tance of four miles from the Hadriatic; and as early as the fifth or sixth century of the Christian æra, the port of Augustus was converted into pleasant orchards; and a lonely grove of pines covered the ground where the Roman fleet once rode at anchor (62). Even this alteration contributed to increase the natural strength of the place; and the shallowness of the water was a sufficient barrier against the large ships of the enemy. This advantageous situation was fortified by art and labour; and in the twentieth year of his age, the emperor of the West, anxious only for his personal safety, retired to the perpetual confinement of the walls and morasses of Ravenna. The example of Honorius was imitated by his feeble successors, the Gothic kings, and afterwards the Exarchs, who occupied the throne and palace of the emperors; and, till the middle of the eighth century, Ravenna was considered as the seat of government, and the capital of Italy (63), The revolutions of Scythia, The fears of Honorius were not without foundation, nor were his precautions without effect. While Italy rejoiced in her deliverance from the Goths, a furious tempest was excited among the A. D. 400. nations of Germany, who yielded to the irresistible impulse that appears to have been gradually communicated from the eastern extremity of the continent of Asia. The Chinese annals, as they have been interpreted by the learned industry of the present age, may be usefully applied to reveal the secret and remote causes of the fall of the Roman empire. The extensive territory to the north of the great wall was possessed, after the flight of the Huns, by the victorious Sienpi; who were sometimes broken into dependent tribes, and sometimes re-united under a supreme chief; till at length styling themselves Topa, or masters of the earth, they acquired a more solid consistence, and a more formidable power, The Topa soon compelled the pastoral nations of the eastern desert to acknowledge the superiority of their arms; they invaded China in a period of weakness and intestine discord; and these fortunate Tartars, adopting the laws and manners of the vanquished people, founded an Imperial dynasty, which reigned near one hundred and sixty years over the northern provinces of the monarchy. Some generations before they ascended the throne of China, one of the Topa princes had enlisted in his cavalry a slave of the name of Moko, renowned for his valour; but who was tempted, by the fear of punishment, to desert his standard, and to range the desert at the head of an hundred followers. This gang of robbers and outlaws swelled into a camp, a tribe, a numerous people, distinguished (62) The fable of Theodore and Honoria, which Dryden has so admirably transplanted from Boccaccio (Giornata iii. novell. viii.) was acted in the wood of Chiassi, a corrupt word from Classis, the naval station, which, with the intermediate road, or suburb, the Via Cæsaris, constituted the triple city of Ravenna. (63) From the year 404, the dates of the Theodosian Code become sedentary at Constantinople and Ravenna. See Godefroy's Chronology of the Laws, tom. i, p. exlyiii. &c. the northern by the appellation of Geougen; and their hereditary chieftains, the posterity of Moko the slave, assumed their rank among the Scythian monarchs. The youth of Toulun, the greatest of his descendants, was exercised by those misfortunes which are the school of heroes. He bravely struggled with adversity, broke the imperious yoke of the Topa, and became the legislator of his nation, and the conqueror of Tartary. His troops were distributed into regular bands of an hundred and of a thousand men; cowards were stoned to death; the most splendid honours were proposed as the reward of valour; and Toulun, who had knowledge enough to despise the learning of China, adopted only such arts and institutions as were favourable to the military spirit of his government. His tents, which he removed in the winter season to a more southern latitude, were pitched, during the summer, on the fruitful banks of the Selinga. His conquests stretched from Corea far beyond the river Irtish. He vanquished, in the country to the north of the Caspian sea, the nation of the Huns; and the new title of Khan, or Cagan, expressed the fame and power which he derived from this memorable victory (64). Emigration of The chain of events is interrupted, or rather is concealed, as it Germans, passes from the Volga to the Vistula, through the dark interval A. D. 405. which separates the extreme limits of the Chinese, and of the Ro man, geography. Yet the temper of the Barbarians, and the experience of successive emigrations, sufficiently declare, that the Huns, who were oppressed by the arms of the Geougen, soon withdrew from the presence of an insulting victor. The countries towards the Euxine were already occupied by their kindred tribes; and their hasty flight, which they soon converted into a bold attack, would more naturally be directed towards the rich and level plains, through which the Vistula gently flows into the Baltic sea. The North must again have been alarmed, and agitated, by the invasion of the Huns;* and the nations who retreated before them must have pressed with incumbent weight on the confines of Germany (65). The inhabitants of those regions, which the ancients have assigned to the Suevi, the Vandals, and the Burgundians, might embrace the resolution of abandoning to the fugitives of Sarmatia, their woods and morasses; or at least of discharging their superfluous numbers on the provinces of the Roman empire (66). About four years after (64) See M. de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom i. p. 179–189. tom. ii. p. 295. 334-338. (65) Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. 1. i. c. iii. p. 182.) has observed an emigration from the Palus Mæotis to the north of Germany, which he ascribes to famine. But his views of ancient history are strangely darkened by ignorance and error. (66) Zosimus (1. v. p. 331.) uses the general description of the nations beyond the Danube and the * There is no authority which connects this inroad of the Teutonic tribes with the movements of the Huns. The Huns can hardly have reached the shores of the Baltic, and probably the greater part of the forces of Radagaisus, particularly the Vandals, had long occupied a more southern position.-M. the victorious Toulun had assumed the title of Khan of the Geougen, another Barbarian, the haughty Rhodogast, or Radagaisus (67), marched from the northern extremities of Germany almost to the gates of Rome, and left the remains of his army to achieve the destruction of the West. The Vandals, the Suevi, and the Burgundians, formed the strength of this mighty host; but the Alani, who had found an hospitable reception in their new seats, added their active cavalry to the heavy infantry of the Germans; and the Gothic adventurers crowded so eagerly to the standard of Radagaisus, that, by some historians, he has been styled the King of the Goths. Twelve thousand warriors, distinguished above the vulgar by their noble birth, or their valiant deeds, glittered in the van (68); and the whole multitude, which was not less than two hundred thousand fighting men, might be increased, by the accession of women, of children, and of slaves, to the amount of four hundred thousand persons. This formidable emigration issued from the same coast of the Baltic, which had poured forth the myriads of the Cimbri and Teutones, to assault Rome and Italy in the vigour of the republic. After the departure of those Barbarians, their native country, which was marked by the vestiges of their greatness, long ramparts, and gigantic moles (69), remained, during some ages, a vast and dreary solitude; till the human species was renewed by the powers of generation, and the vacancy was filled by the influx of new inhabitants. The nations who now usurp an extent of land, which they are unable to cultivate, would soon be assisted by the industrious poverty of their neighbours, if the governments of Europe did not protect the claims of dominion and property. 1 The correspondence of nations was, in that age, so imperfect and Radagasins precarious, that the revolutions of the North might escape the ". D. 406. Rhine. Their situation, and consequently their names, are manifestly shewn, even in the various epithets which each ancient writer may have casually added. (67) The name of Rhadagast was that of a local deity of the Obotrites (in Mecklenburgh). A hero might naturally assume the appellation of his tutelar god; but it is not probable that the Barbarians should worship an unsuccessful hero. See Mascou, Hist. of the Germans, viij. 14.* (68) Olympiodorus (apud Photium, p. 180.) uses the Greek word, Ontpάto; which does not convey any precise idea. I suspect that they were the princes and nobles, with their faithful companions; the knights with their squires, as they would have been styled some centuries afterwards. (69) Tacit. de Moribus Germanorum, c. 37. *The god of war and of hospitality with the Vends and all the Sclavonian races of Germany bore the name of Radegast, apparently the same with Rhadagaisus. His principal temple was at Rhetra in Mecklenburgk. It was adorned with great magnificence. The statue of the god was of gold. St. Martin, v. 255. A statue of Radegast, of much coarser materials, and of the rudest workmanship, was discovered between 1760 and 1770, with those of other Wendish deities, on the supposed site of Rhetra. The names of the gods invades Italy, (LIBRERIA CIVICA CREMONA . knowledge of the court of Ravenna; till the dark cloud, which was collected along the coast of the Baltic, burst in thunder upon the banks of the Upper Danube. The emperor of the West, if his ministers disturbed his amusements by the news of the impending danger, was satisfied with being the occasion, and the spectator, of the war (70). The safety of Rome was entrusted to the counsels, and the sword, of Stilicho; but such was the feeble and exhausted state of the empire, that it was impossible to restore the fortifications of the Danube, or to prevent, by a vigorous effort, the invasion of the Germans (71). The hopes of the vigilant minister of Honorius were confined to the defence of Italy. He once more abandoned the provinces, recalled the troops, pressed the new levies, which were rigorously exacted, and pusillanimously eluded; employed the most efficacious means to arrest, or allure, the deserters; and offered the gift of freedom, and of two pieces of gold, to all the slaves who would enlist (72). By these efforts he painfully collected, from the subjects of a great empire, an army of thirty or forty thousand men, which, in the days of Scipio or Camillus, would have been instantly furnished by the free citizens of the territory of Rome (73). The thirty legions of Stilicho were reinforced by a large body of Barbarian auxiliaries; the faithful -Alani were personally attached to his service; and the troops of Huns and of Goths, who marched under the banners of their native princes, Huldin and Sarus, were animated by interest and resentment to oppose the ambition of Radagaisus. The king of the confederate Germans passed, without resistance, the Alps, the Po, and the Apennine; leaving on one hand the inaccessible palace of Honorius, securely buried among the marshes of Ravenna; and, on the other, the camp of Stilicho, who had fixed his head-quarters at Ticinum, or Pavia, but who seems to have avoided a decisive Besieges battle, till he had assembled his distant forces. Many cities of Florence, Italy were pillaged, or destroyed; and the siege of Florence (74), (70) Cujus agendi Spectator vel causa fui, Claudian, vi. Cons. Hon. 439. is the modest language of Honorius, in speaking of the Gothic war, which he had seen somewhat nearer. (71) Zosimus (1. 5. p. 331.) transports the war, and the victory of Stilicio, beyond the Danube. A strange error, which is awkwardly and imperfectly cured, by reading Apvov for Istρòv (Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 807.). In good policy, we must use the service of Zosimus, without esteeming or trusting him." (72) Codex Théodos. 1. vii. tit. xii. leg. 16. The date of this law (A. D. 406, May 18.) satisfies me, as it had done Godefroy (tom. ii. p. 387.), of the true year of the invasion of Radagaisus. Tillemont, Pagi, and Muratori, prefer the preceding year; but they are bound, by certain obligations of civility and respect, to St. Paulinus of Nola. (73) Soon after Rome had been taken by the Gauls, the senate, on a sudden emergency, armed ten legions, 3,000 horse, and 42,000 foot; a force which the city could not have sent forth under Augustus (Livy, vii. 25.). This declaration may puzzle an antiquary, but it is clearly explained by Montesquieu. (74) Machiavel has explained, at least as a philosopher, the origin of Florence, which insensibly descended, for the benefit of trade, from the rock of Fæsula to the banks of the Arno (Istoria Fiorentina, tom. i. l. ii. p. 36. Londra, 1747.). The triumvirs sent a colony to Florence, which, 1 by Radagaisus, is one of the earliest events in the history of that celebrated republic; whose firmness checked and delayed the unskilful fury of the Barbarians. The senate and people trembled at their approach within an hundred and eighty miles of Rome; and anxiously compared the danger which they had escaped, with the new perils to which they were exposed. Alaric was a Christian and a soldier, the leader of a disciplined army; who understood the laws of war, who respected the sanctity of treaties, and who had familiarly conversed with the subjects of the empire in the same camps, and the same churches. The savage Radagaisus was a stranger to the manners, the religion, and even the language, of the civilised nations of the South. The fierceness of his temper was exasperated by cruel superstition; and it was universally believed, that he had bound himself, by a solemn vow, to reduce the city and threatens into a heap of stones and ashes, and to sacrifice the most illustrious of the Roman senators, on the altars of those gods, who were appeased by human blood. The public danger, which should have reconciled all domestic animosities, displayed the incurable madness of religious faction. The oppressed votaries of Jupiter and Mercury respected, in the implacable enemy of Rome, the character of a devout Pagan; loudly declared, that they were more apprehensive of the sacrifices, than of the arms, of Radagaisus; and secretly rejoiced in the calamities of their country, which condemned the faith of their Christian adversaries (75).* Florence was reduced to the last extremity; and the fainting courage of the citizens was supported only by the authority of St. Ambrose; who had communicated, in a dream, the promise of a speedy deliverance (76). On a sudden, they beheld, from their walls, the banners of Stilicho, who advanced, with his united force, to the relief of the faithful city; and who soon marked that fatal spot for the grave of the Barbarian host. The apparent contradictions of those writers who variously relate the defeat of Radagaisus, may be reconciled, without offering much violence to their respective testimonies. Orosius and Augustin, who were intimately connected by friendship and religion, ascribe the miraculous victory to the pro under Tiberius (Tacit. Annal. i. 79.), deserved the reputation and name of a flourishing city. See Cluver, Ital. Antiq. tom. i. p. 507, &c. (75) Yet the Jupiter of Radagaisus, who worshipped Thor and Woden, was very different from the Olympic or Capitoline Jove. The accommodating temper of Polytheism might unite those various and remote deities; but the genuine Romans abhorred the human sacrifices of Gaul and Germany. (76) Paulinus (in Vit. Ambros. c. 50.) relates this story, which he received from the mouth of Pansophia herself, a religious matron of Florence. Yet the archbishop soon ceased to take an active part in the business of the world, and never became a popular saint. * Gibbon has rather softened the language of Augustine as to this threatened insurrection of the Pagans, in order to restore the prohibited rites and ceremonies of Paganism; and their treasonable hopes that the success of Radagaisus Rome. Defeat and his army by Stilicho, destruction of A. D. 406. |