vidence of God, rather than to the valour of man (77). They strictly exclude every idea of chance, or even of bloodshed; and positively affirm, that the Romans, whose camp was the scene of plenty and idleness, enjoyed the distress of the Barbarians, slowly expiring on the sharp and barren ridge of the hills of Fæsulæ, which rise above the city of Florence. Their extravagant assertion, that not a single soldier of the Christian army was killed, or even wounded, may be dismissed with silent contempt; but the rest of the narrative of Augustin and Orosius is consistent with the state of the war, and the character of Stilicho. Conscious that he commanded the last army of the republic, his prudence would not expose it, in the open field, to the headstrong fury of the Germans. The method of surrounding the enemy with strong lines of circumvallation, which he had twice employed against the Gothic king, was repeated on a larger scale, and with more considerable effect. The examples of Cæsar must have been familiar to the most illiterate of the Roman warriors; and the fortifications of Dyrrachium, which connected twenty-four castles, by a perpetual ditch and rampart of fifteen miles, afforded the model of an intrenchment which might confine, and starve, the most numerous host of Barbarians (78). The Roman troops had less degenerated from the industry, than from the valour of their ancestors; and if the servile and laborious work offended the pride of the soldiers, Tuscany could supply many thousand peasants, who would labour, though, perhaps, they would not fight, for the salvation of their native country. The imprisoned multitude of horses and men (79) was gradually destroyed by famine, rather than by the sword; but the Romans were exposed, during the progress of such an extensive work, to the frequent attacks of an impatient enemy. The despair of the hungry Barbarians would precipitate them against the fortifications of Stilicho; the general might sometimes indulge the ardour of his brave auxiliaries, who eagerly pressed to assault the camp of the Germans; and these various incidents might produce the sharp and bloody conflicts which dignify the narrative of Zosimus, and the Chronicles of Prosper and Marcellinus (80). (77) Augustin de Civitat. Dei, v. 23. Orosius, 1. vii. c. 37. p. 567–571. The two friends wrote in Africa, ten or twelve years after the victory; and their authority is implicitly followed by Isidore of Seville (in Chron. p. 713. edit. Grot.) How many interesting facts might Orosius have inserted in the vacant space which is devoted to pious nonsense! (78) Franguntur montes, planumque per ardua Cæsar Yet the simplicity of truth (Caesar, de Bell. Civ. iii. 44.) is far greater than the amplifications of Lucan (Pharsal. 1. vi. 29—63.). (79) The rhetorical expressions of Orosius, "In arido et aspero montis jugo;"" in unum ac parvum verticem," are not very suitable to the encampment of a great army. But Fasule, only three miles from Florence, might afford space for the head-quarters of Radagaisus, and would be comprehended within the circuit of the Roman lines.* (80) See Zosimus, l. v. p. 331. and the Chronicles of Prosper and Marcellinus. A seasonable supply of men and provisions had been introduced into the walls of Florence, and the famished host of Radagaisus was in its turn besieged. The proud monarch of so many warlike nations, after the loss of his bravest warriors, was reduced to confide either in the faith of a capitulation, or in the clemency of Stilicho (81). But the death of the royal captive, who was ignominiously beheaded, disgraced the triumph of Rome and of Christianity; and the short delay of his execution was sufficient to brand the conqueror with the guilt of cool and deliberate cruelty (82). The famished Germans, who escaped the fury of the auxiliaries, were sold as slaves, at the contemptible price of as many single pieces of gold; but the difference of food and climate swept away, great numbers of those unhappy strangers; and it was observed, that the inhuman purchasers, instead of reaping the fruits of their labour, were soon obliged to provide the expense of their interment. Stilicho informed the emperor and the senate of his success; and deserved, a second time, the glorious title of Deliverer of Italy (83). The fame of the victory, and more especially of the miracle, has encouraged a vain persuasion, that the whole army, or rather nation, of Germans, who migrated from the shores of the Baltic, miserably perished under the walls of Florence. Such indeed was the fate of Radagaisus himself, of his brave and faithful companions, and of more than one-third of the various multitude of Sueves and Vandals, of Alani and Burgundians, who adhered to the standard of their general (84). The union of such an army might excite our surprise, but the causes of separation are obvious and forcible; the pride of birth, the insolence of valour, the jealousy of command, the impatience of subordination, and the obstinate conflict (81) Olympiodorus (apud Photium, p. 180.) uses an expression (πроonταipioαto,) which would denote a strict and friendly alliance, and render Stilicho still more criminal. The paulisper detentus, deinde interfectus, of Orosius, is sufficiently odious.* (82) Orosius, piously inhuman, sacrifices the king and people, Agag and the Amalekites, without a symptom of compassion. The bloody actor is less detestable than the cool unfeeling historian.† (83) And Claudian's muse, was she asleep? had she been ill paid? Methinks the seventh consulship of Honorius (A. D. 407.) would have furnished the subject of a noble poem. Before it was discovered that the state could no longer be saved, Stilicho (after Romulus, Camillus, and Marius) might have been worthily surnamed the fourth founder of Rome. (84) A luminous passage of Prosper's Chronicle, "In tres partes, per diversos principes, divisus exercitus," reduces the miracle of Florence, and connects the history of Italy, Gaul, and Germany. * Gibbon, by translating this passage of Olympiodorus, as if it had been good Greek, has probably fallen into an error; os xaταжλεμήσας Στελίχων Ραδογαίσον προσηTaipicato. The natural order of the words is as Gibbon translates it; but προσηταιρίσατο, it is almost clear, refers to the Gothic chiefs, "whom Stilicho, after he had defeated Radagaisus, attached to his army." So in the version corrected by Classen for Niebuhr's edition of the Byzantines, p. 450.-M. + Considering the vow, which he was univer sally believed to have made to destroy Rome, bon's severe condemnation. Mr. Herbert (notes to his poem of Attila, p. 317.), justly observes, The remainder of the Germans invade Gaul, A. D. 406, Dec. 31. of opinions, of interests, and of passions, among so many kings and warriors, who were untaught to yield, or to obey. After the defeat of Radagaisus, two parts of the German host, which must have exceeded the number of one hundred thousand men, still remained in arms, between the Apennine and the Alps, or between the Alps and the Danube. It is uncertain whether they attempted to revenge the death of their general; but their irregular fury was soon diverted by the prudence and firmness of Stilicho, who opposed their march, and facilitated their retreat; who considered the safety of Rome and Italy as the great object of his care, and who sacrificed, with too much indifference, the wealth and tranquillity of the distant provinces. (85). The Barbarians acquired, from the junction of some Pannonian deserters, the knowledge of the country, and of the roads; and the invasion of Gaul, which Alaric had designed, was executed by the remains of the great army of Radagaiṣus (86). Yet if they expected to derive any assistance from the tribes of Germany, who inhabited the banks of the Rhine, their hopes were disappointed. The Alemanni preserved a state of inactive neutrality; and the Franks distinguished their zeal and courage in the defence of the empire. In the rapid progress down the Rhine, which was the first act of the administration of Stilicho, he had applied himself, with peculiar attention, to secure the alliance of the warlike Franks, and to remove the irreconcileable enemies of peace and of the republic. Marcomir, one of their kings, was publicly convicted, before the tribunal of the Roman magistrate, of violating the faith of treaties. He was sentenced to a mild, but distant, exile, in the province of Tuscany; and this degradation of the regal dignity was so far from exciting the resentment of his subjects, that they punished with death the turbulent Sunno, who attempted to revenge his brother; and maintained a dutiful allegiance to the princes, who were established on the throne by the choice of Stilicho (87). When the limits of Gaul and Germany were shaken by the northern emigration, the Franks bravely encountered the single force of the Vandals; who, regardless of the lessons of adversity, had again separated their troops from the standard of their Barbarian (85) Orosius and Jerom positively charge him with instigating the invasion. "Excitatæ a Stilichone gentes," &c. They must mean indirectly. He saved Italy at the expense of Gaul. (86) The count de Buat is satisfied, that the Germans who invaded Gaul were the two-thirds that yet remained of the army of Radagaisus. See the Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de l'Europe (tom. vii. p. 87. 121. Paris, 1772.); an elaborate work, which I had not the advantage of perusing till the year 1777. As early as 1771, I find the same idea expressed in a rough draught of the present History. I have since observed a similar intimation in Mascou (viii. 15.). Such agreement, without mutual communication, may add some weight to our common sentiment. (87) Provincia missos Expellet citius fasces, quam Francia reges Claudian (i Cons. Stil. I. i. 235, &c.) is clear and satisfactory. These kings of France are unknown to Gregory of Tours; but the author of the Gesta Francorum mentions both Sunno and Marcomir, and names the latter as the father of Pharamond (in tom. ii. p. 543.). He seems to write from good materials, which he did not understand. allies. They paid the penalty of their rashness; and twenty thousand Vandals, with their king Godigisclus, were slain in the field of battle. The whole people must have been extirpated, if the squadrons of the Alani, advancing to their relief, had not trampled down the infantry of the Franks; who, after an honourable resistance, were compelled to relinquish the unequal contest. The victorious confederates pursued their march, and on the last day of the year, in a season when the waters of the Rhine were most probably frozen, they entered, without opposition, the defenceless provinces of Gaul. This memorable passage of the Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never afterwards retreated, may be considered as the fall of the Roman empire in the countries beyond the Alps; and the barriers, which had so long separated the savage and the civilised nations of the earth, were from that fatal moment levelled with the ground (88). Gaul, &c. While the peace of Germany was secured by the attachment of the Desolation of Franks, and the neutrality of the Alemanni, the subjects of Rome, A. D. 407, unconscious of their approaching calamities, enjoyed the state of quiet and prosperity, which had seldom blessed the frontiers of Gaul. Their flocks and herds were permitted to graze in the pastures of the Barbarians; their huntsmen penetrated, without fear or danger, into the darkest recesses of the Hercynian wood (89). The banks of the Rhine were crowned, like those of the Tiber, with elegant houses, and well-cultivated farms; and if a poet descended the river, he might express his doubt, on which side was situated the territory of the Romans (90). This scene of peace and plenty was suddenly changed into a desert; and the prospect of the smoking ruins could alone distinguish the solitude of nature from the desotion of man. The flourishing city of Mentz was surprised and destroyed; and many thousand Christians were inhumanly massacred in the church. Worms perished after a long and obstinate siege; Strasburgh, Spires, Rheims, Tournay, Arras, Amiens, experienced the cruel oppression of the German yoke; and the consuming flames of war spread from the banks of the Rhine over the greatest part of the seventeen provinces of Gaul. That rich and extensive country, as far as the ocean, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, was delivered to the Barbarians, who drove before them, in a promiscuous crowd, (88) See Zosimus (1. vi. p. 873.). Orosius (1. vii. c. 40. p. 576.), and the Chronicles. Gregory of Tours (1. ii. c. 9. p. 165. in the second volume of the Historians of France) has preserved a valuable fragment of Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus, whose three names denote a Christian, a Roman subject, and a Semi-barbarian. (89) Claudian (i Cons. Stil. 1. i. 221, &c. l. ii. 186.) describes the peace and prosperity of the Gallic frontier. The Abbé Dubois (Hist. Critique, &c. tom. i. p. 174.) would read Alba (a nameless rivulet of the Ardennes) instead 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, signify any river, or any wood, in Germany. Claudian is not prepared for the strict examination of our antiquaries. (90) Geminasque viator Cum videat ripas, quæ sit Romana requirat. the bishop, the senator, and the virgin, laden with the spoils of their houses and altars (91). The ecclesiastics, to whom we are indebted for this vague description of the public calimities, embraced the opportunity of exhorting the Christians to repent of the sins which had provoked the Divine Justice, and to renounce the perishable goods of a wretched and deceitful world. But as the Pelagian controversy (92), which attempts to sound the abyss of grace and predestination, soon became the serious employment of the Latin clergy; the Providence which had decreed, or foreseen, or permitted, such a train of moral and natural evils, was rashly weighed in the imperfect and fallacious balance of reason. The crimes, and the misfortunes, of the suffering people, were presumptuously compared with those of their ancestors; and they arraigned the Divine Justice, which did not exempt from the common destruction the feeble, the guiltless, the infant portion of the human species. These idle disputants overlooked the invariable laws of nature, which have connected peace with innocence, plenty with industry, and safety 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 task; and the Barbarian auxiliaries, might prefer the unbounded licence of spoil to the benefits of a moderate and regular stipend. But the provinces of Gaul were filled with a numerous race of hardy and robust youth, who, in the defence of their houses, their families, and their altars, if they had dared to die, would have deserved to vanquish. The knowledge of their native country would have enabled them to oppose continual and insuperable obstacles to the progress of an invader; and the deficiency of the Barbarians, in arms as well as in discipline, removed the only pretence which excuses the submission of a populous country to the inferior numbers of a veteran army. When France was invaded by Charles the Fifth, he enquired of a prisoner, how many days Paris might be distant from the frontier; "Perhaps twelve, but they will be days of "battle (93) :" such was the gallant answer which checked the arrogance of that ambitious prince. The subjects of Honorius, and those of Francis I., were animated by a very different spirit; and in less than two years, the divided troops of the savages of the Baltic, whose numbers, were they fairly stated, would appear contemp (91) Jerom, tom. i. p. 93. See in the 1st vol, of the Historians of France, p. 777. 782. the proper extracts from the Carmen de Providentia Divina, and Salvian. The anonymous poet was himself a captive, with his bishop and fellow-citizens. (92) The Pelagian doctrine, which was first agitated A. D. 405, was condemned, in the space of ten years, at Rome and Carthage. St. Augustin fought and conquered: but the Greek church was favourable to his adversaries; and (what is singular enough) the people did not take any part in a dispute which they could not understand. (93) See the Mémoires de Guillaume du Bellay, 1. vi. In French, the original reproof is less obvious, and more pointed, from the double sense of the word journée, which alike signifies, a day's travel, or a battle. |