Chapter I: A Century of Disgrace

One of the strangest facts in history is the rapid decline of Roman power that set in immediately after the Empire had enjoyed such a succession of good rulers as had never before fallen to its lot. The period of eighty-four years which began with the accession of Nerva and ended with the death of Marcus Aurelius has always been regarded, and rightly regarded, as the golden age of Rome. Trajan was, it is true, a warlike Emperor by choice, and Marcus Aurelius the same by necessity, but Rome had never had since its founding any but the briefest intervals of peace. War, in short, was its natural condition, and it had seldom been carried on with more success than it was by Trajan in Dacia and by Aurelius against the Quadi and the Marcomanni. On the other hand, the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius (117-161) made up together forty-four years, considerably more than what is usually reckoned as a generation, of almost unbroken peace. Yet the good effects of nearly a century of wise rule seemed to vanish almost immediately when the last of the "Good Emperors" passed away. It is true that Aurelius had a deplorably weak and vicious successor.[43] But Commodus was not more contemptible than Caligula, Nero, or Domitian, and Rome had survived their rule without much apparent injury. Some writers have found a cause in a succession of plagues which raged throughout the Empire with an almost unexampled severity, and it is true that the century which followed the year 165[44] was terribly distinguished by this visitation, but no external calamities are sufficient to account for a nation's decay. These causes are to be sought elsewhere, within rather than without, in the life of men more than in the calamities which years of famine or of pestilence inflict upon them. And it is clearly beyond my province to do more than indicate them in the very briefest way. We see signs of what was going on in days when to all appearance the Empire was most flourishing, while it was certainly still pursuing its career of conquest. Virgil writes a great poem to commend the honest healthy toil of a country life to a generation which had ceased to care for it. The cities were more and more crowded, for the luxuries which they put within the reach of even the poorest were more and more sought after, but the country was passing into a desert or a pleasure ground. The farmers or peasants who had formed the backbone of Roman armies had ceased to be; their fields, where they had not gone out of cultivation, were tilled by huge gangs of slaves. Provincial towns which in old days had been strong enough to make treaties on equal terms with Rome were now half in ruins, with a scanty population that barely contrived to exist. With every year things grew worse and worse. And the Empire aggravated the evils which at first it had done much to palliate if not to remedy. It had superseded the Republic, because this had become utterly corrupt; but in time it became as corrupt itself, and for the corruption of a despotism there is no cure. A succession of able rulers put off the end for a time, but it had to come. And when it came there came with it more vigorous races out of whom was to be formed by degrees, not without help of the old order which they swept away, a new civilisation.

Commodus, the unworthy son and successor of the good Aurelius, reigned but for a short time. He was assassinated in his thirty-second year. With his death began, it may be said, the rule of the sword. His successor, indeed, Pertinax by name, was chosen by the Senate, and well deserved his election, but he reigned for something less than ninety days, and the Prætorians, the soldiers of the capital, murdered him and sold the throne openly to the highest bidder. To this arrogance the legions in the provinces refused to submit. The principal armies put up candidates of their own. We need not follow the succession of these short-lived rulers. It will suffice to say that in the hundred and five years which intervened between the death of Aurelius and the accession of Diocletian (180-285) there were no less than twenty Emperors, not to mention innumerable Pretenders--it was said that at one time thirty[45] claimed the throne.

For a time the spectacle of the Roman armies engaged in almost incessant struggles with each other does not seem to have produced the effect which might have been expected on the tribes outside the frontiers of the Empire. No movement of any importance among the barbarians is recorded during the fifty years which followed the murder of Pertinax by the Prætorians. In 209, indeed, the Britons of the north attacked the Roman province, and were punished, without any lasting effect, by Septimius Severus. But the event was of no particular importance, for the North Britons were not powerful enough, even if they had succeeded, to seriously affect the course of events. Causes with which we are not exactly acquainted kept the far more formidable tribes of Germany inactive. We hear of a combination among them in the reign of Aurelius which might well have become dangerous, if, to use the language of Gibbon, it included all the nations from the mouth of the Rhine to the mouth of the Danube. But it came to nothing. The tribes which first took the field were defeated. Discouragement and dissension kept the others inactive. Dissension, indeed, was the most potent influence which worked in favour of the Romans. In his remarkable treatise on Germany and its tribes Tacitus gives a description of the people which emphasises their superiority in many important respects to the degenerate sons of Rome. But he speaks with satisfaction of the internal strife which prevented them from becoming formidable, mentioning one great conflict in which one tribe had been wholly destroyed by its neighbours, and adds, "While the destinies of Empire hurry us on, fortune can give us no greater boon than discord among our foes."

But this state of things naturally would not last. It would cease when some chief of commanding ability and strong personal influence should come to the front, or when some tribe should become so powerful as to attract or compel its neighbours to unite with it. Such a tribe came upon the scene later on in the first half of the third century of our era. The _Gothi_, to use the most common of the various forms of their name, are first mentioned many centuries before the time of which I am now speaking. Pytheas, of Marseilles, who travelled in Northern Europe about the time of Alexander the Great, speaks of them as inhabiting the coasts of the Baltic, and Tacitus, writing about 90 A.D., locates them in much the same district. A hundred years or so after this date, however, they are spoken of as dwelling near the Black Sea. We need not trouble ourselves, however, with their place of abode, nor yet with the question of their race. Some writers hold that they were of the Slavonic family, not the Teutonic. That there were some Slavs in the great multitude which the Romans knew by the common name of Goths is more than probable. In just the same way there was a Celtic element in the great Teutonic swarm which had so nearly overrun Italy at the close of the second century B.C. But all that we know about them, whether as regards their habits or their appearance, would lead us to think that they were Germans.

Some time, therefore, about 247 A.D., the Goths invaded and overran the province of Dacia. Crossing the Danube into Mœsia[46] (Bulgaria) they besieged its capital town, now known by the name of Pravadi (twenty-five miles to the west of Varna). The town was ill-protected, for with the whole province of Dacia between it and the frontier of the Empire it anticipated no danger. The inhabitants saw nothing better to do than to buy off the enemy by the payment of a large ransom. Such a policy is seldom successful, as we know from the history of our own island, where the plan of buying off the Danes was tried again and again to very little purpose. The Goths departed, and before long came back again.

Decius, who had by this time supplanted Philip the Arabian on the imperial throne, on receiving the news of this second invasion, marched to the relief of the provinces attacked. He found the barbarians besieging Nicopoli (on the southern bank of the Danube). On his approach they promptly raised the siege, marched across Mœsia and made their way over the Balkans with the intention of attacking Philippopolis. Decius followed them, without apparently taking due precautions against surprise, for the Goths turned upon him, and routed his army. His forces were so shattered that he could not attempt to help Philippopolis, which not very long afterwards was taken by storm and sacked.

Decius, though he had made a disastrous mistake, was a brave and capable soldier. He took prompt measures to retrieve his defeat, guarding the places where the Danube could be crossed and the Balkan passes so as to prevent reinforcements from reaching the Goths. These, on their part, had suffered severely. The siege and storms had cost them many lives; their supplies were running short, for they carried no stores with them, and could draw but little sustenance from a country which they had wasted. And they were much alarmed at the prospect of having their retreat cut off. Under these circumstances they offered to surrender all their booty and all their prisoners, if they were permitted to return unharmed to their own country. Decius refused to accept the offer. He probably thought, and had some reason for thinking, that no agreement could be profitably made with barbarians. The only way to deal with the Goths was to deal with them as Marius had dealt with the Cimbri and Teutones. The invaders prepared to fight. The battle that followed was obstinately contested. The Goths were drawn up in three lines--we may observe from the first indications of a certain military skill and training in the tribe--the third of which was protected by a morass. The first and the second of these were broken; the third stood firm, and repulsed all the attacks of the legions. The Emperor's son had fallen early in the day; of the fate of Decius himself nothing was ever known. What is certain is that the army was almost annihilated. The Goths were able to make their way home without losing their spoil or their prisoners. They even received a great sum for promising not to molest again the provinces of Rome, till, of course--for such must have been the proviso understood on both sides--they should find it convenient to do so. This battle lacks a name, for the place where it was fought cannot be identified, but it was an event of the greatest importance. Rome had suffered worse disasters before, but never one that entailed so great a loss of credit. A barbarian army destroys a provincial capital, defeats two armies, slays the Emperor himself, and returns home, not only with all its booty, but with a heavy bribe with which its forbearance had been purchased. Clearly this was the beginning of the end.

For some years after their campaigns in the region of the Danube, the Goths occupied themselves with expeditions which bear a curious resemblance to those made by their kinsmen of later times, the Vikings and Northmen. They do not seem to have had any seamanship of their own, but they lured or compelled the maritime population of the Black Sea coast-line to assist them. Their first voyage was eastward. They sailed along the northern coast of the Black Sea, taking Pitsunda on their way, rounded the eastern end, and finally captured Trebizond, the wealthiest city in northern Asia Minor, where they possessed themselves of a vast quantity of spoil and a multitude of prisoners. Their next voyage had a westerly direction. They overran the province of Bithynia. The famous towns of Nicala and Nicomedia, among others, fell into their hands, almost without any attempt at resistance. It was more than three centuries since these regions had known the presence of a foreign enemy. They had no troops of their own, except, possibly, some local levies which certainly had had no experience of warfare, and the legions which should have defended them had sadly degenerated both in courage and in discipline. The third expedition of the Goths took them outside the Black Sea into the Ægean. Their fleet sailed into the Piræus. Athens, which had not attempted, possibly had not been permitted, to repair its walls, demolished more than three hundred years before by Sulla, was taken and plundered. Greece could offer no resistance. It had neither means nor men. The invaders still advanced westwards, and threatened Italy itself. Here, however, their progress was stayed. But from this expedition also, audacious as it was, they returned in safety. It gave another proof, not less significant than the death of Decius, how low the Empire had already fallen.

While the Goths were evading the south-eastern provinces of the Empire, other enemies were busy in the north and west. The Franks now make their first appearance in history. The name which meets us frequently in the modern world, notably in France, and in such terms as Franconia, Frankfort, Frankenthal, means the "free," and probably originated in a combination of the tribes who inhabited the eastern bank of the Rhine, and who assumed this title by way of distinguishing themselves from the subjects of Rome on the opposite side of the river. The Franks laid waste the province of Gaul, crossed the Pyrenees and desolated Spain. We know very little of the details of their invasion. One of the so-called "Thirty Tyrants," Postumus by name, is said to have checked their progress, and done something to protect the Roman provinces of the West. Postumus was slain in 267 A.D.

This date belongs to the period of extreme depression which coincides with the reigns of Valerian and Gallienus. Valerian was a favourite lieutenant of the Emperor Decius, and seems to have been a man of high character and ability. But circumstances were too strong for him. Great as were the dangers that threatened the European provinces of the Empire, it was on the Asiatic frontier that he found his presence more imperatively demanded. A revolution in Parthia had restored the ancient dynasty of the Persian kings, or, at least, a family that claimed that character. The new line of kings was now represented by a certain Shapar, or, as the Romans spelt it, Sapor. Armenia, long a bone of contention between Rome and Parthia, was overrun; the garrisons on the Euphrates were forced to surrender. Valerian hastened to meet the new enemy, encountered him near Edessa, and suffered a crushing defeat. We know next to nothing of what happened except that the legions were led, by the folly of their chief or the treachery of those whom he trusted, into a hopeless situation; that their attempt to cut their way through the hosts of the enemy was repulsed with great loss; and that in the end Valerian had to surrender himself to Sapor, and that the legions laid down their arms. There was nothing now to stop the Parthian king. The splendid city of Antioch was taken and plundered or burnt. He even crossed the Taurus range, and captured the wealthy city of Tarsus. It is impossible to say where he would have stopped, had it not been for the courage and ability of Odenathus, the governor of Palmyra and his wife Zenobia. It was they, not the Roman arms that compelled the Parthians to make their way back to their own country.

Valerian was never released from captivity. Stories--whether true or no it is impossible to say--were told of the humiliations to which he was subjected by the Persian king. Whenever Sapor mounted his horse, he used to put his foot on the neck of his captive. And when the unhappy man was released by death, his skin was stuffed with straw, and the figure preserved in one of the Persian temples, "a more real monument of triumph," remarks Gibbon, "than the fancied trophies of brass and marble so often erected by Roman vanity." Whatever may be the truth about this or that fact, it is certain that this period witnessed the infliction of two unprecedented humiliations on the dignity of Rome, one Emperor slain in battle, another kept in a dishonourable captivity.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 43: It is remarkable that the most philosophic of the "Good Emperors" departed from the rule of adoption which had apparently been so beneficial to Rome, and left the succession to his son, of whose real character he could hardly have been ignorant. Gibbon, however, thinks that the want of the hereditary principle was one of the great causes of the troubles of the Empire.]

[Footnote 44: In 165 the legions returning from the East are said to have brought the Oriental plague into Europe.]

[Footnote 45: Gibbon reduces the number to _nineteen_.]

[Footnote 46: The Eastern division of the province.]

II

A CENTURY OF REVIVAL

An observer of the calamities and disgraces which overtook the Empire in what I have called "A Century of Disgrace," might have supposed that the end was at hand. But an ancient institution does not perish so easily. The Empire still possessed a great prestige, an organisation of government which had been worked out by a succession of able statesmen and rulers, and an army with numberless traditions of victory. Given an able leader, there would certainly be a revival of vigour, or, to say the least, a check to the progress of decay. A better time began with the death of Gallienus, the son of Valerian, in A.D. 268. He perished, it is doubtful whether by treachery or accident, in one of the numberless conflicts that occurred during this period between the possessor of the imperial throne and the numerous pretenders who aspired to it. His successor was a soldier of humble origin, though he bore the old patrician name of Claudius. He had soon an opportunity of showing his qualities as a soldier. In the year after his accession to the throne a huge army of Goths and of other tribes who were accustomed to fight under their standard invaded the provinces south of the Danube. Claudius hastened to encounter them, and fought a great battle at Nissa in Servia in which 50,000 of the barbarians are said to have perished. Little is known of the details of this or indeed of any of the conflicts of the time; the chronicles of the age are wanting in the power of description and, indeed, in all literary gift, but we gather that the legions were beginning to give way when Claudius brought up reinforcements to their help. These fresh troops fell upon the barbarian rear, and wholly changed the fortunes of the day. But the victory of Nissa did not put an end to the war. Nor, indeed, did Claudius live to finish it. He did enough, it is true, to win the title of Gothicus, and to deserve it better than was sometimes the case with Emperors who were similarly honoured.[47] But he died--the victim, it was said, of a plague which had originated in the barbarian camp--after a reign of little more than two years, and left the completion of the war to his successor Aurelian.

Aurelian's reign was but little longer than that of Claudius. It began in August, 270, and was ended in March, 275, by assassination; but this brief period was crowded with great achievements. In dealing with the Goths he showed that he was a statesman as well as a soldier. After conclusively proving to them that he could vanquish them in the field, he turned them, by a seasonable generosity, from enemies into friends. It had become evident that the province which Trajan had added to the Empire could no longer be held with advantage; Dacia, accordingly, was given up to the Goths, and a tribe associated with them, of whom we shall hear again, the Vandals. The Goths remained loyal to Rome, till, as we shall see, they were forced into hostility. They even furnished a body of auxiliary cavalry to the imperial army.

But while Aurelian was thus engaged, Italy and even Rome were endangered by the attack of another multitude of the same German race. The Alemanni, a people of which we know next to nothing except the stock to which they belonged,[48] suddenly crossed the Roman frontier, and made their way as far as the north of Italy. The armies of the Empire were engaged elsewhere, and the invaders plundered the country without hindrance. They had even made their way back to the Danube when Aurelian encountered them. It is not easy to understand the story of what followed. The Emperor outmanœuvres the barbarians, and reduces them to such extremities that they beg for peace. When their envoys are introduced to the presence of Aurelian, there is a sudden change of circumstances. The Alemanni, instead of imploring pardon, dictate conditions. They must have a subsidy, if Rome would have them as allies. The Emperor dismisses them with an indignant refusal, and we expect to hear of the severest punishment being inflicted on them. Nothing of the kind occurs. Aurelian, called elsewhere by some demand which he cannot refuse, disappears from the scene, and leaves the completion of the business to his lieutenants. They neglect their duty or fail to perform it; the Alemanni take the opportunity, break through the _cordon_ of troops which had been formed round them, and make their way back to Italy. We next hear of them as ravaging the territory of Milan. Aurelian orders the legions to follow them with all the speed that they could manage, and hastens himself to defend Italy with a quickly moving force, partly composed, it is interesting to observe, of auxiliary cavalry levied from the new settlers in Dacia. The struggle that followed is not what we should have expected after hearing of the straits to which the Alemanni had been reduced at the Danube. At Piacenza the Roman army came perilously near to destruction. The barbarians fall unexpectedly upon the legions as they march carelessly through a wooded defile. Only by the greatest exertions does Aurelian rally them. But though the army is saved from destruction, it cannot arrest the progress of the enemy. When we next hear of them the barbarians have advanced more than a hundred miles nearer to Rome. Near the Metaurus, and not far from the spot where Hasdrubal had perished, the Emperor overtook them. This time they must have suffered a serious defeat, for their third and last appearance in Northern Italy, near Pavia (the ancient _Ticinum_). Historians relate that they were exterminated, and this is probably true, for it was the fate that would naturally overtake unsuccessful invaders of Italy.

I may mention in the very briefest way that Aurelian restored the Roman power in the East by overthrowing Zenobia, who, since the death of her husband Odenathus, had remained independent at Palmyra, and in the West by putting an end to the usurpation of Tetricus, who had maintained his independence in Gaul and Britain for several years. To all appearance, the Empire was restored to what it had been at the death of Marcus Aurelius.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 47: Domitian, for instance, was styled _Germanicus_, though his campaigns against the Germans were marked by disaster rather than by victory.]

[Footnote 48: The historians of the time do not give them the same name.]

III

THREE DEADLY BLOWS

To tell the story of the last century of the Roman Empire in any fullness of detail would be impossible in any space that I can command. I must limit myself to a narrative of what may truly be called the three most significant incidents in that period.

The first of the fatal blows which may be said to have brought the Empire of Rome to an end was dealt almost against the will of those from whom it came. The policy of Aurelian in ceding Dacia to the Goths had been, on the whole, successful. They had been contented and even friendly, finding sufficient employment for their arms in extending their power among their barbarous neighbours, and furnishing not a few recruits to the imperial armies. In 375 they were disturbed by reports of an invading host which was advancing from the north and east. These reports pictured the new-comers as hideous in appearance and cruelly savage in character. We are now used to the Tartar countenance, but to Europe in the fourth century the broad, almost beardless face, flat nose, eyes set wide apart, and squat figure, were as frightful as they were strange. As for the savagery of the Huns--for so the new-comers were called--rumours were scarcely exaggerated. The Goths had themselves in former times been scarcely less ferocious in their manners, but they had now for several generations been in contact with civilisation, and the Christian faith had begun to find its way among them. Both divisions of the nation, known by the names of Ostrogoths and Visigoths, were successively defeated by the invading host, which showed military skill as well as courage. The Ostrogoths submitted, as a body, to the invaders, though a considerable minority contrived to escape, taking with them their infant king. The Visigoths resolved to throw themselves on the protection of Rome. They sent envoys to the Emperor (Valens), and begged that they might be permitted to cross the frontier. After some delay Valens gave his consent, and the whole nation--a few scattered companies excepted--was transported across the Danube. The numbers of the refugees may be calculated at a million, as there were no less than two hundred thousand males of the military age. It had been stipulated that all weapons should be given up. But this condition was very generally evaded. The corrupt officials of the Empire were ready, for a consideration, to permit the Gothic warriors to keep their arms. Having thus allowed them to remain formidable, they proceeded, with almost incredible folly, to insult and oppress them in every possible way. They robbed them of their wives and children, and sold at extortionate prices the food which the Imperial Government was bound to provide without cost. Meanwhile the generals of Valens neglected to maintain the defences of the Danube, and a large body of Ostrogoths who had been refused a passage over the river, took the matter into their own hands, and crossed over into the province. The two branches of the nation were not long in coming to an understanding, and making common cause against their oppressors. It was not long before the smouldering fire burst into flame. The first battle took place not far from Pravadi,[49] where Claudius had defeated the Goths many years before. We know little about this conflict except its result, which, as the historian of the Goths (or, as he calls them, Getæ) puts it, was to bring about a state of things in which the Goths were no longer strangers and foreigners, but members of the State and lords of the country which they occupied. An indecisive engagement followed at a spot called _Salices_ ("The Willows") in the low land near the mouth of the Danube, but the great battle of the war was fought at Hadrianople. Valens, who had spent a considerable time, with little profit to the Empire, at Antioch, returned in the early summer of 378 A.D. to Constantinople. After a brief rest in that city, where he made some changes in the chief commands of his army, he marched northwards and fortified a camp under the walls of Hadrianople. It was debated between the Emperor and his chief advisers whether or no they should fight at once. There were many reasons for delay. Valens occupied a strong position, and had the command of unlimited supplies. The barbarians, on the other hand, were ill-provided in every respect, and would most certainly grow weaker the longer they were compelled to keep the field. Another powerful consideration was, or should have been, the approach of Gratian, Emperor of the West, to whom Valens had appealed for help, and who was now advancing eastward by forced marches. Gratian had, indeed, sent a special messenger imploring Valens not to risk a battle before his arrival. Unfortunately this request had an effect exactly opposed to what had been intended. Valens was anxious to secure for himself all the glory which would come from the victory which he confidently expected, and when Gratian begged for delay, he at once resolved to fight.

It was the height of summer, and Valens was scarcely acting with judgment when he moved out of his position under the walls of Hadrianople, and commenced a march which could not be expected to be accomplished under four hours--the distance to be traversed was ten miles--with the intention of attacking the enemy. In any case the men would have been not a little wearied or exhausted; as it was, one wing of the army considerably out-marched the other, and that which had lagged behind was forced to hurry that it might take its proper place in the line. Even after this time was wasted, for Valens was amused with proposals for a truce or cessation of arms which the enemy had no intention of acting on. One of the imperial generals, possibly impatient of the delay, made an attack which was easily repulsed. The Gothic cavalry, in reply, charged with fatal effect. The Roman horsemen fled before them, and the legions, left alone in an open plain to face an enemy superior in force, were practically destroyed. The fate of Valens is uncertain; but the more generally received account was that, having been severely wounded, he was carried off the field to a cottage in the neighbourhood. Before any way of escape could be discovered, before even his wound could be dressed, the cottage was surrounded by the enemy. The inmates did their best to defend it, and the Goths, impatient of delay, set fire to it and burnt it to the ground. Valens, anyhow, was never seen again. The army of Rome was swept from the earth at Hadrianople as completely as it had been at Cannæ, but Rome had lost in the five centuries that separated these two great disasters her power of recovery.

The next great blow received by Rome came also from Gothic hands. The first mention of Alaric shows us a significant change in Roman policy. The Gothic chief holds a high command in the armies of the Empire, and was employed by the ruler in possession in his struggle against a pretender. When he turned against his employer it was because he was disappointed in his ambition of filling a yet higher post. There is no need to describe his career at length. A brief outline shows plainly enough, not only his genius, for he was certainly a statesman and a soldier of great ability, but the deplorable weakness of the Empire. At first, indeed, he had an antagonist who was more than his match. In 396 he openly revolted, and marched into Greece, which he plundered without meeting with any resistance, for the country had long since passed into a condition of helpless servitude. But he was pursued by Stilicho, himself a barbarian by birth--a soldier who was equal to any of the great commanders of the past. The Goths found themselves shut up in the Peloponnesus. Their leader, however, contrived to extricate himself from his difficulties, transporting his army across the western end of the Gulf of Corinth, and occupying Epirus. The next thing in his extraordinary career was that he was appointed by the Emperor of the East--the Eastern and Western Empires had been finally severed four years before[50]--to be the Governor of the province of Illyricum. Here he was able to plan and prepare his schemes for the final conquest of Rome. That the opportunity for so doing should have been given by the power that should have been Rome's closest ally was a sure sign of the approaching ruin.

A few years after his establishment in Illyricum, Alaric, who had been in the meantime saluted king by his countrymen, felt himself equal to the task of invading Italy. Stilicho, however, was still in command of the Roman armies--now almost wholly recruited from barbarian tribes--and he proved himself more than a match for the Gothic king. The great battle of Pollentia (in Northern Italy) was contested with more than usual stubbornness. Fortune changed sides more than once. Stilicho's genius prevailed, however, in the end; the Goths were driven from the field; their camp was taken, and Alaric's wife fell into the hands of the conquerors. But the great leader was not yet beaten. His cavalry, the principal strength of his forces, had not been broken, and he formed the bold scheme of marching upon Rome. This, however, was given up; he accepted, in preference, the offer of Stilicho, who proposed to allow him to depart unharmed from Italy, on condition of his becoming for the future an ally of Rome. He did not, however, intend to perform his part of the bargain. On the contrary, he formed a scheme for possessing himself of Gaul. But his plans were betrayed to Stilicho, and he suffered another defeat in the neighbourhood of Verona which was not less disastrous than that of Pollentia. Even then, however, he was a formidable enemy, and Stilicho allowed him to retire from Italy, rather than drive him to extremities.

After four years, years of incessant drain upon the resources of the Empire, Alaric prepared to renew his attempt on Rome. Stilicho was dead. Possibly he had deserved his fate, for he had certainly cherished ambitions which did not become a loyal subject. But there was no one to take his place at the head of the legions. Certainly Alaric met with no opposition as he marched through Italy, finally pitching his camp under the walls of Rome. Resistance was impossible; it only remained to see what was the smallest price at which the enemy could be bought off. Two envoys from the Senate approached the king. They began by counselling prudence. It would be well, they said, if Alaric did not drive a brave and numerous people to despair. "The thicker the hay, the easier to mow," was the king's answer. When asked to name the ransom which he was willing to accept, he declared that he must have all the gold and silver that they possessed, all their valuables, and all the slaves of barbarian birth. "What then do you leave us?" was the question which the envoys in their consternation put to him. "Your lives," he answered. In the end, however, he consented to a compromise, by which he was to receive five thousand pounds of gold, thirty thousand pounds of silver, and a quantity of precious articles, silk, cloth, and spices.

The respite thus purchased was but brief. The ministers of the Emperor, safe themselves in the fortress of Ravenna, behaved with a strange mixture of weakness and treachery. Their crowning act of folly was to permit a barbarian chief in their pay to make an unprovoked attack on a detachment of Goths. This was indeed destroyed, but the victory was dearly purchased. Alaric, justly indignant at such behaviour, broke off all negotiations, and marched on Rome. The Senate prepared to make all the resistance possible. But nothing was really done. Some traitors within the city opened one of the gates, and the Goths made their way into the city, which was given over to slaughter and plunder for six days. Rome may be said to have thus lost for ever her claim to rule the world. But her cup of humiliation was not yet full.

Alaric did not long survive the conquest of Rome. He died in the same year, and was buried--so, indeed, the story runs--in the channel of a stream whose waters had been diverted for the time, the labourers who performed the work being slaughtered to keep the secret of his resting-place from being ever divulged.

But Rome was to fall into the power of a conqueror yet more powerful and more ferocious. Attila was a Hun, and is said to have even exaggerated in his personal appearance all the characteristic deformities of his race. The boundaries of the Empire can hardly be defined, but it is certain that it was of enormous extent. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that it reached from China to the Rhine. The hosts that followed him were almost beyond counting. For once the incredible numbers in which the historians of antiquity delight were no exaggeration. It is probably a modest estimate of his host to say that it consisted of half a million combatants.

Powerful as he was, the king of the Huns was not permitted to pursue his course without opposition. Rome could still produce or rather adopt great soldiers--Aëtius, the great antagonist of Attila, was a Scythian by birth as Stilicho was a Vandal--and great soldiers can always find men to follow them. In the earlier part of Attila's reign,[51] his operations were carried on within the limits of the Eastern Empire. In 450 he attacked the West, one of his pretexts being the refusal of the Emperor Valentinian III. of his proposals for the hand of the Princess Honoria. He crossed the Rhine with a huge army at Strasburg, and marched on Orleans. But Aëtius was prepared for him. A great battle was fought at Châlons-sur-Marne, the last successful effort of the Roman arms. One of the notable features of the battle is the division of the Goths, the Ostrogoths following the standard of Attila, while the Visigoths fought for Rome. The loss of men amounted to between two and three hundred thousand, but it was not unequally divided. Aëtius could not prevent the retreat of Attila, who retired into Eastern Europe, where he spent some months in recruiting his army.

Early in the following year he crossed the Alps, descended into Italy, and after capturing and totally destroying the city of Aquileia, marched Romewards. He never reached the city, indeed. Not far from Mantua he was met by three ambassadors, one of them the bishop of Rome known as Leo the Great. They brought the offer of a complete submission. The Emperor no longer refused the condition which he had before peremptorily rejected. The Hunnish king was to have the hand of the Princess Honoria, and with her, as Gibbon epigrammatically puts it, "an immense ransom or dowry." The marriage never took place, for Attila died in the following year, but he had inflicted on Rome a humiliation even greater than that which she had suffered at the hand of Alaric.

One more event I must record, because in a way it completes this great period of history. In 475 a youth who bore the name of Romulus and the nickname of Augustulus was raised to the throne by his father Orestes, who secured for a time control of such armies as still obeyed the Empire. In the following year Orestes was defeated and slain, and his son permitted to abdicate. Italy passed into the hands of Odoacer, king of the Heruli. The Old World had passed away and the New had begun.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 49: See p. 349.]

[Footnote 50: When the Emperor Theodosius died (394 A.D.) his two sons Honorius and Arcadius became emperors of the West and East respectively.]

[Footnote 51: He succeeded to the throne in 434 in partnership with his brother, and by this brother's death, or murder, as some said, became the ruler of the nation in 445.]