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the golden age of the poets, a race of men without vice or misery, was realized under the Gothic conquest. The fair prospect was sometimes overcast with clouds; the wisdom of Theodoric might be deceived, his power might be resisted, and the declining age of the monarch was sullied with popular hatred and patrician blood. In the first insolence of victory, he had been tempted to deprive the whole party of Odoacer of the civil, and even the natural rights of society;* a tax unseasonably imposed after the calamities of war, would have crushed the rising agriculture of Liguria: a rigid pre-emption of corn, which was intended for the public relief, must have aggravated the distress of Campania. These dangerous projects were defeated by the virtue and eloquence of Epiphanius and Boethius, who, in the presence of Theodoric himself, successfully pleaded the cause of the people: + but if the royal ear was open to the voice of truth, a saint and a philosopher are not always to be found at the ear of kings. The privileges of rank, or office, or favour, were too frequently abused by Italian fraud and Gothic violence; and the avarice of the king's nephew was publicly exposed, at first by the usurpation, and afterwards by the restitution, of the estates which he had unjustly extorted from his Tuscan neighbours. Two hundred thousand barbarians, formidable even to their master, were seated in the heart of Italy; they indignantly supported the restraints of peace

*He disabled them-a licentia

of political power.-ED.] testandi; and all Italy mourned-lamentabili justitio. I wish to believe, that these penalties were enacted against the rebels who had violated their oath of allegiance; but the testimony of Ennodius (p. 1675-1678) is the more weighty, as he lived and died under the reign of Theodoric. Ennodius, in Vit. Epiphan. p. 1689, 1690. Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiæ, 1. 1, pros. 4, p. 45-47. Respect, but weigh, the passions of the saint and the senator; and fortify or alleviate their complaints by the various hints of Cassiodorus. (ii. 8. iv. 36. viii. 5.) [The first two of these letters contain more than "hints." They afford illustrations of Theodoric's government, so honourable to his character, that they ought to be more plainly stated. By one of them 1500 solidi are remitted to Severus, a bishop, to be distributed among some provincials, who had suffered by the passage of the army; and the other directs the Prætorian Prefect, Faustus, to grant a similar compensation to the inhabitants of the Cottian Alps, by relieving them from the third indiction. These appear to have been unsolicited and spontaneous acts of justice.-ED.]

and discipline; the disorders of their march were always felt, and sometimes compensated; and where it was dangerous to punish, it might be prudent to dissemble, the sallies of their native fierceness. When the indulgence of Theodoric had remitted two-thirds of the Ligurian tribute, he condescended to explain the difficulties of his situation, and to lament the heavy, though inevitable burdens which he imposed on his subjects for their own defence.* These ungrateful subjects could never be cordially reconciled to the origin, the religion, or even the virtues of the Gothic conqueror; past calamities were forgotten, and the sense or suspicion of injuries was rendered still more exquisite by the present felicity of the times.

Even the religious toleration which Theodoric had the glory of introducing into the Christian world, was painful and offensive to the orthodox zeal of the Italians. They respected the armed heresy of the Goths; but their pious rage was safely pointed against the rich and defenceless Jews, who had formed their establishments at Naples, Rome, Ravenna, Milan, and Genoa, for the benefit of trade, and under the sanction of the laws.† Their persons were insulted, their effects were pillaged, and their synagogues were burned by the mad populace of Ravenna and Rome, inflamed, as it should seem, by the most frivolous or extravagant pretences. The government which could neglect, would have deserved such an outrage. A legal inquiry

...

* Immanium expensarum pondus . . . pro ipsorum salute, &c. ; yet these are no more than words.

The Jews were settled at Naples (Procopius, Goth. lib. 1, c. 8), at Genoa (Var. ii. 28. iv. 33), Milan (v. 37), Rome (iv. 43). See likewise Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, tom. viii, c. 7, p. 254. [Among the places frequented by the Jews, Venice is not named by any author. Basnage indicates no settlement of them there at that period. Yet a century had elapsed since that city is asserted to have been founded and growing into commercial importance. We are also informed by Cassiodorus (Var. xii. 26), that the Veneti were then afflicted by a grievous famine, and were so little engaged in foreign trade, that they had no means of obtaining supplies of food for themselves from other countries; nor, though there was an abundant store of wine in the neighbouring province of Istria, had they vessels to bring it up their own rivers. There is also another letter (xii. 24), describing the Venetiæ, in which the islands mentioned were evidently portions of the continent, at times surrounded by the rising flood; "qui nunc terrestris, modo cernitur insularis." All this affords strong additional evidence against the early origin assigned to that former "palace of

was instantly directed; and as the authors of the tumult had escaped in the crowd, the whole community was condemned to repair the damage; and the obstinate bigots who refused their contributions, were whipped through the streets by the hand of the executioner. This simple act of justice exasperated the discontent of the Catholics, who applauded the merit and patience of these holy confessors; three hundred pulpits deplored the persecution of the church; and if the chapel of St. Stephen at Verona was demolished by the command of Theodoric, it is probable that some miracle, hostile to his name and dignity, had been performed on that sacred theatre. At the close of a glorious life, the king of Italy discovered that he had excited the hatred of a people whose happiness he had so assiduously laboured to promote; and his mind was soured by indignation, jealousy, and the bitterness of unrequited love. The Gothic conqueror condescended to disarm the unwarlike natives of Italy, interdicting all weapons of offence, and excepting only a small knife for domestic use. The deliverer of Rome was accused of conspiring with the vilest informers against the lives of senators whom he suspected of a secret and treasonable correspondence with the Byzantine court.* After the death of Anastasius, the diadem had been placed on the head of a feeble old man; but the powers of government were assumed by his nephew Justinian, who already meditated the extirpation of heresy, and the conquest of Italy and Africa. A rigorous law, which was published at Constantinople, to reduce the Arians by the dread of punishment within the pale of the church, awakened the just resentment of Theodoric, who claimed, for his distressed brethren of the East, the same indulgence which he had so long granted to the Catholics of his dominions. At his stern command, the Roman pontiff, with four illustrious senators, embarked on an embassy, of which he must have alike dreaded the failure or the success. The singular veneration shown to the first pope who had visited Constantinople was punished as a crime by his jealous monarch; the artful or peremptory refusal of the

the universal queen."-ED.]

* Rex avidus communis exitii, &c. (Boethius, lib. 1, p. 59) rex dolum Romanis tendebat. (Anonym. Vales. p. 723.) These are hard words: they speak the pas sions of the Italians, and those (I fear) of Theodoric himself.

Byzantine court might excuse an equal, and would provoke a larger, measure of retaliation; and a mandate was prepared in Italy, to prohibit, after a stated day, the exercis of the Catholic worship. By the bigotry of his subject and enemies, the most tolerant of princes was driven to the brink of persecution; and the life of Theodoric was too long, since he lived to condemn the virtue of Boethius and Symmachus.*

The senator Boethiust is the last of the Romans whom Cato or Tully could have acknowledged for their countryman. As a wealthy orphan, he inherited the patrimony and honours of the Anician family, a name ambitiously assumed by the kings and emperors of the age; and the appellation of Manlius asserted his genuine or fabulous descent from a race of consuls and dictators, who had repulsed the Gauls from the Capitol and sacrificed their sons to the discipline of the republic. In the youth of Boethius, the studies of Rome were not totally abandoned; a Virgil is now extant, corrected by the hand of a consul; and the professors of grammar, rhetoric, and jurisprudence, were maintained in their privileges and pensions, by the liberality of the Goths. But the erudition of the Latin language was insufficient to satiate his ardent curiosity; and Boethius is said to have employed eighteen laborious years in the schools of Athens,§ which were supported by

* I have laboured to extract a rational narrative from the dark, concise, and various hints of the Valesian fragment (p. 722-724), Theophanes (p. 145), Anastasius (in Johanne, p. 35), and the Hist. Miscella. (p. 108, edit. Muratori). A gentle pressure and paraphrase of their words is no violence. Consult likewise Muratori (Annali d'Italia, tom. iv, p. 471–478) with the Annals and Breviary (tom. i, 259-263) of the two Pagis, the uncle and the nephew.

Le Clerc has composed a critical and philosophical life of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (Bibliot. Choisie, tom. xvi, p. 168-275), and both Tiraboschi (tom. iii) and Fabricius (Bibliot. Latin.) may be usefully consulted. The date of his birth may be placed about the year 470, and his death in 524, in a premature old age. (Consol. Phil. Metrica, i p. 5.) For the age and value of this MS., now in the Medicean library at Florence, see the Cenotaphia Pisana (p. 430-447) of cardinal Noris. The Athenian studies of Boethius are doubtful (Baronius, A.D. 510, No. 3, from a spurious tract, De Disciplina Scholarum), and the term of eighteen years is doubtless too long: but the simple fact of a visit to Athens is justified by much internal evidence (Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philosoph. tom. iii. p. 524-527), and by an expression (though vague and ambiguous) of his friend Cassiodorus

the zeal, the learning, and the diligence of Proclus and his disciples. The reason and piety of their Roman pupil were fortunately saved from the contagion of mystery and magic, which polluted the groves of the academy; but he imbibed the spirit and imitated the method of his dead and living masters, who attempted to reconcile the strong and subtle sense of Aristotle with the devout contemplation and sublime fancy of Plato. After his return to Rome, and his marriage with the daughter of his friend, the patrician Symmachus, Boethius still continued, in a palace of ivory and marble, to prosecute the same studies. The church was edified by his profound defence of the orthodox creed against the Arian, the Eutychian, and the Nestorian heresies; and the Catholic unity was explained or exposed in a formal treatise by the indifference of three distinct, though consubstantial, persons. For the benefit of his Latin readers his genius submitted to teach the first elements of the arts and sciences of Greece. The geometry of Euclid, the music of Pythagoras, the arithmetic of Nicomachus, the mechanics of Archimedes, the astronomy of Ptolemy, the theology of Plato, and the logic of Aristotle, with the commentary of Porphyry, were translated and illustrated by the indefatigable pen of the Roman senator. And be alone was esteemed capable of describing the wonders of art, a sun-dial, a water-clock, or a sphere which represented the motions of the planets. From these abstruse speculations, Boethius (Var. 1, 45), "longe positas Athenas introisti." [The expressions of Cassiodorus in this letter are far more precise, and indicate clearly education at Athens. "Atheniensium scholas introisti ut Græcorum dogmata doctrinam feceris esse Romanam. Didicisti enim," &c.-ED.] * Bibliothecæ comptos ebore ac vitro parietes, &c. (Consol. Phil. lib. 1, pros. 5, p. 74.) The epistles of Ennodius (6, 6. 7, 13. 8, 1. 31. 37. 40) and Cassiodorus (Var. i. 39. iv. 6. 9. 21) afford many proofs of the high reputation which he enjoyed in his own times. It is true that the bishop of Pavia wanted to purchase of him an old house at Milan, and praise might be tendered and accepted in part of payment. [Gibbon here converted bookcases of ivory and glass into a palace of ivory and marble. The earliest literary productions of Boethius, more particularly his translations of the works which he had brought with him from Athens, are enumerated by Cassiodorus (Var. 1, 45) with evident gratification. He took pleasure in intercourse with his learned colleague: "delectat nos cum scientibus loqui," expressed his own sentiments in Theodoric's name. (Var. 1, 10.) But on such occasions he felt sensible that he was addressing a judge of his words, and checked his propersity for diffuse irrelevancies.-ED.]

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