Part 511

"The forces of the East were nearly annihilated at the terrible battle of Adrianople: more than 60,000 Roman soldiers perished in the fight or in the pursuit; and the time was long past when such a loss could have been easily repaired by fresh levies. Nevertheless, even after this frightful massacre, the walls of Adrianople still opposed an unconquerable resistance to the barbarians. Valour may supply the place of military science in the open field, but civilised nations recover all the advantages of the art of war in the attack or defence of fortified towns. … The Goths, leaving Adrianople in their rear, advanced, ravaging all around them, to the foot of the walls of Constantinople; and, after some unimportant skirmishes, returned westward through Macedonia, Epirus and Dalmatia. From the Danube to the Adriatic, their passage was marked by conflagration and blood. Whilst the European provinces of the Greek empire sunk under these calamities, the Asiatic provinces took a horrible vengeance on the authors of them." The Gothic youths who had been required as hostages when the nation crossed the Danube, and those who were afterwards sold by their starving parents, were now gathered together in different cities of the Asiatic provinces and massacred in cold blood, at a given signal, on the same day and hour. By this atrocious act, all possible reconciliation with the Goths might well seem to be destroyed. The prospect was discouraging enough to the new emperor who now ascended the vacant throne of Valens (A. D. 379),—the soldier Theodosius, son of Theodosius who delivered Britain from the Scots. {1558} Chosen by the Emperor Gratian to be his colleague and Emperor of the East, Theodosius undertook a most formidable task. "The abandonment of the Danube had opened the entrance of the empire, not only to the Goths, but to all the tribes of Germany and Scythia. … The blood of the young Goths which had been shed in Asia was daily avenged with interest over all that remained of Mœsian, Thrasian, Dalmatian, or Grecian race. It was more particularly during these four years of extermination that the Goths acquired the fatal celebrity attached to their name, which is still that of the destroyers of civilisation. Theodosius began by strengthening the fortified cities, recruiting the garrisons, and exercising his soldiers in small engagements whenever he felt assured of success; he then waited to take advantage of circumstances; he sought to divide his enemies by intrigue, and, above all, strenuously disavowed the rapacity of the ministers of Valens, or the cruelty of Julius; he took every occasion of declaring his attachment and esteem for the Gothic people, and at length succeeded in persuading them that his friendship was sincere. … The very victories of the Goths, their pride, their intemperance, at length impaired their energy. Fritigern, who, in the most difficult moments, had led them on with so much ability, was dead; the jealousies of independent tribes were rekindled. … It was by a series of treaties, with as many independent chieftains, that the nation was at length induced to lay down its arms: the last of these treaties was concluded on the 30th of October, 382. It restored peace to the Eastern empire, six years after the Goths crossed the Danube. This formidable nation was thus finally established within the boundary of the empire of the East. The vast regions they had ravaged were abandoned to them, if not in absolute sovereignty, at least on terms little at variance with their independence. The Goths settled in the bosom of the empire had no kings; their hereditary chiefs were consulted under the name of judges, but their power was unchanged. … The Goths gave a vague sort of recognition to the sovereignty of the Roman emperor; but they submitted neither to his laws, his magistrates, nor his taxes. They engaged to maintain 40,000 men for the service of Theodosius; but they were to remain a distinct army. … It was, probably, at this period that their apostle, bishop Ulphilas, who had translated the Gospels into their tongue, invented the Mœso-Gothic character, which bears the name of their new abode."

_J. C. L. de Sismondi, Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 5 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN: _E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 26._

GOTHS: A. D. 395. Alaric's invasion of Greece.

"The death of Theodosius [A. D. 395] threw the administration of the Eastern Empire into the hands of Rufinus, the minister of Arcadius; and that of the Western into those of Stilicho, the guardian of Honorius. The discordant elements which composed the Roman empire began to reveal all their incongruities under these two ministers. … The two ministers hated one another with all the violence of aspiring ambition."

_G. Finlay, Greece under the Romans, chapter 2, section 8._

"The animosity existing between Stilicho and the successive ministers of the Eastern Emperor (an animosity which does not necessarily imply any fault on the part of the former) was one most potent cause of the downfall of the Western Empire. … Alaric (the all-ruler) surnamed Baltha (the bold) was the Visigothic chieftain whose genius taught him the means of turning this estrangement between the two Empires to the best account. He was probably born about 360. His birth-place was the island Peuce, in the Delta of the Danube, apparently south of what is now termed the Sulina mouth of that river. We have already met with him crossing the Alps as a leader of auxiliaries in the army of Theodosius."

_T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 1, chapter 4._

"At this time [A. D. 395] Alaric, partly from disgust at not receiving all the preferment which he expected, and partly in the hope of compelling the government of the Eastern Empire to agree to his terms, quitted the imperial service and retired towards the frontiers, where he assembled a force sufficiently large to enable him to act independently of all authority. Availing himself of the disputes between the ministers of the two emperors, and perhaps instigated by Rufinus or Stilicho to aid their intrigues, he established himself in the provinces to the south of the Danube. In the year 395 he advanced to the walls of Constantinople; but the movement was evidently a feint. … After this demonstration, Alaric marched into Thrace and Macedonia, and extended his ravages into Thessaly. … When the Goth found the northern provinces exhausted, he resolved to invade Greece and Peloponnesus, which had long enjoyed profound tranquillity. … Thermopylæ was left unguarded, and Alaric entered Greece without encountering any resistance. The ravages committed by Alaric's army have been described in fearful terms; villages and towns were burnt, the men were murdered, and the women and children carried away to be sold as slaves by the Goths. … The walls of Thebes had been rebuilt, and it was in such a state of defence that Alaric could not venture to besiege it, but hurried forward to Athens. He concluded a treaty with the civil and military authorities, which enabled him to enter that city without opposition. … Athens evidently owed its good treatment to the condition of its population, and perhaps to the strength of its walls, which imposed some respect on the Goths; for the rest of Attica did not escape the usual fate of the districts through which the barbarians marched. The town of Eleusis, and the great temple of Ceres, were plundered and then destroyed. … Alaric marched unopposed into the Peloponnesus, and, in a short time, captured almost every city in it without meeting with any resistance. Corinth, Argos, and Sparta were all plundered by the Goths." Alaric wintered in the Peloponnesus; in the following spring he was attacked, not only by the forces of the Eastern Empire, whose subjects he had outraged, but by Stilicho, the energetic minister of the Roman West. Stilicho, in a vigorous campaign, drove the Goths into the mountains on the borders of Elis and Arcadia; but they escaped and reached Epirus, with their plunder (see ROME: A. D. 396-398). "The truth appears to be that Alaric availed himself so ably of the jealousy with which the court of Constantinople viewed the proceedings of Stilicho, as to negotiate a treaty, by which he was received into the Roman service, and that he really entered Epirus as a general of Arcadius. … He obtained the appointment of Commander-in-chief of the imperial forces in Eastern' Illyricum, which be held for four years. During this time he prepared his troops to seek his fortune in the Western Empire."

_G. Finlay, Greece under the Romans, chapter 2, section 8._

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"The birth of Alaric, the glory of his past exploits, and the confidence in his future designs, insensibly united the body of the nation under his victorious standard; and, with the unanimous consent of the barbarian chieftains, the Master-general of Illyricum was elevated, according to ancient custom, on a shield, and solemnly proclaimed king of the Visigoths."

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 30._

GOTHS: A. D. 400. Failure of Gainas at Constantinople. His defeat and death.

See ROME: A. D. 400-518.

GOTHS: (Visigoths): A. D. 400-403. Alaric's first invasion of Italy.

After Alaric had become a commissioned general of the Eastern Empire and had been placed in command of the great præfecture of Eastern Illyricum, he "remained quiet for three years, arming and drilling his followers, and waiting for the opportunity to make a bold stroke for a wider and more secure dominion. In the autumn of the year 400, knowing that Stilicho was absent on a campaign in Gaul, Alaric entered Italy. For about a year and a half the Goths ranged almost unresisted over the northern part of the peninsula. The emperor, whose court was then at Milan, made preparations for taking refuge in Gaul; and the walls of Rome were hurriedly repaired in expectation of an attack. On the Easter Sunday of the year 402 (March 19), the camp of Alaric, near Pollentia, was surprised by Stilicho, who rightly guessed that the Goths would be engaged in worship, and would not imagine their Roman fellow-Christians less observant of the sacred day than themselves. Though unprepared for battle, the barbarians made a desperate stand, but at last they were beaten. … Alaric was able to retreat in good order, and he soon after crossed the Po with the intention of marching against Rome. However, his troops began to desert in large numbers, and he had to change his purpose. In the first place he thought of invading Gaul, but Stilicho overtook him and defeated him heavily at Verona [A. D. 403]. Alaric himself narrowly escaped capture by the swiftness of his horse. Stilicho, however, was not very anxious for the destruction of Alaric, as he thought he might some day find him a convenient tool in his quarrels with the ministers of Arcadius [the Emperor of the East]. So he offered Alaric a handsome bribe to go away from Italy"—[back to Illyria].

_H. Bradley, Story of the Goths, chapter 10._

ALSO IN: _T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 1, chapter 5._

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 30._

GOTHS: (Visigoths): A. D. 408-410. Alaric's three sieges and sack of Rome. His death.

See ROME: A. D. 408-410.

GOTHS: (Visigoths): A. D. 410-419. Founding of the kingdom of Toulouse.

On the death of Alaric (A. D. 410), his brother-in-law, Ataulphus, or Atawulfs, was chosen king by the wandering Visigothic nation, and the new king succeeded in negotiating a treaty of peace with the court at Ravenna. As the result of it, the Goths moved northwards and, at the beginning of the year 412, they passed out of Italy into Gaul. A number of usurpers had risen in the western provinces, during the five years since 407, encouraged by the disorders of the time, and Ataulphus accepted a commission from Honorius to put them down and to restore the imperial authority in southern Gaul. The commission was faithfully executed in one of its parts; but the authority which the Gothic king established was, rather, his own, than that of the imperial puppet at Ravenna. Before the end of 413, he was master of most of the Gallic region on the Mediterranean (though Marseilles resisted him), and westward to the Atlantic. Then, at Narbonne, he married Galla Placidia, sister of Honorius, who had been a prisoner in the camp of the Goths for four years, but who was gallantly wooed, it would seem, and gently and truly won, by her Gothic lover. Apparently still commissioned by the Roman emperor, though half at war with him, and though his marriage with Placidia was haughtily forbidden and unrecognized, Ataulphus next carried his arms into Spain, already ravaged by Vandals, Alans and Suevic bands. But there he was cut off in the midst of his conquests, by assassination, in August, 415. The Goths, however, pursued their career under another valiant king, Wallia, who conquered the whole of Spain and meditated the invasion of Africa; but was persuaded to give up both conquests and prospects to Honorius, in exchange for a dominion which embraced the fairest portions of Gaul. "His victorious Goths, forty-three years after they had passed the Danube, were established, according to the faith of treaties, in the possession of the second Aquitaine, a maritime province between the Garonne and the Loire, under the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Bordeaux. … The Gothic limits were enlarged by the additional gift of some neighboring dioceses; and the successors of Alaric fixed their royal residence at Toulouse, which included five populous quarters, or cities, within the spacious circuit of its walls. … The Gothic limits contained the territories of seven cities—namely, those of Bordeaux, Périgueux, Angoulême, Agen, Saintes, Poitiers, and Toulouse. Hence the district obtained the name of Septimania."

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 31 (with note by Dr. Wm. Smith)._

It was at the end of the year 418, that the Goths settled themselves in their new kingdom, of Toulouse. The next year, Wallia died, and was succeeded by Theodoric, a valorous soldier of the race of the Balthings, who played a considerable part in the history of the next thirty years.

_H. Bradley, Story of the Goths, chapter 11-12._

ALSO IN: _T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 1, chapter 8 (volume 1)._

GOTHS: (The Visigoths): A. D.419-451. The Kingdom of Toulouse.

"By the peace which their king Wallia concluded with Honorius (416) after the restoration of Placidia, they [the Visigoths] had obtained legal possession of the district called Aquitania Secunda, together with the territory round Toulouse, all of which allotment went by the name of Septimania or Gothia. For ten years (419-429) there had been firm peace between Visigoths and Romans; then, for ten years more (429-439), fierce and almost continued war, Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, endeavouring to take Arles and Narbonne; Aetius and his subordinate Litorius striving to take the Gothic capital of Toulouse, and all but succeeding. And in these wars Aetius had availed himself of his long-standing friendship with the Huns to enlist them as auxiliaries against the warriors of Theodoric, dangerous allies who plundered friends and enemies. … For the last twelve years (439-451) there had been peace, but scarcely friendship, between the Courts of Ravenna and Toulouse."

_T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 2, chapter 3 (volume 2)._

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As the successor of Wallia, who died in 419, the Visigoths chose Theoderic, "who seems to have been a Balthing, though not related either to Wallia or to Atawulf. You must be careful not to confound this Visigoth Theoderic, or his son of the same name, with the great Theoderic the Amaling, who began to reign over the Ostrogoths about the year 475. Theoderic the Visigoth was not such a great man as his namesake, but he must have been both a brave soldier and an able ruler, or he could not have kept the affection and obedience of his people for thirty-two years. His great object was to extend his kingdom, which was hemmed in on the north by the Franks, … and on the west by another people of German invaders, the Burgunds; while the Roman Empire still kept possession of some rich cities, such as Arles and Narbonne [the first named of which Theoderic besieged unsuccessfully in 425, the last named in 437], which were temptingly close to the Gothic boundary on the south. … In the year 450 the Visigoths and the Romans were drawn more closely together by the approach of a great common danger. … The Huns … had, under their famous king, Attila, moved westward, and were threatening to over-run both Gaul and Italy."

_H. Bradley, Story of the Goths, chapter 12._

See HUNS: A. D. 451.

GOTHS: (Ostrogoths and Visigoths): A. D. 451. At the battle of Chalons.

See HUNS: A. D. 451.

GOTHS: (Ostrogoths): A. D. 453. Breaking the yoke of the Huns.

See HUNS: A. D. 453.

GOTHS: (Visigoths): A. D. 453-484. Extension of the kingdom of Toulouse.

"The Visigoths were governed from 453 to 466 by Theodoric the Second, son of Theodoric the First, and grandson of Alaric. … The reign of Theodoric was distinguished by conquests. On the one hand he drove the Suevians as far as the extremity of Gallicia. … On the other hand, in 462, he rendered himself master of the town of Narbon, which was delivered up to him by its count; he also carried his arms towards the Loire; but his brother Frederic, whom he had charged with the conquest of the Armorici, and who had taken possession of Chinon, was killed in 463 near Orleans, in a battle which he gave to Count Ægidius. Theodoric finally extended the dominion of the Visigoths to the Rhone; he even attacked Arles and Marseille, but he could not subjugate them. After a glorious reign of thirteen years, he was killed in the month of August, 466, by his brother Euric, by whom he was succeeded. … Euric … attacked, in 473, the province of Auvergne. … He conquered it in 475 and caused his possession of it to be confirmed by the emperor Nepos. He had at that period acquired the Loire and the Rhone as frontiers; in Spain he subjected the whole of the province of Taragon. … He afterwards conquered Provence, and was acknowledged a sovereign in Arles and at Marseille, towards the year 480. No prince, whether civilized or barbarian, was at that period so much feared as Euric; and, had he lived longer, it would undoubtedly have been to the Visigoths, and not to the Franks, that the honor would have belonged of reconstituting the Gallic provinces; but he died at Arles towards the end of the year 484, leaving an only son of tender age, who was crowned under the name of Alaric the Second."

_J. C. L. S. de Sismondi, The French under the Merovingians; translated by Bellingham, chapter 4._

GOTHS: (Ostrogoths): A. D. 473-474. Invasions of Italy and Gaul.

"The Ostrogothic brother-kings, who served under Attila at the battle in Champagne, on the overthrow of the Hunnish Empire obtained for themselves a goodly settlement in Pannonia, on the western bank of the Danube. For near twenty years they had been engaged in desultory hostilities with their barbarian neighbours, with Sueves and Rugians on the north, with Huns and Sarmatians on the south. Now, as their countryman, Jornandes, tells us with admirable frankness, 'the spoils of these neighbouring nations were dwindling, and food and clothing began to fail the Goths.' … They clustered round their kings, and clamoured to be led forth to war—whither they cared not, but war must be. Theodemir, the elder king, took counsel with his brother Widemir, and they resolved to commence a campaign against the Roman Empire. Theodemir, as the more powerful chieftain, was to attack the stronger Empire of the East; Widemir, with his weaker forces, was to enter Italy. He did so, but, like so many of the northern conquerors, he soon found a grave in the beautiful but deathly land. His son, the younger Widemir, succeeded to his designs of conquest, but Glycerius [Roman emperor, for the moment] approached him with presents and smooth words, and was not ashamed to suggest that he should transfer his arms to Gaul, which was still in theory, and partially in fact, a province of the Empire. The sturdy bands of Widemir's Ostrogoths descended accordingly into the valleys of the Rhone and the Loire; they speedily renewed the ancient alliance with the Visigothic members of their scattered nationality, and helped to ruin yet more utterly the already desperate cause of Gallo-Roman freedom."

_T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 3, chapter 7 (volume 2)._

GOTHS: (Ostrogoths): A. D. 473-488. Rise of Theodoric.