Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.—Part II

The pressing solicitations of the senate and people persuaded the
emperor Avitus to fix his residence at Rome, and to accept the
consulship for the ensuing year. On the first day of January, his
son-in-law, Sidonius Apollinaris, celebrated his praises in a
panegyric of six hundred verses; but this composition, though it
was rewarded with a brass statue, 24 seems to contain a very
moderate proportion, either of genius or of truth. The poet, if
we may degrade that sacred name, exaggerates the merit of a
sovereign and a father; and his prophecy of a long and glorious
reign was soon contradicted by the event. Avitus, at a time when
the Imperial dignity was reduced to a preeminence of toil and
danger, indulged himself in the pleasures of Italian luxury: age
had not extinguished his amorous inclinations; and he is accused
of insulting, with indiscreet and ungenerous raillery, the
husbands whose wives he had seduced or violated. 25 But the
Romans were not inclined either to excuse his faults or to
acknowledge his virtues. The several parts of the empire became
every day more alienated from each other; and the stranger of
Gaul was the object of popular hatred and contempt. The senate
asserted their legitimate claim in the election of an emperor;
and their authority, which had been originally derived from the
old constitution, was again fortified by the actual weakness of a
declining monarchy. Yet even such a monarchy might have resisted
the votes of an unarmed senate, if their discontent had not been
supported, or perhaps inflamed, by the Count Ricimer, one of the
principal commanders of the Barbarian troops, who formed the
military defence of Italy. The daughter of Wallia, king of the
Visigoths, was the mother of Ricimer; but he was descended, on
the father’s side, from the nation of the Suevi; 26 his pride or
patriotism might be exasperated by the misfortunes of his
countrymen; and he obeyed, with reluctance, an emperor in whose
elevation he had not been consulted. His faithful and important
services against the common enemy rendered him still more
formidable; 27 and, after destroying on the coast of Corsica a
fleet of Vandals, which consisted of sixty galleys, Ricimer
returned in triumph with the appellation of the Deliverer of
Italy. He chose that moment to signify to Avitus, that his reign
was at an end; and the feeble emperor, at a distance from his
Gothic allies, was compelled, after a short and unavailing
struggle to abdicate the purple. By the clemency, however, or the
contempt, of Ricimer, 28 he was permitted to descend from the
throne to the more desirable station of bishop of Placentia: but
the resentment of the senate was still unsatisfied; and their
inflexible severity pronounced the sentence of his death. He fled
towards the Alps, with the humble hope, not of arming the
Visigoths in his cause, but of securing his person and treasures
in the sanctuary of Julian, one of the tutelar saints of
Auvergne. 29 Disease, or the hand of the executioner, arrested
him on the road; yet his remains were decently transported to
Brivas, or Brioude, in his native province, and he reposed at the
feet of his holy patron. 30 Avitus left only one daughter, the
wife of Sidonius Apollinaris, who inherited the patrimony of his
father-in-law; lamenting, at the same time, the disappointment of
his public and private expectations. His resentment prompted him
to join, or at least to countenance, the measures of a rebellious
faction in Gaul; and the poet had contracted some guilt, which it
was incumbent on him to expiate, by a new tribute of flattery to
the succeeding emperor. 31

24 (return) [ In one of the porticos or galleries belonging to
Trajan’s library, among the statues of famous writers and
orators. Sidon. Apoll. l. ix. epist, 16, p. 284. Carm. viii. p.
350.]

25 (return) [ Luxuriose agere volens a senatoribus projectus est,
is the concise expression of Gregory of Tours, (l. ii. c. xi. in
tom. ii. p. 168.) An old Chronicle (in tom. ii. p. 649) mentions
an indecent jest of Avitus, which seems more applicable to Rome
than to Treves.]

26 (return) [ Sidonius (Panegyr. Anthem. 302, &c.) praises the
royal birth of Ricimer, the lawful heir, as he chooses to
insinuate, both of the Gothic and Suevic kingdoms.]

27 (return) [ See the Chronicle of Idatius. Jornandes (c. xliv.
p. 676) styles him, with some truth, virum egregium, et pene tune
in Italia ad ex ercitum singularem.]

28 (return) [ Parcens innocentiae Aviti, is the compassionate,
but contemptuous, language of Victor Tunnunensis, (in Chron. apud
Scaliger Euseb.) In another place, he calls him, vir totius
simplicitatis. This commendation is more humble, but it is more
solid and sincere, than the praises of Sidonius]

29 (return) [ He suffered, as it is supposed, in the persecution
of Diocletian, (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. v. p. 279, 696.)
Gregory of Tours, his peculiar votary, has dedicated to the glory
of Julian the Martyr an entire book, (de Gloria Martyrum, l. ii.
in Max. Bibliot. Patrum, tom. xi. p. 861-871,) in which he
relates about fifty foolish miracles performed by his relics.]

30 (return) [ Gregory of Tours (l. ii. c. xi. p. 168) is concise,
but correct, in the reign of his countryman. The words of
Idatius, “cadet imperio, caret et vita,” seem to imply, that the
death of Avitus was violent; but it must have been secret, since
Evagrius (l. ii. c. 7) could suppose, that he died of the
plaque.]

31 (return) [ After a modest appeal to the examples of his
brethren, Virgil and Horace, Sidonius honestly confesses the
debt, and promises payment.

Sic mihi diverso nuper sub Marte cadenti Jussisti placido Victor
ut essem animo. Serviat ergo tibi servati lingua poetae, Atque
meae vitae laus tua sit pretium. —Sidon. Apoll. Carm. iv. p. 308

See Dubos, Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 448, &c.]

The successor of Avitus presents the welcome discovery of a great
and heroic character, such as sometimes arise, in a degenerate
age, to vindicate the honor of the human species. The emperor
Majorian has deserved the praises of his contemporaries, and of
posterity; and these praises may be strongly expressed in the
words of a judicious and disinterested historian: “That he was
gentle to his subjects; that he was terrible to his enemies; and
that he excelled, in every virtue, all his predecessors who had
reigned over the Romans.” 32 Such a testimony may justify at
least the panegyric of Sidonius; and we may acquiesce in the
assurance, that, although the obsequious orator would have
flattered, with equal zeal, the most worthless of princes, the
extraordinary merit of his object confined him, on this occasion,
within the bounds of truth. 33 Majorian derived his name from his
maternal grandfather, who, in the reign of the great Theodosius,
had commanded the troops of the Illyrian frontier. He gave his
daughter in marriage to the father of Majorian, a respectable
officer, who administered the revenues of Gaul with skill and
integrity; and generously preferred the friendship of Ætius to
the tempting offer of an insidious court. His son, the future
emperor, who was educated in the profession of arms, displayed,
from his early youth, intrepid courage, premature wisdom, and
unbounded liberality in a scanty fortune. He followed the
standard of Ætius, contributed to his success, shared, and
sometimes eclipsed, his glory, and at last excited the jealousy
of the patrician, or rather of his wife, who forced him to retire
from the service. 34 Majorian, after the death of Ætius, was
recalled and promoted; and his intimate connection with Count
Ricimer was the immediate step by which he ascended the throne of
the Western empire. During the vacancy that succeeded the
abdication of Avitus, the ambitious Barbarian, whose birth
excluded him from the Imperial dignity, governed Italy with the
title of Patrician; resigned to his friend the conspicuous
station of master-general of the cavalry and infantry; and, after
an interval of some months, consented to the unanimous wish of
the Romans, whose favor Majorian had solicited by a recent
victory over the Alemanni. 35 He was invested with the purple at
Ravenna: and the epistle which he addressed to the senate, will
best describe his situation and his sentiments. “Your election,
Conscript Fathers! and the ordinance of the most valiant army,
have made me your emperor. 36 May the propitious Deity direct and
prosper the counsels and events of my administration, to your
advantage and to the public welfare! For my own part, I did not
aspire, I have submitted to reign; nor should I have discharged
the obligations of a citizen if I had refused, with base and
selfish ingratitude, to support the weight of those labors, which
were imposed by the republic. Assist, therefore, the prince whom
you have made; partake the duties which you have enjoined; and
may our common endeavors promote the happiness of an empire,
which I have accepted from your hands. Be assured, that, in our
times, justice shall resume her ancient vigor, and that virtue
shall become, not only innocent, but meritorious. Let none,
except the authors themselves, be apprehensive of delations, 37
which, as a subject, I have always condemned, and, as a prince,
will severely punish. Our own vigilance, and that of our father,
the patrician Ricimer, shall regulate all military affairs, and
provide for the safety of the Roman world, which we have saved
from foreign and domestic enemies. 38 You now understand the
maxims of my government; you may confide in the faithful love and
sincere assurances of a prince who has formerly been the
companion of your life and dangers; who still glories in the name
of senator, and who is anxious that you should never repent the
judgment which you have pronounced in his favor.” The emperor,
who, amidst the ruins of the Roman world, revived the ancient
language of law and liberty, which Trajan would not have
disclaimed, must have derived those generous sentiments from his
own heart; since they were not suggested to his imitation by the
customs of his age, or the example of his predecessors. 39

32 (return) [ The words of Procopius deserve to be transcribed
(de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 7, p. 194;) a concise but
comprehensive definition of royal virtue.]

33 (return) [ The Panegyric was pronounced at Lyons before the
end of the year 458, while the emperor was still consul. It has
more art than genius, and more labor than art. The ornaments are
false and trivial; the expression is feeble and prolix; and
Sidonius wants the skill to exhibit the principal figure in a
strong and distinct light. The private life of Majorian occupies
about two hundred lines, 107-305.]

34 (return) [ She pressed his immediate death, and was scarcely
satisfied with his disgrace. It should seem that Ætius, like
Belisarius and Marlborough, was governed by his wife; whose
fervent piety, though it might work miracles, (Gregor. Turon. l.
ii. c. 7, p. 162,) was not incompatible with base and sanguinary
counsels.]

35 (return) [ The Alemanni had passed the Rhaetian Alps, and were
defeated in the Campi Canini, or Valley of Bellinzone, through
which the Tesin flows, in its descent from Mount Adula to the
Lago Maggiore, (Cluver Italia Antiq. tom. i. p. 100, 101.) This
boasted victory over nine hundred Barbarians (Panegyr. Majorian.
373, &c.) betrays the extreme weakness of Italy.]

36 (return) [ Imperatorem me factum, P.C. electionis vestrae
arbitrio, et fortissimi exercitus ordinatione agnoscite, (Novell.
Majorian. tit. iii. p. 34, ad Calcem. Cod. Theodos.) Sidonius
proclaims the unanimous voice of the empire:—

Postquam ordine vobis Ordo omnis regnum dederat; plebs, curia,
nules, —-Et collega simul. 386.

This language is ancient and constitutional; and we may observe,
that the clergy were not yet considered as a distinct order of
the state.]

37 (return) [ Either dilationes, or delationes would afford a
tolerable reading, but there is much more sense and spirit in the
latter, to which I have therefore given the preference.]

38 (return) [ Ab externo hoste et a domestica clade liberavimus:
by the latter, Majorian must understand the tyranny of Avitus;
whose death he consequently avowed as a meritorious act. On this
occasion, Sidonius is fearful and obscure; he describes the
twelve Caesars, the nations of Africa, &c., that he may escape
the dangerous name of Avitus (805-369.)]

39 (return) [ See the whole edict or epistle of Majorian to the
senate, (Novell. tit. iv. p. 34.) Yet the expression, regnum
nostrum, bears some taint of the age, and does not mix kindly
with the word respublica, which he frequently repeats.]

The private and public actions of Majorian are very imperfectly
known: but his laws, remarkable for an original cast of thought
and expression, faithfully represent the character of a sovereign
who loved his people, who sympathized in their distress, who had
studied the causes of the decline of the empire, and who was
capable of applying (as far as such reformation was practicable)
judicious and effectual remedies to the public disorders. 40 His
regulations concerning the finances manifestly tended to remove,
or at least to mitigate, the most intolerable grievances. I. From
the first hour of his reign, he was solicitous (I translate his
own words) to relieve the weary fortunes of the provincials,
oppressed by the accumulated weight of indictions and
superindictions. 41 With this view he granted a universal
amnesty, a final and absolute discharge of all arrears of
tribute, of all debts, which, under any pretence, the fiscal
officers might demand from the people. This wise dereliction of
obsolete, vexatious, and unprofitable claims, improved and
purified the sources of the public revenue; and the subject who
could now look back without despair, might labor with hope and
gratitude for himself and for his country. II. In the assessment
and collection of taxes, Majorian restored the ordinary
jurisdiction of the provincial magistrates; and suppressed the
extraordinary commissions which had been introduced, in the name
of the emperor himself, or of the Prætorian praefects. The
favorite servants, who obtained such irregular powers, were
insolent in their behavior, and arbitrary in their demands: they
affected to despise the subordinate tribunals, and they were
discontented, if their fees and profits did not twice exceed the
sum which they condescended to pay into the treasury. One
instance of their extortion would appear incredible, were it not
authenticated by the legislator himself. They exacted the whole
payment in gold: but they refused the current coin of the empire,
and would accept only such ancient pieces as were stamped with
the names of Faustina or the Antonines. The subject, who was
unprovided with these curious medals, had recourse to the
expedient of compounding with their rapacious demands; or if he
succeeded in the research, his imposition was doubled, according
to the weight and value of the money of former times. 42 III.
“The municipal corporations, (says the emperor,) the lesser
senates, (so antiquity has justly styled them,) deserve to be
considered as the heart of the cities, and the sinews of the
republic. And yet so low are they now reduced, by the injustice
of magistrates and the venality of collectors, that many of their
members, renouncing their dignity and their country, have taken
refuge in distant and obscure exile.” He urges, and even compels,
their return to their respective cities; but he removes the
grievance which had forced them to desert the exercise of their
municipal functions. They are directed, under the authority of
the provincial magistrates, to resume their office of levying the
tribute; but, instead of being made responsible for the whole sum
assessed on their district, they are only required to produce a
regular account of the payments which they have actually
received, and of the defaulters who are still indebted to the
public. IV. But Majorian was not ignorant that these corporate
bodies were too much inclined to retaliate the injustice and
oppression which they had suffered; and he therefore revives the
useful office of the defenders of cities. He exhorts the people
to elect, in a full and free assembly, some man of discretion and
integrity, who would dare to assert their privileges, to
represent their grievances, to protect the poor from the tyranny
of the rich, and to inform the emperor of the abuses that were
committed under the sanction of his name and authority.

40 (return) [ See the laws of Majorian (they are only nine in
number, but very long, and various) at the end of the Theodosian
Code, Novell. l. iv. p. 32-37. Godefroy has not given any
commentary on these additional pieces.]

41 (return) [ Fessas provincialium varia atque multiplici
tributorum exactione fortunas, et extraordinariis fiscalium
solutionum oneribus attritas, &c. Novell. Majorian. tit. iv. p.
34.]

42 (return) [ The learned Greaves (vol. i. p. 329, 330, 331) has
found, by a diligent inquiry, that aurei of the Antonines weighed
one hundred and eighteen, and those of the fifth century only
sixty-eight, English grains. Majorian gives currency to all gold
coin, excepting only the Gallic solidus, from its deficiency, not
in the weight, but in the standard.]

The spectator who casts a mournful view over the ruins of ancient
Rome, is tempted to accuse the memory of the Goths and Vandals,
for the mischief which they had neither leisure, nor power, nor
perhaps inclination, to perpetrate. The tempest of war might
strike some lofty turrets to the ground; but the destruction
which undermined the foundations of those massy fabrics was
prosecuted, slowly and silently, during a period of ten
centuries; and the motives of interest, that afterwards operated
without shame or control, were severely checked by the taste and
spirit of the emperor Majorian. The decay of the city had
gradually impaired the value of the public works. The circus and
theatres might still excite, but they seldom gratified, the
desires of the people: the temples, which had escaped the zeal of
the Christians, were no longer inhabited, either by gods or men;
the diminished crowds of the Romans were lost in the immense
space of their baths and porticos; and the stately libraries and
halls of justice became useless to an indolent generation, whose
repose was seldom disturbed, either by study or business. The
monuments of consular, or Imperial, greatness were no longer
revered, as the immortal glory of the capital: they were only
esteemed as an inexhaustible mine of materials, cheaper, and more
convenient than the distant quarry. Specious petitions were
continually addressed to the easy magistrates of Rome, which
stated the want of stones or bricks, for some necessary service:
the fairest forms of architecture were rudely defaced, for the
sake of some paltry, or pretended, repairs; and the degenerate
Romans, who converted the spoil to their own emolument,
demolished, with sacrilegious hands, the labors of their
ancestors. Majorian, who had often sighed over the desolation of
the city, applied a severe remedy to the growing evil. 43 He
reserved to the prince and senate the sole cognizance of the
extreme cases which might justify the destruction of an ancient
edifice; imposed a fine of fifty pounds of gold (two thousand
pounds sterling) on every magistrate who should presume to grant
such illegal and scandalous license, and threatened to chastise
the criminal obedience of their subordinate officers, by a severe
whipping, and the amputation of both their hands. In the last
instance, the legislator might seem to forget the proportion of
guilt and punishment; but his zeal arose from a generous
principle, and Majorian was anxious to protect the monuments of
those ages, in which he would have desired and deserved to live.
The emperor conceived, that it was his interest to increase the
number of his subjects; and that it was his duty to guard the
purity of the marriage-bed: but the means which he employed to
accomplish these salutary purposes are of an ambiguous, and
perhaps exceptionable, kind. The pious maids, who consecrated
their virginity to Christ, were restrained from taking the veil
till they had reached their fortieth year. Widows under that age
were compelled to form a second alliance within the term of five
years, by the forfeiture of half their wealth to their nearest
relations, or to the state. Unequal marriages were condemned or
annulled. The punishment of confiscation and exile was deemed so
inadequate to the guilt of adultery, that, if the criminal
returned to Italy, he might, by the express declaration of
Majorian, be slain with impunity. 44

43 (return) [ The whole edict (Novell. Majorian. tit. vi. p. 35)
is curious. “Antiquarum aedium dissipatur speciosa constructio;
et ut aliquid reparetur, magna diruuntur. Hinc jam occasio
nascitur, ut etiam unusquisque privatum aedificium construens,
per gratiam judicum..... praesumere de publicis locis necessaria,
et transferre non dubitet” &c. With equal zeal, but with less
power, Petrarch, in the fourteenth century, repeated the same
complaints. (Vie de Petrarque, tom. i. p. 326, 327.) If I
prosecute this history, I shall not be unmindful of the decline
and fall of the city of Rome; an interesting object to which any
plan was originally confined.]

44 (return) [ The emperor chides the lenity of Rogatian, consular
of Tuscany in a style of acrimonious reproof, which sounds almost
like personal resentment, (Novell. tit. ix. p. 47.) The law of
Majorian, which punished obstinate widows, was soon afterwards
repealed by his successor Severus, (Novell. Sever. tit. i. p.
37.)]

While the emperor Majorian assiduously labored to restore the
happiness and virtue of the Romans, he encountered the arms of
Genseric, from his character and situation their most formidable
enemy. A fleet of Vandals and Moors landed at the mouth of the
Liris, or Garigliano; but the Imperial troops surprised and
attacked the disorderly Barbarians, who were encumbered with the
spoils of Campania; they were chased with slaughter to their
ships, and their leader, the king’s brother-in-law, was found in
the number of the slain. 45 Such vigilance might announce the
character of the new reign; but the strictest vigilance, and the
most numerous forces, were insufficient to protect the
long-extended coast of Italy from the depredations of a naval
war. The public opinion had imposed a nobler and more arduous
task on the genius of Majorian. Rome expected from him alone the
restitution of Africa; and the design, which he formed, of
attacking the Vandals in their new settlements, was the result of
bold and judicious policy. If the intrepid emperor could have
infused his own spirit into the youth of Italy; if he could have
revived in the field of Mars, the manly exercises in which he had
always surpassed his equals; he might have marched against
Genseric at the head of a Roman army. Such a reformation of
national manners might be embraced by the rising generation; but
it is the misfortune of those princes who laboriously sustain a
declining monarchy, that, to obtain some immediate advantage, or
to avert some impending danger, they are forced to countenance,
and even to multiply, the most pernicious abuses. Majorian, like
the weakest of his predecessors, was reduced to the disgraceful
expedient of substituting Barbarian auxiliaries in the place of
his unwarlike subjects: and his superior abilities could only be
displayed in the vigor and dexterity with which he wielded a
dangerous instrument, so apt to recoil on the hand that used it.
Besides the confederates, who were already engaged in the service
of the empire, the fame of his liberality and valor attracted the
nations of the Danube, the Borysthenes, and perhaps of the
Tanais. Many thousands of the bravest subjects of Attila, the
Gepidae, the Ostrogoths, the Rugians, the Burgundians, the Suevi,
the Alani, assembled in the plains of Liguria; and their
formidable strength was balanced by their mutual animosities. 46
They passed the Alps in a severe winter. The emperor led the way,
on foot, and in complete armor; sounding, with his long staff,
the depth of the ice, or snow, and encouraging the Scythians, who
complained of the extreme cold, by the cheerful assurance, that
they should be satisfied with the heat of Africa. The citizens of
Lyons had presumed to shut their gates; they soon implored, and
experienced, the clemency of Majorian. He vanquished Theodoric in
the field; and admitted to his friendship and alliance a king
whom he had found not unworthy of his arms. The beneficial,
though precarious, reunion of the greater part of Gaul and Spain,
was the effect of persuasion, as well as of force; 47 and the
independent Bagaudae, who had escaped, or resisted, the
oppression, of former reigns, were disposed to confide in the
virtues of Majorian. His camp was filled with Barbarian allies;
his throne was supported by the zeal of an affectionate people;
but the emperor had foreseen, that it was impossible, without a
maritime power, to achieve the conquest of Africa. In the first
Punic war, the republic had exerted such incredible diligence,
that, within sixty days after the first stroke of the axe had
been given in the forest, a fleet of one hundred and sixty
galleys proudly rode at anchor in the sea. 48 Under circumstances
much less favorable, Majorian equalled the spirit and
perseverance of the ancient Romans. The woods of the Apennine
were felled; the arsenals and manufactures of Ravenna and Misenum
were restored; Italy and Gaul vied with each other in liberal
contributions to the public service; and the Imperial navy of
three hundred large galleys, with an adequate proportion of
transports and smaller vessels, was collected in the secure and
capacious harbor of Carthagena in Spain. 49 The intrepid
countenance of Majorian animated his troops with a confidence of
victory; and, if we might credit the historian Procopius, his
courage sometimes hurried him beyond the bounds of prudence.
Anxious to explore, with his own eyes, the state of the Vandals,
he ventured, after disguising the color of his hair, to visit
Carthage, in the character of his own ambassador: and Genseric
was afterwards mortified by the discovery, that he had
entertained and dismissed the emperor of the Romans. Such an
anecdote may be rejected as an improbable fiction; but it is a
fiction which would not have been imagined, unless in the life of
a hero. 50

45 (return) [ Sidon. Panegyr. Majorian, 385-440.]

46 (return) [ The review of the army, and passage of the Alps,
contain the most tolerable passages of the Panegyric, (470-552.)
M. de Buat (Hist. des Peuples, &c., tom. viii. p. 49-55) is a
more satisfactory commentator, than either Savaron or Sirmond.]

47 (return) [ It is the just and forcible distinction of Priscus,
(Excerpt. Legat. p. 42,) in a short fragment, which throws much
light on the history of Majorian. Jornandes has suppressed the
defeat and alliance of the Visigoths, which were solemnly
proclaimed in Gallicia; and are marked in the Chronicle of
Idatius.]

48 (return) [ Florus, l. ii. c. 2. He amuses himself with the
poetical fancy, that the trees had been transformed into ships;
and indeed the whole transaction, as it is related in the first
book of Polybius, deviates too much from the probable course of
human events.]

49 (return) [

Iterea duplici texis dum littore classem Inferno superoque mari,
cadit omnis in aequor Sylva tibi, &c. —-Sidon. Panegyr. Majorian,
441-461.

The number of ships, which Priscus fixed at 300, is magnified, by
an indefinite comparison with the fleets of Agamemnon, Xerxes,
and Augustus.]

50 (return) [ Procopius de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 8, p. 194. When
Genseric conducted his unknown guest into the arsenal of
Carthage, the arms clashed of their own accord. Majorian had
tinged his yellow locks with a black color.]