[150-268 A.D.]

But the destinies of the future were being prepared in another way. The remarkable aptitude for civilisation of the Germanic races made them early recognise the value of that of Rome. Young nobles were educated in the capital of the empire and trained in the army; the actual commercial interests, the servitude of the one race in the countries of the other, brought about a mutual relation whose most powerful lever was the Roman military service, which thousands of Germans joined, satisfying in that way their thirst for war and glory as well as their desire for monetary gains.

Thus Rome itself trained the officers and military leaders of its subsequent foes and final destroyers, from whom it had already seriously suffered in the revolt of Civilis. The first act of the "barbarian advance" opened with the war which we call the Marcomannic.

Towards the beginning of the last half of the second century the tribes living between the Pregel, Vistula, and Baltic- now East and West Prussia-left their unfavoured home to seek a better one in the proximity of the Roman frontiers. It was the great Gothic family which made this first migration, in which it carried along with it other allied races, as the Vandals and Burgundiones. The mass separated; the chief tribe, the Goths, went towards the Black Sea between the Don and the Dnieper, where they only arrived after a long time on account of the long distance and of the necessity of fighting their way.

The secondary tribes went up the Vistula through the Carpathians to the Danube. Beyond this stream, in the year 165, one of the unceasing wars between the Marcomanni and the Romans was in progress. The pressure of the new rovers from the north gave fresh weight and importance to the pressure of the Danubian Germans. The Marcomannic War lasted nearly fifteen years; its course was terrible, and similar to that of the Punic War.

Marcus Aurelius, however, was greater than the danger; he became its master. Not a foot of Roman territory was lost; on the contrary, many thousand homeless Germans settled in the empire as new brave subjects. There was now for half a century an apparent cessation of the process of destruction, but only of its external manifestations, not of the internal efforts and preparations towards this end. The Roman tithe province (agri decumates) between the Rhine and the Danube, unprotected by any natural boundaries, was the first field of Germanic occupation. At what date the chief mass of Vandals and Burgundiones, together with the Lygii, migrated from their settlements between the Oder and the Vistula to the Roman frontiers, we have no knowledge. We first encounter them under Probus in the year 277, acting in the rear of the older frontier tribes as their allies.

For over half a century, from 211 to 268, Rome had no great emperor; indeed, with the exception of Maximinus, 235-238, not even a warrior. He, however, was a rude barbarian who knew only how to fight and to conquer, not how to organise. Then began the period of decline, in which one emperor, Decius, fell upon the battle-field, and another, Valerian, was carried into lifelong captivity. Simultaneously there rose up in the East (about the year 226) a new and terrible foe, the powerful Sapor, one of the Persian Sassanidæ, by whom the rule of the Parthians was overthrown, and who was burning to become a second Cyrus. Under Gallienus, Valerian's son, 260-268, the misery of Rome reached its height. In expeditions of hitherto unheard-of magnitude, the Goths during ten years overran Asia Minor and Greece to Macedonia; the noblest and finest towns of antiquity fell in flames.

[268-367 A.D.] But the greatest evil of all, at least in the West, was the civil war. Nineteen tyrants, usurpers, rose against the ruler; amongst whom, however, two, Ödenathus and his wife Zenobia, victoriously defended the empire against the Persians. For fifteen years the West languished under tyrants, of whom the first, Postumus, was certainly more powerful than the rightful

emperor.

There was no longer any talk of repulsing the foreign foe; the fact that a great number of Germans were in both armies fighting for and against each other was only a diminution of the danger. Further districts of Gaul were being constantly annexed and won back from the barbarians, and a small host of Franks pressed fighting into Spain, and after twelve years lost itself in Africa. Not only the beginning of the end, but the end itself seemed to have set in, when Rome was again saved and raised almost to its former glory by a series of brave and great emperors. But the true saviour of the empire was Diocletian (285-305), the wisest if not the bravest of these. By his state reforms he built up the empire on a new foundation, suitable to the needs of his time. His predecessors had rendered harmless the most dangerous foes of the empire, the GothsClaudius by his glorious victory at Naissus, and Aurelian by the cession of the large province of Dacia.

A BARBARIAN

The new Probus, however, had so completely vanquished the peoples of the West with their allies, Vandals, Burgundiones, and Lygii, that he was able to announce to the senate: "The whole of Germania, as far as it reaches, is subdued. Nine kings of different peoples lie at your feet." In the next two years, however, the conquered people uprose once more, and the old state of affairs seemed to be returning, when Diocletian in the year 285 brought permanent succour.

The division of the imperial government among those brave and able men whom he appointed "cæsars" checked the German peril. His successor and the completer of his work, Constantine the Great, brought (at all events to the eastern portion of the empire) fresh life and more than a thousand years' duration, by establishing his own place of residence at Constantinople. But once again, under the reign of Constantius, weak son of a great father, the lust of war and plunder was awakened in the barbarians of the West by the rise of a new tyrant in Gaul, and the civil war resulting therefrom. Already the Rhenish strongholds, amongst them Colonia Agrippina (Cologne), were in their hands when a new preserver, the youthful Julian, came upon the scene.

He, like Cæsar, knew how to fight and conquer. The Salian Franks, who had usurped the country between the Schelde and the Maas, Toxandria, were taken as subjects; the Ripuarians, even the Saxon Chauci, were forced to a submissive peace, and the Alamanni compelled, after four campaigns, to the condition of tributaries.

Valentinian I continued Julian's work with an iron hand and will. During this interlude of more than a century in the migration of the tribes the victory of Christendom was effected in Rome, and also its entry amongst the Germanic peoples in the form of Arianism. The Germans received a fresh

[367-476 A.D.]

impetus by the incursions of the Huns, which extended from the Crimean wall to the Loire. The western Goths, who were already in a state of transition from barbarism to civilisation, fled before these Mongols to the Romans. Tricked by imperial officers, wronged and deceived, they seized upon the sword; the decisive battle at Hadrianopolis, in which the emperor Valens fell, made them lords of the European provinces of the Eastern Empire. The joint empire was once more saved by Theodosius, the last of the great emperors, who contrived to appease the Goths. But when in 395 the last and permanent division of the empire took place under Arcadius and Honorius, the two weak sons of Theodosius, who were still in their boyhood, the danger to western Rome flared up again, even more terrible than before.

For nearly eight hundred years the capital of the world had seen no conqueror within its walls. Alaric the Visigoth, a fearless warrior, became after the emperor had caused his best commander Stilicho to be put to death the first successor of the Gallic Brennus.

But the twofold occupation of Rome by Alaric was of 1.0 more importance as an epoch in the barbarian invasion than was the later occupation by Genseric in the year 455. Alaric did not wish to destroy the empire, only to rule over his people in and with it; the Vandal wished for nothing but plunder. From the passage of the Rhine by the Vandals and Suevi, at the beginning of the year 406, to the incursion of the Visigoths into Gaul in 412, was a far more important period in the barbaric advance. In the year 409 the first went across the Pyrenees, and in 411 permanently established themselves in Spain. In the year 413 the Burgundiones took possession of the country now bearing their name; in the year 419 southwestern Gaul was at last formally ceded to the Visigoths by the emperor Honorius. This people acknowledged a certain, though only nominal, supremacy on the part of Rome. Rome, through its last great commander Aëtius, brought into subjection the whole of the rest of Gaul and the greater part of Spain. Far worse, however, was the loss it suffered at the hands of the most terrible of all the Germanic conquerors, Genseric the king of the Vandals; who in the year 427 deprived it of the distant and rich Africa, its granary, as well as of the islands of the Mediterranean, and founded a piratical state which became for him the source of enormous wealth during half a century, but for Italy and other countries of the coast one of indescribable devastations.

One hundred and seven years had the Vandal empire stood when, after the Germans had become greatly degenerated, it was overthrown with ease in the year 534 by Justinian's general, Belisarius. Only indirectly, as lever and impelling force, had the incursions of the Huns from 375 onwards influenced the tribal migrations, particularly the entrance of the Germans into. Gaul, Spain, and Africa.

It would seem as though the terrible Attila, that mighty scourge of God, had determined to complete the work of destruction. But Attila's empire was built up on his personality; with his death it fell to pieces.

Therefore his campaigns of the years 451 and 452 in Gaul and Italy— with the battle at Châlons, so famous in the world's history-were only a remarkable interlude in the great drama of race migration, and of no decisive import in its real progress. After Attila's death, when Valentinian III had himself deprived the empire of its last support by the murder of Aëtius in 454, the decline of the Western Roman Empire set in, and continued during the next twenty years.

Not external pressure, whose severest shock had been happily averted, but the inward germ of death, the growing power of the barbarians within

[476-568 A.D.] the empire itself, brought this occurrence, so important in the world's history, to maturity. For centuries the Roman army had consisted for the most part of foreigners, chiefly Germans. With the need the number increased, and at the same time their self-confidence and pretensions, and consequently the hatred of the barbarians on the part of the Romans. So long as the son and grandson of Theodosius reigned, the great generals, by the habit of obedience and the magic of legitimate rights, masked the inner dissensions and the weakness of the empire. But when Nemesis had avenged the death of Aëtius on Valentinian III by his own death in a similar manner, the internal corruption of the state revealed itself under the growing pressure from without.

A bold adventurer of Suevian descent, the patrician Ricimer, acquired as leader of the foreign troops the highest power in the state, and for nineteen years raised emperors and overturned them at his pleasure. Within twentyone years nine ascended the throne. Even the ablest, and the one among them of eminent talents, Majorian, succumbed to the stealthy cunning and superior military strength of the barbarian mercenaries. Their pretensions rose higher until they demanded a third of the territories of Italy; and in Odoacer, an officer of the body-guard, they found the man who procured them their desire after he had forced the abdication, in 476, of the last emperor of Rome, an immature youth who bore the proud names of Romulus and Augustulus.

Until the year 480 the emperor Nepos, driven from Italy, reigned in Dalmatia; Odoacer accepted from Zeno, the emperor of the East, the title of administrator, and reigned over Italy according to the old forms.

So at least in appearance. In reality it was a Germanic kingdom which was raised on the foundation of the Eternal City which had ruled the world for seven centuries. We now therefore consider the year 476 as that of the fall of Western Rome, which up till then had stood for 109 years, with short interruptions, as a separate empire, in fact, at all events, if not in public recognition. With its fall, and Odoacer's elevation, the great work of expansion, distinction, and building up anew, which we call the migration of races, was completed. Now the ground was clear for the German colonisation on Roman territory, already in progress at various points since the year 411.

Suevi, Vandals and Alans, Burgundiones and Visigoths, had founded new kingdoms in Spain, Gaul, and Africa, some transitional, some of more permanent duration, whose origin and progress were closely bound up with the history of Western Rome. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the most powerful of all the German tribes arose, the Franks under Childeric's son Clovis, who in the year 486 destroyed the last remnant of Roman supremacy in western Europe-that of Syagrius over a great part of northern Gaul by the battle of Soissons. This outer limb, as far as it had any connection with the main body, belonged to the empire of Eastern Rome.

Ostrogoths and Langobardi (Lombards) took part in the destruction of Western Rome only in the second and third periods, not the first, which was in so far an advantage that they drove out again their former conquerors and possessors from the heart of the empire.

The moment of settlement for them came when, leaving their former country, they prepared for colonisation on Roman territory-that is, for the conquest of Italy; this was for the Ostrogoths in the year 488, for the Lombards in 568.e [For it was in April of the latter year that the Lombards, under Alboin, entered Italy. Fifteen years before Narses had dealt a death blow to the Ostrogothic kingdom, and Italy once more became a part of the Roman Empire. But now the exarch was left but a small district to rule over and the peninsula passed forever from undivided Roman rule.]

[476 A.D.]

A FULFILLED AUGURY

It is not to be imagined that the fall of the Roman Empire in the West created so much stir among contemporaries as it has since done in history. A century of constant reverse had led up to it. It was predicted by religion, foreseen by politicians, and expected, as one might say, at a fixed date.

An inexplicable fatality hovered over Rome from its cradle. It cannot be denied that the failure of the town of Romulus, or the decline of its power at the end of twelve centuries, was predicted almost from its birth. The story of the portent of the twelve vultures appearing to its founder on the Mount Palatine, embodied this instinctive belief, fortified by all the authority of augural science. The Tuscan soothsayers had, in effect, declared the twelve vultures to signify twelve centuries of power, after which the fate of Rome would be consummated.

This political faith, already strong in the brightest days of the republican epoch, was transmitted from generation to generation, proudly when the end was far distant; fearfully, as it drew near. Even as the historic date of the foundation was disputed, so there was disagreement as to its end. The soothsayers all calculated in their own way as they themselves understood it, but all expected it.

According to the most generally received chronology, Rome had passed the middle of the eleventh century when Alaric took and burned it. One might almost think the augury accomplished-allowing for a difference of a few years. After the departure of the Goths, hope revived and calculation recommenced. After the second sack of Rome by Genseric, in the twelve hundred and seventh year from its foundation (455 A.D.) the fatal and definite hour was declared to have arrived. "The twelfth vulture has finished his flight. Now, O Rome, thou knowest thy destiny," wrote Sidonius Apollinaris, a firm Christian, but imbued, like every Roman subject, with the superstitious traditions of the city of the Seven Hills. Thenceforward began the real death throes of the empire, as it passed to barbarian masters-from Ricimer to Gundobald, from Gundobald to Odoacer, ever growing weaker, more despised, more crushed. When names were heard, long strange to the nomenclature of the Cæsars-names such as Julius and Augustus, coming from the grave of history like so many spectres announcing the last day, and that of Romulus expiring in a child-public consternation knew no bounds. These fortuitous combinations presented in their fantastic aspect something of the supernatural, and troubled the strongest minds. Men bowed their heads and were silent.

The obsequies of Rome were carried out in mournful silence. We find in contemporary historians no accent either of regret or joy, no declamations either in prose or verse; just a few dates and a bare record of facts, that is all. It might almost be believed that nothing of importance took place in the year 476. Jordanes alone, a little later, sounds his barbarian trumpet over the grave of the empire, but only to celebrate the coming of the Goths.

BREYSIG'S OBSERVATIONS ON THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST

It is of the death of a great nation that we have here to speak. For it is not the physical, nor the spiritual, nor certainly a merely formal political continuance-like that of Byzantium-which determines the historical