THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. CHAPTER XXXIX. ZENO AND ANASTASIUS, EMPERORS OF THE EAST. — BIRTH, EDUCAtion, and FIRST EXPLOITS OF THEODORIC THE OSTROGOTH. · HIS INVASION AND CONQUEST OF ITALY. THE GOTHIC KINGDOM OF ITALY. - STATE OF THE WEST.-MILITARY AND CIVIL GOVERNMENT. THE SENATOR BOETHIUS. LAST ACTS AND DEATH OF THEODORIC. - AFTER the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, an interval of fifty years, till the memorable reign of Justinian, is faintly A.D. 476-527. marked by the obscure names and imperfect annals of Zeno, Anastasius, and Justin, who successively ascended the throne of Constantinople. During the same period, Italy revived and flourished under the government of a Gothic king who might have deserved a statue among the best and bravest of the ancient Romans. Theodoric the Ostrogoth, the fourteenth in lineal descent of the royal line of the Amali,' was born in the neighbourhood of Vienna 2 1 Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 13, 14, p. 629, 630, edit. Grot.) has drawn the pedigree of Theodoric from Gapt, one of the Anses or Demi-gods, who lived about the time of Domitian. Cassiodorus, the first who celebrates the royal race of the Amali (Variar. viii. 5, ix. 25, x. 2, xi. 1), reckons the grandson of Theodoric as the xviith in descent. Peringsciold (the Swedish commentator of Cochlous, Vit. Theodoric. p. 271, &c., Stockholm, 1699) labours to connect this genealogy with the legends or traditions of his native country." 2 More correctly on the banks of the lake Pelso (Nieusiedler-see) near Carnuntum, almost on the same spot where Marcus Antoninus composed his Meditations (Jor nandes, c. 52, p. 689. Severin. Pannonia Illustrata, p. 22. Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. i. p. 350). Amala was a name of hereditary goths. It enters into the names of sanctity and honour among the Ostro- Amalaberga, Amala suintha (swinthej VOL. V. Birth and A.D. 455-475. two years after the death of Attila. A recent victory had restored the independence of the Ostrogoths; and the three brothers, education of Walamir, Theodemir, and Widimir, who ruled that warTheodoric, like nation with united counsels, had separately pitched their habitations in the fertile, though desolate, province of Pannonia. The Huns still threatened their revolted subjects, but their hasty attack was repelled by the single forces of Walamir, and the news of his victory reached the distant camp of his brother in the same auspicious moment that the favourite concubine of Theodemir was delivered of a son and heir. In the eighth year of his age, Theodoric was reluctantly yielded by his father to the public interest, as the pledge of an alliance which Leo, emperor of the East, had consented to purchase by an annual subsidy of three hundred pounds of gold. The royal hostage was educated at Constantinople with care and tenderness. His body was formed to all the exercises of war, his mind was expanded by the habits of liberal conversation; he frequented the schools of the most skilful masters, but he disdained or neglected the arts of Greece; and so ignorant did he always remain of the first elements of science, that a rude mark was contrived to represent the signature of the illiterate king of Italy. As soon as he had attained the age of eighteen he was 3 The four first letters of his name (OEOA) were inscribed on a gold plate, and when it was fixed on the paper the king drew his pen through the intervals (Anonym. Valesian. ad calcem Amm. Marcellin. p. 722 [tom. ii. p. 313, ed. Bipon.]). This means strength), Amalafred, Amalarich. In the poem of the Nibelungen, written three hundred years later, the Ostrogoths are called the Amilungen. According to Wachter it means unstained, from the Genealogical table of the family of Theodoric: Theudimundus, THEODORIC = Audefleda, sister or daugh. of Clovis. Amalasuentha, ob. 534, Athalaric, ob. 534. Amalafreda, m. Trasamundus, king of the Vandals. See Clinton, Fasti Romani, vol, ii. p. 143. -8 restored to the wishes of the Ostrogoths, whom the emperor aspired to gain by liberality and confidence. Walamir had fallen in battle; the youngest of the brothers, Widimir, had led away into Italy and Gaul an army of barbarians; and the whole nation acknowledged for their king the father of Theodoric. His ferocious subjects ad mired the strength and stature of their young prince, and he soon convinced them that he had not degenerated from the valour of his ancestors. At the head of six thousand volunteers he secretly left the camp in quest of adventures, descended the Danube as far as Singidunum or Belgrade, and soon returned to his father with the spoils of a Sarmatian king whom he had vanquished and slain. Such triumphs, however, were productive only of fame, and the invincible Ostrogoths were reduced to extreme distress by the want of clothing and food. They unanimously resolved to desert their Pannonian encampments, and boldly to advance into the warm and wealthy neighbourhood of the Byzantine court, which already maintained in pride and luxury so many bands of confederate Goths. After proving, by some acts of hostility, that they could be dangerous, or at least troublesome, enemies, the Ostrogoths sold at a high price their reconciliation and fidelity, accepted a donative of lands and money, and were intrusted with the defence of the lower Danube under the command of Theodoric, who succeeded after his father's death to the hereditary throne of the Amali.5 b any ad The reign of Zeno, Feb., April 9 An hero, descended from a race of kings, must have despised the base Isaurian who was invested with the Roman purple, without any endowments of mind or body, without vantages of royal birth or superior qualifications. After 474-491, the failure of the Theodosian line, the choice of Pulcheria and of the senate might be justified in some measure by the characters of Marcian and Leo; but the latter of these princes confirmed and dishonoured his reign by the perfidious murder of Aspar authentic fact, with the testimony of Procopius, or at least of the contemporary Goths (Gothic. 1. i. c. 2, p. 312 [ed. Paris; tom. ii. p. 14, ed. Bonn]), far outweighs the vague praises of Ennodius (Sirmond. Opera, tom. i. p. 1596) and Theophanes (Chronograph. p. 112 [ed. Par.; p. 202, 203, ed. Bonn])." Statura est qua resignet proceritate regnantem (Ennodius, p. 1614). The bishop of Pavia (I mean the ecclesiastic who wished to be a bishop) then proceeds to celebrate the complexion, eyes, hands, &c., of his sovereign. 'The state of the Ostrogoths and the first years of Theodoric are found in Jornandes (c. 52-56, p. 689-696) and Malchus (Excerpt. Legat. p. 78-80 [ed. Par.; p. 244248, ed. Bonn]), who erroneously styles him the son of Walamir. Le Beau and his commentator, M. St. Martin, support, though with no very satisfactory evidence, the opposite opinion. But Lord Mahon (Life of Belisarius, p. 19) urges the much stronger argu ment, the Byzantine education of Theodoric.-M. Theodoric began to reign not later thran 476, when he was about 22 years of age. Clinton, Fast. Rom. vol. ii. p. 146.-S. 7 and his sons, who too rigorously exacted the debt of gratitude and obedience. The inheritance of Leo and of the East was peaceably devolved on his infant grandson, the son of his daughter Ariadne ; and her Isaurian husband, the fortunate Trascalisseus, exchanged that barbarous sound for the Grecian appellation of Zeno. After the decease of the elder Leo, he approached with unnatural respect the throne of his son, humbly received as a gift the second rank in the empire, and soon excited the public suspicion on the sudden and premature death of his young colleague, whose life could no longer promote the success of his ambition. But the palace of Constantinople was ruled by female influence, and agitated by female passions; and Verina, the widow of Leo, claiming his empire as her own, pronounced a sentence of deposition against the worthless and ungrateful servant on whom she alone had bestowed the sceptre of the East. As soon as she sounded a revolt in the ears of Zeno, he fled with precipitation into the mountains of Isauria; and her brother Basiliscus, already infamous by his African expedition, was unanimously proclaimed by the servile senate. But the reign of the usurper was short and turbulent. Basiliscus presumed to assassinate the lover of his sister; he dared to offend the lover of his wife, the vain and insolent Harmatius, who, in the midst of Asiatic luxury, affected the dress, the demeanour, and the surname of Achilles. By the conspiracy of the malecontents, Zeno was recalled from exile; the armies, the capital, the person of Basiliscus, were betrayed; and his whole family was condemned to the long agony of cold and hunger by the inhuman conqueror, who wanted courage to encounter or to forgive his enemies. The haughty spirit of Verina was still incapable of submission or repose. She provoked the enmity of a favourite general, embraced his cause as soon as he was disgraced, created a new emperor in Syria and Egypt, raised an army of seventy thousand men, and persisted to the last moment of her life in a fruitless rebellion, which, according to the fashion of the age, had been predicted by Christian hermits and Pagan magicians. While the East was afflicted by the passions of Verina, her daughter Ariadne a b 8 6 Theophanes (p. 111 [p. 200, ed. Bonn]) inserts a copy of her sacred letters to the provinces; ἴστε ὅτι τὸ βασίλειον ἡμέτερόν ἐστι . . . καὶ ὅτι προχειρησάμεθα βασιλία ΤρασκαλArai, &c. Such female pretensions would have astonished the slaves of the first Cæsars. 7 Vol. iv. p. 284, seq. Suidas, tom. i. p. 332, 333, edit. Kuster. Joannes Lydus accuses Zeno of timidity, or, rather, of cowardice: he purchased an ignominious peace from the enemies of the empire, whom he dared not meet in battle; and employed his whole time at home in confiscations and executions. Lydus de Magist. iii, 45, p. 230 [p. 238, ed. Bonn].-M. Named Illus.-M. Of Anas was distinguished by the female virtues of mildness and fidelity; she followed her husband in his exile, and after his restoration she implored his clemency in favour of her mother. On the decease of Zeno, Ariadne, the daughter, the mother, and the widow of an emperor, gave her hand and the Imperial title to tasius, Anastasius, an aged domestic of the palace, who survived April 11, his elevation above twenty-seven years, and whose character is attested by the acclamation of the people, "Reign as you "have lived!" 9 a A.D. 491-518, July 8. revolt of Whatever fear or affection could bestow was profusely lavished by Zeno on the king of the Ostrogoths; the rank of patrician Service and and consul, the command of the Palatine troops, an eques- Theodoric, trian statue, a treasure in gold and silver of many thousand A.D. 475-488. pounds, the name of son, and the promise of a rich and honourable wife. As long as Theodoric condescended to serve, he supported with courage and fidelity the cause of his benefactor; his rapid march contributed to the restoration of Zeno; and in the second revolt, the Walamirs, as they were called, pursued and pressed the Asiatic rebels, till they left an easy victory to the Imperial troops.10 But the faithful servant was suddenly converted into a formidable enemy, who spread the flames of war from Constantinople to the Adriatic; many flourishing cities were reduced to ashes, and the agriculture of Thrace was almost extirpated by the wanton cruelty of the Goths, who deprived their captive peasants of the right hand that guided the plough." On such occasions Theo • The contemporary histories of Malchus and Candidus are lost; but some extracts or fragments have been saved by Photius (lxxviii. lxxix. p. 100-102 [p. 54-56, ed. Bekk.]), Constantine Porphyrogenitus (Excerpt. Leg. p. 78-97), and in various articles of the Lexicon of Suidas. The Chronicles of Marcellinus (Imago Historia) are originals for the reigns of Zeno and Anastasius; and I must acknowledge, almost for the last time, my obligations to the large and accurate collections of Tillemont (Hist. des Emp. tom. vi. p. 472-652). 10 In ipsis congressionis tus foribus cessit invasor, cum profugo per te sceptra redderentur de salute dubitanti. Ennodius then proceeds (p. 1596, 1597, tom. i. Sirmond> to transport his hero (on a flying dragon?) into Æthiopia, beyond the tropic of Cancer. The evidence of the Valesian Fragment (p. 717), Liberatus (Brev. Eutych. c. 25, p. 118), and Theophanes (p. 112 [p. 203, ed. Bonn]), is more sober and rational. "This cruel practice is specially imputed to the Triarian Goths, less barbarous, as it should seem, than the Walamirs; but the son of Theodemir is charged with the ruin of many Roman cities (Malchus, Excerpt. Leg. p. 95 [ed. Par.; p. 238, ed. Bonn]). The Panegyric of Procopius of Gaza (edited by Villoison in his Anecdota Græca, and reprinted in the new edition of the Byzantine historians by Niebuhr, in the same vol. with Dexippus and Eunapius, p. 488, 516) was unknown to Gibbon. It is vague and pedantic, and contains few facts. The same criticism will apply to the poetical panegyric of Priscian, edited from the MS. of Bobbio by Ang. Mai. Priscian, the grammarian, Niebuhr argues from this work, must have been born in the African, not in either of the Asiatic Cæsareas. Pref. p. xi. -M. b Malchus does not say that the Geths cut off the right band of the peasants, but that they cut off the hands of the Roman |