of their revolt: the affront was embittered by their contempt for the unwarlike sons of Theodosius; and their resentment was inflamed by the weakness or treachery of the minister of Arcadius. The frequent visits of Rufinus to the camp of the barbarians, whose arms and apparel he affected to imitate, were considered as a sufficient evidence of his guilty correspondence; and the public enemy, from a motive either of gratitude or of policy, was attentive, amidst the general devastation, to spare the private estates of the unpopular præfect. 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 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.3 Alaric marches into Greece, A.D. 396. The character of the civil and military officers on whom Rufinus had devolved the government of Greece confirmed the public suspicion that he had betrayed the ancient seat of freedom and learning to the Gothic invader. The proconsul Antiochus was the unworthy son of a respectable father; and Gerontius, who commanded the provincial troops, was much better qualified to execute the oppressive orders of a tyrant than to [A.D. 395.-S.] Baltha, or bold: origo mirifica, says Jornandes (c. 29). This illustrious race long continued to flourish in France, in the Gothic province of Septimania, or Languedoc, under the corrupted appellation of Baux: and a branch of that family afterwards settled in the kingdom of Naples (Grotius in Prolegom. ad Hist. Gothic. p. 53). The lords of Baux, near Arles, and of seventy-nine subordinate places, were independent of the counts of Provence (Longuerue, Description de la France, tom. i. p. 357). 5 Zosimus (1. v. [c. 5] p. 293-295) is our best guide for the conquest of Greece: but the hints and allusion of Claudian are so many rays of historic light. 86 a The words of Jornandes are: "(Ala"richo) erat post Amalos secunda nobilitas, Baltharumque ex genere origo mirifica, qui dudum ob audaciam virtutis Baltha, "id est, audax, nomen inter suos acceperat." The construction is strange; 66 but the passage means that the noble race of the Baltha were so called from the surname of Baltha, given to Alaric on account of his bravery. See Aschbach, Geschichte der Westgothen, p. 66.-S. A.D. 395. ALARIC MARCHES INTO GREECE. 25 25 defend, with courage and ability, a country most remarkably fortified by the hand of nature. Alaric had traversed, without resistance, the plains of Macedonia and Thessaly, as far as the foot of Mount Oeta, a steep and woody range of hills, almost impervious to his cavalry. They stretched from east to west, to the edge of the sea-shore; and left, between the precipice and the Malian Gulf, an interval of three hundred feet, which in some places was contracted to a road capable of admitting only a single carriage. In this narrow pass of Thermopyla, where Leonidas and the three hundred Spartans had gloriously devoted their lives, the Goths might have been stopped, or destroyed, by a skilful general; and perhaps the view of that sacred spot might have kindled some sparks of military ardour in the breasts of the degenerate Greeks. The troops which had been posted to defend the straits of Thermopylæ retired, as they were directed, without attempting to disturb the secure and rapid passage of Alaric ;7 and the fertile fields of Phocis and Boeotia were instantly covered by a deluge of barbarians, who massacred the males of an age to bear arms, and drove away the beautiful females, with the spoil and cattle of the flaming villages. The travellers who visited Greece several years afterwards could easily discover the deep and bloody traces of the march of the Goths; and Thebes was less indebted for her preservation to the strength of her seven gates than to the eager haste of Alaric, who advanced to occupy the city of Athens and the important harbour of the Piræus. The same impatience urged him to prevent the delay and danger of a siege, by the offer of a capitulation; and as soon as the Athenians heard the voice of the Gothic herald, they were easily persuaded to deliver the greatest part of their wealth, as the ransom of the city of Minerva and its inhabitants. The treaty was ratified by solemn oaths, and observed with mutual fidelity. The Gothic prince, with a small and select train, was admitted within the walls; he indulged himself in the refreshment of the bath, accepted a splendid banquet which was provided by the magistrate, and affected to show that he was not ignorant of the manners of civilised nations.8 But the whole territory of Attica, 6 Compare Herodotus (1. vii. c. 176) and Iivy (xxxvi. 15). The narrow entrance of Greece was probably enlarged by each successive ravisher. 7 He passed, says Eunapius (in Vit. Philosoph. p. 93, edit. Commelin, 1596), through the straits, διὰ τῶν πυλῶν (of Thermopyla) παρῆλθεν, ὥσπερ διὰ σταδίου, καὶ ἱπποκρότου πεδίου τρέχων. 8 In obedience to Jerom and Claudian (in Rufin. 1. ii. 191), I have mixed some darker colours in the mild representation of Zosimus, who wished to soften the calamities of Athens. Nec fera Cecropias traxissent vincula matres. Synesius (Epist. cxxxv. p. 272, edit. Petav.) observes that Athens, whose sufferings he imputes to the proconsul's avarice, was at that time less famous for her schools of philosophy than for her trade of honey. in from the promontory of Sunium to the town of Megara, was blasted by his baleful presence; and, if we may use the comparison of a contemporary philosopher, Athens itself resembled the bleeding and empty skin of a slaughtered victim. The distance between Megara and Corinth could not much exceed thirty miles; but the bad road, an expressive name, which it still bears among the Greeks, was, or might easily have been made, impassable for the march of an enemy. The thick and gloomy woods of Mount Citharon covered the inland country; the Scironian rocks approached the water's edge, and hung over the narrow and winding path, which was confined above six miles along the sea-shore. The passage of those rocks, so infamous every age, was terminated by the isthmus of Corinth; and a small body of firm and intrepid soldiers might have successfully defended a temporary entrenchment of five or six miles from the Ionian to the Egean sea. The confidence of the cities of Peloponnesus in their natural rampart had tempted them to neglect the care of their antique walls; and the avarice of the Roman governors had exhausted and betrayed the unhappy province.10 Corinth, Argos, Sparta, yielded without resistance to the arms of the Goths; and the most fortunate of the inhabitants were saved by death from beholding the slavery of their families and the conflagration of their cities." The vases and statues were distributed among the barbarians, with more regard to the value of the materials than to the elegance of the workmanship; the female captives submitted to the laws of war; the enjoyment of beauty was the reward of valour; and the Greeks could not reasonably complain of an abuse which was justified by the example of the heroic times.12 The descendants of that extraordinary people, who had considered valour and discipline as the walls of Sparta, no longer remembered the generous reply of their ancestors to an invader more formidable than Alaric. "If thou art a god, thou wilt not hurt those 9 Vallata mari Scironia rupes, Et duo continuo connectens æquora muro Claudian de Bell. Getico, 188. The Scironian rocks are described by Pausanias (1. i. c. 44, p. 107, edit. Kuhn) and our modern travellers Wheeler (p. 436) and Chandler (p. 298). Hadrian made the road passable for two carriages [Pausan. i. c. 44, § 6, ed. Bekker]. 10 Claudian (in Rufin. 1. ii. 186, and de Bello Getico, 611, &c.) vaguely, though forcibly, delineates the scene of rapine and destruction. 11 Τρὶς μάκαρες Δαναοὶ καὶ τετράκις, &c. These generous lines of Homer (Odyss. 1. v. 306) were transcribed by one of the captive youths of Corinth: and the tears of Mummius may prove that the rude conqueror, though he was ignorant of the value of an original picture, possessed the purest source of good taste, a benevolent heart (Plutarch, Symposiac. 1. ix. tom. ii. p. 737, edit. Wechel. [tom. viii. p. 939, ed. Reiske]). 12 Homer perpetually describes the exemplary patience of these female captives, who gave their charms, and even their hearts, to the murderers of their fathers, brothers, &c. Such a passion (of Eriphile for Achilles) is touched with admirable delicacy by Racine. A.D. 396. HE IS ATTACKED BY STILICHO. 27 23 "who have never injured thee; if thou art a man, advance—and "thou wilt find men equal to thyself." 13 From Thermopyla to Sparta the leader of the Goths pursued his victorious march without encountering any mortal antagonists; but one of the advocates of expiring Paganism has confidently asserted that the walls of Athens were guarded by the goddess Minerva, with her formidable Ægis, and by the angry phantom of Achilles, 14 and that the conqueror was dismayed by the presence of the hostile deities of Greece. In an age of miracles it would perhaps be unjust to dispute the claim of the historian Zosimus to the common benefit, yet it cannot be dissembled that the mind of Alaric was ill prepared to receive, either in sleeping or waking visions, the impressions of Greek superstition. The songs of Homer and the fame of Achilles had probably never reached the ear of the illiterate barbarian; and the Christian faith, which he had devoutly embraced, taught him to despise the imaginary deities of Rome and Athens. The invasion of the Goths, instead of vindicating the honour, contributed, at least accidentally, to extirpate the last remains of Paganism; and the mysteries of Ceres, which had subsisted eighteen hundred years, did not survive the destruction of Eleusis and the calamities of Greece.15 He is attacked by The last hope of a people who could no longer depend on their arms, their gods, or their sovereign, was placed in the powerful assistance of the general of the West; and Stilicho, who had not been permitted to repulse, advanced to chastise the invaders of Greece.16 b A numerous fleet was equipped in the ports of Italy; and the troops, after a short and Stilicho, A.D. 397. [A.D. 396.] 13 Plutarch (in Pyrrho [c. 26], tom. ti. p. 471, edit. Brian) gives the genuine answer in the Laconic dialect. Pyrrhus attacked Sparta with 25,000 foot, 2000 horse, and 24 elephants: and the defence of that open town is a fine comment on the laws of Lycurgus, even in the last stage of decay. 14 Such, perhaps, as Homer (Iliad, xx. 164) has so nobly painted him. 15 Eunapius (in Vit. Philosoph. p. 90-93) intimates that a troop of monks betrayed Greece and followed the Gothic camp.a 16 For Stilicho's Greek war compare the honest narrative of Zosimus (1. v. [c. 7] p. 295, 296) with the curious circumstantial flattery of Claudian (i. Cons. Stilich. 1. i. 172-186; iv. Cons. Hon. 459-487). As the event was not glorious, it is artfully thrown into the shade. The expression is curious. Tauras αὐτῷ τὰς πύλας ἀπέδειξε τῆς Ἑλλάδος, ἥτε τῶν τὰ φαιὰ ἱμάτια ἐχόντων, ἀκωλύτως προσπαgerenborav, doba. Vit. Max. t. i. p. 53, edit. Boissonade.-M. The invasion of Alaric began in 395 and was continued in 396, not in 396 and 397 as Gibbon states. There were two expeditions of Stilicho into Greece, which are confounded by Zosimus. In A.D. 395 Stilicho crossed the Alps in order to en counter Alaric, and reached Thessaly, which had been already plundered, but before Alaric had penetrated into southern Greece. In Thessaly he was stopped by an order of the Byzantine court. (Claudian in Rufin. 1. ii. 124, 179-195.) In the second expedition (396) Stilicho met Alaric in Peloponnesus, as Gibbon relates. See Clinton, Fast. Rom. vol. i. p. 534, 536, 537.-S. prosperous navigation over the Ionian sea, were safely disembarked on the isthmus, near the ruins of Corinth. The woody and mountainous country of Arcadia, the fabulous residence of Pan and the Dryads, became the scene of a long and doubtful conflict between two generals not unworthy of each other. The skill and perseverance of the Roman at length prevailed; and the Goths, after sustaining a considerable loss from disease and desertion, gradually retreated to the lofty mountain of Pholoe, near the sources of the Peneus, and on the frontiers of Elis-a sacred country, which had formerly been exempted from the calamities of war.17 The camp of the barbarians was immediately besieged; the waters of the river 18 were diverted into another channel; and while they laboured under the intolerable pressure of thirst and hunger, a strong line of circumvallation was formed to prevent their escape. After these precautions Stilicho, too confident of victory, retired to enjoy his triumph in the theatrical games and lascivious dances of the Greeks; his soldiers, deserting their standards, spread themselves over the country of their allies, which they stripped of all that had been saved from the rapacious hands of the enemy. Alaric appears to have seized the favourable moment to execute one of those hardy enterprises in which the abilities of a general are displayed with more genuine lustre than in the tumult of a day of battle. To extricate himself from the prison of Peloponnesus it was necessary that he should pierce the entrenchments which surrounded his camp; that he should perform a difficult and dangerous march of thirty miles, as far as the Gulf of Corinth; and that he should transport his troops, his captives, and his spoil, over an arm of the sea, which, in the narrow interval between Rhium and the opposite shore, is at least half a mile in breadth,19 Escapes to Epirus. operations of Alaric must have been secret, prudent, and The 17 The troops who marched through Elis delivered up their arms. This security enriched the Eleans, who were lovers of a rural life. Riches begat pride: they disdained their privilege, and they suffered. Polybius advises them to retire once more within their magic circle. See a learned and judicious discourse on the Olympic games, which Mr. West has prefixed to his translation of Pindar. 18 Claudian (in iv. Cons. Hon. 480) alludes to the fact without naming the river; perhaps the Alpheus (i. Cons. Stil. 1. i. 185). Et Alpheus Geticis angustus acervis Tardior ad Siculos etiamnum pergit amores. Yet I should prefer the Peneus, a shallow stream in a wide and deep bed, which runs through Elis and falls into the sea below Cyllene. It had been joined with the Alpheus to cleanse the Augean stable. (Cellarius, tom. i. p. 760. Chandler's Travels, p. 286.) 19 Strabo, 1. viii. p. 517 [p. 335, ed. Casaub.]. Plin. Hist. Natur. iv. 3. Wheeler, p. 308. Chandler, p. 275. They measured from different points the distance between the two lands. a Gibbon follows Zosimus; but accord- escape to the negligence of Stilicho, but ing to Claudian Alaric did not owe his to his intrigues with the court of Constan |