse a generous enthusiasm in the reader, and still more in the
editor, of the _Institutions_.]
70 (return) [ Consult the last chapters of Sherefeddin and
Arabshah, and M. De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. l. xx.)
Fraser’s History of Nadir Shah, (p. 1—62.) The story of Timour’s
descendants is imperfectly told; and the second and third parts
of Sherefeddin are unknown.]
71 (return) [ Shah Allum, the present Mogul, is in the fourteenth
degree from Timour, by Miran Shah, his third son. See the second
volume of Dow’s History of Hindostan.]
Far different was the fate of the Ottoman monarchy. The massy
trunk was bent to the ground, but no sooner did the hurricane
pass away, than it again rose with fresh vigor and more lively
vegetation. When Timour, in every sense, had evacuated Anatolia,
he left the cities without a palace, a treasure, or a king. The
open country was overspread with hordes of shepherds and robbers
of Tartar or Turkman origin; the recent conquests of Bajazet were
restored to the emirs, one of whom, in base revenge, demolished
his sepulchre; and his five sons were eager, by civil discord, to
consume the remnant of their patrimony. I shall enumerate their
names in the order of their age and actions. 72 _1._ It is
doubtful, whether I relate the story of the true _Mustapha_, or
of an impostor who personated that lost prince. He fought by his
father’s side in the battle of Angora: but when the captive
sultan was permitted to inquire for his children, Mousa alone
could be found; and the Turkish historians, the slaves of the
triumphant faction, are persuaded that his brother was confounded
among the slain. If Mustapha escaped from that disastrous field,
he was concealed twelve years from his friends and enemies; till
he emerged in Thessaly, and was hailed by a numerous party, as
the son and successor of Bajazet. His first defeat would have
been his last, had not the true, or false, Mustapha been saved by
the Greeks, and restored, after the decease of his brother
Mahomet, to liberty and empire. A degenerate mind seemed to argue
his spurious birth; and if, on the throne of Adrianople, he was
adored as the Ottoman sultan, his flight, his fetters, and an
ignominious gibbet, delivered the impostor to popular contempt. A
similar character and claim was asserted by several rival
pretenders: thirty persons are said to have suffered under the
name of Mustapha; and these frequent executions may perhaps
insinuate, that the Turkish court was not perfectly secure of the
death of the lawful prince. _2._ After his father’s captivity,
Isa 73 reigned for some time in the neighborhood of Angora,
Sinope, and the Black Sea; and his ambassadors were dismissed
from the presence of Timour with fair promises and honorable
gifts. But their master was soon deprived of his province and
life, by a jealous brother, the sovereign of Amasia; and the
final event suggested a pious allusion, that the law of Moses and
Jesus, of _Isa_ and _Mousa_, had been abrogated by the greater
Mahomet. _3._ _Soliman_ is not numbered in the list of the
Turkish emperors: yet he checked the victorious progress of the
Moguls; and after their departure, united for a while the thrones
of Adrianople and Boursa. In war he was brave, active, and
fortunate; his courage was softened by clemency; but it was
likewise inflamed by presumption, and corrupted by intemperance
and idleness. He relaxed the nerves of discipline, in a
government where either the subject or the sovereign must
continually tremble: his vices alienated the chiefs of the army
and the law; and his daily drunkenness, so contemptible in a
prince and a man, was doubly odious in a disciple of the prophet.
In the slumber of intoxication he was surprised by his brother
Mousa; and as he fled from Adrianople towards the Byzantine
capital, Soliman was overtaken and slain in a bath, 731 after a
reign of seven years and ten months. _4._ The investiture of
Mousa degraded him as the slave of the Moguls: his tributary
kingdom of Anatolia was confined within a narrow limit, nor could
his broken militia and empty treasury contend with the hardy and
veteran bands of the sovereign of Romania. Mousa fled in disguise
from the palace of Boursa; traversed the Propontis in an open
boat; wandered over the Walachian and Servian hills; and after
some vain attempts, ascended the throne of Adrianople, so
recently stained with the blood of Soliman. In a reign of three
years and a half, his troops were victorious against the
Christians of Hungary and the Morea; but Mousa was ruined by his
timorous disposition and unseasonable clemency. After resigning
the sovereignty of Anatolia, he fell a victim to the perfidy of
his ministers, and the superior ascendant of his brother Mahomet.
_5._The final victory of Mahomet was the just recompense of his
prudence and moderation. Before his father’s captivity, the royal
youth had been intrusted with the government of Amasia, thirty
days’ journey from Constantinople, and the Turkish frontier
against the Christians of Trebizond and Georgia. The castle, in
Asiatic warfare, was esteemed impregnable; and the city of
Amasia, 74 which is equally divided by the River Iris, rises on
either side in the form of an amphitheatre, and represents on a
smaller scale the image of Bagdad. In his rapid career, Timour
appears to have overlooked this obscure and contumacious angle of
Anatolia; and Mahomet, without provoking the conqueror,
maintained his silent independence, and chased from the province
the last stragglers of the Tartar host. 741 He relieved himself
from the dangerous neighborhood of Isa; but in the contests of
their more powerful brethren his firm neutrality was respected;
till, after the triumph of Mousa, he stood forth the heir and
avenger of the unfortunate Soliman. Mahomet obtained Anatolia by
treaty, and Romania by arms; and the soldier who presented him
with the head of Mousa was rewarded as the benefactor of his king
and country. The eight years of his sole and peaceful reign were
usefully employed in banishing the vices of civil discord, and
restoring on a firmer basis the fabric of the Ottoman monarchy.
His last care was the choice of two viziers, Bajazet and Ibrahim,
75 who might guide the youth of his son Amurath; and such was
their union and prudence, that they concealed above forty days
the emperor’s death, till the arrival of his successor in the
palace of Boursa. A new war was kindled in Europe by the prince,
or impostor, Mustapha; the first vizier lost his army and his
head; but the more fortunate Ibrahim, whose name and family are
still revered, extinguished the last pretender to the throne of
Bajazet, and closed the scene of domestic hostility.
72 (return) [ The civil wars, from the death of Bajazet to that
of Mustapha, are related, according to the Turks, by Demetrius
Cantemir, (p. 58—82.) Of the Greeks, Chalcondyles, (l. iv. and
v.,) Phranza, (l. i. c. 30—32,) and Ducas, (c. 18—27,) the last
is the most copious and best informed.]
73 (return) [ Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 26,) whose testimony on this
occasion is weighty and valuable. The existence of Isa (unknown
to the Turks) is likewise confirmed by Sherefeddin, (l. v. c.
57.)]
731 (return) [ He escaped from the bath, and fled towards
Constantinople. Five mothers from a village, Dugundschi, whose
inhabitants had suffered severely from the exactions of his
officers, recognized and followed him. Soliman shot two of them,
the others discharged their arrows in their turn the sultan fell
and his head was cut off. V. Hammer, vol. i. p. 349.—M.]
74 (return) [ Arabshah, loc. citat. Abulfeda, Geograph. tab.
xvii. p. 302. Busbequius, epist. i. p. 96, 97, in Itinere C. P.
et Amasiano.]
741 (return) [ See his nine battles. V. Hammer, p. 339.—M.]
75 (return) [ The virtues of Ibrahim are praised by a
contemporary Greek, (Ducas, c. 25.) His descendants are the sole
nobles in Turkey: they content themselves with the administration
of his pious foundations, are excused from public offices, and
receive two annual visits from the sultan, (Cantemir, p. 76.)]
In these conflicts, the wisest Turks, and indeed the body of the
nation, were strongly attached to the unity of the empire; and
Romania and Anatolia, so often torn asunder by private ambition,
were animated by a strong and invincible tendency of cohesion.
Their efforts might have instructed the Christian powers; and had
they occupied, with a confederate fleet, the Straits of
Gallipoli, the Ottomans, at least in Europe, must have been
speedily annihilated. But the schism of the West, and the
factions and wars of France and England, diverted the Latins from
this generous enterprise: they enjoyed the present respite,
without a thought of futurity; and were often tempted by a
momentary interest to serve the common enemy of their religion. A
colony of Genoese, 76 which had been planted at Phocæa 77 on the
Ionian coast, was enriched by the lucrative monopoly of alum; 78
and their tranquillity, under the Turkish empire, was secured by
the annual payment of tribute. In the last civil war of the
Ottomans, the Genoese governor, Adorno, a bold and ambitious
youth, embraced the party of Amurath; and undertook, with seven
stout galleys, to transport him from Asia to Europe. The sultan
and five hundred guards embarked on board the admiral’s ship;
which was manned by eight hundred of the bravest Franks. His life
and liberty were in their hands; nor can we, without reluctance,
applaud the fidelity of Adorno, who, in the midst of the passage,
knelt before him, and gratefully accepted a discharge of his
arrears of tribute. They landed in sight of Mustapha and
Gallipoli; two thousand Italians, armed with lances and
battle-axes, attended Amurath to the conquest of Adrianople; and
this venal service was soon repaid by the ruin of the commerce
and colony of Phocæa.
76 (return) [ See Pachymer, (l. v. c. 29,) Nicephorus Gregoras,
(l. ii. c. 1,) Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 57,) and Ducas, (c. 25.)
The last of these, a curious and careful observer, is entitled,
from his birth and station, to particular credit in all that
concerns Ionia and the islands. Among the nations that resorted
to New Phocæa, he mentions the English; ('Igglhnoi;) an early
evidence of Mediterranean trade.]
77 (return) [ For the spirit of navigation, and freedom of
ancient Phocæa, or rather the Phocæans, consult the first book of
Herodotus, and the Geographical Index of his last and learned
French translator, M. Larcher (tom. vii. p. 299.)]
78 (return) [ Phocæa is not enumerated by Pliny (Hist. Nat. xxxv.
52) among the places productive of alum: he reckons Egypt as the
first, and for the second the Isle of Melos, whose alum mines are
described by Tournefort, (tom. i. lettre iv.,) a traveller and a
naturalist. After the loss of Phocæa, the Genoese, in 1459, found
that useful mineral in the Isle of Ischia, (Ismael. Bouillaud, ad
Ducam, c. 25.)]
If Timour had generously marched at the request, and to the
relief, of the Greek emperor, he might be entitled to the praise
and gratitude of the Christians. 79 But a Mussulman, who carried
into Georgia the sword of persecution, and respected the holy
warfare of Bajazet, was not disposed to pity or succor the
_idolaters_ of Europe. The Tartar followed the impulse of
ambition; and the deliverance of Constantinople was the
accidental consequence. When Manuel abdicated the government, it
was his prayer, rather than his hope, that the ruin of the church
and state might be delayed beyond his unhappy days; and after his
return from a western pilgrimage, he expected every hour the news
of the sad catastrophe. On a sudden, he was astonished and
rejoiced by the intelligence of the retreat, the overthrow, and
the captivity of the Ottoman. Manuel 80 immediately sailed from
Modon in the Morea; ascended the throne of Constantinople, and
dismissed his blind competitor to an easy exile in the Isle of
Lesbos. The ambassadors of the son of Bajazet were soon
introduced to his presence; but their pride was fallen, their
tone was modest: they were awed by the just apprehension, lest
the Greeks should open to the Moguls the gates of Europe. Soliman
saluted the emperor by the name of father; solicited at his hands
the government or gift of Romania; and promised to deserve his
favor by inviolable friendship, and the restitution of
Thessalonica, with the most important places along the Strymon,
the Propontis, and the Black Sea. The alliance of Soliman exposed
the emperor to the enmity and revenge of Mousa: the Turks
appeared in arms before the gates of Constantinople; but they
were repulsed by sea and land; and unless the city was guarded by
some foreign mercenaries, the Greeks must have wondered at their
own triumph. But, instead of prolonging the division of the
Ottoman powers, the policy or passion of Manuel was tempted to
assist the most formidable of the sons of Bajazet. He concluded a
treaty with Mahomet, whose progress was checked by the
insuperable barrier of Gallipoli: the sultan and his troops were
transported over the Bosphorus; he was hospitably entertained in
the capital; and his successful sally was the first step to the
conquest of Romania. The ruin was suspended by the prudence and
moderation of the conqueror: he faithfully discharged his own
obligations and those of Soliman, respected the laws of gratitude
and peace; and left the emperor guardian of his two younger sons,
in the vain hope of saving them from the jealous cruelty of their
brother Amurath. But the execution of his last testament would
have offended the national honor and religion; and the divan
unanimously pronounced, that the royal youths should never be
abandoned to the custody and education of a Christian dog. On
this refusal, the Byzantine councils were divided; but the age
and caution of Manuel yielded to the presumption of his son John;
and they unsheathed a dangerous weapon of revenge, by dismissing
the true or false Mustapha, who had long been detained as a
captive and hostage, and for whose maintenance they received an
annual pension of three hundred thousand aspers. 81 At the door
of his prison, Mustapha subscribed to every proposal; and the
keys of Gallipoli, or rather of Europe, were stipulated as the
price of his deliverance. But no sooner was he seated on the
throne of Romania, than he dismissed the Greek ambassadors with a
smile of contempt, declaring, in a pious tone, that, at the day
of judgment, he would rather answer for the violation of an oath,
than for the surrender of a Mussulman city into the hands of the
infidels. The emperor was at once the enemy of the two rivals;
from whom he had sustained, and to whom he had offered, an
injury; and the victory of Amurath was followed, in the ensuing
spring, by the siege of Constantinople. 82
79 (return) [ The writer who has the most abused this fabulous
generosity, is our ingenious Sir William Temple, (his Works, vol.
iii. p. 349, 350, octavo edition,) that lover of exotic virtue.
After the conquest of Russia, &c., and the passage of the Danube,
his Tartar hero relieves, visits, admires, and refuses the city
of Constantine. His flattering pencil deviates in every line from
the truth of history; yet his pleasing fictions are more
excusable than the gross errors of Cantemir.]
80 (return) [ For the reigns of Manuel and John, of Mahomet I.
and Amurath II., see the Othman history of Cantemir, (p. 70—95,)
and the three Greeks, Chalcondyles, Phranza, and Ducas, who is
still superior to his rivals.]
81 (return) [ The Turkish asper (from the Greek asproV) is, or
was, a piece of _white_ or silver money, at present much debased,
but which was formerly equivalent to the 54th part, at least, of
a Venetian ducat or sequin; and the 300,000 aspers, a princely
allowance or royal tribute, may be computed at 2500_l_. sterling,
(Leunclav. Pandect. Turc. p. 406—408.) * Note: According to Von
Hammer, this calculation is much too low. The asper was a century
before the time of which writes, the tenth part of a ducat; for
the same tribute which the Byzantine writers state at 300,000
aspers the Ottomans state at 30,000 ducats, about 15000l Note,
vol. p. 636.—M.]
82 (return) [ For the siege of Constantinople in 1422, see the
particular and contemporary narrative of John Cananus, published
by Leo Allatius, at the end of his edition of Acropolita, (p.
188—199.)]
The religious merit of subduing the city of the Cæsars attracted
from Asia a crowd of volunteers, who aspired to the crown of
martyrdom: their military ardor was inflamed by the promise of
rich spoils and beautiful females; and the sultan’s ambition was
consecrated by the presence and prediction of Seid Bechar, a
descendant of the prophet, 83 who arrived in the camp, on a mule,
with a venerable train of five hundred disciples. But he might
blush, if a fanatic could blush, at the failure of his
assurances. The strength of the walls resisted an army of two
hundred thousand Turks; their assaults were repelled by the
sallies of the Greeks and their foreign mercenaries; the old
resources of defence were opposed to the new engines of attack;
and the enthusiasm of the dervis, who was snatched to heaven in
visionary converse with Mahomet, was answered by the credulity of
the Christians, who _beheld_ the Virgin Mary, in a violet
garment, walking on the rampart and animating their courage. 84
After a siege of two months, Amurath was recalled to Boursa by a
domestic revolt, which had been kindled by Greek treachery, and
was soon extinguished by the death of a guiltless brother. While
he led his Janizaries to new conquests in Europe and Asia, the
Byzantine empire was indulged in a servile and precarious respite
of thirty years. Manuel sank into the grave; and John Palæologus
was permitted to reign, for an annual tribute of three hundred
thousand aspers, and the dereliction of almost all that he held
beyond the suburbs of Constantinople.
83 (return) [ Cantemir, p. 80. Cananus, who describes Seid
Bechar, without naming him, supposes that the friend of Mahomet
assumed in his amours the privilege of a prophet, and that the
fairest of the Greek nuns were promised to the saint and his
disciples.]
84 (return) [ For this miraculous apparition, Cananus appeals to
the Mussulman saint; but who will bear testimony for Seid
Bechar?]
In the establishment and restoration of the Turkish empire, the
first merit must doubtless be assigned to the personal qualities
of the sultans; since, in human life, the most important scenes
will depend on the character of a single actor. By some shades of
wisdom and virtue, they may be discriminated from each other;
but, except in a single instance, a period of nine reigns, and
two hundred and sixty-five years, is occupied, from the elevation
of Othman to the death of Soliman, by a rare series of warlike
and active princes, who impressed their subjects with obedience
and their enemies with terror. Instead of the slothful luxury of
the seraglio, the heirs of royalty were educated in the council
and the field: from early youth they were intrusted by their
fathers with the command of provinces and armies; and this manly
institution, which was often productive of civil war, must have
essentially contributed to the discipline and vigor of the
monarchy. The Ottomans cannot style themselves, like the Arabian
caliphs, the descendants or successors of the apostle of God; and
the kindred which they claim with the Tartar khans of the house
of Zingis appears to be founded in flattery rather than in truth.
85 Their origin is obscure; but their sacred and indefeasible
right, which no time can erase, and no violence can infringe, was
soon and unalterably implanted in the minds of their subjects. A
weak or vicious sultan may be deposed and strangled; but his
inheritance devolves to an infant or an idiot: nor has the most
daring rebel presumed to ascend the throne of his lawful
sovereign. 86
85 (return) [ See Ricaut, (l. i. c. 13.) The Turkish sultans
assume the title of khan. Yet Abulghazi is ignorant of his
Ottoman cousins.]
86 (return) [ The third grand vizier of the name of Kiuperli, who
was slain at the battle of Salankanen in 1691, (Cantemir, p.
382,) presumed to say that all the successors of Soliman had been
fools or tyrants, and that it was time to abolish the race,
(Marsigli Stato Militaire, &c., p. 28.) This political heretic
was a good Whig, and justified against the French ambassador the
revolution of England, (Mignot, Hist. des Ottomans, tom. iii. p.
434.) His presumption condemns the singular exception of
continuing offices in the same family.]
While the transient dynasties of Asia have been continually
subverted by a crafty vizier in the palace, or a victorious
general in the camp, the Ottoman succession has been confirmed by
the practice of five centuries, and is now incorporated with the
vital principle of the Turkish nation.
To the spirit and constitution of that nation, a strong and
singular influence may, however, be ascribed. The primitive
subjects of Othman were the four hundred families of wandering
Turkmans, who had followed his ancestors from the Oxus to the
Sangar; and the plains of Anatolia are still covered with the
white and black tents of their rustic brethren. But this original
drop was dissolved in the mass of voluntary and vanquished
subjects, who, under the name of Turks, are united by the common
ties of religion, language, and manners. In the cities, from
Erzeroum to Belgrade, that national appellation is common to all
the Moslems, the first and most honorable inhabitants; but they
have abandoned, at least in Romania, the villages, and the
cultivation of the land, to the Christian peasants. In the
vigorous age of the Ottoman government, the Turks were themselves
excluded from all civil and military honors; and a servile class,
an artificial people, was raised by the discipline of education
to obey, to conquer, and to command. 87 From the time of Orchan
and the first Amurath, the sultans were persuaded that a
government of the sword must be renewed in each generation with
new soldiers; and that such soldiers must be sought, not in
effeminate Asia, but among the hardy and warlike natives of
Europe. The provinces of Thrace, Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria,
and Servia, became the perpetual seminary of the Turkish army;
and when the royal fifth of the captives was diminished by
conquest, an inhuman tax of the fifth child, or of every fifth
year, was rigorously levied on the Christian families. At the age
of twelve or fourteen years, the most robust youths were torn
from their parents; their names were enrolled in a book; and from
that moment they were clothed, taught, and maintained, for the
public service. According to the promise of their appearance,
they were selected for the royal schools of Boursa, Pera, and
Adrianople, intrusted to the care of the bashaws, or dispersed in
the houses of the Anatolian peasantry. It was the first care of
their masters to instruct them in the Turkish language: their
bodies were exercised by every labor that could fortify their
strength; they learned to wrestle, to leap, to run, to shoot with
the bow, and afterwards with the musket; till they were drafted
into the chambers and companies of the Janizaries, and severely
trained in the military or monastic discipline of the order. The
youths most conspicuous for birth, talents, and beauty, were
admitted into the inferior class of _Agiamoglans_, or the more
liberal rank of _Ichoglans_, of whom the former were attached to
the palace, and the latter to the person, of the prince. In four
successive schools, under the rod of the white eunuchs, the arts
of horsemanship and of darting the javelin were their daily
exercise, while those of a more studious cast applied themselves
to the study of the Koran, and the knowledge of the Arabic and
Persian tongues. As they advanced in seniority and merit, they
were gradually dismissed to military, civil, and even
ecclesiastical employments: the longer their stay, the higher was
their expectation; till, at a mature period, they were admitted
into the number of the forty agas, who stood before the sultan,
and were promoted by his choice to the government of provinces
and the first honors of the empire. 88 Such a mode of institution
was admirably adapted to the form and spirit of a despotic
monarchy. The ministers and generals were, in the strictest
sense, the slaves of the emperor, to whose bounty they were
indebted for their instruction and support. When they left the
seraglio, and suffered their beards to grow as the symbol of
enfranchisement, they found themselves in an important office,
without faction or friendship, without parents and without heirs,
dependent on the hand which had raised them from the dust, and
which, on the slightest displeasure, could break in pieces these
statues of glass, as they were aptly termed by the Turkish
proverb. 89 In the slow and painful steps of education, their
characters and talents were unfolded to a discerning eye: the
_man_, naked and alone, was reduced to the standard of his
personal merit; and, if the sovereign had wisdom to choose, he
possessed a pure and boundless liberty of choice. The Ottoman
candidates were trained by the virtues of abstinence to those of
action; by the habits of submission to those of command. A
similar spirit was diffused among the troops; and their silence
and sobriety, their patience and modesty, have extorted the
reluctant praise of their Christian enemies. 90 Nor can the
victory appear doubtful, if we compare the discipline and
exercise of the Janizaries with the pride of birth, the
independence of chivalry, the ignorance of the new levies, the
mutinous temper of the veterans, and the vices of intemperance
and disorder, which so long contaminated the armies of Europe.
87 (return) [ Chalcondyles (l. v.) and Ducas (c. 23) exhibit the
rude lineament of the Ottoman policy, and the transmutation of
Christian children into Turkish soldiers.]
88 (return) [ This sketch of the Turkish education and discipline
is chiefly borrowed from Ricaut’s State of the Ottoman Empire,
the Stato Militaire del’ Imperio Ottomano of Count Marsigli, (in
Haya, 1732, in folio,) and a description of the Seraglio,
approved by Mr. Greaves himself, a curious traveller, and
inserted in the second volume of his works.]
89 (return) [ From the series of cxv. viziers, till the siege of
Vienna, (Marsigli, p. 13,) their place may be valued at three
years and a half purchase.]
90 (return) [ See the entertaining and judicious letters of
Busbequius.]
The only hope of salvation for the Greek empire, and the adjacent
kingdoms, would have been some more powerful weapon, some
discovery in the art of war, that would give them a decisive
superiority over their Turkish foes. Such a weapon was in their
hands; such a discovery had been made in the critical moment of
their fate. The chemists of China or Europe had found, by casual
or elaborate experiments, that a mixture of saltpetre, sulphur,
and charcoal, produces, with a spark of fire, a tremendous
explosion. It was soon observed, that if the expansive force were
compressed in a strong tube, a ball of stone or iron might be
expelled with irresistible and destructive velocity. The precise
æra of the invention and application of gunpowder 91 is involved
in doubtful traditions and equivocal language; yet we may clearly
discern, that it was known before the middle of the fourteenth
century; and that before the end of the same, the use of
artillery in battles and sieges, by sea and land, was familiar to
the states of Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and England. 92 The
priority of nations is of small account; none could derive any
exclusive benefit from their previous or superior knowledge; and
in the common improvement, they stood on the same level of
relative power and military science. Nor was it possible to
circumscribe the secret within the pale of the church; it was
disclosed to the Turks by the treachery of apostates and the
selfish policy of rivals; and the sultans had sense to adopt, and
wealth to reward, the talents of a Christian engineer. The
Genoese, who transported Amurath into Europe, must be accused as
his preceptors; and it was probably by their hands that his
cannon was cast and directed at the siege of Constantinople. 93
The first attempt was indeed unsuccessful; but in the general
warfare of the age, the advantage was on _their_ side, who were
most commonly the assailants: for a while the proportion of the
attack and defence was suspended; and this thundering artillery
was pointed against the walls and towers which had been erected
only to resist the less potent engines of antiquity. By the
Venetians, the use of gunpowder was communicated without reproach
to the sultans of Egypt and Persia, their allies against the
Ottoman power; the secret was soon propagated to the extremities
of Asia; and the advantage of the European was confined to his
easy victories over the savages of the new world. If we contrast
the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery with the slow
and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace,
a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the
folly of mankind.
91 (return) [ The first and second volumes of Dr. Watson’s
Chemical Essays contain two valuable discourses on the discovery
and composition of gunpowder.]
92 (return) [ On this subject modern testimonies cannot be
trusted. The original passages are collected by Ducange, (Gloss.
Latin. tom. i. p. 675, _Bombarda_.) But in the early doubtful
twilight, the name, sound, fire, and effect, that seem to express
_our_ artillery, may be fairly interpreted of the old engines and
the Greek fire. For the English cannon at Crecy, the authority of
John Villani (Chron. l. xii. c. 65) must be weighed against the
silence of Froissard. Yet Muratori (Antiquit. Italiæ Medii Ævi,
tom. ii. Dissert. xxvi. p. 514, 515) has produced a decisive
passage from Petrarch, (De Remediis utriusque Fortunæ Dialog.,)
who, before the year 1344, execrates this terrestrial thunder,
_nuper_ rara, _nunc_ communis. * Note: Mr. Hallam makes the
following observation on the objection thrown our by Gibbon: “The
positive testimony of Villani, who died within two years
afterwards, and had manifestly obtained much information as to
the great events passing in France, cannot be rejected. He
ascribes a material effect to the cannon of Edward, Colpi delle
bombarde, which I suspect, from his strong expressions, had not
been employed before, except against stone walls. It seems, he
says, as if God thundered con grande uccisione di genti e
efondamento di cavalli.” Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 510.—M.]
93 (return) [ The Turkish cannon, which Ducas (c. 30) first
introduces before Belgrade, (A.D. 1436,) is mentioned by
Chalcondyles (l. v. p. 123) in 1422, at the siege of
Constantinople.]
Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.—Part I.
Applications Of The Eastern Emperors To The Popes.—Visits To The
West, Of John The First, Manuel, And John The Second,
Palæologus.—Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches, Promoted By The
Council Of Basil, And Concluded At Ferrara And Florence.—State Of
Literature At Constantinople.—Its Revival In Italy By The Greek
Fugitives.—Curiosity And Emulation Of The Latins.
In the four last centuries of the Greek emperors, their friendly
or hostile aspect towards the pope and the Latins may be observed
as the thermometer of their prosperity or distress; as the scale
of the rise and fall of the Barbarian dynasties. When the Turks
of the house of Seljuk pervaded Asia, and threatened
Constantinople, we have seen, at the council of Placentia, the
suppliant ambassadors of Alexius imploring the protection of the
common father of the Christians. No sooner had the arms of the
French pilgrims removed the sultan from Nice to Iconium, than the
Greek princes resumed, or avowed, their genuine hatred and
contempt for the schismatics of the West, which precipitated the
first downfall of their empire. The date of the Mogul invasion is
marked in the soft and charitable language of John Vataces. After
the recovery of Constantinople, the throne of the first
Palæologus was encompassed by foreign and domestic enemies; as
long as the sword of Charles was suspended over his head, he
basely courted the favor of the Roman pontiff; and sacrificed to
the present danger his faith, his virtue, and the affection of
his subjects. On the decease of Michael, the prince and people
asserted the independence of their church, and the purity of
their creed: the elder Andronicus neither feared nor loved the
Latins; in his last distress, pride was the safeguard of
superstition; nor could he decently retract in his age the firm
and orthodox declarations of his youth. His grandson, the younger
Andronicus, was less a slave in his temper and situation; and the
conquest of Bithynia by the Turks admonished him to seek a
temporal and spiritual alliance with the Western princes. After a
separation and silence of fifty years, a secret agent, the monk
Barlaam, was despatched to Pope Benedict the Twelfth; and his
artful instructions appear to have been drawn by the master-hand
of the great domestic. 1 “Most holy father,” was he commissioned
to say, “the emperor is not less desirous than yourself of a
union between the two churches: but in this delicate transaction,
he is obliged to respect his own dignity and the prejudices of
his subjects. The ways of union are twofold; force and
persuasion. Of force, the inefficacy has been already tried;
since the Latins have subdued the empire, without subduing the
minds, of the Greeks. The method of persuasion, though slow, is
sure and permanent. A deputation of thirty or forty of our
doctors would probably agree with those of the Vatican, in the
love of truth and the unity of belief; but on their return, what
would be the use, the recompense, of such an agreement? the scorn
of their brethren, and the reproaches of a blind and obstinate
nation. Yet that nation is accustomed to reverence the general
councils, which have fixed the articles of our faith; and if they
reprobate the decrees of Lyons, it is because the Eastern
churches were neither heard nor represented in that arbitrary
meeting. For this salutary end, it will be expedient, and even
necessary, that a well-chosen legate should be sent into Greece,
to convene the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch,
and Jerusalem; and, with their aid, to prepare a free and
universal synod. But at this moment,” continued the subtle agent,
“the empire is assaulted and endangered by the Turks, who have
occupied four of the greatest cities of Anatolia. The Christian
inhabitants have expressed a wish of returning to their
allegiance and religion; but the forces and revenues of the
emperor are insufficient for their deliverance: and the Roman
legate must be accompanied, or preceded, by an army of Franks, to
expel the infidels, and open a way to the holy sepulchre.” If the
suspicious Latins should require some pledge, some previous
effect of the sincerity of the Greeks, the answers of Barlaam
were perspicuous and rational. “_1._ A general synod can alone
consummate the union of the churches; nor can such a synod be
held till the three Oriental patriarchs, and a great number of
bishops, are enfranchised from the Mahometan yoke. _2._ The
Greeks are alienated by a long series of oppression and injury:
they must be reconciled by some act of brotherly love, some
effectual succor, which may fortify the authority and arguments
of the emperor, and the friends of the union. _3._ If some
difference of faith or ceremonies should be found incurable, the
Greeks, however, are the disciples of Christ; and the Turks are
the common enemies of the Christian name. The Armenians,
Cyprians, and Rhodians, are equally attacked; and it will become
the piety of the French princes to draw their swords in the
general defence of religion. _4._ Should the subjects of
Andronicus be treated as the worst of schismatics, of heretics,
of pagans, a judicious policy may yet instruct the powers of the
West to embrace a useful ally, to uphold a sinking empire, to
guard the confines of Europe; and rather to join the Greeks
against the Turks, than to expect the union of the Turkish arms
with the troops and treasures of captive Greece.” The reasons,
the offers, and the demands, of Andronicus were eluded with cold
and stately indifference. The kings of France and Naples declined
the dangers and glory of a crusade; the pope refused to call a
new synod to determine old articles of faith; and his regard for
the obsolete claims of the Latin emperor and clergy engaged him
to use an offensive superscription,—“To the _moderator_ 2 of the
Greeks, and the persons who style themselves the patriarchs of
the Eastern churches.” For such an embassy, a time and character
less propitious could not easily have been found. Benedict the
Twelfth 3 was a dull peasant, perplexed with scruples, and
immersed in sloth and wine: his pride might enrich with a third
crown the papal tiara, but he was alike unfit for the regal and
the pastoral office.
1 (return) [ This curious instruction was transcribed (I believe)
from the Vatican archives, by Odoricus Raynaldus, in his
Continuation of the Annals of Baronius, (Romæ, 1646—1677, in x.
volumes in folio.) I have contented myself with the Abbé Fleury,
(Hist. Ecclésiastique. tom. xx. p. 1—8,) whose abstracts I have
always found to be clear, accurate, and impartial.]
2 (return) [ The ambiguity of this title is happy or ingenious;
and _moderator_, as synonymous to _rector_, _gubernator_, is a
word of classical, and even Ciceronian, Latinity, which may be
found, not in the Glossary of Ducange, but in the Thesaurus of
Robert Stephens.]
3 (return) [ The first epistle (sine titulo) of Petrarch exposes
the danger of the _bark_, and the incapacity of the _pilot_. Hæc
inter, vino madidus, ævo gravis, ac soporifero rore perfusus,
jamjam nutitat, dormitat, jam somno præceps, atque (utinam solus)
ruit..... Heu quanto felicius patrio terram sulcasset aratro,
quam scalmum piscatorium ascendisset! This satire engages his
biographer to weigh the virtues and vices of Benedict XII. which
have been exaggerated by Guelphs and Ghibe lines, by Papists and
Protestants, (see Mémoires sur la Vie de Pétrarque, tom. i. p.
259, ii. not. xv. p. 13—16.) He gave occasion to the saying,
Bibamus papaliter.]
After the decease of Andronicus, while the Greeks were distracted
by intestine war, they could not presume to agitate a general
union of the Christians. But as soon as Cantacuzene had subdued
and pardoned his enemies, he was anxious to justify, or at least
to extenuate, the introduction of the Turks into Europe, and the
nuptials of his daughter with a Mussulman prince. Two officers of
state, with a Latin interpreter, were sent in his name to the
Roman court, which was transplanted to Avignon, on the banks of
the Rhône, during a period of seventy years: they represented the
hard necessity which had urged him to embrace the alliance of the
miscreants, and pronounced by his command the specious and
edifying sounds of union and crusade. Pope Clement the Sixth, 4
the successor of Benedict, received them with hospitality and
honor, acknowledged the innocence of their sovereign, excused his
distress, applauded his magnanimity, and displayed a clear
knowledge of the state and revolutions of the Greek empire, which
he had imbibed from the honest accounts of a Savoyard lady, an
attendant of the empress Anne. 5 If Clement was ill endowed with
the virtues of a priest, he possessed, however, the spirit and
magnificence of a prince, whose liberal hand distributed
benefices and kingdoms with equal facility. Under his reign
Avignon was the seat of pomp and pleasure: in his youth he had
surpassed the licentiousness of a baron; and the palace, nay, the
bed-chamber of the pope, was adorned, or polluted, by the visits
of his female favorites. The wars of France and England were
adverse to the holy enterprise; but his vanity was amused by the
splendid idea; and the Greek ambassadors returned with two Latin
bishops, the ministers of the pontiff. On their arrival at
Constantinople, the emperor and the nuncios admired each other’s
piety and eloquence; and their frequent conferences were filled
with mutual praises and promises, by which both parties were
amused, and neither could be deceived. “I am delighted,” said the
devout Cantacuzene, “with the project of our holy war, which must
redound to my personal glory, as well as to the public benefit of
Christendom. My dominions will give a free passage to the armies
of France: my troops, my galleys, my treasures, shall be
consecrated to the common cause; and happy would be my fate,
could I deserve and obtain the crown of martyrdom. Words are
insufficient to express the ardor with which I sigh for the
reunion of the scattered members of Christ. If my death could
avail, I would gladly present my sword and my neck: if the
spiritual phnix could arise from my ashes, I would erect the
pile, and kindle the flame with my own hands.” Yet the Greek
emperor presumed to observe, that the articles of faith which
divided the two churches had been introduced by the pride and
precipitation of the Latins: he disclaimed the servile and
arbitrary steps of the first Palæologus; and firmly declared,
that he would never submit his conscience unless to the decrees
of a free and universal synod. “The situation of the times,”
continued he, “will not allow the pope and myself to meet either
at Rome or Constantinople; but some maritime city may be chosen
on the verge of the two empires, to unite the bishops, and to
instruct the faithful, of the East and West.” The nuncios seemed
content with the proposition; and Cantacuzene affects to deplore
the failure of his hopes, which were soon overthrown by the death
of Clement, and the different temper of his successor. His own
life was prolonged, but it was prolonged in a cloister; and,
except by his prayers, the humble monk was incapable of directing
the counsels of his pupil or the state. 6
4 (return) [ See the original Lives of Clement VI. in Muratori,
(Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. P. ii. p. 550—589;) Matteo
Villani, (Chron. l. iii. c. 43, in Muratori, tom. xiv. p. 186,)
who styles him, molto cavallaresco, poco religioso; Fleury,
(Hist. Ecclés. tom. xx. p. 126;) and the Vie de Pétrarque, (tom.
ii. p. 42—45.) The abbé de Sade treats him with the most
indulgence; but _he_ is a gentleman as well as a priest.]
5 (return) [ Her name (most probably corrupted) was Zampea. She
had accompanied, and alone remained with her mistress at
Constantinople, where her prudence, erudition, and politeness
deserved the praises of the Greeks themselves, (Cantacuzen. l. i.
c. 42.)]
6 (return) [ See this whole negotiation in Cantacuzene, (l. iv.
c. 9,) who, amidst the praises and virtues which he bestows on
himself, reveals the uneasiness of a guilty conscience.]
Yet of all the Byzantine princes, that pupil, John Palæologus,
was the best disposed to embrace, to believe, and to obey, the
shepherd of the West. His mother, Anne of Savoy, was baptized in
the bosom of the Latin church: her marriage with Andronicus
imposed a change of name, of apparel, and of worship, but her
heart was still faithful to her country and religion: she had
formed the infancy of her son, and she governed the emperor,
after his mind, or at least his stature, was enlarged to the size
of man. In the first year of his deliverance and restoration, the
Turks were still masters of the Hellespont; the son of
Cantacuzene was in arms at Adrianople; and Palæologus could
depend neither on himself nor on his people. By his mother’s
advice, and in the hope of foreign aid, he abjured the rights
both of the church and state; and the act of slavery, 7
subscribed in purple ink, and sealed with the _golden_ bull, was
privately intrusted to an Italian agent. The first article of the
treaty is an oath of fidelity and obedience to Innocent the Sixth
and his successors, the supreme pontiffs of the Roman and
Catholic church. The emperor promises to entertain with due
reverence their legates and nuncios; to assign a palace for their
residence, and a temple for their worship; and to deliver his
second son Manuel as the hostage of his faith. For these
condescensions he requires a prompt succor of fifteen galleys,
with five hundred men at arms, and a thousand archers, to serve
against his Christian and Mussulman enemies. Palæologus engages
to impose on his clergy and people the same spiritual yoke; but
as the resistance of the Greeks might be justly foreseen, he
adopts the two effectual methods of corruption and education. The
legate was empowered to distribute the vacant benefices among the
ecclesiastics who should subscribe the creed of the Vatican:
three schools were instituted to instruct the youth of
Constantinople in the language and doctrine of the Latins; and
the name of Andronicus, the heir of the empire, was enrolled as
the first student. Should he fail in the measures of persuasion
or force, Palæologus declares himself unworthy to reign;
transferred to the pope all regal and paternal authority; and
invests Innocent with full power to regulate the family, the
government, and the marriage, of his son and successor. But this
treaty was neither executed nor published: the Roman galleys were
as vain and imaginary as the submission of the Greeks; and it was
only by the secrecy that their sovereign escaped the dishonor of
this fruitless humiliation.
7 (return) [ See this ignominious treaty in Fleury, (Hist.
Ecclés. p. 151—154,) from Raynaldus, who drew it from the Vatican
archives. It was not worth the trouble of a pious forgery.]
The tempest of the Turkish arms soon burst on his head; and after
the loss of Adrianople and Romania, he was enclosed in his
capital, the vassal of the haughty Amurath, with the miserable
hope of being the last devoured by the savage. In this abject
state, Palæologus embraced the resolution of embarking for
Venice, and casting himself at the feet of the pope: he was the
first of the Byzantine princes who had ever visited the unknown
regions of the West, yet in them alone he could seek consolation
or relief; and with less violation of his dignity he might appear
in the sacred college than at the Ottoman _Porte_. After a long
absence, the Roman pontiffs were returning from Avignon to the
banks of the Tyber: Urban the Fifth, 8 of a mild and virtuous
character, encouraged or allowed the pilgrimage of the Greek
prince; and, within the same year, enjoyed the glory of receiving
in the Vatican the two Imperial shadows who represented the
majesty of Constantine and Charlemagne. In this suppliant visit,
the emperor of Constantinople, whose vanity was lost in his
distress, gave more than could be expected of empty sounds and
formal submissions. A previous trial was imposed; and, in the
presence of four cardinals, he acknowledged, as a true Catholic,
the supremacy of the pope, and the double procession of the Holy
Ghost. After this purification, he was introduced to a public
audience in the church of St. Peter: Urban, in the midst of the
cardinals, was seated on his throne; the Greek monarch, after
three genuflections, devoutly kissed the feet, the hands, and at
length the mouth, of the holy father, who celebrated high mass in
his presence, allowed him to lead the bridle of his mule, and
treated him with a sumptuous banquet in the Vatican. The
entertainment of Palæologus was friendly and honorable; yet some
difference was observed between the emperors of the East and
West; 9 nor could the former be entitled to the rare privilege of
chanting the gospel in the rank of a deacon. 10 In favor of his
proselyte, Urban strove to rekindle the zeal of the French king
and the other powers of the West; but he found them cold in the
general cause, and active only in their domestic quarrels. The
last hope of the emperor was in an English mercenary, John
Hawkwood, 11 or Acuto, who, with a band of adventurers, the white
brotherhood, had ravaged Italy from the Alps to Calabria; sold
his services to the hostile states; and incurred a just
excommunication by shooting his arrows against the papal
residence. A special license was granted to negotiate with the
outlaw, but the forces, or the spirit, of Hawkwood, were unequal
to the enterprise: and it was for the advantage, perhaps, of
Palæologus to be disappointed of succor, that must have been
costly, that could not be effectual, and which might have been
dangerous. 12 The disconsolate Greek 13 prepared for his return,
but even his return was impeded by a most ignominious obstacle.
On his arrival at Venice, he had borrowed large sums at
exorbitant usury; but his coffers were empty, his creditors were
impatient, and his person was detained as the best security for
the payment. His eldest son, Andronicus, the regent of
Constantinople, was repeatedly urged to exhaust every resource;
and even by stripping the churches, to extricate his father from
captivity and disgrace. But the unnatural youth was insensible of
the disgrace, and secretly pleased with the captivity of the
emperor: the state was poor, the clergy were obstinate; nor could
some religious scruple be wanting to excuse the guilt of his
indifference and delay. Such undutiful neglect was severely
reproved by the piety of his brother Manuel, who instantly sold
or mortgaged all that he possessed, embarked for Venice, relieved
his father, and pledged his own freedom to be responsible for the
debt. On his return to Constantinople, the parent and king
distinguished his two sons with suitable rewards; but the faith
and manners of the slothful Palæologus had not been improved by
his Roman pilgrimage; and his apostasy or conversion, devoid of
any spiritual or temporal effects, was speedily forgotten by the
Greeks and Latins. 14
8 (return) [ See the two first original Lives of Urban V., (in
Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. P. ii. p. 623,
635,) and the Ecclesiastical Annals of Spondanus, (tom. i. p.
573, A.D. 1369, No. 7,) and Raynaldus, (Fleury, Hist. Ecclés.
tom. xx. p. 223, 224.) Yet, from some variations, I suspect the
papal writers of slightly magnifying the genuflections of
Palæologus.]
9 (return) [ Paullo minus quam si fuisset Imperator Romanorum.
Yet his title of Imperator Græcorum was no longer disputed, (Vit.
Urban V. p. 623.)]
10 (return) [ It was confined to the successors of Charlemagne,
and to them only on Christmas-day. On all other festivals these
Imperial deacons were content to serve the pope, as he said mass,
with the book and the _corporale_. Yet the abbé de Sade
generously thinks that the merits of Charles IV. might have
entitled him, though not on the proper day, (A.D. 1368, November
1,) to the whole privilege. He seems to affix a just value on the
privilege and the man, (Vie de Petrarque, tom. iii. p. 735.)]
11 (return) [ Through some Italian corruptions, the etymology of
_Falcone in bosco_, (Matteo Villani, l. xi. c. 79, in Muratori,
tom. xv. p. 746,) suggests the English word _Hawkwood_, the true
name of our adventurous countryman, (Thomas Walsingham, Hist.
Anglican. inter Scriptores Camdeni, p. 184.) After two-and-twenty
victories, and one defeat, he died, in 1394, general of the
Florentines, and was buried with such honors as the republic has
not paid to Dante or Petrarch, (Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom.
xii. p. 212—371.)]
12 (return) [ This torrent of English (by birth or service)
overflowed from France into Italy after the peace of Bretigny in
1630. Yet the exclamation of Muratori (Annali, tom. xii. p. 197)
is rather true than civil. “Ci mancava ancor questo, che dopo
essere calpestrata l’Italia da tanti masnadieri Tedeschi ed
Ungheri, venissero fin dall’ Inghliterra nuovi _cani_ a finire di
divorarla.”]
13 (return) [ Chalcondyles, l. i. p. 25, 26. The Greek supposes
his journey to the king of France, which is sufficiently refuted
by the silence of the national historians. Nor am I much more
inclined to believe, that Palæologus departed from Italy, valde
bene consolatus et contentus, (Vit. Urban V. p. 623.)]
14 (return) [ His return in 1370, and the coronation of Manuel,
Sept. 25, 1373, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 241,) leaves some
intermediate æra for the conspiracy and punishment of
Andronicus.]
Thirty years after the return of Palæologus, his son and
successor, Manuel, from a similar motive, but on a larger scale,
again visited the countries of the West. In a preceding chapter I
have related his treaty with Bajazet, the violation of that
treaty, the siege or blockade of Constantinople, and the French
succor under the command of the gallant Boucicault. 15 By his
ambassadors, Manuel had solicited the Latin powers; but it was
thought that the presence of a distressed monarch would draw
tears and supplies from the hardest Barbarians; 16 and the
marshal who advised the journey prepared the reception of the
Byzantine prince. The land was occupied by the Turks; but the
navigation of Venice was safe and open: Italy received him as the
first, or, at least, as the second, of the Christian princes;
Manuel was pitied as the champion and confessor of the faith; and
the dignity of his behavior prevented that pity from sinking into
contempt. From Venice he proceeded to Padua and Pavia; and even
the duke of Milan, a secret ally of Bajazet, gave him safe and
honorable conduct to the verge of his dominions. 17 On the
confines of France 18 the royal officers undertook the care of
his person, journey, and expenses; and two thousand of the
richest citizens, in arms and on horseback, came forth to meet
him as far as Charenton, in the neighborhood of the capital. At
the gates of Paris, he was saluted by the chancellor and the
parliament; and Charles the Sixth, attended by his princes and
nobles, welcomed his brother with a cordial embrace. The
successor of Constantine was clothed in a robe of white silk, and
mounted on a milk-white steed, a circumstance, in the French
ceremonial, of singular importance: the white color is considered
as the symbol of sovereignty; and, in a late visit, the German
emperor, after a haughty demand and a peevish refusal, had been
reduced to content himself with a black courser. Manuel was
lodged in the Louvre; a succession of feasts and balls, the
pleasures of the banquet and the chase, were ingeniously varied
by the politeness of the French, to display their magnificence,
and amuse his grief: he was indulged in the liberty of his
chapel; and the doctors of the Sorbonne were astonished, and
possibly scandalized, by the language, the rites, and the
vestments, of his Greek clergy. But the slightest glance on the
state of the kingdom must teach him to despair of any effectual
assistance. The unfortunate Charles, though he enjoyed some lucid
intervals, continually relapsed into furious or stupid insanity:
the reins of government were alternately seized by his brother
and uncle, the dukes of Orleans and Burgundy, whose factious
competition prepared the miseries of civil war. The former was a
gay youth, dissolved in luxury and love: the latter was the
father of John count of Nevers, who had so lately been ransomed
from Turkish captivity; and, if the fearless son was ardent to
revenge his defeat, the more prudent Burgundy was content with
the cost and peril of the first experiment. When Manuel had
satiated the curiosity, and perhaps fatigued the patience, of the
French, he resolved on a visit to the adjacent island. In his
progress from Dover, he was entertained at Canterbury with due
reverence by the prior and monks of St. Austin; and, on
Blackheath, King Henry the Fourth, with the English court,
saluted the Greek hero, (I copy our old historian,) who, during
many days, was lodged and treated in London as emperor of the
East. 19 But the state of England was still more adverse to the
design of the holy war. In the same year, the hereditary
sovereign had been deposed and murdered: the reigning prince was
a successful usurper, whose ambition was punished by jealousy and
remorse: nor could Henry of Lancaster withdraw his person or
forces from the defence of a throne incessantly shaken by
conspiracy and rebellion. He pitied, he praised, he feasted, the
emperor of Constantinople; but if the English monarch assumed the
cross, it was only to appease his people, and perhaps his
conscience, by the merit or semblance of his pious intention. 20
Satisfied, however, with gifts and honors, Manuel returned to
Paris; and, after a residence of two years in the West, shaped
his course through Germany and Italy, embarked at Venice, and
patiently expected, in the Morea, the moment of his ruin or
deliverance. Yet he had escaped the ignominious necessity of
offering his religion to public or private sale. The Latin church
was distracted by the great schism; the kings, the nations, the
universities, of Europe were divided in their obedience between
the popes of Rome and Avignon; and the emperor, anxious to
conciliate the friendship of both parties, abstained from any
correspondence with the indigent and unpopular rivals. His
journey coincided with the year of the jubilee; but he passed
through Italy without desiring, or deserving, the plenary
indulgence which abolished the guilt or penance of the sins of
the faithful. The Roman pope was offended by this neglect;
accused him of irreverence to an image of Christ; and exhorted
the princes of Italy to reject and abandon the obstinate
schismatic. 21
15 (return) [ Mémoires de Boucicault, P. i. c. 35, 36.]
16 (return) [ His journey into the west of Europe is slightly,
and I believe reluctantly, noticed by Chalcondyles (l. ii. c.
44—50) and Ducas, (c. 14.)]
17 (return) [ Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom. xii. p. 406. John
Galeazzo was the first and most powerful duke of Milan. His
connection with Bajazet is attested by Froissard; and he
contributed to save and deliver the French captives of
Nicopolis.]
18 (return) [ For the reception of Manuel at Paris, see
Spondanus, (Annal. Ecclés. tom. i. p. 676, 677, A.D. 1400, No.
5,) who quotes Juvenal des Ursins and the monk of St. Denys; and
Villaret, (Hist. de France, tom. xii. p. 331—334,) who quotes
nobody according to the last fashion of the French writers.]
19 (return) [ A short note of Manuel in England is extracted by
Dr. Hody from a MS. at Lambeth, (de Græcis illustribus, p. 14,)
C. P. Imperator, diu variisque et horrendis Paganorum insultibus
coarctatus, ut pro eisdem resistentiam triumphalem perquireret,
Anglorum Regem visitare decrevit, &c. Rex (says Walsingham, p.
364) nobili apparatû... suscepit (ut decuit) tantum Heroa,
duxitque Londonias, et per multos dies exhibuit gloriose, pro
expensis hospitii sui solvens, et eum respiciens tanto fastigio
donativis. He repeats the same in his Upodigma Neustriæ, (p.
556.)]
20 (return) [ Shakspeare begins and ends the play of Henry IV.
with that prince’s vow of a crusade, and his belief that he
should die in Jerusalem.]
21 (return) [ This fact is preserved in the Historia Politica,
A.D. 1391—1478, published by Martin Crusius, (Turco Græcia, p.
1—43.) The image of Christ, which the Greek emperor refused to
worship, was probably a work of sculpture.]
Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.—Part II.
During the period of the crusades, the Greeks beheld with
astonishment and terror the perpetual stream of emigration that
flowed, and continued to flow, from the unknown climates of their
West. The visits of their last emperors removed the veil of
separation, and they disclosed to their eyes the powerful nations
of Europe, whom they no longer presumed to brand with the name of
Barbarians. The observations of Manuel, and his more inquisitive
followers, have been preserved by a Byzantine historian of the
times: 22 his scattered ideas I shall collect and abridge; and it
may be amusing enough, perhaps instructive, to contemplate the
rude pictures of Germany, France, and England, whose ancient and
modern state are so familiar to _our_ minds. I. Germany (says the
Greek Chalcondyles) is of ample latitude from Vienna to the
ocean; and it stretches (a strange geography) from Prague in
Bohemia to the River Tartessus, and the Pyrenæan Mountains. 23
The soil, except in figs and olives, is sufficiently fruitful;
the air is salubrious; the bodies of the natives are robust and
healthy; and these cold regions are seldom visited with the
calamities of pestilence, or earthquakes. After the Scythians or
Tartars, the Germans are the most numerous of nations: they are
brave and patient; and were they united under a single head,
their force would be irresistible. By the gift of the pope, they
have acquired the privilege of choosing the Roman emperor; 24 nor
is any people more devoutly attached to the faith and obedience
of the Latin patriarch. The greatest part of the country is
divided among the princes and prelates; but Strasburg, Cologne,
Hamburgh, and more than two hundred free cities, are governed by
sage and equal laws, according to the will, and for the
advantage, of the whole community. The use of duels, or single
combats on foot, prevails among them in peace and war: their
industry excels in all the mechanic arts; and the Germans may
boast of the invention of gunpowder and cannon, which is now
diffused over the greatest part of the world. II. The kingdom of
France is spread above fifteen or twenty days’ journey from
Germany to Spain, and from the Alps to the British Ocean;
containing many flourishing cities, and among these Paris, the
seat of the king, which surpasses the rest in riches and luxury.
Many princes and lords alternately wait in his palace, and
acknowledge him as their sovereign: the most powerful are the
dukes of Bretagne and Burgundy; of whom the latter possesses the
wealthy province of Flanders, whose harbors are frequented by the
ships and merchants of our own, and the more remote, seas. The
French are an ancient and opulent people; and their language and
manners, though somewhat different, are not dissimilar from those
of the Italians. Vain of the Imperial dignity of Charlemagne, of
their victories over the Saracens, and of the exploits of their
heroes, Oliver and Rowland, 25 they esteem themselves the first
of the western nations; but this foolish arrogance has been
recently humbled by the unfortunate events of their wars against
the English, the inhabitants of the British island. III. Britain,
in the ocean, and opposite to the shores of Flanders, may be
considered either as one, or as three islands; but the whole is
united by a common interest, by the same manners, and by a
similar government. The measure of its circumference is five
thousand stadia: the land is overspread with towns and villages:
though destitute of wine, and not abounding in fruit-trees, it is
fertile in wheat and barley; in honey and wool; and much cloth is
manufactured by the inhabitants. In populousness and power, in
richness and luxury, London, 26 the metropolis of the isle, may
claim a preeminence over all the cities of the West. It is
situate on the Thames, a broad and rapid river, which at the
distance of thirty miles falls into the Gallic Sea; and the daily
flow and ebb of the tide affords a safe entrance and departure to
the vessels of commerce. The king is head of a powerful and
turbulent aristocracy: his principal vassals hold their estates
by a free and unalterable tenure; and the laws define the limits
of his authority and their obedience. The kingdom has been often
afflicted by foreign conquest and domestic sedition: but the
natives are bold and hardy, renowned in arms and victorious in
war. The form of their shields or targets is derived from the
Italians, that of their swords from the Greeks; the use of the
long bow is the peculiar and decisive advantage of the English.
Their language bears no affinity to the idioms of the Continent:
in the habits of domestic life, they are not easily distinguished
from their neighbors of France: but the most singular
circumstance of their manners is their disregard of conjugal
honor and of female chastity. In their mutual visits, as the
first act of hospitality, the guest is welcomed in the embraces
of their wives and daughters: among friends they are lent and
borrowed without shame; nor are the islanders offended at this
strange commerce, and its inevitable consequences. 27 Informed as
we are of the customs of Old England and assured of the virtue of
our mothers, we may smile at the credulity, or resent the
injustice, of the Greek, who must have confounded a modest salute
28 with a criminal embrace. But his credulity and injustice may
teach an important lesson; to distrust the accounts of foreign
and remote nations, and to suspend our belief of every tale that
deviates from the laws of nature and the character of man. 29
22 (return) [ The Greek and Turkish history of Laonicus
Chalcondyles ends with the winter of 1463; and the abrupt
conclusion seems to mark, that he laid down his pen in the same
year. We know that he was an Athenian, and that some
contemporaries of the same name contributed to the revival of the
Greek language in Italy. But in his numerous digressions, the
modest historian has never introduced himself; and his editor
Leunclavius, as well as Fabricius, (Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p.
474,) seems ignorant of his life and character. For his
descriptions of Germany, France, and England, see l. ii. p. 36,
37, 44—50.]
23 (return) [ I shall not animadvert on the geographical errors
of Chalcondyles. In this instance, he perhaps followed, and
mistook, Herodotus, (l. ii. c. 33,) whose text may be explained,
(Herodote de Larcher, tom. ii. p. 219, 220,) or whose ignorance
may be excused. Had these modern Greeks never read Strabo, or any
of their lesser geographers?]
24 (return) [ A citizen of new Rome, while new Rome survived,
would have scorned to dignify the German 'Rhx with titles of
BasileuV or Autokratwr 'Rwmaiwn: but all pride was extinct in the
bosom of Chalcondyles; and he describes the Byzantine prince, and
his subject, by the proper, though humble, names of ''EllhneV and
BasileuV 'Ellhnwn.]
25 (return) [ Most of the old romances were translated in the
xivth century into French prose, and soon became the favorite
amusement of the knights and ladies in the court of Charles VI.
If a Greek believed in the exploits of Rowland and Oliver, he may
surely be excused, since the monks of St. Denys, the national
historians, have inserted the fables of Archbishop Turpin in
their Chronicles of France.]
26 (return) [ Londinh.... de te poliV dunamei te proecousa tvn en
th nhsw tauth pasvn polewn, olbw te kai th allh eudaimonia
oudemiaV tvn peoV esperan leipomenh. Even since the time of
Fitzstephen, (the xiith century,) London appears to have
maintained this preeminence of wealth and magnitude; and her
gradual increase has, at least, kept pace with the general
improvement of Europe.]
27 (return) [ If the double sense of the verb Kuw (osculor, and
in utero gero) be equivocal, the context and pious horror of
Chalcondyles can leave no doubt of his meaning and mistake, (p.
49.) * Note: I can discover no “pious horror” in the plain manner
in which Chalcondyles relates this strange usage. He says, oude
aiscunun tovto feoei eautoiV kuesqai taV te gunaikaV autvn kai
taV qugateraV, yet these are expression beyond what would be
used, if the ambiguous word kuesqai were taken in its more
innocent sense. Nor can the phrase parecontai taV eautvn gunaikaV
en toiV epithdeioiV well bear a less coarse interpretation.
Gibbon is possibly right as to the origin of this extraordinary
mistake.—M.]
28 (return) [ Erasmus (Epist. Fausto Andrelino) has a pretty
passage on the English fashion of kissing strangers on their
arrival and departure, from whence, however, he draws no
scandalous inferences.]
29 (return) [ Perhaps we may apply this remark to the community
of wives among the old Britons, as it is supposed by Cæsar and
Dion, (Dion Cassius, l. lxii. tom. ii. p. 1007,) with Reimar’s
judicious annotation. The _Arreoy_ of Otaheite, so certain at
first, is become less visible and scandalous, in proportion as we
have studied the manners of that gentle and amorous people.]
After his return, and the victory of Timour, Manuel reigned many
years in prosperity and peace. As long as the sons of Bajazet
solicited his friendship and spared his dominions, he was
satisfied with the national religion; and his leisure was
employed in composing twenty theological dialogues for its
defence. The appearance of the Byzantine ambassadors at the
council of Constance, 30 announces the restoration of the Turkish
power, as well as of the Latin church: the conquest of the
sultans, Mahomet and Amurath, reconciled the emperor to the
Vatican; and the siege of Constantinople almost tempted him to
acquiesce in the double procession of the Holy Ghost. When Martin
the Fifth ascended without a rival the chair of St. Peter, a
friendly intercourse of letters and embassies was revived between
the East and West. Ambition on one side, and distress on the
other, dictated the same decent language of charity and peace:
the artful Greek expressed a desire of marrying his six sons to
Italian princesses; and the Roman, not less artful, despatched
the daughter of the marquis of Montferrat, with a company of
noble virgins, to soften, by their charms, the obstinacy of the
schismatics. Yet under this mask of zeal, a discerning eye will
perceive that all was hollow and insincere in the court and
church of Constantinople. According to the vicissitudes of danger
and repose, the emperor advanced or retreated; alternately
instructed and disavowed his ministers; and escaped from the
importunate pressure by urging the duty of inquiry, the
obligation of collecting the sense of his patriarchs and bishops,
and the impossibility of convening them at a time when the
Turkish arms were at the gates of his capital. From a review of
the public transactions it will appear that the Greeks insisted
on three successive measures, a succor, a council, and a final
reunion, while the Latins eluded the second, and only promised
the first, as a consequential and voluntary reward of the third.
But we have an opportunity of unfolding the most secret
intentions of Manuel, as he explained them in a private
conversation without artifice or disguise. In his declining age,
the emperor had associated John Palæologus, the second of the
name, and the eldest of his sons, on whom he devolved the
greatest part of the authority and weight of government. One day,
in the presence only of the historian Phranza, 31 his favorite
chamberlain, he opened to his colleague and successor the true
principle of his negotiations with the pope. 32 “Our last
resource,” said Manuel, against the Turks, “is their fear of our
union with the Latins, of the warlike nations of the West, who
may arm for our relief and for their destruction. As often as you
are threatened by the miscreants, present this danger before
their eyes. Propose a council; consult on the means; but ever
delay and avoid the convocation of an assembly, which cannot tend
either to our spiritual or temporal emolument. The Latins are
proud; the Greeks are obstinate; neither party will recede or
retract; and the attempt of a perfect union will confirm the
schism, alienate the churches, and leave us, without hope or
defence, at the mercy of the Barbarians.” Impatient of this
salutary lesson, the royal youth arose from his seat, and
departed in silence; and the wise monarch (continued Phranza)
casting his eyes on me, thus resumed his discourse: “My son deems
himself a great and heroic prince; but, alas! our miserable age
does not afford scope for heroism or greatness. His daring spirit
might have suited the happier times of our ancestors; but the
present state requires not an emperor, but a cautious steward of
the last relics of our fortunes. Well do I remember the lofty
expectations which he built on our alliance with Mustapha; and
much do I fear, that this rash courage will urge the ruin of our
house, and that even religion may precipitate our downfall.” Yet
the experience and authority of Manuel preserved the peace, and
eluded the council; till, in the seventy-eighth year of his age,
and in the habit of a monk, he terminated his career, dividing
his precious movables among his children and the poor, his
physicians and his favorite servants. Of his six sons, 33
Andronicus the Second was invested with the principality of
Thessalonica, and died of a leprosy soon after the sale of that
city to the Venetians and its final conquest by the Turks. Some
fortunate incidents had restored Peloponnesus, or the Morea, to
the empire; and in his more prosperous days, Manuel had fortified
the narrow isthmus of six miles 34 with a stone wall and one
hundred and fifty-three towers. The wall was overthrown by the
first blast of the Ottomans; the fertile peninsula might have
been sufficient for the four younger brothers, Theodore and
Constantine, Demetrius and Thomas; but they wasted in domestic
contests the remains of their strength; and the least successful
of the rivals were reduced to a life of dependence in the
Byzantine palace.
30 (return) [ See Lenfant, Hist. du Concile de Constance, tom.
ii. p. 576; and or the ecclesiastical history of the times, the
Annals of Spondanus the Bibliothèque of Dupin, tom. xii., and
xxist and xxiid volumes of the History, or rather the
Continuation, of Fleury.]
31 (return) [ From his early youth, George Phranza, or Phranzes,
was employed in the service of the state and palace; and Hanckius
(de Script. Byzant. P. i. c. 40) has collected his life from his
own writings. He was no more than four-and-twenty years of age at
the death of Manuel, who recommended him in the strongest terms
to his successor: Imprimis vero hunc Phranzen tibi commendo, qui
ministravit mihi fideliter et diligenter (Phranzes, l. ii. c. i.)
Yet the emperor John was cold, and he preferred the service of
the despots of Peloponnesus.]
32 (return) [ See Phranzes, l. ii. c. 13. While so many
manuscripts of the Greek original are extant in the libraries of
Rome, Milan, the Escurial, &c., it is a matter of shame and
reproach, that we should be reduced to the Latin version, or
abstract, of James Pontanus, (ad calcem Theophylact, Simocattæ:
Ingolstadt, 1604,) so deficient in accuracy and elegance,
(Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 615—620.) * Note: The Greek
text of Phranzes was edited by F. C. Alter Vindobonæ, 1796. It
has been re-edited by Bekker for the new edition of the
Byzantines, Bonn, 1838.—M.]
33 (return) [ See Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 243—248.]
34 (return) [ The exact measure of the Hexamilion, from sea to
sea, was 3800 orgyiæ, or _toises_, of six Greek feet, (Phranzes,
l. i. c. 38,) which would produce a Greek mile, still smaller
than that of 660 French _toises_, which is assigned by D’Anville,
as still in use in Turkey. Five miles are commonly reckoned for
the breadth of the isthmus. See the Travels of Spon, Wheeler and
Chandler.]
The eldest of the sons of Manuel, John Palæologus the Second, was
acknowledged, after his father’s death, as the sole emperor of
the Greeks. He immediately proceeded to repudiate his wife, and
to contract a new marriage with the princess of Trebizond: beauty
was in his eyes the first qualification of an empress; and the
clergy had yielded to his firm assurance, that unless he might be
indulged in a divorce, he would retire to a cloister, and leave
the throne to his brother Constantine. The first, and in truth
the only, victory of Palæologus, was over a Jew, 35 whom, after a
long and learned dispute, he converted to the Christian faith;
and this momentous conquest is carefully recorded in the history
of the times. But he soon resumed the design of uniting the East
and West; and, regardless of his father’s advice, listened, as it
should seem with sincerity, to the proposal of meeting the pope
in a general council beyond the Adriatic. This dangerous project
was encouraged by Martin the Fifth, and coldly entertained by his
successor Eugenius, till, after a tedious negotiation, the
emperor received a summons from the Latin assembly of a new
character, the independent prelates of Basil, who styled
themselves the representatives and judges of the Catholic church.
35 (return) [ The first objection of the Jews is on the death of
Christ: if it were voluntary, Christ was a suicide; which the
emperor parries with a mystery. They then dispute on the
conception of the Virgin, the sense of the prophecies, &c.,
(Phranzes, l. ii. c. 12, a whole chapter.)]
The Roman pontiff had fought and conquered in the cause of
ecclesiastical freedom; but the victorious clergy were soon
exposed to the tyranny of their deliverer; and his sacred
character was invulnerable to those arms which they found so keen
and effectual against the civil magistrate. Their great charter,
the right of election, was annihilated by appeals, evaded by
trusts or commendams, disappointed by reversionary grants, and
superseded by previous and arbitrary reservations. 36 A public
auction was instituted in the court of Rome: the cardinals and
favorites were enriched with the spoils of nations; and every
country might complain that the most important and valuable
benefices were accumulated on the heads of aliens and absentees.
During their residence at Avignon, the ambition of the popes
subsided in the meaner passions of avarice 37 and luxury: they
rigorously imposed on the clergy the tributes of first-fruits and
tenths; but they freely tolerated the impunity of vice, disorder,
and corruption. These manifold scandals were aggravated by the
great schism of the West, which continued above fifty years. In
the furious conflicts of Rome and Avignon, the vices of the
rivals were mutually exposed; and their precarious situation
degraded their authority, relaxed their discipline, and
multiplied their wants and exactions. To heal the wounds, and
restore the monarchy, of the church, the synods of Pisa and
Constance 38 were successively convened; but these great
assemblies, conscious of their strength, resolved to vindicate
the privileges of the Christian aristocracy. From a personal
sentence against two pontiffs, whom they rejected, and a third,
their acknowledged sovereign, whom they deposed, the fathers of
Constance proceeded to examine the nature and limits of the Roman
supremacy; nor did they separate till they had established the
authority, above the pope, of a general council. It was enacted,
that, for the government and reformation of the church, such
assemblies should be held at regular intervals; and that each
synod, before its dissolution, should appoint the time and place
of the subsequent meeting. By the influence of the court of Rome,
the next convocation at Sienna was easily eluded; but the bold
and vigorous proceedings of the council of Basil 39 had almost
been fatal to the reigning pontiff, Eugenius the Fourth. A just
suspicion of his design prompted the fathers to hasten the
promulgation of their first decree, that the representatives of
the church-militant on earth were invested with a divine and
spiritual jurisdiction over all Christians, without excepting the
pope; and that a general council could not be dissolved,
prorogued, or transferred, unless by their free deliberation and
consent. On the notice that Eugenius had fulminated a bull for
that purpose, they ventured to summon, to admonish, to threaten,
to censure the contumacious successor of St. Peter. After many
delays, to allow time for repentance, they finally declared,
that, unless he submitted within the term of sixty days, he was
suspended from the exercise of all temporal and ecclesiastical
authority. And to mark their jurisdiction over the prince as well
as the priest, they assumed the government of Avignon, annulled
the alienation of the sacred patrimony, and protected Rome from
the imposition of new taxes. Their boldness was justified, not
only by the general opinion of the clergy, but by the support and
power of the first monarchs of Christendom: the emperor Sigismond
declared himself the servant and protector of the synod; Germany
and France adhered to their cause; the duke of Milan was the
enemy of Eugenius; and he was driven from the Vatican by an
insurrection of the Roman people. Rejected at the same time by
temporal and spiritual subjects, submission was his only choice:
by a most humiliating bull, the pope repealed his own acts, and
ratified those of the council; incorporated his legates and
cardinals with that venerable body; and _seemed_ to resign
himself to the decrees of the supreme legislature. Their fame
pervaded the countries of the East: and it was in their presence
that Sigismond received the ambassadors of the Turkish sultan, 40
who laid at his feet twelve large vases, filled with robes of
silk and pieces of gold. The fathers of Basil aspired to the
glory of reducing the Greeks, as well as the Bohemians, within
the pale of the church; and their deputies invited the emperor
and patriarch of Constantinople to unite with an assembly which
possessed the confidence of the Western nations. Palæologus was
not averse to the proposal; and his ambassadors were introduced
with due honors into the Catholic senate. But the choice of the
place appeared to be an insuperable obstacle, since he refused to
pass the Alps, or the sea of Sicily, and positively required that
the synod should be adjourned to some convenient city in Italy,
or at least on the Danube. The other articles of this treaty were
more readily stipulated: it was agreed to defray the travelling
expenses of the emperor, with a train of seven hundred persons,
41 to remit an immediate sum of eight thousand ducats 42 for the
accommodation of the Greek clergy; and in his absence to grant a
supply of ten thousand ducats, with three hundred archers and
some galleys, for the protection of Constantinople. The city of
Avignon advanced the funds for the preliminary expenses; and the
embarkation was prepared at Marseilles with some difficulty and
delay.
36 (return) [ In the treatise delle Materie Beneficiarie of Fra
Paolo, (in the ivth volume of the last, and best, edition of his
works,) the papal system is deeply studied and freely described.
Should Rome and her religion be annihilated, this golden volume
may still survive, a philosophical history, and a salutary
warning.]
37 (return) [ Pope John XXII. (in 1334) left behind him, at
Avignon, eighteen millions of gold florins, and the value of
seven millions more in plate and jewels. See the Chronicle of
John Villani, (l. xi. c. 20, in Muratori’s Collection, tom. xiii.
p. 765,) whose brother received the account from the papal
treasurers. A treasure of six or eight millions sterling in the
xivth century is enormous, and almost incredible.]
38 (return) [ A learned and liberal Protestant, M. Lenfant, has
given a fair history of the councils of Pisa, Constance, and
Basil, in six volumes in quarto; but the last part is the most
hasty and imperfect, except in the account of the troubles of
Bohemia.]
39 (return) [ The original acts or minutes of the council of
Basil are preserved in the public library, in twelve volumes in
folio. Basil was a free city, conveniently situate on the Rhine,
and guarded by the arms of the neighboring and confederate Swiss.
In 1459, the university was founded by Pope Pius II., (Æneas
Sylvius,) who had been secretary to the council. But what is a
council, or a university, to the presses o Froben and the studies
of Erasmus?]
40 (return) [ This Turkish embassy, attested only by Crantzius,
is related with some doubt by the annalist Spondanus, A.D. 1433,
No. 25, tom. i. p. 824.]
41 (return) [ Syropulus, p. 19. In this list, the Greeks appear
to have exceeded the real numbers of the clergy and laity which
afterwards attended the emperor and patriarch, but which are not
clearly specified by the great ecclesiarch. The 75,000 florins
which they asked in this negotiation of the pope, (p. 9,) were
more than they could hope or want.]
42 (return) [ I use indifferently the words _ducat_ and _florin_,
which derive their names, the former from the _dukes_ of Milan,
the latter from the republic of _Florence_. These gold pieces,
the first that were coined in Italy, perhaps in the Latin world,
may be compared in weight and value to one third of the English
guinea.]
In his distress, the friendship of Palæologus was disputed by the
ecclesiastical powers of the West; but the dexterous activity of
a monarch prevailed over the slow debates and inflexible temper
of a republic. The decrees of Basil continually tended to
circumscribe the despotism of the pope, and to erect a supreme
and perpetual tribunal in the church. Eugenius was impatient of
the yoke; and the union of the Greeks might afford a decent
pretence for translating a rebellious synod from the Rhine to the
Po. The independence of the fathers was lost if they passed the
Alps: Savoy or Avignon, to which they acceded with reluctance,
were described at Constantinople as situate far beyond the
pillars of Hercules; 43 the emperor and his clergy were
apprehensive of the dangers of a long navigation; they were
offended by a haughty declaration, that after suppressing the
_new_ heresy of the Bohemians, the council would soon eradicate
the _old_ heresy of the Greeks. 44 On the side of Eugenius, all
was smooth, and yielding, and respectful; and he invited the
Byzantine monarch to heal by his presence the schism of the
Latin, as well as of the Eastern, church. Ferrara, near the coast
of the Adriatic, was proposed for their amicable interview; and
with some indulgence of forgery and theft, a surreptitious decree
was procured, which transferred the synod, with its own consent,
to that Italian city. Nine galleys were equipped for the service
at Venice, and in the Isle of Candia; their diligence anticipated
the slower vessels of Basil: the Roman admiral was commissioned
to burn, sink, and destroy; 45 and these priestly squadrons might
have encountered each other in the same seas where Athens and
Sparta had formerly contended for the preeminence of glory.
Assaulted by the importunity of the factions, who were ready to
fight for the possession of his person, Palæologus hesitated
before he left his palace and country on a perilous experiment.
His father’s advice still dwelt on his memory; and reason must
suggest, that since the Latins were divided among themselves,
they could never unite in a foreign cause. Sigismond dissuaded
the unreasonable adventure; his advice was impartial, since he
adhered to the council; and it was enforced by the strange
belief, that the German Cæsar would nominate a Greek his heir and
successor in the empire of the West. 46 Even the Turkish sultan
was a counsellor whom it might be unsafe to trust, but whom it
was dangerous to offend. Amurath was unskilled in the disputes,
but he was apprehensive of the union, of the Christians. From his
own treasures, he offered to relieve the wants of the Byzantine
court; yet he declared with seeming magnanimity, that
Constantinople should be secure and inviolate, in the absence of
her sovereign. 47 The resolution of Palæologus was decided by the
most splendid gifts and the most specious promises: he wished to
escape for a while from a scene of danger and distress and after
dismissing with an ambiguous answer the messengers of the
council, he declared his intention of embarking in the Roman
galleys. The age of the patriarch Joseph was more susceptible of
fear than of hope; he trembled at the perils of the sea, and
expressed his apprehension, that his feeble voice, with thirty
perhaps of his orthodox brethren, would be oppressed in a foreign
land by the power and numbers of a Latin synod. He yielded to the
royal mandate, to the flattering assurance, that he would be
heard as the oracle of nations, and to the secret wish of
learning from his brother of the West, to deliver the church from
the yoke of kings. 48 The five _cross-bearers_, or dignitaries,
of St. Sophia, were bound to attend his person; and one of these,
the great ecclesiarch or preacher, Sylvester Syropulus, 49 has
composed a free and curious history 50 of the _false_ union. 51
Of the clergy that reluctantly obeyed the summons of the emperor
and the patriarch, submission was the first duty, and patience
the most useful virtue. In a chosen list of twenty bishops, we
discover the metropolitan titles of Heracleæ and Cyzicus, Nice
and Nicomedia, Ephesus and Trebizond, and the personal merit of
Mark and Bessarion who, in the confidence of their learning and
eloquence, were promoted to the episcopal rank. Some monks and
philosophers were named to display the science and sanctity of
the Greek church; and the service of the choir was performed by a
select band of singers and musicians. The patriarchs of
Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, appeared by their genuine or
fictitious deputies; the primate of Russia represented a national
church, and the Greeks might contend with the Latins in the
extent of their spiritual empire. The precious vases of St.
Sophia were exposed to the winds and waves, that the patriarch
might officiate with becoming splendor: whatever gold the emperor
could procure, was expended in the massy ornaments of his bed and
chariot; 52 and while they affected to maintain the prosperity of
their ancient fortune, they quarrelled for the division of
fifteen thousand ducats, the first alms of the Roman pontiff.
After the necessary preparations, John Palæologus, with a
numerous train, accompanied by his brother Demetrius, and the
most respectable persons of the church and state, embarked in
eight vessels with sails and oars which steered through the
Turkish Straits of Gallipoli to the Archipelago, the Morea, and
the Adriatic Gulf. 53
43 (return) [ At the end of the Latin version of Phranzes, we
read a long Greek epistle or declamation of George of Trebizond,
who advises the emperor to prefer Eugenius and Italy. He treats
with contempt the schismatic assembly of Basil, the Barbarians of
Gaul and Germany, who had conspired to transport the chair of St.
Peter beyond the Alps; oi aqlioi (says he) se kai thn meta sou
sunodon exw tvn 'Hrakleiwn sthlwn kai pera Gadhrwn exaxousi. Was
Constantinople unprovided with a map?]
44 (return) [ Syropulus (p. 26—31) attests his own indignation,
and that of his countrymen; and the Basil deputies, who excused
the rash declaration, could neither deny nor alter an act of the
council.]
45 (return) [ Condolmieri, the pope’s nephew and admiral,
expressly declared, oti orismon eceipara tou Papa ina polemhsh
opou an eurh ta katerga thV Sunodou, kai ei dunhqh, katadush, kai
ajanish. The naval orders of the synod were less peremptory, and,
till the hostile squadrons appeared, both parties tried to
conceal their quarrel from the Greeks.]
46 (return) [ Syropulus mentions the hopes of Palæologus, (p.
36,) and the last advice of Sigismond,(p. 57.) At Corfu, the
Greek emperor was informed of his friend’s death; had he known it
sooner, he would have returned home,(p. 79.)]
47 (return) [ Phranzes himself, though from different motives,
was of the advice of Amurath, (l. ii. c. 13.) Utinam ne synodus
ista unquam fuisset, si tantes offensiones et detrimenta paritura
erat. This Turkish embassy is likewise mentioned by Syropulus,
(p. 58;) and Amurath kept his word. He might threaten, (p. 125,
219,) but he never attacked, the city.]
48 (return) [ The reader will smile at the simplicity with which
he imparted these hopes to his favorites: toiauthn plhrojorian
schsein hlpize kai dia tou Papa eqarrei eleuqervdai thn ekklhsian
apo thV apoteqeishV autou douleiaV para tou basilewV, (p. 92.)
Yet it would have been difficult for him to have practised the
lessons of Gregory VII.]
49 (return) [ The Christian name of Sylvester is borrowed from
the Latin calendar. In modern Greek, pouloV, as a diminutive, is
added to the end of words: nor can any reasoning of Creyghton,
the editor, excuse his changing into S_gur_opulus, (Sguros,
fuscus,) the Syropulus of his own manuscript, whose name is
subscribed with his own hand in the acts of the council of
Florence. Why might not the author be of Syrian extraction?]
50 (return) [ From the conclusion of the history, I should fix
the date to the year 1444, four years after the synod, when great
ecclesiarch had abdicated his office, (section xii. p. 330—350.)
His passions were cooled by time and retirement; and, although
Syropulus is often partial, he is never intemperate.]
51 (return) [ _Vera historia unionis non ver inter Græcos et
Latinos_, (_Haga Comitis_, 1660, in folio,) was first published
with a loose and florid version, by Robert Creyghton, chaplain to
Charles II. in his exile. The zeal of the editor has prefixed a
polemic title, for the beginning of the original is wanting.
Syropulus may be ranked with the best of the Byzantine writers
for the merit of his narration, and even of his style; but he is
excluded from the orthodox collections of the councils.]
52 (return) [ Syropulus (p. 63) simply expresses his intention
in’ outw pompawn en’ 'ItaloiV megaV basileuV par ekeinvn
nomizoito; and the Latin of Creyghton may afford a specimen of
his florid paraphrase. Ut pompâ circumductus noster Imperator
Italiæ populis aliquis deauratus Jupiter crederetur, aut Crsus ex
opulenta Lydia.]
53 (return) [ Although I cannot stop to quote Syropulus for every
fact, I will observe that the navigation of the Greeks from
Constantinople to Venice and Ferrara is contained in the ivth
section, (p. 67—100,) and that the historian has the uncommon
talent of placing each scene before the reader’s eye.]
Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.—Part III.
After a tedious and troublesome navigation of seventy-seven days,
this religious squadron cast anchor before Venice; and their
reception proclaimed the joy and magnificence of that powerful
republic. In the command of the world, the modest Augustus had
never claimed such honors from his subjects as were paid to his
feeble successor by an independent state. Seated on the poop on a
lofty throne, he received the visit, or, in the Greek style, the
_adoration_ of the doge and senators. 54 They sailed in the
Bucentaur, which was accompanied by twelve stately galleys: the
sea was overspread with innumerable gondolas of pomp and
pleasure; the air resounded with music and acclamations; the
mariners, and even the vessels, were dressed in silk and gold;
and in all the emblems and pageants, the Roman eagles were
blended with the lions of St. Mark. The triumphal procession,
ascending the great canal, passed under the bridge of the Rialto;
and the Eastern strangers gazed with admiration on the palaces,
the churches, and the populousness of a city, that seems to float
on the bosom of the waves. 55 They sighed to behold the spoils
and trophies with which it had been decorated after the sack of
Constantinople. After a hospitable entertainment of fifteen days,
Palæologus pursued his journey by land and water from Venice to
Ferrara; and on this occasion the pride of the Vatican was
tempered by policy to indulge the ancient dignity of the emperor
of the East. He made his entry on a _black_ horse; but a
milk-white steed, whose trappings were embroidered with golden
eagles, was led before him; and the canopy was borne over his
head by the princes of Este, the sons or kinsmen of Nicholas,
marquis of the city, and a sovereign more powerful than himself.
56 Palæologus did not alight till he reached the bottom of the
staircase: the pope advanced to the door of the apartment;
refused his proffered genuflection; and, after a paternal
embrace, conducted the emperor to a seat on his left hand. Nor
would the patriarch descend from his galley, till a ceremony
almost equal, had been stipulated between the bishops of Rome and
Constantinople. The latter was saluted by his brother with a kiss
of union and charity; nor would any of the Greek ecclesiastics
submit to kiss the feet of the Western primate. On the opening of
the synod, the place of honor in the centre was claimed by the
temporal and ecclesiastical chiefs; and it was only by alleging
that his predecessors had not assisted in person at Nice or
Chalcedon, that Eugenius could evade the ancient precedents of
Constantine and Marcian. After much debate, it was agreed that
the right and left sides of the church should be occupied by the
two nations; that the solitary chair of St. Peter should be
raised the first of the Latin line; and that the throne of the
Greek emperor, at the head of his clergy, should be equal and
opposite to the second place, the vacant seat of the emperor of
the West. 57
54 (return) [ At the time of the synod, Phranzes was in
Peloponnesus: but he received from the despot Demetrius a
faithful account of the honorable reception of the emperor and
patriarch both at Venice and Ferrara, (Dux.... sedentem
Imperatorem _adorat_,) which are more slightly mentioned by the
Latins, (l. ii. c. 14, 15, 16.)]
55 (return) [ The astonishment of a Greek prince and a French
ambassador (Mémoires de Philippe de Comines, l. vii. c. 18,) at
the sight of Venice, abundantly proves that in the xvth century
it was the first and most splendid of the Christian cities. For
the spoils of Constantinople at Venice, see Syropulus, (p. 87.)]
56 (return) [ Nicholas III. of Este reigned forty-eight years,
(A.D. 1393—1441,) and was lord of Ferrara, Modena, Reggio, Parma,
Rovigo, and Commachio. See his Life in Muratori, (Antichità
Estense, tom. ii. p. 159—201.)]
57 (return) [ The Latin vulgar was provoked to laughter at the
strange dresses of the Greeks, and especially the length of their
garments, their sleeves, and their beards; nor was the emperor
distinguished, except by the purple color, and his diadem or
tiara, with a jewel on the top, (Hody de Græcis Illustribus, p.
31.) Yet another spectator confesses that the Greek fashion was
piu grave e piu degna than the Italian. (Vespasiano in Vit.
Eugen. IV. in Muratori, tom. xxv. p. 261.)]
But as soon as festivity and form had given place to a more
serious treaty, the Greeks were dissatisfied with their journey,
with themselves, and with the pope. The artful pencil of his
emissaries had painted him in a prosperous state; at the head of
the princes and prelates of Europe, obedient at his voice, to
believe and to arm. The thin appearance of the universal synod of
Ferrara betrayed his weakness: and the Latins opened the first
session with only five archbishops, eighteen bishops, and ten
abbots, the greatest part of whom were the subjects or countrymen
of the Italian pontiff. Except the duke of Burgundy, none of the
potentates of the West condescended to appear in person, or by
their ambassadors; nor was it possible to suppress the judicial
acts of Basil against the dignity and person of Eugenius, which
were finally concluded by a new election. Under these
circumstances, a truce or delay was asked and granted, till
Palæologus could expect from the consent of the Latins some
temporal reward for an unpopular union; and after the first
session, the public proceedings were adjourned above six months.
The emperor, with a chosen band of his favorites and
_Janizaries_, fixed his summer residence at a pleasant, spacious
monastery, six miles from Ferrara; forgot, in the pleasures of
the chase, the distress of the church and state; and persisted in
destroying the game, without listening to the just complaints of
the marquis or the husbandman. 58 In the mean while, his
unfortunate Greeks were exposed to all the miseries of exile and
poverty; for the support of each stranger, a monthly allowance
was assigned of three or four gold florins; and although the
entire sum did not amount to seven hundred florins, a long arrear
was repeatedly incurred by the indigence or policy of the Roman
court. 59 They sighed for a speedy deliverance, but their escape
was prevented by a triple chain: a passport from their superiors
was required at the gates of Ferrara; the government of Venice
had engaged to arrest and send back the fugitives; and inevitable
punishment awaited them at Constantinople; excommunication,
fines, and a sentence, which did not respect the sacerdotal
dignity, that they should be stripped naked and publicly whipped.
60 It was only by the alternative of hunger or dispute that the
Greeks could be persuaded to open the first conference; and they
yielded with extreme reluctance to attend from Ferrara to
Florence the rear of a flying synod. This new translation was
urged by inevitable necessity: the city was visited by the
plague; the fidelity of the marquis might be suspected; the
mercenary troops of the duke of Milan were at the gates; and as
they occupied Romagna, it was not without difficulty and danger
that the pope, the emperor, and the bishops, explored their way
through the unfrequented paths of the Apennine. 61
58 (return) [ For the emperor’s hunting, see Syropulus, (p. 143,
144, 191.) The pope had sent him eleven miserable hacks; but he
bought a strong and swift horse that came from Russia. The name
of _Janizaries_ may surprise; but the name, rather than the
institution, had passed from the Ottoman, to the Byzantine,
court, and is often used in the last age of the empire.]
59 (return) [ The Greeks obtained, with much difficulty, that
instead of provisions, money should be distributed, four florins
_per_ month to the persons of honorable rank, and three florins
to their servants, with an addition of thirty more to the
emperor, twenty-five to the patriarch, and twenty to the prince,
or despot, Demetrius. The payment of the first month amounted to
691 florins, a sum which will not allow us to reckon above 200
Greeks of every condition. (Syropulus, p. 104, 105.) On the 20th
October, 1438, there was an arrear of four months; in April,
1439, of three; and of five and a half in July, at the time of
the union, (p. 172, 225, 271.)]
60 (return) [ Syropulus (p. 141, 142, 204, 221) deplores the
imprisonment of the Greeks, and the tyranny of the emperor and
patriarch.]
61 (return) [ The wars of Italy are most clearly represented in
the xiiith vol. of the Annals of Muratori. The schismatic Greek,
Syropulus, (p. 145,) appears to have exaggerated the fear and
disorder of the pope in his retreat from Ferrara to Florence,
which is proved by the acts to have been somewhat more decent and
deliberate.]
Yet all these obstacles were surmounted by time and policy. The
violence of the fathers of Basil rather promoted than injured the
cause of Eugenius; the nations of Europe abhorred the schism, and
disowned the election, of Felix the Fifth, who was successively a
duke of Savoy, a hermit, and a pope; and the great princes were
gradually reclaimed by his competitor to a favorable neutrality
and a firm attachment. The legates, with some respectable
members, deserted to the Roman army, which insensibly rose in
numbers and reputation; the council of Basil was reduced to
thirty-nine bishops, and three hundred of the inferior clergy; 62
while the Latins of Florence could produce the subscriptions of
the pope himself, eight cardinals, two patriarchs, eight
archbishops, fifty two bishops, and forty-five abbots, or chiefs
of religious orders. After the labor of nine months, and the
debates of twenty-five sessions, they attained the advantage and
glory of the reunion of the Greeks. Four principal questions had
been agitated between the two churches; _1._ The use of
unleavened bread in the communion of Christ’s body. _2._ The
nature of purgatory. _3._ The supremacy of the pope. And, _4._
The single or double procession of the Holy Ghost. The cause of
either nation was managed by ten theological champions: the
Latins were supported by the inexhaustible eloquence of Cardinal
Julian; and Mark of Ephesus and Bessarion of Nice were the bold
and able leaders of the Greek forces. We may bestow some praise
on the progress of human reason, by observing that the first of
these questions was now treated as an immaterial rite, which
might innocently vary with the fashion of the age and country.
With regard to the second, both parties were agreed in the belief
of an intermediate state of purgation for the venial sins of the
faithful; and whether their souls were purified by elemental fire
was a doubtful point, which in a few years might be conveniently
settled on the spot by the disputants. The claims of supremacy
appeared of a more weighty and substantial kind; yet by the
Orientals the Roman bishop had ever been respected as the first
of the five patriarchs; nor did they scruple to admit, that his
jurisdiction should be exercised agreeably to the holy canons; a
vague allowance, which might be defined or eluded by occasional
convenience. The procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father
alone, or from the Father and the Son, was an article of faith
which had sunk much deeper into the minds of men; and in the
sessions of Ferrara and Florence, the Latin addition of
_filioque_ was subdivided into two questions, whether it were
legal, and whether it were orthodox. Perhaps it may not be
necessary to boast on this subject of my own impartial
indifference; but I must think that the Greeks were strongly
supported by the prohibition of the council of Chalcedon, against
adding any article whatsoever to the creed of Nice, or rather of
Constantinople. 63 In earthly affairs, it is not easy to conceive
how an assembly equal of legislators can bind their successors
invested with powers equal to their own. But the dictates of
inspiration must be true and unchangeable; nor should a private
bishop, or a provincial synod, have presumed to innovate against
the judgment of the Catholic church. On the substance of the
doctrine, the controversy was equal and endless: reason is
confounded by the procession of a deity: the gospel, which lay on
the altar, was silent; the various texts of the fathers might be
corrupted by fraud or entangled by sophistry; and the Greeks were
ignorant of the characters and writings of the Latin saints. 64
Of this at least we may be sure, that neither side could be
convinced by the arguments of their opponents. Prejudice may be
enlightened by reason, and a superficial glance may be rectified
by a clear and more perfect view of an object adapted to our
faculties. But the bishops and monks had been taught from their
infancy to repeat a form of mysterious words: their national and
personal honor depended on the repetition of the same sounds; and
their narrow minds were hardened and inflamed by the acrimony of
a public dispute.
62 (return) [ Syropulus is pleased to reckon seven hundred
prelates in the council of Basil. The error is manifest, and
perhaps voluntary. That extravagant number could not be supplied
by _all_ the ecclesiastics of every degree who were present at
the council, nor by _all_ the absent bishops of the West, who,
expressly or tacitly, might adhere to its decrees.]
63 (return) [ The Greeks, who disliked the union, were unwilling
to sally from this strong fortress, (p. 178, 193, 195, 202, of
Syropulus.) The shame of the Latins was aggravated by their
producing an old MS. of the second council of Nice, with
_filioque_ in the Nicene creed. A palpable forgery! (p. 173.)]
64 (return) [ 'WV egw (said an eminent Greek) otan eiV naon
eiselqw Datinwn ou proskunv tina tvn ekeise agiwn, epei oude
gnwrizw tina, (Syropulus, p. 109.) See the perplexity of the
Greeks, (p. 217, 218, 252, 253, 273.)]
While they were most in a cloud of dust and darkness, the Pope
and emperor were desirous of a seeming union, which could alone
accomplish the purposes of their interview; and the obstinacy of
public dispute was softened by the arts of private and personal
negotiation. The patriarch Joseph had sunk under the weight of
age and infirmities; his dying voice breathed the counsels of
charity and concord, and his vacant benefice might tempt the
hopes of the ambitious clergy. The ready and active obedience of
the archbishops of Russia and Nice, of Isidore and Bessarion, was
prompted and recompensed by their speedy promotion to the dignity
of cardinals. Bessarion, in the first debates, had stood forth
the most strenuous and eloquent champion of the Greek church; and
if the apostate, the bastard, was reprobated by his country, 65
he appears in ecclesiastical story a rare example of a patriot
who was recommended to court favor by loud opposition and
well-timed compliance. With the aid of his two spiritual
coadjutors, the emperor applied his arguments to the general
situation and personal characters of the bishops, and each was
successively moved by authority and example. Their revenues were
in the hands of the Turks, their persons in those of the Latins:
an episcopal treasure, three robes and forty ducats, was soon
exhausted: 66 the hopes of their return still depended on the
ships of Venice and the alms of Rome; and such was their
indigence, that their arrears, the payment of a debt, would be
accepted as a favor, and might operate as a bribe. 67 The danger
and relief of Constantinople might excuse some prudent and pious
dissimulation; and it was insinuated, that the obstinate heretics
who should resist the consent of the East and West would be
abandoned in a hostile land to the revenge or justice of the
Roman pontiff. 68 In the first private assembly of the Greeks,
the formulary of union was approved by twenty-four, and rejected
by twelve, members; but the five _cross-bearers_ of St. Sophia,
who aspired to represent the patriarch, were disqualified by
ancient discipline; and their right of voting was transferred to
the obsequious train of monks, grammarians, and profane laymen.
The will of the monarch produced a false and servile unanimity,
and no more than two patriots had courage to speak their own
sentiments and those of their country. Demetrius, the emperor’s
brother, retired to Venice, that he might not be witness of the
union; and Mark of Ephesus, mistaking perhaps his pride for his
conscience, disclaimed all communion with the Latin heretics, and
avowed himself the champion and confessor of the orthodox creed.
69 In the treaty between the two nations, several forms of
consent were proposed, such as might satisfy the Latins, without
dishonoring the Greeks; and they weighed the scruples of words
and syllables, till the theological balance trembled with a
slight preponderance in favor of the Vatican. It was agreed (I
must entreat the attention of the reader) that the Holy Ghost
proceeds from the Father _and_ the Son, as from one principle and
one substance; that he proceeds _by_ the Son, being of the same
nature and substance, and that he proceeds from the Father _and_
the Son, by one _spiration_ and production. It is less difficult
to understand the articles of the preliminary treaty; that the
pope should defray all the expenses of the Greeks in their return
home; that he should annually maintain two galleys and three
hundred soldiers for the defence of Constantinople: that all the
ships which transported pilgrims to Jerusalem should be obliged
to touch at that port; that as often as they were required, the
pope should furnish ten galleys for a year, or twenty for six
months; and that he should powerfully solicit the princes of
Europe, if the emperor had occasion for land forces.
65 (return) [ See the polite altercation of Marc and Bessarion in
Syropulus, (p. 257,) who never dissembles the vices of his own
party, and fairly praises the virtues of the Latins.]
66 (return) [ For the poverty of the Greek bishops, see a
remarkable passage of Ducas, (c. 31.) One had possessed, for his
whole property, three old gowns, &c. By teaching one-and-twenty
years in his monastery, Bessarion himself had collected forty
gold florins; but of these, the archbishop had expended
twenty-eight in his voyage from Peloponnesus, and the remainder
at Constantinople, (Syropulus, p. 127.)]
67 (return) [ Syropulus denies that the Greeks received any money
before they had subscribed the art of union, (p. 283:) yet he
relates some suspicious circumstances; and their bribery and
corruption are positively affirmed by the historian Ducas.]
68 (return) [ The Greeks most piteously express their own fears
of exile and perpetual slavery, (Syropul. p. 196;) and they were
strongly moved by the emperor’s threats, (p. 260.)]
69 (return) [ I had forgot another popular and orthodox
protester: a favorite bound, who usually lay quiet on the
foot-cloth of the emperor’s throne but who barked most furiously
while the act of union was reading without being silenced by the
soothing or the lashes of the royal attendants, (Syropul. p. 265,
266.)]
The same year, and almost the same day, were marked by the
deposition of Eugenius at Basil; and, at Florence, by his reunion
of the Greeks and Latins. In the former synod, (which he styled
indeed an assembly of dæmons,) the pope was branded with the
guilt of simony, perjury, tyranny, heresy, and schism; 70 and
declared to be incorrigible in his vices, unworthy of any title,
and incapable of holding any ecclesiastical office. In the
latter, he was revered as the true and holy vicar of Christ, who,
after a separation of six hundred years, had reconciled the
Catholics of the East and West in one fold, and under one
shepherd. The act of union was subscribed by the pope, the
emperor, and the principal members of both churches; even by
those who, like Syropulus, 71 had been deprived of the right of
voting. Two copies might have sufficed for the East and West; but
Eugenius was not satisfied, unless four authentic and similar
transcripts were signed and attested as the monuments of his
victory. 72 On a memorable day, the sixth of July, the successors
of St. Peter and Constantine ascended their thrones the two
nations assembled in the cathedral of Florence; their
representatives, Cardinal Julian and Bessarion archbishop of
Nice, appeared in the pulpit, and, after reading in their
respective tongues the act of union, they mutually embraced, in
the name and the presence of their applauding brethren. The pope
and his ministers then officiated according to the Roman liturgy;
the creed was chanted with the addition of _filioque_; the
acquiescence of the Greeks was poorly excused by their ignorance
of the harmonious, but inarticulate sounds; 73 and the more
scrupulous Latins refused any public celebration of the Byzantine
rite. Yet the emperor and his clergy were not totally unmindful
of national honor. The treaty was ratified by their consent: it
was tacitly agreed that no innovation should be attempted in
their creed or ceremonies: they spared, and secretly respected,
the generous firmness of Mark of Ephesus; and, on the decease of
the patriarch, they refused to elect his successor, except in the
cathedral of St. Sophia. In the distribution of public and
private rewards, the liberal pontiff exceeded their hopes and his
promises: the Greeks, with less pomp and pride, returned by the
same road of Ferrara and Venice; and their reception at
Constantinople was such as will be described in the following
chapter. 74 The success of the first trial encouraged Eugenius to
repeat the same edifying scenes; and the deputies of the
Armenians, the Maronites, the Jacobites of Syria and Egypt, the
Nestorians and the Æthiopians, were successively introduced, to
kiss the feet of the Roman pontiff, and to announce the obedience
and the orthodoxy of the East. These Oriental embassies, unknown
in the countries which they presumed to represent, 75 diffused
over the West the fame of Eugenius; and a clamor was artfully
propagated against the remnant of a schism in Switzerland and
Savoy, which alone impeded the harmony of the Christian world.
The vigor of opposition was succeeded by the lassitude of
despair: the council of Basil was silently dissolved; and Felix,
renouncing the tiara, again withdrew to the devout or delicious
hermitage of Ripaille. 76 A general peace was secured by mutual
acts of oblivion and indemnity: all ideas of reformation
subsided; the popes continued to exercise and abuse their
ecclesiastical despotism; nor has Rome been since disturbed by
the mischiefs of a contested election. 77
70 (return) [ From the original Lives of the Popes, in Muratori’s
Collection, (tom. iii. p. ii. tom. xxv.,) the manners of Eugenius
IV. appear to have been decent, and even exemplary. His
situation, exposed to the world and to his enemies, was a
restraint, and is a pledge.]
71 (return) [ Syropulus, rather than subscribe, would have
assisted, as the least evil, at the ceremony of the union. He was
compelled to do both; and the great ecclesiarch poorly excuses
his submission to the emperor, (p. 290—292.)]
72 (return) [ None of these original acts of union can at present
be produced. Of the ten MSS. that are preserved, (five at Rome,
and the remainder at Florence, Bologna, Venice, Paris, and
London,) nine have been examined by an accurate critic, (M. de
Brequigny,) who condemns them for the variety and imperfections
of the Greek signatures. Yet several of these may be esteemed as
authentic copies, which were subscribed at Florence, before (26th
of August, 1439) the final separation of the pope and emperor,
(Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xliii. p.
287—311.)]
73 (return) [ Hmin de wV ashmoi edokoun jwnai, (Syropul. p.
297.)]
74 (return) [ In their return, the Greeks conversed at Bologna
with the ambassadors of England: and after some questions and
answers, these impartial strangers laughed at the pretended union
of Florence, (Syropul. p. 307.)]
75 (return) [ So nugatory, or rather so fabulous, are these
reunions of the Nestorians, Jacobites, &c., that I have turned
over, without success, the Bibliotheca Orientalis of Assemannus,
a faithful slave of the Vatican.]
76 (return) [ Ripaille is situate near Thonon in Savoy, on the
southern side of the Lake of Geneva. It is now a Carthusian
abbey; and Mr. Addison (Travels into Italy, vol. ii. p. 147, 148,
of Baskerville’s edition of his works) has celebrated the place
and the founder. Æneas Sylvius, and the fathers of Basil, applaud
the austere life of the ducal hermit; but the French and Italian
proverbs most unluckily attest the popular opinion of his
luxury.]
77 (return) [ In this account of the councils of Basil, Ferrara,
and Florence, I have consulted the original acts, which fill the
xviith and xviiith tome of the edition of Venice, and are closed
by the perspicuous, though partial, history of Augustin
Patricius, an Italian of the xvth century. They are digested and
abridged by Dupin, (Bibliothèque Ecclés. tom. xii.,) and the
continuator of Fleury, (tom. xxii.;) and the respect of the
Gallican church for the adverse parties confines their members to
an awkward moderation.]
The journeys of three emperors were unavailing for their
temporal, or perhaps their spiritual, salvation; but they were
productive of a beneficial consequence—the revival of the Greek
learning in Italy, from whence it was propagated to the last
nations of the West and North. In their lowest servitude and
depression, the subjects of the Byzantine throne were still
possessed of a golden key that could unlock the treasures of
antiquity; of a musical and prolific language, that gives a soul
to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions of
philosophy. Since the barriers of the monarchy, and even of the
capital, had been trampled under foot, the various Barbarians had
doubtless corrupted the form and substance of the national
dialect; and ample glossaries have been composed, to interpret a
multitude of words, of Arabic, Turkish, Sclavonian, Latin, or
French origin. 78 But a purer idiom was spoken in the court and
taught in the college; and the flourishing state of the language
is described, and perhaps embellished, by a learned Italian, 79
who, by a long residence and noble marriage, 80 was naturalized
at Constantinople about thirty years before the Turkish conquest.
“The vulgar speech,” says Philelphus, 81 “has been depraved by
the people, and infected by the multitude of strangers and
merchants, who every day flock to the city and mingle with the
inhabitants. It is from the disciples of such a school that the
Latin language received the versions of Aristotle and Plato; so
obscure in sense, and in spirit so poor. But the Greeks who have
escaped the contagion, are those whom _we_ follow; and they alone
are worthy of our imitation. In familiar discourse, they still
speak the tongue of Aristophanes and Euripides, of the historians
and philosophers of Athens; and the style of their writings is
still more elaborate and correct. The persons who, by their birth
and offices, are attached to the Byzantine court, are those who
maintain, with the least alloy, the ancient standard of elegance
and purity; and the native graces of language most conspicuously
shine among the noble matrons, who are excluded from all
intercourse with foreigners. With foreigners do I say? They live
retired and sequestered from the eyes of their fellow-citizens.
Seldom are they seen in the streets; and when they leave their
houses, it is in the dusk of evening, on visits to the churches
and their nearest kindred. On these occasions, they are on
horseback, covered with a veil, and encompassed by their parents,
their husbands, or their servants.” 82
78 (return) [ In the first attempt, Meursius collected 3600
Græco-barbarous words, to which, in a second edition, he
subjoined 1800 more; yet what plenteous gleanings did he leave to
Portius, Ducange, Fabrotti, the Bollandists, &c.! (Fabric.
Bibliot. Græc. tom. x. p. 101, &c.) _Some_ Persic words may be
found in Xenophon, and some Latin ones in Plutarch; and such is
the inevitable effect of war and commerce; but the form and
substance of the language were not affected by this slight
alloy.]
79 (return) [ The life of Francis Philelphus, a sophist, proud,
restless, and rapacious, has been diligently composed by Lancelot
(Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 691—751)
(Istoria della Letteratura Italiana, tom. vii. p. 282—294,) for
the most part from his own letters. His elaborate writings, and
those of his contemporaries, are forgotten; but their familiar
epistles still describe the men and the times.]
80 (return) [ He married, and had perhaps debauched, the daughter
of John, and the granddaughter of Manuel Chrysoloras. She was
young, beautiful, and wealthy; and her noble family was allied to
the Dorias of Genoa and the emperors of Constantinople.]
81 (return) [ Græci quibus lingua depravata non sit.... ita
loquuntur vulgo hâc etiam tempestate ut Aristophanes comicus, aut
Euripides tragicus, ut oratores omnes, ut historiographi, ut
philosophi.... litterati autem homines et doctius et
emendatius.... Nam viri aulici veterem sermonis dignitatem atque
elegantiam retinebant in primisque ipsæ nobiles mulieres; quibus
cum nullum esset omnino cum viris peregrinis commercium, merus
ille ac purus Græcorum sermo servabatur intactus, (Philelph.
Epist. ad ann. 1451, apud Hodium, p. 188, 189.) He observes in
another passage, uxor illa mea Theodora locutione erat admodum
moderatâ et suavi et maxime Atticâ.]
82 (return) [ Philelphus, absurdly enough, derives this Greek or
Oriental jealousy from the manners of ancient Rome.]
Among the Greeks a numerous and opulent clergy was dedicated to
the service of religion: their monks and bishops have ever been
distinguished by the gravity and austerity of their manners; nor
were they diverted, like the Latin priests, by the pursuits and
pleasures of a secular, and even military, life. After a large
deduction for the time and talent that were lost in the devotion,
the laziness, and the discord, of the church and cloister, the
more inquisitive and ambitious minds would explore the sacred and
profane erudition of their native language. The ecclesiastics
presided over the education of youth; the schools of philosophy
and eloquence were perpetuated till the fall of the empire; and
it may be affirmed, that more books and more knowledge were
included within the walls of Constantinople, than could be
dispersed over the extensive countries of the West. 83 But an
important distinction has been already noticed: the Greeks were
stationary or retrograde, while the Latins were advancing with a
rapid and progressive motion. The nations were excited by the
spirit of independence and emulation; and even the little world
of the Italian states contained more people and industry than the
decreasing circle of the Byzantine empire. In Europe, the lower
ranks of society were relieved from the yoke of feudal servitude;
and freedom is the first step to curiosity and knowledge. The
use, however rude and corrupt, of the Latin tongue had been
preserved by superstition; the universities, from Bologna to
Oxford, 84 were peopled with thousands of scholars; and their
misguided ardor might be directed to more liberal and manly
studies. In the resurrection of science, Italy was the first that
cast away her shroud; and the eloquent Petrarch, by his lessons
and his example, may justly be applauded as the first harbinger
of day. A purer style of composition, a more generous and
rational strain of sentiment, flowed from the study and imitation
of the writers of ancient Rome; and the disciples of Cicero and
Virgil approached, with reverence and love, the sanctuary of
their Grecian masters. In the sack of Constantinople, the French,
and even the Venetians, had despised and destroyed the works of
Lysippus and Homer: the monuments of art may be annihilated by a
single blow; but the immortal mind is renewed and multiplied by
the copies of the pen; and such copies it was the ambition of
Petrarch and his friends to possess and understand. The arms of
the Turks undoubtedly pressed the flight of the Muses; yet we may
tremble at the thought, that Greece might have been overwhelmed,
with her schools and libraries, before Europe had emerged from
the deluge of barbarism; that the seeds of science might have
been scattered by the winds, before the Italian soil was prepared
for their cultivation.
83 (return) [ See the state of learning in the xiiith and xivth
centuries, in the learned and judicious Mosheim, (Instit. Hist.
Ecclés. p. 434—440, 490—494.)]
84 (return) [ At the end of the xvth century, there existed in
Europe about fifty universities, and of these the foundation of
ten or twelve is prior to the year 1300. They were crowded in
proportion to their scarcity. Bologna contained 10,000 students,
chiefly of the civil law. In the year 1357 the number at Oxford
had decreased from 30,000 to 6000 scholars, (Henry’s History of
Great Britain, vol. iv. p. 478.) Yet even this decrease is much
superior to the present list of the members of the university.]
Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.—Part IV.
The most learned Italians of the fifteenth century have confessed
and applauded the restoration of Greek literature, after a long
oblivion of many hundred years. 85 Yet in that country, and
beyond the Alps, some names are quoted; some profound scholars,
who in the darker ages were honorably distinguished by their
knowledge of the Greek tongue; and national vanity has been loud
in the praise of such rare examples of erudition. Without
scrutinizing the merit of individuals, truth must observe, that
their science is without a cause, and without an effect; that it
was easy for them to satisfy themselves and their more ignorant
contemporaries; and that the idiom, which they had so
marvellously acquired was transcribed in few manuscripts, and was
not taught in any university of the West. In a corner of Italy,
it faintly existed as the popular, or at least as the
ecclesiastical dialect. 86 The first impression of the Doric and
Ionic colonies has never been completely erased: the Calabrian
churches were long attached to the throne of Constantinople: and
the monks of St. Basil pursued their studies in Mount Athos and
the schools of the East. Calabria was the native country of
Barlaam, who has already appeared as a sectary and an ambassador;
and Barlaam was the first who revived, beyond the Alps, the
memory, or at least the writings, of Homer. 87 He is described,
by Petrarch and Boccace, 88 as a man of diminutive stature,
though truly great in the measure of learning and genius; of a
piercing discernment, though of a slow and painful elocution. For
many ages (as they affirm) Greece had not produced his equal in
the knowledge of history, grammar, and philosophy; and his merit
was celebrated in the attestations of the princes and doctors of
Constantinople. One of these attestations is still extant; and
the emperor Cantacuzene, the protector of his adversaries, is
forced to allow, that Euclid, Aristotle, and Plato, were familiar
to that profound and subtle logician. 89 In the court of Avignon,
he formed an intimate connection with Petrarch, 90 the first of
the Latin scholars; and the desire of mutual instruction was the
principle of their literary commerce. The Tuscan applied himself
with eager curiosity and assiduous diligence to the study of the
Greek language; and in a laborious struggle with the dryness and
difficulty of the first rudiments, he began to reach the sense,
and to feel the spirit, of poets and philosophers, whose minds
were congenial to his own. But he was soon deprived of the
society and lessons of this useful assistant: Barlaam
relinquished his fruitless embassy; and, on his return to Greece,
he rashly provoked the swarms of fanatic monks, by attempting to
substitute the light of reason to that of their navel. After a
separation of three years, the two friends again met in the court
of Naples: but the generous pupil renounced the fairest occasion
of improvement; and by his recommendation Barlaam was finally
settled in a small bishopric of his native Calabria. 91 The
manifold avocations of Petrarch, love and friendship, his various
correspondence and frequent journeys, the Roman laurel, and his
elaborate compositions in prose and verse, in Latin and Italian,
diverted him from a foreign idiom; and as he advanced in life,
the attainment of the Greek language was the object of his wishes
rather than of his hopes. When he was about fifty years of age, a
Byzantine ambassador, his friend, and a master of both tongues,
presented him with a copy of Homer; and the answer of Petrarch is
at one expressive of his eloquence, gratitude, and regret. After
celebrating the generosity of the donor, and the value of a gift
more precious in his estimation than gold or rubies, he thus
proceeds: “Your present of the genuine and original text of the
divine poet, the fountain of all inventions, is worthy of
yourself and of me: you have fulfilled your promise, and
satisfied my desires. Yet your liberality is still imperfect:
with Homer you should have given me yourself; a guide, who could
lead me into the fields of light, and disclose to my wondering
eyes the spacious miracles of the Iliad and Odyssey. But, alas!
Homer is dumb, or I am deaf; nor is it in my power to enjoy the
beauty which I possess. I have seated him by the side of Plato,
the prince of poets near the prince of philosophers; and I glory
in the sight of my illustrious guests. Of their immortal
writings, whatever had been translated into the Latin idiom, I
had already acquired; but, if there be no profit, there is some
pleasure, in beholding these venerable Greeks in their proper and
national habit. I am delighted with the aspect of Homer; and as
often as I embrace the silent volume, I exclaim with a sigh,
Illustrious bard! with what pleasure should I listen to thy song,
if my sense of hearing were not obstructed and lost by the death
of one friend, and in the much-lamented absence of another. Nor
do I yet despair; and the example of Cato suggests some comfort
and hope, since it was in the last period of age that he attained
the knowledge of the Greek letters.” 92
85 (return) [ Of those writers who professedly treat of the
restoration of the Greek learning in Italy, the two principal are
Hodius, Dr. Humphrey Hody, (de Græcis Illustribus, Linguæ Græcæ
Literarumque humaniorum Instauratoribus; Londini, 1742, in large
octavo,) and Tiraboschi, (Istoria della Letteratura Italiana,
tom. v. p. 364—377, tom. vii. p. 112—143.) The Oxford professor
is a laborious scholar, but the librarian of Modena enjoys the
superiority of a modern and national historian.]
86 (return) [ In Calabria quæ olim magna Græcia dicebatur,
coloniis Græcis repleta, remansit quædam linguæ veteris,
cognitio, (Hodius, p. 2.) If it were eradicated by the Romans, it
was revived and perpetuated by the monks of St. Basil, who
possessed seven convents at Rossano alone, (Giannone, Istoria di
Napoli, tom. i. p. 520.)]
87 (return) [ Ii Barbari (says Petrarch, the French and Germans)
vix, non dicam libros sed nomen Homeri audiverunt. Perhaps, in
that respect, the xiiith century was less happy than the age of
Charlemagne.]
88 (return) [ See the character of Barlaam, in Boccace de
Genealog. Deorum, l. xv. c. 6.]
89 (return) [ Cantacuzen. l. ii. c. 36.]
90 (return) [ For the connection of Petrarch and Barlaam, and the
two interviews at Avignon in 1339, and at Naples in 1342, see the
excellent Mémoires sur la Vie de Pétrarque, tom. i. p. 406—410,
tom. ii. p. 74—77.]
91 (return) [ The bishopric to which Barlaam retired, was the old
Locri, in the middle ages. Scta. Cyriaca, and by corruption
Hieracium, Gerace, (Dissert. Chorographica Italiæ Medii Ævi, p.
312.) The dives opum of the Norman times soon lapsed into
poverty, since even the church was poor: yet the town still
contains 3000 inhabitants, (Swinburne, p. 340.)]
92 (return) [ I will transcribe a passage from this epistle of
Petrarch, (Famil. ix. 2;) Donasti Homerum non in alienum sermonem
violento alveâ?? derivatum, sed ex ipsis Græci eloquii scatebris,
et qualis divino illi profluxit ingenio.... Sine tuâ voce Homerus
tuus apud me mutus, immo vero ego apud illum surdus sum. Gaudeo
tamen vel adspectû solo, ac sæpe illum amplexus atque suspirans
dico, O magne vir, &c.]
The prize which eluded the efforts of Petrarch, was obtained by
the fortune and industry of his friend Boccace, 93 the father of
the Tuscan prose. That popular writer, who derives his reputation
from the Decameron, a hundred novels of pleasantry and love, may
aspire to the more serious praise of restoring in Italy the study
of the Greek language. In the year one thousand three hundred and
sixty, a disciple of Barlaam, whose name was Leo, or Leontius
Pilatus, was detained in his way to Avignon by the advice and
hospitality of Boccace, who lodged the stranger in his house,
prevailed on the republic of Florence to allow him an annual
stipend, and devoted his leisure to the first Greek professor,
who taught that language in the Western countries of Europe. The
appearance of Leo might disgust the most eager disciple, he was
clothed in the mantle of a philosopher, or a mendicant; his
countenance was hideous; his face was overshadowed with black
hair; his beard long and uncombed; his deportment rustic; his
temper gloomy and inconstant; nor could he grace his discourse
with the ornaments, or even the perspicuity, of Latin elocution.
But his mind was stored with a treasure of Greek learning:
history and fable, philosophy and grammar, were alike at his
command; and he read the poems of Homer in the schools of
Florence. It was from his explanation that Boccace composed 931
and transcribed a literal prose version of the Iliad and Odyssey,
which satisfied the thirst of his friend Petrarch, and which,
perhaps, in the succeeding century, was clandestinely used by
Laurentius Valla, the Latin interpreter. It was from his
narratives that the same Boccace collected the materials for his
treatise on the genealogy of the heathen gods, a work, in that
age, of stupendous erudition, and which he ostentatiously
sprinkled with Greek characters and passages, to excite the
wonder and applause of his more ignorant readers. 94 The first
steps of learning are slow and laborious; no more than ten
votaries of Homer could be enumerated in all Italy; and neither
Rome, nor Venice, nor Naples, could add a single name to this
studious catalogue. But their numbers would have multiplied,
their progress would have been accelerated, if the inconstant
Leo, at the end of three years, had not relinquished an honorable
and beneficial station. In his passage, Petrarch entertained him
at Padua a short time: he enjoyed the scholar, but was justly
offended with the gloomy and unsocial temper of the man.
Discontented with the world and with himself, Leo depreciated his
present enjoyments, while absent persons and objects were dear to
his imagination. In Italy he was a Thessalian, in Greece a native
of Calabria: in the company of the Latins he disdained their
language, religion, and manners: no sooner was he landed at
Constantinople, than he again sighed for the wealth of Venice and
the elegance of Florence. His Italian friends were deaf to his
importunity: he depended on their curiosity and indulgence, and
embarked on a second voyage; but on his entrance into the
Adriatic, the ship was assailed by a tempest, and the unfortunate
teacher, who like Ulysses had fastened himself to the mast, was
struck dead by a flash of lightning. The humane Petrarch dropped
a tear on his disaster; but he was most anxious to learn whether
some copy of Euripides or Sophocles might not be saved from the
hands of the mariners. 95
93 (return) [ For the life and writings of Boccace, who was born
in 1313, and died in 1375, Fabricius (Bibliot. Latin. Medii Ævi,
tom. i. p. 248, &c.) and Tiraboschi (tom. v. p. 83, 439—451) may
be consulted. The editions, versions, imitations of his novels,
are innumerable. Yet he was ashamed to communicate that trifling,
and perhaps scandalous, work to Petrarch, his respectable friend,
in whose letters and memoirs he conspicuously appears.]
931 (return) [ This translation of Homer was by Pilatus, not by
Boccacio. See Hallam, Hist. of Lit. vol. i. p. 132.—M.]
94 (return) [ Boccace indulges an honest vanity: Ostentationis
causâ Græca carmina adscripsi.... jure utor meo; meum est hoc
decus, mea gloria scilicet inter Etruscos Græcis uti carminibus.
Nonne ego fui qui Leontium Pilatum, &c., (de Genealogia Deorum,
l. xv. c. 7, a work which, though now forgotten, has run through
thirteen or fourteen editions.)]
95 (return) [ Leontius, or Leo Pilatus, is sufficiently made
known by Hody, (p. 2—11,) and the abbé de Sade, (Vie de
Pétrarque, tom. iii. p. 625—634, 670—673,) who has very happily
caught the lively and dramatic manner of his original.]
But the faint rudiments of Greek learning, which Petrarch had
encouraged and Boccace had planted, soon withered and expired.
The succeeding generation was content for a while with the
improvement of Latin eloquence; nor was it before the end of the
fourteenth century that a new and perpetual flame was rekindled
in Italy. 96 Previous to his own journey the emperor Manuel
despatched his envoys and orators to implore the compassion of
the Western princes. Of these envoys, the most conspicuous, or
the most learned, was Manuel Chrysoloras, 97 of noble birth, and
whose Roman ancestors are supposed to have migrated with the
great Constantine. After visiting the courts of France and
England, where he obtained some contributions and more promises,
the envoy was invited to assume the office of a professor; and
Florence had again the honor of this second invitation. By his
knowledge, not only of the Greek, but of the Latin tongue,
Chrysoloras deserved the stipend, and surpassed the expectation,
of the republic. His school was frequented by a crowd of
disciples of every rank and age; and one of these, in a general
history, has described his motives and his success. “At that
time,” says Leonard Aretin, 98 “I was a student of the civil law;
but my soul was inflamed with the love of letters; and I bestowed
some application on the sciences of logic and rhetoric. On the
arrival of Manuel, I hesitated whether I should desert my legal
studies, or relinquish this golden opportunity; and thus, in the
ardor of youth, I communed with my own mind—Wilt thou be wanting
to thyself and thy fortune? Wilt thou refuse to be introduced to
a familiar converse with Homer, Plato, and Demosthenes; with
those poets, philosophers, and orators, of whom such wonders are
related, and who are celebrated by every age as the great masters
of human science? Of professors and scholars in civil law, a
sufficient supply will always be found in our universities; but a
teacher, and such a teacher, of the Greek language, if he once be
suffered to escape, may never afterwards be retrieved. Convinced
by these reasons, I gave myself to Chrysoloras; and so strong was
my passion, that the lessons which I had imbibed in the day were
the constant object of my nightly dreams.” 99 At the same time
and place, the Latin classics were explained by John of Ravenna,
the domestic pupil of Petrarch; 100 the Italians, who illustrated
their age and country, were formed in this double school; and
Florence became the fruitful seminary of Greek and Roman
erudition. 101 The presence of the emperor recalled Chrysoloras
from the college to the court; but he afterwards taught at Pavia
and Rome with equal industry and applause. The remainder of his
life, about fifteen years, was divided between Italy and
Constantinople, between embassies and lessons. In the noble
office of enlightening a foreign nation, the grammarian was not
unmindful of a more sacred duty to his prince and country; and
Emanuel Chrysoloras died at Constance on a public mission from
the emperor to the council.
96 (return) [ Dr. Hody (p. 54) is angry with Leonard Aretin,
Guarinus, Paulus Jovius, &c., for affirming, that the Greek
letters were restored in Italy _post septingentos annos_; as if,
says he, they had flourished till the end of the viith century.
These writers most probably reckoned from the last period of the
exarchate; and the presence of the Greek magistrates and troops
at Ravenna and Rome must have preserved, in some degree, the use
of their native tongue.]
97 (return) [ See the article of Emanuel, or Manuel Chrysoloras,
in Hody (p 12—54) and Tiraboschi, (tom. vii. p. 113—118.) The
precise date of his arrival floats between the years 1390 and
1400, and is only confined by the reign of Boniface IX.]
98 (return) [ The name of _Aretinus_ has been assumed by five or
six natives of _Arezzo_ in Tuscany, of whom the most famous and
the most worthless lived in the xvith century. Leonardus Brunus
Aretinus, the disciple of Chrysoloras, was a linguist, an orator,
and an historian, the secretary of four successive popes, and the
chancellor of the republic of Florence, where he died A.D. 1444,
at the age of seventy-five, (Fabric. Bibliot. Medii Ævi, tom. i.
p. 190 &c. Tiraboschi, tom. vii. p. 33—38.)]
99 (return) [ See the passage in Aretin. Commentario Rerum suo
Tempore in Italia gestarum, apud Hodium, p. 28—30.]
100 (return) [ In this domestic discipline, Petrarch, who loved
the youth, often complains of the eager curiosity, restless
temper, and proud feelings, which announce the genius and glory
of a riper age, (Mémoires sur Pétrarque, tom. iii. p. 700—709.)]
101 (return) [ Hinc Græcæ Latinæque scholæ exortæ sunt, Guarino
Philelpho, Leonardo Aretino, Caroloque, ac plerisque aliis
tanquam ex equo Trojano prodeuntibus, quorum emulatione multa
ingenia deinceps ad laudem excitata sunt, (Platina in Bonifacio
IX.) Another Italian writer adds the names of Paulus Petrus
Vergerius, Omnibonus Vincentius, Poggius, Franciscus Barbarus,
&c. But I question whether a rigid chronology would allow
Chrysoloras _all_ these eminent scholars, (Hodius, p. 25—27,
&c.)]
After his example, the restoration of the Greek letters in Italy
was prosecuted by a series of emigrants, who were destitute of
fortune, and endowed with learning, or at least with language.
From the terror or oppression of the Turkish arms, the natives of
Thessalonica and Constantinople escaped to a land of freedom,
curiosity, and wealth. The synod introduced into Florence the
lights of the Greek church, and the oracles of the Platonic
philosophy; and the fugitives who adhered to the union, had the
double merit of renouncing their country, not only for the
Christian, but for the catholic cause. A patriot, who sacrifices
his party and conscience to the allurements of favor, may be
possessed, however, of the private and social virtues: he no
longer hears the reproachful epithets of slave and apostate; and
the consideration which he acquires among his new associates will
restore in his own eyes the dignity of his character. The prudent
conformity of Bessarion was rewarded with the Roman purple: he
fixed his residence in Italy; and the Greek cardinal, the titular
patriarch of Constantinople, was respected as the chief and
protector of his nation: 102 his abilities were exercised in the
legations of Bologna, Venice, Germany, and France; and his
election to the chair of St. Peter floated for a moment on the
uncertain breath of a conclave. 103 His ecclesiastical honors
diffused a splendor and preeminence over his literary merit and
service: his palace was a school; as often as the cardinal
visited the Vatican, he was attended by a learned train of both
nations; 104 of men applauded by themselves and the public; and
whose writings, now overspread with dust, were popular and useful
in their own times. I shall not attempt to enumerate the
restorers of Grecian literature in the fifteenth century; and it
may be sufficient to mention with gratitude the names of Theodore
Gaza, of George of Trebizond, of John Argyropulus, and Demetrius
Chalcocondyles, who taught their native language in the schools
of Florence and Rome. Their labors were not inferior to those of
Bessarion, whose purple they revered, and whose fortune was the
secret object of their envy. But the lives of these grammarians
were humble and obscure: they had declined the lucrative paths of
the church; their dress and manners secluded them from the
commerce of the world; and since they were confined to the merit,
they might be content with the rewards, of learning. From this
character, Janus Lascaris 105 will deserve an exception. His
eloquence, politeness, and Imperial descent, recommended him to
the French monarch; and in the same cities he was alternately
employed to teach and to negotiate. Duty and interest prompted
them to cultivate the study of the Latin language; and the most
successful attained the faculty of writing and speaking with
fluency and elegance in a foreign idiom. But they ever retained
the inveterate vanity of their country: their praise, or at least
their esteem, was reserved for the national writers, to whom they
owed their fame and subsistence; and they sometimes betrayed
their contempt in licentious criticism or satire on Virgil’s
poetry, and the oratory of Tully. 106 The superiority of these
masters arose from the familiar use of a living language; and
their first disciples were incapable of discerning how far they
had degenerated from the knowledge, and even the practice of
their ancestors. A vicious pronunciation, 107 which they
introduced, was banished from the schools by the reason of the
succeeding age. Of the power of the Greek accents they were
ignorant; and those musical notes, which, from an Attic tongue,
and to an Attic ear, must have been the secret soul of harmony,
were to their eyes, as to our own, no more than minute and
unmeaning marks, in prose superfluous and troublesome in verse.
The art of grammar they truly possessed; the valuable fragments
of Apollonius and Herodian were transfused into their lessons;
and their treatises of syntax and etymology, though devoid of
philosophic spirit, are still useful to the Greek student. In the
shipwreck of the Byzantine libraries, each fugitive seized a
fragment of treasure, a copy of some author, who without his
industry might have perished: the transcripts were multiplied by
an assiduous, and sometimes an elegant pen; and the text was
corrected and explained by their own comments, or those of the
elder scholiasts. The sense, though not the spirit, of the Greek
classics, was interpreted to the Latin world: the beauties of
style evaporate in a version; but the judgment of Theodore Gaza
selected the more solid works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, and
their natural histories of animals and plants opened a rich fund
of genuine and experimental science.
102 (return) [ See in Hody the article of Bessarion, (p.
136—177.) Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, and the rest of the
Greeks whom I have named or omitted, are inserted in their proper
chapters of his learned work. See likewise Tiraboschi, in the 1st
and 2d parts of the vith tome.]
103 (return) [ The cardinals knocked at his door, but his
conclavist refused to interrupt the studies of Bessarion:
“Nicholas,” said he, “thy respect has cost thee a hat, and me the
tiara.” * Note: Roscoe (Life of Lorenzo de Medici, vol. i. p. 75)
considers that Hody has refuted this “idle tale.”—M.]
104 (return) [ Such as George of Trebizond, Theodore Gaza,
Argyropulus, Andronicus of Thessalonica, Philelphus, Poggius,
Blondus, Nicholas Perrot, Valla, Campanus, Platina, &c. Viri
(says Hody, with the pious zeal of a scholar) (nullo ævo
perituri, p. 156.)]
105 (return) [ He was born before the taking of Constantinople,
but his honorable life was stretched far into the xvith century,
(A.D. 1535.) Leo X. and Francis I. were his noblest patrons,
under whose auspices he founded the Greek colleges of Rome and
Paris, (Hody, p. 247—275.) He left posterity in France; but the
counts de Vintimille, and their numerous branches, derive the
name of Lascaris from a doubtful marriage in the xiiith century
with the daughter of a Greek emperor (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p.
224—230.)]
106 (return) [ Two of his epigrams against Virgil, and three
against Tully, are preserved and refuted by Franciscus Floridus,
who can find no better names than Græculus ineptus et impudens,
(Hody, p. 274.) In our own times, an English critic has accused
the Æneid of containing multa languida, nugatoria, spiritû et
majestate carminis heroici defecta; many such verses as he, the
said Jeremiah Markland, would have been ashamed of owning,
(præfat. ad Statii Sylvas, p. 21, 22.)]
107 (return) [ Emanuel Chrysoloras, and his colleagues, are
accused of ignorance, envy, or avarice, (Sylloge, &c., tom. ii.
p. 235.) The modern Greeks pronounce the b as a V consonant, and
confound three vowels, (h i u,) and several diphthongs. Such was
the vulgar pronunciation which the stern Gardiner maintained by
penal statutes in the university of Cambridge: but the
monosyllable bh represented to an Attic ear the bleating of
sheep, and a bellwether is better evidence than a bishop or a
chancellor. The treatises of those scholars, particularly
Erasmus, who asserted a more classical pronunciation, are
collected in the Sylloge of Havercamp, (2 vols. in octavo, Lugd.
Bat. 1736, 1740:) but it is difficult to paint sounds by words:
and in their reference to modern use, they can be understood only
by their respective countrymen. We may observe, that our peculiar
pronunciation of the O, th, is approved by Erasmus, (tom. ii. p.
130.)]
Yet the fleeting shadows of metaphysics were pursued with more
curiosity and ardor. After a long oblivion, Plato was revived in
Italy by a venerable Greek, 108 who taught in the house of Cosmo
of Medicis. While the synod of Florence was involved in
theological debate, some beneficial consequences might flow from
the study of his elegant philosophy: his style is the purest
standard of the Attic dialect, and his sublime thoughts are
sometimes adapted to familiar conversation, and sometimes adorned
with the richest colors of poetry and eloquence. The dialogues of
Plato are a dramatic picture of the life and death of a sage;
and, as often as he descends from the clouds, his moral system
inculcates the love of truth, of our country, and of mankind. The
precept and example of Socrates recommended a modest doubt and
liberal inquiry; and if the Platonists, with blind devotion,
adored the visions and errors of their divine master, their
enthusiasm might correct the dry, dogmatic method of the
Peripatetic school. So equal, yet so opposite, are the merits of
Plato and Aristotle, that they may be balanced in endless
controversy; but some spark of freedom may be produced by the
collision of adverse servitude. The modern Greeks were divided
between the two sects: with more fury than skill they fought
under the banner of their leaders; and the field of battle was
removed in their flight from Constantinople to Rome. But this
philosophical debate soon degenerated into an angry and personal
quarrel of grammarians; and Bessarion, though an advocate for
Plato, protected the national honor, by interposing the advice
and authority of a mediator. In the gardens of the Medici, the
academical doctrine was enjoyed by the polite and learned: but
their philosophic society was quickly dissolved; and if the
writings of the Attic sage were perused in the closet, the more
powerful Stagyrite continued to reign, the oracle of the church
and school. 109
108 (return) [ George Gemistus Pletho, a various and voluminous
writer, the master of Bessarion, and all the Platonists of the
times. He visited Italy in his old age, and soon returned to end
his days in Peloponnesus. See the curious Diatribe of Leo
Allatius de Georgiis, in Fabricius. (Bibliot. Græc. tom. x. p.
739—756.)]
109 (return) [ The state of the Platonic philosophy in Italy is
illustrated by Boivin, (Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, tom.
ii. p. 715—729,) and Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 259—288.)]
I have fairly represented the literary merits of the Greeks; yet
it must be confessed, that they were seconded and surpassed by
the ardor of the Latins. Italy was divided into many independent
states; and at that time it was the ambition of princes and
republics to vie with each other in the encouragement and reward
of literature. The fame of Nicholas the Fifth 110 has not been
adequate to his merits. From a plebeian origin he raised himself
by his virtue and learning: the character of the man prevailed
over the interest of the pope; and he sharpened those weapons
which were soon pointed against the Roman church. 111 He had been
the friend of the most eminent scholars of the age: he became
their patron; and such was the humility of his manners, that the
change was scarcely discernible either to them or to himself. If
he pressed the acceptance of a liberal gift, it was not as the
measure of desert, but as the proof of benevolence; and when
modest merit declined his bounty, “Accept it,” would he say, with
a consciousness of his own worth: “ye will not always have a
Nicholas among you.” The influence of the holy see pervaded
Christendom; and he exerted that influence in the search, not of
benefices, but of books. From the ruins of the Byzantine
libraries, from the darkest monasteries of Germany and Britain,
he collected the dusty manuscripts of the writers of antiquity;
and wherever the original could not be removed, a faithful copy
was transcribed and transmitted for his use. The Vatican, the old
repository for bulls and legends, for superstition and forgery,
was daily replenished with more precious furniture; and such was
the industry of Nicholas, that in a reign of eight years he
formed a library of five thousand volumes. To his munificence the
Latin world was indebted for the versions of Xenophon, Diodorus,
Polybius, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Appian; of Strabo’s
Geography, of the Iliad, of the most valuable works of Plato and
Aristotle, of Ptolemy and Theophrastus, and of the fathers of the
Greek church. The example of the Roman pontiff was preceded or
imitated by a Florentine merchant, who governed the republic
without arms and without a title. Cosmo of Medicis 112 was the
father of a line of princes, whose name and age are almost
synonymous with the restoration of learning: his credit was
ennobled into fame; his riches were dedicated to the service of
mankind; he corresponded at once with Cairo and London: and a
cargo of Indian spices and Greek books was often imported in the
same vessel. The genius and education of his grandson Lorenzo
rendered him not only a patron, but a judge and candidate, in the
literary race. In his palace, distress was entitled to relief,
and merit to reward: his leisure hours were delightfully spent in
the Platonic academy; he encouraged the emulation of Demetrius
Chalcocondyles and Angelo Politian; and his active missionary
Janus Lascaris returned from the East with a treasure of two
hundred manuscripts, fourscore of which were as yet unknown in
the libraries of Europe. 113 The rest of Italy was animated by a
similar spirit, and the progress of the nation repaid the
liberality of their princes. The Latins held the exclusive
property of their own literature; and these disciples of Greece
were soon capable of transmitting and improving the lessons which
they had imbibed. After a short succession of foreign teachers,
the tide of emigration subsided; but the language of
Constantinople was spread beyond the Alps and the natives of
France, Germany, and England, 114 imparted to their country the
sacred fire which they had kindled in the schools of Florence and
Rome. 115 In the productions of the mind, as in those of the
soil, the gifts of nature are excelled by industry and skill: the
Greek authors, forgotten on the banks of the Ilissus, have been
illustrated on those of the Elbe and the Thames: and Bessarion or
Gaza might have envied the superior science of the Barbarians;
the accuracy of Budæus, the taste of Erasmus, the copiousness of
Stephens, the erudition of Scaliger, the discernment of Reiske,
or of Bentley. On the side of the Latins, the discovery of
printing was a casual advantage: but this useful art has been
applied by Aldus, and his innumerable successors, to perpetuate
and multiply the works of antiquity. 116 A single manuscript
imported from Greece is revived in ten thousand copies; and each
copy is fairer than the original. In this form, Homer and Plato
would peruse with more satisfaction their own writings; and their
scholiasts must resign the prize to the labors of our Western
editors.
110 (return) [ See the Life of Nicholas V. by two contemporary
authors, Janottus Manettus, (tom. iii. P. ii. p. 905—962,) and
Vespasian of Florence, (tom. xxv. p. 267—290,) in the collection
of Muratori; and consult Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 46—52,
109,) and Hody in the articles of Theodore Gaza, George of
Trebizond, &c.]
111 (return) [ Lord Bolingbroke observes, with truth and spirit,
that the popes in this instance, were worse politicians than the
muftis, and that the charm which had bound mankind for so many
ages was broken by the magicians themselves, (Letters on the
Study of History, l. vi. p. 165, 166, octavo edition, 1779.)]
112 (return) [ See the literary history of Cosmo and Lorenzo of
Medicis, in Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. l. i. c. 2,) who bestows
a due measure of praise on Alphonso of Arragon, king of Naples,
the dukes of Milan, Ferrara Urbino, &c. The republic of Venice
has deserved the least from the gratitude of scholars.]
113 (return) [ Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 104,) from the
preface of Janus Lascaris to the Greek Anthology, printed at
Florence, 1494. Latebant (says Aldus in his preface to the Greek
orators, apud Hodium, p. 249) in Atho Thraciæ monte. Eas
Lascaris.... in Italiam reportavit. Miserat enim ipsum Laurentius
ille Medices in Græciam ad inquirendos simul, et quantovis
emendos pretio bonos libros. It is remarkable enough, that the
research was facilitated by Sultan Bajazet II.]
114 (return) [ The Greek language was introduced into the
university of Oxford in the last years of the xvth century, by
Grocyn, Linacer, and Latimer, who had all studied at Florence
under Demetrius Chalcocondyles. See Dr. Knight’s curious Life of
Erasmus. Although a stout academical patriot, he is forced to
acknowledge that Erasmus learned Greek at Oxford, and taught it
at Cambridge.]
115 (return) [ The jealous Italians were desirous of keeping a
monopoly of Greek learning. When Aldus was about to publish the
Greek scholiasts on Sophocles and Euripides, Cave, (said they,)
cave hoc facias, ne _Barbari_ istis adjuti domi maneant, et
pauciores in Italiam ventitent, (Dr. Knight, in his Life of
Erasmus, p. 365, from Beatus Rhemanus.)]
116 (return) [ The press of Aldus Manutius, a Roman, was
established at Venice about the year 1494: he printed above sixty
considerable works of Greek literature, almost all for the first
time; several containing different treatises and authors, and of
several authors, two, three, or four editions, (Fabric. Bibliot.
Græc. tom. xiii. p. 605, &c.) Yet his glory must not tempt us to
forget, that the first Greek book, the Grammar of Constantine
Lascaris, was printed at Milan in 1476; and that the Florence
Homer of 1488 displays all the luxury of the typographical art.
See the Annales Typographical of Mattaire, and the Bibliographie
Instructive of De Bure, a knowing bookseller of Paris.]
Before the revival of classic literature, the Barbarians in
Europe were immersed in ignorance; and their vulgar tongues were
marked with the rudeness and poverty of their manners. The
students of the more perfect idioms of Rome and Greece were
introduced to a new world of light and science; to the society of
the free and polished nations of antiquity; and to a familiar
converse with those immortal men who spoke the sublime language
of eloquence and reason. Such an intercourse must tend to refine
the taste, and to elevate the genius, of the moderns; and yet,
from the first experiments, it might appear that the study of the
ancients had given fetters, rather than wings, to the human mind.
However laudable, the spirit of imitation is of a servile cast;
and the first disciples of the Greeks and Romans were a colony of
strangers in the midst of their age and country. The minute and
laborious diligence which explored the antiquities of remote
times might have improved or adorned the present state of
society, the critic and metaphysician were the slaves of
Aristotle; the poets, historians, and orators, were proud to
repeat the thoughts and words of the Augustan age: the works of
nature were observed with the eyes of Pliny and Theophrastus; and
some Pagan votaries professed a secret devotion to the gods of
Homer and Plato. 117 The Italians were oppressed by the strength
and number of their ancient auxiliaries: the century after the
deaths of Petrarch and Boccace was filled with a crowd of Latin
imitators, who decently repose on our shelves; but in that æra of
learning it will not be easy to discern a real discovery of
science, a work of invention or eloquence, in the popular
language of the country. 118 But as soon as it had been deeply
saturated with the celestial dew, the soil was quickened into
vegetation and life; the modern idioms were refined; the classics
of Athens and Rome inspired a pure taste and a generous
emulation; and in Italy, as afterwards in France and England, the
pleasing reign of poetry and fiction was succeeded by the light
of speculative and experimental philosophy. Genius may anticipate
the season of maturity; but in the education of a people, as in
that of an individual, memory must be exercised, before the
powers of reason and fancy can be expanded: nor may the artist
hope to equal or surpass, till he has learned to imitate, the
works of his predecessors.
117 (return) [ I will select three singular examples of this
classic enthusiasm. I. At the synod of Florence, Gemistus Pletho
said, in familiar conversation to George of Trebizond, that in a
short time mankind would unanimously renounce the Gospel and the
Koran, for a religion similar to that of the Gentiles, (Leo
Allatius, apud Fabricium, tom. x. p. 751.) 2. Paul II. persecuted
the Roman academy, which had been founded by Pomponius Lætus; and
the principal members were accused of heresy, impiety, and
_paganism_, (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. P. i. p. 81, 82.) 3. In the
next century, some scholars and poets in France celebrated the
success of Jodelle’s tragedy of Cleopatra, by a festival of
Bacchus, and, as it is said, by the sacrifice of a goat, (Bayle,
Dictionnaire, Jodelle. Fontenelle, tom. iii. p. 56—61.) Yet the
spirit of bigotry might often discern a serious impiety in the
sportive play of fancy and learning.]
118 (return) [ The survivor Boccace died in the year 1375; and we
cannot place before 1480 the composition of the Morgante Maggiore
of Pulci and the Orlando Innamorato of Boyardo, (Tiraboschi, tom.
vi. P. ii. p. 174—177.)]
Chapter LXVII: Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.—Part I.
Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.—Reign And Character Of Amurath
The Second.—Crusade Of Ladislaus, King Of Hungary.— His Defeat And
Death.—John Huniades.—Scanderbeg.— Constantine Palæologus, Last
Emperor Of The East.
The respective merits of Rome and Constantinople are compared and
celebrated by an eloquent Greek, the father of the Italian
schools. 1 The view of the ancient capital, the seat of his
ancestors, surpassed the most sanguine expectations of Emanuel
Chrysoloras; and he no longer blamed the exclamation of an old
sophist, that Rome was the habitation, not of men, but of gods.
Those gods, and those men, had long since vanished; but to the
eye of liberal enthusiasm, the majesty of ruin restored the image
of her ancient prosperity. The monuments of the consuls and
Cæsars, of the martyrs and apostles, engaged on all sides the
curiosity of the philosopher and the Christian; and he confessed
that in every age the arms and the religion of Rome were destined
to reign over the earth. While Chrysoloras admired the venerable
beauties of the mother, he was not forgetful of his native
country, her fairest daughter, her Imperial colony; and the
Byzantine patriot expatiates with zeal and truth on the eternal
advantages of nature, and the more transitory glories of art and
dominion, which adorned, or had adorned, the city of Constantine.
Yet the perfection of the copy still redounds (as he modestly
observes) to the honor of the original, and parents are delighted
to be renewed, and even excelled, by the superior merit of their
children. “Constantinople,” says the orator, “is situate on a
commanding point, between Europe and Asia, between the
Archipelago and the Euxine. By her interposition, the two seas,
and the two continents, are united for the common benefit of
nations; and the gates of commerce may be shut or opened at her
command. The harbor, encompassed on all sides by the sea, and the
continent, is the most secure and capacious in the world. The
walls and gates of Constantinople may be compared with those of
Babylon: the towers many; each tower is a solid and lofty
structure; and the second wall, the outer fortification, would be
sufficient for the defence and dignity of an ordinary capital. A
broad and rapid stream may be introduced into the ditches and the
artificial island may be encompassed, like Athens, 2 by land or
water.” Two strong and natural causes are alleged for the
perfection of the model of new Rome. The royal founder reigned
over the most illustrious nations of the globe; and in the
accomplishment of his designs, the power of the Romans was
combined with the art and science of the Greeks. Other cities
have been reared to maturity by accident and time: their beauties
are mingled with disorder and deformity; and the inhabitants,
unwilling to remove from their natal spot, are incapable of
correcting the errors of their ancestors, and the original vices
of situation or climate. But the free idea of Constantinople was
formed and executed by a single mind; and the primitive model was
improved by the obedient zeal of the subjects and successors of
the first monarch. The adjacent isles were stored with an
inexhaustible supply of marble; but the various materials were
transported from the most remote shores of Europe and Asia; and
the public and private buildings, the palaces, churches,
aqueducts, cisterns, porticos, columns, baths, and hippodromes,
were adapted to the greatness of the capital of the East. The
superfluity of wealth was spread along the shores of Europe and
Asia; and the Byzantine territory, as far as the Euxine, the
Hellespont, and the long wall, might be considered as a populous
suburb and a perpetual garden. In this flattering picture, the
past and the present, the times of prosperity and decay, are
artfully confounded; but a sigh and a confession escape, from the
orator, that his wretched country was the shadow and sepulchre of
its former self. The works of ancient sculpture had been defaced
by Christian zeal or Barbaric violence; the fairest structures
were demolished; and the marbles of Paros or Numidia were burnt
for lime, or applied to the meanest uses. Of many a statue, the
place was marked by an empty pedestal; of many a column, the size
was determined by a broken capital; the tombs of the emperors
were scattered on the ground; the stroke of time was accelerated
by storms and earthquakes; and the vacant space was adorned, by
vulgar tradition, with fabulous monuments of gold and silver.
From these wonders, which lived only in memory or belief, he
distinguishes, however, the porphyry pillar, the column and
colossus of Justinian, 3 and the church, more especially the
dome, of St. Sophia; the best conclusion, since it could not be
described according to its merits, and after it no other object
could deserve to be mentioned. But he forgets that, a century
before, the trembling fabrics of the colossus and the church had
been saved and supported by the timely care of Andronicus the
Elder. Thirty years after the emperor had fortified St. Sophia
with two new buttresses or pyramids, the eastern hemisphere
suddenly gave way: and the images, the altars, and the sanctuary,
were crushed by the falling ruin. The mischief indeed was
speedily repaired; the rubbish was cleared by the incessant labor
of every rank and age; and the poor remains of riches and
industry were consecrated by the Greeks to the most stately and
venerable temple of the East. 4
1 (return) [ The epistle of Emanuel Chrysoloras to the emperor
John Palæologus will not offend the eye or ear of a classical
student, (ad calcem Codini de Antiquitatibus C. P. p. 107—126.)
The superscription suggests a chronological remark, that John
Palæologus II. was associated in the empire before the year 1414,
the date of Chrysoloras’s death. A still earlier date, at least
1408, is deduced from the age of his youngest sons, Demetrius and
Thomas, who were both _Porphyrogeniti_ (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p.
244, 247.)]
2 (return) [ Somebody observed that the city of Athens might be
circumnavigated, (tiV eipen tin polin tvn Aqhnaiwn dunasqai kai
paraplein kai periplein.) But what may be true in a rhetorical
sense of Constantinople, cannot be applied to the situation of
Athens, five miles from the sea, and not intersected or
surrounded by any navigable streams.]
3 (return) [ Nicephorus Gregoras has described the Colossus of
Justinian, (l. vii. 12:) but his measures are false and
inconsistent. The editor Boivin consulted his friend Girardon;
and the sculptor gave him the true proportions of an equestrian
statue. That of Justinian was still visible to Peter Gyllius, not
on the column, but in the outward court of the seraglio; and he
was at Constantinople when it was melted down, and cast into a
brass cannon, (de Topograph. C. P. l. ii. c. 17.)]
4 (return) [ See the decay and repairs of St. Sophia, in
Nicephorus Gregoras (l. vii. 12, l. xv. 2.) The building was
propped by Andronicus in 1317, the eastern hemisphere fell in
1345. The Greeks, in their pompous rhetoric, exalt the beauty and
holiness of the church, an earthly heaven the abode of angels,
and of God himself, &c.]
The last hope of the falling city and empire was placed in the
harmony of the mother and daughter, in the maternal tenderness of
Rome, and the filial obedience of Constantinople. In the synod of
Florence, the Greeks and Latins had embraced, and subscribed, and
promised; but these signs of friendship were perfidious or
fruitless; 5 and the baseless fabric of the union vanished like a
dream. 6 The emperor and his prelates returned home in the
Venetian galleys; but as they touched at the Morea and the Isles
of Corfu and Lesbos, the subjects of the Latins complained that
the pretended union would be an instrument of oppression. No
sooner did they land on the Byzantine shore, than they were
saluted, or rather assailed, with a general murmur of zeal and
discontent. During their absence, above two years, the capital
had been deprived of its civil and ecclesiastical rulers;
fanaticism fermented in anarchy; the most furious monks reigned
over the conscience of women and bigots; and the hatred of the
Latin name was the first principle of nature and religion. Before
his departure for Italy, the emperor had flattered the city with
the assurance of a prompt relief and a powerful succor; and the
clergy, confident in their orthodoxy and science, had promised
themselves and their flocks an easy victory over the blind
shepherds of the West. The double disappointment exasperated the
Greeks; the conscience of the subscribing prelates was awakened;
the hour of temptation was past; and they had more to dread from
the public resentment, than they could hope from the favor of the
emperor or the pope. Instead of justifying their conduct, they
deplored their weakness, professed their contrition, and cast
themselves on the mercy of God and of their brethren. To the
reproachful question, what had been the event or the use of their
Italian synod? they answered with sighs and tears, “Alas! we have
made a new faith; we have exchanged piety for impiety; we have
betrayed the immaculate sacrifice; and we are become _Azymites_.”
(The Azymites were those who celebrated the communion with
unleavened bread; and I must retract or qualify the praise which
I have bestowed on the growing philosophy of the times.) “Alas!
we have been seduced by distress, by fraud, and by the hopes and
fears of a transitory life. The hand that has signed the union
should be cut off; and the tongue that has pronounced the Latin
creed deserves to be torn from the root.” The best proof of their
repentance was an increase of zeal for the most trivial rites and
the most incomprehensible doctrines; and an absolute separation
from all, without excepting their prince, who preserved some
regard for honor and consistency. After the decease of the
patriarch Joseph, the archbishops of Heraclea and Trebizond had
courage to refuse the vacant office; and Cardinal Bessarion
preferred the warm and comfortable shelter of the Vatican. The
choice of the emperor and his clergy was confined to Metrophanes
of Cyzicus: he was consecrated in St. Sophia, but the temple was
vacant. The cross-bearers abdicated their service; the infection
spread from the city to the villages; and Metrophanes discharged,
without effect, some ecclesiastical thunders against a nation of
schismatics. The eyes of the Greeks were directed to Mark of
Ephesus, the champion of his country; and the sufferings of the
holy confessor were repaid with a tribute of admiration and
applause. His example and writings propagated the flame of
religious discord; age and infirmity soon removed him from the
world; but the gospel of Mark was not a law of forgiveness; and
he requested with his dying breath, that none of the adherents of
Rome might attend his obsequies or pray for his soul.
5 (return) [ The genuine and original narrative of Syropulus (p.
312—351) opens the schism from the first _office_ of the Greeks
at Venice to the general opposition at Constantinople, of the
clergy and people.]
6 (return) [ On the schism of Constantinople, see Phranza, (l.
ii. c. 17,) Laonicus Chalcondyles, (l. vi. p. 155, 156,) and
Ducas, (c. 31;) the last of whom writes with truth and freedom.
Among the moderns we may distinguish the continuator of Fleury,
(tom. xxii. p. 338, &c., 401, 420, &c.,) and Spondanus, (A.D.
1440—50.) The sense of the latter is drowned in prejudice and
passion, as soon as Rome and religion are concerned.]
The schism was not confined to the narrow limits of the Byzantine
empire. Secure under the Mamaluke sceptre, the three patriarchs
of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, assembled a numerous
synod; disowned their representatives at Ferrara and Florence;
condemned the creed and council of the Latins; and threatened the
emperor of Constantinople with the censures of the Eastern
church. Of the sectaries of the Greek communion, the Russians
were the most powerful, ignorant, and superstitious. Their
primate, the cardinal Isidore, hastened from Florence to Moscow,
7 to reduce the independent nation under the Roman yoke. But the
Russian bishops had been educated at Mount Athos; and the prince
and people embraced the theology of their priests. They were
scandalized by the title, the pomp, the Latin cross of the
legate, the friend of those impious men who shaved their beards,
and performed the divine office with gloves on their hands and
rings on their fingers: Isidore was condemned by a synod; his
person was imprisoned in a monastery; and it was with extreme
difficulty that the cardinal could escape from the hands of a
fierce and fanatic people. 8 The Russians refused a passage to
the missionaries of Rome who aspired to convert the Pagans beyond
the Tanais; 9 and their refusal was justified by the maxim, that
the guilt of idolatry is less damnable than that of schism. The
errors of the Bohemians were excused by their abhorrence for the
pope; and a deputation of the Greek clergy solicited the
friendship of those sanguinary enthusiasts. 10 While Eugenius
triumphed in the union and orthodoxy of the Greeks, his party was
contracted to the walls, or rather to the palace of
Constantinople. The zeal of Palæologus had been excited by
interest; it was soon cooled by opposition: an attempt to violate
the national belief might endanger his life and crown; not could
the pious rebels be destitute of foreign and domestic aid. The
sword of his brother Demetrius, who in Italy had maintained a
prudent and popular silence, was half unsheathed in the cause of
religion; and Amurath, the Turkish sultan, was displeased and
alarmed by the seeming friendship of the Greeks and Latins.
7 (return) [ Isidore was metropolitan of Kiow, but the Greeks
subject to Poland have removed that see from the ruins of Kiow to
Lemberg, or Leopold, (Herbestein, in Ramusio, tom. ii. p. 127.)
On the other hand, the Russians transferred their spiritual
obedience to the archbishop, who became, in 1588, the patriarch,
of Moscow, (Levesque Hist. de Russie, tom. iii. p. 188, 190, from
a Greek MS. at Turin, Iter et labores Archiepiscopi Arsenii.)]
8 (return) [ The curious narrative of Levesque (Hist. de Russie,
tom. ii. p. 242—247) is extracted from the patriarchal archives.
The scenes of Ferrara and Florence are described by ignorance and
passion; but the Russians are credible in the account of their
own prejudices.]
9 (return) [ The Shamanism, the ancient religion of the Samanæans
and Gymnosophists, has been driven by the more popular Bramins
from India into the northern deserts: the naked philosophers were
compelled to wrap themselves in fur; but they insensibly sunk
into wizards and physicians. The Mordvans and Tcheremisses in the
European Russia adhere to this religion, which is formed on the
earthly model of one king or God, his ministers or angels, and
the rebellious spirits who oppose his government. As these tribes
of the Volga have no images, they might more justly retort on the
Latin missionaries the name of idolaters, (Levesque, Hist. des
Peuples soumis à la Domination des Russes, tom. i. p. 194—237,
423—460.)]
10 (return) [ Spondanus, Annal. Eccles. tom ii. A.D. 1451, No.
13. The epistle of the Greeks with a Latin version, is extant in
the college library at Prague.]
“Sultan Murad, or Amurath, lived forty-nine, and reigned thirty
years, six months, and eight days. He was a just and valiant
prince, of a great soul, patient of labors, learned, merciful,
religious, charitable; a lover and encourager of the studious,
and of all who excelled in any art or science; a good emperor and
a great general. No man obtained more or greater victories than
Amurath; Belgrade alone withstood his attacks. 101 Under his
reign, the soldier was ever victorious, the citizen rich and
secure. If he subdued any country, his first care was to build
mosques and caravansaras, hospitals, and colleges. Every year he
gave a thousand pieces of gold to the sons of the Prophet; and
sent two thousand five hundred to the religious persons of Mecca,
Medina, and Jerusalem.” 11 This portrait is transcribed from the
historian of the Othman empire: but the applause of a servile and
superstitious people has been lavished on the worst of tyrants;
and the virtues of a sultan are often the vices most useful to
himself, or most agreeable to his subjects. A nation ignorant of
the equal benefits of liberty and law, must be awed by the
flashes of arbitrary power: the cruelty of a despot will assume
the character of justice; his profusion, of liberality; his
obstinacy, of firmness. If the most reasonable excuse be
rejected, few acts of obedience will be found impossible; and
guilt must tremble, where innocence cannot always be secure. The
tranquillity of the people, and the discipline of the troops,
were best maintained by perpetual action in the field; war was
the trade of the Janizaries; and those who survived the peril,
and divided the spoil, applauded the generous ambition of their
sovereign. To propagate the true religion, was the duty of a
faithful Mussulman: the unbelievers were _his_ enemies, and those
of the Prophet; and, in the hands of the Turks, the cimeter was
the only instrument of conversion. Under these circumstances,
however, the justice and moderation of Amurath are attested by
his conduct, and acknowledged by the Christians themselves; who
consider a prosperous reign and a peaceful death as the reward of
his singular merits. In the vigor of his age and military power,
he seldom engaged in war till he was justified by a previous and
adequate provocation: the victorious sultan was disarmed by
submission; and in the observance of treaties, his word was
inviolate and sacred. 12 The Hungarians were commonly the
aggressors; he was provoked by the revolt of Scanderbeg; and the
perfidious Caramanian was twice vanquished, and twice pardoned,
by the Ottoman monarch. Before he invaded the Morea, Thebes had
been surprised by the despot: in the conquest of Thessalonica,
the grandson of Bajazet might dispute the recent purchase of the
Venetians; and after the first siege of Constantinople, the
sultan was never tempted, by the distress, the absence, or the
injuries of Palæologus, to extinguish the dying light of the
Byzantine empire.
101 (return) [ See the siege and massacre at Thessalonica. Von
Hammer vol. i p. 433.—M.]
11 (return) [ See Cantemir, History of the Othman Empire, p. 94.
Murad, or Morad, may be more correct: but I have preferred the
popular name to that obscure diligence which is rarely successful
in translating an Oriental, into the Roman, alphabet.]
12 (return) [ See Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 186, 198,) Ducas, (c.
33,) and Marinus Barletius, (in Vit. Scanderbeg, p. 145, 146.) In
his good faith towards the garrison of Sfetigrade, he was a
lesson and example to his son Mahomet.]
But the most striking feature in the life and character of
Amurath is the double abdication of the Turkish throne; and, were
not his motives debased by an alloy of superstition, we must
praise the royal philosopher, 13 who at the age of forty could
discern the vanity of human greatness. Resigning the sceptre to
his son, he retired to the pleasant residence of Magnesia; but he
retired to the society of saints and hermits. It was not till the
fourth century of the Hegira, that the religion of Mahomet had
been corrupted by an institution so adverse to his genius; but in
the age of the crusades, the various orders of Dervises were
multiplied by the example of the Christian, and even the Latin,
monks. 14 The lord of nations submitted to fast, and pray, and
turn round 141 in endless rotation with the fanatics, who mistook
the giddiness of the head for the illumination of the spirit. 15
But he was soon awakened from his dreams of enthusiasm by the
Hungarian invasion; and his obedient son was the foremost to urge
the public danger and the wishes of the people. Under the banner
of their veteran leader, the Janizaries fought and conquered but
he withdrew from the field of Varna, again to pray, to fast, and
to turn round with his Magnesian brethren. These pious
occupations were again interrupted by the danger of the state. A
victorious army disdained the inexperience of their youthful
ruler: the city of Adrianople was abandoned to rapine and
slaughter; and the unanimous divan implored his presence to
appease the tumult, and prevent the rebellion, of the Janizaries.
At the well-known voice of their master, they trembled and
obeyed; and the reluctant sultan was compelled to support his
splendid servitude, till at the end of four years, he was
relieved by the angel of death. Age or disease, misfortune or
caprice, have tempted several princes to descend from the throne;
and they have had leisure to repent of their irretrievable step.
But Amurath alone, in the full liberty of choice, after the trial
of empire and solitude, has _repeated_ his preference of a
private life.
13 (return) [ Voltaire (Essai sur l’Histoire Générale, c. 89, p.
283, 284) admires _le Philosophe Turc:_ would he have bestowed
the same praise on a Christian prince for retiring to a
monastery? In his way, Voltaire was a bigot, an intolerant
bigot.]
14 (return) [ See the articles _Dervische_, _Fakir_, _Nasser_,
_Rohbaniat_, in D’Herbelot’s Bibliothèque Orientale. Yet the
subject is superficially treated from the Persian and Arabian
writers. It is among the Turks that these orders have principally
flourished.]
141 (return) [ Gibbon has fallen into a remarkable error. The
unmonastic retreat of Amurath was that of an epicurean rather
than of a dervis; more like that of Sardanapalus than of Charles
the Fifth. Profane, not divine, love was its chief occupation:
the only dance, that described by Horace as belonging to the
country, motus doceri gaudet Ionicos. See Von Hammer note, p.
652.—M.]
15 (return) [ Ricaut (in the Present State of the Ottoman Empire,
p. 242—268) affords much information, which he drew from his
personal conversation with the heads of the dervises, most of
whom ascribed their origin to the time of Orchan. He does not
mention the _Zichid_ of Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 286,) among
whom Amurath retired: the _Seids_ of that author are the
descendants of Mahomet.]
After the departure of his Greek brethren, Eugenius had not been
unmindful of their temporal interest; and his tender regard for
the Byzantine empire was animated by a just apprehension of the
Turks, who approached, and might soon invade, the borders of
Italy. But the spirit of the crusades had expired; and the
coldness of the Franks was not less unreasonable than their
headlong passion. In the eleventh century, a fanatic monk could
precipitate Europe on Asia for the recovery of the holy
sepulchre; but in the fifteenth, the most pressing motives of
religion and policy were insufficient to unite the Latins in the
defence of Christendom. Germany was an inexhaustible storehouse
of men and arms: 16 but that complex and languid body required
the impulse of a vigorous hand; and Frederic the Third was alike
impotent in his personal character and his Imperial dignity. A
long war had impaired the strength, without satiating the
animosity, of France and England: 17 but Philip duke of Burgundy
was a vain and magnificent prince; and he enjoyed, without danger
or expense, the adventurous piety of his subjects, who sailed, in
a gallant fleet, from the coast of Flanders to the Hellespont.
The maritime republics of Venice and Genoa were less remote from
the scene of action; and their hostile fleets were associated
under the standard of St. Peter. The kingdoms of Hungary and
Poland, which covered as it were the interior pale of the Latin
church, were the most nearly concerned to oppose the progress of
the Turks. Arms were the patrimony of the Scythians and
Sarmatians; and these nations might appear equal to the contest,
could they point, against the common foe, those swords that were
so wantonly drawn in bloody and domestic quarrels. But the same
spirit was adverse to concord and obedience: a poor country and a
limited monarch are incapable of maintaining a standing force;
and the loose bodies of Polish and Hungarian horse were not armed
with the sentiments and weapons which, on some occasions, have
given irresistible weight to the French chivalry. Yet, on this
side, the designs of the Roman pontiff, and the eloquence of
Cardinal Julian, his legate, were promoted by the circumstances
of the times: 18 by the union of the two crowns on the head of
Ladislaus, 19 a young and ambitious soldier; by the valor of a
hero, whose name, the name of John Huniades, was already popular
among the Christians, and formidable to the Turks. An endless
treasure of pardons and indulgences was scattered by the legate;
many private warriors of France and Germany enlisted under the
holy banner; and the crusade derived some strength, or at least
some reputation, from the new allies both of Europe and Asia. A
fugitive despot of Servia exaggerated the distress and ardor of
the Christians beyond the Danube, who would unanimously rise to
vindicate their religion and liberty. The Greek emperor, 20 with
a spirit unknown to his fathers, engaged to guard the Bosphorus,
and to sally from Constantinople at the head of his national and
mercenary troops. The sultan of Caramania 21 announced the
retreat of Amurath, and a powerful diversion in the heart of
Anatolia; and if the fleets of the West could occupy at the same
moment the Straits of the Hellespont, the Ottoman monarchy would
be dissevered and destroyed. Heaven and earth must rejoice in the
perdition of the miscreants; and the legate, with prudent
ambiguity, instilled the opinion of the invisible, perhaps the
visible, aid of the Son of God, and his divine mother.
16 (return) [ In the year 1431, Germany raised 40,000 horse,
men-at-arms, against the Hussites of Bohemia, (Lenfant, Hist. du
Concile de Basle, tom. i. p. 318.) At the siege of Nuys, on the
Rhine, in 1474, the princes, prelates, and cities, sent their
respective quotas; and the bishop of Munster (qui n’est pas des
plus grands) furnished 1400 horse, 6000 foot, all in green, with
1200 wagons. The united armies of the king of England and the
duke of Burgundy scarcely equalled one third of this German host,
(Mémoires de Philippe de Comines, l. iv. c. 2.) At present, six
or seven hundred thousand men are maintained in constant pay and
admirable discipline by the powers of Germany.]
17 (return) [ It was not till the year 1444, that France and
England could agree on a truce of some months. (See Rymer’s
Fdera, and the chronicles of both nations.)]
18 (return) [ In the Hungarian crusade, Spondanus (Annal. Ecclés.
A.D. 1443, 1444) has been my leading guide. He has diligently
read, and critically compared, the Greek and Turkish materials,
the historians of Hungary, Poland, and the West. His narrative is
perspicuous and where he can be free from a religious bias, the
judgment of Spondanus is not contemptible.]
19 (return) [ I have curtailed the harsh letter (Wladislaus)
which most writers affix to his name, either in compliance with
the Polish pronunciation, or to distinguish him from his rival
the infant Ladislaus of Austria. Their competition for the crown
of Hungary is described by Callimachus, (l. i. ii. p. 447—486,)
Bonfinius, (Decad. iii. l. iv.,) Spondanus, and Lenfant.]
20 (return) [ The Greek historians, Phranza, Chalcondyles, and
Ducas, do not ascribe to their prince a very active part in this
crusade, which he seems to have promoted by his wishes, and
injured by his fears.]
21 (return) [ Cantemir (p. 88) ascribes to his policy the
original plan, and transcribes his animating epistle to the king
of Hungary. But the Mahometan powers are seldom it formed of the
state of Christendom and the situation and correspondence of the
knights of Rhodes must connect them with the sultan of
Caramania.]
Of the Polish and Hungarian diets, a religious war was the
unanimous cry; and Ladislaus, after passing the Danube, led an
army of his confederate subjects as far as Sophia, the capital of
the Bulgarian kingdom. In this expedition they obtained two
signal victories, which were justly ascribed to the valor and
conduct of Huniades. In the first, with a vanguard of ten
thousand men, he surprised the Turkish camp; in the second, he
vanquished and made prisoner the most renowned of their generals,
who possessed the double advantage of ground and numbers. The
approach of winter, and the natural and artificial obstacles of
Mount Hæmus, arrested the progress of the hero, who measured a
narrow interval of six days’ march from the foot of the mountains
to the hostile towers of Adrianople, and the friendly capital of
the Greek empire. The retreat was undisturbed; and the entrance
into Buda was at once a military and religious triumph. An
ecclesiastical procession was followed by the king and his
warriors on foot: he nicely balanced the merits and rewards of
the two nations; and the pride of conquest was blended with the
humble temper of Christianity. Thirteen bashaws, nine standards,
and four thousand captives, were unquestionable trophies; and as
all were willing to believe, and none were present to contradict,
the crusaders multiplied, with unblushing confidence, the myriads
of Turks whom they had left on the field of battle. 22 The most
solid proof, and the most salutary consequence, of victory, was a
deputation from the divan to solicit peace, to restore Servia, to
ransom the prisoners, and to evacuate the Hungarian frontier. By
this treaty, the rational objects of the war were obtained: the
king, the despot, and Huniades himself, in the diet of Segedin,
were satisfied with public and private emolument; a truce of ten
years was concluded; and the followers of Jesus and Mahomet, who
swore on the Gospel and the Koran, attested the word of God as
the guardian of truth and the avenger of perfidy. In the place of
the Gospel, the Turkish ministers had proposed to substitute the
Eucharist, the real presence of the Catholic deity; but the
Christians refused to profane their holy mysteries; and a
superstitious conscience is less forcibly bound by the spiritual
energy, than by the outward and visible symbols of an oath. 23
22 (return) [ In their letters to the emperor Frederic III. the
Hungarians slay 80,000 Turks in one battle; but the modest Julian
reduces the slaughter to 6000 or even 2000 infidels, (Æneas
Sylvius in Europ. c. 5, and epist. 44, 81, apud Spondanum.)]
23 (return) [ See the origin of the Turkish war, and the first
expedition of Ladislaus, in the vth and vith books of the iiid
decad of Bonfinius, who, in his division and style, copies Livy
with tolerable success Callimachus (l. ii p. 487—496) is still
more pure and authentic.]
During the whole transaction, the cardinal legate had observed a
sullen silence, unwilling to approve, and unable to oppose, the
consent of the king and people. But the diet was not dissolved
before Julian was fortified by the welcome intelligence, that
Anatolia was invaded by the Caramanian, and Thrace by the Greek
emperor; that the fleets of Genoa, Venice, and Burgundy, were
masters of the Hellespont; and that the allies, informed of the
victory, and ignorant of the treaty, of Ladislaus, impatiently
waited for the return of his victorious army. “And is it thus,”
exclaimed the cardinal, 24 “that you will desert their
expectations and your own fortune? It is to them, to your God,
and your fellow-Christians, that you have pledged your faith; and
that prior obligation annihilates a rash and sacrilegious oath to
the enemies of Christ. His vicar on earth is the Roman pontiff;
without whose sanction you can neither promise nor perform. In
his name I absolve your perjury and sanctify your arms: follow my
footsteps in the paths of glory and salvation; and if still ye
have scruples, devolve on my head the punishment and the sin.”
This mischievous casuistry was seconded by his respectable
character, and the levity of popular assemblies: war was
resolved, on the same spot where peace had so lately been sworn;
and, in the execution of the treaty, the Turks were assaulted by
the Christians; to whom, with some reason, they might apply the
epithet of Infidels. The falsehood of Ladislaus to his word and
oath was palliated by the religion of the times: the most
perfect, or at least the most popular, excuse would have been the
success of his arms and the deliverance of the Eastern church.
But the same treaty which should have bound his conscience had
diminished his strength. On the proclamation of the peace, the
French and German volunteers departed with indignant murmurs: the
Poles were exhausted by distant warfare, and perhaps disgusted
with foreign command; and their palatines accepted the first
license, and hastily retired to their provinces and castles. Even
Hungary was divided by faction, or restrained by a laudable
scruple; and the relics of the crusade that marched in the second
expedition were reduced to an inadequate force of twenty thousand
men. A Walachian chief, who joined the royal standard with his
vassals, presumed to remark that their numbers did not exceed the
hunting retinue that sometimes attended the sultan; and the gift
of two horses of matchless speed might admonish Ladislaus of his
secret foresight of the event. But the despot of Servia, after
the restoration of his country and children, was tempted by the
promise of new realms; and the inexperience of the king, the
enthusiasm of the legate, and the martial presumption of Huniades
himself, were persuaded that every obstacle must yield to the
invincible virtue of the sword and the cross. After the passage
of the Danube, two roads might lead to Constantinople and the
Hellespont: the one direct, abrupt, and difficult through the
mountains of Hæmus; the other more tedious and secure, over a
level country, and along the shores of the Euxine; in which their
flanks, according to the Scythian discipline, might always be
covered by a movable fortification of wagons. The latter was
judiciously preferred: the Catholics marched through the plains
of Bulgaria, burning, with wanton cruelty, the churches and
villages of the Christian natives; and their last station was at
Warna, near the sea-shore; on which the defeat and death of
Ladislaus have bestowed a memorable name. 25
24 (return) [ I do not pretend to warrant the literal accuracy of
Julian’s speech, which is variously worded by Callimachus, (l.
iii. p. 505—507,) Bonfinius, (dec. iii. l. vi. p. 457, 458,) and
other historians, who might indulge their own eloquence, while
they represent one of the orators of the age. But they all agree
in the advice and arguments for perjury, which in the field of
controversy are fiercely attacked by the Protestants, and feebly
defended by the Catholics. The latter are discouraged by the
misfortune of Warna.]
25 (return) [ Warna, under the Grecian name of Odessus, was a
colony of the Milesians, which they denominated from the hero
Ulysses, (Cellarius, tom. i. p. 374. D’Anville, tom. i. p. 312.)
According to Arrian’s Periplus of the Euxine, (p. 24, 25, in the
first volume of Hudson’s Geographers,) it was situate 1740
stadia, or furlongs, from the mouth of the Danube, 2140 from
Byzantium, and 360 to the north of a ridge of promontory of Mount
Hæmus, which advances into the sea.]
Chapter LXVII: Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.—Part II.
It was on this fatal spot, that, instead of finding a confederate
fleet to second their operations, they were alarmed by the
approach of Amurath himself, who had issued from his Magnesian
solitude, and transported the forces of Asia to the defence of
Europe. According to some writers, the Greek emperor had been
awed, or seduced, to grant the passage of the Bosphorus; and an
indelible stain of corruption is fixed on the Genoese, or the
pope’s nephew, the Catholic admiral, whose mercenary connivance
betrayed the guard of the Hellespont. From Adrianople, the sultan
advanced by hasty marches, at the head of sixty thousand men; and
when the cardinal, and Huniades, had taken a nearer survey of the
numbers and order of the Turks, these ardent warriors proposed
the tardy and impracticable measure of a retreat. The king alone
was resolved to conquer or die; and his resolution had almost
been crowned with a glorious and salutary victory. The princes
were opposite to each other in the centre; and the Beglerbegs, or
generals of Anatolia and Romania, commanded on the right and
left, against the adverse divisions of the despot and Huniades.
The Turkish wings were broken on the first onset: but the
advantage was fatal; and the rash victors, in the heat of the
pursuit, were carried away far from the annoyance of the enemy,
or the support of their friends. When Amurath beheld the flight
of his squadrons, he despaired of his fortune and that of the
empire: a veteran Janizary seized his horse’s bridle; and he had
magnanimity to pardon and reward the soldier who dared to
perceive the terror, and arrest the flight, of his sovereign. A
copy of the treaty, the monument of Christian perfidy, had been
displayed in the front of battle; and it is said, that the sultan
in his distress, lifting his eyes and his hands to heaven,
implored the protection of the God of truth; and called on the
prophet Jesus himself to avenge the impious mockery of his name
and religion. 26 With inferior numbers and disordered ranks, the
king of Hungary rushed forward in the confidence of victory, till
his career was stopped by the impenetrable phalanx of the
Janizaries. If we may credit the Ottoman annals, his horse was
pierced by the javelin of Amurath; 27 he fell among the spears of
the infantry; and a Turkish soldier proclaimed with a loud voice,
“Hungarians, behold the head of your king!” The death of
Ladislaus was the signal of their defeat. On his return from an
intemperate pursuit, Huniades deplored his error, and the public
loss; he strove to rescue the royal body, till he was overwhelmed
by the tumultuous crowd of the victors and vanquished; and the
last efforts of his courage and conduct were exerted to save the
remnant of his Walachian cavalry. Ten thousand Christians were
slain in the disastrous battle of Warna: the loss of the Turks,
more considerable in numbers, bore a smaller proportion to their
total strength; yet the philosophic sultan was not ashamed to
confess, that his ruin must be the consequence of a second and
similar victory. 271 At his command a column was erected on the
spot where Ladislaus had fallen; but the modest inscription,
instead of accusing the rashness, recorded the valor, and
bewailed the misfortune, of the Hungarian youth. 28
26 (return) [ Some Christian writers affirm, that he drew from
his bosom the host or wafer on which the treaty had _not_ been
sworn. The Moslems suppose, with more simplicity, an appeal to
God and his prophet Jesus, which is likewise insinuated by
Callimachus, (l. iii. p. 516. Spondan. A.D. 1444, No. 8.)]
27 (return) [ A critic will always distrust these _spolia opima_
of a victorious general, so difficult for valor to obtain, so
easy for flattery to invent, (Cantemir, p. 90, 91.) Callimachus
(l. iii. p. 517) more simply and probably affirms, supervenitibus
Janizaris, telorum multitudine, non jam confossus est, quam
obrutus.]
271 (return) [ Compare Von Hammer, p. 463.—M.]
28 (return) [ Besides some valuable hints from Æneas Sylvius,
which are diligently collected by Spondanus, our best authorities
are three historians of the xvth century, Philippus Callimachus,
(de Rebus a Vladislao Polonorum atque Hungarorum Rege gestis,
libri iii. in Bel. Script. Rerum Hungaricarum, tom. i. p.
433—518,) Bonfinius, (decad. iii. l. v. p. 460—467,) and
Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 165—179.) The two first were Italians,
but they passed their lives in Poland and Hungary, (Fabric.
Bibliot. Latin. Med. et Infimæ Ætatis, tom. i. p. 324. Vossius,
de Hist. Latin. l. iii. c. 8, 11. Bayle, Dictionnaire,
Bonfinius.) A small tract of Fælix Petancius, chancellor of
Segnia, (ad calcem Cuspinian. de Cæsaribus, p. 716—722,)
represents the theatre of the war in the xvth century.]
Before I lose sight of the field of Warna, I am tempted to pause
on the character and story of two principal actors, the cardinal
Julian and John Huniades. Julian 29 Cæsarini was born of a noble
family of Rome: his studies had embraced both the Latin and Greek
learning, both the sciences of divinity and law; and his
versatile genius was equally adapted to the schools, the camp,
and the court. No sooner had he been invested with the Roman
purple, than he was sent into Germany to arm the empire against
the rebels and heretics of Bohemia. The spirit of persecution is
unworthy of a Christian; the military profession ill becomes a
priest; but the former is excused by the times; and the latter
was ennobled by the courage of Julian, who stood dauntless and
alone in the disgraceful flight of the German host. As the pope’s
legate, he opened the council of Basil; but the president soon
appeared the most strenuous champion of ecclesiastical freedom;
and an opposition of seven years was conducted by his ability and
zeal. After promoting the strongest measures against the
authority and person of Eugenius, some secret motive of interest
or conscience engaged him to desert on a sudden the popular
party. The cardinal withdrew himself from Basil to Ferrara; and,
in the debates of the Greeks and Latins, the two nations admired
the dexterity of his arguments and the depth of his theological
erudition. 30 In his Hungarian embassy, we have already seen the
mischievous effects of his sophistry and eloquence, of which
Julian himself was the first victim. The cardinal, who performed
the duties of a priest and a soldier, was lost in the defeat of
Warna. The circumstances of his death are variously related; but
it is believed, that a weighty encumbrance of gold impeded his
flight, and tempted the cruel avarice of some Christian
fugitives.
29 (return) [ M. Lenfant has described the origin (Hist. du
Concile de Basle, tom. i. p. 247, &c.) and Bohemian campaign (p.
315, &c.) of Cardinal Julian. His services at Basil and Ferrara,
and his unfortunate end, are occasionally related by Spondanus,
and the continuator of Fleury.]
30 (return) [ Syropulus honorably praises the talent of an enemy,
(p. 117:) toiauta tina eipen o IoulianoV peplatusmenwV agan kai
logikwV, kai met episthmhV kai deinothtoV 'RhtprikhV.]
From an humble, or at least a doubtful origin, the merit of John
Huniades promoted him to the command of the Hungarian armies. His
father was a Walachian, his mother a Greek: her unknown race
might possibly ascend to the emperors of Constantinople; and the
claims of the Walachians, with the surname of Corvinus, from the
place of his nativity, might suggest a thin pretence for mingling
his blood with the patricians of ancient Rome. 31 In his youth he
served in the wars of Italy, and was retained, with twelve
horsemen, by the bishop of Zagrab: the valor of the _white
knight_ 32 was soon conspicuous; he increased his fortunes by a
noble and wealthy marriage; and in the defence of the Hungarian
borders he won in the same year three battles against the Turks.
By his influence, Ladislaus of Poland obtained the crown of
Hungary; and the important service was rewarded by the title and
office of Waivod of Transylvania. The first of Julian’s crusades
added two Turkish laurels on his brow; and in the public distress
the fatal errors of Warna were forgotten. During the absence and
minority of Ladislaus of Austria, the titular king, Huniades was
elected supreme captain and governor of Hungary; and if envy at
first was silenced by terror, a reign of twelve years supposes
the arts of policy as well as of war. Yet the idea of a
consummate general is not delineated in his campaigns; the white
knight fought with the hand rather than the head, as the chief of
desultory Barbarians, who attack without fear and fly without
shame; and his military life is composed of a romantic
alternative of victories and escapes. By the Turks, who employed
his name to frighten their perverse children, he was corruptly
denominated _Jancus Lain_, or the Wicked: their hatred is the
proof of their esteem; the kingdom which he guarded was
inaccessible to their arms; and they felt him most daring and
formidable, when they fondly believed the captain and his country
irrecoverably lost. Instead of confining himself to a defensive
war, four years after the defeat of Warna he again penetrated
into the heart of Bulgaria, and in the plain of Cossova,
sustained, till the third day, the shock of the Ottoman army,
four times more numerous than his own. As he fled alone through
the woods of Walachia, the hero was surprised by two robbers; but
while they disputed a gold chain that hung at his neck, he
recovered his sword, slew the one, terrified the other, and,
after new perils of captivity or death, consoled by his presence
an afflicted kingdom. But the last and most glorious action of
his life was the defence of Belgrade against the powers of
Mahomet the Second in person. After a siege of forty days, the
Turks, who had already entered the town, were compelled to
retreat; and the joyful nations celebrated Huniades and Belgrade
as the bulwarks of Christendom. 33 About a month after this great
deliverance, the champion expired; and his most splendid epitaph
is the regret of the Ottoman prince, who sighed that he could no
longer hope for revenge against the single antagonist who had
triumphed over his arms. On the first vacancy of the throne,
Matthias Corvinus, a youth of eighteen years of age, was elected
and crowned by the grateful Hungarians. His reign was prosperous
and long: Matthias aspired to the glory of a conqueror and a
saint: but his purest merit is the encouragement of learning; and
the Latin orators and historians, who were invited from Italy by
the son, have shed the lustre of their eloquence on the father’s
character. 34
31 (return) [ See Bonfinius, decad. iii. l. iv. p. 423. Could the
Italian historian pronounce, or the king of Hungary hear, without
a blush, the absurd flattery which confounded the name of a
Walachian village with the casual, though glorious, epithet of a
single branch of the Valerian family at Rome?]
32 (return) [ Philip de Comines, (Mémoires, l. vi. c. 13,) from
the tradition of the times, mentions him with high encomiums, but
under the whimsical name of the Chevalier Blanc de Valaigne,
(Valachia.) The Greek Chalcondyles, and the Turkish annals of
Leunclavius, presume to accuse his fidelity or valor.]
33 (return) [ See Bonfinius (decad. iii. l. viii. p. 492) and
Spondanus, (A.D. 456, No. 1—7.) Huniades shared the glory of the
defence of Belgrade with Capistran, a Franciscan friar; and in
their respective narratives, neither the saint nor the hero
condescend to take notice of his rival’s merit.]
34 (return) [ See Bonfinius, decad. iii. l. viii.—decad. iv. l.
viii. The observations of Spondanus on the life and character of
Matthias Corvinus are curious and critical, (A.D. 1464, No. 1,
1475, No. 6, 1476, No. 14—16, 1490, No. 4, 5.) Italian fame was
the object of his vanity. His actions are celebrated in the
Epitome Rerum Hungaricarum (p. 322—412) of Peter Ranzanus, a
Sicilian. His wise and facetious sayings are registered by
Galestus Martius of Narni, (528—568,) and we have a particular
narrative of his wedding and coronation. These three tracts are
all contained in the first vol. of Bel’s Scriptores Rerum
Hungaricarum.]
In the list of heroes, John Huniades and Scanderbeg are commonly
associated; 35 and they are both entitled to our notice, since
their occupation of the Ottoman arms delayed the ruin of the
Greek empire. John Castriot, the father of Scanderbeg, 36 was the
hereditary prince of a small district of Epirus or Albania,
between the mountains and the Adriatic Sea. Unable to contend
with the sultan’s power, Castriot submitted to the hard
conditions of peace and tribute: he delivered his four sons as
the pledges of his fidelity; and the Christian youths, after
receiving the mark of circumcision, were instructed in the
Mahometan religion, and trained in the arms and arts of Turkish
policy. 37 The three elder brothers were confounded in the crowd
of slaves; and the poison to which their deaths are ascribed
cannot be verified or disproved by any positive evidence. Yet the
suspicion is in a great measure removed by the kind and paternal
treatment of George Castriot, the fourth brother, who, from his
tender youth, displayed the strength and spirit of a soldier. The
successive overthrow of a Tartar and two Persians, who carried a
proud defiance to the Turkish court, recommended him to the favor
of Amurath, and his Turkish appellation of Scanderbeg, (_Iskender
beg_,) or the lord Alexander, is an indelible memorial of his
glory and servitude. His father’s principality was reduced into a
province; but the loss was compensated by the rank and title of
Sanjiak, a command of five thousand horse, and the prospect of
the first dignities of the empire. He served with honor in the
wars of Europe and Asia; and we may smile at the art or credulity
of the historian, who supposes, that in every encounter he spared
the Christians, while he fell with a thundering arm on his
Mussulman foes. The glory of Huniades is without reproach: he
fought in the defence of his religion and country; but the
enemies who applaud the patriot, have branded his rival with the
name of traitor and apostate. In the eyes of the Christian, the
rebellion of Scanderbeg is justified by his father’s wrongs, the
ambiguous death of his three brothers, his own degradation, and
the slavery of his country; and they adore the generous, though
tardy, zeal, with which he asserted the faith and independence of
his ancestors. But he had imbibed from his ninth year the
doctrines of the Koran; he was ignorant of the Gospel; the
religion of a soldier is determined by authority and habit; nor
is it easy to conceive what new illumination at the age of forty
38 could be poured into his soul. His motives would be less
exposed to the suspicion of interest or revenge, had he broken
his chain from the moment that he was sensible of its weight: but
a long oblivion had surely impaired his original right; and every
year of obedience and reward had cemented the mutual bond of the
sultan and his subject. If Scanderbeg had long harbored the
belief of Christianity and the intention of revolt, a worthy mind
must condemn the base dissimulation, that could serve only to
betray, that could promise only to be forsworn, that could
actively join in the temporal and spiritual perdition of so many
thousands of his unhappy brethren. Shall we praise a secret
correspondence with Huniades, while he commanded the vanguard of
the Turkish army? shall we excuse the desertion of his standard,
a treacherous desertion which abandoned the victory to the
enemies of his benefactor? In the confusion of a defeat, the eye
of Scanderbeg was fixed on the Reis Effendi or principal
secretary: with the dagger at his breast, he extorted a firman or
patent for the government of Albania; and the murder of the
guiltless scribe and his train prevented the consequences of an
immediate discovery. With some bold companions, to whom he had
revealed his design he escaped in the night, by rapid marches,
from the field or battle to his paternal mountains. The gates of
Croya were opened to the royal mandate; and no sooner did he
command the fortress, than George Castriot dropped the mask of
dissimulation; abjured the prophet and the sultan, and proclaimed
himself the avenger of his family and country. The names of
religion and liberty provoked a general revolt: the Albanians, a
martial race, were unanimous to live and die with their
hereditary prince; and the Ottoman garrisons were indulged in the
choice of martyrdom or baptism. In the assembly of the states of
Epirus, Scanderbeg was elected general of the Turkish war; and
each of the allies engaged to furnish his respective proportion
of men and money. From these contributions, from his patrimonial
estate, and from the valuable salt-pits of Selina, he drew an
annual revenue of two hundred thousand ducats; 39 and the entire
sum, exempt from the demands of luxury, was strictly appropriated
to the public use. His manners were popular; but his discipline
was severe; and every superfluous vice was banished from his
camp: his example strengthened his command; and under his
conduct, the Albanians were invincible in their own opinion and
that of their enemies. The bravest adventurers of France and
Germany were allured by his fame and retained in his service: his
standing militia consisted of eight thousand horse and seven
thousand foot; the horses were small, the men were active; but he
viewed with a discerning eye the difficulties and resources of
the mountains; and, at the blaze of the beacons, the whole nation
was distributed in the strongest posts. With such unequal arms
Scanderbeg resisted twenty-three years the powers of the Ottoman
empire; and two conquerors, Amurath the Second, and his greater
son, were repeatedly baffled by a rebel, whom they pursued with
seeming contempt and implacable resentment. At the head of sixty
thousand horse and forty thousand Janizaries, Amurath entered
Albania: he might ravage the open country, occupy the defenceless
towns, convert the churches into mosques, circumcise the
Christian youths, and punish with death his adult and obstinate
captives: but the conquests of the sultan were confined to the
petty fortress of Sfetigrade; and the garrison, invincible to his
arms, was oppressed by a paltry artifice and a superstitious
scruple. 40 Amurath retired with shame and loss from the walls of
Croya, the castle and residence of the Castriots; the march, the
siege, the retreat, were harassed by a vexatious, and almost
invisible, adversary; 41 and the disappointment might tend to
imbitter, perhaps to shorten, the last days of the sultan. 42 In
the fulness of conquest, Mahomet the Second still felt at his
bosom this domestic thorn: his lieutenants were permitted to
negotiate a truce; and the Albanian prince may justly be praised
as a firm and able champion of his national independence. The
enthusiasm of chivalry and religion has ranked him with the names
of Alexander and Pyrrhus; nor would they blush to acknowledge
their intrepid countryman: but his narrow dominion, and slender
powers, must leave him at an humble distance below the heroes of
antiquity, who triumphed over the East and the Roman legions. His
splendid achievements, the bashaws whom he encountered, the
armies that he discomfited, and the three thousand Turks who were
slain by his single hand, must be weighed in the scales of
suspicious criticism. Against an illiterate enemy, and in the
dark solitude of Epirus, his partial biographers may safely
indulge the latitude of romance: but their fictions are exposed
by the light of Italian history; and they afford a strong
presumption against their own truth, by a fabulous tale of his
exploits, when he passed the Adriatic with eight hundred horse to
the succor of the king of Naples. 43 Without disparagement to his
fame, they might have owned, that he was finally oppressed by the
Ottoman powers: in his extreme danger he applied to Pope Pius the
Second for a refuge in the ecclesiastical state; and his
resources were almost exhausted, since Scanderbeg died a fugitive
at Lissus, on the Venetian territory. 44 His sepulchre was soon
violated by the Turkish conquerors; but the Janizaries, who wore
his bones enchased in a bracelet, declared by this superstitious
amulet their involuntary reverence for his valor. The instant
ruin of his country may redound to the hero’s glory; yet, had he
balanced the consequences of submission and resistance, a patriot
perhaps would have declined the unequal contest which must depend
on the life and genius of one man. Scanderbeg might indeed be
supported by the rational, though fallacious, hope, that the
pope, the king of Naples, and the Venetian republic, would join
in the defence of a free and Christian people, who guarded the
sea-coast of the Adriatic, and the narrow passage from Greece to
Italy. His infant son was saved from the national shipwreck; the
Castriots 45 were invested with a Neapolitan dukedom, and their
blood continues to flow in the noblest families of the realm. A
colony of Albanian fugitives obtained a settlement in Calabria,
and they preserve at this day the language and manners of their
ancestors. 46
35 (return) [ They are ranked by Sir William Temple, in his
pleasing Essay on Heroic Virtue, (Works, vol. iii. p. 385,) among
the seven chiefs who have deserved without wearing, a royal
crown; Belisarius, Narses, Gonsalvo of Cordova, William first
prince of Orange, Alexander duke of Parma, John Huniades, and
George Castriot, or Scanderbeg.]
36 (return) [ I could wish for some simple authentic memoirs of a
friend of Scanderbeg, which would introduce me to the man, the
time, and the place. In the old and national history of Marinus
Barletius, a priest of Scodra, (de Vita. Moribus, et Rebus gestis
Georgii Castrioti, &c. libri xiii. p. 367. Argentorat. 1537, in
fol.,) his gaudy and cumbersome robes are stuck with many false
jewels. See likewise Chalcondyles, l vii. p. 185, l. viii. p.
229.]
37 (return) [ His circumcision, education, &c., are marked by
Marinus with brevity and reluctance, (l. i. p. 6, 7.)]
38 (return) [ Since Scanderbeg died A.D. 1466, in the lxiiid year
of his age, (Marinus, l. xiii. p. 370,) he was born in 1403;
since he was torn from his parents by the Turks, when he was
_novennis_, (Marinus, l. i. p. 1, 6,) that event must have
happened in 1412, nine years before the accession of Amurath II.,
who must have inherited, not acquired the Albanian slave.
Spondanus has remarked this inconsistency, A.D. 1431, No. 31,
1443, No. 14.]
39 (return) [ His revenue and forces are luckily given by
Marinus, (l. ii. p. 44.)]
40 (return) [ There were two Dibras, the upper and lower, the
Bulgarian and Albanian: the former, 70 miles from Croya, (l. i.
p. 17,) was contiguous to the fortress of Sfetigrade, whose
inhabitants refused to drink from a well into which a dead dog
had traitorously been cast, (l. v. p. 139, 140.) We want a good
map of Epirus.]
41 (return) [ Compare the Turkish narrative of Cantemir (p. 92)
with the pompous and prolix declamation in the ivth, vth, and
vith books of the Albanian priest, who has been copied by the
tribe of strangers and moderns.]
42 (return) [ In honor of his hero, Barletius (l. vi. p. 188—192)
kills the sultan by disease indeed, under the walls of Croya. But
this audacious fiction is disproved by the Greeks and Turks, who
agree in the time and manner of Amurath’s death at Adrianople.]
43 (return) [ See the marvels of his Calabrian expedition in the
ixth and xth books of Marinus Barletius, which may be rectified
by the testimony or silence of Muratori, (Annali d’Italia, tom.
xiii. p. 291,) and his original authors, (Joh. Simonetta de Rebus
Francisci Sfortiæ, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. xxi. p.
728, et alios.) The Albanian cavalry, under the name of
_Stradiots_, soon became famous in the wars of Italy, (Mémoires
de Comines, l. viii. c. 5.)]
44 (return) [ Spondanus, from the best evidence, and the most
rational criticism, has reduced the giant Scanderbeg to the human
size, (A.D. 1461, No. 20, 1463, No. 9, 1465, No. 12, 13, 1467,
No. 1.) His own letter to the pope, and the testimony of Phranza,
(l. iii. c. 28,) a refugee in the neighboring isle of Corfu,
demonstrate his last distress, which is awkwardly concealed by
Marinus Barletius, (l. x.)]
45 (return) [ See the family of the Castriots, in Ducange, (Fam.
Dalmaticæ, &c, xviii. p. 348—350.)]
46 (return) [ This colony of Albanese is mentioned by Mr.
Swinburne, (Travels into the Two Sicilies, vol. i. p. 350—354.)]
In the long career of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, I
have reached at length the last reign of the princes of
Constantinople, who so feebly sustained the name and majesty of
the Cæsars. On the decease of John Palæologus, who survived about
four years the Hungarian crusade, 47 the royal family, by the
death of Andronicus and the monastic profession of Isidore, was
reduced to three princes, Constantine, Demetrius, and Thomas, the
surviving sons of the emperor Manuel. Of these the first and the
last were far distant in the Morea; but Demetrius, who possessed
the domain of Selybria, was in the suburbs, at the head of a
party: his ambition was not chilled by the public distress; and
his conspiracy with the Turks and the schismatics had already
disturbed the peace of his country. The funeral of the late
emperor was accelerated with singular and even suspicious haste:
the claim of Demetrius to the vacant throne was justified by a
trite and flimsy sophism, that he was born in the purple, the
eldest son of his father’s reign. But the empress-mother, the
senate and soldiers, the clergy and people, were unanimous in the
cause of the lawful successor: and the despot Thomas, who,
ignorant of the change, accidentally returned to the capital,
asserted with becoming zeal the interest of his absent brother.
An ambassador, the historian Phranza, was immediately despatched
to the court of Adrianople. Amurath received him with honor and
dismissed him with gifts; but the gracious approbation of the
Turkish sultan announced his supremacy, and the approaching
downfall of the Eastern empire. By the hands of two illustrious
deputies, the Imperial crown was placed at Sparta on the head of
Constantine. In the spring he sailed from the Morea, escaped the
encounter of a Turkish squadron, enjoyed the acclamations of his
subjects, celebrated the festival of a new reign, and exhausted
by his donatives the treasure, or rather the indigence, of the
state. The emperor immediately resigned to his brothers the
possession of the Morea; and the brittle friendship of the two
princes, Demetrius and Thomas, was confirmed in their mother’s
presence by the frail security of oaths and embraces. His next
occupation was the choice of a consort. A daughter of the doge of
Venice had been proposed; but the Byzantine nobles objected the
distance between an hereditary monarch and an elective
magistrate; and in their subsequent distress, the chief of that
powerful republic was not unmindful of the affront. Constantine
afterwards hesitated between the royal families of Trebizond and
Georgia; and the embassy of Phranza represents in his public and
private life the last days of the Byzantine empire. 48
47 (return) [ The Chronology of Phranza is clear and authentic;
but instead of four years and seven months, Spondanus (A.D. 1445,
No. 7,) assigns seven or eight years to the reign of the last
Constantine which he deduces from a spurious epistle of Eugenius
IV. to the king of Æthiopia.]
48 (return) [ Phranza (l. iii. c. 1—6) deserves credit and
esteem.]
The _protovestiare_, or great chamberlain, Phranza sailed from
Constantinople as the minister of a bridegroom; and the relics of
wealth and luxury were applied to his pompous appearance. His
numerous retinue consisted of nobles and guards, of physicians
and monks: he was attended by a band of music; and the term of
his costly embassy was protracted above two years. On his arrival
in Georgia or Iberia, the natives from the towns and villages
flocked around the strangers; and such was their simplicity, that
they were delighted with the effects, without understanding the
cause, of musical harmony. Among the crowd was an old man, above
a hundred years of age, who had formerly been carried away a
captive by the Barbarians, 49 and who amused his hearers with a
tale of the wonders of India, 50 from whence he had returned to
Portugal by an unknown sea. 51 From this hospitable land, Phranza
proceeded to the court of Trebizond, where he was informed by the
Greek prince of the recent decease of Amurath. Instead of
rejoicing in the deliverance, the experienced statesman expressed
his apprehension, that an ambitious youth would not long adhere
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