[395–397 A.D.]

betrayed without scruple the interest of his benefactor; and the same troops which had so lately massacred the enemy of Stilicho, were engaged to support against him the independence of the throne of Constantinople. The life of Stilicho was repeatedly attempted by the daggers of hired assassins; and a decree was obtained from the senate of Constantinople to declare him an enemy of the republic, and to confiscate his ample possessions in the provinces of the east. At a time when the only hope of delaying the ruin of the Roman name depended on the firm union and reciprocal aid of all the nations. to whom it had been gradually communicated, the subjects of Arcadius and Honorius were instructed by their respective masters to view each other in a foreign and even hostile light; to rejoice in their mutual calamities, and to embrace, as their faithful allies, the barbarians, whom they excited to invade the territories of their countrymen. The natives of Italy affected to despise the servile and effeminate Greeks of Byzantium, who presumed to imitate the dress and to usurp the dignity of Roman senators; and the Greeks had not yet forgotten the sentiments of hatred and contempt which their polished ancestors had so long entertained for the rude inhabitants of the west. The prudent Stilicho, instead of persisting to force the inclinations of a prince and people who rejected his government, wisely abandoned Arcadius to his unworthy favourites; and his reluctance to involve the two empires in a civil war displayed the moderation of a minister who had so often signalised his military spirit and abilities. But if Stilicho had any longer endured the revolt of Africa, he would have betrayed the security of the capital, and the majesty of the western emperor, to the capricious insolence of a Moorish rebel. Gildo, the brother of the tyrant Firmus, had preserved and obtained, as the reward of his apparent fidelity, the immense patrimony which was forfeited by treason; long and meritorious service in the armies of Rome raised him to the dignity of a military count; the narrow policy of the court of Theodosius had adopted the mischievous expedient of supporting a legal government by the interest of a powerful family; and the brother of Firmus was invested with the command of Africa. His ambition soon usurped the administration of justice and of the finances without account, and without control; and he maintained, during a reign of twelve years, the possession of an office from which it was impossible to remove him, without the danger of a civil war.

During those twelve years, the province of Africa groaned under the dominion of a tyrant who seemed to unite the unfeeling temper of a stranger with the partial resentments of domestic faction. The forms of law were often superseded by the use of poison; and if the trembling guests who were invited to the table of Gildo presumed to express their fears, the insolent suspicion served only to excite his fury, and he loudly summoned the ministers of death. Gildo alternately indulged the passions of avarice and lust; and if his days were terrible to the rich, his nights were not less dreadful to husbands and parents. The image of the republic was revived, after a long interval, under the reign of Honorius. The emperor transmitted an accurate and ample detail of the complaints of the provincials and the crimes of Gildo, to the Roman senate; and the members of that venerable assembly were required to pronounce the condemnation of the rebel. Their unanimous suffrage declared him the enemy of the republic; and the decree of the senate added a sacred and legitimate sanction to the Roman arms. The prudence of Stilicho conceived and executed without delay the most effectual measure for the relief of the Roman people. A large and seasonable supply of corn, collected in the inland provinces of Gaul, was embarked on the rapid

[397-398 A.D.] stream of the Rhone, and transported by an easy navigation from the Rhone to the Tiber. During the whole term of the African war, the granaries of Rome were continually filled, her dignity was vindicated from the humiliating dependence, and the minds of an immense people were quieted by the calm confidence of peace and plenty.

The cause of Rome and the conduct of the African war were entrusted by Stilicho to a general, active and ardent to avenge his private injuries on the head of the tyrant. The spirit of discord which prevailed in the house of Nabal had excited a deadly quarrel between two of his sons, Gildo and Mascezel. The usurper pursued with implacable rage the life of his younger brother, whose courage and abilities he feared; and Mascezel, oppressed by superior power, took refuge in the court of Mediolanum, where he soon received the cruel intelligence that his two innocent and helpless children had been murdered by their inhuman uncle. The affliction of the father was

ROMAN LAMP

suspended only by the desire of revenge. The vigilant Stilicho judged it advisable that Mascezel should attempt this arduous adventure at the head of a chosen body of Gallic veterans, who had lately served under the standard of Eugenius.

Gildo was prepared to resist the invasion with all the forces of Africa. By the liberality of his gifts and promises, he endeavoured to secure the doubtful allegiance of the Roman soldiers whilst he attracted to his standard the distant tribes of Gætulia and Ethiopia. He proudly reviewed an army of seventy thousand men, and boasted, with the rash presumption which is the forerunner of disgrace, that his numerous cavalry would trample under their horses' feet the troops of Mascezel, and involve in a cloud of burning sand the natives of the cold regions of Gaul and Germany. As Mascezel advanced before the front with fair offers of peace and pardon, he encountered one of the foremost standard-bearers of the Africans, and, on his refusal to yield, struck him on the arm with his sword. The arm, and the standard, sunk under the weight of the blow; and the imaginary act of submission was hastily repeated by all the standards of the line. At this signal, the disaffected cohorts proclaimed the name of their lawful sovereign; the barbarians, astonished by the defection of their Roman allies, dispersed, according to their custom, in tumultuary flight; and Mascezel obtained the honours of an easy and almost bloodless victory. The tyrant escaped from the field of battle to the sea shore; and threw himself into a small vessel, with the hope of reaching in safety some friendly port of the empire of the East; but the obstinacy of the wind drove him back into the harbour of Thabraca, which had acknowledged, with the rest of the province, the dominion of Honorius and the authority of his lieutenant. The inhabitants, as a proof of their repentance and loyalty, seized and confined the person of Gildo in a dungeon; and his own despair saved him from the intolerable torture of supporting the presence of an injured and victorious brother.

After he had finished an important war in a single winter, Mascezel was received at the court of Mediolanum with loud applause, affected gratitude,

[397-398 A.D.]

and secret jealousy; and his death, which perhaps was the effect of accident, has been considered as the crime of Stilicho. In the passage of a bridge, the Moorish prince who accompanied the master-general of the West was suddenly thrown from his horse into the river; the officious haste of the attendants was restrained by a cruel and perfidious smile which they observed on the countenance of Stilicho; and while they delayed the necessary assistance, the unfortunate Mascezel was irrecoverably drowned.

The joy of the African triumph was happily connected with the nuptials of the emperor Honorius and of his cousin Maria, the daughter of Stilicho; and this equal and honourable alliance seemed to invest the powerful minister with the authority of a parent over his submissive pupil. Honorius was only in the fourteenth year of his age; Serena, the mother of his bride, deferred by art or persuasion the consummation of the royal nuptials; Maria died a virgin, after she had been ten years a wife; and the chastity of the emperor was secured by the coldness, or perhaps the debility, of his constitution. His subjects, who attentively studied the character of their young sovereign, discovered that Honorius was without passions, and consequently without talents; and that his feeble and languid disposition was alike incapable of discharging the duties of his rank, or of enjoying the pleasures of his age. In his early youth he made some progress in the exercises of riding and drawing the bow but he soon relinquished these fatiguing occupations, and the amusement of feeding poultry became the serious and daily care of the monarch of the West, who resigned the reins of empire to the firm and skilful hand of his guardian Stilicho.

The experience of history will countenance the suspicion that a prince who was born in the purple received a worse education than the meanest peasant of his dominions; and the ambitious minister suffered him to attain the age of manhood without attempting to excite his courage or to enlighten his understanding. The predecessors of Honorius were accustomed to animate by their example, or at least by their presence, the valour of the legions; and the dates of their laws attest the perpetual activity of their motions. through the provinces of the Roman world. But the son of Theodosius passed the slumber of his life, a captive in his palace, a stranger in his country, and the patient, almost the indifferent, spectator of the ruin of the Western Empire, which was repeatedly attacked, and finally subverted, by the arms of the barbarians. In the eventful history of a reign of twentyeight years, it will seldom be necessary to mention the name of the emperor Honorius.

ALARIC INVADES GREECE

If the subjects of Rome could be ignorant of their obligations to the great Theodosius, they were too soon convinced how painfully the spirit and abilities of their deceased emperor had supported the frail and mouldering edifice of the republic. He died in the month of January; and before the end of the winter of the same year the Gothic nation was in arms.

The Goths, instead of being impelled by the blind and headstrong passions of their chiefs, were now directed by the bold and artful genius of Alaric. That renowned leader was descended from the noble race of the Balti, which yielded only to the royal dignity of the Amali; he had solicited the command of the Roman armies, and the imperial court provoked him to demonstrate the folly of their refusal and the importance of their loss. Whatever hopes might be entertained of the conquest of Constantinople, the judicious general

[395–396 A.D.] soon abandoned an impracticable enterprise. In the midst of a divided court and a discontented people, the emperor Arcadius was terrified by the aspect of the Gothic arms: but the want of wisdom and valour was supplied by the strength of the city; and the fortifications, both of the sea and land, might securely brave the impotent and random darts of the barbarians. Alaric disdained to trample any longer on the prostrate and ruined countries of Thrace and Dacia, and he resolved to seek a plentiful harvest of fame and riches in a province which had hitherto escaped the ravages of war.

The character of the civil and military officers, on whom Rufinus had devolved the government of Greece, confirmed the public suspicion that he had betrayed the ancient seat of freedom and learning to the Gothic invader. The proconsul Antiochus was the unworthy son of a respectable father; and Gerontius, who commanded the provincial troops, was much better qualified to execute the oppressive orders of a tyrant than to defend with courage and ability a country most remarkably fortified by the hand of nature. Alaric had traversed, without resistance, the plains of Macedonia and Thessaly, as far as the foot of Mount Eta, a steep and woody range of hills, almost impervious to his cavalry.

The troops which had been posted to defend the straits of Thermopyla retired, as they were directed, without attempting to disturb the secure and rapid passage of Alaric; and the fertile fields of Phocis and Boeotia were instantly covered by a deluge of barbarians; who massacred the males of an age to bear arms, and drove away the beautiful females, with the spoil and cattle, of the flaming villages. As soon as the Athenians heard the voice of the Gothic herald, they were easily persuaded to deliver the greatest part of their wealth as the ransom of the city of Minerva and its inhabitants. The treaty was ratified by solemn oaths, and observed with mutual fidelity. The Gothic prince, with a small and select train, was admitted within the walls; he indulged himself in the refreshment of the bath, accepted a splendid banquet which was provided by the magistrate, and affected to show that he was not ignorant of the manners of civilised nations. But the whole territory of Attica, from the promontory of Sunium to the town of Megara, was blasted by his baleful presence; and if we may use the comparison of a contemporary philosopher, Athens itself resembled the bleeding and empty skin of a slaughtered victim.

Corinth, Argos, Sparta, yielded without resistance to the arms of the Goths; and the most fortunate of the inhabitants were saved, by death, from beholding the slavery of their families and the conflagration of their cities.

The last hope of a people who could no longer depend on their arms, their gods, or their sovereign, was placed in the powerful assistance of the general of the West; and Stilicho, who had not been permitted to repulse, advanced to chastise, the invaders of Greece.b

It was impossible for Stilicho to remain quiet. He hastened to anticipate a landing in Italy, and crossed over to Peloponnesus with his troops. Alaric retreated before him to the mountains of Arcadia, and was there closely hemmed in, but escaped the threatening danger of destruction. He either availed himself of a momentary negligence on the part of the Roman general, or else the latter allowed him to escape for political reasons. The Goths went from Peloponnesus to Illyricum, and here suddenly, to the astonishment of the world, the Gothic king was made commander-in-chief of this border province, and his troops declared the auxiliaries of the Eastern Roman Empire. In taking this course it was the intention of Eutropius to make use of the Goths against the hated Stilicho.

[395-403 A.D.]

The Eastern Roman Empire was then in a terrible condition. Most of the provinces had been devastated by the Goths; Alans and other barbarians had been settled in Asia for the defence of the northern frontier, and incited by Tribigildus, one of their princes, they devastated the lands entrusted to their charge. Tribigildus was led to do this by the Goth Gainas, who sought to overthrow the minister Eutropius, and for this purpose had contrived a plot in which he had persuaded Tribigildus to join. An army sent by Eutropius against the latter was beaten; the populace of Constantinople raised a furious outcry against the minister on account of this defeat and of the devastation of Asia Minor, and Gainas, who was to have marched against Tribigildus with his Gothic troops, refused to obey unless Eutropius were dismissed. As the latter had also quarrelled with the empress, he could no longer avoid the threatening storm. He was dismissed and not only deprived of his property but also of his life. He had sought refuge from his enemies in one of the churches of the capital; in this sanctuary St. Chrysostom, who was then patriarch of Constantinople, in vain sought to protect him. Eutropius had to be given up, and was first banished to Cyprus, and then executed (399).

After his fall, the empress Eudoxia carried on the government; Gainas now openly allied himself with Tribigildus, and together they committed such fearful ravages in Asia Minor that the government had to submit to negotiate with them and at their request to deliver up three distinguished officials for execution. Fortunately Tribigildus soon died. Gainas with his hordes inflicted terrible suffering on the capital and the surrounding country, until finally the people took courage and killed more than seven thousand Goths. Another Goth, Fravitta, who had been for a long time in the service of Greece, and was summoned from Asia to help against Gainas, completely defeated him, so that the devastator had to retreat with his armies to the neighbourhood of the Danube. Soon after this he was killed in a war with the Huns.

Meanwhile, Stilicho held the reins of the government of the West with a powerful hand, and distinguished himself by brilliant achievements both as statesman and general. He vindicated the fame of the Roman arms in war against the Franks and Alamanni, and successfully and quickly suppressed a dangerous rebellion by which Gildo, the brother of Firmus, had made himself master of Africa. We know too little of the private life and character of Stilicho to determine whether he, as some writers allege, really plotted the overthrow of the emperor Honorius, so as to place his own son on the throne.

Directly after Gildo's victory, Stilicho had to protect the empire from a new danger which was threatening it from a different quarter. The title of general of the East Roman Empire, bestowed on Alaric, had been utilised by him to such good purpose that he had completely equipped his Goths with arms from the arsenals in Illyricum, and now, incited by the court of Constantinople, he broke into the Western Empire, devastating as he went (400). As, for unknown reasons, he only pushed forward into Venetia, Stilicho had time to arm himself. He gathered troops from all sides, and when, two years later, Alaric again appeared (402), Stilicho alone did not lose courage, while all Italy trembled, and the emperor fled from Mediolanum to the stronghold of Ravenna. Stilicho conducted the war with much caution, and did not engage in battle until he could attack under favourable circumstances. The opportunity offered itself at the town of Pollentia in Liguria, and here, in the spring of 403, he accepted battle.

H. W. - VOL. VI. 2x