the barriers, which had fo long separated the favage and the C H A P. civilized nations of the earth, were from that fatal moment le- XXX. velled with the ground (88).

&c.

While the peace of Germany was fecured by the attach- Defolation ment of the Franks, and the neutrality of the Alemanni, the of Gaul, fubjects of Rome, unconfcious of their approaching calami- A. D. 437. ties, enjoyed the state of quiet and profperity, which had feldom bleffed the frontiers of Gaul. Their flocks and herds were permitted to graze in the paftures of the Barbarians; their huntfmen penetrated, without fear or danger, into the darkest receffes of the Hercynian wood (89). The banks of the Rhine were crowded, like those of the Tyber, with elegant houfes and well-cultivated farms; and if a poet defcended the river, he might exprefs his doubt, on which fide was fituated the territory of the Romans (90). This fcene of peace and plenty was fuddenly changed into a defert; and the prospect of the fmoking ruins could alone distinguish the folitude of nature from the defolation of man. The flourishing city of Mentz was surprised and destroyed; and many thousand Christians were inhumanly maffacred in the church. Worms perished after a long and obstinate fiege; Strasburgh, Spires, Rheims, Tournay, Arras, Amiens, experienced the cruel oppreffion of the German yoke; and the confuming flames of war fpread from the banks of the Rhine over the greatest part of the seventeen provinces of Gaul. That rich and extenfive country, as far as the ocean, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, was delivered to the Barbarians, who drove before them, in a promiscuous crowd, the bishop, the fenator, and the virgin, laden with VOL. III.

L

the

(88) See Zofimus (1. vi. p. 373.), Orofius (1. vii. c. 40. p. 576.), and the Chronicles. Gregory of Tours (1. ii. c. 9. p. 165. in the fecond volume of the Hiftorians of France) has preserved a valuable fragment of Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus, whofe three names denote a Chriftian, a Roman fubject, and a Semi-barbarian.

(89) Claudian (i. Conf. Stil. 1. i. 221. &c. l. ii. 186.) describes the peace and profperity of the Gallic, frontier. The Abbé Dubos (Hift. Critique, &c. tom. i. p. 174.) would read Alba (a nameless rivulet of the Ardennes) inftead of Albis; and expatiates on the danger of the Gallic cattle grazing beyond the Elbe. Foolish enough! In poetical geography, the Elbe, and the Hercynian, fignify, any river, or any wood, in Germany. Claudian is not prepared for the ftrict examination of our antiquaries.

СНАР.

XXX.

the fpoils of their houfes and altars (91). The ecclefiaftics, to whom we are indebted for this vague defcription of the public calamities, embraced the opportunity of exhorting the Chriftians to repent of the fins which had provoked the Divine Juftice, and to renounce the perishable goods of a wretched and deceitful world. But as the Pelagian controverfy (91), which attempts to found the abyfs of grace and predeftination, foon became the ferious employment of the Latin clergy; the Providence which had decreed, or forefeen, or permitted, fuch a train of moral and natural evils, was rafhly weighed in the imperfect and fallacious balance of reafon. The crimes, and the misfortunes, of the fuffering people, were prefumptuoufly compared with those of their ancestors; and they arraigned the Divine Juftice, which did not exempt from the common deftruction the feeble, the guiltlefs, the infant portion of the human fpecies. These idle difputants overlooked the invariable laws of nature, which have connected peace with innocence, plenty with industry, and fafety with valour. The timid and selfish policy of the court of Ravenna might recal the Palatine legions for the protection of Italy; the remains of the stationary troops might be unequal to the arduous tafk; and the Barbarian auxiliaries might prefer the unbounded licence of fpoil to the benefits of a moderate and regular stipend. But the provinces of Gaul were filled with a numerous race of hardy and robuft youth, who, in the defence of their houses, their families, and their altars, if they had dared to die, would have deferved to vanquish. The knowledge of their native country would have enabled them to oppofe continual and infuperable obftacles to the progrefs of an invader; and the deficiency of the Barbarians, in arms as well as in difcipline, removed the only pretence which excufes the fubmiflion of a populous country to the inferior numbers of a veteran army. When France was invaded by Charles the Fifth, he enquired of a prifoner, how many days Paris

might

(91) Jerom, tom. i. p. 93. See in the rt vol. of the Hiftorians of France, p 777. 782. the proper extracts from the Carmen de Providentiâ Divinâ, and Salvian. The anonymous poet was himself a captive, with his bifhop and fellow-citizens.

(91) The Pelagian do&rine, which was first agitated A. D, 405, was condemned, in the pace of ten years. at Rome and Carthage. St. Auguftin fought and conquered: but the Greek church was favourable to his adverfaries; and (what is fingular enough) the people did not take any part in a difj ate which they could not understand

XXX.

might be diftant from the frontier; " Perhaps twelve, but c H A P. "they will be days of battle (92):" fuch was the gallant anfwer which checked the arrogance of that ambitious prince. The fubjects of Honorius, and thofe of Francis I., were animated by a very different spirit; and in less than two years, the divided troops of the favages of the Baltic, whose numbers, were they fairly stated, would appear contemptible, advanced, without a combat, to the foot of the Pyrenæan mountains.

army,

In the early part of the reign of Honorius, the vigilance Revolt of of Stilicho had fuccefsfully guarded the remote ifland of the British Britain from her inceffant enemies of the ocean, the moun- A. D. 497. tains, and the Irish coaft (93). But those restless Barbarians could not neglect the fair opportunity of the Gothic war, when the walls and stations of the province were stripped of the Roman troops. If any of the legionaries were permitted to return from the Italian expedition, their faithful report of the court and character of Honorius, must have tended to diffolve the bonds of allegiance, and to exafperate the feditious temper of the British army. The spirit of revolt, which had formerly disturbed the age of Gallienus, was revived by the capricious violence of the foldiers; and the unfortunate, perhaps the ambitious, candidates, who were the objects of their choice, were the inftruments, and at length the victims, of their paffion (24). Marcus was the first whom they placed on the throne, as the lawful emperor of Britain, and of the Weft. They violated, by the hafty murder of Marcus, the oath of fidelity which they had impofed on themselves; and their difapprobation of his manners may seem to infcribe an honourable epitaph on his tomb.

L 2

(92) See the Mémoires de Guillaume du Bellay, 1. vi. In French, the original reproof is lefs obvious, and more pointed, from the double sense of the word journée, which alike fignifies, a day's travel or a battle.

(93) Claudian (i. Conf. Stil. 1. ii. 250.). It is fuppofed, that the Scots of Ireland invaded, by fea, the whole western coaft of Britain and fome flight credit may be given even to Nennius and the Irish traditions (Carte's Hift. of England, vol. i. p. 169. Whitaker's Genuine Hiftory of the Britons, p. 199.). The fixty-fix lives of St. Patrick, which were extant in the ninth century, muft have contained as many thousand lies; yet we may believe, that, in one of these Irish inroads, the future apoftle was led away captive (Ufher, Antiquit. Ecclef. Britann. p. 431. and Tillemont, Mem. Ecclef tom, xvi. p. 456. 782, &c.).

(94) The British ufurpers are taken from Zofimus (1. vi. p. 371-375-), Orofius (1. vii. c. 40. p. 575, 577.), Olympiodorus (apud Photium, p. 180, 181.), the ecclefiaftical historians, and the Chronicles, The Latins are ignorant of Marcus.

XXX.

CHA P. tomb. Gratian was the next whom they adorned with the diadem and the purple; and, at the end of four months, Gratian experienced the fate of his predeceffor. The me mory of the great Conftantine, whom the British legions had given to the church and to the empire, fuggefted the fingular motive of their third choice. They difcovered in ledged in the ranks a private foldier of the name of Conftantine; and Britain and their impetuous levity had already feated him on the throne, Gaul, before they perceived his incapacity to fuftain the weight of A. D. 407 that glorious appellation (95). Yet the authority of Con

Conftantine is acknow

ftantine was lefs precarious, and his government was more fuccessful, than the tranfient reigns of Marcus and of Gratian. The danger of leaving his inactive troops in those camps, which had been twice polluted with blood and fedition, urged him to attempt the reduction of the Western provinces. He landed at Boulogne with an inconfiderable force; and after he had repofed himself fome days, he fummoned the cities of Gaul, which had efcaped the yoke of the Barbarians, to acknowledge their lawful fovereign. They obeyed the fummons without reluctance. The neglect of the court of Ravenna had abfolved a deserted people from the duty of allegiance; their actual diftrefs encouraged them to accept any circumstances of change, without apprehenfion, and, perhaps, with fome degree of hope; and they might flatter themselves, that the troops, the authority, and even the name of a Roman emperor, who fixed his refidence in Gaul, would protect the unhappy country from the rage of the Barbarians. The first fucceffes of Conftantine against the detached parties of the Germans, were magnified by the voice of adulation into splendid and decifive victories; which the re-union and infolence of the enemy foon reduced to their just value. His negociations procured a fhort and precarious truce; and if fome tribes of the Barbarians were engaged, by the liberality of his gifts and promises, to undertake the defence of the Rhine, these expensive and uncertain treaties, instead of reftoring the priftine vigour of the Gallic frontier, ferved only to difgrace the majefty of the prince, and to exhaust what yet remained of the treasures of the republic. Elated however with this imaginary

(95) Cum in Conftantino inconftantiam execrarentur (Sidonius Apollinaris, 1. v. epift. 9. p. 139. edit. fecund. Sirmond.). Yet Sidonius might be tempted, by fo fair a pun, to ftigmatise a prince, who had difgraced his grandfather.

imaginary triumph, the vain deliverer of Gaul advanced into C H A P. the provinces of the South, to encounter a more preffing XXX. and perfonal danger, Sarus the Goth was ordered to lay the head of the rebel at the feet of the emperor Honorius; and the forces of Britain and Italy were unworthily confumed in this domestic quarrel. After the lofs of his two bravest generals, Juftinian and Nevigaftes, the former of whom was flain in the field of battle, the latter in a peaceful but treacherous interview, Conftantine fortified himself within the walls. of Vienna. The place was ineffectually attacked feven days; and the Imperial army supported, in a precipitate retreat, the ignominy of purchafing a fecure paffage from the freebooters and outlaws of the Alps (96). Those mountains now feparated the dominions of two rival monarchs: and the fortifications of the double frontier were guarded by the troops of the empire, whofe arms would have been more usefully employed to maintain the Roman limits against the Barbarians of Germany and Sythia.

A. D. 408,

On the fide of the Pyrenees, the ambition of Conftantine He reduces might be justified by the proximity of danger; but his Spain, throne was foon established by the conqueft, or rather submiffion, of Spain; which yielded to the influence of regular and habitual fubordination, and received the laws and magiftrates of the Gallic præfecture. The only oppofition which was made to the authority of Conftantine, proceeded not so much from the powers of government, or the spirit of the people, as from the private zeal and interest of the family of Theodofius. Four brothers (97) had obtained, by the favour of their kinfman, the deceased emperor, an honourable rank, and ample poffeffions in their native country: and the grateful youths refolved to risk those advantages in the fervice of his fon. After an unsuccessful effort to maintain their ground at the head of the stationary troops of Lufitania, they retired to their estates; where they armed and levied, at their own expence, a confiderable body of flaves and dependents, and boldly marched to occupy the ftrong pofts of the Pyrenæan mountains. This domeftic infurrection

(96) Bagauda is the name which Zofimus applies to them; perhaps they deferved a lefs odious character (fee Dubos, Hift. Critique, tom. i. p. 203. and this Hiftory, vol. i. c. xiii.). We shall hear of them again.

(97) Verinianus, Didymus, Theodofius, and Lagodius, who, in modern courts, would be filed princes of the blood, were not diftinguished by any rank or privileges above the reft of their fellow-fubjects.