Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

strain of defiance; and the foremost troops, who advanced to the assault, were checked, or destroyed, by showers of arrows from every side of the intrenchments. It was determined, in a general council of war, to besiege the king of the Huns in his camp, to intercept his provisions, and to reduce him to the alternative of a disgraceful treaty, or an unequal combat. But the impatience of the barbarians soon disdained these cautious and dilatory measures; and the mature policy of Ætius was apprehensive, that, after the extirpation of the Huns, the republic would be oppressed by the pride and power of the Gothic nation. The patrician exerted the superior ascendant of authority and reason, to calm the passions, which the son of Theodoric considered as a duty; represented, with seeming affection, and real truth, the dangers of absence and delay; and persuaded Torismond to disappoint, by his speedy return, the ambitious designs of his brothers, who might occupy the throne and treasures of Thoulouse." After the departure of the Goths, and the separation of the allied army, Attila was surprised at the vast silence that reigned over the plains of Châlons: the suspicion of some hostile stratagem, detained him several days within the circle of his waggons; and his retreat beyond the Rhine confessed the last victory which was achieved in the name of the western empire. Meroveus and his Franks observing a prudent distance, and magnifying the opinion of their strength, by the numerous fires which they kindled every night, continued to follow the rear of the Huns, till they reached the confines of Thuringia. The Thuringians served in the army of Attila: they traversed, both in their march, and in their return, the territories of the Franks; and it was per

z Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c. 41. p. 671. The policy of Ætius, and the behaviour of Torismond, are extremely natural; and the patrician, according to Gregory of Tours, (lib. 2. c. 7. p. 163.) dismissed the prince of the Franks, by suggesting to him a similar apprehension. The false Idatius ridiculously pretends, that Ætius paid a clandestine, nocturnal, visit to the kings of the Huns and of the Visigoths; from each of whom he obtained a bribe of ten thousand pieces of gold, as the price of an undisturbed retreat.

[blocks in formation]

haps in this war that they exercised the cruelties, which, about fourscore years afterward, were revenged by the son of Clovis. They massacred their hostages, as well as their captives: two hundred young maidens were tortured with exquisite and unrelenting rage; their bodies were torn asunder by wild horses, or their bones were crushed under the weight of rolling waggons; and their unburied limbs were abandoned on the public roads, as a prey to dogs and vultures. Such were those savage ancestors, whose imaginary virtues have sometimes excited the praise and envy of civilized ages!"

Invasion

of Italy

Neither the spirit, nor the forces, nor the reby Attila, putation of Attila, were impaired by the failure A.D. 452. of the Gallic expedition. In the ensuing spring, he repeated his demand of the princess Honoria, and her patrimonial treasures. The demand was again rejected, or eluded: and the indignant lover immediately took the field, passed the Alps, invaded Italy, and besieged Aquileia with an innumerable host of barbarians. Those barbarians were unskilled in the methods of conducting a regular siege, which, even among the ancients, required some knowledge, or at least some practice, of the mechanic arts. But the labour of many thousand provincials and captives, whose lives were sacrificed without pity, might execute the most painful and dangerous work. The skill of the Roman artists might be corrupted to the destruction of their country. The walls of Aquileia were assaulted by a formidable train of battering-rams, moveable turrets and engines, that threw stones, darts, and fire:

a These cruelties, which are passionately deplored by Theodoric, the son of Clovis, (Gregory of Tours, lib. 3. c. 10. p. 190.) suit the time and circumstances of the invasion of Attila. His residence in Thuringia was long attested by popular tradition; and he is supposed to have assembled a couroultai, or diet, in the territory of Eisenach. See Mascou, 5. 30. who settles with nice accuracy the extent of ancient Thuringia, and derives its name from the Gothic tribe of the Thervingi. b Machinis constructis, omnibusque tormentorum generibus adhibitis. Jornandes, c. 42. p. 673. In the thirteenth century, the Moguls battered the cities of China with large engines constructed by the Mahometans or Christians in their service, which threw stones from one hundred and fifty to three hundred pounds weight. In the defence of their country, the Chinese used gunpowder, and even

and the monarch of the Huns employed the forcible impulse of hope, fear, emulation, and interest, to subvert the only barrier which delayed the conquest of Italy. Aquileia was at that period one of the richest, the most populous, and the strongest of the maritime cities of the Hadriatic coast. The Gothic auxiliaries, who appear to have served under their native princes Alaric and Antala, communicated their intrepid spirit; and the citizens still remembered the glorious and successful resistance, which their ancestors had opposed to a fierce, inexorable barbarian, who disgraced the majesty of the Roman purple. Three months were consumed without effect in the siege of Aquileia; till the want of provisions, and the clamours of his army, compelled Attila to relinquish the enterprise; and reluc+ tantly to issue his orders, that the troops should strike their tents the next morning, and begin their retreat. But, as he rode round the wall, pensive, angry, and disappointed, he observed a stork, preparing to leave her nest, in one of the towers, and to fly with her infant family towards the country. He seized, with the ready penetration of a statesman, this trifling incident, which chance had offered to superstition, and exclaimed, in a loud and cheerful tone, that such a domestic bird, so constantly attached to human society, would never have abandoned her ancient seats, unless these towers had been devoted to impending ruin and solitude. The favourable omen inspired an assurance of victory; the siege was renewed, and prosecuted with fresh vi gour; a large breach was made in the part of the wall from whence the stork had taken her flight; the Huns mounted to the assault with irresistible fury; and the

hombs, above a hundred years before they were known in Europe; yet even those celestial or infernal arms were insufficient to protect a pusillanimous nation. See Gaubil. Hist. des Mongous, p. 70, 71. 155. 157, &c.

The same story is told by Jornandes, and by Procopius: (de Bell. Vandal. lib. 1. c. 4. p. 187, 188.) nor is it easy to decide, which is the original. But the Greek historian is guilty of an inexcusable mistake, in placing the siege of Aquileia after the death of Ætius.

succeeding generation could scarcely discover the ruins of Aquileia. After this dreadful chastisement, Attila pursued his march; and, as he passed, the cities of Altinum, Concordia, and Padua, were reduced into heaps of stones and ashes. The inland towns, Vicenza, Verona, and Bergamo, were exposed to the rapacious cruelty of the Huns. Milan and Pavia submitted, without resistance, to the loss of their wealth; and applauded the unusual clemency, which preserved from the flames the public as well as private buildings, and spared the lives of the captive multitude. The popular traditions of Comum, Turin, or Modena, may justly be suspected; yet they concur with more authentic evidence to prove, that Attila spread his ravages over the rich plains of modern Lombardy; which are divided by the Po, and bounded by the Alps and Apennine. When he took possession of the royal palace of Milan, he was surprised, and offended, at the sight of a picture, which represented the Cæsars seated on their throne, and the princes of Scythia prostrate at their feet. The revenge, which Attila inflicted on this monument of Roman vanity, was harmless and ingenious. He commanded a painter to reverse the figures, and the attitudes; and the emperors were delineated, on the same canvass, approaching in a suppliant posture to empty their bags of tributary gold before the throne of the Scythian monarch.f The spectators must have confessed the truth and propriety of the alteration; and were perhaps tempted to apply, on this singular

d Jornandes, about a hundred years afterward, affirms, that Aquileia was so completely ruined, ita ut vix ejus vestigia, ut appareant, reliquerint. See Jornandes de Reb. Geticis, c. 42. p. 673. Paul. Diacon. lib. 2. c. 14. p. 785. Liutprand. Hist. lib. 3. c. 2. The name of Aquileia was sometimes applied to Forum Julii (Cividad dell Friuli), the more recent capital of the Venetian province.

e In describing this war of Attila, a war so famous, but so imperfectly known, I have taken for my guides two learned Italians, who considered the subject with some peculiar advantages; Sigonius, de Imperio Occidentali, lib. 13. in his works, tom. 1. p. 495-502. and Muratori Annali d'Italia, tom. 4. p. 229–236. 8vo. edition.

f This article may be found under two different articles (usdiodavov and noguxe;) of the miscellaneous compilation of Suidas.

occasion, the well-known fable of the dispute between

the lion and the man."

Foundation of

the republic of Venice.

It is a saying worthy of the ferocious pride of Attila, that the grass never spot where his horse had trod.

grew on the Yet the Yet the savage

destroyer undesignedly laid the foundation of a republic, which revived, in the feudal state of Europe, the art and spirit of commercial industry. The celebrated name of Venice, or Venetia," was formerly diffused over a large and fertile province of Italy, from the confines of Pannonia to the river Addua, and from the Po to the Rhætian and Julian Alps. Before the irruption of the barbarians, fifty Venetian cities flourished in peace and prosperity: Aquileia was placed in the most conspicuous station: but the ancient dignity of Padua was supported by agriculture and manufactures; and the property of five hundred citizens, who were entitled to the equestrian rank, must have amounted, at the strictest computation, to one million seven hundred thousand pounds. Many families of Aquileia, Padua, and the adjacent towns, who fled from the sword of the Huns, found a safe, though obscure, refuge in the neighbouring islands. At the extremity of the gulf, where the Hadriatic feebly imitates the tides of the ocean, near a hundred small islands are separated by shallow water from the continent, and protected from the waves by several long slips of land,

Leo respondit, humanâ hoc pictum manû:
Videres hominem dejectum, si pingere

Leones scirent.

Appendix ad Phædrum. Fab. 25. The lion in Phædrus very foolishly appeals from pictures to the amphitheatre: and I am glad to observe, that the native taste of La Fontaine (lib. 3. fable 10.) has omitted this most lame and impotent conclusion.

Paul the Deacon (de Gestis Langobard. lib. 2. c. 14. p. 784.) describes the provinces of Italy about the end of the eighth century. Venetia non solum in paucis insulis quas nunc Venetias dicimus, constat; sed ejus terminus a Pannoniæ finibus usque Adduam fluvium protelatur. The history of that province till the age of Charlemagne forms the first and most interesting part of the Verona Illustrata, (p. 1-388.) in which the marquis Scipio Maffei has shewn himself equally capable of enlarged views and minute disquisitions.

This emigration is not attested by any contemporary evidence: but the fact is proved by the event, and the circumstances might be preserved by tradition. The citizens of Aquileia retired to the isle of Gradus, those of Padua to Rivus Altus, or Rialto, where the city of Venice was afterward built, &c.

« ForrigeFortsett »